SLO BYTES PC USER'S GROUP NEWSLETTER - September, 1989 What's New I'll have to admit, it's a little difficult getting started on the newsletter this month. Last month was the first time in 52 consecutive issues that I didn't have to worry about a newsletter deadline. Even though as Editor I feel responsible for getting this thing out every month before the next meeting, a month off can do wonders for one's attitude. A big "Thank You" to Mr. Dependable, George Campbell for giving me that month I needed. And what a newsletter he put out! At first I said, "This isn't the stuff I gave him to include in the newsletter. Who's this Dr. Demento?" Then a light bulb went off in my demented mind and I figured it out! My only complaint was the amount of "shine" George put on my forehead. I really thought I had more up there covering my scalp. A little less contrast next time George or you'll be surprised what I can do with your beard in Ventura Publisher. Now to more serious business. We had a well attended meeting on September 3rd with close to 100 in attendance. At the early meeting there was a demonstration of 2 computer products. First I took a few minutes to show the group a unique and useful piece of software called SmartNotes by Personics. (See accompanying review in this issue). Shortly thereafter, Dan Durbin, a Cal Poly Graduate in electronics presented DigiPhone, a telephone answering machine run through your computer. He developed this for his Senior Project and is currently marketing it. DigiPhone consists of a board you place in your computer, and accompanying software. Although the main disadvantage is that you must keep your computer on to run the "phone", it has many unique features. You speak through a microphone while the computer digitized your voice and saves it to a file for later use. These files become your outgoing messages which may change during preset times during the day. Incoming messages are also digitized and stored for later playback. The voices are remarkably clear and recognizable as that from a specific individual. The software is menu driven for easy access to its many features. If you are interested in this product you may contact Dan Durbin at (805)544-7414. After a short break and business meeting, Richard Katz, Editor of UCLA PC User Groups newsletter, Ctrl-Alt-Del, gave a lively demonstration on Quicken 3. This is a software package produced by Intuit and one of the top sellers in the personal checkbook - accounting software category. No it is not a full blown accounting package, nor does it have the depth of a program like Peachtree, but then it lists for only $59.95. Because of its ease of use Quicken has become very popular with both the professional and computer hobbyist. InfoWorld has rated it even with DacEasy, its counterpart in the same price range. Report writing appears to be Quicken's weak point. Both InfoWorld (9/11/89) and our recipients of last months' drawing, found report formats to be lacking in many aspects. But then, this is a small deficiency outweighed by Quicken's many other excellent features. Our many thanks to Richard for spending the day with us and presenting Quicken. As a sidenote, Richard works for Intuit as a representative between the company and user groups. I feel they have chosen an excellent representative for their product. Due to a misunderstanding, the copies of Quicken 3 which were to be present for your purchase at the meeting never appeared. Lynne Boisen from Fisbosa will will have 10 copies available at the next meeting. The cost will be discounted to $40 + tax. If you can't wait till then, drop by the store and tell her you're a SLO Bytes member and wish to buy a copy at this special price. Our next meeting is one you won't want to miss! Dave Farlow, Vice President of Communications from Prime Solutions will demonstrate Disk Technician Advanced. He will be accompanied by other representatives of Prime Solutions including the President of the company. Two months ago I wrote a review of Disk Technician Advanced. I expounded on the amazing things this product did for one of our failing (ie DEAD) bulletin board hard disks. After trying another piece of very popular "disk doctor" software which said "junk the hard disk", our SYSOP, George Campbell had decided to make a clock out of it and give it away at the December meeting. The hard disk was already out of the bulletin board computer and sitting in one of the many corners of George's computer room. I was happy to report in my review article this disk is alive and well after using Disk Technician on it. Now we'll get a chance to hear authors of this fine product and see their latest upgrade, Version 6. Come see how to keep your hard disk "in tune" and save yourself the grief of a "crashed" hard disk. There will be a drawing at the end of the meeting for those members in attendance as well as discount coupons for the purchase of either Disk Technician Advanced or the Professional version. HiCard By Mark Heyman Hicard is a software product that remaps memory in PC's, 286 and 386 machines using any operating system including DOS 4.01. After loading and reconfiguring my CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files, CHKDSK indicated a