Next Mtg. - Thurs. Dec. 10 at 7 p.m.

Click to expand.

Home Automation - motion sensing, timed events, smart phone monitoring and control of "things" - amazing! http://twistatech.wix.com/twista-tech-systems

November 12 - Home Automation

October 2015 - Drive Bender and Tesla Car

Jason Arneaud uses Drive Bender to create an array of media server drives... all acting as a single drive, with redundancy, and which saves in the NTSF file format common to Windows.
He also made his Tesla car available for inspection by club members, following a highly active Q&A.

Drive Bender and Tesla Car for October 8, 2015 Meeting

This'll be a double header - both NAS (network attached storage) methods and a REAL TESLA (all electric car) in the parking lot for a demo. Sorry, no test drives!

DriveBender
Alternatives (Windows Storage Spaces, PoolHD, SnapRAID/FlexRAID, Hardware RAID)
Build - how to
Hard Drives & SATA cards
Un-interruptible Power Supplies
Configuration and Usage
Dashboard, File Duplication and Validation, File Balancing, Monitoring and Alerting, SMART alerts
Adding a Drive, Swapping a drive.
Caveats & Restrictions

Tesla Talk:

Features of the Tesla:
Driving Experience
Purchase Procedure:
Show & Tell in Parking Lot – ( break)

September Mtg. with Oshawa's Canada Computers Staff

Dan, Dan and Victor (manager), each with special roles to play in the Oshawa Canada Computers store, covered a lot of territory as they discussed:

• Windows 10, with a live demo a touch laptop, along with a lot of advise for upgrading from Win8.1/7
• New AC Routers-why you might need one, latest features
• Android Tv, featuring Kodi live tv (Dan on left presented)
• What is new in NAS storage
• Other store Services

Dan Saywell (middle) developed and narrated a presentation packed with useful information... all clearly explained during the talk, and in the Q&A during and after the talk. 

August Mtg. - Maker for Kids with Allison Evans

Allison offers Maker Junior lessons and workshops designed to encourage discovery learning with respect to electrical devices, circuits along with mechanical integration and construction of imaginative and playful  solutions. Although our Skype connection dropped out several times, Allison soldiered on with most of her talk, and she answered a number of questions from the audience. Her Educator Pack Kits, for learning at home or in a class, are not expensive.

http://makerjunior.com/

July Mtg. - Windows 10 with Lloyd Lindsay

Lloyd Lindsay (left) - After resolving a few technical issues, Lloyd was up and running.

A few of our members had already tried Windows 10, before the official release version. Cortana (voice search) was impressive. The hybrid interface (mix of Win7 and Win 8.1) is much better. Most of us will wait for a while, even after the July 29th release, before updating from Win7/8 to Win10.

Big Scary - June Mtg

BIGSCARY
Jason Dasti, York Region Student Nutrition Program Coordinator, showcased the 1949 Chevy Grumman Olson van. It has a powerful sound system installed that came from the IMAX theater and some automated computer controllers to control the LED lighting strips which is activated by the sound systems bass. Here are a few videos from our YouTube Channel to describe the vehicle.

https://youtu.be/X8E-3muufDY

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Assistive Communication Aids - May Meeting

Ray Feraday teaches in a classroom with many special needs students. He, and his students, have built speaking aids for some students who are unable to talk, using Raspberry Pi computers and associated signal sensing hardware, including home-made conductive touch boards. The cost for such aids is minimal, compared to commercial products. They also function better, because the devices are tailored to the abilities and needs of each student. A few of his students are also able to write code for such devices, and for personal games.

Radio Controlled (RC) flying - April Mtg.

Ralph Trauzzi, of the Oshawa RC Flying Club, brought several of his own models and remote control systems. His largest, and most expensive model, is equipped with a jet engine. Much of his flying, including indoor events, is accomplished with battery powered models. He extends the life batteries by using computer software to control and monitor the charging rate.

Android TV boxes with Scott Taylor - March Meeting

Scott Taylor (Artshack) showed how to set up an Android TV box straight out of its retail packaging. He then demonstrated a fairly complex configuration process, followed by streaming of Netflix content, and some URLs for schedules and and extensive variety of content.

How Computers Have Impacted Ham Radio - Feb 2015 Mtg.

Alexander Keller - VE3ZSH - of the North Shore Amateur Radio Club (ve3zsh@nycroth.com) described the many new options available to HAM radio fans, for simply listening to broadcasts and for transmitting (which requires a license). The field has advanced so far that HAM operation may be carried out on mobile devices (smart phones, et al), including Skype-like transmissions. And, much of the free software is Linux friendly.

Topics covered: Remote Stations, Software Defined Radio, Digital Modes, Packet Radio, Automatic Packet Reporting System, Echolink, Amateur Satellite, Software To Try, Fun Without A Licence, and Getting Your Ticket?

Alexander also included an extensive list of helpful links, which may be included in an upcoming newsletter (available more immediately to club members).

LED Technology and Video Upscaling - Jan 2015 Mtg.

David Swain's "double-feature" presentation included an in-depth explanation of LED technology for home and auto, as well as coverage of his experience using the iScan-Mini (pictured), a device for improving the resolution of video signals from a variety of sources, to match the picture quality of any receiving LED or plasma television set. http://www.dvdo.com/iScanMini/