August - sewwug.org

Page 20
Parking
N.
Senior Center &
Meeding Rooms
www.sewwug.org
Visit SEWWUG’s website at:
Wind-News
Calhoun Road
Brookfield
Library
SEWWUG
Meets Here
Municipal
Building
Southeastern Wisconsin Windows Users Group, Inc
SEWWUG
P.O. Box 2292
Brookfield, WI 53008-2292
SouthEastern Wisconsin Windows Users Group, Inc
Put
Postage
Stamp
Here
SEWWUG
August 2005 Volume 14, Issue 8
The August 3 Meeting
is on
Genealogy
The Family Tree Maker
Visit the Group’s website at:
www.sewwug.org
Page 1
Calendar
DATE
Aug
Aug
Aug
Aug
Sep
Sep
Sep
Sep
Oct
Oct
Oct
Oct
Nov
Nov
Nov
Nov
TIME
3 2005 7:00 PM
13 2005 10:00 AM
15 2005
17 2005 7:00 PM
7 2005 7:00 PM
10 2005 10:00 AM
15 2005
21 2005 7:00 PM
5 2005 7:00 PM
8 2005 10:00 AM
15 2005
19 2005 7:00 PM
2 2005 7:00 PM
12 2005 10:00 AM
15 2005
16 2005 7:00 PM
EVENT
SEWWUG Meeting
Windows Sig
Newsletter Deadline
CMOS SIG
SEWWUG Meeting
Windows Sig
Newsletter Deadline
CMOS SIG
SEWWUG Meeting
Windows Sig
Newsletter Deadline
CMOS SIG
SEWWUG Meeting
Windows Sig
Newsletter Deadline
CMOS SIG
MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION & RENEWAL
PROGRAM
Family Tree Maker
Power Point
Q&A
Video DVD's
XP Tips & Tricks
Q&A
Excel
XP Tips & Tricks
Q&A
Milwaukee PC
Windows XP
Southeastern Wisconsin Windows User Group
Enclose your check of $25.00 for one year membership and mail to:
SEWWUG, P. O. Box 2292, Brookfield, WI 53008-2292
(Due in August)
New Member
Renewal
Name:____________________________________
Address___________________________________
City___________________State____Zip________
Phone: (___)___________Work (___)___________
Q&A
SEWWUG Main Meeting is at the Brookfield Library
Email _____________________________________
Windows SIG Meets at Elmbrook Hospital Room 125
CMOS SIG meets at Elmbrook Hospital Room 125
A one year membership in SEWWUG is only $25.00.
Dues for new members paid after March 1st are 1/2 the annual fee
Dues are not refundable
Interests___________________________________
I can help in the following areas: (Circle)
Inside this Issue
President’s Report
Windows XP Home Edition—The Missing Manual
Maybe, I Can Waste Your Time Too
Search Engine Tips and Tricks
Beginnings of My Dementia?
Chicago Mini-Expo
Membership Renewal Reminder
Membership Application Form
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Page 4-5
Page 6-7
Page 8-9
Page 10-16
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Newsletter Editor
Club Officer
APCUG Representative
Webmaster
Software Librarian
Program Chairperson
Presenter/Speaker
Membership Recruiter
Page 19
CHICAGO COMPUTER SOCIETY
MINI-EXPO IV
The Chico Computer Society is presenting its fourth
annual Mini-Expo – “TECHNOLOGY FOR EVERYONE” Saturday – September 17th – at Prairie State College in Chicago Heights, Ill.
The program will consist of workshops and presentations from leading industry vendors and will be a day
long affair from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm with lunch provided. Registration will begin at 8: am and the fee for
each attendee will be $15.00, however, only $10.ooo for
pre-registration.
SEWWUG will try to keep everyone posted when more
details are received. Further information, because of a
short timeline will probably come through e-mails.
Mark your calendar and pool with your friends.
SEWWUG
OFFICERS
Joe Dellosso - President - [email protected]
Ray Jamrose - Vice President - [email protected]
Shirley frank – Secretary - [email protected]
Bob Ziemer -Treasurer - [email protected]
BOARD MEMBERS (VOTING)
James Jaeschke - Advisor - [email protected]
Ken Foshey - Newsletter Editor– [email protected]
Bruce Schneider – Webmaster* – [email protected]
SEWWUG ANNUAL DUES
ARE DUE AUGUST 1, 2005
PLEASE SEND YOUR
DUES
TO SEWWUG, INC.
