Fresno Personal Computer Users’ Group General Meeting
August 7th, 7:30 PM
Program Is:
SUSE Linux and Open Source Software
Would you like to explore another operating system on your own computer without giving up Windows entirely?
This month we will revisit the Linux/Open Source theme as Andrew Baker gives a demonstration on installing SUSE Linux alongside Windows XP in a
While SUSE is installing, Drew will use another machine to demonstrate how to install and remove programs, and use the internet. In addition, he will demonstrate common applications in Linux, such as music playing applications (xmms) Video player (xine), Internet (Firefox/Konquoror), Email (Evolution), Photo editing (The Gimp, Gnu Image Manipulation Program) as well as Word processing (Abiword, OpenOffice) options, Spreadsheet presentation, access database, page maker (OpenOffice) and Money (GnuCash).
Drew has allowed for time in his presentation to field questions as the program goes along so that none are missed.
This demonstration will show how Linux and Open Source Software is easier to install and use than ever, as well as the wide variety of programs available for work and play in "the real world".
Bill's Tricks & Tips
Disable Error Reporting
This is an annoying but easy to fix issue. As you may have noticed, every time a Microsoft program crashes in Windows XP, an Error Report dialog appears
- Open the Control Panel
- Click on Performance & Maintenence
- Click on "System"
- Then click on the "Advanced" tab
- Click on the "Error Reporting" button at the bottom of the window.
- Select "Disable error reporting" in the new window.
After this, you will no longer have to worry about a message window popping up every time a program shuts down incorrectly!
Put Volume Control Back in Taskbar
Perhaps during all of that tweaking you are doing to your computer, you accidentally disable the sound control icon on the bottom right of your screen. You can return it to its rightful place on your taskbar with a quick settings change. Here's what to do:
- Go to "Start --> Control Panel --> Sounds Speech and Audio Devices --> Sounds and Audio Devices."
- Under the "Volume" tab, select "Place Volume Icon in the Taskbar."
After this, you should see a little speaker icon on the bottom right taskbar on your screen.
FreeCommander - Dual Panel File Explorer
FreeCommander is a file explorer with many additional features that Windows Explorer does not. In addition to the standard file management features, it can be used to compare directories, display folder sizes, synchronize folders and more. The program can also open/create Zip and CAB files as well as search inside those archives. If you thought that was convenient, how about the abilities to set view filters, create a folder list (for printing), change file attributes, launch a command prompt, take a desktop screenshot, and much more. Give this program a try and save your time and patience!
Link: freecommander.com/
Quickly Format Web-Text for Word Processing
Ctrl + C = Copy
Ctrl + V = Paste
If you've ever copied a bit of text from the Internet and pasted it into Word, you probably noticed that it looks different from the rest of the text in your document. The quickest way to convert the text from a web page to the default format is by first pasting it in notepad and then re-copying it from there. Since any text pasted into notepad is automatically converted to Times News Roman, 12-point text with no extra formatting, you can just copy it again and have it ready to go for Microsoft Word or some other word processing software.
FPCUG News
Just in case you've missed it, folks, it's hot! Power outages and overheating can cause loss of data, and even damage to hardware. Remember to save your files regularly, and back up your programs and data often.
Krikor Geyoghlian gave Last month's demonstration. It was about how to solve the various PC Annoyances that tend to frustrate and diminish productivity. It covered such topics such as how to disable various panes, change text size, back up email by exporting and add folders in Outlook Express, how to muzzle AOL's overly cheerful "You've Got Mail" sound byte, how to save your Internet Favorites (bookmarks), and what to do when Disk Defragmenter starts over and over. Krikor's presentation was smooth, and well done, and he gave us several helpful links to little programs and tools along the way to help solve these little problems.
Thanks to Drew Baker, Dean Mason, Don Cummins, and Gene Barlow for contributing articles and/or material for this month's newsletter. Contributions from members and others helps keep our newsletter fresh and interesting.
The Stock SIG has been discontinued.
