Jul 2010 - WINNERS – WINdows usERS
Transcription
Jul 2010 - WINNERS – WINdows usERS
July 2010 Inside July Meeting ...............................1 Computer Books ..........................2 Be a top chef with Office templates from the Crabby Office Lady ....4 MS Word and Excel Tip ..............6 USB Graphics Adapter ..............7 Wolfram AlphaKnowledge ..........8 Free Utilities from CPUID ..........10 Hints for the Wannabe Blogger .13 A Tale of Two Printers, a Scanner, and a CD Drive ...........................14 Smart Computing Mag Tips ......16 Online Calendars ............16 Make Firefox Even Better ......18 The Slickdeals Approach to Cable Company Negotiations ............20 Converting Slides to Digital 21 Fountain Valley Branch Library 17635 Los Alamos, Fountain Valley meetings on 3rd Saturday 10:00 am to 12:30 pm Future Meeting Dates August 21 September 18 October 23 (4th Saturday) Novermber 20 Membership Annual membership is $20 for indivduals: $5 for each additional family members. July Meeting D-Link came and showed us their latest in networking such as their: DIR-825 Extreme N Dual Band Gigabit Router. It's like two routers in one. This Xtreme N® router operates on dual band Wi-Fi signals, making it easy to stream HD content while browsing the Internet without bogging down your network. Benefits Of Dual Band The D-Link® Xtreme N™ Dual Band Gigabit Router (DIR825) uses dual band technology to support 2.4GHz & 5GHz wireless signals at the same time. This allows you to check e-mail and browse the Internet using the 2.4GHz band while simultaneously streaming High-Definition (HD) movies and other media on the 5GHz band. The DIR-825 is designed for users looking to get a true HD wireless connection that can handle multiple HD video streams throughout the house, while being backward compatible with existing 802.11g and 802.11a products. SHAREPORT™ With SharePort technology, you can connect a USB printer and share it throughout your network. You can also share a USB storage device, providing network storage for everyone to share. Why Intelligent QoS Is Better! With some routers, all wired and wireless traffic, including Voice over IP (VoIP), Video Streaming, Online Gaming, and Web browsing are mixed together into a single data stream. With the D-Link Intelligent QoS Prioritization Technology, wired and wireless traffic are analyzed and separated into multiple data streams. These streams are then categorized by sensitivity to delay, so applications like VoIP, Video Streaming, and Online Gaming can be given top priority. This enables multiple applications to stream smoothly to your TV or PC. The new Xtreme N Storage Router (DIR-685) makes networking easier by combining the superior features of a wireless N router, a built-in Network Attached Storage (NAS) and a digital photo frame. Experience faster speed and longer range in your home or office network with the latest 802.11n 2.4GHz wireless technology. By adding a 2.5" SATA Hard Drive, the DIR-685 allows you to share storage over your network and access files over the Internet with the built-in FTP server. Featuring a built-in UPnP® AV server, streaming network stored videos through a compatible media player onto your television has never been easier thanks to the DIR-685. Board of Directors President Terry Currier winnersug(at)aol.com Vice-President Steve Dela stevede(at)aol.com Secretary Gerry Bretts gbretts(at)juno.com Treasurer Max Lockie mlockie(at)pobox.com Board Members Ethel Kamber ethel(at)kamber.fastmail.fm Ken Kamber kenkamber(at)mail.com Louise McCain LMcEnterprises(at)ol.com Ed Koran edk246(at)aol.com Robin Theron rtheron(at)gmail.com Editor editor(at)windowsusers.org WINNERS, contributors and editors of Notepad do not assume liability for dameages arising from the publication or non-publication of any advertisement, article, editorial, or other item in this newsletter. All opionions express are those of the individual authors only and do not necessarily represent the opionions of the WINNERS, its Board of Directors, the WINNERS Notepad, or its editors. WINNERS a computer association, is a volunteer organization providing a forum for sharing information and experiences related to Windows-based software, and hardware, encouraging ethical use of computers and software, offering service to our communities. Oreilly Books DocBook 5: The Definitive Guide By Norman Walsh Get 35% off from O’Reilly, No Starch, Paraglyph, PC Publishing, Pragmatic Bookshelf, Rocky Nook, SitePoint, or YoungJin books and ebooks you purchase directly from O’Reilly. Just use code DSUG when ordering online or by phone 800-998-9938. Save 40% on All Microsoft Press Books and 50% on Ebooks Latest Books FileMaker Pro 11: The Missing Manual By Susan Prosser, Stuart Gripman Access 2010: The Missing Manual By Matthew MacDonald USER GROUP COUPON CODE We provide your group members with a 35% discount off the list price of any of our books. At checkout, right before entering their credit card information, they must enter the user group coupon code UE-23AA-PEUF (casesensitive). This coupon code is an exclusive offer that may not be used in conjunction with any other coupon codes. http://www.oreilly.com Beautiful Visualization By Julie Steele, Noah Iliinsky Diagnosing and Fixing MySQL Performance Problems By Baron Schwartz, Morgan Tocker Doing Business on Facebook: The Mini Missing Manual By E. A. Vander Veer Dreamweaver CS5: The Missing Manual By David Sawyer McFarland Excel 2010: The Missing Manual By Matthew MacDonald Getting Started with Processing By Ben Fry, Casey Reas Handling Real-time Geostreams By Raffi Krikorian The Canon Camera Hackers Manual By Berthold Daum Creating iPhone Apps with Cocoa Touch: The Mini Missing Manual By Craig Hockenberry Digital Photography for the Web By Paul Duncanson Flash CS5: The Missing Manual By Chris Grover Hackers By Steven Levy Peachpit Books Peachpit Photo Club Peachpit announces the Peachpit Photo Club. On the third Tuesday of every month, at 8 p.m. EST/5 p.m. PST, join us for a webcast featuring your favorite digital photographers! The photographer will present some of their work, provide you with some insight and inspiration, and answer your burning questions. To keep the creative juices flowing, Photo Club members will receive a fun assignment at the end of the session. Members can complete the assignment on their own, or team up with others in their area. Either way, once the assignment is completed, Photo Club members can upload their work to the Peachpit Photo Club Flickr Group where your friends at Peachpit, and some of our photography authors, will help critique your work. And of course, there will be a chance for prizes! FRIDAY FREEBIES We’re doing weekly #FridayFreebies giveaways on Twitter. To participate, just follow @Peachpit & look for the weekly #FridayFreebies blog post at peachpit.com/blogs. We’ll be giving away some great prizes—from books and videos to T-shirts and pieces of memorabilia. You can also partake in more fun over at the Peachpit Facebook fan page, at facebook.com/ peachpitpress. Latest Books InDesign Type: Professional Typography with Adobe InDesign, Second Edition By Nigel French List Price: $44.99 Adobe After Effects CS5 Classroom in a Book By Adobe Creative Team List Price: $59.99 Canon 7D: From Snapshots to Great Shots By Nicole S. Young List Price: $24.99 Adobe Photoshop CS5 Classroom in a Book By Adobe Creative Team List Price: $54.99 Photoshop CS5 for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickStart Guide By Elaine Weinmann and Peter Lourekas List Price: $34.99 The Photoshop CS5 Pocket Guide By Brie Gyncild List Price: $14.99 Understanding Adobe Photoshop CS5: The Essential Techniques for Imaging Professionals By Richard Harrington List Price: $54.99 The iPad Pocket Guide By Jeff Carlson List Price: $14.99 Microsoft Office 2010 for Windows: Visual QuickStart Guide By Steve Schwartz List Price: $24.99 ActionScript 3.0 for Adobe Flash Professional CS5 Classroom in a Book By Adobe Creative Team List Price: $59.99 Adobe ColdFusion 9 Web Application Construction Kit, Volume 1: Getting Started By Ben Forta List Price: $59.99 Adobe Flash Platform from Start to Finish: Working Collaboratively Using Adobe Creative Suite 5 By Aaron Pedersen, James Polanco, and Doug Winnie List Price: $39.99 Adobe Flex 4: Training from the Source, Volume 1 By Michael Labriola, Jeff Tapper and Matthew Boles List Price: $49.99 Dreamweaver CS5 for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickStart Guide By Tom Negrino and Dori Smith List Price: $29.99 Effortless Flex 4 Development By Larry Ullman List Price: $44.99 The HTML Pocket Guide By Bruce Hyslop List Price: $14 Adobe Creative Suite 5 Design Premium Classroom in a Book By Adobe Creative Team List Price: $54.99 Real World Adobe Illustrator CS5 By Mordy Golding List Price: $54.99 Digital Photography Photoshop Lightroom 3: Visual QuickStart Guide By Nolan Hester List Price: $29.99 Apress Books Latest books Taking Your iPad to the Max Gives you the tips and techniques you need to get the most out of your new iPad. You’ll learn all about the built-in apps, including Mail, Calendar, and iTunes, as well as the brand-new iBooks. And, of course, you’ll get all of the advanced shortcuts and techniques that will leave fellow iPad users in the dust. Learn to manipulate the iPad and its tens of thousands of apps Watch, read and listen more with