Author Archive
Michael Cheek
Digital Government
Multimedia projectors show their stuff
The GCN Lab put four of the brightest and lightest units through their paces. One test consisted of showing to several audiences the Apple QuickTime video trailer of the movie "Star Wars: Episode I, The Phantom Menace." The high-quality video file revealed the light sides as well as the dark sides of the four test units.
Digital Government
Phaser 740's easy setup earns points with sysadmins
Some of Tektronix's earlier entries had their minor components packed inside a bag in a box inside another box. The Phaser 560 gave some hints that the unwieldy setup process was being streamlined. And in fact, all the Phaser 740's components came inside one huge, nicely packed box and went together fairly quickly.
Digital Government
Device monitors PC's power supply from USB
Pros and cons: USB, meet UPS. When a Universal Serial Bus port meets an American Power Conversion uninterruptible power supply, the fusion works well. The Back-UPS Pro 350 all-in-one power appliance does a good job, except for a minor glitch in the Microsoft Windows 98 software. The sleek, black box has lost some weight and girth from earlier incarnations, which were beige and elongated like toy 18-wheeler trucks. The new UPS
Digital Government
MasterConsole IIs connects multiple CPUs to one monitor
Like many other users, I enjoy being in control of lots of systems. But the clutter of monitors, mice and keyboards recently started to get to me. I needed to simplify. Before installing Raritan Computer Inc.'s MasterConsole IIs, I had five monitors crowding three desks. Now, I have one monitor and two clean desks.
Digital Government
Second wave of Y2K test tools rolls in
Year 2000 testing tools are bombarding the market. The GCN Lab recently looked at five, the second batch the lab reviewed. Three months ago, I took a first look at year 2000 tools for desktop PCs [GCN, Jan. 11, Page 1]. The feedback was overwhelming. It came less from readers than from merchants who sell other year 2000 software utilities, each asking why I had not included their products.
Digital Government
Fuji's MX-500 camera is the real deal
At $479 on the General Services Administration Information Technology Schedule, the MX-500 from Fuji Photo Film USA Inc. may be one of the least expensive megapixel digital cameras around. As with any bargain, the MX-500 has a few drawbacks, but I know of nothing comparable in imagery and resolution. Its inexpensive FlashPath adapter makes the
Digital Government
Adobe art package lets users tap library of images for Web design
A new kind of art, not quite clip art or homegrown illustration, is emerging to fill the demand for fast, professional-looking Web graphics. Adobe Systems Inc.'s ImageStyler is the first serious art tool in this category. Microsoft Corp.'s PhotoDraw 2000 package, now in beta form, will come out late this year.
Digital Government
Latitude notebook, NetWare 5 win FOSE Best of Show honors
Two products tied for Best of Show honors among the winners of GCN's Best New Product Awards at FOSE this month. The Latitude LT M266ST notebook from Dell Computer Corp. and the NetWare 5 network operating system from Novell Inc. both received Best of Show honors. "We felt we had to make both a hardware and software award this year," said GCN editorial director Thomas R. Temin, one of the 14 members of the product judging panel.
Digital Government
Gateway takes E-3200 in right direction, but not far enough
Pros and cons: + Improved chassis design – Arrived without integrated Ethernet card's drivers loaded or working Gateway Inc. finally seems to be grasping the enterprise PC game. The easy-access, low-profile chassis for the E-3200 proves the South Dakota company is serious about building network clients, which account for nine out of every 10 government PCs.
Digital Government
Are those tremors in the Northwest?
Product delays by Microsoft Corp. and Intel Corp. have the potential to shake up the technology landscape dramatically. I'm not talking about year 2000 readiness. Nor am I guessing that the Justice Department will break Bill Gates' Microsoft into a bunch of Baby Bills or that Federal Trade Commission actions threaten Intel's industry dominance.
Digital Government
New Compaq Pentium III offers this: 50 more MHz
TEST DRIVE Here's the only reason to rush out and buy a PC with a Pentium III processor: You get 50 more megahertz of processing speed. Intel Corp. trumpets the security and Internet features of its newest processor, but in reality it runs current applications only a bit faster than a 450-MHz Pentium II.
Featured eBooks
Digital Government
In Beta 2, Office 2000 grows—again
Beta 2 of the mammoth Microsoft Office 2000 arrived on seven CD-ROMs. Not only has the code expanded, Microsoft Corp. has inserted the Web programming tool FrontPage, desktop publishing application Publisher and a new art tool, PhotoDraw. All the regulars are still present: the Microsoft Word word processor, Excel spreadsheet, Access database, PowerPoint presentation program and Outlook personal information manager.
Digital Government
Product Reviews
As with most product claims, you have to study the small print. The good news: Small print is legible with all these printers. The last time I reviewed high-end network laser printers [GCN, June 28, 1997, Page 37], the test machines were difficult to network. I applaud Hewlett-Packard Co., IBM Corp. and Xerox Corp. for making printer administration much easier.
Digital Government
It's worth it to upgrade to latest Illustrator version
Real-life requirements: Win9x or NT; Pentium II CPU; 128M of RAM; 100M free storage; CD-ROM drive; video card that can show 32-bit true color at 1,024- by 768-pixel resolution. Power Macintosh version available. Latest Unix version is 5.5 Adobe Illustrator has a reputation for being powerful but difficult. It has loyal followers, though many stopped following it at versions 6.0, 5.5 or even 4.1.
Digital Government
New notebook makes good use of small package
GCNdex32 scores Floating-point math 4.20 4.50 Integer math 7.81 7.91 Video 7.04 7.02 Small-file access 2.89 2.71 Large-file access 2.60 2.65
Digital Government
Opera browser is simple and effective
Tired of the browser battles? Want to eliminate Explorer and negate Netscape? Go to the Opera. This little browser's arias don't quite reach the same peaks as the Big Two. But Opera does a good job of supporting the Web's underlying Hypertext Markup Language most of the time.
Digital Government
Norton 2000's our choice of PC readiness packages
TEST DRIVE GCN Lab Product Table There are 355 days left until 2000. As you scurry to ready the last holdout systems—often including those pesky standalone PCs—here is a comparative review of seven PC test tools. Atop the heap is Symantec Corp.'s Norton 2000, which earned the Reviewer's Choice designation from the GCN Lab.
Digital Government
Most RTC date problems are limited to older PCs
Practically every real-time clock in-side a PC or server today is ticking away the years in two digits. But LAN administrators and users running Microsoft Windows NT need not worry about RTC misbehavior as they make their year 2000 checks and upgrades. Users running Windows 95 and Windows 98 will enjoy a reprieve until 2001 rolls around.
Digital Government
At 333 MHz, Celeron chip gives low-end Compaq PC some gusto
Pros and cons: + Solid, basic PC performance + Compact chassis – No monitor or CD-ROM drive at this price Intel Corp.'s Celeron processor, a stripped-down Pentium II, never made it to the GCN Lab in its original 266- and 300-MHz versions because most computer makers had already found its performance inferior.
Digital Government
Compaq's fingerprint ID device gets a thumbs-up
Thanks to PCs, telephones, e-mail addresses and automated teller machines, I have accumulated more than two dozen passwords and personal identifiers that I must remember to prove who I am. So when Compaq Computer Corp. sent in its Fingerprint Identification Technology biometric device, I immediately dreamed of freedom from all the tedious password typing.
