From the June 1992 Bits of Blue

Well, we had another good meeting. But, I’m sure I will hear many sighs of relief when I tell you that you won’t have to read here about the meeting as much as you normally would. You see, the day after the meeting the index finger of my left hand and a radial saw had an encounter - and my finger lost. No sympathy, please; there has been no great loss - a few hundred $s in emergency room charges, a great deal of inconvenience, and a relatively short report of the last meeting. Don’t worry, though, I will be back in usual, verbose form for the next report.

Another difference in this report is that it is not an accurate account of what transpired at the meeting - the program presentations were made at the very beginning of the meeting, followed by news and discussion, instead of the usual opposite sequence. This report is in the normal sequencing.

CLUB NEWS:

Harvey mentioned recent developments with seven! popular programs:

• Procom for Windows is now shipping - and it is getting high marks from industry media.
• Word Perfect for Windows maintenance upgrade is available. Call their 800 number if you are eligible. Cost is S & H - not more than $15, and if you complain of a specific major bug giving you a problem with your current version, you may not have to pay the S & H.
• Harvard Graphics for Windows maintenance upgrade is now available for $15. While I didn’t hear specific mention, presumably you can call the HG people for the upgrade.

There was general discussion of upgrading the Bits of Blue BBS with a faster modem. Harvey pointed out that the biggest problem is $$$! We would gladly upgrade to 9600 baud - if someone would donate the modem or the money for same. This is the same problem with other desirable BBS upgrades - like storage space; it is very limited, and we wouldn’t have as much as we have were it not for the generosity of our VP, Steve Speairs, who donated two 65 MB drives (for which our gratitude has never been publicly expressed - “Steve we really appreciate your gift of the hard drives. It has helped make Bits of Blue more usable for us all, and we appreciate it very much. Thank you!”). If the club is to buy another modem, it is Harvey’s view that we should get the 14,400 baud modem. Whichever, the club needs more funds to make such expenditures. Possible sources include: Donations, obtaining more members, selling advertising for the newsletter. What are your thoughts?

A member suggested that we may save money by eliminating our club financed refreshments for break time at the meetings. A vote was taken and the overwhelming majority were in favor of doing away with the refreshments. And so it is! Do not plan on a snack at the next meeting - it won’t be there. (See Commentary below.)

Harvey announced that planning was underway for another Word Perfect for DOS class to be given by our Education Director, Ed Buzza. In response to a question raised by our Pres about class frequency and timing, the consensus seemed to be to have the classes every Wednesday evening, except our regular meeting night, from 6-7 PM. Chris, our IBM baby-sitter, indicated that would be OK from IBM’s standpoint. Planning for the class will likely be completed at the next board meeting (6/24). More info will follow - watch the BBS.

Harvey announced that the following presentations will be made at the next meeting:

• GeoWorks Pro, to be reviewed by our own Tom Cone. Some say that this program is better than Windows. It is a GUI. I have Geo Works, and it is a nice program. BUT, it is similar to Windows in that it runs only programs tailored for it - and there aren’t many of those I am aware of - or shell to DOS where multitasking is not available. One big advantage is that it will work on just about any computer - from an XT up. I am looking forward with great anticipation to Tom’s review of the Pro version.
• Our SYSOP, Kevan Sheridan, is going to update us on using our BBS and the new features/capabilities that have been added recently. I need this very much - I hear comments at the meetings about BBS features about which I know nothing. I look forward to Kevan’s presentation as well. I think our next meeting may well turn out to be one of the best yet. I would suggest that you not miss this one.

Kirk Covert, Regional Sales Rep for Microsoft, was on hand to give a quick review of Windows 3.1. Kirk’s review assumed knowledge of Windows 3.0 and he touched on only some of the changes that were made in 3.1. Kirk noted that there are over 1500 changes in 3.1, and he would touch on only a few of them.

Probably the most significant change is that 3.1 is a lot faster (3 - 4 times faster) in all operations than 3.0, including printing. That is a very welcome improvement to all Windows users.

