| BENTSEN GROVE RESORT COMPUTER
CLUB
BULLETIN Month of August, 2006 |
|
SUMMER
MEETINGS THE SECOND MONDAY OF EACH MONTH 10:00 AM MAIN HALL DINING AREA |
SPECIAL
INTEREST GROUPS:
Our bulletin is also available on line by visiting http://www.bgrcc.com/ and clicking on bulletin. You may also select bulletins by its subject. |
NEED
SOME HELP TRY http://www.bgrcc.com/ Click on HELP EMERGENCY RESPONSE
TEAM
John Abbott……424-0537Harold Buechly...581-3180 Corinne Higbee...585-5664 |
| UPCOMING
EVENTS: Monday August, 14, 10:00 AM Informal general meeting in main hall, dining area by Corinne. Monday September, 11, 10:00 AM Informal general meeting in main hall, dining area by Corinne. |
 Corinne Higbee We will meet Monday and have a general discussion of computer problems encountered by the group. I talked to John and he would like to talk about the new Opera browser and the transfer of your mail to it for a quick look at it. I went over it with him last night as I had upgraded to the 9.01 and he walked me through transferring my gmail to it. |
 Harold Buechly A note from Jan
Barron:Dear Family and Friends, We are back in Houston for Val to have another surgery. I decided to try using a blog so that anyone that would like to can be kept up-to-date on Val's progress. I hope this works out for everyone. Please keep Val in your thoughts and prayers in the coming days. Love, Jan and Val http://janbarron.blogspot.com DANPA I attended the Dayton Area Network Professional Association meeting last week and there was our own Matt Hester making a Microsoft presentation. I briefly talked with him after the meeting. He is looking forward to visiting BGRCC this upcoming season. http://www.danpa.org/Home.aspx UBCD4WIN Ultimate Boot CD for Windows contains freeware (software) that allows you to diagnose and repair many severe computer problems. It's basically Windows booted from CD. So even if the hard drive will not boot, you can get the computer working to determine just what the problem is. There is quite a few steps required to create the CD but each step is well explained and easy to understand. http://www.ubcd4win.com/ SYSINTERNALS Offers many small programs used to diagnose problems and let you know what exactly your computer is doing. The founders (Mark & Bryce) have been developing the programs for over 10 years. Just recently, Microsoft purchased their company and hired them. They have moved to Microsoft's Redmond Campus. It is their understanding that Microsoft will continue to offer the programs to individual users at no charge. http://www.sysinternals.com/ |
|
MAX 2006 – Adobe User Conference
October 23-26, 2006 MAX 2006, the Adobe user conference, will be held at the Venetian Resort Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. Join us to learn new skills, explore emerging technologies, connect with peers, and move beyond the boundaries of what you believe is possible. The conference includes over 100 different hands-on and workshop sessions presented by Adobe experts and other industry leaders on best practices and coming technologies. Exchange ideas with designers, developers, and other community members at networking sessions and "birds-of-a-feather" sessions. Explore Adobe technology at a variety of events and venues, including all-day pre-conference training sessions, a test drive and product support Lab, and sneak peek sessions. Register today to ensure your $200 Early Bird discount. Register at http://www.adobe.com/go/IGIU or learn more at http://www.adobe.com/events/max <http://www.adobe.com/events/max> |
|
June
2006 Collected
by Pim Borman, Website
Editor, SW Indiana PC Users Group, Inc. swipcug(at)sigecom.net Long-term
archiving of
documents generated and stored in computer format presents formidable
problems.
Current storage media, such as magnetic tape, CDs and DVDs, have a
limited,
ill-defined lifespan. Programs currently used to read their contents
sooner or
later will become obsolete. And the most-used formats for storing
office
documents are mostly proprietary, mutually incompatible, and
incompletely
documented. The
international
Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS)
has developed an Open Document Format (ODF) based upon the
XML-based
file format originally created by OpenOffice.org. It was developed with
inputs
from a variety of organizations, with the notable exception of
Microsoft, and a
committee of the United Nations. It is publicly accessible, and can be
implemented by anyone without restriction. The Open Document Format was
recently adopted by the International Standards Organization as ISO/IEC
26300.
