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

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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.