Dick Wilson, a CPA from South Bend, presented a demo of the Turbo Tax software by Intuit at the March meeting. The program has two flavours, standard and professional and you can purchase your state tax software as an option. Dick demo-ed the standard Federal version. Jon Slough said he saw it costing from the mid twenties to the low fifties for the standard flavour.

The first thing the program does upon opening is give a review of the changes in the tax laws. It struck me to be like the For Dummies series nerd icon. Read it if you like extra information, but not necessary to do the program. One nice feature I liked is a laundry list of statements and information to have at hand before you get started. Early on, you are prompted to make several decisions such as if you are going to do the state return (if you purchased the option) or if you wish to file electronically, Pay attention to these sorts of decisions, it took Dick many minutes to find where he had selected to file electronically to change it.

If you are pretty familiar with the tax laws and which forms to use, choose the “go straight to the forms” option. If you aren’t so certain, you should select the “let me ask you a million questions option” which puts your answers in the proper place on the various forms. There seems to be decent “idiot proofing” as well, i.e. if you didn’t put in your name, it won’t let you go on in the program. As you go through each section, in the questions option, a tip will appear with words of wisdom and/or warning. They may get somewhat annoying, but the tips will keep you out of trouble. Another neat feature, as you go through the sections, the program keeps a running tally of how much you owe or will get back in the upper right corner.

What about the decision whether to itemize or not. It will ask you all the questions, it will show you the results of both methods, and choose the one that gives the best return or least payment.

Watching Dick run through the program, I was once again struck with the thought that if you know what you’re doing, tax software can be a timesaving blessing. But even with all the questions and tax tips, if you still struggle with it, be sensible and give it up. Gather up all the pretty pieces of paper and put them into the capable hands of someone who really does know what they’re doing, so you at best avoid an audit, at worst avoid a visit to tax court.

User Group Relations is pleased to represent PowerQuest Corporation and MGI Software and their exciting products to the user group community. PowerQuest Corporation is the developer of the award winning product, PartitionMagic, which lets you re-size, move, and copy partitions without loosing their content. PowerQuest has just announced Drive Image 2.0 which is easier to use and faster than version 1.0. A new graphical, wizard-like interface takes the user step-by-step through the imaging process. The feature-packed upgrade also includes enhanced removable media support, the ability to extract individual files from within an image, the ability to resize images to fit smaller drives, and a new security feature, ImageShield, which allows users to password protect important image files.

Are you interested in digital photography or digital video but didn’t think you could afford it? Two award-winning products from MGI Software, MGI PhotoSuite and MGI VideoWave, give you unlimited options when it comes to your photos and videos. MGI PhotoSuite is your complete PC photography solution. It’s the fastest, easiest way to edit and organize your photos while giving you a creative freedom you’ve never had before. Turn your photos into greeting cards or incorporate them into personal calendars, web pages, family letters, and share them with others via email or on the Internet. MGI PhotoSuite makes it possible. And with MGI VideoWave, you can now capture, edit, and produce your own videos on your PC.

Find out more about how to improve your life with PowerQuest’s lineup of strong disk utility products as well as how MGI Software can help you begin to picture the world in a whole new way by attending our next user group meeting.

Our guest presenter will be Dave Whittle, on behalf of PowerQuest Corporation and MGI Software. Dave will explain hard disk concepts and introduce and explain new products such as Drive Image and DriveCopy from PowerQuest and VideoWave from MGI Software. He will also demonstrate PowerQuest’s PartitionMagic as well as MGI PhotoSuite.

David B. Whittle has been named by one national magazine as one of America’s most original technological thinkers.” PC Magazine columnist John C. Dvorak has said “Dave Whittle’s background and his years at IBM give him an unusual and unique perspective on things. I’m always interested in his insights . . .” A proponent of personal computing and computer-mediated communications for over 16 years, Dave has also been involved with user groups since 1979, when he first joined an Atari Users Group in San Jose. He has presented to hundreds of users groups worldwide, from Washington D.C. to Moscow, Russia.

As the founder of one of the world’s largest virtual user groups, Team OS/2, and IBM’s first OS/2 Evangelist, Dave has also been an active proponent of grass-roots volunteerism. He is the co-author, with John C. Dvorak, of Dvorak’s Guide to OS/2. Following a twelve year career with IBM marketing and defining personal computers, Whittle left IBM in early 1996 to write a book: the just-released “Cyberspace: The Human Dimension,” published by W.H. Freeman.

