C C C C N E W S L E T T E R
CENTRAL COAST COMPUTER CLUB
Santa Maria, California
VOLUME XVI: NUMBER 4 APRIL, 2001
NEXT MEETING: APRIL 17, 2001 7:00PM KNOLLWOOD VILLAGE 4012 S. BRADLEY
PRESENTATION: Betty Boyce, local author, on Getting
Out The Book That's Inside Each Of Us.
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| CONTENTS |
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(1) Officers, Helplines, S.I.G.s
(2) President's Corner Charles Barney
(3) Editor's Comments Dick Trissel
(4) Kill Logon Screen Dick Trissel
(5) Web Wanderings Gil Smith
(6) March Internet SIG Dick Trissel
(7) Review: PQ Lost & Found 1.0 Dick Trissel
(8) CCCC Help Program Dick Savage
(9) Donating PC? Beware--Old Files Dick Trissel
(10) System Information Archive Dick Trissel
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Officers Helplines
President Juno
Charles Barney 937-1240 Gilbert Smith 925-3743
cbarney@lightspeed.net colgil1@juno.com
Vice President Windows 95
Phil Grycel 937-1805 Amy Malicki 925-5780
feliksy@juno.com amymal@juno.com
Secretary Hardware & DOS
Barbara Godwin 934-9885 Ray Isenson 937-6938
yungbag@best1.net risenson@juno.com
Treasurer Voice control & Input/Output
Gerald Miller 934-1396 Amy Malicki 925-5780
2741 Banyan Way amymal@juno.com
Santa Maria CA 93455
gmiller33@excite.com
Librarian Desktop Publishing & scanners
Sharon Allen 928-2209 Don Harelson 934-3926
sallen4060@aol.com qef1@juno.com
Publicity Software User Identification
Bill Corning 934-0775 Fred Adams 934-1128
foster95@juno.com fred421@juno.com
Newsletter Editor Visual Basic
Dick Trissel 937-7572 Gerald Miller
rtrissel@juno.com Gmiller33@excite.com
Program Chairman AOL
Ray Isenson 937-6938 Frank Maciel 922-2318
risenson@juno.com frm8198@aol.com
Special Interest Groups (SIGs)
Windows 95/98 Internet
Amy Malicki Dick Trissel
amymal@juno.com rtrissel@juno.com
CCCC Membership is $15 for twelve months ($20 family). For this you
receive:
Monthly newsletter
Access to the clubs software library
Disk of the month (usually for $1)
Helpline support
Monthly presentation
Valuable door prizes
Question and answer sessions
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CCCC Page 2 April 2001
President's Corner
by Charles Barney
We kicked off a new season for the 4C's with nearly 70 folks turning out on
the first day of Spring for our March 20th meeting.
On behalf of the entire membership, I'd like to extend a warm welcome to
new member Joseph Budzisz. We hope that you feel comfortable in our
computer users group and that your association with us is a long and
rewarding one.
Joining us for a second time as guest speaker was Kevin Walters, owner and
operator of Comstar Computers in Santa Maria. Not wasting any time, Kevin
opened the floor right up for questions (of which there was no shortage).
Some of the topics discussed were CD-RWs, backup strategies, printing from
DOS, font management, web browsers, power safety devices (surge protectors
and uninterruptible power supplies), defrag problems, Windows crashes,
cleaning up your system, broadband Internet access and computer viruses. It
was a most informative session and I'm sure that most of you who were
present walked away with more knowledge than you came in with.
The long-awaited APCUG 1st Edition CDs are back in stock! Those who missed
out in January and still want them can pick them up at a meeting. There are
plenty to go around this time. Just as a reminder, the disk contains over
200 valuable shareware and freeware programs and has a convenient HTML
interface that comes up in your web browser. At just $3.00 each, these
disks are a great bargain.
The evening's door prize winners included Barbara Flood - MGI Photo Suite,
Win Campbell - Quicken 2001 Deluxe, Bill Rust - Sure Thing CD Labeler Kit,
Charles High - Packet of Adobe COMDEX Goodies and Frank Lemmon - Vase of
Daffodils (thanks to Eldean Voris).
