SPAUG Newsletter January 2001
Editor: John Buck
Co-Editor: Mildred Kohn
Publisher/Business Manager: Robert Mitchell
Web Editor: Stan Hutchings
Co-Web Editor: John Sleeman
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Notes from the Prez
by Jim Dinkey
THIS ISSUE OF PRINTSCREEN is oversize because there are a number of items that we thought you should have and the Board was willing to invest the money.
The most obvious is that we have printed all of the comments by Hank Skawinski of Datawise about the foibles of the current marketplace and the problems we should all be avoiding. Read the review carefully to make your life easier as you avoid problems.
One of the items that Hank stated was that the Millennium Edition of Microsoft Windows is not ready for the consumer. My sample of the situation is exactly two, but I certainly have to agree with his statement.
I RAN INTO THE MILLENNIUM NOT READY SITUATION when, before I arrived on the scene of the carnage, the customer had installed Win98 on his PC, had problems, and reinstalled Win95, then didn't like that either so went back to Win98. The machine could not boot and so, in desperation, I went ahead and installed Millennium. It did stop the crashing and it did stop noticing the .VXD files, which are left over from the installation or servicing of Win95.
There I was with a running machine, so we could now get back to the original business of a backup system and switching him over to Earthlink at his request.
Then the fun started all over again.
The Earthlink CD (new) would not install. Said something about didn't like the version. A call to Earthlink customer support informed us that the version we had (just mailed out by Earthlink) was 4.02 and that 4.03 would be required for Millennium. Sure, they will send the client a new CD, but even though Millennium has been out for four (4) months, the problems of interfacing have still not been resolved.
We had more fun when the tape drive needed to back up his computer came in. Right through the internal shrink wrap for the HP Colorado tape drive was a little note stating that Millennium users should go to a specific HP web page for further information. We did. The site stated that the box we were holding in our hands was not Millennium ready and that HP would send us the Millennium patch for $30 when the web site was changed to say that the patches were ready. The box is on its way back to the distributor.
The point is simply that the supplier community is not ready for Millennium and the user community is best off ignoring it until the marketplace gets all of their offerings corrected. Never mind it doesn't work; we don't need the hassles.
SPAMMERS are still alive and well; but there is something around to give them indigestion: SPAMCOP. By going to the site .spamcop.net, you can download a SPAMCOP program. When spam is copied into SPAMCOP, SPAMCOP analyzes the spam. The result is an automated analysis of the mail headers, checking with the purported sites, and calculating a list of the system managers for the offender. The effect is to present to the website administrator the information necessary to justify his shutting down the site. It gave me great pleasure when I was informed that one spammer was shut down and the $200 fee was assessed. Normally I get no feedback.
The whole purpose of this portion of the letter is to enlist your aid in the suppression of spam. Please go to the site and see what you can do.
AOL IS THE MOST-USED ISP BY OUR MEMBERS. One of our members checked out the distribution of e-mail addresses of our members. It turns out that AOL is used by about 25, then there are about 10 ISPs with two members, and the rest of the ISPs have just one member each. It is sort of sad that we have the cream of the computing crop, but a preponderance with a vendor that clearly does not provide stellar service or facilities.
CDs CAUSE FILE READ/WRITE ATTRIBUTES TO BE CHANGED TO WRITE. Again, I have been asked how to handle the problem that data written onto a CD has its READ/WRITE attribute set to READ ONLY, which disrupts the subsequent usage. The problem does not show up everywhere, but usually only in software that does not initialize itself completely. The key is to stop using CDs for a purpose for which they, obviously, were not designed. I keep coming back to tape as the best media for this activity. [n.b. see CrossTalk for a work-around]
MICROSOFT INTERNET EXPLORER IS THE WINNER. With the fact that the percentage of users that are using Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) having gone from 0 to now about 88%, the Netscape/IEbattle is all over. More proof that if you give away junk, you will do better than if you merely make it difficult to load. The same philosophy applies to Linux. That having been said, it is important to know how to transfer the Bookmarks of Netscape to the Favorites of IE.
