Syndicate This Page February's Program - Computer Geeks vs. Digital Photographers The February program will take place on Wednesday, February 15, 2006 and features Derek Andrews of the Guardian International Companies of Hollywood, Florida. Be prepared for an exciting "hands-on" and "in your face" session where Derek shares Information Technology secrets and techniques on getting better performance out of your personal computer. No digital photographer should miss this session whether they or operating on MAC or PC platforms. Derek is a 16-year IT "Veteran" whose experience is rooted in stints at American Express (Ft. Lauderdale) and Sensormatic Electronics (Boca Raton, FL). Derek's expertise is network security, DNS and SMTP. Currently Derek advises Guardian International on Technology decisions and manages technology at four locations across the country. Topics Include (Subject to change to meet the attendees needs): Securing Your Computer Picture/File Management Storage and Archiving The Internet and Pictures Personal Q&A Sessions (bring your personal computing problems to the table) March Program - Salon Competition Get those prints ready! The first salon competition for 2006 will take place at the March meeting. Download Competition Entry Forms and Print Labels from the PPGF Members Page PPGF Blog In an effort to keep up with the latest technology PPGF is now blogging. For those that do not know, a blog is a web log. In essence, it is another way for the association to communicate. For the time being, the content on the blog is the same as on this page, only in a different form. The PPGF Blog is located at http://ppgf.com/gce/gce-news/index.php. If used correctly, you will automatically know when there is a new post to the blog. There is no need for us to send you an email. There are a variety of 'news readers' and desktop appliances available that notify you immediately when there is a new post to a blog. The site, Bloglines, offers a FREE blog aggregating service and offer a variety of "notifiers" to let you know when there is new content. Additionally, if you wish to begin a blog, Bloglines makes it easy to create one and will host it for FREE. Some browsers such as Safari come with feed readers built it. You can also bookmark an RSS Feed and check it on a regular basis. The concept of Blogs is also known as RSS (Reaaly Simple Syndication) or XML. This is also the technology that is embedded in this page to provide the news from the New York Times, traffic report, as well as all of the information located in our RSS Portal. The beauty of XML content is that it updates automatically. Eventually, the blog will replace the GCE Newsletter. But for now, both systems will remain. You might also want to investigate Photoblogs.org. A lot of photographers are already promoting themselves using blogs. Some examples are as follows: Tom Collins On Location With Rick Lee Brooks Ayola So, add the terms RSS, XML to your vocabulary. Over time, we are sure to see more and more sites using this new technology. The best part of all is that most of this technology is FREE!