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It should be noted that the search engine at http://www.ebay.com/ is somewhat broken, and will not search for "os/2" properly (it treats the "/" as a word separator). As you may have seen, it will turn up anything with "os" in the title, along with a "2" as either a separate word, or part of a decimal number (such as "Now Synchronize Newton & Mac OS -- v 2.1"). What it doesn't turn up is "OS2", which is often put in place of "OS/2".

I've found that the best way to find OS/2 items is to do three separate searches: "os2", "os/2", and "warp".

They are in the order of the most chance for non-OS/2 related hits, though "os/2" is still more likely to turn up the most relevent hits.

New port ICQ for OS/2 - Licq

http://www.os2.spb.ru/software/licq

Need XServer (XFree86/2 or PMX),qt.dll,emx. Very good version of icq. Ported by Alex Galkin. Author Graham Roff.

IACT Project Update
============================
* Freedom of Choice Petition
* new issue of IQ Newsletter
============================

To: OS/2 Users, ISDs, ISVs, Consultants, Resellers etc.

Join us in IACT's Freedom of Choice Petition, to stop the exclusive pre-installation [bundling or tying] of a single company's software on the computers sold, bought and used across the world. To bring real choice to the PC market, we should be able to buy and sell new computer systems compatible with OS/2 and a wide range of applications we want to use, in any combination.

Help us send that direct message to the PC companies, by signing and supporting IACT's Freedom of Choice Petition! We're already getting the usual strong support from the OS/2 community and from users, programmers and resellers of Linux, Unix, DOS, Amiga, BSD, BeOS and yes, Windows, too. To add your name to all of theirs, just use either our on-line form or regular e-mail. Details are at...

http://pages.cthome.net/iact/iaction-freechoice.html

...where you'll also find our snazzy new Freedom of Choice graphics and an improved layout for speediest access.

Plus, you've got the option of visiting our IACT Quarterly Newsletter section, where we just posted springtime Issue #5! We've got a full choice of 6 commentaries, covering topics from Comdex and consumerism, to software reviews and rebellions.

A newsletter summary plus links are on our Index page [http://pages.cthome.net/iact/] as usual, or skip directly to the Issue #5 page [http://pages.cthome.net/iact/iq-may5.html].

The International Alliance for Compatible Technology
----------------------------------------------------
http://pages.cthome.net/iact/
----------------------------------------------------

This week's edition of Focus on OS/2 is now online.

Topic: Primer on Installation and Setup of OS/2 for new users. This week we look at what is required to bring your new system up-to-date with the latest software and applications such as the Fixpaks, Netscape, and Java.

The feature can be accessed at:

http://os2.miningco.com/library/weekly/mcurrent.htm

If you're looking to show off OS/2 to your Windows-using friends, you might want to download the Warp 4 demo from hobbes, currently in the incoming directory but will eventually move to the /pub/windows directory.

http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/incoming/w4demo.zip

It's 52MB and runs under Windows 3.1, Win95, and Win-OS/2, and presumably Win98 and NT. One interesting feature of this demo is that includes several OS/2 Warp 4, Warp Server, and VoiceType color flyers in PDF format, that you can print and hand out.

InfoWorld posted a news item on Warp Server for e-Business yesterday. Don't know if they track hits per news items but its worth a look anyway. Seems like the standard quiet announcement from IBM. Too bad MindCraft won't test OS/2 Warp Server against NT on that handpicked 4way instead of attacking Linux (http://www.mindcraft.com/openbenchmark.html).

Here is the InfoWorld article on Warp Server:

http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayStory.pl?99054.piaurora.htm

OS/2 Warp 4 included speech recognition -- but how many of us are using it? How well have we taken advantage of it? How important is the technology to the OS/2 community?

To find out, I've designed a short survey about the topic; it should take about 5 minutes to fill out. I'll report the results in the next issue of extended attributes, the magazine of the Phoenix OS/2 Society.

http://www.possi.org/speech.htm

Can you help out?

How would you like to remotely control your PC or server using almost any web browser?

