DACS Board of Directors Meeting
Wednesday, October 9, 2013

By Bruce Preston

Called to Order: 7:05

Attending: Richard Corzo, Jim Scheef, Richard Teasdale, Lisa Leifels, Annette van Ommeren, Drew Kwasnack, Andy Woodruff, Bruce Preston, Bill Saturno, Dave Green
Guest: Charlie Bovaird

Minutes of Last Meeting: Accepted

Treasurer’s Report

Balance on hand 8/1/13  
$4,638.23
 
INCOME
Dues
$312.66
 
312.66
 
EXPENSES
Resource Center Phone
$83.15
 
Newsletter Printing
88.00
 
Newsletter Postage
36.16
 
Adobe Software $170.00  
MeetUp 6-month fee: $72.00  
Total Excpenses:
449.31
 
Balance on hand 9/30/13
$4,501.58

Membership Report

  August 2013 September 2013 October
Paying members 121 114 115
-with email addresses 111 108 109
new members 1 1 1
       
# pages
12
12
12
DACS.DOC printed 75 75 75
DACS.DOC mailed 62 60 61
DACS.DOC mailed-member 43 41 42
DACS.DOC mailed-other 5 5 5
DACS.DOC mailed-free lib 14 14 14
       
General meeting Office 365 - Microsoft Store Photo Organization - Ken Graff Virtual Machines – Bruce Preston
       
seat count 29 34 33
members signed in 24 28 29
visitors signed in 4 4 4

Old Business

  1. General meetings
    • October 1: Bruce Preston – Virtual Machine Technology, how it works and demonstration.  Preview: Jim Scheef, Review: Jim Ritterbusch.
    • November 5: Mike Kaltschnee—Danbury Hackerspace.  Preview: Bill Saturno, Review: Sean Henderson (Andy Woodruff backup)
    • December 3: Bill DeRosa—Facebook and Pinterest.  Preview: Lisa Leifels, Review: Richard Teasdale
    • February 4, 2014: Jay Ferron—Windows 8.1.  Preview: TBD, Review: TBD
    • Possible future topics:
      • Shall we do a “Meet the SIG” segment between the Ask DACS session and the featured presentation? What SIG should do September? Some suggestions: Mobile Devices, Linux (Raspberry Pi perhaps?), Drupal, Web Design.
      • “LifeStream” monitoring. Mike Kaltschnee mentioned FitBit (currently available at BestBuy) or other ‘wearable electronics’. Considering session on wearable technology such as this for the January session. Andy spoke with Jeff Schlicht, professor of phys ed at West Conn, about a possible presentation at DACS re wearable electronic devices that monitor exercise and/or body functions.  Bill may have access to someone who has Google Glass, and perhaps other health-related wearables.
      • Bruce did a Virtual Machine session in October and showed that an XP machine (or earlier) could be built to support legacy applications. Should we also schedule a hands-on workshop as a follow-on? Did we ask audience members at the meeting?  We will see if Sean would like Bruce to assist in setting up a workshop.  Decision must be made within a week so as to make announcement in the November newsletter.
      • Now that the new OS X Mavericks release has been announced to come out in the fall, we should ask Dave Marra to do another presentation as the time draws nearer. It need not be immediately after release, so something like January or March would be good.
      • Andy suggested a session on creating a web site of various types: blog, brochure, e-commerce site, etc.) – making use of such as products/services as site builder (online or on PC), turn-key sites, etc.  Andy suggested that as a computer group we should do some sort of session that would answer the question: “I think I need a web site, what are my options?”  This might involve a “high level” overview of the various approaches.  Andy (and to some extent Bruce) wanted to talk about the entry level ‘turn key’ systems where you must live within the constraints of the design, where Annette is more concerned about  “What happens if it doesn’t do what you want it to do?”  Annette and Andy will discuss creating an outline that describes at a high-level what components might be a part of a web site and the repercussions they have upon the construction of the site.
      • Lisa suggested a “decision tree” presentation – “What should I get?” – Windows or Mac, Desktop, All-in-One, Notebook, Tablet, or even SmartPhone – Android or iOS, etc. Lots of decisions - how to decide what meets your needs.  We think this would be a ‘tough’ presentation to pull off but a lively session.   Bruce, Richard C, Jim and Charlie will work on defining the metrics.

  2. Bill Saturno is our new APCUG representative. He is receiving APCUG e-mails but not everything.  It appears that APCUG has multiple distribution lists based upon functionality.  For example Richard C is deluged with APCUG mailings perhaps 4 per week, while Bill has only received 8 since July.

  3. Opening positions:
    • Treasurer when Dave Green retires March 31. Richard C’s two possibilities came up dry. Does the treasurer need to be a CT resident, since we use the treasurer’s home address as the club’s legal address: Answer: No.  Richard T. has identified a candidate who seems enthusiastic.  He will follow up and ask him to talk to Richard C.  Dave has prepared a document detailing the functionality required.
    • President when Richard Corzo retires March 31.
    • Replacements for retiring “odd-year class” board members Drew Kwashnak and Annette van Ommeren in December. Jim, Lisa, and Bruce are continuing. Dave Green is also retiring in December as an “even-year class” board member after serving just one year of his term.

New Business

  1. Sean Henderson will be doing his annual music production workshop on November 22.
  2. Jim has been looking into the feasibility of implementing a ‘split domain’ where e-mails may be serviced by either Microsoft 365 or our current mail server on Bluehost.  The reason that he wants to do this is that if a member with an @dacs.org address could make use of the MS Exchange functionalities available, such as centralized Outlook calendar that can be synchronized across devices.  He is in the process of determining as to whether this can be done without impacting existing accounts.

Adjourned: 8:50PM


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