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PC Meeting
Wednesday
December 14, 2005
DOUBLE HEADER
| Speaker:
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Paula Simpson, Director of the Palo Alto City Library
Followed at 1:45 by
Hank Skawinski, President of Datawise |
Paula Simpson, Director of the Palo Alto City Library, will talk
about current and future technology applications in public libraries
in general, and at the Palo Alto City Library in particular. Libraries
aren’t just about books any more. To stay relevant to peoples’
lives and convenient to their busy schedules, they are offering
such things as web-based services available 24/7, digital books,
technology training classes, and a rich array of commercial databases
including the (full image and full text) New York Times archive
and the independent study language program Rosetta Stone. Libraries
are also adopting technology already established in retail and other
areas, such as RFID, to improve efficiency and customer service.
Paula has a masters degree in library science from the University
of Minnesota and more than 37 years of experience in public libraries,
although it must be said her first job was as a Page at a branch of
the Hennepin County Library (Minnesota) at the tender age of 15. She’s
not your typical librarian, as you’ll learn when you meet her
on December 14.
At 1:45 will be Hank Skawinski, President of Datawise, a
computer integrator. Hank has graciously agreed to make up for the
missed meeting a few months ago wherein the communications got all
fouled up. Anyhow, he should prove to be very interesting as he
comments on the
state of the computing environment. He is always a "sellout"
speaker. |
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PC Meeting
Wednesday
November 9, 2005
| Speaker: |
Seth Shostak Senior Astronomer at the SETI Institute
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Seth will talk about the future of SETI research .
The scientific Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), which
began with a simple experiment forty years ago, is undergoing rapid
change. Scientists who participate in this research are more optimistic
than ever before that they could find signals from space that would
indicate that we're not alone.
In the past five years, astronomers have found that many stars have
planets. At least 3 to 5 percent of Sun-like stars exhibit wobbles
that are caused by orbiting worlds. The real percentage of stars with
planets is undoubtedly much higher, and it is probable that tens of
billions of planets are strewn throughout the star fields of our galaxy.
Seth Shostak, an astronomer with a BA in physics from Princeton and
a PhD in astronomy from Caltech, gives more than 50 talks annually
for both academic and general audiences, writes magazine articles
(and books) about SETI, teaches informal classes on astronomy and
other topics, and hosts the SETI Institute's weekly radio program
Are We Alone? |
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PC Meeting
Wednesday
October 12, 2005
| Speaker:
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Hank Skawinski, President DataWise: "Reflections on the
current PC marketplace." |
Reviews of Microsoft, Linux, Macs, suppliers, support systems,
hardware and
software.
Hank maintains over 1000 computers for corporations and produces
a line of state-of-the-art computers that are devoid of shovelware"
and have enhanced software. He provides support for his and big-box
computers. |
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PC Meeting
Wednesday
September 14, 2005
Les Laky
Les Laky will be our speaker Wednesday covering all sorts of Internet
characteristics, futures, domains, and administration. |
PC Meeting
Wednesday August 10, 2005
| Speaker:
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Jan Altman, Consultant - tips and Tricks with Excel.
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One of the things Jan discussed during her excellent presentation
was how to add symbols using the ASCII codes. Bill Worthington has
produced a table of all such symbol-code pairs, which is accessible
on this web site - click here. |
PC Meeting
Wednesday July 13, 2005
| Speaker:
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Def Iuupa, District Manager - Caboodle - ink refilling and utilization
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PC Meeting
Wednesday June 8, 2005
| Speaker:
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Nancy Blachman - More on GOOGLE!
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>
Nancy has written a pamphlet on how to use GOOGLE to it fullest extent and has become rather renowned for her succinct presentations. She was with SIRs last year and was asked back right on the spot because she had much more to present that just would not fit into the time allotted. |
PC Meeting
Wednesday May 11, 2005
| Speaker:
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Gary Sasaki - consultant
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For Digital Home industry managers, home theater integrators and
strategists that like to think outside the box and look at new scenarios,
it is important to understand the value chain for how content is created,
distributed and experienced. Movies are a key content element and
Digital
Cinema is about to transform the entire industry. A major milestone
was
recently reached that breaks open the logjam that was holding back
the
industry's transformation.
This 62 page report addresses these questions:
* What are the DCI specifications?
* What is the new Digital Cinema workflow?
* Which industry organizations are involved?
* What are some of the industry market statistics, including the
number
of Digital Cinema screens?
* Who are some of the key Digital Cinema vendors and what are some
of
their products?
* How is technology affecting the industry?
* How might Digital Cinema affect the Digital Home in the future?
Download a free excerpt at: <http://www.digdia.com/>www.digdia.com
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PC Meeting
Wednesday April 13, 2005
Smart Computing User Group Program |
PC Meeting
Wednesday March 9, 2005
Joe Kraus will discuss the history and intrigue of wikis as well as how JotSpot's innovative application wiki is changing the category. A technology that today has largely been in the hands of the very technical, JotSpot strives to bring wikis to the technical mainstream and corporate America. We will explore whether this hot technology is destined to stay small or does it have market potential to get really big, and will look at recent software development trends that might point to answers.
One of the founders of the highly successful Internet company, Excite, Inc., Joe Kraus has been involved with early-stage technology development and starting companies for more than thirteen years. In 2000, he went on to found Digitalconsumer.org, a non-profit grassroots consumer organization with more than 50,000 members dedicated to protecting consumers fair-use rights to digital media. He founded JotSpot, the first application-wiki company, to great early success, in 2004.
* What is a Wiki? A wiki is a website designed for collaboration. Unlike a traditional website where pages can only be read, in a wiki everyone can edit, update and append pages with new information and without knowing HTML. < http://www.jotspot.com/tours/intro/1.php > |
PC Meeting
Wednesday February 9, 2005
T he February 9, 2005 speaker for CompuSIR will be Larry Magid, author,
columnist and radio personality reviewing the "State of the Market
Place Today".
Larry is currently producing radio commentary on technology for
two stations and does a weekly different subject for the Palo Alto
Daily news. |
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PC Meeting
Wednesday
January 12, 2005
THIS WEDNESDAYS'S MEETING IS NOT AT THE SENIOR CENTER!
It is at the Keeble and Suchat photographic store second floor
on the
corner of Birch and California Street at 11:30 p.m. this coming
Wednesday.
Please be sure that you tell everyone you see that the meeting
is NOT in
the normal place of the Senior Center.
Tom Tworek will be going over the manipulations and editing of
photos that
need help as his prime directive. We will try to get him to go over
at least:
o Handling super contrast and its outlining and adjustment.
o Adjusting focus for making subjects stand out.
o Critique of photos you might bring.
What is new will also be covered.
See you at 12:30. |
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# 8 Mar 06 - Microcenter.
# 12 Apr 06 - Gary Sasaki will speak about “Digital Cable Ready”.
Visit Gary's website at www.digdia.com.
# Possibilities for 2006 - presentations are being considered or investigated
by: Acronis, Dan Gillmor, Mike Langberg, Electronic Freedom Foundation,
voice recognition software, history of the Internet [arranged by J. Sleeman].
What do you want to hear about?
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