Four new ways to put Windows to work - Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating environment

Home Office Computing, June, 1993 by Kay Yarborough Nelson

Now that developers have had a chance to work with Windows 3.1 a little longer, there are all sons of neat programs coming onto the market that take advantage of Windows's more sophisticated capabilities, such as multimedia and virtual multitasking. This month we'll take a look at a couple of new applications and a few others with face-lifts.

Amenca Online for Windows. I've been using the long-awaited Windows version of America Online (AOL), and it is great! AOL's interface is the point-and-click kind, so forget those arcane commands. You don't even have to worry about choosing protocols or setting your modem speed; the software handles it automatically. AOL is ideal for those of us who work at home because one account can have as many as five screen names. That means five different users (including your kids) can share one account and still get private mail. AOL's new Download Manager is great, too; it downloads everything that I've chosen during the session, then logs me off automatically. This is a real time-saver.

I was a beta tester for this new version of AOL, and I'd like to add my enthusiastic personal recommendation. No other online service is so easy to use, and you can send and receive messages from other services such as CompuServe and MCI Mail through the Internet Mail Gateway. Try it; you literally have nothing to lose. The software is free and comes with 10 hours of free time. Then it's $7.95 for two hours a month and 10 cents a minute after that. Call (800) 827-6364 to get yours. You won't even need a manual.

Office in a box. WordStar has come up with a novel packaging solution aimed at small businesses. For as low as $149, Box Office gives you WordStar for Windows, the American Heritage Dictionary (which I've praised before), Correct Grammar, Under Cover (a collection of neat fax cover sheets), and the UltraFax fax/communication program. These applications would cost almost three times as much if purchased separately. For $49 more, you can add a 9600/4800 bps fax/modem board to your system. If you haven't set up your home office with communication to the outside world and you need to add a few writing tools to your collection, Box Office is worth the price. (Add America Online and you're really in business!)

WordPerfect redux. Entering the next round of Windows word-processing wars is WordPerfect 5.2 for Windows, a speedy update that improves on the last interim release of version 5.1. Frankly, I was tired of the slow spell checker and the mysteriously missing graphics, and if you've been following this column, I even said at one point I was considering switching to Word for Windows. I take that back: 5.2, welcome home. Not only have the existing features been improved, but there are also several new ones. Most outstanding is QuickFinder; it locates files scattered in different directories all over my 200MB hard disk. This new pseudo-database is well worth the price of this already outstanding word-processing program. Now, WordPerfect Corp., are you listening? I'd like an automatic zip code feature to go along with the envelope macro for version 6.0, rumored to be due out this fall.

Video for Windows. I've tested the much-touted Video for Windows, and it does live up to its reputation. It's very impressive to see tiny movies running on your Windows screen, complete with sound. Just imagine what you can do with this. If you're in real estate, you can show properties right in your office, just by putting video clips in your database. You can print out fact sheets complete with scanned photos of listings. If you're an architect, you can show videos of your completed projects all over the country to prospective clients. And nearly any business could benefit from a couple of satisfied-client testimonials.

But let's get real. Don't run out and buy Video for Windows thinking that you can really do all this with one purchase. These capabilities are going to cost you a lot more than the application itself, which rings in at $199. You have to have a lot of hardware to make fancy presentations. For starters, you'll need a CD-ROM drive, because most canned video clips are provided on that medium. (On Video for Windows, the only clip not on CD-ROM is of a guy sailboarding to calypso music. How many times can you watch that?) You'll also need a sound board, a camcorder or VCR, a video board, and probably a coprocessor to speed things up.

I don't have this kind of equipment; maybe someday, but not yet. Where the value of Video for Windows lies today is with developers who include the Microsoft video drivers with their applications. The world of multimedia then opens up to users like you and me who don't have all the fancy hardware needed to produce multimedia, but just want to look at it and listen to it.

FAREWELL, FLOPPIES?

Speculation of the month: Are floppy disks soon going to be as useless to Windows users as eight-track tapes? Even high-density 1.44MB floppies can hold only a few minutes of audio recordings, bit-mapped images, and videos. DOS 6 promises to alleviate the situation with its built-in DoubleSpace feature, which can compress your hard disk and your floppy disks. But keep an eye on "flopticals." These are 3.5-inch optical floppy disks that can hold as much as 21MB of information. You'll need to purchase a floptical drive, but it can be added to your existing system. These disks may be an answer to the CD-ROM dilemma; after all, you can't write to CD-ROMs easily and inexpensively on your own--at least not yet. But DOS 6's DoubleSpace may be a good interim solution, especially for us Windows users. We need the room.