Meeting Minutes Cary Senior Computer Club 04/14/2011 The meeting was called to order at 1:30 PM by president Jim Burcsu Attendance The officers present were Jim Burcsu, John Fitzpatrick, Ron Obremski, & Richard Loats. In addition there were 10 members and 1 visitor present. Treasures Report Ron Obremski reported a balance of $ 1,342.27 Old Business Minutes of last meeting were approved by voice vote. New Business May is election time (2 year term) Len Mercer, a member of the nominating committee along with George Harrision, read off a list of prospective officers that had indicated they would be willing to serve if elected. The list is as follows: President-Richard Loats; Vice President- John Fitzpatrick; Treasure- Ron Obremski; Secretary- Roberta Lumsdon, There were no new nominations from the floor.. The slate of prospective officers was approved by voice vote. Be ready to vote at the May meeting. If you noticed that George Harrison was absent from the meeting it is because he suddenly moved to Atlanta, GA. If you were lucky enough to have selected a USB flash drive (prize) at a previous meeting, you may have had a surprise when you tried to use it. It did not work. These drives were designed for a specific computer program and did not work as a standalone drive. Those who selected the drive can exchange them The W3C committee has proposed a new global standard for opting out of marketing tracking. Read up on the new proposed standards and if you have strong feeling one way or the other, let the W3C (or a member of the US congress) know of your feelings. Roberta Lumsdon has a list of cameras and accessories for sale There is a new long term support release of Ubuntu coming out before the May meeting. John Fitzpatrick will give a review of this new release Program John Fitzpatrick gave a very informative presentation on Using Google Docs for making presentations. John's presentation slides can be found on the club's web site (Links) It should be noted that John has been a very frequent program presenter (like at almost every meeting) and has done a very fine job also (practice makes perfect). HOWEVER, he could use a little help. If you have a topic that you would like to present, let John know (I'm sure he could fit it into the schedule). Hint: Maybe that is what the April program topic was about. Door Prizes 1: Netgear - Frank Hicky 2: BookGem - Jim Burcsu 3: All in one card reader - John Fitzpatrick 4: Microsoft LifeCam - Dick English (replacement for non working flash drive) The meeting was adjourned at 3:30 pm Coffee was provided by the Senior Center Staff Delicious cookies were provided by Jim (prepared by his wife Sue) Thank you so much Sue. Submitted by: Richard K. Loats, Sr. Club Secretary ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Meeting Minutes Cary Senior Computer Club 03/10/2011 The meeting was called to order at 1:30 PM by President, Jim Burcsu Attendance The officers present were Jim Burcsu, John Fitzpatrick & Richard Loats. In addition there were 11 members and 2 visitors present (Bill Ruggirello and Frank Hickey). Frank is now a member. Treasures Report Although Ron Obremski was traveling, he reported a balance of $1,370.66 Old Business Minutes of last meeting were approved by voice vote. New Business March 22 is the annual senior health fair at the Senior Center On 4/27/12 John Fitzpatrick will be giving a class on e-books and e-book readers (already filled up). John is looking for information about caliber and how to import books from Amazon. John will be using many of the same slides that he used in his presentation to the club several months ago. The slides still can be found on the club’s web site (http://sites.google.com/site/caryseniorcomputerclub/Home) under “Links” Sue Burcsu sent a thank you card for the monetary gift which she received from the club last month. Are the programs on your computer up to date? Try using FileHippo. This program will search your hard disk for all your programs, attempt to find links to them on the web and determine whether they need updating (available for Mac and Windows) How many of your web browser’s favorites are actually valid URLs? AM-Deadink will validate each favorite and display whether the link is valid or not. Invalid links can be removed with just a click of the mouse. Note: This program will only work on Windows. Tired of viewing or printing a web page and getting several pages of unwanted advertising. Readability.com will transfer a busy web side to a more readable article with no advertising. The article can then be printed or saved as a PDF for later reading. For mobile and tablet users there is an iOS and Android app available. If you find an interesting article but do not have time to read the article, try using Instapaper. This program allows for saving an article for later reading (article saved to an Instapaper account). An IOS app is available for this program. Note: This is not a free program. Len Mercer read off a list of proposed new officers (preview of the list that will be presented at the April meeting). The names presented were Richard Loats (President), John Fitzpatrick (Vice President) and Ron Obremski (Treasure). Since Richard is moving from Secretary to President, there is an opportunity for someone to volunteer for the Secretary position. Former secretary, Winston Hooker, volunteered to take the position if no one else volunteers. Note: Since this meeting, Roberta Lumsdon has volunteered to take the position of secretary. Winston Hooker commented that a presentation on how to prepare for a presentation would be helpful. John Fitzpatrick mentioned that he was already planning to do that in the April meeting Program John Fitzpatrick gave a very interesting and informative presentation entitled “Never too Old to Help” (sequel to Never too Old to Learn). Slides for his presentation can be found on the clubs web site (http://sites.google.com/site/caryseniorcomputerclub/Home ) under “Links”. Door Prizes 1: USB 2.0 All In One - Roberta Lumsdon 2: Microsoft 3000 Wireless Mouse - Becky Cathey 3: The BookGen e-reader holder - Gloria Murphy Note: Lewis Faulkner was also a winner but elected not to take a prize The meeting was adjourned at 3:45 pm Coffee was provided by the Senior Center Staff Delicious cookies were provided by Jim (prepared by his wife Sue) Thank you so much Sue. Submitted by: Richard K. Loats, Sr. Club Secretary ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Meeting Minutes Cary Senior Computer Club 02/11/2012 The meeting was called to order at 1:30 PM by president Jim Burcsu Attendance The officers present were Jim Burcsu, John Fitzpatrick, Ron Obremski, & Richard Loats. In addition there were 11 members and 1 (Bill Ruggirello - Senior Net) visitor present. Treasures Report Ron Obremski reported a balance of $1,463.62 Old Business Minutes of last meeting were approved by voice vote. It should be noted that although the minutes stated that the meeting ended at 2:30PM, the time was actually 3:30PM Don’t forget that the yearly club dues ($12) are due and club treasure, Ron Obremski will gladly accept your dollars or checks (sorry, credit cards not