European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - March 9, 1993, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 12 the stars and stripes computers tuesday March 9,1993 japanese researchers believe they have figured out Why people get tired eyes from staring at computer screens and suggest a Way to prevent the problem. Their Experiment found that people blink less a but their tears evaporate faster a when they work on computers so they get dry eyes. One solution is drops of artificial tears. But the researchers suggest that an easier remedy May be simply to change the height of the screen. When people look Down rather than straight ahead their Eye openings Are smaller. Therefore the tear film on their eyes dries More slowly. So these researchers suggest lowering the video screen and Tilting it upward. The findings were based Oil observations of 104 office workers. They found that people blink 22 times per minute while relaxing 10 times while Reading a Book and seven times while looking at a computer screen. The Eye openings were the same size when relaxing or doing computer work but Only about half As Large while Reading. A there Are few things in Home computing that qualify As a lifetime Eurc Nase. Your computer is going to c outdated in a couple of years. So is the scanner and the Printer and everything else but not the batteries in your Laptop a at least not if they re millennium batteries which come in the traditional a size used by a lot of laptops. Of course nothing is truly forever. When after 1,000 charges or so your millennium batteries Wear out you can Send them Back to Gates Energy products in Gainsville fla., Ana the company will ship you new ones. 1 the starter kit comes with two a batteries and a charge Man that will charge the batteries in 3 to 5 hours. It retails for about $12.99. A a a Compaq computer said it has opened a $77 million distribution Center in Gori chem Netherlands to serve As a focal Point for distribution of its Complete Range of products across Europe. The announcement said Over 140 jobs will be created by the Center employing staff from across Europe. The personal computer maker said the distribution Center will help reduce distribution costs and offer Compaq resellers a highly responsive and flexible delivery  a Microsoft announced that recent government raids in California uncovered Large amounts of counterfeit Microsoft is Dos 5 and windows 3.1 operating systems. The computer software giant said raids in san Jose and Concord calif., yielded counterfeit items produced under the Trade names oem s Spring Circle and bt1. A a major japanese computer makers will Post Sharp declines in profits for fiscal 1992, company officials said reflecting continuing economic weakness in Japan and abroad and the yen s strength. Five companies a Hitachi Ltd., Toshiba corp., Mitsubishi electric co., Nec corp. And Fujitsu Ltd. A Are expected to Post a combined 72 percent decline m profits according to the economic newspaper Nihon Meizai Shimun. It would be the second consecutive drop in yearly earnings among the five firms which collectively posted a 59 percent drop in fiscal 1991 from the previous year the newspaper reported. A in Roni wire reports disks go by the boo with the High Cost of manuals readers get a Little extra by . Shannon the new York times it is less and less common these Days to publish a computer Book without Mcloud tag one or More disks of software. Some of these collections Are genuinely valuable others rely on Overly familiar shareware and freeware. F since the life of a computer Book on a shop s shelf is so Short at three to six months the publisher May feet that software helps to justify a Price of $40 or so for a 300-Page paperback. Winning forms is a series of books six so far from random House electronic publishing. The three i have seen Are winning forms word for windows by Mark Scapicchio Jim Kinlan Jack Mcgrath and Scott Tucker winning forms word perfect for Dos by Bill Fletcher Jim Kinlan Jack Mcgrath and Scott Tucker and winning forms 123, by Jim Kinlan Jack Mcgrath and Scott Tucker Quot other titles Are for Quattro pro Microsoft Excel and word perfect for windows. The books Are $45 each including a 3.5-Inch disk. The approaches and Content Are similar throughout the series so we can let the Wora for windows Book serve As an example. It b a tossup whether to Deal with this package As a Book with a disk or a disk with a Book. The disk offers dozens of forms in the categories of business office sales and marketing correspondence and personal As Well As three logo styles for mailing labels letterheads fax cover sheets and the like. V the Book perhaps it should be called a manual gives instructions for using the forms and modifying them so they Bear your company name rather than Quot your company  to show the breadth of contents Here is what the business Section one of the Shorter ones has a Bill of lading credit application credit reminder past due of notice final notice estimate invoice packing list Purchase order service invoice and account statement. No personal computer is Ever fast enough. That dragster you bought a year ago is now eating the dust of the latest models and their Day will come too in a year or a year and a half if history is any guide. Ques Speed up your computer Book by Davie Reed and Barry Nance que $29.95is