Tid Bits `N Bytes - The Winnipeg PC User Group

Transcription

If undeliverable, return to:
Winnipeg PC User Group
377C Pembina Highway
Winnipeg, Manitoba R3L 2E4
Tid Bits ‘N Bytes
Newsletter of the Winnipeg PC User Group Inc.
“A Charter Member of the Association of PC User Groups (APCUG)”
December/January, 2003
Upcoming General Meetings
• General meetings, during the winter season, are held at Montrose School (Grant
and Montrose). During the summer we will meet at the club resource centre on Pambina
Hwy. Meetings start at 7 PM. This facility is wheelchair accessable. No elevator needed.
• The December General Meeting will be held on Thursday, December 12th .
The programme will be The Sims presented by Paul Kesson.
• The Jannuary General Meeting will be held on Thursday, Jannuary 16th .
As of press time no presentor has been confirmed. Watch our website for
details.
Announcements
• The newsletter is now mailed out “in house” to save the Group some
money. You too could participate in this fun event. Contact Doug Hutsel for
details!
• If you can pick up your copy of the newsletter at the Resource Centre on the
Saturday prior to the General meeting, please let Doug know!
40599174
December 2 0 0 2 / January 2 0 0 3 P a g e 2
Tid Bits N’ Bytes
The Winnipeg PC User Group, Inc. is a non-profit
organization formed to provide those with an interest in the
IBM Personal Computer or compatible computer, with an
opportunity to come together and otherwise assist one
another in the use and understanding of these computers.
The group serves as a forum to exchange ideas, to discuss
the latest developments, and share information.
••• ••• •••
This periodical is published bi-monthly for the purpose of
advising members of the various group activities and
sharing of information between other similar User Groups
around the world. It is mailed to all members of the group
and to all other User Groups who reciprocate with a copy
of their newsletter.
••• ••• •••
The group is not affiliated with any commercial organization and receives no financial support other than through
membership dues and paid advertising in the periodical.
The officers are volunteers and only receive the following
benefits: they learn more about their computer, gain
satisfaction from having helped others and meet many
people with common interests and problems.
••• ••• •••
Monthly Meetings are held on the 3rd Thursday of each
month, except December when the meeting is held on the
second Thursday. The Executive meets on the 2nd Thursday of each month, except December when the meeting is
held on the third Thursday. Members are welcome.
Volunteers for many activities are always needed.
ISP Dial Up Number
975-0200
Website: http://www.wpcusrgrp.org
COPYRIGHT POLICY & LIABILITY WAIVER
This publication is © Copyright, Winnipeg PC User Group Inc., 2002.
The reprinting in another publication, of original material appearing in
this newsletter must give credit to the Winnipeg PC User Group Inc.
and to any author indicated. Such material may be reprinted at no
cost, but a copy of the publication in which it has been reprinted must
be provided at no cost to the Winnipeg PC User Group Inc.
Views and opinions expressed are those of the author indicated (or the
editor) and not necessarily of the group or executive. The group,
contributors, and the editor of this newsletter do not assume any
liability for damages arising out of the publication or non-publication of
any advertisement, article, or other item herein.
The WPCUG does not assume responsibility for damages arising
from the publication or non-publication of any advertising in this
newsletter. Acceptance of advertising does not imply endorsement
by the group
Elected Officers for the period ending October 2003
Home Phone
President & Program ........... Jon Phillips ........... 888-9180
<[email protected]>
Past President ..................... Art Cavenagh ....... 888-1432
<[email protected]>
Vice President ..................... Paul Kesson ......... 489-7617
<[email protected]>
Treasurer ............................. Rod Domin .......... 256-3847
<[email protected]>
Bookkeeper ......................... Werner Wiebe ...... 269-1584
<[email protected]>
Exec. Secretary ................... Brian Lowe ........... 478-3561
<[email protected]>
Membership ........................ Doug Hutsel ......... 831-7478
<[email protected]>
Internet Service Admin. ....... Brian Lowe ........... 478-3561
<[email protected]>
Online Services Manager .... Greg McClure ....... 942-3301
<[email protected]>
WPCUG Internet Support .... Greg McClure ....... 942-3301
<[email protected]>
Group Buyer ........................ John Kesson ........ 489-7617
<[email protected]>
Resource Centre Mgr. ......... Arnold Zatser ........ 488-8765
<[email protected]>
Forum Coordinator .............. Ryan Rapson ....... 475-1568
<[email protected]>
Web Master ......................... Trevor Exley ......... 488-6830
NEWSLETTER
Home Phone
Editor
Paul Stephen ............... 284-2810
<[email protected]>
Co-editor
Tom Howard ................ 224-3430
<[email protected]>
Please do not call Board/Executive
members after 9:00 P.M.
Resource Centre 24-hour information line ...... 958-7228
Resource Centre FAX ......................................... 958-7229
ISP Line ............................................................... 975-0200
Ad sizes and Rates
width height
insertions
1
3
6
Full page
7.5
10
$65 $165 $270
Half page
7.5
5
$35 $85 $135
Business card 3” x5” $10
Flyer inserts $225.00
Classified Members are entitled to one free ad
(4 lines - 42 characters) - per issue.
others $3.75 per 4 line ad.
All copy must be prepaid and must reach the Resource Centre before the
second Thursday of the month. Other size rates are available.
All ads should be in EPS or TIFF (300dpi) file format. If you need
help with this, please ask for help. Members are entitled to one FREE
Ad (4 line 42 Char.) Non-commercial - per issue. Others $3.75 per 4 line
ad, extra lines $0.90 each. Please ask for further information.
Winnipeg PC User Group Inc.
Mailing Addresses
General Correspondence: Attn.: Executive Secretary
Membership:
Attn.: Membership Secretary
Winnipeg PC User Group, Inc.
P.O. Box 3149
Winnipeg, Manitoba
R3C 4E6
Resource Centre
337C Pembina Highway
Winnipeg, Manitoba
R3L 2E4
Newsletter Exchange & Review Software
Paul Stephen
401-1025 Grant Avenue
Winnipeg, Manitoba
R3M 1Y4
Yearly Membership Dues
Junior Membership (under the age of 18) ....... $25.00
Adult Membership .......................................... $49.95
Associate Membership .................................... $20.00
Corporate Membership ................................. $125.00
With an adult membership you receive one copy of our
periodical and any member of your family may attend the
User Group General meetings. After an adult membership
has been purchased, additional associate memberships may
be purchased which include a draw ticket at the general
meeting, but no newsletter. A corporate membership
entitles you to two copies of the periodical and any
member(s) of your organization may attend our general
meetings. Contact Doug Hutsel (membership@
wpcusrgrp.org or 831-7478) for further details.
Contents Of This Issue
Beware of Computer Viruses ------------------------------ 5
Bringing a BIOS Back From the Dead ----------------- 11
Crossword Puzzle Maker -------------------------------- 12
Hold on to Your Domain --------------------------------- 15
Your Old PC: Keep It or Dump It ... ------------------- 19
Computing Factoids -------------------------------------- 20
Outrageous Help Desk Stories -------------------------- 22
Computer Adventure - Final Chapter ------------------ 23
October 2002 General Meeting Report ---------------- 24
November 2002 General Meeting Report ------------- 26
Calendars of Forums for December 2002,
January 2003, February, and March -------------------- 28
Group Meeting Schedule -------------------------------- 30
Winnipeg PC User Group Forums ---------------------- 31
Internet Access Form ------------------------------------- 31
Advertisers
Healey Audio Visual -------------------------------------- 4
WPCUG ISP ----------------------------------------------- 6
Ink Jet Refills ---------------------------------------------- 14
Computer Preventative Maintenance ------------------- 21
Dave’s Quick Print --------------------------------------- 29
Syrotech Industries Ltd. ---------------------------------- 32
Dont be the Victim
of a virus attack
Update your virus definitions weekly.
Top three viruses in October
Bugbear - 77%
Klez.H - 6.2%
Opaserv-A - 2.5%
Source: Sophos
Newsletter Submissions
The editor will accept almost anything you wish to
contribute. Short submissions may be in any form what so
ever. If you have a favorite Shareware programme that you
use, (or one that is unregistered and you’d like to have
registered), write me up a 1-2 page review of the product
and I’ll try and get you a FREE registration! Contact the
editor if you would like to review a specific software
package.
Longer submissions should be made on 3.5" floppy
disks, or sent to my e-mail address: [email protected].
Files should be zipped before being uploaded or attached
to e-mail messages.
