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1. s clandestine network is based on a piece of software called Altnet Secure install which is bundled with the Kazaa software That technology can connect to other peer to peer networks ad servers or file servers independently of the Kazaa software and can be automatically updated to add new features While Brilliant promises that customers will be given a chance to opt in or not I suppose before the network is turned on and that some compensation will be offered the company is under no obligation to do so That s because buried in the fine print of the Kazaa user agreement is the following You hereby grant Brilliant the right to access and use the unused computing power and storage space on your computer s and or Internet access or bandwidth for the aggre gation of content and use in distributed computing The user acknowledges and authorizes this use without the right of compensation You have to agree to those terms before you can use the Kazaa file swapping service My bet is that the company really will offer some trifling incentive for people to opt 8 The RCSi Monitor May 2002 in forever before turning on its network But that deal is one sided You have no way of knowing what your excess bandwidth and processor power is actually worth Maybe Brilliant should give everyone who opts in a share of its stock so everyone can share in the wealth the company hopes to create Beyond questions of pro
2. first time its icon is automatically added to the Start menu One other item appears at the bottom of the left pane labeled All Pro grams Clicking on that lets you access typical Windows menus and installed appli cations I browsed around some of the other fold ers but decided to shut down until I had in stalled the software and drivers that came with the hardware that I bought and in 4 The RCSi Monitor May 2002 a mman A E TEP on ETES from 1 12 20 to 2 pm on WHAM 1180 AM stalled So far there is nothing on the main hard drive except the operating system March 20 I replaced the second hard drive that I mentioned earlier with one I had on hand from two computers back I also in stalled another hard drive as a slave on IDE 2 with the CD RW My configuration now stands at two hard drives on the Trios Selec tor either one bootable and one slave to be used for data with either of the bootable drives This time when I turned on the power I received an error message that I should remove any newly installed drives because there was a problem So I pulled the connec tors until I can find what that is all about I re booted after selecting the new drive with XP installed It loaded OK this time Ifyou want to browse using My Computer click Start and My Computer in the right hand panel Everything is displayed as picture icons in an HTML format You can go back and forth using the Back and For ward arrow buttons
3. paragraph I think those editors are misin terpreting what makes the Deals column work Many readers tell me that they rarely buy anything but they just enjoy reading it Maybe that s because I keep the readers broke Anyway we ll see how my time and the vendor responses go Great Conference My wife and I had a GREAT time at the FACUG Florida Association of Computer User Groups Conference Attendance was up considerably this year There were 197 attendees from 24 user groups Vendor participation was down this year with only thirteen but that didn t hurt it a bit The camaraderie was great Door prizes were also less abundant this year but I doubt anybody was surprised at that with the economy the way it is and vendors cutting back If you missed the conference you were the loser There was an impressive presentation for the new iMac by the Apple folks and they even gave one away They have become great supporters of FACUG During the roundtables one RT during each session was by a vendor I liked that As usual it was a tough decision choosing which RT to attend for each session There were also many attending the conference for the first time and they were thrilled with it all FACUG is alive and VERY well thanks to the hard work of its officers I think one of the things that makes it work well is that the meals can be catered in at cheaper prices and the facility is more intimate for attendees Hotels in the area a
4. two or three short ones gt Write short paragraphs Theyre the toughest thing for me to plow through One trick is to stop every five six or seven sentences take a breath and start another paragraph gt Be active For the longest time I couldn t figure out passive from active voice Once I hadit writing became easier If no one s taking responsibility it s passive Mis takes were made is passive We all made a few mistakes is an active voice It s almost impossible to write in the passive voice if you follow the next bullet gt Stay first I write from the first person It s always my viewpoint yeah I know it s always about me And that s the tone you oughta consider using The reason is I can visualize you when I write and you can see me while youre reading Steve Bass is a Contributing Editor with PC World and runs the Pasadena IBM Users Group He s also a founding member of APCUG Check PCW s current edition at www pcworld com resource toc index asp and sign up for the Steve Bass online newsletter at www pcworld com bass_letter Computer Law Say What You Mean and Mean What You Say by Bill Wood AlamoPC Organization Inc borrowed that line from somewhere like a line from a John Wayne movie However to a lawyer as well as to a technology enthusiast making sure that words carry the intended meaning is easier said than done A lot of what I do is trying t
5. PC Court mposed Changes Service Pack 1 for Windows XP will also contain a unique set of updates compared to service packs for previous versions of Win dows Gravning said It will include any changes or alterations to the operating system imposed upon Microsoft by terms of its proposed antitrust settlement with the US 18 The RCSi Monitor May 2002 Department of Justice and nine states Terms of the proposed settlement which is known in legal speak as a consent decree require Microsoft to disclose certain applica tion program interfaces for the operating system within a year of the deal being ap proved or in the first Windows XP service pack whichever comes first A judge could decide whether to approve that settlement as early as next week Microsoft typically releases the first service pack for a product about six months after the product has been launched Mi chael Silver a research director at Gartner said recently With Windows XP released in October users could have expected the first service pack to come out in April However the additional updates that would bring the company into compliance with terms of the consent decree have delayed the service pack from being released in its typical six month cycle by at least a few months he added Also in the service pack is additional support for several new technologies that allow Windows XP to support more wireless de vices and multimedia applications The se
6. at the top of the screen This is a vast improvement over X ing out windows in Windows 9x Of course you can change the icons into a list by clicking on View in the Menu bar If you are inclined to use DOS to see what s what in your computer drop to the command level in XP and browse a little Do this by clicking Start Run Enter cmd and press Enter You will drop to the command level at C Docu ments and Settings Ad ministrator Type CD and hit Enter Then do it again to drop to the C root folder Now do a DIR Have we come so far with Windows that some readers may not know the basic DOS commands If so I will explain as we go Type DIR or dir it does not matter and hit Enter From this point on I will use this symbol for the Enter key lt lt A list of files will display including Win dows Documents and Settings Program Files and a few others that XP installed Now to really see everything type tree lt lt All the folders and files will display so fast you will not be able to read them until scrolling stops However if you type tree more you can scroll through with ease Hit the Enter key to scroll a line at a time or the space bar to scroll a page at a time Hold the Enter key down and you will get a slow scroll You can use the tree com mand at any DOS level For non DOS users in the tree more command the is the backslash key shifted mo
7. by McGraw Hill 2000 paper back 463 pages including index From the March 2002 issue of DACS the newsletter of the Danbury CT Computer Soci ety Inc Jim Scheef is the Mad Scientist at Telemark Systems Inc where he develops cus tom software using Visual Basic and SQL Server and provides networking services using Windows NT 2000 He has been a DACS member since the day DOG became WC MUG Caution Don t Let Brilliant Hijack Your PC by David Coursey AnchorDesk URL http www zdnet com anchordesk stories story 0 10738 2859775 00 html rilliant Digital Entertainment is the Ben in a string of companies that seem to think Internet users are stu pid In this case stupid enough to let Bril liant take over your computer for its own gain without compensating you Don t let them Here s the story Brilliant has been dis tributing its 3D advertising technology along with Kazaa s file swapping software since last fall But recently Brilliant started sending out additional software that would turn every computer running Kazaa into a node on Brilliant s own network We know this because ZDNet s John Borland uncovered the story yesterday while reading a federal securities filing in which Brilliant described its plan to use end users computers for distribution and file storage It might also siphon off your unused process ing power to have your computer do work on behalf of Brilliant s clients Brilliant
8. every call and have it on tape Customer now rather humbled But you re supposed to help Tech Support I am sorry sir but there is nothing we can do for you Have a nice day Pictured is a formerly robust mouse after ex posure to a vi rus Keep that virus protection up to date The RCSi Monitor May 2002 27 28 The RCSi Monitor May 2002
