DiskJockey - Danbury Area Computer Society
Contents
1. Saanaa E neneeese aeeie neneeese neeese E fl aeetos enetan Aeee a http www dacs org communications equipment tor three of the 3 paei Drive Telecommunications Technical Marketing Documentation Opportunity Peer Tl 1s apon for us to ak our customers with the documents they need to evaluate and apply our products Growth of our business has created an opportunity for a developers This position requires technical famihanty with electromes hardware and related abilities to construct English text and line drawings in software Also needed are the standard formats by using Windows 93 and word processing software Will be assisted by Documentation Specialists who are available for bulk information input into the documents Benefits include medical and dental insurance stock options 401 k plan paid vacation and hohdays TF this position is of interest to you please send Resources your r sum to our Human Department E mail hr txe com CEELELLLLEEE x s JOE EEEE Customer Documentation Engineer who will prepare Data Sheets Application Notes and similar documents from draft material provided by our product f DASS FEB 99 Creating Computer Games How Computer Games Are Made From a Developers Point of View by James C Smith Introduction When I was a kid I used to play a lot of video games I always wondered how they2. 914 669 9622 Meets on Wednesday of the week following the general meeting 7 30 p m at Don Pearson s office North Salem NY Next meeting February 10 DESKTOP PUBLISHING Edits and produces dacs doc Any one interested in the art of newsletter publishing is welcome Contact Allan Ostergren 860 210 0047 or Marc Cohen 203 775 1102 Meets on Thursday of the week following the gen eral meeting 7p m at the DACS Resource Center Ives Manor lower level 198 Main Street Danbury Next meeting Unscheduled EDUCATION Coordinates DACS education classes Contact Charlie Bovaird 203 792 7881 Meets as needed INVESTMENT STRATEGIES Discusses various investment strategies emphasizing careful selection to maximize profits and limit risk Contact Paul Gehrett 203 426 8436 Meets 3rd Thursday 7 30 p m Edmond Town Hall Newtown Next Meeting February 16 GRAPHICS Create print high quality graphics and images Contact Ken Graff 203 775 6667 Meets on last Wednesday 7p m at Best Photo Brookfield Next Meeting February 24 INTERNET Acquaints DACS members with the Internet Contact Larry Stevens LStevens aol com or Richard Koser rkoser worldnet att net Meets on 3rd Wednesday 7p m at the DACS Resource Center Ives Manor lower level 198 Main Street Danbury Next Meeting February 17 MACINTOSH Discusses Macintosh hardware and software Contact Chris Salaz 203 798 6417 Meets on 3rd Tuesda
3. APL Charles Bovaird 203 792 7881 AutoCAD Feter Hylenski 203 797 1042 C UNIX ObjC Kenneth Lerman 203 426 4430 C Reg Charney 914 833 0762 Clipper Dick Gingras 203 426 0484 COBOL Charles Godfrey 200 779 2545 Dbase DOS Alan Boba 2053 264 1755 DoS John Gallichotte 203 426 0394 Newdeal Marc Cohen 203 775 1102 Electronics Andrew Woodruff 203 798 2000 Focus Jim Scheef 860 355 0034 Hardware John Gallichotte 203 426 0394 Interface Instrumentation Andrew Woodruff 203 798 2000 Internet Nick Fercival 203 438 9307 Lotus 123R5W Ben Carnevale 203 748 1751 Macintosh 09 Chris Salaz 203 798 6417 Q amp L RN Q amp O op Magic PC Hira Suri 203 748 2473 Microsoft Access Dick Gingras 203 426 0484 Multimedia Ed Fitzgerald 209 2222D OSiZ Rich Chernock 205 270 0224 Paradox Alan Boba 203 264 1753 PASCAL Duane Moser 203 797 2716 Publishing amp PR Elaine Chacho 203 426 5493 Q amp A ver 3 4 Anthony Telesha 203 748 4478 PEASE Jerry Frie rich 2O09 TAO F718 Statistics amp Data Analysis Charles Bovaird 203 792 7881 Viruses Jeff Setaro 203 748 6748 Visual Basic Nick Fercival ZOD 490 9307 HTML Java James Costello 203 426 0097 Windows 3 1 Nick Strother 203 743 5667 Ben Carnevale 203 748 1751 WordFerfect John Heckman 203 831 0442 SW SY SQ Do DM Q EP Eo SD eo Q Q amp Q Q Se ER RS S A S NNN NNN NNN O NN i NNN NN NNN
4. Conversion Plus version 4 5 is similar but in addition to Win95 and WinNT compatibility itis now Win 98 compatible as well Also the new version offers compatibility for the Of fice98 Suite for Mac and a handy new Name Doctor feature that fixes illegal characters when converting from one format to another Oh did I mention that this program can also format Mac media and convert PC to Mac as well I could go on but you get the idea I liked it alot Street price is around 99 a great value Check out the DataViz Website at www dataviz com RoBERT M BANASIK is president of BestPhoto a quality photo lab in Brookfield CT Contact Bob at bob bestphoto com http www dacs org ee et eo rF TR4NSWITCH TranSwitch Corporation is a leading _ developer and global supplier of innovative high speed communications semiconductor solutions to manufacturers who build fastest growing end markets the Intemet Infrastructure thal supports the World Wide Web and other data services the Worldwide Public Network Infrastructure that supports bath voice and data communications and corporate Wide Area Networks WANS Among our customers are some of the world s leading networking and CT ag See communications equipment companies lt including Alcatel Ascend Communications _ Cisco Systems ECI Telecom LM Ericsson Lucent Technologies Nortel Networks and Tellabs TranSwitch corporia
5. 06877 Add Speakers 203 431 1500 WWW AMSYS NET O AMSYS Inc 1998
6. 75 based machine is working or not For the most part with 8MB of RAM I use it for surf DACS members may ifa surge protector is asked to trap ing the Web and find it to be very pu blish noncommercia l a massive power surge the surge slow Sometimes I will get half of a protector will die in the act and document with a lot of graphics and compu ter related classi no longer deliver power to its only see portions of the image I am outlets If in doubt replace it While running Windows 95 and Netscape fied ads in dacs doc at you are about it make sure that you 4 0 and have tried clearing the no char ge Ads may be have protection for your telephone cache The hard disk chatters while line since this is a very common all of this is happening p laced electronical ly D Y path for electrical damage to A Clearing the cache will sometimes help by fax or modem or computers as will defragging the drive immediately afterward to give you a har d cop y may be sub Q Do you need a surge protector if you contiguous swap space The main mitted at our monthl y have a battery backup Do you need problem and solution however is j E battery backup Is it true that as you that you should probably add more general mee tin g rax get to higher generations of Win memory to the machine None of this your a ds to Charlie dows 3 1 95 98 NT etc that you will help if your hard disk is nearly need battery backup more full since there isn t roo
7. spare I have been a Dilbert fan since my folks used to cut the daily cartoon clip out of the Rhode Island newspaper and send them to me Visit www dilbert com for your daily fix Got some free time on your hands Why not play a game You can down load the latest demos of the hottest games and even play for a few hours for free at www gamecenter com Before I spend 40 or more on the latest game I want to be sure that lIl like it so I try it first You can also find reviews hints cheats I would never do such a thing unless I was desperate maps and more at CNET s gamecenter com That s it for this month Send your favorite Website to me at mikek demorgan com Keep in mind that the Web is a great tool and entertainer but you should go outside and play once in a while Yes I know it s cold out but I do try to follow this advice myself really MIKE KALTSCHNEE is a founder of DeMorgan Industries Corp the leading developer of Web graphics http www webspice com and also teaches classes at the Internet School in Naugatuck Valley Community Technology College You can reach Mike at mikek demorgan com Local Area Internet Providers 800 967 5363 914 682 0384 800 745 2747 203 734 6600 AT amp T WoRLDNET CLoub 9 CONCENTRIC NETWORKS C P CONNECT DELPHI INTERNET EARTHLINK MAGS NET EROL S GTE INTERNETWORKING IBM ADVANTIS INTERNET84 INTERRAMP PSI JAVANET LocALNET FarrFieLp CTY MCI MICROS
