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May 10

WarpVision GUI 20030511

"The goal of the WarpVision project is to create an OS/2 multimedia player that supports the latest formats, as well as the latest hardware features."

PLEASE! Remove VIDEO2.INI first!

Changelog:
11.05.2003
Removed indefinite waits in semaphores (this can helps with system freezes)
Added SVQ3 video codec (mov files such as T3 trailer)
Added VP3 video codec. Still buggy. (mov files)
Fixed some mpeg1 streams with broken startup sequence (cause fast video play to the end)
Some other fixes and bugs :-)

Download: http://www.laemmlin.net/mirror/wvgui/wvgui20030511.zip

Web site: http://os2.kiev.ua/en/wv.php

May 10

Tim's Warped Bargains: Wireless Routers

Dear Bargain Hunters:

Wireless networking is very inexpensive now, and there have been some excellent articles on the subject in the VOICE newsletter http://www.os2voice.org

Wireless routers are handy when you want to share a high-speed home or small office Internet connection, such as a DSL or cable modem.(*) They vary a bit in features, though.

I've found a pair of "super wireless routers" that have more features than most, and they're both available for under $50 each. Both have two fairly uncommon but terribly useful features: a printer port and a serial port. The serial port is used to connect an optional external modem for dial-up to a backup Internet provider. Both have a built-in LPD-style print server, and both are administered using any web browser. So they work great with eComStation and OS/2 Warp.

Here are the two links:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?sku=S199-1012%20P
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?sku=U13-4054

I bought the USR model only because I like the flat top (for stacking my DSL modem), but the Speedstream model is a slightly better deal because there's no rebate to worry about.

They aren't the cheapest wireless routers. (CompUSA has one for $29.99 plus shipping as I write this.) However, I think the extra $10 or so is well worth the extra features.

You may see wireless routers advertised with higher speeds (22 Mbps, 54 Mbps, etc.) In my opinion, that's not a major advantage, considering that a DSL or cable modem runs much slower than 11 Mbps. Granted, you always get less than rated speed, but 11 Mbps produces entirely adequate results for me at least.

Don't want to use wireless networking? No problem. Both these routers have three ethernet ports, so you can use them as ordinary ethernet routers. Regardless, do make sure you follow recommendations for securing your wireless router. There's a pretty good FAQ here:

http://www.iss.net/wireless/WLAN_FAQ.php

I have no affiliation with any of these companies. Offer ends on the USR router May 31, 2003, and possibly sooner for both.

(*) Check your DSL or cable modem provider for terms and conditions. Some, such as AOL Broadband and Comcast (formerly AT&T) Cable, use address locking and other techniques to prevent sharing of Internet connections, even for personal home use. Last I checked, Comcast charged a fee for changing their MAC address in their routers, and AOL Broadband required special AOL-specific routers. You can investigate the policies of your high speed Internet provider at this web site:

They aren't the cheapest wireless routers. (CompUSA has one for $29.99 plus shipping as I write this.) However, I think the extra $10 or so is well worth the extra features.

http://www.broadbandreports.com
- - - - -
Timothy F. Sipples

May 10

SHISEN-SHO and Mahjongg 1.15

SHISEN-SHO and MAH JONGG solitaire Version 1.15 available from my home page

http://dvalot.free.fr

May 10

Free Bitstream fonts

Lifted from the Mandrake Linux newsletter. The fonts work fine on OS/2. The Sans is a nice clean font, somewhere between Warpsans and Verdana.

You can unpack the .tar.gz using tar -xzvf , assuming you have recent versions of tar and gzip on your path. See hobbes.