9. file s there in the correct place it can t help but do some thing Are you sure youre typing I N S T A L L and hitting the Enter key Customer Yes let me try it again New Users pause Nope still Bad command or file by John McMillan name 26 The RCSi Monitor May 2002 Tech Support now really confused Are you sure you re typing I N S T A L L and hitting the key that says Enter Customer Well yeah Although my N key is stuck so I m using the M key does that matter Customer I got this problem You people sent me this install disk and now my A drive won t work Tech Support Your A drive won t work Customer That s what I said You sent me a bad disk it got stuck in my drive now it won t work at all Tech Support Did it not install properly What kind of error messages did you get Customer I didn t get any error message The disk got stuck in the drive and wouldn t come out So I got these pliers and tried to get it out That didn t work either Tech Support You did what sir Customer I got these pliers and tried to get the disk out but it wouldn t budge I just ended up cracking the plastic stuff a bit Tech Support I don t understand sir did you push the eject button Customer No so then I got a stick of butter and melted it and used a turkey baster and put the butter in the driv
10. file into PP s archive it is easy to store organize and even share it without help from your guru neighbor PP s easily understood interface makes navigation sim ple PP will archive your documents in an internal database for quick reference and provides for off site web storage for a price The cons Very little control over who has access to these files and its tech support policy is poor Scan pieces of paper directly into PP s database from any TWAIN or WIA compli ant scanner then use ScanSofts own printer driver to convert digital files to PP s MAX format this is the proprietary format to store digital docs inside the database As an alternative to their database the pro gram will track file folders It can track most all of the standard document formats including Word Excel graphics PDFs Web pages etc Such link ing insures each file is updated Thumbnails of each document are created wherein you describe such info as file s author subject date etc On your left is a directory listing On your right the window contains the thumbnails If you double click a thumbnail 16 The RCSi Monitor May 2002 it will open the Image Editing toolbar to clean up that image PP also indexes all text and provides a search engine for navigating through the archive You can t import files in batches because it uses the proprietary MAX format for the database You can drag and drop several thumb nails
11. font Courier This is good clear copy that had no variation in character form I used SoftWriting s scan menu first Don t use it Then I selected my scanner s menu all ata relatively high resolution of 300 dpi After a few steps the original document is at the top of the screen and the converted document at the bottom Blue highlights words in its dictionary and red for unrecognized words The balance of the text in black should be correct It wasn t There was about a 20 error rate in correctly converting the text such as the scan w gy not veeri good Really odd conversions I thought I had selected the wrong language Perhaps if I had given the program several more pages to learn my typed text maybe but I don t think so For highlighted words there is a Merge button that attempts to add more written text and the software s guessing was often quite good but the word it was guessing was wrong Go figure SoftWriting enables users to teach the program to recognize abbreviations For example write com and it will enter com puter or whatever word you have defined as com It runs under Win 9 x ME NT4 2000 and it is not scanner specific use any TWAIN compliant scanner Most any Pentium I system will work with this program Down load from the www charactell com web site It is fully functional for 14 days so you can try it before you buy it which Pd str
12. in the computer Bernoulli lets you remove their 90MB disk The internal Bernoulli drive is discounted to under 800 and is a good solution as you can buy more disks at about 150 each when your stor age needs increase My friend keeps Win dows applications on one disk shareware on another and DOS programs on a third You re also able to move the data to another computer via the portable disk an added benefit The traditional upgrade path is to adda hard disk to your existing system which means the drive you purchase must match the controller card that s already plugged into one of your system s expansion slots Older machines usually have an RLL or MFM interface but newer machines come with faster IDE integrated drive electron ics controllers the current standard Most controller cards manage up to two hard disks along with the two floppy drives Some IDEs include parallel and serial ports used to attach modems and printers If you have an IDE controller I recom mend you stay with it On one IDE machine I upgraded and choose a fast Conner hard disk because of their reputation for long life expectancy and fast access time Their 120MB model CP30104 will set you back about 400 and their 212MB model CP320 is about 560 Macintosh owners however have a secret recently available to IBMs Small Computer System Interface SCSI adapters SCSI pronounced scuzzy lets you attach up to seven devices onto one i
13. left pane presented a menu of programs Internet Explorer Outlook Express Snagit 5 0 Windows Media Player Files and Settings Transfer Wizard MSN Explorer Tour Windows XP The right hand pane provides access to common Windows folders such as My Docu ments My Pictures My Music Favorites My computer Control Panel Help and Support Search Run and others The rea son for the Start concept is to clean up the desktop This desktop shows only some fluffy clouds over a rolling landscape with the Recycle Bin in the lower right corner the Start button in the lower left corner of the Task Bar If one prefers the classic Windows style for the desktop and Start menu it can be obtained by clicking Properties and choosing Classic Start menu I attempted to relocate or hide the Task Bar by dragging with the mouse but it did not cooperate I opted to take the XP tour I was given the choice of taking the tour with music and animation or just plain text I hooked up loudspeakers from my other computer and proceeded with the tour Ugh Too much background music It was louder than the voice that was describing the features This is common practice today whether it is radio TV or a computer file Gotta have back ground music The audio techs have to earn their salaries This eternal background music noise is very annoying to those who suffer any hearing loss Oops I m off the subject Sorry In XP when you open a program for the
14. the instructions in the manual and you are ready to go The only thing I did not like was that the case is plastic The screws will self thread into pilot holes in the case OK I guess The advantage is that the device may be used internally or externally I will prob ably install it tomorrow March12 I had to rearrange the drives already installed so that the Trios cables had some orderly connection to the drives and motherboard After all the cables were in stalled the inside of the computer looked like a rat s nest They get in the way of trying to reach any thing on the MB I also installed a second hard drive that I had on hand Hopefully there is a version of Windows on it Remember that drive num ber one is brand new with nothing on it If number 2 does not boot I will have to reboot enter the CMOS make the CD RW drive the boot drive and then proceed with the XP installation on drive number one 2 The RCSi Monitor May 2002 Finally I am ready to attempt a startup The front panel is back in place mouse attached and keyboard Whoops The new MB has a mini 6 pin socket and the old keyboard has a 5 pin Now I need an adaptor or a new keyboard The test is postponed until that decision is made March 13 An adapter is 7 10 locally 3 online I can buy a basic keyboard with the mini connector for about 8 I decided I do not want that two inch long adaptor sticking out the back of the machine and if I am to
15. the Computer Renais sance radio program next Monday from 6 30 to 7 30 pm Call ins are needed The In ternet address is WYSL1040 com Steve announced a membership drive suggested at the last Board meeting The member who brings in the most new mem bers with a minimum of five new members to qualify will receive one year s extension of his or her own membership For this drive new members will include former members whose membership lapsed a year or more ago Additionally a bonus gift pro gram may be put in place A gathering for selling buying and trading computer related items will be scheduled Steve brought us up to date on prepara tions for our May election Arpad Kovacs will run for Secretary or Vice President This year we need to elect a President a Vice President and a Secretary We have three candidates to run for one Member at Large position Ron Matteson has become Program Chair We will wait on selecting a Librarian Our books are becoming out dated Jim McGrath will be Software Chair He will try to secure software Reviews are usually required Members taking software for review may be charged a refundable fee or deposit to be returned when the review is received Reviews are sent to software manufacturers as well as printed in the Monitor Joe Varga will work on our web page Bill Statt and Bob Avery will help with the web page The picnic will be scheduled for August 11 Ron spoke about ITECH cu
16. the case that I received as part of the Barebones package The power on switch is located on the rear of the case I would like to mount a new switch on the front panel There is space on the plastic front panel but I will have to cut or die punch a hole in the metal chassis immedi ately behind the panel The motherboard has 2 USB ports at the rear and 2 at the front end of the board However there is no provision in the front panel for USB connectors The front of the chassis behind the plastic front panel is pierced so that any section that needs to be removed when inserting a drive can easily be removed by twisting the metal section with a pair of pliers To do this one must release the front panel snaps and pull the panel away from the case March 5 Went to UPS com and entered the tracking number for the components that I am waiting for This is great I clicked on Tracking entered the number in the box clicked Go and was presented with a com plete history of the movement of the package from its source in Illinois a stopover in Buffalo NY and finally to a location in Henrietta NY It arrived in Henrietta just after 5 p m today so I will look for it to be delivered tomorrow March 6 UPS delivered a Sony CD RW and a 1 44 MHz floppy drive I Had planned to use existing CD ROM and floppy drives that I had on hand in a couple of obsolete com puters that take up space in the house but who can resist sale prices with reba
