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2005 Meeting Schedule

Meetings are on the 3rd Tuesday of each month at 7:00pm.

Want to Talk to EPICUG?
Please email Lee Lasson or Judy Houston if you would like to give a presentation at one of these meetings!

2004 Monthly Meeting Notes are here

Month Day/Date Time Place Topic
January 18, 2005 - Tuesday 7:00 pm Hondius Room, EP Public Library Election of Officers + Christmas Gadgets!
February 15, 2005 - Tuesday 7:00 pm Hondius Room, EP Public Library Spyware Discussion and How to Search the Internet - Lee Lasson and Mike Molloy.
March 15, 2005 - Tuesday 7:00 pm Hondius Room, EP Public Library All About eBay - Jim Houston, Angry Duck Computing
April 19, 2005 - Tuesday 7:00 pm Hondius Room, EP Public Library How to Backup - Lee Lasson, On-Line Consulting
May 17, 2005 - Tuesday

 

7:00 pm Hondius Room, EP Public Library “Anatomy of a Word document”, an inside look at how Word works. This is intended to teach you how to reason your way through Word’s many features. Not a “how to” course. Presenter – Don Widrig
June 21, 2005 - Tuesday 7:00 pm Hondius Room, EP Public Library Microsoft Database Night - Lee Lasson, On-Line Consulting
July 19, 2005 - Tuesday 7:00 pm Hondius Room, EP Public Library Google's Picasa 2.0 Photo file/share/edit FREE utility - Mike Molloy
August 16, 2005 - Tuesday 7:00 pm Hondius Room, EP Public Library Potpourri Night - A fun mix of information
September 20, 2005 - Tuesday 7:00 pm Hondius Room, EP Public Library Creating and Updating Webs in Microsoft FrontPage
October 18, 2005 - Tuesday 7:00 pm Hondius Room, EP Public Library Qwest DSL Expansion in Estes
November 15, 2005 - Tuesday 7:00 pm Hondius Room, EP Public Library What's New at the Googleplex - Mike Molloy
December 13, 2005 - Tuesday
(Note date/time)
6:00 pm Hondius Room, EP Public Library EPICUG Christmas Party!

Meeting Minutes and Notes

January 2006 - What Did You Get for Christmas?

President Judy Houston opened the meeting promptly at 7:00 PM.  Judy started off 2006 with our annual elections. Two questions Judy raised:

bulletDoes one need to be a paying member to vote?  Ans: NO! (You’re here, you count!)
bulletCan you enjoy the perks of being an officer if not a paying member?  Ans: YES 

Without nominations from the floor to force serious campaigning, we unanimously and thankfully elected the proposed slate of nominees for 2006:

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            President:        Judy Houston  (re-run)

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            V-President:    Mike Molloy   (back after a year sabbatical from office)

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            Secretary:        Mary Scott       (re-run)

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            Treasurer:       Ray Sahm        (re-run)

And although not required to be elected, we unanimously voted in:

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            Program Director:       Hugo Ehret   (also had time off)

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            Special Interest Grp:   Lee Lasson   (what’d we do w/o him?)

Mike Molloy gave a thanks to those who served last year, and gave special (and very well-deserved) thanks to Lee Lasson for all of the good programs in 2005.

 Lee raised the topic of what direction to take EPICUG in 2006. Suggestions from Lee that each resulted in the interest of a few people: SIGs for Mac users; Unix;  programming; Web mastering; MS Office. (You readers out there with other ideas – get on your e-mail!)

Dorothy would like us to help in the community with more outreach activity.

There was discussion about possible changes in meeting nights/times. To be decided. Our sign-up document for reserving the Hondius Room apparently got lost in the library. It was submitted the night of the November meeting. We are considering starting at 6:30 pm, especially as the library wants all evening meetings completed by 8:45 pm.

 Ray Sahm gave the Treasurer’s Report for all of 2005: we spent $143 (library magazine subscriptions, bank and state fees); we took in $444 all in memberships at $12/person. The current balance is $643.68. Ray also would like us to do something publicly meaningful with our balance. Year 2006 dues are due: $12/person. If you pay, you have access to the e-mail list for Q&A on computer issues (membership@epicug.org). If not a paying member, you will be limited to meeting announcements and always welcome at the meetings.

