Windows XP has problems before it is even released! Hopefully the problems will be fixed before the October release date – but because of the effort needed to get something ready for market, there is not much time for bugs to be fixed.
Let's put things into perspective:
The marriage of Windows XP and Office XP potentially could be a great step forward for a lot of businesses as the NT kernel does not crash.
There are two aspects of the XP release to be considered:
The first is the fact that finally the "home" user will be enjoying the benefits of the NT kernel (really the DEC design) with its inherent stability as compared to the Bill Gates creation and philosophy. I'd love to have a penny for every crash that the Gates design has foisted upon the general public – I'd be rolling in cash!
The second is the specter of having to deal with some of the bugs that the 2002 combination is going to introduce into the marketplace.
The first is, I think, easily fixable: The whole Microsoft software suite seem to accidentally make any command "HTTP://test.junk.com/item//xxxx" (note the double "//" in the latter portion of the URL) into a single "/" such as: "HTTP:/:test.junk.com/item/xxxx". FrontPage 2002, Word 2002, Excel 2002 and Outlook 2002 all change the file-directory designation of two "//" to "/" without notice and, worse, without the ability to re-edit the URL back to what it has to be.
This one is fairly minor.
The second is a disaster. Microsoft has implemented in Windows XP the ability to permit every adolescent kid to perpetuate a Denial of Service attack on anyone they might wish ill upon. The implementation of the full socket capability is documented in the Bill Gibson's website WWW.GRC.COM. You are urged to go to the site and read the review of how, until now, only UNIX could generate an IP address and spoof the result – now the hacker community will be turned loose onto the Internet. The result will be a fundamental change to the way that the Internet operates and is constructed. Clearly packet registration is just a keystroke away.
One additional function of the XP (a.k.a. 2002 series) software is that, as an anti-piracy feature, it will register itself with Microsoft. This means that if you do not have an Internet connection, you must get it for each machine. If the software is moved to another machine, the license dies and it must be reestablished all over again (repurchased). Reinstalling on the same machine (disk crash) causes no problem, as the configuration will not have changed in the eyes of Microsoft. Welcome to Big Brother.
At a Microsoft demonstration, it was shown just how much the various parts of the product mix have been integrated across the total needs of many company's various departments. For instance, a document may be reviewed piece by piece by a committee, each member sitting in his/her own office, and the aggregate of the comments can be merged by a final czar of the document. That Microsoft wants to (and can) control all of the computing in the world is coming to fruition.
Regards,
Jim
Attendees were Arlan Kertz, John Sleeman, Bev Altman, Patricia Corrigan, John Buck, Susan Mueller, Stan Hutchings, Yuko Maye, Robert Mitchell, Jim Dinkey, and Mildred Kohn.
Arlan Kertz (SPAUG Accountant) reviewed Nat Landes (SPAUG Treasurer)'s report. He will get together with Nat to clarify the reporting format required. He reported the balance is reconciled as of April 2001 at $6777.26.
We spent some time reconciling the advance made to Robert Mitchell for publishing, since Robert is resigning from the position. Robert, Arlan, and Nat will try to to decide how much the club owes Robert, or how much Robert needs to reimburse the club.
Welcome to Yuko Maye and Susan Mueller, our new SPAUG Publisher/Business Managers. Susan bought Publisher 2000 software, and obtained mailing labels from Robert Mitchell. Susan will do the coming month's newsletter, since Yuko will be out-of-town. After that, they will decide who will do what.
Jim Dinkey reiterated that the best way to assure being paid for your expenses is to:
Jim Dinkey reported the laptop is in the shop for repairs. The cost for repair will be about $500. The members present voted to repair the computer.
Rick Altman will be our presenter in June, on digital photography; Jason Turk on RAID is in July; Gilman Louie of the CIA is in August; Hank Skawinski is in September; October or November we hope to get Microsoft talking about Office and Windows XP, currently open.
Jim Dinkey reports the publicity is going fine, the club has a lot of exposure in the local newspapers, etc.
Jim Dinkey attended a Microsoft conference, and brought back some goodies. He shared some of the edible goodies with the group.
The July planning meeting is tentatively scheduled for Thursday, July 5th, at Jim Dinkey's house. Check to confirm the time, date, and location.
Question: Is Ricochet worthwhile?
Answer: It costs $75 per month for a wireless connection. Jim Dinkey later reported "The official skinny is that, after a $99 install, it is $39.95/month for unlimited 64 Kbps Internet access in the San Francisco Bay area only.
OR
$69.95/month for unlimited full-speed 128 Kbps Internet access in any Ricochet coverage area, Nationwide.
These prices are valid through 7/15/01.
For those in Portola Valley, Madera, etc without DSL or cable possibilities, this makes some sense. For those in places like Menlo Park where the AT&T cable service can be a problem, this can provide an alternative. For those who are in parts of San Jose where there is neither cable or DSL, this might be a solution.
Mildred Kohn needs a printer driver for UNIX and SUSE. Answer: Do a Google search. Download the proper driver for your printer.
The senior center in Redwood City needs a teacher for Microsoft Word 2000.
Susan Mueller gave for thanks to the group for helping her with her "assignment from Hell" in answering the question of what will replace the semiconductor in chips future. In gratitude, she provided a batch of brownies for the coffee break.
