I hope that you had a great time over these last two weeks. There is a lot to report since the last letter.
First of all, our calendar looks like this:
January 27 Microsoft - Windows 2000
February 24 - special schedule:
6:30 Special Technical Session with PowerQuest
7:30 Regular meeting
8:30 Power Quest Survey of Products (PartitionMagic, DriveCopy, DriveImage, Lost & Found and more! There will be "Special User Group Prices" on some of their products, available for purchase that evening.)
March 31Adobe will be the presenter. They are the maker of Acrobat, CyberStudio, GraphicStudio, ImageReady, Photoshop, and many more.
April 28 Dennis Dillon Embedded Computers in Boeing Aircraft.
Regards,
Jim Dinkey, President
Shekar Chandrasekaran from Microsoft will talk about Windows 2000.
NEXT SCHEDULED MEETING, February 24, 1999:
- at 6:30 a Special Session by Power Quest - Exclusive for SPAUG - a Technical Session by the makers of Drive Copy, Partition Magic and special unerase programs. After the technical session, our guest speakers will give their general talk at the regular meeting. The Power Quest people are flying out for this meeting, we owe them our best attention for this special meeting.
SPAUG's January 1999 Planning Meeting met on the Sixth at the home of Jim Dinkey. Attending were Jim Dinkey, John Sleeman, Stan Hutchings, Herb Hamerslough, Robert Mitchell and Ron Nicholas.
The Treasury has approximately $2,700 not including last month's receipts.
Jim Dinkey volunteered fo help SPAUG members with hardware or software problems. Instead of payments to himself, he will request a donation to the club, amount depending on his effort. However, before he will help anyone, they must certify they have a full backup, or else absolve him of any responsiblilty for lost data.
The SPAUG goals on our home page have been edited to include our purpose is to educate the public to the use of computers. This is required by our non-profit status.
The Disk of the Month (DOM) presentation will skip February's General Meeting because Power Quest Corporation is expected to exceed the time allocation. The concept of a DOM being a CD with a massive amount of shareware and web related programs was thought to be a good idea. A CD could contain very large programs the could be downloaded from the internet but take each Club member many, many hours. A large amount of planning, thought and coordination will be need. Some issues such as licensing, releases, content, distribution and cost may cause problems beyond the scope of the Club. More details at the General Meeting.
Our webmasters have linked computer related TV and radio talk shows ( Click here to check it out! ) on the SPAUG website. Many issues and problems are discussed, dissected and discussed and get resolved here.
An off site industry tour has taken shape. It will be of the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. (NUMMI) Automotive Plant in Fremont on March 16, Tuesday at 11:30 AM. The tour is 90 minutes long. The group size is limited to 23 persons by NUMMI. Sign ups are at the General Meeting; members are first priority, spouses and significant others are as space is available. Be sure to sign up early.
The public announcements of the coming club meetings have been sent to the local newspapers and periodicals. A spot check will be done to verify the accuracy and timeliness of the Club's meeting time and place and Guest Speaker.
Jim Dinkey has requested that early-arriving club members to the General Meetings help him unload his car of the Club's equipment. Many thanks to those who help break down and reload Jim's car after the meeting.
A new starting time for the Planning Meeting is 7:15 PM on the first Wednesday of each month. The next planning meeting is scheduled for 3 February at Bev Altman's house.
The meeting adjourned at 8:45 PM.
Respectfully submitted, Ron Nicholas
SPAM control is the subject I hope to cover here at the request of John Sleeman.
First of all, there is no hard and fast rule about how to handle the problem; but a problem it is with about an astounding 30% of the resources of any ISP being tied up with SPAM. So the have a vested interest in deleting the accounts of those whom are chewing up their resources.
One rule is: NEVER respond in ANY way to unwanted SPAM. The pitch is, all to often, reply with "unsubscribe" and we will take you off our list.
By responding at all, you merely CONFIRM that your address is active.
Where do they get your address for SPAM? There are 'bots' that sit on the Internet grabbing each message as it goes by and takes the address(s) from the message. This information then goes into a large database and then is sold to potential SPAMMERS.
But on your side is the ISP. All he needs is a little help from you in the form of a message to the ORIGINATING ISP that has the offending client and ALL of the headers being sent to: abuse@xxx.com.
How do you figure out who the ISP is? One looks at the first numeric address in the headers, copies the first three numbers, and plugs them into ARIN WHOIS to find out who is the administrator for the rule site that has the SPAMMER.
The URL is: ARIN WHOIS
Once you know the address of the system operator, FORWARD the offending message to the address of the system operator and I also send another copy to abuse@xxx.com where the second part of the dress is the same as the first message.
I have found, at least at first, that I get a semi-personalized answer back about 80% of the time. Of that, I am informed about 8% of the time that the offender's account has been deleted and in some cases a $200 'cleanup' fee has been assessed.
1. MICROSOFT KNOWLEDGE BASE. http://www.microsoft.com/support/
A searchable collection of articles about why things don't work.
2. ZD HELP: http://www.zdnet.com/zdhelp/
Search the Ziff-Davis database of their computer publications (MAC and PC).
3. BUG NET: http://www.bugnet.com
Chronicles the faults and fixes of scores of popular PC programs.
4. SUPPORT HELP: http://www.supporthelp.com
Find the Web address of a company's support site.
5. MACFIXIT: http://www.macfixit.com
A searchable database of bulletins.
6. COMPUSERVE (WUGNET): http://www.wugnet.com/compuserve/
Many PC support forums on Compuserve.
7. AOL HELP DESK: Keyword: Help Desk
8. NO WONDER: http://www.nowonder.com
Free support for ALL operating systems, including e-mail consultations.
9. DEJA NEWS: http://www.dejanews.com
A compilation of Newsgroups. Use at your own risk.
Q1. I have an HP ink jet printer that produces a wavy thin line, like an underline, across the paper. Cleaning the cartridge via the software commands and physical cleaning are ineffective. Replacing the cartridge also ineffective.
A1. Contact HP for their latest cartridge and related mechanisms cleaning procedure. It describes where to clean and what to use.
Q2. I have some files in Wordstar V1. files. Word for Window will convert files from V3.3 only and nothing older. Any ideas?
A2. Using Windows Explorer, File manager, Quick View, and 'Save As' , the screen should be saved as an ASCII text file. The Word for Windows will convert the file to be a Word readable document.
I am passing the word on a strange happening, in case it's a ploy to force us to purchase something on the Internet. It might be the server (Concentric), or somebody using an obscure pathway via the browser connection.
When attempting to access the Internet using the Netscape Navigator version 3 on a Windows 95 platform, I was met with a message that my configuration had been updated, and that I must download and then install a commercial plugin (the only one offered) to be able to get a description of what the update had done.
I wasn't about to tolerate a charge for some unsolicited item, however; the only escape was to click on the upper left button. This resulted in an Concentric Account Support Page which instructed a restart in order for the new updates to take effect. This window had absolutely nothing that permitted going anywhere.
I did a cntr-alt-del, which got me back to trying to access the Internet again. This time I was met by the Concentric Account Support Page again, which repeated offering absolutely no passage around-through-over-under-whatever to the Internet.
It did offer a Concentric support phone number which did its usual message that a ten minute wait at least (past experience was always 45 minutes or more) could be expected unless paying $1.90 for express access. (I dislike this practice very much, but the alternative below bypasses it)
I finally sent an email message via my Windows 3.1 platform to Concentric support and got a reply that they definitely do not sell plugins nor charge to call Support. She also gave me a procedure to set my settings, which matched exactly what I already had. As a last resort, I ran the setup CD-ROM that came with (Concentric and Netscape 3 combined) on the Windows 95 platform. I didn't uninstall anything beforehand. Everything seems normal except now I must avoid the button "Netscape with updates" and hit "Netscape" instead when accessing the Internet.
At first I blamed Concentric, but there's a chance that it might be caused by some of the unguarded accesses to our machines that we hear about, and that is why I am letting others know about my experience. "Vigilance is the price of having a computer tied to the Internet"
I would like to hear of like occurrences.
To take a peek at the contents of your cache, type:
about:cache
This is your newsletter. Your contributions are needed. If you know something that could be useful or interesting to the other members, please send it in – whether it be a technical article, an interesting quote, a tip, even a joke.
Below is my first editorial for SPAUG. I think there is room in PrintScreen also for members' views on many topics related to our common interest in the PC. Let us hear from you.
Please email me with your articles, notes, tips, and opinions.
Dan Gillmor of the Mercury News (who has spoken to us in the past) wrote a thoughtful piece in this Sunday's Business section. I'll quote him later.
It is characteristic of most political debate that both sides give their best arguments and either ignore or lie about those of their opponents. This is unfortunate when both sides are right up to a point, which is the case with strong encryption.
Encryption is very old, but computers have given it a new aspect. It is now available to everyone, and as easy to use as a mouse-click.
On the "law enforcement" side, it's true that strong encryption would allow criminals and terrorists to hide their communications, at least when using electronic media.
On the "civil liberties" side, its also true that if citizens are denied encryption, government agencies could eavesdrop on any communication, and given some of their recent statements, would like to do it on a big scale.
The Constitution carefully limits Government power. If Government agencies now acquire the means to read anybody's mail or listen to their conversations (whatever the ostensible safeguards) it will shift the balance significantly. At the very least, it will have an intimidating effect on political dissent. (Recent history should be instructive here.)
To conclude with the quote from Dan Gillmor: "Our legal system also acknowledges risk. We grant ourselves civil liberties because we don't want to live in a dictatorship. We protect the rights of suspects in criminal cases because we don't want governments to have the power to ruin the lives of innocent people. Liberties and rights add risk to our everyday lives. We accept the trade-off as part of living in a mostly free society."
