T
B
C
S

 

Tampa Bay Computer
Society Bulletin

3/8/2009
 

This document is available online.
Note:  Most hyperlinks will only
appear on the web page.

T
B
C
S
 

 


In this month's Bits 'n' Bytes, Dale Atchison updates his Monthly Maintenance instructions, Stew Bottorf attempts to breathe new life into an older laptop, and Ira Wilsker describes how to set up that new computer you got for Christmas.

February Bits & Bytes is Online:
http://bnb.tampa-bay.org/
 

Contents

1) General Interest
      Monthly meeting at the Largo Cultural Center moved to MONDAY night
      Upcoming FACUG & APCUG conference: NEXT WEEKEND
      TBCS took phone pledges for WEDU!

2) TBCS Classes
      Dennis Schulman: Computer Security & Spam (free!)  STARTS THIS WEEK!

3) SIG Stuff

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

horizontal rule

1) General Interest

Our monthly meeting at the Largo Cultural Center will be on MONDAY night March 16th INSTEAD of Tuesday night March 17th (St. Patty's Day).
Please mark your calendars!
This is a one-time only accommodation that will occur NEXT week!

-----

Upcoming FACUG & APCUG spring conference: Next Weekend: March 13, 14, & 15 in Zephyrhills $65 at the door (for TBCS members)

This is going to be a great conference.  About 130 are already registered, but wait 'til you see some of what's going to happen this time around.  The educational sessions are far different this time than what you are used to.  I view it as a "boot camp" for social networking.  If you are interested, here's a lot more info.

-----

TBCS took phone pledges for WEDU!

I'll get an exact accounting on Monday, but it looks like we took in 6 or 7 thousand dollars on Saturday night.  We met some great people...  Mary Lou Metzger from Lawrence Welk, and delightful Jillian Isbister from the cast of "Highland Heartbeat".  Jillian is a 21-years young tall, leggy, and gorgeous blonde with a wonderful Scottish accent and singing voice.  She sang "Amazing Grace" for us in the studio -- she danced a smidgen too.  Several of the TBCS pledge crew thought it was a shame that evidently the show hasn't made enough money to completely clothe the young lassie when they send her on promos. <grin>

Seriously, we had a great time.  Thanks to: Kay Bazler, John Click, Kenyon Davies, Bill De Lucia, Flo Falke, Brooks Hammac, Bonny Jones, Sam Mack, Dick Saviello, Dennis Schulman, Agnes Sullivan, Phil Sullivan, and Sue Turner for coming out for this event.  I also appreciate the efforts of the other 7 or 8 people who volunteered, but were turned away.  Thanks to all of you who helped support this event.  We really do have a great time at these.

-----

New government home loans info
Do you know someone who needs to know whether or not they qualify for the new government home loan modification programs send them here:
http://financialstability.gov/

Doc

Top of Page

horizontal rule

2) TBCS Classes

Dennis Schulman: Computer Security & Spam (free!)  STARTS THIS WEEK!
 Two 2-hour classes on Tuesdays March 10 & 17,  10:30-12:30
Dennis will demonstrate techniques for keeping your hard drive humming along without collecting too much Internet flotsam & jetsam.  He'll follow that with tips on how to reduce your spam.  No registration is required for this PAIR of classes - just show up.

Phil Sullivan's Hands-On Windows XP Beginner's Classes
Four 2-hour classes on Mondays 9:30-11:30am  $40 (NO make-up)
Since these are hands-on classes, they will be limited to only 6 people.
You MUST register for these in advance (see below).  Minimum class size is 3 students.
Here's Phil's schedule for the rest of the year:

bulletMar 30, April 6, 13, & 20
bulletApril 27, May 4, 11, & 18
bulletMay 25, June 1, 8, & 15
bulletJune 22, 29, July 6, & 13
bulletSept 14, 21, 28, & Oct 5
bulletNov 30, Dec 7, 14, & 21

Phil Sullivan's Hands-On Windows Vista Beginner's Classes
Four 2-hour classes on Tuesdays 9:30-11:30am  $40 (NO make-up)
Since these are hands-on classes, they will be limited to only 6 people.
You MUST register for these in advance (see below). Minimum class size is 3 students.
Here's Phil's schedule for the rest of the year:

bulletMar 31, April 7, 14, & 21
bulletApril 28, May 5, 12, & 19
bulletMay 26, June 2, 9, & 16
bulletJune 23, 30, July 7, & 14
bulletSept 15, 22, 29, & Oct 6
bulletDec 1, 8, 15, & 22

Microsoft Movie Maker by Jan McNulty
 Thursday, April 9th, 10am-noon  $10
This is NOT a hands on class.
You MUST register for this class.
Windows Movie Maker is a free download (for WinXP users) from Microsoft.  It's an excellent tool for editing your home movie clips together and adding in narration and music.  Jan will show how to create a movie from the very beginning.

-----

Classroom Registration
All of our classes meet at our Resource Center in Clearwater.  The full class fee is due at the first session (cash or check please).  All classes come with a money-back guarantee if you're not happy with the instruction for any reason.

In order to register for any of the classes (or if you have questions), please send an email to the Club Secretary.

Top of Page

horizontal rule

3) SIG Stuff

Our SIGs (Special Interest Groups) all meet at our Resource Center
(map: http://www.tampa-bay.org/maps.htm).
All of our SIGs are free to our members.

SIGs are a great place to get more personalized attention, and get your questions answered. The following SIGs will meet this week:

Sunday, March 8, 1-3pm
XO Computer SIG.  Led by Dan Galgano

Monday, March 9, 1-3pm
Internet SIG. Led by Roger Leer
Dark this month.  Roger expects to return in April with Windows 7, Windows Live Beta, and/or Windows Live Mesh.

Monday, March 9, 7-9pm
Photoshop SIG. Led by Stan Ashbrook
We’ll talk about Gradients and how to customize them, and ways to improve a sky using a gradient.  We’ll also talk about adding a new sky to an image.  Finally, I will demo some really cool, reasonably-priced plugin filters.  Stan

Tuesday, March 10, 1-3pm
Novice SIG. Led by Bill De Lucia
Bring Bill your questions.

Tuesday, March 10, 7-9pm
Internet Development SIG. Led by Dave Dockery

Wednesday, March 11, 10am-noon
Digital Video SIG. Led by Tom Lembke

Wednesday, March 11, 6:30pm
Board of Directors meeting.
Board meetings are open to all our members.
They take place at the Resource Center.
Come on and join us to see what's going on at TBCS.

Thursday, March 12, 1-3pm
Spreadsheet SIG. Led by Bob East
Bob is back!

Thursday, March 12, 7-9pm
Web Design SIG. Led by Jim Cook

Friday, March 13, 10am-noon   Broadcast
Doc's Place. Led by Dave Dockery
Dark this week.  Doc will be at FACUG Spring Conference.

Saturday, March 14, 1-3pm
PowerPoint SIG.  Led by Peter Summers
Peter will spend some time dissecting a PowerPoint slideshow to see how it works.  Attendees will learn about "Action Settings" (when you put something like a button on your slide, and cause surprising things to happen when you click on it).  He will also explore the Adobe website for some interesting templates to download.

Sunday, March 15, 1-3pm   Broadcast
SBI SIG. Led by Rick Hart & Carl Hahn
The SBI SIG meets on both the 1st & 3rd Sunday of each month.

Top of Page

 

T
B
C
S


See you at the Resource Center!

Doc (Dave Dockery)
President, Tampa Bay Computer Society
www.tampa-bay.org

T
B
C
S

Club Business Page        TBCS Main Page