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Front Range PC Users Group Newsletter k-Byte |
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| v. 19, n. 1/2 January/February 2002 | Users Helping Users |
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Contents 1 State of the Group - Rick Mattingly 2 About k-Byte 3 December/January Meeting Reports - Mike Meyer 4 Free Internet Discussion Group 5 File Naming Rules 5 Windows Updates - Michael Vincent 6 A Very Brief History of the Internet - Coco Johnston 7 A New Bride - Humor 8 Connecting Your PC To Your Stereo - Bruce Fries 9 Guide To Repairing A Scratched CD - Vince Staten 10 Things To Consider When Purchasing A Digital Camera - Jim Topper 12 Internet Rant - Frank Whiteley 13 Glossary - James Wiegel 14 Calendar of Events 16 February/March Calendars 18 Membership Application 19 Web Shopping - Karen Woerner 23 AbiWord 25 Fast Find VS. Search - Rick Mattingly 25 Close That Modem Connection 26 Reactivating Office XP On The Same Computer 26 Producing Sharper Pictures With Greater Detail - Greg Lousignont 29 What Version Of MSIE? 30 Trading Post 31 FRPCUG Contacts State of the Group by Rick Mattingly Man, it's getting fast, powerful and cheap out there. The world of computers I mean. Prices of computers and peripheral equipment continue to drop. However, be aware that RAM prices are about as low as they are going to get for the time being. Prices appear to be headed back up. Now is the time to by that extra RAM for your system. Just make sure to confirm the exact type of RAM your system requires before handing over your cash. We have some great presentations lined up over the upcoming months. But, we are always looking for new topics of discussion at the monthly meetings. Please let us know what you would like more information on and we will attempt to line a presentation up for that topic. See you at the meetings. 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 ã2000 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 30 people attended this month's meeting. During the Announcements Period, President Rick Mattingly stated that the January meeting would be held on the 8th of the month, due to the New Year's holiday. He further mentioned the Senior Center staff would appreciate some assistance from our membership in helping them prepare a justification to acquire some new equipment for their computer lab and that this also was really a good time for club members to purchase computers and accessories. The slate of officers proposed at last month's meeting then was voted in, with the exception of the Secretary position, which remains unfilled. The officers are as follows: Rick Mattingly (President), Don Anderson (V.P.), and Dennis Nimetz (Treasurer). I will continue as Secretary until a replacement can be found. The Main Program was well received by everyone and was quite informative. It was presented by Rick Mattingly and covered various free software that is currently available via the Internet. The programs reviewed were POWERDESK (On Track), a very much enhanced replacement for Windows File Explorer; ZoneAlarm (Zonelabs), firewall protection; IRFANVIEW, quick, full-featured graphics file viewing and editing; TextIt, a very good ASCII text editor; ABIWord, a full-featured word processor that is WORD compatible; IMSI Software (TurboCAD, TurboProject, Net Accelerator, FormTool, Flow!, and FloorPlan). The latter programs are full-featured, but are the light versions. A Pro version of POWERDESK is available for $20. ZoneAlarm is free to individual users and is particularly helpful for a DSL connection. IRFANVIEW will handle "plug-in" files and costs $10 to register it. TextIt is less powerful than WordPad, but is better than NotePad. ABIWord doesn't have all of WORD's features, including use of data tables, although it will handle HTML. The above mentioned IMSI Software light programs probably are sufficiently powerful for the applications of many users. During the Open Forum session, several problems were discussed and possible solutions were offered. The problems involved the word-wrap function of WordPad, deletion of temporary files in Windows, modem connections to the Internet, Windows ME compatibility with non-Microsoft products, and lithium batteries. January Meeting Report by Rick Mattingly for Mike Meyer 38 members were in attendance for this meeting. It was announced that we are still looking for a volunteer to take over for Mike Meyer in the position of Secretary. It was also announced that FRPCUG members will again be providing computer-related instruction for the Fort Collins Senior Center. Classes to be instructed include the following topics: Microsoft Word, Beginning Windows, Advanced Windows and Quicken. FRPCUG members who are interested in attending any of these classes may confirm dates and register at the Fort Collins Senior Center front desk. The presentation at this meeting was on the subject of ACDSee, a very useful graphics display and manipulation software application. ACDSee has been on the scene for quite some time. If you have not experienced this product for a while it is time to have another look! ACDSee is now one of the most powerful applications of it's kind available and should definitely be a candidate for your tool box. 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. A filename can be up to 255 characters, including spaces. This enables you (finally) to give meaningful names to your files. You can't, however, use any of the following characters in your filenames: \ (slash) ? (question mark) : (colon) * (asterisk) " (quote) < (less than) > (greater than) | (vertical bar) You can use uppercase and lowercase letters in your names to improve readability. The filenames aren't case-sensitive, however. If you have a file named My 1999 Budget and try to save another file with the name MY 1999 BUDGET, Excel asks whether you want to overwrite the original file. If you plan to share your files with others using operating systems pre-dating Windows 95, you should make sure that the filename is no longer than eight characters, with no spaces. Otherwise, the filename will appear rather strange. For example, a file named My 1999 Budget will appear as MY1999~1.XLS, because Windows assigns every file an eight-character filename to be compatible with pre-Windows 95 operating systems. Windows Updates When downloading