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Next Meeting, June 2Next Meeting, June 2Next Meeting, June 2Next Meeting, June 2Next Meeting, June 2Next Meeting, June 2::::::DACS Photo Wizard Ken Graff onDACS Photo Wizard Ken Graff onDACS Photo Wizard Ken Graff onDACS Photo Wizard Ken Graff onDACS Photo Wizard Ken Graff onDACS Photo Wizard Ken Graff onthe Art of Sharingthe Art of Sharingthe Art of Sharingthe Art of Sharingthe Art of Sharingthe Art of SharingYour DigitalYour DigitalYour DigitalYour DigitalYour DigitalYour DigitalMediaMediaMediaMediaMediaMedia

Inside:Inside:Inside:Inside:Inside:Sharing yourSharing yourSharing yourSharing yourSharing your

digital mediadigital mediadigital mediadigital mediadigital media

DACS rescues the filmDACS rescues the filmDACS rescues the filmDACS rescues the filmDACS rescues the filmfestivalfestivalfestivalfestivalfestival

Energy FuturesEnergy FuturesEnergy FuturesEnergy FuturesEnergy Futures

Recycling eWasteRecycling eWasteRecycling eWasteRecycling eWasteRecycling eWaste

Battery power - a primerBattery power - a primerBattery power - a primerBattery power - a primerBattery power - a primer

Beware of iFrame attacksBeware of iFrame attacksBeware of iFrame attacksBeware of iFrame attacksBeware of iFrame attacks

Plus, Commentary and Answers to yourPlus, Commentary and Answers to yourPlus, Commentary and Answers to yourPlus, Commentary and Answers to yourPlus, Commentary and Answers to yourcomputing questionscomputing questionscomputing questionscomputing questionscomputing questions

June 2008 Volume 19, Issue 6

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2/20http://www.dacs.or2 June 2008

PRESIDENTS FILE 2

DIRECTORS NOTES 3

HELPLINE 3

REVIEW - THE REMOTE DESKTOP 4

PREVIEW - ARTOF PHOTO SHARING 5

BUCKY MILAM CARTOON 5

BOVAIRDTOTHE RESCUE 5

AN ENERGY CORRECTION 6

RECYCLINGEWASTE 7

SIG NEWS & NOTES 8

CALENDAR 9

POWER SOLUTIONS 10

IFRAMEATTACKS 12

CIRCUIT RIDER 14

ASK DACS 15

IN TH IS ISSUE

Presidents File

Directors Notes

T oday is the dead-line for the Junearticle submissions, and Ifind myself without much

to write about. Work haskept me extremely busywith some new initia-tives that have requiredattending training. The

kids have various activities they need toget to. Factor in the other home and fam-ily time and activities that need to bedone; there has been little time for extra-curricular things.

For the past year, I had structured mytime to give as much as I could to DACSas long as DACS was willing to make ap-propriate use of it. Im finding out that

for this year that time is being greatlydictated by outside factors. As a result,choices have to be made with my time,and that in turn affects DACS.

DACS should continue to have aWindows SIG. It makes sense to haveit since it rounds out the Linux andMac SIGs. There should be a SIG thatis all things Windows to help users getthe most out of that OS and applicationsfor it. Unfortunately, June 19, 2008, willbe the last Windows SIG for which Ican be the leader. Im willing to co-lead or help out but I cannot lead it

after June 19. Of course, I still plan toattend it.

Both the Virtual Computing and TechProjects SIG will continue as is for now,but even they have been victims of myradical schedule changes due to per-sonal and vocational time constraints.With summer around the corner I wantto get into some build-it type projects.

Well, today has been much longer thanit needed to be and there are a few thingsI need to button up. Until next time

Rob [email protected]

A regular meeting of your Boardof Directors was held at the DACSResource Center on Monday, May 12, 2008,

at 7:00 p.m. Present were Howard Berger,Charles Bovaird, Richard Corzo, JohnGallichotte, John Lansdale, Patrick Libert,Rob Limbaugh, Anna van Ommeren, JeffSetaro. President Rob Limbaugh presidedand Secretary Anna van Ommeren kept therecord. Minutes of the last meeting held April14, 2008, were presented and approved.

Treasurer Charles Bovaird reportedcurrent cash assets of $7,573.15, con-sisting of total bank and postal accountsin the amount of $7,564.15 plus postageon hand of $9.04. Subtracting a liabilityof prepaid dues in the amount of

$1,493.00 left a net equity of $6,080.19.He also reported that the current mem-bership is at 257 - 151 of which receivethe mailed Dacs.doc newsletter.

Charles presented several spread-sheets to the Board itemizing DACSs ex-penses and costs, and demonstrated pro-jected balances against hypothetical num-bers of members. The options for poten-tial cost adjustments and discontinuingsome expenses were discussed. He alsomentioned the newsletter expenses, high-lighting variable printing expenses andprojected cost. Charlie showed the

RapidRepro charges for printing the news-letter and compared the expense for colorversus all black & white printing. He alsomentioned RapidRepro recently had to in-crease their printing fees, however theyalso give DACS a 10% discount. The ben-efits of the new color cover and the ad-vantage of the improved look was weighedagainst the increased expense. Patrick sug-gested the new color cover should begiven a trial period of 6 to 12 months.

Rob relayed some changes to thegeneral meeting lineup. The HGTV pre-

DIRECTORS NOTES, Cont. on page 3

DACS, its officers and directors assume no

liability for damages arising out of the publi-

cation or non-publication of any article, ad-

vertisement, or other item in this newsletter .

The editors welcome submissions from

DACS members. Contact Patrick Libert at

860-567-9586 ([email protected].

Advertisers, contact Charles Bovaird at

(203) 792-7881 ([email protected])

dacs.docis prepared using PageMaker 7.0 andAcrobat 7.0.Software packages used to publishdacs.doc include: Microsoft Windows XP,Office 2003, TrueType fonts, Calendar Creator8.0 for Windows. Internet access provided byMags.net

TTTTTe ce ce ce ce c h n i c a l S u p p or h n i c a l S u pp o r h n i c a l S u p p or h n i c a l S u pp o r h n i c a l S u p po r ttttt

Applications & Hardware toenhance dacs.docare welcome.

Nonprofit groups may request permission to

reprint articles from dacs.doc or http://dacs.org

by sending e-mail to [email protected]. Re-

printed articles shall credit the copyright holder

and a copy of the final publication shall be

mailed to:

Danbury Area Computer Society, Inc.

4 Gregory Street

Danbury CT 06811-4403

Attn. Reprints

Links to articles reprinted on the web can be

sent to: [email protected]

M e m b e r s h i pM e m b e r s h i pM e m b e r s h i pM e m b e r s h i pM e m b e r s h i p

I n fI n fI n fI n fI n fo ro ro ro ro rm am am am am a t i o nt i o nt i o nt i o nt i o ndacs.doc, ISSN 1084-6573, is publishedmonthly by the Danbury Area Computer Soci-ety, 4 Gregory Street, Danbury, CT 06810-4430. Annual subscription rates: $45 to regularmembers, $30 electronic access (included indues).

P o s t m a s t e r P o s t m a s t e r P o s t m a s t e r P o s t m a s t e r P o s t m a s t e r Send address changes to Danbury Area Com-puter Society, Inc., 4 Gregory Street, Danbury,CT 06810-4430.

E d i t o r i a l C o m m i t t e eE d i t o r i a l Co m m i t t e eE d i t o r i a l C o m m i t t e eE d i t o r i a l Co m m i t t e eE d i t o r i a l Co m m i t t e e

Managing Editor: Patrick Libert

Production Editor: Marc CohenCopy Editor: Patrick Libert

C o n t r i b u t o r sC o n t r i b u t o r sC o n t r i b u t o r sC o n t r i b u t o r sC o n t r i b u t o r sChar les Bovai rd Richard CorzoSean Henderson Mike KaltschneeJohn Lansdale Lisa LeifelsFlo Ferrara Jim ScheefJeff Setaro Richard Ten Dyke

Patrick Libert

APCUG [email protected]

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3/20http://www.dacs.org June 2008 3

DIRECTORS NOTES, Cont. on page 4

sentation for June has been rescheduledto August and Ken Graff has offered tofill in and will be discussing Sharingyour pictures online for the June meet-ing. Speakers for Nov 2008 and Jan-Mar2009 are still to be decided upon. Robalso mentioned positive comments from

speakers who have received the DACSmembership gift.Anna brought up the subject of the

DACS feedback form. It was discussedwho should have the responsibility ofanswering the form submissions. Robsuggested it be directed to two peopleto ensure requests receive a timely re-ply. Richard agreed his email be addedand both Anna and Richard will respondto submissions the same alternatingmonth as updating the DACS web site.One of the form submissions requestedinformation about local recycling. The

Board discussed adding a page to theDACS website listing recycling sugges-tions, helpful resources and links. Robsuggested a separate link on the Homepage to highlight the new page.

