January's SPCUG main meeting was emceed by President Milt Hull, and he invites those who are not already members to consider joining. One of the first things Milt asks at the meeting is for a showing of hands indicating the audience's interests. A number of audience members came to the January meeting just for the robotics discussion, a larger percentage came just for the video products demonstration, and a number of others came "just because."
Stan Morris, SPCUG's Volunteer Coordinator, said he tries to find volunteers to fill the many positions required to efficiently run our organization.
Many of the positions are "behind-the-scenes" and the group's members are not even aware of their existence, he noted. But the results of these volunteers' efforts are seen—the informational slide show running before the meeting starts, for example.
Many of the volunteer positions do not require significant amounts of time or effort but are essential none the less. The SPCUG is always looking for volunteers and if you are interested, please contact Stan Morris for more information about our current requirements.
Stan said he is usually located somewhere at the administrative tables set up along the side of the meeting hall. Submit your e-mail address to him and Stan will send periodic messages to you stating our requirements, both long-term and single-task. Special skills or equipment required for certain positions will be provided as best we are able.
Currently, SPCUG critically needs a Membership Director to replace our current director, who will be resigning shortly. Skills required for this position include managing a database, mailing notices, processing membership fees, manning the membership table, and participating in the group's Steering Committee meetings.
Stan said SPCUG also needs a Benefits Coordinator. Late last year, SPCUG decided to augment whatever prizes our presenters gave away with small tokens of our own appreciation to our members. We set a limit and identified the types of prizes to be obtained: $150 per month for five to eight items. Now we need someone to manage that task as part of the overall Coordinator's position. The exciting aspect of this position is that you get to spend money that is not your own! Please see either Tom Anderson or Stan Morris if interested. Tom has been handling the position but needs to give it up.
Tom Anderson and Ken Hopkins are SPCUG's Content and Layout Editors, respectively. For the past several issues of the newsletter, the date of release missed the established date of publication by several days. We hope that January's issue will miss it with the least delay—expect it available sometime tomorrow.
Tom said SPCUG is proud to announce the addition of a new Sacra Blue columnist: Tim Feldman, President of the Davis chapter, whose column, "Jump Start," will begin with a series of articles explaining how to use Linux. He is new to Linux, so his articles will have a definite "newbie" slant—articles that are sure to include notes, comments, and insights that are often missing in articles written by Linux experts.
Tom noted that January's Sacra Blue also include a couple of articles discussing the merits of upgrading to Windows XP, an obit piece for one of computing history's notable participants, great deals as mentioned by our guest columnist, the "Deal's Guy," and other interesting columns, articles, and reviews.
Brian Smither, Product Review Editor, has available for review a copy of V-Com's titles, CD Anywhere and PC Upgrade Commander. CD Anywhere creates a virtual CD-ROM drive on your hard drive, permitting some applications to fetch data at a faster rate. For example, a game with a large number of movie clips can start playing those clips immediately instead of waiting for the CD-ROM to spin up. PC Upgrade Commander is supposed to automate the process of transferring applications, data, and supporting files and registry entries from your current computer to a new computer.
Other software titles and hardware items are available for review by SPCUG's members. Once your review is published, you get to keep the product. A security deposit is required. Contact Brian Smither for information regarding the availability of products and also to mention what you would like to review. We just might be able to get it for you.
Milt Hull and Ken Hopkins also have the responsibility to locate and schedule speakers for the main meetings. For February, we have Corel to show us WordPerfect and if time permits, Corel Draw. March is open and April has Serious Magic's Visual Communicator. We hope to find a web-cam manufacturer to fill out April's program. IRISPen, a handheld miniature scanner, OCR converter, and text-to-speech hardware/software package, is being pursued to demonstrate for an upcoming meeting.
Ken Hopkins wants computer users to know about the latest serious virus threat, JS.Gigger.A. The worm arrives as an attachment to an e-mail with the subject: Outlook Express Update. The attachment is an HTML file with embedded JavaScript. It will attempt to mass e-mail itself to all entries in your Outlook address book and copy itself to other computers in your local network.
When the computer is rebooted, it will erase your entire hard drive. Visit Symantec for information on all the latest security threats.