TECHNICAL TRAINING SEMINAR
6:30 to 7:30 Hard Drive & Backup/Recovery Training Seminar given by Gene Barlow representing PowerQuest Corporation, followed by a presentation of their newest product, Lost & Found, and the latest releases of PartitionMagic and Drive Image.
PRESENTATION DESCRIPTION AND BIO:
PowerQuest Corporation presents their newest product, "Lost & Found", the affordable, easy-to-use data recovery solution for the PC users. Here are some of the features:
Why worry about catastrophic data loss, when being safe has never been easier, more effective and more affordable.
Then, the world's most trusted partitioning program, PartitionMagic 4.0, now puts the benefits of hard-drive partitioning within reach of everyone. Here's how....
Whatever the task, PartitionMagic will help you get it done! And, if time permits, PowerQuest's Drive Image 2.02: Make a complete backup of your hard drive on a Zip, JAZ, or almost any other removable media, so when disaster strikes, you simply reload the copy of your hard drive and you're back in business.
Our guest presenter will be Gene Barlow, representing PowerQuest Corporation. Gene worked for IBM for over 32 years, (Palo Alto office in '72) He spent 14 years running their user group program. Gene will educate, inform and entertain you. There will be "Special User Group Prices" on some of their products, available for purchase that evening. It should be a super event so don't miss it!
6:30 6:30 6:30 6:30 6:30 6:30 6:30 6:30 6:30 6:30 6:30 6:30
There! I said it enough! This next meeting will functionally start at 6:30 PM because we are providing a forum for Power Quest to have a technical tutorial Session on some of the structure of the PCs such that the ensuing product discussion will make sense. Their products are essential when upgrading or modifying the structure of your computer.
Our calendar looks like this:
February 24
6:30 Elks Lodge Special Session
Power Quest Technical Session "Disk Structure and Care Thereof".
7:30 Continuation: Power Quest: Survey of Products
Drive Copy (Move to new disk)
Partition Magic (modify the partitions length and attributes)
Drive Image (Drive Copy + key backup structures)
Lost & Found (restore lost data on PC)
March 31, - Adobe Systems
April 28 - Dennis Dillon Embedded Computers in Boeing Aircraft.
May 26, - Microsoft - Windows 2000
In addition, we have the following two TOURS going:
March 16, - NUMMI
Currently only one slot is left, and we will begin a waiting list in case some seats become vacant. I will be issuing a list of who, along with phone numbers, so that car pools can be set up. Note that they do NOT have any food facilities.
April 22, - LLNL Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories.
This is a professional-level tour of the fusion and laser research facilities; however, I have asked that they specifically include some of the computer facilities owing to the nature of the visitors. Last time some people were late and it cost us some of the tour when the schedule was blown. Plan to spend some additional time in the visitorÕs center which has a series of fascinating exhibits on atomic structure and how it affects every-day life. We will then get onto a bus that will take us from location to location. There is no real limit on signups except the capacity of 53 on the bus and I have 25 signed up already. We will form car pools again when the time comes. Again, no food facilities at the site.
This will keep us all busy.
Our Board of Directors has been busy too: We have the publicity mill going as best as the publications seem able to handle it with Herb Hamerslough pushing publicity. John Sleeman has shown how he puts together the newsletter for those who have the need for a similar effort, and is experimenting with formats for the newsletter. Walt Varner tells us that there is enough money for our needs. Kendric Smith and Stan Hutchings are trading months being webmaster as they keep our site current. Visit it at http://www.mediacity.com/~spaug.
Bev Altman has been digging away at speakers and assuring membership goes just right, and hosting the BOD meetings. Ron Nicholas has been getting the minutes out which reminds us of all of our transgressions and efforts we can't weasel out of. Arlan Kertz (Legal), and Robert Mitchell (DOM) both have some time off as there are no events to cause any current efforts. Mildred Kohn still picks up the mail frequently so that checks, etc. get handled in an expeditious manner to keep the wheels oiled.
Please let these people know that you appreciate their efforts to bring to you the activities you are enjoying as a member of SPAUG.
One further action the board took was to finally lay to rest the machinations about guests, some of whom seem to be perennial. We are happy to have you as a guest, complimentary the first time. The next visit is $5. The third visit is $35; i.e., JOIN. This will let the Board know what our cash flow is.
Best to all.
Jim Dinkey, President
6:30 Elks Lodge Special Session
Power Quest Technical Session "Disk Structure and Care Thereof".
7:30 Continuation: Power Quest: Survey of Products
Drive Copy (Move to new disk)
Partition Magic (modify the partitions length and attributes)
Drive Image (Drive Copy + key backup structures)
Lost & Found (restore lost data on PC)
SPAUG's February Planning Meeting of 1999 met on the Third at the home of Bev Altman. Attendees were Jim Dinkey, Bev Altman, John Sleeman, Stan Hutchings, Herb Hamerslough, Walt Varner and Ron Nicholas.
Walt Varner reports the Treasury has $3662, not including membership renewals recently received.
There will be no Disk of the Month (DOM) for the February 24 General Meeting. The guest Presenter is expected to exceed his time allocation.
SPECIAL NOTE: There will be a TECHNICAL TRAINING SEMINAR from 6:30 to 7:30 on Hard Drive & Backup/Recovery Training Seminar given by Gene Barlow representing Power Quest Corporation, followed by a presentation of their newest product, Lost & Found, and the latest releases of Partition Magic and Drive Image.
The sign up spaces for the industry tour are almost filled for the NUMMI Automotive Plant on Fremont on March 16, Tuesday at 11:30 AM. The tour is 90 minutes long. Any space available will be announced at the General Meeting, or perhaps at the Club's website.
The next industry tour is Lawrence Livermore Lab on April 22. Be advised there is vital data required in advance and it will be checked by LLL; citizenship, drivers license, etc. Details to follow.
Public announcements of SPAUG's Meeting time and place as appearing in the Mercury News and Computer Currents will be checked in the week before the General Meeting.
The guest/visitor fee structure came into question. The new fee structure: first time is free; second time is $5.00 and is applied to membership if joined that night; third time is $35, i.e. join!!
In an effort to help each club member spread the word of SPAUG and generate further community interest, a flyer sheet will be included in the newsletter. It may posted on company or grocery store bulletin boards. Any place to help bring new members like bicycle shops, restaurants, coffee and bagel shops, etc. Help spread the benefits of SPAUG.
The website is to be updated to include a sign up form so nonmember visitors will be encouraged to visit our club, participate in tech sessions, field trips, and become members.
All club members are encouraged to attend the Planning Meeting at 7:15 PM on the first Wednesday of each month.
The meeting adjourned at 8:55 PM.
Respectfully submitted,
Ron Nicholas, Recording Secretary
Q1. I had lots of performance problems, so I reformatted my hard drive and tried to reloaded WIN95 from the CD ROM. The Recovery diskette will get the A: drive and the C:\ drive, but not the CD ROM drive where WIN95
is located. What now?
A1a. WIN95 in its setup for the Recovery diskette does not make a copy of the installed CD ROM driver. You have to make it a separate operation. WIN 98 does copy the CD ROM driver as well as the system files.
A1b. There is a long detailed description of this very procedure and may obtained by going to the website, http://www .everythingcomputers.com. It was written by Bob O'Donnel for his Saturday morning computer radio talk show on KSFO 560 .
A1c. What is needed is the generic DOS driver for the CD ROM. It could be copied off another computer onto the Recovery diskette. Then insert the Recovery diskette in the A drive, turn power on, and continue with the WIN95 reinstallation process. The CD ROM drive should be able to be recognized and load WIN95.
Q2. Any one having trouble loading TurboTax for WIN98?
A2a. Two people reported having trouble loading TurboTax from the CD ROM. Another had a State problem, it did not finish loading until the very end. General consensus was the CD ROM was corrupt.
A2b. Be sure to have all other programs turned off & none running in the background.
Q3. In Word for Windows, I want to highlight a part of a paragraph near the bottom of the screen, and onto the next screen. The highlight flashes to the next several paragraphs, far beyond where I want to go. Then I have to back up and jockey while I get what I want. How do you slow the super fast scrolling/highlight?
A3. Super fine highlighting can be done placing the courser at the start place , hold down the SHIFT key while using the arrow keys, or page up/down keys. Furthermore, holding the SHIFT and CNTRL keys down, the highlight goes to the start of the next word.
Q4. Does the shift click work for Excel; i.e. rows/columns?
A4 You want to know about shift-click procedure. First CLICK the left mouse button where you want highlighting to start, then hold down the SHIFT key and Click the left mouse button again. The whole area in between is now highlighted. It works with most Microsoft products.
Q5. If you come to a machine with Internet Explorer installed, how could you identify what version is present?
A5. On the menu bar, click on Help, from the drop down menu click on About, and the version should appear in the text window. This is a WIN standard.
Helpful Hint: One member found that WIN98 loading is more stable using the following procedure. From Start, go to Run and type MSCONFIG. That brings up a System Configuration Utility screen that allows you to load device drivers and software as you desire. It allows me to Unselect the automatic loading of certain files at Start up. It gives a menu from which you can select which files will load; i.e., config.sys, autoexec.bat, system.ini, win.ini and startup. It will reboot the computer for me. I now have a really clean start up and a lot better than using the Control-Alt-Deletes to close troublesome programs.
Paraphrased by Ron Nicholas
March 31 - Adobe Systems
April 28 - Dennis Dillon - Embedded Computers in Boeing Aircraft.
May 26 - Microsoft - Windows 2000
June 30 - Donald Teague - Uptime Corp - Total solutions.
July 28 Hank Skawinsky - Mid Year Review
NUMMI was lots of fun. We had about 15 people on the tour and it was enlightening to have the opportunity to see how the plant is run and the cars and trucks are assembled, beginning with the actual fabrication of the body from roll stock.
