Diablo Blue
The Newsletter of the Diablo Valley PC Users Group
OCTOBER 4, 2007 MEETING ANNOUNCEMENT
DESIGN YOUR OWN WEBSITE
Presenter: Barry Brown, DVPC
Have you ever thought about having your own website? Do you have a small business that needs a web presence? Or perhaps one for your local community association? Or how about a family website? All is possible, and it's very easy to accomplish with the right web hosting service and the simple website design tools they provide. DVPC's Barry Brown will show us how easy it is to design your own website at our October 4th meeting at Diablo Valley College.
So, what can you do with a website?
For a small business you can establish a simple website with information about your business, attract customers, show off your skills or products, and generate additional business at a fraction of the cost of telephone "yellow pages".
If you have a hobby or skill you would like to start making some money for you, a simple website is a great way to start your part-time business.
On a personal level:
- You can keep in touch and let relatives and friends know what you're up to.
- You can have a place for your family to share family news with each other.
- You can easily share photos with friends and relatives. They can see and download photos as soon as you put them on the web, without sending emails with the pictures attached (and that won't open because they're so huge), or the cost and having to wait for them to be printed and mailed. You can post pictures of your family, your pets, your home, your holiday events, your latest vacation, whatever you want to share.
- You can create an online resume; you can attract potential employers' attentions by directing them to your online resume.
- You can showcase your creative talents by creating an online portfolio.
- You can share your expertise about a favorite hobby or profession.
- You can start a site about any topic that interests you and use it to meet other people with similar interests. You can show your talents — artwork, writing, or whatever you do best — to the world.
- You can have a place to put links and articles that is accessible to others.
- You can have permanent email addresses that do not change when you change your local ISP service. You can have an email address that's like yourinitials@yourname.com!
- You will have something to play with, to try out different designs, colors, navigation schemes, pages, content, and so on. Developing your website can become a hobby!
This month's meeting will be fun, interesting, and informative. We'll see you on Thursday, October 4, at Diablo Valley College .
A New Format for the Diablo Blue Newsletter
by Ron Ogg, DVPC
Did you notice anything different about this month's issue of Diablo Blue? Other than it's the first newsletter in about a year> No? Obviously I'm kidding. What you're looking at and reading right now is not the old, familiar Diablo Blue of the past.
Finally, after a torturously long time, your editor and webmaster has a fully functional PC with all of his data transferred (well, almost all of it) from his former "PC From Hell". I refer to it as my PoC. (You can figure that one out on your own. the "o" is "of".) During that time, I've been doing a lot of consideration about the way I produce and distribute the newsletter.
First, a little history.
The Diablo Valley PC Users Group started many years ago when PC's were primarily for hobbyists. Those were the heady days, the days when many enthusiasts built their own PC's from piece parts, often with a soldering iron nearby. There was no Internet. Instead, there were BBS's, Bulletin Board Systems, that were like the forums many of us subscribe to today. That's how information was exchanged, and how many of us learned the tips and tricks of using our PC's. There was no Windows operating system, it was MS-DOS. People tried to solve problems with device settings in config.sys and PATH commands, figuring out how to install a second 20GB hard drive in the then brand-new IBM PC-AT computer, how to make mail merge in WordStar work, how to install modems. Probably sounds like Greek to those who weren't into computers, right? But it was what we did way back then.
DVPC put out a paper newsletter, only a few printed pages to start. As the club grew, the size and format of the newsletter changed and began to look professional. The earliest newsletter I have in my collection is dated October, 1984. That's just about 23 years ago. It wasn't called Diablo Blue. It was the "Diablo Valley PC News" and was subtitled "An IBM PC Users Group Newsletter".
DVPC had SIG's: Dow Jones SIG, C Programming SIG, DVPC Library SIG, Pascal Programming SIG, Basic SIG, UCSD Pascal SIG, and Telecommunications SIG. Today our SIG's are applications oriented instead of programming oriented, like the Windows SIG, Photoshop Elements SIG, Genealogy eSIG, and Video SIG.
