C C C C N E W S L E T T E R
CENTRAL COAST COMPUTER CLUB
Santa Maria, California
VOLUME XV: NUMBER 9 SEPTEMBER, 2000
NEXT MEETING: SEPTEMBER 19, 2000 7:00PM KNOLLWOOD VILLAGE 4012 S. BRADLEY
PRESENTATION: Randall Whittle, MGI Presentations, on Photo Editing Software
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| CONTENTS |
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(1) Officers, Helplines, S.I.G.s
(2) *** IMPORTANT MESSAGE ***
(3) President's Corner / ADSL Charles Barney
(4) August Internet SIG / Cookies Dick Trissel
(5) Web Wanderings / Misc. Gil Smith
(6) Editor's Comments/4Cs Elections Dick Trissel
(7) Review: Window Washer Gil Smith
(8) Exploring Windows Explorer PT4 Dick Trissel
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Officers Helplines
President Juno
Charles Barney 937-1240 Gilbert Smith 925-3743
cbarney@lightspeed.net colgil1@juno.com
Vice President Windows 95
Frank Maciel 922-2318 Amy Malicki 925-5780
frm8198@juno.com amymal@juno.com
Secretary Hardware & DOS
Barbara Godwin 934-9885 Ray Isenson 937-6938
yungbag@best1.net risenson@juno.com
Treasurer Voice control & Input/Output
Gerald Miller 934-1396 Amy Malicki 925-5780
gmiller33@excite.com amymal@juno.com
Librarian Desktop Publishing & scanners
Sharon Allen 928-2209 Don Harelson 934-3926
sallen4060@aol.com qef1@juno.com
Publicity Software User Identification
Bill Corning 934-0775 Fred Adams 934-1128
foster95@juno.com fred421@juno.com
Newsletter Editor Visual Basic
Dick Trissel 937-7572 Gerald Miller
rtrissel@slonet.org 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 Internet
Amy Malicki Dick Trissel
amymal@juno.com rtrissel@slonet.org
CCCC Membership is $15 for twelve months. 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 September 2000
* * * I M P O R T A N T N O T I C E * * *
The Central Coast Computer Club Executive Committee has decided on a
proposal to change the club membership annual dues payment from the
member's anniversary date to the month of January each year.
The reason for this change is to simplify the bookkeeping for the
Treasurer, eliminate the expiration notification by the roster keeper on
the mailing labels, and make it easier for the members.
The implementation is a bit complicated. First, the membership must
approve a change to the by-laws. The official announcement of the change
will be made at the September, 2000 business meeting. Voting on the change
by the membership will be done at the October, 2000 business meeting. If
passed, the change will become effective January, 2001. The following is
the applicable existing section of the by-laws followed by the amended
section.
BY-LAWS CHANGE REQUIRED FOR THIS PROPOSAL
XI. DUES
The schedule for annual dues will be established by agreement of the
membership upon the recommendation of the Executive Committee on an annual
basis. Dues will be payable by incoming new members on the date of joining
the Club and will cover then ensuing 12 month period,
Shall read:
XI. DUES
The schedule for annual dues will be established by agreement of the
membership upon the recommendation of the Executive Committee on an annual
basis. Dues will be payable by all current members at a time of the year
determined by the Executive Committee for a period of 12 months. Dues will
be payable by incoming new members on the date of joining the Club and will
cover at least the remainder of the 12 month period,
End of amendment.
Secondly, there will be the need for a partial payment of dues by most of
the members in January, 2001. This is so the year 2001 will be paid up
totally in advance. You can calculate the amount you will owe by looking
at the Expires area on the label on this newsletter, subtract the month
from 13, and multiply by $1.25. Or, you can use the chart below. If your
due date is not in the chart, see the Treasurer. In addition, the
newsletter labels in December, 2000 will show the Amt. Due for each
recipient.
Label Amount Due
Due Date Jan. 2001
01/xx/01 15.00
02/xx/01 13.75
03/xx/01 12.50
04/xx/01 11.25
05/xx/01 10.00
06/xx/01 8.75
07/xx/01 7.50
08/xx/01 6.25
09/xx/01 5.00
10/xx/01 3.75
11/xx/00 $17.50 *
12/xx/00 16.25 **
* Amount Due Nov. 2000
** Amount Due Dec. 2000
One more thing. It is undecided at this time whether to continue the new
member sponsor award of effectively $2.50. If it is continued, the $2.50
will be credited to you on the next January dues.
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CCCC Page 3 September 2000
President's Corner
by Charles Barney
Returning from my vacation hiatus during the prior month, I was pleased to
see about 70 members who turned out for the August 15th meeting. While
pretty good, this number is down slightly from recent months - possibly due
to the Democratic convention coverage on television that evening. Those who
did attend would agree, I'm sure, that it was a very good meeting.
