\nThe following is from the Clarion Developers Quarterly, Spring 1991. It is a copy of a question that is answered by the Technical Support team and may be useful for those who have recently purchased the Clarion Personal Developer.\n\n Q. HOW DO I CONTROL WHICH DEVICE OR PRINTER WILL RECEIVE A REPORT WHEN USING THE CLARION PERSONAL DEVELOPER?\n\n A. Using the following steps to create a form that enables you to choose the device that receives your report at run-time.\n\n 1) In the application to be modified, select the MEMORY file then select the DEVICE field. On the Choices line of the DEVICE field, type the device or "choices" where you will be sending your reports. If you want to send the report to a file, use a file specification for one of the choices.\n\n for example: CHOICES: ~LPT1 ~LPT2 C:\sPCLARION\sPRINTFILE.RPT\n\nNOTE: If you select the file as your report device, a new file will be created each time you run a report. If the file already exists, it will be replaced. Make sure that the specified path is the same that your application is in.\n\n2) Now, modify the Report Procedure. Press ~Ctrl-O to bring up the Report Options window. On the Setup Procedure line, type your procedure name (in this example we will use ~RPT_SETUP). On the DEVICE line, select YES. When you save your changes, the program returns to the Application Summary window.\n\n3) On the Application Summary window, select ~RPT_SETUP (To Do). For the procedure type, choose Form. On the Procedure Title line, type SELECT A REPORT OUTPUT DEVICE. On the filename line, use MEMORY. On the Populate Form line, select NO. When you save your changes, the program will return to the Form Worksheet.\n\n4) On the Form Worksheet, place an Entry field for MEM:DEVICE on the form and save your changes. Remember to allow enough space for the field and the choices, (MEM:DEVICE is 30 characters long).\n\n5) Run your application. The Form will pop up before the report prints. Now you can choose which device will receive the report. This Form name can be used for the Setup Procedure of any report in your application.\n\nPaul D. Mc Taggart, Small Business Computer Services

This is how it goes:\n\n I decide to wash the car; I start toward the garage and notice the mail on the table. OK, I'm going to wash the car. But first I'm going to go through the mail. I lay the car keys down on the desk, discard the junk mail and notice the rubbish bin is full. OK, I'll just put the bills on my desk and take the rubbish out first. Now, where is my cheque book?\n\n Oops, there's only one cheque left. My extra cheques are in my desk. Oh, there's the coke I was drinking. I'm going to look for those cheques. But first I need to put my coke further away from the computer, or maybe I'll pop it into the fridge to keep it cold for a while. I head towards the kitchen and the vase of flowers catches my eye, they need some water. I set the coke on the work surface and uh oh! There are my glasses. I was looking for them all morning! I'd better put them away first!\n\n I fill a container with water and head for the flowerpots - - Aaaaaagh! Someone left the TV remote in the kitchen. We will never think to look in the kitchen tonight when we want to watch television so I'd better put it back in the lounge where it belongs. I splash some water into the pots and onto the floor, I throw the remote onto a cushion on the sofa and I head back down the hall trying to figure out what it was I was going to do?\n\n End of Day: The car isn't washed, the bills are unpaid, the coke is sitting in the kitchen, the flowers are half watered, the cheque book still only has one cheque in it and I can't seem to find my car keys! When I try to figure out how come nothing got done today, I'm baffled because I KNOW I WAS BUSY ALL DAY LONG!!! I realise this is a serious condition and I'll get help, BUT FIRST I think I'll check my e-mail...\n

''(Cracking the Zone 4 code.)''\n\nLet us step back for a minute. Because of the problems music producers have had with people copying and pirating CD's, the recording industry decided that they would solve this problem with ~DVDs by zoning them. Most of the DVD tittles in today's market are governed by a regional zoning code that divides the world into six separate regions. New Zealand is included in zone 4, which includes Australia, Pacific Islands and South America. The other regional zones are.\n#USA, US Territories & Canada.\n#Western Europe, Middle East, Japan & South Africa.\n#South East Asia Pacific.\n#Australasia, & South America.\n#Eastern Europe, Russia, Central Asia & Africa.\n#China (PRC).\nPurchasing DVD discs outside of your regional zone is a problem because they'll simply not play on your DVD player unless it's a multi-player. For example if my cousin in England sends me a movie DVD (which is zone 2) it will not play on my zone 4 only DVD player or even on my computer ~DVD-ROM disc player. For someone like myself who goes overseas regularly and brings back ~DVDs and Karaokes from places like Hong Kong, USA, and England it's a problem. I can't play my overseas purchased ~DVDs. The variety and availability of ~DVDs overseas is better than NZ.\n\nMost DVD players for sale here in New Zealand are zone 4 players. If you are rich you can pay twice the price and buy a multi-player that will allows you to play ~DVDs from other zones. This is the best option, if cash is not a problem.\n\nBut many people are not aware you can get your lower priced (zone 4) DVD player re-zoned to play other zones. It's really quite simple. There's a lot of information on the Internet about how to do it. I sent away for a replacement chip, ($5 + postage) lifted off the top cover of my Panasonic ~AS1492 DVD and inserted the new chip (just like converting a ~PlayStation). Now my DVD player plays all 6 zones. Plus overseas ~VCDs and ~SVCDs (see note 3) and ordinary music ~CDs, ~CD-R (recordable), Karaoke ~VCDs/~DVDs and mini-DVDs/cDVDs.\n\nFor the person who does not want to take the lid off a DVD, but wants a DVD player that will play all zones plus ~VCDs and ~CDs, I suggest you buy the $499 model from Dick Smiths. It has been re-zoned by a company in Auckland. So your warranty is not void, rather than re-zoning a player after purchase. A friend of mind has one and it works perfectly.\n\nThe other option, if you have purchased a DVD player and it's zone 4, it can be re-zoned. There is a company in Lower Hutt that will re-zone ~DVDs for about $35 dollars if it's a standard model that has been released within the last eighteen months. Some earlier models require another chip which costs about $110. Basically early DVD players only played 12cm single-sided; spec 152 layer ~DVDs and didn't play ~CDs, ~VCDs and Karaokes discs. So, it's well worth re-zoning, especially if your long lost aunty sends you a DVD from England. Or one arrives on the front of a movie book from the USA, or your best mate brings you back some copied ~DVDs from Asia. Note: - some DVD tittles may not be region specific, especially if they are on the front cover of a computer magazine.\n\n~DVDs (Digital Versatile Disks) are high-density optical discs on which high-quality pictures and sound have been obtained by means of digital signals. ~DVDs use a technology called MPEG 2 a high-density recording technology. If you own a computer you may have already come across this system. Generally a full-length movie can be stored on one DVD, unlike ~VCDs where a movie will be on two or more ~VCDs. ~DVDs has a structure consisting of two 0.6-mm thin discs, which are adhered together. Because the discs are thinner, a higher density of information can be recorded on the disc. Therefore a DVD disc has a greater capacity than a single 1.2-mm thick disc. A standard DVD can hold 4.7 gigabytes of data, seven times the data capacity of a current CD. Dual layer ~DVDs can hold more than twelve times the information of a CD. And depending on the format used some ~DVDs can store up to 17GB. This compares with a maximum 688MB capacity of a ~CD-ROM. During development, ~DVDs were known as Digital videodiscs.\n\nInstalling a ~DVD-ROM drive in your computer rather than a standard ~CD-ROM drive is popular, especially if you want to watch movies on your computer. But most users don't understand that DVD movies are set to play at 1x, if you are using a 10x ~DVD-Rom drive it will not play any better. For example try speeding up your normal CD player or the ~CD-Rom drive on your computer. The disk is designed to spin at a set speed. Getting the fastest ~DVD-ROM drives maybe a waste of time; it will not effect how well your movies play. See note 1.\n\nThere's another reason why you buy the fastest ~DVD-Rom drive, because these drives also read the more common ~CD-ROM formats, and can access data quicker than their speed rating implies. Speed rating confuse PC users because transfer rates are different. ~DVD-ROM drives transfer data at 1.4Mbps and ~CD-ROM drives transfer data at 150Kbps. So if a ~CD-ROM (10X) was transferring data 10 times faster (150Kbps x 10) it would be approximately the same rating as a single speed ~DVD-ROM drive.\n\nThe real secret to playing ~DVDs on your computer is to have a good system that decompresses the video. ~DVDs are recorded using ~MPEG-2 compression. You must consider the options for decompressing the video on the DVD disc. To get the best quality movie possible, you need to use hardware decompression. Unless you have lots of Ram (256 Megs plus) and a very fast CPU the DVD play can skip frames, causing jerky playback. Advanced graphics cards have built in hardware assistance for ~MEPEG-2 decompression. Before you consider buying a ~DVD-ROM drive check your graphics cards to see if it can handle hardware-based decompression. If it can you only need to purchase just the ~DVD-ROM drive. Otherwise you will need to replace your graphics card with a card that can handle ~MPEG-2 decompression. The hardware should be compatible with Intels MMX technology. This type of technology enhances multimedia applications by increasing the speed and mathematical calculations of programs. Understand that having a really high performance board will allow you to play movies on a lower grade PC. And a really fast AGP graphics card installed in a powerful machine will play DVD movies as good as any standard DVD player. See note 2. And most boards will have an ~S-VHS TV output socket, which will allow you to show the movies on your normal TV. I've a friend who doesn't own a DVD player and just uses his computer to show movies on his 29" TV. It works perfectly. I've been there when someone has asked, "Where is your DVD player"?\n\nBe aware that you need a good quality soundcard and an extension lead into your stereo system to get the best sound from DVD movies.\n\nMost ~DVD-ROM purchased for computer installation will be zone 4. I upgraded my software to Power DVD 2.5 and download a small program called Genni, a bootable flash memory fix. This software allows me to switch between zones and play all DVD formats. Note that some early DVD drives will not read the ~CD-R (recordable) format. Computers with ~DVDs installed, purchased through Quay Computers, for example have a similar patch installed. So it pays to ask whether the ~DVD-ROM will play other zones and what DVD formats. There are four different formats. Plus you may want ~DivX, which uses ~MPEG-4. You can burn ~DivX movies to a ~CD-R, but they will not play on your normal DVD player, only on you're a PC with the right software.\n\nA problem I've found with some conventional DVD players the playback picture can be very distorted or fade in and out. This happens because DVD disks are copyright protected with Macrovision. Connecting the DVD directly to the television set (CTV AV socket) will solve this problem. Connecting the DVD via a VCR or video may cause the copyright system to activate. But it'll not stop a pirate straight copying the DVD disc. That is direct DVD to DVD.\n\n//John Thomson \n\nNeed help: - Gella@paradise.net.nz//\n\n''Note 1. ~CD-ROM transfer rates.''\n\nUp until a few years ago, all ~CD-ROM drives rotated at a Constant Linear Velocity (CLV). The disk speed slows as data is read from the outer tracks. So sectors moved past the read head at a constant rate, and the rate of data transfer remains constant. The CLV method allows direct performance comparisons to be made between different ~CD-ROM drives. The original ~CD-ROM drives has a data transfer rate of 150Kbps, based on the domestic audio system. And ~CD-ROM performance is usually quoted as a multiple of the original rate. A 1X ~CD-ROM has a transfer rate of 150Kbps and an 8X drive has a rate of 1200Kbps, (150x8).\n\nHigh rotation speeds introduce mechanical problems such as increased noise and vibration. This limits the transfer rates achievable with CLV. Rotating a ~CD-ROM at a Constant Angular Velocity (CAV) causes the data to vary. Data will be read faster from the tracks nearer the outside edge of the disk. ~CD-ROM drive manufacturers are now combining CLV and CAV technologies to achieve the fastest data rates possible without mechanical problems. This means that drives no longer operate at a constant data transfer rate. For example a 48X drive will not operate at 48 times the standard rate all the time. It will probably only achieve that speed at the outer edge of the disk. As most ~CD-ROM applications are located on the inner tracks and information does not completely fill the disk, the drive may only very rarely reach its quoted speed. When you compare ~CD-ROM drives you should check how well the published transfer rate is maintained across the whole disk.\n\n''Note 2. Accelerated Graphics Port.''\n\nFor applications involving a lot of graphics the PCI bus is just too slow. The bus can become clogged with requests to send graphical data, and then the whole computer slows down.\n\nThe accelerated graphics port (AGP) was developed to enhance the performance of graphic cards and 3D applications. It provided at the time an alternative to the VESA local bus (VLB) for increasing video performance. AGP was introduced because of the limitations associated with PCI graphic based systems. When the graphic adaptor is on the PCI bus it causes congestion on the bus. Requests for data related to graphics quickly consume the available bandwidth of the PCI bus. This leaves no room for other applications or I/O devices. AGP moves the graphic adaptor off the bus. It adds a new dedicated high-speed bus directly between the chipset and the graphics controller. This frees bandwidth consuming 3D and video traffic from the restraints of the PCI bus. Note that some computer motherboards don't come with an AGP slot on the board.\n\nThe AGP uses a Dual Independent Bus (DIB) architecture. The AGP bus is 32 bits wide and allows transfers of graphical data up to 528Mbps. It achieves this by transferring data on both the positive and negative transition of the clock stroke. This is four times faster than a PCI bus. The newer version of the specification has a clock speed of 133Mhz and a transfer rate of over 1Gbps.\n\nIn order for a PC to run graphic intensive applications effectively it needs a 3D graphics card that supports AGP. When looking to purchase a graphic card, you should consider the way in which features are implemented. This is just as important as the range of features them selves. You should choose an AGP graphics adaptor with at least 16Mb to 32Mb of on-board memory and 3D hardware support. 64Megs if cash is not a problem.\n\nThe accelerated graphic port (AGP) now allows ~PCs to display high quality 3D graphics. The AGP is a graphics standard that works in the same way as the peripheral components interconnecting (PCI) bus except that it has been developed primarily for graphics. The PCI bus is a local bus that is used to speed up the components in a PC by connecting them directly to the processor. AGP (which is just a little further upstream) provides a dedicated bus from the graphics adaptor to the system memory for the retrieval of textured maps. This means that the PCI bus is no longer needed for graphic data requests, freeing it to perform other I/O intensive tasks. The processor is also freed from processing graphic requests while the graphics adaptor accesses system memory. AGP can be run concurrently with the PCI local bus allowing your computer to multi-task. Multi-tasking allows your computer to work on more than one job at a time. For example your computer could be working with a word document on the PCI bus, while running a 3D graphics application with AGP.\n\n''Note 3. ~VCDs.''\n\nVideo ~CDs are common in Asia. It is an ordinary CD with up to 80 minutes of ~MPEG-1 format video on it. Quality is about the same as a VHS tape. Most upgraded DVD players will play ~VCDs. ~SVCDs are super video ~CDs. It is like a VCD but the video is stored in ~MPEG-2 format. ~SVCDs can store from 30 to 80 minutes of video depending on the bit rate used. Better quality than VCD, but not are good as ~DVDs.\n\n

//Ron Oliver and John Hand report on the eleventh meeting of the Hardware Special Interest Group which was held on Saturday, 5 March 2005.// \nEight ~SIGgers were in attendance.\n\n''Part I. Contributed by Ron Oliver.''\nInitially this meeting did not seem to promise much for yours truly - mostly because I had not had time to prepare how I would explain the kind of problems I have been having with the computer that I have been using. This is the one that David ~Tolton-Smith had donated to the Hardware SIG in the latter half of last year. The machine is a PC General 486 with 64 MB of RAM and operating at only 66 ~MHz. It has certainly been very useful to me over the last 3 or 4 months because I needed to prepare a survey report on work undertaken which had extended over a period of 8 months during 2004.\n\nAlthough very reliable, the main problem with the computer is that it is very slow and not a great deal of use when I need to send and/or receive e-mails. Under my present set-up for accessing the Internet it was taking about 8 minutes just to get through to my address via the ~TopNet ISP.\n\nThat has all changed thanks to Saturday’s Hardware SIG meeting and the help received from Raja and John H. The SIG had another PC which was donated by Robin Hinde on the night of the February members’ meeting. It was necessary to install two hard disk drives, after which Raja showed us how to get into the CMOS SETUP UTILITY and how to configure the STANDARD CMOS SETUP thus enabling the computer to automatically detect the disk drives. This computer is a ~Pentium-S CPU, 133 ~MHz with 48 MB of RAM and it is very much faster than my former PC. \n\nFig. 1. Ron dextrously aligns the screw holes while Raja manipulates the screwdriver.\n\nI am now a much happier user of the Internet at home. With my newly-cobbled-together PC I now have the luxury of not having to race into town to read my e-mails and to print my documents. Thank you very much Raja, John H. and others. Also grateful thanks to Robin for donating his PC. \n\nThe Hardware SIG is proving to be of tremendous value.\n\n\n''Part II. Contributed by John Hand.''\nOn Friday, 18th February, John H. delivered to the “Workshop” a faulty computer that was desperately in need of some TLC. (What? Yet another abbreviation! At this March SIG meeting George produced a book in which he found the difference between an acronym, which is a pronounceable abbreviation, and an initialism, which is an unpronounceable abbreviation.)\n\nThis faulty computer belongs to another genealogy acquaintance of John H. She is Leslie Frederikson of Wilton. The computer was purchased from “PC Company”!!!!\n\nIt was known that Arthur Harris would be unable to attend this meeting so John Thomson was requested to assist the members. John willingly agreed to share his knowledge and expertise for part of the meeting. He was scheduled to attend a wedding at 4:30 pm. \n\nLeslie’s computer would not start up. John quickly determined that one of the two 512 MB memory cards was not functioning. Leslie had mentioned that, at the time of purchase, she had specifically requested that 256 MB of RAM be installed. After removal of the faulty memory card the computer then commenced to power up. However, it failed to boot from the 80 GB hard disk drive. [In Fig. 2, this is the black object lying on the top right-hand corner of the upper computer.] A short time later a phone call from John’s wife precipitated his untimely departure. \n\nFig. 2. Ian and John M. hard at work on Leslie's HDD problem.\n\nAfter John T. left, Ian H. and John M. persevered with the challenge. They fitted the HDD to another working computer. [In Fig. 2, this is the upper of the two computers. The one underneath, lying on its side, is Leslie’s computer.] Time was spent making various changes to the CMOS settings. The computer still refused to boot up. Unfortunately, at 4:00 pm, Ian and John M. were obliged to call it a day. \n\nA short while later Raja switched his attention from Ron’s job to Leslie’s hard disk drive problem. Raja tried every possible Primary/Secondary and Master/Slave combination along with numerous changes to the CMOS settings. Each successive test necessitated the repositioning of the tiny Master/Slave jumper. It was accidentally dropped several times. This was very much a trial and error process. Eventually some significant progress was achieved. The computer actually detected the drive to be a Secondary Slave but continued to fail to boot up. At this point Raja declared that his available time had expired. \n\nSadly, Leslie will not receive good news when she returns home to Wellington from Hastings on the 10th of March. However, before John T. departed he very kindly offered to have a further look at this problem during the following week. Thank you, John T.\n\nSpecial thanks to George for taking the photos with his very own, new Nikon digital camera.\n\nNext meeting : Saturday, 2 April 2005.\n\nPhotos used:\nFig 1. HWSIG Mar 05 A.JPG\nFig 2. HWSIG Mar 05 D.JPG\n

//from the August 2006 Actrix Newsletter by Rob Zorn//\n\nYou may have heard the word "podcasting" and wondered what it was all about. Perhaps you dismissed it as just one more new Internet fad thingy that only kids will ever understand. Well, it is pretty recent, but it certainly isn't just for kids and geeks.\n\nPodcasting is the latest Internet trend to deliver the power of mass communication into the hands of any average Joe or Josephine who has a computer, a microphone, and a hankering to be heard. Podcasts are inexpensive to create, free to distribute, and virtually censorship free. Whether you want to create your own, or just get in touch with what people all around the world are doing and saying outside mainstream media, podcasting offers something for everyone.\n\nYou do need a little bit of tech-savvy to create and publish a podcast, so we'll just stick to finding and enjoying them for the here and now.\n\n''What is podcasting?''\n\nPodcasts are recorded files (mainly audio, sometimes video) typically created by amateurs and uploaded to the Internet. They're usually episodic and are designed to be downloaded and played at the listener's leisure.\n\nThe most common types of podcasts are news stories, opinions, interviews, discussions, musical performances and personal blogs. They range in quality from tacky and self-indulgent through to slick, artful, professional and thought-provoking.\n\nThe term "podcasting" is derived from the words iPod, and broadcasting, though you certainly don't have to have an iPod to play them. Any portable media player should be able to do the job, and if you don't have one of those, your computer will have built in software, such as Windows Media Player, that will handle them fine.\n\n''Podcatchers''\n\nPodcatchers are programs that let you browse a list of available podcasts you can subscribe to or just preview. They can be set to download all the latest episodes that interest you while you do other things online.\n\nThe most popular and well-supported podcatcher is iTunes (a free 35 Megabyte download from www.itunes.com). If you can handle a big download, this is the one to go for. Even though the iTunes music service isn't yet available in New Zealand, you can still use the program for listening to podcasts and Internet radio. It's also good for playing other sound files, and ripping them to mp3, and when the iTunes music service does become available here, you'll be all ready to go.\n\nOther popular podcatchers that might suit those looking for a smaller download include ~PodSpider (14 Megs – www.podspider.com $14.99 U.S.) or Juice (6.3 Megs – http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net - Free).\nWhat's out there?\n\nPodcasts are becoming increasingly popular all around the world as well as right here in New Zealand, and many are advertised on web sites. To subscribe, find and click the button on the page that applies to your podcatcher. If there isn't one there (and most support iTunes) look for other information about how to subscribe or enjoy a one-time listen.\n\n''New Zealand;''\n\nThe Voicebooth – http://www.thevoicebooth.com – has lots of New Zealand content and a wide range of categories such as news, interviews, music and lifestyle entertainment. It has served up more than 250,000 podcasts since it launched last August. Just go to the podcasts page and click one that interests you. The site will open iTunes and automatically subscribe you.\n\nThe Radio New Zealand website (http://www.radionz.co.nz/) has a podcast section and about 10,000 episodes are downloaded there everyday. Simply click the individual shows (such as Saturday Morning with Kim Hill, or Insight, and listen to them online, or you can drag and drop the shows into your Podcatcher in order to subscribe more permanently.\n\n''International:''\n\nHere are a couple of other gems from elsewhere around the world.\n\nSkepticality: An entertaining regular podcast that explores rational thought, critical thinking, science, and the de-bunking of the supernatural and pseudoscience: http://www.skepticality.com/.\n\nNobody Likes Onions: An entertainment and comedy podcast covering topics ranging from technology to toothpaste. "It's like taking a cold shower in sarcasm!" http://www.nobodylikesonions.com/nlo/.\n\nThis Week in Tech: Keeps you up to date on all the latest news in global technology. http://thisweekintech.com/.\n\nThe Sounds In My Head: A weekly music show featuring songs and bands you might have missed. http://www.thesoundsinmyhead.com/ (iTunes only)\n\nYou can also go to podcasting directory sites, and there are thousands of these. Some of the more popular are:\n\n*Every Podcast: http://www.everypodcast.com/\n*Podcast Net: http://www.podcast.net/\n*Podcast Alley: www.podcastalley.com\n*The Podcast Directory: www.podcastdirectory.com\n\n''Internet Radio:''\n\nAnother way to get audio content from the web is via Internet radio. Most major radio stations in New Zealand and around the world also broadcast over the Internet simultaneously. Internet radio is designed to be listened to live. It is streamed rather than offered for download, and can’t be saved for later listening.\n\nThe advantage of Internet radio, of course, is that it comes to you across the Internet, and you don’t have to worry about all the hassles of shortwave reception to hear broadcasts by stations overseas.\n\nNew Zealand stations that stream their content include all the main ones. The Radio New Zealand site (http://www.radionz.co.nz) for example will let you choose to listen live to their various stations (Concert FM, National Radio, Parliament) or download individual shows as podcasts.\n\nYou could use Google to find the web site any station here or overseas, and then look for a button or link on the site that mentions streaming or listening live. If you click the link, the site will automatically open the default media player installed on your PC and streaming will begin.\n\nLots of online directories exist that will point you to available stations. These include:\n\n*Internet Radio Index: http://www.internetradioindex.com/i-probe/ip_radio.html\n*PC Magazine: http://www.pcmag.com/category2/0,1874,29102,00.asp.\n\nYou can also find international radio stations using the built in radio feature of iTunes. Simply click the genre that interests you and then double click any of the various stations that are displayed. iTunes has a wide range of genres ranging from classical to classic rock, punk and alternative, and more stations than you could shake your mouse at. Many of these stations can only be heard over the Internet.

by Joel Strauch of Smartcomputing\n\n A lot of people who meander through the World Wide Web complain that it’s too hard to find the information they are seeking. On top of that, inaccuracies plague the information if they can find it. And useless or offensive materials may thrust themselves in the way. Actually, however, it’s often the media complaining louder than users. Users who make it online and figure out how to maneuver effectively have found the Web to be a fruitful source of data on a broad range of topics.\n\n To see just how informative the Web can be, we staged a duel between this supposed information supersource and one of the oldest and most dependable pathways to facts and knowledge—the public library. Our online searches for information should prove instructive to beginners as we hit some of the infamous snags of the Web, such as misleading site names, bogus links among pages, and temperamental connections. Furthermore, we found the “stodgy” library actually proves pretty speedy compared to the ’Net (when you ignore your commute to the building).\n\n Our challenge consisted of eight questions covering a wide variety of subjects. We tried to make them diverse, but not so obscure that the average person would never ask them. We included questions about recent and historical events, about specific facts and general theories, and about our neighborhood as well as the rest of the planet.\n\n We took our list of questions online and timed how long it took to find our answers. We then headed to the local library to see how the more organized Dewey Decimal system compared to the eclectic and chaotic Web. Before discussing our results, we’ll tell you a little more about the context of this contest.\n The Fields Of Battle.\n For our Web access, we used a Windows 95 dial-up connection to the Internet via a 33.6 kilobits per second (Kbps) modem. We spent our time online in the morning, meaning traffic was a little lighter than usual. And we used the Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 Web browser for our search. If we were searching for general information, we used a categorized search service, such as Yahoo! (http://www.yahoo.com). But if we had a specific query, we used a specialized search service, such as Lycos (http:// www.lycos.com).\n\n This is a good strategy for Web searching in general. While both of these services have both types of searches (Lycos has its own categories, and Yahoo! uses AltaVista for specific searches), we believe that they are each stronger in the area they first specialized in.\n\n NOTE: We didn’t include the Universal Resource Locators (URLs) for every site mentioned in this story, primarily because there were so many that every sentence would have been broken up by an “http.” But we do mention the names of the sites and how we searched for them. To find any of these sites, you can retrace our steps or just punch the name of the site into a specialized search service.\n\n Our Lincoln, Neb., library, which includes more than 300,000 volumes, is technologically up-to-date. We could have dialed into its system and checked its sources from our PC, but we chose to do our research in a more traditional manner. The library, like most, also has computers with Web access, so any researcher without access at home could take advantage of online info there.\n\n The hassle of visiting the library has to be figured into the final tally of our competition. The downtown library we visited doesn’t have its own parking lot. With two inches of snow on the ground, it took us 10 minutes to find a parking spot within reasonable walking distance. For our searches, we first looked for materials that were no more than a year or two old. And we stuck primarily to books and the reference section for speed’s sake (it takes a bit longer to dig around in periodicals on microfiche).\n\n Q & A.\n So that’s our battleground. Our questions aren’t listed in order of difficulty or subject matter, just the order in which we answered them.\n\n 1. What kinds of dishes go best with white wine?\n\n For our Web search, we went to Yahoo! and entered in a general search for “white wine.” We found lots of sites for wineries and how to make wine, but no food sites. Since the option to expand the search into AltaVista popped up, we thought we’d try it before we moved on to Lycos.\n\n The first site listed there was Sue’s Recipe Server. It looked promising, so we clicked the hyperlink that took us there. It had a variety of recipes but didn’t say which ones would be complemented by white wine. We followed a link on Sue’s page to the Electronic Gourmet Guide, a site that looked equally promising. It even had a search engine there, so we punched in “white wine” again. No dice. We looked around awhile but couldn’t find the answer we were looking for.\n\n So we clicked the browser’s Back button a few times and tried another site discovered by AltaVista. We went to a Webzine (electronic magazine) site called American Wine on the Web . In its archives, we found an article in the February 1996 issue called “The Marriage of Food and Wine.” It started off with general comments about red wine being served with red meat and white wine being better attuned to white meat and seafood. The rest of the article listed different ways to pair food and wines.\n\n Elapsed time: 13 minutes.\n\n At the library, we used the computerized card catalog to search for the subject of “white wine.” We found a subsection on Food and Wine. There we found two older books that looked promising. The first, “American Food and California Wine,” by Barbara Kafka (1981), was missing from the shelf. The second, “Pleasures of the Table,” by Sam Aaron (1986), had just what we needed.\n\n In addition to describing the general rule of red with red and white with white that we had found online and listing dishes to try, Aaron’s book detailed some specific faux pas. “A simple white jug wine that might suit picnic fare does not belong with a relatively extravagant poached salmon,” he writes.\n\n Elapsed time: 6 minutes.\n\n 2. How does the Internet work?\n\n We thought we’d be better off making a specific search, so we headed to Lycos and looked for “how Internet works.” We glanced at a couple of sites called How To Teach The Internet, but they were about college classes for aspiring instructors. But on site number 22 of the thousands that Lycos found, Ashley’s How the Internet Works Page, we spotted general info on the ’Net being a series of smaller interconnected networks.\n\n We also found facts on how ’Net information is transferred (through technology known as packet switching), a history of the Internet, and advantages and disadvantages of using the ’Net. While it probably wasn’t the best site on the Web for detailing the inner workings of the Internet, this one answered our question.\n\n Elapsed time: 5 minutes.\n\n Our subject search for “Internet” at the library uncovered books that were at least two years old. After some poking around, we found “Zen and the Art of the Internet” (1996), an excellent guide that explains a lot of the why in addition to the what and the how.\n\n Elapsed time: 5 minutes.\n\n 3. Who won the second battle of Bull Run?\n\n Another general search at Yahoo! for “Bull Run” led us to the National Park Service’s official site of the second battle of Bull Run (Manassas). This Civil War battle took place from Aug. 25 to 30, 1862. “General Robert E. Lee’s bold and brilliant Second Battle of Manassas campaign opened the way for the South’s first invasion of the North and a bid for foreign intervention,” the site says.\n\n Elapsed time: 2 minutes.\n\n In the Birmingham to Burlington volume of the library’s 1996 Encyclopedia Americana, we found a similar statement: “The success was the result of perfect teamwork between Lee and his brilliant subordinate, Stonewall Jackson.”\n\n Elapsed time: 1 minute.\n\n 4. What is the chemical composition of gunpowder?\n\n We started off with a specific search at Lycos for “chemical composition gunpowder” but found no sites that answered the question. We tried narrowing the search (by making Lycos match all three terms rather than just one), but that resulted in finding no sites at all.\n\n We did a general search for “gunpowder” at Yahoo! but found nothing relevant. We moved on to AltaVista and found an interesting source: The Manufacture of Gunpowder, from Godey’s “Lady’s Book,” 1861, a book published to detail the distasteful inner workings of a primitive munitions plant. Gunpowder: 75% saltpeter, 10% sulfur, and 15% charcoal.\n\n Elapsed time: 7 minutes.\n\n Under “gunpowder” in the Germanium to Heath Hen volume of Collier’s Encyclopedia (1994) at the library, we found only a reference to Explosives. In the entry on “explosives,” we found that Black Powder (or gunpowder) is comprised of 75% sodium or potassium nitrate, 15% charcoal, and 10% sulfur. (Webster’s dictionary told us that sodium nitrate and potassium nitrate are the same as saltpeter.)\n\n Elapsed time: 2 minutes.\n\n 5. How do you get out grass stains?\n\n By making a general Yahoo! search for “stain removal,” we found the online Fabric Stain Removal Guide, a comprehensive list of various techniques to remove all types of stains in fabrics. The link to “Grass and other garden foliage” didn’t work, but all we had to do was scroll down to find the right suggestions: either soak in bleach or “sponge with methylated spirits and remove this with warm water and where possible wash the article” in detergent.\n\n Elapsed time: 1 minute.\n\n We thought we’d continued the library’s quick streak by finding the Time Life Book “Cleaning and Stain Removal” (1990), but this turned out to be a guide to removing stains on carpets and walls, not on clothing. When we returned to the search computers, we had to wait for one to be available.\n\n After more searching through the list of books under “stain removal,” we found the “Stainbuster’s Bible: A Complete Guide to Spot Removal.” In the section on Clothes, this reference told us that grass was a tannin and vegetable dye stain. To remove it we should first try sponging with water and then with alcohol. If the stain remained, we should soak the piece of clothing in detergent for 30 minutes to an hour, rinse it thoroughly, and then launder it in warm water with the strongest bleach that was still safe for the fabric.\n\n Elapsed time: 10 minutes.\n\n 6. How do you repair a Kenmore washing machine?\n\n We headed to Yahoo! to look for “washing machine repair,” but found only businesses that service household appliances. We went on to AltaVista but couldn’t connect. We tried Lycos; then our PC dropped our Internet connection. We redialed and tried to match all three of our search words at Lycos. We found no sites and began to doubt any ability of this feature at Lycos.\n\n We tried a more general Lycos search for “appliance repair” and found a site called Repair Net. We had to click one of the ads before we could use the service (an interesting Web development), but it didn’t have Kenmore information. Arrgh.\n\n We again found lots of businesses and classes on appliance repair as we waded through the lists of sites. We finally found a site on Reuse Tips, which from its description looked like just what we needed. Unfortunately, we couldn’t connect to the site—another frustration of the Web.\n\n We headed back and tried “appliance repair” at Yahoo! We found a site called Someone’s Nisse, a personal Web page that had a link to a non-mechanical appliance repair page. Not exactly what we needed for repairing a problem like a burst hose, but it had some excellent tips for general help and troubleshooting.\n\n We went back and found the still-incomplete Appliance Repair Guide, which had specific brand-name, step-by-step problem solving for different appliances, including Kenmore washing machines.\n\n Elapsed time: 21 minutes.\n\n At the library we found some of the books that had been advertised at the Web pages for classes on appliance repair, including “Washing Machine Repair Under $40,” by Douglas Emley (1994). This guide included everything we needed to know about fixing problems with our brand and most others.\n\n Elapsed time: 3 minutes.\n\n 7. Who won the (local political issue) yesterday?\n\n We wanted to include a question about regional issues, so we made this one generic. Since we’re located in Lincoln, Neb., we punched in “Lincoln politics” and noticed immediately that we were getting way too much stuff about Abraham. We skimmed over the Honest Abe stuff and found the subcategory Government: Politics: Regional: U.S. States: Nebraska. Unfortunately, this gave us nothing but old campaign ads (someone needs to take out the trash on the Web more often).\n\n We did a new search for “Lincoln Nebraska.” Under News, we could only find info on local cultural events. We tried Media: Newspapers and found the home page for the Lincoln Journal Star, which had today’s headlines, including political issues.\n\n Elapsed time: 6 minutes.\n\n The search at our library was essentially the same. Multiple copies of that day’s paper were on a table. Remember, however, that at a busy time all copies could have been in use. In many ways the Web has unlimited “copies” of the paper.\n Elapsed time: 1 minute.\n\n 8. What is the third stanza of Lewis Carroll’s The Jabberwocky?\n\n We started with a general Yahoo! search but found only the site of someone whose online nickname happened to be Jabberwocky. We jumped to AltaVista, and the second site listed had the poem in its entirety, including the third stanza:\n\n He took his vorpal sword in hand:\n Long time the manxome foe he sought-\n So rested he by the Tumtum tree,\n And stood awhile in thought.\n\n Elapsed time: 1 minute.\n\n The adult copy of “Through the Looking Glass” was lost for our branch of the library, so we headed over to the Youth Services section. It took an extra couple of minutes, but we found the identical stanza.\n\n Elapsed time: 5 minutes.\n\n Results.\n The Web averaged a higher time than the library: 7 minutes per search compared with slightly more than 4 minutes. But when you incorporate the convenience of turning to your computer terminal when you have a question rather than driving downtown, the Web is just as fast, if not faster.\n\n The accuracy of the online information in our test was close to that of the library. There is a lot of bunk online, but if you spend the time, it’s not that difficult to find reliable sources.\n\n Of course, the Web won’t replace the library anytime soon, but as it becomes faster, more organized, and more accurate, it will solidify its reputation as an alternate resource for quick information.\n\n by Joel Strauch\n http://www.smartcomputing.com\n

''Internet Connection Security for Windows Users''\n\nAt 8:00 AM, Saturday morning, April 1st — this is NOT an April Fools joke — the FBI announced the existence of a self-replicating, i.e. viral worm, that moves from machine to machine across the Internet by exploiting open Windows shares!\n \nBecause of the unfortunate timing of this announcement on April 1st, this could be mistaken for an April Fools prank it is not! Therefore, here is a link to the FBI notice at the National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) \nIt was bound to happen sooner or later . . . it has happened NOW: Viral code combining a Windows shares scanner with Windows file sharing to locate and copy itself into other Internet-connected Windows machines across the Internet! Because of the vast number of Windows machines with exposed, shared, directories visible to the Internet, this represents a significant new threat.\n\nFortunately, people who have previously visited the ~ShieldsUP! site will probably be safe, but millions of machines are still at significant risk. The SANS Institute has dubbed this the "911" worm because shortly before erasing the user's entire hard drive it uses the system's modem to dial 911, producing a large number of "false positive" emergency calls.\n\nStrictly speaking this is a "worm" more than a "virus" since worms propagate and reproduce themselves without any sort of user involvement or action, whereas a virus requires some inadvertent action on the part of the user. This is the second such worm to have been found "in the wild" and, interestingly, this one knows about and deletes its predecessor when encountered. (A jealous worm?) The worm's payload triggers on the 19th of the month, deleting files from crucial Windows system directories. (You want to be very sure that your system is not infected with it at that time!)\n\nIt is not a "high tech" worm, since it was written in the Visual Basic Scripting language. But what's sad — and should be frightening — is that the creation of such a serious and quite damaging Internet threat has become so easy for the "script kiddies." \n\n''Preventing Propagation and Reproduction:'' \nAre your shields up? If you have not done so already, be certain that your own Windows system is not exposing any open directories to the Internet. And then, most importantly, spread the word to any Internet-connected friends, relatives, and associates who might not have already taken these precautions.\n\nIt is more important now than ever, because now we have predatory viruses capable of roaming the Internet and jumping from machine to machine without anyone being aware!\nAs you know, the ~ShieldsUP! web site is here to help everyone quickly check their systems for known Windows file sharing vulnerabilities. PLEASE encourage everyone to take advantage of this completely free service so that the spread of this frighteningly potent and highly destructive virus can be stopped quickly! \n\n''Detecting the Virus' Presence:''\nThe anti-virus companies have already received virus patterning data from the FBI. Check for updates which recognize the new 911 Virus. \n\n''See NZPCA web page for links anti-virus'' \n\nYou can scan your system for the following three HIDDEN directories which the 911 virus is known to create: "chode", "foreskin", and "dickhair". "sigh" Yes, the author(s) of this virus are apparently not very mature. Classic "script kiddie" nonsense. \n\nIMPORTANT NOTE: Before scanning with the Windows "Find" function, you must be certain that your Windows Explorer is configured to display hidden files and directories: Under the Windows Explorer View/Options menu, select "Show All Files." \n\nIf any of the directories listed above are found, delete them immediately!!\nI am certain that we have not seen the last of this sort of virus. Please do what you can to educate your friends, relatives, and associates about the dangers of indiscriminate Windows file sharing over the Internet. \n\nThey are always welcome to visit the ~ShieldsUP! web site to test or verify their security and learn more about the risks of careless Internet use. \n\nThanks for your attention. Spread the word!\n\nSteve Gibson, Gibson Research Corporation\nhttp://grc.com\n

Type the text for 'New Tiddler'

{{currentTiddler}}\n<<tiddlerList group:"tiddler.title.substr(0,1)">>\n<<tiddlerList filter:"tiddler.tags.contains(currentTiddler.title)">><<tiddlerList tags:"{{currentTiddler}}">>\n\n+++[1991|Click to view Megabyte issues by month, click again to close]>\n!!1991\n||<<tag "February {{currentTiddler}}">>|<<tag "March {{currentTiddler}}">>|<<tag "April {{currentTiddler}}">>|\n|<<tag "May {{currentTiddler}}">>|<<tag "June {{currentTiddler}}">>|<<tag "July {{currentTiddler}}">>|''August'' <<tiddlerList tags:"August" "(currentTiddler)">>|\n|<<tag "September 1991">><<tiddlerList tags:"September 1991">><<tiddlerList filter:"tiddler.tags.contains(currentTiddler.title)">>|<<tag "October 1991">>|<<tag "November 1991">>|<<tag "December 1991">>|\n----\n===

<<tabs year\n"Feb" "February" "February91 Tabbed View"\n"Mar" "March" "March91 Tabbed View"\n"Apr" "April" "April91 Tabbed View"\n"May" "May" "May91 Tabbed View"\n"Jun" "June" "June91 Tabbed View"\n"Jul" "July" "July91 Tabbed View"\n"Aug" "August" "August91 Tabbed View"\n"Sep" "September" "September91 Tabbed View"\n"Oct" "October" "October91 Tabbed View"\n"Nov" "November" "November91 Tabbed View"\n"Dec" "December" "December91 Tabbed View"\n\n\n>>

To open all issues for 1999, click on "1999" to the right and select "open all"\n\n<<tag "February 1999">><<tag "March 1999">><<tag "April 1999">><<tag "May 1999">>\n<<tag "June 1999">><<tag "July 1999">><<tag "August 1999">><<tag "September 1999">>\n<<tag "October 1999">><<tag "November 1999">><<tag "December 1999">>\n----\n\nOr we can collapse each year:\n|<<slider 1998 [[slide1998]] "1998">>|\n|<<slider 1999 [[slide1999]] "1999">>|\n\n\n----\n\n<<tag 1999>> <<tag 1998>> <<tag "February 1999">>\n\n<<slider 2 [[February 1999]] "February">>

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To open all issues for 2000, click on "2000" to the right and select "open all"\n\n<<tag "February 2000">><<tag "March 2000">><<tag "April 2000">><<tag "May 2000">>\n<<tag "June 2000">><<tag "July 2000">><<tag "August 2000">><<tag "September 2000">>\n<<tag "October 2000">><<tag "November 2000">><<tag "December 2000">>\n----\n\nOr we can collapse each year:\n|<<slider 1999 [[slide1999]] "1999">>|\n|<<slider 2000 [[slide2000]] "2000">>|\n\n\n----\n\n<<tag 2000>> <<tag 1999>> <<tag "February 2000">>\n\n<<slider 2 [[February 2000]] "February">>\n\n

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To open all issues for 2006, click on "2006" to the right and select "open all"\n\n<<tag "February 2006">><<tag "March 2006">><<tag "April 2006">><<tag "May 2006">>\n<<tag "June 2006">><<tag "July 2006">><<tag "August 2006">><<tag "September 2006">>\n<<tag "October 2006">><<tag "November 2006">><<tag "December 2006">>\n----\n\nOr we can collapse each year:\n|<<slider 2005 [[slide2005]] "2005">>|\n|<<slider 2006 [[slide2006]] "2006">>|\n\n\n----\n\n<<tag 2006>> <<tag 2005>> <<tag July 2006>> <<tag "June 2006">>\n\n<<slider 2 [[June 2006]] "June">>\n\n

<<tabs year\n"Feb" "February" "February06 Tabbed View"\n"Mar" "March" "March06 Tabbed View"\n"Apr" "April" "April06 Tabbed View"\n"May" "May" "May06 Tabbed View"\n"Jun" "June" "June06 Tabbed View"\n"Jul" "July" "July06 Tabbed View"\n"Aug" "August" "August06"\n"Sep" "September" "September06"\n"Oct" "October" "October06"\n"Nov" "November" "November06"\n"Dec" "December" "December06"\n\n\n>>

In last months edition of ~MegaByte, Bill Morris described ~DR-DOS 5 to us... yet for many, upgrading to ~MS-DOS 5 is not an option....\n\nHow many times have you sat at the DOS prompt and thought to yourself, 'There's got to be a command that will do this'? How many times have you pored through that DOS manual, trying to remember that extra option?\n\nWant to know a way to have greater power than standard DOS package, at a shareware price? Introducing 4DOS, a complete replacement for command.com and it's in the club library!\n\nEnough raving, what is it? It is a command interpreter, that's the thing in your machine that takes what you input at the keyboard and makes it mean something to the computer. If you're like me, wanting to get the best out of your PC, then you'll know that command.com can be a real pain. What 4DOS does to help you is open up a whole range of new possibilities to the user, that command.com doesn't. 4DOS is completely compatible with command.com up to version 4 but it has online help! Press the F1 key and you have the power of the manual at your fingertips, with syntax, switches, notes and examples of how to use each command.\n\nThis is good, but it goes further. There are 40 extra commands available to you, allowing you to completely redefine the command names if you so wish, it also makes the use of third party software such as ~PCTools almost unnecessary. Most of the time I call up one of these shells to do file management tasks, such as MOVE a file from one place to another, or mark a group of files to delete where a del *.* could be fatal. 4DOS gives you a move command, it also allows you to exclude files from what were previously global commands using its' "except" clause, and this is only a beginning.\n\nIf you're not excited yet, here comes the real power. 4DOS allows you to use aliases for commands. An alias is a name that you give for a command, or a combination of commands. Aliases work like very fast batch files, but are quite a bit more flexible in what you can do with them. For example I use an off-line message reader for my bulletin board mail. I hate doing a DIR command and seeing everything on my hard drive shoot across the screen taking up 80 or so lines, so everything to do with my communications package lives in a directory off the root. Then everything else related to modem work lives in its own directory off there so I end up with quite a big tree... but also where-ever I do a DIR from, I can see what's up. Here's an example\n{{{\n c:\scomms\sfiles\n \smailin\n \smailout\n \sreaders\swork\n \sreplies\n}}}\nAs you can see, with command.com suddenly this looks awful when I want to get into the directory readers and then start my programme and tell it all the pathnames where it is going to get its' mail from and put any of its output.\n\nBy using an alias, I can, type a simple command from the root directory and have 4DOS do all the work for me, and I only have to do it once for that command to be there for ever more. To make things that little bit juicier, the programme I want to run has a couple of opening screens that you need to see before you can do anything, I'm sure you know the type, press enter to continue. In the alias you can stack these keystrokes too, so straight away you're productive, as soon as the programme loads.\n\nMy alias for reading my mail looks like:\n{{{\nsm=pushd c:\scomms\sreaders ^keystack '0 13 "sm" 0 13 0 13'keystack 0 13 ^popd\n}}}\nThis looks very confusing, but the manual that comes with 4DOS has almost the same thing there as an example, all I did was change the pathnames to suit what I had on my hard drive. So all I have to do to read my new mail is type sm - the rest is all automatic! What the command I've made does is change the directory to where my executable programme lives, executes it, bypasses all the silly information screens and loads my mail packet. All in one, easy eh?\n\nOne last thing that sets this shell out on a pedestal is that it gives you another type of batch file, the existing ones that have a file name extension of bat and one peculiar to 4DOS having a filename of extension of btm. What the btm means is batch to memory and that's what it does, the batch file executes from memory, so it's much faster than bat files as it never has to search the disk again looking for what to do next.\n\nI'd suggest that anyone who lives on the command line gives this programme a try. The people I know who've tried it, love it. One of whom just spent NZ$230 on an upgrade to ~MS-DOS 5.0 and even with all that ~MicroSoft has done, still remembers 4DOS with a twinkle in his eye.\n\n4DOS is a shareware package from JP Software Inc. Registration of the package is $35.\n\nRon Oosterwijk\n\nEditor's note: 4DOS is available on the club's BBS

A few days ago a friend rang me from Auckland. He wanted advice on upgrading or replacing his old computer. I told him upgrading was probably out of the question, as it would cost more than the price of a new PC. And upgrading has no warranty, you need it if you don't have computer friends in Auckland who can help. I suggested if he didn't want a rocket ship purchase one of the deals through Warehouse Stationary for around $1450 + GST. You basically get everything including a new printer, plus warranty for a year or maybe it's two.\n\n The trouble is John he said, that is a good idea but people like me upgrade as it generally spreads the cost, one item now and another later. Somewhere during the long discussion (he was paying) I asked the burning question. What is wrong with your old computer? Basically it's a good machine; I brought it second-hand in 1999. Via a friend who brought it brand new in 1997, it's Cyrix 6x66 ~PR166. But I'm still using a serial mouse, as my computer does not have a PS/2 port. It's out of date. And recently our daughter visited us from Hamilton with her new digital camera and we were unable to download the pictures, because my computer does not have USB. I told him that many motherboards built and sold around that time had pins/plugs on the motherboard where you can plug in a PS/2 adaptor and a USB adaptor lead to the back panel of your computer. So PS/2 & USB devices, can be plugged in. (See picture of USB adaptor cable. A PS/2 adaptor cable similar.)\n \n What you need to do I told him is check whether your motherboard has these pins or plugs so we can convert it to PS/2 and USB. I told my friend when he switches on his PC to hit the pause button just as the first screen appears. During memory count up. By doing this it will freeze the monitor screen so he can read the BIOS and Motherboard numbers which should appear at the bottom of the screen. Write down the BIOS number, the BIOS date and the version. It will be a long set of numbers with letters. This number will also tell us the motherboard manufacturer's code number. E-mail this info to me. Make sure it is 100% correct.\n\n Later that day I received the number ~I430HX-2459FD4GC-00. Using this number I was able to determine the BIOS number and manufacturer of the Motherboard. I discovered his board was manufactured by DFI (Diamond Flower, Inc), model number ~G568IPC, Intel Triton II HX chipset, Award BIOS ~V4.51PG.\n \n It is basically easy to do a search with a number and obtain the info you need. From here I visited the manufacturers website (not much help as the board was too old). But on a motherboard site I quickly found a picture of the motherboard. (http://test.horizon.sk.ca/hardware/m/C-D/33949.htm) and a copy of the user manual. It showed J1 as a PS/2 connection and ~JP1/~JP2 as a USB port (two rows of four pins, obviously a non-powered output USB port, common in 1997).\n\n I then checked with suppliers, Quay, ~Computer-Link, Dick Smith via their Websites for adaptors. The PS/2 adaptor has now been deleted (on most sites), but one was available in Dick Smith's Rotorua store. And the XH USB adaptor available in all Dick Smith stores. I e-mailed this info to my friend in Auckland who went ahead and purchased both adaptors. Total cost $17, even if one was sent from Rotorua. I gave him instructions to print out the motherboard user manual. Which showed the red USB wire to ~JP1 number one pin on the motherboard. Plus instructions how to reset the BIOS so it recognised the USB port. (By default USB is normally disabled on early MB).\n\n My friend is now happy, with his PS/2 and USB ports. And with the money he was going to spend upgrading he used to increase his RAM memory from 32 to 128 MB. He tells me this has given his old computer a new lease of life. Note. If we had not been able to install a PS/2 port we could have taken the more expensive option and installed a PCI USB 1.1 card ($28) and purchased a USB mouse. Obviously this would have cost more money.\n\n Another friend (after reading the above story) checked for motherboard info (via the Internet). It is an ~A15TV TMC Research Corporation motherboard. He discovered to his surprise that he had a USB connection he never realised was there. And the picture of the motherboard showed a DIMM (168-pin ram) socket as well as four-DRAM (72-pin) sockets. When his computer was originally purchased 72 pin Ram was more common, but today the reverse is true. 168 pin Ram is now the more commoner. Reading the info he down loaded he realised he could put up to 128 MB DIMM ram into bank 3.\n \nhttp://www.knaber-net.dk/bios_id.htm is a good site for mother board info.\n \n // - John Thomson Gella@paradise.net.nz //

Contributed by John Little\n{{{\n * Log On -- Make the barbeque hotter\n * Log Off -- Don't add any more wood\n * Monitor -- Keeping an eye on the barbeque\n * Download -- Get the firewood off the ute\n * Hard drive -- Trip back home without any cold tinnies\n * Floppy Disk -- What you get lifting too much firewood at once\n * Keyboard -- where you hang the ute and bike keys\n * Window -- What you shut when its cold\n * Screen -- What you shut in the mosquito season\n * Byte -- What mosquitoes do\n * Bit -- What mosquitoes did\n * Megabyte -- What Townsville mosquitoes do\n * Chip -- a bar snack\n * Micro Chip -- What's left in the bag after you have eaten the chips\n * Modem -- What you did to the lawns\n * Dot Matrix -- Old Dan Matrix's wife\n * Laptop -- Where the cat sleeps\n * Software -- Plastic knives and forks you get at Big Rooster\n * Hardware -- Real stainless steel knives and forks from K-Mart\n * Mouse -- What eats the grain in the shed\n * Mainframe -- What holds the shed up\n * Web -- What spiders make\n * Web Site -- The shed or under the verandah\n * Cursor -- The old bloke who swears a lot\n * Search Engine -- What you do when the ute won't go\n * Yahoo -- What you say when the ute does go\n * Upgrade -- A steep hill\n * Server -- The person at the pub who brings out the counter lunch\n * Mail Server -- The bloke at the pub who brings out the counter lunch\n * User -- The neighbour who keeps borrowing things\n * Network -- When you have to repair your fishing net\n * Internet -- Complicated fish net repair method\n * Netscape -- When fish manoeuvres out of reach of net\n * Online -- When you get the laundry hung out\n * Off Line -- When the pegs don't hold the washing up\n}}}

//Supplied by John Blakeley.//\n\n Take a pile of Perspex tubes, a few levers and pulleys and the windscreen-wiper pumps from an old wartime bomber. Add a brilliantly ingenious kind, as bucketful of water, and what do you have/? A computer that can model the flow of money around the nation. If the government raises taxes or the public goes on a spending spree, then this bizarre bit of plumbing shows what happens to the country’s savings and investments.\n \nAt a quick flick of a switch the strange contraption can reveal the wisdom of increasing government spending or the folly of cutting interest rates. This huge machine, knocked up in a barrage by one-time crocodile hunter Bill Phillips, is now on display at the Science museum in London. But in the 1950s, the computer model that ran on water was streets ahead of its electronic contemporaries.\n\n ''Liquid assets''\n \nPlumbing was something Bill Phillips was good at. Economics he found harder. As a student at the London School of Economics in the late 1940s, Phillips concentrated hard as his teachers tried to explain the latest theories., But money moves in mysterious ways, through a tangled web of taxes, savings and investments, imports exports and a whole assortment of other variables – all inextricably tied together.\n \n How much easier it would be to understand the convoluted workings of the nation’s economy if you could see what happened when the government finally gave pensioners a few pounds more or froze the tax on petrol.\n \n Phillips was convinced that with a nifty bit of plumbing he could show instantly the effects of a penny more here or an extra few per cent there. Even in 1946, when British universities saw an influx of ex-servicemen of all ages and backgrounds, Phillips was unusual. The New Zealander had just emerged from three and a half years in a Japanese prisoner of war camp, a half-starved chain-smoking war hero of 32. He had grown up on a dairy farm where ingenuity was taken for granted. His mother installed running water in their house. His father diverted some of it to generate electricity to light the milking shed.\n \n Bill had similar talents and at 15 he became an apprentice electrician. But it wasn’t long before the travel bug bit and he was off to Australia, where he picked bananas, mined gold and hunted crocodiles – all the time learning to be an engineer by correspondence course. In 1937 he arrived in London, travelling via Japan and the ~Trans-Siberian Railway. When war broke out Phillips joined the RAF. He was captured by the Japanese in Java. For the next few years his ingenuity and engineering skills proved invaluable. He made a secret radio and picked up news of the first atomic bomb. He also invented a sort of immersion heater to allow the prisoners to maker themselves a secret cup of tea before turning in each night. “The result was that when some 2000 cups of tea were suddenly brewed, the lights of the camp dimmed alarmingly . The Japanese were mystified by this dimming of the lights every night at about 10 p.m.,” wrote fellow prisoner Laurens Van der Post.\n\n Back in London in 1946 Phillips signed up to study sociology at the LSE. He barely scraped a pass – a miserable result his professors blamed on his nicotine addiction. Phillips was so hooked he kept dashing from the exam room for one more cigarette.\n \n It wasn’t only that. Phillips had been sidetracked from his sociology studies by his interest in economics and had spent too much time sketching out plans for his hydraulic model of the economy.\n\n In a note to one of the LSE’s economics teachers he wrote: “I have great difficulty in trying to understand your lectures. I know something about plumbing and have tried to sketch a hydraulic model. Could you please comment on it?”\n \n Surprisingly, Phillips wasn’t sent packing. He was sent instead to see James Meade, professor of commerce, who was keen on mechanical devices. Meade was intrigued and told Phillips to go away and prove his idea would work. All that autumn, Phillips beavered away in his landlady’s garage in south London, constructing a monstrous edifice of tubes, plumbing valves and sluices. In November 1949 Phillips unveiled his creation before a sceptical audience at the LSE. He poured “cash” in at the top – coloured red for better visibility – and turned on the pumps. Money gurgled around the pipes, cascaded over sluices and filled tanks. As the water levels settled, the pulleys turned and a pen plotter traced the results. To everyone’s surprise, the weird machine worked.\n\n The machine might have looked like a bizarre piece of plumbing, but it was an analogue computer which accurately modelled the effects of a whole range of factors on the total national income. The movement of money was represented by the water flowing round the Perspex pipes and the accumulation of money by water collecting in tanks. As water flowed through the machine, the stream split, with savings gurgling round one loop, taxes sloshing along a separate pipe and imports trickling through another.\n \n The operator could simulate a tax cut, say, or an increase in government spending, by opening and closing valves and raising and lowering sluices. It was soon obvious if the policy led to a stable economy or total chaos.\n\n Even the satirical magazine “Punch” was impressed. Bemoaning the extent of people’s ignorance about all things financial, it recommended installing what it called the “financephalograph” in every town hall in Britain.\n \n> “The machine is taller than the man in the street and wider and heavier and much, much cleverer . . . using coloured water (a convenience denied the man in the street) it reacts obediently to every morsel of economic nformation communicated to it, and records, with its mechanical pens on its calibrated charts, the subtle impact of a slump in the secondhand ship market, the slightest hint of a boom in soap, emery wheels or white fish.”\n \n The model did have a few teething troubles. Inflation was sometimes a problem, just as it is in the real world. If inflation rose too high, water squired out through a hole, leaving a pink puddle on the floor. Tired of mopping up, Phillips built new, improved models – 14 in all. Some went to British universities, others were calibrated in dollars instead of pounds and ended up at Harvard, the Ford Motor Company and the Bank of Guatemala. \n\n The financephalograph was a fantastic creation. It earned Phillips a lowly job at the LSE. His next idea – the Phillips Curve – brought him a professorship and an international reputation as a brilliant economist.\n \n The Phillips Curve demonstrates how wage hikes lead to lengthening dole queues – which is what he is remembered for today. As electronic computers improved – and punched tape gave way to figures on screens – his marvellous machines were retired. Pink puddles were consigned to history and money never flowed like water again.\n\n// — (Author, Stephanie Pain). Published by “New Scientist”, 9 December 2000. //

// Perce Harpham shares some of his experiences ...//\n\n I have never understood why Outlook Express (OE) messages and addresses are not kept in My Documents. Then backup of your personal data would be so simple.\n \nThis thought was driven home when recovering from the msblast worm. With some damage done by the worm and consequent self inflicted damage I reloaded the Windows OS (2000 actually). I tried treating it as an update with the result that I went back to ~OE5 using my original CD. This puts the data in different files from ~OE6. Fortunately I had thought about the problem earlier and had backed up appropriate bits of OE.\n\n But now I found I had to create a new OS which of course went back to ~OE6 by the time I had downloaded the fixes and updates. I found that by right clicking on the input file in OE I got the path to it and all the other files as Documents & Settings\sAdministrator\slocal settings\sapplication Data\sa unique number\sMicrosoft \sOutlook Express\s . For each of the identities I was then able to move in the old files.\n \n Don't get confused by the fact that there is a D&S\sAdministrator\sApplication Data folder as distinct from the Local Settings\sApplication Data folder.\n \n Addresses are at D&S\sAdministrator\sApplication Data\sMicrosoft\sAddress Book and are .wab files. If you have multiple identities you can have quite a time sorting out the appropriate unique numbers and getting things in the right places

//At the last meeting this was one of the questions from a member ....//\n\n ''Q'' // When I double-click on a graphic file with a JPG extension, the graphic program I normally use no longer opens up. What is happening and how can I get back to my preferred program?//\n\n '' A'' What is most likely is that a more recently installed program has set the association for JPG files (and probably other graphic file types) so that the new program runs instead of your earlier installed program. To rectify this you have to re-set JPG to "associate" with your preferred program. There are a number of ways to do this, but an easy way is to use the "open with .." feature of Windows Explorer.\n \n Open Explorer and select a JPG file. In XP right-click the file and a dialogue box opens as shown in Figure 1 which may include the program you want.\n \n If not, then click "open with" and another dialogue box opens which enables you to select the program you wish to open by double clicking the JPG file.\n\n Make sure you tick the box in the lower left corner to make this selection permanent. Refer to Figure 2.\n\n If you are using ME or Win 9x, you may have to hold down the CTRL key when you first right-click the graphic file to get the "open with .." menu item. Any file can be associated with a selected program using this method - it is not limited to graphic files. \n

From Hardware Central\n\n In the late 80's the CERN institute in Geneva, Switzerland pioneered the internet in the scientific community and saw its user base among scientists and other enthusiasts grow exponentially in the years following. Today, the internet needs no introduction, almost everyone uses it now and it has become one of the most important means of global communication. The internet has evolved from a text and image-based environment to a full-blown medium for communication and entertainment, with live audio and video, real-time telephony and global access and coverage.\n\n However, we're at the edge of a new, much more sophisticated networked computing revolution; the CERN institute has once again come up with a project that, once completed, will have even greater appeal to scientists and enthusiasts alike than the internet had a few decades ago.\n\n The GriPhyN project, as it is called, is the first attempt to tackle the need for Petabyte-scale computing, such as is needed for the data-intensive science of the 21st century. The GriPhyN project is in essence a distributed network environment, and its workings show remarkable similarities to distributed computing projects such as SETI@home or even a networked environment such as Napster, the well-known Mp3 client, and subject of much controversy lately. GriPhyN will collect resources from universities, supercomputers, national labs, etc. to build one great virtual computer.\n\n That virtual computer, known as the 'The Grid', will constantly monitor which computers are sitting idle or busy at any given time and thus manage resources more efficiently by allocating jobs only to computers not already taxed to the maximum. Thus when a scientist submits a job, it will be sent out to whatever computer isn't being used. For example, it's very plausible that a scientist in Geneva might submit a job and then the Grid run the executable will on the CERN computer, the database sorting and data analysis at the Pittsburgh Center of SuperComputing. Subsequently the data would be analyzed and the results sent back to the scientist in Geneva.\n\n GriPhyN could be thought of as a Napster for scientists, with the difference that it's not downloading music files, but scientific data, processed on the Grid by one or several of the participating computers.\n The process is virtually transparent to the scientist; the virtual computer gets the job done, without the scientist having to be concerned about which computers actually did the number crunching. The Grid actually gets its name from its similarity to the network of power grids that power homes and industries. Whenever you plug in an appliance, you don't know what power plant actually generated the power, or how it actually got there. The power have could just as well been generated by a power plant in New York or been imported from Canada. Wherever it came from, you expect the appliance to work when you plug it in. The Grid closely follows that principle, when a scientist submits a job to this world-wide network of computers; the only thing he cares about is that the job gets done. No matter what machine or number of machines the work is processed on, the scientist just wants to get the job done as fast and efficiently as possible.\n\n With the growing demand in processing power for the even more elaborate science projects of the 21st century it becomes almost impossible for a university or an institution to house all the computing power needed to be able to analyze and process the data generated. Current examples that benefit from the Grid include two experiments at CERN: The Sloan Digital Sky Survey, which will gather information about hundreds of millions of galaxies; and the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, a gravity wave detector. Future applications for the Grid are mind boggling, however. In the near future scientific endeavors such as the Human Brian Project and the Earth Observing System will need to handle huge databases, and with the global annual growth of computer power the Grid will harness the capacity to deal with these immense computing tasks. Once operational on a global scale, the Grid will soon have Tera- or even Petaflop processing power, easily beating any single supercomputer in both performance and efficiency.\n\n Checked out our forums lately? If not, you're definitely missing out.\n They're a great place to get help with hardware problems, discuss hardware or to just meet new people. With over 30,000 registered members and more every day, we are one of the largest hardware communities on the net.\n\n Click here to try them out!\n http://discussions.hardwarecentral.com?nl

''The Time Line'' \nWhen you are actually editing you'll likely be working with a time-line based piece of software. The beauty of the time-line is that you can more easily get a feel for the completed video, and a good sense of timing of transitions and effects. \nThe time-line method of video editing is used by the high-end professional systems like AVID. In fact many professionals consider these consumer level products to be excellent training devices for professional style work.\n\n''A Few Tips'' \nDon’t overuse digital effects and 3D transitions; they label your work as amateur. Simple cuts have always worked best, as is proven by over 100 years of movie history. Sound is important; many amateur producers tend to forget how much emotional impact sound and music can have. Use music when you need to heighten response, when the video images alone just aren’t achieving the desired effect...\nKeep it short and simple; the best home videos show highlights of an event, not every mind-numbing moment. Have fun with your video production; if you're not enjoying it, then why do it?\n\n''Professional vs. Consumer'' \nAn important thing to understand about consumer digital video editing is the difference between it and the professional systems. A consumer systems like the ones discussed here are quite often capable of producing the same quality as the professional ones.\nThe biggest differences are speed and reliability. Most professional editing systems are capable of rendering (i.e., creating the final video file) in real time. Most consumer products are unable to do this...thus the price difference between professional and consumer equipment.\nThe other important factor is reliability; the professional systems were designed usually from the ground up for one use only--to edit video. Our home systems are often portrayed as the Jack of All Trades, with multiple roles besides being a high-powered video editing system. Professional systems also tend to not use the home computer\nOperating Systems like Win95 and Win98, instead opting for NT and the Mac OS, which are inherently more stable. With a home-based system you may not be getting the performance of a $45000 Hollywood-style AVID, but you will be getting something that works in a similar fashion, and just might make your home videos watchable by those outside your immediate family.\n\n''Conclusion'' \nWhen it comes right down to it, anyone who wishes to get started in the field of PC-based video editing has to be prepared to spend some time to get everything working right and learn the trade secrets. A good thing about the time spent is that you will most likely learn a lot about how your PC performs.\nSpend as much money as you can afford for your output needs. If the final destination of your edited work is going to be a small AVI or QuickTime file than don’t buy that $6000 capture card. Of course if you’re going to be doing professional or semi-professional work then unfortunately that $199 capture device will most likely not suit your needs.\nNon-linear computer-based video editing is now feasible for most home computer users, and the results it produces can sometime astonish those around you. With camcorder sales in North America skyrocketing and computer prices plummeting the time for the marriage of these technologies is near. Video as an art form is something that catches the eye because of our culture’s absorption with television. For a long time, we humans have been intrigued by moving images, and now we are nearing the time when almost everyone will have opportunity and resources to create polished, professional-looking work. \n\nThe End

''Introduction''\nThe home video, for years now it has been a staple of North American households due to the affordability of consumer level camcorders. Home videos may be attractively priced, but they almost completely lack editing capability. I'm sure everyone has had to watch a home video that just seemed to go on forever because it practically did. The traditional analog methods of video editing are usually beyond the financial reach of the majority of home users, so the only method available was the archaic VCR to VCR dubbing platform. Not only is this method difficult and time consuming, it also tens to produce messy results on consumer level ~VCRs. Clean cuts, nice transitions and attractive titles were just not available to the average home user.\n\nComputers eventually started to ease the video editing process, but this was limited by cost to the high-end professional market. The beauty of these expensive editing computers was that you could edit a video just like a document with cutting and pasting. This was called non-linear editing, as opposed to linear editing, in which a video had to be edited in sequence. These new computers were also capable of adding digital effects, smooth transitions and multiple layers of audio.\n\nFinally the trickle-down effect has reached the home computing market. Home computers powerful enough to handle the demands of decent quality video editing! The lower costs of ~CPUs, RAM, and especially hard drives, have made the dream of good quality video on the home PC a reality.\n\n''How Does It Work?''\nWhy, suddenly after years of it being impossible to edit video at reasonable cost on home computers, is the technology suddenly now affordable? Some of the answer has to do with the lowering of computer prices over the past few years, but mostly it results from new, cost-effective video compression.\n\n~''Compression''\nThe only way a home computer can effectively deal with the huge amounts of data required for good quality video is to compress it. To give you an idea of the storage needed for non-compressed video data, here are a few interesting numbers: a 9-second uncompressed (no audio) AVI file takes up 261 Megabytes. That's 29 Megabytes a second. In order to produce a 20-minute video file (with no audio) over 38 gigabytes of storage space would be required. That's fine for George Lucas, but average computer users cannot afford to buy drives like that by the dozen.\n\nTo get around this problem, compression formats were devised to dramatically reduce file size, yet retain acceptable quality. These compressors work by throwing out data unimportant to the overall quality of the image. Take, for example, a blue sky: when you digitize this image there will most likely be thousands of shades of blue present in the image. The compressor takes those thousands of colours and makes them into one, in this case blue. Compressors will also take the movement data out of portions of the video file in which little or no movement are taking place. The consumer often has the choice of how much to compress, while considering final image quality. Our 38 Gigabyte 20 minute file would take only 2.6 Gigabytes compressed in MJPEG format, high quality mode: quite a difference in size, but not a huge difference in quality when viewed on a TV.\n\nOf course, these compression chips and their software were very expensive to produce until recently, but today's ~CPUs are so fast they can help with a lot of the work, reducing overall cost.\n\n''Type of Compression''\nMJPEG: The industry standard, capable of images up to ~S-VHS quality.\nIndeo: Intel's software compression format, most suitable for web based video.\nCinepak: The compression format used most often in ~QuickTime files.\nDV: The format used by Digital Camcorders, very similar to ~MPEG-2.\nMPEG: High compression ratio, tops out at VHS quality.\n~MPEG-2: Format used by DVD extremely high quality.\n\n''Edit Decision Lists''\nThe other way to edit video with a computer is to do so with edit decision lists. Using this style the computer only digitizes very small, poor quality clips from the video source. Using these poor quality clips the consumer then uses his or her software to decidewhat edits are to be made and what transitions are to be produced. After the decisions are made the software and the computer control the camera and automatically do the edits. The only part the computer plays in the editing is producing the transitions and controlling the camera. This method of editing is often quicker than digitizing everything and there is no compression. The only downside is that a very high-end video camera and capture device are required with the proper controls and outputs. One of these control formats is called Control ~L-Lanc and is only found on very expensive camcorders. Many new DV camcorders can be controlled in a similar way but that is a whole article in itself.\n\n''Smart Rendering''\nSomething that almost all new video editing devices do in some fashion is Smartrender. This allows portions of the video file to avoid being re-rendered when the final output file is created. Previously, all segments of a video had to be re-rendered when the final file was produced even if no changes (besides simple cuts) had been made. Smartrender can figure out if anything was done to a segment and decide to not re-render the file, saving a lot of time in the final rendering process.\n\n''Quality''\nAll new video-editing devices let you decide about the quality of the final project you are attempting to produce. Depending on your destination medium, you can decide what resolution and compression level is best for your project. If you were developing a video for the web you would use a popular compression format with high compression and a low resolution; if your final output was an ~S-VHS tape or other high quality format, you would use less compression and a higher resolution. The ability to dictate your quality level is an important tool for desktop video producers.\n\n''What Do You Need?''\nThe following segment will address what's needed to start working with Desktop Video on a PC:\n''Source''\nBefore you can edit you have to have something to edit. Your source can be any of the following: video camera, VCR, and/or television. Your source just requies a video output of some kind (of course your capture device must have the same style of input).\n''Video formats are as follows:''\nDV: Digital format similar to ~MPEG-2, almost broadcast quality. About 500 lines of resolution.\n~HI-8: Analog, good quality. About 400 lines of resolution.\n8-MM: Analog, decent quality. About 300 lines of resolution.\nVHS: Analog, poor quality. About 250 lines of resolution.\nBetacam SP: Analog, professional quality. 500 lines of resolution.\n''Computer''\nGet as powerful a system as possible.\nProcessor: ~P-II 350 or higher.\nDue to the complex mathematical nature of compresion codecs, the faster your CPU is the faster your projects will render. I have noticed the Celeron systems are almost as fast as their equivalent ~P-II or ~P-III processors while working with video. Most major software editing packages are planning to support the Pentium III's new SSE instructions, so if you can afford a ~P-III it could be a wise investment.\n''RAM'': 64 Megabytes of RAM or higher.\nVideo editing is very data-intensive and requires constant data updates. The more RAM, the less your hard drive has to be accessed. This in turn speeds up the responsiveness of your editing software.\n\n//Continued next month//\n\n\n

//Continued from lasr month//\n\n''Free PCI slot'' (for the capture device).\n''Sound Card:'' 16 bit 44khz PCI sound card or better.\n\n''Why PCI?'' Well, PCI sound cards tend to have lower CPU utilization rates than ISA, which in turn frees up more CPU time for compression and decompression. This lower CPU utilization also tends to create videos with better sound synchronization.\n\n''Hard Drive:'' 8.4 Gigabyte Hard Drive or better (get a 7200 rpm drive or faster if possible).\nVideo capturing and editing are just plain space hogs, so get the largest drive you can afford. 7200 rpm (or better) drives are recommended because the higher spindle rate translates into better data transfer rates. Because of the immense amounts of data being pushed through your computer while editing, even a slight increase in transfer rates will speed up your work. Buffer size seems to be only important up to 512K; larger buffers do not improve performance dramatically.\n\n''Capture Device:''\nThis is how you get the video into the computer, a very important part of the overall video editing system.\nMost capture devices do pretty much the same thing, but the more expensive ones tend to do it faster. Get as good a device as you can afford and you will save time and effort in the long run. Of course, if you’re only going to be producing video for the Web or a ~CD-ROM, then you won’t need the extra speed and features of the of the higher end devices.\nThere are two types of capture devices, analog and Firewire.\nAnalog capture devices take the analog signal of a camcorder, such as a Hi-8 camera or VHS camera, and digitize its video into a format the computer can handle. These devices tend to compress the video file on the fly, as the computer captures the data.\nFirewire capture cards only work with Digital camcorders (DV or Digital 8) with a Firewire (~IEE1394, or ~I-Link) on-camera interface. The Firewire capture card does a straight digital transfer of the camcorder data onto the hard drive. \nSince the data is already compressed,further compression is not required. Firewire cards and Firewire-capable cameras enable the consumer to create video with no "generation loss" whatsoever, because an exact duplicate of ones and zeros is all that’s being used.\n\n''Capture Cards and Software and Prices''\nBefore you buy your capture card, do yourself a favor: do your research. There are countless Web Pages and discussion groups concerning desktop video and there’s a good chance someone out there has been in the same situation as you are. Here are a few cards that offer good value to the consumer:\n\nLow End: (suitable for creating home VHS videos and clips for the Internet) \n//Pinnacle ~StudioDC10+// ($199.95): A MJPEG based internal PCI device, which is capable of close to ~S-VHS quality video. Comes bundled with Pinnacle’s own editing software, which is easy to use but not that powerful. A great card for someone just starting with video editing.\n//Pinnacle Studio400// ($199.95): An external device that captures a low quality series of files to your hard drive, and which, after you have finished your editing, controls your camcorder (via remote) to complete the process. Final quality is VHS , which is fine for home videos and the Internet. Comes with Pinnacle’s own editing software.\nNote: Your camera must have a wireless remote control in order for this device to work.\n//Matrox Marvel// ($249.95): This all-in-one AGP card acts as a MJPEG capture device, 3D accelerator, 2D video card, and TV tuner. The video output is VHS to low end ~S-VHS quality. The card comes bundled with AVID Cinema which is very easy to use but not very flexible. A good choice for the starting video editor with little computer expansion potential. Higher End: (suitable for better quality home video and low-end professional work)\n//Pinnacle ~DC30pro// ($749.99): Internal PCI device capable of delivering ~S-VHS (nearly professional) quality video. Comes bundled with Premiere 5.1 and a host of effects plug-ins. Captures its own audio as opposed to going through your sound card to ensure prefect sound synchronization. Great software and good image quality make this a good card for the higher end home user. \n//Truevision Bravado 2000// ($499.99): This internal FIREWIRE device lets DV camcorder users edit video without any generation loss. This card comes bundled with the full version of Premiere 5.0. For consumers with a DV camcorder looking to make very high quality videos at a decent price this is the perfect package. The only reason a solution like this is not considered professional is the speed of the final rendering.\nProfessional Firewire devices have a hardware-based compression chip which renders files in real time. This package is exceptional because it cost less than Premiere does when purchased separately and it includes a Firewire capture card. \nOf course there are lots of other cards out there, with more being released every day; but the above devices are all considered good products in the industry.\n\n''Software'' \nTo produce any video with all this raw footage on your hard drive, you must have software which enables the cutting and pasting and easy transitions unique to computer non-linear editing. Most capture cards come with some kind of usable video production software, but for your info, here is a list of the most popular non-linear editing software packages. In the future, I would like to conduct a roundup of a number of popular editing packages available.\n\n\nAdobe Premiere 5.1 $895 \nAvid Cinema $139 \nAvid ~McXpress $2495 \n~ClipView by ~FutureTel $199\nIn Sync Speed Razor LE $895 \nIn Sync Speed Razor DV $2100 \nIn Sync Mach Razor $2100 \nIn Sync Mach Razor RT $5000 (RT means ~Real-Time rendering)\nMGI ~VideoWave $99 \nUlead Media Studio Pro $595 \n\nThese prices are scary looking, but many capture cards come with a lite version of Premiere or ~MediaStudio. When it comes to overall flexibility and power among the lower end software packages, Premiere and Media Studio offer the best value for money. Both are very similar to the professional packages but at a much lower price. Programs like Video Wave and AVID Cinema are strictly for beginners.\n \n''Getting Started''\nYou’ve got your software, you’ve get your hardware, you’ve got your very messy and unwieldy video footage of your trip to Rome, and at last now you’re ready to become the next George Lucas. \nThis article is not going to get into the installation process because installing a capture device is just like installing any other PCI device; you just plug and pray.\nWhen you’re working with your desktop video make sure that you have disabled any terminate-and-stay-resident programs that aren’t absolutely essential to the operation to your computer. Video editing is a major resource hog, so running as clean as possible is essential to smooth operation.\nIn your own best interest you should get used to saving your work as often as possible; ~PCs in general are not the most stable, and with video editing you have to be extra careful.\nSimplify your video editing by naming your un-edited captured files something meaningful, easily associated with the images. There’s nothing worse than not remembering that snzldunjim.avi is a clip of a very load sneezing fit by your large nosed Uncle Jim.\n//Continued next month//

//The following article is an excerpt from ''Desktop Video: A Starter's Guide to Video Editing'' by Daniel Renaud \nhttp://hashdot.com/Sections-req-viewarticle-artid-240-allpages-1-theme-Printer.html\n//\n\n''Introduction''\n\nThe home video, for years now it has been a staple of North American households due to the affordability of consumer level camcorders. Home videos may be attractively priced, but they almost completely lack editing capability. I'm sure everyone has had to watch a home video that just seemed to go on forever because it practically did. The traditional analog methods of video editing are usually beyond the financial reach of the majority of home users, so the only method available was the archaic VCR to VCR dubbing platform. Not only is this method difficult and time consuming, it also tens to produce messy results on consumer level ~VCRs. Clean cuts, nice transitions and attractive titles were just not available to the average home user.\n\nComputers eventually started to ease the video editing process, but this was limited by cost to the high-end professional market. The beauty of these expensive editing computers was that you could edit a video just like a document with cutting and pasting. This was called non-linear editing, as opposed to linear editing, in which a video had to be edited in sequence. These new computers were also capable of adding digital effects, smooth transitions and multiple layers of audio.\n\nFinally the trickle-down effect has reached the home computing market. Home computers powerful enough to handle the demands of decent quality video editing! The lower costs of ~CPUs, RAM, and especially hard drives, have made the dream of good quality video on the home PC a reality.\n\n''How Does It Work?''\n\nWhy, suddenly after years of it being impossible to edit video at reasonable cost on home computers, is the technology suddenly now affordable? Some of the answer has to do with the lowering of computer prices over the past few years, but mostly it results from new, cost-effective video compression.\n\n''Compression''\n\nThe only way a home computer can effectively deal with the huge amounts of data required for good quality video is to compress it. To give you an idea of the storage needed for non-compressed video data, here are a few interesting numbers: a 9-second uncompressed (no audio) AVI file takes up 261 Megabytes. That's 29 Megabytes a second. In order to produce a 20-minute video file (with no audio) over 38 gigabytes of storage space would be required. That's fine for George Lucas, but average computer users cannot afford to buy drives like that by the dozen.\n\nTo get around this problem, compression formats were devised to dramatically reduce file size, yet retain acceptable quality. These compressors work by throwing out data unimportant to the overall quality of the image. Take, for example, a blue sky: when you digitize this image there will most likely be thousands of shades of blue present in the image. The compressor takes those thousands of colours and makes them into one, in this case blue. Compressors will also take the movement data out of portions of the video file in which little or no movement are taking place. The consumer often has the choice of how much to compress, while considering final image quality. Our 38 Gigabyte 20 minute file would take only 2.6 Gigabytes compressed in MJPEG format, high quality mode: quite a difference in size, but not a huge difference in quality when viewed on a TV.\n\nOf course, these compression chips and their software were very expensive to produce until recently, but today's ~CPUs are so fast they can help with a lot of the work, reducing overall cost.\n\n''Type of Compression''\n*MJPEG: The industry standard, capable of images up to ~S-VHS quality.\n*Indeo: Intel's software compression format, most suitable for web based video.\n*Cinepak: The compression format used most often in ~QuickTime files.\n*DV: The format used by Digital Camcorders, very similar to ~MPEG-2.\n*MPEG: High compression ratio, tops out at VHS quality.\n*~MPEG-2: Format used by DVD extremely high quality.\n\n''Edit Decision Lists''\n\nThe other way to edit video with a computer is to do so with edit decision lists. Using this style the computer only digitizes very small, poor quality clips from the video source. Using these poor quality clips the consumer then uses his or her software to decidewhat edits are to be made and what transitions are to be produced. After the decisions are made the software and the computer control the camera and automatically do the edits. The only part the computer plays in the editing is producing the transitions and controlling the camera. This method of editing is often quicker than digitizing everything and there is no compression. The only downside is that a very high-end video camera and capture device are required with the proper controls and outputs. One of these control formats is called Control ~L-Lanc and is only found on very expensive camcorders. Many new DV camcorders can be controlled in a similar way but that is a whole article in itself.\n\n''Smart Rendering''\n\nSomething that almost all new video editing devices do in some fashion is Smartrender. This allows portions of the video file to avoid being re-rendered when the final output file is created. Previously, all segments of a video had to be re-rendered when the final file was produced even if no changes (besides simple cuts) had been made. Smartrender can figure out if anything was done to a segment and decide to not re-render the file, saving a lot of time in the final rendering process.\n\n''Quality''\n\nAll new video-editing devices let you decide about the quality of the final project you are attempting to produce. Depending on your destination medium, you can decide what resolution and compression level is best for your project. If you were developing a video for the web you would use a popular compression format with high compression and a low resolution; if your final output was an ~S-VHS tape or other high quality format, you would use less compression and a higher resolution. The ability to dictate your quality level is an important tool for desktop video producers.\n\n''What Do You Need?''\n\nThe following segment will address what's needed to start working with Desktop Video on a PC:\n\n''Source''\n\nBefore you can edit you have to have something to edit. Your source can be any of the following: video camera, VCR, and/or television. Your source just requies a video output of some kind (of course your capture device must have the same style of input).\n\n''Video formats are as follows:''\n*DV: Digital format similar to ~MPEG-2, almost broadcast quality. About 500 lines of resolution.\n*~HI-8: Analog, good quality. About 400 lines of resolution.\n*8-MM: Analog, decent quality. About 300 lines of resolution.\n*VHS: Analog, poor quality. About 250 lines of resolution.\n*Betacam SP: Analog, professional quality. 500 lines of resolution.\n''Computer''\n\nGet as powerful a system as possible.\n''Processor:'' ~P-II 350 or higher.\nDue to the complex mathematical nature of compresion codecs, the faster your CPU is the faster your projects will render. I have noticed the Celeron systems are almost as fast as their equivalent ~P-II or ~P-III processors while working with video. Most major software editing packages are planning to support the Pentium III's new SSE instructions, so if you can afford a ~P-III it could be a wise investment.\n''RAM:'' 64 Megabytes of RAM or higher.\n\nVideo editing is very data-intensive and requires constant data updates. The more RAM, the less your hard drive has to be accessed. This in turn speeds up the responsiveness of your editing software.\n\n//Continued next month - [[Link|A Starter's Guide to Video Editing Part 2]]//\n\n\n

//The following article is an excerpt from ''Desktop Video: A Starter's Guide to Video Editing'' by Daniel Renaud \nhttp://hashdot.com/Sections-req-viewarticle-artid-240-allpages-1-theme-Printer.html\n//\n//(Continued from last month) - [[Link|A Starter's Guide to Video Editing Part 1]]//\n\n''Free PCI slot'' (for the capture device).\n''Sound Card:'' 16 bit 44khz PCI sound card or better.\n\n''Why PCI?'' Well, PCI sound cards tend to have lower CPU utilization rates than ISA, which in turn frees up more CPU time for compression and decompression. This lower CPU utilization also tends to create videos with better sound synchronization.\n\n''Hard Drive:'' 8.4 Gigabyte Hard Drive or better (get a 7200 rpm drive or faster if possible).\nVideo capturing and editing are just plain space hogs, so get the largest drive you can afford. 7200 rpm (or better) drives are recommended because the higher spindle rate translates into better data transfer rates. Because of the immense amounts of data being pushed through your computer while editing, even a slight increase in transfer rates will speed up your work. Buffer size seems to be only important up to 512K; larger buffers do not improve performance dramatically.\n\n''Capture Device:''\n\nThis is how you get the video into the computer, a very important part of the overall video editing system.\nMost capture devices do pretty much the same thing, but the more expensive ones tend to do it faster. Get as good a device as you can afford and you will save time and effort in the long run. Of course, if you’re only going to be producing video for the Web or a ~CD-ROM, then you won’t need the extra speed and features of the of the higher end devices.\n\nThere are two types of capture devices, analog and Firewire. Analog capture devices take the analog signal of a camcorder, such as a Hi-8 camera or VHS camera, and digitize its video into a format the computer can handle. These devices tend to compress the video file on the fly, as the computer captures the data.\n\nFirewire capture cards only work with Digital camcorders (DV or Digital 8) with a Firewire (~IEE1394, or ~I-Link) on-camera interface. The Firewire capture card does a straight digital transfer of the camcorder data onto the hard drive. \n\nSince the data is already compressed,further compression is not required. Firewire cards and Firewire-capable cameras enable the consumer to create video with no "generation loss" whatsoever, because an exact duplicate of ones and zeros is all that’s being used.\n\n''Capture Cards and Software and Prices''\n\nBefore you buy your capture card, do yourself a favor: do your research. There are countless Web Pages and discussion groups concerning desktop video and there’s a good chance someone out there has been in the same situation as you are. Here are a few cards that offer good value to the consumer:\n\nLow End: (suitable for creating home VHS videos and clips for the Internet) \n//Pinnacle ~StudioDC10+// ($199.95): A MJPEG based internal PCI device, which is capable of close to ~S-VHS quality video. Comes bundled with Pinnacle’s own editing software, which is easy to use but not that powerful. A great card for someone just starting with video editing.\n//Pinnacle Studio400// ($199.95): An external device that captures a low quality series of files to your hard drive, and which, after you have finished your editing, controls your camcorder (via remote) to complete the process. Final quality is VHS , which is fine for home videos and the Internet. Comes with Pinnacle’s own editing software.\n\n''Note:'' Your camera must have a wireless remote control in order for this device to work.\n//Matrox Marvel// ($249.95): This all-in-one AGP card acts as a MJPEG capture device, 3D accelerator, 2D video card, and TV tuner. The video output is VHS to low end ~S-VHS quality. The card comes bundled with AVID Cinema which is very easy to use but not very flexible. A good choice for the starting video editor with little computer expansion potential. Higher End: (suitable for better quality home video and low-end professional work)\n\n//Pinnacle ~DC30pro// ($749.99): Internal PCI device capable of delivering ~S-VHS (nearly professional) quality video. Comes bundled with Premiere 5.1 and a host of effects plug-ins. Captures its own audio as opposed to going through your sound card to ensure prefect sound synchronization. Great software and good image quality make this a good card for the higher end home user. \n\n//Truevision Bravado 2000// ($499.99): This internal FIREWIRE device lets DV camcorder users edit video without any generation loss. This card comes bundled with the full version of Premiere 5.0. For consumers with a DV camcorder looking to make very high quality videos at a decent price this is the perfect package. The only reason a solution like this is not considered professional is the speed of the final rendering.\nProfessional Firewire devices have a hardware-based compression chip which renders files in real time. This package is exceptional because it cost less than Premiere does when purchased separately and it includes a Firewire capture card.\n \nOf course there are lots of other cards out there, with more being released every day; but the above devices are all considered good products in the industry.\n\n''Software'' \n\nTo produce any video with all this raw footage on your hard drive, you must have software which enables the cutting and pasting and easy transitions unique to computer non-linear editing. Most capture cards come with some kind of usable video production software, but for your info, here is a list of the most popular non-linear editing software packages. In the future, I would like to conduct a roundup of a number of popular editing packages available.\n\n\nAdobe Premiere 5.1 $895 \nAvid Cinema $139 \nAvid ~McXpress $2495 \n~ClipView by ~FutureTel $199\nIn Sync Speed Razor LE $895 \nIn Sync Speed Razor DV $2100 \nIn Sync Mach Razor $2100 \nIn Sync Mach Razor RT $5000 (RT means ~Real-Time rendering)\nMGI ~VideoWave $99 \nUlead Media Studio Pro $595 \n\nThese prices are scary looking, but many capture cards come with a lite version of Premiere or ~MediaStudio. When it comes to overall flexibility and power among the lower end software packages, Premiere and Media Studio offer the best value for money. Both are very similar to the professional packages but at a much lower price. Programs like Video Wave and AVID Cinema are strictly for beginners.\n \n''Getting Started''\n\nYou’ve got your software, you’ve get your hardware, you’ve got your very messy and unwieldy video footage of your trip to Rome, and at last now you’re ready to become the next George Lucas. \n\nThis article is not going to get into the installation process because installing a capture device is just like installing any other PCI device; you just plug and pray.\n\nWhen you’re working with your desktop video make sure that you have disabled any terminate-and-stay-resident programs that aren’t absolutely essential to the operation to your computer. Video editing is a major resource hog, so running as clean as possible is essential to smooth operation.\n\nIn your own best interest you should get used to saving your work as often as possible; ~PCs in general are not the most stable, and with video editing you have to be extra careful.\n\nSimplify your video editing by naming your un-edited captured files something meaningful, easily associated with the images. There’s nothing worse than not remembering that snzldunjim.avi is a clip of a very load sneezing fit by your large nosed Uncle Jim.\n\n//Continued next month - [[Link|A Starter's Guide to Video Editing Part 3]]//

//The following article is an excerpt from ''Desktop Video: A Starter's Guide to Video Editing'' by Daniel Renaud \nhttp://hashdot.com/Sections-req-viewarticle-artid-240-allpages-1-theme-Printer.html\n//\n\n//Continued from last month - [[Link|A Starter's Guide to Video Editing Part 2]]//\n\n''The Time Line'' \n\nWhen you are actually editing you'll likely be working with a time-line based piece of software. The beauty of the time-line is that you can more easily get a feel for the completed video, and a good sense of timing of transitions and effects. \nThe time-line method of video editing is used by the high-end professional systems like AVID. In fact many professionals consider these consumer level products to be excellent training devices for professional style work.\n\n''A Few Tips'' \n\nDon’t overuse digital effects and 3D transitions; they label your work as amateur. Simple cuts have always worked best, as is proven by over 100 years of movie history. Sound is important; many amateur producers tend to forget how much emotional impact sound and music can have. Use music when you need to heighten response, when the video images alone just aren’t achieving the desired effect...\nKeep it short and simple; the best home videos show highlights of an event, not every mind-numbing moment. Have fun with your video production; if you're not enjoying it, then why do it?\n\n''Professional vs. Consumer'' \n\nAn important thing to understand about consumer digital video editing is the difference between it and the professional systems. A consumer systems like the ones discussed here are quite often capable of producing the same quality as the professional ones.\n\nThe biggest differences are speed and reliability. Most professional editing systems are capable of rendering (i.e., creating the final video file) in real time. Most consumer products are unable to do this...thus the price difference between professional and consumer equipment.\n\nThe other important factor is reliability; the professional systems were designed usually from the ground up for one use only--to edit video. Our home systems are often portrayed as the Jack of All Trades, with multiple roles besides being a high-powered video editing system. Professional systems also tend to not use the home computer\n\nOperating Systems like Win95 and Win98, instead opting for NT and the Mac OS, which are inherently more stable. With a home-based system you may not be getting the performance of a $45000 Hollywood-style AVID, but you will be getting something that works in a similar fashion, and just might make your home videos watchable by those outside your immediate family.\n\n''Conclusion'' \n\nWhen it comes right down to it, anyone who wishes to get started in the field of ~PC-based video editing has to be prepared to spend some time to get everything working right and learn the trade secrets. A good thing about the time spent is that you will most likely learn a lot about how your PC performs.\nSpend as much money as you can afford for your output needs. If the final destination of your edited work is going to be a small AVI or ~QuickTime file than don’t buy that $6000 capture card. Of course if you’re going to be doing professional or semi-professional work then unfortunately that $199 capture device will most likely not suit your needs.\n\nNon-linear computer-based video editing is now feasible for most home computer users, and the results it produces can sometime astonish those around you. With camcorder sales in North America skyrocketing and computer prices plummeting the time for the marriage of these technologies is near. Video as an art form is something that catches the eye because of our culture’s absorption with television. For a long time, we humans have been intrigued by moving images, and now we are nearing the time when almost everyone will have opportunity and resources to create polished, professional-looking work. \n

#I will have a cup of coffee in the morning and read my newspaper, like I used to before the Web.\n#I will eat breakfast with a knife and fork and not with one hand typing.\n#I will get dressed before noon.\n#I will make an attempt to clean the house, wash clothes, and plan dinner before even thinking of the Web.\n#I will sit down and write a letter to those unfortunate few friends and family that are Web-deprived.\n#I will call someone on the phone who I cannot contact via the Web.\n#I will read a book...if I still remember how.\n#I will listen to those around me and their needs, and stop telling them to turn the TV down so I can hear the music on the Web.\n#I will not be tempted during TV commercials to check for e-mail.\n#I will try and get out of the house at least once a week, whether it is necessary or not.\n#I will remember that my bank is not forgiving if I forget to balance my cheque book because I was too busy on the Web.\n#Last but not least, I will remember that I must go to bed some time ... and the Web will always be there tomorrow!\n \n//Thanks to John Little for this contribution //

I was recently given a PC by a friend; in fact, the PC had been deemed too slow to be of much practical use, and was about to be thrown out, but perhaps the components would be of some use to me. Since this was a 386DX40, with 4Mb of memory and a 120Mb HDD, it must certainly have been running adequately a few years ago when it was state of the art - so what had changed?\n\nI had occasion to use the HDD from that PC when testing a 486DX2/66, which also had 4Mb of memory recently, and I was appalled to find it took around 15 minutes to boot, start Windows 3.11 and load Word 6.0. I'm not joking - it had been used by my friend's grandfather to write his memoirs, so it had been set up to boot to Windows and run Word automatically - and it sat and chugged slowly through the entire process.\n\nOn closer examination, there was nothing physically wrong with the PC, but the manner in which it had been set up served as a good example of how not to maintain a PC. In fact, I cannot think of any way of making the PC run slower if I was intentionally trying to.\n\nAlthough fewer people are using Windows 3.1 these days, the following points may be worth attention if your current system seems slow.\n1.&nbsp;&nbsp; Lack of physical memory. Windows for Workgroups 3.11 reputedly has higher memory requirements than Windows 3.1 - the previous owner would have been better off staying with the original version of Windows supplied with the machine. However, even after installing 16Mb of memory, it still took about 5 minutes to finish loading Word 6.0. \n2.&nbsp;&nbsp; Too many unused fonts were installed. There were at least 75 different fonts installed (probably from the Office installation) including about a dozen Arial variants. Removing most of these from the system produced a noticeable increase in loading speed, as Windows has to locate and install each font every time it starts. \n3.&nbsp;&nbsp; Large desktop wallpaper bitmaps. Since this was completely obscured by Word 6.0 (once it was loaded!) this was wasting precious memory for no good reason. \n4.&nbsp;&nbsp; Office task bar. Since the only application used was Word 6.0, loading the task bar was also wasting memory. In fact, Word was being started from the Startup Group, where it really would have been better to start it as the shell. \n5.&nbsp;&nbsp; Too many unused drivers were being loaded. At one time, this PC had a CDROM drive and a soundcard, yet the Windows drivers related to these items had not been removed - again slowing the loading time of ~WIndows and wasting memory. \n6.&nbsp;&nbsp; Temporary swap file. The system - with 4Mb of memory - was obviously going to be very dependent on a swap file, yet a permanent swap file had not been set up. \n7.&nbsp;&nbsp; Disk fragmentation. The HDD had probably never been defragmented, yet lots of software had been installed and removed over the years. This was particularly important when combined with the use of a temporary swap file. \n8.&nbsp;&nbsp; No diskcache! It is possible that this PC had never had smartdrive installed - after all, what good reason would there be for removing it? - but certainly when combined with all the factors above, and the fact that the HDD was quite a slow, the lack of a diskcache would have been a very significant factor in the appalling performance of the PC. \n\nThe system now boots and loads Word 6.0 in around a minute - quite a respectable increase in speed for no cost. It would take a very expensive system upgrade to produce a comparable 1500% increase in speed, and although this experience relates to Windows 3.1 specifically, I am sure that there are lessons to be learned that apply to other operating systems as well.

