Computer users unite

Club offers technology help and tips

SM/SL/VIEW--Machiko Murphy a member of the PC Users club looks at some of the magazines on display at the monthly PC Users meeting. The meetings give members the chance to ask questions and resolve any computer problems they may be having. Wednesday, February 2, 2005--View photo by shelly donahue

It's a byte of Las Vegas not found on any menu. This byte is the Las Vegas PC Users Group (www.lvpcug.org) and it's out to help computer users of all levels -- novice, expert, computer professional or your average home computer user -- to maximize existing skills and acquire new ones.

The nonprofit group is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year.

A recent visit to the monthly evening meeting showed how popular such clubs are.

Anthony Giordano and his wife, Sam, had a problem with a virus on their home computer. It cropped up about a year ago.

"We lost our Internet connection," said Sam. "And the computer, it was running slow. When I called Cox Cable, they couldn't help me. They just didn't have the level of technical support I needed."

So the Giordanos attended meetings of the PC Users Group and quickly learned about a software program, Norton Go Back, that fixed their problem. Since then, they also learned how to take information off their old computer's hard drive and transfer it to their new one.

David Werner got a computer at Christmas after his first one, purchased in 1998, died a slow death. But the new machine would not cooperate.

"I couldn't save or even open a picture," he said with a little chuckle. "I went online with Dell support, I was talking to them for hours ... they couldn't help me. I ended up writing a nasty e-mail asking for Michael Dell's address."

He got the information he needed to fix his computer from the PC Users Group, too.

Ron Lamb, a retired letter carrier, bought his first computer about a year ago.

"I wanted it to keep track of my financial records and for recording music," he said. "I paid somebody to come hook it up. There was supposed to be training involved along with that but the guy spent the whole time talking with Dell support trying to get it to work. As soon as he left, it froze up on me."

Lamb said he was so frustrated, he let it sit there for four months. Then he decided to attend a special interest workshop offered through the group. It was there he learned how to get the computer back on track.

The PC Users Group began with about a dozen people, back in the fledging days of home computers when users had to know DOS. In the mid-1990s membership skyrocketed to 1,500 but splinter groups eroded that number and it now has about 400.

Memberships typically swells after Christmas when people are flush with excitement over their new computers.

The group holds meetings the first Wednesday evening of every month at West Charleston Library, 6301 W. Charleston Blvd. The general meeting begins with a Computer Fundamentals presentation at 6:15 p.m. that includes general questions and answers. At 7 p.m., the main presentation starts.

The public is welcome to attend without joining. Vendor representatives or someone knowledgeable in a specific area are featured speakers.

Recently, one person spoke on creating a signature for e-mail messages. Another had a presentation on how to cut and paste text. It was the best-attended meeting of late. Everything is explained one step at a time so no one is left behind.

This night, George Yocum, a self-confessed computer geek, spoke on war driving ("borrowing" a wireless connection from cruising a neighborhood), getting automatic updates for certain software systems, the difference between Outlook and Outlook Express, pros and cons of subscribing to TiVo, blocking spam and the latest gadgets found on www.engadget.com. He also gave his opinion on search engines.

"I think Google is the best thing in the whole wide world," he told the roughly 125 people at the meeting. He told how it took 12 seconds using Google to find the artist of an obscure song for his daughter.

To make things easy to understand, his laptop screen was rigged to appear on the oversized theatre screen on the stage. Every time he moved his cursor or clicked a box, the audience saw it in real time.

Mary Bennett, a medical coordinator, was there for the first time.

"I use some of these programs at work," she said, gesturing to information sheets on Excel, Microsoft Word and PowerPoint programs. "I can do a little but not a lot. So I came to see what it's all about."

She added her 16- and 17-year-old children were "whizzes" with computers but too busy with their homework to teach her anything.

Advanced or topic-specific programs are handled in SIGs (Special Interest Groups). Ceazar Dennis, a worker with the state, facilitates the novice workshop. He laughed when asked if he gets tired of explaining the same process over and over.

"You have to have a lot of patience to do this," he said. "But I enjoy it. I like helping people. You see their gratitude at the end, they come back and say. 'You're a genius, thank you.'"

People are encouraged to ask for specific help whether it's taking family video and converting it to digital or just help understanding the vocabulary -- thumb drives, fire walls, dial-up, EULA.

The group stresses not opening e-mail from an unknown address and using anti-virus software, updating it regularly.

"You wouldn't leave your front door wide open when you leave your house," said Donna Sword, president. "It's the same thing with your computer."

The most common questions are on how to work with digital photos and how to use multimedia functions. A close third is how to use Workshop.

There is also a help desk kind of faction to the group for solving problems over the phone. PC Users has a five-point checklist of questions to first get an idea of a person's level of expertise before launching into the necessary steps.

"Anyone who says they've never had a problem with a computer, I tell them to go downtown and pull the (Megabucks) handle because they're the luckiest person in the world," Sword said.

Other computer clubs in the Las Vegas area include the Association of Information Technology, the Commodore Users Group, L.V. Netware User Group, Las Vegas Linux Users Group, Southern Nevada Users Group and the Sun City Summerlin Computer Users Group.