 |
The Monthly Edition Of The k-Byte Newsletter |
 |
|
| v. 24, n. 8 August 2007 | Users Helping Users | ||
|
The Monthly Edition Of The k-Byte Newsletter |
|
|
| v. 24, n. 8 August 2007 | Users Helping Users | ||
|
Contents 1 Checkmate - Berry F. Phillips 2 About k-Byte 5 Free Online Mapping and Driving Directions - Ira Wilsker 6 Calendar of Events 7 August/September Calendars 8 What is PCI Express? - Brian K. Lewis 9 Tip of the Month - Mike Morris 10 About Trading Post 12 Map to Meeting Place 12 FRPCUG Contacts NO MEETING IN AUGUSTTHE WORLD OF GOOGLE, THE TOPIC FOR SEPTEMBER-SEE PAGE 6 Quote of the Month Morality to me is honesty, integrity, character. Old fashioned words. There are new words now that excuse everything. - Bette Davis Checkmate by Berry F. Phillips, Computer Club of Oklahoma City, http://www.ccokc.org, bfpdata(at)1access.net Man-vs-machine has been a theme that has intrigued the public for many ears. The Turk was a chess playing automaton that was a sensation in Europe in the 1770s. The Turk was a wooden cabinet with a chess board on top played by a life-sized mannequin dressed in Turkish style. This mysterious device could play against and often defeat human chess opponents including Napoleon Bonaparte and Benjamin Franklin. In truth, the Turk was a clever illusion as the cabinet concealed a human chess expert who moved the Turk's arm and played the games. The Turk was created by Wolfgang von Kempleur and was not only a success in Europe but later in the United States. Eventually the Turk was no longer popular and was destroyed in a fire in Philadelphia in 1864. Edgar Allen Poe wrote a widely read 1836 essay proposing that the Turk concealed a human chess player. The best known of the man-vs-machine devices was the world-famous Deep Blue. Deep Blue began as a chess program named Chipset (later Deep Thought) and was created by Fenghsuing Hsu and Thomas Anantharman at Carnegie Mellon University. The creators later joined IBM Corporation which supported the development of the system. Deep Thought was eventually renamed Deep Blue, a twist on IBM's corporation nick name, Big Blue. Deep Blue was a RS/6000 SP parallel processor with specialized microchips for chess and calculated 200 million chess moves per second. Deep Blue lost a six-game match to world chess champion, Gary Kasperov, in 1996. But in the 1997 rematch, Deep Blue made history by defeating Kasperov 3.5 games to 2.5 games. Many in the chess world believe that Gary Kasperov is the greatest human chess player. He had never lost a game previously and was unnerved at his loss and began ascribing almost human features to the computer. While Deep Blue had access to all of Kasperov's games, Kasperov was not allowed to see Deep Blue's previous games for study. He received $400,000 for his loss and would have received $700,000 if he had won. IBM retired Big Blue after the match. Another famous chess playing computer was Deep Fritz backed by a German company ChessSise and written by two programmers, Franz Marsh and Mathias Feist. The word, deep, is a nod to IBM's Deep Blue. Deep Fritz was in the news in 2001 when a chess match ended in a 4-4 tie with Russian chess expert, Vladimir Krammick. In 2003, the long awaited chess match between Gary Kasperov and Deep Junior, a three-time world champion computer developed by Amir Ban and Shay Bushinksky who were both from Israel was played in New York City. The match ended in a 3.0 to 3.0 tie. Kasperov quipped to his mother, "at least I didn't lose." Well, this subject is getting too "deep" for me. Now I don't have to worry about anymore literary "moves" since I have been officially "checkmated." Obtained from APCUG with the author's permission for publication by APCUG member groups. This article has been provided to APCUG by the author solely for publication by APCUG member groups. All other uses require the permission of the author (see e-mail address above).  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.  by Ira Wilsker, APCUG Director, Iwilsker(at)apcug.net WEBSITES: http://maps.live.com http://maps.google.com http://maps.yahoo.com http://www.mapquest.com Many of us like to use maps when we travel. Maps can be used to display driving directions and points of interest. Fortunately there are several excellent and free mapping utilities available on the internet, such as those provided by Microsoft's "Live" service, Google, Yahoo!, and AOL's Mapquest.
