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Compiled by Dave Raffo
Internet Software
Authoring
Audio
Business Software
Accounting/Financial Software
Monitors
Recordable Cds
SCSI Adapters
Multifuncion Devices
Scanners
Utilites
Networking
Programming
And...
Lotus doesn't want its new release of Notes to compete with the Internet. Instead, Lotus Notes 4.0 aims to become part of the Internet. The idea is for a Notes server to become a Web server and a Notes client a Web browser. The InterNotes Web Navigator, a new feature in Notes 4.0, takes you to the Internet and lets you integrate Internet information into Notes.
The InterNotes Web Publisher automatically converts Notes databases and documents into HTML to make them accessible to Web browsers. The InterNotes Web Navigator lets Lotus deliver what it calls "Team Surfing." Web Navigator supports the same open standards as the Internet. It retrieves and converts Internet content into Notes documents. By providing integrated Internet access into Notes, Web Navigator lets Notes developers make every application they build a Web app. It also gives you Internet capabilities from anywhere in Notes.
Notes 4.0 also includes a new interface that is based on cc: Mail and LotusScript 3.0, a cross-platform BASIC-compatible, object-oriented programming language. LotusScript allows you to incorporate Java scripting language into Notes.
Server: $495 for single processor, $2,295 for multiple processor; mail client, $55; desktop client, $69; full Notes client, $275
Lotus Development Corp.
800-346-1305, 617-577-8500
To give your 3-D creations the best exposure, put them on the Internet. The FreeHand Graphics Studio provides the tools for the best results, and now the Shockwave for FreeHand free plug-in to Netscape Navigator 2.0 turns your work into Web sites.
The FreeHand Graphics Studio suite combines FreeHand 5.0, Macromedia xRes 2.0, Extreme 3D and Fontographer 3.51. FreeHand 5.0 is the latest version of the design and illustration program, and xRes 2.0 is the enhanced high-resolution editing tool. Extreme 3D lets you create 3-D graphics and animation, and Fontographer lets you modify fonts or create them from scratch. FreeHand Graphics Studio also includes Kai's Power Tools 3.0 Special Edition, a collection of vector clip art, fonts, photographs and 3-D models.
$699
Macromedia
800-326-2128, 415-252-2000
Save time and money transmitting photos over the Internet and inserting them into documents without sacrificing picture quality. With the Epson PhotoPC digital camera, you can take pictures with 640x480-pixel resolutions in more than 16 million colors. The PhotoPC accepts all 37mm camcorder lenses and filters for zoom, wide angle and special effects. An optional memory module lets you store 160 standard images.
$499
Epson America
800-BUY-EPSON,310-782-0770
Is the term "multifunction device" becoming pass...? Panasonic calls its new combination machine a "personal image editing system." The Panasonic KX-PS600 is a printer, scanner and copier with software for editing and storing scanning input. Panasonic did not include a fax because most PCs are sold with fax modems.
The KX-PS600 prints 6 pages per minute at 600dpi. Its monochrome scanner features 600dpi and 64 halftone levels, and scans 5 pages per minute. The 600dpi copier makes single copies with the PC turned off, and makes multiple copies as well as reductions and enlargements with the PC on. The software offers drag-and-drop faxing and e-mailing, and the ability to edit scanned images and embed them into apps.
$699 (street)
Panasonic Communications & Systems Co.
800-742-8086,201-348-7000
The Tektronix Phaser 550 brings a new level of speed, quality and manageability to network printing. The laser printer churns out 5 color pages per minute in 600dpi mode and prints 14ppm in monochrome. The printer can also print at 1200x1200dpi. Its PhaserLink Web-based printer management system lets you use a Web browser to check job status and toner levels, and see paper-out warnings. You can also change settings remotely through your browser.
The Phaser 550's large-capacity cyan, magenta and yellow toner cartridges produce up to 8,000 pages, and the black cartridge can reach 10,000 pages. The paper trays (one standard, two optional) hold 250 sheets apiece. The Phaser 550's Checkprint feature pauses the printer after making the first of multiprints, so you can ensure the first print is acceptable before continuing to copy. The Phaser 550 includes Novell-certified NetWare Directory Services (NDS) support.
$6,995
Tektronix
800-835-6100, 503-682-7377
Thanks to QuickSite's site and style wizards, libraries with predesigned content, and automatic page links, you can create and manage a Web site without knowing HTML code. All you have to worry about is the content. QuickSite takes you step-by-step through the creation process. Its libraries hold graphics, Java scripts, site links and anything else you can put on a Web page. The program supports Netscape 2.0.
