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Contents
1 State of the Group - Rick Mattingly
2 About k-Byte
3 October/November Meeting Reports - Mike Meyer
4 How Do We Manage Large Amounts Of Photos? - Richard T. Robusto
6 Toaster Software
8 The Ultimate Urban Legend
9 Maximum Cable Speeds
12 Never Retype - Coco Johnston
14 Calendar of Events
16 December/January Calendars
18 Membership Application
19 Scanner Roundup - Al Massey
24 Broadband Time
24 Free Internet Discussion Group
28 IMSISOFT Deals - Rick Mattingly
28 Stop Program Loads - Rick Mattingly
29 C.S.U. Press Release
29 Star Office Update
31 FRPCUG Contacts
"I cannot give you the formula for success, but here's the formula for failure:
Try to please everybody." - Benjamin Franklin
ELECTION OF OFFICERS FOR 2001 AT DECEMBER MEETING.
State of the Group
by Rick Mattingly
Well, winter is definitely here and it appears that Mother Nature is looking to make us pay for those past mild winters! Oh well, maybe I'll finally get some of those inside chores done.
After we get the busy holiday season out the way we have plans to put on a number of training sessions just for members. A few of the topic suggestions so far include Beginning and Intermediate Windows, Digital Photography and Graphic Imaging. Remember, if you have an interest in these or any subject, consider coordinating a Special Interest Group. You do not have to be an expert in the topic to be a SIG Coordinator and it's a great way to gain the knowledge you are seeking.
Stay warm and I'll see you at the meetings!
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About k-Byte
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 © 2000 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.
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Scribe's Corner
October Meeting Report
By Mike Meyer
40 people attended the October 3rd meeting of the FRPCUG. During the Announcements Period, President Rick Mattingly noted that the annual membership fees were now due. During the SIG reports, Doug Boicourt stated that he would like to have someone volunteer to handle the HTML SIG, because he won't be unable to do so for the rest of this year. Glen York again reminded the membership that the monthly Internet Safari meetings are now being held at the Barnes & Noble bookstore on So. College Ave., beginning at 7 p.m. He also will be teaching two courses at the Ft. Collins Senior Center this month on the use of the Internet.
During the Open Forum session, problems were discussed and their potential solutions were proposed involving the installation of Windows ME over previous installations of WIN 95 & 98; Microsoft on-line support capabilities; junk e-mail (SPAM), including the proposed legislative remedies; computer privacy issues; and the new "CueCat" bar code reader, currently available free from the local Radio Shack store, including more privacy issues.
Rick Mattingly once again was our speaker for the Main Program. He gave a very informative and timely discussion on the basics of digital photography. Digital cameras require no film, so no film processing is necessary, and the operator controls output quality and has the capability to upload the photos to Internet web-sites. Available features are similar to those for 35 mm cameras, with prices ranging from about $100 to $800 for general use cameras. The professional models are considerably more expensive. All require batteries for their operation, suitable storage media, a high quality color printer, and adapters for overseas operation. For most casual users, the 1.5 megapixel cameras currently offer the best bargains. Additional discussion dealt with the types of available storage media, resolution, paper quality, and image manipulation software (e.g., Adobe Photoshop). After the formal part of the presentation, some of our members provided a demonstration of their cameras for the benefit of those in attendance.
November Meeting Report
By Mike Meyer
35 people attended the November 7th meeting of the FRPCUG. During the Announcements Period, President Rick Mattingly requested that members fill out paper slips at the meeting, indicating their preference for future topics for presentation at our monthly meetings. Chuck McJilton and Glen York indicated that copies of Star Office (Vers. 5.2) were now available on CD-ROM disks for $1.00. Jack Linder mentioned that our K-byte publication is available on the club's web-site. Rick then stated that CSU's Cooperative Extension Service would be offering a course at the Harmony Library in January 2001. The ''Colorado Internet Masters Program''. will range in tuition cost from about $290 to $410, depending on a participant's willingness to perform some community service work (approx. 30 hrs.), primarily for the benefit of rural state residents.
During the Open Forum session, Windows ME again was a topic for more discussion, this time relative to cost benefits (i.e., full package vs. upgrade), and its Installation over previous installations of WIN 95 & 98, possibly due to driver compatibility issues; Other issues involved McAfee (modem dialing), Norton Anti-Virus (screen display), genealogy, serial port interrupts, new virus concerns, and the advantages of using Microsoft's web-site.
Rick was our principal speaker once more for the Main Program. He gave a very interesting and informative presentation on the basics of the e-commerce business. Over four billion U.S. dollars reportedly was spent on goods and services during the month of September alone. At this point, sales taxes usually are not charged, except for the sales of the in-state companies, although the shipping and handling costs must be considered. Auto sales also are taxed through the licensing process. Security issues frequently are major consumer concerns, but likely are little more of a risk than giving out a credit card number over the telephone or to a restaurant waiter. In addition, there have been distinct improvements in the security area, such as some better encryption techniques; new methods of paying credit and debit card bills (e.g., ''Pay Pal'' and ''X-COM''); and the removal or up-grading of some poorly performing web-sites. Following Rick's presentation, Will Horton discussed and also demonstrated the pros and cons of making travel arrangements on-line by way of ''Priceline.com''.
Rick followed with a discussion and a demonstration of Internet shopping methods, Included was some timely commentary on the need to properly return merchandise. He then discussed and demonstrated how to participate in Internet auctions by way of ''eBay''.
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How Do We Manage Large Amounts Of Photos?
By Richard T. Robusto, lvpcug ricmar(at)wizard.com
I daresay that all of us have numerous photos that have been around for years. Some are becoming yellowed and are deteriorating more each year. I, myself, attempting to be an amateur photographer years past, have accumulated an immense amount of photos. Starting with the old reliable "Brownie" camera, which did a pretty good job for its time, and gradually using better equipment that allowed sharper focusing and better depth of field. Then on to the development of color photography and through the lens metering with electric eyes, we were rewarded with a much better end product.
