ALG

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Good Evening and Welcome to
Technology Users Group Meeting April 17, 2003
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Welcome

• Thank you for coming!
• Please get comfortable.
• Feel free to ask questions contribute.
• Want you to get real value from these meetings.

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Introductions

• Meet ALG staff your hosts tonight
• Part of the value you will get from this meeting
  comes from networking with each other. We
  encourage you to do that during breaks and after
  the meeting

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Tonights Amenities

• Fresh-popped popcorn.
• Hot coffee tea, plus wide assortment of soft
  drinks in the refrigerator.
• Please make yourself at home!

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Agenda

• Technology News
• This evenings topics
• Research plan your next vacation online!
• The open source movement get high quality
  software for free!
• Tips to book your own airline reservations for
  maximum convenience, flexibility and low fares!
• Break around 730pm
• User questions discussion
• Door prize drawing
• Summary conclusion adjourn by 8pm

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Technology News Predicting Air Fare Patterns
with Algorithms

• Buying an airline ticket can be a nail-biting
  dilemma buy now or hold off in the hope that
  prices will drop?
• Airlines are renowned for raising and lowering
  fares in what seems to be a random fashion. But,
  according to Hamlet's creator Oren Etzioni,
  computer science professor at the University of
  Washington, there is a method in the seeming
  madness.
• A new computer program, aptly named Hamlet, seeks
  to answer the question "to buy, or not to buy?"
  by predicting when air fares will be at their
  cheapest.
• Hamlet will be ready to make its debut in a year.

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Technology News Do you know what your underwear
is saying about you?

• Tiny wireless transmitters promise to link tires,
  razors and other everyday items to the Internet,
  creating a world where money actually talks and
  the walls really do have ears.
• Marketing experts say the new technology, known
  as radio-frequency identification, or RFID, could
  revolutionize the retail industry as stores
  personalize service and manage inventory more
  efficiently.
• But civil liberties advocates say the sensors
  could also create an Orwellian world where sales
  clerks and law-enforcement officials, with the
  wave of a wand, could find out the contents of a
  purse. Or the fact that you purchased your
  name-brand briefs for 10 on sale at a certain
  department store.

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Topic 1Research Plan Your Next Vacation Online
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Topic 1Research Plan Your Next Vacation Online

• There are thousands of sites on the internet to
  help you plan your next vacation.
• Determine what kind of vacation to take
• Identify where to go
• Determine specific sites or attractions to visit
• Evaluate and plan hotel accommodations,
  restaurants, theaters, shopping and much more

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Topic 1Research Plan Your Next Vacation Online

• Here are five of the best sites on the internet
  for travel
• research and planning
• Frommers frommers.com
• Fodors fodors.com
• Expedia expedia.com
• Lonely Planet lonelyplanet.com
• iExplore iexplore.com

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Topic 1Research Plan Your Next Vacation Online
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Topic 1Research Plan Your Next Vacation Online
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Topic 1Research Plan Your Next Vacation Online
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Topic 1Research Plan Your Next Vacation Online
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Topic 1Research Plan Your Next Vacation Online
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Topic 1Research Plan Your Next Vacation Online

• Questions

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Topic 2The Open Source Movement

• The open source movement get high quality,
  modifiable software for free (or quite
  competitive)!
• What is open source software?
• The Open Source Initiative (opensource.org)
  defines it as follow

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Topic 2The Open Source Movement

• Free Redistribution
• Source Code
• Derived Works
• Integrity of The Author's Source Code
• No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups
• No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor
• Distribution of License
• License Must Not Be Specific to a Product
• The License Must Not Restrict Other Software
• The License must be technology-neutral

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Topic 2The Open Source Movement

• There are tens of thousands of open source
  projects available to you on the internet
• The best online source is SourceForge.net

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Topic 2The Open Source Movement

• Projects by
• Topic at
• SourceForge

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Topic 2The Open Source Movement