As appreciation for services pro-vided by Charlie, the CT Film Fest orga-nization has offered to add a link toDACS with our press-release informationon their sponsor page. Jim Sheef s varia-tion on the About DACS text was agreedto be the best to submit and Charlieagreed to forward this to the appropriatepersons.

Rob mentioned that he and Flo willnot be able to attend the August generalmeeting. He also recommended Itsdeductible.com, a website which pro-vides information about tax deductiblecredits applicable for individuals whovolunteer their time for nonprofit orga-nizations such as DACS.

The subject of door prizes at the gen-eral meetings was discussed; membersin good standing are eligible and needto be present to win. To encourage moreparticipation and attendance at the meet-ings, the possibility of awarding a larger

prize on a semiannual basis was consid-ered, however, the legalities and tax is-sues would have to be researched. Thepossibility of a raffle, with the remainingmoney being donated to a charity wasalso brought up. Howard talked aboutfundraising and contest topics such asphotography or digital art, and poten-tially showcasing the winners on theDACS website.

Howard mentioned the ongoingDACS collaboration with the GDNRCTechnology Committee, an organization

DIRECTORS NOTES, Cont. from page 3

PRESIDENT: Rob Limbaugh(203) 648-9176 [email protected] PRESIDENTS: Flo Ferrara, Sean Henderson

SECRETARY: Annette van Ommeren TREASURER: Charles Bovaird

Off icers

H e l p L i n eH e l p L i n eH e l p L i n eH e l p L i n eH e l p L i n e

Volunteers have offered to field member questions by phone. Pleaselimit calls to the hours indicated below. Days means 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.;

evening means 6 to 9:30 p.m. Please be considerate of the volunteeryou are calling. HelpLine is a free service. If you are asked to pay for

help or are solicited for sales, please contact the dacs.doc editor; theperson requesting payment will be deleted from the listing. Can we add

your name to the volunteer listing?

d = day e = evening

P r o g r a mP r o g r a mP r o g r a mP r o g r a mP r o g r a m N a m eN a m eN a m eN a m eN a m e P h o n e #P h o n e #P h o n e #P h o n e #P h o n e #

APL Charles Bovaird (203) 792-7881 ( e)

ASP.Net Chuck Fizer (203) 798-9996 (d )

C/UNIX/ObjC Kenneth Lerman (203) 426-4430 (d e)

C#, VB Chuck Fizer (203) 798-9996 (d )DOS John Gallichotte (203) 426-0394 (d e)

Electronics Andrew Woodruff (203) 798-2000 (d e)

Hardware John Gallichotte (203) 426-0394 (d e)

Interface-Instrumentation Andrew Woodruff (203) 798-2000 (d e)

PhotoShop/Dreamweaver Annette van Ommeren (914) 232-0149 ( e)

SAS Lewis Westfall (203) 790-0229 ( e)

Statistics/Data Analysis Charles Bovaird (203) 792-7881 (d e)

SQL Lewis Westfall (203) 790-0229 ( e)

SQL Server, MySQL-5 Chuck Fizer (203) 798-9996 (d )

Malware Jeff Setaro (203) 748-6748 (d )

VB.Net, Visual Basic Chuck Fizer (203) 798-9996 (d )

[email protected]

Charles Bovaird (203) 792-7881 [email protected]

Howard Berger (860) 355-9837 [email protected]

Richard Corzo (203) 797-1518 [email protected]

John Gallichotte (203) 426-0394 [email protected]

Sean Henderson (203) 837-7068 [email protected]

John Lansdale (914) 533-2002 [email protected]

Patrick Libert (860) 567-9586 [email protected],

Rob Limbaugh (203) 648-9176 [email protected]

Jim Scheef (860) 355-0034 [email protected]

Jeff Setaro (203) 748-6748 [email protected]

Annette van Ommeren (914) 232-0149 [email protected]

Commit tees

NEWSLETTER: Patrick Libert: [email protected], (860) 567-9586

PROGRAM: Flo Ferrara ([email protected])

WEB MASTERS:Richard Corzo ([email protected]), (203)797-1518

Annette van Ommeren ([email protected]), (914)232-0149

MARKETING AND PR: Sean Henderson([email protected])

APCUG LIAISON: Patrick Libert ([email protected])

RESOURCE CENTER: (203) 748-4330 WEB SITE: http://www.dacs.org

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Meeting ReviewDIRECTORS NOTES, Cont. from page 3

T h e Re m o t e De s k t o p

- FLO FERRARA, ACTING VP OF PROGRAMS

which assists nonprofit agencies withtheir IT (phone and computer) require-ments. They appreciate our participa-tion and suggestions regarding varioustechnical issues non-profits have todeal with. DACS acts as advisors totheir organization at this point, and has

offered to build them a virtual serverand virtual PC to demonstrate the pos-sibilities to new nonprofit organiza-tions. We will offer our consulting abil-ity as advisors and can provide direc-tion. An added benefit is that this work-ing relationship is improving DACSposition in the community.

Anna van Ommeren

AS PROMISED, the May presenta-tion, given by The Network Sup- port Company staff Danbury

along with a team from CitrixSystems, was very impressive.John Pugliese, Vice Presidentof Sales and Marketing for The Network Support Companybegan the evening with a com-prehensive outline of services.These include services in theindustries of hospitality, fi-nance, municipal, and educa-tion, to name a few. Johnpointed out that TNSC offersa broad range of remote, onsiteand value added services tomeet most small-to-medium-size (SMB) business commu-nity budgets.

Fred Zering, the Citrix CT/Upstate NY Field Sales Man-ager was introduced by John.Fred gave a brief summary ofthe Citrix Xen products. Notonly about what they are to-day but how and why theyevolved the way they have. PresentationServer is now called XenApp. Fred ex-

plained that unlike the traditional methodof delivering applications remotely,XenApp virtualizes applications byseparating where the application is usedfrom where it runs. All components aremaintained and secured in the data center.IT consolidates application managementcentrally, while enabling users the freedomto operate from any location, on any de-vice, over any network. Fred also spokebriefly about XenServer andXenDesktop.

The floor was then given to TomKilstrom of Citrix, Inc. Tom spoke about

application streaming and how with theXen products IT can centrally manageall Windows-based desktop applications.The Edgesight product helps IT pin-point root-causes of bottlenecks and al-lows for both proactive and reactive sup-port. Citrix now has a single sign-on pass-word manager and a self-serve reset tool.This allows the user to unlock an accountby answering a series of security ques-tions. Those of us who have staffed helpdesks can surely relate to that. Tom alsospoke about Provisioning Server. How itcan send down an operating system on

the fly; and how that operating systemcan be any OS. The choice can be based

on a menu or even the time of day.

And lastly, Marc Morris of Citrix, Inccame on stage to discuss XenSourceXensource is the leading provider of enterprise-class virtual infrastructure solutions based on the open source Xenvirtualization engine. XenSource is going to give VMware a run for its moneyaccording to Marc.

Virtualization will not only save organizations time and management effortsbut it is also another way companies cango green by saving energy and reducing their carbon footprint.

So, to sum it up, with the completionof the XenSource acquisition, Citrix nowadds two new product lines to its portfo-

lio, XenServer for server virtualizationand XenDesktop for desktopvirtualization. Combined with thecompanys existing applicationvirtualization products, these two new ad-ditions seem to give Citrix one of theindustrys most comprehensive end-toend virtualization portfolios.

If you would like to know more abouthese products, I am sure John Minielloor John Pugliese from The Network Sup-port Company in Danbury would behappy to enlighten you.

by Flo Ferrara

B e I n fo r m e d

by E-m a i lMembers who wishto receive DACS emailmessages who have notreceived an email noticefor the General Meetingshould send a request tobe put on the DACSemail list to: [email protected].

Smart advertisers

can reach over

250

active computer

users and

software buyers

by takingadvantage of

the attractive

advertising rates

in

DACS.DOC

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Meeting Preview

S h a r i n g Yo u r D i g i t a l M e d i a

By Flo Ferrara

DACS IS VERY FORTUNATE tohave Ken Graff, leader of the Digi-

tal Imaging SIG, volunteer to givethe June presentation,. Entitled DigitalWizardry: The Art of Sharing Your Digi-tal Media, thispresentation ismost timelyes-pecially for thoseof us who will takehundreds of pho-tos this summeralone. At eventsrunning the gamutfrom graduations,family reunions,weddings and va-cations, cameraswill be clicking inhigh gear. Peopleof all ages teen-agers to grandpar-ents are gettingin on the digital camera action. But,while more and more pictures are get-ting taken, fewer are getting shared. Infact, most of the pictures remain on thememory card of the camera; or, if youare like me, on the hard drive of the com-puter.

Ken will show us how to make useof free software and resources availableon the Internet to inspire and instruct.Attendees will learn to make the mostof their digital creations. Included will

Our 2008 General Meeting

Schedule is changed for the

first half of 2008.

Our General Meetings willbe held on the

FIRST MONDAY

of January through June

2008.

