by Caroline Horton

Thinking of buying a new hard drive(?), or just been looking around. The standard technical advice has been not to mix manufacturers - why? There are two standards for IDE drives; Enhanced IDE (EIDE) and Fast ATA-2 - confused yet? Western Digital and Quantum use the EIDE standard, while Seagate, Connor, and Maxtor use the Fast ATA-2 standard.

This difference means that some people have lucked out by randomly selecting the right combination and swear that they have never had a problem with their mixed drives while others have pulled their hair out. The two standards implement I/O Ready, DMA 0, DMA 1, DMA 2, PIO Mode 3 and PIO Mode 4, in a different method. This results in data corruption, and sync problems, even when you use separate controllers. Using the list above, or by checking out manufacturers not listed by asking which standard is used - you can safely match mixed drives!

The latest WordPerfect news bulletin - Novell has put WordPerfect on the sales block - where does that leave WP users??

The Macro Virus attack has widened - there are now four macro viruses and two new Trojan horses (not really called a virus because they do not self replicate). Two of the new viruses Nuclear and DMV have spread over the Internet worldwide.

Viruses are:

Trojans are:

Microsoft has purchased a license for JAVA, the Internet scripting language. Microsoft has also invested $300 million in a major TV network, is Microsoft thinking of buying a TV network of its own?

The last Computer Fair had some really good prices - 486DX4-100 MHz mother boards selling for $125, Panasonic flat bed color scanners 650 DPI one pass with 2450 DPI enhanced ability only $399, and I negotiated a Pentium 100 MHz system w/15" monitor, fax/modem card, sound system w/4x CD-ROM, 1.2 Gig hard drive, and a 2Meg Stealth PCI card for $1200.

In my last bill from NYNEX there was an enclosed ad for ISDN (dedicated digital line) for computer users. These lines are standard in Europe, and NYNEX expects us to pay extra for them? The reason I bring this up, is that lately my line has degraded when using my modem. If a plane flies over the house (never happens in N.SYR.), or a car with someone using a cellular phone passes the house, or a police/rescue vehicle using their new cellular radio goes by - my phone line goes bye-bye. I have even had my modem drop down to 2400 BPS to negotiate data on these lines. Seems NYNEX should be supplying the default European standard for free!

If you have not read about SoftRam by now and you are using it - remove it from your system and take the package back to the store and demand a refund. As of the first of the year Sycronys has issued a full recall.

Many times software companies pay special bonuses to retail stores for positioning a product prominently and use special company displays - this does not mean that the product works or any better than any product that is just sitting on the shelf. Remember the old adage - "if it sounds to good to be true - it probably is!"

I reviewed MagnaRAM previously and have received the updated version MagnaRAM2. This version will run with Windows 3.1x or Windows 95. This version does work, but the thing to remember about all ram doublers, is that they use the hard drive frequently. This can result in what is termed ‘thrashing’, where your hard drive is being accessed continuously and no there is very little time left for your computer to do any ‘real’ work. MagnaRAM works the best on systems with 4MB or 8MB ram - it has no effect on machines with 32MB ram (actually slows is down a little).

It is tax time again (ugh!) and so I thought that I would review TurboTax 95. If your memory is good - you will remember TurboTax 94 had some problems, so I decided to beat up TurboTax 95 (the results later).

The disk version comes with 5 - 3¹/₂" disks and installed painlessly in less than 10 minutes. The CD-ROM version includes some extras, talking advisers etc., but the disk version does the job for less money. If you remember my article last month, I really took Intuit to task for the installation problems with Quicken. Evidentially enough people complained, the only type TSR (terminate and stay resident) that can not run with TurboTax’s install program is an anti-virus protection program. Most install programs have problems with anti-virus tsr’s during their installation, which is understandable as changes are made to existing files. So if you have an anti-virus TSR program running turn it off prior to the installation of TurboTax. If you have Windows 95 installed - please remember to use the Windows 95 Install and Remove program - it makes for an easy installation and removal later.

You are given a chance to determine the destination directory and drive for the installation. New with TurboTax 95 is the Financial Network software. At the beginning of the installation you are given three choices: 1 - TurboTax and Netscape Navigator Intuit Edition, 2 - TurboTax, 3 - Netscape Navigator Intuit Edition. If you already have the financial network installed for Quicken, selecting option one links TurboTax to Quicken’s Navigator. Once you have made this decision the only thing left to do is swap disks, unless you purchased the CD-ROM version.