Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!caip!brl-adm!brl-smoke!smoke!JAZBO%BROWNVM.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU From: JAZBO%BROWNVM.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU (James H. Coombs) Newsgroups: net.micro Subject: BIX: Why Bother?, and CompuServe? Message-ID: <3112@brl-smoke.ARPA> Date: Sun, 17-Aug-86 16:57:33 EDT Article-I.D.: brl-smok.3112 Posted: Sun Aug 17 16:57:33 1986 Date-Received: Tue, 19-Aug-86 03:43:20 EDT Sender: news@brl-smoke.ARPA Lines: 36 I have been participating in the BIX conferences for about a month now and am finding it quite valuable. BIX provides an excellent "microbytes" conference of news, and a number of vendors provide on-line support, including MicroSoft and Lattice. There are others as well, but I don't follow them. So, if you are having trouble getting the attention of some of these big companies, you might find that BIX helps solve that problem. You might also appreciate the bug reports and fixes. Lattice, for instance, just announced a major bug in the latest version of their C compiler (3.01?). [Sorry, I don't use Lattice, so I didn't record the information.] If you are concerned about the cost ($11 an hour with Tymnet charges), be reassured that you can keep them down by being selective about the conferences that you join and by doing your reading and writing off line. Use a ProComm script, for example, to get all of the new postings in just a few minutes. Write responses off line and upload them into the editor when you are ready to post them. Also, if you are only mildly interested in a conference, follow the digest and read only those messages that are of interest to you. Finally, don't upload or download files. These procedures keep my billable time down to about five minutes a day, and I expect to get it down even further. --Jim P.S. BIX information is published in each issue of Byte. Don't judge the conferences by what they publish in the "Best of BIX" though. The best of BIX for me is the recommendations and the decommendations, and you know that Byte can't afford to publish those. P.P.S. I looked into CompuServe, but they started pulling a bait and switch on me. [If you want to duplicate this, just call them up with your Hayes free introductory offer in hand; they have turned those poor operators into machines. Make sure you get a full night of sleep before you do this if you want to understand what they are saying.] So, anyway, IS CompuServe worth it? Acknowledge-To: James H. Coombs