From the January 1992 Bits of Blue

Secretary’s Report
MINUTES OF 12/11/91 MEETING

There was the customary announcement of upgrades. Windows 3.2 is in early beta testing. It is not a 100% certainty that the Borland/Ashton-Tate merger will be permitted by the FTC.

Kirk Covert of Microsoft demoed three recent Microsoft releases destined for home and small business use.

Microsoft Money - Write checks, track expenses, create budgets, organize your assets and plan your financial future ($48). (This product won by Tom Cone)

Microsoft Publisher - Inexpensive desktop publishing with features found in higher priced packages. Use to designed flyers and newsletters ($138).

Microsoft Works - A combination of important business tools including word processing, spreadsheet analysis, database management, charting and drawing ($138).

Although Visual Basic was on the agenda, it was postponed due to Kirk’s time constraints. The majority of the attending membership really wanted to see this product and asked Kirk to come back at a later time for a demo.

Elections: The entire slate was voted in without balloting for individual office. Ed Buzza left the position of Secretary to fill the position of Education. Jim Clark and Charles Howe will share the position of secretary.

The president (Harvey) announced that he was working cooperatively with a New York publishing company, which contacted him, to get exceptional subscription rates for computer magazine subscriptions. Harvey has concerns and apprehensions about telling members to send money to a company he is not familiar with. He is researching the company to make sure it’s legit. Following is a sample of 1 year rates for some of the magazines available.

Byte: 9.00
PC Computing 9.00
PC Magazine 17.00
PC novice 8.00
PC World 10.00

PRESIDENT’S COLUMN:

Well, another year (1992) to make our group bigger and better. It seems like I said this the last 3 or 4 years. As usual, I am not sure if your vote for me is one of “Hey, Harvey, you’re doing a good job as president and we want you to continue” or “Well, he is the only nomination so we’d better vote for him.” As for the other officers, I am personally really happy to see them come back for another year. These people: Ed Buzza, Larry Anders, Kevan Sheridan, Roger Waters, Marylee Bruneau, Bill Fuller and Steve Speairs are the glue and nucleus of our group. Without their behind the scene help I could not do my job and the group would flounder. Of course we welcome the new kids, Jim Clark and Charles Howe for ’92. Additionally, a big thank you to IBM and Chris Mayer for the help and resources they have provided. IBM has taken some of the worries and problems we have experienced in the past away. In all, you are provided with the best available resources for a volunteer non-profit group. If you think they are doing a good job, please take a minute out of your time to tell them so. A sincere recognition from a fellow PC user can keep us going for a while. At times we are frustrated by the lack of any feedback from members, whether it be positive or negative. While not our intention, we were the best kept secret in Tampa. We have begun with a more aggressive exposure campaign to make our group known. In 1991, we finally created a handout/brochure to explain our group and its benefits. These can be found in retail stores like Computer Supplies, Software Etc., The Computer Factory and CompuAdd. It’s only a start, and we will add more, but we still need your help. Last meeting several of you wanted those flyers to pass out. Look for them at the January meeting. My membership goal for this year is pretty high but yet attainable.

1.  Membership by 12/31/92 to 300.

2.  Create Special Interest Groups (SIG) for:

3.  9600 baud BBS

The first two goals will be easily accomplished with your help. Take and distribute flyers to interested friends or companies. Let a board member know of stores willing to distribute our flyers. If you feel others could benefit from your knowledge, volunteer to lead a SIG group. I have mentioned some SIG groups above, but our group is not limited to only those. SIGs do not need to meet on a regular basis, but they should have an accountable leader.

As our membership increases so will our rewards. The more members, the more experience we bring into our fold to share, the more local authors of articles we can add to our newsletter and the more volunteers we can get to enhance our group beyond what we know have. There is a lot that we can do to help ourselves, but it will require the general help of you, our members. Do not put the entire future of our group growth in the board members’ hands. Help us get bigger and better.

1992 should be the year of a major battle. IBM vs Microsoft. Should IBM and Microsoft ship their new products, Windows 3.1 and OS/2 2.0, in the 1st quarter it will be something to see. If you got the horsepower (386+), the product works as advertised and the price is under $99. OS/2.0 will be a great operating system. Microsoft will need to add more than fixes to its Window product to keep IBM at bay. Even if IBM gave away OS/2 in ’92, it surely won’t unseat Windows. However, in ’93 the tide could turn. Remember Windows requires an operating system (DOS, OS/2 ...) to run.

Harvey P. Bruneau u