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2007 Monthly Meeting Notes
2007 Meeting Minutes and Notes January 2007: Reps from Best Buy & Elections EPICUG MEETING MINUTES 16 January 2007 Hondius Room Estes Park Public Library Pres Judy opened the meeting after a brief delay as we awaited the Best Buy (Ft Collins store) team, at 7:10 PM. We had a good turn out for the Best Buy reps…annual officer election…and a surprise. Outgoing treasurer Ray gave his final report: $1,055.35 sits in our money market account and has silently gained 61 cents in interest – only the beginning! Dues for calendar year 2007 are rolling in. You need not be a paying member to enjoy the monthly meetings and receive meeting notices. EPICUG’s new year is off to a wonderful start: in the surprise/”old business” department, Lee reviewed how EPICUG treasury funded a computer for our friend and local student, Owen Kent, three years ago. Time marched on, Owen made excellent use of the equipment for his video and other projects…and, simply, his machine wore out. At the perfect moment the Best Buy team came in to participate in the event: giving credit to Richard Junghans, Best Buy, and this club, Lee presented a brand new computer to Owen this evening. Owen is the proud recipient of an HP Pavilion Media Center with Intel Core Two duo and has Vista capability and one year warranty. A coupon accompanied that will allow a free upgrade to Vista when the product is released to market on January 30th. And it is no surprise that members Lee Lasson and Mike Molloy will donate their time and considerable expertise to get this new equipment up and running and assist Owen in transferring files. Owen’s gracious words and his father’s (Harry Kent) summary were moving to all – a tribute to the importance of community. We hope EPICUG will focus on more outreach opportunities in the future. It really works to benefit all of us. Thanks to Richard, Best Buy, Lee, Mike and to those who made additional donations for this achievement. The 3 Best Buy reps were given the floor with their website scrolling through in the big screen as backdrop. Mary spoke briefly about Best Buy’s “Viewpoint Committee” that was set up to help people in need. Currently there are some high school scholarships still available; some scholarships for schools to improve technology capability, and Best Buy is willing to help with grants. More info is available online. Matt Webster is a Best Buy “Business Technology Professional” trained to help small businesses. He said although Best Buy is the largest retailer of electronics in the world, its focus is on service. All sales people are non-commissioned. Their job is to find the right solution for you, and in so doing, keep you as a valued customer. Matt gave a very good sales pitch about Best Buy…heck…I was ready to march in the door and search for my new computer…he was good! Matt fielded questions about the soon-to-be-released Vista OS from Microsoft and described the 4 different levels to be available (Basic – for simple internet, e-mail, word processing; Premium – for home use with video, music and picture capability; Business – like XP Pro for private networks, lacks the array of entertainment items; Ultimate – for does all). This was a brief but info filled sales talk. The team departed and we moved on to remaining business. Mike Molloy is in the limelight as we all got to see a copy of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, weekend issue of Jan 12-14…PAGE ONE…an article and picture of Mike detailing his famous website: acronymfinder.com . We are all basking in the glow of our newest famous local! Congratulations to Mike! The election returns are in! Here’s the line up for Yr 2007 each having received a unanimous vote and a big sigh of relief. Thanks to all the new officers…we have an exciting year ahead! President Judy Houston V-President Richard Junghans Secretary Elizabeth Repola (welcome back!!) Treasurer Ann Ehret Programs David Born Judy Houston wrapped up the evening by giving a brief intro to MySpace.com. While MySpace has some good and entertaining uses, it also has been the source of potential danger as some kids and teens have simply posted too much info about themselves. Elizabeth added some of the downside information and that parents need to closely monitor what their children do on the internet. The floor was opened to members’ general computer questions; the meeting adjourned about 8:30 PM. This secretary now turns over the keyboard to Elizabeth, who will do a fantastic job! Mary Scott, Sec’y
February 2007: Google Grab Bag with Mike Molloy, Mountain Data Systems EPICUG MEETING MINUTES 20 February 2007 Hondius Room Estes Park Public Library No president, no vice-pres, no secretary, but Lee stepped up to lead us through some brief business starting promptly at 7 pm. Anne gave a complete treasurer’s report ($863.96 current balance); Lee announced DISIG (Digital Imaging Special Interest Group) meets this Thursday, 7 PM, Hondius Room. Toni Wedrick from the Trail Gazette, and who has a new, personal webpage ( www.RockyCamera.com ) to showcase his photography, will be talking about his experience, photoshop, etc. Don’t miss this! What an exciting and information-packed presentation Mike Molloy gave this evening! The whirlwind tour of new features from the Googleplex kept us riveted and in awe right up to library closing time. To reference the outline, go to Mike’s site at www.mtnds.com/google2.htm. Fair warning - you will get lost in time checking out all the fun and exciting features! In addition to the newest offers, there is a link to the first presentation Mike gave in November, 2005. We saw that by typing into the search box on the Google search homepage you can have at your fingertips: a dictionary, calculator, currency exchange calculator, facts, package tracking through FedEx, Ups, USPS, DHL, airline flight status. Mike showed us how Google’s calendar under the e-mail service is far advanced over others: by layover technique, you can see a calendar made by another Gmail user(s) to show one calendar with several peoples’ input (e.g., a family calendar). He quickly took us through the free homepage feature, picasa (photo albums), creating a blog page, setting up Google alerts (like a clipping service for subjects), – and so much more. You owe it to yourself to check out this site and play with the list of features. We were all amazed and impressed by what Google offers. Thanks, Mike for this fabulous tour! Me thinks we will have to have another evening to go through additional items that time did not allow. Meeting adjourned at 8:50 PM. Mary Scott, Secretary pro-tem March 2007: Mac Meets PC
