Class registration will open on December 15 at 12:01 a.m. for established members. Consult the calendar page on our website for the earliest available information concerning classes and schedules. If you are not yet a member, you will need to join before you can enroll; payments for 2015 can be submitted now – by credit card via our website 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. The computer club is a nonprofit organization. Membership and class fees are used solely to purchase classroom equipment and software; our instructors and staff are all unpaid volunteers.
You can find more information and online forms on our webpage. Just go to www.saddlebrookecc.org and choose Club Membership. While your payment can be submitted online, it may take several days for the manual data entry to be entered into our database before you will be able to sign up on the enrollment page. If you do not have a computer or have problems with the online system, you may contact our registrar Alice Stuart at 825-4239 or [email protected].
Our free monthly public meeting on Monday, November 17 at 1:00 p.m. in the MountainView Ballroom will be a sneak preview of the 2015 spring schedule by our instructor group. All available teachers will describe their upcoming classes and remain afterward to answer questions. Membership forms and help will be available at the meeting.
While most of our free monthly public meetings are scheduled on the third Monday of the month, our December presentation will be on the second Monday, December 8. Shirley Condit from the Pinal County Library will make a return visit to speak on Using Library Research Databases. The library has recently gained access to Chilton’s (automotive), Gale Genealogy Connect, Powerspeak (language learning), Legal Forms and Business Insights databases. There are many others already available through the county library website.
Computer Tidbits: Microsoft announced plans for the next generation of Windows on September 30. The final release to the general public is anticipated later in 2015. Officially termed Windows 10, this marks the return of a real start menu and most other rumored features to placate business customers and accommodate desktop and laptop users. A quick look at our evaluation copy suggests that this is an evolutionary rather than revolutionary take on Windows 8. No pricing or incentives were officially announced. HP recently launched a line of Windows Stream tablets and laptops priced as low as $100.
OS X Yosemite was released as a free upgrade to consumers on October 16, 2014. Complaints that the new version disrupts or entirely disables Wi-Fi followed shortly thereafter. The most anticipated new features are Continuity and Handoff, which allow switching between working on your iPhone, iPad and Mac, even in the middle of an application.