From the Editor Written by Carsten Whimster

his past month I added a number of old issues to our online collection. In addition to what was there before, we now have issues 0104, 0105, 0205, 0310, 0402, 0403 and 0404, and of course 0504. I also have the skeletons of most of volume 3 on my harddrive, and all the rest of the issues are currently being converted by volunteers. A few of our converters have more than one issue to convert, however, so if you would like to help out, you can contact me, and I will get an issue for you from one of the busier converters. The HPFS series got wide this month, so you may need to resize your browser a touch to view it properly, but since I removed the grey area to the right of the main reading area, any spill-over should still be readable. The variable size tables that I use now have both advantages and disadvantages, but resizing is an option only because I use variable widths. The trend towards including power user program reviews continues this month with a review of the excellent WPS utility Xit. In addition to this, I have started reviewing graphics software. Graphics software happens to be a favorite category of mine, and since no other magazine really specializes in this, I will take EDM/2 in that direction, while still maintaining our focus on developers and technical professionals. The programmer's editor reviews have been delayed a touch because Rimstar Pro has not arrived yet, although it has been promised. I have both Visual SlickEdit 2.0 and Preditor 3.0 in hand, so once Rimstar arrives, this commercial three-some will kick off the fun. After these three, the various shareware and freeware editors will join the fray. It is tricky to ensure that I have them all, but I am trying, so bear with me for a bit. I am also still designing the categories and lists of features, so this one month respite is quite welcome. Coming up is the beginning of reviews of real hardware. I will be starting a series of reviews aimed at providing information on how to build a cheap but fast system, out of high quality, but reasonably priced components. I think that both developers, graphic artists, and power users can use this information. For this purpose, we will review single- and dual-Pentium processor boards. Given the price of Pentium Pro chips, the relative scarcity of these high-end chips, and the price of their motherboards, buying a dual-processor board represents a significant savings, and if the performance is good, this will be well worth it. The success and breadth of this series is obviously dependent on the level of participation from the various hardware companies, however. There are disadvantages to running a magazine smaller than Byte, but then there are advantages too. Look for it one of the next few months. This month we add another European mirror, this time in Sweden. Many thanks go to good old Oscar Gustafsson, who is also our trusty news reporter, for setting this up. Check it out on the "Other EDM/2 Sites" page available from the front page. A smaller change you may have noticed is the addition of capital letters to the first paragraph of the From the Editor column. This is just a small frill that I have allowed myself for this column, but unless I get massive requests, you won't see it on our other columns. It is a little too frivolous for using throughout the magazine, and it doesn't look all that great with graphics off, so I will resist using it in other places. Perhaps one day Netscape and the others will support this using only the fonts on your harddrive, but until then, this is it. A still smaller change is an update to the Partition Magic 3.0 review of last month. It turns out that there is one other program that has similar functionality, so I added that to the article. Redownload issue 0503 if you are interested in this change, or just grab the page directly. I have also used Colorworks V2 to redesign our logo, and in some future issue, I will outline in an article how I did this. I fully intend to start some graphics columns in addition to what we have so far, but I have too much on my plate to do that now, so it will be a little while before you see this coming down the pipe. If you happen to be a graphic artist and are interested in your own monthly column demonstrating tricks with your favorite OS/2 graphics program, let me know and I will set you up. I am also interested in starting a column or series on performance tuning for OS/2, so if you are particularly interested in and adept with this aspect of OS/2, drop me a note. And finally a tip which I was shown in comp.os.os2.apps: if Netscape/2 displays transparent images poorly on your machine, change your folder background colour to white, with Alt-drag (system-wide). This will fix that particular little problem. The first one who can explain where this bug likely is, and why it is like this will impress the hell out of me. The code snippet this month is a REXX exec which partly emulates TN3270 for new users of PC/3270 who never got used to the different keystrokes. À bientôt,