President Bob Shayler opened the meeting by introducing SL High’s Tony Farley. Tony works with SLHS’s Multi Media Academy. Using Render Farm they are doing an animation for NASA, which is due by July 4. The impact of the comet would create a crater the size of a football field. 50 computers are being used. Cinema 4D Server and Client make it possible to check out the ship, comet, etc. The animated objects can be refined using low-res pictures. Tony demonstrated the animation and put a picture of the final model of the ship on the screen. He showed several animations created, modeled, and rendered by one of the students in the Academy. 100 students are/were involved in SLAM Academy Awards 2005. 2 SLHS students are semi finalists in animation competition. Thanks Tony for all your efforts with the students and the projects of the Academy.
Bob introduced Jennifer Dyer, Marketing Director for PROSOFT Engineering. Jennifer briefly told about ProSoft and its mission to deal with the problem of data loss … pictures, music, movies, work files, etc. She then told of Data Backup (latest version 2.0.6 will be available in two weeks). It is a powerful utility that allows you to backup, restore, and synchronize your valuable data with minimal effort. Data Backup offers you just the right amount of power, flexibility, and ease-of-use to quickly protect you from data disasters. Jennifer showed various screens and gave explanations of usages. Data Rescue was the next product discussed. It is the best data recovery utility on the market for recovering files from a problem hard drive. Other utilities can cause more damage to your hard drive and files by trying to “fix” the problem, instead of focusing on recovering your files. Data Rescue should be your first option to recover your data, before you try any risky “repair” utility. She showed the interface of the program. In two to three weeks there will be a major release (new product) that will read many more file types. It will also have a bootable emergency CD included. [Check ProSoft web site: www.prosofteng.com] Next, Jennifer described Picture Rescue as the best Mac digital picture recovery software available. It is written for OS X 10 and reviewed in MacWorld and MacAddict. It doesn’t matter where your pictures are. Picture Rescue works with most USB or FireWire Cameras, and all media care formats and adapters. If you accidentally erase pictures on the camera, Picture Rescue can scan the camera memory card and recover the pictures. It also will deal with unintentional re-formatting and inexplicable corruption. And then, Jennifer introduced us to Drive Genius, the complete disk-utility software. She distributed handouts: one which was the MacAddict review … Awesome rating; and a sheet comparing Drive Genius with Norton Utilities, TechTool 4, DiskWarrior, and Cloner… no contest, Drive Genius the clear winner. She reviewed the handouts and showed the interface (dialogue boxes) of the program. Drive Genius maintains, manages, and optimizes your hard drive. It will repartition on the fly, provide precision duplication, optimize, repair the volume, carry out drive tests and much more, including file permission repair. Jennifer then explained special MUG prices for the 4 programs individually or as a package (tonight only). The MUG package purchase provided a saving of $80. Many purchased the package. Great programs. Thanks Jennifer!
John Mitchell testified to ProSoft’s excellent tech support.
What is missing from .Mac? Virex. Norton has updated to Tiger.
Ed distributed the DOM. Thanks for your hard work on DOMs!
A number of members went on to the “Board Meeting.” For food and further conversation.
Dayle Scott, Secretary