C C C C N E W S L E T T E R
CENTRAL COAST COMPUTER CLUB
Santa Maria, California
VOLUME XXI: NUMBER 8 AUGUST, 2006
Meetings are held on the third Tuesday of every month at the Knollwood
Village Clubhouse 4012 S. Bradley Dr., Santa Maria.
General meeting at 7:00 PM. System Special Interest Group session is at
5:45pm. Guests are welcome.
Check out our web site: http//member.apcug.org/fourseas for the latest
program schedule information.
Membership is $15 for twelve months for individuals, $20 for families.
For this you receive: Monthly newsletters, EXTRA4C E-mail Messages,
Help-line support, Monthly presentations, Valuable door prizes, Question
and answer sessions.
NEXT MEETING:August 15, 2006 KNOLLWOOD VILLAGE 4012 S. BRADLEY
PRESENTATION: The August meeting presentation will be: Spence Stimler on the
ClickBook v 9.0 program.
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**** AUGUST COOKIE PROVIDERS ARE ELDEAN AND STAN VORIS ****
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| CONTENTS |
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(1) OFFICERS, HELPLINES, S.I.G.S
(2) PRESIDENT'S CORNER Ray Isenson
(3) EDITOR'S COMMENTS Dick Trissel
(4) WEB WANDERINGS
(5) SYSTEMS S.I.G. Dick Trissel
(6) REVIEW OF SPIN IT AGAIN Charles Dorsten
(7) NTI SHADOW VERSION 3 Dick Trissel
(8) WHY ARE BACKUPS IMPORTANT? Gene Barlow
(9) ERUNT REVIEW Dick Trissel
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OFFICERS HELPLINES
President Juno
Ray Isenson 937-6938 Dick Trissel 937-7572
risenson@juno.com rtrissel@juno.com
Vice President Windows 95/98/ME/XP & VoiceControl
Spence Stimler 938-0217 Amy Malicki 925-5780
SPENCE923@msn.com savvyforseniors@juno.com
Secretary Hardware and Windows XP
Barbara Godwin 934-9885 Ray Isenson 937-6938
yung.bag@verizon.net risenson@juno.com
Treasurer AOL
Gerry Miller 934-1396 Frank Maciel 922-2318
2741 Banyan Way frm8198@aol.com
Santa Maria CA 93455
gandamiller@verizon.net
Publicity Visual Basic and Genealogy
Bill Corning 934-0775 Gerald Miller 934-1396
foster95@impulse.net gandamiller@verizon.net
Newsletter Editor Help With Any Problem
Dick Trissel 937-7572 Ray Isenson 937-6938
rtrissel@juno.com risenson@juno.com
SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP (S.I.G.)
Systems (5:45pm)
Dick Trissel
rtrissel@juno.com
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CCCC Page 2 August 2006
PRESIDENT'S CORNER by Ray Isenson
By the time you read this, the local schools will be back in full session.
It seems only yesterday that parking on the street on which I live was
blocked by attendees at the 2006 graduation ceremonies. Now we're half way
through the month of August. Hopefully most of our members are back from
their vacations and we can look forward to seeing more of our old friends at
the monthly club meetings.
This month Spence Stimler is going to demonstrate the value and intricacies
of ClickBook v.9. Having had some experience with its prior version, I'm
reasonably sure that many of you will see it as a potentially valuable tool
for authors of all ilk.
Member Charles Dorsten has had a few months to get a firm old on
"SpinItAgain", a program that we touched on at a meeting several months ago;
a utility to move our "Oldies but Goodies" from shellac to CD or DVD media.
The hardware setup required to demonstrate the program is more than
practically could be done at a club meeting. Therefore, you'll read about
his experiences, good and bad, in this month's newsletter. I think Charles
will be pleased to expound further in one on one sessions that you and he
can arrange.
Looking forward to a huge turnout, Ray.
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CCCC Page 3 August 2006
EDITOR'S COMMENTS by Dick Trissel
There seems to be a lot of confusion about the Verizon DSL "rates"--both the
data rate and the monthly subscription rate. Recently, several members have
discovered some disturbing policies by Verizon. Here's the way I understand
it.
