SpeakUp with Sundial Systems from 10/04/99

<Abraxas MODE +o WarpHoss
<WarpHoss My inbox is ridiculus.
<Abraxas hehe ... mine was pretty full, too .... but no message from Ratti :-(
<WarpHoss :(
<Abraxas I had a few ... 1st thing this morning ... from him ... but nothing since ... no new info
<Abraxas He may join the meeting tonight, though
<WarpHoss I hope so.
<MADEZIRC MODE +o madodel
<WarpHoss MODE +o madodel
<WarpHoss Anyone in here ever use Frontpage?
*  Sector has no use for it *
<madodel Ack, a devil incantation. begone devil worshipper
<WarpHoss Me either... My brother asked me how to do something with it my advice was del *.*
<Abraxas Good advice
<Sector Format C: would be better
<madodel Format C: /L
<WarpHoss Nope. He's hooked on MS because he can't find apps for his bus. in OS/2.
<Sector Does the mickysoft format command use /L?
<madodel Who cares, boot to a real os
<Sector Well if he didn't have one...
<Sector We wouldn't want the format command not to work. Most mickysoft windoze users would want to know what went wrong.
<Sector Welcome
<VoiceBot MODE +o Projects
<WarpHoss welcome rollin
<rollin Hello!
<rollin Randell will be here shortly.
<Sector JudyM!
<JudyM g'evening everyone :)
<JudyM Sector!! :)
<eTronik Hello all
*  Sector wonders where mandie could be tonight... *
<JudyM she's in conference ;)
<eTronik .
*  Sector thinks his clock must be slow if Swanee is here already *
<Swanee Sector: You have lost faith in me? :-)
<JudyM Swanee: nope, just knows your track recrd :)
<Sector Well, a slip up every once in awhile is allowed. Just don't let it happen too often...
<Swanee Tough crowd! :-)
<JudyM topic* Warpstock preview from Sundial Systems
<JudyM lol
<JudyM g'evening everyone
<Swanee JudyM: Did you get all the info you were expecting today?
<Swanee oops, I'll be quiet
<JudyM VOICE is pleased to have Sundial Systems tonight as their guest
<JudyM for those that aren't aware....
<JudyM Sundial Systems has been kind enough to provide us with information on the first Monday of even numbered months
<JudyM and if you're not confused yet :)
<randell Hi all, I'm finally here.
<JudyM Tonight Sundial's topic will be
<JudyM Warpstock preview from Sundial Systems
<JudyM Welcome Randell and Rollin, the floor is all yours ;)
<rollin Thanks Judy!
<rollin The goal tonight is to give you an overview of what we'll be
<rollin talking about and showing at Warpstock. Then, whateve areas interest the crowd,
<rollin we can go into more depth.
<rollin First, the fun part!
<rollin We'll be putting on a "game show" Warped Jeopardy.
<randell And "warped" it is...
<rollin We did this for the first time at Warp Expo West, and despite some technical problems, seemed to be a lot of fun.
<rollin The concept is similar to Jeopardy, but with a bent on Warped questions. Also there will be audience participation.
<rollin We will have three other presentations for the weekend.
<rollin Dan Kulp will be showing what is new in the next version of Mesa 2.
<rollin Randell will be giving a demonstration on Rover Pack, it's features and advantages.
<rollin I'll be discussing the product currently named as Kiwi which we discussed last Speak-up.
<randell And Dan will also be covering how to get the most out of Mesa (not just what's new).
<rollin We'll also be on the exhibit floor standing by to demonstrate any of our other products.
<rollin Thanks Randell.
<randell And, to the extent that time permits...
<rollin That's the overview, so I guess I'll throw it open to questions
<randell We'll use some of the time from the Rover Pack session to cover what's happening with Relish, etc.
<rollin Yes, we learned from last year you can't fit four products into an hour time slot.
<rollin Although I did present all four to the Seattle user group once in 50 minutes. A few heads were spinning.
<randell Or probably even into 4 half hour time slots!
<rollin Hi John!
<JudyM RAtti!
<Ratti Howdy y'all
<randell And now we have *six* products!
<JudyM you sure will cover alot!
<Swanee Hi John!
<JudyM I hope to make some of the sessions...some programs have features that we never even know about
<JudyM unless of course, you Read That Fine Manual :)
<rollin That's true. Frequently during product demonstrations exisiting users will ask how we did a particular task.
<randell That's one of the reason's we are having Dan include both an overview and "power user" features...
<randell (besides what's new)
<rollin Let me recap Kiwi since some of you may have missed the last speak-up...
<randell (Dan couldn't be with us tonight as he is on vacation.)