HOW DOES ONE MIGRATE BOOKMARKS TO FAVORITES? Basically, one needs to go to the IE FILE|IMPORT AND EXPORT to cause the Netscape Bookmarks to be merged into the Favorites. The opposite can then be initiated and the result of the Favorites being transferred back to the Bookmarks is that the results are sorted. This means that if you modify the bookmark entries such that the first word of the description is unique, all of the bookmarks that are associated with each other will all be gathered together. This same import feature is handy when I hand out 300 bookmarks to my class, as they can just do an import directly from a floppy. By alternating back and forth between the two browsers, one can bring all of the Bookmarks/Favorites identically to each browser.
CABLE MODEMS NO LONGER VIABLE. I just spent my Sunday at a senior center setting up 15 computers for the beginning of classes the next day. One of the things we needed to do was to download the current virus information, and also the current patches to the Microsoft software. Because the cable modem worked for only the first ten minutes of the day, we did not accomplish what we had to do. The point is that the service is below minimum standards. I am processing my own switch to Earthlink's DSL service. If you are an AT&T customer, I urge you to do the same. I had originally expected that with cessation of service by ISPChannel, that AT&T would buy the head end equipment of ISPChannel to permit the transition to be easy and smooth. I found out at a Cable Co-op past Board of Directors' meeting, that ISPChannel has been taking the equipment out of service and selling it out the back door. So much for customer service from both of the companies.
As I said before, Earthlink and DSL at $39 per month is my recommendation.
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Planning Meeting Notes 6 December 2000
by Stan Hutchings
Present at the planning meeting were Jim Dinkey, John Buck, Patricia Corrigan, Mildred Kohn, John Sleeman, and Stan Hutchings.
We have speakers for January and February. For March there is a possibility we could have a local CIA Representative talk about their use of computers. Jim will investigate getting someone from Microsoft for April. Patricia Corrigan will try to follow up with Ameritrade, or perhaps one of the other local online brokerages.
The January newsletter is authorized for more than eight pages. This will be a special Millennium issue, and since there is no December issue, a larger size is justified. We should make it a policy to send a hard copy of our newsletter to other user groups who send us their newsletters as hard copy.
The Treasurer was out-of-town, so there is no report tonight.
John Buck mentioned that he had learned from Kendric Smith that you can find out what Web sites are linked to your Web site by using the LINK: <URL> command in AltaVista. The Google advanced search can also be used for this purpose.
Add Patricia Corrigan as Programs Director on the Contacts page.
Patricia Corrigan and Mildred Kohn will help prepare the coffee before the general meeting. This will take a load off Jim Dinkey. There is a machine that will fill dispensers.
Jim Dinkey mentioned that Tuesday evenings the Elks Lodge has a dinner buffet as well as regular dinner. This might be an attractive complement to our meeting. However, it would involve changing the meeting night from Wednesday to Tuesday. Alternatively, Tuesday night might be open to special-interest groups and other small get-togethers (perhaps a talk on a programming language, or other topic not of general interest).
There will be a planning meeting 3 January 2001, meeting place to be determined, but probably at Bev Altman's.
Planning Meeting Notes 3 January 2001
by Stan Hutchings
Members present: Arlan Kertz, Jim Dinkey, Robert Mitchell, John Buck, John Sleeman, Bev Altman, Stan Hutchings, Mildred Kohn, Patricia Corrigan, Nat Landes.
Jim Dinkey and Nat Landes are taking care of the signature cards. The telephone for Nat Landes is 593-9262.
There were 52 people at Hank Skawinski's presentation.
Jim Dinkey recommends everyone get DSL, then drop ISPChannel/@Home. EarthLink is Jim's choice, it costs about $40 per month. @Home is not expected to give decent service in the foreseeable future.
The general meeting for January schedules Neil Scott; for February is Mr. Jacobson; March is to be determined; April is the Monterey Network Channel (MNC).