Today it's a lot easier than you think to set up a small network in your home of two or more computers. Most users get confused by the different terms used, and the many different options for going about the whole process. Generally the reasons for setting up a small home network are to share files, share a printer and share an Internet connection. The needs of your family or flat mates using it should be the deciding factors. But no matter what the size of the network, chances are it will be a lot simpler than first imagined. Maybe you have an old computer you've tried to sell, that is now sitting in a cupboard collecting dust. Most users don't realise that this computer could be set up in another room of your house so another person could use it to write letters, and access the main computer. And used to access the Internet (see further on).\n\n Thanks to plug and play and the USB bus, building a small home or small office network is now as easy as plugging special network cables into your computer's USB port. Opening the case to install network cards and IRQ conflicts have all been replaced by simple plug and play technology. You can have up to ten or even twenty computers in the network; this depends on how you set it up. USB network data transfer rates are 5Mbps, faster enough for any home or small office. And USB networks use a standard Windows interface so there is really nothing new to learn.\n\n A USB network can be setup as a basic Peer to Peer workgroup. And provide the users with a shared dialup Internet access, and it has a feature that allows the users/workgroup to link to a standard Ethernet based client/server LAN (local area network), making the resources of the LAN or Intranet available to the group. And still provide a connection to the Internet. But what we are really interested in here is a small home network (two or three computers at most). I believe there is no easier way to share resources such as programs, printers, scanners, CD's & DVD drives and files. Plugging in USB cables is by far the simplest method. Many PC users are simply not comfortable opening up their computer and I believe you should only do this if you know what you're doing. The USB cables used are not standard USB extension cables as such; they are cables with a small electronic switching device built into the middle of the cable.\n\n Getting it to work is very simple as long as you follow standard instructions and do everything in the correct order. Don't plug the cables into the computers before installing the program and drivers. Otherwise plug and play may install the wrong USB drivers. The first thing to do is install "Client for Microsoft Networks" if it's not already installed on each computer. It probably was added when you installed Windows. If it's not, use your Windows 98SE CD and install it. To set up each computer as a station on the network you use the distribution diskette supplied with each USB network cable. Specify a directory of your choice, and give each computer a unique name. Obviously each computer in your network (peer to peer network) must have a name that is different from all the others. Otherwise things will start to go wrong. Also check that the workgroup name is the same on each PC. Ensure file and printer sharing is enabled. And select which folders will be shared, on the network and select level of access. Don't get worried if this all sounds too technical because the instructions' that come with USB network cables are easily understood. The only difficult thing that must not be done, is open the Network Bridge (when installing the software). This is only left open if you want to connect to an Ethernet LAN. The checkbox must be clicked. When you've installed the drivers you reboot each computer. The next time you start each computer a login dialog box appears, you'll need to fill in the information and click OK. The last thing to do with all the computers up and running is plug in all the USB cables into the USB ports. Windows will now recognise the network and load necessary USB drivers. You will now be able to open network neighbourhood and see other computers connected, and share programs and devices through the standard Windows methods, such as Network Neighbourhood and Windows Explorer.\n\n To use the Internet via a dial up connection one computer (obviously the one with the modem or ADSL) is setup as the Host and the other computers are setup as Remote ~PCs. Windows 98SE (onwards) makes shared dialup Internet access possible though its Internet Connection Sharing, which needs to be installed on the Host. See figure 1. As stated earlier, most of the software and information that comes with USB network cable kits explain this extremely well. You can set up the IP address as 192.168.0.x (address range) and the Subnet Mask as 255.255.255.255, or as outlined in setup instructions.\n\n The remote computers will also need setting up so they each receive automatically an IP address when they start up. This is called DHCP. Also you will need to set "Always dial my default connection" so that whenever a program that requires the Internet is started, the Host computer will automatically dial up your ISP, assuming it is not already connected. Once setup you'll be able to access the Internet and all the normal Internet applications such as Email, FTP and use your Internet browser to search the Web from any of the Remote computers.\n\n If you want your printer to work from your Remote personal computer, you will need to install it as a network printer on each Remote PC. This is a simple matter during the printer installation process, select network printer and following the instructions.\n\n USB Network cables can be obtained from a number of sources, I've ordered them direct via the Web from Australia, but I now understand they are available in Auckland. And Dick Smith is selling them with a setup and instruction CD. They call it an ~UN-101. I just don't like their price at $91 dollars for a 1.8 metre cable. If your computers are further apart, you'll require a normal USB (type A plugs) extension cable ($21 for 5 metres). Even so, this compares favourably with standard ISA and PCI 10/100-network cards and a modified unshielded twisted pair (UTP) cross over cable, the setup cost can easily exceed $100 (two new cards at $35 each, Ethernet cable 10 metres $40). Note: - if you use second-hand parts it would cost less.\n\n If one of your computers is not USB compatible, you can install a PCI to USB card ($38 dollars approx). This host adaptor generally provides two USB type A receptacles and will support both 12Mbps full speed and 1.5Mbps low speed, bus transfer rates and will enable your PC to also connect to other USB peripheral devices such as keyboard, and an external hub for USB expansion. If you're still using Windows 95, make sure to install the USBSUPP.exe to enable USB ports in Windows 95 (included automatically in 98SE). To check that the USB interface for your computer CMOS has been enabled. Go to START>SETTINGS>CONTROL PANEL>SYSTEM and click Device Manager. The last device in alphabetical order should be USB Serial Bus Controller. When you click on it you should have the USB universal host controller and USB root hub. If you don't have these two drivers then you'll need to install them.\n \n Be aware you'll need at least Windows 98SE (second edition) upwards for Internet connection sharing. See figure 1. There're other ways, but it's complicated for the beginner. All this information may not seem simple first time read, but for someone who has never installed and confiqured network cards, and hunted the net for the latest drivers, plugging in USB cables is by far the simplest method for the novice. It allows multiple users (the 4 Asian students in my flat who all have laptops) to share a single modem, phone line and one Internet account for Internet access. Surprisingly the 56K connection provides plenty of bandwidth for all to surf concurrently.\n\n Happy networking\n \n// John D Thomson\n Gella@paradise.net.nz//\n\n ''Note:'' - All computers released in the last few years have come with at least two USB ports as standard. These ports are self powered (~DC5v/500ma) and let you hot-swap various components ie: - web camera, keyboard, joystick, or any equipment that's USB compatible. And it's possible to convert some existing peripheral to USB. By purchasing an USB to Parallel printer cable you can then operate your printer via a USB port. But with data transfer rates of 12mbps (USB 1.1) is now considered slow for bandwidth hungry devices such as external hard drives, ~DVD-RAM and ~DVD-RW. High-speed (USB 2.0) transfer rates are 480mbps hopefully fast enough to edge out the competition of 400mbps ~FireWire and I.Link (IEEE 1394) ports. USB 1.1 devices can be plugged into USB 2.0 ports, but you don't get the increased speed. There're already a few USB 2.0 devices on the market, but computer manufacturers at present are not building USB 2.0 ports into personal computers as standard. And Windows XP does not fully support USB 2.0. Microsoft has advised there will be USB drives available for XP and Windows 2000, downloadable via the web. Obviously USB will be around for sometime.\n

Anonymous\n \n\n''HOW DO YOU DECIDE WHO TO MARRY?''\nYou got to find somebody who likes the same stuff. Like, if you like sports, she should like it that you like sports, and she should keep the chips and dip coming.\nAlan, age 10\n\nNo person really decides before they grow up who they're going to marry. God decides it all way before, and you get to find out later who you're stuck with.\nKirsten, age 10\n\n''WHAT IS THE RIGHT AGE TO GET MARRIED?''\nTwenty-three is the best age because you know the person FOREVER by then.\nCamille, age 10\n\nNo age is good to get married at. You got to be a fool to get married.\nFreddie, age 6\n\n''HOW CAN A STRANGER TELL IF TWO PEOPLE ARE MARRIED?''\nYou might have to guess, based on whether they seem to be yelling at the same kids.\nDerrick, age 8\n\n''WHAT DO YOU THINK YOUR MOM AND DAD HAVE IN COMMON?''\nBoth don't want any more kids.\nLori, age 8\n\n''WHAT DO MOST PEOPLE DO ON A DATE?''\nDates are for having fun, and people should use them to get to know each other. Even boys have something to say if you listen long enough.\nLynnette, age 8\n\nOn the first date, they just tell each other lies, and that usually gets them interested enough to go for a second date.\nMartin, age 10\n\n''WHAT WOULD YOU DO ON A FIRST DATE THAT WAS TURNING SOUR?''\nI'd run home and play dead. The next day I would call all the newspapers and make sure they wrote about me in all the dead columns.\nCraig, age 9\n\n''WHEN IS IT OKAY TO KISS SOMEONE?''\nWhen they're rich.\nPam, age 7\n\nThe law says you have to be eighteen, so I wouldn't want to mess with that.\nCurt, age 7\n\nThe rule goes like this: If you kiss someone, then you should marry them and have kids with them. It's the right thing to do.\nHoward, age 8\n\n''IS IT BETTER TO BE SINGLE OR MARRIED?''\nI don't know which is better, but I'll tell you one thing. I'm never going to have sex with my wife. I don't want to be all grossed out.\nTheodore, age 8\n\nIt's better for girls to be single but not for boys. Boys need someone to clean up after them.\nAnita, age 9\n\n''HOW WOULD THE WORLD BE DIFFERENT IF PEOPLE DIDN'T GET MARRIED?''\nThere sure would be a lot of kids to explain, wouldn't there?\nKelvin, age 8\n\n"And the #1 Favourite is........"\n\n''HOW WOULD YOU MAKE A MARRIAGE WORK?''\nTell your wife that she looks pretty even if she looks like a truck.\nRicky, age 10\nComputer Quiz\n\n''What do MITEL and Corel have in common?''\n\nWhen Michael Cowpland and Terrence Matthews launched their Canadian PBX firm 25 years ago, they originally planned to market an environmentally sound lawn mower that mulched while it cut.\n\nThey took a shine to the name Mike & Terry's Lawnmowers. That lawn mower never got off the ground, but the acronym Mitel - for MIke & TErry's Lawnmowers - stuck.\n\nCowpland later founded software vendor Corel Corp., which comes from COwpland REsearch Labs.\n

Type the text for 'AGM'

''MINUTES OF ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING HELD AT ST PATRICK’S COLLEGE \nSTARTING 7:38 PM ON WEDNESDAY 21 JULY 1999 ''\n\n''1. PRESENT:''\nThe President declared a quorum present and opened the meeting at 7:55 pm.\n\n''2. APOLOGIES:''\nDawn Gorman, Lindsay Cuthbertson, Tom Clarke Moved and seconded that apologies be sustained – carried. \n\n''3. MINUTES OF PREVIOUS AGM:''\nMoved John Goodwin, seconded John Foster that the minutes of the previous Annual General Meeting be accepted as a true and correct record - Carried.\n\n''4. MATTERS ARISING FROM THE MINUTES:''\nNone. \n\n''5. PRESIDENT’S REPORT:''\nThe Presidents had been published in Megabyte and was taken as read \n\n''6. TREASURER’S REPORT:''\nThe Treasurer’s report had been published in the June Megabyte newsletter.\nMoved John Goodwin, seconded Graham Rogers that the 1996/97 accounts be accepted - carried. \n\n''7. Changes to the Consitution:'' \nThere were four changes to the Rules of the Constitution which had been advised to members in the ~MegaByte magazine, including reasons for the proposed changes.. The changes were considered in order:\n\na) Rule change no 1 - amendment to Rule 9 which reduced the quorum required for a general meeting.\nMoved Colin Candy, seconded Tony Fitchett that Rule change no 1 be accepted carried.\n\nRule change no 2 - a new rule 4E providing for a rebate of annual subscription to members serving on the committee for more than one year.\nMoved Roger Currier, seconded Hugh Roberton that Rule change no 2 be accepted carried. \nVotes recorded were 14 votes in favour, 7 votes against and 8 abstentions. \n\nRule change no 3 - amendment to Rule 13 to correct a cross reference. \nMoved Richard Elam, seconded Alistair Clark that Rule change no 3 be accepted carried.\n\nRule change no 4 - which proposes that all references to to society be changed to association. Moved Richard Elam, seconded Don McDonald that rule change no 4 be accepted carried.\n\n''8. ELECTION OF OFFICERS:'' \nThe following officers were elected:\n\n|!Office|!Nominee|!Moved By|!Seconded By|\n|!President|Roger Currier |Richard Elam|Alistair Clarke |\n|!Secretary|Richard Elam |Roger Currier |Raja Ram |\n|!Treasurer|Dawn Gorman|Roger Currier|Raja Ram|\n|!Membership|Arthur Harris|Roger Currier|Raja Ram|\n|!Programme Officer|Alistair Clarke|Roger Currier|Raja Ram|\n|!Editor|Arthur Harris|Roger Currier|Raja Ram|\n|!Office Admin|Colin Candy|Roger Currier|Raja Ram|\n|!Help desk|John Fanning|Roger Currier|Raja Ram|\n|!Sysop||||\n|!CD ROM Library|Hugh Roberton|Roger Currier|Raja Ram|\n|!Web Master|Robin Hinde|Richard Elam|Hans Hartog|\n\n\n\n''9. ELECTION OF HONORARY AUDITOR:''\nThere were no nominations for auditor form the floor. Moved Richard Elam, seconded Roger Currier that Claude.\nRowland be approached to serve as Auditor for 1999/2000 - carried \n\n''10. GENERAL BUSINESS:''\nBob Lowe complimented the web site. Roger Currier asked members what they would like for presentations, and a list was noted.\n \nThe meeting was declared closed at 9:00 pm.\n\n \n\n

By: David Risley of Hardwarecentral\n\n ''Introduction''\n Today's software is increasing in graphic intensity. Even mundane business software uses icons, charts and animations. When you add 3D games and educational software to the equation, one can see that there is a crunch in bandwidth for graphical information. With newer software and games getting much more graphics intensive, the PCI bus is maxed out. In fact, the PCI bus, once considered very fast, can now be considered a bottleneck.\n Intel knew this very fact, and in response, they designed the Accelerated Graphics Port, or AGP. In short, AGP uses the main PC memory to hold 3D images. In effect, this gives the AGP video card an unlimited amount of video memory. To speed up the data transfer, Intel designed the port as a direct path to the PC's main memory.\n\n AGP sounds groundbreaking, and it is, no doubt, the latest craze in the need for graphical speed. But, in the real world, it is questionable if AGP really improves performance.\n One can easily see why the need for a new graphical interface is needed. While PCI served us well, and still continues to do so, it is bogged down by the demand of full screen 3D graphics. It works well for 2D business software and most games, but intense 3D challenges the bandwidth limitations. For true 3D, there is much information that must be transferred for a single image.\n*For a discussion of these elements, see Elements of 3D.\n In July of 1996, Intel rolled out AGP. In theory, it can support speeds four times as fast as the PCI bus, roughly 528 Mb/second. As stated above, it uses the main memory to store all 3D information, including textures and the Z-buffer. This rids us of a prime problem of PCI video -- textures add reality to what we see on screen. The Z-buffer creates an illusion of depth. Both of these take up loads of memory, and they use the same chunk of memory.\n Therefore, manufacturers were forced to choose between textures or the z-buffer. Often, they had to design software that was weak in both areas in order to deal with the PCI bus. With AGP, this restriction is gone.\n\n To create lifelike 3D images, the CPU must perform intensive 3D calculations. The graphics controller processes the texture data and bitmaps. In many cases, the controller must read elements from 7 or 8 different textures and average them into a single pixel on the screen. When this calculation is performed, the pixel must be stored in the memory buffer. Because these textures are so large, they cannot be stored on the video card's buffer. With AGP, they instead are stored in the main system memory. Because of this, it is recommended that you have a large amount of system memory in your machine -- this should be no problem due to the low prices of RAM. Intel, no doubt, took this into account when they decided to use your RAM for graphics.\n To access the texture data from the main memory, AGP uses a technique called Direct M! emory Execute, or DIME.\n In short, this connects the memory directly to the AGP/PCI chipset. This lets the graphics card access the textures in the main memory, which is limited only by the amount of memory you have in your system.\n AGP transmits data on the rise and fall of a clock cycle. Since one clock cycle is four rises and falls, just like a wavelength of a sine wave, AGP sends data four times per clock cycle. This is why it is four times faster than the PCI bus, which sends data once per clock cycle. This AGP is called 2x AGP. In the future, Intel plans to fine tune the timing -- the effect will be theoretical throughputs of 1 GB per second, called 4x AGP.\n Like PCI, AGP uses a 32-bit connector. But, there is a difference. The AGP connector has 64 contacts, just like the old MCA adapter. AGP uses a 64-bit wide data path. This extra contact provides new roadways for the pipeline and queue of data requests. Another difference is that AGP uses an extra eight sideband address lines that allows the controller to issue simultaneous commands while also accessing all 32 of the main data pathways. This is called Sideband Addressing, or SBA. All this comes together to give AGP a faster throughput then\n\n ''PCI. The Requirements''\n AGP is still in the preliminary stages. Although it works, the support for it is not adequate for most users.\n In order to use AGP, you must have a motherboard with Intel's 440LX PCI/AGP chipset, currently only available for Pentium II motherboards. The chipset supports AGP along with QPA, or Quad Port Acceleration. All such boards offer SDRAM support, an absolute must have for AGP. It is expected that the 440LX chipset will be made available for motherboards using non-Intel processors. Also, Socket 7 motherboards are beginning to appear that offer AGP support. These boards are using new chipsets, like the Via Apollo VP3 and the ALI Alladin V.\n AGP also requires software support, including both the OS and graphics drivers. Windows 98 will have built-in support for AGP. Windows 95 users can get the Windows 95 OEM Service Release 2.1 or a patch program called USBSUPP.EXE. Your current Windows 95 PCI device driver will support AGP, but you will need to get DirectX 5, which is the only version of DirectX to support DIME. You must make sure your video drivers include VGARTD.VXD as well. This is a virtual device driver that turns on the DIME feature.\n As can be seen, a lot of equipment is needed to use AGP. AGP is a new technology, and the support for it is not yet widespread. AGP is a completely new connector and chipset. The only way to upgrade to AGP is to purchase a new motherboard that supports it. Then, you will probably have to buy a new CPU, and definitely an AGP graphics card.\n Also, by its nature, AGP requires a very powerful processor. For all these reasons, AGP is far from reachable to most computer users, the main reason why AGP is so slow to take on.\n Most mainstream graphics card vendors have produced AGP versions! of their PCI based video cards. Among these are ATI, Diamond, Matrox, NVidia, STB, and Number Nine. These AGP cards are not always all they are cracked up to be. Each vendor implements a different set of 3D instructions and effects. Some vendors implement these effects through software, a practice that negatively effects performance.\n Often, these AGP cards come with a large amount of video memory. 4 MB is minimum, with 8 MB being more standard. Some offer support up to 16 MB of RAM. This video memory gives a large amount of space for texture storage.\n\n ''The Reality''\n At this point in the development of AGP, I would not recommend going out of your way to upgrade your system to AGP. The benefits over PCI video are not yet widespread, and the hardware required to support it in the first place can be rather staggering to the typical PC user.\n Reviews indicate that many AGP video boards do not perform significantly better than their PCI counterparts. With some boards, AGP makes no difference at all.\n Only time will tell how well AGP takes off. The technology is definitely an advancement. It can, though, be compared to MMX technology. Like MMX, it stands to show a nice performance hike, but the support for it is lacking.\n Software developers also must find a need for 3D in business applications. AGP will never take off into widespread use if only 3D games stand to benefit from it. With the release of new Socket 7 AGP boards and the new Windows 98, offering AGP support, maybe AGP will become more popular. Until then, it is an interesting te! chnology that needs to be monitored closely as it continues to develop.\n\n*Copyright © 1999 internet.com Corporation. All Rights Reserved.\n*www.hardwarecentral.com/hardwarecentral \n

By Vince Freeman - HardwareCentral\n\n The Athlon XP Is a Hit -- and Its Model Numbers Aren't Hurting\n This week's release of the Athlon XP 1900+ is an important one for AMD. Primarily, it takes back the performance crown AMD lost to Intel's 2.0GHz Pentium 4: Although the XP 1800+ tied or narrowly edged the P4's benchmark scores, AMD needed a clear victory and got it with the 1900+ chip. This race between Intel and AMD is old news, with the rivals swapping speed records like tennis volleys. Both companies are expected to release faster processors late this year or early in 2002, so the performance merry-go-round will spin on. More important to AMD's current well-being, however, is how vendors and consumers are greeting the Athlon XP 1900+, and what levels of acceptance its new PR ratings (or, to use AMD's lingo, model numbers) are achieving.\n\n Among current AMD vendors, the Athlon XP is reaching a high level of product penetration, appearing in a wide variety of home, home office, and small business desktops. AMD's partners seem to be high on the processor, and feature it prominently in their Web sites and print ads. The Athlon XP has also started showing up at electronics superstores and smaller clone shops, with retailers making a smooth transition from the Athlon's megahertz to the Athlon XP's model numbers.\n\n Of course, not all news is good news. One constant seems to be vendor reluctance to pitch AMD processors to corporate America, where Intel continues to be the dominant force. We've gone over this many times in the past, but if an AMD business PC crashes, all eyes are on the processor, while a Intel box seems to be given the benefit of the doubt. The Athlon XP hasn't changed this mindset, and it seems even large vendors are unwilling to take up the cause and invite the same scrutiny.\n\n ''No One's Throwing Tomatoes''\n Meanwhile, I'm astounded by how little fuss AMD's new labels are generating. Looking at this marketing tool from a historical perspective, it was natural to expect a backlash of industry and consumer protest. This potential torrent has turned into a mere trickle of dissent, however. Although I still feel the move could hide some long-term land mines, there are a few valid reasons for its relative success.\n\n The most important of these are that the Athlon XP 1900+ is now the top dog in overall performance and the XP 1800+ can give the Pentium 4/2.0 a run for its money. Previous shots at the PR-rating bucket mostly occurred at the low end of the CPU scale, when both Cyrix and AMD were trying desperately to promote their chips as more than they actually were. To compare a Cyrix M2-300 against an equivalent Pentium II/300 (or even Celeron/300) was laughable at best, and the false advertising created consumer distrust of the entire Cyrix line. The same thing happened with the infamous AMD K5, with which I had a great deal of experience; like Cyrix, AMD clearly overstepped its bounds, as even basic comparisons showed Intel's Pentium/100 kicking the K5-PR133.\n\n Another important factor is that consumers are becoming more comfortable with and more knowledgeable about computer technology. The PC is no longer a mysterious black box; it's remarkable how many "civilian" computer users can rattle off their processor speeds and hard disk sizes if asked. The Internet is surely a huge contributing factor, and AMD is a direct beneficiary of its vast dissemination of Athlon XP marketing and specification data.\n\n If a company tries to hide the actual clock speed of a CPU, however (as Cyrix increasingly did with its 6x86 and M2), this can only breed distrust. Here, unfortunately, AMD vendors have been more proactive than the chipmaker itself -- AMD's official announcement of the XP 1900+ never mentioned its 1.6GHz true speed, and its move toward requiring "Athlon XP Recommended" motherboards to use a system BIOS format that essentially hides the real core speed is going a bit too far toward the Dark Side.\n\n Most system vendors and CPU resellers have taken the opposite stance and openly disclose the actual core speed of the Athlon XP (I say most, because MicronPC and isolated resellers seem to stick with PR ratings). It's refreshing to see Compaq list both model numbers and core speeds in its Athlon XP selection menus; Hewlett-Packard is a bit puritanical and lists only true core speeds. Compaq's methodology is probably the best, since it lists all the available information up front, without seeming to hold any bias against the Athlon XP PR ratings.\n\n ''Looking Ahead''\n In short, AMD certainly seems to have dodged a bullet in moving from the original Athlon to the Athlon XP and its model numbers. This doesn't mean it's all wine and roses, though; both short and long-term concerns remain. The first relates to the PR ratings themselves, as many a consumer has asked: "So if the new Athlon XP outperforms the 2.0GHz Pentium 4, why is it called a 1900+?". This is a great question; whether AMD intends its numbers to compare to generic Athlons or current P4s (its published statements try to have it both ways), the average consumer is guaranteed to make the Pentium 4 link. In trying not to repeat its and Cyrix's old sins, AMD may have erred a bit too much on the side of caution.\n\n The other concern is what AMD will do when PR ratings are no longer needed. From all accounts, the company's upcoming Hammer processors shouldn't require any help competing against Intel on any front. So will AMD throw out its ratings and go back to listing core speeds? Attempting this flip-flip could create confusion, if not hard feelings, regarding the Hammer line. Of course, AMD could trot out the old "we no longer need PR ratings" mantra and hope it works again. Regardless of what the future may bring, the current Athlon XP climate is decidedly upbeat. Enthusiasts, hardcore PC aficionados, and basic home and business users alike are busily discussing the new Athlon XP -- and everyone seems to be using the model numbers. It's a huge transition from the days when the vague "a 300MHz processor" was used to describe a Cyrix chip to users happily gushing about their new Athlon XP 1800+ purchases.\n\n To be sure, this shouldn't guarantee the AMD suits any awards for marketing brilliance. It's more like George Lucas picking the atrocious "Attack of the Clones" for his next Star Wars movie -- he who wears the crown gets a few more liberties in choosing a name. I still don't like the idea of PR ratings, but if the ends (genuine comparisons of overall performance) justify the means, AMD looks to have made the right call.\n November 6, 2001 \n

Last week when I logged onto Paradise and downloaded my Email, I received a sudden reminder that there are plenty of hackers and viruses out there on the net. Sitting amongst my Email messages, were three bounced messages.\n \nBounced messages normally mean that the person to whom you were sending the message has changed their Email address. What scared me was that these messages were to an address that I didn't recognise and the text in the message was either Dutch or German. Also there was nothing in the "Send Folder" to say that they had been sent. Checking the returned messages, showed that they had been sent on the same day but approx. 3 hours apart. To make matters worse, I was running Norton's antivirus with Email protection and it hadn't picked it up.\n \nI promptly updated the Norton's virus database and reran the virus scan. It found an older virus but not the virus I was looking for. At this point a complete wipe of the hard drive seemed to be the only way I was going to get rid of this unwanted virus. That meant the loss of some of my "acquired" programs.\n \n After further searching I found the info I needed from the Symantec web site. Virus info below.\n\n>W32.Yaha.F@mm is a mass-mailing worm that sends itself to all email addresses that exist in the Microsoft Windows Address Book, the MSN Messenger List, the Yahoo Pager list, the ICQ list, and files that have extensions that contain the letters ht. The worm randomly chooses the subject and body of the email message. The attachment will have a .bat, .pif or .scr file extension. Depending upon the name of the Recycled folder, the worm either copies itself to that folder or to the %Windows% folder.\n> The name of the file that the worm creates consists of four randomly generated characters between c and y.\n> It also attempts to terminate antivirus and firewall processes.\n> Also Known As: ~WORM_YAHA.E, Worm/Lentin.F, W32/Yaha.g@MM\n> Type: Worm\n> Infection Length: 29,948 bytes\n> Systems Affected: Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Me\n> Systems Not Affected: Macintosh, Unix, Linux\n> CVE References: ~CAN-2001-0154\n\n As part of trying to get rid of this virus I tried out a free Anti virus program called AVG 6 Anti-virus program. This program comes in two versions. The free version and the professional version. I ran the free version on all my spare computer and found two viruses on the computer that I used for surfing the net. The testing was done via the network connection. Both of these viruses had been missed by Nortons when I did a full scan last month, but to be fair I hadn't down loaded the very latest updates at that stage.\n The viruses were ~Iworm/Badtransll and Iworm/~YahaF. The AVG 6 anti-virus program fixed the files affected by the Badtransll virus and quarantined the ~YahaF virus. Nortons did the same thing when I tried to open the affected files after I had uploaded the latest updates.\n\n The AVG 6 anti-virus system contains several programs that will continuously monitor your system and work. The AVG System distribution package contains these programs :\n\n ''AVG Program for Windows''\n The AVG program for Windows is designed to check hard drives, directories and files on your computer. It must be run either manually or scheduled automatically. The program communicates through its interface options that allows users to choose functions and see results on the screen.\n\n ''AVG Resident Shield''\n AVG Resident Shield is installed in your Windows operating system. It will monitor and check all files and diskettes in the background, before you are even allowed to work with them.\n\n ''AVG E-mail Scanner''\n AVG E-mail Scanner supports Microsoft Outlook. The program checks all incoming and outgoing e-mail messages and their attachments for virus infection.\n\n ''AVG Control Center''\n The AVG Control Center works as a manager of other AVG components. This application is run together with Windows. It runs scheduled tests, enables the setup of Resident Shield and the E-mail Scanner, and manages the operation of Scheduled and Manual Updates.\n\n ''AVG Shell Extension''\n AVG Shell Extension is a simple utility. It enables a quick anti-virus check from any application using a "pop-up" menu, activated by a right mouse click.\n\n ''AVG Virus Vault''\n The AVG Virus Vault stores infected files deleted by user request. It enables restoration of files if necessary.\n \n AVG 6 can be set up to do a full scan or partial scan of the hard drives. It can also test other computers via a network. It also provides a record of tests carried out and viruses found. A database on the many virus is also provided and free updates are available from the AVG web site.\n\n The AVG 6 anti-virus program can be downloaded from the following site. http://www.grisoft.com Thank to Raja Ram for telling me about the AVG 6 anti-virus program\n\n// - Arthur Harris//\n

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If you are viewing this on CDROM, note that you can always see the most current version at [[http://tiddlyspot.com/megabyte|http://tiddlyspot.com/megabyte]] or check for links from [[http://www.computers.org.nz|http://www.computers.org.nz]].\n\nThis CDROM should have autostarted when you loaded it into your Windows PC CDROM drive. If you have autorun disabled you will need to click on <your CDROM drive letter>:/startmobilefirefox.exe to start.\n\nHow it works:\n*CDROM autoruns using autorun.inf\n*autorun.inf directs startmobilefirefox.exe to execute\n*~MobileFirefox starts with the parameters passed to it from startmobilefirefox.ini\n*Firefox should appear in kiosk (full-screen) mode. To toggle between full screen and a normal window, press F11.\n\nThe version of Firefox included on the CDROM is already configured to work well with Megabyte TW. It doesn't install itself onto your PC, or make any changes to settings there, although it does use some temporary hard drive space while it is running.\n\nYou can browse the Megabyte TW file in your preferred browser if you wish. The file is located at <your CDROM drive letter>:/megabyte.html (for example, D:/megabyte.html). For best performance and to make the CDROM drive available, copy the file to your hard drive for future reference.\n\nYou can also copy the entire contents of the CDROM onto your hard drive, to view using ~MobileFirefox, click on startmobilefirefox.exe.\n\nNote that you can use the version of ~MobileFirefox (running from either your hard drive or the CDROM) to browse other websites - it is a good way to try out Firefox without making any changes to your system.\n\nLinks:\n\n~MobileFirefox [[http://mobilefirefox.com|http://mobilefirefox.com]]\nFirefox [[http://www.mozilla.com/firefox|http://www.mozilla.com/firefox]]\n

!Welcome to your ''tiddlyspot.com'' ~TiddlyWiki!\n''[[tiddlyspot.com|http://tiddlyspot.com]]'' gives you an instant [[TiddlyWiki|http://tiddlywiki.com]] hosted on our ''tiddlyspot.com'' servers.\n\nWant to work online? No problem, you can go to your ''tiddlyspot.com'' URL (which is http://tiddlyspot.com/megabyte/ ) and start editing. Click "save to web" and your changes are saved directly to your ''tiddlyspot.com'' home -- no messing about with local files or ftp.\n\nWant to work offline? No problem, your ''tiddlyspot.com'' ~TiddlyWiki is a real, fully functioning ~TiddlyWiki that you can save onto your hard drive or USB stick. Use the link below to save to your local computer. As you make changes, use the "save to disk" button to save to your local file. Whenever you're ready to sync up again, just click "save to web".\n\n!To save online\nEnter the upload password provided when you created your ~TiddlyWiki. Then click the "save to web" button below (or in the right side column) to save your ~TiddlyWiki.\nUpload Password: <<option pasUploadPassword>>\n<<upload http://tiddlyspot.com/megabyte/store.cgi index.html . . megabyte>>\n\n!To save offline\nTo take this ~TiddlyWiki offline, click [[Download|http://tiddlyspot.com/?action=download&site=megabyte]]. Save the file locally then open it in your browser.\n\n\n!Learn more about ~TiddlyWiki\nFind out more about ~TiddlyWiki at [[TiddlyWiki.com|http://tiddlywiki.com]]. Also visit [[TiddlyWiki Guides|http://tiddlywikiguides.org]] for documentation on learning and using ~TiddlyWiki.\n\nThe [[TiddlyWiki mailing list|http://groups.google.com/group/TiddlyWiki]] is an excellent place to ask questions and get help.\n\n!Enjoy!\nWe hope you like using your ''tiddlyspot.com'' ~TiddlyWiki. Please email [[feedback@tiddlyspot.com|mailto:feedback@tiddlyspot.com]] with any comments.\n\n----

At the Hutt SIG meeting in October (Hugh Roberton demonstrated some ~Y2K test programs) the question of setting PC clocks and maintaining reasonably accurate time was briefly discussed. It occurred to me that most, if not all, people at the meeting still check and set their clocks manually. \n\nI haven't set my PC clock for years, yet it is the most accurate clock in my house - I use it to set all the other clocks at home. (There seem to be more of them every year, resetting them when Daylight Saving Time starts and stops seems to take far longer than it should). \n\nAt least my PC looks after its clock by itself. Every week (in the early hours of Sunday morning) it connects itself to the Internet and checks and sets its own time using the timeserver at Waikato University. To do this it uses a specialised client called an NTP (Network Time Protocol) client, these are available for most operating systems. The version I use for OS/2 is called (surprisingly enough) NTP.EXE - those of you still using Windows will probably be able to find a client at one of the major shareware websites, or www.tucows.com. \n\nThe client I have is (fortunately!) a command line utility, so automating its use is very straightforward. The command line format is \n\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; NTP.EXE timeserver [interval-in-seconds] [/NOBACK]\n\nso I use a CMD file (batchfile to you DOS users) with the following line: \n\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; k:\ssysutils\sNTIMEP\sntp.exe truechimer3.waikato.ac.nz >> k:\ssysutils\sntimep\sntp.log\n\nwith no other switches. This updates the time once, appends the output to a logfile then exits NTP. Using a CMD file makes it easy to run the client using the correct parameters, either manually using NTP.CMD - though I never do - or automatically, using my internet dialer. \n\nA section from the logfile is shown below:\n \n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Network Time Protocol Client - Version 1.07\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; (c) Copyright Ralf Christen 1997,1998\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Mail to ralf.christen@ibm.net\n \n\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Selected timeserver is\n &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; truechimer3.waikato.ac.nz\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Selected service is DAYTIME at port #13\n\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 31/10/99 04:00:25 - Sun Oct 31 04:00:32 1999\n\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; NTP Client ended.\n\nAs this shows, the update occurred at 4.00am, and the clock needed adjusting by 7 seconds. I could adjust the time more frequently, but as waikato.ac.nz is providing the service for free, it would be inconsiderate to unnecessarily overload the time server with requests from non-critical systems such as home ~PCs. \nThe reason that the update is done just after 4.00am is so that it will catch the changes to and from Daylight Saving Time - also I do not generally use the phone very much at 4.00am. \n\nThe dialer I use (~InJoy) accepts command line parameters, so it can be started using a task scheduler and made to connect to one of my ~ISPs. The NTP client is then started automatically by the particular "Phone Book" entry used to start ~InJoy for updating the system time. ~InJoy exits when the client has completed its update, or after a predetermined time (just in case something goes wrong - I don't have an "all you can eat" ISP account). \n\nAs an aside, ~InJoy is by far the most powerful and configurable dialer I am aware of, and is particularly useful where connections need to be automated. Versions for Windows and Linux are rumoured to be in development, so watch out for future developments. \n\n\n \n\nNo Net? No problem! \n\nPeople without an Internet connection are able to set their clocks using a facility provided by the Measurement Standards Laboratory at Gracefield. This requires a small utility program (available for free - msltime.zip is on Megabaud), DOS or Windows, and a modem. Connection is made directly to a server using an 0900 number, so a small charge appears on your telephone account every time you update your system time. This system works well - apart from the cost - I used it often in the years before I got an Internet connection. \n\nIt would be nice to have the sort of infrastructure that parts of Europe have, where time signals are broadcast on RF, and timepieces (such as a mantle clock - or even a travel alarm clock) keep track of time using an inbuilt receiver. I guess looking to the future, your kitchen clock will be connected to the Internet (perhaps with its own IP address) and will be updated regularly. \n\nWouldn't that save a lot of time resetting clocks when Daylight Saving Time changes! \n

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I'd like to welcome you all to the new millenium --yes, ~Y2K is finally upon us. I actually feel a little sorry for all those people who had to work during the holidays making sure that all their company's equipment kept on running smoothly when we rolled over into the next century, and nothing happened! Or at least nothing so profound as we'd come to expect when watching all those '~Y2K' and 'Millennium Bug' warnings on the news, online and in the magazines.\n \nNow that we've had such a smooth transition into the next century, questions are starting to arise about whether the entire ~Y2K-problem has been a big hoax by the computer industry. One of the boldest arguments, and also one that's hard to dismiss, is that the computer industry used ~Y2K to be able to do away with old and obsolete equipment or just plain and simple sell more and make bigger profits by making use of ~Y2K hype.\n\nWhatever turns out to be the truth, in my experience most of the problems have been in software, as only a very few hardware devices actually keep track of date and time. Thus, instead of upgrading your entire machine, you might have gotten away with a software 'patch' or 'upgrade', and ended up with a working machine without the need to invest thousands of dollars. \n\nOne very good example of the extreme relativity of the ~Y2K scenario is the way Russia and some ~East-European countries have been tackling the problem. Although they work with outdated equipment and a fair number of them have a 'don't fix it if it ain't broken' attitude, their ~Y2K related problems have been limited to a few isolated cases (so far), and nothing like what we've come to expect from the 'experts'.\n\nNevertheless, we should be glad that none of the predicted 'disaster-scenarios' actually took place, even if it has cost over three hundred billion dollars to buy us some peace of mind.\n

''Extract from Alchemy Mindworks Inc -- Year 2000 Compliance Statement''\nRevised September 14, 1998 \n\nWe have been contacted by several parties of late asking about "year 2000 compliance" for Alchemy Mindworks software. This page is our official statement about this issue. \n\nIf you're among those for which this matter is either too obscure or too trivial to have caught your attention, click on BACK now (no don't bother, it won't work!) unless you find yourself to be in need of sleep. \n\nHere's the rub. Rumour has it that some software written back at the very dawn of time will misbehave when the turn of the century rolls around and the current year changes from 1999 to 2000. The problem involves applications which stored the year as two characters, rather than four. As such, the year will go from 99 to 00, and they will become confused. At least, this is how the rumour goes. \n\nIt's doubtful that any serious software has been written like this since the late seventies. \n\nAs a note to the exceedingly paranoid about this issue, dates on ~PCs are stored as a number seconds past the dawn of time. The dawn of time, according to a PC's calendar, occurred on January 1, 1980. The count of seconds past this event is stored in what programmers call a "long integer." A long integer can hold numbers up to 4,294,967,295. While this would seem to be a vast number indeed, seconds are relatively small things and we get through rather a lot of them. Specifically, we get through about 31,557,600 seconds in a year. This means that the number of seconds in the date counter for ~PCs will overflow the bounds of good taste and long integers in about 119 years, or in the year 2116. \n\nThis will be exceedly messy, as all sorts of applications that deal with dates will become genuinely confused. Somewhere in the middle of the year 2116, most software will think that it's 1980 again. We highly recommend that those parties getting themselves worked up about year 2000 compliance devote their energies instead toward assuring year 2116 compliance, a much more vital and potentially serious issue. \n

''INTRODUCTION''\nPlug-and-play, or ~PnP, is a system built into newer systems so that it is possible to install devices built for it with ease. All the settings, like ~IRQs and drivers, are taken care of so that, theoretically, you can have your new hardware working for you in a couple minutes. The Macintosh had ~PnP before the PC did. It wasn't till 1993 it began to take part in the PC world. Four companies took part in this promotion: Microsoft promised a new Operating System that could take advantage of ~PnP, Intel promised ~PnP chips, Phoenix promised the BIOS, and Compaq decided to build the computer. It was realized that ~PnP could me a real money maker.\nInstallation and configuration could be a real breeze, and there would be fewer calls to tech support, and hopefully, people would buy more parts because they weren't daunted by the chore of putting it in. In an ideal world, when you plug in a ~PnP device, Windows 95 will detect the new hardware, adjust the settings, and install the drivers. Many call it "Plug and Pray" because it is rather moody, but the technology has improved greatly, and most installations are now hassle free.\n\n''MAKING IT WORK''\nNot all systems can handle ~PnP. You must have a ~PnP operating system, such as Windows 95. Previous versions of Windows can't handle it. Your hardware must be rated for ~PnP, and you need 32-bit drivers for the device, not to worry though, they come with it. And lastly, your BIOS must be compliant with ~PnP. All of these are easy to get, except BIOS. If your system does not already have ~PnP BIOS, you will need to replace your BIOS, or just upgrade to a new motherboard. All newer computers, 1995 or later, have ~PnP BIOS installed already.\n\n''HOW IT TICKS''\nA ~PnP system scans the entire system for new hardware every time the system is booted. It also determines what every device needs, and makes sure it gets it. First, though, it scans for legacy devices, or non-PnP devices. These devices can't change their settings and have fixed requirements, so the system must first find these, then configure the other ~PnP devices around them. Although Windows 95 can't automatically adjust a legacy device's settings, it can often recognise it during install. Windows 95 has many legacy device drivers built into it. Old hardware will work under 95. If it will work under Windows 3.x, it will almost certainly work with 95.\n\n''HELP!''\nPlug-and-play doesn't always work. Whether you have all ~PnP hardware or a mixture of ~PnP and legacy devices, ~PnP can be rather hit and miss. One common reason for problems is that the system is choosing settings taken by a legacy device. A ~PnP system has no adjustment abilities when it comes to a legacy device. The more legacy devices you have, the more problems you will have with ~PnP. Another reason is the broad array of systems out there. Every system is different, with old drivers, old BIOS, off-brand hardware, you name it. There is no way manufacturers can design hardware for every possibility. ~PnP problems are on the decline though as companies iron out problems as they learn. ~PnP hardware is getting more and more user-friendly.\n\n''THE WIZARD''\nSometimes Windows just won't detect your new hardware when you boot it up. In this case, you just have to tell it to look for it. You do this in Add New Hardware Wizard in the Control Panel of Windows 95. Just follow the on-screen instructions. When it asked you if it can scan for new hardware, select "yes" (recommended). It will tell you that it might take a few minutes. Fine. Click next. It will search. If it finds it, it'll display it in a box. If it correctly identified the hardware, click Finish, and it will install the drivers. If it can't find it, it will ask you to manually install it. Click Next. It will give you a big list of devices. Try to find yours on the list, select it, and click Finish. If it's not there, and you have a disk with the software on it, click Have Disk, and do it that way.\n\n''ALL THE REST''\nIn order to avoid trouble, it is best to make sure that all ~PnP hardware that you buy has a manual override to it, so that it has legacy capability. The best ones have a set of jumpers -- the plastic bridges are automatically set to the ~PnP setting. But, if you move the bridges, you take it out of ~PnP mode, and it turns into a legacy. Follow the jumper diagram in the manual to adjust settings manually. Also, go into your Device Manager every so often and delete old and unused drivers. When you install new hardware and replace old stuff, Windows 95 has a habit of leaving the old drivers there, and this invariably slows the entire system down. Make sure you don't delete the ~CD-ROM drivers or mouse drivers. Also, it is best to buy ~PnP hardware from major manufacturers. Keep the drivers up-to-date. Software such as ~CyberMedia's "Oil Change" help keep your drivers up-to-date by checking the internet for new drivers. A free trial of "Oil Change" is available at the ~CyberMedia web site. \n\nThis article in its entirety can be found at: http://www.pcmech.com \n

//Oh no!//\n\nHi NZPCA members \nDid I tell you about ~AllAdvantage.com? It's the Internet company I joined that pays you to surf the Web. Last month's top members earned several thousands of dollars each! \n\nIt's free to join and your privacy is completely protected. Check out these impressive facts: \n* They've paid over $10 million to members in the US, UK and Canada in the last three months alone;\n* Now they're paying members in France, Germany, Australia, New Zealand and the US territories, too -- more countries coming soon; \n* Later this month all members will be able to purchase anti-virus software at a huge discount through their ~AllAdvantage accounts;\n* Soon they're releasing Viewbars to Mac users, making ~AllAdvantage the first Viewbar company to do so;\n* They've developed and soon will release an upgraded version of the Viewbar software that's equipped with instant search capability and hundreds of quicklinks to the Web's most popular sites, and of course, it pays you to surf! It takes only minutes to join, download the free ~AllAdvantge.com Viewbar software, and start surfing the Web with the Viewbar on your screen. You can earn even more when you tell your friends about it. Really! It's all about becoming part of a community that finally recognizes our value as consumers. \n\nJoin now (there's no survey to fill out) at http://www.alladvantage.com/go.asp?refid=BRO-107 and please use my membership ID (~BRO-107) when asked if you were referred by someone.\n\nThanks a lot and happy surfing!\n\nAlistair Clarke \n~BRO-107 \n\n

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Ian Godfrey\n\n I was poking around the Internet as you do, I decided that I would see what I could find out about my latest hobby - Lapidary. I wandered into www.users.skynet.be and wow nice rocks!\n\n ''Anaglyphs''\n*If you have one of the following\n*A Scanner\n*A Digital camera\n*A video capture card\n*Then you can make Anaglyphs.\n\n If your curiousity hasn't got the better of you and you haven't looked at the link above, an Anaglyph is a 3D picture.\n Remember the Red and Blue specs? (Or red and green) you used to use at the movies? Well using a simple technique you can create your own 3D pictures.\n Using an ordinary camera and a scanner, or a digital camera or your video camera and a capture card you can make very effective 3D pictures.\n\n If it is that simple there must be thousands of these anaglyphs (Well actually there are!) Although it is not as straight forward as just taking a couple of pictures (Well actually it is!) There are a couple of rules, as we need a left picture and a right picture to create the stereo image.\n Try this - close your right eye, now open your eye and close the other, your view will jump to the left.\n This is because your eyes are separated by about 6 cms and each has different view of what you are looking at.\n This effect is what we need to recreate the 3D anaglyphs.\n*Rule One - The two pictures must be taken in the same plane and the same distance from the target.\n*Rule Two - The second picture must be taken at a distance of approx. 1/30 of the distance to the target from the first.\nNow having got your two pictures you need a way to create the 3D anaglyphs.\nVisit www.stereoeye.com and down load anamaker.\n\nThis program is 420k in size, freeware and allows you to import the left and right pictures, make slight alterations in 4 directions and then save the result.\n\nNow the tricky bit - you are going to need some red/blue glasses, if you dont happen to have any of these, it's lucky that they can be made simply out of cardboard and cellophane.\nThose of you who wear spectacles can simply fasten the cellophane over your specs.\nHave fun and maybe some of your work could be added to the website\n\n

'' GREAT TRUTHS ABOUT GROWING OLD:''\n* Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional.\n* Insanity is my only means of relaxation.\n* Forget the health food. I need all the preservatives I can get.\n* You know you're getting old when you stoop to tie your shoes and wonder what else you can do while you're down there.\n* You're getting old when you get the same sensation from a rocking chair that you once got from a roller *oaster.\n* Perhaps you know why women over fifty don't have babies: They would put them down somewhere and forget where they left them.\n* One of life's mysteries is how a two pound box of candy can make a person gain five pounds.\n* Every time I think about exercise, I lie down until the thought goes away.\n* God put me on earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now I am so far behind, I will live forever.\n* It's frustrating when you know all the answers, but nobody bothers to ask you the questions.\n* I finally got my head together, and my body fell apart.\n* There cannot be a crisis this week; my schedule is already full.\n* Time may be a great healer, but it's also a lousy beautician.\n* The older you get, the tougher it is to lose weight, because by then your body and your fat are really good friends.\n* Age doesn't always bring wisdom. Sometimes age comes alone.\n* Just when I was getting used to yesterday, along came today.\n* Sometimes I think I understand everything, then I regain consciousness.\n* Amazing! You just hang something in your closet for a while, and it shrinks two sizes.\n* It is bad to suppress laughter; it goes back down and spreads to your hips.\n* Freedom of the press means no-iron clothes.\n* Inside some of us is a thin person struggling to get out, but they can usually be sedated with a few pieces of chocolate cake.\n \n'' THE FOUR STAGES OF LIFE:''\n# You believe in Santa Claus.\n# You don't believe in Santa Claus.\n# You are Santa Claus.\n# You look like Santa Claus.

//From Steve Gibson's website, http://www.grc.com //\n\n''Internet Privacy: ~OptOut?''\n \nSeveral weeks ago a scare swept through the Internet community regarding alleged Internet "spying" being done by a very popular advertising system known as "Aureate" (now renamed to "Radiate".) Since the Aureate system is "carried" into the user's PC by more than 400 popular freeware programs (like Go!Zilla, ~GetRight, ~CuteFTP, and others), and is currently installed and running in over ~TWENTY-TWO MILLION PC's!!, the threat that this software was "spying" on its users was of great and immediate concern.\n\nMy initial analysis of the Aureate system revealed that MUCH of what had been claimed was completely unfounded. However, that analysis DID raise enough concern and questions that I decided to look further... \n\nWhat I discovered was that this system WAS secretly running as a "parasite" on your Netscape or Microsoft web browser, using your browser's Internet connection to communicate with Aureate servers in the background without the user's knowledge or explicit permission! This meant that the Aureate software was running and communicating over the Internet even when the hosting "carrier" freeware, which brought it into the system, was not running! This browser "parasite" had also been implicated in frequent crashes of those browsers. And even after the "freeware" which brought this parasitic software into the user's machine had been completely removed,\n\n''THE AUREATE SYSTEM REMAINED INSTALLED AND OPERATING SECRETLY! ''\n\n''This was not okay.''\n\nA reading of Aureate's developer web site shows that the freeware authors are receiving payment from the advertisers in direct proportion to the number of advertisements actually viewed and the length of time they are shown. In order to do this, the actual use of the various programs MUST be monitored and reported back to Aureate.\n\n''This bothered me too.''\n\nSo ... since I already knew of other similar sounding problems with "Adbots" being secretly installed in user's machines (The ~ZoneAlarm firewall discovered a different one running in my own machine!), I decided to create an easy-to-use tool to check for the presence of known "baddies" and -- optionally -- remove them from the computer for the user. \n\nThe program is called "~OptOut" because it allows users to "optout" of the use of unwanted advertising software on their machines. I wrote it in 100% assembly language over the past two weeks, it's a nifty little 32K bytes in size ... and the "Preview Release" is ready for you to use right now! \n\nPlease see the new "~OptOut" page on the grc.com web site for more information and news about Aureate and ~OptOut. You can download it from there too...\n\n//Steve Gibson, Gibson Research Corporation http://grc.com //\n

//Supplied by Ian//\n\nEvery night Joe would go down to the liquor store, get a six pack, bring it home, and drink it while he watched TV.\n\nOne night, as he finished his last beer, the doorbell rang. He stumbled to the door and found a six-foot cockroach standing there. The bug grabbed him by the collar and threw him across the room, then left.\n\nThe next night, after Joe finished his fourth beer, the doorbell rang. He walked slowly to the door and found the same six-foot cockroach standing there. The big bug punched him in the stomach, then left.\n\nThe next night, after he finished his first beer, the doorbell rang again. The same six-foot cockroach was standing there. This time he was kneed in the groin, and hit behind the ear as he doubled over in pain. Then the big bug left.\n\nThe fourth night, Joe didn't drink at all. The doorbell rang. The cockroach was standing there. The bug beat the tar out of Joe and left him in a heap on the living room floor.\n\nThe following day Joe went to see his doctor. He explained the events of the preceding four nights.\n"What can I do", he pleaded.\n\n"Not much, I'm afraid", the doctor replied.....\n\n"It's just a nasty bug that's going around."

//By Richard Elam//\n\n Some months ago John Thomson wrote an article about home networking using USB. It was an interesting article but was of no use to me as I had a PC running Windows 95 ~OSR2 with no USB ports. I am told that ~OSR2 CAN have USB with a patch, but it is unreliable.\n\n Some time later I bought a new PC running Windows XP and I wondered whether it was worth keeping my old P166. Selling it would bring little cash and I still had lots of useful documents and picture files on the old HDD. Transferring them via floppy (I had no CD writer in the old computer) was very slow, and I was not getting anywhere.\n\n The thought of networking the new XP computer to the old Win95 one continued to niggle at me, but when I saw that Dick Smith's had network interface cards (NIC) on special for less than $20 each, I jumped at the chance and bought a pair together with a crossover cable, all at little over $50. The cards are 10/100 Mbps and use a PCI slot. Although they are sold in DSE packing it turns out they are "Realtek ~RTL8319/810X Family PCI Fast Ethernet NIC" - according to Windows XP which can read the signature on the chip.\n\n The cross-over cable is a cheap way of networking two ~PCs without using a hub. For more than two computers a hub is necessary, and some hubs are not too expensive, but a short cable is much cheaper. The cable is called "crossover" because of the need to reverse the order of connecting pins on one end from the other because otherwise the left hand pin on one NIC socket will connect to the right hand pin on the other NIC, which doesn't happen with a hub.\n\n So - had my hardware, but how did I install it and what software did I need and how to configure it all! Well the other thing that convinced me to give it a try was a simple set of video tutorials on a magazine CD from PC User magazine of July 2002. I don't know how many of you read computer magazines regularly but a year or so I took up PC User (its Australian) and I highly recommend it as a practical user mag with great cover ~CDs. Darryn Yates is a regular contributor and he often has clear practical video tutorials on the CD as well.\n\n Installation of the hardware is not hard. I took off the cover of both ~PCs and fitted a card into a free PCI slot in each machine, making sure I earthed myself while doing it (to prevent static electricity form ruining the innards!) and pushing the cards very firmly into place. Covers back on, crossover cable plugged into each NIC and then (gulp) the machines were tuned on. In spite of what people say about Windows XP, its worked for me. The XP machine booted up and immediately recognised the NIC, loaded the correct driver from its built in collection and offered to run the Network wizard.\n\n The wizard is primarily to configure the connections you wish to make, disk sharing you want to implement, and ,most importantly, ensure you name the network (called workgroup in Windows) and the computer. My workgroup is called ~ELAM_HOME and the computers are ~W95_HOMEPC and ~XP_HOMEPC. The workgroup name must be entered exactly the same into each computer. I won't explain in detail how I completed the installation on the XP machine, but it was all very self explanatory.\n \n Included in the wizard was the process of setting up my hard drive and other drives as sharable (I allowed all drives to be shared) as well as setting the printers to be shared. My two printers are both now connected to the XP computer; the ~DeskJet by USB port and the small laser to the parallel port. By going to "Settings - Printers - Sharing�" from the Start menu there is a dialogue box in which I was able to set the printer to allow sharing and give it a network name. In my case I named the printers very originally as Printer 1 and Printer 2. Have a look at the screenshot.\n\n The Win 95 machine was little different. Although the plug-n-play feature detected the network card, I was asked for a disk in order to load the driver. Each card was provided with a 3.5" floppy disk with drivers for a wide selection of operating system, and thankfully there was a subdirectory with a Win 95 driver. I had to search for it a bit, but it was obviously the right one and loaded fine.\n\n Then I had to set up the drives on the Win 95 as shared drives so they could be accessed form the other PC. To do this I opened up File Explorer (I actually use Powerdesk Pro), right click on the hard drive icon and open "Properties" and then click on the "Sharing" tab. On that screen you can choose to share a drive or not, set the degree of access and set a password for access if you want. I chose to give full access rights as it is really only me that will use the network.\n\n Printer sharing was a little different for the Win 95 machine. As my two printers are connected to the XP PC; I had to tell the Win 95 machine where to find the printers. One way was to use the "Add Printer" wizard but I found another way that utilised the already installed printer drivers. I simply opened the printer properties dialogue (accessed through the Control Panel) and clicked on the "Details" tab. By using the "Add Port�" button I was able to browse my way to "Printer 1" and "Printer 2" on the other PC (through a now working network) and then choose the port from the drop down menu.\n\n One thing happened that had me puzzled for a while. I had been warned by many article s I had read that sharing drives on a small network that was also connected to the Internet was a dangerous thing. As a (usually) careful person I have Zone Alarm on both ~PCs, and when I tried to use the network to transfer data between ~PCs I had a furious flurry of warning messages form Zone Alarm asking if I wanted to allow various bits of software to access the network. A quick browse of the ZA help files showed that I could add my network cards to the "trusted" zone, and everything settled down after that.\n\n So far, all seems to work properly. Early on while I was setting up other software and fiddling with my modem (which I only access from my XP machine on which the modem is installed) I found the network ceased to function. After some panic, I re-booted and all was well again. There is nothing like a re-boot occasionally to set things right.\n\n For those of you interested, yesterday there were still about four network cards in the bargain bin at Dick Smith's on Featherston Street at $18.50 each. I think they are superseded with a new model at about $30 but even that is not too bad. The tutorials on the PC User magazine were very useful, and if anyone wants I can lend or copy the CD if they can't find the magazine.\n

//By Patricia Clark//\n\n An article by Arthur Harris in the August Megabyte about the uses of a personal web page, has prompted me to write about a similar use for Microsoft P~owerPoint, and Corel Word Perfect Presentations.\n\n These two pieces of software, both part of an office suite, create slide shows, designed for business purposes such as sales promotions, staff training, in-house presentations and so forth. But the slides in the show can contain just about anything, not just bulleted text. Photographs can be included, clip art and animations, video clips, pages of explanatory text, sound, the lot. This method of presentation lends itself well to photo-journalism, telling a story with pictures. Genealogy or any sort of archives would be good subjects also. Slide shows are ideal for the same purpose that Arthur set up his web page. He could put his family wedding photos into a presentation, along with title pages, captions and sound, and burn them on to a CD.\n\n In a period of enforced inactivity following surgery recently, I created slide shows from photos of my garden, the house interior (like one of these sales blurbs in http://www.open2view.com), some photos of Wellington city streets, and the rural views from my living room in all sorts of weather. This collection is going on CD to friends overseas. It's the perfect Christmas present! It's much more interesting than merely sending photographs.\n\n When you save your show, it's possible to save as "show on the go" which includes relevant program files. The recipient can then run the slide show without the need for any further software. The show of course can be projected on to a screen for a larger audience. The show can also be put straight on to a web page. The software enables special effects such as fading, and moving objects cross the page. You are limited only by your imagination.\n\n One word of warning about burning ~CDs. A ~CD-R disk can be read on any ~CD ~ROM drive. But ~CD-RW disks which are like large floppies, require a ~CD-RW drive and software to be read. They can't be opened on a normal ~CD ~ROM drive. The ~CD-R disks, once closed, can't be written to any further, and your slide shows may only take up a third of the total disk space. But ~CD-R disks are only about a dollar each and a bit of waste space hardly matters.

//''STOP PRESS:''\n\nWe have an answer to last week's problem. Ralph Hopkins from Paraparaumu was the first to give the answer. He wins a box of disks and the 'Brains of the Month' award. Actually his explanation is well worth reading, it's a good example of clear thinking. His program written in Pascal is very short and quick, although dirty (I don't like ~GOTOs in Pascal).\n\nI solved this some years ago, it took 2 weeks programming and took three days to get the answer on a Texas programmable calculator. I can't entirely blame the calculator for the time taken! Ralph tells \nme it takes 15 seconds on his 12meg AT.\n\nYou may recall that problem boiled itself down to finding four numbers which when multiplied together made 7.11 and when added together made 7.11. The answer is 3.16, 1.50, 1.25 & 1.20.\n\nHere's his letter and program://\n\nIt was both pleasing and gratifying to get a call from Roger telling me that I was the winner of a box of disks, and 'instant fame', for my solution to Puzzle No. 1 in August ~MegaByte. He wished to publish \nmy method of approach to the problem, and I expressed my willingness to this. I offered to submit a more detailed version of the somewhat minimal description in my original letter, so here goes :- \n\n''Puzzle No. 1''\n\n //"Well begun is half done......"\n Grandma's motto.\n Nowadays, Management calls it pre-planning, I believe.//\n\nThe puzzle was certainly worthy of some time spent in this direction, before settling down to the task of writing a program to produce a solution. Calling the four prices A, B, C, and D the mathematical model of this puzzle looks simple enough, viz:-\n\n A x B x C x D = 7.11\n A + B + C + D = 7.11\nFour unknowns with only two equations ugh.\n\nThe solution must be found by iterative methods ie trial and error It would reduce the number of iterations, and hence the time taken for solution if the value of even one of the factors could be safely \nassumed. How ?\n\nMental arithmetic quickly shows that there are three 'prime' factors of 7.11 These are 3.00, 3.00, and 0.79 However, although 3 is a prime integer 3.00 is not a prime real. Here the HINT proved invaluable. Auntie worked in whole cents. So the factor 3.00 means $3.00c (or 300c) and, more to the point, the factor 0.79 means 79c. \n\nThe further inference is that one of the items purchased must have cost 79c or a multiple of 79c ie 2 x 79 or 3 x 79 etc. That was the first basic of the program. There must be a loop carrying out these iterations. How many times ? The multiplier must be an integer, it must be less than 9, and it must be a factor of 9.00. Ponder..Ponder..Presto.. and in fact 1..6 are the only possible factors. DO 1 to 6 is therefore the first iteration and means that ONE FACTOR lets call it D, must be either 0.79, 1.58, 2.37, 3.16, 3. 95 or 4.94\n\nNow we are getting down to it. The revised mathematical model is :-\n\n ~AxBxC = 7.11 / 0.79 or 7.11 / 1.58 or....etc.\n A+B+C = 7.11 - 0.79 or 7.11 - 1.58 or....etc.\n \nThe next consideration was to 'grade' the three factors in a further effort to reduce the number of iterations. This was achieved by specifying that A >= B >= C a perfectly valid assumption! Suppose \nwe look at the first DO. ~AxBxC = 7.11 / 0.79 = 9.00 and A+B+C = 7.11 - 0.79 = 6.32 OK?\n\nRefining the model again, under these premises, yields some algebraic hocuspocus. \n\n~AxBxC = 9.00, or A = 9.00 / (~BxC) : A+B+C = 6.32 or A = 6.32 - (B+C) ergo 6.32 - (B+C) = 9.00 / (~BxC).\n\nBy iterating for B and C it is possible to calculate A. Good eh! The smallest item price possible is 1c. therefore the maximum price for a single item under these circumstances must be $6.30 But A>=B>=C. What does that say about B; well it says that B<=$3.15 also B>=$1.58 \nwhilst about C it tells us that C<=$2.10 and C>=0.01 ; this may not be too obvious, but try it this way : Having fixed a value for D, and with the resulting knowledge that at one extreme A is 6. 30, B \nis 0.01 and C is 0.01 then, if B<= A when A = 3.15 and B = 3.15 then C = 0.02. If B were 3.16 and C were 0.01 then A would be 3.15 and hence less than B. At which point B and A can be exchanged with impunity. A similar line of reasoning fixes the max value of C at 2. 10 viz let A = 2.11 and B = 2.11 then C = 2.10 and if C becomes 2.11 it can be exchanged with B, again safely.\n\nSimilarly, there is no point in letting B go down below C at any time during the iteration process; This comes about when B+C = 3.16 or when B = C = 1.58 so the limits to the ranges of B and C can be \nprescribed.\n\nThe next process therefore is to iterate B from 3.15 down to 1.58, with a nested iteration of C from 0.01 to 2.10 ; there is also a need to prevent iteration as soon as C becomes greater than B. \nDuring each iteration the value of A must be calculated, and iteration must only continue while B<=A . What a chore. There is one further process to speed up the run time, and that is to find some way to eliminate, quickly, any 'incorrect' result. To do this, the use of INTEGER, rather than REAL arithmetic can very quickly sift out the dross.\n\nThis means re-stating the mathematical model again. Cents are the integers in this puzzle so :- ~AxBxCxD = 711,000,000 and A+B+C+D = \n711 and now we are cooking with GAS. Only divisions with a modulus of zero are valid, and this is a simple rapid test to use in throwing out the 'rubbish' answers. There is also the fact that iterative loops are 'simpler' if they use integers. In-between conversions are eliminated, and therefore run time is reduced. The iteration for B is 315 downto 158 and C is 1 to 210.\n\nThe choice to iterate B downward and C upward was made on the basis that B>=C, and therefore it seemed better to do it this way. However, provided there is proper and rapid elimination of 'non-valid' iteration, it really doesn't make any difference if B is iterated upwards, and this may be easier to program in, say, Basic. I used Turbo Pascal 6.0, by the way.\n\n''Puzzle Code.''\n\n{{{\n\nProgram SumProd;\n\nLabel 10;\n\nConst\n Prod=711000000;\n Sum=711;\n Con=79;\n\nVar\n Rem, Rem2, Rem3, Rem4, Totsum, I: Integer;\n Dig, Quo, Litquo, totprod, ai, a1, b1, c1 : Longint;\n\nBegin\n For I:=1 to 6 do begin\n ai:=I * Con;\n quo:=prod div ai;\n rem:=sum-ai;\n rem2:=rem div 2;\n rem3:=(rem-2) div 3;\n rem4:=(rem-2) div 4;\n a1:=1;\n b1:=rem2;\n repeat\n c1:=1;\n repeat\n Litquo:=b1 * c1;\n dig:=quo mod Litquo;\n if dig > 0 then goto 10;\n a1:=quo div litquo;\n if b1 >a1 then goto 10;\n totprod:= a1 * b1 * c1 * ai div 1000000;\n totsum := a1 + b1 + c1 + ai;\n if totprod = totsum then\n writeln (a1/100:8:2, b1/100:8:2, c1/100:8:2, ai/100:8:2);\n 10:\n inc(c1);\n until (c1=b1) or (c1=rem3);\n dec(b1);\n until b1=rem4;\n end;\nend.\n}}}

#How long did the Hundred Years War last? *116 years\n#Which country makes Panama hats? *Ecuador\n#From which animal do we get cat gut? *Sheep and Horses\n#In which month do Russians celebrate the October Revolution? *November\n#What is a camel's hair brush made of? *Squirrel fur\n#The Canary Islands in the Pacific are named after what animal? *Dogs\n#What was King George VI's first name? *Albert\n#What colour is a purple finch? *Crimson\n#Where are Chinese gooseberries from? *New Zealand\n\n What do you mean you failed? Humph!\n

1) All of them. Every month has at least 28 days.\n\n2) 1 hour. If you take a pill at 1 o'clock, then another at 1.30 and the last at 2 o'clock, they will be taken in 1 hour.\n\n3) 1 hour. It is a wind up clock which cannot differentiate between a.m. and p.m.\n\n4) 70. Dividing by half is the same as multiplying by 2.\n\n5) 9 live sheep.\n\n6) The match.\n\n7) White. If all walls face south, the house must be at the North Pole.\n\n8) 2 apples.\n\n9) None. It was Noah, not Moses.\n\n10) YOU are the driver.\n{{{\n Grading scale (out of 10)\n 10 Genius\n 9 Mensa member\n 8 Engineer\n 7 Student\n 6 High school pupil\n 5 Primary school pupil\n 4 Teacher\n 3 College lecturer\n 2 University lecturer\n 1 member of Congress\n 0 Blond\n}}}\n

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To open all articles for April 1999, click on "April 1999" to the right and select "open all".

