Known Users


Known Users

Notes from the Server



Author: Stephen Kayner, SMUGgler's Administrator
Date: April, 1994
Keywords: BBS update bureaucracy crash
Text: "A Mac without a modem is like a Ferrari without a Freeway." This month's crash announcement is sponsored by the Aetna Insurance Group. Seriously, we did have another crash this month, and lost two days worth of files and messages. This one was also related to a corrupted directory. I tried to install a new 1GB hard drive Saturday, but was thwarted by a lack of terminating resistor packs. This was due to poor quality control on the part of Micropolis. The drive electronics were also badly patched, indicating a beta version of the new 4110 drive. Hopefully, by the time you read this, I will have yet another new drive installed. I have also changed the way the optimizing software runs, in the hope of averting another crash. A few days ago Kevin Savetz gave me the new 2.5 version of SoftArc's FirstClass, the software that runs our SMUGgler's BBS, but I haven't taken the time to switch our system over yet. I want to thoroughly read all the documentation first. I hope to have us on the new system within two weeks. As soon as I get version 2.5 in place, I will distribute the 2.5 Mac client. The new Window's client won't be released until the end of April, according to SoftArc. The new version offers a large number of improvements, but I don't know how many of those will benefit individual users. Most companies would have charged more than $100 for the new version. SoftArc has made it available to registered users of previous versions for free. The only hitch was you had to download it from their BBS in Canada, a long download at long distance rates. Kevin has eliminated that hurdle for us. Thanks! It was yet another busy month on SMUGgler's BBS. We are averaging more than 150 logins per day, and reached peaks of over 175 several times. We gained more than 20 SMUG members last month, and as of this writing, there are 178 of us. Over 90% of SMUG members have registered as users of SMUGgler's. If you are not using the SMUGgler's BBS, you're not getting all that you could from your membership. We now have fax/modems* to loan under our Telecommunications Outreach Program, and will help members with installation and setup if desired. I have installed the latest version of BBS in a Box, Volume XI, which is the Mac files CD-ROM from the Arizona Macintosh Users Group. The new version contains over 20,000 files compressed in the Stuffit format, which saved around 10MB of space. Versions VIII, and X are now available for sale for $15 and $20, respectively, which will help defray the cost of the new one. The New Lines Fund did very well last month, thanks to the generosity of 24 SMUG members. There is now $690 available for the addition of two more phone lines, modems, serial ports, and a license upgrade. I hope to receive two more commitments of $50 each, and that will take us to $790. We are very close to achieving our goal of $1000. If you would like to help us add two more lines to SMUGgler's BBS, contributions can be mailed to: SMUG - New Lines P.O. Box 4715 Arcata, CA 95521 Be sure to mark your donations ''New Lines'', so I can keep them separate from the SMUG general fund. If we have not achieved our goal by June 1st, I will be returning all donations, unless I am directed to do otherwise by the donors. We are still mailing far too many hardcopy newsletters to our members. If you haven't downloaded the Acrobat software, and tried the online version of Known Users, we urge you to do so. If you are willing to receive your copy online rather than in hardcopy form via US Mail, you can help us cut costs, and allow us to use SMUG funds for more productive purposes. You can also help reduce the amount of copying, collating, folding, stapling and stamping that we have to do each month. With more than 150 newsletters to be mailed each month, this is no longer a trivial task. And while I'm whining about it, is there anyone who'd like to help us with these mailing tasks next month? I'm sure there's more, but that's it from the server for this month. I've got a product review to write, and miles to go before I sleep... *These are 2400 bps modems with v.42bis compression, and v.42 error correction. They can send faxes at 9600 bps, and receive at 4800 bps. The price for members who'd like to keep the modems after the loan period of two weeks, will be $50. Since these are DOS packages, we cannot supply the fax software. Modem software is available on SMUGgler's BBS. The FirstClass client software is, as always, free from SMUG.

Copyright © april, 1994 by Stephen Kayner, SMUGgler's Administrator


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