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This presentation and demonstration will include a brief product overview, the key features you and your customers can use, best practices, as well as Q&A.

About the presenter:

Jeff Myers is a Systems Engineer with Symantec Corporation. He is part of the technical sales team and works with small to mid-size customers who are looking for data protection, storage management, and security solutions. Before joining Symantec early in 2008, Jeff spent 13 years in the IT industry in roles as a network administrator, IT Manager, and as an IT consultant to many local small businesses.

Map to meeting location:

JoPa Northwest Grille

In February's meeting, we will be discussing how to expand our business by using various social web sites like LinkedIn.

PRESENTATION:

Every day we get more and more invites to join social networks. But which invites will really be an asset for my business?

We'll look at a select group of networks and talk about why it’s worthwhile (or not) to have a listing on them. After that, we’ll talk about how to use your social network listings as a tool to grow your business.

BIO:
Throughout a left brain, right brain career that has spanned more than 20 years, Drew Zagorski has worked in both the market intelligence and the creative side of marketing, branding and advertising.

Drew gets it - for the creative aspects of a marketing and brand campaign to work, they need to be grounded in sound market intelligence.

With experience in all media – print, online and broadcast - and ranging from research and market/data analysis to copy writing, search engine optimization, web development, communication design and creative, Drew brings an uncommon perspective and understanding to developing and executing brand and marketing strategies and programs.

Where?

Aquariva Italian Kitchen
0470 SW Hamilton Ct.
Portland, OR 97239
503 802 5850

Parking

Parking is a little confusing at first, but don't let that prevent you from coming. And don't let the signs about having your car towed off scare you. That's primarily for business hours parking.

You can take advantage of the restaurant's complimentary valet parking, or you can find an unreserved slot in the upper section of the parking lot. Admittedly there aren't many of those, but any slot marked for "The Wharf" can be used after 5:00 PM.

CES 2009

Member George Shubin attended this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the world's largest convention of suppliers of all types of electronics products for home and business, from TV's to cameras, batteries to GPS devices.

George will present a wide range of nifty gadgets and goodies that make techno-geeks' mouths drool.

So, come and let's kick off the new year with a fun and entertaining meeting, having a look at some cool toys that are schedule to come our way soon.

George Shubin is this year's president of the OCCA, and is owner of dX Software Systems, a custom software development company. George has been working with computers since the days of punched paper tape and cards when dinosaurs walked the earth, and has been developing custom applications for over 30 years.

The meeting location has been set to a new restaurant. It is potentially a new long-term location for our meetings, so please come and let us know how you like it. We will be meeting at the Aquariva Italian Kitchen in the John's Landing area. It is south of the Spaghetti Factory and north of the Watertower. The address and phone number is 0470 SW HAMILTON COURT, PORTLAND, OREGON 97239 - 503 802 5850. Here's a link to Google maps: http://tinyurl.com/6vqkhk

We will again be meeting on the West side, at:

Old Spaghetti Factory
0715 S.W. Bancroft St.
Portland, OR 97239
503.222.5375

Jeffrey A Cone, CPA will be giving us two short presentations this month.

• First Presentation: Developing and bringing Software to the Market. Find out what it really takes to bring a software idea to the marketplace. Learn what to expect, what to do and what not to do.

• Second Presentation: Using Windows 2008 Server as a Workstation. There has been some hype about this topic. Does it really work? What does it look like? Is it compatible with Windows XP and Vista software? How hard is it to do?

Jeffrey A. Cone is the principal consultant for Cone Consulting Group Ltd with 30 years of experience as a Certified Public Accountant. He has focused on forensic computer and accounting investigations, electronic discovery, database reconstruction and data analysis. He has worked extensively with Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Access databases. He is also experienced with programming using Microsoft Visual Studio and Microsoft VB6 developing custom applications, file utilities and E-Discovery tools.

This will be a VOIP meeting, with a presentation by Jay Allen of F2

Location:

Old Spaghetti Factory
0715 S.W. Bancroft St.
Portland, OR 97239
P:503.222.5375

Get a Map

VOIP for Business - Build or Buy, Hosted or Local

Description: Current survey of the Telephone/VOIP solutions available to small business. For the first time, everyone can access features formerly reserved for only the largest institutions.

