Push Articles for December 2006
IE7
By Sandy Berger, Compu-KISS
www.compukiss.com
sandy@compukiss.com
If you are using Windows XP, in the next few weeks when the Microsoft
automatic Windows update appears on your computer, you will be asked
if you want to upgrade your browser to the newly released Internet
Explorer 7. It’s great that Microsoft is giving us a choice rather
than installing the new browser automatically. However, questions like
these are always difficult for the average user.
Yet with this question, you don’t have to hesitate to answer “yes”
because the new Internet Explorer (version 7) is a great improvement
over previous versions. I have been using it as part of beta testing
for the last six months with no issues. I love its many new features.
Continued...
The New, the Best, and the Worst
Collected by Pim Borman, Website Editor, SW Indiana PC Users Group,
Inc.
http://swipcug.apcug.org/
swipcug@sigecom.net
Spintronics
No one, fifty years ago, could have foreseen or even imagined how the
advent of evermore powerful computers would revolutionize science,
technology, commerce, and communications. Vastly improved algorithms
and architectural structures have been important, but the crucial
factor has been the ability to cram ever smaller and more complex
circuits on a semiconductor chip. That ability is now approaching a
limit posed by atomic size and increasing influence of quantum
effects. We may have to learn how to do more with what we already have
if we want to further improve computers so that they'll be able to
predict the weather or model the Big Bang, to mention just a few
challenges.
Continued...
E-Mail: Be Less Annoying
Byline: by Steve Bass, PC World; Author, PC
Annoyances.
Steve Bass is a Contributing Editor with PC World, a 23 year veteran of PIBMUG, and a founding member of APCUG. He’s also the author of PC Annoyances: How to Fix the Most Annoying Things about Your Personal Computer, O’Reilly Press. It’s available on Amazon at dirt cheap prices. http://snurl.com/annoyances
Everyone -- including Bill Gates -- can
use e-mail more efficiently. And learn how not to do really dumb
things.
I've come to the conclusion that everyone needs to take a test before
being able to use e-mail. No, I'm serious. You have to take an e-mail
test. If you pass, you get an e-mail license. Proudly hang it on the
wall. Screw up--send lots of messages with blank subject lines,
say--and your license is pulled. You go on probation and attend
mandatory remedial e-mail training.
Why am I being so hardnosed? I have a laundry list of ways people
drive me wild with e-mail. I wrote about a few in "Get Relief From
Annoying E-Mail," my July, 2006 "Hassle-Free PC" column:
http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,125767,tk,nl_sbxhow,00.asp
But I ran out of room in the print column, so here are some more tips,
including how to stop being obnoxious with your e-mail.
Push Articles for November 2006
Are You A Zombie? How About Your Computer?
by S. Jack
Lewtschuk Monterey Bay Users’
Group – Personal Computer (MBUG-PC)
www.mbug.org
blacklion@royal.net
There
are literally hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of “zombie
computers” out there. Is your computer one of them?
Creating zombies out of computers used by you and me has become a
major tool used by computer hackers, unscrupulous marketers, and other
malicious evil-doers. A computer becomes a zombie when it performs
tasks as instructed by someone other than the computer owner. The
instructions given to the zombie usually involve distributing
information to other computers, which the zombie computer does without
notifying its owner. In every spare moment, a zombie computer sends
out data, most of which is spam that tries to get someone to purchase
something. Continued...
U3
Drives
By Diane George, Webmaster, PC Community, California
http://www.pcc.org
digeorge@sbcglobal.net
This
month’s column is half tips and half product review. I recently got
interested in U3 drives, partly as a result of some software I saw at
the Southwest PC User Group conference in San Diego in July.
What is U3 and why do I want to know? It’s not the successor to the
rock band U2. U3 is an open-standard platform that allows you to take
applications and store and launch them on a flash drive. Several flash
drives are offered with U3 with pre-loaded U3 applications on them.
