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Front Range PC Users Group Newsletter k-Byte |
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| v. 18, n. 11/12 November/December 2001 | Users Helping Users |
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Contents 1 State of the Group - Rick Mattingly 2 About k-Byte 3 October/November Meeting Reports - Mike Meyer 4 System Overheating - Rick Mattingly 5 Searching With Wildcards 5 FREE Internet Discussion Group 7 Wireless Gets Personal 8 How The Internet Came To Be 9 Urban Legends - Rick Mattingly 10 The DCC Connection - Lowell Shatraw 12 Cookie Alert 13 "Always On" Internet Connections - - Rick Mattingly 14 Calendar of Events 16 December/January Calendars 18 Membership Application 19 How To Network Your Home - Rich Chernock 23 Graphic File Formats 26 Building Your Web Site - Robert Sanborn 30 Trading Post 31 FRPCUG Contacts State of the Group by Rick Mattingly We have a number of interesting presentations planned for upcoming meetings. However, we can always use ideas for new presentations. If you would like to provide a presentation or know someone who will, please let us know. We would like to see a broader cross section of presentation topics which represents the interests of the membership. I would like to take this opportunity to personally thank those members who assisted with the training program at the Fort Collins Senior Center this past year. Not only do we receive our monthly meeting space in exchange for this assistance, we also provide a valuable service to our community by sharing knowledge. Everyone wins! Please consider providing assistance with this program in the coming year. Remember, you need not be an expert in the topic. As a matter of fact, by providing your time to assist you will also be learning. See you at the meetings. FRPCUG 2002 Elections Election of officers for 2002 will take place at the December 4 General Forum Meeting. At the November meeting the present slate of offers were nominated for 2002, except for Secretary Mike Meyer. Mike cited conflict with his personal schedule as the reason he declined nomination to continue as Secretary. Mike will still be involved with the club and will certainly be available to assist with transition to the new Secretary. Thanks Mike, for your efforts and dedication as Secretary to date! At this time, we still seeking nomination for the position of Secretary. Please come to the December meeting with a nomination in mind. Published bi-monthly, k-Byte is the official newsletter of the Front Range Personal Computer Users Group (FRPCUG): our mailing address is PMB 152, 305 W. Magnolia, Fort Collins, Colorado 80521. Opinions expressed in k-Byte are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the group or its members. Publication of information in k-Byte constitutes no guarantee of accuracy. Use of any information found in this publication is at the sole risk of the user. Neither k-Byte, nor its officers, nor k-Byte, nor its editors or contributors assume any liability for damages resulting from use of information in this publication. Submissions Articles, letters and short items of interest on computer-related topics are welcome and encouraged. All items submitted for publication are subject to editing. Send your contribution to the editor via e-mail attachment or submit on disk. If you have questions about a submission, please contact the editor for information. Copyright k-Byte is copyrighted ă2000 by the Front Range Personal Computer Users Group. Unless otherwise noted, other nonprofit users groups may reprint or quote from any articles appearing in k-Byte without prior permission, provided that proper author and publication credits are given and that a copy of the publication in which the article appears is sent at no cost to k-Byte at the above mailing address. User groups wishing to exchange newsletters with FRPCUG are invited to send a copy of their newsletter together with an exchange request. IBM PC, OS/2, Compaq, MS-DOS, UNIX, Windows and other trademarks occasionally mentioned in k-Byte are registered trademarks of International Business Machines, Inc., Compaq Corporation, Microsoft, Digital Research, AT&T or their owners respectively. Neither FRPCUG nor its newsletter k-Byte are connected in any way with any manufacturer or seller. We, however, gratefully acknowledge sponsorship of our group by Data Service Center, Jim Becker, owner. Advertising Classified advertising is free to members for non-business ads. See “Trading Post” for pricing for camera-ready display ads. Charges for ad makeup from sketches, etc., are available on request. Deadline for camera-ready and classified ads is listed in the Calendar of Upcoming Events. Deadline for ad-makeup is the same as for articles. About FRPCUG FRPCUG is an independent nonprofit computer society, open to anyone interested in MS-DOS, OS/2, or UNIX microcomputers. Its purpose is to provide an educational and scientific forum of mutual benefit for members of the micro-computer community. FRPCUG holds a monthly meeting and conducts various special interest groups (SIGS) and seminars. Members have voting privileges, subscription to k-Byte newsletter, SIGs and selected seminars. Annual dues are $25 for individual/family membership and $50 for corporate/group membership. Scribe's by Mike Meyer 35 people attended the October 2nd meeting of the FRPCUG. The meeting was chaired by V.P. Don Anderson. During the Announcements Period, Don reminded the membership that the annual membership dues should be paid in November. He also mentioned that tonight's program, SECURITY I, was the first of a two-part series on computer security. Next month's program will be SECURITY II and will deal with the issue of system backups. Don then introduced our speaker for the Main Program, Mr. Dave Faland, who is in charge of network security for the Woodward Governor Co. He gave a very informative and timely discussion on many basics aspects of security, such as denial of access, hacking sites, viruses and worms, and problems with on-line operations (e.g., credit card numbers, privacy info, etc.) He then described Woodward's practice, which encompassed use of an internal security specialist, methods of intrusion detection, use of proxy servers, firewalls, e-mail scanning, and site monitoring. In addition, he discussed installation of security patches, scanning desktops for viruses, and the necessity of maintaining updated virus definition files. Dave then discussed at some length how individuals can help protect their own systems. This included proper backup of files, use of up-dated anti-virus software, dealing with unsolicited communications, sharing of computers, transfer of personal info on "secure" sites, disabling guest accounts (WIN NT and 2000), changing administrator logins and passwords (WIN NT and 2000), avoiding administrator logins on the Internet (WIN NT and 2000), examination of event logs (WIN NT and 2000), and use of a personal firewall (e.g., Zone Alarm). The latter is quite important in the case of "always on" connections (e.g., DSL). During the Open Forum session, questions were addressed that concerned Internet security for "Road Warriors", potential for damage to normal Internet traffic operations, actual operating speeds of 56k dial-up modems, use of Direct TV/PC systems, and the current availability of DSL service to the more rural areas. November Meeting Report by Mike Meyer 33 people attended this month's meeting. During the Announcements Period, President Rick Mattingly mentioned the importance to the membership of participating as instructors or helpers in the Senior Center computer training courses. In return, we receive the meeting room free of charge, and we also have tax-exempt status from the IRS as a non-profit organization benefiting the local community. Rick asked that anyone wishing to help out please contact him or one of the club officers. He