The FIRST TUESDAY

schedule will resume next

month, July 2008.

REMINDER!

be how to organize, correct and mostimportantly share images with family

and friends.The audience will gain knowledge

of how to create digital photo albums,slide shows,scrapbooks, ani-mations, specialeffects, and more!So round up allthe people youknow who fit theprofile of digitalmedia hoarderneighbors, familyand coworkersand join us onMonday evening,June 2. Their fam-ily and friendswill thank you forit!

DACS meet-ings are held at the Danbury Hospitalauditorium. Activities begin at 6:30 p.m.with registration and casual network-ing. The meeting starts at 7:00 p.m. witha general question and answer period(Ask DACS), announcements and ashort break. The featured evening pre-sentation begins at 8:00.

As a reminder, our General Meetingsare free and open to the public so inviteanyone you know who would be inter-ested in this topic.

IT WAS GETTING close to the big event,and The Connecticut Film Festival wasin panic mode. They were having troublegetting their local network to recognizethe fancy Bocaprinter that spinsout tickets for thefestival events.

So they calledCharlie Bovaird,DACS' technol-ogy ambassadorto the Danburycommunity, forsome advice andassistance. For more than a decade,Charlie has been helping the city andthe local non-profit community to set-up networks and solve their computerproblems, and spearheading DACS pro-grams to refurbish and distribute usedcomputer systems.

After sizing up the problem, andconsulting with fellow DACS guru,Bruce Preston, Charlie identified andfixed the probleminstructing the LANto look for the specific IP address ofthe printer.

The festival management gratefullyacknowledges Charlie's assistance onits Web site (http://ctffnews.blogspot.com/2008/05/dacs-comes-to-rescue.html):

"Thanks to the generosity and ITgenius of DACS founding member,Charles Bovaird, the festival was ableto get their new online ticketing systemand printers up online and running."

DACS Comest o t h e Re s c u e

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Commentary

A n E n e r A n E n e r A n E n e r A n E n e r A n E n e r ggggg y C o r y C o r y C o r y C o r y C o r rrrrre c t i o n .e c t i o n .e c t i o n .e c t i o n .e c t i o n .

by John Lansdale

IRECENTLY WROTE an article about

energy use in computers. It was basedon verifiable information gathered from

various web sources,mostly Wikipedia Or-ders of Magnitude (En-ergy) (1), which Id putinto a spreadsheet so Icould extend and com-pare. I was hypotheti-cally worried whetherthere would be enoughenergy in the world topower a billion geeks forthe next 50 years. You

know, so there wouldntneed to be a world warand all the poor people in China can befed and we wont live in poverty in a bleak,pollution scarred landscape and all,sustainability.

The numbers spoke for themselves.When talking of sustainability, efficiencyin computers makes little difference. Evenif using super low power 10 watt laptops.Automobiles and heating use far moreenergy. Any efficiency campaign has tostart there. In energy economics I notedthe brain using 20 watts x 24 hours = 413

calories of energy per day was a more sig-nificant topic.

Surprisingly someone attechsoup (2), Microsofts Mindshare project(3 )(Microsofts outreach to local user groups,we belong to it) has written an article on asimilar topic and came up with a differentconclusion. They compared an Energystar (109 watts active, 58 off) to a conven-tional (115 active 81 off mode) computers.They published:

Assuming that you shut down yourcomputer for 16 hours a day (versus keep-ing it active 24-7), you could save $0.16and 2.63 pounds of carbon dioxide per day,or 960 pounds per year. A car emits about2,666 pounds of carbon dioxide per year,meaning that the energy you will saveover the course of the computers life (3years = 2,880 lbs) will equal a bit morethan taking a car off the road for a year.

Somehow they implied this was eco-nomically significant and environmental.The amount of money saved by not usingyour PC at all (strangely not using EnergyStar as they described), 16 cents / day =$58 / year seems reasonable. But their

number for the cars carbon dioxide emis-

sion is way off.According to a recent US Department

of Energy report (4)average miles traveledper vehicle is 12,041with an energy inten-sity in gallons per 1000miles 49.5 or 20.2 milesper gallon. A burnedgallon of gasoline cre-ates about 20 poundsof CO

2(5).So an aver-

age US car would burn12,041 / 20.2 = 992 gal-

lons of gas x 20.37 =20,200 pounds of car-

bon dioxide.Techsoup authors conclusion should

have been:... A car emits about 20,200 pounds

of carbon dioxide per year, meaning thatthe energy you will save over the courseof the 7 computers lives (21 years=20,160 lbs) will equal a bit more thantaking a car off the road for a year.

Please though, do your own calcula-tion. Use good, official data and be care-ful with the detail.

References(1) Wikipedia Orders of magnitude

(energy)h t t p : / / e n .w i k i p e d i a .o r g / w i k i /

Orders_of_magnitude_(energy)(2) Microsofts techsoup - Reduce

Your Computers Power Consumption inMinutes

http://blog.techsoup.org/node/361(3) Microsoft Mindshare - faqh t t p s : / / w w w . m i c r o s o f t . c o m /

mindshare/faqs.mspx(4)

Household Vehicles Energy Use:Latest Data & Trendshttp://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/rtecs/

nhts_survey/2001/

(5) Department of energy Carbon Di-oxide weight per Gallon of Gas Calcula-tion

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/co2.shtml

The way this weight is calculated isinteresting. When gas burns, one carbon(C ) atom is combined with two oxygens(O

2) from the air to create water (H

2O) and

carbon dioxide ( CO2). The atomic weight

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e W a s t ee W a s t ee W a s t ee W a s t ee W a s t e

by Richard Corzo

AS THE APPLE User Group contacfor DACS, I recently received ane-mail from our regional liaison.

Keeping our earth healthy iseverybodys responsibility, IMO. A cableTV channel is helping to do just that. If

you go to http://www.gcycle.org/andenter your zip code, you will get infor-mation about where to take your outdated computers, TVs, cell phones, stereo equipment, and so on, instead ofdumping it in your trash.

For the full story go to http:/tinyurl.com/4o7eye.

You may already know that DACShas offered to recycle old cell phonesJust bring them to the general meetingor drop them off in the designated box athe Resource Center the next time youattend a SIG meeting.

I dont have an old cell phone, buamong other electronic things I havean old cell phone recharger and bat-tery. I tried the recycling Web site andfound out that I should be able to turnthese items in to the local AT&T Wireless store at the mall. Why not givethis site http://www.gcycle.org/a tryto see if it works for you. Let us [email protected] if you have successor failure with any of the informationprovided by this site.

of Carbon is 12 and Oxygen 16 so theweight of carbon dioxide is 12 + (2 * 16)= 44. The relative weight of carbon dioxide to carbon in gasoline is 44/12 = 3.7. Agallon of gas weighs 6.3 pounds whichis 83% carbon or 5.5 pounds of carbonThen 3.7 * 5.5 = 20.37 pounds.

*Note that petroleum consumptionis energy use. CO

2

emission and energyefficiency is the same topic.

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Tips & Tricks

T h e A r t o f K e e p i n g Co o l

Pa r t 1 : Co m p u t e r Fa n s

By Jerry Goldstein

WHEN THE WEATHER iscold, you may not bethinking of the need to cool

down. No matterhow cold it getsoutside your per-sonal computerstill needs to becooled. Comput-ers generate agreat deal of heatand need a meansof dissipating it.

Heat reduces the life of your computerparts. Block your computer vents andyour motherboard will fry leaving youwith lots of nothing. Inadequately cooledcomputers suffer crashes and freeze-upsas the parts overheat.

You can check your computers tem-perature during startup by going to Setupwhen your computer starts. Unless youdo it through a reboot after you have beenon the computer for a while you will notget a true reading. There is software avail-able to monitor your CPUs temperature.Constant temperature monitoring is prob-

ably not needed unless you areoverclocking your computer (running yourCPU faster than it is set for at the factory)or have packed in way too much gear.

To combat the heat computer usershave a wide selection of choices, somethat work better than others. This articlewill introduce you to a variety of means ofkeeping your computer cool.

As computers get faster and smaller theparts are getting hotter and hotter. Thesmaller the computer case gets, the lessspace that heat has to go. For a while com-puter cases were getting bigger. About eight

years ago I had a nice full size tower thathad plenty of room for lots of gear and openspace for the heat to dissipate. I still hadextra fans running on that computer but thecomputer ran cool to start with because ithad space for the heat to go.

In the last few years the over-the-counter computer started to be made withsmaller cases which meant parts are beingcrammed closer together. That also meantthere was less room for the excess heat tomove away from the equipment. Addingfans are becoming more of a necessity asmore is crammed into less space.

The standard computer comes with atleast four small fans built onto the casewalls and the CPU. These fans are self-

contained unitsthat either blowcold air into thecomputer or hot airout. You will findthese fans spreadthroughout yourcomputer with theirlocation depend-ing on the

manufacturers design. There is also afan made to blow cool air directly onto anadd-on video card, a notorious heat mon-ger for gamers. The fan uses one or twoexpansion slots and sits over the videocard forcing cool air onto the card. Whenadding fans think about placing some fansto bring in the cool air while having otherfans suck out the heat. Good airflow willkeep things cool and lengthen the life ofyour computer.