endless movies, books and music at your fingertips Use iPad as a professional office tool to create rich documents, spreadsheets, and presentations Pro ASP.NET MVC 2 Framework, Second Edition by Steven Sanderson eBook Now Available, Print Now Available Author Steven Sanderson has seen the ASP.NET MVC Framework mature from the start. No one is more qualified to show you how to maximize the framework’s new high-productivity programming model that promotes cleaner code architecture, testdriven development, and powerful extensibility. User or developer, harness the power of SharePoint 2010 by Martin Döring, Joerg Krause, Christian Langhirt, Bernd Pehlke, Alexander Sterff eBook Now Available, Print Now Available Office and SharePoint 2010 User’s Guide: Integrating SharePoint with Excel, Outlook, Access and Word by Michael Antonovich Pro WF: Windows Workflow in .NET 4 As business problems become more complex, the need for workflow-based solutions has never been more evident. This book by Bruce Bukovics gives you the skills you need to incorporate WF in your applications, using a lively tutorial style with each example clearly illustrated in C#. WF 4 basics New activities and changes to existing activities in WF 4 Customizing your workflows Accessing your workflows in a variety of ways in a variety of situations Using WF with Web Services and ASP.NET Integrating WCF and WF Other books Beginning Google Blogger Introducing Silverlight 4 Beginning Google Maps API 3 Beginning SQL Server Modeling: Model-Driven Application Development in SQL Server 2008 Be your own top chef with Office templates Crabby Office Lady You’re a foodie and everyone knows and enjoys that about you. You can bring home the bacon (or is that pancetta?), fry it up in a pan (copper of course), and wrap it around some seared scallops... Have I got some fresh and juicy templates for you to devour. ________________________________________ Read all the Crabby Office Lady columns Get the Crabby Office Lady’s book Crabby’s blog Crabby’s podcasts ________________________________________ Whether you are a fabulous cook or just like to watch the shenanigans on TV’s Top Chef, food is an important part of your life. And in this age of multitasking, multi-jobs, and multi-activities for the kids, it’s nice to slow down and actually enjoy a meal. Today’s column is all about food. As you know, I’m a big fan of the Office templates; whether you’re the one who does the cooking at home or you’re considering opening up a restaurant of your own, we have a template for that. Meal planning at home Thanks to a tanking economy, people are staying in more often and cooking for themselves, as opposed to going out. Although you might have found that sitting around with family over a home-cooked meal, talking about the day is less dreadful than you’d imagined, the meals themselves can be a source of stress: Where is that recipe? Do I have the ingredients? And, of course, am I up to cooking it? Regarding the recipes: If you’re like me, you have index cards and pages ripped out of spiral notebooks with recipes that you’ve gathered over the years. I’m sure your Hungarian grandmother would be mortified if she saw how you treat her cherished goulash recipe. You want to get organized, but how? Recipe cards are a good way to start. Then there’s all that planning and shopping and such. What if you had a grocery list? If you can make a one-time list of the things that you regularly buy and prepare, the trips to the market and the budgeting that goes along with them can become less of a hassle. Take a look at some sample templates below and then after your read this column, fly away and hunt for why not now? If you’re covered on the hard stuff (business plans, start-up expense spreadsheets, hiring, and so on), then you can just concentrate on the food. Here are some templates to help you get started: Start up expenses Bank loan request for a small business Five year plan (service industry) Natural Gas Flame Design Slide NOTE This one might be good for a business plan in PowerPoint. Grand opening banner Send me an invitation to opening night, won’t you? More foodie templates templates that speak to you. There is so much more to food than could ever fill just one column, but here are a few more templates to help fill your bellies. Tip calculator Chef resume Daily food diary Nutrition journal Food fat percentage calculator Party planner Templates home page Weekly meal planner Labels for home-made jelly Invitation to a BBQ Restaurants Because people are eating out less, eateries have to work harder to compete for customer loyalty. If you own a restaurant, you’ve got to run a tight ship and make sure your menus are up-to-date and look great (please, no coffee cup rings). You can also let your customers know that you value them with surveys and gift certificates. Give the people what they want and they will come back. (“Billions and billions” of McDonald’s consumers can’t be wrong...can they?) Wine/Dessert menu Restaurant survey Restaurant gift certificate More gift certificates Weekly schedule (restaurant) Opening a new restaurants Money won’t be tight forever...and the small businessperson stands a chance to thrive when things get better. You’ve always wanted to open your own restaurant; “In department stores, so much kitchen equipment is bought indiscriminately by people who just come in for men’s underwear.” — Julia Child Annik Stahl, the Crabby Office Lady columnist, takes all of your complaints, compliments, and knee-jerk reactions to heart. Therefore, she graciously asks that you let her know whether this column was useful to you — or not — by entering your feedback using the Was this information helpful? tool below. And remember: If you don’t vote, you can’t complain. Inserting a Non-Breaking Hyphen When Microsoft Word calculates line length and wraps text to the next line, it tries to wrap (or break) the line at a space or a hyphen—a dash. Sometimes, however, you may not want Word to break a line at a dash. For instance, dashes are used in telephone numbers, and you might not want a line to break in the middle of a telephone number. Indenting Cell Contents Microsoft Excel allows you to format the contents of a cell in a myriad of ways. One of the formatting options you can apply is to indent the contents of a cell by a certain amount. This is similar to indenting done in a word processor, such as Microsoft Word, except that the indenting is specified in a number of characters, not in a linear distance such as inches or points. To set the indent to be used in a cell, follow these steps: 1. Select the cells you want to format. 2. Display the Format Cells dialog box. (In Excel 2007 display the Home tab of the ribbon and click the small icon at the lower-right corner of the Number group. In older versions of Excel choose Cells from the Format menu.) 3. Make sure the Alignment tab is selected. The Alignment tab of the Format Cells dialog box. The answer is to use non-breaking hyphens instead of regular dashes when you don’t want Word to break a line at the hyphen. To do this, hold down the Ctrl and Shift keys as you type the dash (this is the same as typing Ctrl and an underscore). Word will then not break the line at that point. You can also insert a non-breaking hyphen by following these steps: 1. Choose Symbol from the Insert menu or, in Word 2007, display the Insert tab of the ribbon, click Symbol in the Symbols group, and finally click More Symbols. This displays the Insert Symbol dialog box. 2. Click on the Special Characters tab. The Special Characters tab of the Symbol dialog box. 3. Highlight the Nonbreaking Hyphen character. 4. Click on Insert. 5. Close the dialog box by clicking on Cancel. Copyright © 2010 by Sharon Parq Associates, Inc. Reprinted by permission. Thousands of free Microsoft Word tips can be found online at http://word.tips.net. 4. In the Horizontal drop-down list, choose Left (Indent). If you are using Excel 2002 or a later version, you can also choose Right (Indent). 5. Using the Indent control, specify the number of characters by which the cell contents should be indented from either the left or right side of the cell. You can pick any whole number between 0 and 15. 