 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Getting to Know the Special Interest Groups Noel Peters - SIG Co-ordinator noelp@melbpc.org.au |
This month I revisited our New Users East SIG that meets at 7.30
pm on the second Tuesday of each month in St Marks Church Hall on the corner of Burke and
Canterbury Roads Camberwell. The SIG Leader is not Saint Mark but the, as yet un-beatified Mark
Trickett, who leads his small flock through the mysteries of DOS, file manipulation, etc and offers
help with the problems that bedevil those new to computing. You can see Mark and the congregation
in Figure 1.
Of course today the problems of new users also involve Windows stuff, Internet access, browser and
e-mail client configuration, modem setup and the host of other problems particular to the many
applications that even the newest of newbies are using. This makes it a time job and, as was
discussed at the recent SIG Leaders conference, there should always be a co-leader available to
lend a hand.
So if you are local to the Camberwell/Canterbury area and would like to become involved in the very
worthwhile activity of "Users Helping Users" as a SIG Leader/Co-leader, drop an e-mail to president@melbpc.org.au. I am certain you will get as much
from the exercise as the people you are helping.
|
|
|
Back into Dorcas Street at 7.00 pm on the second Wednesday of the
month and we are just in time for the start of the Communications SIG. This Special Interest Group
covers all aspects of analogue and digital communication with of necessity the latter predominating
today. Philip Lew, a long time member of Melb PC is the SIG Leader and the subject for study this
evening is networking.
As members upgrade their computers to machines with faster processors, more RAM and ever larger
hard drives and the value of the superseded one is peanuts, read that as very little, they have at
least two and often more computers all of which function in their home. This is where networking,
for long the province of corporations, comes into the home. In fact the planning of the modern
house today is incomplete unless provision is made for a substantial backbone of network cabling to
be put in place before the wall cladding is fixed whence cable installation becomes both more
difficult and more costly.
You may remember Windows for Workgroups (Win3.11) as the first Microsoft attempt to provide some
rudimentary network support followed by Win 95 catering for a variety of network protocols and then
NT and Win 2000 fully satisfying the net-working needs of the corporate sector. At the April
meeting of the Comms SIG a video was shown detailing the setting up of the network parameters in
Windows 95 much of which remains relevant to later versions.
And finally on Tuesday 24th of April, on an evening that followed three days of continual rain and
was also the eve of the Anzac day public holiday, some 150 plus, very keen members and their
friends turned out at the Uniting Church hall, Seddon Street Ivanhoe to launch the new Melb PC
North East Suburban Group.
|
|
This new group will meet at 7.30 pm on the 4th Tuesday of each
month, replaces the old Northern Suburbs SIG. It is led by Nigel Harris a full time member of our
Defence Service, who is experienced in computer usage and communications technology and a person
who still finds time to help our members get the most out of the computing experience. Nigel is
supported by co-leader Kelvin Cording, and a management team among which are Eric Shugg, Peter
Lewis, Roy Sudholz and Alan Davenport.
The number of members interested in getting together in the Ivanhoe area far out weighs the
(approx. 80) capacity of the above hall and many of the retired members would like to meet in the
daytime rather than evening. This can perhaps be arranged but it requires another person to lead
the daytimers and a couple of helpers to support him or her. Any volunteers please let our
President know, president@melbpc.org.au as I will be
out of the country for a while when you are reading this. I will be ready to help again after the
second week in June. Until then, have fun with your computing and your attendance at those SIGs and
Suburban Groups that interest you.
Reprinted from the June 2001 issue of PC Update,
the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
