 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Editorial Ash Nallawalla ash@melbpc.org.au |
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Theme: SOHO
Not the London suburb, but Small Office, Home Office. This month we bring you many articles of interest to the small business operator and home user.
MYOB 5 review
We have a review of MYOB 5, I had two observations about the previous version that might not affect you.
Despite all attempts by my employers and the reseller to follow the instructions in the manual (such as using the correct image format), we could not paste a logo on a custom invoice. I should point out that both our Dial Help volunteers said that they could do it, so that suggests a problem that might be limited to our PC. The second matter was perhaps expecting too much of an accounting package, but we could not add a field for serial numbers.
Voices on the Internet
The June meeting featured our Internet service and a presentation by Symantec about its Windows 95 strategy. There were about 800 people, which isn't bad for a wet, wintry day. The Internet demo was mostly about our own service.
Richard Solly spoke about the philosophy of our setup and what the boxes did. Carol Daniels spoke about magazines of interest to users and some related web sites. Noel Cranswick had very little time given to him to point out some interesting web sites. I too had to cut short my description of our web pages and the smart features we had implemented.
The reason for the abbreviated timetable was an unexpected glitch in the Internet Phone (Iphone) demonstration. This is one of a few software products that enables you to speak to a distant counterpart free of charge, that is, no STD or ISD phone charges! You need the same package at each end and a sound card with its matching microphone.
The version we used was half-duplex (each person speaks in turn), although a full-duplex version is available but needs a special sound card. Of course, this won't excite the phone companies, so make the most of it while it lasts.
I haven't yet played with Iphone in a live situation, but many users find it an enjoyable, practical use of the Internet. An American correspondent also reported that she was in a five-way conference spanning several countries using CU SeeMe software, where two participants had video and the rest just typed to one another. Also check out the handful of alternative packages before registering any one.
To get back to the June meeting, the whole purpose of the Iphone demo was to award the Volunteer of the Month prize. Knowing that the SLIP Kit has been enjoyed by almost 1400 users, we felt that it would be appropriate to thank the creator of the original version, Larry McGoldrick of the Capital PC User Group (CPCUG), Washington DC. So we chose Larry as the Volunteer of the Month.
As I write this, Larry is probably unaware of the honour, because his certificate was mailed by Gary Taig to Rich Schinnell, President of CPCUG, who will present it to Larry next week at their monthly meeting. Even Symantec USA came to the party and will send Larry the two pieces of software that Symantec gives us each month for this award.
We opened the link to Rich half an hour before the presentation. Matt Chipman and Philip Lew had spent a lot of time getting everything right over the past week; then at the critical moment, Murphy struck. Charles valiantly ad libbed for a while and just as he returned to his seat, the link was restored and the audience got to hear the voice of Rich, loud and clear. Charles and Rich had several exchanges but the link was lost again and had to be abandoned.
The modem we had available for the event was just 14,400 bps, yet the speech sounded very natural. A 486/66 PC with 8 MB RAM is advisable; a 386SX we had as a standby failed the software index test and audio was very scratchy.
Owing to the interest in the topics covered that night, many will be covered at forthcoming Communications SIG (Special Interest Group) meetings. The presentation and its links can be found off our home page at http://www.melbpc.org.au.
Advertising
PC Update's advertising is still dropping in a linear fashion and by present trends could be zero by Christmas. It's hard to say why, now that this magazine is sold in all states except the NT and WA.
Internet service
I have handed over the Internet Service to our Vice-President, Trevor Jacobs as part of a general "burn-out prevention program." I will still be on the Internet admin team, doing the fun bits, and leaving the hard bits to Richard, Stan, or Trevor! We have 1500 subscribers now and are still waiting for the additional 32 lines to be made available to users.
Reprinted from the July 1995 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