To open all articles for April 2004, click on "April 2004" to the right and select "open all".\nEdition No: 186

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<<tabs contents\n"President's Report" "Presidents report" "President's Report"\n"Getting the most from your LCD monitor" "ClearType" "ClearType"\n"Google Pages" "Google Pages" 'GooglePages\n>>

//From the ‘net//\n\n The following has been doing the rounds lately. Some interesting thoughts ......\n\n If you lived as a child in the 40's, 50's, 60's or 70's, looking back, it's hard to believe that we have lived as long as we have ...\n\n As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a ute on a warm day was always a special treat. Our cots were covered with bright coloured lead-based paint. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors, or cupboards, and when we rode our bikes we had no helmets.\n\n We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. Horrors. We would spend hours building go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times we learned to solve the problem. We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. No mobile phones. Unthinkable.\n\n We got cut and broke bones and broke teeth, and there were no law suits from these accidents. They were accidents. No one was to blame, but us. Remember accidents?\n\n We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and learned to get over it.\n\n We ate patty cakes, bread and butter, and drank cordial, but we were never overweight...we were always outside playing. We shared one drink with four friends, from one bottle and no one died from this.\n\n We did not have Playstations, Nintendo 64, ~X-Boxes, video games, 65 channels on pay TV, video tape movies, surround sound, personal mobile phones, Personal Computers, Internet chat rooms .... we had friends. We went outside and found them. We rode bikes or walked to a friend's home and knocked on the door, or rung the bell, or just walked in and talked to them. Imagine such a thing. Without asking a parent! By ourselves! Out there in the cold cruel world! Without a guardian - how did we do it?\n\n We made up games with sticks and tennis balls, and ate worms, and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes, nor did the worms live inside us forever.\n\n Footy and netball had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't, had to learn to deal with disappointment ..... Some students weren't as smart as others so they failed a grade and were held back to repeat the same grade. Tests were not adjusted for any reason.\n\n Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected. No one to hide behind. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law - imagine that!\n\n This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years has been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all. And many of us are one of them. Congratulations!\n\n Please pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before lawyers and government regulated our lives ...... for our own good

There have been a few messages on nz.comp where folk say that their PC has been probed by a hacker, no doubt seeking to insert a trojan, or maybe just poking around. It seemed from the messages that there was more dirty work going on than most of us might realise, and several follow-ups asked how to detect if you were being got at, and how to protect.\n \nSeveral suggestions were to install Black Ice, Lockdown and various other firewall programs, and each of these had its supporters. Another suggestion was to call up a certain Web site which could test your pc online for vulnerability. I did, and found that I had one port wide open and available to any hacker. The site had masses of info, and maybe the best place to start is grc.com/su-firewalls.htm which gives a rundown on several good firewall programs.(Including a new freeware, one just released and highly endorsed by steve Gibson - ~ZONALM20.exe, which I have just put on Megabaud)\n \nAt the bottom of that page is a listing of the several other pages of the site - all are worth looking at. Page 1 (Shields Up) will run the procedure for checking your PC ports online (without danger). Most people will usually find the port named Netbios is at risk. This is caused by having Dial Up Networking in Win configured in the usual way with "Client for Microsoft Networks" checked. On page 5 Network Bondage (not what you first thought ..) is the procedure for modifying DUN to remove the risk on the Netbios port.\n \nI did this and went back to the site for another test. All OK. This site is put together by Steve Gibson, and many of you will know the name from his program Spinrite for checking ~HDs. It is now in ver 5.\n \nNow I don't know if I am being got at when online to my ISP, and maybe there is a need to consider some of the firewall progs. Perhaps one of our monthly meetings could have a presentation from someone who knows this scene.\n\n//Tony Fitchett//\n\n

Type the text for 'Arthur Harris'

/***\n''AttachFilePlugin for TiddlyWiki version 2.x''\n^^author: Eric Shulman - ELS Design Studios\nsource: http://www.TiddlyTools.com/#AttachFilePlugin\nlicense: [[Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License|http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/]]^^\n\nStore or link binary files (such as jpg, gif, pdf or even mp3) within your TiddlyWiki document and then use them as images or links from within your tiddler content. Binary file content can be stored in three different locations:\n<<<\n#embedded in the attachment tiddler (encoded as base64)\n#on your filesystem (a 'local link' path/filename)\n#on a web server (a 'remote link' URL)\n<<<\nThe plugin creates an "attachment tiddler" for each file you attach. Regardless of where you store the binary content, your document can refer to the attachment tiddler rather than using a direct file or URL reference in your embedded image or external links, so that changing document locations will not require updating numerous tiddlers or copying files from one system to another.\n\n@@display:block;font-size:8pt;line-height:110%;Note: although you can edit an attachment tiddler, ''don't change any of the encoded content below the attachment header'', as it has been prepared for use in the rest of your document, and even changing a single character can make the attachment unusable. //If needed, you ''can'' edit the header information or even the MIME type declaration in the attachment data, but be very careful not to change any of the base64-encoded binary data.//@@\n!!!!!Inline interface (live)\n><<attach demoID>>\n!!!!!Usage\n<<<\nWhen you attach a file, a tiddler (tagged with<<tag attachment>>) is generated (using the source filename as the tiddler's title). The tiddler contains //''base64 text-encoded binary data''//, surrounded by {{{/%...%/}}} comment markers (so they are not visible when viewing the tiddler). The tiddler also includes summary details about the file: when it was attached, by whom, etc. and, if the attachment is an image file (jpg, gif, or png), the image is automatically displayed below the summary information.\n\nWith embedded data, your TW document can be completely self-contained...unfortunately, embedding just a few moderately-sized binary files using base64 text-encoding can dramatically increase the size of your document. To avoid this problem, you can create attachment tiddlers that define external local filesystem (file://) and/or remote web server (http://) 'reference' links, without embedding the binary data directly in the tiddler (i.e., uncheck "embed data" in the 'control panel').\n\nThese links provide an alternative source for the binary data: if embedded data is not found (or you are running on Internet Explorer, which does not currently support using embedded data), then the plugin tries the local filesystem reference. If a local file is not found, then the remote reference (if any) is used. This "fallback" approach also lets you 'virtualize' the external links in your document, so that you can access very large binary content such as PDFs, MP3's, and even *video* files, by using just a 'remote reference link' without embedding any data or downloading huge files to your hard disk.\n\nOf course, when you //do// download an attached file, the local copy will be used instead of accessing a remote server each time, thereby saving bandwidth and allowing you to 'go mobile' without having to edit any tiddlers to alter the link locations...\n\nLastly, though not completed (but nearly there), the plugin includes an integrated 'uploader' that will let you create a 'remote link' attachment tiddler AND transfer the local file to a remote server location in the same step!\n<<<\n!!!!!Syntax / Examples\n<<<\nTo embed attached files as images or link to them from other tiddlers, use the standard ~TiddlyWiki image syntax ({{{[img[tooltip|filename]]}}}), linked image syntax ({{{[img[tooltip|filename][tiddlername]]}}}) , or "external link" syntax ({{{[[text|URL]]}}}), replacing the filename or URL that is normally entered with the title of an attachment tiddler.\n\nembedded image data:\n>{{{[img[Meow|AttachFileSample]]}}}\n>[img[Meow|AttachFileSample]]\nembedded image data with link to larger remote image:\n>{{{[img[click for larger view|AttachFileSample][AttachFileSample2]]}}}\n>[img[click for larger view|AttachFileSample][AttachFileSample2]]\n'external' link to embedded image data:\n>{{{[[click to view attachment|AttachFileSample]]}}}\n>[[click to view attachment|AttachFileSample]]\n'external' link to remote image:\n>{{{[[click to view attachment|AttachFileSample2]]}}}\n>[[click to view attachment|AttachFileSample2]]\nregular ~TiddlyWiki links to attachment tiddlers:\n>{{{[[AttachFileSample]]}}} [[AttachFileSample]]\n>{{{[[AttachFileSample2]]}}} [[AttachFileSample2]]\n<<<\n!!!!!Defining MIME types and Server Scripts\n<<<\nWhen you select a source file, a ''[[MIME|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIME]]'' file type is automatically suggested, based on filename extension. The AttachFileMIMETypes tiddler defines the list of MIME types that will be recognized by the plugin. Each MIME type definition consists of exactly two lines of text: the official MIME type designator (e.g., "text/plain", "image/gif", etc.), and a space-separated list of file extensions associated with that type. List entries are separated by "----" (horizontal rules).\n\nTo upload files, a script must first be installed on a remote server so it can receive and store the files online. The AttachFileServerScripts tiddler defines the list of ''server scripts'' that will be available for you to select from when attaching and uploading a file. The list format is as described above for MIME types, except that the first line is simply the text that will appear in the ''server scripts'' droplist, while the second line is the fully-qualified URL for submitting files to that server (e.g., {{{http://www.xyz.com/path/to/cgi-bin/upload.cgi}}} or something similar).\n<<<\n!!!!!Known Limitations\n<<<\n* ''Internet Explorer does not support the use of //embedded// data for TW file attachments. However, you can still use the local/remote link definitions to create file attachments that are stored externally''\n## //while it is easy to read text files, reading binary files is not supported by IE's FileSystemObject (FSO) methods, and other file I/O techniques are subject to security barriers or require additional MS proprietary technologies (like ASP or VB) that make implementation more difficult.//\n## //IE does not support the data: URI scheme, and cannot render the embedded images or links. This would seem to be an insurmountable shortcoming in the browser. Let's hope it is added in the next version...//\n<<<\n!!!!!Installation\n<<<\nImport (or copy/paste) the following tiddlers into your document:\n* AttachFilePlugin (tagged with <<tag systemConfig>>)\n* AttachFilePluginFormatters ("distribution library") (tagged with <<tag systemConfig>>)\n* AttachFileSample and AttachFileSample2 //(sample attachment tiddler containing an image file)//\n* AttachFileMIMETypes //(defines known binary file types)//\n* AttachFileServerScripts //(remote upload server locations)//\n<<<\n!!!!!Revision History\n<<<\n''2006.07.24 [3.4.3]'' in prettyLink formatter, added check for isShadowTiddler() to fix problem where shadow links became external links.\n''2006.07.13 [3.4.2]'' in getAttachment(), fixed stripping of newlines so data: used in CSS will work\n''2006.05.21 [3.4.1]'' in getAttachment(), fixed substring() to extract data: URI (was losing last character, which broken rendering of SOME images)\n''2006.05.20 [3.4.0]'' hijack core getRecursiveTiddlerText() to support rendering attachments in stylesheets (e.g. {{{url([[AttachFileSample]])}}})\n''2006.05.20 [3.3.6]'' add "description" feature to easily include notes in attachment tiddler (you can always edit to add them later... but...)\n''2006.05.19 [3.3.5]'' add "attach as" feature to change default name for attachment tiddlers. Also, new optional param to specify tiddler name (disables editing)\n''2006.05.16 [3.3.0]'' completed XMLHttpRequest handling for GET or POST to configurable server scripts\n''2006.05.13 [3.2.0]'' added interface for ''upload'' feature. Major rewrite of code for clean object definitions. Major improvements in UI interaction and validation.\n''2006.05.09 [3.1.1]'' add wikifer support for using attachments in links from "linked image" syntax: {{{[img[tip|attachment1][attachment2]]}}}\n''2006.05.09 [3.1.0]'' lots of code changes: new options for attachments that use embedded data and/or links to external files (local or remote)\n''2006.05.03 [3.0.2]'' added {{{/%...%/}}} comments around attachment data to hide it when viewing attachment tiddler.\n''2006.02.05 [3.0.1]'' wrapped wikifier hijacks in initAttachmentFormatters() function to eliminate globals and avoid FireFox 1.5.0.1 crash bug when referencing globals\n''2005.12.27 [3.0.0]'' Update for TW2.0. Automatically add 'excludeMissing' tag to attachments\n''2005.12.16 [2.2.0]'' Dynamically create/remove attachPanel as needed to ensure only one instance of interface elements exists, even if there are multiple instances of macro embedding.\n''2005.11.20 [2.1.0]'' added wikifier handler extensions for "image" and "prettyLink" to render tiddler attachments\n''2005.11.09 [2.0.0]'' begin port from old ELS Design plugin/adaptation hybrid based on ~TW1.2.33\n''2005.08.05 [1.1.0]'' moved CSS and HTML definitions into plugin code tiddler instead of using separate tiddlers\n''2005.07.27 [1.0.2]'' core update 1.2.29: custom overlayStyleSheet() replaced with new core setStylesheet()\n''2005.07.23 [1.0.1]'' added parameter checks and corrected addNotification() usage\n''2005.07.20 [1.0.0]'' Initial Release\n<<<\n!!!!!Credits\n<<<\nThis feature was developed by EricShulman from [[ELS Design Studios|http:/www.elsdesign.com]]\n<<<\n!!!!!Code\n***/\n// // version\n//{{{\nversion.extensions.attach = {major: 3, minor: 4, revision: 3, date: new Date(2006,7,24)};\n//}}}\nconfig.macros.attach = {\n// // configuration\n//{{{\n hideUpload: false,\n//}}}\n// // lingo\n//{{{\n label: "attach file",\n tooltip: "Attach a file to this document",\n linkTooltip: "Attachment: ",\n\n scriptList: "AttachFileServerScripts",\n typeList: "AttachFileMIMETypes",\n\n titlePrompt: " enter tiddler title...",\n MIMEPrompt: "<option value=''>select MIME type...</option><option value='editlist'>[edit list...]</option>",\n localPrompt: " enter local path/filename...",\n URLPrompt: " enter remote URL...",\n scriptPrompt: "<option value=''>select server script...</option><option value='editlist'>[edit list...]</option>",\n targetPrompt: " enter remote path/filename...",\n\n tiddlerErr: "Please enter a tiddler title",\n sourceErr: "Please enter a source path/filename",\n storageErr: "Please select a storage method: embedded, local or remote",\n MIMEErr: "Unrecognized file format. Please select a MIME type",\n localErr: "Please enter a local path/filename",\n URLErr: "Please enter a remote URL",\n scriptErr: "Please select a server script",\n targetErr: "Please enter a remote target path/filename",\n notSupportedErr: "Sorry, this browser does not support embedded data.\snPlease uncheck 'embed data' and use a local and/or remote link instead.",\n\n sourceReport: "| source file|{{{%0}}}|\sn",\n nosourceReport: "| source file|//none//|\sn",\n dateReport: "| attached on|%0 by %1|\sn",\n notesReport: "| description|%0|\sn",\n dataReport: "| embedded data|[[%0|%0]] - {{{type=%1, size=%2 bytes, encoded=%3 bytes}}}|\sn",\n nodataReport: "| embedded data|//none//|\sn",\n localReport: "| local link|/%LOCAL_LINK%/[[%0|%1]]|\sn",\n nolocalReport: "| local link|//none//|\sn",\n URLReport: "| remote link|/%REMOTE_LINK%/[[%0|%0]]|\sn",\n noURLReport: "| remote link|//none//|\sn",\n\n uploadReport: "upload\sn<<<\sn__server script__\sn''%0''\sn{{{%1}}}\sn__remote path/filename__\sn{{{%2}}}\sn__transfer log__\sn%3/%RESULT%/\sn<<<\sn",\n\n imageReport: "image\sn<<<\snusage: {{{[img[tooltip|%0]] or [img[tooltip|%0][link]]}}}\sn[img[tooltip|%0]]\sn<<<\sn",\n dataBlock: "\sn/% DO NOT EDIT BELOW THIS POINT\sn---BEGIN_DATA---\sn%0;base64,\sn%1\sn---END_DATA---\sn%/",\n//}}}\n// // macro definition\n//{{{\n handler:\n function(place,macroName,params) {\n if (params && !params[0]) { createTiddlyButton(place,this.label,this.tooltip,this.toggleAttachPanel); return; }\n var id=params.shift();\n this.createAttachPanel(place,id+"_attachPanel",params);\n document.getElementById(id+"_attachPanel").style.position="static";\n document.getElementById(id+"_attachPanel").style.display="block";\n },\n//}}}\n//{{{\n createAttachPanel:\n function(place,panel_id,params) {\n if (!panel_id || !panel_id.length) var panel_id="_attachPanel";\n // remove existing panel (if any)\n var panel=document.getElementById(panel_id); if (panel) panel.parentNode.removeChild(panel);\n // set styles for this panel\n setStylesheet(this.css,"attachPanel");\n // create new panel\n var title=""; if (params && params[0]) title=params.shift();\n var types=this.MIMEPrompt+this.formatListOptions(store.getTiddlerText(this.typeList)); // get MIME types\n var scripts=this.scriptPrompt+this.formatListOptions(store.getTiddlerText(this.scriptList)); // get server scripts\n panel=createTiddlyElement(place,"span",panel_id,"attachPanel",null);\n var html=this.html.replace(/%id%/g,panel_id);\n html=html.replace(/%title%/g,title);\n html=html.replace(/%disabled%/g,title.length?"disabled":"");\n html=html.replace(/%types%/g,types);\n html=html.replace(/%scripts%/g,scripts);\n panel.innerHTML=html;\n return panel;\n },\n//}}}\n//{{{\n toggleAttachPanel:\n function (e) {\n if (!e) var e = window.event;\n var parent=resolveTarget(e).parentNode;\n var panel = document.getElementById("_attachPanel");\n if (panel==undefined || panel.parentNode!=parent)\n panel=config.macros.attach.createAttachPanel(parent,"_attachPanel");\n var isOpen = panel.style.display=="block";\n if(config.options.chkAnimate)\n anim.startAnimating(new Slider(panel,!isOpen,e.shiftKey || e.altKey,"none"));\n else\n panel.style.display = isOpen ? "none" : "block" ;\n e.cancelBubble = true;\n if (e.stopPropagation) e.stopPropagation();\n return(false);\n },\n//}}}\n//{{{\n formatListOptions:\n function(text,getparams) {\n if (!text || !text.trim().length) return "";\n // get server script list content from tiddler\n var parts=text.split("\sn----\sn");\n var out="";\n this.scriptParams=["","",""]; // first 3 list items: blank, prompt, editlist\n for (var p=0; p<parts.length; p++) {\n var lines=parts[p].split("\sn");\n var label=lines.shift(); // 1st line=display text\n var URL=lines.shift(); // 2nd line=item value\n var params=lines.join("\sn").replace(/<<<\sn/g,"").replace(/\sn<<</g,""); // extra lines=script params inside blockquotes\n this.scriptParams.push(params?params:"");\n out +='<option value="%1">%0</option>'.format([label,URL]);\n }\n return out;\n },\n//}}}\n// // interface definition\n//{{{\n css:\n ".attachPanel { display: none; position:absolute; z-index:10; width:35em; right:105%; top:0em;\s\n background-color: #eee; color:#000; font-size: 8pt; line-height:110%;\s\n border:1px solid black; border-bottom-width: 3px; border-right-width: 3px;\s\n padding: 0.5em; margin:0em; -moz-border-radius:1em; }\s\n .attachPanel form { display:inline;border:0;padding:0;margin:0; }\s\n .attachPanel select { width:99%;margin:0px;font-size:8pt;line-height:110%;}\s\n .attachPanel input { width:98%;padding:0px;margin:0px;font-size:8pt;line-height:110%}\s\n .attachPanel textarea { width:98%;margin:0px;height:2em;font-size:8pt;line-height:110%}\s\n .attachPanel table { width:100%;border:0;margin:0;padding:0;color:inherit; }\s\n .attachPanel tbody, .attachPanel tr, .attachPanel td { border:0;margin:0;padding:0;color:#000; }\s\n .attachPanel .box { border:1px solid black; padding:.3em; margin:.3em 0px; background:#f8f8f8; -moz-border-radius:5px; }\s\n .attachPanel .chk { width:auto;border:0; }\s\n .attachPanel .btn { width:auto; }\s\n .attachPanel .btn2 { width:49%; }\s\n ",\n//}}}\n//{{{\n html:\n '<form>\s\n attach from source file <input type="file" name="source" size=56 onChange="config.macros.attach.onChangeSource(this)">\s\n <div class="box">\s\n <table><tr><td style="text-align:right;width:1%;white-space:nowrap">\s\n embed data <input type=checkbox class=chk name="useData"\s\n onclick="if (!this.form.MIMEType.value.length)\s\n this.form.MIMEType.selectedIndex=this.checked?1:0; ">&nbsp;\s\n </td><td>\s\n <select size=1 name="MIMEType" \s\n onchange="this.title=this.value; if (this.value==\s'editlist\s')\s\n { this.selectedIndex=this.form.useData.checked?1:0; story.displayTiddler(null,config.macros.attach.typeList,2); return; }">\s\n <option value=""></option>\s\n %types%\s\n </select>\s\n </td></tr><tr><td style="text-align:right;width:1%;white-space:nowrap">\s\n local link <input type=checkbox class=chk name="useLocal"\s\n onclick="this.form.local.value=this.form.local.defaultValue=this.checked?config.macros.attach.localPrompt:\s'\s';">&nbsp;\s\n </td><td>\s\n <input type=text name="local" size=15 autocomplete=off value=""\s\n onchange="this.form.useLocal.checked=this.value.length" \s\n onkeyup="this.form.useLocal.checked=this.value.length" \s\n onfocus="if (!this.valuelength) this.value=config.macros.attach.localPrompt; this.select()">\s\n </td></tr><tr><td style="text-align:right;width:1%;white-space:nowrap">\s\n remote link <input type=checkbox class=chk name="useURL"\s\n onclick="this.form.URL.value=this.form.URL.defaultValue=this.checked?config.macros.attach.URLPrompt:\s'\s';\s\n config.macros.attach.toggleUploadControls(\s'%id%\s',this.checked);">&nbsp;\s\n </td><td>\s\n <input type=text name="URL" size=15 autocomplete=off value=""\s\n onfocus="if (!this.value.length) this.value=config.macros.attach.URLPrompt; this.select()"\s\n onchange="this.form.useURL.checked=this.value.length;\s\n config.macros.attach.toggleUploadControls(\s'%id%\s',this.value.length);"\s\n onkeyup="this.form.useURL.checked=this.value.length;\s\n config.macros.attach.toggleUploadControls(\s'%id%\s',this.value.length);">\s\n </td></tr><tr><td style="text-align:right;width:1%;white-space:nowrap">\s\n <div id="%id%_upcheck" style="display:none">\s\n upload file <input type=checkbox class=chk name="upload"\s\n onclick="this.form.uploadScript.selectedIndex=this.checked?1:0;\s\n this.form.uploadScript.title=\s'\s';\s\n this.form.uploadTarget.disabled=!this.checked;\s\n this.form.uploadTarget.value=this.form.uploadTarget.defaultValue=this.checked?config.macros.attach.targetPrompt:\s'\s';\s">&nbsp;\s\n </div>\s\n </td><td>\s\n <div id="%id%_uplist" style="display:none">\s\n <select size=1 name="uploadScript"\s\n onchange="this.title=this.value; if (this.value==\s'editlist\s')\s\n { this.selectedIndex=this.form.upload.checked?1:0; story.displayTiddler(null,config.macros.attach.scriptList,2); return; }\s\n this.form.upload.checked=this.value.length;\s\n if (!this.form.uploadTarget.value.length && this.value.length)\s\n this.form.uploadTarget.value=this.form.uploadTarget.defaultValue=config.macros.attach.targetPrompt;\s\n this.form.uploadTarget.disabled=!this.value.length;">\s\n <option value=""></option>\s\n %scripts%\s\n </select>\s\n </div>\s\n </td></tr><tr><td style="text-align:right;width:1%;white-space:nowrap">\s\n <div id="%id%_saveas" style="display:none">save as&nbsp;</div>\s\n </td><td>\s\n <input type=text name="uploadTarget" id="%id%_uptarget" size=15 autocomplete=off value="" disabled\s\n onfocus="if (!this.value.length) this.value=config.macros.attach.targetPrompt; this.select()" style="display:none">\s\n </td></tr></table>\s\n </div>\s\n <table><tr><td style="text-align:right;width:1%;white-space:nowrap">\s\n attach as&nbsp;\s\n </td><td colspan=2>\s\n <input type=text name="tiddlertitle" size=15 autocomplete=off value="%title%"\s\n onkeyup="if (!this.value.length) { this.value=config.macros.attach.titlePrompt; this.select(); }"\s\n onfocus="if (!this.value.length) this.value=config.macros.attach.titlePrompt; this.select()" %disabled%>\s\n </td></tr><tr><td style="text-align:right;width:1%;white-space:nowrap">\s\n description&nbsp;\s\n </td><td colspan=2>\s\n <input type=text name="notes" size=15 autocomplete=off>\s\n </td></tr><tr><td style="text-align:right;width:1%;white-space:nowrap">\s\n add tags&nbsp;\s\n </td><td>\s\n <input type=text name="tags" size=15 autocomplete=off value="" onfocus="this.select()">\s\n </td><td style="width:40%;text-align:right">\s\n <input type=button class=btn2 value="attach"\s\n onclick="config.macros.attach.onClickAttach(this)"><!--\s\n --><input type=button class=btn2 value="close"\s\n onclick="var panel=document.getElementById(\s'%id%\s'); if (panel) panel.parentNode.removeChild(panel);">\s\n </td></tr></table>\s\n </form>',\n//}}}\n// // control processing\n//{{{\n onChangeSource:\n function(here) {\n var form=here.form;\n var list=form.MIMEType;\n var theFilename = form.source.value;\n var theExtension = theFilename.substr(theFilename.lastIndexOf('.')).toLowerCase();\n for (var i=0; i<list.options.length; i++)\n if (list.options[i].value.indexOf(theExtension)!=-1) {\n list.selectedIndex = i;\n form.useData.checked = true;\n form.useLocal.checked = true;\n form.local.value = theFilename;\n break;\n }\n theFilename=theFilename.replace(/\s\s/g,"/"); // fixup: change \s to /\n if (!form.tiddlertitle.disabled)\n form.tiddlertitle.value=theFilename.substr(theFilename.lastIndexOf('/')+1); // get tiddlername from filename\n },\n//}}}\n//{{{\n toggleUploadControls:\n function(id,show) {\n if (config.macros.attach.hideUpload) return;\n document.getElementById(id+'_upcheck').style.display\n =document.getElementById(id+'_uplist').style.display\n =document.getElementById(id+'_saveas').style.display\n =document.getElementById(id+'_uptarget').style.display\n =show?'block':'none';\n },\n//}}}\n//{{{\n onClickAttach:\n function (here) {\n clearMessage();\n // get input values\n var form=here.form;\n var theDate=(new Date()).formatString(config.macros.timeline.dateFormat);\n var theSource = form.source.value!=form.source.defaultValue?form.source.value:"";\n var theTitle=form.tiddlertitle.value;\n var theLocal = form.local.value!=form.local.defaultValue?form.local.value:"";\n var theURL = form.URL.value!=form.URL.defaultValue?form.URL.value:"";\n var theNotes = form.notes.value;\n var theTags = "attachment excludeMissing "+form.tags.value;\n var useData=form.useData.checked;\n var useLocal=form.useLocal.checked;\n var useURL=form.useURL.checked;\n var upload=form.upload.checked;\n var theMIMEType = form.MIMEType.value.length?form.MIMEType.options[form.MIMEType.selectedIndex].text:"";\n // validate checkboxes and get filename\n if (useData||upload) {\n if (theSource.length) { if (!theLocation) var theLocation=theSource; }\n else { alert(this.sourceErr); form.source.focus(); return false; }\n }\n if (useLocal) {\n if (theLocal.length) { if (!theLocation) var theLocation = theLocal; }\n else { alert(this.localErr); form.local.focus(); return false; }\n }\n if (useURL) {\n if (theURL.length) { if (!theLocation) var theLocation = theURL; }\n else { alert(this.URLErr); form.URL.focus(); return false; }\n }\n if (!(useData||useLocal||useURL))\n { form.useData.focus(); alert(this.storageErr); return false; }\n if (!theLocation)\n { form.source.focus(); alert(this.sourceErr); return false; }\n if (!theTitle || !theTitle.trim().length || theTitle==this.titlePrompt)\n { form.tiddlertitle.focus(); alert(this.tiddlerErr); return false; }\n if (upload) {\n var theScript = form.uploadScript.value!=form.uploadScript.defaultValue?form.uploadScript.value:"";\n if (!theScript.length) { alert(this.scriptErr); form.uploadScript.focus(); return false; }\n var theServer = form.uploadScript.options[form.uploadScript.selectedIndex].text;\n var theParams = this.scriptParams[form.uploadScript.selectedIndex];\n var theTarget = form.uploadTarget.value!=form.uploadTarget.defaultValue?form.uploadTarget.value:"";\n if (!theTarget.length) { alert(this.targetErr); form.uploadTarget.focus(); return false; }\n }\n // if not already selected, determine MIME type based on filename extension (if any)\n if (!theMIMEType.length && theLocation.lastIndexOf('.')!=-1) {\n var theExt = theLocation.substr(theLocation.lastIndexOf('.')).toLowerCase();\n var theList=form.MIMEType;\n for (var i=0; i<theList.options.length; i++)\n if (theList.options[i].value.indexOf(theExt)!=-1)\n { var theMIMEType=theList.options[i].text; theList.selectedIndex=i; break; }\n }\n // encode the data\n if (useData) {\n if (!theMIMEType.length) {\n alert(this.MIMEErr);\n form.MIMEType.selectedIndex=1; form.MIMEType.focus();\n return false;\n }\n var theData = this.readFile(theSource); if (!theData) { alert(this.notSupportedErr); return false; }\n displayMessage('encoding '+theSource);\n var theEncoded = this.encodeBase64(theData);\n displayMessage('file size='+theData.length+' bytes, encoded size='+theEncoded.length+' bytes');\n }\n // upload the file\n if (upload) var uploadresult=this.uploadFile(theTitle,theSource,theMIMEType,theServer,theScript,theParams,theTarget);\n // generate tiddler and refresh\n var theText = "";\n theText +=theSource.length?this.sourceReport.format([theSource]):this.nosourceReport;\n theText +=this.dateReport.format([theDate,config.options.txtUserName]);\n theText +=theNotes.length?this.notesReport.format([theNotes]):"";\n theText +=useData?this.dataReport.format([theTitle,theMIMEType,theData.length,theEncoded.length]):this.nodataReport;\n theText +=useLocal?this.localReport.format([theLocal,'file:///'+theLocal.replace(/\s\s/g,"/")]):this.nolocalReport;\n theText +=useURL?this.URLReport.format([theURL]):this.noURLReport;\n theText +=(theMIMEType.substr(0,5)=="image")?this.imageReport.format([theTitle]):"";\n theText +=upload?uploadresult:"";\n theText +=useData?this.dataBlock.format([theMIMEType,theEncoded]):"";\n store.saveTiddler(theTitle,theTitle,theText,config.options.txtUserName,new Date(),theTags);\n document.getElementById("attachPanel").style.display="none";\n story.displayTiddler(null,theTitle);\n story.refreshTiddler(theTitle,null,true);\n displayMessage('attached "'+theTitle+'"');\n return true;\n },\n//}}}\n// // base64 conversion\n//{{{\n encodeBase64:\n function (theData) {\n if (!theData) return null;\n // encode as base64\n var keyStr = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789+/=";\n var out = ""; //This is the output\n var chr1, chr2, chr3 = ""; //These are the 3 bytes to be encoded\n var enc1, enc2, enc3, enc4 = ""; //These are the 4 encoded bytes\n for (var count=0,i=0; i<theData.length; )\n {\n chr1 = theData.charCodeAt(i++); //Grab the first byte\n chr2 = theData.charCodeAt(i++); //Grab the second byte\n chr3 = theData.charCodeAt(i++); //Grab the third byte\n enc1 = chr1 >> 2;\n enc2 = ((chr1 & 3) << 4) | (chr2 >> 4);\n enc3 = ((chr2 & 15) << 2) | (chr3 >> 6);\n enc4 = chr3 & 63;\n if (isNaN(chr2))\n enc3 = enc4 = 64;\n else if (isNaN(chr3))\n enc4 = 64;\n out += keyStr.charAt(enc1)+keyStr.charAt(enc2)+keyStr.charAt(enc3)+keyStr.charAt(enc4);\n chr1 = chr2 = chr3 = "";\n enc1 = enc2 = enc3 = enc4 = "";\n count+=4; if (count>60) { out+='\sn'; count=0; } // add line break every 60 chars for readability\n }\n return out;\n },\n//}}}\n// // I/O functions\n//{{{\n readFile:\n function(filePath) {\n if(!window.Components) { return(null); }\n try {\n netscape.security.PrivilegeManager.enablePrivilege("UniversalXPConnect");\n var file = Components.classes["@mozilla.org/file/local;1"].createInstance(Components.interfaces.nsILocalFile);\n file.initWithPath(filePath);\n if (!file.exists()) { alert("File not found: "+filePath); return(null); }\n var inputStream = Components.classes["@mozilla.org/network/file-input-stream;1"].createInstance(Components.interfaces.nsIFileInputStream);\n inputStream.init(file, 0x01, 00004, null);\n var bInputStream = Components.classes["@mozilla.org/binaryinputstream;1"].createInstance(Components.interfaces.nsIBinaryInputStream);\n bInputStream.setInputStream(inputStream);\n return(bInputStream.readBytes(inputStream.available()));\n }\n catch(e) { alert("An error occured while attempting to attach\sn"+filePath+"\sn\sn" + e); }\n return(null);\n },\n//}}}\n//{{{\n writeFile:\n function(filepath,data) {\n // TBD: decode base64 and write data to specified local path/filename\n return(false);\n },\n//}}}\n//{{{\n uploadFile:\n function(title,source,MIMEType,server,URL,scriptparams,target) {\n displayMessage("begin upload: \s""+title+"\s"");\n if (URL==undefined || !URL.length)\n return this.uploadReport.format([server,URL,target,"error: missing script URL"]);\n var x; // XML object\n try {x = new XMLHttpRequest()}\n catch(e) {\n try {x = new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP")}\n catch (e) {\n try {x = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP")}\n catch (e) { return this.uploadReport.format([server,URL,target,"error: could not create XMLHttpRequest object"]); }\n }\n }\n var starttime=new Date();\n x.onreadystatechange = function() {\n if (x.readyState == 4) {\n var endtime=new Date();\n var elapsed=(endtime-starttime+1)/1000;\n displayMessage("end upload: \s""+title+"\s" ("+elapsed+" seconds)");\n var response="\sn''"+endtime.formatString("DD MMM YYYY 0hh:0mm:0ss")+"'' - upload ended (elapsed="+elapsed+" seconds).\sn";\n; response+="status code="+x.status+"\snserver response:\sn{{{\sn"+x.responseText+"\sn}}}\sn";\n var tiddler=store.getTiddler(title);\n if (tiddler) {\n var marker="/%RESULT%/"; var pos=tiddler.text.indexOf(marker);\n if (pos!=-1) {\n tiddler.set(null,tiddler.text.substr(0,pos)+response+tiddler.text.substr(pos+marker.length));\n story.displayTiddler(null,title); story.refreshTiddler(title,null,true); store.setDirty(true);\n } \n }\n }\n }\n if ((document.location.protocol=="file:") && (typeof(netscape)!="undefined")) { // UniversalBrowserRead only works from a local file context\n try { netscape.security.PrivilegeManager.enablePrivilege('UniversalBrowserRead')}\n catch (e) { displayMessage(e.description?e.description:e.toString()); }\n }\n try {\n var data=this.readFile(source);\n if (!data) return this.uploadReport.format([server,URL,target,"could not read local source file"]);\n scriptparams=scriptparams.replace(/%TARGET%/g,target).replace(/%TYPE%/g,MIMEType).replace(/%SIZE%/g,data.length);\n if (scriptparams.indexOf("\sn")==-1) { // single-line params=GET\n x.open("GET",URL,true);\n scriptparams=scriptparams.replace(/%DATA%/g,encodeURIComponent(data));\n x.setRequestHeader('Content-type','application/x-www-form-urlencoded');\n }\n else { // multi-line params=POST\n x.open("POST",URL,true);\n var boundary="----------AttachFilePluginDataBoundary----------";\n scriptparams="\sn"+scriptparams.replace(/%BOUNDARY%/g,boundary).replace(/%DATA%/g,data)+"\sn";\n x.setRequestHeader('Content-Length',scriptparams.length);\n x.setRequestHeader('Content-Type','multipart/form-data; boundary='+boundary);\n }\n x.send(scriptparams);\n // DEBUG alert("params\sn-----\sn"+scriptparams+"\sn-----\sn"); // wffl DEBUG\n }\n catch (e) { displayMessage(e.description?e.description:e.toString()); }\n var response="''"+starttime.formatString("DD MMM YYYY 0hh:0mm:0ss")+"'' - upload started...";\n return this.uploadReport.format([server,URL,target,response]);\n }\n};\n//}}}\n\n/***\n!!!!!Formatters\n|NOTE: These functions are also defined separately in a small, "run-time library" plugin: AttachFilePluginFormatters, which provides "stand-alone" processing for //rendering// attachment tiddlers, but does not include the AttachTiddlers control panel and supporting functions. To reduce your document size, you can include AttachFilePluginFormatters ''instead of'' AttachFilePlugin when distributing documents that contain attachments, as long you don't intend to create any new attachment tiddlers to your document.|\n\n''Extends wikify() formatters to process attachment tiddler references''\n* embedded images: {{{[img[tooltip|image]]}}}\n* linked embedded images: {{{[img[tooltip|image][link]]}}}\n* external/"pretty" links: {{{[[label|link]]}}}\n\n***/\n//{{{\nif (config.macros.attach==undefined) config.macros.attach= { };\n//}}}\n//{{{\nif (config.macros.attach.isAttachment==undefined) config.macros.attach.isAttachment=function (title) {\n var tiddler = store.getTiddler(title);\n if (tiddler==undefined || tiddler.tags==undefined) return false;\n return (tiddler.tags.find("attachment")!=null);\n}\n//}}}\n//{{{\nif (config.macros.attach.getAttachment==undefined) config.macros.attach.getAttachment=function(title) {\n var text = store.getTiddlerText(title);\n var result=""; var pos=0; var endpos=0;\n\n var startmarker="---BEGIN_DATA---\sn";\n var endmarker="\sn---END_DATA---";\n if (!config.browser.isIE && (pos=text.indexOf(startmarker))!=-1 && (endpos=text.indexOf(endmarker))!=-1) {\n var out="data:"+(text.substring(pos+startmarker.length,endpos)).replace(/\sn/g,''); // strip embedded newlines\n return out;\n }\n if ((pos=text.indexOf("/%LOCAL_LINK%/"))!=-1) // fallback to local link\n return text.substring(text.indexOf("|",pos)+1,text.indexOf("]]",pos)); \n if ((pos=text.indexOf("/%REMOTE_LINK%/"))!=-1) // fallback to remote URL\n return text.substring(text.indexOf("|",pos)+1,text.indexOf("]]",pos));\n\n // fallback for backward-compatibility:\n // before 3.2.0 encoded datablock was located between ----'s instead of using embedded 'keyword markers' in the tiddler content\n var data=text.split('\sn----\sn');\n if (!config.browser.isIE && data[1] && data[1].length) // NOTE: IE does not support the "data:" URI scheme\n return "data:"+data[1].replace(/\s\sn/g,'');\n\n return "";\n}\n//}}}\n//{{{\nif (config.macros.attach.init_formatters==undefined) config.macros.attach.init_formatters=function() {\n if (this.initialized) return;\n // find the formatter for "image" and replace the handler\n for (var i=0; i<config.formatters.length && config.formatters[i].name!="image"; i++);\n if (i<config.formatters.length) config.formatters[i].handler=function(w) {\n var lookaheadRegExp = new RegExp(this.lookahead,"mg");\n lookaheadRegExp.lastIndex = w.matchStart;\n var lookaheadMatch = lookaheadRegExp.exec(w.source);\n if(lookaheadMatch && lookaheadMatch.index == w.matchStart) // Simple bracketted link\n {\n var e = w.output;\n if(lookaheadMatch[5])\n {\n if(store.tiddlerExists(lookaheadMatch[5]))\n // ELS: ADDED\n if (config.macros.attach.isAttachment(lookaheadMatch[5]))\n {\n e = createExternalLink(w.output,lookaheadMatch[5]);\n e.href=config.macros.attach.getAttachment(lookaheadMatch[5]);\n e.title = config.macros.attach.linkTooltip + lookaheadMatch[5];\n }\n else\n // ELS: END\n e = createTiddlyLink(w.output,lookaheadMatch[5],false);\n else\n e = createExternalLink(w.output,lookaheadMatch[5]);\n }\n var img = createTiddlyElement(e,"img");\n if(lookaheadMatch[1])\n img.align = "left";\n else if(lookaheadMatch[2])\n img.align = "right";\n if(lookaheadMatch[3])\n img.title = lookaheadMatch[3];\n img.src = lookaheadMatch[4];\n // ELS: ADDED\n if (config.macros.attach.isAttachment(lookaheadMatch[4]))\n img.src=config.macros.attach.getAttachment(lookaheadMatch[4]);\n // ELS: END\n w.nextMatch = lookaheadMatch.index + lookaheadMatch[0].length;\n }\n }\n//}}}\n//{{{\n // find the formatter for "prettyLink" and replace the handler\n for (var i=0; i<config.formatters.length && config.formatters[i].name!="prettyLink"; i++);\n if (i<config.formatters.length) config.formatters[i].handler=function(w) {\n var lookaheadRegExp = new RegExp(this.lookahead,"mg");\n lookaheadRegExp.lastIndex = w.matchStart;\n var lookaheadMatch = lookaheadRegExp.exec(w.source)\n if(lookaheadMatch && lookaheadMatch.index == w.matchStart && lookaheadMatch[2])\n { // Simple bracketted link\n var link = createTiddlyLink(w.output,lookaheadMatch[1],false);\n w.outputText(link,w.nextMatch,w.nextMatch + lookaheadMatch[1].length);\n w.nextMatch += lookaheadMatch[1].length + 2;\n }\n else if(lookaheadMatch && lookaheadMatch.index == w.matchStart && lookaheadMatch[3])\n { // Pretty bracketted link\n var e;\n if(store.tiddlerExists(lookaheadMatch[4]) || store.isShadowTiddler(lookaheadMatch[4]))\n // ELS: ADDED\n if (config.macros.attach.isAttachment(lookaheadMatch[4]))\n {\n e = createExternalLink(w.output,lookaheadMatch[4]);\n e.href=config.macros.attach.getAttachment(lookaheadMatch[4]);\n e.title = config.macros.attach.linkTooltip + lookaheadMatch[4];\n }\n else\n // ELS: END\n e = createTiddlyLink(w.output,lookaheadMatch[4],false);\n else\n e = createExternalLink(w.output,lookaheadMatch[4]);\n w.outputText(e,w.nextMatch,w.nextMatch + lookaheadMatch[1].length);\n w.nextMatch = lookaheadMatch.index + lookaheadMatch[0].length;\n }\n }\n this.initialized=true;\n}\n//}}}\n//{{{\nconfig.macros.attach.init_formatters(); // load time init\n//}}}\n//{{{\nif (TiddlyWiki.prototype.coreGetRecursiveTiddlerText==undefined) {\n TiddlyWiki.prototype.coreGetRecursiveTiddlerText = TiddlyWiki.prototype.getRecursiveTiddlerText;\n TiddlyWiki.prototype.getRecursiveTiddlerText = function(title,defaultText,depth) {\n return config.macros.attach.isAttachment(title)?\n config.macros.attach.getAttachment(title):this.coreGetRecursiveTiddlerText(title,defaultText,depth);\n }\n}\n//}}}

/***\n''AttachFilePluginFormatters for TiddlyWiki version 2.x''\n^^author: Eric Shulman - ELS Design Studios\nsource: http://www.TiddlyTools.com/#AttachFilePluginFormatters\nsee also: http://www.TiddlyTools.com/#AttachFilePlugin\nlicense: [[Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License|http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/]]^^\n\nYou can include this small //''run time library''// in your documents to render ''attachment tiddlers'' created by the AttachFilePlugin. Attachment tiddlers are tagged with<<tag attachment>>and contain binary file content (e.g., jpg, gif, pdf, mp3, etc.) that can be stored directly as base64 text-encoded data or loaded from external files stored on a local filesystem or remote web server.\n\nThis plugin extends the behavior of the following TiddlyWiki core "wikify()" formatters:\n* embedded images: {{{[img[tooltip|image]]}}}\n* linked embedded images: {{{[img[tooltip|image][link]]}}}\n* external/"pretty" links: {{{[[label|link]]}}}\n\n''Please refer to AttachFilePlugin (source: http://www.TiddlyTools.com/#AttachFilePlugin) for additional information.''\n!!!!!Revision History\n<<<\n''2006.07.24 [3.4.3.0]'' sync with AttachFilePlugin v3.4.3\n''2006.07.13 [3.4.2.0]'' sync with AttachFilePlugin v3.4.2\n''2006.06.15 [3.4.1.0]'' sync with AttachFilePlugin v3.4.1\n''2006.05.20 [3.4.0.0]'' sync with AttachFilePlugin v3.4.0\n''2006.05.13 [3.2.0.0]'' created from AttachFilePlugin v3.2.0\n<<<\n!!!!!Code\n***/\n//{{{\nif (config.macros.attach==undefined) config.macros.attach= { };\n//}}}\n//{{{\nif (config.macros.attach.isAttachment==undefined) config.macros.attach.isAttachment=function (title) {\n var tiddler = store.getTiddler(title);\n if (tiddler==undefined || tiddler.tags==undefined) return false;\n return (tiddler.tags.find("attachment")!=null);\n}\n//}}}\n//{{{\nif (config.macros.attach.getAttachment==undefined) config.macros.attach.getAttachment=function(title) {\n var text = store.getTiddlerText(title);\n var result=""; var pos=0; var endpos=0;\n\n var startmarker="---BEGIN_DATA---\sn";\n var endmarker="\sn---END_DATA---";\n if (!config.browser.isIE && (pos=text.indexOf(startmarker))!=-1 && (endpos=text.indexOf(endmarker))!=-1) {\n var out="data:"+(text.substring(pos+startmarker.length,endpos)).replace(/\sn/g,''); // strip embedded newlines\n return out;\n }\n if ((pos=text.indexOf("/%LOCAL_LINK%/"))!=-1) // fallback to local link\n return text.substring(text.indexOf("|",pos)+1,text.indexOf("]]",pos)); \n if ((pos=text.indexOf("/%REMOTE_LINK%/"))!=-1) // fallback to remote URL\n return text.substring(text.indexOf("|",pos)+1,text.indexOf("]]",pos));\n\n // fallback for backward-compatibility:\n // before 3.2.0 encoded datablock was located between ----'s instead of using embedded 'keyword markers' in the tiddler content\n var data=text.split('\sn----\sn');\n if (!config.browser.isIE && data[1] && data[1].length) // NOTE: IE does not support the "data:" URI scheme\n return "data:"+data[1].replace(/\s\sn/g,'');\n\n return "";\n}\n//}}}\n//{{{\nif (config.macros.attach.init_formatters==undefined) config.macros.attach.init_formatters=function() {\n if (this.initialized) return;\n // find the formatter for "image" and replace the handler\n for (var i=0; i<config.formatters.length && config.formatters[i].name!="image"; i++);\n if (i<config.formatters.length) config.formatters[i].handler=function(w) {\n var lookaheadRegExp = new RegExp(this.lookahead,"mg");\n lookaheadRegExp.lastIndex = w.matchStart;\n var lookaheadMatch = lookaheadRegExp.exec(w.source);\n if(lookaheadMatch && lookaheadMatch.index == w.matchStart) // Simple bracketted link\n {\n var e = w.output;\n if(lookaheadMatch[5])\n {\n if(store.tiddlerExists(lookaheadMatch[5]))\n // ELS: ADDED\n if (config.macros.attach.isAttachment(lookaheadMatch[5]))\n {\n e = createExternalLink(w.output,lookaheadMatch[5]);\n e.href=config.macros.attach.getAttachment(lookaheadMatch[5]);\n e.title = config.macros.attach.linkTooltip + lookaheadMatch[5];\n }\n else\n // ELS: END\n e = createTiddlyLink(w.output,lookaheadMatch[5],false);\n else\n e = createExternalLink(w.output,lookaheadMatch[5]);\n }\n var img = createTiddlyElement(e,"img");\n if(lookaheadMatch[1])\n img.align = "left";\n else if(lookaheadMatch[2])\n img.align = "right";\n if(lookaheadMatch[3])\n img.title = lookaheadMatch[3];\n img.src = lookaheadMatch[4];\n // ELS: ADDED\n if (config.macros.attach.isAttachment(lookaheadMatch[4]))\n img.src=config.macros.attach.getAttachment(lookaheadMatch[4]);\n // ELS: END\n w.nextMatch = lookaheadMatch.index + lookaheadMatch[0].length;\n }\n }\n//}}}\n//{{{\n // find the formatter for "prettyLink" and replace the handler\n for (var i=0; i<config.formatters.length && config.formatters[i].name!="prettyLink"; i++);\n if (i<config.formatters.length) config.formatters[i].handler=function(w) {\n var lookaheadRegExp = new RegExp(this.lookahead,"mg");\n lookaheadRegExp.lastIndex = w.matchStart;\n var lookaheadMatch = lookaheadRegExp.exec(w.source)\n if(lookaheadMatch && lookaheadMatch.index == w.matchStart && lookaheadMatch[2])\n { // Simple bracketted link\n var link = createTiddlyLink(w.output,lookaheadMatch[1],false);\n w.outputText(link,w.nextMatch,w.nextMatch + lookaheadMatch[1].length);\n w.nextMatch += lookaheadMatch[1].length + 2;\n }\n else if(lookaheadMatch && lookaheadMatch.index == w.matchStart && lookaheadMatch[3])\n { // Pretty bracketted link\n var e;\n if(store.tiddlerExists(lookaheadMatch[4]) || store.isShadowTiddler(lookaheadMatch[4]))\n // ELS: ADDED\n if (config.macros.attach.isAttachment(lookaheadMatch[4]))\n {\n e = createExternalLink(w.output,lookaheadMatch[4]);\n e.href=config.macros.attach.getAttachment(lookaheadMatch[4]);\n e.title = config.macros.attach.linkTooltip + lookaheadMatch[4];\n }\n else\n // ELS: END\n e = createTiddlyLink(w.output,lookaheadMatch[4],false);\n else\n e = createExternalLink(w.output,lookaheadMatch[4]);\n w.outputText(e,w.nextMatch,w.nextMatch + lookaheadMatch[1].length);\n w.nextMatch = lookaheadMatch.index + lookaheadMatch[0].length;\n }\n }\n this.initialized=true;\n}\n//}}}\n//{{{\nconfig.macros.attach.init_formatters(); // load time init\n//}}}\n//{{{\nif (TiddlyWiki.prototype.coreGetRecursiveTiddlerText==undefined) {\n TiddlyWiki.prototype.coreGetRecursiveTiddlerText = TiddlyWiki.prototype.getRecursiveTiddlerText;\n TiddlyWiki.prototype.getRecursiveTiddlerText = function(title,defaultText,depth) {\n return config.macros.attach.isAttachment(title)?\n config.macros.attach.getAttachment(title):this.coreGetRecursiveTiddlerText(title,defaultText,depth);\n }\n}\n//}}}

test store.php\nhttp://www.tiddlytools.com/store.php\n<<<\n--%BOUNDARY%\nContent-disposition: form-data;name="UploadPlugin";\n\nbackupDir=;user=;password=;uploaddir=upload;\n--%BOUNDARY%\nContent-disposition: form-data;name="userfile";filename="%TARGET%"\nContent-Type: %TYPE%\nContent-Length: %SIZE%\n\n%DATA%\n--%BOUNDARY%--\n<<<\n----\npublish for public web access\nhttp://www.tiddlytools.com/response.txt\n<<<\n?file=%TARGET%&data=%DATA%\n<<<\n----\npublish for password-protected web access\nhttp://www.tiddlytools.com/response.txt\n<<<\n?file=%TARGET%&data=%DATA%\n<<<\n----\nsend to WebTPS report server (encrypted)\nhttps://www.WebTPS.com/reports/upload.asp\n<<<\n?workgroup=Y2K&key=3141592653589&file=%TARGET%\n<<<\n----\nsend to my Flickr account\nhttp://www.flickr.com/\n<<<\n\n<<<

By John Thomson\n \n John Thomson tells us about a new method of keeping track of stock....\n\n At the present time RFID tags are too expensive to be introduced into most Supermarkets. It would double the price of smaller items. And the size of RFID tags would not fit on many not as big supermarket items. But in a library situation where books' range in price from $10 to $100, the cost of RFID tags is only a fraction of the total price of the book. And books have large flat areas where RFID tags can be easily pasted or hidden between pages.\n\n When RFID tags are placed on books, CD's, video and other items it would mean library staff would not have to manually check items in and out of the library. Staff would also be able to find any books that were stacked out of order simply by passing a handheld RFID reader past each shelf. And RFID tags could be used to store the serial numbers of books so RFID readers could work out their title and author and automatically record changes to their status on the library database.\n\n Most Libraries at the present use barcode readers to check out books (each book needs to be scanned). And books also need to be manually scanned back into the library computer system when they are returned.\n But RFID readers could be built into books return boxes to automatically check books back into the library. And RFID readers could also make the checkout much easier. It could be as simple as picking up a book and walking out of the library door and when you return the book walking back into the library. Basically the reader and the RFID tags do all the work. Obviously you would need your new library card with its built in RFID tag in your pocket.\n\n Another benefit would be the ability of handheld readers to wirelessly locate books and automatically detected any books that were out of sequence on shelves. Libraries presently do self-checks, which involves staff going along and looking at every single book to make sure it's in order. When books get out of order users and library staff is unable to find that book.\n I personally have been in a situation where the WCC library computer system told me the book was somewhere in the library but obviously not in its correct shelf location. Requesting the book was my only option. Using an RFID handheld scanner library staff would walk along a rack and anything out of order would beep.\n\n As stated in my previous article, (last month) RFID tags can also be used to replace security tags that trigger an alarm system if someone tries walking out the library exit door before checking out the book.\n Club Members, who read NZ ~InfoTech, may have noticed the article by Tom ~Pullar-Strecker. "Library Tenders for RFID." (Section C, The Dominion Post, Monday, May 3rd, page 11)\n The article stated "Manukau Libraries expects to decide within the next few weeks whether to debut RFID technology in a new library being built in Botany in South Auckland. I understand Manukau Libraries has now gone to tender for RFID Tags and Readers and in negotiations with several suppliers.\n\n The new Botany library due to open at the end of this year will be a local community branch, housing about 60,000 books. Manukau Libraries owns one million books, videos and CD's in total and make about 3.5 million loans each year. If RFID prove it's worth it is possible the technology would be introduced in their other libraries next year. Several other large libraries in New Zealand (including Wellington City Libraries and Victoria University Library) are looking to install RFID technology.\n\n In this week's NZ ~InfoTech, (Monday, May 10th) there was a further RFID article, which stated Gillette had already started shipping pallets with attached RFID tags to ~Wal-Mart. Initially Gillette is attaching an RFID tag to each pallet it sends to Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer. Later, it will tag each case within a pallet. And eventually Gillette will tag each item it sells, but will only become an economic option for most small product lines once the price of RFID tags come down to one or two cents. At an IT seminar I attended last week and at the EAN conference in Auckland on RFID technology, organised by International Standards body, Manukau's library plans provided a talking point.\n\n John Thomson Gella@paradise.net.nz\n\n //RFID (radio frequency identification) tags are a cheap mass-produced microchip with an antenna that automatically sends information about the tagged item whenever they come within range of a wireless RFID reader. Tags effectively sleep when there is no wireless activity, but wake up automatically when another RFID comes within range. The cost of RFID tags is expected to come down over the next few years, as the technology becomes more popular and manufacturing costs lower. See my article in April Mega Byte for further RFID information.//\n\n

Type the text for 'New Tiddler'

To open all articles for August 1999, click on "August 1999" to the right and select "open all".

To open all articles for August 2004, click on "August 2004" to the right and select "open all".\nEdition No: 190

To open all articles for August 2005, click on "August 2005" to the right and select "open all".\nEdition No: 201

<<tabs contents\n"Editor's Comment" "Editors Comment" "Editors Comments August 1991"\n"4DOS" "4DOS" "4DOS" \n"Committee Report" "Committee Meeting July 1991" "Committee Meeting July 1991" \n"Tips" "Tips August 1991" "Tips August 1991"\n"Jumble Manor" "Jumble Manor August 1991" "Jumble Manor August 1991" \n"Cloning the FAT" "Cloning the FAT" "Cloning the FAT" \n"Puzzle No 1" "Puzzle No 1" "Puzzle No 1" \n>>

/***\n''Auto Tagger Plugin for TiddlyWiki version 1.2.x and 2.0''\n^^author: Eric Shulman - ELS Design Studios\nsource: http://www.TiddlyTools.com/#AutoTaggerPlugin\nlicense: [[Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License|http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/]]^^\n\nAutomatically tag tiddlers with their original creation date and author and optionally scan the tiddler content for any tags that are embedded as text. Makes cross-referencing your tiddlers a snap!\n\n!!!!!Usage\n<<<\nWhen ~AutoTagger is present, it automatically ''generates 'creation date' and 'creator' tag values'' for all newly created tiddlers, so that this information is retained even after a tiddler has been updated many times. In addition, if you enter ''//auto//'' as a tiddler tag value, ~AutoTagger ''scans the tiddler content'' (including title) for all existing tags, and ''automatically adds any embedded tags that it finds''.\n\nAfter they have been added to the tiddler, the new tags are treated just as if you had entered them by hand and can be edited to make any changes you want. Of course, as long as the "auto" tag is still present on a tiddler, ~AutoTagger will re-scan that tiddler's content each time it is edited. If you DO edit the generated tags, you can remove the "auto" tag from the tiddler to prevent it from being re-scanned when you press 'done' to finish editing.\n\n//Note: the special-purpose ''"systemConfig" and "systemTiddler" tags are not added automatically, even if matched in the tiddler content'', since these tags should be added manually to ensure they are always used appropriately)//\n\n//Note: if you have set the "auto" tag on a tiddler, and then add several tags to your document, those tags will ''not'' be automatically added to the tiddler until you actually edit that tiddler and press 'done' to trigger an AutoTagger scan.//\n<<<\n!!!!!Configuration\n<<<\nThe ~AutoTagger plugin comes with a ''self-contained control panel''. Use these controls to enable or disable automatic 'creation date' or 'creator' tagging, modify the default date formatting, or redefine the special 'scan trigger' tag value (so you can use "auto" as a normal tag value in your document).\n\n<<option chkAutoTagAuthor>> add 'created by' tag //(when a tiddler is first created)//\n<<option chkAutoTagDate>> add 'creation date' tag, using date format: <<option txtAutoTagFormat>>\n<<option chkAutoTagEditor>> add 'edited by' tag //(when a tiddler is updated)//\nscan tiddler content for new tags when tagged with: <<option txtAutoTagTrigger>>\n----\n//date formatting syntax://\n^^//''DDD'' - day of week in full (eg, "Monday"), ''DD'' - day of month, ''0DD'' - adds leading zero//^^\n^^//''MMM'' - month in full (eg, "July"), ''MM'' - month number, ''0MM'' - adds leading zero//^^\n^^//''YYYY'' - full year, ''YY'' - two digit year//^^\n<<<\n!!!!!Installation\n<<<\nimport (or copy/paste) the following tiddlers into your document:\n''AutoTaggerPlugin'' (tagged with <<tag systemConfig>>)\n<<<\n!!!!!Revision History\n<<<\n''2005.10.09 [1.3.0]''\nAdded 'edited by' tagging\nCombined documentation and code into a single tiddler\n''2005.08.16 [1.2.0]''\nAdded optional scanning for tags in tiddler content (based on suggestion from Jacques Turbé)\n''2005.08.15 [1.1.0]''\nAdded 'created by' tag generation (based on suggestion from Elise Springer)\nRenamed from DateTag to AutoTagger\n''2005.08.15 [1.0.0]''\nInitial Release\n<<<\n!!!!!Credits\n<<<\nThis feature was developed by EricShulman from [[ELS Design Studios|http:/www.elsdesign.com]].\n<<<\n!!!!!Code\n***/\n// // 1.2.x compatibility\n//{{{\nif (!window.story) window.story=window;\nif (!store.getTiddler) store.getTiddler=function(title){return store.tiddlers[title]}\nif (!store.addTiddler) store.addTiddler=function(tiddler){store.tiddlers[tiddler.title]=tiddler}\nif (!store.deleteTiddler) store.deleteTiddler=function(title){delete store.tiddlers[title]}\n//}}}\n\n//{{{\nversion.extensions.autoTagger = {major: 1, minor: 3, revision: 0, date: new Date(2005,10,9)};\n\nif (config.options.chkAutoTagDate==undefined)\n config.options.chkAutoTagDate=false;\nif (config.options.chkAutoTagEditor==undefined)\n config.options.chkAutoTagEditor=false;\nif (config.options.chkAutoTagAuthor==undefined)\n config.options.chkAutoTagAuthor=false;\nif (config.options.txtAutoTagTrigger==undefined)\n config.options.txtAutoTagTrigger="auto";\nif (config.options.txtAutoTagFormat==undefined)\n config.options.txtAutoTagFormat="YYYY.0MM.0DD";\n\n// hijack store.saveTiddler()\nstore.coreSaveTiddler = store.saveTiddler;\nstore.saveTiddler = function(title,newTitle,newBody,modifier,modified,tags)\n{\n // get the tags as passed from the tiddler editor\n var newTags = [];\n if (tags) newTags = (typeof tags == "string") ? tags.readBracketedList() : tags;\n\n // if saving a new tiddler, add 'creation date' tag\n if (config.options.chkAutoTagDate && (store.getTiddler(title)==undefined))\n newTags.pushUnique(new Date().formatString(config.options.txtAutoTagFormat));\n // if saving a new tiddler, add 'created by' tag\n if (config.options.chkAutoTagAuthor && (store.getTiddler(title)==undefined))\n newTags.pushUnique(config.options.txtUserName);\n // if saving an existing tiddler, add 'edited by' tag\n if (config.options.chkAutoTagEditor && (store.getTiddler(title)))\n newTags.pushUnique(config.options.txtUserName);\n\n // if tagged for scanning, find tags embedded in text of tiddler title/body\n var allTags = store.getTags();\n if ((config.options.txtAutoTagTrigger!="") && (newTags.find(config.options.txtAutoTagTrigger)!=null))\n for (var t=0; t<allTags.length; t++)\n {\n // note: don't automatically tag a tiddler with 'systemConfig' or 'systemTiddler'\n if ((allTags[t][0]=='systemConfig') || (allTags[t][0]=='systemTiddler'))\n continue;\n if ((newBody.indexOf(allTags[t][0])!=-1) || (newTitle.indexOf(allTags[t][0])!=-1))\n newTags.pushUnique(allTags[t][0]);\n }\n\n // pass it all on to the core TW to be saved in the data store.\n return store.coreSaveTiddler(title,newTitle,newBody,modifier,modified,newTags);\n}\n//}}}

At the November club meeting, a distribution was made to members of a CD containing Knoppix, a trial version of Linux that can be run directly from the CD. To get started with Knoppix, it is necessary to change the advanced BIOS settings in your computer to boot from ~CD-ROM before booting from your hard disk, and then to restart your computer.\n\n This was one of the rare occasions where I needed to alter a setting in my computer's BIOS. I realised my knowledge in this area was quite limited and therefore decided to take a closer look. Arthur Harris in his recent article (Megabyte Dec. 2002, p.8) explains that BIOS is a set of programs which control the PC hardware (e.g. disk drives, keyboard, visual display) and is stored in a memory chip on the motherboard. BIOS stands for Basic ~Input-Output System.\n\n BIOS is in fact a series of instructions that remind your computer that it has a processor, memory and hard disk, and tells it to load this information into the memory so that Windows can start. It is a specially designed chip which stores all the necessary information to get your computer going.\n \nWhen your computer starts, the first screen to appear will invite you, usually with a line at the bottom of the screen, to enter Setup by pressing a key - usually either Delete or F1. If you do so, you are enabled to check the settings behind the scenes, and make some changes if you want to. Here are some things you might like to try:\n\n# When the BIOS screen opens, use the up and down arrow keys on your keyboard to move to different lines of information on the screen. Use the right and left arrow keys to move between the menus displayed (often Main or Standard, Advanced, Security and Exit). If you want to know more about a particular item displayed on the screen, select it and then press F1. Usually some help information is made available, but if the computer beeps it means there is no information on the item highlighted. To remove the help information, press the ESC key.\n# The BIOS screen is useful in a number of situations. For example, under the Main/Standard section there are date, time and language sections that can be changed. In the Advanced menu is Boot Options; click on this and press Enter. Another screen will appear where you can specify if the Num Lock on your keyboard is switched on or off when the computer starts. If Off is selected use the arrow keys to move to this option, then press Enter to change it to On. Press ESC to return to the main BIOS screen.\n#You can set up a password from within the BIOS, which will require the correct password to be used before Windows will open. To do this, go to the Security section of the BIOS and highlight Enter Password, then press the Enter key. A box will appear asking you to enter a password twice. When you have done this some additional options will be displayed.\n#Changing your start-up sequence may (in theory, anyway) help save on power bills. Enter your BIOS set-up and select Boot Options as described above, then use the arrow key to move down to First Boot Device. This is the sequence in which your computer will look for the drive containing Windows. Most ~PCs check the floppy drive first, and this can easily be changed so it goes straight to the hard disk. To change the order in which your PC checks its drives, select a device and press the + or - key to raise or lower it in the order, then select the next device and do the same.\n#Recent model computers can shut down components when they're not needed, and go into 'standby'. Even if you have an older model there are options. Press the Tab key to move to the Power Management screen. Power management support will be highlighted - press the + or - key to enable it. Now when you choose Shut Down from the Start menu in Windows, your computer will switch off without the power button. Press the down arrow on your keyboard to move to Inactivity Timer. You can turn off standby, or pick times from a minute to two hours.\n#Press the down arrow key until you get to Hard Drive - enabling this will power down your hard disk in standby mode. Move down to Power Button Behaviour. You can choose whether the power switch behaves as an on/off switch, or puts the computer into standby. Either way, pressing the power switch and holding it in for a few seconds will turn the computer off. Depending on the age of your own computer you may find some variations to what is described here.\n#The final thing you need to do is save your settings, and leave the BIOS. Do this by pressing the ESC key. If you are happy with the changes you have made, press Y to confirm, then press Enter.\n#We should always remember in making changes to the BIOS settings that there is a risk of a computer being made inoperable, so make a note of any changes you make. If problems occur when starting your computer after making some changes, try reversing the changes made. If this does not work, you may be able to resolve them by loading the setup defaults. Look for instructions on the screen on how to do this. In some systems, simply pressing F5 does the trick. //- John Little//

\nIntroduction \nPrinters have come a long way, from attachments to typewriter keyboards to colour lasers capable of printing most kind of graphics characters on many different mediums. They are an essential add-on to a computer and with their increased sophistication even the beginner can produce documents which look as if they have been professionally produced. A modern printer often will have a more sophisticated microprocessor inside it than the computer it is attached to. \n\nPrinters connect to the computer either by the Parallel port output ~LPT1: ~LPT2: etc (sometimes known as the Centronics connection) or the serial port ~COM1: ~COM2: etc. Parallel ports have the advantage of having eight data lines simultaneously carrying a signal which makes for a much faster data transfer. Where as a serial port has to arrange the data into order and send each byte of data in sequence. Serial ports do have the advantage whereby the connecting lead can be much longer. (Typically up to 50m). \n\nThere are four levels of printer sophistication. \n\n1.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Basic printer which will print out characters but have no ability to modify the characters by software.. Typical of this is the daisywheel or golf ball printer which is one step up from the typewriter.\n \n2.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Printers which have a range of inbuilt fonts and stroke weights (bold etc). Selection of which is from the printer control panel or software control. If additional fonts are required it is necessary to plug in a cartridge or circuit board. Early dot matrix printers are typical.\n \n3.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Graphics printers which come with inbuilt fonts but are really intended for full software control where the attached computer sends signals 'drawing' the characters. This is the normal dot matrix, inkjet, or laser printer that we know today.\n \n4.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Postscript printers which have the facility of 3 and will accept input using the postscript language. This is outside the scope of this article.\n \nAll printers will accept basic ASCII and print out in their 'basic' inbuilt font. However all printers need to respond to more than the basic ASCII alphabetical characters. Even in the simplest printer there is a need to advance the paper at the end of a line or to leave a blank line between paragraphs. This is where the printer control characters come in.\n \nPrinter Control Characters \n\nThe ASCII character set contains 32 characters which were designed to control the early line printers, they did things like indicate the end of the text, ring a bell, do a line feed, do a form feed etc many of which are not relevant to modern printers but still need to be retained for backwards compatibility. \n\nSome ASCII control characters still in use are: \n| ''Abbrev.'' | ''Name'' | ''HEX'' | ''Decimal '' |\n| LF | Line Feed | 0A | 10 |\n| CR | Carriage Return | 0D | 13 |\n| BEL | Ring Bell | 07 | 7 |\n| ESC | Escape | 1B | 27 |\n| FF | Form Feed | 0C | 12 |\nWhen ASCII was invented (decided on) modern printers did not exist. It was never envisaged that printers would do more than print text - no one anticipated the need for graphics, colour etc., To retain compatibility it was decided that the Escape key would be used as a signal to the printer that the next characters, what ever they are, are instructions to the printer and should not be printed. This is the mode that most printers work in these days with the computer sending it a sequence of 'Escape' codes, directly controlling the printer. \n\nPrinting from Windows \n\nWindows has what are known as 'Printer Drivers'. These are interpreters which translate the text or graphic shown on the screen to the particular sequence of Escape codes for your printer. This is why if you print to a laser printer using the driver from a dot matrix printer you will get garbage (if anything). Fortunately there is some compatibility between printer drivers of the same kind of printer (dot matrix, laser, inkjet) so you may get away using another manufacturers printer driver but the chances are that you will not be able to use all your printers facilities. Here is an extract from the printer manual of my HP Deskjet 550C:\n| ''Printer Feature'' |&nbsp; ''Printer command'' &nbsp;| ''Decimal Equivalent'' | ''Hex. Equivalent'' |\n|>|>|>|''Stroke Weight*'' |\n|&nbsp;&nbsp;Bold |&nbsp;&nbsp;E~~c~~(s3B |&nbsp;&nbsp;027 040 115 051 066 |&nbsp;&nbsp;1B 28 73 33 42 |\n|&nbsp;&nbsp;Normal |&nbsp;&nbsp;E~~c~~(s0B |&nbsp;&nbsp;027 040 115 048 066 |&nbsp;&nbsp;1B 28 73 30 42 |\n|&nbsp;&nbsp;Extra bold (optional) |&nbsp;&nbsp;E~~c~~(s7B |&nbsp;&nbsp;027 040 115 055 066 |&nbsp;&nbsp;1B 28 73 37 42 |\n|>|>|>|''Typeface*'' |\n|&nbsp;&nbsp;Courier |&nbsp;&nbsp;E~~c~~(s3T |&nbsp;&nbsp;027 040 115 051 084 |&nbsp;&nbsp;1B 28 73 33 54 |\n|&nbsp;&nbsp;CG Times |&nbsp;&nbsp;E~~c~~(s4101T |&nbsp;&nbsp;027 040 115 052 049 048 049 084&nbsp;&nbsp; |&nbsp;&nbsp;1B 28 73 34 31 30 31 54&nbsp;&nbsp; |\n|&nbsp;&nbsp;Letter Gothic |&nbsp;&nbsp;E~~c~~(s6T |&nbsp;&nbsp;027 040 115 054 084 |&nbsp;&nbsp;1B 28 73 36 54 |\n|&nbsp;&nbsp;Univers |&nbsp;&nbsp;E~~c~~(s52T |&nbsp;&nbsp;027 040 115 053 050 084 |&nbsp;&nbsp;1B 28 73 35 32 54 |\n|&nbsp;&nbsp;Pica (optional) |&nbsp;&nbsp;E~~c~~(s1T |&nbsp;&nbsp;027 040 115 049 084 |&nbsp;&nbsp;1B 28 73 31 54 |\n|&nbsp;&nbsp;Line Printer (optional)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; |&nbsp;&nbsp;E~~c~~(s0T |&nbsp;&nbsp;027 040 115 048 084 |&nbsp;&nbsp;1B 28 73 30 54 |\nWhat this tells me that if I want to print in Bold I need to send Escape, Brackets on, lower case s, the number 3 and upper case B. Which, if you consult last month's ASCII table, equates to 27 40 115 51 66 in decimal and 1B 28 73 33 42 in hex. \n\nOf course I normally don't need to think about this, all I do is tell Word to print in bold and my pc will automatically send the above sequence of characters to my printer, when I want to go back to normal characters my pc sends the appropriate sequence. \n\nConclusion \n\nWhat does all this tell you? First you know now that if your printer prints garbage you probably have got the wrong printer driver loaded. Second it often pays to check through your printer manual to see just what characters it is capable of printing. For instance my dot matrix printer will print an extremely small font which is not normally permitted by Windows. \n\n

//Are there bad Electrolytic Capacitors in your Computer Motherboard – or Monitor? How what started out as a simple memory upgrade turned out to be much more serious.//\n– A somewhat disturbing article by John Marchington.\n\nSome weeks ago, I purchased fractal software that was highly reliant on processor operation – not just the clock speed, but how fast it could do floating point calculations. When I became disappointed with the performance of my system in that regard, I decided it was time to look at a possible upgrade. \n\nA trip down to Quay Computers in Lower Hutt to discuss the matter with Kelvin Frame seemed like the best way to start. I had already contemplated three possibilities: a faster or different sort of CPU, more physical memory or – perhaps – more video RAM. Kelvin ruled out the latter immediately as having little bearing on the outcome, then informed me that some time previously he had replaced his 3GHz P4 with a 3.2GHz processor – and gained nothing in speed! He is of the opinion that Intel is close to reaching a ‘brick wall’ with its designs and will need to radically alter its philosophy if it is to progress much further. It seems that Moore’s Law no longer holds!\n\n He felt that more memory was the only viable alternative, so I bought another 1GB module and took it home to install. I then reran two programs that I had run earlier to test my system – and found that there was virtually no increase in speed. I was obviously very disappointed in the result. As the day passed, I began to notice more error messages than usual: general protection faults starting appearing with some regularity and Zone Alarm in the taskbar would close without warning. That had never happened before. When, on the following morning, Windows XP only half booted up before rebooting, I realised I was faced with a real problem.\n\nAfter being informed that my system had recovered from a serious error, I was asked whether I wanted to submit a report in the usual way. I was immediately advised that it was possibly a memory problem – how extraordinary – and that I should download its memory diagnostic software to check that out. I decide to take its advice but, amazingly perhaps, the tests produced no errors whatsoever. However, as the problems persisted, I felt it was time for some professional advice.\n\nI took the machine down to Quay Computers and, after blowing the case out to get rid of dust build-up, Kelvin starting another, quite different memory test and told me that a full check would not be completed that day and for me to ring him the following morning. When I phoned him, he informed me that the test had failed and that he was going to try a different type of memory module to see if that solved the problem. I rang him again in the afternoon – and that was when he dropped the bombshell!\n\n Whilst carrying out the test on the alternative module, he had looked quite closely at the motherboard and had noticed something that he thought I should be made aware of. When I arrived, he pointed to a number of electrolytic capacitors and I could see quite clearly that the tops were swollen and in one or two instances, the electrolyte had actually begun to seep out. That prompted him to relate a story. According to Kelvin, a disgruntled employee of a capacitor manufacturer had felt he had been unfairly dismissed and had decided to seek revenge by stealing design specifications and formulae for certain capacitor types – mainly electrolytics, it seems. He then went to work for a competitor and handed over the papers. Unfortunately they were either incomplete, had been altered or the second manufacturer did not follow the manufacturing instructions closely enough, for the result was that millions of faulty capacitors were made. When I asked Kelvin whether that was the reason for the state of the motherboard, be could only say that it was obviously a possibility.\n\nI had bought the system in early February 2003 and it was virtually state-of-the-art then!\n\nHe mentioned that the board might stay that way for years – after all, neither of us had any idea how long it had been in that condition anyway. I was obviously a little less happy – after all, it was my board and I would have to bear the consequemces if matters got considerably worse – so I decided it was time to look at a replacement.\n\n[Place photo in here. Bad-caps2.jpg]\n\nThe above photo gives an excellent indication of the general condition of the board. The four capacitors on the left all have their tops swollen, with the very left one showing definite signs of seepage, while the right one actually displays a slight suggestion of it when a colour photo is examined. In black and white this slightly visible tinge will probably go unnoticed. In contrast, the three electrolytics on the far right all seem to be OK. However, it might simply be that any internal damage has not progressed to the stage that results in case expansion.\n\nMy thanks to George Braithwaite for this quite excellent photograph, taken at the hardware SIG on 1 October.\n\nWhilst visiting another website, where I happened to mention the problem, I was informed about a site with the URL of http://www.badcaps.net and decided to visit it. The writer there has a slightly different story about the cause of the problem from the one Kelvin Frame told me but in essence it’s very similar. It seems that it began in 1999 and that many motherboard manufacturers are involved, supporting both Intel P4 and AMD Athlon chips. I could not find any mention of my Soltek board on his list of motherboards and I can only assume that the list is incomplete. Sadly, the writer also mentions that motherboards aren’t the only computer items affected. Monitors are involved as well and I suppose almost any sort of plug-in card imaginable could be included too.\n\nThe person behind the badcaps website is currently offering sets of high quality capacitors for some of the boards he lists and, if one lives in the US, he will even replace them on your board. The cost seems quite reasonable when one considers what it might amount to if one has to replace everything else as well.\nObviously, I don’t wish to alarm NZPCA members unduly, but it was certainly a concern for me and I ended up spending rather more than I initially intended on a new system.\n\nI have now decided to present the board, CPU, video and network cards to the hardware SIG and the latest news is that Arthur Harris and I spent some time on Sunday 9 October up at Washington Avenue successfully removing all 1000µF, 6.3 volt capacitors from the board. If all goes well, we should end up with a very fast computer that can be used as the host for the network we are establishing.\n\n

By John Thomson\n\n A Computer Club member questioned me via e-mail as he thought the price was inside the Barcode.\n As I stated in my April article the UPC stands for "Universal Product Code". They originally were created to help supermarkets speed up the checkout process and obviously to keep better control of inventory, but the system was so good it spread to other retail products.\n\n Manufacturers apply to the Uniform Code Council for permission to enter the UPC system. They pay an annual fee for the privilege and in return are issued with the manufacturer six-digit manufacturer identification number and provided with instructions how to use it. It is a standard 12-digit UPC code, like you see at bottom of any barcode.\n\n There is an UPC symbol (barcode) printed on nearly every item that you purchase from most retail shops. It has two parts.\n \n* * The machine-readable bar code.\n* * The human-readable 12-digit or 13-digit UPC number.\n\n The first number in Australia and New Zealand will generally be 9. The manufacturer's identification is the first six digits of the UPC number. Watties number is 400547. Arnotts Crackers number is 310072. And New Zealand Coke ~Coca-Cola number is 400559. (Which will be a different number than USA Coke number, which is 49000). The next set of numbers is the item number. A stock controller employed by the manufacturer is responsible for assigning item numbers to products, making sure the same code is not used on more than one product. Every item the manufacturer sells, as well as every size package and every repackaging of the item, needs a different item code. So a 330ml beer can of Draught beer needs a different item number than a 500ml bottle of Draught beer, as does a 6-pack of 330ml beer cans, a 12-can pack, a 24-can pack, and so on. The stock controller must keep all the different numbers for every item of stock, and delete retiring codes as products are removed from the product line etc. Note: - some product items which are produced as part of a 6, 12 or 24 pack may not have a barcode, as they are only sold in 6, 12, or 24 packs not as single items. The 6-pack has the barcode, but the items inside do not.\n\n A check digit is also added. This lets the scanner determine if it scanned the number correctly or not. I have tried working it out, but I think most of us would need Don's mathematical skills. Each time the scanner scans an item, it uses the check digit and calculates a result. If the result it calculates is different from the check digit it reads, the scanner knows that something went wrong and the item needs to be rescanned.\n\n ''How is the price Determined?''\n By now you have probably work it out, there is no price information encoded in the bar code. When the scanner at the checkout line scans a product, the cash register sends the UPC code number to the main computer to look up the UPC number. The main computer sends back the actual price of the item at that moment. By doing it this way, it allows the store to change the price whenever it wants to reflect price changes or daily specials. If the price were encoded in the bar code, prices could never be changed. Not encoding a fixed price gives ~Pack-N-Save, New World, Woolworth and ~CountDown an easy way to change the price, but mistakes do happen and customers can easily get rip off when a stock controller makes an error.\n The barcode numbering system is a bit more complicated than I'm suggesting here. In the USA big manufacturers have ~IDs with lots of zeros in them. As I said before USA Coke ~Coca-Cola manufacturer ID number is 049000. But if you look at a can of US Coke, you will find the UPC code is much shorter, only eight digits in total. These short bar codes are ~Zero-Suppressed-Numbers. The basic idea is to leave out a set of four digits, all zeros. The main reason for having ~zero-suppressed-numbers is to create smaller bar codes for very small product packages.\n\n There are others tricks that item controllers can do. For example if a company has 3000 items it wants to sell at a special price the stock controller can create a completely new item code. Ie 27163 the first three digits (271) is the family code (item number). The next two-digit (63) are a value code (price). The final digit is the normal check digit. The family code and value code is set up arbitrarily by the UPC controller for the manufacturer. The manufacturer sends the retailer the data that tells the retailer's computer exactly which products are reduced in price. When the product is scanned by the barcode reader, it realises this product is on special. Sometimes the value code is also a special store code. Try purchasing one of these specials in Auckland (at the reduced price) and returning it to a Wellington store to get the full price back. The store knows immediately the product was not purchased in that particular store.\n\n Readers who can read between the lines will realise item codes can also be used as a basic security check. A high percentage of product theft occurs before items get to shelves. Petty theft only accounts for less than 5%.\n\n ''Want to decode the bars?''\n If you would like to decode the actual numbers in the barcode and map them to numbers it can be done. You may end up cross-eyed.\n The barcode is made up of black bars and white spaces between the bars. Assume that the thinnest bar or space that you can see will be "one unit wide." The bars and spaces can therefore be seen to have proportional widths of one, two, three, or four units. If you look at any bar code you can see examples of these four widths. The start of most barcodes is generally "1-1-1." Starting at the left.\n\n Following the start code, the digits are encoded like this.\n{{{\n 0 = 3-2-1-1\n 1 = 2-2-2-1\n 2 = 2-1-2-2\n 3 = 1-4-1-1\n 4 = 1-1-3-2\n 5 = 1-2-3-1\n 6 = 1-1-1-4\n 7 = 1-3-1-2\n 8 = 1-2-1-3\n 9 = 3-1-1-2\n}}}\n Note all these encoded numbers seem to add up top 7. Don't loose too much sleep trying to work it out.\n\n John Thomson\n Gella@paradise.net.nz

//By John Little//\n\n '' Introduction:''\n\n Many of us use search tools for searching the web, but trying to find precisely what we are looking for can be quite a frustrating task. Search engines are popular for locating web pages, but they often return thousands of results. There are now so many search engines that it is difficult to know which one to choose. I have assembled some information and guidelines from a variety of sources, which may help in making the choice and achieving optimum results.\n \n Because some search engines are said to have logged words from over 2 billion documents within web pages, results can be overwhelming. A clear search strategy, using carefully structured search terms is therefore vital to reduce the number of irrelevant results you receive.\n\n'' Preparing your Search:''\n\n First, you should identify the main concepts in your topic and consider the terms or keywords you will use. Secondly, make a choice from the various search tools available on the internet. For example, search engines (e.g. ~AltaVista,), or subject directories (e.g. Yahoo). The search engines themselves can vary greatly in size, accuracy, features and flexibility. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses. A subject directory differs from a search engine and is like a catalogue of collected sites and can be thought of as rather like the "Yellow Pages". You can progress from general topic headings through levels to increasingly specific topics, then to even more specific subtopics.\n\n'' Search Engines:''\n\n These work in a variety of ways and functions and are updated regularly, so read any help files or tips you read on the screen. Usually, you are presented with a search box where you type your keywords which are then run against a database or index that has been created by the search engine. It is a good idea to try a few search engines until you find some which seem to return good results and are easy to use, then save them as Bookmarks or Favourites for future use.\n\n Search engines typically do not filter sites they index; they will retrieve a great variety of sites, some of which you will find totally irrelevant to your information needs. It is also inevitable that you will come across some misinformation, out-of-date sites, or sites that are no longer in existence. Refining your search, as outlined below, should assist in reducing the number of these irrelevancies.\n\n'' Web Directories:''\n\n The best known and largest web subject directory is Yahoo (http://www.yahoo.com). Yahoo uses a vast team of people to compile the directory from entries suggested by site owners. They consider this gives their directory more chance of being correct. Google (http://www.google.com or www.google.co.nz) is very popular and won the Best Practices Award "Webby" in 2001. It is also very fast in use. ~LookSmart http://www.looksmart.com) is another major directory for locating popular sites.\n\n ''New Zealand Searches:''\n\n If you're looking for sites within New Zealand, there are several excellent search engines such as ~SearchNOW and ~SearchNZ. (http://www.searchnow.co.nz and www.searchnz.co.nz). It should be noted though, that some search engines disguise themselves as local when they are not, often because their New Zealand databases are integrated with their main ones. For example, "local" search engines ~XtraMSN and ~LookSmart.com both search New Zealand databases first, placing local listings at the top followed by worldwide results. ~AltaVista works rather differently, allowing people to limit queries to New Zealand by clicking a button that focuses on their New Zealand database first; this helps to make results more relevant to this country.\n \nA number of international search sites have developed searchable New Zealand directory databases, including Google, Lycos, Yahoo and Dmoz. Generally though, we can expect fewer results from directory-based searches compared with using the true search engines.\n\n ''Commercialisation:''\n\n It has been noticeable over the past year or so that many search engines are effectively selling placements to advertisers. This means your searches may not necessarily produce the objective, relevant results you would like. Some sites clearly label their paid links but others do not. There is a view that this trend to sponsored listings will not change, and that in the future few, if any, sites will be completely commercial-free.\n\n ''Refining your Search:''\n\n Many search engines make it easy to refine your search to target the pages you want to find more exactly. Here are some basic tips:\n##Type most search words in lower case. Use singular terms, not plural. Type proper names with a single capital, such as Elvis. Don�t type any words in all capital letters.\n##If two or more words should appear together, put quotes around them, as in "Elvis Presley"\n##Use AND or AND NOT to indicate words that must appear or must not appear, such as Elvis AND Costello NOT Presley if you are looking for the more modern Elvis not the classic one.\n##Most search engines accept the plus (+) and minus (-) signs as shorthand substitutes for AND and AND NOT, for example "Elvis+~Costello-Presley"\n##An asterisk (*) can be used to perform wildcard searches for words sharing the same "stem". For example, the search "surg*" will find matches for words such as surgery, surgeries, surgical.\n\n ''Specialised Searches:''\n\n Some searches, e.g. for audio, video, or picture materials online is best done through a more specialised service than a regular search engine. ~AltaVista with its "video clips", "image" and "audio" search tabs will help you narrow down your results. You can refine even further by choosing a specific format. To round out an audio search, you can get lyrics from http://www.lyricfind.com.\n \nWhen it comes to finding current news items, or things that only a librarian can help you with, why not try your own "personal librarian" at http://www.libraryspot.com; you can get answers to many questions that may not have a website devoted to them, or browse the daily newspapers around the world. For a lot more about specialised searches, take a look at http://www.searchability.com which is an excellent resource on this subject.\n\n ''More Information:''\n\n The world wide web itself offers many detailed articles on the subject of web searching, including comparisons of the usefulness of the varied search tools available. Try doing a search for "web searching guide" or similar on any search engine and you may be surprised at the results you achieve!\n \nWhether you use a directory, or a search engine, really comes down to personal choice and finding what works for you. You will find the right tool for the job, it just takes time and experience. Good luck with your searches.\n

While some people realise that the Internet was not invented by Microsoft and Bill Gates, many people don't realise just how much of it predates modern technology. For example, this image is of a Belkin 8-port Router, from 1901, and it dates from the early days of the Internet. We do tend to take miniaturisation for granted!\n\nTo see more images like the one above and learn more, visit the Institute of Internet History at http://dogme.burningman.com/~jeremymb/ioih/index.html for an interesting introduction to the early days of the Internet, and learn where many of the terms currently used originated.

//Contributed by Clarry Webber.//\n\n "Well, Bill," says God, "I'm really confused on this one. I'm not sure whether to send you to Heaven or Hell. After all, you enormously helped society by putting a computer in almost every home in the world, and yet you created that ghastly Windows. I'm going to do something I've never done before. I'm going to let you decide where you want to go."\n\n Bill replies, "Well thanks, God. What's the difference between the two?"\n\n God says, "You take a peek at both places briefly it will help you decide.\n\n Shall we look at Hell first?"\n\n "Sure," says Bill, "Let's go!"\n\n Bill is amazed! He sees a clean, white sandy beach with clear waters. There are thousands of beautiful men and women running around, playing in the water, laughing and frolicking about. The sun is shining and the temperature perfect.\n\n "This is great!" Bill says. "If this is Hell, I can't wait to see heaven."\n\n God replies "Let's go!", and so off they go to Heaven. Bill sees puffy white clouds in a beautiful blue sky with angels drifting about playing harps and singing. It's nice, but surely not as enticing as Hell.\n\n Bill thinks for only a moment and renders his decision.\n\n "God, I do believe I would like to go to Hell."\n\n "As you desire," God says.\n\n Two weeks later, God decides to check up on the late billionaire. He finds Bill Gates shackled to a wall, screaming amongst the hot flames in a dark cave, being burned and tortured by demons.\n\n "How ya doin', Bill?" asks God.\n\n Bill responds with anguish and despair. "This is awful! This is not what I expected at all! What happened to the beach and the beautiful women playing in the water?"\n\n "Oh THAT!" says God. "That was the Screen saver."

\n# People who point at their wrist while asking for the time....I know where my watch is pal, where's yours? Do I point at my crotch when I ask where the toilet is?\n# People who are willing to get off their arse to search the entire room for the TV remote because they refuse to walk to the TV and change the channel manually.\n# When people say "Oh you just want to have your cake and eat it too". You're right! What good is a cake if you can't eat it?\n# When people say "it's always the last place you look". Of course it is. Why would you keep looking after you've found it? Do people do this? Who and where are they?\n# When people say while watching a film "did you see that?". No I paid 10 quid to come to the cinema and stare at the floor.\n# People who ask "Can I ask you a question?. Didn't really give me a choice there, did you sunshine?\n# When something is 'new and improved!'. Which is it? If it's new, then there has never been anything before it. If it's an improvement, then there must have been something before it.\n# When people say "life is short". What?? Life is the longest damn thing anyone ever does!! What can you do that's longer?\n# When you are waiting for the bus and someone asks, "Has the bus come yet?. If the bus came would I be standing here, idiot?\n# People who say things like 'My eyes aren't what they used to be'. So what did they used to be? ears, Wellington boots?\n# When you're eating something and someone asks 'Is that nice?' No it's really revolting - I always eat stuff I hate.\n# People who announce they are going to the toilet. Thanks that's an image I really didn't need.\n# ~McDonalds staff who pretend they don't understand you if you don't insert the 'Mc' before the item you are ordering..... It has to be a ~McChicken Burger, just a Chicken Burger gets blank looks. Well I'll have a ~McStraw and jam it in your ~McEyes you ~McTosser.\n

\n*Love is grand; divorce is a hundred grand.\n*I am in shape. Round is a shape.\n*Time may be a great healer, but it's a lousy beautician.\n*Never be afraid to try something new. Remember, amateurs built the ark, professionals built the Titanic.\n*Conscience is what hurts when everything else feels so good.\n*Talk is cheap because supply exceeds demand.\n*Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.\n*Politicians and diapers have one thing in common. They should both be changed regularly and for the same reason.\n*An optimist thinks that this is the best possible world. A pessimist fears that this is true.\n*There will always be death and taxes; however, death doesn't get worse every year.\n*In just two days, tomorrow will be yesterday.\n*Dijon vu -- the same mustard as before.\n*I am a nutritional overachiever.\n*I plan on living forever. So far, so good.\n*Practice safe eating -- always use condiments.\n*A day without sunshine is like night.\n*If marriage were outlawed, only outlaws would have in-laws.\n*It's frustrating when you know all the answers, but nobody bothers to ask you the questions.\n*The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right time, but also to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.\n*Brain cells come and brain cells go, but fat cells live forever.\n*Age doesn't always bring wisdom. Sometimes age comes alone.\n*Life not only begins at forty, it also begins to show.\n*You don't stop laughing because you grow old, you grow old because you stopped laughing.\n\n// Thanks to John Little for this contribution//\n

Club members who have read and understood my Bluetooth article (March 2003 issue) will realise by now that Bluetooth is a cable replacement technology.\n\n Look at your computer. You have a keyboard connected to your computer, as well as a mouse, monitor, printer and probably many other devices. What literally joins them all together? Cables. All of us have experienced problems trying to figure out what cable goes where. I can not count the number of times I have crawled behind a computer to find out where to plug in a cable? I must point out that it has become a lot easier now we have USB. Bluetooth essentially aims to fix this problem; it’s a cable replacement technology. Bluetooth will revolutionise the personal connectivity market by providing “free from wires” systems. Here at last is a cure to that frustrating problem of the mouse wire getting tangled up with other items on my desk.\n\n Before Bluetooth, computers, palm computers and mobile phones all communicated wirelessly using infra red light, similar to our television remote controls. Infrared is very slow and devices need to be in sight of each other with a maximum distance part of 30 cm. Using radio to send and receive the information Bluetooth devices can share data even if the phone is in the glove box or tucked away out of sight, provided they are within range. And Bluetooth works at ten times the speed of infrared. Bluetooth was developed as a low cost way of allowing computers, mobile phones, ~PDAs and accessories to communicate with each other. When Bluetooth wireless technology connects devices to each other they become “paired.” Over the years since 1994 lots of other wireless ideas have been put forward via the Special Interest Group think tank.\n\n A demonstration was conducted in the US with a freight train. Each container on the train was equipped with a Bluetooth enabled device (tag), which contained information about the contents of the freight. When the freight train drove into the destination freight yard, a Bluetooth enabled master computer read the info on each of the containers. Don’t forget that Bluetooth only works within a 10-metre Pan area (also called a Piconet). This main computer exchanged information/data only with each Bluetooth enabled device while it was within the Piconet area.\n\n Some may argue that there are better ways to manage freight. I agree - put a coded number on each container and when the container gets to its final destination you can access information via a network. But technology today is all about finding better ways of doing things.\n\n Most people here in Australasia probably do not appreciate that freight trains in the US are much larger than here in New Zealand. I have seen trains with 40 ft containers (called boxes in the USA) and open type containers even larger stacked one on top of another leaving the freight yards in LA. These large trains (with five or more very powerful diesel locos) then travel up the steep valley (West of LA) to the High Desert area, before heading east to Las Vegas and beyond. Most of these trains are three times the size and weight of similar freight trains here in New Zealand. Even the US railway gauge is wider. So it’s extremely difficult to keep track of all the thousand-plus containers on route to their final destination. The reason for the demo was to prove that a Bluetooth system could be used to monitor freight arrival and progress as it went past Bluetooth terminals on route. It was described in a technical journal as a possible “new delivery tracking system.” In today’s world, any business needs to be efficient to keep up with the changing world. Tracking freight containers is only one possible use for Bluetooth enabled devices or tags.\n\n Another idea put forward was for a Bluetooth enabled refrigerator that communicated with your Bluetooth enabled Laptop or PC. It informed you when your food supplies were running low. Someone wrote an article proving it was technically possible. Not sure how the frig understood what was in the refrigerator. Maybe it had a bar code reader, which reordered food going in and out. Readers are now very cheap. Anyway the frig informed the Bluetooth enabled computer that food supplies were getting low which then informed the supermarket via the Internet. Can you imagine going to ~Pack-n-Save and picking up your ~Shop-N-Go scanner which then informed you to buy milk, frozen peas, steak or whatever? Or maybe ~Pack-n-Save just delivers it. Coke Cola drink machines basically do this now. A base computer dials up (at night) all the Coke machines and they advise whether they need restocking with cans. It uses a propriety system, not Bluetooth. Obviously each machine needs a connection to a standard telephone line. Or in the case where a machine is remotely placed, a base type cell phone installed.\n\n On the more practical note, another application for Bluetooth is distance and location information. Up until now technology to achieve this has been propriety, stand-a-lone and very expensive. ~BlueSoft, a company developing Bluetooth technology, has overcome significant technology hurdles to provide a more cost-effective solution. By integrating positioning technology with standard wireless data platforms, ~BlueSoft makes position applications easier to implement at a very low price. These positioning modules provide full Bluetooth functionality, which enables accurate (1 metre) distance measurements between two Bluetooth modules.\n\n How can this positioning technology be used? ~BlueSoft already has several applications for the technology. They have a system for authenticating doctors and nurses in hospitals, which automatically logs them into the hospital computer networks based on distance from the PC. This solution reduces the risk and potential liability of unauthorised people inadvertently reading patient data when doctors or nurses leave workstations unattended. Move away from the PC and the user is logged off while at the same time freeing the doctor or nurse of the need to constantly re-enter their password. Move into the computer Piconet area and the user is automatically re-logged on as Dr Smith or whoever.\n\n Other applications (for this positioning equipment) include automatic safety controls for workers working near large industrial robots. The robot stops when someone enters the working area. A more secure keyless entry system for vehicles, presently used where a licensed operator is the only person allowed to drive a specialist piece of equipment, (ie. large digger or road machine). Locating missing Bluetooth enabled equipment, such as ~PDAs or laptops. Presently this is the only solution that can locate generic ~WiFi devices without loading any additional software, and used to locate expensive equipment, which has a Bluetooth tag attached. This is great for large public installations where equipment can easily get moved or misplaced in another area, or keeping track of technical staff entering or leaving secure areas.\n\n Automatic tracking for luggage in airports for security. Thus reducing the cost of searching for missing luggage. Or the need at container terminals, or railway freight yards, searching for containers.\n \nA Bluetooth enabled cell phone with positioning technology has already been used to track a drug shipment through several countries.\n\n The possibilities are endless. Obviously some of these ideas are very practical, whereas others are not so feasible. The potential applications for Bluetooth enabled devices are really exciting. But Bluetooth is only part of the much wider movement towards wireless systems for personal computers, laptops, notebooks, ~PDAs, cell phones and other equipment.\n \n//- John Thomson. Gella@paradise.net.nz //

''From the web.''\n\n ''Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?''\n\n //One student's answer to this University of Washington chemistry test question was so "profound" that the professor shared it with colleagues via the Internet. Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools off when it expands and heats up when it is compressed) or something similar.//\n\n ''One student, however, wrote the following:''\n\n First, we need to know how the mass of Hell changes in time. So we need to know the rate that souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving it. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving.\n \nAs for how many souls enter Hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Some of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there are more than one of these religions and since people do not normally belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell.\n\n With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.\n\n This gives two possibilities:\n#If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.\n#Of course, if Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.\n\n So which is it?\n \nIf we accept the postulate given to me by Ms Teresa Banyan during my freshman year,"... that it will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you", and take into account the fact that I still have not succeeded in having sexual relations with her, then, #2 above cannot be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and will not freeze.\n\n He received an "A".