Verbatim, Memorex, Ativa and SanDisk all offer U3 smart drives. Go to
http://www.u3.com/smartdrives/default.aspx for a list of U3
drives and more information.
The drives come with software preloaded, such as an application that
will allow you to take Office documents created on your desktop
computer, and work on them on another computer (also with Office
installed), without a trace of the files being left on the second
computer. This means that you can take your work with you without a
laptop, use a computer elsewhere, like in an Internet cafe, without
having to copy the files to the new computer, including your e-mail.
Continued...
The New, the Best, and the Worst
Collected by Pim Borman, Website Editor, SW Indiana PC
Users Group,
Inc.
http://swipcug.apcug.org/
swipcug@sigecom.net
Backup, Schmackup.
I can't pick up a computer magazine without being harangued about the
urgent need to back up my hard drive(s) before the world is coming to
an end. I have never been able to bring myself to follow that
well-meant advice, although not without lingering feelings of guilt.
On a few occasions I have used the latest hot backup program to store
data folders to a compressed file on a backup drive. Then I wondered
if I would be able to retrieve my data from that file if the need
arose, and conveniently forgot to update the backup.
Continued...
Push articles for October 2006
BASICS - Software with New Computers
by Hilton Kaufman, member of the Chicago Computer
Society, IL
www.ccs.org
hmkaufman@earthlink.net
When a typical consumer buys a computer, some
software or programs normally comes with it. Just what is included
will vary with price and brand, but usually includes an operating
system as a minimum. It is possible to get a custom built machine
without any software if this is actually wanted.
I recently bought an HP Media Computer, that I consider an overkill
machine, for home use. A lot of software comes with it. There are
several separate programs for working with audio-visual files and
DVDs, two money management programs, several games, two internet
browsers, two office suites plus an extra word processor, a security
program, and probably a few other small programs.
Continued...
BlueCoat’s K9 Web Protection
by Mike Mitchell, Board Member and Newsletter Editor
Topeka (Kansas) PC Users Club
http://www.topekapcusersclub.org
mike.mitchell@cox.net
Lately, I have been approached by several
parents asking if there is a reliable Internet filtering solution they
can install on the computer for their kids. I have also thought even
some adults might be interested in content filtering software to
possibly help decrease the risk of spyware, malware and viruses being
installed on their PCs. (Most of that comes from inappropriate sites
anyway.) The statistics are staggering: 5,000 pornography sites
registered daily; nine of ten kids ages 8-16 have viewed pornography
on the Internet, often in the process of doing homework; one in five
children ages 10-17 have received a sexual solicitation over the
Internet – and those are stats for just one category! Furthermore, the
FBI lists on their website the following as some of the reasons your
child might be at risk online:
Continued...
First Impressions
– Office 2007 (Beta)
by Ann Moore, Member of the Topeka (Kansas) PC
Users Club
http://www.topekapcusersclub.org
com_muter1@cox.net
The deadline for submission of my monthly article is looming and I am still struggling to complete it. As the time draws nearer, our editor will bombard me with e-mails. I have a legitimate excuse but will he believe me when I tell him that I am tangled up in a Ribbon. Yes, the Microsoft Word 2007 Ribbon.
I had decided to compose this month’s article using
Microsoft Word 2007 Beta. When I opened the program I was stunned. 
What
I was viewing did not in any way resemble the Microsoft Word that I
had used for many years. Where to begin? My first thought was to seek
Help. Continued....
Microsoft Windows Vista
By Mike Moore, President, Bowling Green Area Microcomputer User Group,
KY
Webstar@hughes.net
http://www.bgamug.org/
In many respects, Microsoft’s dominance in the
areas of Internet Browsers, Office Suites and of course Operating
Systems is puzzling, at least in the past few years. Open Source
software such as the free OpenOffice.org suite has come into its own
and the latest Apple MacIntosh™ computers are brought to market with
an operating system featuring iron-clad Unix underpinnings and a
cheeky marketing campaign designed to turn PC users away from Windows.
Microsoft’s answer to the rapidly changing personal computing scene
has been a complete rethinking of Windows from the ground up.
