Dear AITP Region 18 Member,
Welcome to the February edition of the AITP Region 18 CommuniGram. We will keep you informed on a regular basis of current news and upcoming events around the region. Be a contributor for your chapter or as an individual member. To submit a short article, send it via email to John Parkinson at jwparky@gmail.com.
From all indications, it sounds like the 2010 Member Summit was a great success. See the articles below.
Many thank to Barbara Shaver, Region 18 Treasurer and Harvey Schoenman, Region 18 Executive Vice President for their articles.
John Parkinson, Greater Wheeling Chapter
Region 18 Treasurer Contributors Corner Chapter Spotlight C-Gram Archives Did You Know
Region 18 Treasurer - Barbara Shaver
Hello Region 18 Members,
Award Gala Highlights – A great time was had by all at the 2010 Member Summit Awards Gala! Highlights of the Friday night banquet in Chicago were the excellent cuisine, the wonderful gathering of old and new friends as well as the presentation of some of the most prestigious awards within AITP. WOW, What a Night for Region 18!!!
You had to be there to experience two of the highlights – the great food and the wonderful networking opportunities. As for the presentations – Master of Ceremonies, Eric Hawkinson, lead the proceedings with both wit and suspense. Beginning with a bit of after dinner exercise, Eric asked the audience to stand. He then asked all those who were not AITP members or were members with five or less years of membership to be seated. Those with 10 years of membership or less were asked to be seated. This progressed through those with an additional five years or less (15, 20, 25, 30 and 35) years of membership to be seated. At last, those with 40 or more years of membership were standing and it was a surprising number. A final round of applause and those remaining were seated.
Two members had requested their Individual Performance Awards (IPA) be presented at this event. Eric gave a brief overview of that award and introduced Mike Hall and Nita Adams of the Capitol Chapter (Springfield, Illinois) to come forward. Beth Perrie, 2010 Association President presented Mike Hall with the Lifetime IPA which carries a Lifetime Membership. Beth then presented Nita Adams (a Past Association President) with the Lifetime Diamond IPA, the highest IPA a member can achieve.
Moving on to the Chapter Outstanding Performance Award (COPA), after a brief explanation of that award, Eric turned to Beth Perrie who formally announced the chapters who had achieved that distinction. They are:
Atlanta, Charleston, Nashville, Polk County, Akron, Greater Wheeling, Johnstown, Pittsburgh, Research Triangle Park, Tarheel, Honolulu, Puget Sound, Anchorage, San Diego, Cornhusker, Mile High, Dallas, Baton Rouge, Big Country, Jackson, Oklahoma City, San Antonio, AITP Chicago (Windy City), Capitol, Northeastern Wisconsin, and Long Island.
The COPA leads to the potential achievement of the Region Outstanding Chapter Award (ROCA). The chapters achieving the ROCA were announced and Beth awarded each chapter representative (in attendance) the banner denoting their achievement. They are: Region 7 – Polk County, Region 18 – Pittsburgh, Region 2 – Anchorage, Region 1 – San Diego, Region 4 – Cornhusker, Region 3 – Baton Rouge, Region 5 – Northeastern Wisconsin and Region 13 – Long Island.
Each ROCA chapter is then eligible to contend for the Association Outstanding Chapter Award (AOCA). This is the highest award a chapter can achieve. Beth announced the AOCA recipient for the 2008 award year – the Pittsburgh Chapter. Accepting the award was the Pittsburgh Chapter President, Stan Hoffman and Pittsburgh Board of Directors member, Harvey Schoenman. Besides a banner, the rotating President’s Cup was presented. The cup will reside with the Pittsburgh Chapter for one year when it will be awarded to the 2009 award year AOCA recipient.
This was not the end of the excitement – next to be announced was the selection of the Distinguished Information Sciences Award (DISA). After a brief explanation of the award, Beth announced the recipient as Dr. James Goodnight. Unfortunately Dr. Goodnight was on his way to Switzerland and could not be present. Accepting the award were representatives from the Research Triangle Park Chapter (Raleigh, NC), who had nominated Dr. Goodnight. Dr. Goodnight pre-recorded a video acceptance message that was played for the audience.
Needless to say, the members from Region 18 went wild! But, they were not alone in the enthusiasm shown to the recipients. But, on the modest side – we aren’t called the LEADERSHIP REGION for nothing and this night proved it!!!!!
Yes, this was a momentous evening for all! Sorry if you missed it, but there is always next year.
Submitted by Barbara Shaver
Contributor's
Corner
SIX
RULES FOR INTERNET SAFETY
The following rules are listed on www.twit.tv which is hosted by Leo Laporte,
who has done various TV and radio shows about computers and technology.
