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APCUG Reports
July-September 2006

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Region 12
(AK, HI, ID, MT, NV, OR, WA, WY)
by Clint Tinsley, Advisor
ctinsley@apcug.net

Tacoma Area PC User Group
Starts New Flight Simulator SIG – Come Fly with Us
Tacoma, Washington


www.tapcug.org The Flight Simulator SIG seeks to explore using the personal computer to immerse the user in challenges of flying a variety of aircraft in various geographic and environmental conditions and situations.

At the July meeting they discussed flight planning, navigating with GPS, how to use the automatic pilot, 2D and 3D cockpits and how to use the slew command to launch a glider. Topics for their August meeting included configuring joysticks for flight simulator, some simple enhancements which will improve the looks of flight simulator’s scenery, basic flight maneuvers, how to use elevator trim and the throttle to control climb/descent and cruise altitude as well as what to look for in add-on airplanes for simulators. They also discussed payware versus freeware add-on airplane packages. The September meeting was a continuation of the August meeting’s discussion plus a more detailed look at what’s available in scenery enhancements.

Attendees are encouraged to bring their questions, problems and accomplishments. They were also asked to bring a blank CD or a USB flash drive to make copies of the freeware scenery and aircraft files being discussed. Attendees are encouraged to bring friends to the SIG meeting who are interested in flight simulators.

Visit the Flight Simulator forum on www.tapcug.org to find out more about what they are doing in this innovative SIG.

Sun City Anthem Computer Club
Henderson, Nevada
www.myscacc.org

More residents are getting new computers with the VISTA operating system and the Education Committee scheduled classes on the prior XP operating system for September and expects to have classes for VISTA in October. The committee for selecting new computers for the year 2007 presented its recommendation to the Computer Club Directors in August; interested members were invited to attend the meeting. The SCA Computer Club has recently purchased and installed new security cameras and software in both the Computer Room and the Computer Lab. Now members will be able to tell if there is a class going on and which room is open.

School started the end of August and SCACC hoped to arrange for about 10 reconditioned computers, donated from several sources, to be given to disadvantaged students.

The SCACC newsletter includes a nifty Q&A section – you might want to check it out to see if you can find an answer to one of your nagging questions.

Sun City Summerlin Computer Club Offers Classes
and Seminars to Members
Las Vegas, Nevada
www.scscc.com

A “class” is a topic that is taught in the Lab where the students each sit at a computer. A “seminar” is any presentation that is not hands-on. All classes are held in the Lab equipped with 16 PCs. All seminars are held in the classroom which is set up lecture-style. Both the lab and the classroom have a fully equipped PC for the Instructors to use for presentation of the lesson or topic on an overhead projector.

For the hands-on classes in the lab, typically the lesson plan is prepared as a PowerPoint presentation which is displayed on the overhead as the instructor goes through the lesson(s). Often the instructor prepares handouts for the students to follow, and sometimes the instructor distributes files on CD for the students to open and work on as the lesson progresses. Sometimes the instructor will email the files as an attachment so the students can work on them at home... but this is more for a multi-session course.

The schedule for classes and seminars varies each month depending on how many members offer to present or teach a topic. Boot Camp and Beyond the Basics are two of the classes offered to club members.