the All-Entangling Internet All-Entangling Internet All
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1. INTERNET Next MEETING ALL ENTANGLING OU AL IDOS JOJNAWOD Day AINqUOG President s File Happy New Year f your Holidays were anything like ours then you ate too much gave too much and probably got too many goodies This year we didn t travel as we had in the past which allowed for much desired and appreciated down time As long as everything was en joyable then that s all that really mat ters To kick off the year I ll be attending the 2008 APCUG Annual Convention being held January 3 through January 6 in Las Vegas DACS is a member of the Asso ciation of Personal Computer User Groups Being able to rub elbows with members of other Computer User Groups from around the world should be quite interesting and educational DACS was also entered in the Newsletter and Website competitions by a couple of our members The 2008 Consumer Electronics Show begins the day after the APCUG convention ends so I m revved up to attend that too Since PI already be in Vegas I Il get to see both shows Unfortunately my stay will be cut too short to be there the full week That s IN THIS ISSUE PRESIDENT S FILE 2 DIRECTORS NOTES 3 HELP LNE 3 PREVIEW WEB 2 0 4 REVIEW JOHN PATRICK 4 REINVENTING DACS 5 Tweak Your PC 6 SIG News amp NOTES 8 CALENDAR 9 SIGNIFICANT BITS 10 Bucky MILAM CARTOON 10 CIRCUIT RIDER 11 ONE LAPTOP PER CHILD 12 REMEMBERING JAMIE 13 SAITEK OPTICAL PHOTO2. four directional keys plus Enter e Touchpad for mouse control and hand writing input e Built in color camera to the right of the display VGA resolution 640x480 e Built in stereo speakers e Built in microphone e Audio based on the AC97 codec with jacks for external stereo speakers and microphones Line out and Mic in e 3 external USB 2 0 ports John Lansdale CDP MCP Peripherals What s News Remembering J amie EVERYONE WHO came to one of the many DACS meetings at which Jamie spoke is likely to remember him the quick gait booming voice endless energy and the complete grasp of the subject Saitek Optical Photo Mouse Make Your Personal Computer More Personal By Jan Fagerholm Mouse Maven Photo Mouse is a desktop optical USB mouse that you can insert your own photos into The photo area is illuminated The mouse features 3 buttons and a scroll wheel What s in the Box Mouse User Manual with photo cutting template The Review A sk BULLET POINTS The Saitek mouse review Hey don t laugh it s a perfectly good mouse that as it hap pens you can cus tomize to make it a personalized desk top accessory The photo part is the novelty but first let s see the mouse Saitek makes a full line of PC accesso ries including a wide selection of point ing devices with different talents The Saitek Photo Mouse is a perfectly good medium sized USB optical mouse t
3. heard Jim Scheef s going to talk FFF Yeah and as usual he s got some thing cool to show us It s a Web 2 0 ap plication called ZohoWriter and some thing about the storage aspect He always teaches us something we can use WW I m bringing my notepad Got a feeling there s going to be some links to remember FFF Me too And you know I think I m going to start some research myself come up with a few good links of my own I hear they re going to ask for some ideas from the floor WW Hey thanks Francine I m go ing to start making a list Wondering William and Fact Find ing Francine will be coming to the DACS January General Meeting to learn more about Web 2 0 come join them Preview Continued on page 5 http www dacs org a Reinventing DACS Let s Shake Things Up a Bit By Mike Kaltschnee VEBEEN INVOLVED with DACS for about 20 years now and it really hasn t changed much I think it s time that we reinvent the organization It s disheartening to see the membership dwindle to less than 300 when we had close to 1 000 a few years ago more than 500 people at tended the Windows 95 launch DACS has a lot to offer the community and when almost every household has a computer they must need help advice and amp information It might be time to rethink the structure of the general meeting We get the majority of people to at tend only one night per month and in
4. technology writers and cell phone reviewers will understand that the quality of the call is a very important at tribute in a cell phone not the megapixels in the camera In the there is no free lunch de partment free citywide Wi Fi is fad ing fast from the news and future real ity First it was never free and then someone figured out that citywide means big Hotspot is more like it When it gets warm again try sitting with your DACS laptop outside the Danbury Public Li brary Will the government mandated Real ID RFID The sort of aborted New York driver s license plan will use RFID The only part aborted was the plan to allow undocumented immigrants to have a docu ment Will the libertarians in New Hamp shire be willing to carry RFIDs in their wal lets Time will tell As NY Gov Elliot Spitzer will tell you there are more issues to this that meet the iris scan of your eye New acronym PEBKAC problem ex ists between keyboard and chair Most of my objections to desktop Linux have been eliminated Soon it will be as easy to use as Windows The major applications are already available All that s needed is someone to explain this to the masses Blogging for DACS The content in DACS doc is not as eas ily available on the DACS web site as I would like to see it Right now if you want to read an article from a past issue of DACS doc it can be hard to find If you know exactly what issue
5. Sire ramp light at North Street Turn right on Hayestown V Center Avenue Turn right on Tamarack Avenue Follow Tamarack Avenue uphill to traffic light Turn left at this light onto Hospital Avenue Follow Hospital sh Molor Vehicle Dep Avenue to appropriate visitor parking lot on right Haynstown Ave Traveling East on I 84 Take Exit 5 After stop sign go straight ahead to intersection of Main Street and North Street Go straight through onto North Street s DP oe by Turn right off North Street to Maple Avenue Go on Maple Avenue to Osborne Street Turn left on Osborne Street Turn left onto Hospital Avenue Follow Hospital Avenue to appropriate visitor Tamarack Ave parking lot on right Enterprise Software Development DP er amp Company L L C Certitied Public Accountants WOW Mevers lt c pa com also Access Excel and Delphi Desmond Nolan Consulant Lyn R Meyers C P A Advanced Business Continunity Systems Inc so 203 984 0787 4 Main Street DesNolan OptOnline Net Danbury Connecticut 06810 Tel 203 797 0405 E Mail meyers cpa unetnet ITech Consulting Partners LLC i kenneth John Barry PRESIDENT Digital imaging fine ari priming 30 Church Hill Road Phone 203 270 0051 Pholoerapiy Crafite Hius torns Suite 7 Ext 301 Newtown CT 06470 Fax 20G2 70401 AM Ledgewed Drive johni itechcp com www iteachop com 20s T 7 aati P rrrk lek Cometic O grofico ie Telemark Systems
6. contributor to dacs doc FREE CLASSIFIEDS DACS members may publish noncommercial computer re lated classified ads in dacs doc at no charge Ads may be sent by e mail to Charlie Bovaird at aam mags net or hard copy may be submitted at our monthly general meeting You should have waited until after Christmas to give them the computer games DACS http www dacs org Circuit Writer Version 5 5 by Jim Scheef he name of my column changes l slightly this month The reason for the change will become ap parent at the end A Taste of Armageddon In Star Trek episode 23 two planets wage war by computer Each planet plans their attacks and countermea sures in a computer a large box with blinking lights of course The comput ers then determine an outcome using what we now call a simulation When the results of an attack are determined the casualties anyone in a region destroyed in the simulation volun tarily go to acenter of some sort where they are executed Since we have yet to make any known interstellar enemies for now we need only worry about cyber warfare with other countries here on Earth Do you think this is rather far fetched I have a hard time imagining that people would voluntarily agree to be executed and so did Captain Kirk Gen James Cartwright of the U S Stra tegic Command is quoted in an eWeek article http tinyurl com yqzfk5 that China is already
7. make a back up copy of clock You can eliminate the clock by right clicking on any blank section of the Task bar and then clicking on Properties On the Taskbar tab click on the checkmark next to Show the clock and finally click OK You can Recover tha rikam hand dick comb red coal fims af are Acronk Secure g Ee PI Grial Acroms Startup Recomm Manager 5 o ia 10 16 2007 Manage Tasks E Validate Backup Archive m ache d Create Bootable Raso ees Manas tases echeciied on pour COST isda A Show bog A L rus ia operation fog DNY EC CENA Hela 5 i Contar s bow to back up pour data or Pick a Tool Gy How to resine your data Create and Cowon ao Activate Acronis also check the hide inactive icons box to gain a bit more space When you click on Start and open My Computer you have to right click on a drive and then click Explore to get the Ex plore view of that drive If you simply double click on that drive you get the drive s contents The Explore view 1s bet ter because you can work with folders in the left pane and folder contents in the right pane To have My Computer open the con tents of a drive in the Explore view from within My Computer click on Tools and then on Folder Options Open the File Types tab and then click on NONE Folder to highlight it Now click on the Advanced button make sure Explore is highlighted and then click the Set Default button Click OK and then click Clos
