Terry McKenna, our new club president and a former black & white home develop-and-print geek recently turned digital geek, will kick off the first 10-15 minutes explaining what parameters he uses when buying a digital camera.  He will also show us how he calibrates his camera and PC monitor to achieve optimal color balance.

Jerry Suppan of Visionworks Productions will then share his own personal preferences with regard to digital photo management software, including ACDSee Pro and XnView, and if time permits, Videora, Handbrake, etc.

After the meeting ends at 9 pm, several of us head down the street to Shakey’s for food, drinks and more discussion. Please feel free to stop by even if you are unable to attend the meeting.

TIME: Doors open about 6:30 and the meeting starts at 7 pm

VENUE: The meetings are held in the basement of the Tokyo Union Church (map) on Omotesando Dori, a short walk from the A-1 exit of the Omotesando subway station on the Ginza, Hanzomon, and Chiyoda Lines. Entrance is through the newly remodeled front door.

COST: Members free, non-members 1000 yen at the door.

The TPC is holding its Annual General Meeting. This is where we hold officer elections and discuss the future of the club. Please come along to share your thoughts or even take on a position. We are always looking for help. Assuming we have at least 3 people willing to run for the elected positions of president, vice president and treasurer, we can hopefully settle on some topics for the next few meetings.

Following that there will be a discussion on Purchasing PC Hardware led by a few people that have either recently built systems or upgraded existing machines. We hope to cover the following points:
- Upgrading versus buying a new system
- CPU choices
- Motherboard (and chipsets)
- Cases and power supplies
- RAM
- video choices

It’s has been a while since our last Akihabara Tour, with some shops moving and others having closed down. Come along to hear where the Akihabara regulars source their parts and why.

After the meeting ends at 9pm, several of us head down the street to Shakey’s for food, drinks and more discussion. Please feel free to stop by even if you are unable to attend the meeting.

TIME: Doors open about 6:30, the meeting starts at 7PM

VENUE: The meetings are held in the basement of The Tokyo Union Church (map) on Omotesando Dori, a short walk from the A-1 exit of the Omotesando subway station on the Ginza, Hanzomon, and Chiyoda Lines. The entrance is through the parking area at the side of the church.

COST: Members free, non-members 1000 yen at the door.

René Lasseron from Saurus (Estonia) will share his views about the fragmented world of web content management systems (CMS) with a hands-on demonstration using his own company’s product. The topics will include:

- Why are so many CMS’es out there
- Which products and strategies have been successful
- Software used in Japan for building corporate websites
- Saurus CMS functional hands-on demo

René is currently having an 8-month stay in Tokyo for studying Japanese business culture and researching the content management market here. He started his career as programmer during university studies in informatics and switched to sales and marketing later on. Before coming to Japan he held the position of managing director in Saurus.

TIME: Doors open about 6:30, the meeting starts at 7PM

VENUE: The meetings are held in the basement of The Tokyo Union Church (map) on Omotesando Dori, a short walk from the A-1 exit of the Omotesando subway station on the Ginza, Hanzomon, and Chiyoda Lines. The entrance is through the parking area at the side of the church.

COST: Members free, non-members 1000 yen at the door.

This month’s meeting will be an “OPEN” theme, ie. not to stick to a specific topic, but to basically be there to discuss whatever comes up.....photos, data management, e-books, synchronizing contacts, problems with Vista migration, what to do when changing your PC/laptop, etc.

As usual, we expect some of the best ideas/solutions to come from the audience. So if you have something that you would like to show that night, please contact us.

TIME: Meeting starts at 7PM, Someone from the club will be there by 6:30.
VENUE: The Pink Cow --- Here’s a Map.
Shibuya! Directly across from Aoyama Park Tower
Villa Moderuna B1, 1-3-18 Shibuya, Shibuya-ku Tokyo
- ( NOTE!!: We are not meeting at the usual location this month.  )
COST: Members free, non-members 1000 yen at the door.

The topic is photo management. In the past we have had some pros come in and talk about taking and editing photos, but this time the focus is on managing those photos: getting them off the camera (or memory card), backing them up, browsing and cataloging them, working with them just a bit (cropping, resizing, red-eye removal,etc.) and putting them somewhere to be seen.

Presenting will be Christopher Jue of chrisonepointeight photography followed by Jerry Suppan of Visionworks Productions.

Some software programs or services we plan to cover at this time include:
- Photo Mechanic
- Adobe Photoshop CS2
- IrfanView
- XnView
- FastStone Image Viewer
- Picasa
- JAlbum
- Gallery
- Dropshots
- Webshots

As usual, we expect some of the best ideas/solutions to come from the audience. And if you have something that you would like to show that night, please contact us.

TIME: Meeting starts at 7PM, Someone from the club will be there by 6:30.
VENUE: The Pink Cow --- Here’s a Map.
Shibuya! Directly across from Aoyama Park Tower
Villa Moderuna B1, 1-3-18 Shibuya, Shibuya-ku Tokyo
- ( NOTE!!: We are not meeting at the usual location this month.  )
COST: Members free, non-members 1000 yen at the door.