Have a printer that won't print? Ever been tempted to toss your PC out the window? Need a cure for the headaches associated with running a home network?

This month's general meeting will cover Personal Computer Annoyances, based on the series of books from O'Reilly Hardware Annoyances, Network Annoyances and Internet Annoyances.

While every FPCUG meeting sets aside time to answer computer questions, this July meeting will focus on common problems that undermine your daily productivity. So, bring your questions and error messages, as well as your own expertise, to the group for help and fun!

mplayer2 as an alternative to Windows Media Player

Did you know that XP ships with Windows Media Player 6 (the "classic," no-frills version)? To access it,

go to Start -> Run -> "mplayer2." It is a bare-bones version of Windows Media Player that won't hog too much memory.

Accessing the Quick Launch Folder

The Quick Launch buttons, or those found typically right of the Start button, offer convenient and fast access to often-used programs. If you ever want to enter the Quick Launch folder, it has an actual physical location on the file system. Specifically, this location is: C:\Documents and Settings\[USERNAME]\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch. Use it to create new shortcuts, delete old ones, or if you are very savvy, create quick launch "folders".

Changing Your Refresh Rate

You may not realize it, but the refresh rate of a monitor's output is probably the most common reason that people have trouble viewing PC monitors. To make the rate easier on the eyes, go [on WinXP] to Start -> Control Panel -> Appearance and Themes -> Display -> Settings -> Advanced -> Monitor and change the refresh rate in the drop-down box to the highest supported level. In most cases, higher refresh rates are easier on the eyes and the difference is subtle but noticeable over time.

Staying Up-to-date on Security with PacketStorm and GFI

Ever wanted to become a true expert on computer security? Most agree that to do so, you need to 1) acquire knowledge from the "hacker's" point of view, and 2) stay up-to-date with the latest information. You can do both by frequenting packetstormsecurity.org and reading advisories, exploit code, and news. It is an excellent site to find security-related tools, such as the IDS "Snort" and the port-scanner "Nmap." Also, try downloading GFI's LanGuard Network Scanner at gfi.com/lannetscan/ and scanning your own PC and others in your network. You will invariably learn something new and useful.

Unlocking/Locking the Taskbar

The taskbar at the bottom of the screen is "unmovable" by default, but it is possible to customize the number of "Quick Launch" buttons or extend the width of the bar. To do this, right-click the bar and uncheck "Lock Task Bar." Adjust the bar to your liking by clicking and dragging the dotted "borders" of different parts of the task bar. To lock it back in place, right-click the bar one last time, then check "Lock Task Bar."

• Many companies are no longer sending out representatives but using "demos in a box". It was suggested that at meetings, we could demo some of the applications that were on the Disk of the Month. In addition, a wireless modem is currently being tested to obtain an internet connection for use during our general meetings to access other online activities of interest to the FPCUG.
• Last month's presentation was by The Digital Photo Guy^TM. We had expected to see Lee in person, but at the last moment we were notified that we would be viewing his "Demo in a Box" instead. The demo was very well done. The sound and video was good, and Lee's presentation from the disk was excellent. Lee has most of his lessons distilled down to "Rules of 3", meaning three simple rules for each major concept learned in connection to digital photography. Despite the change in format, it was well worth the trip to the FPCUG meeting to see the demo. If you missed the meeting, the demo disk itself can be purchased from The Digital Photo Guy^TM for home viewing.

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Advanced Spyware Remover 1.85.23786

Size: 1.9 Mb
Requires: Win XP/2K/2003

The key features:

• Scan/Remove spyware, adware and malware.

• Immunize and block over 20000 known spyware, adware and malware.
• Remove and fix pc hijacker programs.

Advanced Spyware Remover is designed as an advanced but easy-to-use software that protect your computer against stealthy spyware, aggressive adware, system hijackers, Malware, tracking cookies, keyloggers, dialers, as well as other malware. It does not only scan/remove those infections but also scan system hijacker and lists the contents of key areas of the Registry and System--areas that are used by both legitimate programmers and infections.Advanced Spyware Remover is continually updated to detect and remove new hijacks. Also Advanced Spyware Remover has the ability to immunize over 20000 known Spyware, Adware and Malware.