 Lee Lasson launched us into the first program of the new year: WHAT TOYS DID YOU GET FOR CHRISTMAS?

1)    Judy demonstrated her new Palm Pilot Z-22 at the cost of $99. It has over 30 mg memory, can sync to Outlook (no 3rd party software needed); good battery life; comes with a wall charger, but when syncing w/computer – it recharges.

2)    Hugo won an HP iPod Shuttle: works with USB, has 512 mb to hold about 125 songs; is a smaller/cheaper version on iPod; rechargeable battery; can plug it into iTunes and it will make a random selection of songs; has attachment (iTrip) that enables you to run the music through your car radio; retails at about $99.

3)    Herb Sloan’s grandson showed a wireless radio controlled weather station: cost about $80; gives data through your computer by the hour once you purchase the separate software; solar battery.

4)     Doris had a Garmin e-trex GPS device: cost about $300; b&w display; can download maps from a computer; rechargeable batteries.

5)    Lee (always the toy guy) gave a demonstration complete with video-conferencing of his new Mac Mini: much smaller than a breadbox; ethernet port; dvi for digital video; 2 USBs; 1 headwire; no mic input; must add own monitor, keyboard, mouse; has built in wi-fi & blue tooth. Lee added an external (JBL) speaker which can also dock you iPod. Lee showed us many features on his Mac, with Rip adding some other interesting options for Mac users.

The meeting closed at 8:45 PM.

Mary Scott, Secretary

 

December 2005 - Our Christmas Party!

                                                        EPICUG MEETING MINUTES

13 December  2005      Hondius Room    Estes Park Public Library

The 2005 Christmas Party got under way at 6 pm. The food and drinks were provided courtesy FrontDesk Inc, with special thanks to Sandy Lasson for making it all happen – complete with table decorations and poinsettias. Wonderful pizzas were donated by Rob at Poppy’s. The food was terrific and plentiful!

At 7 pm we started the annual tradition of presenting “FIT”, or “Funny Internet Things.” There were lots of great entries (where do our members find these things?) from video clips, to paper handouts to urls put up on the big screen.  We had lots of laughs – and we’re sorry if you were one of those that didn’t make it to this year’s big laugh event.

The winner by technical measurement of the applause-o-meter (Thanks, Lee) was Rip Tragle’s entry. Rip learned to use a software application and created his first original comic complete with music: “EPICUG vs THE WEB” for members’ entertainment. Rip made CD copies and are available to all.

Thanks to all who brought in a laugh: we loved the “piano balls,” the Christmas sound and light show, the rock music video of seniors in costume, and, or course, the "headless" person in the talent show.  Time now to start collecting for the 2006 version!

The white elephant techno-gift exchange sent lucky members home with  such "winners" that ergonomic keyboard (again); an old Royal personal organizer; a box of 1960's IBM punchcards and a Snappy (what is that, anyway?). But there were real winners planted amongst the loot: a battery charger, an all-in-one USB reader and a wireless mouse.

We will usher in 2006 a lots more information and fun - but we will do it without the input of long time member, Al Howard. Al died just a few days ago after a long illness. We will miss him a lot.  "Meeting" dispersed at 8:40 pm.

Mary Scott, Secretary

 

November 2005 - What's New at the Googleplex

EPICUG MEETING MINUTES

15 November 2005           Hondius Room    Estes Park Public Library

Another info-filled meeting opened at 7:02 PM by President Judy Houston. Judy asked for a preliminary canvas of suggested officer-candidates for the slate of new officers to be elected in January 2006. Attendees wrote suggestions on provided paper for Judy to review later. Ray Sahm, esteemed Treasurer reported a bank balance of $643.68 as of this date. Since last month we gained a member (+$12) and paid our annual non-profit registration fee to the CO Secretary of State (-$10).

