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Characterbased developers will argue that the linking abilities found in Excel ah  and Wingz are not up to the standards of the true three ah Ԫdimensional modeling abilities of such programs as 123 v3.0, ah  Supercalc5, and VPPlanner 3D, and that the processor ah  resources demanded by Windows degrades the performance of ah  programs running under it. To that we respond: most users will be perfectly content with and well served by the linking features in Excel and Wingz, and both products operate ah  quickly enough in interactive use that users won't even notice the difference. True, extremely complex recalculations take a bit longer in these programs then in their characterbased brethren, but remember that under Windows, you needn't wait ah  around anyway; just get on with some other work. XAs to the question of which of these two products is better, you'll have to examine your needs for an answer. Wingz is a ah  breakthrough in its feature set, and the publishing and graphing functions it contains are good enough that many users will be able to get by without programs tailored specifically to those tasks. However, for sheer ease of spreadsheetspecific operations, little inconsistencies in the interface of Wingz such as menus that are sometimes sticky (holding ah  their place after you release the mouse button), but not always, force the nod to Excel. ah   ! Simple Win ă  Matesys Corporationă XIn preWindows 3.0 times, Simple Win would have been a ah  great idea; actually, it still is, but too many other products are out there that do most of what Simple Win does, better. Now, ah  except for an arguable claim to the speed crown, Simple Win ah  is just another Windows enhancer and one with a very ah  limited function set, at that. XInterestingly, our first impression (and one that remains) was that we like Simple Win. It's easy to operate, brightens up ah  your screen, and it's competent. Unfortunately, that just isn't enough anymore. With other products such as WindowsTools ah  and Windows Express out there (both reviewed in this issue), ah  Simple Win just doesn't go far enough in terms of functional ah ԭity or value for your dollar. XDistributed on a single highdensity diskette, the five programs that make up Simple Win occupy just 350 kilobytes ah  of disk space, and are totally independent of each other, so if you chose not to use some, they could be deleted from your disk. Simple Win also comes with over sixty Windows ah  bitmap images that can be cut and pasted between applications using the Clipboard, and are meant specifically to be used as icons for the folders and files Simple Win uses. ah  They're very good; if you need some color clipart, check them out. Portentously, they can't be used as program icons outside Simple Win. Altogether they take up about 200K more ah  space. Documentation for Simple Win is a single, fifty page ah  booklet with lots of illustrations, so you needn't worry about the learning curve. XThe five programs that make up the product are really variations on three. Applications Loader is a usebutdon'tmodify subset of Applications Manager, and MiniAlbum ^0 enjoys a similar relationship with Album. File Manager is intended as just that: a replacement for Windows' own ah  program of the same name. JLWe'll start with Album. Simply put, it's a program for storing images for transferring between applications through the Clipboard. It's useful if you find yourself doing such things frequently, and includes a screen capture feature. End of story. y!a LyjddPROFILEy U 1  1 ?!A(dd( 3t> XA  Product Name  3 [ PA,  :=  Simple Win $150 Matesys 3 Bethesda Metro Center Suite 700 Bethesda, MD 20814 (301)9614899?JLFile Manager is, arguably, a considerable improvement on Windows's own tool of that name. Using a very attractive ah  iconic/graphical representation, it shows a directory tree and file listings on screen in movable windows, and provides for $%% !%$file and directory manage!%ment therein. Although !%much easier to work with !%(and nicer to look at) then !%Windows' File Manager, it's ah  !%!%feature set is almost identi!%!%cal. Only one directory tree !%!%can be displayed at a time, !%!%directories can be created !%!%and deleted but not re!%!%Ԛnamed or moved, and calls !%!%to such external DOS pro!%grams as FORMAT, !%ԚBACKUP, and RESTORE !%are integrated. You can !%search for missing files by !%name only on your current %%drive, print or view the contents of most files using a builtin conversion tool that replaces unprintable characters with innocuous boxes, and switch among drives almost instantly, owing to Simple Win maintaining filebased representations of ah  your system's directory structures. Wonder why Windows ah  doesn't use a "trash can" icon a la MacIntosh? Simple Win has ah  one, and it stores "trashed" files in a hidden directory it creates, where they stay until you "empty the trash". JLThen there's Application Manager. It provides a colorful icon driven interface where you click on the symbol that enters folders and subfolders that contain more icons representing programs (and optionally, file associations). Simple Win enables you to assign passwords, attach help ah  messages, or automatically call up all files that match a particular name specification when you start the programs represented by icons, but those advantages aren't what they appear. Named files are limited to those in a single directory, the customized help messages are accessed manually through Simple Win's menu structure (this can be changed by switch ah ԭing to a list mode of displaying file contents, but we think that takes away from the attractiveness and functionality of Simple Win), and passwords are totally unsecured, appearing ah  immediately before the name attached to their associated folder in the configuration file that enables Simple Win to do ah  its work. Further, each folder is limited to just twelve subprocesses, be they more folders or files. JLIn a case of not enough content, innovation, or true practicality, Simple Win falls short. Matesys must try a lot ah  harder if they want to compete in the Windows 3.0 utilities ah  derby.