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I'd like to announce the release of ServerConfig/2 v1.6.

ServerConfig/2 1.6 has been split into three different programs. You can choose which you want to use during installation. This had to be done to improve performance and help future development.

There have been a lot of improvements, and I have added a lot of features that have been requested by users.

Home page:

http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~dm898/soft.html

Pretty Pop Software released Goose 0.84 today.

Goose is a `Checking Updated Homepage' utility.

Updated topics are:

Version 0.84 (20.Nov.1999)
a.Add `Remember last selected site list' function.
b.Add `Change to updated view when check is done' function.
c.Fixed the inconveniences.

You can get a copy from Pretty Pop Music and Software:

http://prettypop.tsx.org/

Deja.com is providing an chance to rate OS/2 Warp Server. It does not list which version, so I assumed it was referring to WSeB.

The page can be found at:

http://www.deja.com/[ST_cam=search.yahoo.none.slot]/rate/item.xp?CID=11997&PDID=5284

Also of interest, the OS/2 Client has drifted to 5th place in client rankings. AmigaOS is leading the pack. Rating for the client can be found at:

http://www.deja.com/[ST_cam=search.yahoo.none.slot]/rate/list_items.xp?CID=12029&PCID=11878&N=10

Russian Underground/2 (http://www.os2.spb.ru/) has started a new poll:

"Did you try to run any Win32 apps with the new Odin release?"

You can share your experience at:

http://www.os2.spb.ru/gbook/ru2survey.html

Odin is the name of the project and software that allows users to run Win32 (Windows 95 and Windows NT) applications in OS/2 Warp operating system natively.

The Odin web site is:

http://www.netlabs.org/odin/

During the past 3 weeks, F/X Communications has been successfully testing the first native PPPoE (PPP over Ethernet) implementation for OS/2.

The PPPoE support has been tested by several users of the Sympatico ISP in Canada and it seems to be working perfectly. If you have an immediate demand for PPPoE in OS/2 then don't hesitate to contact us at: support@fx.dk.

A new version of the InJoy Firewall will be released in GA within days. Till then, we would like to verify our implementation with as many ISPs as possible. If you are using a NON Sympatico ISP that supports PPPoE, then PLEASE contact us.

The PPPoE is implemented a Plugin that works only with the InJoy Firewall.

Roman Stangl has released the latest beta of Program Commander/2, now at v2.19c. It can be found at:

http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Pines/7885/PC2/DownloadPC2Beta.html

PC/2 is a program launcher, WPS enhancer, WPS replacement and more.

The latest edition of Focus on OS/2 is now available at:

http://os2.about.com/compute/os2/library/weekly/aa111799.htm

This week's feature is Part 1 of a 3-part series on PPWizard:

INTRODUCTION TO PPWIZARD, PART 1
PPWizard is a powerful REXX and HTML preprocessor that maximizes Web Page design efficiency and flexibility.

This week we'll look briefly at what PPWizard is and discuss some of its prominent features.

Daniela Engert has updated the DANIADSK.FLT driver. Currently it is at:

ftp://hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/incoming/daniadsk.zip

Eventual placement should be:

ftp://hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/os2/system/drivers/storage/daniadsk.zip

The DANIADSK.FLT driver is an IBMATAPI.FLT replacement with additional support for the ZIP-250 (including media swapping).

V1.8a31 of CDRecord/2 has no FIFO support because of a typing error in the source. This bug is corrected in this release. I appologize for the inconvenience this may have caused.

You can get it from the home page:

http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Sector/5785/cdrecord/cdrecordmain.htm

CDRecord/2 is a VIO program for writing audio and data CDs released under the GPL.

A request has been made to further clarify some items in the Warpstock 2000 bid proposal form:

http://www.warpstock.org/2000/bid_form.html

Dates:
December 1, 1999 is the date that interested teams should declare their interest in bidding on hosting Warpstock 2K. It is not the date the bids are due.

December 15, 1999 is the date that final bid proposals are due.

January 1, 2000 is the date the host team will be announced.

Facilities:
Much of the time required to prepare a bid proposal in years past has been spent in detailing the facilities. This has now changed so that a bidding team may propose more than one site, and much less detail on the site is required. This should reduce the time required to prepare a bid considerably. We ask that the team include general descriptions of all of the proposed sites and any additional information they can provide, but considerably less detail is expected than in years past.

Host team selection process: Warpstock will use the following selection process when choosing the host team. This process is designed to minimize the effects of any one site being favored by a board member(s).

Voting on a host team's bid proposal is broken into the following catagories:

A: Staff - This is the ranking of the proposed staffing for the show. The bid form should describe each key position, who it will be filled by, and that persons qualifications.

B: Program - This ranking is based upon the described program. A good proposed program will include varied presentation tracks and additional functions that will attract interest from the largest group of potential attendees.

