News Humor Common PC Mac Amiga CUCUG
The September 21 gathering will be one of our social/swap meetings. Bring in any hardware/software you'd like to sell or trade. Come with any questions or comments you'd like to share. This meeting will be informal and informative. Come and enjoy the fun.
Petro not leaving Amiga
(Sept. 13, 2000) - Czech Amiga News posted the following: "Kleng Hodnefjell (kleng@c2i.net) asked Petro if 'Is it true that he quit ?' Here is the answer:
'Sorry but I have no plans to quit. I have only invested 50 % in Power Service, which is a company I believe in. It is no Computer Company and no competition... Power Service is a Job agency for IT Specialists. I will continue with my beloved AMIGA. Best regards and thanks for your mail...Petro'"
Vision Factory Development are reporting that they've made a Virge-based PCI graphics card successfully work through the Mediator busboard with their CyberGraphX 3 driver (CGX4 driver is in the works). Also a driver for 3Dfx Voodoo3 is being worked on.
<http://www.vgr.com/cybergfx/>
The free CGX V3 driver is up and running, on the PCI ViRGE card, in the Mediator. The V4 version should be released with the next V4 updated. The Voodoo3 driver is being worked on now. There is no set release dates yet! Also updated the Mediator PCI Busboard page with a list of supported and planned supported cards (make/model). 25-Aug-00
PRESS RELEASE: Vision Factory Development (the CGX team) and Elbox are working together to supply drivers for the Elbox Mediator PCI Busboard. CGX V3 (and CGX V4 soon to follow) will be available. Vision Factory Development have set up a support page for the Mediator & CGX. On the page you can find some basic information on the Mediator and of course all the latest information on the CGX drivers and supported cards. The CGX Mediator support page can be found here. The support page can also be found at <http://www.vgr.com/pci> , to make it easier to remember. You can also find the complete Elbox press release for the Mediator and CGX on this page. 24-July-00
Eyetech have a large update on the Predator expansion board, outlining amongst other things the technical merits of the product's chosen solutions. They say, "The Predator will be available in two different form factor designs, one for the A4000 desktop and one for the A1200. The A1200 form factor version will come with 3xPCI and 1 x AGP simultaneously usable slots and will fit in any tower capable of taking a Z4 busboard. The A4000 desktop form factor version will come with 2xPCI and one AGP slots plus one shared PCI and regular, Video Toaster-compatible A4000 video/Zorro3 slot (making 4 simultaneously usable slots altogether). Both form factor versions will also have provision for a G3/G4 PPC & SDRAM slot. Each form factor design will be available in two versions, the Predator-SE and the Predator-Plus. The Predator-SE will be a low cost version supporting PCI cards only, albeit over the high speed PPC local bus connector (see below). The Predator-Plus will be the fully featured version with AGP, G3/G4 and SDRAM slots activated. A trade-in/upgrade option will be available for purchasers of the Predator-SE who subsequently wish to add Predator-Plus facilities." The SE versions are planned to be released in November (A4000 version) and December (A1200 version) with the Plus versions following in early 2001.
After a long wait, the new WinUAE has been release with lots of new features, increased compatibility and bug fixes. The WinUAE project is to be taken over by Toni Wilen.a large update.
<http://www.codepoet.com/UAE/index.htm>
Intuit has begun shipping Quicken 2001 for Macintosh, the latest version of its market-dominating personal finance package. Quicken 2001 offers a global search and replace feature which operates across accounts, the capability to notice repeated payments and proactively remind you they're coming due, plus a software update feature which can automatically notify you when updates or bug fixes are available. Intuit also claims over 500 financial institutions now support online banking functions in the Mac version of Quicken, though less than 70 currently support direct connections - the others merely provide data you can download into Quicken. The Windows version of Quicken 2001 also sports features missing on the Mac side, including a Smart Reconcile feature which can find and correct common register errors and improved portfolio management features. Quicken 2001 requires a PowerPC-based Mac running Mac OS 8.6 or higher, 32 MB RAM or more, and a CD-ROM drive; it costs $60, although buyers are eligible for a $20 mail-in rebate if they can provide a photocopy of the packing slip for Quicken 2001. [GD]
<http://www.shopintuit.com/q2001/q2001mlps/index.asp>
<http://www.intuit.com/banking/filist.html>
Apple Computer unveiled a new notebook and a new operating system at Apple Expo 2000 in Paris.
Apple added brawn to its colorful line of iBook notebooks, beefing up storage, offering speedier processors and adding a DVD drive to the high-end model. The company also released the test, or beta, version of the OS X operating system and said it will offer ATI Technologies' high-end Radeon graphics card as a $100 option in its PowerMac G4 and G4 cube models.
<http://two.digital.cnet.com/cgi-bin2/flo?y=e6Y0H4Om0U0DdZq>
<http://two.digital.cnet.com/cgi-bin2/flo?y=e6Y0H4Om0U0DbOd>
Casady & Greene has continued their history of significant feature updates to SoundJam MP Plus, the company's popular MP3 player and encoder. New in version 2.5.1 is support for broadcasting from your Mac to Internet rebroadcast services, a tuner for finding Internet music streams, support for both CPUs of the new dual-processor Power Mac G4s in encoding, conversion to WAV format, improved interface niceties when controlling portable MP3 players, support for the Nomad Jukebox, numerous enhancements to the playlist functionality, and a wide variety of other minor changes. Especially welcome are the major speed increases in the Playlist Composer feature that enables ad-hoc creation of playlists - it was too slow in 2.0, as we noted in "SoundJam Keeps On Jammin" in TidBITS-535_. Still missing, however, is an improved Alarm Clock interface that doesn't rely on closing the Alarm Clock window to confirm and apply time setting changes. SoundJam MP Plus 2.5.1 is a free update (2.9 MB download) for registered users; it now requires Mac OS 8.1 on at least a 100 MHz PowerPC 603-based Mac. [ACE]
<http://www.soundjam.com/getit/update.html >
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=05988 >
<http://www.soundjam.com/downloadplus.html >
Bare Bones Software today released BBEdit 6.0, the company's flagship text editor and HTML authoring tool. The new version supports editing of multi-byte text and recognizes Web language specifications for HTML 4.01, XHTML 1.0, and WML 1.1 for use with its markup tools. HTML authors can now access improved Web-safe color palettes and insert and edit commands using contextual menus. BBEdit's sophisticated search and replace feature incorporates improvements for working with multiple files, including filtering for several criteria. BBEdit 6.0 also improves its OSA scripting support, introduces a plug-in architecture for developers looking to customize syntax highlighting and functions, and adds other refinements such as Apple Keychain support and multiple clipboards. Upgrades are available in several forms: those who bought BBEdit 5.x after 01-Jun-00 can upgrade for free; owners of BBEdit 2.5 and later can get it for $39 directly from Bare Bones Software; and a cross-upgrade price of $79 applies to owners of competing and complementary products (see the Bare Bones Web site for a list). The full retail price is $119. A 5 MB demo is also available. [JLC]
<http://www.barebones.com/products/bbedit.html >
<http://store.barebones.com/cross_upgrade.html >
The support staff whipped the marketing department soundly.
