DACS President's Message
Issue 1.8
November 2005

Nothing… Not a thing… I have to pen a column for the November newsletter and I’ve got nothing… I can’t think of a single thing to write about.

I suppose I could write about the weather… It’s been raining for roughly 40 days and 40 nights… I’m about to search the internet for the blueprints for Noah’s Arc.

DACS needs your input and your ideas.

I’ve been a member of DACS for roughly 12 years now. In that time I’ve been privileged to work with an incredibly talented and dedicated group of people. Several of the faces have changed over the years but the commitment remains.
We can’t do it alone. We need your input and ideas. We need members who are willing to share some of their time by:

• Writing – Our newsletter, dacs.doc is looking for contributions. You can write a review of the General Meeting, review software or write about anything technology-related.

• Marketing & Public Relations – DACS is a 300 plus member organization that is remarkably unknown. We need to do a better job spreading the word about DACS. We need you help to build a comprehensive marketing and public relations plan for DACS.

Annual Meeting & Board Elections

It’s election season again. Each December, we host our annual meeting and hold elections for half of the seats on board of directors. This year there are six seats up for election. If you’re interested in running for a seat on the board of directors contact any officer or director. Our e-mail addresses and phone numbers are in the newsletter.

News Bytes

Next Generation Treo – Palm, Inc. has announced that its next Treo smart phone will use Microsoft’s Windows Mobile operating system, rather than the Palm OS. I’m really not surprised that Palm has embraced Windows Mobile.
Why? Palm’s once dominant market share has been shrinking quickly over the last couple of years. While overall sales of PDAs have been declining slowly, sales of PalmOS-based PDAs have been shrinking faster than those of Windows Mobile based PDAs. That, coupled with an uncertain future for the PalmOS—developer PalmSource Inc. was acquired by Access Co.—makes Palm’s choice seem like a no-brainer in my book.

I suspect we’ll be seeing more Windows Mobile based devices from Palm in the coming months.
Video iPod – Apple has finally released a video ready iPod… Two predictions:

1. The new iPod will soon become a home for iPorn.

2. The unions representing actors and writers will soon demand residuals for paid programming delivered over the internet.
Spyware lawsuit – One of the advantages to reading blogs is that you find links to articles or columns that may not have seen otherwise. A case in point is the October 11th column by Eric J Sinrod in USA Today. Sinrod’s column details a federal trial court ruling in the case of Sotelo v. Direct Revenue. In its ruling, the court held that the ancient legal doctrine of trespass to chattels (meaning trespass to personal property) applies to the interference caused to home computers by spyware.
The full column is available online at <http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/ericjsinrod/2005-10-11-spyware_x.htm>. It’s worth reading.

Your comments & questions are always welcome. You can reach me at jasetaro @mags.net or jasetaro@yahoo.com.

Cheers;

—Jeff Setaro