memory size of 660K. That's after loading 100K of device drivers, buffers, files, stacks and fastopen files into that nebulous memory space between 640K and 1 megabyte. The program attempts to reconfigure your AUTOEXEC.BAT file, but has trouble for some reason. Back up your original AUTOEXEC.BAT file before installing this program. The nice attribute about this programs needn't talk to extended or expanded memory or know about LIMS. The extra memory is available for anything. Source: RYBS Electronics 2590 Central Avenue Boulder, CO. 80301 (303)444-6073 $175.00 SmartNotes By Bob Ward I thought I had them all - SideKick, PC Tools, Norton Utilities... Things to make extended descriptions of cryptic directory filenames, pop-up notepads from SideKick, and handy editors from PC Tools. Then I received an evaluation copy of SmartNotes from Personics. Remember the last time you were in a wordprocessor and needed to jot a note to be used in a later revision on a letter? How about that change you forgot while in your favorite database? Grab a piece of paper, if you can find one, the back of a floppy disk sleeve, or in desperation the palm of your hand. Forget it, the kids stole all the writing implements. Well, after the confetti-like pile of important notes covers your computer, discard them all and start over again. You forgot what all those notes were about anyway. My monitor is framed in yellow little Post-itTM notes. It doesn't really help though as I can't remember why I wrote them to begin with. SmartNotes has the perfect solution - put the Post-itTM notes in the computer, not on it! Here's a RAM resident program that takes about 85K of memory and places a note in virtually any application in which you may be working, with the exception of graphic files or memory hogs. Run it from a floppy or your hard disk, your choice. Hit Ctrl-F6 and up comes the SmartNote options menu. F1 for help; we can always use that. F2 makes a note. F6 lists the program defaults. F10 selects a SmartNote file and ESC exits you back to your application. You can select from 3 different note sizes: one liners which are great for file directories, five liners, the most popular size for most people, and 10 liners if you are long winded and must go into detail. Let's say you're writing a letter to Uncle George reminding him to place your name in his Will. Place the cursor anywhere on the screen, click on SmartNotes and the note you create attaches itself to the context string of alpha-numerics to the left of the note. The note, and string it is attached to, is saved to a special SmartNotes' file within the same subdirectory. Several notes can be saved to the same file. Now when you review the letter to Uncle George, SmartNotes first scans the letter appearing on the computer screen trying to make a match with any string in the note file. When a match is found, up pops the note exactly where you created it several year's ago when Uncle was younger and healthier. Now you ask, does the SmartNote print along with the letter to Uncle George? You wouldn't want him to see the real reason for your sweet letter. The answer is NO. If you print through your regular print utility, the note remains hidden only to be seen by Inspector Clouseau during the investigation or your uncle's unexpected demise. A SmartNote may be deleted, moved on the screen, attached to a different string, painted various colors, and printed with accompanying context strings in a SmartNote report format. Don't worry if SmartNote hot keys conflict with your application. They may be reconfigured with a couple key strokes. Improvements Personics has just about thought of everything. I ran this program on an IBM-AT at 8 Mhz. I noted a small slowdown in screen writes which is expected. On a 286/16 or 386/20 you probably couldn't tell the difference. The 85K worries me a little. It would be nice if Personics could put SmartNotes out of the way in expanded memory. Other than that, it's difficult to find fault with such a unique and handy program. Off come the Post-itTM notes, away with the pens and pencils (the kids have them anyway), to the trash with the paper confetti. Ahhh, yes, there is a desk under that computer thanks to Personics. PERSONICS 63 Great Road Maynard, MD 01754 $79.95 + $3.75 shipping CALENDAR October 1st Dave Farlow from Prime solutions will demonstrate Disk Technician Advanced. November 5th Video demos of several popular computer programs December 3rd Fun with SLO Bytes. Refreshments, door prizes and a brief demonstration of the most popular Shareware programs. Don't miss this one. Here is an accounting of last months receipts: TREASURER'S REPORT Beginning Balance: $1422.28 Expenses: $ 107.50 Income: $ 419.00 ======= Balance $1733.78 NEW MEMBERS Welcome to the following individuals who joined our club during the month of September: Barbara Adams 772-5954 John Danyi 489-5367 Nancy Davis 528-3181 William Griffiths 528-1510 John Kellner 528-8944 W.M. Knipe 528-0641 Dick Reynolds 927-5905 Sig Wedeking 239-7674 Oops! Now if you really wan't to remain an upstanding member of SLO Bytes please send your renewal check for $18 to either Bob Ward or Teri Sorgatz before the next meeting. Your membership expired in August. Paul Bolstad Nancy Davis Anna Glimski Marcia Kinneavy Ginny Monteen Wil Neubert Mary Silver Bruce Turner J.R. Witthar Bits 'n Bytes *** Look for the discount sheets on computer equipment at the meeting. Ven-Tel used external 2400 bps modems, $50.00 etc. Call John Goldman from JV Associates at 595-7661 for more information. *** A new Bulletin Board in town. The Nicken Graphic Board. 