I don't know when the name of the newsletter changed to Diablo Blue. My set of copies has a gap between May 1986 and Summer 1988 copies. (If anyone has copies of the newsletters between those dates, and earlier than the October 1984 issue, if you can bring them to a meeting, I'd love to see them.) I became editor of Diablo Blue with the April 1991 issue. We became one of the first PC user groups to have Internet access to our newsletters. We were one of the first PC user groups to go to an Internet-only distribution of our newsletters. And now we're moving from a printed-page-replica to a totally web-based newsletter.
Why are we doing this? There are a lot of reasons.
Number one, it's the amount of time it takes to produce Diablo Blue using Microsoft Publisher. I've retired from the work-a-day world. But I'm busier than ever, doing website development for some non-profit organizations. I'm doing writing and editing. I'm a HICAP (that's the Health Insurance Counseling and Advocacy Program; we serve seniors who have questions about or problems with Medicare). And I'm doing a lot of walking and hiking. During my PoC computer meltdown I thought about the amount of time it takes to generate Diablo Blue. I came to the conclusion that I had to find a less labor-intensive method. I considered using a blog, and actually tried to generate the September issue of Diablo Blue on WordPress, a blogging program and service. Unfortunately, the way a blog works is not feasible for a newsletter like Diablo Blue. A blog is set up for people who want to create a journal. That is, they are designed to display entries made in most-recent-at-top order. That's fine for a journal, or news, or press releases, but not for a newsletter. I need to post articles in a sequence that makes sense for a particular issue of the newsletter, not in the reverse order of posting. I also found that each issue of the newsletter would require a new blog. A blog just won't work for Diablo Blue.
Number two, the way we've been producing Diablo Blue means we duplicate a lot of large files in the space we have available on our hosting service. The calendar and the maps to DVC are repeated in every issue — as well as on the website. Our allotted space is filling up, and continuing to publish Diablo Blue as pdf files means that in a few years we will have to upgrade our account to increase our allotment of disk storage, which means paying a higher annual fee. I want to avoid that, or at least delay it for as long as possible. As an example, the pdf file for September 2006 issue of Diablo Blue is 2,321 KB (2.3 megabytes!). This newsletter HTML page is 51 KB, with the images the total is only 363 KB. That's a saving of 1,958 KB, 84%, a huge savings in disk space at our hosting service.
Number three, with fixed-size pages it's hard to link stories that won't fit on one page, especially when there are pictures, in Microsoft Publisher or any page layout software. It also makes reading stories more difficult since they often are on different pages with "continued" references, and you have to flip back and forth through the newsletter.
Number four, we're part of the Internet age. We have a website. We have a newsletter that's on the web. Why not marry the two? I discussed this with the DVPC Board of Directors, and they were willing to let me experiment with this new way to "publish" Diablo Blue.
I looked at commercial online newsletters, and found a number of them that were set up as part of each company's website. Each was one long web page per issue. Information that was on other pages of the website (like a calendar of events, a map and directions, company background information) was briefly mentioned in the newsletter and had a link to the information on the website. So, I decided that's how I'm going to publish Diablo Blue. We already have the website, so it's relatively simple to create a template that I can use each month. The advantage for DVPC is that if we move our meeting location, the maps only have to be changed in one place. Since graphics take a lot of disk space, eliminating redundant copies will save a lot of space. But the biggest benefit will be eliminating the use of Adobe Acrobat pdf files for for each issue. That alone will significantly reduce required disk space for new issues of Diablo Blue at our hosting service.
So what you see here is the first attempt at a true web-based Diablo Blue newsletter. Let me know how you like it, what (if anything) you don't like, and any ideas you have to improve the new Diablo Blue. You can email me at webbie(at)dvpc.org.
Where and When We Meet
Our monthly meetings are held on the first Thursday of each month at 7 p.m. at Diablo Valley College In Pleasant Hill, California, on the Main Campus located at 321 Golf Club Road. We meet in room H109 in the Humanities Building. See the campus map on the About DVPC page for driving directions, parking information, and how to get to room H109. Remember: there's a $2.00 parking fee, payable at the ticket machines in each lot. These ticket machines require quarters, so be sure to bring 8 quarters to buy your parking ticket. Place the ticket face up on the driver's side of your dashboard.
We have a Networking Table from 6:30 to 7:00; if you have something to sell or trade, need technical help, or just want to exchange views, visit the Networking Table. The regular monthly meeting starts at 7:00 p.m. with Random Access where you can ask questions or report on technical problems, followed by a presentation by our guest speaker. Also, as usual, we'll have SIG news and some of our usual great door prizes.