6. Click on OK. Copyright © 2010 by Sharon Parq Associates, Inc. Reprinted by permission. Thousands of free Microsoft Excel tips can be found online at http://excel.tips.net. DisplayLink DL-195 By Terry Currier If you’ve never had the chance to work with two monitors, you’re missing a really useful tool. Monitor viewing space is akin to closet space. You add more closets to your house to help clear up clutter and what happens? You get more junk to fill them up. Monitors started out being 13” (diagonal) in size, 15” was great. Then 17” CRT were the standard and people loved them. Now you would be hard pressed to find under 19” LCD monitors for sale. When I brought my Gateway computer it came with a 22”, and I remember having to lean back to get use to it. The more you use the computer you’ll start opening more programs. There are times when you are working with more than one program and switching back and forth from each. You try to arrange the program windows so you can see and use them with just using the mouse. What usually happens is you can’t see well enough so you go to full screen. The DisplayLink DL-195 makes it possible to connect to a second monitor through a USB connection. Essentially it’s a graphics adapter with a USB connector, so you don’t have to open your computer to set it up. It is rated to go up to resolutions of 2048x1152 with full 32-bit color graphics. While not quite “plug and display” it was very easy to do, and somewhat of a surprise. The surprise came when connecting it from my computer front USB (2.0) port to my Vizio LCD TV. It is one of the new ones so it has all the fancy connections in the back. When I connected it, a pop-up showed asking if I wanted to allow autoplay to start. I did not realize there was software on the unit itself. In fact Windows Explorer showed it as a CD drive. It also did not display onto the monitor/TV until I ran the software. After I installed the software I set up the second display as an extend desktop. This works out especially great for doing photo, or video editing. I have the program open on the main screen and Windows Explorer in the extended one so I can see ahead what to work on. FYI, the unit I have is with a DVI connection. I did have to use a converter to VGA since I did not have a DVI cord long enough, but I did have a VGA one. They do make units with VGA connections. If you go to the DisplayLink website you won’t find them for sale. They make them as OEM, and there are link connections to the many companies that sell such units. IOGEAR in fact has a wireless unit ($180) so you don’t have to run a cord. Supported Operating Systems: • Microsoft Windows Vista (32-Bit and 64-Bit), including Vista Aero 3D support • Microsoft Windows 7 (32-Bit and 64-Bit) • Microsoft Windows XP SP3 • Microsoft Window 2000 SP4 • Apple Mac OS X 10.4/10.5 (Intel-based Apple Computers) WolframAlpha - Computational Knowledge Engine by Ira Wilsker WEBSITES: http://www.wolframalpha.com http://www.wolframalpha.com/examples/ http://www.wolframalpha.com/about.html http://www.wolframalpha.com/downloads.html We are all familiar with the common search engines, such as Google, Bing, AllTheWeb, and Yahoo. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of search engines, and they all pretty much provide somewhat the same information. Last year Microsoft introduced Bing, its latest search engine iteration, which also had some decision making capabilities and built-in intelligence. Microsoft used its power and wealth to inundate the computing world with information and promotional materials about Bing in an attempt to steal market share from Google and the other major search engine providers. At about the same time (May 15, 2009), a much smaller company, Wolfram Research, the publisher of the Mathematica software, introduced its computational knowledge engine WolframAlpha. WolframAlpha is not a traditional search engine that displays listings of web links, but instead displays the answer to a question, formula, or other inquiry. For example, if I type “Beaumont Texas” in Google, I am presented with a listing of nearly 7 million web links containing the term “Beaumont Texas”, with some rank ordering placing the most popular results near the top of the display. If I type “Beaumont Texas” in the search box on WolframAlpha (www.wolframalpha.com), it directly displays the facts about the topic. In this case, WolframAlpha displayed the population, map, current local time and weather, cost of living index, median home price, unemployment rate, sale tax rate, crime rate, commute time, geographic information, links to the county and nearby cities, and a hyperlinked list of famous people born in Beaumont. WolframAlpha displays a lot more than just text, as it is a powerful computational engine. There is an entire menu consisting of hundreds of sample inquiry topics at www.wolframalpha.com/examples, and some other suggestions in the margins of several of the pages that the user can utilize to practice on the system, and master some of its powerful features. One of the suggested sample ideas is to enter the user’s date of birth; I entered mine and was presented with a lot of information about my birthday. The results showed my age in years, weeks, and days; holidays and observances that are held on my birthday; historical events that occurred on that day (not necessarily in the same year) and a listing of celebrity and historical figures who were born or died on that day. Other information is displayed about the selected date, including the moon phase on the day I was born. By entering one or more stock symbols, a wealth of information is displayed. As a test, I entered the symbol “VZ” for Verizon, and was presented with current price information, financial fundamentals, dividend and yield, historical returns, a large variety of charts, performance comparisons between Verizon and it competitors, histograms, and other detailed information about the company. WolframAlpha is one of the handiest and most informative calculators available. Using the example “$250 + 15%” displays both the result ($287.50) and how it was calculated; this could be a great tool for teaching basic arithmetic. Mathematical formulae are computed with ease, displaying detailed results of the computation. Using the digital term “ x^2 sin(x)” (x squared times sine of x) displays graphical plots on various scales, alternate forms of the mathematical expression, roots, derivatives, and other functions. Math and simple facts are not the only computational capabilities of this excellent service; it also has hundreds of other forms of information that can be calculated and displayed. Other areas in which WolframAlpha can provide extensive information are statistics and data analysis, physics, chemistry, engineering, astronomy, earth and life sciences, money and finance, dates and times, places and geography, socioeconomic data, weather, health and medicine, food and nutrition, sports and games, music, and many other topics. Users of my weather page sometimes ask me for historical weather information, usually for a specific date and location; as a default, WolframAlpha uses the location of the computer requesting the information, which is in my case, Beaumont. I simply entered “weather summer 2008” (for other locations enter the city or other geographic information), and was presented with time and temperature ranges, humidity, graphs showing meteorological information, and information about the weather stations that gathered the information presented. I picked this particular search to display the effects of Hurricane Ike, such as the wind speed and barometric pressure, which conspicuously stand out on the graphs. Using the hurricane template under the topics menu, the user is presented with detailed information on a particular storm, wind speeds, and comparisons. Using the comparison feature, I compared Rita to Ike by entering the search term, “Hurricane Ike, Hurricane Rita”, and was presented with a table comparing those two local disasters. Rita was the stronger storm, but according to the composite tracking chart displayed, both had nearly identical tracks. The amount of computational knowledge available from WolframAlpha is almost endless. If the user needs to calculate monthly payments and an amortization table, this can do it. If an investor needs commodity and futures prices, WolframAlpha provides that information in detail. Mortgage terms can be directly compared; by searching with the expression, “mortgage $150,000, 6.5%, 30 years” produces charts and graphs that display the monthly payments, graphical comparison of principle and interest over time, and other information. Present values, currency conversions, bond evaluations, different forms of options and derivatives, salaries, wages, income taxes, sales taxes, and historical financial information are easy to determine with WolframAlpha. In the economics classes that I teach every semester, the students are asked to calculate what has happened to prices over their lifetimes, and what may happen to prices when they are ready to retire. Using this engine the students can instantly calculate the current value of a historical quantity of money ($1000 in 1965 is worth what today?), compute historical equivalent value of today’s money ($1000 today compared to 1980), and convert one historical quantity of money to another ($1000 in 1945 was worth what in 1990?). While WolframAlpha is accessible from any internet browser, it is also accessible using other means, without a browser, or as a browser plug-in to automate the computational process. From the website at wolframalpha.com/downloads.html, the user can put a gadget, widget, or deskband on his desktop (Mac OS X, Vista and Windows 7) to enable him to access information directly from his desktop. WolframAlpha toolbars are available for Internet Explorer, Chrome, and Firefox which enable searching from the browser toolbar. Firefox and IE8 users can add WolframAlpha as a search engine add-on, automating the search function from the browser menu. Apps (applications) are available for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch that enable users of those devices to directly access the capacity of this service. Regardless of how accessed, the massive capabilities of WolframAlpha are readily available. Now that I have had some experience with WolframAlpha, I will be more likely to use it to acquire information and calculate data, and less likely to use the traditional search engines such as Google when I need to find something. WolframAlpha is one of those