Computer Club of Oklahoma City

3000 United Founders Blvd.  Suite 201

Oklahoma City, OK  73112-4279

405-843-4300

                                                                            April 2005

This is the official 'eMonitor' of the Computer Club of Oklahoma City. To receive this newsletter each month, please go to: http://www.ccokc.org. Place your e-mail address and First and Last name in the boxes. You will receive a confirmation e-mail in return that you must reply to. Click on the URL in the confirmation e-mail to finish. By clicking on the links in the newsletter, you will be taken to the website to view the article, read it online or print it, as you like.   Items of additional interest:     Calendar    Study Groups   Senior Net Classes

We have changed our domain name and when you type in the url to our website, type in http://www.ccokc.org

Did you ever notice:  When you put the 2 words "The" and "IRS" together it spells "Theirs."
 

News to Members:

The eMonitor Newsletter  (The eMonitor Newsletter with a new look:)     

      Also David is putting together another "Build Your Own Computer" class. To learn more about this see his article below under the President's Corner.

General Meeting Program for April 21, 2005          

      By Troy Segler, VP of Programs

    How is Your IP Doing?

   You are invited to our regular monthly computer club meeting on April 21^st, 2005.  Members and guests are always welcome. 

   Our April guest speaker will be Brian Fairless.  Brian is a member of the Public Relations Group with Cox Communications.  I have asked him to discuss their high-speed Internet services available in the greater Oklahoma City area, including security issues.  Identification of spam prior to each customer downloading his email and the method of deleting it prior to arrival at our mail box are subjects suggested for the meeting. 

   You may not be a customer of Cox’s high-speed Internet or their telephone service, but are probably a subscriber to their television services.  I expect Brian to discuss their rate bundling. 

   We will meet at 7:00PM in Suite 201 of the Center 3000 Building, located at 3000 United Founders Boulevard.  This building is just north of the Sonic Drive-In, located just west of May Avenue on Northwest Expressway.  For a map, look in the left pane on our home page. 

   Looking forward to seeing you at our meeting.

 P.S. If you know anyone in our community that would be willing to present a program for us, please provide their name and telephone and/or e-mail address to me.  My e-mail address is tgsegler@cox.net.  Your assistance will be greatly appreciated.

If you have not attended a General Session recently, attend one soon and bring a guest!

      There are two items I would like to bring to your attention at this time.

      I am considering bringing back the Hardware Study Group. The day for the meeting will be on a Saturday-- in the morning or afternoon is the question. I think this will allow a better attendance opportunity for those that work and for those that don’t like to drive after dark. If you are interested, let me know if the morning or the afternoon would be best for you. If you are not familiar with this Study Group, we discuss hardware issues dealing with the home computer. Experience and knowledge of the attendees is used to help determine what may be the best solution for the user’s needs. Contact me and let me know which time of day will work for you. 

      Here we are, well into the beginning of the new year, leaving behind the revelry of the holidays of the past year. Moving through Monday of the new “week” and into Tuesday, and with taxing concerns out of the way, I have been asked this question, “Are you going to have another build-your-own-computer class?” After considering this subject, I have agreed to teach another group of eager learners. A list is being made and when there are enough names on it I will begin the process of setting up the new class. The schedule will involve three Saturdays, of which the first will be an orientation as to what we will do and what is expected for parts to assemble the new computer. The second Saturday we will put the parts together and discuss what they do and how to replace them when upgrading time comes around. The third Saturday will be the day to install the operating system (Windows), drivers and look at the bios. Your new computer will leave the Resource Center with all necessary software to function, this does not include the installation of software not needed to make the computer functional, i.e. Office, Photoshop, etc.

       Members of the club (CCOKC) will have priority on the list and non-members will be charged $50 to attend the class. (I think it would be cheaper to join the club) There is a limit on the number of attendees.

The parts for the computer will be the students responsibility to obtain, however I will try to come up with a package deal similar to what was available last year to make this chore easier. 

      I think everyone in the class had a lot fun last year and we will probably have more this time.

There are some interesting links on the ccokc.org/greatlinks page. Check them out!

The Review for the March General Meeting - Continued....

Articles for April 2005

(The following are only excerpts from the articles. Click on the hyperlink to read the entire article)

Legal Bytes:  SCOTUS Looks at File Sharing - by John Brewer
          SCOTUS is the Supreme Court of the United States. The file sharing controversy has been battled in the lower courts for a number of years. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear debate on this issue on March 29, 2005. The style of the case is MGM v. Grokster. There are a number of software applications that permit users to join together in a large peer-to-peer network and share files. The law is fairly clear that it is improper, under most circumstances, for users to share copyrighted files with each other. However, the issue of the liability of the software companies that facilitate file sharing is less clear. Continued...

