I. The meeting was called to order by John Walker at 6:14 pm on 6/11/24.
II. Present
A. Board members:
a) John Walker, Warren King, John Schmotzer, Richard Milewski, Donna Pikl
2. At large board members:
a) Ty Davison
3. A quorum was present.
B. Total at meeting:
1. Present: 7
2. Zoom: 3
III. Minutes review:
A. A motion to accept the minutes of the May 14, 2024 meeting was made,
seconded and the motion carried.
IV. Treasurer’s report:
A. Donna reported that the account balance as of May 31 was $ 661.84.
1. A motion to accept the Treasurer’s Report was made, seconded and the
motion carried.
2. Moved and seconded to pay for April, May, June fee for meeting room.
Passed. $120.
a) Has not been paid as of this meeting.
V. Old Business:
1. Review Future presentations
a) June – World Wide Developers Conference
b) July – iPhone photos
c) Sept – Ad blocking, plus
B. New Business:
1. None
VI. Standing items:
1
A. None
VII. Tabled items:
A. Mentoring Program:
VIII.Action items:
A. None
IX. Adjournment:
A. The meeting was adjourned @ 6:47 pm.
By: John Schmotzer, Secretary
2
Author: Richard
May 14th, 2024
I. The meeting was called to order by John Walker at 6:14 pm on 5/14/24.
II. Present
A. Board members:
a) John Walker, Warren King, John Schmotzer, Donna Pikl, Richard Milewski
2. At large board members:
a) Donita Zwolak
3. A quorum was present.
B. Total at meeting:
1. Present: 9
2. Zoom: 0 (No zoom this meeting)
III. Minutes review:
A. There were no minutes kept at the last meeting.
IV. Treasurer’s report:
A. Donna reported that the account balance as of April 30 was $ 661.84.
1. A motion to accept the Treasurer’s Report was made, seconded and the
motion carried.
2. Moved and seconded to pay for April, May, June fee for meeting room.
Passed. $120
V. Old Business:
1. Review Future presentations
a) June – World Wide Developers Conference
b) July – iPhone photos
c) Sept – ?
2. In our January meeting, Henry brought up adding a description of the
meetings to Facebook page.
a) There are concerns that this might not be useful and is not being perused
at this point.
B. New Business:
1. None
1
VI. Standing items:
A. None
VII. Tabled items:
A. Mentoring Program:
VIII.Action items:
A. None
IX. Adjournment:
A. The meeting was adjourned @ 6:45pm.
By: John Schmotzer, Secretary
2
A.I. Short Takes
To complement Henry’s Short Takes presentation this month, I wanted to bring attention to three fun A.I. image generation apps running on Apple Silicon.
Diffusers from HuggingFace is the simplest of the three. It’s free in the Mac app store and lets you create images from text prompts. It is less capable than the other apps mentioned here, but by far the simplest to use.
DiffusionBee is a free A.I. app in the Mac App Store that can quickly and easily generate images from text prompts or other images. It has an easy to learn interface and produces much better pictures than I was able generate using OpenAI’s Dall-e in our SMUG meeting late last year. DiffusionBee is built on StabilityAI’s Stable Diffusion technology.
Draw Things is another free A.I. app in the App Store, remarkably it also runs on iPhones and iPads. The UI for Draw Things is considerably more extensive than that for DiffusionBee and it takes a bit more effort to produce a good image, but it can provide spectacular results.
All of these apps can use any of the tens of thousands of Stable Diffusion Models available from HuggingFace.co and CIVITAI.com. CIVITAI also has hundreds of thousands of A.I. generated images. (FULL DISCLOSURE: The site is pretty much uncensored).
Finally, if you don’t have a device with Apple Silicon available, many of the models can run on the HuggingFace website. For a fun image generator that uses both a text prompt and a starter image, try the InstantID demo on HuggingFace. Upload a picture of yourself and regenerate it in any of 9 different styles. Each time you run it you get a new interpretation.
