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The Monthly Edition Of The k-Byte Newsletter |
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| v. 24, n. 3 March 2007 | Users Helping Users | ||
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The Monthly Edition Of The k-Byte Newsletter |
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| v. 24, n. 3 March 2007 | Users Helping Users | ||
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Contents 1 The Big Red X - Vinny La Bash 2 About k-Byte 4 VIRUS WARNING! 5 Review of Spin It Again - Rod Rakes 6 Calendar of Events 7 March/April Calendars 8 Tip of the Month - Herb Goldstein 9 Definitely NOT Recommended 9 Hybrid Hard Drives Hitting the Market 10 A Minor FYI On USB Flash Drives - Thomas C. Steele 10 About Trading Post 12 Map to Meeting Place 12 FRPCUG Contacts by Vinny La Bash, a member of the Sarasota PCUG, Florida www.spcug.org labash(at)spcug.org Email, along with the spreadsheet, is one of the greatest computer applications ever developed. Along with its usefulness are a few minor, but irritating inconveniences. The one we'll address in this article is the frustration with observing a red X where an image should appear. There are several possible causes for pictures failing to materialize. They are not particularly difficult to correct, but the method is far from obvious. Start by right-clicking the red X and from the popup menu select "Show Picture". If this works, consider yourself blessed. More likely is that either your email setup is not allowing the picture to be viewed or the sender's options are not allowing the picture to be sent. Let's make sure that your setup isn't causing the problem, and then we'll figure out what to do with the sender. If the problem is at your end, it could be caused by having Internet Explorer's email settings too restrictive. To reset the default settings for Internet Explorer 6.0 open Internet Explorer, click Tools from the top menu bar, and select Internet Options. 1. Click on the General tab to make sure it's active. 2. Click Delete Files. 3. Check Delete All Offline Content, and click OK. 4. Click the Delete Cookies button, and click OK. 5. Click the Settings button. 6. Set cache to 25 MB or less, and select Every Visit to Page, then click OK. Next, make the Security tab active by clicking on it. There are four zones listed on the security tab: Internet, Local Intranet, Trusted Sites, and Restricted Sites. 1. Click Internet. 2. Click the Default Level button. 3. Repeat the steps for each of the remaining zones. Third, click on the Privacy tab, and click the Default button. If the Default button is grayed out, ignore this step. Now click the Connections tab. 1. Click the LAN Settings button. 2. Make sure nothing is checked, and click OK. Last, click on the Advanced tab. 1. Click Restore Defaults. 2. Click Apply and OK. Internet Explorer 7 is similar, but there are enough differences to warrant its own set of instructions. Open Internet Explorer, click Tools, and select Internet Options. First, look at the General tab. 1. Click the Delete button. 2. The Delete Browsing History dialog box appears. Click the Delete Files button. 3. Select Yes in the confirmation box. 4. Repeat step 2 for the Delete cookies, and Delete history buttons. 5. Click Close. 6. Click the Settings button in the Browsing history section. 7. Select "Every time I visit the webpage," then set the "Disk space to use" value to 50 Megabytes or less. 8. Click OK. Next, click the Security tab. There are four zones listed on the security tab: Internet, Local Intranet, Trusted Sites, and Restricted Sites. 1. If the Set all zones to default level button is not grayed, out click it and you're done with this section. Otherwise continue with step 2. 2. Click Internet. 3. Click the Default level button (if it is not grayed out). 4. Repeat the steps for the remaining zones. Click on the Privacy tab, and click the Default button unless it's grayed out. Then click the Connections tab. 1. Click the LAN settings button to activate another dialog box. 2. Make sure nothing is checked, and click OK. Finally, click on the Advanced tab. 1. Click the Restore advanced settings button. Don't, repeat don't click the Reset button as that will delete any forms and passwords saved through auto-complete. 