17. the hard drive then finally hit Escape Save and Yes I was prompted to insert a disc in the CD drive I did so and was presented with sev eral pages of Microsoft terms and conditions which I accepted Next I was offered a option to partition the hard drive I selected a partition of 8 gigs It was created I then designated the remaining unpartitioned space 12 gigs for installation of Windows XP I received a message saying not enough space to install XP so I deleted the partition and allowed the install to begin on the total unpartitioned 20 gig drive I was prompted to select the file system either FAT 32 or NTFS the Windows NT file system You can select FAT32 and upgrade to NTFS later but you can not convert back to FAT32 later I chose FAT32 which is appropriate for a hard drive smaller than 32 GB The format began as C drive on disk 0 at ID 0 on bus 0 on atapi MBR whatever all that means During the formatting a series of XP features was displayed on the screen Format was complete in about 10 minutes Next Setup copied startup files to hard drive windows installation folders This took about 5 minutes Finally the XP Win dows opening screen appeared temporarily Then Setup continued while more features were presented Some of the prompts during setup were Select date format and lan guage enter the 25 character Product Key found on the XP CD ROM folder and enter an administrator password Also a
18. try to find one that is digitally signed my Microsoft on the Internet To be continued Fire In The Valley The Making of the Personal Computer Second Ed by Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine Reviewed by Jim Scheef Danbury Area Computer Society he first edition of this book was pub lished in 1984 and is a classic of per sonal computer history The second edition updates many chapters and adds several significant stories about the industry from 85 to the end of the Nineties The authors make each segment interesting and eventually link everything together While Fire In The Valley is ostensibly the story of the computer industry that grew up in Silicon Valley it begins at the beginning with the first computer designer and the 6 The RCSi Monitor May 2002 Old Fashioned Service For a High Tech World Lede gt Sere MICROWORX COMPUTERS 793 South Goodman St 271 0050 271 0274 fax first programmer Charles Babbage worked most of his life designing the Analytical En gine a mechanical computer that could perform integrals Babbage s patron was Lord Byron the poet and his assistant was Lord Byron s daughter Augusta Ada Byron the future Lady Lovelace Ada was the first program mer as she defined the procedures needed for the analytical engine to solve mathe matical problems The reason I m telling you all this is that I think Babbage and Steve Wozniak would have been best f
19. Nimda which spread through multiple methods are released Because the problem will get worse there s going to be an increase in protection and recovery costs he says Tips Offered Bridwell identifies a number of steps that companies can take to avoid these pitfalls Network perimeter protection desktop anti virus and good policy development and enforcement are all key he says Perimeter protection can arguably be one of the most important assets in the corporate security strategy he says But perimeter protection is not a replacement for desktop and server protection Perimeter protection involves scanning for viruses as they enter the corpo rate network from the public Internet The value of desktop protection can t be overem phasized he says Bridwell also urges companies to filter attachments especially those with files types that are frequently used in viruses such as exe vbs and pif and to subscribe to a security alert service to receive early warnings of possible trouble That s a wrap for this month Be careful and don t click on those attachments unless you are sure who they are from and that they don t carry any payloads Ten Years Ago A look back at a column that describes the process of getting a new hard disk in 1992 by Steve Bass Pasadena IBM Users Group ere s a quiz Why is upgrading your H IBM PC like going to the dentist It s not going to the dentist is a
20. Review of Windows XP Part 3 by Warren Ganter Rochester Computer Society Inc ecap Having won a copy of Windows Re at a recent meeting of Rochester Computer Society I am in the process of writing the required review of the product In Part 1 I reviewed some preliminary infor mation about XP and discussed my situation with regard to upgrading my present com puter or purchasing new In Part 2 the decision was made and I began procurement and construction of a new machine I also said that beginning with the construction phase of this review I would be using a di ary format to report progress chronologi cally One question was pending at the end of Part 2 Does the video card operate on 1 5 volts Higher voltage may damage the moth erboard MB The Construction Continues March 1 2002 To solve the video card question I called Pine Technologies and asked about the voltage I was assured the card operated at 1 5 volts Good news So I installed the card in the AGP slot One more component out of the way Next using the aforementioned anti static wires see Part 2 I removed the 20gig hard drive from its protective packaging set the jumper to Dual Master and installed the drive into the case It will be paired with a CD RW drive on IDE slot number1 March 2 4 Waiting for more components to arrive via UPS In the meantime I explored Western Digital s Web site A lot of informa tion is available I also examined
21. a specific topic choose the joke first then sit back http affsite com Easily fooled At the Museum of Hoaxes they trace the history of hoaxes as far back as 756 AD The site creator adheres to the 1808 definition of a hoax as contriving wonderful stories for the publick ruling out practical jokes but not scams Search hoaxes by century or by category from anthropol ogy the Patagonian giants to zoology the jacka loupe http www museumofhoaxes com Sky Charts The sky is a lovely thing to behold its view altered by your position on earth and your changing perspective Sky Chart simulates a naked eye view of the sky from any place on Earth any time day or night on any date from 1600 to 2400 AD http skyandtelescope com observing skychart Find a Book The site searches more than 4 000 bookseller sites so you can track down used and new copies of everything from best sellers to rarities http www bookfinder com From the May 2002 issue of the Sun City Summerlin Computer Club newsletter Society News Program Meeting Minutes April 9 2002 by Charles Grover he Rochester Computer Society held its April meeting at Element K in Brigh ton Ron Matteson led Helps Half Hour at 6 30 pm At 7 pm Steve Staub Treasurer presided over a business session Steve reported being at the recent Market Pro show There he met an old Frog member who volunteered to do a program for us in June Steve and Bill Statt will appear on
22. an is a HAL PC member and Help Desk volunteer who can be contacted at monte hal pc org SoftWriting 3 2 Convert handwriting to text by Charles W Evans Houston Area League of PC Users Inc oftWriting by CharacTell Ltd con See non connected handwriting to text files which means that characters should not touch each other Allegedly recogni tion of the handwriting improves for every page converted since the soft ware continues to learn the user s handwriting The error rate is about 20 35 but may improve with use It is good for those who take notes on the run people who take meeting notes interviews etc The bottom line is it is for a specific market for whom written text conversion is a real convenience and for whom a high percent age of accuracy is not a first priority Other wise type your own notes into your word processor Read on SoftWriting s short demo is all that is re quired to get started Place the sample of your writing in the scanner about 500 words or three to five pages then open Soft Writing A handy step by step menu the Learning Wizard appears and occasionally you ll have to answer yes or no but other wise it is straight forward NOTE I cheated But I did so in favor of the program Instead of my hand written sample I printed a 705 word page in a non connected cursive font in Times Roman and in a monospaced The RCSi Monitor May 2002 17
23. as the initially high prices begin to fall Today s drives such as a combination DVD RAM DVD R unit from Matsushita Electric Industrial can be bought for as little as 246 in Japan while prices in the U S for similar units are around 300 Sales of drives are expected to jump from an estimated 1 3 million in 2001 to 9 8 mil lion this year according to Jon Peddie president of Jon Peddie Research speaking at a press conference organized by the Re cordable DVD Council an industry promo tion group at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January He predicted drive shipments would surpass 50 million in 2005 The next step in rewritable DVD drives the jump to 6X models is not expected until sometime in 2003 when laser diodes capable of delivering 120 milliwatts of power will become available says Yagi Music Mavens Take Note Napster is gone and these three might not be far behind Still not mentioned are the smaller file swapping centers at LimeWire and File Swapping Sites Go to Court Enter tainment industry charges peer to peer services encourage copyright infringement Three popular peer to peer file swapping services will soon face a jury of their peers following a federal judge s order that they stand trial for charges of copyright infringe ment lodged against them by the recording and motion picture industries Peer to Peer P to P services Morpheus Grokster and Kazaa are due to come under jury s
