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Archive of Meetings - 2010

Monday 13th December 2010 - Christmas Quiz

The Christmas quiz was at the same level of difficulty as it is every year. Some questions were easy and some were really hard. I managed 10 out of 20, and came joint second with three other members. First place was tied between John Childs, Mike Bray and Francis Jacques, all with 14 out of 20. The prizes available were several copies of Norton AntiVirus, Norton Utilities and Norton 360, some Video editing software from Magix, a copy of Paint Shop Photo Pro X3, a rather colourful set of headphones and a laptop bag. There were enough prizes for everyone plus one more, as our Chairman (Tony) set the quiz as per usually, and so couldn't win a prize! The questions and answers are available to download.

Monday 8th November 2010 - Scanners and PDF Creation

With the addition of a new u shaped sofa in the middle of the hall, which was compfy for members watching the demo, Laurence started the evening showing the Ion Pics 2 PC scanner. This can scan photos and 35mm slides/negatives, and is effectively a 5 megapixel web camera. Laurence compared the results from this scanner to scans of the same images done on his Epson 1660 Photo Perfection scanner, which were better. At £100 this is one of the more expensive slide scanners available, but with the lack of decent results and flaws (it scans at 1800 PDI but saves a 96 DPI image) it was a bit of a disappointment.

Tony then showed his Epson Perfection V700 Photo scanner which has Digital Ice included, which automatically removes spots and marks from your scans. It may be more expensive and take longer to scan slides, but the results were much better. With the holder provided you can set it to scan twelves transparencies automatically, although it was advised to go and make a cup of tea whilst it was doing this as it takes quite while!

Finally, Tony showed Nuance's PDF Converter 7 software, an alternative to Adobe Acrobat for making your own PDF files. He demonstrated how to turn a printed page into a PDF, password protect it, and join PDFs together. At around £70, this is a cheaper alternative to Adobe Acrobat X, which costs around £500 for the full version, or around £220 for an upgrade version.

Monday 11th October 2010 - Swann Security Cameras

Tony demonstrated two cameras from Swann Security. The first was a Digital Guardian Camera & Recorder ADW-400, a wireless security camera that transmits the picture and sound to a base unit that records to an SD card. The camera is mains powered, but does come with a power cable extender. It records at 16fps and can cope with low light levels, with a night vision setting. It can start to record when it senses movement, and the base unit can emit an alarm at the same time. It can cope with up to four different cameras, but the base unit only has phono out sockets for you to connect to a television. There is no connection to a PC, but as it records to an SD card it doesn't really need to. The package costs around £170.

the second camera was a RemoteCam DVR-410, shaped like a keyring fob. It has two controls, one for power and the other to take a photo or start recording. It uses a microSD card, and a 2GB one is supplied. It has a better resolution that the Guardian, and can record sound via the built in microphone. Tony showed some stealth footage recorded while we we have a coffee and apart from the camera shake it was good quality footage. He then showed some footage taken when he went to his local post office and he kept the fob with his keys so he could hold it in a suitable position. The unit has a rechargeable battery that lasts an hour and a the 2GB card can record around 25 minutes. It costs around £33.

The RemoteCam was the favourite of the two cameras shown, and will be on some members christmas lists!

Monday 13th September 2010 - Virtual Air Traffic Radar

We hit a problem with our first meeting after our summer break, as Tony couldn't get internet access from the club's free WiFi. We guessed that the new router has some setting to prevent access, so part of the meeting was held in the room with the PCs that are connected to the router. He showed us a live flight tracking website called Casper, at casper.frontier.nl which shows aircraft positions and other data over several airports. If you subscribe to the site (which costs £13 for half a year) the data is in real time, but if you visit it as a free user, there is a fifteen minute delay. You can see the altitude and type of aircraft, as well as the flight number. If you use another site I found called Flight Aware at http://flightaware.com/live/ you can enter the flight number to get more information about it. Tony also used his radio which picks up the air traffic control messages but as we were indoors it did not get a good signal.

Tony then showed his air NAV radar box (cost around £380) which uses a special aerial to pick up the same data that the web site uses, but gets it direct from the aircraft. The box connects to a PC and the software displays this information, but is very graphic intensive and can use Goggle maps to enhance the display. As we had no internet access the display was not as good, and the range was around 60 miles, not bad for an aerial under a foot high indoors. An interesting evening, even for non airplane spotters!

