Personal Computer Club of Charlotte Newsletter
Personal Computer Club of Charlotte
Personal Computer Club of Charlotte Newsletter )
Pc3.org April 2003
in this issue
  • Views From the Top
  • From The Inkwell
  • Don Talk 2003 by Don King
  • Special Interest Group (SIG)
  • LeConcierge Gifts - 2 for 1
  • SpyBot Update
  • March Board Meeting Minutes

  • Greetings!

    Next PC3 General Meeting
    Thursday, May 8, 2003
    Piedmont Natrual Gas Building
    7:00 PM - 9:00 PM

    Views From the Top

    By Mitch Webb, President

    Thank you for your confidence in electing me President again.

    There have been a lot of changes to the club, this electronic bytes and bits is just one of them.

    Another change has been the club's dues stucture. Effective April 1st, subscriber membership will cost just $5.00 per year. This will include an invitation to our holiday party, raffle tickets and admittance at all Special Interest Group (SIGs) meetings.

    The membership fee will help pay for this newsletter and provide funds to operate the SIGs.

    In addition to the subscriber membership, the club offer 4 other levels of paid membership.

    For $10 per year you become a sponsor you get all the benefits of a subscriber plus a listing on our Member's Network page. (See link at bottom of newsletter).

    For $15 per year you become a Patron, you receive all the benefits above plus a link to your website. There are only 3 Patron memberships available. (See links at bottom of newsletter).

    for $20 per year you become a Silver Patron , you will receive all the benefits of a Sponsor membership plus a display ad for one month in this newsletter. There are only 12 Silver Patron memberships available. (See LeConcierge Gifts ad in this newsletter.)

    For $350 per year you become a Gold Patron you will receive all the benefits of a Sponsor membership plus recognition in every newsletter as a Gold Patron sponsor of this club. Only 1 Gold Patron membership is available.

    All Paid membership expires April 1, 2004. There will be no proration of membership dues.

    If you are interested in sponsoring this club and this newsletter. Submit payments to:

    Pam Wales
    Treasurer
    15214 Millsview Trace Lane
    Mint Hill, NC 28277

    Please include your email address on all checks.

    Limited memberships will be awarded on a first come basis.

    This newsletter is mailed to over 800 club members.

    Go to the PC Club's Website

    From The Inkwell
    Keith Wales, Sr.

    Welcome to the new world of Bytes & Bits on line. This is the inaugural month of the next generation of our venerable Newsletter. We in the editorial staff hope that you enjoy it.

    This is a work in progress and there will be more changes coming in the future. We will continue to print on a monthly basis. The present time schedule is the Saturday before the second Thursday, how's that for complicated. The idea of that time schedule is to coincide with the Regular Club Meetings on those months that we have a meeting.

    REMEMBER THERE IS NO REGULAR MEETING THIS MONTH.

    The next regular meeting is scheduled for May 8th at our normal location, Piedmont Natural Gas.

    Some of the things you will see in this new version of Bytes & Bits are live links to further information on articles. We have put the Members' Networking page on the PC3 web site and there is a link to it at the bottom of the E-newsletter. There is also a link at the bottom to the Officers' page, with contact information.

    With this new medium we will be able to include links to sites that may be of interest to the members. We will also be able to do even more with graphics than we could in the old paper newsletter.

    For those of you who could not make it to the last General Meeting we had our annual election of officers and a link is provided at the bottom of the newsletter to let you know who won.

    The new board has also established new annual dues and membership terms and we have a link to that at the bottom of this article. If after reading these new policies you have any questions please contact any Board Member.

    Well I am going to wrap up for this month and I am looking forward to your comments on the new E Bytes & Bits.

    Membership Levels "

    Don Talk 2003 by Don King
    Don Talk 2003

    This column is your PC3.org place to ask questions, which will not always get the thought they deserve. Technical data is usually gleaned from Internet experiences. It is usually written under duress because I hate deadlines. It lacks authority and research because I throw out all of my old PC Magazines.

    Congratulations Don, you were elected to an office in the PC3.org club.

    Thanks, this is the mother of all positions that I have ever held. I accept it with humble pride. This job will further test my computer skills. Thanks to Bill for spell and grammar check.

    Hey Don, are you busy?

    No, I'm writing this the day after Sadam had his bad hair day. There is a lot of high tech stuff going on and I feel that some of the analysts should join a computer club. Wolf Blitzer just asked if Iraqi's can differentiate between day and night. I get the feeling they run out of questions during the first hour of war.

    You know you are living in the year 2003 when:

    1. Your reason for not staying in touch with family is because they do not have e-mail.

    2. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of three.

    3. Your grandmother asks you to send her a JPEG file of your newborn so she can create a screen saver.

    4. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home.

    5. Every commercial on television has a web site address at the bottom of the screen.

    6. You buy a computer and 3 months later it's out of date and sells for half the price you paid.

    7. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn't have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go get it.