1. Several months ago, Verizon lowered the data rate for the long time
subscribers from 1.4Mb/sec. (Megabits per second) to 768Kb/sec (Kilobits per
second). Some were not told of this and there monthly rate stayed at $29.95
even with the lower data rate. Others were notified, and their monthly rate
was lowered to either $17.95 or $14.95 (depending on who you talk to). Some
older subscribers that had been checking their data rate over that time
period noticed the lower rates and requested Verizon lower their monthly
rate, which they did.
2. Concurrent with all this, Yahoo joined with Verizon to offer a one year
contract at $14.95 per month at the 768Kb/sec. data rate. That offer may
not still be available.
3. A couple of members were having a problem with their service, and Verizon
ultimately solved the problems either by "fixing their lines" (Verizon's),
or by removing the water from their terminal boxes (Verizon's).
As mentioned in the Systems S.I.G. article, you can check your download data
rate by going to:
http://infospeed.verizon.net/
Also, bear in mind, all these advertised rates are maximum download. The
actual can be slower due to service distance, line loads, etc. The upload
maximum rate is 128Kb/sec.
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CCCC Page 4 August 2006
WEB WANDERINGS
PROTECT YOURSELF FROM IDENTITY THEFT
Identity theft is on everybody's mind right now. That's because the problem
has reached epidemic proportions.
We all could become victims of identity theft. Fortunately, the Identity
Theft Resource Center is here to help. Its goal is to help you prevent and
recover from identity theft.
At the ITRC, you can read about state and federal laws. You should also
check out the consumer and victim resources. The information provided here
is invaluable.
And remember to protect yourself against scam artists. Tips and warnings
will help you spot scams before you become a victim.
This is a good site to pass along to family and friends. After all,
knowledge is power.
www.idtheftcenter.org
DOWNLOAD A GOOD BOOK
Are you looking for a good book? Perhaps one of the classics?
Then stop by Planet PDF. You'll find a number of books free for the taking.
Simply find one that interests you and download it.
As I said, there are classics like Oliver Twist or Around the World in 80
Days. Or, if you want something you can read with your kids, try Aesop's
Fables or Alice in Wonderland.
The books are all in PDF format, so you'll need a PDF reader. I recommend
the free Adobe Reader, if you don't already have it.
You can read the books on your computer or laptop. Or, if you take public
transportation to work, you might want to download them to a handheld. How
convenient!
www.planetpdf.com/free_pdf_ebooks.asp?CurrentPage=1
TONS OF TANGRAMS
Listen up, puzzle lovers. I've got a site you're going to love.
Today's site features Tangrams, old Chinese puzzles. You've probably seen
them before, even if the name doesn't sound familiar.
You're presented with a series of geometric shapes - squares, polygons and
triangles. The goal is to fit them together into different shapes.
It sounds easy, but it can be quite a challenge. If you get stuck, use the
cheat option.
By the way, this is a great site for children. It will help them with
spatial relations. In other words, it will make them smarty-pants.
www.gieson.com/Library/projects/games/matter
HELP FOR AIRLINE TRAVEL
There's nothing like getting together with family and friends and spending
quality time together. But there's also a lot of planning and preparation to
get everything just right.
Sometimes it is easy to lose track of the details. So if you don't want to
keep Aunt June waiting at the airport like you did last year, head on over
to FlightStats.
FlightStats lists the status of flights from a number of different carriers.
So you don't have to jump between sites if you have guests traveling with
different airlines.
What? You don't know the flight number? That's nothing to worry about. You
can list all flights between two airports. See all flights, regardless of
carrier or time.
www.flightstats.com
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CCCC Page 5 August 2006
SYSTEMS S.I.G. by Dick Trissel
Several interesting questions came up. One was what a written communication
from Verizon DSL meant. A reading to the group didn't clarify the meaning
of the letter. Since then Barbara Godwin and Ray Isenson contacted Verizon,
but the explanation was still not clear. As near as they could tell, it had
no effect on the current DSL subscribers.