8. our audience DACS has lost a major contributor with his untimely passing template that you may have to try print ing the image a few times before the sub ject appears exactly where you want it The Photo Mouse is as much a de signer item as a mouse and is pleas ingly crafted in modern silver and black with a blue LED in the scroll wheel and a white LED illuminating the photo area There are 5 teflon pads on the under side which help it move smoothly on less than perfect surfaces The cord is 4 5 ft long and reaches my floorbound tower machine easily Its ovaloid shape arches my fingers sufficiently to prevent inadvertent mouse clicks a problem with mice that are too small or too flat In other words its function matches its form so you will keep it after the nov elty wears off Just in time for the holidays the Photo Mouse makes a good stocking stuffer for the modern techno intense family Its fit and functionality takes it beyond its novelty value in the long run it s a very usable mouse Get one for yourself then be gener ous treat the other computer using mem bers of your family They may like it so much that they II put your picture inside JAN FAGERHOLM is assistant editor and VP Membership at Personal Computer Users Group www pcc org pcc4me at netscape net This article has been provided to APCUG by the author solely for publica tion by APCUG member groups All other uses requir
9. path of the document root directory and the start in folder as C progra 1 TinyWEBY The start in folder is where the logs will be stored Lastly put a shortcut to this shortcut in the startup folder for all users so no mat ter who was logged in the server would be running Another program called TinyBOX 1s a GUI wrapper for TinyWEB For the pur poses above TinyBOX seemed unneces sary and it put yet another icon in the system tray which wasn t desired A use for this setup could be to host a simple page or website a test server or to 10 January 2008 use some simple CGI to display the IP that the home server is connected to so one can VNC into the home server LIGHTWEIGHT REMOTE ACCESS TO XP HOME Windows XP Home does not have ei ther an HTTP or RDP server built in so one workaround for the RDP part is to use something like VNC A comparative table of remote desktop servers and clients can be had on Wikipedia with some search ing TightVNC is a good choice due to its simplicity no cost and being lightweight It is not secure however so other choices may be more appropriate if security is a primary concern TightVNC also works with Linux unlike some other VNC soft ware Installing TightV NC is simple since it comes with an installer It s possible to choose a password for merely viewing the remote desktop and one for full interac tion with the remote desktop Keep in mind that with VNC on Window
10. us back Yes it s an in credible bargain but I know some people don t feel safe on Main Street Danbury at 9 30 p m It s small and there is limited parking What if we had our own build ing Why not Look around Danbury and you ll find a train museum military mu seum PAL center Elks lodge and a multi million dollar Portuguese community cen ter Why not raise funds for our own build ing While we re dreaming why not com bine it with a computer museum How would we fund these bold dreams There are many corporations in the area Duracell IBM etc and we should look to see how the Portuguese funded such an amazing facility Imagine the things we could do if we had our own building We could build a computer lab that was open to the public host training classes special events SIG meetings and much more Geeks need a place to social ize just like the Masons Elks Lions and the Rotary I hope that this article doesn t up set anyone especially the people that have put years into building DACS into the great organization that itis now My hope is to spark a discussion that will help grow DACS into something new and wonderful Let s dream big and make DACS into an amazing organization Mike is a local entrepreneur who loves to hang out with geeks and newbies and he blogs at hackingnetflix com DACS Preview CONTINUED FROM PAGE 4 DACS meetings are held at the Danbury Hospital auditoriu
11. we will also look at other technologies and tools Meets 4th Tuesday 7 p m at the DACS Resource Center Contact Rob Limbaugh relimbaugh dacs org 203 648 9176 Next Meeting January 22 Web Design Applications for designing and creating Web sites Contact Anna Collens acollens dacs org Meets 3rd Tuesday 7 9 p m at the DACS Resource Center Next Meeting February 19 Windows This SIG will discuss ways to get the most out of your system and applications how to do new things ans other options in terms of hardware and softwareto help male life easier All skill levels are welcomed and encouraged to at tend Contact Rob Limbough relimbaugh dacs org 203 648 9176 Next Meeting January 17 ASP Net and C VB Net Our lively session launched with a good collection of random questions on code for Jscript in code for Web pages For inline code a block of Jscript can be identified in HTML with a script tag A block of Jscript code that is outside the stream of HTML can be brought in with a load source command much like an image file is added With a shift of topic to workings of Visual Studio for coding C we identified the elements of this Integrated Development Environment IDE such as Designer Toolbar Properties and Solution Explorer Chuck emphasized that the 2005 version is much better than prior versions and the 2008 version cor 8 January 2008 DACS rects 2005 flaws for an even better performance Many details we
12. with examples Contact Chuck Fizer cfizer snet net Meets 1st Wednesday 4 6 p m at the DACS Resource Center Next Meeting January 2 Digital Imaging Digital cameras retouching and printing Contact Ken Graff at 203 775 6667 graffic bigfoot com Meets last Wednesday 7 p m at the DACS Resource Center Next Meeting April 30 Investment Strategies Discusses various investment strat egies to maximize profits and limit risk Contact Paul Gehrett 203 426 8436 pgehr4402 aol com Meets 3rd Thursday 7 30 p m Edmond Town Hall Newtown Next Meeting January17 Jobs Networking and jobs search Contact Charles Bovaird 203 792 7881 aam mags net Meets by e mail Next meeting TBA Linux Provides Help in installing and maintaining the Linux operating system Also of interest to Apple owners using OS X Contact John Lansdale 914 533 2002 Meets 3rd Wednesday 7 30 pm at the DACS Resource Center Next Meeting January 16 Macintosh Focuses on all aspects of the Mac operating system Contact Richard Corzo macsig dacs org Meets 1st Thursday at DACS Resource Center at 7 p m Next Meeting January 3 Open Source Web Programming Focuses on open source tools for Windows and Linux Contact John Lansdale 914 533 2002 Meets 3rd Monday 7 p m at the DACS Resource Center Next Meeting January 21 PC Maintenance Review of PC hardware and OpSys main tenance and use Contact Charles Bovaird 203 792 7881 aam mags net Meet
13. 03 426 0394 Electronics Andrew Woodruff 203 798 2000 Hardware John Gallichotte 203 426 0394 Interface Instrumentation Andrew Woodruff 203 798 2000 PhotoShop Dreamweaver Anna Collens 914 232 0149 SAS Lewis Westfall 203 790 0229 Statistics Data Analysis Charles Bovaird 203 792 7881 SQL Lewis Westfall 203 790 0229 SQL Server MySQL 5 Chuck Fizer 203 798 9996 Malware Jeff Setaro 203 748 6748 VB Net Visual Basic Chuck Fizer 203 798 9996 http www dacs org DACS Directors Notes he Board of Directors meeting was held on Monday December 10 2007 Present were Charles Bovaird Howard Berger Anna Collens Richard Corzo Sean Henderson John Lansdale Lisa Leifels Patrick Libert Rob Limbaugh Christine Novell and Jeff Setaro Presi dent Rob Limbaugh presided and secre tary Lisa Leifels kept the record Min utes of the last meeting held November 12 2007 were approved Treasurer Charles Bovaird reported current cash assets of 8 628 04 consist ing of total bank and postal accounts in the amount of 8 596 14 plus postage on hand of 31 90 Subtracting a liability of prepaid dues in the amount of 4 698 00 left a net equity of 3 930 04 In January Web 2 0 will be the fea tured presentation done by Jim Scheef John Lansdale and Chris Novell In March the topic will be IT Solutions for Non Profits and Secure Computing in the Internet Age is coming up in April Network Support Solutions expressed i
14. 2008 11 Commentary One Future World Coming Real Close by John Lansdale ET READY FOR billions of new jem users and a multifold in crease in world literacy and not just the computer kind It s closer than you think The ef fect is going to be far reaching The One Laptop Per Child OLPC segment on 60 Minutes last night made me sit down and watch We d been study ing Ubuntu s Linux Terminal Server Project LTSP made easy in the Linux SIG so my in terest was primed It was about a practi cal 188 eventually worked down to 100 laptop computer most children in the world could get access to It could be used to browse the web write documents communicate and learn School atten dance had increased 50 in pilot test schools This is different from the client server LTSP we had been studying There a more powerful server allows many lesser clients to connect over ethernet network boot and run software on it They are just semi smart X windows clients a little like Citrix or Terminal server Many connections can be made Outside internet connection would be through the server New pro grams are installed once on the server not each client With the OLPC model each node stands alone but has very good wireless connectivity Wi Fi They ve got big an tennas and a special Wireless b g s chip With this a peer to peer cloud is formed Each talks to all the others If any of them is connected to
