Presidential Ramblings

This month's theme is novice computer users and the role of clubs like DACS. This club began so a group of Osborn owners could learn to use their new computers. Personal computers were still pretty new and there was nowhere else to turn. Training was unheard of. Even books were few and far between. Oddly, by today's standards, software packages back then actually included a manual! Imagine that! Unfortunately, the manual often seemed like it had been written in Sanskrit, translated to Latin before morphing into some unknown but English-like language. In this environment, some of the larger user groups became an important part of the computer industry. We have been fortunate to have the support of so many software companies over the years.

I believe that DACS has two basic types of members, geeks and novices. Oh, many of you are somewhere in between, but everyone fits somewhere on this scale.

Geekdom

Growing up, I was always fascinated by things mechanical. If it rolled (particularly on rails), floated, flew or had lots of knobs and dials, I thought it was cool. I suspect that many DACS members feel that way about computers. The fact that computers can do so many things just increases the fascination factor. Starting back in the 70s I was lucky enough to be allowed to play with big computers at work. I never looked back. In the early 80s when the IBM PC became an acceptable instrument of business, I was hooked on the little buggers.

Novice users

The novice user is not necessarily someone new to computers. Novices are often people who do not care how a computer works; they just want to know how to make it do what they want it to do. Some are curious about the "inner workings" and others could not care less. Some people are perpetual novices and that's OK. The fact that people all along the geek-novice scale want to learn to use their computers gives DACS its reason to exist.

Intergalactic 15

On Saturday, April 20th, fellow board member Marc Cohen and I attended the 15th annual Intergalactic User Group Officers' Conference. What a mouth full and it was in mid-town Manhattan to boot! This was my first Intergalactic and I had no idea what to expect. I was impressed by the number of people I met who are dedicated to making their user groups serve its members. I was also dismayed by a few people who were there only to collect whatever the vendors would give away for free.

Marc Cohen has attended several of these meetings and has written more about the experience. One of the messages I "heard" was that user groups are no longer perceived by the software industry as a key channel to reach consumers. This is reflected in the number of companies willing to send speakers to our general meetings. Combine this perception of reduced user group importance with greatly reduced marketing budgets and it's almost a miracle that seven vendors sent representatives to the Intergalactic conference. Microsoft does an excellent job of promoting user groups--given that they are Microsoft. Richard Katz, who spoke at our February meeting was there, with his partner in McKatz Brothers Marketing, representing Ulead Systems and Intuit. Borland, Corel, Sandhills Publishing (Smart Computing Magazine), and Casady & Greene also sent representatives.

I came away from IG15 more convinced than ever that if DACS is to succeed, we must do it ourselves. More on this later.

Computing for the non-technical user

One of the give-a-ways at IG15 was a copy of Smart Computing in Plain English magazine. I almost didn't pick it up and now I regret not grabbing the other issue that was available. If you were in to computers back in the 80s and early 90s (last century) you remember a magazine called Creative Computing. This magazine targeted the "home computer user" and offered many useful articles aimed at people new to computers or who simply used their computers at home. Well, Smart Computing fills that same niche. The irony of all this is that the May issue is full of suggestions that are useful to all of us--including me! The cover article "Clean Out Your PC-- Scrub Unused Data from Your Hard Drive for Better Performance" is a great example. Another article I read was "How Much Speaker Do You Need?" For some reason, Windows and .NET Magazine (the best technical magazine on the planet) never covers PC sound systems. Another article on version 7.0 of AOL gives insight on new features and whether the upgrade is worth the effort (yes, if you already use AOL--otherwise, no). Next time you pass a newsstand, flip thru a copy, you might be pleasantly surprised!

DACS and the geek factor

So where does all this lead? I am the first to admit that I do not know all there is to know about computers, but I do want to learn! I know quite a bit about some narrow areas and absolutely nothing about others. On the Geek-Novice scale, I hit it from one end to the other. And so do you. All of us have knowledge we can share with others and that's what makes this club fun and valuable for us all. How? Join a Special Interest Group--a SIG. According to the web site, we have eleven SIGs. There are many areas where I think there is interest for new SIGs. For the life of me, I do not understand why we have never had a Games SIG. How about a Robotics SIG? Once upon a time we had a Desktop Publishing SIG, is there interest now?

You do not need to be an expert to start a SIG. Repeat after me--YOU DO NOT NEED TO BE AN EXPERT TO START A SIG! This was amply illustrated last Thursday at the Server SIG meeting when I totally cobolixed (is that a word?) a Linux installation in less than 20 minutes and then spent the rest of the meeting reinstalling it.

Boot straps

The June general meeting will be another home-grown program. We all use software, and this month six DACS members will talk about some piece of software that makes life easier for them. This will be a real challenge, as each of us get only ten minutes to "sell" you on why we think our program is worth your time. Read the meeting preview and then come to see if we can pull this off! There will even be something for Mac and Linux fans!

Jim Scheef

jscheef@dacs.org or jscheef@telemarksys.com