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At its November 5th general meeting, DACS is pleased to welcome Alan Chitlik, Microsoft representative. The meeting will take place at the Danbury Hospital Auditorium, starting at 7:00pm with the customary questions and answers session, followed by some brief announcements. The formal presentation is scheduled to start at 8:00pm.

Microsoft will show some of its latest products for the 2002 holiday shopping season. Live demos will include Picture It! Digital Image Pro; Tablet PC, Pocket PC and several games: Links 2003 and Age of Mythology. In addition, you'll see some tips and tricks about Windows XP and hear briefly about the rest of the products in the holiday lineup.

One product presented will be Picture It, a program to manipulate digital pictures, with the following features:

• Powerful Tools. Picture It! offers advanced tools from batch processing and Adobe Photoshop Filter Plug-in support to Fill Flash and Backlighting controls for precise yet fast photo correction.
• You can fix, organize, and print photos fast. The Mini Lab and Gallery tools make it quick and easy to bring in a several pictures at a time, make them perfect, and organize them so they are easy to find and use.
• It's easy to get started and use. You can use photos from just about anywhere-a digital camera, a picture CD, scanner, hard drive, or the Web. With the new file browser, additional file menus, and the new startup window, it will take even less time to correct all of your photos.
• Photo templates and projects help you create like a Professional. Picture It! Digital Image Pro includes 3000 pre-created templates for letterheads, business cards, presentations, web photo albums, photo cards, frames, calendars, magazine covers, web photo albums, and more. You just supply the picture and make professional-quality results.

A new product that Microsoft will demonstrate is the Tablet PC, a device that provides the full power and functionality of today's notebook PCs, with all the features of Windows XP Professional and the added capabilities of pen-based computing. It lets users combine the simplicity of pen and paper with the power of the PC. In addition to using a keyboard and mouse, one can write directly on the screen using a digital pen, take handwritten notes with digital ink and save them using Windows Journal, a note-taking utility that comes with Windows XP Tablet PC Edition. With Windows Journal, you can also:

• Format handwritten ink to emphasize ideas and personalize your notes.
• Search all of your handwritten notes using keywords to locate information quickly.
• Convert your handwritten notes into typed text.
• Mark up almost any document with handwritten notes without making changes to that document.

Also to be demonstrated is the Pocket PC, a PDA which offers choices for communicating and accessing personal and corporate information to stay in touch and informed.

Alan also will show the latest advancements in Pocket PCs, such as Toshiba's GENIO e550G, which integrate a package of productivity tools supported by the Intel PXA250 (XScale) 400MHz processor. Pocket versions of Microsoft Word, Excel, Outlook, Internet Explorer and the Windows Media Player are all integrated into the GENIO e-series. It features two of the latest advances in expansion slots: an SD slot for the Secure Digital Input-Output card and SD memory card and a CF-II slot for compact flash cards. Toshiba and numerous third-party developers support these slots with diverse applications, including memory cards, 802.11b wireless networking cards, modem cards, and Bluetooth T-cards. Also to be shown is how to connect this Pocket PC to a wireless network.

To close the presentation, two games will be presented:

Links 2003: The newest version of this best-selling golf series takes players to six all-new championship courses, with realistic control over every shot, with the all-new real-time swing. You can create your own character and play against some of the hottest pros and then design your home course with the Arnold Palmer Course Designer and share it online.

The other game to be demonstrated is the Age of Mythology which transports players to a time when heroes did battle with monsters of legend and the gods intervened in the affairs of mortal men. Players wage war using human armies and diplomacy, progress through development ages, enhance military and economic performance with improvements, and manage economics through resource gathering and trade. Mythology enters the mix when players call upon the gods to act on their behalf or reinforce their armies with more than 35 mythological creatures.

Ensemble Studios' new 3-D engine adds a deep richness of graphical detail and creates a unique new title based on the ancient cultural history of the Greek, Norse, and Egyptian mythologies, which are divided into nine detailed civilizations.

The software, hardware and games to be shown have the promise to make the November DACS general meeting a very entertaining and interesting one. In addition, Microsoft is saying that cool door prizes will be raffled after the presentation. See you there!