accepted) Jim did a short walk thru of the clubs web site New Business When discussing the costs of laser ink and the durability of the laser ink a club member stated that the new standard printer inks are now pigment based and therefore will not fade or rub off like the older inks. This is very important when printing photos at home. Election of officers for the next two years is fast approaching (May meeting). Len Mercer and George Harrison had previously volunteered to be on the nominating committee for new officers. All those wishing to volunteer to be an officer please contact either Len or George. Winston Hooker suggested that we give Jim’s wife a small token of appreciation for all the delicious cookies which she has provided for the club meetings over the past years. A suggestion to give her a check for $100 was approved by a voice vote. Ron will write her a check and Jim has promised to deliver it to her by Valentine’s day Program John Fitzpatrick gave an excellent update on the new features of Gmail and also managed to squeeze in a few minute on how he resurrected a nearly dead laptop (extremely slow when running Windows) using Ubuntu Winston Hooker talked a few minutes on how he was able to save tax money using FSA (Flexible Spending Accounts) Door Prizes 1: Belkin Mini Surge Projector: Ron Obremski 2: WebCam with mic: Winston Hooker 3: Memory Stick: Dick English Marge Huff also had her number drawn but stated that she had been a winner several times before and wished to be shipped over The meeting was adjourned at 3:45 pm Coffee was provided by the Senior Center Staff Delicious special cookies were provided by Jim (prepared by his wife Sue) Thank you so much Sue. Submitted by: Richard K. Loats, Sr. Club Secretary ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Meeting Minutes Cary Senior Computer Club 01/14/2012 The meeting, which was held at the Page-Walker Art Museum, was called to order at 1:30 PM by president Jim Burcsu Attendance The officers present were Jim Burcsu, John Fitzpatrick, Ron Obremski, & Richard Loats. In addition there were 12 members and 0 visitors present. Treasures Report Ron Obremski reported a balance of $1,342.93 Old Business Minutes of last meeting were approved by voice vote. New Business The program of the next meeting is still open. Any volunteers? If there are no volunteers, John may give a presentation on Gmail Just a reminder, the club yearly dues are due - $12 per family per year Program Member's round table: Len Mercer found that the best password is made up of 3 words with special characters in between and using some caps in addition to a number at start and/or end. The password rating link on the clubs web site (Password strength tester: ) can be used to verify the strength of a password If a site's password is stored in a browser, be sure to set a master password for the browser (if possible). In Firefox it can be found under tools>options>security. IE9 does not have an option for setting a master password, however it also does not allow for viewing passwords a standard text. Firewalls: The use of both a physical firewall (router) as well as a software firewall is recommended Moving emails from one email system to another can be a challenging process. Some email programs (such as Microsoft Outlook) use folders whereas Gmail uses tags. If there is a need to move email between such systems, search Google on the web for assistance. Beware of unfamiliar links in emails (even from known senders): Sometimes these emails do not originate from the apparent sender and may contain links to undesirable spyware. One unfortunate member clicked on a link which resulted in the undesirable xphomesecuity2012 spyware program. One solution for the removal of this undesirable program is to use Malwarebytes. If you have a HP printer and have decided to save money by using cartridges that you refill or are refilled by others, be aware that HP printers check to see if you are using genuine HP cartridges. There is an undocumented set of commands that will allow HP printer to use these refilled cartridges: Hold down the OK button on the HP printer keypad and restart the printer If you are a Face Book user, be sure to review the security constantly since these setting are changing all the time. Are you having an issue with an URL working with one browser but not another? One possible reason for this could be that the web site is not using true HTML coding. The following URL will check a web site to see if it is using proper HTML coding: http://www.powermapper.com/products/sortsite/ads/web-html-checker.htm?gclid= CNSBoMm3ga4CFclM4AodHGLj5A. Another possible reason could be old cookies or temporary internet files located on the computer. Try clearing the browser cookies and temporary internet files (look under the browser options). Door Prizes 1: 8 GB Kensington flash card: Dick English 2: Flash Drive - Gloria Murphy 3: 8 GB Kensington flash card: - Richard Brown 4: Web Cam: Becky Cathey 5: 8 GB Kensington flash card: Mark Rose The meeting was adjourned at 2:30 pm Coffee was provided by the Page-Walker Staff Delicious cookies were provided by Jim (prepared by his wife Sue) Thank you so much Sue. Submitted by: Richard K. Loats, Sr. Club Secretary ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Meeting Minutes Cary Senior Computer Club 12/10/2011 The meeting was called to order at 1:35 PM by president Jim Burcsu Attendance The officers present were Jim Burcsu, John Fitzpatrick, Ron Obremski, & Richard Loats. In addition there were 13 members and 1 (Steve Brown – WinXP user) visitor present. Treasures Report Ron Obremski reported a balance of $1,322.93 Old Business Minutes of last meeting were approved by voice vote. Jim Burcsu spent a few minutes reviewing the club’s web site. Ron Zaback recently passed away and a memorial stone in his memory will be placed in the Senior Center garden. Len Mercer has a HP color printer for sale cheap. $1 or best offer. New Business The Senior Center will be undergoing a much needed air conditioning upgrade and will be closed on our January meeting date. Therefore the January meeting will be held at the Cary Page-Walker Art and History Center which is located at 119 Ambassador Loop, Cary. The next meeting’s program will be a member roundtable discussion. Annual club dues are due in January. Program John Fitzpatrick gave a excellent presentation on Ubuntu/Linux. John used his personal Clear Wireless modem for is presentation. Visit the club’s web site for documentation used in John’s presentation. For those wishing to try out Ubuntu but do now wish to install immediately, try out the Live Ubuntu CD. This allows for booting Ubuntu on start up. Door Prizes 1: Touch bundle: Roberta Lumsdon 2: Ear buds: Richard Brown The meeting was adjourned at 3:45 pm Coffee was provided by the Senior Center Staff Delicious cookies were provided by Jim (prepared by his wife Sue) Thank you so much Sue. Submitted by: Richard K. Loats, Sr. Club Secretary ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Meeting Minutes Cary Senior Computer Club 11/12/2011 The meeting was called to order at 1:30 PM by president, Jim