A host of new computer technologies and products

A host of new computer technologies and products

By Zatni Arbi

JAKARTA (JP): First of all, here's a quick fix for a virus
attack that I've just learned about and would like to share with
you if you don't know it already. If your DOS or Windows 3.x hard
disk has been attacked by a virus that cripples the system,
chances are its master boot record has been damaged. The typical
symptom is that your PC always hangs just before the familiar
"Starting MS DOS" gets the chance to appear on the screen. If you
have this problem, just boot the PC from a clean DOS bootable
diskette that contains the FDISK.EXE file. Once you get the A:
prompt, type in FDISK/MBR -- without any space in between -- and
hit ENTER. This will replace the master boot record on your hard
disk, and hopefully (just hopefully), you'll be able to boot from
the hard disk again.

Therefore, remember that you must always keep a clean,
bootable DOS diskette handy. Among the DOS files that you must
have on it are EDIT.COM, EDIT.HLP, QBASIC.EXE, FORMAT.COM,
FDISK.COM, XCOPY.COM and SYS.COM.

Remember, even though you can once again work from your hard
disk, it is not necessarily sterilized yet. You still must run
the latest version of any decent antivirus program to totally get
rid of the virus. Otherwise, you'd be sitting right in front of a
live time bomb.

Wireless networks

Each time we talked about wireless networks in the past, we
would think of the infrared or radio frequency technology as the
transmission means. Two weeks ago, I wrote about IBM's Tom
Zimmerman and the technology that transmits data using our body.
He calls it a Personal Area Network, or PAN. But have you heard
of a Customer Premises Area Network, or CPAN?

During the last Comdex, another new set of transmitters and
receivers was introduced that would enable you to send data,
video and audio back and forth using the electrical wires in your
house. It's a LAN without the familiar tangles of cables.

The company -- Elcom Technologies Corp. of Malvern, PA --
offers applications that allow you to do this. Their ezCOMM, for
example, allows you to hook up a number of PCs to one printer
without any cable. The company's ezONLINE makes it possible for
multiple PCs to share one 33.6 modem, fax and pay-per-view
services. You can now put a PC in each room and get them all
connected without the annoying cable ducts.

Should you worry about surges and spikes, the company also
provides the ezGUARD surge protector, which will not deteriorate
after each surge. Gee!

External kits

The price of external storage devices has been more or less
stable, despite the fact that hard disks have become so much
cheaper over the last year. Today, for instance, you can get a
good quality IBM 1.7 GB hard disk for about Rp 500,000. On the
other hand, the price of a Jazz drive in many U.S. mail order
catalogs remains around US$469.00. What's your alternative if you
want an external storage device, say, for backing up your
multimedia data?

ValueStor, a company based in San Jose, California, sells
several types of low-priced, do-it-yourself kits that allow you
to build your own external CD-ROM drive or hard disks. Their IDE
to Parallel CD-ROM Transformer costs only $89.00, and it will
give you a Plug and Play connection via the parallel or EPP port
of your PC. It can take any 2x, 4x, 6x or 8x ATAPI CD-ROM drive.
All you have to do is add your own CD-ROM drive.

The IDE to Parallel Hard Drive Transformer and SCSI to
Parallel Hard Drive Transformer can transform regular IDE or SCSI
hard disks into external storage devices. Each of them costs
$99.00, and you can buy the hard disks separately from any
vendor.

Finally, if you'd like to have your IDE hard disk or CD-ROM
drive outside the box instead of inside it, so that you can take
it away with you or keep it in a secured place when you need to,
you can buy the Portable IDE Transformer Kit. With a price tag of
$129.00, this kit will convert your internal IDE channel into an
external interface. No software driver is necessary, and the
transfer rate is claimed to be higher than the parallel version.

So, if you'd like to build your own external storage device,
you can E-mail them at ValuStorcw@aol.com for more information.
Or, you can wait until I get the chance to test drive the Iomega
Jazz in a couple of weeks.

Input device

Quite a long time ago, I wrote about the idea of using our
feet to control a computer input device. Today, we already have
voice input capability, such as the one offered by IBM's
VoiceType. Yet it seems that more and more input channels are
required from the user, especially in fast action games.
Therefore, the idea of getting the feet involved doesn't seem to
be too strange.

Even the number of keys in a standard keyboard today has grown
to 104, with the inclusion of the Microsoft Windows 95 special
keys (at least two new keys have been added, one for simulating
the clicking of the start button, and the other for simulating
the right mouse button clicking). With all these developments,
it's not surprising that your feet now do take part in the
interaction with the machine.

One such device for this is NoHands Mouse from Hunter
Digitals. Priced at $199.00, this foot-controlled computer mouse
consists of two interchangeable pedals. You step on one to
navigate and control the cursor movement. You step on the other
to click. Now, who says that pedals are for piano players only?

As you also may have noticed, the next big thing in keyboard
and mouse technologies is perhaps their wireless connection. It's
by no means a new idea. We have had a cordless mouse from
Logitech for years, and KeyTronics has offered a cordless
keyboard for quite some time, too. At Comdex, I saw more and more
keyboards with no curling cables coming out from their back. With
the IrDA becoming commonplace, it's not too far off to expect
that your next keyboard will have a wireless connection with your
PC.

Also, more and more keyboards are coming with built-in
scanners, too. Pioneered by Compaq, it seems to have become the
fashion that keyboards have to come with the virtual typist. One
of the latest models I saw was the Scanning Keyboard from NMB
Technologies, Inc. of Chatsworth, California. Oddly, like almost
all the other keyboard and scanner combinations, it also uses
Visioneer's PaperPort scanner.

Now, as far as notebooks are concerned, I guess the era of the
TrackPoint pointing stick is over. More and more notebooks are
now coming with touch pads. Like all the other models before, you
need to practice a lot before you get comfortable using this
pointing device. For over a week now, I've been playing around
with a notebook that has one, and I'm beginning to like it. If
you want to add it to your notebook or desktop PC, Alps has a
nice model for you. You can see it in the accompanying picture.
I'm sure it will soon become available in Glodok, downtown
Jakarta, too.

Capturing images

Digital cameras are becoming hot, too. Last week, I talked
about the Zaurus, which has a digital camera connected to it via
the PC Card. Minolta has joined the crowd with its Dimage V
digital camera.

Dimage V has a unique design. Its lens can be rotated or
detached from the body of the camera. You can hold it up to 3.3
feet away for a better viewing angle. It has a 2.7x zoom range
and a built-in flash. Like Casio QV10, it also has a 1.8" LCD
viewer/monitor screen. It stores 40 frames in the removable
SmartMedia.

Epson has also revamped its PhotoPC line of digital cameras,
the new one being the PhotoPC 500. There are plenty of other
digital camera manufacturers, too. So, folks, the next camera you
buy may not require Kodak or Fuji film anymore.