February - Hendersonville Area Computing Society
Contents
1. http Ihacs org Volume 2 No 2 February 2008 Meetings are held twice a month January through November We meet at the Opportunity House on the third Monday of the month with an educational meeting at 6 30 pm followed by a featured speaker presentation at 7 30 pm Our SIG group normally meets the second Thursday of each month from 1 3 PM at the Henderson County Library GENEALOGY SIG Meeting Thursday February 14th 1 to 3 PM at the Hendersonville Library in the Kaplan Auditorium Family Tree Maker in Detail Bill Muller and Maurice Sarles will conclude their Genealogy Special Interest Group series with more information on this popular genealogy software program Monday February 48th Opportunity House Start the New Year with a great set of programs 6 30 PM Education Program with Brian Have you been wondering how to convert your favorite music into MP3 format for use in your computer on in your MP3 player Come learn from the master how to convert your favorite music into MP3 format 7 30 PM The tax man cometh so why not come and learn how to use some software to make your job easier Our own Barry MacDonald will present Tu rboTax one of the top programs for easing the task of ee the 1 of 11 HACS exe Vol 2 No 2 Web sites of the Month Check out C NET s download site for the popular software and a review of them http Awww download com Here is a great site for what is n2. Start menu The most frequently used programs can be seen when you click on the Start button On the Start menu click on All Programs to see all the other programs installed on your computer You may need to use the scroll bar to see all of them and you will probably find more programs than you have shortcuts on your desktop So once you confirm that a program shortcut points to a program listed on the Start menu you can safely delete infrequently used desktop shortcuts A third approach to reducing desktop clutter is to consolidate shortcuts If you have multiple programs that do similar tasks i e A photo catalog and picture manipulation program create a desktop folder named Photos Then drag your shortcuts into the Photos folder and you re done Vista comes with a new set of desktop pictures Access to alternative desktop pictures is similar but slightly different from what you may be used to with Windows XP Right click on a empty 3 of 11 HACS exe Vol 2 No 2 area of the desktop and click on Personalize On the Personalization menu select Desktop Background An array of available pictures will appear Scroll through the pictures select one Make a selection from How should the picture be positioned and click OK That s fine if all you want to use are the pictures that came with Vista What if you want to use something different Just follow the steps list above but when you get to the Desk
3. computers today offer a DVD drive with read write this is the ability to play and create DVD and CD disks Ask what it has and what it will do also compared to other options Notes on Apple Computers While do not have firsthand knowledge about Mac by Apple computers the reviews and information I ve seen tends to make me believe that the new Mac s are superior to many other brands of PC s would emphasize new versus computers manufactured prior to 2007 One of the indicators that this is true is the fact that while sales of other PC manufactures are falling Mac s have realized an increase in sales They are however more expensive If had the money would look seriously at a new Mac with the idea of loading Windows as a second OS operating system Mac has a feature called Boot Camp which accommodates adding other OS s Boot Camp is software included with Mac OS X 10 5 Leopard that lets you run compatible versions of Microsoft Windows on an Intel based Mac While they do not offer technical support for other OS s Mac s will run multiple OS s including VISTA as well as other PC OS You of course have to own or buy the additional OS s to be installed See http www apple com 8 of 11 HACS exe Vol 2 No 2 Notes on Linux OS Again do not have firsthand knowledge about Linux OS s However I ve been led to believe that they make a lot fewer demands on the computer From what I ve heard you proba
4. eye brake in two averse Buy ngnting want too please Program _ Version WORD ver 2002 SP 1 _ Maurice Sarles __rhaurices1931 bigfoot com 685 7263 2000 Carl Christiansen darichristiansen bellsouthnet 692 7273 Excel Ver 2002 SP 1 _ Maurice Sarles __rhaurices1931 bigfootcom 685 7263 E mail Te Front Page RayPierce repierce brinetcom 697 7732 _ Dreamweaver JerryLliedi jery liedl org 692 4855 _ Quicken Sim Bailes _j bailes mchsi com 693 6990 Photoshop ChrisRing Imaging in general __ Chris Ring eykonic yahoo com 2005 Bill Muller ____rhuller1938 yahoo com 684 6899 Maurice Sarles __rhaurices1931 bigfootcom 685 7263 Oooo Roots Ill id a POOP File aurices1931 bigfoot com 685 7263 a an Windows XP Chris Ring eee ce Windows 2000 Chris Ring er od PP cel Bel LINUX Chris Ring Building Computers Chris Ring eykonic yahoo com 685 9031 HACS News The program or series which is to follow our Genealogy SIGs has not yet been fully determined and is open for continued discussion with the membership Our President will inquire of the membership at the February Monday meeting as to what they prefer We also discussed the possibility of additional SIG groups to be held on different days and or times at the Public Library pending reservation availability and moderator availability O
