Item 195. July's Board Meeting Megan Heberlein (eeyore) Thu, Jul 27, 2000 (00:12). 82 lines, 20 responses. 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. 20 responses total. ---------- (195) #1 E R Bassey (other) Thu, Jul 27, 2000 (01:23). 3 lines. Thank you, Meg, for your prompt posting of the minutes, and your excellent minimization of the voluminous necro-equo-flagellation extant at the meeting described therein. ---------- (195) #2 James Howard (jp2) Thu, Jul 27, 2000 (11:25). 5 lines. It is disappointing to see that Grex failed to do the right thing on the censored log. However, they also didn't do the wrong thing. How non-committial. What makes a man turn neutral? ---------- (195) #3 David Brodbeck (gull) Thu, Jul 27, 2000 (12:45). 9 lines. Re #2: The Grex board is not very authoritarian. They don't generally make a policy of reversing decisions made by the voting members. It's seen as something that would create a bad precident, I think. To me the backup drive seems like a no-brainer; yes, it's a lot of money, but we're really living dangerously without it. I'd suggest that some effort be made to keep an off-site backup, as well; it's not really that much of a hassle, and it'd be essential of the building burned down or something equally catastrophic happened. ---------- (195) #4 Jan Wolter (janc) Thu, Jul 27, 2000 (17:11). 1 line. When we make backups, we generally keep one off site. ---------- (195) #5 C. Keesan (keesan) Thu, Jul 27, 2000 (17:43). 3 lines. Where is the info on the other non-graphical browser? Thanks for the nicely written notes, Meg. Almost as good as having been at the meeting. ---------- (195) #6 Megan Heberlein (eeyore) Thu, Jul 27, 2000 (22:33). 1 line. No, believe me, they were *MUCH* better than having been at the meeting!!! ---------- (195) #7 E R Bassey (other) Fri, Jul 28, 2000 (11:35). 2 lines. oh stop. it wasn't that bad. you're just sore because you had to manually record all the ramblings. ;) ---------- (195) #8 Greg Fleming (flem) Fri, Jul 28, 2000 (14:17). 1 line. (It wasn't? :) ---------- (195) #9 John H. Remmers (remmers) Fri, Jul 28, 2000 (14:18). 1 line. Re #195: The new non-graphical browser is called "w3m". ---------- (195) #10 Yikes! Another (no, not other) Eric (ea) Fri, Jul 28, 2000 (20:50). 1 line. Re #0 - Abrams. otherwise you got it right. :) ---------- (195) #11 C. Keesan (keesan) Sat, Jul 29, 2000 (15:51). 3 lines. How does one use w3m? I typed w3m and got a list of commands. I typed w3m -v and got a starting screen. I typed q to quit (after trying a few other things). Is there an item about this somewhere? ---------- (195) #12 Jan Wolter (janc) Sun, Jul 30, 2000 (00:10). 15 lines. 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. ---------- (195) #13 Jan Wolter (janc) Sun, Jul 30, 2000 (00:22). 3 lines. Oh, typing H gets you a help screen. Seems to work reasonably well with pistachio. ---------- (195) #14 Don Joffe (don) Sat, Aug 19, 2000 (17:17). 9 lines. 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. ---------- (195) #15 David Brodbeck (gull) Sat, Aug 19, 2000 (21:57). 2 lines. But can overseas users use it? Last I heard Paypal was US-only. One of our main reasons for accepting credit cards was to allow overseas users to pay. ---------- (195) #16 Don Joffe (don) Sun, Aug 20, 2000 (19:46). 2 lines. 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. ---------- (195) #17 Megan Heberlein (eeyore) Mon, Aug 21, 2000 (02:01). 2 lines. I would assuem that it would have to do with addresses. And also, each Visa has a different 4-diget start number, depending on the bank that it is from. ---------- (195) #18 C. Keesan (keesan) Sat, Aug 26, 2000 (08:20). 1 line. How many overseas users have joined by credit card this year? ----------