======================================================================

Bitstream's 'Vera' fonts now available for download. Bitstream and GNOME have teamed up to make the high quality 'Vera' font family freely available to Linux users. These TrueType fonts make a nice addition to the anti-aliased fonts already included in Mandrake 9.1.
Screenshot:
http://atari.saturn5.com/~jwb/vera.png
Download:
http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/sources/ttf-bitstream-vera/1.10/

======================================================================

[Moderator's note: I couldn't find tar.exe or gzip.exe on Hobbes, just some front ends for them. What I found, and what worked on unzipping this font package was UNTGZOS2.EXE from http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/os2/util/archiver/untgz095.zip

Once unzipped I opened the "Fonts" Folder in the eCS 1.1 "System Setup" folder and dragged the .ttf files on to it. The Bitstream fonts were then available in the font palette. In Warp4 I believe this can be done in the Font Palette by editing a font and selecting "Add".
{Editor's Note:
http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/cgi-bin/h-browse?sh=1&dir=//pub/os2/util/archiver/gtar258.zip
http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/cgi-bin/h-browse?sh=1&dir=//pub/os2/util/archiver/gzip/124.zip}

May 09

Warpstock 2003 General Announcement

The Warpstock Board of Directors is very pleased to announce that Warpstock 2003, the seventh edition of the annual Warpstock event, will be held near San Francisco, California, October 18th and 19th, 2003 at the Doubletree Hotel, San Francisco Airport.

The Doubletree Hotel features 389 richly appointed guest rooms, including 10 luxurious suites. New Concierge Rooms feature Herman Miller office chairs and a printer/fax/scanner/copier combination unit. We have arranged a special show room rate of $85 per night Single/Double that will be available for up to 3 days before and 3 days after Warpstock (based on availability). We will have more information about the San Francisco area on the web site at http://www.warpstock.org soon.

The final contract and arrangements are still pending. When that is finalized we will follow with specific room reservation instructions.

Registration amounts have been set and are as follows:
Registration: $119
Early Registration: $99
At the Door: $140
One Day: $90
Vendor: $400

And introducing a new way to contribute to the ongoing wonder that is Warpstock: Supporting Memberships for $48. Supporting Memberships are common with Science Fiction conventions and are essentially a way for members to help support the costs of putting on the convention even if that person will not be able to attend. Supporting Members will be entitled to the same registration package as all other attendees. If it later appears the Supporting Member can in fact attend, the membership can be upgraded from "supporting" to "attending" for the difference in cost.

Further details on the event, including presentations and events will follow soon. If you are interested in giving a presentation at Warpstock 2003, please contact our speaker coordinator, Robert Kuropkat robert-kuropkat@attbi.com with a synopsis of your presentation and any requirements. If you have suggestions for presentations, send them as well and we will try to find someone knowledgeable on the subject who is interested.

Warpstock, Inc., is a North Carolina corporation. The Warpstock annual conference is a gathering of OS/2 users, developers, and vendors from around the world for the purpose of education and advocacy. More information is available at the Warpstock web site :

http://www.warpstock.org

May 09

MPEG-4 player

IBM Alphaworks has released MPEG-4 player and content creator development kit. It is Java, so works on OS/2. I've tried it with Java 1.3.1 and it plays MPEG4 video (samples included) just fine on a PII-300MHz machine.

The included .BAT file to start the player works basically without mods (if you're default is Java 1.3.1) as a .CMD file in OS/2.

Url: http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/aw.nsf/download/tk4mpeg4

May 09

OS/2 World Awards!

"What everybody has been waiting for has now been launched; the nomination process for the 3rd OS2 World.Com Award.

This years categories are following:
- Best Unix Port of the Year
- Best Commercial Software of the Year
- Best Java Application of the Year
- Best Site of the Year
- Best Supporting Company of the Year
- Best Individual Software of the Year
- Honor Award for Individuals

The nomination form can be found at following url:

http://www.os2world.com/award/nominate.php

The nomination process will be open until Sunday the 25 of May.

The OS2 World.Com Award Event, was founded to advance the developent and use of eCS and OS2; foster cooperation among creative developers and users; recognize outstanding achievements; cooperate on technical research and improvement of methods and equipment; provide a common forum and meeting ground. "

BigWarpGuy

PS Nominate your favorite programs!!!