P. O. BOX 2292
BROOKFIELD, WI 53008-2292
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BOARD MEMBERS (ADVISORY)
Brent Wenzel - Windows SIG Captain – [email protected]
Ron Moe- Equipment Manager – [email protected]
Valerie Houk – Digital Camera Contact - [email protected]
Roger Van Boxtel - Software - [email protected]
Monthly Board Meeting One-Hour Prior to Main Meeting
At the Brookfield Library.
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FROM THE PRESIDENT
Beginnings of My Dementia?
by Morris Galitzer
By Joe Dellosso
Beginnings of my Dementia development or maybe, I should have
known? These days, I never know!
The presentation from Smart Computing was greeted
strongly by the group in attendance. I, for one, have
used their service minimally – BUT from what I saw
they have a lot to offer any individual who subscribes.
Their services offer a complete support service with
free phone numbers – answers to many questions via
their web site – ability to look into any of their past
publications for many subjects – and on and on. I am
going
to
bookmark
this
site
–
www.smartcomputing.com and begin to make use of
their services. Great performance - Luke and Jennifer –
the members’ thank you and hope you find the answers
to your system problems - on your web site. It’s a great
place to look.
Things were working fine until I succumbed to the invitation to
download a newer version of Adobe’s Acrobat Reader. Previously I
had used versions 3.0, 4.0, 4.5, and 5.0 with no problem. After
downloading the free version, I found that I could only open PDF
(Portable Document Format) files by first running the Acrobat Reader
program and then opening the PDF file from within the program. Previously one could just double-click on the icon for the PDF file and it
would open for viewing. It puzzled me that the newer version didn’t
work the way previous versions had. I thought that in previous versions
of Windows operating systems a message window would appear and
ask me if I wanted to associate this file with some program. Then it
would lead me to a list of programs from which I could make an association, not this time.
On another note – the new Board held its first meeting
since election and I was very pleased with the results
and the positive attitudes of all in attendance. The
Board discussed getting great presentations [and Ray is
already booked through January 2006 with good ones]
the web site will be completely revamped in an effort to
attract new members and help the present ones – we are
on the prowl looking for a new ISP provider for the
members – since it has become evident that NaSPA no
longer has interest in our group – Roger will be involved in an increased effort in obtaining review copies
of software from manufacturers – there are new things
happening in the Saturday SIG and the CMOS SIG –
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Time passed and I just lived with the problem. I even asked about it at
one of our Saturday morning SIG meetings. The solution provided me
was to wait for the next newer version to come out, so I did.
One June morning, I found a solution to try, in the Computer Shopper,
May 2005. It addressed the problem of programs, which often steal file
associations. To easily change the association for any given file type,
one has to:
1. Right-click the Windows Start key to open Windows Explorer
2. Navigate to folder containing one of the improperly associated files
3. Right-click on the icon for that file to obtain pop-up menu (1)
4. One could select Open With > (On a sub-menu (2) with a list of a
few possible programs (to choose from) pops up, or
5. ** At the bottom of pop-up menu (2) select Choose program. This
will open up a window numerous program choices. Make a selection,
but make sure to check the box marked “Always use the selected
program to open this kind of file.”
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Don't worry too much about misspelled words. With any
search engine, a search query with a misspelling might get
you some good results that you wouldn't see otherwise!
Google will suggest a corrected spelling along with its
search results, but if the initial search comes up empty will
correct the spelling on its own and re-run the search.
Google will ignore some common short words (like a, on,
and by) in your queries. The best way around these socalled stop words in most cases is simply to enclose the
phrase in quotes, which will force Google to search only
for the phrase as given. (A phrase search will of course
come in handy on other occasions as well.) Otherwise, you
can precede a suspected stop word with the plus sign (for
example, +on).
