 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Editorial Carol Daniels cad@melbpc.org.au |
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On the last weekend in May, we held our inaugural PC Update Contributors' Workshop. The range of interests and skills in the group was impressive. The editorial team was pleased with the turnout and the enthusiasm the group showed. One attendee has already come up with the goods, submitting an article based on a suggestion made on the day.
There are plenty of good ideas for articles out there. How to take the next step - and produce an article from an idea - is a stumbling block for some. So I've decided to hold another, half-day workshop on the practical aspects of doing just that. I'll cover things like, research, organisation, first drafts, rewriting and proofreading.
Join me from 10 am to 12.30 pm on Saturday 27 July 1996 in the SIG room at the Melb PC offices.
Attendees also expressed a desire for an area on the BBS where they could discuss projects in a friendly, cooperative atmosphere. I've been discussing the best way to do this with the comms team. For further developments, watch this space.
I get a few letters from members each month - some are positive, some negative, most are constructive, some are not. In the short time I've been in the editor's seat I've noticed some common themes.
One of the most common can be summed up in this general refrain, "I can't write an article, because I'm not an expert, but why doesn't someone write about..."
Guess what folks? Everyone is an expert in some things and a dead-set newbie in others. Some of our members have started out newbies and ended up experts - by researching and writing about the things that interest them. But you don't have to be an expert to write an article for PC Update. Many of our regular contributors are babes in the woods - at least when it comes to computers - and their articles attract a lot of positive feedback from members.
Expert or newbie, if there is a topic or type of article you would like to see (or see more of) your interest makes you a perfect candidate for writing such an article. With any luck your article will inspire others to do likewise.
Another common theme, is best described by a member who wanted "...to drive, not be a mechanic." In other words, he wants articles that tell him what to do, and doesn't really care about why.
I think we all feel like that, occasionally. Although I've found that if what I want to do is out of the ordinary, if my system is different from the author's system or if something goes wrong - bare bones instructions - "point and click here then double click there" - don't cut it. That's when I am glad I know more about my computer than whether my mouse is left or right-hand drive and where the ignition is.
With the diversity in our membership, it's virtually guaranteed that some of our readers are going to want to do something out of the ordinary and a good proportion are using a different system from the author's. Do I need to add that something always goes wrong? That's when the technical detail is vital.
Which brings me to the subject of preventive maintenance - which I tend to think of as preventive medicine for my computer.
If you want some insurance against an inaccessible computer read Tom Coleman's article on CMOS. Yes, it's technical - but no more than necessary. Then do as he says, you'll be glad you did.
I know I was glad I heeded similar warnings (in an earlier issue of PC Update). Late last year I turned on my computer to find my CMOS settings had vanished. Without the printed copy of my settings I would have been lost. Thanks to that piece of paper (which had taken me all of about five minutes to produce, it took me longer than that to remember where I had put the piece of paper) I was up and running again in no time.
Follow up Tom's bit of preventive medicine with a dose of hard disk housekeeping and wash it all down with a good backup - as recommended by John Collins.
I can't say that I always do what's good for me, nobody would believe me if I did. Warning bells started ringing though, when I received a packet of e-mail messages, the first of which was from a member suffering the after-effects of an especially destructive hard disk crash, the second of which was from John Collins, telling me his articles were finished.
Could it have been a message from the cosmos? Maybe not, but it was too much of a coincidence to be ignored. I closed all open applications. Closed Windows. Did a backup. Ran SCANDISK. Ran DEFRAG. Then I got back to work.
It's easier for members who do their computer work in large corporate environments - with networked computers and diligent IT service personnel to ensure backups are done, and done properly. Considering the risk to a small business from a computer catastrophe, it's amazing how blasé‚ many SOHO operators are, especially when you think that data loss in a SOHO business is guaranteed to be reflected in your bank balance.
Reprinted from the July 1996 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
