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Future
Meetings
Below is a list of dates the for 2007, these dates have been confirmed.
February 21st
March 21st
April 18th
May 16th
June 13th
August 8th
September 5th
October 3rd
October 31st
November 28th
December 19th
Last
Month….
Melton
Computer Club
Minutes of Annual General Meeting 24th January 2007
Meeting started at 7.40pm.
Apologies
received from Derek Kerr, Barry Gilchrist, Chris Fox-Mapletoft
and Ben Barretto
Minutes
of 11th January 2006 were approved as a true record of the meeting.
Matters
Arising
No Matters arising from above minutes.
Chair’s
Report
Another good year with some excellent feedback from the members.
The presentations were varied and well presented. To keep up the
high standards of presentation and an interesting varied programme
the committee needed ideas from the members. Larry had enjoyed
his first year as club chairman and was looking forward to his
next.
Secretary’s
Report
The committee managed to put on a varied programme that hopefully
the membership has enjoyed. Topics ranged through a whole spectrum
of computer related themes from how the Internet functioned, printing
software and spreadsheets through to photograph judging. Attendances
were good with much contribution from the members. The Christmas
Dinner was well attended and I am sure all those present had an
excellent evening. The programme for 2007 is currently being formulated
with about half the year planned. New ideas are welcome as are
members willing to share their knowledge with the rest of us.
Please contact the committee members with your ideas.
Treasurer’s
Report
The finance statement shows a small loss on the previous year
and this can be explained by renewal of the club Internet domain
name and prizes for the photographic competition. It was felt
that there was no need to increase subs at the present time. The
room rental currently remains the same as last year. A general
discussion regarding finances suggested that a few new members
would not only invigorate the club but also help with the finances.
Geoff Walsh told the members that he had negotiated with local
newsagents to put some club meeting date cards in the shop’s
computer magazines in an attempt to raise interest in the club.
The members agreed that the photographic competition should be
more self-funding and the committee agreed to look into ways of
doing this.
8.
Elections
The
following members were elected:
Treasurer
– Derek Taylor
Proposed:
Keith Allen
Seconded: Barry Beeken
Cttee
Members – Geoff Walsh
Derek Kerr
Re-elected unanimously
9.
Newsletter & Club Website
Unfortunately the club website has not been kept up to date due
to the illness of Chris Fox-Mapletoft, the site manager. We have
no idea how long Chris will be unable to maintain the site. In
the short term, Barry Beeken agreed to look into keeping the site
in order and hopefully it will not be too long before everything
is back to normal.
The
newsletter continues to be well received and members are happy
with the format. Comments like “you always learn something”
and “it’s a timely reminder for the next meeting”
are gratifying. However we do need articles from members, so please
share with us your knowledge and experiences. Mike Taylor has
agreed to start compiling a monthly crossword puzzle.
10.
Feedback from 2006 topics and ideas for future topics
2006
had been well received by members present and they felt that the
presentations went well.
Topics for 2006 included
Internet Workings
Problem Solving
Dive Computers
SatNav
Home Networking
Custom Software
Ideas
for 2007 include
Linux
Free Software Evening
Multi Media Centre
Video Editing
11.
Any Other Business
None.
12. Meeting closed at 8.35 pm.
Christmas
Dinner Evening.
The
club would like to extend their thanks to Ben Barretto for organising
an excellent Christmas Dinner evening at the Bowls Club on December
13th last. I am sure all the members and their partners who attended
had a great evening. Good food, good company, what more could
one want. So thanks again Ben from all of us. Can we pencil you
in to organise next year’s dinner?
MP4
Movies On Your Computer
This
article is about how to view and convert MP4 files on your computer
and the type of graphics card needed for movie editing.
Some types of movie camera record files in MP4 format to an SD
card which can be downloaded to a computer. Frustratingly, most
movie editing software cannot read this format and it has to be
converted to .avi (Windows Movie format) or .mov (Apple Quicktime).
The bundled software with our movie camera, a Sanyo C5, included
Quicktime, but it would only convert MP4 to .mov a file at a time,
not a batch. This was impractical with twenty or more clips to
download. Also no brand name movie viewer would play back all
three video file formats.
