>Reliance on the mouse??? It is Windows...< bg >. With respect to CT, I thought keyboarding in a non-ergonomically correct manner - (ergonomically correct of course being anything that works for oneself) - was the primary cause. I have never heard of a mouse adding to the problem. You must find the whole Windows OS Platform a challenge then...

In fact, ergonomics is a big issue. I spent serious dollars a couple of years ago for furniture and then had a good friend who is a physical therapist help me configure it right. Major issues include having elbows sit on arm rests at the right height as well as having wrists supported.

I've found through experience that I can type (Natural keyboard) pretty much all day without a problem, but when I switch back and forth from keyboard to mouse or just live on the mouse, my right hand gets quite sore because it doesn't get the support it needs.

>In reality, you like the ergonomics of the OzWin off-line reader.
>

I'm not using OzWin, as you'd have noticed if you'd read my message carefully. I'm using TapCIS. It's the last DOS application I use regularly.

>However, even the classic CIS interface, WinCim I believe it was called, could not compare to what is available on the UT based on the reasons I put forth in my previous reply. That response was couched both in the context of the WinCim and the web-based CIS interfaces.

>>
>Now why do I think it's better? I start TapCIS in the morning and I push one key combination. It goes online and downloads all my waiting messages (including email) in the forums I've configured. I read those offline (using only the keyboard if I choose - a big deal since I have carpal tunnel and using the mouse exacerbates it), write my replies and they sit in TapCIS's outbox until my next pass. I can edit them if I want since they don't get sent until I tell them to. Several times a day, I repeat this process, sending out the messages I've written and retrieving what's waiting for me.


>Offline/OnLine, I think many of these lines are getting blurred. More and more folks are always connected, either through a T-1 Line, Cable Modems, or DSL Lines. Personally, I have a 1.6mb DSL and am always connected. The beauty of the UT is that you don't have to archive a thing. It is all there all the time.

First, the lines are only blurred for those who have a full-time connection available. I don't. I'm waiting for the phone company to get around to making DSL available to me but am in the unfortunate position of living equidistant (read: as far as possible) from two central offices.

Even with a full-time connection, I don't want to have to search the full message-base to find information. I want to be able to cull the information to keep what's of interest to me. I don't know about you, but I can rarely find what I want in, say, MSKB. Having everything available to search from is _not_ a good thing and won't be until we have truly intelligent search agents.

I think your other message also mentioned the financial point of view of paying for CompuServe. Since it's also my ISP, I suspect I'm paying less than most people. I pay $9.95 a month. That's all. TapCIS is shareware for which I paid a long, long time ago. I did just upgrade before the end of the year, but I actually think that was a free upgrade. Besides, you're suggest I pay for PUTM, so that would at least balance out.


>IMO, your issues rest with the fact that you have been using the same piece of software for 11 years and that if you were going to use the UT as your primary online forum, it would require significant change on your part. In other words, your critisims with the UT have more to do with how the UT does not fit into your established way of doing things as opposed to capabilities of the UT itself.

There's no question that comfort level comes into play. OTOH, I also use Agent to read various newsgroups and while I don't like it quite as much as TapCIS (in particular, the way it deals with read and unread messages, something I didn't talk about in my previous message because I didn't think of it), I find it far more natural than this interface.

As for content here, it seems solid. I haven't spend enough time here to truly evaluate it. I do have an issue with management's heavy hand on casual conversation.

Tamar