To show just how the marketing department earns their keep, they posted this memo on the bulletin board after the game:
"The Marketing Department is pleased to announce that for the 2000 Softball Season, we came in 2nd place, having lost but one game all year. The Support Department, however, had a rather dismal season, winning only one game."
I wouldn't want to be a cop. It is a difficult and generally thankless job performed by people who are often unappreciated and certainly not overpaid. Most of us think of the police as the givers of undeserved though probably earned speeding and parking tickets. But when real troubles come, we expect the police to be there, to protect public safety. For their part, the law enforcement people I have known generally see themselves as a tribe a body of professionals who do a job the rest of us don't want to do and are, by the nature of that job, special. Ask a cop the last time he or she got a speeding ticket, then ask them whether they ever exceed the speed limit. Cops generally judge themselves by different rules than they judge the rest of us.
When there is a pressing problem of public safety, we tend to expect the police to fix it, and we usually give them whatever tools they require to do the job. This explains why so many cities have Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams. It's not that every city faces problems that require SWAT response, but having a SWAT team is one way of keeping up with the other cities. It's cool. And if the perceived threat is bad enough and real enough, there is probably no limit, short of the U.S. Constitution, on the tools we will give our defenders. Bazookas, anyone?
Now we jump, for the third and I hope last time, back into the Carnivore debate. You'll remember Carnivore is a sealed box that the FBI proposes to install in the Network Operations Centers of Internet Service Providers that are known to serve users who are criminal suspects and who are under a court-ordered e-mail tap. The way it was originally explained, Carnivore boxes would copy and store e-mail to and from the bad guy for decryption and examination by appropriate officials. ISPs don't like Carnivore because it is a box they don't control or have access to that can potentially screw-up the whole network. Privacy advocates don't like Carnivore because it might be intercepting and storing e-mails other than just those of the bad guys. They worry about the potential for abuse by law enforcement agencies.
This is a thorny issue and shows how much technology has changed law enforcement. Part of the problem is that the Internet -- formerly a province of academic nerds -- is now a part of mainstream life, which is to say it has become a crime scene. Enter the police. When people use the Internet to deliver threats or commit crimes, the technology makes it conducive for law enforcement to deal with it. All that good spy technology used by the major intelligence agencies can be used to detect of crime on the Internet.
I wonder whether the end of the Cold War may have accelerated this law enforcement trend as intelligence agencies try to stay in business by re-targeting their efforts on terrorism, the new bogeyman.
The scary part about these intelligence-gathering technologies is that they are very scaleable. It isn't that much harder to read the mail of a thousand people than to read the mail of one person if a machine is doing the reading. And since the Carnivore boxes need to be directly in the flow of all e-mail at an ISP, this is doubly concerning. Now for the first of two disturbing facts: While the FBI has kept generally quiet about Carnivore, the government has maintained that it is intended for surgical use. One crook, one e-mail address. Is that why the name Carnivore was chosen? Because it is my understanding that the Carnivore program was begun under a different name, Omnivore. So much for surgical strikes.
For the second disturbing fact we jump to the Olympics -- not this year's games in Sydney -- but the 2002 Winter games in Utah. Given the 1996 bombing at the Atlanta games and the 1972 hostage crisis in Munich, I really, really wouldn't want to be responsible for public safety at an Olympic games anywhere. So it isn't surprising that the security plans for Salt Lake in 2002 are very robust -- perhaps too robust for some people, including me.
At the Utah games there will be a network of kiosks set up for athletes, journalists, and the public to use for e-mail and Net access. This will be the easiest way for many people to communicate in an area that will probably have its cellphone circuits maxed-out most of the time. Try making a cellphone call in Las Vegas during Comdex or the Consumer Electronics Show and you'll know what I mean. Well, the FBI has some rather specific requirements for Olympic data security, including the ability to not only COPY e-mail from these kiosks containing passwords from users' secret list, but to actually INTERCEPT e-mail and deliver it to a security office address rather than to the intended recipient. The person manning that address is supposed to make summary decisions about what to do with the reviewed email -- maybe it gets passed along as intended by its author, maybe bounced as "undeliverable" for myriad reasons, or...
Seriously, that's a technical requirement, for which a vendor has not yet been chosen. The FBI gets to read mail, steal passwords, and divert mail. By the nature of the system, they have to look at all the mail -- even yours, if you are there. Remember, given the high-roller nature of Olympic audiences, the passwords being recorded to a database will likely include America's business elite. Of course those passwords would never be used for any illegal purpose, right?
And the truly amazing part of this story is that there is nothing illegal about the data gathering, itself. Since the kiosk doesn't belong to you or me, we are bound by terms of usage that allow the kiosk provider to do pretty much whatever they want with the bits we run through their system. By simply using their machine, we give up our privacy without even knowing it.
Okay, so maybe I have just blown the lid off a plan that could save lives, but it is hard for me to imagine a scenario in which some terrorist will stop on his way to plant a bomb to e-mail the boss about that bomb's location. This looks to me like overkill, and I don't like it. Or am I the only one who feels this way?
I have found a "SnoopDos" for Windows (all flavors) called FILEMON. Yes, it works just like dear ol' SnoopPoop. It comes with a lot of other monitoring programs in a package called "SysInternals".
I figger that some of these tools might be helpful for those who will be using the Windows ver. of the SDK.
Never know...
Voytek Laniewski (voytek@cyburban.com) wrote:
> Hi! How does one get a DVD player (on windoze for now, until the PCI expansion > is available with drivers for, say, Hollywood Plus :-) to play movies from > different zones using a hardware decoder? I know the drive has to be > Multi-Region (most likely with a hacked firmware) but there are two things
Older DVD Drives didn't have the region coding at all. If you're using the M$ player software you'll find that it stores the region in one of the registry keys, it also stores the number of times that the region has been changed...
Snipped from my Hotlist
How to Play DVDs with any Region Code on Windows 98 - http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/dvdregion/
> one must work around : the decoder and windows region codes. Has anybody > such a setup running? Also since the system would be using a hardware > decoder that would involve some kind of a pass-through. How much would that > degrade the picture quality?
from the the-left-hand-knows-not-what-the-right-hand-does dept.
