A look at APCUG
“It’s a hard world for little things,” Rachel Cooper (Lillian Gish) said in the 1955 film The Night of the Hunter. That holds true for little users’ groups as well. In fact, t would be difficult for many local groups to have access to the resources and technology that they do without the guiding hand of APCUG, the Association of Personal Computer User Groups.APCUG traces its roots back to the First Annual User Group Summit in 1986, which was the first step towards enhancing communication between groups nationwide. The organization itself, however, wasn’t made official until the 1987 meeting.The APCUG homepage (apcug.net) is the hub for anybody interested in taking advantage of the group’s resources. Although APCUG itself is not a users’ group, individuals can join the organization, and can also search for users’ groups near them. At the home page, you can read the association’s quarterly reports. The reports offer articles on important technological issues as well as information regarding communications between users’ groups.APCUG’s registry of user groups is actually international, giving them unparalleled freedom in matching up groups with appropriate publications and sponsors. At major computer trade shows like the Spring PC Expo and the Fall COMDEX show, the APCUG table used to be a regular sight, but with the demise of those events, APCUG has been more stringent in its own appearances as well. Up until 2009, the association made regular showings at the Consumer Electronics Show. However, the association is now focusing on regional appearances instead.