Monday 14th June 2010 - iStorage diskGenie and Paintshop Photo Pro X3

The evening started with Tony demonstrating diskGenie, an external hard drive with 256-bit hardware encryption, by iStorage. It does not require any additional software and has pin code access to the drive, powered by the USB port. The data is encrypted/decrypted on the fly so you don't see any slow down in access. It is quite expensive though, at around £115 for a 250GB capacity, up to £200 for a 640GB. It uses a 2.5in hard drive, but you can get an SSD version (£200 for 30GB, £1210 for 256GB). An alternative is to buy a 2.5in hard drive (£30 for 160GB) with an external enclosure (£8 or less), and use some software like Stegano Safe (version 11 is £27). That's £68 or less for effectively the same kit (without a number pad).

Laurence then continued with a demo of Corel's Paintshop Photo Pro X3. The full editor has some new features, like Smart Carver, which can adjust the size of a picture whilst keeping objects the same size (like making a picture widescreen without stretching the people). A new Object Extractor makes it easier to take an object from one photo and place it in another, and there's an improved object remover to take unsightly objects out of your photo. The text function has been improved as well, and there's a new Vibrancy filter (which does the same as increasing the saturation). You also get four KPT plugin filters to add extra features to the program. The Project Creator is the same software from the Digital Studio 2010 package Corel released a while ago which let's you create calendars, collages, slide shows and easily upload to Facebook and Flickr. The final piece of software in the box shown was Painter Photo Essentials 4, which takes a photo and paints it like a watercolour, pencil drawing or oil painting. This is a cut down version of Corel's Painter program but some good results can be achieved and it's fun to watch the picture being automatically 'painted'.

Monday 10th May 2010 - AGM/Acer Aspire 1825PT Netbook

The AGM was fairly quick, with Francis and Tony standing down and being re-elected as Treasurer and Chairman/Editor. As Paul Kuzmin was no longer going to attend the meetings, Laurence Fenn was collared, sorry elected, as secretary. The subs were agreed to remain the same at £20, and members who paid up were offered some software for free. Afterwards Laurence demonstrated the new Acer Aspire 1825PT netbook, on loan from Acer. This was after a system restore was needed (which took ages to complete) as some of the updates applied by Tony seemed to cause problems, like lack of internet access and ability to play videos/music.

The netbook (which doesn't appear on Acer's site as yet) has an impressive 9 hour battery, and as well as three USB ports and an SD card reader, has an HDMI out port. This was shown with the big screen television in the hall and the picture quality was very good. However you can't use this as a blu-ray/DVD player as there is no built-in drive, but it would work with an external one plugged into one of the USB ports. The touch screen works well but can be difficult when accessing small items on the desktop, like the close button on a window and the screen does hold the finger prints. Still, if you don't mind waiting a while to run programs and only one at a time (netbooks are not good at multi-tasking) then the €600 price tag along with the built in Bluetooth/Wi-Fi could entice you.

Monday 8th March 2010 - Laurence Fenn Graphical Adventures

First Tony showed us a Ricoh CX2 with built in video. Power DVD 10 out soon 3D compatible - need glasses 3D and a special 3D graphics card.

Laurence's talk followed giving the history of graphical adventure games, including:

• 1982 Philosopher's Quest on BBC micro and was text based.
• 1980 Mystery House on Apple 2.
• 1978 Atari console Adventure - 2D with Easter egg required 4k of memory 128 bytes.
• King's Quest interactive game series from Sierra 1984 - 1998 each improving in graphics eventually 3D we saw a video about the making of KQ6.
• Prince of Persia 1989 - 2003 Sands of time ongoing realistic movement 3D eventually - Disney releasing a film based on the game in May 2010.
• 1990 Secret of Monkey Island (Lucas Film games) - pick up objects from one side to move to the other side has been re-release 2009 with speech. Involved character who undergoes trials to become a pirate.
• Another World Delphin software 1991 & 2006 versions on many consoles and DOS - difficult game to win without cheat codes.
• Alone in the Dark 1992-2001 about a detective up to Win 95 - had a movie made that was a flop.
• LucasArts games 1992-93 include Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Day of the Tentacle & Sam & Max. We saw a Fate of Atlantis demonstration.
• 1993 Myst - Apple Mac 3D background different endings. Riven and further Myst versions.
• The 7th Guest - 1st game for PC CD ROM and Mac and Phillips CD-i. Sequel 11th hour 1995 all puzzle games with videos in between, the latter on 4 CDs.
• 1993 Return to Zork - a couple of famous actors involved was combining real motion pictures with cartoon animation.
• Under a Killing Moon - a Tex Murphy adventure with two sequels, 1994-1998 with famous actors. On up to 6 CDs!
• 1995 Phantasmagoria - By Sierra on 7 CDs based on The Shining - banned in Australia! Uses objects picked up to progress through the adventure.
• 1995 Full Throttle by LucasArts - cartoon-like game with Mark Hamill
• 1997 The Curse of Monkey Island - improved sound interactive cartoon.
• 1998 1st 3D graphics Grim Fandango (I loved that game for its humour and super graphics) was a commercial flop so LucasArts people all left to join different companies.
• 2001 Runaway A Road Adventure. Spanish version detailed 3D graphics.
• 2006 Scratches. Very dark imagery and spooky music very well done but disturbing.
• 2008 A Vampire Story. Ex-LucasArts people as well - quite humorous - sequel awaited.
• 2009 Tales of Monkey Island - more from Guybrush the hero made for Windows & Wii. It is released in sequels that form episodes.
• 2009 Machinarium - large Czech Flash game with a little robot and thought bubbles.
• 2010 The Whispered World - about a clown and a pet worm.

