July's Board Meeting

Jul 27 04:12 UTC 2000

Well, I got my answer back *really quick*, and I guess that I'm ready to fight
my tiny cramped handwriting, so here goes.

July 24, 2000

Gavel Banging commenced at 7:18 p.m.

Chairman's Report: Eric reported that the gavel had been upgraded to Gavel
        2.0, with a visual upgrade.  (the band had been engraved)

Publicity Report: Eric reported that the TOP seemed to go well.  The magnets
        appear to have gone over really well, and were regarded as "darned
        neat".  Much thanks to Eric Abram(sorry if the spelling's off!), and
        Jessica Draper for a set of flyers, and to STeve for another set of
        flyers.  We don't seem to have had much of a pop in business because
        of it, but it was a lot of fun, and nice to have people involved. :)

Tech Committee Report: With the tape drive still down, we've not had backups
        in several months.  Is it time to buy a new tape drive? (see new
        new business for the answer!)  Right now we are on and ISDN line until
        the DSL can get hooked up, and ISDN is bouncing around a bit...that's
        just causing a few blips.  We are still paying for the line at Dorian's
        but Greg will be calling to fix that.  Jan installed another 
        non-graphical web browser. (he posted the info on that somewhere else.)
        Nothing has been done on the developement machine, but thanks mostly
        to Charles Arthur and Steve Weiss, Gryps is back up and running.

Censored Log Vote: 'most every dead horse that has been beaten on this topic
        was pulled up and rebeaten.  It was decided that this was really not
        something that the board could just decide on, that it needed to be
        hashed out online, with another propsal going up for the membership
        vote.  We did decided that there needs to be better documentation
        as to what scribbled and expurgated means.  Dan Romanchik is currently
        looking into other systems to see what their policies are.

Dial-in Reductions: Jan reported that we could cut down from 11 lines to 6
        lines, with only 4 hours (1.2%) of busy signals a month.  Those of us
        who regularily use dial-in grumbled a bit about any busy time.  It was
        decided that we could deffinately cut some lines, but maybe 5 was a
        far to go right away.  Also, since we were cutting lines, it was 
        decided that it was time to upgrade the modems to 33.6 modems
        eventually. (soonish)  ISPs are dumping them, so we should be able to
        get a rack of them fairly cheap.  We need to check our Centrix license
        to see what the minimum number of dial-in lines we need to have.
        Eric Motioned "It is proposed that 2 of Grex's dialin lines be cut,
        effective immediately".  Somebody seconded, and the motion was passed
        by all.  We figure that we can check and see how things are running
        with 9 lines, and cut more later once we see how it's going.  It was
        also mentioned here that Tech people would be making a list of hardware
        that they would like to be replaced eventually.

Treasurer's Report: Greg reported that we took in $591 and put out $887.  We
        would have been about even, except we had to pay renter's insurance
        this month.  There were 7 new members, most in credit cards.  We had
        some discussion about the credit card systems, and Greg will be looking
        into other credit card options, to see if there are cheaper systems
        out there.

New Business: STeve brought information on an 8mm tape backup system that he
        was looking as an option for Grex.  It's an Exabyte system, that is
        quite compatible with open BSD, although he's going to make sure that
        it works with SunOS.  The tapes are big enough to hold 2 dumps, and
        would make it possible for Grex to do a smaller nightly dump.  The
        that was quoted to us was approximately $1400, which is a *lot* of
        money.  The major advantages to getting a system such as this is that
        is something that we could use for a very long time, without having
        to worry that we'll out upgrade it. Media seems to be fairly reasonably
        priced, and the tapes will keep reliably and readable for many years.
        The Board decided that while the system sounded nifty, it was really
        too much money for us to just spend without consulting with the people
        of Grex.  Eric Motioned "The Board of Grex shall conduct a Board only
        vote to authorize the purchase of a tape backup system for Grex, with
        said vote taking place in Grex's Co-op conference in order to allow
        public discussion of the issue prior to the vote, and this vote shall
        take place no later than the Board meeting schedualed for 21 August
        2000."  Meg seconded, and all agreed.

Next Meeting: ummm.....let me guess.....August 21, 2000?  :)

Meeting ended at 9:30 p.m., to the great relief of all.

Oh....all Board members were present, along with Mary Remmers and Mark Conger.

response 4 of 20:

Jul 27 21:11 UTC 2000

When we make backups, we generally keep one off site.

response 6 of 20:

Jul 28 02:33 UTC 2000

No, believe me, they were *MUCH* better than having been at the meeting!!!

response 8 of 20:

Jul 28 18:17 UTC 2000

(It wasn't?  :)

response 10 of 20:

Jul 29 00:50 UTC 2000

Re #0 - Abrams.  otherwise you got it right.  :)

response 12 of 20:

Jul 30 04:10 UTC 2000

There is documentation at
http://ei5nazha.yz.yamagata-u.ac.jp/~aito/w3m/eng/MANUAL.html

It was written in Japan.

It does a very nice job rendering tables.  See for example

  !w3m -v http://www.grex.org

You can move the cursor with vi-style hjkl keys, or with the arrow keys.
Tab moves the cursor into the next link.  Space scrolls the screen, b goes
back.

To follow a link, move the cursor into it and hit enter.  To go back, type
the B key.  To type in a url to goto, type the U key.

response 14 of 20:

Aug 19 21:17 UTC 2000

Re the cheaper ways to get credit cards issue: PayPal now has business
accounts. One of the features is called "Web Accept." Basically it's a
credit-card accepting service that operates similarly to other such acceptors.
The fees are much lower than what is being used now -- only 1.9% per
transaction, which is 11 cents per monthly membership or $1.14 per yearly
membership. The funds can be automatically sweeped into grex's checking
account nightly for an additional 0.6% (4 pennies on a monthly membership).
Unless grex starts raking in at least $15,000 each year, PayPal will be
cheaper to use.

response 16 of 20:

Aug 20 23:46 UTC 2000

Good point. Although I would think that paypal would consider a visa to be
a visa, whether or not it says hai on the card.

response 18 of 20:

Aug 26 12:20 UTC 2000

How many overseas users have joined by credit card this year?

response 20 of 20:

Sep 11 21:05 UTC 2000

Have you found the exact number yet?  How many new members would it take to
pay for the monthly credit card charges?  This sounds like something worth
including in the next monthly (bimonthly?) report.