Executive Director's Report October, 1997 =========================== November 11, 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) Cash Received in October ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ $3,337.00 New Registrants: 183 individual donations (including 32 for $583.00, separate from registration) plus 7 PFAs 2,283.47 Renewals (119 donations plus 3 PFA renewals) 300.00 Organizational Accounts 15.00 Boutique 68.80 Donations at Halloween Party -------------------------------------- $6,0004.27 Total Deposit b) Membership Activity: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Renewal notices and reminders continued to be sent out throughout the month of October. 473, 1st stage notices were sent out this month with 248 members renewing (various due dates, including current). 443 3rd stage and 4th stage notices were sent this month. During the month, 314 new accounts were validated and 76 were unarchived. Our active membership stood at 21,527 members (in password file as of October 31); (65,023 validated since inception). This month, 1,870 accounts were archived (the end of the large waves). We sent out 473 1st renewal notices and 248 members renewed. The number renewed' is the total of all renewals in the month and includes members who are responding to renewal requests from previous months. Comparing 1st stage renewal requests to members renewing there is an 'apparent' current period net loss of 225 members, which is offset by 314 new validations. Revenue related to membership is again behind budget this month. The budget assumes $6,000 from new registrants and $3,000 from renewing members, for a total of $9,000. In October, we received $3,337 from new members and $2,283.47 was attributable to renewals, for a total of $5,620.47. Renewal Data for 11 months: November 1996 to September 1997 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ % of % of. Cum.% Rec'd Sent Donors/ Sent Rec'd Donors Donors Donors Tot Sent Tot/Don Budget Avg Don Nov. 6,155 213 141 66.2% 2.3% 2.3% $ 3,063 $5,000 $21.72 Dec. 8,560 1,065 666 62.5% 7.8% 5.5% $15,373 $7,000 $23.08 Jan. 8,219 1,277 1,136 89.0% 13.8% 8.5% $24,278 $31,000 $21.37 Feb. 7,846 2,331 1,495 64.1% 19.1% 11.2% $33,163 $31,000 $22.18 Mar. 8,889 2,190 1,659 75.8% 18.7% 12.8% $31,229 $31,000 $18.82 Apr. 7,817 2,217 1,437 64.8% 18.4% 13.8% $31,738 $31,000 $22.09 May. 3,079 1,831 1,266 69.1% 41.1% 15.4% $25,888 $31,000 $20.45 Jun. 793 654 418 63.9% 52.7% 16.0% $ 8,457 $16,250 $20.23 Jul. 651 605 299 49.4% 45.9% 16.4% $ 5,502 $ 3,000 $18.40 Aug. 633 448 261 58.3% 41.2% 16.7% $ 4,896 $ 3,000 $18.76 Sep. 543 320 186 58.1% 34.3% 16.9% $ 3,423 $ 3,000 $18.40 Oct. 473 248 122 49.2% 25.8% 16.8% $2,283 $ 3,000* $18.72 ~~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ 53,115 13,079 8,900 68.0% * The total Registration budget for October is $9,000. The amount anticipated for "new" registrants is $6,000 while the budget for renewals is $3,000. c) Organizational Accounts ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Public Service Alliance (P.S.A.C.), The Norm MacDonald Campaign and The Olde Forge Community Resource Centre opened organizational accounts. d) October Connection Sponsors ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There were no new Connection sponsors in October e) Government Grants ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (a) 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. (b) Regional Municipality OF Ottawa-Carleton We have not yet heard about our $69,000 application for a grant from the Regional Municipality of Ottawa Carleton under their 1998 Economic Development program. Our proposal was to assist small and emerging businesses in developing an Internet presence (World Wide Web pages) and in using the Internet as a tool to enhance their sales opportunities. f) Public Relations Update ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The October 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/ Gordon Pearson has agreed to write a monthly contribution to FreeNews. This will be entitled "FreeBits". A Funding/PR meeting was held Tuesday October 14, 1997. While limited in attendance, plans were fleshed out to find new members for the team. The PR and Funding homepages have been revamped (thanks go to Andre Ouellette) and can be found at: http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/public-relations and http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/funding/ respectively. A homepage for the Volunteer Coordinators has also been prepared and can be found at: http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/volunteers/ The quarterly issue of the "INFO", (for IPs/IMs) and the quarterly issue of FreeNews "Key Partners' Edition", (for Key Partners and Connection Sponsors) will be prepared in November together with FreeNews. 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. g) Funding Administrivia ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The online list of donor files was updated to reflect all October 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 is underway. Completion is expected in October. (2) Donation Options Changes to: Renewal and Registration Process - Changes to letters, menus, forms etc. (3) Web issues Web access changes - Graphical access from all lines, Server load, review connection at Carleton. (4) FreeNet NextGeneration Project Planning continues, on a configuration plan for the future of the NCF system. Corporate Donors are being canvassed. (5) Events Work on the Auction, Web-page contest and Birthday, Party. b) Network Upgrades ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (1) The shelves and power bars, ordered to facilitate installation of 14 recently donated 14.4 Kbps modems have arrived and are to be installed the week of November 10. The modems themselves will be installed later in the week (We have been waiting for the Teacher's strike to end and typical morning usage patterns to resume before scheduling an interruption of even these lines (2) All 169 lines can now be used for full graphical web-browsing. A proxy is in place which while allowing free access to any site, can give us the control necessary to prevent downloading binaries, sound files, movies etc. while allowing pictures (*.gif, *.jpg etc.) to be freely viewed. There is still some fine tuning to do with the proxy: to get the final binary format block list in place with clear error messages, returned to users when attempting to download protected file types. Statistics on the proxy usage are generated daily (giving us information to understand and manage this web usage. (3) Web server problems continue. The server has been slow to operate, particularly during peak usage. The problem was determined to be caused or at least related to chained problems with base subsystem (DNS, NIS and NFS plus all ns-httpd), they were racing against each other for memory/swap; here the key issue was not memory but race/fight between subsystems. The loop was broken on the 25th by a short power