Lotus articles from February 1987

Lotus archives from February 1987

(at) Lotus (column)
February 1, 1987... @LOTUS LOTUS SHIPS METRO TO REPLACE SPOTLIGHT Lotus Development Corp. has announced and shipped Lotus Metro, a memory-resident desktop manager that combines 12 accessories and a macro manager. Metro features include a macro...

Most laser-printer features aren't used: software is not keeping pace with new capabilities. (Ideas And Trends) (column)
February 1, 1987... MOST LASER-PRINTER FEATURES AREN'T USED The problem is a familiar one: Software is not keeping pace with the advanced features built into the newest laser printers. Primarily due to the lack of simple and effective software, most laser...

Sending data via satellite: keeping branch offices up to date. (Ideas And Trends) (column)
February 1, 1987... SENDING DATA VIA SATELLITE If the breakup of the Bell System and the resulting proliferation of long-distance carriers hasn't confused you enough, the additional options for sending computer data from one place to another will surely cause...

Paper forms go electronic: computer-generated forms save money and time. (Ideas And Trends) (column)
February 1, 1987... PAPER FORMS GO ELECTRONIC The ubiquitous paper business form is becoming electronic, although the process will take considerable time. That's the conclusion of Trish Jaffarian, an analyst who tracks the electronic-forms marketplace for CAP...

Letters from Beijing: trying to bring a billion people into the computer age. (Ideas And Trends) (column)
February 1, 1987... LETTER FROM BEIJING There's no Chinese equivalent of CompuServe yet, but the personal-computer industry seems to be doing quite well in the economic and political liberalization that has swept mainland China in the past few years. While...

Rod Canion: making Compaq a Fortune 500 company. (Ideas And Trends) (column)
February 1, 1987... ROD CANION: MAKING COMPAQ A FORTUNE 500 COMPANY At the Fall Comdex '86 show, crowds flocked to the booth of Compaq Computer Corp. to see its trend-setting '386-based PC. It was an immediate sensation, and some show attendees actually went...

Farmers keep buying PCs. (Ideas And Trends) (column)
February 1, 1987... FARMERS KEEP BUYING PCs It has been a tough couple of years for farmers, but that hasn't cramped their personal-computer buying habits. According to Farm Computer News, its typical reader has invested $4,000 in hardware and more than...

The CRT billboard. (Ideas And Trends) (column)
February 1, 1987... THE CRT BILLBOARD As PCs proliferate, they are emerging as a new advertising medium. Recently, Ford Motor Co. offered to send interested parties a 5-1/4-inch floppy disk containing a "Disk Drive Test Drive" for the firm's Lincoln-Mercury...

Unique typing styles. (Ideas And Trends) (column)
February 1, 1987... UNIQUE TYPING STYLES The Electronic Signature Lock Corp. (ESLC) (Ardmore, Pa.) has discovered an interesting way to safeguard computer data. Each person has unique neurophysiological patterns when typing on a keyboard. The system, for...

100-MEG glass disks. (Ideas And Trends) (column)
February 1, 1987... 100-MEG GLASS DISKS With mainframe streamer-tape cartridges exceeding 2 gigabytes and optical-disk technology cramming more than 500 megabytes on a five-inch platter, you might have thought the big leaps in data-storage capacity were...

Toys 'R' us and 1-2-3. (Ideas And Trends) (column)
February 1, 1987... TOYS "R" US AND 1-2-3 We received a press release a while back saying that Toys "R" Us will test-market the Blue Chip Personal Computer in its Detroit, Seattle, and Rochester, N.Y., stores. If the $699 Korean-made IBM PC XT clone sells...

Upward compatibility: some observations for people who upgrade from 1-2-3 Releases 1A or 2. (1-2-3 Macros) (column)
February 1, 1987... UPWARD COMPATIBILITY Some observations for people who upgrade from 1-2-3 Releases 1A or 2 If you upgrade from Release 1A or Release 2 of 1-2-3, you might expect your macros to make the transition with you, and for the most part, Release 1A...

