Diablo Blue
The Newsletter of the Diablo Valley PC Users Group
Monthly Meeting Topic
Presenter: Name, From
In July our regular meeting night is the day before the July 4 Independence Day holiday, so there will be no DVPC meeting in July.
Our August 7 meeting will be announced soon. Check back for meeeting information at www.dvpc.org. There are no classes at Diablo Valley College the first two weeks of August, so you will not need to purchase a parking permit for the DVPC August 7 meeting. Parking that evening will be free.
Where and When We Meet
DVPC 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 take dollar bills and quarters, but do not give change so be sure to bring correct bills and/or 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 take nickels, dimes, quarters, and dollar coins. Note that these parking permit dispensers do not make change. DVC parking 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!
Diablo Blue Password Access
by Ron Ogg, DVPC
Starting with the December, 2007 issue of Diablo Blue, you will need the monthly password to access the current issue of the newsletter. If you are a paid-up member of DVPC you'll receive an email message, usually on the Weekend prior to the meeting, with the password.
As each month's issue is uploaded, it's placed in a password protected folder on dvpc.org. When you click on the link to go to the newsletter, a dialog box will be displayed asking for the password from the email message. The password is case-sensitive; either copy it from the email message or make sure you type it correctly.
As we add the current month's newsletter, the password on the prior month's newsletter will be removed so anyone coming to the DVPC website can access older issues of Diablo Blue.
If you have any problems accessing a password protected newsletter, please email webbie@dvpc.org.
Watch for Updates!
by Ron Ogg, DVPC
With our new method of producing and publishing the monthly Diablo Blue newsletter, we can easily add updates to each month's issue. For example, we added an update to the October issue, a news article about Barry Brown demonstrating the new version 6 of Photoshop Elements at the PE SIG meeting.
When we add a new article "mid-month" it will be shown in red in and will be at the bottom of the Table of Contents.
Backup Data and Program Files Separately
by Gene Barlow, User Group Relations
Every computer user needs to do regular backups of their computer’s hard drive. This is the most important service that needs to be done on your computer. If you are not doing regular backups, then you need to watch my tutorial on the Perfect Backup Approach (www.ugr.com/tutorials.html) and get started doing backups today. Users that are doing regular backups should consider ways to improve on how they do their backups. This paper describes a better way to do backups that will give you flexibility in how often you do backups and how long you keep your backup files.
Separating Your Data Files from Your Program Files
Your computer’s hard drive contains two general types of files. One type is computer programs that make your computer run, including your Windows operating system and your application programs. The other type is data files that you create in running your program files, including your spreadsheets, documents, email messages, digital photographs, etc. Both types of files are important to the proper running of your computer, but each type has different backup needs.
When you got your computer, it probably came with one hard drive and on this hard drive was one large c: partition. This is not the best way to organize your hard drive, but it was the easiest way for the manufacturer to set it up. This places all of your program files and data files together in a single partition making it difficult to back them up on a different schedule. So, you are forced to backup all of your files at the same time.
Most users do not know that they can change the way their hard drives are setup. This is easy to do using a partitioning utility, like Acronis Disk Director Suite 10. The best way to organize your main hard drive is to divide it into two partitions – one for your program files and one for your data files. This excellent program will let you reduce the size of your c: drive so that it does not take all of the space on your main hard drive. Then you can use this program to create a new data partition in the space freed up by resizing your c: drive. Once you commit these two steps to your hard drive, then you can start to find and move all of your data files from the c: partition to your new data partition. Finally, you can change the settings in each of your applications to point to the new data partition as the default location of your data files.
Creating a Data Partition with Disk Director Suite
To begin with, I assume that your main partition on your computer is your c: partition. You may have a hidden partition or two in addition to your main c: partition. These typically contain utility software for your computer or a system restore to use to put your hard drive back the way it was when you purchased the computer. Most of your hard drive should be dedicated to the main c: partitions which we will focus on. You will leave the other partitions untouched in the following steps.
