FACUG Technology Conference@Sea

If you are wondering why there are fewer blog posts here, the mystery is easy to solve.  Just follow us on Facebook.

The blog is still the main journal of our travels, but Facebook is so easy, we find ourselves posting to social networking sites more often.

We just got back from a cruise to the Bahamas on the Norwegian Sky out of Miami.  We were working!  Really!

The Florida Association of Computer User Groups (FACUG)and the Association of Personal Computer User Groups (APCUG) held their annual conference on the cruise.  We were seminar presenters as well as two of the more than 400 attendees. 

We did our Picasa and Outsmarting Your Smartphone seminars both twice to appreciative attendees. 

Here is Dave Graveline moderating a panel of experts with Rob Almanza of the Into Tomorrow radio show, Dave Whittle, Charles Oppermann, and Chuck Littman.

Chris participated in a Photo Safari.  We’ll do something like that for our TechnoGeeks Learning Rally in April.

Internet on the ship was nearly useless.  Under this dome is one of the satellite receivers.  $24/hr was a bit steep, but we paid it in order to support our members.

We met lots of nice folks and made some good contacts for more presentations.

The food was good and plentiful.  The crew were friendly.  The weather was perfect.  Who could ask for more?

The next Technology Conference is being scheduled for a Club Med.  FACUG is going to take the entire facility around this time next year.

Get back to work now.

Look Up

Blogger recently added the ability to have menu items which take the reader to different web pages completely.  So, I've added our other websites to this menu ... above (www.geeksontour.blogspot.com).  These are the places we are constantly referring people to.  If you want to see what we're talking about with our Tutorial Videos, you can click on the menu above for Our Tutorial Videos.  If you've missed getting lots of computer tips in this blog, you can click on the menu item above for Our Business Blog.  And, we especially hope you click on our Facebook page and be sure to 'Like' it!

Jim has been working all day every day this week at the Paradise Island booth here at the Tampa RV Supershow.  Although he's not working a Geeks on Tour booth - he's seen plenty of people we know here at the show, including the famous author, Nick Russell.  In case you don't know Nick - he's best known for his newspaper The Gypsy Journal, and his daily blog.  But, that is quickly being overshadowed by becoming the best selling author of Big Lake.  Jim and I read it as soon as it came out on Kindle this summer and thoroughly enjoyed it.  Big Lake is currently at #3 in Amazon's Book, Mystery and Thriller, Police Procedural category.  Even with a sales price of only .99 and giving over half to Amazon - 30,000 sales/mo means some really nice income.  C'mon Smile Nick!

   

I've visited the show once or twice, but for the most part I've been chained to the computer.  As many RVers - my office and my dinner table are the same!

We're excited to have a visitor for the weekend.  Our old friend John as in' Lynne and John', of Cosmic Muffin fame.  We met them in our first few months of fulltime RVing back in 2003.  Now they are living (still in their RV) nearTillamook, Oregon.  John is in Florida for a few months on a construction project and we were thrilled that he got to come down to Tampa for a couple of days to visit.

And, tonight we're planning to get together with our friends Phil and Tracey from TechnoRV.  Nothing better than a few beers to get us to finalize our plans for the the Techno-Geek Learning Rally!

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Is it an RV Show or a Rally?

We’re at the Tampa RV Supershow for this week.  It’s part of Jim’s workcamping job to be in the Booth for Paradise Island (Riverstone RV Parks) all week.

You’d think that we’d be here giving our Geeks on Tour computer seminars like we do at the big RV rallies in the summer?  It’s been our experience that an RV Show is where people come to shop for new RVs and accessories and not generally to attend seminars.  So, we’ve never even looked into speaking here, and we haven’t been invited.  Meanwhile, I have a ton of work to do on our website, videos and Picasa book.  So, it’s just fine with me to stay in the RV all week while Jim is in at the Booth in the Expo hall.  If you’re here at the show, go find Jim and say hi!  He’s in building B at the north end (I think) of aisle 100.

Anybody recognize the little Tiki bar?  So cute!

When we got here Monday it was the most gorgeous weather possible About 72 degrees, sparkling sunshine and just the tiniest of breezes.  That continued thru Tuesday.  Jim and I said, “Aha!  That’s another difference between a Rally and an RV Show – it *always* rains at rallies!  How else do we get to watch RVs being towed out of the mud?

Come to find out there is a rally going on here along with the show.  So, guess what?  It is POURING today!

I guess it really is a Rally!

I’m definitely not leaving the RV in this!  And, I’m glad I got a video recorded earlier because the sound of rain on the roof makes it impossible to record now. I’ll bet some other fulltime RVers can relate to this … the sound of rain on the roof is so romantic when you first start living in an RV but there comes a time when it is just annoying and you’d rather hear yourself think!

That’s OK, I have non-recording work to do too.  Picasa has recently upgraded to version 3.9 so I have to revise our ‘Beginner’s Guide to Picasa’ booklet.  There’s really not that much difference in the procedures, but there are a few, and they’ve added quite a bit of stuff.  Probably the main reason I need to revise the book is for the screenshots.  Since they changed the buttons, and added some tabbed menus – every screen view is changed.    aaarrrgghhh

If you use Picasa and are wondering what I’m talking about, you can view one of our recent videos on Youtube.  I decided to upload this one -Picasa 3.9: Where did My Buttons Go?- yesterday so even non-members can watch.

Are you a Member of our GeeksonTour.TV website?

I know that a lot of you are members on our business website, so I normally don't write much about it here, on our personal blog – I don’t want to bombard you.