So we've taken all these mementos of our families, children and friends through many occasions and holidays as the years passed and carefully sorted, segregated and preserved them in photo albums. But time and humidity has taken its toll and the realization occurs that we cannot preserve these forever. Then we are faced with the specter that after we are gone, what we have treasured might not be treated with the same care. Also, there is always the possibility of tragedies happening. This comes to mind when we see the homes that were lost at Los Alamos during a disastrous forest fire. It is very doubtful that these poor residents were able to save all their photos and mementos when they had to evacuate. Others have lost everything to floods. An incident that has always stuck in my memory is of a fellow worker who became very despondent one day. Upon asking what was wrong, she informed me that she had to pick her parents up at the airport as they returned from a vacation in Europe. But the kicker was, that she had to inform them that while they were gone, their house burned completely, leaving nothing to be salvaged. Lost was every photo in their possession, plus all their other mementos.
Today however, computer technology has given us a surefire method to preserve these photos and other important documents. Scanning is a fairly easy operation to perform. A familiarization with the scanner and its accompanying software will not take much effort and then the procedures to begin preserving your photos and documents can begin.
The scanner that I have is the Visioneer One-Touch purchased a year ago for $149.00 Today the price is about $80.00. I have found this unit to be very easy to use and quite satisfactory. It came with Paperport software, which makes the task easy to accomplish. The scan window will offer a few settings to be made. First of all, the scan mode and resolution has to be set.
The first rule of scanning is that the resolution is determined by the final output. If a scan is to be printed out, then the requirements of the printer will determine the scanning resolution. However, if you are scanning only to archive, then output determination can be set aside. Using archiving as your end result, then other parameters can be undertaken. Assuming we start with our oldest black and white photos, the mode should be set to Gray Scale, and the resolution to 75 or 100 dpi (dots per inch). The main idea is to have the scan so it looks good on the monitor and keeps the file to a moderate size. The larger the file, the longer it will take to move through your system after scanning.
For colored pictures, an appropriate resolution would be 100 dpi to 150 dpi. Colored prints stop yielding additional data at about 200 dpi. Scanning at a higher figure will produce a larger file but not more detail. Doug Gennetten is the engineer with HP Home Imaging Division who did the HP PhotoSmart printer and scanner introduction. At this event, he posted a message on the web that among other things said that 200 dpi is the maximum resolution you need if your original is a normal silver halide color print.
After scanning, the file can be sent to a graphic application, usually through a link on the Paperport screen. I currently have 3 graphic applications with links on the Paperport screen. They are MGI Photo Suite III, Microsoft Picture It 99, and Photoshop L. E. (limited Edition). I have found that Photo Suite III is the one that I prefer to work with. It makes easy work of the tasks required. You start by cropping the photo to size. Many times I will scan 4 or more, whatever will fit on the scan glass, then crop them apart one at a time. This saves scanning time and reduces the number of scans. After cropping, necessary tasks can be performed, such as adjusting brightness and contrast, (I am able to improve 90 per cent of these old photos), removing red eye, removing creases and unwanted blemishes. More complicated exercises such as cloning and removing unwanted persons or objects can also be accomplished.
All of these small graphic applications can handle all of these things. Also Corel Draw and Adobe Photoshop will do an excellent job on all these procedures. However, that's a bit of overkill as these programs are large and expensive, and are used for much more demanding applications.
Finally, the pictures are finished and ready for labeling. It is a good idea before starting labeling to give some thought how to identify many pictures. Set up some sort of system that will allow you to recall what each picture is about when viewing its description. As you get into the hundreds, this becomes a daunting task, as no two titles can be alike. A good way is to set up a set of folders that will allow sorting of pictures into various family groups or time line designations.
The last description that has to be applied to the photo is the format that it will be saved as. For general purposes, there are 3 or 4 common file formats, and for the home scanner type, these will be sufficient. They are TIFF, JPEG, GIF AND PNG.
TIFF - Tag Image File format
TIFF has been a format of choice for use for master copies of images for several years. Not the only one, but a good one. TIFF format was developed by Aldus, before Adobe bought them, and is the most widely supported format across other platforms, PC, Max, Unix, etc. TIFF writes a large file, and it optionally uses lossless compression meaning there are no quality losses. Ideal for important master images. If you might modify and save the file a second time, then use a non-Iossy format like TIFF. TIFF files are large, but it's the price we pay, it's how large the data is.
JPEG - Joint Photographic Experts Group
This is easily the best format for scanned photographs to be used on web sites, or for sending your photographic images in e-mail, because the file is wonderfully small, often compressed to only 1/10 or 1/15 size, which is very kind to modems. However, this fantastic compression efficiency comes with a high price. JPEG uses a Iossy compression (Iossy meaning "with losses"). Lossy means that some quality is lost when the JPEG data is compressed and saved, and this quality can never be recovered. Even worse, more quality is lost every time the JPEG file is compressed and saved again, so even editing a JPEG image is a questionable decision. JPG discards image pixel data that is inconvenient for its compression method, allowing phenomenal size results. This "lost data" is seen as lost purity, or lost integrity due to mild corruption of the data, rather like added noise. There is no magic answer providing both high compression and high quality, but some quality losses are acceptable for some purposes.
GIF - Graphic Interchange Format
This is an older format developed by CompuServe, and it was fantastic in its day, with relatively small LZW (Lempel-Ziv-Welch, same compression as used for PKZIP) compressed file sizes (but nothing like JPEG's small size). However, GIF is limited to only 256 colors, a great match for the older 8 bit video boards, and for graphics, but which makes it poorly suited today for 24 bit photographic images. The file is also large if used for photographic images, as compared to 24 bit JPEG. And GIF files do not store the images scaled resolution dpi value, making scaling necessary every time the file is printed. GIF uses lossless compression like TIFF. JPEG is much better for 24 bit photographic images, and the JPEG file is very much smaller too (although lossy)
PNG - Portable Network Graphics
PNG was intended to be the replacement for GIF, due to LZW patent problems, and due to GIF being limited to only 256 colors. PNG was designed with the advantage of knowing all that went before. PNG supports 24 and 48 bit color with an awesome set of technical specifications and features, sort of the modern universal "be all, end all" of file formats, including superior lossless compression. The PNG basic compression is called the ZIP method, and is like the "deflate" method in PKZIP, but the big deal is that PNG also incorporates special preprocessing filters that greatly improve the compression efficiency, especially for typical gradient data often found in 24 bit photographic images. PNG may be of great interest for us today, because it is lossless compression well suited for master copy data, and because PNG is noticeably smaller than LZW TIFF. Looks like about 30% smaller than TIFF LZW for 24 bit files, and is about 10% to 30% smaller than 8 bit GIF files. Web browsers Netscape and Internet Explorer at first did not support PNG on WEB pages, but they now include support for PNG files on web pages and it might become popular, not to replace JPEG, but to replace GIF perhaps. Most image programs like Photo Impact, Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro already support PNG, so compatibility transferring files is probably not an issue.