Skubalon writes "Mainsoft confirmed today that they are indeed porting Microsoft's apps to Linux. The story was first reported in Paul Thurrott's WinInfo yesterday. Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player will be among the first apps to be ported."
On the other hand we have this submission: Rendell writes "According to this story on Beta News, Microsoft is denying the rumors that they were in the process of porting some of their software to the Linux platform. Especially focusing on the rumor that the main project was Office."
So - who knows? My analysis: Microsoft is correct - /they/ are not doing the porting. Mainsoft, however, appears to have the powers to execute the porting.
Apple today released the long-awaited public beta, or test version, of its upcoming Mac OS X operating system. Unfortunately, a significant number of Apple users won't be able to use it without upgrading their hardware.
In a surprise twist in the Mac OS X saga, Apple said today that the beta version of the operating system will require a minimum of 128MB of memory. The basic configuration for most Apple laptops and desktops, however, is 64MB.
CEO Steve Jobs unfurled the beta today during a keynote address at Apple Expo 2000 in Paris. It sells on a CD-ROM that can be ordered for $29.95 from Apple's Web site and is also available as a special bundle on two new computers.
Although the memory requirements were a surprise, the company maintains that it should not be a problem for the target audience of the beta. Apple said it's intended for die-hard fans and technology professionals, most of whom already have the needed memory.
"The goal of the public beta is not to have every Mac user go out and install it," said Peter Lowe, director of Mac OS product marketing.
As recently as May, Apple had said OS X would require only 64MB of memory, a far more typical configuration on its iMacs, iBooks and even the entry level of its PowerMac and PowerBook professional lines.
The final version, the one that is intended for all Macintosh users, is still set for early next year.
Apple will work to make the final version run with 64MB of memory and on the original PowerBook, Lowe said.
"That is our plan," he said. "That is our goal."
Lowe said that although the earlier releases of OS X offered to developers work with 64MB of memory, people running existing Mac applications might not get sufficient performance without the higher amount of memory.
"We recommend 128MB for people to have a positive experience," Lowe said.
The idea of a public beta was first outlined in May at Apple's Worldwide Developer Forum. Before then, Apple had said it would offer OS X as a commercial release this summer.
Apple has maintained that the revised timetable was simply a change in terminology, rather than a delay. However, Apple made it clear today that the public beta is designed to get more feedback before releasing the final version for the masses.
Release of the beta is considered a watershed event for Apple. Analysts see the move to Mac OS X as the company's most important product transition since the move to PowerPC processors in the early 1990s.
"For Apple, this is the equivalent of going to the PowerPC," Gartner analyst Chris LeTocq said. "It's that type of migration, serious decision, architecture change. This gets them out of the 1984 architecture they've been in for so long."
Availability of the beta could also be crucial to drumming up support from software developers, who have not embraced Mac OS X as enthusiastically as Apple had hoped.
"A lot of people will be happy to see Mac OS X," said Technology Business Research analyst Tim Deal. "The big question is what kind of developers are going to be developing for the OS. I remember just three months ago they only had about 200 application developers for OS X."
Besides offering the beta on CD, Apple is also selling it preloaded on two systems: a PowerMac G4 and G4 Cube for $4,198 and $3,298, respectively. Both systems also include a 15-inch flat-panel display.
Apple's charging for the beta was a hot topic among Apple enthusiasts leading up to the Paris Expo, but the move is by no means unprecedented. Microsoft has charged for Windows public betas.
Delays getting Mac OS X to market may ultimately benefit Apple, say analysts. With modest support from software developers and major changes in the new operating system's graphical user interface (GUI), the beta could be crucial to an effective transition to OS X.
"Major new operating systems have a documented history of substantially missing their releases," Gartner's LeTocq said. "Windows 2000 is a very credible example of that. From an Apple perspective, is it a calamity there is a delay? I don't think so."
LeTocq warned that Mac OS X's fluidlike Aqua GUI may shock some Apple enthusiasts who will need time to adjust to the radical departure from Mac OS 9.04.
Mac OS X is a revolutionary step forward in Macintosh operating systems, according to analyst Deal. Apple borrowed elements from Unix that bring Mac OS X's performance up to par with other business-class operating systems, such as Windows 2000 Professional.
The move to a more modern operating system is essential for Apple, LeTocq said.
"You have an architecture in the current Mac OS that is ineffective at handling large storage media, tens-of-gigabytes hard drives," he said. "It is particularly ineffective when it comes to memory management."
The Gartner analyst faulted Mac OS 9.04's hierarchical file system, which cannot relate disparate data logically--that is, he said, it cannot comprehend "what are the files associated with my work and my Christmas project. When you look at OS X, for the most part it has the architecture to do those things, and that's what Apple wants."
More important for Apple will be translating enthusiasm for the beta into greater developer support for Mac OS X. Developers took the May announcement of the operating system's delay in stride, Deal said.
The beta "will attract some new developers, especially if there is some enthusiasm from the Mac community," he added.
Apple has its share of big-gun developer support. Microsoft has committed to Mac OS X versions of Internet Explorer 5 and Outlook Express 5.02, though it has not yet set a date for a Mac OS X version of Office. The next version of Office, for Mac OS 9.04, will not become available until next month.
Casady & Greene will be offering a Mac OS X version of its popular SoundJam MP player for listening to digital music, such as MP3 files. Adobe, Disney, IBM, Macromedia and Quark are among the other software developers committed to Mac OS X products.
Whatever else Apple gets from the release of the public beta, the most important thing will be buzz, LeTocq said.
"Frankly, it is a PR exercise," he said. "They get it out there and generate some buzz. Pump some more energy into the cycle, so the buzz comes round and persuades the developers to get off their butts."
With today's release of Eudora 5.0, Qualcomm has at once shored up some weak spots in their popular email program and raised the bar with innovative new features. Foremost among the new features are Eudora Sharing Protocol (ESP), a plug-in that enables Eudora users to maintain the contents of shared folders automatically via email, and MoodWatch, a new technology that gives some indication of the "spiciness" of a message. But let's start with the "it's about time" features.
Basic I/O Functions
Many have complained about Eudora's inability to import messages from the proprietary database formats of other common email programs. Eudora 5.0 finally adds the capability to import mail from Claris Emailer 2.0 and Outlook Express 5.0, and although the feature won't interest existing Eudora users much, it should make converting to Eudora easier. Unlike most other importers, Eudora doesn't rely on a slow Apple event-based approach, and in my testing, imports of a few hundred messages moved along quickly.