He then explained how to play the games on a modern PC. Four ways, firstly, check for Windows updates for games. Some like The 7th Guest, Under a Killing Moon, and 11th Hour have updates that will run the game in Windows instead of DOS. Some games have been released on Great Old Games which have been tweaked to run in Windows and are cheap. Myst: Masterpiece Edition $5.99, Simon the Sorcerer $5.99, Phantasmagoria $9.99.

Secondly, Microsoft offer a free download of Virtual PC, which allows you to set up an environment to run the game. MS-DOS 6.2 is currently free from Microsoft as well, or you can use FreeDOS.

Thirdly, If it is a LucasArts game, Simon the Sorcerer 1 & 2, Return to Zork, The 7th Guest, King's Quest 1-4, Gobliins 1-3, Disc World, Space Quest 1-3, Flight of the Amazon Queen, Beneath a Steel Sky then ScummVM is a program that will run the game using its own code, so it can run a game. Versions for Mac and Pocket PC available as well.

Lastly, Any other game can be run using DOSBox 0.73. A free download that sets up an environment with virtual drives that can be mapped to any folder. If ISO images are made of the CDs needed, these can be mount so you don't need any of them when you play the game. The CD can be changed with a keystroke. It can be quite complex to set up, so there are front ends to DOS Box that help you set up the game.

If you want to search for old games, here are some sites:

http://www.dosgames.com/gameindex.php
http://www.dosgamesarchive.com
http://www.classicdosgames.com
http://www.abandonia.com
http://hotud.org

As a final note, if anyone saw the video files Laurence played before the demo, they you can see them online. The Hero and the Jazz Hamster.

Monday 8th February 2010 - Gizmos and Gadgets

At the meeting on Monday 8th February of Gizmos and Gadgets we had a demonstration of a variety of items.

1. This included the Cygnett FM Transmitter, ideal for streaming your iPod or MP3 music to your in-car stereo to a vacant spot in the FM band. Also ideal if you have a mini-DAB radio and want to listen to DAB stations on your in-car FM stereo.
2. Also shown were two Hard-disk enclosures from Sandberg:
a. Multi hard Disk Box 3.5" for IDE or SATA 3.5" hard disks c/w PSU and
b. Multi Hard Disk Box 2.5" lets you use a 2.5" IDE or SATA hard disk as a portable external hard disk. The box connects to a computer either via USB 2.0 or eSATA, giving speeds of up to 3 Gb per second (IDE hard disks cannot, however, be connected with eSATA).

Both Boxes come with an adapter bracket to convert an internal SATA port to an eSATA port. As an added bonus an eSATA cable is supplied with both boxes.
3. Doro MemoryPlus was demonstrated to show how a bleeping receiver with key-ring can be attached to hard to find keys or whatever. One press of the transmitter and the key-ring receiver bleeps to show its whereabouts - ideal for older folk with short-term memories who may have forgotten where they've put essential items, like keys for example.
4. We saw introductory videos from Corel showing the features of their just released latest versions of their popular photo and video editing programs: Corel PaintShop Pro X3 and Video Studio Plus X3.
5. Also saw instructional videos of some other newly released programs.

Overall the February meeting was an interesting and informative evening with a variety of new and fascinating items on show.