Joining the Order of the Crying Towel (called for prizes but not present)
were David Lowry, Cynthia Isorda, Rita Nagy, Sandy Ashby, Ben Middleton,
Warren Randall, Russ Connors and Dixie Leerskov.
At the next meeting on April 17th we will have a slight change of pace with
author and educator Betty Boyce as our guest speaker. I hope you can all
make it out to the clubhouse. - Charles
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CCCC Page 3 April 2001
Editor's Comments
By Dick Trissel
====================================
CCCC WEEKLY COMPUTER LEARNING ASSISTANCE SESSIONS
THERE WILL BE NO MORE CCCC WEEKLY SESSIONS UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. FOR THE
LATEST INFORMATION CONTACT RAY ISENSON AT 937-6938 OR RISENSON@JUNO.COM.
====================================
Here's a reminder for the old members, and a notice to the new members.
The club has a Web site that may have value to you. It is located at:
http://member.apcug.org/fourseas
The things you will find there are:
Date and presentation info for the next CCCC monthly meeting.
A new link under development for help references.
Internet bookmark links.
Notes and comments.
CCCC Club newsletter table of contents for January 1998 to present.
CCCC Club newsletters from February 1998 to present.
APCUG newsletters.
A link to free ISP information
The site is constructed with a minimum of graphics so that it loads fast.
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CCCC Page 4 April 2001
Kill Logon Screen
by Dick Trissel
Sometimes mysteriously your computer decides it wants you to "Logon" every
time you start or restart your computer. Assuming you are not on a network
and have only one user selected for your computer, you can eliminate the
need to input your user name and password every time you start or restart.
Do this:
1. Start/Settings/Control Panel.
2. Double-click the Passwords icon.
3. Under the Change Passwords tab, type in your current password in the Old
Password box (or leave it blank if it is already blank).
4. Blank out the old and new passwords.
5. Click OK.
6. Under the User Profile tab, make sure the "All users of this PC use the
same preferences and desktop settings" is selected.
7. Click OK.
8. On the Control Panel Double-click the Network icon.
9. Under the Configuration tab, in the Primary Network Logon, choose
Windows Logon.
10. Press OK.
11. Choose Restart your computer.
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CCCC Page 5 April 2001
Web Wanderings
by Gil Smith
WEIGHT CALCULATOR
Are you overweight? Here's a site that really does a super job calculating
your "ideal" weight range. It takes into account skeletal structure, age,
height, and a lot of other factors.
http://www.dietitian.com/ibw/ibw.html
BUSINESS NEWS
Do you want to know what's going on in the Business World by locality in
the United States? Try this web site
http://bizjournals.com
A DAILY TEASE
How many months have 28 days? What word has three pairs of letters? What
goes up and down but doesn't move? Subscribe free and get a new one daily.
http://www.shagmail.com/sub-tease.html
WHAT OCCURRED ON YOUR BIRTHDAY? Click on your Birthday, Anniversary, or
other meaningful date to see what happened in the world on that day.
http://www.datesinhistory.com/
WORLD NEWS FORECAST
FUTURE WORLD NEWS
The headlines and stories behind them a month ahead of world happenings.
Most useful to the news media but interesting if you want to know what is
planned in the near future that may be newsworthy.
http://www.newsahead.com/
ARE YOU A FIX-IT-UPPER?
Or do you always throw it away and buy a New one? Here's a web site where
you can get repair help and parts to fix that broken appliance. Just take
a look at all the good stuff on the Home Page.
http://www.repairclinic.com
DEMOGRAPHICS OF ANY PLACE.
