Looking forward to seeing most of you at the Dinner. I haven't been to this venue before so I am interested to see what it is like. I have seen some very good reviews of it.
Details in case you have mislaid them are
The Barn Brasserie, Great Tey, CO6 1JE. (01206 212345)
The meal will be the Christmas Dinner set Menu as can be seen on their website at
http://www.thebarnbrasserie.co.uk/menu3.asp?M=9&T=3 .
The meal will be in the Meeting Room which is just across the courtyard from the Main Restaurant.
For directions and maps please see their website or else contact me.
http://www.thebarnbrasserie.co.uk/directions.asp .
To begin Peter showed his Science Museum digital radio controlled alarm clock. This neat travel clock sets its time from Rugby Time standard transmission. It shows in addition to the time, the day of the month, day of the week and number of the month. It has two separate alarm times. There is also a light and of course it is battery operated. The radio range is reputed to be 900 miles. It certainly still works in the south of France but not in Turkey! Peter's second gadget was his Stanley Intellimeasure ultrasonic distance measure with laser pointer. Accurate to 1cm with a range of about 0.6m to 20m. It can convert between metric and imperial measurements and calculate areas and volumes.
Peter's third gadget was his newly acquired Tom Tom Europe One Satnav. This unit is very compact and gives seamless street level navigation through Western Europe.
In normal use the TomTom One is driven from the touch screen. The only control being the on/off switch. It has a colour display and can be driven from its own battery or else plugged into a car via the cigar lighter socket or from the USB connection from a computer. The internal rechargeable Li-ion battery is charged whenever it is plugged into an external supply. The Li-ion gives over 2 hours of use. But like many electronic systems it draws current even when switched off. The computer connection may be used in windows to display the TomTom screen display on the computer screen and it can the be driven with the mouse. Peter made use of this for his demo with the overhead projector. The maps can be viewed in 3-D or 2-D and screen colours and brightness can all be altered. There is also a second choice for daytime or night time. The GPS receiver is very sensitive and can pick up a useable signal even indoors if near a window. The unit will give verbal instructions with a choice of voices and is very easy to follow. If a junction is missed for the programmed route the unit will immediately reprogramme a diversion to reach the destination or give instructions to turn round. Routes to either a point on the map or a favourite can be defined as fastest, shortest, avoiding motorways or Toll roads, cycling, walking etc. Another useful feature is the ability to demo a route before use. The unit can fixed to the car windscreen with a suction mount provided and can be instantly detached and slipped into a pocket when leaving the car which is important for security. Data is stored on a removable SD card. Peter went on quite a bit about this gadget and said a lot more than written here - but there is a limit!
Tony showed us his very neat printer switch giving 2 computer to 1 monitor or 2 monitor to 1 computer connectivity.
At this point we had a break for some really nice mince pies and other nibbles.
The next presenter was Frank who showed us his favourite corkscrews. In particular his Screwpull which not only removes the cork from the bottle but also removes the cork from the corkscrew in an instant! Obviously there is no time to be wasted here!
He also spoke about his special project for a high gain WiFi Aerial constructed from an empty Pringle biscuit box. He was constructing a central core to act as a dipole at 2.4GHz. This is an ongoing project which I'm sure Frank will be demonstrating when it reaches completion.
Tony then described his mains transformer which allows connection of a LAN via the mains house wiring avoiding the need for separate cabling. He also showed his car battery chargers.
Gareth showed his MP3 FM iPOD with a choice of up to 10 playlists. This is easier to use than a car 6CD changer. It links to the car radio using a local FM signal. This has only recently become legal in UK.
Gareth's second gadget was his Sony PSP for playing video from a large memory stick.
His last gadget was a special in car charger with DC inverter which can not only be used for boosting flat car battery but also can power mains voltage equipment via the inverter. Ideal for camping.
Finally Michael showed us his USB3 2GB capacity pendrive (by Sandisk) which apart from holding files as one would expect can also hold special applications which can be run from the pendrive without needing to be installed in windows. In use this unit is plugged into the USB port in the usual way but then downloads and autoruns a driver onto the client windows PC installing its own wallpaper swapper and launchpad.
It is then possible to launch applications like Avanti Antivirus, Skype, GIMP portable Firefox 2 CD/DVD burner Open Office etc. Once the unit is dismounted it can be removed and the original wallpaper etc. is removed. There is of course some security risk in its use so it must be used with care. A very useful tool if you need to check on many different machines e.g. large network administration and repair. I think we could have gone on for quite a time on this but unfortunately ran out of time.
Thanks to everyone who came along for bringing their favourite gadgets and for all who brought party fare and made it a really interesting evening.
A very Happy New Year to you all.
Let us hope this will be a good year for the club, perhaps with an influx of new members, new computers, software and gadgets!
| 2007 | ||
| January 17th | Social Evening | All |
| February 7th | VISTA - the latest Windows version from Microsoft | Michael |
| March 7th | A networking Evening Wired/Wireless Bluetooth and maybe VOIP. | All |
| April 4th | AGM followed by a discussion on Antispam. | |
| May 2nd | TBA hopefully with an outside speaker. | TBA |
Talks with Visiting speakers are shown in Red. We will give more details as soon as they are confirmed.
Our meetings are held at the Bourne Vale Social Club, Halifax Road, Ipswich IP2 8RE , for a map and other details please see the website. http://icenicomputerclub.users.btopenworld.com
The first visit is free and subsequent visits for non - members is £2. The membership fee is £18 due from the AGM date in April, but may be reduced for those joining late in the year.
Continuing our publicity for EAUG events - please see their Website for details of their next meeting.
Meetings are at the Great Baddow Village Hall, on the second Tuesday of the month
opening at 7:30 p.m. for a start at 7:45 - 8:00 p.m.
For directions see below (note the new web addresses)
http://www.eaug.org.uk or 'phone one of the contacts on http://www.eaug.org.uk/ppl.htm
"ICENI does not have any Insurance cover for computers or other equipment so please be advised that you bring machines to the club at your own risk."
P.S. My insurance company have added my computer cover away from home with no extra premium required, yours might do the same.(Ed.)
If anyone would like a copy of the CD of our old newsletters this could be arranged.
I am open to suggestions on what people would like to have included in the website.
Our website URL is
http://icenicomputerclub.users.btopenworld.com as a virtual domain,
it can also be reached using http://www.btinternet.com/~icenicomputerclub
Email to: iceni@woolridge.org.uk