The Outer E Newsletter of the Channel Islands PC Users Group d · business meeting, and the board...

January 2008 The Outer Edge

January 2008

Vol. 21, No. 6

To Contact CIPCUG The Outer Edge...........(805) 485-7121

General Information.. . . . . . . (805) 289-3960 Mailing Address...P.O. Box 51354, Oxnard, CA

93031-1354

Attendance at the

December general meeting

57 members and 3 guests

COMMAND.COM By Paul Westefer, President

E d g e

Newsletter of the Channel Islands PC Users Group

Whole No. 249

ISSN 1055-4399

The Friendly Computer Club Helping Make Computers Friendly. On the Web at www.cipcug.org

The Outer

Digital Photo SIG Starting with this issue, we’ll include the

Thousand Oaks PC Club’s Digital Photo

SIG in our SIG list. There has been some

confusion about whether it’s free or not, but

this message from Harry Isaman of the

Thousand Oaks club seems to clear it up. —

Editor

The Photo Group exists under the um-brella of the Thousand Oaks PC Club and is considered a SIG, and our yearly dues are $30. For a period of time, we were getting a number of Photo Group attendees who were not members and avoiding signing in at meetings.

This wasn’t a fair shake for our paid members, so I started charging $3 a meeting for those who were not official members. The first time a new person shows up, we charge them the $3 and give them a ticket to get in free the next time. If they come every

(Continued on page 8)

A s reported in the December meeting, Martha Churchyard’s health will not permit her to continue as secretary for CIPCUG. Martha has done

an excellent job. We thank her and wish her a speedy recovery. The position of secretary is very important to the club. It provides in-

formation, through the club newsletter, on the Internet Sig, the Q and A, the business meeting, and the board meeting for members who are unable to attend a monthly meeting. David Minkin provides tapes of the monthly

meeting, which reduces the need for extensive note taking by the secretary. Please contact any of the board members for further information. My home telephone number is (805) 984 7722. Remember, in January we return to the regular schedule of the FOURTH Saturday of the month. January seems a good time to mention some of the plans the board is under-taking for 2008. We hope to resume a Beginners SIG on XP as early as January at the same time as the Internet SIG. We

will continue to monitor the number of members with Vista. At the present time, there are not enough to merit a training SIG.

We are continuing to look for a location where Michael Shalkey can resume his post-monthly meeting SIGs.

Craig Ladd has been a magician producing speakers when more com-panies are doing fewer user group presentations. Toby Scott has volun-teered to give presentations. If you have any specific subjects you would like more information on please let us know.

For example, you might like to have a presentation on what to look for and what to avoid when purchasing a new computer or other hardware. Toby and Gene Barlow have both reported seeing computers where the owner has purchased far more capacity than would ever be used.

We might also have a session where we call on members to describe an interesting but not well-known Web site they have found.

We will also have cards available at the sign-in table on which ques-tions for the Q&A session can be written. This will make it easier for Toby and Michael to understand the question and formulate an answer.

Westefer

The Outer Edge January 2008

Root Directory

2006 Southwest User Group Con-ference: second place in both the newsletter and Web site contests.

Channel Islands

PC Users Group CIPCUG mailing address:

P.O. Box 51354, Oxnard, CA

93031-1354

Executive Committee

(Elected members of Board of Directors)

President…………………...Paul Westefer …………….………[email protected] Vice President/Program Chairman ………………………………..Craig Ladd ………………[email protected] Secretary……………..Martha Churchyard ……………………[email protected] Treasurer…………….……....…Art Lewis ………………….…[email protected] Immediate Past President ……………………..Lois Evans de Violini ……...………[email protected]

(Appointed members

of Board of Directors)

Technical Adviser……………..Toby Scott Web Page Editor….…………..Helen Long …………………[email protected] TOE editor….…….………….John Weigle ………………………...editor@cipcug. Membership Chairman.……...Ken Church ....………………[email protected]

Ex-officio members of Board of Directors

Chief Protocol Officer………George Lakes CIPCUG ISP Signups…………Helen Long Sound Equipment Technicians………...Jim Burke and David Minkin Marketing Director.………...Ron Pinkerton Program Chairman.……………Craig Ladd Publicity Chairman.…………Jim Thornton SIG coordinator……...……...Larry Hudson

Past Presidents Walt Yates………………………1987-1989 Lois Evans de Violini…………...1989-1991 Terry Lee………………………..1991-1993 Jerry McLoud…………………...1993-1995 Robert Provart…………………..1995-1997 Toby Scott………………………1997-1999 George Lakes…………………...1999-2001 Andy Toth……………………….2001-2003 David Harris…………………….2003-2005 Lois Evans de Violini ....... ........ 2005-2007 (With the exception of the immediate past president, past presidents are not members of the board.) Life members

Frank Segesman* Toby Scott Lois Evans de Violini Art Lewis

*Deceased

CIPCUG is a member of APCUG,

The Association of PC Users Groups

The Outer Edge Editor……………………..John Weigle P.O. Box 6536, Ventura CA 93006 485-7121………[email protected]

The Outer Edge is published monthly by Channel Islands PC Users Group (CIPCUG), P.O. Box 51354, Oxnard, Calif. 93031-1354. an independent, nonprofit corporation. Contents of The Outer Edge

copyright 2001 by Channel Islands PC Users Group. Permission for reproduction in whole or in part is granted to other computer user groups for internal nonprofit use provided credit is given to The Outer Edge and the authors of the reproduced material. All other reproduction is prohibited without prior written consent of Channel Islands PC Users Group. Opinions expressed in this journal are solely those of the authors or contributors, and do not necessarily represent those of Channel Islands PC Users Group, its officers or membership as a whole. The information provided is believed to be correct and useful; however, no warranty, express or implied, is made by Channel Islands PC Users Group, its officers, editorial staff or contributors. This disclaimer extends to all losses, incidental or consequential, resulting from the use or application of the information provided. Channel Islands PC Users Group does not endorse or recommend any specific hardware or software products, dealers, distributors or manufacturers. All trademarked or registered trademarked names are acknowledged to be the property of their respective owners, and are used for editorial purposes only.

Advertising in The Outer Edge Advertising is accepted for computer-related materials, businesses and services only. Rates are for Camera-Ready copy (clear, clean black and white masters). Typesetting and graphics are available at an additional fee. SIZE Cost/Issue FULL-PAGE (9½”H x 7¼”W)................$50.00 HALF-PAGE (4½”H x 7¼”W) or (9½”H x 3½”W )....…........$30.00 THIRD-PAGE (3”H x 7¼” W)………….$25.00 QUARTER-PAGE (4½”H x 3½W)..........$20.00 BUSINESS CARD ad...............................$15.00 Discounts for multiple issues (3, 6, 9 and 12 months) Ad copy deadline is the 5th of the month of publication. Make all checks payable to CIPCUG.

Members’ classified ads are free but are limited to 105 characters, including spaces.

CIPCUG NEWS Benefits .........................................19 Board of Directors Minutes.............3 Business meeting, Internet SIG, Q&A............................................4 Coming CIPCUG events .................3 Command.com ................................1 Contributors to The Outer Edge in 2008 ...............................16 Editor’s Corner..............................16 F1 — Your Help Key....................18 Helen’s Bits and Bytes ..................11 Map, schedule ...............................20 Membership report ........................17 Program: Reimaginememories.com............8 Treasurer’s report ..........................16

GENERAL Digital Photo SIG............................1 Learning with Levy: Adjust Windows XP for better performance .............................13 News and notes from the computing world .......................13 Penguin’s Lair: Installing openSUSE .................................10 Rick’s Rant: Caught in a pickle again..........................................15 Smart Computing Tips and Fun Facts ...........................................12

ADVERTISEMENTS Creative Technology .....................11 O’Reilly.........................................11 Ventura County Computers...........12 Members’ classifieds.....................17


By Helen Long

The CIPCUG Board of Directors meeting was held on Dec. 15 at the Camarillo Boys & Girls Club in Cama-rillo. Present: President Paul Westefer; Editor John Weigle; Treasurer Art Lewis; Vice President Craig Ladd; Web Page and ISP Co-coordinator Helen Long; Tech Advisor Toby Scott; and Membership Chairman Ken Church.

Art Lewis and Ken Church gave their reports, which appear elsewhere in this newsletter. Art Lewis indicated that

the CIPCUG books had been audited and approved.

We discussed having business cards (without members’ names) and having the dates and location of our meetings. This sounded like a very good sugges-tion, and Toby agreed to print up a batch for the club.

Paul announced that Jerry Goldman has agreed to do the early morning Sat-urday pre-meeting SIG starting out with a repetition of the XP Mentor disc, since we already have that disc for him to use.

We discussed a sort of beginner Q&A like we used to have that drew a pretty good-sized group. We would appreciate your comments on this.

We also discussed having a re-cycling program for recycling old out-dated computers. This is a big issue now about not putting our throw-away elec-tronic items in the regular trash bins. It would help to educate the members on how to safely throw their old stuff out without contaminating future genera-tions. We may discuss this further.

Programs The announced speaker for Jan. 26

canceled, and no program had been found by the deadline for this issue. Watch the Web set for an announcement as soon as Vice President Craig Ladd finds a program.

