March 10, 2010

The Geek Squad was back!

Kenny Best and Michael Cataldi were our guest speakers from Best Buy today. We learned more about the world of cell phones and calling plans and wireless internet access. Ken demonstrated using a Wii system to access the internet so we can surf the web on our big screen TVs. He also brought a Live Scribe Pen. The pen looks and writes like a normal pen but when written in a Scribe tablet (which looks very similar to a regular tablet), you can download the writing to your computer. The techie world is leaping ahead in huge bounds so it was interesting to see the latest gadgets on the market.

Many folks have old slides in storage so Best Buy brought a small slide scanner that easily converts slide images into your computer. That’s another introduction for the new cyberworld. Except for a few technical difficulties, they were also going to demonstrate printing photos from your camera directly to your printer with no computer needed.

Virus protection and identity theft are big topics these days so we covered various virus protection programs and compared their pros and cons. We reviewed 3g vs 4g, laser printers vs ink jet printers, the cost of ink cartridges vs refill inks, screen resolutions, and several other new products and topics.

Ken and Mike will return again as guests at our next club meeting on March 17. An email will go out to all members asking for questions or topics we would like our guests to address at that time. This is a great opportunity folks so be sure to submit questions.

AND…..our President, Peggy Fetzer, handed out the $30 gift certificates to all club members that participated in the movie maker project this year. That should be added incentive for participation next season!