Patricia Clark\n\n''BOOKLOVERS AHOY''\nIf there are any book-lovers out there, you might be interested in the site www.abebooks.com. This site has a search engine for out-of-print and rare books.\nWhile recently surfing the Net I found the name of a book whose author is well known to me. But the book was published in 1974 and was out of print. A quick browse through Internet bookshops did not turn it up, but I was given the URL above.\nThe search in abebooks gave me four second hand copies worldwide, one of which was held in a bookshop in Melbourne. I emailed the shop owner, fixed a price and the book was in my hands within a week.\nThe whole procedure took only about twenty minutes online. Imagine how long it would take to track down an out-of-print book by any other means.\n\nAwesome!!\nSince then I have found that books on Windows Millenium (Windows Me) are already available secondhand and can be found through abebooks.com.\nPatricia Clark\n

!!!!Browse by Topic or by Author\n+++[Select Topic|Click to display list of topics]\n\n----\n\n<<tag "humour">> <<tag "internet">> <<tag "President's Report">> <<tag "photography">> <<tag "windows">>\n\n----\n\n=== +++[Select Author|Click to view list of authors]\n\n----\n\n<<tag "[[Roger Currier]]''>> <<tag "[[Richard Elam]]''>> <<tag "[[John Little]]''>> <<tag "[[Arthur Harris]]''>> <<tag "[[john marchington]]''>> <<tag "[[[[Robin Hinde]]]]''>>\n\n----\n\n===\n!!!!Browse by Year\n+++[2006|Click to view Megabyte issues by month, click again to close]>\n|>|>|>|bgcolor(grey): !Megabyte issues for 2006 |\n||<<tag "February 2006">>|<<tag "March 2006">>|<<tag "April 2006">>|\n|<<tag "May 2006">>|<<tag "June 2006">>|<<tag "July 2006">>|<<tag "August 2006">>|\n|<<tag "September 2006">>|<<tag "October 2006">>|<<tag "November 2006">>|<<tag "December 2006">>|\n===\n+++[2005|Click to view Megabyte issues by month, click again to close]>\n|>|>|>|bgcolor(grey): !Megabyte issues for 2005 |\n||<<tag "February 2005">>|<<tag "March 2005">>|<<tag "April 2005">>|\n|<<tag "May 2005">>|<<tag "June 2005">>|<<tag "July 2005">>|<<tag "August 2005">>|\n|<<tag "September 2005">>|<<tag "October 2005">>|<<tag "November 2005">>|<<tag "December 2005">>|\n===\n+++[2004|Click to view Megabyte issues by month, click again to close]>\n|>|>|>|bgcolor(grey): !Megabyte issues for 2004 |\n||<<tag "February 2004">>|<<tag "March 2004">>|<<tag "April 2004">>|\n|<<tag "May 2004">>|<<tag "June 2004">>|<<tag "July 2004">>|<<tag "August 2004">>|\n|<<tag "September 2004">>|<<tag "October 2004">>|<<tag "November 2004">>|<<tag "December 2004">>|\n===\n+++[2003|Click to view Megabyte issues by month, click again to close]>\n|>|>|>|bgcolor(grey): !Megabyte issues for 2003 |\n||<<tag "February 2003">>|<<tag "March 2003">>|<<tag "April 2003">>|\n|<<tag "May 2003">>|<<tag "June 2003">>|<<tag "July 2003">>|<<tag "August 2003">>|\n|<<tag "September 2003">>|<<tag "October 2003">>|<<tag "November 2003">>|<<tag "December 2003">>|\n===\n+++[2002|Click to view Megabyte issues by month, click again to close]>\n|>|>|>|bgcolor(grey): !Megabyte issues for 2002 |\n||<<tag "February 2002">>|<<tag "March 2002">>|<<tag "April 2002">>|\n|<<tag "May 2002">>|<<tag "June 2002">>|<<tag "July 2002">>|<<tag "August 2002">>|\n|<<tag "September 2002">>|<<tag "October 2002">>|<<tag "November 2002">>|<<tag "December 2002">>|\n===\n+++[2001|Click to view Megabyte issues by month, click again to close]>\n|>|>|>|bgcolor(grey): !Megabyte issues for 2001 |\n||<<tag "February 2001">>|<<tag "March 2001">>|<<tag "April 2001">>|\n|<<tag "May 2001">>|<<tag "June 2001">>|<<tag "July 2001">>|<<tag "August 2001">>|\n|<<tag "September 2001">>|<<tag "October 2001">>|<<tag "November 2001">>|<<tag "December 2001">>|\n===\n+++[2000|Click to view Megabyte issues by month, click again to close]>\n|>|>|>|bgcolor(grey): !Megabyte issues for 2000 |\n||<<tag "February 2000">>|<<tag "March 2000">>|<<tag "April 2000">>|\n|<<tag "May 2000">>|<<tag "June 2000">>|<<tag "July 2000">>|<<tag "August 2000">>|\n|<<tag "September 2000">>|<<tag "October 2000">>|<<tag "November 2000">>|<<tag "December 2000">>|\n===\n+++[1999|Click to view Megabyte issues by month, click again to close]>\n|>|>|>|bgcolor(grey): !Megabyte issues for 1999 |\n||<<tag "February 1999">>|<<tag "March 1999">>|<<tag "April 1999">>|\n|<<tag "May 1999">>|<<tag "June 1999">>|<<tag "July 1999">>|<<tag "August 1999">>|\n|<<tag "September 1999">>|<<tag "October 1999">>|<<tag "November 1999">>|<<tag "December 1999">>|\n===\n+++[1998|Click to view Megabyte issues by month, click again to close]>\n|>|>|>|bgcolor(grey): !Megabyte issues for 1998 |\n||<<tag "February 1998">>|<<tag "March 1998">>|<<tag "April 1998">>|\n|<<tag "May 1998">>|<<tag "June 1998">>|<<tag "July 1998">>|<<tag "August 1998">>|\n|<<tag "September 1998">>|<<tag "October 1998">>|<<tag "November 1998">>|<<tag "December 1998">>|\n===\n==

''INTRODUCTION''\nThe first thing to consider when building the perfect PC is what is the PC going to be used for. A gaming machine will be configured differently from a content creation workstation, and an Internet browser will differ from a CAD station. With what you want to do with the machine in mind, most core components will not change and a user can easily build a reliable fast machine while saving money.\n\n''TO OVERCLOCK OR NOT TO OVERCLOCK''\nLet's be honest, unless you are a speed freak and having the fastest machine possible is something you desperately need, then a major over clock is not worth the chance of failure. With the arrival of the faster celerons, over clocking has become less attractive then it once was. With a focus on reliability, and stability, this review will only recommend hardware that has stood the test of time and has excellent quality control. While over clocking used to be a great way to get a cheap 450 ~MHz machine, today the lower yields of the 300a and the presence of a celeron 433 make the gamble a moot point. This article will focus on a non-over clocked system that should meet the needs of most PC users.\n\n''MOTHERBOARD EQUALS SOUL; CPU EQUALS BRAIN''\nForget about the brain for now, we all know that personality defines a person, and the soul is the place personalities are born. The motherboard is by far the most important piece of hardware in your computer. Sub standard motherboards are responsible for the majority of hardware-related hangs, crashes, glitches, and problems. When you hand pick the components for your computer, make sure you pick a quality motherboard. The listed boards below have proven to be superior and reliable examples of mother boards.\n\n~AOpen BX Based ATX Motherboards \nAsus BX Based ATX Motherboards \n~SuperMicro BX Based ATX Motherboards \nIntel BX Based ATX Motherboards \nIf you need to save some money, look elsewhere. Motherboard prices on the Internet fluctuate very little among Intel 440BX based models. When looking at the above models, expect a US$20 difference between the lowest priced ~SuperMicro ~P6SBA and the prices Asus ~P2B. If the models stray too much from US$120, look around for a better dealer. Picking the right CPU is really the easiest choice you have to make. If you are in dire need of somewhere to save money right now, here is your place. The budget minded consumers should look at the Intel 366 Celeron processor. This processor comes with the expandability of a mild 75mhz over clock easily in reach and is readily available for well under US$100. Those with a little more to spend who are looking for more performance should look at the Intel Celeron 400 and 433 processors. These processors are also 75mhz friendly and will give you an awesome price/performance ratio. These processors are available for US$130 - US$200. For those of you who absolutely must have the fastest thing on the planet, the Intel Pentium III is where you should turn. While the 450mhz PIII is an attractive buy, most people considering building a PIII will probably want to opt for the 500mhz bad-boy. These processors give you the added benefit of Intel's SSE instructions that promise to be exploited in future software packages. If this is the route you choose, make sure your motherboard supports the 5X multiplier, as do all the previously mentioned boards. The Pentium III Processor ranges in cost from US$450for the 450 to US$650 for the 500. \n\n''CHIPSETS 101''\nThe reason only Intel 440BX based motherboards are mentioned is because of compatibility purposes. While the Intel 440LX chipset is fine for most celeron-based systems, those of you wanting a celeron 400 today may want a PIII 500 tomorrow. The BX chipset allows for this future expandability without adding much, if anything to the price. You may have noticed how other chipset manufacturers and motherboard types were avoided in the above list. This was done in the name of compatibility and stability. It has been shown that with regards to AGP performance and compatibility, super 7 based solutions have yet to encroach on the slot one/socket370 standard. As for other slot1/socket370 chipsets, avoid most of them. The Via Apollo Pro, while a good design, still has some stability problems that can be attributed solely to the chipset. There are some other BX clones out there that claim BX compatibility, DO NOT buy motherboards based on these chipsets. Simply because something is cheaper, does not mean it is a better buy.\n\n''THE BIG PICTURE: DISPLAY CHIPSETS''\nPicking the right display chipset is all a matter of timing. With the TNT edging in below US$100 the situation right now is pretty much a no-brainer. The problem you begin to run into is when you look toward the future and at specific needs. With the Riva ~TNT2, 3DFX Voodoo3, 3Dlabs Permedia3, Matrox G400, and the new Power VR chipsets on the horizon, the question of when to buy is where the dilemma comes in. Surely if you are buying the parts now, a TNT or some lower end chipset will suffice until the new cards hit the market, but is that a wise move? To ensure greatest compatibility with past, current, and future games you have to support Glide, ~OpenGL via ICD, and ~Direct3D. As of now no single card supports all three standards well. The 3DFX Voodoo2 and Banshee based cards all support the 3 standards, but lack a full ICD. The lack of an ICD may be unimportant to hardcore gamers, but to a designer or CAD guru, a good ICD is an absolute necessity. While 3DFX promises a future ICD, another problem that lies in their current chipsets is image quality. At high resolutions the Banshee exhibits a shaky, almost blurry image when compared to cards like the Matrox G200. TNT based cards are also not quite up to par with the G200 based cards. The problems with the Matrox card are poor 3D performance and a lack of an ICD. So if you are a Designer who likes to play games, the catch 22 is, you trade image quality for performance, or you trade performance for image quality, so either way you suffer. If your work is primarily 2D design you can buy a G200 and get a voodoo2 and not suffer from this dilemma. If your work is 3D modelling, get a TNT and deal with the image quality problem. For 3D content creation the TNT is the best card for the money right now.\n\n''IDE RATHER NOT SPEND THE MONEY ON SCSI''\nThe debate of SCSI over IDE made sense in the past, recent developments in the IDE community have dispersed with most of IDE's shortcomings. With the advent of Western Digital's new 18 GB Expert drive and Maxtor's ~DiamondMax Plus series, IDE has overtaken SCSI in speed. The CPU utilization issue was remedied when ~UDMA33 drives hit the scene. With ~UDMA33 IDE drives exhibit ultra low CPU utilization under high stress loads that used to be the domain of SCSI. For the purpose of this review, the benefits of SCSI in RAID use will not be discussed because most end-users are not that anal about data security and the speed of the new IDE drives is easily fast enough for most users. \nThese advancements plus the lower cost of IDE make the decision to buy IDE easy. When choosing an IDE drive the most important thing to look for is the maker's reputation. For instance: Is the manufacturer laying off employees? Are they making money? How long is their warrantee? What terms do they give for returns? When you return a drive, will they take three months to get you a new one? Don't be afraid to check the company's financial records. Call them up. Ask questions about their warrantee. You can even call them up requesting an RMA and see what kinds of hassle you have to be put through to get one. With those criteria in mind look closely at Maxtor and Western Digital drives. These companies are solid and stand behind their products. Maxtor has an amazing no-quibble warrantee where you call them, get the RMA number, and when they receive you drive they send you a new drive. If the wait is too long, you can even secure the new drive via credit card and they waive the charge when they receive the old drive.\n

David Benfell,\nSysop of Stargate BBS\n\n What are they? What can they be used for? This article is intended to lend an insight to this huge communications arena we know today as Bulletin Board Systems (BBS).\n\n ''Where did it all begin?''\n\n Every type of Bulletin Board System (BBS) traces its roots back to a single snowy day in Chicago in 1978 when Ward Christensen got the idea to put his computer club's cork bulletin board online. Dennis Hayes had just developed a reasonably priced modem card for S-100 bus computers (the Hayes Smartmodem was still in Dennis's future) and Ward had just invented XMODEM protocol to store data from his computer that summer. So the scene was set for the "next step" -- a BBS. However, if Ward had been able to shovel the snow off his driveway and go to work as he planned, it may never have happened. What he and Randy Seuss began on that snowy day has evolved into online systems which couldn't have been dreamed of then.\n\n We are now at a watershed time in the evolution of BBS technology. This technology is about to become the next big computer application area. From that beginning in 1978 until today, this on-line community has risen to a whopping 32,000+ systems worldwide offering a unique and often intriguing range of services not before seen or heard of in any other field which most Sysops (an acronym for System Operator) and users alike refer to as a "hobby".\n\n '' How to connect to a BBS''\n\n To log on to a Bulletin Board, you need a modem, a communications program, and a cable to connect your PC to the modem. Just about every type of PC can be used - you can even connect if you're using a terminal on a mainframe. If you have an Amiga, Commodore 64, Macintosh, or MS-DOS computer, there are bulletin boards catering especially for you. Some boards cater for more than one type of computer.\n\n You also have to have a telephone jackpoint near your PC, preferably one of the newer BT jacks. Connect the modem to the telephone and the PC, start up the communications program and away you go.\n\n Modems come in all shapes and sizes ranging in speed from 300 bps (bits per second) to the latest technology of 14,400 bps. 300 baud (as bps is often incorrectly termed) is generally now regarded as museum pieces. This is the type of modem available for $100 back in 1978 but these days, the 2400 baud modem is usually a standard speed that everyone should at least consider a minimum. If you used a 300 baud modem, you would understand why they are so outdated. They are extremely slow. You could understand that a 360k file may take 22 minutes at 2400 baud but would take 8 times longer being 176 minutes (or approx 3 hours) at 300 baud. A 14,400 baud modem (my personal favourite as I own one of these) could zap a 360k file down the phone line in 4 minutes.\n\n I won't delve into the technicalities of modems at this stage. That can be reserved for an article all by itself.\n\n Once you load up your communications program, you need to tell the software what communications port your modem is connected to. This is usually COM1 but internal card modem can usually support up to 4 COM ports. Your modem manual should tell you what COM port your modem is set to as default and how to change it. You then tell the program what format to use to send your data. For transmissions within New Zealand, you select 8 data bits, no parity, one stop bits. Most communications software would come with these settings as standard.\n\n Once you've set up your modem and communications software, you can then attempt to dial a bulletin board. Once you've logged onto at least one, you should be able to obtain a listing of other bulletin boards in your local vicinity. See the number at the end of this article for my bulletin board where you can obtain the latest BBS listings.\n\n ''What services are available?''\n\n For first time users, Bulletin Boards can be overwhelming and overflowing with information. It can take several logons to become reasonably familiar with the Bulletin Board and what services are available.\n\n Most services that can be found on a Bulletin Board come under 3 main categories - Messages, Files and Online Programs.\n\n* ''Messages -'' A messaging system on a BBS is a feature where you can write messages addressed to a single user or group of users which they will read the next time they logon to the system. They then have the option of replying to the original message. The messaging system is usually broken down into topics. These topics cater for a wide variety of interests ranging from discussions on "how to get the most out of DOS" to "banking discussions". On many bulletin boards, there are now messaging sections available that are "echoed" (transferred) with other bulletin boards nationally and even internationally whereby messages can be addressed to users in another city or on the other side of the world. There are also "Offline Mail Reading Programs" which allow the user to read and reply to messages without being constantly connected to the BBS. This sort of messaging system requires much less online time allowing other users access to the BBS.\n\n*'' Files -'' Shareware and public domain files are freely available on BBS's for downloading (transmission down the phone line). The files system is similarly arranged to messaging systems. Files are grouped into categories ranging from "communications utilities/programs" to "games". File transfers take up a large proportion of a user's time spent online. Files are also transferred internationally.\n\n*'' Online Programs -'' Commonly termed "Doors", these are programs run on the host computer which require commands to be executed by the user. The types of doors available range from file manipulation utilities to games. Door Games can also take up much of a user's time online.\n\n ''From a Sysop's Perspective''\n\n It requires much dedication, time and money to run a BBS successfully. As the Sysop of one of Wellington's largest and most used bulletin boards, I know from personal experience how much effort it takes to keep a bulletin board running, as well as keeping it interesting for the users\n .\n\n The bulk of my time is spent administrating the international messaging sections as well as maintaining an up to date filebase with the latest versions of popular shareware programs and utilities.\n\n ''Summary''\n\n On the whole, bulletin boards cater for a wide variety of tastes and provide a medium for creative interaction between users on a local or worldwide scale. It is a myth that BBS's are only available to the people with the most expensive computer systems. Anyone with a computer and modem can enjoy this "hobby".\n\n (Editor. These phone numbers may no longer be current)\n Stargate BBS \n Phone: Node 1: (04) 566-6728\n Node 2: (04) 566-2972 Speeds: 1200/2400 v42bis\n Speeds: 1200-14400 v32bis. /HST/v42bis\n Hours: 24 Hours, 7 days a week \n Features: 200 International Message areas including: ~ILink, ~ThrobNet, ~FidoNet and ~TasLink! 500 Megs on-line, Offline Message Reading, Assorted online programs.

What are they? What can they be used for? This article is intended to lend an insight to this huge communications arena we know today as Bulletin Board Systems (BBS).\n\n__''Where did it all begin?''__\nEvery type of Bulletin Board System (BBS) traces its roots back to a single snowy day in Chicago in 1978 when Ward Christensen got the idea to put his computer club's cork bulletin board online. Dennis Hayes had just developed a reasonably priced modem card for S-100 bus computers (the Hayes Smartmodem was still in Dennis's future) and Ward had just invented XMODEM protocol to store data from his computer that summer. So the scene was set for the "next step" -- a BBS. However, if Ward had been able to shovel the snow off his driveway and go to work as he planned, it may never have happened. What he and Randy Seuss began on that snowy day has evolved into online systems which couldn't have been dreamed of then.\n\nWe are now at a watershed time in the evolution of BBS technology. This technology is about to become the next big computer application area. From that beginning in 1978 until today, this on-line community has risen to a whopping 32,000+ systems worldwide offering a unique and often intriguing range of services not before seen or heard of in any other field which most Sysops (an acronym for System Operator) and users alike refer to as a "hobby".\n\n__''How to connect to a BBS''__\nTo log on to a Bulletin Board, you need a modem, a communications program, and a cable to connect your PC to the modem. Just about every type of PC can be used - you can even connect if you're using a terminal on a mainframe. If you have an Amiga, Commodore 64, Macintosh, or ~MS-DOS computer, there are bulletin boards catering especially for you. Some boards cater for more than one type of computer.\n\nYou also have to have a telephone jackpoint near your PC, preferably one of the newer BT jacks. Connect the modem to the telephone and the PC, start up the communications program and away you go. \n\nModems come in all shapes and sizes ranging in speed from 300 bps (bits per second) to the latest technology of 14,400 bps. 300 baud (as bps is often incorrectly termed) is generally now regarded as museum pieces. This is the type of modem available for $100 back in 1978 but these days, the 2400 baud modem is usually a standard speed that everyone should at least consider a minimum. If you used a 300 baud modem, you would understand why they are so outdated. They are extremely slow. You could understand that a 360k file may take 22 minutes at 2400 baud but would take 8 times longer being 176 minutes (or approx 3 hours) at 300 baud. A 14,400 baud modem (my personal favourite as I own one of these) could zap a 360k file down the phone line in 4 minutes.\n\nI won't delve into the technicalities of modems at this stage. That can be reserved for an article all by itself.\n\nOnce you load up your communications program, you need to tell the software what communications port your modem is connected to. This is usually COM1 but internal card modem can usually support up to 4 COM ports. Your modem manual should tell you what COM port your modem is set to as default and how to change it. You then tell the program what format to use to send your data. For transmissions within New Zealand, you select 8 data bits, no parity, one stop bits. Most communications software would come with these settings as standard.\n\nOnce you've set up your modem and communications software, you can then attempt to dial a bulletin board. Once you've logged onto at least one, you should be able to obtain a listing of other bulletin boards in your local vicinity. See the number at the end of this article for my bulletin board where you can obtain the latest BBS listings.\n\n__''What services are available?''__\nFor first time users, Bulletin Boards can be overwhelming and overflowing with information. It can take several logons to become reasonably familiar with the Bulletin Board and what services are available.\n\nMost services that can be found on a Bulletin Board come under 3 main categories - Messages, Files and Online Programs.\n\n''Messages -''\n A messaging system on a BBS is a feature where you can write messages addressed to a single user or group of users which they will read the next time they logon to the system. They then have the option of replying to the original message. The messaging system is usually broken down into topics. These topics cater for a wide variety of interests ranging from discussions on "how to get the most out of DOS" to "banking discussions". On many bulletin boards, there are now messaging sections available that are "echoed" (transferred) with other bulletin boards nationally and even internationally whereby messages can be addressed to users in another city or on the other side of the world. There are also "Offline Mail Reading Programs" which allow the user to read and reply to messages without being constantly connected to the BBS. \nThis sort of messaging system requires much less online time allowing other users access to the BBS.\n\n''Files -''\n Shareware and public domain files are freely available on BBS's for downloading (transmission down the phone line). The files system is similarly arranged to messaging systems. Files are grouped into categories ranging from "communications utilities/programs" to "games". File transfers take up a large proportion of a user's time spent online. Files are also transferred internationally.\n\n''Online Programs -''\n Commonly termed "Doors", these are programs run on the host computer which require commands to be executed by the user. \nThe types of doors available range from file manipulation utilities to games. Door Games can also take up much of a user's time online. \n\n\n__''From a Sysop's Perspective''__\nIt requires much dedication, time and money to run a BBS successfully. As the Sysop of one of Wellington's largest and most used bulletin boards, I know from personal experience how much effort it takes to keep a bulletin board running, as well as keeping it interesting for the users.\n\nThe bulk of my time is spent administrating the international messaging sections as well as maintaining an up to date filebase with the latest versions of popular shareware programs and utilities.\n\n__''Summary''__\nOn the whole, bulletin boards cater for a wide variety of tastes and provide a medium for creative interaction between users on a local or worldwide scale. It is a myth that BBS's are only available to the people with the most expensive computer systems. Anyone with a computer and modem can enjoy this "hobby".\n\n\n __''Stargate BBS''__ \n\n''Phone:'' Node 1: (04) 566-6728 Speeds: 1200/2400 v42bis\n Node 2: (04) 566-2972 Speeds: 1200-14400 v32bis \n /HST/v42bis \n\n''Hours:'' 24 Hours, 7 days a week\n\n''Features:'' 200 International Message areas including:\n ILink, ThrobNet, FidoNet and TasLink!\n\n 500 Megs on-line, Offline Message Reading, \n Assorted online programs. \n\n\nDavid Benfell,\nSysop of Stargate BBS

Supplied by Robin Hinde\n\n Internet Protocol (IP) is capable of working over any medium, at any speed - copper, fibre optic, laser, infrared, wireless etc. and when you are using the Internet you may be using all of these media without being aware of the fact.\n\n A recent posting in nz.comp pointed to the following amusing article at:\n\n http://www.tuxedo.org/jargon/html/The-Meaning-of-Hack.html, and the link to http://www.blug.linux.no/rfc1149/ has some photographs of the event.\n\n\n 1990's addition to the hallowed tradition of April Fool RFCs was RFC 1149, "A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers". This sketched a method for transmitting IP packets via carrier pigeons.\n\n Eleven years later, on 28 April 2001, the Bergen Linux User's Group successfully demonstrated CPIP (Carrier Pigeon IP) between two Linux machines running on opposite sides of a small mountain in Bergen, Norway. Their network stack used printers to hex-dump packets onto paper, pigeons to transport the paper, and OCR software to read the dumps at the other end and feed them to the receiving machine's network layer.\n\n Here is the actual log of the ping command they successfully executed. Note the exceptional packet times. Script started on Sat Apr 28 11:24:09 2001\n\n vegard@gyversalen:~$ /sbin/ifconfig tun0\n tun0 Link encap:Point-to-Point Protocol\n inet addr:10.0.3.2 P-t-P:10.0.3.1 Mask:255. 255.255.255\n RX packets:1 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0\n TX packets:2 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0\n RX bytes:88 (88.0 b) TX bytes:168 (168.0 b)\n\n vegard@gyversalen:~$ ping -i 450 10.0.3.1\n PING 10.0.3.1 (10.0.3.1): 56 data bytes\n 64 bytes from 10.0.3.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=255 time=6165731.1 ms.\n 64 bytes from 10.0.3.1: icmp_seq=4 ttl=255 time=3211900.8 ms.\n 64 bytes from 10.0.3.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=255 time=5124922.8 ms.\n 64 bytes from 10.0.3.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=255 time=6388671.9 ms.\n\n --- 10.0.3.1 ping statistics ---\n 9 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 55% packet loss round-trip min/avg/max = 3211900.8 /5222806.6/6388671.9 ms\n vegard@gyversalen:~$ exit\n\n Script done on Sat Apr 28 14:14:28 2001\n\n A web page documenting the event, with pictures, is at http://www.blug.linux.no/rfc1149/..\n In the finest Internet tradition, all software involved was open-source; the custom parts are available for download from the site.\n\n While all acknowledged the magnitude of this achievement, some debate ensued over whether BLUG's implementation was properly conformant to the RFC. It seems they had not used the duct tape specified in 1149 to attach messages to pigeon legs, but instead emnployed other methods less objectionable to the pigeons. The debate was properly resolved when it was pointed out that the duct-tape specification was not prefixed by a MUST, and was thus a recommendation rather than a requirement.\n\n The perpetrators finished their preliminary writeup in this wise: "Now, we're waiting for someone to write other implementations, so that we can do interoperability tests, and maybe we finally can get the RFC into the standards track... ".\n

Charlie Lear dealt deftly with caching in the last issue, and showed a liking for ~PC-Cache and Hyperdisk. So do many others, but there are a pile of messages coming in from the US on David Benfell's BBS where Dos5, Windows, and various caching programs do not get on together. All sorts of things are crashing, and there is much debate about cache size, buffers, Fastopen, Loadhi etc etc.\n\n Charlie commented that "Smartdrive stinks" but it seems that a lot of people in the US are finding the Smartdrive in Dos5 is reasonably fast, and moreover it does not crash. I find myself a bit uneasy when people comment that Prog X absolutely wiped the floor with Prog Z or something, and was interested in some real-world figures which someone presented.\n\n He had compared Smartdrive ( ex Dos5), Hyperdisk 4.21 with staged write disabled, and ~PC-Cache V7.01 with write/off so as to get a level field.. He ran a series of PC Mag benchmark tests with files large and small ( about 30,000 records total), and timed the performance of each cache. The results (same order as above) were 1244,1172 and 1325 seconds. The differences are small, and perhaps not stinky. As Charlie pointed out, things such as staged write on Hyperdisk are nice, and that prog does seem to co-exist with Dos 5 OK.\n\n There had also been a pile of US messages about how many buffers to use in Dos5, with comments that Microsoft seemed to be changing its mind about the right answer. There were lots of comments about numbers of buffers and cache size, with a few people saying that once they set buffers=40 everything ran faster. Others said that once they installed a decent size cache ( 2048 Kb) extra buffers made little difference. Another chaps ran lots of trials using some PC Benchmark facilities, first with 10 buffers and then with 40, all with ~PCTools 5.5 cache of 512Kb in a 386. The tasks were lots of file create, sequential write etc etc actions. After totalling up all the times, it emerged that the 40 buffer performance was about 7% better - hardly a significant real world matter. Maybe better to have a bigger cache.\n\n As various messages also pointed out, performance will vary from one setup to another and not everyone will agree on findings (except that post Dos5 all sorts of outfits are having to release updated versions....)\n\n Tony Fitchett

//With thanks to Africian Newspapers//\n\n // The following are actual news excerpts from the African press in South Africa, Swaziland, Kenya and Zimbabwe.//\n\n''The Cape Times (Cape Town)''\n "I have promised to keep his identity confidential,' said Jack Maxim, a spokeswoman for the Sandton Sun Hotel, Johannesburg, "but I can confirm that he is no longer in our employment". "We asked him to clean the lifts and he spent four days on the job. When I asked him why, he replied: 'Well, there are forty of them, two on each floor, and sometimes some of them aren't there'. Eventually, we realised that he thought each floor had a different lift, and he'd cleaned the same two twelve times. "We had to let him go. It seemed best all round. I understand he is now working for GE Lighting."\n\n''The Star (Johannesburg):''\n "The situation is absolutely under control," Transport Minister Ephraem Magagula told the Swaziland parliament in Mbabane. "Our nation's merchant navy is perfectly safe. We just don't know where it is, that's all." Replying to an MP's question, Minister Magagula admitted that the landlocked country had completely lost track of its only ship, the Swazimar: "We believe it is in a sea somewhere. At one time, we sent a team of men to look for it, but there was a problem with drink and they failed to find it, and so, technically, yes, we've lost it a bit. But I categorically reject all suggestions of incompetence on the part of this government. The Swazimar is a big ship painted in the sort of nice bright colours you can see at night. Mark my words, it will turn up. The right honourable gentleman opposite is a very naughty man, and he will laugh on the other side of his face when my ship comes in."\n\n''The Standard (Kenya):''\n "What is all the fuss about?" Weseka Sambu asked a hastily convened news conference at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. "A technical hitch like this could have happened anywhere in the world. You people are not patriots. You just want to cause trouble." Sambu, a spokesman for Kenya Airways, was speaking after the cancellation of a through flight from Kisumu, via Jomo Kenyatta, to Berlin: "The forty-two passengers had boarded the plane ready for take-off, when the pilot noticed one of the tyres was flat. Kenya Airways did not possess a spare tyre, and unfortunately the airport nitrogen canister was empty. A passenger suggested taking the tyre to a petrol station for inflation, but unluckily the jack had gone missing so we couldn't get the wheel off. Our engineers tried heroically to reinflate the tyre with a bicycle pump, but had no luck, and the pilot even blew into the valve with his mouth, but he passed out. "When I announced that the flight had to be abandoned, one of the passengers, Mr Mutu, suddenly struck me about the face with a life-jacket whistle and said we were a national disgrace. I told him he was being ridiculous, and that there was to be another flight in a fortnight. And, in the meantime, he would be able to enjoy the scenery around Kisumu, albeit at his own expense."\n\n''From a Zimbabwean newspaper:''\n While transporting mental patients from Harare to Bulawayo, the bus driver stopped at a roadside shebeen (beerhall) for a few beers. When he got back to his vehicle, he found it empty, with the 20 patients nowhere to be seen. Realising the trouble he was in if the truth were uncovered, he halted his bus at the next bus stop and offered lifts to those in the queue. Letting 20 people board, he then shut the doors and drove straight to the Bulawayo mental hospital, where he hastily handed over his 'charges', warning the nurses that they were particularly excitable. Staff removed the furious passengers; it was three days later that suspicions were roused by the consistency of stories from the 20. As for the real patients: nothing more has been heard of them and they have apparently blended comfortably back into Zimbabwean society.\n

An atmosphere close to panic prevails today throughout Europe as the millenial year 1000 approaches, bringing with it the so-called "~Y1K Bug". The entire fabric of Western Civilisation, based as it now is upon monastic computations, could collapse, and there is simply not enough time left to fix the problem. \n\nJust how did this disaster-in-the-making ever arise? Why did no-one anticipate that a change from a three-digit to a four-digit year would throw into total disarray all liturgical chants and all metrical verse in which any date is mentioned? \n\nEvery formulaic hymn, prayer, ceremony and incantation dealing with dated events will have to be rewritten to accommodate three extra syllables. All tabular chronologies with three-space year columns, maintained for generations by scribes using carefully hand-ruled lines on vellum sheet will now have to be converted to four-space columns at enormous cost. \n\nStonemasons are already reported threatening to demand a proportional pay increase for having to carve an extra numeral in all dates on tombstones, cornerstones and monuments. Monks are also confused about how to reset their sundials to allow for the date change. Many families, in expectation of the worst, are stocking up on holy water and indulgences.\n

// Our own John Thomson tell a story about cell phone phobia//\n\n I have a good friend who is absolutely paranoid about radiation from cell phone towers. Paranoid is probably not the right word. Whenever I go out with him (in his car) you can guarantee he takes a route to avoid all the towers dotted around Wellington, Lower Hutt, Upper Hutt and Porirua. He knows where they are all located.\n\n Recently on our way back from Lower Hutt, I thought I would have him on. As we past the last exit to avoid the Terrace Tunnel, I told him not to go through the tunnel, as he may get zapped. There is nothing in the tunnel he claimed. I remained silent with a questioning look on my face. He knew something was up. As we approached the end of the tunnel, I pointed out the road sign at the southern end. See the fork shaped thing coming out of the top of the sign. Two rods pointing skywards. What is it he asked slowing up to see what I was pointing too. There's a large wire coming out of the base, he claimed. What the hell is it! A micro-cell, I said. What he said! With a look of absolute horror on his face, I'm not driving through here again. Well then, I said, you better not go up Molesworth Street. Drive through lower or upper Victoria Street, Featherston Street, Courtney Place, Manner Street and The Mall (not that you can drive thru the Mall). Lambton Quay and go near Parliament, for starters, I told him.\n\n Lets step back for a minute. When cell phones (mobiles) were first introduced many years ago the cells were quite large. A cell is the coverage area, or the area where you can use your cell phone. Obviously if you're outside of the coverage area your mobile phone will not work. Sometimes there are areas within the cell (coverage area) where your phone will not also work. These areas are called dead spots. This can happen because hills, buildings and steel structures. Or it may happen because the signal is reflected, or can't penetrate through buildings.\n\n I'm sure most people can remember the first cell phones that appeared on the market in the 80's. They were large with a very large heavy battery attached. Some users called them a "brick". But as electronics and circuitry became smaller and more compacted, so did the phones. Because they now needed less power (to run the electronics) the battery size was reduced. Plus developments took place with greater storage capacity batteries.\n\n Over the years, cell phones have progressively become smaller and smaller. But if the signal output from the main cell was reduced it just created additional dead spots. To fix these problem areas mini cells were added to the coverage area. This solved most of the problem areas, and allowed the power output from the main cell to be reduced. But there still existed a few trouble spots. So micro-cells were added to fix these areas. The picture on the preceding page shows a typical micro-cell (similar to the one at the south end of the tunnel).\n Micro-cell site\n\n Obviously if you are using a cell phone and you are in the coverage area of a micro cell, and the signal strength from another over lapping larger cell is stronger, your cell phone automatically switches to the cell, with the strongest signal.\n\n This explanation is very simplified, (someone is sure to pick holes in it) but hopefully it gives you the general idea of how lots of smaller cells, which overlap one another can add reliable coverage to a large area, such as Wellington. Your mobile phone automatically changes between cells, as you drive through a built up area. So you are always using the signal from the strongest source. Generally you are not even aware the phone is switching between different cells.\n\n If you have understood this explanation you'll realise cell phones are probably a lot safer today than they were when they first appeared on the market. Even so I still don't hold my cell phone up to my ears for too long.\n\n On a slightly different note. As a lad, I can still remember standing under a very large radio transmission mast in North Sydney, Australia. My small transistor radio could only pick-up one radio station, the powerful transmission from that aerial. Even the hairs on my arm stood up when the station was operating at full power. This I guess would be similar to standing under 2YA's radio mast at Titahi Bay. Probably wouldn't do this today either.\n\n //John Thomson\n Gella@paradise.net.nz//\n

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''From the web.''\n\n // In Japan, they have replaced the impersonal and unhelpful Microsoft error messages with Haiku poetry messages. Haiku poetry has strict construction rules: Each poem has only 17 syllables - 5 syllables in the first line, 7 in the second, 5 in the third.\n \nThey are used to communicate a timeless message, often achieving a wistful, yearning, and powerful insight through extreme brevity. Here are some actual error messages from Japan. Aren't these better than "your computer has performed an illegal operation?"//\n \n Chaos reigns within.\nReflect, repent, and reboot.\nOrder shall return.\n\n----\n\nProgram aborting\nClose all that you have worked on.\nYou ask far too much.\n\n----\n\nYour file was so big.\nIt might be very useful.\nBut now it is gone.\n\n----\n\nStay the patient course.\nOf little worth is your ire.\nThe network is down.\n\n----\n\nWindows NT crashed.\nI am the Blue Screen of Death.\nNo one hears your screams.\n\n----\n\nYesterday it worked.\nToday it is not working.\nWindows is like that.\n\n----\n\nA crash reduces\nYour expensive computer\nTo a simple stone.\n\n----\n\nThree things are certain\nDeath, taxes and lost data.\nGuess which has occurred.\n\n----\n\nYou step in the stream,\nBut the water has moved on.\nThis page is not here.\n\n----\n\nOut of memory.\nWe wish to hold the whole sky,\nBut we never will.\n\n----\n\nHaving been erased,\nThe document you're seeking\nMust now be retyped.\n\n----\n\nSerious error.\nAll shortcuts have disappeared.\nScreen. Mind. Both are blank.\n\n----\n\nI ate your Web page.\nForgive me; it was tasty\nAnd tart on my tongue

//Tim Adams found these and passed them on for members consideration .....//\n\n\n'' Get more info about your PC''\nIf you used a PC before Windoze 95, you may remember the MSD utility that gave you all kinds of information about your Windows 3.1 or DOS system. Too bad later Windoze versions don't have a similar program, eh? \n\nBut they do, they do! \n\nUsing Explorer, look for a file called ~MSInfo32.exe which may be located in either: \n\sWindows\s~MSApps\s~MSInfo\s \nor \n\sProgram Files\sCommon Files\sMicrosoft Shared\s~MSInfo\s \n\nDouble-click on it to open it. You'll find ~MSInfo gives you tons of info about your system and its components, including type of system, total memory, available memory, available space on each of your hard drives, swap file size, system ~DLLs, font substitutions and much, much more. \n\n''Even up your columns''\nIn Windoze Explorer, are some columns in the right pane too narrow to display the full information but others wasting space by being too wide? Of course, you could adjust each column individually, fiddling with the title tabs at the top of each column until you get each one just right. Or, you could simply select any file in the list by clicking on it once, hold down the [ Ctrl ] key and press the plus sign [ + ] on your keypad. All the columns will adjust automatically to fit their widest item! \n\n''Defragmentation Helpful hint''\nTo decrease time of defragmentation for large hard disks you can use partitioning functionality of Partition Manager. Just create 3 or more partitions (logical disks) on your hard drive. \n\nFor example, \n*One partition for files you use very often, \n*One partition for the operating system and program files (you can merge these partitions)\n*One partition for the files you use very rarely, or archive files, e.g. video or audio archives, distributives. \n\nNow there's no need to defragment partition with archive files for a long time. Usually 3/4 of all hard disk space is occupied by archive files, so this hint will help to save a lot of your time.\n\n''Want to get better results from your searches? ''\nYou can narrow down your search in most search engines by using the title prefix. For instance, if you enter title:aardvark in search engines such as Yahoo, ~HotBot, ~AltaVista, ~InfoSeek and Excite, you'll get results that include only those with the word "aardvark" in their Web site title, such as "The Aardvark Page". \n\nYou can also use the URL prefix to select only sites that have the word in their ~URLs (Web site addresses). So url:aardvark will turn up results like www.souprecipes.com/aardvark.html. \n\nOr use the domain prefix to narrow your search to domains, such as .com, .org, .ca, co, and so on. For example, a search on aardvark domain:.org might turn up www.exoticpets.org/aardvark.html. In Yahoo, the title and URL prefixes can be shortened to t and u, as in t:aardvark and u:aardvark.\n\n

I recently went on holiday, and while I was away I left a PC for a friend (who was looking after our house) to use, for study assignments and email, etc.\n \nIt is a nice little PC - dual Pentium EISA mainboard, with 2x4.3GB SCSI drives configured as a striped array (~RAID0) controlled by a Mylex raid controller. Even with only 32Mb of RAM, this PC feels quite fast - I think SCSI makes the difference. But I digress :-) \n\nApparently, after a week or so of use, the PC wouldn't start Windows anymore. When I looked at the problem, I found Windows had barfed all over its own registry - fancy that! \n\nThis is not normal Windows behaviour (yeah, right) and I had an inkling that something might happen as the system had been playing up previously. I was certain the problem was either a defective SIMM or a poor SIMM contact. Removing the ~SIMMs and cleaning their contacts appeared to fix the problem, but it would return after a few days.\n\nEventually I removed the whole mainboard, and cleaned and reseated everything. Particularly difficult to remove and reseat was the socketed cache memory, which was normally hidden from view by the mounting bays. \n\nThe system has run for a couple of weeks now, without any problems - I am fairly certain now the problem was caused by a poor connection in the socketed cache, especially as the mainboard is fairly old. \n\nWhen faced with faults like this, especially on older systems, I think that cache sockets are one of the the things worth checking as a matter of course - but take great care if you remove and refit these. It is very easy to damage the cache chip legs - you really need the right tool for the job. \n

\nThe batteries in your pc are not just to power the clock so that when you turn your PC on it knows what day it is. They also power a small area of memory which remembers how your pc is set up. The kind of data held is what kind of floppy disks you have, size capacity etc, and what kind of hard disk you have, sectors cylinders etc.\n\nI was asked to help with a pc which 'was working ok last night but this morning won't read the hard disk - do I need a new hard disk?'.All that had happened was that overnight the battery had at last given up the ghost, after four years, and the setup of the hard disk had been lost. Ok stick new batteries in and off you go.... but how was the hard disk set up? How many sectors, how many cylinders, what type of hard disk was it?\n\nIt pays to keep a note of the setup. To find it when your pc is booting up press Ctrl Alt Esc (on some machines pressing the delete key whilst booting does the same) and a setup screen should appear. If it dosn't don't read any more you needn't worry... Record the setup, I reccomend on the inside of your DOS manual and if the dreaded happens you can easily recover.\n\nNext time you get inside the pc do yourself a favour and change the batteries. Oh & top up the radiator!!\n\nRog\n

The most sensitive part of the information on your hard disk is the File Allocation Table (FAT) which acts as a phone directory to where your program files are located on the disk. This file is located for efficiency at the start of your disk, but that is also where trouble is most likely to strike. Once stricken, even partial damage to the FAT will lead to degradation and total ir- revocable loss of the information on your hard disk. New utility programmes like PCTOOLS V6 etc permit you to make a copy of the FAT and to store the copy on your hard disk far away from the operating FAT; when trouble strikes, your hard disk informa- tion can be rebuilt from the copy.\n\n Delighted with this facility, I used the PCTOOLS FAT copy command (called MIRROR) to build my sagging confidence that I had done my best to provide against disaster. Eventually, my other basic trait, idleness, prevailed and I sought to reduce personal effort by placing the MIRROR command in my AUTOEXEC.BAT (the program that runs everytime you turn the machine on) so that effortlessly I could know there was an up-to-date copy of the FAT everytime I turned on.\n\n One day, standing and scratching (a practice helpful to constructive thought), it dawned on me that my putting of the MIRROR command in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file was plain, downright, stupid. Consider; your hard disk is most at risk when the power is turned on, and when it is turned off. By copying the FAT im- mediately after it had suffered not one but two comparatively hazardous processes, I was copying the FAT immediately after it was likely to have been damaged and so was likely to undo the very purpose for the existence of the MIRROR file. If hard disk damage prevented the overwriting of my MIRROR of the FAT, the copy FAT would still be out-of-date as regards any file movements that had taken place in my last session because it would have been created at the start of the session.\n\n Having repented, I removed the MIRROR command from AUTOEXEC.BAT but included it in a DOS batch file called QUIT with an addi- tional command to park the head prior to powering off. Now, at the end of a session, I run the batch file QUIT, which ~MIRRORs the FAT to record the current file locations after my session and, that accomplished, the batch file ~PARKs the head away from sensitive parts of the hard disk. Henceforth, a back up File Allocation exists with the latest file locations im- mediately before the computer suffers the trauma of power death and rebirth. For the operator, peace of mind and indolence of body are restored.\n\n William Sly

By Robin Hinde\n\n ''Getting up close with the Aiptek Pencam''\n\n At last month's meeting another NZPCA member and I were discussing the Aiptek Pencam, and he mentioned that one of the things he used his for was macro photography. The example he gave was being able to email a photograph of a watch spring to somebody. He uses the camera in webcam mode and holds a magnifying glass in front of the camera lens.\n The Pencam doesn't have any macro (close up) ability built in, so this method works really well - it is possible to get better images than with most cameras that have a built in macro facility. Although using the camera as a webcam means it is tied to a PC, which restricts its use somewhat, this does mean you have a large display to judge focus. You could easily make a gauge (or use a ruler) to set the best distance for focus if you want to use the camera as a digital camera. You could even guess the distance but take lots of shots over a range of distances, if you are careful, one or more of these will be in focus. Digital film is cheap, you can throw the other shots away.\n\n The images that accompany this article were taken with an Aiptek Pencam, with the addition of a 10x magnifying glass (30x10 loupe) held over the lens, although an ordinary magnifying glass works almost as well (Pak'n'Save has good glass ones for $2.00 a pair). Some of these photos have been enhanced using the automatic feature built into Flphoto2 to improve clarity.\n{{{\n \n Photo 1: Laptop keys and ruler, shows depth of field.\n Photo 2: Laptop LCD display, shows image distortion. \n Photo 3: Praying Mantis, one of several shots taken by guessing the best focus distance.\n Photo 3: Praying Mantis, one of several shots taken by guessing the best focus distance.\n Photo 4: Printed circuit board detail. \n Photo 5: Water flea. This photo was taken with a Kodak DX3215 1.3 Megapixel camera, using a magnifying glass in place of the built in macro\n facility. If you try this with your own camera, you will appreciate just how much closer you can get using this method. \n}}}\n

''Club Computer Equipment Available to Members''\n\n//John Little has compiled this list of our equipment, old and new .... Yes! The good news is that the club has bought several new items of computer-related equipment over the past year or so, for the benefit of members. A brief summary is given below. If you would like to borrow these, contact any committee member.//\n\n''1. AUTOMATIC TURNTABLE : Model ~LAB-1100''\nThis is our latest addition. The belt drive turntable has a built-in pre-amp for direct connection to the line input of your sound card. (2 x RCA). It has a diamond stylus. Preserve those classic vinyl record-ings by burning to CD! Shareware software and printed instructions are included. The turntable is available on loan to members at no charge.\n\n''2. FILM AND SLIDE SCANNER 35mm : Model ~PF3650''\nThis excellent high resolution scanner is designed especially for 35mm slides, film strips, or roll film. It can handle both slide positives and colour or black and white negatives. The scanner is able to ad-dress the problems of dust, scratches and degradation that often occur with celluloid film with the passage of time, and will actively restore your precious photos through its digital ICE3 technology.For more information about this scanner, refer to Megabyte – February 2004 (President’s report and the article on pages 4-7).\nHint: For scanning colour slides, suggested settings for the scanner are: 16 bit, 3,000 dpi, best quali-ty.\nA charge of $10 per week is made to members who borrow the scanner. An instruction sheet is pro-vided.\n\n''3. PHOTO PRINTER: HP Photosmart 130''\nIdeal for use with our club’s digital camera! This compact colour photo printer is designed to produce 6” x 4” prints from a computer’s hard drive, floppy drive, CD-ROM, or directly from a variety of digital camera memory cards. Borrowers of the printer are charged a modest amount to meet the cost of consumables i.e. ink cartridges and photo paper.\n\n''4. DIGITAL CAMERA: NIKON Coolpix 2200''\nThis is our latest purchase and has a 2.2 megapixel output. Complete with 15 scene modes including automatic stills, macro, action, etc as well as 3 movie modes. The high resolution pictures at 1600x1200 pixels will print excellent 6x4 glossies and acceptable larger pictures up to A4. We have also bought a 64 MB SD memory card to supplement the built-in memory and 16 MB SD card that came with the camera.\nUse the camera and cards with the HP Photosmart printer, and check out what your needs are, for when you buy your own camera.\n\n''5. VIDEO PROJECTOR''\nSee the notice inside front cover of Megabyte for details.\n\nYour committee is keen to see members make good use of our club’s equipment, and are happy to consider any suggestions for purchasing further items that members would find useful.\n

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//John Little explains how help is at hand//\n\n Many e-mail users find they are plagued with spam problems. In case you're not sure, spam means unsolicited e-mail (often called 'junk mail') that arrives in your inbox persistently without having been requested. Spam is often just advertising material, promoting such things as re-financing your mortgage, travel deals, cheap printer cartridges, or even offering singles a date for Saturday evening! Spam can arrive regularly, even daily, and unfortunately some of it can be quite offensive. It may also contain viruses.\n\n ''Welcome 'Mailwasher'.''\n Mailwasher is a freeware program, developed by a New Zealander, designed to remove spam, viruses and unwanted attachments from your e-mail before they get to your computer. It may be downloaded from website www.mailwasher.net It is by no means a huge download (approx.1.5 Mb) and works on most versions of Windows including 95, 98, Me and XP. Once you've installed it, the idea is to open Mailwasher before you open your regular e-mail programmer - Outlook Express, Netscape, etc - it doesn't matter which one you use.\n\n ''What the Program Does.''\n Mailwasher connects to your e-mail server, but will only download the mail headings to you. This way you get to see a preview of exactly what is in your mailbox; you see the titles of your e-mails, the dates, and who they are from. Mailwasher then analyses each e-mail by a process of checking and filtering, and warns you if any is suspected as being junk mail or a virus. If you think a message really is for you, double-click on the e-mail and it will download the top part of the message (without images) so you will be able to preview what the message is about. You can then decide if you want to keep it, 'delete' it, or 'bounce' it - you make your choice by simply ticking a box on your screen.\n\n ''What a Bounce Does.''\n Once you have identified an e-mail as spam you can choose to blacklist the address it came from. If you put a tick in the box marked 'bounce', Mailwasher will delete the unwanted e-mail from your mailbox and send a message back to the spammer making it appear as if the mail sent to you has bounced because your e-mail address is no longer valid. Thus, hopefully, your name will be removed and you will get no further junk mail from that source.\n\n ''Deleting.''\n If you put a tick in the box marked 'delete', Mailwasher will simply delete the mail from your mailbox so that you don't have to download it. This is useful if someone has sent you, say, an e-mail with lots of attached photos you don't really want. It is also ideal for deleting e-mails that are shown to contain viruses, directly off the server so that you don't download them. Once processed - see below - anything marked for deletion is gone for good.\n\n ''The "Process Mail" Button.''\n Once you have sorted through your mail and ticked the appropriate boxes, you can click on 'Process Mail' and Mailwasher will proceed to do the bouncing and deleting of the e-mails you don't want. Then when you use your e-mail programmer e.g.. Outlook Express, it will download only the remaining messages - those you actually want to read.\n\n ''The Blacklist.''\n Mailwasher keeps a 'blacklist' of offenders for you. Any e-mail you tick for bouncing is recorded in the blacklist so that if any future e-mail arrives from the same address, the 'bounce' box will automatically be ticked. You can of course, manually remove the tick, and you can also manually edit the blacklist if something got on to it by mistake.\n \nMailwasher usefully tries to analyse the headers of e-mails, so if it thinks an e-mail might be a spam or other unwanted item, it will alert you with a little message in colour.\n \nNote that you can also add into Mailwasher the e-mail addresses of your friends and relatives so that they will always be recognised.\n\n '' Functionality.''\n While the freeware programmer is fully functional at all times, the developer does encourage donations. Those prepared to pay just a small sum will receive a registration code that will remove the advertising section from the programmer. His address in Christchurch comes with the programmer under the 'About Me' button.\n \nOnly the "Pro" version, which is not freeware, supports Hotmail accounts.\n \nWhile Mailwasher is easy to install and use, its worth taking a look at the website address mentioned above. The Frequently Asked Questions section is particularly helpful.\n \n\n ''The Future for Spam?''\n The Dominion Post of 2.12.03 reported briefly on Anti-spam moves in Australia, where clogging inboxes with unwanted junk e-mails will soon be a crime. Long awaited anti-spam laws have passed their first hurdle in the Australian federal parliament, though they are thought unlikely to have much of an impact on the bulk of unsolicited commercial e-mails which originate overseas. It will be interesting to see whether any similar moves are started in New Zealand.\n

The committee decided to make the following purchases:\n\nNew CD ROM\nWe decided to buy the latest CD ROM from the Night Owl computer service. We have the following review of the disk from Joseph ~McKinnon who runs a Brisbane based bulletin board system.\n\n'A disk that continues to amaze me, no matter how many times I look at it is the Night Owl Computer Service. Their contents range from in- depth technical documents to a fantastic collection of GIF, PIC and MAC images. Often with collections of compact disks, there are several versions of the same program, but this one has been professionally put together by a bulletin board system operator, rather than by a publisher whose main interest is in filling the disk. From my experience with ~CDs the biggest step for users is mastering the support programs. With this one it's no problem - the supplied program, FOLIO, is very straightforward to use, enabling the user to selectively scan for a program name....... The most striking aspect of this disk is how up to date it is - many of the programs aren't available here yet and many others are only just appearing on local boards. I feel this is the ultimate collection of shareware for ~IBM-compatible computers and recommend it to any serious software connoisseur.'\n\nThe disk will be up and running on the BBS as soon as we get it and of course will be available at the monthly meeting.\n\nTo save time searching the disk will members first get a copy of the index so that it can be examined off-line.\n\nNew disk drives\n\nAs requested at the AGM a 1.44meg/740k 3.5" disk drive will be fitted to the copying machine.\n\nThe BBS hard disk drive is to be upgraded to 80meg. We hope to incorporate the existing 20meg disk into the copying machine so that several software copying utilities can be incorporated and to overcome the problem of rebooting the machine.\n\nThe other suggestions raised at the AGM are being investigated.

At the 2006 July AGM the following people were elected to the committee. Any members wishing to assist can be co-opted onto the committee.\n\n|!President|Roger Currier|rogerc@clear.net.nz|\n|!Secretary & Megabyte Editor|Richard Elam|elamr@paradise.net.nz|\n|!Membership & Assistant Editor|Arthur Harris|arthurh@paradise.net.nz|\n|!Treasurer|John Little|littlejn@actrix.gen.nz|\n|!Help Desk|John Marchington|johnm@paradise.net.nz|\n|!Webmaster|Robin Hinde|usually@mail.com|\n|!Member|Ian Heppleston|ianh@paradise.net.nz|\n|!CD ROM Librarian|Hugh Roberton|hugh@tele-data-systems.com|\n\nThe following members also assist:\n\n|!Lower Hutt SIG|John Foster|\n|!Megabyte Folding and Posting|Ann Loveridge|\n|!Meeting Venue Manager|John Hand|

Eric Grevstad of HardwareCentral\n\n It seems you can't pick up a newspaper nowadays without reading about the "post-PC marketplace." Hardware sales have slowed, despite great deals such as Dell's offering a free scanner or printer with each new computer or a free CD-RW or DVD-ROM upgrade from the standard CD-ROM drive. The entire business models of Microsoft and Intel, respectively famous for supplying demanding new application and operating system upgrades and silicon fast enough to run them, have been called into question. Worst of all, you'll hear pundits say that PCs and peripherals have become generic, interchangeable commodities.\n\n Speaking for Hardware Central, I respectfully disagree. It's true that vendors (and the computer press) have been guilty of hype over splitting hairs. It's true that the average Word and Excel user won't see a detectable difference between, and hence shouldn't swap, a 900MHz Athlon for a 933MHz Pentium III.\n\n But the average office worker will definitely notice the difference, and definitely be more productive, with a system bought today for the same price of the PC plunked down on his or her desk three years ago. To quote the understatement of the week from the Hardware Central forums "There is a noticeable difference between a Pentium II/266 and an Athlon Thunderbird/1200."\n\n Intel is hyping the Pentium 4, hence relegating the Pentium III to second-class status, hence pushing the Celeron virtually off the back burner. Yet AMD is hanging tough with its economy-class Duron processor, as Vince Freeman found in his test of the new 900MHz Duron . The Duron spanks the 800MHz Celeron, yet is available for less -- great news for entry-level PC shoppers.\n\n Think desktop PCs are all the same -- beige boxes and boring minitowers? Check out the new NetVistas that IBM announced this week, the first systems unveiled since Big Blue revealed it's merging its desktop and ThinkPad engineering divisions (can you say "smaller motherboards and no cooling fans"?).\n\n If you don't get excited about a PC that runs 10 percent faster than another, how about one that takes up 75 percent less desktop space? The NetVista X40, already available with a space-saving LCD monitor and disk drives that drop into view and then hide behind the display, is now offered with a $99 cordless keyboard and mouse plus a $219 radial arm kit that suspends the entire computer above your work area.\n\n For another example of technology you thought was pretty much peaked, there's the laser printer -- an office staple since 1984's original HP LaserJet (which cost $3,000 and was half as big as a refrigerator). The new LaserJets that Hewlett-Packard is shipping this month are the most Internet-aware printers yet: the $799 LaserJet 2200 brings browser-based monitoring and configuration to the workgroup class, while the $1,099 LaserJet 4100 has an embedded Web server for remote monitoring and toner-refill ordering and Java virtual machine to interact with cell phones and PDAs. If that's not hip enough for you, the new printers all offer Linux as well as Windows drivers.\n\n Finally, Compaq has sometimes seemed a bit clueless about the small and medium business gulf between its big-iron enterprise customers and family-PC Presario users (remember the Prosignia series?). But you'll find a new attitude and redoubled efforts at , with everything from Web hosting and ASP services (supplied by Microsoft Central) to a tidy $999 server and a 1GHz Deskpro workstation that starts at just $1,399 and offers cutting-edge 3D and multi-display graphics-card options like Nvidia's Quadro2 MXR and Matrox's Millennium G450 Dual Head.\n\n Boring, lookalike commodities? Hardly. With trends like these, it looks like hardware manufacturers are starting to strike a smart, middle ground between techno-hype for hype's sake and the self-deprecation of the "beyond the box,it's all about services, the actual hardware is irrelevant" trend that some pundits embraced to excess (as Gateway did last year). If you think Alan Greenspan is trying to find the right balance nowadays, he's got nothing on the high-tech industry.\n\n Eric Grevstad\n Hardware Central\n http://www.hardwarecentral.com

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Download now: ~CompuServe 4.0.2 \n\n~CompuServe 4.02 software has been released, It offers faster navigation, giving the user fast and reliable Internet access. It even caches the ~URLs of Web sites the user visits so that they can work online with more speed and efficiency than ever. Other features include Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.01 with Service Pack 1, the latest Microsoft browser, which has been certified as Year 2000 compliant. \n\nUse the integrated Sentry ~Spelling-Checker Engine to check e-mail messages before they are sent so they always look their professional best. The ~E-Mail Counter on the status bar lets members see how many e-mail messages are waiting as soon as you log on--without leaving the ~CompuServe Main Menu. \n\nCheck the History List, but if you want to delete the listing of sessions, you can now do it any time you choose by just clicking a button under `General Preferences.'. can also edit a members History List by selecting the "View History List" option under the "Access" menu. GO CISSOFT to download your copy of ~CompuServe 4.0.2. To access the Member Center on ~CompuServe, GO MEMBER. \n\nDownload: ~CompuServe 3.0.3 for Mac \n\nThe new ~CompuServe 3.0.3 for Macintosh has just been released. \n\nGO CISSOFT to download your copy today. This latest version includes Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.01, as well as the same great features offered in earlier versions. Toolbar options allow you to customise the toolbar by adding buttons of your choice, such as "What's New," "Find Member," "Send/Retrieve All Mail," "New Forum Message," and "New Mail Message." Need help? GO SOFTSUP to get all your questions answered in the CS Software Support Forum. The time spent in this Forum is free from connect-time charges. To access the Member Centre on ~CompuServe, GO MEMBER. New Access Number for Melbourne, Australia \n\nChange in Access Numbers \n\n~CompuServe Pacific is pleased to announce that their new high-speed Melbourne access number is (03) 9538 0560, and is operational immediately. The old access number will be disconnected on March 31 1999. This new number supports modem speeds up to 56,000 bits per second (56K), and conforms to the V.90 protocol standard. If you already have a modem capable of operating at 56K, but is of the 'K56flex' or 'X2' type, then check with your dealer or the modem's manufacturer to see if it is upgradable to the V.90 standard. Victorian members should take the time to change the access number in their software now. New Access Number for Dunedin, New Zealand \n\n~CompuServe Pacific wishes to advise members that their new Dunedin access number is (03) 471 7510, and will be operational from February 10 1999. The old access number will be disconnected on March 31 1999. Otago members should ensure that they change their Dunedin access number on February 10th.\n

''MILLENIUM NIGHT ACTIVITIES''\n\nI hope everyone spent an interesting New Years Eve and will now be able to tell their descendants where they were when the year 2000. I spent my time helping to host the biggest online party that PACFORUM, ~CompuServe Pacific's local form has ever had. From just before midnight till 6:30 the following morning, were online, entertaining visitors from all over the world. The first question many would ask, was there anyone online from New Zealand. When this was confirmed, the next question was what was happening with ~Y2K.\n \nA later check of the Forum log would show we entertained 1500 visitors and many promised a return visit. \n\n''COMPUSERVE ~CS2000 SERVICE:'' \n\nA NUMBER of ~CompuServe Pacific members have enquired about ~CompuServe's ~CS2000 software and online service. Please note that this software (often referred to as 'Version 5.0'), and its associated service is not available in Australia or New Zealand. ~CS2000 software requires its own network, and will 'not' run over the ~CompuServe Pacific network. The ~CS2000 online service is essentially a 'web-view only' of the ~CompuServe information service that you currently enjoy.\n\n''COMPUSERVE'S ~BUILT-IN SPELL CHECKER'' \n\nDID you know that ~CompuServe's software version ~CS4.0.2 contains a spell checker? Whenever the member is composing or replying to either an e-mail message or a Forum message, the spell checker is just a press of the F7 key away. The spell checker can also be activated by clicking Edit, then selecting Check Spelling. From this drop-down menu, the member also can set up a number of variable options, such as Auto-correction, Ignore caps, Case sensitivity, and the like. The ability to add to the dictionary also is available.\n\n''COMPUSERVE PROVIDES FREE UNLIMITED ~E-MAIL ACCOUNTS'' \n\n~CompuServe's new ~WebMail service allows the member to set up extra ~e-mail addresses for free. ~CSWebMail is a web-based e-mail service similar to others currently available on the Internet (~HotMail, for example) so the member can check their e-mail from anywhere in the world that allows them access to the Internet. These mailboxes are useful if the user is travelling without a laptop, and they can even set it to collect and store e-mail sent to their normal ~CompuServe mailbox, ready for reading whenever and wherever they like.\n\nFull details and registrations may be found at\nhttp://www.compuserve.com/gateway/webmail.\n\n''COMPUSERVE PROVIDES FREE ONLINE STORAGE SPACE''\n\n~CompuServe has a new online storage space called Free Drive. This service offers 20MB of secure, online storage, allowing the user to upload and download as they please. The users' information is shared only with those to whom they grant access, down to individual files. ~FreeDrive expands the storage capacity of the users own computer, but is readily available from any computer in the world connected to the Internet. \n\nFor full details and to sign up, go to http://www.forumcenter.com/freedrive.\n\n''SPELL CHECK YOUR ~E-MAIL AND FORUM MESSAGES:'' \n\nSPELL check your ~CompuServe e-mail and Forum Messages easily at the push of a button when using ~CompuServe's ~CS4.02 software. Whenever you are composing or replying to either an e-mail message or a Forum message, the spell checker is just a press of the F7 key away. You also can invoke the spell checker by clicking Edit, then selecting Check Spelling. From this drop-down menu, you also can set up a number of variable options, such as Auto-correction, Ignore caps, Case sensitivity, and the like. The ability to add to the dictionary is also available.\n

Special advice to all ~CompuServe Pacific members: \nCredit card scams and protecting your ~CompuServe account information \n\nRecently, many ~CompuServe Pacific members have been receiving an e-mail purporting to come from ~CompuServe and asking for personal account details and credit card information. \n\nPLEASE NOTE that ALL such requests are false and definitely NOT from ~CompuServe !! \n\nNO COMPUSERVE STAFF MEMBER, REGARDLESS OF THEIR LOCATION IN THE WORLD, WILL EVER ASK YOU FOR SUCH DETAILS, WHETHER IT BE IN A FAX, ~E-MAIL, OR UNSOLICITED OVER THE TELEPHONE. \n\nThere will, of course, be times when you will want to give us personal details, either because your credit card is about to expire, or wish to change billing arrangements, or seeking technical assistance, BUT you may be satisfied that you are dealing with bona fide CompuServe Pacific staff when using the Member Support numbers listed below. \n\nYou can always update or amend any of your personal details online (GO CPBILLING). \n\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nIMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT for ~ThunderBYTE ~AntiVirus Users: \n\nwww.thunderbyte.com \n\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nHackers Challenge Antivirus Software \n\nBy BRUCE MEYERSON AP Business Writer \n\nAP Headlines Sunday July 11 10:59 PM ET \n\nLAS VEGAS (AP) - Computer security companies updated their virus-detection software on Sunday after the in-your-face launch at a hackers convention of a new tool designed for stealth invasions of networks operated by Microsoft Windows. \n\nDespite the rapid response, however, any defence against the hacking program may prove fleeting thanks to some aggressive tactics taken by the tool's authors, an irreverent group named Cult of the Dead Cow, or CDC. \n\nThe hacking tool, called "~BO2K", can enable someone to gain control of a computer or network from a remote location. ~BO2K is an abbreviation for a slightly profane variation of "Back Office", the name of a program in Microsoft's Office 2000 suite of business software. \n\nThe CDC and other hackers attending the seventh annual "~DefCon" convention in Las Vegas charged that Microsoft has stubbornly refused to address a multitude of gaping security holes in Windows. \n\nBy exploiting those vulnerabilities, hackers hope to force the world's largest software company to repair them. And, raising the net another notch, the CDC is also releasing the software code for ~BO2K - inviting other programmers to create mutations that would frustrate efforts to immunise computers against attack. \n\nBut that vigilante-type "hactivism" was rejected by Microsoft and federal officials, including many who attended ~DefCon under cover - at least until they were unmasked during the convention's popular "Spot the Fed" contest. \n\n~BO2K is actually an update to a hacking tool released at last year's ~DefCon hackers convention. The first tool targeted the Windows 95 and Windows 98 operating systems that run an overwhelming majority of the world's desktop computers. \n\nMuch to the delight of the nearly 1,000 anti-Microsoft enthusiasts who crammed into the ~BO2K launch Saturday, the new tool can also hijack control of network systems using Windows NT, a top program for running computer networks, as well as computers running on test versions of the as-yet unreleased Windows 2000. \n\n"Our position is that Windows is a fundamentally broken product", said Deth Veggie, the CDC's "minister of propaganda". Like nearly every hacker, Veggie only identifies himself by his online pseudonym, partly for effect and partly out of legal concerns. "Hopefully, this will force them to fix this thing." \n\nThe government-chartered Computer Emergency Response Team at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh is investigating B02K, but has not issued any advisory or warning. \n\nThe hacking tool "is one of several programs which, if installed on an organisation's computers, can give control of the computers to outsiders with malicious intent", Jeffrey J. Carpenter, senior incident responder for the CRETE, said Sunday. Because ~BO2K works with Windows NT, "intruders have the potential to gain control of more sensitive server machines." \n\nBy Sunday morning, leading computer security firms such as Symantec and Network Associates had already posted advisories and detection software for ~BO2K on their Web sites. \n\nMicrosoft had been blasting ~BO2K even before Saturday's highly theatrical presentation, which relied heavily on thumping industrial music, strobe lights and screaming - a bizarre mutation of the dog and pony shows that often accompany a Microsoft product launch. \n\n"I certainly categorise what they're trying to do as being malicious. This program they have created has absolutely no purpose except to damage users", said Jason Garms, lead product manager for Windows NT security, complaining that hackers behave as if the Internet operates under a different set of rules than the rest of the world.\n

''~CompuServe Pacific Forum becomes Olympic Forum'' \n\nOlympic Fever has now arrived at ~CompuServe Pacific Forum (~GOPAC-FORUM or GO.COMPUSERVE.COM/PACIFIC). The Forums' Olympic section has now opened up to report on the Sydney Olympics. Come visit and get current details on events, results and all the gossip \n\n''New access numer for Christchurch:''\n\nDue to a recent relocation to new premises, the Christchurch, New Zealand node now has a new access number. The new number is 03 363 4100. ~CompuServe Pacific's national 0867 26678 number should still be utilized if you are resident within the Christchurch calling area, and only use the new 7-digit number if a toll call is required. If you experience difficulty changing your software for the new number, please call Customer Service (New Zealand 0800 446113) \n\n''~CompuServe and Australia GST''\n\n~CompuServe is pleased to announce that the amount you pay for the ~CompuServe Pacific service will remain the same following July 1. This means there will be no additional charges to any price plan for GST. ~CompuServe is reducing its prices so that the overall amount you pay remains the same. GST will be calculated on all monthly subscriber fees and usage fees from 1 July 2000. GST on charges for additional hours will apply for sessions that commence after midnight on 1 July 2000. Remember that the cost to you will remain the same. Australian members can check how much GST has been paid by contacting Customer Service on 1300 307 072. For more GST information while online \n\n''Crisis in Fij: and how Pacforum reported it''\n\nOn Friday May 19th at about 11:30am NZST, an armed coup took place within the Fijian Parliament grounds. Within 30 minutes, full media reports were being posted in the Pacific Forum (GO PACFORUM or GO.COMPUSERVE .COM/PACIFIC).\n\nThereafter, Pacific Forum has continued to keep all up to date with this event, well ahead of the print media and most times before media web sites. Members have contributed their own comment, views, and opinion. This upheaval in Fiji will have a direct effect on both Australians and New Zealanders alike due to the many business interests and community relations each has with that country. Both Governments also provide significant financial and administrative aid to Fiji.\n\nVisit Pacific Forum and keep up with the latest as it happens, and have your say on these events. \n\n''~CompuServe Paciic wins 'Help Desk' award:''\n\n~CompuServe Pacific's Customer Services and Support operation has just won the first place award for 'Best Internet/ISP Help Desk' in the 2000 Teleperformance International Customer Service Grand Prix Awards (Australia), beating other Australian competitors such as Optus, Connect.com, ~OzEmail, and America Online.\n\nThis is the second time that this award has been won by ~CompuServe Pacific, and for an unprecedented two years in a row!\n\nTeleperformance International is a global telemarketing and teleservices company.\n\nEvery year since 1988, the Teleperformance Group has conducted its `Grand Prix Customer Service Awards'. The objective of this survey is to measure the quality of service delivered by businesses over the telephone and to raise awareness of the impact which this has upon their image. The survey alsoprovides benchmarking data against which individual performance can be measured, highlighting specific areas of strength and weakness in relation to the performance of other businesses.\n\nTeleperformance personnel undertake a series of nearly 50,000 `mystery telephone calls' to various businesses in 21 different countries, using a variety of pre-determined designed to evaluate the quality of call-handling provided with reference to a number of specific criteria. These include -\n*The speed with which each call is answered \n*The quality of the greeting \n*The level of product knowledge displayed\n*The ability to listen effectively \n*The overall `warmth of welcome' during the call\nFor the first time, the Grand Prix also evaluated the efficiency of companies in handling e-mail inquiries.\n

''COMPUSERVE'S ~BUILT-IN SPELL CHECKER''\nDID you know that ~CompuServe's software version CS4.0.2 contains a spell checker? \nWhenever the member is composing or replying to either an e-mail message or a Forum message, the spell checker is just a press of the F7 key away. The spell checker can also be activated by clicking Edit, then selecting Check Spelling. From this drop-down menu, the member also can set up a number of variable options, such as Auto-correction, Ignore caps, Case sensitivity, and the like. The ability to add to the dictionary also is available.\n\n''COMPUSERVE PROVIDES FREE UNLIMITED E-MAIL ACCOUNTS'' \nCOMPUSERVE's new ~WebMail service allows the member to set up extra e-mail addresses for free. ~CSWebMail is a web-based e-mail service similar to others currently available on the Internet (~HotMail, for example) so the member can check their e-mail from anywhere in the world that allows them access to the Internet. These mailboxes are useful if the user is travelling without a laptop, and they can even set it to collect and store e-mail sent to their normal ~CompuServe mailbox, ready for reading whenever and wherever they like. \nFull details and registrations may be found at http://www.compuserve.com/gateway/webmail. \n\n''COMPUSERVE PROVIDES FREE ONLINE STORAGE SPACE'' \n~CompuServe has a new online storage space called Free Drive. This serviceoffers 20MB of secure, online storage, allowing the user to upload and download as they please. The users information is shared only with those to whom they grant access, down to individual files. ~FreeDrive expands the storage capacity of the users own computer, but is readily available from any computer in the world connected to the Internet. For full details and to sign up, go to www.forumcenter.com/freedrive.\n\n''MINIZIP is Coming''\nMinizip is in the way. This is the latest in a long line of viruses that attack email. The virus is related to the malicious ~ExploreZip worm that infected users in June. This worm can spread on Windows 95, 98 and NT computers using Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express and Exchange e-mail programs. \n\nThe messages sent by zipped files are very credible -- they are normal looking replies to messages the user may have sent earlier. ~Minizip replies to unread and new mail and sends out the following message: "I received your e-mail and I shall send you a reply ASAP. Till then, take a look at the attached zipped docs." \n\nThe virus works like this: After being executed, ~MiniZip e-mails itself out as an attachment with the filename "zipped_files.exe." The attached file has a ~WinZip icon, which is designed to trick unsuspecting users into running it as a self-extracting file. When this file is run Users the attachment will be presented with a fake error message: "Cannot open file: It does not appear to be a valid archive. If this file is part of a zip format backup set, insert the last disk of the backup set and try again. Please press F1 for help." \n\nOnce executed, the worm proceeds to copy itself to the c:\swindows\ssystem directory with the filename "Explore.exe". It then modifies the WIN.INI file so the program is executed each time Windows is started.\n\nIt also makes an entry in the registry on Windows NT. \n\n~MiniZip, like ~ExploreZip.worm, erases the contents of files on the user's C: drive. It also will erase the contents of files on all mapped or network drives. The main threat of this virus is that if one person in a company opens the file, all files on the companies shared drive are at risk. \n\n''BUBBLEBOY VIRUS''\nComputer security experts are warning of a dangerous e-mail virus named Bubbleboy. This is the first known e-mail virus that does not need to be fully opened to be activated. Named after an episode of Seinfield, just highlighting the emails subject line in Microsoft Outlook Express activates the hidden code. It also takes every address in the computers' email program and passes the virus along. It affects computers with Windows 98, Windows 2000 and some versions of Windows 95 that also use Microsoft's Internet Explorer 5.0 and Outlook Express Web browser and e-mail. programs \n\nThere is also concern that ~BubbleBoy could be used as a framework for the easy delivery of a host of a malicious program. The virus appears as a black screen with the words "The Bubbleboy incident, pictures and sounds" in white letters. It apparently does not affect Netscape's e-mail programs. \nMicrosoft have announced that users who have downloaded the August upgrade to Internet Explorer 5.0 are already protected from "Bubbleboy."\n

The FBI is investigating a break-in by hackers who penetrated Microsoft's computer network and gained access to its closely guarded source code, which if disseminated could badly hurt the software giant.\nIt appears that the hackers did not see the source code -- or basic building blocks -- of the company's most popular products, as originally feared. This limits the extent of the possible damage.\n\nWindows is the company's flagship operating system for personal computers and networks, and Office is its package of word processing, spreadsheet and other business software.\n\nThe hackers, discovered by Microsoft security personnel viewed codes only for products being designed for release years from now and did not modify or corrupt those codes.\n\nMicrosoft's source codes are the most coveted in the industry, given its dominance of the operating system and business applications market.\n\nWith access to these software blueprints, competitors could write programs that undermine Microsoft -- or use the data to identify vulnerabilities, making computer break-ins and virus writing easier.\n\nMicrosoft products are periodically found to have flaws, forcing the company to routinely offer consumers security patches.\n\nThe 'Love Bug' virus that crippled computers around the globe in May, causing several billions of dollars in damage, exploited a security glitch in Microsoft's market-leading e-mail programs. The break-in adds to the woes of a company now appealing a federal judge's ruling that it violated antitrust law with predatory business practices meant to guard a nearly complete monopoly on personal computer operating systems.\n\nFBI has confirmed that the agency is investigating, but refused to discuss details. Microsoft security employees found that passwords used to transfer the source code were being sent from the company's computer network in Redmond to an e-mail account in St. Petersburg, Russia.\n\nThe hackers appeared to have accessed Microsoft's system by e-mailing software, called QAZ Trojan, to the company's network and then opening a so-called back door through the infected computer, the Journal reported.\n\nIn hacking terms, a "Trojan" is quite similar to the Trojan horse of Greek mythology. It looks like a normal attachment in an e-mail, such as a Word document or picture, but contains a hidden code that can, in effect, take limited control of the recipient's computer.\n\nOnce inside, the hacker software can be used to deliver passwords from one computer to another, or even destroy files.\n\nInformed sources say that the break-in highlights Microsoft's general lack of network traffic monitoring. If the logs are not watched 24 hours a day, seven days a week this is the kind of thing that happens. As a result Microsoft got hit and it made the news. But sources say that it could have happened to anyone.\n\nWhile no motive for the break-in has been mentioned, hackers in the past have tried to extort companies after accessing information from their computers and threatening to publish it on the Internet.\nOthers have cracked computer systems just for the notoriety of defeating complex security barriers.\n

\n''False Virus Alerts'' \nThe latest variation on the computer virus threat seems to be going the rounds. It appears to involve emails from people, friends, and colleges warning about the threats. The message has usually also been sent to over a dozen other people? The message will also ask you, the receiver, to send the warning to everyone you know. If you have, then unwittingly, you have become a part of creating and spreading the virus yourself. \n\nMany of these e-mail messages warn against viruses that are purportedly part of another e-mail message, and that simply reading the message will wreak havoc to your machine. Exotic names like Good Times, Win a Holiday, Budweiser Frogs and Speeding Ticket are some of the latest doing the rounds. The real virus is the fact that the e-mail warning becomes the electronic version of a chain letter, the intention being to clog everyone's networks and hard-drives with the warning. \n\nSo, it is really a hoax warning. It is impossible to infect your computer with a virus simply by reading an e-mail message, since a virus program, like any other computer program, must be run (or executed), to work. There are a number of very good web sites with information on viruses, and particularly keep up-to-date with these e-mail viruses and the latest news on any that may be hoaxes. Taking a few moments to check out any of these virus warning e-mails on the following sites will save you a lot of time and concern, not to say your online friends. www.stiller.com (Stillers is a virus specialist company).www.orn.usace.army.mil/~WebRes/virus.html (US Army Corps of Engineers). Anti-virus software and a wealth of virus information may also be found on the ~CompuServe information service, GO COMPUTING and select the Virus option. \n\n''JFAX Unified Messaging Service'' \nCompuserve Pacific is pleased to announce that it has established an agreement with a local JFAX agent to provide members with the ability to have e-mail, voice, and fax messages delivered directly to your e-mailbox, and with no joining fees for ~CompuServe Pacific members! With a JFAX local private telephone number, ~CompuServe members can establish a virtual office in any city covered by the JFAX network, and receive voice mail, faxes, and e-mail, regardless of where they may be at the time. simply give your JFAX telephone number to clients, friends, or contacts. The JFAX network currently covers more than 50 cities world-wide, and of interest to ~CompuServe Pacific members will be the Sydney, Australia and Auckland, New Zealand numbers that have recently joined the network. \n\n''FREE 30-DAY TRIAL.'' ~CompuServe members are offered a 30-day trial of JFAX. FREE ~SET-UP. The AU$30.00 set-up fee is waived for ~CompuServe Pacific members (except for the ~USA-based toll-free number). \n\nAn on-going cost of the JFAX service is just AU$20.00 per month per phone number, and includes the first 200 inbound fax pages or voice messages free. Additional messages are AU$0.30c each (AU$0.40c for ~USA-based toll-free number). \n\nFor further information, details, and signup procedures GO JFAX. (Note that these costs are in addition to your current ~CompuServe Pacific monthly fees). \n\n''Macintosh Users Tip'' \nMembers using ~CompuServe's ~CS3.x for Mac may have experienced the situation where the ~CompuServe 3 Preferences file in their System Preferences folder has become corrupted or lost, giving the `~CompuServe cannot access the Preferences file' error message. Whilst this can be fixed by deleting the corrupted file (it will be automatically recreated the next time you open your ~CompuServe software), unfortunately your Favorite Places information will be lost. By placing a copy of the ~CompuServe 3 Preferences file somewhere else, say on a floppy or in another folder altogether, the original file can be replaced at a moment's notice and with no loss of their valuable information. \n\nIncreased Mailbox size \n\nThe mailbox size was set at 100 messages, the ~CompuServe Mail System is now being openly tested to allow the online storage of up to 250 e-mail messages, which will be most appreciated by members who travel or receive large amounts of e-mail. Please note that this applies to your online mailbox which resides on ~CompuServe and is where all your messages are stored ready for you to download, but does not apply to any ~POP3 mailboxes. \n\nMember Support \n\nIf you require technical support or wish take make an enquiry about your billing, please use the following telephone numbers and our staff will be pleased to assist. \n\nNew Zealand 0800 446 113\n9:00am to 9:00pm weekdays\n10:00am to 3:00pm Saturdays

''Virus Alert: W95.Babylonia''\n\nW95 Babylonia ia a complex virus that infects mainly to other computer users via MIRC or as regular attachment in an e-mail message.\nAdditionally, all infected .HLP and .EXE files can cause infection on other systems.\n\n''Opening a help (.HLP) file''\nWhen an infected .HLP file is introduced on a Windows 9x system, the virus code will be activated. The virus modifies the entry point of .HLP files to a short script routine. This routine transfers control from the script interpretation to the binary virus code that is placed at the end of .HLP files in variable packed form.\nWhen the binary virus code assumes control, the virus attempts to install itself to kernel memory area on the machine and hooks the file system to its own code. The virus hen creates a 4KB file named c:\sbabylonia.exe. Finally this file is executed.\n\n''Execution of Babylonia.exe''\nWhen Babylonia.exe gets control, it copies itself to the Windows system directory as ~KENEL32.EXE and registers this copy in the registry at: Software\sMicrosoft\sWindows\s~CurrentVersion\sRun.\nAs a result, this copy will be executed at each system start. This module is registered as a system service and as a result it cannot be seen on the Windows 9x task list. The trojan checks if the RNAAPP.EXE application is running by enumerating the active processes. If it does not find a similar process, it will sleep for some time and try it again later.\n\nRNAAPP.EXE is active on Windows 9x machines during dial-up connections. When the application is loaded, the virus attempts to connect to a virus writer's website in Japan.\n\nFirst, the trojan downloads a text file named virus.txt. This text file lists a few file names (currently 4). The file names are: dropper.dat, greetz.dat, ircworm.dat and poll.dat. They appear to use a special file format with a header that begins with 'VMOD'. THis stands for 'Virus Module'. The header of the virus modules contains an entry point for the module. The trojan then downloads the files and executes then inside its own process, one by one.\nThis way the trojan can introduce additional functionality on the already infected system. If the system is disinfected but the trojan is active, the virus code will be introduced on the machine again since the dropper virus module will create a 17KB application (INSTALAR.EXE) and execute it. This file is infected with the virus. Finally the file is deleted. The greetz.dat module modifies the c:\sautoexec.bat file in January.\nPart of the "marker" for this virus includes the following text in the c:\sautoexec.bat file: W95/Babylonia bu Vecna(c) 1999.\nThe ircworm.dat appears to be an MIRC worm installer. The worm seems to propagate two files: 2kbug-MircFix.EXE and 2kbugfix.ini to everyone on the active MIRC channel.\n\nThe last module in virus.txt sends messages to babylonia_counter@hotmail.com with a message Quando o mestre chegara? This information was intended by the virus writer to track the number of infections that W95.Babylonia causes.\n\n''Infected .EXE and .HLP files''\nW95.Babylonia hooks the file system to itself and checks for .EXE and .HLP file extensions. It infects such files whenever they are accessed. Infected Windows .HLP files and 32-bit PE .EXE files can introduce the full functionality of the virus to new systems.\nThe virus uses an inserting technique (does not modify the entry point of PE files) when it infects them, probably in an attempt to avouid detection from heuristic analyzers that could catch the virus more easily. The virus body is attached to the end of the infected files. As long as the virus is in memory the virus cannot be easily removed from the system. This infection mechanism is very similar to the W95.CIH virus.\n\n~WSOCK32.DLL Modifications\nAnother very important detail of the virus infection is that W95.Babylonia will be able to modify ~WSOCK32.DLL when the file is not loaded in memory. The virus adds a very short hook routine to the "Send" API of ~WSOCK32.DLL similarly to the Happy99 worm (aka W32.SKA.A). This short hook routine transfers control to the active part of the virus code when an e-mail is sent. The end result of this code is that the virus adds a ~MIME-encoded attachment of itself to all outgoing e-mail, thus increasing its rate of spread. W95.Babylonia is technically a worm as well as a virus.\nThe possible file names of the e-mail attachments are:\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;~I-WATCH-U.EXE\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;BABILONIA.EXE\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;~X-MAS.EXE\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;SURPRISE!.EXE\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;JESUS.EXE\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;BUHH.EXE\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;CHOCOLATE.EXE\nIt seems the virus has a bug in this routine and therefore only the ~X-MAS.EXE file name will be used. This file appears to be the same as the INSTALAR.EXE that is created by one of the virus modules that has a Santa Claus icon:\n\n

\n''Love Bug' Suspect Charged''\n\n//By OLIVER TEVES - Associated Press Writer//\n\nMANILA, Philippines (AP) -- Philippine investigators filed criminal charges Thursday against a computer programming student suspected of having released the "ILOVEYOU" computer virus which crippled e-mail systems worldwide.\n\nThe filing of charges against Onel de Guzman, 23, had been delayed while lawyers for the National Bureau of Investigation studied evidence and applicable laws.\n \nUntil President Joseph Estrada signed a new law last week covering electronic commerce and computer hacking, the Philippines had no laws specifically against computer crimes. \n\nThe new legislation, however, cannot be applied retroactively to the "Love Bug" creator. Investigators charged de Guzman with "traditional" crimes such as theft and violation of a law that normally covers credit card fraud, NBI Director Federico Opinion said.\n\nThe charges carry a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, he said. De Guzman, a student at the Philippines' AMA Computer College, has acknowledged that he may have released the virus by accident. He refused to say whether he authored it.\n \nHe failed to graduate earlier this year after AMA professors rejected his thesis proposal for a program that steals Internet passwords, a feature of the Love Bug virus.\n\nThe virus, unleashed May 4, rapidly replicated itself via e-mail, overloading corporate e-mail systems in many countries and causing damage estimated at up to $10 billion.\n\nOpinion said de Guzman stole Internet services and violated two provisions of an "access devices" law covering credit card fraud -- illegal possession and unauthorized use of passwords. \n\n"We are just trying to show everybody that if you commit a crime in this country, you have to be penalised, you have to be prosecuted," Opinion said. "In spite of the absence of laws that would squarely fall on the subject matter, we have existing traditional laws that we can fall back on." \n\nJustice Department prosecutors will determine whether the NBI's evidence against de Guzman is strong enough to warrant a trial.\n \nDe Guzman became a suspect after AMA professors noticed similarities between his thesis proposal and the virus, and Internet service providers traced the virus to a telephone line in his apartment. \nNBI agents seized 17 computer diskettes, telephones and computer accessories in a raid May 8 on the apartment, but found no computer or modem. The agents arrested another resident, Reonel Ramones, a boyfriend of de Guzman's sister, but released him a day later because of insufficient evidence. "This time we believe we have a good case, unlike before in the case of Ramones," Opinion said.\n\nHe said investigators currently see de Guzman as the only suspect.\n\n/29-Jun-00 04:14//\n

A slow-spreading new computer virus, now called Herbie and harder to detect than the original "Love Bug", wormed its way through the some of world's computer networks and prompted U.S. law enforcement officials to open an investigation and warn computer users to steer clear of suspicious e-mails.\n\nThe advice is if you receive an e-mail with a .vbs file extension, do not open it, even if it comes from a trusted source. Delete the e-mail from your system.. \n\nThe new virus, technically known as a "worm", and goes by a litany of names, including ~VBSNewLove, ~NewLove.VBS and VBS/SPAMMER.A. Computer experts said it is not just a variant of the I Love You virus that struck earlier this month, as was originally believed.\n\nUnlike the "love bug" that struck computer networks on May 4 and its copycats, the new worm can change its subject line and the program code each time it is retransmitted, making it more difficult for new users and anti-virus programs to detect. \n\nUnlike some viruses, a worm does not change any coding in the host computer. It rides on top of e-mail as an attachment and targets users of Microsoft's Corp.'s (~NasdaqNM:MSFT - news) Outlook program, sending itself to all entries in the office address book. \n\nAlthough its name constantly changes it will arrive with the Subject line beginning with "FW" and be followed by a file name and the extension a "name" plus the final .Vbs extension, shorthand for visual basic script. Once it is opened, the worm could wipe out all of a computer's files in 20 seconds, \n\nThe attachment also doubles in size each time it is sent, which may be one reason for its slow-spreading pace,. The vicious nature of the worm might also lead to its early demise. It is so destructive it may wipe out the a computer before it can be sent. \n\n''BEST ADVICE: BEWARE VBS'' \n\nComputer users were advised to filter for e-mails with the word "FW" along with an attachment with a .VBS extension. Then, any e-mail attachments with a VBS extension should be treated with caution \n\nExperts also said to update anti-virus software. \n\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n''NEW BUG HITS COMPUTERS''\n \nA computer virus disguised as a resume from a job hunter hit a number of corporate e-mail systems Friday, posing threat for computer users when they log on after the long US holiday weekend.\n\nThe malicious program deletes computer files on a user's system if it's activated by clicking on an attachment. \n\nThe virus can be identified as it arrives by the greeting "The subject is: Resume -- Janet Simons." It appears to be a letter from a job seeker by that name, addressed to the head of sales, and invites readers to click on an attachment to check the phony applicant's references. The attachment is labeled "resume.doc" or "explorer.doc," as well as other names. \n\nFiles can be recovered by running "Undelete" software available from many vendors, although some users may not be able to get their computers running because operating software has already been deleted by the virus.\n\nA number of leading anti-virus companies said their clients had found the "Killer Resume" in e-mails, with more than a dozen hit by US companies by late Friday. Anti-virus companies warned users not to click the attachment, which launches the automated program, or macro, that wipes out files and sends the virus alone to others using the Microsoft Outlook's e-mail address directory.\n

''VBS.~LoveLetter.A''\n\nA new virus known as the ~LoveBug has just arrived. This worm appears to originate from the Manila, Philippines. This worm has wide-spread distribution and sends itself out to email addresses in the Microsoft Outlook address book and the worm also will spread itself via mIRC and infect files on local and remote drives including files with the extensions vbs, vbe, js, jse, css, wsh, sct, hta, jpg, jpeg, mp3, mp2. It also tries to download a password-stealing-Trojan-horse program from a website.\n \nThe new virus originates in an email entitled "I love you" and reading: "kindly check the attached LOVELETTER coming from me." Once the attachment is launched, the virus sends copies of the same email to everybody in the user's address book. It works on the same principle as the Melissa virus, which infected about a million computers and caused $80 million in damage in early 1999, also overwrites picture and music files from local and network drives.\n\nThe email can have one of the following subject lines\n*"ILOVEYOU" \n*"Susitikim shi vakara kavos puodukui..."\n*"Joke"\nThe text reads "kindly check the attached LOVELETTER coming from me.", and the worm is included in the attachment, called "~LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.vbs" or "~VeryFunny.vbs". \nThis worm attempts to send copies of itself through mIRC to the IRC channels and through Outlook to all address book entries. \n\nVBS/~LoveLetter.worm also attempts to download and install an executable file called ~WIN-BUGSFIX.EXE, a password stealing program that will email any cached passwords it finds to the mail address MAILME@SUPER.NET.PH.\n\n''GENERAL RULES TO HELP YOU AVOID VIRUSES, WORMS, ETC.''\n\nThe ILOVEYOU worm seems to be attacking primarily Outlook and Outlook Express users - \nNever open an email attachment that does not meet ALL of the following criteria: (as a minimum) \n#You know EXACTLY what it is \n#You are EXPECTING IT \n#You are POSITIVE you know who it is from \n#The sender make a personal reverence to YOU, THEMSELVES and the ATTACHMENT in the SUBJECT of the message.\n#You have the LATEST virus definitions updated in your anti-virus software \n#Even then be leery of .doc, .xls .exe and .vbs attachments. Save them to your HDD then SCAN THEM FIRST before opening.\nAn anti virus software just released to deal with the ~Love-Bug virus has been loaded to ~MegaBaud as KILOVU.ZIP.\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n''FILES UPLOADED FROM COMPUSERVE TO MEGABAUD RECENTLY''\n\n''HACKWACK.EXE.''\nSoftware that monitors all activity on a Computer. Helps prevent unauthorised visitors to PC's. Allows the monitoring of URL's visited, keystrokes, fire wall ports, system and shell activity. Supports Internet Explorer and Netscape. ~WIN9x/NT \n\n''WEBCACH.ZIP''\nContains Web Cache Illuminator v3.11. This software will allow the creation of an index of files, that will displays all the files in a cache, it will also display the title given by the Web page creator \nIt can explore the Cache files with any web browser, list by title or filter unwanted Graphic files from the list.

