Executive Director's Report November, 1997 =========================== December 09, 1997 By Christopher L. Cope (execdir@freenet.carleton.ca) Contents: 1. Funding and Public Relations Update 2. NCF Administration 3. Member Services and Future Initiatives 1. Funding Update ================= a) NCF Monthly Revenue for November, 1997 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Our monthly revenue has continued to lag behind Budget, with the Year-to-date figure now nearly 15% behind forecast. Revenue attributable to Renewals is only slightly lower (6.5%) than forecast, while donations from new members is off by 46%. The following table illustrates the NCF revenue for the month: Current Month Year Y.T.D. Month Budget To Date Budget ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ $ 2,396.00 $ 6,000.00 $ 45,271.00 $ 66,000.00 New registrations $ 3,425.00 $ 3,000.00 $174,814.37 $186,250.00 Renewals $ 0.00 $ 0.00 $ 0.00 $ 0.00 Regular monthly ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ $ 5,821.00 $ 9,000.00 $220,085.37 $252,250.00 Total Member donations $ 10.00 $ 803.20 FreeNet Boutique $ 300.00 $ 1,401.00 Organizational Accounts $ 0.00 $ 2,450.00 Connection Sponsors $ 0.00 $ 866.00 Auction '96 $ 0.00 $ 0.00 Auction '97 $ 46.57 $ 1,745.17 Foreign Exchange $ 0.00 $ 404.37 Other ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ $ 356.57 $ 575.00 $ 7,669.74 $ 6,325.00 Subtotal Fundraising ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ $ 6,177.57 $ 10,600.00 $227,755.11 $269,850.00 Total Revenue ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ b) Donation Data - New Registrations ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As noted earlier, New member registrations has fallen considerably behind the forecast. While the average donation has increased slightly, the overall average donation from new registrants is $18.26 (representing a $6.65 overall average for the 3,171 members who have opened an account since May. Number Number %Of $ Amount Average New Regist Regist Registration Registration Members Donations Donating Donations Donation ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ May. 367 191 52.0% $3,229.00 $16.91 Jun. 654 102 15.6% $1,940.00 $19.02 Jul. 651 218 33.5% $3,942.00 $18.08 Aug. 484 193 39.9% $3,503.00 $18.15 Sep. 467 179 38.3% $3,328.00 $18.59 Oct. 314 158 50.3% $2,754.00 $17.43 Nov. 234 114 48.7% $2,396.00 $21.02 Average: $18.26 c) Donation Data - Renewals ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The revenue from renewals is closer to the forecast in numbers, but somewhat under the expected average donation. The Budget assumed a $25 average donation vs. $20.02 actual. This $5 difference in average donation would more than offset the current budget variance. Interestingly, for donations from the 61 members who's account needed to be un-archived, to complete their renewal, the average donation was $4.90, well below the average for conventional renewals. Number Number %Of $ Amount Average Of Renewal Renewals Renewal Renewal Renewals Donations Donating Donations Donation ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ May. 1,831 1,266 69.1% $25,887.70 $20.45 Jun. 654 418 63.9% $ 8,486.51 $20.30 Jul. 605 299 49.4% $ 5,502.00 $18.40 Aug. 448 268 59.8% $ 4,895.77 $18.27 Sep. 320 204 63.8% $ 3,920.40 $19.22 Oct. 248 122 49.2% $ 2,283.47 $18.72 Nov. 266 142 53.4% $ 3,425.00 $24.12 Average: $20.01 d) Membership Activity in November: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Now that the big waves of renewals are fully through the system, the decline in membership has nearly stopped. In November, membership held nearly level at 21,361. with new registrations and renewals almost pacing archiving. |Member | Current |To line| Actual |Ratio |Number Forecast Number Number Number # of % inc.| |Of New No. of Members Members Members Members -dec. |Lns :1 |Members Members Renewed Un-arch Archvd. ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~|~~~~~~~| ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ May. 62,877 n/a|169 372| 372 1,831 0 0 Jun. 43,170 -31.3%|169 255| 654 654 18 20,361 Jul. 28,280 -34.5%|169 167| 651 605 103 7,919 Aug. 27,980 - 1.1%|169 166| 484 448 68 7,739 Sep. 22,996 -17.8%|169 136| 467 320 100 6,145 Oct. 21,527 - 6.4%|169 127| 314 248 76 1,870 Nov. 21,361 -0.8%|169 126| 234 529 266 61 501 e) Member Usage Data ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We don't have much history available to compare, but it certainly appears that while usage has dropped slightly, PPP usage is definitely on the increase, as can be seen in the following table. The information reporting PPP usage reported in this table is also available (until next month) in graphical form at http://gw.ncf.carleton.ca:8000/mrtg/modem/freeze.html Number No. Of No. Of | Avg no Avg.