8. the Web In Bangkok this will cost you 2 Thai Bhat per minute or 100 Thai Bhat per hour 36 Thai Bhat 1 US 100Bhat 2 78 Small beach resorts are more ex pensive at 100 Thai Bhat for 15 minutes e Offline Rate You are charged per minute for offline use You can write mail through the host s e mail account offline and the provider will send it later If you want to receive mail you will have to pay for reading it on screen or printing it out The offline rates at a small beach resort were 50 Thai Bhat for ten minutes or 100 Thai Bhat for 30 minutes In Bangkok there was no difference between online and offline rates e Per Line Rate In Kathmandu in 1996 it was only possible to work offline and I was charged approximately 1 US per 12 lines of text I learned how to type with abbreviations and without spaces 6 These Internet services are a lifeline Not only do they provide a link to family and friends they also offer the many trav elers who have their own Websites a way to update them regularly so people back home can follow their travels No longer do you have to lug a laptop around the world with you A friend who has recently started a 3 000 mile bicycle trip around Thailand Laos and South east China has managed to update his Website http oasis fortunecity com malibu 246 quite regularly so far but ex pects he will not be so lucky to find ac cess in some parts of Laos These services are als
9. were made How many people worked on them How long did it take Who came up with the ideas How did the game actually work inside Did anyone actually make any money off making a video game Why do they cost so darn much money But most of all I really wanted to know what actu ally made them work What language did the programmer use How many lines of code did he have to write Did he have to go to school to learn how to make games What art tools did the artists use Was it 3D renders painted in a computer paint program or drawn on paper and digitized How did a level designer lay out the levels What kind of logic is really used in the computer enemy s artificial brain Eventually I grew up went to school learned to program and got a job as a com puter programmer I went from job to job writing business software educational soft ware industrial software and eventually video games After several years of writ ing video games for a living I know the answers to most of those questions I had as a kid and I have a whole new perspective on games So now I want to share some of my experience with you so you can get a bet ter idea of how video games are made I am sure a lot of you are curious about the technical details of what makes games work and how the creators make them I would love to tell you all about that aspect But there probably isn t enough room here to go into that Besides it is a lot easier to show y
10. world At first I thought it would be as stuffy as the print edition but the online version has great writing and has become my favorite news source You can compare it with two other great online sources www cnn com or www abcnews com to find your own preference And let s not forget our own Danbury paper at www newstimes com which covers things that are near and dear to my house http www dacs org I happen to like to save time when I use the computer so I check www shareware com for the latest shareware and freeware to make the hours I spend at my computer time Shareware requires some sort of pay ment mostly a small fee if you use it but some guys just want a six pack of beer for their software really I down loaded a program today that checked all of the links in my site and made sure all of the pages were working It literally saved me hours of time Support shareware Since I still do quite a bit of Web work I am always in need of great Web resources My favorite Web page creation site is www htmlgoodies com Dr Joe Burns runs a great series of tips and tuto rials and best of all it s free If you re looking to learn about Web pages check out his site I also find myself visiting www webmonkey com www builder com and www developer com for even more infor mation about Web work All work and no play makes Mike a dull boy so here are the fun places to go 5 when you have a few minutes to
11. 30 Editorial Committee Managing Editor Frances J Owles Production Editor Marc Cohen Technical Editor Bruce Preston Public Relations Marlene Gaberel Contributors Charles Bovaird Larry Buoy Jacqueline Cohen Wally David Marlene Gaberel John Heckman Mike Kaltschnee April Miller Cripliver DACS its officers and directors assume no liability for damages arising out of the publication or non publication of any article advertisement or any other item in this newsletter The editors welcome submissions from Dacs members Contact Frances Owles at 860 868 0077 jones ct1 nai net or Allan Ostergren at 860 210 0047 dacseditor aol com Advertisers contact Brad Altland at 203 357 4007 BBA3 exchange co westchester ny usa J 1999 Danbury Area Computer Society Permission to reprint or publish granted to any nonprofit group provided credit is given and a copy of the final publication is mailed to the copyright holder All rights reserved Technical Support Dacs doc is prepared using an AMSYS Pentium 133 and an HP LaserJet 4 Plus printer Software packages used to publish dacs doc include Microsoft Windows 95 Office 7 0 TrueType fonts Adobe PageMaker 6 5 CorelDRAW 6 0 Calendar Creator for Windows Dacs doc file transfer security provided by AVP Applications amp Hardware to enhance dacs doc are welcome Jeff Setaro APCUG Liaison 748 6748 http ww
12. DACS possibly at Heritage Village Also considered was a general press release regarding the above award and an insertion on our Website No more mags net The Board was advised by President Ostergren that mags net had terminated free service for DACS and that an alter native should be sought among the local providers Membership Continued discussion about how to increase DACS membership was held with suggestions to increase PR in the press and at area high schools New to such discussions was the possibility of a one on one recruitment by current mem bers with incentives LARRY Buoy Smart advertisers reach over 1000 active computer and software buyers by taking advantage of the attractive advertising rates 1n DACS DOT New Members THIS IS YOUR LAST 21 21 1998 thru 1 17 1999 NEWSLETTER 1 Lawrence F Allen l 2 Donnie George If the membership date on your 3 Stephen Hine mailing label reads 4 Alfred N Faul EXP12 1998 5 William L Schaefer 6 Terry Sparks you need to renew your DACS membershipb NOW Now Available Direct From Disk Black and White Spot or 4 Color Copying For All Your Printing and Copying Needs 3 Commerce Dr Danbury CT Phone 203 792 5045 Fax 203 792 5064 4 http www dacs org Good Web Sites My Favorite Sites Ways I keep up with news business fun By Mike Kaltschnee ext 4517 to become a Voice for Joanie volunteer HIS MONTH I
13. Danbury Area Computer society Inc February 1999 Meeting Preview Volume 10 Issue 2 http www dacs org DiskJockey A content manager that finds and views your files AN T FIND that essen tial docu ment you need for a presenta tion Scratching your head over the contents of that document with a mysterious file name DiskJockey may l be just the utility you need to speedily identify what s in your computer documents DiskJockey will be presented at the next meeting of the Danbury Area Computer Society on February 2 at the Danbury Hospital auditorium The program also has a diskette formatter especially convenient when you need to erase a diskette quickly before copying files to it Start the as sociated program that sup J ports the file type and it auto F matically loads the selected file s Adding a new folder exactly where you want it is also a simple operation as is creating multilevel folders DiskJockey can zip files with drag and drop and it has an archive viewer which in stantly views the contents of ZIP GZIP and TAR files View Window can open files p inside the archive file for DiskJockey can view viewing printing or copying over 200 different file for i i You can even run some pro mats including Word Ex i cel Access WordPerfect y and Lotus 123 documents as grams from inside archives AF DiskJockey has a powerful sear