Ram & Reason: The Storage Revolution Is Here! – Again -  by Rob Rice  
Anyone who has been around computers for a while should be able to see the difference; not long ago, say the early nineties, data storage meant hard drives and floppies. Then a small revolution happened with Iomega’s introduction of Bernoulli disks and later, Zip and competitor’s SyQuest drives. These re-writable disks could hold 100 megabytes of data as opposed to the floppy’s 1.44 megabytes. CD-ROMs were also bursting onto the scene and all the while the hard disk kept getting smaller in size, larger in capacity and ever faster. Just ten years earlier, a similar revolution occurred when Sony introduced the good old 3.5” floppy diskette. Smaller, more durable and with a larger capacity than the 5.25” flexible diskette, I can still remember people calling them “hard disks” because of the hard plastic shell, in contrast to the flexible envelope of the 5.25” they were accustomed to. The hard disk that we know today had also arrived in home PCs about this time, adding to the confusion that techs had to wade through as people struggled to get a grasp of the new terminology. Of course, the 5.25" flexible disk had created an even earlier revolution when it was developed by Alan Shugart for Wang Laboratories in 1976. It replaced IBM’s 8” disk, which held around 500 kilobytes of data. Continued...

Business Solutions:  Multiple Queries in Access 2003 Reports - by James D. Duncan, CPA  

      This month is a continuation of last month’s project.  It is also a work in progress and I am sure there is a much smarter way to do this.  However, I will trudge through this until I see the light and start over.  When you are up against deadlines you do not always have time to do it the best or the smartest way.

        The definition of this project is we have a 15-page questionnaire of various areas of demographics.  We have a master file describing the clients.  This has various fields, date enter into program, name, income, number in the family, and so on.  The first question is only concerned with the numbers on the first day, number entering the program, number who left and the numbers on the last day of the program. Continued...

Computer Hysteria: "Wares"  - by Berry F. Phillips 
      Once upon a dreary, I was downloading "Wares," a.k.a. "Freeware," and "Shareware." My mind reflected on the early days of computing prior to the Internet: I would download from BBS (Bulletin Board Systems) or go to the library at the Oklahoma City PC Users Club, now the Computer Club of Oklahoma City. I wondered what was the origin of the "Wares?" Continued...

This & That: Printer's Diabolical Humor  - by Elizabeth B. Wright   
     In past columns I have mentioned that computers have no soul. I have found, however, that they indeed have a diabolical sense of humor. In fact, in the quietest part of the night, if there is no ambient noise (refrigerator, air conditioning, etc.), and your computer is turned on, you probably can hear a very faint chortle emanating from it. This is because, once again, it has spent the entire day making a complete idiot out of you. Continued...

Read the New articles under the APCUG heading on the left column of the website. There are new articles each month. When you click on the "PUSH Articles from APCUG" hyperlink, it will take you to the synopsis page and the links to the articles.

Email boxes are filling up with more offers for business opportunities than any other kind of unsolicited commercial email. That's a problem, according to the Federal Trade Commission, because many of these offers are scams.  

In response to requests from consumers, the FTC asked email users to forward their unsolicited commercial email to the agency for an inside look at the bulk email business. FTC staff found that more often than not, bulk email offers appeared to be fraudulent, and if pursued, could have ripped-off unsuspecting consumers to the tune of billions of dollars.  

The FTC has identified the 12 scams that are most likely to arrive in consumers' email boxes. The "dirty dozen" are: Continued...

Basic Computer Class

      If you are interested in taking the hands-on Basic Computer Class, which meets once a week for about six weeks, call Isaac Franklin, 751-3411, for registration and information. There is no charge for this class, however, the study book is $5.

April Tip of the Month  - by Fran Crane  

      Disabling Unsigned Driver Dialog

In Windows XP, there is a warning box whenever you try to install drives that are unsigned. Many times you can just ignore the warning and install the driver anyway, but sometimes you are just stuck right there. There is a way to disable these messages:

(1) Click Start > Run.
(2) Type "gpedit.msc" and hit OK.
(3) Browse to User Configuration - Administrative Templates - System.
(4) Right-click Code signing for Device drivers and select Properties.
(5) On the Settings tab, either select enable, and then select ignore from the appearing listbox..., or click the disable option.
(6) Click Apply then OK.

Alternatively, you can go to Control Panel > System. Then go to the Hardware tab and click on Driver Signing. Choose Ignore in the resulting window.

There will be no "Cool Freebies" from Doris Collins this month. Check back for the May issue

To past Tips and "Freebies"

Join the Computer Club of OKC. See the Membership form on the Website

What is a Study Group

     The Computer Club of OKC offers many different Study Groups. They are groups of 10-50 people who meet monthly to learn about a particular subject. The format is part presentation and part facilitated discussion. These meetings are supported by our membership. There is no charge, but a $2 donation is requested to defray the rental cost of the room.

     Come to a Study Group in our Resource Center at 3000 United Founders Blvd.! We are located at the east end of the Center 3000 Building in Suite 201, so use Entrance One on the east side of the building.

See Map on Website

What is the Computer Club of OKC?

See "About Us"

    We are a nonprofit, all-volunteer organization of around 1200 members, with the goal of teaching each other more about using and enjoying their personal computers for business and pleasure. The sole purpose of the organization is reflected in its motto, “Computer Users Helping Computer Users.”

Senior Net Membership

Sr. Combo Members- Computer Classes

      Register Now for Windows XP Course. This eight week course will cost $30.00. If you are interested, contact Charlene Francis, 359-5675.

"Free Computer Class with Sr Combo Membership"

New Senior Combo Members (50+) can now register for the Computer Fundamentals class at no charge. Contact Charlene Francis 359-5675 if you have any questions regarding membership and/or registration for the class.