% Max no Max % Weekly Unique | PPP PPP PPP PPP Sessions Users | Users Usage Users Usage ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ | ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ Jun. | Jul. | Aug. | Sep. | 0.7% 9.3% Oct. 80,169 | 2.0% 3.3% Nov. 74,359 10,150 | 22 6.4% 39 20.7% f) Sponsorship, Homepage Data and Information Providers ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We had three new organizational accounts in November: Xinhua (Chinese language school, Adoption Council of Canada and Voodolls. There were no new (paid) Connection sponsors in November, although we added The Clones Society as a "contra" connection sponsor. This is the first month where Member and IP homepages are reported, and it will be interesting in future months to compare PPP usage and number of homepages. New Total | New Total | IP Incr. | Member % Org. Org. | Line Line | New Total Home -Dec. | Home of Accts Accts | Spons Spons | IPs IPs Pages % | Pages Memb ~~~~~ ~~~~~ | ~~~~~ ~~~~~ | ~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ | ~~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ Apr. | 1 1 | 2 | May. 4 4 | 1 2 | 4 | Jun. 0 4 | 1 3 | 2 | Jul. 1 5 | 1 4 | 2 | Aug. 1 6 | 0 4 | 2 | Sep. 2 8 | 0 4 | 1 | Oct. 3 11 | 0 4 | 1 | Nov. 3 14 | 0 4 | 3 +/-300 55 | 1,224 17.5% g) Government Grants ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (i) Trillium Foundation: We continue to be optimistic that our request for grant funding for our online job-search training project will be looked on favorably. (ii) Regional Municipality OF Ottawa-Carleton RMOC has indicated that no decision will be made in respect to 1998 grant applications until early in the new year, (likely in March They have noted however that we have yet to submit our final report providing details about our 1996 grant. h) Public Relations Update ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The November issue of the NCF Newsletter "FreeNews" was sent out to the mailing list and is now online (go freenews) and is also available on the Web at: http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/public-relations/ The quarterly issue of the "INFO", (for IPs/IMs) and the quarterly issue of FreeNews "Key Partners' Edition", (for Key Partners and Connection Sponsors) was distributed. In the latter case, a specially formatted edition was sent out to all Key partners by facsimile. Both items are available on line at "go prt". Ads were run in both Monitor and Ottawa Computes. This month's ads targeted organizations and small businesses, offering opportunities for e-mail, websites discussion etc. which are available with NCF membership. We also used these ads to highlight graphical Access and PPP Availability. The Volunteer of the Year is to be announced at the December Board meeting. At the same time, all 1997 Volunteers of the Month will be recognized. Preparations are well underway for NCF's 5th Birthday Party. The RMOC Rotunda has been booked. P.A. system, tables and chairs have been arranged for and John Lacharity from CBO radio has agreed to Emcee once again. i) Funding Administrivia ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The online list of donor files was updated to reflect all November donations. Thank You letters were sent to all donors. 2. NCF Administration ====================== a) Top Five Priorities ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (1) Extended Access Implementation of a scheme for evening use of a Key Partner's telephone lines. Awaiting Mitel's new router. (2) Web issues Webserver changes - hardware/software upgrades will be implemented to improve web performance. Server load, Internet connection at Carleton to be reviewed. (3) System stability & FreeNet NextGeneration Project Hardware/software changes to be made to improve system stability. During scheduled downtimes, hardware data to be collected (internal components)as part of FreeNet NG project. (4) Annual General Election Working with AGM team to get systems, call for motions, menus etc. in place (5) Events Web-page contest and Birthday Party. b) Network Upgrades ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (1) The