Page 12      Diablo Blue      February, 2000

DSL (Direct Subscriber Line) Internet connections are now available in many parts of the Diablo Valley. At $49 per month, Pac Bell's answer to cable's @home service is about $10 more than cable, and requires a one-time
installation fee of $198, which cable does not.
Like cable, DSL does not use your present voice phone line, so users can make and receive old-fashioned telephone calls while on the Internet. You cannot, however, cancel phone service on your existing voice line.
The maximum speed of cable modems is 256-kbps. DSL typically supplies 384-kbps downloads and 128-kbps uploads. Subscribers must be located within three miles of a Pac Bell "hub," and actual speed varies with your distance from this hub.
Unlike cable which has only one provider, DSL is available from multiple vendors, and many ISPs have access agreements with one or more of these providers.

If you'd like to help feed some hungry people in the world, check out The Hunger Site at the UN. All you do is click a button and somewhere in the world some hungry person gets a meal to eat at no cost to you. The food is paid for by corporate sponsors.
All you have to do is go to the site and click to do a good deed.
You're only allowed one click per day, so spread the word to others. Visit the site and pass the word:
www.thehungersite.com

DVPC has a large number of knowledgeable members who are intermediate to expert users of various software packages. We're going to resurrect our Mentor program and take advantage of this storehouse of knowledge and let members share their knowledge with other members. If you use particular software packages, and would like to help other members when they have questions about any of those packages, you are a candidate for becoming a Mentor. Look for a Mentor Information Form when you register at the next DVPC meeting, and help your fellow DVPC members

Last month we proudly announced: "Coming soon to the web site will be a complete listing of all the software, books, and videos we have ready to be checked out."  As you might have guessed, illness and technical problems have forced a rollback on the date. Look for it this month! (If you don't find it, address all protest letters to Craig at  compmail@pacbell.net.

With only 29 days in this month (assuming that Y2K actually allows February 2000 to be a leap year), I thought you might want an easy puzzle. All the words begin with F (and the "F word" isn't even used!). So, if you have a little time to spare, try this month's puzzle.