As the high-tech industry fights its way back from the dot-com nightmare, so too are local tech enthusiasts spoiling for a fight.

At least that was the way it seemed at last night's "Tech 50," the Pittsburgh Technology Council's seven-year-old awards ceremony honoring the region's fastest-growing tech firms. The crowd of celebrants at Carnegie Music Hall in Oakland were outfitted for the Old West, including blue jeans, cowboy hats and cowboy boots.

	Online graphic: 2003 Tech 50 See the Pittsburgh Technology Council's list of the 50 fastest-growing companies.

This year's "50 Most Wanted,'' as the winners were called, was peppered with newcomers and veterans in the competition's five categories: advanced manufacturing, information technology, biomedical, service providers and the region's up-and-comers known as "rising stars."

"Some of these are old familiar faces," said the tech council's spokesman, Kevin Lane. The council, joined by accounting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers, stuck with last year's refashioned criteria, considering not just revenue and sales gains, but job retention, corporate citizenship and innovation.

Perhaps reflecting an upswing in Pittsburgh's dot-com industry, freelance outsourcer Emoonlighter/Guru.com led the service provider category, connecting companies with administrators, consultants, IT workers and creative designers willing to work on a contract basis.

Pittsburgh longtimer Union Switch & Signal topped the advanced manufacturing category this year, while the information technology category winner was first-timer Vocollect Inc., which produces portable voice computers for retailers such as Wal Mart and Kroger.

VigilantMinds, which secures Internet-based intellectual property and financial assets, led the "rising stars," while Net Health Systems Inc., a diabetes research and development firm, came in first in the biomedical category.

Despite recent bickering over whether tech is making a comeback, keynote speaker Tim Smith, who founded Red Sky Interactive, a San Francisco-based interactive multimedia company, gave an optimistic view of an industry on the cusp of recovery.

"Investments are opening up," said Smith, now executive vice president of new ventures and market development at Agency.com, which acquired Red Sky. "I'm kind of a hopeless optimist. We're starting to see the venture community start to be capitalists ... instead of waiting to see the market be apparent."

John Friel was recognized as the group's chief executive officer of the year for his leadership at Medrad Inc., the growing Indianola-based medical device maker.

Among others making this year's list was newcomer Pennsylvania Internet service pioneer Telerama; nonprofit 3 Rivers Connect, which uses information technology to assist regional development and was among last year's "rising stars;" and Neuro Kinetics Inc., which was on the verge of closing before making a comeback this year under CEO and investor Howison J. Schroeder.

It makes a whirling chair that tests whether people have balance disorders.