IBM's got just the handy little utility for you: Desktop On-Call. And you can download it NOW!

Desktop On-Call can be installed on OS/2 Warp, Warp Server, WorkSpace On-Demand Manager, or Windows PCs. Then, using any Java-enabled web browser, simply "point" to your PC, type in your ID and password (for security), then go ahead and control the desktop. Copy a file from your PC to your web client if you like. It's the next best thing to being there!

Desktop On-Call offers some great benefits:

• access your office system from home;
  
• manage your servers securely through a dial-up connection;
  
• help users remotely from any web client on the network;
  
• "run" OS/2 Warp applications on Windows systems or vice-versa.
  

Download Desktop On-Call now by visiting IBM Direct at http://www.direct.ibm.com. Search for "Desktop On-Call" (it's IBM part number 31L2729). The cost is only US $39.95 retail. You won't have long to wait -- the download is only about 2 MB. What a great value!

I have written a small program that fixes a bug in the OS/2 DOS Fullscreen Session that fixes a difference between OS/2 DOS and MS-DOS that does not allow Red Alert to run if you install Counterstrike or The Aftermath. This program does not alter any Westwood files, and does NOT disable Red Alert's copy protection. This program is not supported by Westwood, they probably don't know about it, so don't bother them. You can find out more about it at http://www.djtech.com/raos2.html-ssi. Happy gaming.

[WarpCast Moderator's note: Red Alert is a very popular real time strategy game.]

Attention OS/2 User Group Presidents, Stardock Systems is implementing a special program in an effort to bring software to your user group members at a reduced price.

If you are interested in participating in the program or would like more details please contact Patrick Ford at pford@stardock.com or 734-762-0687 x 227

After a long period of absence from the web the only FREE OS/2 faxing solution fax is back again. It's a refreshed version fax103.lzh, containing command line solutions for receiving and sending faxes, to make a answer machine and more. It is built by Dr.Pollack from Austria and can be downloaded at http://www.buntspecht.de/fax/.

Thanks to Dr.Pollack and Marcus Specht from buntspecht.de for finding a working solution to give Fax back to the OS/2 community.

Please don't upload fax to other servers !

WarpIN Alpha #4 has just been uploaded to my homepage:

http://www2.rz.hu-berlin.de/~h0444vnd/os2.htm

Click on "My Software" to find WarpIN.

WarpIN is intended to be the new general-purpose OS/2 installer. Alpha #4 has significant improvements, such as de-installation of archives/packages, WPS classes, CONFIG.SYS changes, and more. Also, the user interface has been improved.

WarpIN is a Netlabs project.

This is probably the last alpha release. I'll throw out one or two beta versions after this before WarpIN will be available for general usage.

I'd be grateful for feedback, especially from developers who have been looking for an easy-to-use, yet flexible installer.

The Larsen Commander program has reached its seventh public release, which is version 0.97. You can download it from:

http://home.sol.no/~leilarse/lcmd/index.html

Some facts about the Larsen Commander
Larsen Commander is a 32-Bit OS/2 Presentation Manager based File Manager with built in command line and scrollable console monitor. It is inspired by the grand old Norton Commander for DOS and the great File Commander/2 for OS/2.

The OS/2 Warp Desktop Tour found a new official homepage and a few "mirrors" also! The tour is a slideshow of screen shots which describes well OS/2 for new users, eventhough it has not been updated since 1997.

Here are the links where it can now be found:

Official site:
Montreal OS/2 Users group http://www.contact.net/os2/TOUR/

Other sites:
E&C Trading Ltd. WebSite http://www.ectrading.com/tour
Dr. Martinus WebSite http://www.drmartinus.net/os2tour/
The BlackPalace http://www.blackpalace.com/tour/
Buntspecht.de http://www.buntspecht.de/tour/
Czech OS/2 Users Group http://com-os2.ms.mff.cuni.cz/czos2/tour

Offline package from Hobbes:

ftp://hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/os2/info/os2tour2.zip

Every Monday and Thursday, I'll be reporting on OS/2-related items for sale on http://www.ebay.com and the comp.os.os2.marketplace newsgroup. Even if you're not thinking about buying anything OS/2 related, you might find something that catches your interest.

