---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Florida SunFlash Third Party Product Announcements SunFLASH Vol 45 #27 September 1992 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- INTERNET Guide - A Book Review SoftNet Utilities: Novell to Sun Integration Arts & Letters Maestro FirstScan II From Aurora Technologies -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Brian Erwin Subject: INTERNET Guide - A Book Review Org: O'Reilly & Associates, Public Relations, Address: 103A Morris Street, Sebastopol CA 95472 Phone: 707-829-0515 (1-800-998-9938) Fax: 707-829-0104 Emai: nuts@ora.com or uunet!ora!nuts. The Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog By Ed Krol O'Reilly and Associates o 400 pages (approx); Will probably include a quickref o $24.95; quantity discounts available o ISBN 1-56592-025-2 o Available September 13, 1992 (available overseas in late October) o Order from ORA directly (1-800-998-9938) or your local bookstore "The Whole Internet" is a complete and comprehensive introduction to the Internet for new users. In the Nutshell tradition, it contains "all you need to know" about the Internet to get started and to make use of it. The author, Ed Krol, has been around the Internet for years, and is well-known as the author of RFC 1118, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Internet." However, this book is more than an update of the "Hitchhiker's Guide": it's a complete new work, aimed at readers who are new to the Net; users who have been poking around the Net, but haven't really figured out how to use it well; and even users who have been around for a while, but want to read up on some of the newer services that are available. We started this project when we were asked to write a book that would answer most of the questions that a new Internet user brings to a network administrator. The challenge was very frank: "If you've succeeded, I can stick a note on my door telling users to buy this book before bugging me with questions--and then only deal with real problems." We think we've succeeded. If you're an administrator, you can recommend this book, and watch your workload decline. If you're a new user, you can read this book and avoid dealing with your grumpy admin. Another of our goals was evangelistic: to generate interest among people who are only vaguely familiar with the Internet. We did this by showing what the Network offers--most specifically, in the form of a Resource Catalog that lists a broad range of the resources that are out there, ranging from the Bryn Mawr Classical Reviews to Project Hermes (law) to Not Just Cows (agriculture) and the University of Stuttgart's wonderful online cookbook. We chose to make this list as broad and eclectic as possible. It's not a list of free software sources, for example; it's a list that anyone from a high-school teacher to a theologian can pick up, glance at, and say "yes, that's interesting; this Internet thing might be worthwhile." Of course, this book offers everything that you'd expect in a book about the Internet--a little history, how the net works, addressing, and general background on what you're allowed to do. We cover the standard Internet services--telnet, ftp, mail, news, white-pages, including "minor" applications like talk and chat. We give advice on what to do and what not to do: how electronic mail differs from postal mail or a phone message, how to avoid poorly thought-out news postings that can start seemingly endless flame wars. But basic knowledge of the tools and etiquetter is only half the problem. To a new user--or even to an old user--the Internet is fairly confusing and disorganized. Finding what you want can be like searching for a needle in a haystack. Not long ago, the only way to find out about Internet resources was to keep you ear to the ground, attend conferences, and talk to gurus. Our Resource Catalog only partly solves this problem: we've had to be selective, and new resources are added daily. Four new Internet applications--Archie, the Gopher, WAIS, and the World-Wide Web (WWW)--provide the real solution. These four tools are like "reference librarians" that let you find, with relatively little trouble, exactly what you want: Archie points you at files in FTP archives. It's particularly useful for finding free software; Gopher is a general tool for accessing any Internet resource, via subject-oriented menus; WAIS is an extremely powerful tool for searching large libraries and collections, based on keywords; WWW organizes all of the Internet's resources in terms of a "hypertext" model. You can move between resources by following "links." To a new user, these are the tools that make the Internet worthwhile. This is the only book we know of that covers all of these tools. At $24.95, this book is a bargain! CONTENTS: 1: What Is This Book About? 2: What is the Internet? 3: How the Internet Works 4: What's Allowed on the Internet 5: Remote Login: Telnet 6: Moving a File: FTP 7: Electronic Mail 8: Network News 9: Finding Software: Archie 10: Finding Someone 11: Finding Anything: Gopher 12: Searching Libraries: WAIS 13: The World as Hypertext: WWW 14: Other Applications 15: Dealing with Problems Resources of the Internet A: Service Providers B: International Network Connectivity C: Acceptable Use INDEX The Resource Catalog portion of the book will be available through the Internet. We haven't decided on actually how (anonymous FTP, WAIS resource, hypertext?), so stay tuned for details. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- This and other O'Reilly books are available through bookstores or directly from the publisher. For a list of our overseas distributors or US bookstores mail, FAX, or call 707-829-0515. US and Canada: To order from the publisher, write to O'Reilly & Associates, 103A Morris St, Sebastopol, CA 95472, call 1-800-998-9938, or FAX 707-829-0104. Email questions to nuts@ora.com or uunet!ora!nuts. Karen Lewis O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: SoftNet Utilities: Novell to Sun Integration From: toms@qualix.com (Tom Stuart) Voice: 1-800-245-UNIX email: info@qualix.com fax: 415-572-1300 SoftNet Utilities for PC to Sun integration SoftNet Utilities is a software product which lets a Sun system interconnect with a PC network by acting as a Novell-compatible server. Novell networked PC's can be seamlessly integrated into a Unix environment. The PC side (environment and commands) is identical to the familiar Novell environment, and the Unix side needs no kernel reconfiguration. SoftNet capabilities o NetWare 2.2 and 3.11 server emulation o PC Clients have direct access to Unix file system and print resources o Unix users can access NetWare print resources o Terminal emuation (Sun console type terminal) to access Unix host (using IPX protocol -- no need for TCP/IP) o PC clients use familiar Novell Netware commands - no special Novell administrative procedures, no special drivers. o No change to the Unix kernel to run SoftNet Utilities - SoftNet Utilities run as a process under Unix. Configuration requirements There must be a standard Novell server somewhere on the network. SoftNet Utilities is intended as a seamless gateway between Unix and Novell networks. It is not intended to replace Novell servers. Host Requirement: Sun SPARC based systems SunOS 4.1, 4.1.1, 4.1.2 2 MB hard disk space for SoftNet Utilities applications Open Windows 2.0 or later NOTE: PC/NFS is NOT required! VAP's and NLM's are not supported Pricing: 16 user $1,295 32 User $1,995 64 User $2,995 100 User $5,495 How to order: Qualix Group accepts MasterCard, VISA or a valid corporate purchase order. Call, email or fax to place an order or get more information. Guarantee: We offer a 30-day money-back guarantee, so if you're not fully satisfied, we'll refund your money. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Arts & Letters Maestro From: brian@cs.com (Brian Dean) Org: Computer Support Corporation Address: 15926 Midway Road Dallas, TX 75244 Tel: (214) 661-8960 Fax: (214) 661-5429 Contact: Brian Dean (UNIX Product Marketing Manager) Dear Sun User: Attached you will find product information on Arts & Letters Maestro, the newest addition to Computer Support Corporation's business graphics software products for Sun SPARC workstations. Arts & Letters Maestro fills a long-standing need in the UNIX marketplace for a full-featured audio/visual presentation system. Maestro presentations will not only communicate your message clearly and concisely, but will also convey a cohesive and coordinated graphics look to your viewers. One that represents your organization in the best possible manner. Maestro has the following features and capabilities: * Over 15,000 Clip-art Images * 80 Scalable Typefaces * Numerous 3D Charts and Graph types * Drawing/Annotation Functions * SlideShow/Outline Organization * On-Screen Light Table * Over 200 Pre-defined Presentation Design Formats * Synchronized Sound for SlideShow * Infrared Remote Control System * Multi-Screen Presentation Capabilities * Produce 35mm slides or print to any PostScript Output Device. We're confident that you'll find that Arts & Letters Maestro offers the most complete presentation graphics solution available today for the UNIX marketplace. If you would like to arrange for us to send you a Sample Slide Show Demo disk or CD-based Maestro evaluation, please feel free to contact me at (214) 661-8960 or Email: brian@cs.com. Regards, Brian S. Dean UNIX Product Marketing Manager Arts & Letters Maestro Arts & Letters Maestro is a complete professional presentation graphics system that takes you out from behind your desk and puts you on center stage. The Maestro Presentation System consists of four components: Composer, Chart, Draw and SlideShow. Each of these products can be used as a stand-alone program capable of exchanging graphics with the other Arts & Letters products, or exporting graphics to other UNIX, DOS, or Macintosh graphics applications. Maestro Composer is an image composition system consisting of a collection of over 5,000 award-winning clip-art images and 80 scalable typefaces. Composer images and typefaces can be sized, stretched, slanted, rotated and duplicated without affecting their quality, and the final composed images can be exported for use in the Maestro presentation system as well as for use in desktop publishing applications. Maestro Chart offers an incredible array of 3D charts including: bar, stacked bar, line-over-bar, scatter, trend line, pie, area and more. A special 3D Aquarium allows you to rotate charts on three axes to establish the perspective desired. Add drop shadows, apply zoom effects or explode pies for dramatic effect. Read data from an ASCII file or enter data directly. Maestro Draw is a graphic