14. NON oN Q http www dacs org 3 Now in its ninth year Voice for Joanie has provided speech technology to more than 200 people in Connecti cut But to continue it must have more volunteers to service its equipment and to monitor the progress of its clients Technical knowledge is useful but not essential you only need compassion for those with special needs a car and one weekend a month Won t you help out Call Shirley Fredlund at 860 355 2611 ALLAN OSTERGREN dacsprez aol com Directors Notes he regular monthly meeting of the Board of Directors was held on Janu ary 11 1999 Present were Messrs Bovaird Buoy Cohen David Gingras Heere Ostergren Preston Setaro and the Mrs Gaberel and Owles Chairman David pre sided and Secretary Buoy kept the records of the meeting The minutes of the Decem ber 7 meeting were approved Finance and membership Treasurer Charles Bovaird reported combined checking and postal accounts of 14 436 80 plus postage on hand of 72 00 a total of 14 509 52 He also reported cur rent membership of 566 NT upgrade update Jeff Setaro reported that the Windows NT operating system for the principal com puter at the Resource Center had not as yet arrived Digital Camera Charles Bovaird reported that he was in possession of the digital camera and that although it had been available at the Janu ary general meeting the cancellation of the scheduled presentation mad
15. OFT NETWORK NETAXIS NETCOM NORTH AMERICAN NETMEG INTERNET On Tue NET PARADIGM PUTNAM INTERNET SMART WoRLD TECH SNET INTERNET SPRY NET TIAC WEB CONNECT OF RIDGFIELD WEBQULL INT Svcs 800 695 4005 800 395 8425 203 207 5695 888 463 7657 800 927 3000 800 888 4103 203 830 2122 800 827 7482 800 952 4638 203 425 3535 800 550 0927 800 386 5550 203 969 0618 800 353 6600 800 952 INET 888 863 8634 203 270 6388 800 664 INET 914 225 3234 203 790 4600 800 408 8282 800 SPRYNET 203 323 5957 203 438 7650 203 750 1000 List for informational purposes only not an endorsement of any service Further information Call Jim Finch 203 790 3654 DASS FEB 99 DACS FEB 99 Traveler s Internet Internet Cafes Asia Style The traveler s link to home and hearth By Jacqueline Renee Cohen F YOU WALKED into a small storefront in Bangkok and saw ten foreigners bent over comput ers typing furiously away what would you think Are they jour nalists rushing to meet a dead line No they are ordinary travelers keep ing in touch with home at one of the many popular Internet caf s that have sprouted up around the world in the past few years Major tourist destina tions in the U S are equipped with U S Post Offices and many pay phones so travelers can keep in touch with friends and family In many Third World countries Internet caf s flourish in these ar eas to meet the same needs The U S offers th
16. Voice for Joanie 2T TE Visit our web site al waw pc soluten com volunteer February 2 Clear and Simple Inc DiskJockey 98 March 2 Microsoft Office 2000 2 April 6 JASC Software Paint Shop Pro AMSYS PII Business System Includes Intel Chipset System Board with 100Mhz Bus 512KB Pipeline Burst Cache 32 MB PC 100 SDRAM 4 3GB HDD 4MB AGP SVGA 3 5 FDD 2 Serial Ports 1 Parallel Port 2 USB Ports 3 PCI Slots 3 ISA Slots 1Shared PCI ISA Slot 1 AGP Slot Mid Tower Case with 5 Drive Bays and 220W Power Supply 104 Key Windows 98 Keyboard Microsoft Mouse Microsoft Windows 98 PENTIUM 233 MMX I NOTEBOOK I DACS SPECIAL 1 595 32MB RAM i i i I I Accessories I 2GB HDD with Pentium II 300Mhz CPU 1 099 Upgrade to 64MB 100Mhz SDRAM 3 5 FDD with Pentium II 333Mhz CPU 1 149 Upgrade to 96MB 100Mhz SDRAM 20XCD with Pentium II 350Mhz CPU 1 299 Upgrade to 128MB 100Mhz SDRAM 12 1 TFT Display with Pentium II 400Mhz CPU 1 399 Upgrade to 160MB 100Mhz SDRAM i 3D Sound I I I i l with Pentium II 450Mhz CPU 1 649 Upgrade to 192MB 100Mhz SDRAM 256K Cache j 2MB VGA Memory 2 32bit PCMCIASIots TouchPad USB Port Battery Case Win 98 Upgrade to 256MB 100Mhz SDRAM A MI SYS Upgrade from 4 3GB to 6 4GB HDD Upgrade from 4 3GB to 8 4GB HDD C O M p U T E R Upgrade from 4 3GB to 11 5GB HDD Add 32X CD ROM 900 Ethan Allen Hwy Add 32 bit PCI Wavetable Sound Card Ridgefield CT
17. Windows 95 system Will all old and new members please contact Ben at 748 1751 or FFJM69A prodigy com before attending 8 http www dacs org February 1999 Danbury Area Computer Society Sunday Monday l S Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday 7 PM WINDOWS Ben Carnevale 203 748 1751 11 7 PM VISUAL BASIC Chuck Fizer 203 798 9996 10 PMI WEBSITE DESIGN Jeff Setaro 203 748 6748 GENERAL MEETING Danbury Hospital Auditorium BOARD OF ACCESS ADVANCED OS NEWSLETTER DIRECTORS Bruce Preston Don Pearson SIG NEWS 203 431 2920 MEETING DEADLINE 15 914 669 9622 m Too 7 30 PM 7 PM 7 30 PM MACINTOSH INTERNET INVESTMENT Chris Salaz Koser Stevens Paul Gehrett BOING 203 798 6417 stevens cw ix com 203 426 8436 21 22 7 00 PM 7 00 PM 7 30 PM WALL STREET J VOICE FOR JOANIE GRAPHICS Phil Dilloway Shirley Fredlund Ken Graff 203 367 1202 860 355 2611 203 775 6667 X4517 28 March SMTWTF S 12 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 January SMTWT F S 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Calendar and SIG Notes are available on the Internet at http www dacs org Dace http www dacs org FEB 99 DASS FEB 99 File Conversion Software Convertin
18. at http www dacs org or call the DACS Resource Cen ter at 203 748 4330 Coming on March 2 Microsoft presenting MS Office 2000 DACS FEB 99 President s File S omething funny happened on the way to our forum It does happen The star of the show fails to show but the show still must go on That s what happened at our last Gen eral Meeting when a representative from Alps Electric fell into a white hole on the way from the West Coast to the Danbury Hospital auditorium where DACS mem bers waited for a demo of the latest in color printing technology Never mind Bruce Preston fielded a few more Random Ac cess questions Ed Heere and Tom McIntyre put together an instant presenta tion on Y2K and Jeff Setaro filled in with the latest on computer viruses Apologies are in order for those who came to the meeting hoping to learn more about printers And special kudos go to Jeff Bruce Ed and Tom who salvaged the evening and kept our members in place and at the edge of their seats with cutting edge information on topics of concern to all Volunteers A wonderful thing about DACS and what keeps me coming back each year for more is the dedication and professional ism of our volunteers People who could all be doing something else and for MONEY Virtually all our services save the equipment we use and the printing and mailing of our newsletter are performed without charge by volunteers And whether it s scouting