further requested assistance with some of the the club activities, such as K-Byte, the web-site, and the SIG's. Rick then announced that election of officers for the coming year would be held during the December meeting. All the current officers have been re-nominated for their respective offices and are willing to continue, except for myself. Therefore, candidates for Secretary will be solicited at that meeting. Dave Trump then asked for some volunteers to participate in a trial of a new e-commerce web-site he is designing for his company. Some compensation will be provided to the participants, as well as the fun of being involved. The Main Program was presented by Rick Mattingly, who else? It centered around the issue of computer security (Security II) and was the second part of a two part presentation, the first part (Security I) was presented last month. Rick discussed the subject of properly backing up your computer, and it was essentially an open forum-type presentation preceded by an overview of the most important factors to be considered. The discussion began with Hard Drive Management, with the main emphasis on properly partitioning the drive. It then proceeded to the various methods of carrying out the backups and their various pros and cons. They included the use of tape drives, cartridge drives, CD RW's, ZIP-type drives, and second hard drives. Various aspects of the software associated with each method also was covered briefly. Other topics included properly adding/removing software, minor operating system updates, creation of "emergency" disks, and the "shelf-life" of storage media. Rick's formal presentation concluded with a discussion of proper restoration procedures and the use of some handy third party utility programs. The balance of the program was involved with addressing specific problems encountered by individual members. The presentations on Security I and II were timely and very well received. The speakers are to be congratulated for their efforts, and the material presented clearly shows the value of being a member of FRPCUG. Evidently, the material presented by Rick must have "hit the nail on the head", as no issues were raised for discussion during the Open Forum session. by Rick Mattingly Computer CPU processors put out a tremendous amount of heat. This heat is removed from the CPU case by various methods. First, the actual CPU processor should be equipped with a "heat sink," a finned metal attachment mounted directly to the processor. The intent of the heat sink is to draw heat away from the processor. Second, the processor with have a small fan attached to the top of the heat sink to exhaust the heat out of the CPU case. In addition, another fan is attached to the power supply and exhausts directly to the outside of the CPU case. With the system running you will typically hear the power supply fan spinning. But, you often cannot hear the processor fan at all. In the event that the processor fan fails (an event which occurs all too often) the CPU processor and motherboard will overheat and strange things begin to occur: the system may slow to a crawl, applications may not load, the screen may freeze, varied error messages may appear, etc. If you begin to experience such problems, immediately suspect a failed CPU processor fan. The only way to verify if the processor fan is functioning properly is to open the case. With the case open, power up the system and visually inspect the processor fan blades to see if it spins up. Watch your fingers and do not touch anything inside of the case with the system running! If the fan is not turning, turns in a jerky fashion or emits a squealing noise, replace the processor fan immediately! Fortunately, CPU processor fans are very inexpensive and very easy to install. Install the new fan making connections exactly the same as the existing fan. And, while the CPU case is open, also use the opportunity to blow out all those dust bunnies! When you can't find a file or are searching for a word in a document in Word 97, wildcards can come in handy. A wildcard is a single character or group of characters that represent characters in a filename or word. The following lists common wildcards and explains how to use them. The wildcard? represents a single character. Entering Peter?.doc in a Find File dialog box finds files named Peter1.doc and Peter2.doc, but not Peter10.doc. The wildcard* represents a group of characters or a single character. Entering Peter*.doc finds Peter1.doc as well as Peter10.doc. The wildcard [xx]represents specific characters to search for, where xx are the characters. Entering P[ae]ter.doc finds files named Pater.doc and Peter.doc, but not Piter.doc or Puter.doc. The wildcard [!x]represents a character you don't want to find, where x is the character. Entering P[!e]ter.doc finds Pater.doc,Piter.doc, and Poter.doc, but not Peter.doc. The wildcard [x-z] represents a group of consecutive characters, where x and z are the characters. Entering P[b-d]ter.doc finds Pbter.doc, Pcter.doc, and Pdter.doc, but not Pater.doc or Peter.doc. http://www.dummiesdaily.com Your keyboard doesn't have a dedicated Windows key? Just press CTRL-ESC. The Start Menu pops open, the same as if you had pressed a dedicated Windows key. On a rural road a state trooper pulled this farmer over and said: "Sir, do you realize your wife fell out of the car several miles back?" To which the farmer replied: "Thank God, I thought I had gone deaf!" thanks to Brad Kell FREE Internet Discussion Group JYM Information Systems and the Barnes & Noble Book Store on South College Avenue in Fort Collins are sponsoring a monthly "Internet Safari" discussion group. This group meets at 7 PM in the Barnes & Noble Book Store the first Monday of each month. This is an open discussion and we examine current issues involving the Internet, how to use the Internet and subjects raised by those present. This group is open to the public without cost or obligation. This is a good chance learn how others are using the Internet. Count the electronic devices and peripherals within 30 feet of you. Now count the number of cables and wires. A tangled mess, right? Bluetooth wireless technology will soon disentangle each of your devices from the snarled web of USB, parallel, serial and SCSI cables. And all Bluetooth-enabled devices within 30 feet will interconnect to form your wireless personal area network (WPAN). Within your WPAN, you'll be able to, for example, print directly from a digital camera to the forthcoming Bluetooth-integrated HP DeskJet 995c printer, or use a wireless headset to talk while your cell phone remains in your briefcase. HP Bluetooth PCMCIA cards will also let you automatically synchronize your HP OmniBook and Jornada, and share information between them, without any physical connection between the devices. WPANs should soon move beyond the office realm as well. Imagine arriving home and having your doors automatically unlock, the alarm shut off, the thermostat adjust itself and the lights turn on. All of this would be triggered by a PDA, cell phone or some other Bluetooth device in your pocket. As the cost of adding Bluetooth drops, wireless functionality will appear in a wide variety of everyday devices. Bluetooth uses spread-spectrum, frequency-hopping radio links on the 2.4GHz ISM band to connect mobile devices. Its encryption capabilities, low cost and data transmission speed of 700Kbps make Bluetooth ideal for the demands of WPANs and peer-to-peer networking. (For a wireless LAN, however, 802.11b is a more suitable technology.) The list of Bluetooth devices currently on the market is fairly short, but it's growing rapidly. Research firm Cahners In-Stat forecasts that shipments of Bluetooth-enabled equipment will reach 955 million units in 2005. For the latest developments with WPANs, check out the official Bluetooth website. You can also learn about HP's notebook solutions for wireless or