OS/2 Shareware BBS: 16 Announce/16-Announce.zip/sig9408.asc

Text File | 1994-08-06 | 13KB | 247 lines

Rodney L. Wright
8205 Chivalry Road
Annandale, VA 22003-1379

August 3, 1994

Dear OS/2 SIG Member,

During August the OS/2 Special Interest Group
(of the Capital PC User Group) will meet only on Wednesday,
August 10, 1994 at 7:00 PM in the CPCUG conference room
at 51 Monroe Street, Plaza East Two, Rockville, MD 20850.

NOTE:  There WILL BE NO VA meeting in August.  This is the
last time though that we will have a single meeting.
Starting in September, we will meet in both locations each month.

AGENDA FOR OS/2 SIG MEETINGS

Question and Answer Session + Announcements:

We will return to our traditional introductory session format this
month.  Q&A starts at 7:00 PM along with announcements, product
news, rumors, and SIG news.  The vendor presentation
will begin at 7:30 P.M.

The regional representative of the California-based Digitalk
Corporation will be coming to us from New York to demonstrate
the latest version of the PARTS visual programming environment.
Established in 1983, Digitalk, Inc. was the first company to
develop Smalltalk language development tools for IBM PCs and
was the first company to introduce Smalltalk tools for OS/2.
Currently, the company has more than 155,000 licensed users
of its products.

In the OS/2 SIG, we first got an early look at the PARTS visual
programming environment a couple of years ago.  This is a
much later and more developed version of the component-based,
visual programming environment that is based upon Smalltalk V
and Team V, a robust team development tool that provides
version control, packaging and configuration management.

Digitalk's presentation and demonstration will concentrate
on the implementation of component-based applications
using PARTS for OS/2.

LOOKING AHEAD

On September 14th (MD) and 15th (VA), Athena Design
of Boston, MA will be visiting us to show us Mesa 2,
a new full-featured, 32-bit, OS/2 spreadsheet.  It will take
advantage of OS/2 features including IBM's Systems Objects
Model (SOM), the OpenDoc interprogram communications standards,
multithreading and the Object-Oriented User Interface.
Mesa was originally developed for the NEXT computer NEXTSTEP⌐
operating system.

September 11-14, the OS/2 Technical Update '94 conference is
being held in Atlanta, GA.  I will have brochures at the meeting
if you wish to consider this.  Interestingly enough, this
conference is run by the publishing conglomerate Ziff-Davis
which has traditionally been less than close to IBM.
IBM describes this conference as "partnering" with Z-D.  Let's
hope this contributes to more evenhanded handling of OS/2 news.
If you are going, you will have a chance to try to pass the four
tests for the IBM Certified OS/2 Engineer and/or the six tests
for the IBM Certified LAN Server Engineer status.  I believe
there will be no charge for these tests.

The week of October 5, the East Coast Developer conference will
be held here in Washington.  Your SIG will be participating in
that conference and holding a special meeting there.
This promises to be an interesting event which even features
the OS/2 Up and Running 5K race.

October 12th (MD) and 13th (VA) OS/2 SIG member Ranier McCown
of Rhintek, Inc. will be presenting a new OS/2 communications
product.  I believe he may have an announcement for us at the
August meeting.

November 9th (MD) and 10th (VA)  No definite schedule yet
although we hope to get Jonathan Levine to show us the latest
version of his Xtree-like utilities for OS/2.

On November 14th, CPCUG is lucky to again have David Barnes
give the general membership a presentation on the latest OS/2
products.  This meeting is timed to show the latest versions
of the products as well as to tell the world
"There is an Alternative to a Chicago and it is here now!".
If you have seen David talk before, I don't have to remind you
that this is an event not to be missed.  If you missed him
last year, then this is the chance to correct this big void
in your life <g>.  Really, this is the time to round up
friends and neighbors and drive them to the meeting.

December 14th (MD) and 15th (VA)

We are planning another holiday party.  This year it will be
combined with a communications fair.  We hope to have
examples of each major OS/2 communication package as well
as the major off-line readers  If you would like to help
by demonstrating a particular software product, please
let me know.  We need to show PMComm, Livewire,
HyperAccess V, TE/2, ZOC,and whatever else is available.
We need Kurt Westerfeld to demonstrate his latest QWK Mail/2
offline reader and others to show their favorite
communications products too.  We'd like to have someone
demonstrate access to Internet from an OS/2 workstation.

The View from the Chair

Communications Comes of Age

At long last, computer communications seems to have come of age.
I work for the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
This year for the first time, our users began to use Lotus's
ccMail on a large scale basis (nothing works like having an
eager Administrator using the service to stir up interest).
In a 6 month time frame, this has become a central means of
communications for our staff.  For many purposes, electronic
messages are being used in place of reams of copy machine paper
in your inbox.  [Instead, you have a stuffed electronic mailbox].
I have noticed that my voice call traffic has dropped off and
is being replaced by e-mail messages.  One interesting sidenote
is that folks seem to be communicating much more thoroughly since
it is so easy to cc a message to someone who might be interested.
Further, one can easily create mailing lists that allow you to
send mail to a whole list of folks simply by clicking on the
mail list name.

