NYCDAUG 1998 Meeting Minutes & Reviews

NYCNUG/NYCDAUG Meeting Minutes for November 19, 1998

The President, Peter M. Fine started the meeting with several notices to the members present: 1) Once we have the graphics created, we will update our web site with our new name, NYCDAUG, which stands for New York City Digital Assistant Users' Group. 2) Membership is still $15 a year and should be given to our treasurer, Howard Katz.

Questions at the meeting dealt with the PDA that Apple will create to take the place of the Newton, speed issues with the 2100, incorporating pictures in HTML format on the newton and places where memory cards for the Newton can be purchased.

Several members provided software demonstrations for this meeting. Alan Drogin showed us how anyone can write programs using Newton Tool kit or NTK. Loren Finkelstein showed us Smalltalk from Concept Kitchen which uses the Newton as a translator between 2 parties. Brian Smolarz showed us Dashboard by Five Speed Software and Alarm Clock by Foundation Systems.

Raffle winners for this month were Steven Keltner and Brian Smolarz who one AMUG's Totally Incomplete CD ROM collection of Newton software numbers 11 and 12 respectively.

NYCNUG/NYCDAUG Meeting Minutes for July 2, 1998

This month the meeting was held at the home of NYMUG, the New York Macintosh Users' Group and convened by the President, Peter M. Fine who is also NYMUG's Director of Vendor Relations. Meeting began with a reminder that the next meeting will be in September at the usual location.

Inquiry was made about how many members are signed up with our group. Peter replied that there are a total of 90 members, 50 of which have paid their dues for the year.

Peter mentioned a new package created for the Newton called Dashboard by Five Speed Software and pointed out that it is very good to know that products are still being developed for Newton even though it is no longer being developed by Apple.

In the Q&A portion of the meeting, some of the members talked about problems with Unlimited Folders by Standalone and another member was looking for a rechargeable battery pack for the MP130 as well as problems that are encountered when using large storage PCMCIA cards.

kenn lowy demoed version 2.0 of Notion by PelicanWare (use to be handled by Eidetic) which is a list manager which comes with several templates and allows you to customize your own list. In passing, he showed us a package called Geek Safe by Newtopia which stores passwords that you use under one password. The package did not allow him to show it off without showing the passwords so we didn't get the full tour of the package. He also showed us Deep Green which has been updated.

This months raffle winner was Eric Schneck who won a rechargeable battery pack for the Newton 2000.

NYCNUG/NYCDAUG Meeting Minutes for June 11, 1998

Meeting began with a notice that next month's meeting will take place at NYMUG's office which is at 873 Broadway. We were also without our projection device this month so demo's were limited to verbal descriptions.

Our new name NYCDAUG is still in the works as far as changing the name from NYCNUG and when it is official, you will see the changeover on our web site.

True North is the latest company to give NYCNUG members a discount on their Newton software. Details will be posted on the web site. The President, Peter M. Fine, is in the process of acquiring a number of AMUG CD's for inclusion in our monthly raffle.

Q&A this month dealt with support for the Newton since its demise and a situation that occurred with some Newtons where if you go into the To Do section under dates, the reminder only has "None" and nothing else is available.

Peter suggested that a meeting should be devoted to programming for Newton. kenn lowy, vice president of the club, said that he may hold a programming session for the September meeting.

Other items mentioned were as follows: a system patch was available from Newton Underground which eliminates the 10061 error message on the messagepad 2100's. Loren Finkelstein showed off his StarTac cellular phone and showed how he can use it in conjunction with his Newton to connect to his ISP or to place a call.

Only one item was raffled off this month and Paul was the lucky person who won Lunar Lander Pro by Landware.

NYCNUG Meeting Minutes for May 7, 1998

"NYCDAUG" NAME ADDITION: This month's meeting began with a request by President, Peter M. Fine, once again asking and inviting anyone who is interested in the job to help create the new logo for the group which will reflect our new name and direction NYCDAUG (New York City Digital Assistant Users' Group) although there is no intention of giving up NYCNUG and the Newton ties in brings. He simply wants to make sure we are positioned for the new Apple PDA when introduced in 1999. This name change issue was first discussed months ago but Peter feels it is important to now move agressively in this direction. No objections were heard.

Peter stated that Apple will not be able to host our meetings in July and August. A show of hands indicated that the majority of people were interested in having a meeting in July but not in August. Peter urged that if anyone knows of alternative places to hold our meetings to let him know. Pending the ability to find a suitable location, we will decide if any meetings can be held during those two months. He is also making arrangements to purchase some of the AMUG Newton CD's at a discounted rate for use in our monthly raffles.

A motion was put on the floor for discussion and vote: That all members that hold office be exempt from paying dues during their term. He mentioned that this is something that is done with NYMUG and that it was a proper gesture in light of the work that the Officers put in to making the organization run. As dues are only $15.00, it was obviously not for monetary reasons. Motion was voted on and passed by the members present.

Many items were demonstrated at this meeting. Peter M. Fine showed NYC Cross Street Finder by True North to be released soon. Treasurer Howard Katz demoed two games: Jig by Double Click and nBattleship by Foundation Systems.