read the press release "HP adopts bluetooth for wireless printing." HP Invent Web Site - September 2001 An old, bearded shepherd with a crooked staff walked up to a stone pulpit and said, "And lo, it came to pass that the trader by the name of Abraham Com did take unto himself a young wife by the name of Dot. And Dot Com was a comely woman, broad of shoulder and long of leg, indeed, she had been called Amazon Dot Com. And she said unto Abraham, her husband, "Why doth thou travel far, from town to town, with thy goods when thou can trade without ever leaving thy tent?" And Abraham did look at her as though she were several saddle bags short of a camel load, but simply said, "How, Dear?" And Dot replied, "I will place drums in all the towns and drums in between to send messages saying what you have for sale, and they will reply telling you which hath the best price. And the sale can be made on the drums and delivery made by Uriah's Pony Stable (UPS)." Abraham thought long and decided he would let Dot have her way with the drums. And the drums rang out and were an immediate success. Abraham sold all the goods he had, at the top price, without ever moving from his tent. But this success did arouse envy. A man named Maccabia did secret himself inside Abraham's drum and was accused of insider trading. And the young man did take to Dot COM' trading as doth the greedy horsefly take to camel dung. They were called Nomadic Ecclesiastical Rich Dominican Siderites (NERDS for short). And lo, the land was so feverish with joy at the new riches and the deafening sound of drums, that no one noticed that the real riches were going to the drum maker, one Brother William of Gates, who bought up every drum company in the land. And indeed did insist on making drums that would work only if you bought Brother Gates' drumsticks. And Dot did say, "Oh, Abraham, what we have started is being taken over by others." And as Abraham looked out over the Bay of Ezekiel, or as it came to be known "eBay," he said, "we need a name that reflects what we are," and Dot replied, "Young Ambitious Hebrew Owner Operators." "Whoopee!" said Abraham. "No, YAHOO!" said DotCom. ...and that is how it all began. It wasn't Al Gore, after all. Thanks to Don Anderson by Rick Mattingly Urban Legends are nothing more than rumors that spread like wildfire, usually because they are lurid and sensational stories. With the advent of the Internet, cases of urban legends have multiplied exponentially due to the mass audience available. Who comes up with these outrageous stories and dire warnings? Most often they originate as result of someone's vivid imagination and quickly compound in detail as the story gets passed along. However, some are actually started intentionally by foes of the country in an attempt to cause disruption with communication, mail delivery and other services. The so-called "Klingerman Virus" story recently making the rounds on the Internet is a classic example of a an Urban Legend which could potentially cause disruption, in this case with U.S. Mail. This outrageous story has been recently resurrected and is again flashing around the Internet with the help of gullible readers. Check out this example at the official National Center for Infectous Diseases: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/klingerman%5Fhoax.htm. When you receive a story in your inbox that is just unbelievable -- it most likely is! Do not become a unwitting participant in the spreading of ridiculous or harmful rumors. There are a number of legitimate sites on the Internet where you may check the validity of such stories. One example would be the excellent resource provided by About.com at: http://urbanlegends.about.com/. Sites such as About.com's Urban Legend reference will usually also provide links to legitimate professional or government sites which provide detailed information dispelling the rumor. Use the search function of your web browser to locate other Urban Legend resource sites. Remember: do not become part of the problem -- be part of the solution. Do not pass on Urban Legends. by Lowell Shatraw The DCC (Direct Cable Connection) is a method of connecting two computers directly. This month I'll explain how to make the DCC connection. The cable can be ordered from most computer stores, or from 800-789-4784 (Parallel Technologies) or (Cables & accessories for computers) in Denver. Connect the computers together using the parallel cable connection because it is better and faster. You can also use a serial cable. Go to START | PROGRAMS | ACCESSORIES | COMMUNICATIONS | DIRECT CABLE CONNECTION. The Direct Cable Connection window will appear. Select HOST if this is the HOST computer. (You can select GUEST later on the other computer.) Click NEXT. Selecting HOST will open the next DCC window showing your Input/Output (I/O) ports; select parallel, click NEXT. The next DCC window briefly explains File and Print Sharing must be set up. Click File and Print Sharing button in the window to jump to and open the Network Control Panel. Scroll down the Configuration window of installed components; check if File and Print Sharing is installed yet. If File and Print Sharing is not there, click the ADD button. Select SERVICE in the Select Network Component Type window, then click ADD. Select Microsoft in the Select Network Service window and then select File and printer sharing for Microsoft networks; click OK File and printer sharing for Microsoft Networks should now appear in the Network window. Click OK You are now asked if you want to restart your computer. Select YES after you close all open windows. After Restarting Click a folder you want to share. Using the WINDOWS Explorer, right click the folder, click sharing, or click the folder then click File in the menu bar and properties, then click Sharing. Click the Shared As radio button, select Read-Only, Full or Depends on Password (if you select this, set the password for Read-Only or Full Access). Initially set the folder as Read-Only--you can change it later if you want. A hand icon will appear holding the shared folder signifying it is now shared. (If you initially don't select a folder to share, a warning message appears saying you haven't shared anything yet, but you can still continue when you access the DCC window.) Go into the Accessories | Direct Cable Connection window. Back in the DCC window a successful message appears. You can also set a guest password to log on to this computer--do it. Click Finish A DCC Status window appears; it states it is "Waiting for a guest computer to connect via Parallel cable on LPT1". Repeat the process on the other computer as a GUEST, rather than as a HOST, and you'll be connected. If you encounter any difficulties, use the Windows Help, select INDEX and type in "direct cable connection" without the quotes, then select Troubleshooting. You will be prompted through various screens asking you questions about the configuration, or what you can or cannot do. It is very helpful. I have all the screen shots of the above process for Windows 98 (95 should be similar). If you want the 390K JPG pictures send me email. I can ZIP them to a smaller size and in one file for email. lmshatraw@uswest.net The serial cable can be constructed as follows: 9-pin 25-pin 25-pin 9-pin Description pin 5 pin 7 <------> pin 7 pin 5 Ground-Ground pin 3 pin 2 <------> pin 3 pin 2 Xmit-Rcv pin 7 pin 4 <------> pin 5 pin 8 RTS-CTS pin 1 and 6 pin 6 <------> pin 20 pin 4 DSR-DTR pin 2 pin 3 <------> pin 2 pin 3 Xmit-Rcv pin 8 pin 5 <------> pin 4 pin 7 CTS-RTS pin 4 pin 20 <------> pin 6 pin 1 and 6 DTR-DSR The cable pinouts for a parallel cable are as follows: 25-pin 25-pin Description pin 2 <------> pin 15 N/A pin 3 <------> pin 13 N/A pin 4 <------> pin 12 N/A pin 5 <------> pin 10 N/A pin 6 <------> pin 11 N/A pin 15 <------> pin 2 N/A pin 13 <------> pin 3 N/A pin 12 <------> pin 4 N/A pin 10 <------> pin 5 N/A pin 11 <------> pin 6 N/A pin 25 <------> pin 25 Ground-Ground If you are not handy at making the cables, you can purchase them. Now connect the computers together using one of the cable configurations. Access the Control panel, select Add/Remove Programs, then select Communications. Click Details and when the Components list appears, check Direct Cable Connection. If you cannot connect to host computer. Make sure you have run Direct Cable Connection on the host computer and you have connected your cable to both computers. To establish a DCC connection: Select START | PROGRAMS | ACCESSORIES then select COMMUNICATIONS and finally Direct Cable Connection. The window will provide instructions on making the connection. Reconnect the computers using DCC Select the START | PROGRAMS | ACCESSORIES then select COMMUNICATIONS and finally Direct Cable Connection. There is a button labeled "Listen", click it. On the other computer, repeat this process and click CONNECT.. Review In order to share the files and other resources on the computers using DCC the following components must be installed. 