Push Articles for September 2006
Push articles for September 2006
CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and
Humans Apart)
By Sandy Berger. Compu-KISS
www.compukiss.com
sandy@compukiss.com
Have you ever tried to sign up for a message
board or Web service and been presented with an image with letters and
numbers which you are asked to read and type into the Web form? While
the shape, size, and background of the image varies it always has
contains a series of letters and numbers, usually on a graphic
background.
Often the letters and numbers are distorted and you have to struggle
to recognize them, making you wonder why the website is making you go
through this extra step. Don’t blame the website. This
image-recognition routine is something caused by cousins of the nasty
spammers who have permeated our email.
Continued...
Are You Concerned About Loss of Personal Data?
By Carlisle Barnes, Newsletter Editor, Bowling Green Area
Microcomputer User Group, KY
Newcarlislebarnes@insightbb.com
http://www.bgamug.org/
The advanced state of Information Technology is one of the great
blessings of modern times. Today it is built into our economy, and it
would be hard for both individuals and corporate America to do without
it. However, along with the blessings to us have come curses. These
curses are going to get considerably worse unless some dramatic
changes are made in the way stored information is handled by the
majority of organizations.
Continued...
Windows XP and Speech Recognition
By Vinny La Bash, Member of the Sarasota PCUG,
Florida
vlabash@comcast.net
I used to watch Star Trek in envy as the ship’s computer “listened” to
the crews’ instructions and responded with perfect understanding.
Speech recognition is not there yet, but why let lack of perfection
stop us from trying?
Speech recognition has come a long way since it was first introduced
to personal computers. On a basic level speech recognition is the
process of converting an acoustic signal, captured by a microphone,
and transforming it into words on a document.. The procedure is highly
technical, but you don’t have to understand its inner mysteries to use
it any more than you need to know how an automobile is designed in
order to drive it.
Continued...
Push articles for August 2006
Title: “Suddenly…” OR “I didn’t do anything!” Part 2
Subtitle: Or — a month’s log of a SCA Computer Club “house call”
doctor.
By Charles W. Davis, Newsletter editor & webmaster, Sun City Anthem
Computer Club, Henderson, NV
Chas@anthemwebs.com
www.myscacc.org
These first two paragraphs are a repeat of the introduction to Part 1
of this article. In working to help Club members and others with their
computer problems during the Thursday morning Computer Talk sessions,
or more often when making “house calls,” I often hear strange tales
that usually involve acts of some gremlin like creature. However,
gremlins are more closely related to mechanical problems in aircraft.
Generally the caller’s comments start with “all of a sudden” or
“suddenly” and end with “I didn't’ do anything.” I can only surmise
that it was probably one of cartoonist Bil Keane’s ghostly imps “Not
Me.” “Nobody” or even “Ida Know.”
Continued...
Choose Your Own “Home Page”
By Ira Wilsker
WEBSITES:
http://my.yahoo.com
http://www.live.com
http://www.msn.com
http://www.theexaminer.com
http://www.mozilla.com
http://my.netscape.com
http://www.google.com/ig?hl=en
I work on a lot of different computers at a variety of locations, and
one factor that consistently astounds me is that many people have
blissfully ignorantly never changed their startup “home page” from its
default. This is the page that first opens when the user connects to
the internet. For example, many Dell computers have the Dell website
set for the startup page when the user first accesses the internet,
while Windows itself, unless otherwise changed, defaults to
Microsoft’s MSN home page, making it one of the mostly used startup
pages. Many internet service providers (ISP), such as AOL, AT&T, and
others changed the users’ home page to the ISP’s selected home page.
Windows Vista; A Preview
By Brian K. Lewis, Ph.D., Member of the Sarasota PCUG,
Florida
Bwsail@yahoo.com
http://www.spcug.org
As you all probably know by now, Vista is the next version of Windows
that Microsoft will be releasing. It was supposed to be available this
November, but it's release has been postponed to after January 1,
2007. However, that 2007 release date relates to the non-business
versions of Vista. In other words, the versions that most of us will
be using. The “enterprise” or business versions are expected to be
shipped this November, unless something else slips.
