Editorial September 2020

Hugh Macdonald

Welcome to another edition of PC Update!

This edition actually coincides with the anniversary of a fairly seminal moment in personal computing history – it’s now 25 years since Windows 95 was released. On August 24, 1995, it was generally released to the public. I was in school at the time, and I remember being quite excited about it. At home I had a 386 PC running Windows 3.1 but at school, I took computer classes (as they were then called) on Macintoshes (as they were then called). The ability to save files with long filenames was such a step forward at school, and such a limitation when I got home. So Windows 95 finally bridged that gap, made it easier to connect to the Internet, and brought more colour to the PC as well with its completely revamped interface from Windows 3.1. It’s interesting how I sit here writing this using Windows 10 and the interface is still much the same.

There’s some good content in this edition of PC Update (if I do say so myself):

• I’ve surveyed the members on Yammer and come up with an essential list of browser extensions, so take a look and see how they compare to yours
• We’ve got five projects you can undertake wih a Raspberry Pi – a great article to look at if you’re just getting into using a Raspberry PI, and want to do more with it
• There are interesting Internet finds to take a look at
• Some SIG reports are back: Northern Suburbs Linux SIG and East SIG (and the East SIG report has a good account of using Zoom if you’re still coming to grips with that)
• Tim McQueen has reviewed three non-computer related books you might be interested in
• Dennis Parsons is back with Yammer highlights and Roger Brown is back with DOTW Winners
• David Stonier-Gibson has his President’s report and a call to arms regarding club meetings post COVID

Happy reading!