Shareware Reviews
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

   <>  Color Presentation Magic
   <>  GeoPublish
   <>  Hocus Pocus
   <>  NeoBook Professional
   <>  NeoShow Pro
   <>  QuikGraf
   <>  wInformant

                                 -=*=-

                GEOPUBLISH: HOME-PUBLISHING POWERHOUSE

   GeoWorks' GEOS is a fast graphical user interface that gives 
unprecedented GUI power to old 808x computers. While it never really made 
a dent in Microsoft Windows, as many hoped it would, it has achieved a 
high profile as the adopted interface of the Zoomer PDA, a personal 
digital assistant marketed by Tandy and Casio. The PC suite of GeoWorks 
programs, GeoWorks Ensemble 2.0, is still being sold and offers a viable 
alternative to Windows.

   GeoWorks Ensemble deserves more attention than it's getting, and 
GeoWorks recognizes that. In fact, it's decided to move the GeoWrite (word 
processor) portion of the Ensemble package into shareware as GeoPublish. 
This program can do just about everything you need for desktop-publishing 
(dtp) projects. It's a first-class act! An added bonus is its efficient 
design: GEOS moves as fast on 640K 286 systems as Windows does on 4MB 386 
systems.


Graphical Interface Goodies

   The GEOS interface closely resembles Windows. If you like mousable 
icons, buttons, dialog boxes, scalable windows and pull-down menus, you'll 
love GeoPublish. If you'd like a DOS shell that offers tree views of 
directories (XTree-style) or icon views of files (Macintosh-style), you'll 
love GeoPublish even more. Because along with the word processor, you get 
GeoManager, a graphical file manager for copying, moving, renaming and 
deleting files. With its graphical approach, GeoManager is probably the 
best place for beginners to go to get a handle on simple DOS operations.

   Both Windows and GEOS multitask, letting you work on more than one 
document or program at a time. Another neat interface feature is GEOS's 
pinnable menu. Just about every menu can be "torn off" and "pinned" to the 
desktop. Imagine not having to pull down menus and root through submenus 
when you're "auditioning" fonts or performing other tedious formatting 
chores.

   GEOS asks much less of your system than does Windows. All you need to 
run GeoPublish is 640K of RAM, DOS 3.0 or higher, a hard disk (occupies 
5MB of space), a mouse, and a graphics card -- Hercules, CGA, EGA or VGA! 
(16-color Tandy Graphics are not supported, but the two-color CGA mode 
works fine on Tandy 1000 systems.) A mouse and a 286 or better processor 
are recommended.


Word-Processing Power

   All the text-editing features you expect are there in GeoPublish. You 
can apply formatting and search/replace text, all with the help of the 
mouse. Everything is WYSIWYG, of course, meaning you see all elements 
onscreen exactly as they will print. Clicking is encouraged!

   You can click on the Window menu to cycle among all your open 
documents. You can click on toolbar elements to set tabs, paragraph 
spacing (single, double or triple), text attributes (bold, italic, bold-
italic), alignment (flush left, right, centered and justified) and fonts. 
Speaking of fonts, you get nine, including clones for Times Roman, 
Helvetica and Cooper Black. The fonts are scalable from 4 to 792 points in 
size. You may also click to select drawing tools for lines, boxes, circles 
and Bezier curves. Or click to rotate text and graphic elements -- this is 
a powerful feature not many dtp programs offer.

   Up to 32 columns are allowed per page, so GeoPublish is a good choice 
for producing newsletters. Its text-wrap features let you drop a graphic 
into an article without having the words overrunning the picture.

   A lot of effort goes into formatting newsletters and other complex 
documents, but GeoPublish does much of the work for you. It comes with 
eight document templates already formatted with font, margin, attribute 
and spacing settings. All you have to do is double-click to replace the 
template's boilerplate text with your own words. The headlines will be 
large and the subheads will be bold without your having to do anything 
special. Templates are included for awards, business letters, envelopes, 
fax cover sheets, two-column newsletters and more. Thanks to the GEOS 
engine, all printouts will take best advantage of your printer. Even nine-
pin dot-matrix printers will turn out impressive, laser-like results.


What's Missing?

   GeoPublish is a power-packed program that beats Windows Write to 
Redmond and back. But in its shareware incarnation it lacks a few vital 
features that would put it head-to-head with programs like Microsoft Word 
and WordPerfect. Namely, a spelling checker and a thesaurus. Other 
important no-shows are import/export filters -- which means you won't be 
able to import canned clip art or export your magnum opus for spell 
checking elsewhere. All limitations are cast aside when you register, 
however.

The Benefits of Registering

   GeoPublish is useful as is, but you'll want to register, and you 
should. The $79.95 registration fee is small compared to what you'll get. 
Not only will you receive a spelling checker, thesaurus and import/export 
filters, but also the complete GeoWorks Ensemble 2.0 package! That's 
GeoCalc (a spreadsheet), GeoFile ( flat-file database), GeoDraw 
(paint/draw program), GeoComm (a communications program), GeoBanner (a 
banner printer), games (Solitaire and Tetris) and more. 

   I'd call that a pretty "suite" deal!

            | Software Shopper Ordering Information: |
            |   GeoPublish  HD0041  2 Disk  $10.00   |

                                 -=*=-

                HOCUS POCUS: ARCADE MAGIC FROM APOGEE

   Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble; give me  an Apogee arcade game -- on 
the double!

   Hey, it works!

   Life is good when you have a new Apogee game to play, and you have one 
in Hocus Pocus. If you're fond of "platform"-type, run-jump-and-shoot 
arcade games in the vein of Commander Keen and Monster Bash, you'll like 
Hocus Pocus. It's a smooth-scrolling VGA arcade game in which you shoot 
bad guys, leap up and down among platforms, grab health restoratives, seek 
out talismans, and look for "crystals" that advance you to higher levels.

   In the game you take the part of young Hocus, a wizard-in-training 
who's been singled out by the Council of Wizards for a dangerous mission. 
(If only you hadn't been doodling in the margins of your spellbook, they 
might have picked on someone else!) And so you venture through strange 
realms, encountering dragons, demons, imps and other creatures. You defend 
yourself by throwing "spells" (which are like bullets in other Apogee 
games), and occasionally you stumble upon magic potions to temporarily 
heighten your powers and give you new abilities (to teleport and fire 
spells more rapidly).

   Hocus Pocus has welcome humorous touches. A senior wizard who pops in 
occasionally to deliver hints or comments will say things like, "Haven't 
you found that secret treasure room yet?" and "It took me 67 years to grow 
this beard."

   The animation is amusing too. The marching mushrooms are a kick, and 
Hocus makes a point of "braking" at the end of his jumps. The VGA graphics 
are of Apogee's usual excellence -- as are the sound effects and music. 
Hocus Pocus offers a variety of "theme music" that plays while you play. 
Of course you'll need a sound card to hear it. All popular sound cards are 
supported.

   This shareware episode is the first of a four-parter. If you want the 
other three episodes of Hocus Pocus, you must register for $24.95. 
Considering many Nintendo games cost twice as much but aren't half as 
good, that's a bargain!

            | Software Shopper Ordering Information: |
            |   Hocus Pocus  HD0043  1 Disk  $8.00   |

                                 -=*=-

               NEOBOOK PROFESSIONAL GETS PUMPED IN V2.0

   A few short months ago I basked in the power and ease of use of NeoBook 
Professional 1.0, a DOS multimedia authoring program that lets its users 
create disk-based books, magazines and more. Picky person that I am, I 
composed a wish list of features I hoped to see in Version 2.0. Well, 
Version 2.0 is here, and so are those nifty features! (Now, that's 
service. Thanks, NeoSoft!) NeoBook was awesome before, but now it's 
untouchable.

   What's new? Animation! Besides letting you embed sounds and still 
images in your multimedia application, NeoBook Professional 2.0 allows you 
to call Autodesk Animator .FLI/.FLC files. There's nothing like a little 
motion to bring an article to life! NeoBook Pro 2.0 also now supports 24-
bit color (images with 16 million colors).

   One of my favorite new features is more of a fix: Version 1.0 had a 
little glitch where letters would wander away from their words; Version 
2.0 doesn't have this problem. Whether you feed it ASCII text files with 
or without line breaks, NeoBook Pro keeps words together and looking 
sharp.

   Like NeoBook Pro 1.0, Version 2.0 lets you create stand-alone 
applications (.EXE files) you can distribute hither and yon. But unlike 
1.0, Version 2.0 supports the keyboard! Your readers no longer have to 
have a mouse to read your application -- they can navigate using the tab, 
arrow and PAGE UP/DOWN keys.

   NeoBook Pro 2.0's list of requirements remains minimal: any processor 
(including PC/XT), 640K, DOS 3.1+, a hard drive, a mouse and one of these 
graphics cards: Hercules, EGA, VGA or SVGA. The only video card not 
supported is CGA. Registration for NeoBook Pro 2.0 is $89.95, though you 
can register for $45 to get "plain" NeoBook (no sound or animation 
support).

   On a scale of 1 to 10, NeoBook Pro v2.0 rates a 10.

        |      Software Shopper Ordering Information:      |
        | NeoBook Professional v2.0  HD0048  1 Disk  $8.00 |

                                 -=*=-

                WINFORMANT: 7 UTILITIES IN FOR WINDOWS

   If you polled a group of Windows users for the utility they would most 
like to see, you'd probably get this unanimous answer: "An uninstaller!" 
It's true, Windows programs rarely pick up after themselves. When the time 
comes to delete a Windows program from your hard drive, you often must 
play detective in tracking down the bits, parts and pieces it leaves 
behind.

   To the rescue comes Neocom's wInformant, a suite of seven utilities 
that run from a "toolbar." And one of the seven happens to be called 
Uninstall. Yes, the Uninstall utility does a good job of seeking out and 
getting rid of program files, help files, .INI files, groups, 
subdirectories, OLE objects and system .INI entries.

   If you asked me for the Windows utility I would most like to see, I'd 
probably say, "A good file finder." wInformant has one in its Search 
program. This utility finds files fast and allows you to execute them with 
a simple mouse click. (If you're a person who, like me, "loses" files, you 
need this!)

   The rest of the utilities include: Swapfile (tests Windows' swapfiles); 
DLL/VBX (a programmer's utility for finding redundant FLL/VBX files); 
Prof.Edit (efficient way to edit .INI files); Restart (a one-click 
Windows' restart button); and Eject (a fast exit button). Registration is 
a reasonable $39.


              | Software Shopper Ordering Information: |
              |  wInformant   HD0045   1 Disk   $8.00  |

                                 -=*=-

                PRESENTATION GRAPHICS: ON WITH THE SHOW

                       COLOR PRESENTATION MAGIC
                              NEOSHOW PRO
                               QUIKGRAF

   Presentation software is a class of programs to help businesspeople and 
educators -- and anyone else who must stand and talk in front of a group 
of people -- instruct, persuade or inform. With presentation programs you 
can prepare "slides" to show on your computer screen: pictures, outlines 
and charts that will help drive your point home. You can even set up self-
running presentations that progress from slide to slide automatically.

   Commercial presentation programs like Harvard Graphics can do it all, 
everything from giving you outline editors for "text slides" to putting 
together self-running presentations to translating spreadsheet data into 
graphs. There is no "do-it-all" presentation program in the shareware 
market. But the good news is that you can use several specialized 
shareware programs to create just about any presentation you need!

   QuikGraf is a Windows-based shareware program that turns x,y-type data 
into a graph or chart (which you can save as an image file). NeoShow Pro 
lets you link images together in an onscreen slide-show display. Color 
Presentation Manager lets you create slides for printout -- no onscreen 
displays or graphic export supported. Let's take a closer look at each of 
these shareware solutions.


QuikGraf

   If it seems like the buckets of figures you must deliver to your 
audience will be too much for them to digest, consider not delivering them 
at all. Use charts and graphs to tell the tale in easy visual bites.

   Peninsula Software's QuikGraf 1.0 for Windows quickly transforms data 
into charts and graphs. It's great if you're starting from scratch -- 
there's a table grid into which you type your numbers (up to 16 rows and 
99 columns). It's not so great if you have data already prepared in a 
spreadsheet program; no data import is offered, so you'll have to retype 
it in QuikGraf. After entering the data comes the fun part -- deciding 
which of the 11 exciting chart styles to use! QuikGraf has bar, line, pie, 
polar surface and hi-lo-close charts (some of them in 3-D flavors as well 
as 2-D). It's like putting a tuxedo on boring figures!

   The graphical options don't stop there. You can choose colors and 
assign labels. Charts can be saved in .BMP and .WMF file formats for 
import into other programs.


NeoShow Pro

   Imagine a salesman who can rattle off your product's features, night 
and day. That's NeoShow Pro -- a DOS program that lets you create computer 
"slide show" presentations of .PCX and .GIF images in resolutions as high 
as 1024 by 768 (256-color).

   The images can come from paint programs, image libraries, clip art, or 
your own scanner. NeoShow Pro links the images with exciting transition 
effects like you see on the news. You can have one image fade into the 
next, explode into the next, dissolve, implode or weave. You can easily 
"program" your presentation to wait for a keypress before proceeding, or 
the presentation can be totally automatic. NeoShow Pro's graphical 
interface allows you to easily choose image files, effects, time intervals 
(how long each "slide" is to stay onscreen), and even lets you attach 
sound files (in Sound Blaster .VOC format) to slides.

   Unlike Harvard Graphics and Freelance, NeoShow Pro offers no facilities 
for creating graphs or bulleted lists -- but you can create these kinds of 
"slides" in paint programs more easily than you think.

   A compiler is included to turn a presentation into a single executable 
(.EXE) program that can run on any computer -- license-free -- without 
NeoShow Pro itself. This is a helpful feature for professionals who must 
take their shows on the road. It costs $89.95 to register NeoShow Pro. A 
less expensive version of the program, NeoShow ($35 to register), is 
available for those who don't need compiling.

   NeoShow/Pro requires 640K of RAM, DOS 3.1+, a hard disk and EGA, VGA or 
SVGA graphics; it works even on XT-compatible computers.


Color Presentation Magic!

   If your goal is to generate full-page transparencies to slap on an 
overhead projector, try Color Presentation Magic!. It lets you put 
together "slides" with either graphs or bulleted text lists. The program 
is optimized for use with color thermal transfer printers, but as a 
Windows program it of course works with any Windows-supported printer. 
Besides printing full-page transparencies, Color Presentation Magic! can 
also print four "slides" per page -- perfect for audience handouts.

   Bulleted lists are tools that keep the main points of a presentation in 
view: outlines to help audiences stay on track while the speaker adds 
layers of verbal detail. There are usually at least three items in the 
list but no more than five. Color Presentation Magic! lets you adjust 
fonts and typesizes for a perfect fit. You can also create colorful graphs 
using Color Presentation Magic!. Four basic chart styles are offered: bar, 
line, pie and double pie, with 2-D and 3-D variations. Whether you're 
creating slides with text or graphs, you can choose colorful backgrounds 
from a gallery of styles.

   The authors of Color Presentation Magic! designed the program to offer 
features that presentation designers use most -- to be streamlined and 
easy to use. It is both.

            |    Software Shopper Ordering Information:    |
            | Color Pres. Magic   HD0040   2 Disk   $12.00 |
            | NeoShow Pro         NV9301     329K    $6.00 |
            | QuikGraf            HD0018   1 Disk    $8.00 |

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