C C C C N E W S L E T T E R
CENTRAL COAST COMPUTER CLUB
Santa Maria, California
VOLUME XVI: NUMBER 6 JUNE, 2001
NEXT MEETING: JUNE 19, 2001 7:00PM KNOLLWOOD VILLAGE 4012 S. BRADLEY
PRESENTATION: David Whittle of MGI Software will showcase
the company's latest digital imaging tools.
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| CONTENTS |
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(1) Officers, Helplines, S.I.G.s
(2) President's Corner Charles Barney
(3) May Internet SIG Dick Trissel
(4) Microsoft Newsgroups Dick Savage
(5) Editor's Comments Dick Trissel
(6) Hardware Settings Ray Isenson
(7) Web Wanderings Gil Smith
(8) Review: Stuffit Phil Grycel
(9) Disabling the Caps Lock Key Dick Savage
(10) Review: Dragstrip Gerry Miller
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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 & Voice Control
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 AOL
Gerald Miller 934-1396 Frank Maciel 922-2318
2741 Banyan Way frm8198@aol.com
Santa Maria CA 93455
gmiller33@excite.com
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 fred421@earthlink.net
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/ME 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 June 2001
President's Corner
by Charles Barney
New members joining us at the May 15th meeting were Bob Carmichael, Makuisa
Peapealalo (Pepi) and Ted Tucker. Welcome all to the 4C's! We are delighted
to have you aboard. Bob surprised us with an impromptu presentation on a
bit of computing history and brought along some interesting relics for
show-and-tell. Thanks Bob!
Our Guest speaker for the evening was Linda Falcon from the Gateway Country
Store here in Santa Maria. After impressing us with a "magic" card trick,
Linda informed us about the impressive line of products and services
offered by the business. The latest technologies are available to anyone
for a hands-on "test drive" in a friendly and informal atmosphere at the
store. From the new Pentium 4 computers to digital cameras and wireless
networking, they have it at Gateway. Also offered, are a number of training
courses held in their state-of-the-art computer lab. As a special offer,
they are giving a limited time 5% discount on purchases to club members.
Bring your copy of this newsletter as proof you belong to the 4C's!
We had an unusual number of door prizes to give away (ten in all) which was
due, in part, to Linda's generous offering of Gateway stuff. The lucky
winners included Dick Trissel - Aladdin Systems Stuffit (and he thought
he'd never win anything!), Barbara Flood - Microsoft Casino, Gerald Miller
- Mindshare polo shirt, Win Campbell - TechSmith SnagIt, Paul Highfill -
Gateway yo-yo, Dick Savage - Gateway Frisbee, Jim Burress - TechSmith CD
binder, Spencer Stimler - Gateway playing cards, Jean Burress - declined a
prize, Irvan Winterfeldt - Microsoft
t-shirt and Phil Grycel - Gateway pen.
Crying Towel honorees included Roy Grisso, Joseph Night, Al Cooper, William
Pugh, George Spingler, Peter Dettelis, Ray Oaks, Sylvia Connors and Joe
Magnusson.
Allan Hancock College, our local community education resource, is offering
a number of computer skills classes in its Summer noncredit schedule
beginning on June 18. Some of these include Seniors: Computers and You,
levels 1 & 2; Varied Internet Applications; Introduction to Windows and
classes on various Microsoft Office programs such as Word and Excel.
Interested people should acquire a copy of Hancock's Spectrum catalog and
send their mail-in registration as soon as possible to assure a seat.
At our June 19th meeting we will have David Whittle of MGI Software at the
clubhouse to show off the company's latest in digital imaging tools. The
brother of Randy Whittle, who has been out to see us a number of times,
David is highly rated as a top professional in the business. I hope you
will all turn out and show your support for this major vendor presentation.
You will not be disappointed! - Charles
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CCCC Page 3 June 2001
May Internet S.I.G
by Dick Trissel
We had 24 members in attendance with a variety of questions.
One question was whether spam e-mail senders know if you received the
message. This brought up the availability of a program the will "bounce"
spam. This means that for all the pieces of spam mail a spammer sends, he
will receive his own spam back at him. If you are interested in having
this capability, go to Google and search for "Bounce Spam Mail". One free
program is BSM18.zip (277,718 bytes).
