30 August 2013

FIELD TRIP TO MUSEUM OF SYDNEY & CUSTOMS HOUSE - 30 August 2013

Caught the train into Parramatta early today, boarded Parramatta's Free Bus to Parramatta River Jetty.......

.... and with other members of our Club boarded the Rivercat.

Cruised down narrow Parramatta River to Rydalmere where more club members boarded. Then a relaxing cruise non-stop to Circular Quay. The sun was out, it was a warm 26c, and the River was sparkling.




                                                     We met up with other Club members at the Quay,
and walked up Phillip Street to the Museum of Sydney for our booked tour.

The modern Museum is on the site of one of Australia's most important places, the first Government House, the home and office of Governor Arthur Phillip, built in 1788.



We entered the Museum and were greeted by our two guides, who talked about the origins of the site and the museum, before we split into two groups.





This is our guide, Niomi who showed us the outlines of the original Government House.

Niomi then took us into the Museum to view models of the First Fleet ships and peer at the archaeological remains of first Government House and the objects uncovered by a number of digs on the site.

At the end of the tour, I spoke to Niomi about a nearby building, Transport House, where I started work in 1949 for the Department of Road Transport and Tramways. The building is now privately owned has been restored, and the original Registration Hall is now open office space, with the Mezzanine above.




The building was constructed in 1937 and still has the original wooden escalator, that is the oldest in Sydney.

It is a wonderful building. It is art deco influences inside and the exterior is an impression of authority.
                                             

 Niomi was intrigued as she had often walked past this front door of the building and had wondered about its origins. She was also interested in what we staff saw when looking into the nearby windows of the adjacent police station.

                                                                                          
At the end of the tour, we walked to the nearby AMP Building......
....... for lunch in the food court.

After lunch we visited nearby Customs House for a quick visit................
It has relaxing lounges,  with newspaper and magazines on hand, a number of bars and restaurants, as well as the Customs House Library, with reading rooms overlooking Circular Quay.

Then it was time to board the Rivercat again for our trip back up the river and home.

Many thanks to our Club President Deborah for organising the day out.....the weather was perfect and Circular Quay and Sydney Harbour is always a wonderful place to be, especially with fellow club members....................

27 August 2013

WE ATTEND PARRAMATTA ClubGRANTS PRESENTATION

Our club President Deborah and Treasurer John L  attended the ClubGRANTS Presentation Ceremony at Parramatta Leagues Club today,,,,,






....to receive our Certificate and $5,820 Grant for eight of our Trainers to attend an ICE Video Making Workshop, and to purchase Apple Mac software.


This project received funding from Parramatta Leagues Club through the Parramatta ClubGRANTS scheme, and will be put to good use by our Club. Thanks Parra Leagues!






26 August 2013

SKYDRIVE COURSE - 26 August 2013

This afternoon I attended the "Cloud computing using SkyDrive" 2 hour Short Course with three other member students.
Our Trainer was Bing, pictured here showing a student an interesting aspect of SkyDrive.

Bing explained that Cloud Computing is actually "The Internet". Its a network of myriads of computers all over the World, and uses the internet to store data.

By storing data in the Cloud, you can reduce your need for a large hard drive on your own computer.
But, a disadvantage of using the Cloud is that you have to have access to the internet.


So, we signed up for Microsoft's   @outlook.com   account and opened the SkyDrive homepage. SkyDrive provides 7gb of free storage in the Cloud.

I had opened SkyDrive on the club computer and also my Android tablet. I uploaded a photo into SkyDrive on the computer and then opened SkyDrive on the tablet-the photo was there, both were synchronised.

Sharing photographs via SkyDrive is simple. Just upload photos/videos to a folder in SkyDrive and share by email with a link that will take the recipient directly to the folder in SkyDrive, and from there they can view or download any to their own computer. There is no need for the recipient to join SkyDrive.....and with the 7gb available, large photographs and videos can easily be shared.

Bing's SkyDrive Short Course is an excellent way to learn how to synchronise and share photos/videos.........so talk to Trainer Bing at the next members meeting.




25 August 2013

TRAINERS MEET TO SET COURSES IN TERM 4 2013



 Nineteen trainers and assistant trainers met to decide which courses are to be offered to members in Term 4.

 Members and prospective members are asking questions on the best tablet to buy, how do I set my tablet up, and what are apps? So, there will be an emphasis on tablets and iPads in Term 4 commencing in October.


It was decided to do our usual presentations at our next Open Day.
In addition, an Information Session will be held during the term, and there will also be two formal courses for iPads and Android tablets.


Our President Deborah announced that we have been successful with our "ClubsGRANT" funding application and now ParraPals will nominate 8 of our trainers to undertake a 10 week course in Video Making.
In 2014 ParraPals will offer a video making course for members.This project received funding from Parramatta Leagues Club through the Parramatta ClubGRANTS Scheme.