updates to Windows from Microsoft, it is always best to close all applications and programs and allow the update to be the only running program. This way the opportunity for conflicts with the update process is minimized. It is also a good idea to turn off your virus scanner. After the update has completed, even if not required, reboot your computer. Then turn your virus software back on and scan your system. - Michael Vincent EMAZING.com by Coco Johnston, F1 Computer Club, Shell Knob, MO The Internet had its beginnings with the launching of Sputnik. The Pentagon's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) wanted to maximize the use of computers for national defense. Dr. J.C.R. Licklider was chosen to head up the research project and find a way to achieve that goal. In the early 1960s, computers were little more than mathematical calculating machines. Licklider, with a background in psychology, saw computers as potential information processors and visualized a network of communities of people worldwide connected by computers. His position at ARPA and his commitment to transform computers into instruments of communication shaped the direction of research, affected how funding would be spent and eventually changed the direction of development within the computer industry. Designing network technology (hardware) and creating a universal language (software) that could move through that technology still lay ahead. Building this network would be a monumental undertaking. The job was offered to AT & T, but they saw no potential for profit in it and turned it down. At first the computer companies also resisted the idea that computers would ever be used for communication, so they weren't interested in investing in research and development. It was left to the universities that had computers (Stanford Research Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, UCLA and others) to invent the technology, develop the programming and build the network. One of the first big hurdles was getting computers to talk to each other. In those days, a computer filled a large room, and users sat at terminals which connected to the mainframe. Most mainframe computers were self-contained, not networked to other computers. A terminal could connect to only one mainframe, and if the information a person needed was spread out in several different mainframes, then a user had to get up and move to another terminal. Going back and forth to different terminals was frustrating for Robert Taylor of ARPA. He came up with the idea of connecting mainframes so that he could sit at one terminal and access data from several mainframes. He called Larry Roberts at MIT for help with the problem. Together they worked out a solution and in 1968 sent their proposal to over 100 of the largest computing companies at that time to find someone to build the equipment. IBM and Control Data Corp., the two giants, saw no future in it and declined to take it on. ARPA finally found a company, BBN Technologies, willing to work with them. State of the art Honeywell equipment was developed, but the first message sent across the Internet had to fit into the 12K memory of the computer. Ray Tomlinson created the first email software used to send messages across the Internet. He also came up with the idea of the @ sign to signify where the message was going. After many trials and errors, the first email was exchanged in September of 1969 between University of California at Santa Barbara, University of Utah, Stanford Research and MIT. People at different terminals had been able to send messages to others on the same mainframe before, but this new technology was limitless; people could potentially communicate through any computer anywhere in the world. Within a decade, the traffic on the ARPAnet grew so heavy, improvements in hardware and software had to be continuously upgraded. Personal computers came onto the market in the 1980s, and the Internet just kept growing. In 1992, a Swiss programmer named Tim Berners-Lee came up with the idea of hypertext markup language (HTML) which "linked" together documents across the Internet. He named his group of linked pages the World Wide Web. Marc Andreesen came across Berners-Lee's linking idea and thought he could improve on it. He and some partners came up with graphical interface (the pictures and graphics you click on to move from link to link). This replaced the all-text method of navigating the Net and made it user-friendly. Andreesen went on to develop Netscape. With Andreesen's development of graphic interface, Internet use exploded, growing 341,000 percent in 1993. For the first twenty years of its existence, the Internet was restricted to use by military and universities for the exchange of information. In 1992, U.S. Rep. Frederick Boucher submitted a bill to Congress asking that the Internet be opened to the people, free of government restrictions, and President Bush signed it into law. Businesses slowly edged into the new marketplace with mixed results; some failed, some thrived briefly and some are still going strong. The biggest money made from the Internet to date is by the Internet Service Providers. According to The Internet: Behind the Web, a program which aired in January 2001 on the History Channel, the amount of data that travels across the Internet doubles every 100 days. In 1992, when Berners-Lee invented the link, there were 50 pages on the WWW; today there are over 70 million Websites and 11 million registered domain names. In 1999, the first computers that could access the Internet were allowed into Saudi Arabia. A computer in an isolated village in India can bring in the world . The world grows smaller, and with this new medium of communication, it gets harder to maintain strict political control over a populace. No longer can something like the Iron Curtain keep people in isolation. The Internet has brought us into an information age where many geographical boundaries are no longer significant barriers. In a paper he wrote in 1968, JCR Licklider predicted that by the year 2000, millions of people around the world would be communicating through a global network of computers. Licklider's vision was realized through the perseverance, imagination and genius of hundreds of people, but not, unfortunately, before his death in 1990. Coco Johnson is editor of the F1 Computer Club please