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DACS Board elections
December
is the month when we hold our one regular business meeting of
the year along with
the elections of half our board of directors. DACS has a representative
form of organization
where the members elect a board of directors and the directors
then select the officers. Unlike
most modern corporations, the DACS directors are directly involved
in the management of the
club. The directors meet each month on the Monday following the
general meeting (normally this
is the second Monday, but not always), and members are invited
to attend.
Once again we have a great slate
of candidates. Two people who have served on the board for
several years are stepping down: Past President and Newsletter
Editor Allan Ostergren and
Secretary Larry Buoy. Larry will continue as Secretary for the
time being and Allan will continue
as Newsletter Editor so they are in no way leaving the club.
Allan and Larry deserve our thanks
for a job well done serving as board members.
Hard Drive Failure Saga
Last month I mentioned at I had
been hit once again by the dreaded hard drive failure. The
recovery process took an entire month to complete and I'm still
finding more little things to fix.
Last time this happened (See Server Won't Boot, beginning in
June, 2001, DACS.DOC) I said
that you can't have too many backups. Well, this time my backups
were ok, but the backup
software (the backup program that comes with Windows 2000) failed
to restore a critical part of
Windows. This is a bug in Windows that afflicts an extremely
small percentage of Windows
installations. Unfortunately, mine was one of these. I'll write
up the full story for next month.
New Year Predictions
Well, it's that time of the year
again when we make those <shudder> trips to the mall for
Holiday
Shopping and people like me make predictions. I'll save my new
prognostications for next month
after we review my record from last year:
- I predicted that the following
would not only not go away but would get worse: (a) We would
continue to lose our right to fair use of the music and movies
that we buy in the form of CDs and DVDs. (b) The security issues
for both Windows and open source operating systems will
continue. Neither is perfect and both are trying to get better.
(c) Our civil liberties are being
eroded in the name of fighting terrorism by a Congress afraid
to stand up for our rights.
- Disk drives will get bigger and
processors will get faster and no one will care.
- Wireless LANs will be everywhere
except anywhere I want to use one.
- SPAM will be more than half of
all e-mail and the industry and Congress will start to notice.
- DACS membership will stop shrinking
and start to grow again.
On all three issues lumped into
#1 I truly wish I had been wrong or at least less right. (a)
The
RIAA has filed hundreds of law suits under the DMCA against ordinary
users. Many of these
suits have proven to be wholly without merit. Often the people
sued cannot afford to defend
themselves in court and settle because they believe they have
no choice, even when they have
never used any form of file sharing. Their settlements are then
sealed so we cannot see the
details. The RIAA will not disclose how many suits have been
dropped or thrown out. (b)
Windows updates continue to flow from Redmond. Rather than being
critical, we should be
thankful that we get these updates. I'm sure Microsoft will begin
to charge for these updates as
soon as they think they can get away with it. (c) A new bill
designed to increase the powers of
Federal government to intrude into our privacy was proposed (Patriot
Act II) and then dropped
when there was an immediate and vocal reaction against it. So
now the same provisions are being
attached to other bills in the hope no one will notice.
Ok, number two was a "gimme".
Processors are now so fast that Microsoft and the hardware
industry will need to find other reasons for you to upgrade like
a new "secure" architecture.
Gimme a break.
Wireless Internet access in the
form of Wi-Fi "hot spots" has grown over the past year
even here
in the Danbury area. Last spring I asked Borders if they had
Internet access and was told that they
had no plans for such a service but by fall they were handing
out flyers about their new service.
While the service is not free, at least it is from the same provider
(T-Mobile) as at area Starbucks.
If you sign up for the service,
you do have a choice of locations.
SPAM has become worse and Congress
has begun to notice. So I was right but once again I'm
not sure being right was good. The problem is that Congress cannot
really do anything more
about SPAM than they could about porn.
My last prediction was where I most
wanted to be right. Unfortunately our membership continues
to shrink very slowly. Our treasurer, Charlie Bovaird, calls
as many lost members as possible.
Many have simply moved out of the area. How can we serve you
better? Do you have ideas for
programs or services that DACS should pursue? Please let me know.
I'm not sure how to score this but
with most of these, even if I was right, we all lose.
New Mac SIG?
At the November general meeting
DACS received the surprise donation of an iMac. We are in
the process of thanking the donor. In the mean time, the iMac
has been moved to the Resource
Center where we have determined only that it is an older model
iMac with 32M of RAM, and
that it has Mac OS 8 installed. We are now looking for someone
to lead a new Macintosh group.
A Special Interest Group (SIG) is a place for people to share
their knowledge about a common
interest. The leader does not need to be a guru. I will be glad
to help get the new group going.
The first couple of meetings could easily center on upgrading
our "new" iMac with more RAM.
Once that's done, we could install OS X. Cool stuff!
Let me know if you are interested
in a Macintosh SIG even if you don't want to be the leader. My
phone number and email are in the masthead. IF THERE IS NO INTEREST,
THERE WILL BE
NO SIG!
Happy Holidays
I have a four year old Granddaughter
and I don't know who's more anxious for Santa to arrive
her or me! I hope everyone has Happy Holidays whatever your religious
persuasion and if you
have no religious persuasion, may you not be bothered by those
who do. And have a Happy,
Prosperous and Safe New Year!
Jim Scheef
dacsprez@dacs.org
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Presidential
Ramblings