19. ation of PC User Groups The awards named for APCUG founder Jerry Schneider recog nize and support outstanding volunteer initiatives with 500 grants sponsored by Oracle Microsoft and Adobe Systems More about this in later issues The computer industry has long sup ported the work of DACS and Voice for Joanie in their efforts to bring a gift of speech to the silenced victims of Lou Gehrig s disease or ALS Microsoft in par ticular has provided continuing support as a corporation and through the generosity of its caring work force VFJ is an official charity for corporate matching funds on behalf of Microsoft employees and re cently the company has provided the fi nancial backing to extend the reach of Voice for Joanie from coast to coast Thanks to arrangements made through the good offices of VFJ and DACS a 1 300 contribution from Microsoft a PC and monitor donated from private sources and the technical assistance of a nearby friend an ALS patient in a southern California rest home has a voice system to help him com municate with his family and caregivers 2 Dacs doc ISSN 1084 6573 is pub lished monthly by the Danbury Area Computer Society Inc 12 Notewor thy Drive Danbury CT 06810 7271 Annual subscription rates 25 to regu lar members 20 to students included in dues Postmaster Send address changes to Danbury Area Computer Society Inc 4 Gre gory Street Danbury CT 06810 44
20. ch tool to help you find well as graphics and HTML x files It even has a built in audio video file player You can look through your files i a as if they were stored on pa a per in a very organized file cabinet And you can view a them without having the na tive applications that created them In addition Disk Jockey places at your fingertips information about the drives folders and files in your system and the space used A user can easily copy documents displayed in the view window to the clipboard for use in other applica tions and move and delete files as needed DiskJockey has a powerful search tool to help you find the files that you need letting you search by filename text strings inside files last modified dates and file size You can open a selected file or group of files with your favorite editor J the files that you need It is possible to search by file name text strings inside files last modified dates and file size DACS general meetings held on the first Tuesday of each month at the Danbury Hospital auditorium 24 Hospital Avenue are free to the public Meetings start at 6 30 p m with casual networking At 7 p m join Random Access a short question and answer session during which members exchange computer problems and solutions A brief business meeting and the main presentation follow at 8 p m For more information about DACS and its SIGs Special Interest Groups visit our Website
21. cked to see nothing in my File Manager window but yes you guessed it files No strange characters no resource forks just a list of files Heck I figured it must have been a PC disk I ejected it and took it over to an other PC Wow There was the typical win dow yelling about unformatted media and asking if I would like to format it It really was a Mac disk after all Conversions Plus is a truly remarkable program for this day and age of conflicting everything My Tower of Babel computer can now read just about anything I ve since tried floppies other Zip disks and even a 200MB Mac Syquest CP read all of them without a flinch I actually think I shed a tear or two from the sheer joy of first time success at anything involving a computer As far as I m concerned this was plenty of magic for one program But as I promised this one does more If you have image files you re not quite sure of Conversions Plus can open them It won t allow you to open a CorelDraw File with Quark but it will open most any standard raster image such as bmp JPG TIF or WME And it can even open e mail attachments that appear as garbage text at the end of your messages and can decom press any archived file such as ZIP and view and print files when you don t have the pro gram that created them Folks this file conversion program is a real keeper Version 4 0 which I reviewed here is already outdated Go figure The new
22. d like to talk about the sites I use daily to keep up with the world around me and make sure I m on top of my industry and about other sites I use for research or information I may even let you in on my favorite fun sites I hate to start with such an obvious site but you are probably using a Microsoft product daily even if you own a Macintosh Before rushing out to buy a book on Microsoft Word or Windows 98 because you have a problem check out www microsoft com You can save yourself a bit of time by trying the appli cation you are using as part of the name such as www microsoft com word if you need help with Word I use this site weekly if not daily because it has tons of great information on the products that use It saves me time and money things I think we all need more of Since I m in the computer software business I am interested in up to date in formation about the companies that make the hardware and software If you are too you ll find www news com interesting Part of a series of great sites by CNET news com 1s usually the first thing I read each day If you re interested in keeping on top of the happenings online www wired com covers the Web and Internet unlike anything else online I still read the print magazine but it s very old by the time I get it by mail so I like to go to the source Being the news junkie that I am I read the New York Times www nytimes com daily to keep up with the
23. degaussing button and has grabbed the MIM extension battery backup is not to let you keep try it If you have speakers near the as its own via the mechanism of running for the duration of the storm display remember that the File Associations This is the but to allow you time to close files magnetic coil in the speaker is mechanism that will start MS Word and programs in an orderly fashion creating a magnetic field that is or WordPad if you click on a doc Depending capable of distorting the displayed file and start WordPerfect if you upon the size of the battery in the image This usually manifests itself have a wpw file etc In your case battery backup device and the by making the side corner of the the association is pointing at Net power consumption of your system display go off color Move the Meeting This will automatically be which is determined by the speakers away Another audience activated if you double click on a number of drives size of display member reported having a similar MIM extension file Your sender etc you may have anywhere from problem caused by a power control probably is just sending a file using three to ten minutes You should box under the display Others the MIME conventions most mail put your PC and the monitor on the reported sensitivity to having a programs create MIM files by battery backup You should not put laser printer on the same circuit default The second and more a printer and especia
24. e least expensive Internet access in the world Americans take for granted free local tele phone access and provider rates that average less than 20 a month for unlimited access Local ISP charges in most Third World coun tries by contrast where many people are without electricity or ground phone lines run higher than the average monthly wage But even these constraints haven t de terred Internet service entrepreneurs from setting up shop in such heavily touristed Asian destinations as Bangkok Kathmandu Saigon and Hanoi and even in the small beach resorts Backpacking through Asia has changed in the past 30 years No longer does it mean sacrificing all Western amenities and communicating with home by slow surface mail Five years ago ev ery travel agency on Kho San Road the Bangkok street so popular with backpack ers offered fax services Now more than 20 businesses on this road alone offer Internet services Kathmandu is no dif ferent nor is Saigon or any other desti nation on the tourist route in Asia Even the small beach areas access to which is limited by the business hours of the long tail boat are online with servers that are ready to send and receive your e mail Most of these providers will charge you in one of three different ways or a combination e Online Rate You are charged for each minute you are online Once on the Net you can access your personal e mail account Hotmail Yahoo or surf