You will come away from this meeting entertained and informed. Dave will provide time for an open Q&A period and will bring valuable door prizes, informative handouts, and a special user group price for those wishing to purchase this outstanding product at the meeting. See you then!

This is a true story, only the names have been changed to protect the guilty.

Her name is Lonna, and she is very good with computers. Lonna is a bookkeeper for a company in Elkhart County and when it comes to the books, she does it right, every time. Lonna also does bookkeeping for her father’s service company on evenings and weekends.

Because of the large database that her company uses, Lonna runs the database program’s compression algorithm. This compression algorithm looks at the database and removes any blank records and removes as many blank spaces as it can. This can reduce the size of the database file down to 75% of the size of the uncompressed file. This allows her to save a lot of space on her company’s computer system. Lonna thought this was great. This is the first of the three compressions, and it was good.

When Lonna comes home from work, she uses her computer to do the books for her father, Phil. Phil and Lonna exchange the data in two different ways. The first method is by backing up the data files onto a floppy disk using the backup utilities in Windows 95. Using Microsoft backup, the data files are compressed to about 60% of the size of the uncompressed files.

Phil and Lonna also used zipped files to move data. Using PKzip and PKunzip, they could compress and uncompress files quickly and easily. As with Microsoft backup, if PKzip ran out of space on the floppy disk, it would ask for another disk and continue. This feature is called spanning, and it allows both programs to use as many disks as necessary to compress and copy the data. With these two methods, Lonna and Phil moved data easily, even when the files became too large for a single floppy disk. This is the second of the three compressions, and it was also good.

Phil has a sister, Candy. Candy had a computer with a 1GB hard drive from a major manufacturer. Candy also never bothered to do hard drive maintenance, clean out the cache from her web browser, or get rid of old data files.

In less than one year, her hard drive was full.

One day Candy mentioned to Lonna that she was out of hard drive space. Lonna went over to Candy’s house to look at the computer. Remember Lonna used the good database compression at work, and the good backup/PKzip to move data files between her father’s computer and the computer at her house. When she started looking around on Candy’s computer, she saw that there was a compression for the hard drive. Is there any reason why this compression is not good?

Without making a total backup of the hard drive, who needs that anyway?, Lonna decided to compress everything on the hard drive. This will give Candy the maximum space, thought Lonna. Lonna and Candy began to think something was wrong when it took a lot longer than they expected to run the compression. When Lonna ran the compression for the database file, it would take 2 or 3 minutes. When she did backups of her father’s data, it would take 10 to 15 minutes. After 4 hours, Lonna and Candy thought they had a problem and they were right, but they did not yet know how big of a mess they had created. They were in the middle of the third type of compression, the BAD compression.

Over five hours later, the system finished without errors, Windows 95 reported. Great, Lonna and Candy thought. There was almost 400 MB of space on the hard drive and they could see all the data. They shut off the computer and Lonna went home to her family.

The next day Candy tried to start her computer and Windows 95 failed to start. When Lonna compressed the hard drive, she selected the entire hard drive; this included the Windows 95 registry files. Now Windows 95 was not able to start so it could not run the decompression algorithm to read the registry files. This is a circular argument. Windows 95 needed to start in order to be able read the compressed files, and Windows 95 could not start since the registry file required to start was compressed.

The end of the story is not pleasant, so it is being deleted as much as possible except to say that there were all kinds of problems. The short version: Windows 95 had to be reinstalled and then a tape drive was added to back up the hard drive even though most of the data was compressed. Then as many of the old un-needed files as possible had to be deleted, then the hard drive had to be uncompressed. It only took 9 hours to uncompress the hard drive. An additional 5 hours were needed to put all the files back into shape and back into the correct order.

Please remember when using the compress option in Windows 95 you need to select the files you want to compress. Never compress the entire hard drive, unless you like to see how many problems you can make for yourself.

I have been bouncing around the net for months gathering information and playing games at various sites. You can play multi-player games with people from all around the world. I have enjoyed playing Checkers, Euchre, Bridge or Backgammon with new friends from China, Japan, Singapore, Russia, Puerto Rico, Canada, England, France and others. I trust you will find this article to be of help in your search for ways to waste your time, but meet some very nice people while doing it.