The problem one user has of some of his e-mail getting truncated (missing
last lines) was brought up again and still no one has an answer.
Then the discussion went to how to resend e-mail; one that you've sent and
later want to send it again from the "sent-mail" folder. The method
depends on what you are using for a mail reader. In general (and probably
the hard way) you can save the message to a temporary folder and then
insert it in a new message. Most mail programs will allow you to "forward"
from the sent-mail folder.
The problem was brought up of how to forward attachments, especially with
mail programs that don't automatically include the attachments in the
forwarded message. Again, the technique
is to save the attachments and then reattach them in the new outgoing
message.
This lead to the question of maximum amounts of bytes allowed for e-mail.
The total amount of accumulated incoming mail differs depending on the
rules of the ISP provider. I've seen numbers around 20-50 megabytes, but
some may be a lot less--especially the free ones. The maximum size of a
single message (including attachments) again varies with the provider. For
example, about a year ago I tested Hotmail and validated their 1 Megabyte
limit--not a lot if you have a graphic attachment.
We had a brief discussion of Internet Newsgroups. These are not
newsletters or news sites, but discussion groups--not chat rooms or BBSs.
A good site to experience Newsgroups is at http://groups.google.com
We got off of the Internet subject with a discussion of computer shutdown
problems. If the system was operating correctly and then one day decides
to freeze up during the shutdown, it usually is caused by some application
still running that the operating system couldn't terminate, so it just
hangs. The use of CTRL-ALT-DEL just before shutting down, and looking for
a program that is "not responding" may give you a clue to the offending
program. Use "End Task" to test that and any other likely program.
However, don't end Explorer or Systray. Explorer (without a file
associated) is the system kernal. Deleting that will surely stop the
computer, but not the way you want.
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CCCC Page 4 June 2001
MICROSOFT NEWSGROUPS
by Dick Savage
There are over fifty thousand newsgroups on just about every imaginable
subject. They provide an outstanding source of information and help. The
classical access to newsgroups is through newsgroup software that
interfaces with a newsgroup server. This information system is much older
than the World Wide Web but may also be accessed through the WWW.
There are a large number of newsgroups on the main newsgroup servers that
can provide information and help with most any problem, including computer
problems, and this source of help should not be overlooked. But the rest of
this section will describe the accessing of a special Microsoft server that
is devoted exclusively to newsgroups about Microsoft products. I will
describe the use of the Outlook Express, OE, software to access these
newsgroups. The procedures required by other software to access a main
server is very similar.
To establish an account with the Microsoft news server, go to OE and click
on Tools, on the drop down menu click Accounts to get the Internet Accounts
dialog box. Click the News tab if needed to display it. Assuming that there
is no account with the Microsoft news server listed on the News tab, click
the Add button and then click News to get the Internet Connection Wizard.
The wizard will ask you to fill in the name you want to use when reading
and posting to the newsgroups and then your email address. Next it will ask
for the name of the Internet news server (NNTP). Type in
"msnews.microsoft.com" (without the quotes) and then click the Next button.
This will take you to the last page of the wizard. It tells you that you
have entered the required information and instructs you to click the Finish
button.
After establishing an account with the Microsoft news server select the
particular newsgroup(s) you wish to subscribe to by using the Newsgroup
Subscriptions dialog box. You can get this box by: clicking on the
Subscribe to Newsgroups... item on the OE main menu On any OE window
click on Tools and then Newsgroups...On any OE window simultaneously
depress the Ctrl and W keys
On the Newsgroups Subscriptions dialog box, click on Microsoft News Server
in the Accounts column and the All tab at the base of the Newsgroups
window. This produces a list of all the newsgroups available from the
selected server. The large number of newsgroups available on a server
requires the use of a searching mechanism to find one suitable.
The 'Display newsgroups that contain' box serves as your first search tool.
When blank all newsgroups are listed alphabetically. Let's suppose that we
are looking for help with Windows ME and that we type windowsme into that
top box. Now only newsgroups containing windowsme in their title are
listed. Next one wants to scroll through the windowsme list and decide
that perhaps the newsgroup microsoft.public.windowsme.general would be a
place where you could get help.