Other acceptable formats include: WordStar 3.x-5.0,
WordPerfect 4.x-5.1, Word, and ASCII. If you use one of
the above word processors. Special formatting such as
autonumber cause great problems for the special software
that we use to prepare this newsletter. Remove extra
paragraph and line feeds. DO NOT “format” your text PLEASE!
This newsletter is produced using the following software
and hardware tools: Microsoft Word 97, OmniPage Pro,
Graphic Workshop Professional, for conversions and
graphic library control. Printing is done using a HP Series
5MP LaserJet. Adobe’s Acrobat is used to produce the
PDF files. A special friend of this User Group is the Corel
Corporation and we use Corel Draw 10. Other hardware:
HP ScanJet 4300C, 384 megs of memory, 400 MHz
Pentium II CPU.
Tid Bits N’ Bytes
Beware of Computer Viruses
IF YOU ARE USING THE INTERNET AND DO NOT HAVE AN
ANTI-VIRUS PROGRAM YOU ARE LIVING VERY DANGEROUSLY.
by Greg McClure, WPCUG, Online Services Manager, <[email protected]>
If you are using the Internet and have an Antivirus program BUT its virus definitions are NOT
up-to-date you are living very dangerously. To
restate, if you either do not have an Anti-virus
program or you have not updated your anti-virus
program’s signatures within the last week you
are living very dangerously. I apologize for the
repetition of the above items but I am trying to
get an important fact across.
These days viruses and worms come in a
variety of forms. However the prime form
involves email attachments that usually target
people using Microsoft Outlook and Outlook
Express. These products have had security
patches released that fixed problems in them.
However a majority of people have never
applied these patches. If you are one of these
people and do NOT use an updated anti-virus
program PLEASE at least get an anti-virus
program and keep its virus definitions up-todate! There are two major commercial products:
Symantec’s Norton Anti-virus and McAfee’s
VirusScan. Norton’s current version is 2003 and
McAfee is up to version 7. Another commercial
product is from Computer Associates who used
to have a free product called Innoculate. It was
discontinued in May 2002 and has been replaced
by a commercial product called eTrust
EZAntivirus. A free anti-virus program is AVG
(available from Grisoft).
As I mentioned one must ensure that the
program’s definitions are up-to-date. If you
simply purchase an antiviral program and DO
NOT update the virus definitions then you may
as well not have installed it. This is because
these programs are usually sitting on the store
shelves for weeks or even months. This means
that there have been new viruses that have been
discovered. Updates are currently available for
the signature files that these programs use to trap
viruses before they can infect your computer. If
you do not update them and your computer
becomes infected it may require the removal of
Windows and its reinstallation. Just imagine
how much fun that would be: reinstalling all
your programs, patching them and configuring
them. Hopefully the infection only affected files
that can be replaced and not your word
processing files etc. Well I guess that these could
be replaced from your backups if you have a
backup and if these backups do not contain the
infected files. In order to make sure that your
antiviral program’s signatures are indeed up-todate I will briefly show you how you can check
Norton AntiVirus, McAfee VirusScan,
EZAntivirus and AVG to ensure that their
signatures are current. Please note that if you
have another version of these products or
another antivirus product you should be able to
do a similar procedure to check the dates of the
signature files.
The first step is to see if the antiviral product
you are using is actually running in the
background. This means that the program is
running behind the scenes checking that the
incoming email, files and programs that you may
open are virus free. If you do not see an icon in
your system tray (lower-right-corner of your
Windows screen) for your antiviral product
please consult its configuration options to ensure
that you have enabled this option. It may be
called Auto-Protect (Norton), RealTime (eTrust),
VShield (McAfee), etc. This option will use
some of your computer’s memory and system
resources but my feeling is it is worth it.
Internet Service
“Let us connect you to the world!”
our 20th ann
iv
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C el
eb r
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at
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NOW..
49K+
Connects!
WPCUG
Tid Bits N’ Bytes
WPCUG
Need help getting set up?
Call ahead and bring your
PC to the
Resource Center
for “hands on” help.
People Helping People Use Computers Since 1982
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maintain your home page
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via e-mail, phone, Web BBS
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Maximum
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Access for a year!
We run on a cost recovery
basis. Every dollar goes to
improve, not just the Internet
Service, but all the other
services the User Group
provides as well.
Please remember that the Internet Service is a
cooperative effort. Give others a chance to
connect. Hang up when you are not actively using
the Internet! Thanks!!!
Make the RIGHT connection so YOU
don’t end up like this!
NORTON ANTIVIRUS
With Norton AntiVirus you should see an icon
in your system tray similar to the following
Norton AntiVirus
2001 icon
then right mouse click on the Norton AntiVirus
icon to display one of the following screens:
Norton AntiVirus 2001 screen:
Norton AntiVirus
2003 icon
Note that the actual icon maybe a bit different
but if you move the mouse pointer over it and
leave it there for a few seconds you should see a
message similar to “Norton AntiVirus
AutoProtect Enabled” appear. If
you are using their SystemWorks
package you may see the
Norton System
following icon in your system
Works icon
tray:
Norton AntiVirus 2002/2003 screen:
If you see one of the Norton AntiVirus icons in
the system tray then click on this icon to see the
other Norton programs running. One of them
should be an icon that looks like the previously
mentioned ones.
If you do have Norton AntiVirus installed but
do not see either of these icons or another icon
that displays “Norton AntiVirus AutoProtect
Enabled” when you move the mouse cursor over
it then I strongly urge you to check Norton’s
settings to ensure that AutoProtect is
ENABLED. If it was disabled read the
information below to determine the date of your
virus definitions and if necessary update them.
Then you should perform a complete and
thorough scan to ensure that your computer is
virus free. This is because if AutoProtect is
disabled the only way to find a virus on your
computer is to do a complete scan of your
system and by then it may be too late. A virus
MAY have been able to infect key system files
and your antiviral software or its removal tools
may not be able to clean the infection requiring
you to reinstall Windows from scratch!
If you do see one of these icons you should
Notice the line indicated by the red arrow. It
shows the virus definition date which in this
case is 10/31/02. At the time I write this article
it is Nov 4th which is only 4 days from the
definition date. Symantec releases virus
definition updates for their product at least once
a week (usually on Thursday). However I have
seen them release updates three times or more in
one week if there has been a discovery of a
nasty virus or worm. Now if this date is older
than 7 days I would strongly urge you to use the
liveupdate feature to update the definitions.
They maintain a good web site called
Symantec AntiVirus Research Centre located at
www.sarc.com. There you can find the latest
Tid Bits N’ Bytes
virus threats as well as virus hoaxes.
McAFEE VIRUSSCAN
McAfee is another major antivirus company
and if their VirusScan is running in the
background you should have a shield
symbol in your system tray like
Now if you right mouse click on the
Shield icon you should see a menu similar to
Simply double click
on the ABOUT line to
display a screen which
should be similar to the
following one
This screen has a line
that reads CREATED
ON: followed by a date. This date is the date of
CDN. No pricing for the new version 7 could be
found on their web site. This is probably because
version 7 was only released in September of this
year and you would have a year’s worth of free
virus signature updates with the initial purchase.
As well with version 7 of the product you cannot
download the updates to the signature files
manually from their web site. Instead you have to
rely on the automatic update through the virus
scanner itself to be able to update the signatures.
You can still download the update files manually
for version 5 & 6 for McAfee as well as for
Norton Products.
Computer Associates used to provide a free
antivirus program by the name of InnoculateIT
Personal Edition. Support for the product was
discontinued in May 2002. A commercial product
by the name of eTrust EZAntivirus is available
for $19.95 USD with the annual renewal fee
being $9.95 USD.
If you see this icon in your system tray ...
then you are probably using either
version 5.3 or 5.4 of eTrust
EZAntivirus. In order to check the
date of the virus definitions, right mouse click on
this icon to display the property menu.
the virus definitions. Again this date should be
within a week of the current date. If not update
your virus signatures.
Also if you are installing McAfee version 7
and you are already using a firewall such as
ZoneAlarm or Sygate etc. make sure that you do
NOT install the firewall included in version 7.
You can use the custom install and indicate not
to install the included firewall. If you do want
to install it make sure that any existing software
firewalls are uninstalled first.
McAfee is no longer allowing free signature
updates for versions 6 & 7 of their products.
Annual renewal for VirusScan version 6 is $6
Select VERSION from this menu to display
the version information.
