NOVEMBER 1998 - MONTH IN VIEW:
November was a busy month for SWAG, what with news from the Computer98 Show
in Cologne announcing that the new OS partner for Amiga Tech is to be QNX
(pronounced Q-nix). This is obviously exciting news, but even more so when
the list got hold of their copies of a demo OS that QNX have put together
for use with the PC.
The other news is that next month see's the next addition of the SWAG newsletter, so if you've got ANY material you think would be of interest or use to the rest of the subscribers, please get in touch with Andy Mills (swag@wharne.demon.co.uk) and let him know what you're thinking of doing. The SWAG Newsletters have always been very slim in the past, but even if a few of us muck-in, we can at least get the newsletter ball rolling.
NEW OPERATING SYSTEM:
SWAG mailing list maintainer - Andy Mills announces that "recent Amiga OS
`partner` QNX have managed to compress an (maybe basic due to size
limitations) OS, TCP/IP stack, web browser, web server, 3D demo and simple
game all on one 1.44mb floppy!!! And it all runs off this floppy, you do not
need a hard drive to use it".
A number of PC owning list subscribers got hold of copies of this QNX pack and the general view of the list was that this was an impressive piece of software indeed. Basically, you download the zip from the QNX website, unzip the file to your PC's hard-drive, format a floppy disk, run the *.bat file which copies the OS etc to diskette and then reboot your computer with the disk in the drive and after 30 seconds or so you're face to face with a new operating system!
If you'd like to try the OS out for yourself and you have a PC, connect to: http://www.qnx.com and download that file.
SWAG LIST STATISTICS:
November was what some may call a small landmark in the history of SWAG as
we passed our two hundredth e-mail posted to the list!
At the time of writing, the list has been up and running a total of 93 days and we now number a healthy 25 subscribers! Average postings are a mere two per day at the moment, but whilst we don't have the quantity, the quality of the majority of mails is very high - keep it up.
Here's to the next 25 subscribers!
EYETECH MAKE OFFER TO AMIGA CLUBS:
Towards the end of the month veteran Amiga supplier `Eyetech` contacted Andy
offering SWAG subscribers with a trade discount.
At present Andy has yet to decide if SWAG is going to be able to take Eyetech up on their offer as it will require some work from us, the subscribers, and of course, Andy!
The main requirements to apply are...
1) Only one person in the club can order.
2) a minimum order of £50
3) at least 5 members (i think we have no problems here ;))
4) Apart from the fact that we have to be more or less self sufficient in
the support area. Someone has to be responsible for putting (written)
questions to Eyetech - and these questions can only be asked the once,
they expect you to keep the "answers" on file...
SWAG also needs a club Secretary and a Treasurer, also we have to supply them with the names and addresses of 5 members and/or club officers, a copy of the club rules/constitution, etc. And the names and addresses of the club officers who are to be the "Eyetech Amiga Club Privilege Trade Account" purchase & technical contacts.
If any of you are interested in getting this off the ground, please e-mail Andy Mills at: swag@wharne.demon.co.uk
FREESERVE
I'm sure you can't have failed to notice that back in September, high
street store giant - Dixons set up a `free to join` internet service
provider. To join up is simplicity itself, just walk into any branch of
Dixons, pick up the FREE Freeserve CD, walk out, install the software on
your machine and you now have the option of infinite e-mail addresses and a
nice chunk of web space for NOTHING!!
Yes, there is a catch but I won't go into them here, but up until now you needed a PC to take Dixons up on their offer. Well, not any longer as Andy Mills has set everything up so even us Amiga owners can now join up and enjoy being subscribed to a free ISP. Just pop along to http://www.wharne.u-net.com/free/ and all the instructions you should need are there. It's a very basic design, but most things are there that you may need. If you have any comments or extra info, please contact Andy (swag@wharne.demon.co.uk).
DECEMBER 1998 - MONTH IN VIEW:
At the time of writing (14th December), things seems to have gone a little
quieter on the list over the past couple of weeks - not really surprising
when the majority of subscribers are busy spending their hard earned cash on
presents for friends and relatives. Oh, and as someone pointed out, the
phone bills recently came through!!
SIM CITY 2000, CAPS-LOCK AND THE TROJAN DATATYPE:
Brian Palmer (BAP) seemed to be encountering problems with the screen
resolution in Sim City 2000 as well as problems with the CAPS-LOCK key.
Well, that's what he said, personally I think it's just his excuse for a
nice long shout ;-)
Brian also stayed on-line long enough to warn us in a not too subtle way, "Heard about the Trojan Virus" he asked, quite aware that we probably didn't know what he was talking about and at that moment in time the entire contents of our hard drives were going up the swanny. After some persuasion we did get BAP to spill the beans. Apparently the virus was hidden in an Amiga datatype and when you log on it automatically sends your password details off to hackers (don't ask me how!). Luckily, I think everyone who was at risk has now sorted out the problem!
SWAG NEWSLETTER - HOW YOU CAN HELP:
Well, if you're reading this then I suppose my various bits of waffle
managed to make it into the SWAG newsletter. If you've also sent articles in
to Andy and have found that they've appeared in this issue then a big thanks
for your support. We could always do with more articles in the form of news
, reviews, rumours, stories, competitions and anything else Amiga related
you can think of. It doesn't have to be pages and pages of text, just
something that the rest of the group might find interesting.
As usual, please send all articles and contributions to Andy Mills at: swag@wharne.demon.co.uk .
Remember, it's your group so give it some support!
Cheers,
Robert Hazelby (robert@jabba.demon.co.uk)