There are different types of sites available. Type ( A ) is where conventional games are played such as Bridge, Hearts, Spades, Gin Rummy, Poker and Euchre. You may also find board games like Checkers, Reversi, Cribbage, Chess, and Backgammon. Several sites will include more contemporary games like Blox and Char. You will find people interacting at the lobby chat window or through chat windows available at the playing table. Frequently, there are hundreds of people at the site.

Type ( B ) offers contemporary games including Battle Tetris, Connect 4, Mastermind, Scrambles, Dopplers Challenge, Revenge of the Fool, Tombstone, Twiddle, Shufflers, and many, many others. Some also offer You don’t know Jack. Generally speaking there is a younger crowd at these sites, since the games more closely resemble video games found at Mall game parlours.

Type ( C ) is more specialized and may only offer one or two games. Such is the case with Yatzee or NETZEE as one site is called.

This is by no means a complete list and there are new ones coming online each month. If you are going to allow your children to play at games sites you should be aware that not all sites have Op’s or Monitors who can mute or boot abusers. I, for example am an OP at Classic Games and there are 37 of us who watch for cursing or abusive players. It is our task to do all we can to keep the site “family friendly” and I booted an abuser one time for cursing a 14 year old girl. Some of the sites will allow the creator of a game or table to boot someone from that table if they do not act responsibly. Be very aware of this feature. As an OP, I have encountered some really obnoxious, foul mouthed characters. Just be aware.

Mplayer is an interesting site where you can not only type your chat while playing but you can also use your microphone, if you have one, to actually speak to the other player. That feature plus the interesting layout of Mplayer makes it a fun place to be.

For those Yatzee lovers, Netzee is a multi-player site created in England. I have played there and enjoyed it very much. The site for serious Checker players is VOG. This is a Russian specialty site where you expert Checker players can play against a grand champion for real. Very challenging!

There are other sites that offer services for a fee but I haven’t chosen to play at those since I am happy with the free sites. If that is a better choice for you, you might try westwood.com.

I hope this information will be helpful and you enjoy yourself. Incidently, I am *oldfox at Classic Games. Hope to see you there.

Did you know there is a mailing list for nearly every single county and state? To subscribe to a county or state mailing list, send a message to:

majordomo@listserv.northwest.com containing the word subscribe and the name of the state or the name of the county plus its state abbreviation.

For example, to subscribe to the Elkhart county list, the message would be: subscribe elkhart-in

For Saint Joseph county, Indiana: subscribe saint-joseph-in

For Indiana: subscribe indiana

For New Mexico: subscribe new-mexico

There are also lists for nearly all other countries in the world. And, in addition to location lists, there are surname specific lists, and general lists. Some of the general topics include ‘movement west on all trails’, ‘the life of our homesteader ancestor’, ‘colonial america life and times’, ‘emigration-ships, and others.’

To see all the lists that are available thru northwest.com go to: http://listserv.northwest.com/~haight/

Archives for all the lists are at: ftp://listserv.northwest.com/pub/archive (be prepared, this directory takes a LONG time to load - 943K)

Some of these lists are not very active. For example, nothing has been posted to the Elkhart County list this year (except my test) nor to the Saint Joseph or LaGrange, Indiana lists. But I’m sure some of the others are quite active.

When looking for an accounting package for your company, two choices come to mind. Quickbooks or Peachtree. The decision on which to use can be very confusing. Both seem to offer the required accounting features such as Payables, Receivables, Invoicing and General Ledger and to most who haven’t used either one it could be a simple matter to choose according to cost or even word of mouth.

I have worked with Peachtree Accounting for several years, and, although I have only dealt with Quickbooks Pro for about six months Quickbooks Pro deals more with companies that have more of an accounting type need. It offers all the basics, as well as good money management. The 4.0 version was very limited on the number and variety of reports that were available. Customizing reports was difficult and often not possible. However, the new 5.0 gives you over more than 100 preset reports and graphs and better listing then before. You will also receive on Quickbooks Pro 5.0 an accountant’s Review which makes the sharing of data with your accountant easier. A new feature is the Quickbooks Navigator. In this feature, flow charts show you the flow of data and by clicking on the icon, you will go directly to that feature whether it is checkbook registers, invoicing, purchasing, etc.

The most valuable new feature is the ability to design custom business forms and lists. This will allow you to monitor item lists, run special day to day reports needed to maintain standardized files. Peachtree, however, had this ability in earlier versions even 3.5. Many of the features that Quickbooks Pro now has is available from Peachtree. Quickbooks has made significant changes for the better in it’s latest version, and I am sure if you are presently using an earlier version, an upgrade to 5.0 would be very beneficial and offered you greater flexibility in your operating needs.

