 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Guest Editorial Gary Taig garyt@melbpc.org.au |
 |
Ash is away, his job is taking him to lots of different places and he asked
if I would write this column. Funnily enough he always seems to go away when I have words to say.
We have somewhat of an agricultural flavour this month. When I decided to run the theme Robotics it
was after having seen that magic robot on the front cover stacking bundles on a pallet and it did the job so
well and looked so smart, it really caught my attention. It was an easy decision and the plan was to write an
article about it, then to approach the motor vehicle manufacturers for accompanying material. We've all seen
images of robots spot welding and performing an assortment of tasks on the assembly lines and my thinking was
centered around the computerisation aspects.
Alas, things sometimes don't work out. When it came to the crunch I didn't have the opportunity to write
about the yellow robot and try as I might, it was impossible locating anyone in the motor industry, anyone
past the receptionists, that is. Some people secure themselves behind bossy secretaries, many probably
have little or no choice, but the motor vehicle people didn't even let me past the first point of telephone
contact. I gave up in disgust on about the fourth day after having been transferred to Human Resources at one
company, tried to explain that all I wanted was to talk to their chief electrical engineer, put on
long hold, lost connections on telephone systems which I am sure are designed with an extension that
automatically disconnects after 60 seconds, then later shunted back and forth around HR for 20 minutes. I
was getting nowhere fast.
Anyway, I turned to Kevin Taylor from Geelong. Kevin runs a robotics business dealing in, among other things
educational robotics products and I had first talked to Kevin last year when he advertised with us in the
month leading up to Interact. This month Kevin has written a robotics article for PC Update and
advertised, so if you want educational or other robotics information, Kevin would be a very good starting
point.
Kevin also told me about the milking robot but he didn't know exactly where it was. The story resulted from
chasing around a variety of Farmer Associations until finally I had sufficient information to locate Max
Warren. Without hesitation Max said, "come down tomorrow!" and I did. I liked his style.
While browsing through a computing encyclopedia I saw a sketch of a sheep shearing robot that was apparently
housed at the University of Western Australia. A robot to shear sheep had a certain appeal and one phone call
located a very obliging James Trevelyan, an award winning author and recognised authority on robotics who
wrote a really interesting article for us and referred me to Sage Publications in USA so that we could seek
permission to reprint his sheep shearing story (page 21). James has a very impressive background in robotics,
check out his profile at
http://www.mech.uwa.edu.au/jpt/profile.html and then have a play with the Telerobot. You can
operate this robot over the Internet. See how many blocks you can stack with it.
Your Vote on Premises
Apparently committee has decided to bite the bullet and move us to somewhere else. The offices at Dorcas
Street are nice, but we are outgrowing them and due to new high rise apartments all around the building,
parking is becoming a problem.
There is a simple voting form online at
http://www.melbpc.org.au/surveys/02premises.htm and committee would like everybody's vote on two things -
in which part of town you would prefer our new offices to be located and where would you like the monthly
meetings to be held. Please log on and fill in the form. To encourage participation and gain the best
possible outcome for everyone they've decided to make it worthwhile and by voting you become eligible to be
in the draw for a year of free full Internet access. By the way, you can access that URL from anywhere on the
Web, irrespective of which ISP you use, so why not jump online and cast your vote. For those members who
don't have access to the Internet, perhaps seek access through an obliging friend or, as a last resort, phone
9700 1566, leave you name and member number and a form will be mailed to you.
Another Important Item
This one is important for every member who appreciates having PC Update delivered every month. It
costs the group a couple of million dollars a year to have PC Update delivered... no it doesn't, I
just wanted to grab your attention. But, this magazine does cost each member part of his/her membership fees
and my objectives when taking on PC Update as a package deal for the group were to improve and increase the
content and page count and to reduce the amount of the monthly invoice. However, that's possible only if we
have ongoing advertising and what do you think has the greatest impact on that? Our much valued advertisers
must stay with us, and we must find a few more, to help share the costs around.
Why then, might they ever decide to spend their advertising dollar elsewhere? Only if they didn't generate
enough enquiries, or do enough business with PC Update readers, (members, workmates, friends, family
etc).
The important message here is, please be sure to include PC Update advertisers in your quest for a
product or service. The reason they advertise with us is that we have many thousands of members, all computer
oriented folk, a broad mix of government, business and private - all with needs for products and services and
collectively spending a huge amount of money every year on their computers. You might not finish up doing
business but our advertisers just want a chance to quote; to be on your list of potential suppliers and maybe
gain some, perhaps more of your business. That's the way the world operates, so please keep their phones
ringing and pass the word around every time you receive good service.
We have space remaining and I can't miss this opportunity to get down on my knees and beg for material. We
have a vast resource of knowledge and experience amongst the Melb PC membership and many of our more
experienced members could write much that would help those less experienced. If you help a family member with
a small computing problem, and we all do it, consider that many beginner members of this family will
need and greatly appreciate that same help and advice. Why not spend a little time to jot down a few notes,
then come back to it later and complete the job. Send us a sample, we will subedit and help fine tune the
words, add photos and/or sketches if and where necessary, and you will be amazed at the result. We can work
magic. Will you give it a go?
One final word - backup now, before it's too late.
Reprinted from the May 2002 issue of PC Update, the magazine
of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
   |