Just fill in the ZIP code and get lots of information for any place in the
USA - total population, population by race & gender, Income, Home Values,
Occupation, Education and others. Useful if you are thinking about moving
to a new area or if you want to know more about where you live now.
http://demographics.caci.com/free/data.html
NEED EXPERT HELP OR ADVICE? This site is designed as an informational
service, not a substitute for medical evaluation, legal or professional
advice. They advise that their volunteers have varying levels of expertise
and you should use their responses to your questions for informational
purposes only. If you don't find an answer to your question, you may send
an e-mail to an expert in one or more of the dozen or more areas which they
list.
http://www.askanexpert.com/
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CCCC Page 6 April 2001
March Internet S.I.G
by Dick Trissel
The 24 attendees started right out with a discussion of Juno followed by a
discussion of Juno and ending with a discussion of Juno.
In a nutshell:
A. Apparently old Juno (Ver.2) won't do BCC.
B. Juno e-mail is faster when accessed from the Web (not my experience).
C. You can delete the Juno ads in Program Files\Juno\Ads (leave the
0300XXXX folders).
D. Preserve (copy) the Juno addressbook in Program
Files\Juno\Userxxxx\addrbook.nv.
E. Juno is proposing using free Juno Web subscribers computers as
distributed processors (pay subscribers may participate).
F. Santa Maria no longer has free Juno Web no charge phone numbers.
Other subjects were discussed including how to manage the History files in
your browser. Because of the size, a separate article for the newsletter
will cover this.
Mail reader bookmark files were discussed in regard to managing and
transferring between programs. These are not to be confused with separate
files generated with database, spreadsheet, etc. programs. Even though you
may think of them as addressbooks for your personal usage, they are not
usually of the same structure as mail reader program addressbooks that have
a unique structures. This also makes it difficult to export/import between
programs. This doesn't mean you can't edit one addressbook to match
another once you decipher the unique structure of each file. Usually, it's
easier to just reenter the data.
A couple of free downloadable programs were mentioned. One was the anti-
virus program AVG6.0 (5Mbytes) at www.grisoft.com. I have no experience
with it. Another was the Download Accelerator Plus (DAP4.3.EXE beta,
1.13Mbytes). I found it through www.google.com searching for download
accelerator. I attempted to use it, but didn't get it to pop up on a
download. Maybe someone can advise at the next meeting.
Also mentioned was the site for 300Mbytes of free file storage at
www.myspace.com. They will cut CDs for $9.95 each.
The subject of browser stored cookies is always mentioned. A good
suggestion was made on how to determine which to keep (for auto logins,
etc.)--clear all cookies, go to the site in question, immediately go
offline, and note the cookies that have been generated. Those are the
cookies you want to retain for that site. You may have to repeat the
process if you have other sites with critical cookies.
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CCCC Page 7 April 2001
Review: PQ Lost & Found 1.0
by Dick Trissel
The main purpose of the PowerQuest program Lost and Found (L&F) is to
recover deleted or damaged files. These may be on a hard disk drive or a
floppy drive. Recovery from a Syquest drive or an Iomega drive is possible
with the additional programs provided. In the recovery process there will
be a complete analysis performed of the disk--its structure and condition.
Although Lost & Found is still supported on the PowerQuest Web site, the
program is no longer marketed by Powerquest. However, it was recommended
for usage in the April 2001 PCWorld magazine. L&F was copyrighted 1998-
1999. The program may still be available in some stores and by mail order.
The original price was $70.
As you will read later, the program is not operating system dependent other
than it runs under DOS--any PC with a bootable DOS will work.
This is going to be a different review than usual as I am not writing from
my experiences running the PowerQuest Lost & Found program. Here's why.
The program can only be installed on one computer, period. I have three
computers with removable primary hard drives--six operating system disks.
This program is for someone with a single dedicated computer. For users
like me, PowerQuest recommends purchasing Search & Recovery which can be
run on any number of systems.
This restriction is due to the copy protection scheme that requires the #1
floppy disk be written on during installation and then must be in the drive
at run time.
Now, here's where it gets confusing. The User Guide says you can copy the
L&F disks, but the original #1 disk must be inserted in the drive with
write enabled to execute the software. It then says it is a good idea to
make a copy of the original disk so that if the original gets damaged, you
can copy back to the original. L&F will not execute without the original
disk in the drive--not the copy--the original. Or you can download the
files and put them on the original floppy. Or, if the original gets
damaged, you can request a replacement per the license agreement. That
original #1 disk is sacred.