Driving Directions:
680 Northbound:
Exit at Willow Pass Road
At the end of the exit ramp turn left onto Willow Pass Road
Continue on Willow Pass Road to the second signal and
turn right onto Contra Costa Blvd.
680 Southbound:
Exit at Concord Ave.
At the end of the exit ramp turn left on Contra Costa Blvd.
Direction into the Campus:
Continue on Contra Costa Blvd. to the signal at Golf Club Road and turn into Golf Club Road. At the second entrance into the campus turn left then immediately right to parking lot 7. Turn left into lot 7. Park (but don't use parking spaces that are reserved for faculty and staff only), then purchase a parking permit (see Parking Fees below) and put it on your dashboard. Click on this link (www.dvpc.org/about.html) to see:
> a detailed DVC map showing parking and our meeting room
> a map for driving to DVC
> an aerial view of the DVC campus
Parking fees:
On the Pleasant Hill campus parking permits are $2.00 per day for short-term parking. You can purchase permits at the parking permit machines marked with a red star on the maps above and below. Be sure to bring sufficient change! Parking permit machines only take quarters. DVC permits are required Monday through Friday at all times that classes are in session. That includes the times that DVPC meetings are held! Do not park in metered or faculty/staff spaces.
You need to purchase a parking permit and place it face up on your dashboard so it is clearly visible through the windshield. If you attend classes at DVC and have a campus parking permit, you can use it when you attend DVPC meetings.
Some members park (for free) in the College Park High School lot across Viking Drive from the DVC campus. Do so at your own risk!
Parking violations:
Be sure to purchase a parking permit! Fines range from $35 for parking in a regular space without a permit, to over $275 for illegally parking in a space reserved for the handicapped.
Parking alternatives:
Some members carpool and share the parking fee; they park at Sun Valley Mall, have dinner at one of the many restaurants in the mall, then take one car to the meeting. Some members park in the lots in front of College Park High School, which is across Viking Drive from DVC. Remember: if you decide to use any of these parking alternatives, you do so at your own risk!
President's Message
by Alan Mildwurm, DVPC
After a hiatus of much too long, it is a pleasure to be writing for the Diablo Blue again. I almost began to miss our esteemed editor’s monthly reminder to get articles done and posted on time. We have just recovered from a very serious hardware problem which, even with all the normal precautions, took a long time to replace/repair and restore. Our library of past issues will shortly be back on line and available — perhaps even as you read this.
We have decided, for the time being, to remain at DVC. The advantages include: an excellent room with good acoustics, high speed internet and good access — when the campus is open. Recent changes at the school have dictated that the school will not always be open during holidays — but we are able to shift our meetings to adjoining weeks to avoid a locked room. We will be sending out an email on those occasions when our normal meeting date or room must be adjusted. That info will also be on this website. We recognize that the cost and hassle of parking passes is a negative, but on balance the positives outweigh that negative. We have explored moving the monthly meeting to coincide with the Windows SIG at the Concord police station but that room does not have high speed internet or the raked seating afforded to us at the school. Since no other nights are available at the police station, we would also be impacting the Windows SIG if we use their time slot. For as long as I have been a member (back to the Water District Days), finding an AFFORDABLE meeting location has always been a challenge. As always, we appreciate constructive suggestions.
I can also tell you that getting speakers for meetings is also getting more difficult. Many companies are phasing out User Group presentations from their marketing budgets. As a result, we all have to be more creative in coming up with program ideas — and raffle prizes. Once again, we welcome suggestions and contacts for speakers.
Upcoming meetings include Gene Barlow, Trend Micro and this month’s meeting with Barry Brown who will tell about how anyone can design their own personal website. See you in October!
Photoshop Elements 6.0
by Barry Brown, DVPC
I told you last Thursday about the release of Photoshop Elements 6.0 (officially slated for October 5th) and I have had queries about what the “improvements” are over release 5.0.
I haven’t received my copy yet, although I am expecting it in the next few days but I did find this table tucked away on an obscure section of the Adobe website.
I have inserted red numbers onto the “improvements” in the chart at the end of this article, and here are my comments:
- This sounds interesting, the blurb I read some time ago was for you to take two group photographs of say several people and select the best of each person to create the “perfect group.” Let’s wait and see on this, I can think of several groups that would need something like magic not Elements 6.0 to create a perfect group!
