 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Editorial Ash Nallawalla ash@melbpc.org.au |
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Please check the list of themes for the rest of the year and consider writing for PC Update. For example, the next issue requires articles about Databases and Office Productivity Tools. We need the articles by 6 June. The August issue covers Multimedia and our first Readers' Choice Awards (dubbed the Melbas by our meeting coordinator, Ray Beatty), and so on.
Readers' Choice Awards: Please Vote!
We are embarking on a major exercise that promises to place PC Update on the map (in case we aren't there yet). We seek your nominations for your favourite computer product or service through the two-page form. Please photocopy those pages if you do not want to tear them out. Only four of you completed this form last month at the monthly meeting; thanks, but we need a bit more enthusiasm. Perhaps some five hundred attendees thought that "someone else" would fill one in.
We would like to see the PC Update logo appear alongside other magazine logos in product literature, on software packaging, and the like. We need your active participation: in previous surveys of a slightly different nature, most members could not be bothered. We want a large number of responses so that the survey has credibility. If you want to show your appreciation towards the user group, this is a good way.
All SIG conveners should have been issued with spare copies of the forms and they will be requested to get attendees to complete them during the course of their meetings.
There are, of course, some incentives for completing these forms but we cannot say what they are. The results of the survey will be announced at the August monthly meeting.
Note that anonymous entries will be discarded because we need your membership number for the "incentives" (if any) and to prevent duplicates.
Your message will be read by well over 20,000 business and home PC users. We have a wide range of sizes from business card to full page or spreads in monochrome, spot colour, or full process colour.
What's New at Microsoft?
Who knows? Yes, we get press releases but they sometimes omit information that one reads about elsewhere. When I read PC Magazine 22/2/94, "You may never have heard of the Microsoft Multimedia Viewer Publishing Toolkit..." I was relieved that I was not the only one to feel left out. I was looking at the Microsoft Networking reseller literature and wondered where potential customers can find out more about some of its high-end or unsupported products.
I remember when I first heard about Microsoft Test: it was a chance sighting on Usenet. You have to look hard to read about it anywhere, including Microsoft's own Communique magazine. The Help Compiler and related tools were another mystery waiting to be discovered. When I read the detailed Chicago report written by someone in a Fidonet forum I liked what I saw but wished I had read it first in a Microsoft publication.
To get a good picture of what Microsoft is doing, one needs to read Comrnunique and a few commercial publications, CompuServe forums, Fidonet conferences, Internet newsgroups, and the TechNet CD-ROM. How many of us can do that?
Our Facilities for Hire
The Melb PC Hewlett-Packard Training Centre can be hired at very reasonable rates and there are still some time slots available. Several companies, individual trainers, and government departments have taken advantage of the facilities.
Internet Service Launched
In late April we mailed out the Internet Service acceptance forms to 300 lucky subscribers. Some unsuccessful applicants have been placed on the waiting list. Others grew impatient and went elsewhere, making room for those on the waiting list.
Unfortunately, the donated modems have not materialised but the wait should be worthwhile because we will get a new model. In the meantime we are using four borrowed modems and users have been asked to limit their daily usage to 60 minutes. The good news is that the ISDN link is up and users should notice an improvement in telnet performance.
Which Modem to Buy?
I note that some users still use 1200 bps modems and that many use 2400 bps units. These are perfectly adequate for message writing or reading news online, but not for transferring large files.
Files are becoming larger, it seems, and you cannot download some within the allocated time. From my experience with users of textbox, I noticed that the majority of users had 14,400 bps modems and the next group were the 2400 bps users. Many did not upgrade to 9600 bps when it became available.
Today I can only recommend a minimum speed of 14,400 bps if you have the slightest interest in downloading files. Better still, V34 (28,800 bps) models are not expected before October, so you could buy the interim VFC (28,800 bps) models now and pay about $100 for an upgrade later.
Reprinted from the June 1994 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