Continued...
PUSH articles for July 2006
Backup Awareness Month
By Ira Wilsker, APCUG Advisor; Columnist, The Examiner, Beaumont, TX;
Radio & TV show host
iwilsker@apcug.net
Websites:
http://www.backupawareness.com
http://www.ntius.com
http://www.symantec.com
http://www.backupawareness.com/bestpractices.html
In case you had not heard, June is Backup Awareness Month. It is not a
federally recognized holiday, nor is it one acknowledged by resolution
from some governmental authority, but an awareness service of one of
the largest manufacturers of hard drives, the newly merged Maxtor and
Seagate.
Accessing Family Accounts in Cases of Emergency
By Gabriel Goldberg, APCUG Advisor;
Columnist, AARP Computer & Technology Website,
www.aarp.org
We know it's important to maintain current wills, powers of attorney,
medical directives, and other such documents. With much data now
stored electronically, emergency preparedness includes planning for
family members, trusted friends, and advisors to access personal
information stored online, on computers, and in electronic gadgets.
More >>>
Access Family Accounts in Emergencies
It's clear how important it is for each of us to maintain current
wills, powers of attorney, medical directives, and other such
documents. And family members, trusted friends, and advisors such as
lawyers need quick access to them. In their absence, at stressful
times, important actions and decisions become needlessly difficult.
Continued...
Title “Suddenly…” OR “I didn’t do anything!” Part 1
Subtitle: Or — a month’s log of a Sun City Anthem Computer Club “house
call” doctor
By Charles W, Davis, Newsletter Editor & Webmaster, Sun
City Anthem Computer Club, Henderson, NV
Chas@anthemwebs.com
www.myscacc.org
In working to help Club members and others with their computer
problems during the Thursday morning Computer Talk sessions, or more
often when making “house calls,” I often hear strange tales that
usually involve acts of some gremlin like creature. However, gremlins
are more closely related to mechanical problems in aircraft.
Generally the caller’s comments start with “all of a sudden” or
“suddenly” and end with “I didn't’ do anything.” I can only surmise
that it was probably one of cartoonist Bill Keane’s ghostly imps “Not
Me.” “Nobody” or even “Ida Know.”
Continued....
PUSH Articles for June 2006
Traveling With a Video Camcorder
by Joseph Asling, Video Project Coordinator May
2006
MBUG-PC (Monterey Bay Users Group – Personal Computer)
Jasling@pacbell.net
www.mbug.org
Summer is coming and it’s time to go somewhere interesting and
photogenic. Many people carry cameras when they travel and not a few
of us take camcorders. Here are a checklist and a few suggestions for
coming back with better video.
Pre-Departure
Equipment Checkup - Make sure your camcorder is in good shape.
Run a few minutes of tape and see that it looks and sounds OK,
otherwise take it in for cleaning. Allow at least two weeks for
turnaround.
Continued...
Printing Better Pictures
by Robert Spotswood, Member of HAL-PC, active in the Linux SIG and a
freelance computer professional May 2006
www.hal-pc.org
Robert@spotswood-computer.net
When a dot is not a dot
Have you ever tried to print out a picture that looks good on your
monitor only to be disappointed with the result? Does it come out way
smaller/bigger than you expected or look really grainy?
This is not a random act by your computer. In order to understand why
it happens, and more importantly, be able to prevent these problems,
you have to understand when a dot is not a dot.
This is not an easy subject to grasp initially, but if you play with
it just a little, the light bulb will light and it will become almost
second nature very quickly.
Continued...
