Producing Sixteen Bits each month has really pointed out to me why many of us have made the choice to belong to a user group. Let's face it,these machines are out to get us and hopefully there is some safety in numbers. It's us against them!
I make this statement after having the pleasure of meeting many new members of the group this month at the New Members Night and many prospective members at the Albert Hall Internet exhibit. The theme most prevalent in all of these conversations was how difficult it can be to set up and maintain a computer (unless of course you have that fruity brand of computer). Combined with my recent experiences of attempting to produce our journal on three different computers, I sometimes wonder how anyone gets anything done that requires using a computer.
In 1994, after a couple of years of tweaking my computer system, I finally had a stable system that was reliable and friendly. We got along just fine but it took a year to tame it. Now I have had to get out the whip once again to tame my new 32 bit setup. But I am fading quickly after realising that I am spending more time configuring and updating my hardware and software then I am using it for work. I sometimes wonder exactly when I lost control. Thank goodness I have 3400 people to provide support who understand my turmoil. Then again perhaps the pressure of deadlines has finally driven me over the edge.
Those of you who love to hate Windows 95 will get a chuckle out of my attempt to set up a system in our training room to match my setup at home. While attempting to duplicate the fonts I use at home I decided to simply load all the fonts from a Corel CD so I couldn't possibly be missing any. Little did I know that Corel had changed the names of their fonts between versions and that there were over 1,000 fonts on the disk! So in a fit of 'Press Enter to Continue's I missed the warning not to install over 500 fonts or the maximum file size of the Win95 registry might be exceeded. Well, it was a sad sight to behold as that poor computer began to choke while attempting to digest the mass of fonts being thrown at it. Finally it rolled over, kicked up its little feet and with a gasp, presented a screen that did not bear much of a resemblance to the normal startup screen, not to mention that the applications didn't work quite the same. Dead of a font overdose. How sad.
So here we are, one great big happy family helping each other out in times of need. And Sixteen Bits is right there in the thick of it. This month there is a wide variety of articles and information from the members and I am positive that there is something for everybody.
The feedback from last month was the most we have ever received however, it was overwhelmingly negative so let's just leave things with an understanding that styles vary and this month the graphics will happily co-exist with the text. Grab a cuppa and enjoy.
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