From Lee’s Announcement Department:

    1.  Front Desk Inc. (the business partnership of Lee Lasson and Mike Molloy) once again will host our Christmas Party on Dec. 13th. NOTE: We start the festivities at 6:00 PM as this includes pizza and other goodies. Don’t eat dinner first!! Attendees should bring 2 things: A Funny Internet Thing (FIT)…meaning a URL or a disc that shows an entertaining, amazing, bizarre, or otherwise noteworthy find from your internet travels over the past year; and a technology-oriented white elephant for gift giving. The white elephant should be inexpensive, able to fit inside your car for the trip home, and must be wrapped.

     2. The November Digital Camera Special Interest Group (DISIG) is Thursday, Nov. 17th, 7 PM in the Hondius Room.  Ray, Hugo and Lee already have photographic tips/gadgets prepared to share. You want you to bring should bring your input, too.

 Lee introduced EPICUG past president and partner of Front Desk, Inc, Mike Molloy. Mike provided a fabulous overview of what’s new at the Googleplex. You may have missed the details and fun this evening, but you can review Mike’s program and the treasure trove newly available through Google by clicking this link:   http://www.mtnds.com/google.htm

There was so much information packed in Mike’s presentation, we had to zoom through it and try to keep from delving farther.  Food for thought (or fright) about where we may be going with the Internet can be seen in the futuristic video clip that ended the session. This 8 minute presentation can be viewed at:   http://epic.makingithappen.co.uk\

Our thanks go to Mike for so much information and enthusiasm. The meeting closed at 8:45 PM.

 Mary Scott, Secretary

 

 

October 2005 - Qwest DSL Expansion in Estes

President Judy Houston called the meeting to order at 6:59pm. Ray Sahm gave the Treasurer’s Report and clarified some apparent discrepancies from last month’s report. It was a full house tonight with 38 people in attendance to hear the Qwest DSL presentation so all further business was dispensed with and we moved directly to the program.

Lee Lasson introduced the program by relating his earlier experiences with an ISDN connection that ran at 128Kbps down in the Retreat. Although it was a reliable connection, Lee always needed more speed than the connection offered. Lee became one of the first customers for DSL when it was offered in Estes Park but it only worked for his business on Riverside Drive. No service for his office in the Retreat. Finally, the Retreat residents prepared a petition requesting Qwest DSL service and, because the petition convinced Qwest that there was a viable market in the Retreat, the service was recently installed. Lee is a happy camper now.

Since the petition was so successful, Lee helped the Glen Haven folks do their own petition and, as Lee said, tonight’s meeting “was a thinly disguised excuse to give the Glen haven petition to the Qwest folks in attendance”. They were happy to receive the petition, which had 70 names, and it seems likely that the Glen Haven folks will finally get DSL service of their own. Yea!

Then, at 7:05pm, Lee introduced the Qwest representatives at the meeting. They were:

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Eddie Archuleta, Local Account Manager, patricio.archuleta@qwest.com

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Michael LeBate, DSL Sales Manager, Michael.lebate@qwest.com

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Trent Duke, Business Acquisition Sales Manager, trent.duke@qwest.com

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Marc Hutt, DSL-Long Distance-Local Service-Digital TV, marc.hutt@qwest.com

Michael LeBate then offered a nice PowerPoint presentation of the DSL product. Click here to review the presentation. Some notes from the presentation:

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R-DSLAM (Remote DSL Access Multiplexer) service points can handle up to about 300 DSL lines. Qwest prefers to wire up an area for DSL after about 50 potential customers have been identified.

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DSL Premier service offers download rates as high at 7Mbps, upload service up to 896Kbps. Qwest hopes to be able to offer service up to 20Mbps in the future but no such service is currently available.

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40 percent of the Denver metropolitan area is still on dial-up lines.

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There are certain technical disqualifiers that will prohibit DSL from being installed in certain areas. These obstacles will eventually be removed as Qwest upgrades their existing telephone lines.

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Qwest generally sells the DSL service in conjunction with MSN ISP service. It is possible for a customer to buy an unbundled service that replaces the MSN ISP with a third-party ISP.

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The DSL installation is designed to be a self-install done by the customer. Results of this idea have been mixed and Qwest suggests that buying the $99.99 technician installation package will be a good way to avoid problems. At the moment, a special promotion is underway and the technician installation package sells for the low, low price of $49.99.