2. Click Apply and OK. That takes care of your browser. If you're using Outlook or Outlook Express, you need to check several more options that control how images are received or sent. There are two ways to send pictures in Emails. You can imbed the picture in the email or you can send the picture as an attachment. Whichever way you choose, you need to set your email client so it can handle pictures, and you do that by setting your email to work in HTML format. We'll start with Outlook Express and finish up with Outlook. We'll make a big assumption that all of your recipients are set up to receive their Email in HTML format. You need to make sure that you have Outlook Express set up to send Email in HTML. Service Pack 2 should be installed on your system. Because of its extra security features, you need to avoid blocking attachments when you send or receive email. 1. Open Outlook Express, go to the Tools/menu, and click "Options", 2. Click the "Send" tab, and then select "HTML" as the format to send mail. 3. Click the Button to the right that's named "HTML Settings", and put a check in the box that says "Send Pictures with Messages". Be sure that "Quoted Printable" is the selected in the "Encode text using" box. 4. Click OK. 5. Click the Read tab. 6. Confirm that the "Read all messages in plain text" is not checked. Your machine is now setup to correctly send and receive images. If people who are receiving your email complain about red Xs, send them these instructions. If you want to check out your system, try sending some emails to yourself. If you're using Outlook, perform the following check. 1. Open Outlook and select Options from the Tools menu. 2. Select the Mail Format tab. 3. In the "Message format" section select HTML from the drop down menu. 4. Click the Internet Format button 5. In the HTML options section, confirm there is no checkmark in any of the boxes in the dialog box. 6. In the Outlook Rich Text options section, select "Convert to HTML format" from the drop down menu. 7. Click OK to save the settings. 8. Click OK to exit. Other possibilities that could prevent pictures being displayed in your email are your anti-virus and firewall settings. You may need to relax the security settings on these programs. We can't provide instructions for this because we don't know whose software you're using. You may need to contact the producer of the software for information. If you create and send an email with a photo image or forward an email with a photo in it and the recipient gets a red X instead of the picture, you can be fairly confident that their email, firewall or anti-virus setup is preventing the picture from being seen. Send these instructions to them. Published 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 Front Range PC Users Group, nor the officers of Front Range PC Users Group, nor the editors of or contributors to k-Byte 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 ©2007 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. 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 45 days prior to the month of publication. For example, ads for the March newsletter must be submitted by January 15th. For pricing and schedules for ad design, connect to contact(at)frpcug.org. About FRPCUG FRPCUG is an independent nonprofit computer society, so incorporated with the State of Colorado and open to anyone interested in MS-DOS, Windows, or UNIX/LINUX 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, access to SIGs and selected seminars. Annual dues are $25 for individual/family membership ($20 for students) and $50 for corporate/group membership. There is a dangerous virus being passed around electronically, orally, and by hand. This virus is called Worm-Overload-Recreational-Killer (WORK). If you receive WORK from any of your colleagues, your boss, or anyone else via any means DO NOT TOUCH IT. This virus will wipe out your private life completely. If you should come into contact with WORK put your jacket on and take two good friends to the nearest grocery store. Purchase the antidote known as Work-Isolating-Neutralizer-Extract (WINE) or Bothersome-Employer-Elimination-Rebooter (BEER). Take the antidote repeatedly until WORK has been completely eliminated from your system. You should forward this warning to 5 friends. If you do not have 5 friends, you have already been infected and WORK is controlling your life. by Rod Rakes, APCUG Advisor; President & Editor, Gwinnett SeniorNet PC Users Group, Georgia; Editor & Webmaster, Huntsville PC User Group, Alabama Convert vinyl records and cassette tapes to MP3's and CD's What is it? Spin It Again by Acoustica, http://www.Acoustica.com, is a software program that will make it easy to convert your collection of cassettes, 33's ,45's and even 78's to MP3/WMA/WAV files or directly to CDs. Some folks have even used the program to rip 8-Tracks. Remember those? Cost? $34.95 retail, but $27.96 for User Group members. Members of