This month's CACTUS program will be a presentation by Donna Aurich of Gensym Corporation. Gensym is a leading supplier of software and services for intelligent operations management. Common applications include quality management, process optimization, dynamic scheduling, network management, energy and environmental management, and process modeling and simulation.
Donna will present Gensysm's product, Operations Expert[tm]. Operations Expert maintains continuous service availability in voice, and data networks by detecting, diagnosing, and correcting problems before they impact your business. Working with network management systems, such as HP OpenView, Operations Expert provides a layer of management and expertise above those systems, automating the time-consuming, reasoning-intensive, and labor-intensive tasks required to quickly resolve each problem. Donna will be available for a question and answer session about Operations Expert.
Next months program will be a presentation by the local Austin start-up company, Journyx. Journyx develops innovative web-based productivity enhancing applications--specifically, solutions for tracking time, costs, expenses, and projects. (And yes, it can import Microsoft Project files).
As tradition beckons and bylaws require, new officer elections happened. With little opposition, the following individuals were elected or remain incumbent for the respective positions.
James Johnson was run for several positions in absentee, but again failed to win any, fulfilling his famous campaign promise of "If nominated, I will not run. If elected, I will not serve."
Cactus Officers for 2000
| President: | Michael Rice (mrice [at] colltech <dot> com) | |
| Treasurer: | Johnny Long (longjy [at] thecb <dot> texas <dot> gov) | |
| Programs: | Ray Schafer (schafer [at] tkg <dot> com) | |
| Membership: | Luis Basto (basto [at] cactus <dot> org) | |
| Publicity: | Darrell Long (dlong [at] cactus <dot> org) | |
| Newsletter: | Lindsay Haisley (fmouse [at] fmp <dot> com) | |
| Scribe: | Ron Roberts (ronro [at] bga <dot> com) | |
| Members at Large: | -- Jack McKinney (mckinney [at] cactus <dot> org) -- Gil Kloepfer (gil [at] cactus <dot> org) -- M.H. Khan (mhk [at] cactus <dot> org) |
The CACTUS board of directors met on 7 PM Tuesday, February 8th at the Old Alligator Grill. All members were present except for the newletter editor, Lindsay Haisley, and Member-at-Large Jack McKinney.
In discussing various ways to get out the word about meetings, we realized that the Publicity Chairmanship was empty. After some discussion, the board decided to offer the vacant position to Darrell Long. In previous years, the publicity chair had gotten meeting notices in the Austin-American Statesman. The KGSR Tech Line was mentioned as another source of publicity.
Ray Schafer announced that he had lined up programs for February and March. It was suggested that we try to arrange a joint meeting with the Cisco SIG of the Central Texas LAN Association (CTLA).
At the time of the meeting, President Rice had not heard from Dewey Coffman of Jump Net about hosting the Sparc 10. (Dewey responded later that night.) Michael suggested that we seek to give sponsors more credit in the newsletter, WEB page, and in the login welcome for the CACTUS machines. He also suggested that we have different levels of sponsorship to advertise OuterNet and Jump Net more than regular sponsors because of the hosting service they provide.
An offer by Verio.Net was also discussed as an alternate if the Jump Net offer were to fall through.
It was agreed that the Officers alias at CACTUS.org be used for current office holders. The Admin alias would contain those names and any volunteers helping to manage the computers.
In discussing the mail administration, several members expressed some reluctance to manage Qmail. It was suggested that we abandon Qmail in favor of Sendmail. It was decided that we should ask Jack McKinney to honor his five year committment to maintain Qmail.
We would like to thank Multi-Media Arts for renewing their membership. Their continuing corporate sponsorship is appreciated.
Multi Media Arts develops educational materials that address a range of ability levels and subject areas and are used for in-service training, classroom teaching, and independent study. MMA also provides consulting services for instructional program design, development, and implementation.
The contact person is Lee Williams. He can be reached at 451-7191, or send email to mma [at] cactus <dot> org. Visit the Multi Media Arts website at <http://www.cactus.org/~mma/>
We'd also like to thank William Hill, Philip Wheatley, Mike Cheselka, Thomas Benjamin, and Ron Roberts for renewing their membership.
Thank you once again for re-electing me as Membership Chair, even
though I have done so little for so many for so long. One of the
more exciting things to happen this year will be the upgrade of the
venerable Sparc 2 to a more modern Sparc 10. And we will do this
with nary a glitch to the membership database.
Membership
To renew your membership, please send check or money order payable to CACTUS ($25/yr for regular membership and $96/yr for corporate sponsorship):
CACTUS PO BOX 9786 AUSTIN, TX 78766-9786You can also pay in person at the general meetings. Please direct any inquiries or address changes to membership [at] cactus <dot> org.
Please do not show up earlier than 6:20 pm on the specified day. Enter through the main entrance at 10000 Burnet Road for ARL:UT. Tell the guard that you are here for the CACTUS meeting. You will be required to sign a log book, but not required to wear a badge. The guards will direct you to the auditorium entrance. Limited parking in the front of the building is available, but more extensive parking is available in the large parking lot just north of the ARL building. After 6:30 pm, all entrances to JJ PRC, except for the Burnet Road entrance, are closed and locked. You can still enter the parking lot in front of the ARL building. No parking tags are necessary after 6:00 pm. See map for further details.
Online maps are available at:
| | ^ <---- to MOPAC | | | | | | North | | | to Braker Lane ---------------+ | -+ /-----------+ | | | | | | +--------+ | | | Parking | | | | Lot | | | +----------+ | | | | +------------+ | | | | +-------+ | | | | +---+ | | | | | | | Rutland | ARL | | | | +--------- | | | | | +--------- | | | +---+ | | | +---+---+ | +------------+ | | | | | | South | | | to US 183 | | v