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Agent 2000
v1.0
Reviewed
by: Howard
Carson
Published
by: Vulcansoft,
Ltd.
Requires: Windows
95 through XP, 32MB of RAM, Pentium 133MHz or higher, VGA
video, sound card
MSRP: $79.95
Agent
2000 v1.0 is a collection of unified modules which form
a complete Personal Information Manager (PIM). The modules
include a graphical appointment manager, an address manager
with auto-dialing and links to web, FTP and newsgroup sites,
a task/to-do list creator and manager, alarms, built-in
e-mail and spam filtering, a diary, a knowledge agent,
biorhythm graph and compatibility chart, city distance
and financial calculators, a measurement converter, custom
wallpaper backgrounds, and much more.
We
tested Agent 2000 on two different computers: a PII/350MHZ
machine with 128MB of RAM running Windows 98, and a Dell
Dimension XPS P166s with 64MB of RAM running Windows
NT4 (SP4). Installation and operation on both machines
was flawless - no lockups, no incompatibilities, and
no instabilities.
Agent
2000 can't accommodate network or workgroup use, but
still represents a viable alternative to Microsoft(R)
Outlook. In fact, Outlook could benefit from several
Agent 2000 features such as independent file linking,
the Financial Calculator, City Distance, and Converter
modules. Agent 2000's Appointment Agent gives you daily,
weekly, monthly, and yearly graphical views, individual
alarms for each appointment, as well as drag & drop
support (you can drag & drop almost any data from
one agent or module to another). The Task Agent offers
lists of overdue, completed, daily, weekly, and monthly
tasks, individual alarms for each task, and repeat settings.
The Address Agent features autodialing of phone numbers,
direct links to Web, FTP, and newsgroup sites, automatic
reminders for upcoming birthdays, and a virtually unlimited
number of contact items. The E-mail Agent includes built-in,
multi-level Spam filtering, support for an unlimited
number of mailboxes, and a voice-announced number of
sent and received messages, and automatic detection of
e-mail, WWW, FTP and newsgroup hyperlinks in memo- fields.
You'll also find a Diary Agent, a Knowledge Agent for
flexible storage of unrelated pieces of information (you
can create a collection of folders in which to store
data, to which you can point individual records and appointments).
There's also a Biorhythm module, and Calculators for
finances, measurements, and distances.
The
program also has the ability to grow with the user's demands
or level of expertise. A user may start by simply adding
records to the address manager and later add links to digital
photographs, sales reports, entire folders, or to a record
in the appointment manager.
We liked
the built-in support for HTML e-mail (although we could
not get it to work with some e-mail pages - Andover News
for example). HTML e-mail such as Outlook stationery worked
just fine.
Cons: Reducing
the width of the Biorhythm module can cause the bar graph
text to become unreadable. It also happens in the Setup
tab sheet of the Task Agent. This PIM needs the loving
hand of a serious UI designer. Agent 2000 is fully functional
and usable now, but it could be much, much better after
the creation of a set of attractive and more intuitive
module and agent interfaces. The Menu button in the agent
windows should be renamed to Links and placed higher in
the UI because it disappears every time the height of the
windows is reduced to fit in another module dialog or agent
window. The whole package could benefit greatly from some
solid QA testing too. You can't import Outlook and other
address databases in native formats; Agent 2000 will import
text (TXT) and Comma-Separated Value (CSV) files only.
If you've got a large address database and you decide to
use Agent 2000, you've got to do a fair bit of preparatory
work. Agent 2000 cannot track linked files (such as bitmaps)
which are moved or deleted (the software should at least
call up a file selector to help find the errant file).
Pros: Quick
access to context sensitive menus in each module and agent
via right-click. Well designed, basic drag & drop support
(no OLE support though, so there's no drag & drop between
apps). Although the biorhythm module is a bit distracting
(contemporary business and personal pressures often don't
'care' whether you're in an 'up' or 'down' period), the
other non-traditional modules are extremely useful and
really don't exist in this particular combination in other
products. We spent nearly a full hour playing with the
Converter module (did you know that 300 tablespoons are
equal to .001 cords of wood?) We're not sure if this is
accurate or not, but we had a blast fooling around (it
will convert anything to anything and it's blazingly fast).
The appointment, task/to-do and address agents were easy
to use, as were record linking and file linking, making
Agent 2000 a better choice than many other PIMs. If you
have no need for workgroup or group appointment scheduling
and sharing across a network, or if you're a traveling
salesperson (or anyone else who is on the road frequently
on business), or if you've got a busy sales or individual
meeting schedule, this PIM is worth a look.
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