For gamers, who always want the latestand greatest equipment, (meaning heat gen-erating stuff), theres nothing like a huge

fan built right into the top of the computer.These fans are larger than standard com-puter fans, usually as large as the case iswide. They sit on the top of the computersucking the heat up and out as it risesthrough the computer. Way cool.

Of course a fan cooled computer willdo you no good if you pack your computerinto too tight a space or a closed environ-ment. Be sure to keep a few inches for air tocirculate in and out of the computer fanvents and dont put your computer in aclosed cabinet. There is a reason computerdesks come with an open back cabinet to

put your desktop into. Air circulation isalso the reason why internal computercables are no longer flat. They found theflat cables blocked air flow. The roundSATA cables now in use cut back on airflow restriction. SATA cables are also madethinner to further increase airflow. Checkhow your cables run and maybe move themto the side to increase airflow. Air circula-tion equals good. Closed-in, tightly packedcomputer equals bad.

One drawback to fans is that they runoff your computers power supply. Themore fans you put in your computer the

shorter the life of your power supply.Power supplies are a lot cheaper to re-place than a motherboard, CPU, hard drive,or video card. In fact, you should alwaysinvest in a couple more good fans to aidin cooling your computer. The manufac-turers are looking to save costs so theyare never generous enough with thosefans. Youll always save money in thelong run with longer lasting parts kept coolby those extra fans. That is if you remem-ber to install them. Those extra fans wonthelp while they sit on the shelf waiting tobe put in.

Fans also have a bigger drawback:noise. When you start up your computerthat noise you hear is the fans starting upand running. The more fans you use themore noise you get. It's worth spending abit more to get a better quality, quieterfan. Check the computer magazines oron-line for reviews. Using one large fan

that moves more air than two small oneswill also save you noise. The law of di-minishing returns comes into play withfans. At some point adding another fanwill not help anymore, as the enclosedspace can only move so much air.

The lower you keep your computerparts' temperature, the longer they will last.Taking the time to strategically place com-puter fans will save you time and moneyshopping to replace those overheatedblown parts. Keep cool year round.

JERRY GOLDSTEIN is vice president & newsletter

editor, The PC Users Group of Connecticut,www.tpcug-ct.org/ . He can be reached [email protected].

This article has been provided toAPCUG by the author solely for publica-tion by APCUG member groups. All otheruses require the permission of the author(see e-mail address above).

B e I n fo r m e dby E-m a i l

Members who wishto receive DACS emailmessages who have notreceived an email noticefor the General Meetingshould send a request tobe put on the DACSemail list to: [email protected].

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SIG NEWS,Continued on page 10

SIG News & Events

ASP.Net - C#VB.Net. The 4-6pm session started with an initialround of questions regarding the IP address of routers andWIFIs. At issue is the possible contention between the two de-vices. By default, it seems that the equipment manufacturerschoose 192.168.0.1 as the default address for both devices.What happens when a WIFI user wants to log on to the router tomanage its functionality? We discussed the pros and cons andthe impact of the IP address, apparently to everyones approval.

Then, have you ever puzzled over a question whether a Win-dows application can be engineered afresh as a Web applica-tion? Greg Austin showed us how he did it with his customizedWindows management information system built a few yearsago and still usable. Now his user population can take advan-tage of its features through the Internet.

Materials of the former Windows app were distributed in sev-eral machines and are now based in a server using ASP 2.0Those earlier Windows objects, together with logic and businessrules were transferred to an ASP.Net browser application but thedatabase was not. Procedures were conceived afresh with access privileges and membership classes placed in a server environment. Greg gave us a demo of some pages in the Webapplication. A key advantage is that updates can be done once athe server instead of done repeatedly at several machines.

Chuck then gave us a glimpse of some work he is doing in anapplication to monitor RSS feeds (Real Simple Syndication). Heshowed us some differences between usage with AJAX as contrasted to usage without it. This work in progress provides an

Special Interest Groups SIG NOTES: June 2008

ASP.Net. Focuses on Web site/server application develop-ment using Microsoft Visual Studio, C#, VB, Javascript andSQL Server programming tools. Starts with Random Access,followed by a programming discussion with examples.

Contact: Chuck Fizer [email protected] 1st Wednesday, 4-6 p.m., at the DACS Resource Center.Next Meeting: June 4

Digital Imaging. Digital cameras, retouching and printing.Contact: Ken Graff at 203 775-6667 [email protected] last Wednesday, 7 p.m.at the DACS Resource Center.Next Meeting: June 25

Jobs. Networking and jobs searchContact: Charles Bovaird, 203-792-7881 [email protected] by e-mail.Next meeting: TBA

Linux. Provides Help in installing and maintaining the Linuxoperating system. Also of interest to Apple owners using OS X.Contact: John Lansdale 914-533-2002Meets 3rd Wednesday, 7:30 pm at the DACS Resource Center.Next Meeting: June 18

Macintosh. Focuses on all aspects of the Mac operating system.Contact: Richard Corzo [email protected] 1st Thursday at DACS Resource Center at 7 p.m.Next Meeting: June 5

Open Source Web Programming. Focuses on open sourcetools for Windows and Linux.Contact: John Lansdale, 914-533-2002.Meets 3rd Monday, 7 p.m. at the DACS Resource Center.

Next Meeting: June 16

PC Maintenance. Review of PC hardware and OpSys main-tenance and use.Contact: Charles Bovaird, 203-792-7881 [email protected] on 4th Thursday, 7 p.m. at the DACS Resource Center.Next meeting: June 26

Server. Explores Back Office server and client applications,including Win NT Servers and MS Outlook.

Contact: Jim Scheef [email protected] 2nd Thursday, 7 p.m., at the DACS Resource Center.Next meeting: June 12

Tech Projects. This SIG Will work on DACS "Online Communityprojects as well as other areas from practical application solu-tions, to brainstorming and to tweeking Commercial products. Allskill levels and backgrounds are welcome. The goal is to mixmatch and customize technology to fit our needs.Meets 1st Wednesday, 7p.m. at the DACS resource center.Contact: Rob Limbaugh at(203)648-9176, [email protected] meeting: June 11

VB.Net, Visual Basic-6. Focuses on Smart Client Windows ap-plication development using Visual Studio, VB, C# and SQLServer programming tools. Starts with a random accss ses-sion , followed by Object Oriented discussions and program-ming with examples.Contact: Chuck Fizer, 203 798-9996 [email protected] Greg

Austin, 845 494-5095 [email protected] 1st Wednesday, 7p.m., at the DACS Resource Cen-ter, preceeded 1 hour with a shared cost pizza snack.Next Meeting: June 4

Virtual Computing. This SIG will explore virtual computing tech-nologies and how to leverage them as additional system re-sources. Our main focus will be on the free VMWare productsbut we will also look at other technologies and tools.Meets 4th Tuesday, 7 p.m. at the DACS Resource CenterContact: Rob Limbaugh [email protected], 203 648-9176Next Meeting: June 24

Web Design. Applications for designing and creating Web sites.Contact: Anna van Ommeren [email protected].

Meets 3rd Tuesday, 7-9 p.m. at the DACS Resource CenterNext Meeting: June 17

Windows. This SIGwilldiscuss ways to get the most out ofyour system and applications, how to do new things, ansother options in terms of hardware and softwareto help malelife easier. All skill levels are welcomed and encouraged toattendContact: Rob Limbaugh [email protected], (203 )648-9176Next Meeting: June 19

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WHEN MY KIDS WERE young, I

bought batteries by the bushel.All of their

toys required somebatteries. The phrasebatteries not in-cluded raised almostas much terror assome assembly re-quired. I still recallgoing out one Xmasmorning in search ofC size batteries be-cause we missed thewarning on the box.

(7-11). One very coolpool toy took 16 bat-teries - in 3 sizes.

In those days, rechargeable batterieswere garbage. Most rechargeables werenickel-cadmium and with a memory thatmade them useless after a few charges. Shelflife was a joke and power output dismal.For several years, I bought throw away al-kaline batteries at Costco because they werecheaper than those clever bunny batteries.Not environmentally friendly, but definitelykid toy friendly. As the kids grew up, theirneeds for batteries diminished (actually theynow buy their own), but my need for batter-ies is increasing. Wireless keyboards, wire-less mice, gps, wireless game controllers(the Wii-mote takes 4 batteries per control-ler and there are 4 controllers), iPod externalpower units, camera accessories and on andon. I am going through more batteries nowwith my toys than I ever did with the kids!Luckily, rechargeable battery technologyhas come a long way.

Sanyo produces the eneloop(www.eneloop.info). According to their specsheet, the AA battery is rated at 1.2 voltsand 2000 mAh. Not bad for a recharge-able. (A disposable usually is 1.5 volts.)