services that I did not originally know that I needed, but now I cannot do without it. Free Utilities from CPUID Describe System Details by Ira Wilsker WEBSITES: http://www.cpuid.com http://www.cpuid.com/softwares.html As regular readers of this column know, I am a fan of utilities, especially if they are free! Frequently, situations arise where it is necessary to know the details of a computer, including specifics about its software, hardware, drivers, and other components in order to diagnose a problem and make recommendations. There are several fine utilities that can perform these functions, but several that I have been using recently come from the historical city of Dunkerque, France, courtesy of their publisher CPUID Software. CPUID software is best known for its namesake product, CPUID, which is as it says, a utility to identify the details of the CPU chip installed in a computer. This is often necessary to know if the computer is being benchmarked (performance measured), upgraded, or undergoing major repairs. The latest CPUID software is named CPU-Z, version 1.55. This small utility displays the processor brand and model number, the type of socket it uses (necessary to know for replacement or upgrades), speeds, and other details about the CPU chip, which is the central “brains” of the computer. Sometimes it is desirable or necessary to replace a motherboard, or determine the BIOS on the motherboard. The motherboard is the central platform on which most of the other internal components are either directly attached to, or otherwise connected to, and provides much of the internal communication between the components. While generally very reliable and long lived, sometimes it is necessary to replace a motherboard. The BIOS, an acronym for “Basic Input - Output System” is typically attached to the motherboard, and contains the first code run by a PC when it is initially powered on. The BIOS identifies and initializes the video card, keyboard, mouse, hard drive, CD/DVD drive, and other key components. The BIOS contains software in a non-volatile ROM chip, and is typically firmly attached to the motherboard. Most BIOS chips can be updated and upgraded with software provided either by the BIOS manufacturer, motherboard maker, or computer manufacturer. CPU-Z identifies the brand of BIOS, the version of its software, and the date of the software stored in it; with this information, it is somewhat easy to determine if the BIOS contains the latest software. Keeping the BIOS updated is not a critical task if everything appears to be working OK, but for those of us always trying to tweak our computers and capitalize in the latest offerings, this is good information to have. One warning is appropriate here; if the user is considering updating the BIOS, be absolutely sure to explicitly follow the manufacturer’s directions to the letter! In a worst case scenario, failure to do so will result in an expensive paperweight, but in many cases, there is a procedure to “roll back” or restore the BIOS to its earlier status. When I ask people how much memory they have in their computer, they are often clueless, or erroneously confuse the memory with the storage capacity of their hard drives. Clicking on the “Memory” tab of CPU-Z displays the type of memory, the amount of memory, speed, and other characteristics. The “SPD” tap allows the user to cycle through the memory stick installed in his computer, displaying the capacity of each stick, the type, manufacturer, part number, and other information. This information may be necessary if the user wants to add or replace memory in the computer. The “Graphics” tab displays information about the display device, including the brand, model number, chipset, speed, and memory. Since the video card makers often release updates, enhancements, and new features, this information could be very useful. CPUID also publishes several other utilities, and another one that I found useful is PC Wizard 2010. PC Wizard was first published in 1996, and is considered one of the most comprehensive system information utilities available. Since the hardware industry is very dynamic, with new hardware being introduced on a daily basis, PC Wizard is frequently updated, typically monthly. In addition to identifying and displaying the details of the hardware and software on the computer, PC Wizard can also benchmark the performance of the individual computer components, as well as the entire computer. By noting which components and software are the performance laggards, the user can then determine what, if any, practical solutions may improve performance. PC Wizard utilizes a series of icons representing each of the components or software titles installed on the computer, and can determine the hardware, configuration, system files, and resources used by the computer. The benchmark selection can test and display the performance of the entire computer, the CPU (processor chip), memory, video, hard drive, external storage devices (like CD/DVD and USB drives), and other hardware components. In addition to displaying the performance of the hardware itself, a “Compare Results” shows how the user’s computer compares to others. The results are also displayed and announced (audio) using the wizard avatar and voice synthesis similar to the “Vox Proxy” PowerPoint accessory. PC Wizard provides the user with a wealth of information. While CPUID has several utilities available for free download, one of those that I also found very useful is HWMonitor, which is a shortened “Hardware Monitor”. This utility is also available in an enhanced commercial version, HWMonitor Pro, which adds additional features and functionality. HWMonitor (the free version) can identify the power supply in the computer, and display the real-time voltages, temperatures, and fans in the power supply. This is important to monitor the health of the power supply, and consider a replacement or upgrade if necessary. Many users are unaware that their computers report the temperatures of various components in the computer, which is important in that heat is one of the big killers of components. Being somewhat colonial, I selected to display the temperatures in Fahrenheit (F) rather than Celsius (C). Usually there are some fans in each computer which are critical in exhausting the heat from the components, and bring in cool outside air. HWMonitor tracks and reports the performance of the fans, which can enable the user to easily and quickly see if a fan is failing; a dead fan can lead to overheating and damage or destruction of the computer’s components. This utility can also track and report on the temperatures of the motherboard, CPU chip, video card, and hard drive. Most of these utilities are available for 32 and 64 bit Windows PCs using recent versions of Windows such as XP, Vista, and Windows 7, although some of the utilities also have builds that are explicitly for Windows 98. The files are relatively small and fast to download, and consume minimal system resources, such that they do not noticeably degrade system performance. These utilities could be a useful asset to anyone who wants to keep up with the performance, condition, and health of his system. Hints for the Wannabe Blogger By Joan McIlmoyl Cleghorn, a member of Big Blue and Cousins, Canada www.bbcc.org joansjoy (at) gmail.com This article has been obtained from APCUG with the author’s permission for publication by APCUG member groups; all other uses require the permission of the author (see e-mail address above). Do I Need Or Want to Have a Blog? Now, for many, the first question is “what on earth is a blog?” and, “why would I want one?” The origin of the actual word ‘blog’ comes from the definition of what it really is – a web log – which then became shortened to ‘blog’. People are using blogs for many varied purposes. Some use them like a personal diary, as though the world is truly fascinated by the minutiae of their daily lives (though in the case of celebs, that may be the case). Others, for sharing their knowledge of a particular subject which doesn’t necessarily lend itself to publishing a book; and still reporting on the constantly changing happenings in a specific area of interest. In many instances now, professional reporters, whether radio, TV or in print, are writing blogs as well as their regular reporting functions. Others, for reporting on the constantly changing happenings in a specific area of interest. There are two advantages of using blogs over publishing in the more traditional ways – first, they can be interactive, allowing the readers to make comments, add to the information or contradict the writer; and, second, as mentioned, the ability to update immediately with new or additional information. My purpose in starting a blog at the end of June was prompted by an article in the Family Chronicle which pointed out how, by publishing a family history book, relations that you’d never known or connected with would suddenly contact you. This struck a chord with me as I was in the midst of planning a family history book and wanted to connect with others researching this same family. Obviously, publishing a book wasn’t the answer for my particular situation. After some thought on this, I decided to investigate what was involved in creating a blog, thinking this might accomplish my purpose. Of course, one can use any of the social media sites such as