<rollin Kiwi is a tool that sits between your email program and the mail server to filter out junk email commonly known as spam.
<rollin It does this through a database of clues that identify common traits of junk email.
<rollin Ideally, you will never touch that database - it's a hands-off operation. But if you're tinkerer, you can make changes to the database as you see fit.
<rollin Everyone's very talkative tonight :)
<randell I think that must all be as warn out from Warp Expo West as we are!
<randell I know we had a lot of interest in Kiwi (the codename) last time we were here...
<JudyM or worn out from preparing for WS99 :)
<randell and I want to promise you that it's still on the way.
<rollin Yes, last time we talked about a beta around the corner, and that didn't happen.
<WarpHoss is kiwi available for beta testers yet?
<randell I know last time we talked about an upcoming Beta version that we planned to make available before Warp Expo West
<VoiceBot MODE +o Projects
<randell But we just plan ran out of time getting ready for WEW....
*  Longstaff is worn out from juggling work schedules to allow space for warpstock *
<rollin We were delayed by the expo as well as the standard issues of quality control and documentation.
<rollin The current plan is to have the beta ready for WS99.
<randell Rollin, do we want to publically say when we expect the public prerelease of it to be available?
<rollin Sure :)
<randell I guess you just did!
<rollin As Randall has said, we will be making PreRelease 4 a public test and it should be available at or near WS99.
<randell And I guess we should mention that the product *does* have a real name!
<randell We won't say what it is yet... but you can expect to see that at Warpstock and in PR4.
<Longstaff cool.....that way anybody who skips warpstock will miss the surprise :)
*  JudyM loves surprises :) *
<rollin There may be one other significant surprise of interest to Relish users.
<randell We have spent *way* too long on worrying about the "right" name for Kiwi...
<randell Yes, Randell *has* been working on Relish... and Rollin has been working on one of the add-ons as well.
<JudyM <---relish user "SURPRISE"
<JudyM ok, I'll calm down :)
*  JudyM can almost guess what the new add-on will be :) *
<randell We won't be ready to "announce" anything Relish related yet... but we will probably preview several "requested" things.
<randell And, I'll go out on my own limb and say that we should probably plan on Relish (and the related add-ons) being the topic of our December VOICE chat!
<randell (If Randell hadn't been working on Warped Jeopardy so much he might have gotten more done sooner.)
<randell Other than Rollin and I, is there anybody on the chat who happened to catch Warped Jeopardy at Warp Expo West?
<Abraxas randell I'll make a note ... in Relish ... to remind me :-)))
<randell Abraxas, about which? Relish in December? Or Warped Jeopardy at Warpstock?
<Swanee I saw a pic of it. Dies that count? :-0
<Projects !ask Sundial
<VoiceBot [Sundial] Sundial Systems http://www.sundialsystems.com/ (mandie)
<rollin If SteveS were paying attention, he would say yes.
<Swanee Dies=Does
<Abraxas randell Relish in Dec.
<randell Swanee, well you *really* had to be there to appreciate it -- at least the multimedia aspects...
<randell and the audience participation!
<Swanee randell: I'll be there NEXT time. :-)
<madodel Is it computerized?
<rollin I'm looking forward to the audience part at WS since we're doubling the amount of questions.
*  SteveS saw Warped Jepardy at WEW *
<JudyM my hubby got so jealous when he would see Relish pop up to keep me on my toes....he went searching for such a creature for that other OS...well, needless to say, he couldn't find one that compared
<rollin madodel, yes fully computerized. Buzzers and everything.
<randell madodel, yes indeed it is!
<madodel Why thank you for that (rather late) input SteveS
<randell The game board is done with Netscape...
<Swanee It was mentioned to "get your seats early" but I haven't seen anywhere to do this. Will there just be a signup at WS?
<Projects how come there's nothing on Kiwi at the Sundial website?
<JudyM SteveS: weren't you Mr. KnowItAll?
<randell Rollin wrote the score keeping program with handles the signalling buttons, etc.
<JudyM or was that Levine?
<randell I pulled together most of the audio and video files...
<rollin Projects, because it's still a product in development. We know that product cycles can get delayed, so we avoid promotion too far in advance. The goal is to have the web page by WS.
<SteveS MR. KIA was StevenL, Steven Levine.
<Projects no wonder I can't find it :)
<rollin Probably the best source of information right now is the log from our last Speak-up. It covered Kiwi in detail.
<randell We aren't going to roll out the web page info until we also announce the name.
<JudyM ok
<randell (Carla wouldn't like having to update the web site info by having us roll it out as Kiwi first.)
