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But there is an easy way for you to remember Network Computing. We're the ones with the Real-World Labs. And in this issue, those labs were once again a hotbed of activity.

At the University of Wisconsin (a place our New York-centric Buyer's Guide editor, Judy Biener, once noted was "somewhere near Montana"), Mike Gerdts tested Solaris 2.6 , Jim Drews took NetPro's DS Expert for a test spin , and Joel Conover, who put the "sin" in "Wisconsin," put ATM backbone switches through the ringer . During Joel's tests, he got an interesting vendor phone call (and what vendor phone call isn't interesting?): "Mr. Conover, someone in your Manhasset office referred me. I understand you write about ATM. Would you be interested in hearing about new high-tech banks deploying ATMs nationwide?"

While it didn't fit Joel's story, he was interested, since, after all, ATMs probably haven't found their way to Montana, much less Wisconsin. But Rob Kohlhepp, our lab director, insists "Wisconsin does have moving pictures now." Just to prove it, associate technology editor Jeff Newman and Dave Brown tested H.323-compliant videoconferencing products between our University of Wisconsin and San Mateo, Calif., labs, over our frame relay network. Jeff also tested ISDN failover devices in our San Mateo lab , and definitively answers the question "2B or not 2B?"

We also have two corporate lab partnerships, one with a large energy company in Northern California, and the other with a multinational company in Central Florida, where Nancy Cox tested a beta version of Microsoft Exchange 5.5 . After Nancy completed this article, she sent the following message: "I'll be on vacation in Italy until October 10, and will not be checking voicemail or e-mail. In fact, the most high-tech electronic device I'll be taking with me is my hair dryer!" This led David Willis to reply: "Should you need to get in touch with Nancy's hair dryer, we have the latest Conair Enterprise MIB here."

Our Syracuse University lab tried to test that MIB, since network management was the big focus there this month. Senior technology editor Bruce Boardman tested enterprise network management products , Jeremy Impson took a Sneak Preview of NetSuite Professional Audit and technology editor Dan Backman tested protocol analyzers

Finally, we maintain a connection from our labs to our magazine production network in Manhasset, N.Y., where David Harvey has been testing some new printers for our art staff. He took a breather to write our network printer Buyer's Guide .

But please don't confuse this article with a review of printers that appeared in PC Magazine's June 24 issue. In that article, "The Technicolor Revolution," a sentence reads: "The total life-cycle cost of a $500 printer with bigger tanks may be less than that of a $300 printer with ink tanks the size of crack vials." Now, was this just thei r Web monkeys at work, or can we assume the PC Magazine editors are intimately familiar with the size of crack vials?

Fritz Nelson, fnelson@nwc.com