NYCDAUG/NYCNUG Meeting Minutes-1999

NYCDAUG 1999 Meeting Minutes & Reviews

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by Carl F. Williams, NYCDAUG Scribe & Secretary
(with a little help from his friends

NYCDAUG Meeting Minutes for November 18, 1999

The meeting started off with NYCDAUG President, Peter M. Fine discussing the recent merger with NYPalm, the New York Palm Pilots User Group and then proceeded to introduce the officers of the newly merged users group which will operate as NYCDAUG. Those names are listed on our web site. He also gave us the general agenda for this and future meetings. He stated that the meetings in general will open up with club business, followed by a question and answer session, then demonstrations. Many vendors are now aware of the newly reorganized group and are willing to support us. He asked that all the members participate in the activities of the club and reminded us this is a USERS group.

Eric Schneck demonstrated a wireless modem from Metricom called Ricochet. It is Hayes compatible and can currently go up to 28.8 kbps but in the future this modem will double or triple in speed. Coverage is currently available in Seattle, San Francisco Bay area, Washington DC, half of Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn. Coverage should be expanded to all the major cities by next year.

Jason Perlow, Chairman of NYCDAUG, demonstrated Handspring's Visor PDA and gave us some background information on NYPalm, the Palm Pilot platform in general and Handspring, a new PDA vendor, in particular. There are several items that make Visor different from the Palm Pilot. There are expansion cartridges called SpringBoards that expand Visors capabilities depending on the cartridge you use. There is an eight megabyte flash memory card that can be used to backup Visor when you're away from a computer. It comes in five different colors and uses a USB port instead of a serial port to transfer information to and from your computer.

He also demonstrated a very new, Personal Navigation Assistant called Route Finder by Daiwu. This assistant will talk you through getting through your destination, and uses an eighty five megabyte card that includes the maps for the New York metropolitan area and uses the Windows CE operating system.

Peter demonstrated GoType Pro by Landware, which is a keyboard for the Palm V model. The keyboard has the docking station built into the unit with pass through connections for a serial cable and power. There also is a model for Palm III profile.

Loren Finkelstein demonstrated a Gravity 3-in-one pen (pen, pencil and stylus) and a Newton version of a tv guide like listing service called Couchfire by Tempest Productions who is currently working on a version for the Palm OS.

Raffle winners for this month was as follows: George A. Iannaccone (clear Palm Pilot case), Eric Schneck (Totally for Newton CD #12), Steven Keldner (Totally for Newton CD #11) and Arnold Sloman (clear Palm Pilot case). As always, winners need either to be current members or must join "instantly" upon winning a prize and none had complaints!

NYCNUG/NYCDAUG Meeting Minutes for June 17, 1999

The meeting began with the President Peter M. Fine stating that the facilities at the Apple Marketing Center will not be available during the next two months and that the future of meeting at Apple in the Fall is yet to be decided.

In addition, it was speculated that the PDA that Apple will develop may not be what the members were expecting which may mean the end of the club or some redirection. After some discussion, it was decided to wait until after MacWorld before deciding on the direction that the club can go.

Peter then demonstrated the Palm V by 3Com as well as several applications including a picture viewer and a number of drawing utilities. The Palm V is a slimmed down version of the Palm III. One thing that Peter mentioned was the fact that the synchronizing of most data in the Palm V with his Mac computer worked far better than the Newton's process.

George J. Ticoras single handedly demonstrated a variety of products that he had installed in his Newton. The products were Dashboard 1.5 by Five Speed, SuperNotepad by StandAlone, Fitalty by Textware Solutions, Newtpaint by Landware and Eudora Pro for Newton by Qualcomm.

Winners for this month's raffle were Loren Finklestein and Carl F. Williams (woohoo!). They won the AMUG Totally for Newton CD's 12 and 11 respectively.

NYCNUG/NYCDAUG Meeting Minutes for May 20, 1999

This months meeting was covered by the Vice President, ken lowy. Most of the meeting involved questions and answers dealing with Newton's present and future. Several members mentioned that they received mail concerning the results of a suit that was won against Apple concerning support for the Newton and that some Newton owners may be able to participate in the suit.