- Sounds like an extension of the “show me how to” feature now available.
- Great if you are into creating books.
- Sounds like an improved selection tool which would be very helpful.
- Now this is something that Elements has been sorely lacking and if this panorama creator lives up to its hype it would be worth investing in Elements 6.0. Remember a good panorama software program costs $50 to $75 today.
- Organize, ho hum.
- Ditto
- I have heard this is using the existing tools on a new layer for greater control. This can be accomplished with 5.0 it just remains to be seen if other improvements have been made.
Well that is my take on the new program. There doesn't seem to be anything mind boggling in this new version and I think Corel coming out with a new version of Paintshop and the approaching “gift” season probably had more to do with this release than the “improvements.”
If you are thinking of upgrading I suggest waiting until after the next Photoshop SIG meeting when I hope to be able to demonstrate version 6.0.
Curmudgeon's Corner
by Walt Parsons, DVPC's Official Curmudgeon; Accept No Substitute!
And here you thought you had escaped from ever reading a Curmudgeon Corner article again. I fooled you.
The villain today is Linksys and the Setup CD and Quick Installation disk for their Wireless-G Broadband Router with Speed Booster.
After delaying for a long time I finally bit the bullet and bought the Access point and router since I understood that the installation program made the installation job real easy.
Confidently I inserted the CD and soon the Welcome window popped up. So far so good, but wait, something is wrong. The instructions say to click on the StartUp button. But where is the startup button? On the right side of the welcome box are four buttons but there is no explanation of what the buttons are for. I’m assuming one of them should be labeled “Start Up”. Now usually when some thing like this happens you go to the scroll bar and move the screen over so you can see the right edge. But wait! There’s no scroll bar. OK, on to plan B. You grab the edge of the box and enlarge the box. So hopefully I move the cursor to the edge and try to expand the box. It wasn’t about to happen. Since I was determined to get started so I clocked on each button in turn and eventually the screen showed the next screen.
Like anybody else in this position I tried to go to tech support but lo and behold there is no telephone in tech support and when I tried to use the e-mail tech support I was informed that LinkSys no longer has e-mail tech support and I would have to use the “chat room” support. OK, I’m game I’ll go that route. After my time in the Que line I connected up with Paulo. He asked a whole bunch of questions none of which had anything to do with that blasted welcome screen. After three attempts to get him on to the subject of my problem I gave up.
Thinking that my screen resolution and font size was the problem I changed by screen to the highest resolution I could use and the font size to “normal” There was no change except that the whole welcome screen was smaller but it did nothing for the buttons. Incidentally there were no “screen tips” for the mysterious buttons.
Now my question is why did the web designer purposely remove the scroll bars and locked the size of the box? I can’t think of any valid reason to do this. As you know when you are building a web page you can remove the scroll bars and lock the size of the box but why would anybody want to do this? Anybody have any reasons why Linksys would do something like this?
The DuelAdapter
by Alan Mildwurm, DVPC
Buying a new piece of hardware often brings about new problems. Standards are constantly evolving and there may not be new solutions to satisfy an existing need thus requiring the use of a legacy product. For years, laptops came with PCMCIA (aka PC CARD) slots to allow expansion to your laptop. These card slots allowed you to add all types of hardware to your laptop. Everything from networking to storage to USB and Firewire ports could be added to a laptop by simply plugging a PC Card into the slot.
Many new laptops do not come with a PCMCIA slot — like a floppy drive, it is old technology. From the www.expresscard.org site, we read:
PCMCIA has developed the ExpressCard™ standard to carry forward the benefits of 'plug-in' I/O cards to the next generation of personal computing devices.
• A Smaller and Faster Plug-in Module Solution
• Suitable for Mobile and Desktop Systems
• Supports USB 2.0 and PCI Express Applications
• Lower System and Card Complexity
Just as USB technology made serial and parallel ports a thing of the past, ExpressCard will do the same for the PCMCIA slot. Sometimes though we need to use our legacy devices and the Duel Adapter solves this problem. It allows you to continue to use your legacy PC Cards in your newer laptop. www.duel-systemsadapters.com/.
Get the most out of your new notebook and PCMCIA card!
