Amiga Computing - Commodore Is Awesome

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t lastl Amiga net surfers have a
graphical world wide web browser
that is capable of dealing
with forms. AMosaic v1.413 was launched
onlo an unsuspecting public in the early
days of July and has a revamped GUI with
a nice bouncing ball progress animation
Ouch better than the pulsing radio button
or the spinning clock hand) and Netscapelike
gadgets tor progress through the
wodd wide web. Also included in this latest
version is the ability to type into the URL.
address line, rather than having to open a
requester and a built-in, hierarchically
cdgantsed hollist,
My overall impression is that this version
is actually ever so slightly slower than
AMosaic 1.3, but given its added benefits
lin willing to forego that extra speed.
Rinnily enough, given that AMosaic now
ircludes a truly animated progress button,
graphical navigation buttons and the
ZIA), to construct forms, the executable's
size is actually less than that of its
predecessor.
The way AMosaic now supports forms
does seem slightly clunky, but I would
Imagine this is down to the way MUI and
ArnigaDOS work. What happens is that
wfen you get to a URL that has a form.
say the registration form for HotWired, The
Electronic Telegraph or Yahoo, the
AMosatc window disappears to be
replaced by a little window telling you that
AMosaic is constructing a form. The
Aktsaic window then reappears with the
tarn in place, voila!
When you leave a forms page, exactly
tie same thing happens. Scrolling within a
bras page is a bit grinding, so some work
Ct viously still needs to be clone on that
front Another thing I miss from using
Netscape at work all day is the MailTo:
CGI script. This lets you click on someone's
e-mail address on a home page and
tend them some mail, but I guess you
Pet have everything all at once.
Next up is a related bit of software,
Berend Ozceri's AMHotlist. This now also
sports the hierarchically arranged hotlist
elides You can create sub-menus and
simply put your existing entries within
hose sub-menus by clicking on the 'move'
Don't forget
the MI
ACLISe e llite ste a dfa stly re fusing
to conne ct to a re fle ctor sitet n
button and then clicking where you want
the entry No more shuffling through an
endless hotlist trying to find the page you
want — stuff them all inside descriptively
named sub-menus and all your cares
simply fly away.
Well, perhaps not, but I do recommend
using AMHothst v2 instead of the hothst in
AMosaic itself because it is much nicer to
use and can have a lot more entries visi-
ble at one time. Of course, if you are having
to use AMosaic on a native Amiga
screen, you might not have enough room
to display them both and still have adequate
room for the main AMosaic window.
VERSION UPGRADE
Lastly, there is a new version of the
Amiga's sole videoconlerencing tool available
on the net. At the time of writing,
ACUSeeMe was at version 2_01, but I
know that version 2.02 at least will be
available by the time you read this.
CUSeeMe is a standard for Internet videoconlerencing
which gives you 'realtime'
video and audio communications with
another machine. This works great if you
have a whole load of Unix boxes with
cameras and mikes linked into an ATM
network, but definitely leaves a little to be
desired over a telephone line.
Because the Amiga doesn't have a
camera or mike as easy system add-ons.
All three of the programs I have talked about require Magic User Interface — MUI
- to work, which is why the screenshots always look so groovy, but is also
responsible for slowing down the programs somewhat. Ever since AMosaic was
launched, there has been a backlash against MUI slating its size and slowness.
The programmers of AMosaic and Mr Ozceri retort that what they created would
MN taken much longer by normal means and certainly wouldn't look as good.
I have no problem whatsoever with WI. It has rarely crashed my machine,
ert a in ly no more than any other program. and provides a very good-looking
,
nomputing
having given a registered version away with the July issue, there
tshould
no longer be any complaints about users having to pay to use it, so
itemps
people should give MUI a break_
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Amiga Computing
nr. T ( ' R R i QC'S
ACUSeerne will probably only appeal to
lurkers because you have no way of
replying to anything that is said or done at
the other end of the link. This version
actually interprets the reflector list that it
comes with so you no longer have to type
the addresses of the reflectors into a text
gadget, you can simply select them from
a scrolling list.
Refl ectors are sites that carry
CUSeeMe traffic, be it solely audio or
both audio and video. and behave some-
what like IRC servers in that they act as
central gathering points for people to call
into. ACUSeeMe is also written by the
prolific Mr Ozceri who seems to have no
end to his talents.
RED SYSTEM = e&sen hal BLACK ESSIFITIA151-
Recommended
MUI RTG card
I N T ERNE T I
I
1
The bottom kip
AMHotList2 Oalha 16k
ftp://src doc acuklamineticomm/not
acuseeme2 01.1ha 64k
flpilstr.doc.tc_acuklamtnet/comm4cp
AMosalc14beta AmiTcp.lha 146k
httpi/wwwomnopresence.comjamosaid