25. e its use moot Publicity President Ostergren announced that he had spoken to Steven Bull of the Danbury Chamber of Commerce about helping with the publicity and PR for the planned Y2K program in May Mr Bull has invited DACS to attend Chamber of Commerce meetings Mr Ostergren also advised that he had ob tained acceptance by the Housatonic Val ley Publishing Company to include an ar ticle on DACS and listings of our activities in its regional newspapers Directors Notes Continued on page 4 DASS FEB 99 DACS FEB 99 Directors Notes Continued from page 3 Y2K program Ed Heere led a discussion of the up coming Y2K program including the makeup of its panel and its moderator It was agreed that its focus other than an update of the progress of software com patibility in general be on problems for individual and small business users and on online help or fixes for problems He will prepare a tentative agenda for the pro gram by the next meeting Award for VFJ President Ostergren discussed the re cent public service award to VFJ from APCUG and the need for recruiting addi tional volunteers for that SIG through an nouncements at general meetings in dacs doc and on the Website Options for free access to the Internet for VFJ clients and possible inclusion of VFJ at a Cham ber of Commerce meeting were dis cussed It was agreed that VFJ Director Shirley Fredlund be advised to seek vol unteers from outside
26. e up You page down Not much else What to do Look at the screen again Oh It says Open here for some exciting news on how to communicate with the IRS You click and the second page comes into view You start reading it Doesn t look like there s anything you want here Wait Hold it There s a slider on the right Maybe there s more below You slide to the bottom of the page and check out the list of options Click on Forms and Pubs That s what you want maybe At the bottom of the next page you see Forms and Instructions and Publications You click on the former On this page you slide down to a list window and find there are 680 items Now you begin to wonder if a sales tax would not be simpler Ctrl Left click highlights all the Forms and Forms In structions of interest You wonder if you missed any At the bottom of the page you click on Review Selected Files and a list vk 13 ing of your se lected items ap on pears You click on the first item and find instruc tions on how to i download or view each of the se lected documents One by one you l complete your po a downloads at 3 2K bytes per Tot ds second Now you re turn to the second page slide to the bottom and click on Pubs Online And lo here are not the Forms Instruc tions but the official IRS publications all 123 of the booklets and pamphlets you can order from
27. es are created by a small game development company that is under contract with a big publisher Often the game idea comes from the publisher For example Hasbro decided to make a com puter version of the their popular Monopoly board game So they wrote up a game de sign a marketing proposal a budget and took bids from development companies who would contract to make the game Or Fox Interactive decided to make a computer game based on their popular movie Inde pendence Day so they took bids from game development companies Or Psygnosis wanted a new 3D action game based on their popular Lemmings puzzle game Or Atari wanted a new updated PC version of the arcade classic Centipede In all these cases the publisher had a particular game in mind based on a movie toy novel or previous game Then they found some one else to make the game for them So the people that ended up making the game the people that work at the game development company got stuck making a game that someone else thought up Every step along the way the developer had to send the game in progress off to the publisher for approval to make sure the publisher liked the art work the story and the game play This type of contract game development work is often done in desperation When a game development company doesn t have fund ing for any of their own game ideas they have to take any contracts they can get to pay the bills Signing a contract to develop a
28. ey Fredlund at Voice for Joanie at 860 355 2611 Ext 4517 or visit the Voice for Joanie Website at http www voiceforjoani org Are Tes Tr PE eed ey ipa wee Pishi Pa fee ries PPNI HPne inina d ae Se Reh eit O vu Developers TOP PAID SALARIED amp HOURLY POSITIONS for CLIENT SERVER and MAINFRAME TECHNOLOGIES PC TECHS CORD http www dacs org ORACLE DBA APPLICATIONS SAP LOTUS NOTES SYSTEMS ADMINISTRATORS SW PROJECT MANAGERS C C SW ENGINEERS WEB PROGRAMMERS BC METWORK TECHNICIANS Submea resume bo Attn DH TIALS FAM BO S1O 1 i07 Email dhikageitcdiccep cge TEL 289 910 1101 LOTUS NOTES PLi DB2 JAV A WEB HTML C OO AIX SYSTEMS ADMINISTRATORS SYSTEMS PROGRAMMERS DBAs TECH WRITERS WINDOWS ANT TECHNICIANS Submit resume bo Attn D DACS FAX 000p 541 0554 Email dolaze editor Sim TEL 500 643 7494 CDI INFORMATION SERVICES Division of CDT Corporation Sortheust Check out our websile al Aiipeeaew cdicorp com DASS FEB 99 DASS FEB 99 Special Interest Groups ACCESS Designs and implements solutions using Microsoft Access database management software Contact Bruce Preston 203 431 2920 Meets on 2nd Tuesday at 7p m at the DACS Resource Center Ives Manor lower level 198 Main Street Danbury Next meeting February 9 ADVANCED OPERATING SYSTEMS Explores and develops OS 2 BSD UNIX and NT operating systems Contact Don Pearson
29. g Files on a PC By Robert Banasik VE YOU EVER gotten a file from someone that you wanted to open on your computer only to find out it was a Mac file or a file in some other for eign format It doesn t happen often at my business but when it does it can be frustrat ing We end up going to another computer I E a T Ma a 11 Fan AD z 310 at aD sassod ayy pL Pima OUP trying a different application or God forbid trying one of those utilities that can open any thing or so they say If these problems sound familiar to you have I got a surprise I have actually found a software package that not only does what is says it can do but actually does more Conversions Plus Version 4 0 from DataViz has proved to be just such a delight ful program I say that because I ve become used to disappointments from new software packages You know what I mean They usu ally exhibit strange anomalies during installa tion and generally barf hiccup and puke all over your hard drive before you actually get ae en aA oo the thing installed fully And then there is the obligatory proofing of the user s manual to decipher what the designers really meant for you to know After digesting that you actu ally get to use the program and also the company s tech support for the next few hours until you have been re trained in the use of your comp
30. ill realize that you might want to add or remove components It will offer a menu where there are Xs showing what is currently installed If you remove the Xs from Access and PowerPoint it will remove the files used only by these components Q Does it remove the files or just inac tivate them A It will remove the program files and associated files that are used by the selected applications It will not delete your data files nor will it delete files typically dlls that are shared by other applications If there are any files in the directories created by Setup when it installed the application that weren t placed there by Setup the directories will not be deleted These files are usually your data files although they could also be configuration preferences files Q I received an e mail file with the MIM extension and when I click on it I get the message White Board Required Tasks Could Not Be Found Please insure that the Net Meeting Tasks are running and try again The sender is not using any white board application The file is being delivered to me via AOL A There are probably two things that http www dacs org Te could be happening here First backup will get you past those power display the image ts jittery It settles Microsoft Net Meeting was blips that happen during storms and down after a while installed on your machine and it or heat waves The purpose of the A See if there is a
