TBCS will be featured
in the St. Pete Times
tomorrow (Monday) in the
business section!
(Including Pictures)
|
Come on out and join us at the Resource Center on October 25th for another Open House and Random Acts of Kindness Computer Clinic. The doors open at 9 AM, and the festivities will continue through 5 PM.
We'll be serving coffee, doughnuts, hot dogs, sodas, and popcorn, and it's all on the house. Do you have some computer questions? Stop by our computer lab and we'll see if we can help you out.
Bring your friends and neighbors, and let's show 'em how friendly and helpful we are, and what a great resource the Tampa Bay Computer Society is.
Random Acts of Kindness Computer Clinic
Free and Open to the public!
From 10 AM to 2 PM we will be performing another Random Acts of Kindness (RAK) Computer Clinic for our members and for the general public.
You MUST register in advance for this service. Please go to:
www.synergypublishing.com and click on the "Register Me" link near the top of the page.
We hold these clinics to promote the concept of performing random acts of kindness for others. It's not the "size" of the kindness that you perform for someone that's important; it's the giving of yourself that makes a difference. I happen to believe that "kindness is catching".
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Jan Norman's Windows 101 October class is almost full. It starts this Friday and runs for 4 consecutive weeks from 1 to 3 in the afternoon. That's 8 classroom hours for a total of $40. Please contact Jan at: tbcs.office@verizon.net to register.
Howard Poindexter's hands-on Basic Paint Shop Pro class took place last week. Please email the club secretary (tbcs.office@verizon.net) if you are interested in another and we'll see about scheduling a 2nd class very soon. The opportunity to take a hands-on class in Paint Shop Pro may disappear in the near future so take advantage of it while you can. This class is a total of 4 hours of instruction at a cost of $20.
You can see our current classroom schedule and register
online by surfing over to:
http://tampa-bay.org/classroom.htm.
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Tuesday, September 30, 1-3pm
Novice SIG. Led by Jan Norman. EVERY Tuesday
afternoon.
jannorman@tampabay.rr.com
Lots of Windows basics info presented here.
Tuesday,
September 30, 7-9pm
Microsoft Access SIG. Led by Howard Gray
hgray2@tampabay.rr.com
Wednesday, October 1, 2-4pm
Genealogy SIG.
Led by Howard T. Smith
htsmith1015@yahoo.com
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I've been waiting for years for my government to protect me from people who don't know me but think that they have a First Amendment right to use my phone line to try and sell me stuff I don't want. (How do I know that I don't want their "stuff"? - If they call me, I don't want it!)
This past week has come as close as ever to getting our government to effectively put a stop to the "telephone terrorists". You see our FTC (Federal Trade Commission) has been getting ready to implement their new "Do-Not-Call Registry" on October 1st of this coming week. Over 50 million Americans have gone to:
http://donotcall.gov/ in order to register their phone numbers. Telemarketers will risk an $11,000 fine each time they call a number on the registry.
Disaster struck on Tuesday: a federal judge ruled that the FTC lacks the authority to operate the registry. Congress was quick to respond (50 million voters are not to be ignored!). Both the House and the Senate overwhelmingly passed measures giving the FTC the necessary clout (and they did it within 12 hours!). President Bush said that he was looking forward to signing the measure, "The millions of people who have signed up for the list have the right to reduce unwanted telephone solicitations."
No sooner had congress passed the measure, than U.S. District Judge Edward Nottingham ruled that the list violates the free-speech rights of telemarketers. As disappointed as I was by this event, I must admit that he probably did it for the correct reason: The do-not-call registry creates 2 classes of speech:
1. Banned - commercial telemarketing
2. Exempted from ban - charitable, political, & surveys.
Judge Nottingham contends that it's unconstitutional for the public to opt out of commercial telemarketing calls, but not from the other types. I'm far from a legal scholar, but I suspect that the judge is correct, and will be upheld on appeal. I'm guessing that this implementation is not going to fly past the First Amendment.
If you would like to discuss the merits of the Judge's decision with him, the number to call is 303-844-5018. Don't be surprised if no one answers. I'm guessing that plenty of people will want to chat with him over the next several weeks.
Personally, I think that the solution to the current dilemma is to include charities, politicians, and survey takers in the ban. I should be able to ban ALL of these groups from calling me with the blessing of my new best buddy - the FTC.
The part that really gripes me about this issue is that the telemarketers claim they should have access to my telephone number because their phone calls to me are protected speech (per the First Amendment, of course).
What is so often overlooked is that I'm the one who pays for the phones in my home and the service that permits others to connect to me - why is MY right to control who has access to these resources being ignored?
Doc
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