Fresno Personal Computer Users’ Group General Meeting
May 1, 7:30 PM
Program Is:

Linspire

Linspire is an affordable, easy-to-use Linux-based operating system for home, school, and business users. There will be a demonstration of the Linspire OS and its CNR (click and run) technology - a software "warehouse" where Linspire users can download and install thousands of software programs with just one mouse click!

Linspire is a great alternative to Microsoft Windows and it is compatible with all the popular Internet, office and multimedia file types including QuickTime, Flash, Java, Windows Media, .doc, .xls, .ppt, .mp3, .pdf, .mpg, .avi and many more! This will be an interesting meeting! Come, learn and a get a chance to win some Linspire swag!

Bill's Tricks & Tips

Regular article by FPCUG member Bill Myers

Print Website in Landscape Mode

Ever printed a page from a website and found that the right side has been chopped off? Many times you can correct this by using Landscape mode

The A Drive Computer & Internet Services
to print the document. First, always do a print preview before printing the page. If you see that part of the page will be cut off, then go to Page Setup and choose Landscape mode. Then view the preview, and if all looks OK, send it to print.

Very simple.

Printing System Properties

You can easily print off a copy of your system properties and have it available for future reference in the event of your system being down. To do so, go to your Device Manager. As a reminder to some, you can find your device manager by right-clicking on "My Computer" and choosing Properties. Then, 9x/ME users go to the device manager tab. 2000/XP users click on the Hardware tab and then the device manager button. Once in the device manager, there's more. 9x/ME users right-click on "Computer" and choose Print. For 2000, select the main computer by clicking the computer icon at the top, then use the Print option in the View menu. In XP, do the same, except you'll find the print function in the Actions menu.

Open Outlook Right Into Inbox

By default, Outlook opens into a home screen which displays your message counts, calendar, tasks, etc. But, if you're like me, you use Outlook only for the email. Why waste time with the other stuff? Well, you can have Outlook open right up into your inbox easily. Outlook 97 users, go to the Tools menu and choose Options. In the general tab, you'll see a section for startup options. You'll see a dropdown menu where you can choose which folder to open up into. Choose Inbox (or whatever you want to use) and hit OK. For newer versions of Outlook, you're again looking for the dropdown, but its in a different location. You will want to go to the Other tab then click on the Advanced Options button.

Safely Remove USB Devices

USB devices are plug-and-play, meaning you should be able to plug them in and remove them whenever you please. This remains the case, however this is a caviat. The USB device receives power from the USB port and if that current is suddenly shut off, the jolt of removing the "hot" connection could result in possible data loss. To get around this problem, Microsoft put in a "Safely Remove Hardware" icon down in the XP system tray. When you click it, you will see a list of USB devices which are connected. Highlight the one you wish to remove and click. It will then tell you it is safe to remove the hardware.

We'll call this the "correct" way to remove a USB device.


FPCUG News

For Sale by Silent Auction: Sony Vaio Computer.

This computer has a P4 1.6 Ghz chip, 80 gig hard drive and 512 mg RAM. What makes this computer special, is that it has a highly prized Video Capture Card, and a TV Tuner option that allows you to record prescheduled television shows onto your hard drive, similar to TiVo.

In order to bid, 2 slips of paper will be provided to each person who attends the next general meeting. These slips of paper will be put in a box. At the break we will reveal the highest bid so far and those who want to bid higher can put it on the second slip and put it in box. At the end we will reveal who has highest bid. If more than one have bid the same amount we will have a drawing to determine the winner. The minimum starting bid will be $150, proceeds to benefit FPCUG.

The winner should be prepared to pay for the computer at the meeting and take it home.

Last month, Don Cummins ran the DVD production "Photoshop World, Boston 2005". The DVD was a series of tutorial demonstrations on photo adjustment using tools such as Curves found in Photoshop and a few other select programs, to subtly change the light and color values to improve a photo's appearance. We saw about 1 1/2 hours of the 2 1/2 hour production, and Don is looking into options to lend the disk to members for a complete viewing.