1- Client for Microsoft Networks 2- File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks 3- You must have the same protocol installed on both the PCs To add/install these components do this: 1-To install Client for Microsoft Networks Right click Network Neighborhood on the desktop. Select Properties. Select the Configuration tab, click Add. Select Client, and then click Add. Select Microsoft. In the Network Clients box, click Client For Microsoft Networks, click OK, and then click OK again. Restart your computer. 2-File and Printer Sharing Right click Network Neighborhood on the desktop. Select Properties. Select ADD, click Service, then select Add. Select Microsoft. In the Network Services box, select "File and printer sharing for Microsoft Networks," then click OK. Click OK. Restart your computer. 3-Protocol Right click Network Neighborhood on the desktop. Select Properties. Click Add, click Protocol, and select Add. Select Microsoft. In the Network Services box, click a protocol that will be on both computers. Click OK, and then click OK again. Restart your computer. August, 2001 issue of CCUG Random Access newsletter Cookie Alert You may have heard horrible stories about things called cookies that Web sites reputedly use to steal your data, but most cookies aren't all that bad. In fact, when you're shopping online, they can be quite helpful. A cookie is no more than a little chunk of text a Web site sends to a PC with a request (not a command) to send the cookie back during future visits to the same Web site. The cookie is stored on your computer in form of a tiny (up to 4K text) file. That's all it is. For online shopping, cookies let the Web server track your "shopping cart" of items you have selected but not yet bought, even if you log out and turn off your computer in the interim. Dummies Daily [http://www.dummiesdaily.com] by Rick Mattingly Always-On broadband Internet connections, such as DSL or cable, are great. They are extremely fast and require no logon delay when accessing the Internet. Always-on connections will quickly make you want to throw rocks at your old 56k modem. However, be aware that with the convenience also comes some inherent dangers. Broadband connections that are always on utilize a static IP address, which makes you a potential sitting target for hackers. In such cases a determined hacker can access your system even when you are not actively online! There are several things that you can do to reduce your risks. The first is to install a hardware or software "firewall." Another simple thing that should be done is to disable File and Print Sharing, if you are not using this feature. You want to share your files and printers with friends and co-workers -- not hackers! Open Control Panel > Network and click on the "File and Print Sharing" button. From the resulting menu clear the checkmarks from the file and print share options. Click OK and follow instructions to allow your system to reboot. - IMPORTANT NOTICE - FRPCUG meetings are held at the Fort Collins Senior Center. Check below for directions to the Senior Center. December General Forum Meeting We will meet at the Fort Collins Senior Center on Tuesday, December 4 at 7:00 pm. Meeting Agenda 7:00 - 7:15 Announcements 7:15 - 7:30 Election of Officers 7:30 - 7:45 Break 7:45 - 8:30 Free Software - A presentation of several FREE software utilities you shouldn't be without. 8:30 - 9:00 Open Forum January General Forum Meeting Change of meeting day! We will meet at the Fort Collins Senior Center on Tuesday, January 8 at 7:00 pm. Meeting Agenda 7:00 - 7:15 Announcements 7:15 - 7:30 Break 7:30 - 8:30 ACDSee- A presentation of ACDSee, the 'do-it-all' graphic toolbox software application. 8:30 - 9:00 Open Forum Note that the January Meeting will be held January 8 due to New Year's Day! See you at the meetings! Directions The Fort Collins Senior Center is located at 1200 Raintree Drive. This site is situated at the northwest corner of the Shields and West Drake intersection, on the north side of the Raintree Shopping Center. Check the marquee at the main entrance for directions to the specific meeting room. Up-Coming SIG's, Seminars and Meetings Board Meeting FRPCUG's executive board meets on Wednesday of the week following the General Forum Meeting at 7:00 p.m. All members are welcome and are encouraged to attend. These meetings are held at the offices of JYM Information Systems: 311 S College Avenue in Fort Collins. LINUX SIG This SIG, supports LINUX and other non-Windows operating systems for PC compatible hardware. This includes all distributions of LINUX, the BE Operating system, and OS2. These meetings are held at the offices of JYM Information Systems: 311 S College Avenue in Fort Collins. For more information contact Chuck McJilton at 493-2987 or email linuxsig@jymis.com. Northern Front Range Netware Users Group NFRNUG meets at 5:30 pm on the second Wednesday of each month at the U.S. Fish & Wildlife building, 2101 Oakridge Drive in Fort Collins. NFRNUG meetings are open to any users that are involved with Novell networking products and integration of other networking products into the Novell environment (Unix, NT, Mac, etc.). Contact Jim Stephens at 303-541-3376 or jcsteph@concentric.net or contact Chuck Kluko at 970-663-4770 or c.kluko@ix.netcom.com for further membership information. Yearly dues are $000.00 (yes, FREE) with pizza and pop served at 5:00 pm prior to meeting. Saturday labs and training sessions open to NRFNUG members only, space is limited. Rocky Mountain Internet Users Group Meets on the second Tuesday of 'odd' months at NCAR in Boulder. Meetings start at 7:00 pm, but members are encouraged to arrive at 6:30 pm for informal networking and refreshments. NCAR is located in Boulder at 1850 Table Mesa Drive. For more information see the RMIUG Web site at: http://www.rmiug.org/. Telecommuncation SIG The Telecommunications SIG covers topics related to computer communications hardware and software including modems, xDSL, networking, ISDN and the Internet. The meetings are held at 7:00 PM on the third Thursdays of each month at the offices of JYM Information Systems: 311 S College Avenue in Fort Collins. For more information contact Chuck McJilton at 493-2987 or email telecomsig@jymis.com. Web Design SIG If you're an HTML author/WEB page designer, or would like to learn, contact SIG coordinator Doug Boicourt at 495-6949 or e-mail db@jymis.com for the date and location of the next SIG meeting. Internet Safari This free Internet discussion group meets the first Monday of each month at the Barnes and Noble book store 4045 S. College. This group covers any topics and questions relating to using the Internet and is open to beginners and experienced Internet users. Meetings start at 7:00PM. For more information call JYM Information Systems at 416-9286 or email info@jymis.com. Upcoming FRPCUG Meetings Along with presentations of new hardware and software, we will certainly continue to present tips, hints, solutions, as well as what is new with Public Domain and Shareware offerings. If you have ideas for presentations which you would like to see at future General Forum meetings or seminars, please let us know. We would appreciate the input and opportunity to improve your meetings. Know of a another computer-related meeting in our area? Please let us know so we can post it here. 4 FRPCUG General Forum Meeting 7:00PM 12 FRPCUG Board Meeting 7:00PM NRFNUG Meeting 5:00PM 20 Telcomm SIG 7:00PM 25 Christmas Day 27 LINUX SIG 7:00PM 31 New Year's EveJanuary 2002 1 New Year's Day - No Meeting! 