There are lots of other Stable Diffusion UIs around, including those for generating Audio and Video, but the three presented here are my recommendation for a place to start learning about Stable Diffusion image generation.
March 12th, 2024
I. The meeting was called to order by John Walker at 6:12 pm on 3/12/24.
II. Present
Board members:
John Walker, Warren King, John Schmotzer, Donna Pikl, Richard Milewski, Ty Davison, Donita Zwolak
A quorum was present.
Total at meeting:
1. Present: 10
2. Zoom: 0
III. Minutes review:
A motion to accept the amended minutes of the February 13, 2023 meeting was made, seconded and the motion carried.
IV. Treasurer’s report:
Donna reported that the account balance as of Feb. 30 was $ 751.84. Thirty dollars in dues not deposited yet.
1. A motion to accept the Treasurer’s Report was made, seconded and the motion carried.
2. $120 check was given to Center 50+ for meeting room rent.
V. Old Business:
1. Review Future presentations
a) March – Firefox update
b) April – Apple Vision and New iPads if updated
c) May – Henry short takes (open for requests)
d) June – World Wide Developers Conference
e) July – iPhone photos?
2. In our January meeting, Henry brought up adding a description of the meetings to Facebook page.
a) Q and A – Record question and answer in a line or two, send to Henry
b) This hasn’t happened yet. The idea seems to be that each of us send Henry our thoughts on the meeting. Then he will create a summary for posting on facebook. It is hoped that this will help people checking on the page to see what we do.
B. New Business:
1. We helped Donna clean up the SMUG members list.
VI. Standing items:
A. Donna – Zelle is only for individuals not groups
VII. Tabled items:
A. Mentoring Program:
VIII. Action items:
A. None
IX. Adjournment:
A. The meeting was adjourned @ 6:51pm.
By: John Schmotzer, Secretary
January 9th, 2024
I. The meeting was called to order at 6:16 pm.
II. Present
1. Board members:
a) John Walker, Warren King, John Schmotzer, Donna Pikl, Richard Milewski
2. At large board members:
a) Henry Neugass, , Ty Davison, , Donita Zwolak
3. A quorum was present.
B. Total at meeting:
1. Present: 11
2. Via Zoom: 0
III. Minutes review:
A. A motion to accept the minutes of the December 12, 2023 meeting was made,
seconded and the motion carried.
IV. Treasurer’s report:
A. Donna reported that the account balance as of Dec. 31 was $ 751.84.
1. A motion to accept the Treasurer’s Report was made, seconded and the motion carried.
2. It was decided to wait to pay the rent until notified.
V. Old Business:
1. Review Future presentations
a) Tonight: Jan – Members demo apps or websites
b) Feb – Decluttering your computer
c) March – Firefox update
d) April – Apple Vision and New IPads if updated
VI. New Business:
1. Henry brought up adding a description of the meetings to Facebook page.
a) Q and A – Record question and answer in a line or two, send to Henry
2. Meet Up – as a possibility for increasing membership was discussed.
a) Costs prohibitive regardless of effectiveness.
3. May presentation – Henry short takes?
VII. Standing items:
A. None
VIII. Tabled items:
A. Mentoring Program:
IX. Action items:
A. None
IX. Adjournment:
A. The meeting was adjourned @ 6:52 pm.
By: John Schmotzer, Secretary
December 12th, 2023
The meeting was called to order by at 6:13 pm.
I. Present
A. Board members:
Ty Davison, Warren King, Richard Milewski, Donna Pikl, Henry Neugass, Donita Zwolak
A quorum was present.
B. Total at meeting:
Present: 11, Zoom: 0
II. Minutes review:
A motion to accept the minutes of the November 12, 2023 meeting was made, seconded and the motion carried.
III. Treasurer’s report:
Donna reported that the account balance as of the end of Nov. 30 was $ 871.84.
A motion to accept the Treasurer’s Report was made, seconded and the motion carried.
