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 As the cattle industry developed in the 1800's,
we created the enduring image of the Western hero, taking on
the best of the worst, living the action, as epitomized by Gary
Cooper in "High Noon".
As the information era develops,
we are creating the legend of the computer hero, a brilliant
innovator, starting from nothing, working out of a garage, creating
computer products that are
changing society forever. And we always picture our computer
hero as scruffy, unattached, doing
all-nighters in California, living on junk food, and, invariably,
young.
But are they all like that? The
answer came loud and clear at our February DACS General
Meeting, and it was a huge, up-beat, in-your-face, "No way,
San Jose."
Tony Pereira worked 25 years at
IBM. Starting
from an Electrical Engineering background, he
was a systems analyst, then moved into marketing where he was
a major player in the OS/2
drama. When IBM was throwing away its high priced talent in the
early 90's, it made him the offer
too sweet to refuse.
The love of the action, however,
was too much in Tony's blood for him to do the golf and
community act. He set up a company in the basement of his home
in West Simsbury CT (the New
England winters rule out the garage). There he plunged back into
the pure technology of the
software art, C++, multi-threaded processes, multi-media file
structure, and 5000 pages of
Microsoft
documentation. Out of it all he created a user-oriented utility
program that competes
head-on with Windows Explorer, the heart of file management for
Microsoft's operating systems.
 Tony calls his product "DiskJockey
98". The name of his company is Clear&Simple
and consists of himself, his wife and his eldest son. Tony does
the system design and programming, as well as the marketing activities.
Can DiskJockey 98 compete
with the file management capabilities built into Windows and
provided at no additional cost? The answer to that came at the
end of our meeting, with a substantial part of the audience standing
in line to buy the product. The price was $25 user group special
for the standard version, or $50 for the Pro version which handles
additional graphics files, for which Tony has to pay royalties
in order to include their display engines.
DiskJockey 98 is a utility program
for dealing with file clutter and runs on Windows 95, 98, and
NT.
It has the look and feel of Microsoft's Windows Explorer, but
in addition to displaying the
names and details of the files, DiskJockey 98 has an additional
window that displays the contents.
Anyone who regularly uses clip art or graphics inserts has accumulated
a vast collection of .bmp,
.jpg, .gif and others in multiple, scattered directories all
over the place with cryptic names that are meaningless now. To
be able to scan this jumble to find the right graphic for the
occasion is well worth the price of admission. DJ also provides
copy, delete, and transfer features a tad better than Windows
Explorer. It includes a great Zip/Unzip capability and its JukeBox
feature provides scanning and locating capabilities for sound
files. Great features. But as we all know, nothing in software
always works as advertised. Some users have found that their
resources are strained and more memory is required.
DJ is a good product. The speed
at which it displays the graphics contents during scan mode is
amazing. There are none of the two-second delays that discombobulate
the attention span of the
user. The interface is carefully crafted to help the user. Tony
did it right. As our audience
response demonstrated, people who can use its unique capabilities
respond immediately. Can
Tony succeed out there?
The sun blazes down on Silicon Valley
from high above, hot and glaring. The stranger appears at
the far end of Main Street and slowly starts forward. There are
hired guns on every side, rifles
pointing from every rooftop, and the land baron looking down
from his vantage point.
We watch from behind our secure
doors and windows. We know we should--we could--be out
there. But the reasons we are not are too overwhelming. He is
doing what we can only fantasize
about. We watch the action on the street and in spite of the
odds, we not only hope for him, but
we also believe in him. He is so close to what might have been
for us. |
