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Yep, at the end of October IBM, announced the death of AIX. But wait, what this? AIX is dead, long live AIX???? Well, IBM are saying that: a) SCO's UnixWare will be available through IBM for 32-bit Intel b) IBM and SCO will incorporate UnixWare technology into AIX future releases c) IBM and SCO and SEQUENT will create a Unix version that will run on Intel's IA-64 processor architecture. My take: I have always hated the fact that AIX is significantly different from main-stream Unix. (Ditto by the way to HP and Sun also). This has consistently led to IBM Unix/AIX sites needing specially trained staff, increased costs for software and a general downright awkwardness with all things AIX. I would have been more than happy if they were genuinely closing down AIX and joining in with the scale-up of SCO to 64-bit and beyond. Personally, I believe that the loss of all these myriad small OEM variants of Unix is nothing but a good thing. While there is nothing special about a SCO or UnixWare version, that's the whole point - there is nothing special about them - they are standard.... Of course, this all may be sheer puffery, with IBM also announcing support for Linux platforms too....
There are font viewing and selection utilities all over the net. Here is a quick round up of those we've found, and those we've found useful. Font Character Locator Useful for finding those particular "wingding" dingbat characters. OK, but the viewing window cannot be enlarged. 32 Bit only, so only 95/98 and NT http://chkpt.zdnet.com/chkpt/hud0007500a/hotfiles.zdnet.com/cgi-bin/texis/swlib/hotfiles/info.html?fcode=000UFW Symbol Selector A neat freeware replacement for MS Character Map. As well as letting you view the special characters at any size, it will also show you the keyboard shortcut for entering the character. Of course you can also copy/paste too. http://www.rks-software.com/links.htm Font Namer A simple utility that lets you change the name of a font - that is the name that appears in your font selection dialogs http://www.mytools.com/page8.html MyFonts A more generalised utility that covers a number of different areas, including comparing two fonts. Registered users also get two extra tools, FontList and FontGrid which shows your installed fonts and uninstalled fonts respectively. http://www.mytools.com/page7.html
Dingbats! In case you don't know a "dingbat" is the name for those odd characters and stuff you see floating around. The "windings" font in MS-Windows is probably the best known example, but there are literally hundreds and thousands of dingbat fonts available. These fonts are typically symbols, but may also include cartoons, drawings, logos and many other items. Samples include Star Trek, Classified Ads, Holiday Symbols, Health and Safety, Doodle Dudes, icons, scary monsters, even complete railway sets! A vast range of shareware and freeware dingbat fonts can be found at: The Dingbat Pages http://dingbats.i-us.com/index.htm For something you might all want to use and be able to lay our hands on without using the Internet. Check out your Office 97 CD-ROM. In the Valupack\MSFonts folder you will find some 151 extra fonts for you to install. Of course owners of any of the Corel systems have loads of fonts available on the Corel CD's. Also, some of the early versions are around for very low prices these days. You might also want to try:
Font Empire http://fontempire.host4u.com/ Type Foundry http://www.pluginfonts.com/ Kemosabe's Fonts http://www.magnagraphics.com/fonts/ Fantasy Fonts http://www.flatearth.com/utilities/font_symbol.html Type Quarry http://www.3ip.com/typequarry.html Cool Fonts http://www.cool-fonts.com/index.html Listemagerens Fonts http://members.xoom.com/Carren/fontarkiv.html Free Dingbats http://conk.com/world/freegraphics/freefonts.html Happy Hour Fonts http://members.aol.com/chichix/happyhour/ Font Index http://www.masterstech-home.com/The_Library/Font_Samples/ Fonts! http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/7554/downloads/fonts/index.html Catsuits Fonts http://www.bright.net/~catsuit/fonts.html Babylon 5 Fonts http://www.fontpool.com/index.cgi?b5 The first three are my favourites, but it really does depend on the exact type of font you are looking for.