Swissbit
– Victorinox Do Everything USB, MP3 Swiss Army Knife
By Ira Wilsker, APCUG Director; Columnist, The Examiner, Beaumont, TX;
Radio & TV Show Host
Iwilsker@apcug.net
WEBSITES:
http://www.swissbit.com
http://www.victorinox.com
http://support.swissbit.com/pdf/s.beat_Fact_Sheet.pdf
http://www.victorinox.com/index.cfm?page=242&lang=E
Hey dads! With Father’s Day fast approaching, maybe you should
get copies of this article,
and leave the copies at strategic places around the house where key members of the family are likely to see them. Dads are often hard to buy gifts for, and all too often end up with that ubiquitous neck tie that typically works its way into the back of the closet, and eventually accidentally falls into the bag headed for the rummage sale. Maybe instead of the well intended, but often useless gift that we dads sometimes receive, perhaps a really fun high tech gift would be more appropriate. Continued...
PUSH Articles for May 2006
New Hard Drives and XP Hard Drive Management
Utility
By Ira Wilsker, APCUG Director; Columnist, The Examiner, Beaumont, TX;
Radio & TV Show Host
WEBSITE: http://www.langa.com
With the oft mentioned convergence, where our desktop computers are
now commonly used for more than traditional computing tasks, many of
us seem to run low on hard drive space. A quick review of the
newspaper and online ads for the electronics and office supply stores
often show a selection of large capacity hard drives for very
reasonable prices. Sometimes these hard drives can be purchased for an
exceptionally low price after the application of high value rebates.
Now that many of us are using our hard drives for the storage and
editing of video (very large files), countless music files (typically
a few megabytes each), and even recording and time shifting TV (huge
files), it is quite easy for hard drive space to run short. This is an
indication that it is time to somehow utilize an additional hard
drive. Continued...
Organizing the Favorites Menu by Glenn
Richards, Emeritus Member of the Lake-Sumter Computer Society,
Leesburg, FL
grich32(at)yahoo.com
www.lscs.us
This is a follow-up on a tip
from Worldstart. I have been using the method for years. When you
collect shortcuts to web sites like I do the Favorites menu gets
difficult to manage without some organizing. [Picture]
It is easy to add sub-folders to the Favorites main
folder, either via the Internet Explorer menu item Favorites, or using
Windows Explorer.
The figure shows a main Favorites subfolder I named
“Software.” Under that folder I have a subfolder named “A to C,” etc.
down to “U to Z.” The right-most column shows some of the contents of
the UtoZ subfolder.
I split the alphabetic range of the subfolders so that
the height of the contents of any folder does not exceed the vertical
space on the Desktop. The figure has squeezed the display horizontally
to make more room for these words.
Continued...
TechNews
By Sue Crane, Vice President & Editor, Big Bear Computer Club, California
BREAKING NEWS!! Microsoft will release Vista in two versions. The volume-license business version will ship in November 2006, but the consumer version will not be available until 2007 – too late for the holidays. Some MS partners feel this move will take a huge bite out of 2006 holiday sales, but others say they are not surprised.
Sun Microsystems recently released the beta
software for Java Platform Standard Edition 6.0, code-named Mustang.
The update
should make it easier to use scripting languages such as PHP or Ruby
to write Java applications and improve diagnostics to spot bugs. Last
year, Sun modified the license around Java to allow developers to see
the source code. Sun also changed its development practices so that
outsiders can see and contribute to Java development.
The completed software will be available in the fall.
Continued...
The PUSH Articles for March 2006
Clear Reading With Cleartype
by Vinny La Bash, vlabash(at)home.com
Member of the Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc., FL
www.spcug.org
My students know why LCD displays are superior to CRT monitors. When
one of them complained to me that he found text difficult to read on
his new 21 inch LCD Monitor, I told him it was probably because the
screen resolution made the text too small to read easily. He didn't
think so because his teen age granddaughter also thought the text
wasn't clear. His comment made me think.
Flat panel LCD Monitors are designed to display information at a
specific resolution known as the "native resolution". Manufacturers
refer to them as "fixed-pixel displays" because they are limited to
displaying only one resolution. If they receive an image signal that
is either higher or lower than the native resolution, they convert or
scale the image automatically to fit the native resolution.