Don’t forget that, with the holidays past, we’re back on the regular schedule of meeting on the fourth Saturday of the month.

The meeting will be at the Camarillo Boys & Girls Club, 1500 Temple Ave. (southeast corner of Ponderosa Drive and Temple Avenue), Camarillo (see map on page 20).

The doors open at 8:30 a.m., and the Beginners and Internet SIGs start at 8:45 a.m.

If you can show up early to help set up, please do. The room seems to be different every month, and we have to move lots of tables and chairs around.

No programs have been announced for coming meetings.

Meeting dates for the rest of the year are as follows:

Feb. 23 March 22 April 26 May 24 June 21 July 26 Aug. 23 Sept. 27 Oct. 25 Nov. 15 (third Saturday)

Dec. 20 (third Saturday)

SIGs Except for the Thousand Oaks PC

Club Digital Photo Group, the Special Interest Groups (SIGs) are sponsored by CIPCUG and led by volunteer club members. There is no charge for mem-bers to attend the CIPCUG SIGs. The Digital Photo Group charges $3 per meeting for those who are not members of the Thousand Oaks group.

Unless otherwise noted, the CIP-CUG SIGs run from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at Ventura County Computers, 2175 Good-year Ave., Unit 117, Ventura; phone 289-3960. From the 101 Freeway, exit at Telephone, take Telephone south to McGrath, turn left and go one block. Turn right on Goodyear and then right

again into the second driveway. Unit 117 is the back, right corner of the industrial building. The Digital Photo Group meets at 6:30 p.m. at the Thou-sand Oaks Library, 1401 E. Janss Road.

The general schedule follows: First Monday (except in months

that have holidays on or near the first Monday): Thousand Oaks PC Club Digital Photo Group.

Second Thursday: Toby Scott on HTML, CSS and Web design.

Third Thursday: Open. Fourth Thursday: Linux.

Fourth Saturday (or the regular

meeting day): Beginners SIG and Inter-net and e-mail SIG, before regular meet-ing. Michael Shalkey’s after-meeting


Society news: Programs and SIGs

January speaker cancels; program to be announced

Door prizes We have two types of raffle tickets:

one for prizes offered by the presenter and one for club-provided prizes. The tickets for the presenter’s prizes are free and limited to one per member.

The tickets for the club-provided prizes are $1 each, $5 for six tickets, $10 for 13 tickets and $20 for 26 tickets and are available to anyone.

Consignment table A consignment table is set up at

every meeting. Anyone can buy, but only members can sell.

The club gets 10 percent of the sales price. Sold items must be picked up at

the end of the day’s meeting. Any items not picked up will become the property of CIPCUG and will be subject to dis-posal at the club’s discretion.

CIPCUG is not responsible in any way for items bought or sold at the table. Each item is sold as-is unless otherwise stated.

Meeting, SIG notices If you would like e-mail notices of

regular meetings and SIGs, go to www.cipcug.org, where you’ll find a link on the home page to sign up.

The URL is cipcug.org/listserv.cfm.

You will need your membership number, which is on the back cover

of TOE, to complete the sign-up.

Board of Directors meeting of December 2007


SIG, if we can find a location. The January and February schedules

follow: Thursday, Jan. 10: HTML / CSS.

Moderator: Toby Scott Toby will show how to create our own Note Tab Pro Library.

Thursday, Jan. 24: Linux. Modera-tor: William Wayson. We will upgrade the CIPCUG PC’s Linux installation to

the new openSUSE Linux 10.3. Saturday, Jan. 26 (pre-meeting

SIGs at Boys & Girls Club): Internet / E-mail. 8:45 a.m. Toby Scott will an-swer your Internet and e-mail questions. Windows XP mentor series will resume.

February:

Monday, Feb. 4: Thousand Oaks PC Computer Club Digital Camera Club, 6:30 p.m., Thousand Oaks Li-brary, 1401 E. Janss Road, Thousand

Oaks. Thursday, Feb. 14: HTML / CSS.

Moderator: Toby Scott. Topic: TBA. Saturday, Feb. 23 (pre-meeting

SIGS): Internet / E-mail. 8:45 a.m. Toby Scott will answer your Internet and e-mail questions. At the Beginners SIG, Jerry Goldman will repeat the Windows XP CD.

Thursday, Feb. 28: Linux. Modera-tor: William Wayson. Topic: TBA.

(Continued from page 3)

Business meeting, Internet SIG, Q&A DSL connections are slow, connecting modem

More about coming events ...

Transcribed by Arlene

and Paul Westefer

Business meeting President Paul Westefer presided,

and the officers gave their usual reports. John Weigle, TOE editor: Deadline

for the next issue will be a week from Monday. There was a slight delay this month. Did everyone get this month’s issue? Sixteen members, all in the same post office ZIP code, did not get a copy before the meeting. Copies will be avail-able at the sign- in table next month for anyone who did not get a copy at all.

Art Lewis presented the November Treasurer’s report. Total Inflows were $1,622.99, and Outflows were $1,596, with a positive cash flow of $26.99. Our bank balances as of Nov. 30: unre-stricted funds, $3,938.64; restricted funds $2,000. Art reported that Arlene Westefer had completed an annual audit of the funds and found no significant discrepancies, only a $20 difference which could not be accounted for.

Vice President and Program Chair-man Craig Ladd reported that he is still working on programs for 2008. If any member is aware of a company or or-ganization with an active user group program please contact Craig.

Internet, e-mail SIG Questions answered by Toby Scott

unless otherwise noted. From notes

taken at the pre-meeting SIG and from

the recorded tape by sound engineer

David Minkin. Michael Shalkey handled

the on-screen demonstrations.

DSL connection problems

Q: My DSL connection to the Inter-net isn’t working.

A: Sometimes you will not have a connection to the Internet. Sometimes you have to reconnect. First, turn off the modem and router. Then reconnect in the following order the modem, which will be usually a Speedstream, Speedstor or sometimes a two-wire from AT&T — anyway you plug them in to the phone line and you’ll get some blinking lights. Sometimes they are amber, sometimes they are green — it depends on the model of the modem — but they’ll blink and blink between one and two minutes. At some point along the line, hopefully, the light will go from blinking to solid. That means that the modem has made a connection with your DSL provider — AT&T, Verizon, whoever. Once your modem has a connection with your DSL provider, you plug in your router to the modem, and the router can then pick up the IP address from the modem, and it can tunnel your network through that IP address. If you do it in the wrong order, your router does not get an IP address because your modem doesn’t have one or isn’t on. When you don’t get an IP address on your router, sometimes it will pick one up later. Sometimes it won’t. But it is failure-prone, so the correct order is always connect the modem first

and then connect your router.

Order of software and modem

Q: Is the DSL, the software that comes with it — does that go in first and then the modem?

A: Generally speaking, you don’t want to use the software they send you. Here’s the thing: If you don’t have a router and you’re connecting your com-puter directly to the modem, you need some kind of software or setup that will allow you to have your computer get an IP address from the modem. And be-cause some use PPPoE they don’t use the regular kind of discovery host com-puter protocol (DHCP) that most routers use. Some modems do have the DHCP now. Generally speaking, if you’re using a router, you don’t need their software. If you’re on AT&T, they send you a startup CD and if you’re bored, not a novice user and you don’t have a router you can look at the CD in Windows Ex-plorer and there is an HTML setup file you can run. It will do a stripped down setup, and it doesn’t put all the garbage on your computer. AT&T put so much stuff on, it’ll slow a typical computer down 20 to 30 percent. Generally speak-ing, we don’t recommend that. If you are a beginner and you don’t understand what we’re talking about here, you are probably better off suffering the slow down. Go ahead and do the regular in-stall. It puts on software that will allow



you to connect to their modem. It will also usually put on anti-spyware, anti-virus stuff, and if you have one already it will disable it.

Auxiliary plugs for modem, cable box

Q: I use the two auxiliary plugs for the modem and for the cable box.

A: If you have an uninterruptable power supply and if it has enough plugs, go ahead and plug your modem and your router into the UPS side, not the side that provides only surge protection. Because they don’t use very much elec-tricity, they won’t tax the unit. You can run your computer with them, and if you are using the computer when the power goes out, you can finish that up. If you have a UPS, you can leave things on — not just a surge protector, but a UPS.

You didn’t mention that you need to put in filters. Otherwise, your phone will start to have static on it. It will start to whistle, and your DSL won’t work right.

Placement of filter

Q: The mistake I made was that I put the filter next to the phone so I had a long extension that happened to be next to the DSL line into the modem. And it destroyed the DSL service.

