Williamsport Area
Computer Club
Newsletter /
Meeting Minutes
May 1998
President Dan Yoas called the meeting to order at 7 PM, May
12, 1998.
There were no corrections to April's minutes.
Committee Reports:
Advertising / Awareness / Public
Relations / Home Page:
- Thanks to the Williamsport Sun-Gazette for
publicizing our meeting in Sunday's edition.
- QuikCopy offered to print our business cards in exchange
for Club membership. Wayne will supply them with the
graphics. Thanks again to QuikCopy for their generous
donation of services!
- Jim reported on a request from a newsletter subscriber
for information on the date of this year's Fanny In The
Susquehanny Float. It was suggested that the writer
contact the sponsors, the local chapter of the American
Lung Association, or look for advertising on http://www.pavisnet.com.
- Another request concerned computer tutoring for senior
citizens. There is a program being run at the James V.
Brown Library by Andy Hughes, but it is filled through
the end of the year. It was suggested that the writer
contact the local franchise of The 4th R, a computer
training company who serve a wide range of clients.
- Advertising was received for the Murgas Amateur Radio
Association hamfest and computer show, to be held Sunday,
July 5, at the Luzerne County Fairgrounds on Route 118 at
Lehman. Gates open at 8 AM and admission is $5. For more
information, phone (717) 288-3532 or email WB3FAA@aol.com.
Computer Show / Swap Meet:
- Sharon gave her impressions of the recent Bloomsburg
hamfest and computer meet. She noted that there was much
more computer equipment than radio equipment, and there
were several local commercial vendors present, but
attendance peaked in the morning and everyone was packing
up by 1 PM even though it was scheduled to run until
3:00. (This is not unusual.) She discussed it with a
representative of their club, who told her that they were
having a problem with attendance at their meetings. They
suggested that we hold a joint show next year, but we're
going to wait and see how this year's show goes. On a
positive note, Sharon reported that there were plenty of
cheap accessories such as cables for sale.
- We are going to try to obtain St. Mark's Church for
September 19th.
- We agreed that the hall would be open at 8 AM for setup
and open to the public from 9 AM til 2 PM. We will try to
have everything taken down by 3 PM, although we plan on
renting the hall til 6 PM.
- Admission fees were discussed again, leading to slight
adjustments from our previous goals. We agreed on $3 for
adults and free for kids under 12. We decided to offer a
coupon for $1 off the admission price on our web page as
a means of advertising. Admission for tailgaters will be
$5.
- We're budgeting $50 for advertising flyers. We plan on
printing about 50 in color and hundreds in black. Flyers
will be printed in June following approval of the date by
the church board.
- Sharon suggested printing a map on the flyers.
Computer
Recycling (finding charitable uses for old computers):
- Robbie, admin@lycoming.org,
reported that he hasn't bought any new hardware yet. Jim
forwarded two offers of hardware donations to him for
followup.
- Donations of working systems have been received from Kim
Reeder, the JVB Library, and John Chapman (who also
donated storage containers for components). Thanks to all
of you!
- Jerry Baker relayed information indicating that surplus
Pentium systems could be had from the federal government.
Kathy is pursuing this.
Other Business:
- Kathy has ordered materials to be used as gifts for our
guest speakers and door prizes at our show. Reimbursement
from the treasury was authorized.
- Willis's program on computer upgrading is postponed
indefinitely due to scheduling conflicts.
- June's Guest Speaker will
be a representative from Cellular One, discussing
Internet access via cellular phone.
Computer Networking / ISP News:
- ZDTV, a new computer-related channel from publishing
house Ziff-Davis, is broadcast in the clear on Satcom C4,
transponder 12. For more information, see http://www.zdnet.com/zdtv/.
- CSR UpLink has
installed a chat server.
Help / General Computer Discussion:
- Sharon reported on a new virus she encountered.
- Jim has found a way to sometimes work around Windows 95's
Disk Defragmenter's bug of reporting disk errors when
ScanDisk reports none: run Defragmenter in
"consolidate free space only" mode first, then
try a complete defragment. If that doesn't work, try
"defragment files only".
- Kathy, kkolb@kolbweb.com,
would like to know how to modify a database online using
Microsoft Access.
Program:
Our program for this month was an idea suggested by Kathy: Web
Site Show and Tell. Everyone was encouraged to
bring a sample printout of their favorite web sites, or e-mail
the URLs to Jim if they were unable to attend. The following are
some of the sites mentioned, in no particular order:
Treasurer's Report:
Our balance as of the meeting date is $430.06. During April,
we paid $11.46 to the Sun-Gazette for a classified ad,
and one person paid dues.
The meeting ran until after 8:30 PM. Total attendance was 12
people, including two newcomers. The low attendance was
attributed to the fact that the weather was pleasant for the
first time in many weeks.
Future Programs
June 9 |
Cellular One -- Internet
Access via Cellular Phone |
July 14 |
Summer Break at Benjies -- Social
Night, No Business Meeting |
August 11 |
Beginner's Night |
September 8 |
Voice Recognition (tentative!) |
October 13 |
SkyCable -- DirecPC (tentative!) |
November 10 |
Election of Officers |
December 8 |
Topic Open -- Volunteers
Needed! |
The next meeting is
Tuesday, June 9, at 7 PM, in the Lycoming College Academic Center
room B309.
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