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New York! New York!
I managed to make the PC Expo/APCUG event and enjoyed it. A lot of hard work by many people made this event possible. However, I noticed attendance was mainly people in the area and many attendees commuted from home. While PC Expo is fun, it's a corporate show, and not that useful for myself. Also, New York and the hotel was expensive for our sponsoring vendors and their support is already waning.

Why weren't more of you there? I'm sure your APCUG officers wonder why and you should express your thoughts, whatever they are. Is it the wrong show? If so, what show do you prefer? Is it too expensive? Are two events a year too many - although one seems attended largely by people from the East, and the other by people from the West. Is the duration too long? What can APCUG do to get your attendance?

Most shows are held in expensive cities, with few exceptions, and many shows go from city to city each year. You might be interested in something smaller, such as the Dayton Computerfest or the Trenton Computer Festival, which could simply be a long weekend (if either group were interested in working with APCUG). Or is it even necessary to hold APCUG events in conjunction with a show? The FACUG event, for example, offers only its own conferences, roundtables and the supporting vendors and is limited to 150 attendees. It is mostly attended by Florida UG officers and is not intended to attract those from all over.

Now for my pet peeve: I have always thought these events should be opened up to all UG members rather than just officers. Would you attend such an event if there were no free meals during the presentations? That could mean more vendors might be sponsors giving presentations. APCUG thinks few would attend such an event without freebees.

I'd like comments from all my readers, especially user group officers. Up until now, these events were intended for officers only (those considered the movers and shakers). You can send APCUG your comments at board@apcug.org. They would love to know your thoughts. If you'd rather, e-mail me at dealsguy@mindspring.com, I'll read and forward them. Now for some deals:

Better Manage Your Computer's Memory
I don't often feature shareware, but when I saw MemTurbo demonstrated by Mike Ungerman and Hewie Poplock at a Central Florida Computer Society meeting recently, I liked it and the vendor granted a special offer for this column. MemTurbo does a better job of managing your computer's memory. I watched as they demonstrated by opening up many programs and draining available memory, but a touch of the button brought things back in control. MemTurbo can display a graph showing your resources and it changes, remarkably, right before your eyes.

The following are the company's claims about MemTurbo (from its Web site):
* Increases available RAM for applications and the operating system.
* Defragments system memory.
* Recovers RAM from applications and the operating system.
* Recovers RAM from poorly behaved applications.
* Performance-tunes your file caching.
* Has no performance-robbing compression.
* No system files are modified or replaced.
* No drivers or VxDs are installed on your system.
* Has a complete uninstall facility.

MemTurbo stays in your tray until you need it. When its time for more RAM, press the hot key and watch the onscreen progress display. And get this: it doesn't modify any DLLs, and installs nothing outside its own directory.

Visit MemTurbo for more explanations and a free trial download. I haven't tried it myself, but I liked the demonstration done by friends I respect for their abilities, although Hewie doesn't normally use any such utilities. The address is

How About Some FREE Software?
The following is an announcement I received recently:

"The problem with the Windows clipboard is that you can only copy once before pasting. Not anymore; now you can copy several times from one application before pasting into the next. You can also save thousands of clips permanently. We publish the leading clipboard utility Classic Clipboard.

"As a brand awareness promotion, we are releasing the Windows 95/98 version totally free of charge. We invite you to offer Classic Clipboard as a free utility to your members. There is no catch; the product is free and we ask nothing in return. You can either link to our download site, place the installation file on your own site for download, or distribute it in any manner you wish. Here is the download page for Classic Clipboard.
-John Turnbull, Easy Software Ltd."

Not many companies give us FREE software, John, so we thank you. I wonder how Classic Clipboard compares with the clipboard utility included on your Windows CD (but not installed) that nobody seems to know about. This will give you a chance to find out at no cost.

Finally,
Something Just for the NT Folks
What do you do about fragmenting on your hard disk if you're using NT? In fact, what in the world is fragmenting? Most NT users already know this, but for newcomers, fragmentation occurs naturally as a user creates, appends, deletes or truncates files during normal system use. On an empty hard disk, when the first files are saved to a disk, it is laid down on the tracks in contiguous clusters. In other words, the read/write head can move directly from one cluster to the next in one smooth operation. The head stays in one place over a single track and reads or writes the file as the disk moves beneath it. As more files are added, they too are written in contiguous clusters. But, as files are erased, they leave empty clusters to which new files can be written.

Unfortunately, some of these clusters are not big enough to hold the new files. As a result, a fragment of the file is written to one cluster while the rest of the file is linked to the next available cluster or clusters on the disk. File fragments can end up being any distance from each other on the disk, causing the head to move or jump all over, which slows down the drive when it is reading or writing information. This is where a good defragger should come to the rescue!

Perfectdisk NT is the smart, safe, powerful way to improve Windows NT performance by rapidly defragmenting a disk (putting your files back in some contiguous order) using Raxco's patented Smartplacement. Smartplacement reorganizes files based on usage patterns. Seldom-used files move toward the back of the disk and every-day files move closer to the master file table, thus minimizing head-seek time. After initial setup, Perfectdisk NT will automatically defragment and optimize only the files that have been fragmented since the previous pass.

Raxco is the only company offering single-node licensing so, for the same price, you can have the same functionality for servers and workstations. Until October 31, 1999, Raxco Software, Inc. is offering its NT defragger for only $19.00 to Dealsguy column readers.

But, you say, I don't have an NT system. In September or October, Raxco will launch Perfectdisk 2000, which supports Windows 95/98/NT4.0 and Windows 2000. It defragments all system files, including the NTFS Master File Table. Pick and choose - you can either buy Perfectdisk NT retail, register the copy and get a free upgrade to Perfectdisk 2000, or simply visit Raxco for product info, then take advantage of their special $19.00 offer by visiting the CUG page for the download. No modem? Call 800-546-9728 and tell the sales representative that you are calling about the special code "BCDEAL" priced at $19.00 + $10.00 S&H (US/Canada). (Downloading saves S&H!) One caveat: the URL created just for my readers to order will not be in service until September 1, 1999, and ends October 31, 1999.

Snail mail address is

That's it for my September column. Meet me here again next month to discuss deals. I'm working on a couple of very interesting ones. This column is written to make user group members aware of special pricing and my comments should not be construed to encourage, or discourage, the purchase of products.