Minutes of February 2014 VIBUG meeting

Where: MIT, 77 Mass. Ave., Building 5, Room 134, Cambridge, MA.
When: February 8, 2014

Prior to the regular meeting, guest speaker John Panarese conducted a 2-hour Mac training class from 10:00 to 12:00 via Skype. The class was very well attended.

President Amy Ruell called the regular VIBUG meeting to order at 1:00 PM. All present introduced themselves.

Clerk Jerry Berrier read the minutes from our November 2013 meeting. They were approved by the membership.

Robert Resnic delivered the treasurer’s report, which was accepted. For 2013, as of the time when Bob took over:

Opening $5,981.42

Income

Donation $25.
Dues 960
2014 dues 160.
Total income $1145

Expenses

$100 gift certificates from BestBuy.
Bank of America fees, $70
Purchased Kindle Fire $259.
Sma for jfw, $212.80

Closing balance for 2013 $7,056.42.
Current balance $7,100.42.

We discussed our recent holiday party, and the comments were generally positive. Folks made the following recommendations:

The restaurant should have had more than one person waiting on us.
Next time we should ask the wait staff to begin taking orders early, even if everyone has not arrived.
Some suggested that we allow more than three hours for the party next year, but others said it would have been fine if ordering had begun earlier.
Many expressed thanks to David Kingsbury for arranging the party.

Announcements

* Tim Cumings has placed a button on the VIBUG website which will accept dues payments via PayPal. Bob Resnic explained that folks can also choose to pay their dues via a credit or debit card via the PayPal button.

* Amy said GW Micro and Microsoft have teamed up to make WindowEyes free for owners of Office 2010 and above.

* A new revision of Duxbury 11 has recently been released. Amy said those interested should encourage Duxbury to offer a course on the use of the Duxbury braille translation program.

* A new braille labeler will be available soon.

* Amy is now working part-time for Baum.

* MIT students will update us soon at an upcoming VIBUG meeting on the OCR device they have been developing.

* There is now a $10 per month option for subscription to the Seeing Eye GPS program from Sendero.

* TapTapSee is no longer free, but the company offers various options for paying/subscribing.

* The University of MD is seeking 10 blind folks to assist in research that involves use of Microsoft Connect.

* The most recent upgrade of MalwareBytes is reported to be less accessible than previous versions. Users are encouraged to contact the company.

* Amy said one of the Bradley Time Pieces raffled off at our holiday party was graciously returned, so she will be raffling it off today to an interested attendee.

Presentations

Following the computer question and answer period, Amy gave a presentation on the new and somewhat more accessible Kindle. She then used random number drawings to raffle off a Kindle Fire purchased by VIBUG and the Bradley time piece mentioned above.

Garth Bruen talked about the organization he heads known as NARALO, (North American Regional At-large Organization), affiliated with ICAN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers). As a private-public partnership, ICANN is dedicated

to Preserving the operational stability of the Internet;
To promoting competition;
To achieving broad representation of global Internet communities;
And to developing policy appropriate to its mission through bottom-up, consensus-based processes.

The meeting was adjourned at 4:00 p.m.

Respectfully,
Jerry Berrier, Clerk