last 18 of the Gandalf 9,600 Kbps modems in the 520-1130 pool were replaced with U.S. Robotics Sportster 14.4 Kbps modems, recently donated by an organization choosing to remain anonymous. Early in December, the 520-1135 pool will be configured to automatically forward to the 520-1130 pool. Essentially, we will have one number for all 14.4 Kbps lines. (2) Now that all 169 lines can now be used for full graphical web-browsing. A "transparent" proxy is in place which will allow free access to any website, but which gives us the control necessary to prevent downloading binaries, sound files, movies etc. while allowing pictures (*.gif, *.jpg etc.) to be freely viewed. No special browser setting is required, the proxy is automatic. A "clone" of this proxy will be installed on the gateway machine at Mitel so that users will not have to reconfigure their browsers when accessing these lines. The transparent proxy blocks https files (primarily used for on-line banking) at present, but we will install a proxy which will allow this use, although these users will need to specially configure their browsers. (3) Web server problems continue. The server has been slow to operate, particularly during peak usage. Memory will be added to this server December 9, 1997. Carleton continues to monitor the usage patterns are on their T1 Internet connection. They are now taking steps to resolve their bandwidth difficulties and to provide more consistent service to NCF. Among other changes, we now have our newsfeed coming from Carleton (we're downstream) rather than a separate NCF ONet feed. This prevents duplicate news traffic coming to the site through Carleton's T1. In addition, Carleton (NCF also) no longer accepts the alt.sex newsgroups because of their huge spam content. Carleton is also exploring ways to add bandwith with a new or expanded connection, but has yet to announce anything specific. We are exploring a Partnership with a local ISP who has offered us bandwith, essentially for the cost of the local loop. A wireless solution is under consideration. A product called Net Hopper from Lucent is available for an approximate cost of about $2,500 per end. This technology needs "near line-of-sight", which in this case, should be possible. (4) On November 15th, the filter machine crashed (gw.ncf). The crash was caused in part by the proxy related load increase, and by kernel level bugs. A corrupted file system was cleaned and the kernel patched. The proxy and transparent proxy server daemons, were both upgraded (both servers run on the same machine)and 64MB of memory was added (purchased). We are exploring further Operating System changes for this machine. FreeBSD is under consideration as a possible replacement for Linux. The kernel on ng-services-1.ncf (the IRC and 2nd proxy server) was also patched. (5) A used 486 dx66 computer, donated by Dantek Computers was installed in the NCF staff office, and configured. The machine is networked to NCF using the Carleton local network. c) FreeNet NextGeneration Project ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Hardware Canada Computing donated 32 MB sparc memory and a Ross 125 Mhz processor CPU upgrade, and a 4 1/2 G narrow scsi hard drive. Dantek Computers donated 64 MB sparc memory. As the first step towards FreeNet NextGeneration, the plan is to use these donations to improve system performance, especially those machines such as Freenet4 (the webserver), which will experience heavier loads as we become more Web-oriented. Sun Microsystems has also expressed willingness to help through in-kind hardware donations and will send a technical representative to assess our needs in December, 1997 3. Member Services and Future Initiatives ========================================== a) Web Registration ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A Web-based registration system is now in place, in both English and French. There is are links directly from our homepage, but the sites can be directly access at the following URLs: English: http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/ncf/reginfo.html French: http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/ncf/reginfofr.html b) Extended Access ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ An "on busy" Call forwarding feature to forward the 520-1135 modem pool to 520-1130 pool on busy, has been ordered from Bell Canada and is nearly functional (not all lines forward). When finished, members will need dial only one