C C C C N E W S L E T T E R
CENTRAL COAST COMPUTER CLUB
Santa Maria, California
VOLUME XIX: NUMBER 6 JUNE, 2004
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. Special Interest Groups sessions are at
5:45pm and 6:00pm. 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,
Access to the clubs software library, Disk of the month (usually for $1),
Help-line support, Monthly presentations, Valuable door prizes, Question
and answer sessions.
NEXT MEETING: JUNE 15, 2004 KNOLLWOOD VILLAGE 4012 S. BRADLEY
PRESENTATION: The June presentation will be Cosme Serdio from Seagate on
"Hard Drive Technology".
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| CONTENTS |
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(1) OFFICERS, HELPLINES, S.I.G.S
(2) PRESIDENT'S CORNER Spence Stimler
(3) EDITOR'S COMMENTS Dick Trissel
(4) WEB WANDERINGS Gil Smith
(5) DIGITAL IMAGING S.I.G. Charles Barney
(6) SYSTEMS S.I.G. Dick Trissel
(7) WINDOWS EXPLORER PART 4 Dick Trissel
(8) OPENOFFICE SUITE REVIEW Ray Isenson
(9) BASIC INSTRUCTION S.I.G. Amy Malicki
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OFFICERS HELPLINES
President Juno
Spence Stimler 938-0217 Gilbert Smith 925-3743
spence@pronet.net colgil1@juno.com
Vice President Windows 95/98/ME/XP & VoiceControl
Bill Corning 934-0775 Amy Malicki 925-5780
foster95@juno.com savvyforseniors@juno.com
Secretary and Book Librarian 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
Disk Librarian Visual Basic and Genealogy
Sharon Allen 928-2209 Gerald Miller 934-1396
sallen4060@aol.com gandamiller@verizon.net
Publicity Help With Any Problem
Bill Corning 934-0775 Fred Adams 934-1128
foster95@juno.com fredeadams@verizon.net
Newsletter Editor Digital Imaging
Dick Trissel 937-7572 Charles Barney 937-1240
rtrissel@juno.com Cbarney@lightspeed.net
SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS (S.I.G.s)
Digital Imaging (6:00pm) Systems (5:45pm) Basic (6:00pm)
Charles Barney Dick Trissel Amy Malicki
Cbarney@lightspeed.net rtrissel@juno.com savvyforseniors@juno.com
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CCCC Page 2 JUNE 2004
PRESIDENT'S CORNER by Spence Stimler
First, on a personal note; I wish to thank all for your support during my
time of bereavement. Your cards, calls, and prayers were much appreciated
and most helpful.
Our May meeting was an exciting one and full of warnings and helpful
suggestions on ways to protect our computers from unwanted outside
interference. Pat Keith of Computer Works not only provided us with a very
interesting discourse, but also furnished a CD loaded with programs for
anti-virus protection. His dissertation was well received and I'm sure we
will want to have him back again in the future.
Winners of our door prize drawings were: Mildred Smith, ULead PhotoImpact
6; Chas Currey, Under-Table keyboard and Mouse Tray; Elaine Barnett and
Miles Dennis, Cherry Wood CD Drawers; Vic McLaughlin, Nostalgic "Digital
Vinyl" CD-Rs; and Allen Alderson, Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, ver 15.
We won't rub salt into the wounds, but there were a few names called of
people not in attendance.
Due to a lack of interest, the genealogy SIG is history. Taking its place
in the library, Amy Malicki will chair a session in Basics. I'm sure she
will be emphasizing XP, and it is a good chance to go back and review ways
of using your computer.
I have to confess that I haven't read our charter, but I'm sure that it
doesn't call for classes in instruction on how to use a computer. We have
had some people attend thinking that they could receive instructions
starting with how to turn one on. We have members, who will give
assistance to novice users but the club is designed for the purpose of
sharing ideas, new technology, solving problems. If you invite people to
attend, and we do want new members, make sure that they aren't
disillusioned into thinking that they are going to attend classes of
instruction. Hancock is the place for that.
Finally, our guest speaker for June will be Cosme Serdio of Seagate. We
had him scheduled earlier this year but he had to postpone his presentation
until now. I'm sure he will give us another valuable insight into the
advancements of computer technology.
