News from the OS/2 World

- by Ryan Dill

No news is good news, but some news is even better. Greetings all, to e-Zine! 's newest feature, a place to find all the latest important happenings in the OS/2 world. This column is the result of many of you over the past few issues having asked for a regular news column in e-Zine!, one which could cover certain topics in more detail than our News Folder does. We still believe our News Folder can't be beat when it comes to up-to-the-minute, accurate information, but it usually contains more "official" things like press releases and stuff. This column will go into a bit more detail than the News Folder about things we think are of interest to OS/2 users everywhere.

To start this month, we have a number of things relating to Netscape Communications Corp: many of you already may have heard that Martin Warnett, perhaps the most publicly known member of the Netscape for OS/2 team, is moving on to a new project at Netscape, unrelated to OS/2. This means he will be leaving Netscape Communicator in the hands of his peers.

When the Navigator project gave way to the Communicator project, Mike Kaply (from IBM) took over lead of the team from Martin. The team assures us that Martin's leaving should not affect the delivery schedule of Communicator. (I guess that means it was behind anyway. <grin>) Personally, I'm hoping to see the beta of Communicator/2 by the beginning of next month at the latest, but "hoping" is the key word.

Martin Warnett has been a great person to have working for OS/2, and we wish him all the best in his new position. Hopefully he'll remain an OS/2 fanatic no matter what OS he uses next.

For those of you who had been playing with the Windows 3.1 version of Communicator in WinOS/2 and were irritated that pre-releases 4 and 5 had Winsock problems which prevented domain name resolving -- good news. The word from Martin as it shipped was that the latest release of Communicator for Windows 3.1 has this problem fixed; domain names should resolve fine now.

If you want to try it out and get a sneak peek of what Communicator for OS/2 could look like, you can download it from Netscape's FTP site. If you have any problems getting it to run, make sure you've followed all of the DOS/Win TCP/IP tips at Judy's Warped World.

If you've been irritated that Netscape hasn't yet produced a more secure version of NavOS/2 for on-line transactions, don't be. Netscape finished the 128-bit secure version of NavOS/2 months ago and gave it to IBM. IBM has been hung up ever since, trying to find a way around the US export restrictions on the security algorithms in the browser. Is it just me, or does it seem strange that Netscape doesn't have any problem with export restrictions when they market 128-bit secure versions on other platforms? Why doesn't IBM just do what Netscape does?

Anyway, if you need the 128-bit version for on-line banking or whatever, IBM has a list of customers who are waiting for it; as soon as IBM finds some way around the export restrictions, the people on this list will be first to get a copy.

The person to contact at IBM about getting the 128-bit version is Debbie Bandera -- she'll forward your messages on to the correct person at IBM and make sure your name's on the list. Hopefully when IBM sees how many people have a legitimate need for the more secure version of NavOS/2, they'll work harder at getting it out the door.

What are you doing on the 25th and 26th of October? Nothing? Why not plan to attend "Warpstock"? "Warpstock?" you ask, "What's that?" Well, to put it briefly Warpstock is an event -- heck, it could be the event -- for OS/2 users. Like Woodstock was for the peace and love generation, Warpstock is intended to be a gathering place for those of like mind -- fellow OS/2 users. The event is intended to be a place where you can learn more about your favorite OS, share experience you have that others don't, find some good deals on OS/2 software, and have an all-around good time.

To be held on October 25th and 26th of this year in the AQMD Headquarters in Diamond Bar, California, Warpstock promises to be one of the largest events of its kind OS/2 users have ever seen. Want to know more? Check out Warpstock's web site for information on who's going to be there, what they'll be doing, where you can stay, and so on. You can even volunteer, and be able to bask in the awe of fellow OS/2 users! Don't take my word for it though -- check the info out for yourself.

Now unfortunately, some bad news... Sources have confirmed to us at e-Zine! what many people have been fearing for a while now: the QuickTime for OS/2 project may be discontinued. Some say the problem lies in Apple's current financial difficulties; money is getting to be tight at Apple and to stay alive the company has to cut back on spending, which means that many of its non-core technologies and projects are being dropped, including QuickTime for OS/2. Other sources claim wildly different scenarios.

Whatever the case, legal representatives from Apple and IBM are still working out the details, and an official announcement will be made once all issues are resolved. (This could be days, it could be weeks. Who can tell?)

Thankfully, the OS/2 market still has Practice Corp. and their QuickMotion software. Tom Harding of Practice assures us that work on QuickMotion v2.0 is continuing and its playback capability could even surpass QuickTime code on other platforms. As long as there's a demand in the OS/2 market to work with QuickTime content, QuickMotion will be around, Tom says.

InnoVal Systems Solutions is making version 2.5 of its popular OS/2 e-mail client, the Post Road Mailer, free! That's right, free. "Why?" you ask, "what's wrong with it?" Nothing at all.

InnoVal is in the process of rewriting the Post Road Mailer in a cross-platform Java version, and they want people to know about it. Their reasoning is that people will try the free PRM, see how powerful it is and when the Java version comes out, customers will snap it up like hotcakes. Good reasoning.

The free edition of the Post Road Mailer is feature-for-feature identical to the Professional edition released earlier this year, the only differences being:

1. No technical support is offered (and frankly, the people at InnoVal feel it's so easy to use you won't need much support anyway); and
2. The license only permits its free usage for personal or home-business use, not for large business and corporate use.

We've had a problem telling people how strong Release 2.5 is. Customers who upgraded know this. But others do not. Knowing this and knowing that we want to get the word out about our Java e-mail client that will be delivered later this year, we chose to offer the free edition. The Java version does not mean that we are walking away from our native OS/2 mailer. In fact, the next release is already in the works as is a minor maintenance release, v2.51. The Java version is the model for new and outstanding features that will be built into future native OS/2 releases.

More information about the free version of the Post Road Mailer can be found on InnoVal's Free PRM page.

That's it for this month. If you have a tip that you want followed up or a news item you think should be reported, don't hesitate to let us know!

--

[Our Sponsor: ChipChat Tech. Group - 32-bit OS/2 text paging software and Sound Cards.]

Copyright © 1997 - Falcon Networking