5. not an easy answer The first question that comes to mind is what do you intend to do with it Many persons who are not involved with what s current do not really know just what s encompassed with their regular routines A typical answer is I don t do that much and don t need an elaborate machine 6 of 11 HACS exe Vol 2 No 2 It seems to me that as technology advances more and more uses will become commonplace requiring more oomph from the computer being bought today Therefore my recommendations focus on a machine that is good enough for now with specifications that would hopefully add enough to carry over for a little time to come Any professional who keeps up with technical publications can tell you that ratings change faster than the weather Also new machines and technology keep changing So how s a person to choose Typically in the past the common time frame was to hope for a machine that would last 5 years before being outdated Today the best equation can offer is that it s like buying a new car How much can you live with before getting something that has great new features With that being said let s look at the core components of a computer with what in my opinion would be the minimum for a Windows machine to last for a little while These choices are based on using equipment with name brand components and include web sites where applicable for further research of these products strongly recomme
6. own shortcuts folder icons and your personal desktop picture The desktop is really just a personal file folder on drive C That means that any work you do on the desktop is saved for you on Drive C and not lost when you turn the computer off Of course any documents pictures etc that are saved on your desktop can be moved or copied to other folders on your hard drive After a while some of make that most of us find our desktop becomes loaded with program icons and shortcut icons Program shortcut icons are a convenient way to get to programs that you use a lot Unfortunately when you install new programs most of them add a desktop shortcut and soon you have a desktop full of shortcuts making it hard to find a shortcut when you want it Here are a couple of solutions to this clutter The left end of the taskbar contains a Quick Launch Toolbar By default Windows Vista places one or two program icons here i e Internet Explorer You can drag a limited number of additional shortcut icons for your favorite programs to this area and save space on your desktop A feature of the Quick Launch Toolbar is that you only have to point at the program icons there and left click once to start the program This might seem a little confusing at first if you are used to double clicking on a program icon to start it but you ll probably get used to it pretty fast Program shortcuts on your desktop point to programs that are also listed in your
7. bly in most cases do not need a new computer to install and run For more information see http www linux org This article has been provided to APCUG by the author solely for publication by APCUG member groups All other uses require the permission of the author see e mail address above Ia Computer Humor The Spellchecker Song have a spelling checker It came with my PC It plane lee marks four my revue Miss steaks aye can knot see Eye ran this poem threw it Your sure real glad two no Its very polished in its weigh My checker tolled me sew A checker is a blessing It freeze yew lodes of thyme It helps me right awl stiles two reed And aides me when aye rime Each frays comes posed up on my screen Eye trussed too bee a joule The checker pours o er every word To cheque sum spelling rule Bee fore a veiling checkers Hour spelling mite decline And if we re laks oar have a laps We wood bee maid too wine Butt now bee cause my spelling Is checked with such grate flare There are know faults with in my cite Of nun eye am a wear Now spelling does not phase me It does knot bring a tier My pay purrs awl due glad den With wrapped words fare as hear To rite with care is quite a feet Of witch won should be proud 9 of 11 HACS exe Vol 2 No 2 And wee mussed dew the best wee can Sew flaws are knot aloud Sow ewe can sea why aye dew prays Such soft wear four pea seas And why
8. ew in the free software http www nonags com Let s Clean Start Up By Bob Elgines Editor Colorado River Computer Club AZRCC Editor www crccaz com elginesz at rraz net Does your computer boot up or run slow Maybe there are too many programs running in the back ground Let us do the following check first Hold your CTRL amp ALT buttons and press the DELETE button Click on the PERFORMANCE tab is your CPU Usage running more than 10 or is your Physical Memory being in total use Go to START then RUN type in msconfig which stands for Microsoft System Configuration In Windows VISTA you can find RUN in the ACCESSORY folder under PROGRAMS The System Configuration Utility windows will come up First go to the upper right tab labeled STARTUP here you will see the list of items that load during startup Of course some you want some you don t In the first column labeled STARTUP ITEM gives a very rough idea to what it is referenced too but the second column labeled COMMAND is much more useful Too read it better widen the column out by holding your mouse symbol over the vertical line located before the next column label A double arrow will appear then hold down left mouse button and move it to the right This information tells you where it is located and in some cases which program is using it Uncheck those in question you can put them back in later if you need too Do not uncheck you Antivirus or Spyware programs N
