Emails Already Flying in For 2015 PGA Show

Demo Day email hit my mailbox yesterday.

PGA Professionals and golf retailers from around the world will attend the 13th PGA Show Outdoor Demo Day, on Tuesday, January 20, 2015, to test all the newest tools of the trade, discuss the latest advancements in technology directly with club designers and learn from many of golf’s leading instructors at the 42-acre premier practice facility of the Orange County National Golf Center and Lodge (OCN), in Winter Garden, Fla.

Thousands of PGA Professionals and invited golf retailers will preview the newest equipment, training aids and accessories from more than 100 top golf companies to create the world’s largest professional demo event. Additionally, golf teachers will be able to learn from the best in their field when PGA Professionals Mike Malaska and Stan Utley, PGA/LPGA Professional Nancy Quarcelino, renowned instructor Dr. Jim Suttie and sports medicine expert Dr. Tom LaFountain present one-hour outdoor golf instructional workshops directly on the range of OCN.

“The PGA Show Outdoor Demo Day has evolved into a must-attend event as a prelude to the three busiest days of golf business at the PGA Merchandise Show,” said PGA Worldwide Golf Exhibitions Senior Vice President and General Manager Ed Several. “PGA Professionals and golf retailers enjoy the opportunity to personally test outdoors, in actual golf conditions, all the latest advancements in equipment, training aids and accessories that will help their members and customers better enjoy the game. They can do so while interacting with the biggest brands in golf that help drive their business.”

Welcome to Google Drive

It's with this email message that will embark on a trial of Google Drive.

Skype Outage is Worldwide

Millions of Skype Internet phone users worldwide couldn't make calls — or were dropped in mid-conversation — because of a network connection failure that began about noon on the East Coast, Wednesday.

It marked the second time this year that the popular, low-cost calling service was hit with a major outage, and this one was more widespread than the two-day disruption in 2007.


Skype tried to reach its customers through its official blog and messages on the micro-blogging service Twitter.

"Some of you may have problems signing in to Skype — we're investigating, and we're sorry for the disruption to your conversations," Skype said on its Twitter account. "Our engineers and site operations team are working non-stop to get things back to normal — thanks for your continued patience."

In a blog post, Skype said it first noticed a problem when the number of people on the website dropped off. It "wasn't typical or expected, so we began to investigate," it said.

"Skype isn't a network like a conventional phone or IM network — instead, it relies on millions of individual connections between computers and phones to keep things up and running," the post said. "Unfortunately, today, many of them were taken offline."

The exact cause of the problem is yet to be identified. Bates said "all avenues" were being explored. As a peer-to-peer based service with a distributed architecture a software glitch rather than hostile attack remains the most probable explanation for the problem, if past experience is any guide.

They problem is still being worked on Thursday morning.