Arlan Kertz is working on the annual report. He will get data from Nat Landes.
The newsletter costs about $100 per month to send 85 newsletters. Robert Mitchell will be given a two-month advance to cover expenses. He will get $300 to cover November and January.
Jim Dinkey recommends a link to Hank Skawinski's web site, and a representative price list for reference in the January print screen.
Jim Dinkey recommends Spam cop.com as a Spam filter and Spam eliminator.
Jim Dinkey proposed a trip to Moffett Field air traffic control simulator. This will be explored for a future club field trip.
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SPAUG general meeting 29 November 2000
by Stan Hutchings
President Jim Dinkey acknowledged our slate of new officers: President: Jim Dinkey; Treasurer: Nat Landes; Programs Director: Patricia Corrigan; Recording Secretary: Maury Green; Publicity Manager: Marvin Kraft; Newsletter: John Buck, with Co-editor: Mildred Kohn and Business Manager: Robert Mitchell; Webmaster: Stan Hutchings, Webmaster Emeritus: Kendric Smith, Web Apprentice: John Sleeman. The positions of Vice President and Secretary are open, we're looking for volunteers. Nominations were closed, the slate was voted on and elected.
Crosstalk
Jim Dinkey described a problem he had with restoring some files during a recovery operation. Apparently, when files got written to a CD during backup, they were ALL set to Read Only. After doing a restore, he subsequently received messages that some files could not be written, which didn't make any sense to him at the time, but the message was warning him that the mailbox was being trashed. Some programs require the attributes to be changed after being restored in order for the program to be able to use them. In this case, Eudora required certain files to be read/write so it could update the Mailbox and Address Book (and perhaps others). After much time spent trouble-shooting and talking to support personnel, Jim found out he had to manually change the attributes from read only to read/write. Once the changes were made everything functioned normally, but in the meantime, a lot of corruption occurred.
(Maurice Green's note: Adaptec Easy-CD Creator website Article Number 990419-0013:
Description:
Why are all files set to Read Only when the disc is closed as ISO9600?
Solution:
When data is recorded on the CD-ROM media, a "read-only" attribute will be assigned to every file. This is due to the fact that the disc, as defined by the CD-ROM standard, is CD-read only memory. Because the information is stored on the CD permanently, Windows places a "read-only" attribute on your files and directories. There is no other way to remove the attribute from the disc. Once you have copied the files from CD back to a hard drive, you will have to use the attrib -r command at the DOS prompt to remove this attribute.)
CNET is a good place for online shopping with price comparison between vendors.
Lamont Shadowens' office was robbed recently. Even worse than the hardware loss was the loss of data. He recommends backing up and keeping at least one backup at a separate site, preferably using a removable drive or removable media. A multiple backup is even better, several generations, three or more, is preferred.
To a question about which kind of batteries are best, the recommendation is metal hydride, such as lithium metal hydride, or nickel metal hydride. (Editor's note: try www.igo.com)
Dudley announced that he was interested in purchasing a used laptop computer.
Windows Problems
Page fault with MSVCRT.dll (no explanation)
Computer not shutting down properly. May be due to memory leak in Netscape or an applet that is still running.
One common source of error messages is often .DLL files. These files often get overwritten with an obsolete or incompatible version when new applications are installed, or otherwise get corrupted. When this happens, the best thing to do is refresh them. Windows 98 will do this for you.
If Adobe Acrobat has trouble opening a file, instead of trying to open it, download it to the hard drive, then open with Acrobat. This will usually work.
Do a search on Google for problems when information is not available on MS KnowledgeBase.
A problem with slow e-mail downloads was reported. This can be caused by power management settings on the computer; other applications running in the background; trying to download very large files with attachments; a busy Internet connection; a slow server; etc. Try using Start - Run - msconfig to shut off non-essential programs.
The president's messages
Welcome to our guests.
