
                          A WindoWatch feature

                               IDIOTS-REDUX

                       Copyright 1995 by  Bob Miller

 Here is this month's installment of proof that magazine writers have
 little or no knowledge of what they write about.

 Personal Computing, September 1995

 Take your choice of four views [discussing Explorer]. This Details
 view  is almost like the  old Windows File Manager.  Too bad you ...
 can't rearrange the information that is displayed.

 You can't?  Gee.  I just click on the file heading and it rearranges the
 files for me.


 Personal Computing, October 1995

 Adding a new font under Windows 3.1 is complicated.

 Really?  Control Panel, Fonts, Add.  Rocket science it ain't!


 With Windows 3.1, closing a Window is a big hassle.

 All our hassles should be this big.  It could hardly be more trivial.


 Whenever you create a new document or open one you saved previously,
 Windows 95 adds an entry [to the documents menu]. It does no such
 thing.  It only adds to the document menu when you open a file from
 within Explorer - not the application. Tip:  If your PC loses time at
 an alarming rate, try this trick [followed by instructions on how to
 put the Date/Time icon into the Startup Folder].

 Sorry.  If your PC loses time at an alarming rate, replace the CMOS
 battery before the entire system dies.


 And don't forget to check the Start menu for the Documents submenu
 which lists all the recently opened documents.

 No it doesn't.  See above.


 Why waste money on a single-disc CD-ROM drive when you can queue up six
 or even seven disks at once for the same price with Pioneer's DRM-624X?
 ........... The Pioneer is $580.

 Maybe where you shop a single disk CD-ROM drive is $580 but not
 where I do.


 Windows Magazine, October 1995


 Top Ten Business Software. #3 - Microsoft Office Upgrade 3.1.

 Excuse me?  Are businesses only buying three quarters of the program?
 The Office upgrade is 4.2.


 Letters column.  ...The only people I know using Win95 are Microsoft
 employees and the trade rags.  All my clients are happy with Win 3.1
 and have no interest in upgrading.

 Allowing for the time lag between the date the writer sent that and it
 got published, there were still over half a million people using `95 who
 were not MS employees or trade-rag staffers.  And if none of the seven
 million people who bought `95 in its first 5 weeks of sales are among his
 clients, I have doubts about their computing knowledge.  For that matter,
 any  "consultant" who kept his clients on 3.1 instead of WFWG ought to
 have been compelled to explain his position in 10,000 words written in
 WordStar for DOS 1.0.


 Wall Street Journal ad for CompUSA.

 [In 18 point type] Training classes with the personal attention your
 business demands. [In 6 point type in the footnote] Please be aware
 that our introductory course provide an orientation to new software and
 not training in skills for employment.

 Anyone see anything wrong here?


 Infoworld, September 18.

 [From a review of Norton Utilities for 95] You might also want to scan
for fragmented files less often than once an hour.

 Really?  Why?  Are you infatuated with the scanner?  Do you have some
 relationship with its display?  Scanning for fragmented files once a
 MONTH is more than sufficient for nearly everyone.  More than once an
 hour is absolutely insane.

 Brigham & Women's Hospital [move to client server] involved five
 years of downsizing from supercomputers.

 Brigham and Women's is one of the finest hospitals in the world but
 neither they nor any other hospital ever used a supercomputer to keep
 track of patients. If you can't tell the difference between an IBM
 mainframe and a Cray supercomputer, don't write about them.


 InfoWorld October 9.

 Unless you need a single file to be larger than 128MB, it is best to
 create partitions and logical disks of that size or slightly less.

 Five years ago, that made a bit of sense.  Today, with 1.2 and 1.6GB
 drives common, it is ludicrous.  Who wants to juggle 13 hard drive
 letters?


 From Livingston's column on Explorer

 For some reason, Microsoft Corp thought it'd be a good idea for
 Windows 95 novices not to be able to see files with extensions like
 ...SIGHS.  Makes it a little hard for them to edit (or even find) their
 CONFIG.SYS.

 Why would anyone want to use Explorer to edit Config.sys?  That is what
 sysedit is for.  Double clicking on config.sys is NOT going to enable
 an edit.  Yes, I know you can right click and sent it to Notepad - but
 why?


 PC World, September 1995.

 But the Run command still exists, right off the Start menu.....it
 contains a list of commands you may have previously typed.

 It contains the LAST command you typed - not a list.
 But, as far as I am concerned, this throwback is more an oddity than
 a useful tool.  After all, if I wanted to use a command line, would I be
 using Windows?

 On the rare occasions that I might want to run Notepad or Calculator,
 I'd rather type the filename into that box then start up Explorer, go
 to \Windows, find the executable file and double click on it.  Seems to
 me to be a bit easier my way.


 Wall Street Journal, October 9.

 [Quoting a Novel spokesman] "What happened is that we saw a significant
 decline in our applications software sales in the third fiscal quarter
 and we were wondering whether it would get worse in the fourth
 quarter."

 What a surprise.  No one in Orem, apparently, was aware that Win 95
 was coming out then.

 In August, the company said it planned to begin shipping its Windows 95
 compatible software by year's end.  Yesterday, Novel said the shipment
 will begin "early in 1996".

 I wonder what their fourth quarter sales figures will look like?


 PC World, October 1995

 Having 16 megs of RAM will boost your productivity, but starting
 with 8MB is still satisfactory for most applications and will save you
 around $160.

 Please rush me all the 8 megs for $160 deals you can find.


 From a Midwest Micro Printer Ad. FREE Windows driver.

 Pardon?  Someone charges for a Windows printer driver on a new printer?
 Do you also supply a FREE shipping box?  How about a FREE manual?
 Maybe, even, a FREE power cord?


 Computer Shopper, October 1995.

 But installed right next to my beta of Office 95 is my beta of the
 Windows 95 version of Lotus's stunning new Word Pro....Word Pro is good
 enough..............

 "Stunning" is the right word.  This, of course, was the beta that was
 so buggy Lotus had to withdraw it since no one could use it at all. Not
 one word of his gushing "review" mentioned anything about that.


 Infoworld, August 21, 1995.

 With prices topping $80 to $120 (or more) per 1MB of RAM.

 Gee!  PC World has RAM at 8 megs for $160 (see above) while Info World
 has 1 meg at $120. I know - I'll have Stanley buy it from PC World and
 sell it to Info World.  Than he can afford all the tuna fish he wants.


 Idiots Redux  is the invention of Bob Miller who has become a
 Conference Host's - Conference Host! His loyalty to new Windows
 Users looking for the correct answer and to Stanley looking for tuna
 have become well known computer phenomena.  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