31. iu we were able to discuss Shopping on the Net at the December meeting despite provider password problems In January the topic was Let s go to the Movies Future topics wil include Surfing the Heavens Astronomical Sites Earthly Library Resources How do Bytes get from Here to There Cable Modems and Internet Auctions VISUAL BASIC The VB SIG had one of its largest turn outs ever for the raffle of a copy of Visual Studio Profes sional Edition Over twenty people participated in the Ran dom Access session and then discussed the Soccer Project A new SIG member Mary Ellen Alling won the VS Pro Mark Thorburn won the second prize a Microsoft T shirt WEBSITE DESIGN In February the Website SIG will fea ture a presentation on advanced site design by Mike Kaltschnee of DeMorgan Industries Mike will share with you the secrets of Web programming teaching you how to make your site more interactive and creative by using databases forms e mail and more This meeting will be a condensed version of the Webmaster classes Mike has taught at Naugatuck Valley Community Technical College WINDOWS The structure of the SIG meetings will be same as in the past question and answer periods and hands on work with the computer to re create situations experienced by individuals for group discussion It s a fun group and an excellent learning experience for both beginner and experi enced users of the
32. lly never a laser printers often have a timer probable thing is that you need to laser printer on battery backup as that causes them to rotate the drum configure your AOL to decompress they often draw more power than so that the rollers don t develop flat MIME files automatically when it the computer and monitor spots Other suggestions were delivers them The AOL default combined You can always restart seeing if there was a space heater setting is NOT to decompress them a print request The only reason on the same circuit people using the higher level BRUCE PRESTON is the president of West Q I have an inexpensive surge protec Windows might feel they need a Mountain Systems a consultancy in tor power Strip that has a little red battery backup more is that Ridgefield CT specializing in database light that now flickers Does that frequently they have more applications A DACS director and mean that the thing is no longer applications running at a time and moderator of the Random Access sessions working thus more exposure to damage An at the general meetings Bruce also leads the Access SIG Contact Bruce at A The neon lamp used as a pilot lamp inexpensive battery backup system Bade Gai oi on most inexpensive surge start at about 100 and is much protector power strips is only a preferable to a surge protector strip power indicator and says nothing FREE CLASSIFIEDS about whether the surge protection Q I have a Pentium
33. m for the Bovaird at 203 792 A Ask yourself this question If graphics file and swap file and cache 7881 somebody were to turn off the Various members of the audience machine while I was using it would were incredulous that you were able Leave hard co p y I suffer If you are just playing to get both Windows 95 and classifieds with Charlie games then the only loss would be Netscape 4 0 or Internet Explorer your possible high score If you are 4 0 to be fair to run with only 8MB Marc or whoever is working on a term Paper or thesis of memory ten ding the members your accounts receivables or your Great American Novel then your Q I have a 17 inch monitor that is about table at our month ly loss might be much more A battery a year old When I first turn on the meetin g http www dacs org 15 an Stop the paperwork shuffle access caent ge V ice Infarnalon when you nasd K Create professional fooklng kat reports at the touch of a button Ineease offices alficiancy tee J B y and productvitt Keeap your compaliive edge Let our r O nite ecmerlenoed pohana slat help ou gel ihe mast from your carmputer system Investoreart Help give the gitt of Speech Business Solutions Provider Call Shirley Fredlund software Development and Integration at 555 2611 ext Relatianal Database design 4517 system Analysis Needs assessment and become a hiera DAYS ag cut at FREE what acu olutions Sandy Mook CT O82 1106 bg 425 1780
34. m here click on the PRINT TEST PAGE If that works then Windows sees the printer and more importantly sees the proper printer driver in which case the problem is with your application software The most likely thing is that somehow your printer driver within Windows got replaced or damaged Here the best thing to do would be to use your Internet connection to visit the printer manufacturer s Website and download the latest printer driver It will usually be a self extracting executable file Put the downloaded file in a folder called Printer Driver and then run it This will put the driver file s and INF file used by SETUP in the directory Now go to the printer s property page as above and find the page that permits installation of a new driver That should fix it Other suggestions are to go to the Device Manager Right click My Computer Properties Device Manager and make sure that you do not have any warning symbols Yellow circle with a red If so read the screens to identify and repair the conflict I f everything is OK expand the PORTS section click on the sign and select the LPT port Click on REMOVE Windows will warn you that you are removing the device Then boot the machine and Windows will detect the presence of the port and reinstall the port driver Note The port driver is a piece of software separate from the printer driver Data must pass through the printer drive
35. o growing rap idly in popularity A sign over the com puter in one Internet caf in Hanoi en treats users to Please finish as soon as possible because others are waiting Internet caf s have sprung up in cities world wide providing travelers with access in New Orleans New York San Francisco London and Hong Kong and even in the smaller cit ies of DACS home state of Connecticut the Seattle Espresso in Danbury and the Online Internet Caf in Norwalk Most of these charge by the minute and will sell you decent refresh ments to tide you through your surf and tempt you to linger In Hong Kong some coffee shops and juice bars have taken a unique ap proach free Internet access with the purchase of a drink Given the astronomical price of a coffee here one can assume this carrot is more the lure for well heeled travelers than for lean budgeted backpackers N THE FUTURE perhaps Internet caf s will spread throughout America On your next trip to the Grand Canyon instead of mailing a postcard home you will sign on send an e mail and never again have to worry about arriving home before your message reaches its destination JACQUELINE RENEE COHEN teaches English as a Foreign Language at Cognitio College in Hong Kong and is trying to integrate Internet technology into her lessons E mail Jacqueline at JAQATAC iname com Watch for more news from Hong Kong in the coming issues of dacs doc http ww
36. ou how some of the process works rather then write about it in an article What I am going to tell you about now is some of the business and politics in volved in making video games There are a lot of aspects that I never even consid ered when I was imagining what it must be like to make games I always imagined that some guy or gal had a cool idea for a game and de cided to make that game I had no idea how he made it or how she got it to market but I always figure the person that made the game probably came up with the idea loved it made the game and got rich if the game was successful That is very rarely the way it works these days I Don t Claim To Know It All First I have to tell you that I do not consider myself an expert game designer project manager or business man I don t know exactly how all companies handle these issues But I have worked in the video game industry for three years as a program mer and have observed how the business and political aspect works at several dif ferent companies Maybe they don t all work this way but I am sure most are simi lar Most Game Are Not Made by Publishers Almost all games are published by a big game publisher such as Interplay Bliz zard Electronic Arts Sierra Activation or GT Interactive The publisher is usually re sponsible for funding the development of the game marketing the product manufac turing the disks and packaging placing the produc
