We've just gone through our hottest January on record, and already the retail shops are clearing summer stock to make way for winter merchandise. How time flies when you are having fun - or should that be... getting older?

APCUG/CES

In Februray PC Update I mentioned that together with Lyn Goodall and Ash Nallawalla I had attended the 2006 Association of Personal Computer User Groups (APCUG) Annual General Meeting and the Concurrent Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Ash was quick and before arriving home wrote an excellent summary of the events. Here I will add some extra thoughts from my observations.

• Blue-Ray or HD-DVD?

Many of us have just upgraded our PCs to handle standard DVDs (4.5 GB), and are being challenged by Dual Layer DVDs (8 GB). But at CES we saw the launch of two major contenders of the next generation - two competing technologies that will no doubt cause a war similar to the VHS/BETA battles of the 1980s. In one corner, we have 30 GB HD-DVD promoted by Toshiba with partners such as NEC, TDK and Microsoft (for the Xbox). In the other corner, we have Blu-Ray Discs up to 100 GB capacity being pushed by Sony (for its Playstation) with partners such as HP, Apple, Imation, Panasonic, Philips. Preproduction models of both technologies were demonstrated and are due to be available on the consumer market in the next two months. Amazon.com is already taking orders. Who will win? My first guess is Blue-Ray due to technical superiority and higher capacity - but then BETA was also superior and lost the marketing battle.

• SED replacing LCD?

For home use, I have been thinking about wide-screen TV; should I buy plasma (now that the price is plummeting) or LCD ..... However at CES, I saw the next generation replacement, SED - the acronym for Surface-conduction Electron-emitter Display.

Developed by Canon and Toshiba SED has brilliant colours with contrast which is 10 times better than that of existing flat screens and uses only one third the power. While only a prototype it was very impressive when compared with plasma or LCD, and it's expected on the market in about 12 months. Maybe my home investment should wait until I can buy SED.

• Home Automation

Last year, we saw the NEXTGEN home - demonstrating possible future merging of technologies in our homes. This year, it was all reality; fully available products, totally integrated around a Media Centre PC. Once the TV came on, the lights dimmed appropriately, the window blinds closed - and the oven alerted us via an interruption of the TV screen when cooking was complete. All I need now is...

• Honda's ASIMO

At CES, Honda demonstrated its amazing life size robot, ASIMO. Not only can he (or is it she?) do simple things like answering vocal questions, but he can run, walk up and down stairs - and even kick a soccer ball. However, they did not show him mowing the lawns or operating a dishwasher. I'll have to wait a few more months.
 
SPAM - and Melb PC Control

All of us continue to be plagued by Spam e-mail, but when talking to a number of members, I am surprised that many are not yet using the SpamAssassin deletion capability. As deletion is an optional feature it has to be turned on by each user, and I even suggest the filtering levels be lower that the conservative recommendations therein (my levels being - MARK at 2, DELETE at 12).

There is an excellent FAQ at http://www.melbpc.org.au/faq/spamass.htm that describes the setup. Note especially the white list facility, to screen out inbound messages that the system suspects are Spam (eg. Corporation reports, Daily newsletters etc), but that you find acceptable. It is also worthwhile arranging your mailbox client to separately handle any resulting messages marked ??SPAM?? The appropriate method for most email programs is described at http://www.melbpc.org.au/faq/filtering.htm

To further explain these facilities, I hope to arrange a full demonstration at one of our monthly meetings, possibly April.

March Monthly Meeting

This month our main meeting on Wednesday 1 March, again at the Burwood campus of Deakin University. Special topics on the night will be an update on graphics cards for our PCs, and the new Omnipage OCR software converted our printed works back into computer files.

The start time is 7.00 pm -we finish by 9.45pm and the meeting is followed by the usual WAFFLE (Wine And Fine Food Lovers Event, ie. dinner) at a local Pizza Bistro in Middleborough Road.

Reprinted from the March 2006 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia

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