President's Message

As you may recall, the April DACS board meeting marks the election of officers for the 1998–99 year. In accordance with our bylaws, the Board of Directors will elect theses officers, whose charge is to conduct the day-to-day business affairs of the DACS. We are indeed fortunate to have a fine group of members willing to lend their leadership talents to help. Since the Board meets the Monday after our general meeting, you may find out who has been elected before the May program meeting by visiting our Web site.

Looking Back

These past three years that I have had the privilege of being president of DACS seemed to fly—and not due to any great skills of mine. Rather, I must attribute the pleasure and any accomplishments of my term to the help of an inner core of people who have quietly volunteered to do what has needed to be done.

There is no way I can mention everybody who has made a difference. Let me simply say thanks—to everyone who has done the little extra.

Thanks

Thanks to the programs we bring to the monthly General Meeting. Thanks primarily to the efforts of Jeff Setaro, we have enjoyed the presentations of a wide spectrum of programs. Due to Jeff's coordination we also have our annual presence at PC Expo in New York.

Thanks to the efforts of Gene Minasi we have the use of the Danbury Area Hospital for our General Programs.

Thanks to Ed Heere and all the Board Members for their dutiful attention to the needs, goals, and planning necessary to guide DACS. With the permission of the Board, we have also introduced several related-technology presentations from industry leaders like Ken Olsen, CEO Emeritus of DEC. We learned from Mike McCarthy of Photronics in Danbury how photomasks are used to define the circuitry of a semiconductor; from John Shamaly how SVGI (Silicon Valley Group Inc.) of Wilton makes the equipment that Intel and others use to etch our shrinking chips; and from ATMI's (Advanced Technology Materials Inc. in Danbury) Dean Hamilton, who last May shared with us what they are doing to develop new materials that will be key to many of the next generation of technology Internet devices that will be ubiquitous in four or five years.

We have seen industry contributions from some of our members, such as Jerry Metcoff and Dave Wilson who through MidCore Software have developed modem-sharing technologies that allow Internet Users to use two modems to double their surfing speeds.

Through what has become a yearly presentation by John Patrick, Vice President of Technologies of IBM, we have learned what is and will be the Internet of a Universally Connected World.

Thanks to the friendly moderations of Bruce Preston at Random Access, we have had an opportunity air our questions and have our confusions and frustrations turned into learning sessions packed with ideas to make our computing easier.

Thanks to the pre-meeting preparations of Wally David, we have had an opportunity to learn about new and timely Web sites. These work sessions have helped us absorb the Net in little doses without intimidation. Thanks to Wally's work, we have developed Dacs-mail, or broadcast e-mail messages of upcoming meetings and special events. Thanks for the reminders.

Thanks to Charles Bovaird, we have a convenient way to update our e-mail addresses, pay our dues, and pick up winning raffle tickets as we sign in at each meeting. Many others, including Larry Buoy, Elaine Chacho, Jim Ragsdale, Al Vail, and Vince Tichy, have helped at the front desk and with our database, greeting us and making us feel welcome as we enter our general meetings.

Thanks to Allan Ostergren, Marc Cohen, Frances Owles, Dan McLeod, and all the others who give up countless weekends and family time, we have an award-winning newsletter that everybody misses if/when the post office delivers it after the first of each month. Due to the prolific writings of members such as Mike Kaltschnee, Wally, Jeff, and Bruce, we have interesting content about past, present, and future meetings, as well as related Internet and computing topics.

Thanks to Jim Schema, Chris Salaz, Diane Greenwald, Marlene Gaberel, Charlene, Jeff, Brad, Bobby, John ,and many others, we have a Web site that has received award recognition from the InterGalactic User Group Conferences.

Thanks to the community involvement of members Charles Bovaird, Phil Dilloway, Vince Tichy, Bobby Curtis, Allan Ostergren, and countless others who have worked on programs such as Computers for Kids and Voice for Joanie, we have been able to earn and maintain our good citizenship.

Thanks to the Danbury Public Library and Diane Greenwald, we have a meeting place for our special New-to programs and many of our SIG meetings.

Thanks to the SIG leaders, we have a wealth of Special Interest Group sessions to enhance our knowledge, enough to create spousal 12-step groups to address concern over DACS Addiction.

Thanks to the efforts of early DACS leaders such as Dick Gingras, who arranged for our Resource Center, we have a home for our Board Meetings, SIGS, newsletter, and Internet work sessions.

DACS has kept us current with the evolving nature of the computer—from a computational comptometer to a dynamic Graphic WorkStation, to the Internet Communications Device into which it has been morphing.

Thank you DACS. Thank you DACS leaders. It has been my pleasure and honor to represent you for the past three years.