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2006 Monthly Meeting Notes are
2006 Meeting Minutes and Notes December 2006: EPICUG Christmas Party! EPICUG MEETING MINUTES 12 December 2006 Hondius Rm Estes Park Public Library Christmas cheer greeted attendees as we walked into the Hondius Room. Lee and Sandy Lasson and FrontDesk, Inc had a lovely spread of yummy sandwiches, chips, hot BBQ cocktail sausages and plenty of pizza (thank you Rob at Poppy’s for that contribution!) and soda and coffee. The tables were set up and poinsettias perked up the room. As the chowing down subsided…President Judy Houston reminded that we need to dream up a slate of officers for the January meeting. Lee launched the F.I.T (Funniest Internet Thing). There were several entries – and as usual it’s actually hard to compare these for contest purposes as they are often different styles. The grand prize winner was Rip Tragle with his audio entry of a telemarketer calling someone who gave him a surprise response. The other entries were funny (hmmm – I didn’t laugh at the tunnel video!) and entertaining. In the White Elephant gift giving division – oh yes, there were some elephants! But there were a couple of NICE items sneaked in there…and I think some trading went on after the party. Thanks to all who attended…thanks to Lee and Sandy and FrontDesk, Inc…it’s truly great to share time together and to laugh. Happy Holiday season to all EPICUGers! Party ended about 8:40 PM Mary Scott, Sec’y
November 2006: Travel Planning on the Internet - Hugo Ehret EPICUG MEETING MINUTES 28 November 2006 Hondius Rm Estes Park Public Library It’s an amazing coincidence that our second snow of the season occurred on meeting night as happened in October. But the hearty showed up – maybe enticed by the late afternoon e-mail tease relaying Don Widrig had a surprise announcement. President Judy opened the meeting at 7:08 PM and quickly called on Ray for a treasurer’s report before he could abscond for another 4 months! We have $942.97 in the bank. Ray had a note from the library that the “Maximum P.C.” subscription is due in March. This has the lowest circulation of our subscriptions. Ray will review other circ numbers and have that information for the next business meeting in January ’07. Ray also announced he will not seek the Treasurer’s position next year – so it is up for grabs. On the subject of officers for 2007, Judy added that we will also need a new secretary, unsure about V.P. Judy would like to convene a committee to provide a new slate for ’07. Ray suggested sending a separate e-mail announcement to our list on this subject. Lee confirmed: no DISIG meetings in November or December. The next meeting will be the 4th Thursday in January (Jan.25th). Now – even if you have missed many meetings – we want you to be sure you come to the DECEMBER 12th CHRISTMAS PARTY! We’re one week earlier so we can get into the spirit of the season. Lee Lasson’s business, ON-LINE CONSULTING is again generously providing an array of pizza, sandwich fixings and other delights just for us. No business that evening – but lots of fun as we all enjoy:
THE SURPRISE ANNOUNCEMENT: EPICUG members can become Beta Testers!! We’ve missed seeing Don Widrig in our gatherings, so it was good to have him here this evening to tell us about the consulting position that takes him off to Kiev (Ukraine…and yes, home of “Kiev Chicken” as the locals say; now you speak some Russian) monthly. As part of the development project for a new, interest-based search engine, two members of the software engineering team from Kiev will be present on JANUARY 24, 2007 in the Hondius Room to BETA TEST this software. This unusual and fascinating opportunity is open only to EPICUG members on a “drop in” basis. Between 10 AM and 3 PM that Wednesday, 10 library laptops will be set up in the Hondius Room for this beta test. The test will be more effective with a wide range of users to test “user-friendly” qualities. Any member is welcome to come by and witness the process without doing any testing; members are also invited to bring one’s own laptop for use. Although there is no guarantee it will work on Safari or Opera, it will work on Windows and Firefox. This search engine is being designed to search peoples’ names through the internet. DON’T MISS THIS OPPORTUNITY TO EXPERIENCE A REAL BETA TEST….and right here in little ‘ole Estes Park! Thanks to Don for further connecting us to the outside world, and for explaining so much about the development techniques in use for this project. And uh, don’t bother looking for that Ukrainian recipe for “Lard and Garlic”. Hugo (with sister, Anne’s help) provided a power point presentation summarizing the many types of travel planning one can accomplish on the internet. See the powerpoint here: EPICUG, November 28,2006.ppt The meeting concluded with Judy's "Tips" - this one about how to make a virtual CD in your hard drive so you don't have to revert back to loading a specific CD each time you use a certain software program. www.worldstart.com/Virtual CD ) THE MORE THE MERRIER! –COME TO THE CHRISTMAS PARTY 12/12/06 !! The meeting adjourned at 8:36 PM. Mary Scott, Secretary
