The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Getting to Know the Special Interest Groups Noel Peters - SIG Coordinator noelp@melbpc.org.au

Elsewhere in this magazine I have told you about the familiarisation visits I have been making to some of the Special Interest Groups that hold their monthly meetings in the SIG rooms at our Dorcas Street club rooms. Well I have also ventured a little further afield this month, I went to call on the Melb PC Regional SIG at Warragul. The purpose of the trip was twofold, firstly to touch base with the executive team and the individual SIG members that keep the Melb PC User Group flag flying in Gippsland, and secondly to deliver a 17-inch monitor for use with the computer the members have built up. 

This was a most rewarding experience. Firstly let me say that the facility they use at the Gippsland Education Centre is truly first class with modern décor, good lighting, comfortable seating and they even have an on-site storage room for their computer gear. 

It was the night of the AGM and the election of office bearers was one of the most efficient operations it has been my pleasure to witness. A steering committee had done the hard work and the seven members of the executive were each elected unopposed. Figure 1 shows these happy folk after the election. They are, from left to right:

The Warragul SIG has an interesting service offered by the librarian John Maynard in the CD Library. It is quite extensive with games, educational and tutorial programs and Shareware software disks available for a modest lending fee. John can be seen at the library table in Figure 2. 

This could perhaps have application at some of our other suburban general computing groups where members would be happy to donate disks obtained from magazine covers to start it up The disks would require cataloguing but there are shareware programs available for this purpose. Another innovative activity at the Warragul SIG which is set up about four times a year is a games night for the younger members and their friends, with use being made of the Education Centre's network of computers. 

A Q&A session and a presentation followed the AGM, with Shane Keppell demonstrating Photo Impact as (see Figure 3). I have seen commercial presentations of similar programs that were far less satisfying to me. The members were pleased to have the new monitor and expressed their thanks after the coffee break. I had to scurry back home through the mild summer night after a very pleasant evening and before my leave pass expired. 

Another Visit 

Then there was the meeting of the Retired and Interested Persons SIG (RIPSIG) at 10.00 am on the 4th Friday of the month, held at the Lutheran Church hall at 25 Cypress Avenue Glen Waverley, at which Roger Wragg also gave one of the most interesting presentations I have had the pleasure of attending for a very long time. 
It was entitled "An Introduction to Digital Audio". It started from the consideration of sound waves in air and Roger developed the characteristics of analogue signals and the disadvantages they suffer from noise and other unwanted induced voltages when they are transmitted as a varying amplitude signal. The function of analogue to digital converters was described and the Pandora's box of applications one opens, when we have a series of numbers containing the input information to deal with and a computer to manipulate them, rather than amplifying and detecting a noise corrupted amplitude modulated signal. 

The whole presentation was supported with visual and aural examples of the waveforms and digitised data being discussed and these relied on a series of programs Roger himself had written for the purpose. The talk closed with a demonstration of two commercial sound enhancing and manipulation programs. All in all this was a well rounded and skilfully executed presentation. If it happens to be repeated in a venue near you do not miss it. Its relevance to the state-of-the-art in MPEG, MP3, DVD, and all other digital applications is self evident and it serves to reinvigorates one's thinking about them. 

I have said elsewhere, the range of applications and interests that computing with Melbourne PC User Group opens up to you is unending. If you want to taste this diversity please do go along and sample some of the interesting activities of our Special Interest Groups.

Reprinted from the April 2001 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia

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