L&F must be run in the DOS mode--not Windows DOS, the real DOS. This can
be done one of three ways--reboot Windows in the DOS mode, reboot from your
own DOS bootable floppy, or reboot from the L&F bootable floppy.
The User Guide is adequate, but the index is a little sparse. Here's a
brief summary of the User Guide. Hopefully, this will give you some idea
of the capability of Lost & Found.
Setting up For Recovery
Checking The Condition of Your Drives
Hardware Diagnostics
Validity & Types of Drives
Selecting the Source Drive
Removable Media
Fixed Media
Rescan
Selecting the Destination Drive
Removable Media
Fixed Media
Drive Rescan
Change Source Drive
Finding Lost Files
Using Disk Analysis
Main Activity Menu
Selecting the Directory List Form
Select Activity
Disk Analysis
Selecting the Found Files
Selecting a Partition or Directory List
Selecting Files from the Files List
Completing Selections
Moving Files to Safe Media
Organizing File Selection
Recovering Files
Accessing Your Recovered Files
Restoring Files
About Refresh and ReNew
Using Refresh to Restore Long Filenames
Using ReNew
Lost & Found Record
System Info
Lost & Found Log
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CCCC Page 8 April 2001
CCCC HELP PROGRAM
By Dick Savage
The bad news is that today's personal computers are amazingly complex
machines, run mostly by Microsoft software; that itself is amazingly
flexible, complex, undocumented, changing, buggy and unstable. As a
consequence, just about everyone from the best informed computer gurus to
the brand new completely inexperienced computer owner frequently needs
help.
The good news is that there is a lot of help available from a wide variety
of sources. One of the primary purposes of the Central Coast Computer Club
is to help Central Coast people find the help they need with their computer
related problems.
I recently remarked publicly that I thought that CCCC could do a better job
in some aspects of this mission and volunteered to take a whack at
achieving some improvements. Our President, Charles Barney, has accepted
my offer and this article marks the beginning of my efforts.
It is my current intent to establish two vehicles for communicating with
the membership about getting help. The first will be a monthly article in
the club newsletter devoted to some aspect of how to get help with your
problems. The second vehicle will be a "How to Get Help" section on the
the club's web site, http://member.apcug.org/fourseas
While I have a fair knowledge of computers and the Internet; I am nowhere
near as knowledgeable as people such as Ray Isenson, Amy Malicki and Dick
Trissel. I will not be able to personally provide help with a lot of
problems. I view my job as sort of an organizer, coordinator and
communicator and perhaps as a point of contact. My job is not to provide
answers to the members computer problems, it is to provide them with
information as to where and how they can get answers.
Let me conclude this article with some information about a rich source of
help. CNET provides a very comprehensive and well organized help site at
www.help.com. Whether you have a problem at the moment or not, the next
time you get on the net, go to this site and browse around. I think you
will find it time well spent and be impressed with the organization and
variety of their material.
Your suggestions, advice, questions or comments are welcome.
______________________________________________________________________
DEFINITION: Computer - A device designed to speed and automate errors.
SENILE.COM found . . . Out Of Memory . . .
A computer's attention span is as long as its power cord.
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CCCC Page 9 April 2001
Donating a PC? Beware of Old Files
By bob Withers
Huntington, VA Herald-Dispatch
Donated by Amy Malicki
You wouldn't throw down a billfold or purse stuffed with currency and
credit cards on the sidewalk and go off and leave it, would you? Then
you'd better be careful how you donate that old PC that just got replaced
by the new one.
First, be sure to delete all files. But even then, a file you think is
gone may be retrievable by a computer forensics expert, a determined
colleague or your teenage son or daughter.
Last year, a Minneapolis television station bought several old computers at
thrift shops and took them to experts at OnTrack to see what they could
find. OnTrack fired up one machine. We found all their finances, all
their credit card numbers, wills for their parents and a manuscript "The
gentleman was writing about love and the married man," said OnTrack's
Jennifer Zeller.