MySpace, Facebook, etc. as a type of blog. However, I was looking for specific ‘blog’ sites. Well, typing ‘free blog sites’ into Google gave me far more results than I could have dreamed of! Fortunately, there were two with which I was somewhat familiar so I opted to check them out first. I wanted simple and easy to use.....nothing fancy, just the ability to type whatever I wanted to post and have it work. Obviously I was asking a lot for anything connected with technology right? Actually, wrong. I was able to set up the blog, type out my first posting and have it online within an hour! You want a site that gives clear, easy to understand directions and allows you to have some choices on the appearance or theme of your blog. Also, if you want some interaction with your readers, make it easy for them to add their comments. The site I chose definitely qualified under these points; much more so than the second site I checked out. I also checked out a few that I wasn’t as familiar with and found that my first choice was still the best for my purpose. The two choices I initially checked out were Google’s Blogspot and Wordpress. They can be found at www.blogspot.com and www.wordpress.com; however, be sure to check out some of the others as well. Should you decide to start a blog, there is one caveat I’d both read about as well as heard about from others – don’t start posting, and collecting followers of the site, only to lose interest, and just stop posting, or become very erratic in your postings. When first starting my blog, I hoped to post about three times a week, with no less than once a week. In the nine weeks since I started, I’ve made 18 posts so have averaged two per week, even though I had a couple of weeks when I didn’t make any posts due to the death of my mother. Now, was posting my blog successful in my original purpose? So far, yes. I’ve heard from a couple of researchers with whom I’d lost contact a number of years ago, plus another couple of whom I’d never heard, so I certainly accomplished that part of my goal. Another bonus is the information I’m gaining from those connections that I might not have otherwise found. Should you wish to take a look at my blog, here’s the address: www.mcilmoylfamna. blogspot.com . If you decide that having a blog is something you’d like to do, I wish you well, and have fun with it! For tips on ‘how to blog’ just type ‘blog tutorial’ into a search engine and you’ll find lots of choices. End of Article - End of Article - End of Article - End of Article End of Article - End of Article A Tale of Two Printers, a Scanner, and a CD Drive Written by Bruce Preston, president of West Mountain Systems, Inc., www.dacs.org bpreston (at) mags.net. This article has been obtained from APCUG with the author’s permission for publication by APCUG member groups; all other uses require the permission of the author (see e-mail address above). Printer #1: About two months ago, my friend/dentist called to say that he had a problem with his Epson Stylus CX-3810 Multifunction printer. Usually when he printed, a pop-up window would appear showing the level of his ink cartridges. This had disappeared. In addition he could not get it to appear when he went to the printer’s property page by way of Control Panel > Printers. He had wasted two hours on the phone with Epson’s support “somewhere” - they had him uninstall the printer and reinstall it twice, and finally they used the generic “not my problem” cure - they told him to “reinstall Windows.” Fortunately he didn’t follow that instruction. Printer #2: About a week ago, I had a problem with my HP OfficeJet 6310, a multifunction printer. It just ceased to respond to print requests, although the scan and copy functions worked just fine. I tried doing a “repair install.” HP’s large hourglass thing came up for a while, a screen flashed by too fast to read, and the setup utility concluded before asking me what to do. I went to the HP site and found that they had a 38MB download of basic drivers for “Corporate Use Only.” Reading the description, it detailed that this was a lightweight install for distributing over a corporate network such that the printer’s functions could be shared over a local area network (which I do) without the baggage (not their phrasing) of all the addon software that the consumer installation puts on each machine. The consumer install puts “HP Director” - a dashboard application, various photo manipulation software, various photo sharing software, and the ubiquitous automatic check for updates application. The one thing that it would lose would be the ability to send a scan to a desktop application at a selected machine by pushing buttons on the printer’s control panel – “pushing” the scan to the computer rather than “pulling” it from the computer. This is a feature I don’t need. The lightweight install was just what I wanted. In addition, it said that if it found the consumer drivers it would uninstall them. I downloaded it and cranked up the installation program from the command line as instructed. Again, I got the large hourglass, a too-fastto-read pop-up, and then nothing. Scanner: About a month ago there was a Q&A Posting on SmartComputing where a reader had a problem with an Epson Perfection 2580 scanner. Upon pushing the scan button he got a message on his computer’s display that a DLL was unable to save the file. Previously it had worked fine. He too had not gotten a solution from Epson support. CD Drive: About two weeks ago a friend of mine in Michigan had a problem with a CD drive. It “just disappeared.” When she had installed an upgrade to her antivirus software it had complained about an incompatibility with the CD burner software (the software came with the machine when new). She ran the uninstall program which crashed, and the drive disappeared from the device manager. What do all of these have in common? It appears that all the problems were caused by corrupted registry entries. It is unknown what might have corrupted the registry entries, perhaps an update from either the vendor or Microsoft - but I won’t point fingers without evidence. Whatever the cause, the standard response of “uninstall/reinstall” or “repair reinstall” didn’t fix the system. The good news is that free RevoUninstaller from www.revouninstaller.com resolved all four problems in minutes. After uninstalling the broken software we were able to install components without a problem. RevoUninstaller loads quickly and presents you with a very inclusive list of things that it offers to remove for you. I found it notable that it presented the list within a second whereas the standard Add/Remove Programs takes about a minute to populate on my machine. When you select something to uninstall, it gives you three options: 1) Safe - fast uninstall and a scan of the hard disk for left over files. 2) Moderate - same as Safe with an additional extended scan of the system registry for left over entries. 3) Advanced - Same as Moderate but with a deeper registry scan. Takes a bit more time but finds and/or clears more. I have always used the “Advanced” option. RevoUninstaller analyzes the application for a moment and then uses the application’s native uninstall mechanism first. Upon completion it then does its own digging. When done, it presents you with a treeview of what it found in the registry with full path to the registry keys. The items it suggests for deletion are shown in bold, and have an adjacent check box. I have always used the SELECT ALL and the DELETE button. Having cleaned the registry of leftover, it then displays a similar page with a list of leftover files, and gives you the same option of selecting files for deletion. Again, I have used SELECT ALL and DELETE to good effect. Why it works - this is just an educated guess. When an application is installed, along with the core .EXE files the vendors often include a multitude of dynamic link libraries - DLLs, which are either provided by the vendor or a third party. These DLLs provide common functionality across products. (For example, almost every application in Windows is likely to make use of COMDLG32.DLL from Microsoft - this Common Dialog module provides the ubiquitous FILE / OPEN, FILE / SAVE, FILE / PRINT dialog boxes. DLLs are activated from the .EXE by way of registry entries. If COMDLG32.DLL has three functions (known as Entry Points) then it would have three registry entries, one for each function. Now suppose an update is installed - it may replace a DLL with a newer one, and may insert a new registry entry to point to the new DLL. But, if some other application also makes use of the DLL that has been replaced, it may break. For this reason when you uninstall something you may see a warning message that asks for permission to remove a component that might be shared. I suspect that the first two printer problems weren’t cured by the reinstall SETUP because the SETUP found either the leftover files or left over registry entries and decided that it wasn’t necessary to continue, and thus either skipped a critical step or just decided to bail out. By running RevoUninstaller the machine was wiped clean in such a manner that the SETUP was forced to do all of its operations. For what it’s worth - the HP installer seems to be a homegrown custom module rather than an installer based upon the almost industry standard InstallShield product. I don’t know about the Epson