Next month, we will return to the "Photo" theme when Lee Otsubo The Digital Photo GuyTM shows us how to set up a digital camera for optimal results.

Microsoft has developed an online Password Checker to help you create a strong, difficult to break password, along with instructions on how to do so.

A new stock trading SIG has been created, to be led by Walt Pinkerton 2nd Saturday of the month at CompUSA.


Thanks to Sanjiv Kapoor, for helping make the FOSUG Field Trip possible.

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Disk of the Month

File Descriptions for February 2006 by Dean Mason & Monica Braun, Librarians of the FPCUG

2hotspot 1.0.2.2 Beta

Author: 2hotspot.com
Date: 2006-02-07
Size: 1.9 Mb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win XP/2K/2003

A powerful software that enables you to create wireless hotspots using your wireless router or wifi card. With this free software you can create local wireless communities where bulletin board, chat, and forums available locally with or without Internet service; Share your broadband service, split your ISP bill, control shared bandwidth; And run your own free or commercial wireless hotspot network.

This is a pre-release software that has not been fully tested. Pre Release Software is more likely to contain bugs and to crash your computer, potentially causing data loss. Use it on your own risk. This software uses a driver that Windows does not recognize. If you are unfamiliar with backing up your computer or diagnosing a network problem, do not attempt to use this at this stage in developement.

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AirSnare 1.2.11

Author: Jay DeBoer
Date: 2006-02-08
Size: 11.2 Mb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All

AirSnare is an intrusion detection system to help you monitor your wireless network. AirSnare will alert you to unfriendly MAC addresses on your network as well as to DHCP requests. If AirSnare detects an unfriendly MAC address, you have the option of tracking its access to IP addresses and ports or of launching Ethereal.

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ArtRage 2.0

Author: Ambient Design Ltd
Date: 2006-01-21
Size: 2.8 Mb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All

ArtRage is a painting package designed to provide a realistic and fun simulation of using paint on a canvas, along with pens, pencils, crayons, and other tools. You can run ArtRage on a normal Windows machine with a mouse, but it works particularly well if you have a graphics tablet. Even better, running ArtRage on a TabletPC takes advantage of the unique interaction of pen and screen to produce a realistic painting feel.

ArtRage is all about playing with paint without the mess, and having fun in the process. You can paint your own image from a blank canvas to completed work, or load in a picture to trace and have the tools pick their colours for you as you paint over it.

CmosPwd 4.8

Author: Christophe Grenier
Date: 2006-01-25
Size: 104 Kb
License: Freeware
Requires: DOS

CmosPwd is a CMOS BIOS password recovery tool.

The latest version works and compiles under Dos-Win9x, Windows NT, Linux and FreeBSD.

Editors note: This tool should only be used by experienced computer users. Please see the enclosed read_me if you would like to run it from Windows. Failure to follow instructions (from Windows) will cause your anti-virus to flag this as a virus.

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EvonSoft SysInfo 1.20

Author: Evonsoft
Date: 2006-01-24
Size: 508 Kb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All

Evonsoft System Info is a 100% freeware tool that detects your computer systems hardware and software, including CPU, Mainboard, Bios, Memory, Hard Disk, Video, Multimedia,Network and more.

HijackThis 1.99.1

Author: Merijn
Date: 2005-02-16
Size: 206 Kb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All

Editors Note: HijackThis is for advanced users. If you are not familiar with running processes on your computer as well as anything ever installed that could tie into your web browser, it will not be much help to you. Thats ok, were here to help you!

You should have scanned your machine with anti-spyware, virus and trojan tools before using HijackThis. We have written a tutorial that helps remove most known spyware, trojans or viruses, so please, take a minute to read the Basic Spyware, Trojan And Virus Removal tutorial.

If you are familiar with running processes, we also have the official HijackThis Tutorial And How To Post Your Log File which can help you analyze your log file or explain how to post it so we can analyze it for you.

HijackThis, a general homepage hijackers detector and remover. Initially based on the article Hijacked!, but expanded with almost a dozen other checks against hijacker tricks. It is continually updated to detect and remove new hijacks. It does not target specific programs/URLs, just the methods used by hijackers to force you onto their sites.