A: We’ll talk about that. For an in-stallation, the way DSL works is that it takes your regular phone line and uses the range of cycles per second of band-width that your ear can’t hear for DSL. Even a very young ear, not destroyed by rock ’n’ roll music, can hear something between 20 and 20,000 cycles. And so what the DSL does is filter everything below 20,000 cycles, which goes to your analog phone, and everything above 20,000 cycles is devoted to DSL. You’ll get crossovers on those because of har-monics and all of that if you don’t put the filter on. That’s why the voice — because there will be patches of voice that go up above 20,000 cycles — will interfere with your DSL. There will be things in DSL that will cycle down be-low the 20,000 cycles and that will give you snap, crackle and pop on your phone lines. You need to put the filters on. Make sure you get them on the cor-rect way around or else you’re going to be trying to listen to sounds that only a

dog can hear, and your computer is go-ing to be trying to talk at real low fre-quencies, which doesn’t impart a lot of information. Keep the distance from your phone lines to the wall to your mo-dem not too long. They usually give you about a 12-foot cord, but you really need to use that. And also don’t use a differ-ent phone cord unless you are very care-ful because a lot you can get from Radio Shack and the like have only two wires connected. The phone line comes in on four wires, but a typical single-line phone uses only the two middle wires and so there are some phone cords you can buy that have only two wire con-nected. And if you try to use those for DSL they will not work.

N and B routers

Q: Question on the routers. They have an N router now. Is it compatible with B?

A: There is a specification 802.11A, which is primarily for wide area and broadcast and is not really part of our discussion. Basically, you don’t use that for any home use. The next one is B. B is 11 megabits per second maximum throughput, and that’s enough for most Internet providers because most Internet providers are giving you two to three megabits per second, but if you have more than one computer on your net-work you’re restricted to 11 megabits. You also don’t have anywhere near the range. If you put it in your bedroom, and you’re four or five rooms away, you probably won’t get any signal at all. So the range is limited and the throughput is limited if you have two computers in the house. Sharing files will mean you’ll get slow throughput. G, as in

George, is 54 megabits per second. That’s the state of the art right now. You can get pretty decent throughput if you’re close. You’ll drop down, the fur-ther out you get, and it depends on how much signal you get — like your cell phone. If you get down to three bars, you are going to get dropout on your Internet. It wiggles on three bars. It will go three bars, two bars, three bars. If you’re 3-4 you’re probably OK. But you’re probably dropping down to about a B range if you have a G with three bars.

There is a draft specification for 802.11N. What has happened is every manufacturer out there has 80211N- compatible routers, and they are capa-ble of 108 megabits per second — that is twice the speed of the G. The problem is that right now if you have a Linksys router with a pseudo N you have to have a Linksys N network card in your com-puter in order to talk to it. So if you buy a laptop and it came with some proprie-tary network card, you’re not going to be able to talk at N speeds unless you put a faster card in. So with 802.11N right now, because most people in their houses are using laptops, they get no benefit because their laptop doesn’t have N or if they do, it isn’t compatible with their router and probably isn’t compati-ble with any standard router. Unless you have some specific reason for wanting an 80211N, I wouldn’t want to mess with it right now. If you’re going to mess with it and you want to go through the hassle and expense of getting some-thing that works, I would encourage you to look at SMC routers and network cards. They have an N draft, that can go



This month’s Q&A topics: Internet, e-mail SIG DSL connection problems Order of software and modem Auxiliary plugs for modem, cable

box Placement of DSL filter N and B routers Delaying reboots after updates Download brings ghost script error Keeping favorites in Firefox

Firefox takes long time to load Outlook Express address book What does the i in iPod mean?

Regular Q&A Internet is slow to open Anti-virus comes on at start-up Vista doesn’t recognize input device Windows Defender problems Port for FTP What are ports?

More on Q&A: Placing DSL filters, modem standards


More on Q&A: Delaying reboots, slow Firefox

up to 300 megabits per second in the right configuration, which is triple what the regular N will do. But it’s all pro-prietary and it uses the N protocol but it builds on top of that. Probably the other router manufactures will have the same thing. I know that some were under de-velopment and the guys who make SMCs also provide routers for most of the major manufacturers. The company that does the development for SMC also provides the routers for Linksys, which is owned by Cisco, which is the largest manufacturer of major routers that are used on major networks, but Cisco does-n’t make their own little home network routers. They buy the guts from the company that makes them for SMC. Belkin routers are the same. D-Link is the only major one that is different. Probably more about routers than you wanted to know.

Delaying reboots after updates

Q: This is an update question. Last week, I had a lot of windows open, and I got a message: Your system has been updated and you need to reboot. Is there any way to tell them to wait?

A: The short answer is, not really. There is an option for the automatic up-dates to download automatically but let me install them. But once they’re in-stalled there are technical reasons why Windows doesn’t want you to do too much before you reboot because they’ve got updated files on your computer but you’re using the old files, and you can induce some corruption in this way. They’re pretty strong on the issue. Once you’ve installed the update, they want you to reboot pretty quickly. So if you’re using the automatic update you darn well better get used to next Tues-day — ha, ha, ha — SAVE EVERY-THING.

Unfortunately, every once in a while they have some kind of a nasty, crawly thing that they have to get rid of in a hurry, and they do it other than on patch Tuesday. I know it’s a pain in the neck, and I’ve lost a few things. One of the things I’ve discovered is if patch Tues-day shuts down my Firefox browser, when I resume Firefox the next morn-

ing, it says, do you want me to restore your session. And I go, I got 14 win-dows open. I guess I better do that. It’ll open up all 14 windows. Another reason to use Firefox.

Download brings Ghostscript error

Q: I was trying to get something on the Internet, an attachment, and it comes up decoder can’t load script or Ghost-script error. What is that all about?

A: Probably you shouldn’t have been trying to open it in the first place. Ghost-script is a decoding for a postscript file. If you have a postscript attachment, gen-erally speaking you probably don’t want to mess with it. It’s a graphics file for-mat and if you have a copy of Photo-shop installed on your computer you can go ahead and edit it with it. But that’s what it’s for. It’s to do editing of files. It’s not a final file version. When you get all done, you’re going to save the file you created with postscript into something like a JPEG or even a BMP file. It’s a format that really is used to be an Adobe graphic editing program and it’s proprietary to Adobe. You can go ahead and download Ghostscript, but it probably isn’t worth the effort.

Keeping favorites in Firefox

Q: I heard so much about you tout-ing Firefox, I may switch over. Can you tell me how to keep my favorites.

A: When you do the install of Fire-fox, it’s going to ask you if you want to import your favorites. It’s part of the install process. There’s a little check box — yes, I do; no, I don’t. Just go yes, yes, yes when they pop up.

The one huge advantage to Firefox is that it has an extension language that allows authors to create extensions to Firefox. There’s one of them that will turn off all Flash. So if you don’t want to see Flash and ads, pop-ups, they’ll do that. There’s another ad blocker. It’s so effective that there are a couple of sites that won’t let Firefox on the site. They want to display ads, and if you won’t let it display ads, they won’t let you on the site. The extension is not installed by default. You have to ask for it, and you can go on to the extensions and go on to Firefox. The number of extensions I

think right now is over 1,000. You can send yourself an e-mail message that you can retrieve. You can put it into a folder.

Q: Will that folder be secure? A: If you have a really good pass-

word on it.

Firefox takes long time to load

Q: Why does Firefox take so long to load?

A: Firefox takes longer to load than Internet Explorer because it is a bigger, more robust program. If you are looking for a real lightweight like Firefox there is Mozilla SeaMonkey or Opera.

Michael: If you really want to start up fast, one of the first things you do is make sure you have changed your de-fault home page to NOTHING.

A: All of the browsers have a choice for the home page to be a blank home page. And they will start much faster. One of the reasons that home pages start slowly is that MSN and Yahoo are slow to load. I use Yahoo news page. That is a customizable news page, and every once in a while that thing comes up real slow. You can speed it up considerably by not having a home page.

Outlook Express address book

Q: In my address book in Outlook Express, I want to go in and dump eve-rything, and then I’d like to go back and set up different groups and so forth to better organize.

A: The first thing you do is to back it up. I’ve done some edits on my address book that didn’t work very well. Other than that, drag and drop works real well, and you can highlight more than one if you just CTRL-click the ones you want and then slide them over to whatever group you want them in.

What’s the i in iPod?

Q: Can you tell me what the i in IPod means?

A: When you have names like Phone.com there can only be one Phone.com. For a period of time every-body was e. There was ecommerce, and e this and e that. It was a big fad. The thing about these big fads is it makes it easy for people to remember if you stick




an e in front of a particular name. Sev-eral other companies before Apple — but Apple decided to steal the idea — just put an i in front of it. Get ready for u and a and all to z. They’re easy to re-member.

Q and A Session Questions answered by Toby Scott,

our technical adviser, unless otherwise

noted. Michael Shalkey handled the on-

screen demonstrations.

Internet is slow to open

Q: The Internet seems slow in open-ing.

A: The first thing you can do to speed up your computer is to turn off all of the junk you don’t need at start-up. Quick Time does not have to run all of the time. Your Adobe Acrobat reader does not have to run all the time. If you’re checking for updates you can control what it is you’re running at start-up. Start, run and type MSCONFIG in Windows XP or in Windows Vista they actually have a thing off of their startup menu you can get down to programs that run at start-up, and you can turn off whatever you want to turn off. You can control those.

Second reason, spyware. We got a new world’s record in the shop this past month. We got a computer into our of-fice just loaded with spyware. We couldn’t get it to run, but it did reboot after about 10 minutes. It wouldn’t do any scan or anything. I did eventually get Spybot installed. I rebooted into safe mode, and I ran it all night. Care to guess how many infected files there were? We’re not talking about cookies. We’re just talking about infected files, 21,000. I went to fix it. It died. There’s no way I can fix 21,000 files. I am as-tounded that it would boot.