However, one Verizon representative revealed that the long time subscribers
at the $29.95 per month rate (1.4Mb/sec download rate) had been lowered to
768Kb/sec but their charge amount had not been lowered to the $17.95 per
month rate for that speed. As near as we can tell, this has been the
situation for several months. In other words, a bunch of subscribers have
been getting cheated. One member sent me this URL to use to check your
connection speed (it works for any type of Internet connection):
http://infospeed.verizon.net/
Another question was about the new Internet. A little research revealed
this information. We are currently access the Interent with what is called
IPv4 (Internet Provider v4) which uses a 32bit addressing protocol (about 4
billion addresses capability). Realizing this is soon not going to be
sufficient (with 6 million possible addresses required), there is a new
protocol called IPv6. Along with other enhancements, the addressing will
have 128bit capability (about 3 x 10^38). That's 3 followed by 38 zeros.
That is a lot of addresses. I don't want to be here when the population
gets that large .
There were eight utility programs discussed. Unfortunately some of the URLs
were not up to date (I got them from my old download records or the program
help file). Here are some corrections:
The Registry Detective is available at
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1559805,00.asp
The REST2514 program is available at
http://home.comcast.net/~tim47/REST2514.EXE
The SIW program is available at
http://www.snapfiles.com/get/siw.html
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CCCC Page 6 August 2006
REVIEW OF SPIN IT AGAIN by Charles Dorsten
A Groovy Subject: Vinyl to CD's
Like most of us who have a collection of slides or vinyl records, I felt the
urge to take a stab at transferring my vinyl records to CD's. Having 300
records didn't seem to intimidate me, so off I go trying various software
programs.
One such program is "Spin It Again" by Acoustica Software. Using the adage
that "this shouldn't be too tough", I turned on my computer and "loaded" the
software...the usual welcome screen and "next" and off I went installing ver
1.1.b18. This copy is an older version and the program told me to download
the latest version (ver 1.1.b22 dated 07/07/06).
Another download, and now I'm set to try it. They offer a tutorial that has
instructions on how to use the program. Also, Acoustica has a "store" where
you can purchase a pre-amplifier ($29.99 from the Needle Doctor) if you
don't have the necessary audio gear to set up the "recording studio".
Actually all you need is a turntable and pre-amp and you're ready to go. I
was fortunate in that a club member gave me a beautiful McIntosh System
Compensator as they were called in the "vintage era of audio" (1960's and
'70s) so I used that. The pre-amp should be set in a neutral position, as
you do not want to "color" the recording with excessive bass, mid-ranges or
treble.
After the hook-up of turntable to pre-amp (with RCA cables) to line-in of
the computer, you click on the Spin It Again icon and the Wizard window
"pops" up and you're ready to start recording. I chose "Bridge Over Troubled
Waters" as it had a bad scratch at the very beginning of the recording. I
set up the line input and level meters, plus I clicked on settings, tabbed
over to "cleaning and effects" and selected "vinyl light cleaning"; that was
the only change I made to the settings that were pre-selected. I then
started the changer and clicked on the record button...it takes a few
practice times to get the sequence down so that you don't have skipped
grooves in starting the vinyl record.
After side one finished, I paused the recording and flipped the record and
continued with side two. At this point I had my doubts as to how good this
program was as I was used to seeing real time audio sine wave audio tracks
...ala the Audacity software or Easy CD Creator Spin Doctor. Needless to
say I was wondering if I would be able to modify or re-arrange the tracks as
I wanted. I was pleasantly surprised when I finished and went to the next
window. All the functions were there, i.e. split, merge, analyze and many
other functions that I haven't tried as yet. I must admit I was impressed
with the "clean way" Acoustica handled the recording of vinyls to CDs.
I haven't tried the cassette functions as yet, but I'm sure they will be as
good as the vinyl functions in the program. Would I buy it? If you demo it,
I believe you'll like it. I am always a skeptic and I like it. But one thing
you should keep in mind...if you're like me. You may have over 300 albums
and that translates into approximately 35 minutes an album in recording
without the additional work of reviewing the album and getting it into a
good file worth burning to a .cda file type audio CD.
I calculated the time it would take me to convert all my albums--about
twenty-two days just for the recording and that does not include setup time,
analysis time and burn time. So I would be very selective in deciding which
of those vinyls to convert to CD's.