After
much trial and error I found a good free application which would
batch convert and a free viewer which would work with any movie
file format. I hope anyone with an MP4 format on Sanyo, Sony,
Casio and Samsung cameras or a mobile phone with movie function
will find this useful. These are the two excellent free software
packages
MP4CAM2AVI
from http://mp4cam2avi.sourceforge.net and X Codec Pack v.2.1.2.
from http://recodemedia.fre3.com
MP4CAM2AVI
is a film clip converter & joiner for MP4 files. There is
no quality loss in the conversion process and the programme contains
all the codecs it needs. The programme opens with a Windows Explorer-type
interface. You can browse to the folder with the MP4 files to
be converted, choose whether to keep the film clips separate or
join them and the programme then carries out a straight conversion
to .avi format. The original MP4 files are unaltered.
X Codec Pack v.2.1.2. contains the lightweight but effective Media
Player Classic (not to be confused with Windows Media Player)
which will play movies in MP4, .avi or .mov format up to full
screen. The software contains the major codecs AC3, DivX and XviD,
with an introduction that makes clear that these are all the codecs
needed, and they are all licence free. It warns that loading too
many different codecs will screw up the Windows operating system.
I can confirm this through experience before discovering X Codec
Pack and I am delighted at such a simple solution.
Once
MP4 files are converted to .avi you are ready for the movie editing
and burning software. Bundled with our Sanyo C5 was Ulead DVD
MovieFactory which is easy to use through its many automated functions.
To make the most of MovieFactory's capability you need a 256MB
graphics card. I originally thought that my existing 128MB card
and 1024MB of physical memory would be enough but I could do only
basic video editing tasks like cutting and joining and simple
titles. Trying any of the more interesting functions like scene
transitions or enhancement of dark sections resulted in freezes
and crashes. I recently installed an NVIDIA GeForce 7600GS graphics
card and now all the functions work correctly.
Steve
Orrell
Recovering
a stolen PC
What can you do if your computer or mobile phone falls into the
hands of thieves?
With laptops rising in desirability it’s only natural that
you’ll want to keep yours safe. However, if the worst happened
to your PC it’d be nice to know that you could track it
down or get someone else totrace it for you.
Conventional advice is to mark valuable property with your postcode
and house number, but this procedure has its drawbacks. Even if
you use ultra-violet pens, such markings can void your warranty
and it relies on someone trustworthy soul actually seeing your
markings.
Nonetheless, ultra-violet marking is worthwhile, as police routinely
scan recovered goods for markings, looking for postcodes and house
numbers. The BBC provides a full property-marking guide at
www.bbc.co.uk/crime/
prevention/propertymarking.shtml.
For GSM phones, you can use the International Mobile Equipment
Identity (IMEI) number for protection. This is usually found under
the battery and uniquely identifi es the device. If your phone
is stolen, you can call your network provider who can block it,
even if the SIM card is changed.
PC phone home...
An alternative way to recover your property is to get it to phone
home, which is what PC Tracker does. You can get a demo from www.palsol.com.
The full product costs (£16).
When you install the program, you give it details of your email
address and SMTP server. You also provide information about the
PC to help you prove that it’s yours. Once set up the software
runs in the background invisibly. If you need to access it, press
[Ctrl] + [Alt] + [P] to bring up the PC Tracker log in and enter
your Password.
As soon as anyone powers up your PC and connects to the Internet,
PC Tracker sends you an email giving the current IP address, which
you can use to help work out who’s using it. PC Tracker
also contacts Pal Solution’s servers with the same information.
This means that you can still find out where your missing PC is
or if someone is using your PC without permission, even if you
can’t access your email.
Bumper
Crop of Security Holes
Windows users are being urged to install Microsoft's February
security update which contains 12 patches for 20 vulnerabilities.
The bumper package includes fixes for loopholes that malicious
hackers are known to be already exploiting.
Another vulnerability is in the program Microsoft designed to
spot viruses and spyware that has infected PCs.
Half of the patches in the update have been rated as critical;
criminals exploiting these could take over a PC.
Hijack trick
The fixes were issued as part of Microsoft's regular monthly security
update that falls on the second Tuesday of every month.
Loopholes in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Internet Explorer and Microsoft's
Malware Protection Engine are closed by the updates in the patch.
Versions of these programs used on Windows 2000 and XP could have
these loopholes.
Users worried that they are at risk are being encouraged to check
information about which programs are vulnerable via Microsoft's
security site.
Some of the loopholes, particularly those in Word, have been actively
exploited by malicious hackers for several weeks.
Many Windows XP owners are likely to get the patches automatically,
but any user can download the patches from the Windows Update
site.
The "critical" rating usually means that a cyber criminal
exploiting such a vulnerability could take over a PC via a booby-trapped
webpage or by tricking a user into opening an attachment on an
e-mail.
None of the patches affected Vista - the newest version of the
Windows operating system which was released on 30 January.
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