Executive Director's 1998 Annual Report ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Submitted by: Christopher L. Cope NCF Executive Director execdir@ncf.ca Contents: ~~~~~~~~~ 1) The year in review 2) Technical 1) The year in review ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Early in the year, we finalized the implementation of our "Extended Access Program" In this initiative, we were successful in negotiating with Mitel Corporation to take advantage of unused capacity of 32 of their telephone lines during evening and weekend hours. Throughout the year, the service was steadily improved and enhanced and now enables NCF members to use 44 of their lines in the evening and on weekends and 33 lines during the day. This year marked NCF's 5th Birthday and a celebration was held at RMOC headquarters. The event, which also marked the official launch of Extended Access, was well attended by members, Key partners and representatives of the media. Several other fun events were held during the year besides the Birthday celebration. The Events Co-ordination team, a sub-team of the Public Relations Tea, (PRT) led by Andre Ouellete (bf766) planned and executed these events which included a Picnic, the Birthday Party, Halloween, and a Volunteer Pool party and several other fun functions. We finished the auto-install software project this year, with diskette versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer for both Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 available. A CD-ROM version, which also included Netscape Communicator and a browser for Macintosh, was also prepared. Richard Bethell (cj434) and Colin McFayden's (aa734) collaborated on the project. KAO Infosystems donated 2,000 diskettes, 110 CD-Roms and the reproduction and labelling of CDs and disks. Auto-install CD-Roms have been distributed to all libraries in the region and are available for borrowing. A summary of what is on the CD together with a list of which libraries have it is at: http://www.ncf.ca/ip/freenet/public-sites/ainstall Magma Communications donated their "Chat Server" software to NCF for us to host a Web-based chat area. Richard Bethell (cj434 and Natalie Munroe (xx966) collaborated on the project with assistance from Peter Boddy (bx955), Brad Hudson (cd502). The project was launched as "NCF Chatstreet" with 5 chat rooms: Ye Olde Taverne, Nike Temple, The Hot Tub, Area 51, and The Blue Oyster. The area is accessible at http://www.ncf.ca/chatstreet NCF held it's 5th on-line AGM in February. As in previous years, all candidate information, motions and even the voting itself was done on-line. A new "Web-site team" was formed, to create the NCF home page, incorporating ideas and comments that arose throughout the NCF Home Page Contest process. A new "fresh look" home page or "front door" was created and installed and is available at http://www.ncf.ca, communicates who we are, what we do, and provides navigation to our communities and services. This team will also be responsible for creating the NCF Web site linked to and from the NCF home page. The team began with Pat Drummond (ad995) at the helm and later in the year, Richard Bethell (ad995) assumed the role of team leader and Web Master. Newsweek International (http://www.Newsweek-int.com) featured our page three other "e-villages" on their website throughout the month of December, under the category of "Look who's doing it right." Further information about the web team and the projects they are working on is available at: http://www.ncf.ca/ncf/ops/webteam/ Towards the latter part of the year, preliminary discussions began with Industry Canada, regarding two project funding proposals. Both projects were to be considered under Industry Canada's Information Highways Advisory Branch's (IHAB) connecting Canadians agenda. The first, a project under the "Community Access Program (CAP)" would evolve through the year into 2 possible projects. The first, a small research project became a reality in 1999 and the second; a very large project which could involve the entire community may bear fruit later in 1999. The second initiative is a project under Industry Canada's VolNet division. A Proposal for this project will be submitted jointly by National Capital FreeNet and The Volunteer Centre of Ottawa/Carleton early in 1999. As the year progressed the need to boost membership was noted. A Member-Get-A-Member Campaign was held from May 8th, 1998 to July 5th, 1998. Three sponsors were secured for the campaign: The Clones society was the major sponsor and donated a fully equipped Pentium computer. Myers Chev Olds Cadillac, who donated space in their print ads in the Ottawa Citizen and the Ottawa Sun, was the second sponsor. Myers also donated the distribution of about 5,000 flyers at a 67s game, daily 10-second radio spots, a weekend's free rental of a Cadillac and some supplies, Xeroxing and equipment, telephone connections etc, for the Launch at their annual Clearance Event at the Nepean Sportsplex. KAO Infosystems who donated 2,000 diskettes and 110 CD-ROMs was considered to be the third sponsor of this event. Throughout the event, all new members and the members who helped them were entered in a contest. The process required the new member to use the main NCF services in a treasure hunt-like series of steps to validate both their entry and their mentor's entry. Members were encouraged to enter as many times as they wished, but with one entry for each new member helped and with the proviso that