''~CompuServe members do not have to pay Telecom NZ "Internet Dial-up" charges when using our new 0867 26678 number''\n \nAs most ~NZ-domiciled ~CompuServe Pacific members will be aware, Telecom NZ has recently announced its intention to introduce two new services from November 1, 1999, that may affect some ~CompuServe users. \n\n''Internet Dial-up Charge:'' \nTelecom NZ will be implementing a 2 cents per minute charge for any dial-up/modem calls to the Internet or an online service (including the ~CompuServe Information Service) made from a "residential" line using local 7 digit numbers in excess of 10 hours per month. This charge is made directly on Telecom NZ's customers. \n\nThe charging scheme may affect some ~CompuServe Pacific members, especially if you currently exceed 10 hours online each month, or if you are on a pricing plan that has an online usage allowance of more than 10 hours each month. \n\nPlease note that Telecom NZ's proposal applies only to calls from "residential" lines; "business" lines and toll calls are not affected. \n\n''Internet Network:'' \nTelecom NZ have introduced a separate Internet traffic network system to improve its ability to more efficiently manage such traffic. \n\nThe new system requires Internet or online service providers (including the ~CompuServe Information Service) to introduce to their customers a new telephone access number, prefixed by 0867, the use of which will NOT attract Telecom NZ's Internet dial-up charge! \n\nFull details of Telecom NZ's proposals and explanations may be found on its Web site at http://www.telecom.co.nz/ispdialup. ~CompuServe Pacific is pleased to advise all ~CompuServe members that it now provides a FREE Internet dial-up access number, which may be used beginning November 1, 1999. \n\nThe new, free Internet dial-up access number is\n0867 26678. \n\nCharges will not be incurred when dialing from Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin. \n\nIf you require assistance changing the access number in your software, please call Customer Service on 0800 446 113. \n\nPLEASE NOTE the following: \n\n(a) ~CompuServe Pacific assures its members that they will not incur any additional charges for using the 0867 number. \n\n(b) ~CompuServe Pacific's single 0867 number can only be used for calls from within Telecom NZ's Local Calling Areas for each of the five ~CompuServe nodes within New Zealand, namely Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin. \n\n(c) A toll call cannot be made to the 0867 number. \n\n(d) Any member calling from outside the above main areas will need to continue to make a toll call to their nearest ~CompuServe access node using the same number they currently are using. According to Telecom NZ information, toll calls will not attract the Internet dial-up charge. \n\n(e) Some members may be subscribing to a separate calling service that allows them free calling into an otherwise toll-call area, e.g. Favorite Place Neighboring Area Plan, in which case either the 0867 number or the currently used ~CompuServe Pacific access number may be used. According to Telecom NZ information, these calls will not attract the Internet dial-up charge. \n\n(f) ~CompuServe Pacific's 0867 number may be used by any ~CompuServe member regardless of their own telephone service arrangements. \n\n(g) Any ~CompuServe Pacific member seeking answers to specific Telecom NZ charging or calling services, or wish to inquire if the Internet dial-up charge affects them, should call that Company's Sales & Service number 123 for clarification. \n\nCUSTOMER SERVICE: If you require technical support or wish take make an inquiry about your billing, please use the following telephone numbers and our staff will be pleased to assist you: \n\nNew Zealand 0800 446 113.\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. weekdays.\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturdays \n\nUploads to ~MegaBaud from ~CompuServe \n\nMORSPACE.EXE\nSoftware that will allow the reclaiming of valuable disk space by identifying large or obsolete files or programs. These files can then be targeted for deletion. \n\n~MIME2CIS.EXE\nSoftware that converts all MIME, BINHEX, ~BUSE64 and UU encoded emails to useable form. For Win95.. \n\nREADBACK.ZIP\nThis is a text to a speech add on for ~MSWord97. It allows the reading back to User of selected text in documents.\n

''Ancestry.com teams with AOL and ~CompuServe'' \nAncestry.com, Inc., the premier resource for tracing family history online, has announced an alliance that will significantly enhance the company's leadership position in online genealogy information. \n\nAncestry.com will become the primary partner for genealogy across America Online, Inc., properties, distributing Ancestry's genealogical content to AOL and ~CompuServe's combined membership of 20 million members. \n\nBy partnering with Ancestry.com, the AOL brand will provide users with deep search capabilities on an unparalleled set of family history databases, which grow every business day (currently there are over 274 million names available in more than 1770 databases). Exclusive holdings, historic maps, online publications from leading family history experts, genealogy news, genealogy products, and `how to' lessons will provide experienced researchers, hobbyists, or those curious about their family history with the tools they need to build family trees. \n\nUnder the terms of the deal, Ancestry.com will be the primary genealogy partner on AOL and will be featured in the ~CompuServe Hobbies and Interests area. Ancestry.com and AOL will also work together to create co-branded sites for each of the AOL properties and will share advertising revenue generated on those sites.\n

''CUDDLY PC VIRUS TURNS CHILDREN INTO WEB VICTIMS''\nChildren everywhere beware -- Pikachu is not as cuddly as he seems. \nThe Japanese Pokemon cartoon character has mutated on the Web into a nasty little computer-bugger, spreading himself via emails like the devastating "Love Bug" did. \n\nVirus experts said that the cute yellow rabbit-like creature, a darling of the Pokemon video-game family, had popped up in the United States, wrecking PCs that it gets into by wiping out their system files. Japanese anti-virus firm Trend Micro advises anyone receiving the mail to delete the file without opening it.\n\n''POKEY BITES LESS BUT BITES HARDER'' \nEarlier this year, the Love Bug raced around the world and caused damage estimated from hundreds of millions of dollars to billions -- mostly in big corporations forced to shut down their internal communications to stamp it out. \n\nIt came as an email entitled "ILOVEYOU" with an attachment that, if opened, infected the computer and emailed itself to everyone in the user's Microsoft (NasdaqNM:MSFT - news) Outlook address book. \n\nPokey, aimed at children hooked on the worldwide craze, has spread far less rapidly and less far, giving anti-virus software companies like Symantec, Britain's Sophos and Trend Micro time to mount a defence that is now in all their products.\n\nBut once Pokey, first seen at the end of June, gets into your computer, its bite is far harder than the Love Bug's.\n\nIt destroys all files in the Windows and System directories. The Microsoft operating system, used by four-fifths of the world's computers, must be reinstalled from scratch. \n\nLove Bug's most prevalent versions attacked data files such as pictures but not the whole system -- though without a backup these files could be irreplaceable. \n\n''LOVEBUG CHARGES DISMISSED''\nA lack of applicable laws forced prosecutors to dismiss all charges against the man accused of releasing the "Love Bug", A computer virus that caused billions of dollars in damages worldwide. \n\nThe Department of Justice said the charges filed by investigators either did not apply to computer hacking or that there was insufficient evidence to back them up. President Joseph Estrada signed a new law in June covering electronic commerce and computer hacking, but it could not be applied retroactively in the "Love Bug" case, which happened in May.\n\nInvestigators had charged Onel de Guzman, a former student at the Philippines' AMA Computer College, with traditional crimes such as theft and violation of a law that normally covers credit card fraud.\n\nThe Justice Department ruled that the credit card law does not apply to computer hacking and that investigators did not present adequate evidence to support the theft charge.\n\nComputer attacks are still not universally recognized as criminal, and the many countries that do not have computer hacking laws could potentially become safe havens for would-be attackers. \n\n"There's not a whole lot you can do about it," said James Butler, an attorney who teaches international law at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta.\n\nHe said cases like the "Love Bug" will only prompt companies to strengthen their defenses. The "Love Bug" virus, unleashed May 4, rapidly replicated itself via e-mail, overloading corporate e-mail systems in many countries and causing damage estimated at up to $10 billion. \n\nDe Guzman has acknowledged that he may have released the virus by accident but refused to say whether he was the author of it. \n\nThe National Bureau of Investigation had waited more than a month to file the charges against de Guzman while it attempted to find applicable laws. \n\nDe Guzman failed to graduate earlier this year after AMA professors rejected his thesis proposal for a program which steals Internet passwords, a feature of the Love Bug virus.\n\nDe Guzman became a suspect after AMA professors noticed similarities between his thesis proposal and the virus, and Internet service providers traced the virus to a telephone line in his apartment. \n\nReonel Ramones, a boyfriend of de Guzman's sister, was also arrested in a May 8 raid on de Guzman's apartment, but was released a day later because of insufficient evidence. \n\nCharges dropped because the Philippine law does not cover hacking, presents an obstacle to extraditing the former defendant to the United States to face possible charges. The U.S.-Philippine extradition treaty, like most others, provides extradition only for activities that the extraditing country itself also criminalizes.\n

''Earn free time on ~CompuServe''\nFor every person a member recommend, and who joins ~CompuServe Pacific, the recommending member will receive an online usage credit of either AU$20.00 or NZ$25.00. The online credit will be received as soon as they tell ~CompuServe Pacific that they have assisted another person to join, and is as simple as clicking GO CPFRIEND and filling in a few details. If a member requires additional Starter Kit software packs, then just call ~CompuServe Pacific's toll-free Sales Line (NZ 0800 442 374, Australia 1300 555 520, International +61 2 9855 6943), or fill out the form online, or e-mail ~CompuServe Pacific at PACIFICHELP.\nLatest software now available\n~CompuServe's latest software is now available on CD for members to upgrade. The CD contains versions ~CS4.0.2 for Windows, as well as the much awaited and vastly improved ~CS3.0.3 for the Macintosh! Members wanting a copy should contact Customer Support (NZ 0800 442 374), and it will be mailed to them.\n\n''Sending email to a fax machine''\n~CompuServe e-mail can easily be sent to a fax machine anywhere in the world, that is very handy if you do not have an e-mail address or telephone number for the person or company you are trying to contact. By simply using the address format \n{{{\n FAX: country code/area code/fax number\n}}}\nyour e-mail will be sent to that fax machine in minutes. For example, sending an e-mail message to ~CompuServe Pacific's Customer Service fax would be addressed FAX: 61298556800\nThe cost to send a fax message varies depending on the country of destination, as follows \n{{{\n Fax messages sent to New Zealand or Australia: \n US$1.90 for the first 1000 characters\n US$0.90 for additional 1000 characters\n\n Fax messages sent to Europe: \n US$0.90 for the first 1000 characters\n US$0.90 for additional 1000 characters\n\n Fax messages sent to USA: \n US$0.75 for the first 1000 characters \n US$0.25 for additional 1000 characters\n}}}\nThe cost to send fax messages to other countries varies on a country-by-country basis, and full details are given on-screen before sending the message.\n\n''Autocorrect: Improve your typing''\n~AutoCorrect Plus is a handy system tray-based tool that will improve your typing in nearly any 32-bit Windows application. With operation that's nearly identical to the similar feature in Microsoft Word 95/97, ~AutoCorrect Plus can automatically correct typographical or spelling errors as you type, without having to run a spelling checker. Errors corrected include common mistakes such as two initial caps, lowercasing of days of the week, first-letter capitalization of sentences, and the Caps Lock key accidentally being held down.\n\nThe program can also replace boilerplate text with a text shortcut for fast typing, as well as assist you in entering extended characters not available directly on your keyboard. In addition, you'll find hotkeys for temporarily turning on/off its activity and for undoing unwanted replacements. A copy of ACPLUS.ZIP can be found on Megabaud.\n\n''How long is it until the new millenium dawns?''\nYou'll always know the answer when you have the Millennium Countdown Clock, a cool tool you can download from the Windows Connectivity Forum. A copy of MCCSETUP.EXE. is available on Megabaud.\n

''~CompuServe Forum access via Internet''\n\nFull access to most ~CompuServe forums via Internet Web browser is free.\nHowever, users must either use an established 'Screen Name' and 'Password' or request a new one. They should follow these steps. \n\nEg For entry to the Crafts forums, it is most convenient to log on with an Internet browser to http://www.gocrafts.net\n\nClick on any of the blue underlined Fibercrafts or Handcrafts forum links.\n\nIf you prefer, you may go directly to the Crafts forums using the following (note specific addresses):\n\nhttp://go.compuserve.com/fibercrafts?loc=us&access=public\n\nYou will be presented with a screen titled 'Forums'. You may enter your Screen Name and Password here if you already have one. You may also click to place a checkmark next to 'Remember my password' to avoid entering this information each time you visit. \n\nIf this is your first visit, you must request a free Screen Name and Password by clicking 'Click Here' next to 'Get your Free Screen Name now!' near the bottom of this page.\n\nFollow these steps, scrolling as necessary: \n#Enter your desired Screen Name.\n**It may be difficult to find a Screen Name that is not in use. Combinations of names and numbers often work. You are not limited to the alternatives presented. You may continue to request Screen Names until you are successful in finding an available one to your liking. See limitations on screen.\n#Enter your current ~E-Mail Address.\n**(Use a valid current ~E-Mail address, as ~CompuServe will ~E-Mail you requesting confirmation.)\n#Enter your Password.\n**(Passwords must be a combination of least 4 letters, numbers, and/or punctuation marks. Password and Confirm Password must be typed in exactly the same.)\n#Finished.\n**(Click 'Finished'. If you get the response ' 1. Enter a new Screen Name and your current ~E-Mail Address' either click a circle to the left of one of the suggestions, if acceptable, or click on the circle to the left of 'Desired Screen Name' and type a different Screen Name.\n**Reenter your chosen Password and Confirm Password, then click 'Finished'. Repeat until successful.) \n#Check your email. \n**You will almost immediately receive a confirmation email from ~CompuServe. You MUST reply to this within 48 hours, following the instructions included in the email, or your account will not be activated.\n \n''Problems:''\n\nFull functionality may not be available if 'Cookies' are disabled in your Internet Browser. 'Chat' and 'Who's Here' functions will be inoperative if 'Java' support is disabled in your Internet Browser.\n\n''~Ex-CompuServe members:''\n\nIf you receive the message on first forum entry 'Your User ID and Password were not recognized':\n* Click 'Start' \n* Click 'Settings' \n* Click 'Control Panel' \n* Click 'Add/Remove Programs' \n* Click 'Virtual Key' \n* Click 'Add/Remove...' \n* Click 'Yes' \n* Click 'OK' \n* Click 'OK' \n- Log off, close all programs, and restart computer \n\n''Macintosh users ''\n\nYou may have to initialize 'Cookies' in your Internet Browser by going to the following site: http://www.petsforum.com/cistest.htm \n\nClick on each of the four underlined blue Link words and follow on-screen instructions. There may be other unresolved ~CompuServe problems that may affect some Mac users. \n

\nSome NZPCA members may well remember the days when the CompuServe Information Service provided dial-up access to over 400 individual topic Forums featuring file Libraries, Messaging, and real-time Chat.\n\nFor those not familiar with CompuServe, think of a very large, super bulletin board system accessable through the Internet.\nCompuServe has gone through many changes since its inception in 1969 to its current iteration as an online service owned and operated by the TimeWarner/America Online conglomerate.\n\nSignificantly today is the fact that CompuServe is literally accessible from any Internet network connection and any web-browser, but perhaps more importantly is that the service is free of any charges.\n\nThe interfaces of days gone by have now evolved into a 'net-standard', but CompuServe is still faithful to its origins by providing access to a large number of Forums that also retain the main attributes of Messaging, file Libraries, and Chat.\nTake a look for yourself, starting at www.compuserve.com. There are many areas of the CompuServe service where you can glean information on a variety of topics, or just update yourself with world-wide news, but of course the 'true' depth is in its subject Forums. From the above home page, simply click on any of the Channels listed (left-hand of page), or select the one called "Forum Centre".\n\nFrom the Forum Centre you will see and have access to the many subject Forums that populate CompuServe, with full alphabetical and description menus easily at hand.\n\nBefore being allowed access to the Forums, and some other specific areas within the service, you will need to register as a member. Now remember what I said earlier that the CompuServe service is free to anyone, but you do need to register for legal and operational purposes if you want to take part in a Forum's messaging discussions or (in some instances) download files from their libraries however this is not unusual for other online services thesedays. Registration is simply the provision of a Screen Name and Password. If you do not register, then quite a few of the Forums will still allow you 'guest' access, which usually permits one to read Forum messages but not post them or download files, etc.\n\nWhy not take a look at CompuServe for yourself? If you have any questions about CompuServe, feel free to e-mail me.\n\nCheers . \nRicky Berg\nricky_nz@compuserve.com\n

By Linnette Horne\n\n ''PACIFIC FORUM OPEN TO PUBLIC''\n\n Pacific Forum (GO PACIFIC or go.compuserve.com/Pacific) is open to any member of the public, using a web browser over *any* Internet connection.\n\n This is called NRF (Non-member Registration Forum), operates the same as CompuServe's USA-based Forums that have been NeRFed since April last year, and is completely free of any CompuServe charges.\n\n NRF members become *full* members of CompuServe's Forums and will be able to contribute & download Library files, post Messages, and take part in online Conferences/ Chats.\n\n In addition to opening the Forum to a greater number of users, the authentication mechanism that NRF uses has an added benefit whereby any CompuServe member (Classic or CS2000) will be able to authenticate into CompuServe Forums using a stand-alone browser. This will be a powerful and handy capability for those members (and Sysops) who travel or need to use computers at their school, library, office, etc.\n\n Over the years, many CompuServe Pacific members have for a variety of reasons chosen another ISP and dropped their CompuServe memberships, and along with that the ability to continue participating in our Forum. NRF overcomes this problem, so if you know of any past members of Pacific Forum, why not invite them back?\n\n

//From the NZPCA production of "Early Times with your PC"// \n\nIt's one o'clock in the morning and you have been wrestling with a particularly insidious little database problem for a good four hours. The information is there, but the program seems unwilling to format the report exactly the way you want it. Ah! Just one more little tweak. \n\nJust then your weary spouse beckons to you to please come to bed. "Just a minute," you scream. You're usually a calm, collected sort, not one to raise your voice without a real reason. After all, your mate has been very under -standing about this computer thing. You've spent many an evening with the machine and it has become a part of you. \n\nMaybe the computer has become too much a part of you. A computer is a machine, like a toaster. Obviously it has qualities that make it seem interesting, but inside it is just bits of silicon, epoxy, copper, plastic, aluminium and such. This ain't the stuff that makes the world go round. \n\nComputers are very useful machines. They make it possible to do things that you wouldn't dreams of tackling by hand. They are like a perfect secretary. They will wait for ever for you. They will do only what you tell them to do exactly the way you tell them to do it. They will work whenever you want and they never complain. Did I say a perfect secretary? They are just a machine after all. \n\nFor each of the positive images of computers, there is a potential pitfall. The computer allows you to do more work, so you are doing more work. Time is money and time with the computer is more money. Things rush by on the screen at breakneck speed and then the machine seems to take forever to do something insignificant. \n\nThis hurry up and wait pacing becomes your operating mode for daily life. You find that you have little patience with anything or anyone except the computer itself, because its pace has become your pace. The warm, inviting glow of the screen translates into sore eyes; hours at the keyboard into a sore back; and avalanches of information into a migraine headache. \n\nIts all to easy to drift away from a world of complex, subtle human interaction towards the computer's world a tiny, cleanly ordered, artificial world with out a trace of ambiguity. Maybe this is the ultimate curse of a generation raised on television. Television offers a similar , second-hand, perfected illusion of reality that makes real life look unappealing. \n\nIt should be obvious how to avoid this technological quagmire: ''Stop Using the Computer!'' \n\nWell, not completely, but pry yourself away from the thing once in a while. Sitting at the computer for hours on end is not healthy. Get up at least once an hour and do something else. You don't even have to turn the thing off, just walk away. Go talk to Stravinsky or Dire Straits, wash the car, chat with the neighbour, make a meal, pat the dog, take a walk, whatever. You'll be pleasantly surprised. \n\nHave you ever noticed that after you've spent hours grinding away at a project, a quick glance at the work the next day reveals embarrassingly obvious mistakes? Things that you struggled with become suddenly clarified by your refreshed outlook. You were concentrating on the trees so hard that you didn't see the forest. A few minutes per hour away from the computer will likely increase your real output and keep you in touch with the reasons that you bought the computer in the first place. \n\n

//From the AVG Antivirus help files//\n\n Interestingly, computer viruses have existed in science fiction since the sixties. At that time, of course, it was just a fantasy of the authors. It was not until the computer revolution of the eighties that they became a reality. In 1983 Dr. Frederick Cohen experimented at the University of Pennsylvania with "self-replicating" code and started using the term "virus". Remember that at this time even sci-fi authors did not imagine how powerful or widespread computers would be today.\n\n Computer viruses, as we know them now, originated in 1986 with the creation of Brain - the first virus for personal computers. Two brothers wrote it (Basid and Farooq Alvi who ran a small software house in Lahore, Pakistan) and started the race between viruses and anti-virus programs which still goes on today.\n\n Since then much has changed. Virus authors have mastered techniques which were never dreamt of - viruses which hide from anti-virus programs (stealth viruses), viruses which deliberately change their code (polymorphic viruses), and viruses which can infect data files (macro viruses). We can safely assume that the development of computer viruses is nowhere near an end. The release of new operating systems will lead to new viruses which will use the specific functions of these operating systems. On the other hand, the good news is that anti-virus research is not at a standstill either, and will be able to spot and repair viruses more efficiently.\n\n Let us concentrate on the present. So, what exactly is a computer virus?\n //A computer virus is a program containing self-replicating code, which is capable of attaching itself to other programs from which it can replicate further.//\n\n This definition is by no means perfect, and may not make much sense at first, but it carries the most important points.\n\n There are some programs which are often mistaken for viruses. For example, Trojan horses - programs which will produce unexpected effects (put obscene messages on screen, destroy data on your hard disk), but cannot replicate. Other "joke" programs can put crawling bugs on your screen or show messages telling you that your hard disk is being spin dried. Those programs do not have the main feature of computer viruses - the ability to replicate and spread themselves.\n\n '' How Viruses Spread.''\n To replicate is the prime task of computer viruses. In order to do so the virus needs the right conditions. First, the right environment (a computer with an operating system for which it was written) and targets which it can infect.\n\n On PC's, there are four types of targets for a virus:\n# Executable files (programs).Executable files generally have the extensions EXE, COM or SYS. Programs can have other extensions, especially these days when software suites use several modules and load each one into memory only when it is needed. It is common to name these with the extension OVL but there is no rule. Another good example of an executable program with an unusual extension can be a Windows screen saver (.SCR).\n# System areas. Boot sectors, on hard disks and diskettes, and partition sectors, only on hard disks, are often targeted by viruses. From the previous chapter you will know that these areas contain programs which are run when the computer is started.// Remark: Under Windows, a virus can infect crucial system components (for example ~KRNL32.DLL) in a very special way - not like ordinary executable file. It is unclear to us if those infections should be categorized as "system area infection" or "executable file infection".//\n# Documents which can contain macros. Mainly documents written in Microsoft Word (usually DOC and DOT) and Microsoft Excel (usually XLS), but also others. Maybe you should consider this kind of file to be an executable program as the macros they contain are executed whenever they are opened.\n# Other objects. They are other "infectable" objects. Attempts to infect source code, OBJ and batch files or INI scripts for mIRC are interesting but do not pose much of a threat. More interesting are are attempts to infect Java-class files or HTML files with embeded code in ~JScript or ~VBScript or ~VBScript files itself. Currently we know some "viruses" for ~VBScript and we carefully observe this area. If it can grow to be a real problem, then we will immediately add a solution for those platforms.\n \nNon-infectable objects. Some things can never be infected, but there are many myths surrounding them. These are:\n\n ''CMOS Memory''\n This holds configuration data only, not executable code and is too small to hold anything else. A virus can amend or alter CMOS data but cannot infect it.\n\n ''Data files''\n A virus can infect any file but in the case of data files this would be completely futile. These files cannot be executed so a virus could not spread any further.\n \nLife, unfortunately, is not straightforward since you cannot determine if a file is executable just by looking at its extension. It can happen that a virus infects, for example, a file named JBOND.007 and still be able to spread further. This happens if a novice programmer names an executable module with an extension which goes against programming conventions - mainly found with old games.\n \nA very important exception from this rule are data files which can contain complex macros - such as files from Microsoft Office or from other modern office packages.\n\n ''Printer.''\n Communication with a printer works as follows. The computer sends data to the printer and signals confirming reception and status signals (paper out, paper jam) are returned. There is nothing to stop viruses from sending themselves down the cable to the printer; this will result only in a printed page of gibberish. Similarly, a virus cannot infect a monitor, keyboard or mouse.\n\n '' Popular legends.''\n\n Viruses are further associated with certain effects and capabilities which they do not have, mainly because to attain these would be impossible. These are:\n*Viruses damage hardware\n**Stories have been told of older hardware which was harmed by software. Some old hard disks could, after a low level format, fall into a deep state of lethargy and only be revived with software from their manufacturer. Monitors which lacked any self-defense could be set to impossible synchronization frequencies which caused meltdown. Modern hardware should not be susceptible to any such damage and if a problem does arise it would be very localized. To write a successful virus with these characteristics would be nearly impossible.\n**One dangerous thing we can see are viruses, like the CIH virus, which try to modify or overwrite the flash BIOS on the motherboard or upgradable ROM in any other computer component.\n*A virus can survive a computer reset\n**Some viruses can survive a reboot, but only a "warm reboot" - done by pressing ~Ctrl-Alt-Del in combination. However, no virus can survive a hardware reset which is achieved by pressing the reset button on the front panel of your PC (if your PC has a reset button).\n*A clever virus can launch an attack from an infected diskette even when it is only read (e.g. through the DIR command)\n**As said earlier, for a virus to become active in memory it must be executed. This can only happen if you run an infected file or boot from an infected diskette (this can happen if a diskette is left in drive A: when the computer is rebooted).\n**A computer cannot be infected just by reading data (even virus code). This does not just concern viewing files but also other operations which read files, e.g. printing and copying.\n**It may happen that an anti-virus program will find a virus in memory immediately after an infected diskette has been read. This is because when reading a diskette the operating system will load the data into memory, but never as executable code. The data will remain in memory until it is overwritten but will remain harmless. When an anti-virus program examines the memory it will find and report the virus code but will not be able to tell that it is inactive.\n**Macro viruses are an exception as they can infect when opened in the parent application (e.g. Word, Excel) but other actions with these documents are safe.\n*A felonious virus can infect a diskette which is write protected\n**Write protection on a diskette is done by hardware and can be changed only by physically moving the "tab" on the diskette. Viruses cannot write themselves to a diskette which has been write protected. Some viruses try to get around this - through psychological means - by instructing you to change the diskette to write enable, with a "fake" system error message. Many novices obediently follow this instruction.\n\n '' Hoax.''\n\n Hoax itself is not dangerous. Usually it's an e-mail which claims originating from very serious source and contains misleading information about some security threat.\n For example:\n\n>Subject: Virus Alert Importance: High\n> If anyone receives mail entitled: PENPAL GREETINGS! please delete it WITHOUT reading it. Below is a little explanation of the message, and what it would do to your PC if you were to read the message. If you have any questions or concerns please contact ~SAF-IA Info Office on 697-5059.\n>This is a warning for all internet users - there is a dangerous virus propogating across the internet through an e-mail message entitled "PENPAL GREETINGS!".\n>DO NOT DOWNLOAD ANY MESSAGE ENTITLED "PENPAL GREETINGS!"\n>This message appears to be a friendly letter asking you if you are interested in a penpal, but by the time you read this letter, it is too late. The "trojan horse" virus will have already infected the boot sector of your hard drive, destroying all of the data present. It is a self-replicating virus, and once the message is read, it will AUTOMATICALLY forward itself to anyone who's e-mail address is present in YOUR mailbox!\n>This virus will DESTROY your hard drive, and holds the potential to DESTROY the hard drive of anyone whose mail is in your inbox, and who's mail is in their inbox, and so on. If this virus remains unchecked, it has the potential to do a great deal of DAMAGE to computer networks worldwide!!!!\n \n\nPlease, delete the message entitled "PENPAL GREETINGS!" as soon as you see it! And pass this message along to all of your friends and relatives, and the other readers of the newsgroups and mailing lists which you are on, so that they are not hurt by this dangerous virus!!!!\n If you become some warning message not directly from credible source, but forwarded from any person, check please our WWW pages or Hoax (Alert) Information provided by ICSA.\n And last but not least. Please don't forward warning messages to other persons unless you don't 100% know if it's about real problem.\n\n '' Trojan horses. ''\n\nTrojan horses are typical software which are frequently mistaken with computer viruses. Trojan horses often are very simple programs which fake some useful work, but instead of deleting files or system areas, they change the contents of the CMOS memory or take any other destructive action.\n \nSome of them target particular programs and make changes to their configuration, try to hide passwords etc.\n \nTrojans, such as ~BackOrifice are very dangerous. If you run this program and your computer is connected to the internet, then the hacker can take control of your computer - transfer files to or from the computer, capture screen contents, run any program or kill any running process, etc.\n

By William Sly.\n\n Once upon a time, I used to train people how to use computers to do their jobs better. The courses were very successful - everybody said so. But, but, despite what they said, no one ever used what I taught. They just went back to work and carried on exactly as before because the pressure of routine and lack of expectation were too much.\n\n Now, the NZPCA people like you and me are different; by definition NZPCA members join because they want to use their computers for some real, serious purpose. Some may be fascinated by the lure of the buzzing electrons and blinking lights, but even the most techy will have been drawn in to achieve a real result beyond watching the hard disk light go on and off. NZPCA members will be using their computers for Real Life!\n\n Thinking about this led me to look at why I, along with so many others, have abandoned family and spouse to stare at the screen; what does the computer really contribute? What difference does it make? How does the beast make my Life Better?\n\n First and foremost, computers at work have made life tolerable; anyone who rabbits on about the dehumanizing of the work place, should be sentenced to thirty years of daily manual book-keeping. Again, computers at work let us treat millions of people as dis- tinct individuals; we may not like it when the IRD and Social Welfare combine to pick us out as the same person who is both giving and receiving but for good or ill, with a computer, the World can treat each one of us as a separate soul and you have an IRD number to prove it.\n\n But computers at work are not the issue - how do we live differently because of a home PC?\n\n In my own case, the PC permits me to write more; I write more letters and I even write articles like this one. With the faithful PC, I am freed from the endless rough drafts and revisions and crossings out and the preparation of something that a typist can read and then the checking and all the hassle that goes with turning out words by pen. (A really good computer would improve that last sentence.) The typing tutor in my PC taught me to type and increased my output of words; this would have been great if there had been a lot of words waiting to come out but as so often, unlocking the treasure chest reveals only an empty box.\n\n Like most members of the NZPCA, I am a fully certified neurotic and people like us gain comfort from making lists; the database programme in my PC is my prop, my staff, my protector from volatile (and increasingly degraded) bio-memory. At a pinch, I could live without the word processor but I need my daily coun- selling with the database. To explain; I keep a list of things to be done in the database system. The list of things to be done gets regularly updated by me and from a lurking bring up system. It is all there - the birthdays (or rather The Birthday), the Warrant of Fitness, the tax payments, the reminder to look up Joe Soap and when its time to go round the gutters. Without the list, it is possible, just possible, that I could clean out the gutters too often. Needless to say, there is more on the list than gets done; this could be troubling but at least I have not forgotten what I should have done last month and when I cease to be troubled by what I haven't done, I can afford to take it off the list. This process is called Organization and Planning. It is a serious approach to Real Life. I have labelled Chaos.\n\n The database has also freed up space at home; before I used it, I used to have files where I could get at them, ie all over the floor. NZPCA members will know how this affects household calm. Now the files are neatly boxed up and stored off-site because my friendly database record list will tell me immediately where and which box contains the file I want. Domestic harmony is not en- tirely restored but the topics for dissension are changed.\n\n Utilities are another grand comfort for the neurotic; my files are beautifully displayed and arranged and rearranged and rear- ranged in sub-directories. The garden is weeds, the car is rust, the children are apes, but in the hard disk, order, calm and regularity prevail.\n\n Spreadsheets have never had the same domestic impact as the database; I conscientiously maintain a spreadsheet on petrol consumption and another on power usage. The spreadsheet on power consumption provides valuable insights such as that you will use more power in a year if you fail to take a holiday abroad in mid-winter. Another insight is that the onset of teenage males' interest in females shows up on the graph from the increased consumption of hot water. Having accounted for the fluctuations in power, I can sleep, comforted by knowing I can't do anything about it. Honesty obliges me to say that not a cent has been saved by having detailed consumption figures for power and petrol but the graphs show me that I have done my bit for conservation.\n\n Games are not a turn on; I tried Flight Simulator for a few weeks and was churned, shaken and twitching after repeated resur- rection from the twisted heaps of wreckage for 'just one more' attempt.\n\n Now this analysis shows me that the awesome power of my PC has never been put to any profound purpose at all. Perhaps after all, I should give up gawping at the screen and go and see what the family have been doing for the last few years. But, on second thoughts, maybe I should try a new utility programme.\n

\n//To be able to communicate with other computers opens lots of possibilities.\nWith the aid of a computer, a modem and communications software, Electronic Mail, Bulletin Boards, Funds Transfers, Information Databases etc are as close as your phone.//\n\nBulletin Boards can be off-putting. There can be problems making the computer talk the modem and the modem and computer to talk to the Bulletin Board. Also the user may find that he/she has no idea what to do once connected to the Bulletin Board system and being presented with a number of brief and sometimes confusing menus, with only a limited amount of time in which to comprehend the system, is rather daunting.\nBefore communication between computers can take place it is helpful to understand what are the system requirements what options the user has and some of the traps to avoid.\n\n''Equipment''\nWithout wanting to state the obvious, the most basic pieces of equipment that someone wanting to communicate via telephone lines are a computer, a modem and associated cabling.\nModern modems have become relatively cheap and quite smart. For example two years ago, 2400 BPS was becoming the standard and was cheaply priced at $700. Now 2400 is the standard and the NZPCA sells them with all the bells and whistles for $365 and 9600 BPS modems are becoming more common.\nWhile it is possible to find real bargain prices on 300, 1200 or 1200/75 bps modems, they are not a good investment and should be avoided. A 2400 bps modem is a good speed to aim for - much less and there will probably not be sufficient time allocation to download the larger and more interesting files.\n\n''Connection''\nAlso necessary is some way of connecting the modem to the computer, and the modem to the phone line. If using an external modem, a data cable is needed to connect to the PC's serial port. \nThe cable needs to provide connections for the following pins on a standard New Zealand line:\n 2 - Data Transmit, 3 - Data Receive, 4 - Request to Send, 5 - Clear to Send, 6 - Data Set Ready, 7 - Signal Ground, 8 -Carrier Detect, 20 - Data Terminal Ready, 22 - Ring Indicator.\n \n(These are based on the 25 pin connector that is most common on IBM PC compatible machines. )\nIf you have an AT which uses a 9 pin connector the corresponding pins are as follows: \n1 - Carrier Detect, 2 - Data Receive, 3 - Data Transmit, 4 - Data Terminal Ready, 5 - Signal Ground, 6 - Data Set Ready, 7 - Request to Send, 8 - Clear to Send, 9 - Ring Indicator.\n\nFor this purpose, what is often called a “straight through cable" is usually suitable and even a ribbon cable can do the job quite well.\n\n''Configuring the System''\nIt is important to ensure that the modem is correctly set to communicate with the system. Most modems come with defaults that are suitable for connection to a minicomputer rather than a PC.\n PC software offers many more options when it comes to controlling a modem than can usually be found in a minicomputer environment, so there are a number of changes which will need to be made to get the best results.\nThe following parameters are fairly generic to smart modems, though the details may differ to some degree from modem to modem.\n\nCarrier Detect - carrier detect must be set to following the true state, rather than being forced on.\n\nData terminal ready - must be set to follow the state of the DTR line from the PC.\n\nResult Codes - result codes must be returned by the modem in a format that allows the communications software to interpret what is going on in relation to "quiet"' mode, results in words or numerals, verbose or kurt.\nMost modems come with a fairly short default time out. This is controlled by the S7 register. This should be increased, to allow for slow telephone exchanges and also to allow for auto-ranging modems to make the correct speed connection. This means that the S7 register should be set to 40 or 45 rather than the default of less. This is particularly important when in comes to connecting to multi-speed modems as they will present their highest speed scan first, and the modem will have to wait until it moves on to the V22bis and V22 scan. There is nothing more frustrating than making a call and getting a connect just as the modem decides that it has waited long enough and drops the line.\n\nSpeaker control - Most modems are equipped with a speaker, which allows the user to tell what is going on. This can be useful, and while it is not strictly necessary, it is suggested that “Ml" command be used, which indicates that the speaker should be on until a connection is made. This gives the best indication of the status of the connection attempt. Some modems will also allow control of the speaker volume with an “L" command. If so, set it so what is going on can be heard but so too many nearby people will not be disturbed with the rather strange noises the modem will make.\n\n''~Auto-Answer'' -Some modems come with a default to answer the phone after one or two rings. While this is not a major problem, it can be a bit of a pain if you have the modem connected into what is normally a voice line. As a result and to save callers from getting an ear full of modem noise in situations such as when the telephone is a bit slow being answered, it is probably a good idea to disable this feature. This is done by setting the S) register to 0.\nWhen setting up the software it will also need to be supplied with a number of other parameters. Usually these can be entered on a system by system basis, though in most cases, they are not likely to change all that much. One of the most important sets of parameters that need to be set up is the data length, parity and stop-bits setup. These are usually entered as a set, since they are all connected. For most BBS systems, these should be set to 8 data bits, no parity, 1 stop bit and half duplex set either to “no" or “full”.\n\n''Modem Memory''\nSome modems have non-volatile memory and others don't. It is important to know which type of memory your modem has so as it can be set up properly. The modem's manual is a good place to start looking if uncertain as to which memory your modem has.\nThe majority of modems with non-volatile memory use EEPROM (Electrically rep A reprogrammable EPROM memory) to store the set¬tings defined for it. To load particular settings into non-volatile memory the communications program has to be in terminal mode. The user then defines the settings such as ATBO &C1, etc., presses v enter' at the end of the string and then keys in AT&W followed by v enter' again. The settings will now be stored and can be re¬stored whenever the modem is powered on.\nIf the modem does not have non-volatile memory the user needs to instruct the commu¬nications program to use a setup string of commands as the default initialisation every time it initialises the modem.\nA word of Caution. Non-volatile mem¬ory modems have a strictly finite life cycle - so if it is written to too many times, the modem will loose its capability to store information. This should not be a major concern, but it is worth noting that the number of times the “&W” command is used. Generally once the initial settings have been established it should not be necessary to re-write the non-volatile memory unless something upsets the settings that are stored.\n\n''Communications Software''\nAs well as the computer, modem and cables, some software to talk to the modem and the bulletin board is also required. Having got the equipment set up and turned on it is time to access a communications program. (Remember to turn the modem on before accessing the comms program so as the software can initialise the modem.)\nThere is a wide range of communications software available so many alternatives for the PC that it is a task in itself to cover them in any detail. As Phil Hayward pointed out last month, there is a "Comms" component to Microsoft Works, PC Tools and Windows also have them.\nMost people who use communications software however have one of the well known names. ~ProComm, Boyan, QModem, Telix or Telemate. All of these programs are "Shareware" and are available from our software library. Of all these programs ProComm is probably the most commonly used, however all have strengths and weaknesses.\nSo which program do you select? Given the range available the user needs to determine his/her needs and then find one which does what is required or if that sounds too structured and scientific the only way to find out which one suits your needs is to try them all!\n\nThere are however some features which should be looked for.\n1. The ability to store multiple phone numbers in a directory of some sort, to make dialing different numbers easy.\n\n2. Support for ANSI graphics - not necessary, but since most BBS system operators (~SysOps) go to a lot of trouble to produce colourful and interesting screens for the user to see, they might as well be utilised. The vast range of Comms programs means the user needs to determine their requirements. There are some features however which are a must for all decent Communications software.\n\n3. Support for as many different file transfer protocols as possible, particularly the fastest of them - Z Modem. (The Shareware version ~ProComm does not have this as part of the program but it can be adequately added as an v x external protocol".\n\n4. The ability to capture data to a file, so sessions can logged (both for information on how to set things up and also to provide a way of capturing interesting messages, should you desire to do so.)\n\n5. The ability to run "scripts" or "macros". While this will not matter when someone first gets a modem, once familiar with the equipment, a facility of this sort helps a great deal to automate operations, so that things like logging onto the bulletin board system can be taken care of automatically.\n\n''Logging on to the BBS''\nHaving dialed the BBS number and received a ringing tone the user will after a short wait receive an initial connect message.\nWhen the BBS software loads, it will prompt the user to enter his/her name. Some BBS's are real name boards, others ~SysOps allow aliases to be used. The system will then scan its user files to check whether it already has this particular user listed. If it doesn't, it will prompt again (in case of mistype or some line noise interrupted on the first attempt). At some initial stage the user will then be asked for a password and asked if they want to join this BBS.\n It is worth pointing out the obvious. Computers are not mind readers. That is if a person logs in as Greg Smith, when he is already a member of a particular BBS as Gregory Smith, do not be surprised if the system treats "Greg" as new to it and asks him if he wants to join.\n Joining a BBS will invariably mean the person logging on will have to provide some basic information about themselves like tele phone number and in the case of a board which allows for aliases - a real name. Expect the ~SysOp to telephone back within a week to either confirm or deny your membership.\n\n''Passwords''\n There are several things which should be considered about passwords. For the user's security each password should be unique. In other words do not use the same password on more than one system. While doing so is not likely to cause any problems for the BBS, if there is any breach of security, the user may find that some other person is using their name, has been calling other boards and been given a bad name.\n From the ~SysOp's point of view, if the user has the same passwords on multiple systems, it is not likely that a welcome reception will be awaiting them when they try to convince the Sysop that they have no responsibility for the damages done in the user's name.\n\n''Which BBS's to Call''\n There is in excess of 30 BBS's around the greater Wellington area. Each system has its own niche. Most if not all systems offer messaging and file transfer facilities, while a few allow people to play on-line games. Some systems by the choice of software they use provide easier messaging and ~E-Mail than do others. Other systems concentrate on file swapping. BBS's such as Digital Vaults -sponsored by PC Addon's, provide regular files which have been downloaded from the U.S.A.\n It pays to shop around, have a look at many of the BBS's available. Be aware that some Boards are free, while others require some fee to be paid to keep it running.\n\n''Conclusion''\n Using a computer to communicate with another computer can be fun, relaxing, informative etc. It can also be frustrating and the source of many new questions. Regardless, communication via modem opens up a new world which is begging to be explored.\n\n//Adapted from an article by Paul Marwick, "Bulletin Boards, Modems and Communications Software" which was featured in the December edition of "Significant Bits" - the Official Magazine of the Brisbug PC Users Group Inc.//\n\n\n\n

// Thanks to John Thomson for his prodigious output of very interesting articles. This one is a great follow-on from his earlier articles and talks ... Ed//\n\n When new technology is introduced there is always a race to fill in the gaps before the major manufacturers start producing products. At the present time here in New Zealand there is only a trickle of Bluetooth products because product suppliers realise that most computer owners (that's you and me) do not have a dedicated Bluetooth enabled machine.\n \nA similar situation happened a few years ago when USB products started appearing in computer shops; very few computer owners had USB enabled computers. So conversion PCI cards were made available so PC owners did not need to upgrade their existing motherboard to take advantage of USB. Now that we have a new USB standard you can purchase a conversion card to convert your existing computer's motherboard to USB 2.0.\n\n So if you want to convert your existing desktop computer to Bluetooth enabled rather than replacing your motherboard you can purchase an USB transmitter/receiver from a local trade agent for $65. And Dick Smith's sell a similar USB Bluetooth device for $97 (on special). Quay computers $125. Basically you just plug the Bluetooth converter dongle into one of your USB ports (1.1 or 2.0). To add Bluetooth functionality to your Laptop, Notebook or PDA you can use a PCMCIA adaptor/CF card. Data transfer rates up to 1 Mbps. These cards are also available from DSE and Quay, price $120. See below for driver information.\n\n ''Converting other equipment.''\n\n Changing your old wired mouse to a Bluetooth mouse is real easy. The mouse kit will include a Bluetooth mouse and a Bluetooth transmitter/receiver that plugs into a spare USB port. The mouse will have two rechargeable AAA batteries or a special Lithium battery inside. Once a week you'll need to plug the mouse into a small lead, which plugs into a USB port. This will recharge the battery or batteries. If for some reason you do forget to recharge the batteries the mouse will still work with the lead plugged in.\n\n Recently 3Com released a Bluetooth wireless kit for parallel port printers. Plug in a special transmitter/receiver antenna (with flash memory) into your printer's parallel port and an antenna into a USB port on your computer and your old printer is now working wirelessly. Obviously if your computer is Bluetooth enabled (like many laptops now appearing on the market) you don't need the small antenna plugged into the USB port.\n\n I'll probably not be buying this conversion kit myself, as it's priced at $375 and is too expensive for the home front. The parallel port antenna has built in flash memory, which makes it expensive. But for an office situation this price is nothing, when you want to reduce noise by positioning a shared printer away from other work station computers. Several Bluetooth printer connections can be set up very quickly without the need for messy cabling by purchasing additional USB antennas. Installation is very simple, when you plug in the antennas the activation process prints a test page. And it is great idea if you have a PDA (which don't have parallel ports) and your office uses an old heavy duty printer, rather than a new USB type printer. Printing is a little slower using a Bluetooth connection, but fast enough for most small offices.\n\n Presently most cellphones connect to a laptop using a small adaptor cable. But if you purchase a new Bluetooth-enabled cellphone and a Bluetooth-enabled laptop (or convert your laptop as described above) you will not need the cable as your laptop will connect to your cellphone via Bluetooth with GPRS* or ~JetStream connecting you to the Internet. Some new cellphones now come with a USB adaptor charging cable. Saves you taking your standard phone charger when you go on holiday. One less item to pack and carry, as long as your laptop has USB or where you are staying there is a computer with USB ports.\n\n ''Driver Set Up.''\n\n Be aware that just like installing a USB PCI conversion card you will need to install the appropriate drivers, if you are still using an earlier version of Windows. At the time of writing Microsoft has not released digitally signed drivers for XP or 2000. So you'll need generic drivers. In some cases these drivers may not marry correctly with Windows XP or 2000 so you will probably need to play around to find the best solution. Many PC owners were unable to install USB PCI cards.\n \n The main reasons were, they were using an operating system that didn't include drivers for USB, Windows 95/98 users required a patch program called ~USB-Supp.exe. Even if they were using an operating system with USB support they installed Microsoft using typical settings. So the USB drivers were never installed or not correctly activated. And in some cases they needed to go into the BIOS and change PCI settings to activate. Setting up a Bluetooth connection and installing drivers at this point in time is very similar. If you are using a version of Windows, which does not include drivers, you will need to obtain drivers from the product manufacturer. When drivers come available from Microsoft, update your system. Generally Microsoft "core" drivers perform better than drivers from product manufacturers.\n\n '' A Practical Test.''\n\n When I conducted a practical test with three-language school students near our home in Halifax Street, a Bluetooth converted laptop stopped receiving data at 60 metres with no physical obstructions in the way. Better than the required 10 metres. Working through two internal house walls it started dropping its connection at 20 metres.\n \n Bluetooth products are being released monthly. You only have to go to the Electronic Trade Fair in Hong Kong to realise there are thousands of new products released each year. Only a small fraction of these products end up in New Zealand. It's important to understand that Bluetooth technology is only part of a much wider movement towards wireless systems for computers, notebooks, workstations, networks and other computer connected devices. It has been predicted that 45% of laptops out of the box will be wireless enabled this year (2003).\n \n//- John Thomson Gella@paradise.net.nz//\n\n * GPRS = general packet radio service.

''INTRODUCTION''\nMost people are under the impression that adding a huge ~CPU-cooler to their CPU is going to solve all of their heat problems. Well, that might hold true to some extent, but we must not forget that even the biggest ~CPU-cooler can only bring the CPU down to case temperature. Thus, if a high case temperature is holding you back from running your system reliably, you might want to consider cooling your whole system, or the peripherals within the case.There are lots of peripherals in your system that contribute to raising your case temperature, such as: CPU: Depending on the make, model and the clock speed, your CPU will dissipate anywhere from 20 watts to 60watts. For example, a Pentium 233 MMX will put out a mere 20 watts but a 650 ~MHz Athlon will dissipate up to 60 watts.\n\n''Power supply:''\nAlthough it may not have occurred to you, this is the second largest heat-producing device in your system. For example, a 250 watts switching power supply, as found in almost every computer case, has approximately a 75-80% efficiency, this means that only 75-80% of the power supplied to it is actually used to generate the output power. The remaining 20-25% is dissipated as heat; thus, in the worst case scenario, 62.5 watts of heat are dissipated by the power supply.\n\n''Hard disk:''\nMost hard disks spin at 5,400 or 7,200 rpm, with some ~U2W-SCSI units spinning even higher at 10,000 rpm, and their contribution to the case temperature is also not to be neglected. For example, a 9.1 GB ~IDE-hard disk dissipates approximately 10 watts, but a 36 GB ~U2W-SCSI-harddisk dissipates up to 40 watts of heat.\n\n''Video card:''\nVideo cards are getting still faster and hotter as clock speeds increase, and 3D applications stress the video card to the maximum. For example, a simple 3D accelerator dissipates about 5 watts; the latest generation 3D accelerators, however, dissipates up to 20 watts.\n\n''COOLING THE COMPUTER CASE.''\nMost cases are outfitted with a bracket to mount an extra fan, usually located at the front, but some cases also have one at the top, near the power supply. The trick is to create airflow inside the case that will dump the heat generated by the peripherals outside. As the natural flow of heat is upwards, the hot air will always rise to the top of your case, where in most cases the power supply is mounted. Unfortunately most power supplies have a fan blowing inward, while we want to get rid of that hot air accumulating at the top of the case by blowing it outside. Thus, one of the first things we should consider is reversing the power supply fan 180 degrees and screwing it back in. In most cases this will cause a temperature drop of approximately 5 to 10 degrees. Next we need to create airflow by mounting an extra fan, usually 80x80x25mm, at the bottom of the case in the mounting bracket and have it blowing cold air inside the case. In combination with the reversed power supply fan we have now created airflow inside the case, as cold air is sucked in at the bottom and blown out at the top. If you plan to buy a couple of case fans, make sure you get ball bearing fans, preferably with 3 pin connectors, because you then will have a readout of the actual rpm of the fan, if your motherboard supports this feature.\n\n''CASE COOLING SOLUTIONS:''\nThere are other cooling peripherals that will further increase the airflow in your system. 3DCOOL.COM ~Super-Duper-Slot-Fan - $18.00 : The first one we want to take a look at is the 3DCOOL.COM super-duper-slot -fan. This is actually a fan mounted on a bracket that you can use to get a better airflow inside of your system, and also to direct the airflow over a hot peripheral, such as a video card or 3D accelerator. The fan is rated at 3200 rpm, displacing 42 cfm of air. Installing it is easy; just mount it into an empty slot, connect the power cable and you are ready to go.\n\n''3DCOOL.COM'' ~Twin-Turbo - $25.00\nThis is the best solution we've seen to date to get a good airflow inside your system; the ~Twin-Turbo features two 92 mm, 2100 rpm fans, displacing over 80 cfm of air and only taking up a 5.25" inch bay in the process. The fans can be reversed to take air in at the top or at the bottom, and the noise level is so low that you won't even know that they are running--other than by the huge reduction in case temperature .\n\n''COOLING THE PERIPHERALS:'' \nAnother approach is to cool the peripherals directly and make sure there is proper airflow over them. There are a couple of cooling peripherals out there that enable you to do so:~CPU-coolers: \n\n''Part II Hard disk-coolers:''\nAs we mentioned in the introduction, a hard disk's contribution to raising the case temperature is not to be neglected either. Particularly if you have a cramped case, filled to the rim with all kinds of peripherals, you risk overheating your harddisk and losing valuable data or even destroying it. There are a couple of hard disk coolers on the market that improve airflow across the hard disk, but most of them tend to take up a 5.25" inch bay in the process, and that may be undesirable.\n\n''3DCOOL.COM'' ~Ultra-Thin-Exhauster - $25.00,\nHowever there is a cooling solution available that will fit any 3.5" hard disk without the need to sacrifice a 5.25" bay. The ~Ultra-Thin- Exhauster is mounted underneath your hard disk and is only 11 mm high; thus, it will not take up any extra space. Powered by an 18 cfm, 3500 rpm, 60 mm fan, this hard disk-cooler more than adequately cools down your hard disk, and improves reliability and extends the life of your hard disk at the same time.\n\n''CONCLUSION:''\nWith all the cooling solutions available today, you can easily reduce your case temperature and improve stability and extend the life of your peripherals. The simplest solution is to buy a couple of case fans and mount them in the available brackets, which will reduce your case temperature by at version, you can't go wrong.The ~Super-Duper-Slot-Fan can be used to cool a hot peripheral, such as a 3D accelerator directly, but it also holds its own when used to get the hot air out of your system. Priced at $18.00, it's not too expensive. However, the best performing cooling solution, and the one that impressed us the most, is the ~Twin-Turbo, as it is a quiet, powerful and very well-performing cooling solution that will bring your case temperature down like none other available. The $25.00 price tag is a bargain, considering price / performance ratio. Furthermore, if you are looking for a good way to cool your hard disk, the ~Ultra-Thin-Exhauster is probably the most powerful and compact device available. For only $25.00 you can't go wrong here, either. \nHardware Central would like to thank 3DCOOL.COM for donating to us the products used in the review, along with the can of compressed air. Their website can be found at: 3DCOOL.COM and they take domestic and international orders.\n\nThis article in its entirety can be found at:http://www.hardwarecentral.com\n

A good, valid system disk is invaluable in the event of an emergency. Taking a few minutes to create a good one is a good idea.\n\nA system disk is a diskette with Windowssystem files and necessary setup files. Its purpose is to be able to boot your system in the event that the hard drive fails to do so. It is also used to setup a hard drive.\n\nTo create a good system disk, follow the steps here.\n1.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Find a blank floppy diskette and stick it in drive A.\n2.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In Windows Explorer, right-click on A:,then choose format.\n3.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Click on //full// format and check //Copy System Files//\n4.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Click OK. It should start to format. Make syre the disk isn't write-protected. If it is, Windows will tell you\n5.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; When done, you will probably have COMMAND.COM, DRVSPACE.BIN, IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS on the disk. But you want moreto make the disk truly useful.\n6.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Copy FDISK.EXE, FORMAT.COM, EDIT.COM, REGEDIT.EXE, UNINSTALL.EXE, SYS.COM, SCANDISK.INI, CHKDSK.EXE, ATTRIB.EXE to the diskette. Some of these files are not really necessary, but may be of help in certain situations. Also, adding MSCDEX.EXE and SBCD.SYS or some variants for your ~CD-ROM drive can be useful in case your hard drive fails, and you need these drivers to reinstall your Operating System from scratch on a new drive.\n7.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; If there are any other files you think should be there, by all means, copy them over.\n8.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Remove the diskette from the drive.\n9.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Flip the write-protect latch over to keep this fisk from being corrupted.\n10.&nbsp; Test the disk by booting your system off to it.

\n//By John Little//\n\n Having recently presented myself with a CD writer, I was keen to try copying some of my old vinyl LP records on to compact discs for convenience of playing. This article attempts to set out the process, which hopefully may assist others interested in giving this a try. The software I used was Roxio Easy CD Creator 5.1\n\n ''Step 1:'' You first need to set up a physical connection between your stereo system and your PC. As my own stereo is a relatively basic one without RCA output sockets on the amplifier, I used a lead with 3.5mm stereo jacks at both ends to connect one end to the sound card (Line-in) and the other to my stereo�s headphone socket. I then tested the connection, as in Step 2, to be sure the volume level was adequate but not too high.\n\n ''Step 2:'' For this test, right�click on the Volume Control icon in your system tray. Choose "Open Volume Controls." In the resulting "Play Control" screen, choose Properties in the Options menu.\n \nChoose "Recording" (the default setting is "Playback"). Tick the box for the Line In volume control, de-selecting the other boxes, then click OK.\n \nLeave the remaining screen open, with the line slider bar at the half-way point. It may need to be adjusted later, up or down, depending on the audio volume received.\n\n ''Step 3:'' In Windows, start Sound Recorder. (From Start menu go to Programs, then Accessories, then Entertainment, then Sound Recorder). From its File menu, select Properties. Click the Convert Now button. Under "Name" select "CD Quality" and click OK. Click OK again to exit the Properties for Sound dialogue box, and start playing your LP with the volume on your stereo muted or turned down. You should hear the sound coming through your PC's speakers and you can then click the Sound Recorder's record button. Record a sample album track for about 30 seconds and then click the stop button. Stop your LP and then click the Sound Recorder's play button.\n\n ''Step 4:'' The recording will play back through your PC's speakers and if it sounds much quieter or louder than the LP itself, you will need to go back to the Recording control and adjust the line slider up or down.\n\n ''Step 5:'' You can now start Roxio's Soundstream, which incorporates Spin Doctor. In Select Source, you should see the name of your sound system - for example, Soundblaster. Soundstream allows you to select your music source and destination. You can choose your CD writer as the destination, or alternatively a folder on your hard drive with a view to burning a ~CD-R later. The latter method has the advantage that you can edit the music if so desired, using the software, before you proceed to create your CD. (These notes are written around the second option i.e. writing to your HDD first).\n \nSpin Doctor contains adjustable settings designed to reduce the clicks, scratches and other audio defects common with older ~LPs. Another option is "Split into Tracks", which will ensure that each side of the album will be separated into individual tracks before it is burned onto the ~CD-R.\n\n ''Step 6:'' Start recording. Place a blank recordable ~CD-R in the drive, and click the Record to ~CD-R button at the top right of the Spin Doctor window and start playing side 1 of the LP. The Ready to Record dialogue box will appear and just before the music starts, click the Record button. The Recording Progress dialogue box will then appear and the entire side of the album will be recorded on to your hard drive.\n\n ''Step 7:'' When side 1 has finished playing, click the Pause button and turn the LP over. As side 2 is about to start, click the Record button. You can pause at any time if you don�t want to record a particular track. When the final track is complete, click Stop. Spin Doctor will then save the tracks as individual sound files.\n\n ''Step 8:'' The final stage is the burning of the tracks on to your blank ~CD-R. The software guides you through this process. When this is completed, click the Close CD button. Your CD should be playable in any CD player or ~CD-ROM drive. In my experience, even though I didn't make maximum use of the settings provided in the software for reducing static etc., the audio quality of my new CD was a noticeable improvement over the old LP album.\n\n I found the Roxio software reasonably easy to use, despite the absence of "wizards" that some other CD burning programs contain to simplify their procedures. The software enables you to create ~CDs from other music sources too, for example from cassette tapes, or from the radio.\n\n Finally, we need to be aware about copyright issues. Under New Zealand copyright law, you need to be given permission by the relevant copyright holders before you can legally copy an album or tracks to CD or other media.

People like to customise their computers. Especially if it does not cost anything! Follow these instructions to create a custom screen that appears every time you start up your computer.\n\nScan your original photograph to exact screen size or larger than intended screen size. If you don't have access to a scanner visit the NZPCA Office, 75 Ghuznee Street.\n\n13" VGA Display - 640 x 480 pixels 370k\n16" Super VGA Display - 800 x 600 pixels 480k\n19" Super VGA Display - 1024 x 768 pixels 786k\n\nStep 1.&nbsp;&nbsp; Crop and re-size in ~PhotoShop or any image-editing program to achieve the correct pixel dimensions. If your screen background image is too large to fit on screen or if it doesn't fit into memory, Windows will not load it. Check the chart showing the amount of system memory required to handle an 8-bit colour image to be sure your PC can handle the image you want to load on your screen. Colour correct as necessary.\n\nStep 2.&nbsp;&nbsp; Convert to Index Colour Mode/8-bit System Palette with dither. Choose the Save As command from the File menu and name this file my.BMP or any other legal DOS name.\n \nChoose File Format: BMP and save in the C:\sWindows subdirectory.\n\nStep 3.&nbsp;&nbsp; Open the Control Panel in the main program group and choose the Display icon and double click to open.\n\n&Step 4.&nbsp;&nbsp; Select your BMP file from the Wallpaper File list box and check Centre. Click Apply and then OK. Your background is now a picture of Wellington, the Kids or any thing you want to display.\n\nJohn Thomson,\nNeed help?:- Gella@paradise.net.nz\n

In light of the recent Bubbleboy and WormExploreZip virus outbreaks, I decided to rewrite my rules on how to protect yourself from computer viruses, Trojan horses, or worms. Regardless of your operating system, these six rules should protect you from most of the over FORTY-SIX THOUSAND viruses that are currently floating around the Net.\n\n1.&nbsp;&nbsp;Purchase a good, commercial antivirus like Norton Antivirus or Mcafee Virusscan. \n\n2.&nbsp;&nbsp;Update your virus definitions frequently. (At least once a week). \n\n3.&nbsp;&nbsp;Never doubleclick (or launch) "any" file, especially an Email attachment, reguardless of who the files is from, until you first scan that file with your antivirus program. \n\n4.&nbsp;&nbsp;Turn on Macro Virus protection in Microsoft word, and beware of all Word Macros, especially if you don't know what the macros are. \n\n5.&nbsp;&nbsp;Run windows update at least once a month. \n\n6.&nbsp;&nbsp;If someone unexpectedly send you an executable file - in otherwords, a file that ends in .EXE - throw it out.

In these days of bloatware it is unusual to see software doing more with less, yet the latest QNX demo (available at http://www.qnx.com) or as qnxdemo3.zip on Megabaud) takes this to the extreme. \n\nQNX have produced a demonstration version of their operating system that people can use for web browsing. This demonstration is a complete, stand alone system. It does not need any other software or operating system to run. There are two versions available, one for modem connections, the other for ethernet. \n\nThe entire system includes a multitasking operating system; an ~XWindows interface; drivers for graphics, keyboard, and mouse; dialer; web browser; web server (capable of generating dynamic pages); documentation web pages; text editor; vector graphics demonstration, and a javascript game. A range of video resolutions and colour depths is supported. \n\nAnd how many floppy disks does this require? Only one! \n\nHonest - nothing else is required. The demo has been designed so that it cannot access your hard drive - it doesn't even know it exists - so it can be used in complete safety. It looks great - and it runs even better than it looks. Even opening a dozen vector graphics demonstrations had no effect on any of the running applications, running on my old system. \n\nUsing the software is simplicity itself: \n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Download the archive, and unzip it to your hard drive. \n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Put a formatted 1.44Mb floppy disk in your A: drive. \n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Run install.bat from the unzipped archive \n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Reboot your PC from the floppy\n \nYou will be presented with a couple of screens that set up some system settings, and then the graphical interface will start. After this stage, the floppy is no longer needed and can be removed. \n\nTo use the dialer, you will need to know some settings that your ISP uses (DNS and phone number, and your user ID and password). If your modem requires special settings, make sure you have a note of them; AT&F will usually work well enough. \n\nParadise.net settings are: \n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; DNS 203.96.152.4\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Phone 938 8181\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; (use your own ID and password)!\n\nYou can download, install the software and be surfing the internet in less than 10 minutes. \n\nTry the demo with Paradise.net - it works very well. Alternative operating systems don't have to be difficult to install, and they don't come much easier to use than QNX. \n\n

If you ever have a difficult situation to manage, you might consider the approach offered by this obviously well trained Customer Service Officer. Indeed, an award should go to the Virgin Airlines gate attendant in Sydney some months ago for being smart and funny, while making her point, when confronted with a passenger who probably deserved to fly as cargo.\n \n A crowded Virgin flight was cancelled after Virgin's ~767s had been withdrawn from service. A single attendant was re-booking a long line of inconvenienced travelers.\n \n Suddenly an angry passenger pushed his way to the desk. He slapped his ticket down on the counter and said,\n "I HAVE to be on this flight and it HAS to be FIRST CLASS.\n The attendant replied,\n "I'm sorry sir. I'll be happy to try to help you, but I've got to help these people first, and I'm sure we'll be able to work something out."\n The passenger was unimpressed. He asked loudly, so that the passengers behind him could hear, "DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHO I AM?"\n\n Without hesitating, the attendant smiled and grabbed her public address microphone:\n "May I have your attention please, may I have your attention please,"\n she began - her voice heard clearly throughout the terminal.\n "We have a passenger here at Gate 14 WHO DOES NOT KNOW WHO HE IS. If anyone can help him find his identity, please come to Gate14."\n With the folks behind him in line laughing hysterically, the man glared at the Virgin attendant, gritted his teeth and said,\n "@#$... You!"\n Without flinching, she smiled and said,\n "I'm sorry, sir, but you'll have to get in line for that too."

Registered visitors to the NZPCA website (http://www.computers.org.nz) have the ability to personalise their view of the website.\n\n To use these features, log in to your account on the website, then go to "Login/Account" - the third item from the top of the main menu on the left of most pages.\n\n At the bottom of this page, are two lists - links to your last ten comments, and links to your last ten news submissions.\n\n At the top of the page are five icons, these are links to your own settings:\n\n '' 1. Change homepage''\n\n This page allows you to customise the page you see when you logon to the website. There are two settings that you can control here:\n* The number of stories displayed on your home page:\n** You can have up to 270 of the most recent stories posted to the NZPCA website, although that many stories are going to take a long time to download. It is probably best to leave this set at 5-10 stories.\n*Your own personal menu:\n** This is a text box into which you can add entries for your own personalised menu. This accepts most basic html tags, so have a play with it. This menu will appear at the top of the left column on all pages. You can add links to your favourite pages, or you could use the menu to display a favourite graphic or quote.\n You can add links using basic html:\n type in ...\n Link1 name\n Link2 name\n ...and so on. Click "Save Changes" and admire your new menu. Easy. You'll be designing websites before you know it.\n\n '' 2. Change your info''\n\n No surprises here - most of these settings will be familiar, as they are mostly the same as the information you submitted when you registered. You should keep your email address current here - this is important, as there is no other way to retrieve your password automatically (although a new password can be set manually). You can change your password on this page, and in fact it is probably a good idea to do so - the passwords supplied by the website are quite hard to remember.\n\n '' 3. Select theme''\n\n Themes are useful, because they allow you to select how the website appears in your browser - different themes may have smaller or larger fonts, more or less (and different) graphics, use different colours for text and background, and so on. The contents of each webpage are the same in each theme, it is only the appearance that is different.\n\n Visitors can select a theme that looks best in their browser, on their monitor, and that they find easy to read. Some visitors who have difficulty viewing the website using the default theme (maybe due to poor eyesight, or a low or high resolution display) may like to experiment with other themes. The default theme is ~NZPCALite.\n\n ~NZPCAHuge is similar, but has quite large fonts specified. Some of the other themes look quite nice, at the expense of some readability. If you have ideas for themes, or would like to develop one, let me know - email: usually@mail.computers.org.nz.\n\n '' 4. Configure comments''\n \nBelow every story is a section for members' comment or discussion. Registered visitors can choose how they would like their view of the comments to be arranged. Comments can be disabled, or arranged so they are nested, flat or threaded - experiment with these settings so see what suits you best.\n\n Comments can also be arranged with the oldest comment first, newest comments first, or - since comments can be moderated and have scores assigned to them - highest scores first.\n\n It is unlikely that we will ever have enough comments to make the feature worthwhile, but we even have the ability to filter comments by a threshold based on scores.\n\n You can also restrict comments so that long comments will be split, with extended text appearing on another page.\n\n Of course, to make these settings useful, we need comments from members in the first place. Don't be shy - if you enjoyed a meeting, say so - feedback is really important.\n\n '' 5. Logout/Exit''\n\n Actually, I lied; this one isn't a setting at all. You don't have to explicitly logout of the website - that way, every time you visit the site, you are already logged in. This behaviour may change in the near future (when the website moves away from using cookies to store visitors' preferences) so enjoy it while it \nis there.\n\n Bear in mind that any changes you make to your settings will only affect your view of the website - you cannot break anything, so feel free to experiment with your settings. Have fun!

The following question was asked recently in nz.comp (available as Conference 210 on Megabaud): \n\n"How do I make Netscape start with the email client instead of the browser?" \n\nSeveral people quickly responded with the immediately obvious answer: from the menu select Options|General Preferences...|Appearance|Startup|On Startup Launch and select the Netscape Mail checkbox; deselect the Netscape Browser checkbox, click on OK. \n\nWhile this is the most obvious way of achieving the desired result, this method does have some shortcomings when compared to other methods, which are the subject of this article. \n\nUsing Command-line parameters. \n\nNetscape accepts command-line parameters, but because these are documented online (at netscape.com) many users may not be aware of them. The version of Netscape that I use (2.02/2) has some very useful command-line parameters, the most interesting are: \n{{{\n-browser Starts the browser, regardless of other settings \n-news Starts the usenet news client \n-mail Starts the email client \n-3 Makes NS 2.02/2 appear as NS 3.0 (which it actually is). \n-k Starts a Netscape instance with no menu or controls available (kiosk) \n-i<filename> Starts Netscape using a specified initialisation file \n-h<url> Opens Netscape with a specified homepage \n}}}\nVisit http://developer.netscape.com/docs/manuals/deploymt/options.htm for a detailed but incomplete list. The accepted parameters appear to vary for each operating system and version of Netscape. \n\nTo make Netscape start the email client instead of the browser, copy an existing Netscape program object, change the parameters to include -mail and relabel the object to reflect the new behaviour. You can now start either the browser or the email client as the mood takes you, by selecting the appropriate icon. Another program object could be created to start the news client. \n\nCreating objects as above allows a degree of flexibility when starting Netscape, but is still limited - much more flexibility is easily available. \n\nWhat if you want to have your real identity known for email, but would prefer to a different identity for reading newsgroups or browsing? Maybe you need to retrieve email from several different POP3 servers, each of which will require different settings in Network Preferences? Perhaps several family members would each prefer a different identity, start browsing at a different homepage, use different settings for fonts, colours, toolbars and so on? \n\n//(picture inserted here)//\n\nSeveral instances of Netscape started with different .ini files.\nWhile Communicator allows the use of different "profiles" to achieve some of the above, earlier versions of Netscape can achieve the same or better versatility by using the -i parameter. \n\nLocate your existing netscape.ini file, and copy it to a different filename - newname.ini for example (one of mine is rjhnews.ini). This could be placed in the same directory as the original (which is usually the same directory that netscape.exe is located in), or preferably into a directory that you make regular backups from. The correct syntax for starting an instance of Netscape using a specific .ini file then becomes\n\nc:\snetscape\snetscape.exe -i\nc:\snetscape\snewname.ini\n\nin my case, this is\n \nI:\snetscape\snetscape.exe -i\nI:\snetscape\srjhnews.ini.\n\nCreate (or copy and change) a program object to start Netscape using the desired .ini file by including the -i parameter and label the object appropriately; create as many different objects and .ini files as you require (I use about 5 or 6). Each .ini file must have a unique name or location. \n\n//(picture inserted here)//\n \nSettings for two different program objects, showing command-line parameters. \nAll changes that you make to the configuration of Netscape are saved to the currently used .ini file. If you start an instance of the browser using a particular .ini file, and then start the news or email clients from the menu in the browser window, they will inherit and save any changes to their settings to the same .ini file. If you start a separate instance of Netscape using a different .ini file (and you can do this concurrently with the instance already running) then all settings from all windows opened from that instance will be saved to the (second) specified .ini file. \n\nIf you use Netscape Mail with more than one ISP, by using a different .ini file for each, and setting the Mail and News Preferences for the correct POP and SMTP servers and identity, managing email from all your ISPs using Netscape becomes possible. \n\nVisit http://help.netscape.com/kb/client/960626-36.html for a more detailed article on multiple users and Netscape 3.0 under Win3.1. \n\nOnce you are aware of the customisation that is possible using .ini files, you start looking for the ability to use them in other applications that you run, especially on systems where more than one user may require different settings. Go and try it!\n

By J.C. Colin\n\n Dos 5.0 offers many performance enhancing features over previous versions. Dos 5.0 frees conventional memory (in computers with more than 640K RAM); has Doskey (a command stacker); Unerase; Online Help; and Support for larger hard disks, etc. However it is the new looking "Dir" command which is the focus of this article.\n\n Dos 5.0 revamps and enables the user to customise the very familiar, simple, old "Dir" command. Dos lets users sort directories, display selective classes of files, and set their preferences with an environment variable called "Dircmd".\n\n ''Dir and Hidden Files''\n\n For years now third-party utilities that let users hide files and power users have always been able to ferret out hidden files with the {{{Chkdsk /v}}} command. DOS 5.0 offers an easier way to locate hidden files simply by adding a few switches to the very common "Dir" command.\n\n The vastly improved Dir command comes with four powerful new "switches" {{{-/A, /0, /S,}}} and {{{/B}}}, and one strange new switch, {{{/L. A}}} switch is an option entered at the end of the command line after a slash (like the {{{/W}}} for a wide display or the {{{/P}}} for a paused display in {{{Dir/w}}} or {{{Dir /p}}}) that changes the way the command works.\n\n A file can have none of these bits "set" (turned on so DOS treats the file specially), or any one, two, or three, or all four. The new {{{DIR /A}}} switch, when used with an additional {{{D, H, S, R, or A}}} will display groups of files with certain characteristics:\n\n {{{Dir }}} (without any switches) displays all files that are not hidden or system\n {{{Dir /A }}} displays every file in the subdirectory {{{DIR /AD}}} displays only subdirectories\n {{{Dir /AD }}} displays only subdirectories\n {{{Dir /A }}} displays only hidden files {{{DIR /AS}}} displays only system files\n {{{Dir /AS }}} displays only the system files\n {{{Dir /AR }}} displays only read-only files\n {{{Dir /AA }}} displays only those files that have been created or changed since the last backup\n\n You can combine these, so that {{{DIR /ARH}}} (or {{{d~ir /arh}}}) will list only files that are both read-only and hidden.\n\n To reverse the process, just stick a hyphen in front of the appropriate option. Typing {{{Dir /A-D}}} removes subdirectory entries from the listing. {{{Dir /A-D-R}}} removes subdirectories and any read-only files.\n\n '' Dir and ~Non-System Files''\n\n The new {{{/O}}} switch changes the order in which Dir lists files:\n {{{Dir }}} (without any switches) displays files in the order in which they happen to appear in the directory\n {{{Dir /O }}} first displays any subdirectories one level down in alphabetical order and then displays all the files in alphabetical order\n {{{Dir /ON }}} sorts files alphabetically by name\n {{{Dir /OE }}} sorts files alphabetically by extension\n {{{Dir /OG }}} displays files in the order in which they happen to appear in the directory, but lists subdirectories before files\n {{{Dir /OS }}} sorts files by size, starting with the smallest ones\n {{{Dir /OD }}} sorts files by date and time, starting with the oldest ones\n\n Reversing the Process Adding a hyphen here flips things around. {{{Dir /O-N}}} sorts files alphabetically by name in reverse order {{{Dir /O-E}}} sorts files alphabetically by extension in reverse order {{{Dir /O-G}}} displays files in the order in which they happen to appear in the directory, but lists subdirectories after files {{{Dir /O-S}}} sorts files by size, starting with the biggest ones {{{Dir /O-D}}} sorts files by date and time, starting with the newest ones\n\n ''Combining System and Non System Directory Listings''\n\n Just as with the {{{/A}}} switch, you can combine these options; i.e. you can combine {{{/A}}} and {{{/O}}} switches in the same command so that {{{Dir /AH/O-D}}} will display every hidden file in the current subdirectory, with the newest one at the top of the list.\n\n ''The {{{/S}}} Switch''\n\n The new {{{/S}}} switch tells the dir command to list files in the current directory as well as files in all the subdirectories below it. This can help you find a file you've squirrelled away somewhere on your disk but forgotten exactly where. Even if you happen to be in one of the lower down subdirectories, you can also have Dos list every file on your disk by typing dir \s/S. The backslash (\s) tells Dos to start in the root directory. If you do use the {{{/S}}} switch, you'll probably want to use the {{{/P}}} switch with it to pause the display a screenful at a time. Otherwise Dos scrolls lots of files in lots of subdirectories so fast you won't be able to read them. Since the {{{/S}}} switch will look through multiple subdirectories at once, you can use it to find lost, misplaced or similarly named files. Assuming you haven't hidden any subdirectories, if you know there's a file called Script.lst on your disk but can't remember where it's stashed, you can just type {{{Dir \sscript.lst /s}}}. Dos 5.0 will display the normal directory listing for that file and tell you which subdirectory it's stored in. If you have multiple copies of a file with that name (you'd be surprised how often this happens), Dos will display all copies of it, along with the subdirectory where each copy is stored, and tell you how many files with that exact name are on your disk.\n\n The initial {{{\s}}} preceding the script.lst filename is important because it tells Dos to begin looking in the root directory. By using wildcards in your {{{Dir /s}}} search, you can have Dos uncover groups of similarly names files. To find every file on your disk that begins with the letters "Script", You'd just type {{{Dir \sScript*.* /s}}}.\n\n ''New {{{/L}}} and {{{/B}}} Switches''\n\n The two other new Dir switches, {{{/B}}} and {{{/L}}}, are far less complex. {{{Dir /L}}} will display the output in lowercase text rather than the usual uppercase letter, a feature useful only to nostalgic Unix hounds. The {{{Dir /B}}} switch is actually very useful. It strips out the nonessential information from the directory listing, leaving just the filename and extension. It also removes extra spaces before the extension and adds a dot.\n\n ''Storing Your "Dir" Preference''\n\n The final new Dir wrinkle is that you can use a new environment variable called Dircmd to create a new Dir default. The environment is a special slice of memory Dos uses to store values for key variables like your path, prompt, comspec (where your command.com resides,) and now your Dir "tail" - the list of switches and options that it will use. Typing Dir by itself normally yields the same verbose, unsorted, scrolling mess you're accustomed to from older versions. But if you type a line at the Dos prompt like {{{Set Dircmd=/P /O-D /A-D}}}, or include this line in your Autoexec.bat file, the next time you type Dir, Dos will automatically execute the {{{/P /O-D /A-D}}} switches and display your files without subdirectory entries, with the most recent files at the top of the list, one screen at a time. You can use the {{{Set Dircmd=}}} command to change the default as often as you like. So while OS/2 was supposed to obliterate it, Windows was going to wipe it out and alternatives from ~GeoWorks, ~Hewlett-Packard and Digital Research were going to put out Dos' lights, little features such as the much improved Dir command are significant.\n\n ~MS-DOS 5.0 is still not everybody's favourite but these and many other new and improved Dos features, will re-establish ~MS-DOS as the standard from which to measure its competition.