Note: Additional review by Don Watson at:
www.pcnet-online.com/content/utilities/transfer-vinyl-to-digital.htm
Also, Spin It Again is...free to try it and $34.95 to keep using it.
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CCCC Page 7 August 2006
NTI SHADOW VERSION 3 REVIEW by Dick Trissel
NTI Shadow 3 enables automatic, continuous backup of your important files
for PCs, Mac, and U3 Smart devices. New Dragon Disc enabled version supports
backup to all types of optical media.
For real-time, continuous data backup, set Shadow 3 to save your
files/folders every time they change. You can also specify your backup
schedule by the minute, hour, day, week and start time(s) and also choose a
specific or even a customized file type with Shadow 3's new advanced file
filtering.
Not only does Shadow 3 allow users to automatically copy files from their
PCs to various devices in real time, but it also preserves the files in
their native format - meaning no additional software is necessary to restore
files. Shadow 3 works transparently in the background without disturbing you
while you work, and does not take up important system resources. Native
format means the files are not compressed or changed during the save.
Windows System Requirements:
Microsoft Windows 2000 or XP, Pentium III 900MHz or higher, 256MB RAM.
Macintosh with Mac OS X v10.3.9 or later, 256 MB of RAM.
Shadow 3.0 also works with U3 Smart devices.
The following is directly from the Help Section.
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to NTI Shadow! Our software allows users to schedule continuous
backup jobs that copy the contents of one or more folders (the "backup
source") to another location (the "backup destination"). The backup jobs are
continuous because they are scheduled to regularly update the data in the
backup folder either continuously or in user-defined intervals. You can
schedule a job to run every certain number of minutes, on certain days at a
specified time, or whenever any data in the backup source are modified.
Shadow can also be configured to archive file versions. If this option is
enabled, then any file that is saved or overwritten will trigger Shadow to
archive the previous version of the file. The file versions are stored in a
Revisions folder in the backup destination. Users can configure how many
versions of a file to maintain.
Shadow supports backups on local hard drives, USB/FireWire external hard
drives, USB pen drives, NAS devices, and any drive with drive letter access.
When Shadow is launched, the Welcome screen displays a list of backup jobs
as well as various options that allow you to create, modify, enable/disable,
and delete the jobs. This section describes the functionality of each
option. The following screenshot of the Welcome screen shows where you can
find the "Create Backup Job" and "Modify Backup Job" sections.
MAIN WINDOW
"Help" Button: Launches the help documentation.
"View Log File" Button: Opens the log file for Shadow.
"Done" Button: If all the backup jobs are disabled, this button will exit
the application after it saves the job information. Otherwise, this button
will minimize Shadow to the system tray.
"Cancel" Button: Exits the application without saving modifications to any
backup jobs.
CREATE BACKUP JOB
"Create Backup Job" Button: Launches the Job Wizard to begin creating and
configuring a new backup job.
JOB LIST AND MODIFY BACKUP JOB
The Job List displays all the backup jobs currently saved in the program.
You must first select a job from the list before the buttons in the Modify
Backup Job section are clickable.
"Edit" Button: The Edit button will launch the Job Wizard where users can
modify the settings of the selected backup job.
"Enable" and "Disable" Button: The Enable/Disable button toggles whether the
selected backup job is currently active. A disabled backup job will never
run and its Job List icon will be grayed out. Note that if a job is enabled,
the button will display "Disable" and vice versa.
"Disable All" Button: The Disable All button will disable all jobs in the
Job List.
"Delete" Button: The Delete button will delete the selected backup job from
the Job List.
"Start Backup" Button: The Start Backup button will run the selected backup
job immediately.
Here are a few comments from other reviewers:
Advantages: Inexpensive. Simple, straightforward interface. Offers a number
of customization options. Data is stored in its native format, so restoring
a file is a simple matter of copying it back to your hard drive. Real-time
backup has little effect on system performance.
Disadvantage: There's no option to automatically launch NTI Shadow at
startup, so you must remember to launch the program whenever you boot or
reboot.
Rebutal by Andy Marken to Disadvantage: That has been solved with an update
that is available to users at no cost from the NTI web site.
