Fix-It Utilities 99 is a set of tools and, as with any good set of tools, it allows the owner to perform a number of different tasks. What would attract the attention of most computer users would probably be those utilities that get the user out of trouble; for example, Fix-It Utilities 99 can do these tasks:

• Restore deleted files, making it unnecessary to spend hours retyping lost work.
• Detect and eliminate viruses, making it unnecessary to spend hours retyping lost work.
• Crash- proof your system, making it unnecessary to spend hours retyping lost work.
• Check for and correct Y2K noncompliance, making it unnecessary to spend hours retyping lost work.
• Track the computer's resources and warn you when there is a problem, making it unnecessary to spend hours retyping lost work.

If it sounds like I'm repeating myself, well, I am. Whether it's the user's fault or a virus's fault or some design engineer's fault, it really doesn't matter-as long as you don't have to spend hours retyping lost work. Fix-It Utilities 99 doesn't stop there though. It can also take care of these items, all of which allow you to work faster and more efficiently:

• Optimize and clean the hard drive.
• Optimize the registry files.
• Diagnose hardware problems.
• Gather information about the system.
• Customize the Windows environment.

Should the unspeakable actually happen and the system fail, Fix-It Utilities 99 can create emergency boot disks to allow you to get the system back up and running again.

Many people don't think about what to do until after being hit with a problem and the system won't boot up at all. This makes it impossible to install anything. So you're dead in the water, right? Not with Fix-It Utilities 99. This program includes a System Rescue Disk, which gives you step-by-step instructions to successfully get the system to boot up, as long as the basics, such as power, are available. There are some things that can only be fixed by removing and replacing a defective physical part.

The next thing that matters must to users who are in trouble, or those that are trying to stay out of trouble, is the manual. There is nothing more irritating than trying to resurrect a system by following the manual's tedious instructions, especially when the manual tells you not to do something you've already gone ahead and done. The Fix-It Utilities 99 manual has prevented that problem using an eye- catching set of icons and fonts to warn you about special information, notes, or warnings before a potentially difficult situation presents itself.

Fix-It Utilities 99 walks you through its "Easy Update" so the latest, most current information is available for your system's best performance. Fix-It Utilities 99 also takes you step-by-step through the process of creating a set of rescue disks specific to your machine, which is much more effective than any generic disk could be. Fix-It Utilities 99 also has thorough instructions to help you set up the Real-Time Virus Scanner. The set of the following three- Disksnapshot, Crashproof 99, and Intellicluster- can all be set up at once using Fix-It Properties. This is convenient because you don't have to go through the setup process repeatedly.

After installing Fix-It Utilities 99, you will have access to Fixwizard which will scan and defragment the hard drive or drives, check for problems in the system and check for viruses. It is important to check your system on a regular basis. To help you with this, Fix-It Utilities 99 has included the Fix-It Scheduler to schedule regular maintenance checkups.

Fix-It Utilities 99 is a very good all-around utilities program that not only can fix problems after they happen but can prevent those problems in the first place. It is also set up so that almost anyone can benefit from its use.

Visio is a program that doesn't get a lot of attention from the press but it gets a lot of attention from business because it fills an important niche- it's one of the few diagramming software products, and it's recognized as one of the best. Visio 2000 is the latest version that many businesses rely on to produce all sorts of charts, from flowcharts to organizational charts to PC Jamboree auditorium floor plans. Past versions have gained a reputation for being hard to use, and to a degree that has been true. However, I've found that despite some minor flaws, Visio 2000 is the easiest version of Visio yet.

Visio 2000 comes in three flavors- Standard, Technical and Professional. The Technical and Professional versions contain more stencils for doing more elaborate work, but the Standard version is just fine for a majority of applications. I tested the Standard version for this review on a 266-MHz Pentium II running Windows NT 4.0 with 64 MB RAM. This is more than enough horsepower for Visio; its minimum operating requirements are a 166-MHz Pentium with 16 MB of RAM (though Visio recommends 32 MB).

When you start Visio, its Welcome dialog box lets you determine what type of drawing you want to create or you can browse existing files. If you've opened up any files or drawing types before, Visio also lists those for you in the Welcome dialog box. If you decide to open a new drawing, Visio lets you choose between many different types and has an illustrated example for each one. Types not only include the basic block diagrams, charts, and flowcharts, but also include maps, network diagrams, project diagrams and even a calendar template.

Once you select a flowchart for your drawing, you'll see a graphical representation of available shapes, called stencils, on the left side of the screen. If you want to use a stencil, just hold your mouse button down on it and drag it to the Visio drawing page. The outline of the stencil appears so you can edit it as you see fit. If you want to open up more stencils, all you have to do is click on the Open Stencil button on the Standard Toolbar at the top of the screen.

If you've ever used any Windows application, you'll be right at home with Visio. You can edit and draw shapes using the drawing tools in the Standard toolbar. If you click on a shape, its nodes (bright green squares that appear around the perimeter of the shape) appear so you can stretch or resize the graphic. If you double-click on the toolbar, you can add text that you can edit using the Format Text toolbar. If you click on the Connector tool in the toolbar, you can connect nodes of different shapes. You can line up all your edited elements on the page by activating the page grid and telling Visio to snap the objects to the grid.

These are standard features of Visio that previous users will find familiar. Most of the improvements in Visio 2000 are incremental-for example, new page tabs at the bottom of the screen let you navigate between pages and the new HTML-based help conforms to Windows 98 standards. You can also save drawings and diagrams as HTML pages and convert graphics to Web-friendly formats like GIFs, JPEGs and PNGs. Visio 2000 also has a Nudge tool; if you use your arrow keys you can move the shape by a couple of pixels, and if you use the Shift key with the arrow keys you can nudge the drawing by one pixel in your desired direction.

Despite all these improvements, some problems remain. I ran into at least one instance when the shape I pulled over wasn't the shape that appeared on the page, i.e., when I dragged a hexagon stencil onto the page, the hexagon turned into a rectangle. There is no precise control of the nudge feature; nudging increments are fixed at only one or two pixels. The help file was no help; when I tried to look up information about nudging in the help file, I couldn't find any. There were also problems trying to save a drawing in a different format. When you save a file in many Windows programs you enter the filename, then you enter the file format from a drop-down list. Visio 2000 ignores the file format in the drop-down list, and if you don't enter the file format extension after the filename when you save it, Visio 2000 creates a new folder with your given filename, gives your file a generic name and sticks it in that new folder. You also can't export or save to PDF format, but you can print to Adobe's PDF Writer so you can save PDF files to disk; I found it takes PDF Writer a few tries to create a perfect copy.

All of these problems can be solved with service releases, and hopefully Visio will have those on its Web site soon. Despite these minor annoyances, Visio 2000 continues to set the standard for diagramming software. It's easy to see why Microsoft wanted to acquire the company.