''Real DIY networking, using Asian cooking sieves.''\nBy John Thomson\n\nOver the last few years’ networking computers has become very easy, there are now many options. \n\nA few years ago I was convincing others if they had an old computer to network it with another computer. Purchase two network cards or take cards out of an old network computer from the auction. Make a crossover cable if you are using only two computers (a hub is required if you’re connecting more than two computers). As long as you are using Windows 98SE/ME/2000/XP it is easy as ABC to join (network) two computers together. One computer can be in the bedroom and the other one can be out in the garage. The only limitation is running the network cable. DSE sell ~XH7900 or ~XH7975 10/100Mbps PCI network cards for $16. If you don’t want to open up your computer you can use two USB 10/100Mbps Ethernet adaptors ~XH8144 $59ea. 1m crossover cables $9ea, 3m cables $11ea. ~XH6812 1000Mbps network card $38ea.\n\nA year later I wrote an article how to network two computers using a USB cable (note it’s a special USB cable with a switching device in the middle of the cable). As it’s USB it is basically Plug & Play. Your network is working when the USB cable is plugged in, great for networking the main PC with your laptop or notebook. Plug in the laptop and swap files via the USB cable; can be easily extended by purchasing a USB extension cable. ~XH8177 supports up to 480Mbps USB 2.0 and is backwards compatible with USB 1.0 12Mbps Price $46.\n\n12 months later I wrote article about a Bluetooth wireless 2.45-gigahertz connection and how it was possible to use two USB Bluetooth doggle (~XH4102 class 1) or (~XH6829 class 1) plugged into USB ports so two computers can be wirelessly networked. Class 1 can transfer data up to 75/100 metres; class 2 the more common one can transfer data up to 10 metres. Bluetooth is slow but very secure, as it uses frequency hopping, similar to FHSS but not compatible (see technical notes at end) but fast enough for most PC users (723Kbps which varies on the environment). Really good if you have a main PC and a notebook computer, it gets rid of all those wires. Up to 7 devices can be easily connected in a Piconet.\n\nLater I was using ~WiFi (wireless fidelity), who wants cables when you can network via wireless. Besides in some houses it’s just not possible to run large network cables. Purchase a PCI wireless card for your main PC (~XH8135 802.11b) and a PCMCA (~XH8152 802.11g) or (~XH6860 802.11b) card for your laptop and network anywhere around the house, out in the garden, downstairs, or even in the children’s bedroom. The IEEE 802.11 specification is a seal of approval that says the manufacturer’s products are compliant. This spec drops FHSS and focuses on DSSS because of the higher data rate it can attain. Under 802.11b devices communicate at speeds of 11Mbps whenever possible. If signal strength or interference is disrupting data, the device will drop back to 5.5Mbps, then 2Mbps and finally down to 1Mbps. Though it may occasionally slow, this keeps the network stable and very reliable. ~WiFi offers Ethernet speeds without wires, but you pay for it. Remember that this is still a developing technology.\nAnd if you want to throw away the cable to your printer it is easy. Use a ~XH8062 to connect a parallel printer to a wireless network. Price $159. See photo.\n\nNetworking today has never been so easy. And if you have a friend who has a link to City Net you can go to Manners Mall, with your Laptop and connect to the Internet. Really fast for downloading programs, if you are using the ~XH8152 802.11g will transfer data up to 54Mbps under ideal conditions. People walking past never realise you are surfing the Internet. Wellington for the last few years now has nodes (wireless connection points) in many areas throughout the CBD, Lambton Quay, Manner Street, Civic Square, and WCC Central Library and in University Campuses. And there are access point (nodes) in many city cafes (these nodes are called ~CafeNet), drink your coffee, eat your buttered scone and surf the Internet. Ie: Caffe L affare, College Street, Wellington. Words of warning don’t go there (if I remember correctly) on Tuesday mornings, as it is mothers’ coffee morning. It’ not easy to surf and listen to babies balling there eyes out. More info about ~CafeNet at http//: cafenet.co.nz\n\nIn February 2004 I started playing around and experimenting with some students from Victoria University. They discovered if you purchase a 76543 USB 1.1 adaptor from the US and 25m length of USB cable and mount the 76543 on top of a pole outside (as high as possible) you could network over one hundred metres. They successfully networked up to 175metres, from the top of Halifax Street, Kingston, down the road to where two other Victoria University students rent a house. Transfer rate dropped to 1Mbps DBPSK; still faster than a 56k dial up modem. If you are getting 4.1kb/sec download with a 56k modem and multiply this by 60 seconds you are getting 250,000 per minute. Therefore it takes 4 minutes to get 1 Meg. (Note the 76543 and ~XH6859 802.11b will transfer data at 11Mbps CCK under good conditions, but will drop back 11/5.5/2/1Mbps using auto fallback. If the range is increased it will not drop below 1Mbps DBPSK). The real advantage of setting up something like this is so students can access the University computer system. And one computer only needs to be connected to a faster cable modem to access the Internet. The other computers share the connection. The Dick Smith ~XH6859 adaptor looks similar to a USB memory stick. See picture below, ~XH6859.\n\n\nOne student discovered students from Massey University were using 300mm Chinese cooking sieves from “The Warehouse” to increase the range. Wanting to be different they purchased Asian sieves from Yan’s Supermarket, Hopper Street, Wellington, real stainless steel. We realised very quickly why the Massey boys were using cooking sieves rather than solid Woks. Wellington wind passes through a sieve but solid elements tend to catch the wind.\n\n\nThese sieves make a good 2.4Ghz parabolic mesh antenna with a USB Wireless (~XH6859 802.11b) adaptor mounted in the middle at the focal point. The focal point can be found easily by covering the sieve with aluminium foil and using the Sun or a very bright light to work out where the rays converge. Hopefully (if you get it right) this will be the focus point. These sieves are not true parabolic curves but are still good enough as they reflect signals waves from a focal point as a parallel beam (similar to a head light) and also concentrate distant signals to a focal point. The 300mm cooking sieve then becomes a 15db USB driven 2.4Ghz ~WiFi parabolic antenna that can provide LOS (line of sight) networking over one or two ~KMs. \n\nBy installing a USB plug in the middle of the sieve, the idea was so it could be easily replaced when the newer XH8227 802.11g replaced the ~XH6859 802.11b. Unfortunately the g is not like the b, it’s a much larger unit and not waterproof. The g will transmit data up to 54Mbps under ideal conditions. It also uses Auto Fallback 54/48/36/24/18/12/11/5.5/2/1. The g many be faster but does not have the range of the smaller ~XH6859. See picture below ~XH8227.\n\nSignal loss using USB cables is extremely small as you are dealing with digital signal rather than normal radio waves. Mounting an antenna high using microwave coaxial cable can sometime defeat the purpose. The decibel loss per metre (.5) can be greater than the DB (decibel) gain. You may have a 25-decibel gain at the masthead but no signal gain at the base connection point. Where as 20 metres of USB cable will have very little lost compared to 20 metres of coax cable. \n\nTo find out what the students’ are up to visit Massey University students web site http://usbwifi.orcon.net.nz it’s really interesting. By the number of hits this site has had worldwide it just goes to show that Kiwis can DIY as good as anyone. \n\nJohn Thomson\nGella@paradise.net.nz\n\n''Technical notes.''\n''SS'' (Spread Spectrum) means that data is sent in small packages over a number of discrete frequencies, available for use at any time.\n\n''DSSS'' (~Direct-Sequence Spread Spectrum) devices communicate by splitting each byte of data into several parts and sending them concurrently on different frequencies. DSSS uses a lot of available bandwidth, about 22 megahertz (Mhz).\n\n''FHSS'' (Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum) devices using FHSS send a short burst of data, shift frequencies (hop) and then send another short burst. Since the FHSS devices that are communicating agree on which frequencies to hop to, and use each frequency only for a brief period of time (less than 400 milliseconds) before moving on several independent FHSS networks can exist in the same physical area without interfering with each other. FHSS devices generally send data on just two or four frequencies simultaneously; they only use 1Mhz or less of the available bandwidth. \n\n''SWAP'' (Shared Wireless Access Protocol) a hybrid standard (similar to FHSS, but not compatible). SWAP uses six voice channels based on the Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunication (DECT) standard and the 802.11 wireless Ethernet specification for data. SWAP make 50 hops per second and transmits at 1Mbps. The new “DECT” digital phones that DSE (Dick Smith) sells conform to this standard.\n\n\n\n

Axex Kidman of SmartComputing.com\n\n''Pioneer DVR-A03 '' \n\nIf you want real optical storage, DVD is the way to go. Up until now, you either had to go for DVD-RAM (expensive and incompatible) or cough up tens of thousands of dollars for a DVD-R drive. As with all hardware, over time DVD-R is getting cheaper and more common. The first reasonably priced DVD-R drive we've seen is Pioneer's DVR-A03.\n\nIn theory, the DVR-A03 can't copy CSS-encrypted titles; at least, a direct DVD-ROM to DVD-R copy is unlikely to work. However, unwilling as I am to risk the wrath of Warners, Sony, et al, I will say that, despite these claims, it's not rocket science to copy a DVD. Mind you, at $30 to $40 per blank DVD it's hardly worth it.\n\nOur testing was initially done on a 1.13GHz Athlon system with 128Mb of RAM. The drive is capable of 1x (1.38Mb/s) or 2x (2.76Mb/s), meaning that a full disc should be written in under 30 minutes. Figuring that a high-end drive deserves a high-end system, we also stuck it on a 2GHz Pentium 4 system with 128Mb of SDRAM. Copying a full 4.7Gb took 56 minutes and 35 seconds, which is quite a bit longer than the 2x, but it's still a lot of data archived in a very small period of time. Playback of DVD-R was flawless in every drive we tested. DVD-RW playback, on the other hand, was inconsistent in our test drives, but not surprisingly, went well in a Pioneer DVD player.\n\nAt $1,595 the A03 is a serious buy, but the price is a whole lot better than the $10,000 to $20,000 the previous generation sold for.\n\nSection: on test reviews.\nAuthor: Alex Kidman\nPosted: Friday, 09 November, 2001

Mark Garofalo of HardwareCentral\n\n ''INTRO''\n Over the past year, I’ve assembled numerous computers for personal use, as well as helped friends plan their computer purchases. Mostly the questions they asked were “Which sound card do I get?” or “Which video card is the best?” These are fairly straightforward apples to apples type questions. The decisions about optical storage, however, are slightly more complicated. The question is not yet “Which DVD player should I get?” but rather “Should I get a DVD player?”\n Almost invariably I suggested that these friends forgo CD-ROM and opt for DVD. The reasons are quite simple, and once past that we can look at which DVD choice is right. Any DVD drive you buy will be capable of doing everything a CD-ROM can do, plus play DVD movies and use DVD-ROM discs (if they ever really catch on). This added functionality is certainly worth the price difference. But is a DVD-ROM drive sufficient to watch DVD movies?\n Now that we’ve decided that a DVD player is a good thing, it’s time to determine how much you can do with it. The first thing that comes to mind is watching movies. With the DVD movie market growing like wildfire, VHS tapes are quickly becoming a thing of the past, and it’s easy to see why. With superior sound and graphics, DVD has the capability to bring the home theater closer to the movie theater . Can a PC really cut it, though?\n Let's look at two setups to better explore this question. The first is a computer set up in a computer room, far away from a TV, and the second has the PC near the TV. We'll talk about the standalone PC first.\n\n ''THE STANDALONE PC''\n One of the biggest issues separating software and hardware solutions is speed. If upgrading an old enough computer (early PII or before), hardware is likely the only way to go, as the software approach is entirely too CPU intensive. Not to say that video cards can’t offload some of the workload; some can take as much as 60% of the work, but none do the whole thing, and on a slow enough computer, there’ll still be some artifacting and blur.\n\n The first computers that were really capable of doing software DVD on their own, or with some minimal assistance from the video card, came in around the PII-300. With CPUs older than this, a software solution is almost possible with some offloading from the video card. With Pentium class computers, however, no amount of video card offloading (short of a complete hardware solution) will avoid slowdowns.\n\n Which brings us to the issue of quality. While video quality is certainly superior with a hardware solution, it’s not likely to be critical on a 17” monitor. For most purposes, a software solution will provide adequate visuals. The audio, though, is another story. Most sound cards of yore don’t support S/PDIF output (Sony Phillips Digital Interface). Although the software solutions generally provide support for six channels of Dolby Digital audio over this interface, most people won’t have a soundcard capable of that output, or a decoder near enough the computer to decode it.\n\n ''MORE STANDALONE SETUP''\n Even with a compact 5.1 speaker setup like those now available from Cambridge Soundworks and a few others, a newer soundcard is still necessary. With a hardware solution, however, you’d get an S/PDIF output on the decoder card itself. When watching DVDs on a 17” monitor, though, Dolby Digital sound hardly seems like a super-important issue. There is one little advantage this software has, however. It can downmix the Dolby Digital stream to stereo in a number of ways, including support for EAX and Aureal3D. It’s not the same as six discrete channels, but is certainly cost effective, and a nifty little trick.\n In conclusion, for the standalone PC, it’s pretty clear that a software solution is more than adequate in most cases. Unless you have an actual six-speaker desktop setup, there is really no need for a hardware solution. With enough money to burn, though, you could certainly impress yourself and others with a desktop Dolby Digital sound setup fed by a hardware decoder.\n\n ''COMING TO A TV NEAR YOU..''\n . For a PC near a TV, the options are a little more complex. While a growing number of video cards on the market today support TV-Output, it is still not the standard and is often poorly implemented. With poor black levels and noticeable flickering, software DVD video is definitely lacking in the TV-Out department.\n\n Those who have tried gaming on the TV with a TV-Out capable video card know the limitations and problems. I haven't run into any such problems with my Creative DXR2 card driving the TV, and feel it's comparable to my current Toshiba SD3109 set-top. TV-Out on a PC video card, however, falls well short of this mark. Even with Svideo optimized to display text it uses some odd color levels. Hours of fiddling hue and color sometimes still can't create the desired effects.\n A hardware DVD video solution also offers a few other benefits to the PC-next-to-TV user. By handling the MPEG processing almost entirely, the CPU is released to do other things besides properly sending video to the television. This can be web browsing, e.g., without interruption of the DVD movie on the TV. As someone with a computer next to the TV, I can tell you this is a fairly useful feature.\n\n ''MORE PC NEAR TV''\n ... Ease of use is a biggie. Once the hardware is installed, it is much easier to make a DVD play to your TV than to set up the video card to display to the TV as well. While this may seem minor, it becomes an annoyance when the video card turns off its TV-Out feature after a reboot, as most do. With hardware, you are also free to buy a non-TV-Out next-generation video card. This may save a little money, and certainly increases choices, in the long run.\n\n If the video argument isn't convincing, maybe the audio argument will be. A sound card outputs to home theater audio, but has the same problems here as on a desktop. Without S/PDIF output, you will be reduced to plain stereo on your multi-channel home theater setup. With Dolby Digital or Pro Logic it's much easier to set up with a hardware solution. There's no messing around with software to persuade a soundcard to generate S/PDIF output, and no drivers to deal with.\n\n ''IN CONCLUSION''\n Wrapping up, here are a few other things to note for both sets of users. Software DVD players are generally better laid out, and have more features (such as the down-mixing capabilities), and have better GUIs. This may not be a serious issue to most, but you shouldn’t feel like you are missing out on anything if you do decide to go with software only. Software provides a fairly cheap way to watch a DVD movie or two on PC. Hardware, on the other hand, is somewhat more expensive, and suitable for those who want Dolby Digital sound setup or have a PC next to the television.\n\n Another thing is that most software packages can support hardware DVD, too. So even with the hardware installed, for a nominal cost you can add the better GUI and features of a software solution. In other words, get the best of both worlds.\n Finally, it is important to mention that these are not the only alternatives. In fact, the best selling pieces of DVD hardware don’t even go into a PC. The set-top option is rapidly growing in popularity, installed already in more than 5 million homes. This is a whole other can of worms, though. Those of us without expensive stereo setups and widescreen televisions will just have to stick with the cheaper PC solution.\n http://www.hardwarecentral.com/hardwarecentral/tips/1641/1/

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[[Introduction]]\n

NZPCA members may be aware of the existence of del.icio.us: if not, have a look at http://del.icio.us/ or http://del.icio.us/hindesite (for a specific example).\n\nDel.icio.us is an online bookmarking service which received some attention earlier this year - I tried it, but initially couldn't see it as something I'd find very useful. This free service allows you to add (bookmark) your favorite web pages, and classify them with tags and descriptions. Since all these bookmarks are shared publically, you can easily build up a picture of interesting topics by browsing for bookmarks with tags that interest you; and you can browse through other people's bookmark collections. You can even arrange to be notified when bookmarks with specific tags, or from certain people, are added to the collection. \n\n http://del.icio.us/ takes you to a very sparse page, that shows sites bookmarked by del.icio.us users recently (at present, the first page shows bookmarks up to 3 minutes old). It is an interesting way of seeing what is current or popular with people's bookmarks.It makes for some interesting web browsing - if somebody with interests similar to your own finds a website interesting enough to bookmark, it is possible that you might find some of their other bookmarks iinteresting, too. From this page, you can set up a free account, and explore the services offered. \n\nIf you start to use del.icio.us extensively, you may build a large collection of bookmarks quite quickly - and since this is all hosted at someone else's server, how do you ensure that you can get at your data? Easy - del.icio.us allows for export (and in future, import) of your collection in XML format. It is important to consider exit strategies for any online service that you use, where you may accumulate a significant amount of data, and XML is ideal for this, as it is rapidly becoming a standard for storing many kinds of documents.\n\nDel.icio.us doesn't seem at first look to be particularly astounding; but if you try the service for a while, you'll probably start to get a different impression. For example, there is a bookmarklet available, that adds a toolbutton to your browser's favourites toolbar, just click on this when at a website you want to bookmark, fill out the tags, and submit to your del.icio.us collection. Easy.\n\nThere are many online bookmarking services available - stumbleupon.com is one such - and there are others. Google for them. Important features to look for are ways of integrating bookmarks into your normal browser experience, being able to export your collection, and the social aspect of bookmarking. del.icio.us beats all the other services I've looked at by a significant margin. Many of these free services are supported by quite intrusive advertising - del.icio.us currently has none.\nNow, let's move on to another topic, and come back to del.icio.us later - you'll see why, soon.\n\nFlock (http://www.flock.com) is a new web browser, released just a few days ago. When I say "released" I mean in the sense of the word as applied to early open source projects - it is full of bugs, and vast areas of it are unfinished. However, it is stable; it is based on Firefox - the web browser that all NZPCA members should be using - but has a number of differences that make it very interesting, and possibly a taste of things to come. The developers intend that this browser will be the browser of choice for those who make use of the large range of online services becoming available - services like gmail, flickr, blogger etc. From what I have seen of it so far, the developers are probably right.\n\nA lot of the functionality of Firefox has been removed, but new features have been added. First - it looks fantastic - a very clean and fresh, uncluttered appearance that I imagine will soon make its way back into Firefox - look out for the Flock theme for Firefox.\n\nOther functionality has been built in; for example, instant searching. When you start typing search terms into the search toolbar textbox, matching terms from your browser history and bookmarks are shown as you type. This is surprisingly useful. A list box at the right hand end of the bookmarks toolbar allows you to choose different sets of bookmarks to be displayed; again, very useful.\n\nFlock also supports flickr (an image hosting website) and some web logs in an unusual manner. For example, you can highlight text on a page you are viewing, and from the context menu select "Blog This". This will bring up an editor, which has a selectable "Top Bar". This bar can be set to display thumbnails of your Flickr photo collection, and this makes it very easy to add photos to web log posts - you no longer need to open another browser window or log into flickr. Unfortunately the web log editor is one of the features that really isn't finished yet, but there is enough working to get a good idea of how the finished product will work.\n \nI'm finding the most useful feature of Flock, though, is del.icio.us integration. Flock can synchronise its bookmarks with your del.icio.us account.The implications of this are significant - now you have an automatic, offsite backup of your bookmarks, in a location where you can easily share them with family, friends and colleagues, where you can access them from anywhere - whether from another PC and browser you might be using, or when travelling away from your own PC(s).\nIn addition, because of the way in which you will tag or describe your bookmarks, you'll find that they are much more useful, as searching bookmarks is much more comprehensive. Because del.icio.us and Flock are integrated, you can manage your entire online del.icio.us bookmark collection offline in Flock's "Favorites Manager", and any bookmarks you add will be updated on del.icio.us when the next synchronisation occurs.\n\nThis kind of integration is a hint of things to come - Microsoft has already launched http://www.live.com and this will eventually add similar functionality to Internet Explorer 7 - which should be available in a year or two. Meanwhile, you can get started now, with Flock and del.icio.us.\n\nGraphics used: Flock and delicious.jpg\n\n

// Win follows up with some notes and conclusions on his experience with scanning and printing..// \n\n Thank you everyone for making the session so lively. Thank you Roger and Hugh for the substantial help. This was a real 'impromptu' as I am the apprentice-boy in matters computer. When I suggested something like this I meant it more as a joke!\n\n I need to learn about photo-manipulation because o my family requests the story of our/my life. It is contained in 3000 pictures, negatives, slides and documents in my collection.\n\n To start with, I found it extremely hard to obtain information of the practical, 'hands-on' variety. (plenty of theory and sales-talk)! This is one of the reasons for joining the club and I would like to contribute, if ever so little. I like to learn (however slow!) and share what I have learned with others.\n \n 'In' (to my "office"!) came a ~CanoScan D 660 U and a Canon S 300 printer accompanied by some software. The scanner CD contains Arcsoft Photostudio 2000, Omnipage 9.0 and Adobe Acrobat reader 4.0 plus lots of advertisement about what else to buy. Evident is the fact that those freebees are trial-versions of a sort.\n\n Omnipage times out; and I have had to reload it already 2 times. The manual is clumsy and hard to read. The results are not glorious. (Lots of after-editing needed).\n \nThe printer CD offers nothing apart from the printer-installation-program, which i think it is faulty, because the printer goes through 5 deep cleaning cycles every time it is switched-on, every time it has finished a print and several times during a day when it is doing nothing; wasting substantial quantities of ink. Expensive at a rate of $45 for 17 grams of colour.\n \nThe button "deep-Cleaning" in the printer-control-screen does not allow for a turning-off.\n \nThe printer is somewhat close to $130. I have paid 3 times that on ink in 1 year. Twenty five pictures A4 size per cartridge makes it $1.80 per sheet just for the ink. I have changed my policy on colour: It is largely abandoned! Few exceptions.\n \nA friend and historian recommended I produce all pictures in B&W, manipulating everyone into as perfect a grayscale as possible. The gain in information through the addition of colour is negligible in 95% of historical data.\n \nHere I quote (the Historian Brigitte ~Hicks-Willer) : "If You want somebody to read Your book in 300 years time it better be in B&W because all colour will have faded".\n \nResult: A Brother ~HL-1430 (laser-printer) popped into my office and is producing excellent B&W pictures at the cost of $ 0.10 per A4 sheet. It comes with a cartridge half full for 3000 sheets and can be refilled at Cartridge World Kilbirnie, (Toni) for 6000 sheets.\n \n Back to the A | S Photostudio 2000: I have tried several photo-programs. Found all of them hard to learn and time-consuming. Half a ream of paper and at least 4 empty cartridges later I achieved a basic understanding of the program. A word of caution using the 'blur' & 'sharpen' filters. If you find that you have 'over-sharpened' a picture, then try to 'blur' it back into what it was before, the result will not be an exact step back. a certain coarseness of the picture remains. \n\n In understanding picture manipulation, it is helpful that I'm a veritable cameraperson in stills, movies 16 & 35 (cinema), electronic inside & outdoors (theatre, television and sports), and knowledgeable as well in lab-technology (chemicals, printing & processing). Someone from outside this profession may have to spend more time, reading manuals, attending workshops, etc. For the moment I'm stuck with ~Arc-Soft. The print-part of it is abysmal, so I use the print-part that comes with MS Picture & Fax viewer. It's primitive too, but at the moment I can't bring myself to load and study desktop-publisher, which is, after Richard Elam's explanations, the ultimate solution.\n\n Dear friends: I had better close here because I have no further relevant information to offer. Hope you find the sermon somewhat entertaining.\n\n //Cheers, Win//\n

config.options.chkAnimate=false;

/***\n''DisableWikiLinksPlugin for TiddlyWiki version 1.2.x and 2.0''\n^^author: Eric Shulman - ELS Design Studios\nsource: http://www.TiddlyTools.com/#DisableWikiLinksPlugin\nlicense: [[Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License|http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/]]^^\n\nThis plugin allows you to disable TiddlyWiki's automatic WikiWord linking behavior, so that WikiWords embedded in tiddler content will be rendered as regular text, instead of being automatically converted to tiddler links. To create a tiddler link when automatic linking is disabled, you must enclose the link text within {{{[[...]]}}}. Note: WikiWords contained in default ''shadow'' tiddlers will still be automatically linked. An additional checkbox option lets you disable these automatic links as well, though this is not recommended, since it can make it more difficult to access some TiddlyWiki standard default content (such as AdvancedOptions or SideBarTabs)\n\n!!!!!Configuration\n<<<\nSelf-contained control panel:\n<<option chkDisableWikiLinks>> Disable automatic WikiWord tiddler links\n<<option chkDontDisableShadowWikiLinks>> ... except in shadow tiddler content\n<<<\n!!!!!Installation\n<<<\nimport (or copy/paste) the following tiddlers into your document:\n''DisableWikiLinksPlugin'' (tagged with <<tag systemConfig>>)\n<<<\n!!!!!Revision History\n<<<\n''2006.05.24 [1.1.0]'' added option to NOT bypass automatic wikiword links when displaying default shadow content (default is to auto-link shadow content)\n''2006.02.05 [1.0.1]'' wrapped wikifier hijack in init function to eliminate globals and avoid FireFox 1.5.0.1 crash bug when referencing globals\n''2005.12.09 [1.0.0]'' initial release\n<<<\n!!!!!Credits\n<<<\nThis feature was developed by EricShulman from [[ELS Design Studios|http:/www.elsdesign.com]]\n<<<\n!!!!!Code\n***/\n//{{{\nversion.extensions.disableWikiLinks= {major: 1, minor: 1, revision: 0, date: new Date(2006,5,24)};\n\nif (config.options.chkDisableWikiLinks==undefined) config.options.chkDisableWikiLinks= false;\nif (config.options.chkDontDisableShadowWikiLinks==undefined) config.options.chkDontDisableShadowWikiLinks=true;\n\n// find the formatter for wikiLink and replace handler with 'pass-thru' rendering\ninitDisableWikiLinksFormatter();\nfunction initDisableWikiLinksFormatter() {\n for (var i=0; i<config.formatters.length && config.formatters[i].name!="wikiLink"; i++);\n config.formatters[i].coreHandler=config.formatters[i].handler;\n config.formatters[i].handler=function(w) {\n // if not enabled, just do standard WikiWord link formatting\n var skipShadow=(config.options.chkDontDisableShadowWikiLinks && w.tiddler && store.isShadowTiddler(w.tiddler.title) && !store.tiddlerExists(w.tiddler.title));\n if (!config.options.chkDisableWikiLinks || skipShadow) return this.coreHandler(w);\n // supress any leading "~" (if present)\n var skip=(w.matchText.substr(0,1)==config.textPrimitives.unWikiLink)?1:0;\n w.outputText(w.output,w.matchStart+skip,w.nextMatch)\n }\n}\n//}}}\n

/***\n<<tiddler DividedListsPluginDocumentation>>\n!Code\n***/\n//{{{\nversion.extensions.DividedListsPlugin = { major: 1, minor: 1, revision: 0, date: new Date(2006,17,3),\n source: "http://yann.perrin.googlepages.com/twkd.html#DividedListsPlugin"\n};\n//}}}\n/***\n// //Partial Tiddler List\n***/\n//{{{\nconfig.macros.listPart = {};\nconfig.macros.listPart.handler = function (place,macroName,params,wikifier,paramString,tiddler) {\nvar type = params[0] ? params[0] : "all";\nvar theList = document.createElement("ul");\nplace.appendChild(theList);\nif(config.macros.list[type].prompt)\n createTiddlyElement(theList,"li",null,"listTitle",config.macros.list[type].prompt);\nvar results;\nif(config.macros.list[type].handler)\n results = config.macros.list[type].handler(params);\nvar model = new RegExp("^["+params[1]+"]","i");\nfor (var t = 0; t < results.length; t++)\n {\n var theListItem = document.createElement("li")\n if(typeof results[t] == "string")\n {\n if (model.test(results[t]))\n {\n theList.appendChild(theListItem);\n createTiddlyLink(theListItem,results[t],true);\n }\n }\n else\n {\n if (model.test(results[t].title))\n {\n theList.appendChild(theListItem);\n createTiddlyLink(theListItem,results[t].title,true);\n }\n }\n }\n}\n//}}}\n// //Partial Tag List\n//{{{\nconfig.macros.tagListPart = {};\nconfig.macros.tagListPart.handler = function (place,macroName,params,wikifier,paramString,tiddler) {\nvar model = new RegExp("^["+params[0]+"]","i");\nvar tags = store.getTags();\nvar theDateList = createTiddlyElement(place,"ul",null,null,null);\nif(tags.length == 0)\n createTiddlyElement(theDateList,"li",null,"listTitle",config.macros.allTags.noTags);\nfor (var t=0; t<tags.length; t++) {\n if (model.test(tags[t])) {\n var theListItem =createTiddlyElement(theDateList,"li",null,null,null);\n var theTag = createTiddlyButton(theListItem,tags[t][0] + " (" + tags[t][1] + ")",config.macros.allTags.tooltip.format([tags[t][0]]),onClickTag);\n theTag.setAttribute("tag",tags[t][0]);\n }\n }\n}\n//}}}\n/***\n// //Defining shadow tiddlers\n***/\n//{{{\nfunction defineTabShadow (listType,tabsTitle,containerTitle)\n{\nvar tabdef = "<<tabs txtTabbedList" + listType + " ";\nfor (var t = 0; t < tabsTitle.length; t++)\n {\n tabdef += tabsTitle[t] + " 'Tiddlers in " + tabsTitle[t] +"' " + listType.toUpperCase()+tabsTitle[t] + " ";\n if (containerTitle != 'TabTags')\n config.shadowTiddlers[listType.toUpperCase()+tabsTitle[t]]="<<listPart " + listType + " " + tabsTitle[t] + ">>";\n else\n config.shadowTiddlers[listType.toUpperCase()+tabsTitle[t]]="<<tagListPart " + tabsTitle[t] + ">>";\n }\ntabdef += ">>";\nconfig.shadowTiddlers[containerTitle]=tabdef;\n}\ntabs=['a-e','f-j','k-o','p-s','t-z','\s\sW'];\ndefineTabShadow('all',tabs,'TabAll');\ndefineTabShadow('tags',tabs,'TabTags');\ndefineTabShadow('missing',tabs,'TabMoreMissing');\ndefineTabShadow('orphans',tabs,'TabMoreOrphans');\ndefineTabShadow('shadowed',tabs,'TabMoreShadowed');\nconfig.shadowTiddlers.DividedListsPluginDocumentation = "Documentation for this plugin is available [[here|" + version.extensions.DividedListsPlugin.source +"Documentation]]";\n//}}}\n// // Optionally replace timeline by a calendar\n//{{{\nif (config.macros.calendar!=undefined)\n {\n if (config.options.chkCalendarAsTimeline==undefined)\n config.options.chkCalendarAsTimeline=false;\n config.shadowTiddlers.AdvancedOptions +="\sn<<option chkCalendarAsTimeline>> Replace timeline with a calendar of the current month"; \n if (config.options.chkCalendarAsTimeline)\n config.shadowTiddlers.TabTimeline = "<<calendar thismonth>>";\n }\n//}}}

|Name|DividedListsPlugin|\n|Author|YannPerrin|\n|Location|http://yann.perrin.googlepages.com/twkd.html#DividedListsPlugin|\n|Version|1.1.0|\n|Requires|~TW2.x|\n\n!Description\nThis plugin defines two macros (listPart and tagListPart) and uses them to provide tabbed lists of tiddlers and tags in SideBarTabs\n\n!Installation\n*import (or copy/paste in edit mode) the following tiddlers into your document:<<br>>DividedListsPlugin (tagged with systemConfig)\n*if you want to have offline access to this plugin documentation, import (or copy/paste in edit mode) the following tiddlers into your document:<<br>>DividedListsPluginDocumentation\n\n!Usage\n''Once properly installed'' (see above), this plugin should significantly decrease the height of SideBarTabs lists.\nIf CalendarPlugin (by [[Steve Rumsby]]) is installed it also provides an option to replace the timeline with a calendar (see AdvancedOptions)\nIf you want to have this option turned on by default, createa tiddler tagged with <<tag systemConfig>> and include in it these lines :\n{{{\nif (config.options.chkCalendarAsTimeline==undefined)\nconfig.options.chkCalendarAsTimeline=true;\n}}}\nThe title of such a tiddler should be before DividedListsPlugin in alphabetical order\nIt may be interesting as most screens are wider than tall.\nAnd with the help of CalendarPlugin or [[ArchivedTimeline|http://ptw.sourceforge.net/include/ArchivedTimeline.js]] (by [[Bram Chen]]) and a little StyleSheet tweak, you could obtain a fairly usable FixedSidebar.\n\n!Revision History\n2006.17.03-1.1.0\n>added an option to replace the timeline with a calendar if CalendarPlugin is installed\n2006.16.03-1.0.0\n>Initial release\n

//By Linnette Horne, ~CompuServe//\n\nDID you know that you could have your e-mail 'flagged' as important? Did you know that you can be notified of your E-mail being delivered? ~CompuServe's ~CS4 software allows you to invoke these and other useful features when sending e-mail. After opening a Create Mail window, click on the Options button. From here you can set your message to be 'urgent', or request that you be notified upon its receipt.\n\nAnother feature available is the 'release date', which allows you to send a message several days ahead of when it will actually be delivered. This is particularly useful where you want messages to arrive on a specific date, but may be going on holiday or travelling away from your computer prior to that date (note that the Release Date is based on US time).\n\nFurther details & information on these features may be found by clicking the Help button.\n\n''SAVING YOUR IMPORTANT MESSAGES AND FILES:''\nIF you have ever suffered a hard disk failure or program corruption's that required you to re-install ~CompuServe's software, then unless you have backup copies you may have lost forever your e-mails, files, messages, and electronic address book.\n\nA simple precaution to avoid such heartache is to regularly backup the appropriate files. A backup is where you save certain files off your computer, usually onto floppy disks, so that they may be used again in the event of an emergency rendering the original application or its files unusable.\n\nCopying the following onto floppy disks will save your important ~CompuServe information -\n* FCABINET Folder contains the files that operate & hold your Filing Cabinet names and their contents (e-mails, Forum messages).\n* DOWNLOAD Folder contains any files or message attachments that you have been sent or downloadedyourself.\n* ADDRBOOK.DAT is a file (found in the SUPPORT Folder) that contains all your electronic address book details.\nAfter restoring any of the above files, it will be necessary to rebuild the cabinet indexes. Do this by clicking opening the CompuServe (CS4.02) software, clicking on File, Filing Cabinet Utilities, then Rebuild Index.\n\nRemember, if you have any difficulties, Customer Services will be pleased to assist. Contact details are at the end of this newsletter.\n\n'''YOU HAVE AN ANSWER WAITING'''\nHAVE you ever posted a question into one of ~CompuServe's many Forums and then forgotten to go back and see if anyone has replied to you?\n\nIf you access the Forum in question either in web-view or using a web browser, then when you compose your Forum message you have the opportunity to click in the 'Please notify me via E-Mail when there is a response to this Message' box. When someone responds to your message, you will receive an advice notice in your e-mail.\n\n''LATEST VERSION OF INSTANT MESSENGER:''\nTHE latest version of the Instant Messenger software is now available by going to www.compuserve.com/csim/default.asp and clicking on the Upgrade button.\nThis latest version has many new features including the ability to hold group discussions, to send & receive graphics, e-mail, and to talk to each other live (voice-over-internet).

Type the text for 'Early Times'

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After John’s talk on HTML, I thought I would give it ago. After much practise I finally got the hang of it and had a go at changing the Megabyte into HTML format.\n\nThe results of my endeavours can be seen on the NZPCA web page. While Robin was away I uploaded the last three megabyte and made a change to the "Year index". You can now access all the Megabytes from May 1998 to the current one. The “quick index” is also being redesign to allow quick access to articles by selecting the subject. There is still a lot of work to do in this area.. By the way Robin, the Web Master job is still yours. \n\nFor those who want to see the Megabyte in its full colour, the Web page is the place to look and any article you would like to place in Megabyte are also available to be seen by anyone surfing the web. What a huge market.\n\n''Don't forget the Auction on Wednesday.''\n

What a hard act to follow! John Murphy has been producing Megabyte for the last three years and it has gone from strength to strength. The layout has become more professional with every issue and Megabyte certainly is one of the reasons why this club is prospering. John has acquired skills at desktop publishing that we can only gasp at. Seeing him paste copy into his template for Megabyte and with a few deft strokes of his keyboard make the most untidy copy into something attractive & inviting to read made me realise that it was a skill that I had to get.\n\n Having read the last sentence you realise I have a lot to learn in more than the desktop publishing area!\n\n Please bear with me gentle reader (I only took the job so that I could use that phrase) whilst I and my ever patient layout editor Tony King ably assisted by Phil Hayward go through a traumatic learning curve in getting these early issues out. Speak quietly to us at the Club meetings, our nerves will only just be recovering from the last and will already be winding up into the next month's Megabyte.\n\n Now for the commercial, if you weren't at the AGM you missed a treat. I actively reminded those present that this was a club and they were all members. Actually only those who had paid their subs (another commercial). Part of being a club member is to participate ie to DO SOMETHING! Your club needs YOU, your editor needs you! I want your pieces, text I mean, almost anything, comments, letters, opinions, articles etc. Don't be afraid that you might make mistakes, be laughed at etc. It's my job to ensure what goes in is technically correct, GULP!\n\n The usual problem is not knowing what to write or being afraid that what you are doing is at too low a level to be of interest to the members. I assure you it is not, there are too many things going on in computing for any one person to be able to follow them all. If in doubt give me a ring to discuss it. I can tell you that writing is addictive, the feeling of pride in seeing your piece in print, in hearing friends & acquaintances mention your article, it's a good and honest ego trip.\n\n Now where was I? Yes! Thank you John Murphy and all your helpers and contributors for setting us on the road. I only hope we can stay there! Rest on your laurels John - but not for too long we want your contributions as well..

I can sympathise with Roger and his USB problems. I was given a optical mouse as a birthday present and I can get it to work on everybody's computer except my two.\nMy other problem is a computer that can't spell or my fingers can't find the right keys..\n\nAnother year gone and other magazine to print. No 150. \nThe last 30 being in the new booklet form. My thanks to all those members who have provided articles over the past year. Those that cover personal experiences with computers are what we need. It shows that even the best of us still have the occasional problem \n\nTwo little niggles I have found with ~IE5:\n\n1.&nbsp;&nbsp; The "On Line" Icons on ~IE5 is hidden in bottom left of the task bar and is easily missed. I stayed "On line" when I thought I was working "Off line" setting up the web page. Two hours of my 20 hours wasted. A one stage the ISP provider would through you off if there was no "on line" action for 15 minutes .\n\n2.&nbsp;&nbsp; When checking time used on my ISP, I hadn't realised that the screen I was looking at was from the computer's cache and not an update from the ISP despite having just logged on. The end result was that I had used a lot more time than I had thought. It was when I checked the next screen I noticed the difference . Nine hours used instead of three hours originally displayed. Very quickly ticked the update box in the IE5 setup. \n\nHave a Happy Christmas and may the New Year be free of computer hassles and may Father Christmas bring me that new high powered computer that can run all those programs that I currently can only dream of. \n\nArthur.

by Arthur Harris \n\n\n//AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE. PLEASE READ. \n\nIt is that time of the month and I need your articles for Megabyte. The closing date for Aprils edition is Tuesday the 13th. (Next week). Don't let the short time scale put you off. I also need then for the following months. \n\nWe need fresh blood to keep things interesting and moving so don't leave it up to the next person. \n\nI was told by a member that if I was in the USA I would have no trouble in getting articles, where as if I was in England the opposite is true. So what are we Kiwi's? Outgoing Americans or shy British. Going on past efforts I would say the latter is true. Where is that free independent Kiwi spirit that made New Zealand? Long gone or just practised by a few. Please prove me wrong.// \n\nThe first part of this comment is a message that I put on the BBS to all members. I was, foolish me, hoping for a reply or at least a comment. The only reply I got was a message from Tony Fitchett enquiring about the article he sent me. (See Handy Stuff) Thanks Tony. Can I assume from this that he was the only person who read the message. What happened to the rest of you? Those who do not have modems and cannot access the BBS are excused, BUT that does not stop you from replying to this article. \n\nThanks to John Blakeley and his article, Kapiti SIG. I fully endorse the comments that he has made. You only get out what you put in. If you go to meetings and sit at the back and say nothing then you will get nothing out of the meeting. Join in and ask questions. Other members are only to willing to help. Who knows you may even be able to help someone else. \n\nThe AGM is in June. Are we, for the third year running, not going to have a quorum. We only need 30 members. For an active membership of 240 this is poor. The bulk of them in the Wgtn and Hutt areas. \n\nYou will notice that we have a few articles on computer viruses this month. They have been in the news lately. My thanks to Linnette Horne for the article on the Melissa Virus. Linnette also provides us with the Compuserve articles. Ian Godfrey provided us with the cure for the Happy99.exe worm. A few members were caught by that one. Me included. \n\nWith the loss of Adrianus, who did a great job on the Help Desk, we are badly in need of further helpers in this area. The centre page of this magazine is a questionnaire. Its purpose is two fold. \n\n1.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; To help me update the membership files. \n2.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; To compile a list of helpers who are prepared to help others and their range of skills.\n \nThe idea behind this is to update the old list we have of helpers and the times they are available to help others, and to add new helpers. \n\nYour chance to help others and learn more at the same time. Until a new co-ordinator is found I will continue to act in that role, but only up to the AGM. \n\nPlease fill in the questionnaire. If you don't help us, there is no way we can help you. You can reply to me either by email\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; arthurh@paradise.net.nz\nor by post (address on questionnaire), or by completing the wizzy new online form.\n

As promised in the December edition of Megabyte that I would leave a column open for those who wished to reply to my comments. As of the 20th January, my worst fears have come true. Either nobody is reading the Megabyte or they can't be bothered. You will also notice that jokes have come back in. This month I will let you off because of other commitments this edition is being produced early. It doesn't cost you anything to reply, just send me an email - editor@nzpca.org.nz or leave it in Conference 10. \n\nThe rest of this column is yours. \n\n''Intentionally\n \n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;left \n\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;blank'' \n\n:-) \n\n

In answer to Roger’s opening paragraph.\n#To stay away from 2nd hand computers. \n#No. \n#No. \n#It didn’t stand a chance. \n#Yes. Should learn to keep out of it.\n \nStill put it all down to keeping the brain active at the expense of loosing more hair. \n\nHaving got that off my chest, now for the real business. Another year gone and another 11 magazines to the printer on time with only minor problems. I extend my thanks to all those who have provided articles for megabyte over the last year. With out you, the Megabyte would be down to two pages and very boring. We need those articles and those articles that are written from personal experiences are even better as they give the magazine a more personal and less technical touch. \n\nOur current membership is slowly dropping . Down to 173 on the last count. Looking back at last years comments, I see that I sent out 150 early reminders where as this year I only sent out 110 of them. Of those 57 have replied. What happened to the other 53? See you at the AGM. I will be the one by the door counting you in. \n\n// - Arthur Harris. //\n

Arthur Harris \n\nAnother deadline and this time I was prepared, thanks to my wife reminding me. It's also that time for the financial report and for many of us to pay our fees. There were 150 early reminders sent out and as usual Access played up. I think I have solved the problem by removing a database file with the same name even though it was in another directory. The problems always occurred when you merge the database in Word to print out the reminders and labels. This was the reason some of you received two Megabytes. Here's hoping. I have placed the financial report in the centre of the of the mag so you may remove it for easier reading. \n\nThanks to all of you who sent me the questionnaires. I have several volunteers to provide help to those who need it. I am still well short of getting them all back. I do need them to help update the members database. All it takes is a bit of time to fill it in and a 40 cent stamp, or if you like send it back via the web page. I am of course assuming that you have read the magazine. (What no comments) \n\nThanks to Maxine ~McNabb for providing the new graphics for the front page. There are three more which I will be using over the coming months. Well done Maxine. \n\nThe next meeting is also the AGM. Come along and support it and your club. We do need new helpers and people on the committee. It is a good way to learn more about your computer and meet other members. \n\nThanks to all those who have sent me articles Don't go away, I will need you next year. As I am now working full time, my spare time has dried up, but it is nice to have the extra money.\n

Excuse the mad rush and any silly typos that I make. I have had a busy time of it lately and the dead line came at a mad rush. \n\nThanks to all of you who filled in the Membership update form. You have given a good idea of what you would like to see. It is my intention to contact all those who have volunteered their services. So far I have received 30 forms back from a possible 240 replies. By my calculations the is 12.5 percent. Not very good. To put it another way all I need to do is put out this magazine twice a year and I have beaten your response. To encourage those who have not replied there is a mystery prize to be won by those who have sent their forms back. To be drawn at the AGM. To be in to win you must have returned your form. Robin has also provided you with another means of doing this by contacting the web page. (See his article on page 11.) \n\nI agree with Roger's comments. If you don't try you you won't learn. If you not making mistakes you are not trying hard enough and you wont experience the pure joy of beating the damm machine. Most of what I know has come from trying out new programs and so far the worst I have done was to lock the computer up in an endless loop. It kept repeating the same command and ignored the keyboard. The reset button soon fixed that and I learnt to use the right command. The worst you can do is having to reload all of your programs and there are plenty of members who are only to willing to help you. Maxine can vouch to that. \n\nThe AGM is next month so please attend so that we may get a quorum. You wont get a job unless your name is put forward. Become an active member and enjoy your club. We are in need of a new Help desk Co-ordinator. A good way to learn how your computer works. You don't have to fix their problem your self, just refer them to a member who can help. \n\nIf you are into refilling you Inkjet cartriges, I have been informed by a member that Quay computers in Bowen St has Jetpro re-ink kits for $10.00 Will work in Desk jet 400, Cannon, Epson (Orange pack) and HP printers (Blue pack). The only disadvantage noticed was that it took a bit longer to dry. \n\nThanks to John Thomson for the article on modems and Tim Adams for the articles on the Year 2000. Also Roger, Robin and Ian. One of the suggestion put forward was a "Letters to the Editor column" You send the letters and I will publish them.\n

After John’s talk on HTML, I thought I would give it ago. After much practise I finally got the hang of it and had a go at changing the Megabyte into HTML format.\nThe results of my endeavours can be seen on the NZPCA web page. While Robin was away I uploaded the last three megabyte and made a change to the "Year index". You can now access all the Megabytes from May 1998 to the current one. The “quick index” is also being redesign to allow quick access to articles by selecting the subject. There is still a lot of work to do in this area.. By the way Robin, the Web Master job is still yours. \nFor those who want to see the Megabyte in its full colour, the Web page is the place to look and any article you would like to place in Megabyte are also available to be seen by anyone surfing the web. What a huge market.\n''Don't forget the Auction on Wednesday.''\n

//John Thomson talks about electronic pricing in local supermarkets//\n\nComputer club members may remember my Mega Byte article and club talk regarding Bluetooth Wireless devices, which related to 'Bluetooth Wireless tags' and 'RFID tags' (Radio Frequency Identification Devices). With two follow up articles around May 2004 (Mega byte) where RFID wireless tag were being introduced and used in New Zealand Libraries.\n\nWhat was stated at the time, RFID wireless tags were too expensive to be introduced into Supermarkets? Maybe when the price\nof RFID tags comes down. Placing RFID tags on every product in the store would double the price of smaller items. And the\nsize of RFID tags (even if they are small) would not fit on many not as big, supermarket items. But in a public library\nsituation where books range in price from $20 to $100, the cost of an RFID tag is only a fraction of the total price of the\nbook. And books have large flat areas where RFID tags can be pasted on the outside or even inside the book.\n\nRFID tags on books (or hidden in the binding) would mean library staff would not have to manually check items in and out of the library. RFID tags on books can be used and reused many times over during the life of the book and are a small cost compared to the cost of the book. At the present time most Public Libraries use a barcode reader system to check out books\n(each book needs to be scanned). And books also need to be manually scanned back into the library computer system when they are returned.\n\nSeveral libraries within New Zealand are now placing RFID tags on books. For checking books in and out of their library\nand for security reasons to stop books going missing. RFID tags wirelessly talk to access points when they are inside the\nPAN (personal area network) of an access point. Dropping a book (which has an RFID tag attached) into the after hours\nreturn, or placing the book on the return desk, wirelessly logs that book back into the library's computer system.\n\nBecause RFID tags are too expensive for supermarkets it will be a few years before we will see them used here in New\nZealand. What supermarkets are starting use to display prices, are "Electronic Pricing devices".\n\nIf you have visited New World Newtown recently you would have noticed (over the last month) they have adding an Electronic\nPricing system to their shop. See Figure 1. These devices replace the normal printed price labels and barcodes that presently display the prices on the shelves.\n\nDisplaying the price of an article electronically with special discounts and savings displayed in the small electronic window (on the left). They have a red bar and a green bar also to indicate daily or monthly discounts.\n\n"Electronic Pricers" are setup before being used in the shop. The ones in the store will have a small label in the area just below the window. It'll display the product details (i.e. Baked Beans), size, weight and standard barcode.\n\nThe real advantage of these electronic pricers is the way they can be updated electronically via a ceiling mounted dome.\nIn conjunction with loggers which communicate with ceiling mounted domes. See Figure 2.\n\nNew World in Newtown I understand is the first store in the Wellington area for these Pricers to be installed in. Three more stores in the Wellington area will also get similar systems within the next few weeks. So if you go into your local New World and see similar electronic pricers, look up at the ceiling to find the domes that update these devices. I'm positive that Woolworth, Countdown and ~PakNSave will be introducing similar devices.\n\nJohn Thomson\nGella@paradise.net.nz\n\n//At the monthly SIG meeting 4/6/2005 we were told ~PakNSave in Palmerston North has installed similar devices.//\n\n

''INTRODUCTION'' \nWith so many video card choice out there, it is helpful to know just what is needed and what is excess baggage. Also, with the increasing use of high-resolution graphics, even in business software, and graphical user interface, such as Windows, the need for an adequate video card is a major component in the performance of the entire system. In trying to create faster more powerful graphics cards, three areas are most looked at: Processor, Bus, and Memory \n\n''PROCESSOR''\nAll video cards have some type or processor, or chipset, on the video board. The chipset is independent of the type of adapter it is, such as VGA or SVGA. The oldest cards use frame-buffer technology. With this, the video card is only responsible for one frame at a time, while the system processor, or CPU, actually does all the work of creating each frame.\nThis type of chipset is rather useless when it comes to decent graphics because it places a significant load on the processor, keeping it from attending to other programs. The result is slow performance throughout.\nFancier video cards have a chipset that co-processes. With this, the video card has its own processor which calculates everything related to graphics. This frees the CPU so that it can attend to other duties. This setup is optimum for performance, and is becoming quite standard. In the middle, we have graphics accelerator chipsets. With this, the video processor performs all mundane graphical computations, but leaves the CPU responsible for actually telling the video card what to do. This setup is the most common, and allows great performance with 3D multimedia applications. The chipset of your video card is the most important part. It is the heart of your video card. Knowing your video chipsets and knowing the type on the card you are considering is very important to making a good decision. It is also helpful after you have bought the card because drivers are usually written to cater to the chipset, not the card itself. So, you can go to the chipset maker's site and download new drivers. \n\n''BUS''\nThe old paper weight video cards used the MCA or ISA system bus. At theirfastest, they used the EISA bus, which was capable of speeds up to 10MHz. The old XGA and ~XGA-2 cards, as well as the original VGA card by IBM, used these buses. The bus was later improved to the VESA local bus, or ~VL-BUS. The ~VL-bus is an addition to the original ISA bus. While you might have a motherboard with an ISA slot, some of them may have an extension which turns it into a ~VL-bus. The ~VL-bus could transfer up to 32 bits of data at a time and could operate up to 40 ~MHz. \nWith this bus, faster video was becoming real. But, full multimedia never became reality until Intel came up with the PCI bus, or the Peripheral Components ~InterConnect. This expansion bus was independent of the processor and allows fast video performance. The bus also supports plug-and-play. It is recommended that you consider nothing but a PCI video card. \n\n''Video Memory''\nIntroduction \nWhen shopping for a video card, there is no doubt that a prime feature bragged about the card is how much memory it has and what kind. But, what does that mean? And how does the type and amount of memory effect the performance of the video on your system?\nSimply put, a video card relies on its memory to draw a picture.\nDifferent cards offer different amounts of this precious memory. Extreme low-end cards often have only 256 KB, while very high-end cards have as much as 8 MB of memory or more. The standard for the run-of-the-mill ~SVGAcard is 1 or 2 MB. \nThe common misconception is that the more, the better. While this is somewhat true, it is different than expected. More video memory DOES NOT speed up the video system on the card. It only affects how many colours it can show at higher resolutions. There is a mathematical equation to help you figure out just how much video memory you need. This depends on your resolution. The higher the resolution, the more memory you need, because each and every pixel on your screen must have a space in the memory for its data. Here is the computation: \n\nLets say you would like to display 256 colours on a screen resolution of 640x480. At this resolution, there is 307,200 dots, or pixels.\n256 colours requires 8 bits or data for each pixel. You can figure this because with an eight digit binary, there are 256 possible combinations.\nFor two colours, you need only 1 bit, either on or off. For 16 colours, you need 4 bits, 2 to the 4th power. 256 colours requires 8 bits, and it goes up from there. Anyway, multiply the number of dots by the number of bits per pixel to get the number of bits for the entire screen. 307,000 x 8 = 2,457,600 bits. \nThere are eight bits per byte and 1,024 bytes per kilobyte. So...2,457,600 / 8 = 307,200 bytes = 300K \nTherefore it requires exactly 300K of memory to display 256 colours at 640x480 resolution. But, after calculating this, you must consider the available amounts. You cannot buy a video card with 300K of memory. They are available at either 256K or 512K. So, to get this resolution and color scheme, you must buy a card with 512K of memory on-board.\nObviously, though, most users do not deal with low memory amounts such as this any more. Most users have a card with at least 2MB of memory. With this, you can display most any resolution you would want. At the most common resolution, 800x600, a 2 MB card can display 16,777,216 colors.\nWhen you get up to 4MB cards, you can show this many colors at 1280x1024 resolution. With the high-end cards, one sometimes sees 8M or memory boasted.\nAs you can see, this much memory is absolutely useless unless you would like to display 24-bit color at 1600x1200 resolution, something which is rarely done apart from on the largest of high-end monitors.\nAnother issue with regards to memory is the local bus between the video chipset and the video memory. Basically, the wider the access to memory from the chipset, the faster the card. This access is a local bus wired into the card. \nWhen shopping, you will often see 64-bit or even 128-bit cards advertised. This refers to this memory bus, and is often confused with the bus slot the card plugs into. In reality, a 64-bit card means that it has a 64-bit memory bus on the card, but is actually a 32-bit card plugging into a PCI bus slot. \n\n''Types of Video RAM''\nMost Video Cards in the past used a type of video memory called Dynamic RAM, or DRAM, to store image information. This type of RAM was easy to make and as a result was very cheap. However, DRAM was far too slow, which stems from the fact that DRAM needs to be constantly refreshed in order to save the information. DRAM also cannot be read at the same time as it is being written to. This slowness can be demonstrated by looking at today's cards.\nAt a standard resolution of 1024x768 with a 72Hz refresh rate, the DAC (Digital to Analog Converter) needs to access the memory's information 72 times per second. If using 24-bit color, this translates to about 170 MB/sec of transfer from the DRAM, the max transfer of DRAM. This does not include the writing of new information, which can't be done during the read process. \nIn response to this, a number of new memory technologies have been developed. EDO RAM was the first to be used.\n\nEDO RAM is often used in the main system memory as well. EDO RAM, when used for video, is only slightly faster than DRAM, but the cost was about the same. It works by offloading its contents to separate circuits, thereby allowing it to receive new data at the same time that the last data cycle is being completed. EDO RAM is architecturally the same. The only difference is with the wiring onto the board.\n\nVideo RAM, or VRAM has been utilized on Video Cards for a while. VRAM is dual-ported, meaning it allows all hardware to access the memory at the same time, including the main processor, the video processor and the DAC. It's more expensive than EDO, but the performance increase is noticeable.\n\nWindows RAM, or WRAM, is modified VRAM. It boasts slightly better performance than VRAM and costs less to make. For this reason, it is often used in place of VRAM on many Video Cards. ~MultiBank DRAM (MDRAM) is newer technology. It is aimed at the cost-sensitive user who requires good performance. The downside is that it is rather rare. The prime difference is its organization. While standard memory was limited to sizes or 256 KB, 512 KB, 1 MB, 2 MB, 4 MB and so on, MDRAM could be added in increments of 32K. This allows the user to calculate just how much memory they really need, using the above equation, and upgrade their video memory to be very close.Performance wise, MDRAM is much faster than VRAM or WRAM. <> \n\nSynchronous Graphics RAM, or SGRAM, is a new arrival for high-end graphics users. It runs at 66MHz and can operate at up to 80MHz. While very fast, you won't really be able to take advantage of it until the PCI bus is upgraded to 66MHz for the mainstream motherboard.\n

''AUTOMATIC TURNTABLE : Model ~LAB-1100''\nThis is our latest addition. The belt drive turntable has a built-in pre-amp for direct connection to the line input of your sound card. (2 x RCA). It has a dia-mond stylus. Preserve those classic vinyl ecordings by burning to CD! Shareware software and printed instructions are included. The turntable is available on loan to members at no charge.\n//Contact: Arthur Harris - 972-4028 (H) - arthurh@paradise.net.nz//\n\n''FILM AND SLIDE SCANNER 35mm : Model ~PF3650''\nThis excellent high resolution scanner is designed especially for 35mm slides, film strips, or roll film. It can handle both slide positives and colour or black and white negatives. The scanner is able to ddress the problems of dust, scratches and degradation that often occur with celluloid film with the passag of time, and will actively restore your precious photos through its digital ICE technology.For more information about this scanner, refer to Megabyte – February 2004 (President’s report and the article on pages 4-7).\nHint: For scanning colour slides, suggested settings for the scanner are: 16 bit 3,000 dpi, best quality.\nA charge of $10 per week is made to members who borrow the scanner. An instruction sheet is provided.\n//Contact: Arthur Harris - 972-4028 (H) - arthurh@paradise.net.nz//\n\n''PHOTO PRINTER: HP Photosmart 130''\nIdeal for use with our club’s digital camera! This compact colour photo printer is designed to produce 6” x 4” prints from a computer’s hard drive, floppy drive, ~CD-ROM, or directly from a variety of digital camera memory cards. Borrowers of the printer are charged a modest amount to meet the cost of con\nsumables i.e. ink cartridges and photo paper.\n//Contact: John Little - 479-6575 (H) - littlejn@actrix.gen.nz//\n\n''DIGITAL CAMERA: NIKON Coolpix 2200''\nThis is our latest purchase and has a 2.2 megapixel output. Complete with 15 scene modes including automatic stills, macro, action, etc as well as 3 movie modes. The high resolution pictures at 1600x1200 pixels will print excellent 6x4 glossies and acceptable larger pictures up to A4. We have also bought a 64 MB SD memory card to supplement the built-in memory and 16 MB SD\ncard that came with the camera. Use the camera and cards with the HP Photosmart printer, and check out what your needs are, for when you buy your own camera.\n//Contact: Ian Heppleston - 526-9457 (H) - ianh@paradise.net.nz//\n\n''VIDEO PROJECTOR: PLUS U2-870''\nSee the notice on page 15 of Megabyte for hire cost details.\n//Contact: Richard Elam - 938-6891 (H) - elamr@paradise.net.nz//

'' Get it all on-line!''\n\n Information about almost anything can be found online. With the huge amount of information available on the internet, it is hoped this list of selected (mostly New Zealand) services sites may help you get more out of the web in less time.\n\n'' Telephone directories.''\n\n Save time, and avoid leafing through hundreds of printed pages. It is easy to find contact details for friends and businesses throughout the country online: http://www.whitepages.co.nz and http://www.yellowpages.co.nz\n\n '' Postage and postcodes''\n\n New Zealand Post's website, http://www.nzpost.co.nz, contains much information about all matters postal. A full listing of New Zealand postcodes, and postal charges can be found here.\n\n'' Street maps''\n\n A useful resource is at http://www.wises.co.nz, providing maps with detailed street information for major New Zealand cities. You can also e-mail maps to friends. The same publisher produces a range of street master maps on ~CD-ROM, with directories searchable by suburb or street name, for a number of New Zealand cities and localities.\n\n'' News''\n\n For up-to-date national and international news, http://www.nzoom.com web site is a very good website. But if you are looking for an overseas newspaper, magazine, radio or TV station, http://www.allnewspapers.com has plenty of links. For news from the USA and UK, good places to start are http://www.cnn.com and BBC news in the UK http://news.bbc.co.uk/\n\n You could also try http://www.indymedia.org for alternative coverage of international stories.\n\n'' Public transport''\n\n Many bus and train timetables for the greater Wellington area can be found at Ridewell http://www.wrc.govt.nz/timetables Coverage on this site extends north to the Kapiti Coast, and also includes rail services to the Wairarapa. More local public transport information can also be found at these sites:\n*http://www.transmetro.co.nz\n*http://www.stagecoach.co.nz\n*http://www.cityline.co.nz\n*http://www.manacoach.co.nz\n*http://www.newlands.co.nz\n\n Information and timetables for the ferry service from Wellington to Days Bay are to be found at http://www.eastbywest.co.nz\n\n Some of the many transport websites that cover national road and rail services are \n\n*Intercity coachlines http://www.intercitycoachlines.co.nz/ \n*Transcenic http://www.transcenic.co.nz/\n*Newmans coaches http://www.newmanscoach.co.nz/\n*Cook Strait ferry service timetables can be located at Cook Strait ferry service timetables http://travelink.co.nz/nz/ferrytimeswlg.html\n\n'' Government''\n\n The Government Entry Point site NZ Goverment http://www.govt.nz/ will connect you to New Zealand central and local government services. Most government websites are quite informative and easy to navigate, and just a click from the entry site will get you there. Brief details on recent government announcements, together with items of general interest to the public can be found in the Blue Pages Bulletin Board at http://www.dia.govt.nz/bluepages\n\n'' Time Zone Information''\n\n Before you wake your UK relatives with a phone call at a really unsociable hour, it's a good idea to check the time on the other side of the world.\n\n'' Whitepages''\n\n http://www.whitepages.co.nz has a global time converter and international dialling codes, just click the link "world directories." There are other websites presenting time zone information simply and clearly, a good example being http://www.hilink.com.au/times\n\n'' Weather''\n\n For extensive weather information including national and regional forecasts, marine, ski and farming areas, try Metservice at http://www.metservice.co.nz/forecasts/index.asp\n\n Brief up-to-date short range forecasts from television are available at http://oneweather.nzoom.com/\n\n If you are wanting international weather, try http://www.wmo.ch/index-en.html This site run by the UNWMO provides official weather forecasts and climate information for selected cities as well as links to meteorology sites from around the world.\n\n'' Measurement and Currency Conversions''\n\n There are lots of metric conversions sites around, but not all are precise in their results. One very good site is: http://www.initium.demon.co.uk/converts/metimp.htm\n\n Just enter the amount you want to convert into the appropriate field and click the right hand column to view the result. For quick and easy currency conversions, go to http://www.xe.com/ucc\n\n To find conversion rates for a specified date, try http://www.oanda.com/convert/classic\n\n'' Dictionary''\n\n On the web there are many topical dictionaries explaining just about any subject. A good way to find them is to use a search engine such as http://www.google.co.nz One dictionary for general use is http://www.dictionary.com\n\n Roget's Thesaurus can be found at http://www.thesaurus.com/\n\n For more detailed definitions, the Oxford English Dictionary runs a service at http://www.oed.com but it is only available by paid subscription.\n\n'' What else is there?''\n\n There are endless entertainment sites and directories on the web, including those covering radio, television, cinema, theatre, sports, and many other activities. Further sites deal with restaurants, holiday accommodation, shopping - the list goes on. When we find sites that particularly interest us, it's a good idea to bookmark them so we can access them again in the minimum of time.\n\n//- John Little//

// ''Those of you who came to the May meeting wil recall Roger's talk on Excel and the homework he set for us!. Well, if you didn't come, here is the homeworknow for you, and you may get detention if you dont do it!!....''// \n\n"You want to buy some plants, fertiliser etc and want to know where is the cheapest place to" get them. The prices for the plants are as set out below.\n\nThe plants need the following quantities of fertiliser: \n"Daffodils 2 litres each, roses 3 litres each, seed potatoes 1 litre each potato and brussels 3" litres per plant.\n\nThe plants need the following quantities of potting compost "Tomatoes 1 litre per plant, Brussels 5 litres per bag"\n\nRemembering you can't buy part bags of fertiliser or potting compost and retaining your opinion on my gardening abilities. Which is the cheapest place to buy them all from?\n\nSend your answers to ~RogerC@Clear.net.nz - I am more interested in the workings we all know the Warehouse is the best place to get them!,,,,,\n\n|>|>|| Quantity | Twiglands | Parkside | Palmers Garden World | Williams Garden World |\n|>|>|Daffodils| 25| $0.50 | $0.75 | $0.35 | $0.40 |\n|>|>|Roses| 50| $5.00 | $7.50 | $8.00 | $5.50 |\n|>|>|Seed Potatoes (30 per bag)| 5 Bags| $25.00 | $20.00 | $22.00 | $18.00 |\n|>|>|Tomatoes| 20| $10.00 | $8.00 | $14.00 | $7.00 |\n|>|>|Brussels Sprouts (5 plants per bag)| 4 Bags | $12.50 | $15.00 | $6.00 | $9.00 |\n|>|>|Fertiliser 30 Lt Bag| ? Bags| $28.00 | $26.00 | $22.00 | $24.00 |\n|>|>|Potting Compost 10 Lt| ? Bags| $30.00 | $22.00 | $18.00 | $15.00 |\n

Supplied by SmartComputing\n\n ''Excel''\n ''Messages Help Identify Worksheet Problems''\n\n When your car starts making those strange knocking noises, you know it's time to haul it in to a mechanic for a checkup. It would be nice if you could also drop your Microsoft Excel troubleshooting errors off at the tech shop. Excel, compared to other software programs, has a bagful of cryptic messages. Because of the numerical and formula-driven nature of the program, Excel is especially prone to errors that can translate into major problems. Knowing the basic error messages and how to fix them helps you keep your worksheets as problem-free as possible.\n\n Errors In Formulas. By far, the most common error messages you'll encounter in Excel relate to setting up formulas. With over 300 functions in the program (plus all those great user-defined formulas you can dream up), plenty can go awry.\n\n If Excel doesn't know how to interpret your formulas, it displays an error value within the cell. These error values begin with a pound sign. Error values can be displayed in the cell for a variety of reasons: if you use text when a numeric value is called for, if you set up the formula incorrectly, or if you delete a cell referenced by the formula.\n\n Error Message: "######" (a series of pound symbols that display in your cell instead of the cell contents.)\n\n Translation: The column needs to be widened to display numerical contents of the cell. Instead of confusing you by showing some of the numbers, Excel displays pound symbols.\n\n Solution: Increase the width of the column. Click the column heading to select the entire column and then choose Column from the Format menu. Clicking AutoFit Selection will widen the column. You can also double-click the right side of the border for the column heading.\n\n Another way to work around this problem is to shrink the cell contents to fit in the cell. To do this, select the column and then choose Cells from the Format menu. Click the Alignment tab and then check the Shrink To Fit checkbox before clicking OK.\n\n You can sometimes change the formatting for the cell so that the contents take up less room. For example, you can select the cell and then choose a smaller font on the Font Size drop-down list in the Toolbar. You can remove bold type by clicking the Bold button. Other shortcuts can be customized on the Toolbar.\n Error Message: "######"\n \n\n Translation: The cell contains a negative time or date. Date and time values must be positive if you're using the 1900 date system. By default, Excel for Windows supports the 1900 date system while Excel for Macintosh supports the 1904 date system. Both systems keep track internally of each date as a serial number. The difference between the systems lies in the starting and ending dates. The starting date for the 1900 date system is Jan. 1, 1900 (with a comparable serial number of that day of 1). The ending date for the 1900 date system is Dec. 31, 9999 (which has a serial value of 2958465 and which is a date we probably will never see). In contrast, the starting date for the 1904 system is Jan. 2, 1904 (with a serial value of 1) and ends with Dec. 31, 9999 (with a serial value of 2957003).\n\n Solution: Check your formula to make sure you built it correctly-especially if subtracting time or dates. If the correct formula yields a negative result, use a format other than time or date for the cell. To do this, choose Cells from the Format menu and click the Number tab. Choose the General or Number format.\n\n Alternately, switch to the 1904 date system. To do this, choose Options from the Tools menu. Click the Calculation tab and check the 1904 Date System box before choosing OK.\n\n ''Pixel or percentage?''\n So, which is better, resizing your image using the pixel or percentage option? Most of the time, particularly if you have a number of images for which you're creating thumbnails, reducing the images to a set pixel size will be the best way to go. Reducing by percentage will result in thumbnails of various sizes (depending on the size of each original image), while reducing both the height and width to a set pixel length will create a uniform look. Keeping all the thumbnails on a page to a uniform size looks better and makes them easier to browse.\n\n The actual pixel length you'll want to go with will vary depending on how large you want the thumbnail to be. (100 to 200 pixels makes for a nice-sized thumbnail.) Play around with a variety of numbers to find the right size. After selecting the size, click OK. Select Save As from the File menu and give your thumbnail a new name.\n\n ''Link to the original.''\n To create a link from the thumbnail to the original, large image, make sure the two images are in the same folder. Then insert the following line of code into your Web site where you want the thumbnail to appear (where your own file names replace biggraphic.jpg and smallgraphic.jpg):\n\n HREF = "biggraphic .jpg" IMG SRC = "smallgraphic.jpg" BORDER="0"\n\n Now users will be able to click the thumbnail to open the larger image in another browser window. It's a good idea to let users know, somewhere in the general area of the thumbnail, the size of the image that it leads to. This will give users more information when they are trying to decide if they want to click certain thumbnails to view the larger image.\n Those with a little Web design experience may know that it is possible to tinker with specifications in the "IMG" tag to control how large images will appear in some browsers. This is not, however, an alternative for thumbnails. Browsers still load large images in their entirety and then just display them in reduced form. Because you pulled the large images into your browser cache first, this kind of defeats one of the primary benefits that thumbnails have going for them: bandwidth relief.\n\n ''The Software Solution.''\n Those who aren't thrilled about getting down to the nitty-gritty of manually creating thumbnails for their Web site will be happy to know that there are many software solutions to expedite this chore. First, consider the HTML editor you're currently using to build your Web site. Chances are good that, if you're using a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor such as FrontPage or Dreamweaver, the ability to generate thumbnails and Web page coding is built right into the program.\n\n For example, in Microsoft FrontPage 2000, you can easily generate a thumbnail without leaving the editor by selecting an image and clicking the Auto Thumbnailer button on the Picture toolbar. (Alternately, you can select the picture and use the keyboard shortcut CTRL-T.) FrontPage will then create a thumbnail and generate a hyperlink to the full-sized version of the image. You can change how FrontPage makes thumbnails (set the height or width, border size, whether to bevel the thumbnail, and more) by opening the Tools menu, selecting Page Options, and clicking the Auto Thumbnailer tab.\n\n The following programs are some of the best solutions available in this area.\n\n ''Web Thumbnailer.''\n If you're looking for a quick and easy way to process proportional thumbnails and crank out HTML code for them, try Web Thumbnailer. This DragonWorks Software program lets you select one or more images to work with. Large icons along the top of the work area let you generate code with a single mouse click, save images and thumbnails as JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) or PNG (Portable Network Graphics) files, arrange thumbnails in various ways, and more. You can set HTML table properties for borders, colors, background images, and font specifications, and the program's built-in HTML editor lets you easily work with code.\n\n Web Thumbnailer also offers a number of features that let you compress thumbnails (making them up to eight times smaller), select default browsers for viewing Web pages, and more. If you're just looking for a quick way to whip out a simple page of thumbnails for the Web, Web Thumbnailer, at $11.95, is an excellent, low-cost choice. You can get more information on Web Thumbnailer (and download a demo for the application) at the DragonWorks Software Web site,\n http://www.majordomo.net/dragonworks/webthumb.htm\n Thumbnail 3\n \n\n AutoGraphicsHTML gives you 32 different template styles to choose from, but you can create your own if you don't see something you like here.\n\n ''Web Album Creator.''\n There are many reasons why you'd want to post photographs to the Web, but if you're specifically looking to create a Web photo album, you should download Web Album Creator and put it through its paces.\n This application from Galleria Software lets you put together a photo album for the Web, complete with custom buttons, in five easy steps: select the images you want to use, choose a template and adjust any of the many configuration settings, select file names, generate the HTML code and thumbnails, and upload the files to a server via FTP (File Transfer Protocol).\n\n Web Album Creator provides a variety of templates, such as bamboo and exam paper, for you to choose from, but if you don't see something there you like, you can design and add your own. The entire program is highly customizable, so you can tinker with the color scheme, font, thumbnail sizes, hyperlinks, and much more. You can add labels to thumbnails, create contact sheets, and resequence thumbnails by simply dragging and dropping them. In addition to creating frame-based or nonframe-based pages, Web Album Creator also lets you make Web-based slide shows that let users choose the time interval for themselves.\n\n This application supports a wide variety of graphics file formats, such as JPEG, GIF (Graphics Interchange Format), BMP (bit map), PSP, TGA, PCX, and TIFF (Tagged Image File Format). It also comes in two flavors: a Pro version ($19.95) that is fully functional and includes a built-in FTP client and a free Lite version that has some limitations, such as fewer albums and no built-in FTP client. You can download Web Album Creator from\n http://www.galleriasoftware.com/webalbum/albinfo.htm\n\n ''AutoGraphicsHTML.''\n Another application that consistently receives high marks from Web-based software sites such as Tucows and The File Transit is AutoGraphicsHTML from fCoder. AutoGraphicsHTML uses a simple wizard to lead you step by step through the process of creating thumbnails and HTML and organizing hyperlinks. There are 32 styles to choose from, but if you can't find what you want there, you can create your own, and you can easily view the Web site you've created before you upload it. This program offers a great way to create a unified, professional look for your photo Web pages.\n\n The demo version of AutoGraphicsHTML adds a watermark to saved images that stipulates that you are using an unregistered version of the software. Once you pay the $29 registration fee, this will disappear, and you'll get the wallpaper utility BackFlip for free. You can find AutoGraphicsHTML at http://www.fcodersoft.com/products/autograph.htm.\n\n ''Thumb An Online Ride.''\n Thumbnails are not difficult to create, and because many people still connect to the Internet through a dial-up modem, they are a perfect way to present your photos on the Web in a way that is both light on bandwidth and easy to browse.\n by Rich Gray of SmartComputing.com\n

'' What to say if you Get Caught Sleeping At Work !!''\n\n 10. "They told me at the blood bank this might happen."\n\n 9. "This is just a 15 minute power-nap like they raved about in that time management course you sent me to."\n\n 8. "Whew! Guess I left the top off the ~White-Out. You probably got here just in time!"\n\n 7. "I wasn't sleeping! I was meditating on the mission statement and envisioning a new paradigm."\n\n 6. "I was testing my keyboard for drool resistance."\n\n 5. "I was doing a highly specific Yoga exercise to relieve work-related stress. Are you discriminatory toward people who practice Yoga?"\n\n 4. "Why did you interrupt me? I had almost figured out a solution to our biggest problem."\n\n 3. "The coffee machine is broken..."\n\n 2. "Someone must've put decaf in the wrong pot..."\n\n And the #1 best thing to say if you get caught sleeping at your desk...\n\n 1. " ... in Jesus' name. Amen."\n

//Article by Robin Hinde\n\n This is an expanded version of what Robin wrote for us for the last month's presentation. Bootable CD's are still available to members if they Email Roger Currier - See the President's report.\n//\n At the November NZPCA meeting in Wellington Roger demonstrated Knoppix, a bootable ~CDROM-based Linux distribution. This was enthusiastically received by those who attended the meeting.\n \n If you were unable to attend the meeting, but would like to try this CDROM yourself, please contact Roger Currier (rogerc@clear.net.nz) as there are copies of the CDROM readily available. Please note that this is the *full* version, not the cut down version that appeared on PC World in October. This version includes many more applications, in particular, Open Office, a full ~MS-compatible office suite. There is no charge for these ~CDROMs - all the software is totally free.\n \n You will need reasonable hardware to run this CDROM - 64 MB of RAM is the bare minimum if you use the default KDE boot configuration, 96 or 128 MB is adequate - but more is better. Processor speed is not so important - a 200 ~MHz Pentium (or better, a Pentium Pro) is adequate. If your PC will not boot from the CDROM drive, check your Bios settings; if you cannot do this, there are instructions on the CDROM on how to make a boot floppy to start the system.\n\n ''Starting Knoppix:''\n\n Put the Knoppix CDROM in your drive and restart your computer.\n The default Knoppix window manager is KDE, but several other window managers are available, and some of these may run better than KDE on low memory systems. Try typing \n{{{\nknoppix desktop=xfce\n}}}\nat the boot prompt.\n\n Other choices are:\n{{{\n knoppix desktop=fluxbox|gnome|icewm|kde|larswm|twm|wmaker|xfce\n}}}\n If you have difficulty starting Knoppix, type "expert" at the boot prompt. This will run setup interactively, and will enable you to set Knoppix to start with older monitors that require a low refresh rate.\n \n Other startup options are listed in /KNOPPIX/knoppix-cheatcodes.txt on the CDROM, or press F2 at the boot: prompt.\n\n ''Access to existing Windows partitions:''\n \nThe default KDE desktop displays hard drive icons that correspond to your existing Windows file systems. Clicking on these (in KDE only one click is required) will mount these so that you can see you windows data, but you cannot write to these partitions - they are mounted read only by default. If you wish to write to these partitions (provided they are not NTFS systems) they can be mounted read-write by right clicking the icon and selecting "change read-write mode". This isn't recommended unless you have a good reason to do this, though. If you need to save some work you have done using Knoppix, why not just email it to yourself, then download it when you are next using Windows?\n\n ''Network access:''\n \n Configure your network interface using K(start)|KNOPPIX|Network/Internet|Network Card Configuration. This starts a script that steps you through setting up your NIC.\n\n ''Modem access:''\n \n You cannot (easily) use a braindead ~WinModem with Knoppix, so if you have a cheap internal PCI modem you may have problems. More expensive internal (some PCI and most ISA) modems are not usually ~WinModems and will work with Knoppix, as will all external modems. Try an older 28 k external modem if you still have one, if you find your internal modem won't work. Next time, spend the extra $20 or so to get proper hardware. Note that some cheaper printers are also braindead and require Windows to work; these printers are sometimes not supported by Linux (or any other non-Windows operating system, for that matter).\n\n K|KNOPPIX|Network/Internet|Modem Dialer will get you to the PPP dialer that you use to connect to your ISP. Click on "setup" to start a Wizard that knows settings for all NZ's major ~ISPs.\n\n ''General hints on using Knoppix:''\n \nYou will find KDE to be very similar to Windows, however the default setup will have a few differences. In general, only click once on any icon to activate it, and also note that KDE makes extensive use of all three mouse buttons. If you have a two button mouse the middle button is emulated by clicking both buttons together. KDE windows are dragged and sized as in Windows, although there are many more options for doing so. You will notice windows edges tend to stick together. KDE window title bars have a pushpin on the left end, this allows you to stick a window so it appears on all desktops (by default you have four desktops available to you) and you can unstick a window to make it stay on any desktop. Double clicking on a title bar doesn't minimise the window as it does in Windows - in KDE, it scrolls the window up into the title bar so it takes up little space yet is easy to locate when you need it. All of these behaviours (and many others) can be changed to suit you.\n\n Using the KDE file browser (Konqueror - "home" on the taskbar, fourth icon from left) is similar to using Windows explorer. You are normally presented with a tree view in the left panel, and icon views in the right. Files are previewed where possible; text files even have the initial text appearing in the icon. Images appear as thumbnails. Clicking on an icon will open the file in the Konqueror pane if the file is viewable, or launch the file or application if it is not. Right clicking gives an extensive context menu.\n \n Konqueror deals with most file systems in the same way, whether they are a remote ftp site, or an archive or zip file, or a local folder, they will all appear seamlessly in the file browser window; drag and drop works equally well for all these file system types.\n\n '' Knoppix configuration:''\n \n K|KNOPPIX|Configuration has settings for configuring printers, swapfile and soundcard, as well as an option for saving your configuration to floppy so it is available to you next time. Of course, you could just leave your PC running - with Linux you never have to reboot after making changes or installing software.\n\n ''Menu Highlights:''\n \nUnfortunately, the Knoppix menu system is rather messy and not logical. You should look at the fol\nlowing:\n\n ''Office users:''\n \n K|~OpenOffice.org|... brings up a range of MS Office compatible applications that read and write many MS file formats - Word, Excel, ~PowerPoint and so on. In many cases the applications work exactly like their MS counterparts.\n\n '' Tip:'' If you are browsing a mounted Windows partition for files to try in ~OpenOffice, don't forget to set the file type you are looking for in the dialogue box, as by default ~OpenOffice will look for it's own file types, not doc or xls. If you use ~OpenOffice in Windows, you will have no problems using the same files in Knoppix. Smart move.\n\n* K|Office|... brings up a large list of other office applications, of particular interest being the ~KOffice apps - Kword, ~KSpread, ~KPresenter, ~KChart and so on.\n* Karbon14 is an excellent vector graphics program, while Kivio is rather like a simplified version of Visio.\n* K|Editors|~AbiWord is a wordprocessor that is also available for Windows; it reads doc files.\n* An Acrobat viewer, as well as Ghostview are included. K|Graphics|Viewers|Acrobat Viewer or GV or Xpdf\n\n ''Internet Users:''\n \nK|Internet|... brings up a menu of some 40 or so of unsorted applications, the most interesting being Mozilla (browser, mail, news) which works just the same as in Windows. Konqueror is the KDE web browser, which also works very well.\n \n ~KMail is my preferred email client, it has lots of features (including filters) without being overly complex. Knode is an excellent news reader. There are also a number of IM clients included.\n\n ''Graphics Users:''\n \n Photography - try K|Graphics|Viewers|gtkam or K|Graphics|gqcam with your digital camera, if it is supported. You will need to go through the setup procedure for your camera before using these apps.\n\n Photoshop - try K|Graphics|The GIMP for a very powerful image manipulation program. Not really a Photoshop killer, though, as it doesn't produce CYMK output - RGB only, which is good for web graphics or any local printing or onscreen display. You need to be comfortable with how Photoshop is used to work with the GIMP - the interface is not intuitive (but it is easy to use) although the application is very powerful and well suited to complex and automated tasks. Look at some of the effects and script-fu results. To use the GIMP you will need to run the initial setup procedure, this is easy, just accept the defaults. When using the GIMP, open a new file (File|New); then most subsequent commands are available by right clicking on the new graphic window.\n\n There are several other graphics applications listed in K|Graphics|... and some of the applications listed under K|Graphics|Viewers are capable of some graphics manipulation.\n \n K|Graphics|Xfig looks rudimentary, but it isn't; it is a good all round vector drawing application that will do flow charts as well as accept raster graphics. K|Graphics|Sketch looks slicker but is more basic.\n\n Scanning - K|Graphics|xscanimage is the application to use. This can also be set up so that you can acquire images directly into the GIMP. Supports almost all SCSI scanners, and many USB ones. A few parallel port scanners are supported.\n\n '' Audio:''\n \n Sadly, the Knoppix distribution is lacking a number of multimedia players and video editors, however there is still a range of audio and music tools to play with.\n*~MP3: Use K|Multimedia|XMMS to play just about anything, including .mov and .avi files, music ~CDs, mp3s and other "open" formats (like ogg). Try the xmms visualisation plugins - right click on the xmms windows for a menu - "what a GOOM!" is quite a good one. Xmms is the Linux equivalent of Winamp (but better, of course) - it doesn't have the eye candy that Winamp is capable of, but it is easily controlled by scripts which makes it extremely useful.\n*Music ~CDs: K|Multimedia|~KsCD is a good basic CD player, and will use the freedb.org database. (BTW, you can import the whole freedb database to your own system if you want to avoid connecting to the internet every time you load a new CD)\n*Midi: Try K|Multimedia|Timidity if you are familiar with the Windows version.\n*Notation: Try K|Multimedia|~RoseGarden\n*Sound editing: K|Multimedia|Audacity is also available for Windows and Macintosh.\n\n '' Backup:''\n \n Several ~CDR/RW applications have been included in various places - try K|Applications|System|x cd-roast which is my favourite. Also available are K|Utilities|cdbakeoven or gcombust.\n\n ''Games and Amusement:''\n \n K|Graphics|Xaos is a zooming fractal viewer - left mouse button zooms in, right mouse button zooms out. It is very fast and pretty.\n \n K|Games|Tetris-like|Frozen-bubble is a lot of fun, as are several other games under K|Games|... This is only a small sample of the games available for Linux - the more popular games will have been excluded for space and copyright reasons.\n\n '' Miscellaneous:''\n Cad: try K|Utilities|Technical|~QCad for a simple CAD application that understands DXF files.\n Typesetting: If you have used Tex or use Latex, try K|Editors|Lyx for a WYSIWYM (What you see is what you mean) editor.\n Text editors: K|Editors|... has several good editors, my favourite is Kwrite. Most include features like syntax highlighting in several scripting and programming languages. Kwrite can do this for over 40 different situations, from C++ to HTML.\n KDE configuration:\n K|Control Center will keep you amused for hours. KDE is almost infinitely configurable when compared to Windows, and extra themes can be downloaded, too. If you get bored with configuring KDE, you can always try the other window managers.\n\n '' Command line:''\n\n You've just spent hours using Linux without needing to know about the command prompt, so we won't spoil that now. There is a perception that Linux is command prompt oriented, but as you have seen, that really isn't true. The CL exists, is fantastically functional and very powerful, and can be accessed starting an xterminal or logging into a virtual console. If you are happy using batch files and the DOS prompt, you'll love K|System|Konsole or ~CTL-ALT-(~F1-F6); ~ALT-F7 gets you back to KDE.\n\n '' Running Windows applications:''\n\n I have been unable to get Windows apps running in Knoppix - wine doesn't configure properly. However, there is more than enough Linux software to make that problem insignificant.\n\n ''Summary:''\n\n It is important to note that Knoppix is only one person's idea of what to include in the limited space available on one CD, and that most distributions usually require from 2-3 to 8 ~CDs of space. There is a lot of software that I normally use missing from Knoppix - the browser selection misses Netscape, Galeon, and Opera, for example, and Evolution (the equivalent to Outlook - without the viruses) is missing too.\n \nConsider how many applications are installed in a new Windows installation, and look at what even a minimal installation like Knoppix offers - there are so many applications installed, you'll need to have a lie down after reviewing what is on the menus.\n \n If you are considering moving to Linux look at Knoppix as just a taste of what is available. To experience Linux properly you need a distribution installed to your hard drive (Knoppix can be - it can easily be added to, also) and it helps if you cannot easily boot Windows, as you will always go back to the familiar way of doing things if given the chance.\n \n Have a good play with Knoppix, after all, you can't break anything. It is Beta software, so you may come across things that don't work in this distribution, even though they are mature applications that run fine in other distributions.\n \n Visit the discussion forums at Megabaud 2.1 (http://www.computers.org.nz/index.php) if you need any help with problems, or to see what others have to say about Knoppix.\n \nConsider installing a full Linux distribution if you are really interested - http://www.copyleft.co.nz is a reputable supplier of several popular distributions at about $15.00/CDROM; or contact me (usually@mail.computers.org.nz) if you'd like to try the latest Mandrake 9.0 distribution. Bear in mind that changing your operating system is a huge inconvenience. Best to start sooner than later, and it has never been easier - or cheaper.\n