If the date shown for the macro data file is
older than a couple of days then you should
update the definitions manually. I say a couple of
days since EZAntivirus seems to release
update of the signatures. Version 6.0 performs an
automatic update of the signatures without
asking you if you want to download the
definitions and will only inform you when the
update is complete.
definitions almost daily. As well you can
configure the program to alert you when the
definitions are so many days old and to
download a new update.
If you see an icon similar to
the following in your system tray
Then you have eTrust’s EZAntivirus version
6.0. To determine the date of the definitions you
simply right mouse click on the icon to display
the following menu
The only free antivirus software that is still
available is one called AVG. It was developed by
Grisoft and is free for personal use. If you have
this software installed and it is running in the
background you should see the following icon in
your system tray
To determine the date of the definitions
just right click on this icon and select
RUN AVG CONTROL CENTER.
Once you select
this option you
should see a screen
with five tabs along
the top. Click on the
one labeled INFORMATION and that should
show you information such as the following:
Click on the ABOUT line and you should see
the following screen open
AVG does not seem to release updates as
frequently as the previously mentioned programs.
However if the release date for the virus database
is older than 3 weeks to a month you should do
an update.
Notice the date of the definitions being used.
Again, if it is several days old do a manual
If you know for sure that you have one of the
previously mentioned antivirus packages
installed on your computer but do NOT see its
Tid Bits N’ Bytes
December 2 0 0 2 / January 2 0 0 3 P a g e 1 0
corresponding icon in your system tray (lower
right corner of the screen) I would recommend
that you check the options or settings for the
program and ensure that real time, auto-protect or
a similar option is enabled. This type of option
will check any files that are downloaded via
email and are sitting on your hard drive for
viruses when you run them. In order to access the
antivirus program you will have to find it under
START | PROGRAMS menu.
2003 ($69.95 USD) 2 user license
Please practice safe computing. In addition to
having your antivirus signatures up-to-date DO
NOT CLICK ON ATTACHMENTS in email
messages even if the message IS FROM
SOMEONE YOU KNOW. This is because that
person could have a virus on their computer
which is sending out emails with infected
attachments without your friend’s knowledge. If
you receive an unexpected attachment from a
friend please either email your friend or phone
them and verify that they indeed sent you the
attachment intentionally. Do not depend on your
antivirus program to catch new viruses. This is
especially the case if a new virus or worm has
been unleashed but the antivirus program
developers have not yet released an update to
their signature files. So if you get an email from
someone you do not know and it has an
attachment then I would recommend simply
deleting the message and therefore the
attachment. As well those of you using Outlook
Express should ensure that the critical updates
for your version of Windows have been applied.
If you are using Outlook you should go to
Microsoft’s web site and download any security
updates for Outlook.
http://download.nai.com/products/evaluation/
retail/virusscan/v7.0//VSC700D30EN.exe
15 day trialware version of Norton ($49.95 USD)
http://nct.symantecstore.com/fulfill/
0001.69#form
15 day trialware version of Norton Professional
http://nct.symantecstore.com/fulfill/
0001.67#form
McAfee VirusScan version 7.0 trial version.
Has an integrated Firewall.$59.99 (download)
professional $69.99 (download)
Professional version has QuickClean Lite and
Secure Data Shredding
30 day free trial of eTrust EZAntivirus ($19.95
USD)
http://www1.my-etrust.com/commerce/
jumper/?productName=Antivirus&product
Type=0&CFID=4979871&CFTOKEN=1416ed0000dea40-897c-1cfe-8be9-2f0dac14303f
Grisoft free for personal use:
http://www.grisoft.com/html/us_downl.htm?
session=a31c1e85056ecf7cec37ce42edc4dfec
Editors Note
New viruses are being thrown at users
everyday. The experts have recently
warned that we should expect to be
attacked frequently in the near future.
This is not a joke!
The latest destructive virus is the worm
Winevar. The latest information available is that it spreads as an e-mail attachment and infects computers running
Windows. A rude mesasage is displayed
“Make a fool of yourself: What a foolish
thing you’ve done!” If users click on
OK all files are erased on the computer.
Bringing a BIOS Back From the Dead
by Brian Lowe, Exec. Secretary WPCUG, [email protected]
Perhaps one of the worst things that can happen to a
computer technician is a BIOS upgrade gone bad.
If the CPU is the heart of a computer system, the
computer’s BIOS (an acronym for Basic Input/Output
System) is the soul. It is where hardware and software
meet: it handles the nuts and bolts of disk drive
access, keyboard input, video output, and the details
of booting the computer. Without a BIOS, a
mainboard is useful really only as a doorstop.
Last month I was working on a client’s computer.
His 6 gigabyte hard drive was dying, and I
recommended an immediate replacement, preferably a
small one in in the range of 10 to 20 gigabytes.
Unfortunately, the smallest he could find was 40
gigabytes. And when I went to install it, the computer
failed even to recognize it was installed in the system.
A BIOS upgrade was in order.
It seems unusul, but few mainboard manufacturers
actually put their name on the boards they make, let
alone give a web site that one can go to for
information on the product. To determine who made a
mainboard, a technician must visually scan it for a
part number, then look it up on a search engine in the
hopes that will turn up the manufacturer’s name and
web site.
In this case, the mainboard part number was P6BXA+. A search on Google turned up references to
Tekram in all of the top 5 hits, so I went there and
downloaded their latest BIOS-the one that indicated it
supplied support for large hard drive.
I formatted a DOS floppy, copied the Award BIOS
upgrade program and the new BIOS files on it,
inserted it into the computer and booted off it. After
backing up existing BIOS, I told the program to
install the new one. A warning appeared saying the
manufacturer ID in the existing BIOS did not match
the ID in the new one. I was perplexed: the
mainboard part numbers were identical, save for the
“+” sign at the end of the one printed on the board
itself, and several minutes of looking through the
backup file and the new one with a hex editor did not
show any major differences.
So I decided that I was actually working with the
correct file, and the warning was some unusual quirk
of the upgrade program I was running. I ignored the
warning, applied the upgrade, restarted the computer,
and ... nothing.
The computer was dead. I had obviously applied the
wrong file.
In the same manner that a person has only one brain,
there is only one BIOS on a mainboard. There isn’t a
backup one burned into non-volatile ROM to recover
from such a disaster. The mainboard was basically
toast.
A more thorough search on Google turned up the
reason: although the chances of two apparently
random 5 character part numbers being identical are in
the range of sixty million to one, there were two
different companies that made a board with that
number. Tekram was was one; ECS was the other.
There was a glimmer of hope, though. The BIOS chip
was in a socket, meaning it was removeable. The
company that made the computer was a local one and
still in business. Figuring that they might have an old
mainboard of the same type kicking around the back
with an intact BIOS chip on on it, I gave them a call
and explained the situation to their tech support
voicemail box. An hour later I got a call back: they had
a replacement chip for me; no charge. All I had to do
was pick it up.
In the meantime I had been on the phone with Art
Cavenagh, the past-president of the Winnipeg PC User
Group. He in turn had been talking with a couple of
other people about the problem, so when I called him
back with the good news about the replacement chip,
he had some very interesting advice.
“What you should do is put the replacement chip into
the socket, but only far enough that the pins make
contanct,” he said. “Boot the computer and start the
flash program. Tell it to load the backup BIOS. Then,
just before program writes to the chip, pull the chip off
the board and put the dead one in. The program will
write to the dead chip. Then you have two working
BIOS chips, and can experiment with flashing one of
them with the upgrade.”
It worked. I revived the old BIOS chip, and now with
a backup I could use in case the code I downloaded
from the ECS site was incorrect, I flashed the original
chip. This time it worked. On boot, the computer
found the 40 gigabyte hard drive. After that it was a
straightforward matter to format the drive and copy my
costomer’s data off the dying drive.
Sometimes disaster stories do have happy endings.
Tid Bits N’ Bytes
Eclipse Crossword Puzzle Maker
reviewed by Glen Ash
I found this freeware program at the Tucows.com site while looking through the games section. For me the
value of a crossword puzzle is its use as a teaching tool. The words to solve for are the keywords of the
teaching session. I have found the puzzle is fun tool to use with both children and adults. It helps people to
remember the key points you are trying to get across (or is that down).
I have been thinking of using the puzzle on a brochure or in a newsletter to help re-state key points. Another
application could be to solve the puzzle and give away a prize to the lucky winner rather than a door prize.
Perhaps I could use it to teach my grandchildren some family history lessons. The uses can be as varied as
teaching opportunities or prizes for game playing allow.
How the program works will be described by walking through the 7 screens. Just follow the on screen
directions to complete the process of making a crossword puzzle.
