Program Notes and Reviews 2011

19 Dec 2011
  • We will elect PC Club officers for 2012.
  • We will have our annual PC Club Giveaway for current members
  • Please plan to bring topics you would like to have discussed in 2012
  • We will continue discussions of Apps and functions of iPhone and iPad
    Please bring your Apple device and plan on discussing as time permits
21 Nov 2011

Apple iPhone 4s

Presented by Peter Hirsch and other Clubmembers

Peter Hirsch was one of the 4 million people who just purchased an iPhone 4s, cell phone and computer on opening day. We will discuss Apple’s iPhone, iPad, iOS5 operating system and of course the many Apps that run on the Apple iOS operating system. Bring your iPhone or iPad to the meeting and tell us your favorite features or Apps.

Click here for PRESENTATION (PDF)

17 Oct 2011

X(PLORE) by Ralph Bernstein

David Meredith, of San Francisco State University, had as his objective being able to solve mathematical formulas on a PC or Mac as they would be
conventionally written.
He achieved this objective in the 1990’s, and this program is now available on-line.

 

X(PLORE) allows you to:

  • Evaluate formulas including derivatives and integrals
  • Graph functions in two and three variables
  • Perform all common matrix operations
  • Use the language of linear algebra
  • Write subroutines in a powerful mathematical language

    Ralph will demonstrate the X(PLORE) program by solving a number of diverse mathematical problems
  • Presentation (ppt)
  • Sample Files (zip)
19 Sep 2011

Creating a bootable USB flash drive
by Jose Medeiros
….for installing Windows 7, Linux, and for running Anti-Virus Recovery

Most new laptops no longer have floppy drives and most netbooks do not also have CD/DVD drives. Creating a bootable USB drive allows faster booting, and a faster installation of an Operating System.
Jose Medeiros will demonstrate several tools to be used to create bootable USB flash
drives. We will raffle off a 4 GB USB flash drive with recovery tools from the demo.

View Presentation (PDF)

15 Aug 2011

“In The Plex”
Peter Hirsch will discuss this book by Steven Levy
which discusses how the Google Company thinks, works and shapes our lives.

"The contradictions of the Internet search behemoth are teased apart in this engaging, slightly starry-eyed business history."
"Can the company that famously decided not to be evil still compete? No other book has ever turned Google inside out as Levy does with "In the Plex."

View Presentation.

18 July 2011

Google Voice, by Scott Maiden (Presentation 2)
Google Chrome, by Peter Hirsch (Presentation 1)

Scott Maiden will discuss Google Voice, a program that allows a user to make free phone calls in the United States and low cost phone calls internationally.

Peter Hirsch will discuss Google’s fast web browser, Google Chrome, which allows one to dictate, using voice, search queries.

20 June 2011

Adobe Photoshop Elements 9, by Scott Maiden
At the June meeting Scott Maiden will be reviewing and demonstrating the new features in Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 -- including:

  • The Organizer for the Mac
  • Layer Masks (Allows masking of part of a layer)
  • Install on Multiple machine (2 of Mac or Windows)
  • Social Networking Support allows easy uploading to Facebook
  • Style Match (Copies Look & Feel of 1 photo to others)
  • Content Aware (Aware of background when you delete an object)
  • Additions to Guided Edits in a new category of Fun Edits.
  • 16 May 2011 Listening to Radio Stations from any Place in the World
    by Ralph Bernstein
    There are programs and systems to allow one to connect your personal computer to any radio station in the world. This presentation will demonstrate an inexpensive system that allows connection to a radio station through an
    interactive menu using a plug-in device to your computer. View presentation (PDF).
    18 Apr 2011

    Science Fairs and Science Olympiads
    Peter Hirsch


    Every year 6-12th grade students participate in Science Fairs and Science Olympiads in the United States. For the past few years, I have been a judge of some of the local Science Fairs and Science Olympiads. For many students, this is the first time they have had to think through, prepare and present a science project.

    Many of these students have had high caliber exhibits and make you take notice of the quality of the next generation of students in the bay area.

    We will show you what happens at these events and perhaps next year you may want to help judge at one of these shows. View Slide Show.

    21 Mar 2011

    The Best Backup Plan to Protect your System from Failure – Gene Barlow (via Skype)

    There are much better ways to setup and organize your hard drive than the way we did 30 years ago. The problem is that most end users are not aware of what changes they can make to their hard drives with very easy-to-use utilities. We will learn some of the better ways to organize your hard drive and show you how you can do this on your own computer.

    It’s very important that you know how to protect your hard drive from problems. We will show you several key activities that you need to follow to make sure your well organized computer will continue to function efficiently.

    We will show you the best way to back-up the content of your hard drive as well as how to run your computer in a sandbox mode to protect your hard drive content while you are doing rather risky functions with your computer.”


    Gene has been a presenter in the user group community for over 28 years. For many years he managed IBM's user group support organization and has been called the Father of PC User Groups. Now retired, Gene, and his wife Linda, started their own company called User Group Relations (www.ugr.com), providing support to the user group community for the software companies they represent. Gene is known for his informative and easy to understand presentation style. Don't miss this important presentation.

    21 Feb 2011

    Skype features and demonstration
    Speaker: George Kornbluth
    We will discuss the features of Skype and demonstrate Skype in action. It is easy to sign up for Skype and you can use it from your computer desktop, from your laptop, and from your mobile phone. You can talk and you can conduct a video call to anyone in the world with your Internet connection. We will also discuss some of Skype’s other features. Skype allows you to conduct video conference calls with multiple people. You can also use Skype in a business environment.

    ** View Presentation (PDF)

    17 Jan 2011

    Free PC utilities (Continued)

    Speaker: Peter Hirsch

    We will look into some more Free PC utilities to improve your computer use, such as:
    . Auslogics Disk Defrag
    . Google Earth
    . Antibody WizMouse
    If you have used any of the past mentioned Free PC utilities, such as TeamViewer, Join.Me, Dropbox, Slickrun, Glary Utilities, TweakUI etc., let us hear of your experiences or issues you have had with them. If you have used any new PC utilities you want to tell us about, please feel free to prepare a short discussion.

    To view presentation click here (PDF)