Those who have mail that was originally received by Claris Emailer 1.x may experience some problems though, since older messages that displayed fine in Emailer 2.0 don't always import properly into Eudora. Running the messages through Outlook Express didn't seem to help either, though the results were different. Messages created in Emailer 2.0 or Outlook Express 5.0 posed fewer problems, although it's still a good idea to rebuild your email database before attempting an import (launch those programs with the Option key held down; in Emailer, perform an Advanced Rebuild). And of course, if all else fails, you can fall back on the AppleScript scripts that have worked in the past (for details, see "Switching from Emailer to Eudora in Leaps and Bounds" in TidBITS-528_). Qualcomm has been made aware of the problem and is aiming for a fix in 5.0.1.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=05908>
Little Black Book
Qualcomm is slowly updating various large sections of Eudora, such as Eudora Pro 4.2's radically improved Search functionality that we discussed in "Eudora Pro 4.2 Continues to Deliver" in TidBITS-488_. In 5.0, the Address Book receives some attention, though the results are nowhere near as compelling as 4.2's new Search. Essentially, the Address Book gains an interface similar to the Mailboxes window with small icons for address books, individuals, and groups, and it also now stores more information, thanks to the addition of Home, Work, Other, and Notes tabs.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=05469>
Although there's nothing particularly wrong with the new Address Book, there's nothing particularly interesting about it either. It's the old Address Book with additional fields. When asked, Steve Dorner (Eudora's primary author) said that the Eudora 5.0 Address Book was mostly laying the foundation for future features, such as Palm synchronization and integration of contacts with email messages. Clearly, Qualcomm is trying to match Outlook Express 5.0 on a feature checklist basis, and an improved Address Book was necessary for that goal.
For people with any kind of serious needs from their contact managers, Eudora 5.0's Address Book is just a tease, much like the same feature in Outlook Express. I don't even _want_ to see Eudora's Address Book replace my copy of Now Contact, though I'd appreciate some synchronization between the two. I'd prefer to see Eudora's Address Book concentrate on email-specific features. How about a fast search for all mail from or to selected contacts? Or perhaps Eudora could include contact information in headers that other copies of Eudora could use to populate the automatically generated nicknames in the History List more completely?
Scripts on the Menu
Another small feature that many advanced Eudora users will appreciate is the addition of a Scripts menu that provides fast access to AppleScript scripts stored in the Scripts Folder (inside the Eudora Stuff folder in Eudora's application folder). The first item in that menu is Open Scripts Folder; after the Scripts Folder opens in the Finder, you can drop any scripts you use into it and execute them by choosing them from the Scripts menu. It's a nice touch, and it also enables you to attach scripts to toolbar buttons by Command-clicking an empty spot on the toolbar and choosing a script.
Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics
With this next feature, statistics on your email usage, Eudora starts to raise the bar for email once again. The feature itself is mostly for fun, but it's unusual and provides information that we all bandy about as evidence of email machismo. How many email messages do you get every day? Thanks to Eudora's new statistics window, accessible from the Window menu, I know that my estimates of 150 messages per day were spot on. In the two months I've been using beta versions of Eudora 5.0, I've received an average of 148 messages per day, 1,039 messages per week, and 4,519 messages per month. Similarly, I send an average of 41 messages per day, 288 per week, and 1,255 per month. Even more interesting, Eudora tells me that I spend an average of 1.8 hours per day using Eudora, 12 hours per week, and 55 hours per month. That's actual activity in Eudora, not just the time the application is open. Eudora happily displays all these statistics for the year as well.
<http://www.eudora.com/email/features/mailstats.html>
If you click the More statistics checkbox, you can learn how your activities break down. I see that I spend 29 percent of my time reading mail, 61 percent composing, and 10 percent mucking about with other things. With sent mail, I can see how my outgoing mail breaks down by forwarded messages, replied to messages, redirected messages, and attachments sent. For incoming mail, I can tell how many attachments I've received and what percentage of my incoming mail I've read.
Along with the raw numbers, Eudora draws graphs that clarify your patterns of sending mail, receiving mail, and using Eudora. The graphs also showed me that Eudora considers importing mail the same as receiving mail, and some tests I'd done had resulted in importing 1,800 messages. Since the dates on the Emailer 1.x messages I was importing were screwed up, Eudora counted them as arriving the day I did the import. I didn't want to skew my numbers that radically, but since Eudora actually stores the statistics in a straight-text XML file in the Eudora Folder, I was able to edit out the spike by changing some numbers.
Mood Rings
Remember those mood rings from long ago that claimed to report your mood by changing color? I presume they worked on temperature - the hotter you got, the more uptight the mood ring claimed you were. New in Eudora 5.0 is a superficially similar feature called MoodWatch, which is based on work done by David Kaufer, chairman of the English department at Carnegie Mellon University. Qualcomm implemented David Kaufer's work in a fast algorithm that examines every message to identify words or phrases that some people might find offensive. The basic idea is to determine if what you're writing might be construed as a flame, or as a heads-up that an incoming message might be a flame before you start reading.
<http://www.eudora.com/email/features/moodwatch.html>
MoodWatch works both on incoming messages and messages you write, assigning every message between zero and three chili peppers to indicate the level of "spiciness." Chilies appear in a new mailbox column, and for outgoing messages, on the right side of the window toolbar (for zero chilies, outgoing messages display an icon that could be interpreted as an ice cube to indicate you're cool).
I was initially dubious about MoodWatch, but I seldom find myself disagreeing with it, although why a message receives chilies is occasionally confusing. For instance, ListSTAR sends me daily logs that often have chili ratings, which befuddled me until I realized that they were generally related to the subjects or senders of spam messages directed at my auto-replies.
MoodWatch is mostly informational, but it does offer some interactivity. In the MoodWatch settings panel, you can decide if you want it to warn you when sending messages with a certain chili rating. You can also Option-click on a message's chili rating in a mailbox window to select all messages with the same rating. However, you cannot search or filter on chili ratings, because the entire system is sufficiently subjective that searches or filters could easily produce undesirable results.
I mostly like seeing the chili ratings on the messages I'm writing, and just last week I reworded a hastily composed paragraph in a message that simply didn't need the expression that generated a pair of chilies. I'm a strong believer in using language appropriately, and if that means a message needs to go out with a full three-chili rating, so be it. But having Eudora warn me about inadvertent mistakes when I'm not paying attention is welcome.
A few notes about MoodWatch: It's specific to English (and probably American English at that), so your results may vary when using other languages. It's also entirely internal to your copy of Eudora, so no one using other email programs will see the chili ratings in any way. And of course, you can always turn it off.
ESP: Not What You're Thinking
Eudora 5.0's most innovative feature is ESP, a plug-in whose name expands to Eudora Sharing Protocol. At its heart, ESP is simple - it enables everyone in a group of Eudora users to maintain a folder whose contents are identical on each person's machine, with ESP automatically sending and receiving updates from the members of the group. It all happens via standard email, but without bothering you with the automatic messages.
