Diary 2009

Today was the last meeting of the year, as we have no meeting in December. The meeting was attended by 47 people, which is a very good turn out for this time of year, this included 5 visitor. One of the visitors was Howard Hall who was warmly welcomed and voted back onto the committee.

We now have a nice new sound system for the club and also a new laptop with the new Operating System, Windows 7, installed on it.

This months demo was presented by Bob Lightsey which gave Brett a well earned break. Bob gave us a look at some of the new features available in Windows 7. The members were very impressed with the new system and there was a lot of questions and interest.

A copy of Bob's Power Point file is available to download from The Downloads Page.

27th October 2009

Today's meeting was attended by 47 people, this included 2 new members and 1 visitor.

The meeting was started with a rerun of the presentation to The Coastwatch of Plugits Laptop. Tony Harrison arrived, looking very smart in his Coastwatch uniform and we had photos taken for the newspaper and the website.

The Chairman also announced that members where not to arrive at the meetings until 10 o'clock allowing time for the equipment to be set up before hand.

In the first half of the meeting Brett gave us a demo on putting together a presentation in Open Office.

After the coffee break Brett showed us how to install the .net framework that is required to get paint.net installed. Following this he gave us a run through the menus on paint.net and showed up how to do layers in this interesting paint program.

All of the demos Brett showed us can be downloaded from The Downloads Page.

22nd September 2009

Today's meeting was attended by 48 people with the addition of 2 new members.

The Chairman presented The Coastwatch with Plugits old Laptop. Read a Thank you note from a member of Coastwatch and Plugit.

The Chairman also announced that the cost of Teas and Coffees was going up by 50% but the members won't need to pay this until January.

After a lot of trouble with the system Brett gave us a demo on Tips and Tricks in Vista.

After the coffee break Brett showed us a new style of tool bar for windows.  Followed by a demonstration of Paint.net which is a free painting package.  The members asked if they could have further demos on this very impressive paint program.

All of the programs Brett showed us and the tips and tricks can be downloaded from The Downloads Page.

Todays meeting was attended by 43 people.

Once the official part of the meeting had finished, Brett showed us how to manage our emails in Outlook and how to send emails with attachments.

After the coffee break we had internet connection and Brett showed us online email accounts.  Also Brett took us through the Plugit Website and showed the Forum and how to use it.

Both of Brett's demos can be downloaded from The Downloads Page.

28th July 2009

Todays meeting was attended by 48 people.

Once the official part of the meeting had finished, Brett continued to look at Windows XP basics, showing us windows security, Windows File Structure, Folder Options and how to make a new folder.

After the coffee break Brett gave us a complete overview of CCleaner.

Both of Brett's demos can be downloaded from The Downloads Page.

23rd June 2009

Today we had our June Coffee Morning which was well attended by 43 people.

Brett started the meeting by continuing his XP Basics showing us the Control Panel. He showed us how to set up different User Accounts and also how to set up your mouse and keyboard to the setting you prefer.

After a break for coffee Bob Lightsey informed us of the latest news on Windows 7® and let us know that it is available from Microsoft's website to download and try out.

Brett then gave us a detailed look at installing and using CDBurnerXP which is a useful program for burning CD's and DVD's in Windows XP and Windows Vista.

Both of Brett's demos can be downloaded from The Downloads Page.

26th May 2009

Today's meeting was a full meeting and we had a good turn out of 46 people. As the Bacchus were holding their annual Beer Festival we only had one half of the hall for our meeting.

We quickly covered all the items on the agenda and then Brett gave us a look at the desktop settings of XP. Brett showed us how to personalise the desktop with things like our own pictures and screen savers using our pictures.

After a break for coffee Brett gave a very detailed and useful demonstration on setting up your own home budget using Microsoft® Excel.

Both the The Desktop Demo and the The Budget Demo can be downloaded from the downloads page.

28th April 2009

A very good turn out for todays Coffee Morning, 39 members and 8 visitors. In the first half of the meeting Brett took us through a selection of alternate Operating Systems such as Fedora and Ubuntu, that are available free. These systems will also run on lower specification computers that no longer have a supported Microsoft Operating System.

In the second half of the meeting Brett showed us a large selection of software that is now available on the internet free. A lot of this software is as good as or better than the commercially available equivalent.

A list of the free software and links to the downloads are available on the download page.

24th March 2009

Today's meeting was the 11th A.G.M., which was well attended. The meeting went very well with our Chairman, Howard Hall giving a very good final Chairmans report. Our committee was elected and now consists of Michael Wellby as Chairman, Bob Lightsey as Vice Chairman, Debra Hall as Secretary, Jim Eaton as Treasurer and Brett Harris as Training Officer. We also have 7 other willing volunteers to serve on the Committee.

Howard Hall was presented with a framed certificate and a leaving card as a big thank you from all the members. This was a complete surprise to him and he was overwhelmed.

Brett Harris introduced himself to us and informed us that he would be handing out forms for us to fill in so he can become more familiar with what we know and what train we would need.

Howard finished the meeting off with a nice little demonstration on using tubes in Paint Shop Pro.

24th February 2009

We had a lot to pack into today's meeting with a change of Committee posts just ahead of the AGM next month. We announced that Debra would take on the Secretary's post and Jim would become treasurer. New member Brett Harris would become the IT / Training officer. The election of a new chairperson and vice chairperson would be part of AGM protocols.

The second part of the meeting was dedicated entirely to the construction of a Web site. (not published).

We showed how to form a graphic for the Name title and made navigation buttons from a simple table.

Maybe our demonstration(available as a download from the downloads page) will bring out the artistry in our members.

27th January 2009

A sad start to the year with the loss of our Secretary Mr Aubrey Phillips, who died on Monday 19th January 2009. Aubrey will be missed for his organisational and secretarial skills and, more importantly, his friendship.

Today's meeting, advertised as a coffee morning was adapted to be a full meeting because of the loss of Aubrey. However, after the preliminary's we completed the demonstration about "Fonts" which we offered our members in October of 2008. Today's Question and Answer session went well, with questions about spam prevention, and which sort of printer / PSC would be best to buy. The session was interrupted by the fire alarm at the Bacchus but after the "all clear" was given we continued to a successful end.