1- Make sure you have a full main hard drive backup image taken immediately before you start the partitioning process. Then if anything unexpected happens, you will be able to return your hard drive to the stage it was when you started. The best backup utility to do this is Acronis True Image 11 Home and an external hard drive to backup to. (See my paper at www.ugr.com/nl0907b.html for details on how to do this.) When you do a full disk image backup, make sure you backup the entire hard drive (Disk 1) and not backup just your c: partition.
2- Install Acronis Disk Director Suite 10 on your system. During the install process, you should create the Acronis bootable rescue CD to use in case you can’t boot Windows from your hard drive. You should not need to use this CD, but having it is extra protection just in case.
3- Run Acronis Disk Director Suite 10 and select Manual View, not Automatic View. To do this, click on the View menu item at the top of the screen and then select Manual in the drop down menu.
4- The first thing you need to do in creating a separate data partition is to reduce the size of your c: partition to make room to create your new data partition on the drive. To do this, right click on the c: partition box in Disk Director Suite and click on resize in the menu list that appears. This will bring up a box that you will use to resize the c: partition.
5- Place your cursor on the right edge of the partition block in the pop-up window. The cursor should change to two parallel lines instead of the normal four arrows. At this point drag the right edge of the partition to the left until the space after the partition block is big enough to contain your data partition. I would make this new data partition about a third of the size of your original c: partition. When you get it to the size that you want, click on OK to lock in that size. Note -- this is not too critical at this point as you can use Disk Director Suite to adjust your partition sizes later if you want to.
6- You should now see that your c: partition on the main screen of Disk Director Suite is smaller and that you have an unallocated space after the c: partition. This is the space we will make into a data partition. To do this, click on the unallocated block to select it. You will see a red line at the bottom of the block showing you that this space is selected. Then right click on the unallocated space and click on Create Partition in the menu that pops up.
7- A Create Partition box will appear on your screen that you will use to create the new data partition. The first thing you will do is to give the new partition a name. I would suggest you key in DATA in the name field as that will identify what the partition is used for. Then pick the partition file system to use. I would suggest NTFS for your Windows system. Then select the partition type. For a data partition, you should select Logical and not Primary. When done, select OK to make these selections for your new data partition.
8- This next step is not real important, but would make your system a bit easier to understand, so I suggest you follow it. Click on the c: partition to get the red selection line at the bottom of the box. Then right click on the c: partition box to show the menu items you can use on this partition. Click on Label and a box will pop up containing the name of your c: partition. I would suggest you change this to either WinXP or VISTA, depending on which operating system you are currently using. Click on OK to make that change to your hard drive. Now you have two partitions on the drive where the old c: partition was. The c: partition is now named WinXP or VISTA and the other partition that follows it is named DATA.
9- At this point, you need to click on the Commit checkered flag button at the top of your screen to commit these changes to your hard drive. When you click on the Commit button, you will see a box with a list of three operations that will be performed on your drive. These are to resize your c: partition, then to create a new data partition, and finally to name your c: drive. Click on OK to do this and then step back from your computer and let it run untouched. These steps should only take a few minutes to complete (maybe less than a minute). Your system will reboot in the process, so let it do this. When the Operation Completed Successfully message appears, you are done.
That is all it takes to create an empty data partition on your main hard drive using Acronis Disk Director Suite 10. You are finished using Disk Director Suite, so you can exit that program now. The new data partition is ready to use, but it is empty. In the following section, we will describe how to find and move your data files into the new partition.
Finding and Moving Data Files to Data Partition
Next, you need to find and move all of your data files from the c: partition to the new data partition. This step is not an automatic one since there is no way a program can determine what files are data files and should be in your new data partition. So, you will have to find these files and move them individually. You will use Windows Explorer or My Computer to do these moves.