Other significant improvements include:

• Object Linking & Embedding (OLE)
• Alt+Tab program selection
• Scalable outline TrueType fonts (including 13 fonts) and driver that gives WYSIWYG on the screen and high quality print. (Kirk states that TTF saves disk space. Maybe so when compared to fonts for laser printers, or bitmapped fonts, but I do not find that is necessarily true when compared to Adobe Type I or Atech’s Fastfonts).
• Has come a long way toward eliminating the infamous UAE’S OF 3.0. You still have unrecoverable application errors, but there is usually some explanation and you no longer have to restart Windows - you are presented with choices: Returning to the application, closing the offending application, or restarting Windows. This gives you the opportunity to perhaps be able to save data in the offending application, and usually avoids the need to close down other applications.
• File Manager has been greatly enhanced and now includes drag & drop capability to copy, move, delete, and print files, and activity programs loaded with any file generated by that application.
• Includes a good tutorial
• Includes quite a few more Icons, as well as a better and easier to use Icon viewer.

Kirk noted that a Technical Resource Kit, which includes some neat programs - such as Smartdrive Monitor, System Monitor and a Graphics Viewer (all popular formats) - was available from Microsoft for $20, including S & H. They looked like nice-to-have programs. If interested, call 1-800-426-9400. Kirk also mentioned that the 32 bit Win NT was on the way without any clue as to timing.

Microsoft Visual Basic:

Kirk continued with his presentation with a brief review of Visual Basic. I am not into programming in any form, so much of what was presented and discussed was beyond me. Here are some impressions I was left with: It is a Windows program and anything written with Visual Basic is compatible with Windows. The program was developed with the user in mind - that is, it is user oriented; Kirk indicated that it was easier than “C.” The program includes an Icon maker/editor. Kirk indicated that some knowledge of Basic programming is needed, but not nearly as much as before Visual Basic.

To Kirk and Microsoft, a BIG THANKS for a job well done and for the donation of a copy of Visual Basic.

We have several “unsung heroes” among us that work behind the scenes for our benefit. I think it more than appropriate that at least once in a while we acknowledge their contributions for our benefit and give them a bit of thanks. One was appropriately mentioned by one of our members at the meeting:

• Marylee Bruneau, our Newsletter Editor, who has not only given a lot of time and effort to putting out an informative and interesting newsletter, but she has done an outstanding job in doing so. As our member said at the meeting, she produces a very professional product. And, she continues to make it even better. Marylee, THANK YOU. We really appreciate your efforts and a SUPER job!!
• The other is Chris, our IBM baby-sitter. Chris gives us a lot of time and effort, and most of us aren’t aware of any of it. We just take his effort and product for granted - we come to the meeting in some very nice facilities, computers projectors and whatever else all set up for use, and things just sort of click along smoothly. Well, it is not all by accident - Chris makes a very big contribution to make it happen that way. We owe IBM a very big thanks you for use of their facilities, and a similar very big thank you to Chris for all he does in the background to make our meetings so enjoyable and productive. THANK YOU CHRIS and IBM!! We really appreciate all you do for our benefit.

Four software prizes were given away to lucky members with raffle tickets. Microsoft donated Visual Basic. The other three programs were games, the donor of which I am not aware. And there was a nice 50-50 prize. THE LUCKY WINNERS ARE:

Microsoft Visual Basic - Ran Weinberg
Miniature Golf  - John Walden
Hill Street Blues - Chuck Bowasox
Tie Break - Barry Yocum
50-50 ($51) - Richard Pope

Those members present at this meeting voted to eliminate the club-financed refreshments that have been provided during break time. I usually enjoy a cookie or two, and the lines are always long with people waiting their turn at the goodies. Yet, when it came time to vote whether or not to keep the goodies, the vote was overwhelmingly NO! Why?

I voted against the refreshments. My reasons were many fold:

• We make a big mess, goodies often scattered all over the floors. Someone has to clean that up - guess who, the club volunteers and our host, IBM.
• Secondly, the money the club spends on the refreshments could be used to help finance some much needed equipment.
• Then, too, we have been consuming 30 minutes or more in break time, principally because it takes a long time for everyone to get through the line. I would rather see that time used for productive purposes (the business at hand, that is) and the meeting be a little shorter in duration. I wouldn’t want any less coverage at the meetings, but I would like to see them a little shorter. And I think we need a rest room and stretch break, but it needn’t be as long as the break we have been having. I know there are some who come directly from work and except for the snacks at the meeting, get nothing to eat until they get home. I hope they can find another source for a tide-me-over. I think the pluses of eliminating the refreshments at the meetings overwhelm the minuses. What do you think? u