$99
DeltaPoint
800-446-6955, 408-648-8000
Even ET could phone home with Visual Voice for Windows 95, a 32-bit OLE control that lets you create a full-featured telephony application that includes Touch-tone data access, fax-on-demand and voice mail. The control supports TAPI-compliant voice modems and multiline Dialogic voice boards, with preemptive multitasking in Windows 95 to support up to 48 simultaneous phone lines. The package also includes a 32-bit DLL interface.
Two-line version, $495; with TAPI-compliant voice modem, starts at $695
Stylus Innovation
617-621-9545, fax 617-621-7862
Plug NovaLAN 288 Modem into your portable PC's Type II slot, and you have a voice, fax and e-mail messaging system, fax and paging capabilities, and a LAN connection. The Ethernet modem PC card transmits data at 28.8Kbps and faxes at 14.4Kbps. It comes with Internet connectivity software.
$399
NovaLink Technologies
800-668-2546, 510-249-9777
CallAudit 3.0 for Windows 95 tells you who is calling before you answer the phone. The updated 32-bit version of this Caller ID app takes full advantage of Win95 and NT, while remaining compatible with Windows 3.1x. The Win95 version includes paging and e-mail support.
$49.95; upgrade, $19.95
Mountain Systems
800-648-3108, 540-935-2275
Quarterdeck spiced up the new version of InternetSuite with Global Chat, CyberSitter and popular Internet file formats. Now you can enjoy the Internet's multimedia capabilities while maintaining control over content.
With Global Chat, InternetSuite 2.0 offers access to the Internet Relay Chat real-time chat system and enables you to lock out any undesired content with CyberSitter. The program also features RealAudio player, which is licensed from Progressive Networks; an Adobe Acrobat PDF file viewer; and Apple's QuickTime for Windows, which is used to play motion video. The included Quarterdeck Mosaic 2.0 supports additional Netscape and HTML 3.0 formatting extensions, such as image alignment and tables.
InternetSuite 2.0's Quarterdeck Message Center has MIME messaging, a spell checker and a global search system.
$39.95; free upgrade
Quarterdeck Corp.
800-683-6696, 310-309-9851
Whacking keeps weeds under control and it can do the same for Web pages, saving you money by reducing your Internet connect time. WebWhacker for Windows 95 is a 32-bit version of the software that lets you browse groups of Web pages offline. When you download, or Whack, pages, WebWhacker creates a map linking them as if they were still on the Internet. You can store Web pages in folders and then read them offline at your convenience.
WebWhacker for Windows 95 joins GrabNet for Windows 95 as the ForeFront Group's first products in its NetSuite family. GrabNet for Windows 95 works with popular Web browsers to let you capture and reuse Web text, images and URLs. You can export objects to HTML.
WebWhacker for Windows 95, $49.95; GrabNet for Windows 95, $19.95
The ForeFront Group
800-867-1101, 713-961-1101
Find out who's visiting your Web site and what their interests are with WebTrends 1.0. WebTrends delivers the demographics of your site's visitors. It automatically reports user activity by market and interest level in specific pages, products or services. WebTrends can render the information as tables and graphs. It includes log file viewers, installs on any Web site and works with all popular browsers.
$299
e.g. Software
503-294-7025, fax 503-294-7130
Build Web pages by using help files as your source-literally. The Help-to-HTML Kit includes Converter for Windows 95 and Windows NT, which automatically converts any Windows 3.1x or Windows 95 Help file into a Web site, complete with translating bitmaps into Web graphic files (GIF format). The 32-bit software changes the Contents Tab or the Contents Topic of a Windows Help file into an HTML Home Page, then transforms each Help topic into an HTML file.
$249
Blue Sky Software Corp.
800-459-2356, 619-459-6365
ForeHelp 2.95 combines Windows 95 help features with the previous ForeHelp 2 help-file authoring system. ForeHelp 2.95 supports 34 new WinHelp 95 macros, including topic-linking functions. Other new features include expandable and navigable contents pages, multilevel keyword search across multiple indexes and a full-text search on any text the user specifies.
$395; upgrade, $89
ForeFront
800-357-8507, 303-499-9181
Jazz up your presentations with audio enhancements from Presentation Audio. This five-volume CD-ROM set was created for use with Microsoft PowerPoint and other presentation products. Score your work with orchestrated and professionally recorded music. The volumes are Business/Office, Pop Culture, High Tech/Electronic, Environments/Atmospheres and Comedy/Animation.
