Looking Back to 1994

Secretary’s Report
MINUTES OF 8/10/94 MEETING
and PERSONAL COMMENTS

By: Jim Clark, Tampa PC Users Group, Inc.

Another very good meeting, but the very wet weather played havoc with attendance — which was down to less than half the norm. Too bad, too, because Prodigy gave a good thumbnail of their service and the Tampa Tribune gave a rundown on the new Tampa Bay Online service they were to kickoff the next day.

USER GROUP NEWS

ADOPTBBS: Harvey elaborated on a brief article in the August Bits Of Blue newsletter about the kickoff of our Adopt The BBS fund-raising drive. In essence, our BBS has limited capacity which needs to be expanded and improved. A recent membership survey outlined member priorities for the BBS — more files and add a second phone line, which also entails another high-speed modem. A number of actions have been taken to cut costs and generate more revenues. These have all been helpful, but as yet have done little more than offset increasing costs, such as the rental fees we now have to pay for our general meetings. Our treasury simply doesn’t have the funds to accomplish the needed improvements to the BBS. Hence, the Board of Directors elected to raise the needed finds from membership donations. Adopt The BBS is to run through the close of the September meeting. If you want the BBS to be improved and are willing to help with that effort, please send in your check to the TPCUG marked for ADOPTBBS, or bring it to the September meeting. Join those of us who want our group to continue to get better.

INDUSTRY NEWS

IBM Dropping Amber Line: IBM has announced that it is stopping production of its Amber line laptop computers. Full support for these computers will continue, however.

ACCESS 2.0 Problem: Industry news reports that Access 2.0 is giving some users problems with losing data. Those affected are users operating Windows for WorkGroups 3.1 and using SCSI drivers, and then only when accessing the SCSI heavily. While the info is not clear, it would appear that the problem exists only when the SCSI is on a personal machine as opposed to in a network situation. Work is in progress to solve the problem.

Intel Dropping Some Modem Lines: Intel is apparently contracting its modem production and has announced it is dropping some of its less profitable modem lines; it would appear competition and continuing cost-cutting pressures have prompted the move. I do not have details to publish here, so if you are thinking about an Intel modem, you might want to check to see if the one in which you have an interest is one of the lines being discontinued.

Windows 4.0: Word in the industry is that Microsoft will be delaying release of Chicago/Windows 4.0 until the 2nd quarter of 1995. Meanwhile, IBM’s work on its OS/2 Personal is nearing completion — IBM will review this new competitor before our group at our September meeting.

PRESENTATION — Prodigy & Tampa Bay Online

Prodigy: Peter Drummond, Retail Sales & Marketing for Prodigy, was on hand to give a brief rundown of Prodigy for those not already subscribing to that online service. He outlined how Prodigy had now grown to become the largest online service in the country, with the most subscribers. Among the many statistics provided, there are bulletin boards for just about every area of interest you might think of, and, collectively, they handle some 100,000 notes each day. Pete’s principal purpose was to introduce Prodigy as a means to get to the new service that is coming online on Prodigy—Tampa Bay Online (TBOL). As a Prodigy user, however, I can tell you that there is a wealth of information available to subscribers in just about any area of interest. It has a Windows-like environment (graphical interface) in both its DOS and Windows versions of the software, and in spite of the breadth of areas covered by the service — from news & weather; to business & financial news and investing online; to banking online; to airline info & online reservation/ticketing; to many, many bulletin boards; to games; and on and on — navigation within Prodigy is fairly easy.

In contrast to the other online services, Prodigy offers multiple levels of subscriptions. However, over 90% percent of the subscribers chose the Value membership. This $14.95/month subscription gives access to over 90% of Prodigy features without further access or time charges. Less costly subscriptions are available, down to as little as $2/month. This allows subscribers to purchase the service most suitable for their needs. They also offer a free trial membership that allows one to try out the service without cost. You might want to take advantage of that offer.

Tampa Bay Online (TBOL): The bulk of our presentation time was devoted to hearing about this new service for the Tampa Bay Area. Nanette Holland, TBOL News Editor, and Allan Gengler, TBOL Bulletin Board & Information Editor, were on hand to introduce this new service to our members. And they did an excellent job of doing just that. It appears to be an outstanding service. It will provide online all of the goodies contained in the Tribune, except for the national/world news that the Prodigy service already covers, plus other items of interest to Floridians that are not included in the Tribune. Among the latter are computer news and information, including product reviews by our own members; community profiles; beach guides; weather updated periodically, including current radar views; hurricane information and historical data; lottery info; articles prepared for but not published in the Tribune; info on public parks in Florida; and on and on. Another very big plus for TBOL is that it, too, has bulletin boards for notes and messages on just about any subject between TBOL and subscribers, and between subscribers.

Also with a graphical interface, TBOL’s opening screen offers 4 or 5 “highlight” items, plus access buttons for each of the following categories: News/Opinion; Sports; Business; Bay Life; Entertainment; The Florida Key; Bay Talk; and Classified. Yes, all the want ads are available on line. Clicking on each of the categories leads you to a similar screen for the contents of that category. Much like the Tribune, it includes items of interest to all Floridians and local news for counties from Citrus County to the north, to DeSoto/Highland Counties to the south and Polk County to the east. Moreover, a good bit of the info available (such as lottery numbers, or recipes from previous weeks, to name but a couple) is archived so that several days or weeks of back info is available,. Most of what you see can be downloaded to printer and/or file.

I tried the service just before beginning this report and I like what I see. It is, in fact, as easy to navigate within as it appeared to be during the presentation. It is very easy to use, easier in my opinion than finding things in the Tribune itself. Moreover, the news in TBOL is available the evening before the Tribune hits the street. And it is less expensive than the newspaper, costing only $4.95 per month, the charge being billed on your Prodigy statement. I don’t mean to suggest that TBOL is a replacement for your Tribune subscription. Rather, I am trying to give you a feel for the high quality and timeliness of service that I saw. TBOL is free for the first weekend for anyone interested in trying it out. That, of course, will have long since passed by the time you read this, but I would expect that TBOL will offer some additional free weekends to acquaint those who missed the first offer. Keep your eyes open. But you don’t have to wait — they have made it easy and for those enrolling now, the first month is free. Even if that is no longer available when you finally decide you would like to try TBOL, $4.95 is not an exorbitant cost to not wait for the “trial” periods or free months; just tinkering with TBOL for a month is worth the $4.95.

Many thanks to Peter Drummond of Prodigy, and Nanette Holland and Allan Gengler of the Tribune for an excellent presentation of your services. You have been most helpful and we look forward to the continued progress of your respective services.

AND THE WINNER IS

Thanks to the generosity of Asymetrix and Computer Associates, there were a couple of very nice door prizes. Those among us to have the good fortune to win are:

Rob Davis  -  Simply Money
Herb Atwood Multimedia  -  Make Your Point

The meeting adjourned at about 8 PM. u