PaintShop Pro Edition

PAINTSHOP PRO 5 RELEASED A must have graphics package

Paint Shop Pro (PSP) has long been one of the most popular shareware programs. The latest offering really takes the cake though. The authors, JASC (Just Another Software Company) have added some stunning new features to bring this package much closer to the likes of Photoshop or Corel.

Some of the key features are:

Now, we run Adobe Photoshop and Corel Paint 8 here for our graphic design, but PSP5 has now become our default graphics package. Why?

Well, simply it offers most of the features of the big boys, but starts up about 3 times faster than they do. On the whole the interface is clean and quick to operate, which is not always true of Photoshop or Paint.

PSP5 is a must have if you do any kind of graphic work, even if you have some of the big boys you should check it out.

You can download PSP 5 from our site at http://www.c2000.com/software/

PAINTSHOP PRO 5 TIPS

And just to get you off to a good start, here are some power tips for PSP 5.

- If an effect or control is not available, odds are you need to extend your colour depth beyond 256 colours.

- The TAB key will toggle the floating tool bars and palettes on and off.

- The crop tool lets you draw a rectangle to crop, then just double click inside the rectangle to crop the picture

- Rulers and grids (Select View, Rulers) let you clearly and accurately position the cursor

- To open a layer as a new working graphic, just drag it from the layers palette the the PSP workspace.

- You can specify upto 3 folders of third party plugins (See Preferences, Plugins). We keep ours pointing to a general collection, then Corel's and finally Adobe's. That we get the best of all worlds.

- You can now keep text on its own layer. Great for making web buttons. You make up several layers, each with their own text, then just save them one by one turning visibility on/off as you go.

NETSONIC Accelerate the web

NetSonic is another one of those web browser accelerators - it works by pre-reading links on the current page. But NetSonic has a couple of very powerful wrinkles that other accelerators don't.

1) You can control which links are pre-loaded, those you've visited before, or all the links off the current page

2) It runs its own cache, so you can several different browsers on one machine and get the same benefits

3) You can control whether graphics are also checked for re- loading

4) It works!

5) Its free!!

You can download NetSonic from http://www.c2000.com/software

This is not a substitute for a good proxy server, but for a single user PC it is the next best thing.

We've been using it for a while now, and it is very impressive and has not let us down once. And of course, the more you use it, the quicker it gets.

DEMON BOUGHT BY SCOTTISH TELECOM

News for our UK readers: Demon, the UK's biggest ISP (over 180,000 customers) has been bought for 66 million by Scottish Telecom. ST is the telecoms division of Scottish Power and already runs Scotland On-Line and Prestel On-Line.

Lots of rumours abound about how this will change Demon, but I guess we need to wait and see.

SATELLITE INTERNET Your own Internet Satellite connection might cost less than you think

So, here's how it works:

1) You have an existing phone line

2) You have an existing Internet Service Provider

3) You install a satellite dish

4) You download files at a screaming 384Kbps (about 5 times faster than ISDN, 12 times faster than a 33K Modem)

Basically, the phone line is used for outgoing requests for web pages, files etc, but the incoming data is re-routed (via Germany, via the satellite, back to your dish) to give you this astonishing speed.

One-off installation costs start at £800 for a single user, or £1000 for a 10-User system, plus a monthly rental starting at £15.

Now of course you still have to pay your regular phone bills as well, but these should be reduced as download times are *so much* quicker.

You would probably save more money in the reduced man-hours wasted waiting for internet downloads.

Trouble is, this doesn't work for all companies. Sadly we are one of them, the bulk of our Internet activity is outbound - web site updates, software delivery, remote maintenenance etc, in which case we get no benefit at all!

Still, could be right for you?

MICROSOFT BACKS "INDEPENDENT" FORUM

Not so much a complaint, more a word of warning, the newly formed "Back Office User Group" is heavily backed by Microsoft, although it is supposedly independent.

The value they offer is probably very high, but just be aware they might not be as independent as they suggest.

For a non-aligned group, try the Windows NT User Forum.

SEEN ON THE INTERNET

Saw this in the Cambridge Miscellany news group

Subject: Re: Wanted: flat to purchase
==From: Andrew Toone
==Newsgroups: cam.misc, ucam.adverts.wanted
==
==Douglas de Lacey wrote:
==
== Wanted to buy: a flat within striking distance
== of Cambridge city centre,
== and preferably to the North.
==
== Douglas de Lacey.


What sort of missiles are you using?
I presume you mean an air-strike?
- Andrew Toone