8 FRPCUG General Forum Meeting 7:00PM 9 FRPCUG Board Meeting 7:00PM NRFNUG Meeting 5:00PM 17 Telcomm SIG 7:00PM 24 LINUX SIG 7:00PM by Rich Chernock, July 2000 dacs.doc electric DISCLAIMER: My level of expertise in network installation is that I've done it once-successfully. A recent (1998) estimate showed that approximately a third of U.S. households have at least one computer. Although I couldn't dig up any data, I'd guess that significant portions of these have more than one. The marketing model for computers today is obsolescence within a few years. Old computers have very little resale value and sometimes get pressed into some kind of secondary service. In many cases the kids get the new machine (to run their games), and the parents continue using the old one for work. Once there is more than one computer in the house, a home network then becomes an interesting proposition, with attractive possibilities for resource sharing (files and printers), multiplayer gaming, and even Internet connection sharing. Difficulties There are basically two major difficulties in installing a home network-connecting the computers and configuring them. Of the two, the actual connections are probably the most difficult and require the most time. In this article, I will discuss the former and punt the latter, since the details vary by operating system and there are numerous references on the Web. The biggest problem is that most of us are already living in the house that we want to network and don't have the luxury of being able to string cables through exposed studs (as would be the case for a house being built). Available Technology The conventional approach to networking involves physically running cable throughout the house, which often involves a considerable amount of work, the amount depending upon how handy the installer is and the WAF (wife acceptance factor: "Are exposed wires OK?"). The most common type of network, Ethernet, requires a cable connecting each computer and a central hub. A number of technologies have been or are being developed to sidestep the problem of installing wiring in preexisting houses: wireless technology, sharing the phone line and sharing the power line. All of these avoid the work and frustration of running wiring but have some disadvantages. In each case, the technology is still maturing, and the products being sold have varying degrees of stability. The usefulness of wireless (RF) networks often depends on the distances between the computers and what is in between (walls, wiring, people). Sharing the phone line depends on a phone jack already existing near where the connection is desired. Power-line sharing is at a very early stage. In all three cases, the bandwidth is limited-often one to four Mbps (Megabits per second)-compared to conventional Ethernet, which can easily and cheaply provide 100Mbps today. Ethernet has evolved over an extended period of time, and the necessary components have become plentiful, stable, and cheap. A few years ago Ethernet was typically used at 10Mbps connection speeds. Today, 100Mbps is commonplace, with gigabit (1,000Mbps) appearing on the market. Numerous simple, two-computer networks kit for 100Mbps (cards, hub, and cables) are available for a street price around $100. My Preferred Solution I have quite a few computers in the house (Why I do is the subject of another article). Since I believe that there is no such thing as too much bandwidth, I selected the physical wiring approach to a home network, with 100Mbps Ethernet. I was lucky in the installation phase, since the layout of my house made running cable fairly easy. My house has closets that allow easy access to the attic and basement, as well as to each other. In addition, I could find a path between bedrooms that ran along the heating pipes. I chose to run Ethernet cable from a "wiring" closet to my den, each of the bedrooms, and the kitchen. Since most of the effort went to doing the wiring, I chose to run two Ethernet cables, as well as coax for video (no extra effort involved for future expansion). Materials and Sources 100Mbps Ethernet must be run on Category 5 (Cat5) cabling, which is a cable consisting of four tightly twisted pairs of wire in a common sheath. There are two forms of Cat5 cable commonly available: ordinary and plenum. Plenum is recommended (possibly required by code) when the wiring runs through walls. Bulk Cat5 cable is available at Home Depot for approximately $58 for a 1000-foot box. Plenum cable is also available there for about twice the cost. I had no need to fish wires through the walls, so non-plenum would work fine. In addition to the wire, you need termination hardware (jacks and boxes). Again, all items were available at Home Depot. Leviton makes a line of wiring jacks called "On Port," which includes the RJ45 jacks required for Ethernet connections. These jacks pop into wallplates, which are then mounted in your favorite termination box (either J-Box for in-wall, or surface-mount boxes). The plates come in a variety of configurations, holding up to eight jacks per single plate. The cost for each termination (box, plate and jack) should be less than $10. To complete the network installation, an Ethernet hub must be used, as well as Ethernet cards (NICs) in each computer and patch cables to connect the computer to the termination jack. If only two computers are to be connected, a hub can be avoided through the use of a crossover cable. Hubs are available from the usual PC hardware sources. A four-port 10/100Mbps hub can be found for about $50. I used an eight-port, dual-speed hub (supporting both 10Mbps and 100Mbps simultaneously), which cost about $100. Techniques Running the Cat5 cabling is similar to running other types of wiring within the house, with a few notable exceptions. The noise immunity and high bandwidth of the cabling depends on the tight twisting of the pairs, which requires some special handling. You have to be careful not to kink the wire, bend it too tightly or pull too hard on it, all of which have a tendency to untwist the pairs. Doing this step usually involves convincing the wire that it wants to go where you want it to. Simple aids such as a straightened coat hanger and electrical tape help a lot. If you have experience fishing wires, then this step will be quite familiar. One tip: Make sure you identify each end of each wire before pulling. If you forget to do this, you'll be faced with a multitude of wires coming out of a ceiling, with no clue to where the other end goes. It is possible to figure it out afterward, but it will take much longer than the few seconds required to first write a simple ID on each wire. Once the wires are run, then termination needs to be done. The junction box is installed using conventional methods. After threading the Cat5 cable through the junction box, the RJ45 connector needs to be attached. The Leviton jacks come with color-coded IDs for each jack position. Simply match the wire color to the ID. The wires are attached with a punch-down tool, typically a simple plastic version is supplied with the jack. I used a single termination box in each room, with a more complex one in the closet, having one jack for each of the rooms to be