FileMine Jewels

OVERALL RATING: * * * * *

First there were spreadsheets and databases. Then came personal digital organizers.

This electronic home and family organizer is the next best thing to having your own personal assistant tracking your life. And its ease of use is unparalleled!

With the first double-click, HomeWise’s Configuration Wizard walks you through the steps to configure your household user information. Next, the instantly intuitive Control Center main screen comes up with a pop-up dialog to guide you in the next direction.

The Control Center has 24 buttons; the top half of the screen points to rooms or locations such as the living room, basement, garage and outside the house. When you drill down into one of the rooms, you’ll find more buttons pointing to functions relating to that room -- you’ll find areas to record virtually everything from recipes and repair projects to laundry schedules and landscaping duties. Family members can keep individual lists in their bedrooms.

The bottom half of the Control Center screen provides functions such as a message center, family phone book and calendar, medical data, pet information, emergency phone numbers and other shared family information. And though it’s unnecessary for this easy-to-use gem, the online help that’s provided is top-notch!

HomeWise is one of the most intuitive programs ever made and it packs a powerful database punch. Download it -- your family will thank you for it.

Julie Blumenfeld

Ratings Criteria

Ease of Use: * * * * *
Interface: * * * * *
Documentation: * * * * *
Performance: * * * * *

PC Answers

PCA RATING: 78%

First there were spreadsheets and databases. Then came personal digital organizers. Now there's HOMEwise, a package that does everything that the larger programs do, but on a smaller scale and with a friendlier face.

HOMEwise is billed as a family organizer. It gathers together in one place all the information you need to run your household. Everything -- from shopping lists and recipes, to the contents of your bookshelves and safety deposit boxes -- is included, and arranged into 'rooms' like a real house. Click on 'dining room', for example, and you can list the family silver, keep track of your collection of fine wines (arranged by vintage, type and even sugar content) and maintain lists of people you might invite to your dinner parties.

The same level of detail is maintained throughout the other pages. There's even communication sections in which family members can leave messages for each other.

What's clever about HOMEwise is that, although it's just a collection of simple databases, the form design has been done for you. So instead of blank templates you have immediately useful pages. You could use any commercial database to do the same thing, but it would take an age to set up and lack the friendly front-end.

But maybe you don't want to catalogue your life in such obsessive detail. Keeping a house inventory for contents insurance purposes is all very well, but if your PC gets stolen all the information goes with it. Just to be sure, you should print everything and keep it in hard copy form. [All data can be backed up onto diskette for off-premises storage as well.]

HOMEwise does what it sets out to do very well and for very little outlay. If you're the organized type and your ring binders are falling apart at the seams, it could be just what you've been looking for.

PC Format

PC FORMAT SILVER - PCF RATING: 82%

You probably bought your PC with genuinely practical uses in mind, but it didn't take many rounds of Hexen, Doom, or Duke Nukem 3D to relegate those good intentions to the back burner. If we're honest, few of us use our home PCs for anything more than a regular dose of gaming action and the occasional letter to the bank manager. Hardly the solution to the hassles of household management you convinced your parent/spouse the investment would be when they agreed to buy it. At long last, though, your PC can earn its keep with the HOMEwise package.

HOMEwise is a "home and family organizer" designed to make home management as easy as drinking 10 pints of lager after a particularly long walk in the sun. In a candy-covered nutshell, it's really nothing more than a series of dedicated databases (organizers), each of which is designed to help you keep track of a specific aspect of home management (making out your shopping list, organizing a party, keeping track of maintenance chores, for example). Like your house, the program is divided up into rooms -- bedrooms, kitchen, garage and so on -- which, when you click on them, takes you to a set of databases specific to that room. Click on the Computer Room icon, for example, and you are presented with a set of organizers specific to that room -- an inventory of your PC kit, a PC maintenance checklist, a list of all your software and so on.