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Qwest is experimenting with a “soft rollout” of their new Voice over IP (VoIP) service. Currently, there is little or no feedback on the quality of that offering.

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Qwest offers a web page (qwest.com) in which you can enter your phone number and the web page will determine whether or not your phone number is eligible for DSL service. The group shouted out phone numbers to test this feature. Some numbers were eligible and some numbers were not.

During the presentation, Michael showed a number of incredibly awful maps of the Estes Park area with overlays to show which areas were eligible for DSL service. Our comments: Get Mapquest! For competitive reasons, these maps were omitted from our website version of Michael’s presentation.

The presentation ended at 8:30 pm and the remaining time was spent in discussions on pricing packages, etc. Click here to view the DSL packages. Click here to view the combined phone and DSL packages.

It was a very informative meeting. Thanks to Lee for informing everyone of this interesting service.

Respectfully submitted,
Don Widrig (acting Secretary)

 

SEPTEMBER 2005 - Creating and Updating Web Pages with Front Page

EPICUG MEETING MINUTES

20 September 2005

 Hondius Room    Estes Park Public Library

  The meeting was opened by President Judy Houston at 7:00 PM. Treasurer Ray Sahm reported a bank balance of $637.63 as of this date. About $50 was spent on PC Magazine renewal for the public library.

 Intros around the room revealed that 2 members have had books published this summer: By Dick Webb, Tele-Visionaries; and by Bruce Johnson, a book on Flexible Software Design. Congratulations to our illustrious authors. Go to amazon.com and acquire these books today!

 Next month’s EPICUG will host a representative from Qwest, so bring your DSL expansion in Estes Park questions.

 The September Digital Camera Special Interest Group (DISIG) is canceled. Tune in for the October meeting (4th Thursday of the month) when Tracy Goodemote of Western One Hour Photo will be the speaker.

 Don announced the new library director, Claudine Perrault, came on board 19 September. He encouraged all to go meet her. Don also mentioned that he and Lee made a proposal to the Library Foundation to replace the obsolete and out-of-warranty server in the library. The proposal was accepted. Most of us saw in the newspaper the action photo of Don and Lee doing the manual labor of bringing the new hardware into the library? See? They just don’t have brains, they have brawn! Thanks to both of them for this latest improvement to our fabulous library.

 Lee Lasson put together am info-packed slide program for the evening program: “Creating and Updating Web Pages with Front Page.” You can see the outline at this link:   Creating_and_Updating_Webs_in_Micro    soft_FrontPage.ppt

 But you miss the in between information and Q&A… sorry!

 The meeting folded about 8:50 PM.

 Mary Scott, Secretary

 

 

 

Sept Meeting - See test web

 

AUGUST 2005 - Potpourri Night

EPICUG MEETING MINUTES
16 August 2005
Hondius Room    Estes Park Public Library

President Judy Houston opened the meeting at 7:02 PM. Treasurer Ray Sahm reported a bank balance of $637.63 as of this date.. About $50 was spent on PC Magazine renewal for the public library. Intros were done around the room.

Ray reminded all the next Digital Imaging Special Interest Group ("DISIG") will meet the 4th Thursday of August (8/26) in this room. The topic will likely be hands-on Picasa.

Lee introduced the "potpourri" of topics for tonight: Lee on the Edge network; Hugo on setting up a free website; Laura Gibbs will do some conditional formatting on excel. Peter Gibbs will talk on XML.

Laura went first with conditional formatting (CF) in Excel. Why does one need CF? An example of default CF is the fact that negative numbers appear in red in excel. On a sample excel spreadsheet she demonstrated (in spite of the program wanting to shut down!) that you go to FORMAT on toolbar…then CONDITIONAL FORMATTING. Then place the desired conditions in the boxes (up to 3 are allowed for a designated cell). Lee showed that you can use format painter to copy the CF from a given cell to another cell.