There will be a party Tuesday Dec. 12th at the Elks Lodge, with Celtic musicians providing the entertainment. Check the newsletter or web page for more information.
The club's CDOM CD2000.12 is ready for sale. The cost is $20. This makes a great Christmas present.
Guest speaker presentation
Hank Skawinski, President of Datawise (www.datawise-pc.com/) gave a presentation about what he has done for a living since 1985, which is to build, service and support computers for business customers. He would be glad to sell you your next computer, or support the one(s) you have. Hank had examples of three systems at the meeting: big Bertha (right, with access panel open) in the $2500+ price range, little Bertha (the mini throwaway computer in the middle, to the right of the monitor, about the size of a thick phone book) and the standard system (left, attached to the monitor to its right) in a price range of $1000-$1500 (up-to-date prices are available at www.datawise-pc.com/systems.htm or contact Hank).
Big Bertha is for the power user. It is a full tower, configured with an Abit PC133 Slot-1 P-III Motherboard with 800 MHz Intel Pentium-III CPU with 256K Cache and chipset, 256 MB PC133 SDRAM System Memory, Full-size Tower Case & 250-Watt Power Supply. A Gigabyte motherboard is an alternate. Other hardware includes a 1.44 MB 3-1/2" Floppy Disk Drive3, 12x/32x-speed DVD-ROM Drive, Plextor 12x10x32x CD/RW, Iomega IDE Internal 250 MB ZIP Drive, dual 20.4 GB UDMA-66 IDE removable hard drives, ATI RagePro 128 AGP Video Adapter with 32 MB memory, US Robotics Sportster PCI 56K Hardware v90 Internal FAX Modem, Creative Soundblaster LIVE Quad-channel Sound Board, MLI-490 Surround-Sound 70-Watt Speaker System with Sub-Woofer, 3Com PCI Fast Ethernet 10/100 Network Adapter. The Norton Ghost program is used as a secondary backup; it makes an image of a drive on another drive. A monitor is extra; several models are available. Many add-on options are available, including a $240 Seagate 8 GB IDE Internal Tape Drive. There are subtract-off options, too. As built, you could expect 8 to 10% would fail due to infant mortality. Datawise burns them all in for one week with a hard-use program. As a result, customer's early failures are at about the 1% level; after burn-in, problems are usually caused by software. Device drivers usually cause the most problems.
Little Bertha costs about $750, and comes with 667 MHz Pentium-II Intel Celeron, 64 MB PC100 SDRAM, 10 GB hard drive, Integrated Intel AGP Video with 4 MB memory, Davicom Network card, 56K baud FAX modem, 40x CDROM Drive, etc. all included. The monitor is extra. This unit is considered a throwaway, because it will be obsolete in about two years, and is not readily upgradable.
The standard system comes with Abit PC133 Slot-1 Pentium-II/III Motherboard, 800MHz Pentium-III CPU with 256K Cache, 128mb PC133 SDRAM, Fujitsu 20GB Hard Drive, Teac 1.44 MB 3-1/2" Floppy Disk Drive, Toshiba IDE 12x/32x-speed DVD-ROM Drive, ATI RagePro 128 AGP Video Adapter with 32 MB memory, US Robotics Sportster PCI 56K Hardware v90 Internal FAX Modem, Creative Soundblaster LIVE Quad-channel Sound Board, D-Link PCI Fast Ethernet 10/100 Network Adapter, Z1 Zodiac Stereo 10-Watt/channel RMS Powered Speaker System, MS Intellimouse w/Wheel, Keytronic Keyboard, Windows ME. Monitor not included in price, several models are available. There are also other add-ons and substitution items available. The US Robotics modem is not a software modem, which often gives problems, jerky cursor movement, lockups, etc. General advice - DO NOT use "Software" modems - they are made with the minimum of hardware components to keep cost down, and instead use the CPU for modem control commands. This makes them cheaper, but they often cause problems. The network card could be from 3Com or Intel. There is room for 5 each 5-1/4 inch devices and 8 IDE devices are supported.
