Presidential Ramblings

The time warp of publishing lead times means that it is now a week before Christmas, but it will be after New Years when you read this. When I wrote last month's column, the neighbors still had Halloween decorations up, so the Holidays were the last thing on my mind – and yes, I still have shopping to do--so please accept my belated wish for peaceful and safe holidays.

The coming year is already presenting challenges. As I write this, we have programs confirmed for only the next two general meetings. I'm sure both will be excellent because both speakers are DACS members. In past years, the "home grown" program was the exception. The size of our membership allowed us to attract speakers from software companies all over the country. Unfortunately, the number of companies able to pay for speakers to travel to user group meetings is shrinking every month. Besides, how many times do you want to hear about the same programs? So here is my call for help: what topics do you want to learn about at the general meeting? How many would be interested in a program about programming tools? This would be quite a bit more technical than we are used to. We had a program on setting up a home network. How many would be interested in a "next installment" on security? What about wireless networking? These are all my areas of interest; please let me know yours. Send me your thoughts at jscheef@dacs.org.

In the spirit of the Holidays I am going to give the following issues a rest:

1. The fact that Microsoft and our legislators are giving away the concept of fair use to the music and movie industries. Have you ever thought that Microsoft had your best interests in mind? How many lobbyists do you have in Washington?
2. There needs to be a balance in the reporting of security issues between Windows and open source operating systems. Neither is perfect and both are trying to get better.
3. Our civil liberties are being eroded in the name of fighting terrorism by a Congress afraid to stand up for our rights. Please tell them what you think.
4. Please register your shareware. If you use it, pay for it.
5. Ain't open source wunnerful? If you really think some free software is particularly good, send the developers a pizza.

Here are my predictions. By the end of the year:

1. Issues 1, 2 and 3 above will not only not go away, but will get worse.
2. Disk drives will get bigger and processors will get faste–and no one will care.
3. Wireless LANs will be everywhere –except anywhere I want to use one.
4. SPAM will be more than half of all email–and the industry and Congress will start to notice.
5. DACS membership will stop shrinking and start to grow again.

Weren't those early snow storms great? We actually had local cross country skiing in early December! Wonderful! This could be the best ski season in the East in years! Once again, here's to a safe and peaceful New Year!