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Show In the mailbag: Can Gertrude Stein help solve a file-naming quandary? y.IHusiness Computer i. i i i i. I i:i i.. Til, HI' by Franklynn Peterson and Judy KTurkcl The mailbag is full again. Time to shake it out for those nagging questions ques-tions you can't get answered anywhere else. Dear Judi and Frank: The law office of-fice I work in finds the Multimate word processing program useful, but one big fault bugs me. Documents are filed with just eight-character eight-character names. That's not enough to describe anything well. I've concocted titles like REQ4MLC1 for First Request for Municipal Lien Certificate, but I'm running out of creativity. Didn't Gertrude Stein use creative abbreviations ab-breviations when writing to Alice Toklas: Is there a dictionary of them?-TnTdBstn Dear Tongue-tied: We've seen no book that'll help you get around Dark-Ages eight-character file names most programs limit you to because they file titles directly with the operating system. It's especially frustrating on hard disks, where you've got room for so many files if you find a unique eight-letter description for each one. The problem pro-blem will get worse as computer storage gets larger and larger. One solution is to switch to a program pro-gram like Benchmark or Office Writer, which create their own more flexible filing. Benchmark allows 30 characters for nice long titles. A second help: Programs are finally taking advantage of PC and MS DOS's ability (in versions 2 and 3) to create subdirectories on disks. The new Multimate Advantage lets you make as many as you like: one for leases, one for liens, one for lawsuits. Consider trading up. A third help: Add a utility program pro-gram such as Hard Desk. It Dear Frank and Judi: After seeing your review of the integrated package Ability, I read a review in a . personal computing magazine. The other reviewer seemed much less impressed, saying it ran out of RAM memory. I am used to you two being the hardest reviewers of software. What gives? Befuddled in Meadow Vista, Calif. Dear Biff: Frankly, we don't read computer magazines so we didn't see the review. But unlike many reviewers, we single out the new business programs that pass our "test drive" for long-term use in our own offices or, if the software is specialized, in suitable other offices. We've never run out of memory while using Ability, although we've loaded, edited and then printed a large computer manual using the program. Perhaps that's because we ' run it on a computer that businesses, not hobbyists, would use. The authors will answer questions and send a checklist of available back issues. Send a stamped, self-addressed self-addressed envelope to The Business , Computer, 4343 W. Beltline Hwy., , Madison, Wis. 53711. , Comparative details on computer, price and performance are found in a new ,000-word special report, "Your Personal Computer Buying Guide." For your copy, send a $3 check payable to Newspaperbooks for Report FP02, in care of the Park Record, P.O. Box 3688, Park City, UT 84060. . You can read back issues of these columns on NewsNet's on-line data base. For details, call 1-800-345-1301. (c) 1985 PK Associates, Inc. . Distributed by Tribune Media Services, Ser-vices, Inc. organizes your file names alphabetically and lets you add 30-character comments. If your dealer doesn't stock it, for buying data write or phone ModTech, 656 Bair Island Rd., Redwood City, Calif. 94603 ; 415-367-6855. Lastly, a really elegant solution: Create a computerized file index on your 1-2-3 or SuperCalc3 program by assigning a letter to each category of document your office works with (D for date of death requests, L for liens, etc.) Then use serial numbers as document names. Once a day, use 1-2-3 or SuperCalc3 to update your index. File names trouble so many of us, we're planning a column of help. If you have unique solutions, , pass them along. Dear Frank and Judi: I need printouts prin-touts of the sales that I enter into my lap-size portable computer, but ' I feel foolish toting along a comparatively com-paratively immense printer. Are there portable printers? Overloaded Overload-ed in Houston .' il Dear O.H.: If you buy a stylish shoulder-strap bag to hold both computer com-puter and printer,' nobody will stare at you. . :y-u'u ' Or have a look at Hewlett-Packard's Hewlett-Packard's ThinkJet and ERGO's HUSH 80, two fine printers favored by ardent portable computer users because they're so lightweight and so quiet. The $495 HP is sold by most big retailers. If you can't find a $160 HUSH 80, call 1-800-222-HUSH. Dear Judi and Frank: I know what CPM is. but what's the difference between that and CPM-80, CPM-86 and Concurrent. CPM? And are there any other CPMs floating around? CPM Collector in Los Angeles Dear C.C.: CPM is a general term for one kind of system for operating microcomputers. An operating system tells the computer how to do many of its jobs and passes along instructions for your programs. Before IBM made MS DOS its official operating system, -CPM was king of the hill. It's mostly most-ly used now to run specialized and multi-user computers. CPM is the same as CPM-80. It runs computers whose main pro-: cessing chips are named Z-80 and 8080. CPM-86 runs 8086-type chips, such as IBM PCs and their clones t use. Surprise! Even IBM PC can run CPM-86. n Concurrent CPM is a version that lets a computer run more than one - program at a time concurrently. MPM and MPM-86 run multi-user systems. Again, which one you need depends on which chip your computer com-puter is built with. |