1. Don’t open email attachments; even if it’s from someone you know. If you do
get something from someone you know, make sure that they really sent it to you.
Email attachments are the number one way viruses and trojan horses get into
your email. You might also want to turn off HTML email in Outlook and other
programs. HTML emails are just as dangerous as rogue web sites, and can spread
infections just by previewing them.
2. Don’t click links in email. That link could lead you to a phishing site, or
the link may lead you to install malicious software. Copy and paste links into
your browser, or type them in by hand instead. Another reason to disable HTML
email - the HTML hides the real destination of that seemingly innocuous link.
3. Don’t download files from places you aren’t absolutely sure are safe. Stick
with the well known sites. Teenagers who use filesharing software like
BitTorrent, Azureus, Kazaa, Morpheus, Grokster, and Limewire, often unwittingly
download spyware and trojans. If you must, quarantine all downloads then scan
them a few days later with an updated anti-virus.
4. Update your OS regularly! Turn on automatic updates in OS X and Windows.
Apply all critical updates immediately. Criminals often create hacks within 24
hours of Microsoft’s patches (these are called zero day exploits), so you need
to protect yourself the day the patches appear.
5. Use a firewall. The best firewall is a hardware router - the kind you use to
share an internet connection. Even if they’re not billed as firewalls, they
are, and they’re quite effective. I also recommend turning on your operating
system’s firewall - even if you have a router - but I don’t recommend
third-party software firewalls. They cause more problems than they solve.
6. Never run as an administrator in any operating system. Administrators have
way too many privileges that malicious people/code can take advantage of. Run
as a limited user as much as possible. Windows Vista, Linux, and Mac OSX allow
you to run a majority of features, but with some additional safety, as a
limited user.
Pittsburgh Chapter Receives
AITP’s Association Outstanding Chapter Award
The Association of Information Technology Professionals (AITP), a worldwide
society of information technology professionals, presented the Pittsburgh
Chapter with the 2008 Association Outstanding Chapter Award (AOCA), aka the
President's Cup. The award was presented by the AITP President during the
Awards Gala at the 2010 AITP Member Summit, January 22, 2010 in Chicago to Stan
Hoffman, the Pittsburgh Chapter President.
The award recognizes the single AITP chapter that best embodies accomplishment
developing their chapter, region, national association, local community and
future generations.
“On behalf of AITP, I’m pleased to recognize the Pittsburgh Chapter as the
recipient of the AOCA award,” said Beth Pirrie, AITP President. “The Pittsburgh
Chapter was selected from a group of very strong candidate chapters because it
is generally well-balanced and has strength in all outreach areas. Members of
this chapter demonstrate high involvement with our Association, show
outstanding regional support as well as community involvement and chapter
development.”
To be eligible for the President's Cup, a chapter must have first been awarded
the Chapter Outstanding Performance Award (COPA) and from all of the COPA
chapters in their region have been awarded the Region Outstanding Chapter award
(ROPA). Pittsburgh was awarded both of these for 2008. While everyone on the
board deserves recognition for their contributions in winning this award,
special thanks go to Denise Patrizio for her efforts in tracking and submitting
the points necessary for the qualifications.
We have renamed the cup "The Stanford Cup" as that is our chapter
president's proper first name.
Submitted by Harvey Schoenman
· That in addition to belonging to your local chapter…
· You also belong to the AITP national association, http://www.aitp.org/, and…
· Region 18, the Leadership Region, http://www.aitp-region18.org/.
· Your Region 18 Officers, http://www.aitp-region18.org/officers.html.
· Your Region 18 Chapter Directors (RDs), http://www.aitp-region18.org/directors.html.
· You can ask questions of or request information about Region 18 via email at region18@aitp.org.
· Region 18 is comprised of Ohio, Western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina. See the region map on the Region 18 website.
· Region 18 currently has 11 active chapters, 1 inactive chapter and 1 that qualifies as active but does not hold meetings.
· Active chapters can be found in the following cities: Akron, Charlotte, Columbus, Virginia Beach (Hampton Roads), Johnstown, Geneva (Northeast Ohio), Pittsburgh, Richmond, Raleigh (Research Triangle Park - RTP), Winston-Salem (Tarheel) and Wheeling.
· Region 18 sponsors two events a year – a Spring Conference and a Fall Leadership Retreat.
This CommuniGram is being sent to all AITP Region 18 members as listed on the association web site.
This issue created: 12/21/2009 Last updated: 12/22/2009