let her know when you have used her article Her email address is coco@mo-net.com For 50 years Uncle Jack left the box alone, until Aunt Edna was old and dying. One day when he was putting their affairs in order, he found the box and thought it might hold something important. Opening it, he found two doilies and $82,500 in cash. He took the box to his wife and asked about the contents. "My mother gave that box to me the day we married," said Aunt Edna. "She told me to make a doily to help ease my frustrations every time I got mad at you." Uncle Jack was touched that in 50 years she'd only been mad at him twice. "What's the $82,500 for?" he asked. "Oh, that's the money I made selling the doilies!" -- Mildred Watson, Juleburg from August, 2001 issue Colorado Country Life by Bruce Fries - author of The MP3 and Internet Audio Handbook. If you've taken the time to put your music collection on your computer, you'll probably want to listen to it through a good stereo system. Even if your stereo isn't in the same room as your computer, there are several options for connecting the two, including direct analog cabling, USB Audio devices, wireless audio transmitters, and network audio receivers. The most basic concept of connecting audio equipment is that inputs must always be connected to outputs. Sometimes you will still get sound if you mistakenly connect a sound card output to an output of a stereo receiver. When in doubt, connect the sound card output to the CD jack on your stereo-it's always an input. Connect high-level (also called line-level) outputs to high-level inputs, and connect low-level outputs (such as a microphone) to low-level (Mic) inputs. Do not use the receiver's phono input jack because this is designed for a very low-level signal and has a special equalization circuit. Avoid using the sound card's headphone or microphone jack to connect to other equipment unless you have no other choice. Most consumer sound cards have 1/8" mini phone jacks. A mono jack is used for the microphone input, and stereo jacks are used for the line-in, line-out and headphone. Better sound cards may have separate RCA jacks for the left and right channels. These are the same kind of jacks found on most home stereo systems. High-end sound cards may also have connectors for digital inputs and outputs. The simplest connection between a computer and a stereo system is to run a cable directly from the sound card's line output to a line input of your stereo. To record from your stereo system to your computer, connect a cable from a line-out (or record) jack on your receiver to the line-in jack on your sound card. If your sound card's line output is an 1/8" stereo mini-phone jack, you'll need an adapter cable (male 1/8" stereo mini-phone to dual male RCA). These cables can be purchased from most consumer electronics stores, such as Radio Shack, Best Buy and Fry's Electronics. USB audio devices perform the basic functions of a sound card, but outside of the PC, and are less likely to pick up noise from the PC's electronics. USB audio devices can be used for both recording and playback and are a good solution for notebook computer users who want higher quality sound. The Roland UA-30 (www.edirol.com) is a flexible USB audio device that supports both Macs and PCs. The UA-30 works great and includes just about every type of input and output connector you might possibly need. Wireless audio devices can transmit a stereo audio signal up to 300 feet. These devices typically include a transmitter and a receiver with standard RCA line-level input and output jacks. Wireless audio devices provide more flexibility than hard cabled connections, but are much more prone to interference compared to other types of connections. The MP3 Anywhere Digital Audio Sender by X10 (www.X10.com) is a good wireless audio device for most users. It sells for under $100 and uses the 2.4 gHz spectrum to reduce interference and provide a high quality connection. The MP3 Anywhere also includes a remote control and software, which allow you to control most popular player programs. The ideal way to transmit audio from your PC throughout your house is by streaming the audio from your PC via a network. A network audio connection eliminates the loss of high frequencies, interference and hum typical of analog cable and wireless connections. The Rio Receiver (www.riohome.com) is a very capable network audio device that allows you to access individual songs and playlists from your PC anywhere you have a telephone or network jack. The Rio has an LCD interface that displays song title, artist name and other information, and also includes a remote control. Whatever your choice of PC to stereo connection, you will be able to use your computer as a digital jukebox and take full advantage of the latest digital music technologies to play high-quality music anywhere in your house. For more information on connecting your PC to your stereo, pick up a copy of The MP3 and Internet Audio Handbook ($19.95) from www.TeamComBooks.com or read it online for free at www.MP3Handbook.com. Bruce Fries is a writer, technology consultant and entrepreneur who lives in Silver Spring, Maryland. He is an associate of the Audio Engineering Society and the founder of TeamCom Books, a customer-focused publishing company that combines the best of traditional print publishing with new media, such as e-books and the Internet. DIZCLAIMER Spellum errurrrs, mizpelled namez & mizuse of Ingalish are the responsibillite of Spell Chuck & the board of directors who push to got thiz thing out on time. The editors 'aint gon'na be held liable. If, in readin this newsletter, you get the message, be satisfied with what ya got! Wipe the surface with a clean cloth. The CD may be skipping because of dirt or fingerprints. If that doesn't work, look for scratches. To remove the scratch you'll need to polish the shiny surface. Take toothpaste and rub it with a cloth until you can't see the scratch. Then polish, using a different clean cloth with Vaseline or Armor-All, wiping in straight lines, not circles. Finish the polish job with Windex and another clean cloth. If this doesn't work, check out the Skip Doctor. This handy dandy gizmo radially polishes and repairs CDs. It runs about thirty buck at most electronics stores. If the Skip Doctor doesn't work, the scratch is too deep to repair. Use the CD as a coaster. - Vince Staten EMAZING.com by Jim Topper Since we are entering the holiday season with gift giving on our minds, I thought it would be a good idea to write about some of the things to consider when purchasing a digital camera. This is a list of items to consider when planning to purchase a Digital Camera. This is not an all inclusive list. It does contain the features and other considerations I believe should be high on one's list of considerations before making a purchase. Image size, i.e. number of "megapixels", 2,3, 4, or 5 The higher the number of megapixels, the larger the image file will be. This will allow you to print the images at a higher ppi (pixels per inch) resolution. Generally speaking even a 2 megapixel digital camera should be able to print an 8x10 picture with decent detail. 