Williamsport Area Computer Club

Newsletter / Meeting Minutes

February 1999

Our next meeting will be held on Tuesday, March 9, 1999, at 7 PM, in Room B-309 of the Lycoming College Academic Center. This will be a "beginner's night" where we will open the floor for general computer questions and discussion instead of having a guest speaker. All meetings are free and open to the public.

Our last meeting was called to order at 7:07 PM on February 9, 1999 by President John Yarosz. We noted several new attendees. There was no treasurer's report this month due to Dan's absence.

Committee Reports:

Advertising / Awareness / Public Relations / Home Page:

• Kathy apologizes for not updating the home page recently. She reports that Sunlink's NT server is now up and she will pursue moving the page to that server.
• PCS PowerNet (www.pcspowernet.com) has added a link to our Club on their community links page. Thanks again, PCS!

Computer Recycling (finding charitable uses for old computers):

• Robbie reports that we now have ten working systems.
• John wondered how we could better advertise the availability of these systems to eligible parties. Marlin Lilley suggested that we contact the Williamsport school district and offer to provide computers for needy people. Andy volunteered to contact the Loyalsock school.
• Jim reported on a request from Camp Kydnie, a camp for children with kidney disorders, for a computer to do multimedia presentations. It was suggested by a member that if our systems weren't suitable, the camp staff should contact local computer stores to see if one of them would agree to lend them a system.

Computer Show:

• We need volunteers to organize this year's computer show. No date has been set, but the feeling seems to be that we should hold it close to the same time as last year (mid-September.)
• Andy wants advance notice of the date so he can advertise it at his Seniors Computer Classes.

Computer Help:

• Norm reported that someone has been breaking into his system and sending messages directly to his screen in AOL Instant Messenger and PowWow. The intruder deleted some of his files and claimed that he had installed a virus. Jim advised him to contact the providers of those programs to ensure that he has the current releases and to determine if they contain a security flaw that must be corrected. It is also possible that one of them may have been a trojan horse.
• We had another discussion on web-browsing privacy and cookies.

Information for the Good of the Group:

• The J.V. Brown Community Net group (www.lycoming.org) continues to have regular meetings. Interest is high.
• John finds ZDTV, a new computer-news channel from Ziff-Davis, highly informative.

Internet News:

• Jim reported on the world's smallest web server, 1.75" x 2.75" x 0.25". See http://wearables.stanford.edu for more details.
• There was some discussion about Free-PC, a company which plans to give away 10000 computers and free Internet access. The project is going to be supported by advertising, though none of us could imagine a way to enforce the use of their Internet service, nor prevent users from completely replacing the installed software.
• Mike mentioned hearing of a plan to create a new country existing entirely on the net. Anyone having more information on this is encouraged to post it to the mailing list, as Jim, the resident expert on matters of high strangeness, is unfamiliar with it.

Program:

Our guest speaker this month was Paul Cohen from SkyCable, a South Williamsport satellite-TV dealer. He discussed high-speed Internet access via the DirecPC satellite system. He reported that he downloaded the 14.27 megabyte Netscape archive in 4.5 minutes, which amounts to 54 kilobytes per second. The system consists of a 36" satellite dish and a PCI card which receives the data. A modem and telephone line are needed for outgoing data from your computer, but most network traffic consists of data sent to your system via satellite from DirecPC's uplink center in Maryland. Paul noted that it is also possible to purchase a dual-feedhorn dish that will receive signals from both the DirecPC satellite and DirecTV's satellite located a few degrees away, allowing you to have a television receiver and a data receiver with only one dish.

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