number (520-1135) for access to 159 (of 169) lines. We had an unexpected surprise however, when we ordered a similar call forwarding feature to be enabled for the 520-9013 (Web Sampler lines) to forward to the Mitel site. Notwithstanding their earlier advice to us, regarding the "no monthly cost" availability of this feature, Bell informed us that we must have PSTN (outgoing) access on 32 lines. The cost for the first 5 lines was to be $7.48 each and $20.63 for each additional line ($610 Total) Monthly. On review of the similar arrangement currently operating at Carleton University, which does not require the additional cost of PSTN lines, it was determined that the additional tariff did not apply, because the transfer was completely within the Carleton system and does not forward off site. Subject to Bell's confirmation, a work-around has been planned as follows: We will publish a new telephone number exclusively for NCF access to the Mitel lines in the evening. Bell will configure their DMS switch to transfer calls made to this number to a number on the Mitel system, which in turn, will connect the call to one of the 32 lines on our remote terminal server. In the daytime, the call will be stopped at the Bell DMS switch (dropped or fast-busy) and will not add any traffic to the Mitel system. We await Bell Canada's confirmation. Configuration of the equipment located at the Mitel site is essentially complete, as is the development of the radius program to facilitate remote log-in. Although we continue to wait for a new router to be installed by Mitel's Internet supplier iStar, we have been provided with IP addresses and can nearly complete the configuration. c) Marketing ~~~~~~~~~ The co-op students working on the Marketing Project have completed the telephone solicitation process for the first two target groups. Organizations indicating interest were sent an introductory fax and personal follow-up is scheduled for December and January. Approximately 25 organizations indicated preliminary interest. e) Auction ~~~~~~~ The Annual FreeNet Auction was a resounding success. The bids totaled $3,275, with at least one bid on each and every item. The Auction coordinator (Michael Mason an956) is to be congratulated, not only for his tremendous effort, but also his staging and strategy decisions, throughout the cycle. f) NCF Website Design Contest ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The contest is open, with the entry deadline at midnight, Sunday, January 11, 1998. Judging will take place between January 12 and January 30, 1998 and the Awards & unveiling will be part of NCF's Fifth Birthday Party, Wednesday, February 4, 1998 The judges list is complete as follows: Mark Bell, Associate Publisher, Monitor Magazine; Fred Ennis, Fred Ennis Consultants Inc.; Paul Theriault Adobe Systems; Mark Schneider, TV host for Digital Desk Host on CTV NewsOne; Jim Carroll, Author and Internet Guru Additional Details are available at "go contest" or at URL: http://www.ncf.carleton.ca:12345/freeport/contest/menu g) FreeMail - Trademark ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ FreeMail Inc., a company headquartered on Missoula, Montana, has asked us to discontinue our use of "FreeMail" A trademark search will be conducted to determine what (if any) rights FreeMail Inc. has in Canada, given our substantial history in the use of this name. h) Progress with Auto-install Diskettes for PPP Connectivity ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Richard Bethell (cj434) has now completed the final NCF auto-install version of Microsoft Internet Explorer. Two forms have been developed. The first, is a one disk version which automatically configures previously installed MIE to access NCF. The second is the complete program. Both of these are available for downloading from the PDA, and discussions are underway with a corporate donor to duplicate them on diskettes for us. Similarly we have an NCF auto-install kit to configure Netscape for Windows 95 users, prepared by Colin Mcfayden (aa734). Work is underway to complete the complete NCF auto-install version of Netscape Communicator. This is also available from the PDA and will be reproduced on diskette. We plan to have a few copies of a CD-ROM version available, with all versions on it, available an a loan basis. -- *** Christopher L. Cope, Executive Director *** National Capital Freenet / Libertel de la Capitale nationale tel. (613) 520-2600 ext. 8024 -or- fax (613) 520-3524