Williamsport Area Computer Club

Newsletter / Meeting Minutes

September 1998

Our next meeting will be held on Tuesday, October 13, at 7 PM, in Room B-309 of the Lycoming College Academic Center. We will have a presentation on DirectPC satellite Internet access by a representative from SkyCable.

All meetings are free and open to the public.

Our last meeting began at 7 PM, September 8, with introductions of our members and new attendees. Once again it was well-attended for this time of year.

Committee Reports:

Advertising / Awareness / Public Relations / Home Page:

• No action this month, other than show advertising. Robbie was asked to take flyers to the PC Parts auction for distribution.

Computer Show / Swap Meet:

• Kathy led the recruiting effort for Show staff. Positions filled include: Parking, Joe; Tickets, Nancy; Vendor Assistance, Dan; W.A.C.C. Information Table, Sharon; Door Prizes, Dan. In addition, other club members would be on hand to allow us to browse the other vendors.
• In addition, Kathy revealed her idea for a Computer Stress Relief Booth, where attendees would get the chance to smash computer components for a donation to our club! Jim agreed to man it. It was agreed that no monitors would be smashed and that safety goggles would be made available for participants.
• Lou reported that vendors agreeing to attend so far included Micro One, PCS, and Compumart. He contacted MMI and they seemed interested, but hadn't committed yet.
• Otto's Bookstore proposed a plan to provide books for the Club to sell, and would donate 20% of the proceeds in return for receiving the table space for free. Everyone agreed to the idea and Dale volunteered to man the table. Suggestions were taken for titles to order.
• Our ad is airing on the KISS-FM Calendar, WMYL, and Susquehanna Channel 2. In addition, the Sun-Gazette will feature our show in an article and picture, and we will be promoting the event on WRAK the Tuesday before it.
• Kathy created iron-on transfers so everyone manning the event would have a club t-shirt.

Computer Recycling (finding charitable uses for old computers):

• No action this month. Donations are still being accepted because, although we have a number of components, we don't have enough items to assemble complete systems.

Other Business / Information for the Good of the Group:

• The J.V. Brown Community Net, which helps nonprofit organizations create a Web presence, will hold its next training session on September 30 at 7:30 PM. See http://www.lycoming.org or call the JVB Library at 326-0536 for more information.
• The Internet Business Users Group will have its first meeting on October 12 at 7:30 PM in the JVB Library READiscover Room.
• The annual Fall Internet World show will be held in New York City on October 5 - 9. See http://www.iworld.com for details.
• Kathy wants to present a program about ISDN at a future meeting.
• It was suggested that we hold a post-meeting party in December.
• Announcement was received of the Susquehanna Valley Amateur Radio Club computer and radio show and flea market, to be held 9 am to 4 PM Saturday, October 17, at the Route 15 Flea Market complex near Lewisburg. For more information see their web site at http://loveland.dynip.com/svarc

Computer Networking / ISP News:

• Sunlink is running a "$9.99 a month until 1999" promotion.
• CSR UpLink has announced that it has obtained the uplink.net domain name.

Program:

We held a "Beginner's Night" open discussion this month. Topics included:

• Help with a scanner that locks up the system. Suggestions included checking for conflicting background programs and making sure the most recent drivers are loaded.
• Questions about Year 2000 compatibility of BIOS chips. Some very old ones may need to be replaced.
• Refrigerated CPUs for PCs -- it's been done commercially now, but it's not cheap!
• Using a high-speed external modem on a 486 system. The IBM PS/2 series has a built-in serial port which doesn't have a high-speed UART, and MCA cards can be hard to find today. It was also suggested that a slow CPU wouldn't be very satisfying for web browsing, but there is a lightweight browser named Opera available now, as well as a DOS version of the Lynx text-mode browser.
• Problems sending attached files to AOL email addresses. AOL apparently doesn't recognize some types of attachments, so the recipient needs to download a MIME decoder to use on his own machine. Alternatively, ICQ can be used to send files to online users without having to deal with email.
• Getting rid of Instant Messenger ads from Netscape Communicator V4. If anyone knows how to do it, contact Dan!
• Kathy would like to know whether Netscape Mail can be made to download new messages automatically.
• Getting extra Undo layers in Photoshop 5. They're available under the History tab, but must be configured.

We are in need of speakers, and suggestions for speakers, for our meetings. Any computer-related topic is welcome!

Reminder: The next meeting is Tuesday, October 13, at 7 PM, in the Lycoming College Academic Center room B-309.

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