From the February 1993 Bits of Blue

PRESIDENT’S COLUMN:

A couple of members mentioned that they missed my President’s Column in last month’s newsletter. Thank you for noticing and stating so. Simply put, I was recouping from 1992 and the holidays which always include Food, Family and Fun. These are my favorite ‘F’ words. Of course there is one that I don’t like, ‘Financial debt’ which is incurred during the holidays, then comes to visit me a couple of months later. Marylee always says it’s better to give than to receive so I always make sure that I give myself something during the holidays. I am sure that’s what CompUSA also thinks when they give me a bill for stuff I purchased for the holidays on my charge card. I certainly hope that the Holidays and Santa were good to each of you and your families.

At our December meeting I announced that one of our members had donated a computer to our group. The computer was a Gateway 486. This system has replaced our old 286 BBS PC which required TLC on a regular basis from Kevan to maintain its daily operation. Additionally, the 286 did not have expansion capability for future growth of the BBS without a premium investment. The board felt that it was not in the group’s best interest to invest money into the 286. We had decided that the minimum system we needed was a 386/mhz with 4Mb of RAM and a 120 HD. All we needed was a generous donation from a vendor or more money in our bank account to acquire this PC. Neither occurred or would occur in a timely matter. However, out of the blue a PC showed up donated by an anonymous member. To date I am not sure who donated this system. Could it be Mr. or Mrs. Claus or even one of Santa’s helpers? I don’t know but the donation has revived my belief in Santa. I think he or she has retired in Tampa from the North Pole and is a member of group. Anyway, whoever you are, on behalf of our group I wanted to say — THANK YOU!

The elections are over. Hooray! Now we have a new president and an old president. The country elected Mr. Clinton as our new president and the user group elected me as the old president. This will be my 5th year as president. Trivia Question: Who has been on the board longer than me? I never thought in 1988 when I was first elected that I would do it beyond one year. Well, every year it gets better. I certainly would not have done it if we didn’t have a staff of dedicated volunteers. Look at the names under the officers’ section, seek these people out during a meeting or get on the BBS and tell them THANKS. They are the ones making this all possible. We have a new Vice-President this year. Tom Cone has been in charge of membership relations in the past. He will continue in that capacity in addition to his new position. Additionally, members are slowly coming forward and volunteering their services. We are extremely fortunate to have a good group of volunteers. Please join me in welcoming back Tom, Bill, Roger, Jim, Ed, Marylee, Larry, Kevan for 1993. Of course, we welcome and need more volunteers.

My goals for this year: 300+ membership, bulk mailing, formal Special Interest Groups (SIGs) including Windows, OS/2, DOS, word processing & spreadsheets. Other SIGs will be started as we get volunteers to run them. Additionally, we will implement a process for members to acquire free software based on a written review of the product. Vendors are willing to give full working evaluation copies of software to our group based on a written review. The board will implement procedures for this process soon. Presently our inventory of reviewable software includes:

• Lotus Organizer for Windows - Personal Information Manager by Lotus Development Corp.
• FASTLYNX - File Transfer System by Rupp Technology Corp.
• Adobe Type Set - Software Fonts by Adobe Systems Inc.
• Star Trek the Screen Saver for Windows by Berkeley Systems
• Express Publisher for Windows - Desktop Publishing w/ Text Appeal - Logo builder by Power Up Software Corp.
• KUI - Keyboard User Interface for Windows by Softac Corp.

If you are interested in reviewing products please contact me in order that I may add you to our list. Reviewers will need to meet the qualifications specified in the procedures written by the board before any software is handed out for review.

Last year I stated that in 1992 there would be a battle between IBM and Microsoft and their respective 32 bit operating systems. Windows NT and OS/2 were going to duke it out. It never happened because NT didn’t ship. Now rumors are that Microsoft will ship a subset of NT just to get it to market in order to prevent IBM from slowly building an OS/2 following. While these two giants have been battling with their marketing machines, Novell purchased the rights to UNIX. It will be interesting to see if this group turns into the Three Amigos, Three Stooges, Three Little Pigs or just Three’s a Crowd. Meanwhile the classic old DOS is fixing to be upgraded. If this OS is as good as DOS 5.0 was, bring it on Microsoft! As Ray Charles would say, “YOU GOT THE RIGHT ONE BAAAABY. UNH UH.” DOS still works for the masses, and Mr. Bill (Gates) knows there is still money in it.

Harvey P. Bruneau u