they accept the responsibility for helping the newbie learn the ropes. The contest closed with 1,403 new members registered and $10,446 in donations registered at the final tally. The grand prize was awarded to James Wong (ee763) on August 28th. In order to promote the use of our Web facility and to make this process far easier, we added an ftp server for members and Information Managers. The new service represents a fast and convenient way publish web pages, yet is a system which offers sufficient controls, to prevent unauthorized file changes. This year, we began a Seniors Internet program with classes offered at three centres: We started the program at The Kiwanian Alex Dayton Senior's Activity Centre at Carlingwood on July 30th. Jean Wilmot (xx145) Lyn Shouldice (ah940) and Mary Dibden (ai048) volunteered to help get the program started here. Next, we began the program at Abbottsford House Senior Citizens Residence on Bank Street, across from Landsdowne, Abbotsford House added our sessions to their fall program and held the first meeting of their "Seniors Internet Club" on September 30, 1998 at 10:00 AM. Natalie Munro (xx966) and Mike Billows (bm582) got things going for us here. Finally, by year-end, we had plans in place to start our program at The Good Companion's Senior's Centre, with Jules Lafrance (ab388) taking lead, assisted by Robert Young (ab957) and Lyn Shouldice (ah940). Readership of newsgroups has been steadily declining, and has become increasingly difficult to find ways of informing NCF users about coming events, new services and other important happenings. We needed a tool which provides an effective means of contacting all members, even those who don't log on, and forward their email to another account. We installed a utility to send an email message to all members. We now refer to this utility as "Message from Mom", having migrated it's name from a concept of having a "Message Of the Month", or MoM. As of July 22, 1998, the non-peak hours were extended to a new window of 12:00 midnight to 12 noon each day. During this "non-peak" period, one-hour sessions will continue to be enforced, but time will not be accumulated against user's daily quotas. We registered the domain "ncf.CA", although use of this for email and webpages was delayed until 1999. Currently web pages can be found as http://www.ncf.ca/xx and email can be sent to xx@ncf.ca, although we have yet to change the outgoing mail stamp from xx@freenet.carleton.ca. To complete this latter step, we will create havoc among members who have subscribed to listserves using the latter address and might have difficulties un-subscribing or re-subscribing. We hope to develop a user choice method for this. As we entered the fall, cash projections suggested that at our then current donation/expense levels, we would exhaust our cash reserve by November 1998. In order to encourage members to provide an incremental donation or to jog those who donated nothing, a funding drive scheme was developed. The program had three main elements: The first element was to foster discussion in on-line forums such as ncf.board.speakers-corner. The second element, a login screen message indicating the need for an additional $40,000 was installed, and the final stage, an e-mail message was sent to all NCF and repeated at regular intervals throughout the drive. By Year-end, some 1,103 members contributed a total of $34,033 in support of our need, representing $30.85 per donor. These donations were over and above donations related to renewal or new member registration. In September, we joined forces with Citizens for Safe Cycling to hold a Bike event "Harvest Ride. The event, which featured a 110-Km ride, a 45-Km ride, a 15 Km ride, and a "kids-can-bike-fest." Throughout the year we had an opportunity to address a variety of groups in the region, including the South Ottawa Rotary Club, Webbgirls and H.U.G.O. a local computer support club, Beginning in November, FreeNews (Volume 2 Issue 11) underwent a face-lift. This was the first issue to be published by our new FreeNews editor, John Angus (an321). The revised format of the newsletter contains many new sections including, Pet Peeves, Newbie Complaints, I Luv NCF, You Said It, Random Journey, and The FreeNews Interview, etc. Several new sections are somewhat risque including jokes and a controversial new column "NetSex: by Kiri". The new less formal format pokes fun at ourselves and takes a somewhat irreverent approach. Our method of delivering formal bulletins using our "Message from Mom" has taken over as our officially sanctioned method of delivering information to members. It was decided therefore, to allow this publication to migrate more as a digest published for fun and plain interest, rather than a delivery vehicle for official information. The annual NCF on-line auction began November 1st, 1998 with about 300 items on the block. Many interesting individual and personal items were donated, and a large assortment of hardware and software was donated by Akran Networks. Software was donated by both Corel Corporation and Microsoft Corporation and about 100 copies each of Microsoft Project 4.1, Microsoft FrontPage 1.1, and Microsoft Publisher 97 were offered by the Ottawa Public Library. Proceeds from the sale of this software were shared with OPL. The auction raised $2,976.50 for FreeNet and because ended up with some unsold auction items, the event will continue to generate revenue at Garage Sales and in future auctions As we