XCSSA Group Minutes, 2003-10-20

• Sixteen XCSSA members participated in the October meeting and learned about the latest fusion of cellular telephony and portable computer technology in a presentation about the Handspring Treo 300 mobile device. Tom Weeks demonstrated the new device which can be had for as little as $0 (as in free!) through a service rebate offer from Sprint. The Treo runs Palm OS version 3.5.2-H6.3 and can run nearly every Palm application available as well as providing excellent cell phone coverage. Tom demonstrated how the Treo can use VNC to log in to a server running either Linux or Windows and can be used for remote management using either a CLI or GUI interface, even gaining root access. Depending on various factors, the Treo can communicate at up to 150 kbps and averages 100 kbps. The Treo is built with 16 MB RAM, a 33 MHz Dragonball processor, USB 2.0 port.

• John Baker brought in a SparcStation 2 running Sun OS 4.1.3 which he said was the last version before the Solaris OS was released. According to John, the Sun OS was a “genuine BSD derivative” although it doesn't directly support DNS.

• Bruce Thomlin showed a sleek-looking Mac 17 in. Power Book which brought some oohs and aahs with its crisp LCD display. To augment his Mac's storage, Bruce connected an external secondary hard drive to a Firewire port and reported that the small box can be connected or disconnected on the fly. Very nice.

• Independent consultants should keep their eyes toward Austin according to J. Eddie Field as legislators eye plans to tax labor in Texas. “This will attack all levels of business. It will be like 'California Lite',” Eddie said. If the change in the tax code goes through, consultants will be required to pay a type of sales tax on their services just as hardware vendors must pay taxes on the products they sell.

• The Fredericksburg Road Pizza Hut once again provided some delicious pizzas which served as an opportunity for all attendees to chat and socialize about a variety of topics while getting rid of the stomach-grumbles.

• Finally, Dan Coit has agreed to help out by serving as group secretary, taking notes and recording XCSSA events for the archives. Dan can be reached at dancoit@softhome.net or at 210-367-9639. Dan arrives from Mexico where he worked for nine years as a general PC tech and consultant and started using Linux three years ago.