April Mtg. Canadian Antique Phonograph Society

 

Mike Bryant and Keith Wright brought many examples of antique hardware to our April meeting, all to which worked! Mike and Keith shared presentation duties, explaining how the very first, and subsequent sound recording devices, worked. These guys scored a 10+ with the audience.

March Meeting - Raspberry Pi

 

Tom Jakabfy (Past President) brought along his bare-bones, single board, computer - a Raspberry Pi - to demonstrated its capabilities. For under $50, Tom was able purchase and equip this tiny computer with any one of a number of Linux distros on SD cards. A USB dongle operated his mouse and keyboard. An Ethernet port and an HDMI out allowed him to demonstrate other apps downloaded to the same SD card. At home, he streams video content to a television. The recently released Model B (35 USD) doubles the RAM to 512MB. Full Story: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi

February Meeting - Windows8

Ali Suleiman, Product Advisor at the Yorkdale Shopping Centre's Microsoft Retail Store, provided a comprehensive overview of Windows 8. Several audience members brought along their newly acquired Windows8 devices and were able to try out his suggestions, on-the-spot. Members were also reassured that, despite the new Metro (tiled) interface, users could still perform all familiar Windows7 tasks -- even revert to the Windows7 interface.  Using his SurfaceRT tablet, Ali demonstrated some impressive free apps from the 'app store'. The most recent Surface table - the Pro - was unavailable, as the store has been sold out. (alsuleim AT microsoftstore.com)

PC Museum (Brantford) - January Meeting

A passionate technology enthusiast since childhood, Syd Bolton has built a fantastic computer museum at his home, with the help of volunteers and piles of donated equipment and software. And, he wants more donations, because the museum is planning to move to a larger space with the ability to create more working stations and storage space. Syd guided our audience through his central museum, his personal collections, and various non-public storage areas (shown below), via Skype on his iPad. Visit the Personal Computer Museum website for details and a free app: http://www.pcmuseum.ca/ The museum also rebuilds computers for donation to needy causes.

December 2012 Meeting - Gene Barlow of Acronis User Group Relations

Along with Gene Barlow's presentation regarding how to organize, protect and share file using Acronis True Image 2013, club members shared seasonal goodies during the break. Gene began his Skype presentation with examples of his hobby - photography - which depends on trustworthy back-ups of his files, along with a simple to understand user interface. His live demonstration while using his home computer worked flawlessly, and quickly. He also demonstrated a second application - Acronis Disk Director - a partition manager with individual partition recovery options.  Gene was able to offer club members a significant reduction in price for True Image 2013 and Disk Director 11 Home version, along with a free gift to all members - a free download of Acronis Drive Image Monitor. http://ugr.com

November Meeting - Edit a Short Movie and Add Special Effects

Anne - reading her script for chroma key demo

Anne Delong showed the process of creating a short movie suitable for Youtube from a variety of video, sound and still clips by using free software such as Virtual Dub and Wax 2.0. Some effects shown included green screen effects, picture-in-picture, titles/credits, transition effects, and multipel sound tracks. Anne described how YouTube treats video - making your video findable and in the right categories. Of course the videos do not have to be posted on YouTube. They can also be assembled into scenes on a DVD. The Chroma Key effect to make it seem as though you've been to exotic places!

October - Durham Radio with Lee McMurter

Lee demonstrated a variety of technologies for receiving not only over-the-air television, but systems for live GPS and chat while mobile (driving), and also able to recall weather and road speeds of other members on the network. Durham Radio stocks many types of radio receiving and transmitting equipment, including complete television reception kits. He also amazed our audience with some hard to find online resources showing maps of the various types of transmission towers, their directions, and their strengths.

New Postal Adress

In order to reduce costs, the Club has transferred its snail mail address to a UPS postal box. Mailings to the old club address will not be redirected by Canada Post to this new address. 
(The old address expires at the end of September, 2012).
Start using the new address, below, immediately.

Durham Personal Computer User's Club
PMB # 295 now # 110
27 - 1300 King St. East
 Oshawa, ON  L1H 8J4

September - Free Satellite TV - Dr. Sat

Serge Cormier (a.k.a. Dr. Sat) is aided by club president, John Sylvestervich and newlsetter editor, Alex Morrison, as he prepared for his live demonstration and presentation of free satellite dish reception. Serge recommended solutions for both C-band and KU-band, for which customers may save money by re-using an old, large dish, for some channels. The Dr. Sat website offers a wealth of information for equipping and setting up a dish system. A tool for discovering the proper angle for your site displays on a Google map. http://www.drsat.ca/ Dr. Sat also offers equipment for, and installations of, over-the-air antennas, pay satellite, internet, and phones.

August Mtg. - All About TV - Disconnect from Cable

Four of our club members "leaked" their "secrets" for cutting the cable. Bob and Ed described how to obtain Over-the-Air signals with a regular TV/antenna combo (Ed focussed on LINUX).
Alex uses a couple of satellite dishes to receive Free To Air signals.
John researched a number of Internet solutions for watching television shows on your computer.
For a further looks at their ideas, visit http://timetraces.ca/dpcuc/about_tv.htm. Here, you will find several PDF files, with slides for each presenter.