What's new in the fast-developing PC world?<\/p>\n
By Zatni Arbi<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): It seems that soon we may no longer be able to
\nmeasure time based on the conventional systems, such as hours,
\ndays, weeks, months and years. Because of the speed at which
\ninformation technology advances, we may have to measure time in
\nterms of \"Internet-years\" in the not so distant future.<\/p>\n
Just think about it. Less than three years ago, Indonesian
\nstudents studying at University of Hawaii, Manoa, read Kompas two
\nweeks later than those studying in Jakarta. It usually took the
\nnewspaper about that much time to reach the newspaper hanger in
\nthe university's Hamilton Library. Today, thanks to the Internet
\nand Kompas On-line, they can read the same news we read here in
\nJakarta, even a couple of hours earlier than we do.<\/p>\n
Indeed, that's the kind of life in the information industry.
\nFast-paced and highly competitive, and I'm just one of those who
\nhave gotten caught in the middle of it all. Each time I stay away
\ntoo long from the \"Computer City\" in Glodok, West Jakarta, I am
\nbewildered by all the new products that suddenly become available
\nwhen I resume my regular visits.<\/p>\n
And here are a few of the new products that I think you might
\nbe interested in knowing about.<\/p>\n
CD-Changer<\/p>\n
Several weeks ago, I came across a CD-ROM drive that could
\nhold four CDs at the same time. The price was Rp 375,000 (it's
\nnow down to about Rp 350,000). I was excited, so I bought it
\nright away. I had been wanting to replace my very old Sony CDU
\n33A with a changer so that I would no longer have to keep
\nswapping CD-ROMs each time I wanted to do something else. With a
\nchanger, for instance, I could insert my favorite American
\nHeritage Dictionary CD-ROM, Worldbook Encyclopedia (which came in
\ntwo CDs) and leave them there. Then I would still have a free
\nslot for an audio CD.<\/p>\n
The six-speed drive I came across was made in the Philippines
\nby NEC. It was an OEM product, so you'd have to make some effort
\nto find the name NEC on its label. Although we can feed four CDs
\ninto it, there's only one lid that opens and shuts as we push any
\nof the four buttons. When a slot is filled, the green light next
\nto the button will be on. There's no CD tray, so we have to be a
\nlittle bit careful when inserting and pulling out the disks. If
\neverything works, Win95 will assign four different drive letters
\nto this CD-changer. In other words, you'll have drives D:, E:,
\nF:, and G: as CD-ROM drives.<\/p>\n
Incidentally, this is exactly the CD-ROM changer you'll get if
\nyou buy the new Compaq Presario 3060, the one that comes with the
\nLCD monitor. If you want to have more CDs available on your PC at
\nthe same time, you can buy a CD-changer from TEAC. With the
\nability to hold six CDs at the same time, it costs about Rp
\n450,000 in Glodok.<\/p>\n
Be forewarned, though. If you buy one of these CD-changers, be
\nsure to get the necessary software driver for your Windows 95.
\nWhile many PCs can immediately recognize all the extra drives on
\nthe hardware level, some -- including my own PC -- require a
\ndriver in order to enable Win95 to recognize all the additional
\ndrives. In my case, I had to wait until a friend in Orion Plaza
\ngave me a universal IDE CD-Changer driver in a file named
\nCDCHANGER.EXE before I was able to make use of all four drives.<\/p>\n
One drawback in using a CD-changer is that opening Windows
\nExplorer will now take some time as the operating system will
\nread each of the drives first. Also, don't expect you can play
\naudio CD and look up the CD-ROM-based thesaurus at the same time,
\nbecause the drive will be shuffling disks like crazy and it will
\njust slow your work. If you plan to use the CD-ROM dictionary, it
\nwill make more sense to just turn off the music.<\/p>\n
A3 in Color<\/p>\n
Finally, it's arrived. Almost two years after I had asked the
\nHP people for an A3-size DeskJet printer, they launched their new
\nDeskJet 1000Cxi Professional Series. This printer prints
\nbeautiful colors on paper twice as wide as the letter size (up to
\n13 inches by 19 inches). This allows us to print four-page
\nleaflets, brochures and handouts without having to staple the
\npages.<\/p>\n
A notable feature is the ZoomSmart capability. It allows us to
\nenlarge or shrink the size of a bitmap image without really
