Office Hours

SUSPENDED INDEFINITELY!

On December 15, 2017 AOL’s long-running instant messenger service shut down which served as backbone for SBAUG’s Office Hours.  A replacement service for hosting Office Hours has yet to be identified/implemented/announced.

What follows is outdated information – preserved hereon for historical purposes.

Historically, a SBAUG Executive Board member would send an email via the List-Serve announcing Office Hours each Saturday morning at 9am. †  That practice ceased in December 2015 and Office Hours became a No-Host event.

ANYONE can start or join* this weekly real-time discussion by using iChat or Messages [OS X v10.8) on a computer or with the AIM app an iOS or Android device.  On a computer open the File menu and select “Go to Chat Room” and enter “sbaug”. You will then automatically start/join Office Hours.

Note: You must have a .mac/.me/.iCloud, AIM or Jabber account to use iChat or AIM.  You can setup an AIM screen name only account HERE.

† Office Hours was the brain child of the late Brian Carlin (a longtime member of the organization).  His May 2007 post to the Email Discussion Group about his “Office Hours” vision is quoted below.

At 2:53 AM -0700 5/9/07, Brian Carlin wrote:  I had a 2 AM half-baked idea. How ’bout we schedule SBMUG office hours on Saturday mornings on iChat? It could be like meeting Q & A, or just general chat about projects on the Mac or Internet. We could introduce each other, we usually don’t do that at meetings. It’s a good excuse for using this technology we have. I’ve done multi-party chats on iChat before, so we could probably have a group chat.

It could be Saturday mornings, maybe 9 to 11, or when I’m fully conscious. No hard & fast time. Audio chat is possible, but please no video chat requests. You may not like what you see!

You need a Mac with iChat software and an AOL instant messenger account or .Mac account. I think iChat helps you set one up when you run it first time. To open a chat with me, click the link at the end of this message. Or you can add kb6nvh (AIM account) to your buddy list.

Office Hours were hosted through November 2015.  As noted above, Office Hours is now a No-Host event and anyone can start/join the group chat.  Attendance will vary.

* Trouble Joining the Chat/Group Room? Review the List-Serve thread “iChat/Messages – Issues Joining Office Hours Chat Room” which is available in the List-Serve’s online archives via this hyperlink: <http://lists.sbmug.org/htdig.cgi/sbmug-list-sbmug.org/2014-August/036861.html> For any long URL-challenged email clients out there… <http://tinyurl.com/qeazhqv>

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