This month we debate new technologies, especially DVD. Be prepared—we have lots of bad news mixed with the good. Our hope is to inform you and audio engineers that audiophiles are not happy with some of the DVD options being considered. Stay tuned, because after a few more technology notes, we review our favorite writer's tool, Microsoft's Bookshelf 2000.  

Technology Updates
Office 2000: The latest version of Microsoft Office was released on April 14, 1999 with promises of greater ease of use despite the additional features. We expect to see greater integration with the Web, internal Office 2000 integration, and integration with third-party applications. Our fears come from the words of pundits who warn that as applications grow in size, they have the potential to become unstable. Microsoft is not unaware of these dangers, but conflicting goals plague all software companies: the need to provide greater ease of use, the need to provide every imaginable feature, speed within new functionality, and the conflicts between all the different classes of users. We hope to report on these issues next month.

Learn Office 2000: Meanwhile, we can recommend that you join us in getting up to speed on Office 2000 by picking up Greg Perry's new book entitled Teach Yourself Microsoft Office 2000 in 24 Hours. This timely text comes from Sam's, a Division of Macmillan Computer Publishing based in Indianapolis, Indiana. After looking at some of the other choices, we fell in love with the concept of a book that mimics computer-based training by creating 24 one-hour lessons that you perform on a PC.
    This interactive format is not only user-friendly, it adds a discipline to your studies and drives you onwards as you check off each of the lessons. Numerous pictures keep you from getting lost, and every module in Office 2000 gets a fair share of attention, even creating Web pages. Greg Perry promises that these lessons have been tested with average level PC users so the bugs have been removed. We are into this book, and it is actually fun. This is not a tour of every feature of Office 2000, but it is an effective orientation. An adequate index helps make the book useful for reference (the list price is $19.99).

DVD is Hot: Market reports indicate that buyers are accepting DVD faster than any previous technology. However, the biggest part of the market is still stand-alone DVD movie units to decode video that is better than VHS video. In addition, the 5.1 audio sound decoded by the MPEG decoder is exciting for those who enjoy theater-style surround sound. For PC buyers, DVD comes in top-of-the-line PCs despite the small number of applications and a top speed of 8X. On the plus side, a DVD will read all your CD-ROMs and music CDs. The drawback for early purchasers is the slow acceptance of an industry-wide standard for music DVDs and the failure of the latest third-generation DVDs to reach their full potential, i.e., double-layer, double-sided storage combined with a standard for writing to the disk. To get a glimpse of DVD-ROM's potential, you may want to look at a DVD multimedia game or try Collins Cobuild Student's Dictionary from LANGMaster. This latter DVD-ROM has fifty hours of speech plus three interactive English courses. Besides a language course, think of it as a dictionary with 283,000 spoken words. LANGMaster is at www.epaonline.com.

DVD Music: We are personally disturbed by the battle for a standard that defines how DVD hi-fi sound will be stored. Inspired by deeply-felt emotions, we now climb on a podium to plead our case because those who are not audiophiles think that simply going to a faster sampling rate will make everyone happy. We consider this to be false. Today the WAV (i.e., wave) files that we store in a PC are sounds sampled at 44.1 KHz using 16 bits (i.e., 16/44). Not surprisingly, this standard is the same as that used to make today's music CDs. Unfortunately, there are legions of marketing executives not interested in correcting the harshness arising from the subtle, out-of-phase sounds on a 16/44 CD. These "salesmen" have proposed that we simply take the current 16/44 CD and move to 24/96 and the "masses" will be fooled into happiness. This point of view is embodied in the first IEEE Standard, and it is not pleasing stereophiles who recognize "natural," rich sounds. Why do you think so many audiophiles still prefer their LPs and Reel-to-Reel recordings? Is the concept of "natural" sounding music going to die with an older generation who seek beauty in music rather that bombast? The DVD has the room to store music and data in wonderful ways. Let's not compromise!

Windows 2000: It is possible (barely) that you have missed Microsoft's plan to move all PC users to a single operating system (OS) in the next two or three years. The problem has always been legacy software. Our unscientific survey of users does indeed indicate that there are hordes of users still running DOS programs, Windows 3.x software, and, of course, Windows 9x applications. Our advice is that if upgrading your software is painful, you will need a strategy to do it anyway. Windows NT 4.x is the kernel that will become Windows 2000 and it is not inaccurate to call Win 2000 an expanded vision of what was supposed to be Windows NT 5.0. Thus, Windows 2000 will appear near the arrival of the new millennium and it will try to provide an upgrade path for most users.

   Yes, there is some bad news because it will drop support for DOS and Windows 3.x, but more importantly, there is very good news. Windows 2000 will not be plagued by the fragmented memory structure that destabilizes a DOS compatible system, and it will have a better file system than the DOS legacy allows. These improvements are what makes Windows NT 4.x the choice for those who cannot tolerate the system crashes that seem to be unavoidable when an operating system (Windows 9x) must have total backwards compatibility. Consumers and businessmen alike will benefit when software companies can write for stable operating systems (Windows 2000, Linux or Macintosh) and not have to feel that the OS is an unstable, moving target. Take heart! You are not going to go broke buying all new software. Haven't you noticed that for years Microsoft has insisted that the Windows logo could not be worn by software that didn't include Windows NT compatibility? Windows 2000 will be a great multimedia platform and it will go a long way towards self-maintenance.
    On the humorous side, we note that Microsoft doesn't officially object when the compatibility list on a product includes a lot more than Windows. Every educational CD-ROM package we have seen in the last two years lists at least Windows 9x and NT, and most every one also works on the Macintosh. We are even impressed with Microsoft Office 97 that allows us to type "Mac," and nothing terrible happens to the document, nor does our column appear on a "hit list."

Microsoft Bookshelf 2000 Debuts
Even as Office 2000 steals the limelight, Bookshelf 2000 appears as a wonderful addition to the writer's toolbox. With dictionaries, an encyclopedia, a writers guide, a timeline of history, a thesaurus, and more, bookshelf continues to be a winner.

Figure 1. (Click on the graphic to enlarge.) Bookshelf 2000 is full of data on Serbia and Milosevic, including relevant video clips.

Copyright © 1999 Sacramento PC Users Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
Read our disclaimer and copyright page for more information.