There are two sizes of eneloop batter-ies, AA and AAA. They also produce Cand D size cylinders in which you insertAA batteries.

F ro m t h e i r s i t e :eneloop is a totally new type of battery,which satisfies in a unique way the needsand expectations of the consumers.

Consumers would like to have a bat-tery, which can be used right after thepurchase

has a high performance

has a long shelf life with no loss ofenergy

can be used everywhere

is cheap in purchase and us-age

is environmental friendly

is easy to use

So far, these requirementscould not be satisfied by a

single type of battery.The consumer had

the choice between dis-

posable batteries or re-chargeable batteries

Disposable batteries have several ad-vantages:

they can be used immediately

they have a long shelf life with lowloss of energy

they are rather cheap in purchase

they are easy to use and no charger isrequired

These advantages of disposable bat-teries however, had to be seen alongsideseveral clear disadvantages:

they can be used only once and there-fore mean substantial waste and risk forthe environment.

they have to be purchased over andover again and are therefore expensiveconsidering the life-time of your equip-ment.

they are not quite powerful enough incertain applications (like digital cameras)

they are being offered in many variet-ies and special application-specifictypes, which confuses the consumer.

The classical advantages of recharge-able batteries are: high performance, especially if highdischarge currents are required ( like indigital cameras)

cheap in use, because they can be re-charged many times.

environmental friendly, because onerechargeable battery replaces 1000 dis-posable batteries.

good performance at low temperatures.

Given these advantages, rechargeablebatteries also have some disadvantages,

which made consumers reluctant to ex-change disposable batteries by recharge-able batteries:

After purchase, rechargeable batter-ies have to be charged before they canbe used.

Rechargeable batteries lose thestored energy rather fast.

The state of charge is hard to deter-mine.

Continuous charging or frequentcharge (without complete discharge )can destroy the battery.

Proper charging is complicated foran average consumer

The charging takes quite long andrapid chargers are expensive.

All these negative attributes haveone root-cause:self discharge.

Self-discharge means, that a charged

battery slowly discharges itself withoutany equipment consuming any current.This is the reason for rechargeable bat-teries being sold in discharged state. Andthis is the reason for that keepingcharged batteries for some time did notmake any sense. When you needed then,the energy was gone.

How was the self-discharge re-duced? (For you techy folks!)

Modern Ni-MH batteries consist oftwo metal stripes (anode and cathode),

which are separated by a non-conduc-tive porous plastic foil ( separator ).These three stripes are laid on top ofeach other and are wound to a coil. Thiscoil is put in a metal can and immersedwith a liquid (electrolyte). Then the metalcan is closed with a cap.

The self discharge of Ni-MH batter-ies is caused by three main reasons:

the chemical decomposition of thecathode,

the natural disaggregation of the anode,

Impurities of the anode.

Now, how could the self-dischargein the eneloop been reduced?

The chemical decomposition of thecathode has been reduced substantiallyby the use of a new superlattice alloy.As an additional benefit the superlatticealloy increases the electrical capacity ofthe battery and reduces the internal re-sistance, which allows higher dischargecurrents. Another advantage of the re-duced decomposition of this alloy is thefact that less Cobalt is needed to stabi-lize the alloy. The anode has beenstrengthened by another new material,

Tips & Tricks

Sc o t t y, I N e e d M o r e Po w e r !By Alan Mildwurm

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which reduces the natural disaggregation.Additionally the separator and the usedelectrolyte have been optimized for lowself discharge of the eneloop.

They really are good batteries!

I have been using eneloops for severalmonths. They work fine. I have both a wallcharger and two battery (AA or AAA) USBcharger. Both chargers work very well. I likethe USB charger and I love the fact thatthey come charged and ready to go.

The kit shown below lists for $50.00but is available at Amazon for $32.00 Itcomes with 4 AA, 2 AAA, and 2 spacerseach for C and D plus a charger. I havefound even better deals with more batter-ies at Costco!!

ALAN MILDWURM is president, Diablo Valley

PC Group, California, www.dvpc.org. Youcn reach him at [email protected].

This article has been provided to APCUG by the author solely for publication byAPCUG member groups. All other uses re-quire the permission of the author (see e-mail

address above).

FREEC LASSIF IED S

DACS members maypublish noncommercial,computer-related classi-fied ads in dacs.docat nocharge. Ads may be sentby e-mail to CharlieBovaird at [email protected], or hard-copy may besubmitted at our monthlygeneral meeting.

other Web usage. The ASP.Net SIG will continue to work with this project and refineit with additional functionality. Two working versions of the application were distrib-uted to registered SIG members. The initial version uses PostBack exclusively,while the second version contains incomplete but working AJAX implementationthat will be refined for further SIG Sessions.

A hearty crew needs hearty refreshment, and we took pleasure in our traditionalpizza break.

As the C#VB.Net session time 7pm approached, we then moved smoothly intodatabase issues, thanks to Chuck, who demonstrated each point with his SQLManagement Studio. The database issues revolve around another applicationproject (BriefCase) the SIG is developing. The BriefCase application is a webserver application that provides a browser Brief Case file storage system con-tained on the SQL Server database Server that mimics a Windows Explorer. Theapplication contains Folders, sub Folders and Files that are reachable from theinternet using a browser. Additional project development will ensue at future SIGmeetings.

In starting this application, several considerations emerged. The databasecan be managed by Visual Studio 2008 where it is attached to a SQL ServerExpress as a database named ASPNETDB in the App_Data project folder. Or thedatabase can be managed directly by the SQL Server 2005 Express and appropri-ately named BriefCaseDb stored in the data folder of the SQL Server. We alsotalked about database instances that are associated with their own thread and a

port. By employing multiple instances we get multiple threads with better through-put of transactions.

Our initial start with the application was the creation of the database using a T-SQL script. We discussed the merits of using SQL Server Management Studio toexecute the script creating the database, and then experimenting with VS2008Server Explored tool to perform the database creation again. The functional differ-ences between the SQL Server Management Studio and VS2008 Server Explorerquickly became apparent when we discovered that our complete T-SQL scriptwould not execute via VS2008 as it did in SQL Server Management Studio. VS2008Server Explore is not quite as feature endowed as SQL Server Management Stu-dio, but does contain functionality a developer needs in a programming environ-ment.

An examination of the T_SQL script revealed that virtually every command waspreceded by a SET ANSI_NULLS ON command. Of course, our newly createddatabase was devoid of data and full of NULLS. This observation oriented thediscussion to NULLS. As such in SQL, user-defined variables have a prefix as in@var1 and SQL system-reserved variables have a prefix as in @@var2. Theconcept NULL must be understood as not a value but as a description that noinformation is available. Undefined variables are tolerated as in this expression:declare @null int. They are defined in this expression: @null int set @null=null. Anot NULL but UNDEFINED variable as @null int (only), will be resolved to NULL ifANSI_NULLS is ON. Since NULLS implies that no information is available, itfurther implies that a variable containing a NULL cannot be equal to any othervariable NULL or otherwise. However, a developer must be able to ascertain theNULL status of a variable and does so by using the IS NULL test. SET ANSI_NULLSON assures that the test will be conducted consistently for variables that truly areNULL or UNDEFINED.

The discussion pivoted to web server database processing for anonymoususer access. And, in user access control another range of issues arises. With

standard users U1, U2, U3 authenticated in the database system, a user access-ing apart from them can have their identity verified so that through impersonationthis user can link and share the privileges of a standard user for accessing thedatabase by way of the web. This impersonation issue will arise more convinc-ingly as the BriefCase application project matures at future SIG meetings.

Macintosh. As a prelude to the upcoming general meetings on digital photogra-phy, we took a look at the new iPhoto 08 in our May SIG meeting.

The new iPhoto has a new way of organizing photos that you import. Instead ofthe old idea of film rolls, iPhoto 08 groups photos into events based on the dateinformation embedded in the digital photos. This makes sense since its likelythat all the photos that you take on a particular day pertain to a particular event suchas a wedding or birthday party. If youve previously imported photos into a folder,

SIG NEWS, Continued from page 8

SIG NEWS, Continued on page 13

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IM SURE THAT MOST of you read-

ing the title of this article are askingWhat is an iFrame?. Well, sit back,

get comfortableand Ill tell youabout the latestmethod hackersare using to stealinformation fromyou.

First, the defi-nition of aniFrame, which is short-hand for inline frame.That clears i t up

doesnt it? I guess Idbetter add some moreto that. An inline frameis code within a web page thatpermits a second page to be im-bedded inside the first page. For ex-ample, they can be used to imbed an adthat is located on a different web site.One example is the clickable scrollingad you frequently find on web sites.IFrames generally load after the mainpage and may sometimes have their ownscroll bar. The iFrame may containJavascript programming code which can

permit interactive content. SomeiFrames may be invisible and may con-tain code which can redirect the user toanother page or download trojans or vi-ruses.