15. FFULL COLOR VERSION DISTRIBUTED ON WEB SITE WWW DACS ORG DEADLINE FOR COPY IS 15th OF THE MONTH NEWSLETTER NORMALLY ARRIVES IN MAIL BY Ist OF EACH B i E D a a a aa MONTH ALL PAYMENTS IN ADVANCE nsertion nsertion nsertion 6 Insertions 130 6 Insertions 250 6 Insertions 360 WITH COPY TO CHARLES BOVAIRD TREASURER DANBURY AREACOMPUTER SOCIETY BUSINESS CARD 4GREGORY STREET Special rate DANBURY CT 06810 4430 14 Per Insertion TEL 203 792 7881 E mailaam mags net 31 s 6 INSERTIONS AT 5 TIMES THE SINGLE INSERTION RATE 1 2 PG FULL PG lInsertion 100 1 Insertion 170 6 Insertions 500 6 Insertions 850 Order Form ADS CAN BE SUBMITTED AS CAMERA READY ART OR VIAE COMPANY MAIL AS A PDF JPG OR TIF FILE Editors will set up ads submitted ADDRESS as plain text without additional charge CONTACT PHONE FAX E MAIL SIZE 1 9 2 9V _ 2 H L_ 13V _ WHL HALF PAGE FULLPAGE BUSINESS CARD ISSUE DATE SIZE VH SINGLE 6 INSERTIONS TOTAL Comments ZEE Sketch ad in this box anbury Area Computer Society is a non Me profit corporation organized under section TT L 501 C 3 of the US Tax Code Its purpose is to promote education knowledge sharing net working and communication between users of per sonal computers DACS is an all volunteer organi zation with no employees The major source of in come 1s member dues Members can volunteer to become inst
16. Inc ps Pae a Moncey PHR CUI RGL SI A AJ5 360 355 8001 Windows NT 2000 2003 Linux Networking j G pstone Services Server Installation and Upgrades MAN RESOURCE ADVISOR Custom Software Design and Development er CANS hone CEN JimScheef jscheef telemarksys com www telemarksys com
17. MOUSE 13 Ask DACS 15 2 January 2008 OK though as I m sure P Il be ready to return home midway into the week anyhow More books First up is A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking This was a sur prisingly longer read than I had antici pated For the uninitiated this book dis cusses the relativity and quantum theo ries The first few chapters were reason ably easy to keep up with but then the book got a little tougher Mr Hawking uses very plain and simple to under stand language The complexity is within the ideas and thoughts conveyed in the book Interestingly enough the book does spend a fair amount discussing the ology which I didn t really expect Overall this was a great book but it did require extra time to reread some para graphs to ensure the point conveyed was understood Thankfully this isn t a thick book Next in my pile of reading material was Leonardo s Lost Robots by Mark Elling Rosheim DaVinci created many masterpieces with which we are all familiar throughout his life Argu ably one of the most recognized items is the Last Supper Leonardo s work on mechanical devices and anatomy led him to work with automaton de signs This book takes you through Rosheim s research and intrigue try ing to compile and recreate Leonardo s work My favorite designs in the book were the programmable cart the knight and the hydraulic computer used in the bell ri
18. Registry Win dows The next time you boot up this change will take place and give you a bit more performance from your Windows XP computer That s it so SAFE Not really but after all that it 1s prob ably time to relax and forget the PC for awhile so be careful out there while you enjoy all the fun things to do with your new toys and on the net Aloha Lou Lou Torraca is President MOAA Computer User Group HI www the tug org Af06hi gmail com This article has been provided to APCUG by the author solely for publica tion by APCUG member groups All other uses reguire the permission of the author see e mail address above http www dacs org Ask DACS December 2007 Jim Scheef Moderator Lisa Leifels Reporter ings In addition members who are not able to attend the General meeting W WELCOME OUESTIONS FROM the floor at the start of our General Meet may submit guestions to askdacs dacs org We will ask the guestion for you and post the reply in DACS ORG Please provide as much information as possible since we can t probe during the session O Tam using AOL with a DSL connection and I keep receiving the message that the host computer server is too busy to reply on almost any website A There may be a compatibility problem with your AOL browser Once you are connected to the internet try using another web browser such as Firefox or Internet Explorer Changing your browser will re
19. actively engaging in cyber reconnaissance through the prob ing of the computer networks of U S gov ernment agencies and private companies I think that we should start to consider that regret factors associated with a cyber attack could in fact be in the magnitude of a weapon of mass destruction Cartwright told the U S China Economic Review Commission referring to the psy chological effects that would be gener ated by the sense of disruption and chaos caused by a cyber attack The commis sion submitted its report to Congress in November The same article quotes James Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies that cyber attacks are more likely to strengthen the resolve of the targeted population than to cause real damage The effect is usually to solidify resistance to encourage people to continue the fight and if you haven t actually badly damaged their abilities to continue to fight all you ve done is annoy them and what many of us call cyber attacks are not weapons of mass destruction but weapons of mass annoyance Lewis said http www dacs org I think they are both right A denial of service or other attack of such a scale that it affected the use of the Internet for gov ernment or financial functions would be very serious worldwide if it lasted long enough Gen Cartwright says that such an attack would be part of an armed con flict so one must also weigh the likeli hood of
20. an armed conflict with our largest trading partner but this does point out that the Internet is vulnerable to large scale attack and both our friends and our en emies know this Last month I mentioned the coming change to IPv6 IPv6 includes several security features baked in right from the get go It also opens up some new security concerns as peer to peer P2P is also inherent to Pv6 Whether our national government s switch to IPv6 is altruistic or to drive profits at Cisco and Microsoft is open to discussion Whether you are a Star Trek fan or not Internet security should be a national priority by way of standards organizations not leg islation and IPv6 is coming so be pre pared to replace your router within the next two years Tell the home router manu facturers that you will not buy their prod ucts until they support IPv6 In the inter est of full disclosure I own stock in both Cisco and Microsoft so I love the pros pect of a new Internet equipment and soft ware boom as we transition to IPv6 Tis the Season of Lists If you take a moment to think about it you know that I m writing this in early December I haven t even made my Christ mas list let alone done any shopping I hate shopping Every year I have a list predictions good stuff bad stuff So here is this year s list of random thoughts Windows Vista may surpass the Microsoft Bob user interface as Microsoft s biggest failure Someday
21. and a value could be 123 456 to identify content going through the mill to supply an answer The tokenizer could classify user entries as a form of validation to supply some answer regardless of the kind of content supplied by the user as a question to be serviced In this code several issues are resolved at design time to secure those afore mentioned advantages Our evening session was most instructive Chuck discussed in detail what it takes to learn object oriented programming OOP This discussion included a history of programming lan guage development and the emergence of a notion of class as a foundation of OOP Windows programs were distinguished from Web programs Our attendee Lisa prompted this swift and illuminating progression through a host of interesting and significant topics to come across while traveling up a learning curve Our session closed with a sense of time well spent Mac In December we took our first look at Leopard Apple s new version of Mac OS X We first noticed the new dock which looks like the icons are on a reflective glass shelf Active programs have a small blue light in front of the icon By default Safari now downloads files to a Downloads folder instead of the Desktop To make the downloads easy to find they sit in a stack on the right side of the dock the icon bouncing to get your attention when the download completes The Icon view of the Finder now has adjustable grid spacing so the
22. ation cus tomers are expecting a 24 7 online market place that offers choices rather than barri ers He also pointed out some cultural differences that have occurred Most adults in Europe and Asia readily send and re ceive text messages on their cell phones whereas American adults are not so in clined and Asians commonly make use of vascular scans a biometric technology that does not require any actual contact The Internet continues to expand the reach of people everywhere Mr Patrick com mented Linux is changing the game to a situ ation where if there is a problem that needs an answer a person can turn to the community Home schooling which used to take place in the home can now take place online as well Mr Patrick believes that there can be adequate policies to provide for privacy He also favors the structures that are needed for safeguards to be provided by technology rather than by laws As an example he referenced the Do not call legislation that 1s burdened with 19 exceptions In closing Mr Patrick reiterated the trend for people to be empowered by the Internet He recommended getting some pointers from kids Oh and yes his website patrick Web is written using OpenOffice Curis NovELL is DACS program director and an avid Web crawler Web application developer and he is going to talk about it from the inside Stuff about the business model some of the technologies and maybe more ex amples WW
