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Volume 21
January, 2003
Issue No. 01
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Regular Meeting
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Wednesday, January 15th. at 7:00 PM
Caseyville Township Bldg.
10001 Bunkum Rd.
Fairview Heights, IL
Directions:
Map: |
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Board
Meeting
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Wednesday, February 5th
Ryan's Steakhouse
Fairview Heights, IL
The meals starts about 6:00. The meeting starts at 7:00
Everyone is welcome |
This
Meeting |
Our first demo of the year will be "An Introduction
to digital photography". This will probably be a three part demo.
Part 1. will cover
Camera features and their meaning.
Camera comparisons.
Batteries and their importance.
Use that new camera you got for Christmas.
Taking better pictures .
Making adjustments to pictures to correct images.
Printing pictures.
We
will also demonstrate several simple photo editing programs
and comparing the results.
We have a CD for this demo that contains all of the
text, and programs we will be using. While these programs are
simple, and easy to use, they can do impressive things.
Remember we also have an existing Digital Photography
Tutorial on CD that goes into great detail about to many
subjects to even list.
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Next
Meeting |
Part 2 "Intermediate digital
photography" will cover Making better
photos with advance photo
editing techniques and software.
We will have Photo Shop 7.0 trial edition available as well
as several other great programs. There will also be several
detailed tutorials on photo editing. Part 3.
Will be about things to do with your digital camera and
photos.
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CHRISTMAS
/ HOLIDAY PARTY WAS FUN
For
those of you who chose to skip the December meeting to see the
opening night of The Lord of The Rings, you missed a great
time. We had tons of food for everyone, Christmas Music, Free
CD’s, Big Raffle Prizes and a great slide show with pictures
of everyone. Most of all, we had our families and friends to
share a meal with… Overall, we had about 80-90 people if I
calculated correctly. It
was a great success thanks to everyone that pitched in and had
fun…
I
hope everyone that attended had a great time, and I also hope
that the next LOTR movie doesn’t open on the same night as
our next Christmas Party because I want to see it on opening
night too.
BY-LAWS…
ANYONE ???
A
lot of our January Board meeting was focused on the fact that
we are growing steadily, and we really need to have a
Constitution and By-Laws to make sure that everyone knows the
rules. The By-Laws also insure that we are all protected
legally. We actually were talking about forming a committee and
doing a lot of stuff that sounded like work. Here is a little
history and a little more recent news that shows how much I
want to avoid forming a committee and doing formal
activities…
When
I took over the Presidency, about 10 years ago, the meeting
were dull and boring. I wanted to change pretty much everything
the club was doing. I did, and we started having fun. After
years of growth and continued success, more and more members
were asking what that line at the bottom of the sign-up sheet
was about. We continually assured them that we had rules,
but nobody knew where they were. Life was good…
Well,
after a lot of going in circles at the board meeting, I had a
nagging feeling that I actually had a copy of the rules
somewhere, if only I could find them to avoid chaos of forming
a committee and hashing out new By-Laws. Creating new By-Laws
are extremely boring, and it tends to get people fired up. I
actually yelled at the last board meeting and had to subdue a
few of the Board members to avoid a Robert’s Rules of Order
argument. (OK, I didn’t really subdue anyone, but I did yell
a couple times.).
I
decided I would have to actually do some work. I dug through a
few different places and then, all of a sudden, I found the GCC
Constitution and By-Laws in my fire safe right underneath my
Marriage License and my old Tax return from 1992. I yelled, and
my wife thought I won the lottery. She was a little let down
when I told her I was just happy to have avoided the
Watergate-like era of the GCC that would have been the process
to form a new Constitution and By-Laws. I also found the Tax
Exempt Form for the club.
I
scanning everything and sent it to the board members last
night. I also sent copies to Leonard to post in this months
newsletter. Copies
of the existing By-Laws are available here: Page
1, Page
2, Page
3.
Unfortunately, all of you that signed the sheet without asking
about the By-Laws are now going to be forced to turnover your
homes and your most expensive car to the club for a private
auction to raise funds for the Board Members to use as we
please. You shouldn’t have signed that sheet….
Now
we’ll most likely have to actually follow some of the rules
and Carlos will be happy… I will say this…. If they make
the club boring again, it’s not my fault…
P.S.