Font Range PC Users Group can obtain the discount code by sending an email to contact@frpcug.org. You will receive a registration code via email. But, you can try it free for three times (3 albums). The program is an 8+ MB download. System Requirements: If you have a Windows computer with a soundcard you're ready to use the software! How good is it? REALLY GOOD! First off, I was impressed by the voice instructions when the program starts. There is a Hookup Wizard with photos of how to connect to your amplifier, cassette player or turntable. Songs are automatically divided into files based on the lull between songs. A Level Wizard sets the volume level automatically based on playing a portion of your loudest song in an album. You can save the files as MP3, OGG, WMA or WAV files. A variety of choices are available to clean up the recordings, e.g., Damaged Record, Damaged Tape, Tape clean with Equalizer, Tape Noise Begone, Warped record, even a No-preamp blues setting, etc. Someone referred to this as a Mikey cereal eater that eats Snap, Crackle and Pop. Accept the defaults and it's very easy work. I recorded three record albums and two cassette tapes of music using a stereo amplifier, cassette player and turntable. The result was free of any clicks, pops and hiss of the original recordings, at least to my ears. The only "problem" I had was a song by Judy Collins that had long silent passages which fooled the software into thinking there were several songs. But, it was easily fixed with the Merge options. (Be sure to read the tutorial.) I chose to save the songs in MP3 format and gave each a name in the chart before actually hitting the Save/Convert button. You can embed in the files the Artist, Title, Genre, Year and add comments. On the last test I chose to record an album directly to CD using the Spin It Again software. It worked like a charm with no need to make a later recording from the MP3's using Nero, Roxio, etc. I had a priceless cassette tape of family nonsense that had been re-recorded from reel to reel tapes from long ago when my children were small. The volume varied greatly. I placed the cassette tape in a small inexpensive hand held player (Walkman type) and connected a cable between the speaker jack and the Line In jack in the back of my computer. This meant I could adjust the sound during the low and high volume sections of the tape by using the player's volume control. That worked satisfactorily since the tape was not perfection in the first place. The recording was even better than the original with little or no hiss and a more consistent volume level! There is an option for auto-leveling the volume for a given song to eliminate distortion on high peaks. An MP3 file of LaPaloma had a loud click at the 51-second mark that could not be cleaned properly even with the special peak click filtering after manually isolating the click. I was finally able to eliminate the click but each side of the original click had a warble that was worse than the click. The Help file said if this happens, try to make a better recording somehow. Since it was only one click, I would guess there was a spot of something on the vinyl surface or a pin point gouge. You can't make a purse out of a sow's ear, huh? One of the fun and useful features is the ability to adjust the speed of a recording. I recorded several old 78 RPM records using the 45 RPM speed of my turntable and increased the speed accordingly using the drop-down menu until it sounded normal. I'm trying to find my 78 RPM copy of Roy Acuff's "Sixteen Chickens in a Frying Pan." Everybody needs to hear that. For the tinkering types out there, many tweaks are available including a change in sampling rates, sensitivity of track detection, recording levels, etc. Highly recommended. Rod Rakes (Ed. note: author's recommendation. Please note k-Byte disclaimer on page 2.) March General Forum Meeting We will meet at the Fort Collins Senior Center on Tuesday, March 6th 7:00 PM Meeting Agenda: 7:00 to 7:15 Announcements 7:15 to 8:00 Open Forum 8:00 to 8:15 Break 8:15 to 9:00 Computer Securty April General Forum Meeting We will meet at the Fort Collins Senior Center on Tuesday, April 3rd 7:00 PM Meeting Agenda: 7:00 to 7:15 Announcements 7:15 to 8:00 Open Forum 8:00 to 8:15 Break 8:15 to 9:00 Internet Browsers and Plug-Ins See you at the meetings! Get full membership benefits. If you are not a current member, download an application from http://www.frpcug.org/memberap.htm Future General Forum Meeting Notes The March General Forum Meeting topic is Computer Security. The Presentation will be made by Jamie Leben of IT-Works in Loveland. New