Google recognizes the OR operator, or, in its stead, the vertical line. So if you're seeking search results concerning
cats or dogs (but not both), you could type “cats OR dogs”
or “cats | dogs” [without the quotes]. Use the minus sign
right before a search term for “not.” (“Animals -dogs”
[without the quotes] would ignore dogs in the search.) For
complicated queries, you can if necessary group search
words within parentheses.
Instead of clicking on the main link at the top of each
Google search result, try clicking on the word Cached. The
page that will come up will now have your search words
highlighted. (Don't use this technique if you need to see the
most recent page revisions.)
Google supports word wild cards. That is, you can in your
query use the asterisk [*] as a stand-in to represent any
word. (This won't work in Google for parts of words.)
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and these groups are growing – and it is hoped that Valerie will become readily available to give our digital
members good photo advice AND our advisor Jim J. is
poised to help whenever needed in his new role. In addition Bob and Shirley will insure that proper records
are kept of all activities and expenditures. Whew! I
hope I have not forgotten anyone or anything. All in
all, as I stated it was a great meeting. The ball is rolling
and the Board just has to keep pushing it along.
I have had numerous conversations with a number of
our members and there is a mixed feeling about the club
presentations. Some say they are above their heads and
others feel otherwise. It’s impossible to please everyone but I feel we have something for everyone – but remember whether one fully understands the presentation
there is always something to be learned.
Our club is structured to present full programs at the
main monthly meeting – with some time for questions
and answers. Occasionally there will be one full meeting directed to just questions answers. The SATURDAY SIG – while it does present a single unit program
is a great place to bring your questions and problems.
An even greater place for those types of issues is the
CMOS SIG. I hope everyone agrees that we have the
best of both worlds – major presentations for general
information and SIGS for smaller presentations along
with questions and answers. How can you lose? See
you where the action is.
HAPPY COMPUTING
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Book Review by Conrad Heinzel (SEWWUG Member)
"Windows XP Home Edition"
The Missing Manual
Author: David Pogue
Copy Editor: John Cacciatore
Cover Illustration: Rose Cassano
Book Design and Layout: Phil Simpcon
The title of this book says it all. Windows XP
Home - The Missing Manual - The book that
should have been in the box.
I've always relied on printed material for my computer questions. I use Microsoft's internal and online help but nothing beats opening a book such
as "The Missing Manual" for an answer to my
questions. I normally don't read a book such as
this from cover to cover as I would a novel. I use
it as a very complete reference manual as the
need arises.
The book has a very nice Index which I can use to
look up any question on Win XP that I might have.
The black locater tabs on each page are a nice
feature which highlight the main subject of that
particular page.
There are Six Main Parts to the book.
Part One: "The Windows XP Desktop" has five
chapters
Part Two: "The Components of Windows XP" has
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Web search not only to Google Local but also to Google
Images and Froogle (as well as to Google Groups and
Google News), by clicking on links at the top of every results page. Or you can skip the Google entry page and go to
Xtra Google at www.xtragoogle.com for a selection of
twenty Google tools, all tied to one search box.
Google Tips
Toolbar tips
Use Alt-G to enter search terms in the search box.
For your news search, don't enable the separate news button, but instead use the Search News option in the dropdown Search the Web menu. That way you'll be able to use
the Alt-G shortcut to enter your news search query, and to
use the same query for news and general Web searching,
without retyping.
When using the word-find function, hold down the control
key to find the exact whole word, and similarly use the
shift key to move backwards.
Other Google tips
For academically oriented results (often the most useful),
try typing site:edu either before or after your search terms.
This will eliminate commercial sites, and limit results to
those from educational institutions.
Although Google now implements “stemming”
(automatically searches for variants of words as well as the
words themselves), you can cover still more bases by using
the tilde [~] symbol right before a search term (leaving no
space). This will tell Google to use synonyms as search
queries. For example, a search for ~food ~facts will turn up
cooking information.
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Weather forecasts are easily obtained by typing in the
Google search bar the word “weather” followed by the city
of choice (for example, “weather canoga park.”) The forecast will speedily appear at the top of a page of search results.
Froogle, a comparison service for online shopping whose
listed vendors pay neither for inclusion nor placement, is at
http://froogle.google.com/froogle.
Google Print gives you access to books' contents and lets
you search within those books. Look for the “book results”
entry in standard search results, accompanied by the
Google Print logo.