3, 4 or more megapixel cameras will allow you to print larger images is you wish or give you even more detail at smaller picture sizes, i.e. 4x6, 5x7, or 8x10. Zoom lens type and "reach", i.e. 3x, 4x, 10x... you get the idea. Digital cameras have two types of zoom lenses, digital zoom and optical lens zoom. It is best to buy a digital camera with an optical zoom lens. Almost all digicams have digital zoom in addition. However a digital zoom degrades the image quality since it interpolates the image information for the zoom effect. It is best to NOT use digital zoom unless you can not get a picture any other way. For optical zoom, I'd recommend at least a 3x zoom, a higher zoom ratio lens if you can afford it. Type of storage medium There are 3 types of storage medium currently that are widely used in digital cameras. These are: Compact Flash cards, Smart Media cards, and Memory Stick cards. All types can be had in sizes up to 128 MB, with Compact Flash cards available at much larger sizes. My picks for storage media would be either Compact Flash cards or Memory Stick cards which are used in most current Sony digicams. The Smart Media cards are somewhat thinner and more flexible and are more prone to damage during handling if one is not careful. Also look for a digital camera that has a USB interface for downloading pictures from the camera. Some cheaper or older models still use serial port connections and they are very slow downloading images compared to USB. Finally most digital cameras ship with rather small memory cards included. You will want to purchase additional card(s) of at least 64 meg size, as your finances allow, for extended periods of picture-taking. Type of batteries it uses Digital cameras can use several types of batteries for power. Some models use proprietary batteries, which tend to be expensive. Other digital cameras will use AA size batteries. Be warned, the only type of AA batteries to use in a digital camera are NiMH (nickel metal hydride) batteries, which are rechargeable. Other types will not last in a digicam, such as alkaline batteries. Sony in particular uses its own batteries which are expensive but have a great feature included, circuitry that will tell you how much time is left in battery power before it needs to be recharged. In any case, you will want at least 2 batteries or 2 sets if using AA type batteries. Most digicams only will ship with one, so you will want to purchase a second one, or set. Optical viewfinder or LCD only Some digital cameras have both types, others only use a LCD screen located on the back of the camera body. For bright sunlight picture-taking you will want to consider buying a digicam with both types, since almost all LCD screens are unusable in direct sunlight. However you can purchase a separate LCD shade which would help if the digicam you get only has a LCD screen. Size of the camera and how it feels in your hands and weight Two of the more important considerations are the above. You will want to buy a digicam that feels good in your hands and has controls that are easy to reach and use. Weight is important too since you may be carrying the camera around for several hours at a time. Most newer digital cameras weigh less than 1 pound and have a neck strap for carrying when not using the camera. I'd be leery of a digicam that only has a wrist strap, since wrist straps make carrying the camera more difficult over a longer period of time. Filters Some digital cameras have screw threads on the lens body for adding filters. If the digital camera you purchase has this feature, be sure to buy a "skylight" or "UV" filter for the camera. This will protect the lens from dirt, finger prints and scratches. It is much easier to clean or replace a lens filter than the camera's lens! Flash Almost all digital cameras have a built-in flash. A nice feature to look for is one that has a "red eye" reduction feature. A few of the higher end digicams also have provisions for adding an external flash on a "hot shoe" bracket, or have a jack to plug in an external flash unit. For general picture-taking, the internal flash will be OK. However you should know that almost all internal flash units have a range of +/- 10 feet. Digital cameras that can add an external flash unit will double or even triple that distance for a high power flash unit. Jim Topper is the Newsletter Editor for Another Baltimore Computer Users Group and may be contacted by email: jimt@cablespeed.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. by Frank Whiteley Cheap .. Fast .. Reliable? From home user to corporate officer, there is an expectation that the Internet should be 'cheap, fast, and reliable'. That's what everyone wants, why can't we have it? The response to this is 'pick two'. The cold, hard facts are that you can have any two of the above at the present time. You maybe can have 'fast and cheap', but reliability will be lacking. Of course I normally only hear from frustrated customers of other services, so my subjective view is skewed. However, loss of e-mail service or complete loss of service spanning several days seem too common on cable Internet providers. And complaining that it's affecting your business is met with the support response that the service is for 'entertainment use only'. They may offer a business class of service in some areas, but then it becomes 'fast and reliable' and no longer 'cheap'. For financial reasons, it's not available everywhere. Similar criteria apply to other Transports DSL, in its varying flavors, seems like an ideal solution using existing phone lines. For