Burcsu Attendance The officers present were Jim Burcsu, John Fitzpatrick and Richard Loats. In addition there were 15 members and no visitors present. Treasures Report There was no treasure’s report as treasure, Ron Obremski, was traveling someplace in the world. October's balance was $1,362.27 Old Business Minutes of last meeting were approved by voice vote. Do you need a Google account or be a member of the club to view the club’s web site? The answer to both is “No”. The Club's web site is open to all. New Business SeniorNet is a national organization that furnishes materials (computer and accessories) as well as teaching material to various centers throughout the country. These locations in turn, furnish training to senior citizens, 50 and older. Interested in ridding your computer of the latest computer viruses and other malicious computer programs? Check out the Club’s web site's Links page. Jim Burcsu has placed links to information and downloads of free tools for eliminating those undesirable programs. The Cary Senor Center’s walls are the temporary home to many beautiful photographs. Maybe you would like to have one of them hanging in your home. Check them out. Ubuntu Linux, a Windows alternative, will be presented by John Fitzpatrick at the December meeting Program A very informative program entitled “Identity Theft: What should and shouldn't be done” was presented by club member, Mary Ellin Eisele. Most importantly, if you have become the victim of identity theft, report it face to face with the local police department immediately (before anything else). Once you have received the police report, read it carefully to ensure that the information shown is accurate. For further information on this enlightening presentation, please visit the club's website under links. Remember that just because you think you are safe from identity theft does not mean that you are safe. It is what you do not know that can really hurt you. Door Prizes 1: Belkin mini surge protector: Len Mercer 2: Belkin mini surge protector: Bob Moncsko 3:Eentercell grounded extension cords: Marge Hupf 4: Entercell grounded extension cords: Gloria Murphy The meeting was adjourned at 3:45 pm Coffee was provided by the Senior Center Staff Delicious cookies were provided by Jim (prepared by his wife Sue) Thank you so much Sue. Submitted by: Richard K. Loats, Sr. Club Secretary ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Meeting Minutes Cary Senior Computer Club 10/08/2011 The meeting was called to order at 1:30 PM by president, Jim Burcsu Attendance The officers present were Jim Burcsu, John Fitzpatrick, Ron Obremski, & Richard Loats. In addition there were 11 members and 1 visitor present (Ellen Rose -now member) Treasures Report Ron Obremski reported a balance of $1,362.27 Old Business Minutes of last meeting were approved by voice vote. Club site on Google is available to anyone (A Google account is not needed) Jim put a link to on the club’s web site that shows how to use Window’s msconfig command to disable startup of programs that are not needed and slow down startup of a Windows computer. New Business Looking for an alternative browser for your Mac? Try out Omniweb. Jim has been using it successfully on a PPC Mac with an older version of Mac OSX (10.4.8). Having virus issues or looking for a different anti-virus program? Try snipes.com This site can also be used for finding information on many topics Next month’s program will be given by club member, Mary Ellin Eisele. The topic is “Identity Theft. What should and shouldn't be done”. Mary Ellin will be sharing her personal experience with identify theft. This is a topic that everyone needs to know about since it could happen to any of us at any time and possibly with devastating results. Program A very informative presentation entitled, “Never Too Old To Learn" was given by John Fitzpatrick. Have some spare time on your hands and would like to either brush up on an old college course or just plain learn something new, try going to khanacademy.org This site has many free courses available (2600 at last count) Additional information on John’s fine presentation can be found on the clubs web site under Links In tribute to the passing of Steve Jobs, John also played a short video about Steve Jobs. Door Prizes 8 gb Dane-Elec USB flash: Tatyana Sribar 8 gb Dane-Elec USB flash. George Harrison: Logitech m305 wireless mouse: Gloria Murphy The meeting was adjourned at 3:45 pm Coffee was provided by the Senior Center Staff Delicious cookies were provided by Jim (prepared by his wife Sue) Thank you so much Sue. Submitted by: Richard K. Loats, Sr. Club Secretary ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Meeting Minutes Cary Senior Computer Club 09/10/2011 The meeting was called to order at 1:30 PM by president Jim Burcsu Attendance The officers present were Jim Burcsu, John Fitzpatrick, Ron Obremski, & Richard Loats. In addition there were 13 members and 1 visitor (Roberta Lumston - Now a member) present. Treasures Report Ron Obremski reported a balance of $ 1,408.63 Old Business Minutes of last meeting were approved by voice vote. New Business The next meeting's program will be "Never too old to learn" and will be presented by John Fitzpatrick November program is on identity theft - Mary Ellan Eisley Program "Member's Round Table" 1: Why does outlook (2003) not allow for reading an e-mail from a sender unless it is moved to another folder? Suggestions: Check e-mail header for some uniqueness. Check security settings. (Becky Cathey) 2: Apple quick time will not install. It always quits with an error message. Suggestion: Try Revo un-installer to completely remove any trace of the program and then re-install. (Becky Cathey) 3: Why is there some time a red "X" instead of an image on the some web pages? Suggestion: The red "X" indicates that Windows is not able to find the format definition to open the image. (Becky Kathy) 4: Why can't my camera's photos load into the computer when connected? Suggestions: In Windows Explorer. Auto play may not be set to auto. 5: Pictures will not open unless the forward e-mail button is clicked (only from one person) Suggestion: AOL use to, and may still have, issues with sending photos. (Winston Hooker). 6: Sometimes when printing from web sites the selected info as well as un-associated information in a left column prints. Suggestion: Various browsers handle this in various ways. Internet Browser as three options when printing (All, Selection, and Page). If selection is used then only the selected information will print. (Winston Hooker) 7: Why does a computer install Microsoft updates at a specific time like start up or shut down(which may not be at a convince time). Suggestion: Check Windows update settings. (Dick English) 8: Has anyone digitized 35mm slides using a camera, a hand held slide viewer and a tripod? Len Mercer has and gets good digital images. There are some camera (high end) that have an adapter that can be used to take a picture of a negative. (Len Mercer). 