President Milt Hull opened the November SPCUG meeting by noting it was 14 years previously that the meeting date fell on the day before Thanksgiving. He also mentioned that the group had "lots of cool giveaways" for the meeting, including dinner tickets and expensive shirts. Soft drinks and boxes of Life Saver candies were provided for all attendees courtesy of Mike Milley from Storactive, one of the evening's speakers, and Milt asked if all present had availed themselves of the goodies.
Milt asked Ken Hopkins and Tom Anderson to discuss the month's issue of Sacra Blue, the SPCUG newsletter. Milt apologized for the issue being late, saying it was partly his fault for writing his columns in his Comdex hotel and not transmitting them until he returned. Ken, who learned early in life not to assume blame if someone else will, took the opportunity to push all the blame in Milt's direction. Ken revealed that the month's issue was already at 45 pages, and they had just discovered that one article had "disappeared into the ether." Tom and Ken discussed a new feature in the magazine, a listing of area computer stores with their hours, addresses, Web sites, and other pertinent information. This was compiled by long-time volunteer Al Eno, who will be expanding the information in the future. The issue also contained several product reviews, covering hardware and software.
Tom discussed two current volunteer needs of Sacra Blue: typists and writers. Typists are needed, he said, to transcribe articles from other user group magazines. "We can't always get the articles we want to use in electronic form, and need typists to type them up for us." The other need is for people who can write up reports of our speakers by listening to the audiotapes the group makes. Tom said the group currently pays to have the tapes transcribed, which is becoming an expensive proposition. And one volunteer, Gordon Taylor, has been handling the meeting reports single-handedly for a long time, Tom said. "We have one volunteer this month doing one speaker report, and if we had someone to cover the other speaker, we could save a considerable amount of money for the group," he said.
Tom also discussed the new program the Steering Committee has launched to have the group purchase door prizes for the monthly meetings. Tom noted the idea came from Membership Director Diana DeMuth, and that November's prizes included movie tickets, a gift certificate for Macaroni Grill/Chili's, a low-resolution digital camera, several software packages, and a create-your-own mousepad kit.
Milt then told the audience of his recent activities, beginning with his trip to Comdex, "which I've been doing for 19 years now."
Attendance was "way down" from previous years, Milt said. After years of steady growth, this year's attendance shrank from 220,000 last year to an official 150,000 this year. "By Thursday I'd pretty much seen the whole show, and it usually takes me a week to walk up and down everything." One interesting new device is a cell phone receiver that fits in the ear, but since Milt signed a non-disclosure agreement, he was unable to give many details until the official announcement next year at the Consumer Electronic Show.
Milt also showed off the new HP Jornada handheld and Toshiba laptop computer he bought during Comdex. The Jornada, he demonstrated, could be used as a voice recorder or an MP3 player. The laptop includes a DVD player, CD writer, and a 1.1 gigahertz processor. All for $1800, he beamed. "And realize the laptop will be worth half of that tomorrow," Ken interjected. Milt also bought a wireless LAN, allowing him to access his network with the laptop or the Jornada from anywhere in his house.
Where Bluetooth was previously the cutting edge of wireless networks at 4 Mbps transmission, the new standard is 802.11b (also known as Wi-Fi) at 11 Mbps. 802.11a is even faster, but devices are hard to find, he said. There is a possibility of neighbors or others in the vicinity tapping into a wireless network, so encryption and other security measures are required. Milt discussed other products and technologies showcased at Comdex, including new designs for laptops and handhelds, and Microsoft's Xbox.
Ken and Milt provided details of scheduled upcoming speakers:
December: Microsoft showing Windows XP.
January: Webroots Software
February: Corel showing WordPerfect
Ken said he is trying to book Serious Magic, formed by former employees from Play, Inc. He said they had developed a software-only version of Trinity, Play's high-end graphics manipulation device which they demonstrated an at SPCUG meeting. Also, Ulead has developed a DVD authoring package, allowing users to create their own DVDs. The standards for DVD writing are beginning to coalesce, Ken said, and the software package will be useful.
Ken also made the monthly announcement of a new security hole found in Internet Explorer, this time dealing with cookies, which allows the contents of cookies to be discovered by hackers. Milt said if you've just downloaded the newest version 6 in the week before the meeting, it blocks the hole. Other users should go to www.microsoft.com and download the patch. The security hole is particularly important if you've done credit card transactions on the Internet, Ken said, because your credit card numbers could be stored in cookies on your hard drive.