I have picked PNG for saving all my pictures. I have no need to print any of them out and am only interested in archiving them. I feel that in the future, if these need to be reworked or printed out, then the PNG format will work out just fine. I also use the ACDSee program to save my folders with corresponding pictures in them. This program allows me to use thumbnail display and to make the thumbnails any size that I want. By making them small enough, I am able to view 32 photos at one time on the desktop. This is helpful in sorting and rearranging.
When I accumulate 650 MB of photos, I transfer then to a CD-R. Then it is a simple matter to duplicate the CD and make as many copies as I want. At this point, I can give a copy to everyone in my family. This makes the selection of photos available to all interested persons and assures that the pictures will never be lost due to any one incident. So far, I have scanned and put on one CD, 1900 photos, many of them black and whites. On the second CD, I have 1100 photos. I estimate that I am about 70% finished with all my photos. Then I will undertake to do the same with about 2000 slides that I have. That, however, will not be as easy, as I will have to see about acquiring a slide scanner.
I have also started to scan all my important documents and put then all in one separate folder. I got the idea about a year ago, when I could not find some very important papers, most notably my college degrees. I sweated about three months and really turned things upside down, and lo and behold, there they were in a very "safe place". At that point, I decided to scan every paper that meant anything. I dragged out all the birth certificates, my children's school and college records, military discharge papers, and anything else that I didn't want to have to search for again.
Scanning text is much simpler than photos. You scan at line art mode. On some scanners, the designation is Editing text (OCR) Using this instead of Gray Scale will make the file about 8 times smaller. This should be scanned at 300 dpi. After scanning, the software can perform the "Edit for Text" operation. At that point, it can be transferred to a text program. There you can delete parts if necessary, label it and save it as a PNG file. I have done this with all my papers and put them into a folder that I named "Certificates" I now rest easy, and, of course, that folder of originals is always underfoot. I'll have to find another "safe place" to keep it.
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.
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Toaster Software
Open Architecture hits the Toaster market… A little Internet humor.
Toaster Software Development Project History
Day 1: My boss, an engineer from the pre-CAD days, has successfully brought a generation of products from Acme Toaster Corp's engineering labs to market. Bob is a wonder of mechanical ingenuity. All of us in the design department have the utmost respect for him, so I was honored when he appointed me the lead designer on the new Acme 2000 Toaster.
Day 6: We met with the president, head of sales, and the marketing vice president today to hammer out the project's requirements and specifications. Here at Acme, our market share is eroding to low-cost imports. We agreed to meet a cost of goods of $9.50 (100,000). I've identified the critical issue in the new design: a replacement for the timing spring we've used since the original 1922 model. Research with the focus groups shows that consumers set high expectations for their breakfast foods. Cafe latte from Starbucks goes best with a precise level of toast browning. The Acme 2000 will give our customers the breakfast experience they desire. I estimated a design budget of $21,590 for this project and final delivery in seven weeks. I'll need one assistant designer to help with the drawing packages. This is my first chance to supervise!
Day 23: We've found the ideal spring material. Best of all, it's a well-proven technology. Our projected cost of goods is almost $1.50 lower than our goal. Our rough prototype, which was completed just 12 days after we started, has been servicing the employee cafeteria for a week without a single hiccup. Toast quality exceeds projections.
Day 24:A major aerospace company that had run out of defense con- tractors to acquire has just snapped up that block of Acme stock sold to the Mackenzie family in the '50s. At a company wide meeting, corporate assured us that this sale was only an investment and that nothing will change.
Day 30:I showed the Acme 2000's exquisitely crafted toast-timing mechanism to Ms. Primrose, the new engineering auditor. The single spring and four interlocking lever arms are things of beauty to me.
Day 36: The design is complete. We're starting a prototype run of 500 toasters tomorrow. I'm starting to wrap up the engineering effort. My new assistant did a wonderful job.
Day 38: Suddenly, a major snag happened. Bob called me into his office. He seemed very uneasy as he informed me that those on high feel that the Acme 2000 is obsolete - something about using springs in the silicon age. I reminded Bob that the consultants had looked at using a microprocessor but figured that an electronic design would exceed our cost target by almost 50% with no real benefit in terms of toast quality. "With a computer, our customers can load the bread the night before, program a finish time, and get a perfect slice of toast when they awaken," Bob intoned, as if reading from a script.
Day 48: Bill Compguy, the new microprocessor whiz, scrapped my idea of using a dedicated 4-bit CPU. "We need some horsepower if we're gonna program this puppy in C," he said, while I stared fascinated at the old crumbs stuck in his wild beard. "Time-to-market, you know. Delivery is due in three months. We'll just pop this cool new 8-bitter I found in to it, whip up some code, and ship to the end user."
Day 120: The good news is that I'm getting to stretch my mechanical-design abilities. Bill convinced management that the old spring-loaded, press-down lever control is obsolete. I've designed a "motorized insertion port," stealing ideas from a CD-ROM drive. Three cross- coupled, safety-interlock micro switches ensure that the heaters won't come on unless users properly insert the toast. We're seeing some reliability problems due to the temperature extremes, but I'm sure we can work those out.
Day 132: New schedule: We now expect delivery in three months. We've replaced the 8-bitter with a Harvard-architecture, 16-bit, 3-MIPS CPU.
Day 172: New schedule: We now expect delivery in three months.
Day 194: The auditors convinced management we really need a graphical user interface with a full-screen LCD. "You're gonna need some horse- power to drive that," Bill warned us. "I recommend a 386 with a meg of RAM." He went back to design Revision J of the PC board.
