C C C C N E W S L E T T E R
CENTRAL COAST COMPUTER CLUB
Santa Maria, California
VOLUME XVII: NUMBER 7 July, 2002
NEXT MEETING: July 16, 2002 7:00PM KNOLLWOOD VILLAGE 4012 S. BRADLEY
PRESENTATION: Jon Jaqua of Computer Solutions Inc. will speak on
"Keeping your PC alive and well"
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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) June System S.I.G. Dick Trissel
(5) Web Wanderings Gil Smith
(6) Defrag - A Better Way Dick Savage
(7) CD-RW: What's Next PC World
(8) CD Autorun Dick Trissel
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OFFICERS HELPLINES
President Juno
Charles Barney 937-1240 Gilbert Smith 925-3743
cbarney@lightspeed.net Gs5081@aol.com
Vice President Windows 95/98/ME/XP & VoiceControl
Amy Malicki 925-5780 Amy Malicki 925-5780
amymal@juno.com amymal@juno.com
Secretary and Book Librarian Hardware & DOS
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
Gmiller@pronet.net
Disk Librarian Help With Any Problem
Sharon Allen 928-2209 Dick Savage 928-4932
sallen4060@aol.com rsavage65@hotmail.com
Publicity Help With Any Problem
Bill Corning 934-0775 Fred Adams 934-1128
foster95@juno.com wd64acj@netzero.net
Newsletter Editor Visual Basic
Dick Trissel 937-7572 Gerald Miller 934-1396
rtrissel@juno.com Gmiller@pronet.net
SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS (S.I.G.s)
Windows 95/98/ME/XP (6:00pm) Systems (5:45pm)
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
EXTRA4C E-mail Messages
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 July 2002
PRESIDENT'S CORNER
by Charles Barney
There were 55 folks who turned out at the clubhouse for the June 18th
meeting including rejoining member John Pfister. Good to have you back
John!
Member Win Campbell brought a whole pickup truck load of old computer
equipment to the meeting and offered any and all of it free for the taking.
I believe that some of you took part of the stuff home. I found a VGA
monitor that I could use. The fate of the remainder, I fear, was destined
for the city landfill.
This is a growing problem in our society; the proliferation of discarded
electronics in our waste dumps has become an environmental hazard that if
we don't deal with, future generations must. A standard PC monitor (or
television tube, for that matter) contains about 5 pounds of lead. Other
toxic materials found in your average computer include chromium, cadmium
and mercury.
My point is that if you can at all avoid tossing that old monitor, printer
or whatever into the trash can, please do so. The best solution, if
possible, is to give it to someone who can make use of it. Also, look for
places that accept donations for refurbishing or electronics recyclers such
as the ones that were recently at the Santa Maria landfill accepting drop-
offs. It is the earth-friendly thing to do and our grandchildren will live
better because of it!
Scheduled to give a presentation was our disk librarian Sharon Allen.
Unfortunately, she was unavoidably detained by unforeseen circumstances in
her business. Some of us still have to work for a living you know! Sharon
was very sorry she couldn't make it, but I reassured her that all worked
out fine and that we filled-in the time with an impromptu question and
answer period. We will have her rescheduled for another meeting sometime in
the near future.
The results of our ever-popular door prize drawing were as follows: Winners
were Seymour Schwartz - Maxtor 20 GB hard drive, Richard Holmes - Printshop
Photo Pro Deluxe, Barbara Flood - The Incredible Machine/Even More
Contraptions, Carol Chambard - IBM Via Voice 9, and Bob Allington - McAfee
PGP Personal Privacy.
No-shows included Maureen Morrow, Bob Gallagher, Peter Dettelis, Ginny
Carmichael, Ted Hoogenbosch, Dorothy Raupp, Frank Peeples, Barbara Tucker
and Edward Sage. Chosen, but declining a prize were Ray Isenson and Al
Cooper.
Just as a reminder, a number of new titles have been recently added to the
club's book library for your use. These may be obtained for a one-month
checkout from Secretary Barbara Godwin. Barbara brings some of the books
with her to each meeting, but cannot haul the entire library along. If you
have a request for a particular book, please call or email her well in
advance of a meeting, and she will bring the title for you. Listings of the
club's library holdings can be found in the new 4Cs Member Disk and also in
the March 2002 newsletter. Updated lists will be made available as
necessary.
