Minutes of the SIPB Meeting of 04/7/97 The meeting was called to order at 19:30 by kretch. In attendance were Voting members: hartmans, kretch, gutnik, sit, yonah, svalente, yoav, danw, nathanw, fubob, amu, amsmith, jered Associate members: ghudson, mhpower, eichin, tlyu, warlord, jweiss, len18, sgw, jemorris, aurora Non-voting members: Prospectives: cmceniry, ajw, Martin Peck, justom, jmorzins Guests: Treasurer's Report: sit: I haven't dealt with receipts. kretch: There is a mix-up with the Quantum PO; people are dealing. However, you may find it difficult to order books there until we deal. Chairman's Report: kretch: Will be revising the to-be web page about consulting move. Office Report: ghudson: I move to allocate up to $400 to buy a second zip drive. It's convenient to have a zip drive on the machine with the scanner, but sometimes usage patterns conflict. eichin: [second] mhpower: I don't like the idea that the machine is unspecified. There appears to be a trend to not unspecified and to have random hardware attached to machines. [He is pointing out that if you have a lot of different machines that have useful hardware on them, users may interrupt you.] [14-1-5] passes yonah: Apparently, the large stapler broke. The frob to keep the staples in is duck-taped. Someone should deal with getting it repaired. kretch: Will attempt to deal. amsmith: We appear to be getting used as lost+found more than usual. Could we post a sign in the door or something. [someone]: Also, as a side note, the CAC may do lost+found; sending people there rather than CPs might be an option. kretch: will talk to rose. mhpower: I think it's sort of bad to put up signs saying what you aren't. eichin: No one reads signs on the door anyway. sit: Apparently, money was allocated for bobbi-harlow's sound card but it doesn't have one. ghudson: Money was allocated for a cluster-config sparc4, but the MCC did not include a sound card nor did they charge us. However, money is left over and can be used. [sit will deal] jweiss: I'm told that the cooling shutdown is finally over. svalente: I was thinking it might be kind of neat for SIPB to have a new Mac. We aren't doing anything with MacOS, but there may be interesting things happening in the next year. I've had several requesets for MkLinux. jered: I think it's a good idea, but we should consider other vendors besides Apple. [not really an option because of MCC] ghudson: I think it would be good to spend our budget and we don't have much time left. sgw: I think it is a good idea. That is an old Mac; there are a lot of things you can't do with it. I would request that we get a newer, better monitor. svalente: I move to allocate up to $2600 to get a 200 Mhz Mac with a 604 from the MCC (without monitor) Gene would lose its desk space. yonah: What about monitor costs. jweiss: There are people in E40 who have Sparc5 monitors on Macs. I think you need frobs to get it to work. I think we could get a sparc5 monitor for that. [14-0-8] passess svalente: Who wants to volunteer for the Mac? [he does reluctantly] MIT Computing Report: aurora: Applix will have a warning that says it is under evaluation and not to use for anything important. In a few months, we will re-evaluate and it will hopefully go away or be fixed. Computer Services: ghudson: News has decided what has happened for FY 97. This means that we can get a new web server. People should deal within the week. yonah: I'll talk to jonathon. SIPB Backup Report: hartmans: AFS has not happened for three weeks because of DLT problems. jweiss: I will try to take a SIPB tape and backup on an ASO machine. We have no DLTs to lend to SIPB now. sit: Everything happened last week besides AFS. Publications Report: aurora: I put some docs about QuickStations in. Mail was sent about cluster cards. yonah: We only have one copy of iMatlab. (kretch is dealing) R/O Report: () IAP Report: () CokeComm Report: amsmith: Us getting coke is dependent on me finding people with cars. If you have a car and care about soda being the office, send me mail. Other: aurora: Applix sucks. Don't use it. jweiss: A reading comprehension test should be required of all institute contractors. Other Other: amsmith: I want the AFS clue dump to happen. aurora: I would like a zip drive clue dump. Users come in and I don't know what to tell them. ghudson: What needs to happen is that we need a NetBSD script to mount and unmount the disk. I'll try to deal soon. aurora: Meep! jered: Chad's got funny-looking stuff on his face. The meeting was adjourned at 19:51. Minutes taken and submitted by hartmans.