October 2006: Hugo Replaces a Hard Drive - Hugo Ehret EPICUG MEETING MINUTES 17 October 2006 Hondius Rm Estes Park Public Library Well, the first real snow of the season kept all but the hearty near the home fires. Until the 7th attendee, Herb Sloan, arrived, we thought the 6 attendees, the Big Thompson Canyon dwellers, were the only real toughies in the group. President Judy Houston informally opened the meeting about 7:20 PM. For the record, we have a thank you note for 2 of our library subscriptions (PC Mag and PC World). Judy also reserved the Hondius Room for EPICUG through 2007 as well as for DISIG (except Nov/Dec ’07). No treasurer nor report; no other announcements. Hugo Ehret proceeded to install a Maxtor hard drive in an older computer to replace an outdated hard drive. It didn’t work perfectly, but I’m sure he’s working on that project as I write these notes up, The program section on search engines is postponed until the November meeting when we hope more people will be “ready” to go out in the chill of night. The meeting adjourned at 8:35 PM. Mary Scott, Secretary
September 2006: My Google Home Page & Tips Night - Judy Houston EPICUG MEETING MINUTES 19 September 2006 Hondius Rm Estes Park Public Library President Judy Houston opened the meeting about 7:10 PM and dispensed with any business formalities. No treasurer’s report…and after a 2 month hiatus, dare we think the Christmas comic story has come true? Has our esteemed treasurer steamed off somewhere with our bank account? Click to stay tuned. Lee Lasson, back from the brink of death (no jokes here) now sporting an undetectable stint in his chest, was a much welcome sight to behold. But we forgot to ask him if he worked on the ICU computers while recuperating - ? Cheers! to Lee and his family…we are all so happy to see you! Oh yes – my point…Lee announced the next DISIG (Digital Camera Special Interest Group) will gather at the library on Thursday 9/28. A sales rep from Mike’s Camera in Boulder will be here to demo many items. It’s a “don’t miss” meeting! In Hugo’s absence, Lee intro’d Judy Houston as our presenter tonight with the topic of explaining a Google personal homepage followed by TIPS night. To counter the rather high-tech presentations of late, Judy came with a program showing more basic computer usage. Display her own Google homepage as a finished example, Judy then started with a clean slate and demonstrated how one sets up a personalized Google homepage. Bring up Google.com, click on “personalized home” in upper right corner. You will see the basic set up on your screen. Click on “make it your own” and a group of suggested samples appear. Click on the check box for the items you wish to have displayed on your page (e.g.: weather, word-of -the- day, ESPN sports, date/clock; CNN news). Don’t see what you like? Click “more” for additional pre-chosen items. Still don’t see your preferences? Use the search box and type in a key word. We tried “acronym” and many choices appeared. We found Mike Molloy’s “Acronym Finder” and included that in our home page creation. To re-arrange the display, do a drag and drop on the title bar of the item and move it to the desired space. To save all, you must click “sign-in” and create an account with Google. There is no fee, but you must go through the verification steps for creating an account. Starting off the TIPS portion of the evening, Dorothy asked what can one do when a website creator is no longer involved with a now-dated site, and doesn’t remember the password? Lee suggested she contact the web host (angelfire.com) and explain. It’s not a guarantee that they would intervene, but worth a try. The TIPS portion of Judy’s program is included here: Computer Tips -Sept 19 2006.doc The meeting adjourned at 8:40 PM. Mary Scott, Secretary