This is the first of the trips that the Board of Directors suggested we run.
The next trip is to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is much more involved. Enclosed with this newsletter is the form that is to be returned to me at 3380 Cork Oak Way, Palo Alto 94303 two and a half weeks before the trip. In practice, just return your form to me as you receive it. Assure that the drivers license number is correct because they DO check it. Why they bother I don't really know.
Anyhow, you need to BE THERE at 1 p.m. and there are no food facilities there. We have barely time to see the normal complement of places. Further, I have asked them to include several computer sites including the Cray. Just don't be late. After an introductory video, we will board a 50+ passenger bus that will haul us around the Laboratory from site to site.
Plan to have your form in my hands by Monday, April 5.
I have a new e-mail address.
The above is prompted by my need to go to an ISP-independent e-mail address because I am flirting with changing ISPs to permit the install of a cable modem.
At the March 31 general meeting, the Adobe Systems people will be displaying their stable of products which can includes Adobe Illustrator 8.0, Adobe Image Library, Adobe Premiere 5.0, Adobe Page Mill 3.0, Home and Office Solutions, Graphic Design Solutions, and Enterprise Solutions.
Regards,
Jim
7:15 Adobe Systems
The Adobe people will be displaying their stable of products which can includes Adobe Illustrator 8.0, Adobe Image Library, Adobe Premiere 5.0, Adobe Page Mill 3.0, Home and Office Solutions, Graphic Design Solutions, and Enterprise Solutions.
February's General Meeting had a large attendance, 36 persons total. Several guests attended were informed by the Club website.
Thanks to Power Quest for the Tech Session and insight into hard drive operations and the capabilities of Partition Magic.
The sign up spaces for the industry tour are almost filled for the March 16, NUMMI Automotive Plant. Priority given to members, spouses or significant others, and guests who signed up at the General Meeting.
The next industry tour is Lawrence Livermore Lab on April 22. Visit the Club website for details and maps. A sign up form must be in Jim Dinkey's hand by April 5.
Our Webmaster reports we are not experiencing much activity at the club website. He suggested each club member put the club web site on their Bookmark or Favorites list. This would give easier access and an encouragement to visit more often. A higher incidence of Guests are visiting the website. In an effort to solicit them as new members, a coupon of discount would be on the website that could be printed out. When presented at the next General Meeting it would be redeemed for a reduced membership fee of $5 for the first year.
There is growing need for a new overhead projector, LED type, for use by the SIG's and at the General Meeting. The Club's present one has color fade out and resolution problems.
All club members are encouraged to attend the Planning Meeting at 7:15 PM on the first Wednesday of each month.
The meeting adjourned at 8:15 PM.
Ron Nicholas, Recording Secretary
Q1. I have been using AOL 4.0 with WIN98. It was working well, but it began coming up where the boxes don't open and the machine locks up. Any ideas?
FB1. Have you tried using SCANDISK recently (Start Run... C:\WINDOWS\SCANDSKW.EXE)? No.
FB2. Could be WINSOCK problem?
FB3. Is it a dial up modem? Yes, AOL dialed, loads up then will not respond to commands.
FB4. Try DEFRAGging your hard drive (Start Run... C:\WINDOWS\DEFRAG.EXE). Sometimes the pointers, within the software instructions gets lost/corrupted. DEFRAGging will reset these pointers. This helps programs to run in many cases.
FB5. You could reload AOL. But that would lose the settings, bookmarks, favorites, etc.
Q2. I have been using Word 6 and using the floppy as my data working and storage media. I changed from data disk #1 to #2 and data on #1 got lost. My data was on the floppy and not the hard drive. Ideas?
FB1. Are you sure you saved the data first before removing the diskette? Not really sure.
FB2. I believe the data is lost unless you have another backup. Most people write and work to the hard drive and use the floppies as back up data files. The HD is much faster more, convent to the program but not as secure/private since the Internet has its snoops. [nb. You can turn on Auto Save to automatically save the file every x minutes, 5 or 10 is a good choice.]
Q3. Some members have been expressing an interest in a Quicken Financial Planning Special Interest Group (SIG). We need someone who is very knowledgable to help us out.
FB1. I have been using Quicken for quite some time and am fairly knowledgeable, but the new Quicken uses the Internet. And I don't want
to do that; so I use Quicken 6 only.
FB2. Since volunteers are scarce, we will have to let this percolate a bit.
(n.b.) FB3. Palo Alto Adult School offers a class "Quicken Money Management", 4 weeks May 20-June 10 Thursday 7-9:30 p.m. at Palo Alto High School for $50. This would be a good place to start finding people interested in a SIG (and who would be interested in joining SPAUG). Look in the left column and click on "Computer Applications - PC & Internet", then scroll down the the course to find out more.
Paraphrased by Ron Nicholas
Recording Secretary
Here are some recent favorite downloads for March 1999. Click this link for the current week's favorites! Click on the Title below to download an individual file. Remember, if you download Shareware and decide to use it after an evaluation, you are honor-bound to pay for it.
|
Title |
Synopsis |
OS |
|
|
1 |
ICQ (32-bit) |
Chat privately around the world |
WIN 95, 98, NT |
|
2 |
WinZip (32-bit) |
Zip and unzip files with this great tool |
WIN 95, 98, NT |
|
3 |
Find information on the Web |
WIN 95, 98, NT |
|
|
4 |
pics of women in bikinis on-screen |
WIN 95 |
|
|
5 |
Record .mp3 and .wav files to CD-Rs |
WIN 95, 98, NT |
|
|
6 |
Play MP3 audio in style |
WIN 95, 98, NT |
|
|
7 |
Speed up your Internet access |
WIN 95, 98, NT |
|
|
8 |
Track down MP3 music files on the Web |
WIN 95, 98, NT |
|
|
9 |
Gather files to batch download |
WIN 95 or NT 4.0 |
|
|
10 |
Play eight well-done Solitaire games |
WIN 95, 98, NT |
|
# |
Name |
Description |
| 1 | TrayManager | Take charge of your Windows system tray. |
| 2 | InCtrl4 | Control the software installation process. |
| 3 | Dupeless | Find and remove duplicate files from your hard disk. |
| 4 | RoboType 2 | Use abbreviations in place of long blocks of text. |
| 5 | SyncURLs | Synchronize IE favorites and Netscape bookmarks. |
| 6 | MenuZap | Restore order to the Programs menu. |
| 7 | SiteSnagger | Download entire Web sites. |
| 8 | File Album | Organize Files Into Albums. |
| 9 | Explorer Notes | Associate notes with any file or folder. |
| 10 | TrayLaunch | Geat easy access to Desktop icons. |
This week the topic is Coping with E-Mail Attachments, a topic of concern that has been mentioned several times at our computer meetings.
So, if you click on the URL below, you can go through the slide show, and learn what to do and what not to do with e-mail attachments. There are also several links to places where you can download various programs for decoding attachments so that you can read them.
http://www.stanford.edu/group/itss-customer/ip/tgif/attachments/
A few examples from the slides are listed below on how to be a super sender:
Golden Rule #1:
Don't send a file that would be useless to your recipient, even if it got decoded correctly
Example: Don't send a Word 7 document to someone who has only Word 5.
Golden Rule #2:
Don't make your recipient have to guess what kind of file you're sending. Example: In your cover message, say "Attached is a document that was done with Word 7 for Windows and saved in Word format".
Golden Rule #3:
If it can possibly be sent out as plain text (ASCII), send it that way! Then no decoding is required.
I hope this helps.
Kendric
SPAUG's April Planning Meeting of 1999 met at the home of Bev Altman. Attendees: Jim Dinkey, Kendric Smith, John Sleeman, Bev Altman, Stan Hutchings, Walt Varner.
Stan was late because he was watching his PC clock (displayed on the Windows Task Bar), and it was 30 minutes slow. Jim's recommendation was to use a free program available from NIST at http://www.bldrdoc.gov/timefreq/javaclck.htm to keep his clock synchronized with the official atomic clock at NIST. There are two versions, one for Modem use is "WINACTS", the Automated Computer Time Service for Windows (53k); and one for Internet-based synchronization "NISTIME", Internet-based time sync (140k). You can also get the official time from that page. Another program, which was recommended by Walt, is Atomic Clock® 4.0 for Windows® 95, and available from Parson's Technology http://www.parsonstech.com/software/atomic4.html. It has many bells and whistles, and is only about $30.
Walt reported the club bank account is at $3576 plus another $175 to be deposited.
Walt commented that in his opinion, USB is the wave of the future. It is easy to connect, doesn't use precious IRQ and ports, and new computers and operating systems will support it. If you are planning to buy a new peripheral, check into a USB-enabled one. You may have to buy a USB card and hub, but the expense now will insure you can use your peripheral when you get a new computer.
Ron Nicholas is helping Herb Hamerslough with the publicity. The SJ Mercury keeps getting our information wrong, or too late to publish, yet the Merc generates most of the calls for information when it is up-to-date.
Future speakers scheduled for the General Meetings:
Should an election for club officers be held? What are the requirements in the Club Bylaws? Where is a copy of the Bylaws? (the consensus was that the current officers are just settling in, and that changing officers would disrupt the cllub operations. Bev reminded us that the Planning Meeting (it's not the Board of Directors's or Officer's meeting) is open to ALL members (especially those who might be interested in serving as officers or helping with the DOM, web page, publicity, SIG's, or other club functions.)
Bev Altman reports we have signed up only two new members this year. We need to do better to keep the club viable. Any suggestions, help, referrals, etc. are welcome.
