Meeting Preview: Mike Galvin from Office Depot will tell us about new computer products. As usual, Mary Sheridan will conduct a computing and Windows discussion for the first 30 minutes of the meeting.

President’s Message

We had another good meeting this past month. The presenter was from Executrain, and he was knowledgeable about his topic. He fielded many questions from our members and answered them all.

I’m just back from the Microsoft Windows XP event. They had 1000 people registered and less than 400 were in attendance. I know there were many registration duplications, but other than that, I don’t know why there was such a difference in the numbers. Microsoft hired a professional event person for the event and a security guard. A Microsoft field agent was also on hand. The event went off without a hitch, and I was glad that our user group had the chance to be part of it. I’d like to thank Le Bennington, Marcia Bennington, Lisa Fagan, Tim Hamilton, Mike Hodges, Bob LaFave, Jenny Lind Olin, Jim Weber and Kevan Sheridan for all their hard work. Microsoft is supposed to give copies of Windows XP to everyone who volunteered. I’ll get your copies to you as soon as I can. I didn’t see any of our members in attendance, but I was pretty busy and may have just missed you. If I did, thank you for attending the event.

The FACUG fall conference was an incredible success. There were 92 attendees and a record number of sponsors. The lucky people whose numbers were called first received copies of Office XP, Paint Shop Pro and lots of other really nice software titles. Macintosh had a strong presence at the conference. They brought software for the Apple platform and the Apple users were thrilled to win it.

I will be in Las Vegas from November the 10^th through the 17^th for the APCUG Fall Conference. I’m excited about going. I went two years ago, and it was lots of fun. Because of the few articles I write for the newsletter, I’ll be able to get a press pass for Comdex. A press pass enables better access to some of the speakers and events. I know that security will be an issue this year, so I’m not sure what to expect.

Don’t forget to nominate your favorite person at the November meeting. Happy Computing! u