April, 2000      Diablo Blue      Page 9

At Comdex, I saw a very interesting and I think useful device. The device is a QUICKLINK PEN by Wizcom Technologies. This "pen" is approximately 6 inches long by 1 inch by 1.5 inch. It weighs just a few ounces and is designed for either left or right-handed use. It looks like a rectangular marking pen. The "tip" of the pen is a roller. As you roll the pen over text, it scans the text into its 2 Megs of flash memory. Optical character recognition (at 97% accuracy -- depending on the text size and font) automatically occurs. My experiments with the pen bear this out. It can scan and recognize text from six to twenty two point size in normal, bold, italic, underlined and inverted text. It turns all text

into ASCII. It cannot recognize handwriting or special characters but on its hard shell carrying case is an "opticard" which allows manual text entry. This is simply a card with bar-code looking symbols, which you can scan to spell out words and numbers. Wizcom states that the pen can hold 1000 pages of (8.5 x 11 inch) text. I must admit, I haven't tested this spec but I can tell it does hold a lot by looking at the memory usage indicator. It scans one line at a time and there is a 3-line 400 dpi screen on the side of the pen. Once you scan a line of text, you can edit it from the screen using the control buttons on the pen. I found that like the old hand scanners, you need to practice with it to develop a rhythm and feel for the best way to hold the pen to get a good scan. Scanning in really bright light doesn't work! Nor does scanning black on blue or red on white.
There are four applications built into the pen. NOTES is for freeform text- which can easily be broken into paragraphs; ADDRESS BOOK prompts you with a built in form including: name, title, company, address, city, state, zip, phone, email, Website, notes, etc; INTERNET LINKS for urls; and TABLES for capturing charts of data while maintaining cell integrity.
Using the pen is really easy. Select your application, name your file (it can auto name for you) and scan. Transferring to your computer is easily accomplished either by IrDA -- which I haven't tried yet or by included serial cable. The unit will also work with Palms and CE devices.
I've been using one for a few weeks and I really like it. I find it convenient to scan in notes and business card information. I find that since I carry one in my briefcase, I find more uses for it. Definitely, a cool gadget! The retail price is $149.

Having problems with your DirectX games? First, are you running the latest version of DirectX (7.0)? Second, have you tried the handy-dandy DirectX diagnostic utility?
Click the Start Button, select Run, then enter "dxdiag" (without the quotes). It'll run through your system, provide detailed DirectX driver information, and allow you to test each component for compatibility problems. If you do run into a snag or two, you'll want to check that manufacturer's Web site for the latest 'certified' driver update. Or, possibly downgrade to a DirectX driver that may be more stable than responsive