Jonathan Jackson, part owner of Tri-Comp Consulting Inc. in Huntington,
W.Va., said he has seen a lot of customers who have purchased old computers
at flea markets and want them wiped clean. "Mostly, we find porn," he
said. "Porn that men were trying to hide from wives, kids or parents."
Space Available
Remember that when you delete a file, you're not making it go away.
Instead, your computer merely notes that the space where the file is stored
is available for reuse. Whether it gets reused depends on how full your
hard drive is. If the file doesn't get overwritten, it's easy to resurrect
it. Several Windows programs are available to overwrite such spaces with
zeros and ones, including Norton Utilities' WipeInfo, OnTrack's DataEraser
and Sanitizer from Infraworks.
What Steps to Take
So how do you make sure your old machine is squeaky clean before you part
company with it:
1. Save your e-mail address book, then uninstall your e-mail program.
Make sure you have the original program on a disk to reinstall later.
2. Clear out cookie files, temporary Internet files, bookmarks and cache
files.
3. Defragment your hard drive.
4. Run WipeInfo.
5. To be completely secure, you may opt to back up your programs on a
disk, reformat the entire hard drive and reinstall the empty programs.
Several companies offer products that will wipe all data, including
programs and the operating system, from the computer.
Jackson said it's simple to clean everything out if you are using any
version of Microsoft Windows, except NT or 2000. The procedure:
1. Restart your computer and hit the F8 key as it's starting.
2. When you get a startup menu, go to option six, "Command Prompt Only,"
and hit "enter."
3. When you get the DOS prompt (C:), type "format c:" and hit "enter."
4. You'll see a warning: "ALL DATA WILL BE LOST' and a prompt that offers
a "Y/N" to make sure that's what you want to do. If you type "Y," Jackson
said, everything will be lost and the disk must be reformatted to be
usable.
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CCCC Page 10 April 2001
System Information Archive
by Dick Trissel
Whether you just bought a new computer or your still using your "Old
Faithful", it is imperative that you have a record of the computer system
configuration. The following procedures have been used on Windows 95, 98
and 98SE.
There are two major sources of information on your computer. One is the
BIOS (Basic Input Output System). The other is the entire system
configuration as seen by the operating system (Windows).
Why is the BIOS information necessary? Well, let's hope it never happens,
but the CMOS (Complimentary MetalOxide Semiconductor) battery could quit.
The CMOS is where the BIOS gets its operating data, and will probably need
to be reset after replacing the battery.
There are several BIOS manufacturers, and they don't all use the same
method to allow you to look at and modify the BIOS settings. But, they all
require you press a certain key immediately after the POST (Power On Self
Test) at power turn on or system reset. The key press is usually stated on
the screen at the point in which you need to press it. However, some
systems don't give you but a fraction of a second to press the key. It may
take a couple of starts before you discover what the key press message
says. One trick is to press the Pause key on the keyboard to freeze the
screen. Then press the space bar (the "ANY" key) to continue, followed by
another Pause until you see what you need.
Follow the on screen instructions for displaying the BIOS settings. And,
at each new screen, press the Print Screen button on the keyboard. If you
have your printer turned on, you will get a printout of that window. Do
that for each window--there will be a LOT.
Another source of information you should archive is found at Start/
Settings/ Control Panel/ System/ Device Manager. Choose View Devices by
Type. Click on the Print button and choose All Devices and System Summary.
I prefer to also choose to Print to File. Then I can save the file away
for future reference. I also set my printer options to Generic/Text so
there are no printer control characters in the file. You may have to
install the Generic/Text from the system CD using the Control Panel/
Printer/ Add. You will get about eight pages worth of data. Look at it
with Wordpad and be overwhelmed.
This system information is very useful for trouble shooting system
problems. In fact, while you are in Device Manager, click on the ? on the
title bar and drag it over the Print button and click. It will confirm
what I said.
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