528-0194. 2400,8,N,1. *** I am looking for a volunteer to transport our guest speakers between San Luis Airport and campus and then back to the airport after their demonstration. We will need a car or van which will hold 5 adults which includes you, the driver. They will be arriving in a private plane between 12 noon and 2pm and will leave at the end of the meeting. Please call me @ 528-0121 evenings if you can help. I will be more specific with their arrival time later this week. *** Pick up your copy of Vulcan's Computer Buyer's Guide at the meeting. I received a large box full last week. *** George is putting the finishing touches on the 1990 edition of SLO Bytes' New User Guide. Only new members will receive this guide, although it available to all on disk. *** We are constantly looking for individuals to write articles for our newsletter. If I can't get volunteers I might ask you personally to write us an article. EVERYONE has something to contribute! For instance, I would like to see an article on the "Frustrations of a New Computer User" or how about an article on your "Dream Machine". I'd much rather have our newsletter filled with articles from our own members than have to use articles from other user group newsletters. GB-STAT by Rosemary Bowker GB-STAT is billed as "user-friendly computer aided statistics with integrated graphics." Priced at $299, it includes the more commonly used statistical procedures. Sample data sets are provided to accompany the tutorial styled manual. New user-friendly it definitely is not. Beginning with installation, and going on to the use of the various program options, the manual proves less than informative. While the tutorial approach of the manual leads the user step by step through some of the statistical and graphical options, it does not make a good reference when attempting to trouble shoot or to determine what options are available, or would be the most appropriate, for a particular situation. The program includes a data editor that allows the user to enter data from the keyboard or from ASCII or Lotus 1-2-3 data files. However, the manual does not explicitly discuss how the user should enter data into the rows (representing cases) and columns (variables) of the data table for use with specific statistical or graphical options. GB-STAT does not allow the use of alpha-numeric data. Numbers such as "1" and "2" must be used for categorical data instead of more meaningful labels such as "M" or "F" for sex of an individual. Categorical variables are necessary to identify groups for t-tests, analysis of variance, etc. A set-up procedure is included to "customize" the software for specific monitors and printers. Use of a monochrome monitor with a Hercules graphics card on an IBM PC-XT with an Epson 286 printer presented no problem. However, a second machine with a CGA monitor and Hercules color graphics card locked up every time graphics options were selected. The specific monitor/graphics card in use were not among the rather limited selection of display devices supported. Upon startup, GB-STAT requires the user to indicate the number of data matrix columns (variables) that will be required. If all data is for a single variable, GB-STAT will allow entry of data for up to 16384 cases. However, by the time the user indicates that data will be entered for just 10 different variables per case, the number of cases drops to 1638. For the maximum of 100 different variables, only 81 cases are allowed. While billed as a teaching tool, GB-STAT would not allow an instructor to take advantage of large "real- world" databases. Researchers dealing with survey or population databases would find GB-STAT too limited to be useful. While there are several different options for display of the data, the user must run a batch file to select either analytical or presentation style graphics prior to accessing the main application program. The user must exit the program in order to change the type of graphics selected for use. GB-STAT is pricey for what the user gets. Student versions of the commercial MINITAB, MSP, and SPSS software packages are much more reasonably priced (less than $50) and provide as much analytical capability but with much better documentation and on-line help. Persons finding these limiting would not gain by use of GB-STAT. Rosemary Bowker is a computer programmer for the Biology Department at Cal Poly University. Her expertise include dBASE and statistical programming on both the IBM and Macintosh. Library News Here is what we have added to the library for the month of September, 1989: #345 Graphics: SCIENCE1 & 2 + MISPICS1.ZIP are more pictures for PrintMaster, about 200 total. Convert them to PrintShop graphics with PM-PS found on #239. Also on this disk find several GIF graphic files for EGA and VGA monitors. Use VUGIF150 on #338 to view GIF graphics #346 Managing Your Food ver 2.20. Here's a recipe database you all you chefs. Estimate the cost of your creation, make a shopping list, and more. #347 Kids Educational Games... ages 3 on up. Fun With Letters and Numbers & Play and Learn. These programs require CGA or better. #348 Graphics: MOLECULE & CHEMVIEW are 2 programs for the chemists. Check molecular configurations, rotations, etc. BUGFRY - If you have and EGA monitor watch the bugs get zapped. Mesmerize yourself with EGAKAL or TUNNEL. Two good programs for EGA & VGA monitors respectively. CLPGIF - manipulate those GIF files. TGIF - displays .GIF files on plasma or monochrome screen. GETART displays PrintMaster graphics on screen without going into the program. Updates #342 MICROTXT now supports Epson LQ printers #203 IMAGEPRINT version 3.0 with major enhancements Demos #129 A&B Mean Streets by ACCESS software. Runs slow but produces unbelievable music and sounds! LUBRICATION IN COMPUTERS J. Keith Phipps (Palm Beach User's Group, February 1989) Here are a few maintenance tips that you can use to make your computer last much longer than it was designed to do. First, at least quarterly, you should open the case on your machine and clean out any and all dust using a large, soft watercolor brush. While you are at it, you should visually inspect all chips and connectors. After you complete the preliminaries, you are ready to get down to the serious matter of what types of lubrication your machine and its parts need. The type of lubrication a part receives is extremely dependent upon what sort of material the part is made of, and unfortunately many so-called experts do not have any idea of the fundamentals of proper lubrication, and thus even when the machines are manufactured improper types of lubrication are often used. First, let's consider plastic parts. Many times a light oil or silicone grease are used on these parts, and these types of lubrication are very bad for plastics. Nylon or styrene parts should never be lubricated with anything except powdered graphite. This may not look very pretty but graphite is the very best lubricant for these parts. Seals and gaskets should also be rubbed lightly with a lubricant to keep them supple and to protect them from oxidation. White rubber materials should only be lightly rubbed with refrigerant oil. This type of oil contains no paraffin and thus prolongs the life of these materials. Twenty weight refrigerant oil can usually be purchased at any air conditioning supply store and comes in pint or quart cans. One can lasts a very long time, since you'll only be using drops at a time and since it doesn't contain paraffin the oil will not oxidize or stiffen. Refrigerant oil will also stand up to larger amounts of heat without forming shellac. Black rubber parts should be rubbed with pure silicone. This can be purchased in pint hand pump bottles at any dive shop. Dacor incorporated makes this material. Do not under any circumstances buy either oil or silicone in spray cans which contain propellants. Besides being bad for the upper atmosphere, these propellants cause a catalytic action in oil or silicone which cause it to dry and to absorb moisture which will turn to an acid and cause pitting. Oils which contain paraffin also absorb moisture which turns to acid and causes bad connections and pitting and undue wear. Now let's cover metal parts and bearing surfaces. These types of parts are made from a variety of metals, and each type of metal requires a special lubricant. Use of the improper type of lubricant will cause excessive wear. Bronze and chromium coated bearings and steel parts should receive a liberal coating of a special lubricant you will have to make yourself. This is how it is done: 1. Mix two parts refrigerant oil to two parts liquid silicone and one part powdered graphite in a small container. A small plastic bottle with a pointed spout is ideal. 2. Apply this mixture liberally to the bearings or steel parts. One application is good for the lifetime of the user. This also works in bicycles and major machine parts. Materials that are made of aluminum or pot metals should never receive silicone. You can easily determine these metals because they are very soft and usually very grainy. Silicone will penetrate the grains of such metals and cause severe crumbling. This applies to locks especially, since they are usually made from pot metals on the inside. Pot metals should only be lubricated with refrigerant oil. This should be done at least yearly and more often in high humidity climates. If you follow these lubrication tips faithfully, all moving parts in any machine you encounter will function faithfully for twenty to thirty years or more. Electric motors having oil cups or holes for lubrication should have the oil-silicone-graphite mixture applied liberally. Other parts having no such oil retainers should be lubricated with the proper lubricant and very sparingly. You will find that the procedures I have put forth here will serve you faithfully. They are based upon nearly thirty years of experience. Put away those maintenance manuals, they contain bad information. Try this instead. You'll be glad you did. Fifteen to twenty years from now your machine will still