installers or the one for the CD drive. There are several products used for creating installations - InstallShield, Wyse, Microsoft’s MSI, etc. I won’t go so far as to say that the problem is specific to any particular installer product – in fact, they may all be innocent and victims of a sloppy update. Lastly, I’m not a fan of the various “registry cleaners” as I have found them to be either a scam (We’ve found 4,513 problems in your registry. We will remove 33 of them, and if you pay us $29.95 and we’ll remove the rest!) or to work only on the registry without delving into the innards of related applications. Revo Uninstaller seems to approach the registry from the application’s side and work from the outside in, rather than from the registry side and work from the inside out. Again, that’s just my educated guess. Be that as it may, I highly recommend RevoUninstaller. Tips From Smart Computing Magazine Gaming Tips For Parents & Grandparents: Aside from checking a game’s ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board) rating, there are other ways you can ensure the video games your youngsters are playing are age-appropriate. • Carefully look at everything on a title’s packaging, including the game graphics. • Find game reviews, screen shots, or demos to get a better idea of a game’s content. • If available, use the game’s parental controls to restrict inappropriate content. • Learn about games by talking to other parents and older children who are familiar with or have played certain titles. • Participate in your children’s gaming and discuss their games as much as possible. • Be aware of nonrated ESRB material a game may contain. “Mods” are program downloads that can alter a game’s content, and online games often have live player chats as well as other user-generated content. Fitness Gaming: If it’s too hot this summer to go work out outside, take advantage of your video-game console’s capabilities. Some consoles offer games that monitor your daily activity, lead you in healthy workouts, or teach you how to cook healthy meals. This way, gaming is fun AND healthy. Connect Your Game Console With HDMI: Some video-game consoles are Full HD devices, meaning they can benefit from HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) the same way HDTVs and BD (Bluray Disc) players do. Much like movies on DVD and BD, most current video games support multichannel surround sound and HD resolutions, up to 1080p, and HDMI is the only cable around that can transport both. Make Your Cell Phone Battery Last Longer: If your battery won’t hold a charge very well or you don’t always have access to a charger, there are a few things you can do to stretch your battery’s charge time. When you’re not using your phone, turn it off, unless you are expecting an important call. If you are in an area without service, turn your phone off so it isn’t searching for signals. If you want to leave your phone on, you can also change a few settings on the phone to save battery. Turn your phone’s vibrate feature off and use a basic ringtone on low volume. Also, turn your backlight off, as it will take up excessive battery power. Features like Bluetooth, Internet, cameras, etc. will drain the battery you have left, so try to use these features only when you absolutely need them. In-Store Recycling: Electronics that are beyond repair or are no longer compatible with your current components don’t serve a purpose around your home, other than taking up space. If you’re ready to be rid of these obsolete items, including DVD players, cell phones, and computers, call around to local electronics stores. Often, stores will take in old electronics for recycling. Some stores will charge a small recycling fee for submitting items with screens, such as TVs and CRT monitors, but they’ll sometimes supplement that charge with store credit. Be Good To Your Hearing: The next time you take a flight and want to listen to some tunes, consider using a noise-canceling pair of headphones. Plane cabins are noisy, and in order to compensate, you’re likely to turn up your audio to levels that can be harmful to your hearing. Because a noise-canceling pair of headphones will drone out ambient noise, you’ll be able to enjoy your songs at a comfortable hearing level. Online Calendars Eliminate Clutter & Keep Everyone Current August 2009 • Vol.20 Issue 8 With dance practice, book club, piano lessons, dentist appointments, and all of the other activities your family is involved in, keeping track of your personal schedule is just as hard as remembering whose turn it is to drive the soccer practice carpool. Your family may have a traditional paper calendar that’s kept in the kitchen, but keeping it current is hard work because times and dates seem to change as quickly as you can say the word “recital.” Not only is it difficult to remember to add events, but not everything can fit in the small square boxes the paper calendar has to offer, either. If you’re looking for a flexible and convenient way to keep your family on the same page, virtual calendars may be the answer. This type of calendar is accessible from any Internet connection so you can change it from work and your kids can access it from school, which helps keep everyone up-to-date and reduces the chances that someone will miss an event. Additionally, signing up for an online calendar account is almost always free, so your family budget won’t be affected. Ditch The Kitchen Calendar Online calendars offer many more features than your typical paper calendar. Rather than crossing out, erasing, and scribbling on your paper calendar as your schedule changes, you can add events by simply double-clicking the appropriate date or selecting the Add Event link. Removing an event is as easy as double-clicking the event and selecting the corresponding Delete Event link. Additionally, you can add the time and the duration of the event. Once you give the event a title, you can describe it with as many details as needed. Because many paper calendars have limited space to add details to events, this can be especially helpful when coordinating group events and explaining any special details your family needs to know about. Generally, you will also have separate inputs for information, such as the location, attendees, and whether this is a recurring event. Recurring events, such as choir practice at 7 p.m. every Wednesday, can usually be set up by simply selecting a checkbox. If you need to edit one event or the whole series, you will have the option to do both. Many online calendars also let you set up reminders for your events. So if you’re afraid you or others might forget an event, you can send a reminder, which will come in the form of an email, text message, or a different delivery method. Some online calendars also offer features such as tasks and to-do lists. These lists are sometimes associated with events, or they are available to use in a more general sense. If your whole family has access to these lists, it’s easier to communicate simple things, such as the weekly chores lists, than if you try and squeeze them into the margins of your paper calendar. To help accommodate the separate schedules of each family member, some online calendar applications let each member of the family keep his or her own calendar and then simply have a list of shared events everyone can access. Each of your children can separately keep track of when homework is due and share it with you or a classmate, while keeping it apart from siblings in order to avoid clutter and confusion. Online Calendar Quest The Web has several online calendars to offer. Google, Yahoo!, and Windows Live, for instance, have similar online calendars with all the aforementioned features. Each online calendar, however, has a different user interface. If you have an email account through one of these services, it’s likely you can integrate your email and your calendar, and the user interface will likely be more recognizable and comfortable for you to use. There are subtle differences among Google Calendar (www.google.com/calendar), Yahoo! Calendar (calendar.yahoo.com), and Windows Live Calendar (calendar.live.com). You will find that each handles tasks, event details, and reminders slightly different than the other, and the sharing capabilities will vary. 30 Boxes (30boxes.com) is an online calendar that differs slightly from the Google, Yahoo!, and Windows Live calendars. After signing up for a free account, you can share your calendar with social networking friends or other contacts, which are referred to as “buddies.” 