May 08

Tim's Warped Bargains: HP Color LaserJet 2500L

Dear Bargain Hunters:

The HP Color LaserJet 2500L printer is now priced at $719.23 at Office Depot. Here's the link:

http://www.officedepot.com/ddSKU.do?level=SK&id=670456

But there's a 10% off coupon code you can use: 20216343.

You can try sending in this rebate form:

http://www.shopping.hp.com/shopping/pdf/colorit_claim_smb.pdf

although it's not clear whether the 2500L qualifies. If you start shopping by clicking to Office Depot from this web site:

http://www.fatcash.com

after 2.2% rebate and coupon (but without HP's rebate). Free delivery.

Cost per page is about 2.2 cents for black and white and 11.4 cents for color with this printer. The printer features 600 dpi and 64 MB RAM. There's great driver support with eComStation and OS/2 Warp.

I have no affililation with any of these companies. Offer expires June 30, 2003, or perhaps earlier if stock runs out.
- - - - -
Timothy F. Sipples

May 08

PCI soundcards for eComStation and OS/2 Warp

The new PCI soundcards for eComStation and OS/2 Warp web site is now online. The site offers lists of sound cards and chips which are compatible with eComStation and OS/2, including information regarding the chip sets which the card is based on, hardware quality, available drivers, driver features and quality, driver sources, and available tools like mixers. So if you are considering to buy a new PCI sound card or a new motherboard with on-board sound, or you are wondering whether your existing sound card is supported by OS/2 or not, this is the place to go.

Visit us at: http://www.os2world.com/soundcards/

Without your reports we won't be able to keep the site up-to-date. So you should also pay us a visit, if your sound card is working well. Please check whether your soundcard is listed and if the information given is correct.

Christian Hennecke

May 07

Beta release 3 of Labela

As the final release 1.0 of Labela has been delayed I have released the third beta release of Labela.

Only change worth mentioning : Expiration of the beta version has been changed from 01-Apr-2003 to 01-Jul-2003, where the final release hopefully will be ready.

You can download it form : http://www.os2world.com/labella.

--------

For those who don't know, Labela is a label and business card designer, closely related to my C-Side CD-label designer !

Kim Foder

May 06

New WarpVision GUI 20030506

"The goal of the WarpVision project is to create an OS/2 multimedia player that supports the latest formats, as well as the latest hardware features."
Changelog:
06.05.2003
Fixed working on "old" systems
Fixed 3175 on some mpegs
Fixed wrong audio speed on some mp3 streams
Some other fixes and bugs :-)

http://www.laemmlin.net/mirror/wvgui/wvgui20030506.zip

Program URL: http://os2.kiev.ua/

May 06

eCS 1.1 in the news

OSNews has a mini review of eCS 1.1 online.

The reviewer doesn't like the installer improvements though I, personally found the installation procedure to be quite improved over version 1.0.

I've had my eCS 1.1 GA now for a few days. I have experimented with installing it on a few different machines and it was in essence, simply a matter of making your adjustments taking a twenty minute break and coming back to a fully functional desktop.

The reviewer goes beyond the installer however, and for speed & performance it's rates a 9/10, (I'd like to see what fetches a 10/10... certainly not anything MS makes 8) ). If such an article is of interest to you the OS/2 community, you can read it in it's entirety at;

http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=3476

Enjoy,

Ben Dragon

May 05

DFSee version 5.19 released

Many improvements and bug-fixes, the 'about' command or will now display OS-version too, including OS/2 kernel revision.