outage at CSS's Computer room. While researching the sources(s) of this problem, I Yannick decided to install Apache (a web server, almost universally used by other Freenets and which he has a great deal of familiarity. Knowing Apache to be light and swift, he wanted to determine if the problem was with Netscape-httpd or with the system. Apache was able to cope with the situation a little better than Netscape mostly because (we think) Apache takes one order of magnitude less memory than Netscape for the same functionality and more. The problem has been further exacerbated by the huge load placed on Freenet1, partly through spam and several mail bombs and partly through sheer load. Ultimately, it may become necessary to add a server to the network, allowing mail to be isolated on its own server. Carleton has installed "sniffers" to determine what the usage patterns are on their T1 Internet connection. On completion of their study, they will be in a better position to resolve their bandwidth difficulties and to provide more consistent service to NCF. (4) The VISA printer is now working again. The printer was not working properly because 2 needed subsystems were not working properly; which in turn were not working properly because of the change of name: freenet to freenet1. (5) Dantek Computers has donated a used 486 dx66 computer and 14" modem for the NCF staff office. The machine is equipped with 32 Megs of Ram, a floppy and CD-Rom drives. Microsoft has donated Windows 95, Microsoft Office and Microsoft Office to populate the machine. c) FreeNet NextGeneration Project ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Planning related to the FreeNet NextGeneration Project was put on hold this month to concentrate on the Extended Access Project, system stability (web server) issues and modem upgrades. Sun Microsystems and Hardware Canada Computing have both expressed a willingness to help through in-kind hardware donations. Dantek Computers has also indicated that they will help us with hardware donations (possibly memory). As details of their assistance are learned, and after the Extended Access Project is complete and tested, progress will resume on FreeNet NG. 3. Member Services and Future Initiatives ========================================== a) Donation Strategy ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A completely revamped renewal and registration strategy has been implemented. A suggested donation of $50 has been incorporated throughout, with new options to donate monthly. Arrangements have been made with Scotia Bank to handle "Direct Debit" monthly donations. Similarly, monthly donations can now be made using VISA. A shorter and friendlier renewal letter has been installed on the system, which this year does not include a long renewal form. Members are invited to select the appropriate donation/renewal form from the "go renewal" menu or on the web, at http://www.ncf.carleton.ca:12345/freeport/admin/renewal/menu Similar changes have been made to the new member registration forms. b) Extended Access ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Cisco terminal server has been installed at Mitel and initial configuration of the unit is complete. Mitel has supplied a Pentium-based machine which has now been installed with the Terminal Server in their facilities. This machine will act as a gateway/proxy/firewall, giving us facility to exercise user controls, monitor the Terminal Server usage enforce a proxy and have a sizable cache available to speed up access to popular sites. We are still waiting for the final connectivity setup: Mitel is installing a new Internet router and we must wait to be provided connection to this new router and to determine IP addresses for the equipment we have in place. Configuration of the equipment is essentially complete as is the development of the radius program to facilitate remote log-in from the Mitel site. As soon as Mitel's router is installed and we have the requisite address information we will be ready for testing. c) Marketing ~~~~~~~~~ The two co-op students working on the Marketing Project have begun the telephone solicitation process. Calls are being made to target lists, using scripts, letters and record keeping systems which they developed. Unfortunately, the Teacher's strike brought all activity to a halt as the students were not covered by Worker's Compensation while the schools were closed and accordingly did not come in. e) Auction ~~~~~~~ November is FreeNet auction month (just in time for Christmas). In addition to the donations from Microsoft and Corel, The Clones society has donated computer equipment to the auction. Several individuals have made personal donations and the 9600 baud modem rack which are to be replaced shortly and a vintage 386 workstation c/w Trinitron monitor are also going to be on the block. Additionally, a limited number of "aa"accounts will be auctioned and a few special time extensions blocks will go to the highest bidder. f) NCF Website Design Contest ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A contest open to all NCF members to design NCF's homepage (site) will has been announced. Prizes include: - Title of "Honorary NCF Webmaster" for one year - unlimited access to NCF for one year - Personalized FreeNet Account (custom mail address) - Acer 33.6 Kbps, Internal with voice, upgradeable to 56Kbps Donated by: The Clones Society, 226 Argyle St., Ottawa The entry deadline is Midnight Sunday, January 11, 1998, with judging to be done between January 12 - 30, 1998. The award presentation and unveiling of the winning page will be at NCF's Fifth Birthday Party Wednesday, February 4, 1998 g) Archiving/Unarchiving continues ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The last of the large waves of archived accounts is behind us with only 1,870 accounts archived in October bringing the total to 44,286 archived accounts. 76 accounts were unarchived in the month bringing the total to 358 unarchived accounts. We have removed the first group of archived files from the system and have stored them on CD-Rom. h) Progress with Auto-install Diskettes for PPP Connectivity ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Microsoft Internet Explorer versions have been modified to accommodate changes to proxy settings related to our allowing web-browsing on all lines; testing continues. Richard Bethel has also developed a one-disk auto-install configuration set-up for users who already have Microsoft Internet Explorer on their computer and merely need to configure it to access NCF in PPP mode. We expect to be able to reproduce working copies shortly. The Mac version is complete as well, ready for reproduction. Netscape shipped their latest version of Netscape Commander to us by Fedex today. This product contains the dialer setup, missing from the software given to us earlier. -- *** Christopher L. Cope, Executive Director *** National Capital Freenet / Libertel de la Capitale nationale tel. (613) 520-2600 ext. 8024 -or- fax (613) 520-3524