Sydney PC User Group Incorporated Members helping Members for over 25 Years Visitors are always welcome
WEEKLY SIG MEETING UPDATE 10 - 15 DECEMBER 2012
1st Floor Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts 280 Pitt Street, Sydney http://www.sydneypc.com Sydney PCUG's Blog UPCOMING SIGs 17 - 22 December 2012 Tuesdays Seniors SIG Genealogy SIG Evernote 4.6.0.7670 Download... ASCCA The presentation papers from ASCCA'S 2012 Conference and their December Newsletter containing details of this year's competition winners are now available on the Internet. *Lunch on Friday* Members of the Seniors and Communications SIGs will adjourn for lunch to a nearby establishment on Friday. All members are welcome to join them in this short end-of-year celebration. The Web Design SIG will not meet this month.	Hello and Welcome, On Tuesday there will be some more microprocessor applications and programs shown at the Programming SIG. On Friday the Seniors and Communications SIGs will take a look into the future when their members discuss Windows 8 and the developments that are planned for the Internet during the next five years. Details are below: *Tuesday 11 December - Programming - N. Hoffman - 5:30pm - 8:30pm* At the November meeting Steve demonstrated his Saleae 8 channel USB logic analyser. It connects to the USB port of a computer and allows you to see the states of up to eight channels over time. This is very useful for debugging communication between a microcontroller and a peripheral device when it is not clear if a fault is in the code or in the hardware. In addition Saleae provides several protocol decoders, making it easy to verify that the correct data is present on the communication bus being monitored. The analyser can decode Asynchronous Serial, SPI, 1-Wire, I2C and UNI/O Bus and the data can be exported to an output file for further analysis. Geoff showed an Arduino board he built. The Arduino system consists of a microcontroller board with a range of plug-in daughter boards, or shields as they call them. As many shields are available, many projects can be built by plugging in the appropriate shield and programming the microcontroller. You don't have to build a circuit board to get a first prototype going as you do with a PIC, he said. He found the programming language more powerful and not too difficult. He referred to the websites arduino.cc and freetronics.com, and recommended the book: "Practical Arduino" for training and projects. Members of the group will demonstrate some new microprocessor applications and programming examples at Tuesday's meeting. Visitors are always welcome. Neville Hoffman *Friday 14 December - Seniors - 9:30am - 12:30pm* Bob Backstrom installed a version of Windows 8 on the club's computer at last month's meeting. At this meeting Bob will explore and discuss more of the features in this new operation system from Microsoft. A question and answer session will be held at the beginning of the meeting. *Friday 14 December - Communications - J. Lucke - 12:30pm - 3:30pm* John Lucke recently participated in a "Connecting Communities" seminar at Microsoft and at this meeting he will discuss how recent advances in internet communications will change many of our everyday activities. Within five years activities, like making a doctor's appointments, booking a favourite seat on a plane, remotely retrieving important documents from the "cloud" or knowing the best time to phone a busy person will be performed differently and more efficiently than how they are done at present. A general discussion and a question and answer session will be held at the beginning of the meeting. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Cheers, John Mathews Please remember if your e-mail address is changed for any reason at all, unless you tell me your new address you will not receive these weekly updates! Any change of address should be notified to changedetails@sydneypc.com
Information for Members and Visitors: Sydney PC User Group's FREE newsletter: Subscribe Send to Friend Un-subscribe Go to Sydney PC User Group's: Website Events Calendar Please note that all Meetings, except where specifically stated, are held on the 1st Floor, Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts, 280 Pitt Street, Sydney. DISCLAIMER: This Newsletter is provided “As Is” without warranty of any kind. Each user or reader of this Newsletter assumes complete risk as to the accuracy and subsequent use of its contents.

At the November meeting Steve demonstrated his Saleae 8 channel USB logic analyser. It connects to the USB port of a computer and allows you to see the states of up to eight channels over time. This is very useful for debugging communication between a microcontroller and a peripheral device when it is not clear if a fault is in the code or in the hardware. In addition Saleae provides several protocol decoders, making it easy to verify that the correct data is present on the communication bus being monitored. The analyser can decode Asynchronous Serial, SPI, 1-Wire, I2C and UNI/O Bus and the data can be exported to an output file for further analysis.

Geoff showed an Arduino board he built. The Arduino system consists of a microcontroller board with a range of plug-in daughter boards, or shields as they call them. As many shields are available, many projects can be built by plugging in the appropriate shield and programming the microcontroller. You don't have to build a circuit board to get a first prototype going as you do with a PIC, he said. He found the programming language more powerful and not too difficult. He referred to the websites arduino.cc and freetronics.com, and recommended the book: "Practical Arduino" for training and projects.

Members of the group will demonstrate some new microprocessor applications and programming examples at Tuesday's meeting. Visitors are always welcome.
Neville Hoffman

Friday 14 December - Seniors - 9:30am - 12:30pm

Bob Backstrom installed a version of Windows 8 on the club's computer at last month's meeting. At this meeting Bob will explore and discuss more of the features in this new operation system from Microsoft.

A question and answer session will be held at the beginning of the meeting.

Friday 14 December - Communications - J. Lucke - 12:30pm - 3:30pm

John Lucke recently participated in a "Connecting Communities" seminar at Microsoft and at this meeting he will discuss how recent advances in internet communications will change many of our everyday activities. Within five years activities, like making a doctor's appointments, booking a favourite seat on a plane, remotely retrieving important documents from the "cloud" or knowing the best time to phone a busy person will be performed differently and more efficiently than how they are done at present.

A general discussion and a question and answer session will be held at the beginning of the meeting.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cheers,

John Mathews

Please remember if your e-mail address is changed for any reason at all, unless you tell me your new address you will not receive these weekly updates! Any change of address should be notified to changedetails@sydneypc.com