High speed internet access via ADSL was the topic presented by Gary Bessoni
of Verizon (formerly GTE) during our main program. Gary came down with a
small "crew" from his company and managed to transform our clubhouse analog
phone line into an ultra-fast digital connection to his laptop computer in
a matter of mere minutes. ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) we
learned, has several advantages for the avid internet user over a dialup
modem. Information can be retrieved from the net at up to 25 times the
speed of a typical 56K modem; it is a dedicated connection, meaning no busy
signals; multiple computers in a household can share a single DSL line; and
you can make and receive telephone calls while connected to the internet,
all over the same regular phone line already in your house. Are there any
downsides to getting DSL? Well, it does cost a monthly fee in addition to
your ISP (who must also support DSL); it requires a special modem (your old
analog modem won't work with it) and there are distance limitations that
exclude many from being eligible for the service. Gary said that the
distance limit is currently 16,000 feet from the local phone company's
central office. I won't attempt to reiterate the pricing offers discussed
at the meeting, but Gary made it sound very attractive for those who are
willing to commit for at least one year's service. For those who weren't
at the meeting, I can tell you that the download speeds demonstrated were
just amazing!
If you crave a much faster internet experience with content such as video,
music downloads, teleconferencing or gaming, ADSL is for real and is here
now.
For further information about service in your area, you can contact Gary
Bessoni at 925-4076. Or just to learn more about the topic in general,
point your web browser to
dslreports.com.
The club computer was most unforgiving of absentees in picking door prize
winners. Twenty-four names (possibly a record) were chosen before the
evening's seven prizes were finally given away. The winners present and
their prizes were as follows: John Pfister - Real Pool billiards
simulation, Amy Malicki - Beat the House casino gambling, Sandy Ashby -
Joypad game controller, Bob Gallagher - ream of printer paper, Laudell
Ludwig - Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, Donald Rowe - Master Cook Express,
George Spingler - O'Reilly T-shirt. The horde that was called and not
present included Paul Highfill, Wanda Stiffler, Mary Larsen, Doris Valle,
Ted Studer, Maurice Ross, Stanley Voris, Georgia Davis, Barbara Tucker, Mal
Plambeck, Carter Jones, Bob Chikar, Jay Chestnutt, Charles Saylor, Howard
Williams, Florence Standard and James Brunson (presumably all loyal
Democrats staying home to watch the convention).
I'd like to extend a hearty 4C's welcome to August new members David Lowry
and Mike Reineke, as well as to Gary Aston, Jay Chestnutt and Thomas
Phillips who joined us in July. We trust that your involvement with the
club will be a most beneficial one and encourage your participation at the
meetings. Please do not hesitate to ask questions or to offer your own
experience to perhaps help another solve a problem. We are an unassuming
group and try to make everyone feel comfortable. All of us are here to
learn and to enjoy the fellowship of other computer users from our
community.
I recently had the pleasure of attending the August meeting of the SLO
BYTES PC user's group in San Luis Obispo. They had offered to give us
their entire 700+ disk shareware library if someone would come pick it up.
I took them up on the offer and stayed around for the meeting. They are a
nice group of folks, not unlike our club. The trunkload of disks have
been turned over to our librarian, Sharon Allen, for possible inclusion in
our software collection, which is available to all club members.
Mark your calendars for the September 19th meeting. We will be discussing
some important club business (see Dick's notice elsewhere in this
newsletter) so be there and make your opinions known! Also, we have a very
interesting speaker lined-up. Randal Whittle of MGI will demonstrate his
company's digital image editing software (always a popular topic). Of
course, there will be the usual SIGs, prizes, fun and merriment! I look
forward to seeing you all at the clubhouse. - Charles
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CCCC Page 4 September 2000
August Internet S.I.G.
by Dick Trissel
Our poolroom oven attendance was 33 members. Even with the heat, it was a
lively group. I seem to not have made clear the change in meeting time for
the Internet S.I.G. I intended to start 15 minutes earlier (5:45pm) than
the other S.I.G.s to give us a full hour. But, I usually get the chairs
setup by 5:30pm. So, if someone comes in and has a question, problem, or
comment, it's discussed. Some feel disappointed that they don't get to
hear these early dialogues, but it's no different than the encounters
outside the room before and after the meeting. I can only suggest you get
there at 5:30pm if you can and want to.
As usual, there was discussion about Cookies and Temporary Internet Files
(TIF) and referred to in a newspaper article as a "cache". As this article
said, it is a good idea the delete the cache occasionally. How often, or
how big is big, that's up to you. I've covered the process many times
before, so I'll not do it again. A reminder--the size of the cache is
adjustable. One person said he didn't have the Index.dat file I mentioned
deleting last month. No comment.
However, the question came up as to what one of the options on the Internet
options delete page meant about deleting "locally". No one had an answer,
so I suggested--do it anyway. The TIF files are not critical.
