SPAUG Newsletter February 2002
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Notes from the Prez
by Jim Dinkey
The January meeting did not go exactly as planned. The Random Access seemed to go on and on. Random Access, I believe, is the most important portion of our meeting. It just seemed to go on for the longest time under the philosophy that if a member has a question for consideration of the group, he ought to be able to ask the question. The guest speaker didn't seem to mind.
Our next speaker, Mike Milley of Storactive, will be discussing yet another option for automated backup. Based on the machines that come into the Saturday Morning Clinics, there is a need for yet another possibility of having sufficient backups. Possibly you will like this option.
Everyone needs to have somewhere to go for help when the computer software is broken and the machine needs correcting. To meet this need, the Saturday Morning Clinics are open to both SPAUG members and your friends. There is no change for this service, but non SPAUG members usually are suggested to make a donation to the SPAUG coffers. We carry some parts and have enough software to correct most problems.
DISIG (Digital Imaging SIG) seems to be doing OK and attendance has caused the requirement that DISIG meet at Coco's Restaurant (1305 S. Mary Ave, Sunnyvale) under the tutelage of Milt Kostner. Because there will be a notice in the Mercury News about the meeting, we anticipate an even greater showing.
Membership is down just a bit, which means that each of us needs to use the brochure enclosed in each of the newsletters as a pass along to your neighbors and friends.
We are still prowling for members that have specific interests that can be showcased for the SPAUG members. If you have some interest that you believe should be brought to the attention of the members, please e-mail me.
At the last meeting, the demonstration by Stan Hutchings of some of the features of the current SPAUG CD, was skipped because the Club video projector failed to start. The projector is being repaired; we will have Stan's discourse next time. The projector is used three times a month: the Meeting, WebSIG, and DISIG. Your Club dues at work.
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General Meeting Notes 30 January 2002
by Stan Hutchings
Hank Skawinski has some great buys - older systems that have been reduced in price to about $700. You can contact him at Datawise 830 Jury Ct., #4, San Jose, CA 95112 Phone: (408) 993-9473.
The Digital Imaging SIG (DISIG) announced its second meeting will be Monday 18 February at 7 PM, at Coco's Family Restaurant, 1305 S. Mary (at W. Fremont Ave), Sunnyvale. The SIG plans to cover subjects such as digital photography, scanning, image editing software, image management and printing, including buying equipment.
CrossTalk:
- Some people report frequent loss of connection from Pac Bell DSL. This is unacceptable, and it is time to complain. If the problem is not corrected immediately, a letter to the PUC should be sent.
- people on Pac Bell's attbi.com address seem to get a lot of "pings" from outside. This may be hacker activity, so use of a firewall (such as ZoneAlarm) is indicated.
- to reduce spam, if you're on Earthlink, use the Spaminator. If you're on other ISP's, find out if they have a similar service, and if so use it (if not, complain and ask for it). Sign up with SpamCop, follow the instructions for reporting spam, and use the service regularly. Note you need to send the message header, the procedure for this is dependent on your email program, but instructions for various email programs are available at the SpamCop site.
- Is there a way to convert .pdf files to .txt files? One solution from the PDF Zone: Convert local PDFs to text or html with new email service. Adobe and the TRACE Research Center of Madison, Wisconsin recently extended a service designed to enhance accessibility for the visually impaired, allowing pdfs on local hard drives or CD-ROMs to be easily converted. Users can now send a pdf file as an email attachment to this new auto-reply address: pdf2txt@sun.trace.wisc.edu and get a plain text file by return mail.
Another discussion of this subject is at access.adobe.com online tools.
There is a file named textc090.zip that is reported to do the conversions. There are many conversion files here, that convert text from one format to another. Also, xpdf-0.92.zip converts PDF files to plain text format.
- Jim Dinkey advised loading ZoneAlarm last, after all other virus checkers, email programs, browsers, etc. This may prevent a trip to "DLL Hell", as he suffered last week.
- If any members have other advice for the questions and concerns raised during Random Access, use the spaug-list to let all the members know (andI'll add the info to the notes, for future reference).
Presentation
Jim Dinkey gave a presentation "How to Unscrew Windows 98". The handout gave steps to follow to improve the performance, prevent problems, and trouble-shoot Windows 98. The linked version of the handout was expanded and clarified by Sid Owen (thanks, Sid!); here is a link to an RTF version you can download and print. If you don't remember anything else, remember: "Backup frequently". It's also good to run the ScanDisk, RegClean and Defragment utilities periodically. Use an antivirus (updated daily) and a firewall - they are complementary, you need both.
