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The 10,000 Trees Project Committee is seeking community members interested in serving on its Board of Directors. THE 10,000 TREES PROJECT The 10.000 Trees Project is an incorporated notâ€"forâ€"profit, environmental initiative begun in Waterioo in 2000 by concerned volunteers. It seeks to reâ€"forest designated growth areas. This awardâ€"winning environmentallyâ€" conscious organization began with the goal of planting 10.000 trees in 10 years in the City of Waterioo. The organization now has broadened its view to connect people, the environment and our common future as a best practice for communities across North Amenica The 10.000 Trees Project has been instrumental in organizing numerous treeâ€" planting events. been the recipient of awards from internationai orgamzations. and has been instrumental in the City of Waterloo receiving recognition from provincial and national organizations, including an International Gold Medal Award in 2003 from The Liveabte Communitres Competition. c Dedicated citizens with an interest in improving our local environment are encouraged to apply for a position on the volunteer Board of Directors Please reply in writing by> February 1, 2005 10,000 Trees Project â€" Board of Directors 258 Willowdale Place Waterloo Ontario N2J 3M4 Or via email mwhaley@city.waterloo.on.ca Call for Board Members ADVERTISERS appreciate it when you tell them ... l saw your ad in the Chronicle. 10,000 T REES P ROJ ECT Please visit the website at www.10000trees.org Thm past week I‘ve been experimenting with rescuing some old video tapes that have been sitting in a box unwatched and untouched for some time â€" some of them for about five years. My wife and I are conâ€" cerned about losing some of the earliest footage of our children. The driving force thai‘s pushing me to do something is the fact that magnetic media starts to fade after about five years from what I‘ve read on the Internet and experienced firstâ€"hand with old floppy disks. My hope is to get the videos off the aging tapes and onto my computer where 1 can edit them and Choosing the best way to preserve memories 742â€"0678 A Better Mattress...for a Better Price www.royalmatitress.com NEW KITCHENER LOCATION $1 1151 Victoria Street North (rear Swiss Chalet) Hurry In...ENDS SOON! Manufacturing Comortable Sleeo Products since 1987 ROMLG copy them as many times as 1 like without risk of degradâ€" ing the images and audio. â€"At least I will be preservâ€" ing them in a format where they won‘t age and will be Parents of children born in 2000 and 2001 are invited to register their child(ren) for classes beginning in September, 2005. If your child is currently attending junior kindergarten, it is not necessary to register your child again. Junior and senior kindergarten registration will be held at local public schools from Monday, January 24, 2005 to Friday, February 4, 2005. MICHAEL HIEMSTRA Please contact your school ahead of time to arrange a specific time for registration. and to receive an information package. If you are not sire which school your child will attend. please visit the Board‘s web site at www.wrdsb.on.ca or call $70â€"0003, ext. 4349 The Waterloo Region District School Board is pleased to welcome young students as they begin learning in our public school system. Empowering liteâ€"long learners who strive for excellence in a changing world safe down to the last byte, right? One of the first choices that I‘m coming up against is what format to use when storing â€" the â€" captured footage. Should I use DVâ€" AVI, MPEGâ€"2 or should 1 pick one from the several options under Windows Media Video format headâ€" ing? I‘d like to be able to pass these memories on 10 my children, so I want to pick a format and media that will last. Writable DVD disc manufacturers are claiming between 150â€" and 300â€"year durability for the media, but that got me thinking about how long the DVD file format (MPEGâ€"2), will be in use. When you think what a short period of time it took for music CDs to take over the cassette market and DVDs to take over the VHS market, it makes you wonder what will be next. I‘m going through a simiâ€" lar struggle with our digital pictures. Do you remember the PCX picture format that was popular in the early verâ€" sions of the Windows operâ€" ating system? You don‘t see many images being moved around on the Internet in this format. Of course, that could be because it was a rasterâ€" based format where the pixel _ information _ is dumped to a file and that such format would take up an enormous amount of space with the resolution of images that we use and require these days. But, I wonder if today‘s JPEG images that I take with my digital camera today will end up in the same state At least, on the photoâ€" graphic front. I can safely leave the archival work to my wife who knows more about lignin and actdâ€"free papers than I do. Her scrapâ€" booking hobby will no doubt leave the family with an abundance of albums to share and cherish. But... the video front is on my task list, and | think I‘m going to have to make a similar plan. I‘ll have to choose a medium that will stand the test of time. Through hardâ€" learned experience, I‘ve come to realize that my PC‘s hard drive isn‘t the best spot to store anything I want to keep. Too many hardware failures and upgrades have seen files lost or at least wellâ€"hidden on a backup somewhere. DVDs seem like a good choice with their life span, but for archival purposes l‘ll have to make sure to buy quality as opposed to disâ€" count dises. And I should be saving the videos in MPEGâ€"2 format. This is an open stanâ€" dard, less prone to change or die out like a systemâ€"speâ€" cific, proprietary format. This will be a bit harder, as I plan to use a Windowsâ€" specific program (Movie Maker 2) to capture and author the movies, and will need to convert them before making the DVDs. The added bonus of the MPEGâ€"2 format is that anyâ€" one with a DVD player should be able to view them. Hopefully my kids will be able to reminisce over these videos. Does anyone know if DVDs are lignan free? District School Board www.wrdsb.on.ca