A set of Fresno PC Users Group business cards have been created using Avery Design Pro and Avery cardstock. If you have this software, you can download the 4.22mb file, customize, and print out FPCUG cards for spreading the word about our group.
Disk of the Month
Belarc Advisor 7.1h (Updated)
Author: Belarc, Inc.Date: 2006-04-12
Size: 941 Kb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All
The Belarc Advisor builds a detailed profile of your installed software and hardware and displays the results in your Web browser. All of your PC profile information is kept private on your PC and is not sent to any web server.
Limitations: Free for personal use
Cobian Backup 7.6.0.351
Author: Luis CobianDate: 2006-04-18
Size: 5.9 Mb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All
Cobian Backup is a multi-threaded program that can be used to schedule and backup your files and directories from their original location to other directories/drives in the same computer or other computer in your network. FTP backup is also supported in both directions (download and upload).
DivX Player 6.2
Author: DivX NetworksDate: 2006-04-11
Size: 14.8 Mb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win XP/2K
There's a new player in town, and here's what it does - play DivX videos. Every version; even purchased or rented DivX movies, DivX HD files, and videos created with advanced features such as menus, subtitles and more. It also lets you manage video collections, burn discs and activate your DivX Certified device.
Eraser 5.8
Author: Heidi Computers LimitedDate: 2006-04-12
Size: 2.3 Mb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All
Eraser is an advanced security tool, which allows you to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns. You can drag and drop files and folders to the on-demand eraser, use the convenient Explorer shell extension or use the integrated scheduler to program overwriting of unused disk space or, for example, browser cache files to happen regularly.
ExtractNow 4.14
Author: Nathan MoinvaziriDate: 2006-04-16
Size: 832 Kb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All
ExtractNow lets you extract multiple archives with the ease of a singular button. Supports ZIP, RAR, ACE, & JAR file formats.
Foobar 0.9.1 Final
Author: Peter PawlowskiDate: 2006-04-23
Size: 1.5 Mb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win NT/2K/XP/2003
Foobar2000 is an advanced audio player for the Windows platform. Some of the basic features include ReplayGain support, low memory footprint and native support for several popular audio formats.
K-Lite Codec Pack Full 2.72
Author: KL SoftwareDate: 2006-04-24
Size: 18 Mb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All
K-Lite Codec Pack is a collection of codecs and related tools. Codec is short for Compressor-Decompressor. Codecs are needed for encoding and decoding (playing) audio and video. This Codec Pack is designed as a user-friendly solution for playing all your movie files. You should be able to play all the popular movie formats and even some rare formats.
The K-Lite Codec Pack has a couple of major advantages compared to other codec packs: It it always very up-to-date with the latest versions of the codecs; It is very user-friendly and the installation is fully customizable, meaning that you can install only those components that you really want; It has been very well tested, so that the package doesn't contain any conflicting codecs; It is a very complete package, containing everything you need to play your movies; and has different packages.
Full contains even more codecs. It also has encoding support for various formats. This package is for power users and people who do their own encodings.
Look@LAN 2.50 Build 35
Author: Carlo MedasDate: 2006-04-23
Size: 2.1 Mb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All
Look@Lan is an advanced network monitor that allows you to monitor your net in few clicks. Extremely easy to use and very fast in discovering your network's active nodes. Full of relevant features such as: auto-detect of network configuration, monitoring, reporting, trapping, statistics and graphs, network tree view, network log, proof single node scan, os detection.
Main Features:
- Auto-Detect of Network Settings
- Scanning of one or more Scan-Ranges
- Complete Management of Network Profiles
- World's Faster Node Discovery Scan
- Automatic and Manual Network Configuration
- Network Statistics and Graphs
- Profile Export (text and HTML)
- Advanced Trapping
- Network Log
- Network Tree View
- Proof Single Node Scan
- Reporting
Limitations: Look@LAN Network Monitor 2.50 Build 29 is still available for download but is no more supported.