look and work like new when everyone else's will have long since worn out. POWER SUPPLY FAILURES by Dave Schubert Bits & Bytes Newsletter of the South Jersey IBM PCUG February 1989 One of the main "weak links" in your computer system is the power supply. The original IBM-XT systems had only a rated 130 watts. Watts are a unit of measurement that is computed with the following basic electrical formula: P=I*E. This means that the "P" power (measured in watts) is equal to the "I" current (measured in amps) multiplied times the "E" voltage (or EMF, ElectroMotive Force) (measured in volts). Therefore a 130 watt power supply actually offers four voltage levels of output: 130 watt "XT" power supply= +5 volts at 15 amps +12 volts at 4.2 amps -5 volts at 300 milliamps (0.3 amps) -12 volts at 250 milliamps (0.25 amps) As the "load" of the power supply increases with added option boards and added memory chips, the power supplies get pushed closer to its limits. Nowadays, a 200 watt power supply is very common, and there are even some 240 watt power supplies available for "AT" machines. If you are running with 640K of memory and 7 or 8 full slots, you definitely should be worried about your 130 watt power supply. WARNING SIGNS-SHRINKING VIDEO When you access a floppy diskette drive, does the video screen shrink a little bit with each read? If the answer is YES, then you need a bigger power supply (or fewer boards installed). Your current power supply is being pushed to its maximum. If your machine is a couple of years old, then a replacement power supply of the same rating might be satisfactory, but for a few dollars more, you can get a supply that will last far longer. ANOTHER WARNING SIGN-SLOW SPINNING HARD DISK If a newly installed board or internal hard disk drive causes the hard disk to not spin up to full speed (3600 RPM), then it could also be the power supply. Remove 1 or more option boards (with the power off of course!) and try again. If the drive comes up to speed and starts working, BINGO! Your power supply is too weak to handle the load! BUYING A NEW POWER SUPPLY Though IBM would like you to buy their "official" power supply, you can get one exactly the same from any of several places that will be fully compatible. The price savings should make it well worth getting a supply rated at a higher wattage as well. An "XT" system should have at least 180 watts if you have more than 5 boards in it, and an "AT" system should have at least 200 watts if you have more than 5 boards in it. REMEMBER! INTERNAL HARD DISKS RUN OFF THIS SAME POWER SUPPLY. Therefore your 20+ million bytes of data are depending on the same voltage and current that is going to your video board, floppy diskette controller, multi-function board, floppy diskette drive, and internal modem, etc. GET THE BIGGEST SUPPLY AVAILABLE. WHAT'S IN THE FAT by Wayne Mitchell, NIICS Member Reprinted from Harvest, The Journal of the Northern Illinois Computer Society. December/January 1989 "Dad, I've got a challenge for you", the voice on the phone said, "when you're here in Vermont at the end of the week, show me how to use the Norton Utilities. My floppy drive crashed as I was writing a 50,000 character chapter to the disk. It now shows only one byte in the file. What do I do?" Son Donald writes in Vermont where he combines raising a hundred lambs, two children, a cat and instructs in writing at a local college. Conversion to PC writing didn't come easy but eventually his publisher insisted on disk files instead of hard copy to ease the transcription cost. But his three-year old floppy drive failed at a crucial point. We gathered up the PC at the repair shop Saturday noon and had great hopes of solving all the problems with the Utilities which I had never had to use. Discouragement reigned. We could recover a deleted file but that didn't help with the one byte remnant of the lost novel. All the directory data was there in its hexadecimal glory. Experimentation showed which of the eight byte groups held the file name, the date, the time and the file size. But changing the file size didn't affect the file allocation limited to one "cluster" of two sectors or 1024 bytes as a maximum. We learned how to call up the data sector by sector, displaying it on the screen. As a last resort we printed each of the 158 occupied sectors using the Print Screen key. It was safe as hard copy but Don didn't relish what he estimated as a six hour re-typing chore. In the old days re-typing was a routine you just had to do now and then. But with a computer you surely should be able to avoid it. Obviously the trouble was in the File Allocation Table (the FAT table). But Version 3 of the Norton Utilities helped little in advising us what the table contained, how it was organized and how one goes about recreating it. Working without the documentation we were in a fog. One of the screen notes advised to check the documentation for FAT information. But the instruction book was still far away at home. So we acquired Norton Utilities Advanced Edition, Version 4. I read the book while Don drove during the 20 mile home trip hoping to get some clues. Nothing! No diagrams, no tables of FAT displays for floppies or any other disks. A stern