srw
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Minutes of the October 25, 1995 Board Meeting
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Oct 29 06:14 UTC 1995 |
Minutes of the Board Meeting of Cyberspace Communications, Inc.
October 25, held in the board room of the Industrial Technology Institute
(ITI) On Hubbard Road in Ann Arbor
a. Gavel
The meeting was called to order at 7:20 PM bye Valerie Mates, President.
In attendance:
Valerie Mates (popcorn), President,
Steve Weiss (srw), Secretary,
Dan Romanchik (danr) Treasurer,
John Remmers (remmers),
Steve Gibbard (scg),
STeve Andre' (steve),
Absent: Rane Curl (rcurl)
Others present: Rob Argy (ajax), Jan Wolter (janc), Dave Lovelace (davel),
Scott Helmke (scott), Mark Conger (aruba), T.S. Taylor (tsty),
Misti Anslin (mta).
b. Treasurer's Report
Danr reported that we had a lot of new members, and that we collected
over $1000 this month. He also reported that he had sent the financial report
to Rane for the 501(c)(3) application.
For the year as a whole, it appears that our donations may be a little
less than last year.
c. 501(c)(3) Committee Report
In Rane's absence, none was given.
d. Computer Rehabilitation Committee Report
In Rane's absence, none was given, but someone pointed out that Eric
Bassey has computers to donate. He needs to be put in touch with Rane.
e. Publicity Committee Report
Misti had not arrived yet, so this was postponed.
Ajax passed around some of the latest fliers that Misti had produced.
f. Technical Committee Report.
f1. Memory Hunt - STeve reported that it has gotten a little harder to
find memory. We can still find some, though, in the $300 to $350 range
for 32MB. Higher end Sun stuff is coming down in price, it is mainly
that our principle source is out of stick to sell.
f2. ttyh4 - The modem ready light won't come on. The line is busied out
until this can be dealt with. Staff plans to reprogram the modem
in the hope that it will resume functioning correctly. If this works,
then we will be back in business. If not we will need to replace it.
Scott suggested that turning the modem off at the power strip may be
a hazard.
f3. Security - There have been no break-ins. There has been some illicit
usage in the form of pirated software (called 'warez' in internet jargon).
Staff is coordinating with other internet system administrators.
[Security details are omitted in the meeting minutes.]
f4. Sun-4 - Marcus compiled much of the software that he has been working
on for this project. STeve guesses that he is about 60% done. He was
blocked mostly by the fact that the Sun Security Patches had not yet
been applied.
Later, greg installed the Sun patches. He ran into a problem and had
to remove one patch, but it is a very important one that we need.
He (and others) are investigating to resolve the problem that forced the
removal of that patch.
Quite a bit of the random software needed has been recompiled, but
there is still a great deal of this which needs to be done. Srw
has compiled a list of still-missing linked programs, and he and others
will be recompiling and in some cases updating these programs.
The Kernel Blocks have not been tackled yet. A subgroup of the staffers
plan to meet to decide how these will be written. The date for this
has not been set yet.
STeve and srw expressed the wish to move the Sun-4 to the dungeon
as soon as staff is substantially finished moving software to it.
Until then it is best to stay put, where it can get a faster connection
to the internet because it doesn't have to compete with Grex's production
traffic.
e. Publicity Committee Report (rescheduled from earlier)
Misti announced that the 20 page booklet is ready to go. The cover is
in full color. The costs of producing it are $1/booklet.
g. Newsletter Report.
We decided on the format - 2 sheets.
Remmers has set up the vote program.
Srw said that if the web version of the newsletter wanted graphics,
that HVCN would host the web site for Grex at no charge, since Grex
was a non-profit organization.
MOTION: (steve,scg) The board supports the concept of a paper edition
of the newsletter and authorizes an initial budget of $50 to spend
as the editors see fit on the paper edition. (PASSED 6-0)
h. Grex Manual - Danr announced that he had nothing to report.
i. New Business.
i1. Misti advised popcorn to talk to Bob Tait about the ITI doors
which were not left unlocked as they should have been. Some people
had to wait outside, or were unable to get in to attend.
i2. STeve indicated that even though the ttyh4 modem might be revived,
we need to have a spare, live backup modem, so that we don't incur
downtime whenever a modem fails while waiting for board action.
MOTION (steve,popcorn) To Authorize staff to spend up to $125 to
buy a new GVC V.32bis modem. (PASSED 6-0)
i3. Steve described an ICnet failure mode - the line we called in
on disappeared. We changed over to dialing ICnet's main line. This hasn't
caused any real problems, so far, but it could. Steve recommended
that we work with ICnet to restore a dedicated line there to call in
on. This amounts to putting the line there into our name. At the current
time Ameritech is waiving the installation fee, so there is no setup
charge from them for this.
MOTION (steve,remmers) Authorize danr to deal with Ameritech to install a
phone line at ICnet's new Hubbard Road location in our name for the
internet link. (PASSED 6-0)
i4. STeve pointed out that our Hayes modem still has the old ROMs in
it which are less noise tolerant.
MOTION (steve,popcorn) Authorize up to $60 to buy the upgrade ROM for
our internet link modem. (PASSED 5-0 with remmers abstaining)
i5. Valerie announced that Arnold Barr had handed her the Michigan Attorney
General's opinion on whether minors can serve on the board. The opinion
was that they could not serve.
i6. Valerie announced that she had dungeon keys for the new roots.
They were to meet with her afterwards to pick them up.
i7. Valerie announced that she had brought in copies of the information
sheets that she had obtained regarding trade marks and service marks.
She handed out some copies to interested attendees.
i8. Valerie expressed interest in discussing the question of reserving the
ID of a Grex user in the case of death. This followed a discussion
which was ongoing in coop, but which did not seem to be approaching a
consensus.
Srw proposed a policy, but before there was any discussion, remmers
raised the objection that since the topic had not been mentioned
on the agenda, there might be interested parties who would like to
attend.
In light of this we agreed to table this discussion until next month.
i9. Tsty showed his "Mug" which was a coffee mug with a photographic
image of his face (mug), and email address. He suggested that he
could make these for Grex as a fundraiser. Discussion of this
possibility is to move on-line, and staff took no action at this time.
i10. Srw discussed briefly the ongoing efforts to secure a faster internet
connection. This included the question of initiating ISDN without incurring
per-minute charges. Srw had heard that the Centrex strategy for this
was being phased out by a new tariff. This was not confirmed, but
Danr said he would talk to Ameritech.
Rob Argy said that it was possible to make a data call as "voice"
and get only 56Kb instead of 64Kb, thus averting the dreaded per-minute
charges. He also pointed out that this may change in the future.
i11. There was a brief discussion of the Magic Show "No Rabbits"
fundraiser for Grex. No conclusions were arrived at, and discussion will
continue online.
j. Gavel
The meeting was adjourned at 9:03 PM
Respectfully submitted,
Steve Weiss, Secretary
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