Number 201 - April 1999 |
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Chapter and SIG Reports
This section contains reports from our regional chapters and special interest groups (SIGs). For a complete list of chapters and their schedules, see the Calendar of Events on page 28 of Sacra Blue or visit the SPCUG Web site at www.sacpcug.org. | |
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Gold Country Gazette The Auburn Chapter Contact Information Dick Towle, President 530-389-2116 dickwt@foothill.net www.psyber.com/gcpcug/ |
The day before our group's general meeting, the Auburn chapter met in the Beecher Room of the Placer County Library. As with the main group and several other chapters, the first topic on our meeting agenda was the election of chapter officers for the coming chapter year. Since the current officers had no objections to continuing for another year, the assembled members elected the officers for another year by acclamation. For one more year, the officers are president Dick Towle, secretary Ken Weger, and treasurer Greg Dolkas. The main presentation was Gizmos 98, created by Play, Inc. that the membership saw |
at the general meeting in January. We also had a lengthy question and answer session about all sorts of computing topics. Best of all, Chuck Marsh provided drinks and a super chocolate cake for us to enjoy. Thanks, Chuck! For the latest information about the Auburn chapter, see our Web site at www.psyber.com/gcpcug. Our next meeting will be on Tuesday, April 20, at our usual meeting place in the Beecher Room. The meeting begins at 7:00 p.m. Please come join us and learn about computers in a relaxed atmosphere. We'll see you there. 覧 Dick Towle
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The Davis Cycle The Davis Chapter Contact Information Tim Feldman, President 530-753-6225 www.sacpcug.org |
About 15 members and guests attended our March 24 chapter meeting. Most of the meeting was devoted to our usual informal PC-related discussions: interesting Web sites, erratic behavior in Windows programs, lessons learned the hard way (e.g., don't plug your RAM modules in backwards, even if they do sort of fit in that way...), and so on. Dave Eden, our chapter's vice president, recommended www.wopr.com ("Woody's Windows Watch") for information on Microsoft Office products. Dave and several other members also spoke highly of a free Office clone called Star Office. Check out www.stardivision.com to find out more about Star Office (note that your Web browser must |
support frames in order to access that site). We had a few suggestions for possible guest speakers; if you have any guests that you would like to invite, please let an officer know. Speaking of officers, chapter elections are coming up. Nominations for the offices of president, vice president, and secretary/treasurer will be opened at the April chapter meeting. Elections will be held in May, with the winners taking office at the June meeting. Our next meeting will be on Wednesday, April 28, at 7:00 p.m. in the Blanchard Community Room at the Yolo County Public Library, 315 E. 14th Street, Davis. See you then! 覧 Tim Feldman
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Nevada County News The Nevada County Chapter Contact Information Dean Scanland, President 530-273-4729 www.nccn.net/~ncpcug |
Our chapter holds two meetings on successive days. On the first Tuesday of the month, we hold our Internet SIG meeting at the Superintendent of Schools building in Nevada City. The following evening, we hold our chapter meeting at the Nevada City Library. At our March 3 chapter meeting, we decided to hold our chapter's steering committee meetings just prior to our chapter meetings. This way, our chapter's steering committee meetings will be more accessible to chapter members. Our Internet SIG leader, Ken Hale, told the assembled members at the March 2 Internet SIG meeting that an overhaul of the telephone system meant there weren't anymore free telephone lines. There was an informative |
question and answer period, followed by a discussion about getting around the phone line problem. We're working on resolving this situation as quickly as possible, since having an Internet SIG meeting without a live connection for demonstrations seems pointless. The main feature of our March 3 chapter meeting was nominations for next year's officers. Nominations included Dean Scanland for president, Tom Helsom for vice president, and Teresa Nelson for treasurer. There were no nominations for secretary, but we were hoping for some more candidates before our next meeting on April 7. Next month we will share our election results in this report. 覧 Dean Scanland