Sure, Netscape Communicator allows you to browse the Internet, but you can also access files or documents stored locally on your computer (or linked to an internal network). To do this, select File, Open Page (or press Ctrl-O), bringing up the Open Page dialog box. Enter the path and name of the file if you know it, then click Open. If you're not sure of the file name or folder, click Choose File and select the file from the browser box. You may need to change the File Type, either to all files (*.*) or the specific type you are interested in. You can open any kind of file--HTML, spreadsheets, graphics, text, WAV, MIDI, and so on--but you may need a specific plug-in to open some file types. Also, Netscape may open another application to view the file (for example, a BMP file may be opened in Microsoft Paint). This is especially good for viewing various graphics files - just remember you cannot edit them. Microsoft Internet Explorer probably has a similar capability.
Netscape includes native support for certain graphic images, but you can also configure it to work with graphic formats that it doesn't support directly. This is done through 'helper applications,' including graphic programs like Paint Shop Pro and LView. In order to use a helper application, you have to install the program on your system, then configure Netscape to work with it.
To do this, select Options - General Preferences, then click the Helpers tab (Note: different revisions of Netscape may be somewhat different, Ver 4.5 is under Edit - Preferences - Navigator - Applications). The available helper applications are in the File type list box. Select the one(s) you want, then click the Launch the Application button, which tells Netscape to launch the application whenever it encounters an image with the file type the program supports (say, TIFF images). You must tell Netscape where it can find the helper on your computer by entering the full file name and directory in the box below the Launch the Application button. Click OK to save the settings and close the box. (There are also helper programs that you can use to extend Netscape's ability to work with audio files). If things change and you don't want to use the plug-in or helper, you can always reestablish the association with Communicator. To do this, choose Edit, Preferences, Navigator, Applications to open the Applications window. Select the file type from the Description list, then click Edit. In the Handled By section, select Navigator, then click OK. Click OK again to close the Preferences box and save your settings.
The following Questions and member supplied Feed Back (Answers) are paraphrased from the tape recorded comments of the April 28 General Meeting.
Feed Back 1. The best way is to scan your entire hard drive, all the files with a virus detection and removal program. Among the many is Viruscan and Norton utilities. But to be effective, the detection program must be continually updated from the manufacturer's web site. New viruses appear almost daily.
FB1-2. Many viruses are hidden in e-mail attachments. When detaching/opening an attachment, a set of instructions could also be activated that causes mischief of maliciousness. These attachments are easily scanned by your virus checker and can be eliminated.
FB1-3. In defense of e-mail attachments, many are useful and often highly desired. The better e-mail reader/converter is Eudora Pro program. It will read and present virtually any format into a readable document in the original format.
FB1-4. If you don't know who is sending you an e-mail with attachments, DO NOT open the attachment until you have virus checked it or Delete the e-mail all together. In most all e-mail programs you can read the senders return address and name without detaching/opening the attachment and without activating any hidden virus. But clicking on the attachment to read it has just activated the virus! Just words of caution and encouragement to get and use your frequently updated virus scanner.
FB1-5. Visiting your virus checker website frequently for updates; most are free updates for a time period. Others have a sustaining fee.
FB2-1. It sounds like some card has a contact corrosion/intermittent problem or a file has gotten corrupted. The connectors and cards probably be re-seated and check for the problem recurrence.
FB2-2. A lot of problems are cured by upgrading to W98. There is a feature in the W98 setup where you are able to set aside 50 MB to backup W95. This is a just incase you have problem in setting up W98 and want to restore W95. Recovery is through RECOVER module of W98.
FB3-1. You can't easily . There apparently was a program that required the piece of software but the main program was removed, except for the one reference you are seeing. There are programs that, like Norton system Doctor, First Aid, Nuts and Bolts etc, that can search for strings and clean them up.
FB3-2. Sometime running Demo programs can leave this kind of trails that are difficult to eradicate.
FB3-3. The best way to install and remove programs is to use the Windows Add/remove Programs feature. This feature keeps very good track of setting changes and removes them when the uninstallation is desired.
FB4. That check out the system operation, but not the files that are time and date sensitive as a reference point for calculations. The records of insurance companies and other organizations may be difficult to obtain.
FB5. This sounds like a Microsoft Tech Support problem. Don't forget to have the system serial number handy.
FB6. No response.
Paraphrased by Ron Nicholas, Recording Secretary
This is the "make-up session for February, when Microsoft had a schedule conflict, and did not show up. If you are interested in the next version of Windows, attend this meeting.
The SPAUG Planning Meeting was held on May 5, 1999 at the home of Bev Altman. Attendees were Herb Hamerslough, Bev Altman, Kendric Smith, John Sleeman, Stan Hutchings and Ron Nicholas.
Being as I arrived late, I missed the Membership and last month's General Meeting attendance reports. These reports as well as the Treasurer's will be included in next month's Minutes.
Web wizardry: Our Web Master Kendric suggested including the due dates for the submission of the Newsletter items and articles. Perhaps the most appropriate place would be in the Editors Corner; his e-mail address is in the Newsletter. An excellent idea and would be of great help to our Editor, John Sleeman. Kendric also suggested that SPAUG members create their own home page and/or set Netscape as default having their own folders. He explained that first you copy SPAUG's home page to your computer to use as a guide. Then you cut and paste in your own group folders. About that time this writer got lost. Hopefully Kendric will include more details in print soon.
The Board of Directors agreed to Kendric's idea of including Tax Exempt notation to the web page.
Disk of the Month: Our co-webmaster raised the DOM issue again. The BIG problem is the size of the program files, aka bloatware, is making the selection of interesting shareware/freeware very, very difficult. The idea of a "CD ROM of the Month" rose again. It would have the obvious advantages of more variety, more interest, but take more time and people to compile. The CD ROM would also cost more than the diskettes. Also would require the purchase of a CD ROM Read/Write device. The real test of this endeavor will be tested at the next General Meeting. It should be remembered that the DOM is one our major fund raisers.
Newsletter: Our Editor John would like article of any type; LLNL field trip, program evaluations, new website favorites, etc.
Election of Directors: The yearly even of elections has arrived again. At the May General meeting will be the election of officers. Nominations will be accepted from the membership for all Offices. The election will follow. Most of the present staff has agreed to continue, if approved by election:
Presidentially Appointed Directors have agreed to continue pending the President's discretion:
The newly elected Officers will assume their Office at the next Planning Meeting, June 2, 1999. Y'all come.
The Planning Meeting adjourned at 9:30 PM
Respectfully submitted, Ron Nicholas
In an ongoing effort to address possible issues associated with the Year 2000, Microsoft has identified several minor Year 2000 issues within Windows 95. This update addresses these known issues, associated with generating dates on your computer on or after January 1, 2000. The known issues cover leap year calculations in particular circumstances, the handling of some date/time settings, and incorrect logging of on-line calling. Click here to download the update now! or link to http://microsoft.com/insider/mi/pfpatch.htm
Click for more free* updates and downloads, or point your browser to: http://microsoft.com/insider/mi/pfdload.htm
Kendric
SLAC is a world-class research center for high-energy physics. It played major roles in establishing what is called the "Standard Model" of particle physics, and has an ambitious program of continuing research (both experimental and theoretical). They provide frequent public visits like ours, starting with a talk explaining (at a popular level) what they are doing, and followed by a tour around the site.
The physics program is supported by impressive computing power, both at the experiments (for collecting and filtering the raw data) and at the computer center for data analysis.
SLAC is funded by the DoE and run by Stanford University. The researchers include Stanford professors and visiting scientists from other universities around the world. Visits like ours are usually hosted by graduate students or post-doctoral fellows working on one of the experiments, and they are happy to answer questions.
SLAC's past successes have been recognized by several Nobel Prizes. Richard Taylor shared the 1990 Prize with Kendall & Friedman (of MIT) for work (1966-1972) showing that protons and neutrons are composed of smaller, more fundamental objects called "quarks". Burton Richter (later Director of SLAC) shared the 1976 Prize with Sam Ting (of MIT) for discovering a new particle named J/psi, which is made of a new type of quark called "charm", and was convincing evidence that the idea of the quark substructure of matter was in fact valid. Martin Perl received the 1995 Prize for the discovery (1976) of a particle named "tau", which is related to electrons, but much more massive. Electrons, muons, and taus (plus their neutrinos) are a family of six particles that "parallel" the quark family.
Currently, six types of quark are known, and there is evidence that there are no more to be found. SLAC's present major science project involves studying the fifth or "B" quark, in hope of finding clues to the origin of the universe.
SLAC's major technical project in recent years was the construction of the linear collider (SLC). This served as a test bed for a new accelerator technique, as well as doing basic research.
Please wear appropriate clothing, and avoid open toe shoes. Parts of the site have large equipment including at floor level. Also, it may be cool inside the experimental areas.
Meanwhile, for more information, you could visit their Web site at http://www.slac.stanford.edu/ or their Virtual Visitor Center at http://www2.slac.stanford.edu/vvc/home.html
This is Big Science, right in your back yard, and a trip not to be missed.
The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Cyberia/Expo/) has developed Science for the Millennium, an interactive "exposition" filled with exhibits on science concepts. The exhibits cover modern physics, biotechnology, and industry. "Cosmos in a Computer," for example, lets you go back in time to the beginnings of the universe and then return to its present state. Some of the exhibits are under construction, but what's there is fairly dazzling. You can browse the site by moving through virtual pavilions or click the Search button at the bottom of the home page.
When several lines of text appeared with unwanted underlines, we began to suspect our printer, a DeskJet 660, had become the victim of some evil sorcerer's curse. As time passed, the unwelcome lines increased in frequency. Sometimes, streaks ran down from random words. We sought assistance from the Knights of the Ham Radio Roundtable during one of the semi-monthly luncheons. One fellow suggested running the clean-up maintenance program found in the DeskJet Control Panel and selecting Clean Print Cartridge. This used a lot of ink, but the curse remained.