The DuelAdapter™ seamlessly converts input from PCMCIA cards designed for cellular broadband, wireless networking, video, audio and memory expansion to an ExpressCard compatible format.
Data can be transferred at rates up to the full speed supported by the ExpressCard interface — five times faster than USB 2.0!
The DuelAdapter is easy to set up — just install the driver, insert the adapter into your notebook’s ExpressCard slot and plug your PCMCIA card into the adapter.
Features
- Connects PCMCIA cards to ExpressCard-enabled notebook and desktop computers
- Fits in 34mm or 54mm ExpressCard slots
- Works with standard 32-Bit CardBus cards and 16-Bit PCMCIA cards
- Data transfer rate up to ExpressCard maximum, limited by PCMCIA card application
- Windows XP and Mac OS X compatible
- Easy driver installation and set up
- Convenient 2-part module with cable for easy desktop configuration
- Also works with CompactFlash, Memory Stick, Smart Media,
- MMC and SD cards using suitable adapter (available separately)
Specifications
System Requirements
- Windows XP or Vista, or Mac OS X 10.4.8 and later
- 34mm or 54mm ExpressCard slot
Computer and ExpressCard Slot Compatibility
- Works with computers equipped with a standard 34mm or 54mm ExpressCard slot
PCMCIA Card Compatibility
- 32-Bit CardBus PC Cards
- 16-Bit PCMCIA cards
- Wide Area Network cellular cards
- Memory cards
- 802.11a/b/g wireless LAN cards
- Ethernet LAN cards
- ATA cards
- Port expansion cards
- Modem cards
Power Requirements
- Meets all PCMCIA and ExpressCard requirements
The DuelAdapter Package Contains
- PCMCIA to ExpressCard Adapter
- Driver CD-ROM
- An Install Guide in English (A multilingual Install Guide is available from the Downloads & Guides page)
- 1-year limited warranty and support card
- Product registration card
I have several PCMCIA cards which I have amassed since the days of my first SONY VAIO, a Windows 98 machine with no onboard networking! Set up was child’s play, load the drivers, install the adapter, insert the PC Card and your old card is recognized and WORKS perfectly. Their website does have a cradle adapter compatibility site but everything I have worked fine.
In the top two photos you see the DuelAdapter being inserted into your laptop’s ExpressCard slot. In the lower two photos, you insert your PC Card into the DuelAdapter. It’s that easy.
This is a product that really works well and I will show it at our upcoming meeting. The MSRP is 119.00. I highly recommend it!
DVPC Board of Directors Meeting Minutes
by Tom Krauss, DVPC
It is good to be writing the Board minutes again. Ron’s computer problems have prevented my fans from hearing from me for nearly 10 months. I hate to deprive them of what in many cases is the only form of entertainment in their dreary lives: my rendition of the minutes.
During Ron’s Time of Troubles the Board kept on functioning as before. In other words, pizza was consumed, geeky anecdotes related, technical arcana spewed forth, and so on. I continued to take my usual detailed notes of these events, although I confess to a certain lapse in formally recording them. However, I have reviewed my notes and now present a detailed recounting of all business transacted by the Board in our meetings from October, 2006 through August 2007:
We need more speakers, we need more members, we need more pizza.
So much for business. And now, to help fill up this space, I present a hitherto unpublished digression originally destined for the November 2006 minutes.
Much of the talk at this month’s meeting (November 2006) was about Microsoft’s new Vista release. Some of the more reckless, devil-may-care Members (Ron and Alan) have been involved in beta testing this product and shared their experiences, joys and frustrations.
It seems to me that there is a less-fevered anticipation for this operating system release than for previous ones. One reason could be that the development cycle for Microsoft seems to be growing exponentially. When release dates slip several times by quarters and even years, I must admit my attention span falls short and my interest wanes. When Windows 95 was announced I was able to maintain a certain level of excitement until it arrived. That has not been the case with Vista. As for the next release after Vista, I find myself hoping that my grandchildren will still be around to enjoy it.
Our discussion did not kindle any great enthusiasm in me for Vista, either. I learned that there are two levels of administrator security, and that if I mess up there is the very real possibility that in order to protect my computer for me Vista may decide to protect it from me and lock me out of it. This is probably a very necessary method of protection in my case, but it also makes me want to stay right where I am on Windows XP.