9. ext go to the tab on top labeled SERVICES this show all of the programs running now You do not what to uncheck those labeled Microsoft under the MANUFACTURER column so to start off lets put a check mark in the box below labeled Hide all Microsoft Services Now while you are reviewing the other programs running in the background note the forth column labeled STATUS If it says STOPPED then don t worry about it We just want to stop the strange ones that are RUNNING You can uncheck those that you are not familiar with here again you may bring them back in later After un checking all those items under tabs STARTUP amp SERVICES then click on APPLY and CLOSE The System Configuration Utility will now ask you to RESTART or Boot your computer 2 of 11 HACS exe Vol 2 No 2 After restarting a window will come up stating System Configuration Utility has been changed be sure to put a check mark in the bottom left labeled Don t show this message or launch before clicking OK This article has been provided to APCUG by the author solely for publication by APCUG member groups All other uses require the permission of the author see e mail address above E a a a a a a a Moving on to Vista Part 3 ees by Neil Stahfest Software Librarian Tacoma Area PC User Group WA 1 ncstahfest at msn com www tapcug org Your PC s desktop is the largest most user defined area on your PC s screen It contains all your
10. film for beautiful fine grained slides If you were happy with black and white prints there was very fine grained Panatomic X ISO 32 that could produce great enlargements There was a film for everything But what if you had the Panatomic X in your camera and six frames hadn t been used yet and you wanted to shoot a night baseball game under floodlights You could remove the unfinished film from the camera or you could bang away at the kids in order to finish the roll Cheez What a waste Plus you had to obtain a roll of the faster film too But with your digital camera you have all of those films in the camera at the same time color or B amp W with a choice of ISO values to be selected as you need them regardless of the number of shots you ve already made If only they had done this years ago This article has been provided to APCUG by the author solely for publication by APCUG member groups All other uses require the permission of the author see e mail address above EEE What s a Good Computer to Buy Some Tips by Doug Fairchild Director Exton PC Council PA www extonpccouncil org dbfair at verizon net As a person who is active with a computer user s group and who has had formal training in Windows 2000 and Windows XP I m often asked what computer should get This is an age old question in terms of computer technology time Almost any professional that provides unbiased advise will tell you that it is
11. logies in the future Sony s 2500 11 inch Organic light Emitting Diode OLED was small but clearly better than anything else on the market today and it was only as thick as 3 credit cards Mitsubishi s laser television was also a dramatic improvement Samsung and Sharp announced backlit LCD televisions While these technologies may take awhile to go mainstream other manufacturer s announced Internet enabled televisions that are sure to appear quite quickly For instance the Sharp Aquos Net television displays small icons called widgets that showed news weather and traffic data from the Internet right on the television screen Also next year when digital television goes mainstream you will see digital TV broadcasting in a variety of devices including cell phones cars buses and anything else they can possible think of One car at the show already had TV s in every door and drop down television screens for every passenger While we may not all be interested in watching television all the time we will find some of these new technologies making our lives just a little more pleasurable in the future This article has been provided to APCUG by the author solely for publication by APCUG member groups All other uses require the permission of the author see e mail address above EEE So You Have a New Digital Camera By Robert M Mayo Cajun Clickers Computer Club LA www clickers org bobmayo1 at cox net If you were lucky enough to get a
