EDITOR's NOTE: Rene is on assignment this month. Here is his report from the last issue (March)...
OS/2 User Association
As usual, the OUA is holding their monthly meeting on each first Tuesday of the month in Restaurant Neubühl, Winterthurerstrasse 175, 8057 Zürich. During my absence I wasn't able to visit those meetings, but I hope to be there in April. The first week of March is my holiday and carneval in Basel, so please don't expect to see me at the OUA meeting.
If you want to know the subject, please visit the OUA homepage.
Please use this link, as the old connection is no longer valid.
BTW. Did you ever have a look at the OUA Tips and Tricks Page? It has an easy search interface.
Joining forces
About a month ago I had a talk with a few people here in Switzerland and in Germany. The question came up, if it wouldn't be a good idea to bring the two active groups together and join forces in any way. After having the talks I will report on this situation next month again and hope that the TeamOS/2 in Germany and the OS/2 User Association in Switzerland will come up with some new activities for all of us.
Team OS/2 3-Länder-Eck
Did you know, that this team exists? No? Then visit their TeamOS/2 3-Länder-Eck homepage now and read again my column again next month and see what forces will join together.
COMMON Switzerland
In January, COMMON Switzerland organized an OS/2 Seminar. For those of you who don't understand, here is the translation of the seminar report.
The original German version can be found on the Common Switzerland homepage.
The small number of participants allowed the seminar to be held as an active workshop.
The Inserto crew (Feurer, Seitz and Wyler) did a fantastic job and brought a complete infrastructure, which allowed the demonstration of all three subjects live.
The small groups discussed all questions and could see all pro's and con's live.
WorkSpace on-Demand Manager: This monster-word hides a fantastic idea. Especially, wherever a (dumb) terminal needs to be replaced by a GUI interface and connections to other systems are required, WoD is one of the best choices.
Citrix-Server: This technology allows the use of 32-bit Windows applications. Companies using OS/2, will receive the possibility to run those applications, without installing Windows. At this seminar MS-Office and other components were demonstrated.
TCP/IP: The demonstration of the latest TCP/IP version showed that the pro's and con's remain nearly equal. Some new and resounding features suffer the configuration process and an immoral price.
The next COMMON OS/2 seminar will be held on April 2, 1998. The details are not yet known.
Sony Playstation, Nintendo 64 and W95
What do those names have in common? Is that what you would like to know? Well, here's the answer.
In December 97, I moved my Ho (the Ho from SoHo) to a real office and had no computer left at home. The next Saturday morning, my wife asked me on what computer our daughter (13) could do here games and homework. The games still runs on the fun-machines, but homework on a Playstation?
We went to town and bought a new PC, with of course W95 installed. Okay. Once in a while I receive my mail on this machine and using Communicator this column is written. But I must admit, that I miss my computer with a real OS on it. OTOH, would you want to run your applications on a Nintendo 64 or Sony Playstation? Well, I don't. The main purpose of this PC is nearly equal to that of the other machines.
Do you know the difference between these three machines? No? Then try a Format C: on the 64 or Playstation. It works on W95!
OS rankings
According to a German PC magazine, OS/2 has dropped to 5th rank. Is this due to IBM's marketing strategy? I think so, but hope not.
That's all for now.
It's difficult to ask for news around OS/2, now that IBM is keeping it such a big secret, but please don't hesitate to send me anything about this fantastic operating system. I will keep your secret too and only write about it in the OS/2 CONNECT newsletter.
Rene is an AS/400 technical consultant, an IBM Certified OS/2 Engineer, and a proponent of OS/2 on the PC. Rene also serves on the board of directors for the 'COMMON Switzerland' (AS/400 user group).
