Sarasota PC Monitor

President's Notes (06/08)

President's Message
Yahoo, We have a Yahoo Group
by Phil Sorrentino
Member of the Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc.

For those of you who are members of the Yahoo Group, you understand why the cheer. For those of you who are not yet members, there is a wealth of information waiting for you in the form of answers to questions on computer topics. To join, go to the SPCUG website and click on the Yahoo! Groups, Join Now! button.

First, some history. The idea of a Yahoo Group was originally discussed at an SPCUG Board of Directors meeting sometime in 2001. The board thought it was a good opportunity for SPCUG members to have an on-line forum for computer related questions and answers. Gary Schweinshaupt and Dave Gerber started the group at the end of 2001 as an adjunct to the SPCUG Website, and Dave acted as the moderator.

The Yahoo Group is a moderated group, meaning that the moderator (an SPCUG member) allows or dis-allows posts (messages) to the Group, so that only posts that are in the interest of the Group get sent to all of the members. All Yahoo Group members can send posts to the group (via the moderator), and all members receive all of the posts that are allowed by the moderator. The moderator assures that commercial advertisements or objectionable comments, not in line with the Group’s purpose, are not posted to the members. Currently, Forrest Paradise is the moderator.

For the member who posts a question to the Group, there are usually many answers. For those members who didn’t post a question, there are still many answers, because every member receives all the answers. If you don’t have that specific question now, you might have that same question in the future. Having the answer, now, might even keep you from having the question or problem in the future.

There are many Group members who have many years of experience in the computer field and they are very generous with their information, in the form of answers to questions. After reading many of the answers by specific members, you almost feel like you know them. The many answers to the many diverse questions, sort of forms a distributed database among the members of the group. I’m not sure there is any other place you could get, or even buy, the quantity and quality of computer related information, available through the SPCUG Yahoo Group. :


Copyright 2008. This article is from the June 2008 issue of the Sarasota PC Monitor, the official monthly publication of the Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc., P.O. Box 15889, Sarasota, FL 34277-1889. Permission to reprint is granted only to other non-profit computer user groups, provided proper credit is given to the author and our publication. We would appreciate receiving a copy of the publication the reprint appears in, please send to above address, Attn: Editor. For further information about our group, email: admin@spcug.org/  Web: http://www.spcug.org/ 

The Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc. has 1,100+ members and was established in 1982. We are members of the Assoc. of PC User Groups (APCUG), the Florida Assoc. of PC Users Groups, Inc., and we are members of the America Online Ambassador Program.

See http://www.spcug.org  for all reviews from the Sarasota PC Monitor, go to the Newsletter Section.