Most of the organizers have a fixed format specific to the data they're supposed to hold. The PC equipment inventory, for example, is a fairly simple affair holding such information as the equipment type, the make, model and specification, the date it was purchased, the value and so on. [Most functions contain a "Misc." field for additional information.] Others enable you to manage check lists (of people invited to a party, for example), write notes to members of your family and so on. You might say it all sounds boring, but we certainly found that HOMEwise can bring order to chaos.

Jason Holborn

Ottawa Transcript

HOMEwise Finds Market

A team of two Ottawa-area entrepreneurs is taking a shot at the software industry's dream: using a shoestring budget to create a product they believe could have a place in most homes in the western world.

Tony Walton and Steve Clifford believe that their windows-based HOMEwise package can be a central tool in most homes - that it could actually make the "home computer" a practical resource for most families. The first edition of their software, with more than 150 functions, went on the market in January. Early results are promising.

In March, Walton said the team had sold at least 500 copies of the software, recouping their initial investment. Walton said he is now receiving inquiries from computer suppliers wishing to bundle the software with their hardware. Recently, they introduced their product to the Internet and have received a couple of dozen orders worldwide in the last few weeks.

"We had to stop selling to retail (stores) because we ran out of manpower," Walton said. "It became an administrative problem. We're concentrating more on the Internet, bundling and things like that."

I first met Walton and Clifford at a HITE (High Technology Entrepreneurs) interest group meeting which grew out of a FreeNet discussion group. Walton, 47, and Clifford, 22, had been working together more than a year to turn Walton's idea into reality. They were getting ready to launch HOMEwise but held the fear of many inventors -- how could they protect their idea from theft, while getting it to the wide market as quickly as possible.

Accordingly, in arranging for a demonstration at The Transcript, Walton and Clifford brought their own computer and took everything with them when they left. Therefore my review of the software is confined to what I could see when they were here. This limits the value of my observations since, realistically, software designed for home use is best evaluated over some time, in the appropriate home-based environment.

Walton says HOMEwise will change the perception of the home-based computer. The software is designed with an opening menu organized by rooms in the house. Functions appropriate to the room can be found simply by clicking on the mouse. Recipes, for example, are stored in the "kitchen", while a household inventory (for insurance purposes) would be stored in the "study".

The software is designed so that each family member can have his or her own password and level of privacy. This allows children, for example, to set up their own personal calendars and organizers. Family members can leave messages for each other. Simple help menus, searching functions and prompts make the software appear to be fool-proof to even the most unsophisticated user.

"It's not leading edge technology," Walton said. "It's trailing edge -- it's for the masses."

This characteristic, he says, is deliberate. "I knew we were on the right track when my mother, at 70-something, ran the program through its first real, practical test with very little prompting and no real difficulty."

Walton and Clifford had the courage to turn their dreams into a real vision. You can support them (and get a useful present for your family) by ordering HOMEwise at (613) 692-5130.

Mark Buckshon

Computer Paper

HOMEwise: reviewed

Back in the days when we were all playing Colecovision, Intellivision and other stone-age home computer games (remember just after Fire and the Wheel) a new vision materialized before our wondering eyes - the home computer. We were told that newfangled devices like the Commodore 64 would have us all balancing our checkbooks, making shopping lists, keeping inventories, and performing countless other menial data entry-type tasks without a pen and paper.

Some people bit. Most didn't. After all, even in our innocence, those early hamster-powered machines seemed slow and cumbersome, and who really wanted to dump a whole bunch o' bucks and learn compu-speak just for the joys of remembering a dozen eggs and a gallon of milk?

Well...we've come a long way, baby. Home computing has evolved into a very powerful near-necessity and the graphical world of Windows has effectively argued against the objections of even the most fervently technology-challenged. So it is into this current era of home computing that Canada's own Down To Earth Software returns us to the glorious days of yesteryear with their perfectly-times release of DTE HOMEwise Version 2 For Windows.

