Welcome

Welcome To The Southwest Technology & Computer Conference

June 27 - 29, 2014

Monday, June 14, 2010

Another very successful conference!


I just wanted to say THANK YOU! You guys did a great JOB! Another very successful conference! Many people commented to me about the great effort you and all your staff have done.

Thanks Again!!

Don Baker
Klassic Specialties
www.klassicspecialties.com

Thanks to the Team

I want to thank you and your whole Southwest conference team for a great conference.

I enjoyed every minute of the conference and the presentations that I attended were fantastic. I look forward to next year's Conference.

Thanks for allowing me to have a part in your well planned conference.

Sincerely,
Ed Zarr, VP / Program Director
Sunland Village East Computer Club, Arizona

Southwest Conference Team goes above & beyond....


As always you went beyond the call of duty. The conference was wonderful and had some great presentations. I wanted to go to more of them but couldn't do everything. Karl and I really appreciate all the hard work you put into this conference. We enjoyed it and came back with some marvelous ideas.

Cheryl and Karl Wester
Temecula Valley Computer User Group, CA

Thanks to Southwest Computer Conference Team


Greetings! Let me congratulate you all for another great conference, well-run, and enjoyed by all! I totally admire each of you for your ability to keep smiling all these years as you contribute so much to so many while keeping alive the great user group tradition that seems to be struggling almost everywhere else.

Dave is the CEO of Webworking Services, a marketing consulting firm; and the Founder and President of CoolHotNot Corporation.

Sincerely,
Dave Whittle
http://coolhotnot.com/

Southwest Computer Conference 2010 Wrap-up

We had a great time at the conference. The event started with a trip on Thursday afternoon to Old Towne San Diego. Many took the trolley and visited the shops, olive oil tasting, and walked to the Old Mormon Battalion Visitor’s Center as well as the beautiful redwood synagogue. Twenty-three attendees had dinner at two restaurants.

Many of the attendees also attended the Aging Summit 2010 event that was also held at the Town and Country on Thursday.
The conference was kicked off on Friday by a presentation by Abby Stokes, author of “Is This Thing On?” Abby told us how she came to write her books and gave us tips for teaching computers to seniors. She had a great time being in a room full of people who are enthusiastic computer users. She usually speaks to beginners who are just learning about computers.

Abby was followed by Rick Edwards, A.R.P.S. He is a member of the Big Bear Computer Club as well as the official photographer for the Kenya Wildlife Preserve. He gave the attendees many tips on how to take great pictures and showed us some of his beautiful pictures. He also answered many questions from the audience.

Friday dinner was followed by a talk by Andy Marken, Marken Communication .... Storage - Stuff...To Have and To Hold.

Saturday brought us a breakfast presentation on Vipre by Sunbelt Software’s president, Alex Eckleberry. The presentation was via Skype and everyone left the ballroom with a copy of Vipre.

Microsoft was at Saturday lunch – David Lynn & Woody Pewitt talked about many things and several techs from the soon-to-be-open Microsoft store spoke about the new store and what it will offer.

Saturday evening was the Expo and featured many vendors as well as a Linux InstallFest, Gadget table where attendees could see iPads, an iPhone, iPod, etc. up-close-and-personal as well as the Droid phone. Abby was there to sell and sign books and Rick answered more questions as well as signed two of his pictures that were printed poster-size. All proceeds from the poster sale benefitted SW. We went around the room and each vendor had the opportunity to talk about their product(s) and give away one or more items.

Sunday breakfast featured a Smart Computing tech from Nebraska. He walked us through how to use their tech support features – free online support and one free call (other calls for help are $29 per solution).

Attendees had 24 sessions to choose from and found that there were usually a couple that they wanted to attend at the same time. From Sing2Learn a foreign language to Digital Scrapbooking, Time Management, Social Networking, The i’s – how much fun can you have!, 3D TV, Free Software, Your Life in a Comic, ID Theft....the decision was difficult.

Andy Marken

We want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who participated in the recent Southwest Computer Conference and to the dedicated volunteers who ensured the event was a success.

We were delighted at the volume and depth of interest in the Q&A session. It just proves our premise that boomers/boomers plus are a key - very key market segment that manufacturers need to stay in touch with … constantly.

If for some reason you're interested in having our ppt presentation from the evening just let us know and …BAM!!! Yep we'll get you the complete set.

The question asked was “How big is a Zettabyte?” if we are now beginning to track content and information in this way.

Ok let's start from the bottom, up:

Byte - smallest tracked amount of data - basis for all discussion Kilobyte - 10 to the power of three bytes
Megabytes - 10 to the power of 6 bytes
Gigabytes - 10 to the power of 9 bytes
Terabytes - 10 to the power of 12 bytes or 1000GB
Petabytes - 10 to the power of 15 bytes
Exabytes - 10 to the power of 18 bytes or 1M TB
Zettabytes - 10 to the power of 21 bytes

The next higher capacity? Yottabytes.

It was indeed our pleasure though to meet with well over 250 people who are involved in PCs and who want to continually learn more and share that information/assistance with others.

Your groups and the teens/tweens are what make the industry go around and push so hard for acceptance and new technologies, new products.

We talked with and exchanged ideas/information with so many outstanding people we can't document it all.

I learned about United Through Reading's Grandparent Program at San Diego's Aging Summit. Their focus was on people in the military who faced separation from their families while on deployment. It has been such a success that the program is being expanded to include separated families outside the military. Here is a link to their website: www.unitedthroughreading,org/grandparent
http://www.unitedthroughreading,org/grandparent


You know of families in your area who are split up because of the conflict overseas that sends men and women over to do their part - however you feel about these wars.

Helping family members put together videos that can be sent to the deployed men/women is a great boost for people in harm's way. It's a great way for kids/family members to feel close to those who are overseas. It is a fantastic way for you to feel good - really good - about how your computer group is helping people from your community.
It will probably be one of the best things you do this year and please do it all year long. Thanks, we're very proud of the work you've done in the past and the work you're going to do going forward.

Andy Marken
Marken Communications
408-986-0100
andy@markencom.com