C: Budget - This ranking is applied to the proposed budget. We will be looking at attainable goals for attendance and reasonable estimates of costs.

D: Attendee Cost - The cost of attending the show, including admission, lodging, and travel.

E: General - Everything else. The team's experience, enthusiasm, interesting goals and proposals.

For anyone interested, the complete scoring proceedure will be posted to the Warpstock web site.

Public location voting: In the past, the host site for Warpstock was selected entirely by the Warpstock board of directors. We feel that the people who will be attending the show should have a voice in the selection process. To that end, we will be offering the opportunity for anyone interested to vote for the location of their choice. The public votes will be factored into the scoring system we use and will account for 1/6 of the total score applied to each team.

On December 20, 1999, a website form will be made available on the Warpstock web site. All of the proposed sites will be listed and brief descriptions of each site will be included. If all of the bidding parties agree, the complete bid document will be made available. This form will be available through December 27, 1999.

We will invite everyone interested to choose among the listed locations their preference for Warpstock 2000. We will allow only one entry per person and the total number of votes will be assigned a ranking to be used in the selection equation.

The Board of directors will have 25 points to vote with. The Public will have 5 points to vote with. The public vote will be determined by a ranking system that will have a total of five points given to the team that has the most votes and 4 points to the team that has the second most votes, and so on. This works out to 1/6th of the total vote, more than any individual board member.

Distribution of Event profits. Warpstock, Inc. is not in business to make money. Our only mission is to facilitate the production of the annual Warpstock event. The posted bid document makes no mention of any distribution of profits or losses incurred for the show. It is Warpstock's desire to at least break even on the event, but we welcome a profit that will be applied to the following year's show. If any team wishes to bid on hosting the show with the intention of making a profit for the team, Warpstock, Inc. wants to hear their proposal along with the teams who have no interest in any financial rewards. Any User Groups that wish to run the show as a money making event need only to include that proposal in the bid they submit. Warpstock, Inc. will make no selection preferences based upon such a desire from the host team. We only want to choose the team that will provide the best show for the community.

Please direct any comments or additional questions to bids2k@warpstock.org.

The WarpGLOBE project is frozen. After the declarations of IBM I decided to migrate to Linux. The source code is now available under GPL license, in the hope that somebody will want to continue it.

The new homepage of the WarpGLOBE project is:

http://raster.cibermillennium.com/globeeng.htm

Sorry.

WarpGLOBE is a program that puts an earthglobe on the desktop, and paints the cities with some OS/2 users.

The Odin development team is proud to announce the availability of the Public Alpha 5 release (19991116). A lot has happened since the last public release in April 1998 so we encourage everyone interested in running the latest 32bit Windows applications on OS/2 to download this alpha release and check it out.

Note that this is still an alpha version meaning that it will most likely not be able to run your software or only partially run it but still it can be really useful!

Download the latest alpha from

ftp://ftp.os2.org/odin/OdinAlpha5.zip

You can find more information on the official Odin website at

http://www.netlabs.org/odin

This page is currently being updated and there will be an application compatibility database very soon where you can report your experiences.

NOTE: We are still looking for talented developers to join this great open source freeware project! We know that we will make it possible to run virtually any Win32 program under OS/2 but the more developers we have, the sooner we will reach this goal!

I have some more information on the Settop Box from Metabox (http://www.metabox.de/) a "WebTV" that runs OS/2.

"the box uses Embedded OS/2 Warp 4, FP10, the latest IP stack, Netscape 4.61, Java 1.1.8 and a lot of special applications. It is meant for usage with any TV and allows you to browse the internet with all features like Java, JavaScript, SSL, Certificates...

The unique feature is BOT, a technology to receive a constant 70kpbs data stream of the standard PAL signal without harming the visible and audible TV signal. This is mainly interesting in countries like Germany where phone connections are still paid per minute and considerably expensive."

(thanks to Achim Hasenmueller for the info)

We have received a new donation of $10 from Zoltan Bokeny for the MAMERun Joystick Device Driver Contest.

That brings the booty up to:
Gravis Gamepad Pro + $30 for the winner.

What is it?

Write your own joystick device driver for OS/2 and you could win a Gravis Gamepad Pro + $30 and earn the respect and gratitude of OS/2 gamers around the world! With the many new games available and the advance of game controllers there arises a need for a better joystick device driver than IBM's advanced joystick device driver. Support for new controller features, such as 8+ buttons, will greatly enhance the OS/2 gaming experience for gamers as well as developers.

For rules and other information check out:

http://home1.gte.net/stefanj/contest.htm

I am looking for additional sponsors for this contest. If you would like to contribute please go to:

http://home1.gte.net/stefanj/sponsor.htm

Any questions can be sent to me at Stefanj@gte.net.