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Avant Browser 10.2 Build 39

Size: 1.6 Mb
Requires: Win All

Avant Browser is a fast, stable, user-friendly, versatile web browser. Avant Browser is a multi-window browser which features with many functions such as Pop-up Stopper, Built-in Google Searching, Safe Recovery, Integrated Cleaner and Advanced Browsing Options.

Pop-up Stopper: Eliminate unwanted pop-up pages automatically.

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ClockGEN

ClockGen is an program dedicated to overclocking. Its main purpose is to change the system clocks on the fly : FSB (Front Side Bus) and GSB (Graphic Side Bus). ClockGen also provides some functions that allow you to improve and monitor your overclock.

Keep in mind that overclocking may damage your system.
Use it at your own risk!

Comodo Personal Firewall 2.0.0.0

Author: Comodo Group Inc
Date: 2006-04-06
Size: 16.6 Mb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win XP/2K

FREE Comodo Personal Firewall - Secure your system against internal attacks such as Trojan viruses / malicious software and external attacks by hackers. With a user-friendly single click interface you can allow or block access to the Internet offering complete immunity to attacks and total protection of your personal information. Real time traffic monitoring enables you to react instantly to threats and identify bandwidth bottlenecks. Silent Security Technology means no needless alerts with out-of-the-box protection against hackers, Trojans and other unknown threats. Comodo Personal Firewall is the powerful and effective, easy to manage barrier that keeps hackers out and personal information in. Comodo Personal Firewall helps you connect in a secure way to the internet and global networks. Total peace of mind is FREE!!

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Core FTP LE 1.3c Build 1447.4

Size: 3.5 Mb
Requires: Win All

Core FTP Lite - a free FTP Client with SSL/TLS, SSH/SFTP, site to site transfers, dragdrop, browser integration, user-friendly interface(s), FTP/HTTP Proxy, Socks 4/5 support, remote file searching, queue manager, auto retry and resume of transfers, transfer bandwidth control, htaccess editing, advanced dir listings, queueing of multiple FTP transfers on multiple sites, sessions, start, stop, and resume of FTP transfers, advanced directory listings, .htaccess editing, auto s/key support, keep alive, auto-reconnect, file permissions (chmod), and much more!

Free for personal and educational use.

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CS Fire Monitor 2.5.5

Author: Crofts Software
Date: 2006-04-02
Size: 6.5 Mb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win XP/2K/2003

CS Fire Monitor is a comprehensive monitoring tool for the Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows 2003 platforms. It has an extensive range of live monitoring screens that capture data from many areas within a PC and since the application has its own inbuilt database it is also capable of producing a number of reports which can be saved in a variety of ways. In addition, the Remote Viewer allows the user to access other PCs on the same LAN or over the Internet to extract key information. The application is highly configurable and incorporates several methods of monitoring the same information so that each user can choose the most appropriate method to meet their needs.

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DriveImage XML 1.16

Author: Runtime Software
Date: 2006-04-05
Size: 1.4 Mb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win XP/2K/2003

DriveImage XML is an easy to use and reliable program for imaging and backing up partitions and logical drives.

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Free Download Manager 1.9

Author: FreeDownloadManager.org
Date: 2006-04-03
Size: 1.3 Mb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All

Free Download Manager (FDM) is a full-featured download accelerator and manager. It is absolutely free! Using this software product you can easily download a list of files and whole web sites from any remote server via HTTP, HTTPS and FTP. With FDM the downloading process will be as easy as never before!

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GAG 4.6

Author: Raster Software
Date: 2006-03-05
Size: 808 Kb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All

GAG is a Boot Manager program. It's loaded when the computer is turned on and allows you to choose the operating system you want to use.

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iColorFolder 1.4.2

Author: iColorFolder
Date: 2006-03-29
Size: 1.5 Mb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win XP

iColorFolder allows to customize the color of every WindowsXP folder. With iColorFolder, give some color to WindowsXP folders. With just a right-click, colorize your folders, and discover a new intuitive way to classify your files. A quick view is now enough to identify the folder you are looking for.

iColorFolder is a very light soft, that doesn't stay in memory. It uses a native functionality of WindowsXP to be more efficient. Discover its simplicity: with a single right-click on a folder you colorize it.