<http://www.eudora.com/email/features/esp.html>
For the most part, you don't do anything in ESP itself; it just works in the background, occasionally prompting you with dialogs when necessary. But to create or configure groups, you work within the plug-in's interface, accessible by choosing ESP Groups from the Special menu (if that item isn't present, the ESP plug-in isn't installed where Eudora can find it, preferably in your Eudora Stuff folder).
An ESP group has several parts, including the shared folder itself (created by default in an ESP Groups folder in your Documents folder), a Eudora mailbox to store messages from the group, and the Eudora personality to apply to your outgoing messages to the group. An ESP group also contains a list of users, each of whom can play one of four roles: full member (send and receive updates), broadcasting member (send updates only), receiving member (receive updates only), and custom member (obey a set of custom actions regarding new, updated, and deleted items in the shared folder). The group creator uses ESP itself to invite users; it creates customized messages with a special attachment that the invitee's copy of ESP uses to configure itself to participate in the new group. Although the group creator can set an initial role for each invitee and even set a warning to appear if that person tries to change his or her role, control ultimately lies with each individual.
When anything changes in one copy of the shared folder, ESP packages up the necessary files along with instructions to the remote copies of ESP about what actions to perform and sends the message out. The receiving copies of ESP then unpack the files, look at the instructions, and perform the necessary actions to keep everyone's shared folder synchronized.
It's hard to predict exactly how people will use ESP because although ESP is good at maintaining multiple backups of updated and deleted documents, the disconnected nature of email means that it is possible for two people to modify the same file at the same time. Put simply, if you already have and rely on a single shared folder on a centralized server, you'll find switching to a distributed shared folder maintained by ESP frustrating, since you never know who's working on a file or if your folder has all the latest changes. My feeling is that ESP is not ideal for sharing documents that multiple people change frequently.
Where ESP's brilliance shines through is in easing email file distribution among a group. For instance, I'm creating and editing content for a Web site right now, and I'm constantly mailing drafts and final copies all over the place. Worse, whenever I receive an edited version, it's a totally new document whose changes I have to merge manually. If we were using ESP, I'd only have to worry about the current version of the document in the shared folder, and I could set the number of backup versions to retain in case of trouble. Another use of ESP might come in maintaining a shared folder of family photographs, where each member of the family could simply drop pictures into the folder to send them out the entire family.
Overall, I find ESP fascinating because it introduces intelligence into the process of sharing files via email, something we all do these days. Although you would set up ESP only if you anticipated an ongoing need to share files with a group, the functionality is sufficiently compelling that even people who must rely on other email programs might consider setting up a special POP email address (such as one via Apple's iTools or at Yahoo Mail) and running Eudora purely for ESP's file synchronization features. Luckily, ESP is cross-platform, so people using Eudora 5.0 for Windows can also participate in ESP groups.
<http://www.apple.com/>
<http://mail.yahoo.com/>
Upgrade Details
Eudora 5.0 is the first upgrade Qualcomm has released since Eudora Pro 4.0 back in January of 1998 that requires payment from some users. Whether or not you have to pay depends _not_ on what version of Eudora you're currently _using_, but which version you last _purchased_. If you bought Eudora Pro 4.0 or 4.2 (whether or not you've subsequently taken advantage of the free upgrade to 4.3), the upgrade costs $30. If, however, you bought Eudora 4.3 to switch from Sponsored or Light mode into Paid mode, the upgrade to 5.0 is free.
<http://www.eudora.com/email/upgrade/>
If you're currently running Eudora 4.3, you can verify your situation and download Eudora 5.0 by first choosing Payment & Registration from the Help menu, and then clicking the "Find the Latest Update to Eudora" button (you must be connected to the Internet). A moment or two later, Eudora will display a window telling you that 5.0 is available, and if you're running in Paid mode, whether or not you have to pay to run 5.0 in Paid mode. It's a 4.7 MB download. If you have to upgrade, the first time you run Eudora 5.0, it will tell you that you have to pay to keep running in Paid mode and provide a link to pay on Qualcomm's Web site. Eudora will then continue to run in Paid mode for an hour to provide time for the transaction to be completed and so you can receive the registration code Qualcomm's servers will mail back to you.
If you haven't already upgraded from 4.0 or 4.2 to 4.3, you must first upgrade to 4.3 and then follow the procedure above. If you're still using a version of Eudora prior to 4.0, you'll have to pay the full amount, which is $50.
Of course, if you wish to use Eudora 5.0 for free, you can still do so in Light mode (which lacks many of Eudora's advanced features, including most of those mentioned above) or in Sponsored mode (which provides all of Eudora's features but requires you view ads).
As with any upgrade, the question is whether or not the new version is worth the effort and cost of upgrading. With Eudora 5.0, the answer depends significantly on your situation:
It's hard to see quite why Qualcomm chose to call this Eudora 5.0, rather than something like 4.5. The version number bump was probably influenced by the competition with Microsoft's Outlook Express 5.0, whose version number was artificially increased to be comparable with Internet Explorer 5.0.
But more to the point, although MoodWatch and ESP are fairly major features, they're less compelling than the inline spelling checker and search functionality that appeared in Eudora Pro 4.2. And although Eudora 4.3's changes mostly revolved around the move to Light, Sponsored, and Paid modes, in some ways that change would have made more sense as the event to trigger an integer upgrade. As it is, the upgrade is most understandable by the length of time you've received new features from Qualcomm for free, with only Eudora 4.3 purchasers qualifying for a free upgrade. That turns out be the key - from now on, upgrades for those who have paid for Eudora will be free for a period of a year after you paid.
No matter what the specifics of your situation may be, Eudora 5.0 is a credible upgrade in multiple ways, and even if it doesn't address all of the program's remaining shortcomings (the entire filter architecture is aching for an update, for instance), it's worth serious consideration both as an upgrade and as a replacement for other email programs.
SEAL-O-RAMA! 2000, the last great British Amiga show of the year
We didn't know whether our first show would be a success or not. As far as we were concerned if we could get around 150 people coming through the door it would be a great start. If we didn't get any more than a hundred it would probably be our first and last show :)
As it was we had nearly 100 Amigans rush the gig in just half an hour after opening. At the end of the day, it transpired that around 190 people attended, which is fantastic for our first effort. Of course, this is in no small part in thanks to the brilliant support of Czech Amiga News, Amiga.org, Amiga Active magazine and various other efforts to get the show known.
