 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group PC (President's Comments) George Skarbek gskarbek@melbpc.org.au |
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Do you live in the North-Eastern suburbs? Many members who visit the Ivanhoe Swap Meet have mentioned there are no SIG meetings in that area. The solution is quite easy. It now will take just one member to volunteer to be the coordinator, as your assistant has already volunteered.
By volunteering, Not only will you be able to pick what day best suits you but also the location. If you don't wish to look for a hall then Noel Peters (our SIG Coordinator) has one selected.
The Group will meet all reasonable costs towards hall hire and other expenses and supply a projector for meetings. If the organisers specify postcodes of the areas around the new SIG and supply a letter they wish to send out, the office will do all the photocopying and mailing. Members who requested that no advertising material be sent to them would be excluded from such a mailing. Melb PC has many members who may be able to give presentations on a variety of interesting subjects at the monthly meetings and the new SIG will be given possible contacts to assist in recruiting more speakers. The SIG coordinator receives a free Internet account, as this is necessary for running a SIG.
To help yourself (and many other members) just e-mail the committee at committee@melbpc.org.au or me at president@melbpc.org.au or phone the office on 9699 6222 to offer your services. You will be put in contact with the other volunteers and between you a new and much needed SIG will be formed.
Internet Help
The new volunteers I mentioned last month are doing a wonderful job in answering the help queries for the Internet. This is not always an easy task for a volunteer. Even the experienced users may have problems answering questions pertaining to mail readers and/or operating systems they have never before used. Shortly additional phone equipment will be installed in the office will make the redirection of the telephone queries easier.
Outside Access to MOTD
Melb PC members who are also connected to some other ISP can now access the "Message Of The Day" page from that external connection. The URL is:
https://wss.melbpc.org.au/motd/ This will be of value to members who are subscribers to another ISP as well as melbpc.org.au. While they are logged on to the other ISP, they can access melbpc.org.au without a separate phone call. A typical case would be a cable user who still has an account with melbpc. They will be able to access the Message Of The Day after providing their user ID and password.
Also some members who regularly log onto another ISP would like to reply to mail received at their melbpc.org.au account without having to make a separate call and dial into our service just to reply. The fix is very simple. Simply change the SMTP entry in your mail reader. For example, if you are using Telstra's cable then your SMTP entry should read
mail-hub, rather than the usual smtp.melbpc.org.au.
While retrieving mail delivered to you at melbpc.org.au requires the correct POP account information, sending mail requires the correct SMTP entry.
BBS (Bulletin Board Service)
Members who have joined the Group since Internet has become so pervasive may not be aware that your $55 annual subs entitles you to use the Group's BBS. The phone number is 9699 6611. To access the BBS you cannot just alter the phone number in the Internet dialler. The BBS uses completely different and simpler
communications. The best way for Windows users to access the BBS is use HyperTerm (under Accessories). Anyone who is familiar with the Telix can use this program as the BBS was designed in the early DOS days.
What is the advantage of using the BBS? There are many files on it including the MPC Internet installation kit. If you had to reformat your disk and reinstall Windows, the chances are you would need the installation file. But there is a catch, isn't there? How do you download it when you don't have access to the Internet? The answer is, use the BBS. There are other files, such as the virus updates for most programs, and, if you have used all your time allocation for one day on the Internet, you can still access the BBS. You can also read the melbpc.org.au Internet newsgroups via the BBS. You can even do that if you don't have a Melb PC Internet account.
Next Monthly Meeting
On 4 April at the Pharmacy College in Parkville you will see:
Voice Recognition - IBM will demonstrate IBM Via Voice.
Stop Mail - A Melbourne company has developed a way to control our flood of e-mails.
DtMS - Every phone book in the country, in your CD drive.
Reprinted from the April 2001 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