August General Forum Meeting NO MEETING IN AUGUST September General Forum Meeting We will meet at the Fort Collins Senior Center on Tuesday, September 4th 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 The World of Google 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 World of Google is the topic of the September 4th meeting. Most people think of Google as a Search Engine. And, perhaps after reading this issue of the newsletter, a source of maps and driving directions. There is much more. At the meeting, you will get information on Goggle Desktop™ (word processor, spreadsheet and other applications), and many other features available from the Google website. This presentation is courtesy of a team of dedicated FRPCUG members. Future SIG's, Seminars, and Other Meetings 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. Shop Talk One-on-one assistance. Drop in to the Senior Center lobby on any Saturday (holidays excepted) from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM 4 Shop Talk 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM 11 Shop Talk 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM 15 FRPCUG Board Meeting 7:00 PM 16 New Technology SIG Meeting 7:00 PM 18 Shop Talk 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM 25 Shop Talk 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM September 2007 4 FRPCUG General Forum Meeting 7:00 PM 8 Shop Talk 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM 12 FRPCUG Board Meeting 7:00 PM 15 Shop Talk 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM 20 New Technology SIG Meeting 7:00 PM 22 Shop Talk 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM 29 Shop Talk 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM by Brian K. Lewis, PhD, Regular Columnist, The Sarasota PC Monitor, Sarasota PCUG, Florida, http://www.spcug.org, bwsail (at) yahoo dot com Let's start this off with an explanation of PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect). These are the slots in the motherboard of your computer used for connecting peripheral devices directly to computer bus. Now you're asking what is the computer bus? Essentially, the bus is the electrical means for a peripheral device to connect to the computers chipset. The chipset is the interconnection between the peripherals, the main processor and system memory. (Got all that?) The original PCI bus released in 1992 had a maximum communication rate of 33 MHz. This allows data transmission at a maximum rate of 133 megabytes per second (MB/sec.). The bus is used by such things as the sound system, video card, network adapters, parallel and serial ports. In the PCI system all data are transmitted in parallel. In parallel transmission many "wires" or connections are required for each PCI slot or integrated device. For example, if you have a 32 bit data transmission path from the PCI slot to the chipset, this requires 32 connecting wires just for data. Additional wires are required for control signals. With six PCI slots you can have more than 1,000 wires required for the connections. Each wire should be exactly the same length so that all the data arrive simultaneously. However, in a computer it is impossible for each wire to be exactly the same length. So as the speed of devices increased, data started arriving out of order. Therefore, the receiver had to delay until all the data were available before it could be processed. Another aspect of PCI is that all the devices share the bus at the same time so the actual data rate per device will be significantly less than the maximum rate. It's like having a speed limit of 65 miles per hour on a multi-lane highway. When all the traffic lanes are full, everything slows down. Think Chicago or Atlanta in rush hour! Shortly after PCI was introduced, the arrival of 3-D video cards made PCI obsolete for graphics purposes. That resulted in the development of the AGP slot in the motherboard for AGP video cards. AGP uses a separate bus and this freed up bandwidth on the PCI bus for other peripherals. The AGP-8X system can transmit data at the rate of 2.134 gigabytes per second (GB/sec.). In spite of the removal of the data intensive video card transmissions, the number of high-speed peripherals being added to computers quickly saturated the PCI bus and it remained a data transport bottleneck. Additional problems arise as communication can only be made in one direction at a time. Today, many communications networks utilize bidirectional traffic. In 2004 the PCI Express (PCIe) bus started showing up on computer motherboards. This is quite different from the original PCI bus and in the strictest definition is not a true bus. It is described as a high performance, scalable, point to point serial bus. Now, that statement requires some further explanation as I'm sure it is not immediately clear to all of you. It certainly wasn't to me the first time I read it. First, consider the "serial" relationship. In a serial device the data is transmitted in a single stream rather than in several parallel streams. This is like reducing a multi-lane highway to one lane in each direction. That should slow things down instead of speeding it up! But in PCIe the clue is that you now have a point to point relationship. That means the device is connected directly to the chipset and does not have to share bandwidth with other devices. It is like having a high speed commuter corridor that bypasses all the slow traffic on the rest of the multi-lane highway. You may have multiple PCIe connections to the chipset. To prevent problems the connections occur through a system similar to a router. This router passes the data packets from each device in an ordered manner with a minimum of delay and contributes to the speed and accuracy of the transmission. Because this is a point to point connection with each device having its own pathway, this is not a bus under the strict definition of a computer bus. It is also important to note that PCIe transmission occurs in data packets. The connections are in dual pairs so there is a possibility of a simultaneous bidirectional transmission. One pair is used for transmission and the other for receiving. As mentioned above, data is transmitted in packets, rather than in a continuous stream. Each packet contains an identifier so the data can be reassembled at the receiving end. This allows the receiver to work with multiple