Held July 9, 2005
Cancelled due to Hurricane Dennis

Saturday, June 4, 2005

Gene Barlow of User Group Relations was the featured speaker at the CCUG-PC meeting on June 4. Mr. Barlow has been a key figure in the user group community for the past 25 years. He is an educator, writer and a talented presenter, representing m any vendors over the years Gene currently represents Acronis Software, WhiteCanyon Software, and Spearit Software and their products--clever utilities for transferring, backing up, and securing your hard drive!

At this meeting, Gene demonstrated 3 of the most exciting products from his clients. Exciting? You bet. Rarely are such fine products given press as Microsoft or Corel does with the millions in their advertising budget. Smaller companies have to work harder to get their name out and no one works as hard at demonstrating his company's products as ever-so-affable, Gene. (Incidentally, Gene is accompanied by his lovely and amicable wife and companion, Linda at meetings who many believe <including her husband> works twice as hard in her part to promote the products to user groups).  What nice people to know!

The products aforementioned are fine ones. Gene told the audience that Just recently, one of the products, Acronis Software backup product True image 8 has won prestigious awards when stacked against its powerful competitors' products. He demonstrated the ease of use of backing up one's hard drive to an external hard drive which he specified as a preferable way to backup one's computer. Not only does True Image backup, but does it with compression to create a smaller than existing hard drive capacity to an image. He said that image capturing can save oodles of time of reconstructing one's hard drive in emergencies--like the problem time he's experienced when his drive failed and he restored his drive with the product within an hour or so.

With an educational approach, Mr. Barlow expresses how the products works. Using illustrations, members received what would normally be complex terms and functions into much simpler explanations and concepts. Instances in the approach included hard drive backup, security for the computer against hackers/spyware and optimizing.

Gene closed out with Q & A and donated a couple of nice products for our prize drawings.  He and Linda were available to introduce attractive user group discounts for all of his company's software. to members.  It's quite a combination to get a good product with nice pricing. Members who need to order from his website can mosey over to www.usergroupstore.com for his attractive products with explanation of product. The order code for CCUG-PC is UGAPRO5.

Gene is always a favorite at CCUG-PC. His soft-toned demonstration, expertise of products and professionalism is so pleasing that it's quite a treat to members who are in attendance of the presentation.  We sincerely he and Linda for including us in his summer tour to us and other user groups. As the family drove such  a distance from Georgetown, Utah, this just impresses us with his dedication with fondness of user groups to educate and provide our organizations with attractive software prices. We are sincerely appreciative to the Barlows for being our guests!

 

---

Jerry Seregni
Held MAY 7, 2005 Presentation:
"PC Myths and Legends: How many are true?"

Jerry Seregni

Jerry Seregni of WWL-TV’s Eyewitness Morning News (‘Digital Gumbo’) is always a group favorite to CCUG-PC. He's not only a good friend and member, but he's one dynamic speaker. At the May meeting, he entertained and informed the group as expected. Taking a subject like "PC Myths and Legends: How many are true?" and demystifying this topic was itself a magic act.  Some say that his presentations are measured second-to-none in our computing neighborhood.

Seregni's PowerPoint presentation helped him disperse numerous myths that many of us have come to know as rule or fact.  For example, slides listed questions that asked for "True or False" responses from the audiences. Although many slides wreaked with authenticity--enough to believe, they turned out being myths and falsehoods. On the other hand, there were those that appeared real enough to deem as factual were just "figments of the imagination", urban legends or perhaps be considered proof that you should not always believe what you hear and read!

 Jerry's aim was to "dispel the myths and separate fact from fiction about computer security, broadband access, and dozens of other carved-in-stone rules that simply aren’t true."  Whether it involved online sites and e-mail gossip or word-of-mouth discussions, we learned about the beginnings of the MAC and PC, websites that help us dispel the notion that what your best friend relays is not always 100% accurate. So Jerry asked us to check out a few websites so that we might check out the authenticity of the "blab", rumor, or legend before we believe it ourselves and pass it on as true.

At the end of the meeting, Seregni entertained the group with a question and answer period which extended the presentation to a whopping 90 minutes of fun and awe! Thanks to Jerry for spending this first day of his weekend with a giving spirit that included his time and donated items for our prize drawing. Members can only speculate on what he'll come up with for his next "mysterious" presentation!