He also did a little bit of review on Backdrop+ by StandAlone. Peter got back up and showed off Convert It by Clinton Logan of Landware which is a free program similar to the built in formulas pkg on Newton but more elaborate. Joe demoed a program called ScratchPad that simulates scratching noises used in urban and hip-hop music. (Link goes to AMUG and then do a search for it)

In addition, as we are also eager to see what else is out there, Alan Drogin demonstrated Phillips Velo PDA which runs Windows CE.

Winners of this month's raffle were Chris Pepper (TimeTrax) and yours truly (Write Stuff by Landware).

NYCNUG Meeting Minutes for April 9, 1998

The meeting started off with the finalized plan to change the group's main name to NYCDAUG (New York City Digital Assistant Users' Group). The old name will still be referenced and tied into the new group's name so the Newton identity will not be lost but this new name will reflect the desire to broaden our scope and allow for future changes in PDA from Apple and other companies. A request was also made by President, Peter M. Fine, for someone to create the group's new logo to reflect its new name which will be rolled out soon.

The group's web site has changed physically due to a new ISP but the URL remains the same for the most part. The only minor change is that you have to include a "/" at the end of the URL. So it is now http://www.finepeter.com/nycnug/

One of our members gave us information about a company that informed him that they have additional Barrier screen protectors that are being sold for $25.

Raul briefed us on an article in the Wall Street Journal discussing the new Crosspad by A.T. Cross company which is selling for roughly $399 and he covered both the good and the bad points of the unit.

There were many products demonstrated at this meeting. Loren fully demoed TimeTrax by "Config Informationstechnik eG or "Config eG" for short which is an alternative for the dates portion of the Newton. He also demoed a freeware chess game called DeepGreen by Joachim Bondo and revisited Xword Buddy by Tactile Systems. Xavier demoed several packages including Biorhythm, Othello, Llamados (creates a DOS environment on your Newton), a Street Finder, One Tap Scroll (allows you to scroll from one note directly to the next regardless of the note length, One Tap TWT (The Whole Text) which allows you to highlight the entire note with one tap (both by Deepfocus Designs) and Styles+ by Adam Tow.

This month, our raffle winner was Steve. He picked up Landware's Merlin Word Sleuth.

NYCNUG Meeting Minutes for March 12, 1998

Meeting began with President, Peter M. Fine, stating that since Apple is stopping development of Newton OS, our group should reposition into a broader "Digital Assistant's Users Group" and be more open to other platforms and future Apple developments. Talk continued around the possibility of working with other PDA user groups like Palm Pilot and a change was in the works.

Ken Landau and Clint Logan of Landware was in attendance and stated that their company will continue to support the Newton and that their discussions with other developers indicated that many will continue to support it as well.

Jay, who helped run the Newton Source store on West 58th Street stated that they will be closing their store on March 13 and had no plans to reopen as something else. This follows the closing of other Newton Source stores across the country.

Loren Finklestein mentioned that Adam Tow of Foundation Systems has released several freeware packages for Newton including "nBattleship" which can be played via the IRDA feature of the Newton.

Dick Swarn showed off The Handstand by PDA Concepts which can hold the keyboard along with the Newton in the same case. Michael S. showed off a phone line tester which indicates if the telephone line is analog or digital thus helping to protect your modem from damage.

Raffle winners for this evening were Michael Stone winning NewtPaint and West Nelson winning Photoshow. Both products were provided by Landware.

NYCNUG Meeting Minutes for February 19, 1998

The meeting began with our Q&A session which focused mostly on the rumor that Apple was planning to change the operating system of the eMate to a Macintosh based. Some of the members argued that making such a change would negatively alter the way that the users interacts with the device. Others said that if it can do the same thing regardless of the OS used, then it would not matter. Both camps agreed that it would be advantageous for Apple to have all their devices under one OS similar to Microsoft's Windows 95, NT and CE.

It was also mentioned that once a change in the OS is made that the availability of software for it will drop greatly as developers wrestle with the new language and/or its restrictions on the PDA. Other items that were mentioned dealt with vertical market penetration, synchronization between PDA and the desktop and a suggestion by NYCNUG Vice President kenn lowy to let Apple know how well its PDA's are doing by having its users sending email on how they are using their Newton/eMate.

NYCNUG's annual elections were held for the offices of President, Vice Pesident, Treasurer and Secretary. Current officers are Peter M. Fine, kenn lowy, Howard Katz and Carl F. Williams respectively. All current officers ran unopposed and were relected for another term. It was agreed on by the members present that the office of Newsletter Editor, which was held by Skip Williams, was not needed. Skip had resigned earlier this month. The president mentioned that if anyone wanted to be responsible for a web based Newsletter or if they wanted to contribute an article to be posted on the web site to let Peter know by email.

This month, most of the demonstrations came from Loren Finkelstein. He showed Time Trax by Config Informationstechnik eG (Config eG for short), Bug Trap by Tactile Systems, Talking Agenda found at Newton Underground that uses Newton Macintalk and Travel Alarm by Fistful of Newton Software.

Another member, Marlon stepped up to show off Simple Mail for the Newton 130 Messagepad. Newtcase 3.1 by Pelicanware was raffled off and was won by West Nelson.