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CCCC Page 3 JUNE 2004
EDITOR'S COMMENTS by Dick Trissel
It looks like the CCCC e-mail newsletter format is a success. I thank you
for accepting this change as it makes the newsletter editor's job much
easier. I also want to thank the attendees of the System S.I.G. for their
show of appreciation for my efforts as newsletter editor.
It is important that I have everyone's correct e-mail address if you want
to receive the monthly newsletter and the frequent EXTRA4C bulletins. You
also must keep your e-mail Inbox cleared sufficiently to receive e-mail. I
get several bounce notifications with each mailing. I don't intend to keep
sending the same mailing over and over. The newsletter will usually be
sent the Tuesday before the third Tuesday meeting date.
As it has always been, you may contribute an article to be put in the
newsletter. In fact, I encourage you to. Hardware (or software) items
wanted or for sale can be included. This doesn't get done much--I guess
there's not much trading going on in the computer area. Any submissions to
the newsletter need to be received two weeks in advance of the meeting
date.
After helping a member rid his computer of a virus, he suggested an article
should be written describing how we did it. After a little thought, I
realized this is a monumental task. The writer would have to assume a
worst case situation where the user doesn't know how to use Windows
Explorer in the Details View; doesn't know how to get to the System
Configuration Utility (msconfig); doesn't know how to edit the registry
(Windows 9x); doesn't know how to run MSDOS (Windows 9x) (checkpoint
restore in Windows XP) and a few other operations. And, to compound the
problem, if he didn't attempt a fix immediately. So, here's my advice--on
the suspicion you have a virus, trojan horse, Web home page theft, or
whatever, contact one of the help volunteers that has had experience with
this problem (particularly, myself or Ray Isenson). There's no guarantee
we'll fix it--we may even refer you to a repair shop (ABRO in Santa Maria
has been recommended).
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CCCC Page 4 JUNE 2004
WEB WANDERINGS By Gil Smith
US HISTORY
This is a very good history site. I wasn't too sure when I got there but
it won me over. Have you wondered what the most historic mile was? Well
you can find out at this site. And so much more, learn about Valley Forge,
Betsy Ross, and the Liberty Bell.
Check out their What's New Section for fun activities and information. You
can get a virtual tour and tons of information. It takes you to visit
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
http://www.ushistory.org/
GRIMM BROTHERS
National Geographic brings you the Grimms Fairy Tales, from Folklore to
Forever. This site is a treasure. Here you can find 12 of the Grimms
Fairy Tales from an early 1914 translation, so expect them to be gruesome.
Here's a quote from the site.
"Once they saw how the tales bewitched young readers, the Grimms, and
editors aplenty after them, started 'fixing' things. Tales gradually got
softer, sweeter, and primly moral. Yet all the polishing never rubbed away
the solid heart of the stories, now read and loved in more than 160
languages.
Click "tell me a story" to begin your journey. This will present you with
three story choices, or you can click on the locked box and pull up a menu
for your navigating delights. Choose a story to begin. You can also read
up on the Grimm Brothers and how they got started.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/gro,,/
DISTURBING AUCTIONS
You can't actually buy anything from this site, but it's dedicated to the
research and study of the most bizarre items found for sale on internet
auction sites. Many strange and unusual things worth browsing for a laugh
or two.
What kind of strange things can you anticipate seeing on this site. A frog
purse, Dean Martin hand puppet, Wedding Trolls, Furry Novelties, and dolls
made out of beer cans, just to name a few of the off the wall, left of
center items on this site.
You can browse through the Art, Clothing and Accessories, Literature, and
many other odd categories.
http://www.disturbingauctions.com/index.pl
BEHIND THE NAME
"The etymology and history of first names," is what this site is about. You
can read information on Names, and on Etymology. (The study of the origins
of words.) But the best part is to type your first name in the search
engine and see what comes up. I tried one to show you what you'll find
about a first name.
AMANDA, f., English Pronounced: a-MAN-da This name was created in the 17th
century by the playwright Colley Cibber. He based it on Latin amanda
meaning "lovable".
Check it out to see what interesting things you can find out about your
name.
http://behindthename.com/
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CCCC Page 5 JUNE 2004
DIGITAL IMAGING SIG May '04 Recap By Charles Barney
Once again, we had about 20 members at the SIG. While pleased with this
number, I would like to encourage some of you regulars in Dick's group to
come check it out. You just might discover something of interest and have a
little fun too! Dick says this might relieve the over-crowding in his
S.I.G.
