Williamsport Area Computer Club

Newsletter / Meeting Minutes

November 1998

Members are reminded that we are not holding a meeting in December. We will, however, meet for dinner at Benjie's Restaurant at 7 PM, Tuesday December 8th.

Our next meeting will be held on Tuesday, January 12 1999, at 7 PM, in Room B-309 of the Lycoming College Academic Center. Rob Colley from Hoyer's Photo in Williamsport will discuss and demonstrate digital cameras.

All meetings are free and open to the public.

Our last meeting was opened by Dan at 7:05 PM, November 10. We had an average turn-out for this time of year and at least one new face.

Correction to the minutes of October 13, 1998: It was incorrectly stated that the Club had a deficit of $8. In fact, the treasury stands at approximately $370. An exact report will be made later. The intent was to say that the Computer Show cost $8 more than it took in. Jim is unsure why he was confused when typing the newsletter.

Election of Officers:

Wayne Palmer declined to run for President, leaving John Yarosz the only candidate to replace outgoing President Dan Yoas. All positions now appearing uncontested (see last month's newsletter), a motion was made by Andy Hughes and seconded by Lou Kolb to close nominations. That motion having carried, a motion was then made by Lou, seconded by Andy, to authorize the Secretary to cast one vote for the complete slate of candidates. The motion was approved unanimously. Officers for 1999 will be as follows: President, John Yarosz; Vice-President, Kathy Kolb; Treasurer, Dan Yoas; Secretary, Jim Shaffer.

Committee Reports:

Advertising / Awareness / Public Relations / Home Page:

No action this month..

Computer Recycling (finding charitable uses for old computers):

• Dan was contacted by John Beirne from a local computer store, who is looking for opportunities to place used computers and is willing to work with us in this effort.
• Robert has assembled six working systems from the club's accumulation of equipment in Kathy's basement. He was asked to compile an inventory of this equipment for inclusion in the newsletter.
• Kathy reported that Faxon Lanes may have equipment to donate.
• Now that we have a number of working systems again, we need to promote their availability.
• Another person has volunteered to help Kathy with the equipment.
• The Kennedy/King Center is looking for volunteers to help with computer education. We will donate part of our large cache of blank disks.

Computer Help:

• Jim Ingram wanted to know how to send mail to multiple addresses without having the complete address list appear in the message headers. The answer is to put your own name in the 'To' field and use the 'Blind Carbon Copy' field for the mailing list.
• Kathy noted her frustration with HP's paid technical support on an ongoing scanner problem.

Information for the Good of the Group:

• Andy Hughes needs more volunteer instructors for Senior Citizens Computer Classes at the James V. Brown Library. Courses run 1½ hours per week for 5 weeks, with 15 students per instructor. If you are interested in volunteering, call 323-6055.
• Dan notes that the controversy over the county's funding of the library isn't threatening their existing computer services, but expansion is unlikely. Sunday hours or the Bookmobile are the most likely things to be curtailed without realistic funding increases. He would also like everyone to be aware that the funding problems existed well before the current censorship debate.

Internet News:

Our Club was founded by a group of devoted BBS users in the dying days of Williamsport boards -- which luckily coincided with the beginning of the public Internet era locally. We continue to focus heavily on the Internet and discuss new developments at every meeting.

• John reported that he has subscribed to PCS PowerNet, a new local ISP. He was provided with a copy of Internet Explorer 4 and says that their home page contains tutorials for users of all experience levels. The speed seems to be normal and he has had no busy signals so far.
• Kathy reported that she has installed Microsoft Outlook version 4 and likes it. She had no problem importing Netscape's bookmarks, etc.
• Microsoft memos leaked to the net indicate that they view Linux as a serious competitor to Windows because of its huge developer base and free availability of source code. Jim noted also that Corel plans to release a full version of WordPerfect for Linux for free in the immediate future, and Netscape has already released the source code for its existing browser and plans to make its next-generation layout engine available as a module for developers to build upon. One person has reported creating a browser that is smaller than 1.44 MB.

Program:

Kathy Kolb spoke on her installation of an ISDN link to her home network. She has a static IP address assigned to her combined ISDN adapter and router, which is connected to an 8-port Ethernet hub. Her computers, currently two workstations and a server, are connected to the Ethernet hub via wall jacks wired to a patch panel. The patch panel was installed to allow her to reconfigure her wall jacks for either Ethernet or telephone. The telephone connection is also provided by the $580 ISDN adapter. It is configured to allow Internet traffic over both BRI channels for 112 kbps, but automatically reassigns one channel to the telephone when necessary while continuing the Internet connection at 56k. She is very happy with the technical aspects of the system, which gives significantly higher throughput than a 56k modem. Lou reports no noticeable dropouts or stalling on network audio feeds.

We are in need of speakers for 1999.

Any computer-related topic is welcome.

Happy Holidays!

See you in 1999!

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