The other reason your computer would run slow is because of viruses. Unfortunately, we are getting computers in that have a working, up-to-date anti- virus program and that have viruses. We delete that program and put in another one, and we can get rid of the virus. The issue is that if you adopted the virus before the virus definition knew about

the virus, a lot of times your virus pro-gram won’t get rid of it. Sometimes, it will diagnose you’ve got it. It just won’t get rid of it. Sometimes it doesn’t even know that you’ve got it.

You want to speed up any browser just make the default page blank. If it’s slow to connect to CNN, for example, your browser is going to be slow in starting up. Take control. It is very rare that slowdowns are due to your drives, or hardware. It does happen, it can hap-pen, but do the other things first.

Anti-virus comes on at start-up

Q: Something always comes on when I turn the computer on. Some-where it is getting a message to start up, but I don’t know where.

A: The default for almost all the anti-virus programs is that if you turn them off, if you go to right mouse click to turn them off or if you go into their setup or their main display, almost all the virus programs will come back on when you reboot the computer. That’s the default behavior.

There are several programs that say when you go to install them “Turn off your anti-virus program.” You turn your ant-virus program off, they think you might forget to turn it on again so they turn it on for you. If you want to get rid of it, uninstall it. You want to have no anti-virus program at all?

Q. No, no, I want the anti-virus pro-gram. I had it set to come on at 11:30 at night.

A: Two modes for anti-virus. One of them is it runs in the background at all times and when you download mail, you download a file off the Internet, it checks it to make sure you don’t get an infection. That’s active virus scanning. Second mode is that you go to a specific scan. You say scan my hard drive, scan everything, and you do a manual scan, and you can set it to run at 11:30 or whatever. It usually takes a couple of hours.

Q: I thought what I was setting it to do was run an update at 11:39 but not at any other time.

A: You should be able to set the up-date for a particular time.

Q: It just ignores that. The update

comes on when I turn on the computer. A: The freeware AVG will do up-

dates when you boot.

Vista doesn’t recognize input device

Q: I just installed Nero 8 on the Vista machine mainly to use the sound track recording, but it’s not recognizing the input device. This is on Vista. It’s not compatible?

A: No, Nero 8 is Vista-compatible. It’s just not detecting the input device — the microphone. You can try reinstalling the driver for the microphone. A lot of times with things you haven’t seen be-fore you’ve got to play with them to figure them out. Anybody else got any ideas? (No response.)

Windows Defender problems

Q: I am having problems with Win-dows Defender.

A: Are you using Windows XP? Q: Yes. A: OK, go to Add/Delete programs

and delete Defender. Windows De-fender, what good is it? When spyware was a much bigger problem than it is today — primarily we’re talking about browser hijacks — they rushed out Win-dows Defender to try to get a handle on it. Back in about 2004 I think that our shop revenues were probably 40 percent generated by spyware. I mean virtually every computer that came in was spy-ware infested. Before you could do any-thing, you had to get rid of the spyware. I mean if a customer came in and said my printer won’t work it was generally because of spyware. Took up all the resources, and there weren’t enough to print. Microsoft rushed this thing out. It was a rush job. It doesn’t work all that well. The Defender in Vista works con-siderably better than the one in XP. At least, so far hasn’t crashed on me. The one that they do as an update for Win-dows XP if it does work it gives some protection. I don’t know how much is needed. When you start having problems with it, I don’t know of a way to fix it. I don’t think Microsoft knows of a way to fix it. I don’t think they are doing much troubleshooting or tech support any-more. Your best bet is simply to uninstall it and keep Ad-Aware and



More on Q&A: Antivirus loads at start-up


Program: Reimaginememories.com

Web site helps preserve, share memories By John Weigle

[email protected]

A Web site that lets users convert their film, videotape, records and other old memories into digital formats and then share them was described at the December meeting by Brad Jashinsky, its CEO and co-founder.

The Web site is reimaginememo-ries.com, which offers both free and premium accounts. The paid accounts offer more features and storage space.

The idea behind the site, which was launched at the southwest users group

conference in July, is to bridge the gap between analog and digital content, Jashinsky said. Many people have digi-tal cameras and other devices that can put information directly on a computer, he said, but “how about all of the old memories that are on film — 8 millime-ter, 16 millimeter, 35 millimeter — old camcorder tapes, video tapes, any type of media that you can think of — re-cords, cassettes — all that is still in the analog age.”

The site’s free accounts offer 500 megabytes of space for videos, music,

photos and documents, unlimited downloads and no capped download speeds. The premium accounts give unlimited space, no ads, no capped download speeds and the site’s special service, “memories through the mail.” That service lets users submit media in any format for the company to convert to digital formats and return. Users can then post the files on their Web site. The paid service costs $10 per month, which can be paid through PayPal.

For those who don’t use the Internet


Spybot handy. Q: I’ve already got it. A: We’ll put it up on the CIPCUG

Web page. It’s a link to a good spyware program that until the end of June they have at half price — it is the competitive price to the upgrade. The price is $9.95 for regularly a $20 program. It’s under Sunbelt programs. I don’t know the name of it. Sunbelt makes tools that a lot of technical shops and IP departments and so on use. They are primarily a tech-nical type outfit, but they do have an anti-spyware program. Usually it’s one of the top two or three rated. I think that last time it was number one. It is an up-grade, but they will allow you to use free anti-spyware as well as paid anti-spyware. You can just say, I have Ad-

Aware three, or Spybot, whatever. No, it’s a commercial program, not freeware. Ah, Counterspy — that’s what it is.

Port for FTP

Q: What port does FTP use by de-fault?

A: This is real, real easy if you think like a computer geek. You go to Google, and you type in FTP, port and you click on Search And you’ll get a whole lot of hits that’ll tell you what ports are used, and there it is. The second one will tell you. You don’t have to click on it. Port number 21 is utilized by FTP, and that’s the answer to the question.

What are ports?

Q: What are ports? A: Every action that you have on the

Internet requires a port to be used. The

default port that’s used for Web pages, HTTP, is Port 80. If you go to HTTPS on one of the secured sites it uses port 443. If you try any other port, you are likely not to succeed unless you are on your own very carefully crafted Internet. If you are doing outgoing mail, the de-fault is Port 25. Most mail servers are configured to use Port 25 for their cus-tomers and then when you attach to it and you send the mail it sends it out on Port 25. But you can have customer log- ons on a different port if you want to. That’s customizable. Same thing for FTP. It is on Port 21 by default. Remote Desktop uses Port 3389 as a default. But I have some customers where I have Port 3390, Port 3391, and so on. When you start using nonstandard configura-tions, it’s almost always for security.


More on Q&A: Ports and what they’re used for

meeting, in 10 months they have paid their membership dues cost but still are not members. I talked to David Harris about this when he rode down with me to the San Diego conference last sum-mer. The $3 charge is rather common with most SoCal UGs.

Starting in January, we will be incor-porating a Video Group under our um-brella, and it will fall under the same TOPCC rules as the Photo Group or any

other SIG that may be created in the future. They were the former Video Club of Thousand Oaks.

Each one of the SIGs meet on a dif-ferent monthly evening — TOPCC on the fourth Thursday except for Novem-ber and December to avoid the holidays; the Photo Group meets the first Monday of all 12 months except the months that have holidays on or near the first Mon-day; and the Video Group will meet on the third Monday.

If a person is a member, the person can attend any one or all of the three meetings for the $30 a year.

As I have said to both David and Craig, your people are cordially invited to attend and/or become members.

As you probably know, I’m an offi-cial dues-paying member of both your group and TOPCC and have been for years. Both of our organizations do things a bit differently, so it makes it worthwhile to belong to both.


More on Digital Photo SIG ...


Practice safe computing: Back up, back up, back up.

And then test the backup to be sure it worked.

More on reimaginememories.com: ...

or who have relatives who don’t, the company will, for an additional price, put the old media on CDs that can be distributed to other family members or kept by the submitter.

The site is easy to navigate and has no flashing or annoying ads. “We want to be the Google of Web sites rather than the Yahoo of Web sites,” he said. It’s also being improved regularly, he said.

To use the site, a person must pro-vide a valid e-mail address, a password and a display name.

“We’re really big on support,” he said, with the site offering video and text tutorials, and personal support through the site (you leave your name and phone number rather than sitting on hold for a long time, and at most, he said, you should have a return call within six hours. You can also ask to be called back at a specific time.)

Reimaginememories.com does not plan to become a Facebook or YouTube, he said, but it will allow users to, with one click, share their files via e-mail, text message, Facebook, MySpace or other such Web sites or to cell phones.

The site took down its search engine to rework it so users will be able to search for all pictures with keywords. Those who post files, however, can de-cide whether they’re available to every-one else, to selected people or to just the poster.

Projects in the works, which should be available by June 2008, he said in-clude FTP uploads, previews for Flash, individual profiles that will provide automatic notices when new files are uploaded, previews of videos and an improved search engine (possibly in cooperation with Google).

Features being planned for later in 2008 and in 2009 include free software applications to manage uploads, a free

photo-editing program, free video-editing program and free text editor all rolled into one; and a possible commer-cial marketplace for bands and serious commercial photographers.