Step 1 Word List
This is where you elect to create a word list or to
use a previously made list of words that will be
included in the puzzle. Generally, you would start
with a new set of words. Click the “next” hypertext
button to open Step 2. You move from step to step by
clicking “next”.
With a few words in place you can move to the next
step and come back to finish the list later by hitting
the “back” button.
Step 4 Name this Crossword
Step 2 Create or Modify a word list
This is where the real work takes place. Here you
add a new word for the list and type in the clue for
this word: a single word or a sentence to describe the
word. For example if the crossword is “Cavenagh”,
the clue could be “last name of a past president for
WPCUSRGRP”. If your crossword was a family
history thing then the word might be “Dublin” and
the clue “ birthplace of great great grandmother
Peggy O’Leary. A word can be removed from the list
by selecting the word and hitting the remove button.
I do not know what happened to Step 3 but I guess
it was incorporated into either step 2 or 4 somehow
and the numbering was never changed in the
program. I found it best to give the crossword puzzle
a meaningful name. When you go to use the file later
in a printed form it looks much better with a name
that makes sense to the task at hand.
The option to publish as a web page is nice and
allows the puzzle to be used on your web site. I have
not tried this feature out but if it is as easy as the first
part youwill have no problem.
Step 5 Define Crossword Size
The minimum size created is 8 letters square. It is
possible to create a little puzzle using just 4 letter
words. If your vocabulary is a little bigger than 4
letter words you can make the puzzle as big as the
New York Times: over 50 letters wide and 50 letters
high.
Step 6 Finished Crossword
At this point you get your first view of what the
puzzle will look like will look like. If you do not like
the order of the words just click the hypertext “Make
another puzzle like this one”. The words are reshuffled with a different ordering. One word can be
selected as the priority word that will always come
first in the middle of the puzzle.
Step 7 Save or Print this Crossword
Here you save both the word list and the puzzle
arrangement. The file format can be imported into a
word processor or desktop publishing program if you
are putting it in a newsletter or other document. I
have successfully imported the file to a Word
document. Three files are created for use. The first is
the blank puzzle grid. The second is the clue text file.
And the third is the answer sheet filled in so that it
can be published later with the correct words in
place.
Tid Bits N’ Bytes
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Hold on to Your Domain…Before it Slips Away
Domain names are precious commodities
and they can be lost in a matter of days
By Matt Lake, RegSelect.com, curtesy of the Pasadina IBM Users Group
How would you like to see the Web site
you’ve been working on all year slip through
your fingers? You may think it’s unlikely, but
despite the enormous bureaucracy surrounding the Internet domain name system,
dotcom names are falling out of the hands of
registrants all the time.
The consequences can be embarrassing,
costly, and time consuming. When you lose
your domain to someone else, you must
reprint your stationery with new Web addresses, send out releases to your customers
confessing your mistake, and lose untold
email messages when your email vanishes
into the ether (or worse, goes to the domain’s
new owner).
But in most cases, it’s easy to avoid problems like these. So learn a few lessons from
four organizations that recently lost their
domains. Take heart that two of them have
got their domains back again—but don’t
assume that you will have the same good
fortune as they did. Prepare for the worst—
and be happy when it doesn’t happen to you.
now belonged to Vicente Peiro Crespo of
Valencia, Spain, and any e-mail sent to
Barrett’s former addresses or that of the
MacSlash administrator Ben Stanfield vaporized in cyberspace.
The domain had expired, “dropped” back
into the public domain, and been snapped up
by a speculator. The previous owners of the
domain “fixed” the problem by registering
the .net version of the domain and hosting
their site there. The MacSlash community
rallied round the cause and registered the
.org and .info versions of the domain too.
And word spread quickly about the new
location of the site.
The MacSlash story has happy ending: The
issue became a cause celebre in the Mac
community and pretty soon, things got too
hot for the new registrant, who returned
macslash.com to its original owner.
But not everyone is so lucky.
CASE #2: User Group Gets Mugged
The Pasadena IBM User Group is a longstanding nonprofit organization, so it seemed
natural for them to take the .org version of
their domain name. There, they built a well
trafficked site for their members.
Fumbling the ball
In May 2002, two popular nonprofit sites
lost control of their domains when they
expired and speculators snapped them up.
Their stories have some similarities, but have But in May of 2002, the domain expired
without notice from the registrar, and was
two different endings—one happy for the
subsequently re-registered by a portal comoriginal owner, the other, not.
pany based in Hong Kong. Ultimate Search
CASE #1: MacSlash the Knifed
redirected the user group’s former domain to
Damien Barrett had built a very popular
a generic portal with links flashing online
Macintosh help site called MacSlash at the
casino ads and links that generate revenues
obvious domain MacSlash.com. Suddenly in
for the company on a pay-per-click basis.
May, he found that instead of the forums,
As of this writing, the user group has not
articles, and tips that belonged there, only an
regained control of its domain. However, it
under construction page remained. The
continues to operate its site at pibmug.com.
Future Home of macslash.com apparently
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Why Did the Notice Go Unnoticed?
Registering domains is like leasing a car:
You have the thing under contract for a
specified length of time. Once the term of
the lease is about to expire, you can extend it
indefinitely. And unlike lease cars, a domain
only gets more valuable the longer you have
it. But the responsibility for renewing the
lease is all up to you.
Naturally, domain registrars are all too keen
to keep their customers—the competition
among domain registrars is fierce. The
governing body of the .com domain system,
ICANN, has accredited more than 50 registrars, and hundreds more companies resell
domain services. So most registrars send out
not one but several reminders to their customers to re-register their domains early and
often.
not resolve to the previous registrant’s site,
but it can’t be reregistered. Sometimes, the
on-hold period lasts for only hours, sometimes for weeks.
The .com registry, run by Verisign’s Network Solutions division, holds on to all the
expired domains until it’s ready to “drop”
them en masse back onto the market.
And once an expired domain drops, it’s up
for grabs by anyone with $10 to $35 to spare.
And an entire aftermarket has sprung up
around expired domains. Companies like
DomainsBot, The Unclaimed, and Daily
Expired Domains compile lists of on-hold
domains for subscribers, and domain registrars including Network Solutions and
Dotster maintain services for their subscribers to snap up domains as soon as they drop.
The aftermarket for expired domains creates a feeding frenzy among speculators,
which is bad news for domain holders who
let their domains expire. Once a domain is
reregistered, the only recourse the original
domain owner has is to go through ICANN’s
dispute resolution process (which is outlined
at www.icann.org/udrp). During disputes,
ICANN tends to favor copyright holders and
people with legitimate claims on a domain—
But MacSlash and PIBMUG did not get
which would act in favor of PIBMUG’s
their reminders. The jury is still out as to
claim against Ultimate Search. But the prowhat happened with PIBMUG, but
MacSlash traced the problem to over-vigilant cess is a time consuming hassle, and ICANN
doesn’t give preferential treatment to previspam filtering. When the group registered
ous owners of domains who let them expire.
macslash.com, they used Apple’s iTools
email service, which provides free email at
Losing the Ball Completely
the mac.com domain. Unfortunately, the
Not every organization has control over its
service’s spam filtering treated repeated
own domain. Sometimes, a company without
requests to renew domains as unsolicited
strong technical resources will give the reins
commercial messages, and threw them into
to an outsider who seems to have a better
the bit bucket.
handle on the situation. This can have disastrous results—as a theater company and a
The Domain Graveyard
Once a domain expires, it enters a no-man’s housing authority found out earlier this year.
land for an unspecified length of time. During this time, the domain is on hold—it does
Both MacSlash and PIBMUG used the
registrar Dotster, which sends out automatic
reminders at T-minus 45 days, 30 days, and
15 days before the domain expires. In fact,
Dotster is so vigilant, the company even
sends out reminders to former clients who
have transferred their domains to other
registrars.
CASE #3: Taking a Domain by Barnstorm
The oldest continuously operating community theater in Pennsylvania, The Barnstormers Theater outside Philadelphia, bought a
Web site package from a small hosting
company two years ago. The company took
control of everything—domain registration,
Web site hosting, and updates. This was
great for the small volunteer-run
theater…until the hosting company went
bust. The Web site disappeared, and any
visitors to the group’s domain name got an
error message. The Barnstormers’ contact at
the now nonexistent host went AWOL, and
left them high and dry.
The theater found free hosting for its Web
site at GeoCities, and rigged up an ad-laden
version of their site there. But nobody involved know how to handle the domain
issue, so they had to change their Web address at the various arts and theater portals,
search engines, and periodicals that listed
them.
