Page Title

Chairman Phil Goff called the meeting to order at 9:00am. Executive Committee members attending were Dick Curry, Phil Goff, Floyd Skelton, Derek Southern, Jack Bevis, Dick Chaffee, Frank Crua, Vic Moore and Frank Crua. Total attendance was xx

There was not time today for Phil’s review of Fire Fox. He will postpone that until next month.

The major presentation today was Bluetooth Technology by Derek Southern, followed by a brief demonstration by Dick Thompson, a fun presentation by Phil Goff and Q&A by Dick Curry.

The raffle for the old Club laptop was held and won by Frank Crua.

The volunteers for this meeting were: Coffee Master: Vic Moore, Setup Chairman; Bill Turnquist with Bill Barnard, Bob Brady and Frank Comprelli.

We adjourned at 1100.

Presentations

Derek Southern -- Bluetooth Technology (ppt) (pdf)

Setting Up Your Cell Phone (ppt) (pdf)

Phil Goff -- Sending Text Messages from Email (ppt) (pdf)

The slides show Dean Steichen as presenter for Bluetooth Technology but it was actually Derek Southern who made the presentation when Dean was unable to attend.

Derek pointed out that we make things complicated sometimes by telling us about the little boy who asked his PHD father how does the TV work. After a long lecture about the inner workings of the TV his son said please dad all I wanted to know was how to switch it on.

Bluetooth is basically a way to make things tidy and eliminate the wires. Think of it as – Bluetooth replaces cables.

It has a great future. These days chips are in everything: the stove, a/c, garage door opener, TV, etc. At the present time, with the proper wiring and remotes you can have an automatic house. Think how much easier it would be to do with Bluetooth.

Derek demonstrated his own Bluetooth device. It is hands free Motorola T-305 with speaker and mic. It must be within 30 feet of his cell phone. The sound was very good and he said that the reception in his car is also good. It includes voice recognition technology that allows hands free voice control of the unit. He also recommends noise-canceling technology.

Derek’s full presentation is available on the CAT website.

At the end of the presentation Dick Thomson showed his Garmin GPS unit to the group.

He explained that this model is Bluetooth enabled. It contains a speaker and mic and only requires a cell phone be paired with it for hands free communication.

Next, Phil Goff had fun with a brief presentation. He had discovered that it is possible to send a text message from your computer to a cell phone. This is great. You don’t have to know how to IM but can still have a way to get through to your grandchild. You only need to know the phone number and supplier.

For AT&T the form is: 10digitphonenumber@txt.att.net. Check the presentation materials for addresses for other cell phone providers.

After all of the above there were a few minutes remaining for Q&A with Dick Curry. Dick fielded a number of questions including a detailed explanation of how to customize Windows Explorer, the powerful Windows file management program.