connected. The next step is to get the computers ready for networking by installing the NICs and connecting them to the jacks using patch cables. I will not discuss here the details of successfully installing network support, which depend heavily on the computer operating system. When setting up the network, some attention should be paid to the IP addresses assigned to each computer. There are a few ranges of addresses set aside for private use--I used the 192.168.0.xxx group. In the closet, attach each of the in-use jacks to the hub, again with patch cables. If you've done these steps correctly, a simple ping test of each computer should show positive results. Connection Sharing One major use of home networks is sharing a network connection, especially when broadband access is available (either cable modem or xDSL technology). There are a number of options available, the choice depending on the computer architecture within the house. The most typical is to designate one computer as the main gateway and to connect the broadband access to it. The gateway computer needs two NICs (one for the broadband connection and the other for the internal network). In the Win world, the connection can be shared using Windows 98's ICS (Internet Connection Sharing) or with a third-party product such as Wingate or Sygate. This computer can be used for its normal purposes and shouldn't see much degradation in performance by the gateway activities. Another possibility is to set up a dedicated machine for the gateway, essentially a home server. This is the route I chose, taking an old Pentium 166 machine and installing Linux on it. Linux has built-in capabilities for sharing a connection using IP Masquerading (the ipchains command). Some of the reasons I chose this path were the availability of this computer for other server tasks (file sharing and Web serving), which will allow me to do a number of interesting things (the subject of another article). In addition, I chose Linux because of its robustness and reliability-I expect the machine to run 7x24 until either a hardware failure or a power outage occurs. Security [Although this is the subject of an upcoming article, I think it's important to discuss the issue of security. As a result of the installation defaults built into Windows, many people who have cable modems discover that when they open their Network Neighborhood, they have become peeping Toms: Magically, they have acquired access to all their neighbors' computers. This is partly due to enabling Netbeui (the network protocol used for file and printer sharing) over the cable modem, as well as to using the default workgroup name in Windows. I strongly recommend only running TCP/IP over the modem--and choosing a new workgroup name.] Although this is the subject of an upcoming article, the issue of security needs to be discussed. As a result of the installation defaults built into Windows, many people who have cable modems discover that when they open their Network Neighborhood, they have become peeping Toms: Magically, they have acquired access to all their neighbors' computers. This is partly due to enabling Netbeui (the network protocol used for file and printer sharing) over the cable modem, as well as to using the default workgroup name in Windows. A definite recommendation is to only run TCP/IP over the modem-and to choose a new workgroup name. I opted for a stronger approach: The same command that allows Linux to share broadband connections also provides firewalling capabilities. I have set up firewall policies that allow virtually nothing originating from outside of my network to successfully connect, while allowing everything originating inside the house to occur normally. I strongly recommend that anyone installing a broadband connection take security seriously. Results The system works admirably. All of the computers in my house can talk to each other for gaming and file sharing. In addition, the Internet is available all of the time to every computer that is turned on, and I now have cable TV in each room and a spare Cat5 cable for future expansion. The results were definitely worth the effort. Rich Chernock is a senior engineer at IBM research working in the area of advanced digital television and data broadcast. You can e-mail Rich at mpeg2@earthlink.net From Toggle Newsletter, Number 216 - May 2001 For Sale: Parachute. Only used once, never opened, small stain. TIFF TIFF stands for Tagged Image File Format. This format is very versatile and is supported across many different computing platforms. TIFF is an excellent choice both for general image file storage and for exchanging images with Macintosh or UNIX computers. The one problem with TIFF format is that, due to its great generality, it has many variants and this gives rise to occasional incompatibilities between files generated by different applications. There are many variations of TIFF files, some of which incorporate lossy or lossless compression. TIFF is the only format that supports both 16-bit black and white and 48-bit color images. BMP and RLE BMP stands for bitmap. This is a Windows-specific file format which is supported by nearly all applications that run under Windows and deal with images. If you are not concerned with cross-platform compatibility, BMP is a perfectly good choice. BMP files are lossless and not compressed. RLE files are a variant of BMP which incorporate run-length encoding, a simple method of lossless compression that does a good job of compressing large areas of solid color. Unfortunately, 24-bit color images cannot be saved in RLE format without first being reduced to 256 colors, so RLE is not a good format for saving color images. JPEG JPEG stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group. This is a standard image file format supported by multiple computing platforms. JPEG format differs from the other formats listed here in that it allows for variable levels of file compression that involve discarding information from the image that cannot later be reconstructed. JPEG is excellent for archiving images or compressing them for distribution or electronic transmission, but it should be avoided in cases where the image will be reprocessed as this may amplify compression artifacts (see JPEG). The JPEG file format is supported by Web browsers and is a good choice for placing photographic images in Web pages. Targa, PCX Targa and PCX formats are general purpose image file formats supported by various other programs and platforms, but now largely obsolete. GIF GIF stands for Graphics Interchange Format. This format was developed for use on CompuServe to compress images for electronic transmission. The GIF file format is supported by Web browsers and can be used to place images in Web pages. It works especially well for those images containing large areas of solid color since these are compressed without loss of information. Since GIF does not support 24-bit color and Picture Window supports only 24-bit color, images must be reduced to 256 colors before saving them as GIF files. For this reason, saving and reloading a color image as GIF will degrade its color information and therefore GIF format should not be used to archive color images. PNG This format was developed as a replacement for GIF. It supports all image types and work across different platforms. PNG is one of the file formats proposed for use on the World Wide Web. PNG (pronounced “PING” files support a lossless compression scheme similar to that used to compress GIF files. FlashPix The FlashPix format was developed primarily by Kodak for use in their digital cameras and consumer scanning services. Its main advantage is that you can read a small piece of an image file or a low resolution version of an image without reading the entire file. FlashPix files may be uncompressed (lossless) or optionally compressed using JPEG . Importantly, FlashPix files include viewing information such as