President's Message

If you thought you had heard the last Word from Microsoft, think again. The world’s most used word processor and its associated office applications have been gussied-up with an array of new features designed to make document creation a little less intrusive and even more user friendly. That natty nag and perpetual uninvited guest, Clippy, has been replaced by new windows (or 'Panes') and 'Smart Tags' that automate those pesky tasks that you used to have look up in the help files or use three or four clicks to accomplish.

Word users frustrated by having their headers disappear right under their noses will finally get some relief with a new feature that lets them view and edit page formatting. That looks suspiciously like the feature in WordPerfect that shows the formatting codes at the bottom of the page, so you can delete them or move them around in the proper order. It got me out of many a mess when my fonts started changing mid-page or a text box wouldn’t line up. Some time ago, I had a running debate on a help line with a Word guru who insisted that View Codes was a redundant throwback to the DOS environment . . . "Nowadays, all you need to do is highlight the text and change it." But some things never change.

Next up: how about letting spell checker monitor your formatting and warn you when it gets screwed up? You’ll get to ask that question and more, and see all of the new (and old) features of Office XP at our next meeting on June 6th.

Assistive Technology

Three months after being cancelled by a snow storm, the assistive technology presentation finally got underway May 9th. Jointly sponsored by DACS and Datahr Rehabilitation Institute, the event took place at Datahr’s headquarters in Brookfield where our own General Meetings were once held. David Goldberg, a distributor of communication tools for the handicapped, showed a small but dedicated audience the latest devices for converting keystrokes into intelligible speech. It was also a great opportunity for Shirley Fredlund to show off the new equipment used by Voice for Joanie and the widening network of VFJ clients in Connecticut.

Many thanks to Pat Conway, Datahr’s public affairs manager, for her efforts in promotion and in helping to make the meeting a success. Additional thanks to Charlie Bovaird for helping to set up and to Don Neary and Steve Schwab for their inspired camera shots. Steve has done a wonderful job in developing the VFJ Web site (www.voiceforjoanie.org) where you can see all the action from the Datahr meeting in living color.

How do we do it?
Don’t ask me!

At the annual InterGalactic User Group Officers Conference held two months early in April this year, a primary topic of discussion was how UGs can help each other. DACS has received recognition and a number of awards for its community service and for its newsletter, most recently for the computer refurbishing project. So I was asked to comment on how we manage to do it all, coming from a small area of western Connecticut.

I really could not answer the question. Of course, I could give details on how it was carried out and who should get the credit. I also could pass the buck by saying "you have to contact Charlie Bovaird, the guy who ran the project" . . . and I did (you can see Charlie’s report on page 14). What I could not answer was how to get volunteers to work together and fulfill inspired tasks. It’s a bit like getting amino acids to climb out of the soup and form intelligent life--perhaps an appropriate analogy for an InterGalactic meeting.

--Allan Ostergren
dacsprez@aol.com