intended to delay the time when you will have to buy a new system by suggesting strategies for speeding up the old Jalopy. There Are ideas for speeding up a hard disk or a screen with either hardware or software replacing chips or an older Modem and much More. The disk contains 11 related programs including Flash Lite a disk caching Utility and spool master which speeds up printing. Now that the machine is zipping along again it is time to connect it. To others. Hoi links the guide to linking can users by Mark Eppley and David Haka a Osborne Mcgraw Hill $29.95comes with a persuasive resume Eppley b the founder and chief executive of travelling software the maker of Lap link the leading file Transfer Utility. There is a bit of theory and a lot of practical advice on sharing printers using modems and linking pcs to pcs macs mainframes and palmtops. The software la write a word processing program designed for laptops desk connect for linking two Dos computers just add Cable Sand file manager whose name is self explanatory. Another Quot official guide from Osborne Mcgraw Hill is sound blaster by Richard Heimlich David m. Golden Ivan Luk and Peter m. Ridge $29.95. The sound blaster is a circuit Board actually a whole family of boards from creative labs that brings the sound Quality and resources to a pc that macintosh and so huh Amiga owners have enjoyed for years. There Are chapters on computer sound in general the Anatomy of the various boards or cards and the software that comes with or can be used with them. Since the Book was produced As an official creative labs guide it contains according to the authors information that is not in the manuals that come with the boards. There is software too of course blaster master a sound editor sputter Monitor for adding sound to Dos Sample sounds and others. The sound blaster is part of the multimedia mix the combining of text audio video and anything else that runs walks sings or chatters. Multimedia Toolkit by Russell Lipton random House electronic publishing $45is a thoughtful and literate guide it is not often that Martin Heidegger the German philosopher makes an appearance in a computer Book to the Field. The software is a limited version of Bell Atlantic s Doc source a document manager. You May be buying used software by Joe Fasbinder United press International would you buy used software maybe you already have. An undercover investigation by pc world Magazine indicates that As much As 25 percent of the software sold As new actually has been used before. The problem is with returns. People buy software open the package Load it and determine that it does t do what they want. Or some unscrupulous people buy software take it Home Load it up and then Send the original disks Back to the store while keeping a working copy at Home. These people often fill in the Blanks on the screen As the software loads. That writes information Back to the installation disk and the next person in the Chain gets a screen saying the software belongs to someone else. Less frequently the first time owner leaves a virus behind when the software is returned. And some equally unscrupulous retailers Are taking that returned software into a Back room where they Are putting new shrink wrap around it then Selling it As new. While some used software is sold As a full package sometimes an item or two is left out. That s for the consumer to discover. Many times its the warranty registration card entitling the owner to cheap upgrades or other benefits. Posing As everyday Consumers buyers from san Francisco based pc world bought and returned software packages at 20 stores throughout the United states. Of the 39 packages purchased four showed evidence of having been previously used. And an additional seven wound up Back on the shelves for resale after they were returned to the store. That s a whopping 25 percent re wrapping rate. Quot strictly speaking it s not a scientifically valid Sample. Its not big enough a admitted Phil Lemmons editor in chief of the Magazine. Quot but it s a pretty Good indication. Quot i think that even if it was 50 percent in error that would mean that 12 percent of commercial software is being re wrapped. That a a pretty remarkable  the re wrapping was not limited to any single store or Chain of stores although some were less inclined to re wrap than others. Nor was the More expensive so Ware re shelved More often than Low Cost products. Many of the More expensive Zackaj bought by the Magazine were return but never put Back on the shelves we some relatively Low Cost software Wiback on Sale almost immediately. To be fair a not one of the egg he stores was caught re wrapping used so Ware a Lemmons said. Neither were s Walden software electronics boutique office depot outlets. There has been anecdotal evidence years that re wrapping took place in 1 High pressure world of software Sal where Competition a is fierce and so pressure to keep prices Low. But ofter was a Quot Friend of a Friend who got so Ware that Only looked new. Few customers the Magazine talk with said they knew the practice was widespread As it apparently is regard i of How Long they had been using comp  generous trial periods in which i trailers allow potential buyers to take so Ware out of the store for As Long As Days for testing is the primary reas Why re wrapping software is so prevalent said Lemmons