I’ve been trying since I took over the office of president to find someone to be our Program Chairperson. Not having any luck, I thought I’d stroll down memory lane and remember all the presenters of the past couple of years. Maybe it will give someone the incentive to get the kinds of presentations that they want to see instead of the ones I’ve wanted to see.

The first presentation I scheduled was Pat Horvath of Mindspring. He lost his scheduler on the plane to Tampa and never showed up at the meeting. Well, I was off to a great start.

At that time, Robert Armstrong of BCD came every year to talk about the latest hardware. He came to the next meeting, answered lots of difficult questions and gave away two $50 gift certificates. Next, there was Joe Roediger of Micro Star. He had an extensive stock market tracking software package. It was pretty expensive, but I heard that a least one person in the group bought one.

I missed the next meeting, but Melanie Arsenault of Kinematics gave an overview of surge protectors. Then, Dick Kellerman, the software "Evangelist", represented MGI software. Last time we saw Dick, he was showing Partition Magic.

Mike Austin of Waldec/IKON Office Solutions was very knowledgeable about Microsoft and the Microsoft certifications. He explained the use of different types of server/client computer setups used in the office environment. In June of 1998, Mike Bruzzone brought the WinChips into our lives, and some of us will never be the same. I have to admit I learned a lot because of the experience.

Gateway sent Rich Podoisky and Beth Wood, and they fielded some very technical questions. Quarterdeck came, and I haven’t heard anything about the company since. Tom Rivers and his son were starting their own consulting business, so I guess they’re doing okay.

Vinnie Barber was as much fun as I’ve ever had at a user group meeting. He showed us the Alps Printer, a cheaper web site than Alps.com to buy the printers, and made us laugh. He went to Applebee’s with a group of us after the meeting, and he told us that he was doing stand up comedy when someone from Alps asked him to represent them. Now that’s different!

Robert Armstrong of BCD came again and introduced an ISP that BCD was involved in.

Jasc Software sent Julie Alstatt. She was smart and cute and very easy to listen to. She got a few people to even buy Paint Shop Pro. Cheryl Alexander told her she was having trouble with a feature of Paint Shop and Julie gave Cheryl a book to help her.

Captain Rod Stebbins told us how to start our own business at home. Mark Haley sold some "not too great" National Parks CD’s (my opinion only). Jason Velasco of Ontrack guaranteed to recover anyone’s hard drive, for a price. I don’t know of anyone who used the service, but in a crisis it would be invaluable. Tom Walsh of American Power Conversion gave away a rather nice UPS. Roadrunner came again and gave away pens and free installations.

Laser Perfect, a printer ink refill company was represented by Chuck McPherson. I’ve been getting my cartridges refilled every since and I’ve been very happy with it. I missed another meeting and didn’t get to see Mark Komula of Network Technology Solutions. He explained the ins and outs of home networking. William LaMartin did a great presentation of Adobe Acrobat 4. The multi-level marketing fiasco came next. I’m still apologizing over that one.

BCD was scheduled again, but they were a no-show and Brian Lance saved the day by showing us the diagnostic software he used on his job. Matt McCann was funny and informative in his demonstration of Quicken. We had our first ever Christmas Party, and I thought it was grand.

Steve Singer gave an excellent hardware presentation, Glen Gasbarrow showed us E-Stamp and Jay Kirth came from CompUSA and brought amazingly enough a digital camera for the door prize.

I hope I’ve brought back some memories and that someone may have gotten interested in bringing in new and innovative presentations in the future. u