Maxthon Combo Version 1.5.3 Build 18
Author: MaxthonDate: 2006-04-18
Size: 5 Mb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All
Maxthon is a multi-tabbed browser based on the IE core (IE5.x or above required). It can open multiple web pages within one browser window, and uses little system resources. Maxthon also incorporates 2 POPUP blockers (Auto POPUP blocker & a POPUP blocker list filter) and a Content Filter. The Content filter can be used to filter offensive pictures on a web page, if desired
MemTest 3.4
Author: HCI DesignDate: 2006-04-22
Size: 13 Kb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All
MemTest is a RAM reliability tester. It evaluates the ability of your computer's memory to store and retrieve data accurately. A correctly functioning computer should be able to do both these tasks with 100% accuracy day in and day out. A computer that fails these tests, perhaps because of old hardware, damaged hardware, or poorly configured hardware, will be less stable and crash more often. Even worse, it will become even less stable over time as corrupted data is written to your hard disk.
PC INSPECTOR smart recovery 4.5
Author: CONVAR Deutschland GmbHDate: 2006-04-18
Size: 6.2 Mb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win 9x/ME/2K/XP
PC INSPECTOR™ smart recovery is the new data recovery program from CONVAR for Flash Card™, Smart Media™, SONY Memory Stick™, IBM™ Micro Drive, Multimedia Card, Secure Digital Card or any other data carrier for digital cameras.
Realtek RTL8139/810x/8169/8110 6.41
Author: RealtekDate: 2006-04-10
Size: 4.8 Mb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All
Drivers for RTL8139/810x/8169/8110 series. Windows Logo Certification Drivers for OEM manufacturer.
Reaper 0.944
Author: Cockos IncorporatedDate: 2006-04-18
Size: 1 Mb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win XP/2K/2003
REAPER is a powerful but sensible Windows application that lets you record, arrange, edit, and render multi-track waveform audio.
RegToy 0.3.4.0
Author: Ky NamDate: 2006-04-23
Size: 797 Kb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win XP/2K/2003
RegToy is a useful program that was designed for WindowsXP , is used to Tweak WindowsXP , and some utilities like a remaner to change the filenames and a wallpaper changer. With RegToy you can optimize the performance of your computer and customize your system to suit your needs.
Editors Note:: The original language of this program is in Vietnamese, you can select English after you first run the application.
Stick 2.4 Beta 10
Author: iWonder DesignsDate: 2006-04-12
Size: 2.1 Mb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All
Stick is a desktop enhancement utility that can help you access commonly used utilities and applications. Stick does this by encapsulating these utilities into screen tabs. Screen tabs are customizable tab windows that stick to the edge of your screen. You can collapse and expand these tabs to hide and reveal their contents.
System Spec 2.00
Author: Alex NolanDate: 2006-04-10
Size: 1.6 Mb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All
The self contained EXE lists a no nonsense specification of your machine without listing lots of useless memory address and unnecessary information.
The BIOS Agent 3.52
Author: Esupport.comDate: 2006-04-12
Size: 288 Kb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All
The BIOS Agent is a simple, easy to use program that will automatically identify your computers BIOS and other system information. You'll quickly identify:
- the BIOS Date
- BIOS Type
- BIOS ID String
- Motherboard OEM data
- Motherboard Chipset
Super I/O data This information is very helpful in the event you need or want to upgrade the BIOS on your PC. The BIOS Agent program is totally harmless, will not damage your system in any way, and no hidden information about your system is submitted to a database without your prior knowledge. It is simply a tool that you can use to obtain useful information about your system.
Version 3.52 adds support for Windows 64-bit editions.
TheSage 1.1.2
Author: Sequence PublishingDate: 2006-04-23
Size: 7.3 Mb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All
TheSage's English Dictionary and Thesaurus is a professional software package that integrates a complete dictionary and a multifaceted thesaurus of the English language into a single and powerful language reference system.
- Comprehensive dictionary: Growing Over 145,000 references with multiple detailed definitions (over 200,000)
- Complete thesaurus: Growing Nearly 1,200,000 relationships between definitions (synonyms, antonyms, hypernyms, hyponyms, meronyms, holonyms,...)
