This was our first meeting in our new quarters at the Ybor City campus of the HCC. And the facilities are excellent. We have a large circular coliseum-type of room which can be divided fairly easily into two rooms using a built-in partition. The half we used for this meeting will comfortably accommodate over 100 people, with at least 85 seated at tables facing the ‘well’ in the center of the room; in excess of that number would be seated in comfortable folding chairs. The other half of the room is set up to accommodate almost 200 people, all of whom would occupy comfortable folding chairs. All in all, I think the facilities are excellent for our purposes. HCC made available an overhead projector for our use, but a computer and color panel were and are our responsibility; all three are needed for presentations. Our group has not yet been able to acquire either of the missing pieces of hardware, but Harvey saved our bacon this time by borrowing a color panel from his workplace and making a laptop computer available for the meeting. This is not an arrangement that is available for very long, and our group simply must come up with our own equipment.

I found the campus very easy to find and to get to. Parking is ample but is located in three different lots. None of us being very familiar with the layout, some had difficulty locating parking. As we use these new facilities and become more familiar with them, I am confident that we will like our new location as much as or more than the super IBM facilities we had been using. Come on out and see for yourself-- you will enjoy yourself, and you are sure to learn something new.

WordPerfect Corporation, which had been scheduled for a presentation at this meeting, has been rescheduled to later in the year. Tom Cone, our Treasurer, graciously filled in the opening that was left by WP with a rundown on a program he uses daily in his law office -- Desqview --and he did a great job, with good interchange with other members. Presentations by one of our own are particularly enjoyable for me because I think we get more of a user prospective, and there is usually much more interchange between presenter and audience. In addition, there was considerable time available after the presentation for freewheeling interchange among those present on any random computer problem/subject suitable for group discussion -- and that is what happened. In my opinion, that is what this group is all about -- the exchange of knowledge among ourselves, supplemented with knowledge from vendors and other sources.

Non-Profit Status: The Post Office computer has carried our group in non-profit status for the last two months, saving us about 50% ($17) off our bulk mailing rate. However, we had not received official notification of award of that status. You guessed it-- earlier this month the PO informed us that we owed them some $$ for the last 2 month’s mailings and that they would not award non-profit status until the IRS also approved same for us. So, we are back to bulk mail rates (which is not all that bad - about $37/mo, versus about $20/mo) until the IRS grants non-profit status.

Word Perfect Rumor: - WordPerfect Corporation is undergoing a reduction in force at the present time, as many corporations have and will continue to do to stay competitive. A rumor has been circulating, probably associated with the RIF, that WP has produced its last upgrades of both the DOS and Windows versions of its WP word processors. WP Corp has denied that and other articles report that new upgrades will be out for both versions of WP in the next few months. A major change that has occurred, however, is that free tech support has been reduced to 180 days free tech support, beginning with the first call for help. Various “for fee” tech support options will be available after that.

Tom Cone uses this program daily in his office. He chose that program as an alternative to Windows or other multitasking options. Tom reported that he was looking for a program to speed up his computer work by allowing multitasking to avoid the lost time that otherwise occurs when switching from program to program. Many of us would immediately think of Windows or OS/2. But Tom didn’t want the speed cost of these programs. So, he looked around and settled on Desqview, which, by the way, is what your BBS uses operating in a window of Desqview -- that allows the BBS to function normally while our SYSOPs accesses and performs software maintenance on the computer.

Tom very ably demonstrated the features of the program, including creating, using, sizing and switching between windows, all of which is accomplished easily with mouse clicks or short-cut keys. The number of windows that can be opened was not known, but Tom had 5 or 6 open and working at one time, which would be more than adequate for most users. When using a 386 or better machine, all open windows are active and can be working in the background; the more memory, the more windows can be open, active and working. For 386 or better machines, Desqview comes bundled with Quarterdeck’s QEMM program. A memory manager, QEMM makes the most of the memory available on the machine, and Desqview does an excellent job of allocating that memory to use it to best advantage for the programs the user starts. Yes, you can tweak memory use for particular programs to insure that a minimum amount is available. In fact, the user can do considerable tweaking to customize Desqview to suit particular druthers. Desqview also includes a program called Manifest, which provides detail to the screen (or printer) about your computer and its setup; it is much like similar computer information programs in Norton Utilities and Windows, among others.

Desqview will even run Windows in one of its own windows (if for some reason one would want to), but only in standard mode. You can also open Desqview windows back to DOS while applications are running in other windows. In some respects, Desqview is similar to Windows (but with DOS speed). Tom reports that programs do crash on occasion in Desqview. As in Windows 3.1, sometimes one can just shut down and restart the offending program. Other times, it may be necessary to restart Desqview. And, some occasions may require rebooting the computer -- just as in Windows.

Desqview will run on a 286 machine, and one can have several windows open, the number depending on available memory, but one cannot multitask on a 286; only the active window can be working. With 386SX or better machines, the number of windows open and working is tied directly to memory requirements of the programs loaded and the total memory available on the machine. Desqview uses expanded memory (EMS), but simulates EMS from extended memory (XMS) on those machines which don’t have EMS. Tom reports that he sees no signs of any degradation in speed from using EMS and its paging -- it is fast!! Desqview also uses virtual memory (swapping to disk) when RAM has been exhausted, but there is a speed penalty when that occurs -- as is the case in Windows.

Tom did not have current pricing info, but when he bought his Desqview/QEMM package about a year ago, the street price was about $140. Tom made it a point to make us aware that in his view Desqview is not truly a Windows competitor, for it doesn’t have the graphical interface powers of Windows. But, for those who want to multitask with the speed of DOS -- which Windows doesn’t have -- Desqview is certainly a super alternative. Tom, thank you for a great presentation. It was both informative and enjoyable.

M. N. Marteny—T-shirt, Mouse Pad & MS Entertainment Pak

The meeting adjourned at about 9:00 PM. u