Day 268: New schedule: We now expect delivery in three months. We've cured most of the electronics' temperature problems with a pair of fans, though management is complaining about the noise. Bob sits in his office all day, door locked, drinking Jack Daniels. Like clockwork, his wife calls every night around midnight, sobbing. I'm worried about him and mentioned my concern to Chuck. "Wife?" he asked. "Wife? Yeah, I think I've got one of those, and two or three kids, too. Now, let's just stick another meg of RAM in here, OK?"
Day 290: We gave up on the custom GUI and are now installing Windows CE. The auditors applauded Bill's plan to upgrade to a Pentium with 32 Mbytes of RAM. There's still no functioning code, but the toaster is genuinely impressive. Four circuit boards, bundles of cables, and a gigabit of hard-disk space. "This sucker has more computer power than the entire world did 20 years ago," Bill boasted proudly.
Day 384: Toast quality is sub-par. The addition of two more cooling fans keeps the electronics to a reasonable temperature but removes too much heat from the toast. I'm struggling with baffles to vector the air, but the thrust of all these fans spins the toaster around.
Day 410: New schedule: We now expect delivery in three months. We switched from C++ to Java. "That'll get them pesky memory-allocation bugs, for sure," Bill told his team of 15 programmers. This approach seems like a good idea to me, because Java is platform-independent, and there are rumors circulating that we're porting to a SPARC station.
Day 530: New schedule: We now expect delivery in three months. I mastered the temperature problems by removing all of the fans and the heating elements. The Pentium is now thermally bonded to the toast. We found a thermal grease that isn't too poisonous. Our marketing people feel that the slight degradation in taste from the grease will be more than compensated for by the "toasting experience that can only come from a CISC-based, 32-bit multitasking machine running the latest multi-platform software."
Day 610: The product ships. It weighs 72 lb. and costs $325. Bill is promoted to CEO.
Thanks to Brad Kell
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The Ultimate Urban Legend!
Anonymous, from the Internet
I was on my way to the post office to pick up my case of free M&M's (sent me because I forwarded an e-mail to five other people celebrating the fact that the year 2000 is "MM" in Roman numerals) when I ran into a friend whose neighbor, a young man, was home recovering from having been served a rat in his bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken (which is predictable since, as everyone knows, there's no actual chicken in Kentucky Fried Chicken, which is why the government made them change their name to KFC).
Anyway, one day this guy went to sleep and when he awoke he was in his bathtub and it was full of ice and he was sore all over; and when he got out of the tub, he realized that HIS KIDNEY HAD BEEN STOLEN. He saw a note on his mirror that said "Call 911!" but he was afraid to use his phone because it was connected to his computer and there was a virus on his computer that would destroy his hard drive if he opened an e-mail entitled "Join the crew!" He knew it wasn't a hoax because he himself was a computer programmer who was working on software to prevent a global disaster in which all the computers get together and distribute the $250.00 Neiman-Marcus cookie recipe under the leadership of Bill Gates. (It's true - I read it all last week in a mass e-mail from BILL GATES HIMSELF who was also promising me a free Disney World vacation and $5,000 if I would forward the e-mail to everyone I know.)
The poor man then tried to call 911 from a pay phone to report his missing kidney but a voice on the line first asked him to press #90 which unwittingly gave a bandit full access to the phone line at the guy's expense. Then reaching into the coin-return slot, he got jabbed with an HIV-infected needle around which was wrapped a note that said, "Welcome to the world of AIDS." Luckily he was only a few blocks from the hospital - the one where the last wish of that little boy who is dying of cancer is for everyone in the world to send him an e-mail and the American Cancer Society has agreed to pay him a nickel for every e-mail he receives. I sent him two e-mails and one of them was a bunch of x's and o's in the shape of an angel (if you get it and forward it to more than 10 people, you will have good luck but if you send it to only 10 people you will only have OK luck and if you send it to fewer than 10 people you will have BAD LUCK FOR SEVEN YEARS).
So anyway, the poor guy tried to drive himself to the hospital; but on the way, he noticed another car driving without its lights on. To be helpful, he flashed his lights at him and was promptly shot as part of a gang initiation. Send THIS to all the friends who send you their junk mail and you will receive 4 green M&Ms -- if you don't, the owner of Proctor and Gamble will report you to his Satanist friends and you will have more bad luck: you will get sick from the Sodium Laurel Sulfate in your shampoo, your spouse/mate will develop a skin rash from using the antiperspirant which clogs the pores under your arms, you will get deathly sick from not wiping soda cans with soap and water before drinking from them, and even if you do clean the can top carefully, the aspartame in the soda will give you multiple sclerosis... and the U.S. government will put a tax on your e-mails forever. I know this is all true 'cause I read it on the Internet.
(This article is brought to you by the Editorial Committee of the Association of Personal Computer Users Groups (APCUG), an international organization to which your user group belongs.)
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Maximum Cable Speeds
Cable modem networks may run as fast as 36Mbps. Wow. But because most PCs get their cable feed through an Ethernet Network Interface Card (NIC) that only supports 10Mbps, the PCs never see the 36Mbps. And the speed at which you upload data will probably be a lot more limited, to as little as 2Mbps or even a mere 200Kbps. For people who rarely send data, that's no problem. But if you wanted to attach a Webcam or set up a Webcast, that might not be enough speed.
Dummies Daily Tips
http://www.dummiesdaily.com
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Never Retype
Never retype something that's been typed before …. Or .…
How to use Copy/Cut & Paste
by Coco Johnston
If you are new to computers, and you don't know how to move blocks of text or graphics from one document to another, or from one place in a document to another, you need to read on. The great thing about PCs is that you NEVER have to retype something that's already been typed.
When you get information (or a joke or story) in an email, and you want to send it to someone else without all those previous addresses attached to it, this is a solution to that problem. If you have a photo or picture in one place on your computer or a Web site, this trick will move it anywhere else (into a document or a new email message).
It's called CUT & PASTE or COPY & PASTE. The difference between cutting something and copying something is quite simple. CUT means to remove it from where it is. COPY means to leave the original where it is and make a copy of it for transport to another location. PASTE is what you do when you place it in a new location.
Four simple steps will move text (or graphics) from one place to another.
• Highlight the text you want to move
• Cut or Copy the highlighted text
• Place the cursor in the new location where you want the text
• Paste the text in its new location
There are four ways to copy & paste or cut & paste. All four do the same thing, but they were developed by people who are accustomed to using the computer in different ways.