• Replacement for Microsoft Office
• Called OpenOffice
• Its Free!
• Complete Office Suite
• 15 years of development time contributed by Sun
  Microsystems
• Download it at http//OpenOffice.org
• View a Flash demo at www.openoffice.org/about_us/
  openofficeintro.swf

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Topic 2The Open Source Movement

• Back Office Software
• Example of a high quality, high value, open
  source program is MySQL (MySQL.com)
• Database server like Microsoft SQL Server
• FreeBSD, an advanced operating system similar to
  Unix. Used to run Yahoo.com
• Linux, a very popular operating system is used by
  Dell Computer Corp. and Reuters on many of their
  internal transaction servers
• Apache, an internet web server, is used by
  Weather.com to serve content

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Topic 2The Open Source Movement

• Desktop Software
• PDFcreator
• Easy way of creating PDFs out of common software
  Like Word, Excel, and any other Windows
  Application that uses Windows Printers
• Even accounting ERP systems are available as
  open source projects

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Topic 2The Open Source Movement

• Summary
• High quality, usable software is available for
  free, or for very little
• To learn more about the open source movement, go
  to http//SourceForge.net

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Topic 1The Open Source Movement

• Questions

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Lets Take a Break!
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Topic 3Finding the Best Airfares!
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Topic 3Finding the Best Airfares!

• The Web is jammed with sites and services that
  can help you cut the cost of air travel.
• Finding the best airfares online takes work, but
  for many people, the effort is worth it.
• Remember that all deals come with a catch You
  have to fly under someone else's rules.
• You may fly to Honolulu via Salt Lake City,
  Wausau, Wis., and Grand Junction, Colo. The deals
  are there for a reason. Fares to Paris or London
  in the winter are cheap. But that's because
  you're going to Paris or London when it's cold
  and often nasty.

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Topic 3Finding the Best Airfares!

• Start with a general web search
• Big sites that offer fares from all over the Web
• Orbitz.com
• Expedia.com
• Travelocity.com
• These should give you a general feel for the
  kinds of deals available
• Once in awhile, they will get you the best fare

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Topic 3Finding the Best Airfares!

• Next use consolidators
• Some of the top consolidator Web sites include
• Hotwire.com
• CheapTickets.com
• Onetravel.com
• Travelhub.com
• One important note Consolidator fares sometimes
  carry hefty cancellation fees (up to 50 of the
  ticket price, according to TravelHub), so be sure
  to read the fine print before you buy

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Topic 3Finding the Best Airfares!

• Next try farefinders
• One of the better tools for maximizing your Web
  searches
• Also called a travel search engine
• One of the best is called SideStep (SideStep.com)
• It is a downloadable search agent that scours
  more than 140 travel sites with the push of one
  button
• Another farefiner is QIXO (QIXO.com)
• Requires no download, and it searches almost 30
  different airline and travel sites.

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Topic 3Finding the Best Airfares!

• Lets try it now!

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Topic 3Finding the Best Airfares!

• Lets try it now!

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Topic 3Finding the Best Airfares!

• Don't overlook airline sites, especially
  Southwest
• www.iflyswa.com
• They often have great last-minute specials
• Plus you can avoid forfeiting frequent flier
  miles as you do on Priceline and other travel
  sites
• Also avoid extra fees Orbitz charges you 5 for
  tickets on airlines that pay it commissions and
  10 for tickets on airlines that don't
• And not all airlines sell tickets on major sites
  like Expedia and Orbitz -- notably, budget
  carrier Southwest Airlines

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Topic 3Finding the Best Airfares!

• Know when to fly
• You can reap big savings by flying on low-demand
  days of the week
• If you're going on a weekend trip, flying
  Thursday and Sunday is reportedly cheaper than
  Friday and Monday.
• For trips of any length, Hotwire recommends
  flying midweek, Tuesday-Thursday.
• The time of day you fly also can dramatically
  change the price of a ticket. By selecting
  "anytime" (when given the option) for your
  preferred departure time, you'll increase your
  odds of finding the best deals.

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Topic 3Finding the Best Airfares!