New stuff:

Updates:

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K-Lite Codec Pack Full 2.70

Author: KL Software
Date: 2006-02-08
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.

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Nasto Backup Home 4.2

Author: neobe
Date: 2006-01-30
Size: 2.1 Mb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All

Made for private users, natso Backup HOME offers a full protection to Windows' home computers. Its automatic technology provides quick backup and restore process.


Natso Backup HOME protects you from data lose because of virus, human errors, fire and thief.

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ProduKey 1.04

Author: Nir Sofer
Date: 2006-01-30
Size: 36 Kb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All

ProduKey is a small utility that displays the ProductID and the CD-Key of MS-Office, Windows, Exchange Server, and SQL Server installed on your computer. You can view this information for your current running operating system, or for another operating system/computer - by using command-line options. This utility can be useful if you lost the product key of your Windows/Office, and you want to reinstall it on your computer.

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Rainmeter 0.14

Author: Rainy
Date: 2006-01-22
Size: 431 Kb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All

Rainmeter is a customizable performance meter, which can display the CPU load, memory utilization, disk space, network traffic, time and many more things.

Features:

Important: You need to download gdiplus.dll to run Rainmeter if you don't have WinXP (or newer)

System Spec 1.91

Author: Alex Nolan
Date: 2006-01-30
Size: 1.4 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.

System Spec is a very simple tool for those that want to gather the most important system specifications for their computer.

It displays the CPU Speed, Memory (RAM), Video Card, Windows version and serial number and a few other things. It is intended to provide non-technical users with easy access to this information, from a simple interface.

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XnView Full 1.82.2

Author: Pierre-e Gougelet
Date: 2006-02-10
Size: 7.8 Mb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All

XnView is a utility for viewing and converting graphic files.

Main Features:

This version is freeware but you must register for commerical use.

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Advanced Spyware Remover 1.81.22686

Author: Evonsoft
Date: 2006-02-09
Size: 1.9 Mb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win NT/2K/XP/2003

The key features:

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. Advanced Spyware Remover is more than a spyware remover but scan/remove pc hijack programs and tweak your system,manage key area of your pc. With "Process Dictionary" you can get the information of over 10000 process including system process,general process,spyware/adware and virus. Also,you can detect IE extentions, BHOs and cookie info and system associations and so on.

Note: Advanced Spyware Remover has two editions,you can scan/remove spyware with the Free Edition,and the Professional Edition offers you extra features.

Advanced Spyware Remover is compatible with Windows 2000,XP,NT and 2003.

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Anti. . .worm 1.007.0145

Author: G DATA Software Sp. z o.o.
Date: 2006-02-02
Size: 277 Kb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All

Removal tool detects and removes many worms, trojans and backdoors: Mytob, Mydoom, Beagle, Netsky, Sasser, Blaster Zafi, Mabutu, Startpage and many others.

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ATITool 0.0.25 Beta 12

Author: W1zzard
Date: 2006-01-24
Size: 1 Mb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All

As the name implies ATITool is an overclocking utility designed for ATI video cards.

Design target is to write a light-weight application for the enthusiast - so no questionable registry tweaks. Sorry.

Main Features:

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DAMN NFO Viewer 2.10.0032.RC3

Windows All

DAMN NFO Viewer is an utility for viewing text files containing ASCII Art (e.g. nfo files), and it proved itself to be handy So. . .if you're fed up with starting some DOS-like file manager each time you need to view nfo file, or ain't too happy with the viewer you use, or (worst case) use Notepad - give this little tool a try.

Here are some key features of "DAMN NFO Viewer":

Useful tips:

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FreePOPs 0.0.97 Beta

Author: Alessio Caprari
Date: 2006-02-08
Size: 814 Kb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All

FreePOPs is an easily extensible program, which allows access to the most varied resources through the POP3 protocol.

Mainly, it can be used to download mail from the most famous webmails, but it could also be used as an aggregator for RSS feeds and much more.