Yuko Maye and Susan Mueller volunteered to take over the publisher duties from Robert Mitchell, who is retiring. Jim Dinkey proposed they take the job as a co-function, each supporting the other.
There was a problem trying to copy text from a web page. Is there are a work around? Answer: One possibility is to view the web page, find the text, and copy it to another application like Word. Some web pages don't show a selection immediately, you have to alt tab to another document, then alt tab back and the selection shows up. Then you can use control insert to copy, and shift insert to paste. Corel has a product that will copy the image as a picture.
Problem: pictures are not opening when double-clicked. EZPhoto, which opens when the picture is double-clicked, does not work very well. Any suggestions?
Answer: It looks like you need to change the file association from EZPhoto, to whatever application you want the picture to be opened with. From the Windows Help index, type files and open files:associating with programs gives instructions To change which program starts when you open a file
Another way to change association is to open Windows Explorer, click and then right-click on the file you want to open, click the "Open with..." choice, click on the application you want to open that file type (if you always want to open them with that application, click the checkbox below).
Our first guest speaker was Misha McPherson from InfoUSA, which owns a huge database of people and marketing. It is equivalent to the tall phonebook White pages and Yellow Pages. They have created a software package: Resume Plus. It uses the InfoUSA database to choose the right person to whom to send the résumés . Resume plus uses templates to create nice looking clean résumés suitable for submission. There is a thesaurus, and an action word list. The database can be updated over the Internet. It's $9.95 with a rebate, but is also free at Fry's for a limited time.
Jan Altman gave an excellent presentation on XL tips and tricks. It was very well received. Jan has made the presentation available online. You can also read it online here.
Summary
The basic method of the procedures below is to use DOS to create a text file containing the directory listing you want and then print that file from your application of choice.
Exit to the MS-DOS Prompt and type:
dir X:\ /S > Y:\{anywhere}\{anyname}.txt
where
"X" is the drive you want to make a directory of
and
"Y:\{anywhere}\{anyname}" is the path and name of the resulting file.
Note: The "/S" switch searches all folders and subfolders. Leaving it out prints only the directory showing in DOS.
You can start from any subdirectory, or specify a subdirectory in the Path; for example
"c:\program files\photoworks\free" > c:\temp\pw-dir.txt
[the quotes are required for long directory names].
Return to Windows, then open your text file in the word processor of you choice that can handle a file of that size. Now you can print out the directory listing as you choose, including formatting it as you want using page breaks, etc.
Note: Notepad can't handle such large files.
To create your directory listing on a floppy, use the following command:
dir C:\ /S > A:\drivec.txt
If you don't need the word processor's commands to manipulate the file in any way, you can send the directory listing directly to the printer. Starting at the DOS prompt, type CHDIR (change to the directory to print, remembering to use the DOS names, like progra~1 instead of Program Files, or enclose Path in quotes), then type
dir /S > prn
and press Enter. Type EXIT to return to Windows, and wait by the printer (you may need to do a manual form feed to eject the page).
Here are some variations on these commands that you may find useful. They involve the "/V" switch and the "/AD" switch. (Note: The "/S" switch used above searches all folders and subfolders.)
Printing a List Including Long File Names
To print a DETAILED (Verbose) file structure (for example, including long file names) of the files in the specified directory, but not including subdirectories, type
dir X:\ /V > prn
Adding Subdirectories to the Verbose Listing
To add subdirectories and their files to this detailed listing, type
dir X:\ /V/S {path to directory} > prn
Printing Directory Names Only
To print a listing of the specified directory and its subdirectories, but not the files within them, type
dir /AD/S (path to directory} > prn
Note: If you prefer, replace the "prn" in any of the above commands with the path and name of a .txt file.
A good shareware option for printing directory listings is Print Directory, available for download from
http://www.pcworld.com/software_lib/data/articles/essential/2290.html
After you download PrintDir97.zip, extract its contents and then double-click PrintDir97.exe to start the program. Select the folder or drive for which you'd like to print a directory, click Config to adjust your options, then click the giant Print button.
SPAUG's CDOM 9910 has two directory print files: "Directory print 32.zip" and "directory tree print.zip". Unzip them to a new directory of your choice and then double-click the setup.exe or tpsetup.exe file. Follow the instructions. Note: these are both zipped files, so if you don't have an unzip program installed, first install "winzip70.exe".
Robert Mitchell has retired as our Publisher/Business Manager. Be sure to thank Robert for the work he did every month to get the newsletter to you on time.
With Robert's retirement, we are happy to announce that we have two co-Publishers taking on the job of printing, folding, stapling, addressing, stamping, and mailing the newsletters each month. The new SPAUG Publisher/Business Managers are Susan Mueller and Yuko Maye.
Thanks to the members who took the time to respond to the May survey. Remember to redeem your ticket at the next SPAUG meeting! The results of the recent SPAUG member survey asking about hardware, software, computer use, and interest in learning about topics are now available. Download or open this file to see an executive summary of responses in the "Use For" and "Would Like to Learn categories. Download or open this Excel file, or view this HTML file, to see the detailed results of each survey form submitted by the respondants.