42 members are present at the meeting.

New Graphics Tricks

There is a fascinating new program called AutoStitch at www.cs.ubc.ca/~mbrown/autostitch/autostitch.html.

AutoStitch is the world's first fully automatic 2D image stitcher. Capable of stitching full view panoramas without any user input whatsoever, AutoStitch is a breakthrough technology for panoramic photography, VR and visualisation applications.

AutoStitch is built using cutting edge research from the AI lab at UBC, but it's incredibly simple to use! Just select a set of photos, and AutoStitch does the rest: digital photos in, panoramas out. Try the free demo (for Windows):

Download the FREE demo version now!

What you do is take a series of photos taken from the same spot but pointed in several overlapping shots. After putting all the photos (these must be saved as jpegs) in the same folder, you select the photos to stitch together. Run the program and then Open>[your folder]>Cntl+A. The program pieces together all the images. You can crop them just as you would in Photoshop. When you are done File>Save. The saved file will have a .pano extension.

John Barker demonstrated how this works in his own kitchen. He was able to easily piece together photos to show three walls of the room. He didn’t use a tripod, but it’s recommended for best results. That got me thinking about using two or more tripods and piecing together photos with an even bigger perspective. Imagine what Re/Max could do with this! How about promoting tourism in Windsor, Ontario, with panoramas taken from the hilltops of landfill sites?

Computer Security

There was an interesting discussion about the security of the Club’s computer. Fortunately, you can find out how your computer has been used. In XP go to My Computer>Computer Management>System Tools>Event Viewer.  Or, you can use System Tools>Local Users and Groups>Users.

Check out this site for security freeware: http://www.uninets.net/~blaisdel/.

New security flaws have been found in Windows so update it now. These updates cover Windows 98 to XP Pro.

John Sturgis reminded us that Windows, especially XP, can heal itself from problems due to power failure and improper shutdown. Sometimes this alters the placement of desktop icons and makes it appear that there has been a security breach when there hasn’t.

I have found that icons get rearranged when I lower the screen resolution so that my Celeron 466 will play avi files.

View Your Street From Space

Now you can see what your town looks like from satellite using Google’s new satellite viewing service at maps.google.ca/. Type in your postal code and you will find the city map of Elliot Lake. You can zoom in your street and look at the map of the town. Now zoom out before you hit the “satellite” link. You need a distance for things to show up because the CIA doesn’t want to share its resources with us.

Bob Young #2 looked for his old house in Timmins, but as of now you can’t see things that detailed on this site.

Coffee Break

After the coffee break (cookie lunch), John Barker showed us some funny things on his removable drive. One of these was a great video file about a bear in Missoula, Montana, that the fire department was trying to rescue from a tree. They shoot the bear with a tranquilizer dart and place a trampoline under it. The problem is that the trampoline isn’t in exactly the right place. The bear bounces off of it and then onto the ground. Fortunately, the bear recovers.

There was the Incontinence Hotline where the message is, “Are you getting old, please stay on hold.”

The 1978 Microsoft Corporation’s Yearly Report showed us a very geeky young Bill Gates.

The Treasurer Report states that from January 1 to April 1 the balance has increased by 9.814323%.

There was an announcement for the Evening Sky Astronomy Club. You will probably miss this meeting if you are relying on the minutes because it is going to be held on the mall roof on Friday, April 15, at 8:30 p.m.

Connection Speed

The speed of data transfer is of utmost importance. To find out your speed go to http://www.dslreports.com/  It doesn’t matter if you use cable because this site helps you with that as well. Go to the Test and Tools link and then hit the Speed Tests link. John used the Mega Path link where you can find out by typing in your postal code your isp and the speeds of other users.

More information about testing and tuning your internet connection can be found at www.langa.com/. 

More tweaking information about your modem and overclocking can be found at www.inboost.com/. Here you will learn that most, but not all, download accelerators simply increase the cache to make it look that you are downloading faster. Many have adware and spyware to track your surfing habits. These phony accelerators can actually slow your computer down.

More internet tips and news:

Ontera will be offering a Dialup service offering five times the usual speed for only an extra $2.95 a month. See http://www.ontera.net/new/dialup.html.

You can shut off the internet by right clicking the Connection icon in the System Tray in XP. You can turn it back on the same way.