23. can withstand harsh weather is resilient to water dust and dirt and was specifically designed for the hands of a child There is a program being offered until December 31 2007 under which you can give a XO laptop to a child in a developing country and receive a XO laptop in recognition for your donation of 399 For more information about this project you can go to their official website at Laptop org January 2008 15 High Quality Single and Multicolor Process Printing s High speed Digital Copies Black White or Color From your V 1ce hard copy or direct from disk O p Complete in house Bindery services Laminating Joani All Prepress Graphics and Typesetting services available Raised Printing and Engraving Wedding Invitations Letterheads Help give the Business Cards and more gift of speech For All Your Printing Graphics and Copying Needs Call Shirley Fredlund at 203 770 6208 3 Commerce Drive Danbury CT 06810 and become a 203 792 5045 Voice for Joanie Fax 203 792 5064 Me aT ah mail rapid repro com www rapid repro com February 4 pple s New OS Leopard March 3 Budgeting IT Strategies for Nonprofits April 7 Secure Computing in the Internet Age This space available Contact Charles Bovaird Phone 203 792 7881 E mail aam mags net p THE NEWSLETTER OF THE DANBURY AREA COMPUTER SOCIETY INC Rate Card GUARANTEED US MAIL 450 OTHER DISTRIBUTION 100 PD
24. cation 4 k Personal Information Name Home Phone Address Work Phone City State Zip Fax Company E Mail Billing Information DACS basic membership plus newsletter 1 year 45 00 DACS basic membership 1 year 30 00 DACS corporate membership 1 year 150 DACS nonprofit corporate membership 1 year 75 Each member will have access to the club tech support volunteers newsletter online in PDF form able to receive club related news via email attend SIGs and participate in any club only related events promotions or activities Pay by cash check or mail order payable to Or go to www dacs org and click Charles Bovaird Treasurer on JOIN DACS NOW DACS Inc PayPalk 4 Gregory Street RE FE Danbury CT 06810 4430 vs ne Tell Us About Yourself Please take a moment to answer the following guestions Answer all that apply Hours a week you use computers How did you learn about DACS Hardware PC MAC desktop laptop palm other OPSYS Windows MAC LINUX other Communications Dialup HI Speed WiFi LAN other Applications Offce Financial other Digital Music Photo CAM TV other Business Corporate Employee private employee professional business owner __ Company Name Office use only Paid Check Membership Danbury Hospital Meeting Location 24 Hospital Avenue Z Z Z Z K o Danbury CT Traveling West on I 84 Take Exit 6 Turn right at exit North
25. e Now when you open a drive in My Computer it will display in the Explore mode Your my documents folder in windows XP holds by default your documents the My Pictures folder and the My Music folder For most of us the My Documents folder holds everything you use most To make the contents of that folder invisible to nosy folks do this Click on Start and right click on My Documents Now click on Properties and then open the General tab Click in the box next to Hidden in the attributes section and click ok Now click on Apply Select Apply changes to this folder subfolders and files and click ok This is not encryption it just makes it harder for a casual user to open your pri vate folders When you want to view all files again just reverse the process Speeding up your PC is always some thing most of us think about and the fol http www dacs org your registry files before Hew toschecido backup you attempt any modifi cations Create a batch file to back up your Reg istry and then automate the process with an icon on your Desktop Click on Start Run and then type NOTEPAD Click OK or press the Enter key Now you have Notepad open to a blank page Type Regedit E C AAAA without the quotes and press the Enter key Now click on File on the menu bar at the top of the Notepad window and then click on Save As In the Save As window click in the box next to File Name and type c windows syst
26. e days of yore There are emulators for all sorts of systems such as Apple II Atari Com modore TRS 80 arcade systems pinball machines etc In order to preserve software from such old systems the disk tape cartridge BIOS and other software media is saved in special images The December meeting is cancelled and we will next meet in January At the January meeting we ll convert a physical ma http www dacs org chine into a virtual machine For those who are new to the group we ll take time out to do a little re cap Then we can get into any questions the group may have Windows The first meeting was spent looking at Vista in particular Vista Business features The differ ent Vista variants were discussed A key part of the meeting was showing correlations between XP and Vista to help minimize the learning curve in cluding installing applications and how to eek out a little bit more perfor mance by changing some default system settings In our January meeting we will continue our exploration of Windows Vista it s built in features and addi tional trade offs between it and XP Tweaking Cont from page 7 down by clicking on SYSTEM and then on CurrentControlSet Control and finally on FileSystem On the right side of the Regedit screen look for the data key NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate Double click on that key and then just set its value to 1 Click OK to save the change and then close the
27. e the permission of the author see e mail address above January 2008 13 SIG notes Cont from page 2 signal importance After many such details were brought to light we concluded with a sense of elation and enthusiasm at the extent of learning that we had accomplished Last month our session of dotNET opened with a review of ZipBack a program with capability to resolve user ques tions in a browser and thereby escape any need for a postback to the server This escape reduces network traffic and as a consequence exhibits an innovative valuable contribution to network management Chuck presented a demonstration of ZipBack and its advantages with a nifty program to show a comparison of system response with ZipBack as against a response with postback to answer a user question A page with two text boxes and two buttons allowed two options for service of a question in one text box to provide an answer in the other text box The two buttons presented an option to use ZipBack and an option to use postback A noticeable differ ence in response time between these two options could be seen when the program was invoked for use Then we reviewed in detail the code behind the page put into action Two important features became known the dichotomy of name and value and the tokenizer for sifting and winnow ing user questions to separate sense from nonsense in types of questions For example a name could be calc to identify a function
28. em32 REGBACKUP BAT Now click on the down arrow to the right of the Save as type box and se lect All Files Click on the Save button and close Notepad To create a short cut to the registry backup right click on the Desktop click on New and then on Shortcut At the cursor type c WINDOWS SYSTEM32 REGBACKUPBAT and click on Next Now type Registry Backup and click on Finish If you want to change the icon for your new shortcut right click on it and click Preferences Click on the Change Icon but ton click Ok when the Change Icon win dow opens and then double click on the icon you want to use Click OK Another way to be sure you are safe is to backup your complete computer us ing either True Image my favorite or Ghost both of which completely copy an image of your entire computer Also do a system restore point see the help menu for how to this may be the quickest way to go back to where you were if you have problems but if not the True Image or Ghost backup will do the trick DACS Shoe operations lag A Startup Reciery Manager Backi bonnets Explore ami zalila Is n Lett r Pace Hi lt disk Try this Click on Start on Run and then type REGEDIT and click OK or press the Enter The word REGEDIT 1s not case sensitive Now double click on HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE Drill down by opening System CurrentControlSet Control Session Manager Memory Man agement Right click on the DisablePaging Executive
29. entry located in the right pane side of your screen and select Modify In the Edit DWORD Value dialog box type the number 1 without the quotes in the Value data field Click OK and then close the Registry Editor Finally make sure you don t have any open programs and restart your computer so that the change you made can take effect Lastly it seems that our Windows XP computers just get bogged down with stuff we don t want or use One way to get more performance out of your com puter is to disable the last access up date feature The NTFS file system in Windows XP maintains last access update details for each file and directory on your computer s hard drive This information is useful sometimes but for most of us this may not be of much use most of the time This process takes a lot of resources from your computer so it may make sense to disable it Once you have done that you ll still have access to last modified information for files and folders Here s what you need to do Click on Start Run and at the prompt type REGEDIT and press the Enter key Now click to open HKEY LOCAL MACHINE and then drill Tweaking Cont on page 15 January 2008 7 Special Interest Groups SIG NOTES October 2007 ASP Net Focuses on Web site server application develop ment using Microsoft Visual Studio C VB Javascript and SQL Server programming tools Starts with Random Access followed by a programming discussion