Seeking advice from SPAUG during a Random Access Session resulted in essentially the same recommendation as given by the "Knight". Nonetheless, we ran the program again - and again - and again. This REALLY used a lot of ink. The curse remained.
We read the instruction manual, hoping that it would contain some magic words of wisdom. It didn't. In a flash of inspiration, we decided to call the Hewlett-Packard Customer Service people. Surely THEY would know what to do to remove the curse. After several false leads, we eventually made contact with a young lady named Stephanie. She had two suggestions. The first was to go to http://www.hp.com on the internet, and click on "quicksearch" at the welcome screen where there would be a "floppy" icon that says "driver"; then type "DJ600" and "streaking". We quickly dismissed this as a poor choice since it would require printing instructions using the very printer that was cursed with the streaking problem. The second suggestion was to locate a fax machine (not utilizing the cursed printer) and call the Hewlett-Packard Fax Information Service faxback number 1-800-333-1917, request document number 2198, and press 11 (i.e., follow the directions given). A short time later, the document appeared on the fax machine, complete with pictures of where and how to clean the printer. Wow! Surely, THIS would work! We got the materials (cotton swabs, distilled water, and paper towels), followed the directions (well - we THOUGHT we did) and when we ran the printer's self test, THE CURSE REMAINED!!
OK. New ink cartridges must be the answer. New ink cartridges were obtained and installed. The printer was cleaned again - and again - and again. The printer self-test revealed the curse was still firmly in place.
Time was running out. The deadline for printing a CLEAN copy of an important document was drawing near. What to do !?! A call to report the inability to produce the document resulted in a response of "Oh, I had that problem, too." Unfortunately, we had already done those things suggested by our cohort to cure the problem. Despair! Get out the cotton swabs - again. THIS time, the arms that hold the ink cartridges were lifted a bit higher and the cotton swabs were poked further back and came out BLACK, a clear indication that we HADN'T cleaned all the ink residue properly in previous attempts. The printer self-test had NO MORE STREAKS! At last, the CURSE WAS BROKEN!
Don't overlook the list of members who are willing to offer help and advice on their areas of expertise. It's free so there are no guarantees! However, it provides one-on-one help, and more time than the ten minutes of Random Access at the General meetings.
If you have questions on subjects not listed, try calling Jim Dinkey. If he can't help, he may know who can. Jim also maintains a laboratory in his home which is available to SPAUG members when intractable problems arise. Call (650) 493-9307, or email him. This service is also available to non-members, but at the cost of a suitable donation to the Club's coffers. (That alone should be an inducement to join - any appropriate contribution would be more than the annual membership, but less than you would pay a commercial outfit. Tell your friends.)
Hank Skawinski, President - DataWise, an occasional speaker at the General Meeting, makes a living fixing sick and broken PCs. He will be giving a technology update to the club at the July 28 General meeting. You can visit his website at http://www.datawise-pc.com, or call him at (408) 993-9473.
You may remember the August 1998 meeting featured Nancy DeBiccari - General Manager - Micro Center Computers "What we can and can't do for you.". Micro Center, which has a "drop-in" help desk, is conveniently located off 101 at 3255 Mission College Bldg 1, Santa Clara, CA. Phone 408-727-3521.
We have an interesting schedule:
June 30 - Don Teague explaining about how to set up a website that handles total accounting flows within a company.
July 28 - Hank Skawinsky Š A down-to-earth dialog from a person having the over-all experience of over 800 machines in the field for many clients.
August 25 - Rick Altman - Some of the experiences of consulting.
September 29 - TBD
October 27 - Seth Shostek - SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.) a review of what they are doing, why, how and what is next.
SPAUG is looking for a used video projector that we can purchase. Please call Jim Dinkey with the lead.
We need a VP willing to fill in for me when I am unable to either run a meeting or Planning Meeting. Please plan to say yes when you are asked.
Normally an organization such as ours has a Program Chair to make arrangements for speakers. I would like to create this office if I can. Volunteers are encouraged. Until then, your suggestions are entertained.
I attended the Microsoft Office 2000 kickoff. The problem with Office 2000 is that Microsoft did a pretty good job when Office 97 was released - the additional changes are nice, effective, and not critical for many. The usage for many can be deferred until a real need arises.
That's all, folks. Look forward to seeing you at the next meeting.
Regards,
Jim Dinkey
President
Don Teague explaining about how to set up a website that handles total accounting flows within a company.
Uptime One Corp - Total solutions for e-business, see http://www.sees.com/ for an example.
The following Questions and member supplied Feed Back (Answers) are paraphrased from the tape recorded comments of the April 28 General Meeting.
Feed Back 1. The best way is to scan your entire hard drive, all the files with a virus detection and removal program. Among the many is Viruscan and Norton utilities. But to be effective, the detection program must be continually updated from the manufacturer's web site. New viruses appear almost daily.
FB1-2. Many viruses are hidden in e-mail attachments. When detaching/opening an attachment, a set of instructions could also be activated that causes mischief of maliciousness. These attachments are easily scanned by your virus checker and can be eliminated.
FB1-3. In defense of e-mail attachments, many are useful and often highly desired. The better e-mail reader/converter is Eudora Pro program. It will read and present virtually any format into a readable document in the original format.
FB1-4. If you don't know who is sending you an e-mail with attachments, DO NOT open the attachment until you have virus checked it or Delete the e-mail all together. In most all e-mail programs you can read the senders return address and name without detaching/opening the attachment and without activating any hidden virus. But clicking on the attachment to read it has just activated the virus! Just words of caution and encouragement to get and use your frequently updated virus scanner.
FB1-5. Visiting your virus checker website frequently for updates; most are free updates for a time period. Others have a sustaining fee.
FB2-1. It sounds like some card has a contact corrosion/intermittent problem or a file has gotten corrupted. The connectors and cards probably be re-seated and check for the problem recurrence.
FB2-2. A lot of problems are cured by upgrading to W98. There is a feature in the W98 setup where you are able to set aside 50 MB to backup W95. This is a just incase you have problem in setting up W98 and want to restore W95. Recovery is through RECOVER module of W98.
FB3-1. You can't easily . There apparently was a program that required the piece of software but the main program was removed, except for the one reference you are seeing. There are programs that, like Norton system Doctor, First Aid, Nuts and Bolts etc, that can search for strings and clean them up.
FB3-2. Sometime running Demo programs can leave this kind of trails that are difficult to eradicate.
FB3-3. The best way to install and remove programs is to use the Windows Add/remove Programs feature. This feature keeps very good track of setting changes and removes them when the uninstallation is desired.
FB4. That check out the system operation, but not the files that are time and date sensitive as a reference point for calculations. The records of insurance companies and other organizations may be difficult to obtain.
FB5. This sounds like a Microsoft Tech Support problem. Don't forget to have the system serial number handy.
FB6. No response.
Paraphrased by Ron Nicholas, Recording Secretary
The SPAUG Planning Meeting was held on July 7, 1999 at the home of Bev Altman. Attendees were Bev Altman, Jim Dinkey, Ron Nicholas, John Sleeman, Stan Hutchings
Respectfully submitted, Ron Nicholas
If you would like to know more about Freecell and the people (nuts) that play it, here are two places you can learn more about freecell than you probably want to know but here they are:
If you are a beginner, here are some hints on strategy.
If you want to relax and have fun, try these easy ones:
164, 892, 1012, 1922, 2514, 2585, 5295, 8842, 13302, 13809, 14042, 19034, 23089, 29949,30584, 31316.
If you re a masochist, make yourself happy (miserable) with these games:
169, 1025, 11114, 14965, 24063, 30000, 31465 which are all solvable but not without some effort and mental pain.
Don't waste your time with 11982 since it is impossible.
Some freecell aficionados use only three free cells and others try to do it with only two, one or no freecells.
Some players think that only 32,000 games are possible. This is not true. There are millions of arrangements. Only 32,000 of them have been documented and stored in Freecell for instant retrieval and their solutions published. If you have one you can't solve, go to the URL's listed above and you can find out how to get the solution.
On May 27 twelve of our members and guests spent a very interesting and informative three hours at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, which is located near Sand Hill Road and I-280. The time was spent in three areas.
For the first hour our tour guide tried to educate us in the science of particle physics and why anyone would be interested in studying things you can't see or put in a bag and which don't do much until they get excited (much like a couple on their honeymoon). In a very understandable presentation the guide described the makeup of atoms and their components which can be deduced indirectly by bombarding them with other high-energy particles.
The second part of the action was to clamber aboard a bus for a physical inspection of the mechanisms that produce the energetic particles needed to break matter into its smallest components. It was quite an experience to look down a two-mile long tunnel housing the equipment necessary to accelerate the particles in a tube several feet under the tunnel that will do their thing two miles away. Their "thing" is to shatter another particle and note the trails produced by the liberated particles.
The last part of the tour took us to the SLAC cafeteria where we purchased an excellent lunch and recounted what we had just seen (and only partly understood).
Whether an individual had a physics background or not, everyone seemed to feel that their knowledge of the composition of matter was vastly increased by our visit. Everyone also learned a bunch of new words like hadrons, baryons, mesons, leptons, muons, gravitons, and a lot more "…ons". It was certainly three hours very well spent and very much appreciated by the attendees.
I am pleased to report that over the past year SPAUG has not only remained strong but has increased membership and purchased an up-to-date computer and projection system while still keeping the operating balance within a few dollars of $4,000.
Also the meetings over the past year have become more interactive and dynamic. The field trips have been popular and enlightening. The raffle prizes have become very popular and a key part of the organization's income. Having a "permanent" meeting place at the Elk's building has been instrumental in producing increased active attendance and participation.
