Virtual OS/2
International Consumer Education
June 1997
The News Page
June 25,1997 - Judy McDermott, announced at our general meeting that several members
of VOICE are playing key roles in helping WarpStock become a reality. Judy is the
Volunteer Coordinator for WarpStock. She is responsible for soliciting, scheduling
and assigning volunteers to carry out the various jobs necessary to make WarpStock
'97 a successful event that the OS/2 community will remember. So watch out when
Judy is around or you will find yourself with more chores then you started out with
:-)
David Both, VOICE Vice-President, has volunteered as Exhibit Chairman of the event
and will also be giving several presentations. His duties will include figuring
out everything the exhibitors could possibly want or need and make it available
to them. Like tables and other furniture, floor space, power, phone lines, registration
procedures, etc. ad infinitum et nauseum. So if you attend WarpStock be sure to
keep an eye out for David flying and zooming around the the place trying to make
everyone happy. :)
Seth McFarland, the VOICE webmaster has graciously contributed his multiple html
coding/graphic art rendering talents to the warpstock event. Catch his work at
http://www.os2voice.org and http://www.warpstock.org.
Finally Tom Nadeau, VOICE Marketing Director, is scheduled to give a talk on "selling
OS/2 to Home and SOHO markets" and will be helping David Both do the booth
arrangements for the Warpstock.
For those unfamiliar with WarpStock - this is planned to be "a community event
for the OS/2 users, developers and other support folks out there." It's an
opportunity to get together with other folks who use and enjoy OS/2 and learn more
about how OS/2 works and what applications are available now and in the future.
The dates are October 25-26, 1997 and the place AQMD Headquarters, 21865 E. Copley
Drive, Diamond Bar, CA 91765. For more information on WarpStock surf over to http://www.warpstock.org.
June 21, 1997 - Welcome back to the TeamOS/2 web site. After
having been out of commission for several months, http://www.teamos2.org
is back online under new management. VOICE looks forward to working alongside TeamOS/2
in our common efforts to support and promote our favorite computer operating system
- OS/2 Warp.
June 18, 1997 - VOICE held another Speak Up session this month, with a special guest
appearance by Brad Wardell. Brad was very candid about
Stardocks current offerings and open to suggestions from the crowd. He also
let slip that Stardock will be announcing a new PlusPak game for OS/2 in the next
week or so. No details were given though :-(. Stardock's latest offering, Links/2
was the most widely discussed product at the meeting and a copy of Links for OS/2
was won by Jon Czerwinski ( jonzc ). Brad also stated that a fixkit (#3) will very
shortly be released for Object Desktop and a updated version of PMINews (version
1.01) should be released by tomorrow. For a detailed log of the entire session,
please point your web browser to http://www.os2voice.org/transcripts.html.
June 16, 1997 - Well summer is here in North America. People are spending more time
outside and less time online. To accomodate that trend the VOICE board has decided
to forego the 2nd Saturday monthly meeting and the 4th Wednesday of the month meeting
as well. Starting in July VOICE will only hold meetings on the 1st and 3rd Wednesday
of the month. These will be at the usual times (8PM EDT - 00:00GMT). Feel free to
drop in and join our meetings. For more information on VOICE, WEBBnet and IRC checkout
http://www.os2voice.org
June 4, 1997 - VOICE welcomed William Young of Panacea
Software <http://www.panaceasoft.com> to our first Speak Up session for
this month. Bill is the Project lead for HTML Studio and PRONews/2. Several questions
were asked about HTML Studio's capabilities, but Panacea's newest product PRONews/2
generated the most interest. There were questions about the newsreaders functionality
as well as screen shots of the current closed beta version. This should be in open
beta within the next two weeks. There were three winners of the meeting trivia contest,
each won a copy of HTML Studio. The winners were Marian Aldrich - MHA1, Thomas Gottgens
- caveman99, and Dan Casey - Abraxas. Thanks Bill for being so generous. A detailed
transcipt of the whole discussion (minus the actual trivia contest, since the log
went dead then) see the meeting transcripts on VOICE's home page http://www.os2voice.org/transcripts.html.
May 28, 1997 - At the normal VOICE meeting on WEBBnet a copy of
Innoval System's Solutions 'Post Road Mailer was given away in our trivia contest.
The winner is Don Eitner (UncleGrim). We'd like to thank Innoval for contributing
PRM to VOICE. Now if only we can get Dan Porter as a guest at one of our Speak Up
sessions.