30. ered a speech on the future of the Internet both in forming and enter taining the audience of both members and guests The well at tended event has been a staple of the DACS program cal endar a presenta tion containing in sights and perspectives gathered by Mr Patrick from a myriad of international sources Indeed he relayed to the audi ence that at a conference recently some one had remarked that his placement of the current Internet at 5 of its potential was perhaps even too high There were several contributors to the Internet that got high marks from Mr Patrick eBay was cited for its careful attention to their process from end to end or as he F THE SIXTEENTH consecutive Meeting Preview refined from beginning to end Escrow ship ping taxes terms and conditions recourses and reputation are just some of the details the company ad dresses The fed eral government re ceived recognition for its early leader ship and innovation with the availability of e filing tax re turns and the huge gaming industry was named as con tributing to the de velopment of cer tain practical skills such as learning how to collaborate and communicate Uni versities are realizing that it makes sense to enable students to retain their email ad dresses on a permanent basis Danbury Hospital now uses a Smart Card eliminat ing the need for the clipboard sign in sheet Noting that Nintendo s Wii has a bro
31. etter The editors welcome submissions from DACS members Contact Patrick Libert at 860 567 9586 dacseditor dacs org Advertisers contact Charles Bovaird at 203 792 7881 aam mags net Nonprofit groups may request permission to reprint articles from dacs doc or http dacs org by sending e mail to reprints dacs org Re printed articles shall credit the copyright holder and a copy of the final publication shall be mailed to Danbury Area Computer Society Inc 4 Gregory Street Danbury CT 06811 4403 Attn Reprints Links to articles reprinted on the web can be sent to reprints dacs 0rg Technical Support dacs doc is prepared using PageMaker 7 0 and Acrobat 7 0 Software packages used to publish dacs doc include Microsoft Windows XP Office 2003 TrueType fonts Calendar Creator 8 0 for Windows Internet access provided by Mags net Applications amp Hardware to enhance dacs doc are welcome Member of An of Personal Computer y jon Ser re Gr Patrick Libert APCUG Liaison plibert dacs org http www dacs org Officers PRESIDENT Rob Limbaugh 203 648 91 76 relimbaugh dacs org Vice Presidents Chris Novell Sean Henderson SECRETARY Lisa Leifels TREASURER Charles Bovaird Directors dacsboard dacs org Charles Bovaird 203 792 7881 cbovaird dacs org Howard Berger 860 355 9837 hberger dacs org Annette Collens 914 232 0149 acollens dacs org Richard Corzo 203 797 1518 rcorzo dacs org Joh
32. had the article you can see it with just a few clicks However if all you know is the author or subject you could have a hard time Yahoo and Google often return a tangled mess of items as the search engines pluck words from the pages of the website plus the PDF files There must be a better way I would like to see easy to use indexes into our newsletter content Beyond just finding the articles wouldn t it be fantastic if there were an easy way for you to comment on an ar ticle As more of our content has become commentary a two way discussion be comes even more appropriate I think m describing a blog To test this concept I ve placed this column plus the last 12 in a blog at hitp circuitwriter spaces live com Yes this is Microsoft s sort of reaction to FaceBook I tried Yahoo 360 but it s quite obvious that Yahoo is loosing interest in 360 Spaces is part of Microsoft s newly ex panded Live com so the site may have some staying power This location may prove to be a temporary one if we decide to consolidate on a DACS blog site so stay flexible as we work this out For now you can find and comment on my columns all in one place Over time ll add catego ries and tags to make the content easier to find The column name change was needed because someone already has Circuit Rider in Spaces Hey I can adapt Jm SCHEEF is past president of DACS and leader of the Server and Networking SIG January
33. hat fits my hand well and performs better than most optical mice that I ve used It tracks well on a variety of surfaces which not all optical mice do The ultimate test is to place it on a mirror and even here it tracks accurately The only surface that it is flaky http www dacs org on 1s those artificial wood grain coatings common to student desks and conference tables but hey every other optical mouse I have has the same problem Put a piece of plain paper under the mouse and it works fine OK the gimmick here is the ability to place your own pho tograph inside the il luminated area where you may gaze upon it to your heart s con tent This part is strictly manual labor with an assist from the paper template for fitting the photo Being a deep dish computer geek I find reverting to cut and paste using paper and scissors real um 20th Century y know The User Manual refers to an EPS template that can be down loaded from their Web site but I couldn t locate it Undaunted I scanned the paper template into Photoshop and made a mask out of it Opening the desired photo then pasting the template mask into the photo made it possible to resize and orient the image for best cropping in the mouse shaped template Beats the buttons off the User Manual s advice for the paper DACS matter being discussed Jamie Yates created this segment of our program which was eagerly embraced by
34. icons dont have to be so far apart The Finder has a new view called Cover Flow added to the Icon List and Col umn views Yes it s just like iTunes Select a file in Cover Flow and hit the Space bar You ll see an enlarged preview of the file called Quick Look Using the arrow keys to go one file forward or backward you could for example preview photos in a folder without ever opening iPhoto The marquee feature of Mac OS X 10 5 Leopard is Time Machine Plug in an external drive and you will be asked if you want to use it for Time Machine which takes snapshots of all your files every hour every day and every week Older ver sions of files will automatically be aged out once the backup drive starts filling up Mac OS X s Spotlight search feature is integrated with Time Machine so you can search for past ver sions of files even if they file has been deleted 14 January 2008 DACS explained the different installation options Since some of your existing programs might not be Leopard compatible it may not be safe to perform the easiest Upgrade Install An Archive and Install will save all your existing system in a Previous Systems folder and you can then use the Migration Assistant to migrate your previously installed programs that you know are Leopard compatible Erase and Install will erase the destination volume before installing Leopard so you should have a backup of at least your home folder TECH SIG Our first mee
35. if what you do doesn t work out for you If you don t know how to do that click on start and then help and support and then choose index and type in system restore At the end of this list I have a couple speed tweaks which I advise should only be used by advanced users and you will also see I advise again to backup or set a restore point With that in mind here is my list QUICK LAUNCH The area that sits between the start button and the tray with the clock on the bottom of your screen is called the Taskbar I think one of the best additions you can make to your Taskbar is the Quick Launch Toolbar Quick Launch gives you fast access to Internet Explorer and Out look Express and it includes a Show Desk top icon It s really easy to open your Quick Launch Toolbar 6 January 2008 Right click the Taskbar click on Toolbars and choose Quick Launch The Quick Launch Toolbar now appears on your Taskbar right next to your Start but ton You ll find the Quick Launch Toolbar very useful and to move all the icons you have on your desktop just drag and drop them on the QL taskbar You can play around with it and also expand it if need be After you drag an icon there you can delete it off your desktop so you have a neat looking space where I put different pictures every week or so To be really neat I hide the whole thing so it automati cally disappears until I Point at it with my mouse Right click on start p
36. m Activities begin at 6 30 p m with registration and casual network ing The meeting starts at 7 00 p m The fea tured evening presentation begins at 8 00 Our General Meetings are free and open to the public so invite anyone you know who would be interested in this topic Curis NOVELL is DACS program director and an avid Web crawler STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP MANAGEMENT AND CIRCULATION required by 39 U S C sec 3685 DACS DOC ISSN 1084 6573 is pub lished monthly at 4 Gregory Street Danbury CT 6810 7271 The filing date of this Statement is Decem ber 1 2007 Annual subscription price is 45 00 Complete mailing address for Known of fice of publication is 4 Gregory Street Danbury CT 06810 7271 Names and addresses of Publisher Edi tor and Managing Editor are Publisher Danbury Area Computer Society Inc 4 Gre gory Street Danbury CT 06810 7271 Editor and Managing Editor Patrick Libert 222 Maple Street Litchfield CT 06759 Owner is Danbury Area Computer Soci ety Inc 4 Gregory Street Danbury CT 06810 IE Known bondholders mortgagees and other security holders owning or holding 1 percent or more ofthe total amountof bonds mortgages or other securities are None The purpose function and nonprofitstatus ofthis organization and the exempt status for federal income tax purposes has notchanged during the preceding 12 months Be Informed by E mail Members who wish to receive DACS email mes
37. many special interest groups SIGs where members can learn and share information about a specific topic Each SIG plans its own meeting schedule and program topics Our newsletter dacs doc is published monthly for our members and mailed to arrive before the general meeting It features articles written by members and oth ers on timely topics including product and software re views issues and trends in personal computing and how to articles on sound video digital photography etc In addition each issues includes the calendar of meetings announcements on SIGs and other DACS events dacs doc has won numerous prizes over the years for its design and content Through its activities DACS offers numerous op portunities to network both professionals and computer hobbyists Our Special Interest Groups are an excellent way for members to both learn and share application or hardware knowledge Any DACS member can form a special interest group on any topic where there 1s inter est Most SIGs meet in our Resource Center in down town Danbury If you have concerns requests or suggestions re garding DACS or its programs please contact dacsprez dacs org DACS officers and board mem bers phone numbers are listed on page 3 of dacs doc The DACS Resource Center is in lves Manor Lower Level 198 Main Street Danbury CT 06810 203 748 4330 DANBURY AREA z z COMPUTER SOCIETY Inc Individual Membership Appli
