Editor's Notes    \|/    by Lauren Willoughby
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

                        LOTS OF HOT NEW TITLES!

   A wise TV commercial once said, "Don't you know the less you sleep, the 
longer summer lasts?" So I've traded my pillow for the keyboard to spend 
more time enjoying the latest bounty of shareware.

   Apogee has not one but two new arcade games out: Hocus Pocus and Mystic 
Towers. NeoSoft topped its fantastic NeoBook Pro with Version 2.0, an even 
more fantastic upgrade. GeoWorks dipped into shareware waters with its 
GeoPublish. I've been flown back to my youth with The Greatest Paper 
Airplanes, and been fascinated by two new Windows utilities (Plug-In and 
wInformant). If you're interested, check out the New Releases/Versions 
section. OK, I reviewed some of 'em too -- sometimes I just can't help 
myself.


HD Going Great Guns

   Our new high-density (HD) line is proving popular -- more popular than 
we anticipated, and we quickly ran out of high-density floppies! So if 
your order arrived a little later than you expected, it was because we 
were waiting on a shipment of floppy disks. Don't worry, we have plenty 
now!

   For those who missed the last issue, I'll recap the HD thing: Shareware 
programs are growing by leaps and bounds, and trying to distribute the 
latest and greatest titles (like DOOM) on eight low-density disks seems a 
little ridiculous -- so we are distributing those programs on high-density 
disks. You'll find these programs now much easier to install (because the 
files aren't spread out to kingdom come), and they're less expensive 
within our HD pricing structure. Our HD titles are easy to spot: the file 
numbers begin with the letters "HD," and an HD disk symbol will appear (we 
hope) within the description.

   Even if you didn't miss the last issue, you did miss something, I'm 
afraid. The issue went to press minus the HD disk symbol and assorted 
graphic elements. Let me tell you what happened: I made the move from 
PageMaker 4.0 to 5.0, but some of the graphic elements apparently didn't 
follow. They did print on our laser-printed proof copies but jumped ship 
when printed to film on the Linotype. By then it was too late to do 
anything but point and scream. Sorry!

   One more thing about HD titles: please order them on 1.44MB disks if 
you possibly can! Some of the titles have more data than can fit on one 
1.2MB disk -- and I didn't want to add $4 to a program by splitting it 
into a two-disk set when it could fit just fine on a single 1.44MB disk. 
Remember, there is no surcharge on 1.44MB disks.


Introducing Our Featured Selection!

   "If you want it, do nothing -- we'll send it to you automatically!" 
Just kidding!

   Book-of-the-month clubs do have a good idea, though, and we're 
borrowing a page from their book with our own variation on the featured 
selection theme. Starting this month, we're going to pick a few of the 
best new shareware titles, call them our "featured selection," and charge 
half our usual distribution fees for them (for a limited time).

   A program that normally costs $6 will cost just $3. And an $8 high-
density (HD) program costs just $4. You can order just a few of the 
"featured" programs  -- or order the whole bunch for an added discount.


Attention, Shareware Programmers!

   If you are not a member of the ASP (Association of Shareware 
Professionals), please consider joining! The ASP distributes its members' 
software to vendors on monthly CD-ROM discs. It's a good way of getting 
your shareware wide coverage -- and of making sure vendors have your 
latest releases.


Oops!

   I'm beginning to hate the word oops, and I regret having to say it 
again. In the last issue I praised Time & Chaos Professional as a terrific 
PIM. That's not the problem: it still is terrific! The problem is that I 
forgot to mention that T&CP requires the file VBRUN300.DLL in order to 
work. Since I already had the Visual BASIC 3.0 runtime file installed on 
my system, T&CP had no reason to ask me for it, and it installed 
beautifully. For those who did not have the runtime, installation did not 
go so well.

   If you're one of those who ordered Time & Chaos Professional but could 
not get it to work, please call or write and we'll send you VBRUN300.DLL 
at no charge. For those who haven't yet ordered T&CP but want to, note 
that we've given it a new file number: HD0050 (yep, with the addition of 
the 398K runtime file, TC&P becomes an HD title).

-=--------------        -=*=-     -=*=-     -=*=-        --------------=-