May 23, 1997 - Judy McDermott, VOICE Liaison Officer, was invited to the WarpStock
team meeting last night and asked to *volunteer* (Esther Schindler's favorite word)
as their Volunteer Management person. Judy will work closely with the team in determining
the jobs, required number of people to get the jobs done and then round up (with
extreme prejudice) volunteers needed to make WarpStock a success. The event is scheduled
for the weekend of October. 24, 1997 in southern California. All OS/2 users are
invited to celebrate and learn about our favorite computer operating system. For
more information on WarpStock check out http://www.basin.com/os2/warpstock.html
May 23, 1997 - VOICE is pleased to announce that Brad Wardell from Stardock Systems
will be a guest speaker at our June 18, 1997 meeting. Per Judy McDermott, VOICE
Liaison, "We'll schedule his session from 8-9pm EDT and he will contribute
a registered copy of the new OS/2 golf games Links/2 as a door prize. I believe
he is going to come up with a trivia question to determine who wins." So join
us on WEBBnet and maybe you'll be the lucky soul who wins a copy of what looks like
the next great game for OS/2. As always, for more information on VOICE and our IRC
group meetings, please check out our home page http://www.os2voice.org
May 22, 1997 - Here is a summary of the VOICE Speak Up Meeting from May 21, 1997
as reported by Pankaj Sarin:
At VOICE's May 21 meeting, Robert Mauro, President of Cybercom, talked about AccuCount/2,
a new business management and accounting software suite for OS/2. Cybercom has been
writing custom apps for various PC platforms for about 8 years now, particularly
business apps. Particularly, they have written accounting related software for Marine
Midland Bank, Barnes & Noble, and clients in the printing industry. Therefore,
they thought that an accounting application, which is sorely needed in the OS/2
market, should be their first application. Cybercom is aiming AccuCount/2 at small
as well as large businesses. AccuCount/2 will come with the following modules: G/L,
Inventory, Sales, Contact Manager, Banking, Reports, and Utilities and there will
be a payroll upgrade and multiuser version. The program also takes advantage of
OS/2's multithreading and multiprocessing support for background functions, screen
updating and printing and Cybercom is actively working with the developers of FaxWorks,
PMMail, and MR/2 in order to integrate AccuCount/2 with these programs.
AccuCount/2 will be released for beta testing 3 weeks after the demo; by this time,
a demo should be available at
http://www3.smart.net/~cybercom/Accu.html.
Pricing for AccuCount/2 is as follows: suggested retail pricing is $125, with street
prices expected to be around $99-119. Currently, during the pre-beta period, special
pricing is in effect (visit the Cybercom homepage http://www3.smart.net/~cybercom/
for details).
Some important questions that were asked:
*What about Year2000 issues, and also import data from legacy apps?
All dates are stored in 4 digit year format and will accept dates for any year OS/2
can handle - we have tried 2300+ with no problems.
*Is it a product specific for USA? What does this have more than other packages?
No - except for the language. We have various companies planning on helping us with
translations to other languages. Most of the features just require customization
for other countries (taxes, etc).
What AC/2 has that others dont...Compared to the Win market... faster database handling
(instantaneous transactions with databases over 100MB), multithreading, email, fax
and image support.
*Do you or will you have credit card authorization built-in and, if so, will it
be able to accept data from other sources?
As of right now, no (built in). External apps... yes, we will support them.
*[I] use Simply Accounting now, and [have] Canadian taxes... will AccuCount/2 fill
the gap?
Yes... both GST and PST taxes can easily be handled. We are even considering making
Canadian region and postal info standard as the US info is.
*How hard will it be to get my stuff from Simply into AccuCount/2?
We had an old version of Simply, and it used standard dbf files... if that is the
case still, you should have no problem. The import filters handle any dbf (or txt)
files. Currently, we support txt and dbf formats and are working on finishing QuickBooks
and PeachTree imports as well. Exports are to dbf and txt. MYOB users can do txt
delimited exports that AC/2 can read quite easily.
May 21, 1997 - The voice home page is now active. Our web master Blane Boynton and
our Web committee now undertake the task of updating the pages and making http://www.os2voice.org
a world class source of OS/2 information, tips, and support for our favorite
computer operating system.
May 20, 1997 - VOICE & WarpStock, as reported by Gerry
Ellington.
Allies joined in a mutual cause... VOICE the premier internet organization for OS/2
users and the WarpStock committee are teaming together to bring the WarpStock event
to fruition. WarpStock is progressing rapidly towards the inaugural event in LA
later this fall. This collaboration was brought about when Michael Perry contacted
VOICE board members about the prospects of assistance from VOICE.