EPICUG
Lee Lasson opened the meeting for Judy Houston
as she was unable to attend. Richard Junghans, VP of EPICUG was also not able to
attend. Ten members attended the meeting. Lee demonstrated an Apple Intel Mac that was able to boot Windows XP; Both Apple and Windows XP resided on the machine. He downloaded Boot Camp (beta) from Apple that allows for a Windows XP partition and created 30 GB partition and installed Windows XP in that partition. The virtual machine software application Lee used is called Parallel Desktop for Mac software ($79). This software allows applications from different OS to run in parallel. You can have Windows XP as well as the Apple OS on the same machine. Lee demonstrated some of the possibilities of virtualization. You might want to use Mac features, and then also have your Microsoft applications available. You can do this by running Parallels under Mac OSX with a virtual machine running Windows XP You can take a document from the Mac and drop it onto the PC desktop and visa versa when Parallels Tools are installed.
Lee demonstrated the Vista OS on the Mac. The
new interface from Vista has many new features. For example, My Computer, is now
called Computer. E-mails can send pictures and you pick the size. Outlook
Express no longer exists, it’s now called Windows mail. April 2007: Simplifying your computer life EPICUG 20 March 2007 Hondius Room Estes Park Public Library President Judy Houston opened the meeting at 7:00. Fourteen people attended the meeting. Anne Ehret gave the treasures report. Last month $24.00 was collected in dues. Current balance of the organization is $925.96. Judy explained how membership works. You don’t have to be a member to attend the meetings. If you do want to join the dues are $12 per year. If you are a member, you receive announcement list for meetings, and you can access the member list to ask questions for feedback. Introductions of the individuals of the group were made. Announcements: Lee Lasson talked about the special interest group that meets the fourth Thursday of the Month. This month they will be having a MAC user group. The meeting is scheduled for April 26th in the Hondius Room. Additionally, Lee suggested that everyone take a look at the 18 new computers upstairs in the library. The library has done a great job in creating this resource for this town, Dave introduced the program and talked about the website Judy’s will present to the group. May 2007: Computer Tips Meeting started at 7:15 with introductions The Digital Imaging group will not be holding a meeting in May. David Born distributed a questionnaire so that he can schedule programs that the members of EPICUG are interested in. He will also be contacting members by e-mail. Treasurer's report: $24 was collected in dues last month. Total assets: $973.96 Judy requested that Anne check with other banks about their check cashing fees. US Bank currently charges $1 per check transaction. Anne will report next month. Judy then shared with the group her computer tips. President
Judy Houston Meeting
adjourned at 8:50 June 2007: Networking Computers Meeting started at 7:15 with introductions. There were 11 people in attendance. Lee announced that the Digital Imaging Group will not be meeting in June, but the MAC user group will meet the first Thursday of every month in the Wasson room in the library. There were 4 MAC users present at the June meeting. The treasurer's report was that no new money came in or went out, so the total is $973.96 as it was the month before and will be in July. After the US Bank charged us $2.00/ check, Ann surveyed the banks in the area, as well as the Boulder Credit Union and they all claim we should have free checking. Ann called the US Bank where our account is and told them, that their check cashing fees were steep. They put me on an 800 number to check into the matter, but seem to believe we are a business and I turned to the web after the 800 number told me there would be a 10 minute wait. The web site lists all sorts of personal checking accounts, but no business types, and claim they are dependent upon locality. The upshot was Don Widrig who had dealt with the US Bank for the Duck Race said he will talk to Mimi about our account there. Ann did update this information and the bank has agreed that our checking will be free. Dick Junghans asked what the membership would think about a courtesy ad line for Best Buy on our website, after they had been so good to us in getting Owen a computer. The consensus was the courtesy ad line suggestion should be sent to members over the internet, and a vote on the issue taken next month. He also said he could get a Best Buy computer expert for a talk. The thinking was the possible talk should be postponed until fall when the meeting attendance was higher. Lee and Judy presented a program on networking among a few computers, printer and the Internet. Issues of security were raised, particularly for wireless internet connections. Dick Junghans is in charge of the July meeting because Judy will be out of town.
President Judy Houston Meeting adjourned at 8:50 July 2007: iPhone Meeting started at 7:15 with introductions. There were 10 people in attendance. Elizabeth Repola opened the meeting by welcoming members and out-of-town guests. Lee Lasson presented the new iphone. Lee had purchased an iphone in Boulder the day it was released. President Judy
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