For pricing and download information, go to: http://www.ntius.com/
You can purchase NTI Shadow 3.0 for the Macintosh or Windows systems as a
downloadable file from the NTI website ($29.99 for Shadow 3). Just visit
them online at https://secure.ntius.com/esdsoft/shadow_v3_full.asp
My thanks to:
Andy Marken
Marken Communications, Inc.
andy@markencom.com
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CCCC Page 8 August 2006
WHY ARE BACKUPS IMPORTANT?
By Gene Barlow, User Group Relations, Copyrighted July 2006
Backing up your computer's main hard drive is the most important task every
user needs to do on a regular basis. Still, I hear end-users say they have
nothing of value on their computers, so they really don't need to do
backups. This is not true. I hope this article will help you understand why
backups are important to do.
Most users think that the display, keyboard, and computer box are the main
parts of their computer system. While the computer hardware is important,
the real heart and soul of your computer are the many files stored on the
hard drive. These files are what make the hardware run and do useful tasks.
Without them, your computer would be useless.
Your computer's hard drive contains two general types of files on it -
program files and data files. It is very important that you backup both of
these types of files, but you will want to back them up for different
reasons.
Program files include your Windows operating system and all of the
application programs you run on your computer. Without them, your computer
would do nothing. If your hard drive should fail without a backup, then you
would have to spend days or weeks reloading all of these program files on
your hard drive. This is a lot of work and you may never get your computer
to run again like it did before the hard drive failed.
Data files are the files you create using the programs on your computer.
These are the most important files you have on your computer. They are the
email messages you send, the documents you write, the financial records you
keep, your digital photographs and music files. So, when your hard drive
fails on you, you will lose all of these important data files. This can be a
major disaster for you. Let me tell you about a real situation that occurred
this past year.
A member of a user groups in California had been taking lots of pictures
with her digital camera. She saved these on her hard drive in albums ready
to show her family and friends. Her wedding pictures were also saved on her
hard drive. One morning, she could not get her hard drive to work. It had
failed on her without a backup. She took the hard drive to a company
specializing in recovering data from failed hard drives. They analyzed the
drive and told her they could probably get most of her photos back and their
fee for this service was $1000. She was shocked at this high fee, but all of
her photos were very important to her, so she ended up paying this fee. A
good backup would have saved her this expense.
Computer hard drives are very reliable today, but they still fail for many
reasons. The hardware can wear out and stop working. A more common reason is
that the programs on your main hard drive become corrupted and no longer
function. It is not a question of if your hard drive will fail; it is more a
question of when will it fail on you. You need to be prepared with a backup
for when your hard drive does fails on you.
Backing up your computer's hard drive is a fairly simple concept. To backup
your main hard drive, you copy all of the files on that drive and store them
on another device that you can save away from your computer. Then if
anything should happen to your main hard drive, you put a new hard drive in
your computer and copy all of these important files to this new drive. You
can be up and running again in minutes with a good backup.
Backing up your hard drive is very easy to do with the latest technology. To
help you understand more about how to do backups, I have put together a
training session titled the Perfect Backup Approach. You can find it on my
web site at www.ugr.com/tutorials.html. Take a few minutes to watch this
tutorial and you will have a much better understanding of how to do backups
using the latest technology today.
To help you get started to backup your hard drive, we are running a Summer
Special that includes the best backup software available today, Acronis True
Image 9.0 Home edition. You can order this top rated backup software product
for just $29 on our web site at www.usergroupstore.com. It normally sells
for $50 in computer stores. To make the deal even better, we will include a
copy of our Perfect Backup Approach training CD at this special price. Don't
wait too long as the summer is coming to an end and this special will not
last into the fall.
To make it easy for you to start to do backups, we have prepared a technical
paper titled, Using Acronis True Image 9.0 Home edition that you can find on
our web site at www.ugr.com/newsletters.html. Read and follow this article
as you install and start to do backups and it will guide you through each of
the steps in doing backups. It couldn't be easier to get started.
That completes this article on the importance of backing up your hard drive.
If you have questions on this article or other questions about True Image or
your hard drive, send a note to gene@ugr.com and I will try to assist you.