August 2006 - LINUX OPERATING SYSTEM - "PUPPY" Hugo Ehret EPICUG MEETING MINUTES 15 August 2006 Hondius Rm Estes Park Public Library President Judy opened the meeting after at 7:10 PM. No business items tonight. The Treasurer was missing – he must have absconded at last! Is there any money in the bank? Only Ray knows for sure. There was a “rain delay” on the program of about 10 minutes as Hugo and Judy got their respective ducks in a row for the presentation. Hey – no one mentioned the Digital Imaging Special Interest Group. Surely they will meet at 7 PM on Thursday 8/23/06 in the Hondius Room (the 4th Thursday of each month). The program tonight was witnessing the installation of the newest version of Linux “Puppy”. Puppy is a super fast Linux operating system that works on a ram chip. It can be put on a USB drive and carried around with you – along with your files. It’s portable! The system needs 128 RAM. You can install it on a flash drive, live, CD, zip disk, hard drive and/or network emulator. From the Puppy homepage Hugo selected “Puppy-2.00-opera.iso.” He burned it onto an ISO CD; then it copied onto the RAM disk. After selecting the keyboard type (“us qwerty), up came the wizard to help with any questions. Using the Opera browser we looked at the EPICUG homepage, looked at widgets and games, and looked at the built-in programs to see how fast this “fast” program was. And it was…fast. Programs that mimicked Xcel and Word had the option to save a file as MS .xls and MS .doc. This was good news. We never got to Judy’s “Tips and Tricks” offering as we spent the whole time looking at that “Puppy.” The meeting adjourned at 8:45 PM and we went exited into a summer thunderstorm. Mary Scott, Secretary
July 2006 - Camcorders and Windows Live One Care Hugo Ehret/Lee Lasson EPICUG MEETING MINUTES 18 July 2006 Hondius Rm Estes Park Public Library President Judy Houston opened the meeting at 7:02 PM. Treasurer Ray Sahm announced an account balance of $944.10. He added that all library magazine subscriptions are paid into 2007. Ray reviewed membership “rules:” dues are $12/calendar year but it’s not a requirement to attending meetings. Paid members are included in the e-mail list that circulates questions/answers; those who choose not to pay will get meeting announcements only. Judy reminded al that the Digital Imaging Special Interest Group will meet at 7 PM on Thursday 7/2706 in the Hondius Room. The topic will be a demo on the free editor “Gimp.” Lee Lasson encouraged all to look at the web page he established to advertise the 30th anniversary of the Big Thompson Flood. There will be a memorial service on 7/31/06. Go to www.1976BigThompsonFlood.org for more details. The A part of the program tonight was courtesy of Hugo and Lee. Hugo first talked a little about his analog video recorder: how it connects to the computer and what is needed to have the analog translated to digital. Lee talked a little about his digital video camera and its requirements for interface. He added that the new cameras skip the capture step and that most can record onto DVDs. He also forewarned that you need to have a large hard drive capability if going to work with video. Someone pointed out that the Do It Yourself Network recently had excellent lessons on video and digital photography (go to www.DIY.net). The B part of the program was a recap of the recent membership e-mail discussion about Windows Live One Care. Dorothy’s recent question about whether Norton Anti-Virus programs are still any good resulted in some new information for some people. This Windows program integrates virus protection, spyware, firewall, some performance tuning and automatic updates and limited back up features. This program costs about $49. Another anti-virus program that some members like is AVG available through www.Grisoft.com. One can download free or pay. The virus updates are done daily. In the course of discussion we were treated to a couple Dick Webb anecdotes. These are welcome and fascinating! Meeting adjourned at 8:45 PM. Mary Scott, Secretary
June 2006 - MS's VISTA Operating System Hugo Ehret EPICUG MEETING MINUTES 20 June 2006 Hondius Rm Estes Park Public Library President Judy Houston opened the meeting at 7:01PM. First announcement: Judy was on local radio KEZZ at 8:15 A.M. this morning to promote EPICUG. Second announcement: a reminder that the Digital Camera Special Interest Group (“DISIG”) meets upstairs in the library on the 4th Thursday of each month (this month 6/29). Treasurer Ray Sahm is excited (and we all know why…) that our checking account balance has grown to $905.68. Ray reminded that dues are $12/calendar year but it’s not a requirement to attending meetings. Paid members are included in the e-mail list that circulates questions/answers; those who choose not to pay will get meeting announcements only. There was brief discussion about the members/list only system. We postponed further discussion until Lee Lasson can be part of it next month. Byron Prinzmetal mentioned that Charter (cable) in EP is being sold to a venture capital group (Orange Broadband from North Carolina). Unknown what the repercussion of this may be. This launched more discussion about high-speed access in the area, or rather, the lack of it in some places like the Big Thompson Canyon, and the services of Qwest. Tonight’s program on VISTA is by our esteemed program director, Hugo Ehret. In succinct form he showed us the background of Microsoft’s Longhorn - and now called Vista - operating system that has been in underdevelopment since 2001. As usual, there was plentiful questions/discussion throughout the slide show. While it may be very close to release, it has been under major Beta testing world wide for months. See the entire program: Microsoft VISTA Operating System.ppt After Hugo’s spot, Judy Houston distributed printed handouts on tips and tricks for PC users. She is teaching beginning computer courses at Computer Rx in Stanley Village, and has found the website www.Worldstart.com to be very helpful in learning shortcuts. Meeting adjourned at 8:45 PM Mary Scott