At our upcoming meeting on July 16th, we will have as guest speaker Jon
Jaqua of Computer Solutions, Inc. Jon told me that has worked with
computers for a very long time. And, that he runs a local business where he
will come into the home to problem solve and work on the customer's PC. He
also writes a weekly piece in the Tuesday's Santa Maria Times "Ask a
Professional" feature.
I know that Summer is the time when many of you travel and are unable to
attend, but as for the rest of you - what's your excuse? Come on out and
enjoy a meeting. You have nothing to lose but your boredom! I'll see you at
the clubhouse. - Charles
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CCCC Page 3 July 2002
EDITOR'S COMMENTS
By Dick Trissel
Continuing the thoughts from last month about the System Registry in
Windows 9x systems, I feel I should report what Ray Isenson and I think we
have found as an important deficiency in some Windows XP computer systems
(and possibly Windows ME).
In Windows 98/98SE (not 95) the registry is backed up automatically at
every startup on a new date, if the option is enabled with a Scanreg
/autorun line in the startup list. It's put in a compressed file named
Rb00x.cab (where x varies from 0 to 5) in the C:\Windows\Sysbckup folder.
And, the registry can be restored from a restart in MS-DOS and then run
Scanreg /restore. This has been invaluable to me and many others in
recovering sick systems.
Well, Windows XP is supposed to do a similar function at each new date
startup where it puts the system files (which includes the registry) into a
"Restore Checkpoint" file. But, as near as we can tell, this isn't
happening on all Windows XP computers. We've checked nearly a dozen
computers as of this writing, in both Windows XP Home and Pro versions,
factory or home installed, and only about half have this capability. This
is after we made sure the option was turned on in the System Properties
window. I also encountered the problem in the one ME computer I checked.
According to the books, this automatic checkpoint save is also supposed to
happen after 10 hours of operation, after a system update, and after an
InstallShield installation. The last two seem to be effective. Of course,
the user can manually make a checkpoint just to be safe before he causes a
system crash. Right!
As of this writing we are attempting to get a confirmation and, hopefully,
a remedy for this deficiency. Ray has written to PCWorld for answers.
I've checked several XP Web sites. If anyone of you readers knows the
solution to this problem, please let Ray or me know.
A side note: In the second paragraph I excluded Windows 95 from having the
automatic registry backup capability. Windows 95 can be made to do the
automatic registry backup just like Windows 98. If anyone wants to know
how, contact me.
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CCCC Page 4 July 2002
JUNE SYSTEM S.I.G.
by Dick Trissel
In keeping with our new Systems S.I.G. name, the 28 attendees started out
with a discussion about the Windows registry. To help understand the
significance of the registry, I likened it to the knowledge that the human
brain (the computer memory) has. The registry has most of the controlling
elements for the Windows operating system and the other applications
installed.
I hesitate to go into any great detail on the manipulation of the registry
because of the catastrophic effect a wrong change to it could cause.
However, it is important for users to know how to restore a previous
registry to help cure some problems. I won't take the space here to go
into detail, but anyone that wants to know more, may write to me at my e-
mail address (rtrissel@juno.com) and I will be glad to contact them with
more information. Unfortunately, this offer excludes Windows XP users as I
don't know how XP manages the registry (there is a Regedit program in XP).
Another system subject covered was the Add/Remove function in the Control
Panel, and how it usually doesn't remove all the files of a selected
program for removal. You must go into Windows Explorer and delete the
remaining files associated with the program. And, for those that know how,
you need to delete the associated keys from the registry.
Along that same line, the question was posed as to how do you know which
files to allow the Add/Remove to delete (when/if asked). I don't know.
Best not delete any you are not sure of.
Then a good question was made--how do you expand a compressed file that has
a numerical extension (i.e. nnn.123). If WinZip won't recognize it, try
changing the extension to .zip and see if WinZip can then open it.
