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February, 2000      Diablo Blue      Page 11

Fry's - The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly...

(Continued from page 3)

because, frankly, the examiners don't really know what may be missing or broken. Now days, when you do return something, and it's not too far out of your path, you can generally get your money back with just a few minutes of your waiting time and even if you don't quite get everything back in the box, it turns into somebody's else's problem.
Their "just add your hard drive, memory, and CPU fan" computer kits generally feature "here today, maybe here tomorrow" unsupported motherboards with integrated sound, video, modems, and sometimes network cards built in. Forget Linux support; forget ease of installation issues; forget component tweaking. To make it a good value, you had better draw on your personal vast experience with the motherboard company.
I believe the overall cheaper way is to go with a name brand motherboard with good web site documentation and an actual support policy at the local store where you buy it so you can bring it back to be looked at by technicians that will actually take the time and drop everything while you wait and look over their shoulder as they show you the one thing you missed. Try that at Fry's!

DVPC Board Meeting Minutes...

(Continued from page 7)

Old Business:
Membership: Ron read excerpts from APCUG (the Association of PC Users Groups, an umbrella organization that serves the PC User Group community in the U.S. and Canada; DVPC is a member of APCUG) editorials that illustrate that other user groups are also struggling to maintain their membership levels. The comments from members of different clubs across the country also indicate a trend we see: fewer people want to participate. Instead, they come to meetings to be entertained. When is the last time one of our members wrote an article for the newsletter or gave a short presentation at a meeting? Yeah, it's been a while.
Microphones: Stan asked if anyone new of a good microphone for recording voice. That set off another round of digression. Nick won that round, easily displaying just the tip of the veritable iceberg of audio knowledge he possesses and is all too willing to share.
Mentors: It seems we did an excellent job of stimulating members to sign up to be mentors. And now the list of mentors is about to become declassified. We have been hanging on to it until we had a method of making these noble volunteers known to the membership at large. This has led to the odd situation where a person asks if we have a mentor for a particular subject and we reply "Yes, but we can't tell you who or how to get in touch with them". There will be a Mentor page on the DVPC web site soon; it will be password protected (using the same monthly password as our on-line newsletter) so our mentors aren't bothered by non-member calls. If you don't have access to the Web (maybe because you need a mentor to help you fix the problem that's preventing you from accessing the Web), you can see Peggy Johnson at the greeter's desk at any regular DVPC meeting for mentor contact information.
Network: March will be Build a Network Night. Members will thrill to the sight of our own crack team of computer hobbyists as they install a network, live on stage. It wasn't clear exactly who will do this: Alan kept referring to "we", but "we" were never defined. Alan certainly is capable of doing this, and I just as certainly am not. Any man who installs a home network and puts most of his six PCs on it (yes, all five Mildwurms have a PC, and apparently so does Zipper the dog) must certainly know what he is doing. I consider myself successful when I am able to reformat a floppy disk.
New Business:
Elections: April will be the Board elections. Campaigning will doubtless begin at the next meeting and build to its usual frenzy by the April. Watch for my posters and bumper stickers appearing soon around town…