The Archives

Yet more winning author information was added to the Saugus.net Halloween Ghost Story Contest section today; in particular we now have pictures of all three winning authors from the Alachua Learning Center in Florida.

Saugus.org was updated today.

Some more winning author information was added to the Saugus.net Halloween Ghost Story Contest section today.

The help for new computer users and new Internet surfers page was updated today.

Today is the busiest shopping day of the year; you can however avoid the crowds, save time and money, and help out Saugus.net all at the same time. Just by using one of the links to our various sponsors (Amazon.com, the Apple Store, the iTunes Music Store, or Simply Audiobooks) here on Saugus.net and place an order, you'll not only save yourself money and aggravation, but you'll be helping to support the numerous free services we provide here at Saugus.net, too.

The office will be closed today and tomorrow for the holiday. However, the Community Events Calendar, Saugus Forums, and other like pages will continue to be updated.

The Saugus High School Alumni Association site was updated today.

The News Sources page was updated today.

We held the awards ceremony for the 2006 Saugus.net Halloween Ghost Story Contest at the Saugus Public Library today. We'll be updating winning authors' information and photographs with the new material we acquired. It was also suggested that we dedicate a forum to discussions related to the contest. What do you think? Let us know your opinion in (of course) the appropriate forum.

The Guide to Free Software got updated today.

The Saugus Area Government Information page was updated today.

The Saugus Area Educational Resources page was updated today.

Quite a bit more winning author information has been added to the Saugus.net Halloween Ghost Story Contest section recently.

The Saugus Iron Works asked us to post the following:

The Environmental Assessment / Draft Environmental Impact Report (EA/DEIR) for the project Restore Saugus River Turning Basin and Dock is available for public review. The document has been prepared as a combined EA/DEIR in order to consolidate public review while fulfilling the requirements of both the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act (MEPA). The document is accessible online at: http://parkplanning.nps.gov/.

The National Park Service (NPS) at Saugus Iron Works National Historic Site is proposing to restore its historic waterfront area, and to improve the function of its wetlands. The NPS preferred alternative, Alternative B, would restore the turning basin, historic waterfront structures, and emergent marsh to conditions and contours similar to those found prior to the 1957 dam breach that filled in the turning basin with sediments. It includes restoration of the aquatic and wetland habitats south of the historic turning basin area and within site boundaries. The existing historic dock and bulkhead located along the northern extent of the historic turning basin would be replaced in-kind once wetland restoration activities have been completed.

We welcome your input on the project. Please note that the public comment period closes on December 8, 2006. All comments submitted will be made available to both the National Park Service and the Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs. Comments may be submitted online at: http://parkplanning.nps.gov/ or may be submitted in writing to:

Robert W. Gollege, Jr.
Secretary, Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs
100 Cambridge, Suite 900 (9^th Floor), Boston, MA 02114
Attn: William Gage -- EOEA number 13563.

I must inform you that it is the practice of the NPS to make comments, including names, home addresses, home phone numbers, and e-mail addresses of respondents, available for public review. Individual respondents may request that we withhold names and/or home addresses. If you request us to consider withholding your comments, you must state the request prominently at the beginning of your comments, and present a rationale for withholding this information. This rationale must demonstrate that disclosure would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of privacy. Unsupported assertions and those lacking exceptional, documentable circumstances, will not meet this burden and the information will be released. All submissions from organizations or businesses, and from individuals identifying themselves as representatives or officials of organizations or businesses, will be available for public inspection in their entirety.

Thank you for taking the time to assist us in this planning process. Your interest and support of this outstanding unit of the National Park System is greatly appreciated. If you have any questions about the project or would like to request a copy of the EA/DEIR, please contact Marc Albert at 781-231-7339 or marc_albert@nps.gov.

Sincerely,
Patricia S. Trap
Superintendent

Microsoft has recently released its first new version of Internet Explorer in years. It's significantly more secure than the old version. Although you may not be aware of it, some not very nice people are interested in your computer and there is a likelihood someone will try and break into every time you're connected to the Internet. Besides obvious things like stealing personal information like bank account numbers, credit card numbers, and you-name-it, they can use your machine to send spam to other people, or even use your computer to help attack another computer. This means that if your computer is not secure, you can be indirectly responsible for some of the spam that others get or an attack made on someone else's machine, and you thus have a duty to try and keep your own machine secure.

It's also slightly more standards-compliant. Many sites will work better with it (including the Saugus forums).

If you're using the old version of MS Internet Explorer, you're strongly advised to go through the upgrade procedure, or even better, upgrade to Firefox; it's got significantly better standards compliance. You can upgrade to Firefox via the button on the sidebar.

The Computer Filename Extensions Dictionary got updated today.

The detailed election results for Saugus are now all available online.

We've added an executive summary to the Saugus election results. Feel free to discuss them in the Saugus political forum.

Results from today's election are being tabulated now. We'll post them when we get them.

The Saugus Business Partnership site was updated today.

The Computer Terms Dictionary got updated today.

There's been a strange development with the Saugus.net Halloween Ghost Story Contest this year; the original first place winning high school entry turned out not to be written by a high school student after all, and has thus been disqualified. The former second and third place winning stories have been promoted to first and second place respectively, and we have a new winner in third place: Raquel Manley of Saugus. If you read through the high school entries earlier, be sure to read this new winning story.

The results of the Ninth Annual Halloween Ghost Story Writing Contest were all posted last night and in the very early AM this morning. The contest caused our judges a great deal of consternation this year as there were so many excellent entries, especially in the adult category. The top results were tightly packed, with only a tiny margin separating them.

There are a few points to note. First, somewhat surprisingly (considering they are both adjacent to Saugus) this is the first time we've ever had winners from either Lynnfield or Revere. Second, amazingly the entire middle school category was swept by a single school in Florida. Third, none of this year's winners have won in any previous years; this is just the first time that this has happened since 1998.