admonishment warned not mess with the FAT data if you didn't know what you were doing. Version 4 improved the FAT data display. A table displayed decimal values for each cluster which appeared better than the hex display of Version 3. To bed Saturday night without a solution. What was in the FAT table? Before morning the solution came to me in my half waking thoughts. Of course, on a newly formatted disk, the file write routine assigns numbers in the Fat table sequentially to tell the file read routine where to jump to put the next cluster of data. Thus Cluster 2 jumps to Cluster 3 and Cluster 3 jumps to Cluster 4 until the end of the file occurs. In the last cluster an marker is written to stop the jumping. An ancient disk with many writings and deletions loses this simplicity but the system would still control the process. Assigning the numbers in the FAT table was easy. I just assigned value 3 in Cluster 2 and so on up to Cluster 62 which was still marked with its mark. If I depressed the key, I discovered, an was created for that cluster. Now with all the clusters joined and file size set to some large value, I used 65535 or $FFFF as a hex value, could we print it? Using the TYPE B:filename>PRN everything came rushing out to the printer, albeit with some broken words at the ends of the printer lines, but intact. Luckily the word processor also recognized the file and the havoc created by the file writing failure corrected. Don was happy and impressed. The weekend was a success! How to be a Good Computer Geek By Mark Lautenschiager PC Users Group of Boca Raton By now, I have heard every possible term you could use to describe someone who is very enthusiastic about PCs - from the over-used "hacker" to the elitist "technophile." But nothing even comes close to the term "computer geek." A "geek," you see, is a poor unfortunate creature who has had his brain removed for purposes of laboratory experimentation. And after spending 12 hours working on a problem, only to discover that all this high-tech hardware was crippled by Yours Truly having one DIP switch in the wrong position, I feel like a geek. But being a computer geek carries certain responsibilities. And it's not just important that you are one, it is also important how well you fit the job description. Let's take a short test. When you have a choice between watching a top-shelf sporting event such as the Super Bowl on Television or calling around to catch up on the local bulletin boards, which do you do? (Curious to know my answer? I'd sit in the recliner with the laptop and do both. What if the laptop were broken? Hey, you can tape the Super Bowl.) Would you rather spend a few romantic moments with that "special person" or load up a new copy of Strike Aliens from Deepest Outer Space and "zap away?" (My answer? I'd like to see what she thought about a two-player session of Strike Aliens.) You can see what I'm driving at. Being a computer geek requires an almost slavish devotion. Here are the rules, as I understand them. Rule #1: You must read any magazine with the letters "PC" in its titles. I spend half of my waking hours reading PC Magazine, PC Computing, PC Resource, PC World, and InfoWorld. (InfoWorld??? Oh, it's really "InfoWorld: The Newsweekly for the PC Industry." Subtitles and tag lines count, too.) Rule #2: You must know the location and manager's name for every software store in your immediate vicinity. My wife has discovered that if she wants to get me to the mall, all she has to do is tell me that we can stop at the software store for a while. It's the same principle as parents dropping their kids off in the toy department of Sears while they shop for waterbed sheets. Rule #3: You must describe everyday events in computer terms. Phrases like "Sweetheart, the microwave just locked up," and "Just reboot the car, it'll be all right," should begin to come naturally to you. You will know that you have arrived when you complain about the poor user interface of the average pay phone, however. Rule #4: You must not speak with anyone who is not "thinking about getting a computer." I'm not sure this is something the computer geek is supposed to do, of if this is something caused by the computer geek's aura. But it has been years since anyone I've entered into a conversation with has not said to me, "you know, I've been thinking about getting a computer," when they heard what my job was. I've learned that everyone falls into one of three categories: those who are thinking about getting a computer, those who have a computer, and those who are wondering why in the world they did such a stupid thing. Rule #5: You must become a power user, at least in spirit. What is a power user? A power user is a person who believes that a 25 MHz 80386 machine with a 300 Megabyte ESDI hard disk and 10 Megabytes of RAM is a "nice little computer." A power user is the person who will change word processors and convert dozens of documents just to try a new program, and then happily convert back to the old one when the new one turns out to be a dog. A power user is the person who cranks out love notes in proportional fonts on his laser printer. As you can see, being a power user is typically a very expensive proposition. By