Newsletter December 1998

=^= TEN FORWARD QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER =^=

ISSUE 5
DECEMBER QUARTER EDITION
Included in this issue:

Messages from Administration
Departmental Reports/Summaries as 23 December 1998
Officers Promoted as of 23 December 1998
Should you have any comments, problems or ideas regarding formatting, content or any other attribute, or any ideas for inclusions in next month's issue please forward mail to the return address : tiger@logicworld.com.au
ADMINISTRATIONS
[Update Board]
The purpose of the departmental update board is to keep other officers up-to-date and to notify them of any special events. The updating system on the board results in older important messages being replaced by messages more appropriate for an email. For those officers who have access to the update board, please post a message when you feel the entirety of the crew should be aware of the information. Departmental communications etc. should be emailed.
With regards to alert status, please do not purposely post a message just to change the alert (for example, blue alert to condition green), but allow the next poster to do that. Senior officers are role models for the juniors, so please watch your language while you're posting.
[Fleet Admiral's Corner]
Firstly I'd like to thank Adolf for his 18 months of service as Fleet Admiral. Due to personal reasons he will be taking an indefinate leave of absence from Ten Forward. Due to his absence he has promoted me to Fleet Admiral. There are several issues I'd like to inform you all about. These include the reorganization of our departments, the progress of our expansion, and a security problem which has concerned me and the staff.
1. Reorganization of Departments
  All major departments in Ten Forward will be releasing officers who have not contributed to the department and are just occupying valuable roster places. Once roster spots have been made available those of you who are interested in working in a department may apply for a position. A reminder that the departmental application forms are located on the departmental homepages - these can be accessed via the shuttlebay.
2. Progress of expansion
  As you may or may not know we will be adding several new items to the site. These include a) a Romulan themed chat, b) a main menu to assist with site navigation, and c) a padd menu which will be accessible at all times and provide a very efficient way of visiting all sections of the site. Our first goal is to have the Romulan chat up and running. I am pleased to say it is very near completion and should be available to the public come the end of this week. The main menu is also near completion and will be added sometime during this month. The padd will most likely be the final site addition - we will provide everyone with a preliminary/simple padd before the final one is completed. We will also be obtaining our own URL in the very near future. There are still some financial issues to work out regarding our own URL - I hope to have this completed in a few weeks. Once we have the URL and the site menu up we will be altering the name of the site as a whole to "Outpost 10F" (a technically advanced Federation Starbase). Ten Forward - the chat we've all grown to love - will remain intact. This new name will encompass the Romulan chat as well as the other functions we have running and future projects/chats. It makes the theme much broader so if we do plan on adding more chats to the site we have a storyline.
3. Security Problem
  I'd like to remind everyone that it is imperative in the security of your computer that you DO NOT accept any kind of file from an unknown user - ESPECIALLY exe files. Some of these files may contain computer viruses or malicious programs known as "trojan horses". These programs enable a malicious person to actually access the contents of your hard drive - that includes reading, writing and deleting files. Over this past month one of our members had such a program on his computer. The malicious user stole some information from him - this included site URLs and TF command codes. Obviously we're not JUST concerned with TF safety here. Everyone has files on their comp which they want to keep secure. To view more detailed information on this issue, visit
  http://TFIntell.over-the-edge.com/trojan.html
  A documentation assembled by our Intelligence team.
COUNSELING
Counseling wishes to extend good wishes for the X'mas season and to remind people that Counseling is here to help you.
Counselors are as follows:
Lt Co Kat
Lt Co Deanna
Lt Zilette
Lt Honey Fox
LtJG Mombo
Two Honorary Members of counseling are Commander Tommy and Lt Co RDMG
Remember to look the page up!!! The department is endeavoring to provide you with Self Help Information along with numerous other Fun Pages. Please go to
http://members.tripod.com/~TFCounseling/maincounselors.html
from there you can access many of our other enjoyable pages.