- Information integration: Implemented Each definition is directly linked to its own thesaurus.
- Example sentences: Growing A large collection that already includes approximately 35,000 examples of usage.
Weather Watcher 5.6.7
Author: Singer's CreationsDate: 2006-04-10
Size: 2.2 Mb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All
Ad-free, spyware-free, hassle-free... Your weather, your way. View current conditions, hourly forecast, daily forecast, detailed forecast, severe weather alerts, and weather maps for almost any city world-wide.
YPOPs! 0.8.5 Beta
Author: Anuj Seth & K Shyam.Date: 2006-04-09
Size: 1.4 Mb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All
YahooPOPs! is an open-source initiative to provide free POP3 access to your Yahoo! Mail account.
This application emulates a POP3 server and enables popular email clients like Outlook, Netscape, Eudora, Mozilla, Calypso, etc., to download email from Yahoo! accounts.
This application acts like a gateway. It provides a POP3 server interface at one end to talk to email clients and an HTTP client (browser) interface at the other which allows it to talk to Yahoo!
YahooPOPs! is also available for UNIX @ the authors site.
I put uTorrent on here with the Java for windows file that needed to run it. I'm not attaching it so you'll have to use windows explorer or my computer to get to it.
Disclaimer: Use these programs at your own risk. FPCUG doesen't take any responsibility for these programs.
APCUG Corner: Improving your Optical
Character Recognition (OCR)
Do you use an OCR* Program?
How good are your results?
The quality of recognition depends on the quality of the scanned image. The image quality may be improved by altering some of the parameters like scanning mode, brightness, and resolution.
Scanning mode:
Gray: Scanning documents in the grayscale mode produces the best text recognition accuracy. During grayscale scanning, brightness is adjusted automatically.
Black and White: Scanning in the black-and-white mode maximizes the scanning speed but may result in the loss of some character information. This may lower recognition quality in documents of medium and low print quality.
Color: If you wish to retain color in the images, text or backgrounds of your electronic documents, use the color scanning mode.
Brightness:
Documents scanned in the black-and-white mode may require additional brightness tuning to maximize recognition results. A medium brightness value of around 50% should suffice in most cases.
Resolution:
Font size 9 pts or smaller: Use 400 to 600 dpi (dots per inch).
Font size 10 pts or larger: Use 300 dpi (dots per inch).
Run some tests first to see what works best for your project. It could save a lot of work and time!
*"Optical character recognition, usually abbreviated to OCR, involves computer software designed to translate images of typewritten text (usually captured by a scanner) into machine-editable text." - from WikipediaWhy are Backups Important?
Backing up your computer’s main hard drive is the most important task every user needs to do on a regular basis. Still, I hear end-users say they have nothing of value on their computers, so they really don’t need to do backups. This is not true. I hope this article will help you understand why backups are important to do.
Most users think that the display, keyboard, and computer box are the main parts of their computer system. While the computer hardware is important, the real heart and soul of your computer are the many files stored on the hard drive. These files are what make the hardware run and do useful tasks. Without them, your computer would be useless.
Your computer’s hard drive contains two general types of files on it – program files and data files. It is very important that you backup both of these types of files, but you will want to back them up for different reasons.
Program files include your Windows operating system and all of the application programs you run on your computer. Without them, your computer would do nothing. If your hard drive should fail without a backup, then you would have to spend days or weeks reloading all of these program files on your hard drive. This is a lot of work and you may never get your computer to run again like it did before the hard drive failed.
Data files are the files you create using the programs on your computer. These are the most important files you have on your computer. They are the email messages you send, the documents you write, the financial records you keep, your digital photographs and music files. So, when your hard drive fails on you, you will lose all of these important data files. This can be a major disaster for you. Let me tell you about a real situation that occurred this past year.