Motion to leave a check for the rent in the office was made, seconded and the motion carried.
IV. Old Business:
At the general meeting the slate of officers listed below were elected:
1. President: John Walker
2. Vice President: Warren King
3. Secretary: John Schmotzer
4. Treasurer: Donna Pikl
5. Webmaster: Richard Milewski
6. At large board members: Henry Neugass, Ty Davison, Donita Zwolak
V. New Business:
1. Future presentations
a) Jan – Members demo apps or websites
b) Feb – Decluttering your computer
c) March – Firefox update
d) April – ? New IPads? Apple Vision?
VI. Standing items:
None
VII. Tabled items:
Mentoring Program
VIII.Action items:
None
IX. Adjournment:
The meeting was adjourned @ 6:53 pm.
By: John Schmotzer, Secretary
November 14th, 2023
I. The meeting was called to order by John Walker at 6:09 pm.
II. Present
A. Board members:
John Walker, Ty Davison, Warren King, Richard Milewski, Donna Pikl, Henry
Neugass, Donita Zwolak, Marcia Minton. A quorum was present.
B. Total at meeting:
Present: 11
Via Zoom: 1
Minutes review:
A motion to accept the minutes of the October 10, 2023 meeting was made,
seconded and carried.
Treasurer’s report:
Donna reported that the account balance as of the end of Oct. 31 was $ 741.84.
It appears that there will be enough money to pay for the meeting room through
the end of the year.
Old Business:
Slate of officers for next month’s election:
- President: John Walker
- Vice President: Warren King
- Secretary: John Schmotzer
- Treasurer: Donna Pikl
- Webmaster: Richard Milewski
- At large board members: Henry Neugass, Donna Pikl, Donita Zwolak
Membership:
- Creating a YouTube video explaining what we are? Idea should be explored.
- Terry Ellen – help with the Facebook page
VI. New Business:
Future presentations
1. Jan – Members demo apps or websites
2. Feb – Decluttering your computer
3. March – Firefox update
4. April – ?
Standing items:
None
Tabled items:
Mentoring Program:
Action items:
None
Adjournment:
The meeting was adjourned @ 6:32 pm.
By: John Schmotzer, Secretary
September 12, 2023
The meeting was called to order by John Walker at 6:10 pm.
Board members present:
John Walker, Warren King, Richard Milewski, Donna Pikl, Ron Dixon, Henry Neugass, Donita Zwolak. A quorum was present.
Minutes review:
A motion to accept the minutes of the July 11, 2023 meeting was made, seconded and carried.
Treasurer’s report:
Donna reported that the account balance as of the end of August was $ 661.84. The Center is owed $120
for the months of June, July and September. Donna will pay that amount.
Old Business:
Membership:
The discussion on recruiting new members continued from last meeting. Richard reported
that there had only been 2 visits to the new Facebook page. The consensus is that today’s younger
computer users use YouTube to gain information rather than club memberships such as SMUG. It was
suggested that we appoint or recruit someone with a marketing background to lead the effort to expand
membership. It was also suggested that we focus our efforts on elderly housing units since there seems
to be a need to help that population. No actions were taken.
By-laws:
The proposed revised by-laws were discussed and the Board voted to send them to the
membership for a vote to adopt at the October meeting. Ron will ask those that will not attend in person to
submit an electronic vote via email to him.
Zelle:
It was pointed out that dues for the coming year are due at the October meeting. It would be an
opportune time to have the ability to use Zelle to pay them. John will follow up.
Standing items:
Program:
It was suggested that we target shorter presentations in the future and expand the Q & A
session as part of the program to attract new members. It was also suggested that we look closely at the
subject of the presentations to ensure that they are of interest to a majority of the membership. The
programs thru February were set at the July meeting.
Tabled items:
Mentoring Program:
Tabled indefinitely.
New Business:
None.
Action items:
Establishment of Zelle capability – John Walker
Adjournment:
The meeting was adjourned @ 7:12 pm.