We've probably all experienced the floppy drive (A:) being accessed and
rattling when there's nothing in it. Well, the same kind of thing can
happen with a CD drive. This usually happens because the drive was the
last device accessed, and then you requested a program to access a file.
The system thinks you still want to use the last device used. Usually, the
solution is to deliberately access the C: drive from the application that
accessed the external drive or from Windows Explorer or My computer so the
system thinks that is the last device accessed.
Sometimes it is not obvious that a pop-under window has occurred while on a
Web site. Watch the taskbar for extraneous open windows with a browser
icon and right-click them and click Close. This helps save resources while
you are browsing.
Several of us noticed the Juno and Netzero access has much improved since
they started advertising on TV. Or, maybe its all the revenue from the
spam e-mail we are now getting on Juno. Also, did you Juno users notice
the transfer wait countdown has been increased from 60 to 90 seconds.
Fortunately, the wait has not been needed lately.
I demonstrated a cute little screen character called the "Crazy Rabbit".
You can see it at:
http://www.esu.lt/andrius/10/go1.htm
(those are all ones except the el-tee after esu). If you want to save the
rabbit to disk, go to the Temporary Internet Files and save the go1.html
file and the go.swf file to a folder or floppy (11K total). Run it by
double-clicking the go1.html file.
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JULY COOKIES
Thanks in advance to the July "Cookies" volunteers:
Debbie Davis and Gary Aston.
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CCCC Page 5 July 2002
WEB WANDERINGS
by Gil Smith
BELIEVE IT OR NOT
This is the place for people interested in the "strange, unusual,
interesting, odd and just plain weird". Check out the bizarre exhibits
through this on-line museum.
http://www.ripleys.com/homepage.htm
ARE YOU A WEATHER JUNKIE?
Here's some web sites that will give you more weather information than you
can ever use:
Current temperatures, forecasts, warnings, radar images, etc -
http://www.weatherbug.com
Local Conditions:
http://www.weather.com/Services/desktop.html
Weather In Other Cities:
http://www.nes.noaa.gov
Weather Channel:
Just type in a city's name on the home page.
Accuweather: Great when traveling.
http://www.accuweather.com
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS OVERSEAS
Our country is at war. Show your support and help boost our troop's morale.
Drop a Service Member or a Branch of Service a quick note of thanks
http://anyservicemember.navy.mil
IS YOUR CAR A TARGET FOR AUTO THEFT?
See if your car is a hot target for thieves. It provides state-by-state
listings of the most stolen vehicles and other car theft statistics.
http://www.cccis.com/news/moststolen/2001/2001veh.htm
WACKY USES
Have you ever wanted to know what you could do with certain household
supplies such as Baking Soda, Mr. Coffee Filters or even a Slinky? This
web site has a whole list of household supplies and some wacky things you
can do with those supplies.
http://www.wackyuses.com/uses.html
PLAYING WITH DOPPLER
Have you ever wanted to check out Doppler radar maps but missed them on the
news? This site gives you a map of the US and you can click on a button
and see the Doppler radar live.
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/radar
RODEO NETWORK
If you've been to a rodeo, you know the excitement involved, even just
sitting in the stands watching the riders put on their best shows. If
you've never been to a rodeo, this is a great web site to learn about it
and to hear the truths about the myths out there. Rodeo network has lots
of interactive features as well as an extensive and ever growing database
of rodeo events nationwide throughout the USA.
http://www.rodeonetwork.com
SPLITTER
You want to save your data to a floppy disk, but the file is too large?
With Splitter you can split the data in parts of 1.44 MB or other sizes.
Because Splitter is extremely small (58KB), you can deliver it easily with
the first disk for unsplitting. Splitter is freeware, you can make free
copies, give it to friends or do whatever you want to do with it. However,
you are not allowed to redistribute it in any modified form, or to sell
splitter and earn money.
http://MartinStoeckli.gmxhome.de/splitter/splitter.html
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CCCC Page 6 July 2002
DEFRAG - A BETTER WAY
From Dick Savage
An article from a newsletter I read led me to a much better way to defrag.