When the domain finally expired, a fan of
the group snapped it up and arranged for
new hosting for barnstormerstheater.com at a
local community site.
But unlike Barnstorm’s good fortune, there
are disasters.
CASE #4: Housing authority…without
authority
A city housing authority in Delaware
(which asked not to be named in this article)
outsourced most of its technical services to a
pretty reliable company throughout the
1990s. The support company developed and
maintained the Authority’s general infrastructure, including an intranet.
At the time, there were no plans for a
public Web site, but last year, an office
manager submitted plans and a project man-
agement timeline for a public site that she
could develop and manage herself. When she
came to register the Authority’s domain
name, she found that the .com, .net, and .org
versions had all been registered years earlier.
The registrant was their IT company, which
used the names as a bargaining chip for
taking control of the Web development
project—a potentially lucrative contract.
Who Owns Your Name?
Possession is nine tenths of the law. If you
register a generic sounding domain name or
one that matches a business you own and
run, you have a good case for keeping it.
And if someone else does so on your behalf,
you won’t easily be able to wrest control of
the domain back. If another Barnstormers
theater had registered
barnstormerstheater.com when it dropped,
the original owner would have no recourse
through ICANN or the law courts. The only
other recourse would be to buy back the
domain at whatever price the new owner
wanted—and prices can run into the hundreds or even thousands.
Five Cardinal Rules for Domain Owners
If these horror stories have given you the
fear, take heart. A few simple guidelines can
keep you from suffering the same fate.
Rule #1: Control your own domain
Make sure your name and contact information appear in your domain’s owner and
administrative contact fields. Hop over to
your registrar or to betterwhois.com and
enter your domain name in the form. The site
will return the domain’s whois information
(who is the owner, who is the technical
contact, and so on). Your name, address, and
current email address should be in the owner
(or Registrant) and Admin Contact fields. If
it’s not, follow your registrar’s instructions
for updating them.
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Rule #2: Keep contact information up to
date
The most important information in any
domain record is the admin contact. It’s to
this email address that domain registrars
send their reminders. If you ever decide to
switch to a different registrar, all the confirmation email messages go to this email
address. If you’ve changed ISPs, or you’ve
hired a new office manager, you’ll need to
update this email address immediately.
Different registrars handle the update procedure in different ways—some registrars let
you do this by logging in to administration
Web pages, some require notarized written
proof.
Check with your registrar for details.
Rule #3: Keep your own records
Don’t rely on your registrar for domain
renewal reminders—we’ve already read how
two organizations come to grief over that.
Check the whois information for all the
domains you have registered. At the bottom
of the whois record, you’ll see details like
these:
Record last updated on 1-May-2002.
Record expires on 12-Oct-2004.
Record created on 12-Oct-1999.
Plug that “record expires” date in big bold
letters into your PIM, your diary, and your
wall calendar. Tattoo it on your wrist if you
need to, but make sure that a month before
that date, you pay the registrar for another
year or two of registration.
Keep a Lock on Your Domain
Some domain registrars provide a service
called domain locking. If you’re paranoid
that someone may try to hijack your domain,
check with your registrar about how to turn
on the lock. This prevents anyone from
transferring ownership of your domain (not
an easy or likely thing for most domain
holders, but possible for hackers targeting
high-profile sites).
Of course, it also prevents “slamming” by
unscrupulous registrars who send bogus
domain renewal notices that actually transfer
your domain to a new registrar. You don’t
lose control of your domain this way, but you
often end up paying more or losing services
like free hosting or e-mail forwarding. And
even high-profile companies like Network
Solutions seem to regard this as a legitimate
marketing tool.
Keep a Backup
What’s the first thing you do when you hit a
Web site that’s not what you were expecting?
You check the Web address for typos, right?
If it looks right…you figure you copied it
down wrong and replace the .com with .net,
or .org, or even .info until you see what
you’re expecting.
Anticipate this behavior, just in case someone manages to get control of your main
Web domain. If you have the .com, .net, and
.org versions of your domain name in reserve, all redirected to your main site, you’ll
have an instant quick fix for any domain
napping problems. Sure, this will set you
back a few bucks—but it gives you more
flexibility in the long run.
And it’s pretty good for bragging rights too.
Copyright © 2002 by Matt Lake. Reproduced with permission. Article reproduction
coordinated by Steve Bass, Pasadena IBM
Users Group.
Matt manages two dozen domains, and
maintains a domain buyer’s guide called
RegSelect. Matt Lake manages two dozen
domains, and maintains a domain buyer’s
guide called RegSelect. Matt has written for
many publications, including PC World,
CNET, Computer Currents, and ZDNet. You
can reach him at [email protected],
because his spam filter’s is never set beyond
“Stun.”
Your Old PC: Keep it or Dump it…
Bass explores the hassle of giving away your PC.
By Steve Bass, Pasadena IBM Users Group
If you’re reading this column, there’s a
good chance you have an old PC sitting
around gathering dust. I have some ideas
and a few sites that’ll help you decide what
to do with it.
Me? For the last month I’ve been staring
intently at the PC in the corner. It’s a third
generation, poky PII, the one I used as my
main production machine for years.
There are two other PCs under my deskmy current production machine, and the
one it replaced, a 450MHz PC I use for
testing.
Put it to Work
One way I use a second machine is by
networking it to my production machine
and using it for drudge work. For instance,
I often up- and download humongous
video files. Rather than tie up—and slow
down—my production PC, I let the second
machine do the work. Have a big print job?
Send it to your new-found print server.
The other neat way to use the other PC is
for testing and playing around.
Start by creating a backup image using
Norton’s Ghost (http://snurl.com/ghost) or
PowerQuest’s Drive Image (http://
snurl.com/image). Then load up any of the
tons of freeware and shareware you’ve
wanted to try but wouldn’t dare install on
your production PC. It’s the trick I’ve used
for my work at PC World for years.
network cable will suffice. If you’re already using a broad band connection—
DSL or cable modem—all you need is a
cheap-o router. Here’s a good how-to
article that will tell you more about setting
up a low-cost home network: http://
snurl.com/network
The Guilty PC
I know what you’re thinking. Why be
greedy? Giving the computer to your
parents, a friend in need, or maybe a neighbor would be a great deed. Well, kids, be
careful with your generosity.
On the one hand, it’s a really kind thing
to do, and you’ll feel good about your
donation.
On the other hand, you’ll discover another part of the guilt syndrome: You want
to make the system perfect before you give
it away. Hours, folks, you’ll spend hours
doing things you wouldn’t, didn’t, couldn’t
do when it was your production machine.
Sure, you think, it might be a good idea to
throw in a faster hard drive (heck, it’s just
a 2GB) or maybe a little better graphics
card.
You’ll also feel an obligation to try and
explain how to use all the programs you
left on the PC. And I’ll bet most are without documentation, and guaranteed to
throw your donatee, most likely a novice,
into a tizzy.
Then there’s the tech support you’ll
I have the test PC networked to my proinevitably
have to provide. Don’t think you
duction machine. Networking is easy with
will?
Win 98SE, and even easier with Win XP.
You can pick up a pair of network cards for I promise, on the grave of three systems
under $20. If the PCs are close, a six foot
buried in the garage, you’ll be spending
Tid Bits N’ Bytes
hours working on your old computer. (And
discovering just how slow an old computer
can be.)
I’ll say it again: Don’t bother.
My recommendation? If that neighbor or
friend wants a PC, help them shop for a
new one. If it’s a parent, be a sport and buy
them a brand new computer.
PC Recycling
Your other option is throw the PC in the
virtual Dumpster by way of a local recycling center. If you do some digging, I’ll
bet you can find a local non-profit that
does the dirty work examining and repairing PCs, and distributing them to needy
school kids. You can find out more at the
TechSoup’s Recycled Hardware site: http://
snurl.com/recycle
Computing Factoids
There are unrelated things I pick up in e-mail that
are terrific—but not long enough for an article.
Here are two of them.
Complied by Steve Bass, Pasadena IBM Users Group
Saving Paper? Ha!
I just bought a program (which I think is
excellent) called “Cool Edit Pro” from
Syntrillium (www.syntrillium.com) which is
audio editing and processing program.
The registration card has a box to check that
has this amusing statement:
“Yes! Please send me a hard-copy manual. (A
complete manual is included on your CD. In
the interest of paper conservation, Syntrillium
ships hard-copy manuals only on demand.)”
