Williamsport Area Computer Club

Newsletter / Meeting Minutes

April 1999

Our next meeting will be held on Tuesday, May 11, 1999, at 7 PM, in Room B-309 of the Lycoming College Academic Center. Lou Kolb will discuss "Computer Accessibility for Visually Impaired People -- Freedom or Frustration?" All meetings are free and open to the public.

Our last meeting was called to order at 7:05 PM on April 13, 1999 by President John Yarosz. The minutes of March's meeting were approved. There was no treasurer's report due to Dan's absence, but there were no expenses in the past month.

Committee Reports:

Advertising / Awareness / Public Relations / Home Page:

• Jim reported that Robin Van Auken at the Sun-Gazette suggests that she could arrange better announcements of our meetings if we would send out our newsletter earlier in the month. Jim will attempt to do so in the future, but is currently still very busy.
• There are still areas of the club's web site that need to be updated, such as the 'For Sale' page. Also, the recent meeting minutes are not online. This will have to be discussed with Kathy, who couldn't be present tonight.

Computer Recycling (finding charitable uses for old computers):

• We have a lot of VGA monitors in need of repair. Can anyone help? Contact Robbie or Kathy!
• Muriel is still looking for Internet-capable systems for parents of special-needs children.
• A stumbling block to getting an older system on the net is the lack of a web browser with a lot of capability but low hardware demands. An email correspondent suggested that we look into Arachne.

Computer Show:

• Kathy, Lou, and John met on the last Thursday in March to discuss plans for this year's computer show.
• We are going to attempt to hold it on Saturday, September 18th. We would like to have it at the city's new parking deck if it's open at that point in time.
• All of last year's vendors will be invited back. Most of them seemed enthusiastic about it last year.
• Suggestions for special programs to be held at the show include a Y2K seminar with local computer experts and a net finance seminar with representatives from companies such as Smith Barney or Charles Schwab.
• Everyone is strongly encouraged to bring ideas for all facets of the show, but especially for special features that will draw a crowd, to the next meeting.

Computer News:

• John reports that US Netway is installing new equipment and promises no more busy signals in three weeks. They have also installed a new news server.
• Hotmail is also supposed to be upgrading their equipment.
• Jim reports that CSR UpLink has quietly changed Usenet news providers. The new server doesn't drop any noticeable amount of articles, but can be slower than the old one because it isn't local.
• Jim is getting a consistent 48k from his 56k modem after a firmware upgrade.
• A member who shall remain nameless is very upset with MacAffee's Virus Scan product. On the box it promises "Update Immediately For Life", but when he connected to their web site for an update, he was informed he had 11 more months of free updates. He contacted them about it and was told, "'Life' means 'life of the product'"!
• Another member then pointed out that Norton's AntiVirus software offers weekly updates.

Program:

We were planning to discuss online tax advice, but since it was a last-minute decision and this month's meeting was very lightly attended, there was no formal program. It's worth mentioning, however, that both the federal and state governments now have tax forms available online to be printed out, to spare the trouble of obtaining a book through the mail.

The meeting was adjourned at 7:55.

[Return To Home Page]