Form-window macros: perhaps the cleverest data-entry macro you'll see isn't a macro at all. (Symphony Macros.) (column)
February 1, 1987... FORM-WINDOW MACROS Perhaps the cleverest data-entry macro you'll ever see isn't a macro at all. Many Symphony users do their computing entirely within Symphony's SHEET window. This makes sense considering the types of problems people use...

Basic spreadsheet layout: some basics about designing templates for use by other people. (For Developers) (column)
February 1, 1987... BASIC SPREADSHEET LAYOUT There is no best way to structure a worksheet, but there are many bad ways. This article will help you identify and avoid layout problems before they occur. The problems we'll discuss are caused by that necessary...

Loops and counters: use these techniques to create shorter macros. (Macro Basics) (column)
February 1, 1987... LOOPS AND COUNTERS A macro is a list of keyboard instructions that causes 1-2-3 or Symphony to perform a worksheet task automatically. Range B1..B5 in the following figure contains a macro that converts a series of numbers into centered...

Short-range forecasting. (Forecasting) (column)
February 1, 1987... SHORT-RANGE FORECASTING Business decisions depend on good forecasting. Sales forecasting, for example, drives a wide range of decisions: staffing, working-capital needs, inventory levels, production schedules, pricing, advertising, and...

New low-cost word-processing programs: more features at lower prices. (Ideas And Trends) (column)
February 1, 1987... NEW LOW-COST WORD-PROCESSING PROGRAMS A new breed of word-processing software is beginning to appear that costs about one-third the price of programs like Microsoft Word and WordPerfect, the two programs that currently account for about 50% of...

Whadjaget? A model for fair grading. (Education) (column)
February 1, 1987... WHADJAGET? A MODEL FOR FAIR GRADING Taking multiple factors into account when evaluating a student's work can help educators at all levels to grade students objectively. Using multifactor evaluation, instructors can identify and weight...

Card magic with your spreadsheet. (Diversions ) (column)
February 1, 1987... CARD MAGIC WITH YOUR SPREADSHEET It's usually considered bad form to fool coworkers with your spreadsheet models. But if you follow the directions listed here, you can do just that and maybe get some applause. My intentions are the best:...

Protecting your worksheets.
February 1, 1987... Protecting Your Worksheets What a great feeling. You've just finished the worksheet you've been laboring over for two weeks. You've fed it sample numbers, and it produces the correct results. It's time to put it into use, circulate it...

Understanding and using (at)IRR.
February 1, 1987... UNDERSTANDING and USING @IRR Do you occasionally need a way to compare dissimilar investments, such as mountaintop real estate versus a supergrowth, high-technology stock? Are you looking for a calculated approach to measuring potential...

Meet Manuscript. (Lotus' new document processor)
February 1, 1987... MEET MANUSCRIPT If you're involved in the preparation of long documents, such as reports, business plans, technical specifications, or manuals; if you need to include 1-2-3 or Symphony spreadsheets, graphs, or data in documents; or if the...

Touring the world of Lotus. (service)
February 1, 1987... TOURING THE WORLD OF LOTUS If you've ever used 1-2-3, Symphony, or Jazz, you probably know how it feels to be in the midst of a big project that's under a deadline, only to run into problems with the software. Suddenly, formulas return...

Printer troubleshooting guide. (Tech Notes) (column)
February 1, 1987... PRINTER TROUBLESHOOTING GUIDE If you're unable to print your 1-2-3 or Symphony worksheet, or if strange characters appear on the printout, try the following remedies. If there is no printer output, read on. If the printer responds but...

More tips on using Lotus products. (Good Ideas) (column)
February 1, 1987... MORE TIPS ON USING LOTUS PRODUCTS 1-2-3/SYMPHONY TRUNCATING DECIMALS I recently needed to truncate a decimal answer to nine decimal places, but did not want to round off the value. 1-2-3 and Symphony do not have a...