In June, we added Internet e-mail connections.  You can now get
me on [e-mail].  The message will arrive on my desk
and a little blinking box will announce arrival of the e-mail.
This is proving a boon in that, for example, I was able to send
a message to David Barnes of IBM, cc the IBM user group coordinator
in Austin, TX, cc to Rich Schinnell (CPCUG President), cc to
Mary Stanley (our program chairperson), the publicity folks, etc.

At the present time, my agency is introducing the remaining
Internet services such as automated mail-lists
(you can find lots of conferences such as on OS/2), automated
database searches, etc.  [You specialists may recognize that
I don't yet know much about this area and will have to learn].
This is a whole new area of computing and information retrieval
for me.  As an information agency, many of our databases and
publications will be on line to Internet.

On another level, my agency also installed a new data/fax
modem in my computer.  I no longer have to go down to the
3rd floor and get a (yucky) chemical-coated message that
curls up and smells bad.  Instead, I get faxes in electronic
image form and can see them on my screen.  If I really do need
a paper copy, I can simply print it on my computer printer
 using normal copy paper.  This saves time and paper.
So, if you want to send me a fax, you can do so on [phone].
I normally have a simple fax program ready to answer that phone.

Finally, the Capital PC User Group just installed two new on-line services:

First, the venerable old Member Information Exchange Bulletin Board
(MIX BBS) is replaced by both new MIX hardware and
software.  The new system is based on PCBoard software and is
implemented on a Novell network based series of 386 nodes.
When you call into the MIX on [phone], you will get one of
those nodes.  The new service is much faster and more efficient
than the old MIX.  Joining a new conference no longer exacts a
penalty delay.  J;OS2GEN will immediately connect you to our
OS2 General conference with nearly no delay.  A new on-line
full-screen editor helps when you need to answer a message on line.
But if you [and I hope you have tried this] choose to use an
offline reader instead, getting a QWK packet ready and transmitted
download is a MUCH faster experience.  With the old MIX, it took
me from 8-10 minutes to sign on; exit through a door to the
offline mailer package; and wait while the messages are scanned,
packed and transmitted.  With the new MIX, preparing a QWK package
takes about 1-2 minutes including the download.  We all owe a tip
of the hat to our new MIX SYSOP, Michael Kane, for the outstanding
work he did in setting up this new system.  He worked a huge number
of hours on this project.  Our President, Rich Schinnell also put
in a huge amount of time as did Henry Noble, our past president.
My apologies to the others who also helped with this vital project
but are not listed here.

Second, the CPCUG is now providing Internet services to the membership.
You can get either basic services (email) or sign up for a "slip"
account which gives you full access to the Internet for database
search, etc.

As with all new developments, the new age of communications brings
problems and opportunities:

Information Overload is one name given to the problem of getting too much data.
Now, not only is your mailbox stuffed with junk mail, but now you've got an
electronic mailbox which could be open to many more potential correspondents.
We all have to find ways to deal with this problem.

Electronic Trees Hiding the Forest.  There is so much information available
that you could spend all of your time (literally) looking for the gem you need.
There are wonderful opportunities awaiting those who know where to look or who
find software that can help penetrate the forest looking for that particular
tree you need.  Early examples of those programs include offline mail readers
that allow one to quickly browse message headers and to jump into those
subjects of interest.  But these are still in their infancy and have a long
ways to go.  In the Internet world, programs such as Mosaic are being adapted
for the OS/2 world to provide a graphical user interface to programs that
search for and retrieve databases, etc.  There are huge opportunities for
those who can figure out how to master this information tiger.

Electronic rudeness is a problem which occurs because electronic mail is
flat and emotionless.  Occasionally, on the MIX BBS and on other electronic
mail systems, I've noted there are some folks who seem to think they can say
anything without considering the target of their messages.   My rule of thumb
on this is to try hard not to say anything to someone in a message that I
would not want to say in person.  Since I've got two thumbs, I have another
rule and that is to treat others with the personal respect that I would like
others to show to me [even if it sometimes seems like the @!!!##$'s don't
deserve it <g>].  Extending this golden rule says, it is OK to confront
and challenge ideas but never OK to attack another person.

Phone Line Crunch is not a new problem.  Any of you with children old
enough to have fingers know that the phone is not your own anymore.
But to make matters worse, using a fax modem or data modem to answer the
phone can even irritate the most understanding of families.  Most modern
fax/data modems can automatically answer the phone, listen for a computer
or fax call and provide the correct connection.  But unless you have a
dedicated phone line, this can be irritating to human callers.  Recently,
however, I've heard that there are devices that can:

-       answer the phone and then listen to see if a computer or fax is calling.
        If so, they make the proper connection, if not
-       they connect your phone set and/or answering machine,
-       and some even have built-in voice mail such as:
        "Welcome to the Wright Communications Center:
        If you want to speak to the mistress of the house, press 1;
                If you want to speak to the master son, press 2;
                If none of the above, you might want to hang up
                   or press 9 to leave a message for Rod."

Remember friends:  "It's a great life if you don't weaken."

Please call me on [phone] if you have questions or suggestions about
the CPCUG OS/2 SIG.  I hope to see you at the meeting!  Bring some friends.
[Look for directions to the meeting in the file [CPCUGOS2.MD]

Rodney L. Wright
Chairman, OS/2 Special Interest Group
Capital PC User Group