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The Roseville Report The Roseville Chapter Contact Information Gary Sloan, President 916-771-3223 gwsloan@re4u.net www.sacpcug.org |
Outgoing president Chuck Warren opened our second ever "remote" meeting at the new Roseville Police Department building on Junction Blvd. on March 4. Administrative Analyst Dee Dee Gunther, our host, provided a room to conduct a short meeting before her presentation. The first official action was to elect the nominated slate of officers by a unanimous vote. Members elected Gary Sloan president, Guy Manwaring vice president, and Bob Kromrey secretary/treasurer. We also had time to conduct our usual Q&A session to help solve problems of attendees, including problems with frequent busy signals and disconnection on a popular ISP. The Police Department presentation included a tour of the new and modern facilities. We were shown the computer aided dispatch client server that fields 911 calls. Roseville's impressive 911 control room was equipped with five separate control consoles. |
The console we observed had four separate monitors having different displays to cover a multitude of emergency actions. Fire and police incidents were the principal causes of action and every incident was to be handled by specific and rigid procedures. Dee Dee also took us through the jail and booking area. Here we saw the computerized fingerprinting device that sends digital images for comparison to databases in both Sacramento and state agencies. The facility also uses digital photographs for identification of suspected persons. The digital photos are sent to other law enforcement agencies in a cooperative effort. Our next meeting will be on Thursday, May 6, at our usual meeting place at Placer Savings Bank, 110 Harding Blvd., in Roseville. See you there. 覧 Bob Kromrey
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Visual Basic/Access SIG Contact Information Brian Prestwood 916-725-9947 brian@prestwood.com |
The April 20 meeting of the Visual Basic/Access SIG will be a very special one. Deborah Kurata from InStep Technologies (www.insteptech.com, 925-225-1016) and author of the Doing Objects in Visual Basic book series will be our guest speaker at our April meeting. Deborah's main topic of discussion will be data binding. If you're a member (or know someone who wants to be) and you're into Visual Basic or Microsoft Access, join us on Tuesday, April 20 from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Meetings are held at |
our new meeting location at Microsoft Consulting Services, 8880 Cal Center Drive, Suite 330 in Sacramento. We hold insightful, informative meetings on a Visual Basic or Access topic. Watch this newsletter every month for the latest information. For more information about our SIG, contact me either by phone at 916-725-9947 or by e-mail at brian@prestwood.com. If you're into Visual Basic, you won't want to miss our April 20 meeting! 覧 Brian Prestwood
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Linux SIG Linux User Group of Sacramento Contact Information Brian Lavender 916-557-6623 brian@brie.com |
Greetings! I'd like to welcome all the Linux enthusiasts, experts, and dabblers in our users group to LUGS, the newly formed Linux SIG of the Sacramento PC Users Group. LUGS (Linux User Group of Sacramento) has been meeting for five months already, but as its leader I decided that LUGS and SPCUG could benefit greatly with LUGS as a SIG. The mission of LUGS can be easily summarized in three letters: MHM (members helping members). I have successfully configured numerous applications and services on my Linux computer including a Web server, an e-mail server, Network Address Translation, a Windows interface, and the freely available GIMP (a graphics package). My success has been largely due to the aid and advice of others. In a structured format, the first half hour of a LUGS meeting is open to questions and |
answers. That way if you have a burning question you can ask it right away. Then at a specified time we go through a pre-scheduled agenda. This agenda will vary from meeting to meeting in degree of difficulty. This way you will know before the meeting if the topic is way over your head or overly simplistic. I know we are all experts in a certain way, so my hope is to encourage members to present a Linux topic at each meeting. I hope to see you at our next meeting. Our meetings are regularly scheduled every second Wednesday of the month from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at CalWeb, 1111 Howe Ave., Suite 235 (between Northrop and Hurley) in Sacramento. See the LUGS Web site at www.brie.com/linux for the most recent information. 覧 Brian Lavender
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| Number 201 - April 1999 |
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