Dell Computer is no longer in the web hosting business. Our web hosting account was first migrated to AppSite Hosting on 20 December 2003 and then on 1 April 2004 to PureHost Inc. As of this date, PureHost has been unable to correct basic problems related to web searches and the generation of web site statistics. The help desk support staff is located in India and the technical support staff for PureHost appears to be understaffed and inexperienced. Bottom line, web searches of our site are currently unavailable and we cannot obtain site usage statistics. If basic support services do not improve in the immediate future, we will seek a refund for the unused portion of our current contract and move our web site to an alternative shared web hosting service provider.
Dick Reid
Webmaster
UPDATE: As of this date (12 May 2004), our web site search capabilities have been completely restored and the web site traffic reporting features have been about 85% restored.
1982. "Elk Cloner," considered by some to be the first computer virus found "in the wild," spreads via Apple II floppies.
1983. USC grad student Fred Cohen uses the term virus to describe a destructive, self-replicating computer program.
1986. Brain, the first IBM PC virus, appears on 360KB floppies. A text file accompanying the virus contains the name and address of its authors.
1987. An experimental virus escapes from a computer lab in Israel. Known as Jerusalem, it strikes on Friday the 13th and deletes programs run on that day.
1988. Cornell grad student Robert Morris, Jr. releases the first worm across the Internet. The worm ultimately shuts down 6000 Unix systems and causes from $10 million to $100 million in damage.
1990. The first viruses from Bulgarian virus writer "Dark Avenger" appear.
1991. Tequila, the first polymorphic virus to appear in the wild, is unwittingly distributed on shareware disks. Polymorphic viruses change their appearance to thwart antivirus software; by year's end, dozens of polymorphic viruses have appeared.
1992. Michelangelo becomes the first virus to gain widespread media attention. Written to strike on March 6 (the artist's birthday) and overwrite victims' hard drives.
1995-1997. The Concept virus attacks macros in Microsoft Word; it's the first virus that works equally well on both Windows and Macintosh operating systems.
1999. Melissa appears. It is the first virus to use address books on a victim's computer to e-mail itself to other users. It spreads across the globe in a matter of hours.
2000. A massive distributed denial-of-service attack shuts down Amazon.com, CNN, Yahoo, and other major Web sites for several days.
2001. The Code Red and Nimda viruses hit thousands of machines, causing more than $2 billion in damage. They are some of the first examples of "blended threats," which combine elements of e-mail worms and traditional viruses.
2002. The Klez worm first appears, overwhelming e-mail servers and disabling antivirus programs.
2003. Successive waves of attacks--Slammer, Blaster, and Sobig
Number of known viruses today (Oct. 2003): 70,000+
On Sunday, May 2, a wonderful afternoon of fresh air, fellowship and good ‘ol fashioned BBQ was enjoyed by about 38 club members, spouses & children at Jon and Mary Jane Koch’s ranch near Rockdale. Horseshoes, washers, fishing and just plain relaxing were the highlights of the day. I would like to thank those who helped with the event and especially Jon and Mary Jane for the generous use of their beautiful property.
For pictures: http://www.rrsertoma.org/SpringBBQ.htm
Up-coming events include the District Tailgate Party and Round Rock Express baseball game at the Dell Diamond on Sunday, May 23. See Ann Shove for more details. Then we cap off the Sertoma year with the annual Awards and Installation Banquet on Friday, June 4, at the Saint William Church Parish Activity Center. More details to follow.
Jim Greene
Social Chairman