Office Memo - In the Blink of an Eye

Steve Mann

It's amazing how much can happen when you're not looking. Things have been particularly busy around the MADA offices since the last FrameWorks issue went to print. Let me summarize some of the more interesting activities.

First, I'm pleased to announce that Patricia McCauley has joined us as our new Office Manager. If you call our offices, chances are Patricia will be the cheery voice on the other end of the line. She comes to us with a wealth of experience in direct mail, retail, and other related skills. It's a pleasure to have her here to take care of all the important stuff. If you have any questions with your memberships, mailings, or products you've ordered, she's the person to contact.

Ad Lib

We've been shipping Ad Lib betas for about six weeks. Bug reports are getting much less frequent. We're hoping to have a golden master ready to ship before the end of September (about this time you're reading this article). Stay tuned for an announcement.

New Products

In our attempt to provide the broadest possible range of tools to MADA members at very competive prices, I'm pleased to announce that we are now resellers for two outstanding products-Steve Jasik's The Debugger and MacNosy, and IT Makers' Marksman 2.0. The Debugger and MacNosy need no introduction. They've been around for years. Marksman 2.0 is a prototyping and code generation tool created by George Cossey, the same person who brought us the original Prototyper published by SmethersBarnes.

The 1993 MADA San Diego Conference

Those of you that receive MACAPP2TECH$ or MACAPP3TECH$ AppleLink traffic have already received the conference announcement and call for papers. For the rest of you, the fouth annual MADA conference will be held February 15-19 at the Hilton Beach Club & Tennis Resort in San Diego. The Hilton is a great facility, and the rates are much lower than last year's conference. Look for more details about the conference program in the November issue of FrameWorks.

Regarding the program, we already have tenative speaking agreements with various Apple and Symantec folks. Bob Hablutzel, the conference chairperson, is actively pursuing other presenters. He's determined to make this the best MADA conference yet.

We're looking for MADA members that would like to present at the conference. The Call for Participation on page 15 describes the types of sessions, typical topics, and so on. If you have an idea for a presentation, send Bob a link at MADA.CON. He's also interested in hearing your suggestions for a banquet speaker and vendor presentations.

Future Directions

In the near future expect to see even more changes at MADA. First, we're going to implement a mechanism whereby we can get in touch with all our members in a more timely fashion. A lot can happen between FrameWorks issues. We need to communicate more quickly.

We're looking at a variety of options-a bimonthly newsletter mailed between FrameWorks issues, an AppleLink bulletin board (with synchronized counterparts on America Online and CompuServe), and a member-wide broadcast electronic service (if you have any suggestions we'd like to hear them). Once we've finalized a mechanism, we'll be offering additional member services such as an employment clearing house.

We're also hoping to expand our tools offerings, so that we can provide our members with the broadest possible range of object-oriented software and development tools at substantial discounts. We're talking to a variety of developers about publishing software that's already available from other sources. We're also looking for new tools, class libraries, and utilities that have never been published before. If you know of any exciting prospects let us know (and expect to see some announcements in the very near future).

The final message remains the same as in the last FrameWorks-let us know what we can do to improve our service to you our members. That's why we're here.