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Microsoft SyncToy for Windows XP 1.2

Author: Microsoft Corp.
Date: 2006-03-29
Size: 844 Kb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win XP

SyncToy v1.0 is available as a free download on the Microsoft Download Center. The easy to use, customizable application helps you copy, move, rename, and delete files between folders and computers.

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Opera Without Java 8.54

Author: Opera
Date: 2006-04-05
Size: 3.6 Mb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All

Opera Software ASA is an industry leader in the development of Web browsers for the desktop and device markets. The Opera browser has received international recognition from end-users and the industry press for being faster, smaller and more standards-compliant than other browsers, and it has gathered a cult following on the net.

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RegToy 0.3.0.1

Author: Ky Nam
Date: 2006-04-02
Size: 779 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.

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RemoveIT Pro XT SE (30.3.2006)

Author: Damjan Irgolic
Date: 2006-03-30
Size: 837 Kb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All

RemoveIT Pro '06 - Remove many viruses that other popular antivirus software cannot discover. If you can't clean your computer from worms & viruses, adwares & spywares try with this software.

RemoveIT Pro is a security software that allows you to protect yor PC.

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Sandboxie 2.3

Author: Ronen Tzur
Date: 2006-03-05
Size: 314 Kb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win XP/2K/2003

Sandboxie requires neither the disabling nor blocking of functions available to Web sites through the browser. Instead, Sandboxie isolates and quarantines the outcome of whatever the Web site may do to your computer, including the installation of unsolicited software. There is no trade-off of functionality for security: the Web site can use the full range of active content tools, and if it uses these tools maliciously to install software or otherwise make changes in your computer, then these changes can be easily undone.

Sandboxie has originally been designed to increase the security of browsing with Internet Explorer, however it is just as effective with any other browser, and in fact, any other program. Sandboxie wraps a protection layer around the programs it supervises. It is this layer that intercepts and isolates any changes the programs make to the computer. And this layer is impartial to the specific program it wraps.

Sandboxie is a software that allows you isolates and quarantines website.

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SIW (System Info) 1.58 (Build 603)

Author: Gabriel Topala
Date: 2006-04-05
Size: 1.2 Mb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All

SIW is a system information tool, that gathers detailed information about your system properties and settings. It includes detailed specs for CPU, Network, TCP/IP, Memory, Hardware, Users, Network Shares, and more, as well as real-time monitors for CPU, Memory and network traffic. SIW also displays currently active network connections, installed codecs, connected MS SQL and Oracle database servers (if any) and more. A standalone tool that does not require installation.

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Startup List 2.01

Author: Merijn
Date: 2006-03-29
Size: 158 Kb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All

The new version shows a ton of new autostart locations in a nice treeview, along with help text for each section. The right-click menu of each item offers options to show the file or Registry key, or copy the information to the clipboard.

A very special thanks to TonyKlein for his Collection of Autostart Locations, and Andrew 'SilentRunners' Aronoff's list of launch points.

Note that this new version requires the MSCOMCTL.OCX file, which is available on this cd

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The SphereXP 0.90

Author: Dušan Hamar
Date: 2006-03-31
Size: 2.1 Mb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win XP

The SphereXP is a 3D desktop replacement for Microsoft Windows XP. Taking the known concept of three-dimensional desktops to its own level. It offers a new way to organize objects on the desktop such a icons and applications.

The project was under "heavy" construction, but now it is open for testing. Everybody is free to try it out. Every response is appreciated.

Requires the .Net Framework available on this CD

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ViewpointKiller 1.12

Author: PrProgramsStudios
Date: 2006-03-05
Size: 18 Kb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All

ViewpointKiller does exactly what it's name says: Kills Viewpoint Media Player. Viewpoint Media Player is an adware that displays bandwith eating popup ads in IE and on your desktop. It comes silently with an install of AIM and will be reinstalled by AIM if uninstalled.

ViewpointKiller fixes all of that. It takes off Viewpoint Media Player once and for all.

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VLC media player

VLC is a free cross-platform media player.

• It supports a large number of multimedia formats, without the need for additional codecs
• It is available for almost every OS
• It needs little CPU power

Not much info on this one that I can put into a word doc but it's great. It plays everything, except Real Media and who wants that anyway. It'll even play DVD's.

I loaded it onto my desktop and I like it better than most of my video players.