Mini-call centers, auto-attendants, voice to text applications, follow me services, and (now) plain old Unified Messaging.

We will also address implementation details, weighing the merits of building an Asterisk box vs buying one.

We will also compare the features and benefits of Hosted VOIP, vs having your own local system.

The September meeting will be the last Tuesday of the month, September 30, but we will be trying out a different venue on the west side.

Ernesto's Italian Restaurant
8544 SW Apple Way
Portland, OR 97225
(503) 292-0119

Presentation:

Guest speaker Tom Cornelius will present Untangle, an open-source network gateway application suite that runs on standard PC hardware. Untangle includes 14 integrated applications to choose from, including

• Virus, Spyware, Spam and Phishing Blockers
• Web Filtering and Protocol Control
• Intrusion Prevention
• Remote Access Portal
• OpenVPN

Tom will also outline the business case for creating and implementing web use policies for your (or your client's) business

Karen Westerman and Scott Hendison have completely opposing views concerning office 2007.

While both were early adopters, Karen was impressed with Office from the beginning, and Scott immediately found things he intensely disliked, and still does to this day.

Karen Westerman:

It's half-way through 2008. Your clients are finally starting to upgrade or purchase new systems loaded with Office 2007. The question most frequently asked is "what happened to.?" The old features are there, but in new places.

This new Office version has a completely different look and feel to it, starting with the "Ribbon". Karen Westerman will walk you through many of the new features in Excel, Outlook, Word, Access, Powerpoint and Publisher. She'll help you find those old menu selections and icons and assist you in getting started.

Scott Hendison

Scott hated Office 2007 from the very first time he saw it, and will point out in detail, examples of why your clients should stick with the devil they already know, as opposed to further enriching the Microsoft coffers with this (in his opinion) needless upgrade.

He'll run down his list of "top 10 things to hate about Office 2007", as well as some possible solutions and workarounds.

Open Source has matured by leaps and bounds and is now a major force shaping the software industry.  Many of the most mature open source offerings have three powerful characteristics: no licensing fees, ease of integration and large financial backing (venture capital or otherwise).   These characteristics are now changing the options available for small to medium sized businesses.  We will discuss how open source is competing against and cooperating with closed source business software and solutions.  Most importantly, we will discuss how money is being made through the open source by large business entities and the ecosystem of third-party solution providers.

Roberto A. Santiago is the principal of raSANTIAGO + Associates LLC (raSA).  Before starting raSA in 2005 Roberto had a long career in software and technology consulting as well as advanced research in artificial intelligence and neuroscience.  His consulting career has focused on software development, enterprise software architecture, data management and new technology adoption.  An early adopter of the Internet, Roberto formed raSA to market web-based and open-sourced business software solutions.  raSA currently supports a number of commercial and non-profit clients with its software development services and hosted solutions services. 

Scott Hanselman works out of his home office for Microsoft as a Senior Program Manager, aiming to spread good information about developing software, usually on the Microsoft stack.

Before this he was the Chief Architect at Corillian Corporation, now a part of Checkfree, for 6+ years. He was also involved in a few Microsoft Developer things for many years like the MVP and RD programs and he’ll speak about computers (and other passions) whenever someone will listen.

With "Office Live", "SQL Server Data Services", and other announcements, Microsoft has shown recently an increased interest in application and processing services on the Net, better known as "Cloud Computing".  

Since Scott migrated his extended family over to Google Apps almost a year ago, we invited him back to speak to us not only about his experience in that migration and his evaluation of the on-going plusses and minuses of life in the "Cloud", but also a little about what we can expect from Microsoft in the near future. Scott will show the apps he uses to keep his life in the cloud, including the new Windows Live Mesh.

Online video surveillance is a rapidly growing business, and computer techs looking to branch into new areas of growth should find this session filled with a lot of good information, as our guest will be discussing...

Video Systems – technical and resale opportunities for computer techs