Essentially not much more than a gaggle of customized databases, DTE HOMEwise nevertheless is a total home and family organizer that allows us to do all the things we were supposed to be doing way back when with our touchy Commodore 64, but now it's all just so darn easy. Attractive, wholly icon-driven, and very user-friendly for anyone with a basic grasp of the Windows/mouse combo, DTE HOMEwise can make life around the ol' homestead that much simpler.

DTE HOMEwise was designed to take care of all those bothersome organizational tasks that most often reside on paper scraps affixed to the fridge door or crunched away in some long-forgotten desk drawer, as an electronic impulse inside one's own head - or that have been lost forever. You know, stuff that doesn't seem important until needed...

• What was that restaurant with the great Tuesday night quiche special?
• Where do we keep Aunt Martha's pills?
• What's Aunt Martha's prescription?
• Where does Aunt Martha live?
• Will Binky eat Alpo?
• When did the gas tank blow up on the family Pinto?
• What is the value of our living room furniture?
• Who was I supposed to call tomorrow?
• Where did we buy that crummy microwave?
• What jeans fit me best?
• Is it marshmallows or honey in the Rice Crispy squares?
• What issue of The Computer Paper had that article on DTE HOMEwise?

DTE HOMEwise users will find a thoroughly organized digital storeroom for all the above and much more. Launching the (Windows-only) program, they'll be taken to the HOMEwise Control Centre, a screen filled with a bevy of icons. This, the main interface for the program, is divided into two portions. The upper half is dedicated to rooms and areas in and around the house, such as the kitchen, living room, garage, basement, exterior, and user defined bedrooms for each member of the household, while the bottom half is filled with numerous utilities, including a fridge door-like message centre, family calendar, pet and houseplant information, expense record section and household/room-by-room inventory.

Many rooms or areas open into extensive sub-menus, allowing for very specific, and even password-protected information storage. As a matter of fact, DTE states that there's over 150 individual "functions." With so much coverage, there simply isn't much missing and even each family member will find his or her own spacious sections independent of the general areas.

For instance, entering one's own bedroom will permit access to a personal phone list (separate from the "Family phone and address book"), a things to do list, banking records, diary, wardrobe planner, personal calendar, video tape and book library, personal calendar, video tape and book library, personal expense report, inventory, etc.

... Down To Earth Software goes to great lengths to explain that DTE HOMEwise has been written with computer newcomers in mind, and for the most part the program is quite intuitive.

... DTE HOMEwise supports the printing of any and all of its databases, comes with its own auto back-up feature, and registered users will be faxed or mailed news on product upgrades and new Down To Earth releases. To its credit DTE HOMEwise also comes with its own Suggestion Box, and makes a point of advising their customers that their comments will not fall upon deaf ears.

Gordon Goble

Manotick Messenger

"I remember clearly the frustration I felt as a new computer user. I felt strongly that if I was ever to develop my own program it would be written in plain English."

- Tony Walton, co-developer of DTE HOMEwise

Tony Walton of Manotick sees a time when home computers are so common they'll sit next to the coffee maker.

To facilitate the integration of computers in the home, he and his business have developed a unique software package from their Manotick office.

Down To Earth Software Inc. has developed DTE HOMEwise, a software program that acts like a gigantic database and home services tool that can keep track of your family's favourite recipes, list emergency numbers and allow mom to leave electronic notes for junior.

Walton and programmer Steve Clifford released the software package to the public Jan. 2. It can be purchased locally at Radio Shack and Manotick Gift and Stationary.

As a neophyte computer user, Walton said two of his goals in developing DTE HOMEwise were to make it simple for people and to give them a means to keep track of everything that happens in their home.

"I remember clearly the frustration I felt as a new computer user. I felt strongly that if I was to ever develop my own program, it would be written in plain English," he said from his firm's offices in the OPP building in Manotick.