If you have saved all of your data files in one location on your computer, like your My Documents folder, then you can move that entire folder to the new data partition. You should move all of your digital photos, music files, graphics files, Quicken financial records, and other data files that you create or save on your computer. You should also move your email folders and browser favorite list and address books at the same time. These special types of data files may be a bit more difficult to move, but when you do, your system will be better organized. Let me know if you have trouble find or moving any of these special files and I will try to help you get it done.
Take advantage of this step to get your data files better organized. You may want to save all files that are the same type in one folder together or you may want to organize your data files by what project they serve. For example, if you have a business that you run on your computer, you may want to place all of your business files in one large business folder and all of your personal data files in another large folder. Then under each of these folders create other folders for each type of file that it contains.
Also, look for files on your computer that were not saved in the right place. Windows Vista lets you find files by type of file and you can take advantage of this Vista facility to find all of your spreadsheets, for example, and then move them to one spreadsheet folder on your new data partition.
Change Application Settings to New Data Partition
Once you get all of your data files organized in your new data partition, it is time to tell the applications that use these files where the new default data location is to be found. To do this, you will need to open up each application and look for its settings or properties or options. Then find the default data location entry and change that to point to the new data partition folder containing files used by this application. Again, this may take a bit of time to do, but once done it will make working with your new data partition much easier to do.
Backup Frequency of Program and Data Partitions
Once you separate your data files from your program files into two different partitions, then you can backup each partition on a different frequency that best suits the type of files in each partition.
Your data files are the most important type of files on your computer and need to be backed up more frequently than your program files. Fortunately, your data partition will typically be less than half the size of your program partition, so the backups will process quickly and take up less room on your backup hard drive. I recommend doing a full backup image of your data files in the data partition once a week. Then each day in the week you would do an incremental backup image of the changes to your data partition since the last backup. This gives you an excellent backup of these important data files.
You do not need to backup your program files as often as you need to backup your data files. I recommend doing a full backup image of your program files in your program partition once a month. Then each week in the month you would do an incremental backup image of the changes to your program partition since the last backup. This will give you adequate protection of your program files, but not eat up space on your backup hard drive or take lots of time to backup.
Backup Retention of Program and Data Partitions
Next, you should consider how long to keep your backup images depending on what types of files are in the backups.
Your important data files should be kept for a much longer period of time than your program files. I would keep many months of data backup images before considering deleting any of the older backups. This will let you dig into your documents or email folders from months ago even if they are no longer on your main hard drive. It also gives you a historical archive of these important data files. Personally, when my data backup hard drive fills up, I buy a new one and save the old backup drive on the shelf.
Program files are less important to have many months worth of backups on them. Typically, three months worth of backups of your program files is enough to give you protection from corrupted programs. So, have a plan to delete any program partition backups after three months. Delete the oldest month first to make room for any new backups of your program partition.
Acronis Software Utilities to Use
Acronis Disk Director Suite 10 (list price $50) is the program you need to create a separate data partition from your program partition (c: drive). Use this program to set up your separate data partition on your computer. You can order this program from us at the user group discount price of just $29 as a download or $33 plus $5 shipping on a CD. Go to www.ugr.com/DiskDirector.html to order this partitioning software so that you can create your new data partition.
Acronis True Image 11 Home (list price $50) is the program that many of you use to backup your main hard drive to an external hard drive. This is what I recommend in the Perfect Backup Approach tutorial. You can order this excellent backup utility from us at the user group discount price of just $29 as a download or $33 plus $5 shipping on a CD. Go to www.ugr.com/TrueImage.html to order this backup software and get started doing backups today.
Special offer of both Acronis True Image 11 Home plus Acronis Disk Director Suite 10 for just $49 as a download or $53 plus $5 shipping on two CDs. Go to either www.ugr.com/TrueImage.html or www.ugr.com/DiskDirector.html to order this Acronis Bundle package of these two outstanding hard drive utilities. This is an outstanding price for two excellent hard drive utilities from Acronis.
