From the June 1992 Bits of Blue
by Harvey Bruneau

PRESIDENT’S COLUMN:

Thanks, Jim. For those of you who read the minutes of the May meeting, please believe me when I tell you that I didn’t pay Jim any money to write that about me. However, I appreciate the good words from Jim and others about me and our group. Just remember that our group exists solely on the dedication of a small group of volunteers of which I am only one. A sincere attaboy to a board member is one of the few rewards he or she gets for contributing time to our group.

If you missed the May meeting, well you lost. We had two vendor sessions. Randy Johnston of Symantec (you know, those people who bought Norton out) did a bang-up job! The total amount of money collected ($98) for the raffle was the largest I can remember. That speaks a lot for the Symantec products that were donated. Unfortunately, my three bucks didn’t win that Norton Desktop for Windows or half of the collected money. Well maybe next month. Our second presentation by John Fought of Datafiex (St. Pete) covered three CAD programs. It was slick to look at the model of a house from the outside and then go inside the house to look out. Of course this was the high end 3D product, but it was neat.

That May meeting was mighty long and I will try not to schedule two vendors at the same time in order that we can all get home at a reasonable time.

The June meeting should be a dandy! Kirk Covert of Microsoft will demo Windows 3.1 and Visual Basic. This is a must see presentation if you are new to the Windows environment or Visual Basic programming language. While I am sure Kirk will field questions, please realize that he is here to demo these programs not to replace the Microsoft support department.

As I mentioned at the last meeting, the management of the building (not IBM) has done away with the security guard to the building. This means that if you are late there is a good chance that you may not get in. Be on time.

Over the last three meetings I have noticed more noise than usual during our meetings. This noise is usually from conversations in the audience. While no one has complained, I feel that I must speak up before this gets out of hand. I personally find it irritating and embarrassing. Please respect the others around you who are trying to listen to the presentation and to the spokesperson providing us with their personal time. If you must carry on a loud lengthy conversation, use the hallway or wait until the break.

Word-processing in Windows on a 14” screen, revisited. Also mentioned at the last meeting, WordPerfect has released an update to WordPerfect for Windows. Of the several new features, there is one that alleviates that eye squinting that I have been whining about for the last several months. It’s the new ZOOM feature. This feature allows you to zoom the document in and out to your liking. This means that your 10 point text can look bigger by zooming to 150% or the max of 400%. The latter is a bit much but 150% is easy on the eyeballs. Maybe when I get my new bifocals I can go back to the standard 100%.

Since we are on the subject of word-processing and WordPerfect, we are planning on offering the famous Ed Buzza WordPerfect classes again. At our last board meeting the general feeling was that these classes should be offered the same night and time as the general meeting. The class would last approximately one hour and rejoin the general meeting during its break and after the vendor presentation. If you have questions, concerns or opinions about the class bring them up at the general meeting or leave a message for me or Ed Buzza on the BBS. u