Computer Club updates

Dennis Korger

Carlton Wiens and Judy Spencer will present a preview of OS X Yosemite and iOS 8, the recently released operating systems for Apple products. After retiring from a career in education, Judy staffed the Apple Store Genius Bar in Phoenix for several years. Carlton has been our lead Mac instructor for longer than he will admit and has just completed his term as Computer Club President. This free public presentation will be at 1:00 p.m. on Monday, January 19 in the MountainView Ballroom.

Our February presentation will be earlier than our usual third Monday of the month. Terry Stager, owner of Oracle Computer Solutions, will speak on Monday, February 2 in the MountainView Ballroom at 1:00 p.m. His topic will be Using Touch Tablets with Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 Preview.

On Saturday, January 24 in the MountainView Ballroom we will staff both a PC and a Mac table at the Recreation and Activities Fair to tell you about our organization and answer your questions. We will also hold an open house in the Silicon Room at the same time; this is our computer classroom in the Arts and Crafts Center located next door to the MountainView Ballroom. Come on over and take a look at our resources if you haven’t visited recently.

Class registration opened in December and continues throughout the semester. Click on a class description to see if an interesting class still has space available; enrollment is automatically updated every minute! New offerings include Adobe Elements 13, Office 365 for PCs, OS X Yosemite for Macs and iOS 8 for I Pads. We added a new time slot; there will be a few evening classes (PowerPoint, Windows 8.1 and Outlook) starting at 6:30 p.m. this semester. All of our Macs have been replaced with speedier new models for 2015. We are always working on adding new instructors and new topics; expect several classes to be added to the schedule after the semester has started. Consult the calendar page on our website at www.saddlebrookecc.org for the earliest available information.

If you are not yet a member, you will need to join before you can enroll; payments can be submitted by credit card via our website membership page or by a check mailed to our registrar. Membership is still $55/single and $80/couple; the fee includes all available classes for the initial calendar year. After the initial year, the annual class participation fee remains just $30 per person. If you do not have a computer or have problems with the online system, please contact our registrar Alice Stuart at 825-4239 or [email protected]. The SaddleBrooke Computer Club is a 401 (c) (4) nonprofit organization; our instructors and staff are all unpaid volunteers. Membership and class fees are used solely to purchase classroom equipment and software.

Computer Tidbits: Tablet sales growth has sharply declined this year despite new models and price cuts. Analysts attribute the changes to competition with larger smartphones and lack of compelling new features in the newest tablets.