Randomizer v2.0 has been released.

New in Randomizer v2.0:

• Added controls to add, edit, and remove both fields and items within fields.
  
• Enhanced user interface for RandomInput.cmd.
  
• Added command line parameter support to Randomizer.cmd for use when calling from another program or script.
  
• RandomField.dat uses a different format than in v1. Therefore you must either recreate this file with v2 or manually modify your v1 version of this file so that all field names exist on a single line with a space separating each name.
  
• Included sample .dat files to show how easy it is to create your own using a normal text editor.
  

http://www.tstonramp.com/~freiheit/Randomizer.zip (8.8 KB)

What is Randomizer?

Randomizer is a sort of universal random item selector. The user sets up the fields from which to choose items and then populates those fields. Randomizer then selects one item from each field and displays the list of its choices. There is no set list of either fields or items, so you could use this program for anything from picking numbers randomly from a given pool or creating entire random characters for a novel you're writing (which happens to be one use of mine).

There may be other uses for Randomizer, especially if you call it from another REXX program or script. The possibilities are (nearly) endless and entirely up to you.

There is an OS/2 Chat Room at Talkcity: Computing-OS/2.

You can reach it via your web browser:

http://www.talkcity.com/chat/

in the first box "you know where you want to chat..." put:

Computing-OS/2

On the next screen enter your screen name.

Or:

via IRC
chat.talkcity.com:7000 #Computing-OS/2

I was told by the support team that no one would use the room because no one has OS/2 anymore...

New program: C-side v1.5 now online!

C-Side is a shareware CD label and cover editor. For description and download go to:

http://inet.uni2.dk/~kimfoder/C-SIDE.HTM

Recently I contacted two former OS/2 developers, whose (very good) products are mostly forgotten now. They are no longer interested in continuing development, and they gave me the sources, which I'm now donating to anyone interested, because I have no time to do it myself.

Ideally, I would give the sources to Netlabs, but I thought it would be good to let it be known to other developers.

*I'll choose who to give them to.*

The first program is PageMage, a very good and very promising (at the time of its demise) virtual desktop program. At the time of its demise, PageMage was at the fourth beta, quite useful and quite stable. The sources include beta 3 (more stable) and beta 4 (more features).

The second program is WPSBackup, a very good program to archive you OS/2 Desktop. WPSBackup was a shareware program, but I'll donate the sources ONLY to someone who gives me warranty to remove the locking code and release a freeware version (NOTE: I was a registered user). WPSBackup is works well with many Warp 4 installations, but in some cases it fails reporting a failure in copying OS2.INI. The real error message is "Failed to enumerate keys for appl:PM_Workplace:Location". Since WPSBackup is a good and snappy tool (had to recover my Desktop a couple times: it worked very well), I'd love to see it revamped.

Both the authors of Pagemage and WPSBackup ask that they're remembered in the docs of the new (eventual) application, and that they're not held responsible for what people may do with their sources.

So, contact me if you're interested at: criguada@tin.it

A new mixer for Crystal Semiconductor drivers is available from Hobbes under name:

http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/incoming/lbmix001.zip

This mixer works with IOCTL category 90 mixer API implemented in Crystal v.2.08 and v.3.02 drivers (and probably later versions).

I downloaded release 19991112 of Odin and had success converting Acrobat Distiller 3.02!

I typed 'PE ACRODIST' and the Distiller window showed up. I loaded a Postscript file and converted it to PDF in OS/2!

Odin is the name of the project and software that allows users to run Win32 (Windows 95 and Windows NT) applications in OS/2 Warp natively, almost as if they were intended to be OS/2 applications in the first place. It also makes porting from Win32 to OS/2 easier by providing Win32 API implementation in OS/2: the Odin32 API.

The Odin team is currently preparing a public release for November, 16th. Daily builds are available from the download link on the Odin site:

http://www.netlabs.org/odin/

For those who have experienced slow screen updates on Netscape Communicator, i.e. no modem activity, disk light flashing, etc., here is a tip:

Set the memory cache to a large value (e.g. 20 or 40 Mb) and leave the disk cache low (e.g. 1 Mb). This way, the OS/2 virtual memory system handles the caching to disk, which is a lot faster than Netscape's caching. Also, you don't get those long cache cleanups with large caches and many many small files.

As always, your mileage may vary. Your best settings will depend on how much RAM your system has.

We have received a new donation pledge of $20 from Joat for the MAMERun Joystick Device Driver Contest.

What is it?

Write your own joystick device driver for OS/2 and you could win a Gravis Gamepad Pro + $20 and earn the respect and gratitude of OS/2 gamers around the world! With the many new games available and the advance of game controllers there arises a need for a better joystick device driver than IBM's advanced joystick device driver. Support for new controller features, such as 8+ buttons, will greatly enhance the OS/2 gaming experience for gamers as well as developers.