Windows 98 is the operating system of choice so far. Windows Me is good, but has some issues. Me is a slightly updated Windows 98 Second Edition modified to look more like W2000. It has very few advantages, is less bug-free than Win98, uses more space (there are about 30 million lines of code) and won't work with some programs. Me has no DOS mode - if you need DOS you must create a Win98 boot disk and use that [or create a dual-boot system]. One annoyance is its "find" has been changed to "search". Some legacy programs and some games are not supported, particularly if they need to run in DOS.
Even though Win98 is used, it is not perfect. Check "Annoyances" books—e.g. Windows 98 Annoyances (with CD-ROM), published 1998, $19.98 at Amazon. Also Word 97 Annoyances, 1998, $24.95 and one or two more. Very good.
Hank answered a question about Buffer Underruns during CD-ROM recordings. The CD recording starts in the center of the disk and spirals out. This is the way they were first designed when they were used for audio recording at 300 RPM. This has caused great problems in recording data, because if enough data is not received by the CD recorder, it loses track of where it is, has to go back to the center of the disk and try to find where it left off. Usually this results in the disk being fit for use only as a coaster. Plextor has developed a burn-proof technology to resume in the case of a buffer under-run. DVD writers are not generally available yet, this is because of politics (copyright concerns), not technology.
Recordable CDs (CD-R) and Re-Writable CDs (CD-RW) are read by a laser beam shining through the lower surface, through the plastic, reflecting (or not) from the top, and returning back through the plastic and lower surface. That lower surface is not very fragile and scratches can frequently be polished out. The top surface carries the data and is fragile. Scratches cannot be repaired, and if this coating is damaged or removed, the disk becomes worthless. Most brands have a thin protective plastic sheet laminated to the top, but the cheapest do not. Better brands have a protective label. Finally, better ones have a jewel case or other cover. When the price of a label and case is added to very cheap CDs, the total cost saving is not much, if any. Therefore, buy the better ones. Use a felt tip pen to mark them, and be very careful not to scratch the surface.
Discs that use blue dyes seem to be better than discs that use green dyes; results for gold are still not in. Verbatim value life disks are Hank's favorite. You can get 50 for about $27. (Hank and Jim Dinkey recommend CNET for pricing, also CompareNet and MySimon are good. To try CNET, go to CNET, click on Prices, enter the item you want and enjoy the benefits. Do your calculations of shipping and taxes, and go from there.)
For archiving data, you should use CD-R, not CD-RW. These recordings should last in excess of 100 years. CD-RW has problems being read by other computers, so it should be used with caution.
For CD-RW use Plextor 12X RW at about $250. Generally, using CD-Rs (Write-Only) makes more sense than CD-RWs (Read/Write). They are cheap enough and can be read with any reader (including future products).
DVD disks hold 4.8 gigabytes now. Writing on both sides and doubling the amount per side will provide 19.2 gigabytes relatively soon. Verbatim and Value are the best DVD readers
DVD is now useful only for places that have databases too large for a CD.
DVD-RW technology is ready, but video and movie producers stand to lose too much. They are spending huge sums to keep recordable DVD off the market. It will be several years before they are available.
Celeron is another name for the Intel PII. The Intel PIII is just a fancy Intel PII that has a few extra instructions used by a few software applications; for example, Dragon NaturallySpeaking, Photoshop, etc. but the Intel PII is perfectly satisfactory for general use, and the extra expense of the Intel PIII is usually not justified, unless you have those specific programs that use it. Also, above 700 MHz, there is virtually no difference among the chips so far as speeding up the throughput. Faster CPU speeds have very little effect on actual use, because other system factors (I/O, bus speed, RAM speed, etc.) begin to have a greater influence on the speed than the CPU. Spend your money on other things!
Concerning hard drives, Seagate is the worst, and Maxtor has problems. Quantum has a bad recent history. Fujitsu and IBM are preferred because of their high reliability. Western Digital has had political problems the last year; they have relabeled IBM drives. Removable hard drives are useful for backup. Prefer DAT tape drives for backup.