Many foreign governments are adopting the new format, and it has also
been
adopted by the US National Archives (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument) Jessica
Fridrich and coworkers
at Binghamton University have developed a technique to extract a
characteristic
“fingerprint” pattern from pictures taken by a digital camera. It
depends on
the observation that each original digital picture is overlaid by a
weak noise
pattern characteristic for the camera used. It is due to background
electrical
noise in the pixel units of the light sensing element. That
pattern can be seen
by taking a picture with a digital camera with the lens covered. The
resulting
image is not pure black, as with a film camera, but shows a mottling in
many
colors, due to electronic noise. The mottling also shows up when a
digital
picture is underexposed, maybe because the flash did not go off. The
mottling
pattern is uniquely different for all cameras. It is distinct from
pixellation
that results from insufficient resolution. It
requires a number of
pictures taken by the same camera to extract the characteristic
pattern. Being
able to identify the camera used can be helpful in legal prosecutions
of child
pornography and such. Study of the background patterns can also give an
indication of image tampering. Astrophotographers
habitually take pictures of faint objects in a dark sky with CCD chips
similar
to those found in digital cameras. In order to eliminate the mottling
from
their images they take a “dark frame,” a picture taken under identical
conditions with the lens covered. They then digitally “subtract” the
dark frame
from the image to remove the mottling. This can be done with Adobe
Photoshop,
but it doesn't work with inexpensive digital cameras that internally
process
and compress photos, usually in JPEG format. (http://urel.binghamton.edu/PressReleases/2006/Jan-Feb%2006/Fridrich.html) Linspire
Back On Top The best
things in life
generally go unnoticed. If you notice your shoes, they probably don't
fit
right. If everyone notices your new glasses they may not be flattering. If you
own a PDA, do you
know what operating system it uses? Never noticed it? How about the
operating
system of your computer? You've noticed that plenty of times, haven't
you? The
ideal operating system
works quietly in the background, doing what's expected of it. Microsoft
Windows
has come a long way over the years, to the point where weeks may go by
without
you noticing anything wrong. But oh boy! when it crashes. Over the
past 15 years
Linux, “the other operating system,” has in the hands of computer
professionals
grown into a powerful, reliable tool. It has been running many of the
largest
computer servers in the world, including Google. Early efforts to make
it
available as a desktop operating system didn't get very far because of
the
steep learning curve to overcome in mastering it. To make
Linux easier to
use, a number of Linux distributions on CD-ROM have become available.
They
typically bundle the Linux Kernel with drivers for peripherals, sound
and video
cards, and network connections, and
include
a boot manager to allow side-by-side installation of Linux with MS
Windows. In
addition, the self-installing distributions typically include a windows
interface, an Office Suite such as OpenOffice.org, an Internet browser
and
email program (Mozilla), a paint program (The Gimp), a variety of card
and
arcade games, and other useful or entertaining features. The
ideal distribution
provides the best off-the-CD support for a wide variety of peripherals,
useful
programs, and easy access to a broad range of other programs available
for the
Linux operating system. Over the last several years I have reviewed
most of the
major distributions and concluded that Linspire (nee Lindows) and
Xandros came
the closest to the ideal. Last
year Linspire
underwent a major upgrade to version 5.0, including support for the
latest
version of the Linux Kernel, itself a major upgrade. Unfortunately, I
couldn't
get the new Linspire to run well on my computers, so I reluctantly
switched to
Xandros on my desktop, and kept the old Lindows 4.5 on my laptop for
everyday
Internet access. Xandros does not have the same range of software
available,
including updated versions, as Linspire. Recently
Linspire issued
its greatly improved version 5.1, and I am glad to report that in my
opinion
they are back on top again. It faultlessly recognizes all my systems,
including
the recent AMD 64-bit double-core CPU in my new computer. In fact,
Linux was
weaned on 64-bit processors and runs best in that environment. Linspire continues to offer its extensive
program library ($20/year) that lets you download programs
over the Internet and install them, all with
a single mouse click. It doesn't get easier! Try it
sometime. Use the
free LIVE CD version of Linspire 5.1 to boot your computer. It allows
you to
experience Linux without permanently
installing anything on your hard drive, and to determine your system's
compatibility. After you turn the system off nothing is left behind. (http://www.linspire.com) Maybe
some day you'll be
running Linux without even noticing it! Noticeable Did you
see his interview
on CNN in mid-May? |
|
By Ira
Wilsker WEBSITES: http://www.google.com/ig?hl=en Startup or
“home” pages are
big business because they are commonly advertiser supported, and the
more views
(also referred to in the industry as “hits”), the more revenue
generated by the
host. This on-screen real estate is so
valuable
that a type of malware or spyware, sometimes known as homepage
hijackers, will
attempt to change your homepage to its client’s home page, for which
the
miscreant receives compensation for each page such changed. |
The New, the Best, and
the Worst 