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Tampa Bay Computer
Society Bulletin

8/31/2003

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Contents

1) Editor's Ramblings

2) TBCS Classes

3) SIG Stuff

4) Educational Opportunities (Digital Video Editing!)

5) Links

Maps to our Resource Center & General Meeting:
http://tampa-bay.org/maps.htm

1) Editor's Ramblings

Hello.  My name is Dave Dockery.  I answer to the name of "Doc".   I am the editor of this little weekly bulletin.

We are passing a couple of milestones:
1.  This is the 100^th issue of the Bulletin.
2.  We also surpassed 700 subscribers this past week.

I want to add a little personal touch on this occasion.  I rarely do much of that because the main purpose of this rag is to inform the readers about current events at the Tampa Bay Computer Society.  Today though I'd like for you to hear about some of the human side of this club.  I think you should be aware of how often our members volunteer to help other members as well as our community:

1. A few months ago, I published a request from a member who needed several years of tax software in a hurry.  Within 2 days, he had 4 offers to give him the software.  He picked up 6 or 7 years worth of tax software a day later.

2. North Pinellas Habitat for Humanity asked us to find someone to create a website for them for free.  After I published their need in the Bulletin, 4 members volunteered to build them a site.  Drop by http://www.nphfh.org/
   to see what our own Webmaster, Sue Raskin, designed for them.

3. We've also had some requests for free computers for those who needed them, but didn't have the funds necessary to purchase one.  One of our members, Frank Bucca, has built a few computers from spare parts that we were able to donate.

You should know that a lot of volunteers donate both their time and their hard-earned money to help make this club a place where we serve both our members and the community that we reside in.  I asked for some more volunteers at our last monthly meeting, and some new ones responded.  Now is the time for action.  We're looking at adding SIGs, classes, and new services in the near future.  Come on out and join the nifty people at the Tampa Bay Computer Society who are willing to share their time and skills to help others.

I hope you all have a safe and wonderful holiday!  Doc

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2) TBCS Classes

I hope to be announcing some more classes within the next couple of months.  We are getting very positive feedback from the classroom (we always ask for our students to evaluate our performance).

One of the problems that arose this week was that I had an overflow crowd show up for my Scanner Basics class on Friday and they were not aware that there was a $10 charge for the class.

Since our space is limited, we ask that you please register in advance for our classes.  That is done from our website at: http://tampa-bay.org/classroom.htm.  For those who registered for my class, I sent an email with complete information.  If I would have had any special instructions to give them, they would also have been in my email.

As far as the cost for our classes goes - it's a flat $5 per classroom hour.  If you've priced quality training, you have an idea of just how good a bargain we are, and we have glowing evaluations to prove it.

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Jan Norman's basic Windows class is filled for September.  Jan's already started taking names for the same class in October.  Please contact her at: tbcs.office@verizon.net.

If you're interested in a basic word processing class, please contact Dennis Schulman at
dschulman@myrapidsys.com.

You can see our current classroom schedule and register online by surfing over to: http://tampa-bay.org/classroom.htm.

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3) SIG Stuff

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Pinnacle Edition 5 Roadshow
(http://www.pinnaclesys.com/ontheroad2003/editionroadshow.asp)

Remember that video editing software that Ralph Bond & Steve Short from Intel showed us waaay back (almost 2 weeks ago)?  That software was made by Pinnacle Systems (they have several products in the video & audio field that are geared for professionals as well as hobbyists).

The local representative for Pinnacle Systems is hosting a free seminar demonstrating of some of their video and audio offerings:

Space is limited.  They ask that you register now online or call them at 800-401-0009 ext. 3.

Windows Movie Maker 2
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/moviemaker/default.asp

Microsoft makes a digital video program also and it has the advantage of being free.  It is downloadable from the above links (butcha better have broadband because it's a 12 Megabyte download).  The product is called Movie Maker 2.  Here's some of their advertising hype:

"Movie Maker 2 makes home movies amazingly fun. With Movie Maker 2, you can create, edit, and share your home movies right on your computer. Build your movie with a few simple drag-and-drops. Delete bad shots and include only the best scenes. Then share your movie via the Web, e-mail, or CD. Using third-party software you can even take movies you've made and turn them into DVDs. You can also save your movie back to the video tape in your camera to play back on a TV or on the camera itself."

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5) Links

All of the following are links that attempt to provide some relief from Spam:

Consumer Reports   www.consumerreports.org
Search on "spam" at the top of the page.  They have several well-written articles available about spam.

iHateSpam & iHatePopups   http://www.sunbelt-software.com/
Two products.  I think their names say enough.  I believe the company is located in Clearwater.

JunkBusters   http://www.junkbusters.com/
Their mission is to free the world from junk communications.  Their website has one of the world's most comprehensive collections of information about junk messages and how to stop them.

SAproxy   http://saproxy.bloomba.com/moreinfo.php
Spam protection for POP3 email.

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See you at the Resource Center,

Doc (Dave Dockery)
Director of Education for TBCS

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