<rollin She already has to update the manual :)
<rollin Randell, what about DBExpert, any news there?
<randell A little bit...
<Swanee Poor girl. You guys are just too nice. :-)
<randell We won't really be showing anything significantly new in DBExpert at Warpstock...
<randell But we did just recently release version 2.0.8 (as a free upgrade for existing customers).
<randell The key new thing in 2.0.8...
<randell is the ability to "pack" the .DBE file that contains your "application".
<randell That makes it load faster (as well as take up less space on disk).
<Longstaff sundial always was commendably resource-conscious
<randell Version 2.0.8 also includes almost two dozen fixes...
<randell one of which is a rather critical Y2K fix that we messed up in 2.0.5 thru 2.0.7.
<randell The details of the new features and the Y2K fix are on our web site...
<randell And you can download the update from there as well.
<randell (We are recommending all DBExpert users update to 2.0.8 before the end of the year.)
<SteveS I think that should be to downloand and INSTALL!
<randell Ok, obtain and *apply* the update!
<rollin SteveS, this coming from you! When I sat down on one of your computers to help Melanie, she had 2.02 running!
<randell 2.0.2!@?
<SteveS Yep. No need to disturb what works.
<rollin That's what I said!
<randell That's before we got involved and it's not a particularly stable release!
<rollin It wasn't working though :) There was a four digit year problem causing grief. Fortunately, they've updated since then.
<SteveS Well, at least works well enough for what I do. NC4.6.1 GA will be installed soon.
*  Projects still uses 2.02 'cause 4.61 has problems here *
<randell (DBExpert technical support will not necessarily be receptive to people that don't update )
<Projects randell: there's no evaluation version of DBExpert?
<randell Projects, sorry, no...
<Longstaff Projects - i wonder what 4.04 would be like
<Projects argh
<randell the reason is a restriction in the license for the ODBC drivers included in the product.
<randell If you *really* need a demo version, we can probably work something out.
<Projects Longstaff: it ran fine, but I "upgraded" to 4.61
<randell (The usualy approach is to purchase the product from an dealer that offers up to 30 day returns as some have in the past.)
<Longstaff you can still get 4.04 on sw choice
<Projects randell: well, the database app I was using for the voice db went and trashed the files... so now I'm using PCFile for dos :)
<randell Projects, sounds like you *could* make productive use of DBExpert.
<Projects Longstaff: hmm... thanks, I'll check it out.
<Projects randell: yeah, but I'd kinda like to see it before buying it :)
<randell Drop me a note (randell@sundialsystems.com) and I'll see what I can do.
<Projects will do
<randell I'm well aware that not having a DBExpert demo available is a problem.
<Projects probably more so for you :)
<randell It's something on our "hot list" but it can't be resolved until we make changes in how we handle the ODBC license at some point in the future.
<randell (The problem of not being able to distribute a demo verson of the ODBC drivers dates back to when Designer Software originally developed the product.)
<Swanee randell: Agreed, I have always wanted a peek but it wasn't available.
<randell Swanee, and that's why we try to accomodate serious evaluation requests whenever we can.
<SteveS Projects can see and demo the DBExpert at Warpstock '99.
<Projects could if I was able to attend Warpstock 99... :(
<JudyM Projects will be missed :(
<Swanee I can appreciate your situation
<JudyM sure, now patronize him! :)
<Swanee We've been trying to figure out how to smuggle Projects over the border but haven't had any luck yet.
<randell While we won't have specific sessions on DBExpert, Clearlook, and Relish at Warpstock (they wouldn't give us 6 presentations)...
<JudyM ok, folks...shall we let Rollin and Randell go for this evening so they can get those Warp Jeopardy questions together?
<WarpHoss .me felt his pain in '97.
<randell we will be demoing all the products at our booth...
<randell And, as I mentioned, we will preview some aspects of upcoming features as time permits after the Rover Pack demo.
<JudyM Sundial's booth has always been an attraction at the previous Warpstocks
<randell We are sincerely looking forward to seeing all of you that can be there at Warpstock...
<JudyM even if I didn't win the sweatshirt last year! ;)
<randell And will miss everyone who can't be there as well.
*  JudyM is looking forward to the "family renunion" also :) *
<randell Judy, I'd promise you a sweatshirt *this* year, but I don't think we *have* any this year!
<JudyM then that's an easy promise to not keep :)
*  Longstaff will see you there *
<randell Those of you who can't be at Warpstock...
<JudyM Randell and Rollin, thx for coming tonight...we'll have a Warpstock post event speakup in December :)
<randell should watch our website around that time for more info about what is currently codenamed Kiwi.