G o o g l e
S u g g e s t ,
a t
www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en, appears and
acts like the standard Google search, except that as you
start typing your search request, Google types its own suggestions. These could save you time and also point you to
related searches.
Google Desktop, to search files on your own computer,
can be downloaded from http://desktop.google.com. Unfortunately, it's available only for users of Windows 2000 and
Windows XP.
Gmail, which on March 31 started offering rich text formatting, has as of April 1 doubled its storage capacity to a
whopping 2 gigabytes. Gmail is not yet open to the public,
but invitations can be obtained from various sources, including this writer.
Note that without re-typing you can extend your standard
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four chapters
Part Three: "Windows Online" has three chapters
Part Four: "Plugging in to Windows XP" has four
chapters
Part Five: "Building a Network" has three chapters
Part Six includes Two Appendixes
A: Installing Windows XP Home Edition
B: Windows XP, Menu by Menu
The author does a marvelous job in detailing
each subject using Win XP screen shots as examples. A screen shot with a detailed explanation makes this book a joy to reference. Many
pages also include an extra "TIP" paragraph
which adds more depth to a previous explanation.
There are special paragraphs in each chapter to
accommodate all skill levels from beginner to advanced user.
Windows XP Home Edition - The Missing Manual
is my crutch when I need a Windows XP question
answered.
This book can be purchased from O'Reilly & Associates, 1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebasopol, CA. 95472.
Order from their website: www.oreilly.com. List
price is $24.95. ISBN:0-596-00260-2
SEWWUG members are entitled to a 20% discount by mentioning Code DSUG when ordering.
Questions may be directed to: Marsee Henon at
[email protected]
Page 7
(without the quotes), followed by the word of interest. This
service is now multi-lingual.
Maybe, I Can Waste Your Time Too
by Morris Galitzer
So much time has gone by since Brent Wenzel introduced and reintroduced and again reintroduced
anti-spyware, like the free Spybot, Ad-aware, and
one antivirus software. How often have we come to
meetings and Brent has burned a CD to provide
everyone at various SIG meetings a copy, while
showing how to use the software? And yet, members still come and ask about these solutions.
Maybe we should change our user group name to S
E W I M F (South Eastern Wisconsin Internet Malady Fighters)
At the last Saturday SIG, one of our members
brought up a similar problem. When Spybot-Search
& Destroy is used to clean computer of spyware,
warnings consistently appear about DSO Exploit.
According to Microsoft, this was fixed. How can
one fix this?
According to one of Kim Kommando’s newsletter
tips: Supposedly, DSO Exploit is a flaw in Internet
Explorer that was fixed ages ago, but a Spybot bug
causes it to continue reporting DSO Exploit on updated Windows systems.
The view is that you can safely ignore these reports.
Yet, many inquiries continue to be made about this
issue. Therefore, if you are tired of seeing DSO Exploit, you can try to prevent this. You have to hack
the Registry.
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Reverse phone directory. In the search box type the area
code and phone number (with a space between them), and
there's a good chance you'll bring up at the top of the results page not only the person or company name for that
number, but also the address.
Google offers special searches, limited (for example) to
U.S. government or to Microsoft. Go to
www.google.com/options/specialsearches.html.
For those who like to purchase through the use of catalogs,
Google's catalog search is at http://catalogs.google.com.
Google will enable you to view a page that's been removed
from the Web. Look for the “Cached” link after the description of the page in a search result. (Or click the Page
Info button on the Google Toolbar.) This function will give
you access to many closed-down sites not yet available via
the Internet Archive. (The Internet Archive -- not a Google
service -- is at www.archive.org.)
The Google Directory at http://directory.google.com combines the Open Directory Project (the Web's largest humanedited directory) with Google's proprietary ranking system.
Use of the directory is helpful to narrow down what might
otherwise be an overly broad search. (This tool is also
available from the Google Toolbar.)
Google Answers at http://answers.google.com/answers is a
paid research service--but users are free to browse previous
answers, which can be quite helpful.
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full-screen view). Zooming (in or out) is very quick, and
re-centering is instantaneous. A new feature brings up a
birds-eye view if you click on “Satellite.”