technical and financial reasons, it's not available everywhere either. In it's basic form, DSL is also 'cheap and fast'. If reliability is highly important, that comes at a premium of doubling the transport cost. The fastest DSL transports are not cheap, but rapidly scale upward. Two-way satellite is a high-tech solution. Today's implementations are neither 'cheap, fast, nor reliable'. Users are finding that it's not cheap, not fast (during peak times or bad weather), nor reliable (due to frequent daily drop outs). Plus optional Internet services are just unavailable via this transport since there are real bandwidth limitations. Wireless is the latest buzz. The ramp up costs are fairly high for a given coverage area and it doesn't make business sense without a baseline set of customers in that coverage area. There's no guarantee that if you build it, they will come, at least not at today's price points. That's why it doesn't exist locally, yet. For technical reasons, it can't be used everywhere, so it's a niche market. Premium transports, like frame relay, T-1, T-3, wireless, ISDN, remain available. None qualify as cheap, but they are usually 'fast and reliable'. Most are beyond the home user's budget. So, why can't we expect 'cheap, fast, and reliable' I'd like to address the expectation first, considering the basic dial-up model which is still our primary service transport. Over the past few years, several providers offered 'discount' dialup services. This took care of 'cheap'. They were so popular that, before long, peak periods were as likely to reach busy signals as the Internet. 'Cheap' service meant there was no capital for improvement of services. The business model was bigger customer base. Competing vendors made dial-up access points cheaper, which removed the busy signals, but the true high cost of Internet is the pipes that transit the country and the world. 'Cheap' services added more dial pools, but kept the access pipes pretty small. Having more customers by selling artificially cheap access would lead to higher market share and justifying higher rates for advertising. The dot.com IPOs were awash with advertising and marketing dollars, so much so that 'free' Internet services emerged, biting into the customer base of even the 'cheap' services. 'Reliability and fast' went out the window. When the dot.bombs replaced the dot.coms, this advertising revenue stream disappeared. Those artificially 'cheap' services were forced to 'fish or cut bait'. Where are they now? Even Qwest has jumped out of the ISP business, failing to capitalize on their business web services. ATT@home raised rates and remains in financial woes. There was never anything to be gained by offering artificially 'cheap' Internet, since it helped stifle the development and deployment of the highest cost aspect, the 'last mile'. In effect, 'cheap' Internet has only slowed access to 'fast and reliable'. 'Last mile' costs are why you can't get 'cheap, fast, and reliable' Internet service. Had everyone paid an extra $5/month for the past 5-6 years, or what the Internet was really worth, high bandwidth could be at your doorstep today. Over 80% of the fiber in the US today is dark, largely because there is no transport over that 'last mile'. There is high capacity fiber near 90 percent of you, within 1/10 to 5 miles. There's just no switching infrastructure to cut you a slice. In addition, the 'closed' nature of transport mediums means that improvements are often blocked by politics and the expense of 'over-building' existing systems. So today, you may be able to pick two of 'cheap, reliable, and fast', but you can't have all three. Many will have to settle for one, though you can usually pick two. Does it have to be this way? In the near term, yes. In the long term, no. But there are no guarantees. Key to this is by reducing the number of 'closed' models for 'open' models. Which is the subject of my next rant. Transports - eg: frame relay, wireless, ISDN, DSL, Two-way satellite, PPP How information is packaged and sent over a "transmission media." In most cases this is wire, like phone or cable lines. Other medias would be Radio Frequency (RF), Infrared, & Fiberoptic. Pipes - eg: bandwidth limitations; high bandwidth ;T-1, T-3, OC3 The maximum amount of information that can be "piped" throu any given Transmission Media. For example, only 42 kiloby per second (KBPS) of uncompressed data can be "piped" through a standard phone line. By using different transports such as DSL, the same information can be sent down the same "pipe" 6 times faster. Dial pool; the 'last mile' When you connect to your ISP, your modem is calling a dial-pool. You are given one number to call your ISP at, but it can handle 100 siml. connections. After you dial the number, but before a connection is made the ISP's phone system will hunt for an open phone line, and then connect you to that modem. The "last mile" begins at the dial-pool and ends at your modem. It is often the slowest part of your internet connection because of the limited bandwidth of a dial-up connection. DSL has changed that, but it will litterally only work for one mile from the central phone office where your phone line starts. Dot.com IPOs; dot.bombs The rush of companies looking to capitalize on the potential of the internet. By giving Initial Public Offerings they had more capital than they deserved. Many of these companies were not well thought out, and offered Business-to-Business and End User services that did not bring in enough money to keep the doors opened, let alone pay back on the investments. CUGG Random Access newsletter, December, 2001 - IMPORTANT NOTICE - FRPCUG meetings are held at the Fort Collins Senior Center. Check below for directions to the Senior Center. February General Forum Meeting We will meet at the Fort Collins Senior Center on Tuesday, February 5 at 7:00 pm. Meeting Agenda 7:00 - 7:15 Announcements 7:15 - 7:30 Break 7:30 - 8:30 New From Hewlett-Packard-Mike Yoder, FRPCUG Member and HP employee will demonstrate some new HP technology and products. 8:30 - 9:00 Open Forum MARCH GENERAL FORUM MEETING WE WILL MEET AT THE FORT COLLINS SENIOR CENTER ON TUESDAY, MARCH 5 AT 7:00 PM. MEETING AGENDA 7:00 - 7:15 ANNOUNCEMENTS 7:15 - 7:30 BREAK 7:30 - 8:30 MICROSOFT XP-PRESENTATION ON THE NEW MICROSOFT XP OPERATING SYSTEM. 8:30 - 9:00 OPEN FORUM 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. 