progressed through the final quarter, it became increasingly evident that while the NCF membership would meet the challenge in the donation drive, unfortunately, it was the same members who helped out by donating incremental amounts. Members who had not previously donated were not sufficiently encouraged to make a contribution. In all previous years, NCF has provided guidance to members on what was required to keep the organization healthy and every year the organization has adjusted this guidance according to the experience of the previous year and to financial requirements. To reduce this inequity, we began giving guidance that members ought to contribute a minimum, either in time or money, and in general, this change was well received and contributions are beginning to return to levels required for sustainability. Renewal notices now ask members to share the costs of operations by making a minimum donation of at least $2 per month ($24 per year) or by contributing volunteer time. In order to help members with this latter option, an information area was developed, to explain the options and to make volunteering easier to do. The volunteer information area can be viewed by clicking: http://www.ncf.ca/ncf/volunteer or typing "go volunteer". Among the newer volunteer activities that we now offer is the opportunity to "ADOPT A PAGE" in CapitalFind, NCF's own guide to the Nation's Capital. Andre Dalle (al178) joined the NCF staff on November 9, 1998 as System Administrator. Andre is a former Computer Science student at Ottawa University, where he completed his first year of Computer Science. He comes to us with additional experience gained while working on systems at E.B. Eddy and the C.S. Coop. Andre's first job was to familiarize himself with our system and to begin to take over day-to-day management from our Volunteer Sysadmin team. The First Annual "Fundraiser Faire" took place at the James Street Feed Company on Saturday, November 28, 1998. This event, which was planned and executed by members of the Pagan SIG, raised $641.00 for NCF. Michael Mason (an956) took over the job of team leader, and head of recruitment for our volunteer coordination team. Nicole Soucy (bp418) also joined the team. Sheila Alder (bw306) continues to help as a coordinator and Andre Ouellette (bf766) continues to look after menus, WebPages etc, for the group. The group held Christmas "Dutch Treat" Volunteer's luncheon on December 23rd, at Baxters Restaurant, and the event, which was attended by about 20 volunteers, became an excellent networking session as well as good fun. The first in a series of "New Volunteer Orientation" sessions was planned for early in the new year. All present and former volunteers would be invited to participate in a Volunteer appreciation pizza-n'-pop luncheon. James Holmes, an associate of Chris Hawley at Newbridge wrote a script to parse the output from the Web version of our member registration form. The script returns a confirmation report and mails a clean registration to the office. This means that anyone visiting our site can register for membership, without the necessity of having an e-mail client configured on his or her browser. We have also installed a modified a copy of the script for our Volunteer application form, which also now works without needing e-mail. A Financial recap for the year: 1. Registrations: New Budget Regist Memb $ Budget Regist Donat'n Memb. (No.) Var Donate Donate Amount ($) Var Donat'n All New ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ YTD'98 3,488 7,224 -52% 1,499 43.0% $35,668 $46,225 -23% $23.79 $10.23 Avg'98 291 602 -52% 125 43.0% $ 2,972 $ 3,852 -23% $23.79 $10.23 2. Renewals: No. % Of Avg. Renwl No. Budget Renwl Renwl $ Budget Renwl Donate Renwl (No.) Var Donate Donate Amount ($) Var Donatn All Ren ~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ YTD'98 9,697 10,012 -3% 6,465 66.7% $156,819 $228,388 -31% $24.26 $16.17 AVG'98 808 834 -3% 539 66.7% $ 13,068 $ 19,032 -31% $24.26 $16.17 Work began in 1998 on a new way to handle session limits. The new approach, called "Modem Sharing" is a project to write software to manage modem usage for members connecting to NCF using both PPP and text connections. Jim Elder (aa456) is writing the software and coordintating testing and implentation. Ian Allen (aa610) worked with Jim to give him added information about the Freeport side of things. The goal is to implement a universal resource-sharing scheme, which will come in to play, regardless of the method of connection. The plan is to allow members to stay connected longer than one hour provided that the modem pool is not busy. Similarly, when a member has already used up all of his peak time allotment, he will still be able to connect, but if the modem pool is busy, the connection will be broken in a few minutes (5 minutes is currently planned), otherwise the member will be able to stay logged in. Members logged in in PPP will be able to surf to a webpage, which will detail their current session details: Start time, Modem pool status, Session limit (if any) and Peak time used etc. The new software will allow us to implement a new "modem sharing" policy, replacing the current "time limits" policy. 