A member of a user groups in California had been taking lots of pictures with her digital camera. She saved these on her hard drive in albums ready to show her family and friends. Her wedding pictures were also saved on her hard drive. One morning, she could not get her hard drive to work. It had failed on her without a backup. She took the hard drive to a company specializing in recovering data from failed hard drives. They analyzed the drive and told her they could probably get most of her photos back and their fee for this service was $1000. She was shocked at this high fee, but all of her photos were very important to her, so she ended up paying this fee. A good backup would have saved her this expense.
Computer hard drives are very reliable today, but they still fail for many reasons. The hardware can wear out and stop working. A more common reason is that the programs on your main hard drive become corrupted and no longer function. It is not a question of if your hard drive will fail; it is more a question of when will it fail on you. You need to be prepared with a backup for when your hard drive does fails on you.
Backing up your computer’s hard drive is a fairly simple concept. To backup your main hard drive, you copy all of the files on that drive and store them on another device that you can save away from your computer. Then if anything should happen to your main hard drive, you put a new hard drive in your computer and copy all of these important files to this new drive. You can be up and running again in minutes with a good backup.
Backing up your hard drive is very easy to do with the latest technology. To help you understand more about how to do backups, I have put together a training session titled the Perfect Backup Approach. You can find it on my web site at ugr.com/tutorials.html. Take a few minutes to watch this tutorial and you will have a much better understanding of how to do backups using the latest technology today.
To help you get started to backup your hard drive, we are running a Summer Special that includes the best backup software available today, Acronis True Image 9.0 Home edition. You can order this top rated backup software product for just $29 on our web site at usergroupstore.com. The Order Code is UGPBA. It normally sells for $50 in computer stores. To make the deal even better, we will include a copy of our Perfect Backup Approach training CD at this special price. Don’t wait too long as the summer is coming to an end and this special will not last into the fall.
To make it easy for you to start to do backups, we have prepared a technical paper titled, Using Acronis True Image 9.0 Home edition that you can find on our web site at ugr.com/newsletters.html. Read and follow this article as you install and start to do backups and it will guide you through each of the steps in doing backups. It couldn’t be easier to get started.
That completes this article on the importance of backing up your hard drive. If you have questions on this article or other questions about True Image or your hard drive, send a note to gene@ugr.com and I will try to assist you.
Gene Barlow
User Group Relations
PO Box 911600
St George, UT 84791-1600
Why I never buy a pre built computer
I was over at a client's house Monday afternoon. He has a Dell and he thought he had the warranty that would allow a Dell tech to come to his house and fix his computer. Here is his story and perhaps it will save someone else heartaches.
He has had his computer for around 3 months. He purchased it directly from Dell and got a warranty and then extended it for a year so it would take care of any problems. It turns out he had the wrong warranty and they weren't willing to sell it to him at the time of his call. He had called Dell and had spent over 20 hours on the phone with one tech or another. At their instance he started a repair of windows and it would always stop at 34 minutes (this is a well-documented problem with XP). Then at their suggestion he called a computer tech. That was me.
The problem I found was that he had RAID 1 (mirrored drives). The tech he finally got a hold of told him/me to turn the computer off and open the case. He did so and then they said to disconnect the mirrored drive, which I did. They had us totally do a clean install of windows on the drive. This totally destroyed all the data on the "C" drive. After we got the OS loaded we added the drivers manually. When they were all in he had us turn off the machine and reconnect the mirrored drive. I told the tech that it would erase all the data on the drive but he said it had to be reconnected like this to comply with his warranty. He explained that after it finished mirroring the drive we could access the data on the mirrored drive. Well guess what? The data is nowhere to be found.
I tell this tale to point out that you:
- You can't always trust the company techs over a phone.
- You should always backup your computer to a separate drive.
- You should make sure that you thoroughly understand the warranty.
From this experience I have purchase a device that will let me access any SATA (Serial ATA drive) or PATA (Parallel ATA drive), without taking it out of the computer, with my laptop and extract the data from it to my computer. Had I had this device the outcome would have been completely different. Of course if this involves opening the case of a computer that's still in warranty it could possibly void the warranty.
