The results of the recent survey are now to hand. Leon Cohen and his subcommittee are to be thanked for the effort taken to design the survey form and then collate and analyse the results. This was initiated to establish what you the members expected from the group. Only 21% of members replied, but compared with the general response to surveys in general, is an encouraging return. Some may think it asked the wrong questions, or was not comprehensive enough, but at least it has given an indication of the likes and dislikes of a fairly large section of our members, and will help the committee to plan improvements. Although nearly 80% of respondents were agreeable to an increase in subscriptions, the committee have not discussed raising them. If an increase is proposed, it will be put to a general meeting of the membership.

AGM 

The annual general meeting will be held on the 5th of December. The last date to nominate for committee is by the November monthly meeting on the 7th, as nominations, proposed and seconded with the acceptance of the nominee, must be in the hands of the Secretary 28 days before the Annual General Meeting. After the business part of the meeting there will be demonstrations of PD software.

Public Domain/Shareware 

There are a lot of enquiries from members for help in running programs on disks purchased from the library. Many of them are from less expert computer users and the answers are quite simple. Of course everyone has to start out as a beginner. I suggest that they will find it helpful to attend either or both New User SIG, and PD Software SIG. Both are held at St. Marks Church Hall at the corner of Burke and Canterbury Roads on the second and fourth Tuesday respectively starting at 7:30. At the New User SIG the attendees raise items which are causing them problems. It doesn't matter what the question is, or how elementary. Many of the answers are helpful to others there who have the same problem, or it anticipates their future activities. At the PD SIG meetings, demonstrations are given of PD programs which are considered to be of interest to many people. Demos are also given by requests made either before or at the meeting. The complete PD Library is at the meeting, so all programs are available. Disks may be purchased on the spot. All new users are encouraged to attend these meetings at least once even if it means missing what one usually does for one month. Any one willing to review programs can have a copy on their disk, and when the review is published they will receive the usual PD disks of their choice depending on the length of article. If there is sufficient response for reviews, the PD SIG convenors are considering having a competition for the best PD review of the month from any contributor. 

If in doubt on how to run a program the first thing to do is to put the disk in drive A: and at the prompt type DIR/P for the directory, a page at a time. Look first for a file with README in part of the name (ie READ.ME README.DOC etc). Input "TYPE README (or whatever is the filename) | MORE", without the quote marks, which will output the text in the file a screen at a time. Press any key for the next screen. This should give some instruction on the program. Repeat the procedure for any file with an extension of TXT or DOC. To test the integrity of the files to see if they are corrupted type CRC. The files will be listed and if OK will have *more* after each one. The only files which will run from DOS are ones with the extension of .COM .EXE .BAT, if it is .BAS then it must be run within the BASIC program. Any file with an extension of .ARC, .PAK, .LHZ, .ZIP or .ZOO has been compressed, and needs to be uncompressed with a program such as PKXARC, PKUNPAK, PKUNZIP, ARC, ARCE, LZH or ZOO with an extension of .COM or EXE. One of the above files will be on the disk. These remarks are the sort of information discussed at the two meetings mentioned above, and a demonstration given for further clarity.

Help Wanted 

We have been given a disk for the PD library which will compress *.EXE files and run them without having to uncompress onto disk before using. There is also a sound generating program. If anyone can translate the *.DOC and error messages into English, please leave a message for me and I will send the disk to them.

Purchasing Hardware 

In last month's editorial, Ash gave an insight into helping people to buy a PC. Many times members have asked the Group to advise which model to buy, and in some cases to recommend a supplier. It is our policy to suggest a model from a dealer who has been in business and shown integrity, and who has a reliable setup for servicing, either by in house or by a reputable service organisation. Reading adverts in the newspapers or magazines is not a reliable filtering option, especially if you look for the cheapest price. It is almost impossible to assess the quality of the components unless you are very knowledgeable in computer hardware. Dealers have a reluctance to you delving into the innermost secrets of their mystery boxes. Many machines sold down to a price have components which are not a high quality product. There are good reliable PCs on the market as well shoddy ones, but understandably they are not the cheapest. It has been mentioned to me that as a service to members, reliable hardware can be obtained with Melb PC badging which would be reliable but not necessarily the cheapest. However if quantities were sufficient a discount price could make it competitive. There have been requests in the survey for this kind of offer. As many members may be considering upgrading from XTs to something like 386SX or 386DX I will make more enquiries and put it to the committee.

Reprinted from the November 1990 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia

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