24. at each had at least 500 PCs two local area networks and two remote work ers The survey focused primarily on ma The RCSi Monitor May 2002 21 chines running on Intel chips with Microsoft operating systems Over the course of the survey 666 327 desktop PCs and work stations were infected with viruses along with 26 492 file or print servers Bridwell says Those figures translate to the 113 infections per 1000 PCs per month figure he says The majority of the viruses spread through e mail Bridwell says noting that mass mailers accounted for around 80 per cent of the viruses identified in the survey Expect More DOA PCs The most common effect of a virus infec tion reported by 70 percent of respondents was rendering a PC unavailable to the user the study found Sixty nine percent of re spondents said that viruses had cost produc tivity while 37 percent reported loss of data due to viruses Twenty eight to thirty per cent of respondents said they had experi enced a virus disaster defined by ICSA as any event in which a single virus infects more than 25 machines files or pieces of storage media in roughly the same time That figure was slightly down from previous surveys Bridwell says And the virus pic ture doesn t look to brighten much in the future he says The virus problem contin ues to worsen Bridwell says adding that the likelihood of disasters will also increase as more worms like Code Red and
25. buy a new keyboard I would spend a little more and get the proper one I like a touch with fairly high key resistance I found an IBM keyboard locally that seems just right so I bought it More money You can t take it with you Right March 14 Downloaded a driver for the keyboard 17 megs What a driver this must be March 15 I am ready to throw the switch but first I had to call our friend Nick on his Friday evening program on TV channel 9 I explained briefly what I had done and was a little hesitant to turn on the power He basically said Do it Ifit works Fine If not fix it and try again First Power up March 16 With Nick s words of encourage ment I prepared to make the trial run All connections looked OK I set the Trios hard drive selector to drive 2 a drive that I had from an earlier computer pushed the power switch and AMAZING There on the moni tor was the opening screen for Windows for Workgroups 3 11 I must have done some thing right I looked around checked direc tories All old stuff I put a disk in the A drive and read the directory A drive is A OK I tried a disc in the CD drive with no results I will check that out tomorrow Second Power up March 17 OK no more stalling I set the ROMTEC Trios hard drive selector to drive 1 the new hard drive pushed the power switch hit the Delete key to open the BIOS set the time and date set the CD RW to boot first set auto detect
26. crutiny beginning October 1 U S District Court Judge Stephen Wilson ruled Monday that the defendants motion for a summary judgment was premature Attorneys for the companies that run the services filed the summary judgment motion hoping to qualify for a Betamax defense This defense argues that the noninfringing uses of a technology should shield it from a copyright infringement suit given that the technology has legitimate uses The precedent for the Betamax defense was set in the Sony vs Universal City Stu dios case In that the motion picture indus try tried to outlaw Sony s Betamax VCRs because they could potentially be used to make illegal copies of movies In 1984 the U S Supreme Court ruled however that although some VCR uses infringe on copy right that does not justify a ban on the technology While lawyers for the P to P defendants expressed disappointment that the judge delayed ruling on the motion they indicate they will press the Betamax defense during the jury trial Industry Threatened The civil liberties group Electronic Fron tier Foundation EFF which is helping represent Morpheus points out that the software lets users trade a variety of files including shareware programs and public 20 The RCSi Monitor May 2002 domain texts not just copyright protected works For the recording and motion picture industries however the widespread popu larity of these services represent a serious th
27. d a MS digitally signed driver This is a nuisance I have an Intel modem with a disc that states it is compatible with XP but I am afraid to use it Ugh On the other hand why not use the CD disc that came with XP when prompted I right clicked My Computer Properties Hardware Device Manager and Modems Under the modems menu I found PCI Simple Communications Controller as the name for my modem I right clicked that name then Properties The resulting screen gave the following information Device type Modems Manufacturer Unknown Location PCI slot 6 bus2 Device 3 Function 0 and the words Drivers for this device not installed This was all under the Gen eral tab at the top of the window Next I clicked the Driver tab It revealed driver unknown and not digitally signed There were also buttons to Update the driver Uninstall and to View details about a properly installed driver There was one more tab Resources I clicked it and was told This device is not using any resources because it has a problem I knew that Overall the Device Manager will display all you want to know about any hardware that is installed It even tells you that it is working properly or not I clicked on the Update Hardware button and was taken to the Hardware Update Wizard From there I went through the install procedure again this time using the CD disc that came with XP No driver could be found so as I men tioned above I will
28. e around the disk and that got it loose Then I used the pliers and it came out fine I can t believe you would send me a disk that was broken and defective Tech Support Let me get this clear You put melted butter in your A drive and used pliers to pull the disk out At this point I put the call on the speaker phone and mo tioned at the other techs to listen in Tech Support Just so I am absolutely clear on this can you repeat what you just said Customer I said I put butter in my A drive to get your crappy disk out then I had to use pliers to pull it out Tech Support Did you push that little button that was sticking out when the disk was in the drive you know the thing called the disk eject button Silence Tech Support Sir Customer Yes Tech Support Sir did you push the eject button Customer No but you people are going to fix my computer or I am going to sue you for breaking my computer Tech Support Let me get this straight You are going to sue our company because you put the disk in the A drive didn t follow the instructions we sent you didn t actually seek professional advice didn t consult your user s manual on how to use your computer properly instead proceeding to pour butter into the drive and physically rip the disk out Customer Ummmm Tech Support Do you really think you stand a chance since we do record
29. e fence I get the pleasure of writing for a magazine that s big enough for me not to worry that I ll say something dumb PC World provide tons of background support first second and technical editors copy editors fact checkers and even attorneys At the other end of the spectrum are user group newsletters Writing in PIBMUG is more freewheeling I can write about any topic something that strikes me on the spur of the moment PCW wants a four month stack of story topics And unlike PC World I don t have anyone watching my language fretting over and often removing my voice and roping me into a set amount of space PC World s Home Office column is roughly 650 words less the Where to Buy the spot where I supply details so the reader can get in touch with the companies I write about The 650 limit is a killer If you do any writing you know it s more difficult to write short especially if you have to cram in humor content product justification and examples one or two links and the essential takeaway The rule and you ll see this in practically all computing magazines is giving the reader something to do after finishing the column I got lucky when they asked me to do the Home Office online version All the leftover material from the print edition and there s always plenty found a new home One other thing you might take for granted in a user group newsletter is the size of the article When I
30. e supporting a product Don t be too quick to condemn the ven dor s concern with profits It is important to both parties because a vendor that is out of business isn t able to provide the necessary support And a vendor in bankruptcy may be left with only one valuable asset its cus tomer data Bankruptcy courts have faced a difficult dilemma On the one hand the judges try to ensure that as many of the estate s debts get paid as fairly as possible In the cases of Egghead com Toy smart com and eToys com one issue was customer privacy versus sale of a valuable asset that could help generate cash to pay legitimate debts In each case the company had a privacy policy that es sentially promised that the consumer s The RCSi Monitor May 2002 11 private data would never be sold Egghead s policy noted that it did not sell or rent our customer information to any outside party under any circumstances The clear word ing forced the bankruptcy court to choose between two wrongs Either the privacy policy was violated or some of the debts would not be paid Last summer the court was presented an offer from Fry s Electron ics to purchase the assets As originally proposed the customer list would have been included and it had a clause that allowed Fry s to terminate the deal if more than 10 percent of Egghead s customers exercised an option to remove their personal data from the transfer That is called an opt o
31. er drive with a pushbutton then turn on the power switch to boot the newly selected drive This seemed to solve the problems that I mentioned early in this review that I want to continue running several DOS applica tions and that some of the programs that I run under Windows 95 may not work with Windows XP S olution March 7 The Solution Order the Trios unit and after I get the new machine operating properly install the hard drive from my current machine in the new one Great Problems solved I hope I called early in the day and ordered the unit by phone while online after which I downloaded the rebate form I chatted with the salesperson and said You must have quite a large staff I never have to wait on the phone He replied We have over 200 people answering the phones We are a two billion a year company I was impressed March 8 I went online to the UPS site entered my tracking number and found that the order had arrived in Henrietta about 8 p m What fast service March 11 The Trios unit was delivered It comes with all the cables necessary to make the hookup It can be used to manage either two or three drives It mounts in a 5 1 4 bay The front panel consists of three buttons to select drives Only one can be depressed at a time Press one and the previously de pressed button pops up Installation is simple Mount the unit with 4 screws pro vided connect the cables according to
