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User Group Network / UG Network / UG Help Files / UG Favorite Meetings / Hardware Meeting Topics
 Favorite Meeting Programs
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Software Topics
In addition to the below "specialty" topics, software specific presentations
are always welcome. For instance, "Spread Sheet" night, or "Photo
Retouching" night. For these, find members who can provide short (5 minutes)
overviews of the products they use to fulfill their needs, and have the shareware
librarian show what software is available as alternatives.
- A Trip Down Shareware Lane - Quick reviews of 2 dozen shareware apps and
give your members an opportunity to copy any of them for a test drive. Complete with
the reminder to pay your shareware fees. Lots of shareware available online.
- Game Night - Demos by members of their favorite games. Have a disk full
of shareware games for everyone. Contact a company big on games and try for door
prizes. Ask for discount coupons. You might want to add a Sell or Swap table so folks
who are tired of a game can swap off.
- Picts, gifs, jpegs, eps and other such strange things - This is a very
confusing subject for many people. And clip art CDs abound. Many of our members need
to see demonstrated the ways to import various objects. Review the good and not so
good points of each type. Tell what applications take the various types and which
ones allow you to change them. How about a disk with samples of the various types
for each member to take home and experiment with.
- 1,001 Fonts - What do I do with them? Installing & using plus design
tips. With the proliferation of CDs with hundreds of fonts being sold for under $20,
lots of people have far more fonts than they know what to do with. Old and new alike
need a bit of help with this.
- Norton Utilities How and Why Night - The company has material to recommend
and check out your own group for some experienced users. Why not have everyone bring
in a blank disk and leave with an emergency startup just for them. (Betcha more than
half don't already have one.)
- Compression software - No one is ever too thin...or has too much hard
drive space. Even with the great removables and the behemoth hard drives, compression
software is important. It is very often misunderstood. Sometimes newer users think
it is black magic. Demo various options. Remember, some applications have ways to
make their files smaller within themselves. An example would be PageMaker where a
"save as" will clean out all sorts things for a smaller file. It is good
to have a hand out for this session. People who have not used compression software
and often still confused.
- Putting your computer on a diet - Going through your system directory
and tossing what isn't needed. Amazing the amount of space you save. On the Mac side,
MacAddict's second edition had an absolutely great article on this. Perhaps a Windows
user will offer a suggestion for that platform.
- Software: What You Always Wanted To Know But Were Afraid To Ask Night
- Anonymously submitted questions to be answered by a panel of experienced users.
Good to prime the pump on this one with some questions you know people want answered
but seldom want to identify themselves as asking. As a subtopic
here; groups often have a question and answer session beginning 15-20
minutes prior to the regular meeting. Sometimes in conjunction with an Early Bird
sig for new users or folks with new applications. It is usually very popular. Also
gets folks to the meeting on time!
- Debug, debug. My app's got to be debugged - What about a seminar on how
to debug an application? For instance Bad f-line instructions: What they are &
how to fix them. Find yourself a local expert and be sure to prepare handouts.
Remember: The help you get is equal to the help you give.
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