annotation tool that is called up by the SlideShow program to modify a slide. With Draw you can incorporate graphs from Maestro Chart or clip-art from Maestro Composer or an image from one of your existing PC or Macintosh applications into your SlideShow. Draw lines, rectangles, arrows, polygons, circles, and ellipses and sketch free-form to annotate any slide. Maestro SlideShow is the vehicle that puts everything together in a complete multimedia system. The on-screen light table displays 16 slides at a time and can handle 96 slides for each presentation. Individual slides can be synchronized with audio tracks via the Open Windows Sound Tool. Maestro shows can be displayed on any compatible device, including monitors, LCD overhead panels, and RGB projections systems. Output presentations to any PostScript output device or create 35mm slides. Print speaker notes and audience handouts. SlideShow also includes an Outliner which allows you to quickly organize and produce text slides with a consistent graphic look. The Outliner uses predefined templates or master slides to control the typestyle, point size, drop shadows, placement of text and background treatment. Enter your text and Outliner automatically creates a slide. Outliner includes dozens of premade backgrounds and master slides or you can create your own. A spell checker provides you with the added assurance that your presentation will be perfect. On-Command Infrared Remote Control System (Option): For many presentations you need the freedom to walk about, to gesture and point, to interact with your audience, not with a keyboard. On-Command remote control system is available for those occasions. It consists of a hand-held transmitter and a receiver unit that plugs into the serial port of your Sun workstation. The infrared signal has a range of over 40 feet and provides complete remote control of your Maestro presentation. The Maestro Conference Manager (Option) is ideal for large conference gatherings and briefings, allowing the presenter to make coordinated presentations on multiple output displays. Using the Conference Manager, you can compose and edit a separate presentation for up to 10 different displays. The command console shows the current and next images for up to 10 different displays and lets you control each display independently or all of them at the same time. Warranty Arts & Letters Maestro has free 30-day technical support and warrants the product against material defects for 90 days. CSC also protects Maestro customers from product upgrades that occur within 90 days from the date of purchase. Maintenance contracts are available on a yearly basis covering maintenance updates and technical support. Pricing Maestro Single User License: $995 Maestro Network Server License: $995 Maestro Network 5-Pack Add-on: $3,975 Maestro Network 10-Pack Add-on: $6,950 On-Command Infrared Remote: $295 Conference Mgr Command Console Software: $1,495 Conference Mgr Receiver Software (1 station): $995 Configuration Arts & Letters Maestro is available in OPEN LOOK versions for Open Windows (2.0 or greater). Maestro runs on Sun Sparc systems or Sparc compatibles. Requires Sun OS 4.1.1 or later, approximately 60 Mb of disk storage, 16Mb RAM (24Mb or 32Mb recommended), and swap space twice that of memory. Monochrome and Color systems supported. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: FirstScan II From Aurora Technologies From: paradise@auratek.com Contact: David Paradise (National VAR Manager) Phone: 617-290-4800 Fax: 617-290-4844 Adress: 176 Second Ave. Waltham MA 02154 Aurora Technologies has just introduced a new scanning software solution for Sun SPARCstation users. Model description, Firstscan II, essentially the product is a software offering that allows users to connect an HP IIp or IIc scanner to a workstation. The software in its current state supports image capture routines only. Aurora's next iteration of the product will support OCR. Release of the OCR version of the product is slated for release in early October. See attached data sheet for specific information regarding Firstscan II. If more information is required please call or email me at your convenience. Regards, David Paradise ******************************************************************************* FirstScan II Product p. 1/3 D a t a S h e e t FirstScan(TM) II, the new generation image-capture software, enables SPARC(R) system users to add high-quality color and grayscale images to documents, slides, presentations and other materials. Scanned images, up to legal size (8.5" x 14"), can be saved in TIFF, PostScript(R), and Sun raster formats. These image files can then be imported into a variety of software products for image editing, image processing, OCR, and inclusion in documents. FirstScan II is the latest addition to our line of imaging products. New FirstScan II Features: * Compatible with New Scanners - full support for the Hewlett-Packard ScanJet(TM) IIc color scanner and the low-cost ScanJet IIp grayscale scanner. * True Color Images - FirstScan II offers True Color image capture. This provides a palette of more than 16 million possible colors for the highest-quality output. * Fast Color - To speed up scanning, minimize file size, and allow viewing of color images on less expensive 8-bit color monitors, FirstScan II can save color images in Dithered Color