Some odds and ends will fill this week's offering as I clear my desk for the rush of Windows 95 applications to come.
- I read a lot of books and documents for my job, so I welcomed a chance to look at the DataPen, a hand-held pen scanner.It plugs into your computer's parallel port and you use it like a highlighting pen. Except everything you scan ends up in your word processor as text.
I hated this thing almost immediately, until I read the manual. (Insert sheepish grin here.)
Turns out I was using it wrong. Once I got used to the device, I was scanning in text from documents into Microsoft Word, WordPerfect, Quattro Pro, Excel and AskSam with nearly perfect accuracy.
The nice thing about this, when compared to scanning a full sheet with a flatbed scanner, is you only get the text you need. Plus, you don't have to tear the page out of the book.
There are some limits, of course. Handwriting won't work. And the text needs to be between 8 and 22 points in size. And you need to practice holding the pen correctly and moving it at the correct speed.
It requires Windows (it worked with Windows 95) and 4 megabytes of RAM; a battery pack is included for use with laptops or you can plug it in to the wall or keyboard port for power.
Cost is about $299 from Primax; call 1-800-338-3693 for information.
- Tracker Software has released version 2.0 of its popular contact manager for business. Used extensively by salesmen and marketers, this software can do practically everything, from keeping track of business appointments to sending e-mail and faxes. I was looking for the "sew" command when I lost a button recently, it was the only thing missing from this all-in-one package.
Included is a "history window" that logs every letter, fax, label, appointment or mail message for every person you've logged. There's a calculator, extensive calendars, spell-checker, a to-do panel . . . you get the idea. It's also network ready.
An extensive manual and help system is included, and you'll need both to master this program's extensive capabilities. If you need an all-in-one package for business, this is it. List is $349 from Tracker, 1-800-925-9950.
- Why didn't I think of this? You have lots of forms you use around your office. You fill them out by hand. Why? Instead, fax them or scan them to your computer.
With new Formbuster for Windows, your company's original form appears on your screen. And you can float your own text onto it, easy as pie. It lets your employees use the forms they are familiar with, but you retain a copy for history purposes, plus they are filled out faster and more accurately on a PC.
It was simple to use imports documents from almost any Windows application. If you use forms in your business, this is it. Cost is $69 from Virtual Reality Labs, call 1-800-829-8754 for information.
CALL OF THE WEEK: If you hadn't heard about the dropping price of computers, check out Dell Computer's latest offering: a Pentium-75 with 8 megs of RAM, a 256K cache, a 540 meg hard drive and a cheap monitor for $1,399. I spent twice that for half the computer a year ago.
NEWSGROUP PICK: "comp.os.ms-windows.setup" for the trials of tribulations of installing Windows 95.
WEB PAGE OF THE WEEK: "http:/queer.slip.cs.cmu.edu/cgi-bin/talktocat" to use your computer to talk to a bored cat in Pittsburgh.