April 9 mtg. - GOOGLE Night - Part I

Five club members presented an overview of many Google features - leaving a goodly number of Google possibilities still untouched. For this reason, we may follow up with a presentation of the remaining items at a future meeting - a GOOGLE Night Part II.

Gizmos and Gadgets Technology Expo - Oshawa

Promoting our club - several members at the Gizmos and Gadgets Technology Expo, Oshawa Public Library - March 24, 2009. Visitors were shown digital imaging, tablet computing, the Linux operating system, Vista, and music recording software.

During one of the break-out sessions, we demonstrated the use of web cameras for Skype video and voice communication, as well as direct voice calls (with Skype) to landlines from a home computer.

March Mtg. - Tax Software & Skype

Krista Sylvestervich and Sebastian Reisch present UFile and Quick Tax, for comparison of these two excellent tax preparation applications.

We video conferenced with club member, Mike Roche, while he was vacationing in Myrtle Beach.

[Photos by Ron Locke]

February Mtg.- Windows 7 with The Computer Mechanics

Les Shaw and Deb Cormier [The Computer Mechanics] after their presentation - an overview of Windows 7 beta. And, thanks again for providing many of the answers during our following Bug Session.

Jan. 2009 Meeting - Digital Photography Manipulation - Free Software

Free, digital photo manipulation and online web album programs: Windows Movie Maker, Photo Story 3, Picasa3, Flickr, PhotoScape, FastStone, PhotoMeister, PhotoFiltre, Pain.NET, XnView, Cam2PC, PhotoEditor!, and more - presented by Dave and Dan.

Session notes: http://timetraces.ca/digital_camera

[The January 16th Toronto power outage has crippled the above site for the duration.]

Club photos by Ron Locke on Picasa.

Dec 11 - eBay, Santa, and Christmas Treats

Bob Bell, a frequent eBay user, provided tips for buyers and sellers, noting a number of pitfalls to avoid.



On behalf of the Club, Santa presented gifts to volunteers.



And we enjoyed seasonal treats, and warm apple cider during the break.

November 13 - Green Computing

Joe Raby of PC Components Canada, Bowmanville, described how today's computers and components require less power and are becoming more recyclable.

October 9 Meeting - D-Link

A presentation by Adam Arruda, a Consumer Product Specialist with D-Link, covering the different technologies available in the D-Link Routers as well as some of the new technologies released to the consumer market in 2008 (i.e. NAS and IP Cameras).

Also, Ed demonstrated his installation of Mandriva on a loaner PC he offers to club members - to become more familiar with Linux.

Microsoft Home Server and Creating Your Digital Home - September Meeting

 Jacqueline Hutchinson (MVP), led her audience through the steps she took while performing a fresh install of Microsoft Home Server in her home, following by a live demonstration of features like, media streaming, computer backups, network health, guest accounts, and remote access. Two lucky members won personal copies of Windows Home Server.

Jonathan Weston - Current Technology Update - June 12

Jonathan Weston, of ComputersPlus inWhitby, not only provided members with an excellent slide presentation, he also brought many samples of the "latest and greatest" hardware items from his store. Do we need to keep up? What will it cost to do so? He had all the answers.

• eeePC - only 2 pounds and about $400 (flash hard drive)
• Processors – How many cores are enough? Will AMD ever catch Intel?
• Memory – Do I need to upgrade to DDR3 memory? No! Not yet!
• Video Cards – The battle continues to see who is fastest…Nvidia or ATI
• Motherboard - most bang for the buck
• LCD Screens - mmmm - 24" Samsung!
• Peripherals - what's popular?
  

Dave Swain read a wonderful bedtime story, courtesy of Microsoft - "Why is There a Server in Our House?"

For more photos, see Ron's album.