Before subscribing to this newsgroup click on it to select it and click on
the Go to button at the bottom of the dialog box to display the postings of
the selected newsgroup. Peruse the postings and if you believe this is a
community that can help you, subscribe to the newsgroup.
Once you have found a newsgroup where you think you can get help, you read
and post to them very much like you do with email. If you are at all
apprehensive about posting to a newsgroup, you can subscribe to the
newsgroup microsoft.test and practice posting there. The sole purpose of
that group is to provide a place to practice. If you are inexperienced in
this area of the Internet, it would also be wise to search on newsgroup
etiquette and read up on the subject.
A few closing words about newsgroups are in order. They are a huge source
of valuable information and well worth the effort needed to weed through
the many inactive or otherwise unsatisfactory groups. This writing deals
with only a small part of the newsgroup area; an area that does a superior
job with many Microsoft software subjects; and newsgroups that are not
contained on the main servers.
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CCCC Page 5 June 2001
Editor's Comments
By Dick Trissel
Well, here we go again. The plans for a computer clinic have experienced
the equivalent of the Windows blue screen of death. There will NOT be any
meetings on Fridays or any other days at the Luis Oasis Senior Center. In
fact, we (Ray and I) have pretty much lost interest. If someone can find a
meeting place, set up the schedule, do the logistics, I (and maybe Ray)
will support.
From the few meetings we've had it appears the need covers the whole
spectrum, from the raw beginners who require basic instruction to the
knowledgeable who want specific help. That's pretty hard to handle in one
room in one time slot. Any suggestions?
Here's a Web site that might save you some money. It's at:
http://www.gaspricewatch.com.
It gives you recent gasoline prices and the station for any area you
choose. I went to US Gas, ZIP Search (93455), 10 mile radius. Along with
the data is the date of the last report for that station. You can submit
updates. There are no guarantees, but it might save you a few bucks.
The May guest speaker put out a list to be signed but forgot to mention it.
She asked if we could include a note in our next newsletter to the effect:
"To get on Linda Falcons monthly 'Tips and Tricks' e-mail update list, send
your name and e-mail address to her at:
linda.falcon@gateway.com. Mention that you were at the CCCC meeting on 15
May." So there.
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CCCC Page 6 June 2001
Hardware Settings
by Ray Isenson
In case your Windows 98 computer gets real sick, it'd be very handy to have
a copy of what all the hardware settings should be when your personal
computer "doctor" asks. Further, the time to make a list of those settings
is now! Today! And it's easy.
Click on: START / SETTINGS / CONTROL PANEL / and SYSTEM. Select the
DEVICE MANAGER tab. Click on the PRINT button. Select All devices and
System Summary. In the report type window, make sure that your printer is
turned on with paper loaded. Click OK and sit back while your computer
does it's thing.
Finally, put the printout where you can get your hands on it if and when.
According to Murphy's 34th law, if you have the report you'll never need
it, and that's good.
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CCCC Page 7 June 2001
Web Wanderings
by Gil Smith
STRANGE SITES
Looking for some unusual sites? Here's a page that's full of 'em. It can
keep you interested for a long time. Check it out!
http://www.robinsnest.com/articles/ChicWeird.html
CAR TALK
If you've ever listened to the CarTalk show on the radio, you know guys
know cars. Well, if you can't hear the show or are wondering about
something car related, this site is perfect for you. They have tons of
advice, driving tips, trip planning, even a car-a-scope and a guide to
junkyards. Check it out, you'll be glad you did.
http://cartalk,cars,com/
FLIGHT SITE
Ever wonder where in the friendly skies your friend or family member is?