Whenever your Internet browser seesan iFrame tag in the web page code itsets aside the space requested in the tag.It also goes out to the web page specifiedin the code to download the requestedinformation.

So is this something new? I thought itwas until I read a report in a tech newslet-ter (Windows Secrets) about an attack onthe AskWoody web site. It turns out thatiFrame attacks have been recorded since2004. The first exploit implanted a wormon thousands of computers. The onlything that stopped it was a patch thatMicrosoft had to apply to Internet Ex-plorer 6. In June 2007 over 10,000 pageswere infected in Italy. In November 2007Monster.com had to shut down as a re-sult of an iFrame attack. Then, this yearthe AskWoody site had iFrame codeadded to its main web page. His researchindicated that the code originated on a

Russian web site, which subsequently

disappeared. The code placed on theAskWoody web page linked to a web

site in China andsubsequently tothe Russian website. This was alldone by a shortlength of codethat set up asingle, invisiblepixel on the webpage. The codewas designed to

load data from the

Chinese web site. Any-one with an unpatched IE

6 that visited theAskWoody web site would

probably have been infected.However, it was never determined

just what was being delivered by the off-shore web site.

The worst part of this scenario isthat the owner of the AskWoody website did not find out about the iFrameexploit until he started receiving mes-sages from someone who advised himthat their AVG Resident Shield said his

site was infected. That was followed byGoogle advising him that his site wasinfected and down rating the site.Google also provided a warning to any-one attempting to link to AskWoodywarning them that visiting the site mightinfect their computer.

The question becomes, how did theiFrame code become attached to the webpage? The code pages on web sites aregenerally password protected. Accessto these pages for the purpose of mak-ing changes is controlled by the website host and the hosting software.However, there are several programsavailable which enable hackers to takeadvantage of holes in web site secu-rity. Some of these are described askiddie scripts, indicating their easeof use. Others, such as Mpack, requirea more sophisticated knowledge of pro-gramming. The problem is that thou-sands of respectable sites have beeninfected. The following are only a fewthat were reported in March 2008 byDancho Danevs blog (a security infor-mation web site):

eHawaii Portal - ehawaii.gov - 992pages

The World Clock - timeanddate.com -944 pages

Boise State University - boisestate.edu- 471 pages

The U.S. Administration on Aging(AoA) - aoa.gov - 425 pages

Gustavus Adolphus College -gustavus.edu - 312 pages

Internet Archive - archive.org - 261pages

Stanford Business School Alumni As-sociation - gsbapps.stanford.edu - 157pages

BushTorrent - bushtorrent.com - 147pages

ChildCareExchange - ccie.com - 131pages

The University of Vermont - uvm.edu -

120 pages Hippodrome State Theatre - Gainesville,

FL - thehipp.org 112 pages

Minnesota State University Mankato- mnsu.edu - 94 pages

Medicare medicare.gov 12 pages

In many instances it appears that thehackers were able to harvest passwordswhich gave them access to these sitesThen, if the site did not have current in-put validation patches, the iFrame couldbe added to web pages. In some cases,home users may have been the source of

the initial password theft. By use of akeylogger a hacker can obtain passwordsto any protected site visited by the userIn other cases clicking on a banner adthat attracts you can result in the down-load of a bot, a trojan or other spyware.This is especially true if you are still run-ning an unpatched Internet Explorer 6. Itappears that Firefox is less vulnerable tothese types of exploits. Also, clicking onan executable file in IE 6 generally resultsin running the file. In Firefox you are usu-ally only given the option to down loadthe file. Obviously you should never

download or run any file that you dontknow or dont recognize. This is espe-cially true when the site tells you that youneed some kind of add-on or specialviewer to see the information you wantThis is the type of social engineering be-ing used to tempt users into download-ing spyware.

There is also a danger related to thefirewall you are using on your computerA keylogger or other trojan needs to beable to report home without the userbeing aware that information is being sent

Safe Computing

I n t e r n e t Se c u r i t y : i Fr a m e A t t a c k s

By Brian K. Lewis, Ph.D.

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iPhoto can also use that as the basis for creating an event. You are free to renamethe events, as well as merge or split them.

On the main iPhoto page you will see all the events, each one represented by aphoto from the event. You can quickly browse the photos in an event by passingyour mouse cursor over it left to right (or right to left). If youd like to choose adifferent photo from the first to represent the event, just hit the space bar when yousee the right photo as youre browsing with the mouse cursor.

Photo comes with a few essential editing tools which it is good to familiarizeyourself with before investing in an additional program such as Photoshop Ele-ments. Open an event and choose a photo youd like to edit. If the exposure wasnt

right when you took the photos, try using the 1-click Enhance tool. With this or anyother tool you can undo the edit if you decide its not an improvement.A much finer control over the photo can be had with the Adjust tool. It will show

a color profile graph with sliders at the black point, midpoint, and white point. Forinstance, if you see that there is a gap between the black point and where thecolors actually show up in the graph, you can move the slider and see the changeslive as to how they affects the photo. If you try the other controls in the dialogexposure, contrast, highlights, contrast, etc.you can see the effect on the graphas well as the photo. If you have several photos that need the same adjustment,you can copy and paste the adjustment.Other more specialized tools include the Red-Eye removal, which we found tomake the eyes more blue than might be realistic. The Retouch tool can remove afreckle or other blemish. The Straighten tool shows a grid over the photo so thatyou can correct a horizon thats not, well, horizontal. Special effects, such as creat-ing a sepia-toned photo, can be created with the Effects tool. iPhoto always keeps

the original version of your photo, so whatever edits you do to a photo can later bereversed by selecting Revert to Original from the menu.

We ended by showing how to create a photo gallery from iPhoto. The easiest,if you have a .Mac account, is to use the Web Gallery tool which will take anyselected photos and post them in an attractive gallery page which you can make.accessible over the web at an address like http://gallery.mac.com//.A thoughtful behind-the-scenes feature is that, if you edit any photos present in thegallery, the changes will be automatically uploaded later in the background.

The other option is to use iWeb which you can initiate from iPhoto. This is moreflexible in that you select a theme and it will create a photo page, either at http://web.mac.com/, or in a folder which you can upload to your ownWeb site. If you click on a photo on the page in iWeb, a Photo Grid dialog will allowyou to select the maximum number of photos on a page, and iWeb will automati-cally create the overflow pages for you.

out. This is done by opening a back doorto the Internet; an outgoing port in one thethousands on every computer. If yourfirewall doesnt check on all outgoing dataand requests permission for new unknownactivity, then you will not be able to blockthe trojans back door connection. So it isvery important that your firewall check bothincoming and outgoing data. Then, any-time your firewall requests permission for aprogram, one you dont recognize, to con-nect to the Internet, just say NO.

There is one other recognized methodfor obtaining the information needed to getinto web page code. Hackers can purchaseweb site administrator information on theblack market. One software application usedto hack web sites, Mpack, sells for about$1,000 US. The person behind this softwareis known as $ash in the Russian under-ground. The software exploits six flaws inWindows and Internet Explorer. Thus fornot a lot of money, hackers can obtain ev-erything they need to exploit weaknessesin web pages.

As you can see, the iFrame attack is areal danger for those who surf the Internet.If you want to read more about these at-tacks, a Google search will provide you withtons of information. If you want to protectyourself from these attacks, your ability islimited. It is really up to your ISP and theweb hosts to provide the security neededto prevent the web page intrusion of aniFrame. So what can a home user do? Thefollowing will help, but are no guarantee of

protection.1.Beware of pages that require soft-

ware installation. Do not allow new soft-ware installation from your browser un-less you absolutely trust both the Webpage and the provider of the software.

2. Scan with an updated antivirus andanti-spyware software any program down-loaded through the Internet. This includesany downloads from P2P networks,through the Web and any FTP server re-gardless of the source.

3. Use only a firewall that checks bothincoming and outgoing data.

4. Beware of unexpected strange-look-ing emails, regardless of their sender.

5. Never open attachments or click onlinks contained in these email messages

6. Enable the Automatic Update fea-ture in your Windows operating systemand apply new updates as soon as theyare available

7. Always have an antivirus real-timescan service. Monitor regularly that it isbeing updated and that the service is run-ning.

8. OR another option would be toverify that the address is safe before go-ing to it. You can do this by checking it at:h t t p : / / l i n k s c a n n e r .e x p l a b s .c o m/ linkscanner/default.asp

As you can see, for Windows users,the Internet is becoming more of a hazardto navigation. You, as a user, must always

be cautious about clicking on links or ac-cepting downloads. If in doubt, dont do it!If everyone practiced safe-surfing, it wouldbe harder for the hackers to succeed.

DR. LEWIS is a former university and medicalschool professor of physiology. He has beenworking with personal computers for over

thirty years; teaching, developing softwareand assembling systems. He can be reached [email protected].

This article has been provided to APCUGby the author solely for publication byAPCUG member groups. All other uses re-

quire the permission of the author (see e-mailaddress above).