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WiFi SiStr 1.0.2280.14904

Author: DNsoft
Date: 2006-03-30
Size: 1.5 Mb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win XP/2K/2003

WiFi SiStr is a very small application that keeps your Wi-Fi signal strength always visible

Here are some key features of "WiFi SiStr":

• Small display customizable
• Windowless
• Settings by right-click on the main display
• Move by left button drag-n-drop

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WinAudit Freeware 2.10

Author: Parmavex Services
Date: 2006-03-30
Size: 659 Kb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All

WinAudit performs a rapid and exhaustive audit of installed software, license information, security configuration, hardware inventory, network settings and much more.

• Easy to use
• Audits virtually everything
• No setup
• Windows® 95 and up
• Save in text, html, csv, pdf
• Send audit by e-mail
• Export to databases
• Operates in batch mode
• Extensive documentation
• Free for any use!

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WinErrs 1.3

Author: Camtech 2000, Ltd.
Date: 2006-04-06
Size: 241 Kb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All

Did you ever get an 'Illegal Operation' or 'Page Fault' error message and wonder what it meant? WinErrs is a database of 1,554 Windows error codes and their definitions. These codes are extracted directly from Microsoft Windows and are their descriptions. With over 1,500 error codes they certainly seemed prepared for the worst.

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XnView Full 1.82.4

Author: Pierre-e Gougelet
Date: 2006-03-28
Size: 3.55 Mb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All

XnView is a utility for viewing and converting graphic files.

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Food For Thought From
a Computer Savvy Senior!

Question:

1. Do you really know what your Significant Other/Spouse or Next of Kin is doing on their computer?

2. What do you do if they up and die on you?

Are you one of the many spouses or Significant Others who are not computer literate? If so then this information is for you.

Many of the banking and credit card institutions encourage banking by mail and payment/status of credit card information by e-mail instead of paper copies. Banks are now trying to get you to receive your monthly statements by email. This is a wonderful option for namy people

But. . .

If you select these options, your statements will no longer come in your USPS mail box. You will receive your bills and statements by email only.

This is fine if both of you share the UserID and Password for these accounts. But if you are not a computer person, you will not be able to get on the computer to receive these statements by email. This could prove to be a very serious problem when you start working on the estate of the deceased. Most banks and credit card companies will not surrender the UserID or Password for the accounts.

The Solution: You will have to contact your banking and credit card companies directly in order to settle the accounts and pay the bills - If you know about them

Solution. . .

1. Write down the WEB addresss (URL - Uniform Resource Locater), UserID and Password for these accounts and put them in an envelope in a safe place. Of course, make sure that this information is updated if you make any changes or add new accounts.
2. Learn something about how to access these accounts before it is too late.
3. Join a computer user group to be able to learn the basics of computers.
4. You are never too old to learn.

Rich Schinnel is a retired member of Capital PC User Group and an active computer user

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Giving vs. Taking

Membership in your local User Group offers a wonderful opportunity to learn more about computers. With practically no effort your part, other than attending a meeting, you can sit and watch a very good program, presented by a knowledgeable speaker, and frequently you also get an opportunity

to participate in a raffle or door prize drawing where you have a chance to win a nice program for your computer. Even if you don't want to come to meetings, membership gets you a copy of the monthly newsletter, which contains information about upcoming meeting programs, some of which you may decide you want to attend. It also contains technical articles, reviews and other news to read at your leisure.

But your local User Group also offers an opportunity to get a lot more out of your membership than you can possibly get by being passive. It offers the opportunity for you to become an active participant, and give something of yourself (time, effort, knowledge, etc.) to benefit others. The inner satisfaction and rewards one gets from helping others are truly amazing.

People frequently point to the 80/20 rule, which is found in many aspects of life; for example, 20% of the people in an organization will do 80% of the work, while the remaining 80% of the people collectively do 20% of the work. Well, there is a further application of the 80/20 rule: The active 20% doing the work (Givers) are getting 80% of the pleasure out of the club, and the passive 80% (Takers) get only 20% of the pleasure.