9: Is it necessary to change a password often when a strong PW is used? Suggestion: There are two schools of thought on this. One is that changing passwords all the time tends to lead to bad practices which may lead to less security. The other is that passwords (no matter how strong) need to be change frequently. 10: Dick English has a 2 year old computer running XP that is running slower and slower. Can Ubuntu run existing XP programs? Suggestions: There are equivalent Ubuntu for many XP programs. Try using a XP install disk and do a system repair (this may speed up the system). Another suggestion is check the number of programs that start at boot up time. Use msconfig to check for these and maybe stop unnecessary programs in boot up. Another suggestion is to check in the start-up folder (keep in mind that not all start-up programs appear in the start-up folder) Follow the instructions at this eHow site to safely select and disable unnecessary startup programs via msconfig: http://www.ehow.com/how_4831800_disable-startup-items-using-msconfig.html Door Prizes 1: loge tic M305 wireless mouse - Roberta Lumston 2: Cable drops (2 sets) - John Fitzpatrick 4: M2P ear buds - Lewis Faulkner 6: 2.0 USB hub - Regi Gehret The meeting was adjourned at 3:45 pm Coffee was provided by the Senior Center Staff Delicious cookies (3 varieties) were provided by Jim (prepared by his wife Sue) Thank you so much Sue. Submitted by: Richard K. Loats, Sr. Club Secretary ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Meeting Minutes Cary Senior Computer Club 08/13/2011 The meeting was called to order at 1:30 PM by president Jim Burcsu Attendance The officers present were Jim Burcsu, John Fitzpatrick, & Richard Loats. In addition there were 17 members and 1 visitor ( Ellen Rose ) present. Treasures Report Ron Obremski reported to Jim a balance of $1,465.16. Old Business Minutes of last meeting were approved by voice vote. New Business The club was honored by a visit from the cookie queen, Sue Burcsu. For those wishing to see how strong their passwords are, give http://www.passwordmeter.com/ a try. The last Borders store in area ( 6 Forks Rd, Raleigh) is closing They have some very good prices. Don't have a Wake County Library card? Maybe a good reason to get one is that the card can be used to get into many web areas that are restricted to members only (i.e. consumers report). Many businesses, especially small businesses, are moving to the cloud instead of spending money on maintaining their own private systems. The new Amtrak station in Cary will have free Wi-Fi (paid for by Cary). August 13, 2011 is the official grand opening for the new Cary Arts Center. Looking for reasonable cell phone rates. Virgin Mobile has rates as low as $10/month for 3-G plans. Program A very informative program entitled "Social Networking Using Facebook and Twitter" was given by Georgiana Gehret (SeniorNet volunteer and Club member). This was a live presentation on Facebook and Twitter. A great presentation. Door Prizes 1: 4 GB ScanDisk - Mary Ellin Eisele 2: Bluetooth Adapter - George Harrison 3: 4 pack AA batteries - Regi Gehret 4: 200 sheets 4x6 photo paper - Len Mercer The meeting was adjourned at 3:45 pm. Coffee was provided by the Senior Center Staff. Delicious cookies were provided by Jim (prepared by his wife Sue). Thank you so much Sue. Submitted by: Richard K. Loats, Sr. Club Secretary ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Meeting Minutes Cary Senior Computer Club ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Meeting Minutes
Meeting Minutes ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Meeting Minutes ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Meeting Minutes ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Meeting Minutes ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Meeting Minutes Cary Senior Computer Club 01/08/2011 The meeting was called to order at 1:30 PM by president Jim Burcsu Attendance The officers present were Jim Burcsu & Ron Obremski. Treasures Report Ron Obremski reported a balance of $1,455.86. (Same as December 2010 balance) Old Business Minutes of last meeting were approved by voice vote. New Business Due to absence of the secretary this information is unavailable. Many thanks to Tom Hadley who supplied me with the great notes he took of the January presentation. Program The January program was presented by the Todd Thomas of the Cary Police Department's Cyber Crime Unit. The bulk of work of this crime unit is centered on combating and prosecuting the circulation and creation of child pornography (CP). In this task the unit works with law enforcement in other jurisdictions and with the FBI. If a suspect is identified, they work with internet service providers and probe peer to peer transmissions to identify any illegal CP transmissions being especially interested in identifying those who are uploading the CP. He described some of the extraordinary tools they use in identifying CP image transmissions and methods used in probing suspects' computer records. He described one investigation in some detail. The meeting was adjourned at 3:30 pm Coffee was provided by the Senior Center Staff Delicious refreshments were provided by Jim (prepared by his wife Sue) Thank you so much Sue. Submitted by: Richard K. Loats, Sr. Club Secretary ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Meeting Minutes Cary Senior Computer Club 12/11/2010 The meeting was called to order at 1:30 PM by president Jim Burcsu Attendance The officers present were Jim Burcsu, John Fitzpatrick, Ron Obremski, & Richard Loats. In addition there were 11 members and 0 visitors present. Treasures Report Ron Obremski reported a balance of $1,455.86 Old Business Minutes of last meeting were approved by voice vote. New Business Jim Burcsu discussed the process of adding information to web site and how the links work The January program will be given by Cary Police Dept. There was some discussion about what to do with some of the money in treasury. This topic will be taken for further discussion by the executive committee Winston Hooker suggested that possibly the club could purchase a web recorder and record meeting Ron Obremski suggested getting a couple Apple IPod Touches for door prizes Program A very informative program on how to stream Netflix movies using a Roku box was give by John Fitzpatrick. Although John originally thought that this would a short presentation, there was so much interest and so much discussion that the presentation took up the entire allotted time and could have gone on for quit a while longer. Very good job John. I would like to add that based on John’s presentation, I am now also very happy with my Roku box Door Prizes 1: Gigaware web cams Richard Loats 2: Gigaware Web Cam Gloria Murphy 3: Calculator Walter Stead 4: 800 sheets paper Becky Cathy 5: 800 sheets paper Ron Obremski The meeting was adjourned at 3:pm Coffee was provided by the Senior Center Staff Delicious 3 varieties of cookies were provided by Jim (prepared by his wife Sue) Thank you so much Sue. Submitted by: Richard K. Loats, Sr. Club Secretary ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Meeting Minutes Cary Senior Computer Club 11/13/2010 The meeting was called to order at 1:30 PM by