SIG NEWS
The following Special Interest Groups have provided program notes for their upcoming meetings. Please refer to the SIG Calendar for a complete listing of HAL-PC SIG meeting dates and times. If you are interested in starting a Special Interest Group that is not currently on our calendar, contact the Vice President for SIGS.
COMPUTER INVESTING SIG: Fridays -- 10:00 am:
Our Friday AM investment sig will continue to meet Friday at 10am. Our goal continues to offer programs to help investors deal with a difficult market using and demonstrating programs designed for the individual to assess and make thoughtful decisions. We use four different programs to accomplish this and they are demonstrated on a regular basis. We also maintain a refined market web site that is open to all.
MULTI MEDIA SIG: Saturday, November 1 -- 10:00 am
We have discussed computer animations using programs like “Poser” for human figures and “Vue” for creation of environments for the figures to inhabit - terrains, cities, etc. While these offer built-in figures, landscapes, and some props, it is still necessary to import other props - vehicles, buildings, etc. Also, motions have to be defined using drawn paths, motion capture files from actual people, etc. Finally, the whole sequence has to be rendered - this can take days for a complicated scene.
Another way is to use computer games to create movies, called “machinima”. All the elements - figures, terrains, skies, buildings, vehicles - are already there, and the software can generate high frame rates (30+ fps). The only requirement is to “capture" these animations as a video file in real time. Enter a utility program titled “FRAPS” (frames per second), which can easily capture 30 fps for most games. We can look at some of my experiments using Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004, Driv3r, and Emergency 3. Other popular games used for machinima include The Sims 2, Half Life 2, Halo 2, and many others.
DATABASE & GUI DESIGN: Saturday, November 8 -- 9:00 am
Joe Rich will be doing a beginner level presentation on WPF. He will also have the generic web
site that I have been finishing up for you. We will be taking the web site
and converting it to WPF in both Windows Forms and browser based so we can
get into the WPF framework and see what all can be done with it.
VISUAL FOX PRO: Tuesday, November 11 -- 6:30 pm
Rich Monroe: Building a Framework with Classes continued. We look forward to seeing you there and hope you can join us at Ninfa's
after the meeting.
GENEALOGY: Thursday, November 13 -- 7:00 pm
Until the end of the year our SIG will be covering "back to basics" for genealogical research. This is the perfect time to join us if you are just trying to get started or if you feel you aren't accomplishing what you wish.
DIGITAL IMAGING: Saturday, November 15 -- 1:00 pm
Phil is going to be doing another presentation for us. He will go
further into the depths of macro photography for us and also show
more on the chroma-key background usage. Bring your cameras. He will
take photos you do during the session and show you how you can use
chroma-key with your cameras and not just the expensive ones like his
and mine.
WEB DESIGN
The Web Design SIG will not meet during November and December. Enjoy your holidays and we will see you next year!
LINUX WORKSHOP: Wednesdays -- 6:00 pm
Installations & hands-on problem solving every Wednesday except when HAL is closed. This is an informal meeting where knowledgable HLUG members help each other & beginners one on one. Dinner after at Biba's West Grey 9:30pm. You don't have to attend the meeting to come eat with us.
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