inputs. The data is encoded in what is called 8b/10b. This means that eight data bits are packaged with two information bits in a ten-bit package. (See how much simpler it is to call this 8b/10b?) Also consider that this is the method used for data and voice transmission on the Internet. Hard drives have moved to an SATA interface that is a serial connection instead of the parallel IDE connection. Gigabit ethernet cards are also designed with a serial connection. More devices are moving to serial connectivity to gain additional speed and reliability. The scalable part of the PCIe bus is in its ability to work with more than one pair of connections. These are called x1 (or times 1), x4, x8 or x16. The x1 version (two data pairs) can transmit the encoded data at a bidirectional rate of 500 MB/s or 250 MB/s in each direction. The x16 version (32 data pairs) can transmit at a rate of 8 GB/s. This is the combined bidirectional rate. The rate in one direction is half this figure. There is a second version of PCIe in the works, PCIe 2.0. This is expected to double the current transmission speeds and provide other benefits. PCIe slots in the motherboard come in various sizes depending on the number of lanes they use for connection. These vary from the smallest connector for the x1 version to the largest for x16. It is the 16x version that is currently found on new motherboards which supports the latest graphics (video) cards. Unlike the AGP slots, the x16 slot can be used for peripherals other than the video card. Another interesting aspect of PCIe is one means by which it achieves its high data rates. It is called "low-voltage differential signaling". Another phrase that I had better explain a little more. As I mentioned earlier, connections occur in a pair of "lanes" in each direction. One of the lanes carries a "positive" image of the data and the other carries a "negative" or "inverted" image. The transmission of the data follows strict rules such that any noise that occurs will affect both lines. When the data is reassembled at the destination, the receiver collects both signals, inverts the negative back to positive and sums both signals. This effectively removes the noise from the signal. PCIe is also backward compatible with PCI devices and software that uses PCI devices. The configuration space and programmability of PCI Express devices are unchanged from traditional PCI. In fact, all operating systems can boot without modification on a PCI Express architecture. Programs originally written for PCI devices can run unchanged on PCI Express devices because the PCIe layer is transparent to the application software. This provides benefits to users who don't have to upgrade software applications to work with newer hardware. PCIe has another characteristic that greatly improves on PCI. It has an active power management (APM) system. When a PCIe link is not in use it does require that the link remain active so that the transmitter and receiver remain synchronized. It is the role of the APM to reduce the power level whenever the link is inactive. The catch is that when data needs to be transmitted there is a recovery time to allow full activation of the transmitter/receiver. The longer the recovery time, the lower the power usage. Overall, the systems are designed for the lowest power usage with the shortest recovery time. There is a gradual transition from the motherboard with combined PCIe/PCI slots to those that will have only PCIe slots as more PCIe plug-in cards become available. This will also affect the size of the motherboard and the ultimate size of the computer. The specification for the PCIe mini-card allows for a card half the size of a standard PCI mini-card. Most of these mini-cards may be destined for laptop computers. However, some desktop designs that take advantage of all PCIe input are far smaller than the standard desktop computer. Some of the new small box computers utilize these smaller motherboards. So when you get your next computer you should now have a better understanding of the role of the PCIe slots it contains. Dr. Lewis is a former university & medical school professor. He has been working with personal computers for more than thirty years. Obtained from APCUG with the author's permission for publication by APCUG member groups. This article has been provided to APCUG by the author solely for publication by APCUG member groups. All other uses require the permission of the author (see e-mail address above). by Mike Morris, Front Range PC Users Group, http://www.frpcug.org Custom keyboard shortcuts are a hidden gem in Microsoft Word. The key to the custom keyboard shortcuts is that you can control all aspects of text with only two keystrokes.  There are a multitude of keyboard shortcuts provided by the Windows operating system, and by Microsoft Word. For example, if you want to change text to bold, you can highlight the text and use the Ctrl+b shortcut. For those unfamiliar with shortcuts, that means you press and hold down the first key (Ctrl), then press once and release the second key. Finally, release the first key. Shortcuts are a significant productivity enhancement for repetitive tasks. If, for example, you are working on a long document with many repeated features such as headers-or even many short documents with a small number of headers or other repeated features-shortcuts speed up the process and save wear and tear on the wrist. Shortcuts are particularly helpful when used in conjunction with the Microsoft Word "Styles" feature (more on Styles in a later tip). In fact, you assign custom keyboard shortcuts from the Modify Styles dialog box. This is what that Modify Styles dialog box looks like in Word 2002 (there is a similar feature in Word 97):  Note the menu that is displayed when you click on "Format" includes the Font, Paragraph, Tabs and several other formatting options. Also note that "Shortcut key" is the last option on that list. If you click on that, the Customize Keyboard dialog box is displayed. Click in the "Press new shortcut key" field. Then, all you need to do is to press the keys you want to use for your new shortcut. In the graphic, Alt+z is used to apply the style identified under "Description." Use the Alt key instead of the Ctrl key for custom shortcuts to avoid conflict with existing shortcuts. 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. | ||||