    8. Using real money, instead of credit or debit, to make a purchase would be a hassle and take planning.

    9. You just tried to enter your password on the microwave.

    10. You consider second-day air delivery painfully slow.

    11. Your dining room table is now your flat filing cabinet.

    12. Your idea of being organized is multiple-colored Post-it notes.

    13. You hear most of your jokes via e-mail instead of in person.

    14. You get an extra phone line so you can get phone calls.

    15. You disconnect from the Internet and get this awful feeling, as if you just pulled the plug on a loved one.

    16. You get up in the morning and go online before getting your coffee.

    17. You wake up at 2 a.m. to go to the bathroom and check your E-mail on your way back to bed.

    18. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. :)

    19. You're reading this and nodding and laughing.

    20. Even worse; you know exactly who you are going to forward this to.

    No problem!, go ahead and change it? It's easy, everything has a color!

    (This is what we looked into at the March meeting).

    Special Interest Group (SIG)
    Special Interest Group

    The following week is our SIG week and we will be holding SIGs during that week. The schedule is as follows:

    Database SIG -- aka PIG SIG
    Monday, April 14, 2003, 5:30pm
    Tryon House on Eastway at North Tryon

    Our reignaural meeting in March was a delightful success with 8 members eating and making like nerds. We may not have discussed databases (this time), but it is a fine opportunity to follow opinions of many people with different views of technology. Be sure to join us in April.

    Digital Camera SIG
    Tuesday, March 18, 2003, 7:00pm
    CompUSA, South Boulevard and I-485

    PDA SIG (Formerly the Handheld SIG)
    Wednesday, March 19, 2003, 7:00pm
    CompUSA, South Boulevard and I-485

    Internet SIG
    Thursday, March 20, 2003, 7:00pm
    CompUSA, South Boulevard and I-485

    SIG Calendar "

    LeConcierge Gifts - 2 for 1
    Le Concierge Gifts
    Thousands of Unique Gifts

    Le Concierge Gifts is proud to sponsor the Personal Computer Club of Charlotte's
    April Newsletter.

    Buy any item and receive an item of equal or lesser value free.

    The more you buy, the more you save!

    Shop Now!

    "

    SpyBot Update
    Dr. Paul Reiss

    Kontiki No Longer A Threat Link 02/09/2003

    The following was found by Dr. Paul Reiss and shows the type of research that SpyBot does in order to keep their Search & Destroy Software up to date. I included it this month because I had several good feed backs after my article of last month. I have also included a link to the SpyBot download site at the bottom of this article.
    Editor Note

    We (SpyBot) recently reconsidered the decision to target the Kontiki Delivery Manager, and after carefully evaluating the changes in version 2.0 we can say that it does no longer fall into the spyware classification.

    The folks at Kontiki have even answered all our questions patiently and to our full satisfaction, contrary to the evasive, yet demanding behaviour of some other companies.Our initial reasons where mainly the automated update, the automated sharing of contents, and the license agreement which hinted at the fact that a DRM system was integrated that wouldn't have been covered by their policy, allowed to do anything.

    Since we wrote detection for Kontiki, they have changed their software; updates are now optional and no longer done without user consent, and the DRM isn't installed at all and removed from the License Agreement. After verifying these changes, we can now say that Kontiki is a legit content delivery and sharing system. Therefore, we will remove detection of Kontiki with the next updates, and apologize for any recent Kontiki version that has been removed by Spybot-S&D.

    Download SpyBot Search & Destroy "

    March Board Meeting Minutes
    March Board Meeting

    The PCCC Board practiced a little geographic diversity to accommodate members who don't live or work on the south side and met March 24, 2003 at Shoney's on North Tryon. Attending were Mitch Katowitz, Keith Wales, Paul Reiss, and Bill Barnes.

    In accordance with the new schedule, the next general meeting will be May 8, 2003. There is yet no topic, but Paul will ask a local PC pioneer to talk on the history of our technology. Keith will pursue trying to get a presenter from Hewlett Packard. It is possible neither of these will pan out for May. If you have any ideas, please pass them along to the Board.

    Mitch will ask Virginia Host to start the ball rolling on the Holiday Party 2003. Please let her know if you will be available to assist in preparations for December 11.

    The Board established the dues for membership year 2003. Dues for Basic Membership will be $0. Subscribing Members' dues will be $5. Additional membership levels up to $20 / year are available for people who want to promote services they provide or other affiliations with links from www.PC3.org or within the monthly eBytes mailing. We will also sell a monthly sponsorship of eBytes. For more details on membership levels and benefits, click the link at the end of this article.

    The next board meeting is tentatively scheduled for April 21 at a location "south of Independence" to be announced.

    submitted by Bill Barnes.

    Membership Levels "

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