So I can print it out (conserving their paper) or
have them send me something that should have
been in the box in the first place (conserving
my paper, 225 pages for the manual plus 42
pages for the addendum). Since I paid $399 for
the program, I think I’ll conserve my paper
instead of theirs. —Stan Slonkosky
The PC Disposal site provides services
for large companies needing to bury old
systems (http://snurl.com/dispose) and Dell
has a program that lets you trade in, sell,
auction, or donate your PC (http://
snurl.com/Dell_ex)
Listen Up and Take Heed!
I always tell people to unplug their PC when
I bumped into an article that addresses
working on the insides. It’s something I never
many of these issues. PC World’s Kirk
Steers is a recycling expert. In the story, he do. My unsolicited advice? Do it. All the time.
Here’s why: I added a sound card to my wife’s
explains how to decide whether a PC’s
PC the other day. Easy enough, right? Then,
worth upgrading, and how to recycle it
while the system was up and running, I rewhen it reaches the end of the road. Read
placed the cover. I’ve done it that way since I
“What Should You Do With Your Old
started with PCs in 1983. This time it bit me on
Computer?” at http://snurl.com/whatnow
Listen, if you need me, I’ll be in garage
hunting down some old monochrome
monitors. §
the butt. The case cover touched an add-in card
and the systemboard fried. Better it should
have happened to my PC, you know what I’m
saying? –Steve Bass
Steve Bass is a Contributing Editor with PC World
and runs the Pasadena IBM Users Group. He’s also
a founding member of APCUG. Check his Home
Office columns at http://snurl.com/homeoffice and
sign up for the Steve Bass online newsletter at http://
snurl.com/signup §
Steve Bass is a Contributing Editor with PC World
and runs the Pasadena IBM Users Group. He’s also
a founding member of APCUG. Check his Home
Office columns at http://snurl.com/homeoffice and
sign up for the Steve Bass online newsletter at http://
snurl.com/signup §
Computer Preventative Maintenance Program
Don’t wait for your computer to break! Bring it to the
WPCUG for a checkup and a virus scan.
You change the oil in your car. You take your kids to the
dentist. You do it because it prevents bigger problems
later on. Your computer needs check-ups, too, or it will
give you problems.
connection, a network card (PCI or USB) will be
temporarily installed to ensure critical updates can be
downloaded and applied
The Winnipeg PC User group is offering its members
a Preventative Maintenance Program. Bring your
computer to the Resource Centre, and a trained User
Group volunteer will do the following:
• Vacuum the interior and clean the fans
• Fine tune system performance
• Ensure an anti-virus program is installed and working
• Ensure virus definitions are up to date
• Check for installation of a firewall program
• Generate a listing of the partition tables on the disk
drives for future reference
• Generate a Rescue Diskette for your Windows
operating system
• Provide a checklist of service performed and
recommendations of items that need attention
Glen Ash working on a computer.
All this for only $20.00 (and your donation helps
support the User Group.) This service would cost you
$50 to $100 at any computer store in the city.
The Computer Preventative Maintenance Program is
organized by Glen Ash and Frank Privat. Service is
available every Saturday afternoon, in the evening on the
third Wednesday of every month, or as arranged by
appointment with Glen or Frank. To schedule an
appointment, please send email to pm:@wpcusrgrp.org,
or leave a message on the Resource Centre answering
machine, 958-7228.
Emil Sosnowski, Ryan Rapson and John Kesson
The Fine Print—Please Read
• Program is available only to members of the Winnipeg
PC User Group
• Member should run ScanDisk and Defrag prior to
bringing the system in for maintenance
• The system must have an anti-virus program installed
or the member must be willing to purchase one for
installation
• Maintenance will be performed only at the WPCUG
Resource Centre
• Member responsible for transporting own computer
• Member must sign a waiver before any work is done
• $20 charge is only for services listed on this page;
additional services or major problems will cost extra
• If system does not have a high-speed internet
Jon Phillips and Denis Beaulieu
Tid Bits N’ Bytes
Outrageous Help Desk Stories
From the Help Desk of a company that would rather stay anonymous
Voila! “See,” she said, “I KNEW I had loaded the
Printer problems
envelopes right! It really was something wrong
My favorite story comes from my past when
with the printer!”
working in a tech support organization for a
computer company. At the time of this story, the
It’s Magic!
company had released some buggy spooler
This incident occurred at a previous employer. It
software in their product, which was a database
was not an outrageous complaint, but was more
product.
an example of how incompetent users can be. A
We were quite used to frantic customers calling
user came to me complaining that she could not
after trying to run an end-of-month job to comget any of her documents to print. I went through
plain that nothing is coming out of the printer.
the normal checks to make sure everything was
The typical fix was to dial-in to their computer,
functioning properly, which it was. I then detergo into a debugger and through a laborious
mined that she had not logged on properly to the
process unclog the confused spooler software so
Novell network so her documents were not
the job would print. We would then admonish the getting to the networked printer.
customer to install the latest patches.
Without her knowledge, I got her logged on, but
In this particular instance, the customer called at
before I printed anything, I thought I would have
the end of the day, frantic and upset. A couple of
some fun with her. I asked her if she was familiar
us sat around a terminal and modem and dialed
with the terms bits and bytes, and she said she
into the system. After pawing through the entrails was. I told her that her computer sends bytes of
of the machine for a while, the tech next to me
information through the network to the printer to
talked to the customer on the speakerphone.
be printed.
tech: “would you mind going over to the
printer?”
customer: “OK, I’m there.”
tech: “Do you see a white, square button labeled,
‘On Line?’”
customer: “Yes, I see it.”
tech: “Is it illuminated?”
customer: “No.”
tech: “Please press it once.”
customer: “OK, I did that...Wow! The most
amazing thing just happened: the report is spewing out of the printer. Good job! Thanks a lot!”
And this, of course, is why most companies don’t
use local support. They know it is impossible to
kill someone over the telephone.
Upside Down Envelopes
A long-time user complained that the network
printer had begun printing envelopes upsidedown. I told her the printer could not be printing
them upside down, but the envelopes had to have
been inserted backward. She insisted that she had
been putting envelopes into that printer in exactly
the same way for over a year and she knew it had
always worked that way before. My solution was
to open the printer, take out the toner cartridge,
shake it up a bit, turn the envelopes around,
reinsert the cartridge, and have her try again.
But for some reason, there were a large number of
bytes clogging the line to the printer. We then
went over to the printer where I unplugged the
network connection. I told her we had to let the
bytes “escape” out of the line so it would be clear
to print again. I plugged it back in, went to her
machine and printed a document. She was
amazed!
After that, whenever she had a problem, she asked
me to come “Clean the lines again.”
Black and White in Color
Received a call from a new user wanting to know
why her documents were not printing in color. I
told her that the printer is a black and white laser
printer She said well the program said what you
see is what you get. I told her again that the
printer is only prints in black and white. She
continued to blame the software and her computer
and wanted someone to come take a look at it.
Click the Power Switch
I had a guy who was sitting in the building with
all the power off calling me and screaming that he
could not print his Excel spreadsheet.
Article reproduction coordinated by Steve Bass,
Pasadena IBM Users Group. §
A COMPUTER ADVENTURE - FINAL CHAPTER
By John Hoffmann, CAUG
I usually buy a new computer about every four or
five years. Then I order the cutting edge stuff even
though the prices at first are outrageous. Anyway, I
am at the front edge of technology for a while and
definitely on the short side of technology at the end
of a buying cycle.
Cable modem would become available soon and it
was just about time for a new computer. I use the
computer for word-processing, Internet browsing plus
e-mail. I also do graphics, sometime using three
programs simultaneously, and I use a C++ compiler
and the Microsoft programs like Excel and Access.
Therefore, I wanted a fairly elaborate computer setup.
I went shopping around the Internet and got the idea
to have a computer built. I did not want to mess
around with power or motherboards so the barebones
approach appealed to me. A lot of companies wanted
to sell what they had in stock but I wanted to specify
all components by manufacture and model. I finally
found a company in California that would do that and
guarantee the computer for one year. I approved a few
minor, equivalent component substitutions after some
back and forth conversations.
I bought the new computer in early 2001. These
were the early days of the Pentium 4 CPUs. I
requested an Intel motherboard (I don’t think third
party Pentium 4 motherboards were available yet) and
the more expensive and faster Rambus memory. This
way, all the “working” parts were Intel or Intelsanctioned and although rather new, I hoped to avoid
incompatibility problems.
Everything was looking good. I filled up the
remaining three empty PCI slots with add-on cards I
wanted on my computer. The two USBs were also in
use. The computer was loaded up; I think I would call
it a workstation.
