September 2007 Issue

Previous Month | Next Month | Home page | Other Months

The Usual Chat

Here we are again, back to normal after the August break. The children are on holiday during August and although we could meet in our usual room, the facilities would not be available we therefore take a break ourselves and save the rental cash.

While on the subject of cash, Bryan and I (Ken) have been examining our cash position and although we lose a little each month we still have enough in hand to keep us going for a considerable time yet. It would be nice however if we could get one or two new members so that we could cover our costs each month. We are aware that we do not offer a lot to members these days other than to be able to keep in touch and help each other at meetings but the members we have seem quite content with this. Use of the internet at our meetings is a great facility and although most members use it at home it is a very useful thing to use during members discussions and there is always someone at hand (usually Nigel King) to help us find our way around.

I have not used my main computer for a couple of months. This is really only used for graphics in one form or other and I seem to have run out of use for most of the things I purchased it for. I do use my Pentium II a bit for correspondence and the odd spread sheet. I like using this old machine as it is much faster to use for my purpose. It seems strange that a Pentium II is faster than my Pentium IV . The reason of course is that the programs that I use demand very little memory. The Pentium II uses Windows 98 and not Windows XP and boots up much faster than my more powerful machine.

Technology is advancing at such a rapid pace that whatever you have seems to be out of date in no time at all. My hundreds of video films were originally recorded on VHS tape costing at first £9 each and although the price came down considerably over the years it could never compete with the less than 20p I pay for DVD blanks these days.

Not too long ago I paid almost £100 to have my computer room wired to receive TV from my TV in the living room. The idea was that I would be able to record direct to my computer where it could be edited

And finally recorded to DVD. This project was not entirely successful as along the line somewhere the recording picks up a hum. I have switched off everything in the house in an attempt to find the source of the hum and have finally discovered that the hum comes from the sky box itself so there is not much I can do about it. New technology however came along and I find that my methods are out of date. For £90 I have purchased a Sky box that will enable me to record a DVD, even when I am not present. If I am present during recording and I am disturbed in any way, I can halt the progress and resume where I left off at a later date. Wonder of wonders (at least to an old man). I could, if I had one, control the whole procedure from a mobile phone, whatever next?

When I first purchased my DVD player, not so long ago it seems, it cost me £90 for a region II machine. The player packed up some time ago and was replaced by one that cost £19 which enables me to record, multi region,

Again, not so long ago it seems, commercial DVD recordings cost about £20 now many, even recent releases, can be purchased for about £5.

Have I written all this before? I am too tired to look back on old newsletters. I am reminded of a favourite film of mine, Gigi. In the film, Maurice Chevalier reminisces to Hermione Gingold and gets everything wrong and then asks "Am I getting Old". To which she kindly replies (Oh no, not you).