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While trying to remove a problem version of Microsoft I.E. from my computer, the uninstaller also nuked my operating system forcing me to reinstall my entire system.
Another problem I encountered was that while I.E. was on my computer with Netscape I had numerous problems, with one or the other and sometimes both of them. It was almost as if they were conflicting with each other. After speaking with several others concerning their similar experiences I came to the conclusion that if Netscape was all ready on your computer system and if you installed I.E. after the fact that I.E. would not work correctly, and sometimes cause Netscape not to work correctly. Likewise people who had installed I.E. first discovered that when they installed Netscape that it would not work correctly either. This leaving each one with the impression that the other/second web browser software simply was no good. This left Netscape users with a strong dislike for Microsoft I.E. and likewise the I.E. users with a dislike for Netscape products. (Some of these people are members of the ISC.)
One impression that many people have is that Microsoft is doing their level best to put the competition out of business. If the only O.S. they have to work with is Microsoft Windows, then Microsoft can build their O.S. to be incompatible with competitor's software. While this may just be a suspicion of ours you may also notice the legal disputes between government, and other software vendors against Microsoft for forcing them to install Microsoft's I.E. on computers they sell. If there wasn't a certain amount of truth to these rumors then why all the hub-bub ? How could they make a case strong enough to take it to court if at least some solid evidence were not presented ? Why would the court fine Microsoft a million dollars a day if they had not concluded that Microsoft was in error ?
Numerous attempts to get I.E. software working along with their NetMeeting conference software brought one of their faithfuls to their defense telling me simply close all other windows because when you run I.E. and NetMeeting it likes to totally take over your computer system. He intended his statement to be in the best faith for Microsoft yet there was a certain ring of truth in his words. It takes more RAM to run the Microsoft software, and "it just doesn't like" certain other software present in RAM while it is running. Why is that ? Why must the Microsoft software be so very large ? How is it that Netscape can do the same things faster and better with software a fraction of the size ? I can't help but believe that a great deal of Microsoft's I.E. code is not there for the purpose of browsing the web, but may be doing something else. Either that or Microsoft I.E. simply is not efficiently written. Object code should be written as small and as efficient as possible.
After installing NetMeeting on several other computer systems and seeing that it would work almost 100% of the time and when it did, it worked really well I came home to try my NetMeeting again. It still didn't work and I was told I needed to get the latest version of the software, which I did. That solved my problems with NetMeeting and now about 50% of the time it works quite well. The problems that still exist is that it takes a long time to get it logged on and finding a service to get on that isn't all ready loaded down is a problem that isn't likely to be resolved anytime soon. Wouldn't it be nice if we could just link to the person we want to talk with, without having to link to a Microsoft service ? Try explaining all these technical things to a new user of NetMeeting, and why it takes so long to link up and how they must find the same service before they can talk. While doing this my brother told me it would be faster to drive to my house over 200 miles away than to wait for NetMeeting to work. We couldn't even get logged onto the same service. I could get on ils4 but he could not. He got on ils but I couldn't get on it. We could not talk and that was the end of that story. Needless to say it left us both with a bad taste for NetMeeting.
So yes, NetMeeting will work, and does so independently
of Microsoft I.E.
Yes it can talk full duplex on your computer
system similar to using a phone.
Yes it has a video feature but I have never seen
it work, so I can't comment on this feature.
Yes it has white board and chat modes that do
work quite well.
Yes it does have collective browsing features,
that allows you and someone else to link your browsers together so that
one browser will follow the other.
I have it on my computer so that I can talk to
other people who use it.
(1) Netscape frequently fails to recognize page breaks under graphics files. The older versions of Netscape suffered from the same problems, and so does 4.04.
(2) Netscape Composer loves to nuke the web page user counters when you save the HTML files back out to your hard drive. The older versions did this and so does 4.04.
It is relatively easy to build a web site or web page using Netscape Composer. In fact nearly all of the I.S.C. web site was constructed using Netscape web construction software. Netscape also has a web site just to support those who build web sites using their software. It is very easy to use this feature but you must be logged onto their site while building the web page.