May 2006 - Freeware and Shareware Hugo Ehret EPICUG MEETING MINUTES 16 May 2006 Hondius Rm Estes Park Public Library President Judy Houston opened the meeting at 7:05 pm. Everyone must be home preparing the spring planting for the summer elk feast that goes on in our yards because attendance was off slightly. Ray reported an account balance of $905.68, but there has been 3 memberships paid in an a bill paid, just not all entered yet. The next magazine subscription for the library is due in September - it is for PC World. Lee reminded all that the next Digital Imaging Special Interest Group (DISIG) is the 4th Thurs of every month (5/25 is next) and the topic will be Tips and Tricks. More information sharing...and the price is right ($0!). The evening's program was courtesy of our esteemed Program Director, Hugo Ehret, who prepared a slide show about freeware. You can enjoy his program here ------------- as soon as your esteemed secretary receives it. He gave us a look at Mozilla Firefox, Open Office software (very similar to MS Office but at no cost to you), avast! (anti-virus) and showed listings through zdnet.com of scads of software available. We were reminded that freeware is just that - free, no strings; shareware is downloadable with usually a pay later request; trialware is downloadable and usable for a set period of time before you pay for it or lose it. There was a lot of discussion throughout the program about other freeware and shareware; about the "caveat emptor" implicit in all of these offerings, i.e., there may be bad things inside the software that you are agreeing to when you zip past the contract document and click on "I Agree." Some people take comfort in the big software companies in that any off course programming gets into the news immediately. Not so with the lesser to unknown companies that offer free- or shareware. By using "pay for" software and really getting reliability?? Who can know? What do some of our members use presently? Mozilla; freeware for games; "clipmate" for specializing the clip and paste capacity; "RoboForm" that allows you to set up identities to be able to fill in online forms quickly; "picassa" for photo editing; "Webroot" for viruses detection; "RoboType" for repeat use of often used phrases in your documents; "Windows Defender" to block pop-ups; "DUMeter" to tell you the speed of you active internet connection. There was so much discussion that we had to postpone Judy's "tips and tricks" - until next time. The meeting closed at 8:46pm. Next meeting is June 20th! Mary Scott, Sec'y . April 2006 - Introduction to AutoCAD Stan Becker EPICUG MEETING MINUTES 18 April 2006 Hondius Rm Estes Park Public Library President Judy Houston opened the meeting at 7:00 PM. Judy was again on the local radio program this morning promoting EPICUG and this evening's program. Treasurer Ray Sahm reported a checking account balance of $905.68. Ray reminded that dues are payable but not a requirement to attending meetings. Paid members are included in the e-mail list that circulates questions/answers; those who choose not to pay will get meeting announcements only. The only business concerned the renewal of a magazine for the library. Of the 5 subscriptions we sponsor (Wired, Maximum PC, PC Magazine, PC World and Technology Review), WIRED is up for renewal in May. The vote to renew was unanimous; Ray will contact Carolyn in the library. Lee Lasson announced that the Digital Imaging Special Interest Group (”DISIG”) will meet as usual on the 4th Thursday of the month (4/27). The program to be determined. Your digi-toys are always welcome! Program Chair Hugo Ehret introduced tonight’s speaker, STAN BECKER, a long time AutoCAD user. He provided each of us with a hard copy outline of his program “Introduction to AutoCAD.” AutoCAD is a software program (CAD =”Computer Aided Design”) used in such things as simple home design, architectural drawings, engineering renditions, and many other uses. While it has been 2-D for a long time, the 3-D imaging capability has increased greatly. The company name is Autodesk and AutoCAD is its main product. There are new releases annually. Stan took us through about half of the outlined program starting the group as a new user and reviewing on the big screen: Getting Started; Specifying Coordinates; Drawing Objects; Using Drawing Tools; Editing Objects; and Working with Text. In the final minutes we looked at some examples of Stan’s drawings. While the original AutoCAD software costs about $3,900 - one can access the website www.a9tech.com for a simple, Windows-based freeware autoCAD program. Meeting adjourned at 8:50 PM Mary Scott, Secretary
