DACS Board of Directors - Wednesday, January 11, 2012

By Bruce Preston

Called to order: 7:10.

Attending:  Richard Corzo (President), Jim Scheef, Andy Woodruff, Lisa Leifels, Elizabeth Talian, Bruce Preston (Secretary), Patrick Libert, David Green (Treasurer)
Guesst: Charlie Bovaird, David Mawdsley

Minutes of Last Meeting – accepted with corrections.

Treasurer Report

INCOME

EXPENSES

The treasurer submitted a 2012 budget to the board.

Membership Report

Old Business

• General meetings
• January 3: Jim Scheef, Drew Kwashnak, and Richard Corzo—Performing tasks in Windows, Mac, and Linux—3 way comparison. Preview: Bruce Preston, Review: Lisa Leifels.
• February 7: Jim Scheef, Drew Kwashnak, and Richard Corzo—Windows, Mac, and Linux comparison—part 2. Preview: Richard Corzo will update preview, Review: Elizabeth Talian & Lisa Leifels.
• Possible future topics:
• Tentative March: Windows tuning—Safe Mode, MSCONFIG, turning off unneeded services, Microsoft Standalone System Sweeper (Beta), etc. We could also call it “How to be an administrator of your machine.” Contacted Rob Limbaugh who said he is willing for March.
• Andy will continue his communication with Google regarding a possible Google speaker.  He will ask that the speaker focus on Google Apps (Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Sites, and Google Docs) and Google Voice.
• May: John Patrick – Annual State of the Internet
• June: Patrick Libert will do Music Services – Pandora, Spotify, iTunes Match, Amazon Cloud Player
• Apple – Lion OS, other offerings, (Dave Marra?)
• Artificial Intelligence – from Alan Turing to Eliza to Watson – Bruce to develop targeting July or August.
• Smart Computing – “Presentation in a box” – needs about 8 weeks notice – held in reserve.
• Ultrabooks, Tablets, etc.  Perhaps a comparison of iPad, Android-based tablets, Kindle Fire, etc.
• Cloud storage/backup services—Dropbox, box.net, Skydrive, Mozy, Carbonite, etc. What features to look for?
• Open positions
• The membership chairperson/greeter position is still open.
• 2011 income and expense report — Dave Green submitted a review of last year’s income and expenses, and produced a budget for 2012.   After brief discussion it was decided to form a finance committee consisting of Richard, Andy and David to review.  They will meet next Tuesday (Jan 17.)
• We have planned a display for the Bethel library. (Andy Woodruff, Drew Kwashnak, and Richard Corzo) Andy and Richard to install next week.
• How might we make use of meetup.com to draw more membership interest?  Elizabeth will look into what establishing a group would entail – setting up, costs, etc.    This evolved into a discussion of Facebook – whether and how DACS should use it to promote DACS, and also whether we should consider a presentation on what portions of Facebook may be of interest to members.  This would include security issues, privacy issues, applications, etc.
• Patrick updated our ACPUG records and we are now listed when users search for a user group in CT.

New Business

• Contacted former Fairfield County Computer Users Group (FCUG) to ask if they will add us to their home page (http://www.fcug.org).  We have only received an auto response.
• Advertizing in DACS.DOC or on the site.   After discussion it was moved and accepted that we quote $25 for 3 months, the size to be the same as the Café Press DACS ad.
• Charlie suggested that there be a top-level menu item (buttons on left) for JOIN DACS in addition to the link on the right.
• Charles also recommended that the links for joining be made more visible – you have to scroll to find it.

Adjourned: 9:15.