38. n Gallichotte 203 426 0394 gallichotte dacs org Sean Henderson 203 837 7068 shenderson dacs org John Lansdale 914 533 2002 lanzdale yahoo com Patrick Libert 860 567 9586 plibert dacs org Rob Limbaugh 203 648 9176 relimbaugh dacs org Jim Scheef 860 355 0034 jscheef yahoo com Jeff Setaro 203 748 6748 jasetaro yahoo com lt e xe SNe Noe NS Ne NL NLN Committees NEWSLETTER Patrick Libert dacseditor dacs org 860 567 9586 PROGRAM Chris Novell VPprograms dacs org WEB MASTER Richard Corzo rcorzo dacs org 203 797 1518 Annette Collens acollens dacs org 914 232 0149 MARKETING AND PR Sean Henderson pr dacs org APCUG LIAISON Patrick Libert olibert dacs org RESOURCE CENTER 203 748 4330 WEB SITE http www dacs org HelpLine Volunteers have offered to field member questions by phone Please limit calls to the hours indicated below Days means 9 a m to 5 p m evening means 6 to 9 30 p m Please be considerate of the volunteer you are Calling HelpLine is a free service If you are asked to pay for help or are solicited for sales please contact the dacs doc editor the person requesting payment will be deleted from the listing Can we add your name to the volunteer listing d day e evening Program Name Phone APL Charles Bovaird 203 792 7881 ASP Net Chuck Fizer 203 798 9996 C UNIX ObjC Kenneth Lerman 203 426 4430 C VB Chuck Fizer 203 798 9996 DOS John Gallichotte 2
39. nger de sign It s amazing to see what was ca pable even in such early times A Quick Reminder Our 2008 General Meeting Schedule is changed for the first six months of 2008 Our General Meetings will be held on the FIRST MONDAY of Janu ary through June 2008 The FIRST TUESDAY schedule will resume July 2008 Keeping it short Due to the recent Holidays men tioned above this is being written smack dab between Thanksgiving and Christmas It s difficult to stop and take a look at everything going on so I have little else to report Until next tme Rob Limbaugh relinbaugh dacs org DACS Membership Information dacs doc ISSN 1084 6573 is published monthly by the Danbury Area Computer Soci ety 4 Gregory Street Danbury CT 06810 4430 Annual subscription rates 45 to regular members 30 electronic access included in dues Postmaster Send address changes to Danbury Area Com puter Society Inc 4 Gregory Street Danbury CT 06810 4430 Committee Patrick Libert Marc Cohen Patrick Libert Editorial Managing Editor Production Editor Copy Editor Contributors Charles Bovaird Richard Corzo Sean Henderson Mike Kaltschnee John Lansdale Lisa Leifels Chris Novell Jim Scheef Jeff Setaro Richard Ten Dyke DACS its officers and directors assume no liability for damages arising out of the publi cation or non publication of any article ad vertisement or other item in this newsl
40. nterest in doing a Citrix presentation in May Mike Kaltschnee offered to give a talk on IPTV Home Theater later in 2008 Chris summarized the preliminary sur vey results for future meeting topics Digi tal Photography PC Armor HDTV Remote Access and Mobile Devices were five sub jects that people expressed interest in Rob offered to scan in the surveys and convert them into a PDF format Sean Henderson suggested the idea of putting together a thank you package to be given to the people who present at the general meetings Howie Berger plans to attend a meet ing with the Greater Danbury Nonprofit Resource Center GDNRC in Danbury on Friday December 14 He would like to get more information on local projects that DACS can get involved with Rob mentioned that he will get in touch with Dick Gingrich who was the DACS President when the membership was at the highest point He is hoping to get some ideas from him on how we can increase the membership The six board members elected at the December 2007 General Meeting include Howard Berger Anna Collens Sean Henderson Rob Limbaugh Jim Scheef and Jeff Setaro All are incumbents ex cept for Anna Collens who has replaced Lisa Leifels Lisa LEIFELS SECRETARY January 2008 3 Meeting Review The Future of the Internet December 2007 By Chris Novell year John Patrick President of At titude LLC and former vice presi dent of Internet Technology atIBM deliv
41. nu is a quick way to get to what you want To set this up right click on the start button and then click on properties Click on the cus tomize button and then open the advanced tab In the start menu items window scroll down to my computer and click next to http www dacs org display as amenu Now click on OK and again on OK This one is the opposite of the one above in that you need to select start menu instead of classic lowing tweaks are intended to do just that for your XP Pro operating system but be ware these are intended for advanced users and involve using the registry not HELP GRAPHIC Here s a way to make XP even faster by making sure that Operating System functions stay in memory RAM because recommended for the memory is much faster than your hard TRAY faint at heart Before ws x even considering them p Fh That little area to the right at the bot do a registry backup 906 844 Ja f Here s how Modification of Windows Registry tom of your desktop can get pretty crowded One 5 Tira way to get more Pick a Category B Backup Locetiors d Backup archives Pick a Task space is to do AE LA4TRM files which contain zni cial qh ben spam aa ohne ay EM beda settings and other in H 2 a oa i O formation Windows needs to operate with is risky if you don t take care Make a mis take here can cause your PC to stop working So it makes perfect sense to
42. re illuminated to promote learning for C coding Refreshed with a pizza break we were treated by Chuck to an extended illustration of application development where a month count in an interval between dates is given With this illustration in hand we were then able to learn the nature and use of constituents in a C program For example an assem bly is not exactly like a Dynamic Link Library DLL because it is in Intermediate Language An assembly is read with a re flection class in which a coder can examine types an issue of SIG News Continued on page 12 http www dacs org January 2008 Danbury Area Computer Society Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday _ Dec 2007 mW ZN M wa ag aas ates 7819 20 21 22 O ope 25 6 27 28 2 GA S Ment a j Chuck Fizer Richard Corzo 203 798 9996 macsig dacs org 7 00 9 00 PM Tech Projects Rob Limbaugh 203 826 8196 7 00 PM Server 7 00 P M Jim Scheef GENERAL MTG 860 355 0034 16 17 7 00 PM Windows ee Rob Limbaugh 7 30 PM 7 00 PM Linux Board of Directors John Lansdale DACS DOC 914 533 2002 Deadline Program Virtual Computing 7 00 PM Rob Limbaugh PC Maintenance John Lansdale 203 826 8196 Charles Bovaird 914 533 2002 203 792 7881 Feb 2008 T T 5 7 12 14 19 21 http www dacs org DAES January 2008 9 SIGNIFICANT BITS J anuary 2008 by Sean N Henderson appy New Year one and all This He be m
43. roperties taskbar and check auto hide If you can copy or move things to a folder keeping information on your com puter more organized is easier Here is how to add copy or move to a folder to Win dows Explorer Open Windows Explorer not Internet Explorer by click ing on Start and then on My Documents Next click on an General View want to send your selection to and then click Copy at the bottom of that small win dow This will result in a folder with those items waiting to be copied Put in a CD DVD and click on write these files to CD to the left Windows XP has several utilities pro grams that manage various aspects of XP You can run any of these utilities by us ing them as run commands Click on Start and then click on Run In the Open box type one of these shortcuts and press the Enter key or click OK control Opens Control Panel clipbrd Opens Clipboard Viewer notepad Opens simple text editor wordpad Opens Word like text editor compmgmt msc Computer management devmgmt msc Device manager diskmgmt msc Disk management dfg msc Disk defrag eventvwr msc Event viewer fsmgmt msc Shared folders gpedit msc Group policies lusrmgr msc Local users and group perfmon msc Performance monitor rsop msc Resultant set of poli cies secpol msc Local security settings services msc Services Run shows up when you have classic menu selected MY COMPUTER File Types O line Files empty area of the standard bu
44. ructors lecturers DACS officers and board members committee members or SIG leaders We sponsor or participate in community sup port projects by collecting repairing and redis tributing used computer equipment and software to community service providers such as schools libraries and patient client support groups DACS members provide pickup refurbishing installation and training assistance as needed Firms or individuals with equipment to donate should leave a message on the DACS Infoline 203 748 4330 or send an email to recycling dacs org The Voice for Joanie program was created in 1992 through the initiative of DACS member Shirley Fredlund This program provides computer assisted speech for victims of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis Lou Gehrig s Disease DACS members have contributed volun teer time and technical assistance since the program began Voice for Joanie and DACS have earned national computer in dustry recognition and financial assistance for this vital collaboration Our general meetings are held on the first Tuesday of each month in the Danbury Hospital Auditorium at 7 p m These meetings are open to the public The main presentation is scheduled from 8 9 30 preceded by casual networking an nouncements and Random Access an 1n formal question and answer session A free product raffle is often held at the con clusion of the main presentation In addition to the general meeting DACS sponsors