Well, wonder no more! With the site below, you can punch in the airline
and flight number and it tells you exactly when the plane left, present
altituce, speed, etc. including a map on which you see the airplane's exact
location during their flight. This is a handy little site.
http://www.trip.com/trs/trip/flighttracker/flight_tracker_home.xsl
TIME AND DATE
OK, I know what you're thinking. "Why would I need a website to help me
tell time?" Well, cuz this site does lots more than give you the time. It
can give you the current time in most countries and many major cities. In
addition, they have a little date calendar where you can put in a start and
stop date, and the software will give you the difference. Of course,
there's lots more to this site, so give it a look-see.
http://www.timesanddate.com
DIGITAL CAMERA REVIEWS
Are you thinking of buying a digital camera? You'll love this site. It
has reviews for just about every digital camera currently available (and
lots of discontinued ones too).
http://www.steves-digicams.com/hardware_reviews.html
COMPUTER TIPS, SOFTWARE, AND WEB DESIGN
This web site has lots of good, and useful, stuff on it. This includes
computer tips and techniques, software deals, clean jokes, hilarious
reader's stories, and some inspirational stories. Take a look at the
Digital Camera Guide too.
http://www.worldstart.com
ARE YOU A SPACE NUT?
If you like space travel, then you need to be checking out NASA Today on a
regular basis. Find out what NASA is doing today and what's next. I think
you'll find the article that tells all about the International Space
Station to be interesting. Lots of way out Star Trekky stuff.
http://www.nasa.gov/today/index.html
NOTE: If you have a favorite web site that you would like to share with
other 4Cs members, drop me an e-mail (gs5081@aol.com) listing the web
address and I'll include it in a future issue of the 4Cs Newsletter.
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CCCC Page 8 June 2001
REVIEW: STUFFIT
by Phil Grycel
Stuffit is a ZIP UTILITY by Aladdin Systems. Stuffit is used to compress
files. It can also be utilized to stuff more into an archive when backing
up files or cram more files onto removable media, i.e. cartridges, CDs, Zip
disks and more. Stuffit is user friendly. You can drag files to the
desktop shortcut or right click on a file or folder, and Stuffit does the
rest automatically . Archives compressed by Stuffit can be read on Windows,
Mac, or Linux-based computers. Stuffit was evaluated on a PC with a 133
MHZ Pentium and was found to meet the claims made by Aladdin Systems.
The following results were obtained during the evaluation:
Spreadsheet with 249KB of data
was compressed to 19KB
A Word document with picture
bitmap image containing 494
KB did not compress.
A help file for Access program
was compressed to 94KB
Compressed files can be
instantly expanded by
dragging a file or folder
to the desktop.
An email file can be
compressed and attached to
an outgoing message.
System requirements:
486 processor or higher
Windows 95/98/NT/2000/ME
16 MB of RAM
The retail price is $30. But the special download price is $20 at:
http://www.aladdinsys.com
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CCCC Page 9 June 2001
DISABLING THE CAPS LOCK KEY
by Dick Savage
Last month there was an article on how to get an audible warning whenever
you activate a the Caps Lock, Num Lock or Scroll Lock keys. This is OK as
far as it goes but this puny remedy is not what I need. What I want is a
way to have the Caps Lock key normally act like a shift key yet be capable
of being restored to its Caps Lock function whenever desired. I have
finally found a way to do this.
Simply go to: www.zdnet.com/downloads/
stories/info/0,,000W1U,.html and download the AntiCapsLock Lite v1.0 zip
file. Unzip it (It defaults to C:\Program Files\AntiCapsLock), run the
caps.exe file and restart your computer.
You will have a CAPS LOCK icon on your tray and the Caps Lock key
functioning just like a Shift key. Anytime you want to quit the
AntiCapsLock feature click on the icon on the tray and click the dialog box
Yes. AntiCapsLock will again be in effect whenever you restart your
computer. Enjoy!
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CCCC Page 10 June 2001
Review: Dragstrip from Aladdin Systems
by Gerald Miller
One-Click Access to Anything
The product comes in an 8.5"X10"X1.5" box with a colorful cover with the
slogan "The fastest way to launch anything". System requirements for
Windows are; Windows 95/98/NT, Pentium-class processor and 8 Mb installed
RAM.
My system should be acceptable for this product. I am running windows 98
and I have 16Mb RAM. Inside the box are a CD ROM and a registration card.