Now, since Windows 95 was launched it was possible to have many fonts available, the number is around 1,000 (although it varies depending upon the exact length of the font names). However, all those extra fonts can really make a difference to the speed of your Windows system and the applications you run. For example, on a trial system here we went from 300 fonts installed to about 70. Windows booted 10 seconds faster! Selecting fonts within applications saved us anything from 2 to 20 seconds depending upon the application, and although we never timed, we believe that the applications also loaded quicker to begin with. But firstly, what happens if you want those fonts sometimes? Well, simply copy them to another folder anywhere on your system, then when you want to use the font, just double click on it to open the font in the MS Font Viewer. The font will now be available to other applications. Similarly some of the applications listed above which open a whole folder of fonts makes all those fonts available at a stroke. Secondly, there are a few fonts to be careful of because they are fonts upon which the system is dependent. There are also a some fonts which are assumed to be standard by applications. So, don't delete the following fonts:
Arial Bookshelf Symbol Comic Sans Courier Courier New Marlett MS Outlook MS Reference Symbol Times Times New Roman Verdana Wingdings You can use the Control Panel applet to delete fonts, or simply move them in File Manager or Explorer. By the way, that \Windows\Fonts folder is special, don't try moving or copying the Fonts folder itself, or you can seriously mess up your system. If you want to make a backup of your fonts before you start (and you should) then copy the font files, not the Fonts folder.
When selecting fonts in MS-Word you can use several shortcuts: Ctrl-Shift-F: Goes direct to the font selector on the toolbarIn the font selector, you can type the name of the font and Word will search for the entry for you.
Ctrl-< Will shrink the selected text Ctrl-> Will grow the selected text And of course: Ctrl-B Set Bold Ctrl-I Set Italic Ctrl-U Set Underline Ctrl-Shift-A Set All Caps Ctrl-Shift-D Set Double Underline Ctrl-Shift-K Set Small Caps Ctrl-Shift-P Font Size Select Ctrl-Shift-Q Symbol Font Ctrl-Shift-W Set Word Underline
In pre-Word 97 systems you had a font called Line-Draw, which contained line drawing characters (surprised huh?). Well in Word 97 this font disappeared. Yet line-draw characters were still displayed somehow. Well, Courier-New included the line draw characters and Word 97 automatically mapped line draw chars to the correct settings in Courier New. Except that some versions of Courier-New did not include the mappings. Specifically you want Courier New Version 2.0 or above. Why do you care? Well, TUDOR uses converting from Uniplex will find of course that Uniplex drawings have been converted to line draw characters, so you need the font to be handled properly. Incidentally, this doesn't effect tables as TUDOR converts Uniplex tables into proper MS Word tables.
If you want to enter the special symbols yourself: Select the character and hit the INSERT button.
>>>I agree - the spell cheque is a grate help >I don't think that even a grandma Czech wood fined awl the possible >homonym abuse An Owed to the Spelling Checker =========================================== I have a spelling checker It came with my PC It plane lee marks four my revue Miss steaks aye can knot sea. Eye ran this poem threw it, Your sure reel glad two no. Its vary polished in it's weigh My checker tolled me sew. A checker is a bless sing, It freeze yew lodes of thyme. It helps me right awl stiles two reed, And aides me when aye rime. Each frays come posed up on my screen Eye trussed too bee a joule The checker pour o'er every word To cheque sum spelling rule. Be fore a veiling checkers Hour spelling mite decline, And if were lacks or have a laps, We wood be maid to wine. Butt now bee cause my spelling Is checked with such grate flare, Their are know faults with in my cite, Of non eye am a wear. Now spelling does knot phase me, It does knot bring a tier. My pay purrs awl due glad den With wrapped words fare as hear. To rite with care is quite a feet Of witch won should be proud. And wee mussed dew the best wee can, Sew flaws are knot aloud. Sow ewe can sea why aye dew prays Such soft ware four pea seas. And why I brake in two averse By righting want too pleas. -- Don't take life so seriously ... it's not permanent. Andrew Murray
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URL: www.c2000.com/papers/nw_981126.htm © 1995-2001 Centreline 2000 Last Updated: 26th November 1998 |
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