definition, whatever is new is expensive, and power users will only settle for the new stuff. But you can be a power user in spirit, if not in fact. Even if your current PC is an XT with a 10 Megabyte hard disk and a monochrome screen, you can still speak of your impending upgrade to a "386" with VGA whenever you're at the local computer club. Remember, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck. Therefore, even if you can't afford to be a power user, talk like one. Rule #6: You must not wear a plastic pocket protector. I don't care what John Dvorak says, computer geeks are not nerds, and plastic pocket protectors are out. Hey John, this is the eighties! It is now very cool to like computers. People with fashionable clothes, with clean hair and no acne sit in front of keyboards all the time. Don't foist your own checkered past on us, John. Rule #7: You must never admit you don't know the answer to a question someone puts to you. This is very important. When it comes to knowledge about computers, you will be the best resource that your friends know. They will ask you all sorts of questions, such as, "Have you ever heard of the KumQuat 286/12?" and "I'm trying to use PC Write to edit this file COMMAND.COM and it doesn't seem to be working. What's wrong?" Never, ever, admit that you don't know the answer. Two principles operate here. First, if you have been following Rule #1, you will have seen the ads for every fly-by-night PC assembler in the nation. If you do not recognize the KumQuat 286/12, that's because they don't have the money to advertise. And any "computer OEM" without the money to advertise is only likely to not have the money for spare parts or continued existence. Feel free to tell the seeker that they should "skip it." Second, even if you don't know how to do something, you can always tell the seeker that what he needs is some utility program he doesn't have. In our example above, I would respond with "Edit COMMAND.COM? Oh, you need the Norton Utilities for that!" See? You haven't admitted that you don't know how to change COMMAND.COM, all you have done is make it clear that he cannot. Rule #8: You must use acronyms wherever possible. Not self-respecting computer geek would ever be caught without a good acronym to confound the uninitiated. Whenever you hear someone bragging about his new computer and how fast its hard disk is, you should be prepared to say something like "Oh, what sort of hard disk is it?" MFM? Well, MFM doesn't really come close to ESDI in transfer rate. At only 5 MHz, it can never really transfer more kbps than ESDI. But if you really want to see neat, check SCSI." Remember, the more acronyms you use, the smarter you will be perceived. Rule #9: You must be willing to accept phone calls from people you hardly know who want to introduce other people who want to ask you questions. It goes like this. Ring.... "Hello, Oh hi, George. Yes, I remember meeting you at Mary's party. How are you? Uh-huh Sure, I don't mind. Hi Dan, what can I do for your? What's the best word processor to buy? Thrown in for free with this rule is that you must be able to explain what it is you do to your mother. A good computer geek will be able to win his or her parents over. Try video games and word processors. Those are usually their weak points. When you get them hooked, sell them on buying a PC for their home. Then you can fearlessly go over for dinner, knowing that when withdrawal pangs strike, a keyboard is close at hand. Rule #10: You must always remember that there is very little in your life more important than spending time at your keyboard honing your computer skills. I have discovered that 9 out of 10 other things you might do can be done while seated at the keyboard, anyway. Just try to avoid dropping pizza sauce into the keys. But seriously, folks, there is a moral to this story. In our computer group, you will meet lots of people who seem to know everything about PCs. Those of us about whom you feel this way are most likely computer geeks, who eat, sleep and breathe computers. Take my case, for instance. I work with PCs all day long. At night, my hobby is working on my PC at home, usually tinkering with Boca Bytes Newsletter (which, depending on the moments, is either my great joy in life or the great thorn in my side). Most of my social life is spent with friends who are either on the same level as I, or at least have the same level of interest as I do. We spend our time talking computers. When my family gets together, Mom will discuss the latest program she's trying to run on her PC, Dad will mention that incredible new high score he got on the family's favorite PC game, and my brother and I will talk shop. (He also works with PCs.) Aside from my grandmother's home, there is no relative I can visit where I could not find a keyboard within a few steps. Do you want to become more comfortable with your PC? It doesn't take a computer geek for that. You can spend a lot of time learning many things about your PC before you become a computer geek. But when you're ready to make that leap, read the rules, count the cost and join those of us who have taken the plunge. Keeping up will make you dizzy from time to time, but there's never a dull moment.