The board is currently considering the acquisition of a better projection system to enhance presentations. It is planned that even with such an acquisition the bank balance can still be in the vicinity of $4,000 a year from now.
You have noted that your "old" computer is one or more years old and the new ones have fabulous speeds and hard drives so big you can't believe anyone could use that much storage…and they are dirt cheap. You are thinking, "Now is the time to act " However let's think a few things through before you rush to your friendly Dell-Gateway-Fry-HP computer wheeler-dealer.
Why are PC's suddenly so inexpensive? Part of the price collapse is due only to normal supply and demand fluctuations. Competition has reduced profit levels for equipment manufacturers to near bankruptcy levels which means that PC makers can obtain the parts for the lowest prices in two decades. Thus they can build a machine that would have cost them $2500 two years ago for less than $1500 today. But how do they get the price down to the sub $1000 level and make any profit at all? It's easy, they keep removing components, features and quality until they get the selling price down to the level they want.
The least costly of the "cheapies" comes in an inexpensive mini case with such marginal components as a 150 watt, or even a 100 watt, power supply, no expansion trays, and only two RAM sockets so RAM can't be expanded without discarding some that is already installed. Dealer ads are ablaze with numbers like 450 MHz and 500 Mhs and 20 GB hard drives and 128 Meg of RAM, but those are not the ones that are only $500. Most of the "cheapies" don't include the monitor, and if they do it's a 14 or 15 incher. None come with a ZIP or other backup unit. Their CPU's are in the 133 MHz class.
To summarize the cost picture, just keep in mind that you have to pay for what you get and you don't necessarily get what you pay for, especially in the quality of the components. The builders use the cheapest components available that will be adequate to make the computer operate.
This is what business is all about-make a product as inexpensively as you can, sell it for as much as the traffic will bear and with some creative marketing techniques, convince the customer that he's getting a $2000 computer for less than $1000. The operating system software the dealers throw in for free is an OEM version that carries no free tech support from Microsoft. Other free software included in the price consists of outdated or nearly outdated versions that they get for nothing or nearly so (which is all it is worth.)
Now that you understand all of the above, you order the shiny new computer that is going to solve all of your problems. The $500 price doesn't include shipping and handling or the tax so the price is not really $500 but considerably more especially when a number of custom features you decide you want are added. (In any case, be sure to read and understand all of the fine print before signing a contract.) One of the first complaints I hear from buyers of the $500 to $1500 machines is that the performance speed is much slower than they expected. Support plans differ with various suppliers but the help you get is in getting the computer to operate, but doesn't cover help with applications like Word, Excel and AOL.
You finally get the new PC working and are enjoying the big improvement over your old PC that now rests in a recycling yard or dump. Now, how many months or years is it going to run before it requires service? There are two very vulnerable areas in any computer-heat and mechanical breakdown. The small cases and small fans supplied in the cheapies do not circulate cooling air effectively. Because of this and the fact that the power supply runs hot because it is running close to saturation case temperatures run very high. Also the new high speed CPU's run very hot, so you have potential problems since heat is the most serious threat to the chips on the circuit boards.
If the heat doesn't bring the PC down sometime, the hard drive will. The hard drive is electro mechanical with combs that whip in and out hundreds of times a minute and can tolerate little misalignment. The other potential problem with the new high capacity hard drives is that to produce that capacity, the disk spins at very high speeds (5400 rpm, for instance). Because of space limitations, the bearings supporting the disk stack cannot be made massively strong, so depending on the amount and kind of storage requested of the hard drive, the support bearings can and will ultimately allow a head crash. This will result in the loss of umpteen gigabytes of data and require replacement of the drive. Reconstructing that data can be a massive job, since the cheapie PC's don't have a backup disk.
So what should you do to minimize trauma and disappointment with your dream machine? Recall my suggestion that you have to pay for what you get. For about twice as much as you want to pay for a mass produced commercial machine, you could get a custom-built PC in a full-size case. It should come with a 300 watt power supply, 4 to 6 RAM sockets, 3 ISA and 4 PCI slots, 3 or 4 trays for floppy and backup drives, an 8 GB hard drive, CD-ROM and/or DVD drives, 8 MB of video RAM (preferably 16 MB) and a 17 to 19" monitor. If at all possible, all components should be made and stocked in the Silicon Valley, so if you have problem components you can get immediate service or replacment.
Finally, to put things in perspective, consider if you would be happy with the performance of a new car you could buy for $5000 to $9000, or a house in Silicon Valley for $50,000 to $90,000.
The website at http://www.getspeed.com will tell you if your home location supports any high speed access such as DSL, Cable modem and Satellite service. The user needs to enter the zip code and area code/prefix of the phone number. It will then determine the distance from the nearest phone and cable switching station and give you the results with a list of possible companies that will provide the service to your area. As far as satellite service is concerned, it will give you the Direct PC satellite location in the sky.
Webmaster's Note: The revised Bylaws were approved by the membership at the General Meeting on July 28, 1999
Is anyone interested in the new CD-ROM as Disk of the Month? If so, let me hear what you want, what you don't want, how much (little?) you're willing to pay, how much you're willing to help in the choosing, obtaining (downloading), testing, demonstrating, reviewing, or distributing.
Putting a CD-ROM together is quite an undertaking, and more help from the membership will be required if we want to produce periodic CD-ROM's instead of the DOM on a diskette. My thoughts are along the lines that if we publish mostly free upgrades and programs, with a few shareware "gems", it should be easily worth about $10 every 3 to 4 months. A diskette maxes out at 1.44 MB, while a CD-ROM maxes out at about 600 MB. I would expect to see between 50 and 200 MB on a club CDOM - the equivalent of 30 to 150 diskettes.
Personally, I would like to have a CD with the latest Netscape, Microsoft Internet Explorer, RealPlayer, QuickTime, Acrobat reader, etc. In the event of a disk crash, a new hard drive, or purchase of a new computer, it would be handy to have the "latest and greatest" on one CD. What do you think? Send Stan Hutchings email, let me know what you think.
To some, the mere hint of including a picture or illustration in a document is enough to create hives. Publishing specialist and former SPAUG president Rick Altman joins us for an evening to discuss how to add a bit of punch to your work without getting arrested by the design police. Topics are likely to include:
This talk is geared for any PC user who has dabbled with creating graphics and wants to understand more.
Rick Altman, a professional in graphics and Corel Draw, President Emeritus of SPAUG, will be our speaker this coming meeting. See the details in the newsletter for the detailed information he will be presenting. Rick is very well versed in his topic as he has been teaching the topic in many seminars.
The Computer Museum trip went off like clockwork and those in attendance had a very informative time. Attendance was down because the word and reminder did not get out as I used a new ISP to send out the message and so the word and directions did not get out to nearly all those that signed up for the tour. Because of this, I propose to run it again after the next meeting. Thus, we will have the signup sheet again and the trip again to accommodate those who were shorted because of our administrative problems.
I haven't done a thing about the new projector, but would dearly like to have it in place for the networking class.
Think about whom you would like to have help with the procurement of speakers.
Regards,
Jim Dinkey
President
Rick Altman
How to do Graphics
To some, the mere hint of including a picture or illustration in a document is enough to create hives. Publishing specialist and former SPAUG President Rick Altman joins us for an evening to discuss how to add a bit of punch to your work without getting arrested by the design police.
Topics are likely to include:
- Vector and bitmap? Say what??
- It takes two to tango in the import/export dance
- The miracle of the portable document
- Everyone wants to be a Webmaster...
- Achieving absence of ugliness
This talk is geared for any PC user who has dabbled with creating graphics and wants to understand more.
Swap Your House and Take a Vacation for a Fraction of the Cost A great way to slash the tab of your next vacation is to take advantage of a phenomenon that has exploded in popularity with the advent of the World Wide Web: swapping houses or apartments (and cars, if you choose) with individuals and families all over the globe. If you want to spend three weeks in Australia, Tokyo, or Paris, chances are good that there are Australians, Japanese, and French people who are eager to explore your particular area of the country for three weeks as well. There are a number of services on the Web that can bring you together. Charges vary, so shop around--but no matter which one you go with, you'll find swapping a lot cheaper than a hotel room. Plus, there are unexpected benefits. First, your house won't be left empty while you're away. Second, it's a great way to meet new friends. Third, your vacation experience will be a lot more rewarding, since your hosts are likely to tell you about all sorts of things to do off the beaten track in their home countries (and vice versa). Of the swapping services listed below, the largest, Intervac, has been around since 1950. Whichever you choose, it's always wise to ask about such things as security deposits, insurance, references, and the like. (You might also consider establishing an e-mail relationship with your swap partner before you leave.)
http://www.intervac.com
http://www.holi-swaps.com
http://exchangetoday.com
One of the funniest shows on the dial, National Public Radio's "Car Talk" also brings its distinctive combination of humor and helpfulness about all matters automotive onto the Internet. The hosts, Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers (two Boston-based, M.I.T.-educated mechanics named Tom and Ray Magliozzi, who really are brothers), know just about everything there is to know about any car or truck on the road (or not on the road, as the case may be). During their call-in show they dispense sage advice, recommendations, and wit in equal measure. Their Web site is just as helpful, and just as entertaining. The content changes frequently, so it pays to check it out often. The archive, which features e-reprints of their syndicated weekly newspaper column, is particularly good. For topics ranging from engine pings to fuzzy dice, not to mention sharp wordplay, "Car Talk" is your source for information about everything on wheels. http://www.cartalk.cars.com
New URLs to some Shareware and Freeware sites have been added under "Other Sites" / PC User Groups & Software
Do you have favorite URLs for Shareware/Freeware?
If so send them to the Webmaster at spaug@mediacity.com.
