December Board Meeting

Dec 14 20:45 UTC 2000

Well, see, I'm doing better already. :)

Minutes:

Meeting was called to order at 7:25.

Chair report: Zings is now starting to charge for the meeting room, but they
        don't charge non-profit groups.  We'll send a letter saying that they
        are wonderful along with our proof of non-profit status. :)

Treasurers report: Greg was going to have one, but got stuck in a snow bank,
        and so did not have enough time to get it written out.  But the basics:
        Spent about $1400 last month (900 was the tape drive).  We managed to
        drop $50 a month from our Ameriwreck bills by dropping the lines a
        couple of months ago.  See upcoming report for more details.  OH! 
        If you are a member in arrears, then you *MUST* be paid up before the
        polls close for your vote to count.

Publicity report: Nothing

Technical report: We have a tape drive...YEAH!  :)  It takes about 4 hours,
        45 minutes to do a full back up (about 2.5 hours less than before. :)
        Steve was going to do some tests on incremental dumps the night of 
        12-13, so that we  may be able to do nightly incremental dumps.
        There is no change in the developmental machine, but STeve want's to
        put the tape drive into am external SCSI so that we can transfer it
        easily between regular and developmental machines.  Marcus has
        installed a new spam filter, so there will be quite a bit less of that
        floating around.  Coming soon, to a Grex near you: Upcoming Staff
        Meeting, to be announced later, to possibly discuss some new staff
        spaces opening up, including non-root staff stuff.

Next meeting will be decided via email after elections.

New Business: STeve wants to get a tape drive cleaner.

Meeting adjorned at 7:50.

Atendees: Eric, Marcus, Meg, Greg, John, STeve, Mary & Jenn.

response 2 of 15:

Dec 15 11:42 UTC 2000

I'd have thought that cleaning tapes were well within staff's normal,
discretionary budget.

response 4 of 15:

Dec 15 13:08 UTC 2000

Remmers.

response 6 of 15:

Dec 15 18:56 UTC 2000

Can't you clean any tape drive with a cotton swab and 90% alcohol?  This is
supposed to be much less wearing on the heads than those cleaning tapes or
other abrasive materials.  

response 8 of 15:

Dec 15 19:52 UTC 2000

Re #6:  Extremely high density tape drives are somewhat different than
reel-te-reel or cassette decks.

response 10 of 15:

Dec 15 23:22 UTC 2000

The cleaning tapes for VCRs destroy the heads (like sandpaper).

response 12 of 15:

Dec 16 03:10 UTC 2000

Re #10: Cheap, abrasive ones will.  The 'wet' ones are generally okay. 
Neither is as effective as hand cleaning, though.  On the other hand, a
clumsy hand cleaning *can* ruin the heads for good in one shot.

Many computer tape drives have special cleaning tapes that the drive
detects, and it requests them every so often.  They also usually aren't made
to be taken apart and cleaned.  I once had to try to take a DAT drive apart
to repair it, and it was a real bear.

response 14 of 15:

Dec 16 16:28 UTC 2000

How much are we talking for a cleaning kit, STeve?