New Assistant Trainer Christina Dunn was welcomed to her first Trainer's meeting.

Christina will assist Trainer Dawne Zoltz at the Windows 7 Beginners Course on Mondays from 14th October for five weeks.

17 August 2013

MEMBERS' MEETING - AUGUST 2013

Boy, am I glad that meeting is over!

I organised the guest speaker for the meeting, Marti from photobooksus.com.au to do a Skype live presentation about making a photobook using his company's software, that can be installed on your computer.

Despite three months planning and numerous online trials - of vision, sound and Marti taking control of my computer- between myself, Jon Bayley and Marti everything did not go to plan on the day!

 Eventually Jon got vision projected onto the screen and Marti took control of my laptop using Team Viewer that he then  used  to go through the steps in making a photobook.

At the end, Marti's project, using photos from our Club, was uploaded to his Melbourne office for printing, and..........
......suddenly Postman John Hain came running into the meeting, blowing his whiste to deliver the completed photobook to me by special delivery!

A completed 46 page, soft cover A4 photobook of our club's events in 2013.




On behalf of photobooksRus, Marti announced a special for our members, a similar 46 page photobook that retails for $46, on special at $21 delivered...with 3 months to complete the book.

Special thanks to Marti for his presentation, and thanks also to Jon for his valuable help and assistance and to John Hain for his special delivery.....

Four members placed orders on the spot for a copy of my Parramatta Computer Pals 2013 photobook, so see me if you would also like to order a copy.

Next was a surprise birthday cake
for our popular President Deborah 

Happy Birthday Deborah.......................

09 August 2013

MY BUSY WEEK AT COMPUTERPALS - August 2013

Wow, this has been a busy week for me.........the weekend and Monday was taken up with reconciling the bank balance against the computer provided Register balance, and then printing out and emailing pdf files of five reports to each Committee member.

 That task completed, I attended the local bank following earlier rollover of the Clubs Interest Bearing Deposit of $15,000 to successfully sort out and increase payment of interest as at the maturing date, when it was 3.55%.

Followed on Tuesday by attending the monthly Management Committee meeting and presenting the Financial Report, and fielding questions. 

I reported to Committee that our Honorary Auditor Kerri was retiring as Auditor at the AGM.

 Keri has been our Auditor since 2008 and has given freely of her time and experience and help to the previous Treasurer Hazel and myself - thanks Keri, you will be missed!



Wednesday I was back to assist Trainer Jon at our week three of the Managing Your Digital Photographs five week course.

 After the course finished Jon and I opened Skype and contacted this months members meeting guest speaker, Marti of Photobooksrus, to carry out a visual and sound test. Photobooksrus is located in Melbourne and Marti works from home on the Queenslands Gold Coast, so I decided to try and make technology work for us.

All went ok, so hopefully our live broadcast of Marti's presentation on how to make a photobook will be successful next week.

 This is a first for our Club, a guest speaker who is not at the meeting. Will the technology work...Jon and I hope so!

 Today, Thursday....back to the office to collect monies and deposit at the bank.
 Then into the Training Room for our regular Film Making Special Interest Group meeting, conducted by John, with members Judy, Yvette, Michael and 2 Johns attending.
 We discussed the club's use of recently purchased Adobe Premier Elements 11, a powerful and easy to use movie editing software that will let our members organise, enhance and edit videos.



Trainer John looks at some benefits of using Elements 11........







.........and Michael, Judy, Yvette and Tom relax during the presentation
 


Breaking news......our 8 new computer monitors with big 21.5 and 23 inch screens arrived today and will soon be installed to our training room computers!

While we were in the Training Room, our Secretary Margaret was out alone in the office entering new members into the member register...she is hard-working and a real treasure!

I'm glad this week is over!

John L




02 August 2013

ANDROID SMART PHONES/TABLETS Special Interest Group

It's certainly true that Android smart phones and tablets are taking over - our ipad/iphone SIGroup this morning attracted 10 members, but the afternoon session on Androids saw a record 20+ try to crowd into our Training Room.

We then split up into two groups, Deborah staying in the Training Room with experienced users and Jon and me using another room with inexperienced users.


                                   


 Deborah with her group  of tablet users
                                      ...and one smart phone


Meanwhile, Jon and me were battling in the other room, setting up Android tablets, big and small, and with every one a different make and different setups, etc...

Both groups were keen to learn, and Jon and I  worked our way through the various tablets and smart phones setups and queries. Afternoon tea was a welcome break for us two!

It certainly looks like we need to provide more formal training for tablets, possibly in smaller groups as Androids are made by different manufacturers and, as Jon and I found out today, each are different to operate.