president Jim Burcsu. The meeting started out oh so quietly. Actually the quiet part was Jim's Ubuntu netbook computer. (Mr. Jobs was getting back at him for using Ubuntu?) Attendance The officers present were Jim Burcsu, John Fitzpatrick, Ron Obremski, & Richard Loats. In addition there were 16 members and 2 visitors present (both were Senior Net members). One visitor, Mark Rose, was present. He then became a member. Welcome Mark! Treasures Report Ron Obremski reported a balance of $1,499.05 Old Business Minutes of last meeting were approved by voice vote. New Business The Computer Club sponsors a memorial brick for members who pass away. This brick is placed in the center of the memorial garden of the Senior Center. The brick for Charles Herman will be ordered after the meeting ($50.00 donation from the club) The web site, ancestry.com, was giving free access to its military records from 11/11/10 to 11/14/10 (for Veteran's Day) For those looking for program which does a better job than the windows add/remove program, try a program called REVO. There is both a free and paid version of the program. John Fitzpatrick continues to look for suggestions for programs/presentations for upcoming meetings. Jim explained about how the club site web links work Program An unbiased, informative program on how to use the internet to find financial information was given by Jim Yent of Golden Year Advisors Some of the web sites used in his presentation were Investopedia.com, jmorganfunds.com and clarkecap.com. Additional sites and information used in the presentation can be found of the clubs web site. Door Prizes 1: Logitec LX6 cordless mouse Mary Ellin Isley 2: SanDisk 4g flash drive Tom Hadley 3: HP Photo paper Len Mercer The meeting was adjourned at 3:30 pm Coffee was provided by the Senior Center Staff Delicious cookies (3 varieties of low calorie) were provided by Jim (prepared by his wife Sue) Thank you so much Sue. Submitted by: Richard K. Loats, Sr. Club Secretary ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Meeting Minutes Cary Senior Computer Club 10/09/2010 The meeting was called to order at 1:30 PM by president, Jim Burcsu Attendance The officers present were Jim Burcsu, John Fitzpatrick, Ron Obremski, & Richard Loats. In addition there were 16 members and 0 visitor present. Treasures Report Ron Obremski reported a balance of $1,398.05 Old Business Minutes of last meeting were approved by voice vote. No old business New Business Jim Burcsu started the meeting with a short video about the Mac and it’s status as a no-virus operating system (currently no viruses) The November program will be about retirement finical information which is available on the internet and presented by Golden Age Advisors The December meeting will be member round table discussion In January the program will be about how computers are used by the Cary Police Department to protect us (subject to change) Program A very informative presentation entitled "The eBook Has Landed" was presented by Paul Gilster (author of 7 bestselling books) of the Raleigh N&O. Slides used in his presentation can be found on the web site. In Paul’s opinion, 2010 will be the year of the eBooks Door Prizes 800 sheet pack paper - Ron Obremski Wireless print server - Paul Gilster Keyboard - Becky Cathy Belkin power strip - George Harrison The meeting was adjourned at 3:30 pm Coffee was provided by the Senior Center Staff Delicious cookies were provided by Jim (prepared by his wife Sue) Thank you so much Sue. Submitted by: Richard K. Loats, Sr. Club Secretary ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Meeting Notices Cary Senior Computer Club 09/11/2010 The meeting was called to order at 1:30 PM by president Jim Burcsu Attendance The officers present were Jim Burcsu, John Fitzpatrick, Ron Obremski, & Richard Loats. In addition there were 20 members and 0 visitors present. Treasure’s report Ron Obremski reported a balance of $1,422.23 Old Business Minutes of last meeting were approved by voice vote. New Business Jim started the program with a sneak preview of his Mac presentation that he will give for Senior Net (used a Mac video). Currently there are 35 people registered for the course that will consist of three classes and will be given twice starting Monday 9/22/10 and again on Monday 10/11/10. John asked for suggestions for door prizes. What are the advantages and disadvantages of Mac vs PC? This was the topic of a good discussion between all members of the club. The October program will be provided by Paul Gilster from the Raleigh N&O On 9/21/10 and 9/23/10 John Fitzpatrick will give a free Senior Net class entitled “Lets Google”. On 9/17/10 John Fitzpatrick will give a free Senior Net class about using the internet to manage Medicare. There is a possible change in the topic of “Changes in Healthcare” scheduled for December Winston Hooker has volunteered to purchase the little used turntable (used to convert music CDs/ LPs to digital) from the club. A motion was made and approved to sell the turntable to Winston for the price the club paid for it. Program A very informative program entitled “Gmail” was given by John Fitzpatrick using Google Docs. Gmail, a cloud based mail system, is part of the Google family of internet programs. One of the big advantages of cloud based e-mail systems is that they e-mails are available from any computer with an internet connection since e-mails reside on the host server. The big disadvantage is that an internet connection is required to read as well as to send email. John will make the slides available on the Links page of the club's web site. At the end of the meeting, Dick English gave a short informative presentation on his newly purchased photo slide digitizer (Wolverine 2D). He purchased his from BJ’s for about $100. It saves images internally to 25MB internal memory (holds 25 images) or to external SD/SDHC memory cards (not included). This unit does not need a PC to scan as it scans directly to an internal flash drive. Following Dick’s presentation and after the meeting adjourned, John Fitzpatrick showed a slide show consisting of many picture remembering the World Trade Center on 9/11/01 Door Prizes 1: Terracycle (fold up speakers) - Richard Loats 2: Web cam and Mike - Dick English 3: Cordless desktop & Mouse - Joe Sanchez The meeting was adjourned at 3:50 pm Coffee was provided by the Senior Center Staff Delicious cookies were provided by Jim (prepared by his wife Sue) Thank you so much Sue. Submitted by: Richard K. Loats, Sr. Club Secretary ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Meeting Minutes Cary Senior Computer Club 08/14/2010 The meeting was called to order at 1:30 PM by vice president John Fitzpatrick Attendance The officers present were John Fitzpatrick, & Richard Loats. In addition there were 17 members and 1 visitor present. Treasure’s report Although the amount was not available at the meeting Ron Obremski has since reported to me that the balance on 8/14/10 was $1448.39 Old Business Minutes of last meeting were approved by voice vote. New Business Jim Burcsu will be giving a class at the Senior Center on the current Macintosh