Keyboard method (you never have to fight that mouse)
Highlight: with your cursor at the beginning of the text, hold down the Shift key, and tap the right arrow key until you have highlighted the text you want (you can also arrow back, up, and down to highlight in any direction)
To Copy: hold down the Control key and tap the letter C (called Ctrl + C)
To Cut: hold down the Control key and tap the letter X (called Ctrl + X)
Place your cursor where you want the text to appear (this may involve opening another document)
To Paste: hold down the Control key and tap the letter V (called Ctrl + V)
Quick recap:
• Highlight: Shift + arrow
• Copy: Ctrl + C; or Cut: Ctrl + X
• Place cursor where you want the text to appear
• Paste: Ctrl + V
Mouse method (you never have to touch that keyboard)
• Highlight: place cursor at the beginning of text; click and drag the mouse to highlight the text
• Copy or Cut: right-click (a menu drops down) and left-click on your choice
• Place cursor where you want the text
• Paste: right-click (a menu drops down); left-click on Paste
Menu bar method (the menu bar is the line of words across the top of your screen)
• Highlight: use either method above to highlight (to highlight the whole document, click Edit in your menu bar, and click Select All)
• Copy or Cut: select Copy or Cut from the Edit menu in the menu bar at the top of the page
• Place the cursor where you want the text to go
• Paste: select Paste from the Edit menu
Icon method
• Highlight: drag mouse or use Shift + arrows to highlight
• To Copy: click on the Copy icon (2 pieces of paper) in your toolbar
• To Cut: click Cut icon (scissors) in toolbar
• Place your cursor where you want the text to go
• To Paste: click on the Paste icon (clipboard) in your toolbar
When you cut or copy something, it is placed in a holding area called the "clipboard." You can't see the clipboard, but your data is there. It will stay there UNTIL you
1. Copy or cut something else
2. Turn off your computer
You can paste what's on your clipboard over and over, as long as you don't copy or cut something else on top of it. The clipboard that comes with Windows 95 will hold only one selected item at a time.
You can copy or cut and paste large blocks of text, graphics, all or part of the text of an email, text on a Web page, graphics on Web pages, tables, and just about anything else a computer has on it. There IS a limit to how much material the clipboard can hold, but if you exceed it, you can possibly do it in several steps.
There is NO reason that a forwarded email has to have hundreds of names and headers included with the message. The only reason I can think of for leaving the names on is to show where the message has been. With COPY & PASTE, you can send your friends ONLY the message and not the email addresses of everyone in the Universe. This also will help cut down on spam (junk email). (NOTE: you cannot CUT text from an email or a Web page; you can only HIGHLIGHT/COPY/PASTE.)
One last tip: if you want to move a small amount of text or a picture just a short distance within the document you are in, simply highlight it and click and drag it with you mouse. This works best when the phrase or picture is being moved only within the area you can see on your screen.
Coco is the newsletter editor of The F1 Key, a publication of the F1 Computer Users' Club in Shell Knob, MO.
Internet Chamber of Commerce - Northern Colorado Chapter
Contact Matt Tracer at 970.484.8102 or mtracer@ncicc.org
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Calendar of Events
- IMPORTANT NOTICE -
FRPCUG meetings are held at the Fort Collins Senior Center. Check below for directions to the Senior Center.
December General Forum Meeting
We will meet at the Fort Collins Senior Center on Tuesday, December 5 at 7:00 pm.
Meeting Agenda
7:00 - 7:15 Announcements
7:15 - 7:45 Open Forum
7:45 - 8:00 Election of Officers
8:00 - 8:15 Break
8:15 - 9:30 Printers - What's new in printer technology.
January General Forum Meeting
We will meet at the Fort Collins Senior Center on Tuesday, January 2 at 7:00 pm.
Meeting Agenda
7:00 - 7:15 Announcements
7:15 - 7:45 Open Forum
7:45 - 8:00 Break
8:00 - 9:30 Broadband - Discussion of broadband (fast) Internet access options now available in the local community.
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 the Wednesday 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 JYM Information Systems LLC's office at 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. The meetings are held at 7:00 PM on the fourth Thursdays of each month at the JYM Information Systems LLC's office at 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 JYM Information Systems LLC's office at 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.
RIBUG Meeting
The Regional Internet Business Users Group (RIBUG) deals with issues of business utilization of the Internet. This group meets the last Wednesday of each month. Contact Will Horton in Fort Collins at 223-0330 or e-mail whorton@jymis.com for details.
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.
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December 2000
5 FRPCUG General Forum Meeting 7:00PM
11 HTML SIG Meeting 7:00PM
13 FRPCUG Board Meeting 7:00PM
NRFNUG Meeting 5:00PM
21 Telcomm SIG 7:00PM
25 Christmas Day
27 RIBUG Meeting 7:00PM
28 LINUX SIG 7:00PM
31 NewYears Eve
January 2001
1 New Years Day
2 FRPCUG General Forum Meeting 7:00PM
8 HTML SIG Meeting 7:00PM
10 FRPCUG Board Meeting 7:00PM
NRFNUG Meeting 5:00PM
18 Telcomm SIG 7:00PM
24 RIBUG Meeting 7:00PM
25 LINUX SIG 7:00PM
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Scanner Roundup
By Al Massey, Gill Boyd and the Build or Buy SIG
Better product, lower price
Since we last visited scanners (over a year ago) we have seen technology move forward and prices go down, down, down. Prices for color flat bed scanners are now below $100 in some cases and new technology such as CIS (Contact Image Sensor) has resulted in significantly smaller and lighter scanners.
With prices for home PCs falling rapidly, and users having access to low-cost easy to use image-editing software, the scanner has become ubiquitous. As mentioned earlier, CIS technology is fast replacing traditional CCD scanners. With CCD (Charged Coupled Device), scanning takes place through a small photosensitive semiconductor chip. Using this method requires a rather elaborate system of mirrors and a lens to focus the image on the CCD. This is somewhat costly and the optics often become misaligned resulting in poor scans. CIS replaces CCD with a row of 300 or 600 sensors as wide as the scanbed and eliminates the CCD housing, mirror and lens. This is what allows the CIS scanners to be as thin as a laptop computer. Another bonus is a low power requirement. However, in our test, we found that image quality and color rendition was not on a par with CCD scanners.If you scan mostly text, then opt for CIS. If your interests lie with photo scanning or color documents, then go with CCD.
