Members helping Members

20^th-26^th APRIL 2008 :- SPCUG MEETINGS

This is the week you have all been waiting for! Firstly it is our Annual general meeting night where we will agree on the composition of the Committee for the coming year. New blood is always very welcome, so think about it and volunteer for one of the places!

Secondly, after the short AGM there will be what could well prove to be the highlight of the year.

Toshiba’s Matt Tumminello (Product Marketing Manager, Australia & New Zealand), will talk about all the Toshiba products and in particular will demonstrate a Toshiba notebook. Now the great thing is that Matthew will leave behind (perhaps not the same one he is demonstrating) a Notebook as Toshiba’s donation to our Raffle!

Dennis Campanella will be there selling Raffle tickets, so come along, buy some tickets, have chance to win and enjoy what will be a very interesting presentation.

Enjoy your week.
Best Regards,

Alan Durham
SPCUG Update

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After last Tuesday’s presentation John Symonds was talking to presenterAndrew McKee who mentioned that the beta version of ForceField is available at the Zonelabs web site http://www.zonealarm.com He also mentioned that those who install the beta version will be able to purchase FF at a reduced price.This could be of great interest to all members who attended the fascinating demonstration of all the horror that exist out there in cyberspace (except of course those lucky winners who are now waiting to receive their FF full edition prize)

In last week’s update I gave advance warning of the presenter for the April main meeting which will be Toshiba. I am still uncertain as to the detail of the subject but being Toshiba with all the range of their activities I am sure it will be a humdinger!!

You might remember that I had the following paragraph in last week’s message “Please take time to read the next SPCUG message that I will be sending you today, it will give you all necessary details for our upcoming Annual General Meeting. How about volunteering to join the Committee and take an active part in the running of your Club?” I understand that, for reasons that I still do not know or understand, it appears some of you did not receive the attachments by either method I used!. If you still have not received them would you please e-mail me direct and I will send them to you as a special mailing.

Do please note that if your e-mail address is changed for any reason at all, unless you tell me your new address then you will not receive these weekly updates! Any change of address should be notified to changedetails@sydneypc.com

Enjoy your week.

Best Regards,
Alan Durham

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Report on our February 26th Main Meeting

The meeting began with a Q & A session - the first via a video conferencing link to Alex who was in Melbourne. He answered a number of member's questions while appearing larger than life on the big theatre screen. Using our club's new video camera/microphone, this session was most successful with only occasional breaks in picture transmittion. No doubt we will be using this sort of technology increasingly more in future.

Todd Lewis from Citrix Online, ably assisted by member Clare Wagemans, then gave an excellent demonstrate of Cittrix's new GoToAssist software. This is a new, easy-to-use remote support solution, purpose-built for small businesses and professionals.

After quickly installing the software, Clare was able to 'see' and control all functions of the laptop belonging to a company manager in Hong Kong. She was able to move between different applications, open and close files and type and receive messages in real time. Very impressive.

Citrix have invited us all to be part of their beta community, to beta test the new GoToAssist software. Their beta tester group is currently comprised of IT, software and accounting consultants, internal help desks and others who are interested in developing the product, which our group certainly fits into.

Joining the GoToAssist Express Beta community is free, and lets us use the GoToAssist software free of charge (until the software goes gold) to help friends and family with their computer problems live over the Internet. To take part, and help make GoToAssist a better product, please visit Go To Assist

A New Approach to our Club's website?

{ For consideration only }

The structure of this webpage incorporates two advanced design features not commonly employed.

The first is the integration of two fixed side columns with a variable width section between. This enables the viewing area to expand or contract to fit any modern browser screen size or resolution while still maintaining the fixed section's integrity. Importantly, the large blank area seen on the right-hand side of many sites is eliminated.
To see how it all works, just click on the middle 'reduce/restore' button at the top right of this screen, then grab the bottom right corner with your cursor and shake it all about.

The second quite unique feature is that the vertical scroll bar remains in its normal position at the edge of the page yet controls the page scrolling in the middle of the fixed sections. Having fixed side columns allow menus and other important information to always remain displayed whilst scrolling.

Furthermore, this webpage incorporates a number of newer features the folk at W3C are encouraging web-designers to apply. Of particular significants is for the greater use of cascading style sheets (CSS) rather than endless HTML formatting tags. The page also uses the more versatile 'divisions' rather than frames and tables for design structure. By the way, this particular design also incorporates the liberal use of white space and the elimination of most borders as specified in the originall design brief.
Note: The links underlined in blue are currently the only active links on this page. jl