If you have a problem you can't solve, make a reservation for a Saturday morning clinic at Jim's house.
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6 February Planning Meeting Notes
by Stan Hutchings
Attendees: Jim Dinkey, Dick Delp, Robert Mitchell, Lamont Shadowens, Mildred Kohn, Gene Duncan, Stan Hutchings, Milt Kostner, Nat Landes
- Projector problem: repair or replace, what cut-off criteria should we use? Repair up to about $900-1,000; above that, try to get a trade-in on a refurbished model.
- DISIG: will meet 18 Feb at Coco's, 6 PM for dinner, 7 PM for the meeting. The general public will be invited, but encouraged to join SPAUG or SVCS. The March meeting place is to be determined, either at Coco's or the United Luthern Church of Fremont, which will provide a room with a screen, air conditioning/heat, easy access restrooms; but a $30/month "donation" will be expected. Plan is to have attendees chip in $1 each.
- Future presentations: Microsoft for the 27 March meeting is not yet confirmed. Larry Magid could be a possibility. Suggest Google in April. Probably Hank Skawinski in September, Gene Barlow of PowerQuest when he's in town.
- Treasurer: we have $7690 in our account.
- New Member campaign: Perhaps we could post flyers in Junior Colleges, particularly in the Computer Science area. Volunteers needed. SIGs can be a strong draw; SIGs should encourage attendees to join. If we can get leaders/organizers to start SIGs, it would be a good start to drawing in new members. What SIGs would be attractive to the public? Suggestion: how to use specific applications would be good, such as Jan Altman's popular Word SIG of several years ago. Libraries would be another place to post flyers. Do we have flyers we can post? Crosstalk is a very popular part of the General Meeting - can we use it somehow to generate membership?
- It would be good to get a corporate sponsor for DISIG; Milt Kostner contacted Carly Fiorina at HP, and was referred to the appropriate contact, but nothing has come of it (yet). Are other corporations potential sponsors? Fry's? MicroCenter? Companies that are related to graphics and digital photography would be logical choices.
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Walter Varner Memorial Fund
submissions by Jim Dinkey and John Buck
John Buck found this in the San Jose Mercury News' Obits page 1/16/02, but not in their online site--
VARNER, WALTER--born December 4, 1924 near Denver, CO. Passed away January 10, 2002 in San Jose, CA. After serving in the Navy in World War II, he pursued the sciences in college and taught advanced mathematics at the University of Colorado. He later held several computer-science-related positions in the aerospace industry. His final professional assignment before retiring was directing information technology for Consolidated Freightways.
He is survived by his wife of 48 years, Barbara Varner of San Jose; a son,Wayne Varner of Sunnyvale; a daughter, Wendy Santos of Raleigh, NC; and two grandchildren, Cameron and Danielle. He was a wonderful man who loved his family. We will miss him deeply. Private family services.
Robert Page submitted this information:
Walter's wife, Barbara, told me that he was very fond of animals. I saw that many times. He also was especially fond of the Animal Rescue Foundation (ARF) (you can make a donation from the website).
In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to Mrs. Walter Varner at 6254 Blauer Lane, San Jose, CA 95135-1411 or to Walter Varner Memorial Fund at any Washington Mutual branch - account # 3922 1776 76.
Consideration by the family is being given to ARF and a computer scholarship to be set up in his name. Walter loved teaching and was an excellent instructor. One of his favorite pastimes was helping other people.
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Digital Imaging SIG (DISIG) First Meeting
by Milt Kostner
In case you missed it we had our first DISIG meeting last night on Jan 21. We previewed PhotoElf, an image viewer, image manager and light-weight editor. Then we saw Slide Shows to Go, a slide show with sound and captions that allows one to make self contained slide shows to send to relatives or use in business presentations. Questions and answers prevailed.
DISIG has 21 interested members, 16 who indicated that they would attend and 14 who did. And this with the SJ Mercury declining to publish our meeting notice to the outside because I refused to show our temporary meeting location.
And speaking of location, Dick Delp volunteered (owes me an email so I can advise) to help search for a more permanent meeting spot. Roger Finke (likewise need an e-mail contact) agreed to pursue equipment vendor reps to get them to come in and demo their equipment. It's people like that who strengthen a SIG. Thank you!
Having gotten past the first hurdle, I spent today reconfiguring my hard drives. I uninstalled WIN XP in its 48 GB NTFS partition and will reinstall it in a 16 GB Fat32 partition. I now have 7 partitions on my computer. Only one is over 16 GB (that is the limit for holding cluster size to 8 kB.) I have to reinstall all of my apps in both WIN98SE and Win XP. Busy, busy.