32. erLand VisiCalc Radio Shack Computer Centers CP M and Osborn Computers are all gone and all for differ ent reasons There were other failures and fiascos like the Apple III and Next Comput ers The second edition updates many of these stories with what happened in the 90 s Like how come Steve Jobs is still rich after the failure of Next Computer Hint it has more to do with movies than the fact that he sold Next to Apple a few years ago so it could become the basis of OS X Who could forget the browser wars of the late 90 s From the day Microsoft became the stan dards setter Gates has had the fear that The RCSi Monitor May 2002 7 some clever hacker could undo it all Of course this fear was based on what Gates himself had done to build Microsoft and when Marc Andreessen created Mosaic and then morphed it into Netscape Gates saw his nightmare unfolding Of course we are still living the end game of this particular story with the Microsoft anti trust case Ok so what s missing Well I would have liked to see more about how IBM blew it with the PS 2 computer series and the OS 2 operating system This was a turning point in the computer industry Perhaps the best feature of this book is that each story is related in enough detail to give you a sense of what is happening without bogging you down in minutia If you can only read one book on the history of the personal com puter this is the book Read it Published
33. es ter rr com In answer to a question Bill in formed us that he purchased his refurbished laptop computer at clearance club com Steve closed our meeting at 8 45 pm with the 50 50 drawing meeting at the Monroe Developmental Center on Tuesday April 2 There are no minutes because of a malfunctioning tape recorder Why not join us personally at the next meeting May 7th at 6 30 Treasurer s Report by Steve Staub T New Users held their monthly Balance as of 03 19 2002 935 55 Income Dues 3 s3 c5e ye Sees ee ea es 200 00 Expenses St Stephens 100 00 Papena bir hk ca eh al eal al nal eal elt 52 57 PIZZa 8 5 aa hae ee ae RA 20 91 Mail Boxes Etc 90 00 CASO sce ed wae te eek eee en be 86 72 Picnic permit 15 00 Total Expense 000 356 20 Balance as of 04 22 02 770 35 The Lighter Side Tales of Tech Support Customer I m having a problem installing your software I ve got a fairly old computer and when I type INSTALL all it says is Bad command or file name Tech Support Ok check the directory of the A drive go to A and type dir Customer reads off a list of file names including INSTALL EXP Tech Support All right the correct file is there Type INSTALL again Customer Ok pause Still says Bad command or file name Tech Support Hmmm The
34. gy for turning paper based forms into electronic forms It can retain graphics tables and formatting elements and display them in a text editor for exporting One of these best new features allows you to save adjusted scans in PDF formatting PDF formatting is a newer document type that is used extensively over the Internet and in business Another unique feature is the built in scheduler that allows unat tended scanning jobs For those who like cutting edge technology OmniPage Pro 11 can also speak scanned text Hearing text might make it easier to find scanned errors As for errors with basic text no OCR software is 100 accurate OmniPage how ever had less than a 2 error rate Its speed and accuracy were excellent It kept most of the formatting as well The difficulty that OmniPage Pro 11 had is with imbedded pictures with color background and color text The new Intelligent Proofing has in The RCSi Monitor May 2002 15 creased accuracy and reduced proofing time It supports over 100 languages It is even easy to use having three options Auto OCR Manual OCR and of course OCR Wizard I tested OmniPage Pro 11 with Windows XP and Windows 2000 using a USB HP3300C scanner and a Parallel Primax 600P scanner OmniPage works great with both operating systems and scanners The install was very easy since there was only one option It takes less than five minutes Make sure that your anti virus program is not running during t
35. he install It can cause conflicts OmniPage Pro 11 requires a Pentium or higher processor Windows 95 or newer operating system 32 MBs of RAM and 115 MBs of hard drive space A personal aggravation is the registra tion During the on line registration you are asked if you would like partner company s special offers Even if you say no you are taken to a promotional screen that offers free product with postage and handling that is probably more that the actual worth of the products If you choose not to register the program will continually request you to register OmniPage Pro 11 is made by ScanSoft Self support is available on their website at www scansoft com Phone support is a toll call and only free for installation questions at 408 395 8319 All other questions are 14 95 per request available from 8 a m to 7 p m CST Monday through Friday Omni Page is an excellent upgrade at 149 However if you do not have a product from which to upgrade I suggest trying FineReader at www finereader com or PaperPort at www scansoft com both for under 100 retail and both very good pro grams Fox Martin is a HAL PC member who is MCSE qualified and can be contacted at utmr sbcglobal net PaperPort Deluxe 8 A Paper Management T ool by Monte Goodman Houston Area League of PC Users Inc aperPort by ScanSoft is an ingenious Perma document manager that in cludes a good OCR capability Once you have imported a digital
36. into a digital document then send it to your fax modem or attach it to e mail PP then embeds a viewer in the e mail attach ment so that the recipient can view the document without installing PP itself ScanSoft also includes a PP Online Ac count with 25MB of storage on an off site centralized server for one year You and anyone else have access to the archived files and can edit or comment on any file PP should be considered for individuals and small workgroups in which you know your coworkers It doesn t limit the number of files you can have You limit access such as read only and read write access There is no way to deter mine who has had access to any of the files ScanSoft work on this The downside PP s OCR engine based on ScanSoft s TextBridge Pro Millennium lacks proofing tools so any mistakes it makes while converting a file are sent to the index Its OCR engine continues to have trouble deciphering elaborately formatted pages such as magazine articles Dragging the files to a word processor first helps to get around that It s better than basic but no brass ring PaperPort Deluxe is without peer in document management The street price is about 84 upgrade 45 and you can get more info at www scansoft com So why is its tech support policy considered poor It pro vides telephone support only to get the program running questions about how it works or how to use it cost you 15 a call Monte Goodm
37. ir PC will find that InstaFiles will make their life easier With InstaFiles you will never lose track of an open window again Browse for documents and projects Insta Files is a graphical browser for all currently open documents applications and Web pages InstaFiles allows you to easily navi gate between documents etc Simplify Windows using patent pending technology Patent pending technology lets you see every open window as real time oversized thumbnails which allows for instant access to many different open docu ments projects applications or files with one click Improve your productivity and perfor mance Save time by grouping related docu ments files and applications to launch together later just by opening an InstaFiles saved project Instantly find your active files Never again wonder where did that file go Insta Files lays out all open windows side by side using graphical thumbnails Check this URL to order InstaFiles or any of the Casady amp Greene user group specials http ug casadyg com page shop win The user group price for InstaFiles is 19 95 regular price 39 95 C amp G offers both Mac and PC products Keep Track Of Your Hard Drive s Health Bob Esche of the Dayton Microcomputer Association forwarded this DiskAlert offer by Executive Software to me He liked their Diskeeper r defragger product and feels this is a good company Their DiskAlert tm software give
38. lot more fun It s no joke I hate upgrading because it s a day of tinkering with the insides of my computer But I had to get a larger hard disk because I switched to Windows Appli cations written for Windows take up humon gous amounts of hard disk space and there s little chance that the trend will stop Micro soft s Word for Windows for example gob bles up 12 megabytes and Corel Draw takes about 14 megabytes Most users have hard disks ranging in size from the older 30 megabyte the one Pm still using to about 200 megabytes Larger sizes are available and many people are 22 The RCSi Monitor May 2002 looking towards the future buying disks as big as 384MBs I predict that within two years 1 gigabyte disks that s 1000 mega bytes will be on many machines But for now with hard disks dropping in price I recommend a minimum 200MB hard disk on a new system or 120MB on an upgrade There s more than one way to add a new hard disk and how you do it depends on your budget and your existing system Quantum s Plus Hardcard is not the least expensive but it is the quickest easiest way to upgrade For about 400 you get 105MBs of disk storage on an add in card and no installation hassles Putting in the Hardcard will take less then fifteen minutes from start to finish A friend of mine chose a neat alternative and upgraded with a Bernoulli storage device Instead of a fixed disk one that stays
39. n promises However the result would have been very different if the first sale had been completed The lesson is that you really have to be cautious in evaluating promises that involve future actions Nothing is forever Whether it is safe guarding your personal information or providing future support the value of the guarantee depends upon the continued resources and strength of the guarantor lt t From the DealsGuy amp A by Bob Click A Greater Orlando Computer Users l Group take over the Deals Column I don t blame them because it s a demanding task I can t say that it s a thankless job though because I receive many thanks everywhere I go This may sound egotistical but I would surely miss that Some editors didn t print that part of my April column so perhaps that s part of the reason for no re sponse I ll keep it going for a short time but Pm not sure how long Maybe I ll have more time after all my company has gone next month Actually I ve received several mes sages asking me NOT to stop because they just enjoy reading it It s very gratifying to have people enjoying my work There are some discouraging things such as a couple of editors who were content to Q far nobody has answered my call to 12 The RCSi Monitor May 2002 just print the name of the product the price and where to buy it until I asked them please do not do it that way They were compressing my two page column to one
