The LA Fox Developer Newsletter

April 1995

Out and About (Con't from page 7)

Philippe Kahn - “(Mr. Manzi], let me refresh your

memory. Four years ago, you unfairly attacked

Borland company by alleging copyright infringe-

ment. You knew, like all of us, that “systems” and

functionality cannot be copyrighted. Nevertheless,

you tried to put our company out of business.. .We

can’t erease the irreparable damages that you

caused our company, our customers, and our

shareholders over the past four years.. .Mr. Manzi,

innovate, don’t litigate. Invest less in your legal

department and more in your research and devel-

opment teams.. .[Mr. Gates], a healthy competition

developed between your large company and our

more modest enterprise. As a consequence, the

rate of innovation in the tools market continued to

increase. We prevailed in tools, but you took the

lead in applications and databases... Mr. Gates, the

ball is in your court. You now have the opportunity

to prove all of your detractors wrong.. .You and

Microsoft are in a position to help build personal

computing into the next century and make it one of

the most exciting industrial endeavors ever...So, to

conclude, Mr. Manzi, please refocus your efforts.

You should keeep your criticism to yourself; you

have no pIece to complain about Mr. Gatns or

Microsoft. Your anticompetitive practices are the

worst in the world... .Mr. Gates, in the name of the

software industry, please provide leadership by

making Windows 95 a level playing field where all

can fairly compete and succeed.”

Quite an exchange, huh? Mr. Manzi?...Mr. Manzi?.

Are you out there, Mr. Manzi?

Interesting Statistic Department. According to

Roper Marketing and Public Opinion Research,

43% of middle-class America used a personal

computer in the last year.

Is it me, or did this year’s batch of tax preparation

software have an unusually high count of glitches?

Satan Arrives. “Satan” arrived on April 5. Stand-

ing for Security Administrator 1001 for analyzing

Networks it’s a controversial program that points

out holes in computer security and looks for prob-

lems before potential hackers can. The program

was developed by Dan Farmer and Wietse

Venema. It was uploaded to the InterNet and has

been the center of quite a controversy ever since.

Farmer was fired from his job at Silicon

after he said he was going to distribute H

the InterNet. The tool itself was develo

when he was the network security mana

Microsystems, Inc. Supposedly, even

with no experience at breaking into security

can run the program to find flaws.

In response, the Computer Incident Advisory Commit-

tee of the Emergency Response Team of the Depart

ment of Energy (Can you say in one breath?],

developed a program that allows system operators to

track hackers that use Satan. Named “Courtney”, it

was also placed on the InterNet April 5.

“Bob”, Microsoffs latest offering to truly “home”

computer enthusiasts, made its debut, with some

stores, like Learningsmith, hosting all-day parties for

those wanting to get their hands on “him”. In addition

to making personal computers easier to use, Bob

includes eight home PC programs like a checkbook

manager, address book, and electronic mail.

“Further Adventures of Mr. Bill”, Part 3. In the

wake of a phony press release stating that Microsoft

had made a bid to acquire the Catholic Church, John

/‘.. McCoy, a church spokesrian from western Wash-

ington, issued his own press release stating that the

deal could have been a good one: “We’ve had 2,000

years of working with icons. Microsoft has only done

it for three. We could have helped.” (From PC

Maaazin&

Making Browse Key Faster Using Undocu-

mented Syntax Requirements

by Wayne Snyder, CIS# 71754,1553

(<wayne_snyder@usconnect.columbia.com)

At one time or another, almost everyone needs to do a

lookup on address. The requirement I had was to allow

the user to name a street, street type like OR, LN,

PKWV, HWV, etc., street direction like E,W, N, 5, as

well as the house numberto getto a browse screen. The

user may want the browse to include all streets whose

name begins with “CANNON” and whose street type is

“BLVD”1 so that all properties for CANNON BLVD,

CANNON TEMPLE BLVD, etc. would populate the

browse window.

My solution was to use code like:

(Con't, page 9)

Page 8