I tried it on both of my computers and it worked and very fast. Here is an
excerpt from the newsletter:
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Defrag your hard drive in record time -- without headaches!
Using the Windows ME Defrag utility on MS Windows 95, 98, 98SE
Users of Windows 95 / 98 / 98SE - Upgrade your Defrag Utility to WinME
version. A copy of the Windows ME defrag.exe is available in a zipped file
(defrag.zip) at:
http://AroundCNY.com/Technofile/texts/tec060902.html
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In a nutshell, here is all you have to do to install the ME defrag.exe
program (Windows 95/98/SE):
1. Rename your current C:\Windows\Defrag.exe to something like
DefragOLD.exe
2. Download the defrag.zip file and unzip it. It is not very long (95KB)
and unzips to Defrag.exe (209KB).
3. Move the unzipped Defrag.exe to the C:\Windows folder.
4. Click on Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Disk
Defragmenter and click on it to execute it (or execute the new file
any way you want to).
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Editor's comments: Dick also stated (and so did the original article) that
you don't have to turn off running programs, screen savers, etc. My
experience was that anything that accessed the hard drive during the defrag
operation caused a defrag restart. However, it was noticably faster when
not interrupted. The original article claimed what used to take hours only
took minutes. I also verified it works on FAT32 and FAT16 file systems.
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CRITICAL THINKING--Foregone Conclusion:
A. The Japanese, Chinese and Koreans eat very little fat and suffer fewer
heart attacks than the British or Americans.
B. On the other hand, the French and Germans eat a lot of fat and also
suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.
C. The Japanese, Chinese and Koreans drink very little red wine and suffer
fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.
D. The Italians, Portuguese and Spanish drink excessive amounts of red wine
and also suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.
E. Conclusion: Eat and drink what ever you like. It's speaking English that
kills you.
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CCCC Page 7 July 2002
CD-RW: WHAT'S NEXT?
Extracted from PC World Newsletter
Drag 'N' Drop To CD-RW Easily
New technology promises simple file transfers, near-zero formatting time.
Creating and sharing CD-RWs just got easier. Thanks to a new technology,
users have a simple and consistent way to transfer files through Windows
Explorer, or save a file to CD-RW from an app--with confidence that other
new CD drives will be able to read the disc. More important, CD-RW
formatting time is cut to practically nothing because you can start copying
files before formatting is done.
The new standard is code-named
Mt. Rainier (aka Easy Writer), and some 40X-rated CD-R/RW drives from
vendors such as Philips and Teac already support it (you may need a
firmware upgrade to make it work, so check with vendors). Nearly all the
forthcoming 48X-rated CD-R/RW drives should offer built-in Mt. Rainier
support, and the whole market will eventually follow. Even some
rewritable-DVD drives, such as next-generation DVD+RW models, will include
Mt. Rainier.
A key benefit of Mt. Rainier drives: no need for a CD-RW packet-writing
program to let you drag and drop files to disc--that is, once operating
system support is built in.
And that's the catch. You can buy software that lets you take advantage of
Mt. Rainier, but native OS support--which makes the process seamless--lags.
(Today, only the Linux 2.4.19 kernel offers support.) Microsoft promised
support in Windows XP but did not include it; a company spokesperson said a
reader driver is on the way, and the next Windows, code-named Longhorn,
should include full support.
Work It Now
You don't have to wait for Microsoft. With Software Architects', version 3
($70; $40 for an upgrade), you can use most of Mt. Rainier's nifty features
now. (Roxio Easy CD Creator 5.2 also supports Mt. Rainier.)
WriteCD-RW Pro has three utilities to let you write a Mt. Rainier disc,
read it in a non-Mt. Rainier drive, and recover lost files or repair discs
of various formats. It works with Windows 98, Me, NT, 2000, and XP, and
Mac 8.6 and 9.x.
I still had to format discs, but it took less than 5 minutes, compared with
an average of 20 minutes or more for most packet-writing utilities. And I
had no trouble copying files as the disc formatted.
You can even interrupt formatting--it resumes at your next session with no
data loss.
Copying and saving files was a breeze. And after I installed SAI's read
utility on another PC, both a CD-RW and a DVD-ROM drive that had no Mt.