Scanner Markets
Flatbed scanners generally fall into three markets, Home, Office and Professional. The Home and Small Office market generally means a casual user is outputting scans to an inkjet printer or web page and doesn't require all the bells and whistles that the Business and Professional user requires. These scanners typically fall into the parallel port and USB category for ease of set up and use and don't take up much desk space. Business users on the other hand still want ease of use and set up but are more interested in speed, image quality, throughput and OCR (Optical Character Recognition) and batch processing. These scanners have legal size scanbeds, automated document feeders, and are used for newsletters and presentations requiring a more professional look. Business scanners generally fall into the SCSI and USB category. For the Graphics Professional, speed, durability and image quality rule. Their scanners get heavy use and must stand up to the loads they place on them. Professional series scanners almost always are SCSI and a bit harder to set up than the others. One reason for this is the software drivers for Professional Scanners require more precise fine-tuning than the others.
The Numbers Game
In an effort to entice buyers, manufacturers throw numbers around like an insurance actuary. A quick read of the box will reveal the dark secrets of the scanner game. Optical resolution, interpolated resolution and color bit depth are but a few of the buzz words you need to know in order to make a proper evaluation. In the reality of your own personal world these numbers may prove meaningless. For instance, manufacturers like to throw around numbers for interpolated resolution in the 4800 x 4800 or 9600 x 9600 range. In the real world of your desktop these are only software-enhanced figures and are useful only to those of you interested in line art scans. Pay attention to optical resolution instead, as this is a measure of the true worth of a scanner. Optical resolution is the measure of the number of dots per inch you can scan; the more dots the better the scan. We have found that sharpness is determined more by the quality of the optics and the precision of the mechanism than by resolution. So, unless you plan to enlarge a small original to a larger print or scan film or 35mm transparencies, you probably won't need a scanner with anything much larger than an optical resolution of 300 x 600 dpi. Theoretically, the higher the color bit depth (24, 30 or 36 bit) means that more details in highlights and shadows can be captured accurately.
Most inexpensive scanners scan internally 30 bit or 36 bit color but then the image is converted to digital data and is saved as a 24 bit file. This is called playing with numbers and manufacturers justify this sleight of hand by explaining that the scanner's firmware automatically analyzes the image file on the fly and selects the best 24 bit file to save. Don't you believe it! While most of you individual or small business users would not be able to tell the difference and would be satisfied with the results, some of you won't be, so let the buyer beware. The Interface Dilemma: Parallel, SCSI or USB Parallel Port scanners are generally referred to as the General Purpose Interface. Most low-cost scanners operate with a parallel port interface with a pass through connector for a printer. This has proven to be the least expensive for the end user. However, as users become more concerned with speed, particularly when they connect the scanner to a new Pentium II with 64 plus MB of RAM, speed becomes a major factor in the buying decision. Another limitation is other external devices accessing the parallel port, such as external ZIP drives that can't use the pass through connectors. As more new units ship, USB is becoming the natural successor to parallel port scanners.
SCSI: generally speaking, any scanner with an optical resolution of more than 600 x 600 dpi and a color depth of 30 bits or higher will ship with a SCSI connector. Most of these scanners include a SCSI card in the package. Be sure and ask if you need to purchase a SCSI card in addition to the scanner. SCSI can handle higher throughput than parallel and are generally high bandwidth scanners for graphics and high-volume.
USB: As newer, faster systems come on the market more vendors are sure to adopt USB as a cheap, easy to install interface. If you have a PC with USB built in and are using Windows 98, by all means opt for USB. It is simple and easy and most of all is true Plug and Play. Make sure that you have USB turned on in your BIOS and then all you have to do is plug the scanner into a USB port and install the proper drivers and you are up and running without having to reboot. Nice and easy does it every time. As for speed, we found that SCSI is faster by far than parallel and marginally faster then USB. For ease of use and set up for the novice user, we found that parallel is easier than SCSI but USB beats them all.
Reviews
Of the many scanners submitted for review this time around, we selected models from Epson, Acer Peripherals Genius and Microtek Labs, Inc. In future editions we will be looking at offerings from H.P., Visioneer, Fuji and others. We will also be including a comparison chart in a future issue so that you might more readily select a scanner best suited for your use.
EPSON Perfection 636/636U What Price Perfection?
Because USB (Universal Serial Bus) is gaining in popularity these days, we elected to review the Epson Perfection 636 in both SCSI and USB versions. The 636 ships with a SCSI interface from Adaptec and utilizes a PCI card rather than an ISA card that is usually included. The Adaptec card was quite easy to set up and Windows 98 automatically detected it as Plug-and-Play so we were off and running in short order.
However, for ease of set up, nothing can compare with USB. We did not have to re-boot but simply plugged the USB cord into the port on the back of our computer and Windows 98 immediately recognized the device. No sweat, no strain. With the flood of USB devices entering the marketplace, one question keeps arising. Why don't manufacturers put a USB pass through on their devices? If we are going to be able to hook up a gazillion USB devices, we are going to need at least USB in and USB out. Epson is aiming the Perfection squarely at the SOHO market and, considering the price, that is probably where it belongs. We found that, considering it's performance, it proved to be a bit pricey for the Home market, and it's performance fell short of the professional market.
On the whole, we found the Perfection a good choice for just about any scanning task and would rank it near the top as a Best Buy among flatbeds for the Small Office/Home Office market. It comes with a very good software bundle, Presto! PageManager for document managing, Adobe's PhotoDeluxe image editor and PageMill web authoring package, above average applications. Xerox TextBridge Classic is included for OCR and provides on-screen controls allowing the user to adjust colors in various ways. Also included is Broderbund's The PrintShop Press Writer.
We were a bit disappointed in the LaserSoft driver in both scan quality and speed. For the record we found the Epson Generic TWAIN 32 driver included outperformed the LaserSoft driver. After fiddling with the LaserSoft, we got accustomed to its interface and found that it offers many different image adjustment options in the pre-scan mode. Beware there is a learning curve here and it may prove to be a worthy addition.
