Category Archives: User Groups

Posts related computer user groups.

Seniors / Boomers And Social Networking – My Thoughts

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What Led Me To Write This

I read an article in the March 25, 2010 issue of the Broward, Florida edition of the Sun Sentinel newspaper, entitled “Social connections key during retirement”, by Janet Kidd Stewart.

I could not find it on the http://www.sun-sentinel.com site, but by doing a Google search for her I did find the same article, albeit with a different title, for the full story go to the following link:
(update: as of August 4, 2014 link no longer valid, could not find another copy of the article via search)

In the article she talks about Penny Hall, who “when she retired about 18 months ago, the 59-year-old had plenty of savings and retirement revenue from real estate investments, but lacked a plan for a social life”.

Further along in the article Hall is quoted as saying “It’s hard because everyone my age is still pretty busy with work”

My Thoughts

As I read this article, it came to my mind that computer user groups, are a great way for people like Ms. Hall to generate social connections, especially with others that are already retired, or soon to be retired.

I know that I have more social connections now, even though I am not yet retired, due to my involvement with two local computer user groups, and most of those in the groups are already retired, some for a good length of time. Others I know, are also members of more than one such group.

The article by Ms. Stewart, came on the heels of a presentation made at the Boca Raton Computer Society (BRCS), which I attended on March 17th. At that presentation, we were given an overview of what social networking is all about, and as I looked around the room I noticed that I was the youngest one there. Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter were the attention-getters, and the most discussed.

Conclusion

Computer User Groups are a great way for seniors / boomers, as well as those even younger, to develop social contacts, and keep up with technology at the same time. Not only are there specific meetings, most form some kind of social connection outside of the group.

So what are you waiting for, find a computer user group near you and get socially active:
Association of Personal Computer User Groups – Find User Groups <http://ugls.apcug.net/>

TWAIN (Not Mark)

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Last night I attended the Boca Raton Computer Society, Inc. (BRCS) Hardware / Software SIG. (http://brcs.org/)

One of questions, related to scanners, was: Can someone explain what TWAIN is?

There was no internet access during the SIG, so it could not be looked up. There was a lot of speculation, the consensus being it is a machine language, used to communicate between a scanner and the PC.

I ran a Google Advanced search: what is twain -mark -mark site:.com

Here are some of the results that made some sort of sense to me:

http://www.worldstart.com/tips/tips.php/1209

http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/glossary/f/twain.htm

http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci213232,00.html

I also found the following through Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWAIN; they are a little more technical:

http://www.twain.org/

**************

I hope this helps anyone needing more knowledge about TWAIN.

If you know of any other information, that may help in understanding TWAIN and what it does, please leave a comment with a link below.

BPCA News January 2010 and Links for Other BPCA Items for 2010

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I have just posted the January 2010 issue of the Broward Personal Computer Association’s C:BPCA News, as well as the notes from Lew Aron’s December 2009 presentation on Sandboxie.

The January, and subsequent issues of C:BPCA News for 2010 when they are posted, can be viewed at:

http://www.box.net/bpca-newsletters in the 2010 folder. Use the following link to go directly to the 2010 folder:
http://www.box.net/shared/vlsh1u01d7

The Sandboxie notes, and any subsequent presentations or handouts when they are posted, can be viewed at:

http://www.box.net/bpca-newsletters in the 2010>Presentation or Handouts folder. Use the following link to go directly to the 2010>Presentations or Handouts folder:
http://www.box.net/shared/lijse51eve

I hope you enjoy them, and if so that you will let me know.