Rainier support or other UDF (Universal Disc Format) software read my new
disc.
The full promise of Mt. Rainier is still that--a promise. But SAI's
utilities offer many of the technology's benefits now, and may also soon
ship with drives as part of the software bundle--a plus for users and their
wallets.
UPDATE: CD-RW: WHAT'S NEXT?
Mt. Rainier technology is just one new feature coming to CD-R/RW drives.
Look as well for faster CD-R and CD-RW write speeds, and perhaps fewer
media delays than in the past.
Drive makers CenDyne and TDK expect to be shipping 48X-rated CD-R drives
around the time you read this, with other vendors sure to follow. Media for
these 48X drives should appear at about the same time, say media vendors.
CenDyne's first 48X drives will write CD-RW at 12X; a 48X/24X drive should
appear a month later, say company spokespeople. TDK hopes to launch its 48X
drives with 24X CD-RW capability.
Specifications for 24X CD-RW have not been finalized and may delay release
of the drives. Consequently, Mary Craig, Gartner Dataquest principal
analyst for optical storage, believes that expecting 24X CD-RW drives to
become available even by the third quarter or early fourth quarter of this
year may be optimistic.
Don't look for anything beyond 24X for CD-RW for a while. Industry experts
agree that CD-R write speeds may jump--perhaps to 52X or even 60X--but they
won't roll out as quickly as they have over the past year, when speeds
tripled from 16X to the imminent 48X.
If that's not enough speed for you, it may be time to start looking at a
rewritable-DVD model.
[Editor's note: Easy CD Creator 5.2 is available for download from:
http://www.averi.hr/vipoman/DNLS/easycdc52.htm
It's 160MB!]
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CCCC Page 8 July 2002
CD AUTORUN
By Dick Trissel
I'm sure you all have at one time or another put a CD disc (music or
program) in the computer CD-ROM player and had it start all by itself.
Well, that ain't magic! It's just the first file on the root directory of
the CD that tells the computer to automatically start a program that is
either on the disc or in your computer. However, there is one other thing
has to be set for this to happen--the "Auto insert notification" option has
to be enabled for the CD-ROM player (or the CD burner).
To check the auto insert option:
Right click My Computer, click Properties, click Device Manager, click the
plus sign on the CDROM line, select the CD device and click the Properties
button. Click the Settings tab and check the Auto insert notification box
in the Options section.
If you have more than one CD device, go back and select the other CD and
check its properties.
The purpose of the auto insert is to look at the CD and see if the first
file on the CD root directory is a file named Autorun.inf.
Now comes the fun part. You can make the CDs you burn autorun CDs just
like the big boys. After you've made the CD writable, make the first file
on the first track a special Autorun file. Here's how.
In your favorite test editor type:
[Autorun]
open=filename
Just those two lines, where filename is the name of an executable file that
you are going to put on the CD. Or, it can be the path and filename for a
file on your hard drive. Of course, if you do that, anyone else using the
CD will have to have that program on their system in the same place.
If you want to get really tricky, you can add another line:
icon=iconfile
If you don't know how to find icons, forget I mentioned it.
Save the edited file to your hard drive as autorun.inf. Now when you start
your CD burn, put the autorun.inf file on first. And, of course, if the
filename is to found on the CD, be sure to put it somewhere on the CD.
If you have your computer tower sitting on your table at about eye level
(like mine), you may have noticed the CD-ROM light flash on every once in
awhile for no apparent reason. This is the auto insert function checking
to see if there is an autorun CD in the drive that should be started. You
can stop this by turning of the auto insert notification for that CD-ROM,
but that defeats the autorun, also.
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WHY MEN DON'T MAKE GOOD SECRETARYS
Message from husband to wife:
The Gyna College called and said the Pabst beer was good.
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______________________________________________________________________
| COMPUTER CONSULTING |
| |
| Amy Malicki has started an "In-House" computer consulting service. |
| She charges $35 per hour in your home at your computer. |
| She can be contacted at 925-5780 or amymal@juno.com. |
______________________________________________________________________
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