operating system (Mac OS X) based on the book "The Little Mac Book" by Robin Williams. The course is listed on Page 16 of the Senior Center catalog. If you are interested in attending you need to register at the front desk. John Fitzpatrick will also be doing a free Senior Net class on Using the Internet to Manage Medicare. The September club program will be on GMail by John Fitzpatrick. The October club program will be by Paul Glister of N&O In a yet to be determined meeting the a representative of the Cary police Department will describe how they use computers in their work. Anyone who has any suggestion for presentations or would like to make a presentation, please contact John Fitzpatrick or Jim Burcsu Some of the new functions in Safari 5.0 were demonstrated by John Fitzpatrick. One new functionality can be found to the right of the URL address box. It is a reader function (not available on all pages ) that shows all text in a easier to read format. This function also allows for printing and saving of the text. On dual boot computers (Windows + Ubuntu) Ubuntu allows reading files that are on the Windows partition. John Fitzpatrick controls the club record player (used to convert records to digital). If any member wants to use the machine to convert their records to digital format please contact John. Ron Obremski described a device he now has that converts slides to digital format (35mm film/slides only). There are also some scanners available which can scan slides Program The program for the meeting is CLEAN UP YOUR PC by club member Tom Hadley. Tom did a wonderful job. You would think that he has done this before. It should be noted that during the presentation, those with hearing aids needed to turn them off as Tom’s voice is very strong and caries very well. Highlights: There are three types of cleaning 1: Physical A: Some containments: Dirt, dog hair, cat hair B: Tools to remove containments: Vacuum cleaner, canned air, tender loving care. Keeping the inside of the computer clean helps extend its life 2: Software Keeping at least 20% of the OS partition as free space will help prevent system slow-downs Hard drive issues Tools under disk properties (Windows) Holding down shift and delete keys while moving files to the recycle bin will delete them (Windows). 3: Browser Spybot and AdAware are two good spyware programs for removal of spyware (NOTE: Multiple spyware programs can be used together and is actually recommended) AVG and Microsoft Security Essentials are two free antivirus programs (NOTE: Only use ONE antivirus program) FileHippo.com – This is a good place to find free antivirus and spyware software CCleaner – This is a good program to clean up various software issues For additional information on Tom’s presentation please refer to his presentation slides which can be found on the club web site (bottom of the Programs page) Door Prizes and winners 1: Raven MP3 PLAYER - Len Mercer 2: 4 GB Kensington Flash Drive -George Harrison 3: 4 GB Kensington Flash Drive - Jerry Highfill 4: 4 GB Kensington Flash Drive -Page Ott 5: 4 GB Kensington Flash Drive - Becky Cathy 6: 4 GB ScanDisk Flash Drive - Joe Gelm 7: $15 Itunes gift card - John Fitzpatrick The meeting was adjourned at 3:30 pm Coffee was provided by the Senior Center Staff Today's snacks were virtual snacks (virtually none) No Jim + No Sue = No snacks. Submitted by: Richard K. Loats, Sr. Club Secretary ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Meeting Minutes Cary Senior Computer Club 07/10/2010 The meeting
was called to order at 1:30 PM by president, Jim
Burcsu ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Meeting Minutes Cary Senior Center Computer Club 06/12/2010 The meeting was called to order
at 1:40 PM by president Jim Burcsu ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Meeting minutes Cary Seniors Computer Club May 8, 2010 The
meeting was called to order at 1:30 p.m. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Meeting minutes Cary Seniors Computer Club April 10, 2010 The meeting was called to order at 1:30 p.m. by Jim Burcsu, our president. Attendance: Treasurer’s report: Ron Obremski, Club Treasurer, was absent but later reported a balance of $1522.15 in the treasury as of 04/10/2010 Old
Business: Election:
New
Business- (none) Program:
Door prizes were won by John Peters, a wireless mouse and by Lewis Faulkner, a set of three power cord extenders. Meeting
was adjourned at 3:30 p.m. Submitted by: Winston Hooker, Sr. Club Secretary ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Meeting minutes Cary Seniors Computer Club March 13, 2010 The
meeting was called to order at 1:30 p.m. by Jim Burcsu, our
president. Meeting minutes Cary Seniors Computer Club February 13, 2010 The
meeting was called to order at 1:30 p.m. by Jim Burcsu, our
president. Treasurer’s report: Ron Obremski, Club Treasurer, was not present but is now reporting a balance in the treasury as of 02/13/2010 was $1,413.99 Old
Business New
Business Food Lion and Harris Teeter stores post coupons on their websites every Tuesday in advance of their weekly sales that begin each Wednesday and run through the weekend. Some can save you quite a bit. They are set up so you can print them, but only print once so you cannot duplicate them. Jim lead a discussion of PDF files and explained how to go online and download a free software program CutePDF at www.cutepdf.com/. There are others that are similar. Once downloaded, you can convert a WORD or EXCEL document, etc. into a PDF file which cannot be changed and which can be printed later even if the program that created it has been changed or discontinued. Winston said he had been able to copy and paste a PDF file he made onto a new WORD document which then could be modified, but you cannot modify the original PDF file. Jim is putting together a program he will teach called: “Introduction to MacIntosh”. More on this later. Joe Gelm said that Cary SeniorNet will consider teaching courses for Macs if enough interest is shown; right now it just teaches courses on PC’s. There was a discussion of the ability to run the Mac operating system on PC’s and vice Versa. It was noted that some Macs can run Windows, but Apple has made it very difficult to run their operating system on PC’s. Jim also recommended the MISSING MANUAL series of training manuals by David Pogue. Program: The program for this meeting was an open forum for members to discuss problem, goals, favorite websites, etc. and led by John who gave each member, going around the room, the chance to speak. Winston:
I will only list my favorite websites that I feel could benefit other
member: www.CaryCitizen.com, new growing online newspaper with great photos and short stories about local issues & events Jerry
Highfill, likes all the above plus:
Joe Gelm, of SeniorNet: two questions: Can anyone tell me if they can run Mac operating system on a PC or Windows operating system on a Mac? Jim said that it is not difficult to run Windows software on a Mac, but Apple has made if difficult to run Mac software on a PC. Tom Hadley: I don’t like GOOGLE as much as John. If you use their website, they reserve the right to capture all your keystrokes while you are on their site and use them in any way they chose and I don’t like that. It is an invasion of my privacy. John said that M$ does the same thing if you use their player. Tom said he also likes to use: www.wikipedia.com,