The AMD chips have some compatibility problems, but have equivalent performance and reliability to the Intel chips. They are fine for mainstream applications and hardware, but beware or if you're doing anything a little different - software is written for Intel chips. The occasional problem or incompatibility is probably not worth the money saved.
Expect to need 128 MB RAM for Windows 98, and 256 MB for Windows 2000. You should use the 133 MHz memory. It is the coming thing, and will be able to be used if you upgrade later. Hank mentioned "Memory Leak", a software problem that gradually reduces the amount of system RAM available. It is caused by programs exiting but not releasing all the memory they were using. This is "fixed" by rebooting occasionally. It was really bad in Win 3.1, better in Win 98 and 2000.
Double Data Rate (DDR) SDRAM is going to replace Rambus Dynamic RAM. So if you have the choice, go double data rate [n.b. if you want to find out more about these RAM technologies, go to the Search page and enter either term into Google].
Hank passed out Gentus Linux CD-ROM disks to everyone who wanted one. The advantage of Linux is that it's a character-based operating system. The graphic interface is added later over a stable operating system core. This is the main advantage Linux has over Microsoft Windows. By the way, there is a Windows emulator for Linux, so you can run all your favorite Microsoft programs. If you want to use Linux, Corel has a great office suite with Linux operating system for $139, and a basic suite for $69. RedHat and VA sell a supported, fancy, convenient version of Linux.
Maximum PC is a good magazine for power users. Other good magazines include PC Magazine and PC World magazine.
In the old days, the SCSI interface was the fastest available, but it has been surpassed by the Ultra ATA interface.
A comment on wireless; it is not yet completely reliable. It also broadcasts to the whole world, which may cause some security concerns. Wired is better, at least for now: DSL or cable modem.
The meeting broke up at 10:30 PM, but Hank stayed on and answered questions for a while longer.
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Finding Bcc: Addressees in your Sent messages
by John Buck
Summary
Bcc: addresses in sent messages are easier to find in Netscape Messenger than in MS Outlook Express.
Introduction
Suppose you've sent a message that included some Bcc: addresses and you now want to see who those addressees were. "Bcc:", after all, means "Blind Carbon Copy", and is used when you want to keep the identity of a recipient hidden from other recipients (but not necessarily from yourself).
In Netscape Messenger
Open Netscape Messenger's "Sent" folder, then open the message. Bcc: addressees will be displayed with other addressees at the top of the display. What could be easier?
In Outlook Express
If all recipients were in the Bcc: area, your message shows in your "Sent Items" items folder with a blank "To" listing; you'll see "To: none" in the address area if you open the message. Your Bcc: addressee information is not lost, however. To recover it:
1) Open the message;
2) Select "File", then
3) Select "Properties", then
4) Select "Details".
What could be easier? Netscape's way.
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Start your Google searches at SPAUG's website
by John Buck
SPAUG has become a Google affiliate, which allows Google to pay us one cent for each Google search starting from our website. Since you're probably going to be doing some searching anyway, you might as well think of doing it in a way that helps your club. Here's one way—
First time, go to SPAUG's website, www.pa-spaug.org.
In the left-column, select "Search Engines"
- Bookmark this Search Engines page. Here's one way:
- Right-click in the Search Engines page frame.
- Open the frame in a new window.
- Use your browser's procedure for adding the page's URL to your Favorites or Bookmarks. This bookmarking lets you easily go directly to this page when you want to start a search.
When you're on SPAUG's Search Engines page, enter your search specifications in the Google field provided and select "GO" or simply press Enter.
Note: SPAUG only earns money for searches that start from this field (or from a similar one on another page). We don't earn when you start or revise a search somewhere else, including the Google results display window that results from your original search. To maximize SPAUG's earnings, you need to return to the Google field on the SPAUG website each time you search.
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