From:	MERC::"uunet!CRVAX.SRI.COM!RELAY-INFO-VAX"  6-MAY-1992 20:49:05.65
To:	info-vax@kl.sri.com
CC:	
Subj:	DECUS SIG Tape Review (VAX: DATEBOOK through DINKEY)

[VAX91B.DATEBOOK]

Ease of installation:	3
Documentation:		5
Ease of use:		3
Usefulness:		3

Intended audience:	Users
Sources included:	Yes (VAX Pascal)
Objects included:	Yes

Datebook is a calendar program that keeps track of appointments for specific
times and dates as well as recurring events.  Also included is a reminder
program which runs in the background and displays warning messages before and
at the time of a calendar event.

This is a modest program which can do a basic job of keeping track of your
appointments.  The documentation included is excellent for this package.  The
only downside is that it does not display the information graphically (not
necessarily in "graphics", but making use of the line-drawing character set of
the VTxxx terminals) and appears to be rather vague about the command options.
Fortunately, help is a keystroke or two away.



[VAX91B.DECUSERVE_TAPES]

Ease of installation:	4
Documentation:		5
Ease of use:		4
Usefulness:		Varies

Intended audience:	System Managers / Programmers / Users
Sources included:	Yes
Objects included:	For some parts

Included are: CONNEX - External Dialup Connection Control Facility;
MASTER_MENU - creates customized menus; MEMO - stores comments in the ACL area
of an ODS-2 disk file; NEWHELP - SMG oriented HELP for VMS; TK-LABELS -
produces labels for TK50/70 cartridges on LN03 printers; UAI - finds a user's
LOGIN.COM by checking the system authorization file; and a handy-dandy command
procedure to automatically optimize indexed files.

The MEMO utility appeared to be the neatest thing as providing comments on
files would be absolutely wonderful, but VMS seems to dislike ASCII in the ACL
area, so it displayed these ASCII strings in binary.  The MEMO program can
retrieve what's been stored, but a DIR/ACL would have been more fun.  NEWHELP
provides a bit more intuitive interface to VMS HELP making the concept of the
tree structure a little more visible.



[VAX91B.DECWLOGINDOC]

Ease of installation:	N/A
Documentation:		5
Ease of use:		4
Usefulness:		5

Intended audience:	System Managers / Programmers
Sources included:	N/A
Objects included:	N/A

This submission is a single file, DECWINDOWS-LOGIN.PS, which is a PostScript
version of the slides used during a session at the last DECUS given by John
McMahon.  There are 70 some "slides" in this file which go into great detail
about how DECwindows starts up all the way through to the point that someone
logs in.  Very useful information in here!  Don't pass this one up.



[VAX91B.DINKEY]

Ease of installation:	3
Documentation:		2
Ease of use:		3
Usefulness:		2

Intended audience:	Anyone
Sources included:	Yes
Objects included:	Yes

Two programs are included here; the first is DIRCOMP, a program which goes
through two directory specifications and compares the files in each of them
(assuming the same file names exist in both), and the second is DSFC, the
"Dinkey Searching File Compare."

The DIRCOMP utility may be of use to those system managers who like to maintain
a good copy of a directory in a highly-available cluster without the use of
traditional techniques such as disk shadowing.  DSFC, however, may be a bit of
overkill compared to the VMS DIFFERENCES command, but it does provide the
information in a different format which may be preferable.