In September CRUG will resume regular monthly meetings. Welcome back to full time Citrus County residents and snow birds. At this meeting Buck Baxter, who uses Skype daily, will show how he uses Skype on his desktop at home and on his cell phone. He know this interesting application well and it should be a great chance to learn about it.

The meeting will be at the Crystal Oaks Club House. Coffee and refreshments are available at 6:00 during our social time and a short meeting at 6:30 p.m. followed by the presentation. For directions to the Crystal Oaks Club House see the Locations page.

Ubuntu
Ray Seely

The CRUG general meeting presentation by Ray Seely on Ubuntu was great.

Ubuntu is a free open-source operating system and Ray handed out many Ubuntu Ver. 10.4 CDs so others could run a live CD session or install it permanently. Ray demonstrated the Firefox web browser and showed you had a choice to use many others. Ray quickly showed the Open Office suite, media apps, and other useful applications. He opened .wmv files, PDF files and demostrated how he sends instant messages to friends even though they all used different messaging programs. He explained the help available in the Linux community.

Ray has been using Ubuntu for more than 3 years and his proficiency with the program and its many applications are obvious. His knowledge was great and everyone was impressed.

We did have one problem as our internet access was not available but we were lucky. Ray’s son Andy drove up from Tampa to see his father’s presentation. Andy works with Linux servers all the time at his job and he was able to connect his cell phone as a modem so that Ray could connect to the internet.

We were fortunate that Andy attended and thank him for his help.

As I wasn't able to attend, President Alfred provided meeting details and as usual Jim O'Donnell provided a photographic history of the meeting. My thanks to both.

CRUG Meeting Programs

Focus on CRUG Education

CRUG is always striving to offer educational opportunities that interest members and other local residents. We have many interesting and informative classes and a fine group of dedicated instructors. Classes have been offered at various locations throughout the county with the latest at the Crystal Oaks Club House. For additional information on CRUG education be sure to check out the Education and Class Schedule pages.

In the fall of 2010 CRUG will begin holding classes at the Crystal Oaks Club House. This is the location where we have our meetings. We are trying this location because it gives us the use of our Roadrunner internet connection. Previously most of our classes were held in locations where internet was not available. Another difference is that to keep our costs down we will have two class times on the days we have classes. So be sure to note the time of the class.

Current Classes 

CRUG classes are for educational purposes and not to be used for commercial marketing. 


Ubuntu - This class will provide information on Ubuntu and its use. Ubuntu is an open-source operating system and as such is free. It contains a web browser, office suite, media apps, instant messaging and other useful applications. The class will start with an overview of the creation of Unix in the 1960s but will rapidly proceed to present day Ubuntu. Ubuntu is the Linux distribution recommended for home users. You will learn about the desktop and its installed games, office suite, internet and multimedia apps, etc. During the second session the installation of Ubuntu will be demonstrated, as well the installation of upgrades and numerous applications, all of which are free for the downloading. Finally, the help and support that is available to users will be pointed out.

Microsoft PowerPoint Presentation - This class is a Microsoft PowerPoint 2003/2007 presentation where you will learn to create basic PowerPoint presentations. We will provide you with images and backgrounds whereby you can follow the instructor during demonstrations, or practice at home. PowerPoint provides you with a plethora of animations and other schemes to get your message to your audience.

We will show how to make a photo album, which can be livelier than any other I have seen. Once you learn the basics of PowerPoint you will be impressed! Bring your laptop to class if you want to follow along. Internet access is available at the classroom.

Adobe Elements – Photoshop Elements, by Adobe Systems, is a superior image editing program that can fix most common problems that occur when using a digital camera or scanning a photograph. See how you can modify, improve, change digital images; merge selected parts of images; change or correct colors; straighten and/or crop images; and use a host of other creative features. Students should have basic computer skills for this class.

Windows 7 – This class will explain and demonstrate Windows 7. Learn about the new features such as the improved Start menu Jump lists, Taskbar Jump lists, Libraries, Snap, Peak, Pinning files to Jump lists, Pinning and unpinning Programs to the Taskbar etc.