As usual, our luncheon will be at Sinbad's just south of the Ferry Building on the Embarcadero near the foot of Mission St. We meet at 11:30 and are seated at 12:30. To make reservations call Paul Black at 925-827-9511 and leave a message on his machine.

Tim Pozar emails the newsletter to about a third of our members. I'd like to see more of you sign up for that service, which you can do at our website, which is listed later in this newsletter. Then we can stop the printed version in July of this year.

I've been the SF Area SMPTE chairman for the past two years. SMPTE had been using a postcard for meeting notices. They switched to a brief email message sent to all local members directing them to the website when the notice for the next meeting is posted. That has worked very well with the result that the local chapter budget is used entirely for programs.

Income:


Newsletter ads:	$1,175.00
Chapter rebate:	$1048.25
Subtotal:	$2,223.25

Expenses:


Sinbad Gratutiy:	$100.00
Speakers Lunch:	$20.00
Nolo Press book:	$46.14
Newsletter Postage:	$643.90
Newsletter Printing:	$1,027.76
Supplies	$37.86
Sec. of State Fees	$30.00
Total	$1,905.66

Net 317.69
Bank Balance:


Starting:	$5,357.39
Ending:	$5,675.08
Net change:	$317.69

New Word Processor For all the wonders of computing and PDAs, I still take notes using a pencil. Real pencils have a tendency to break. Automatic pencils are a pain. There is the kind that advances the lead by turning the tip and the kind that requires you push a button to advance the lead. Both are less than worthless.

A few months ago I picked up a sample pack of the Dixon SenseMatic 2000 automatic pencil. It looks like a classic yellow pencil complete with eraser. The big difference is that it works without any work on my part. It advances the lead as needed. The downside is that you won't find it in one of those pseudo office warehouse stores. They've sold all their shelf space to the usual suspects. You might have to go to..(GASP!)...a real stationery store.

Attack of the Blue Violet Laser Rather than wait for broadcasters, cable guys, and the DBS folks to flood the market with HD, the consumer electronics bunch has made a preemptive strike to foster the selling of their 34" and up HD TVs and monitors. Nine of the big boys are behind a new DVD using blue violet recording that will deliver 2 hours of HD content or 12 hours of SD content.
Subscribe to the online version of the newsletter The electronic copy version of this newsletter is now availible via a mailling list. You can subscribe by going to http://www.lns.com/mailman/listinfo/sbe-announce and filling out the form there.
Web Page Webmeister Tim Pozar has the current newsletter plus newsletters all the way back to 1996 at: http://www.lns.com/sbe

Roy also posts the current newsletter at home.earthlink.net/~rhtrumbull but the posting is without links.