Charley Currey brought in a very nice slide show of scenic photos taken
while on vacation. Created with Adobe Photoshop Album 2, the show was
complete with music and descriptive captions below the photos. Amazingly,
Charley said that this was his first time putting one of these together.
This shows an example of what can be done with some of today's powerful
imaging programs that don't necessarily require a great deal of effort
before satisfying results can be obtained.
Carl Geisler brought along a CD-RW disk that (he says) contained a photo
that needed some red eye correction on its subjects. Unfortunately, the
said file was unreadable on my laptop computer's CD drive. I don't doubt
Carl's veracity, but I suspect that an incompatibility in CD
burning/reading methods was to blame. We ended up opening a substitute
image file with a similar problem that I happened to have on my hard drive.
Then, using Photoshop Elements 2's Red Eye Brush tool, we were able to
effectively eliminate the offending eye color.
I gave a brief photo scanning demo with my Epson Perfection 636U scanner
connected via a USB cable to my Gateway laptop. My intention was to show
how a photographic print can be digitized and touched-up on the computer
for reprinting. I placed an old photo on the scanner bed and from within
Photoshop Elements I selected File > Import > Epson TWAIN, which then
opened the scanning program.
As an aside, TWAIN is just one among the multitude of acronyms that pervade
the world of computers. In practice, it is the code that provides the
communication link between hardware and software. So what does it stand
for? Well, its creators were not without a sense of humor when they coined
the acronym that meant Technology Without An Interesting Name.
Back to the scan, I chose 300 pixels-per-inch scanning resolution to
capture the image. Most scanners are capable of higher optical resolutions,
but anything over 300 ppi not only will produce unwieldy file sizes, it
won't increase the print quality on an inkjet printer. In fact, it likely
would make it worse.
The scan was completed and the digitized image appeared in a new Elements
window. From there I showed a few of the edits that could be done on the
image to, hopefully, improve its appearance. These included Levels
adjustment to increase tonal contrast, color correction, the Clone Stamp
tool to cover up minor defects and sharpening with the Unsharp Mask filter.
Next meeting, I'd like to revisit a topic that continues to vex many of us
and that is resizing digital photos for email. It's not nearly as difficult
as you might think. I'll show how YOU can do it!
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CCCC Page 6 JUNE 2004
SYSTEMS S.I.G. by Dick Trissel
We had another lively group again with 30 members in attendance. And, as
usual, we had a variety of questions come up.
A member had submitted a request to discuss the removal of desktop icons.
There are two types of icons--shortcut (with the small arrow) and system
(no arrow). The shortcut icons can be deleted and only removes the icon
without affecting the associated file. Removal of system icons is not
recommended.
A question was raised about the Juno $9.95 per year subscription. To the
best of my knowledge this is for the Megamail option when you already have
a monthly subscription.
I again described the special Juno $4.95 account. Here is the deal:
This is for those that already have a free account.
Dial 1-800-879-5866 (maybe the old 1-800-try-juno will work).
At the prompts, press the appropriate numbers to get assistance.
When a person responds, you will have to give them your name address,
account ID, etc. Be prepared to give them credit card information.
I receive e-mail that is difficult to manage because it is written in HTML
format. Here's a quote from the Outlook Express Help:
"Using HTML formatting
When you create messages using HTML formatting, only mail programs that
support HTML can read the formatting. If the recipient's mail or news-
reading program does not read HTML, the message is displayed as plain text
with an HTML file attached."
Please use Plain Text unless you really want to use HTML (a message with
special characters like colored text, underline, italics, etc.). How to
Set your e-mail program to plain text depends on what you are using. In
Juno 4 you can't use HTML--so there. In Juno 5 you have to set the
preference for each message by going to Write / Edit / E-mail Message /
Format / View As and check Plain Text. In Outlook Express for all
messages, go to Tools / Options / Send and choose Plain Text. For just one
message, go to New / Format and choose Plain Text.
I gave a brief demonstration of how to manage the CCCC e-mail newsletter.
I suggest copying the text to a good text editor (I use the free Editpad
Classic). From there you can select and print all or parts that are of
interest to you. Some members reported printing problems, but it sounded
like these were printer/page setup problems. Or, they didn't realize the
newsletter is no longer "paginated". That is, the content will be broken
across the printed pages.
The e-mail form of the newsletter has the advantage that you can archive
each month to a floppy or CD. Since each issue is only 25-30Kb, you can
put several years on one floppy disk for future reference.
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CCCC Page 7 JUNE 2004
EXPLORING WINDOWS EXPLORER PART 4 by Dick Trissel
Up to this point I have described how to manipulate the Windows Explorer
features. Now, on to the usefulness. This is by no means all the things
you can do, just some of the ones I use the most.
Folder and file management.
To create a new folder, select the parent folder, right-click in the right
pane, choose New/Folder, name the folder, press Enter.
To delete a folder or a file, select the item, press Delete (a Shift-Delete
removes it permanently-no Recycle).
To rename an item, click once and then click again--slowly. Edit the name,
press Enter.
To move an item, select it and drag it to its destination.
To copy an item, select it, hold down the CTRL key, and drag it to its
destination. A copy of a file can be put in the same folder by selecting
the file in the right pane, holding down CTRL, and dragging it to a clear
area in the right pane.
To Locate a specific file or folder, either use Tools/Find/Files or
Folders, or right click in the left pane and choose Find.
Two windows on one display.
This feature makes file management easier. You can have two Explorer
displays at once. Start one Explorer window. Start a second Explorer
window. Right click in the Windows Taskbar. Choose Tile Windows
Vertically. The two displays can be adjusted by dragging their edges. Or,
you can choose Tile Windows Horizontally. To get back to normal, choose
Cascade Windows.
Formatting floppy disks.
Since much of the hard disk management entails keeping copies of files and
folders on floppies, it is necessary to format (re-format) the floppies.
BE CAREFUL. Format only drive A or B.
To format a disk in drive A, select the A drive in the left pane. Right
click and choose Format. Choose the proper disk size and type of format.
If the disk has been formatted before, the Quick format is faster. After
choosing the other options desired, press Start.
Investigate disk space usage and Disk free-space.
It's important to know how much disk space a file or folder uses, and how
much is still available on the disk. In addition to the file size listed
for a file, when you select that file in Explorer, there will be a size and
disk space shown in the status bar at the bottom of the screen. The status
number will be smaller. Those are binary bytes, not actual decimal bytes.
If you right click the file and choose Properties, you will see three
numbers for the Size. Here's an example:
Size column: 1,448Kb
Status bar: 1.41Mb
Properties: 1.41Mb
(1,482,752bytes)
1,507,328bytes
The 1,482,752 is the real size and it won't fit on a floppy, even though
the 1.41Mb looks like it would. The 1,507,328 includes the hard drive FAT
clusters used. The other numbers are Window's guesses.
Executing programs and associated file applications.
When a list of files is displayed in the right pane there will be
executable files, data files, utility files, and support files listed.
There is usually some action associated with each type of file. Executable
files (.exe, .com, .bat and a few others) can be run by double clicking (or
right click/Open). For example, in the Windows folder is Notepad.exe.
Double click on Notepad.exe and it runs.
Word of caution--some programs shouldn't be run this way.
When you double click a data file, such as a .DOC, the associated program
(if there is an association to the file type) will be run on that data
file.
House-keeping techniques.
The major house-keeping function is to recover disk space, either hard
drive or floppy. Two common folders that accumulate megabytes of junk are
the Windows Temp and Windows Temporary Internet files (Internet Explorer
users--Cache folders for Netscape users).
File deletion is a two step operation. First, select the files to be
deleted. Click on the file. If more than one file is to be deleted (and
they are contiguous), go to the end of the range of files, hold the shift
key, and click again. To select randomly, hold the CTRL key while
clicking.
After selecting, either press the Delete key to put them in the Recycle Bin
(for recovery later if you change your mind), or use Shift-Delete to delete
permanently (NOT recoverable).
These methods work well for removing Cookies from the Windows\Cookies
folder, also.
