Victoria Computer Club

Basic photography course postponed

Posted on 2015-03-21 by George Bowden

Ken Beattie has decided to delay the Basic Digital Camera Course in April because not enough interest was shown. You can continue to show interest by emailing training@bbc.org , and we will let you know when we have enough students.

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Everything digital, anywhere, anytime

Posted on 2015-03-12 by George Bowden

Do you want everything digital available anywhere, anytime, on any device? Will you get that with Microsoft’s or Google’s or Apple’s cloud storage and applications? Lets discuss this, and the implications, at the monthly presentation, March 18th, 2pm at the clubhouse. Drop by with your lunch an hour earlier to socialize.

RSVP here, and I will show the count here on the website. Cut-off is about 25.

Current count: 22 attendees

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Thanks to the volunteers at the Senior Expo 2015

Posted on 2015-03-10 by George Bowden

Faith and Martin at the Show

For March, New members get 3 workshops free.

Thanks to:
Joan Greig,
Martin Brooks,
Julia Wren,
Sharon Duncan, Faith Shannon,
Mary Davie and George Bowden for helping out at the Senior Expo 2015, Tuesday March 10th. We had a great looking booth.

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Senior Living Expo at Pearkes Tuesday 9-3:30

Posted on 2015-03-05 by George Bowden

The club has a booth at the Senior Expo 2015

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Picasa Workshops

Posted on 2015-02-11 by George Bowden

Photographs, like all communications, have changed enormously in the digital world. This series of workshops covers getting the photos out of your camera or scanner, to sharing them with other people, and all the steps in between. You can share your needs and learn from others in this face to face class. Bring your camera, or use the photos we provide in class. In the end, put those greatly improved photos out there for others to admire!

At the club we see about 4 photo organizers/editors used regularly by members: Picasa, Windows Photo Gallery, Kodak Easy Share and Photoshop Elements. Cameras often come with their own organizer/editor. (Please comment below if you use a different program.) To keep the course moving, we will use Picasa, a free organizer, editor, and sharing program for Windows by Google. Many of its features are found in the other products mentioned above, and we shall compare.

Installation of Picasa has been covered in the Seniors SIG. Those students who need to install Picasa on their laptops can come half an hour early. Those students who want to install it on their home computers or laptops themselves should view this lynda.com tutorial . Pay particular attention to the selection of what to catalog, at 1 minute 45 seconds into the video. Make sure you change the default setting so that only the photos in my pictures and my documents are indexed, and not the whole drive.

Workshop 1: Importing photos: instructor George Bowden, fee $10

Use Picasa to view photos already on your computer, or to import photos from your camera.
Add photos already on your computer
Control the folders that display Control the file types that display
Import new photos from many sources, including cameras, CDs, memory cards, scanners, webcams, phones and more. Photos you import are saved on your computer and displayed automatically in Picasa.
Photos and viewers. Why clicking the photo starts the wrong viewer program

Workshop 2: Picasa Organizer, fee $10

Organizers don’t make sense until you understand

Virtual file folders and file shortcuts.
Cataloging vs file and folder naming
Manual vs Automatic cataloging
Controlling what gets cataloged
Tags, labels, and searches
Face recognition

Workshop 3: Editing, fee $10

The scope of editing:
Straightening and cropping
Red eye, Colour, brightness, and contrast adjustments
Why you might need a more powerful editor: correcting deformation, selecting areas, cloning areas, using layers

Workshop 4: Sharing, fee $10

Sooner or later you will take a photo that you want to share.

What are the pros and cons of photo sharing sites like Google+ photos (Picasa web albums), Flikr, Shutterfly, Instagram (Facebook),
Website and email sharing requirements
Uploading to Google+ photos and Facebook
Making albums to share

Workshop 5: Discover, fee $10

Artistic effects
Great photos by others
Great tutorials
Realism

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Workshops on Picasa, the fast free photo organizer and editor

Posted on 2015-02-03 by George Bowden

Add your camera photos to your computer: Feb 16, 1 to 3pm
Organize your photos: Feb 23, 1 to 3pm
Edit your photos: Mar 2, 1 to 3pm
Share your photos: Mar 9, 1 to 3pm
Discover more features: Mar 16, 1 to 3pm

Fee is $10 per session. Email training@bbc.org to register.

Continue reading →

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Training Survey Results

Posted on 2015-01-25 by George Bowden

Here are the training survey results, as of January 21:

Sufficient interest was shown to run multi-session classes of “Writing Blogs and Building Websites”, “Backing up your info on all your devices”, and “Protect your identity across all your devices”

Sufficient interest was shown to run single-session classes of “Compare SkyDrive, Google Drive, Box and iCloud”, “Internal and External Storage for photos, documents, emails….”, and “Protect your Facebook or Google+ privacy online”

Sufficient interest was shown to run single-session free presentations of “Utilities”, “Managing passwords”, “Files, Folders and Favorites”

Here is the full table of results, unweighted: Continue reading →

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Second offering of Windows 8.1

Posted on 2015-01-24 by George Bowden

Screenshot (2)_3 Windows 8.1 second Basic class, Thursday mornings, 10am – 12 noon . Please email “training at VictoriaComputerClub.org” if you want to register for this course. It will begin when there are ten people registered. Please bring your laptop with Windows 8/8.1 installed (if you have one). Club computers have Windows 7. Students without Window 8 laptops are welcome to view the visual presentation and take notes. Basic topics covered will include: tiles, charms, desktop, apps vs programs. Cost is $4 to members. Watch for updates in the club calendar.