I encourage you to think about this for just a few minutes. Is there something that you could do to help others, so that you can see whether or not I am right? You will certainly see that the returns from investing that effort to help others far outweighs the investment. Can you give just a little bit of your time, doing whatever you do best? Perhaps that is:

• Making a few phone calls to try to arrange something we need (speakers for a SIG, a meeting place for a SIG, advertising for the newsletter, etc.
• Trying out a new computer program, and then writing a review of it for the newsletter, sharing what you liked and did not like about the program, so that other members can benefit from your experiences.
• Spending a little time in a one-on-one basis with a new member who just got a computer, or who just got a new program for his computer, and who is completely lost trying to figure out how to make it work.
• Helping in your user group's Community Service Program. . .[or] start a community Service program in your user group, such as refurbishing old computers to be donated to some worthy non-profit agency, or other worthy recipient.
• Spending a few hours sitting in a booth at a computer show, telling people that stop by the booth what your local User Group has to offer.
• Presenting a program to your user group, or to another user group in town.
• Speaking to a class in a public school system, telling them how computers are used in real life, and possibly sparking that interest that encourages them to work harder to learn how to use computers, or speaking to a group of public school teachers, teaching them things they don't know about computers, to better enable them to teach their students.
• Leading, or helping to lead, a special interest group, enabling UG members interested in a particular subject or program, to get together and share their experiences with others that have the same interest.
• Spending some time adapting computers to aid the handicapped, so that a quadriplegic confined to bed or a wheelchair, and totally dependent on others gains some control over his own life, whether it is something as simple as being able to turn the TV on and off without help form someone else, or whether it is as powerful as being able to communicate his thoughts, wishes, and ideas, when previously he may have been unable to seriously communicate with the outside world.

The elected officers, and the Special Interest Group leaders are all wonderful people, since most of them are Givers, rather than Takers. It is a real pleasure interacting with this group of generous UG Members, and they do a number of things to help make their UG successful for the rest of the membership. But they can only do so much. There are many things that could be done, but are not currently being done, and I would be willing to bet your UG's President cannot in good conscience ask these Givers to give even more. Not that they would not accept the responsibility; they probably would, but he/she would run the risk of burning them out. What your President needs is a few more people to become Givers.

If you would be interested in helping your local User Group in any particular way, please let your President know. Things get pretty hectic at a meeting, so just mentioning your interest runs a risk that he/she may forget it when someone after you brings up something else entirely. But if you would write down your name, phone number, and the particular skills you have which you think your local User Group might be able to use, and perhaps an indication of the amount of time you would be able to devote each month, and either bring this to a meeting, or mail it to your President, he/she will do everything possible to match you up with a job you can handle, and you can start reaping the rewards of being a Giver.

And if your UG President can’t find enough to keep you busy, contact kbundy@apcug.net, and I bet Ken can find some committee in APCUG that could really use your help.

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Software Review: Acoustica CD/DVD Label Maker software

Late last year I received a copy of Acoustica CD/DVD Label Maker software to evaluate. I am writing to share my experiences. I had been burning CD's for quite sometime, but all I ever did was write some description on the CD with an indelible felt tip marker. I decided to try this label maker software to dress up my CD's.

I started by burning a CD's with all of the pictures I had ever taken of my three granddaughters. Then I went to Office Max to buy some labels and found my first surprise. The labels are quite expensive. Bought the cheapest package I could find and paid about 50 cents per label. I understand if you buy a bigger quantity and buy them online you can get them cheaper, but I was only looking to try out the

program so I didn't want to buy too many in case all I ever printed was one.

Well, I went home and installed the software. I accepted all the defaults straight through the installation and it went without a hitch. I open the software and started in. I didn't read the directions, I didn't follow any instructions, I just went for it and it was fairly easy to create a label. There were numerous backgrounds

you could use, but I wanted to use one of my pictures as the background. That was easy to do.

But this is where I ran into my second surprise. Most of the pictures you take are unsuitable for making labels because you usually put the subject in the middle of the picture and on a label there is a hole in the middle. So you have to find a picture that looks OK with a hole in the middle. It's not really that hard, but every picture won't work. I wanted to add some text

so I clicked on the text button and a small, adjustable box appeared where I could type in my text. I could easily change the location, font, size and color of the text as well as the size and location of the box.

