March 2008
The meeting was called to order at 7:30 P.M. by President Chuck Horner. He reminded everyone to sign the roster, to turn off their ringing and buzzing devices. Then he welcomed new members.
Chuck also noted the Spring quarter special on fees offered by Hayward Adult school. For this quarter, the fee for taking any number of classes is $50. Compared to the private sector, this is a significant bargain.
SIG Announcements:
The Hardware SIG will meet tomorrow night at the Smiths starting at 8 P.M. Call them if you need directions. Bring hardware and manuals.
The Palm SIG meets in this same building on the third Monday of March. They will be looking at new devices and trends.
Bud Gallagher is putting the New User SIG on hiatus for a couple of months.
The Spectacular Linux SIG meets on the last Saturday of the month. They are back to the Mandriva distribution, which Jan will be using at the Linux New User class.
Other Announcements:
Bruce would like to retire as the coordinator of programs. Volunteers are solicited.
The APCUG Southwest Regional Conference will take place in San Diego May 30th to June 1st. See the March Newsletter for the rules necessary to enter the PCC photo contest, which will feed into the Southwest Regional photo contest, or ask Diane George.
Presentation:
Andy Marken noted that Circuit City is offering really inexpensive HD players. These will enhance the play quality of your DVDs.
Andy then proceeded to show us a variety of fun things. CrazyTalk 5 is a program that allows the user to animate any picture and add voice files. This option is particularly attractive to animal owners, who are reported to enjoy making Fido and Fluffy say silly things. You can use it with any video source, not just a computer.
VideoSpin is a ‘lite’ version of Pinnacle Studio 11 video editor. The cost is: free. The only limitations are that you can’t burn DVD or mp3, because of the cost of those codecs. It provides an easy, fast, supported introduction to video editing. Find it at www.videospin.com. Andy brought 10 free copies for distribution to attendees.
Storage and storage media: the amount of content increased by a factor of 6 last year. People are likely to download a second copy of a file rather than take the time for search for it on their system. Data files can be replaced, though it may be a pain. Photos can’t be replaced. Storage is now very inexpensive and security is also inexpensive and easily available.
Nine months ago Verbatim bought SmartDisk, adding a variety of inexpensive storage formats to their repertoire.
Andy thinks Toshiba did well by giving up the HD battle and refocusing on what they do well: storage media. He thinks it will take 5 to 7 years to get Blue-ray media below a dollar.
After the Break:
Chuck’s Tip: Take Robert Council’s class at Hayward Adult School for self-paced instruction in Microsoft Office applications.
Meeting Adjourned:
The meeting was adjourned at 9:04 P.M.
The next meeting will take place at the same location on April 4, 2008.