A poster guided us through setting up the SCSI-based Perfection, and the unit came with a SCSI terminator (a small device that's sometimes needed when multiple SCSI devices are attached to a PC). The Epson is big, but, then again, it is a flatbed that can scan legal-size documents.
While we found the Perfection a bit slower than some SCSI scanners, it proved to be faster than parallel port units and considerably faster than USB. During our test, we found that SCSI was the fastest, with Parallel Port models coming in second, and USB bringing up the rear in speed tests. The Perfection 636 has a maximum hardware resolution of 600x2400 dpi, interpolating up to 2400 dpi, comes with 4MB of onboard memory, and makes use of Epson's Micro Step Drive technology. This permits the scanner to make use of a method known as "half-stepping" and "quarter-stepping" of the scanning carriage to double and quadruple the optical resolution.
While we found the Perfection a bit pricey for the average consumer, it does offer a lot of bang-for-the-buck for the SOHO user. If you are more interested in speed than ease of set up and use, go for the SCSI model but, if you feel you will be plugging and unplugging the unit a lot, by all means opt for USB. One thing that places this scanner above the competition is it comes with 4MB of onboard memory and intelligent image processing.
EPSON Perfection 636/636U
Epson America, Inc., $299
www.epson.com
Windows minimum system requirements:
486/66 or higher processor, Windows 95/98 or Windows NT 4.0/5.0, 16MB RAM (32MB RAM for Windows NT), 50MB hard disk space, CD-ROM drive
PCI slot for SCSI card or available SCSI port, USB Port for USB model, Mouse or pointing device, The Perfection 636 includes: One-year limited warranty, Plug & Play PCI SCSI interface and cable/Mac SCSI cable
Software: Adobe PhotoDeluxe Business Edition (Win), Adobe, PhotoDeluxe 2.0
(Mac), NewSoft Presto! PageManager, Xerox, Textbridge Classic, Broderbund The PrintShop PressWriter, Epson, Scanning Utilities
General Specifications:
Flatbed single pass color scanner
600X2400 dpi maximum hardware resolution, 9600X9600 maximum interpolated resolution, 600 dpi CCD sensor optical resolution, 36 bit color scanning with 3.0 dynamic range for transparencies, 12 bit grayscale scanning
Genius ColorPage Vivid Pro II 36-Bit Flatbed Scanner
If you are on a tight budget and still want a bit of performance, try this little gem on for size. We were impressed with the VividPro II's ease of setup.
Being a parallel port model, it plugged into the printer port and has a pass through port allowing you to plug your printer into the scanner so you don't lose access to your printer while scanning. Having an optical resolution of 600X1200 dpi and being a traditional CCD based scanner, we found the resulting scans better than expected. In fact, they were quite good on the whole. Speed was a problem but this shouldn't be that much of a problem for the economy minded. Sacrifices have to be made somewhere.
The ColorPage-Vivid Pro II is bundled with Ulead PhotoImpact SE+ WebExtensions and iPhoto Express, along with TextBridge for OCR work. We would have liked to see a document management package even in this admittedly low-end product.
While the ColorPage-Vivid Pro II TWAIN interface isn't short of tweaking functions, it lacks the intuitive, value-added functions of the TWAIN interface that comes with other scanners, even those on the low end of the price scale, and it doesn't have any descreening options. However, scans from the ColorPage-Vivid Pro II were a bit better than those we got from other, more expensive units. For example, it was able to reproduce the dark region of a photo that caused the other scanners problems. Even so, the image seemed a bit blurry, and stripes appeared on the photo, as if it was output from an inkjet printer. We also noticed a faint green tint. The scanner target showed some banding in the grayscale strip and a supposedly black area was off-black.
Genius ColorPage Vivid Pro II 36-Bit Flatbed Scanner, KYE-GENIUS, $69
www.genius-kye.com
Windows minimum system requirements:
IBM PC 486 or Pentium compatible, Parallel port (EPP recommended), 16MB RAM or more (recommended), Windows 95/98/NT, CD-ROM drive (to install drivers)
The ColorPage Vivid Pro II includes:
Parallel port connector cable, AC power adapter, TWAIN driver, PhotoImpact SE + WebExtensions, iPhoto Express,
TextBridge OCR Software, User's guides
General Specifications
Flatbed single pass scanner, Parallel Port interface, 600X1200 dpi optical
resolution 19200 interpolated dpi, 36 bit color and 12 bit grayscale
AcerScan Prisa 620ST
Weighing in at around $169, the Prisa 620ST proved to be fast, SCSI and delivered good quality scans. We found this little darling to be one of the zippiest scanners in our test group. Price, coupled with speed and good quality scans, makes this one a contender for any Editor's Choice or Thumb's Up award you care to name. Considering its speedy delivery, we found the Prisa didn't give up much in scan quality. Although it reproduced colors and details well and handled light and dark areas at an acceptable level, the Prisa did have a few problems. It exhibited a few jagged edges, particularly where two color edges met. We found it among the top contenders when it comes to grayscale and text. Throw in the added benefit of a built in transparency scanner that literally lights up the scanner lid so that you can scan negatives and slides and you have a combination that is hard to beat.
The Transparency feature was easy to use and resulted in some very good scans.
We found it to be acceptable for home and consumer use, but if you are going to be doing a lot of slides or film you might want to go with one of the more professional film scanners. We found that installation and setup, with one exception, went remarkably well. The exception came when we installed the Mirascan 32 driver. It took a bit of fine tuning and tweaking but, once installed, proved easy to use and offered a few advanced features such as a descreening filter for moiré patterns from printed images.
In some instances we had a bit of trouble with this feature, finding that it eliminated the image instead of the pattern. Oh well, you can't have everything. Although Acer thoughtfully bundled the Prisa with Ulead's iPhoto Plus, which has a friendly, task-based interface, along with Xerox's TextBridge OCR, we found the total package lacking somewhat. As with other scanners in this review, why don't they package at least the light versions of Visioneer's PaperPort document manager with these products? While the Prisa 620 comes in a Parallel version as well as SCSI, we advise you to pay the $20 extra and pick the SCSI. You'll be glad you did.
AcerScan Prisa 620ST
Acer Peripherals America, Inc.
