*
An editorial view from Mark Dodel, editor of the VOICE Newsletter editor@os2voice.org
Aurora is now out and about. The VOICE sponsored Aurora beta mail list is very
active, as more and more people receive a copy of the beta preview. (I am among
the lucky 5000. I received my copy last week). For a first beta, the problems are
minimal and the promise is great. Just seeing what the server can do has really
got my juices flowing for a Warp 5 client. The beta closes on December 18th, but
the code does not expire, so I'll go on happily running Aurora until the real Warp
5 appears. This warper still has not found a good reason to switch to something
else.
While reading the story of Sleeping Beauty to my daughter the other day I couldn't
help but see a corollary to OS/2. I hadn't remembered that Sleeping Beauty's real
name was Aurora. And the curse that plagued her for her entire life was cast by
a jealous witch ( sounds like microsoft to me ). The princess fell into a deep sleep
(sort of like where OS/2 is today) until the handsome prince came along and woke
her up to take her rightful position in life. The question for OS/2 is who is the
prince who will ride to the rescue? It certainly doesn't appear to be the US DOJ
which has missed the entire scope of microsoft's monopoly. It's the pre-loads stupid.
Oh well, I'll continue to dream on in blissful slumber, while my OS/2 gets the work
done. Perhaps if Disney were to take over OS/2 marketing we would finally get the
market to wake up and see the truth.
In more good news for OS/2 users, Epson, who appeared to be abandoning support
of OS/2 when it ceased development of the Epson Germany beta drivers, had in fact
switched development from Germany to Japan. Epson Japan has released a new driver
model that supports resolutions up to 1440DPI. Unfortunately it is only available
for models currently in production. You can get this new driver from IBM's DDPak
Online site http://service.software.ibm.com/os2ddpak/html/printers/epsoname/index.htm
- Look for the new EPOMNI drivers there. So far the output using this driver on
my Epson Stylus Color 1520 has been excellent. Also this driver now includes a utility
menu for alignment and nozzle cleaning. Way to go Epson. Epson germany has even
updated their driver page with OS/2 information not only about the new EPOMNI printer
driver, but also with links to software that supports both their line of scanners
and cameras http://www.epson.de/eng/support/download/#os2.
Also let's not forget Lexmark, who continue to update their excellent OS/2 drivers
as well also on IBM's DDPak Online at http://service.software.ibm.com/os2ddpak/html/printers/lexmarki/index.htm.
Finally while we're speaking of drivers, let's also mention SciTech Software, who
are planning to port their SciTech Display Driver to OS/2. VOICE sponsored a recent
Speakup event on IRC with the folks from SciTech and it was extremely informative.
If you missed this event, you can read the transcript at http://www.os2voice.org/logs/V113098.LOG.html.
Be sure to check out the updated VOICE Future events Calendar.
We have quite a diverse offering for the next several months and are working on
scheduling even more for the future. If you have a topic or speaker you'd like
to see covered please contact our Liaison Officer - Judy McDermott at judymc@ameritech.net.
We at VOICE are doing our part to make up for IBM's refusal to support OS/2. If
you would like to help out, join VOICE, come to our meetings on IRC, and consider
writing an article for the newsletter. We need your help to continue our efforts.
In this December issue of the VOICE Newsletter we have a review of Sundial
System's Mesa 2 version 2.2 by Rob Burton; A review of Star
Office 5.0 by Peter Lazenby; For those times when your desktop decides to
take a hike, check out Rolly Green's article on the IBM EWS program Robosave
- the instant insanity saver program. For you folks that dabble in the dark
side check out Installing OS/2 WARP on a > 8.4G HDD
preloaded with Microsoft WIN9X. Then our very own Judy McDermott does a
rather extensive comparison study of OS/2 FTP Clients in
Review. Wayne Swanson, of PillarSoft writes about Telling
the World, an article on how OS/2 developers can get the word out on their
programming projects. Holding up his end of the newsletter, Don Eitner writes about
"What's in a Client", in his VIEW from the End(User)
column.
It's the holiday season, a time for giving. So don't forget to give yourself
a treat for the holidays and purchase some OS/2 software. How about one of the new
diversions out for our favorite non-consumer platform. Last month we had a review
of Hopkin's
FBI, so this month we look at Stardock's PlusPak;
BUGS and then the just released MOTE - Master of
the Empire available from BMT Micro. And let's also not forget IBM and the
DOJ on our gift list this year either. Perhaps we can get someone to do the right
thing for our Sleeping Beauty, Send your cards and letters to:
Joel I. Klein
Assistant Attorney General
Antitrust Division
U.S. Department of Justice
601 D Street, NW
Washington, DC 20530
The email address is antitrust@justice.usdoj.gov
If you would like to personally let IBM know that you want them to support OS/2
and ask them to release a new version of the OS/2 client send an email to:
John Stenson ssadm281@us.ibm.com
Network Computing Software
Finally if you want to let Lou Gerstner's office know how you feel you can do
so by pointing your favorite web browser to http://www.ibm.com/cgi-bin/email-lvg.pl
You'll probably then get a response from someone in John's office anyway, so I'm
not sure what difference it makes.
Mark Dodel
Editor, VOICE Newsletter
editor@os2voice.org
* Note: Graphic of the Northern Lights (the Aurora Borealis) from http://www.exploratorium.edu/learning_studio/auroras/fromspace.html