Do you have a burning computerquestion, but cant make it to themeeting or just never seem to getyour hand up in time? Email yourinquiry to Jim Scheef, the answerguy, at askdacs@dacs. org, and

your question will be taken up atAsk DACS at the next meeting.

SIG NEWS, Continued from page 11

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V e r s i o n 5 . 1 0

Circuit Writer

by Jim Scheef

W a t e r C oo l i n g i s N e w ?W a t e r Co o l i n g i s N e w ?W a t e r C oo l i n g i s N e w ?W a t e r Co o l i n g i s N e w ?W a t e r C oo l i n g i s N e w ?Again we start with IBM and the head-

line, IBM Ships First Water-CooledSupercomputer tinyurl.com/6ylu4a. Iremember when all serious comput-ers were water cooled.Thats still true, butnow its seriousgamers who use watercooling to keep theirover-clocked chipscool. The newsupercomputer in thearticle is called Bluefireand will replace threeolder systems that are no

longer quite so super. Re-member when we talked aboutcomputer performance in terms ofMIPS, or millions of instructions per sec-ond? The new Bluefire is claimed to offer 76teraflops, or 76 trillion floating point opera-tions per second. Keep in mind that eachfloating point operation requires several in-structions to execute.

The customer is the National Center forAtmospheric Research NCAR -www.ncar.ucar.edu/which reminds me of aninteresting factoid. Weather prediction wasthe application that first got John Mauchly

interested in building an electronic com-puter. That was in the late 1930s and hewent on to co-invent ENIAC, the first allelectronic digital computer. The Bluefire willbe used to study the effects of climatechange.

N e t N e u t r a l i t yN e t N e u t r a l i t yN e t N e u t r a l i t yN e t N e u t r a l i t yN e t N e u t r a l i t yOur Congress-people in the House of

Representatives have taken up the issue ofNetwork Neutrality tinyurl.com/59tmonagain. Representatives Ed Markey (D-MA),and Chip Pickering (R-MS) have introducedthe Internet Freedom Preservation Act of2008. The act seeks to enshrine the princi-pals of net neutrality into law as nationalpolicy. Email your Congressperson todayand tell him you want him to support thisbill.

H e a l t h VH e a l t h VH e a l t h VH e a l t h VH e a l t h Va u l ta u l ta u l ta u l ta u l tCould Microsoft finally have its heart

in the right place? I mentioned HealthVaulthere several months ago when it was firstannounced by Microsoft. I created an ac-count immediately. An eWeek article http://tinyurl.com/3o2h2w suggests that the

healthcare industry has been focusing onthe needs of providers and payors (insur-

ance companies) rather than consumers(you). Duh! Microsoft seeks to change the

way we access our healthcarerecords by giving us a place to

store (and control) thoserecords. As this resource

builds, Microsofthopes that if theybuild it, consumerswill come with theirdata and developerswill come with appli-cations to analyze the

data and make possible col-

laboration between patients andtheir healthcare providers. The idea

is to give you the same access tohealthcare records that you get to your fi-nancial records at the bank. Only this time,you dont need to get all your services fromone provider to centralize your data. Whathappens then is anybodys guess, but thekey is that you will be involved in the deci-sion.

D e s k t o pD e s k t o pD e s k t o pD e s k t o pD e s k t o p VVVVV i ri ri ri ri rt u a l i z at u a l i z at u a l i z at u a l i z at u a l i z a t i o nt i o nt i o nt i o nt i o nBefore the main presentation at the

May General Meeting, I tried to get the

presenters to start with the very basicsand explain everything. Instead we got atime-compressed version of their regularsales presentation. I was disappointed.Well, there is a very good eWeekarticletinyurl.com/565kq2 that explains what wemissed.

While they totally missed explainingit, Citrix has a product called ZenApp. Itused to be called Presentation Server whichat least gives a clue to its function. LikeMicrosoft Terminal Services (aka: RemoteDesktop), Presentation Server runs on abig central box that is shared by many

users. Both Terminal Services and Presen-tation Server turn Windows into a multi-user system by creating virtual desktopsin the central server that you view remotelyusing client software on your local PC.Since you dont need a full PC to run theclient software, a thin client device canreplace the local PC. This is the Windowsversion of the old mainframe model withthe OS and applications running on ashared server with the user sitting at aterminal device. There is only one OS andone installation of the applications tomaintain. This technology has been

around since the days of NT 3.5 and thusis quite mature. Presentation Server(ZenApp) adds the ability to make an application running on the central server looklike an application running on your normaPC. In other words, the application on theremote server appears in a window on yourlocal PC. This middle ground offers centramanagement of major applications like SAPNetwork managers use Remote Desktop toremotely manage servers. I use it to eliminate travel to client sites to fix most problems.

The next stage of desktop virtualizationis a different way to share that big centralbox. Rather than many virtual desktopswithin one OS, this time many virtual machines run in a hypervisor on the big cen-tral box. The user views the desktop usinga remote desktop technology like VNC (Virtual Network Computing) or MicrosoftsRDP (Remote Desktop Protocol). Now eachuser gets his own, separate OS that he canreboot as needed something that is noso easy when rebooting means closingdown every user on the central box. Thetricky part to this plan is to store and saveeach users personal settings while still centrally managing the application environment. Much newer, this technology is muchless mature.

The third type of desktopvirtualization is called client-sidevirtualization. One of the presenters talkedbriefly about this technology when hedescribed a scenario where a bare-meta

PC can boot to a copy of Windows that ispassed down to the PC on an as-neededbasis. What he didnt mention is the possibility to put the virtual desktop on a USBkey that the user can carry from PC to PCas they move about during their workdayYour personal computing environmenbecomes a sort of personality module thayou can plug into any PC.

My columns are available at http:/circuitwriter.spaces.live.com/, where thereare more links and comments are welcomedThere is even an RSS feed!

JIM SCHEEF is past president of DACS andleader of the Server and Networking SIG.

From 1/2008 to 5/25/2008

N ew Members

Darwin Rosario

Edmond Burke

Jini Lander

Kenneth Henneberry

Dan Miller

John Pugliese

John Miniello

Alan Mathews

Tony Santostasi

Carolyn Melillo

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W

E WELCOME QUESTIONS FROM the floor at the start of our General Meet-ings. In addition, members who are not able to attend the General meeting

may submit questions to [email protected]. We will ask the question foryou and post the reply inDACS.ORG. Please provide as much information as possiblesince we cant probe during the session.

M a y 2 0 0 8

Ask DACS

by Jim Scheef

Q: What is a blog?A: The Wikipedia definition http://

e n . w i k i p e d i a . o r g / w i k i / B l o gsummarizes the first responsesoffered at the meeting. FromWikipedia: A blog (an abridgment ofthe term web log) is a website,usually maintained by an individual,with regular entries of commentary,descriptions of events, or othermaterial such as graphics or video.Entries are commonly displayed inreverse chronological order. Blogcan also be used as a verb, meaningto maintain or add content to a blog.

The collection of all blogs andtheir interconnections is referred to asthe blogosphere, although this termseems to have fallen out of favor oflate.

A blog can be on any topic ofinterest to the author; I will notrepeat the examples offered.

The information in a blog isstored on the blog website. Spaceis typically limited by the serviceprovider. It is not difficult to hostyour own blog. There are manywebsites that offer blogs as aservice, both free and not.Different blogging software offersvarying feature sets. Many blogsaccept anonymous commentswhile others require that acommenter authenticate him and/or herself in some way.

While there is no single index ofall of the blogosphere, Technorati.

com bills itself as blogger central.Since they are websites, many blogsare indexed by the various searchengines. Blogs often offer an RSSsubscription to make it easy to keepup to date.

Blogs are used increasingly bycorporations as a means tocommunicate with customers, thepress and the public. My CircuitWriter blog is at http://circuitwriter.spaces.live.com/.

Q: I have finally switched my ISP from

dial-up to broadband with Verizon DSL, but I am still using AT&TWorldNet for my email. I am using

Eudora for my email software and I am having trouble accessing myemail account over my broadband

connection. The behavior seen is that Eudora will activate the oldAT&T dial-up when sending email

A: Solutions were offered on severallevels. First, AT&T has changedtheir security settings making theiremail service incompatible with olderversions of Eudora. The requiredauthentication uses SSL which isnot supported by the version ofEudora used by the member.

The discussion morphed into adiscussion of how the newestEudora is based on MozillaThunderbird which has resulted inchanges to the user interface. Thisis one solution to the SSLauthentication issue but will notaddress the dial-up versus networkissue. Well get to that below.

Another point was that sendingemail may or may not requireauthentication based on whether or notyou are connected directly to an ISPsnetwork. While true, this also does notaddress the fact that the member neededto send and receive by way of the Verizonconnection, not AT&T.