/***\n''Export Tiddlers Plugin for TiddlyWiki version 2.0''\n^^author: Eric Shulman - ELS Design Studios\nsource: http://www.TiddlyTools.com/#ExportTiddlersPlugin\nlicense: [[Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License|http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/]]^^\n\nWhen many people edit copies of the same TiddlyWiki document, the ability to easily copy and share these changes so they can then be redistributed to the entire group is very important. This ability is also very useful when moving your own tiddlers from document to document (e.g., when upgrading to the latest version of TiddlyWiki, or 'pre-loading' your favorite stylesheets into a new 'empty' TiddlyWiki document.)\n\nExportTiddlersPlugin let you ''select and extract tiddlers from your ~TiddlyWiki documents and save them to a local file'' or a remote server (requires installation of compatible server-side scripting, still under development...). An interactive control panel lets you specify a destination, and then select which tiddlers to export. A convenient 'selection filter' helps you pick desired tiddlers by specifying a combination of modification dates, tags, or tiddler text to be matched or excluded. ''Tiddler data can be output as ~TiddlyWiki "storeArea ~DIVs" that can be imported into another ~TiddlyWiki or as ~RSS-compatible XML that can be published for RSS syndication.''\n\n!!!!!Inline interface (live)\n<<<\n<<exportTiddlers inline>>\n<<<\n!!!!!Usage\n<<<\nOptional "special tiddlers" used by this plugin:\n* SiteUrl^^\nURL for official server-published version of document being viewed\ndefault: //none//^^\n* SiteHost^^\nhost name/address for remote server (e.g., "www.server.com" or "192.168.1.27")\ndefault: //none//^^\n* SitePost^^\nremote path/filename for submitting changes (e.g., "/cgi-bin/submit.cgi")\ndefault: //none//^^\n* SiteParams^^\narguments (if any) for server-side receiving script\ndefault: //none//^^\n* SiteID^^\nusername or other authorization identifier for login-controlled access to remote server\ndefault: current TiddlyWiki username (e.g., "YourName")^^\n* SiteDate^^\nstored date/time stamp for most recent published version of document\ndefault: current document.modified value (i.e., the 'file date')^^\n<<<\n!!!!!Example\n<<<\n<<exportTiddlers>>\n<<<\n!!!!!Installation\n<<<\nImport (or copy/paste) the following tiddlers into your document:\n''ExportTiddlersPlugin'' (tagged with <<tag systemConfig>>)\n\ncreate/edit ''SideBarOptions'': (sidebar menu items) \n^^Add "< < exportTiddlers > >" macro^^\n<<<\n!!!!!Revision History\n<<<\n''2006.02.12 [2.1.2]''^^\nadded var to unintended global 'tags' in matchTags(). Avoids FF1501 bug when filtering by tags. (based on report by TedPavlic)\n''2006.02.04 [2.1.1]''^^\nadded var to variables that were unintentionally global. Avoids FireFox 1.5.0.1 crash bug when referencing global variables\n''2006.02.02 [2.1.0]''^^\nAdded support for output of complete TiddlyWiki documents. Let's you use ExportTiddlers to generate 'starter' documents from selected tiddlers.^^\n''2006.01.21 [2.0.1]''^^\nDefer initial panel creation and only register a notification function when panel first is created\nin saveChanges 'hijack', create panel as needed. Note: if window.event is not available to identify the click location, the export panel is positioned relative to the 'tiddlerDisplay' element of the TW document.\n^^\n''2005.12.27 [2.0.0]''^^\nUpdate for TW2.0\nDefer initial panel creation and only register a notification function when panel first is created\n^^\n''2005.12.24 [0.9.5]''^^\nMinor adjustments to CSS to force correct link colors regardless of TW stylesheet selection\n^^\n''2005.12.16 [0.9.4]''^^\nDynamically create/remove exportPanel as needed to ensure only one instance of interface elements exists, even if there are multiple instances of macro embedding.\n^^\n''2005.11.15 [0.9.2]''^^\nadded non-Ajax post function to bypass javascript security restrictions on cross-domain I/O. Moved AJAX functions to separate tiddler (no longer needed here). Generalized HTTP server to support UnaWiki servers\n^^\n+++[previous releases...]\n''2005.11.08 [0.9.1]''^^\nmoved HTML, CSS and control initialization into exportInit() function and call from macro handler instead of at load time. This allows exportPanel to be placed within the same containing element as the "export tiddlers" button, so that relative positioning can be achieved.\n^^\n''2005.10.28 [0.9.0]''^^\nadded 'select opened tiddlers' feature\nBased on a suggestion by Geoff Slocock\n^^\n''2005.10.24 [0.8.3]''^^\nCorrected hijack of 'save changes' when using http:\n^^\n''2005.10.18 [0.8.2]''^^\nadded AJAX functions\n^^\n''2005.10.18 [0.8.1]''^^\nCorrected timezone handling when filtering for date ranges.\nImproved error checking/reporting for invalid filter values and filters that don't match any tiddlers.\nExporting localfile-to-localfile is working for IE and FF\nExporting server-to-localfile works in IE (after ActiveX warnings), but has security issues in FF\nCross-domain exporting (localfile/server-to-server) is under development\nCookies to remember filter settings - coming soon\nMore style tweaks, minor text changes and some assorted layout cleanup.\n^^\n''2005.10.17 [0.8.0]''^^\nFirst pre-release.\n^^\n''2005.10.16 [0.7.0]''^^\nfilter by tags\n^^\n''2005.10.15 [0.6.0]''^^\nfilter by title/text\n^^\n''2005.10.14 [0.5.0]''^^\nexport to local file (DIV or XML)\n^^\n''2005.10.14 [0.4.0]''^^\nfilter by start/end date\n^^\n''2005.10.13 [0.3.0]''^^\npanel interaction\n^^\n''2005.10.11 [0.2.0]''^^\npanel layout\n^^\n''2005.10.10 [0.1.0]''^^\ncode framework\n^^\n''2005.10.09 [0.0.0]''^^\ndevelopment started\n^^\n===\n<<<\n!!!!!Credits\n<<<\nThis feature was developed by EricShulman from [[ELS Design Studios|http:/www.elsdesign.com]]\n<<<\n!!!!!Code\n***/\n// // +++[version]\n//{{{\nversion.extensions.exportTiddlers = {major: 2, minor: 1, revision: 2, date: new Date(2006,2,12)};\n//}}}\n// //===\n\n// // +++[macro handler]\n//{{{\nconfig.macros.exportTiddlers = {\n label: "export tiddlers",\n prompt: "Copy selected tiddlers to an export document",\n datetimefmt: "0MM/0DD/YYYY 0hh:0mm:0ss" // for "filter date/time" edit fields\n};\n\nconfig.macros.exportTiddlers.handler = function(place,macroName,params) {\n if (params[0]!="inline")\n { createTiddlyButton(place,this.label,this.prompt,onClickExportMenu); return; }\n var panel=createExportPanel(place);\n panel.style.position="static";\n panel.style.display="block";\n}\n\nfunction createExportPanel(place) {\n var panel=document.getElementById("exportPanel");\n if (panel) { panel.parentNode.removeChild(panel); }\n setStylesheet(config.macros.exportTiddlers.css,"exportTiddlers");\n panel=createTiddlyElement(place,"span","exportPanel",null,null)\n panel.innerHTML=config.macros.exportTiddlers.html;\n exportShowPanel(document.location.protocol);\n exportInitFilter();\n refreshExportList(0);\n store.addNotification(null,refreshExportList); // refresh listbox after every tiddler change\n return panel;\n}\n\nfunction onClickExportMenu(e)\n{\n if (!e) var e = window.event;\n var parent=resolveTarget(e).parentNode;\n var panel = document.getElementById("exportPanel");\n if (panel==undefined || panel.parentNode!=parent)\n panel=createExportPanel(parent);\n var isOpen = panel.style.display=="block";\n if(config.options.chkAnimate)\n anim.startAnimating(new Slider(panel,!isOpen,e.shiftKey || e.altKey,"none"));\n else\n panel.style.display = isOpen ? "none" : "block" ;\n e.cancelBubble = true;\n if (e.stopPropagation) e.stopPropagation();\n return(false);\n}\n//}}}\n// //===\n\n// // +++[Hijack saveChanges] diverts 'notFileUrlError' to display export control panel instead\n//{{{\nwindow.coreSaveChanges=window.saveChanges;\nwindow.saveChanges = function()\n{\n if (document.location.protocol=="file:") { coreSaveChanges(); return; }\n var e = window.event;\n var parent=e?resolveTarget(e).parentNode:document.body;\n var panel = document.getElementById("exportPanel");\n if (panel==undefined || panel.parentNode!=parent) panel=createExportPanel(parent);\n exportShowPanel(document.location.protocol);\n if (parent==document.body) { panel.style.left="30%"; panel.style.top="30%"; }\n panel.style.display = "block" ;\n}\n//}}}\n// //===\n\n// // +++[IE needs explicit scoping] for functions called by browser events\n//{{{\nwindow.onClickExportMenu=onClickExportMenu;\nwindow.onClickExportButton=onClickExportButton;\nwindow.exportShowPanel=exportShowPanel;\nwindow.exportShowFilterFields=exportShowFilterFields;\nwindow.refreshExportList=refreshExportList;\n//}}}\n// //===\n\n// // +++[CSS] for floating export control panel\n//{{{\nconfig.macros.exportTiddlers.css = '\s\n#exportPanel {\s\n display: none; position:absolute; z-index:12; width:35em; right:105%; top:6em;\s\n background-color: #eee; color:#000; font-size: 8pt; line-height:110%;\s\n border:1px solid black; border-bottom-width: 3px; border-right-width: 3px;\s\n padding: 0.5em; margin:0em; -moz-border-radius:1em;\s\n}\s\n#exportPanel a, #exportPanel td a { color:#009; display:inline; margin:0px; padding:1px; }\s\n#exportPanel table { width:100%; border:0px; padding:0px; margin:0px; font-size:8pt; line-height:110%; background:transparent; }\s\n#exportPanel tr { border:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px; background:transparent; }\s\n#exportPanel td { color:#000; border:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px; background:transparent; }\s\n#exportPanel select { width:98%;margin:0px;font-size:8pt;line-height:110%;}\s\n#exportPanel input { width:98%;padding:0px;margin:0px;font-size:8pt;line-height:110%}\s\n#exportPanel .box { border:1px solid black; padding:3px; margin-bottom:5px; background:#f8f8f8; -moz-border-radius:5px;}\s\n#exportPanel .topline { border-top:2px solid black; padding-top:3px; margin-bottom:5px; }\s\n#exportPanel .rad { width:auto; }\s\n#exportPanel .chk { width:auto; }\s\n#exportPanel .btn { width:auto; }\s\n#exportPanel .btn1 { width:98%; }\s\n#exportPanel .btn2 { width:48%; }\s\n#exportPanel .btn3 { width:32%; }\s\n#exportPanel .btn4 { width:24%; }\s\n#exportPanel .btn5 { width:19%; }\s\n';\n//}}}\n// //===\n\n// // +++[HTML] for export control panel interface\n//{{{\nconfig.macros.exportTiddlers.html = '\s\n<!-- output target and format -->\s\n<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td width=50%>\s\n export to\s\n <select size=1 id="exportTo" onchange="exportShowPanel(this.value);">\s\n <option value="file:" SELECTED>this computer</option>\s\n <option value="http:">web server (http)</option>\s\n <option value="https:">secure web server (https)</option>\s\n <option value="ftp:">file server (ftp)</option>\s\n </select>\s\n</td><td width=50%>\s\n output format\s\n <select id="exportFormat" size=1>\s\n <option value="DIV">TiddlyWiki export file</option>\s\n <option value="TW">TiddlyWiki document</option>\s\n <option value="XML">RSS feed (XML)</option>\s\n </select>\s\n</td></tr></table>\s\n\s\n<!-- export to local file -->\s\n<div id="exportLocalPanel" style="margin-bottom:5px;margin-top:5px;">\s\nlocal path/filename<br>\s\n<input type="file" id="exportFilename" size=56 style="width:100%"><br>\s\n</div><!--panel-->\s\n\s\n<!-- export to http server -->\s\n<div id="exportHTTPPanel" style="display:none;margin-bottom:5px;margin-top:5px;">\s\ndocument URL<br>\s\n<input type="text" id="exportHTTPSiteURL" onfocus="this.select()"><br>\s\nserver script / parameters<br>\s\n<input type="text" id="exportHTTPServerURL" onfocus="this.select()"><br>\s\n</div><!--panel-->\s\n\s\n<!-- export to ftp server -->\s\n<div id="exportFTPPanel" style="display:none;margin-bottom:5px;margin-top:5px;">\s\n<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="33%"><tr valign="top"><td>\s\n host server<br>\s\n <input type="text" id="exportFTPHost" onfocus="this.select()"><br>\s\n</td><td width="33%">\s\n username<br>\s\n <input type="text" id="exportFTPID" onfocus="this.select()"><br>\s\n</td><td width="33%">\s\n password<br>\s\n <input type="password" id="exportFTPPW" onfocus="this.select()"><br>\s\n</td></tr></table>\s\nFTP path/filename<br>\s\n<input type="text" id="exportFTPFilename" onfocus="this.select()"><br>\s\n</div><!--panel-->\s\n\s\n<!-- list of tiddlers -->\s\n<table><tr align="left"><td>\s\n select:\s\n <a href="JavaScript:;" id="exportSelectAll"\s\n onclick="onClickExportButton(this)" title="select all tiddlers">\s\n &nbsp;all&nbsp;</a>\s\n <a href="JavaScript:;" id="exportSelectChanges"\s\n onclick="onClickExportButton(this)" title="select tiddlers changed since last save">\s\n &nbsp;changes&nbsp;</a> \s\n <a href="JavaScript:;" id="exportSelectOpened"\s\n onclick="onClickExportButton(this)" title="select tiddlers currently being displayed">\s\n &nbsp;opened&nbsp;</a> \s\n <a href="JavaScript:;" id="exportToggleFilter"\s\n onclick="onClickExportButton(this)" title="show/hide selection filter">\s\n &nbsp;filter&nbsp;</a> \s\n</td><td align="right">\s\n <a href="JavaScript:;" id="exportListSmaller"\s\n onclick="onClickExportButton(this)" title="reduce list size">\s\n &nbsp;&#150;&nbsp;</a>\s\n <a href="JavaScript:;" id="exportListLarger"\s\n onclick="onClickExportButton(this)" title="increase list size">\s\n &nbsp;+&nbsp;</a>\s\n</td></tr></table>\s\n<select id="exportList" multiple size="10" style="margin-bottom:5px;"\s\n onchange="refreshExportList(this.selectedIndex)">\s\n</select><br>\s\n\s\n<!-- selection filter -->\s\n<div id="exportFilterPanel" style="display:none">\s\n<table><tr align="left"><td>\s\n selection filter\s\n</td><td align="right">\s\n <a href="JavaScript:;" id="exportHideFilter"\s\n onclick="onClickExportButton(this)" title="hide selection filter">hide</a>\s\n</td></tr></table>\s\n<div class="box">\s\n<input type="checkbox" class="chk" id="exportFilterStart" value="1"\s\n onclick="exportShowFilterFields(this)"> starting date/time<br>\s\n<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr valign="center"><td width="50%">\s\n <select size=1 id="exportFilterStartBy" onchange="exportShowFilterFields(this);">\s\n <option value="0">today</option>\s\n <option value="1">yesterday</option>\s\n <option value="7">a week ago</option>\s\n <option value="30">a month ago</option>\s\n <option value="site">SiteDate</option>\s\n <option value="file">file date</option>\s\n <option value="other">other (mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm)</option>\s\n </select>\s\n</td><td width="50%">\s\n <input type="text" id="exportStartDate" onfocus="this.select()"\s\n onchange="document.getElementById(\s'exportFilterStartBy\s').value=\s'other\s';">\s\n</td></tr></table>\s\n<input type="checkbox" class="chk" id="exportFilterEnd" value="1"\s\n onclick="exportShowFilterFields(this)"> ending date/time<br>\s\n<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr valign="center"><td width="50%">\s\n <select size=1 id="exportFilterEndBy" onchange="exportShowFilterFields(this);">\s\n <option value="0">today</option>\s\n <option value="1">yesterday</option>\s\n <option value="7">a week ago</option>\s\n <option value="30">a month ago</option>\s\n <option value="site">SiteDate</option>\s\n <option value="file">file date</option>\s\n <option value="other">other (mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm)</option>\s\n </select>\s\n</td><td width="50%">\s\n <input type="text" id="exportEndDate" onfocus="this.select()"\s\n onchange="document.getElementById(\s'exportFilterEndBy\s').value=\s'other\s';">\s\n</td></tr></table>\s\n<input type="checkbox" class="chk" id=exportFilterTags value="1"\s\n onclick="exportShowFilterFields(this)"> match tags<br>\s\n<input type="text" id="exportTags" onfocus="this.select()">\s\n<input type="checkbox" class="chk" id=exportFilterText value="1"\s\n onclick="exportShowFilterFields(this)"> match titles/tiddler text<br>\s\n<input type="text" id="exportText" onfocus="this.select()">\s\n</div> <!--box-->\s\n</div> <!--panel-->\s\n\s\n<!-- action buttons -->\s\n<div style="text-align:center">\s\n<input type=button class="btn3" onclick="onClickExportButton(this)"\s\n id="exportFilter" value="apply filter">\s\n<input type=button class="btn3" onclick="onClickExportButton(this)"\s\n id="exportStart" value="export tiddlers">\s\n<input type=button class="btn3" onclick="onClickExportButton(this)"\s\n id="exportClose" value="close">\s\n</div><!--center-->\s\n';\n//}}}\n// //===\n\n// // +++[initialize interface]>\n// // +++[exportShowPanel(which)]\n//{{{\nfunction exportShowPanel(which) {\n var index=0; var panel='exportLocalPanel';\n switch (which) {\n case 'file:':\n case undefined:\n index=0; panel='exportLocalPanel'; break;\n case 'http:':\n index=1; panel='exportHTTPPanel'; break;\n case 'https:':\n index=2; panel='exportHTTPPanel'; break;\n case 'ftp:':\n index=3; panel='exportFTPPanel'; break;\n default:\n alert("Sorry, export to "+which+" is not yet available");\n break;\n }\n exportInitPanel(which);\n document.getElementById('exportTo').selectedIndex=index;\n document.getElementById('exportLocalPanel').style.display='none';\n document.getElementById('exportHTTPPanel').style.display='none';\n document.getElementById('exportFTPPanel').style.display='none';\n document.getElementById(panel).style.display='block';\n}\n//}}}\n// //===\n\n// // +++[exportInitPanel(which)]\n//{{{\nfunction exportInitPanel(which) {\n switch (which) {\n case "file:": // LOCAL EXPORT PANEL: file/path:\n // ** no init - security issues in IE **\n break;\n case "http:": // WEB EXPORT PANEL\n case "https:": // SECURE WEB EXPORT PANEL\n // url\n var siteURL=store.getTiddlerText("SiteUrl");\n if (store.tiddlerExists("unawiki_download")) {\n var theURL=store.getTiddlerText("unawiki_download");\n theURL=theURL.replace(/\s[\s[download\s|/,'').replace(/\s]\s]/,'');\n var title=(store.tiddlerExists("unawiki_host"))?"unawiki_host":"SiteHost";\n var theHost=store.getTiddlerText(title);\n if (!theHost || !theHost.length) theHost=document.location.host;\n if (!theHost || !theHost.length) theHost=title;\n siteURL=which+"//"+theHost+theURL\n }\n if (!siteURL) siteURL="SiteUrl";\n document.getElementById("exportHTTPSiteURL").value=siteURL;;\n // server script/params\n var title=(store.tiddlerExists("unawiki_host"))?"unawiki_host":"SiteHost";\n var theHost=store.getTiddlerText(title);\n if (!theHost || !theHost.length) theHost=document.location.host;\n if (!theHost || !theHost.length) theHost=title;\n // get POST\n var title=(store.tiddlerExists("unawiki_post"))?"unawiki_post":"SitePost";\n var thePost=store.getTiddlerText(title);\n if (!thePost || !thePost.length) thePost="/"+title;\n // get PARAMS\n var title=(store.tiddlerExists("unawiki_params"))?"unawiki_params":"SiteParams";\n var theParams=store.getTiddlerText(title);\n if (!theParams|| !theParams.length) theParams=title;\n var serverURL = which+"//"+theHost+thePost+"?"+theParams;\n document.getElementById("exportHTTPServerURL").value=serverURL;\n break;\n case "ftp:": // FTP EXPORT PANEL\n // host\n var siteHost=store.getTiddlerText("SiteHost");\n if (!siteHost || !siteHost.length) siteHost=document.location.host;\n if (!siteHost || !siteHost.length) siteHost="SiteHost";\n document.getElementById("exportFTPHost").value=siteHost;\n // username\n var siteID=store.getTiddlerText("SiteID");\n if (!siteID || !siteID.length) siteID=config.options.txtUserName;\n document.getElementById("exportFTPID").value=siteID;\n // password\n document.getElementById("exportFTPPW").value="";\n // file/path\n document.getElementById("exportFTPFilename").value="";\n break;\n }\n}\n//}}}\n// //===\n\n// // +++[exportInitFilter()]\n//{{{\nfunction exportInitFilter() {\n // TBD: persistent settings via local cookies\n // start date\n document.getElementById("exportFilterStart").checked=false;\n document.getElementById("exportStartDate").value="";\n // end date\n document.getElementById("exportFilterEnd").checked=false;\n document.getElementById("exportEndDate").value="";\n // tags\n document.getElementById("exportFilterTags").checked=false;\n document.getElementById("exportTags").value="not excludeExport";\n // text\n document.getElementById("exportFilterText").checked=false;\n document.getElementById("exportText").value="";\n // show/hide filter input fields\n exportShowFilterFields();\n}\n//}}}\n// //===\n\n// // +++[exportShowFilterFields(which)]\n//{{{\nfunction exportShowFilterFields(which) {\n var show;\n\n show=document.getElementById('exportFilterStart').checked;\n document.getElementById('exportFilterStartBy').style.display=show?"block":"none";\n document.getElementById('exportStartDate').style.display=show?"block":"none";\n var val=document.getElementById('exportFilterStartBy').value;\n document.getElementById('exportStartDate').value\n =getFilterDate(val,'exportStartDate').formatString(config.macros.exportTiddlers.datetimefmt);\n if (which && (which.id=='exportFilterStartBy') && (val=='other'))\n document.getElementById('exportStartDate').focus();\n\n show=document.getElementById('exportFilterEnd').checked;\n document.getElementById('exportFilterEndBy').style.display=show?"block":"none";\n document.getElementById('exportEndDate').style.display=show?"block":"none";\n var val=document.getElementById('exportFilterEndBy').value;\n document.getElementById('exportEndDate').value\n =getFilterDate(val,'exportEndDate').formatString(config.macros.exportTiddlers.datetimefmt);\n if (which && (which.id=='exportFilterEndBy') && (val=='other'))\n document.getElementById('exportEndDate').focus();\n\n show=document.getElementById('exportFilterTags').checked;\n document.getElementById('exportTags').style.display=show?"block":"none";\n\n show=document.getElementById('exportFilterText').checked;\n document.getElementById('exportText').style.display=show?"block":"none";\n}\n//}}}\n// //===\n// //===\n\n// // +++[onClickExportButton(which): control interactions]\n//{{{\nfunction onClickExportButton(which)\n{\n // DEBUG alert(which.id);\n var theList=document.getElementById('exportList'); if (!theList) return;\n var count = 0;\n var total = store.getTiddlers('title').length;\n switch (which.id)\n {\n case 'exportFilter':\n count=filterExportList();\n var panel=document.getElementById('exportFilterPanel');\n if (count==-1) { panel.style.display='block'; break; }\n theList.options[0].text=formatExportListHeader(count,total);\n document.getElementById("exportStart").disabled=(count==0);\n clearMessage(); displayMessage("filtered "+theList.options[0].text);\n if (count==0) { alert("No tiddlers were selected"); panel.style.display='block'; }\n break;\n case 'exportStart':\n exportTiddlers();\n break;\n case 'exportHideFilter':\n case 'exportToggleFilter':\n var panel=document.getElementById('exportFilterPanel')\n panel.style.display=(panel.style.display=='block')?'none':'block';\n break;\n case 'exportSelectChanges':\n var lastmod=new Date(document.lastModified);\n for (var t = 0; t < theList.options.length; t++) {\n if (theList.options[t].value=="") continue;\n var tiddler=store.getTiddler(theList.options[t].value); if (!tiddler) continue;\n theList.options[t].selected=(tiddler.modified>lastmod);\n count += (tiddler.modified>lastmod)?1:0;\n }\n theList.options[0].text=formatExportListHeader(count,total);\n document.getElementById("exportStart").disabled=(count==0);\n clearMessage(); displayMessage(theList.options[0].text);\n if (count==0) alert("There are no unsaved changes");\n break;\n case 'exportSelectAll':\n for (var t = 0; t < theList.options.length; t++) {\n if (theList.options[t].value=="") continue;\n theList.options[t].selected=true;\n count += 1;\n }\n theList.options[0].text=formatExportListHeader(count,count);\n document.getElementById("exportStart").disabled=(count==0);\n clearMessage(); displayMessage(theList.options[0].text);\n break;\n case 'exportSelectOpened':\n for (var t = 0; t < theList.options.length; t++) theList.options[t].selected=false;\n var tiddlerDisplay = document.getElementById("tiddlerDisplay");\n for (var t=0;t<tiddlerDisplay.childNodes.length;t++) {\n var tiddler=tiddlerDisplay.childNodes[t].id.substr(7);\n for (var i = 0; i < theList.options.length; i++) {\n if (theList.options[i].value!=tiddler) continue;\n theList.options[i].selected=true; count++; break;\n }\n }\n theList.options[0].text=formatExportListHeader(count,total);\n document.getElementById("exportStart").disabled=(count==0);\n clearMessage(); displayMessage(theList.options[0].text);\n if (count==0) alert("There are no tiddlers currently opened");\n break;\n case 'exportListSmaller': // decrease current listbox size\n var min=5;\n theList.size-=(theList.size>min)?1:0;\n break;\n case 'exportListLarger': // increase current listbox size\n var max=(theList.options.length>25)?theList.options.length:25;\n theList.size+=(theList.size<max)?1:0;\n break;\n case 'exportClose':\n document.getElementById('exportPanel').style.display='none';\n break;\n }\n}\n//}}}\n// //===\n\n// // +++[list display]\n//{{{\nfunction formatExportListHeader(count,total)\n{\n var txt=total+' tiddler'+((total!=1)?'s':'')+" - ";\n txt += (count==0)?"none":(count==total)?"all":count;\n txt += " selected for export";\n return txt;\n}\n\nfunction refreshExportList(selectedIndex)\n{\n var theList = document.getElementById("exportList");\n var sort;\n if (!theList) return;\n // get the sort order\n if (!selectedIndex) selectedIndex=0;\n if (selectedIndex==0) sort='modified';\n if (selectedIndex==1) sort='title';\n if (selectedIndex==2) sort='modified';\n if (selectedIndex==3) sort='modifier';\n\n // get the alphasorted list of tiddlers\n var tiddlers = store.getTiddlers('title');\n // unselect headings and count number of tiddlers actually selected\n var count=0;\n for (var i=0; i<theList.options.length; i++) {\n if (theList.options[i].value=="") theList.options[i].selected=false;\n count+=theList.options[i].selected?1:0;\n }\n // disable "export" button if no tiddlers selected\n document.getElementById("exportStart").disabled=(count==0);\n // update listbox heading to show selection count\n if (theList.options.length)\n theList.options[0].text=formatExportListHeader(count,tiddlers.length);\n\n // if a [command] item, reload list... otherwise, no further refresh needed\n if (selectedIndex>3) return;\n\n // clear current list contents\n while (theList.length > 0) { theList.options[0] = null; }\n // add heading and control items to list\n var i=0;\n var indent=String.fromCharCode(160)+String.fromCharCode(160);\n theList.options[i++]=\n new Option(formatExportListHeader(0,tiddlers.length), "",false,false);\n theList.options[i++]=\n new Option(((sort=="title" )?">":indent)+' [by title]', "",false,false);\n theList.options[i++]=\n new Option(((sort=="modified")?">":indent)+' [by date]', "",false,false);\n theList.options[i++]=\n new Option(((sort=="modifier")?">":indent)+' [by author]', "",false,false);\n // output the tiddler list\n switch(sort)\n {\n case "title":\n for(var t = 0; t < tiddlers.length; t++)\n theList.options[i++] = new Option(tiddlers[t].title,tiddlers[t].title,false,false);\n break;\n case "modifier":\n case "modified":\n var tiddlers = store.getTiddlers(sort);\n // sort descending for newest date first\n tiddlers.sort(function (a,b) {if(a[sort] == b[sort]) return(0); else return (a[sort] > b[sort]) ? -1 : +1; });\n var lastSection = "";\n for(var t = 0; t < tiddlers.length; t++)\n {\n var tiddler = tiddlers[t];\n var theSection = "";\n if (sort=="modified") theSection=tiddler.modified.toLocaleDateString();\n if (sort=="modifier") theSection=tiddler.modifier;\n if (theSection != lastSection)\n {\n theList.options[i++] = new Option(theSection,"",false,false);\n lastSection = theSection;\n }\n theList.options[i++] = new Option(indent+indent+tiddler.title,tiddler.title,false,false);\n }\n break;\n }\n theList.selectedIndex=selectedIndex; // select current control item\n}\n//}}}\n// //===\n\n// // +++[list filtering]\n//{{{\nfunction getFilterDate(val,id)\n{\n var result=0;\n switch (val) {\n case 'site':\n var timestamp=store.getTiddlerText("SiteDate");\n if (!timestamp) timestamp=document.lastModified;\n result=new Date(timestamp);\n break;\n case 'file':\n result=new Date(document.lastModified);\n break;\n case 'other':\n result=new Date(document.getElementById(id).value);\n break;\n default: // today=0, yesterday=1, one week=7, two weeks=14, a month=31\n var now=new Date(); var tz=now.getTimezoneOffset()*60000; now-=tz;\n var oneday=86400000;\n if (id=='exportStartDate')\n result=new Date((Math.floor(now/oneday)-val)*oneday+tz);\n else\n result=new Date((Math.floor(now/oneday)-val+1)*oneday+tz-1);\n break;\n }\n // DEBUG alert('getFilterDate('+val+','+id+')=='+result+"\snnow="+now);\n return result;\n}\n\nfunction filterExportList()\n{\n var theList = document.getElementById("exportList"); if (!theList) return -1;\n\n var filterStart=document.getElementById("exportFilterStart").checked;\n var val=document.getElementById("exportFilterStartBy").value;\n var startDate=getFilterDate(val,'exportStartDate');\n\n var filterEnd=document.getElementById("exportFilterEnd").checked;\n var val=document.getElementById("exportFilterEndBy").value;\n var endDate=getFilterDate(val,'exportEndDate');\n\n var filterTags=document.getElementById("exportFilterTags").checked;\n var tags=document.getElementById("exportTags").value;\n\n var filterText=document.getElementById("exportFilterText").checked;\n var text=document.getElementById("exportText").value;\n\n if (!(filterStart||filterEnd||filterTags||filterText)) {\n alert("Please set the selection filter");\n document.getElementById('exportFilterPanel').style.display="block";\n return -1;\n }\n if (filterStart&&filterEnd&&(startDate>endDate)) {\n var msg="starting date/time:\sn"\n msg+=startDate.toLocaleString()+"\sn";\n msg+="is later than ending date/time:\sn"\n msg+=endDate.toLocaleString()\n alert(msg);\n return -1;\n }\n\n // scan list and select tiddlers that match all applicable criteria\n var total=0;\n var count=0;\n for (var i=0; i<theList.options.length; i++) {\n // get item, skip non-tiddler list items (section headings)\n var opt=theList.options[i]; if (opt.value=="") continue;\n // get tiddler, skip missing tiddlers (this should NOT happen)\n var tiddler=store.getTiddler(opt.value); if (!tiddler) continue; \n var sel=true;\n if ( (filterStart && tiddler.modified<startDate)\n || (filterEnd && tiddler.modified>endDate)\n || (filterTags && !matchTags(tiddler,tags))\n || (filterText && (tiddler.text.indexOf(text)==-1) && (tiddler.title.indexOf(text)==-1)))\n sel=false;\n opt.selected=sel;\n count+=sel?1:0;\n total++;\n }\n return count;\n}\n//}}}\n\n//{{{\nfunction matchTags(tiddler,cond)\n{\n if (!cond||!cond.trim().length) return false;\n\n // build a regex of all tags as a big-old regex that \n // OR's the tags together (tag1|tag2|tag3...) in length order\n var tgs = store.getTags();\n if ( tgs.length == 0 ) return results ;\n var tags = tgs.sort( function(a,b){return (a[0].length<b[0].length)-(a[0].length>b[0].length);});\n var exp = "(" + tags.join("|") + ")" ;\n exp = exp.replace( /(,[\sd]+)/g, "" ) ;\n var regex = new RegExp( exp, "ig" );\n\n // build a string such that an expression that looks like this: tag1 AND tag2 OR NOT tag3\n // turns into : /tag1/.test(...) && /tag2/.test(...) || ! /tag2/.test(...)\n cond = cond.replace( regex, "/$1\s\s|/.test(tiddlerTags)" );\n cond = cond.replace( /\ssand\ss/ig, " && " ) ;\n cond = cond.replace( /\ssor\ss/ig, " || " ) ;\n cond = cond.replace( /\ss?not\ss/ig, " ! " ) ;\n\n // if a boolean uses a tag that doesn't exist - it will get left alone \n // (we only turn existing tags into actual tests).\n // replace anything that wasn't found as a tag, AND, OR, or NOT with the string "false"\n // if the tag doesn't exist then /tag/.test(...) will always return false.\n cond = cond.replace( /(\ss|^)+[^\s/\s|&!][^\ss]*/g, "false" ) ;\n\n // make a string of the tags in the tiddler and eval the 'cond' string against that string \n // if it's TRUE then the tiddler qualifies!\n var tiddlerTags = (tiddler.tags?tiddler.tags.join("|"):"")+"|" ;\n try { if ( eval( cond ) ) return true; }\n catch( e ) { displayMessage("Error in tag filter '" + e + "'" ); }\n return false;\n}\n//}}}\n// //===\n\n// // +++[output data formatting]>\n// // +++[exportHeader(format)]\n//{{{\nfunction exportHeader(format)\n{\n switch (format) {\n case "TW": return exportTWHeader();\n case "DIV": return exportDIVHeader();\n case "XML": return exportXMLHeader();\n }\n}\n//}}}\n// //===\n\n// // +++[exportFooter(format)]\n//{{{\nfunction exportFooter(format)\n{\n switch (format) {\n case "TW": return exportDIVFooter();\n case "DIV": return exportDIVFooter();\n case "XML": return exportXMLFooter();\n }\n}\n//}}}\n// //===\n\n// // +++[exportTWHeader()]\n//{{{\nfunction exportTWHeader()\n{\n // Get the URL of the document\n var originalPath = document.location.toString();\n // Check we were loaded from a file URL\n if(originalPath.substr(0,5) != "file:")\n { alert(config.messages.notFileUrlError); return; }\n // Remove any location part of the URL\n var hashPos = originalPath.indexOf("#"); if(hashPos != -1) originalPath = originalPath.substr(0,hashPos);\n // Convert to a native file format assuming\n // "file:///x:/path/path/path..." - pc local file --> "x:\spath\spath\spath..."\n // "file://///server/share/path/path/path..." - FireFox pc network file --> "\s\sserver\sshare\spath\spath\spath..."\n // "file:///path/path/path..." - mac/unix local file --> "/path/path/path..."\n // "file://server/share/path/path/path..." - pc network file --> "\s\sserver\sshare\spath\spath\spath..."\n var localPath;\n if(originalPath.charAt(9) == ":") // pc local file\n localPath = unescape(originalPath.substr(8)).replace(new RegExp("/","g"),"\s\s");\n else if(originalPath.indexOf("file://///") == 0) // FireFox pc network file\n localPath = "\s\s\s\s" + unescape(originalPath.substr(10)).replace(new RegExp("/","g"),"\s\s");\n else if(originalPath.indexOf("file:///") == 0) // mac/unix local file\n localPath = unescape(originalPath.substr(7));\n else if(originalPath.indexOf("file:/") == 0) // mac/unix local file\n localPath = unescape(originalPath.substr(5));\n else // pc network file\n localPath = "\s\s\s\s" + unescape(originalPath.substr(7)).replace(new RegExp("/","g"),"\s\s");\n // Load the original file\n var original = loadFile(localPath);\n if(original == null)\n { alert(config.messages.cantSaveError); return; }\n // Locate the storeArea div's\n var posOpeningDiv = original.indexOf(startSaveArea);\n var posClosingDiv = original.lastIndexOf(endSaveArea);\n if((posOpeningDiv == -1) || (posClosingDiv == -1))\n { alert(config.messages.invalidFileError.format([localPath])); return; }\n return original.substr(0,posOpeningDiv+startSaveArea.length)\n}\n//}}}\n// //===\n\n// // +++[exportDIVHeader()]\n//{{{\nfunction exportDIVHeader()\n{\n var out=[];\n var now = new Date();\n var u = store.getTiddlerText("SiteUrl",null);\n var title = wikifyPlain("SiteTitle").htmlEncode();\n var subtitle = wikifyPlain("SiteSubtitle").htmlEncode();\n var user = config.options.txtUserName.htmlEncode();\n var twver = version.major+"."+version.minor+"."+version.revision;\n var pver = version.extensions.exportTiddlers.major+"."\n +version.extensions.exportTiddlers.minor+"."+version.extensions.exportTiddlers.revision;\n out.push("<html><body>");\n out.push("<style type=\s"text/css\s">");\n out.push("#storeArea {display:block;margin:1em;}");\n out.push("#storeArea div");\n out.push("{padding:0.5em;margin:1em;border:2px solid black;height:10em;overflow:auto;}");\n out.push("#javascriptWarning");\n out.push("{width:100%;text-align:left;background-color:#eeeeee;padding:1em;}");\n out.push("</style>");\n out.push("<div id=\s"javascriptWarning\s">");\n out.push("TiddlyWiki export file<br>");\n out.push("Source: <b>"+document.location+"</b><br>");\n out.push("Title: <b>"+title+"</b><br>");\n out.push("Subtitle: <b>"+subtitle+"</b><br>");\n out.push("Created: <b>"+now.toLocaleString()+"</b> by <b>"+user+"</b><br>");\n out.push("TiddlyWiki "+twver+" / "+"ExportTiddlersPlugin "+pver+"<br>");\n out.push("</div>");\n out.push("<div id=\s"storeArea\s">");\n return out;\n}\n//}}}\n// //===\n\n// // +++[exportDIVFooter()]\n//{{{\nfunction exportDIVFooter()\n{\n var out=[];\n out.push("</div></body></html>");\n return out;\n}\n//}}}\n// //===\n\n// // +++[exportXMLHeader()]\n//{{{\nfunction exportXMLHeader()\n{\n var out=[];\n var now = new Date();\n var u = store.getTiddlerText("SiteUrl",null);\n var title = wikifyPlain("SiteTitle").htmlEncode();\n var subtitle = wikifyPlain("SiteSubtitle").htmlEncode();\n var user = config.options.txtUserName.htmlEncode();\n var twver = version.major+"."+version.minor+"."+version.revision;\n var pver = version.extensions.exportTiddlers.major+"."\n +version.extensions.exportTiddlers.minor+"."+version.extensions.exportTiddlers.revision;\n out.push("<" + "?xml version=\s"1.0\s"?" + ">");\n out.push("<rss version=\s"2.0\s">");\n out.push("<channel>");\n out.push("<title>" + title + "</title>");\n if(u) out.push("<link>" + u.htmlEncode() + "</link>");\n out.push("<description>" + subtitle + "</description>");\n out.push("<language>en-us</language>");\n out.push("<copyright>Copyright " + now.getFullYear() + " " + user + "</copyright>");\n out.push("<pubDate>" + now.toGMTString() + "</pubDate>");\n out.push("<lastBuildDate>" + now.toGMTString() + "</lastBuildDate>");\n out.push("<docs>http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss</docs>");\n out.push("<generator>TiddlyWiki "+twver+" plus ExportTiddlersPlugin "+pver+"</generator>");\n return out;\n}\n//}}}\n// //===\n\n// // +++[exportXMLFooter()]\n//{{{\nfunction exportXMLFooter()\n{\n var out=[];\n out.push("</channel></rss>");\n return out;\n}\n//}}}\n// //===\n\n// // +++[exportData()]\n//{{{\nfunction exportData(theList,theFormat)\n{\n // scan export listbox and collect DIVs or XML for selected tiddler content\n var out=[];\n for (var i=0; i<theList.options.length; i++) {\n // get item, skip non-selected items and section headings\n var opt=theList.options[i]; if (!opt.selected||(opt.value=="")) continue;\n // get tiddler, skip missing tiddlers (this should NOT happen)\n var thisTiddler=store.getTiddler(opt.value); if (!thisTiddler) continue; \n if (theFormat=="TW") out.push(thisTiddler.saveToDiv());\n if (theFormat=="DIV") out.push(thisTiddler.title+"\sn"+thisTiddler.saveToDiv());\n if (theFormat=="XML") out.push(thisTiddler.saveToRss());\n }\n return out;\n}\n//}}}\n// //===\n// //===\n\n// // +++[exportTiddlers(): output selected data to local or server]\n//{{{\nfunction exportTiddlers()\n{\n var theList = document.getElementById("exportList"); if (!theList) return;\n\n // get the export settings\n var theProtocol = document.getElementById("exportTo").value;\n var theFormat = document.getElementById("exportFormat").value;\n\n // assemble output: header + tiddlers + footer\n var theData=exportData(theList,theFormat);\n var count=theData.length;\n var out=[]; var txt=out.concat(exportHeader(theFormat),theData,exportFooter(theFormat)).join("\sn");\n var msg="";\n switch (theProtocol) {\n case "file:":\n var theTarget = document.getElementById("exportFilename").value.trim();\n if (!theTarget.length) msg = "A local path/filename is required\sn";\n if (!msg && saveFile(theTarget,txt))\n msg=count+" tiddler"+((count!=1)?"s":"")+" exported to local file";\n else if (!msg)\n msg+="An error occurred while saving to "+theTarget;\n break;\n case "http:":\n case "https:":\n var theTarget = document.getElementById("exportHTTPServerURL").value.trim();\n if (!theTarget.length) msg = "A server URL is required\sn";\n if (!msg && exportPost(theTarget+encodeURIComponent(txt)))\n msg=count+" tiddler"+((count!=1)?"s":"")+" exported to "+theProtocol+" server";\n else if (!msg)\n msg+="An error occurred while saving to "+theTarget;\n break;\n case "ftp:":\n default:\n msg="Sorry, export to "+theLocation+" is not yet available";\n break;\n }\n clearMessage(); displayMessage(msg,theTarget);\n}\n//}}}\n// //===\n\n// // +++[exportPost(url): cross-domain post] uses hidden iframe to submit url and capture responses\n//{{{\nfunction exportPost(url)\n{\n var f=document.getElementById("exportFrame"); if (f) document.body.removeChild(f);\n f=document.createElement("iframe"); f.id="exportFrame";\n f.style.width="0px"; f.style.height="0px"; f.style.border="0px";\n document.body.appendChild(f);\n var d=f.document;\n if (f.contentDocument) d=f.contentDocument; // For NS6\n else if (f.contentWindow) d=f.contentWindow.document; // For IE5.5 and IE6\n d.location.replace(url);\n return true;\n}\n//}}}\n// //===\n

I inherited two suitcases of floppy disks (the 5.25 inch variety) which are the complete CP/M and DOS disk libraries of the "First Osborne \nGroup" (FOG). They are both complete with excellent documentation. Together they consist of about 500 odd floppies. The disk format of the \nCP/M disks is one of the Osborne single sided single density ones, and the DOS ones can be read on a PC with a 5.25 inch floppy drive. Most of \nthe CP/M ones are "flippies", i.e they contain data on both sides and must be flipped over in the drive to access the info. I have tried \nreading a few at random, no problems, the data is still there.\n\nThey have been sitting on a shelf for a few years and I have looked at them once in that time. I don't want them any more, I should just dump \nthe lot, but I wondered if anyone out there would like to own these disks. I would love to be able to store them somewhere, but I have to be \nrealistic (or so my wife says), so if no-one wants them and is prepared to collect them from me ; out they go. Last chance folks.\n\nRemember when we all dreamed of owning these?\n\nJim Oliver\n

//Contributed by Arthur Harris//\n\n\n Farewell to you Bruce. May you have a great time playing on that large computer in the sky. The one from where all those funny gremlins come from.\n\n Bruce was one of our founding members, 196, joining the club when DOS was supreme. He was a past editor of the Megabyte and ran the Help desk.\n He would have helped quite a few members solve their computer problems. It was Bruce's organisational skills that helped the club to run efficiently. Bruce was also our expert on OS/2.\n\n In later years he upgraded his computer and switched to LINUX. For those that have tried Linux will know that this was a huge challenge for a man in his seventies. It was in Bruce's character to never give up and when faced with a challenge would stick at it to the finish.\n\n One of the stories told at his funeral was of when he was site manager on the construction of the Michael Fowler centre. He joined the job after it had been started and there had been three piles driven.\n Bruce's experience told him that the concrete used in these piles was unsuitable for the job required of them. This meant that he had to convince management that these piles had to be pulled out and new ones driven. For a self taught man, who was a carpenter by trade, that was some feat and displays Bruce's strength of character and confidence in himself and in what he had learnt. Also his ability to convince others.\n\n Thanks for those articles you supplied for Megabyte and that hard disc you sold me. I will miss those long talks. We couldn't fix the world but we tried.\n\n Bruce was a family man with seven children and plenty of grand children\n

The last time I was in the US, I noticed several fast food outlets offering Internet access. An "all you can eat" restaurant (similar to the Old Flame and Valentines) had an area where business people could check the Internet and read e-mails before and after a meal. The small cost was just added to what was called a working business lunch or dinner. You could even take your own laptop to your table in certain areas of the restaurant.\n\n In the future our kids maybe visiting Burger King, Kentucky Fried, Wendy's or ~McDonalds. They are all presently looking at Wireless Internet Access (WIA) along with the purchase of a meal. My good friend (John who lives in Victorville, California) has told me that ~McDonalds is presently running a pilot WIA at fifteen of its central New York and eastern restaurants. Buy a "Extra Value Meal" and you get an hour of high-speed access absolutely free. The service provides unrestricted access. In addition to the free service ~McDonalds is offering access at $3.00 per hour for additional time. This price is inexpensive compared to others offering the same service. Other options include pre-paid cards that can be used at other ~McDonald's restaurants. Locations within the restaurant are set-up with wireless access points. All you need is a laptop with an 802.11b (~WiFi) wireless network card, Windows (98SE, 2000 or XP), Mac OS X, and Internet Explorer (4.01 or higher) or Netscape Navigator (4.7 or higher).\n\n ~McDonalds have plans to offer this access in hundreds of its stores by the end of 2003. Large window signs identify restaurants that are participating in the program and ~McDonalds thinks it will be a boom for business as their restaurants are always so easy for travellers to find. The big ~McDonalds arches in New York already incorporate a large @ (at) symbol to indicate ~WiFi access. \n\n//- John Thomson//

Article from the Baptist press \n\nThe problem is not ~Y2K - the problem is the fear of ~Y2K. Fear-based ~Y2K issues could prove to be much worse than any technology-based problem. \n\nY2K is a computer programming problem centred around the use of two digits to represent a year. Predictions are that many computers and computer chips will be confused when the date rolls over to Jan. 1, 2000. Beside computer software, "embedded chips" are in everything from coffee makers to cars. \n\n''How bad can it be?'' \nThere are two main - and opposite - perspectives:\n 1)&nbsp;&nbsp; It will be a personal inconvenience, almost non-existent. There is the possibility of some economic impact. This will happen because of the panic. The greatest danger is overreaction!\n 2)&nbsp;&nbsp; Every aspect of society will be affected. This includes utilities, food, banks, communications, and even national security. Some alarmists are saying people should store a year's supply of food and should cash in mutual funds and certificates of deposit to buy gold. "One world economic leader is saying there is a 70 percent chance of an economic disaster greater than the Great Depression," Bob Bennett, chairman of the Senate ~Y2K oversight committee, said early on that ~Y2K could be the end of Western civilisation as we know it.\n \n''Why such a variety of opinions?'' \n1)&nbsp;&nbsp; The information age. Internet has given anyone and everyone a forum for expressing their views. 77% of print journalists get their news off the Internet; they're just reporting each others' news. \n2)&nbsp;&nbsp; Fast- moving technology. Information would be old by the time a book hit the shelf. \n3)&nbsp;&nbsp; Sensational reports. There are lots of books and videos out on the subject, people want to sell their stuff. There's a lot of money being made with ~Y2K. \n4.)&nbsp;&nbsp; Dated material is fuelling ~Y2K fears. A statement was made over radio that the President of General Motors had said no cars could be made for an entire year after ~Y2K. When the source (1998 issue of Fortune magazine) was checked out, no such thing was said by the GM president or anyone else. The real quotation was made back in 1996 that ~Y2K could cause catastrophic problems if not solved in time. That quotation had become outdated. \n5)&nbsp;&nbsp; Questionable sources. Too many people are citing stories or quotations that cannot be verified. \n6)&nbsp;&nbsp; Urban legends - stories that continue to be spread, even though they have been determined to be either false or unverifiable. We are now seeing a turn around in what leaders are saying about ~Y2K. An organisation often cited by alarmists, the Gartner Group, now is saying there are a number of myths and irresponsible assertions circulating about ~Y2K and it's effects will be more like a snowstorm than the end of civilisation. \n\n''Why the turnaround?'' \n1)&nbsp;&nbsp; The percentage of affected computers is not as high as once thought. The Gartner Group says one in 100,000 chips may have a problem - and then only if they're running as 00 turns over. \n2)&nbsp;&nbsp; Fears about electricity were exaggerated. Companies never have been able to guarantee electricity. e.g. the Auckland debacle, and no one's ever been able to guarantee there will be no bugs in your computer. \n3)&nbsp;&nbsp; ~Y2K effects are spread over a wide time range. The date problem is being solved already, as loans and credit card dates roll over. In 1996, credit cards with an expiry date of 2000 had problems at cash registers. So companies had to fix the problem then. \nEmbedded chips (in items such as coffee makers and cars) now are believed not as great a "wild card"as was previously thought.\n \n''Possible effects?'' \n1)&nbsp;&nbsp; Some computer glitches. "This is nothing new; we deal with them every day."Concerning air travel, 70% of air traffic could go on as scheduled, because controllers use hard copy and graphs as backups to their computer systems anyway. \n2)&nbsp;&nbsp; Some economic backlash. It's scary that people are being told to pull money from stock markets and banks. If less than half the customers pull $500 more than usual from their accounts it could cause strife. Banks in N.Z. will be closed till 5th January, due to Statutory holidays and a Bank holiday. During that time all other services will be available. i.e. ATM's\n \n''Should people prepare for ~Y2K?'' \n1)&nbsp;&nbsp; Prepare for an economic recession brought on by ~Y2K panic. \nGet a hard copy of your credit report. \n2)&nbsp;&nbsp; Check personal computers. Contact your computer retailer to find out how to get information to check for Y2K compliance on your system. The problem most PC owners will have is they'll have to reset the computer's date to January 1, 2000.

HardDriveFailure

To open all articles for February 1999, click on "February 1999" to the right and select "open all".

To open all articles for February 2005, click on "February 2005" to the right and select "open all".\nEdition No: 195

To open all articles for February 2006, click on "February 2006" to the right and select "open all".

<<tabs contents\n"President's Report" "Presidents report" "President's Report"\n"HardDriveFailure" "HardDriveFailure" "HardDriveFailure"\n>>

On a rainy afternoon in August I built a Linux (Samba) fileserver. This is primarily for sharing files with Windows, OS/2 and Linux ~PCs.\n \nThis might seem like overkill for a small home network, but if you have a spare old PC available there are quite good reasons for doing this - apart from keeping your brain exercised.\n\nWhy build a file server?\n \nIf you have a PC that you spend a lot of time fiddling about with - especially if you ever install operating systems or change hard drive partitions - you might consider putting files you want to keep, on a network file server for safe (or at least, safer) keeping. It wasn't until some rogue software deleted my partition table (on a 6.4GB drive - 4 ~OSes, 11 partitions!) that I realised I needed to do something like this. (I was able to rebuild the partition table and didn't lose any data, but it was still a scary experience). \n\nOther examples of uses for a network file server are that you can make the same files available to a number of different operating systems and different ~PCs - very useful for people who run more than just plain boring old Windows, or who like to work on a laptop by the fireside.\n\nA separate fileserver is an easy way of increasing available hard drive storage, while still keeping files readily available. For example, it would be a good place to keep an ~MP3 collection. For those NZPCA members building dedicated ~MP3 players, it would remove the requirement for a hard drive in the ~MP3 player. \n\nAlthough not directly related to file serving, the same PC could also be configured to provide other services, like print serving, web serving and so on. I guess several NZPCA members are using Linux as a desktop OS, but haven't used it as a server as such. I found setting this up to be a huge amount of fun and very interesting - so I thought I'd pass on my experiences,from the perspective of somebody who is new to all this. I thought Linux was an excellent desktop OS, but as a server it is really unbeatable.\n\nTo summarise the process:\n\nI used low specification hardware (P100, 16MB ram, 2.5GB HDD) and a minimal ~SuSE 6.3 install, which takes about 150MB of the 200MB Linux partition. Hardware isn't critical, and I'm sure a higher end 486 would work fine. It doesn't really matter which Linux distribution is used, and there are plenty to choose from. I used ~SuSE because it is installed on my desktop PC, and I'm reasonably familiar with it. \n\n1. Install Linux. Do not install Xwindow, as a graphical interface is not required. Consider installing perl if you plan on trying Webmin - this is not necessary, but I recommend it - see below. Install Midnight Commander, especially if you are not familiar with the command line.\n\n2. Set up one non-root account, check TCP/IP and networking is working (ping, telnet). By default Linux will not permit a telnet login by root, and there is no good reason to change this. Login as a normal user, then gain root privileges by using su.\n\n3. Shut down, unplug monitor and keyboard, (you won't need these again) and put the system where it is going to live. The only connections the server needs are power and networking.\n\n4. Restart, telnet into the server from another PC on the network. Use any operating system you like for this, although Linux works best, of course!\n\n|>|! xterm |\n|!|rjhinde@~PPro200:~ > telnet fileserv |\n|!|Trying 192.168.0.120... |\n|!|Connected to fileserv.home. |\n|!|Escape character is '^]'. |\n|!|Welcome to ~SuSE Linux 6.3 (i386) - Kernel 2.2.13 (pts/1). |\n|!|&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;|\n|!|fileserv login: rjhinde |\n|!|Last login: Thu Oct&nbsp; 5 16:13:51 from ~PPro200 |\n|!|=Have a lot of fun... |\n|!|rjhinde@fileserv;~ > mc█ |\n|!|&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; |\n\n{{{\n xterm\n rjhine@PPro200:~ > telnet fileserv\n Trying 192.168.0.120...\n Connected to fileserv.home.\n Escape character is '^]',\n Welcome to SuSE Linux 6.3 (i386) - Kernel 2.2.13 (pts/1)\n\n fileserv login: rjhinde\n Last login: Thu Oct 5 16:13:51 from PPro200\n Have a lot of fun...\n rjhinde@fileserv;~ > mc█\n\n}}}\n\n//Neither of the above look particularly professional to me. J.M.//\n\n5. Start mc, (Midnight Commander) and with this running on the server, use this for file management and editing configuration files. Midnight Commander is a Norton Commander clone, but somewhat improved. It is excellent software, and over telnet, works as if you are actually sitting at the PC that it is running on. Midnight Commander is available for Linux, Windows and OS/2, and makes Linux much easier for beginners to use. \n\n{{{\n\n\n Left File Command Options Right\n┌<─/home/rjhinde/music──────────────v>┐┌<─~─────────────────────────────────v>┐\n│ Name │ Size │ MTime ││ Name │ Size │ MTime │\n│/.. │UP--DIR│ ││/.. │UP--DIR│ │\n│/3 dead trolls │ 4096│Apr 10 12:34││/.lftp │ 4096│Apr 8 04:52│\n│/CDs │ 4096│Apr 10 12:33││/.mc │ 4096│Jun 11 15:43│\n│/CDs - more │ 4096│Jun 12 13:53││ .bash_history │ 3114│Aug 2 11:33│\n│/Carys MP3 files│ 4096│Apr 10 12:22││ .bash_logout │ 24│Feb 22 2005│\n│/DJ Mik │ 4096│Apr 10 13:15││ .bash_profile │ 191│Feb 22 2005│\n│/DJ River │ 4096│Jun 12 13:26││ .bashrc │ 176│Feb 22 2005│\n│/DJ XeLius │ 4096│Jun 12 13:27││ .cshrc │ 100│Feb 22 2005│\n│/Dave Dean │ 4096│Apr 10 12:33││ .rnd │ 1024│Apr 8 05:05│\n│/From Ch~H iBook│ 4096│May 23 12:45││ .tcshrc │ 102│Feb 22 2005│\n│/Helix │ 4096│May 24 11:40││ anaconda-ks.cfg │ 1279│Apr 8 04:11│\n│/Hybridized.org │ 4096│Apr 10 11:35││ install.log │ 19008│Apr 8 04:11│\n│/Kavhi_org etc │ 4096│Apr 10 12:03││ install.~.syslog│ 3761│Apr 8 04:11│\n│/Mixes │ 4096│Jun 12 14:07││ webmin-1~rch.rpm│ 11428│Apr 8 04:52│\n│/Monkey records │ 4096│Apr 10 12:52││ │ │ │\n│/Morlock │ 4096│May 24 11:53││ │ │ │\n│/Netlabels │ 4096│Jun 12 12:57││ │ │ │\n│/Old Tapes │ 4096│Apr 10 12:05││ │ │ │\n├─────────────────────────────────────┤├──────────────────────────────────────┤\n│/.. ││/.. │\n└─────────────────────────────────────┘└──────────────────────────────────────┘\nHint: You can browse RPM files by tapping enter on top of an rpm file.\n# \n}}}\n\n\n{{{\n Konsole\n File Sessions Options Help\n Left File Command Options Right\n}}}\n\n//(I gave up on this -- J.M. It's the Midnight Commander screenshot).//\n\n\n6. Configure smb.conf (you will need root privileges to do this), then restart samba, test and adjust to taste etc. No rebooting is necessary - in fact, in the six weeks since starting the server the second time, I haven't rebooted it at all. Configuring smb.conf can be very complex (so I haven't gone into any detail here), but the benefit of this is an incredible amount of versatility. In most respects it far surpasses the product it was reverse engineered from (much to Microsoft's dismay and continuing efforts to the contrary).\nIf you don't feel comfortable editing smb.conf by hand, SWAT can be used to do the job by web browser, or use Webmin.\n\n7. On Windows and OS/2 PCs, you will need to map the network drives to a local drive letter before you can use them; with Linux you will need to mount the network drives before you can use them.\n\n8. I have also installed Webmin (now owned by Caldera). This gives a graphical way of controlling the server. It isn't pretty, but it does an amazing job. I can now control the server by web browser, from almost any operating system, and from anywhere I like, including locally (well, if the server had a monitor and keyboard I could). Webmin can configure almost every aspect of a Linux system - even partition management.\n\n//(Webmin picture goes here)//\n\nLooking back:\nEverything works very well, apart from initial problems with permissions when using a share with Linux (using smbmount not smbclient). Windows of course does not have this problem.\n\nIn hindsight I can see that Linux was a good choice, and I will probably be adding additional functions to the system soon. Apart from expanding its use to include printing, I can even add my scanner to the server (but use it fromelsewhere on the network) - what a shame SANE isn't available for Windows. \n\nAs the server PC in fact spends very little time actually doing anything, I have installed an RC5 client (so the server is also part of the largest computer on Earth - see http://www.distributed. net). This has no noticeable effect on performance, and processes about 140kkeys/s in the background.\n\nFor those with no Linux experience, e-smith (http://www.e-smith.org) produce a specialised Linux server distribution that may well be worth a look. It sets itself up and runs straight "out of the box", and does much more than just file serving.\n\nI set up a system using e-smith recently, and it took just 10 minutes to achieve what took me several days to do manually with SuSE Linux, and no knowledge of Linux was required. I have a CDROM available for copying if anybody would like to try it.\n\nAlthough DOS, Windows or OS/2 could also be used as the basis for a file server, I don't know how you would achieve what I have outlined above, on a system which was dependent on a gui; in my experience, no other operating system could so easily be configured in this way. \n\nAs you can see, this was very different to setting up a Windows server, and has made me think about GUIs, OSes, PCs, networking and even scripting languages from a whole different viewpoint.\n\nA network file server won't remove the need to make backups, but for files that you won't normally backup, (like MP3 collections) it does give you a little (or a lot) more storage, and a little more peace of mind. Best of all, it really is fun!\n\nRelated links: \nwww.samba.org \nwww.suse.com \nwww.distributed.net \nwww.gnome.org/mc/ \nwww.webmin.com \nwww.e-smith.org \n\n \n\n

''Introduction''\n\nThe toughest part of upgrading to a new hard drive is the task of transferring all of your files and configurations. Yes, you can re-install Windows, re-install all of your programs, re-download all of your shareware, copy over all of your documents, and try to reconfigure it to the way you like it. But, why? There are much easier ways.\n\n''The Free Way''\n\nThis method involves the use of the common copy and paste routine of Windows. First, you must install the new drive. Install it as a slave to the old drive. \n\nPartition and format the new drive just like normal. It must have the same number and size partitions as the old drive. \n\nIn Windows Explorer, choose View/Options. Select Show All Files. Deselect Hide ~MS-DOS file extensions for the file types that are registered. Click OK. \n\nChoose Edit/Select All. \n\nAll files and directories will be highlighted. Then click the copy icon in the toolbar. \n\nSelect the D: drive, or the letter of your new drive. Click the paste icon in the toolbar. The file transfer will take place, and may take a while depending on the size of the drive transferred.\n\nInstall the Windows system files to the new drive by going to the ~MS-DOS prompt and typing SYS D: at the C:> prompt. \n\nExit Windows and turn off the computer. Swap the cable connectors going to the drives. Change the jumper settings to make the new drive master.\n\nReboot. The system should work normally. If not, your old drive is still completely intact and can be used to get the system back in operation.\n\n''Other Ways''\n\nThere are third-party programs available which automate this process. Such programs are better if you like the security. They are also better if you perform such a transfer frequently.\n\nGhost is a program by Innovative Software that creates a master image file of the old drive. This image can be stored on any medium, including a network server. All you have to do is copy this image to any drive you want to use. It copies all hidden files, too. This program sounds very convenient, but is rather pricey at $500 US per copy. There is a 30-day evaluation version available.\n\nA cheaper choice is ~DriveCopy by ~PowerQuest. It doesn't offer network support, but conveniently copies all files and settings for only $29.95 US.\n\nFor more information about cloning hard drives in Windows, click here.\n\n//David Risley, HardwareCentral\nhttp://www.hardwarecentral.com\n//

Defendant Microsoft Corporation ("Microsoft")\n \nORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND DECREED as follows: \n2. Divestiture \n1. Not later than four months after entry of this Final Judgment, Microsoft shall submit to the Court and the Paintiffs a proposed plan of divestiture. The Plaintiffs shall submit any objections to the proposed plan of divestiture to the court within 60 days of receipt of the plan, and Microsoft shall submit its response within 30 days of receipt of the plaintiffs' objections.\n\n2. Following approval of a final plan of divestiture by the Court(the "Plan") (and the expiration of the stay pending appeal set forth in section 6.a), Microsoft shall implement such Plan.\n\n3. The Plan shall provide for the completion, within 12 months of the expiration of the stay pending appeal set forth in section 6.a., of the following steps:\n#The separation of the Operating Systems Business from the Applications Business, and the transfer of the assets of one of them (the "Separated Business") to a separate entity along with \n##all personnel, systems, and other tangible and intangible assets (including Intellectual Property) used to develop, produce, distribute, market, promote, sell, license and support the products and services of the Separated Business, and \n##such other assets as are necessary to operate the Separated Business as an independent and economically viable entity.\n#Intellectual Property that is used both in a product developed, distributed, or sold by the Applications Business and in a product developed, distributed, or sold by the Operating Systems Business as of April 27, 2000, shall be assigned to the Applications Business, and the Operating Systems Business shall be granted a perpetual, royalty-free license to license and distribute such Intellectual Property in its products, and, except with respect to such Intellectual Property related to the Internet browser, to develop, license and distribute modified or derivative versions of such Intellectual Property, provided that the Operating Systems Business does not grant rights to such versions to the Applications Business. In the case of such Intellectual Property that is related to the Internet browser, the license shall not grant the Operating Systems Business any right to develop, license, or distribute modified or derivative versions of the Internet browser.\n#The transfer of ownership of the Separated Business by means of a distribution of stock of the Separated Business to Non-Covered Shareholders of Microsoft, or by other disposition that does not result in a Covered Shareholder owning stock in both the Separated Business and the Remaining Business. \n\n4. Until Implementation of the Plan, Microsoft shall:\n#Preserve, maintain, and operate the Operating Systems Business and the Applications Business as ongoing, economically viable businesses, with management, sales, products, and operations of each business held as separate, distinct and apart from one another as they were on April 27, 2000, except to provide the accounting, management, and information services or other necessary support functions provided by Microsoft prior to the entry of this Final Judgment; \n#Use all reasonable efforts to maintain and increase the sales and revenues of both the products produced or sold by the Operating Systems Business and those produced or sold by the Applications Business prior to the Implementation of the Plan and to support research and development and business development efforts of both the Operating Systems Business and the Applications Business;\n#Take no action that undermines, frustrates, interferes with, or makes more difficult the divestiture required by this Final Judgment without the prior approval of the Court. \n

\nThe program I am writing in dBase is for use on a VAX mainframe computer. Another learning hurdle! I obtained a terminal, arranged the connection, rang the operator who logged me on and I was in. It's horrible, it's antiquated, it's not at all friendly. The VAX comes with a word processor/electronic mail package called Allin1 which I understand has been going for the last 20 years. Using it is like going back 15 years to the early days of PC computing.\n\nIf you type {{{dir}}} it only shows your files, no list of programs available - you just have to know what is on the system. The terminology uses phrases like 'Connect to Server' and 'Show Quota' whatever they mean. There is an extensive help system ranging from on-line help and a help desk but the on line help never gives the answer you want, if you don't know what you are looking for you don't know what to ask for! I tried creating and printing a document which arrived two days later in the internal mail having been printed out on a printer one mile away from my desk (literally). I got that sorted out straight away.\n\nAnyway I typed {{{dBase}}} and lo and behold up came the logo and the Assistant ran up looking more or less like the PC version. I looked for the Alt key to get at the main menu items as one does on a PC and there it wasn't. There was no Alt key on the keyboard. Ok I thought, stay loose, read the screen, use the help button etc and saw a message to use F10 to get at the menu, pressed F10, nothing..., pressed every key I could think of - no menu, something happened the screen went from a nice graphical display to an ASCII display which I could not get rid of. I couldn't even get out of the program! Oh for the power of the red button on the front of my PC.\n\nCalled for help and was told use F17 for F10 - logical?? The help desk informed me that there was a 'dBase4 technical release notes' document that I should have read before going into the prog. I must say I feel very guilty about that! Apparently all the function keys are different, even from what is shown on the screen. More about this later.\n\nAll this has made me realise the power of market forces. The enormous PC market has lead to development of user friendly software. Developers have been able to spend time creating programs because they knew they had a market of millions. The market for the VAX computer is probably less than 100,000.

By Mark Edward Soper of SmartComputing\n\n ''Macromedia Program Makes Web Sites More Interactive''\n As you tour the World Wide Web, you'll see that more and more Web sites have replaced their static title-page front doors with full-motion animations. What makes these online "minimovies" possible? In more and more cases, the answer is Flash, a popular program from Macromedia. Almost all of these introductory animations have a Skip button-and if you're connected to the Internet with a dial-up modem, you're probably clicking Skip a lot. Flash's reputation as a time-wasting eye candy feature is justified. But, Macromedia Flash is good for far more than just showy introductions to Web sites. It has become a vital part of making interactive and useful Web sites that are also fun to use.\n\n What is Flash? Flash is Macromedia's Web- oriented animation tool. Like Macromedia's Director program, long a staple of interactive multimedia on CD-ROMs and other computer content, Flash provides exciting animated content. But Flash also can be used for menus and other types of interactive content online.\n Unlike Macromedia Director and other CD-ROM-based and Web-based multimedia products, Flash files use a technology called vector graphics. Vector graphics are mathematical descriptions of a shape, unlike traditional bitmap graphics used on the Web such as GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) and JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) files. Because vector graphics are descriptions of how a graphic should look instead of a collection of dots like GIF and JPEG files, they can be re-sized as needed without affecting quality. Web sites may be viewed in a resizable browser window and at different screen resolutions, so conventional bitmap-based graphics techniques such as animated GIFs are difficult to create in a way that looks good at every possible resolution and browser window size. On the other hand, a Flash animation always looks good, whether you view it on the 640 x 480 pixel screen of an older notebook computer or the 1,024 x 768 pixel screen of a typical office computer-or anything else in between.\n\n ''Viewing Flash Content.''\n Flash files are stored on Web servers as .SWF files. When your Web browser opens a page containing a reference to a Flash animation, your browser will load a Flash player (if you've installed one) and the Flash animation will begin to play automatically. If your browser doesn't have a Flash player installed, the screen area where the Flash animation would play remains empty.\n Typically, you'll see a message such as the following: "If you don't see the movie playing, click here for the free Macromedia Flash Player." Or you may see a graphic button that says "Get Macromedia Flash Player." Either type of link will take you to the Macromedia Web site hosting Flash player downloads, http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer.\n Once you arrive at the page, follow the on-screen instructions to install the player. After you have installed the Flash player, you'll be ready to enjoy Flash content all over the Web.\n\n ''Flash Player Versions.''\n If you have a recently installed Microsoft or Netscape browser, the odds are pretty good that you don't need to install the Flash player manually (at least, until Macromedia introduces a new version). Why? Macromedia claims that over 96% of Web browsers in use in the United States, Canada, and Europe are equipped with some form of the Macromedia Flash player. (For fun, you can go to http://www.macromedia.com/software/player_census/flashplayer/ to find out exactly how many people Macromedia claims are using Flash.)\n\n Why do so many users already have Flash? First, unlike most browser add-ons in the past, which targeted either Microsoft Windows or Macintosh computers or were written for either Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator browsers, the Macromedia Flash player comes in four distinct versions:\n{{{\n 1. - an ActiveX control for use with Microsoft IE3.x or later and Windows 9x, Me, 2000, or NT.\n 2. - a plug-in for use with Netscape Navigator /Communicator 3.x or later.\n 3. - a Java Edition player for use with other browsers which are Java-compatible.\n 4. - a new Pocket PC version for use with the Casio Cassiopeia, Compaq IPAQ, and Hewlett-Packard Jornada.\n}}}\n By offering many different versions, users of operating systems such as Linux, Solaris, and even OS/2, as well as the popular 32-bit Windows and Mac OS operating systems, can enjoy Flash content.\n\n Second, Macromedia has agreements with both Microsoft and Netscape to pre-install Macromedia Flash player with recent and current versions of both IE and Navigator/Communicator browsers. As a result, whenever you download a new version of either Web browser, you get a fresh copy of the Macromedia Flash player.\n Third, Macromedia has worked hard to make Flash a very useful Web tool by adding functionality to the product, lifting it from its original animation role into a full-power Web user interface (in version 5).\n Note that to enjoy all the Flash content on the Web you should install the latest Flash player (version 5.x), as older versions of the Flash player don't support all the features discussed in this article.\n\n ''How Web Sites Use Flash.''\n Because of the flexibility and power of Flash, especially in its latest version, the software is used in many ways around the Web. More and more site designers use Flash to build complete Web sites, as in the Digi@ctive Web site (http://www.digiactive.com).\n Macromedia's "Site of the Day" provides a way to see many other innovative uses for Flash. You can visit these sites either directly through the URLs (uniform resource locators; Web addresses) listed or by visiting Macromedia's Showcase at http://www.macromedia.com/.showcase.\n The Bossmonster Web site demonstrates how designers can use Flash to make an interactive Web site fun. Go to http://www.bossmonster..com and play a game online.\n National Geographic's Great Barrier Reef shows how Flash can be used as an educational tool. Click on different types of sea life and an on-screen version of a "collector card" is displayed providing information about the plant or fish selected. Try it at http://www..nationalgeographic.com/earthpulse/reef/gbr.html.\n Flash also helps Web sites make money. Bicycle-messenger bag maker Timbuk2 offers a Flash-based Build-a-Bag feature on its Web site (http:// www.timbuk2.com) which allows you to select a bag and customise its colours, size, and features while viewing a preview of the finished product and a running total of the price. Finish the process and the bag is manufactured from your specifications and sent to you.\n\n ''Controlling Flash.''\n The secret to controlling how the Flash player displays Flash content is right-clicking. Right-click on most Flash content and a menu appears with the following options: Zoom options. Select Zoom In to enlarge the area of the screen near your mouse cursor. Select Zoom Out to see more of the Flash animation. Select Show All to see the entire Flash animation screen. Quality options. The default setting is typically High Quality, which produces the best possible animation appearance (sharp text and graphics). Other options include Low Quality and Medium Quality, which reduce the quality of the text and graphics but improve animation speed on dial-up connections.\n Playback options. Use the Play and Loop setting to start and stop the animation and allow it to play one time or continuously. Select Rewind to reload the animation from its beginning. Select Forward to move ahead in the animation. Select Back to view an earlier part of the animation. Other options. Select Print to print the animation page by page. For best results, set your printer to the same page orientation as the Flash movie uses and skip the first few pages (which usually display "Loading..."). You will need to experiment to get the printout results you want, since there is no print preview option at present. Select About Macromedia Flash Player 5 to go to Macromedia's Flash Player information page. Some Flash animations will disable some or all of these menu items.\n\n ''Flash & General System Security.''\n In its early versions, Flash was strictly a player for movie-like content. However, starting with version 4 and continuing into the current version 5.0, Flash has taken on more and more of the characteristics of a true programming language, including its own script language, ActiveScript, and support for JavaScript. It's not surprising, therefore, that a potential Flash security hole was reported by Neal Krawetz to the Bugtraq security database in late December 2000. Bugtraq is hosted by Securityfocus.com. According to Krawetz, the Flash player is vulnerable to a so-called "buffer overrun exploit," which would allow a poorly written or malicious Flash program to crash a client's system when executed and have the ability to start another program which could harm data. This is the same type of problem that has afflicted several releases of the IE browser. Bugtraq also has reports of a similar problem affecting Linux versions of the Flash player.\n\n ''Protect Yourself.''\n Do you need to be concerned about your system being hacked because you're using the Flash player? According to Peter Santangeli, vice president of engineering with Flash and FreeHand of Macromedia, probably not. In a statement available on Bugtraq, he states that the danger for users appears to be limited at this time to a denial of service (browser crash) on the client computer trying to run the problem Flash file rather than any data loss or compromise of important information. Others are not so confident that this vulnerability won't be exploited in the future, possibly by combining an ActiveX control with a Flash movie.\n Because of the potential for trouble, you may want to use a program that can guard against hostile active content such as the freeware SurfinGuard Pro from Finjan Software (www .finjan.com). SurfinGuard Pro won't interfere with a properly functioning Flash program.\n\n ''Install & Enjoy.''\n While too many Web designers still use Flash strictly for "eye candy," Flash provides genuine benefits to users when its interactive features are used. Install the latest Flash player for your operating system and browser to enjoy Flash on the Web.\n

''Basics''\n\nFloppy drives are the slots on the front of your computer that you insert disks into, copy files to, and install programs from. Old ones are 5¼" wide; these drives are big and ugly. They accept the big 5¼" disks that can't hold very much data. Today, we laugh at a computer that still has one of these things. Almost all of us now have 3½" drives. These drives accept 3½" disks. These diskettes come in different densities. The old ones are single-sided and only hold 720 KB of data. The standard disks of today are called high-density. They usually hold 1.44MB of data. The newest disks are called extended-capacity and they hold 2.88MB.\n\nBefore a floppy diskette can be used, it must be formatted. This prepares the disk so that the drive can use it. To do this, type FORMAT A: at the DOS prompt (C:),. When Windows asks for a label, it wants to know what you want to call the disk.\n\n''Notes:'' You can't use a high-density disk in a low-density drive. Also, when formatting, make sure you type A:. Do not type any other drive, especially C:, otherwise you're in for trouble. Floppies are almost always A:. Also, disks can go bad. If a particular diskette has many errors, trash it.\n\n''Installation''\n#Choose which drive bay in which you want to install the drive and remove the face plate from that bay. Save the face plate for future use. If you are going to install a 3½" drive into a 5¼" bay, you'll have to use a special front panel to adapt it. This panel usually comes with a new floppy drive.\n#Fit the drive into the bay without connecting anything. Just make sure it fits. \n#Connect the ribbon cable and the power supply to the drive. If you just removed a floppy drive, just use the same connections. If not, study the available connectors. You should have a ribbon cable with a twist on one end. The end without the twist is attached to the floppy controller. Then, attach the connector after the twist to floppy drive A:. (If you have only one floppy drive, it is called Drive A:.) You may have two available connectors after the twist. Use the one that fits your drive. One is for 5.25" drives, the other is for 3.5" drives.\n#If you are using brackets to hold the drive in place, secure them now. You may need to temporarily disconnect the cables. Once in, tighten the drive in place. Double-check the connections.\n#Now put everything back together. Turn your computer on.\n#Now you have to tell the computer that it has another drive. This involves updating the BIOS. Boot the computer and enter setup. This is done by pressing F1, ~CTRL-ALT-ESC, or some other combination. Your computer will tell you what keys to hit right after you turn it on. After entering setup, go to the Standard Setup, usually the first menu option. Your main floppy drive is A:. Any second floppy drive is labeled B:. Using the appropriate keys, activate your new drive. Lastly, under another menu option, you might need to make sure your BIOS drive swapping is turned off. This feature, through BIOS, reverses the order of your floppy drive letters so that their location next to the ribbon twist does not matter. But, if you installed a drive after the twist, and this option is enabled, your Drive A: will not work. \nTo deactivate a drive you have removed, follow the same instructions, but change the status of the drive to "None" or "Not installed." If you have removed the primary floppy drive, you'll need to change the Boot Options to "C: Only." \n#When you are done adjusting BIOS, save the new setup and exit. Your system should now restart and your drive will be activated. You can test it in the Explorer or File Manager by checking a diskette.\n\n''Internal Workings''\n\nThe inside of a standard floppy drive has many similarities to the inside of a hard drive. It has the same basic parts.\n\nMost floppy drives have two read/write heads, meaning that it is double-sided. These heads are used to read and write data to the diskette. Like a hard drive, the head mechanism is moved by the head actuator. It is a stepper motor design, much like the old hard drives. This small motor moves the heads in and out, giving them the ability to position themselves over any track on the disk. The heads use a recording method known as tunnel erasure.\n\nBasically, this recording method is a way to keep each track of data. As the head writes the data to a track, the tunnel erase heads come along and erase the outer edges of the track, thereby creating a sharp-edged track, very distinct from the others. This keeps the data on one track from being confused with data from another track, thereby eliminating problems.\n\nThe heads are spring loaded, therefore, they are physically contacting the disk while they are reading and writing. The drive spins the disk at about 300 RPM; therefore, this contact is not a problem to the data because friction is minimal. Some diskette makers coat the disk with Teflon, further reducing friction between the heads and the disk. Eventually, a build-up of Teflon will form on the heads, requiring you to clean them.\n\nThe spindle motor spins the disk. As said before, it spins the disk at 300 RPM. On old 5.25" drives, the disk is spinned at 360 RPM. Older drives had the spindle motor attached to a belt system that spinned the disks. These were not very reliable, and the RPM was not constant. Today's drives use a direct-drive system with no belts. This system has automatic torque compensation so that sticky disks are spinned with greater force than a slippery one, thereby maintaining a constant 300 RPM with all disks. The newer drives have this automatic ability, while older ones require periodic adjusting. This is done by using the strobe marks that are on the motor. You run the drive in fluorescent light and adjust the RPM until the marks look still, just like a car rim or wagon wheel when turned fast enough. \n\nUnderneath the drive, you have the logic board. Like the hard drive, it serves to control the internal parts of the drive and serves as an interface between these parts and the floppy drive controller. All floppy drives use the ~SA-400 interface. For this reason, any floppy drive will work with any computer, right out of the box. The front of the drive is called the faceplate. This is the part of the drive which is visible from the front of the case. These faceplates come in several sizes and colors. Some faceplates are larger than the rest of the drive, requiring you to install the drive from the front, a habit you'll probably form anyway.\n\nThe connectors are on the back of the drive. There are two: the power connector and the ribbon cable connector. Their only difference is that the large 5.25" drives use a larger power plug, similar to the type used in a hard drive. If you are installing a 3.5" into an older case, you might not have the small-type connector available. In this case, you will have to buy an adapter to convert the large plug into the small type. The 3.5" drives use a smaller plug. All floppy drives use the same 34-pin data cable. Occasionally, you might find a floppy drive that has weird connections. Some drives have one 40-pin connector that carries both the power and the data. Others use one 34-pin cable that carries both. However, these drive are rather rare.\n\n''Configuration''\n\nFloppy drives are bought off the shelf already configured for your computer. But sometimes, if you are installing a used drive, you may need to reconfigure it. \n\n''Drive Select''\n\nAll floppy drives are attached in a daisy chain arrangement within the PC. This means that there is one cable leading from drive to drive. Therefore, like a SCSI daisy chain, each drive must have an ID number. Some older drives allow four choices ~IDs. However, modern PC floppy controllers can only support two floppy drives in a chain. The drive you want to be Drive A: is set to the first drive select position. Drive B: is set to the second position. The jumper that controls this is usually called the DS jumper, and the options are labeled ~DS0 and ~DS1. The numbers themselves may vary from drive to drive.\n\nWhen installing floppy drives, for the most part, you don't have to worry about this. Most drives are factory set to ~DS2, or Drive B: position. In order to use the drive as a drive A:, you use a floppy ribbon cable that tricks the computer into using the drive as A:. This is done with the use of a special twist in the cable that electrically changes the DS configuration of the drive after the twist. This twist, then, causes the controller to think the drive configured as B: is really configured as A:. For this reason, during installation of a floppy drive, always make sure your Drive A: is located AFTER the twist on the floppy ribbon cable. If you are trying to use a non-standard floppy cable without a twist, you'll have to change the DS jumper to ~DS1, or the Drive A: setting.\n\n''Termination''\n\nLike a SCSI chain, a floppy drive daisy chain must be terminated at one end. \nOlder 5¼" drives used a terminating resistor in the drive itself that is plugged into the end of the cable. This terminator absorbs all signals, preventing reflections and echoes from going back down the line and disturbing new oncoming data. When connecting two of these 5¼" drives on the same chain, the drive at the end of the cable has a terminating resistor installed. Then, the resistors in the other drives on the chain have to be removed.\n\nWith 3½" drives, the termination is automatic. All 3½" drives have a pre-installed, non-configurable terminating resistor. With 3½" drives, each drive shares the role of termination. If you have only one drive on the chain, it terminates itself.\n\nWhen installing 5¼" and 3½" drives on the same chain, you should remove the termination on the 5¼" unless it is at the end of the ribbon cable. The terminating resistor looks like a 16-pin memory DIP chip. It is almost always a different color than the other chips on the drive. Sometimes, the chip is soldered on. In this case, you must either enable or disable the resistor with a jumper. The best way to ID your resistor is to look at the drive's manual.\n\nAs far as termination on the controller end, it is built in to the controller. \n\n''Media Sensor'' \n\n3½" 1.44 MB or 2.88 MB drives are equipped with a Media Sensor (MS) jumper. This jumper enables or disables the media sensor in these drives. On many of these drives, it is factory set to be enabled. Sometimes it is even stuck in enabled mode. In short, this media sensor gives the drive the ability to sense what type of disk is inserted and thus adapt the read/write heads to work accordingly.\n\n//David Risley, HardwareCentral\nhttp://www.hardwarecentral.com\n//

Windows has many shortcomings, so it useful to be able to easily add software that makes it nicer or more fun to use. There are many alternatives to Windows Explorer available, but it is so much easier to continue to use the default application that most people continue to use it, despite its shortcomings. So, why not use a small utility to add some of the functionality that is missing in Windows Explorer? \n\n~FolderSize is one such utility. It isn't large, it isn't guaranteed to work (but it does) and it is free. It is even Open Source, so you can improve it if you wish. I use it with no problems on my Windows systems. \n\nOne of the many shortcomings in the default Windows file manager (Windows Explorer) is that normally, to find out how large a folder is, you have to right click on the folder, select "Properties", then wait for the folder (and all sub folders) to be scanned before seeing the final result displayed in the "General" tab. Computers are supposed to make everything easy and save time, not waste time, so why tolerate this any longer? \n\n~FolderSize fixes this problem, by scanning folders in the background and displaying the result in a column in Windows Explorer, as in the screenshot below. Download and install ~FolderSize, then start Windows Explorer, ensure "Details View" is selected, right click on any of the column headers. Switch on ~FolderSize and you are ready to go. \n\nThis makes file management much easier, so you'll easily be able to identify which folders and files are wasting the most space. Great for cleaning up your file system. \n\nWorks on Windows 2000 and XP. Be sure to read the developer's notes. \n\nGet started by visiting http://foldersize.sourceforge.net/

I Love My Job\nThe Lost Dr. Suess Book.\n \nI love my Job, I love the Pay!\nI love it more and more each day. \nI love my Boss; he is the best!\nI love his boss and all the rest.\n\nI love my Office and its location - \nI hate to have to go on vacation.\nI love my furniture, drab and gray,\nAnd the paper that piles up every day!\n\nI love my chair in my padded Cell! \nThere's nothing else I love so well.\nI love to work among my Peers - \nI love their leers and jeers and sneers.\n\nI love my Computer and its Software; \nI hug it often though it don't care... \nI love each Program and every File, \nI try to understand once in a while!! \n\nI'm happy to be here, I am I am; \nI'm the happiest Slave of my Uncle Sam.\nI love this Work: I love these Chores. \nI love the Meetings with deadly Bores. \n\nI love my Job - I'll say it again - \nI even love these friendly Men - \nThese men who've come to visit today \nIn lovely white coats to take me away!!!!\n

Jeremy Rushton (~TiddlyWiki author) has an excellent summary of formatting available at [[Guide to Formatting Text|http://www.tiddlywiki.com/#BlockQuotes%20BulletPoints%20CustomCssClass%20EmbeddedImages%20ExtendedFormatting%20HorizontalRules%20HtmlEntities%20NonWikiWordLinks%20NumberedBulletPoints%20PeriodicTable%20PluginFormatting%20PrettyLinks%20SubHeadings%20Tables%20TiddlerComments%20WikiWordEscape%20MonospacedText]]\n\nTo summarise, the the basics are:\n\nText:\n\n''Bold'' {{{''Bold''}}}\n\n//Italic// {{{//Italic//}}}\n\n==strikethrough text== {{{==strikethrough text==}}}\n\n__underlined text__ {{{__underlined text__}}}\n\n^^superscript text^^ {{{^^superscript text^^}}}\n\n~~subscript text~~ {{{~~subscript text~~}}}\n\n@@highlighted text@@ {{{@@highlighted text@@}}}\n\n{{{This is monospaced}}} {{{ {{{This is monospaced}}} }}}\n\n{{{\nA monospaced block\nof text\n}}}\n\n{{{ {{{\nA monospaced block\nof text\n}}} }}}\n \n\n\n\nLists:\n\nBulleted list:\n*Level One \n**Sub-level A \n***Sub-sub-level i\n\n{{{\n*Level One \n**Sub-level A \n***Sub-sub-level i\n}}}\n\nNumbered list:\n#Level One\n##Sub-level A\n###Sub-sub-level i\n\n{{{\n#Level One\n##Sub-level A\n###Sub-sub-level i\n}}}\n

Formatting is another necessary step to hard drive preparation. In most cases, when installing a new hard drive, all you need to do is a high-level format. It is usually the final step in preparation.\n\nWhen preparing a new drive, use the FORMAT C: /S command. This high-level formats the volume C:, copies hidden operating system files to the volume, and prompts you for a label. It marks bad sectors as unreadabale, writes the boot sector, creates the FAT, writes the root directory, and copies system files.\n\nThe other type of formatting is the low-level format. In general, this procedure is already done on your drive when you buy it. Only on old drives would this need to be done. Other situations exist in which you would want to low-level format your hard drive. If you need to erase all traces of data on the disk, a low level format will do this. Low-level formats will also remove corrupted operating systems or viruses. They will also remap the drive so as to reallocate all bad sectors to other sectors. This replaces bad sectors with good ones. It will make your drive appear to be free of defects. This process is called defect mapping.\n\nThat said, manufacturers recommend that you never low-level format a hard drive.\n\nA low-level format cannot be done with the FORMAT command. It is recommended you get a low-level format program from the manufacturer of your drive. These programs are tailored to work with specific drives and can sufficiently trace the defects and map them. Visit the Web site of the manufacturer to find these programs, they are often available to download.

The main reason for the NZPCA website's existence is to enable communication with and between NZPCA members. This article provides a brief overview of just two of the ways NZPCA members can use the website to communicate with each other.\n\n To use these features it is necessary to log in to the website, NZPCA members are strongly encouraged to do this. It isn't necessary to log out unless you really want to do so, this way every time you revisit the website you will have access to all the restricted features and your personalised view of it without needing to log in for each visit.\n\n ''Private messages''\n\n NZPCA subscribers who login to the NZPCA website will notice a new addition to the main menu, "List Members". This link is only available to currently paid-up NZPCA members, and it takes you to a page which lists all registered visitors to the website. You can browse registered visitors, sorted alphabetically or by other criteria. Only details that members have submitted are visible. Unless registered members have opted to have their real email address visible, this will not be displayed, however it is possible to contact registered members through the website without knowing their email address.\n\n "List Members" complements the menu item "Private Messages", and has been made available so that NZPCA subscribers have a way of contacting each other. When you log in to the website, at the bottom of the left side column is a small box which shows who you are logged on as, and how many private messages you have waiting. Unfortunately, at this stage it doesn't indicate how many unread messages are waiting, so it is necessary to work that out yourself. Just follow the link, or choose "Private Messages" from the main menu. You will be presented with a page where you can read and send messages.\n\n To send a message you need to know the recipient's registered user name, you can find this in the "List Members" page, and it is easiest to send a message from there - just click on the name of the person you want to send a message to, then from the following page click "send a private message". You can also use the website search facility ("Search" from the main menu) to find a member's username if you only know their full name, or some other information about them.\n\n As you navigate the website you will find that in many places where a username appears - associated with a news item, comments, or maybe in the Discussion Forums, for example. You can click on any username to get more information and can send a private message from the page that is displayed if you wish.\n\n Next time the recipient logs onto the website and checks their message status, they will see your message. This is very similar to the way private messages worked on the Megabaud BBS.\n\n'' Discussion Forums''\n\n Forums are a more public form of discussion, the equivalent of the local conferences on the Megabaud BBS. Public discussion of problems and solutions can be an incredibly useful way of learning about ~PCs.\n\n For obvious reasons, forums are only available to registered visitors who are logged in, just follow the link to "Discussion Forums" from the main menu.\n\n Currently there are three publicly available forums, but others can be set up if anybody wants to do this. In addition to the publicly available forums, we also have two private forums, which are only visible to predefined participants, and we can set up additional private forums if any members wish to use these.\n\n The forums are easy to use, although people used to using the Megabaud BBS will find web based navigation slow - this is the age of the gui, and we'll just have to live with its limitations.\n\n Following the "Discusion Forums" link takes you to the Forums main page. This presents a summary of what forums are available to you, a description, and details like the number of topics, number of posts, and the date of the latest post. The number of new posts in each forum is indicated by an icon at the beginning of each line.\n\n If you follow the link from the forum title ("General Discussion", for example) you will arrive at a page which lists topics in that forum, the number of replies, who posted the original topic, the number of views, and the date of the post. Clicking on the title of the topic takes you to the discussion itself. Clicking on the poster's name will take you to a page with their details - from here you can send them a private message.\n\n If you post a message or reply in a forum, it is a good idea to also subscribe to that forum. What this means is that you will be sent an email everytime somebody posts into that forum - you don't need to keep checking the website. Try this feature out, it is very useful, and at present forum traffic is light enough that your mail box will easily be able to cope with the extra traffic. It is likely that in near future it will be possible to post a reply into a forum by email, too.\n\n Please do not start a new topic in an existing thread (this is considered rude behaviour) - select "Post New Topic" and do it from there. Posting a new topic and replying to an existing one is really very easy, and you can also include web and email links where appropriate. Please note that the forums can be moderated if this becomes necessary.\n\n Currently there appears to be a problem with the web page sometimes not refreshing automatically when you submit a new topic or reply - but your reply has been sent, so do not re-submit your post; return to the previous page using your web browser controls instead. If you don't do this, you will post the same message twice.\n\n To make these website features useful, it is important to get things up to a critical mass - so please log in to the website and make it a habit to visit the forums to keep an eye on what is going on there. Subscribe and contribute if you can - someday you may find that you need the forums to get help with a problem that *you* are having!\n\n Its your website, make sure you use it.\n\n // Robin Hinde //

After giving a talk one night at the Lower Hutt Club meeting on HTML, two members asked how could they build a simple Web Site themselves? Simple I told them. Simple for you they said, you starting out writing HTML by hand using Notepad, building and linking pages from the ground up. \n\nIt's not necessary to understand HTML I told them. \n\nAbout three to four years ago you needed to understand HTML to build a web site. When HTML editors appeared such as Microsoft FrontPage that writes the HTML for you, it has not been necessary to fully understand HTML. Today you can go one step further and build a site using one of the sites building tools available on the net. These tools allow you to generate a standardised page. They are web pages with a number of applets on each page, which you click to change the text, or graphics as required. It's really that simple. Generally they have hyperlinks already embedded into the homepage, to other pages you want to have. It's simply click and build.. \n\nOne of the best places I've found to build a free web site can be found at http://www.freeservers.com. They give you 20 Meg as long as you don't mind having one of their advertising banners on each of your web pages. \n\nStep by Step instructions to build a fully functional Web Site.. \n\n\n1.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Log onto the net and go to http://www.freeservers.com/ \n2.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Follow the online instructions. (Step 1:) Enter a site name. (I used "~JohnT") \n3.Nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Choose a network address. There are lots of options, such as bizhosting.com or freeservers.com. \n4.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Click "GO". (Step 1 now completed). \n5.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Click continue to go to "Step 2", where you choose option A, 20 Meg free space. (all the other options cost you money). \n6.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Click continue to go to "Step 3" \n7.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; This is where you enter your personal details. (Make sure you remember the username and password, as you will need these in the future to log into your site. \n8.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Press continue. An Activation Code will immediately be sent to you via e-mail. \n9.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; This is a tricky bit. If you are able open your e-mail and read the e-mail sent to you from FreeServers.Com. Write down your activation code or print it out. Now close your e-mail page. (If you are unable to do the above see item 21). \n10.&nbsp;&nbsp; Enter your Activation code number and activate your Web Site. \n11.&nbsp;&nbsp; Congratulations your Web site has now been activated. Read this page carefully. Note: a copy of this page will be e-mailed to you. \n12.&nbsp;&nbsp; Click the "Take me to my Web site" button at the bottom of the page. \n13.&nbsp;&nbsp; If you are a beginner, use the "Quick site builder." Press "continue." \n14.&nbsp;&nbsp; You will now be required to login to your NEW web site. \n15.&nbsp;&mnsp; Choose the type of site you want, Personal or Business site. Press continue. \n16.&nbsp;&nbsp; Choose a layout. They are several options available. \n17.&nbsp;&nbsp; Choose the additional pages you want included. Press continue. \n18.&nbsp;&nbsp; Now you will be able to edit your Web pages. It's probably better if you start by editing your "Home Page" first. Click the "edit" home page. \n19.&nbsp;&nbsp; You can edit any item on the page by clicking on the little red icon. Just change the text to your requirements. Or upload a GIF or JPEG file from your floppy drive to include on your page. \n20.&nbsp;&nbsp; When you are happy with your changes click "Save and close" and log off. \n21.&nbsp;&nbsp; Remember at any time you can return to http://www.freeservers.com and use the members login (on the right-hand side) to edit your Web pages. Go to the "Quick Site Builder". \n22.&nbsp;&nbsp; Don't forget to tell your friends you have a web page at http://--?--?--?--.com\n \nIt's is that simple. If a ten-year can build a page and a 74-year-old member from Senior Net, so can you. Need help to get started gella@paradise.net.nz \n\nHere is a very simple page I produced in 15 minutes from start to finish.\nhttp://JohnT.bizhosting.com/\n\n //(simple web page inserted here)// \n

Do you want free technical assistance with your computer problems, when the Club's Help Desk or others might not be able to provide the answers? \n\nThere is an on-line technical website called Tech Support Guy (http://www.techguy.org) and an associated forum (http://forums.techguy.org/) run by Mike Cermak Jnr. It offers free technical support for a number of computer topics: Software and Hardware; Operating Systems (Windows, Linux, O/S2, ~MacOS etc); Internet and Networking; Discussion (relating to more general topics) and Community (Tips and Tricks etc). Although you do have to register if you wish to participate in discussions (i.e. you are supplied with the usual user name and password, which you use when you visit the forum) it is otherwise free. \n\nIn addition, Mike has reintroduced a newsletter he used to produce but which was discontinued. The first issue of the "new" newsletter became available at the beginning of this month. If you are interested in receiving this monthly newsletter, go to http://www.techguynews.com/ to sign up for it. Mike promises they will be full of tech-related news, tips and tutorials. \n\nDid you know, for instance, that Microsoft recently announced that Windows Vista would not now appear until January 2007 at the earliest?