For rules and other information check out:

http://home1.gte.net/stefanj/contest.htm

I am looking for additional sponsors for this contest. If you would like to contribute please go to:

http://home1.gte.net/stefanj/sponsor.htm

Any questions can be sent to me at Stefanj@gte.net

I'm surprised no one else spotted this! Check out the platforms listed for Fisher-Price Great ADVentures Castle at Amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00002SA1Z/slashdotorg0f/102-8918632-3205619

follow-up by Jaime A. Cruz (jaime.cruz@cendant.com)

Apparently the page was modified and, specifically, the information on which platforms were supported was removed shortly after our original report.

The "in-development" version is available for those who want to have a go.

http://silk.apana.org.au/apache/apache_v2.shtml

DECEMBER 99 "OS/2 CONNECT" NEWSLETTER RELEASED

PALM HARBOR, FLORIDA (November 15, 1999) - M. Bryce & Associates (MBA) today announced the release of the December issue of OS/2 CONNECT, a freeware newsletter distributed through the various computer networks and bulletin boards. OS/2 CONNECT is THE authoritative source for contact information in the universe of IBM's OS/2 32-bit operating system.

The newsletter is implemented as a web page at:

http://www.os2ss.com/connect/

Its HTML files are also available for downloading and viewing locally. The file is named CON1299.ZIP and can also be obtained at:

Hobbes - ftp://hobbes.nmsu.edu/
(ftp://hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/os2/info/newsltr/connect/con1299.zip) or (ftp://hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/incoming/con1299.zip),

Walnut Creek - ftp://ftp-os2.cdrom.com/
(ftp://ftp-os2.cdrom.com/pub/os2/newsltr/con1299.zip) or (ftp://ftp-os2.cdrom.com/pub/os2/incoming/con1299.zip),

America Online and various Bulletin Boards.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact:

Tim Bryce
Editor, OS/2 CONNECT

The HOUSE/2 (Home Automation & Security for OS/2) series of programs have been updated to new versions and are available from the Warped Code Cellar at:

http://home.att.net/~ASchw/

The HOUSE/2 series of programs are home automation programs for X10 devices. HOUSE/2 is designed for the ActiveHome CM11A home automation controller and HOUSE/290 is for the older model CP290 controller.

HOUSE/2 and HOUSE/290 are now at the same feature level and provide uniform building blocks for home automation with X10 devices on the OS/2 platform.

Both programs have the following common features:

• Fully REXX-enabled communications engines that can be controlled by external REXX scripts and are able to launch user programs from X10 event.
  
• Designed to run over a home network. Control lights and appliances from any workstation on the network.
  
• Makes web-based home control possible if run on a web server.
  
• Full documentation of REXX interface included.
  
• Samples include a "single button" start a dialer and e-mail client, get e-mail and disconnect, all from just pressing a single button on any X10 controller like a keychain remote, for example.
  
• Additional graphical user interface available in the form of a Virtual Keychain remote. See this unique application at the Warped Code Cellar.
  

If you were wondering how the "single button" installation idea was realized at Warpstock '99, this is the program that did it.

HOUSE/2 and HOUSE/290 are shareware programs and registration is available through BMT Micro at:

http://www.bmtmicro.com/

Pretty Pop Software has released The Wall 3.33 today, Fri, 12 November 1999.

The Wall changes background images and/or color of your OS/2 Desktop at user-set intervals. You can configure each image file such as *.BMP/*.GIF/*.JPG/*.TIF/ *.TGA/*.PCX/*.DIB in the Wall. Choose TILED, SIZED or NORMAL during configuration. The Wall writes an extended attribute for each and displays the .BMP as configured.

Updated topics are...

Version 3.33 (13.Nov.99)
[Bug Fix]
a.Fixed the inconveniences which occur when shut down (Fini error).

http://prettypop.tsx.org/

There is an update of DSTswitch available since November 12, 1999. For those who don't know, DSTswitch is a utility that automatically adjusts the system time from standard time to daylight saving time and vice versa. Of course, that's not all!

What's new in version 1.60

• Install script replaced by an installation program
  
• several minor fixes
  
• ...and many more changes.
  

For more information on DSTswitch and where to download visit:

http://www.mark-eckstein.de/

WANTED
======

If there's anyone who wants to translate the DSTswitch language file, please e-mail me at dstswitch@mark-e.de for additional information. Currently DSTswitch supports English, German, Croatian and Italian language.

Please note that the T&V HappyPlayer home page has been moved on the RU/2 site from its old location to new one:

Sorry for any inconvinience.

The T&V HappyPlayer is an OS/2 program that operates TV cards built on the Brooktree BT848 chip.