Village News
ISSUE 56 August 1996

Welcome to July's edition of the Village News.

Silicon Village is delighted to announce that, due to the purchasing power of Saturn Network Services, we are now able to offer 9600 baud local call connection to the Village using the new Imminus FastDial service at the same timecharge that has been unchanged since Silicon Village started in October 1991.

FastDial replaces the previous 2400 MIDAC service and provides local call access to Silicon Village from the following numbers:-

Aberdeen	01224 644 557		Leicester	0116 270 5380
Accrington	01254 387 977		London	0181 759 6996
Belfast	01232 434 580		(2400+)	0181 759 6996
Birmingham	0121 454 1110		(1200/75)	0181 759 2348
Bristol	01179 298 519		Manchester (S)	0161 747 5000
Canterbury	01227 787 240		Milton Keynes	01908 200 361
Cardiff	01222 484 673		Newcastle	0191 478 1889
Colchester	01206 765 437		Nottingham	0115 924 3628
Doncaster	01302 325 755		Peterborough	01733 394 894
Edinburgh (S)	0131 459 1290		Sheffield	0114 279 9156
Exeter	01392 490 288		Worthing	01903 215 847
Glasgow	0141 221 4033

(S)=Sprint: These numbers will be available by the end of August.

Your scripts should be changed as follows:-

On initial connection, you must wait 2 seconds then type @ D and then press the ENTER key.
At the TERMINAL= prompt press the ENTER key.
When you see the @ prompt, type SVL and then press the ENTER key to connect to the Village login screen.

If you have any difficulty, or wish advice on connecting at 2400 baud, then please mailbox 100100111.

We are also giving notice that access to Silicon Village via the Mercury 5000 service will be withdrawn from 1st September 1996.

We recognise that the coverage is not as extensive as that previously provided by Mercury and MIDAC, and may result in some 'a' rate calls. However, there IS full national coverage on the 12/75 Imminus FastTrak network - please mailbox 100100111 for your local number.

You will also find that connecting to the Village at a fourfold increase in speed will enable you to read your favourite areas faster, and hence probably incur very little extra telecomms cost. May we also remind you that BT are offering a 25% discount on call costs over 10 minutes during August and that the weekend National Call rate is only £2 per hour.

Furthermore, we are developing software to allow you to dial your local Internet Provider and access viewdata Silicon Village across the Net.

However, in recognition of this slight inconvenience and that Villagers may wish to convert to our Village Direct scheme, we are waiving the account conversion charge of £10 plus VAT for all requests received during August 1996.

To remind you of the comparison between the Village Standard Account and Village Direct Account (costs include VAT) :-

* unlimited connection without timecharges ** includes two free hours per month.

If you are on local call to Reading or London already, then Village Direct is cheaper for a monthly usage of 6 hours or more.

Key *DIRECT for Village Direct.

FREE WEB SPACE

During August, we plan to launch the Silicon Village Web Site, which can be found at www.silicon.village.co.uk. We are setting up all your favourite areas on SVWeb, and plan some brand-new ones too. We are also upgrading the connection to the Internet.

The well-known Zara of Avatar fame has now been appointed as SVWeb Administrator; she took up her role on 1st July and has been nagging IPs ever since!

As a big thank you to all our Villagers who have continued to support us, for those with Internet accounts and able to edit in HTML, we are offering 1 megabyte of free Web Space in the Gallery area of SVWeb to all existing Villagers. The SV Web Gallery is intended to be run in the same way as the existing Gallery on SV Viewdata.

You will need a Web Browser, HTML Editor (Hotdog or HotMetal recommended) and FTP facilities. These are readily obtainable on the WWW as freeware or shareware and we can advise you where to find them.

If you are interested, then please mailbox Zara on 219998704, e-mail:
Glynis@zarabeth.demon.co.uk.

A directory will be set up in your name, with a route from:
www.silicon.village.co.uk/gallery and you will be provided with a username and password to enable secure FTP transfer of your pages to SVWeb.

We will publish any other relevant information in Cyber Beach.

Key *GALLERY for Village Gallery Key *BEACH for Cyber Beach

AUGUST MEET

Don't forget to put August 31st in your diaries for the Northern SummerFest to be held in Blackpool - being ably organised by David Walker.

Let's make this a meet to remember and we hope to see many of you there.

Key *SVMEET for full details of the Blackpool SummerFest.

DEMO A/C WINNER

We are pleased to announce that Simon Simpson of London has been selected from visitors to our SVDEMO database as the august winner of a free month full subscription to SV. You can earn yourself a fiver if you recommend a friend and they subsequently join.

Key *ENROL for Enrol-A-Friend and earn a fiver.

OBITUARY

It is with great sadness that SV has to announce the death of Paddy Harris at the age of 92. You may recall the Moonpie poems donated by Paddys wife and a short piece about his life in a recent newsletter. SV has passed their condolences to Paddy's family and we hope his poems will live on for ever.

The Waterfall

I heard a blackbird sing today
but I didn't know the song.
He reminded me of times long past
on the river banks along.

A thrush piped out on a far off tree over on the moor.
And a baaing lamb frisked and played about
that I never saw before.
Wild ducks quacked and flapped their wings
below the waterfall.
Where snowdrops bloomed and drooped their heads
along the old stone wall.

Paddy Harris