SCOUG OS/2 For You - December 1998

SOMEWHERE IN CYBERSPACE --- A suite of office programs for free is a very tempting offer and worth a bit of attention even if the download is, oh, about 77 MB or so. And if it's hard for you to get the necessary block of phone time (we're talking several hours here) or if you often get disconnected and lose what you've partially downloaded, there's a handy utility that will pick up where a partial download left off so you just keep restarting until the entire download is done. Are you ready?

WGET is a downloader. That's all it does, and it does it very well.

The WGET package (WGET153.ZIP is the current version at this time) includes a separate 4OS2 executable in case you're using that shell. There are also a number of documentation files.

WGET uses the EMX DLL's, so if you haven't installed them yet you'll have to download them as well. Just download the EMX package (it's called EMXRT.ZIP), unzip it, then run WGET. WGET will tell you which EMX files it needs (the extension is .DLL); just put them into either the WGET directory or your DLL directory.

A big plus with WGET is that when you use it to do a download for you, interruptions won't result in the loss of everything that you've received so far. Put WGET in a command file so it's easy to restart if you have to. The syntax is WGET -C [URL] where "[URL]" is the download link.

WGET is pretty neat. There are lots of options, and it displays a dot for every 1 KB it downloads so you know how far it's gotten.

WGET is a 233 KB download and takes up 578 KB after unzipping. The EMX package is a 538 KB download and takes up 1.5 MB when unzipped. WGET and EMX are freeware.

StarOffice is an office suite that's now free for personal use. It includes a lot of items: word processor, spreadsheet, database, presentation program, personal time scheduler and drawing program. On the Internet side it has a browser, a mail client and a news reader.

Getting StarOffice up and running is a bit tricky. Let's go step-by-step through the download. There's so much to cover, we'll get to the product capabilities next month.

First, go to www.stardivision.com and click on StarOffice 5.0 Personal Edition for OS/2, and then on StarOffice 5.0 Personal Edition Download. You'll see the license agreement, and after accepting it you register your name and email address.

You'll receive a 22-character Personal Key value and some instructions on expanding the SO50_01.EXE file that you're about to download. If you're using a browser to download the file you'll need to enable cookies to get the download. If you don't, the server will keep resending you the Registration Form.

Once downloaded, run SO50_01 /DIRECTORIES to expand the file. The expansion puts all files into an SO50 subdirectory, and there are a couple of README files you should read. The important README is the larger 5 KB one in the SO50_INS subdirectory - it has important registration, personalization, Java and TCP/IP information. Also read LICENSE.TXT.

At this point, follow the directions in the 5 KB README.TXT file to set the loopback interface.

Next month we'll go through the StarOffice installation and explore some of the highlights of the different applications in the suite.

StarOffice 5.0 is freeware for personal use. The download file is 77 MB, expanded files (created from the download file) are 90 MB, and the installation files (created from the expanded files) are 96 MB (not including the Java files, which you'll only need if you don't already have Java 1.1.6 or better).

Paul D. Wirtz is a systems integrator for Volt Information Sciences, Inc. and Vice President of the Southern California OS/2 User Group.  He has a fondness for old-time radio.

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