Cable modem became available in mid-2001. I
upgraded the Windows 98 SE to Windows XP Home
Edition in 2002.
Everything was still looking good as the warranty
ran out. Then, I found my computer had shut down
overnight (I normally keep it on all the time and use
an UPS). A reset usually restarted the computer until
one day it would not restart. It would try to startup for
about 15 seconds and then shut down. The two case
fans would not run although the power supply fan
worked fine.
Computer repair is not my thing so I got some
professional help. Initially the repair man just reset
the boards and the computer would run OK - fine for
one week at which time it would not startup. Time for
some serious testing. Diagnostic tests on components
checked out OK. It was hard to repair a computer that
would run sometimes. The Intel motherboard has lots
of shutdown routines to protect the board. These
appeared to be halting the startup.
The repairman dug into the specifications of the
Intel 850GB motherboard and found out I did not
have an Intel-approved power supply. I originally
specified a 300-watt power supply remembering that
power requirements were being lowered to reduce
heat in components. Power supplies usually come
with the case. After viewing the case on the Internet, I
approved what was suggested - all I knew about cases
is that they should be ATX certified. Intel requires a
minimum power of 250 watts and loaded up
computers should have 300 watts (or greater) of
power. The Intel approved power supply has a
separate 12-volt lead that feeds a voltage module.
The final repair solution was to install an Intelapproved power supply that delivers 350 watts of
power. The various diagnostic testing cost more then
the power supply. I have no idea why the old power
supply performed well for over a year.
Everything is working fine now. The repair guy
solved a challenging problem. He is a CAUG
member, recommended by a CAUG member..
I wrote a nasty-gram to the company that assembled
my computer.They could not know I would load up
the computer but surely missed the boat by installing
a power supply that was not Intel-approved. This
might be considered a subtle miscue but it failed my
computer. I have had no response from them yet.
They are making noise like a turnip.
In spite of one serious problem, I would do it all
over again.
John Hoffmann is leader of the Digital Camera SIG and
also does the cover page artwork for this newsletter.
Email: [email protected]
Tid Bits N’ Bytes
Report from the October 2002 General Meeting
By Brian Lowe, Executive Secretary, WPCUG, [email protected]
The annual general meeting of the
Winnipeg PC User Group was held at
Montrose School on October 17, 2002.
President Art Cavenagh opened the
meeting a little later than normal, at 7:20
PM.
Announcements
All members who have inkjet printers can
now recycle their inkjet cartridges. If you
have any cartridges that have never been
opened or refilled, you can drop them off at
the resource centre. Resource centre
manager Arnold Zatser knows of a
company that will buy them.
President Art Cavenagh thanked Perry
Exley for his hard work as Treasurer over
the last four and a half years. Thanks to his
time and effort the group has a
considerable surplus that will see us nicely
into the future. There was a generous round
of applause for Perry from the members.
Elections
This being the annual general meeting of
the group, the board was retired and
elections held for all board positions. With
the exception of the positions of Treasurer
and Advertising and Marketing Manager
(for which there were no nominations at
all) one person was nominated for each
open position, and thus they were filled by
acclamation. The new board of directors,
as of the close of the meeting, was as
follows:
President
Vice-President
Treasurer
Executive Secretary
Membership secretary
Newsletter editor
Newsletter co-editor
Online Services Manager
Group Buyer
Forum coordinator
Advertising and Marketing
Past President
Jon Phillips
Paul Kesson
Rod Domin
Brian Lowe
Doug Hutsel
Paul Stephen
Tom Howard
Greg McClure
John Kesson
Ryan Rapson
vacant
Art Cavenagh
Presentation
The evening’s presentation was intended
to be Micro Video Learning, a company
and product for teaching Microsoft related
products via computer based multimedia.
Unfortunately, even though the demos ran
successfully on Art Cavenagh’s home
computer earlier in the day, we were unable
to get them running on a laptop for the
presentation. The initial try on Windows
XP was unsuccessful and Windows 98
delivered audio but no video (possibly due
to a missing codec).
As was previously announced, members
of the Winnipeg PC User Group can get a
discount on Micro Video Learning
products. The prices on their website,
www.microvideolearning.com, are quoted
in US dollars but are available to us at a
one-for-one exchange rate.
Random Access
Q. What happened to support for Quicken
2000 from the Royal Bank?
A. The security certificate for the product
expired and Intuit did not get a new one.
As a result, many banks have dropped
support for it. It appears to be a back-door
approach to forcing users to upgrade to the
newer Quicken products. Complain to your
bank. Other banks have reinstated support
for it after feedback from their customers.
Q. When a member’s Windows XP system
boots it displays a dialogue box saying
simply, “Error”, followed by a message
indicating that a registry entry needs to be
deleted.
A. One suggestion was to try a registry
cleaner, with caution. If an important key is
deleted XP may not boot, and recovery is
very difficult if the system is running an
NTFS file system (most boot diskettes
can’t work with WinXP’s version of
NTFS.)
Q. A member downloaded the latest
version of Netscape Navigator on
Windows 98 and now his entire system
seems sluggish.
A. The Netscape Navigator 7 is a memory
hog. Since the member was running on 64
megs of RAM, it was suggested he upgrade
his RAM to 128 or 256 MB. It was also
recommended he use Mozilla
(www.mozilla.org) instead: it’s more up to
date and may run more smoothly.
Door Prize
Compaq USB Keyboard: Russell Cooper
Buck For Your Butt
Compaq USB Keyboard: Ryan Rapson
Game - Anarchy Online: Russell Cooper
(double winner!)
Season’s Greetings!
From the executive of the WPCUG
Membership Campaign
We are going to public malls and wellness
centers to talk with people about computers
and the advantages of belonging to our club.
If you are interested in helping out please
contact Magnus Thompson at [email protected]
or (204) 452-1979
Tid Bits N’ Bytes
Report from the November 2002 General Meeting
By Brian Lowe, Executive Secretary, WPCUG, [email protected]
President Jon Phillips opened the meeting at
7:15 PM, welcoming members and guests.
Announcements
We have three new faces on the executive.
Three people came forward to fill the
treasurer’s job, so we put one on the board as
Treasurer and appointed the other two as
officers to assist him. Rod Domin is our
Treasurer, Werner Wiebe is the bookkeeper
and David Estey will be handling the ISP
billing.
Stephen Rice, a former member of the group,
is working in Guyana on a project building
computers for schools and youth centres. He’s
coming back to Winnipeg over Christmas and
hopes to get some needed parts so he can
return with them to Africa. He’s looking for
CD ROMs, hard drives, modems, and video
cards.
This is the last month for our fall fundraisers:
we are selling Show n Save books for $15.00
and Entertainment books for $25.00
A correspondent by the name of Neal sent a
message to the exec asking for information on
an organization called the Canadian Computer
Club that was running in Brandon in the
1970s. If any member has information, he can
send an email to
[email protected].
The group has purchased a new laser printer
for the resource centre, a Hewlett-Packard
2200D.
WiBand Communications, the company that
supplies the back-end connection to the
group’s internet service, has transferred to us
forty dial-up customers. These new people
don’t cost us any money, and will generate a
significant amount of revenue for the group.
The board has approved three motions for
showing appreciation for the time and energy
the board and the appointed officers put into
the group:
1) Deli tray and refreshments at the board
meeting for the people present, paid for out of
the group’s funds
2) Internet access at no charge on our ISP
3) Vests embroidered with the WPCUG logo
In response to a question from the floor, Jon
said we would not buy all new vests every
year, but might purchase new vests if there are
new members on the board. One member
objected to the idea, saying he has seen other
organizations split in two and fall apart over
the issue of boards voting themselves gifts,
and suggested the board set a limit on the
annual value of such gifts.
MOTION FROM THE FLOOR: Moved by
Glen Ash, seconded by Ray Cumming, that
any returns to an individual sitting board
member for each year shall not exceed an
amount equaling three times the annual adult
dues. CARRIED.
Presentation
Emil Sosnowski and Paul Kesson: “Dueling
Monitors”
Do you need more OS desktop real estate, but
can’t afford a 21” monitor? With recent
versions of Windows and Linux, you can add
a second monitor.
To do this, you’ll need a video card with two
VGA output ports, or one AGP and one PCI
video card (the basic design of AGP prevents
more than one AGP port on a mainboard.) If
you use two video cards, both should be from
the same manufacturer, so as to avoid
conflicts in the video drivers.
You’ll also need two monitors, and they
should be the same physical size and be
continued on page 30
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All Forums and Board me e tings are he ld at the Winnipe g PC Us e r Group R e s ource Ce ntre 337C Pe mbina Highway.