It doesn’t help that I am having issues with new releases of a couple of other pieces of software. Windows Update told me last week that there were new updates available for me. It turned out that the update was Internet Explorer 7.0. (I tried to download this a month ago and the install process told me that I was lacking some program on my machine necessary to install it.) So I clicked to download and this time it worked. But it then took me ten minutes to find where it hid my Favorites, and I still have not found either the energy or the courage to explore Explorer.
My other, more serious issue is with Trend antivirus. It suddenly told me that it had a free upgrade to release 7.0 for me (maybe there is something generically wrong with releases numbered 7.0). Like a fool I replied OK. Soon it removed my old version of Trend. Then it said it could not proceed unless I let it uninstall Zone Alarm. I said no, and then could not close the Trend install window, which kept looping. Finally I somehow escaped. But now I had no version of Trend antivirus. So I tried the Trend install again, with the same results. The third time I said “go ahead, delete whatever you want” and watched it uninstall Zone Alarm. Soon it wanted to restart my system, and when it did, Zone Alarm was still there and Trend was still not there.
These and numerous other, similar experiences cause me to no longer get excited about new releases. As the software has gotten more and more complex, it has become easier to install, by and large. But if anything goes wrong, it has been my experience that it is even more difficult than ever to figure out what to do. And for me, something nearly always goes wrong.
10 Steps to Safe Computing
by Sandy Berger, compuKISS.com
Unfortunately you must be proactive to protect yourself from today’s bad guys. Here is my down and dirty list for PC users.
1. Install a good anti-virus program and make sure that it is updated regularly. While most of today’s programs update automatically, you should check occasionally to make sure they are working properly.
2. Don’t open email attachments even if they are from someone you know. Open only if you are expecting them, you know the person sending them, and you know what the attachments contain.
3. Don’t fall for phishing schemes or other email where they try to get you to confirm or retype your personal information.
4. Update your operating system regularly. In Windows and Mac OS X you can turn on automatic updates, but you also need to download and install the updates as soon as possible. Often the bad guys take advantage of new operating system holes as soon as they are discovered. Companies like Microsoft, Apple, and others find a way to plug the whole and issue an update. If you wait a week or two to install the updates, you are giving the hackers and spammers time to attack your computer.
5. Be careful about the websites you visit. Don’t visit porn sites or other suspicious websites. Don’t download software from any website unless you are sure it is safe.
6. Use a firewall. As I stated in a previous column, a hardware router is a very good unobtrusive firewall. If you don’t have a router, turn on the firewall that comes with Windows. The Vista firewall is pretty good, and the XP firewall is better than nothing. If you are an expert user, you can use a software firewall like Zone Alarm, but for the uninitiated user, these complex software firewalls can be difficult to use.
7. If you are using Vista or Mac OSX, or even Linux you should create an account for daily use that does not have administrative rights. That way, if a piece of malware gets into your system during an average computing session, it will have restricted rights. Using an account with administrative rights, gives the malware administrative rights as well. While this is also a good practice with Windows XP, most users, including myself, find that because of the way XP is engineered, it is almost impossible to perform average tasks unless you are logged on as an administrator. Fortunately, with the Vista operating system, you can easily perform day-to-day operations when logged in as a non-Administrator.
8. Even with good habits, it can be useful to occasionally run a good anti-spyware program to scan and remove spyware from your computer.
9. Shop at Secure Sites. If you shop on the Internet, enter your personal information and credit card number only on a secure Web page. If you use Internet Explorer, a secure site will show a yellow padlock in a closed position on the toolbar at the bottom left-hand side of the screen. Netscape will show a closed darker colored padlock somewhere on the bottom toolbar. In both browsers, a secure site will have https: rather than http: in the website address at the top of the page.
10. Don’t give your Social Security number out on the Internet. Identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes because computers and the Internet make stealing an identity from an unsuspecting victim easy. So don’t be an unsuspecting victim! Your social security number is the golden key to your identity. Never keep your social security number anywhere in your computer. Never give it out over the Internet, even in a secure site. Some sites, like online banking, may require you to use your social security number as a password. Take a pass on any such site or service that makes you send your social security number over the Internet. Keep your identity secure by keeping your social security number as private as possible.