This way it is possible to get all your messages in your favorite email client

FreePOPs is a POP3 daemon plus a LUA interpreter and some extra libraries for HTTP and HTML parsing. Its main purpose is translating local POP3 requests to remote HTTP actions on the supported web-mails, but it is really more flexible.

For example there is a plugin to read news from a website as if they were mails in a mailbox. You can easily extend FreePOPs on the fly, without even restarting it. You can add a plugin or modify an existing one simply changing the script file since the plugins are written in LUA and are interpreted on the fly.

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ID3 Renamer 2.15.0

Author: ID3renamer
Date: 2006-02-09
Size: 1.2 Mb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All

Do you have loads of MP3 files in a directory and need to write a single common piece of information into them (e.g. the interpret or the album name)? Do you need to clean some portion of the ID3 tag? Do you need to remove the diacritics? ID3 Renamer can help.

ID3 renamer is useful if you need to rename a large number of files in a directory accordingly to their ID3 description and a given "formula" (e.g. (%Track) %Artist - %Title). Such a function is pretty "smart", as it lets you assembly the filename as you wish and use the variables from the ID3 tag in the filename. It is required you mark them with a "%" at the beginning, followed by an ID3 section label (literally - i.e. the first letter is capital, exactly as it is referred to in the roll-down menu).

ID3 renamer can also create a new tag if there is none in the file yet; it lets you easily write into new files too. You can also fill the tag with information from the filename (alike the renaming process). Just type in the pattern, definition of information layout in the filename and ID3 tag version - and ID3 renamer will store everything. The pattern is given in the form of a regular expression.

You can also fill tag according to search in FreeDB database of CDs. There is a complete description of CD and then it's easy to fill the tag with this informations. ID3 renamer fully supports ID3v1, ID3v1.1, ID3v1.1+Winamp extension, ID3v2.x.

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Microsoft ® Windows AntiSpyware 1.0.509 (Beta 1)

Think your passwords are ok because you've used a long password using random combinations of upper and lower case letters? Think again. Test your current passwords with Microsoft's
Password Checker
Author: Microsoft
Date: 2005-02-17
Size: 6.3 Mb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win XP/2K/2003

Windows AntiSpyware (Beta) is a security technology that helps protect Windows users from spyware and other potentially unwanted software. Known spyware on your PC can be detected and removed. This helps reduce negative effects caused by spyware including slow PC performance, annoying pop-up ads, unwanted changes to Internet settings, and unauthorized use of your private information. Continuous protection improves Internet browsing safety by guarding over 50 ways spyware can enter your PC.

The worldwide SpyNet™ community plays a key role in determining which suspicious programs are classified as spyware. Microsoft researchers quickly develop methods to counteract these threats, which are automatically downloaded to your PC, so you stay up-to-date.

The user must be an administrator to install this application.

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Netscape 8.1

Author: Netscape
Date: 2006-01-25
Size: 658 Kb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All

AOL has released a new prototype of Netscape Browser. This new version is almost identical to the first prototype, but it's based on Mozilla Firefox 1.0 rather than 0.9.3.

The browser does not contain the proposed new design concept or any new features, though there are some performance improvements.

Based on Firefox, the Netscape Browser options and interface are similar, but brought to a superior level of accessibilty by filling some of the Firefox gaps, such as tabbed browsing, context menus and menu bars.

The file is a installer, which will in turn initiate a download of approximately 13 Mb.

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Quintessential Media Player Beta

Author: Paul Quinn
Date: 2006-01-21
Size: 3.0 Mb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All

Quintessential Player brings a huge arsenal of quality features, and uses simplicity as its decoy. It is truly the most unique player available. Supports MP3, CD Audio, Ogg Vorbis, WAV, VQF, MP+, Windows Media, and streaming audio including SHOUTcast.

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SpywareBlaster 3.5.1

Author: Javacool Software
Date: 2006-01-01
Size: 2.4 Mb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All

SpywareBlaster doesn't scan and clean for spyware - it prevents it from ever being installed.