But don't worry, I already have a few new tryouts for next month's meeting. More on that later. I'm holding off on Photoshop Elements and Print Shop Pro until we get settled a little more. The apps I'm showing help the Newbies and Wannabies get a good foundation. We don't want to be in the middle of Photoshop and have someone ask what a .jpg is? Of course, you know what that is.
Milt Kostner
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Digital Image Refresher
by Milt Kostner
As a refresher of what we learned at the first DISIG meeting:
There are lots of image formats. The main three formats are .gif, .jpg, and .png. All three, and only these three, are acceptable on web pages.
The .gif format comes from Compuserve. It handles only 16 color images. Icons and other single colored images are best in .gif. Some .gifs are also used in those animated images on the Internet.
The .jpg (pronounced j-peg) format is 24-bit format (millions of colors) for images that can handle photographs. The .jpg, sometimes in Unix called .jpeg, is called a flossy format because it uses compression that throws away some data (depending on the compression) to make smaller files. You are either asked what compression to use, or you have to set up a default compression in the preferences of an app. Even 0 compression loses some detail - but I've used up to 35% without significant detail loss. Some apps show you the result of compression on the image before you save in that compression. Every time you save a .jpg file from an opened .jpg file it loses detail, like sequential Xerox copies of Xerox copies. If you want to edit an image, do not save the intermedite saves in .jpg. Use .jpg images on your web pages and long term storage.
The .png is the newest format. It is not flossy and saves the same level of detail on every save (no compression). Use .png for your treasured images. The files are big. A .jpg image might be 35 kB and the .png equivalent 1.5 MB. Send .png files only to friends with broadband connections or with patience. Use .png for intermediate copies.
Hue means color.
Saturation means difference between a pure color and white. Say red -> pink -> white.
Increasing Contrast means making light colors lighter and dark colors darker.
Monitors provide only 72 to 100 pixels per inch (ppi). It doesn't make sense to send someone anything of higher resolution to view on their monitor.
Web pictures should be a maximum of about 540x380 pixels in size, or the browser may show may show only a part of the image.
Professionals say an image must provide 300 ppi to appear as good as a film photograph. That means a 640x480 image is good for a 2.1 by 1.6 inch image. However, I have printed 7x10s of reasonable viewing quality on an Epson from such files. Depends on the editor.
Epson printers produce the best images, but if you don't use the color cartridges daily they tend to plug. After spending $75 5 years ago on new printheads, I bought a HP printer on the second plugging. And that was only a 740 dpi (dots per inch, a really different measure; not the same as ppi) printer. Epson now provides 1440 dpi.
Epson printers have their printheads in the printer for better ink spitting and others have their printheads in the cartridges (not so good spitting). That's why HP cartridges cost more but you get new printheads with every cartridge.
Some printers, like Canon and the high cost HP printers, have separate cartridges for each color. Normal HP printers have three or more colors in one cartridge. When you run out of say red, too bad, you need a whole new cartridge.
I have successfully reloaded black ink into Epson cartridges. I will do the same the next time my HP runs out of color ink. Saves money.
Milt
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Read 'Windows 98 Annoyances'
by Milt Kostner
Further to Jim's presentation on Unscrewing Win989: If you are figuratively young and foolish in your heart (like me at 68), I recommend that you try to read 'Windows 98 Annoyances', one of the best books I've read on the Registry. It's by David Karp, published by the reputable O'Reilly group, and subtitled 'Taking Charge of Windows 98'.
isbn 1-56592-417-7
I read mine from the Santa Clara Library.
Karp explains the Registry in details missing from other sources I've read. Do you know that only 2 of the five Registry sections contain original data (two others are copied from these two) and one other of the 5 sections is dynamically changing as you use the computer? Karp provides this info as well as other non-registry twicks that eliminate the Win 98 features you've grown to hate. BUT FIRST, BACK UP THE REGISTRY BEFORE MAKING CHANGES!!! Karp tells you how to do that.
Since I've switched (almost) to Win XP, I can hardly wait until Karp's update for XP comes out (I hope). I'll buy that one for my library in a NY minute; not just read it from the library.
N.B.- you can read Annoyances online at www.annoyances.org. The following destinations are available from the main page: Destinations; Getting Started; Registry Tips; Software; Using Windows; Customizing; Annoyances; Networking; Reducing Clutter; Performance; Troubleshooting; Applications; Humor; FAQ. There is also a link to buy the book www.annoyances.org/exec/show/book_xpnut.
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