Diablo Blue
The Newsletter of the Diablo Valley PC Users Group
No August Monthly Meeting
There will be no DVPC meeting in August. The Diablo Valley College campus will still be shut down for the break between spring and summer sessions, and there will be no access allowed to any buildings on campus. We'll see you on September 3!
Even though we won't have a July meeting, we have some interesting articles this month. Two are probably more appropriate for springtime since they are about cleaning your PC — technically and physically — but hey, you have a long weekend coming up so spend a couple of hours of your free time to fix-up/clean-up. We also have an article about backing up your files by our friend Gene Barlow, and lots more.
Let us know what you think about our articles. Email webmaster@dvpc.org.
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. You can purchase permits at the parking permit machines marked with a red star on the maps on the DVPC website. 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
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. If an article is updated,the word Updated will be added in red
When we add a new article "mid-month" the entire entry will be shown in red in the Table of Contents.
Links to Interesting Online Articles
by Ron Ogg, DVPC
Here are links to some interesting articles I've found online. Check them out!
pcworld.com — How Much Does It Really Cost to Own a Smartphone?
Concerned about the long-term expense of owning a smartphone? You should be. But we found that, among the most popular smartphones on the market today, there isn't a big difference in the total cost of ownership...
Read more
pcmag.com — How to Choose the Best Web Browser
Today's Web browsers are faster and more feature-rich than ever before. If you're not sure which one you should use, our look at the most popular options will help prep you for prime surfing...
Read more
ZDnet — The decade's 25 biggest tech flops slideshow
After nearly 10 years of working at CNET, executive editor David Carnoy looks back at the most hyped tech products that didn't pan out as planned--or just flat out bombed...
Read more
InfoWorld — Watch out, developers: Here come the lawyers
Developers who 'knowingly' ship buggy software may be held liable for damages. That might be good for users -- but a sloppy set of guidelines could hurt open source...
Read more
InfoWorld — A killer Windows 7 bug? Sorry, no
Ed Bott: The blogosphere is abuzz over a newly publicized bug in Windows 7. I read about it yesterday on a blog, where it was described as a "critical bug in Windows 7 RTM." My take? It's alarming behavior if you're unaware of what's happening...
Read more
InfoWorld — Who's to blame for MacBook's poor battery life under Windows?
Some are quick to blame Apple drivers, but there's no consensus
...
Read more
ComputerWorld — Update: Twitter limps back to life after DDoS attack
Microblogging site still slow after assault paralyzed it for hours...
Read more
O'Reilly UG Program News
by Marsee Henon, O'Reilly
Hi there,
Can you share this survey with your members if you think they'll be interested?
If you've used our popular programming Cookbooks, you know just how useful they can be in helping you solve all kinds of programming problems. (And if you haven't used our Cookbooks, check them out on our website. You can download sample recipes by clicking on specific book titles and selecting "Sample Recipes.")
We've received many requests for videos that present the Cookbook recipes step-by-step, so we recently created 4 sample clips that are available online.
Now we're eager to gather your feedback.
All you have to do is watch the sample video and tell us what you think about it. When you complete the survey, we'll automatically enter you into a special drawing.* Three winners will receive the opportunity to select a collection of O'Reilly ebooks valued at up to $200.
*The drawing will be held on August 19, 2009. The winners will be notified via email. If we don't hear back from a winner within 14 days, the prize will be awarded to another survey respondent. Winners will have 90 days to make ebook selections.
For more information, go to training.oreilly.com/videosurvey
Until next time--
Marsee Henon
Computer Performance Considerations
by Gary Bentley, editor, SouthWest International Personal Computer Club (TX)
When I evaluate what might be done to maximize the performance of a computer
system, whether that be a system already in use or one I might be specifying for order (i.e., specifying the hardware with a particular level of performance in mind for the intended application) I look at several key factors.
The most critical factor is how much system RAM is available (if you are ordering a new system then you can also order faster RAM and be cognizant of addressing issues). I will state flatly that, all factors being equal, the more RAM available, the faster your computer system will operate. In the same vein, if you want to make full use of that system RAM, get an external graphics card with its own RAM so you don’t force
your system to share RAM with the video display. If you are specifying a new computer, get the fastest FSB (front side bus) speed you can afford with the microprocessor and then match the RAM bus speed to take advantage of that high bus speed. Don’t let a computer maker fool you with a low system price while handing off old slow RAM to you when the motherboard and processor would support faster bus speed RAM. New systems will always use DDR RAM, so that should not be a consideration (and older systems will not be able to use it). Don’t be confused by discussions of virtual memory and page files. If you have a large amount of RAM (1 GB or more with Windows
XP—3 or 4 GB with Vista, the OS memory hog of all time), your system will rarely need to page out process memory onto the hard drive paging file. You can check that in Task Manager (hit CTRL SHIFT ESC or CTRL ALT DEL or right click the Task Bar and select
Task Manager) by looking at the Performance tab and the Physical Memory Total in conjunction with the Commit Charge. The Physical Memory Total is the amount of RAM you have in your system. The Commit Charge is the total memory allocated to programs and the operating system. If the Commit Charge (Total or Peak) doesn’t exceed
the amount of RAM, then the hard drive pagefile is rarely if ever being used and your system should be running at full RAM speed without hard drive performance issues (except when loading the OS and starting an application, etc.). You can also use Performance Monitor (Start, Administrative Tools, Performance) and look at the Memory, Pages Output/Sec parameter. Even if the amount of committed memory exceeds available RAM, if the actual Pages Output/ Sec is low or zero most of the time
(quoting Microsoft) there is no significant performance problem related to available RAM. I doubt there would be any reason for the typical home user to require a 64 bit computer in order to utilize sufficient RAM.