“You have the content … We have the Web site,” he said.

“As we grow bigger we want to be able to do every single type of media,”

he said, and the company is continually expanding the types of media it can con-vert.

On the Net:

Brad Jashinsky e-mail address is

[email protected]

The company’s Web site is at

www.reimaginememories.com.


Above is the re-

imaginememories.

com home page

illustrating the ad

placement and

the simple layout.

At left, Vice Presi-

dent Craig Ladd;

Brad Jashinsky,

CEO and co-

founder of reimag-

inememories.com;

and President Paul

Westefer meet be-

fore the program.

Photo by Jerry Crocker


By Bill Wayson

[email protected]

H appy New Year to you all. Toward the end of 2007, the openSUSE community announced the release of its latest Linux distribution, openSUSE 10.3. Since the January Linux SIG meet-ing topic will be to upgrade the Linux installation on the CIPCUG PC to open-SUSE 10.3, this month’s article will be a survey of what it includes.

Immediately notice-able is the new artwork. The openSUSE team has revisited a previ-ously released and popular green theme, which has been updated for this release, giving openSUSE 10.3 a re-freshing new look. The popular user interfaces have been updated. The default KDE desktop

manager is version 3.5.7 with parts of the soon-to-be-released KDE 4 added in.

You’ll see the new Kickoff menu, KDE’s attempt to fix the current “start-here” button, then menu, submenu, sub-submenu, etc. application chooser meta-phor. Since Kickoff is so different from what most PC users are accustomed to, you can easily switch between Kickoff and the former KDE menu style.

If the included KDE 4 games and utilities whet your appetite for the new KDE, a full preview edition of KDE 4 is included. But remember, the emphasis is on “preview.” Stability is not guaran-teed.

Fans of the Gnome desktop manager have version 2.20 to use, which has been augmented with openSUSE-specific modifications and additions. Older and resource-constrained hardware will run well using the 4.4.1 version of the Xfce desktop manager.

System administration has improved in openSUSE 10.3. Gnome desktop us-ers now have a GTK version of YaST (Yet another System Tool). This pro-vides all the familiar YaST system ad-ministration modules, but with a look and feel that is very well integrated into

the Gnome environment. An additional, new method of in-

stalling programs has been added to openSUSE. Called One-Click Install, it utilizes your Web browser and suitable Web sites to allow you to add new pro-grams, such as multimedia players, with literally one mouse click (once you are at the Web site, of course). All depend-ency checking and package searching is handled by One-Click Install.

Native package management has improved greatly as compared to its post-version 10.0 predecessors. Well-known software repositories can be se-lected from a list and added with a sin-gle mouse click.

The installation and update process is much faster, and, overall, the package management system appears to be much more stable and robust. Some of the YaST modules have been completely redesigned to simplify their use and to reflect changes in recent hardware. One of the new modules allows you to create customized system images for such uses as live CDs and bootable USB stick-based systems.

Virtualization (running multiple op-erating systems on one PC as if they were running on their own PCs) contin-ues to be strongly supported. Xen and QEMU are still included, VirtualBox and KVM have been added, and the kernel has been configured to be more

VMWare-friendly. Last, and not least, many improve-

ments will be noticed at the user level. OpenSUSE 10.3 boots more quickly than earlier versions, up to 50 percent more quickly. The running system is supported by the Linux kernel 2.6.22.x series.

The desktop eye candy lovers with sufficiently powerful hardware can en-joy a 3-D desktop experience using Compiz and the Compiz Fusion collec-tion. They will see such visual toys as rotating cubes (each side is a virtual desktop), background rain and water effects, and wavy windows.

With a significant new feature, open-SUSE 10.3 can now play MP3 audio files out of the box, alleviating the need to search the Internet for installation instructions, download new software, and install it manually.

The OpenOffice.org application suite is now at version 2.3, continuing its steady improvement with each new ver-sion. OpenSUSE 10.3 now installs Giver by default, which is a simple file-sharing application that makes it quite easy to exchange files among computers on the local network.

One change in the retail version of openSUSE, which mirrors the direction of many Linux distributions, is that only DVDs — two of them — are provided. CD images, including some for “live” media, are still available for download from www.opensuse.org.

The 10.3 version of openSUSE con-tinues the SuSE tradition of providing a full-featured stable Linux and open source computing experience using the (nearly) latest available software.

If you have questions or would like to learn more about Linux and FOSS, come to the CIPCUG Linux SIG meet-ing at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 24, at Ventura County Computers in Ventura. See how easy it is to upgrade the CIP-CUG PC to openSUSE 10.3. There will be plenty of time to try to answer your questions.

If there is something you would like the Lair or Linux SIG to cover, drop me a line at [email protected]. Until next month, happy computing.

Installing latest version of openSUSE Linux

Wayson

Penguin’s Lair

G nome desktop users now have a GTK version of

YaST (Yet another System Tool). This provides all the fa-miliar YaST system administra-tion modules, but with a look and feel that is very well inte-grated into the Gnome environ-ment. An additional, new method of installing programs has been added to openSUSE. Called One-Click Install, it util-izes your Web browser and suit-able Web sites to allow you to add new programs. ...


By Helen Long [email protected]

H APPY NEW YEAR! Hope every-one has survived all the frenzied

shopping crowds. Was Santa good to everyone? He left me sticks and stones; wonder what that means.

Craig is really having a problem trying to find programs for the club. So many of the companies that we used to rely on for participation are no longer providing speakers. If you can think of an interesting program or hear about someone who wants a soap box to stand on, let Craig know. You can reach him at [email protected].

One of the things we discussed at the

last board meeting was to have a recycling program, giving mem-bers an opportunity to dig out our old, un-used, dysfunctional stuff that is collecting dust bunnies and fi-nally get rid of it. Does this sound like it

would be useful information and a great opportunity? If so, contact Paul at [email protected] and let him know.

I will be making some more cop-ies of the revised freeware disc so if you are one of the few who have never yet bought one, dig deep in your pocket for

$5. Michael has done a great job of put-ting it together and on the indexing, he has listed briefly what each product does. If you are going to copy this list, pause after you copy, open up your word processor and set your page for minimum margins and double columns and you will get it on 2½ pages instead of five pages.

Don’t forget that Art Lewis will have “The Secret Guide” for sale for $15. If you have ordered it but haven’t picked it up yet, please do so at the January meeting. If you haven’t ordered it, we have some extra copies for sale.

HAVE YOU RUN YOUR ANTI-SPY WARE PROGRAMS LATELY!

Please, all, be on the lookout for programs

Long

Bits & Bytes

Reprinted with permission from

S m a r t C o m p u t i n g . V i s i t

www.SmartComputing.com/Groups to

learn what Smart Computing can do for

you and your user group!

Avoid Downloads From Unrecog-

nized Sources: The only thing more careless than accepting an e-mail mes-sage from an unrecognized sender is downloading a file from an unrecog-nized Web site. Yet millions of users participate in this risky behavior every day by downloading games, screen sav-ers, and an assortment of other unneces-sary files from unfamiliar URLs. Most downloads that fall into this category are probably safe, though some may be laced with malevolent code that lets crackers steal or destroy your data. The

greater threat is that the downloads, many of which are developed by indi-viduals lacking the resources to test their products thoroughly, may contain bugs that put the stability of your system at risk. Unfortunately, you can’t tell the difference until after you complete such downloads.

The safest course of action is to stay away from s t range downloads (downloads that don’t come directly from reputable businesses, organiza-tions, or individuals). If that means buy-ing your software and using the screen savers that come with Windows, then so be it. At least your data and privacy will remain intact.

What'd He Say? If you find it hard to hear the dialogue in a movie over the

rest of its ambient sound and music, increase the treble a bit and bump up the midrange setting a little more. There’s a common reason for quiet dialogue, by the way. Most DVD movies play in 5.1-channel surround sound unless you change each disc’s audio settings (usually in a menu called Languages or Audio Setup), and most dialogue gets funneled to the center speaker in the front of the room. If you don’t have a center speaker, set the DVD’s audio to stereo.

Buying A GPS Device: When buy-ing a GPS (global positioning system) device, consider the type of trips you intend to make so you can weigh the pros and cons of hard drive-based stor-age vs. flash-based storage. If you’re

Smart Computing tips and fun facts

The Outer Edge is printed and prepared for mailing by:


By Bob de Violini

[email protected]

F rom the once is not enough depart-ment, Microsoft has, again, patched

a patch. This time, it involves patch number MS07-069, which is a cumula-tive security update for Internet Explorer 6 installed on Windows XP Service Pack 2 only.

Apparently the initial patch released on December’s patch Tuesday broke

some of Internet Explorer’s functional-ity, making it crash when attempting to display Web sites with certain types of content. I experienced this myself with the United Airlines site, but others have experienced it with other sites, such as the main MSN site. If you have Auto-matic Updates set to automatically in-stall updates, then you’ve probably al-ready gotten the fix installed on your

computer. If you, like I, have updating set to notify but not download and in-stall, or if you visit the Windows Update site on your own once a month instead of using Auto Update, then by all means please go to the Windows Update site and grab the fix as soon as you can. The fix doesn’t require a reboot; it just makes a minor registry entry to prevent IE6 from crashing again.