I just read the Duties of the Officers and Carlos is NOT going
to be happy…
DIGITAL
PHOTOGRAPHY DEMO
Leonard
Hill, our newsletter editor was sick and missed the last Board
Meeting so we voted to have him do the demo this month. We
picked the subject of Digital Photography and gave him one week
to prepare. Actually, we called him, put him on speakerphone,
where he graciously agreed to do the demo. While it may have
been the cold medicine that made him accept, we decided not
investigate any further. Leonard is very good at putting
together demonstrations, and I’m sure this one will be just a
good as the last few he has done. Thanks Leonard….
See
you at the meeting …
Mike
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During the December general membership meeting, there was no official meeting due to
"lack of interest". So we dispensed with the official minutes.
Everyone wanted to eat and enjoy the
presentation made by Bill Borda, our club Librarian.
"Unofficially", everyone had a good time.
The following is a list of the 29 new members who join during December
of 2002:
Timothy E. Strawn, Alton, IL
Michael Musser, Fairview Heights, IL
Sharon LaRue, Clarksville, MO
Robert Converse, Troy, IL
Ryan/Jill Wetzel, Evansville, IL
Richard A. Nicholson, Barnhart, MO
Charlie Brown, Belleville, IL
Elwood Glasper, Ava, IL
Emmett Glasper, East St. Louis, IL
Ralph Tyler, St. Louis, MO
Georgena Kolstad, Mitchell, IL
Robert L. Pulley, Belleville, IL
Ronald Smith, Cahokia, IL
John C. Engelmeyer, Middle Brook, MO
William/Sue Ressler, Godfrey, IL
Fred W. Buenger, St. Louis, Mo.
Greg Smith, Arnold, Mo.
Dennis L. Otten, Barnhart, MO.
Dave Brown, St. Charles, MO.
Tony Roche, St. Peters, MO.
James W. Timper, Belleville, IL.
Dennis Kandis Graham, Chesterfield, MO.
Paul Sforza, Belleville, IL.
Eugene W. Moran, Cottage Hills, IL.
Todd Kuhlman, Shiloh, IL.
Rob Lee, St. Louis, MO.
Abbie L. Phillips, St. Louis, MO.
Linda Calmese, Belleville, IL.
Ruby Jewell Ingram, East St. Louis, IL.
All the new members will be officially welcomed during our January 2003 regular membership meeting.
Till then,
Your Pen Slave
Carlos
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Website Changes
Well, we finally made the changes to the
website that have been discussing during the Board meetings. Don't worry all of the information is still there. In
fact we added quite a bit more. The old front page of the website
was aimed at attracting new members. Since most of our new
members come from working the computer show and friends of
members, we decided to change the front page, and make it support our
existing members better. Now you can
get the latest breaking computer news, highlights, and
technical tips as the occur. You no longer have to wait for the
newsletter or go searching for them your self. Just check out
the club's website.
Don't forget, you can use the "New Member"
section to learn more about the club, it's website, and how to
solve the
Membership Problems like correcting your email address,
correcting your mailing
address, or updating your badge.
If you have an item that you think would be
good for the information section of the front page, just send it to the Newsletter Editor. CLICK
HERE to do that.
Website
usage Our
website is getting quite a bit of use lately. A
review of the statistics shows that our "Special and Sales"
section is particularly busy followed closely by our
"Newsletter". The "Special and Sales" section got hit
especially hard right before Christmas. There was also a lot of
internal site traffic directed at the Video Capture CD. Maybe a dozen or
so members got capture cards for Christmas? If you did not get
a capture card, I hope you got something nice. I got some
shirts, well at least it was not another sweater. It
also appears that we a picking up some traffic from Google's and
Microsoft's search engines. Most of the traffic, however, comes
from our members, most of whom are using Microsoft MSN explorer
version 6 or 8. The following links will show you some of
the statistics that are collected. Overall
Summary Referrer
Totals Referrer
Websites. I'm
hoping that the changes we made to the website will make the site even
more popular.
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Mitch's column is a bit different this time, that's because I
(the editor) wrote it. It seems that Mitch has had a bit of
misfortune. No, nothing serious like last years fire, or the
time the laptop fell off the roof of the car. This time his
hard drives crashed. The main boot drive, with all his software
and email is totally dead. Now Mitch is very careful computer
user, and he has a complete backup system. The problem
is, the backup drive will not boot. It just goes to show, that
no matter what you do, computer things are going to go
bad.