monitor gamma that makes them more portable across different platforms and programs than most other formats. EPS EPS stands for Encapsulated PostScript. This is a format developed by Adobe for inclusion in Postscript documents. This file format is not generally very useful. FITS The FITS format was developed to help exchange scientific data sets. It is somethimes used to store astronomical images and supports both 8-bit and 16-bit black and white images. There is currently no standard for encoding color images as FITS files. PhotoCD The PhotoCD file format was created by Kodak for storing scanned images on CD-ROM. Photo CD files are compressed using a nearly lossless scheme. AVI AVI stands for Audio Video Interleaved and is the Windows standard format for storing video information. It provides for synchronized streams of interleaved images and sound stored within a single file. Optical scanning questions have you overwhelmed? Jump on the web and visit the following site for the answers you are looking for. "A few scanning tips" Web site by Wayne Fulton at: http://www.scantips.com/index.html Wayne Fulton's site is just a treasure trove of important information pertaining to this subject. What is even better is that Wayne has the knack of presenting the information in such a way as to be understandable by the average computer user. Wayne's site is also now available in hard copy format. Check his web site for details on ordering the book. Research on Spreadsheet Errors Using a spreadsheet can be hazardous to your company's bottom line. It's far too easy to simply assume that your spreadsheet produces accurate results every single time. If you use the results of a spreadsheet to make a major decision, it's especially important to make sure that the formulas return accurate and meaningful results. Researchers have conducted quite a few studies that deal with spreadsheet errors. Generally, these studies have found that between 20 and 40 percent of all spreadsheets contain some type of error. If this type of research interests you, why not check out the Spreadsheet Research (SSR) Web site maintained by Ray Panko of the University of Hawaii. Dummies Daily [http://www.dummiesdaily.com] by Robert Sanborn, ICS So you have been living in the dark ages for years and have finally decided to build a web site. Well, it is about time but there is so much that you need to consider before plopping down a bunch of cash. Part of this is because there will be a number of upfront costs relating from setting up the site and selecting a host to a number of ongoing costs from annual host site fees to the cost of maintaining your web site. And that is all before we start to think about what will be on your web site so it is really best to go through all of this thinking and planning beforehand as planning things out will save you time, money, aggravation, and probably, even keep you from losing customers. Planning, Planning, and More Planning Primary in your planning should be cost, how much are you willing to expend on the project. This makes a major difference on what is included in the content and presentation of the web. Also it impacts on how often it is updated. By coming up with a budget for initial expenses and ongoing maintenance and fees, you can then build the web site to suit your expenses and then compare that to what your expectations are. We will get back to this shortly. Second in your planning is identifying what is your intended audience is and how often you want them visiting your site. Are you looking for people that have never heard of your business before? If so, you will probably be very disappointed. Do you have any clue as to how many web sites and news groups there are out there? Or how many search engines that need to be updated? Unless you have something very specific to present, you may discover that a search will bring up thousands and thousands of pages and yours will certainly get lost in the morass of millions of web pages out there already. So if it is new customers you are looking for, then be prepared to come up with a strategy of attracting them. From the emails I get, there are probably a thousand people out there that for an X number of dollars will guarantee a top hit on the search engines. Don't believe them, you would only be throwing money away. There is no silver bullet but there are some software packages available to help you at least come close. If you are interested in making information available to current customers and known prospects, then you already have your audience and this can be an excellent way to keep them informed of your products, updates, and news so what you need to do is to come up with a list of what you need to keep them informed about. This is the kind of site that many small businesses put together. The last type of web site would be just a general information site for prospects and casual browsers. Here you want to provide information to the general public and if you do catch a prospect, great. The third issue is then how active your web site will be. I tend to lump them all into four major categories. A dead web site is one that has been forgotten by the owners. An static web site is one that is updated once a year, an inactive web site is one that changes maybe once a quarter, and an active web site changes at a minimum weekly. So, if you are interested in having people return to your site on a regular basis, then you need to consider the content and the kinds of information that will change on a regular basis to keep them coming back. Nothing kills return visitors more than coming back to a web site a couple of times and finding nothing new there. They stop coming back. Unfortunately, this means having the means, money, and effort to come up with something new for those return visitors. Options for information that change on a regular basis can include third party news organizations headlines that appear on your web site, an online newsletter that is updated daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly, new Information articles and reports that change, and finally, reviews and updates from the industry or government that you can reprint. If you also add a "Links Page" to point people to other sites of interest, be sure to check them on a regular basis. Features for Your Web Site Once you come up with answers to the major issues, come a ton of smaller ones and each one could add considerably to your ongoing expenses. As you hit each item, note them down as when it comes time to talk to a host provider for your web site, you will need to see if they can support that and at what cost. Do you want a private area for your customers? This could be as simple as a separate web area not available from your main web pages or one that requires a user id and password to access. Do you want a secure area for your customers? How much do you really want to keep other people and hackers out of this area. Will you be selling products on the web using an online shopping basket approach? If so, we get into credit arrangements and banking issues to ensure payments are collected before your goods go out the door. Do you want to give your customers access to your data files and databases on the web? This gets into the real of online databases and security becomes a major issue and expense. Will you be making files and downloadable documents available on the web? Files can get to be quite large and time consuming to download via dial up access and this also increases the space required for your web site at an additional cost. Will you be collecting personal or business information from people on the web? There are things like guest books and information pages that collect such information even to the point of setting up "cookies" to keep track of where people have been and what they last looked at. Do you want to be able to show video clips, sound, and movies on the web? This also adds to the size