Business as usual...

I'm not sure why I was finally chosen since there was a long list of highly qualified applicants who were willing to take up the challenge. I'm sure some of them have a lot better ideas than I do, which is why I'll be contacting some of them in the next little while to solicit their advice.

In the meantime, my job is to try and keep OS/2 e-Zine rolling as it has been for so many years. Don't worry, OS/2 e-Zine has always been, and always will be, for the OS/2 community.

OS/2 and I

I got a first, brief taste of OS/2 back at IBM itself one summer in the form of OS/2 1.3 Extended Edition on an old IBM PS/2 Model 50Z. I didn't really get a chance to use OS/2 seriously until 1996 when I finally acquired my own PC and have been hooked on OS/2 ever since. It might sound like a late start to computers to some of you, but I've actually poked around on mainframes before I was out of my teens and I've had high-speed 'net access since before Netscape even existed! I've just been lucky to have access to goodies so I've never had to buy my own.

In fact, I still get access to all sorts of high performance machines. Whether it's Sun workstations, HP-UX boxes, the latest Mac G4's, Linux or Windows, I get to play with them all. On my own personal machines? It's still OS/2. I just want to let you know I'm not some old geezer with my head in the sand and run OS/2 because I don't feel like looking around.

What's new?

I'm not intending to make any big changes yet with OS/2 e-Zine. The primary goal here is to serve the OS/2 community and we will always focus on OS/2 (and any OS/2 based or compatible) computing. We'll stop publishing when there are no more OS/2 users! Be assured, there is absolutely no point to expand our readership to cover Windows/Linux/Mac, there's already plenty of good resources for that sort of stuff and there is no good reason to compete in that market.

That said, I would like to encourage new articles and slowly expand the breadth of our coverage beyond what's been offered in the past. Here are some ideas I've been thinking about:

• General Computing Articles: Issues that are not specifically OS/2, but affect us are certainly of interest for users. For example, our current string of C++ lessons. Maybe someone wants to give a brief tutorial on IPv4 or how the Internet works.
• Software for other platforms: Yes, yes, I know what I said, but in special circumstances, I'll allow it. Innovation happens elsewhere too and OS/2 users should know about it. We should emulate what's good and stay away from what's bad. I'm not going to take a straight review of Microsoft Word, for example, but I might allow a critique of the interface and useability of iTunes and how certain OS/2 applications might benefit from emulating the good points.
• Hardware: This is often overlooked here, but OS/2 users need hardware too! It doesn't have to be lengthy or detailed. Did you just buy a $5 no-name optical mouse that worked? Let us know!
• Reprints: I know of several personal pages on the 'net with rich information for OS/2 users. With permission, why not re-print them here for OS/2 users to read? Not everyone has time to Google around and search for all that good info!
• Shareware authors: Do you need to promote a bit of your product? In addition to ads, I'd like to consider taking up articles from the shareware authors. Obviously it won't be a review (of course it would be favourable), but I would like to see some "how-to" articles from them. Show your customers what "problems" they could solve by using your product! We'll ensure that such articles are clearly marked as being from the shareware author's themselves, just to be sure you won't be mislead by any potential bias.

These are, of course, by no means final. Let me know if you feel strongly for or against any of these ideas, afterall, OS/2 e-zine is for you.

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