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.