'We're now at the point where we have an all-inclusive home information management program."

HOMEwise offers users 171 distinct and different features. The program can be installed on any computer capable of handling Windows. Once in place, the screen icon choices are divided much like the rooms of a house -- kitchen, bedrooms, garage, study -- and in each 'room' DTE HOMEwise allows the computer user to conduct the business related to that room.

For example, in the 'kitchen', you can look up recipes you've already typed in, formal personalized shopping lists, leave messages for other family members, look up the family's calendar of events or plan next week's lunch menu for the kids.

Each time the program is used, it becomes more and more personalized for that family.

"We tried to imagine all the things that are needed in each room. These are the kinds of utilities we think are useful," said Walton. He is particularly taken with the shopping list option, which allows the user to create aisle-by-aisle checklists that can be printed out and taken to the store.

"My mother's been using hers for about six months and she thinks it's great. It prevents things from being forgotten," he said.

In addition, HOMEwise has its own word processor, phone book, and things to do lists.

The idea hit Walton last Christmas.

"I was working on creating a database for my movie collection. None of them was exactly what I wanted, so I thought I would create my own," he said.

Then Clifford, the software's programmer, brought his suggestions to some some brainstorming sessions, and they developed the program from the ground floor up, so to speak.

"Our objective was to put in the hands of the user something that gives back more than they put into it, said Walton.

"If you can click a button and read, you can use this program. We feel people should enjoy computing."

So far, sales of the $49.95 HOMEwise software are going well. Already the firm has planned a second production run. But Walton says customer satisfaction is more important than overwhelming sales figures personally at least.

"More rewarding than the sales is the reaction of people, when they get this home, have fun with it."

Chris Brigden

Ottawa Sun

HOME-ing in on success

OTTAWA Hl-TECH guru Denzil Doyle says software is the game to watch in the new year.

Specifically, he's talking about Ottawa's many small start-ups which are producing and marketing highly professional business and home-use programs. Start ups like Manotick's Down To Earth Software Inc.

After almost a year of development DTE's first offering, DTE HOMEwise, was ready to ship just in time to hear Auld Land Sine.

HOMEwise is one of the first comprehensive home management packages to hit the market. Based in Windows' point-and-click architectture HOMEwise offers users almost 200 easy to use features and functions.

"It's a marketer's dream," said Tony Walton, who comprises one-half of DTE. "It's the right program at the right time for the right people.

"Our feeling is that the biggest potential market for computers is in the home. That's where the future is," sald Walton.

"Currently the use of the home computer is restricted mainly to ... the operation of a home-based business, an extension of the 9-5 office and playing computer games."

The remaining half of DTE is Steve Clifford, director of product development (this means he's the guy who wrote the program).

HOMEwise is an effort to make the computer a household appliance, and includes everything from grocery and chore lists to expense records, a message eentre, a recipe book (fill it with your own favourite recipes), password procted personal diaries and household inventory lists.

... While no one is expected to use every function, Walton believes that everybody will be able to use a part of it.

"It's also our feeling that many people using computers in their homes today are novices, and that most programs on the market today are written by techies for techies," he added.

This is a description that until recently described Walton himself, who only became acquainted with the personal computer a year before conceptualizing HOMEwise in December 1993.

"I had a terrible time with the terminology. Just trying to follow the instructions was near impossible," he said, his voice redolent of deep frustration.

"One of the hard and fast rules we stuck to was that the thing be written in plain English," he said.

"It has to be easy to use. If it isn't then it isn't good enough.

"We needed to make it comfortable to the person in every family who is least comfortable with the idea of using a computer. If we could do that it would be deemed a success."

As for success, Walton has already received several calls from software dealers who want to sell it in their stores, and a Mac version is on the way.

Alex Anderson

Copyright © 1994 - 2004 Down To Earth Software Inc. All rights reserved.
HOMEwise is a registered trademark of Down To Earth Software Inc.