NWA-PCUG Newsletter Article, October 2006
President's Corner
by Bill Moeller, President
wmoeller@arkansasusa.com
(click to email author)


Our September meeting would have been a great one if I hadn’t malfunctioned on two occasions—first I forgot the customary reports from our Treasurer and Membership Chairman, our Software Librarian, and our Newsletter Editor; then I mistakenly accepted Nancy Denn’s check and welcomed her as a new member when in fact, as the spouse of a dues-paid member, she was already a member. More about this second point later.

Our guest speaker, Ray Mattmann of Telecomp, saved the day with a fine presentation on custom built computers. Following a brief history and description of Telecomp (formerly Dixieland Computers in Rogers), Ray fielded questions for well over an hour. He pointed out that with a custom built computer you get a computer tailored for your specific needs—you don’t get and pay for what you don’t need, and you do get what you do need. He normally discusses how the customer plans to use the computer and goes from there to the design, but welcomes the customer who walks in with a full set of specs. Building the computer takes two to three days depending on their workload, and the new machine carries a one year guarantee. Pricing for consumer, as opposed to business, models is based on the current price of their basic model, with parts additions, deletions, and substitutions being made at the price of parts (no additional labor charges).

John Clark and I have both had computers built by these folks, and have both had good experiences. Two things that I particularly like are (1) I get a clean computer without a lot of adware, junior editions of software usually of no interest to me, and other garbage cluttering up my machine and getting in the way of what I want to do, and (2) the hand-holding that comes with dealing with a local outfit instead of a URL somewhere. As a perpetual novice, I particularly value this hand-holding.

Back to the question of spousal memberships. Following the last meeting, Bill Shook pointed out to me that under our By-Laws immediate members of a member’s family “…shall enjoy all rights and privileges of the club with the exception that only one vote per dues paid member is permitted at certain proceedings…”. As one of the Club Elders who participated in the drafting of the Club Constitution and By-Laws, Bill’s interpretation of this is that “certain proceedings” refers specifically to financial matters and the election of officers, and places no other restriction on the membership rights or privileges to be enjoyed by the spouse. (This means, among other things, that the spouse of a dues paying member is eligible to hold office.) I mention all of this here because Bill and I agreed that it was important to document this interpretation, and what more visible place to do so than in the Newsletter which is mailed to all current members?

Our next meeting on October 21st will feature a presentation by Past President Dale Oliver on Databases and Spreadsheets. I am sure we are all looking forward to learning more about how to use these incredibly powerful and useful tools. See you then.

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