Blog entries tagged with "acs"

Four years ago I joined the Australian Computer Society. I didn’t know what I would get out of it, but as the membership fee for a recent graduate is really low, I decided to give it a try.

Thinking back, the most of what I got from my membership was junk mail (special offers for credit cards) or what was essentially spam (because I didn’t care about the services they offered). The only tangible aspect was the magazines, which I barely looked at.

Yesterday my membership expired and I am not going to renew. The full fee of $320 can be better used on other things; items for my collection or an external flash for my camera

When I got home tonight there was a package from the Australian Computer Society waiting for me. It appears that due to there being no distinction between members who could progress past Associate level with experience and those who could not due to their qualification they introduced a new membership grade – Provisional Member.

This means that I could (but I don’t) use ‘MACS (Prov)’ after my name instead of ‘AACS’ but what is funny about it is that the new card that was in the package is only valid until the end of the month (just over two weeks away) because my membership is up for renewal. I guess I will get yet another card in the next couple of weeks…

One other strange thing about my ACS membership is that a couple of months ago I started getting copies of the computer magazine PC Authority as part of my membership. I won’t pass up a free magazine…

Tonight I caught the shuttle bus over to the Caulfield campus to attend the first event by a new Service Oriented Computing special interest group that has been setup by the Victorian branch of the Australian Computer Society. It was pretty interesting and the topic is likely to become very relevant to how the my.monash portal integrates with other services in the future.

As the shuttle bus had stopped running by the time it finished I had to catch a train and a bus to get back to the Clayton campus in order to pickup my bicycle and ride home. This meant I was able to spend about half an hour taking photos of Caulfield Station.

After I got home from rovers I discovered a package had arrived for me today from the Australian Computer Society telling me that I have been granted the grade of Associate which entitles me to use AACS after my name. I suppose that I am also entited to use BCS after my name as well…

I’m note sure what I’ll get out of being an associate of the ACS but as it was only $55 if I submitted my application within twelve months of my graduation (8th of May 2003)…