Dallas Genealogical Society » Technology SIG

March Technloogy SIG Topic: Optical Character Recognition

Tony Hanson — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 01:39:48 +0000

Please plan on attending the March Technology SIG meeting beginning at 6:30 on Thursday March 1. Our presentation will be on Optical Character Recognition by DGS member Kathleen Murray. We’ll be meeting in the Studio room on the 3rd floor … Continue reading →

Hardware & Software for the New Genealogist

Tony Hanson — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 22:41:28 +0000

A recording of the “Hardware and Software for Beginning Genealogists” presentation made by DGS Webmaster Tony Hanson at last October’s “Do You Know Who You Are?” workshop is now available on-line. See it now by clicking here. Be sure to see the Technology SIG page for several other informative (and free!) presentations.

January Technology SIG Meeting to Focus on Twitter

Tony Hanson — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 21:07:11 +0000

Join DGS Webmaster Tony Hanson at the next Technology SIG meeting to learn about Twitter:

Understand how to read and send Tweets
Learn how the DGS plans to use Twitter to expand its on-line presence
Know how to use Twitter to be a more active participant at RootsTech (and other genealogy conferences)
Follow the activities of the DGS on Twitter at @DGStx

When: Thursday, January 5 at 6:30 pm

Where: In the Studio Room on the 3^rd Floor of the Dallas Public Library (Directions).

Record Their Stories

Carolyn Davis — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 17:48:39 +0000

You may want to check into this new iPhone/iPad/iPod app before you travel for the holidays. It allows you to plan, script, and record an interview with family members.

It is so new that there are no reviews yet on the iTunes App Store, but it looks very promising. I have not yet tested it, but will update this blog post when I do.

From the publisher’s web page:

When you open the app and enter the names of the participants, you’ll find our ‘Questions List’ page. You can write your own list of questions or select from over a hundred suggestions. Once you’re happy with your questions list, you can access the microphone and begin your recording. At any time during your recording you can press the question mark to see your list and remind yourself of all the things you wanted to ask. Once it’s all recorded you can go to our simple Edit page to trim your recording or add to it if you wish.

Will be interested to learn if anyone tries it out at family get-togethers.

December Technology SIG Meeting

Tony Hanson — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 02:16:11 +0000

I hope that many of you are putting the finishing touches on your “Show ‘N Tell” project for this month’s meeting. The $25 Fry’s Gift Card is eagerly waiting to meet its new owner… the runner up will receive a 8G Jump Drive and the consolation prize is a Digital Camera for a laptop PC.

Presentations are a lot more fun if there is somebody to present to, so please plan to attend even if you do not intend to present anything yourself. I’m certain that we will all be greatly impressed by each presentation and will all end the evening better informed and more motivated!

When: Thursday, December 1 starting at 6:30 pm
Where: Dallas Public Library (Directions) 3^rd Floor Studio

If your plans won’t allow you to join us this month I sincerely hope that you and your families have a peaceful and joyous holiday, and that you will be able to meet with us on January 5 when 2011 & 2012 RootsTech presenter Kathleen Murray will be discussing Optical Character Recognition.

Social Media and Genealogy

Carolyn Davis — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 20:40:34 +0000

I posed this question at our November Tech SIG meeting and would like to pursue it further. So far I have been doing my family history research pretty much as a loner; my immediate family is small and I have exhausted them as a resource.

I have not yet tried to find extended family members who can to add to my findings, used internet sites to find others who are researching the same family names, or posted my tree to public sites to see who responds, for example.

Rootsweb.com and the public trees on ancestry.com were suggested as resources. I would like to hear about your success stories/experiences using these two sites and learn about others that I don’t know about.

What techniques have been successful for you as you have tried to find family connections on the internet?

Do any of you use Facebook to find family connections or is it more helpful for keeping in contact once you have names from other sources?

I guess that I am hesitant to dip my toes in the water and would like to hear how social media has worked for others. Many thanks for your contributions.

Receiving Posts and Comments via RSS

Tony Hanson — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 00:10:50 +0000

For the benefit of those of you who were not at the November 3 Technology SIG meeting…

I announced that it is my hope that we will be able to figure out how to utilize the capabilities of the Blog to distribute information about the Technology SIG.
Until we get all of the kinks works out to everybody’s satisfaction I will continue to send everything in email.
I did demonstrate how to ‘subscribe’ to a RSS feed in Microsoft Outlook… this allows you to receive posts to the Blog as email.
We discussed the pro’s and con’s at the meeting.

One excellent comment was made about the desirability of being able to limit the feed of information from the blog to a specific category so you are not overwhelmed with posts on topics you do not care to receive.
We need to figure out how to get blog postings in the form of email for all of the other email packages in use

There have been a few developments since the meeting (thanks to Carolyn Davis and Barbara Ware)

I found a way to allow you to receive only the category or categories you want to receive.
It was pointed out to me that the URL I had provided was not providing feeds from comments… I have a partial solution for that below as well.

To receive every post from every category (but no comments) use this URL:

http://www.dallasgenealogy.net/wp/feed/

To receive every comment from every category use this URL:

http://www.dallasgenealogy.net/wp/comments/feed/

So to receive all posts and comments from the blog you would need to add both URL’s to your list of RSS feeds.

I loaded a tool that allows you to subscribe to posts by category (see Category Specific RSS in the lower right hand part of the Blog home page). Clicking on the category displays all of the posts. Clicking on the RSS symbol to the left displays the URL and the articles using the RSS component of your browser.

So, for example, to receive all posts made in the Technology SIG category use this URL:

http://www.dallasgenealogy.net/wp/category/technology-sig/feed/

To subscribe to the Macintosh OS & Genealogy feed use this URL:

http://www.dallasgenealogy.net/wp/category/macgen/feed/

Unfortunately there does not appear to be a way to get the comments made to posts for a specific category.

I will be putting together a presentation showing how all this works as soon as I get more of it figured out… Please let me know if you figure out how do so something in your environment!

November Technology SIG Meeting

Tony Hanson — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 12:15:12 +0000

The November Technology SIG meeting will be an open discussion loosely focused on the December “Show Your Project” competition. We discuss ideas for projects you might consider and will answer any questions you have on this or any other topic.

I’d also like to discuss ideas for topics (and speakers) for next year’s meetings.

When: Thursday, November 3 starting at 6:30 PM
Where: Downtown Dallas Public Library 3rd Floor – Studio (Directions)

Technology SIG Contest

Tony Hanson — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 00:40:45 +0000

The December 1 meeting will be a chance for you to show off YOUR project and compete for the $25 Fry’s gift card that will be awarded for the “Best” presentation/project. Here are a few ideas for possible projects (Information on all of these topics is available on the Technology SIG web page).

Create a presentation in PowerPoint, Jing or Camtasia
Create a Blog
Create a Wiki (I have just added some new references to the web page)
Add some information to the Family Search wiki
Add information and pictures to Find a Grave
Create or enhance your own web site
Scan some genealogy related documents or pictures
Do something interesting with Google Tools
Participate in a Family Search scanning project
Enhance some pictures you took or images you scanned
Show off some genealogy-related images you photographed

The judging criteria include: the degree of difficulty, how much you learned and the quality of your presentation.

Photo Retouching Guide Available

Tony Hanson — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 23:23:32 +0000

Sandra Crowley made a fascinating and informative presentation on “Photo Retouching” at the Oct. 6 Technology SIG meeting. She has also provided a 4 page quick reference document for Photoshop Elements users… it is available on the Technology SIG page.