SECRETARY'S REPORT & MINUTES OF MEETING

January 14, 1998

Minutes and Comments
by Kevan Sheridan, Secretary, Tampa PC Users Group

The pre-meeting Tax Cut demonstration began at 6:20 PM, followed by introductions and announcements. After a short talk by Tech Systems, the presentation by MicroStar began. Following a short break the meeting concluded with the door prize drawing.

The first meeting of the year began in a new room located in the new wing of MOSI. Look for directions to the new room on the front page. Appropriately, former president Connie Kincaid gave us a nice showing of Kiplingers’ Tax Cut program. This program is packed with features and will run under Windows 3.1, Win95, or MAC. She began with a short video (part of the program included on CD) giving an overview of some of the program’s features and functions. Tax Cut supports electronic filing ($15 filing fee not included) and is available locally for around $24.95 and up. Next month look for a demo of Turbo Tax. At the end of the session, Don Patzsch said that those who would like any IRS forms, including publication 17 (a free full book of complete instructions for form 1040xxx) could get them from http://www.irs.ustreas.gov.

President Merle Nicholson began the regular meeting at 6:55 with introductions of the 1998 officers and appointees: Vice President Mike Hodges, Secretary Kevan Sheridan, Treasurer Jenny Lind Olin, Member at Large Bruce Register, Newsletter Editor William LaMartin, Librarian Larry Anders, BBS Sysop/Program Director Mary Sheridan, and MOSI Liaison Ford Bond. Merle also talked about the new meeting schedule: 6 –6:30 class or demo; 6:30 – 7:00 Business; 7:00 – 8:00 (more or less) main demo; followed by a short break and then the meetings will close with the drawings. SIGS (Special Interest Groups) now include: Genealogy SIG meets on the second Monday of the month at MOSI, contact Ford Bond. The Communications SIG meets on the first Monday, contact Charles Howe. Sign up sheets were passed around the room.

At 7:15 Shannon Stumpf, a Technical Recruiter from Tek Systems talked about the job market in the Tampa Bay area. It seems there are many more jobs than people to fill them. Shannon can be reached at (813) 207-2619 or sstumpf@teksystems.com. Bruce Register started a few short discussions after that.

The main presentation of the evening began at 7:25. Joe Roediger, an Account Representative from MicroStar Research & Trading, Inc. brought Indigo Investment Software, a very impressive investment trading system. With over four pages of notes, it would be very hard to organize and trim them enough to be able to do the program justice here. Here are just some high points: The program is written for the non-technical person who wishes to maintain his/her own investment portfolio. With a subscription to a daily data service (about $25 per month), the system tracks your stocks and tells you when to place buy or sell orders. It does this by looking at the market activity of your stocks based on the model you select (from the many available). The buy/sell orders are for the daily opening price. Some of the methods/models used include The Prior Year’s Best, Growth "Relative Strength", Mutual Fund Timing, and Momentum Swing (MSX).

You determine the investment size and the program uses this information to determine the number of shares to buy or sell. Joe gave us quite a few examples of the program at work. He explained that in a 10 stock portfolio the "program" will "own" no more than about eight stocks normally. If the market should go that way, it will even tell you when to sell all stocks (100% to cash). If you have 150 MB of disk space available, then you have enough disk space to last until the year 2020. It tracks about 850 stocks, and you may add others. For the price of a year’s worth of commissions (depending upon your investment/activity) you can own this software package (selling price $2495), with annual updates. The purchase price may even be tax deductible. Joe very generously offered the group a 20% discount ($1995) and even offered a payment plan! ($1000 down plus five months @ $200). Joe Roediger may be reached at (800) 315-5635 or (941) 918-8068.

The door prizes followed a short break. Brian Lance won a Space Adventure Game. Connie Kincaid won Work Safe Office, Clark Evans an Adobe cap. Finally, Ed Snow won a Tek Systems coffee mug.

Next Month, look for Corel. u