2. Technical Overview In February, Carleton University got their second T1 channel to ONet, improving dramatically the quality of connections (which NCF shares) to and from the Internet. As the year progressed, even this bandwidth increase was not able to keep up with Carleton's increasing traffic and a further change is planned in 1999, when Carleton will install a 5 Megabit ATM switch. A review of traffic on Carleton's Internet connection can be viewed at: http://gw.ncf.carleton.ca:8000/mrtg/misc/ag.carleton.15.html A new system-monitoring tool "BB or Big Brother" was installed and activated on ng-services-1.ncf. The tool monitors only System operations and can be viewed at: http://www-services.ncf.carleton.ca/bb/bb.html In the summer, thanks to several important Key Partner donations, we were able to make several upgrades our system. We upgraded our link to Carleton's Backbone, moving from an Ethernet (10Mbps) to a Fast Ethernet (100Mbps) and performed a major upgrade on Freenet1, which got a new twin hyperSparc 90MHz CPU (donated by Hardware Canada Computing). We changed Operating Systems on Freenet1 as well, moving to Solaris 2.6 (in place of SunOS 4.1.3_U1). These changes resulted in a dramatic improvement in both system speed and stability. We also upgraded the freenet-news CPU module, from a single SuperSparc 36MHz to a dual SuperSparc 50Mhz (previously removed from freenet1) An ftp server: ncftpd was installed on freenet1 to replace SUN's ftpd. Using a valid NCF account and password pair, the new server gives members direct ftp access to their `public_html' directory, rather than having to z-modem to their work directory and then needing a second step to move the files. The server was further adapted to enable members and information managers to access their IP directories using this new service by using their userid and an assigned suffix (eg. bz787-1). Our Web server was upgraded from Netscape Enterprise 2.0 to Netscape Enterprise 2.01 on freenet4. This fixes a large quantity of bugs, affecting page-serving performance. Ian Allen (aa610) had suggested that our looping problem might be among these, and the change gave the server considerably better reliability. Certainly, webpages load more quickly now. Perhaps the biggest technical challenge we faced in 1998 was the resignation of our Sysadmin. Yannick Gravel (dt136) left us, to accept a very exciting opportunity with a firm in his hometown Montreal. During our search for a replacement, our volunteer technical team shouldered a tremendous load. Ian Allen (aa610) who was our first Sysadmin deserves particular thanks because of his outstanding dedication. Other technical helpers came through as well and deserve mention. Roy Hooper (ad016) came through for us several times, but in particular, he bailed us out of a problem with our PoP mail server. Jennifer Witham (aa818), our Postmaster kept the mail side of things going and was always available to help and advise. John Stewart (aa104), Colin McFadyen (aa734), Chris Hawley (ah654) and Jim Elder (aa456) all helped out either with day-to-day operations and with the search process for a replacement Sysadmin, On July 28, Carleton suffered air conditioning problems in their computer room. The following morning, a CCS staff member discovered that the NCF gateway machine was running extremely hot and that the fan in the machine wasn't working. Losing the Gateway machine took down all NCF systems. The power supply fan was replaced and the machine restarted within about 3 hours of the initial trouble report. It was necessary to replace our existing Netscape PoP mail server with an open source server (qpopper-2.53) in order to have something running that our volunteer sysadmins knew and understood. Now that Andre Dalle is on board, this choice will be revisited, particularly given our desire to operate a mail service with one mailbox, but three methods of access: system readers, PoP and web. We have approached Netscape to explore upgrading to their Enterprise 3.6 server. The terminal server interface was changed to an "auto detect" method on all lines to simplify the process of connecting to FreeNet using Point to Point (PPP) protocol. Now, standard dialers such as that which comes in Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 need less configuration and work the same way as they would with any ISP. The next stage in our process of evolving to two main modem groups: the "slow speed group" and "the high speed group", is the Annex configuration change noted above. Following this step, we will be in a position to install some of our new 28.8 Kbps modems. Bell will configure hunt group and forwarding assignments as a final step. Year 2000 Issues ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ f1, f4, f7, f-news: Are all running Solaris Operating Systems, and are already Y2K-compliant. f3, f5, f6: Are all running SunOS 4.1.4 and are NOT Y2K-compliant. A third-party SunOS 4.1.4 Y2K patch is available from Sun Microsystems' website, which purports to resolve Y2K issues. The patch will be fetched and tested. freenet2: Is a Sun IPC box and is not Y2K compliant. To the best of our knowledge, this machine cannot be patched at all. f2's practical usefulness is already wearing thin and consideration is being given to removing this machine from service now. Annex 3 terminal servers: Are not Y2K-compliant; they are patchable, and Colin McFadyen will implement the necessary fixes. During the same downtime, Colin will also will configure the Annex servers so that modems are re-initialized after every hang-up before the next call, increasing overall modem stability. -- *** Christopher L. Cope, Executive Director *** National Capital Freenet / Libertel de la Capitale nationale tel. (613) 520-2600 ext. 8024 -or- fax (613) 520-3524