

  A WindoWatch Feature


                               IDIOTS-REDUX
                      Copyright 1995 by  Bob Miller

  We have yet another installment of the continuing efforts of computer
  magazine writers to attempt to prove that they know as much about
  computers as your local Shoe Store salesman does.  This is a shorter
  version than usual not because the authors have gotten any better (they
  havent) but because Ive been too busy to read through the pile of
  magazines I have.  Perhaps, I can catch up next month.


  PC Mag. June 27 page 272
  	"De-fragment your hard disk before re-creating your permanent swap
        file to make sure you can create as large a swap file as
        possible."


	'Scuse, please, but 50MB permanent swap files are NOT a good
        thing.  Most people are much better off with a 4MB Permanent Swap
        File.


  From our Idiots Hall of Fame Charter Member - Dvorak.  Same issue, on
  page 89.
  "Plug-and-play.  I'll believe it when I see it."

   Try making your eyes as open as the space between your ears.  Several
   million people think it works fine. Yes, he wrote it before 95 was
   released - but long after the beta copies were showing that it worked
   fine.


  Same Column as Above:
  Today, 256 colors is ludicrous and 34,000 colors should be the default.

  Leaving aside the simple fact that no card ever built shows 34,000
  colors -32768 or 65536 but not 34,000, more than 256 on the average
  office system is downright silly.  Perhaps Dvoraks word processor or
  spreadsheet program needs thousands of colors - mine run quite fine with
  256.  Indeed, most office machines only need 16 colors for efficient
  computing.


  Byte, July, Page 188
  It is not easy to remove.  Not only is it in WIN.INI, but it also loads
  in AUTOEXEC.BAT.

  Gee, I thought editing Autoexec.bat was something the average Byte
  reader was capable of doing - even with their editor of choice (EDLIN).
  I guess I overestimated the ability of those readers.


  InfoWorld, August 28, Page 3.
  - quoting a Lotus executive who was commenting on SmartSuite not being
  available on August 24 when Win95 was released. . .
  "Seven million units sold... are the guys lining up at CompUSA at midnight. Im not saying those people arent important to us, but, over the long scheme of things, the amount of time were talking about is not strategically significant.

  I wonder just what is strategically significant  to this birdbrain.
  Office already has an overwhelming percentage of the Windows market.
  Conceding several months of sales of 95 ready applications to them is
  not likely to increase Lotuss tiny percentage of that market very much.
  And, of course, most of those seven million sales went to OEMs who will
  be installing it onto new machines.  I wonder which Suite product those
  users will be buying?  I wonder how many of them can later be persuaded
  to spend hundreds of dollars for a competing product when the one they
  have will do more than they ever ask?


  Same issue.
  Graphite Designs last week unveiled WinClassic, a Windows 95 utility
  that emulates the Windows 3.1 user interface.

  Now there is a real viable product!  People will just have to run out
  and spend bunches of money on a utility to move backwards.  Besides,
  SHELL=PROGMAN.EXE does the same thing for  free.

  Still from the same issue -page 62. This was written by a lawyer..
  "The UCC is a set of laws governing business transactions that has been
  adopted in nearly identical form by all 50 states."

  I'm sure our readers in Louisiana will be interested to learn that.  I
  have to wonder what kind of lawyer can be unaware of the fact that
  Louisiana still follows French law - not English.

  From an older - June 12  issue on page 90.
  "Microsoft must make OS/2 versions of its applications suite."

  And Sega must make cartridges that also fit into Nintendo's.  And Nike
  should allow Michael Jordan to wear Reebocks.  How silly can you get?


  Wall Street Journal, June 21.  -Discussing BBN and its sale of internet
  services to AT&T
  "..now they have 12,000 feet on the street who can recommend them. Under
  the contract, AT&T's 12,000 person sales force............"

  Now I know that AT&T is a firm supporting the American Disability Act
  and goes out of its way to hire handicapped people but I seriously doubt
  that they really have 12,000 salespeople each of whom has only one foot.


  Windows Magazine, August, Page 246.
  Discussing a Boca modem from the review...Its performance is
  significantly lower.  Over many of the phone lines tested, the device
  yielded poor results.  It has trouble connecting, often doing so at low
  speeds.  Its last place throughput performance score is likely the
  result of poor compression implementation as well as error correction.

  - from the summary box.. "The only right-out-of-the-box solution in this
  group, the Boca comes bundled with great extras like a serial cable and
  port."

  Perhaps the summary box writer and the review writer aren't speaking to
  each other?  Or does an external modem that comes with a serial cable,
  -this is unusual?  - outweigh the terrible performance?


  Same issue, page 210
  "Here is how the new pop-out menu of control panel settings, as
  described above, actually looks on the Start menu and is followed by an
  illustration of its appearance."

  Perhaps this writer works differently than I do, but I really see a very
  limited usefulness for shortcuts to Date-Time, Joystick, Keyboard and
  Regional Settings - among many others of highly limited utility!   Do
  you know anyone who changes his Regional settings so often that he needs
  a shortcut to them? Or the Keyboard?  Get real!


  From the ad pages.
  Ad for Hurricane. Hurricane's RAM doubling feature gives you un-limited
  resources-making out of memory messages a thing of the past.

  Ad for Long File Names -a $30 program: If you try to mix Win95/ Windows
  3.1 systems and applications across a network or share files with
  floppies, you stand a good chance of trashing all your new Windows 95
  long file names.

  Ad for NEC monitors.   Ready for Windows 95.


  It hardly seems necessary to comment on the absolute stupidity of these ads.
  The NEC ad is stupid. Every SVGA monitor ever built is "ready for
  Windows 95".  The other two are outright lies.

  Idiots Redux  is the invention of Bob Miller who has a huge collection
  of Conference Host assignments from both RIME and Ilink. His newest is
  the Ilink Windows95 conference . A very knowledgeable Windows writer,
  Bob is the head of a Mental Health Agency and can be found at
  Bob_miller@msn.com  He and Stanley are regular WindoWatch contributors.


                                    ww