37. ows doesn t complain when I boot A That the printer is visible in the folder but doesn t work points to a problem with the printer driver There are several things that you can try The easiest is to get into the BIOS setup and try pressing the PrtSc button Most BIOS setup utilities will damp the screen to printer port LPT1 If you get anything at the printer then you know that the printer cable and hardware are OK If your Setup doesn t support dumping characters to the printer port then try to print from a plain DOS prompt When you boot the machine watch for the Starting Windows 98 message and immediately press F8 Select the Command Prompt Only option Assuming your printer is on a parallel port when you get the C gt prompt type DIR gt LPT1 This should cause a plain text listing of your root directory to be listed on the printer If you get Unknown Device it means that the BIOS setting for your printer port has been lost To fix that boot the machine and go into the hardware setup often by pressing DEL or F1 while the machine boots Check that the printer port is enabled If you get print it means that the hardware printer port cable printer is OK Assuming the printer responds to a plain text dump from DOS we now need to proceed to Windows Boot the machine and let Windows start Go to the START SETTINGS PRINTERS lt select your printer gt Right Click and select PROP ERTIES Fro
38. program database using Windows user interface in an embedded system Position Tequires 2 years experience using Windows SANT operaling system knowledpe of WIM 32 and experi ence wilh t Yisual C h MEC ODBC ROBMS SOL OOAD Multi threading C hent server helyuful Fe giar a cnet sahiry ard pengi package Please mie mi your resume mi GHE jesion GF Higecsi io Elig Susmeyer Contact Systems Ine 30 Miry Brook Rd Danbury C1 Ute 10 Fax C204 743 Hi06 E Mail hriicontactsystems cam EOE CONTACT yist nour Web Site at www contacts y ste TLS COT http www dacs org Tax Forms Online Surfing the IRS Need an Offical form Get it from the Net By Charlie Bovaird O you re running out of T N time and ee want a tax form to day You can t find that copy of yo TurboTax you bought last Janu ary and the library just closed You know that they changed the tax laws again and 7 you think you can aa ss save a few bucks gt but aren t really ic sure Your visions of sugarplums are fast becoming night mares of dollars going down the drain You wonder if yov ll sleep tonight Maybe just maybe there is help on the Internet So you fire up your trusty Pentium wake up your 56K modem dial up your ISP connect to the Net and aim your browser at http www irs gov Up pops the IRS home page There s not much there a picture in the center of the page nice color You pag
39. publisher s game idea is usually a last resort A developer would rather be work ing on their own game idea So that type of game is created by people that would rather be working on something else As a general rule I don t like any game based on a movie or other existing products TO BE CONTINUED Copyright 1995 7 Last update 1 04 99 by North Orange County Computer Club All rights reserved Articles by NOCCC au thors may be reprinted by other user groups without permission provided they are unal tered and the publication acknowledges the author thereof and NOCCC JAMES C SMITH NOCCC Director Software Engineering Reflexive Entertainment Inc james Reflexive NET http www dacs org CONTACT of Danbury CT is a manula turer and worldwide provider of high performance equipment tor surface mount and throweh hele electronic assembly automation n order to expand owr product lines we require additional support The following opportuni ties exist for enereetic highly mwi vated indieiduals in dur Danbury CT facility PROGRAMMMER Responsible for C language prt Param developement and mainie nanee of real time embedded sws tems 2 yeirs experience using Windows Yw T operating system and experience with C Cii WIN Ja visual CH MRC and ODBC SOFTWARE ENGINEER Partic pls in new product deyvelop ment wing Windows JANT The product will inglude the ability ta maintain
40. r and be passed on to the port driver to get to the printer cable and printer If all of this fails you might try borrowing another printer cable and printer to confirm that your printer port cable printer combinations are OK Q When I print under Windows 95 and ask for multiple copies I only get one copy and must ask for another The printer is an Epson 1100 series dot matrix printer Another problem is that if I use the software from Peoples Bank my system locks up A First see if there is a driver specific for your printer and install and check it as above Also some 14 printers drivers offer the option of letting the hardware handle generating graphics versus having Windows generate the graphics as it writes to the spool file Q Do any currently available PCs have a FireWire bus available This is an ultra high speed port different from the newly supported USB A No machines were identified as having the FireWire bus already installed although several people said that they had adapters used for videoediting that worked Q From Office 95 I want to delete Ac cess and PowerPoint What is the proper way to do it They don t Show up individually on the Add Remove Programs menu A The way NOT to do it is to use Windows Explorer and delete files In the Microsoft Office 95 folder there should be a Microsoft Office Setup utility If you run it and it sees that Office 95 is already installed it w
41. t in retail outlets and handing tech nical support for the product In some cases the publisher also makes the game but that is usually not the case Most games are made by game development companies that focus on making the games and then let a publisher handle the rest The pub lisher usually gets all the recognition and the developer is often lucky just to get their name on the box For example Descent and Redneck Rampage are both published by Interplay but were developed by Parallax Software and Xatrix Entertainment Quake If and Heretic II are both published by Activision but developed by ID Software and Raven Software Monopoly and Frogger are published by Hasbro but were developed by Westwood Studios and SCEE Cambridge Most people that are familiar with video games recognize the publisher names but very few people recognize the names of the game development compa nies that actually made the games Publisher s In house Development Some publishers do have in house de velopment teams that make some of their games Interplay Activision and Sierra all have large in house development staffs that 12 created Fallout MechWarrior and Leisure Suit Larry But they also publish many other games made by outside developers A few publishers such as Blizzard En tertainment do not use outside developers at all and develop all their games in house including Starcraft Warcraft and Diablo Contract Game Development Most gam