Prior to this I had the device that would let me access data from a PATA, that is your standard IDE drive.
FPCUG Board of Directors Meeting Summary
- Nothing of significance to report.
Special Interest Groups (SIGs)
Digital Photo SIG:
The Digital Photo SIG is usually held on the first Saturday of the month at CompUSA on N. Blackstone at 10:30am. However, August's Photo SIG will be a special tutorial entitled "How to convert your VHS tapes to DVD", and it will be held at Dean & Nancy Mason's house in Coarsegold. The Masons have sent an FYI by email on how to get to their house, but if you missed it, and want to go, call or email the Masons or email Ronnie Ugulano to get the particulars forwarded to you.
Sanity Savers
Sanity Savers are members who have volunteered to help other members with their computing problems. SIG Leaders are also a valuable information resource.
Do not expect long term counseling, house calls, or to get pirated copies of software recommended to you. Also do not expect any of the volunteers to help you if you are not the legitimate owner of a software package.
If you have any experience in an area of computing, feel free to add your name to the Sanity Saver's list. You do not need to be an expert to be listed as a Sanity Saver--patience and willingness to help count for a lot.
| DOS | Dean Mason & Krikor Geyoghlian |
| Desktop Publishing, Graphics, Adobe Acrobat | Susy Ball |
| Excel | Krikor Geyoghlian |
| General Computing | Bill Myers |
| Internet Help | Dean Mason |
| Audio Help | Robert Caraway |
| Linux | Ben Lutes |
| Lotus 1-2-3 | Krikor Geyoghlian |
| Medical | Cecil Bullard |
| MS Word | Krikor Geyoghlian |
| Office 97/2000/XP | Krikor Geyoghlian & Laura Barnard |
| Windows 3.x | Krikor Geyoghlian |
The Fine Print
The Fresno PC User's Group (FPCUG) is a non-profit organization run by and for users of IBM compatible computers. The only membership eligibility requirement is an interest in computers.
FPCUG meetings are generally held the first Monday of the month at:
| President | Bill Myers |
| 1st VP | Dean Mason |
| 2nd VP | Jo Townley |
| Secretary | David Smith |
| Treasurer | Wilda Moller |
| 1. | Regles Bellamy |
| 2. | Gary Gipson |
| 3. | Monica Braun |
| 4. | Brian Fulk |
This newsletter was prepared using Macromedia HomeSite 5.5. Ronnie Ugulano is the editor.
Contributions.While there's no guarantee that submitted material will be used, contributions to the FPCUG Newsletter are appreciated. Articles of 200-500 words should be submitted in MS Word doc or rtf format. Contributions can be in the form of an article written by a member or an article found on the internet with permission to reprint. Any screenshots or photos should be sharp and high resolution, and sent as jpgs, bmp, or tiff files, preferably not gifs. Files submitted as pdfs are likely to have their text and graphics extracted as separate entities so that they can be converted to html format. Graphics might be cropped or reduced to fit into available space. Contact Ronnie Ugulano for further information.
Reproduction Rights. Original articles may be reproduced by other computer users groups for internal, non-profit use, provided credit is given to the Fresno PC Users Group and the author(s) of the reproduced articles. This notice does not supersede the rights of authors whose copyrighted material is used by permission.
Disclaimer. Trademarks used in this publication are hereby recognized and acknowledged. The information provided in this newsletter is believed and intended to be correct and useful. However, the Fresno PC Users Group cannot assume responsibility for errors contained in the articles or misapplications of the information provided. Unless specifically stated otherwise, opinions expressed are those of the individual author(s) and do not represent the opinions of, nor endorsement by, the Fresno PC Users Group. The Fresno PC Users Group is an independent, non-profit users group and is not affiliated in any way with any vendor or equipment manufacturer.
Vendor Notice. Only review products that have been obtained by the product review coordinator and received through the FPCUG address shall be considered the responsibility of the FPCUG, unless otherwise indicated by the Board of Directors and with the full knowledge of the review coordinator.