As always, there are plenty of copies of OS/2 2.x, Warp 3, and Warp 4 available for sale. These items make great gifts for your Windows-using friends! Don't forget - Mother's Day is this Sunday.

Since Thursday, a couple of books have been posted, namely Mark Minasi's "Inside OS/2 2.0" and "OS/2 2.1 Workplace Shell Programming". There's also an odd book called "Developing Internet Information Services" for Windows NT and OS/2.

Software-wise, we have some interesting additions. There are two copies IBM C Set++, a copy of Performance Plus 4.0, IBM Visual Age Java 2.0, and Norton Commander for OS/2. I never knew there was a Norton Commander for OS/2. And the most unusual item is Lotus SMTP/MIME MTA Software version 1.06 for OS/2, NT, and some Unix versions. I have no idea what this is.

There's also a package consisting of three OS/2 compilers, Sim City for OS/2, and three OS/2 books. It seems to be quite popular, as it's price is now at $86.

On comp.os.os2.marketplace, someone is selling five OS/2 programming books, including one I never heard of.

Those of you looking to sell your OS/2 related stuff, I strongly recommend you put it on eBay and post an announcement on comp.os.os2.marketplace. If you include the word "OS/2" in the title of your description, I'll see it and include it in the next report.

Brian Harvard has released Version 2.10 of the great FileCommander/2. Downloadable at the moment only down under ;-)

http://silk.apana.org.au/fc2.html

The latest version of News Harvest is now available for download:

http://www.krt.com.au/ns/

Screenshot - http://www.krt.com.au/ns/ss1.html

News Harvest is an automatic binary news downloader for OS/2. It has been designed and built with OS/2.

A Win32 port is also available.

Tink Bar for Lotus Word Pro is an EXCELLENT utility which adds a Smart Icon bar containing a variety of added functionality, and ease of use to Word Pro. Here are some of those features.

• Send a file to your fax printer (many versions of WinFax and FaxWorks are supported).
  
• Print a file immediately, without stopping at the print dialog box.
  
• Print only certain pages of a file quickly, those you choose.
  
• Insert Curly Quotes. (not all quotes are supported in the TL)
  
• Change the page color to an easy view vanilla color.
  
• Change the page color back to white or a currently used SmartMaster's color for printing.
  
• Insert the Endash, Emdash, Ellipsis (T), Legal Section Mark, Copyrite, Trademark, or Registered Symbols
  
• Insert an empty checkbox, an "x'd" checkbox, a checked checkbox (T)
  
• Hop through a document from beginning to end, seeking (one at a time) and deleting frames. Nice for HTML documents.
  
• Switch between different Envelope SmartMasters. (two in TL and four in T)
  
• Switch back to the Lotus default envelope. (T)
  
• Insert varying flavors of footnotes and endnotes. (T)
  
• Copy the Endnotes division to a separate file. (T)
  
• Provide a SmartMaster for endnotes that are superscripted instead of bracketed. (T)
  
• Extra icons to create more specialized envelopes and have them handy for use.
  
• Footnote and Endnote icons.
  

Note: Be sure to go to the BOTTOM of the Tink Bar page under the "Special note for OS/2 Warp users" section, and click on the "available" link to download the OS/2 installer version of Tink Bar.

Also note that Tink Bar is not a brand new product, although I find that many Lotus Word Pro users are unaware of it. My reason for posting this information, is that many people who had the Tink Bar page bookmarked in Netscape may have lost track of Tink's web site when the site was changed. The correct URL is:

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/tink2000/

Tink's pages also include some VERY useful information, and links for Lotus Smart Suite users. Also check out the Fink Bar. This is yet another bar that adds functions to Word Pro.

Once again, DreckBak has been updated both at Hobbes and the support site at:

http://weismer.virtualave.net/DreckBak.html

Fully automated install. No editing required. Now works with 4OS2. This is the least expensive Backup suite available for OS/2. No special hardware required.See why Warp-City calls this program "a keeper"