N OTE: Winnipe g PC Us e r Group Ge ne ral M e e ting in Augus t will be he ld at the R e s ource Ce ntre .
Note: The data on this page can change at the last minute.
Please check website, the weekly bulletin or phone before going to the session.
J a n u a ry 2 0 0 3
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Se curity Forum
7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
N OTE: Winnipe g PC Us e r Group Ge ne ral M e e ting is he ld at M ontros e School 691 M ontros e St. at Grant Ave nue .
Ple as e us e the e as t door on Grant Ave ..
Tid Bits N’ Bytes
F e b ru a ry 2 0 0 3
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Se curity Forum
7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
Note: The data on this page can change at the last minute.
Please check website, the weekly bulletin or phone before going to the session.
M a rc h 2 0 0 3
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M onday
Tue s day
We dne s day
Thurs day
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Daves Quick Print AD
Tid Bits N’ Bytes
Group Meeting Schedule
Regular meetings are held on the 3rd Thursday (2nd Thursday in December) of each month. Mark your calendar now
so you don’t miss any of the great sessions that will be
“happening” through all of 2001 & 2002.
Meetings are held in the Montrose School -- located at
691 Montrose St at Grant Avenue. Free parking,
wheelchair accessable. Call any member of the executive
for more information.
The General Meeting format is as follows:
6:30 p.m.
7:15 p.m.
8:30 p.m.
8:50 p.m.
9:30 p.m.
Doors open -- get aquainted
Main Presentation
Break
Question/Answers
Adjourn
-- Report from the November 2002 General Meeting continued
running at the same vertical and horizontal
sync rates. It is possible to run two monitors
at different resolutions and colour depths, but
you’ll end up clipping the view of the desktop
on the smaller monitor.
The design of the Windows video driver
subsystem allows up to nine monitors in total
to be installed on a system. Windows
manages them pretty much as a single entity,
although the start menu and task bar appear
only on the monitor designated as the primary
monitor. Program windows can be manually
expanded to cover more than one monitor,
although clicking the “maximize” button
expands the window only to the borders of the
monitor on which the button was clicked.
To state the obvious, different programs can
be run on different monitors. Games, by their
very nature, do nasty things with the video
hardware, and as a result run only on the
primary monitor.
For those on a limited budget and unable to
afford a second video card and monitor, there
is a little utility called the Desktop Manager.
It’s part of the Microsoft Power Toys for
Windows, available as a download from
Microsoft’s web site. It implements something
long available to Linux users: multiple
“desktops” or workspaces. Different programs
or groups of programs can be run in up to
eight separate workspaces, and the active
workspace can be selected by the click of a
mouse in the taskbar.
Random Access
Q. A member is attempting to dial into the
ISP using Linux. A lot of the time the dial
attempt fails, and the following message
appears in the log: “LCP: Timeout sending
config-requests”
A. The message was generated by pppd;
check the source code for clues.
Q. I had formatted a CD-RW, and was
attempting to copy files to it, but by mistake
moved them there. Ran out of resources, had
to reboot, and the files are on neither the
source directories nor the CD-RW.
A. Sorry ... that’s what backups are for.
Q. How can I get high-speed wireless
internet?
A. Some companies (WiBand) can connect
you. Check out a company called Wireless
Odyssey. We will have wireless G3
technology coming to Canada soon. You may
be able to piggy-back on a neighbour’s
connection using 802.11b.
Buck For Your Butt Prizes
Software: PC Telecommute from Symantec:
Harvey Zimberg
Software: Applixware Office Suite for Linux:
Bill Webster
Door Prize
Software: Money 2003 Deluxe from
Microsoft: Dwight Wilkins
W i n n i p e g P C U s e r G r o u p F o r u ms
b y P a u l K e s s o n , F o ru m C o o rd i n a t o r
F o rums @ wpc us rg rp. o rg
A fo r um is a gr o up o f me mb e r s who me e t to s ha r e info r ma tio n
o n to p ic s o f mutua l inte r e s t, i. e . Be ginne r ' s F o r um, Ha r d wa r e
F o r um. M e mb e r s c a n he lp , a nd le a r n fr o m e a c h o the r. Ea c h
fo r um ha s o ne o r two le a d e r s .
M e e t ing Pla c e
Unle s s o the r wis e s ta te d , a ll F o r ums me e t a t the Winnip e g P C
Us e r Gr o up Re s o ur c e C e ntr e a t 3 3 7 C P e mb ina
Highwa y( P e mb ina Highwa y a t F le e t S tr e e t) .
And N o w . . . He re a re t he Fo rums
( lis te d a lp ha b e tic a lly)
Co mput e r B a s ic s FOR UM
M e e ts the s e c o nd S a t urda y o f the mo nth.
1 0 :3 0 a . m. - 1 2 :3 0 p . m.
Le a d e r : B a rb R a ndle
D ig it a l I ma g ing FOR UM
M e e ts the s e c o nd We dne s da y o f the mo nth.
7 :0 0 p . m. - 9 :0 0 p . m.
Le a d e r : N e il Lo ng muir
Ga me s FOR UM
M e e ts the t hird We dne s da y o f the mo nth.
7 :0 0 p . m. - 9 :0 0 p . m.
Le a d e r : Emil S o s no ws k i
Ha rdwa re /I nt e rne t FOR UM
M e e ts the f o urt h S a t urda y o f t he mo nt h
1 0 :3 0 a . m. - 1 2 :3 0 p . m.
Le a d e r s : J o n Phillips & Gre g M c Clure
We b D e s ig n FOR UM
M e e ts the f irs t We dne s da y o f the mo nth.
7 :0 0 p . m. to - 9 :0 0 p . m.
Le a d e r : Emil S o s no ws k i
I ns t a ll/D ro p- I n FOR UM
M e e ts 1 s t & 3 rd S a t urda y s o f the mo nth.
1 0 :0 0 a . m. - 4 :0 0 p . m.
Le a d e r s : J o n Phillips a nd Gre g M c Clure
I nt ro duc t io n t o Co mput e rs FOR UM
M e e ts the f o urt h Thurs da y o f the mo nth
7 :0 0 p . m. - 9 :0 0 p . m.
Le a d e r : B a rb R a ndle
I nv e s t me nt FOR UM
M e e ts the f irs t Thurs da y o f the mo nth
7 :0 0 p . m. - 9 :0 0 p . m.
Le a d e r : Art Ca v e na g h
Linux FOR UM
M e e ts the t hird Tue s da y o f the mo nth
7 :0 0 p . m. - 9 :0 0 p . m.
I nte r im Le a d e r : B ria n Lo we
Ho me N e t wo rk ing FOR UM
M e e ts the f irs t Tue s da y o f the mo nth
7 :0 0 p . m. - 9 :0 0 p . m.
Le a d e r : Ka rl S t rie by
Internet Access Form
Complete and return with $
( $ monthly fee +$ PST & GST)
To:
c/o Internet Subscriptions
P.O. Box 3149
Winnipeg, Manitoba R3C 4E6
Name: (Last, First, Middle Initial)
Home Address:
City:
Postal Code:
Home Phone:
Business Phone:
PC User Group Membership Number:
Bill Method::
Pre Pay
Visa
Mastercard
Card #:____________________________________
Expiry Date (Mo/Yr) ____/____
Direct withdrawl from bank account (provide a
sample void cheque)
____________ _______________ ______________
Bank
Branch
Account
Windo ws FOR UM
M e e ts the s e c o nd Tue s da y o f the mo nth
7 :0 0 p . m. - 9 :0 0 p . m.
Le a d e r : M y le s M unro
TA I nv e s t me nt FOR UM
M e e ts the t hird M o nda y o f the mo nth
7 :0 0 p . m. - 9 :0 0 p . m.
S e c urit y FOR UM
M e e ts the f o urt h M o nda y o f the mo nth
7 :0 0 p . m. - 9 :0 0 p . m.
Al l f o r u m s a r e s u b j e c t t o l a s t m i n u t e c a n c e l l a t i o n !
P le a s e r e a d t h e U G w e e k ly e - m a il " b la s t " o r v is it
o u r w e b s it e t o v ie w o u r m o n t h ly F o r u m C a le n d a r s !
I authorize the Winnipeg PC User Group to charge my
bank account monthly for my use of the WPCUG
Internet Service.
Signature:______________________ Date:_________
Parental/Guardian signature required for members under 18.
__________________________________________
Tid Bits N’ Bytes
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