as an online encyclopedia. John said that website has more info
that any encyclopedia ever. Tom Hadley also passed out copies of a table (matrix) of his favorites for such topics as: finances, maps, NAMI, pack tracking, search, travel, user groups, weather, news, “My Web Pages”, buying, IBM, misc., Internet, products, and tech press. This question was asked: what should I do when my computer asks if I want to allow updates of programs? Even if I click YES, it keeps coming back again and again. John said: “you should verify who is sending you the message and don’t allow it if you don’t know who they are. You should allow it if it is from Microsoft or AOL, etc. It may keep coming back if you do not check off that you read and agree with the EULA (end user license agreement) because it will not download the update unless you do and will come back later and ask you again. Page Ott: I have two problems: 1) forwarding photos that were sent to me. Sometimes they go and sometimes they just send an empty box. I am using Thunderbird. John told him to go to www.groups.google.com, and see if someone else has posted a solution on this forum. 2) I have to select each email recipient when I forward messages using Thunderbird. I did not when I used Outlook Express. John: you should set up some “groups” that have the email addresses of all the people to whom you send certain kinds of messages to such as “family”, “friends”, “church”, “jokes”, “political”, “computer club”, etc. and then you just select the name of the group and all people in that group will get your message. The problem was solved the next day when Page realized he was using an old version of Thunderbird; updating Thunderbird solved the problem. Member comments were ended as time ran out. They will be continued at a future meeting. Door Prizes: Richard Brown won a universal card reader. Carl Bahn won stack CD-R disks, Joe Gelm won stack of DVD-R disks. Cookies: three batches were provided by Jim’s wife and 1 batch by Richard Brown’s wife. Coffee: Senior Center staff. Meeting
was adjourned at 3:30 p.m. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Cary Seniors Computer Club January 9, 2010 Treasurer’s report: Ron Obremski, Club Treasurer, was not present but is now reporting a balance in the treasury as of 01/09/2010 was $1311.66 Old
Business Annual dues for 2010 are now due. New Business- Jim discussed the content of the club website which he maintains. DROPBOX is a website you can use as a virtual network to exchange files between different computers you own or with friends. Jim will add to the list of anti-malware programs onto our website. Iomega, a manufacturer of hard drives is now advertising a system to create bootable backups for Windows computers that is called V-Clone. Turner Classic Movies (TCM) has a website that allows you to check it for movie titles and date/times. The club will lend out the ION turntable to paid members who put their name on a borrowers list. Winston has the unit now and will turn it over to whomever is at the top of the list. John Fitzpatrick will manage the ION and its lending out. See John to get onto the list. Ron Obremski emailed Winston about info on CNET about recording music from vinyl records onto your computer. Their forum had a thread about this with about 5 good posts with detailed instructions. Winston has extracted directions on using the ION from a CNET forum and they are attacted at the very bottom of this page where you can download them as a PDF document. Program: John Fitzpatrick gave a presentation on Browsers and Google’s new Chrome browser in particular which is faster than most others. The top 4 most used browsers now are: 1-Internet Explorer by Microsoft, 2- Firefox by Mozilla, 3-Chrome by Google, and 4-Safari by Apple. Program next month: A members roundtable. Members were each invited to bring in the names of 2 favorite websites and be prepared to describe why they are recommended to be used by other members. DON’T FORGET TO DO THIS BEFORE YOU COME TO THE MEETING. Door prizes: Lynn and Amitava both won 4 GB flash drives. Cookies were provided by Jim’s wife Sue. Coffee by Senior Center staff. Meeting
adjourned at 3:20 pm. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Meeting minutes Cary Seniors Computer Club December 12, 2009 The meeting was called to order at 1:30 p.m. by Jim Burcsu, our president. Attendance: There were 17 members and no guests present. Treasurer’s report: Ron Obremski, Club Treasurer, reported that the balance in the treasury as of 12/11/2009 was $1,308.66. Old Business Minutes from November meeting were approved. The group voted to give away the contents of the club library to members who picked over it. Lynn took the balance for a group he knew who could use it. This frees up storage space as requested by Senior Center management. New Business The club will lend out the ION turntable to members who put their name on a borrowers list. Winston is at the top of the list and John will administer the borrowing which will initially be limited to 1-week periods starting with January meeting. See John to get onto the list. Discussion: There is open source software available to read Xrays here. Ninite.com provides links to desirable Windows software. Members can listen to internet radio on their computers, via iPod Touch or iPhones. Dropbox software - used for file sharing over the internet and is password protected. Members are recommended to scan attachments for malware before downloading anything onto hard drives. Go to our website, bottom of the page and look for recommended links including Audacity, a free download on the internet, which is used by the clubs new ION turntable to edit recordings. Program: John Fitzpatrick gave a presentation on how to use the club’s new ION turntable to convert LP’s and 45’s to four digital file formats you can put on your computer. Program next month: members were each invited to bring in the names of 2 favorite websites and be prepared to describe why they are recommended to be used by other members. DON’T FORGET TO DO THIS BEFORE YOU COME TO THE MEETING. Door prizes: Tatiana won 50-disc set of blank CD’s, Nat Miles won 800 sheets of printer paper, photo paper packs won by several other paid up members. Food (submarine sandwiched) and soft drinks were provided by John which was purchased with club funds. Desserts by Jim’s wife. Coffee by Senior Center Staff. Meeting adjourned at 3:30 pm. Submitted by: Winston Hooker, Sr. Club Secretary ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Meeting minutes Cary Seniors Computer Club November 14, 2009 The
meeting was called to order at 1:30 p.m. by Jim Burcsu, our
president. Treasurer’s report: Ron Obremski, Club Treasurer, reported that the balance in the treasury as of 11/14/2009 was $1,409.35 Old