SEAL members and exhibitors arrived at our venue in Basildon at 10am to set up everything for the 12 noon opening. Setting up was pretty painless, even though there were lots of Amigas (and a couple of PCs - cough) being used for various things. About our only problem was that the parking area was being invaded by the cars of a junior soccer team's parents (who had a match on that day which we didn't know about). But after we brandished our baseball bats, they disappeared for some reason. Strange.
Robert Williams (SEAL God and editor of Clubbed magazine) had printed loads of posters for the exhibitors, and also some for us to stick on the road-signs to show where we were. Mandyleigh (my fiance' http://www.mandyleigh.co.uk), Dave (not my fiance') and myself went and illegally plastered the signs up with some gaffer tape. We even had a police car drive by us as we were doing it, but they didn't stop to beat us up, which is a shame.
Once the doors were open to the general public, a deluge of Amigans filed into the venue for £1 each, and were handed a raffle ticket each for the multitude of prizes that were on offer to be drawn at 4pm.
There was enough to see, even though Mick Tinker and the mythical beast of a BoXeR couldn't make it, as well as iFusion PPC (which I was hanging out for, although I am assured it should reach us fairly soon).
Blittersoft had a sexy looking Mediator PCI running with a Virge gfx card, which looked great on a motionless screen. Unfortunately there wasn't any app or game running at the time I was there to see how it performed under working conditions, but it's very exciting. The excellent Payback game was on a separate AGA Amiga. Payback looks and plays brilliantly, and it's not even finished yet. You definitely have to buy this game if you liked GTA in any way. Later in the show Bart, the programmer of "Fubar" showed up to demonstrate his Cannon-Fodder/Command & Conquer-esque game, which looks very promising.
Eyetech (www.eyetech.co.uk) had what I think was the most interesting table, thanks to the stock they brought with them and the d'Amiga system that was running.
Analogic (www.analogic.com) didn't bring anything to demo, but had a few bargains, including 17" Compaq V70 monitors for £120. I grabbed myself one of those babies. Yum.
Forematt Home Computing brought along quite a bit of good software, old and new, games and serious stuff. John and his lovely wife kept on smiling the whole day, which makes me wonder what drugs they were on, and where I could get some :)
Mark Hinton and Russell from Amiga Active magazine weren't looking so impressed on their stand when I was wandering around... or maybe it's 'cos I was there, and joking about Mark's gay Amiga following :). Amiga Active had an absolutely outstanding huge poster behind them as you'd expect, and a lot of their excellent magazines on show. Unfortunately Andrew Korn didn't make it. I was doing a bit of Amiga Active magazine promoting, and most of the people I spoke to were already subscribers. One guy even said he didn't want to subscribe because he ordered it through his local small newsagent and wanted to support them even though it cost him extra. If you haven't experienced the delights of the best commercial Amiga magazine in the world yet (ok, the only commercial Amiga magazine in the world), then get your ass to www.amigactive.com and subscribe. You have no excuse not to, as it's brilliant and is delivered all over the world.
Crystal Interactive premiered and sold "Bubble Heroes", which is a game very similar to 'Bust A Move 2" on the Playstation. Anyone who's played that knows how addictive and fun it is, and "Bubble Heroes" is a fantastic Amiga rendition, and well worth buying. Andrew also gave a popular demonstration of some other game who's name escapes me at the moment (sorry), as I didn't get a chance to see it.
Unfortunately, I didn't get to see the Gasteiner (www.gasteiner.com) stand, but it's nice to have had them at the show and in an Amiga environment again, even though they didn't have any 'Grand TV-Amazing's'. If anyone knows where I can grab another one of these great little boxes again.... mailto:storm@seal-amiga.co.uk .
Ideas2Reality (www.ideas2reality.co.uk) had brought along a working QNX system, which looked very very interesting. Bernard and his accomplice were very nice to chat to, and very interested in the response (which was pretty positive). They didn't really bring much to sell, just a couple of PC keyboards and mice really, but they came to gauge reaction to the QNX RTOS and I think they were pleased.
Kickstart were doing a great business of selling registrations to MooVid for PPC and non-PPC Amiga's for the author. MooVid is a great .avi and .mov video player, and I've always wanted it for my PPC. It's a real pity that the Frogger author didn't trust Kickstart enough to let them sell his program at the show as well, as it's much less of a pain in the arse to buy shareware through Kickstart than trying to get get foreign money posted off to God knows where. So c'mon all you shareware authors... let Kickstart do the biz for you.
SEAL ourselves were there promoting our excellent magazine - Clubbed (issue 5 out now - www.seal-amiga.co.uk), and we sold another 20 subscriptions, and loads more single issues. Wherever you are in the world, get this magazine. If you wanna write for it, just contact robert@seal-amiga.co.uk.
ASA and the extremely brash Michael Carillo were there as well, and Mike did a great job of helping us out throughout the day. His loud voice came in useful with announcements (as we had three separate halls), and during the prize-giving at 4pm.
To get a few of the prizes, you had to win some of the games: Wipeout 2097 was running throughout the afternoon, with people trying to better the best current time on a certain track. The winner got a copy of Wipeout 2097, kindly donated by that great guy Paul LeSurf of Blittersoft. I used to be great at this game on the Playstation, but everyone was beaten in the end by some kid who'd played it once or twice on a friends PSX. Brat :) .
Heretic II was played on two PPCs opposite each other, networked in a death match. I got through to the quarter-finals but was trounced. I blame the lack of a mouse-mat myself :) The prize was Heretic II of course, donated by Hyperion themselves.
Finally, there was a SEAL-O-RAMA! 2000 Sensible Soccer tournament, where I was knocked out after an own-goal in extra time (a shot deflected from a defender) and a couple of other goals just to make sure. The orange soccer-topped dude that beat me did quite well, but the final was between Paul Qureshi and Glenn. It wasn't Paul's day, as Glenn beat him here, and he'd also lost his long standing best time on Wipeout 2097 to that talented bratlet :) . Glenn is actually a SEAL member who had organised the Sensi comp, but in no way was it rigged (or I'd have won) :). Glenn had the grand prize of an Amiga 1200 Magic Pack from Amiga and a 3.2 gig 2.5" hd from Analogic to go into it.
All three of these games are just fantastic, so if you have any interest or equipment to be able to play them.... do it. Get them.
After many tickets were drawn only to find that the winner was no longer
there (it was probably YOU), other prizes to be handed out at 4pm were:
- a 6-month subscription to Amiga Active. This had been won by one dude, who
because he was already a subscriber, kindly donated the prize back to be
re-drawn. Excellent dude. He should get an AA t-shirt.
- os3.5 from Ideas2Reality.
- various great game and utility CDs from Forematt Home Computing.
- Another Amiga 1200 Magic Pack.
- Port Plus Junior, 20% of an EZ-Tower and other things from Eyetech.
