dacs.doc electric

'TIS INDEED a vicious cycle. Disk makers give us more storage capacity, and software makers fill it up, then disk makers give us even more storage capacity, so software makers …. And we, the users, pig out—save everything, download everything, add everything.

There comes a day of atonement, however, which starts when we finally admit to ourselves that we have created Mega Monster, with Giga Monster lurking in the wings. At some point we even admit that we cannot delete anything because we don't remember what all that stuff is, rationalizing that even though we don't remember what it is, someday we might need it. And always, in our minds, is Microsoft's dire threat: "Don't fool around with the Registry." Since we haven't the foggiest about the Registry, we figure we better not fool around with anything. The day of atonement culminates when we finally cry out to the world that we need HELP.

Ta Da !!!

Help came riding into our August General Meeting in the person of Gary Ulaner, Group Product Manager of Quarterdeck Corp., bringing what he proudly called "Help Ware.": CleanSweep zaps those unneeded files and tidies up that chaotic file structure, Partition-It straightens up that mess of a disk, and Select-It lets you run multiple operating systems.

Gary did not claim to be Zorro (even though there is a faint resemblance), but he left the audience feeling that help really is out there.

Quarterdeck is a Silicon Valley software company that has been around for sixteen years specializing in software utilities. It is also known locally as the company that acquired Inset Systems for its main product, Hi-Jaak, and whisked it out to California. Inset, of course, was located in Brookfield and frequently active with DACS. Many DACS members were Hi-Jaak beta testers and served on Inset focus groups. Quarterdeck subsequently divested itself of Hi-Jaak and now concentrates on software to help users cope.

Gary was among the best of the product presenters we've had at DACS meetings. He had a utilitarian product rather than a glamour package to sell, so he had to be good. His presentation was relaxed and friendly, but also polished and professional. He mixed useful tutorial tidbits about file structures and operating systems with his product features. He ran a one-man show, but his well-polished product demonstrations ran flawlessly and he never had to stop talking. We all gained useful general information as well as insight into just what the products could do for us. His presentation lasted just one hour, and he held the attention of the audience to the very end. Questions popped up throughout, and he handled them cleanly and thoroughly..

CleanSweep

The first half of Gary's presentation covered CleanSweep. He demonstrated how it provides an install/uninstall capability much more extensive and effective than the one provided by the operating system, particularly with respect to the .DLLs.

CleanSweep maintains an application knowledge base of the user's system. A built-in Wizard monitors downloaded shareware, provides application updates from the Quarterdeck Web page, and manages the backup and archiving chores as well.

Other CleanSweep features include cleanup of cache, Internet cookies, and other disposable system files. It also provides a Registry Genie for sorting out those Registry problems that so befuddle us mere mortals.

CleanSweep goes where no one dares to go. And it does good things for us without jeopardizing any of our treasures.

Partition-It

The second half of Gary's presentation covered Partition-It, which restructures your hard drive to better utilize storage space. It replaces the FDISK function that comes with the operating system and manages partitions and cluster size to provide greater storage efficiency. Gary accompanied the product description with very useful mini-tutorials about the principles of disk organization, cluster sizes, and partitions.

With Partition-It, Quarterdeck bundles Select-It, a tool for running multiple operating systems on the same PC. It allows you to switch between Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows NT, MS-DOS, UNIX, and others.

Quarterdeck, in a class act, donated ten copies of the demonstrated products to our end-of-meeting raffle and provided special user-group order sheets for CleanSweep and Partition-It, offering them for $20 each as well as good prices for other Quarterdeck products. The offer expires September 4, 1998, which limits the opportunity to members who attended the meeting and those they told about it.