28 November 2013

PICASA SHORT COURSE - UPDATE & NEW FEATURES

I assisted Jon Bayley with his short course on Picasa updates and new features last Wednesday.
His students were all Picasa users and were keen to be shown the new features.

Jon demonstrated using the new features of some of the useful 'Effects' tab, as well as some time at naming, saving and grouping their photos.

He told them about Picasa's addition of a very powerful feature to the Album functions, using face recognition software similar to that now incorporated into many cameras. Picasa automatically searches through all photos in the folders selected, and identifies all faces for you to name.

Picasa also has a feature that allows you to make limited edits to video clips taken on your still camera.

Jon will continue to conduct his popular Managing Your Digital Photos during 2014, so put your name on the waiting list to score a place in his class, and anybody who has previously attended his courses and wants to update their Picasa knowledge about the new features of version 3.9 should put their name down as well-its a one-day course.

27 November 2013

DEBORAH'S FACEBOOK FOR BEGINNERS COURSE

Because of  family baby-sitting commitment in Robertson,  I was unable to assist on the first day of Deborah's Facebook course last week. But I made if on the second day this week. All her students had created a Facebook account and had explored the Facebook website to get to know their Home Page, Profile Page.

This second week they are learning how to search for and find friends, and to navigate their News Feed.

 

26 November 2013

WEEK 2 OF ANDROID TABLETS FOR BEGINNERS COURSE

Trainer Hazel is back in Sydney and came to this second week lesson of the tablet beginners course. Deborah and I were very happy to see Hazel and get her assistance. Different brands of android tablets have slightly different control points, etc....and that makes it hard for the trainers to teach students how to operate their individual tablet. This takes time, but with three trainers its easier to get around to assist and help each student.

 

Our tablet beginners have been learning how to find apps on Google Play Stores.
Because of the room not being available this week, the students have some time to explore their tablets before resuming the course next week.



16 November 2013

A BUSY WEEK AT COMPUTER PALS

It certainly has been a busy week for us at ComputerPals.

Started on Tuesday at ASCCA's 15th Australian Computer Conference at Rydges World Tower Hotel in Sydney................................


Nan Bosler OA welcomed us to the Conference. Our Club had a large number of delegates attending the two-day conference that attracted delegates from all over Australia. Two speakers even attended from Hawaii.





We especially enjoyed the hot lunches
each day






The speakers and exhibitors were impressive, especially The Gadget Man, Peter Blasina talking about new technology, Joy Murrin about researching Family History, and Trish Levido telling us about recording Oral History.
Our Club was successful with awards to Bev Pieremont, Judith Joyce and Jon Bayley, who all did us proud winning prizes for stories, poem and landscape photo.

Then it was Thursday, with Trainer Deborah and myself starting a four-week training course on Android Tables for Beginners.
Wow!  A record number of 15 tablet loving members enrolled in the course to learn how to set up and use their new android tablet. Trainer Deborah and me were flat out for two hours, and will be glad when trainer Hazel returns for day two next week.

Now its Friday morning....the regular monthly meeting of members -
Keith South showing members his recently completed book of his life story. Keith had previously written his life story on Word and.as a result of attending Hazel's recent Photobook Course, was able to transfer the Word document and photos into a wonderful book. Well done Keith!
Popular Maureen Neilsen was given the Mug of the Month by President Deborah. Maureen is a long-time member,has introduced her friends to our Club, and is one of our Facebook users.




                                        Bev, Jon and Judy with their ASCCA certificates.

Finally, on Friday afternoon members of the Club's Special Interest Groups for Digital Photography and Film Making met up at Parramatta River to help Judy video her  short film about the Burramattagal people, who lived here along the upper reaches of the river. 

We soon learnt that taking suitable video was not as easy as we all thought! We eventually staggered back up from the River and walked back to our Club where we all discussed today's film making .

We learnt -
1. Be able to read camera window in sunlight.
2. More variety in shots
3. We didn’t have enough shots planned. Need to scout area first.
4. Useful to have one director with megaphone.
5. We need assigned roles e.g. Audio specialist, person to carry the gear, director, camera operator etc..
6. Have a back pack to carry gear.
7. Attention to continuity e.g. carry handbag in the same hand in the one scene.
8. Variety in shots.
9. Difficulty in seeing on the screen what one was filming.
       Know your equipment.
    Need to announce start of filming and "cut" when stopping.
   
     What a week!
    
    





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02 November 2013

HANDOVER FOR NEW SECRETARY SILVIA VEGA

Silvia was elected Secretary of our Club at the recent AGM, and was quick to get a handover from our previous Secretary Margaret.

Silvia has been assisting Margaret for some time now, and is looking forward to the challenge of being Secretary. I'm sure our Committee will support Silvia all the way....................