Internet Explorer and G-mail

Rolling right along, there was some debate during December with regards to a “vulnerability” that exists when visit-ing Google’s web-based e-mail site, Gmail, with Internet Explorer. When the “bug” was pointed out to the computer industry media, both Microsoft and Google denied the root of the problem was with theirs. Apparently, an investi-gator has claimed that IE improperly stores files in its cache and that the scripting of Gmail allows this to be ex-ploited, which would allow someone to

steal any user names and passwords for Gmail that have been entered since the last time the IE cache was purged. The simple way around this is to use a browser besides IE when you visit Gmail or, if you must use IE for check-ing your mail with Gmail, first purge the cache and all cookies and then log in to the site. To purge IE’s cache, inside IE go to the Tools drop down menu and select Internet Options. Now, in the middle of the Internet Options box, click the Delete Cookies button and click OK in the box that pops up. Next, click the Delete Files button and click OK in the box that pops up. Now click the OK button at the bottom of the Internet Op-tions box, and you’re all set. There has been no other news about this issue, so using another browser or purging IE’s cache is the only solution for now. By the way, the biggest risk for this behav-ior appears to be if you’re sharing com-


Security

Microsoft patches still another patch

More tips ...

Ventura County Computers www.vccomputers.com

(805) 289-3960 2175 Goodyear Ave. #117 Ventura 93003

Happy New Year

From Toby, Rick, Michael Roxy & Marguerite

Another great year saving the world one PC at a time!

We still have great deals on LCD’s Call us for the models we have in stock, then go out on the Internet and find the lowest price you can for them and come on in and

twist my arm for the best deal on the planet, maybe … but we’ll try.


Adjust Windows XP for better performance Jeff Levy’s program moves

Jeff’ Levy’s Web site has an an-

nouncement that, starting Jan. 13, his

show is moving to KRLA, 870 AM. It

will be broadcast from 2 to 4 p.m. on

Sundays. As far as we know, this won’t

affect the reprinting of his lessons, but

that is not confirmed yet. — Editor

By Jeff Levy

O ne of the things that Microsoft made a big deal about when XP

was released is the look and feel, as in the way things looked on your screen as you went from one window to another. That’s all fine and good, but the truth here is that the tweaks XP uses to “look good” will slow XP’s performance.

Here’s what you can do to take control of the situation. First, click on Start and then open the Con-trol Panel. If you are us-ing the “classic view,” open System. If you are using the “Category v i e w , ” c l i c k o n “Performance and Main-

tenance” and then click on “System.” In the System Properties window,

click on the “Advanced” tab and then on the “Settings” button in the Performance section.

Here you can choose to let Win-dows figure out the settings to use, ad-

just the settings for best appearance, best performance, or you can create a custom setting. There are 16 options for you here, like “Show translucent selection rectangle” and “Show window contents while dragging.” The fewer items you select, the better performance you’ll get for your computer. Click OK and OK again to exit.

This lesson is copyright by Jeff Levy

and reprinted with permission. All of his

more than 400 lessons for both the PC

and the Mac can be found on his Web

site, jefflevy.com.

Jeff’s show notes for every show are

also at www.jefflelevy.com. Click on the

Show Notes picture on the opening page

to access a wealth of information.

Levy

Learning with Levy

More on security ...

puter access such as that which is avail-able at a public library or a shopping mall where you pay for a few minutes of high-speed Internet access.

Critical updates for QuickTime

For those of you who are fond of using Apple’s QuickTime media player, there have been a couple of updates re-leased in December to fix a few critical security vulnerabilities. If you only up-dated QuickTime once during that time-frame, you might want to visit Apple’s site to get the latest update. The most recent version of the player (without the I Tunes add-on) is 7.3.1.70. While you’re at the Apple site, you might want to download and install the Apple Soft-ware updater, which makes it very easy to keep QuickTime updated. Just click on it and watch it do its thing.

HP computer vulnerabilities

For those of you who have Hewlett Packard laptops and desktops, there is a vulnerability in HP’s Software Update software. This vulnerability can allow an attacker to turn your computer into a useless collection of metal and plastic that’s completely unbootable. HP rushed out a fix in around four days, and it’s now available for your download. Com-puter security experts suggest installing it even if you don’t use the HP Software

Update function at all, as just having the software on your computer makes it vul-nerable. One catch — you have to run the vulnerable software to get the update to fix it. HP has had no comment about it at all, and there’s no mention of it on its Web site. Please keep in mind that the HP Software Update software is com-pletely separate from, and unrelated to, any other updating software that is in-stalled on the computer like Windows Update or Microsoft Update.

Windows Vista change

Shifting gears toward Vista, Micro-soft has announced that, effective with Service Pack 1 for Vista due out in the first quarter of this year, those with cracked or counterfeit copies of Vista will no longer have their machines made to run in reduced functionality mode by the Windows Genuine Advantage vali-dation tool. Instead, they’ll just get nagged about once an hour to get a legal copy of Vista on their machines. Micro-soft has said that this new stance is in response to customer and partner re-quests. Time will tell just how well this new policy goes over.

Adobe Flash patch coming

This next item pertains to a good number of folks reading this and deals with an application that runs within the vast majority of the Internet browsers in

use that’s called Flash. This application enables you to see animated ads and other “mini movies” within your browser.

There have been a couple of very widely publicized bugs in it, one of which has been patched. The other one is under investigation by Adobe, which has pledged a fix early this year. The way I read the security bulletin, it will probably be out by the end of January, and may already be out by the time you’re reading this at home.

As of this writing, the latest version of the Adobe Flash player is 9.0.115.0. This version number will, no doubt, change as soon as the second bug is patched. The Adobe security bulletin about the second patch can be found at http://tinyurl.com/2kktqs. When you get there, you’ll find it on the technical side of things, but there’s a section titled “Preventative Measures for End-Users” which spells things out in plain English for the rest of us.

Well, that’s all for this time. I hope everyone has had a happy holiday sea-son and a good New Year’s celebration as well.

Remember, as Helen says at the end of her column, make sure you keep your anti-virus and anti-malware applications fully updated by checking them at least once a week!



BYE BYE, NETSCAPE: AOL has announced it will no longer support the Netscape Web browser after Feb. 1, thus leaving the browser wars to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, which still has the most users; Firefox; and Opera. Mac users have their own built-in browser, Safari.

I n h i s b l o g a t h t t p : / /blog.netscape.com/2007/12/28/end-of-support-for-netscape-web-browsers/, Tom Drapeau said that AOL encourages people to switch to Firefox.

“We’ll continue to release security patches for the current version of the browser, Netscape Navigator until Feb-ruary 1, 2008. After February 1, there will be no more active product support for Navigator 9, or any previous Net-scape Navigator browser. This includes Netscape v1-v4.x, Netscape v6, Net-scape v7 Suite, Netscape Browser v8, and Netscape Navigator/Messenger 9,” he wrote.

For those who like the feel and look of Netscape, he recommends using Fire-fox and adding the Netscape theme and extensions, which can be downloaded at https: //addons.mozil la.org/en-US/firefox/user/56836.

There are, of course, a number of other browsers with much smaller shares of the market, but several of them basi-cally just put a new face on IE.

“FIREFOX FLUBS IT?” That’s the headline on an article in the Febru-ary 2008 issue of Maximum PC that begins this way:

“We’ve long recommended that power users adopt the open-source browser Firefox. Its stability, extensibil-ity and security make it the browser of choice for discerning web heads. Unfor-tunately a botched security update and an as-yet-unfixed memory-leak issue are beginning to make us question our rec-ommendations.”

The magazine says that security patch 2.0.0.10 fixed a problem that let people access other’s Gmail address book but, by mistake, “prevented dy-namic rendering of bitmaps.”

The magazine also says that, if left running “for just a few hours” Firefox

can absorb up to 400 MG of memory. The magazine did not go so far as to

recommend a replacement.

FLAW IN ADOBE FLASH

THREATENS WEB SITES: Com-puterworld.com reports that the book, “Hacking Exposed Web 2.0: Web 2.0 Security Secrets and Solutions” warns that Flash software could leave many Web sites open to hackers.

Hackers, the book says, can insert malicious code into Shockwave Flash files (SWFs), which make short movies and animated graphics possible on Web sites.

“For example,” the article says, “they could program the file to send them copies of personal information that the user types while visiting a site. At the moment, there are no patches avail-able.”

A patch was expected when the arti-cle was written. (This item might also be related to the one Bob de Violini dis-cusses in this month’s Security column.)

OFFICE UPDATE BLOCKS

SOME OLD FILE FORMATS: An article on computerworld.com reports that Microsoft has issued a patch to undo some actions of the Office 2003 SP3. The update turned off Office pro-grams to open several older files types, including CorelDraw’s .CDR format. Interestingly, the update also blocked some old MS Office formats for Word, PowerPoint and Excel, along with Lotus and Quatro, legacy binary files and leg-acy database and datasource files. De-tails on where to find and how to use the patches can be found at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938810/en-us.

The original story can be found at this Computer World site: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9055618)

MONEY FROM THE GOVERN-

MENT: Applications are being taken for a coupon to help U.S. residents pay for converter boxes for the switch from analog to digital television in February 2009.