March 2006 - Greeting Cards, Mapping Programs, and Tips EPICUG MEETING MINUTES 21 March 2006 Hondius Rm Estes Park Public Library President Judy Houston opened the meeting at 7:00pm. She welcomed everyone to “our illustrious computer club” and mentioned that she was a guest on the Talkback portion of KEZZ radio on Monday morning. On the show, she explained who EPICUG was and invited listeners to attend our meetings. The idea here is to extend our outreach to the community in the hopes of attracting more members who might enjoy the camaraderie and sharing of computer ideas. Judy also mentioned that she was invited back for another Talkback session in April. Way to go, Judy! Treasurer Ray Sahm reported that the treasury stood at $833.68 as of the end of February. This is good. Judy briefly discussed her interest in extending our outreach and invited the club members to send their thoughts to her via email. She is considering the idea of forming a committee to work on the outreach project. If you want to volunteer, send email to Judy. Lee Lasson announced that the DI-SIG meeting this Thursday, 3/23, will have Amber Johnson from the Estes Park News as a guest speaker. Amber will demonstrate a variety of Photoshop tricks and tips. Should be interesting. Tonight, we had three mini-programs. Anne and Hugo Ehret kicked off the session with a program on the construction of customized greeting cards using the computer. Anne started by selecting a suitable image for her greeting card. In her case, she had a bunch of different beautiful images that she had created with watercolors. Anne mentioned that it seems that darker images work better for greeting cards and lighter images don’t work as well. Anne also suggested that the final greeting card should be printed on heavier cardstock such as 90-150 pound cardstock. For the demonstration, she opted to use a nice 150 pound, 8-1/2 x 11, “watercolor paper” that was smooth on one side and slightly roughened on the other side. The idea is to place the watercolor image on the rough side of the paper and use the smooth side for the interior of the card. Anne scanned a nice iris watercolor image and used one of many image processing programs to prepare the final layout for the card. In her case, she used Adobe Photoshop Album but there are many other image packages that would work as well. Once the image was prepared, she printed it on the rough side of the “watercolor paper” using a standard inkjet printer. The audience worked with Anne during this process and offered all sorts of opinions regarding the color balance, brightness, etc. Truly, audience participation! Once the image was printed, a discussion ensued as to how to attach the image to a card stock versus simply using the printed result itself. Charlotte Lloyd mentioned that she uses double-sided tape to attach such images to a backing. Anne uses a glue gun. Whatever works. It’s evident that the computer can be a great tool for making your own greeting cards. Thanks for the demo, Anne! For the second mini-program, Hugo Ehret then showed some photographs of the Creede area. Among other interesting photos, Hugo included a photo of the area where Alferd Packer was accused of cannibalizing several of his party. Alferd Packer lives in infamy to this day in Colorado and the CU dining hall is even named in his honor! Hugo then demonstrated the DeLorme Topo program. This program nicely illustrates the evolving sophistication of inexpensive ($50 or less) mapping programs that combine road maps with topo maps and other satellite images. In addition, ancillary information such as the locations of campgrounds, etc., may also be found in these programs. Now, you have no excuse to get lost because the programs can also be used to plan a route and then download the route’s waypoints to your GPS unit. Of course, if your batteries die … Judy Houston gave the third mini-session by showing off a bunch of interesting Tips & Tricks she learned from a tips and tricks that come out regularly from an interesting website called WorldStart.com. This is an interesting site that is loaded with all kinds of accessible tips and tricks on almost any computer subject you can imagine. Click here to view Judy’s notes and get further details. The meeting was then adjourned at 8:45pm.
