Wgtn meeting, Wed. 21 Dec 2011

It's Christmas Party time again and the final meeting for the year. Roger will not be with us as he is currently holidaying in Borneo. That includes mountain-climbing, we have been led to believe. Richard will be bringing in a cake and there will be other goodies as well as non-alcoholic drinks on offer.

In addition, Jim Oliver will discuss video compression, a topic with which he is highly conversant. That will involve analysing a number of codecs to show the detail that can get lost as the degree of compression is imcreased. This is an excellent opportunity to learn all there is to know about this subject.

All in all, this will be an exciting evening so please make an effort to attend.

Wgtn meeting, Wed. 16 Nov., 2011

This will be another "brains trust" evening with Roger at the helm.

If you have any problems you'd like solved make sure you attend this meeting and have the experts help you out.

Hutt SIG Meeting, Monday November 14, 2011

Tonight's topic is file storage and backup. And there might be popcorn.

Home networking, file storage options. Demo of a QNAP 4-bay NAS, including its management interface and some of its different capabilities as they relate to the home environment (iTunes server, DLNA streaming, bittorrent downloading, etc). These are very capable devices that can replace some of the functions that might normally be performed by a desktop or other PC.

Demo of Microsoft SyncToy used as backup software. Part of managing large file collections is backing them up; I can demo the NAS' built in capabilities but of more general interest to everybody, Microsoft SyncToy is the easiest way to back up files by far.

Decide on a topic for the December meeting - so bring your ideas!

Everybody welcome!

This meeting will be held in Eastbourne, contact robin@hindesite.co.nz for details.

Wgtn meeting, Wed. 19 October 2011

Roger will discuss proxy servers; what they are and when it could be advantageous to use them.
If you know little or nothing about them, come along to the meeting and have it fully explained so you will be much the wiser.

Wgtn meeting, 21 Sept 2011

After the cancellation of last month's meeting, Arthur Harris will discuss TV reception via a PC and the recording of such signals to one's hard drive or removeable media.

This should be a most interesting evening so make sure you attend.

Hutt SIG Meeting, Monday September 12, 2011

Due to the subject to be discussed, this meeting has been relocated to Eastbourne. The main topics are related to home networking and HTPC (Home Theatre PC) options and are likely to include:

• an extremely small computer, running the latest version of XBMC Media Center, (and also, if there is any interest, Ubuntu 11.10 alpha)
• an A C Ryan media player
  
• networked storage (a 4-bay QNAP NAS)
• Orcon's Genius product
• Android tablet, 1080p output
  
• other home networking equipment, issues.

The main emphasis will probably be on the XBMC box - which really is amazing - but other topics could be covered depending on interest.

As well as any of the above, it would be a good opportunity for others to bring hardware, software or content that really needs HD to be useful - for example, hardware that only has DVI or HDMI outputs and thus cannot be connected to the NZPCA projector.

Tea or coffee and biscuits and maybe popcorn will be provided. No rugby.

If you haven't been contacted through the mailing list, please email or call for details. Everybody is welcome.

Wgtn Meeting, Wed. 17 Aug. 2011

Due to the very inclement weather at present and the forecast for more snow tomorrow, it has been decided to cancel the monthly meeting at St Giles.

Arthur's talk will now take place on the 21 September.

The regular hardware SIG workshop meeting planned for tomorrow has also been cancelled for the same reason.