Jim Ryan, the Information Systems Officer for the US Embassy gave us a complete overview of what it takes to make your systems secure, from a individual PC through a server environment. The knowledgeable and informal chat was well received by the audience, who peppered Jim with questions throughout the presentation. Jim also showed us an elegant and simple 15 minute video clip that demonstrated how packets of data are created and routed through the internet. A must see for anyone.  The clip is available at http://www.warriorsofthe.net/movie.html

Mike Kato, the TPC Disk Librarian did a brisk trade in a data and software rich CD that was loaded with interesting and useful applications. At Y500 each, it’s a steal. Lucky winners of the raffles took home a CD of the Japanese version of PestPatrol, and a $25.00 Amazon.com certificate. The certificate replaced book we normally raffle off, because we’ve been having difficulty getting the books in time for the meetings.

We also announced a new membership plan with two payment options. Pay Y8,000 up front and get into the meetings and SIG’s free or pay Y5,000 and pay Y500 at the door for meetings and SIG’s. There are more benefits as well, explained in the Chit Chat and Club Biz newsgroups.

The results of last month’s TPC elections confirmed the officers from 2002 for the 2003~04 year.

Four speakers talked about the digital cameras they use. Phil Ono of PhotoGuide Japan gave a nice introduction for the novices in the audience. He showed off a few of the nifty features of his compact Canon Powershot S50-- including its capabilities to take and playback movie clips for us all to see. Next, John Lancaster talked about his Canon Kiss Digital, one of the world’s first entry-level (meaning low-priced) SLR digital cameras that just came out. Bradley Anderson came all the way from Shizuoka to introduce his Nikon D100 SLR digital camera, a nice mid-range SLR model. Finally, Mark Skorji talked about his Sony Mavica and Sony 717 and showed sample photos through his laptop.

They talked about the the advantages and disadvantages of their cameras as well as digital cameras in general. There was a lively Q&A session after each speaker as a good number of the audience still did not have a digital camera. There were discussions on the number of pixels, the importance of having a good photo-quality printer, and English-language issues (manuals, camera menu interface, etc.).

Gernot Schreiner, Temple University, Give your Career a boost through education and certification

Discussion panel lead by Stuart Woodward

Vanessa Oshima from Japan Market Intelligence explains the technology behind the latest marketing device, Eye-Tracking Technology

Rajiv Trehan, from Green-Penguin, discusses its success in developing dynamic content applications for portable phones (keitai).