Technology SIG The New Technology SIG provides advance support for all PC related operating system and telecommunication issues. The meetings are held at 7:00 PM on the third Thursday of each month at Bluebird Manufacturing Inc., 1421 Webster Avenue, in Fort Collins. For more information, contact Chuck McJilton at 970-493-2987. Board Meeting FRPCUG's executive board meets on Wednesday of the week following the General Forum meeting. All members are welcome and are encouraged to attend. These meetings are held at 7:00 PM in the Staff Board Room of the Fort Collins Senior Center. Directions to the Fort Collins Senior Center The Fort Collins Senior Center is located at 1200 Raintree Drive. This site is situated at the northwest corner of the Shields and Raintree Drive intersection, on the north side of the Raintree Shopping Center. Check the marquee at the main entrance for directions to the specific meeting room. See map on page 12. 6 FRPCUG General Forum Meeting 7:00 PM 14 FRPCUG Board Meeting 7:00 PM 15 New Technology SIG Meeting 7:00 PM April 2007 3 FRPCUG General Forum Meeting 7:00 PM 11 FRPCUG Board Meeting 7:00 PM 19 New Technology SIG Meeting 7:00 PM by Herb Goldstein at: revieweditor@spcug.org HOW_TO_FORWARD. This excellent message ABSOLUTELY applies to ALL of us who send e-mail: Do you really know how to forward e-mail? 50% of us do; 50% do NOT. Do you wonder why you get viruses or junk mail? Do you hate it? Every time you forward an e-mail there is information left over from the people who got the message before you, namely their e-mail addresses & names. As the messages get forwarded along, the list of addresses builds, and builds, and builds, and all it takes is for some poor sap to get a virus, and his or her computer can send that virus to every e-mail address that has come across his computer. Or, someone can take all of those addresses and sell them or send junk mail to them in the hopes that you will go to the site and he will make five cents for each hit. That's right, all of that inconvenience over a nickel! How do you stop it? Well, there are two easy steps: 1) When you forward an e-mail, DELETE all of the other addresses that appear in the body of the message. That's right, DELETE them. Highlight them and delete them, backspace them, cut them, whatever it is you know how to do. It only takes a second. You MUST click the "Forward" button first, then you will have full editing capabilities against the body and headers of the message. If you don't click on "Forward" first, you won't be able to edit the message at all. AOL users can highlight the message text and then click on forward this will send only the selected text plus a short line on it's source, which can then be highlighted and deleted. 2) Whenever you send an e-mail to more than one person, do NOT use the To: or Cc: columns for adding e-mail address. Always use the BCC: (blind carbon copy) column for listing the e-mail addresses. This is the way that people you send to only see their own e-mail address. If you don't see your BCC: option click on where it says To: and your address list will appear. Highlight the address and choose BCC: and that's it, it's that easy. When you send to BCC: your message will automatically say "Undisclosed Recipients" in the "TO:" field of the people who receive it. Another method is to insert your address in the "TO:" and everyone else's in the "BCC:" field which will completely hide everyone's address except yours. The only drawback with this method is you will be sending the message back to yourself and will have to delete it from your own mail box. However on the plus side, if someone wishes to reply to your message and accidentally, or intentionally, clicks the "REPLY TO ALL" field, the message will only be delivered to your mail box as all address in the "BCC:" field have been effectively blocked. I know this works because I receive emails from people I do not know that are replies to one I sent out to someone on my email list and it only comes back with my address and the person to whom they are replying to, not everyone I had originally sent the email to. So please, in the future, let's stop the junk mail and the viruses! from the Associated Press February 27, 2007 Man believed to be using a laptop is killed in car crash. YUBA CITY, CALIF. - A man who authorities say appeared to be driving while using his laptop computer died Monday when his car crossed into oncoming traffic and collided with a Hummer. California Highway Patrol officers found the victim's computer still running and plugged into the cigarette lighter of his 1991 Honda Accord. The 28-year-old