It's main features include:

SpywareBlaster can help keep your system spyware-free and secure, without interfering with the "good side" of the web. And unlike other programs, SpywareBlaster does not have to remain running in the background.

SpywareBlaster is freeware for personal and educational use.

This version adds improved updating with new Turbo-Update technology, various feature and protection enhancements, and various other bug fixes, tweaks, and optimizations.

Editors Note: If you receive an error that files are missing when starting SpywareBlaster, please download the Microsoft Visual Basic Run Time files. These files are required for any program that was coded in Visual Basic and are often not included to make the download small. If you have never downloaded a program that needed these files, you may not have them installed. Its a small, safe download and something you may need again later.

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Workrave 1.82

Author: Workrave
Date: 2006-02-08
Size: 4.7 Mb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All

Workrave is a program that assists in the recovery and prevention of Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI). The program frequently alerts you to take micro-pauses, rest breaks and restricts you to your daily limit. Please refer to the feature comparison for a complete list of features, and how the program performs with respect to other programs on the market. The program runs on GNU/Linux and Microsoft Windows. The Linux version is available at the authors site.

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XP Tinny Tweak 2.0.0

Author: B.E.I.C. ELECTRONICS Inc.
Date: 2006-02-07
Size: 268 Kb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win XP

XP Tinny Tweak is a freeware software that has been developed to tweak up and remove spare components from your Windows operating system.

You can easily remove shortcut arrow symbols from the icons on your Desktop, uninstall Windows Messenger, disable AutoPlay CD's, delete Cookies, delete Temporary Files and many many more.

XP Tinny Tweak also shows important information about your computer.

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Software Review: Avery DesignPro

Article by Ronnie Ugulano, RAM Pages Editor

Last month when I walked in for the FPCUG meeting, I was met by an old friend. No, I'm not referring to Bill Myers, whom I'm happy to say I've known for many years, but a very familiar piece of software - Avery DesignPro, the software that is specially designed to be used with Avery cardstock and labels. A stack of the software was sitting on the table as I entered, and was given to members as long as the stack lasted.

School Identification

Over the years, I have used this software many, many times for a long list of printing projects. As a homeschooling parent, I've used the software to design student and teacher identification cards, bookmarks, T-shirts and certificates. As a housewife, I've created distinct address labels and business cards for each family member, get-

Get Well Card
together invitations, thank you and other occasion cards, and wish-you-were-here postcards to send to friends and family. As a soapmaker hobbyist, I make labels for the lotions, soaps, and bath salts I make for myself and others. As a computer geek, I fire up Avery DesignPro to create labels for the CDs I burn, and the occasional floppy.

So, you might say, I use Avery DesignPro a lot. Over the years, I've collected enough cardstock, artwork and cute sayings that I can whip up something for nearly every occasion that comes along. Who needs Hallmark?

Start a New Project

But I wouldn't be able to be so glib with the printer unless DesignPro was easy and dependable. It's one thing to cheerfully tinker with computer hardware or software-gone-wrong for fun. It's another thing to need a really nice card to go with a baby shower gift at the last minute, only to find that the software doesn't do what you need it to do - yesterday.

Open a Previous Project

Once you learn your way around DesignPro's simple interface, it's no trouble at all to whip up what you need, when you need it. When you open the program, you have the option of making something new, or opening a project you have previously used. If you are creating

Open a Previous Project
a new project, the tools for placing text and pictures is easy and intuitive. You can choose whether to make many copies of one design, or unique designs for each item. Fonts can be scaled as small as 8 or as large as 72, and graphics can be sized up or down to the size of the cardstock, or limit of the resolution of the graphic. There are even options for text direction, serial numbers and UPC codes - all push-button easy, using similar conventions as you'd find in Microsoft Word, only with much more in the way of options and flexibility for this specific series of jobs.

Oh, and did I mention that it's free? Yep, some Avery labels come with a disk enclosed (see specially marked packages) or, you can download the software from Avery's website. If you choose to download, I recommend that you select the stand-alone version, the one that does not integrate into Microsoft Word. It's leaner, cleaner and less clunky.