One more thing — don’t buy anything from spam or unsolicited email. While this won’t keep your computer any safer, it might help to lessen or eliminate spam. If no one bought anything from spam, it would take away the financial incentive to send spam and it would probably disappear.
Sandy Berger, compuKISS.com
sberger(at)compukiss.com
http://www.compukiss.com
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).
Hasta la Vista — Gadgets and the Windows Sidebar
by Lee Reynolds, Broward Personal Computer Association, Florida
I'm told the literal meaning of "hasta la vista" in Spanish is "until the seeing." Or maybe a more adequate translation is "see you later. "But in this column, I'm using that phrase to invite you to take a look at Microsoft's latest version of Windows: Vista.
Devotees of the Apple Mac have for some time had available, in their OS X Tiger operating system, something called Dashboard, which allows them to have what are called Widgets (mini-applications that provide a very simple, tightly focused interface for common tasks) available for instant use. Now Windows Vista introduces something similar in its Windows Sidebar. This is a narrow strip of "Gadgets" that can be parked along either the right or the left side of your Desktop. You can also drag the Gadgets off the Sidebar and place them somewhere on the Desktop. You can configure the Sidebar to start either every time when Windows starts, or only when you want it to appear. It is available on the Start Menu under All Programs -> Accessories -> Windows Sidebar.
There are a number of ways you can configure the Sidebar after you right click it and select Properties from the context menu. For example, you can set it so that Sidebar is always on top of other windows; you can hide or unhide it from view (unhide it by right clicking the small Sidebar icon in the Notification Area of the Taskbar and select Open); if you have multiple monitors connected to your pc, then you can configure which one the Sidebar is displayed on. You can add and remove Gadgets from the Sidebar (perhaps the easiest way is to right click the small plus (+) sign above the Gadgets and select Add Gadgets from the context menu), and detach them from or reattach them to the Sidebar. You can have multiple copies of the same Gadget open in the Sidebar if you want (which might be convenient for clocks or weather gadgets, for example), and you can drag them to different positions up and down in the Sidebar.
The built-in Gadgets for Windows Vista include: an onscreen Calendar, a clock that can show the time in any time zone or city, a Gadget-based version of your email Windows Contacts, a CPU meter which consists of two gauges that show the load on your computer's microprocessor and RAM, a simple currency converter, a notepad for jotting down reminders, a photo slideshow, a weather Gadget, and others. In addition, there are dozens of other Gadgets you can choose from if you aim your web browser at:
http://microsoftgadgets.com/
You can even design your own Gadgets and submit them to Microsoft at one of the links on the above page.
With each Gadget, you can choose from a right click menu which allows you to close the Gadget or adjust the opacity of the display, among other options. When you move your mouse over a Gadget, you will see a little "X" icon and one that looks like the head of a wrench. The X icon can be used to close the Gadget, while the wrench icon accesses that Gadget's property page. With the right click menu of the Windows Sidebar icon in the Notification Area, you can choose to Open the Sidebar if it has been closed, Move Gadgets to the Front, access the Property page for the Sidebar, Add Gadgets, get Help, or Exit the entire Sidebar application.
Lee Reynolds, Member BPCA (Broward Personal Computer Association, Inc.), Florida
leetutor AT earthlink.net
www.bpca.com
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).
The New, the Best, and the Worst
Collected by Pim Borman, Webmaster, SW Indiana PC Users Group
E-mail Reliability Woes
Banks, mutual funds, credit card companies, utilities, they all want to send me my monthly statements in electronic form over the Internet, “for my convenience,” and incidentally to save on the cost of mailing them out the traditional way. Do I go along with that? No way, José! Just think of all the things that can go wrong.
Security. I already receive regular emails, mostly delegated to spam folders, from fake financial organizations such as PayPal, E-Bay, and banks all over the world. How am I going to distinguish the fishes from the phishes? I do have online access to some of my financial accounts, but I use them strictly one-way: I access them directly by typing in the URL. Some financial institutions have expanded security beyond the usual user name and password check, to let me verify that I'm dealing with the genuine institution. Before I present my user name and password, I am shown a prearranged word and an image to make sure that I am dealing with the genuine website, not some phisher in Nigeria. Such two-way passwords are a good idea, and using an image instead of a word adds additional security.
