 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group PC (President's Comments) George Skarbek gskarbek@melbpc.org.au |
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New Internet Help Desk
After being the only person to receive Internet related dial help calls for some years, John Morris
has resigned from this role. Stan Johnstone who has been answering all the e-mail to our help desk,
conducting training courses and handling all the new Internet accounts and renewals, has decided to reduce
some of this huge workload. As President, on behalf of all members I
thank John and Stan for the years of great effort they put into their work in helping other
members.
John's entire role and a part of Stan's has been taken over by twenty volunteers who will provide assistance taking the calls and e-mails on their "duty day". We have received almost fifty offers of help and could accept only those members who volunteered first. There will be a roster system with some of the volunteers in reserve as backup and fallback for the unusual and/or harder questions. In this manner we will spread the workload over a greater number of volunteers and not have to rely upon one person to fulfil an enormous task. This method is not only better for the individual as it lessens their workload, but is also better for the Group as there is now a larger pool of expertise.
All calls will be logged in a database to provide continuity and to build up a "knowledge database" relating to help desk problems and their resolution. There will be high-level experts, always on the roster or on standby, to solve the occasionally difficult problem. This group of volunteers will also handle all e-mails to our existing e-mail help address.
The first training session for these volunteers will be on the day this issue of PC Update goes to press; I will be unable to give you more details until the April issue.
The new Internet help desk number is 9517 1054 and the e-mail address is
unchanged, help@melbpc.org.au.
It is gratifying to see such a good response to a request to help and it shows the spirit of "users helping
users" is as strong as ever.
New Melb PC Computers
We have a dual processor capable machine with an 800 MHz Pentium III CPU and 256 MB RAM giving us a readily available upgrade path when needed. This computer is fitted with a mobile hard drive rack and the purchase included 4 x 20 Gigabyte caddy mounted hard drives. The machine has been trolley mounted with a three speaker sound system and has a network card included in the package.
Another piece of equipment now available to SIGs is a portable 8-port 10/100 MHz network hub and associated cables so that members bringing their desktop or laptop machines can readily set up a network.
Our Internet service is being enhanced by the purchase of two Intel dual
Pentium rack mounted computers, with mirrored disks, running Solaris. These will be used primarily as a
Firewall to the new incoming fibre link and to remove some of the load from the existing computers. The cost
of these two computers is approximately $14,000.
Friday Night Seminars
This is an excellent opportunity for members new to computing, and many who
may need some refreshing on the principles, to attend a series of seminars once a month at a very reasonable
cost. Only $25.00 per seminar or $100.00 if you attend all five.
Berwick SIG
At the inaugural meeting of the Berwick SIG there were 71 people in
attendance, of which only one third were existing Melb PC members; many new members joined on the day. When
the call was put out for volunteers to help run this group, there were eleven offers of help. With such great
community support this SIG will undoubtedly grow well. Congratulations to Noel Sealy firstly for
volunteering to start the group and for his organisational ability to make it happen.
Next Monthly Meeting
On 7 March at the Pharmacy College in Parkville: Games: No, not playing games at the meeting - Interplay will discuss a 4,000 player, user-user game being developed. ISYS will demonstrate their award winning software that allows you to quickly find any item in your accumulated files. Dave Botherway will show how a low cost GPS (Global Positioning System) can help with navigation and a PC with a GPS that can keep track of where you've been.
The meeting will also have a Random Access session (your chance to ask the
experts), the usual giveaways and raffle with usually several thousand dollars worth of prizes being raffled,
shareware library sales, etc.
Reprinted from the March 2001 issue of PC Update, the
magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