40. name for The RCSi Monitor May 2002 3 my computer was provided during the setup The name given was WARREN followed by a series of alpha characters and numerals It did not advise what this name was to be used for More features were continually displayed I was prompted to choose either Domain or Workgroup I chose Workgroup based upon the rational given I do not re member the exact difference It is difficult to take notes while installing an operating system The last steps in the Setup were to install the Start Menu components Then Windows advised it was going to adjust monitor screen resolution The Setup took about 35 minutes The entire install took about 1 hours It was a very friendly procedure Most every thing was explained before it happened It was accomplished without any glitches The XP opening screen finally appeared com plete with the Start Menu button No I did not attempt to explore the new system and files that were installed It was way past lunchtime and I had some other things to do on Sunday afternoon including writing this segment of the review while it is fresh in my mind Enough for now Getting Familiar With XP March 18 I turned the computer on and it booted up quickly I had to type my adminis trator password to continue This is a nui sance when there is only one user There is probably a way to void the prompt I clicked the Start button This produced a dual pane window The
41. nds the risk of failure due to a misunder standing is too great in the big purchases I think the small purchases are just as impor tant and you need to understand what you are getting for your money That means you have to be sure you and the other party agree on the meaning of the words It is beginning to look like the common answer for consumer software and services in our throw away society is that we can t count on warranties for smaller acquisitions or on non disclosure promises from websites Why Because the meanings of words such as lifetime and never may have unusual meanings You may still be confused after reading the fine print That is a terrible answer but I think it is a piece in a bigger puzzle Vendors want to receive constant streams of cash The shorter the product life cycle the better the cash flow will be for the vendor On the other hand most consumers feel that if they pay for it once the vendor should continue supporting the product indefinitely The vendor is faced with a dilemma Funds ex pended to support prior versions eat into both product development budgets as well as profits Recent articles in Infoworld by Ed Foster The Gripe Line have focused on vendor s interpretations of when products have reached the end of their support life His articles are well worth reading to get a better understanding of real world examples of when a vendor feels it is not obligated to continu
42. nternal con troller card If you re upgrading a hard disk and think you may want a CD ROM player also called a reader in the near future consider the SCSI adapter You can daisy chain the hard disk CD ROM player a tape backup and up to four peripherals Adaptec s fast SCSI adapter the one Pm using even lets you connect up to two floppy drives a valuable addition If you choose to upgrade with SCSI make sure you check with the hard disk manufacturer to see which controller cards are compatible I tried the Adaptec with a Conner SCSI drive and had no problems If you run into trou ble get in touch with CORELSCSI a Cana dian company that supplies special software for a wide array of SCSI devices While SCSI offers faster access and more flexibility it isn t for everyone On uncom plicated home machines upgrading to SCSI should present no problem and you can likely do it yourself But in business settings especially if you re on a network you may need to hire a technician for help So what will it be upgrade or go to the dentist Pll let you make your own decision I ve already made mine The RCSi Monitor May 2002 23 Steve Bass is a Contributing Editor with PC World and runs the Pasadena IBM Users Group He s also a founding member of APCUG Check PCW s current edition at www pcworld com resource toc index asp and sign up for the Steve Bass online newsletter at www pcworld com bass_letter Revie
43. o accurately capture the terms of a contract and convert those ideas into words on paper That is never easy It is even harder with technology contracts because words have not only normal meanings but legal meanings and technology meanings as well I ve learned that I have to ask a lot of questions in negotiating technology con tracts At first you deal with the sales team They use words to make a sale At the same 10 The RCSi Monitor May 2002 Computer ENAISSANCE has a weekly listener call in computer talk show featuring news product reviews helpful tips and special guests It s broad cast live on Monday evenings from 6 30 to 7 30 with a taped replay on Saturday mornings from 8 to 9 Its simulcast live on the web at www wysl1040 com time you may be dealing with the vendor s engineers and lawyers The task is to get the engineers to back up what the sales team said about the product with hard specifications and then to get those promises past the vendor s lawyers Can you tell that I represent the buyer most of the time If I am successful then my clients know what to expect and the vendor knows what to de liver Whether it is a purchase of hardware software or services the task is the same Everyone has to have the same basic under standing of the deal What surprises me sometimes is that it is easier to accomplish with multi million dollar systems than with small purchases Of course everyone under sta
44. on in October Meanwhile users of the P to P services might concentrate on trading files while they still can Watch Out Viruses Will Only Worsen I know I know It seems like I write about virii every month but face facts They are out there and they can cause damage I just finished repairing a machine that somehow had many Windows system files deleted along with the whole Program Files folder She was running McAfees Virus Scan but it had not been updated since the ma chine was purchased and put into service in 1999 I was told that she only connected to the internet through Compuserve but still if you open an attachment sent through any service it can bite you But if misery loves company us victims can join the following army Survey finds PCs infected at a rate of more than 10 each month Corporations were hit with a monthly average of 113 virus infections for every 1000 PCs they owned in 2001 according to the seventh annual survey of virus preva lence in the enterprise conducted by ICSA Labs a division of security services firm TruSecure Every year it seems like the percentage of coverage of antivirus tools gets better and every year it seems like the virus problem gets worse says Larry Bridwell content security programs man ager at the ICSA Labs discussing the re sults of the survey The survey took place over the course of 20 months from January 2000 to August 2001 It surveyed 300 compa nies th
45. ongly suggest If you like it 99 95 buys the un lock code Support is available via e mail only Charles W Evans is a HAL PC member and the Reviews Editor who can be contacted at cevans hal pc org All reviews from the April 2002 issue of the HAL PC Journal Media Notes by Bill Petitt SVCG Windows XP Update Scheduled icrosoft expects to ship first service Mee in second half of year pending legal action The first major pack of fixes and updates for Microsoft Windows XP is scheduled for release during the second half of this year a Microsoft product manager said Thursday The release known as a service pack is often considered the turning point for when major corporate customers will begin widely adopting a new operating system This first service pack for Windows XP will include all of the security patches and software updates for tuning the operating system said Charmaine Gravning product manager for Microsofts Windows division While this service pack will include a comprehensive collection of security patches and updates when it is released Microsoft said it will continue issuing patches for security holes in the meantime as they come up Microsoft has already grappled with one major Win dows XP bug It was discovered that an attacker could take control of a user s PC by way of the universal Plug and Play service a technology used to identify peripheral devices such as digital cameras when they are plugged into a
46. or life and support The program comes from New Zealand and with this program the author Nick Bolton is has answered may a prayer I can hardly express the joy this program has brought me I wear a huge grin as I gleefully check delete bounce and blacklist on the slews of offers for second mortgages Viagra disgusting sites and other unasked for garbage This program is wonderful I think you will find you have an urgent desire to send him 20 I have never spent 20 with more pleasure Find it at http www mailwasher net Some Fun Web Surfing by Dick Kling Sun City Summerlin Computer Club alk the Wall Less magnificent than the real thing but a heck of a lot more accessible Walk the Wall lets those who have longed to stroll on the Great Wall of China do so from their desktops You can zoom in or out and pan right or left through images from a section of the wall between Jinshanling and Sima ai Pause for breath at the Tibetan photo gallery to experience reincarnation through the consciousness of a cow at Holy Cow Mania http www walkthewall com Comedian Videos Choose from comedians as varied as Chris Rock and Rosie O Donnell or select a particular routine or joke then click on the screen to see the schtick per formed before an audience The newest comedians like Carrot Top are here but so 24 The RCSi Monitor May 2002 are older clowns like Pat Paulsen and Weird Al And if you have a need to laugh about
