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Written by Jane Wakefield, Contributor

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    Story: Win 98 date bug

    Dear Sir,

    I bought a piece of software called Painter's Library, in 1996. I had it installed in my computer that had Win. 95. This fall, I bought a new computer that had Windows 98 installed in it. I can't get my software to run in it. I contacted my distributor of the Software, and he said: "Microsoft and Win98 did it to many users and their application software. It introduced needless flags in "some" computers but not all. Sounds like Painter's Library is one of them." He called it the Win98 "Error Flag" issue. My question is: Is there a "fix" I can download to correct this situation?

    Doris Dolin

    Reply:

    Microsoft kindly took the time to respond to this note:

    "From the information that we have, we cannot pinpoint your problem. Unfortunately the error flag that you mention is not something that the Windows 98 support team have come across before so we cannot offer a "fix" for the problem.

    If you would like help from Microsoft on this issue, you can call Technical Support on 0870 5010100 and we can talk through the problems.

    Story: AOL claims top spot

    Dear Sir,

    Just thought I'd pass this on:

    While discussing with a work colleague in the Home Highway department of BT about the fact that AOL don't support ISDN, I said "Well, apparently they have 15 million subscribers world wide."

    He said, "Yeah, but 14 million of those are on the free trial."

    Richard Tems

    Reply:

    We put this to AOL. A spokeswoman giggled and then slammed the phone down.

    Story: "IT's Like This..."

    Dear Sir,

    With regard Manek Dubash's rant about Apple: with a machine spec. including 100MB ethernet as standard, coupled with innards that will put the lowly PC to shame, why oh why, does he feel it necessary to whinge about a modem's speed? Is the modem the focus of a professional buyer's needs, particularly if they're going to be connected to a high speed line at the office as these machines are intended to be?

    Much worse to do this in the face of the advances introduced by the new G3s. One need only look at the number of USB peripherals styled on the iMac to see that Apple has done much more to push the standard than Win98. And now they're doing the same with Firewire -- another great technology that has failed to take off despite Windows support. And none of it is proprietary. Firewire, USB, standard PCI slots, they've even licensed openGL over their own technologies.

    And the colourful case? Well, I think it's ugly too but I can only dream of having that kind of accessibility in a PC case.

    There's too much that's good here to dismiss it with such a casual piece. It's not a PC and it's not supposed to be. PC Magazine should open its eyes and see that there's more to the world than Wintel.

    OpenUser

    Reply

    C'mon Nr OpenUser the point here is that Apple is coupling the undeniable potency of a G3 with the retarded technology under the hood of a 33,600 modem. Doesn't that strike you as a wee bit odd?

    USB peripherals styled on the iMac -- are you kidding? These peripherals are styled on the iMac because they're hip at the moment, not because Apple is suddenly the champion of all things innovative. Translucent bubbles around floppy drives may be slick but shouldn't be confused with innovation.

    As for Firewire, no arguments there, though it will be interesting too see whether Apple ends up flying that flag on its own -- PC vendors tend to think it is too expensive, for now.

    As you quite rightly point out, the G3 is a wonderful example of how to build a beautifully engineered piece of kit that looks stunning and opens its bits up with just a touch. Sounds wonderful to me, why are we arguing?

    Story: New OS/2 Client

    Dear Sir

    Great article... though Stardock is in Michigan, NOT Missouri

    Dan Casey

    Reply

    Our apologies to Stardock.

    Editorial standards