The solution to the networkingissue is to make some changes inthe Internet Options applet inControl Panel. You can also reach

this by selecting Internet Options inthe Tools menu of Internet Explorer.When it opens, click theConnections tab and then click theNever dial a connection radio buttonnear the middle of the dialog.Assuming a conventional homenetwork and router, click the LANSettings button and make sure thatnone of the options are checked. ClickOK and OK. Now when you tell youremail client to send or receive it will doso using the local area networksconnection to the Internet.

The authentication problem mayrequire a new email client. MozillaThunderbird seems to be thepreferred non-Microsoft emailclient. In my column I have oftenrecommended using an email servicethat is not dependent on anyparticular Internet service provider.Examples are Yahoo Mail, G-Mail,and AOL/AIM email.

Q: I am running into a problem upgrad-ing from IE 6 to IE 7 using Win-

dows Update, can anyone help meout with this?

A: It sounds like the update to IE 7 failedto complete successfully. Severalpeople recommended installing asecond browser such as Firefox, Operaor Apple Safari (now available forWindows) as a safeguard to provideweb browsing should IE fail.Personally I suggest using Firefox asthe primary browser. No definitivesolution was offered beyond tryingto uninstall the failed install of IE 7.The Microsoft IE 7 Solution Center http://support.microsoft.com/ph/8722probably has an answer, assuming youcan get past the catch-22 of no webaccess. Apparently enough people havethis or similar problems that Microsoftoffers free telephone support for IE 7installation and set-up. The number is 1-866-234-6020.

Q: I have installed a legacy program onmy Windows Vista PC that I wouldnow like to remove. I am not able touninstall the program or remove the

directory where it was installed. Iam getting the message that I amnot the owner of the program.

A: The problem seems to revolve aroundhaving administrator privileges whileuninstalling the program. Onesuggestion was to use the takeownership function in WindowsExplorer to resolve the ownership ofthe directory in question.

Are you up toyour nose withcomputer ques-tions?. DACSSpecial InterestGroups may havethe answers. If not,let us know, andwell try to create anew SIG that helps

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Voicefor

Joanie

Help give thegift of speech

Call Shirley Fredlund

at 203 770-6203and become aVoice for JoanieVoice for JoanieVoice for JoanieVoice for JoanieVoice for Joanie

volunteer

dacs.docDanbury Area Computer Society4 Gregory StreetDanbury, CT 06811-4430

Nonprofit Organ

U.S. POSTA

PAID

Danbury, C

PERMIT NO

Future Events:Future Events:Future Events:Future Events:Future Events:

K e n G r a f f :

Shar ing Your

P i c t u r e s

On l i ne

L e s a K i n g : H o w t o Sh o ot &

Ed i t L i k e A Pro , Cam era

Te c h n i q u e s & A d o b e

E l e m e n t s W i t h G a r y Sp r i n g ,

o f Ri t z Cam era , Danbu r y CT

JJJJJ u lu lu lu lu llll yyyyy

Ken Yess i n o f SoundsI n c r e d i b l e : HDTV an d H o m e T h e a t r e

A u g u s tA u g u s tA u g u s tA u g u s tA u g u s tugu s tu g u s tu g u s tChuck Masi o f Ergonom ixAssociates, LLC:Ergonomic Solu t ions

S e p t e m b e r S e p t e m b e r S e p t e m b e r S e p t e m b e r S e p t e m b e r e p t emb e re p t emb e re p t emb e r

JJJJJ u n eu n eu n eu n eu n en en en en en en en e

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Comments_________________________________

_________________________________________

_________________________________________

_________________________________________

CHARLES BOVAIRD,TREASURER

DANBURY AREA COMPUTER SOCIETY

4 GREGORY STREET

DANBURY CT 06810-4430

TEL: 203-792-7881

E-mail [email protected]

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anbury Area Computer Society is a non-

profit corporation organized under section

(501) (C) (3) of the US Tax Code. Its purpose

is to promote education, knowledge sharing, net-

working and communication between users of per-

sonal computers. DACS is an all volunteer organi-

zation, with no employees. The major source of in-

come is member dues. Members can volunteer to

become instructors, lecturers, DACS officers and

board members, committee members, or SIG

leaders.

We sponsor or participate in community sup-

port projects by collecting, repairing, and redis-

tributing used computer equipment and software

to community service providers such as schools,

libraries, and patient/client support groups.DACS members provide pickup, refurbishing,

installation, and training assistance as needed.

Firms or individuals with equipment to donate

should leave a message on the DACS Infoline

(203-748-4330).or send an email to

[email protected].

The Voice for Joanie program was created in

1992 through the initiative of DACS member,

Shirley Fredlund. This program provides computer-

assisted speech for victims of amyotrophic lateralsclerosis (Lou Gehrigs Disease).

DACS members have contributed volun-

teer time and technical assistance since

the program began. Voice for Joanie and

DACS have earned national computer in-

dustry recognition and financial assistance

for this vital collaboration.

Our general meetings are held on the

first Tuesday of each month in the Danbury

Hospital Auditorium at 7 p.m. These

meetings are open to the public.The main

presentation is scheduled from 8-9:30,

preceded by casual networking, an-

nouncements and Random Access, an in-

formal question and answer session. A

free product raffle is often held at the con-

clusion of the main presentation.

In addition to the general meeting, DACS sponsors many

special interest groups (SIGs) where members can learn and

share information about a specific topic. Each SIG plans its

own meeting schedule and program topics.

Our newsletter, dacs.doc is published monthly for

our members, and mailed to arrive before the general

meeting. It features articles written by members and oth-ers on timely topics including product and software re-

views, issues and trends in personal computing and how-

to articles on sound, video, digital photography, etc. In

addition, each issues includes the calendar of meetings,

announcements on SIGs and other DACS events.

dacs.doc has won numerous prizes over the years for its

design and content.

Through its activities, DACS offers numerous op-

portunities to network both professionals and computer

hobbyists. Our Special Interest Groups are an excellent

way for members to both learn and share application or

hardware knowledge. Any DACS member can form a

special interest group on any topic where there is inter-

est. Most SIGs meet in our Resource Center in down-

town Danbury.

If you have concerns, requests, or suggestions re-

garding DACS or its programs, please contact

[email protected]. DACS officers and board mem-

bers phone numbers are listed on page 3 of dacs.doc.

The DACS Resource Center is in Ives Manor, Lower Level,198 Main Street, Danbury, CT 06810 (203-748-4330).

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DANBURY AREA

COMPUTER SOCIETY, Inc.Family Membership Application

Personal Information Name ___________________________________Home Phone ( )___________________

Address _________________________________Work Phone ( )____________________

City _____________ State________ Zip _______Cell Phone: ( )____________________

Company ________________________________E-Mail: _____________@___________

Basic membership with mailed newsletter - 1 year ( ) $45.00

Basic membership with online newsletter access-1 year ( ) $30.00

Corporate membership is also available. More information and forms online:www.dacs.org/aboutdacs/joining.htm

Each member has access to the HelpLine volunteers, newsletter online in PDF

form, group related news via email, SIG meetings, and any group-only related

events, promotions, or activities.

Pay by cash (at the General Meeting), or go to www.dacs.org, and

check or money order, payable to: click onJOIN DACS NOW

Charles Bovaird, Treasurer

DACS, Inc4 Gregory StreetDanbury, CT 06810-4430

Tell Us About Your InterestsPlease take a moment to answer the following questions as they apply to you.

Hours a week you use computers _____ How did you learn about DACS? __________

Hardware: PC___ MAC___ desktop___ laptop___ palm___ other_______

OPSYS: Windows___ MAC___ LINUX___ other_________

Communications: Dialup___ HI-Speed____ WiFi____ LAN____ other_______Applications: Office____ Financial____ other______

Digital: Music___ Photo___ CAM___ TV___ other______

Business: Corporate Employee___ private employee___ professional___ business owner___

Company Name______________________________________________

Office use only: Paid ______________ Check # ______________ Membership # ____________
http://www.dacs.org/aboutdacs/joining.htmhttp://www.dacs.org/http://www.dacs.org/http://www.dacs.org/aboutdacs/joining.htmhttp://www.dacs.org/aboutdacs/joining.htm

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Traveling West on I-84, Take Exit 6. Turn right at exit

ramp light at North Street. Turn right on Hayestown

Avenue Turn right on Tamarack Avenue. Follow

Tamarack Avenue uphill to traffic light. Turn left at

this light onto Hospital Avenue. Follow Hospital

Avenue to appropriate visitor parking lot on right.

Traveling East on I-84: Take Exit 5. After stop sign,

go straight ahead to intersection of Main Street and

North Street. Go straight through onto North Street

Turn right off North Street to Maple Avenue. Go on

Maple Avenue to Osborne Street. Turn left on

Osborne Street. Turn left onto Hospital Avenue

Follow Hospital Avenue to appropriate visitor

parking lot on right.

Meeting LocationDanbury Hospital

24 Hospital Avenue

Danbury, CT

Enterprise Software Development

(also Access, Excel, and Delphi)

Desmond Nolan, Consulant

Advanced Business Continunity Systems, Inc.

(203) 984- 0787

[email protected]

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