Per volume, $49.95; five-volume set, $199.95
Network Music
800-854-2075, 619-451-6400
Keeping in touch is crucial in contact-dependent fields like sales, support and customer service. Enterprise 2.0 now includes fax and telephony capabilities that facilitate communications and boost workgroup productivity.
The customizable business-automation and contact-management software supports multiple fax servers. It offers comprehensive fax administration, full merge and broadcast fax capabilities, plus eight modem and 10 fax queues per server. A computer/telephone integration module, TeleMagic PhoneLink, provides answer, hold, conference, dial, redial, transfer and Caller ID features. The North American Dialing Plan supports new area codes and protocols.
The Branch Scripting feature lets you monitor conversations and record customer responses in the software's database, while Sales Forecasting allows you to track projected and actual sales.
Single user, $500; 1 to 5 users, $1,300; 1 to 10 users, $2,300
TeleMagic
800-835-6244, 214-733-4292
Incomplete requirements can make a software project come up short. Requisite 1.5, a requirements management tool, enables software development and test teams to define, manage and track changing application requirements.
The program dynamically connects a database to Microsoft Word to create a 3-D document repository that contains project documents, requirements and requirement attributes. This data helps pinpoint incomplete, missing or incorrect requirements earlier in the development cycle. The tool also lets the developer and user establish an agreement on each application's essentials. This agreement is the basis for planning, performing and tracing the project's key features. Version 1.5 runs on Windows 95, 3.1x and NT.
From $775
Requisite
800-732-4047, 303-499-9177
DeskTop Conferencing 2.1 allows real-time document conferencing for up to 128 participants. The program lets you view, annotate and edit all on-screen files and images, whether or not they reside on your computer. Version 2.1 supports in-house and remote office users through LANs, WANs or modem connections. It runs on Windows 95 and 3.1x, and supports screen transfers between users.
Single user, $99; 5-pack, $395; 10-pack, $660
Fujitsu Systems Business of America
800-446-4736, 408-988-8012
Enfish makes it easier to fish out data from your PC, wherever that data may be and however it was created. The personal groupware application lets you link notes to any related content, and you can exchange this information via e-mail or on the Web. Enfish's Floating Toolbar is accessible from within any open application to let you enter, find or share information at any time. Enfish Publisher lets you publish electronic documents using a royalty-free runtime version of Enfish.
Enfish, $200 per seat; Enfish Publisher, price not set
DEX Information Systems
818-577-0044, fax 818-577-0593
LiveHelp literally puts tech-support experts on the same page as the users they're trying to help. Type in a client's name to view what is on screen. You can then take over that computer to transfer files, receive clipboard data, and even type and draw on the screen with a whiteboard tool that lets you illustrate the problem and figure out a solution.
Expert-user version, $99; client versions: 10-pack, $175; 50-pack, $695;100-pack, $1,225
Fujitsu Business Systems of America
800-446-4736, 408-988-8012
Sometimes, remembering what you did today is as hard as remembering what you have to do tomorrow. Ca$hGraf Appointments Plus helps you track both. The contact manager serves as an appointment book for your day, and lets you organize notes and records of your appointments and phone calls.
$49.95
Ca$hGraf Software
800-872-0405, 813-528-2477
With Pro Series Payroll with WebPay, you can manage your payroll and interact with a national clearinghouse to maintain direct deposits online to and from any bank. The program provides online and formal written deposit confirmations and handles specialized tax requirements for up to 10,000 employees. You can maintain payroll and labor distribution for hourly, salaried, commissioned and per-unit employees.
User-definable pay types allow control over General Ledger postings for tracking various wage expense categories. If your employees work in different states, you can define a set of taxes for a posting and assign tax territory codes. Territories can also be designated as defaults for employees.
Payroll with WebPay serves as a standalone product or can fully integrate with SBT's Pro Series accounting suite.
$995
SBT Accounting Systems
800-944-1000, 415-444-9900
Most accounting packages make you buy separate modules for each type of job. Aptitude Accounting Power Tools 1.0 comes with built-in General Ledger, Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, Inventory and Order Entry modules. It includes more than 60 reports to tie all the information together and let you see where your business is headed.
Like QuickBooks and Peachtree, Aptitude's program is targeted to the small-business market. Its data resides in Microsoft Access tables, it uses the Access/JET database engine and it runs on Windows 95 or 3.1x. The data tables are open, so you can do your own queries and reports. You can also easily add future modules.
Introductory, $99
Aptitude Software Corp.
800-460-7675, 713-888-0278
Do all your audit work on screen with Audit Program Generator 2.0 and Audit Program Generator PLUS. With APG 2.0, you customize work programs and checklists using cut, paste, search and replace functions. The PLUS version includes an on-screen sign-off
option, links to most spreadsheet and word processing packages, and audit program and workpaper cross-referencing.