Please feel free to contact us at any time, no problem is to small!
Furthermore, Ten Forward Counseling Department has moved their main site to a new location where you can access all of the new sections and areas of the Department.
It is the hope that the new sections will be useful, fun, informative and enlightening. At the Counseling Department site you will be able to see when the Counselors are online or email them from there. You will also be able to read a brief biography of each of the Counselors.
It is now possible to leave a private message at the new *DEAR COUNSELOR* board......or at Counselor's Office leave your opinions or cmments.
You can inform the Department for the Birthday Calendar of an upcoming birthday of a friend or your birthday celebration, or you can take self-help Tests (fun and self-improvement) to discover things about yourself and ways to think differently about love and life.
If you need a laugh or inspiration you can take time and visit our Ten Forward Holiday pages. You can access any of the thee other Ten Forward Department locations and also have direct access back to TF's Chatroom. The Department hopes you will enjoy our endeavors on your behalf.
Remember the Department job is to be here for you! To lend an ear, to laugh with you, to cry with you, but they are always only an email or icq away.
If you have a poem, story, anything that is for the holiday season, or a special place that would be of interest to all the members of Ten Forward (holiday oriented of course) just email us at tfceight@hotmail.com or tfcounseling@hotmail.com and we will fix a link for you.
COMMUNICATIONS
[PROJECTS]
Stop by the TF Graphics Showcase. For you graphics makers you'll be able to submit and show off some of your work! http://members.tripod.com/~TFShowcase/
DEVELOPMENTAL TECHNOLOGIES
Working busily on completing the Romulan warbird chat.
ENGINEERING
The last few months has been very productive in Engineering. Most Engineers are engaged in one or even multiple Ten Forward projects.
The Department would especially like to mention that the teamwork in the department has improve significantly since as the team works more together. Thus, the interpersonal atmosphere is improving markedly.
To make everyday work smoother Engineering altered responsibilities of command staff: Vice-Deputy Jayneway is now in charge of the homepage, Deputy Draco Hun handles the application formalities and the everyday business of the mailing list, whilst the Chief facilitates progress via project management and the coordination with other departments.
During the last few months Engineering has been working on three major projects:
1. Desktop Theme:
  We are still adding final touches to the desktop theme. Draco Hun has written as fine installation guide on how to install the files to your system. Coolcaz has been working on a version for the Apple Macintosh. URL: http://members.tripod.com/~JKAD/theme/
2. Crew Quarters:
  This is the long expected site for TF crew members to link their personal homepages. Dakar and Draco Hun have made excellent work on this fine site which will hopefully be an integral part of TF.
3. Calendar:
  This site will help coordinating official and unofficial TF-related dates. Jayneway and her crew have continued working on the general layout of this site. URL: http://www.geocities.com/EnchantedForest/Cottage/2653/cal2/
After Lt.-Cmdr. Draco Hun had to leave for an indefinite period of time we had to reorganize the Engineering executive staff: Lt.-Cmdr. Jayneway moved up to the position of Deputy and Lt.-Cmdr. Dakar was named new Vice-Deputy.
Again, the Department of Engineering would like to wish a Happy New Year to the crew of Ten Forward! *s*
INTELLIGENCE
In the last few months, the Intell Department has been busy working on a number of projects. For the general public, there are links and uploads ready for downloading.
One of the most interesting of all the downloads are a program called "The Cleaner". This program is free and it's job is to search for and remove over 20 types of trojans that may be hiding on your computer. Currently, there is even a newer version out, which the Department is in the process of linking.
Other work kept the Department very busy over November, but was mostly work within the department, and will not be available to the general public. If anyone has a program that they would like to submit, please don't hesitate to mail Chief Micha.
The month of December has also been quiet for the Intell Department. The majority of time has been spent discussing how to set up training for our members. Once this portion of the site is finished, new members should be able to fall into place without much intervention by other members.