Inside the CD ROM case is the CD itself and a software license agreement,
the small print, essentially saying that the user is to treat the software
like any other copyrighted material and that the material is provided as is
with no warranty expressed or implied. This seems to me to be a standard
software license agreement that we commonly see. If we do not agree to the
terms the only option is to forget the whole thing and try to get our money
back.
Inside the CD case are also installation instructions. I will follow the
directions to install the program. Now, that is done. The installation
was pretty much standard. I used the default locations for the
installation and put the program in the "applications" menu.
The program instructions are in a PDF file that I opened (from the
Start/Programs/Applications control). The following is a quote from the
operation instructions.
(Start quote) TO CREATE A NEW STRIP:
1) Launch the DragStrip application by double-clicking on the icon from the
DragStrip folder. The DragStrip folder is located on your hard drive. You
can also launch DragStrip by using the Start menu and choosing Programs /
DragStrip 3.7 / DragStrip.
2) DragStrip will automatically open a new strip for you. If you want to
create another strip when you already have a strip open, you can click the
menu button (the downward-facing triangle) then choose File / New from the
menu.
3) Next, place an item on a strip by dragging it from the desktop or an
Explorer window onto one of the blank squares on your strip. You can drag
any item from your desktop (applications, documents, folders, hard drives,
etc.) onto a blank square and have it appear there. Essentially, when you
drag these items, you are not physically moving the item to the strip, you
are creating a shortcut to that item. Remember, a shortcut is a file that
"points" to an item; when you open a shortcut (i.e., click on a DragStrip
button) the original item will open. For a more detailed description of
what types of items can be placed on your active strip, see below.
The PDF document is 24 pages long and has a lot of information about how
the program operates. The instructions seem clear to me, I judge them to
be well thought out. (End quote).
As you can see the instructions are very explicit and lead the user by the
hand. I opened the program and moved, actually copied, some of the
applications that were laying on my desktop. I copied application
shortcuts onto the applications tab strip and some folders onto the folders
tabbed strip. I then clicked on the down arrow (on the right side) and
selected "save as" from the file heading. I simply named the strip "first
try". At this point I shut the computer off for the night.
The next time I turned the computer on, DragStrip automatically put the
strip on the desktop. At this time I opened the Explorer and dragged a
couple of documents, this one included, onto the strip that has "Documents"
as a title(tab). Now when I want to add to the review all I have to do is
click on the icon on the documents strip and MSWord launches with this
document opened. The icons that DragStrip places in the strip are true
shortcuts and not shortcuts to shortcuts even though the icon dragged onto
the strip may have been a shortcut to begin with. What this means is that
once you are comfortable with using DragStrip you can delete the shortcuts
that litter your desktop.
One neat feature of DragStrip is that you can drag a URL onto the strip.
Once you have done this with your favorite web site you can open it
directly. I have always wanted to point my browser to the web page I was
interested in, but Internet Explorer always opens to the same "home" page.
In my case that is MSN home page. I know that one is free to select any
page as the opening page but now with DragStrip you can have any number of
opening pages at your disposal. This feature alone makes the program worth
the price. So now I don't have to sit and watch MSN load while I really
want to check my stocks. I can go directly to Clearstatiom.com or Yahoo
Finance. You can simply add a URL to the strip while you are on-line.
Just reduce the size of the window (so that you can see the strip) then
click on and drag the URL of interest (the place you are) shown just below
the toolbar across the top of the page. Drag it to an empty cell on the
strip. You can increase the number of cells by enlarging the strip (pull
on a side or corner).
You can select new page from the file menu (by clicking on the upside-down
triangle). I titled a new page "Games" and put some of my games on the
page, FreeCell and Mahjong along with some others. I now have another
convenient way to open these games. There are several other features
included in this program, most of which relate to styles of strip,
selecting background colors, font types and icon specifications, etc. You
can use multiple strips or increase the strip size to accommodate a large
number of choices. Once an icon is placed on the strip a single click will
open it.
My feeling when I first saw this program was "Why do I want another way to
launch an application?" But, after using DragStrip for a while, I find
that I like the convenience of having my most used programs in one handy
place. I have also reduced considerably the number of icons on my desktop.
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