Keep in mind, there are Quickbooks and Quickbooks Pro. And the features are not as extensive in Quickbooks. Quickbooks Pro is designed for the small business with time and job tracking in mind whereas Quickbooks is more for the home office.

Peachtree also has several types of programs. Peachtree, for the home office, Peachtree Accounting , for the small business and Peachtree Complete Accounting. Although I have not had any experience with the Peachtree Complete Accounting, I would imagine that the main difference is a more comprehensive larger company package.

Peachtree Accounting 5.0 gives businesses the option to hide or leave G/L account information by module. For novice users, hiding G/L account information automatically creates a cleaner, easier-to-understand screen. And by leaving G/L account information on-screen, experienced users have the freedom to edit G/L accounts giving them more control over how their transactions are assigned.

Many of the improvements made by Peachtree in their 5.0 version are similar to those in Quickbooks Pro. Navigational aids are very similar and for any small business is very effective. Plus, with the addition of many new customizable financial reports, small businesses can accomplish more tasks in a shorter period of time. The built-in Financial Report Writer is an excellent feature that makes it easy to produce income statements, balance sheets and more, each customized to reflect the needs of a small business. To enhance usability within Peachtree, version 5.0 has a new look including five new color schemes to choose from.

New and improved reporting speed gives you information you need up to 2 - 6 times faster than previous releases.

Peachtree Accounting comes with a new Sales Order feature that gives you everything you need to handle back orders and drop shipments, including many report options and the ability to ship partial quantities against an order. Back order capabilities are also available in Quickbooks Pro, however, I could not find any mention about drop shipments. An interesting and innovative feature in Peachtree is the ability to issue rebate/refund checks. Now you can write refund checks to customers and receive rebates from vendors easily and quickly. Improved inventory receiving handles the receipt of inventory prior to receiving a bill, a feature Quickbooks Pro has had in the past.

I believe Peachtree has added two very outstanding features to it’s latest release. The first is a multiuser account solution. This gives small businesses the capability to add multiple users to their network absolutely FREE! Other accounting software costs extra per user, but Peachtree Accounting is ready for the network right out of the box so employees can start working together immediately. Peachtree’s multiuser function not only gives employees the power to work simultaneously, but the password security lets you control who has access to certain files and who doesn’t. In addition, Peachtree Accounting is compatible with Windows 95®, WindowsNT®, Netware® and Lantastic® and many other networks.

The second is creating your own Web page. You can create a web site in 60 minutes or less with PeachLink. It gives small businesses everything you need to do business on the Internet. It provides all the tools you need to create and use a web site and find new customers on the Internet. PeachLink includes a comprehensive tutorial, Internet access with Netscape Navigator, Web site creation software, electronic storefront capabilities that integrate with Peachtree Accounting, the PeachLink order processor, e-mail, and it comes FREE with Peachtree Accounting. Previously, only products like Peachtree Complete Accounting and Peachtree Complete Accounting Plus Time and Billing offered the opportunity to take advantage of PeachLink. But now you can have it with Peachtree Accounting too.

PeachLink also lets you take inventory directly from Peachtree Accounting and place items in your Web site catalog. With a simple click, you can easily load sale items from Peachtree Accounting onto your web page without having to re-key data such as names, prices, IDs, etc.

Peachtree Accounting and Quickbooks Pro, both 5.0 releases, are very similar in all the good accounting features needed for your business. The only exception is a Bill of Materials. I have looked through Quickbooks information and the program and find no mention of a Bill of Materials. The closest I came was what Quickbooks Pro calls job tracking. Without the bill of materials feature, many small manufacturing businesses will find it difficult to properly track and reduce inventory for good, clean inventory control. Although Quickbooks Pro has always enabled you to reduce inventory at the time of billing, I can find no way to reduce the inventory by components or sub- assemblies. This is a MUST for manufacturing. Peachtree will reduce your inventory at time of billing but with the Build feature, you can reduce the components of that item either at time of billing or when manufactured.

For this reason, I personally would recommend that for the business who has more of an accounting need, such as stores or home offices, Quickbooks Pro would be my pick. However, for the manufacturer, their would be nothing better than Peachtree Accounting.