30 Boxes lets you integrate your calendar with applications such as Twitter (twitter.com), Facebook (www.facebook.com), and more. You can send messages to your buddies via 30 Boxes, as well as add tasks to your to-do list. Avatars can also be added to your 30 Boxes calendar. CalendarFly (www.calendarfly.com) is an online calendar that is designed especially for families, clubs, schools, and other groups. In addition to being able to keep a personal calendar, you can share events with your friends and family contacts. Events can be categorized by a task, homework assignment, practice, holiday, or an event. You can build your own to-do list to help you stay on top of tasks. CalendarFly lets you upload files, which is handy when you need to distribute a document for an upcoming meeting or group project. Synchronized Scheduling If you use another email client at home or at work, such as Microsoft Outlook, try to find an online calendar that can synchronize with other common calendar applications. This will help you keep both your work and personal schedules in tune with each other, and it can help you avoid double-booking yourself. Additionally, some family-friendly social networking sites, such as Multiply (www.multiply.com) and Famundo (www.famundo.com), offer calendars that you and your family can use and share with each other. When organizations you are involved in, such as a church group or a special interest club, use a social networking group calendar or a group-oriented calendar, you can integrate schedules. This helps you remember to include the meeting times and dates on your calendar, and it can help jog your memory when you can’t remember whose house you are supposed to meet at that night. by Tessa Warner Breneman Make Firefox Even Better By Steve Bass, Publisher and Self-appointed Chief Content Officer, TechBite www.techbite.com / stevebass (at) techbite.com I know many of you still stubbornly use Internet Explorer. I used to, as well. But Firefox, with all its lovely add-ons and tweaks, is just more fun to use. Let’s start with a something you might not know about: Firefox’s hidden visual tab switching tweak. Right now, you can use Ctrl-Tab to cycle through Get Moving Even the most sophisticated online calendar won’t help you if you forget to enter appointments and events into it. Luckily, some online calendars will synchronize with your smartphone so you can enter the appointment or event on the go. For example, Google Calendar can be synchronized with both the BlackBerry calendar application and the Android calendar application. You can also download mobile gadgets for other mobile operating systems, such as the iPhone OS. Windows Mobile phones can be synchronized with Windows Live Calendar. When Windows Mobile 6.5 hits the market (which should happen later this year), Windows Live services, such as the calendar and email, will be even more integrated into Windows-powered phones. Yahoo! Mobile services (mobile.yahoo.com), such as email and calendar applications, can also be accessed from your mobile phone so you can stay on top of your schedule. Firefox’s tabs. But if you’re using Firefox 3.6, the current revision, this tweak will give you a visual look at the tabs, just like using Alt-Tab in Windows. Firefox has a hidden feature: Visual tab switching Turning on the feature takes two steps: 1. Go to Firefox’s address bar, type about:config, and hit Enter. (Didn’t know about this, eh?) 2. Type browser.ctrlTab.previews into the Filter field. When it appears, double-click it. (The value will change to true.) Five Handy Firefox Add-ons Here are five add-ons I’ve recently used; they’re easy to install and don’t take much time to figure out how to use. Pay attention to the version of Firefox you have installed (Help, About Mozilla Firefox) to make sure the add-on is compatible with it. • Tired of squinting at sites with tiny fonts or weird background colors? Experiment with NoSquint to override a site’s font and image sizes as well as change its foreground and background colors. If you like the results, tell NoSquint to remember the settings for your return visit to the specific site. http://urandom. ca/nosquint/ • I’ve experimented with SwiftTabs for a few weeks. It lets you use the F-keys to go to the next or previous open tab. It’s a keeper -- and especially useful for those of us with Function keys along the side the keyboard. (Careful, the site has a name sure to offend.) http://tinyurl. com/3746xsx • I like the idea behind Fox Splitter, an add-on that rearranges tabs as separate windows. The problem is I had trouble adjusting to splitting off tabs and keeping track of what went where. You might like it, and it’s easy enough to install and uninstall, so give it a try. http:// tinyurl.com/24n3ct of the word, shows it in a separate window, and lets you click to go to the word. (See the screens below for instructions.) Très cool, no? http://tinyurl.com/cc7apq Start Typing and Firefox starts a search. Click Ctrl-F to expand Firefox’s Find feature. Now use Find All: It does tons more than Firefox’s default Find feature. Rearrange Firefox’s windows with Fox Splitter. • • Not all of Firefox’s icons are easy to recognize; Menu Icons Plus gives me a nicer array of choices. I’m using it with XP, but Vista and Win7 may give you problems. http://tinyurl. com/34op9fx You know about Firefox’s built-in Find features. Find All highlights every occurrence Steve Bass is the publisher and self-appointed Chief Content Officer at TechBite; he continues to experience the cool feeling of having his own newsletter. Send him your feedback at TechBite <[email protected]>. To sign up for TechBite’s free Steve Bass Technology newsletter, head for our signup page. http://www.techbite.com/ Steve’s also the author of “PC Annoyances, 2nd Edition: How to Fix the Most Annoying Things About Your Personal Computer,” available on Amazon. It covers XP, but not Vista. If you haven’t purchased your copy today, don’t wait, supplies always seem to be limited... The Slickdeals Approach to Cable Company Negotiations and want, while paying the best price possible. So start with a list (or, better, a spreadsheet) showing what to discuss, each item’s relative importance to you, the cable company’s quoted price, and any available bundles or promotions. For some people, their cable company is “the company they love to hate”. Most folks just accept the cable company for what it is, a semi-regulated utility providing useful or necessary services. And the remainder -- often to the mystification of the first group -- just love their company, even singing its praises when cable service is discussed. Just as a retired couple likely doesn’t need a sevenpassenger SUV and a young singleton won’t rent a McMansion, don’t get carried away by glittering features and services. Cox’s Blow suggests remembering your “station in life” before ordering the fastest Internet connection if you’ll just send email and do light Web surfing, though if you have far-flung family, a generous phone package might ultimately save money. Similarly, a killer online gamer might go for blazing DOCSIS 3.0 Internet bandwidth and skip phone service entirely, depending on cell phone connectivity. By Gabe Goldberg, Computers and Publishing, Inc. Slickdeals (at) gabegold.com To make sense of this variation, remember that cable service is generally provided by regional monopolies, with territories granted by local governments, so features, customer services, and costs indeed vary widely. And even one company’s characteristics can vary with geography, depending on factors such as local management, franchise arrangements and fees, and infrastructure age and quality. As early as possible in this process, request your free credit reports and ensure that you’re shown as being financially responsible, with all account payments upto-date. Felicia Blow, Cox Cable’s Director of Public Affairs, notes that the better a credit history is, “the more flexibility Cox has in avoiding the customer having to pay deposits and the like to get or restore service.” But separate from everything else is the need to negotiate effectively with the company, whether establishing new service, changing what’s provided, or simply haggling for a better deal. So, prior to any conversation or transaction, do your homework. Understand everything you’ll need to consider and perhaps mention: competition to cable services in your area (satellite and over-theair TV, phone company DSL or FiOS, cell phone service), services offered, service levels (e.g., Internet connection speeds, TV channel bundles), features (telephone caller-id, voicemail, speed dialing, threeway calling, etc.), list prices, bundle discounts, and current or recent promotions offered. This is complicated enough that you want to get it right, selecting no more or less than what you need Bundles -- combination service packages costing less than the sum of their individual components -- can save or waste money. Think carefully about whether it’s worth spending more money to save some, or whether better value comes from mixing-andmatching bits from multiple providers. Consider freebies offered but remember that they only have value if they’re useful. Internet services may include spam filtering, security tools, parental controls, anti-virus, anti-spyware, etc., but compare their quality to other free and fee tools to ensure that you’re getting best of breed. If you won’t use them, don’t let a cable rep seduce you into paying premium prices because they’re included. You’ll likely be offered prepaid protection for inside cable facilities. Unless you’re aware of problems, it’s usually best to decline this -- it’s essentially overpriced insurance against rare problems with cable wiring. The company is responsible for connectivity to your dwelling’s main termination, and will usually address (Internet, TV, phone) signal quality issues at no cost. But check with neighbors regarding company service and fee policies regarding inside work. Once you’re a customer, you’re not done chatting with your CableCo. Don’t suffer service problems or billing issues silently, or just gripe to friends and neighbors. Cable companies understand they’ve had public relations problems and