So, if you missed out on the stack of DesignPro disks at the last FPCUG meeting, a simple download will allow you to join the club.

© Ronnie Ugulano 2006

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What Your Computer Really Does
When It's Idle

by Vinny La Bash, Member of the Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc.

You're sitting at your machine, thinking about what to do next, when your disk drive starts whirring and the light flashes, indicating that something is going on. What is your machine doing? Your hands are nowhere near the keyboard or the mouse, and you can be relatively certain that neither telepathy nor telekinesis is at work.

One possibility is that your system is loading automatic updates from Microsoft.com because you set your system to download updates automatically. The same could be true for anti-virus programs, firewalls or any applicataion software that offers this type of automated service.

The Task Scheduler may be running a background utility. Your automatic backup may be kicking in, or an online subscription service is delivering requested information as part of a service it provides. Any number of similar operations could be going on. There is a dark side to this. You may be infected by a spyware program reporting back to its master over the internet. Most spyware blabs about your web surfing habits to a commercial entity so that it can tailor ads to your individual tastes. Many people consider this annoying or intrusive. Nevertheless, the designers of these programs have no desire to hurt you. They want only to sell you something.

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A Trojan horse program may be downloading spam to retransmit from your machine, making it look to recipients that you are the spammer. Other programs make your machine a "zombie" or a node in an array of machines designed to launch a Denial of Service (DOS) attack on a website.

Worst of all, there have been instances reported of stealth programs downloading child pornography and retransmitting it to another machine. These programs make it look like you are the culprit, making you subject to arrest and incarceration. This kind of frighteningly malicious activity has been rare, but the danger is real.

If you are concerned about this, and you should be, Windows XP offers a solution:

1. Click Start.

2. Click Run.

3. In the text portion of the Run dialog box, type cmd and click OK.

This brings you to the Command Interpreter, which starts out by displaying the Version of XP that's running on your machine and some copyright information. Now Enter the command netstat -o, which displays network statistics about your current active connections.

There are five columns of information displayed. The Proto column tells you what communication protocol is being used for a particular process. In most instances, this will be TCP (TeleCommunications Protocol). This is irrelevant for our purposes. Local Address is your machine.

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Foreign Address is the IP address and port number of the machine the process is communicating with.

State informs you if the Communication session is sending or receiving, waiting, acknowledging or finished.

PID (Process Identifier) is the piece we need, because it identifies the process (program) that is controlling the communications session from your computer.

4. Perform the Ctrl+Alt+Del Keystroke sequence to bring up the Windows Security window.

5. Click Task Manager

6. Click the Processes tab

7. Click the PID column. This sorts the information, making it easier to find the program you're looking for.

Note: If the PID column is not displayed, you can activate it from the View menu.

Examine the PID list until you find the PID number(s) you found with the netstat command. If it's msnmgr.exe or iexplorer.exe, there is nothing to worry about. These are normal Windows XP processes and no cause for concern. There are many other legitimate Windows XP processes that are likely to be listed in the Task Manager.

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How do you tell the good from the bad? Unfortunately, Windows itself isn't much help in showing what any given process is doing and you can't shoot them all and "let God sort them out". A search of Microsoft's web site won't yield useful information.

A great place to find valuable information about common Windows processes is:
http://www.liutilities.com/products/wintaskspro/processlibrary/

This site contains information about all common Windows processes, and the site administrator do an excellent job of keeping posted information current.

Knowing what's going on in your system is good, but the best protection against intruders is to keep your anti-virus, firewall, and other specialized protection programs up-to-date.

There is no restriction against any non-profit group using this article as long as it is kept in context with proper credit given the author. The Editorial Committee of the Association of Personal Computer User Groups (APCUG), an international organization of which this group is a member, brings this article to you.

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Field Trip: To The Fresno Open Source
User's Group (FOSUG)

by Ronnie Ugulano, RAM Pages Editor

I've been thinking about using an operating system other than Windows for a long time. So, when I learned that May's meeting topic was going to be Linspire, I figured that this was my great excuse to learn more about various Linux distributions.