12. ml for a PC World review A couple of popular hard drive manufacturers http seagate com note that Maxtor has been acquired by Seagate Technology http westerndigital com POWER SUPPLY Varies with the devices built into the computer If you believe that you may be adding internal devices consider a computer with a power supply that has more capacity than needed for preconfigured devices This can be a little complicated but should be an answerable question to the person selling the computer get someone who has technical awareness For an explanation of the power supply see http computer howstuffworks com power supply htm There is also an excellent video at this site to gain a basic understanding of the core components MOTHERBOARD Normally this will be controlled by the computer model you select unless you are purchasing with the option to customize Being aware and specifying the other core components listed the motherboard should be suitable and not normally something you choose independently If you are buying a desktop you may want to inquire about available PCI slots or other expansion capabilities In the past this has afforded the ability to economically install hardware upgrades which may keep your machine current for a longer period of time Laptops do not as a rule offer the same capability to expand and upgrade other than memory and optical drives OPTICAL DRIVE AND OTHER PERIPHIALS There are many choices and most
13. nd that if you are considering an alternate to name brands you research that brand Some comments about Apple computers follow after the discussion on recommendations for Windows machines OPERATING SYSTEM Windows XP any version Windows VISTA Home Premium or better Since the release of VISTA many computers are still being offered with Windows XP VISTA Home basic is considered by most professional reviewers as less desirable than any version of Windows XP While there has been a lot of VISTA bashing some of the derogatory statements are not true For clarification and a better understanding of problems related to VISTA see http blogs zdnet com Ou p 785 It is definitely true that some peripherals like various printers and some other devices do not work with VISTA However it needs to be said that at some point progress needs to preclude older technology For example how many people can work on their automobiles like they used to It takes much more sophisticated and expensive equipment To see what devices will be affected by VISTA download and run upgrade advisor Even though you are not upgrading but considering a new computer this will let you Know what devices will be affected by VISTA http www microsoft com windows products windowsvista buyorupgrade upgradeadvisor mspx CPU PROCESSOR Intel Core 2 Duo or AMD equivalent http www intel com http Awww amd com us en RAM base memory Window XP 1GB
14. ne possibility is an undedicated SIG meeting that may vacillate among several subjects computer maintenance Smart Computing Mag recommendations for that month genealogy etc The object however of having a Special Interest Group is to permit more detail in a given area so we do not want to overlay the Monday Program meetings 10 of 11 HACS exe Vol 2 No 2 We are still looking for volunteers to offer help on specific software applications when we published the A Prompt there were people listed for a variety of programs and one could contact them via phone and or e mail We would like to have such a list on the member s only part of the web site and published it in the newsletter This is a way to share our collective knowledge Send the information of what software you would be willing to be a resource person Send it to jerry liedl org Member Profiles NEXT Still looking for someone to fill this void HACS Officers Executive Committee President Joy Capps joycapps tds net Vice president Lamar Miller lamarm aol com Past president Jerry Lied jerry liedl org Secretary Maurice Sarles maurices1931 bigfoot com Treasurer Jim Bailes jimbailes highstream net Public Relations Fred Haddad f haddad mchsi com Program Committee VP is chair Membership Interim chair is the Treasurer Door Prizes Bill Muller muller1938 yahoo com THE SS SS END 11 of 11 HACS exe Vol 2 No 2
15. new camera for Christmas congratulations However along with this jewel I m sure you also got a complicated user s manual hate em But cheer up all the mystery will soon go out of that book 5 of 11 HACS exe Vol 2 No 2 When bought my first digital camera felt lost had never worked from menus before and they seemed so overly complicated However after a couple of dozen shots of my refrigerator washing machine and the cats began to feel comfortable with my new toy And now it seems intuitive can make changes in the settings without mental effort In fact don t know how ever got along without the wonderful features this camera has So the point is play with it check out all of the menu options in the privacy of your home so you won t have technical problems later Following directions in the manual you re not going to hurt it KR Between photo sessions it s best not to leave your rechargeable batteries on the charger Many chargers provide a trickle that s excessive over a period of time and this will degrade the cells k In what we laughingly call the good ol days we had a choice of films to use in our cameras That was wonderful There were so many films for color pictures available as well as the still popular black and white shots And within those two groups there were fast ISO 400 Kodak Tri X films for B amp W news action and nighttime pictures as well as slower ISO 25 Kodachrome
