Monthly General Meeting

If you can volunteer don’t be afraid of a being over-committed. I am a big believer in people taking on small jobs - a large commitment is not necessary. Perhaps you have an idea for a couple of meetings and then someone else can do other meetings. That’s why we need a few good nerds. If you have an idea, want to organize a meeting, or just want to think about it feel free to email me at Programs@NYPC.org or email Lenny Ginsburg at LeonardGinsburg@earthlink.net.

NYPC’s membership outreach and renewals is another area where help is needed.

Many of the computer companies that have changed the world have been guests at our meetings. Such as Microsoft, IBM, Adobe, Intuit, Palm, Canon Cameras, Olympus Cameras, Symantec, Palm, Dragon Naturally Speaking, Rosetta Stone, and B&H photo, Tekserve and the O'Reilly Press.

Our members have been speakers at our General Meetings including:

Michael Horowitz, Fred Kahn, Michael Ostrowe, Laura Balsam, Mary Ginsburg, David Kleiman, Dario Laverde, Larry Aronson, Bruce Wasserman, Grace Lee, Bob Rowen, and many more.

There is more to learn and enjoy about computers every day. They are not as simple and trouble free as the ads would have us believe. Have you heard of “Plug and Pray?” New programs and devices continue to intrigue us and change the world. There are social networking programs such as Facebook and Twitter. There are photo sharing programs such as Picasa and Flickr. There are On-Line publishing programs which allow individuals to print high quality books at low cost such as Blurb. A new smart phone is released monthly. The Kindle and the iPad have been wildly successful. The list is endless and it keeps growing.

It would be a shame to miss out on NYPC’s great tradition of continuing excitement and education. But we do urgently need a few good nerds to keep it going.

Regards to all

Bill

Here is a list of some speakers I invited that I particularly enjoyed.

Jeff Hawkins the inventor of the Palm Pilot who put a computer in my pocket, developed the first smart phone, the Palm Treo, and he started a multi billion dollar industry. I picked him up at Kennedy airport. He was wearing jeans and sneakers and asked if he should change into a suit for our meeting. I let him know that would not be necessary. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Hawkins

David Pogue, the New York Times columnist and author of some 30 plus computer books, one of which is “Piloting the Palm” the true life adventure of how the Palm Pilot was born. If you like adventure stories and have not read this go to your nearest Amazon book store, it is an amazing tale. David has come to several of our meetings. One meeting was in the Tishman auditorium of the New School. David had written some very funny computer ditties and he asked if I could come up with some cheapie electronic keyboard so he could sing them for us. The auditorium is used for serious musical events. I asked our hosts who made a piano available. I emailed Pogue and said “sorry no cheapie keyboard, will a Concert Grand Steinway do? David’s ditties are a perennial favorite at our meetings. www.davidpogue.com

Katrin Eismann is always a treat. She is known as the Photoshop diva, she is a member of the Photoshop Hall of Fame, and Adobe hires her to make presentations at professional photo shows. Major corporations hire her to do presentations and many professional photographers hire her to make their good photographs look great. She is an expert at restoring badly damaged photos. I wonder if CSI knows her work? And she is the author of many books. Katrin is the Chair, MPS Digital Photography Department, School of Visual Arts. www.photoshopdiva.com/resume.html

Bill Machrone, who was editor in chief of PC magazine for many years. PC magazine editors were often guests on a popular series of meetings I called “Editors Choice”, which was a pun on PC Mag’s designation for outstanding products. The panels included Bill Machrone, Michael Miller, Alfred Poor, Robin Raskin, Bill Howard, and many other PC Magazine notables.

Richard Katz the Quicken evangelist who always reminded me of the actor Ed Winn who called himself “The Perfect Fool." After all, at one of our meetings Katz took up a collection to buy Microsoft and passed around a rubber chicken. The team of Richard Katz and Matt McCann were always fun. At Comdex the huge computer show in Las Vegas the two were know as the Katz brothers and performed an operation on the president of APCUG for a large appreciative audience. And by the way Richard Katz convinced me and hundreds of others to use Quicken. Thanks Richard.

David Brommer, the head of B&H’s Event Space, did several special holiday meetings for us. He would make suggestions to fill a computer techie or photographers stocking. David has an encyclopedic knowledge of cameras and gadgets, and he does indeed love gadgets.

Tekserve, the Old Reliable Mac Shop, has done a number of presentations for us. We had an early demo of the iPod when it first came out along with a demo of Podcasting by the Lascivious Biddies, a singing group of four young ladies who are friends with Adam Curry who helped to create Podcasting. They started in this new medium when there were only 300 Podcasts world wide. At this time no one can count the number of Podcasts worldwide. David Lerner, the head of Tekserve, has been very generous contributing Apple products to our raffles. Thanks Tekserve.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lascivious_Biddies

At another meeting last year Tekserve did a special demo for NYPC within a month of the release of the iPad. Full disclosure: I bought an iPad. www.tekserve.com

Eric Raymond, Author of "The Cathedral and the Bazaar." Eric talked about Linux and Open Source. Wikipedia has a good article about Raymond: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cathedral_and_the_Bazaar

Pictures of lecturers