Once I had the picture I wanted, had the text I wanted, and had the label created, it came time to print it. This was my third surprise. I had to choose the format for the type of label I had. There were probably over 400 different styles of label style listed by manufacturer and style number. The style of labels

I had bought wasn't one of the choices. Since there are only so many different ways a label can layout on a page, I choose one that looked like what I had and tried it. Well, as luck would have it, it worked the first time and I had my label. If it hadn't worked I would have wasted a label and had to try again. I guess you could experiment it on plain paper until you had it right and all you would waste is ink, but mine worked the first time.

The labels come sticky on one side and you just remove the paper backing and stick the label in place. This is where I came upon my fourth surprise. You have to center the label on the CD. There are little gizmos to do this for you, but I didn't have one. All I had was a sticky label in one hand and a CD in the other. Well I made it work. I just lined it up the best I could and started at the bottom so it would be wrinkle free and stuck it on. It wasn't perfect, but it was good enough. In fact, I liked how it looked so well I made several more labels and burned several more CD's and now all the parents of the girls have one. Of course, the CD's are outdated now, but I am saving up pictures for volume two.

All in all it was fun. If you like working with pictures you will like this too.

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Software For Shaky Hands

Hi Fred, Probably not very interesting to most of your readers, but for those with shaky hands (aka a tremor) like me this can be very good news. I found this software application called Mousecage. Its intention is to help people with hand tremor control their computer mouse. As you will understand, using a computer mouse is often impossible for people with a hand tremor. At first, Mousecage needed some getting used to, but once I did that, it helped me enormously. For the first time in ages, I can now handle the mouse without frustration! I found Mousecage mentioned on a Dutch website, but the company that developed Mousecage is UK based (I think) and has an English website: http://www.mousecage.org.

By the way: Many people associate tremor with Parkinson's disease, but there are a number of potential causes including 'essential tremor' (ET: http://essentialtremor.org/ ), which I suffer from. Here in Holland it is called 'familiar tremor'. It is estimated that in the United States alone, ET affects 10 million people, almost 3% of the population. Anyway, I hope this helps some fellow tremorers! ---Martin van der Donck

Thanks, Martin. My hat's off to you and people like you. PCs can be hard enough to deal with just on their own; it takes an impressive amount of spirit and determination for people to overcome physical impediments as well. Mousecage is made by a London-based company called Tunic Software, which charges $29.95 for it and offers a free trial version.

This item reprinted with permission from The LangaList (a free email newsletter available at http://www.langa.com/newsletter.htm), Copyright © 200X Langa Consulting LLC."

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The following items were discussed or decided upon:

• Fresno PC Users Group total assets are $450 more than this time last year. It was noted however, that there was a significant drop in income from membership compared to this time last year.
• In order to attract more members the suggestion was made that we should try to attract members from trailer parks in the area and to post information about the club in their laundry rooms.
• The next Board of Directors Meeting will be at 7:00pm on July 17, 2006.

Special Interest Groups (SIGs)

If you are a PC Users Group member, join a Special Interest group--a great way to share information with others having similar interests. Special Interest Groups are subgroups within Fresno PC Users Group that meet on their schedules to discuss specific topics. Bring items to share, programs, hints and blank disks. Email SIG leaders ahead to verify meeting times and locations.

Digital Photo SIG:

The Digital Photo SIG is normally held on the first Saturday of the month at CompUSA on N. Blackstone at 10:30am and is hosted by Nancy Mason and Jo Townley. However, due to the holiday on the 4th, the class will be cancelled for July. Instead, the Fresno Personal Computers User's Group can look forward to a special class in August. The August Photo SIG will be meeting at the home of Dean & Nancy Mason, in Coarsegold on August 5th. Dean is going to demo how to copy your VHS Tape to DVD. There will be a potluck lunch, and there is lots of room. If you would like to attend, please contact Dean or Nancy Mason.

 A Stock Trading SIG will be held by Walt Pinkerton 2nd Saturday of the month at CompUSA.

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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

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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:

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FPCUG Officers:

President	Bill Myers
1st VP	Dean Mason
2nd VP	Jo Townley
Secretary	David Smith
Treasurer	Wilda Moller

Directors At Large:

1.	Regles Bellamy
2.	Gary Gipson
3.	Monica Braun
4.	Brian Fulk

This newsletter was prepared using Macromedia HomeSite 5.5. with Ronnie Ugulano as 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.

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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.

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