If you are a member, we thank you!  Because of you, we can continue this wonderful lifestyle and not have to get a real job!  If you aren’t a member, now is the time to join because our prices go up next week.  You can read more about it in our latest newsletter.

What is a Membership Website?

Let me give you a look behind the scenes.  Our work is Computer Training for Travelers – and we love what we do!  In order to make a living at it, we use the Internet and a Membership website.  What this means is that our tutorial videos are all available on that site, but if you click to watch one, you will be asked for a username and password.  That’s the membership part.  We use WordPress to create the website, and a plugin called WishList Member to manage the parts that require a login.  We use PayPal to manage the payments so we don’t have to be responsible for handling or storing people’s credit card numbers. Here’s more info on why we think a PayPal account is a good idea for everyone.

As with any way of making a living, there is a lot of work involved.  Managing the website is a big job – there are constant updates, and issues to deal with just in making the website work right.  Then, of course there are the videos that must be recorded to have something to sell!  When we started charging for it in 2008, we had a few dozen videos, now we have over 200. 

We also have to work to drum up business.  Think of us like Rock Stars (I like that!) we go on tour with our seminars to build recognition and promote our tutorial videos on our website.  Some venues pay us a little to present seminars, but many do not.  Usually they let us sell our memberships, books, and DVDs.  Just like you can buy the Rock Star’s CD after the concert!  We also write lots of free articles for our newsletters and other websites. 

Many people stay on our free newsletter email lists for years and may never become a paid member.  That’s OK!  They tell other people about us – it’s how it works.  We have over 5,000 email subscribers and about 800 paid members.  If everyone became a member – it would be too much work for us!  And lots of people receive our free newsletters for a while and then, later, sign up for a paid membership.  We like that, the newsletters let them get to know us.  We’ve even had some people just send us money to say thank you for all the free information they’ve received over the years!

We also write articles on free websites, like our PicasaTutorials, RV.net, and DigitalRVer.  Last but definitely not least, our Facebook page is becoming our favorite way to communicate with everyone and offer free tidbits of our computer training for travelers.

Did I tell you that we love what we do?

Merry Christmas

On the Jetties at Port Everglades, many people gather to view the cruise
ships going by.  This is the Allure of the Seas, the largest of all the ships.
It was Christmas Day, complete with Santa Claus!

We had a very odd day for Christmas, but - all in all, I'd call it quite special.  Both Jim and I had caught colds.  I was on the downhill slide, but he was still in the thick of being sick.  We were supposed to pick up my Mom and his Dad and drive up to his sister's house in West Palm.  Although we could have taken an Alka Seltzer Plus and felt ok enough to go, I didn't want our gift to everyone to be a cold! So, we called and cancelled and went back to bed.
When we did finally get up, we decided to watch a movie.  We had a Netflix DVD that had been hanging around for a couple weeks with no time to watch it.  The movie was 'The King's Speech' - wow!  it deserves all the accolades and awards it got last year, it really was a great movie.  And a 'feel-good' movie too.  I love movies.  I think it is my favorite treat to stay home and watch a good movie with my sweetie. So, even though we were sick, I was feeling pretty good.
By the time the movie was over, we were fully awake and took advantage of the time to go over some business stuff that we also haven't had any time for.  We are giving our seminars to a whole new audience next month.  We are booked for the Florida Association of Computer User Groups (FACUG) annual conference on board a cruise ship.  We will be presenting two topics: Picasa, and Smart Phones.  We've given our Picasa seminar hundreds of times but the smartphone seminar is new and I think it has potential for being very popular.  So Jim and I reviewed our materials and made a couple of important decisions on how we will present it.  Then we went thru the steps of our new 'coaching call' service for our members, decided it was in working order and sent out an email to a select test group of our members.  I'm excited about this one - we'll be making solid one-to-one connections with our members.
By then, Jim was fading, so I turned my attention to Odie.  We have been fighting fleas for several weeks (to no avail), and it was time to give Odie another flea bath.  I'm beginning to believe what I read on the Internet that the only way to get rid of fleas is by detonating a nuclear warhead! ... but we gotta keep trying.
Jim needed to go back to bed, and I decided I felt good enough to go get Mom and take her for one of her favorite things - a walk on the beach.  I decided to go to a different place than normal - down by the jetties at Port Everglades.  This was a favorite place of mine growing up here in Fort Lauderdale.  I'd walk the beach then climb out on the rocks and meditate on the meaning of life as the boats went in and out of the channel.  It's sad that Mom has no clue where she is - she should know those jetties like the back of her hand after having gone in and out of the inlet on boats all her life.  When we got there, she said "isn't it interesting how these big rocks are piled up here."  That's what alzheimers has done to her.

However - you gotta look at the bright side.  She really enjoyed herself!  Every experience is a brand new experience and she almost has that wide-eyed wonder of a child.  Luckily she is still quite physically fit, so walking on the beach or in a wooded park is no problem and she loves it.  It felt so good to share this with her.  I didn't even think about the cruise ships going by, but we happened to be there when the Allure of the Seas departed.  This is the biggest cruise ship ever constructed and it was quite a sight. On the way home we stopped at the Blue Fish bar and restaurant for a glass of wine and cup of lobster bisque - delicious.  When I dropped her off at her assisted-living home, we hugged real tight - sharing a nothing-held-back loving moment.
When I got home, Jim was up.  We decided to watch another movie - using Netflix instant streaming option this time.  Jim has one computer hooked up to display thru our big screen TV and sound thru the stereo system.  We chose 'Secretariat' - another wonderful, feel-good, inspiring movie.
Sometimes the nicest things happen when plans fall thru.

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