Minutes - September 5, 2008

Minutes of the September 5, 2008 meeting of the Sioux Falls Seniors Computer Club:

In the absence of President Norm Knox, Vice President Bill Goebel called the meeting to order in room 204.The minutes of the August meeting were read and approved. Bill mentioned that Moviemaker and Photostory can be used to assemble pictures to use in family histories. New members and old members introduced themselves around room 204.

In answer to a question about Open Office from Ray Vaughn, Bill recommended that material from Open Office be saved as files in DOC format to get around problems of incompatibility. Some club members might be interested in setting up personal Websites. At present the Center has no course for this. Jeanette Stadtfeld mentioned a need to be able to set up a password for a PC. According to Bill, if a PC is given a password in preparation for the visit of a grandchild, the password should not be the name of the family dog.

The secretary mentioned that recent minutes are available in the club's blog, which is maintained by Glenn Johnson. The blog is at http://sfscc2007.blogspot.com/ or http://www.sfscc2007.blogspot.com/ .

In the computer classroom, Bill Goebel led a discussion of several computer topics. Some computer problems can be resolved by using the System Restore facility of Windows XP. Information about this can be found by searching for the words "System Restore" at Microsoft's Help and Support Center (http://support.microsoft.center/). Bill described how multiple user accounts with passwords can be setup on a PC. Look for User Accounts in the Control Panel to set these up. A new account starts with access to basic Windows XP. Permissions to use other things on the computer can then be added.

Windows Defender from Microsoft protects well against spyware. It is a free add-on for Windows XP and is included in Windows Vista. A computer can have multiple anti-spyware programs, but some of these programs tie up memory. Keeping Windows Defender alone for spyware protection is a good policy. AVG Free is a good antivirus program to go with Windows Defender but finding it to download from the AVG Web site (http://www.grisoft.com/) requires looking carefully for "AVG Free". The version of AVG with a price is naturally much easier to find.

Bill demonstrated functions of MovieMaker. Movies that it makes can be saved to a CD or DVD. A DVD has the advantage of more room. Photos can be organized with Photostory and then brought into MovieMaker. A Google search at Wikipedia showed the difference between a podcast and a webcast. Setting up a free account at Yahoo gives access to video feeds and other things like articles and Yahoo's webmail. Open Office is an office and productivity suite. It is a free alternative to Microsoft Office, and can be downloaded from http://www.openoffice.org/ .

Bob Black teaches the Center's course on Powerpoint 2003. This should be similar to any Powerpoint that someone has at home.When downloading a program from the Internet, it is better to choose the Save option than the Run option. The program that is downloaded this way can then be run as a program to install the actual working program. When the installation process is complete, the new program will be listed under Add/Remove Programs in the Control Panel. An install program can be downloaded temporarily to the desktop if that is convenient, but it should not be left in that location permanently because it ties up memory there. It is a good idea to save install programs in a special folder with some name such as Download. Then they will be available later if something needs to be uninstalled and reinstalled.A heavy spam load on an e-mail address may make it necessary to setup a new e-mail address. Getting the address book associated with the old e-mail address to work with the new e-mail address is likely to be the hardest part of setting up the new address. The Web site for the Center for Active Generations is at http://www.cfag.org/ and is maintained by Bev Johnson. In Internet Explorer Version 7, the bar at the top of the window that has buttons marked File, Edit, View, and so on may not always be visible. Pressing the Alt key will bring it out of hiding. (This part of the window is called the menu bar. You can keep it permanently visible or not by clicking on View, Toolbars, and MenuBar.)

The club welcomes new members Cheri L. Lehmann and Hoi Tran.

Respectfully submitted by Garth Peterson, Secretary.