By Mary Sheridan, President, Tampa PC Users Group
mcpease@mindspring.com

I really enjoyed the lively discussions at the last meeting. It sort of reminded me of the old MSDOS/OS2/DRDOS debates. People take their operating systems very seriously. The debate seemed kinder and gentler than in the past though. Maybe we're all getting mellower.

Our projector project is off to an excellent start. I'm so grateful to all who have donated.

As usual, the summer brings with it a shortage of presenters for our meetings. The representatives want to travel to Florida to talk to us in January, but they aren't that keen on being here in July and August. If you know of anyone locally who would like to talk to the group about their products, please let someone on the board know.

Cheryl Alexander has volunteered to handle our need for "Novice Users" information and help. We haven't worked out exactly how it will be implemented, but hopefully we find a way to be a resource for those who are new to the computer environment.

We also are painfully short on software for the door prizes. If you've bought any programs and never got around to using them, please consider donating them to the group. Someone else may be delighted to get them and your donations are tax deductible. Jenny Olin can give you a receipt for filing your taxes.

The date for the FACUG Fall Conference has been confirmed. It is Saturday, October 14, 2000, and will be held at the Sunlight Community Church, Port St. Lucie, FL. You can get additional information at http://www.facug.org. If you'd like to attend, contact an officer of the TPCUG for details.

I did a phone interview with one of the technical writers for the St. Pete Times last week. Her name was Yilu Zhao, so be watching for the article to appear. The topic was User Groups in general.

I'm sorry my column is so short, but I'm leaving on vacation and haven't prepared anything for the trip.

Thanks to everyone for continuing to support the group. u