\nsacrificing the quality. In addition, The Billboard feature makes
\nit easy for us to create large posters. Both black text and color
\ngraphics print at 600 by 600 DPI. The printer can print both
\nsides, and it also comes with a CD-ROM containing communication
\ntools for business professionals.<\/p>\n
Print speed is not bad. Black text can be printed at the speed
\nof 6 pages per minute, while color graphics can be printed at 3.5
\npages per minute. Well, of course, for the highest quality
\nprintout you will need more time. By the way, it can also print a
\nmirror image, so that you can use it to print graphics on a
\nspecial type of material and iron it on to your T-Shirt.<\/p>\n
Five Gigas<\/p>\n
I remember the first time I had a 2-GB hard disk. It was made
\nby Micropolis, the maker of very high-end hard disk. The price
\nwas a staggering Rp 2 million. Today, a 5-GB hard disk from the
\nsame maker costs only US$400.<\/p>\n
The Mustang 4550A from Micropolis has a 16.6 bit per second
\ntransfer rate and 10.5 seek time. Fast hard disk spins at higher
\nspeed, and this one spins at 5200 rpm. If you prefer the SCSI
\nversion, the new Stinger 5400 rpm from the same maker offers up
\nto 4.3 GB of storage space.<\/p>\n
If you work with audio and video materials, you will need one
\nof these hard disks. For everyday business activities, however,
\nthese hard disks are a bit too pricey. In general, the price of
\nthe hard disks have gone further down. In Glodok, a Fujitsu hard
\ndisk with 2.5 GB capacity can be had for less than Rp 500,000
\nnowadays.<\/p>\n
DesignJet<\/p>\n
Do you want to print a large banner for your corporate
\nfunction? Or do you want to create your own wallpaper? Then you
\nwill need what HP calls 'large format printer.'<\/p>\n
Two new printers in this category from HP are DesignJet 2500CP
\nand 2000CP. While they can be used as perfect replacement for CAD
\nand CAM plotters, they can also be used to produce large photo-
\nquality posters. You can buy one of these printers, provide
\nprinting services and enjoy a good business. Still, you don't
\nreally have to be a service provider to need a large format
\nprinter such as these ones. My friend Rene from Kompas, for
\ninstance, uses a DeskJet for printing presentation materials for
\nhis lectures.<\/p>\n
Interesting features of DeskJet 2500CP and 2000CP include
\nsupport for Asian languages in Taiwan, Korea and Japan. A 2 GB
\nhard disk, an Ethernet connection, some extra memory and Adobe
\nPostscript Level 2 RIP are also included.<\/p>\n
All-in-one<\/p>\n
The Compaq Presario notebook was one of the first notebooks
\nthat claimed to have everything integrated. What they meant was
\nthat the notebook, unlike its predecessors, had both the CD-ROM
\nand the floppy diskette drives built-in. Older notebooks usually
\nallow you to have one or the other built-in. If you happen to
\nneed both, one of them should be connected to the notebook as an
\nexternal peripheral. This would mean additional weight and
\nclutter in your briefcase.<\/p>\n
IBM has launched its response to the new trend. In fact, the
\nnew ThinkPad 380D has already won an award from Windows Magazine.
\nIts floppy diskette drive is placed right on top of the CD-ROM
\ndrive. It's a very nice machine, with the traditional ThinkPad
\nblack, velvet-like casing and good performance. The design
\nfollows my favorite ThinkPad 560, complete with sufficient palm
\nrest for those of us who are used to touch typing. Other features
\nare as good as you would expect from a ThinkPad. The only
\ndrawback I found in ThinkPad 380 is that it is significantly
\nthicker than other notebooks.<\/p>\n
ThinkPad 380 also reflects how being an inventor could hamper
\nfurther advances. The new ThinkPad 380 still uses the TrackPoint,
\nthe pointing device patented by IBM. Today, most users including
\nmyself have found the touch pad more convenient to use. But,
\nsince IBM was the inventor of the TrackPoint, it seems hard for
\nthem to abandon it and adopt the increasingly popular touch pad.<\/p>\n
One possible solution is actually to provide both the
\nTrackPoint and the touch pad on the notebook, just like in Micron
\nTransport. Incidentally, a friend called me after reading my
\nrecent review of Transport and reminded me that we could choose
\nwhether to use its pointing stick or the touch pad by going into
\nits BIOS setup. Perhaps future ThinkPads could learn one thing
\nfrom Transport.<\/p>",
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