THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, December 4, 1995 TAG: 9512020481
SECTION: BUSINESS WEEKLY PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Doubleclick
SOURCE: Richard Grimes and Roger Grimes
LENGTH: Long : 101 lines
Doubleclick authors Richard and Roger Grimes of Virginia Beach happen to be twin brothers and computer authorities. Their discourse on life in the computer lane appears every other week in Hampton Roads Business Weekly.
Roger: Well, Richard, you've done it. You've elevated your slacker attitude to an art form.
Richard: I assume you're talking about my new job?
Roger: Yep. For those who don't know, Richard has become the new caretaker of an Internet World Wide Web site called Cool Site of the Day - a site visited daily by over 30,000 people. His job is to - get this - look all day for sites that appeal to him and then pick one that he thinks is especially cool.
Richard: Nearly 400 sites a day are considered. The job requires someone with a quick mouse finger, little self-respect and an incredibly short attention span.
Roger: In other words, you're a perfect choice.
Richard: You bet.
Roger: Richard's new job and the recent Thanksgiving holiday have really filled Richard and me with the Holiday spirit.
Richard: It's either that or rapidly fermenting cranberry sauce. In any case, we've put together a little computer Christmas wish list. Yeah, yeah, we know - everyone does a Christmas wish list. Ours is different, though.
Roger: Our list is geared toward the kids in your family who wear ties and power suits. Unlike the mile-long wish list your children are whipping up, everything on this list can be written off on taxes. Think of me as Santa with a CPA.
Richard: After Roger points out the good stuff, I'll make like Negative Man and tell you what products you should pass on, avoid and otherwise ignore. First, the good stuff:
Symantec's Norton Utilities, $59.99, is the best software solution for system protection, optimization and data recovery. If you've got a floppy disk with a corrupted file, or a trashed boot sector on your hard drive, this will repay in spades. No serious company geek should be without. Works with Windows 3.1 and they've just released an awesome Win95 version.
Iomega Zip Drive, $199.99, has been reviewed in this column before. You can store 100 meg on each $20 zip floppy. Not as fast as a hard drive, but you'll never carry 14 floppies in your briefcase again.
HP Scanjet 4C, $999.99, is the cream of the crop in mid-range color scanners. Scans images up to 8.5 inches by 14 inches as fast as 7.5 sec/page for both color and text. Has real 600dpi and 2400 dpi enhanced resolution. Works with both Macs and IBMs.
HP5 Si Laser Printer, $3,000, is the network workhorse printer. Prints up to 24 pages a minute, comes standard with 4 meg of RAM, has 3 standard input sources. Cheaper and faster than HP's last network printer. Hewlett Packard never minds bastardizing their own products to crush the competition.
Microsoft Natural Keyboard, $89.99 - just ask anyone who has used one. Type for hours and hours without feeling hand pain again. Even makes your mouse behave better.
Any Mouse Wrist Pad, low as $6.99. Ergonomic keyboards help mouse pads with a lump on the front help even more.
Any 28.8kbps modem, low as $129.99. Get rid of your 9600 bps and slower modems and cruise on the Net.
Rubbermaid Mouse Tray, $14.99. This clips on to pull-out keyboard trays. Never reach up out of your reclining chair again just to click a mouse. Slides out on the side. (Sadly, it can't be used in conjunction with a mouse wrist pad.)
Microsoft Press' MS-Windows 95 Resource Kit book, $39.96 - 1,350 pages of everything Bill Gates wants your company to know about how to install, configure, support, and love Windows 95. Comes with a CD-ROM.
Any 6x speed CD-ROM drive, as low as $179.99 - upgrade that old 2x and stop wasting time for images to load.
Roger: And now, here's a list of what you shouldn't buy for Christmas.
Richard: Warning! Do not put this computer coal in your CEO's stocking or you'll risk the possibility of becoming a new animated Christmas special - Rudolph the Red-Faced, Unemployed Reindeer.
8x speed CD-ROM drives. Sorry kids. These babies may sell for an impressive $500, but they don't move any faster than the $200 6x speed CD-ROM drives.
If you're shopping for Windows95 software, don't buy anything that says Windows95 compatible, but does not carry the Windows95 logo. Why? Some unscrupulous vendors are trying to capitalize on Win95 mania by mentioning Windows95 on the package, but not upgrading their software to take advantage of Windows95's best features - 32 bit processing, long file names, etc.
Nerf footballs. Okay, okay. They may not be computer related, but I broke my finger playing with one. Remember, in the wrong hands, Nerf can kill.
Roger: While Richard works through his Nerf-phobia, I'll point out a product we've already advised you not to buy. . . It's SoftRAM. A couple of weeks after we reviewed SoftRAM and panned it, a bunch of the big industry magazines started asking questions about the product. Their conclusion: It doesn't work. Naturally, our network of loyal readers had already tested the product for themselves and pronounced it a dud.
Richard: Our network of loyal readers? Do we need decoder rings?
Roger: If you have access to the World Wide Web, check out Richard's site. We're hoping his new job will be, uh, therapeutic. The address is http://cool.infi.net/ MEMO: The Nerf-a-phobic can be reached at rgrimes(AT)infi.net
Santa the bean counter can be reached at groger(AT)infi.net
by CNB