5 FRPCUG General Forum Meeting 7:00PM 13 FRPCUG Board Meeting 7:00PM NRFNUG Meeting 5:00PM 14 St. Valentine's Day 18 President's Day 21 Telcomm SIG 7:00PM 28 LINUX SIG 7:00PMMarch 2002 5 FRPCUG General Forum Meeting 7:00PM 13 FRPCUG Board Meeting 7:00PM NRFNUG Meeting 5:00PM 17 St. Patrick's Day 21 Telcomm SIG 7:00PM 24 Palm Sunday 28 LINUX SIG 7:00PM 29 Good Friday 31 Easter by Karen Woerner Can I Trust This site? So you've done your homework: researching the product, searching for the best buy. Now it is time to choose a merchant. But is the merchant worthy of your trust? There are several methods you can use to protect yourself online. Know whom you are buying from, use available resources to check out the merchant, and protect your privacy. Know whom you are buying from Most websites will have an "About" section with a description of the company, its physical location, and contact information. Make sure the merchant lists their customer service telephone numbers, customer service e-mail addresses, and the full company name and address on their web site. I wouldn't buy from any site that keeps its identity hidden. Know where you are on the internet. Perhaps you follow a number of links from a trusted site to the business site you are researching. Proceed with caution! As any seasoned traveler knows, just because you started your journey from home, you aren't necessarily in Kansas anymore! It is a good idea to always buy from companies based in the U.S. Buying from abroad limits your legal protection and you may incur hidden taxes. There should also be a section on Policies and Purchasing Guidelines. Read it! This way, you will know what to expect during and after the sale. Don't just click through the links as you complete your transactions-with a click of the mouse, you could easily be agreeing to something that could come back to haunt you! Also-check out the merchant's Security/Privacy policy. You need to know if your secure information is kept private or if the information is shared with a third party. Always read a company's Privacy Policy before submitting personal details. This could save you from unsolicited e-mail. Online Resources There are also online resources for checking out merchants. The Better Business Bureau keeps a list of members online at http://www.bbb.org/. The BBB is a self-governing body where members vow to uphold certain business standards. A companys membership does not guarantee that you will not be ripped off. However, if you do have a customer service issue that a member company will not resolve, you can file a complaint with the BBB who will investigate and sometimes attempt to mediate a solution. Bizrate.com offers customer reviews of online merchants, presented in the form of a Report Card, rating categories such as Ease of Ordering ,Customer Support and Shipping and Handling. ResellerRatings.com uses a survey system to evaluate merchants. The system is similiar to Bizrate.com and it allows you to view actual customer comments about merchants. CNET.com has a merchant certification system. Check out their sites at shopping.com and killerap.com. Merchants associated with CNET can get the CNET Certified Merchant stamp of approval if they meet certain CNET standards. Check out the security procedures used by the merchant If the merchant is transmitting and receiving sensitive information such as credit card numbers, the site should be using SSL (Secure Sockets Layer). Webopedia.com definition for SSL: Short for Secure Sockets Layer, a protocol developed by Netscape for transmitting private documents via the Internet. SSL works by using a public key to encrypt data that's transferred over the SSL connection. Both Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer support SSL, and many Web sites use the protocol to obtain confidential user information, such as credit card numbers. By convention, URLs that require an SSL connection start with https: instead of http: To insure that your browser can handle SSL, be sure to use the latest version of Netscape (2.0 or above), Internet Explorer (3.0 or above) or AOL (3.0 or above). If you use a different browser, check your documentation or check the help on the merchant's website. Use the latest version of your browser in order to support 128-bit encryption, which is the highest level of SSL available. You'll know your transaction is secure when: Netscape: a "complete key" (not a broken key) icon appears in the lower left hand corner of your Netscape Navigator screen. In Netscape 4.0 and above, the padlock in the lower left corner becomes closed with a yellow background Internet Explorer : a "closed padlock" icon appears in the lower right hand corner of your Internet Explorer screen The prefix "https:" replaces "http:" in the URL in your browser's address window. Other security measures Companies like VeriSign (http://VeriSign.com) and TrustE (http://truste.com/) provide security services to web merchants. Look for their symbols and site certificates. You can click on the link to find out more about the site and the security measures being used. VeriSign focuses on SSL security whereas TrustE focuses on privacy issues. Pay with a credit card It's always good to pay with credit cards, because the Consumer Credit Act ensures you protection. This means that your liability for an unauthorized charge is limited to $50. Some credit card companies now will even give you special protection for online purchases. Also--it's not a bad idea to use a separate card (with a low credit limit) for your online purchases. The low credit limit helps impulsive shopping and limits the buying power of anyone who gets your card number. Warning: Do not send your credit card details by ordinary insecure email or using an ordinary un-encrypted / insecure web page form. Keep a record of your transactions I always print out the final screen with the invoice details. There is usually a transaction number that you will need if you have to contact customer service. Make sure the printout has the URL (web address) of the site so you can visit it again. Arm yourself with knowledge, look for secure sites, and proceed with caution. Be a conscious shopper and your virtual shopping experience should be a pleasant (and rewarding) experience. Happy shopping! CUGG Random Access newsletter, December, 2001 