When ordering any of the products mentioned in this article, please use the special order code of UGNL0608 when submitting your order. This code will permit you to purchase at these special discount prices.
I hope this helps you discover a better way to do your backups of your computer system. If you have questions about this article or the products, send them to gene@ugr.com and I will try to assist you. I hope this article helps you improve how you backup your computer.
Children and Computers
by Don Singleton, APCUG Vice President
Jim Lynch from TechSoup posted an email on The Google Refurbishers Group (refurbishers@googlegroups.com) from Slate Magazine http://www.slate.com/id/2192798/ which criticized One Laptop Per Child and claimed “Why giving poor kids laptops doesn’t improve their scholastic performance.” Stan Pokras referred us to Toni Stone’s article Kids, Computer Learning & the Game of Solitaire, and Bill Rappel provided the response that Computers for Youth (www.cfy.org), sent to Slate:
Evidence to the Contrary
Professor Fisman mentions (but quickly dismisses) the evidence that contradicts his thesis: Evidence that shows having a home computer and Internet access improves children’s learning and success in school.
This evidence comes from many places: Researchers at Michigan State University found that the more often low-income middle-school students used the Internet at home, the better their GPAs and standardized test scores.[1]
Economist Robert W. Fairlie and his research team at UC-Santa Cruz found that teens with home Internet access were 6 to 8 percentage points more likely to graduate from high school.[2]
My organization, Computers for Youth (CFY), in conjunction with ETS, found that students actively and regularly used their home computers and the Internet for learning and that their computer use was associated with increased success in school. More specifically, students’ engagement and home computer use, particularly their home Internet use and computer use for self-regulated learning, explained 14% of the variance in their math test scores over and above the prior years’ scores. [3]
CFY helps low-income children succeed in school by improving their learning environment at home. Since 1999, we have provided more than 15,000 low-income families in the U.S. (NYC, Philadelphia, and Atlanta) with a computer-based home learning center - a suite of engaging educational software loaded on a free refurbished computer. Families that participate in our program must attend a free workshop on how to use the computers to support children’s learning.
CFY has conducted research for over five years and has examined test scores as one of many indicators of children’s success. We have also considered school engagement, improved family relationships, perceptions of increased confidence and curiosity due to home computing as indicators of positive impact.
Our data show that home computing is associated with persistent and positive outcomes. They also show that lower-performing students may derive more benefits than their high-performing peers.
CFY welcomes the opportunity to share evidence about the other side of this story.
REFERENCES [1] Jackson, L.A., von Eye, A., Biocca, F.A. (2003). Does Home Internet Use Influence the Academic Performance of Low-Income Children? Findings from the HomeNetToo Project. First Latin American Web Congress (LA-WEB’03).
[2] Beltran, D.O., Das, K.K., and Fairlie, R.W. (2006). Are computers good for children? The effects of home computers on educational outcomes. Available on-line at: http://ideas.repec.org/p/auu/dpaper/576.html
[3] Tsikalas, K.E., Lee, J., Newkirk, C. (2008). Home Computing, School Engagement, and Academic Achievement of Low-Income Adolescents: Findings from the CFY Intervention. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New York, NY. Available from author.
And I particularly liked the response from Carl Davidson:
It’s hard for a student alone to get into trouble going through the encyclopedia. And as every kid knows, you can turn an internet linked computer into your own private porn movie house with about four mouse clicks, not to mention the problems with chat rooms.
But a decent teacher helps and, your assertion notwithstanding, there are plenty of them in the inner city, as well as a few who should retire.
In my afterschool computer workshop at an inner city school, I had a young woman student come in and ask, ‘Mr. Davidson, I need help with my English paper on MacBeth.’ Did you read it?’ I asked? ‘Yes.’ ‘Tell me what stuck in your mind?’ ‘Well, I didn’t like Lady Macbeth. She seemed like a fourth witch to me.’ OK, I said, lets see what we can find. So I show her how to do proper searches of Google, and lo and behold, all sorts of learned books and papers pop up with Lady Macbeth as the fourth witch. She was hooked, and did very well.