The second most critical factor is the performance of the hard drive, i.e., the amount of utilization of your hard drive (present or anticipated for the application), the speed at which the drive platters rotate, and the speed of the interface to your hard drive. You never want to reach 50% of capacity of your hard drive. The more data you have on a hard drive the farther the disk drive read/write head has to move inward on the spinning platter to get to the data (on the average). This increases the seek time, the time required for the read/write head to position itself over the desired concentric data track on the spinning disk platter. So, use a hard drive with sufficient storage that you do not exceed 40% or so of the storage capacity (high performance server hard drives often are destroked or short stroked, i.e., limited to 40% or less so as to keep the data on the outer edge of the platters where it can be quickly reached). Once the read/write head reaches a track then the rotational speed of the platter comes into play, introducing latency, the time required for the desired sector of the track to rotate into position beneath the head. How do you reduce latency? Get a hard drive that spins as fast as you can afford. Most desktop hard drives now spin at 7200 RPM (don’t let them slip you a 5400 RPM drive on your desktop or your laptop!). If your drive has a slower RPM, you can increase performance by purchasing a 7200 RPM drive. Note that high performance server drives spin at 10,000 and 15,000 RPM, but those drives are expensive. If you are evaluating a replacement drive (or specifying the hard drive in a
new system), look at the access time parameter for the drive. This will generally be around 11 milliseconds for 7200 RPM desktop PC ATA/SATA drives. The access time will include seek time and rotational latency. As for the type of interface, ATA drives (which peaked at around 133 MB/sec interface performance, setting aside internal data
rate of around 60 MB/s and PCI bus rate considerations) are no longer offered, so you will see SATA (serial ATA) drives in a new computer. I wouldn’t bother attempting to replace an ATA drive in an old PC with a SATA drive. You would need a SATA controller card as well as SATA drive and you might as well just purchase a new computer. The current SATA interface rate is 3 Gbps (the initial SATA interface was 1.5
Gbps), i.e., 3 gigabits per second. That translates to approximately 300 MB/sec. However, the actual rate that the read head can read the data off the spinning platter of the drive is closer to 100 MB/sec (the internal data rate). You therefore can benefit by having a drive with a large cache memory, where a large amount of data has been read internally by the hard drive before the interface is accessed, at which time the
interface can burst perform at the full interface speed of 3 Gbps/300 MB/sec. I note that even the expensive server grade SCSI and SAS drives have about that same external interface transfer rate, i.e., 300 – 320 MB/sec, so their increased performance is coming directly from the high rotational speeds (10 – 15 K) and fast seeks, giving access
times of 3 – 5 ms vs. 11 ms or so for desktop SATA drives. Defragmenting your drive regularly will help keep the drive operating at peak efficiency.
A less critical factor is the speed of the microprocessor itself (FSB considerations aside as they relate to RAM access speed). A faster microprocessor or a dual or quad core processor will allow applications, their processes and threads to execute faster (to actually run the microprocessor instructions of which a program is composed) once the
instructions and data reach the microprocessor.
So, if you have processing intensive applications like video or music (studio) production and editing (or scientific number crunching), faster and more core processors will speed things up considerably, but only if you have plenty of RAM and a high performance hard drive.
Mr. Bentley studied electrical engineering at the University of Texas, began working in the electronics industry in 1978 with GTE Network Systems (Lenkurt), then software engineering with various startups in the 1980’s, designing and implementing, among other things, pre-Internet email communications systems multitasking on Intel platforms and MSDOS PC’s. 1984 - 1986.
Gary now provides Information Technology consulting services in the El Paso, Texas and Las Cruces, New Mexico areas.
Gary has edited and contributed articles to the award-winning Southwest International Personal Computer Club monthly magazine, “Throughput”, since December, 2003.
This article has been obtained from APCUG with the author’s permission for publication by APCUG member groups; all other uses require the permission of the author (bentley.gary (at) gmail.com).
O'Reilly Global Issues Webcast Series
from O'Reilly Media
Join us for this free, live webcast
The big view and the little view of climate change. Climate change is in some real sense an energy problem. How much energy does humanity use? How much energy do we use as individuals in our every day lives? What are the ways we need to produce energy in the future to hit a climate goal of 350, 400, 450 or 500ppm? What are the global demographics of energy use, and what does that mean at an individual consumption level? What are the changes in lifestyle required to hit those energy targets? How do we get there from here? Attend this event and find out.