files. * Works with the User Interface You Do - FirstScan II works with Motif, X-Windows and OpenWindows. FirstScan II allows you to control the scanning process in three ways: o Through an easy-to-use OpenWindows(TM), X-Windows, or Motif "point-and-click" graphical interface. o Full control is also available via a command-line interface, allowing inexpensive ASCII terminals to scan pages as well as set up shell scripts for unattended or batch operation. FirstScan II Application Scanning Control and Operational Features o `Pre-scan' function - for quickly viewing and making adjustments to scanned images prior to final scan. o Match scanning resolution to your output device - selectable standard (75, 150, 300, 400 dots-per-inch) as well as custom vertical and horizontal options (up to 1600 dpi) are provided for the highest-quality output. o Capture only the image area you want - interactive rubber-banding rectangle for selection of scan area. o Control the image appearance - adjustable image contrast (soften/sharpen) and intensity (darken/lighten), and color control (for IIc). o Unattended operation - now you can automatically scan in many images using batch-mode control of the scanning process and the fully supported Automatic Document Feeder. o Full scanning control using terminals - using the command-line interface, all the control FirstScan II offers under OpenWindows is available from standard, low-cost ASCII terminals. o Save scanned images in popular file formats - TIFF, PostScript(R) or Sun raster file formats are supported. ******************************************************************************* FirstScan II Product p. 2/3 o Choose the proper tone - selectable resolution sensitivity, from coarse dither to 8-bit grayscale (256 grays) to 24-bit Color. o Scale scanned images to the size you need - images can be scaled from 1% to 200% in 1% increments. o Image file size "readout" - you always know exactly how much disk space is required to save an image file. o Help when you need it - built-in on-line help facility to quickly answer your questions. The FirstScan II product includes a one-year limited warranty and comes complete with: * FirstScan II Application - provides the operator with the tools needed to achieve the best results with the HP ScanJet scanner. The application includes an easy-to-install SCSI driver. * Complete Documentation - the User's Manual includes a step-by-step introduction to the scanning process, and helpful scanning hints. Full software installation instructions are also included. * `Plug-and-Play' - a 6' SCSI cable, and a converter to interface with different SCSI connections, is included. System Requirements o SPARC system running SunOS(TM) 4.1, or later, OpenWindows 2.0, or later, X-Windows, or Motif. All FirstScan II software is distributed on a single 3.5" floppy disk. o Hewlett-Packard ScanJet IIc or ScanJet IIp scanner. ScanJet (b/w) and ScanJet Plus (grayscale) scanners are supported by Aurora's FirstScan product. o Optional - Automatic Document Feeder for unattended, bulk image capture. ******************************************************************************* FirstScan II Product p. 3/3 Overview of Aurora's Product Lines ---------------------------------- SBus Asynchronous Multiplexers - Intelligent serial and parallel cards for the SBus Multiport Model 10S(TM), 20S+(TM), 210S(TM), 400S(TM), 800S(TM), 400SX(TM), 800SX(TM), 1600S(TM) Synchronous Communication - Multiport Model 400S+(TM) and 800S+(TM) support synchronous/asynchronous protocols SNA/3270, SNA3770/RJE, X.25, SunNet Manager/NetView, PPP/Internet Router SBox(TM) Expansion Chassis - Four SBus slots, international power supply and space for SCSI storage devices SCSI Drive Products - FD350 (3.5") and FD525 (5.25") SCSI floppy disk drives FirstScan(TM) Product - Low-cost image scanning solution for SPARC systems, an OpenWindows application for full control of Hewlett- Packard ScanJet and ScanJet II grayscale and color scanners Network Products - SBus Token Ring Card - connect to PCs and other systems using TCP/IP and other protocols ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Multiport Model 10S, 20S+, 210S, 400S, 800S, 400S+, 800S+, 400SX, 800SX, 1600S, FirstScan and SBox are trademarks of Aurora Technologies, Inc. SPARC is a registered trademark of SPARC international. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are proprietary to their respective owners. Copyright (c) 1992 Aurora Technologies, Inc. Specifications subject to change without notice. 304-134-1-B 7/15/92 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ For information send mail to info-sunflash@sunvice.East.Sun.COM. Subscription requests should be sent to sunflash-request@sunvice.East.Sun.COM. Archives are on solar.nova.edu, paris.cs.miami.edu, uunet.uu.net, src.doc.ic.ac.uk and ftp.adelaide.edu.au All prices, availability, and other statements relating to Sun or third party products are valid in the U.S. only. Please contact your local Sales Representative for details of pricing and product availability in your region. Descriptions of, or references to products or publications within SunFlash does not imply an endorsement of that product or publication by Sun Microsystems. John McLaughlin, SunFlash editor, flash@sunvice.East.Sun.COM. (305) 776-7770. TRACE: To: sunflash@suntri Errors-to: owner-sunflash@suntri.east.sun.com