OGS Computer SIG

Had fun showing off my videos and photo efforts under the guise of a presentation tonight! I was wrapping up a four part series of presentation that John Carter & I provided to the membership on capturing digital images, manipulating them and sharing them. I used the evening to discuss how to use free homepages available from many ISP's, showing them my .Mac site as well as the Yahoo photo albums feature that allows family and friends to view and purchase photos. Security was an issue and we discussed how you can limit who has access to the photos as well.

Photo management with Picasa was demonstrated as was this blog. I showed off my friend Travis' site as an example of a grandfather/genealogist who is using a blog to provide a journal of the family activities and offer historical perspective occasionally as well. You can see it at http://travis52140.tripod.com/blog/

Finally we discussed the creation of videos and slideshows on both CD and DVD with the primary interest being in DVD because of the opportunity to show photos on TV's. A side discussion of transfering analog material, whether my recent efforts working with Dub Video to transfer 8mm to DV or analog camcorders/VHS tapes, also occured. The bottom line - videos require a lot of time and money due to the hardware requirements in many cases. Photo slideshows however are easily in reach using free software such as MovieMaker v2 in Windows XP or some of the consumer products available for <$50. A future meeting will probably focus on a demonstration of this capability.