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.
Future Programs
October 13 |
SkyCable -- DirectPC |
November 10 |
Kathy Kolb -- Introduction
to ISDN; election of officers |
December 8 |
To Be Announced (post-meeting
party tentative) |
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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