APG 2.0, $295; upgrade, $145; APG PLUS, $595; upgrade, $295
American Institute of Certified Public Accountants
800-862-4272, 212-596-6200
OfficeLink 2.0 makes it easier than ever to move between Microsoft Office and Lotus Notes applications. The updated version places Open from Notes and Save to Notes options into the Office app menubar, and lets you transparently save MS Word and Microsoft RTF documents directly into Notes' native rich text format. OfficeLink 2.0 runs on Windows 95, 3.1x and NT, and supports Office 95 and Notes 4.0.
Per client, $99; server, from $199
Brainstorm Technologies
800-877-2626, 617-621-0800
Envision 5.0 modeling software transforms flowchart objects into natural business objects. Pictures, animation and multimedia enable you to visualize changes in business processes and to anticipate and correct potential problems. The app provides dynamic modeling through standard or customized shapes, clip art and video clips. Optional simulation technology even adds time and motion dimensions to process models.
$8,000, significant site discounting available
Future Tech Systems
206-939-7552, fax 206-735-6763
Point and click your way through Spanish, French, German, Italian, Russian, Latin and English literature with Transparent Language 4.0. It takes you through Word Dictation, Word Pronunciation and Sentence Pronunciation exercises so you can practice speaking and writing.
Disk and audio cassette, $99;CD-ROM with interactive sound, $129; Plus Edition for education, $139 on disk, $169 on CD-ROM
Transparent Language
800-752-1767, 603-465-2230
The latest additions to the ArtMedia Professional and Business Series monitors come in different sizes for different markets, but share major features, such as Trinitron CRT displays, on-screen controls and Plug-and-Play compatibility.
The ArtMedia Professional Series monitors are designed for CAD use, desktop publishing and high-end graphic design, while the Business Series models are for routine business use, general graphics sketching and all other Windows applications.
The 17- and 20-inch Professional Series monitors can handle up to 1600x1200-pixel resolutions at optimal refresh rate, and the 20-inch includes multilayer antireflection coating. The 15- and 17-inch Business Series monitors provide up to 1280x1024-pixel resolutions. The 20-inch monitor has a 19.1-inch active-display area and 0.30mm aperture grille pitch. The other monitors have a 0.25mm aperture grille pitch.
All the monitors meet the VESA DDC standard for Plug-and-Play capabilities. Their On-Screen Display calculates and adjusts image geometry and distortion, focus and clarity. Their screens are vertically flat with advanced Trinitron one-lens picture tubes. They are Energy Star and MPR II compliant.
20-inch Professional monitor, $1,788; 17-inch Professional, $1,088; 17-inch Business, $888; 15-inch Business, $488
ArtMedia USA
800-ART-MEDIA, 408-980-8988
At a whopping 29 inches, the ViewSonic 29GA isn't something you'd have perched atop your desk. It's more likely to be used for multimedia presentations, training and instruction, and videoconferencing.
The monitor has a 27-inch viewable area and is geared for groups of 10 or more. It doubles as a TV screen, so you can use it to display a video on VCR. It features resolutions up to 1280x1024 pixels, built-in dual 5-watt speakers with a microhole speaker grille, and front controls for power, contrast, color saturation, sharpness, color temperature, image size and position, audio input, volume and mute.
The 29GA's wireless remote gives a presenter control over the multimedia presentations. The monitor is compatible with PCs and Macs, and supports RGB and S-Video formats as well as NTSC and PAL standards.
$3,995
ViewSonic Corp.
800-888-8583, 909-869-7976
The Princeton Graphic Systems Ultra 20 is a 20-inch addition to the Ultra Series of digitally controlled, multifrequency color monitors. It has an 18.9-inch viewable area, a tube with Invar shadow mask, dynamic focus and 0.28mm dot pitch. The Ultra 20 can support resolutions up to 1600x1200 pixels, and is Plug-and-Play compatible for Windows 95. The Ultra 20 features color temperature, tilt and pincushioning controls.
$1,499
Princeton Graphic Systems
800-747-6249, 714-751-8405
Making custom CDs just keeps getting easier. The Pinnacle Micro RCD 5040 recordable CD system is a quad-speed CD reader and dual-speed recorder. It includes CD Archive, a backup utility for creating permanent data archives. The package also contains a Kodak Photo CD recording and viewing utility and two blank CDs.
