The 8th Anniversary SCOUG bash was a resounding success! I don't think anyone has ever tried to simultaneously do four installs of OS/2 -- Warp Server for eBusiness, the Convenience Pak from IBM, eComStation, and Warp 4 vanilla (with FixPak 15 from our very own SCOUG Emergency Disk). And the bottom line is, they all successfully installed right there in front of God and everyone. Try that on Windows systems that don't come already preinstalled (snicker). We even chose the installers through a drawing to eliminate any 'bias' (by the way, thanks much to the volunteers).

Personally, what I noticed the most is that all of the installs took 'roughly' the same time on these systems, and each install had its own little quirks. Speaking of quirks, I learned two things. First, when I do my own eCS install, I'm gonna make sure that I have that registration key on a floppy disk, and I am not going to assume that the devices which OS/2 autodetects are in fact the correct physical devices. Eliminate those two issues and all of our installations really went quite smoothly.

The second lesson here contrasts starkly with that 'other' operating system. All of the new OS/2 flavors are incrementally improved, more stable, with better device driver support, and still run on relatively modest systems; remember, our test systems were low profile Compaq integrated mobo's with Celeron 400's, 64 MB memory, and 10GB drives. I contrast this to my work environment, where every upgrade from Win98 to NT4 to Windows 200 Pro has required a significant cost in hardware upgrades, and changes in everything from file systems to server components have resulted in major lead time and retraining. Personally I think that if someone came up with a file converter that would let OS/2 and Unix users easily convert data files back and forth with MS Office products, then Microsoft would be in serious trouble. Even excluding their shooting themselves with XP.

Also sincere thanks to Mark Abramowitz for his years of being our Program Chair -- I think we actually surprised him with the gift, and that glass SCOUG 'fashion' clock was cool. By the way Mark, you will note that it took the entire Board to replace you. :-)

Finally, thanks to Kim Cheung for his update on the Warpstock 2001 event, as well as tantalizing hints of what is in store for us from Serenity & eCS. Hey Kim, this time the install worked! (GD&R)...

'till next time. If you have questions, suggestions, or want to contribute an article, just write me: tony@scoug.com.

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