Most people don’t pay much attention to typefaces, but type has been the basis for all printed communication since Gutenberg invented movable type. As computer users, we use type in everything we do: spreadsheets, data bases, e-mail messages, and of course, word processing and desktop publishing in print or online. We should know more about it and than most of us do.

For example, the terms “typeface” and “font” are often used interchangeably in today’s world of scalable, computer-generated type, but they differ significantly.

A typeface is a family of letters, numbers and symbols that share the same design characteristics and parameters, regardless of size, weight or style or whether implemented in wood, metal or digital form. Examples are Times Roman, Helvetica, etc. The advent of digital type, especially scalable fonts, has blurred the distinction between typeface and font. To understand the difference, remember that a typeface is designed first, then a font is created from that design.

A font traditionally is a collection of alphanumerics and symbols of the same typeface in one particular size, weight and style. For example, 9-point Helvetica regular is one font, 10 point bold is another font, and 9-point Helvetica italic is still another. Digitized scalable fonts we use with our computers can be scaled to any size.

“Typography” is the term used to cover the art and technique of using type to compose printed material, or the arrangement and appearance of printed matter. Some typography terms carried over from traditional printing are still used today but may not be understood by many computer users.

Kerning, for example, is the adjusting the amount of space between certain combinations of letters in proportionally-spaced typefaces to eliminate awkward letterspacing. Each letter in a typeface is designed with a set space to its right, but certain combinations (Ta, Wo, etc.) look awkward when you see them with standard spacing.

Kerned pairs are combinations of letters that have the spaces between them adjusted to make them easier to read and more pleasing to the eye. The space is usually reduced (in the Ta and Wo examples above, the a would snuggled closer under the top crossbar of the T and the o would be moved closer to the base of the W), but in some cases may be increased. Type experts often use the number of kerned pairs available in a given font as one measure of its quality.

Leading is simply the spacing between lines, so called because in the days of handset type thin strips of lead alloy were inserted to provide such space. Letter spacing and word spacing, as the names imply, are the distances between letters or words. All three types of spacing can be controlled in many computer applications, often very precisely.

Typefaces are divided in several way. First, there are monospaced and proportionally-spaced faces. Courier is the best example of the former; each of its characters occupy the same width whether it is a fat “m” or a skinny “i.” Times Roman is a typical proportionally-spaced face; as the name suggests, width occupied by each character is proportional to its actual size.

Typewriter type was monospaced (with a very few exceptions) and generally came in two sizes. One was Pica, called that because its characters were 10 to an inch, or one pica wide. Elite type was smaller, 12 characters to the inch.

Fully justified columns, flush at both right and left, were almost impossible to achieve on a typewriter because it was difficult to get the subtle, precise letter- and wordspacing that made justification possible with handset type or that produced, a line at a time, on linotype machines (which were pretty much state of the art when I got my first newspaper job).

Typefaces are also divided into two categories in another way. They are either have finishing strokes, called serifs, like Times Roman, or plain like Arial and Helvetica. Not surprisingly the former are called “serif” faces, and the latter “sans-serif “ faces. Serifs are not just embellishments in type. They play major roles in the readability, appearance and style of a face.

Another type division is between “uppercase” and “lowercase” letters, more carryover terms from earlier days when type was set by hand. Metal letters were arranged in cases on a sloping work bank, sort of an open-faced cabinet lying almost on its back. The more frequently used small letters occupied the lower, handier cases. Less frequently used capital and small capital letters, figures and punctuation marks were in the higher, or upper, cases

Type involves a lot of artistry, not just in the design of typefaces, but in the way they are used. A skilled art director or layout artist can achieve all sorts of effects, evoke differing moods, just through careful selection and placement of type.

Conversely, ill-advised use of type can literally destroy the effectiveness of printed matter. In the early days of laser printers and desktop publishing (circa 1986-89) we saw a great deal of this.

What we called the “ransom note school of publishing” developed. Novices suddenly given 19 typefaces to play with used 12 of them-on the first page! The result was so busy and distracting it was hard to focus on any one item on a page. We’re seeing some of this on the Web, as new site creation tools make it easy to build Web pages.

(An added factor here is overuse of animation, banners and other elements that often contribute little, distract much, in terms of getting across a message. My biggest gripe is use of type in various colors on totally inappropriate background colors, dark blue on black, for example, that makes for difficult reading.)