Enroll in Foothill College Computer classes this Fall quarter - Apply and register online or pick up a Fall Schedule at the Foothill College Bookstore (M-Th 8-8, F 8-2 (650) 949-7305). Class starts 21 September. You can learn Adobe Premiere, Photoshop or Illustrator, Macromedia Director, FrameMaker, HTML Web Publishing, and many more.
If you are interested in learning Excel Word, PowerPoint, Quicken, check with the Palo Alto High School Adult school, and click the Classes menu item at the bottom of the page, then click the QuickBooks Pro 99 link. You will see many other classes in addition to QuickBooks Pro.
paraphrased from notes taken by Stan Hutchings
Hear a talk from the founder of a PC repair company that has found success from fixing failures. Find out how he has managed to build a company that grosses a million dollars a month. Here's a quote from his company web site:
UltraServ has the answers! We make experience available to you. Our company was founded in 1985 to provide computer network support to the business community. Helping to bring into focus solutions, we provide on-site support, telephone support, and remote on line support customized to your individual needs.
Our broad background in traditional data center networks allows us to solve tough Integration problems. We network DEC Vax, IBM mini and mainframes, Sun MicroSystems Unix networks, and Apple Mac networks into the Novell environment. UltraServ understands the needs of the MIS department and knows the impact that these systems have on your business.
The SPAUG Planning Meeting was began at 7:15 PM on September 1, 1999 at the home of Bev Altman. Attendees were Jim Dinkey, Bev Altman, John Sleeman, Stan Hutchings and Ron Nicholas.
Continuing Business: Product evaluation; Jim Dinkey has been searching for a overhead projector to attach to the Club's computer for Presenter's usage during the Guest Presenter's segment of the monthly meeting and for DOM/CD-DOM demonstrator. His efforts produced a CTX LCD projector that was demonstrated. His evaluation was presented to the Club Directors who agreed it did not perform as desired. The Button outlines on the Menu bar were not visible and color was washed out. All agreed it was unacceptable. It was to be returned and possibly demonstrated to the store/factory rep it's lack of performance. Update; since then, Jim has demonstrated to the store rep that this not was malfunctioning. It was exchanged and reportedly is acceptable.
September's General Meeting is scheduled to have as Guest Presenter Bill Gardner, President of Ultraserv. He will tell how to make a million dollars a month building and maintaining PCs and networks.
Publicizing the Club's Meeting is to be submitted by the Recording Secretary, to Computer Currents Magazine, San Jose Mercury News and several other local publications.
The C-DOM will be discussed at the September General Meeting. Among the issues will be interest in having C-DOM, content, cost, researchers of desirable programs, production of C-DOM and its hardware, the demonstration of the C-DOM at the Meetings, etc.
Since the Thanksgiving holiday is the day after the usual monthly meeting date, the meeting will be moved one week ahead; i.e. November 17, 1999. Also on this date will be the Election of Officers. A roll call of the Officers present indicated tha most Officers are willing to accept reelection. The Secretary will not seek reelection. The Editor expressed interest in sharing the publishing the monthly newsletter; i.e. having a co-editor much like the co-webmasters.
Adjournment was at 9:05 PM.
Respectfully submitted, Ron Nicholas
"about:" URL's and easter eggs on Netscape
Netscape Navigator and Netscape Communicator recognize several about: URL's that aren't mentioned in the documentation. Some of these serve a useful purpose; others are just there for fun.
Here are some of the URL's. You can type these into the "Location" or "Netsite" field at the top of your browser window, or into the "Open Location" dialog box. Some of these might not work in some versions of Netscape Navigator or Communicator.
You can put the name of some of our developers after about: to see their home page: marca, ari, atotic, blythe, chouck, dmose, dp, ebina, hagan, jeff, jg, jsw, jwz, karlton, kipp, mlm, montulli, mtoy, paquin, robm, sharoni, terry, timm.
Other special URLs:
These all display a field where you can enter a line of JavaScript code which will then be interpreted immediately. ("LiveScript" and "Mocha" were development code-names for JavaScript.)
Typing a question mark (?) in the Location field will bring up a randomly-chosen web search engine. Typing two or more words, separated by spaces, into the Location field will search for them in a randomly-chosen web search engine.
For fun, try these:
CTRL+ALT+F - http://home.netscape.com/fishcam/fishcam.html
CTRL+ALT+S - toggle statusbar on/off
CTRL+ALT+T - active URL's
Stock Quotes
Type:
quote (space) stock symbol
e.g., quote msft will return the current stock price for Microsoft.
Drivers are a widespread problem. If you are having a problem with a peripheral or application, check the vendor's website for a more up-to-date driver. This solves many problems. Also, some software overwrites common drivers with their own, which may cause a previously working peripheral or application to suddenly stop working right.
USB still has problems. Give it some more time to evolve, a lot of the drivers are buggy, especially if written in Taiwan. If you are using USB, you must upgrade to Windows 98.
If you are having any kind of problems with Windows 95 misbehaving, upgrade to Windows 98. But before you do, clean out all the old "trash" - obsolete programs, old files you don't want, etc. It sometimes pays to start with a fresh load of Windows 98, and install all your applications again. This can fix many registry problems that otherwise would get transferred to Windows 98. Even Windows 98 has updates - besides Internet Explorer (IE) 5, there is Service Pack 1, and the Second Edition on CD for $19.95.
You might consider upgrading your browser to IE 5. It is an upgrade as well as a browser.
DVD will replace CD-ROM eventually Pioneer and Toshiba make good units. Since they are backward compatible with CD-ROMs, and are only about a $50 premium over CD-ROMs, it doesn't make sense not to get them on new machines.
If you have a choice between ISDN, Cable Modem and DSL, get DSL. It is much faster than phone line modems, and is not shared, like Cable is.
Digital vs. Film cameras - it really depends on what you do most of the time, but the balance is still mostly toward film. For high volume, multiple copies, fast turn-around, or need to take lots of pictures quickly, film is best. If most of your photos are for low resolution web images, maybe a low-cost digital camera would be a good investment. Even with film, you can get "pictures on a disk" with the prints from Seattle Film Works or Kodak developing.
To transfer art from the creation program into an application (such as Word, PowerPoint, etc.), be careful to insert the art in a format you really want. The default Edit - Copy ; Edit - Paste may not be optimal, and indeed usually is a mistake. Instead use Edit - Copy - Edit - Paste Special... and choose an appropriate format. Enhanced Metafile is often a good choice in Word, or a Bitmap. The point is, decide what is best for your purpose.
Another format you might see is .PDF. This is an Adobe Acrobat file, and you need the Acrobat reader to view it. The viewer is free, downloadable from Adobe, and is a "plug-in" for Netscape; but the generator is $150. The value of the format is that what you publish is what the viewer sees; the browser cannot change anything about the view. This is especially valuable for on-line downloadable forms.
You may sometimes see or get a PostScript file (e.g. text.PRN), which will print just fine, but when you open it for editing in a word processor, you find it is full of garbage. You need Acrobat (the generator), Corel Draw 8.9, or perhaps HiJak's most recent version. PhotoShop will put the document on screen for printing, but may not allow editing.
PowerPoint dark (like a blue gradient) with white or yellow text is very effective, even more so than black on white, when projected or viewed on a screen. But for paper handouts, it is not a good idea.
Visit my site at http://www.altman.com for some useful files and other information.
Our speaker for September is Mr. Bill Gardner, President of Ultraserv, whose subject will be "How To Make A Million A Month."
Bill has been the President since the company's inception over ten years ago, wherein they specialized in support of DEC equipment.
They changed with the marketplace and shifted over to PC networking, at which they have been quite successful. Bill will be covering two areas: "The Organization of a Company to Support Customers" and "Changes in the PC Marketplace."
Beware the "Rebate Scam". As rebates are offered as inducements, the manufacturer has to be losing money on the deal. In discussions with the SPAUG members, I have been made aware that many of the manufacturers are "forgetting" to mail the rebates unless you give them a call to "remind" them that they owe you money. The money that is due but not prodded by the public, is never sent. The lesson is to keep copies of the submission and to bug them into compliance. What really needs to happen, is for a class action suit to be initiated for unclaimed funds, as millions are involved.
There were twelve attendees at the networking Class. I had no idea that there was so much pent up interest in this particular subject. Even though the topic was confined to the software and capabilities of the Microsoft Windows 98 product, I suspect that this covers a lot of the networking going on in the real world.
As always, I attempt to bring topics of relevance and interest to the membership. Linux is a subject that I am attempting to pursue at this time. If there are additional subjects, please let me know.
The SPAUG video projector, was deemed to be marginal at the meeting and at the subsequent Planning Meeting. As the distributor was in Sunnyvale, the Florida-bought projector was taken to Sunnyvale for diagnosis along with the SPAUG laptop. As there was no standard set forth, only by comparison could the failure be seen. The replacement passed the "notebook test" just fine.
Look forward to seeing you September 29 at 7:15. There are going to be some changes at the up-coming elections. I thought that there would not be much change with the elections coming so closely to the last one.
Bev Altman has, for fifteen years, run the membership and the door for us. At one time she made 80 phone calls to put on, almost single-handedly, the Computer Swap that SPAUG used to hold. She has been in the infrastructure of SPAUG for as long as I can remember. She will be missed.
John Sleeman has put out the newsletter for over a year now and wants to go on to a bigger challenge. We need someone to take over as newsletter editor. John has done a great job, but it is time to pass the baton. You are invited to volunteer.
Is anyone interested in the new CD-ROM as Disk of the Month? If so, let me hear what you want, what you don't want, how much (little?) you're willing to pay, how much you're willing to help in the choosing, obtaining (downloading), testing, demonstrating, reviewing, or distributing.