- and various other things which I can't remember atm, but should be seen
soon on the SEAL website when the pictures go up.
Thanks again to all the exhibitors for donating the prizes. Brill.
All in all, the day was fantastic. Most SEAL members did a sterling job throughout the day. Cheers especially to the hard working ladies who sweated it out in the kitchen - Sharon & Mandyleigh. The kitchen was seriously a sauna. Of other note from what I saw were Roy, Jeff, Glenn, Robert, Mick, Dave and the dude with the combat pants who was tied to the door. Well done to those and all the people I didn't see or have forgotten. The only negative point of the show was that some exhibitors didn't sell as much as they hoped for. Unfortunately, that's beyond our control, as we had a great number of people through the door.
Thanks to all of you who came, and all of you who made it worth coming to :)
Catcha again for SEAL-O-RAMA! 2001.
Cheers,
Gary
Since those attending the August meeting were all old hands, President Lewis was able to forego the usual introduction of club officers.
We began with a discussion of the new, lower prices on AMD processors.
President Lewis then asked Richard Rollins for what was new in the Mac arena. Richard said not a lot had happened since the MacWorld Expo last month. He brought up the legal conflict over the "Cube" name. As an aside, he said we might be able to get a Cube to look at. He commented on the TV ad for the new optical mouse for the Mac. Kevin Hopkins pitched in with a personal testimonial from a fellow he works with who just got a new G4 with the new mouse. The guy says the optical mouse is great.
Richard talked about Adobe's print magazine which has been available on the newsstands for 10 years. It will be closing at the end of the year. The magazine will be going online. He then read some of the new pricings on Adobe software. Edwin Hadley commented that Adobe is trying to standardize the user interfaces in its programs. A discussion of the Illustrator versus Freehand competition followed.
Harold Ravlin spoke a little bit about SGI.
President Lewis then asked to Kevin Hisel to review the PC news. Kevin said he was unprepared and so had little to say in that regard. However, he rallied by talking about his cable modem. Kevin reported that the local AT & T ISP had recently upgraded their head end connection to the net. Kevin said it is always fast and always on. His connect has been up for 2 months now and solid as a rock.
There was a discussion of MSN Messenger Net to Phone. Kevin said there's a noticeable delay when talking, like calling Europe in the old days of the telephone.
Returning to his cable modem, Kevin advised everyone to get on the bandwagon. Kevin Hopkins asked about whether the cable modem conflicted in any way with a person's established cable TV connection. Kevin Hisel assured him that it doesn't.
There was a discussion about retrieving files from your home machine when you are at work. Kevin Hisel said he uses PC Anyway to reference his home machine to share files.
President Lewis concluded the first portion of the meeting as he usually does, by announcing what's coming up in the SIG meetings in the second half. He said the PC SIG would be playing with a flight simulator this evening. Richard Rollins noted that the Mac SIG would be examining PowerPoint or whatever was interesting.
Just before the break, Kevin Hopkins gave out some 500-hour AOL disks the club had received in the mail. He then stated that, as witness the last couple of club newsletters, we are in need of a PC reporter. We need a volunteer.
As we all know, August is a big vacation month and not a very big CUCUG month. This was borne out by the "Bakers Half-Dozen" attendees (that's 7, BTW). But you vacationers (and you *know* who you are) missed another *excellent* demo by Ed Serbe.
This month, "Flight Unlimited III" by ________ (sadly now defunct) was subject to Ed's expert dissection.
Our original plan was to use a *killer* video card (the Abit Siluro GeForce 256 with 32Mb of RAM) loaned to us by Champaign Computer Corporation in the club machine to show off the software. Unfortunately, "Flight Unlimited" proved to be very limited in that respect. It simply couldn't run with the GeForce. Ya know, it never fails!! Ed graciously brought in his machine to do the demo. Its ATI Xpert 128 16Mb card did a fine job using the TIMM in 800x600 resolution. Jim Lewis brought in an Altec ACS 45.1 sub-woofer sound system as well.
What sets this flight sim apart right away from its formidable competition is the ground mapping. Actual satellite imagery was used to build the terrain mapping. Consequently highways, buildings, rail yards, mountains, water and other features are faithful to reality both in their placement and their appearance. It really looks cool!!
The game ships with only one geographic area to fly in (Seattle, Washington), however by installing the previous iteration of the game ("Flight Unlimited II") you gain the San Francisco area as well. Unfortunately, no other areas are available as the company has gone away. But the two areas available will give you hours of flying enjoyment.
The opening splash screen depicts a Business Jet flying past the Space Needle in quite good graphics. From the next screen you can configure a dizzying array of flight options.
These include:
How much detail to display in the terrain (to adapt to less-powerful machines). Different emergency scenarios (like losing an engine or suffering a mid-air collision). Choosing your weather from a sunny day with no wind to "Nasty Thunderstorms". Choosing your aircraft from a Fokker Triplane to the aforementioned Jet. Choosing any airport in the area to take off from (some with air-traffic controllers and some not) Choosing how much other air traffic is present during your flight. It's possible to "fly along" in the cockpit with the other air traffic present. You can even file a preset flight plan with ground control.
There is of course a training mode to get you up-to-speed with the controls. Also available is a "Challenge" mode to hone your flying skills by throwing you into difficult flight situations. You can even set the options to simulate a real situation by disabling some of your instrumentation at random.
Our first flight was in good weather, with Ed at the game-pad controls. He prefers this to a flight yoke for rapid maneuvers. We were able to get a good view of the realistic-looking terrain. Next Ed made the sun set in about 20 seconds and we could easily see the city lights as well as highway traffic, all very realistic. The radio chatter, engine noises and airplane motions all seemed very realistic.
Ed then got serious and set up the "Nasty Thunderstorms" scenario ... at NIGHT!! Again, the graphics and sound effects were great. Mother Nature also played a roll at this point in the demo with a *real live* thunderstorm right outside for us. Man, the subwoofer really did justice to the thunderstorm sound effects. We really couldn't tell if the program or Mother Nature was sounding off at any given time. Naturally, we ended up losing both wings and crashing, but through the magic of computing we were able to all walk away without a scratch :^)
Our last flight was a bit more mundane. Ed took the Fokker Triplane through downtown Seattle. Once again we had excellent graphics and sound effects. During a close-up view of the Space Needle we got a little too close and ended up nicking the top of it and crashing again. Once more, we all had a good laugh and walked away.
Our WinSig Rating is four stars out of five.
Positives included the above as well as a critique by our resident pilot, Kevin Hisel. He continually favorably compared this effort to Microsoft's Flight Simulator.
Detracting from the excellent graphics and sound was the fact that you can't select *all* the planes in the hangar to fly. There are also a few mapping errors on the terrain. All-in-all just minor complaints, though.