Peter (Serenity Consulting) began by demonstrating a fun tip on Excel: when connected to internet and using MS, you can type a stock symbol into a cell, then go to TOOLS…AUTO CORRECT OPTION…LABEL DATA w/SMART TAG - and the current price will show on your screen. Peter said this is a good example of XML. He gave a very brief background of the development of Mark Up Languages (SGML, HTML, XML). XML is a fundamental technology that hooks web services together by getting object compiled from different sources. Unlike previous languages that had tags you were locked into, in XML (extensible mark up language) you can invent your own tag and avoid previously created MLs. Peter concluded by saying that this year particularly, MS has decided to go heavy into the web services model. Dan added that the new MS formats are all going to be XML files. All files will be zipped and all bundles within the zip are going to be XML.

Next up is Hugo to walk us through setting up a free website. We are guinea pigs as he has not actually tried this himself until tonight. An example of someone’s homepage using this website is located at www.robklotz.topcities.com.  There are many sites available where you can set up a free website). Once on the homepage of www.topcities.com . Hugo selected JOIN NOW and it displayed choices. You must then select a domain name and complete registration form. Once completed, a password is e-mailed to you. From this point…we had a lot of trouble. We missed seeing the password and in trying to go back a see it again we had to journey through many ads. Is this the punishment for using a "free" website? Hugo tried the option "get lost password." A second e-mail did not come in. While this is delayed we move on to comments from Lee.

Lee spoke about the multi-year problem of wanting to connect to the internet using a cell phone. He recently bought a Cingular cell phone with the potential to connect this way through the "Edge" network This is the second generation of something he believes came from the old "Ricochet" product. Cingular did not have data cable needed, but claimed a Blue Tooth connection would work. After spending 5 hours on the new Blue Tooth product – still Lee had no luck. No one else in this room tonight has tried "Edge". Lee is the pioneer on this front. This saga will be continued as events unfold.

Back to checking Hugo’s e-mail: nothing new came in to show his password. So we think he only gets free ads in lieu of a free website. Dan helped us go through some changes in Security Settings to try to find the missing password. No go. After more frustration, we gave it up and know Hugo will be busy deleting Wal-Mart ads well into the future.

Dan stepped in to demo the new Google home page option. With a Google account you can arrange a personal arrangement for a home page by simple drag/drop and by selecting other menu items. You need not accept the default home page set up.

One last shot at looking for Hugo’s missing password – no show. We’ll keep you posted.

In the final minutes, Lee opened the discussion to any info you’d like to share. Peter and Lora got a wireless print server set up for running printer; Dan recently acquired a Mac mini – we looked at the product on Apple’s website.

The meeting closed about 8:40 PM.

Mary Scott, Secretary

 

JULY 2005 - All About Picasa

EPICUG MEETING MINUTES
19 July 2005
Hondius Room    Estes Park Public Library

Vice President Elizabeth Repola opened the meeting at 7:01 PM. Introductions were made and a sign up sheet was passed around. 12 people attended the meeting. Treasurer Ray Sahm reported that there are 32 members in EPICUG and our current balance is $639.63. The meeting minutes for May and June will be e-mailed to Lee Lasson so that they can be posted on the EPICUG website. There was discussion about the magazines, MIT Journal, PC Magazine and Max/Min PC. It was decided that the discussion to renew these magazines had been taken care of at the June meeting. A member volunteered to donate a tape recorder so that meeting minutes could be developed, however the group believed that would entail more time to listen back to the entire meeting.

Lee Lasson advised the group that the next DISIG meeting would be held at 7:00 in the Hondius Room on 7/28/05.

A question was asked regarding opening documents in Word, as the receiver cannot open the document. The suggestion was made that the file should be put in PDF format.

Presentation: Mike Molloy Picasa.

Mike had an excellent presentation on Picasa. Picasa is a free download that helps you find, edit and share all the pictures on your PC. The web site to download Picasa is http://picasa.google.com/index.html. Some of the features of Picasa Mike explored with the group were:

bulletOrganization of pictures
bulletTool for editing
bulletSlideshow
bulletLabeling pictures
bulletBacking up photos on multiple disks
bulletWriting captions for pictures.

Mike did a wonderful presentation and many questions were asked. Picasa appears to be a great program for managing pictures.

The meeting ended at 9:00. Thank you Mike for an informative presentation.

 

Elizabeth Repola

 

JUNE 2005 - Microsoft Database Night

Database 101

What is it?   

