C C C C N E W S L E T T E R
CENTRAL COAST COMPUTER CLUB
Santa Maria, California
VOLUME XVII: NUMBER 11 NOVEMBER, 2002
NEXT MEETING: November 19, 2002 7:00PM KNOLLWOOD VILLAGE 4012 S. BRADLEY
PRESENTATION: Ray Isenson on: "Simplifying Computer Backups"
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| CONTENTS |
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(1) Officers, Helplines, S.I.G.s
(2) President's Corner Charles Barney
(3) Web Wanderings Gil Smith
(4) October Systems S.I.G. Dick Trissel
(5) CD Formats 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 November 2002
PRESIDENT'S CORNER
by Charles Barney
We had 56 folks turn out for our meeting on October 15th, including
returning member Roy Grisso. Welcome back Roy! We are glad you decided to
rejoin our user group. Over the years, many people come and go within the
club I've noticed. For whatever reason, some don't quite get what they want
from membership in the 4Cs. Unfortunately, we cannot be all things for all
people. But it always makes me happy to see a former member return. That
tells me that they have given it some thought and since they decided to
come back, we must be doing something right!
In order for the club to function, the elected officers (more accurately,
volunteers) as well as the people in appointed positions (also volunteers)
perform all the necessary tasks during the meeting nights, at the
subsequent staff meetings, and in many other ways behind the scenes.
Fortunately, most of the current position holders have agreed to return
next year. This has made this upcoming election relatively easy.
Speaking of elections, don't forget to complete the ballot attached to this
newsletter and bring it with you to the next meeting or you can mail it to
Dick Trissel if you wish. Why bother with the formality of casting ballots
when the outcome is a foregone conclusion you ask? Think of it as a vote of
support for your club volunteers. Please take the time to vote!
Our presentation for the evening was given by software engineer Marty Joel
speaking on "Demystifying the Internet." While this is not a simple topic
to digest, Marty had broken things down into manageable bites (or is that
bytes?) on PowerPoint slides to provide helpful visuals for his talk.
Unfortunately, we ran out of time before he could finish his planned
material. I think that this is a fascinating subject and one that many of
you are interested in as well. To that end, I have talked to Marty and he
has agreed to return in the near future to complete his presentation for
us.
It was a big night for prizes at the clubhouse. With the Microsoft survey
software rewards coming through plus the regular stuff, about 11 of you
went home with a prize.
The winners of the Microsoft packages included Robert Dixon and Eldean
Voris - each a copy of Office XP Professional, Joseph Gatwis and Frank
Maciel - each a copy of Windows XP Professional, and Bob Chikar as well as
Jim Miller took home a copy of Links 2003. Non-attending members were still
winners in this special case drawing.
The regular door prize drawing winners were Ken Stiffler - Hemera's Big Box
of Art 350,000 Images, Don Feragen - Nero Burning ROM 5.5, Allen Alderson -
VCOM's WebEasy Design Studio, Jack Tyo - Jensen Stereo Headset with
Microphone, and Ted Tucker - Kiplinger's Will Power. The no-shows called
(no breaks given for them) included Stan Voris, Marjorie Hoogenbosch, Enid
Gilham, Paul Highfill, Carol Chambard, Rosalie Roy, Mike Reineke, Donald
Rowe, Carolyn English-Smith, William Rich, Jack Sutherlin, and Cliff
Newbold.
There is one area of personal computing that is extremely important, but
also probably the most commonly neglected (I'm guilty as well) and that is
backing up your hard drive! I admit, it's no fun. Time consuming and often
confusing, this task has been relegated to the list that includes such
pressing items as getting those dust bunnies out from behind the dresser.
To help us more agreeably accomplish this unpleasant but critical task will
be our own resident guru, Ray Isenson, presenting "Simplifying Hard Disk
Backup" at the November 19th meeting. Hope to see you all there. -Charles
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ELECTION TIME
The first inside sheet of the newsletter is a pull-out ballot. Use it to
vote for the CCCC officers for the year 2002. Bring the filled in ballot
to the 20 November general meeting.
If you can't attend the meeting, follow the instructions on the back of the
ballot and mail it to:
Dick Trissel
3643 Lakeview Ct.
Santa Maria CA 93455
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CCCC Page 3 November 2002
WEB WANDERINGS
By Gil Smith
SUSPICION OF MURDER
Welcome to Suspicion of Murder. Here, you are the detective. This is a
wonderful site for those of you who love solving mysteries. Play 'Murder
Without Escape' today. To do so, click on the words 'Start Playing" This
takes you to the first page of the mystery. Can you solve this murder
before there are more victims? Challenge your wits and your survival
skills in this daring game. It's possible to score 102 points.
http://www.suspicion-of-murder.com/crime/e/book11.htm
TRUTH OR FICTION
That is the question. This is a site where you can find out whether that
rumor you got in your e-mail is true, find out if there is merit to a
warning, find out if it's really a virus or a virus hoax, and so much more.