Artists and designers recommend using no more than two typefaces in any document: a serif face for body text, and perhaps a sans-serif face for headlines, subheads and captions. “This won’t allow me enough variety,” you complain? Not true! You can achieve more than enough variety by using regular, bold, italic and small capital styles in different weights (light, medium, heavy) and sizes.

Don’t try to cram too much on a page. Type is much more readable with adequate leading (e.g. 10 point type with 2 points of leading, or 10 on 12 as we used to instruct typesetters, meaning “set 10-point type on a 12-point slug”). Decent-sized margins and gutters between columns also improve readability.

Use “lift” or “pull” paragraphs and subheads to break up large blocks of type. A lift paragraph is one that summarizes or makes a significant point about the subject and is pulled from the body text. It is set into the body text in a distinctive type style (bold, italic or both, often in a larger size than body type) and may be set apart by rules above and below.

I hope these few comments and tips will help you understand and use type better in the future.

Copyright 1997 by Ken Fermoyle, Fermoyle Publications. Ken Fermoyle has written some 2,500 articles for publications ranging from Playboy and Popular Science to MacWeek, Microtimes & PC Laptop. He was cohost/producer of a radio show on computers and a partner in a DTP service bureau during the ’80s. Fermoyle Publications offers editorial, consulting & graphics design services, and Ken’s Korner, a syndicated monthly column free to User Group newsletters. For permission to reprint this article, contact kfermoyle@earthlink.net

Lorena Bobbit Virus: Turns your hard disk into a 3.5 inch floppy

Tonya Harding Virus: Turns your .BAT files into lethal weapons

Paul Revere Virus: Warns of an impending virus infection: 1 if by LAN, 2 if by C:\

Hillary Rodham Clinton Virus: Instantly turns 1K of disk space into 1 Meg

Ollie North Virus: Plays a patriotic .WAV while it shreds your files

Joey Buttafuaco Virus: Only attacks minor files

Ronald Reagan Virus: Saves your data, but forgets where it’s stored

Jane Fonda Virus: Attacks your hard drive’s FAT

Oprah Winfrey Virus: Your 200MB hard drive suddenly shrinks to 80MB, and then slowly expands to 300MB

AT&T Virus: Every 3 minutes it tells you what great service you are getting.

MCI Virus: Every three minutes it reminds you that you’re paying too much for the AT&T virus.

Politically Correct Virus: Never calls itself a “virus,” but instead refers to itself as an “electronic microorganism.”

Ross Perot Virus: Activates every component in your system, just before the whole darn thing quits.

Arnold Schwarzenegger Virus: Terminates and stays resident. It’ll be back.

Government Economist Virus: Nothing works, but all your diagnostic software says everything is fine

Federal Bureaucrat Virus: Divides your hard disk into hundreds of little units, each of which does practically nothing, but all of which claim to be the most important part of your computer.

Adam and Eve Virus: Takes a couple of bytes out of your Apple computer.

Congressional Virus #1: The computer locks up, screen splits erratically with a message appearing on each half blaming the other side for the problem.

Congressional Virus #2: Runs every program on the hard drive simultaneously but doesn’t allow the user to accomplish anything.

Airline Virus: You’re in Dallas, but your data is in Singapore.

Freudian Virus: Your computer becomes obsessed with its own motherboard. Or becomes very jealous of the size of your friend’s hard drive.

PBS Virus: Your computer stops every few minutes to ask for money.

Jimmy Hoffa Virus: Your programs can never be found again.

LAPD Virus: It claims it feels threatened by the other files on your PC and erases them in “self-defense.”

O.J. Virus: It claims that it did not, could not and would not delete two of your files and vows to find the virus that did it.

I’m writing this for Gloria because she’s much too modest to praise her own presentation. The GENSIG meeting for March 14 was where Gloria displayed her research abilities. She had quite a few hand-outs to assist in gathering information from various sources - census records, family records, social security information, etc.

A basic lesson that genealogy attempts to teach is to document, document, document. When you think you have a thread - using normal research techniques - try to locate 3 proofs. This is often very difficult, especially across time and various borders - but the exhilaration of reaching back another generation - is truly worth the effort!

The next meeting was planned for April 11, but several members indicated they would be unable to attend because it’s the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday and they would be out of town.

Those members of GENSIG who had provided their e-mail address, were given the option of moving to April 18 or canceling. Of the 16 who responded, 13 chose April 18. Several GenSIG members who have put a Book together will share their experiences on how they did it. Hope you can make the day change.