The TV Converter Coupon Program opened Jan. 1. The coupons cover $40

of the cost of an eligible converter, which is expected to be $50 to $70.

Televisions hooked up to cable, sat-ellite or other pay services do not need a converter from the TV Converter Box Coupon Program. To get coupons, you can:

— A p p l y o n l i n e a t www.dtv2009.gov.

— Call the Coupon Program 24-hour hotline 888-DTV-2009 (888-388-2009), TTY 877-530-2634.

— Mail a coupon application to P.O. Box 2000, Portland, OR 97208-2000

— Fax a coupon application to 877-DTV-4ME2 (-877-388-4632)

Coupons are expected to be distrib-uted to consumers beginning Feb. 17, when retailers are expected to accept coupons and have certified converters on shelves. Participating retailers in-clude Best Buy, Circuit City, Kmart, Target, Sam’s Club, Sears, RadioShack, Wal-Mart, and more than 100 others with more than 14,000 stores throughout the nation.

For all the details, go to http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/press/2008/DTVcoupons_010408.html.

MCAFEE SUITE SLOWS COM-

PUTERS WAAAAY DOWN: In her Jan. 4 Daily Tip, radio show host Kim Komando replied to a listener’s question about emproxy.exe, a process that was taking up 85 to 97 percent of the com-puter’s resources.

The process is part of McAfee’s Vi-rusScan 11, she said, and many users have had similar problems. The com-pany has a patch that can be downloaded through the program’s update procedure. The patch is also supposed to fix prob-lems that have prevented some users from sending or receiving e-mail or that have caused long delays in the e-mail process. You need the patch if your ver-sion of the software is earlier than 11.0.213, the tip says.

Anyone interested in Kim Ko-mando’s weekly newsletter, daily tips or daily news e-mails can subscribe to any or all of them at her Web site, www.komando.com.

News and notes from the computing world


Caught in a pickle again: Vista for business By Rick Smith

[email protected]

H appy New Year, faithful readers. We barely left the holiday season, and already we’re knee deep in election-eering. As of yet, no candidate I know of has been caught downloading porn or illegal music, but there’s still a ways to go before the dust settles and we decide who will be the leader of the technologi-

cally free world. I have yet to hear a campaign promise of Internet access in every home, but I’m sure it’s coming. Next thing you know, it will become a human right, and we’ll have to add another amendment to the Constitution. I’m already getting sidetracked, so I’ll get back to the issues.

As all of you are aware, Microsoft’s Vista operating system has been out for some time now with mixed reviews. We’ve installed maybe two or three dozen computers with Microsoft’s latest attempt to dominate the digital world we live in. By and large, the most success-ful installs we’ve had have been the ones for home users. It’s been our posi-tion that if you’re going to get a new PC you should definitely purchase one with Vista. And after working with all four flavors of the magical OS, I’ve come to the conclusion that Vista Ultimate is the best of the bunch. It has all of every-thing for someone like me who uses PCs for a mix of business and personal use. I also know Microsoft would be very happy to get an extra $50 out of every person on the planet for the upgrade. All versions are the same product, with Mi-crosoft withholding various features hostage until you open up your wallet a little more. The more I use Vista on a personal level, the more I admire its various new design and organizational features.

On the other hand Vista business has been a mixed bag. It’s a much different philosophy recommending products to business clients over home users. If I screw up something for home, it affects

only a small area of someone’s limited time using their PC. But if we recom-mend something that screws up on the job, brother, it’s a whole different story. You start messing with people’s cash flow and watch how quickly friendships can be tested.

Granted, we make our livelihood unscrewing things that our clients screw up! But when you talk them into some-thing and it screws up, then you are the lucky recipient of all the wrath, resent-ment and ire they can muster. And some of our clients are real good at mustering. Also personal users have only single- user versions of all their software, and if for some reason there’s an incompatibil-ity with a particular program it’s not the end of the world to buy a new version of said software. In a business environ-ment, though, you can have many li-censes for the same product, and version upgrades can be unnecessary and un-needed expense, not to mention the lost productivity because of down time and the training time to get everyone up to speed with the newer programs and op-erating systems.

This has bit my erstwhile partner in the arse a few times since he’s forced a few of our customers to take the Vista plunge with unexpected results. Even one of our major suppliers of pre-packaged PCs, Acer America, has started shipping all of its Vista business machines with an XP Pro downgrade CD. Now, doesn’t that beat all! For years, we’ve seen the major vendors not wanting to miss a potential sale while on the cusp of an operating system change, so they package their units with a “free”

upgrade to the new OS. How the worm has turned. I’ll leave it to smarter people than I to figure out the Zen in this, but it was a necessary move to keep PC sales flowing. We’ve seen firsthand the night-marish problems when you dump a Vista Business PC in the middle of a gang of XP Pro machines. And for eve-rything big and small a user does not know how to do or understand we re-ceive the aforesaid blame. So for most businesses it is just simply better and easier to keep the status quo and keep things the way they are. Everyone’s comfortable with XP now, and there’s enough stress already to go around with-out willfully adding to it.

Here, we come back to the title of this rant, “Caught in a pickle!” For those of you who have never played the great sport of baseball, let’s look at the defini-tion according to the oracle of the known universe, Wikipedia.

A rundown, also called a pickle, is a situation in the game of baseball that occurs when the base runner is stranded between two bases and is in jeopardy. When the base runner attempts to ad-vance to the next base, he is cut off by the defensive player, who has a live ball, and attempts to return to his previous base before being tagged out. As he is doing this, the defenseman throws the ball past the base runner to the previous base, forcing him to reverse directions again. This is repeated until the runner is put out or the defense commits an error and allows the runner to reach a base safely.

And on any given day you’ll find my erstwhile partner and your beloved friend, Toby Scott, scrambling back and forth between our office and some upset client who he’s recommended Vista Business to.

I’m sure eventually everything will sort out and we’ll have no other choice but to play by Bill’s rules if we want to use Windows. As for now, it’s still a mixed bag.

Stay tuned for next month as I be-moan how everyone else is getting rich by a change in strategy of forcing users to upgrade rather than patch existing products.

Smith

Rick’s rant

E ven one of our major suppliers of pre-packaged PCs, Acer America,

has started shipping all of its Vista business machines with an XP Pro downgrade CD. Now, doesn’t that beat all! For years, we’ve seen the major vendors not wanting to miss a potential sale while on the cusp of an operating system change, so they package their units with a “free” upgrade to the new OS. How the worm has turned.


I t’s been a strange month for my computer (and, therefore, me). While I was putting this issue of TOE together on Dec. 30, my

computer, which had been getting slower and slower when boot-ing, finally started locking up after being on just a few minutes. Fearing the worst, I ran the usual di-agnostics — anti-virus, anti-spyware and even SpinRite, a disk check and repair utility by Gibson Research. None of them spotted any problems. So, hoping to find someone at our favorite com-puter store, but not really expecting to, I loaded the computer in the car on the Dec. 31 and drove to Ventura from Oxnard. Much to my surprise, I saw Rick’s VW as I drove up and found him at his desk. “I’m supposed to be getting some paperwork done,” he said, adding that I wasn’t the only person

who had succeeded in finding him. He put the computer on the bench and, knowing from previous visits that I try out lots of soft-ware, called up MSCONFIG to see what was running. Fortu-nately, I didn’t come close to matching the 20,000-plus spyware programs Toby mentioned at the last meeting, but Rick started unchecking things anyway after hiding all the Microsoft services. I gulped when he unchecked both the anti-virus and anti-spyware programs, but he explained that the only way to find solutions to such problems is to start with as little running as possible and then slowly put things back until the problem returns (or, al-though he didn’t say it, until I decided I didn’t really need all those programs running anyway).

Thankfully, his solution worked. I’ve turned the anti-virus and anti-spyware programs back on, along with a couple of Ac-ronis True Image services (the program wouldn’t start unless they were running) and the latest version of Second Copy, a program similar to the old PowerQuest DataKeeper. It tracks files and copies them as they’re changed and saved. It slows the computer a bit, but I can live with that to have the immediate backup pro-tection.

So, unless the computer crashes just as I finish this — and I don’t expect it to — you still should get this issue in plenty of time to be reminded of the next meeting.

* * * In the past year, you’ve received several issues of TOE that

didn’t have information on the month’s program. As has been pointed out at several meetings and elsewhere in this issue, it’s getting harder and harder to find programs because more and more companies are eliminating that part of their public relations and advertising budgets.

TOE must be sent to the printer several weeks before the meeting to get it printed and mailed in time for it to arrive before the meeting, but the program information is put on the Web site as soon as it’s available, so check there close to the meeting time. You can also sign up for reminders of all SIGs and meetings on the site, a good way to jog your memory.

— John Weigle, editor

Too many start-up items

can kill the computer

Treasurer’s

report for

November 2007 By Art Lewis

[email protected]

11-1 through

11-30, 2007

Category Description

INFLOWS Coffee Income 3.60 Donation 86.00 ISP Income 90.00 Membership Income New members 120.00 Renewals 665.00 TOTAL MEMBERSHIP 785.00 Raffle -6.61

TOTAL INFLOWS 1,622.99

OUTFLOWS ISP Expense 239.00 Publication Purchase 877.00 Rent Paid 150.00 TOE 330.00

TOTAL OUTFLOWS 1,596.00

OVERALL TOTAL 26.99

Unrestricted Funds 3,938.64 Restricted Funds 2,000.00

Bank Balance 11-30-07 5,938.64

Year to Date Income 5,795.72 Year to Date Expense -4,623.65

2008 contributors to The Outer Edge Your name can appear here, too. Share your knowl-

edge with other members by sending an article, letter or

computer tip to [email protected].

