Netscape integration (or whither Southsoft ?)

[Cristian Secara]

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On Sat, 10 Jul 99 10:15:18, John Drabik wrote:

>Then again, perhaps it's the OS: the 486 is
>running OS/2, the Pentiums were running NT.

The Win / OS/2 speed difference seems something PMMail related,
however, I am not the right person to appreciate that.
Please note, on short messages (like most messages on this list, for
example) PMMail98 is fast (a 'normal' fastness). It appears lazily to
the human operator on message larger than 15k approx and increases
proportional with the message length.

>As for OS/2 improvements, Warp Server (Aurora) was recently released, [...]

Dunno who said that, but I find to be simply true:
'The greatest enemy of OS/2 is IBM'.
It's company management, not the product quality that dictates. It's
the management that decided, for Warp 4, that voice dictation /
navigation is more important than to have a simply audio mixer
integrated to the system.
May be I'm wrong, but I don't expect Aurora to be affordable to SOHO
users. If so, this equals to not being (world) wide spread.

>>[...] I am no more able to use few DOS apps
>>since fixpak 6 or 7 (DOS apps that uses .WAVs).
>Works here, on multiple machines. Setup problems at your end?

No, it's confirmed by other users too. Seems there are only few apps
(only 2 in my case, both old DOS games, .WAV intensive).

>[...] and is an open door to viruses (Melissa,
>Worm, etc., all work through Outlook). I notice you didn't address
>that point.

No, because on Outlook Express the security level is user definable.
Scripts can be disabled, so who cares ? I don't.

>The integration of Office/Word/Excel with OE might be
>nice for computer illiterates, but the price is security of your
>private information.

Office 2000 Outlook mailer have the benefits of the integrated
organizer. For example, I can instruct the mailer to warn if after 2
days I haven't yet replayed to Smith (imaginary friend). This may be
useless for me at home, but crucial for me at work. Sure, Outlook is
not free, Office 2000 costs a lot, I only want to say that integration
can be useful or even necessary to a physical computer user.
I wonder if an independent mailer - like PMMail - can achieve such
level of automation. Sometimes undesirable, sometimes useful.

>But there is a bright side: when IBM put such a piece of junk in the
>freebie package, SouthSoft had an open door to provide a better
>package, which they have done admirably.

- From the user point of view, the result is only one: a better software
product. Launched by either a software monster or an individual. I try
not to care who.

>Very curious,
>because if you believe that Doze is such a wonderful, open, and
>growing market, then why have so many companies failed to compete
>only when M$ got into their same market?

I don't care of them. I'm using Win98 today more than OS/2 because it
fit my needs better. For example, I'm planning to put a second monitor
(+ videocard) to my computer. Why not ? Microsoft or not, Win98 has
dual monitor support. It's part of an evolution that I agree with.

>but OS/2 is still the only OS with an
>object-oriented interface (Workplace Shell),

Sometimes, this object-oriented approach turns against me, the user.
For example, each *.WAV object has his own volume setting, instead of
let an audio mixer take care for the sound level. When browsing (double
clicking) through a .WAV collection, this is extremely annoying.
They (IBM) have done a wonderful job with their extended attributes.
OS/2 Netscape Navigator 2.02 has a unique feature, not found on neither
browser (nor even on OS/2's Communicator !): a dragged HTML page stores
the www address from where the page comes from. The same applies to
pictures.
They (IBM) have forgot to create a mechanism for saving extended
attributes on CD. When writing on CD, any object related information is
lost. I cannot store on CD a dragged HTML page and automatically keep
its www address with it.
So ? Great, but useless ...

>You
>can't even format a floppy from "My Computer", and then do anything
>else in My Computer until it is finished (slowly). How lame is THAT?

Yes, I know that. Each time I need to format more than two floppies, I
boot OS/2 and format the floppies there, it takes less time :)

Best wishes,
        Cristi

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