Putting a CD-ROM together is quite an undertaking, and more help from the membership will be required if we want to produce periodic CD-ROM's instead of the DOM on a diskette. My thoughts are along the lines that if we publish mostly free upgrades and programs, with a few shareware "gems", it should be easily worth about $10 every 3 to 4 months. A diskette maxes out at 1.44 MB, while a CD-ROM maxes out at about 600 MB. I would expect to see between 50 and 200 MB on a club CDOM - the equivalent of 30 to 150 diskettes.
Personally, I would like to have a CD with the latest Netscape, Microsoft Internet Explorer, RealPlayer, QuickTime, Acrobat reader, etc. In the event of a disk crash, a new hard drive, or purchase of a new computer, it would be handy to have the "latest and greatest" on one CD. What do you think? Send Stan Hutchings email, let me know what you think.
Our speaker this month is Seth Shostak, head of the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), and he will take us on a virtual tour of the computing facilities of the SETI project. Seth is an astronomer, not a computer person, but his views are eclectic to demonstrate where computers fit into his research projects.
The November speaker will be a representative of Alta Vista who will discuss the business model and the opportunities that they have been pursuing.
We are going to have our elections again in November as a result of the changes in our by-laws.
There are a number of positions that need to be filled if they are not, the function will cease; and we all will be the poorer.
It takes a lot of effort and diverse skills to keep the Club going in a meaningful manner.
Ron Nicholas, with a wedding coming up, has decided to step down from the Secretary position which means that the review of the Random Access must either be pass on to another volunteer or not be included in PrintScreen. He has done a super job of recording the Random Access and then taking the time to transcribe the resulting tape and transmit the results for the benefit of the newsletter. If no one volunteers to do this important function, there will be no review for those who could not make it to the meetings. Further, Ron has been handling the publicity for the Club and finding out that the newspapers are prone to just ignore his efforts. You are invited to call me at 493-9307 if you are willing to aid the Club in this endeavor.
John Sleeman wants to transition, after a year and a half of creating, printing, folding, stamping and mailing a monthly newsletter, into some different activity. Robert Mitchell has agreed to take over the publication of PrintScreen, after a time of transition,.
Robert Page has agreed to do the maintenance of the membership list to permit Bev Altman a break after 15 years of doing it. Both will be on the board.
So there it is, plain as day. If you sitting in the audience do not volunteer to help out where needed, the organization will not function as should like. I will ask the membership to help out where needed; it will be time to volunteer.
I have been astounded that members of a PC Club would not know about the Windows Update function of Microsoft! Specifically, this feature of Internet Explorer permits you to keep your Windows 98 operating system updated to correct for the latest known bugs and security problems.
Windows Update is activated from the Internet Explorer TOOLS menu. Clicking WINDOWS UPDATE will cause Internet Explorer to go to the windows Update page where you can choose what to download. ALL versions of Windows currently have patches that should be downloaded. One should download ALL of the first two sections and then all but the last three of the third one.
While you are there, if you have Office 97 and you are having troubles, you might want to download both SP1 and SP2 (Service Pack 1 and Service Pack 2).
And finally, the networking class went over so well that I thought I might run it again. I make the assumption that any networking class cannot be sipped just once, but that it needs to be experienced several times before all of the information is absorbed. In addition, the use of machine-level peer-to-peer diagnostics, to verify hardware connection, was not demonstrated. I will pass out a sheet to find out interest.
And in closing: Vote, Participate, Guide it - or lose it!
Jim
SETI - the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence.
Seth Shostek of the SETI Institute is this month's speaker. Here are some excerpts from their brochure.
"Could there be intelligent beings elsewhere in the cosmos?"
The world's most comprehensive SETI effort is Project Phoenix, run by the SETI Institute. It searches for signals using mammoth radio telescopes, giant antennas designed for astronomical research. The telescopes are systematically aimed at nearby Sun-like stars in the hope of detecting transmissions from inhabited planets. By the end of the century Phoenix will have scrutinized about 1000 star systems, all within 200 light years of earth.
Telescopes used in the search include the 210 ft Parkes antenna in Australia, the 140 ft telescope in Green Bank W Virginia, and the 1000 ft Arecibo radio/radar telescope in Puerto Rico.
What would happen if we were to detect a signal? Astronomers would work quickly to determine that the transmission is really extraterrestrial. If the broadcast were truly from other beings, the world would quickly be notified. A prompt announcement ensures that astronomers around the world could place the signal under 24-hour scrutiny.
Since the 1993budget cutting act that eliminated NASA's funding for SETI, the Institutes search has been completely financed by private donations.
If you are interested in obtaining additional information on these efforts, or more facts about Project Phoenix, please write, or check out our Web site.
The SETI Institute
2035 Landings Drive,
Mountain View,
CA 94043
On the Web at: http://www.seti.org
Email: info@seti.org
The SPAUG Planning Meeting was begun at 7:15 PM on October 6, 1999 at Jim Dinkey's home. Attendees were Jim Dinkey, John Sleeman, Stan Hutchings, Walt Varner, Ron Nicholas and guest John Buck, a member of the Los Altos Historical Society.
Continuing Business: A carousel slide changer is being sought for October's General Meeting by Jim Dinkey to attach to the Club's computer. It would be for the Presenter's usage during the Guest Presenter's segment of the monthly meeting.
October's General Meeting: Scheduled is Seth Shostak as Guest Presenter talking about the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI).
Treasury: Walt Varner reported the SPAUG treasury has $2706. The income and expenses balance each other. One recent source has been from Jim Dinkey's back office lab. He repairs computers on the condition that the owners make a donation to the Club treasury of whatever the owners feel is appropriate and justified. Many thanks to Jim's generosity and support to our Club
Election of Officers: the November 17 General Meeting will have the election. The existing staff is interested in continuing on except for the Recording Secretary. A candidate is needed who will publish the Planning Meeting Minutes, similar to what you are reading now. Nominations will be accepted for all offices at the General Meeting.
Webmasters: Kendric Smith and Stan Hutchings have gathered sufficient files and programs to use in a CD of the Month (CDOM). For a preview of the files, click here. Twenty CDOM's will be produced for the Club members to purchase for about $20 at coming meetings. Contained therein will be files that are too large for the conventional 1.44MB floppy diskette, or would take many hours of downloading even at the highest modem speeds. They could use suggestions for types and programs names of interest. The programs must be shareware or freeware that can be freely distributed.
Membership: Maintaining the membership list is being assumed by Robert Page.
Editor: The Editor has requested a fully updated membership list each month, not just the individual member changes. The mailing list would ease the generation of address labels. A Co-editor has come forward in the person of Robert Page. Welcome to the inner workings of the Club!
Adjournment was at 9:15 PM.
Respectfully submitted, Ron Nicholas
Q1. I don't know how to get the picture on the screen that is on a website, and print it, other than a screen print which doesn't seem to work?
FB1. Push the print button?
Q1a. And it prints the contents of the screen?
FB2. It prints; does not print the screen but the whole frame you are dealing with.
FB3. In Netscape - it is file print.
FB4. Or the old stand by, hit Print Screen; bring up WRITE, press CNTRL-V to put all stuff into a WRITE doc and the print it.
FB5. Or use that screen shop program from Parsons Tech.
FB6. Or use - print dom depending on what you want to pay for.
FB7. Or save to file first? That might work, but in some cases it doesn't work.
FB8. Another approach is described in the SJ Mercury News Computing Section's Q&A for October 10, 1999.
Q2. I've got some MIME files in AOL, and want to know how to read them.
FB1. In AOL type keyword MIME and follow directions.
FB2. I did and got gibberish and locked up my computer.
FB3. Eudora's claim to fame is that it translates all file extensions.
FB4. Also when Netscape senses a MIME file and there is none available, it raises the question if you want to download the decoder of MIME, and Netscape will do it for you. The file will the be read.
FB5. Another program, Fast Code will also work.
Q3. I've been playing with Linux caldera 2.2 a dual booter. I am now finished with it and want to take it off. Only I can't. The normal un-install does not remove it. Even FDISK to reformat the hard drive is ineffective.
FB1. Jim Dinkey has run into a similar Linux removal problem and made a removal disk. He will look for it.
Paraphrased by Ron Nicholas
I'm new at SPAUG and am benefiting from my membership. Part of my enjoyment of SPAUG is that it's small enough to be comfortable. I can attend a meeting and not expect to be lost in a large group. We can plan events in homes and not expect to be overwhelmed. How long can this continue? People's interests and needs and capabilities change. They leave the area. How should SPAUG to respond to these changes? Seek new members at approximately a replacement rate? Go for growth; and, if so, at what rate? The opportunities presented by a small group where you can hope to know many of the members are considerably different from a group so large that you can be surprised to meet somebody who also claims membership in it.
I joined SPAUG so I could tap into the knowledge of my long-time friend Jim Dinkey. I was amazed at my first general meeting to met two other guys I'd known more than 30 years ago. For purposes of this piece, I was referred to SPAUG by a friend. How did you hear about SPAUG? How do we want other prospective members to hear about SPAUG? Referral by a friend would certainly seem to be the way keep the character of the club we have now. Leaving tracks that can be followed (web site, cards in stores, small announcements in newspapers) could cause a change in that character. GANGBUSTERS ADVERTISING THAT DEMANDS ATTENTION WOULD LIKELY CAUSE AN BIGGER CHANGE IN THE CLUB'S CHARACTER!!!
On my own, I believe I would never have found SPAUG or been induced into attending a meeting. I tend not to hang out in computer stores—or stores of any kind, actually. The string "SPAUG" does not come naturally to mind. Whether it's intentional or not, this group is hard to find. If we want to be found, how can we help those who are searching? Particularly on the web, where we don't have to