47. ou Need Professional Strength OCR by Fox Martin Houston Area League of PC Users Inc et s get the important things out of the way Should I get OmniPage Pro 11 As an upgrade at 149 Omni Page Pro 11 is terrific with great features As a new purchase at 499 retail it is very expensive and might not be your first choice for an OCR optical character recogni tion program Second if I have an OCR program that came free with my scanner why do I need to buy another program Most scanners come with mini versions of retail OCR programs and do not do a very good job If you are happy using the program that came free Making Paper Dghal Quickhy Eaxiy an omniPage with your scanner keep using it and don t upgrade If it ain t broke don t fix it If however you want a program that has much better accuracy and recognition a program that can convert PDF files to and from other documents and one that is easy to use then OmniPage Pro 11 should be your choice OmniPage Pro 11 is an improved OCR program It scans documents extracts words and converts them into searchable text allowing you to scan edit save print and reuse data as needed Its technology in cludes OCR for converting paper documents into digital documents and paper manage ment solutions for indexing and sharing documents It has photo editing tools for retouching and manipulating color images and forms technolo
48. panies say The new components can deliver power levels of 100 milliwatts in pulses making them around 40 percent more powerful than the 70 milliwatt types used for 2X drives The means data will be able to written to the disk at a rate of 44 mbps speeding up the time taken to write an entire 4 7 GB disk to around 14 minutes Double speed drives take twice as long and single speed drives take almost an hour to carry out the same task Longer Lives Power was not the only barrier to be overcome before the companies could begin selling the devices commercially says Tetsuya Yagi manager of Mitsubishi Elec trics high power optical device group Higher power laser diodes often have very short lives and both companies had to work on extending their life so that they would not burn out after a few hours days or weeks of use he says The laser diode pro The RCSi Monitor May 2002 19 duced by Yagi s group has a life of around 4 000 hours he says Both companies are about to begin ship ping samples of the higher power laser diodes Sharp for 22 and Mitsubishi Elec tric for 37 and they expect to begin com mercial production in May or June With each company preparing to produce 100 000 diodes per month demand is expected to take off fast for the components as corporate and consumer users alike choose the faster drives that they will enable Sales Increase Sales of recordable and rewritable DVD drives are increasing fast
49. priety and secu rity is the software safe from hackers you have to wonder How are we supposed to trust Brilliant when they ve already snuck their software onto millions of machines Brilliant is not the only company trying to pull some version of this trick on users Kontiki and Red Swoosh are also in the business of using other people s machines and bandwidth to distribute their own and their clients content I don t know enough about these two companies to toss them into the same pile with Brilliant But I suspect they are very close Maybe someday a company like Brilliant will be honest with us explaining its inten tions up front and giving users a chance to opt in and receive fair compensation in return if they do When that happens maybe we will decide to say yes to the offer I can t imagine why we would given the privacy and other risks involved but at least we should be given the chance to consider the offer But since Brilliant has already missed the opportunity to be candid about its plans and the software it s installed on millions of users machines I urge everyone to dump Kazaa and in the process send Brilliant packing In doing so you ll be protecting your computer the Internet and sending a message to slimeball companies about what is and isn t acceptable behavior W riting Inside and Out by Steve Bass Pasadena IBM Users Group Ex a comfy spot on both sides of th
50. put the Prompt together I choose from countless articles The RCSi Monitor May 2002 9 worrying about content but not size For instance you ll find The Plain Truth about Casual Software Piracy on page six It s long but compelling reading and something you d never see in a commercial magazine Many of you don t enjoy writing yet need to do it for work So I thought Pd supply a few tips things that will help make you sound better in letters e mail and reports BTW you re right this is the takeaway gt Talk into print When I write I try to take what I imagine Id say to you and put it into words I do it by quickly typing what I think trying not to filter any thing Filtering or editing comes later when I look over what I wrote gt Write like you talk You ve probably noticed that I use lots of contractions for instance you ll we ve lets It s pretty casual and the way I speak My guess is many of you do the same I can visualize Joe Bohannon saying well sure but m not going to do that And that s the point that s exactly how he sounds and it d sound ideal in print Get the idea gt Write short sentences I think readers have an easier time digesting short chunks of info They ll also be more in clined to read and understand what you say If you can t do it write longer sentences and later when you review your work divide the long sentences into
51. re is a DOS command to scroll a page at a time To leave the DOS command level type exit lt lt I refer to the command level as DOS Whether it is true DOS or not remains to be seen When using XP a window pops up daily reminding the user to activate the XP installation This is different from registra tion Activation is designed to stop software The RCSi Monitor May 2002 5 piracy I will report the procedure later when I do it March 27 Yes a week passed without any new revelations about XP or the the new computer Today I installed some additional memory When I booted the system I heard a series of beeps It did not boot I checked inside and found the Ram modules were not completely seated in the DIMM slots I finally managed to seat the modules and engage the clamps that hold them in place This should not be so difficult to do The system booted OK this time Next I installed an Intel 56K internal PCI modem When I booted Windows XP found the new modem and prompted for the CD disc The disc is labeled for W95 through Win XP I installed the disk The install procedure continued A window popped up warning against continuing with the instal lation because the XP driver has not been digitally signed by Microsoft MS The warning further stated that if I continued the computer could be damaged immediately or in the future so I quit I will now attempt to go online with my other computer and fin
52. re reasonably priced Since it is not held at a convention type hotel attendees don t have to stay in an expensive hotel room FACUG is one of my favorite events during the year As usual there are still some changes I would like to see Still Good The items through Gene amp Linda Barlow are always good To order go to http www ugr com order Use the code UGDEALSO2 The Alpha 5 software deal is still good To order call 1 800 451 1018 and mention code 77 Tell them you belong to a user group Visit http www alphasoftware com for a better description of the product When I commented on how I used to like the Prodigy message boards Richard Rabin CEO of Alpha Software told me that they now have a message board on the Web site that is very active and where their custom ers are incredibly helpful to each other In fact he said there are about 50 000 posts on the board which has a super fast search built in Richard asked if I would like an updated version and I jumped at the chance since I still have the DOS version and can t get it to run on my latest computer I installed my new Alpha 5 and it easily opened my old DOS dbf files so I could work with them Then when I closed the files they were converted to the new format I don t know why they didn t keep the dbf format Gobe Is Back I received a message from Dave Johnson of gobeProductive the other day letting me know of another offer for this ve
53. reat to business Interest in file sharing services has only increased since the demise of the free for all version of Napster The site that encouraged swapping of digital music is scheduled to reemerge as a sub scription site Scores of copyright protected songs movies and other works are being traded daily for free The Recording Industry Association of America RIAA recently blamed online piracy for last year s marked decline in record sales W ho s in Charge The file swapping services may have a difficult time defending themselves against these complaints especially considering that one of their major defenses was just seri ously weakened Until last week all three services claimed users control the P to P network Even if the services were shut down the users could still trade their works Unlike Napster which had a central data base these new file swappers don t have to connect to central servers to trade files However doubt was cast on that assertion when over a million Morpheus users were shut out of the service in March The com pany that runs Morpheus StreamCast Networks first pinned the shutdown on a software glitch and then a denial of service attack but whichever was the case the point had already been made The network could be closed down The plaintiffs will certainly make this argument when the case goes to trial in the U S District Court for the Central District of California Western Divi si
54. riends See if you don t agree Fast forward to 1943 with the world at war the U S Navy needs to compute artil lery trajectory tables At that point in time a computer was typically a young woman with a Monroe calculator The state of the art for automated computing was a room sized machine using mechanical relays to perform arithmetic operations Two men at the Moore School of Engineering proposed an all electronic calculating machine The ENIAC was completed too late for the war effort but proved the concept and moved computing forward Of course ENIAC was years before a series of events made it possible for ordinary people to own their own computers It is that series of serendipity that produced the personal computer and the information revolution that is the key story of Fire In The Valley I read the first version of this book back in the late 80 s and have read many books on industry history since then and I am amazed at how complete this book really is From the development of the first microprocessor by Ted Hoff at Intel for a Japanese calculator to Ed Roberts and the Altair 8800 and the industry it spawned to Jobs and The Woz and the emergence of Apple as a Fortune 500 company Not to mention the growth of the software compa nies Bill Gates was not the only person to realize that software was the key to making personal computers useful The book covers the many failures as well IMSAI Comput