Respectfully submitted,
February 2006 - GPS with Byron Prinzmetal EPICUG MEETING MINUTES 21 February 2006 Rm 210 Estes Park Public Library President Judy Houston opened the meeting at 7:01 PM. Treasurer Ray Sahm said we have an account balance of $799.68. Dues for 2006 are payable but not a requirement to attending meetings. Paid members are included in the e-mail list that circulates questions/answers; those who choose not to pay will get meeting announcements only. OUT OF CHRON ORDER ANNOUNCEMENT: Lee Lasson reminded all that DISIG (digital camera interest group) will meet this Thursday at 7 PM in this room. The speaker will be Marlon Stewart who teache multi-media at Front Range Community College/Westminster. He will speak about flash Micro-media technology. Judy asked for ideas of how to dispose of a client’s older laptop. Suggestions: donate to the Senior Center and take a tax deduction; donate to the Presbyterian Church that would use in their existing school. Program Chair Hugo Ehret introduced tonight’s speaker, BYRON PRINZMETAL, who gave an overview of global positioning systems (GPS). Byron warned he would not explain HOW to use the technology as it is involved. He does teach such courses over a 4-5 day period. Historically, GPS was started by the US Air Force with a system of 24 satellites as a means to track and guide planes. The technology opened up a bit as civilian signals were allowed. Increased accuracy today (of about 3 meters up and wide) is in part due to President Clinton allowing further decoding of the system. The Europeans are establishing their own set of satellites in a competitive action. A GPS is simply a computer and memory that determines where you are on earth. If moving, it will tell your speed and direction. Accuracy depends on how many signals it can detect, area geography (e.g., it can’t read through canyon wall, not very good in a forest). If you enter coordinates into its memory, the computer will calculate directions and distance. Signals are incoming only; GPS sends no signal back to a satellite. Byron feels the brand Magellan is better at picking up signals than the Garmin models. He warned to be careful when purchasing a GPS that you have the connections needed to hook into your own computer. Byron uses a GPS for hiking: it’s excellent for planning and mapping his routes. If to be used for hiking, a GPS w/o mapping software is useless. He demonstrated with his TOPO! map software. Some GPS have map software installed. These are generally accurate for road travel but not for hiking trails. There are many parameters when setting up: you have to select a coordinate system (he uses UTM); you must decide to use magnetic north or true north; you must be sure your parameters match between GPS/compass/computer. You can mark out a route on the computer map, download to the GPS and use it to navigate when on the ground. Conversely, you can mark points on the ground, download to your computer and have a mapping of your route later. Downside of GPS: they can break; batteries run down. For normal weather, alkaline batteries last 12-14 hours. If very cold, that usage lowers – bring extra batteries. Lithium batteries, while expensive, will last longer, especially in cold weather (approx 10 yr shelf life but 4 times the cost). Nickel cadmium rechargeable batteries are good for summer use. If you are reliant on the GPS – bring a back up; always pack extra batteries. Byron showed the many aspects of TOPO! Map software: you don’t have to deal with separate, expensive paper maps; you can draw routes, change colors, show elevation profiles. Various hiking routes on TOPO! can be stored and viewed on the National Geographic website for others to access. This program generated many questions/discussion on related topics: accuracy issues. auto GPS systems, products, raster vs bitmap technology. We saw many new faces turn out for this topic. Out thanks to Byron for a great and informative program! Suggested reading: Be Expert with Map & Compass, by Hellstrum; GPS Made Easy, by the Seattle Mountaineers. Meeting adjourned at 8:45 PM - Mary Scott, Sec'y
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:
Without nominations from the floor to force serious campaigning, we unanimously and thankfully elected the proposed slate of nominees for 2006:
And although not required to be elected, we unanimously voted in:
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 |
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