Google Maps and Google Local are now pretty much the
same service: A page brought up by Google Maps has a
link to “Local Search,” which provides the local data on the
same page; and a page brought up by Google Local includes the map (which, although smaller, can be expanded
with one click). The local data includes the names, addresses, phone numbers, and websites of businesses, and,
often, third-party reviews (like restaurant reviews).
You can now get to Google Maps by typing a location in
the standard Google search bar. And you'll find a link to
Google Local at the top of every page of Google search
results.
The best of the rest.
1. Back up the Registry.
2. Run Spybot. It will show the paths to the
problem keys in the Registry. In Kim Kommando’s case, there were four paths. They were
all similar to: HKEY_USERS/S-1-519/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersi
on/Internet Settings/Zone/0
3. Open the Registry, by clicking Start, Run. Enter "regedit" (minus the quotes) in the box. Click
OK.
In each instance, follow the paths to the end. Click
on the plus signs before each item in the path.
When you reach the end (the folder named 0),
find 1004 in the right panel. If the type is
REG_DWORD, double-click 1004.
1. In Value Data, change the 0 to 3. Click OK.
The following are, in my experience, the most useful (or
most interesting) of Google's non-standard services. You
do not need the Google Toolbar to employ them:
Google's image search at www.google.com/imghp, touted
as the Web's most comprehensive, indexes (according to
Google) over 880 million images.
Google will give you a business address and phone number. The easiest way is through the ResearchBuzz! form at
www.researchbuzz.org/archives/001408.shtml.
Google will bring up one or more definitions for nearly
any word. In the Google search box just type “define:”
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2. If the type is REG_SZ, right-click 1004. Delete it. Right-click an empty area in the right
panel and click NewDWORD Value. Name it
1004.
3. Right-click 1004. Click Modify. Change
Value Data to 3. Click OK.
When finished, close the Registry. Reboot the
computer and run Spybot.
You should have no more DSO Exploit reports.
Maybe, this may be over the will and ability of
many in our group. Yet, you might try it or just…
continue to see DSO Exploit.
Page 9
Search Engine Tips and Tricks
By Richard Johnson, TUGNET, Granada Hills CA
www.tugnet.org
Part 1: Google
I don't have to tell you about Google, which has for many
years been the search leader. Aside from the quality of its
searches, a big plus is that all Google's paid listings are
clearly distinguished, and do not even appear in the same
part of the page. This is unfortunately not the case with
other search services such as Yahoo, which intersperses
undifferentiated paid and unpaid listings.
Newbies will want to know they can initiate a Google
search at www.google.com. All the services I'm recommending here, most of them from Google but a few from
other sources, are entirely free.
Google Toolbar
If you don't already use the Google Toolbar, you're missing a terrific navigational aid. Its features are really too numerous to detail here, but I find especially useful its ability
to readily
bring up a parent Web page,
search within a website,
find pages similar to what you're looking at,
find sites linking to that page,
translate a page into English,
browse by name (if you don't know the URL),
highlight search terms on the page,
find on the page your search terms or any other terms
(more handily than with your browser's “Find” function),
fill forms, and
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block pop-ups.
(There are better pop-up blockers and form fillers, but
Google's may suit you fine.)
The toolbar enables most of the standard Google tasks,
including some described in the next section. Not only are
all these tasks easily accessible, but also you won't have to
re-type your search terms (for example, when you search
for an image after a standard search).
I strongly recommend version 3, which adds many useful
tools, the best of which will allow you to
spell-check what you've typed on a Web form by clicking
a toolbar button,
bring up a map page (using the impressive new Google
Maps--see below) just by clicking on an address, and
track a delivery by clicking on its tracking number.
Since it's still in beta, version 3 is not publicized, and
won't automatically replace your present Google Toolbar.
To get it, go to www.toolbar.google.com/T3.
Other Google Goodies
Google Maps and Google Local
Google has recently introduced its own map system, that's
head and shoulders above the competition. It's available as
a stand-alone service at http://maps.google.com and as an
adjunct to the more established Google Local, at
http://local.google.com.
Compared to other online maps, the area of a Google map
is huge, taking up more than half the screen, and expanding
to fill any additional space (for example, if you move to a
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