The Intelligence Department has also set up it's own mailing list in hopes of keeping everyone in the department updated and on the same page. It is hoped that this will allow all of our members to become more involved. However, not everyone on the roster has signed up. If a member of Intell goes for to long without joining the mailing list, they will be considered inactive and removed from the roster.
For our general Ten Forward members, a question arose concerning the downloads section of the Intell Site. Rascal spoke of his concern regarding which files are necessary for security and which files are not. The Department tries to provide links to any free, and hopefully useful, applications that will help you use the internet, whether it is for mail, html writing, file transfers, or security.
However, in trying to be as helpful as possible, the download page has become very broad. After discussing the situation with D@, the Department has decided to add a small image logo next to any files that are security related, in hopes of directing our users to "must have" files.
The security related files can either be located in the text library or in the downloads section. The image hasn't been finished yet, but as soon as it is, the Department will make the necessary changes to the site. Hopefully, this will clear up any confusion as to what files are MUST read/download to help protect you in your internet activities.
If you wish to raise any issues, please mail Commander Micha Bravo of the Intell Dept: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Nebula/4581/
SECURITY
No major security breaches have occurred on a regular basis.
RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT
October was a quiet month for R&D, due to the fact that Chief Tail-Kinker has been on leave due to a heavy real life workload.
The ongoing projects were kept up-to-date, and projects for the upcoming Christmas season planned.
There have been numerous new applications for the department. Due to the fact that not everybody who applies can be given work, the department is closing at 20 members. New applications will be put on a waiting list.
R&D has been positively flooded with new applications in the November/December period. Please realize that not everyone who applies can also be accepted into the Department. We will begin an aptitude test for applicants in January. Please be patient until then.
Christmas time has seen some work from R&D. For one, there is the Ten Forward Advent Calendar, created by Chief Tail-Kinker. It can be found at
http://lorgar.ish.com/tf/christmas
and features a Star Trek / Ten Forward view on Christmas.
Also, the Christmas decorations in Ten Forward, which add a festive air to the chat, are a work of R&D deputy Sonata Form.
Finally, the Ten Forward Archives have just received a hefty update. You can catch the archives at
http://members.tripod.com/~starlabs/tfarch.html
or just the updated pictures page (the main feature) at:
http://members.tripod.com/~starlabs/pict.html
Plans for January include the long-awaited Ten Forward E-Greeting Cards. Also, the Department will undergo some re-structuring. R&D is looking forward to the new Year.
Merry Christmas to all!
PROMOTIONS
A list of the officers promoted at the 22 November were:
Commander Hal
Commander Tail Kinker
Commander Tommy
Lieutenant Commander Deanna
Lieutenant Commander JKAD
Lieutenant Commander Sonata
Lieutenant Jayneway
Lieutenant Steph
Lieutenant JG Bunny
Lieutenant JG Cail
Lieutenant JG Polson
Lieutenant JG Laur
Lieutenant JG Terral
Lieutenant JG Ttomak
Ensign Andrew Hogs
Ensign Andrew Lee
Ensign Dave Lister
Ensign Gavin of Q
Ensign Hampster
Ensign Kyllin Dax
Ensign Liz
Ensign Rachel Q
December promotions as presented by our own Santa Claus will be placing any further information on the Board as it becomes available.
OFFICER OF THE MONTH & OTHER AWARDS
Officer of the month:
Joint award winners: Tail-Kinker and Sonata for their fine work on the TF advent calendar.
Ensign with Honors: Ensign Liz
Outstanding Citizenship: Lt. Cmdr. Deanna
GENERAL INTEREST
Just a reminder, in case of difficulties with TF, an alternate room exists. This procedure is always available for our members in the event that Ten Forward experiences log-in problems. For instructions, please visit the following site at WBS private room ISCANDAR. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Head of Intelligence Micha.
CREDITS
Special thanks for the efforts of TK :)

Captain Tigris
Administrations
tiger@logicworld.com.au