As this program was a 1999 release, you just may be able to find it in the Bargain-Bin at the local software store. An excellent deal, to be sure.
As usual, Ed's demo was very well thought-out and executed. Another Five-Star effort!!
This evening's demonstration of Microsoft's PowerPoint was presented by Richard Rollins. Richard began by asserting that he hates Microsoft but that he uses Power Point. He confessed he has to use it every Sunday for his church. Giving it a backhanded compliment, Richard said "In my humble opinion, it's the best product Microsoft makes."
Digressing into a discussion of another Microsoft product, Richard talked about Internet Explorer. He is of the belief that "Anything that says Real Audio on it corrupts Internet Explorer, which in turn corrupts my PC."
Getting back on track, Richard brought up the opening screen of his presentation. He said that most presentations start with text. You're trying to get your point across and text is the easiest way to do that. Text is easy to enter in PowerPoint. You have access to all your fonts, their sizes and modifying styles - bold, underline, italics, etc. You can do bulleted lines or just enter in the text. Richard said he's used PowerPoint to make transparencies, hand-outs, etc. He commented on the differences between PowerPoint 98 and PowerPoint 2000, most notable for the portion of the presentation is that PP2000 lets you do nested lists.
Turning to transitions, Richard said they can be overused. With PowerPoint text can fly in from any side of your screen. It can just "appear." It can dissolve into place, or just spiral out of control. You can build up your screen one line of text at a time, bulleted or non-bulleted. Richard recommended that you should consider eight or nine lines of text per slide the maximum. You can even put a date stamp on your screens.
Edwin Hadley, another Power Point user, warned those using PowerPoint to make slide backups of your presentation. From experience, he said, PowerPoint will work, but your playback system invariably will not.
Moving on to graphics, Richard said PowerPoint does photos, clipart, charts, graphics, movies, animations, and sounds. You can add any of these to your presentation.
He then set about showing how to work the program. He showed how easy it was to make an organizational chart. He showed some pre-set templates, but quite a lot of time talking about how you can add your own photos or scans to a presentation. Photos can be resized and the aspect ratio can be maintained so as not to change the image. The real problem to look out for is the file size of you graphics and how those images will appear when they're projected onto a movie screen or a wall, as opposed to what they look like an your computer screen. You may be trying to make a "72 dots per inch sows ear into a silk purse." Richard said," Shoot a large JPEG, then use a 7 or 8 compression to get about a 500K file. That seems to be a happy medium."
Richard related a story of how he worked a presentation up to a set piece of music. This led to a discussion of "Rehearsed Timings," a feature about which Richard had some good thing to say.
In the end you need to save your work. You can save your presentation in two formats: PowerPoint Presentation (PPT) and PowerPoint Presentation Show (PPS). PPS cannot be modified once it is saved. It's strictly for playing. There was a discussion about the best way to save your work. Those experienced with PowerPoint's quirks agreed, if you save with one frame visible on the screen, you'll only lose one cell if any of them get corrupted. However, if you save while the storyboard is up, and anything gets corrupted, you'll lose everything. Moral of the story: Never save from the storyboard. One of Richard's complaints about PowerPoint is that very few of the menu items have keyboard equivalents, for quicker use. He said its export of GIFs and JPEGs is miserable. He then said its OK for video, but going to Print stinks.
In the end, Richard had begrudging respect for PowerPoint. However, that was more a matter of there being little or no competition for it, than any stellar PowerPoint abilities.
The August meeting of the CUCUG executive board took place on Tuesday, August 22, 2000, at 7PM, at Kevin Hisel's house. (For anyone wishing to attend - which is encouraged, by the way - the address and phone number are both in the book). Present at the meeting were were: Jim Lewis, Rich Hall, Emil Cobb, Kevin Hopkins, and Kevin Hisel.
Emil Cobb: Emil reported sixteen people in attendance at the last meeting.
Rich Hall: Richard had "No news from the Treasury Department." A discussion of taxes and investments followed.
Kevin Hopkins: Kevin delivered the mail and a copy of the membership database, as usual. When asked about the ZIP drive in the club Mac, Kevin said he had sent some email on the subject, but as of yet had taken no action, since he had a back-up external ZIP to use in place of the broken internal.
Kevin Hisel: Kevin had nothing to report.
Jim Lewis: Jim said that the WinSIG would be have presentations given by Bill Zwicky and Quentin Barnes in the near future. Bill would be doing an audio-video demo, and Quentin would be showing his Be-Box. Kevin Hisel noted that Ed Serbe's demo last meeting "went fine." September will be a Social, thus no formal presentation.
Jim asked Richard Hall to go ahead and book the Bresnan meeting room for next year. Since the Board meeting, Rich has done so and was able to get all of our regular third Thursday meeting dates for next year. They will be:
January 18, 2001
February 15, 2001
March 15, 2001
April 19, 2001
May 17, 2001
June 21, 2001
July 19, 2001
August 16, 2001
September 20, 2001
October 18, 2001
November 15, 2001
December 20, 2001
Meetings are held the third Thursday of each month at 7:00 p.m. at the Bresnan Meeting Center in the Champaign Park District Headquarters (398-2550). The Center is located at 706 Kenwood, 1/2 block south of the corner of Kenwood and John Street, in west Champaign. Kenwood is the fourth north-south street off of John as you are going west, after crossing Mattis. The Center is in the northwest corner of Centennial Park, northwest of Centennial High School.
Membership dues for individuals are $20 annually; prorated to $10 at mid year.
Our monthly newsletter, the Status Register, is delivered by email. All recent editions are available on our WWW site. To initiate a user group exchange, just send us your newsletter or contact our editor via email. As a matter of CUCUG policy, an exchange partner will be dropped after three months of no contact.
For further information, please attend the next meeting as our guest, or contact one of our officers (all at area code 217):
President/WinSIG: Jim Lewis 359-1342 NOSPAMlewis_j_e@yahoo.com Vice-President: Emil Cobb 398-0149 e-cobb@uiuc.edu Secretary/Editor: Kevin Hopkins 356-5026 kh2@uiuc.edu Treasurer: Richard Hall 344-8687 rjhall1@uiuc.edu Corporate Agent: Jim Lewis 359-1342 NOSPAMlewis_j_e@yahoo.com Board Advisor: Richard Rollins 469-2616 Webmaster: Kevin Hisel 406-948-1999 khisel @ cucug.org Mac SIG Co-Chair: John Melby 352-3638 jbmelby@home.com Mac SIG Co-Chair: Charles Melby-Thompson 352-3638 charlesm@cucug.org
Surf our web site at http://www.cucug.org/