*Reminder: Club meeting tomorrow (Tuesday, May 13, 7 p.m., Lycoming College - Program: Newbie Night - all computer related questions welcome!)*
Williamsport Area Computer Club Meeting minutes / newsletter - April 1997
Kathy Kolb, President, called the meeting to order, followed by an introduction of new guests. Last months meeting minutes were accepted as circulated. 30 people signed in at the meeting.
Willis Beaver, Treasurer reported $366.73 in our account, having 33 paid members.
Committees:
Club Advertising I Awareness I Public Relations I Membership / Home Page: Kathy read some e-mail received during the course of the month.
We did not use the AOL e-mail addresses given to the club this month due to the small area for the meeting.
Bylaws, etc.: No news.
Computer swap meet/Hamfest: The 7th Annual Hamfest-Computer Show was held April 13 at the Bloomsburg Fairgrounds sponsored by Columbia-Montour Amateur Radio Club
Computer Recycling: (giving old computers new homes): Alan Crawly has put together a 386 PC for a 60 year old Cerebral Palsy victim with writing disabilities. A request was made for a volunteer to take it to her along with a cannon bubblejet printer donated by Jack.
North Central PA computer networking / Freenet site: Andy Hughes reported that volunteers are desperately need for the JVB Computer Literacy Program for Seniors. At present, there are 45 students and only 15 tutors a ratio of 2.5 to 1! This involves one-on-one tutoring for Windows95, MS Works Word Processing, Spreadsheets and Database and the Internet. Scheduling will be determined between the senior and the tutor. Anyone interested, please contact Andy at LANDA1@csrlink.net or 323-6055.
JVB Community Net is hosting web space for non-profit organizations. The West Branch Amateur Radio Association was the first site to be hosted. www.jvbrown.edu/community/wbara
The keystone Compatibles Computer User Group's March Newsletter is now on-line at http://www.epix.net/~nlunger/kcnewslt.html
NAC (www.naccess.net) has offered free voice mail service to the Williamsport / Lycoming Chamber of Commerce Advanced Telecommunications - Information Technology (AT-IT) Committee, which intends to set up a menu driven system to provide the area with an easy to access, centralized place to get news on upcoming high-tech events including education opportunities, library resources, (WACC) club speaker information, etc...
Help: (offering help to computer users who need it) A request was made for a VC++ tutor offering $100.00 for 8 hours
Bob VanAllen donated Teacher Pages and Search Engine literature to the Club.
Local BBS / ISP / Computer Retailer news: Sunlink has a new toll free number: 888-SUNLNK-1 They have also instituted a "No Pay-No Play" Policy for those who do not keep their financial accounts current.
CompuMart had moved next to Leading Electronics.
CSR has new DNS numbers for their customers.
The James V. Brown has changed service providers from PenNet to Sunlink. The change was necessitated after PenNet dropped their local access availability. Their address remains www.jvbrown.edu
Other Concerns:
A discussion wash held on how to help deter spamming online. Bob VanAllen encouraged everyone to REPLY just long enough to type in 3 things and here's how you do it in returning e-mail:
1.. Select REPLY to message 2.. Copy return e-mail address from the at "@" sign to the end 3.. Type postmaster in front of the @ then paste the rest at the end ...... example: badstuff@spamzone.com, postmaster@spamzone.com ...... notice I've sent back to 2 locations 4.. Wipe out SUBJECT line and type: REMOVE 5.. Type into the message body: REMOVE
We also held a discussion on advice for purchasing a new PC. The major consensus was to buy mainstream hardware for compatibility issues. Dell was highly recommended for their high quality systems and support.
Programs: We all met at the ReaDiscover Room of the James V. Brown Library for an online demonstration on using the Alta Vista Search Engine. Reference Librarian Rhonda Fisher presented us with live web search techniques to enable us to obtain a more refined base of documents pertaining to a search for information.
The club presented a Certificate of Appreciation and donated a copy of the Alta Vista Handbook to the JVB Library to express our gratitude for providing the program.
We are recruiting a Chairperson to organize our monthly programs. If anyone has ideas or suggestions for future programs, please let us know!
Meeting Adjourned.
Next meeting date: Tuesday, May 13, 1997 - 7 pm, At Lycoming College Academic Center Room B309. It is another "Newbie Night" so everyone bring your questions and answers! A Lycos Search Engine Demonstration is tentatively scheduled for June or July.
Williamsport Area Computer Club contact info:- home page: http://www.sunlink.net/wacc Kathy Kolb - 326-7529 (voice) - kkolb@sunlink.net (email) IRC channel Tuesday and Sunday evenings on irc.dal.net ( /join #WACC ) wacc-chat mailing list- send a message to wacc-chat-request@sunlink.net with the word subscribe in the subject. Kathy Kolb - kkolb@kolbweb.com - www.kolbweb.com Kolb Net Works - Making the Internet Work for You. 717-326-2888 1-888-KOLB-WEB