Williamsport Area Computer Club

Newsletter & Meeting Minutes

Year-End 1999

Our next meeting will be held on Tuesday, January 11, 2000 (a.k.a 19100), at 7 PM, in our new permanent location, the JVB Library Technology Annex, 123 East 4th Street, Williamsport.

Our guest speaker will be Debra Sanders, who will discuss the various computer certification and certification-preparation classes available through the Pennsylvania College of Technology.

Our last formal meeting prior to our December social gathering at Joey's was called to order at 7:13 PM on November 11, 1999 by President John Yarosz. The minutes of October's meeting were approved. In Dan's absence, there was no treasurer's report. Two new attendees introduced themselves and said that they found the Club through our ad in the Sun-Gazette.

Committee Reports:

Advertising / Awareness / Public Relations / Home Page:

Jim suggested that we announce next year's first meeting on Susquehanna Cable's public information channel to advertise our new location. We ought to also prepare flyers to be posted at the old location for anyone who misses the announcement.

Computer Recycling (finding charitable uses for old computers):

• Robert, our hardware coordinator, reported that Northern Central Bank donated a 15" monitor.
• Kathy received an offer of 486 systems with 15" monitors from The West Company.
• Robert received an offer of 20 to 25 `386 and 486 systems with monitors from a source in Lock Haven. We would need to take the entire lot, which leads to a problem since we don't have much use for `386 systems. We will probably decline the offer.

Computer Show:

No actions this month. Ideas for next year are always welcome, however.

Computer Help:

No actions this month.

Other Business:

• Permanent Location Change: The J. V. Brown Library will be completing their new Technology Annex in December. We will be meeting there next year because we will have access to computers and the Internet for our presentations. The location is the old Christian Light Bookstore building at 123 East Fourth Street. Thanks to Lycoming College for supporting us these last few years, and thanks to Dan Yoas and all at the library for the new location.
• Future Program Planning: We are in need of guest speakers for 2000. Volunteers so far are Kathy with a web programming overview and Lou with an online shopping talk. No dates have been set. Other suggestions have been to contact Rob Colley at Hoyer's for a digital video demonstration and Susquehanna Communications for a cable modem demo. Our members have also expressed an interest in Internet security, virtual reality, and online genealogical research, so if you know someone with experience in those fields, or if you are someone with experience in those fields, please consider giving us half an hour of your time. Email any of the club officers or attend our meetings on the second Tuesday of each month.
• Election of Officers: After a brief discussion of whether we had a quorum (another reason to get your $12 yearly dues in), Lou Kolb moved that, whereas there was only one nominee for each post, we cast a unanimous vote for the entire slate of candidates. John Yarosz seconded the motion and the vote carried. Officers for the year 2000 are Geoffrey Knauth, President; Kathy Kolb, Vice-President; John Yarosz, Treasurer; and James Shaffer, Jr., Secretary.

Local Computer and Internet News:

• UpLink offers commercial wireless Internet connectivity in the Williamsport area.
• The Pennsylvania College of Technology is offering various certification-oriented computer classes in the coming year, including MCSE (April 14), A+ (January 14), Network+ (January 7), and MOUS (throughout the year). For more information, attend our January 11th meeting or contact Debra Sanders, (570) 327-4775 ext. 7377.

Program:

November's guest speaker was Gary Hurley. He demonstrated BeOS, a relatively new operating system that was originally designed for PowerPC machines but is now available for Intel systems. BeOS is designed to be very user-friendly, with a modern, pleasantly-designed graphical interface, but is also very powerful, with an advanced filesystem and Unix-workalike command line interface. In addition, it runs very fast and uses relatively little memory, and is particularly optimized for multimedia applications. It has attracted attention from Amiga users and Linux programmers.