VOICE along with representatives from various user groups are currently researching
and organizing the video and audio broadcasting of this event through the internet.
Many methods of achieving optimal results are currently being researched. At this
point no possibility has been discarded. Possible methods include Video capture
and broadcast, Quickcam captures posted to a website, Quickcam's used in conjunction
with Intercomm, as well as other VTC equipment.
May 18,1997 - We will be interviewing one of the VOICE board members in each issue
of the VOICE newsletter. This months interview is with VOICE Liaison officer Judy
McDermott:
VOICE> How long have you used OS/2?
Judy> I've been running OS/2 Warp for about 3 years. I started out with Warp
for windows, on floppy no less. Then went to Warp Fullpack. Experience is the best
teacher, so I made sure I got it on CD. Then had Warp 4.0 preordered and installed
it on September 25, 1996, and I've never looked back. As a matter of fact..looking
forward to the next release of Warp.
VOICE> How do you currently use OS/2?
Judy> Computing is my hobby. I run a http ftp and irc server on my system. I
spend quite a bit of free time maintaining my homepage, browsing the net and responding
to email. When I'm not in VOICE meetings <G> I plan on setting up a LAN in
the near future. Now that will be a challenge!
VOICE> What is your background in computers?
Judy> I have no background in computers. I got my first computer about 6 years
ago and didn't even know how to access the A: drive. How fast we learn. I've since
built my own system from the motherboard up, and also built another box from spare
hardware. I must be doing something right, hubby even trusts me to install hardware
on his machine now.
VOICE> How long have you been running your Judy's
Warped World (http://oeonline.com/~mandie1) site and how did that get started?
Judy> I found that browsing for OS/2 information had added so many bookmarks
that they were getting way out of hand. There were so many useful sites for OS/2
information that I decided that I would dedicate a homepage to OS/2 Warp that would
assist OS/2 users in finding what they needed on one site instead of having to search
for needed information so I created Judy's Warped World about 2 years ago.
VOICE> How did you get involved with VOICE?
Judy> David Both originally came up with the idea of forming an organization
to promote OS/2. A lot of ideas and goals were tossed around in the Promote OS/2
forum, now known as the VOICE forum, at http://www.millennium-technology.com.
I suggested that we have a weekly IRC session so that details could be discussed
in *real time* and that has resulted in our weekly VOICE meetings. Being a home
user of OS/2, I was indeed aware of the major focus being placed on the corporate
market and the individual, SOHO users being left by the wayside. I wanted to be
a part of an organized campaign to promote OS/2.
VOICE> What does a 'Liaison Officer' do?
Judy> I'm responsible for carrying out official correspondence and maintaining
a database of contacts such as user groups, ISV's and IBM contacts. I work closely
with all of the board members to assure that all significant information is communicated
to the appropriate source. and grant interviews with the VOICE Newsletter reporter
<G>
May 13, 1997 - Judy McDermott, VOICE Liaison Officer announces that InnoVal Software
Solutions has graciously contributed a license for their Post Road Mailer which
will be given away as a door prize at the May 28th meeting of VOICE on the WEBBnet
IRC network. The meeting will start at 8PM EDT, (00:00 GMT). For more information
on IRC and WEBBnet please checkout Judy's page http://oeonline.com/~mandie1/voice.htm
May 12, 1997 - Judy McDermott, VOICE Liaison Officer announces that on May 21, 1997
at 8PM EDT, (00:00 GMT), Robert Mauro, President of Cybercom, Inc. will be our special
guest speaker in #voice on WEBBnet in our regular VOICE virtual group meeting on
IRC. Mr. Mauro is one of the key developers of the forth coming AccuCount/2, an
accounting package for OS/2. For more information on IRC and WEBBnet please checkout
Judy's page http://oeonline.com/~mandie1/voice.html
May 7, 1997 - The VOICE Web Site contest has come to a close. The winning entry
was submitted by Blane Boynton. His prize was a copy of Gamma Tech Utilities, provided
by SofTouch Systems, Inc. and a 1 year membership to VOICE. In addition Blane will
take on the responsibility of VOICE Webmaster. Mark Rudy and Dan Lonergan will also
receive 1 year paid memberships for VOICE for their web site entries. We at VOICE
would like to take this opportunity to thank all who submitted entries. Look for
our new Web Site to be operational within the next few weeks. The URL is http://www.os2voice.org
email
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