55. rrently un derway at the convention center One mem ber who had attended gave a positive report The RCSi Monitor May 2002 25 Bill Statt volunteered to lead Helps Half Hour in May Next month s program will be on E Commerce The SIGs on digital photog raphy and for new users are continuing Ideas for new SIGs and for programs are welcome A program on designing web sites will be planned in the future Computer Renaissance provided calendars for mem bers Steve appealed for 50 50 participation to augment the treasury The Secretary re minded the gathering that we are a not for profit corporation and can receive tax de ductible contributions We broke at 7 18 pm before the program presentation and reconvened at 7 33 pm Steve announced that for July August and September Larilyn Bauer who runs the printing machine for the Monitor will be away He asked for someone willing to learn the printing process and assist in newsletter production An announcement by another member that a program for youngsters in Greece needs monitors keyboards and mice will be placed in the Monitor with details Bill Statt then gave us his presentation on Spy Ware and Security He distributed a packet about Brilliant and provided some other materials We gave Bill a round of applause for his excellent program Members may request a copy of a similar program with hypertext links to web sites by sending an e mail request to Bill at bstatt1 roch
56. rvice pack will contain technologies that enable the operating system to support Microsofts new portable display code named Mira That technology will support a portable flat panel display Microsoft is developing so that users can carry around the display and access their computer files or the Internet using an 802 11 wireless connection It was unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in January The service pack also adds support for Microsoft s new graphical interface code named Freestyle which enables a Windows PC to be used as a controller for launching multimedia applica tions Additionally a new update in the Service Pack will tune Windows XP so it can run on new PC devices such as the com pany s prototype Tablet PC Speedier DVD Drives Coming Soon Technology that allows disks to be writ ten twice as fast could be available in a drive near you as early as May The next speed jump for recordable and rewritable DVD drives is expected to come as early as May of this year now that two Japanese companies have completed devel opment of components crucial for faster drives As write speeds in optical drives are pushed higher laser diodes the components that produce the light beam which is used to read and write data to and from the disk need to be more powerful Both Sharp and Mitsu bishi Electric have developed such higher power laser diodes paving the way for 4X DVD R RW RAM and RW drives the com
57. ry interest ing product gobeProductive is currently at version 3 03 but they have some 3 0 CDs left over He said this seems like a good time to make a special offer to sell these 3 0 versions to my readers exclusively for 49 95 plus S amp H Retail is 124 95 but The RCSi Monitor May 2002 13 they re still offering a 74 95 introductory price for the 3 03 They will again use a special Web page for this DealsGuy offer and they will come in a CD mailer packaging instead of a full box Users can still upgrade the 3 0 version for free to version 3 03 by downloading the upgrade installer What a deal To purchase the gobeProductive 3 0 DealsGuy special go to http www gobe com dealsguy html and place your order A Quick Message From Herb Goodman Herb offers magazine discounts to user group people only He wants to make sure that even the small user groups know about the changes in the magazine line up and the new prices Editors can contact Herb at HGOODMAN prodigy net for the latest list to publish in their newsletter Get Your Files The Easy Way Bonnie Mitchell from Casady amp Greene was kind enough to send me this one just before I closed the column The following is their description of InstaFiles View and Organize Documents Applica tions and Projects with One Click InstaFiles is the first visual Document and Project browser for your computer Everyone who runs more than one program at a time on the
58. s you an inexpensive auto mated early warning system monitoring for imminent hard drive failures and danger ously low free space on all your servers with or without RAID And DiskAlert protects stand alone desktops and laptops running Windows NT r 2K XP There s more so check their Web site at http www diskalert com purchase online store_da asp ad dael1 For a limited time you can download a DiskAlert 1 disk license for just 29 95 regular 49 95 or a DiskAlert 2 disk license for 49 95 instead of 99 95 One license is only good for a single hard drive For more questions call 1 800 829 6468 extension 6012 I m not sure I understand it all that well so do your homework on this 14 The RCSi Monitor May 2002 one and check out their Web site informa tion but it sounds good to me That s it for this month Meet me here again next month if your editor permits This column is written to make user group members aware of special offers I have found or arranged and my comments should not be interpreted to encourage or discourage the purchase of products no matter how enthused or disgruntled I might sound Bob The Cheapskate Click Bobclick deals guy com Visit my Web site at http www dealsguy com for past columns There are also interesting articles from user group newsletters on my Articles of Interest page for viewing or downloading Digital Paperwork Reviews OmniPage Pro 11 W hen Y
59. tes And this is an all new machine why put some old junk in with this nice new stuff I installed the floppy drive and CD RW The hard drive that I installed earlier was set for master and plugged into IDE 1 connector on the motherboard I set the CD RW at master and plugged it into IDE 2 Hey we are almost done Have I forgot ten anything You computer gurus are The RCSi Monitor May 2002 1 probably smiling waiting to see what I will do next Iam not quite ready to apply power Must do a little more reading and double checking on the procedure During the evening on March 6 I re ceived an email from the mail order house They have followed every order with offers for additional items They also do not miss a chance to suggest additional items when you placing an order on the phone But they are not pushy They just suggest and offer their specials This email offered a special price on a Romtec Trios IDE hard drive selector I had noticed it when online with the mail order house It allows you to have three hard drives in your computer The device is basi cally a switch box that switches both power and signal so that only one hard drive is active at any given time This allows differ ent operating systems on each of the hard drives or it can be configured for 3 different users each with their own hard drive or whatever To change hard drives you must totally shut off the computer select anoth
60. ut policy The data will be sold unless the consumer opts out of the deal The burden is on the consumer to take an additional step At first the court borrowed the principals from the prior Toysmart com case and ruled that the lists could be sold to a buyer that will operate in a similar manner must agree to the former privacy policy and that the customers must have some choice regarding the transfer of the information Further the court held that future changes in the privacy policy would only apply to data collected after the date of transfer That deal fell through and in early De cember the court approved another plan This one allows Amazon com to purchase Egghead com and the customer lists But the deal has a promising twist The new sale to Amazon essentially takes a different ap proach Both companies jointly contacted the former Egghead customers by email The notice I received included the follow ing statement PS Please note that no personally identifiable information regarding your Egghead com customer account will be disclosed to Amazon com without your consent All Egghead com customer in formation will continue to be treated in accordance with Egghead com s privacy policy Essentially they have chosen a more consumer friendly opt in policy In this case the consumer does not have to do any thing to maintain the privacy and to retain the benefits of the no sale of personal infor matio
61. w MailW asher by Sally Springett Rochester Computer Society Inc re you being driven mad by spam AS Bass sent a note the other day ecommending MailWasher Since it promises to eliminate spam I couldn t resist I tried it immediately and sent it out to a few other people We are all in love with it MailWasher checks your mail before it leaves your ISP and allows you to chose what to do with it You may choose to define it as coming from a friend If you do that s the end of it However if you can see that it s spam you can click to open it to be certain you can ask that it be deleted from your ISP and bounced What that means is that the spammer is informed that the mail cannot be delivered because your address is no longer valid It is devoutly to be hoped that this results in your removal from the spammers lists You can also choose to blacklist the sender so no mail will reach you from that source again The MailWasher home page says Mail Washer analyses each email as it arrives and warns you if it is suspected junkmail or a virus by heuristic checking and filtering The standard status categories are Nor mal Virus Possibly virus Possibly spam Probably spam Chain letter Blacklisted MAPS RBL It will check all your e mail accounts except at this time web based accounts like Hotmail and Yahoo And it s free if you pay 20 you receive a guide to getting rid of spam free upgrades f

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