42. the IRS using snail mail You can view them and print them out now on your laser or inkjet printer using the Adobe Acrobat Reader Hmmm at four pages per minute you calculate now might mean a few hours from now Well we feel pretty good right now but begin to wonder if we might have missed something You know you were a little blurry eyed trying to pick out items of in terest from 800 titles so you go back to the second page again slide to the real bottom of the page and click on the Search Icon A new page comes into view and you enter IRA into the search field click and get a list of more than 100 items You start reading and a spouselike voice from another room says It s four o clock in the morning and you have to get up for work in an hour Ah there it is Form 4868 You really didn t know the number and can t find it under Late Filing Thank God it s Friday The banks are open Where s that copy of dacs doc CHARLIE BOVAIRD is a longtime DACS director and the trusty tireless and unflappable steward of the organiza tion s membership database and treasury You can e mail Charlie at aam mags net DASS FEB 99 DASS FEB 99 Random Access Instant replay January 1999 Bruce Preston Moderator Q I installed Windows 98 and subse quently some other software My printer has now disappeared The printer device still shows as the de fault printer and Wind
43. the best in the business for the programs at our monthly meetings writing for or producing our newsletter DISKJOCKEY 1 PRESIDENT S FILE 2 DIRECTORS NOTES 3 HELP LINE 3 NEW MEMBERS 4 FAVORITE SITES 5 INTERNET PROVIDERS 5 INTERNET CAFES 6 COMMUNITY SERVICE 7 SIGS NOTES amp NEWS 8 CALENDAR 9 FILE CONVERSION 10 CREATING GAMES 12 SURFING THE LR S 13 RANDOM ACCESS 14 sharing one s expertise at meetings and at SIGS or charting the business and direc tion of DACS it s all done professionally and held to a tight deadline Y2K II If you attended the last General Meet ing or the Y2K conference in October you know that there are many surprises in store for us all when 1999 folds over into the year 2000 In May we will re visit the sub ject with an assessment of what you can do to prepare You ll learn that it s not a doomsday grab all your things and run into the woods scenario but one that re quires some practical information on how to protect your vital information and per haps even on how to make a buck on the companies that are best situated In the meantime DACS guru in residence Ed Heere will provide timely information on the latest in Y2K developments at our regular meetings DACS and VFJ A winning combination Volunteerism does have its monetary rewards DACS was recently chosen as one of eighteen winners of the 1998 Jerry Awards for User Group Community Ser vice Projects by the Associ
44. uter This is not the case with Conversions Plus installed the program in a flash In fact I found myself looking around my windows to make sure there wasn t a wayward er ror lurking some where There was none Instead all I had was a successfully in stalled program that didn t seem to do much It didn t even open itself when I rebooted or so I thought I scratched my head and decided to bring up File Manager Yes I know Win95 likes Explorer but m an old dog I still like the extra features of Winfile exe and tend to stay with it Any way up comes the File Manager screen and there I sat with my insidious Mac Zip Disk This is a scenario that I have repeated often In fact I think I ve tried all the possible sce narios There was the here and now product that could read a Mac floppy but would barf on a Syquest Cartridge There was Transfer Pro that could look at a Mac 88MB Syquest but not at a 44MB or a 200MB And there was the Mac n DOS well don t even ask about that Undeterred by past frustrations and ever being a glutton for punishment here I was again gingerly inserting strange media into a reading device just waiting to eat it up I really didn t think I was going to get anywhere be o gt 10 cause I hadn t even opened the program yet I was just going to make sure that it was in deed a Mac disk that I couldn t read and then try it with the new program I was really sho
45. w dacs org Community Service DACS Earns Award he Danbury Area Com p u t e r Society was recently se lected as one of the win ners of the 1998 APCUG Association of PC User Groups Jerry Awards for User Group Com munity Service Projects DACS earned the 500 award for its work with Voice for Joanie a nonprofit organization that in association with DACS provides specially equipped PCs to people with ALS also known as Lou Gehrig s Dis ease DACS ALS is a disorder of the ner vous system that causes degen eration in both upper and lower motor neurons and results in pro gressive muscular weakness Voice for Joanie finds equipment for patients with the disorder and teaches them to use the com municator which consists of special software a voice synthe sizer and an infrared eye switch that are installed on a standard PC system making it possible for patients with ALS to communi cate If a person can blink nod or move a finger he or she can speak by highlighting the words or phrases on the screen of the computer The voice synthesizer will then translate the words and phrases into speech Voice for Joanie needs volun teers to monitor its clients through out Connecticut Responsibilities include maintaining periodic one on one contact to see if any new services are necessary Only oc casional time or travel and TLC and little technical expertise are re quired Please call Shirl
46. w dacs org Officers President Allan Ostergren 260 210 0047 VFs Gene Minasi 960 354 9380 e Frances Owles 860 268 0077 Marlene Gaberel 203 426 4846 e Jeff Setaro 203 748 6748 Secretary Larry Buoy 660 355 0394 Treasurer Charles Bovaird 203 792 7881 Directors Chair Wally David 203 790 7286 Charles Bovaird 203 792 7681 Larry Buoy 860 355 0394 Marc Cohen 203 775 1102 e Dick Gingras 203 426 0464 Ed Heere 205 4351 1500 Bruce Preston 203 440 4263 Marlene Gaberel 203 426 4846 e Allan Ostergren 260 210 0047 Frances Owles 860 868 0077 Jeff Setaro 203 748 6748 Committees Education Gene Minasi 860 354 9560 e Membership Don Ruffell 203 797 8158 Newsletter Frances Owles 860 268 0077 Program Jeff Setaro 203 748 6748 WEB Master Jeff Setaro 203 748 6746 Resource Center 203 748 4330 Web Site http www dacs org HelpLine Volunteers have offered to field member questions by phone Please limit calls to the hours indicated below Days means 9 a m to 5 p m evening means to 9 50 p m Please be consider ate of the volunteer you are calling HelpLine is a free service If you are asked to pay for help or are solicited for sales please contact the dacs doc editor the person requesting payment will be deleted from the listing Can we add your name to the volunteer listing A Ay re evening Program Name Phone Alpha Four Dick Gingras 203 426 0484 AOL Marc Cohen 203 775 1102
47. y 7 30 p m at the DACS Resource Center Ives Manor lower level 198 Main Street Danbury Next Meeting February 16 VISUAL BASIC Develops Windows apps with Visual Basic Contact Chuck Fizer 203 798 9996 or Jim Scheef 860 355 8001 Meets on 1st Wednesday 7p m at DACS Resource Cen ter lves Manor lower level 198 Main Street Danbury Next Meeting February 3 VOICE FOR JOANIE Provides and supports people with Lou Gehrig s disease with special PC computer equipment Contact Shirley Fredlund 860 355 2611 x4517 Meets on last Tuesday 7 30 p m at Datahr Brookfield Next Meeting February 23 WALL STREET Examines Windows stock market software Contact Phil Dilloway 203 367 1202 Meets on last Monday 7p m at the DACS Resource Center Ives Manor lower level 198 Main Street Danbury Next Meeting February 22 WEBSITE DESIGN Designs and maintains dacs org the DACS Web site Contact Jeff Setaro 203 748 6748 Meets on 2nd Wednes day 7p m at the DACS Resource Center Ives Manor lower level 198 Main Street Danbury Next Meeting February 10 WINDOWS Explores all aspects of Windows 95 and 3 1 Contact Ben Carnevale 203 748 1751 Meets on 1st Friday 7p m at the DACS Resource Center Ives Manor lower level 198 Main Street Danbury Next Meeting February 5 SIG News The SIG Notes and Calendar are posted on the DACS Web site at http www dacs org INTERNET Thanks to Lena Fel
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