A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station. Be honest. How often do you use the Merge Table Cells feature in Microsoft Word? If your answer is rarely or never, because you just need the word processing basics, then AbiWord may be the Word replacement you're looking for. Not only is AbiWord free, but it also has the same look and feel as Word. The program's features include basic character formatting (bold, underline, italics, and the like), a spelling checker, unlimited undo/redo, a find-and-replace function, and image insertion. It can import and export in many formats, including Word 97/2000, RTF, Palm, Psion, and XHTML documents. It also has the advantage of working across both Windows (95, 98, NT) and UNIX (Linux, BeOS, Solaris, FreeBSD) platforms. Check out and download AbiWord at: http://www.abisource.com/download/ Back to the Top by Rick Mattingly Microsoft Office prior to Office XP installed a module called Fast Find whose intent was to constantly monitor the user's file system, sorting the files for faster access by Office applications. While the intent is certainly a good idea, in my experience I have found Fast Find to cause a number of conflicts with other software applications. The solution was to disable Fast Find by removing it from the Startup Folder so that it would not be activated on boot up. Upon upgrading to Office XP recently I was pleased to find Fast Find gone from the scene. However, I soon discovered that Fast Find had simply been replaced with another module called Search. Search was constantly running my hard drive in the background, sorting my file structure. In addition, it didn't take long to discover a few conflicts between Search and several other applications, including a severe problem with 1Disk. Fortunately, it is easy to disable the Search tool from any Office module. Choose File > Search > Search Options and choose to turn Search off. This action disables Search in all Office XP modules. Problems solved once again. Close That Modem Connection If you are not actively using your PC modem connection you should hang up the connection. Leaving the modem connection open blocks incoming phone calls and leaves your system open to unwanted hacker access. Many ISP's will automatically disconnect an inactive connection after a set amount of time. But, to have your system automatically disconnect set your modem to disconnect itself. Double click the Modem icon in Control Panel, select Properties and click on the Connection tab. Choose the box titled "Disconnect a call if idle for more than" and enter the number of minutes to delay prior to automatic shut down of the modem connection. An additional benefit of this setting is that it will also result in a reminder window to disconnect the modem when the Internet browser is closed. Here's a neat tip for Office XP users from a smart guy who wishes only to be known as 'a Microsoft Office XP user who absolutely loves Que's Special Edition Using Office XP book' See: http://www.woodvswatch.com/Lasp?O789725134 Office XP users who need to do a clean install find that after installing Office XP, they have to reactivate it. That should be a simple over-the-Internet deal, but as we know, the real world doesn't always work the way it should. The solution? Take a simple precaution first and backup the file that stores your activation data before you reformat. After installing and activating Office XP for the first time, open an Explorer window, choose the “Show all files and folders” option, and browse to: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Office\Data. (This location may be slightly different for different operating systems; these instructions are for Windows XP.) Find the file called Data.dat. It should be about 4KB in size. Copy it to a floppy, a CD, a network drive, or an-other safe place. After reinstalling Office on the same hardware, restore Data.dat to the loca-tion where you found it. Open any Of-fice XP program and voila! You're activated, no muss, no fuss. Note that this workaround will not allow you to copy Office XP to a differ-ent machine. The Data.dat file contains details of your product ID and the hard-ware on your system. If either of these variables changes, Office XP will reject the file and force you to reactivate over the phone. November, 2001 Cache newsletter, PC Users Group of South Jersey by Greg Lousignont, PhD The following article is information which I have found to be extremely useful in the manipulation of graphic files.- Rick Mattingly Someone emailed me and asked how I got my pictures to come out so sharp (on the Internet). As I have mentioned before, I am somewhat of an amateur photographer. It started when I was a detective on the police department and I was responsible for taking crime scene pictures. Nothing like a nice bloody corpse you know! (Did I say that out loud?) Over the years I have learned a lot of tricks, and I have probably taken about 30 college courses dealing with graphics, layout design, etc. When it comes to displaying pictures on the computer the question of resolution always is the issue. Well believe it or not, MORE is NOT better. A computer monitor, and the pictures you see on Internet sites are optimum when they are displayed at 96 to 100 dpi (dots per inch.) That's the OPTIMUM resolution! 'Yes you can post a picture that has been scanned at 300 dpi but what you are doing is trying to shove 3 dots into one screen pixel. The computer will do that, but what it does is take those three dots and average them and shove that averaged information into one pixel. The result is a loss of detail. If you were going to print a picture on a printing press, the OPTIMUM dpi for most printing presses is 300 dpi, but on a computer screen it is 100 dpi. Well many of you may be scratching your head and saying, “Well hold on now. If that were the case, why would there be scanners that scan at 1200 dpi and 2400 dpi? What is the purpose of being able to scan at such high resolution, if it was not for the purpose of displaying the item scanned at 1200/2400 dpi?” The ability of scanners to scan at resolutions higher than 300 dpi was done so that you can enlarge an item and end up at the OPTIMUM dpi. Let me try to explain. Let's say that you had a 35mm slide you wanted to scan. Many scanners have this ability; to scan transparent material. Well we all know how small a 35mm slide is. What