I had a young ninth grader, who came to the lab, and only looked up TV ‘wrestling.’ Do you like this stuff?, I asked.
Yes, then he filled me in on his favorites. Do you know about other kinds? No, he didn’t, so the Google lesson again, and now he’s engrossed in Greco-Roman, and the entire history of the sport over the centuries, opening a wider world.
Students need a guide with these tools, just as we had teachers in wood and metal shop when I was a kid. It would have been a mistake to give us the run of all that equipment with no supervision or instruction.
I can’t speak for all computer refurbishing groups, but HelpingTulsa (http://helpingtulsa.org/) has provided a number of computers to children, both through donations to At Risk schools, after school programs, daycare centers, and low income Tulsa Housing Authority facilities, and HUD Section 8 facilities. We even developed a special Children Image (http://helpingtulsa.org/images/children.htm) with educational programs for grades 1-6. Anything can be misused, but I am convinced that a child can benefit from having access to a computer, and I applaud groups that are working to refurbish old computers and make them available to children that cannot otherwise afford them.
And if your group refurbishes computers, but is not aware of the Google Refurbisher group, go to http://groups.google.com/group/refurbishers?hl=en.
Electronic Waste — Where to Dispose of It
by Peggy Johnson, DVPC
Here's a list of ewaste donation sites in Central Contra County County. If you know or learn of others, please let me know with the location, hours, and website URL. Be sure to check the websites to determine what they will accept.
Hauling Pros Recycling Center
www.dumpmytv.com
73A South Buchanan Circle
(on the left behind S&S Roofing)
Pacheco, CA 94553
925-682-8987
Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Saturday 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Rapid Recycle
www.rapidrecycle.net
110 Second Ave., South B-1
Pacheco, CA 94553
925-671-8008
Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Saturday 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
E-Waste Events
www.co.contra-costa.ca.us/depart/cd/recycle/options/e-waste.htm
See website for dates, times, and locations of events
Recycle for Breast Cancer
www.recycleforbreastcancer.org/dropoffanytime.htm
31 Beta Court, Suite C
San Ramon, CA 94583
800-315-9580
7 days a week excluding holidays 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
A completed donation form is requested at the time of donation; this form can be downloaded from their website
e-Recycle OnUs
www.erecycleonus.com
1271 Boulevard Way
(at back left corner past East Bay Art and CTA)
Walnut Creek, CA 94595
925-934-1515
Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Saturday 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Sunday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Electronic Waste Management
www.noewaste.com
E-Waste recycling events at Diablo Valley College
321 Golf Club Road
(in DVC overflow parking lot across from north side of main campus)
Pleasant Hill, CA
866-335-3373
First Saturday of every month (except holidays)
9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Photoshop Elements SIG Meeting Program
by Peggy Johnson, DVPC
The Adobe Photoshop Elements SIG meeting will be held on Thursday, July 17, 2008 at 7 p.m. at the home of Peggy Johnson in Concord, CA.
Barry will continue with the basic functions of the tool bar. Mel will also bring her new video camera to show.
Would each of you give thought and bring ideas for topics you would like to see discussed, areas where you need further clarification, and areas where you are having difficulty. Always welcome are your before and after pictures where photographs have been enhanced or corrected, and photographs that you need help with.
As usual, check the Elements SIG pages at www.bkbrown.net for all the latest news, information and tutorials.
The Photoshop Elements SIG meets on the third Thursday of each month.
Please email Peggy for further information and/or directions.
Windows SIG Meeting Program
by Walt Parsons, DVPC
The Windows SIG meeting will be held on Monday, July 7, 2008 at 7:30 p.m. Walt hopes he'll have some information about the new version of WordPerfect.
The Windows SIG meetings are held in the Community Room at the Concord Police Station. See the detailed directions on the DVPC SIG News page.