 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Editorial Ash Nallawalla ash@melbpc.org.au |
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Welcome to PC Update, if this is the first copy you have seen. Starting this month you will be able to buy PC Update from newsagents all over this state, although we hope you will soon join the Melbourne PC User Group (Melb PC) and receive it and many other benefits each month.
PC Update, Black Label Edition?
The copies available at newsagents are slightly different to those received by members. No, there are no pinups of computers but our members' copies contain the telephone numbers of our Dial Help volunteers. They are the people you can call if you have a problem with your PC or some software. The non-members' copies contain popular reprints from earlier issues of PC Update.
This magazine is a reflection of our user group: it is an all - volunteer production and it has won many prestigious awards. But look at the other activities Melb PC offers. We have two bulletin board systems (BBSs) with a total of 18 lines. There is a Special Interest Group (SIG) meeting nearly every day of the month - and you can attend as many as you want, free of charge. We have occasional bulk purchases of shareware registrations at a healthy discount and other products such as modems if there is enough interest. Many businesses offer a discount to members. The $100 discount offered by Borland to attendees of its recent World Tour seminar is yet another example of the value you get from membership.
Our Previous Meeting
At the July meeting we had over 1000 in attendance, thanks to Borland, who hired the World Congress Centre. Richard Schwartz was the last-minute substitute for Philippe Kahn. He was the creator of Paradox and was thus able to answer the curliest of technical questions. He gave one of the first public viewings of Quattro Pro for Windows 5.0 and the next version of Paradox for Windows. He hooked up two machines and "published" data from one to the other. This feature created quite a buzz and will appeal to those who need to share data in spreadsheets and databases.
Hewlett-Packard was the other presenter and we were treated to a very fascinating account of mobile computing developments and the new palmtop HP300.
The 95 percent of our members who cannot attend meetings miss out on such news, not because no auditorium that we can afford could accommodate all of us, but because the presenters cannot always arrange to supply review material for this magazine.
Articles and Reviews
The backlog of articles and reviews is over. Those of you who offered to write reviews for the first time should approach the Shareware Librarian and ask if there are a new software arrivals that need be reviewed. Our policy is to all writers to keep and register the software they review Regular reviewers are the ones who not only write well on the subject but who capture screens, collect the software, and deliver the review on schedule. They tackle shareware cheerfully as they do some attractive commercial offering.
Gene Wang Meeting Reminder
Note that we are having TW0 meetings in September. The first is the scheduled Multimedia even the first Wednesday at Clunies Ross House; the second meeting will be on the 15th at the venue listed in the Symantec insert (members' copies only).
Symantec VP Gene Wang will address us on the 15th, and yon might be interested to know that having VIP speakers two months in a row at user group events are common, even in the US. Symantec is honouring our Tenth Anniverary, so come along and celebrate!
Reprinted from the September 1993 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
