By Peggy Pulliam, Tampa PC Users Group
pegrance@yahoo.com

The meeting started with discussions of MSN and AOL having new versions, business versions and a new instant messaging version coming out.

The unopposed, at this time, nominees are:

President - Kevan Sheridan
Vice President - John Witmer
Treasurer - Mike Hodges
Secretary - Peggy Pulliam
Member at Large - Mary Sheridan

The December meeting will include the Christmas Party December 11 at the meeting room location. It is a great location, and Mary Sheridan would like suggestions of what food you want. Everyone can bring a dish of some sort to share, too, and there is always more than we can eat. We’ll have music and a raffle for some really great stuff, one prize being a Windows XP Professional CD.

Don’t forget the SIGs at 6:30 at Gateway on Dale Mabry (see page 10):

Access on the 1^st Tuesday of each month.
Visual Basic the 3^rd Tuesday of each month.

Mike Hodges told us about Median and Visa, two computers available inexpensively from overseas. Follow up with him for further information about them.

The presentation was about CPU, a magazine for professional and experienced computer users, and Smart Computing, a magazine (written in easy to understand language) and an online site full of information designed to increase productivity and help the, shall we say, “less experienced” of us. It is still full of interesting information even for those who have been computing for a long time. If you become a member with them, you get the magazines at your door at a 64% savings over the newsstand price and you also get 24 hour-access to the website smartcomputing.com, which is a substantial website. All the earlier magazines are online; and you can search for your subject and page after page of information will be collected for you to look through and find your exact answer. There is online tech support and tips on how to get the most out of your computer. Q & A boards and chats are available to help with difficulties or to share information you may have. There are product reviews and more information than you will believe at your fingertips to help you with your computer.

Our group, Tampa PC Users Group (TPCUG), is registered, and, if you join, the TPCUG group receives credit ONLY if you mention the club’s numbers: For Smart Computing #11644, for CPU #310.

If you have questions and are looking for links for computer information, go to http://www.tpcug.org and then go to member Don Miller’s site (http://donmiller36.home.att.net/). It is loaded!

Dave Dakin won the raffle for one of the subscriptions we learned about at the meeting; hopefully that will keep him busy and out of trouble. John Witmer and Brian Lance each won a T-Shirt! u