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CCCC Page 8 JUNE 2004
OPENOFFICE.ORG A PROGRAM SUITE REVIEW by Ray Isenson
OpenOffice, an alternative suite of office type programs is freeware, made
available by Sun corporation and the OpenOffice organization. The suite
consists of four programs. The two that should be of considerable interest
to a number of the CCCC members are "Text" and "Calc". These programs,
respectively, are alternatives for Windows Office Word and Excel and can
exchange files with versions 2000 and older of them. For those members
running versions of Windows Office, Windows Word or Windows Works that
predate calendar 2000, the potential of the Open Office Suite should be
obvious. It will enable them to accept data files that would otherwise be
unreadable.
"Text" is almost indistinguishable from Word. Title bars and functional
control are very much the same. There are a few exceptions that should
cause no problems. For example, whereas in Word one looks in "Tools" to
find the control for addressing an envelope, in "Text" the function is
found by dropping the "Insert" menu. As an added capability, Text will
allow the user to export a file directly as a PDF document, compatible with
Adobe Acrobat Reader. The spell checker can be invoked in "Text" just as
in Word by selecting the first item in the "Tools" drop down menu or by
clicking on "ABC" on the toolbar that's presented along the left edge of
the screen. Additionally, "Text" offers a selectable auto spellcheck
function that rides along as the user types, underlining in red any
observed spelling errors. This latter function, too, is selected via an
icon on the left edge tool bar.
Functional control in "Calc" is somewhat different from that in Microsoft's
Excel. By and large the differences are trivial and the user should have
little difficulty accommodating to them. In fact, the function
introduction capability is quite similar to that seen in older versions of
Excel. As in Excel, there's an excellent help file which should simplify
gaining familiarity with any differences or with any new functions that
have been added.
The two additional programs in OpenOffice are "Draw" and "Presentation".
The latter, a program that is functionally the equivalent of Microsoft's
Powerpoint, can be used to prepare presentations consisting of a number of
"slides". It will import files generated in Microsoft's Powerpoint,
allowing the user to read those files. However the converse is not true.
Powerpoint cannot import "Presentation" files.
"OpenOffice.org Draw" lets you create simple and complex drawings and
export them in a number of common image formats. You can connect objects
in "OpenOffice.org Draw" with special lines called "connectors" to show the
relationship between objects. Connectors attach to glue points on drawing
objects and remain attached when the connected objects are moved.
Connectors are useful for creating organization charts and technical
diagrams. You can also insert tables, charts, formulas and other items
created in "OpenOffice.org" programs into your drawings. It creates vector
graphics using lines and curves defined by mathematical vectors. Vectors
describe lines, ellipses, and polygons according to their geometry and can
export to many common graphic file formats, such as BMP, GIF, JPG, and PNG.
Interestingly one can open a Microsoft Access database file in "Draw". The
detailed means for accomplishing this end is beyond the scope of this
review, however. In broad terms it makes use of the ADO (Microsoft ActiveX
Data Objects) interface. The ADO interface is a Microsoft Windows
proprietary container for connecting to databases. The container
implements an interface to data providers, which behave like drivers and
allow ADO to interact with a database. To use the ADO interface,
"OpenOffice.org" requires the Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC). One
can find out more about MDAC and download it at:
http://www.microsoft.com/data/mdac21info/manifest_intro.htm.
The requirements for running OpenOffice is:
Pentium-compatible PC
Microsoft Windows 98, NT, 2000 or XP
64 MB RAM minimum
250 MB hard disk space
OpenOffice.org can be obtained from the Web at download.openoffice.org.
The file you'll be downloading is over 60 MB in size – about a five hour
download with a 56kbps dial-up connection. This file is compressed using
ZIP compression, and you'll need a utility like WinZip in order to unpack
the files. Some versions of Windows support "compressed folders" which
automatically packs/unpacks these kinds of files. In Windows Explorer, the
icons have a "zipper" down the middle.
For those who got a copy of the ComputerWorks utility CD at the April
meeting, there is an unzipped copy of "OpenOffice.org.1.1.0" (151MB) on the
disk. Others wanting a copy, acquire a blank CD-R and contact me at:
risenson@juno.com.
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CCCC Page 9 JUNE 2004
BASIC INSTRUCTION S.I.G. by Amy Malicki
At the June CCCC meeting, Amy Malicki will be starting a new Special
Interest Group for learning the basics of computing. It will start at
6:00pm in the Library. A computer will be available for the instructions.
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