More security. I still have to worry about key grabber viruses that record what I type. An up-to-date reliable anti-virus program may prevent that, or not. Making payments online can also be hazardous, especially if I can't be absolutely certain I'm not addressing a phisher. I have a Citibank credit card account that will provide me online with a one-time credit card number to be used for a single transaction. That minimizes the risk of fraud. But how am I going to archive online statements securely for years to come unless I print them out first? If necessary, does my own printout provide the same level of proof as an original bank statement?
Reliability. Because spam now makes up the largest part of email crossing the Internet, Internet Service Providers increasingly install spam filters to remove the chaff from the wheat. The problem arises when the spam filter removes legitimate messages without notifying the sender, or even worse, the recipient. It seems to happen all the time and not only because it is easy to misspell an address. Recently I used my local provider, Sigecom.net, to respond to an email from a niece who uses myway.com. Fortunately I was notified by “blackhole.myway.com,” that the response bounced, with an error message indicating that there was a mismatch between sender addresses somewhere along the way. Since Sigecom forwards email via another email provider (Mira-something-or-other), that could have been the problem. I sent the response again, using Google email that time, and all was well.*
A week later I sent a SWIPCUG e-mail message to 49 addressees using my Google e-mail account. Two of the mailings, both addressed to members @att.com, were blocked because “it was sent by a system that we have reason to think has sent high levels of spam to our customers in the past.” Maybe other members did not receive the message either but I wasn't notified. Again using Google Mail, I resent the message without trouble to just the two blocked recipients. Maybe att.com balked at the fairly long list (49) of addressees?
One of our members, associate director at the local Public Library that hosts our meetings, was unwittingly deprived of messages sent to him and about 10 other members who informally constitute our planning committee. The Library has its own email system, guarded by a properly-named “barracuda” to swallow anything smelling of spam. The system administrator managed to retrieve the messages, belatedly, once he was aware of the problem, and loosened the rules to get our member back in the loop.
It goes to show that even if you are not personally plagued by spam woes, your email communications are still affected. Its security and reliability must be paramount if we are to trust it to replace snail mail in delivering important notices. At the least the sender should be notified, and blocked email should be made available to the recipient in a special folder to allow quick verification of its status. Yahoo and Google mail deposit at least some suspected spam in a separate folder. It takes only seconds to check that folder and remove all the spam while being able to save a genuine message.
More Reliability Issues. When an email address is changed, it is difficult to let all the correspondents know, and chances are that some of them will forget to change all their email address folders. Contrary to good old snail mail, there is no friendly post office that forwards email. Also, the slightest typo will make email undeliverable. Add to that the times that the Internet is inaccessible because of hardware, software or network problems and it is clear that email can not be counted on for the timely and secure delivery of financial and billing statements.
Once Upon A Time...
in a far away land, when I was still a young lad, clocks sat on mantel pieces and had to be wound every so often. They didn't keep very accurate time, and we kept them running at least five minutes fast so we wouldn't miss the train. You see, trains left the station on the exact second in the schedule and the best place in town to find the accurate time was from the big clock at the railroad station.
Now we have clocks and watches that listen at night to the short wave radio and adjust their time to the nearest second by synchronizing with an atomic clock in Colorado. As a good nerd, I regularly compare the time shown by the atomic clock on the wall with my atomic watch to make sure they agree to the second. And now we travel by planes that sometimes manage to leave the gate within an hour of the scheduled departure time. Or not at all, as the case may be. Progress...
Collected by Pim Borman, Webmaster, SW Indiana PC Users Group, Inc.
Swipcug(at)gmail.com
http://swipcug.apcug.org/
Obtained from APCUG with the author's permission for publication by APCUG member groups.
© 2007 Willem F.H Borman. This article may be reproduced in its entirety only, including this statement, by non-profit organizations in their member publications, with mention of the author's name and the Southwestern Indiana PC Users Group, Inc.
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).
Photoshop Elements SIG Meeting
by Peggy Johnson, DVPC
Just a reminder that the October Adobe Elements SIG will be held 7 p.m. Wednesday, October 17, 2007, at Peggy Johnson's home, 4278 Satinwood Dr., Concord, CA. Barry and Alan will show us the new features in Adobe Photoshop Elements version 6 just recently released. Sounds like fun.
We're looking forward to seeing you.