MVPCUG General Meeting

Minutes, Meeting of Tuesday, January 7, 2003

The MVPCUG general meeting was held in the Whitesboro High School cafeteria. President Joe Madeira called the meeting to order at 6:05 p.m.

Business Meeting

The minutes as posted on the web of the December general meeting were approved by members present.

Bill Gorrell gave the Treasurer's report. December income was $260.59; expenses were $522.66; the balance in the treasury as of 12/31/2002 was $4,746.75. Additionally Bill reported on the year-end budget status. Budgeted expenses were exceeded by $648.98 primarily due to lower membership. The treasurer's report and budget report were accepted to be included with the minutes.

Joe reported that we would be concentrating on PR for the club to help with membership. A suggestion was made to use the Syracuse computer shows as an opportunity to get new members. It was pointed out by Joe and Donna that this has been tried in the past and it is difficult to get club people to volunteer to man an information table and Syracuse may not be the best place to recruit members for a Utica club.

Joe received a solicitation from Deneba promoting their graphics software Canvas8 that is available to the club for $249.00 or $199.95 for the download version. The web address is www.deneba.com.

Joe reported that Google is a very good search engine and is fast becoming the only really good search engine. Its' advanced search capability is very good. Google uses only registered web sites and due to its' popularity it is difficult to get registered with them.

Joe asked the members present if their was interest in having another computer hardware / software auction this year. Several people indicated interest. The Board of Directors will discuss this and decide if and when to do this.

The presenter originally scheduled to speak to us this evening on Computer Forensics cancelled at 3 p.m. due to illness. Charley Goetz graciously agreed to step in at the last minute with his program on firewalls.

Presentation

Charley Goetz, a senior computer/software engineer with Lockheed Martin, presented an interesting and informative "Case for Firewall / Router". More folks are using broad band connections to the Internet, which typically are connected for long periods of time. This gives hackers a better opportunity to get into your computer.

There are a couple of approaches that are available to provide firewall protection.

A coffee break was taken from 7:15 to 7:30.

Several folks spoke with Charley during the break and after the break he reminded us that a firewall is not a substitute for virus protection.

More business...
Joe asked Dave Askew to speak to the group about upcoming election of officers and board members. Dave is performing the duties of a nominating committee. Dave asked for people in the club to volunteer for offices or nominate others in the group. One key position that needs to be filled is the treasurer. Bill Gorrell has held the position for three years, which is the term limit specified in the bylaws. A suggestion was made that the bylaws be revised. The board will discuss this issue.

The meeting was adjourned at 7:55 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
Marsha Thayer, secretary