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 Tables – rows and columns

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 Records - rows

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 Fields - a single cell

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 Forms - input

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 Reports - output

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Queries – ask a question

What was it? 

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Card Catalogs

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File Cabinets

What applications are databases?

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Spreadsheet like Lotus 1-2-3 or Excel

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File System

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dBase II, III, & IV

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Microsoft FoxPro

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FileMaker Pro – Mac & PC

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Microsoft Access

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MS SQL Server, MySQL, or Oracle

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Extensible Markup Language – XML

Reference:    http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HP052817081033.aspx?mode=print

Click the link   How to build a database.doc   to review Lee's presentation.

 

 

May 2005 - A Tour of Microsoft Word's Engine Room

Did you ever wonder exactly how a word processor really works? How can it keep all that complexity under control? How can you ever hope to understand all of Word's features? Well, wonder no more. This month, Don Widrig will take us on a tour of the inner workings of Microsoft Word. This is NOT intended to be a tutorial on how to use the tool. Instead, Don will use Word's own tools to show you what's going on down in the engine room and how that translates into the document you see on your screen.

This session will explore all those interesting invisible features and characters that allow you to set up pages and margins, format the text, build tables, and a host of other things. The presentation will include some live demonstrations of just exactly how some of the features work.

At the end of the presentation, we'll allow some time for further explorations based on questions from the audience. You should come away with a better understanding of the hidden mechanisms that just might help you reason your way into a new understanding of what Word can do for you, if properly instructed by you.

Click here to relive Don's presentation.

 

April 2005 - How to Backup

EPICUG MEETING MINUTES
19 April 2005
Hondius Room    Estes Park Public Library

President Judy Houston opened the meeting at 7:01 PM. Treasurer Ray Sahm submitted a report in absentia  (rumor is he was home watching excavation machines remove his yard -? There must be a story there)  The current bank balance is $ 582.63. All bills are paid, including the renewal for the subscription to “MIT Technology Review.” Judy added that next month we will vote on renewal of  the next 2 publications up in July 2005: “Maximum PC” and “PC Magazine.” A few issues of current subscriptions are in the room tonight for anyone to review.  If members have other ideas for library subscriptions, please present the ideas at the May meeting.

Judy announced we have 26 paid memberships. Ray will send one e-mail announcement before removing unpaids from the extended email list. Unpaid names will continue to receive the monthly email meeting announcements.

Reminder: The next Digital Imaging Special Interest Group (“DISIG”) meeting will be Thursday, April 28th in this same room at 7 pm. Esteemed EPICUG member  (and “world famous in Estes Park”) Al Howard will show us how to do various digital framing.

All business accomplished, Lee Lasson backed up to the front of the room to start his presentation: “HOW TO BACK UP”. His excellent powerpoint presentation is available here with a simple double click.  As usual with this outspoken group, the presentation was peppered with many good audience questions and discussions that go beyond the powerpoint. We all learn so much at these sessions. Thank you, Lee!

….Now pardon me while I back up my computer life in a better way!

Mary Scott
Secretary

 

March 2005 - All About eBay

EPICUG MEETING MINUTES
15 March 2005
Hondius Room    Estes Park Public Library

President Judy Houston opened the meeting at 7:00 PM. Magazine subscriptions were the only business. Judy advised that one of 5 EPICUG-supported magazines subscriptions for the library is up for renewal as of 4/1/05: “MIT Innovative Review.”  After discussion: MSP with a unanimous vote.  We will consider the other subscriptions as they come up for renewal (“Maximum PC”; “ PC Magazine”; “PC World”; “Wired”).

Treasurer Ray Sahm reported a current balance of $590.He said of the 38 active members, 21 have paid membership for 2005. Others will receive a reminder notice soon.

Lee Lasson is faithful in reminding all of the monthly Digital Imaging Special Interest Group (“DISIG”). On Thursday, 3/24 at the library, Richard and Hugo will show us how to make an electronic slide show a la Ken Burns.

Judy introduced tonight’s presenter, her very own husband, Jim Houston. The subject of how to get onto eBay for buying and selling is outlined for your viewing pleasure if you double click the following title: e-bay

Following Jim’s great overview, Judy reminded us that anyone can suggest/present a topic for upcoming meetings. Recent suggestions offered were very good. The meeting adjourned at 8:46 pm.