Fresno Open Source User's Group

The FPCUG group has its own core of Linux users, and FPCUG member Sanjiv Kapoor pointed me to the pool of experience found at the Fresno Open Source User's Group (FOSUG).

I looked up their website, joined their email group and lurked for a few days, then like the former school teacher I am, decided to go on a Field Trip to learn more about Linux.

Before I attended my first meeting with them, I warned them that 1) I was there, partly to snoop for the FPCUG newsletter, and 2) I was a girl. Neither notification seemed to faze them, so I went.

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The FOSUG guys meet at the Institute of Technology in Clovis on the 3rd Saturday of every month. While we wandered our way through the school to the meeting room, the guys informed me that their group wasn't only about various Linux distributions, but about all Open Source software.

That being the case, their meeting that day was about software called Request Tracker (RT). You know how you send a message to Tech Support and you get back and email that says:

"Your ticket has been submitted to our Support department, one of the staff members will review it and reply accordingly. Listed below are details of this ticket, you will need to use the ticket key listed below to update the status of this ticket from web.

Ticket ID: AIV-60187
Ticket Key: 86d448a3"

See the videotaping of Robert Nickel's presentation of Request Tracker

and from there you communicate with your Friendly Neighborhood Tech Support Person to resolve you problem? Well, that's kind of what Request Tracker does. It's a message system to communicate with Tech Support personnel.

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Robert Nickel proceeded to demonstrate the hardware and software requirements, and general installation instructions. From there, he gave us the run down on the specifics of what it can do and how to customize it.

Of course, no discussion of any Open Source topic would be complete without a look under the hood, and once we got a good look at the graphic interface of RT, we got a peek of how to tweak the code to heart's content, as well.

Steve Wichert sat beside me as Translator of Technical Terms, and gave me a brief tour of a Live CD of Knoppix Linux.

But the guys at FOSUG are nothing, if not good hosts, and while Technical Specifics were whizzing over my head, provisions were made for the interests of the Kindergartener in their midst (me). So, while I kept one ear and one eye on Robert Nickel's demonstration, Steve Wichert sat beside me as Translator of Technical Terms, and gave me a brief tour of a Live CD of Knoppix Linux.

My earliest recollections of other people talking about Linux was complaints of how difficult it was to get the operating system to recognize hardware. My desire to begin my trek away from Windows was tainted by the fear of finding myself in Hardware Recognition Purgatory. As the computer booted up from the CD, it became clear that in order for it to boot up on the fly like this, many of the hardware recognition problems had to have been solved. I was relieved and impressed.

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Once everything loaded, it was easy to see that there was a boatload of programs and tools, including video players, RSS readers, programing editors, and games. There's no doubt that having all that software immediately available is a big draw of Linux. In addition, the graphical interface is similar enough to Windows that I didn't feel totally lost at the outset.

After a short look around, Robert's presentation was over, and it was time to log off the disk. Steve W. kindly let me take the disk home to try on my own computer. Between Steve's tutorial and my own explorations at home, I'm looking forward to loading Linux to the hard drive of my experimental computer, but now I have more confidence it will survive the attempt.

© Ronnie Ugulano 2006

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FPCUG Board of Directors Meeting Summary

The Minutes are transcribed and submitted by Secretary David Smith

The following items were discussed or decided upon:

Special Interest Groups (SIGs)

CompUSA
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 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.

May's Photo SIG will focus on a program called Audacity. Audacity is a free, easy-to-use audio editor and recorder for Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems. You can use Audacity to:

This program was feature on March's Disc of the Month. The program will be presented by Ivan Raicevich, a FPCUG member. Our Photo SIG is held at CompUSA in the training room on Saturday, May 6th at 10:30 a.m.

(Seating is limited.)

 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 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.

This newsletter was prepared using Macromedia HomeSite 5.5. and Paint Shop Pro 9.

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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The Disk of the Month  Software Review: Avery DesignPro
Article: What Your Computer Really Does When It's Idle  FPCUG Board Meeting
Field Trip: To FOSUG  Special Interest Groups (SIGs)  Sanity Savers   The Fine Print