• Fly into less popular airports
• Like flying midweek, flying into alternative
  airports can increase your savings
• If you're heading to Los Angeles, think Burbank
  airport
• Heading to San Francisco? Think Oakland or San
  Jose

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Topic 3Finding the Best Airfares!

• Go paperless
• Some airlines have started assessing a fee to
  passengers who choose a paper ticket when an
  e-ticket is available
• The fees vary by airline, but Northwest charges
  25, Delta charges 20 and American charges 25.
  If you're buying from a site such as
  Cheaptickets, you'll pay 20 or more to have a
  paper ticket delivered -- on top of the airline's
  fee

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Topic 3Finding the Best Airfares!

• Use local carriers
• If you're traveling to Europe, consider some of
  the European airlines and travel sites for the
  last leg of your trip, rather than trying to make
  it all the way to your destination city on the
  same U.S.-based airline
• A Seattle-to-Rome roundtrip ticket would have
  cost 655 (excluding fees, and including one
  layover in Philadelphia) on US Airways
• But by flying to London and then booking a
  London-Rome ticket at eBookers, you could save
  about 130 before fees

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Topic 3Finding the Best Airfares!

• If you have flexibility in your schedule,
  consider trying auctions
• But bid smartly
• Bidding for flights at SkyAuction.com starts at
  just 1
• The catch You're usually not buying a ticket for
  a specific flight. You have to arrange that with
  the airline, so you might not be able to use the
  tickets when you'd hoped

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Topic 3Finding the Best Airfares!

• The most widely known bidding site is
  Priceline.com
• Itineraries and airlines remain hidden until
  after you've bought
• Should your bid be accepted, your credit card
  will be billed automatically
• Makes it difficult to do any pre-purchase
  comparisons of Priceline fares with those found
  on other sites
• One way to improve upon this is to do your
  research first, then try bidding at 25-30 off
  the lowest published fares you've found elsewhere
  online

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Topic 3Finding the Best Airfares!

• Bidding systems
• For even more informed bidding, troll message
  boards such as BiddingForTravel.com
• Members post information about bids that were
  accepted
• Use other good message boards for sniffing out
  the best deals -- and the best customer service
• Flyertalk.com
• SmarterLiving.com
• Frommers.com

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Topic 3Finding the Best Airfares!

• Summary
• General web search
• Consolidators
• Farefinders
• Airline web sites
• Know when to fly
• Use less popular airports
• Go paperless
• Use local carriers
• Consider auctions

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Topic 1Finding the Best Airfares!

• Questions

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Any Other Questions or Discussion?
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Next Months Topics
May 15, 2003 (3rd Thursday of Month)

• Sneak peak at the new Microsoft Office 2003!
• The best, free portal home page!
• Create your own professional music online for
  free!

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Conclusion

• Thank you for being our guests at ALG this
  evening!
• If you got value from tonights meeting, please
  tell others about these meeting and about ALG.
  Even bring a guest to the next one.
• When you need any kind of computer help or
  training please give us a call.

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Conclusion

• Meetings are the 3rd Thursday of each month
• If you didnt receive an email invitation, leave
  us a business card or register online at ALG.cc
• Remember to take your handouts
• Feel free to stay awhile and network
• And now lets go to to the door prizes!

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Door prizes!

• Must be present to win.
• Logitech Cordless Freedom Pro wireless keyboard
  and mouse!
• Full-day computer workshop valued at 189!
• Borders Book Store gift certificate!
• Panera Bread gift certificate!
• ALG deluxe mouse pad with built-in calculator!
• Yours Truly Restaurant gift certificate! (Donated
  by Yours Truly - Thanks!)

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Door prize 1

• ALG mouse pad calculator!

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Door prize 2

• Panera
• gift certificate!

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Door prize 3

• Yours Truly Restaurant
• gift certificate!

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Door prize 4

• Borders gift certificate

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Door prize 5

• 189 computer workshop of your choice!
• Select from 24-page catalog at front desk

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Door prize 6

• Logitech Cordless Freedom Pro wireless keyboard
  and mouse!

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Good Night!

• Thank you for coming and please drive safely!