Mary Scott, secretary

 

Feb 2005: Microsoft Antispyware

EPICUG MEETING MINUTES
15 February 2005
Almost the Hondius Room
Estes Park Public Library
Location moved at 6:50 PM to Town Council Chambers due to

THE BIG STINK

As EPICUG members were arriving this frigid, winter night, the library was being evacuated because of a mysterious electrical smell. Since no one got blown up, it was exciting to see our local police and firefighters arrive at the scene with lights flashing. As we all stamped around outside in the cold, one EPICUGer took the opportunity to snap some photos while waiting for Lee to find a local venue with internet access so we could have our meeting. Town Administrator Randy Repola came to our rescue (it helps that one of our officers has pull with town muckety-mucks!) and opened up the council chambers in the municipal building where President Judy Houston opened the meeting at 7:08 PM.

Treasurer Ray Sahm said we have $520.63 with more pouring in as people tossed dues at him faster than he could count.

Lee Lasson got in his plug for the monthly Digital Imaging Special Interest Group (“DISIG”). On Thursday, 2/24 at the library, the guest speaker will be renowned photographer, James Frank and his associate. Topic: how digital imaging has changed the nature of his business.

Lee “regretfully” launched his power point program, “Spyware: The Ugly Side of Computing”. You can reap the benefits of his information by clicking on that title.   Among other points made during his presentation: MS has announced this week that MS Spyware will be included in future versions of MS software. Lee has been experimenting with the beta version and said it does not seem to “clean” cookies.  A good anti-spyware program (or 2…or 3…) is still recommended.

Mike Molloy demonstrated many aspects of Google-searching to help us understand how the internet is a giant repository of information. Mike, like many consultants, rely of Google’s best product, the search engine, to help solve problems and answer questions almost immediately.

 Highlights from the many Mike’s Tips & Tricks with Google:

bulletDon’t recognize a process in your Task Manager? Just type in the name of the program into Google and it will define it and even lead you to other people asking questions about it.
bulletTake time to explore the other options on the Google homepage: “Groups” to chime in on what other people are discussing on a given topic; “News” for stories written on your topic; “Froogle” a search engine for products and prices; “Local” to get information about a name, town, etc.
bulletGoogle has added an excellent mapping capability, though still in beta, Mike feels it surpasses Mapquest. (www.maps.google.com)
bulletClick on “About Google”  and  use ”Google Alerts” (still in beta) . By entering your favorite topic there Google will look periodically in its information and e-mail you when something turns up.
bulletGoogle has a search engine within a search engine: use Google “Special Searches” to narrow your search to just “Universities”, e.g.
bulletDo you use “cache” feature on search results?  Under cache, a website is archived from a past date. You can access this – and can be useful when your desired website happens to be down.
bullet“Way Back Machine”  via  www.archive.org  This allows you to access a website from  an earlier point in time. You can even use it to recover your own crashed website!
bulletGoogle will do conversions for you: type in the search bar “ how many inches in a mile” and see what happens.

Another great meeting chock full of information from our two reliable sources. Thanks to both Lee and Mike for making it well worth coming out of our warm cocoons on a cold night in Estes Park.

Mary Scott, secretary

 

January 2005: Election of Officers and Christmas Gadgets

President Don Widrig started the meeting right on time at 7:00pm. Attendance was full and almost overflowed the room. A total of 28 people attended the first meeting of 2005. A great start for the year! Don did the usual round of introductions and many new people introduced themselves. Welcome!

The first order of business was election of EPICUG officers for 2005. The following slate of officers was proposed by Don:

President: Judy Houston
Vice-president: Elizabeth Repola
Secretary: Mary Scott
Treasurer: Ray Sahm
Program Director: Lee Lasson
Vice-president Geeks: Fuzz E Nerd

Al Howard moved that the slate of officers be elected by acclamation. Seconded. Passed. Welcome new officers!

After welcoming the new officers, the club moved right into the program for the evening at 7:20pm. Lee Lasson had arranged for folks to show off their new gadgets that they had received for Christmas.