Answers to your questions about Lotus products. (Q And A.) (column)
February 1, 1987... ANSWERS TO YOUR QUESTIONS ABOUT LOTUS PRODUCTS CONTESTS NEW CONTEST This month we are asking you to submit one formula (only one) that tests a range of values and returns a number representing the number of values in the...

Software: five screen-dump utilities.
February 1, 1987... SOFTWARE: FIVE SCREEN-DUMP UTILITIES We all use the Shift-PrintScreen key combination as a quick way to print what's on the screen, but without the proper character set, your printer can't reproduce the lines, boxes, and other graphics...

Software: Windows Draw: this versatile program enhances 1-2-3 and Symphony graphs.
February 1, 1987... SOFTWARE: WINDOWS DRAW With Windows Draw you can create high-quality graphics for presentations and desktop-publishing applications. In addition to enhancing 1-2-3 and Symphony graphs, you can compose forms and documents, draw...

Software: Referee: manage your limited RAM better with this software
February 1, 1987... SOFTWARE: REFEREE Manage your limited RAM better with this software. The more RAM-resident programs you use, the greater the potential for trouble. Once loaded, RAM-resident programs (known also as terminate-and-stay-resident programs, or...

Software: ProMast.
February 1, 1987... SOFTWARE: PROMAST A 1-2-3 spreadsheet gives you a flexible environment for maintaining information on inventories, production schedules, and similar bits of data in a manufacturing installation. If you want to integrate all these phases...

Making it work: helpful hints for keeping hardware and software on speaking terms. (Hardware) (column)
February 1, 1987... MAKING IT WORK PRINTERS/PLOTTERS BIDIRECTIONAL PRINTING ON C. ITOH Although 1-2-3 Release 2 supports the C. Itoh 8510 and 1550 printers (they are listed in the Install driver library), I can't get these two printers to...

Software: Lotus-compatible products. (Listings) (column)
February 1, 1987... SOFTWARE: LOTUS-COMPATIBLE PRODUCTS NEW PRODUCTS Astrology & Numerology Piks Software, 213 Alabama Ave., Toms River, NJ 08753, 201-255-4528. Astrology prints your ruling planet, personality traits, compatible mate's occupation,...

Symphony training materials. (Listings) (column)
February 1, 1987... SYMPHONY TRAINING MATERIALS BEGINNER AND INTERMEDIATE ATI Workshop Course: Symphony American Training International, 12638 Beatrice St., Los Angeles, CA 90066, 800-421-4827; in Calif., 213-823-1129. Four separate modules include...

Multifunction boards and more. (New Products ) (column)
February 1, 1987... MULTIFUNCTION BOARDS AND MORE CARD HAS PROGRAMS FOR EXPANDED MEMORY For IBM PCs and compatibles, AST's SixPakPremium board adds from 512K to 2 megabytes of RAM that conforms to the LIM-EMS and AST/Quadram/Ashton-Tate...

Advertising index. (column)
February 1, 1987... ADVERTISING INDEX Advanced Graphics Software Inc. 122 Alf Products Inc. 148 Alps America 109 Ashton-Tate 25,27,29,31 AST Resarch Inc. 2-3,151 Austin Scientific Inc. 142 Banner Blue 59 The Binary Workshop 97 Breakthrough Software...

Delivering critical information. (Essay) (column)
February 1, 1987... DELIVERING CRITICAL INFORMATION During 1986 many executives in large companies got their first personal computers. Now that the novelty has worn off, they have begun to ask what to do with them. Some companies have found a good answer....

Notes from the copydesk. (Staff Letter.) (column)
February 1, 1987... NOTES FROM THE COPY DESK What copy editors do is conspicuous only if it goes undone. If we do our job well, you'll never know we did it. There will be no misspellings, dangling modifiers, or unclear pronouns. Terms will be used...