DFSee is the SWISS-ARMY-KNIFE for disk and filesystem problems. With FDISK-like displays, analysis and recovery, FIX commands, UNDELETE for HPFS/NTFS, imaging and cloning. More details at:

http://www.dfsee.com/dfsee.htm

Direct download links:
http://www.dfsee.com/dfsee/dfsee519.zip
http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/os2/util/disk/dfsee519.zip
http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/incoming/dfsee519.zip

Most important functional changes since 5.17:
- CREATE Added -A option to "create as" another partition
- PTE Fixed display of almost empty entries (just a type)
- RESIZE Added explicit warning about resizing bootable NTFS
- ALLOC Fixed reported minimum size for FAT (missed some EOF)
- OS/2 Fixed trap in "check" command for some systems (I hope)
- DELETE Fixed invalid MBR on delete of last logical using 0x0F
- DFSUNFD New example RECOVER2.DFS and new samples in DFSUNFD.TXT
- PART Support nn,r relative PID syntax to select partitions
- DELETE Support for -d:D and -p:P,r relative PID (for scripts)
- PART Added DELL utility partition-type; updated W2K LDM
- PART/MAP Fix Linux device-name when logicals in wrong order
- MBRcode Added another GRUB MBR variant to be recognized
- Errors Added store-description to many reported errors
- ABOUT Added OS-version info, inluding OS/2 kernel revision
- Startup Warning if DFSWIN used on Win9x/WinME virtual DosBox
- Startup Warning for DFSDOS on Windows or OS2 virtual DosBox
- Startup Warning if DFSDOS used on DOS with a memory manager
- DFSTART Added presence-check for all required DFSee files
- DFSTART Added write-permission check for current directory
- DFSUNFD Added write-permission check for current directory
- display Changed cylinder text 'C:' to 'Cyl' for readability
- Alt-F12 Switch output buffer color: NORMAL - BRIGHT - INVERT
- HELP -? Added for the commands SET, SETANSI and TRACE
- EXE New '-C:2' switch on .EXE sets bright FG colors only
- SET 'SCREEN BRIGHT' will set bright FG color only

Check DFS*.TXT files for details, all changes listed in DFSHIST.TXT

Registering DFSee will give you the right to use all 5.xx versions and get support plus a reasonable amount of assistance by email. Existing 4.xx registrations can be upgraded to 5.xx as well.

But even more important, it enables further development of DFSee!

Regards, Jan van Wijk

May 05

WarpVision CLI updated 20030504
wvision-cli 0.0.14r ( Sun May 4 15:39:38 2003 UTC )
- latest ffmpeg
- latest liba52
- some unused variables and warnings removed
- dvd cache change (smoother playing)
- performance measurement procedure (wvision.cpp/CALC_PERFORMANCE)

Download: http://www.laemmlin.net/mirror/wvcli/wvcli20030504.zip

Web site: http://os2.kiev.ua/en/wv.php

May 04

Learn C++ for eCS discussion forum is up

Ok, all those wanting to discuss the Learn C++ for eCS class can now go to:

http://forums.os2voice.org/VOICE/CPlusPlus/

[Moderator's note: This class has been discussed on the eComStation Yahoo mailing list as a way for eCS and OS/2 users to learn the C++ programming language to help in developing applications for our platform of choice. Please see the online forum for more information.]

I've provided some basic intro info.

Walter Metcalf, VOICE President, is still working with me on the forum setup I'd like, so there might be some changes still. So if you set a bookmark, it might need to be changed, I don't know for sure.

May 04

OS/2-eCS potential article subject list

Ok, I have setup http://groups.yahoo.com/group/articles-eCS-OS2 as a place where people can submit article ideas or go to look for ideas to write articles.

I have currently left membership open but will change it to restricted in a week or so to try to lessen spam. I suggest setting your subscription to daily digest rather than individual emails unless you are actively looking for an article idea. If there is not much involvement I will cancel the group in around a month or 2 so as not to have to deal with the group owner responsibilities for an unused group as I would think that should be sufficient time to determine if it has any virtue.

These articles ideas could be for OS/2Ezine or Voice, whomever picks up the idea and submits an article to whomever they desire.

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