By: Ron Dixon, Secretary
Technical Magic
Artificial Intelligence is the all the rage currently. People are using online apps such as ChatGPT as though they were actually intelligent, when they often simply assert nonsense. ChatGPT will, for example, confidently give you instructions on how to drain the radiator in a 1973 VW Superbeetle, a car with an air-cooled engine.
From a start-up named Technical Magic comes Wispy, an AI browser extension that can actually make your browsing experience more productive.
- Wispy can summarize the web page you’re looking at in prose or poetry.
- Wispy will proofread a blog post you’re writing, and it can help break even a stubborn case of writer’s block.
- Wispy can look at a page and separate facts from opinions.
- Wispy can give you an English text summary of a YouTube video, even one in a foreign language.
- Wispy will happily suggest side dishes to go with an entree, suggest recipes based on what you tell it is in your fridge, or make suggestions for your next trip to Trader Joe’s.
Wispy has more than 50 “powers” like these and more are being added every day.
Full disclosure: Wispy was created by friends of mine.
The Technical Magic team is composed largely of former Mozilla employees who have a deep understanding of how browsers work and how they are used. You can find Wispy at the Technical Magic website.
*************
When I asked Wispy to summarize the blog post above in Limerick form it returned:
There’s an AI named Wispy, you see,
From Technical Magic, it came to be.
It can summarize web pages with flair,
And proofread your blog post with care.
With over 50 powers, it’s quite a spree!Wispy separates facts from opinions,
And gives YouTube summaries with precision.
It suggests side dishes for your meal,
And even helps with writer’s block ordeal.
A magical browser extension, it’s a true vision!Created by friends, it’s a delightful creation,
By former Mozilla employees with dedication.
Wispy knows browsers inside and out,
Enhancing your browsing without a doubt.
Find Wispy at Technical Magic’s location!
March 14th, 2023
The meeting was called to order by John Walker at 6:07 pm.
Board members present:
John Walker, Warren King, Donna Pikl (via Zoom), Richard Milewski, Ron
Dixon, Henry Neugass, Ty Davison, Donita Zwolak (via Zoom). A quorum was present.
Minutes review:
A motion to accept the minutes of the February 14, 2023 meeting was made, seconded and carried.
Treasurer’s report:
Current total balance is $ 791.84. Ron asked Donna to provide a list of paid members. Donna will e-mail it
to him.
Old Business:
Action items:
John reported that the facilities contract was delayed by other activities being performed by Center 50+
personnel (Alvin). Alvin indicated that he would be working on our contract shortly.
Richard reported on the SMUG website. He again reminded Board members that he needs a short bio of
each of the officers for the web site. Richard has posted a copy of the bylaws on the web site and noted
that they were in need of major revision. He has also posted a working copy on the web site for use in the
revision effort. A discussion was held about the best way to update the bylaws. Ty volunteered to lead the
effort.
Standing items:
Attendance at the February meeting was 5 in-person and 3 on Zoom.
Program – The March presentation will be Apple HomeKit with a short update on ChatGPT, if time allows.
The April presentation will be on the Ventura operating system for Macs and Henry’s postponed
presentation on Mac Short-Takes will take place in May. June’s presentation will be on Security and
Privacy. July’s will be Apple One.
Tabled items:
- Spark Studio – Nothing new to report.
- Mentoring Program – tabled indefinitely
- Dues collection via website – John and Donna will work at implementing Zelle as an alternative.
New Business:
The Board members began a collaborative effort of reviewing and updating the bylaws. Suggestions were
made and preliminary changes were made to the working copy.
Ron informed the group that he would miss the next two meetings. John will secure a substitute secretary.
Action items:
- Facilities contract – John
- Clarify number of remaining pre-paid facility fees – John
- Web site changes – Richard
- Bylaws update – Ty and Richard
Adjournment:
John adjourned the Board Meeting @ 6:50 pm.
By: Ron Dixon, Secretary