16. nother well known name in photography has also released a breakthrough product Their new inkless printer is made for printing pictures from a cell phone or digital camera Not only does the printer use Bluetooth wireless technology but it uses special paper that is embedded with 100 billion colored dye crystals The colors appear when the printer applies heat pulses to the paper This ink less technology is called Zink for zero ink The 2 inch by 3 inch prints cost about 30 cents each and the printer sells for 150 which is not bad for cutting edge technology Although computers are not the focus of the CES show there were many computer manufacturers showing their wares Lenovo the Chinese company who bought IBM s PC division three years ago has previously focused on their ThinkPad business laptops but this year they introduced a line of consumer laptops called IdeaPads These include facial recognition technology Lenovo Sony and others will follow Dell s lead with the introduction of laptops in a variety of bright colors Bright colors were the norm at the show There were MP3 players cell phone and gadget covers in every color imaginable There were red and blue ladybug shaped iPod speakers and speakers that pulsated to the beat in vibrating changing colors There was even pink CAT 5 networking cable whose purchase supports the National Breast Cancer Foundation Oh and you can expect to be even more confused by television display techno
17. or more consider 2GB Vista 2GB or more The type and specifics will be controlled by the computer model you select One consideration is to allow for expansion at a later date Check to see if there are open slots to add additional memory It can be worthwhile and can save in the long run to pay a little more upfront by having the memory configured to allow for this upgrade While Windows Vista states 1GB as minimum you probably will want 2GB VRAM Video Ram Memory on your graphics card 256MB or more 7 of 11 HACS exe Vol 2 No 2 This is frequently ignored by inexperienced shoppers but can make a world of difference on the performance of a PC For a detailed explanation see http searchstorage techtarget com sDefinition 0 sid5_gci213325 00 html A few popular graphic card manufacturers http ati amd com products index html http ony com http nvidia com HARD DRIVE 100GB or more Most new hard drives use a newer type of interface referred to as SATA Serial ATA Look for this specification unless you have an older hard drive you wish to use in your new computer which is more likely a PATA Parallel ATA One of the newest technologies is a FLASH Hard Drive Currently this is primarily for notebooks laptops It has some definite advantages but also some drawbacks It s expensive and has limited capacity It may be the upcoming future of Hard Drives See http www pcworld com article id 126833 article ht
18. top Background instead of selecting one of the available pictures next to where it says Picture Location click once on Windows wallpapers You ll see a list of other areas that contain pictures and colors Want to use a photograph that you saved to your computer instead Click the browse button On the left side of the Browse screen click on Pictures From the Picture folders on the right side of the Browse screen make your selection use the How should the picture be positioned if needed and press the Open button to finish This article has been provided to APCUG by the author solely for publication by APCUG member groups All other uses require the permission of the author see e mail address above EEE New Gadgets for 2008 By Sandy Berger CompuKISS com www compukiss com sberger at compukiss com Every year my husband and attend the Consumer Electronic CES in Las Vegas to see the latest and greatest high tech gadgets This year didn t disappoint We found everything from a Leggett amp Platt s 20 000 Starry Night bed with an HDTV projector pop up speakers snoring sensors iPod dock automatic lighting system and breathing pattern monitor to a General Motors Chevy Tahoe prototype car that drove itself While don t expect this GM prototype to make it to market anytime soon some of the technology that it is built in will evolve and is sure to find its way into our future automobiles We also fo
19. und a few more down to earth gadgets and gizmos In fact there were several devices that you may want to check out for your own gaggle of high tech products For instance if you hate cleaning the gutters the iRobot Looj has you covered This robotic gutter cleaner cleans a 60 foot section of gutter in just 10 minutes Yes you must use a ladder to place it in position but you don t have to move the ladder multiple times as you do in regular gutter cleaning The demos looked marvelous iRobot also have robotic vacuum cleaners and floor scrubbers Although we have been hearing about wireless technologies for what seems to be ions this year some of that wireless technology became mainstream Wireless speakers which up to now were feeble and erratic have finally found their voice The Griffin Evolve is a great example It is a compact speaker system for an iPod It has two wireless speaker cubes that can be placed in any room in the house It sounds great and is also easy to use At about 300 this is a great solution to distribute music from your iPod throughout the house While prices of technology gadgets continue to drop it seems that ink for that inexpensive ink jet printer often costs more than the printer itself Well thanks to Kodak this trend may be coming to an end The new Kodak printers are said to use 50 less ink and ink cartridges are reasonably priced at 15 for color and 10 for black 4 of 11 HACS exe Vol 2 No 2 Polaroid a
Download Pdf Manuals
Related Search