victim was a computer tutor in Chico, Calif. The Sutter County coroner's office was withholding his identity until his family could be notified. "The screen itself shattered from the impact, so we can't be sure if he was working on it or not, but we think from the way it was found that he might have been working," said Sgt. John Pettigrew, a CHP spokesman. "It's a straight road right there, and it doesn't look like he fell asleep or anything else." The couple in the Hummer escaped the 8:30 a.m. collision with bumps and bruises, Pettigrew said. The crash, near the intersection of California highways 99 and 113 about 30 miles north of the capital, totaled both vehicles. It closed a section of Highway 99 south of Yuba City for about two hours. from the Status Register, newsletter of the Champaign-Urbana Computer Users Group, http://www.cucug.org/sr/sr0701.html#PC.1.2 One of the big hardware advances that Vista takes advantage of is support for hybrid hard drives, a new generation of mobile hardware that includes both flash and hard-disk memory in a single unit. The hybrid hard drives will reportedly speed boot-up, return from sleep and hibernation, and even general performance, although you'll need a Vista-based mobile computer to take advantage of them. Well, I have good news if you've been waiting anxiously: This week, Samsung announced that it will soon ship its first hybrid hard drives, which feature as much as 4GB of flash memory. The company says Vista users who utilize these drives will see a 20 percent performance boost in typical hard drive usage. Versions from Toshiba, Hitachi, Seagate, and Fujitsu are also on the way. by Thomas C. Steele, Technology Director, Manteno CUSD #5 from the Status Register, newsletter of the Champaign-Urbana Computer Users Group, http://www.cucug.org/sr/sr0612.html#COMMON.2 Flash drives can only operate for a limited number of life cycles (about 100,000 writes to the same location). While 100K is a lot of writes, if the flash drive was somehow used as a swap file for something, it could have surpassed this rather quickly. Steve Gibson (SpinRite creator, Anti-Spyware pioneer) talked about this on his podcast .. He knew a guy that was trying to run the OS off a flash drive and toasted it in 2 days. The higher end units like the SansCruzer line use internal logic to distribute the writes across the memory so it extends the life significantly. Related links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Gibson http://www.grc.com/securitynow.htm http://www.twit.tv/ http://www.tech-geeks.org/geeklog/ Noncommercial Advertising 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 and only $10 for non-members. To place an ad in Trading Post contact Rick Mattingly at 970-613-8968 or e-mail to rmatt(at)mesanetworks.net. Commercial Advertising Specifications (Per Issue) Full Page (8.5" x 11")*$50.00 Half Page (5.5" x 8.5")*$30.00 Quarter Page (4.25" x 5.5")*$20.00 Business Card (2" x 3.5")*$10.00 We offer a substantial discount for repeat ads and continuing contracts. For an additional charge we will design your ad for you. Contact Rick Mattingly for information on this service at 970-613-8968 or e-mail to rmatt(at)mesanetworks.net. *Allow for 0.5 inch margins   Source: http://www.mapquest.com |
| FRPCUG CONTACTS | ||||
| Telephone Area Code 970 | ||||
| FRPCUG Officers | Name | Work | Home | |
| President | Rick Mattingly | 613-8968 | rmatt(at)mesanetworks.net | |
| Vice President | Don Anderson | 498-3534 | 482-0943 | doande(at)gmail.com |
| Treasurer | Virginia Febinger | 498-2127 | gingercln(at)cs.com | |
| Secretary | Jim Bragonier | 484-9061 | james.bragonier(at)comcast.net | |
| k-Byte Staff | ||||
| Editor-in-Chief | Mike Morris | 461-2002 | twriterext(at)gmail.com | |
| Features Editor | Mike Morris | |||
| Advertising Coordinator | Open - We need a volunteer! | Contact Rick Mattingly in interim. | ||
| Other Contacts | ||||
| Membership Coordinator | Jack Linder | 663-2151 | jack(at)frpcug.org | |
| New Technology SIG | Chuck McJilton | 493-2987 | cdmcjs(at)gmail.com | |
| Door Prize Coordinator | John Goldey | 221-0877 | johngoldey(at)juno.com | |
| FRPCUG Fax Line | 493-1408 | |||
| FRPCUG Home Page w/E-Mail | http://www.frpcug.org | |||
| FRPCUG Officer E-Mail | contact(at)frpcug.org | |||
| Membership in the Front Range PC Users Group is $25 per year for individuals and $50 per year for companies. | ||||
| Mail your completed application and payment to: | ||||
| FRPCUG | ||||
| PMB 152 | ||||
| 305 W. Magnolia | ||||
| Fort Collins CO 80521 | ||||
| or join in person at the monthly meeting on the first Tuesday of each month. | ||||
