President's Message

SEPTEMBER is always a time of renewal, as students begin a new school year, car manufacturers sport their new lines, and DACS warms up its SIGs and sets out its new programs for the coming season. This year we are reinvigorating our New-to Computing series for our beginning users, lining up presenters for our monthly meetings, and making connections with other computer groups and with the greater Danbury community.

New-to ...

As this newsletter goes to mailboxes, DACS was scheduled to hold its first New-to program of the season on August 26 at the Danbury Library, with Ed Heere expounding on the relative merits of upgrading or buying a new PC. If you decide to go the upgrade route, on September 23 Wally David will help you decide whether to include a new operating system, with a demonstration of the ins and outs of Windows 98. On October 15, in a special program at the WCSU Ancell School of Business, we will explore the Year 2000 question with a panel of experts; and on November 16 our own chief medical officer, Jeff Setaro, will discuss the latest in PC viruses.

Any suggestions for more New-to programs? Tell me about them at the general meetings, or send your ideas to dacsprez@aol.com.

Western Connection

The Y2K program in October will mark a new milestone for this user group. DACS and Western Connecticut State University are exploring ways our organizations can work together to provide new computing services for our members and students, and for the greater Danbury Community as well. It is hoped that this relationship will help to extend DACS membership to WCSU students and faculty, and open University facilities for use by our group. In addition, we hope to attract more participation in DACS activities by area businesses and their employees. Look to this column for more information in coming months.

Access ACSS

The Association of Computer Support Specialists is a community, both "on-line" and "off-line," that seeks to promote recognition of computer support as a profession, and to help members advance through education and personal contacts. Its members include help-desk specialists, computer repair technicians, network engineers, network and database administrators, computer instructors, technical writers, software and hardware testers, and programmers (if they support the code they write). ACSS welcomes independent consultants, full-timers, part-timers, and permanent employees, as well as contractors. It also welcomes recruiters and others who offer valuable services to computer support specialists. ACSS offers professional training programs in operating systems, IS management, and Web page design at prices well below those at private training centers. Some of these programs are held at AMSYS Computer in Ridgefield.

ACSS president, Howard Rothman, a longtime DACS member, is familiar with the quality of our membership and our programs; and many in our society have joined his association to take advantage of training opportunities. Now, under a recent agreement with DACS, ACSS will waive its $100 membership fee for DACS members who sign up for courses. That means that anyone choosing to sign up for an ACSS training course will in effect have the option of free DACS membership and a $75 cash rebate, to boot. In return, ACSS will advertise its programs in dacs.doc for half the usual rate. This compact will give ACSS exposure to more than 600 active computer users in our area, and provide DACS members with a vital outlet for technical training and networking. It's truly a win-win situation for both organizations.

For more information, be sure to visit the ACSS Web site at www.acss.org.

--Allan Ostergren
dacsprez@aol.com