Continued...
Why Settle, Do It Your Way
by Lee Alexander, Member of the Macon Users Group,
Franklin, NC
http://www.maconusersgroup.org/
sawdust21(at)verizon.net
Icons
You can make your PC more colorful and distinguish folders by using
icons other then the ubiquitous manila folder. Right-click a folder
and select properties; under the Customize tab, click the Change icon
button and you will see more than 250 icons to choose from. Actually,
the file, Shell32.dll, contains 1484 icons on my system. A good many
of these are duplicates in different sizes and color depths. Sizes
range from 16 x 16 pixels through 96 x 96 pixels; color depths can be
16, 256, or True colors (24-bit for a range of 16,777,216 hues).
Continued...
Identity Theft Phishing Scams Abound
By Ira Wilsker, APCUG Director; Columnist, The
Examiner, Beaumont, TX; Radio & TV Show Host
WEBSITES:
http://www.websensesecuritylabs.com/alerts
http://www.antiphishing.org
I have been busy compiling information so I can complete my 1040 for
this year. I have also been actively searching for bargains on EBay,
typically paying for my purchases utilizing my PayPal account. I
frequently use the online bill paying service offered by my credit
union. Much to my chagrin, according to a series of emails I received,
my EBay account is being suspended, as well as my PayPal account, or
somehow I added another email address to my PayPal account that I did
not recognize.
Continued...
The PUSH Articles for February 2006
The Mouse from Hell - Hardware Review…or Sort
of
By Ann Moore, Topeka PC Users Club
Personal Computer Newsletter, February 2006
www.topekapcusersclub.org
commuter@cox.net
Several months ago, I sent the following e-mail to “Answerperson”
concerning a tragedy in my life:
Dear Answerperson,
When I started my computer this morning, my mouse showed no sign of
life. Its heart (red light) did not flicker nor did it feel warm to my
touch. It was stone cold dead. I tried to revive it by performing an
uninstall-reinstall, to no avail. A check of outlets and wiring found
them intact. How do I determine the cause of death? There were no
early signs of malfunction. If it were an animal, I could have a
necropsy performed. Must I disassemble it to determine the cause of
death? I cringe at the thought of disemboweling my friend. My mouse
was not extraordinary in any way – it was not wireless nor was it
ergonomic, just a simple mouse that I loved and cherished. Every day
for four years, I held this inanimate object in my hand, caressed it,
and knew every curve and indentation intimately. We were as one.
Continued...
New Federal Website Provides Users with
Internet Safety and Security Information February 2006
By Ira Wilsker, APCUG Director; Columnist, The
Examiner, Beaumont, TX; radio & TVshow host
Iwilsker(at)apcug.net
WEBSITES:
http://www.onguardonline.gov
http://www.onguardonline.gov/quiz
http://www.onguardonline.gov/stopthinkclick.html
http://onguardonline.gov/filecomplaint.html
http://onguardonline.gov/tutorials
The media has recently been rife with stories about internet scams,
frauds, identity theft, pedophiles, and other malevolent occurrences
that have happened on the internet. While there are many online
resources providing informational websites to help prevent us from
falling prey to internet victimization, a consortium of federal
agencies has created “OnGuard Online” at
www.onguardonline.gov.
This consortium consists of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS), United
States Postal Inspection Service, the Department of Commerce (DOC),
and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Continued...
The Shadow Knows
by Mike Morris
Front Range PC Users Group, Fort Collins, CO
www.frpcug.org
ml_morris(at)jymis.com
How many readers remember that phrase? Or remember listening to the
show on the radio:
“Who knows what evil lurks in the heart of men? The Shadow knows.”
Recent headlines have described the availability of TV shows on the
internet—at a price. No headlines, however, for The Shadow or other
radio programs from the 1930’s and 1940’s. The copyrights to a large
number of the old radio shows have expired, and you can now download
(or order) these programs in a variety of formats and listen to them
through your computer or other audio equipment.
Continued...