Gene Barlow
User Group Relations gene@ugr.com
PO Box 911600 www.ugr.com
St George, UT 84791-1600
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CCCC Page 9 August 2006
ERUNT REVIEW by Dick Trissel
In July I mentioned an XP utility called NTREGOPT for optimizing the XP
registry. I now find out it is part of a utility set with much more
capability. Here are some words by the program author:
ERUNT - The Emergency Recovery Utility NT
=========================================
Registry Backup and Restore for Windows NT/2000/2003/XP
ERUNT v1.1j, 10/20/2005, Freeware
Written by Lars Hederer
e-mail: lars.hederer@t-online.de
http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt
INTRODUCTION
With the invention of Windows 95 Microsoft made the wise decision to
organize all computer- and application-specific data which was spread
over countless INI files before in a centralized Windows database,
called the system "registry". The registry is one of the most
important parts in every Windows system today, without which the OS
would not even boot. And since the registry is quite sensitive to
corruption, it is very advisable to backup its according files from
time to time.
In MS-DOS based Windows versions (95, 98, Me) the registry consists of
the files SYSTEM.DAT and USER.DAT (and CLASSES.DAT in Windows Me). To
backup these files, one can easily go to the Windows folder in
Explorer and copy the files to a safe location, for example another
folder on the hard disk. Microsoft even supplies a utility called ERU
which can be used to backup these and a few other critical system
files to a safe location.
Also, Windows 9x/Me automatically create backups of the registry at
startup, with Windows 95 always backing up the registry from the
previous Windows session, and Windows 98/Me maintaining up to five
registry copies from the last five days where Windows was running.
Unfortunately, this is not the case with Windows versions based on the
NT kernel. In Windows NT and 2000, the registry is never backed up
automatically, and in XP it is backed up only as part of the bloated
and resource hogging System Restore program which cannot even be used
for a "restore" should a corrupted registry prevent Windows from
booting. It has also become impossible to copy the necessary files,
now called "hives" and usually named DEFAULT, SAM, SECURITY, SOFTWARE,
SYSTEM in the SYSTEM32\CONFIG folder, to another location because they
are all in use by the OS. And though the registry in an NT-based
Windows is less likely to become corrupted than in other versions, it
can still happen, and for these cases NT is simply missing an option
for easy registry backup and restore as there is in Windows 9x/Me, to
get the system up and running again in no time.
I decided to write a program which offers the ease-of-use
of Windows 9x/Me ERU by Microsoft (hence the name ERUNT) to backup the
registry, as well as providing an auto-backup capability, for example
at Windows startup. Or, before installing a new program for testing
purposes one could save the registry with ERUNT, install and test the
program, uninstall it and restore the registry to be 100% sure that no
debris is left.
Note: The "Export registry" function in Regedit is USELESS (!) for
making a complete backup of the registry--it doesn't export the
whole registry (for example, no information from the "SECURITY" hive
is saved), nor can the exported file be used later to replace the
current registry with the old one. Instead, if you re-import the file,
it is merged with the current registry without deleting anything that
has been added since the export, leaving you with an absolute mess of
old and new entries.
FEATURES
- Backup the Windows NT/2000/2003/XP registry to a folder of your
choice
- System and current user registries selectable
- Command line switches for automated registry backup and restoration
- Restore the registry in Windows 9x/Me/NT/2000/2003/XP and MS-DOS
(all-in-one restore program) or the Windows Recovery Console
- Included in this package:
NTREGOPT program for optimizing the registry
- All programs in this package are completely localizable
(translate them into your language), German version included
SUPPORTED OPERATING SYSTEMS
Windows NT 3.51/4.0, Windows 2000/2003/Windows XP
Additionally supported by the ERDNT restore program:
MS-DOS/Windows 95/98/Me
INSTALLATION
Use the Setup program to install ERUNT on your computer.
Or, if you downloaded the zipped version: Unzip all files into a
folder of your choice, and if you want, create shortcuts on your
desktop to the ERUNT.EXE and NTREGOPT.EXE files.
UNINSTALLATION
Use "Add/Remove Programs" in Windows' control panel to remove ERUNT
from your computer.
Or, if you downloaded the zipped version: Delete the ERUNT folder,
delete the appropriate desktop icons.
(You may also want to delete all restore folders you have previously
created with the program.)
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