If you start by reading the 'About Us' section of this site, you can find
out about their labeling system, truth, fiction, reported truth, reported
fiction, unproven, disputed, truth & fiction, previously truth now ended or
now resolved, which is a tremendous help in understanding which each
category means. So when you run across that next burning question line, 'Is
this really a virus'? you can find that out here, or if you receive that
ever-popular plea, "Help me find my missing child", you can find out if
that child is truly missing or if it is a money ploy. Check it out.
http://www.truthorfiction.com
AMERICAN FAMILY IMMIGRATION HISTORY CENTER
Explore your family history by searching Immigration Records. There are
several different areas of this site that can be interesting. For some of
these sections, you will need to take a moment and register, but don't
worry, it's free. Explore this site by using their Passenger Search,
Family Scrapbooks, View Your Ellis Island File, and the actual Immigration
Experience. The Immigration Experience is especially helpful. There are
two options here: Family History or the Peopling of America. You then
choose a time period, and your adventure begins.
http://www.ellisisland.org/
TIP OF THE ICEBERG
Have you ever been curious about icebergs? This site will help you learn
the answers to those burning questions. You can choose a news section
where you can learn about the iceberg discovered in 1999 and the tracking
method they have that prevents disasters - like the Titanic. The picture
on this site shows the iceberg above water and below so check it out.
http://geocities.com/rep92027/iceberg.htm
PAUL HARVEY - THE VOICE OF THE MILLENNIUM
Need another source of news? Here is an interesting site to receive your
daily news from. At Paul Harvey.com, you can receive the morning news,
afternoon news, and the news from the day before. If you prefer radio
broadcasts for your news, you can get that here too. It's a very
informative site.
http://www.paulharvey.com
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CCCC Page 4 November 2002
OCTOBER SYSTEMS S.I.G.
by Dick Trissel
As I promised in the meeting, I will fill in the blanks (where needed) of
the topics we covered in the S.I.G. as outlined in the EXTRA4C bulletin.
1) Use the ESC key to recover from system "freezes" (sometimes). This only
works a small percentage of the time, but even once in a while is helpful.
2) Use Start / Shutdown / Restart in MSDOS and type "scanreg /opt" without
the quotes to compact the registry. You can do this at the end of the day
and then just turn your computer before power off. The next time you turn
on, use Windows Explorer to go to C:\Windows\Sysbckup and delete (shift-
delete) the file Rbbad.cab (it is just a backup of the compressed registry
done by Scanreg as a safety measure.
3) Use Internet Explorer to cleanup the Temporary Internet Files (TIF),
Cookies, and History. In IE, go to Tools (View in IE4), Internet Options.
In the Temporary Internet Files area, click Delete Files. Then click OK in
the Delete window. Then click Settings in the TIF area. In settings,
click View Files to see the remaining files in the TIF folder. These will
be the remaining Cookies. Select and shift-delete them. Some users don't
want to delete some cookies-just don't select them (if you know which they
are). Close the windows back to IE. In IE, click the History icon
(sundial icon). In the History column, right-click each day and click
Delete. Then close the History window.
4) High speed CD players can destroy some CDs (and the player). It has
been found recently that drives in the 50X and above will destroy (explode)
off-balance or cracked CDs. The edge speeds can approach 150mph. The
flexing of CDs in removing them from jewel cases can cause hidden stress
cracks in CDs, so be careful.
5) Use =rand(p,s) in MSWord for layout preview (p=# of paragraphs, s=# of
sentences of "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.").
6) How to delete Juno ads. In Windows Explorer, go to C:\Program
Files\Juno\Ads and delete folders with 00018xxx type names (leave the
0030xxxx, Log folders and the addb.frm file).
7) Five types of virus e-mail:
A Real virus in the e-mail
A warning that contains a virus
A valid warning
A virus announcement hoax
A valid notice of a hoax
8) The new MS operating system due in 2004-2005 is code named "Longhorn".
It will be a 64 bit system as opposed to the current 32 bit systems. Rumor
has it that there will be an interim "new" system before then that will be
a follow on to WinXP.
9) Use Internet Web to buy at online stores and pickup at local store.
Both www.Circuitcity.com and www.bestbuy.com have this option.
10) Free programs to do Adobe Acrobat PDF file conversions are named
PDF2TXT, PDF2HTML, TXT2PDF (use Google search).
11) Use WindowsME Defrag.exe program in Windows98/SE (NOT XP)-it is faster
and more forgiving than the Windows98 program. Go to http://aroundcny.com/
technofile/texts/tec060902.html and download the 95Kb Defrag.zip file. If
you can't find it, or can't unzip it, let me know and I'll send Defrag.exe
as an attachment to your e-mail. Then, go to C:\Windows\ and rename the
current 248Kb Defrag.exe file to Defrag98.exe. Then copy the WindowsME
defrag.exe into C:\Windows. That's it.
12) Multi-tasking. I've noticed some Windows users aren't taking
deliberate advantage of Window's ability to run several applications at
once, even though they unknowingly are starting up several programs at
system bootup. I often have as many as six programs running at one time.
Of course, this may slow down your computer, depending on how much RAM you
have installed.