work to be better liked. Online services such as real-time customer service chats may resolve problems at 3 am. And some companies have online monitors watching for complaints in forums and on Twitter. Even satisfied customers benefit from occasionally evaluating services and adding/deleting features, and calling to request lower prices can cut monthly bills. This can involve citing competitive services – for example, if your neighborhood has just been wired for FiOS with promotional rates offered, you can threaten to terminate service unless the lower price is matched. Make this more credible by mentioning that you’re not tied to CableCo email addresses; note that you use Webmail service accessible through any ISP or that you have your own domain (both of which are good practices to avoid having to change email addresses when moving from one company’s territory to another!). If you’ve suffered problems or outages, suggest that it’s only fair for you to be compensated by lower rates. You may be required to commit to service for some period in order to have fees reduced. One customer reduced his monthly Internet cost $20, to $29.99, while getting about 30Mbps download and 3.5Mbps upload speeds -- hardly shabby, and worth agreeing to stick around for a year. If you’re content to remain a customer and don’t expect to move soon, that’s a good bargain. Of course, watch the calendar and haggle again if your rate ever increases. Finally, if you work with a competent and helpful rep -- whether for initial orders, account changes, service or billing issues -- ask for direct contact information, both telephone number and email address. It’s immensely helpful having continuity in dealing with normally faceless businesses, and service providers increasingly recognize how much personal service improves customer satisfaction. Not all companies or reps provide this, but -- as with everything else this article suggests -- it can’t hurt to ask. This article appeared originally on the slickdeals. net Web site, <http://slickdeals.net/>. (c) Gabriel Goldberg 2010. Permission is granted for reprinting and distribution by non-profit organizations with text reproduced unchanged and this paragraph included. Converting Slides to Digital Images Written by Bruce Preston, president, West Mountain Systems, Inc., long-term board member of DACS and conducted the Random Access sessions at the General Meetings as well as chaired the Microsoft Access SIG. www.dacs.org bpreston (at) mags.net This article has been obtained from APCUG with the author’s permission for publication by APCUG member groups; all other uses require the permission of the author (see e-mail address above). Author’s Note: This article best appreciated if read while listening to Paul Simon’s Kodachrome. By my estimate, over the last 40 or so years, I have taken about 6,000 slides. Topics include such things as family get-togethers, Formula 1 and Can-Am races at Watkins Glen, SCCA races at Lime Rock Park, bike tours in Vermont, the U.K, Western Europe, and steam locomotives in Colorado, Vermont, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. For all of these I much prefer the color fidelity and permanence of slides over prints. Unfortunately, slides also require either setting up a projector and screen or using a hand-held viewer, and don’t easily lend themselves to sharing. Years ago I had a Polaroid SprintScan 35 film scanner, but it required a SCSI adapter card and Polaroid went under without delivering drivers for Windows 2000 or XP. It was also somewhat slow taking about 2 minutes per scan. I will grant you that it delivered high quality images. My brother in law has scanned a few slides using a flatbed scanner with a light box cover, but the resolution was not great. It was acceptable for distributing by e-mail or posting on a web page, but not satisfactory for full screen viewing. A few months ago I discovered Ion Audio’s “Slides 2 PC” 35 mm Slide and Film Scanner. It is a nifty compact device that consists of housing containing a fixed-focus USB 2.0 camera, a white-balanced light source and a pair of carriers – one that can hold 3 mounted 35 mm slides, the other for 6-exposure 35 mm negative strips. System requirements are minimal – Windows XP or Vista, and a USB 2 port. (If you only have USB 1.1 you will need to add a USB 2 card to your desktop or get a USB 2 PCMCIA card for your notebook. I tried it on my old notebook and the driver refused flatly stating that it needed USB 2.) Slides 2 PC comes bundled with ArcSoft’s Photo Impressions 6, a consumer-friendly image capture/ editing/cataloging program commonly bundled with digital scanners and cameras. The scanner appears as a TWAIN device, I happen to prefer the free (for personal use) IrfanView as I have used IrfanView for years. http://www.irfanview.com/ One thing I disliked about the ArcSoft package was its insistence upon loading an always resident module. I don’t know if the device will work with a Mac. Since it is a TWAIN device there is a good chance as long as your bring your own software. Operation is simple; I’ll describe the process when using IrfanView. Select the TWAIN source from the FILE menu, and then select ACQUIRE/BATCH. The first dialog box asks for a target folder, a root filename, the starting number and the number of digits. I created folder “\My Documents\My Pictures\VBT Tours\1972” as the folder, “VBT_” as the filename root, 1 as the starting number, and 3 as the number of digits. I clicked OK and the scanner loaded with a real-time preview. In this case of a blank white area since I hadn’t loaded a slide. Note that since it is a video camera rather than a moving scanner mechanism there are essentially no moving parts within that can get out of calibration. The carrier is hinged along the long side – open it, place 3 slides in the slide carrier or a film strip in the film carrier and close it. Slide the carrier into the scanner until you feel it click at the first positioning notch. In about a half second the image will appear, then reappear once the auto-exposure kicks in. Tap the top of the scanner and the image is captured to memory. A thumbnail appears above the preview image. Slide the carrier to the next notch and repeat the process. Reload and repeat until you have up to 12 thumbnails. Click on the first, shift-click on the last one to select them all, then click on the ‘Transfer’ button on the screen and they will be written to disk. Resultant JPEG images are 2592x1680, 24 bit color depth. They average about 2.5MB in size. If you use Photo Impressions 6 as part of start up you get a configuration screen for the scanner where you may select image size, color depth, JPEG or TIFF, and specify whether you are scanning transparencies (slides), color or B/W negatives. IrfanView just uses the defaults of JPEG at 24 bit color depth. As far as speed is concerned, on this lazy Sunday afternoon I scanned 60 slides in 33 minutes without rushing. This included taking the slides out of the Bell & Howell ‘Slide Cube’ and reloading them. I have yet to go into the JPEGs to rotate the images that need to be turned from landscape to portrait orientation – IrfanView can do that with a single key-press. For those who like spec sheets: · 5 mega-pixel scanner · USB 2.0 interface · f/6.0 four element glass lens · Fixed focus, auto-exposure and color balance More information at http://www.ionaudio.com/slides2pc Sources – I did a little web searching while wrapping up this article. The average eBay auction over the last 60 days closed at $85 including shipping. J&R has it for $79.99 plus shipping which I suspect will put it right about $85. If you like rolling the dice, from time to time a factory refurb shows up on eBay at about $65. If you have many slides or negatives that you’d like to convert to digital, give this unit some thought. I’m very happy with it. End of Article - End of Article - End of Article - End of Article End of Article - End of Article One Sunday morning, the pastor noticed little Alex standing in the foyer of the church staring up at a large plaque. It was covered with names and small Canadian flags mounted on either side of it. The six-year old had been staring at the plaque for some time, so the pastor walked up, stood beside the little boy, and said quietly, ‘Good morning Alex.’ ‘Good morning Pastor,’ he replied, still focused on the plaque. ‘Pastor, what is this? ‘ The pastor said, ‘Well son, it’s a memorial to all the young men and women who died in the service.’ Soberly, they just stood together, staring at the large plaque. Finally, little Alex’s voice, barely audible and trembling with fear asked, ‘Which service, the 8:45 or the 11:00? Membership application or renewal Form Annual membership is only $20.00. Each additional family member is $5.00. ________________________________________ Print Name: ________________________________________ Address: ________________________________________ City, Zip: ________________________________________ Phone: ________________________________________ Business Phone: ________________________________________ Email address Mail to WINNERS - WINdows usERS PO Box 9804 Newport Beach, CA 92658-9804 meets at The Fountain Valley Branch Library 17635 Los Alamos Fountain Valley meetings on 3rd Saturday 10:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. WINNERS - WINdows usERS PO Box 9804 Newport Beach, CA 92658-9804