If you've recently received an email stating that the 4
major credit bureaus will be allowed to release your credit info, mailing
addresses, phone numbers, etc. to ANYONE who requests it as of July 1st of
2003, you should know that it's another urban legend.
There are several versions of this email. They all
claim that credit bureaus have suddenly been granted the right to share
your personal information. In truth, they have always been able to
do that within certain legal limits. The law that went in to effect
this month forces the credit bureaus to inform you of their information
sharing policies and permits you to opt-out of some of them if you so
desire.
Your rights have actually increased under this change.
If you are interested in getting the straight skinny on this, please surf
on over to:
http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/blcredit.htm.
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We have a pair of 4-week courses that start this week:
Window's 101 with Jan Norman starts this Friday, and
Photoshop with Stan Ashbrook starts on Saturday.
It's your last chance to sign up for Photoshop!
There are only 3 seats left for Stan's course (we're closing registrations
at 30). Please go to our website to register or for more
information:
http://tampa-bay.org/classroom.htm
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Wait 'til you see the changes to our SIG room! You
enter from the South door (the same as always), but now you're entering at
the BACK of the room instead of at the FRONT. Our new projector has
been mounted on the ceiling so that it's no longer in the way, and we'll
still be able to take it down once a month so that we can use it at the
Cultural Center.
Next we go on a treasure hunt to find some more
comfortable seats for the SIG room. If you have any idea where we
can get a deal on about 40 nice chairs, please let me know. This
hasn't been approved by the Board yet, but some of us will try to sell
them on the idea if we run across a good price on some comfortable
seating.
Monday, July 28, 7-9pm
PageMaker SIG. Led by Stacy Lloyd
lloydss@aol.com
Notice:
Stacy is taking the months of July & August off. He will return the 4th Monday in September (Sep.
22nd).
Tuesday, July 29, 1-3pm
Novice SIG. Led by Jan Norman. EVERY Tuesday
afternoon.
jannorman@tampabay.rr.com
Lots of Windows basics info presented here.
Tuesday,
July 29, 7-9pm
Microsoft Access SIG. Led by Howard Gray
hgray2@tampabay.rr.com
Wednesday, July 30, 7-9pm
Linux SIG. Led by John Schatmeyer
John has some odds 'n ends planned for this meeting followed by
discussion. He invites those who might like to demo a project
to share the spotlight. You're also invited to bring news, tips,
suggestions, software contributions, and your questions.
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Doc will be speaking at a meeting of On Top Of the
World's computer club in Clearwater this coming Saturday morning.
His subject will be "Finding 'Stuff' on the Internet".
"All the knowledge of the ages, and all of the
information in the world (including on the Internet) isn't worth anything
if you can't find it." -- J. William McGonigal, Chairman & CEO
WorldSwitch.com, Inc.
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But then I always say that, don't I? Well, it WAS
a success. We worked on almost 20 computers, and we fixed most of 'em.
We've got some pictures of the event, and they'll be showing up later in
the Bits & Bytes.
Our Random Acts of Kindness crew for this event
consisted of Jan Norman, Ron Kalmin, Dennis Schulman, Frank Bucca,
Chuck Vroman, Art Crofford, and myself (Doc). Thanks to all of
you for the generous donation of your time and your expertise.
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You want to be there for this one. Our next
General Meeting at the Largo Cultural Center takes place the
night of August 19th. We'll play host that night to two
representatives from Intel, Ralph Bond and Steve Short.
The title of their presentation is "How to turn your
PC into a home digital movie making 'studio'". They will cover the
basics of how to get video tapes into the PC, how to edit them, and how to
copy them to CDs, tape, or DVDs. Their presentation assumes no prior
experience with digital video production on a PC.
Many of our members have been asking how to digitize
their VHS tapes so I think the timing of this presentation is wonderful.
This subject should entice an extra helping of audience to come out and
join us that night.
Remember, our meetings are open to the public so feel
free to bring your neighbors with you for an interesting and entertaining
evening. I'm going to be going into more detail on their
presentation each week leading up to the meeting, but I will tell you now
that the equipment they are bringing for their demo will make computer
enthusiasts green with envy. -
more to come...
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