Another question came up as to the importance of the message when you
choose to delete cookies in the Windows\Cookies folder using Windows
Explorer. The decision as to what cookies to keep and what to delete is up
to the user. Some are used by ISPs to store your ID and password for auto-
validation. Other cookies are there for the Web sites to track your
preferences.
I pointed out the the list of cookies in the T.I.F. is the same as in the
cookies folder--it's a kind of mirror listing. However, deletion in either
is effective.
How do you do a BCC in Juno? Put parenthesis ( ) around the e-mail
address. How do you organize bookmarks in Netscape? Use the
Bookmark/Organize option.
The problem of using either Netscape (Communicator) or Internet Explorer
(Outlook Express) from the same computer brought up the consensus of
opinion that you could unless you had the latest I.E. and Netscape. Then
you couldn't. This is progress? The choice of one or the other must be
selected.
A reminder--the past CCCC newsletters from Feb. 2000 to present, and the
newsletter contents since 1998, are available at the club's Web site:
http://member.apcug.org/fourseas.
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CCCC Page 5 September 2000
Web Wanderings
by Gil Smith
1] http://www.good4asmile.com
Lots of animated files to select from and send to friends & family for any
occasion.
2] http://www.wcmsolutions.com/
Under 'direct page links' click on "Storm". If you have lived in the
midwest in the summer time, I promise this will bring back some memories.
3] http://www.sherlockhound.com
Not a dog but 12 top search engines in one click. Take your choice and see
what a search engine can find for you. It's even available in 5 foreign
languages.
4] http://www.researchindex.com/
Research Index can show the content of citations to a given paper, allowing
a researcher to quickly and easily see what other researchers have to say
about an article of interest. Helpful to anyone doing scientific
literature research.
5] http://www.themeworld.com/
Do you want to change the looks of your Desktop? Pick a new theme from the
hundreds available at this site.
6] http://www.komando.com/other/
phone
If you haven't already found a web site where you can make free long
distance calls with your Personal Computer, take a look here and try one.
It includes Internet Answering Machines and Phone Companies which may have
lower rates than you are now paying.
NOTE: Do you have any interesting, useful, or unusual Web Sites that you
want to share with other club members? If so, send them to me and we'll
include them in a future 4Cs Newsletter.
colgil1@juno.com OR Gs5081@aol.com
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CCCC Page 6 September 2000
Editor's Comments
by Dick Trissel
In case you missed it, go back and read the IMPORTANT NOTICE near the front
of the newsletter. It involves ALL of you.
Also, it's getting close to that time again. No, I don't mean Christmas.
But, because we will probably have our annual Christmas party in December,
we have to have the officer election thing in November, nominations in
October, and nominating committee appointees in September-NOW!. So,
everyone be thinking about officer nominations.
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CCCC Page 7 September 2000
REVIEW: WINDOW WASHER
from Webroot Sofware, Inc
by Gil Smith
What is Window Washer? Window Washer is designed for anyone who wants to
preserve their privacy or improve the performance of their computer. When
using a computer and the Internet, Window Washer automatically cleans up
various areas of the users Internet and Windows activity.
The software can be easily set to automatically clean Netscape and Internet
Explorer tracks. Or the user may elect to have the program run only when
called up. The tracks cleaned include the cache, cookies, history, drop-
down address bar, auto complete data forms, and downloaded program files.
During the "washing" process, Window Washer removes unneeded system files
and temporary files, such as registry streams, recently opened document
lists, Windows find history, Windows temporary files directory, .chk
scandisk files and the recycle bin.
For added security, Window Washer can completely overwrite files with
random characters up to 10 times. After running Window Washer with the
"bleach" function activated, an item is rendered unrecoverable by utilities
such as Undelete or Unerase.
System Requirements:
Windows 95, 98, 2000, or NT 4.0; 16 MBytes of RAM and 5 MBytes of
free hard drive space (used as a temporary storage space while the program
is functioning. Actual hard drive space occupied by the Window Washer
program is slightly more than 1.5 MBytes.
Installation Procedures:
1. Be sure to close any previous versions of Window Washer (including
trial version). If you are currently running a previous version of Window
Washer, you should see a squeegee icon in the SysTray. Simply right click
on the icon and select Close.
2. From the Start Menu, select RUN
3. Type a:wwregroot.exe
4. Follow the directions as they appear on your computer screen.
When running Window Washer, a Help Manual is available for any
questions you might have concerning the Wash Items. Simply click on the
Help button located at the bottom of the Window Washer screen. For
Technical Support, e-mail:
support@webroot.com
To Purchase Window Washer:
Online at:
http://www.webroot.com/
order1.htm
for $29.95
For a Trial Version:
www.webroot.com
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CCCC Page 8 September 2000
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 premanently-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.
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.
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.
Disk free space
Executing programs and associated file applications.
When a list of files are 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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