<randell Judy, thanks for having us... and we'll plan on a "relish"-ing good time for December.
<JudyM great!
<randell (Cranberry Relish for the holidays maybe? No.)
<rollin Yes, thanks for having us!
*  Projects will be watching for whatever Kiwi evolves into :) *
<randell (The initials of the two word name are J and S.)
<lmaxson Is this over?
*  WarpHoss 's offer of betatesting still goes. *
<rollin Lynn, if you have questions, we're still here.
<randell WarpHoss, we will be in contact, definitely...
<lmaxson rollin, I have something of a serious question.
<rollin Thank you WarpHoss, depending on how PR4 goes, PR5 maybe be a private beta test.
<rollin Go for it Lynn.
<randell (And to think we used to have a policy of never going beyond PR3...)
<lmaxson Given that SmartSuite has little penetration and the current clamor for StarOffice, how does Sundial place itself in that spectrum.
<rollin Good question. One we face every day, not just now.
<randell Let me comment a bit...
<randell One thing I firmly believe in is that you should use the right tool for the right job.
<randell We've never positioned the Sundial family of products as an "office suite" for good reason.
<randell Some people need more of one thing and less of another.
<randell With, for instance, StarOffice, you get *everything* or nothing...
<randell And if one part has a problem and traps (or whatever), everything goes down.
<JudyM sounds like another *desktop program!
<randell So, our philosophy is that we let you choose which tools you need.
<randell For instance, not everyone (for good reason) finds the current generation of Clearlook useful for their needs.
<randell Some of the folks that use virtually every other Sundial product still use Describe for their word processor... and that's fine with us.
<randell We only want you to use our products if they are really *useful* to you!
<randell We aren't going to require you get "take 'em or leave 'em"...
<randell And we aren't going to try to throw everything but the kitchen sink in one box and some radically low price.
<randell But, being realistic, the fact that Star Office is "free" does impact us.
<randell We are trying to make each of our "tools" a better answer to at least some people's needs...
<JudyM ever thought of offering an upgrade from Describe to Clearlook?
<JudyM I certainly go for that....atleast Clearlook is supported :)
<randell than the "competition" does... and I think most of our customer's appreciate that.
<randell Judy, yes, we have... but we've chosen not to do so *for now*...
<rollin Going back to Randell's comment about best tool for the job, it's that attitude that's let us build individual applications. And those individual application have features that make them good tools. It's that same philosophy that creates application with fit on two diskettes.
<JudyM bummer :(
<lmaxson Well, as far as I know I have all your products except Rover.
<randell Jusdy, And the reason for that it simply that *some* people would consider it a "downgrade" and I don't want that.
<rollin We appreciate that Lynn!
<randell When we get to Clearlook 2.x, which is competative with Describe (and others) on most features, then we'll give it serious consideration.
<JudyM ok, atleast you're open :)
<randell So, Lynn, what kinda deal do I need to give you so "you've got 'em all?
<lmaxson I have what Rover was before you offered it.
<trouvere When will Clearlook get to 2,00?
<randell Judy, very open... and don't forget that once you have one of our products we don't charge you an arm and an leg for upgrades on that product?
<lmaxson It just that I have a genuine concern.
<lmaxson At WarpStock Carla is giving me the Visualizer CDs which I am going to demonstrate.
<SteveS Randell, are you going to have any Warpstock '99 special pricing?
<randell Lynn, then you're entitled to the low cost upgrade price (which I don't remember off the top of my head).
<JudyM SteveS: good thinking!!! :)
<rollin Lynn, we have concern too. But we're not a suite and pretending to be a suite isn't going to gain us anything. We feel our best way to compete is on individual applications.
<lmaxson Randell, you are currently on the product I use most and after that it is GCP and PMMail/2.
<JudyM I personally prefer that concept...
<rollin SteveS, we will. It hasn't been announced, but it will be similar to what you saw at WEW. It will be available to people that attend WS99.
<randell Yep. Special pricing for Warp Expo West just ended. Special pricing for Warpstock starts with the show!
<rollin Lynn, which one do you use the most? Mesa?
<lmaxson Nah, let's just talk it over at WS99.
<lmaxson GRIRC.
<Longstaff i agree also .... about two thinds of staroffice i'll most likely never use
<lmaxson GTIRC.
<rollin Ah, I understand.
<lmaxson The most used from Sundial is Relish.
<randell And how big is the StarOffice download?
*  Projects only loads the Staroffice pig when a Word document crosses my desk and absolutely has to have all the formatting garbage *
<randell And how does that compare to the total of our downloads?
<Longstaff about 56 meg, isn't it?
