 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Eddies in the ether Dave Mitchell |
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Did you all miss me? Can't say that I missed the pressure of producing such a high quality article once a month but I'm back, apparently by "popular" demand. We have one or two choices here. Either regular readers of this drivel are the "lunatic fringe vocal minority" (which I suspect) or a lot of you find this interesting in some perverse way (which makes me worry about the future of humanity). Still I suppose I should be grateful for the comments I have received concerning whether I was all right, etc. I'm happy to report that I am in fine fettle and recovered from the excesses of the New Year with only a slight further deterioration of the parts of the body affected by alcohol abuse. But that was to be expected.
Anyway, on with the show.
BBS poetry
Here's a little something that was sent to me claiming to be inspired prose. I thought you would find it amusing.
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A Lurker's Lament John Rowland Some lurkers linger late at night And when they're paged, do jump with fright; For chatting through the great unseen with hackers, manners quite obscene, is not where timid lurkers start with trembling fingers echoing quaking heart, but with a verse that's fairly trite, to waste some time and chew a byte. So in the morn' when the sparrows start I'll scan for messages and depart to work the day a quite a pace, and when you scan the database, I can, with peace, take my repose -for there's one less lurker to expose! |
Amazing the ways people decide to expose themselves in public isn't it. Still I'm sure John has enjoyed seeing his handiwork in print that is read by soooooo many people. Aren't you John?
Windows and DOS
It seems that some of the more rabid lovers of the world's most popular DOS shell are getting a bit peeved with the constant bashing of its performance. We've all sorts of opinions from it being "the greatest advance in personal computing" to "the most profitable joke in history." Naturally one of the greatest Windows bashers on the BBS is me, so before I go any further let's just put their little minds at rest.
Windows is neither of the statements made above, it is a operating shell that goes over DOS and does its job more than adequately under most circumstances. Its greatest contribution to personal computing is to enable many, many more people to use personal computers than would have been possible or likely with the DOS command line. Even I recognise this. As such it should be applauded for this. Its main problem however is it does not encourage new users to learn what really makes their computer work which is a bad thing.
Meanwhile all of this stuff on the BBS is... wait for it folks... a joke Joyce! Treat it as such. The great majority of our users should be thankful we are a single-machine-type club so we don't have to put up with the "my 'puter is better than your 'puter" wars, too.
Lost and alone in cyberspace
Well the Internet is up and running now with all its bells and whistles kindly provided for most of us by a preconfigured software suite. A most amazing place I can tell you, filled with all sorts of stuff of major interest to someone (anyone out there find a newsgroup called alt.pets.slugs interesting?) As most of you would know I've been helping out with comms problems now for quite some time but let me tell you I'm as lost and alone out there on the Net as most of you.
I would recommend to you that, if you are on the BBS as well, you keep an eye on message area 26 (BBS/Internet chat) and the local melbpc.whatever newsgroups on the Internet as the source of information as to how this all works. In fact, I would recommend you have a good look at all the message areas that are carried on our BBS for areas of interest and try to find answers to your questions that way, before becoming frustrated. There are many specific areas there and most questions can be sorted out eventually.
Hmmmmm, that's a thought I might well run through them and give you a run down of each area just to awaken your interest in the coming months. Anyway, that's it for the return of "Eddies" so you can all toddle off now and read Ron W's trials and tribulations for beginners or Ron T's hints and shortcuts for experts depending on your perceived position in the world.
Here's the tag.....
... I eat coffee straight from the can. Why dilute it?
Reprinted from the May 1995 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