45. s XP Home any one in the same room as the computer will see what is being done remotely This is a limitation of both VNC and Windows XP Home The solution is to upgrade from Windows XP Home if this is not desired CENTRALIZED MAIL LISTS Both my wife and I are fans of our PDA handhelds and necessarily fans of Palm s gt s 5 Me Fam i i P or F Ja F M AF a i 00 CN E z 5 as Palm Desktop PIM software It s useful to think of this application as a prefabricated database with forms and screens rather than just PIM software Besides our indi vidual instances on each of our laptops there s one on the main household desk top This instance stores our mailing list used for our family newsletter and holiday cards Using Tiny WEB and TightVNC has proved to be a useful way to access that application on that machine to update these records Palm Desktop has proven to be a good database to both store this informa tion as well as an easy way for my wife and I to update the information The other solution for this would pos sibly be to install a more powerful web and or application server install and con figure a CMS package teach myself how to use it then show my wife how to use it Neither she nor I have time for such an activity especially when we both already know how to work the Palm Desktop Sean N Henderson Zs an IT professional musician DACS ORG board member and regular
46. s more choices There are some frames that shut off automatically and others that DACS need to be turned off daily You may be interested in a frame that can be mounted on the wall but since an electrical connection is need you will have the power cord to contend with The ability to change the orientation of the frame from portrait or landscape will give you more versatility In portrait mode the landscape photos will appear smaller In landscape mode the portrait photos will appear smaller An important feature is how you update the images to the frame One of the popular ways is with a memory card If you re interested in transferring photos with a USB thumb drive you may want one with a USB port Some frames also offer built in flash memory so you can still view photos without the memory card Other special features include the ability to play music or short videos Q What is the one laptop per child project A The MIT Media Lab created the One Laptop per Child association OLPC in January 2005 with the goal of developing a 100 laptop as a way to educate the world s children The mission of OLPC is to provide learning self expression and exploration to children in the developing world The XO laptop was created by both academia and the industry collaborating and runs on the Linux Open source operating system with Sugar as the interface It is the size of a textbook and weighs just about three pounds It
47. s on 4th Thursday 7 p m at the DACS Resource Center Next meeting January 24 SIG News amp Events Server Explores Back Office server and client applications in cluding Win NT Servers and MS Outlook Contact Jim Scheef scheef telemarksys com Meets 2nd Thursday 7 p m at the DACS Resource Center Next meeting January 10 Tech Projects This SIG Will work on DACS Online Commu nity projects as well as other areas from practical application solutions to brainstorming and to tweeking Commercial prod ucts All skill levels and backgrounds are welcome The goal is to mix match and customize technology to fit our needs Meets 1st Wednesday 7p m at the DACS resource center Contact Rob Limbaugh at 203 648 9176 relimbaugh dacs org Next meeting January 9 VB Net Visual Basic 6 Focuses on Smart Client Windows appli cation development using Visual Studio VB C and SQL Server programming tools Starts with a random accss session fol lowed by Object Oriented discussions and programming with examples Contact Chuck Fizer 203 798 9996 cfizer snet net or Greg Austin 845 494 5095 greg austin ryebrookpba org Meets 1st Wednesday 7p m at the DACS Resource Center preceeded 1 hour with a shared cost pizza snack Next Meeting January 2 Virtual Computing ThisSIG_ will explore virtual computing tech nologies and how to leverage them as additional system resources Our main focus will be on the free VMWare products but
48. sages who have not received an email notice for the General Meeting should send a request to be put on the DACS email list to treasurer dacs org January 2008 5 Tips amp Tricks Tweak Your PC to Keep It Running Fast Feeling Good and Looking Young By Lou Torraca AST WEEK I WAS explaining to a friend that I am a quick launch toolbar afficionado What the heck is that he asked I said I was just referring to the fact I use it in stead of the desktop to keep all my short cuts actually lots of shortcuts at least on my main PC As we continued to talk about this I found myself explaining a lot of stuff I have done with my PCs and note book in the past 6 or 8 years An obvious question came up where do you come up with these things At that point I ex plained I call these things tweaks and they come from dozens and dozens of places including many newsletters also some regular blogs newspapers radio shows other PC users I talk with and of course the real biggie MICROSOFT Yup their knowledge base contains millions of tips solutions and you guessed it TWEAKS Our conversation ended with a suggestion that I put some tweaks in my column so what follows are some that I like But first a reminder whenever you decide to play experiment alter or as I say tweak an otherwise functioning computer either do a backup first or at least set a restore point you can return to
49. stead of a Q amp A session we might want to have two or more presenta tions with mini SIG meetings as well The first presentation could be a demo from a member on something about which they are passionate I understand that one of the highest attended meetings recently was a member demo and we could have one every month By having two presen tations we could double the odds of the meeting being of interest to some one Another possibility is that instead of a Q amp A we would break up into groups to discuss different topics SIG leaders could hold up signs for Linux Newbies Q amp A Mac etc and they could have mini meetings in different sections of the auditorium This would be great way to expose new members to the different SIGs and give people a chance to participate The following is one way we might structure the general meeting 7 00 Club business 7 15 First presentation 8 00 Mini SIG meetings 8 30 Break 8 45 Main presentation 9 45 Closing and raffle http www dacs org The current meeting structure does not allow for socializing something I look forward to at the Pig Sig The problem is that only a handful of people show up and I wonder if one of the reasons we are unable to retain members 1s that they don t see DACS as a social club Are we missing out on the bonding and friend ships that develop if people can mingle and network I hate to say it but I think the resource center is holding
50. t Edit File Type 2 EJ ton bar the one that starts with jd H the Back button Last click on gt h r customize In the available S actions aa toolbar buttons list click on BS un new copy to and then click on add gig to add it to the current toolbar buttons list Click on Close to complete the customization Des work Now the next time you od A o ods eis click on a file or folder the Move rd to and Copy to folder buttons cene will appear 79790 If you ever have the need to copy both files and folders to a CD as in backing up your important information here s an easy way to do it Click on Start and then click on My Computer Now right click on your hard drive usually drive c and click on Explore Now you have a complete list of the files and folders on that drive Click on any file or folder and then while holding down the Ctrl key click on any other file or folder you wish to copy to a CD DVD When you have fin ished click on edit copy to folder From the list provided 3 click on the CD 15572 DVD R W Read Write drive you cee m We 5 54 orarin DACS ok Canca I use My Computer which shows me all of the drives on my computer like the floppy drive A the Hard Drive C and others that include DVD and CD drives and removable drives all the time Having My Computer show a menu of it s items as your mouse pointer touches the My Computer link on the start me
51. ter system there is a possibility to extend it be yond just a simple slideshow device In January we will finalize our project scope decisions for the DACS community site so actual development can begin Our secondary topic will show how to convert a cheap single use digital camcorder into multi use Some of you have seen me car rying around one of these camcorders The camcorders are suit able for video blogging budding child videographers or anyone looking for portable video recording capability that is better than a cell phone and cheaper than a digital camera or video recorder Virtual Computing Our primary discussion for November was in regards to the recent changes in the virtual computing landscape between VMware Microsoft Citrix and Oracle Citrix purchased XenSource in August the day after VMware stock went public Oracle announced its own virtual system environment called Oracle VM Microsoft announced their Hyper V product which will allow a bare metal install of a hypervisor for under 100 significantly less than VMware s Virtual Infrastructure product We then took a look at another type of virtualization Emula tors Emulators are programs that duplicate the functions of one system on an entirely different system Usually these are used for things like developing software for mobile phones or other small platforms However a fun twist on emulation is that it allows one to dig back into th