12) Free system configuration program. Here is the complete article from
the PCWorld e-mail Newsletter:
FREE SYSTEM CONFIGURATION PROGRAM
From PCWorld e-mail Newsletter
AIDA32 v3.2 [1.5M] W9x/2k/XP FREE
I have never seen a system-reporting tool that is so well put together. If
there was anything you wanted to know about your computer this is the
application that will find and tell you about what you are looking for.
Want to know the motherboard CPU Package Type? Done! Want to know the BIOS
type? Done! The application is easy to use and you don't have to be "super
tech" to understand it all. AIDA32 will also let you export your summary
results in TXT, HTML, MHTML, XML, CSV, MIF, and INI file formats.
http://www.aida32.hu/aida32.php
[Editor's note: There are actually three versions of AIDA32. I recommend
the personal version because, if you delete the language conversion files
(German and Russian), the executable files will fit on a floppy disk. And,
the program does not need to be installed--it will run from a floppy. I've
never seen a program that does such a complete job of analyzing a
computer.]
13) Multi-tasking. I've noticed some users don't seem to be aware that
they can run several applications at once in Windows. This is one of the
major features of the Windows operating system. Of course, there is a
limit depending on how much memory your system has. 64 megabytes or more
will usually handle 4 to 6 applications at once before a noticeable bogging
down.
In addition to the outline above, there was a discussion about the Norton
Works utility set. One member and the visiting guest speaker, Marty Joel
highly recommended it.
Mention was also made of the free anti-virus program AVG6 from:
www.grisoft.com. Several users recommended it.
Another program Adsubtract was recommended for managing IE files (see item
3 above). However, I recommend going to Google and reading the comments.
Apparently, it is not exactly free, and causes some problems with some
computers.
When we were talking about deleting cookies, a member reminded us that you
can select your cookie management by going to Internet Explorer, Tools (or
view in IE4), Internet Options, Advanced, Cookies, and choose Accept,
Prompt, or Disable.
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NOVEMBER COOKIES
Thanks in advance to the NOVEMBER "Cookies" volunteers:
CHRIS HECK and ELDEAN VORIS
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CCCC Page 5 November 2002
CD FORMATS by Dick Trissel
CD burning is a complex activity. After you've acquired the CD burner
hardware, the CD burning software and the CDs discs, you then get to figure
out how to make it all work. This little article is not going to answer
all of your questions, but there is one area that seems to be confusing a
lot of people, and is the definition of the terms of CD discs conditions as
pertains to the "format" of the disc. I will use the Adaptec/Roxio Easy CD
Creator (ECDC) programs as typical software.
Actually, the term "format" has both a general and a specific connotation
in referring to CDs. Other confusing terms are "erase" and "delete".
Then, that gets mixed in with CD-R and CD-RW type discs which affect the
meaning of the terms. So, here we go.
CD-R and CD-RW discs come out of the box in what is considered the erased
condition. That is, it is ready to be written on using multi-session
writing--data and program file archiving in the multi-session mode
(CreateCD), CD copying, audio, etc.
CD-R discs written in this mode can be modified in what appears to be added
to and deleted. Actually, a deletion removes a file from the directory,
but the space is still used up. Sessions can be brought forward in an
"incremental" multi-session mode and added to. This appears as a re-write,
but is really a continuation write.
Or, CD-R discs can be formatted (DirectCD) to be used in the packet writing
mode, much like a floppy disk. In either mode, CD-R discs cannot be re-
written. Once the space is used, it cannot be used again.
CD-RW discs are more interesting since they can really be re-written--the
used space recovered and used again. There are two ways to use a new CD-RW
disc--right out of the box in multi-session mode, or formatted to be used
in the packet writing mode. A formatted CD-RW can be "erased" to put it
back in the condition it was right out of the box. NOTE: to erase a
formatted CD-RW, it must be erased in DirectCD--the CreateCD erase will not
be available. Also, it may be necessary to delete all files and folders on
the CD before erasing.
Now, it's time to define terms. First, CD-RW discs:
1) New -- as purchased, use directly in multi-session mode.
2) Full Formatted -- the entire disk is written on to prepare for packet
writing (DirectCD). This takes about 30 to 40 minutes on a 4X disc.
3) Quick Formatted -- a previously full formatted disc can be formatted in
about 2 minutes (only the header is formatted--the rest is formatted during
a writing operation).
4) Full Erase -- the entire disc is put back into the condition it was when
it was purchased. This takes about 30 to 40 minutes on a 4X disc.
5) Quick Erase -- only the header is placed in the erased mode. The rest
of the disc is erased before written to during a writing operation.
6) Delete -- much the same as floppy disk deletions, files can be deleted
and the space used again.
Any given area on a CD-R disc can only be written on once. So, obviously,
CD-R discs are not managed the same as CD-RW discs. CD-R discs cannot be
reformatted or erased:
1) New -- as purchased, use directly in multi-session mode.
2) Formatted -- formats the header only. This takes about 2 minutes.
3) Delete -- files can be deleted, but the space remains used up.
You can see why I recommend using CD-RW discs for your preliminary writing
to CD. Then, when you have the disc the way you want it for archiving,
copy it to a CD-R disc and erase or format the CD-RW disc.
Ain't this fun!
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