of the web site and the need to make content small enough to download at dial up speeds. You will probably also have to put in links to pages that provide the players for what ever type of content you will be including so that people will be able to look at the clips. If you haven't already done so, be sure to start looking at web sites out there that have the type of information and content that you want to provide. You want your site to be eye appealing as well as full of useful content for your customers. So now that you are committed, or should be, getting started is actually pretty easy. Getting Started With A Name and Site The first thing to do is to come up with your dot com name. This exercise should really be done on paper before hand and I would suggest you come up with your ideal name and then a long list of alternatives. With as many sites out there already, you may find your choices are very limited. The easy way of course to see if it is taken or not is to simply get connected to the internet, fire up the browser, and then tell it to look for www.yourfavoritename.com and see if it exists. You do have some alternatives if the name you really want is not available. One is to see if .org, or .net is taken, another is to look for another country code might work for you. How about www.yourfavoritename.tv ? Many countries will allow you to use the name with their high level domain for a fee and usually, those fees are very reasonable. My advise though is to stick with the dot com, dot net, dot org, or one of the new dot names coming out that are licensed by ICANN, the internet policing agency. There are a number of web sites out there that will tell you if any of these names are available and what I usually do is to go to Network Solutions, www.networksolutions.com and check through them. If you do find a name available, then by all means, get it locked in and buy the name. The cost will be usually $70 for two years. The next thing to do is to select a host site to "host" your web name. I have done considerable research on this and have found that www.hostway.com out of the Chicago area, is very competitive, has a lot of features, is reliable, and at a good value. This is the company that I have used to host my personal web site and my business site. Cost of the host site ranges from $10 per month to over $250 per month depending on features and that is where the list above of features we talked about is important. The $10 site gets you one mail box, limited features, and space for a basic site with limited traffic to the site. This is what I have done with my www.sanbornsoftware.com site. You can look at that and see it is a basic, few frills and features, web site. Additional monthly costs will include multiple mail boxes and accounts, secure site for shopping carts and the like. When selecting your web host, you need to consider access to it as well. Most host sites, including Hostway, have no dial up access for getting your email and updating your web site so you need to have regular internet access. Now most people, already have internet access from companies such as AOL, Microsoft MSN, Earthlink, or a local internet access provider like I use. This gives me access to the email, internet, and to allow me to update my web pages. But remember, you are paying extra for that access to that provider from usually $20 to $25 per month so when selecting the web host, you might check with your local provider to see what the cost is and if it includes local access. You may find the additional cost of hosting not that much more. Of course, if you are concerned with things like your site being always up and online, you might decide that a larger company is warranted. Now comes the difficult part of determining content, how extensive the site is to be such as the features discussed above, graphics, and how often it is to be updated. Developing A Web Site If you look at some of the splashy web sites out there such as Microsoft, Pepsi, CNN, and ESPN, you will see there is a ton of content, video clips, active buttons, and the like. They are very cool, great to look at, and they cost a bundle to develop and maintain. My recommendation is to keep it simple. Nothing frustrates someone looking at a web page more than waiting a long time for graphics to download so keep them small. The best size for a graphic is the smallest you can make it and still keep it visible and recognizable. When scanning for the web and building graphics, keep them no more than 90 dpi in resolution size. Also when building your image, be sure to consider that most computers are still looking at images at a screen resolution of 800x600. The more you can put together in the way of content, graphics, and images, the lower the cost of the project especially if you are using an outside source for development and if you do use an outside source for development, by all means, get copies of everything they do. If things go wrong with that developer, you want to be able to immediately pull the plug and move on to someone else. Doing the web site yourself can actually be pretty easy with so many tools available today. It seems that every high end word processor, publisher package, and even many of the minor publishing programs will build the web HTML code for you. Tools that I use for web development include for graphics, Paint Shop Pro from Jasc software, and Photoshop from Adobe. For web development, I use Go Live from Adobe. Alternatives are Front Page 2000 from Microsoft, and Page Mill from Adobe. For uploading the finished web products to the host site, any FTP (File Transfer Protocol) program will work and I use WSFTP, available on the web. Finally, as to cost, developing a web site can be quite expensive if you are having it done with outside help. This is especially true if you depend on the developer to do all the design work, scan images, build graphics, and the like. This type of work can take a long time and can be very expensive. The same holds true if you want them to develop the shopping cart, secure site, passwords, and database information on your site. For these types of features, look at what the host site can provide for you. More and more companies are doing incredible things on the web from customer relationships management to selling all sorts of products and finding that it really enhances business. Then again, there are many who have sunk tons of cash into their web sites to only find that no one visits and those that do don't stay long enough to see who you really are and what your business is. That is were the initial planning really pays off in the long run and it should for you and your business. Robert Sanborn is an Independent Personal Computer Consultant, and the Program Chairman for the Indianapolis Computer Society. Reach him through the net at robert@sanbornsoftware.com This article is brought to you by the Editorial Committee of the Association of Personal Computer User Groups (APCUG), an International organization to which this user group belongs. For Sale: Computer books, "Running Windows 98" by Craig Stinson & "CorelDraw 8 Bible" by Deborah Miller. $15 each. Contact Paul Ostrof at 484-7680 or paulo@frii.com About Trading Post k-Byte runs classified ads in Trading Post for three consecutive issues. Trading Post ads up to 10 lines (or 70 words) long are free to FRPCUG members: $5 for non-members. To place an ad in Trading Post contact Will Horton at 223-2154 or email whorton@will-design.com. Commercial Advertising Specifications (Monthly rate) Full Page (8 1/2” X 7”) $30 Half Page (3 1/4” X 7”) $20 One Third Page (3” X 4”) $15 Business Card (2 3/4” X 1 1/2”) $ 5 We offer a substantial discount for repeat ads and continuing contracts. For additional charge, we will design your ad for you. Contact Will Horton for information on this service at 223-2154 or email whorton@will-design.com. |
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