Allan Levy, Technical Director

Computer Booters will see you in September. At 6:00 p.m., we have cookies and coffee. At 6:00 p.m., our technical director Allan Levy runs a free one-on-one computer clinic. Come and get your computer questions answered. Meetings are from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the Sun Lakes Country Club’s Navajo Room, 25601 Sun Lakes Blvd. The next meeting is Wednesday, September 4.

Computer Booters has several volunteer positions. Give us a call if interested. Volunteers are what make our organization possible.

Computer Booters has donated several computers to Arizonans for Children. Arizonans for Children Inc., incorporated as a 501(c)(3) non-profit, exists to facilitate opportunities and provide effective solutions to alleviate hardships and improve the fragile lives of the abused, abandoned and neglected children in foster care. They have used these computers to build a training computer center for children. If anyone wishes to donate, please call Allan Levy at 301-503-1387 or email [email protected].

September Program:

Ralph Larsson is a member of the club who, prior to retiring a couple of years ago, spent 40 years working in Information Technology. He has a BS in Math and an MS in Information Systems Management. During his career, he designed and built software for many companies, including Atari, National Semiconductor, Motorola, McDonalds and Visa. He has taught computer classes at ASU, UoP and MCC. (Much of the material he’ll cover tonight is drawn from those courses.)

Software – What is it?

We in our club talk a lot about computer hardware, information security, networks and data. But what about the other key ingredient to all of our technology – the Software? After all, no hardware does anything but hum and eat electricity, unless it’s instructed what to do. No data gets collected or distributed without software. The Internet doesn’t display any web pages; in fact, the web pages are defined by software. Your phone doesn’t work. Planes don’t fly (ask Boeing) and cars don’t move without software. So, what is “software”? How is it made and why is it so troublesome?

Important Information:

If you are on Windows 10, Microsoft has issued a major update. You will automatically get it. It will fix a large number of bugs. The next version of Windows 10 is coming soon. It will incorporate some new features. Of great interest is the ability to delay updates. The reason is stability. The September 2018 version is just now becoming stable.

Windows 7 has six months left of support. What does that mean? There will be no more security updates for 7 in six months. Please continue to install the security updates, as Computer Booters will have classes and discussions on what users should do.

The next version of Office, Office 2019, will not run on Windows 7. Office 365 will stop working on Windows 7. Other versions, previous versions of Office (2016, 2013, 2010, etc.) will run on Windows 7. A new update to Windows 7 is coming. It will include nagging to go to Windows 10.

Computer Booters has moved its meeting day. Due to unexpected conflicts, we had to move to the first Wednesday of each month from September through May.

Come Join In – Become a Member – All are Welcome.