$169 ST (SCSI) $149 PT (Parallel)
www.acerperipherals.com
Windows minimum system requirements:
Pentium level CPU, 16 MB RAM, CD-ROM drive, Win95/98/NT, PCI Slot for SCSI Card (included)
The Prisa 620 ST/PT includes:
Built-in transparency unit scans up to 5" x 7" transparencies, slides and
negative/positive films. Ulead iPhoto Express, Xerox Textbridge OCR, PCI SCSI
Card
General Specifications:
Color Flatbed Scanner
Optical 600x1200 dpi resolution and maximum 19200x19200 dpi interpolated resolution
36-bit color; Gray Scale 10 bit, Color CCD
Scanning area of 8.5" X 11.7" n
HAL-PC Magazine - AUG '99
Oh Lord, give me patience and GIVE IT TO ME NOW!
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Broadband Time!
File Size: 42081K bytes.
Average Download Times
(Your download time may vary)
14.4K Modem - 7 hour, 7 min., 8 sec.
28.8K Modem - 3 hour, 47 min., 48 sec.
56K Modem - 1 hour, 57 min., 58 sec.
ISDN -1 hour, 44 min., 45 sec.
T1 - 8 min., 9 sec.
Yikes!
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.
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IMSISoft Deals
a heads-up from Rick Mattingly
IMSI Software has been around for a long time. They provide quality, functional software applications at very reasonable prices. Probably best know for software products such as TurboCAD, Hijaak and FormTool, IMSI also offers numerous other software products. Prices range from $39.95 for titles such as FormTool to $199.95 for TurboCAD Pro, a professional grade CAD package.
Visit IMSI on the Internet at http://imsisoft.com/ to view their product and extensive support options. Now, while you are there, check out the Free Stuff page for some truly amazing deals. IMSI is giving away fully-functional light versions of many of their products here, including FloorPlan LT (2D and 3D drawing package), Flow! LT (charting and diagraming package), FormTool Free (form design package), NetAccelerator LT (Internet browser accelerator package), TurboCAD 2d (CAD drawing package) and TurboProject LT (project planning package). You just can't beat the price!
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Stop Program Loads
by Rick Mattingly
Do you have a program which is loading automatically at bootup that you do not want loaded?
The first place to check is the Windows Startup folder. Any application shortcut residing within the Startup folder is automatically loaded when Windows starts. To cancel the loading of an application here, simply delete the Shortcut from the Startup folder. Deleting the icon here simply removes the shortcut and does not affect the actual application.
If you do not find the target application there next check the WIN.INI file, residing in the Windows subdirectory. Open WIN.INI with the NewPad text editor and check the very beginning of the file for the LOAD= and RUN= command lines. If the target application is listed, simply delete it from the LOAD= or RUN= entries and resave the WIN.INI file.
Still can't find the pesky automatic load sequence? Check Windows Schedular at the the following location. Choose START > PROGRAMS > ACCESORIES > SYSTEM TOOLS > SCHEDULED TASKS. Look for the target application in the applications listed here. If it is present, delete the entry or reschedule it. It is a little known fact that Schedular provides the option to automate the activation of a program at Windows bootup by choosing the option "When My Computer Starts."
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PRESS RELEASE
Colorado State University Course Builds Internet Skills, Volunteerism
Registration is underway for the Fort Collins Colorado Internet Masters Course. The 30-hour course will be held on January 16, 17, 23 and 24, 2001, at the Harmony Library. The course is offered by the Colorado Internet Masters Program, an educational and civic volunteer program sponsored by several partner organizations. The Program offers tools for Coloradans to “surf the net,” stay connected with friends and family, access local-to-global information resources, keep competitive in job markets, and advertise area businesses and community groups. This unique Program invites course participants to increase their skills and multiply local course impacts by sharing Internet-related knowledge through volunteerism. Interested citizens commit to volunteer service in exchange for a reduced course fee, and those who complete the course and subsequent volunteer effort receive certification from the Program.
There are basic prerequisites for the course, and enrollment is limited to 20 participants. The course registration fee is $290 for those who commit to volunteer work, or $410 without volunteer time. The deadline for receipt of the registration form and fee for the local course is December 15, 2000. For more information about registration, please contact Laurel Kubin at 498-6004. During the course, some participants may choose to become a “trainer-elect” in the Program. They agree to participate in a Trainer Workshop where additional instruction and materials are provided for a small fee, commit to co-teach two courses and a third approved activity, and they are subsequently are certified as Colorado Internet Master Trainers. The next Trainer Workshop is scheduled for January 30-31, 2001, in one of the Lucent labs on the Denver HEAT Campus. For more information about becoming a Trainer, contact Diana Laughlin at 970/491-3961.
The Colorado Internet Masters Program is supported by Colorado's Rural Development Council, Colorado State University Cooperative Extension (CSU-CE), Small Business Development Centers, Colorado Rural Technology Program and partners. Local co-sponsors for the upcoming course in Fort Collins include: CSU-CE Larimer County Office, CSU-CE Center for Rural Assistance, Front Range Community College and Harmony Library.
For more information about the Program, visit the Web site at
http://internetmasters.org
Star Office Update
The Front Range PC Users Group is now a licensed distributor for Sun Microsystems Inc.'s StarOffice software. StarOffice is a complete Office application suite that can interoperate with Microsoft Office files. It operates on Windows, Linux, and Solaris operating systems. This makes it an excellent choice for anyone that must be able to work with Microsoft Office files, but wants to use other operating systems. It is also a good choice for anyone that receives office documents, but doesn't have the latest version of Microsoft Office to open them with.
Start Office 5.2 has just been released and is now available. Distribution of Version 5.1 was ended on November 17th, 2000. Sun supports existing customers using 5.1 until June 20, 2003, but recommends upgrading to version 5.2. FRPCUG is now distributing version 5.2.
The biggest advantage is the price. StarOffice is free for downloading at http://www.sun.com/staroffice. If you don't want to download it the club has copies available on CDs for $1.00 donation. This $1.00 pays the cost of the CD and label.
If you want a copy come to the next meeting. If you don't want to wait or can not attend the next meeting stop by JYM Information Systems LLC's office at 311 S. College Avenue in Fort Collins and see Glenn or Chuck.
“Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, StarOffice and the StarOffice logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsoft, Inc in the United States and other countries”
"640K ought to be enough for anybody." - Bill Gates, 1981
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