Number 308 - January 2009

Chicago Computer Society Makes History!
by Irene Gaba, Digital Imagery SIG's Meeting for June 2008 Obtained from APCUG with the author's permissionfor publication by APCUG member groups
History was made by the Chicago Computer Society, as its Digutal Imagery SIG hosted by Sanford Kolinek, gave ist first main presentation at our local meeting by its presenter from two thousand miles away.    As one of the largest member turnouts of this year assembled in their seats in Lisle, Sanford passed the popcorn for all to enjoy and Jack Jackson, a long-time member of the Chicago Computer Society who now lives in Utah, presented his slide-show of gorgeous photographs of Goblin Valley and Arches National Park with his live narrative from his home in Utah. Assisting Jack at the meeting were Alvin Reisbeck and Jerry Sass.    Here is how this unique program came about and was done. Jack had mailed me a DVD of his photographs that I took to the February Digital Imagery meeting for Show-and-Tell. We had a beautiful show, but no tell, and our members discussed how nice it would have been had we been able to learn more about how to make such wonderful images by being able to ask Jack about his camera, the settings he chose and why, what post-processing he did, etc.    That led to the idea of using Skype at our meeting. Jack mailed several more DVDs to Alvin and Jerry. Jack downloaded the latest Skype from www.skype.com and then Sanford, Jerry and Jack worked out and practiced the details ahead of time which made the evening's presentation run perfectly.    The DVD was run from Jerry's notebook PC on site at the meeting. A small "eyeball" video camera connecting to Jerry's notebook allowed "Utah Jack" to see Jerry and a video cam on	Utah Jack's computer allowed Jerry to see Jack. When Jerry's notebook was connected to the projector and sound system at our meeting, all of us at the meeting could see and hear Utah Jack.    Here's the fun part: when the video cam "eyeball" was turned around and passed around, Utah Jack was able to see all the members at the meeting to "Howdy" us, each by name because he could see each of us.    The video cam eyeball was then positioned to look at the screen so that Utah Jack could look at the same slideshow that all of us at the meeting were seeing. It was this setup that enabled Jack to present his live running commentary on the slide show. During the show, people asked Jack questions about everything from the technical aspects of his photographs, the music he chose for the show, commented on "his house" and laughed together about it because it was a photograph of an historic cabin at a park in Utah.    This historic technical event and the hot popcorn compliments of Sanford made the evening one of the most enjoyable meetings of the year. We anticipate another great meeting next month at the Brookfield Zoo, the site of this year}s Digital Imagery SIG's annual Summer Outdoor Event.    Hope you all will join us. See you there.    This article has been obtained from APCUG with the author's permission for publication by APCUG member group's; all other uses require the permission of the author.
Number 308 - January 2009