SIGs (Special Interest Groups)

Our SIGs are growing well and members have another daytime SIG in Ivanhoe. It meets on 4th Thursday each month except January starting at 10.00 am at the Uniting Church Hall, 19 Seddon Street, Ivanhoe. Melway map 31-F8.

The inaugural Bayside SIG meeting was well attended with over 100 members present despite a relatively modest e-mailing. This is a daytime event located in Brighton starting at 10.00 am on the 3rd Thursday of each month. For more information see the SIG details at http://groups.melbpc.org.au/

My thanks to our very hard-working SIG Coordinator, Noel Peters and to the SIG leaders without whom there would be no such groups and Melb PC would have less to offer members.

Members Home Pages

Last month I stated that the details for how to set up your own Web pages would appear soon. Unfortunately this has been delayed for some weeks. The computer that was going to be used the Web hosting task has given us a few problems in the last month including a hard disk failure. This is a five year old computer that has been working very hard for 24 hours for every day of that period with constant high levels of disk activity.

It was decided to purchase a new rack-mounted, dual processor computer with mirrored drives to act as the host for the members' Web pages. This meant producing specifications, obtaining three quotes, then purchasing and configuring the computer.

It's in everybody's interests that we provide a reliable computer some weeks late in order to give stable service rather than risk the old one failing, putting all home pages and other services off the air.

LG CD-RW Offer

The offer to members to purchase a CD-RW proved to be very popular. The group made virtually no money on this as all the bulk buying benefits were passed on to members.

We ordered approximately 400 units. In physical terms this represents a stack close to a truck load and the office had piles of these boxes; several wide and reaching over the heads of the staff. With the aid of several volunteers all were packaged, labelled and mailed. All orders and money details were very carefully controlled and every single unit and every single dollar was balanced.

The Search for New Premises

We are still looking for new premises for the Group's office. Although we have received quite a few offers, most were from industrial real estate agents. If any member knows of a suitable place could they contact me or any of the committee members. Our desired specifications are, about 700-900 sq m, adequate parking, or parking available in adjacent streets, preferably close to a freeway exit or public transport. The area that is being initially considered is an oval stretching between Caulfield and Springvale Rd as this will allow access for bayside members and from the SE suburbs. These areas have the highest concentration of membership. Monthly meetings will probably remain at Parkville.

Can You Baby Sit a Computer?

Collingwood still does not have any means of transporting its Swap Meet kit to and from the Town Hall. Can anyone living in the general area volunteer for this job? As a bonus you will not only receive free admission but you will be able to use the computer during the month. If you can help then please contact me or any other committee member.

Next Monthly Meeting

Trends in Data Storage 
Iomega will be demonstrating the. new devices in data storage and future trends.

How to set up home pages 
Richard John, a member of the Internet admin and iHelp teams and the person responsible for setting up our new Web page server will demonstrate how to create a simple home page and how to upload it to the Internet.

Video Card Technology 
Giulio Zappone from Focal Point, the distributors of Matrox video cards will speak on the technology and the future trends in video cards. He has offered to donate for our regular raffle two units of the latest video card that will be released next week. The Matrox Millennium 6550 card with 32 MB of DDR (Double Data Rate) memory.

The meeting will also have our Random Access session, your chance to ask the experts, the regular giveaways and raffle with usually several thousand dollars worth of prizes, shareware library sales, etc. For a map of how to find the Pharmacy College see page 63 or Melway 291312. Hope to see you there.

Reprinted from the September 2001 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia

[About Melbourne PC User Group]