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UKUUG

Newsletter Section 2

UKUUG News

Editor's Column

Our theme of “heterogeneous interworking” has produced another bumper issue with lots of reviews and articles, mainly contributed by your Council. Isn't there anyone else out there who would like to receive a book or some software in return for submitting a review? My thanks, as always, to my reviewers.

The calendar of event is laid out slightly differently to show which events come under the auspices of the Computer User Groups Alliance (see Mick's article on page 4). The British Computer Society's meeting at which Eddie Bleasdale is speaking in June (see page 5) is just one such event that UKUUG members will now be able to attend at member rates.

There is just time for you to register for the Open to the WWWorld conference to be held in Croatia from 17-19 April 1997. To give you some encouragement there are a couple of pictures of the city centre and Cathedral on page 25.

Receiving feedback from you is so useful to ensure we are on the right track and I am delighted that one member took the time to write to me (see Arvind's letter on page 30).
I hope you enjoy the articles from the Net; my aim is to balance the serious with the more light-hearted.

Report from the Chair

From the feedback that I've seen, it appears that our “themed” newsletter and cover CD is proving popular with members. The theme for the June issue of this newsletter is the World Wide Web, so we hope to bring you some exciting articles and software. If there's a particular topic that you think we should feature in a future issue, please let us know. Similarly, if there's some freely-available software that you think would be of interest to our members, then let us know, and we'll see if we can incorporate it on a future CD, even if it doesn't fit the flavour of the month.

No Cover CD

Having said that, I must now apologise for the lack of the Cover CD for this issue. We are still experiencing problems gathering the material. So little was found that I felt that it wasn't worth cutting a master CD. We need someone willing to take on the task of locating suitable software, which matches the theme of the newsletter, and can be passed to Stuart McRobert for inclusion on the master CD. If you're willing to volunteer, please let us know as soon as possible.

As you may have read, Usenix have decided to cease publication of Computer Systems, their journal that you have been receiving for a couple of years. Therefore, we're

currently considering what alternatives we could offer our members. One possible contender is Linux World, a new magazine on the newsagents' stands. This depends on our negotiations with the publishers for a discount on a bulk order. Again, if there's some other publication that you think would be of interest to our members, please let us know.

Computer User Groups Alliance

This meta-group has been formed to encourage user groups, like the UKUUG, to share information and ideas, and to collaborate where appropriate for the mutual benefit of our members. So far, 39 groups have joined CUGA, with a number of other groups expressing interest. One immediate benefit of membership is that our members can attend any event organised by a CUGA member at that group's member rates. Such events will be marked in our Calendar of Events by the CUGA logo. Some groups are already planning joint events and other collaborative ventures.

CUGA is in the process of organising its own web site. Until this is ready, the CUGA web pages are being hosted by X/Open, the current URL is http://cuga.xopen.org/ . These web pages contain details about CUGA members, together with information about forthcoming events, etc. The current members of CUGA are listed below:

British Computer Society
CA Computer Associates
CCTA
Data General User Group
DB2 Users Group
dBase Users Group Ltd
DECUS
DSDM Consortium
GUIDE/SHARE Europe
HPCUA Ltd
IBM CUA
ICL CUA
IDPM
Infuse Informix User Group
        Institution of Electronics and its Applications
International SSADM User Group
Lotus User Group
NCUF
Oracle User Group
PRINCE User Group
SAP User Group
Skylight User Group
SOCITM
Sun User Forum
Survive!
Sybase User Group
Telecommunications Managers Association
Texas Instruments User Group
The Helpdesk User Group
The Object Management Group
The Open Group Customer Council
The PC User Group
The Windows User Forum
UKCMG Ltd
UKUUG
UNIFORM Users Group
UniForum UK
Unisys User Association
VISUAL

British Computer Society London Central Branch

Internet Technology - a nail in Microsoft's coffin and the solution to client-server computing?

Eddie Bleasdale will be looking at the problems of building client-server systems using PCs. An examination will be made of the use of Internet technology to enable client-server systems that are capable of enterprise-wide computing and inter- company electronic commerce.

The meeting will take place in the York Room, New Connaught Rooms, Great Queen Street, London, WC2B 5DA on Thursday 12 June 1997 and will begin at 1830hrs. Visitors are welcome at all meetings.

News from Owles Hall

In the envelope with this Newsletter all members should also receive a copy of the USENIX publication – Computing Systems – this is unfortunately the last one that you will receive as USENIX have decided to cancel future issues.

Your committee is looking to replace this with another publication at some time – but nothing has been agreed to date.

The recent Matt Welsh talk “LINUX O/S Research, or How LINUX Saved my Network”, which was held in conjunction with the London UNIX Users Group meeting on 27 February, was a huge success – 115 attendees!

The Conference planned for May has been postponed and will now probably be held in early Summer, although this is still under discussion.

The plans for the UKUUG 21st Birthday bash are underway – the event will be held in September (probably in Edinburgh, at Heriot-Watt University); more details very soon.

We have recently had our annual visit from the UKUUG auditors who have been checking our files etc. and very shortly we should have the draft annual accounts. These accounts will be distributed to all members along with the Annual General Meeting notice and agenda. This should be sent to you all in early May for the AGM on Thursday 26 June 1997.

Our Treasurer, Ivan Gleeson, with the agreement of the UKUUG Council, has organised a new computer system for the UKUUG work here at Owles Hall. This will include a new database for the UKUUG membership. The new system will probably be installed in the next couple of days. It is hoped that this will streamline administration and must be an improvement on our current manual system – I will keep you updated.

Our next Committee meeting will be held on 14 April in Harlow when hopefully plans will be finalised for the future events for 1997.

Jane has worked at the Owles Hall Secretariat for 8 years. She looks after the administration for the UKUUG, SUN User Forum and EurOpen.

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