Lewis

Ken Church Jerry Crocker Bob de Violini Jeff Levy Art Lewis Helen Long Toby Scott Smart Computing Rick Smith Bill Wayson John Weigle Paul Westefer

Weigle

Editor’s corner


Membership report:

Is it time to renew?

By Ken Church

email address: [email protected]

New Members: Wanted Attendance at the December 2007 general meet-ing: 57 members and 3 guests.

Total membership: 267

MEMBER RENEWAL INFORMATION $30 for single membership, $35 for two or more family membership.

NEW MEMBER INFORMATION $40 first year for single membership, $55 first year for two or more family member-ship in same household.

Please send your renewal payment to:

CIPCUG MEMBERSHIP P.O. BOX 51354 OXNARD, CA 93031-1354

Or bring your payment to the sign-in table at the Jan. 26, 2008, meeting. November 2007 renewals payment due:

December 2007 renewals payment due:

Dec 2007 renewals payment due: (Cont’d)

January 2008 renewals payment due:

Mbr# Last Name First Name

Pd to Dt

0905 Knauer Hedy 200711 0789 Knauer Wolfgang 200711

1046 Snyder Bill 200711


Pd to Dt

0748 Burckhard Jake 200712 1132 Hales Clifford 200712

0149T

Helton Charles 200712

1130 Hollingsworth Don 200712

1142 Johnson Ginny 200712

0390 Kelly Bob 200712

0993 Ladd Craig 200712


Pd to Dt

1115 Nagy Marlene 200712

0825 Pinkerton Ron 200712

0171 Ranson Stan 200712

0828 Rosenbloom Jean 200712 0827 Rosenbloom Richard 200712

1001 Toth Andy 200712

1048 Ulam Frederick 200712


Pd to Dt

0544 Beardshear Paul 200801

0835 Brown George 200801

0554A

Collison Jeff 200801

0947 Ellis Dick 200801

0953 Hill Keith 200801 0056 Malinowski Roy 200801

1102T

Morris Geri 200801

0554 Muskat Vel 200801

0753 Otterson Dick 200801

0834 Oxman Howard 200801 0950 Skultety Tony 200801

1134 Stanton John 200801

0836 Willett Dr. Nancy 200801

CHURCH

Members’ classified ads Classified ads are free to members. Each ad is limited to

105 characters, including spaces and to one ad per member per month. Copy has to be to John Weigle, editor or TOE ([email protected]), within the week after the regular meet-ing. Otherwise, the ad is held to the following month. A form is also available on the Web site to submit ads.

Wanted For sale Other categories added as needed


F1—Your Help Key (Revised Dec. 31, 2007)

COMMUNICATIONS/INTERNET (GENERAL) World Wide Web DM

DATABASES Access BR DOS RP

E-MAIL Outlook MS Outlook Express BR, DM Thunderbird MS

GRAHICS PROGRAMS

IrfanView MS Paint Shop Pro DM Print Shop BR

SPREADSHEETS Microsoft Excel DM

WORD PROCESSING Microsoft Word DM WordPerfect DM

WINDOWS Windows 98, 95 DM, MS (98) Windows 2000 BDV Windows XP DM

Initials Name (805)

BDV Bob de Violini [email protected] BR Bill Robinson 389-2997 (b) [email protected] DM David Minkin 469-6970 (cell); 484-2974 (home); [email protected] MS Michael Shalkey [email protected] RP Robert Provart 498-8477 (b) Phone: (d) = days; (e) = evenings; (b) = both

If you would like to volunteer to help others, please send

your contact information and programs you’re willing to

help on to <[email protected]>.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

WEB HELP SITES

Annoyances Central blog (from authors of the O’Reilly Annoyances ser ies, including Steve Bass) : www.annoyancescentral.com/

DSL reports: www.dslreports.com Steve Gibson: www.grc.com/ Kim Komando: www.komando.com Leo Laporte: www.leoville.com/ Jeff Levy: www.jefflevy.com Linux distributions: www.DistroWatch.com Microsoft: www.microsoft.com/ Microsoft Windows XP The Official Magazine (UK):

www.windowsxpmagazine.co.uk/ Microsoft Windows Vista The Official Magazine

(UK): /www.windowsvistamagazine.com/US/ Online safety tips: www.OnGuardOnline.gov PC Pitstop: www.pcpitstop.com/ PC World: www.pcworld.com/ Recalled products: www.recalls.gov SANS Institute — Computer Security Education and

Information Security Training: www.sans.org/ Smart Computing: www.smartcomputing.com/ Spyware Warrior: www.spywarewarrior.com/ User Group Relations (Gene Barlow): www.ugr.com/ Ventura County Computers (Rick and Toby’s shop):

www.vccomputers.com Virus Bulletin: www.virus-bulletin.com/ Windows Secrets (Fred Langa’s Langa List merged with

this publication): ww.windowssecrets.com/ ZD Net spyware blog: www.blogs.zdnet.com/Spyware

If you have a favorite help site on the Web, please for-

ward it, so we can expand the section. If you find a link

that doesn’t work, please tell us that, too.


Every month, members of the Channel Islands PC Users Group have access to:

♦The Outer Edge newsletter, which includes a list of members willing to help other members.

♦The general meeting, featuring a question-and-answer session and program on new software or hardware.

♦Special Interest Groups — special meetings held several times a month.

♦Door prizes at the regular meeting.

Other benefits include:

♦Special user group discounts on books and software.

♦An Internet service provider at a large discount (see next column).

♦A chance to make friends with people who have similar interests.

♦The ability to put your knowledge to good use by helping other members. The whole concept of user groups is members helping members.

Please clip the coupon below and

send with payment to CIPCUG-Membership, P.O. Box 51354, Oxnard, CA 93031-1354.

Please make checks payable to CIPCUG.

Dues for new members

Individual member, $40. Family membership (same address), $55. Renewals are $30 and $35 per year respectively

CIPCUG members are eligible to sign up for the group’s Internet service provider (ISP) at the low price of only $15 per month plus a $15 processing fee.

To sign up, contact one of the club’s techies (see next column). Call one of them you may know or one in your area, and they will be glad to provide you with the details necessary for signing up. Checks should be made payable to CIPCUG and sent to Treasurer, c/o CIPCUG, P.O. Box 51354, Oxnard CA 93031. Don’t forget to include the $15 set-up fee in your first sign-up check. You may make payments in three-

month, six-month or annual increments. We also give a 12-month subscription if prepaid in advance at the 11-month price of $165. Many of our club members are electing to do this to keep Helen from nagging them for money. Renewals can also be mailed to Treasurer; just be sure to mention the dates that your check is to cover.

There is no program to install; you will use programs that are already on your computer. It’s simple to talk you through the set-up, but if you’re the least bit timid about setting up your computer, a club member will come to your house and make the necessary arrangements. Our agreement will also give you a 5 MB Web page allowance.

CIPCUG INTERNET SERVICE

TECH TEAM

Helen Long, 642-6521 [email protected] David Minkin, 469-6970 (cell), 484- 2974 (home) [email protected] Bob Thompson, 647-2287

Why join Channel Islands PC Users Group (CIPCUG)?

CIPCUG MEMBERSHIP

APPLICATION

Amount enclosed: ____________________________ Please Print the following information: Name: _______________________________________ Address: ______________________________________ City: ___________________________, State:________ ZIP Code: _______________________________

Phone (Home): ______________(Work): ______________ E-mail address: ________________________________ User level: Novice ____; Intermediate _____; Advanced _____ Can you help the club as a volunteer? If so, what would you be interested in working on? Date __________________ Member # ____________


| | Channel Islands PC Users Group Inc. P.O.Box 51354 Oxnard, CA. 93031

DATED MATERIAL Please Do Not Delay

NON-PROFIT U.S. POSTAGE

PAID OXNARD. CA

PERMIT NO. 1785

January 2008January 2008January 2008January 2008 M M M Meetingeetingeetingeeting Of the Channel Islands PC Users Group Of the Channel Islands PC Users Group Of the Channel Islands PC Users Group Of the Channel Islands PC Users Group

Saturday morning, Jan. 26, at the Boys & Girls Club, Ponderosa Drive and Temple Avenue, Camarillo, Calif. Meeting Schedule: 8:30 a.m. Doors open 8:45-9:30 Beginners SIG, Internet SIG 9:30-10:30 Business meeting, Q&A 10:30-11:00 Break — Please contribute requested amounts for coffee and doughnuts 11:00-12:00 Program (TBA), Drawing

DUES REMINDER

If the number above your name is 200801, your membership dues are payable in January 2008.

The map shows

the easiest

route to the

Boys & Girls

Club, but if you

prefer, you can

take the

Carmen Drive

offramp to

Ponderosa

Drive, which

leads to Tem-

ple Avenue.

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