Business New Business The Senior Center had asked that we remove as much of our items in the storage closest as possible because other groups who use this classroom also need storage space. A motion was made and passed to get rid of the old PC and to give it to John. A discussion was made about getting rid of all the materials in the club library since it is all very old, obsolete and gets little use. It was decided to do this. Program for November meeting presented by John Fitzpatrick was: “Building Personal Electronic Health Records and Managing Medicare”. The meeting was moved across the hall to the SeniorNet room which was better set up to accommodate the presenter and the attendees. The meeting focused on how to access the Medicare website to select the optimum Insurance carrier and plan for each person. John has provided a link to his presentation materials here. The link is also on the Links page of this web site. If any person who is on Medicare wishes to enroll or change a Medicare Supplemental plan or a Medicare Part D plan, they have a 6-week window from November 15 through December 31 to do so. Program for December meeting will be on the operation of the club’s new ION recorder. There was no drawing made this month for door prizes Coffee
was provided by the Senior Center staff. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Meeting minutes Cary Seniors Computer Club October 10, 2009 The meeting was called to order at 1:30 p.m. by Jim Burcsu, our president. Attendance: There were 11 members and 2 visitors, Beverly Bremer and Carolyn Camp Treasurer’s report: Ron Obremski, Club Treasurer, reported that the balance in the treasury as of 10/10/2009 was $1,409.35. Old Business Minutes from September meeting were approved. New Business Program for November meeting will be on Building a Personal Health Electronic Record and Managing Medicare. Program for December meeting will be on the operation of the club’s new ION record digitizer. If any person on Medicare wishes to enroll or change a Medicare Supplemental plan or a Medicare Part D plan, they have a 6-week window from November 15 through December 31 to do so. (SeniorNet has seminars scheduled.) Senior Center Announcements: Pneumonia and regular flu (influenza) shots are available at the Senior Center Wednesday, October 21 from 9 a.m.-2 p.m.) and Friday October 30 from 12 noon – 5:30 p.m. Annual Veterans Lunch (free to vets): register at front desk of Senior Center. Lunch to be on Friday, November 6, 11:30 a.m.-1:00 p.m. (in the Herb Brown Community Center building). Thanksgiving Party: sponsored by NCSU students.; on November 13th 1:00 p.m-3:00 p.m. for $3.00 per person. Must register by November 5th. Arts and Crafts Showcase (Sale) on Saturday November 21st, 10:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. at the Center's ballroom. Of Special Note Member Walter Neuman had a heart attack but is recovering at his home at GlenAire. We all wish him well. Program The program was on his recent experiences with a netbook PC running the operating system Ubuntu 9.04, presented by Jim Burcsu. Three door prizes were awarded and were won as follows: Prize no. 1: Coby pocket AM/FM receiver was won by ?____________________________ Prize no. 2: MP3 Player was won by Joe Sanchez Prize no. 3: Netgear wireless router and USB adapter was won by Joe Gelm Coffee was provided by the Senior Center staff. Jim Burcsu’s wife sent homemade cookies for the group. The meeting was adjourned at 3:15 p.m. Submitted by: Winston Hooker, Sr., Club Secretary ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Meeting Minutes Cary Senior Center Computer Club September 12, 2009 There were 23 people present with three of them guests. The minutes of the August meeting were approved. The treasurer’s report showed a balance of $1,450.04. New Business The president, Jim Burcsu, showed and told about some of the features of his netbook. It will be a topic for next month's meeting presentation. John Fitzpatrick, the vice-president, told the club about new books that will go into the club library. He also mentioned that an upcoming meeting topic will be: a presentation about the club's Ion recorder via USB. Program The program on Home Networking was given by club member Tom Hadley. Tom explained a great deal of how wireless networking actually worked, the various standards involved and security measures among other items. The slides from his presentation has been put up on the club's website. There was a drawing for paid up members and prizes were awarded to Joe Gelm and Marge Hupf. Coffee was provided by the Center and cookies were provided thanks to Jim Burcsu's wife, Sue. The meeting was adjourned at 3:20PM. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Meeting minutes Cary Seniors Computer Club August 8, 2009 The meeting was called to order at 1:30 p.m. by Jim Burcsu, our president. Attendance: There were 21 members and 1 visitor, Larry House Treasurer’s report: Ron Obremski, Club Treasurer, reported that the balance in the treasury as of 8/8/2009 was $1,440.04. Old Business Minutes from July meeting were approved. Following the authority given by voice vote last meeting, John Fitzpatrick purchased the turntable with a USB connector so members could use it to convert their LP’s to digital files for their computers, MP3 players and CD’s. John is teaching himself how to use it and plans a program to teach other members who will then be able to check it out for one month at a time. It will be available first come first serve on request to John. Winston already asked and will be the first member to check it out. John said he paid $96 for it at Costco. New Business John led a Q&A session on various subjects brought up by the members including keeping digitized medical records on a Google/Health site or on a flash drive as several members do now. There was also extensive discussion on Microsoft’s support of Windows XP, the introduction of Windows 7 in October and the early demise of Vista. John asked if there is any interest in a future program on getting a job for those members seeking work. There was interest by some so perhaps John can provide some assistance with such a program. Program “Photo Geotags and More” by Rich Loats who passed out photocopies of each of his presentation slides. Rich told the members that there is a free program downloadable from Microsoft called “Microsoft Pro Photo Tools” that can be used to attach tags to their photos. Tags can include such data as may be useful to identify the subject of photos plus time, date and location (longitude and latitude). Some newer cameras already provide some of these tags. Text can also be added to enhance descriptions. (A PDF file containing Rich's slides is attached at the bottom of this page.) “How can I” discussion covered various problems members are having with printing. Door Prizes There were two drawings: Lewis Faulkner and Nat Milea won and both elected to take printer paper as their prizes. Coffee was provided by the Senior Center staff. Jim Burcsu’s wife sent homemade cookies for the group. The meeting was adjourned at 3:15 p.m. Submitted by: Winston Hooker, Sr. Club Secretary ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |