dacs.doc electric

Microsoft Plus! 98

A grab bag of goodies for the easily bored

by Richard Corzo

AS THERE WAS for Windows 95, there is a Plus! pack for Windows 98. It's a grab bag of games, utilities, and enhancements for Windows 98. Windows 98 itself includes nearly all the features of the original Microsoft Plus! for Windows 95, including the original set of desktop themes. If you get bored with the original themes, Windows 98 includes two or three new ones, but Plus! 98 adds eighteen more desktop themes, many in high color (that is, using a 65,536-color palette). The subjects range from Architecture to World Traveler and include comics-based themes such as Doonesbury, Garfield, and Peanuts. Unlike the previous themes, those that come with Plus! 98 include a customized icon for the new My Documents system folder on the Windows 98 desktop. You can also request that the theme be changed automatically each month (or more often if you change the schedule setting in the Task Scheduler). Name that tune Apart from the new themes, the feature that initially most interested me was the Deluxe CD Player. The CD player program that comes with Windows 95 and Windows 98 allows you to enter manually the artist's name, album title, and track titles. However, the Deluxe CD Player saves you from such drudgery by connecting to the Internet and downloading the information when a new audio CD is inserted into your CD-ROM drive. The program can download the information from one of two sources: Music Boulevard or Tunes.com. It's fun to play Stump the Internet, although so far I've found only one of my CDs that completely stumped both sources. If this happens, you can enter the information manually and then upload it for someone else's benefit. These features can also be found in shareware programs such as CDValet, but the Deluxe CD Player also has menu links to the Internet for more information on the artist or on the musical genre(s) under which the currently playing CD is classified. You have a choice of a full-size program window that looks like a car stereo component, a much more compact version, or just an icon in the system tray that you can right-click to get all the menu choices. Games a'plenty The games consist of Microsoft Golf 1998 Lite, Lose Your Marbles, and Spider Solitaire. The golf game is a pretty realistic simulation of golf. You can choose weather and ground conditions, and an unseen partner will give you commentary on your game, including help on your next stroke. The Lite version has only nine holes, but it should give you an idea of whether you might like to get the full-fledged Microsoft Golf 1998. Lose Your Marbles will appeal to the younger set. It's a fast-paced game, slightly reminiscent of Tetris, in which you have five columns of marbles that you try to eliminate faster than they accumulate. To eliminate marbles you have to line up at least three marbles of the same color in a row. The most addicting game for me is the Spider Solitaire. It's nearly impossible to win a game. You start out with two packs of cards in ten columns with the top card of each pile face up. You can move a card, or set of cards of the same suit, on top of a card one higher in value. To eliminate cards you must accumulate all the cards of one suit from King to Ace in one column. Good luck! Photo edit Another "lite" version of a full-fledged program is Picture It! Express, which lets you do simple editing of photographs that you or someone has scanned into the computer. Utilities In the utilities category is a version of McAfee VirusScan that is good for six months of upgrades and updates. For further updates you will need to purchase a license from Network Associates or go out and buy another antivirus program. I didn't try this program myself since I already have another, but it is known to be a worthy antivirus program. The File Cleaner is an enhancement to the Disk Cleanup utility in Windows 98 that will look for some additional files to clean up. The Start Menu Cleaner performs the rather small function of removing broken shortcuts in your Start menu. I wasn't sure what the Compressed Folders utility was all about. Usually I stay away from anything involving compression--DriveSpace, for example. But it turns out the compressed folders here are just ZIP files. You probably already have a bunch on your hard drive, and this is just a convenient way to open up a zip file in a temporary folder window without extracting the contents ahead of time. You can also create a "compressed folder," (or zip file) by selecting Compressed Folder from the New menu after right-clicking inside the folder where you want to create a new zip file. Then just drag files into the compressed folder. According to some newsgroup postings I've seen, this utility is not a full substitute for WinZip if you already have that program, but it meets my simple needs. To use Plus! 98 you need to have Windows 98 installed on at least a Pentium 90 machine with 16MB of RAM and 100 to 150 MB of hard drive space. Plus! 98 can be had for $30-40, cheaper than Plus! for Windows 95. At the lower price I think Plus! 98 has been worthwhile for me and has added to my enjoyment of Windows 98.

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RICHARD CORZO is a computer programmer currently working for Packard BioScience Company in Meriden, CT. He has been working with 32-bit PC operating systems for the past six years. You can contact Richard at rcorzo@ibm.net.