The Elkhart GENSIG is truly a cooperative organization - willing to share information and helpful hints on acquiring data or fore-persons.

We are now being given recognition in the Elkhart County Gen Society’s (ECGS) quarterly magazine - MICHIANA ROOTS, in an effort to instill a more cooperative atmosphere. The pursuit of genealogy via the computer is coming into its own, finally. One of the drawbacks is that census data or records are restricted for 70 years.

- - Thanks, John.

On May 9th we will concentrate on Getting Organized and provide tips, tricks, and help for a research trip, which we have planned for May 23rd to the Allen County Public Library. Hope you can make both May dates.

The co-directors only made plans for the first 5 months of this year-just to get the group going again. Now we need your suggestions for topics of discussion of what YOU would like to learn more about. E-mail your suggestions to Gloria at gsavill@cl-sys.com.

The Internet SIG did not start in January for several reasons. The major reason was that the leadership felt that there needed to be changes in how it was run. John Matwyshyn, the EPCUG Vice-President, is the new leader of the Internet SIG. John was hoping to find a site where everyone could have access to the Internet.

We had been looking for several months when an opportunity fell into our laps. I am attending Davenport College to get some certification for my job. I noticed that outside groups could rent the computer classrooms on Friday. I asked Sherry Foster, the chair of the Computer department, what the cost would be. Sherry asked me what group would be using the room and what we wanted to use it for. When she found out it was for a users group, and we would work around the room’s schedule, she was very happy to offer the room to us for FREE.

Davenport, EPCUG, and I all see this as a win-win for both groups. Davenport will get exposure to all our members and EPCUG may pick up a large number of new members from the students of Davenport College. When we announced this at the March meeting, many people asked that Davenport be made a sponsor and asst.-editor, Sherry Nisly said this idea would be pursued. From time to time, Davenport will give us articles to add to the EPCUG newsletter. We in turn will be able to put articles in the Davenport weekly newsletter.

The Computer Lab in Room Number #1 has 22 computers for the “students” and one for the instructor. The instructor’s computer is a Pentium 133 with 32 MB of RAM, a sound card, multi-media video, and an overhead projector. We can use their other video equipment if we request its use in advance. All the students’ computers are Pentium, 100’s with 24 MB of RAM. There is a permanent fast Internet connection to the network router that supplies the Internet connection. There is no dial-up networking to use and no disconnects because of call waiting.

There are a few rules that we must observe. The visitor parking in front of the building is for persons who are visitors to Davenport College, not from the users group. You can use the handicapped parking with a standard handicapped permit. All other spaces in the front and the much larger parking lot in the back, can be used. The building is a smoke-free area as is the front of the building. There is a smoking area outside the building just outside the student lounge. There are benches and sand buckets for your “butts.”

The SIG meetings are planned for the third Saturday of the month from 1:00 p.m. until 2:45. This leaves 15 minutes to clear the building before it is locked at 3:00 for the weekend.

Directions to Davenport College are as follows:

From Goshen: Take US 33 to Mishawaka Road (CR-20).
Follow Mishawaka Road west to the County Line Road
Right on County Line Road (north) to US 20
Follow US 20 West to Grape Road
Go right (north) on Grape Road, past the University Park Mall
Go through the stop light at Cleveland Road (SR 23) in the left lane
Just past the Noble Roman’s Pizza, turn left into J.C. Penny’s Home Center parking lot.
Davenport College is beside the Penny’s Home Store.

Go right (north) on Grape Road, past the University Park Mall
Go through the stop light at Cleveland Road (SR 23) in the left lane
Just past the Noble Roman’s Pizza, turn left into J.C. Penny’s Home Center parking lot.
Davenport College is beside the Penny’s Home Store.

From Elkhart: Take SR 19 north or CR 17 to the Toll Road.
Take the Toll Road west towards Chicago.
Get off at the Mishawaka exit, (the toll is 45 or 50 cents depending on where you enter.)
At the end of the exit road turn right (north) and go to the stop light.
At the stop light, turn left (west). This is SR 23 that joins with Cleveland in 1 mile.
Follow SR 23/Cleveland to Grape Road
Turn right on Grape, and move to the left lane quickly.
Just past the Noble Roman’s Pizza, turn left into J.C. Penny’s Home Center parking lot.
Davenport College is beside the Penny’s Home Store.