Netscape Composer doesn't have the fancy features for editing frame
web sites or using fancy Java features, but it does allow you to use animated
graphics in your web pages with ease. With sound files though I found
I had to install the HTML manually using notepad.
Conference is a plug-in and can be downloaded with the complete version of Communicator 4.04.
Unlike NetMeeting I believe that it requires Netscape 4.04 to be installed on your computer before it will work.
Conference isn't very large, logs on fast and works similar to using a radio. Even though it says it has a full duplex mode I have yet to see it work in full duplex mode. You talk, you be still and wait for the other person to talk. When they get done then you can talk again.
Because of its ease of use, speed at linking up and dependability it is my voice program of choice. I have set in chat for 2 hours straight without problems while NetMeeting gives me problems about half the time a few min. into a discussion, sometimes locking the computer up and leaving me to hit the reset button to correct the problem.
The only real problem I have had with Conference is that when my brother
and I try to talk between my office and his office if I send him the chat
request it comes back to me in duplicate and frequently won't work.
One has his address in it and the other doesn't. When he sends me
a chat request I also get it in duplicate, one with an address and one
without. Then it says I was the one who sent the request to him.
Sometimes if I delete the box that doesn't have his address in it, it will
work anyway. I have asked Netscape why it does this and they have
no answers for me. I only have one copy of Conference on both computers
and can not understand why we have this problem between these two computers.
You build the entire web site as a publication and save it out as such. Then when you want to create your web site and see how it works on your hard drive you simply "publish" that site by using the web site generator feature of MSP 97. Tell it what directory to put the web site in and presto in moments you are the proud owner of a web site on your hard drive. One good enough to make you appear to be a real webmaster.
I used MSP 97 to create all but one page of my family web site, and here is why.
Because it is easy to use and in just a few hours you can generate a nice looking web site. There are two or three things that MSP 97 doesn't do very well. While it can put a music file on your page it can't do the automatic features and conceal that music file like I wanted it. The other thing it can't do is handle animated graphics, which I also wanted to do for our family Christmas web site.
Another drawback to using MSP 97 to build a web site is that it automatically generates your pub file into a web site by redigitizing the graphics found on the PUB pages. Sometimes the quality of these graphics files suffers greatly in the conversion.
Another thing you may not like about it is that you can't create a web site one page at a time. The entire publication must be in MSP 97 as one pub file, otherwise it will write over other pages created in MSP 97 using the same publication/file names. For example when it generates your index page it may create your title as a graphics file sometimes using a name such as img0.gif. If you make another page as a single publication and intend to use it in the same web site it will regenerate img0.gif as another file, then write that file over the previous one. Likewise all of the html pages that follow the index.html file will be page2.html, page3.html, etc. Rather than having a descriptive file name that describes what that page is called. So every time you create a new page in MSP 97 it will cause you to lose the previous page. The solution is really simple, just keep the entire web site that is generated by MSP 97 in the same publication file. And if you create other web pages using some other program make sure not to name them the same as the files that were created by MSP 97.
Another thing about making web sites using MSP 97 is the fact once it generates an HTML web site the HTML pages can't be reloaded into MSP 97 to be edited. Only the original PUB file itself can be edited. If you lose track of your original PUB files for your web site you might as well start over from scratch because those HTML files on your web site or hard drive are not going to be much help to you. If more than one person edits a web site they must both have MSP 97 and a copy of the latest changes to the PUB file itself.
So if you have no high quality pictures to put into the web site and have no need for automatic hidden sound files or animations you will love the other powerful features of MSP 97. If you have another web building program you might like to compliment your site by using both MSP 97 and the other software such as Netscape Composer. Between the two and a little work with Notepad you can create a nice professional looking web site.
I highly recommend MSP 97 for several reasons. The first being its ability to create nice looking publications to be printed. Second being its ability to create web sites very quickly and its ability to generate any publication into a web site. It also has a powerful automatic feature that allows you to create overlaid graphics and text into imbedded mapped graphics for menu commands.
I intend to create the review of MSP 97 as a publisher using MSP 97
so you can see for yourself it is a wonderful program and you might consider
it as your publisher or even web building software.