In a message of  Derek Woodlands (3:713/914.15) wrote:

Hi Derek,

 DF>> Yeah, but even that may be a stretch for a little while yet.  Got to
 DF>> plan ahead for a big rural trade show out here next month.  Myself
 DF>> and a local computer dealer are sharing a stand there.

 DW> Shows can be a lot of fun.  I've been on a stand at every WOC show in
 DW> Sydney plus I work at various garden shows.  You soon get to know the
 DW> people to run away from.  ;-)

This one is called Westech96 (runs every three years) and is aimed at the
beef and wool markets - that's where all the interest is in this region. 
Around 100 stands this year and last time they got over 5000 visitors in
the two days.  Not bad when you consider that the town that's hosting it
only has a population of around 1500 or so (it's at Barcaldine about 100km
down the road from Longreach).

 DW> Will you be supporting the Amiga on your stand?

Much as I would like to do something along those lines I just can't justify
it.  You just can't do it out here when there's no support available.  No,
we'll be hawking PC's and internet solutions.  My PC dealer mate will be
selling the hardware and I'll be trying to sign people up for internet
courses and web development work.

Ran my first intro course last week and it went over pretty well. Picked up
some consultancy work as a result of it to go out and fix a computer for
internet access for someone as well.

All in all things are going fairly well - better than I initially expected
actually.  It won't pay me a salary yet but it should keep me supplied with
new toys fairly well.

 DF>> While that may help it's probably not of critical importance.  To be
 DF>> honest, for the last week or two I really haven't had much time to do
 DF>> more than routine BBS maintenance on the Amiga.  The linux and Win95
 DF>> machines have been taking up much of my time...

 DW> I know the feeling.  I now use my IBuM more than the Amiga.  In fact,
 DW> I only use the Amiga for Fido mail and playing BRE.  

I do all of my web development on one of the PC's here and much of the
internet access - my ISP uses CHAP negotiation on his PPP connections and,
so far, only the registered version of Amiga PPP supports this.

 DF>> Oh, just an aside in case some of my messages haven't been getting
 DF>> out...  the AUST_AMIGA web pages are up and running as:

 DF>> http://www.gla.com.au/aust_amiga/index.html

 DW> I'll have a look-see tonight.  Assuming my ISP doesn't crash again,
 DW> that is.

My ISP has now been down for over 24 hours and I _really_ needed to get my
web pages online before the show (starts Tuesday).  I got your email
though, I've incorporated a number of your bookmarks into the links lists. 
Thanks for that.

 DF>> Oh, and what's the state of play on Amiga web browsers?  What level
 DF>> of HTML do they support these days?

 DW> They aren't really in the same league as Netscape yet.  I've only had
 DW> a brief look at them (the Amiga programs, that is) so far.  I will set
 DW> the Amiga up for Internet as a backup.  I have AmiTCP up and running
 DW> so the rest should be easy.  In fact, I'll also set Emplant up with
 DW> the Mac Internet software.

I prefer Internet Explorer v3.0 now actually.  I'm having a heap of fun
with ActiveX and VBScript (and JavaScript).  I suspect that MS are going to
have a winner with it - if for no other reason then because it's free.  My
ISP (TPGI) have just announced that they're changing to using IE as their
default browser and have given the cost of licensing Netscape as the
reason.

I haven't had any complaints about not being able to see the Amiga pages
yet so I'm assuming that what I've setup on them is usable for most people
anyway.  I always try and ensure that even Lynx users can get reasonable
use out of my pages anyway - even if they don't get full functionality
unless they're using IE3.0 for it's ActiveX support...

  //  CYA,
\X/ Dave ;-)

... Tomorrow is yesterday's day after today.         

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