When I first got started working with computers, I really knew nothing about what a database was! I knew that was what the Telephone Company used to hold all of their customers, and what they used to print the phone book. I had no idea that you could run queries on that data in order to see how many people lived in a curtain zip code, or for that matter, how many people had the same prefix. The whole idea was not something I was familiar with at all.
Of course, I was only 22 and was just getting started in computers. I joined the Sacramento PC Users Group and after a few months was asked by then President Dave Burhans to help run the database for the club. I of course said, "How would I maintain this list?" He said that he would teach me how to maintain a member list and that he would create the structure using dBase II. I knew of this program but did not own it. So we started working together over the next few days, taking lots of time learning how to work with dBase. He taught me enough that things started to click and I was off creating my own routines and programming. He was a tremendous help and to this day, I owe him a lot. Although he is not involved with the group any more, I still think of him from time to time and wonder how he is doing. He was an awesome programmer!
For the next eight and a half years, I refined this program to an art. It did everything. It would automatically print the labels for the current newsletter, and even print renewal notices. It would shove all the expired people off to another database, and the current members would all get membership cards after they re-joined or subscribed as new members. It was great because I had spent so much time on modifying it and I was very proud of the work I put into it.
However, in 1989, my life changed so much that I turned over the database to a couple of people that were to maintain the database for the club. That was over ten years ago and since then, the world of user groups has changed. However, we are still using that very same program to this day. But we all now have e-mail, and then there was the Y2K problem. Yes, I was one of those programmers who did not think about the Y2K problem until after 1995.
We had some volunteers help fix the database for Y2K; however, we have still not entered an e-mail address field. Well, as part of our new goal and direction, one of our members is now converting the database over to Microsoft Access and we now have a new Membership Director. Since we never started asking for e-mail addresses in the first place, our job now is to capture as many e-mail addresses as we can. You see, Sacra Blue is now going to be sent to everyone through e-mail. It is just going to take some time to get this plan into action.
During the last main meeting, one of our members had created a program to allow members who attended that meeting to enter their e-mail addresses. We captured a bunch, but not everyone's. Now our job is to match those e-mail addresses to our current membership. We also have to obtain the e-mail addresses of those members that did not attend the meeting. Since we are taking control of our e-mail, we are now setting up lists to allow our members both to send e-mail to this list and to enter their e-mail addresses.
The current e-mail lists we have created are:
- announcements@sacpcug.org to get announcements
- eblue@sacpcug.org to get table of contents of Sacra Blue
- sacrablue@sacpcug.org to get the whole PDF file automatically
However, in order to get on these lists, you have to subscribe to them by sending e-mail to email@sacpcug.org and state the lists you would like join.
It might take a few months to get the word around in order to capture all those e-mails. Please make sure you enter your e-mail address right away so you can start getting those announcements and the current issue of Sacra Blue!
We will be collecting names and e-mail addresses for the distribution lists at the meeting.
