Shelly Hill, President welcomed the group and introduced the Leadership Team. Members introduced themselves and reviewed their product or service offerings.

Dawn Mikkelson from Aquaries Media presented “Streaming Media: What do I need to know?” The presentation covered the features and rising popularity of streaming media compared to progressive download, and included broadband issues, media players and encoding. Further discussion and questions were regarding loading footage, Flash and file size. The presentation is available at: www.tcwebpros.org. Also see: www.aquariesmedia.com.

Jamie Lee from Aquaries recommends the Flashbelt conference in Minneapolis June 1416, 2005 for those looking for more inspiration and solutions using Flash. See: www.flashbelt.com.

Pamela Grover reported that the Twin Cities Web Professionals web site is now up and running at: www.tcwebpros.org. A big thanks to Allie Micka and Rick Chasin for the fabulous work! The site includes “about” information, a member directory, and event and resource managers. Members should create a login and set up their profile to be included in the member directory. Rather than publishing e-mail addresses there is a “contact” button that asks the recipient to initiate contact.

There was some further discussion on meeting location. The next meeting will be at the Renaissance Box, which is a few blocks from today’s location. Equipment is available and there is no fee, only drawback is parking, though it was not a problem today.

Open discussion included some cgi/Java problems with menus and login. Sites recommended included: www.coffeecup.com and www.hotscripts.com. Another issue raised was a site that includes .dsp files, no one was familiar with this file type. One member is looking for a good, free HTML editor and another for help with RSS feeds and blogs. It was noted that the Science Museum is offering some free, web-relevant sessions this spring. Also, Yahoo is offering a decent free five-page web site when you have a local listing. Another member is having some AOL problems with forms.