<SteveS 60meg for StarOffice.
<randell And is there any relation between those two sizes and the relative functionality? I don't think so!
<SteveS Approx 8 floppies for all of Sundial's products.
<Longstaff lol - the mail functions rival ultimail for oddball design :)
<rollin Earlier in the chat I was thinking about this in the context of Kiwi. Having just built it from the ground up, I couldn't build a 30 meg application if I had to.
<Projects yes. when I want a word processor, I don't need all that other baggage to be loaded as well.
<randell SteveS, so what's that, may be 12 Meg vs 60 Meg?
<SteveS Not all of those floppies are full! So total is less than 12 meg.
<randell And a whole lot *more* than 20% on the functionality...
<randell In the case of Mesa, for instance, *more* functionality (and a heck of a lot more performance!) than you will find in StarCalc!
<lmaxson I think MESA is your strongsuit.
<randell Mesa 2 competes with any other spreadsheet! Relish (particularly in the network version) is strong as well.
<SteveS The approx 8 diskettes is really 9. I just counted them. Two diskettes per product execpt Rover which is one diskette.
*  Projects gets a lot of ##### fields in StarCalc when doing large spreadsheets... basically have to trash it and start again when that happens *
<randell DBExpert competes reasonably well with Approach and Access. Clearlook's primary weak spot is in the filters (but it has great performance).
<Swanee Mesa is great. We're using it while we track expenses for the WS party. :-)
<rollin It can be used to track income too. That's my prefered use.
<Projects is Sundial planning any accounting apps in the future? :)
<randell Projects, not at this time.
<rollin Just Big Nate's spreadsheets.
<randell (Our hands are probably too full as it is.)
<Projects sigh...
<randell We really owe our loyal Relish users at update!
<randell And Clearlook 2.0 has taken way, way, longer than expected!
<SteveS All product updates take longer than scheduled!
<randell So our current plan is to concentrate on getting both those projects done before we add anything else that's "really big".
<JudyM great, I'll add that to the ToDoBun :)
<randell I don't want to even start to talk about schedules!
<lmaxson Someday Randell I am going to convince you of converting to a specification language.
*  Projects really wishes he hadn't purchased Pmpostnotes before hearing about Relish *
<randell If I were to look back at the original schedule for Kiwi (or Clearlook 2.0 or Relish 2.3), I could get ill very quicky!
<lmaxson Someday.
<JudyM Projects: I have several programs that perform the same function. When I find one that I like better, I just license and use that one :)
<JudyM it's ok to have more than one :)
<Projects JudyM: you're talking to mr. broke here, remember? :)
<randell Projects, I guess the question I should ask is why didn't you hear about Relish? It's not like we (and others) having been talking about it for (almost) 10 years now.
<JudyM randell: he must have been hanging with the wrong crowd :)
<Projects randell: dunno for sure. Think I found pmpostnotes on a bbs somewhere about 8 years ago...
<Projects JudyM: ya... it's called "the boonies" :)
<JudyM hehe
<randell Ok, if you've been using it for 8 years... then I guess I should cut you a *little* slack...
<Projects hehehe
<Projects soon's I get some extra $$, Relish and Mesa will be mine :)
<randell Projects, if you are *real* nice, Carla might let you take advantage of the Warpstock special pricing even thought you can't be there.
*  Projects puts on his *real* nice face... *
<Projects :)
<rollin Other questions?
<rollin Comments?
<rollin Answers?
<Projects hehehe
<randell Projects, followup with me the week *after* Warpstock and I'll see what we can do.
<lmaxson Rollin, thank you. And you too, Randell.
<WarpHoss VOICE appreciates your time and efforts gentlemen.
<JudyM Thanks again to Sundial
<randell Thank you all once again for having us...
<WarpHoss I do also.
<Projects randell: I may just do that, if I haven't gotten Dan to buy them for me already :)
<rollin We always appreciate the opportunity to sit down and talk to everyone at the Speak-up!
<randell See some of you in Atlanta and the rest of you back here in December!
<Abraxas Projects .. not to worry ... I'll have plastic this year :-)
<Projects hehehe
<rollin Feel free to email us with any follow-up at randell@sundialsystems.com and rollin@sundialsystems.com
<Swanee Atlanta randell :-)
<Abraxas randell ... rollin .... Thank you for your time .... and I'll see you in Atlanta
<randell And don't forget that technical support is the name of the product at sundialsystems.com (as in relish@sundialsystems.com)
<Swanee Thanks rollin & randell
<lmaxson Guess we all miss the SCOUG meeting.
<Projects rollin and randell sounds like a TV show :)
<Sector The randell and rolling show