Another member inquired about the process of downloading and installing packages to Newton. ken mentioned a thread on the PDA Dash discussion board dealing with someone who was in Research and Development & the decisions behind Newton's death. Yet another member talked of MessagePad 2000's still selling with support in Japan. Discussion also went into what Apple has in store for their new PDA and a rumor that it will be similar in size to the Palm Pilot and will be out by the end of the year. The meeting moved away from Newton and to the virtues of Macintosh computers versus PC. No raffle was held at this meeting.

NYCNUG/NYCDAUG Meeting Minutes for April 15, 1999

URLs for software either demonstrated or discussed at our meeting courtesy of NYCNUG member,
George J. Ticoras as our Secretary was unable to attend:

SBU (http://www.sbm.nu/englisch/default.htm)
Dashboard - http://www.fivespeed.com
SuperNotePad, Route to works, Convert Notes & Works Better - StandAlone Software
Mod Player - http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Code/5100/newton.html
Simpsons Audio/Video Clip - downloaded from Hotline Server (Newton Intelligence)
MusicPad - Landware, However, it's not listed on their Web Site.

NYCNUG/NYCDAUG Meeting Minutes for March 18, 1999

The meeting was covered by Treasurer Howard Katz and dealt mostly with questions and answers from the members. One member encountered a problem with retrieving the entire mailing list from NewtonTalk using Enroute; it would always get cut off and not download in its entirety. It was recommended that Go Fetch would handle the information better than Enroute.

Another representative reported that the battery back that comes with the 2100 can also be used with the MP 130. Some of the members who use the keyboard with their Newton have noticed that the keys get stiffer over time and talked of other keyboards that may be used in its place.

Other items discussed at the meeting dealt with FiveSpeed's latest Dashboard 1.5 and StandAlone's Heapsaver, VEA (diagraming tool for Newton), beaming from a 2100 to an iMac and the rumor that the next PDA from Apple will have a form factor similar to the Palm Pilot. Howard reported that there was a total of around $2,500.00 in the club account.

This months raffle winners were West Nelson and Bryan Smolarz. They each will receive AMUG Newton CD
which will be mailed out to them.

No Meeting Minutes for February, 1999 due to a lack of digitizing equipment and interest. :-)

NYCNUG/NYCDAUG Meeting Minutes for January 21, 1999

Meeting began with a notice by the President, Peter M. Fine to the members present that a list of current members is available and anyone can check the status of their membership. He also asked for volunteers to assist in revamping the web site and to be able to run the meeting in the event that the President and other officers are unable to make it. There was also a mention that we had enough funds accumulated to have a few of our meetings catered with snacks but again, volunteers are needed to make it happen.

Q & A at this meeting covered the following areas: Palm Pilot and its ability to synchronize compared to Newton, a rumor sighting of the next Apple PDA on an episode of the X-Files, retrieving E-mail on an MP-130 from AOL, battery sources for the E-Mate and screen protection equipment.

David Woolley mentioned possible sources for Newton supplies:The Palmtop Shop.Custom Service Rep: Mr. John, 138 Adelaide St East, Toronto, Ontario M5C 1K9,Canada,416 361-3443 W, 416 361-0451 F,
info@palmtopshop.com, http://www.newtonstore.com
Other sources are www.smalldog.com (cheap newton cases, battery packs etc.) and www2.conceptkitchen.com/specials/

Demonstrations this month was provided by two of our members. Leigh Morgan demoed a game called Yatzy by Magne Roald and Loren Finkelstein demoed Couchfire by Tempest Productions. which is service to send "TV Guide-like scheduling info to your Newton via email.

This months raffle winners, all receiving copies of AMUG's Totally Incomplete CD ROM collection of Newton software were Greg Wong (Vol. 11), Howard Katz (Vol. 11) and Martina Leonard (Vol. 12). Only current members were allowed to win raffle prizes and this policy will now be strictly enforced.

Loren Finkelstein closed out the meeting by demoing Xword Buddy by Tactile Systems.

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