UNYSAG Meeting, Thursday, August 20, 1998

The next meeting of the Upstate New York Systems Administrators Guild is scheduled for Thursday, August 20 from 3:00 to 5:00 PM in room 3039 in the Center for Industrial Innovation (CII) located on the RPI campus in Troy. (Note the room change.) Light refreshment will be provided. (If you think you will be attending, please let me know: jfinke@rpi.edu.)

Agenda

Introductions and Organizational Issues
Computer Policy and Law conference.
Sharon Roy, Directory of Academic Computing Services at RPI, will give an overview of some of the high points from the recent Computer Policy and Law conference hosted by Cornell. In addition, several other attendies will be able to add their insite into some of the current legal issues that effect us as sys admins.
Year 2000 - Fact or Fiction
Lindsay Todd and Mike Sofka, both Senior Systems Programmers for Service Support Services at RPI, will give a presentation on some of the problems we may have to deal with in the next 18 months as systems administrators, as well as some background on calendar problems in general. In addition, they will lead some discussion the Internet Y2K action conference that will take place the day before our meeting:
Folks: August 19, 1998 will be exactly 500 days before the century date change. On that day, Ed Yardeni is hosting an Internet audio conference devoted to this topic. It looks like he has some pretty interesting participants lined up. Dr. Yardeni was named by the Wall Street Journal as the best economic forecaster of 1997. He has since ruined his reputation by predicting a 70% chance of a severe recession induced by Y2k problems -- not a popular position with today's bull market. (Although I hear it has been quite a bear today...)

If you are interested, take a look at:

http://www.yardeni.com/y2kaction.html
Topics for Future meetings
We need ideas (and presenters!!) for future meetings. Some previously suggested topics include:

Suggestions for changes to this agenda and topics for futures agendas can be emailed to me at finkej@rpi.edu. Also, if you can provide an interesting presentation on some appropriate subject (or know of someone who cann), feel free to volunteer!

Travel & Parking

The CII is located on the RPI campus directly across the pedistrian bridge from the Visitors Information Center and Visitors Parking Lot. Room 3039 is located in the lower part of the CII (North). After you cross the pedestrian bridge, the CII will be directly ahead of you (large white building, with a smaller section attached via a walkway) to the right. Go into the smaller section under the walkway, and go down the hallway to the left. The room will be on the right as you go down the corridor (of course, the left side is all windows, so this should be easy to figure out. Note: from the pedestrian bridge, you enter the CII on the third floor.)

You can find directions to RPI at http://www.rpi.edu/CampusInfo/travel.html. Parking is available on 15th street, or in the Visitors parking lot. There are hourly charges for the visitors parking lot. You may want to avoid parking on campus - most campus spots require a parking permit. There are a few metered spots, but they are generally pretty short term. Parking enforcement is rather agressive, with a majority of the parking office revenue coming from fines rather than permits. More information about the wonderful and wacky world of parking at RPI can be found at http://www.rpi.edu/dept/parking.

finkej@rpi.edu