52. the internet all will be Software is standard Web browser word processor Wikipedia access some edu cational programs other stuff New pro grams can be installed by web USB or SD card I don t know how much access a de veloper would have to the operating sys tem I e get a terminal window run com mands yum security patches VPN the identity problem LDAP ip6 etc It 12 January 2008 seems possible that XO 1laptops could serve as clients in a LTSP network if needed Inside its Linux Fedora an AMD 433 MHz processor 256 Meg ram flash memory a special 640x480 power con serving display a built in 640x480 camera think video conferencing WI FI mesh chip can always be on at low power to keep the cloud up no hard drive and overall low power con sumption They re durable and have long 10 hour bat tery life Suppos edly they are re chargeable by a hand generator There 1s a large pointing or mouse device The case 1s tough resisting water sand and drops The keyboard is simple with versions for different languages Not fast machines but you know from experience good enough to keep around for homework or web browsing To the kids these small win dows will be far better than none Microsoft Intel and who knows what telephone and communication companies are left out and are spending big on counter PR but the future is clear Only thing they really can do is come up with less expensi
53. ting November 14 was spent carving out the details for a future DACS Online Community website Discussion covered deployment restrictions features required features requested languages available back end database choices tie in to existing content and more By far the best part of the session was hearing from the various attendees about the different ways they would look at to solve the problem pro grammatically The talent exists within our group to roll our own solution but we could certainly use something pre developed if deployed right The group departed with everyone agreeing to take a look at a handful of pre built community site projects for ideas In our second meeting December 12 we discussed the pre built projects and picked out features we liked or hadn t considered These things bring us closer to our goal but there is still a little planning to do This is still a work in progress Our secondary topic for the evening was how to recycle a function ing laptop as a digital picture frame Stores are selling digital picture frames for upwards of 200 with screens that are barely much bigger than a 5x7 photo They are closed devices and leave little for expansion or customization options The platform used on the Do It Yourself digital picture frame is Photo ix htto www barwap com cgi bin wiki p l Photo Ix which is derivative of the Morphix Linux distribution Because the DIY version is based on a full compu
54. ve products Communications and other infrastructure demand might explode as well Competition is going to be fierce Not just American companies are involved If OLPC fails someone else will succeed It s tempting to speculate on what this might mean for tech workers Just a small percentage of these newly educated tech savvy kids is a large number Not just tech nical workers will be af fected Too many things could happen good or bad and its going to happen too DACS soon So soon you ll remember any sloppy prediction In my SIGs we re going to start study ing aspects of this One early project s will be getting a VMware version of the XO 1 operating system running see links This is both of Web Application think Web 2 0 on steroids these kids aren t just going to passively learn they Il publish and a Linux relevance Maybe Rob will try something in the VMware SIG This is one big DACS topic If anyone gets an XO 1 please let me know XO 1 Specifications Wikipedia e CPU 433 MHz AMD Geode LX 700 at 0 8 Watts with integrated graphics controller e 1200x900 7 5 diagonal LCD 200 dpi that uses 0 1 to 1 0 Watts depending on mode The two modes are e Reflective backlight off monochrome mode for low power use in sunlight This mode provides very sharp im ages for high quality text e Backlit color mode with an effective 800x600 resolution that is asymmetri cally reduced in complicated wa
55. veal if the problem is caused by a setting in your browser You should also check your computer for spyware which could be disrupting your computer from maintaining a consistent IP address O Does anybody know of a third party provider of drivers for a twelve year old Lexmark printer for Vista A You can check the Lexmark com website to see 1f they provide a Vista driver for your printer If they don t you can send an email to their technical support department and ask them if they will be providing a driver for Vista for your printer in the future or if there is a driver for another one of their printers that they can recommend for you to use Another idea would be to go to Control Panel Printers and Faxes Select Add a Printer and select Lexmark as the Manufacturer and try selecting one of their other printers that is similar to the one you have O Iam thinking of getting one of the new digital picture frames what features should I look for A The size and resolution determine the quality of the display and the price The image quality decreases as the screen gets larger since the available pixels are spread over a larger area If you are displaying photos of 6 megapixels or less any size frame will do to display photos of 7 megapixels or greater yov ll need a larger frame Ease of use is an important feature With the simplest frames you insert your camera s memory card other frames have software that allow
56. wser Mr Patrick described what many of us may have had as a transient thought the PC is becoming a minority player He Web 2 0 By Chris Novell CONVERSATION THAT may As taken place between two membersofDACS Wondering William WW and Fact Finding Francine FFF WW So what s on tap for January at DACS Francine FFF I hear they re go ing to be talking about Web 2 0 WW I was hoping to learn more about it My boss asked the other day and I had no idea I find stuff on the web I still don t know exactly what it is Can I use it Do you need some special browser or computer program Is it just stuff my kids use like MySpace and YouTube 4 January 2008 FFF The way I m hearing it there could be something for just about anyone remember Chris Novell s talk a few months ago on social book mark ing that del icio us site ve got my own account I use for work and there s one she set up for us at h tp del icio us dacsorg that Was a good idea WW Maybe we could learn more about Web 2 0 there FFF I bet and we can add some of our own That s the idea WW So who is going to give the talk FF Chris has found some more good examples of Web 2 0 and is going to show us SIG leader John Lansdale is a DACS sees the hand held category as continu ing to gain prominence Mr Patrick expressed his belief that U S corporations are not responsive enough to the modern commerce constell
57. y twelfth article for DACS DOC A lot has gone on in this space over 2007 including articles on PDAs U3 drives hard drive upgrades music production software geocoding mashups and more Be sure to check out the DACS calen dar on line for General Meeting date changes for the first half of 2008 As noted in the August 2007 issue the on line cal endar for DACS is the central source for events related to DACS The January 2008 meeting topic is Web 2 0 Also do not forget our ongoing on line fund raising efforts at www cafepress com dacsgear LIGHTWEIGHT SERVERS FOR XP HOME It is possible to run a simple HTTP server from home off Windows XP Home If only a minimum functionality is needed try Tiny WEB It s possible to use CGI with TinyWEB without having to install any other language CGI can be had using a bat DOS batch file If using a Netgear router it s recom mended to sign up for a free Dynamic DNS account at www dyndns org which is one of the dynamic IP services supported by these units This provides a URL that will always point to the home server even if the home IP connection is dynamically assigned which is typical Setting up TinyWEB was trivial Merely unzip the archive and place a shortcut in the startup folder A good place to put the extracted files is under Program Files in a folder called TinyWEB Then in the same directory make a short cut that has the target as c progra 1 TinyWEB tiny exe
58. ys See below for details e 256 MB of Dual DDR266 133 MHz DRAM in 2006 the specification called for only 128 MB of RAM 10 e 1024 KB 1 MB flash ROM with open source Open Firmware e 1024 MB of SLC NAND flash memory in 2006 the specifications called for only 512 MB of flash memory 11 e Internal SD card slot 12 e Wireless networking using an Ex tended Range 802 1 1b g and 802 11s mesh Marvell 8388 wireless chip chosen due to its ability to autono mously forward packets in the mesh even if the CPU is powered off When connected in a mesh it is run at a low bit rate 2 Mbit s to minimize power consumption Despite the wireless chip s minimalism it supports WPA 13 An ARM processor is included Links Find out about the PC http en wikipedia org wiki OLPC_XO 1 Hand electric generator http www potenco com Get an XO 1 http laptopgiving org en index php Until December 31 Americans can get one by donating one Total is 399 half is a donation Emulate one http wiki laptop org go OS_images_for_emulation Needed for emulating http en wikipedia org wiki QEMU Or Google One Laptop per Child http www dacs org e Dual adjustable antennas for diver sity reception e Water resistant membrane keyboard using a fairly conventional QWERTY in the US International localization layout The multiplication and divi sion symbols are included e Dual five key cursor control pads
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