is it about 1 1/4 inches by 1 inch? All right, let's suppose we had an old scanner that only had the ability to scan at a maximum resolution of 300 dpi. We figure we would probably like to increase the size of our slide to about 4 X 5. Well this is a 400% increase. But your resolution decreases as your size increases. So if you increase the size of your picture by 400% you decrease the dpi by 25%. If you increased it by only 200% you'd decrease the dpi by 50%. Size of picture increase Dot per inch yield 200% 50% 400% 25% 800% 12.5% etc. Your goal should be to scan your picture at a size that will closely approximate the 100 dpi OPTIMUM. Well for a 300 dpi scanner, to scan your picture at 200% gives you 50% of the 300 dpi resolution or 150 dpi. That's OK as a final product, but it's not the 100 dpi OPTIMUM that we are looking for. We could scan at 400% but that would yield a final scan of 25% of our maximum dpi or 75 dpi. Well that's too low! But what if we scan at 300%? Well that would give us a final scan yield of 33% of 300 dpi or 100 dpi Hey, that's the maximum that you should enlarge your picture to because it yields the 100 dpi OPTIMUM resolution. Now granted your final picture scan is only going to be 2.75 inches by 3 inches, but the detail will be shaper than if you tried to enlarge it to 400% and overdrive the computer monitor by trying to jam 150 dots per inch, in 100 pixels. OK so back to the question of why we have scanners today that routinely scan at 1200 to 2400 dpi. These scanners were developed so that you could enlarge small items and arrive at the OPTIMUM dpi for primarily printing press jobs. If you only had a scanner that scanned at 300 dpi, like the old one's did, and the OPTIMUM dots per inch for printed pictures is 300 dpi, then everything would have to be scanned at 1 to 1 or 100% of it's original size in order to achieve the OPTIMUM printing resolution. So if you had a 35mm slide the largest you could scan it would be the original size of the slide; about 1.25 by 1 inch. You couldn't blow it up, because when you increase the size you decrease the dots per inch. As 300 dpi is the OPTIMUM for printing press jobs, and you are using an old 300 dpi scanner, if you increase the size of your picture at all, you decrease the dpi and get farther away from your OPTIMUM of 300 dpi. The scanner manufacturers, in their infinite wisdom, made scanners that had maximum resolutions of 2400 dpi so you could enlarge that 35mm slide and still end up with an optimum of a final scanned picture of 300 dpi. So using a 2400 dpi scanner, what would be the maximum enlargement of a 35mm slide we could get and arrive at a final resolution of 300 dpi? Well, if we increase the 35 mm by 200%, the dpi would drop to 1200 dpi. if we increased it by 400% the final dpi would be 600. If we increased it by 800% the final dpi would be 300 dpi. So the maximum we could enlarge that slide would be 800% or roughly 10 inches by 8 inches. What do you know an 8 X 10. Isn't that strange that it works out to one of the standard picture enlargement sizes? An 8 X 10 inch enlargement. That didn't happen by chance! If you were trying to get down to 100 dpi, you could increase the size of the picture even more! 1600% increase would take you to 150 dpi and so on. But what would be the sense in posting such a large picture? Most newer scanners allow you to specify the dots per inch and the final size and through software manipulation give you the final OPTIMUM yield for your scan. SO just set your size, say 300% and the dpi at 100 dpi and you will get an OPTIMUM picture that will show all the detail and have people on the forum gasping at the results. If your scanner does not have this ability, then scan at whatever dpi it will allow you to and then import the picture into one of the popular image processing software programs like Corel Photo Paint, or Adobe Photo Shop. These programs have a function called resample that will allow you to resize the picture and/or change the dots per inch. There are two good reasons to do this. First, I've already discussed, to maintain the maximum amount of detail and display your picture at the resolution that is OPTIMUM for the computer screen, which is 100 DPI! The Second is a 100 dpi picture loads, on the average, 300% quicker than a 300 dpi picture. And while we are on the subject of photo manipulation inside of software programs let me mention a couple of other things. Crop your pictures to get rid of superfluous background that is not needed. It will help the picture load quicker and conserve bandwidth. The other most helpful functions in your photo manipulation software is the “EQUALIZE' function, and your “BRIGHTNESS and CONTRAST” functions. The EQUALIZE function can sometimes take that picture that has too much RED or GREEN, and you can adjust the picture to balance it out some. The BRIGHTNESS can help lighten details on a TOO DARK picture and CONTRAST accentuates the differences between the dark and light areas of your shot. You need to experiment with these functions. However, there is no substitute for a good original camera shot. Bottom line is, if you want the best detail and speed in loading, don't put pictures on the internet in a resolution of anything higher than 100 dpi. I hope this wasn't too long, or incomprehensible. I think everyone will enjoy each others pictures more when they show the maximum amount of detail possible and they load quickly. Let's all be careful out there! Doc Back to the Top You can find out what version of Microsoft Internet Explorer you're using by selecting Help, About Internet Explorer. Look under Version and you should see a number, although it may not mean much to you. Here's a key: Internet Explorer 5.5 5.50.4134.0600 Internet Explorer 5.01 5.00.2919.6307 Internet Explorer 5.0 5.00.2014.0216 Internet Explorer 5.0 (Beta 2) 5.00.0910.1309 Internet Explorer 5.0 (Developer Preview) 5.00.0518.10 Internet Explorer 4.01a (includes Service Pack 1) 4.72.3110.8 Internet Explorer 4.01 4.72.2106.8 Internet Explorer 4.0 4.71.1712.3 Topica TipWorld - http://www.topica.com/ For Sale: Antique but still useful AST Bravo NB. Windows 3.1, 486/25 mhz, 125 meg HD, 4 megs RAM, Word for Windows and other software. Perfect for taking notes, writing letters. $100, 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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