Attendance is limited, so register now. We'll send you a reminder before the webcast. And please feel free to share this invitation with others.
Date: Wednesday, August 26th at 10 am PT
Price: Free
Duration: Approximately 60 minutes
To register: oreilly.com/go/energyliteracy
Questions? Please send email to webcast@oreilly.com
You may also want to register for the second webcast in this series, taking place Sept. 3 at 10am PT. Professor Per F. Pederson, Chair of the Department of Nuclear Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, presents Nuclear Energy: Future Directions. About Saul Griffith
About Saul Griffith
Dr. Saul Griffith has multiple degrees in materials science and mechanical engineering and completed his PhD in Programmable Assembly and Self Replicating machines at MIT. He is the co-founder of numerous companies including: Low Cost Eyeglasses, Squid Labs, Potenco, Instructables.com, HowToons, Makani Power, and WattzOn, a free online tool to quantify, track, compare and understand the total amount of energy needed to support all of the facets of your lifestyle.
Saul has been awarded numerous awards for invention including the National Inventors Hall of Fame, Collegiate Inventor's award, and the Lemelson-MIT Student prize. In 2007 he received a MacArthur Foundation "Genius Grant." A large focus of Saul's research efforts are in minimum and constrained energy surfaces for novel manufacturing techniques and other applications. Saul holds multiple patents and patents pending in textiles, optics, nanotechnology, and energy production. Saul co-authors children's comic books called "HowToons" about building your own science and engineering gadgets with Nick Dragotta and Joost Bonsen. Saul is a technical advisor to Make magazine and Popular Mechanics. Saul is a columnist and contributor to Make and Craft magazines. 
O'Reilly is a registered trademark of O'Reilly Media, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. O'Reilly Media, Inc. 1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA 95472 (707) 827-7000.
Electronic Waste — Where to Dispose of It
by Peggy Johnson, DVPC
Here's a list of ewaste donation sites in Central Contra County County. We've included sites where you can recycle single-use and rechargeable batteries, and to dispose of unneeded pharmaceuticals and over-the-counter medications. Be sure to check the websites to determine what they will accept. If you know or learn of others, please let me know with the location, hours, and website URL.
Computers and Electronics
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.
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.
Where to recycle Batteries
Single-Use Household Batteries
Longs Drugs
www.longs.com
Alamo, Blackhawk, Danville, Lafayette,
Moraga, Orinda, Walnut Creek, San Ramon
Right Aid Drugstores
www.rightaid.com
Orinda, Walnut Creek
Radio Shack
www.radioshack.com
Danville, Walnut Creek
Check websites for store hours
Rechargeable Batteries
Right Aid Drugstores
www.rightaid.com
Check website for store hours
Where to Dispose of Unneeded Pharmaceutical and Over-the-Counter Medications
Walnut Creek City Hall
www.walnut-creek.org
1666 North Main Street, Walnut Creek
Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Look for the green Pharmaceutical Disposal bin
Please don't flush your drugs!
How and Where to Recycle or Dispose of Other Household Waste Items
Central Contra Costa Sanitary District
The CCCSD has a two-page Disposal Guide for Central Contra Costa County brochure that can be viewed online or printed. This handy guide tells how to dispose of common household waste in safe, simple, and environmentally healthy ways. Click on the link below to access the brochure.
www.centralsan.org/documents/Brochure_Disposal_Guide.pdf
This brochure requires Adobe Acrobat Reader; you can download and install the latest version of Acrobat Reader by clicking the icon below.
Photoshop Elements SIG Meeting Program
by Peggy Johnson, DVPC
The Adobe Photoshop Elements SIG meeting will be held on Thursday, August 20, 2009 at 7 p.m. at the home of Peggy Johnson in Concord, CA. Walt Parsons will be further demonstrating the Organizer, and I will be showing how to do a selective blur and batch processing.
We cover and discuss the Adobe Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements software programs, along with other photo and video manipulation programs. As usual, check out the Elements SIG pages at www.bkbrown.net for all the latest news, information and tutorials.
The Photoshop Elements SIG usually meets on the third Thursday of each month; be sure to check Peggy's email notice for the topic and meeting date!
Please email Peggy for further information and/or directions.
Windows SIG Meeting Program
by Walt Parsons, DVPC
There will be no Windows SIG meeting in August, 2009 because the Community Room is being used for a Police training event the evening of our meeting, August 3.
There will be no Windows SIG meeting on September 7, 2009 because of the Labor Day holiday.
Our next Windows SIG meeting will be on October 5, 2009 at 6:30 p.m. Watch for more information about the topics to be covered at this meeting.
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.
The Daily Dilbert Cartoon
by Scott Adams
- Where We Meet
- Diablo Blue Password Access
- Watch for Updates! added to the TOC in red.
- Links to Interesting Online Articles
- O'Reilly UG Program News
- Computer Performance Considerations
- O'Reilly Global Issues Webcast Series
- Electronic Waste — Where to Dispose of It
- Photoshop Elements SIG Meeting Program
- Windows SIG Meeting Program
- The Daily Dilbert Cartoon