19 NOVEMBER 2009

Minutes of 19 Nov 2009 follow:
Members present were: Myrna Dirk, Jim Erickson, Arlene Frolick, Marian Grider, Ed Heimiller, Bill Kautt, Claire Morris, Dorothy Pickering, Jack Prasloski, Pat Prasloski, Rich Russo, Tamara Ryan, Joyce Wahlquist, Rex Weinreich, Peter and Stanton Rickey.
Stanton Rickey was reelected as Computer Club President and he reappointed Peter as Program Director. Marion Grider was reelected as Treasurer.

Our treasurer, Marian Grider, announced that the Computer Club treasury contained $1442. Dues will be continue to be set at $10 per family for this season. Many attendees paid up at this meeting.

There was a slight delay in starting the meeting because our projector failed to function. Inspection revealed that the lamp had burned out. Not bad after 3 years. Peter replaced it with the spare lamp we had purchased laSt year for $250.

Peter announced that we bought a new (but slightly used) computer to replace the existing club desktop, which was 8 years old and ran the obsolete ME operating system. We kept the same monitor. Harold (a member of the Family History Roundtable) sold us an HP desktop running XP for $30, which is what he paid to upgrade RAM memory from 256 MB to 1 Gig plus.

Peter has already installed a number of the old familiar programs. Our old desktop was donated to Jefferson Elementary School.
Peter discussed the pros and cons of the new miniature Netbook Computers. Typically they run XP and have 160 Gig hard drive capacity; screen size varies from 7 to 10 inches. Their small size and lightweight is achieved by eliminating the CD drive. They are suitable as a traveling adjunct to a regular size laptop or desktop for E-Mail and limited web browsing, but streaming video is a bit stuttering.
Peter cautioned purchasers of a new computer to be aware that they may come with 64-bit architecture, and therefore may not run existing software. It is recommended that new purchasers look for the old 32-bit format.

If you are using hotmail.com for E-Mail be aware that you will be terminated if one month goes by without activity. A better solution is G-Mail sponsored by GOOGLE. Once you establish a (FREE) Gmail account you can easily create your own blog. Go to GOOGLE HOME PAGE and click on CREATE AN ACCOUNT, then enter your screen name and password.
Once you have a Gmail account, click on MY ACCOUNT, then MORE and then BLOGGER. On the resultant screen click on CREATE A BLOG. What comes up is a tutorial that explains the process. Blogs are much simpler than the old nightmare HTML codes that earlier websites required. In addition to text content, images and even video can be inserted.

The GOOGLE BLOG has many options such as: 1. Public or Not. You can limit access to only those who have a password.. 2. Allow posted comments; Yes or No. 3. Place images on left ot right or center. 4. Layout format. Once established, SAVE DRAFT, then PUBLISH. Peter is available to consult with individuals desiring to setup their own blog.

Peter has established several cross-linked Blog formatted websites for our Village.
Go to: http://vawevents.blogspot.com/ for social announcements monitored by Jan Patton. There you will find links to the Village People Newsletter edited by Mary Weeks; HOA announcements from Manager Jim Mc Cann; Real Estate for Sale and Rent; Hiker and Golf activities etc

Anti-virus protection is a must. AVG FREE VERSION 9.0 replaces earlier versions next month. If you are currently running AVG 7.5, you must first UNINSTALL.
Upgrades from Versions 8.0 or 8.5 are overwritten. Go to: vccminutes.blogspot.com posting for 13 Nov 2005 to upgrade. USE UTMOST CAUTION during installation to make certain you get the FREE version of 9.0. Remove ticks from superfluous offers like AVG SECURITY BAR and YAHOO SEARCH ENGINE. Once installed go to AVG program to edit your schedule for automatic scanning for update protection. Click on SETTINGS, then COMPUTER SCANNER, then MANAGE SCHEDULE SCAN and setup time and day (recommend once weekly).

New Computer Club minutes are posted at: vccminutes.blogspot.com
Our Old Club minutes can be found on the Google Blog format page used last year. It is linked to our New minutes site.

We will be meeting on the 1st and 3rd THURSDAYS of each month at 1:30 PM in the clubhouse. No meeting will be held on 17 Dec 2009 due to a scheduling conflict.
See you at our next meeting on 3 Dec 2009.
STANTON RICKEY, Club President