FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

INTERNET SIMPLIFIES MAGAZINE REDESIGN COMPETITION

ROCKVILLE, MD.--In celebration of its 15th anniversary, the Rockville, Md.-based Capital PC User Group, Inc. (CPCUG), the second largest computer user group in the country, is holding a competition to redesign its award-winning monthly magazine, the Monitor, and the Internet has made running and managing the competition a piece of cake.

Keeping true to its name, the user group is using computer technology and the Internet heavily to publicize, manage, and run the Monitor Redesign Competition. "People can get copies of the current magazine on-line from our Web site," said Eldon Sarte, editor of the Monitor. "Entrants can also pick up all necessary competition material--details, rules, and forms--from the site."

All entries will be posted to the site for online viewing. Judging for the competition will also be done "virtually" online. "The judges will never meet face to face," said Sarte. "We're all 'wired' to the Net. The technology lets us view all the entries and communicate with each other quite quickly and easily, so it'd be somewhat stupid to even bother wasting time and gas getting all the judges physically together just to vote on the entries."

As an added techno-twist, CPCUG's members can vote on favorite entries online at the Web site. The entry that gets the most online votes will receive the Members' Choice Judge's vote to be tallied along with the votes of the "live" judges.

Winners of the competition will receive valuable PC software donated by a number of prominent software companies, such as Adobe, Corel, Lotus, Micrografx, and Microsoft. "Since under competition rules only the judges aren't allowed to enter the contest," said Sarte, "I have a feeling that a few of the judges thought long and hard before accepting my invitation to judge, thereby passing up the opportunity to compete for some pretty expensive software." The grand prize winner, for example, will receive both Adobe Photoshop 4.0 and Adobe PageMaker 6.5, with a combined manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP) of $1,790.

"Without a doubt," Sarte mused, "the Net and the Web have made a lot of things easier for us. Running and managing this competition would've been a pain otherwise: I contacted vendors for prize donations by e-mail; I got judging commitments by e-mail; entrants can get everything they need through the Web; and I expect to actually receive a lot of the entries through the Net. All this just by clicking buttons. Neat!"

CPCUG is a volunteer-run nonprofit organization serving the Washington, DC, metropolitan area. The Monitor Redesign Competition Web page is at http://www.cpcug.org/user/monitor/contest.html. Full competition details and an electronic entry form are also available from the CPCUG MIX BBS (Bulletin Board System) at (301) 738-9060 by downloading the file named MONENTRY.ZIP. The competition is open to the public, and the deadline for entries is April 25, 1997. For more information, contact Eldon Sarte, the Monitor editor, by Internet e-mail at esarte@cpcug.org.