Next time you see Mitch, ask him what else Murphy gave him
for Christmas.
The last email bouncing back and forth between Chuck and Mitch
before....contained a link to a lot
of free games. These game are either Java, FLASH, or Shockwave
based. They don't load your system up with a lot of junk. There
cute, fast, and of course FREE. I wish I knew about this last
month, because I could have put "Santa's Snowballs"
on the Christmas CD. Click anywhere in the blue box below to
visit the site, enjoy the games, and pray for Mitch's hard
drives:
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Later,
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Good new GCC members....
We have three new CD's this month. The guys have been busy.
1. We have the video of the demo on Excel. This is the first
one produced with the club's new digital camera.
2. We have an after Christmas CD titled "A Naughty
Christmas". This one is for mature adults only. There is
something here to offend everyone. you
have been warned.
Here
is the link to the menu. For your protection, non of
the links on this preview work.
3. This months demo CD is called "An introduction to
digital photography". This CD contains a lot of
information and programs for digital camera users. We will have
a link up shortly showing the contents of the disk. I
understand it is not finished yet, but the contents will be
posted late Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning. Here
is the LINK to where it will be.
We still have copies of the Christmas 2002 CD available.
This CD is rated G. It has lots of fun things for kids and
adults too. Here
is a link to what is on this CD.
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This has been a very busy month. Two new CD's, 30 new members
to input into the data base, 154 post cards were sent, the
newsletter, and sick for a week to boot.
Oh I forgot the website changes and the Christmas Party photos.
I have also broke my one and only New Years resolution. Don't
miss board meetings. And I have already received my punishment
for that transgression. I got signed up for the demo. Actually
three demos.
Happily there is a little justice in the world. Mike emailed
me the club's by-laws, at the last minute of course, so I could
post them here for you. I know he also expected me to make
copies and bring them to the meeting. The nice part is, he has
the club's printer, scanner, and copier. So be sure and ask
Mike for a printed copy.
OK for some serious business....
1. The new website format has reduced the amount of
information that is normally in the "Miscellaneous"
section of the newsletter. That makes the newsletter much
shorter and improves the timely delivery of information. Dialup
users should also appreciate the reduced download time.
2. I used the Christmas Party photos to give you a short
preview on one small part of the scheduled demo. Take a look a
the last two photos. We will show you how to improve your
photos. The program that did this is on the demo CD. Now all I
have to do is get it finished by Wednesday. Maybe the forecasted
snow will be deep, and I can stay home. Mike! What is the
"snow leave" policy in the old By-Laws?
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Miscellaneous
Things Of Interest And
Importance To Someone |
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Christmas Party
We had a great party. A lot of members showed up
with their family and / or significant others. We had plenty to eat
and a lot of good fellowship. Bill made a excellent Power Point
presentation which ran during the whole meeting. It which was enjoyed by
many. Incidentally that presentation is on the Christmas 2002 CD
[second item from the bottom]. Clicking on the above link will
take you to a thumbnail table of pictures taken at the party. Click
on any image to enlarge. You can see who was there, and the fun we
had. If you were not there, check out the buffet and raffle
tables and see
what you missed.
Take a good look at the
quality of these photos. See the difference between the what was
taken and what was ENHANCED.........We will show you how to do
this at the demo.
Having
trouble displaying a video file
Do you have video files that will not play? Do
you know how to find out why they will not play? Well there is a free program called Gspot
that will help solve these problems. It will tell you what Codecs
are need (video and audio). It will tell you if they are
installed on your computer, and it will tell you if the file you
are trying to view is
valid. All of this for FREE.
More
information about Gspot Screen
Shoot download
8
email mistakes to avoid
by Kim Komando
Here are eight easily avoidable mistakes you should know about to keep your image and inbox in tip-top shape.
USB,
Firewire, and Bluetooth explained
by Kim Komando
So, you got that new computer up and running. Now you're looking at all the wondrous things you could add to it--digital cameras, music players, printers, memory card readers, wireless keyboards and mice, to name a few. Unfortunately, the boxes tell you to hook it up with USB 2.0, or Firewire, or, maybe even, Bluetooth.
What are they?
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The celebration!
The fist baby of the year arrives.
It's a?
If
you have something you want to share, just send it to me
or catch me at a meeting. |
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