$995 (internal); $1,295 (external)
Pinnacle Micro
800-553-7070, 714-789-3000
The Savin 9910DP multifunctional system is a digital copier, laser printer, scanner and plain-paper fax. It makes 10 copies per minute, can print 10 pages per minute at close to 300dpi and will scan at 200dpi in 5.6 seconds flat.
$3,295
Savin Corp.
203-967-5000, fax 203-967-5011
The Adaptec AHA-2920 SCSI adapter kit connects your Pentium PC to peripherals through a PCI local bus, which has a data-transfer rate of up to 133MB per second. The Plug-and-Play adapter also lets you connect up to seven SCSI peripherals. Its EZ-SCSI software provides a suite of 32-bit applications for SCSI peripherals, including SCSI Tape Backup, CD-R mastering software, Photo CD Viewer and SCSI system management tools. The AHA-2920 ships with internal and external connectors.
$179
Adaptec
800-959-SCSI, 408-945-8600
The Envisions 4cx and 4e aren't just scanners: They're complete scanning packages. The single-pass scanners include extensive imaging software, an instructional scanning videotape and The Color Scanning Book from MicroPublishing Press.
The 600dpi Envisions 4cx ships with Adobe Photoshop 3.0, Xerox TextBridge 3.0, Kai's Power Tools SE and Alta Vista MediaWrangler Pro. The 300dpi Envisions 4e is bundled with Photoshop LE, Kai's PowerTools SE, MediaWrangler and TextBridge 3.0.
Both scanners use Envisions DynaScan 3.0 software for TWAIN support. DynaScan 3.0 operates in 16- and 32-bit environments and works under Windows 95, 3.1x and Macintosh operating systems. The 4cx scans color at 32 bits per pixel, gray scale at 8 bits and line art at 1 bit per pixel. The 4e scans colors at 24 bits per pixel. The scanners each measure 5.1 by 13.2 by 20.7 inches and weigh 17.4 pounds.
4cx, $899; 4e, $449
Envisions Solutions Technology
800-365-7226, 510-661-4300
A 36-bit flatbed scanner is rare, and one in the $1,000 price range is even rarer. The Pacific Image Electronics ScanAce III fills the bill on both counts. PIE claims its 36-bit color, 12-bit gray-scale scanner can reproduce images in 68.7 billion colors and 1,228 shades of gray-certainly more than any video card can handle.
The 600dpi scanner features highlight and shadow adjustment, and is bundled with ImagePals Go document imaging software from Ulead Systems. It also performs multiwindow batch scanning for faster scanning of several images, as well as interactive color preview to project an image's final result. The ScanAce III uses PIE's CyberView TWAIN-compliant software. CyberView offers a large preview area for image manipulation and a variable zoom-in feature for focusing on any area of a document.
$1,095
Pacific Image Electronics
310-214-5281, fax 310-214-5282
You don't have to settle for 24-bit scanning, even from a 24-bit scanner. The UMAX Vista-S12 color flatbed scanner uses 33-bit analog gamma correction to capture the equivalent of a 33-bit image. The 600dpi single-pass scanner uses AutoScan to work like an automatic camera with rapid one-step scanning. The scanner's software takes care of all focus, cropping, deskewing and other adjustments. You can abort the AutoScan and turn the Vista-S12 into a manual scanner.
$895
UMAX Technologies
800-562-0311, 510-651-4000
Norton Utilities for Windows 95 CD-ROM version includes Norton's excellent utilities package, along with multimedia Companions to provide tips and answer your questions. The online Disk Companion, Memory Companion and Norton Utilities Companion complement the original utilities, which include Speed Disk, Disk Doctor and System Doctor.
$129 (street); upgrade, $69.95 (street)
Symantec Corp.
800-441-7234, 541-334-6054
If you're in too much of a hurry to leave the office to shut down all your Windows programs in an orderly manner, you might want to check out WrapUp for Windows 95. The utility works within Shut Down. When you tell Windows 95 to exit, WrapUp wakes and executes all programs in your Shut Down folder/group. It can log you off the network, retrieve your mail, back up your hard disk and initiate a laptop synchronization at shut down. The Win95 version is compatible with Windows 3.1x and NT.
$44
Tessler's Nifty Tools
510-244-5449
TechSmith's SnagIt/32 print utility has been updated for Windows 95 and NT. It captures and stores images from Windows screens and can send them directly to a printer or paste them into applications as a .BMP, .TIF, .PCX or JPEG file without going to Clipboard first. TechSmith also ships a Twin Pack, including both the 16-bit version for Windows 3.1x and the 32-bit version for Win95 and NT.
$39.95
TechSmith Corp.
800-517-3001, 517-333-2100
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