Owen Kent showed off his 128MB USB flash drive. This has become the device of choice for storing relatively large amounts of data and transporting the data to another computer. And the price is right as well. Typically devices of this capacity cost about $30 and are reusable indefinitely. Goodbye floppies.

Buzz and Candace Waple showed off a combo device that essentially is a combination MP3 player and 256MB USB flash drive. The device (and similar units) can be purchased at Wal-Mart for about $90-$100.

Peter MacGill demonstrated at Sony Digital Voice recorder that he purchased on eBay for about $100. This is the high-tech digital version of the pocket dictating device that used to use micro tape cassettes but this one has a lot of neat organizing and playback features. With the standard memory chip installed, it can record about 130 minutes of dictation. You can purchase larger memory chips if a greater capacity is required.

Lee Lasson and his daughter Cassie then demonstrated two iPod music playback units. The smaller unit cost about $250 and the larger unit cost about $399. The smaller unit can hold about 1,000 tunes and the larger unit can hold about 10,000 tunes. (Why anyone would want to have 10,000 tunes remains a mystery.) The units are specially configured to connect to either a Mac or Windows PC and rely on an amazingly advanced PC-based application called iTunes to collect, organize, and download the units.

The iPod has a plethora of accessories available. Lee demonstrated a $35 clip-on transmitter called the iTrip about the size of a pack of Lifesavers that allows the iPod to transmit directly to a nearby FM radio. This allows you to broadcast your favorite tunes to a home radio and not be encumbered with earphones, etc.

Lee also demonstrated a Toshiba Pocket PC that uses a Microsoft Windows package to accomplish essentially the same things as the iPod. However, the Toshiba is closer to a fully-featured PDA that also has the capability to play back tunes. It costs in the range of $250 - $400 depending on the options.

Lee smoothly demonstrated all the gadgets by using a video camera to examine the tiny devices and project images onto the wall screen in the room. This is a very effective way to allow many people to examine the increasingly tiny gadgets. Way to go, Lee!

After admiring the gadgets, the program then moved to something completely different. Mike Molloy discussed the new field of Desktop Searching and demonstrated a new application for Windows PCs offered by Google called the Google Desktop Search. In essence, this easy-to-use application operates in a manner similar to the usual Google search mechanisms except that it searches for information on your local desktop instead of searching the Internet.

The search mechanism smoothly and invisibly indexes all files, emails, etc, on your desktop and then allows you to very rapidly find things. It’s orders of magnitude faster and more effective than the usual Windows search mechanism (but it lacks the cute puppy dog!) Currently, it has one drawback, however. It only seems to index and find files that are in your My Documents folder (and subfolders). Thus, if you want to find a file that is somewhere other than in the My Documents folder (or subfolders), you’re out of luck.

The extremely rapid and comprehensive lookup system depends on an cleverly designed and very large index maintained by the Desktop Search application itself. After the meeting, Mike did a study of the index and reported that the index located at C:\Documents and Settings\[OwnerName]\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Google Desktop Search. Mike determined that he had 305,752 items indexed (216,465 emails, 25,400 Web history, 63,887 files) and the files in the above folder total almost 1.5GB! (Of course, you can’t help but wonder about someone who keeps over a quarter of a million emails!)

The Google Desktop Search application can be downloaded for free at desktop.google.com. Click here to review Mike’s presentation and to get further information.

While the club was admiring the Google application, the issue of other methods for handling email in Outlook arose. Mike suggested that an Outlook-only plug-in called Lookout was available for doing advanced searches of your email. You can get a free download of this plug-in at http://www.lookoutsoft.com/Lookout/. (At the website, the material suggests that the application can also search for files, but this was not tested at the meeting.)

Dorothy Gibbs inquired about backing up your Outlook email files. It turns out that Microsoft has a free plug-in to back up your Outlook email. You can obtain this free backup plug-in at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=8b081f3a-b7d0-4b16-b8af-5a6322f4fd01&DisplayLang=en

It was a good meeting and it was exciting to see all the new gadgets. The meeting adjourned at 8:40pm.

Respectfully submitted,
Don Widrig (acting Secretary)

 

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