By: David Risley of HardwareCentral\n\n You start out buying a brand new drive, and it seems so large that there aren't enough programs to fill it up! In a year's time, you'll be trying to find ways to save space. It's a constant war to try to keep your hard drive space available, especially when you surf the 'Net regularly. Even if you don't add any software to the system, your hard drive space slowly dwindles away. Why?\n\n In this section, some light will be shed on this issue, as well as give some tips to save space or recover lost space.\n\n Run SCANDISK regularly, or another better program that does the same thing because SCANDISK certainly isn't the best. Regardless, scan your hard disk for errors often as part of preventive maintenance. This optimizes its operation and recovers lost space being held by lost data.\n\n Defragment your drive at least once a month. You can use DEFRAG! that comes with Windows, or another better third party option. Over time, files can get chopped up and spread all over the drive, causing your drive to have to look all over the place to operate. Defragmenting the drive, thus, increases performance, while recovering lost space.\n\n Organize your files. This doesn't help performance or space, but it sure helps your mental state. Give directories names that make sense when installing them. Store your data files in a directory all their own. Remember, Windows 95 supports long file names. Take advantage of this so that things make sense.\n\n Make sure you are using the FAT32 system if you have Windows 95 OSR2 or · Windows 98.\n If you want, you can repartition your drive to take better advantage of the space available. With a smaller partition, you can use smaller clusters. Therefore, less space is wasted. This is easiest to do when the drive is new.\n If you want to repartition the drive with data on it, you will need a secondary program like · Partition Magic to do it and keep your data intact.\n\n Empty the Recycle Bin. When you delete a file under Windows 95, it doesn't really go away. It goes to the Recycle Bin. If you forget about this, you could have several megabytes of space wrapped up in files you thought were gone.\n\n Disk Compression. It is generally recommended to stay clear of such things, but it is possible to compress your drive and get up to 2 times the amount of space out of it. However, compressing your drive increases the risk of data loss and lessens performance in your system.\n The original version of this article can be found at *http://www.hardwarecentral.com/hardwarecentral/tutorials/76/1/\n*Copyright © 1999 internet.com Corporation. All Rights Reserved. \n

By: David Risley of HardwareCentral\n\n There are a number of ways you can increase the amount of conventional memory available to you. Conventional memory is that first 640 KB of memory which all programs hog for. Since it is in such demand, keeping it optimized and available is important.\n\n Many of these actions involve making changes to the CONFIG.SYS file. Remember, you want to keep a backup of the last CONFIG.SYS that your system last worked correctly with. So, be sure to copy the file to CONFIG.BAK before modification.\n\n Be sure to thin out your AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files under Windows 95. Many times these files call up programs that are simply not needed or not there. These lines can be removed. Better yet, just add REM to the beginning of the line you want to take out. This makes it a "remark" and the computer will not execute that line.\n Here are some things to try if you're not running Windows 95 and not MS-DOS:\n*Use the HIMEM.SYS file. At the top of CONFIG.SYS, add two lines: DEVICE= C:WINDOWSHIMEM.SYS and DOS=HIGH,UMB. This will call up HIMEM.SYS, a program that loads DOS into high memory, or that first 64 KB of memory, that all DOS programs fight over.\n*Use EMM386.SYS. This program enables DOS to load drivers and other automatically loaded programs into the upper memory while conserving conventional memory. To use it, add the following to CONFIG.SYS right after the HIMEM.SYS line: DEVICE= C:WINDOWSEMM386.EXE. There are a couple parameters you should add to this line. To disable expanded memory, which hardly anybody needs, add NOEMS! to disable the EMS buffer. To disable the Monochrome Video Area, add I=B000-B7FF. This disables the monochrome area that is used by the really old DOS programs that were mono chrome. Today, with everything in color, this is just a waste of 32 KB of conventional memory.\n*With HIMEM.SYS and EMM386.SYS working, it gives you the ability to move drivers and programs that would usually reside in conventional memory up to the upper memory. To do this, you simply add HIGH to the lines loading up the drivers. For example, in the CONFIG.SYS file, a driver will be loaded by DEVICE=. To load this driver into upper memory, you call it up by DEVICEHIGH=. In AUTOEXEC.BAT, you can place a program in upper memory by adding LOADHIGH to! the line that runs the program. Most drivers can be moved to upper memory, including CD-ROM, mouse, etc.\n\n Taking this into account, a typical CONFIG.SYS may look something like this:\n**DEVICE=C:WINDOWSHIMEM.SYS\n**DEVICE=C:WINDOWSEMM386.EXE NOEMS\n**I=B000-B7FF\n**DEVICEHIGH={System drivers and paths go here}\n**DOS=HIGH,UMB\n**FILES=100\n**BUFFERS=40\n**BREAK=ON\n**LASTDRIVE=z\n\n*Copyright © 1999 internet.com Corporation. All Rights Reserved. \n

//The May demonstration at the Hutt SIG was of some very nice software called Freesco. //\n\n''What is Freesco, and what does it do? ''\n\nFreesco is a free, single floppy distribution of a router, supporting up to 3 network adapters and 2 modems. Most NZPCA members will use it to allow any computer on a network to access the Internet through one modem and phone line. It will automatically connect - and disconnect - your network system to the Internet as required. In addition Freesco acts as a filtering firewall, making all computers on the network invisible from the Internet itself - unless you choose otherwise. Members concerned about software on their Windows systems initiating unauthorised communication to the Internet should continue to use Zone Alarm as well as Freesco. Freesco has a number of advanced features that are useful (or even amazing) but are not required for basic operation. Freesco can also accept incoming calls to your network, and can be used as a web server. \n\n''Why use it?'' \n\nOne of the requirements that users of home networks have is sharing modems and Internet access.\n\nTo address this issue, ~Windows98SE and Windows2000 have a feature called ICS (Internet Connection Sharing) available; this allows one Windows PC (with a modem connected) to act as a gateway for other ~PCs on a home or small business network. Each PC on the network can use the same shared Internet connection and phoneline as if they were connected as a standalone system.\n\nICS can be difficult to set up, and although quite well suited to the basic task of internet connection sharing, lacks the ability to monitor and control the internet connection from any PC on the network.\n\nThere are other Windows based options available, Sygate and Wingate being among the most commonly used. \n\nLinux can also be configured to provide the same functions as ICS, (as well as firewall functions) but this is a complex procedure, and requires considerable knowledge of both Linux and TCP/IP networking.\n\nFreesco is a quick and effective solution to the problem. It is free, doesn't have significant hardware requirements, and provides many additional features. Easy hoice, really!\n\n''What does Freesco require?'' \n\nFreesco requires a dedicated (but low spec) PC to run on. I have been running Freesco for about six months without any problems on a 386SX33, with 8Mb of ram and no hard drive. This system has uptimes measured in months, and is only rebooted for configuration changes. While memory constraints mean it is necessary to disable some of the services that Freesco can provide, this doesn't impair its ability to act as a modem gateway or firewall.\n\nLast week I upgraded the Freesco system to a 486SX25 system with 16Mb of ram and a small hard drive, with more services enabled. Response times when using the control interfaces are improved, but functional performance is no different to the previous 386 system. \n\nKeyboard and monitor are not required as the router can be controlled or configured by telnet or by web browser from any system on the network - or from anywhere in the world if desired! A supported network adapter and a real modem are required - winmodems will not work with Freesco.\n\n''How hard is it to set up?''\n\nAre you kidding? All software should be this easy to use. It is almost harder to configure the systems you want to connect to the Internet through Freesco, than Freesco itself. The user is guided through a reasonably well explained set up process - although some basic knowledge of your current internet settings is required, and some knowledge of TCP/IP will be an advantage. \n\nYou need to download a file from http://www.freesco.org, write it to a floppy disk using the instructions provided, then use the disk to boot your router system. No operating system or other software is required.\n\nOnce Freesco is set up and working, nothing further needs to be done - the router boots and runs without any intervention, and can be left unattended in some remote corner of the house. ~PCs that are to use the Freesco router as their gateway will need some networking settings changed before they are able to connect to the Internet. Once these settings have been changed , the use of Freesco is invisible - you can browse, view newsgroups, check email and download files exactly as you would when connected directly to a modem. \n\n''What other features does it have?'' \n\nLots - you name it, it has it:\n*Firewalling (and NAT) \n*DNS Server \n*DHCP Server \n*HTTP Server (public webserver and control server) \n*Telnet server (for remote control) \n*Print Server (not one, but two!) \n*Remote Access Server (dial in - up to 2 modems) \n*Time Server \n*~DynDns client \n*Multiple ISP support\nThis is all free, and fits on a single floppy!\n\nAn interesting and recent addition to Freesco is the Dynamic DNS client. This allows you to serve web pages at a fixed web address, even though your ISP assigns you a dynamic IP address. Combine this with an unlimited monthly account (i4free anyone?) and anybody can set up a webserver at home.\n\nVery occasionally my own Freesco webserver is viewable at:\n\nhttp://digitante.dnydns.org \n\nAlthough the above URL looks like it is a US based server,\n \nhttp://www.samspade.org\n\nshows who actually owns the IP address. The actual server is a 486 system hidden under my desk.\n\n''More Information:''\n\nFirst stop is .... http://www.freesco.org\nfor the most recent version; also there, is a very basic manual, backed up by some excellent discussion forums related to Freesco.These forums are getting quite big, it is almost certain that any questions you may have about Freesco will have been answered there. \n\nThe Firewall FAQ:\nhttp://www.faqs.org/faqs/firewalls-faq/ \n\nA Linux Firewall for your Home:\nhttp://www.informit.com/matter/art0000004/ \n\nNetcop:\nhttp://www.netcop.com/ \n\nDynamic DNS:\nhttp://www.dyndns.org/ \n

A softer breed of hardware promises faster mobile computing and longer battery life.\n\nThe man who wrote Linux, the upstart rival to Microsoft's Windows operating system, now believes he's ready to take on Intel -- with a new low-power microprocessor that is claimed to extend the battery life of laptops and palmtops. Linus Torvalds says that his company's new Crusoe processor is just as fast as its rivals, only smaller and cheaper to make because it has shed many thousands of transistors. Transmeta, a company in Santa Clara, California, where Torvalds is a senior software engineer, launched its Intel-compatible processor last week after months of speculation fuelled by sketchy clues hidden on the firm's website. \n\nTransmeta has the backing of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and financier George Soros -- both billionaires. The company believes the new chip will also run a future breed of "web-pad" -- a device the size of a laptop screen that will let you surf the Net. Crusoe drains less power from its battery because it has fewer transistors.\n\nThis is because Transmeta believes that many hardware processing functionscan be performed in software, without any loss in speed. So Crusoe is a simplified processor that offloads many operations to clever software.\n\nThis idea is the heart of Reduced Instruction Set Coming chips -- found in everything from mobiles to palmtops. But unlike Crusoe, these devices cannot run most PC software. Torvalds claims to have solved this problem with translation software dubbed a "code morpher". Each time a PC program issues an Intel-compatible instruction, the code-morphing software translates it into one the simplified Crusoe processor can understand. They say it will work on any operating system. "I haven't seen anything as exciting as Crusoe on a technology level," says Torvalds.\n\nCrusoe also incorporates a new technology called ~LongRun that's designed to maximise battery life. Intel recently announced its own battery saving technology. Conventional chips save power by changing their "duty cycle" -- how long they are switched on between instructions. But Crusoe is said to constantly check the applications it is running to see if they need less speed and saves power by throttling the chip back accordingly. "That's the technological accomplishment that I find most significant," says Joe Byrne, an analyst with the Gartner Group in Stamford, Connecticut. \n\n"That looks really new and the benefits are clear," he told New Scientist. \n\nA 400-megahertz Crusoe designed for webpacks is available now, and a 700 megahertz version for laptops -- made by IBM -- will be available in the summer. California-based Diamond Multi-media, maker of the Rio ~MP3 Internet music player, says it will be adopting the Crusoe processor in a future Linux-based webpad. \n\n''Intel releases battery-saver.''\n\nIntel has no intention of taking threats to its domination lying down. As Transmeta launched Crusoe, Intel released a version of the Pentium processor designed to extend the battery-life of faster laptops. The ~SpeedStep Pentium chip plays some clever technical tricks to save on battery power. \n\nLaptops often make batteries last longer by using processors that run slower than those in desktop ~PCs. But ~SpeedStep will run desktop speeds of 650 megahertz when plugged into the mains, then slow down to 500 megahertz when switched to a battery. This reduces its power consumption from 14.4 watts to 7.9 watts. \n\nConsumers will pay a high price for this innovation: many computer makers -- including IBM and NEC -- will sell ~SpeedStep-based laptops for around £3000. Intel's Northern Europe director, David Hazell, insists the new chip is worth the extra money: "You can watch a full-length movie onthe move," he says, demonstrating a ~SpeedStep laptop playing The Matrix on DVD.\n\nBut New Scientist has discovered that ~SpeedStep's savings are small compared to the power consumption of a laptop's DVD drive -- so users may still not be able to watch a whole movie on one set of batteries. The highest capacity lithium ion batteries for laptops can deliver around 20 watts for three hours if the screen is dimmed and you don't use the hard disc too much.\n \nBut if the PC has a DVD drive, it consumes an additional 10 watts and must run continuously while playing a movie. Many feature films run for over 2 hours. The Matrix runs for 131 minutes. So how did Intel get a laptop to play the whole movie on the move? "I haven't actually tried it," Hazell says. "You would need a spare set of batteries.": //-- Barry Fox//\n

''Extracts from the Zone Alarm log.''\n\nA small tale to scare you. On the 26-9-2000, as I was attempting to set up an Internet bank account, I was constantly interrupted by Zone Alarm telling me that someone wanted to send from my computer. On checking the log, I found over 50 attempts in a period of 22 minutes had been made. Have attached part of the log. If anyone recognizes the Destination address or can explain what the Source addresses are, please let me know. Considering that I was in the process of setting up a bank account I was very glad I had Zone Alarm running. Who knows what information may have got out?\n\nArthur Harris\narthurh@paradise.net.nz\n{{{\n Source Destination Transport Source Destination Transport\n150.216.104.207:0, 203.96.147.179:0, ICMP 64.40.78.103:0, 203.96.147.179:0, ICMP \n150.134.004.127:0, 203.96.147.179:0, ICMP 203.96.143.33:0, 203.96.147.179:0, ICMP\n203.167.26.87:0, 203.96.147.179:0, ICMP 206.11.252.121:0, 203.96.147.179:0, ICMP\n64.124.41.216:8888, 203.96.147.179:1161, TCP 128.252.249.166:0, 203.96.147.179:0, ICMP\n128.143.232.186:0, 203.96.147.179:0, ICMP 24.162.207.66:0, 203.96.147.179:0, ICMP\n203.45.138.251:6688, 203.96.147.179:1265, TCP 64.124.41.216:8888, 203.96.147.179:1161, TCP\n24.162.207.66:0, 203.96.147.179:0, ICMP 63.226.16.48:0, 203.96.147.179:0, ICMP\n63.227.59.229:0, 203.96.147.179:0, ICMP 172.141.181.80:0, 203.96.147.179:0, ICMP\n207.91.21.14:0, 203.96.147.179:0, ICMP 63.228.194.54:0, 203.96.147.179:0, ICMP\n207.174.108.178:0, 203.96.147.179:0, ICMP 193.85.153.201:0, 203.96.147.179:0, ICMP\n144.132.152.229:0, 203.96.147.179:0, ICMP 24.177.46.220:0, 203.96.147.179:0, ICMP\n203.134.158.89:0, 203.96.147.179:0, ICMP 172.161.191.198:0, 203.96.147.179:0, ICMP\n158.65.213.126:0, 203.96.147.179:0, ICMP 172.156.200.110:0, 203.96.147.179:0, ICMP\n150.216.78.131:0, 203.96.147.179:0, ICMP 148.235.145.29:0, 203.96.147.179:0, ICMP\n203.147.166.149:0, 203.96.147.179:0, ICMP 24.189.243.105:0, 203.96.147.179:0, ICMP\n24.12.55.209:0, 203.96.147.179:0, ICMP 198.142.248.187:0, 203.96.147.179:0, ICMP\n196.42.44.240:0, 203.96.147.179:0, ICMP 64.124.41.216:8888, 203.96.147.179:1161, TCP \n194.16.210.239:0, 203.96.147.179:0, ICMP 24.162.207.66:0, 203.96.147.179:0, ICMP \n64.124.41.216:8888, 203.96.147.179:1161, TCP 198.142.43.116:0, 203.96.147.179:0, ICMP \n24.70.195.69:0, 203.96.147.179:0, ICMP 203.37.143.149:0, 203.96.147.179:0, ICMP \n203.167.201.209:0, 203.96.147.179:0, ICMP 24.12.130.173:0, 203.96.147.179:0, ICMP \n166.102.89.52:0, 203.96.147.179:0, ICMP 24.188.244.94:0, 203.96.147.179:0, ICMP \n161.142.116.227:0, 203.96.147.179:0, ICMP 24.113.185.70:0, 203.96.147.179:0, ICMP\n212.49.236.62:0, 203.96.147.179:0, ICMP 172.142.30.44:0, 203.96.147.179:0, ICMP\n210.55.38.234:0, 203.96.147.179:0, ICMP 202.166.66.241:0, 203.96.147.179:0, ICMP\n}}}\n\n

//Editor - The start of another year and another Megabyte to go out. This one being No: 151. Looking back I found this little piece in one of our previous editions April 1993. No: 66//\n \n ''The User's Lament''\n\n When there seems to be nothing happening\n And your programs becoming a pain\n When the light from a million pixels\n is boring a hole in your brain\n When you can't see the trees for the forest\n And there's nothing to do but give in,\n Find something new!\n Its the best thing for you\n ... At the risk of our life and your limb!\n \n \n Consider the sport of skydiving,\n Or desending way into the deep.\n Why not get drastic, try the elastic!\n Its said to be terribly cheap.\n Perhaps you'd prefer training tigers.\n Then again you could find it a trial\n I'm told that their humor\n If one trusts a rumor\n Is nowhere as sweet as their smile.\n \n \n So I guess when the odds are all given\n Pros and cons taken into account\n A computer is safer,\n So cry "Hip Hooray!" for\n A 484DX IBM computer with a 400 Megabyte hard disk\n and 16 megabytes of RAM running OS/2 (version 2, of course). \n \n //Grace Stanners//\n \n \n\n You were lucky, I nearly selected the full description of this new and wonderfull operating system called DOS Ver 6. Keep the articles coming or I will print it in a future edition.\n \n'' A Microsoft joke for you.'' \n\n A Microsoft Windows programmer was driving his new Lexus through downtown Redmond. He had two passengers in the car. One was an electrical engineer and the other a chemical engineer.\n \nAll of a sudden the car stopped dead in its tracks.\n \nThe electrical engineer jumped out, saying, "It must be an ignition problem. Open the hood and I will fix it."\n \nThe chemical engineer also jumped out, saying, "It probably has something to do with the fuel line, I will fix it."\n \nAs the two engineers looked under the hood, all of a sudden the engine-started running, and from behind the wheel, the Windows programmer yelled, "Its OK, I fixed it."\n \nWhen they got back in the car, they asked him what he did.\n \n"Simple" he said, "I just closed all the windows and then opened them."\n \n \n // The Question: Why not use a Linux Programmer for this joke ?\n Answer: Sorry, but there are no Linux Drivers available for this joke.//

''Vista to use USB flash drive for memory''\nBy Gregg Keizer, - ~TechWeb - 16 September 2005 14:30 AEST - Networking \n\nWindows Vista will let users add more memory by plugging in ~USB-based flash drives, a Microsoft executive said this week at the company's Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles.\n\nJim Alchin, a group vice president for Windows, said that the flash drive option would be accessed by the new Superfetch technology, which was designed to speed up application start-up times.\n\nSuperfetch would monitor the system, then pre-load .dll files of the most-used applications during the OS boot process. When the user actually launches the application, it loads considerably faster, since some of it is already in memory.\n\n"Superfetch works great if you have a reasonable amount of memory, and it works fantastic if you have boatloads of memory," Alchin said at PDC.\n\nTo that end, Superfetch would be able to call on memory it finds in connected flash drives, the gum-sized USB devices designed to store files for easy transport between ~PCs.\n\nSuperfetch would add the flash memory it finds in the USB drive to Vista's virtual memory, said Alchin. That virtual memory in turn is used to hold the pre-loaded.dll files.\n\nData stored in the drive's flash memory would be encrypted, said Alchin, and removing the drive while the OS is running would not destabilise Vista.\n\nWindows Vista, while in its first round of beta testing, was not expected to debut until late 2006. The Superfetch technology is included in beta 1, but the USB option would not appear until a later version of the preview OS. \n\nCopyright (c) 2005 CMP Media LLC\n{{{\nNote:\nWindows VISTA is the new name for “Longhorn” - the next version of Windows. \nIn October Chris Johnson from Microsoft will introduce members at out Wellington and Hutt\n meetings to this next major upgrade to the Windows OS\n}}}\n

The new Communications sig had its first meeting at the Betty Campbell Centre on the 25th May 1993.\n\n 17 eager people arrived all with similar expectations, the main one, to learn more about the somewhat mysterious modem. Everyone talked a bit about their background and the group has a wonderful cross section of expertise and interests.\n\n A lot of points were discussed and there will be plenty of areas within the communications field to be covered. One of the excellent ideas to emerge was the creation of an NZPCA communications handbook - (yet to be named) - containing information the group collects and decides is appropriate. This sig leader wants to persue the idea at each meeting.\n\n As yet the group hasn't created any format for the meetings and this may have to evolve as the group grows, which I am sure it will.\n\n At present all those who attended have modems BUT there is going to be plenty on offer for those of you who dont as yet have one and our next meeting will be essentially aimed at getting started. It will cover hardware (Cables, phone connections, serial ports etc) the physical modem, with examples of 14.4 bps external, 2400 internal and the type offered for sale by the Association.\n Then we going to have a bit of a beginers guide to Fido Net and then time permitting diagnostic software.\n\n I would like to see Comm SIG Synopsis a regular feature of Megabyte as this will raise the group profile within the association.\n Ian Godfrey.

By Robin Hinde\n\n Did you know you can surf the Web with a 286? With graphics? It isn't fast or enjoyable, but it can be done. In fact, I've been finding lots of uses for this 286 recently - and it is networking that has made the difference.\n\n ''Background:''\n I was given an old 286 laptop some time ago, and been wondering what possible use it could be. The most likely use for it seemed to be as a terminal for a Linux PC, connected by the serial port; however, as it turns out there is a far better and much more versatile alternative.\n\n The laptop is a Panasonic Notebook 270; 286 processor, 1MB ram, 1.44MB floppy, 20MB hdd, monochrome vga LCD. This was considered state of the art in its day - it has an excellent display and keyboard - but it is of limited use now. I had to tidy it up a bit (remove leaking Nicad cells and repair a power cable) but it is really as good as it was when new.\n\n I had to copy the essential laptop configuration utilities from the hard drive, as well as download a generic BIOS setup utility from the Phoenix website. Documentation and software for old PCs like this can be very hard to find, I was fortunate that most of the necessary software was still on the hard drive.\n\n There are several choices of operating system (all free) that run on this laptop - it came with MSDOS 4.0; Minix (a form of Unix) runs on this laptop; and FreeDOS is open source, MSDOS3.3 compatible and Y2K compliant. A quick browse of the Net reveals that DOS is very much alive, with several commercial and free versions available.\n\n I eventually decided to install DR-DOS (7.03 lite) and I'm very impressed with it. It is Y2K compliant and free for non-commercial use, and has lots of features that are missing from MSDOS.\n\n Installing and running DOS really is a breath of fresh air, compared to today's huge and complex operating systems. No dlls, no registry - just a half dozen or so files and you are up and running. Even the two configuration files are not essential, and the system only takes a couple of seconds to boot.\n\n The most important feature, network connectivity, is provided by a parallel port ethernet adapter (Xircom PE3); this makes the laptop far more useful than it would be as a stand alone system. There are probably other networking options using just the bare parallel port or the serial port.\n\n ''Applications and software:''\n I'm a longtime fan of Quikmenu, which is a superb graphical DOS interface for file management and other tasks. Running Windows is not an option, but GEM (originally from Digital Research) is now freely available and runs on top of DOS, and runs just fine on this system.\n\n The DOS web browser I have installed is Arachne, again free for personal use, although this really runs too slowly on this system for enjoyable browsing. Arachne is a graphical browser capable of running on even lower spec systems than my 286. The network connection allows for an interesting alternative, though.\n\n I have found (to my surprise) that the most useful application I run on the laptop is a very small program called PCtelnet - it is the most competent telnet implementation for DOS that I have seen. It is easy to set up, and allows running multiple telnet sessions concurrently (up to around 20 or so, depending on memory) with the ability to cut and paste between sessions. This is public domain software from NCSA (the US National Centre for Supercomputing Applications - the people who brought you Mosaic) and although a little old, it works really well.\n\n The implications of having networking and a good telnet client are quite profound; this means I can use the laptop as a terminal to any other PC on my network which have a telnet server running. Effectively the laptop appears to be as powerful as my dual processor Linux system, although limited to running console or command line applications. I can use the 286 to monitor and configure the PCs on my network which run without keyboards or monitors attached (I have two of these). The ability to have many telnet sessions running concurrently to different PCs gives excellent flexibility.\n\n ''So what can it do?''\n While sitting at the 286 laptop, using PCtelnet:\n I can write an article for Megabyte. This article was entirely written using pico, a text editor, which is actually running on a PC at the other end of the house.\n\n That same PC is also playing MP3s and CDs, which are output to a small FM transmitter. I can listen to the output using a receiver and the stereo in the same room as the laptop. Using the laptop I can remote control audio using mp3blaster (to play mp3s), cda (to control a SCSI CD changer), wavplay (to play .wav files) and nmixer (a sound mixer control application). All of these are commandline applications that can also be used interactively from a console, except for wavplay which is non-interactive. In addition, these applications will accept control from more than one terminal, and do not require a persistent connection.\n\n I can burn CDs; record wav files and convert to mp3; read manpages and HowTos; in fact I can do anything I would normally do in an xterminal or console at any of the Linux PCs.\n\n I can use telnet or lynx to check the status of the Internet gateway/firewall (which is running on a dedicated PC).\n\n I can use lynx to browse the Web in text mode. This is extremely fast but navigation can be difficult as many sites have been developed with no thought given to text mode browsing. Lynx requires at least a 386 to run (so I cannot run it directly on the 286 - I have it running on a Pentium Pro), but using telnet allows it to appear as if the 286 is running it; it is almost impossible to tell that it is not.\n\n ''Conclusion:''\n I've been very surprised at just how useful the combination of a 286 laptop, DOS, networking and Linux has turned out to be. It is a lot of fun, useful and very cheap - the total cost was $0.00. It is a useful way of recycling an old PC.\n\n''Links:''\n{{{\n DR-DOS: http://www.drdos.org/\n FreeDOS: http://www.freedos.org/\n Quikmenu: http://www.neosoftware.com/qm.html\n GEM: http://www.owenrudge.co.uk/GEM/\n Phoenix BIOS: http://www.firmware.com/support/oldbios/index.htm\n Using PalmPilot as a terminal: http://www.itworld.com/Comp/2384/LWD010511penguin2/\n Arachne: http://www.arachne.cz/\n PCTelnet: http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Software/PCTelnet/\n Lynx: http://www.trill-home.com/lynx.html\n PINE: http://www.washington.edu/pine/\n cdrecord: http://www.fokus.gmd.de/ research/cc/glone/employees/joerg.schilling/private/cdrecord.html\n cda: http://sunsite.unc.edu/~cddb/xmcd/\n pico: http://www.indiana.edu/~ucspubs/b103/\n wavplay: http://www.hitsquad.com/smm/programs/WavPlay/\n nmixer: http://www.stack.nl/~brama/projects/nmixer/\n FM stereo transmitter kitset: http://marketplace.xtra.co.nz/ cgi-bin/dse.storefront/1324206351/Product/View/K5004\n}}}\n

''SNAPPY ANSWER #3''\nThe cop got out of his car and the kid who was stopped for speeding rolled down his window. "I've been waiting for you all day," the cop said. The kid replied, "Yeah, well I got here as fast as I could." When the cop finally stopped laughing, he sent the kid on his way without a ticket. \n\n''HOW TO STOP PEOPLE FROM BUGGING YOU ABOUT GETTING MARRIED.''\n Old aunts used to come up to me at weddings, poking me in the ribs and cackling, telling me, "You're next." They stopped after I started doing the same thing to them at funerals

\n''AMISH''\nAn Amish boy and his father were in a mall. They were amazed by almost everything they saw, but especially by two shiny, silver walls that could move apart and then slide back together again. The boy asked, "What is this Father?"\nThe father (never having seen an elevator) responded, "Son, I have never seen anything like this in my life, I don't know what it is."\nWhile the boy and his father were watching with amazement, a fat old lady in a wheel chair moved up to the moving walls and pressed a button.\nThe walls opened and the lady rolled between them into a small room. The walls closed and the boy and his father watched the small circular numbers above the walls light up sequentially. They continued to watch until it reached the last number and then the numbers began to light in the reverse order. Finally the walls opened up again and a gorgeous 24 year old blonde stepped out. The father, not taking his eyes off the young woman, said quietly to his son.......\n"Go get your mother."\n\n

The Pastor's Cat \n \n Dwight Nelson recently told a true story about the pastor of his church. He had a kitten that climbed up a tree in his backyard and then was afraid to come down. The pastor coaxed, offered warm milk, etc. The kitty would not come down. The tree was not sturdy enough to climb, so the pastor decided that if he tied a rope to his car and drove away so that the tree bent down, he could then reach up and get the kitten. \n \nHe did! All the while, checking his progress in the car frequently, he then figured if he went just a little bit further, the tree would be bent sufficiently for him to reach the kitten. But as he moved a little further forward, the rope broke. The tree went boing!" and the kitten instantly sailed through the air-out of sight. \n \nThe pastor felt terrible. He walked all over the neighborhood asking people if they'd seen a little kitten. No. Nobody had seen a stray kitten. So he prayed, "Lord, I just commit this kitten to your keeping," and went on about his business. \n \nA few days later he was at the grocery store, and met one of his church members that lived behind him. He happened to look into her shopping cart and was amazed to see cat food. This woman was a cat hater and everyone knew it, so he asked her, "Why are you buying cat food when you hate cats so much?" \n \nShe replied, "You won't believe this," and told him how her little girl had been begging her for a cat, but she kept refusing. Then a few days before, the child had begged again, so the Mom finally told her little girl, "Well, if God gives you a cat, I'll let you keep it." \n \n She told the pastor, "I watched my child go out in the yard, get on her knees, and ask God for a cat. And really, Pastor, you won't believe this, but I saw it with my own eyes. A kitten suddenly came flying out of the blue sky, with its paws out spread, and landed right in front of her." \n \nNever underestimate the Power of God and His unique sense of humor\n

Subject Mr President\n\nAfter numerous rounds of "We don't even know if Osama is still alive",\nOsama himself decided to send George Bush a message in his own handwriting to let him know that he was still in the game.\n\n 370HSSV-0773H\n\nBush was baffled, so he typed it out and e-mailed it to Colin Powell.\n\nColin and his aides had no clue either so they sent it to the CIA. No one could solve it, so it went to the NSA and then to MIT and NASA and the\nSecret Service. Eventually, they asked Britain's MI6 for help.\n\nThey cabled the White House....\n"Tell the President he is looking at the message upside down."\n

''Here is some information for you.''\n\n''Doctors:''\n(A) The number of physicians in the United States is 700,000.\n(B) Accidental deaths caused by physicians per year are 120,000.\n(C) Accidental deaths per physician amount to 0.171.\n(Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.)\n\nNow think about this:\n''Guns:''\n(A) The number of gun owners in the United States is 80 million.\n(B) The number of accidental gun deaths per year, all age groups, is 1,500.\n(C) The number of accidental deaths per gun owner is .000188.\n(Source: the FBI)\n\nStatistically, doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than gun owners.\nRemember, "Guns don't kill people, doctors do."\n\nFACT: NOT EVERYONE HAS A GUN, BUT ALMOST EVERYONE HAS AT LEAST ONE DOCTOR.\n\nPlease alert your friends to this alarming threat. We must ban doctors before this gets completely out of hand!!!!! Out of concern for the public at large, I have withheld the statistics on lawyers for fear the shock would cause people to panic and seek medical attention.\n\n----\n\n''Why Computers Crash''\nYou gotta read this out LOUD!!!!!\n\n''Why Computers Sometimes Crash! by Dr. Seuss.''\n (Read this to yourself aloud - it's great!) \n\nIf a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port, and the bus is interrupted at a very last resort, and the access of the memory makes your floppy disk abort, then the socket packet pocket has an error to report.\n \nIf your cursor finds a menu item followed by a dash, and the double-clicking icon puts your window in the trash, and your data is corrupted cause the index doesn't hash, then your situation's hopeless and your system's gonna crash! \n\nIf the label on the cable on the table at your house, says the network is connected to the button on your mouse, but your packets want to tunnel to another protocol, that's repeatedly rejected by the printer down the hall.\n \nAnd your screen is all distorted by the side effects of gauss, so your icons in the window are as wavy as a souse; then you may as well reboot and go out with a bang, 'cuz sure as I'm a poet, the sucker's gonna hang. \n\nWhen the copy on your floppy's getting sloppy in the disk, and the macro code instructions is causing unnecessary risk, then you'll have to flash the memory and you'll want to RAM your ROM, and then quickly turn off the computer and be sure to tell your Mom!\n \nWell, that certainly clears things up for me. How about you?\n \nThank you, Bill Gates, for bringing all this into our lives! \n\n----\n\n''Subject: E-Mail Errors''\n\nA lesson to be learned from one typing the wrong email address!\n\nA Minneapolis couple decided to go to Florida to thaw out during a particularly icy winter. They planned to stay at the same hotel where they spent their honeymoon 20 years earlier. Because of hectic schedules, it was difficult to coordinate their travel schedules. So, the husband left Minnesota and flew to Florida on Thursday, with his wife flying down the following day. The husband checked into the hotel. There was a computer in his room, so he decided to send an email to his wife. However, he accidentally left out one letter in her email address, and without realizing his error, sent the email. Meanwhile, somewhere in Houston, a widow had just returned home from her husband's funeral. He was a minister who was called home to glory following a heart attack. The widow decided to check her email expecting messages from relatives and friends. After reading the first message, she screamed and fainted. The widow's son rushed into the room, found his mother on the floor, and saw the computer screen which read:\n\nTo: My Loving Wife\nSubject: I've Arrived\nDate: October 16, 2004\n\nI know you're surprised to hear from me. They have computers here now and you are allowed to send emails to your loved ones. I've just arrived and have been checked in. I see that everything has been prepared for your arrival tomorrow. Looking forward to seeing you then! Hope your journey as uneventful as mine was. P.S. Sure is freaking hot down here!\n\n

From the World Wide Wait\n\n Since St Patrick's Day occurs this month, someone thought it appropriate to publish this little bit of Irish wisdom.\n\n ''Murphy's Laws of Computing''\n 1. When computing, whatever happens, behave as though you meant it to happen.\n 2. When you get to the point where you really understand your computer, it's probably obsolete.\n 3. The first place to look for information is in the section of the manual where you least expect to find it.\n 4. When the going gets tough, upgrade.\n 5. For every action, there is an equal and opposite malfunction.\n 6. To err is human. To blame your computer for your mistakes is even more human, it is downright natural.\n 7. He who laughs last probably made a back-up.\n 8. If at first you do not succeed, blame your computer.\n 9. A complex system that does not work is invariably found to have evolved from a simpler system that worked perfectly.\n 10. The number one cause of computer problems is computer solutions\n\n ''BREAKING NEWS...''\n At New York's Kennedy airport today, an individual later discovered to be a public school teacher was arrested trying to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a set square, a slide rule, and a calculator. At a morning press conference, Attorney general John Ashcroft said he believes the man is a member of the notorious al-gebra movement. He is being charged by the FBI with carrying weapons of math instruction.\n

\nJohn Little enlightens us with helpful details regarding an aspect of many genealogy programs which appears to be inadequately understood by some genealogists. John was assisted with this article by John Hand who conducts a weekly genealogical computing class at St. Patrick’s College. John Little is a member of this class.\n\n__''SHARING FAMILY TREE INFORMATION''__\n'': HOW TO EXPORT AND IMPORT INFORMATION USING GEDCOM FILES''\nThese brief notesare have been written primarily for users of the Personal Ancestral File family tree program, version 5.2 (~PAF5.exe). This is one of the most popular freeware programs used by genealogists. It is a product of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS).\n\n__''G E D C O M stands for ~GEnealogical Data ~COMmunications''__\n(The latest version is 5.5)\n\n__''Introduction to File System''__\nThe main types of files created and used by PAF are as follows:\n*''PAF File:'' When you type family information into PAF it is saved into a file which has an assigned name that ends with .paf – for example Farren.paf\n*''GEDCOM:'' When you export this information, it is saved into a file in the GEDCOM file format. Gedcom files end in .ged – for example Farren.ged\n*''Listing:'' When you import a Gedcom file into any other family tree file, unrecognised information, error messages, and import statistics are reported into a listing file. A listing file takes the name of the Gedcom file and adds .lst to the end – for example Farren.lst\n*''Reports:'' If you save any report to a file it is saved in Rich Text Format. These file names end with .rtf\n*''Multimedia:'' PAF accepts several types of picture, sound and video files. (Multimedia is outside the scope of these notes.)\n*''Character Set:'' ~PAF5 stores information using a Unicode-based character set known as ~UTF-8. Note that other common genealogy programs may use different character sets and different versions of Gedcom.\n\n__''What is GEDCOM?''__\nGedcom Gedcom is a special file format developed for exporting and importing family trees files. Most genealogy software will read a Gedcom thesefiles. Importing and exporting Gedcom files is usually the best way to receive and/or to send your genealogical information.\n\n__''EXPORTING A FILE FROM ~PAF5''__\nWhen you export, you create a special version of your information in a file in Gedcom format. All exportings follows these basic steps:\n\n1. From the File menu, select Export…\n2. Select the type of export based on who you are sending the file to. This type may be PAF5, an earlier version of PAF, or certain other genealogy programs.\n3. Select the options you want. (vVery often the default settings in PAF are quite suitable.)\n4. Select either All or Partial (some) of the individuals to include in the Gedcom file.\n5. Click Export…\n6. Select the drive and folder where you want to save the file, type a name for the file, and then click Export\n\n''Export Options''\n~PAF5 provides several additional optional things items which you can include in your file, such as notes, sources of information, photographs, and multimedia. (These are not covered in detail here.)\n\n__''CREATING A GEDCOM FILE''__\nTo send a Gedcom file to someone who does not have PAF:\n#Select Other Gedcomedcom 5.5\n# Select the character set:\n##~UTF-8 : This option is currently used by ~PAF5.\n##Unicode : This is a general option. Use this only if the receiver asks for it.\n##ANSEL : Use this option to send a file to an earlier version of PAF or other genealogy program that is not Unicode based.\n# Click the include Tick the options you wantwish to Include\n# In the Selected Individuals box choose All or Partial. If you select Partial, click Select, and then select the individuals you want to include. Click OK to return to the Export window\n# Click Export…\n# In the Export Gedcom File As window Sselect the drive and folder where you want to save your Gedcom file, type a name for the file, and click Export\n# When you are notified of how many names the number of individuals and marriages were included exported, click OK. \n# Your Gedcom file has been created. Here is an example which has been exported from a PAF file named Farren.paf.\n# In the Gedcom file each entry begins with a single-digit Level Number (Posn 1), then a 3- or 4-letter Gedcom Tag (Posn 3) followed by the Personal Data (Posn 7 or 8) exported from the PAF file. A Level Number of 0 signifies the beginning of a set of data pertaining to a unique individual. Curiously the above Gedcom data looks absolutely nothing like a readable family tree.\n#. Above is a printed chart of the Descendants of John BROWN. It shows his four grandchildren (generation 3) plus the spouse of each of three of these grandchildren. For MegaByte space reasons these seven individuals are not included in the Gedcom file. No prizes for spotting all the Yankee errors contained in the chart of Descendants.\n\n{{{\n0 HEAD\n1 SOUR PAF\n2 NAME Personal Ancestral File\n2 VERS 5.2.18.0\n2 CORP The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints\n3 ADDR 50 East North Temple Street\n4 CONT Salt Lake City, UT 84150\n4 CONT USA\n1 DEST PAF\n1 DATE 10 Jul 2005\n2 TIME 16:31:14\n1 FILE Farren.ged\n1 GEDC\n2 VERS 5.5\n2 FORM LINEAGE-LINKED\n1 CHAR UTF-8\n1 LANG English\n1 SUBM @SUB1@\n0 @SUB1@ SUBM\n1 NAME D. E. Farren\n1 ADDR \n2 CONT \n0 @I72@ INDI\n1 NAME Henry /Mc Faul/\n2 SURN Mc Faul\n2 GIVN Henry\n1 SEX M\n1 BIRT\n2 DATE ABT 1790\n2 PLAC Douglastown, Ahagill, Antrim, Ireland\n1 DEAT\n2 DATE ABT 1861\n2 PLAC Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania\n}}}\nAnd so on nd so on\n{{{\n1 _UID 8E51FB604C44454FB03E58F5C5A2B141F2D6\n1 HUSB @I72@\n1 WIFE @I76@\n1 MARR\n2 DATE 15 May 1812\n2 PLAC Belfast, Antrim, Ireland\n0 @F29@ FAM\n1 _UID C060061BE0F5CA46B8361E78DF7DE33F28F2\n1 HUSB @I80@\n1 WIFE @I84@\n1 CHIL @I76@\n0 TRLR\n}}}\n__''Descendants of John BROWN - 80.''__\n Page 1. - 10 Jul 2005\n*1. John BROWN - 80\n** sp: Ann WHITE - 84\n** 2. Mary BROWN - 76 (b.1800-Ireland)\n*** sp: Henry MC FAUL - 72 (b.Abt 1790-Douglastown,Ahagill,A,Ireland;m.15 May 1812;d.Abt 1861-P,P,Pennsylvania)\n**3. John MC FAUL - 73 (b.Abt 1820-,Mobile,Mobile,Alabama;d.22 Mar 1911-,Philadelphia,Philadelphia,Pennslvania)\n*** sp: Kate - 77 (b.Abt 1823-Philadelphia,Pennslvania;m.Abt 1841)\n**3. Mary Anne MC FAUL - 74 (b.Abt 1828-Mobil,Mobil,Alabama;d.04 Apr 1882-Philadelphia,P,Pennslvania)\n*** sp: William H. FAGEN Honable-78 (b.Abt 1820-,M,Philadelphia,Pennsylvania;m.27 Feb 1852;d.17 Jan 1875-)\n**3. Sarah MC FAUL - 75 (b.Abt 1837-Philadelphia,Philadelphia,Pennsylvania)\n**3. Catherine MC FAUL - 17 (b.Feb 1839-Philadelphia,P,Pennsyvania;b.01 Sep 1927-NCC,P,P,Pennsyvania)\n***sp: Hugh J. FARREN - 16 (b.21 Apr 1833-,New York;m.20 Dec 1856;d.27 May 1887-,P,P,Pennslvania)\n\n__''IMPORTING A GEDCOM FILE''__\nWhen importing a Gedcom file you should import it into a new, empty family tree file to enable you to view and check the information before adding it to your own data.\nIt is advisable to view a Gedcom file by itself before adding it to your PAF file. If the file has errors, it is easier to correct them before adding the file to your data. (If you make amendments it is a good practise to inform the originator.)\nAfter you have imported a Gedcom file into a PAF file you then have an option to use Match/Merge to identify and to eliminate any duplicate records.\n\n''Importing into an Empty Family Tree File''\nIt is usual to import a Gedcom file into a new, empty PAF file. After you have viewed it and corrected any errors you can then export it as to a new Gedcom file and then import this new file it into your own PAF file.\n\nThe steps to import a Gedcom file into an empty PAF file are:\n1. From the File menu select New…\n2. Select the drive and folder where you want to save the file, type a name for the new file, and click Save\n3. From the File menu select Import…\n4. Locate the Gedcom file, select it, and click Import\n5. Choose the import options you want, and click OK\n6. The program displays import statistics in Windows Notepad. You can print this report.\n7. At the prompt asking if you want to see instructions, click Yes or No\n\n''Importing into Your Own File''\nTo import a Gedcom file into your own PAF file:\n1. From the File menu, select Import…\n2. Locate the Gedcom file, select it, and click Import\n3. Choose the import options you want, and click OK\n4. The program displays import statistics in Notepad. You can print this report\n5. At the prompt asking if you would like to view instructions, click Yes or No\n6. Study the Gedcom Import Log\n\n__''Conclusion – Points to Remember''__\nBefore importing a Gedcom file, create a new, empty PAF file so you can view the file before adding it to your records.\nWhen you send a Gedcom file to someone who does not have PAF, you may need to know the version of Gedcom and the character set used by their the person’s genealogy program.\n\n''Acknowledgment''\nMuch of these notes have been derived from the website www.familysearch.org/\nThe web address www.familysearch.org/paf/lessons/paf5.html contains detailed tutorials relating to Personal Ancestral File.\n\n\n\n\n

We now have the tools to test any race or betting method, and it won't cost any money. The first screen is the Race Template called Racetemp. ext, and is a stored as a template on your computer as Racetemp.ext. This Template is changed to the 2nd Screen and saved as the race meeting, such as Ric20_3.ext, which is Riccarton 20-3 to find the race you want.\n\n|!|!A|!B|!C|!D|!E|!F|!G|!H|!I|!J|!K|\n|!1|Cour | &nbsp;&nbsp;H&nbsp;&nbsp; | &nbsp;&nbsp;W&nbsp;&nbsp; | &nbsp;&nbsp;PL&nbsp;&nbsp; | &nbsp;&nbsp;Qi&nbsp;&nbsp; | &nbsp;&nbsp;Tri&nbsp;&nbsp; | &nbsp;Tot Inv&nbsp; | &nbsp;Pla Ret&nbsp; | Qin Ret | Loss | Profit |\n|!2|Name |||||||||||\n|!3|Track|||||||||||\n|!4|Date |||||||||||\n|!5|W Re ||||||||Tri Ret |||\n|!6|$Bets |||||||||||\n|!7|Race |||||||||||\n|!8|Dist |||||||||||\n|!9|Class |||||||||||\n|!10||||||||||||\n|!11||||||||||||\n|!12|**** |** |** |** |** |**** |***** |***** |****** |**** |**** |\n \nThe above is your racetemp.ext, and will test any race. When it is loaded into your spreadsheet, you change it as shown below and Save As the race meeting, such as Ric20/3. The number of races you have determined, so there are that many copies required. Block out the spreadsheet, and copy it from the Edit drop down Menu. Place the courser were the spreadsheet is to start, click the LMB, click on the Edit Menu and click on Paste. The letters across the top and the numbers at the side will not repeat, but the dotted line will.\n\n|!|!A|!B|!C|!D|!E|!F|!G|!H|!I|!J|!K|\n|!1|Cour | &nbsp;&nbsp;H&nbsp;&nbsp; | &nbsp;&nbsp;W&nbsp;&nbsp; | &nbsp;&nbsp;PL&nbsp;&nbsp; | &nbsp;&nbsp;Qi&nbsp;&nbsp; | &nbsp;&nbsp;Tri&nbsp;&nbsp; | &nbsp;Tot Inv&nbsp; | &nbsp;Pla Ret&nbsp; | Qin Ret | Loss | Profit |\n|!2|Ricc | 2 | 1st | 1st ||||||||\n|!3|Fast | 4 ||||||||||\n|!4|19-2 | 1 || 2nd ||||||||\n|!5|W Re ||||||||Tri Ret |||\n|!6|$Bets || 3 | 3 | 3 | 120 | 129 |||||\n|!7|4 | 8 ||||||||||\n|!8|1400 | 9 || 3rd ||||||||\n|!9|Cl | 5 ||||||||||\n|!10||||||||||||\n|!11||||||||||||\n|!12|**** |** |** |** |** |**** |***** |***** |****** |**** |**** |\n \nThis is the same screen as Racetemp.ext, changed to reflect the Race and Course, and saved as say\nRic19-2.ext.\n\nNote that I have shown the horse numbers entered before the race, and the Win and Place horses, which would be entered after the race. Change any of the entries to suit yourself and to make it easier. This is the screen that is Blocked, Copied and Pasted for as many races as you desire. It may take some time to get familiar with the form so change it if it helps you. The state of the track can be tied to the first sheet by changing A3 on the second pasted sheet,saving it and using the Edit Menu to copy it. Pasting this copy for the balance of the races will let you change A3 on the first race and all the other will also change. I have completed about 40 races, and next month an analysis of these will show just how good the selections are.\n\nHaving methods for testing your ideas is very important and necessary for good results.\n

This month we will discuss the Slot Machines and the Casino. Slot machines are designed to show three windows with a fruit symbol in each window. When each window shows the same fruit symbol, you win and the machine discharges cash into a tray at the bottom of the unit. When the three windows show different symbols, you lose. The machines are designed so that the ratio between wins and losses can be altered to suit any ratio. For an evening at the pub or club, a flutter on the machine can be enjoyable, but those who play for serious money are doomed to failure. The mathematics of choice will show it to be a no win situation.\n\n''Casinos:''\n\nCasinos are organised gambling houses which offer a series of services from the small gambler to the large operator. For the small gambler there are various card games, the slot machines. Restaurants and bars are available in the house, and an escort or banking service for those lucky enough to win big amounts. For large operators there are separate rooms for gambling, with food and liquor services available and wagers of all sorts can be negotiated. There is an air of opulence and wealth thoughout the house which seems to affect people's attitudes. The young people seems to think that this is real life. The old adage that the poorer the citizens are the greater the amount of gambling, to break out of their existing circumstances. This is particularly noticeable with slot machines, which are cheap to start with and very addictive to the young people.\n\nAll gambling is designed to separate money from people, so you should give yourselves a decent chance. Look for choice of selection of the elements of the operation, then how to maximize your returns for the money invested. Then there is the attitude of the owners who seem to regard the public as a source of money, for very little return on the money invested.\n\n''The Computer:''\n\nWhen it comes to examining gambling systems, I make use of the computer. My computer is a 200 ~MHz machine, 64 Mb of RAM, 1Gb hard disk, running ~OS2 warp 4. Rexx is the programming language used, which comes with ~OS2. If you are running Windows there is Basic. Visual Basic or any number of languages suitable for the purpose. Batch or Macro files are not good enough. C, or C++ are more than adequate, but maybe over kill fior this exercise. If all else fails, then use the Spreadsheet which comes with most packages of software. The Spreadsheets have a sort routine, a mathematical capability, a cut and paste feature across various spreadsheets.\n\nFor Lotto and chance type games a hand held calculator would be adequate, except for the sort routine. Horse racing or the sharemarket, where results must be held and compared, would need a program or a spreadsheet to handle the details. A Database is another option, but would require a proper setup to get the best results. For the sharemarket a database has certain advantages asthere are no time constraints to be met. The sharemarket does not demand that decisions are made weekly or monthly or to any outside limits imposed by anybody. Of course you have to decide if the history of a share price has any relevance to its future price, or what method used to compare today's with future prices. The horse racing and sharemarket fulfill the basic requirements of a gambling system which gives selection of elements and choice of return for money spent. Remember the systems will have to be altered over the year. The sharemarket through takeovers, changes in board members, improved technology being appled to new areas of business, Govt. emphasis on neglected policy matters. For the horse racing the weather has a big influence on the outcome, some horses can handle the conditions better than others, and as a rule the increasing weight will eventually stop the best of horses. For these reasons adjustments will have to be made to the various factors of your selection process. With your computer try and keep the processused as simple as possible to stay in touch with reality and let you trace your method through manually.\n\nA computer system can be very complicated and the tendency to lose sight of the object of the exercise. Some time has been spent on computer systems, so experiment, have trial runs to test your system before risking your money, then allocate a fixed amount to spend. If that fails, go back over the system and see why.\n\n//Next month we will discuss horse racing.//

This month we will discuss Horse Racing. One of the oldest forms of betting in the world, going back centuries, and all cultures seemed to arrive at the same formula and wager that my horse can run faster than yours, and I will put money on to prove it.\n\nSome assumptions should be made about gambling to keep you focussed on the main subject of winning. That horse racing is more or less honest and all competitors are trying to win. Do not make an excuse that the runner was bumped or the jockey fell off or a bad draw was an reason for failing, this is all part of racing. Don't take too much notice of commentators or expert tipsters. If you think they are good, run a test on them and from their selections see how many wins and places or trifectors they win. Some races are impossible to bet on because the horses are evenly matched or they are starting their racing career and are too young. So be fair and do not select those races with young horses with no racing experience for you to compare, or steeplechases which are notorious for unexpected falls or crashes.\n\nWhen you have made your selections, wait for the paper next day and divide the number of selections by the number of winners, this will give you the rate of winners to selections. If you had 6 races, with 3 selections per race, this equals 18 selections. If there were 2 winners, this would give 1 winner to every 9 selections. If there were 3 winners there would be 1 winner in 6 selections.\n\nNow presume the bet was $1.00 per. selection, calculate the margin of winnings to losses. Did you make any money? Do the same for the places. With 18 selections how many places. This will give you the place rate. For instance for 18 selections and say 4 places, this gives 1 place to every 4.5 selections. Presume $1.00 on every selection, did you make any money. The trifecta is a different bet. Four horses are needed so take another horse from a different source, and combine it with your 3 horses, and calculate the winning rate. To bet on a trifecta, the bet must cover all possible combinations, calculate\n\nfor 4 horsescalculate 4*3*2*1 = $24.00,\nfor 5 horses, 5*4*3*2*1 /2 = $60.00,\nfor 6 horses ( 6*5*4*3*2*1 )/ ( 3*2 ) = $120.00.\n\nThe TAB has full details and can supply a booklet giving all the information. Calculate the $ wins/losses using 4,5,6 horses.This exercise illustrates all the problems of horse racing, both selection and betting. The good part is your choice both in the selection and betting, which identifies the area that needs attention to enable the best course of action.\n \nSo let us do a trial of the experts. To do this trial we will need to set up the spreadsheet. First, look at the Best Bets and decide which races to include. I have dealt only with Gallops, but the same applies to Harness Racing. Then set up your spreadsheet, and take some time to get your spreadsheet right. I will tell you the way I set up my spreadsheet, and if it doesn't suit, change till you feel happy with the result.\n\nThe spreadsheet will have 11 columns, (from A to K ) and will be named Course, ( Hor)se, Win, (Plac)e, (Qin)ella, (Tri)fecta, ( Tot)al (Inv)esment, (W)in &(P)lace (Re)turns, (Q)inella & (Tr)ifecta (Re)turns, Loss, Profit. Adjust the columns to suit an A4 page, with the K column the last column in the page. To fit all the columns in, columns B to G will need to be reduced in width to enable this. Then under column A, course, write Name, under that write State and under that write Date, under that write $ Bets, under that write Race No. under that write Dist, and under that write Class.\n\nGo down to line 13 and write a series of dots across the page, say 2 dots per column, this will form a break between races.\n\nSave As, ~RaceTpl.ext.\n\nWhen you want to check your betting, load ~RacTpl.ext to the screen and fill in Column A.for name write the name of the club or course, for state write Fast, Firm, Soft or Heavy, or the pentrometer test, which gives a more accurate comparison of track conditions. These are supplied by the T.A.B. on request.\n\nThen fill-in the date, leave the $ Bets as is, fill in the Race No. under that the Dist. and under that the Class. Save As say Riccart.ext, which would be Riccarton, and the ext would be for your spreadsheet.\n\nYou know how many races in the meeting, so you want that many copies. With your left mouse button, ( LMB), block out the spreadsheet and include the column headers and the dotted line at the bottom. Now go to Edit drop down Menu and select Copy. The spreadsheet will change back to it's normal colour. Position the mouse BELOW the dotted line and click on the LMB, go to the Edit menu and click on PASTE, a copy of the Riccart.ext will appear. Position the mouse below the dotted line and click on the upper left, go to the Edit menu and click on PASTE, another copy of Riccart.ext will appear.\n\nOnce a copy has been saved, many copies can be pasted. Another area is the repeat of cell contents. If the state of thetrack changes, by imitating A3 cell by altering the second copy and save and copy it, changing A3 will change all the track conditions for all other copies.\n\nNext month we will finish the experts selection, and draw our own conclusions.

First I want to show the spreadsheet complete with all details, showing the net result of your endeavors and the money lost or profit made. The selections are the first 3 horses are taken from the Best Bets, the last 3 horses are selected from Newspapers. There are many modes of selection and you can choose from. By breeding, distance, jockeys, weight, barrier draw, or combination of these factors with any others which be relevant. \n\n|!|!A|!B|!C|!D|!E|!F|!G|!H|!I|!J|!K|\n|!1|Cour | &nbsp;&nbsp;H&nbsp;&nbsp; | &nbsp;&nbsp;W&nbsp;&nbsp; | &nbsp;&nbsp;PL&nbsp;&nbsp; | &nbsp;&nbsp;Qi&nbsp;&nbsp; | &nbsp;&nbsp;Tri&nbsp;&nbsp; | &nbsp;Tot Inv&nbsp; | &nbsp;Pla Ret&nbsp; | Qin Ret | Loss | Profit |\n|!2|Riccar | 2 | 1st | 1st | 1st | T || 1.15 ||||\n|!3|Fast | 4 ||||||||||\n|!4|19-2 | 1 || 2nd | Q | T || 2.85 | 11.90 |||\n|!5|Win Res ||||||| 6.50 ||||\n|!6|$Bets || 3 | 3 | 3 | 120 | 129 | Tri Res ||||\n|!7|4 | 8 ||||||||||\n|!8|1400 | 9 || 3rd || T || 214.60 ||||\n|!9|Cl | 5 ||||| $129.00 | 235.60 | 247.50 || 118.50 |\n|!10||||||||||||\n|!11||||||||||||\n|!12|**** |** |** |** |** |**** |***** |***** |****** |**** |**** |\n \nThis is how your spreadsheet will look when finished. If the results are greater than investments then a profit is the result, if the investments are greater than the results a loss should be shown. Remember the first 3 horses have Win, Place or Quinella bets $1.00 on each horse. The Trifecta uses 6 horses, and the betting is calculated for all combinations by 6*5*4=120. This is 6 horses for the 1st place, 5 horses for the second place and 4 horses for the 3rd place. If you select 4 horses this gives 4*3*2=24 dollars to cover 4 combinations. Note the horizontal row marked Win Res, this is for the winners win dividend and has been fitted there to keep the page width at A4. \n\nNow let us see how good the experts are.\n \nThe results have been poor. With 40 races, picking 3 horses for the win was 1 win for every 13.5 picks. Picking 3 horses for the places 1 place for every 6.5 picks. Picking 3 horses the quinella, gives 1 quinella for every 16 picks and picking 6 horses gives 1 trifecta in 60 picks. This shows that the selections is very critical to your returns. What is needed is a method to compare a horses performance with other horses in the same race. To analyze 4 or 6 races for each horse would be a major task and very few races would be prepared for selection. Down the left side of the Best Bet races the results of the last 6 races are given.If these results were charted comparison of horses could be obtained. Unfortunately the result does not clarify comparison, in fact it makes it more difficult.\n\nWhat is needed is a standard Y axis and the graphs should be straight line graphs. The axis problem is fixed by changing the numbers given in Best Bets by dividing them by 100. This gives for 1=.01, 2=.02, 9=.09, every 0=10=.1 and so on. To have straight line graphs they needed to be added together. If the given numbers are, 960145, starting from the right side which is 5/100=.05 is the data to be entered for position 1 on the X axis. 5+4=9/100 = .09 is the data position 2 on the X axis. 5+4+1=10/100=.01 for position 3 X axis. 5+4+1+10=20/100=0.2 for position 4 on the X axis. 5+4+1+10+6=26/100=0.26 for position 5 on the X axis. 5 sets of data per horse is adequate.\n \nMost charting programs will handle 8 horses, but use only 7 and use the last set for a Test, which will be for series 00000=10+10+10+10+10=0.1+0.2+0.3+0.4+0.5, and will fix the Y scale at 0.5, and will keep all graphs comparable with different pages. The Warp 4 charting program is compatible with spreadsheet or wordprocessor or as a stand alone charting program. When the stand alone program is first opened you will be presented with an open window and a data input window waiting to be filled in. Use the method above to fill in the first horizontal line of data, which is that horses Y axis. Then move left and fill in the horses name or abbreviation. The boxers at the top of the screen are for the X axis and can be filled in with R1......R5, or can be left empty. Start on the next line of numbers, then the horses name. Remembeto leave one line for the test. If there are 7 horses + test, this will go on one page, if there are 15 horses in the race, you will need 3 pages with 5 horses +test on each page. When all data has been completed,save and the data input will disappear and the chart will appear in edit mode, with 8 blocks around it. Go to the mid-bottom block and drag it down to full page with the mouse. Do the same with the right side to full width page. Now go to the Options menu and click on Titles, a sub-menu will appear and click on Main \n\nTitle. Fill this in using abbreviations such as: \nHawke Bay (Date) (Race)( Horses No.)( Page), and reduce the characters by abbreviation such as: HB, 22-4, race 8, H 1-6, P1 and save, the Title will appear at the top of the chart. Finally save the whole chart as afile such as: ~HB8P1.ext. These charts have different forms and can be changed by the click of the mouse button. Use all of these charts to check them. There are 8 charts to choose from, I can have any in 2D or 3D. This method of selection needs some experience to interpret the graphs, so graph plenty of races and check 1st,2nd,3rd win and places until you are confident in using the graphs. There are two ways of reading the graphs, one is which horse has the best record, the other way is to see which horse has improved the best. This information is clearly shown in the graphs. If you have scratchings after the graphs are complete, click on chart, select data input and convert the data into 0.5 to give a horizontal line at top or convert to 0 to give a horizontal at bottom of chart.\n\nThis is the last of the series on Gambling, as my son has sent me Linux Red Hat 6.1 and 3 CDROMS and a booklet on to go with it. I have bought a 8.4 Gb drive and next week will start installation. I have delayed the Linux install till the series on Gambling is complete.\n\n

Gambling appeals to humans , because of some advantage or gain for very little effort. Most people gambling at the best keep their wins and losses about even. This article is for two types of gamblers, those who treat gambling as an entertainment and only spend what they can afford to loss. The other type is in it for the money and expect to profit from their participation. Gambling is governed by your selection of the elements of the type of gambling, and the returns expected for the money at risk. \n\nThe reason for this article is to pass on the various methods of selection and expected returns to limit your losses. Years ago all the work was done by pencil and paper and conclusions were difficult to arrive at, particularly with the time so limited. Nowdays the computer has changed all of that. I now have a 200Mz machine with plenty of memory and if anything it is good at, is the repetitive and laborious work. Now the time constraints have been removed with the computer doing all the repetitive work, I have more time to consider and plan. I use OS/2 Warp 4 and the REXX interpretive programming language, for the programs that I write. This is a high level language capable for my needs and runs from the command line and comes bundled with OS/2 Warp. For those with Windows machines there is Visual Basic, C++, and many more languages to choose from. Macros and Batch files will not be able to handle this work. Remember if you can't program in ordinary English, you won't be able to program in a Computer language. \n\nWe will discuss the following: LOTTO, TELEBINGO, CASINOS HORSE RACING and finally the SHAREMARKET. There are other forms of betting and they can be treated in same way. First find your risk and then select to minimize the risk, then place your money to maximize your returns. \n\n''LOTTO:''\nThis is a simple game which asks you to select between 3 to 6 numbers from group of 40 numbers and purchase a ticket from a LOTTO ticket supplier with your selected numbers. When the winning numbers are selected an additional number, the BONUS number is drawn which you can add to your selection to qualify for a graduated winning prize. There are 5 classes of prizes starting from: \n\nDivision 1, which is 6 winning selections with no Bonus number. \nDivision 2, for 5 winning numbers plus a Bonus number. \nDivision 3, is for 5 winning numbers and no Bonus number. \nDivision 4, is for 4 winning numbers with no Bonus number. \nDivision 5, is for 3 winning numbers plus the Bonus number. \n\nFor a Lucky Dip ticket which has 10 lines of 6 numbers, 60 numbers in total and these are generated by computer. Now a computer does not generate true random numbers, so there is no relationship between the computer generated numbers and the selection drawn from the plastic barrel. The number sets range from division 5 of 4 numbers per set of numbers including the bonus number, with 2,000,000 + sets to choose from. to division 1 of 6 numbers per set, no bonus number, with 2,763,363,600 sets to choose from. Since most of the tickets sold are luckily dips, the computer does not always select all of the numbers from 1 to 40 of the 60 numbers on each card. If one missing number is a winning selection, your card will never win division 1. Of the cards I have checked, there have been 3 to 8 numbers missing, with 2 cards having all the numbers. With all this in mind let us see if we can increase our chances of winning. First phone the Lotteries Commission and obtain winning results for the say the last 2 years. They will send them by FAX or post. Make sure you understand all the information presented to you. If you have a sort routine that puts results in a ascending order or if not, enter by hand in your word processor, the date is not required only the draw number and keep the bonus number separate the ascending order. \nPrint out the list and look for comparisons between the different draws. These numbers are selected by the barrel and are truly random. Not only will the numbers compare but divide the winning numbers into groups 10 (ie 1 to 10, 11 to 20, 21 to 30, 31 to 40), and this will give the distribution of the range through 1 to 40. Fill in your cards by hand, remembering to use all the numbers from 1 to 40 at least once. There are 10 lines on each card, room for 60 numbers, so it should be no problem. These comparisons should help or at least show the huge number of choices available in this game. The winnings are tax free, unless the taxman try's to class it as income.\n\n''TELEBINGO:''\nThis game is similar to lotto with a different format. The cards come with numbers already printed on a 5x5 format. After 27 numbers are drawn, if the 4 corners are marked off, a prize is won. After 7 more numbers are drawn, and a cross of numbers is formed on the card, another prize is won. The numbers are drawn until the card has all the numbers marked off, the final major goes to that card. As can be seen all the selection is done for you, and it more a RAFFLE than a draw with no input from the player. The prizes are smaller and 2 cards are sold as 1 unit. \n\nNext month we will discuss the CASINO and the Slot Machines to see if that environment is more friendly to the user.\n

//These links were given out at a club meeting at least a year ago, and I thought they were worth publishing for members use - Ed//\n\n''Genealogy Programs''\nhttp://www.familysearch.org Personnel Ancestry File (PAF)\nhttp://www.legacyfamilytree.com Legacy\nhttp://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/ Family Tree Maker\nhttp://www.whollygenes.com/ The Master Genealogist\nhttp://www.bkwin.net Brothers Keeper\nhttp://www.leisterpro.com Reunion\nhttp://www.familyorigins.com Family Origins\n\n''Genealogy Portals''\nhttp://www.cyndislist.com Cyndis List\nhttp://www.genuki.org.uk Genealogy UK & Ireland - GENUKI\nhttp://cpug.org/user/jlacombe/mark.html Barrel of Links\nhttp://www.genhomepage.com/full.html The Genealogy Home Page\nhttp://www.genealogy.org.nz/ New Zealand Society of Genealogists\n\n''Search Indexes''\nhttp://www.familysearch.org LDS International Genealogical Index (IGI)\nhttp://www.archives.govt.nz/ National Archives of New Zealand.\nhttp://www.natlib.govt.nz National Library of New Zealand.\nhttp://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/ Papers Past - National Library NZ.\nhttp://www.cwgc.org Commonwealth War Graves Commission.\nhttp://downtown.co.nz/genealogy/ NZ Genealogy Search Engine.\nhttp://www.whitepages.co.nz/ NZ Telephone Directory.\nhttp://www.whitepages.com.au/ Australian Telephone Directory.\nhttp://people.yahoo.com/ US Telephone Directory & others.\nhttp://www.teldir.com Telephone Directories on the Web\n\n''Other Sites of Interest''\nhttp://www.ancestry.com [Commercial Site]\nhttp://www.genealogy.com [Commercial Site]\nhttp://www.surnames.com [Commercial Site]\nhttp://www.rootsweb.com * [Commercial Site]\nhttp://www.gengateway.com/genealogy.htm Genealogy Gateway [Commercial Site]\nhttp://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Pointe/8355/ PKB' home page [link to Web Ring]

''QuickClick & Atomica Bring Extra Capabilities To Your Browser''\nby Helen Bradley of SmartComputing\n\n When you’re viewing a Web page, you’ll often encounter a word you don’t understand or something that you would like to investigate further. Or perhaps you want to look up a word while you’re typing a document in Microsoft Word.\nQuite possibly you may see mention of a company and you want more information about it. One choice you have in this situation is to visit your favorite search engine and look for the information you want. QuickClick and Atomica, which are active browser add-ins, can save you the effort and give you access to information you’d normally find using a search engine. These programs can perform this helpful function for you from within the Web page in your browser window or your Word document. Both QuickClick and Atomica are programs that to some extent replace your reliance on a search engine. Below we’ll look more closely at each program and show you how they work and how they differ.\n\n''QuickClick.''\nQuickClick (formerly known as Flyswat) is a small and free 210KB downloadable Java program that consumes only 650KB of RAM after installation. You’ll find the program at http://www.nbci.com/; just click the QuickClick link at the top of the page after you visit the site.\n\nYou’ll need to be using a computer with Windows 95, 98, 2000, or NT 4.0 and Internet Explorer 4.0 or higher installed. Although IE is required, you don’t actually have to use it, and QuickClick will work with NeoPlanet and most other browsers including Netscape Navigator. QuickClick works with many Windows programs including applications such as Microsoft Word and various e-mail software programs. It should be noted that QuickClick works a little differently in NeoPlanet and IE than it does in other browsers and other applications.\n\nAccording to the folks who created QuickClick, the original Flyswat got its name because, like a physical flyswatter, it is a tool which “can turn a big-headache task into a piece o’ cake . . . we make it fun and intuitive to nab the specific piece of info that you want out of the ‘Net.”\n\nQuickClick depends on the program that you are currently using. If you are using IE to navigate the Web and have QuickClick installed, you’ll have an additional small QuickClick toolbar in your IE window. This toolbar allows you to alter some of QuickClick’s settings. For example, you can play with whether the program highlights all keywords it recognizes or just the first occurrence of the word in the page. You can also customize how QuickClick behaves when you open your browser.\n\nWhen a Web page is visible in your IE window, you’ll see that some words on the page are underlined in a yellow color (in contrast to the typical navy blue hyperlink color of the links). These new links are put there by QuickClick to indicate that additional information is available for these words. You’ll see a small QuickClick menu appear on the screen when you click a yellow underlined word. This menu contains additional links which are grouped into topic areas and which relate to the highlighted word. Each group of links displays a plus (+) or minus (-) symbol to its left, much like the folders in Windows Explorer. You can click these symbols to expand or collapse a group of links so they are visible or hidden.\n\nFor example, if you’re viewing the day’s news on Yahoo! and there’s a story about France, you can click the QuickClick link under the word France to see links to information such as Country Facts, Guide, Hotels, Packaged Trips, Related Books, and more. If the news story is from Reuters, QuickClick will underline the word Reuters. When you click its link, you’ll see links including one to the Reuters home page. When the QuickClick dialog appears, you can click any of the QuickClick links and you’ll be taken to that Web page. If you prefer, you can right-click and choose the Open in new window option to open a new browser window so the original page still stays open in its window.\n\nIf you are interested in a word which doesn’t appear on the page, you can find QuickClick links to information about it if you click the magnifying glass on the QuickClick toolbar. A search box appears and you can type the word you wish to find and then click Search to locate the related links. A QuickClick links list will open up along the left of the browser window containing the links that QuickClick found.\n\nALT-click a word that you’re interested in if it appears on the page but isn’t underlined. This is the same process you’ll use to find information in other browsers (like Netscape Navigator) that don’t offer the same system of QuickClick underlines found in IE. When you ALT-click the word in IE, the QuickClick links dialog appears just as if the word had been underlined in yellow by QuickClick.\n\nQuickClick’s yellow underlined links appear in Web pages in Internet Explorer. Clicking one of these links results in producing related sites for the user to further explore.\n \n\n''Inside QuickClick.''\nQuickClick uses the text surrounding a word to intelligently match the word you’ve selected with its most likely meanings. When you’re viewing a Web page and click a yellow underlined word, the words on the page and the page’s URL (uniform resource locator) are sent to QuickClick which then analyzes the data to get the best match for you. If you click a word inside a Word document, the entire line of text is sent to QuickClick to aid in the matching process.\n\nYou shouldn’t see any noticeable delays in using your computer when you have the program installed because the work of analysis takes place on QuickClick’s own servers and only very small parcels of information are transferred between your computer and the QuickClick servers.\n\nQuickClick is a handy tool for digging deeper into the information on a Web page; it’s been described as a deep navigation tool. QuickClick expands the value of a single Web page by providing inline links to other related information that provide more information about the topic; find these links without having to switch to a search engine. It’s very much like Web browsing with tools such as a thesaurus and encyclopedia at your disposal. In this case the tools are on-screen rather than on your desk.\n\nQuickClick also contains information to help you shop. For example, you can click a singer’s name, a product description, or a book title, and you’ll get links to comparison shopping for the singer’s latest CD, the product you clicked, or to a bookshop to facilitate a purchase.\n\nQuickClick puts a dictionary and thesaurus at your fingertips when you’re using a program like Word to construct a proposal or report. You can type in a word and ALT-click it to access the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary and Thesaurus. Then you can select the link to the information you need, which will open in the browser window.\n\nAs part of the development process of the original Flyswat, the developers offered cobranded versions of the product to some key information providers. Notably, Red Herring (http://www.redherring.com/), Raging Bull (http://www.ragingbull.com/), and My Simon (http://www.mysimon.com/) each offer their own customized cobranded version of Quick-Click/Flyswat. The significant difference between these products and the original is that the cobranded versions may contain additional related information in the QuickClick dialog when you click on a word. In particular, they’ll include content from the site supplying the software and you may find that the ordering of information in the dialog will be different. In most cases the cobranded site’s own information will appear at the top of the list of links.\n\n//Continued next month\n//

''QuickClick & Atomica Bring Extra Capabilities To Your Browser''\nby Helen Bradley of SmartComputing\n\n//Continued from last month//\n\n QuickClick’s BoosterPacks are user-created add-ons for QuickClick. These add-ons extend QuickClick’s functionality by adding new keywords and related links. \n\n ''Atomica.''\n Atomica, formerly called GuruNet, is another free download (available from http://www.atomica.com/). Atomica works with all browsers on systems running Windows 95, 98, Me, NT, and 2000. You must also ensure that IE4.0 or above is installed before you install Atomica when running on Windows 95. Like QuickClick, you don’t have to use IE, but it must be installed on your system. There is also a Palm wireless version of the software and you can use the Web-based application available via the company’s Web site.\n\n In the past, Atomica was a consumer-focused product targeted towards the general user. Now, since the company’s name change, it has altered its focus and is now marketing the product to businesses to assist business users in locating information on corporate intranets. However, the company still intends to support the consumer version.\n\n The program is a 970KB download and requires 1.5MB of disk space. After installing Atomica, you will be able to ALT-click on any word on a Web page to get access to additional information on that word. Like QuickClick, Atomica will also work inside most Windows applications and e-mail software, so you can use it to search for information in e-mail messages. Don’t confuse Atomica with QuickClick; there are some significant differences between the two, as you’ll soon discover.\n\n ''Using Atomica.''\n In addition to ALT-clicking a word to launch Atomica, you can also type a word that you wish to look up into Atomica’s Answer bar that appears in the lower right corner of your screen. This broadens the scope of the program a little by allowing you to keep the Answer bar visible on-screen and to use it to search for information at any time regardless of whether you have any other application open. There is also an Atomica entry on the Internet Explorer right-click menu that appears when you right-click a word in a Web page.\n Type a word that you’re searching for or ALT-click a word on-screen. The Atomica window will open and display information related to that word.\n \n\n The results that Atomica provides you with are displayed in a large Atomica window rather than the browser window itself when you type a word into the Answer bar or ALT-click a word in another application or your browser. This is one difference between Atomica and QuickClick. Another difference is in the type of information supplied. Atomica supplies the actual information itself in the dialog on the screen, unlike QuickClick, which offers a range of links for you to select. Atomica’s dialog has a number of tabs down the left of the screen. You can choose the type of information you want from the results shown. So when you ALT-click, QuickClick gives you links whereas Atomica gives you the actual information.\n\n When you ALT-click a word in Microsoft Word, Atomica sends your selected text and six to eight words on either side to its server. This text is used to identify the context in which you have used the word so Atomica’s parsing engine can intelligently determine the information you’re seeking. For example, if you ALT-click the word “Ford” in a sentence containing the phrase “Henry Ford” you’ll get a different result if you ALT-click it in the phrase “Ford motor car.”\n\n When we ALT-clicked the word “France,” the tabs offered information on related News items, Embassy, Geography, Stats, Maps, and more for France including a Search option that defaults to displaying a Google search of your word. The Search tab also lets you choose from a number of other search engines to make a search. In most cases the Atomica window will display the information you’re seeking; your browser window will open when you select another search engine for a search or you choose to read a current news item.\n\n Atomica lets you change the ALT-click key combination to some other key combination that makes it easy to deal with incompatibilities between it and other programs on your computer. Additionally, Atomica can translate a topic for you from English into another language of your choice and you can change the interface language to some other language of your preference.\n\n Sometimes Atomica may not be able to provide you with the information you were seeking. In these instances, the Did You Mean? option will appear and you will be given the choice of viewing other possible meanings of your word.\n\n ''Atomica’s Information Source.''\n The speed at which Atomica can provide you with the information you’re seeking is a direct result of the information it stores. Rather than going out to the Web to get your information, it is already stored on the Atomica servers. The Atomica databases contain information on hundreds of thousands of topics compiled from a range of specialist sources. For example, Atomica licenses information from Roget’s Thesaurus, American Heritage Dictionary, and the Concise Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia and provides this to you when you ALT-click a word.\n\n Title Founder and Chairman of Atomica, Robert Rosenschein, says, “You get information faster when you use Atomica because it isn’t a Web search . . . Atomica brings information to people without them having to know where it comes from.” While Atomica doesn’t deliver anything you couldn’t find by doing your own Web searches, it does deliver the information you’re looking for by skipping a lengthy, time-consuming step.\n\n Both QuickClick and Atomica have their converts. At first glance they may seem to be similar programs with a similar approach to determining what you’re looking for; however, they operate very differently in terms of what they provide to you. QuickClick gives you links to related information while Atomica provides the information itself rather than the links to said information.\n\n by Helen Bradley\n\n ''Terms To Know''\n\n add-in— Utility program that extends the capabilities of another program. For example, there are browser add-ins for Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer that allow these browsers to display images or show movies and animations they cannot typically do. QuickClick and Atomica are examples of browser add-ins.\n\n ALT-click—The process of pressing on the ALT key on the keyboard as you click a word using your left mouse button.\n\n BoosterPack—Collection of keywords and destinations (URLs) that have been created by another QuickClick user to allow you to add additional content to QuickClick. BoosterPacks are free downloads available on the Web. There are also instructions for creating and distributing your own BoosterPacks.\n\n disambiguate—Process of establishing, from the range of possible meanings of a word or phrase, the one which makes the most sense given the context in which it appears. Atomica uses this process to determine what information to display in the Atomica window when you ALT-click a word.\n\n knowledge warehousing—According to Atomica, “The Knowledge Warehouse is a multi-dimensional, topic-based information repository that assembles, enhances, and ultimately stores the “crown jewels” of corporate knowledge.”\n\n yellow underlines—Previously called flycon links. This is the yellow underlining applied by QuickClick to words on a Web page displayed in Internet Explorer. The yellow underlines indicate that there is additional information available from QuickClick for these words.\n\n\n

My in-laws recently upgraded from the 17" CRT monitor that came with their computer, to a budget 19" LCD display from Dick Smith Electronics. This article is about some of the minor pitfalls to watch for if you do something similar.\n\nFirst, a quick word about the DSE 19" LCD monitor. This is a budget model with 1280x1024 resolution, which combined with the large screen size gives a relatively large dot pitch of 0.294mm - people with good eyesight may find this relatively large dot pitch annoying. The monitor (~XC5593) is currently $548.00, but as with all of these products, shop around as prices continue to drop quite quickly, while features and sizes improve also. Be aware that high resolution 19" and 20" widescreen ~LCDs are becoming more affordable, and that even 24" displays are available. Long gone are the days where everybody used CRT monitors with the same aspect ratio, but also bear in mind that good quality used 17" monitors are extremely cheap now - there is absolutely no reason to still be using a 15" or smaller monitor.\n\nThere are a few things to consider when installing your new LCD. Check these even if you have just bought a PC that came with a LCD display already installed - be sure to look at the section on ~ClearType.\n\n''Resolution''\n\nFirst, check that your graphics adapter is running your LCD at the correct resolution. In my in-laws' case, the computer had previously been running a 17" CRT monitor at 1024x768 resolution, and the new LCD was not detected as new hardware, so continued to be run at 1024x768. While this would be fine for CRT displays, LCDs do not give a particularly clear display when run at other than their native resolution, text in particular will look scratchy and uneven.\n\nTo set the display resolution, right click on your desktop, select "Properties", "Settings" and set the "Screen area" slider to the correct resolution for your LCD. If your graphic adapter uses a different interface to set the resolution, use that instead - this is often accessed by clicking the "Advanced" button located below the "Screen area" slider.\n\nTo achieve an acceptable display, you must run it at its native resolution, and increase the size of the screen elements as described in the next section.\n\n''Font and Icon Size''\n\nBecause your new display is probably much higher resolution than your previous one, fonts and icons will all appear smaller. While this may not be a problem in Vista - the display should be resolution independent - in all current versions of Windows you have the ability to increase the size that fonts and icons appear on the screen. Note that this does not increase the size of fonts when printed; it only affects fonts as they are displayed on screen.\n\nTo increase the size of the display font size, right click on the desktop, select "Properties", "Settings" and click the "Advanced" button located below the "Screen area" slider. This should take you to a "General" tab, the top area of this is labelled "Display" and it contains a list box that allows you to select your display font size. Normal or small fonts are 96 dpi, large are 125% scaled, or 120dpi, or you can select a custom size if you wish. Large fonts seem to work well with the DSE display, but your eyesight or taste may differ.\n\nDesktop icons and their labels can be adjusted by right clicking the desktop, selecting "Properties", then select the "Appearance" tab. In the "Item:" list box, select "Icon", then you can adjust both the icon size and the style and size of the font used to label your desktop icons. Separate entries allow you to adjust your icon spacing. Investigate other desktop elements that may need changing - for example, you can change size of windows' title bar and the font displayed there, too.\n\nWhen you have finished, remember to save all these adjustments to a Scheme - pick a new name that identifies it clearly.\n\n''Enable ~ClearType''\n\nThis is most important! The difference before and after enabling cleartype on the DSE display has to be seen to be appreciated. ~ClearType is an advanced font antialiasing technique built into Windows ME and XP, that fools your eye into thinking that fonts are smoother (and sharper) than they really are. With the large dot pitch of the DSE display, fonts can look quite blocky and harsh; ~ClearType fixes this.\n\n~Cleartype can be enabled by right clicking the desktop, selecting "Properties", then select the "Appearance" tab. Then click the "Effects" button. Under "Use the following method to smooth edges of screen fonts", select ~ClearType.\n\nIf you want to get into more detail and fine tune how ~ClearType works, download and run ~ClearType Tuner, a free tool from Microsoft, from http://download.microsoft.com/download/b/7/0/b7019730-0fa3-47a9-a159-98b80c185aad/setup.exe\n\n''Conclusion''\n\nAll of the above are relatively simple steps, but their effect on the quality of your display is significant, and well worth the few minutes taken to investigate them.\n\nIf your new display came with software, make sure you run it, as this often allows you to adjust the display settings for your LCD itself - you can adjust brightness and contrast to suit your ambient lighting, for example.\n\nDisplaymate used to offer a free tool to evaluate monitor performance, but seem to have dicontinued it. Contact me if you would like a copy. A visit to http://www.displaymate.com is still useful as it has a wealth of information about monitors and displays of all kinds, with guides on how to set them up correctly.\n\nSteve Gibson has an in-depth explanation, discussion and demonstration of how ~ClearType works, at http://www.grc.com/cleartype.htm under the descriptive name of "Sub-Pixel Font Rendering Technology". Be sure to check it out.\n\n\n\n\n

By Kyle Shuman of SmartComputing\n\n Smart Computing’s Web site uses Portable Document Format documents for more complex images on its Web site.\n You’ve undoubtedly encountered an Adobe Acrobat PDF (Portable Document Format) file at some point if you have used the Web for any reasonable length of time. In fact, the Acrobat PDF format is often used to store complex graphics files found on the Smart Computing Web site found at http://www.smartcomputing.com/. PDFs are a common standard today. The Acrobat PDF file format is used to create and store large documents on the Web and in general computing. It is a popular format because of its ability to convert and display a wide variety of file types, ranging from word processing documents to spreadsheets to graphics. Acrobat PDF can also display those files with their initial settings and type styles intact, which enhances its popularity.Fortunately, viewing Acrobat PDF files is a free and extremely easy process. Anyone can download and use the free Adobe Acrobat Reader software to view PDF files. We’ll show you how Acrobat and Reader are used to store and view PDF files on the Web\n\n ''Using Acrobat.''\n Acrobat is a program available from Adobe Systems that’s used to create PDF files. Because of the widespread acceptance of PDF as a format for transferring files across different computing platforms, Acrobat is a popular choice for storing documents that must be shared, especially on the Web. (At the time of this writing, Acrobat cost $249 when ordered directly from Adobe at http://www.adobe.com./)\n\n Acrobat’s popularity is enhanced by its ability to maintain the integrity of the document that’s being stored in the PDF format. When you convert a document to PDF, Acrobat maintains the text styles and images you’ve included in the original document. Acrobat works especially well with documents created using the Microsoft Office family of programs.\n\n Capturing Web pages and converting them to PDF is another good reason to use Acrobat. You can open the Web page you want to capture from within the Acrobat program. Next, you can select how many levels of linked pages you want to save with the original page after you set the parameters for the conversion of the Web page. PDF is a handy format for saving a snapshot of a Web page and its links, especially at a site where pages change often. The captured Web sites can be treated and edited like any other PDF document; other users can add comments and markings, too.\n Acrobat or Reader will integrate itself with your Web browser by adding an Adobe toolbar when you open a PDF document from a Web site.\n “When you put a Web page into a standard PDF format, it archives well, it prints well, and all the links remain intact,” says David Baskerville, a product manager with Adobe. Publishing PDF files to the Web is fairly easy. After the Web page creator collects all of the PDF files he wants to use on his site, he creates text links for them within the Web pages. Most site creators will also include a button link or a text link to the free Acrobat Reader download site, making using PDF handy for the end user. Then all of the Web pages, image files, and PDF files are uploaded to the Web server.\n\n “When you put a Web page into a standard PDF format, it archives well, it prints well, and all the links remain intact,” says David Baskerville, a product manager with Adobe. Publishing PDF files to the Web is fairly easy. After the Web page creator collects all of the PDF files he wants to use on his site, he creates text links for them within the Web pages. Most site creators will also include a button link or a text link to the free Acrobat Reader download site, making using PDF handy for the end user. Then all of the Web pages, image files, and PDF files are uploaded to the Web server.\n\n Those who have purchased Acrobat can also use the software to view PDF files, because Reader is integrated within the Acrobat software package. There’s no cause for worry if you don’t own Acrobat: The Reader software is also available as a standalone, downloadable package with an option for viewing PDF files.\n\n ''Using Reader.''\n Nearly any Web site that posts PDF files will also post a link to the Adobe Web site. Users can download the free Reader software by following the available link. Visit http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep.html to download the latest version of Reader. Reader is able to display any PDF file from within the framework of your Web browser. As long as you use Reader or Acrobat version 3.x or newer and as long as you’re using a major Web browser, including Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.x and newer versions and Netscape 4.x and newer versions, any PDF documents you select from within a Web page can be displayed inside your Web browser. You’ll see an Adobe toolbar appear directly under your browser’s toolbar that gives you control over the PDF document.\n Reader 4.x integrates itself with each of the major browsers. Let’s take a closer look.\n\n ''Netscape.''\n A plug-in is installed when you install Reader. The plug-in is a piece of software designed to enhance a browser’s functions; in this case, allowing Reader to integrate itself within the Netscape browser. During installation, Reader installs a file (Nppdf32.dll) in the Netscape plug-in folder. Reader loads the plug-in before it displays the PDF document when you download a PDF file.\n\n ''Internet Explorer.''\n Reader uses ActiveX controls and plug-ins to open a PDF document within the browser framework when working with the IE Web browser. Reader automatically installs up to three files in Reader’s ActiveX folder (Pdf.ocx, Pdf.tlb, Pdf41.ocx, or Pdf42.ocx) during installation. Once these files are installed, Reader loads them when you click on a PDF file from within the IE Web browser; this lets you view and control the PDF document file.\n\n Adobe’s Reader is easy to use and free. Ease of use and free distribution enhance the use of PDF files on the Web and in general computing.\n\n ''Behind The Scenes.''\n Perhaps the best feature of Acrobat and Reader is the ease with which you can open and view PDF documents; viewing PDF files is essentially invisible to the end user. The work required to open and view the documents occurs behind the scenes, making it easy for even novice computer users.\n\n You can capture a Web page and one or more levels of links for archiving purposes using Acrobat. Two things occur when you click on a link for a PDF document in a Web page. The Web server downloads the first page of the document to your Web browser, and your computer simultaneously opens the Reader software, because of the software’s association to PDF file types. You can see this association from within the Windows operating system. For example, double-click the My Computer icon on your desktop in Windows 98. Click the View menu and the Folder Options command. Click the File Types tab. Near the top of the Registered File Types list, you’ll see a listing for Adobe Acrobat Document (if you’ve ever opened a PDF file on your computer). If you highlight the Adobe Acrobat Document listing, you’ll see the default program it opens with; in this case, Reader.\n\n You’ll see the Adobe toolbar integrated with your browser window once Reader is open. Furthermore, you’ll see the PDF document displayed in the browser window. The Adobe toolbar contains all of the same tools and commands you’d have access to if you were using Reader as a standalone application outside of the Web browser. You can now treat the document just like a Web page. You’ll see additional pages from the PDF document if you scroll down the browser window. Click the Back button on your browser to return to the Web page where you clicked on the PDF file link.\n\n ''Making It Easy.''\n Adobe has set up Reader and Acrobat to make them work well in tandem and to make the process as easy as possible for the end user. This is obvious when viewing PDF documents over the Web. Sharing documents over the Web while maintaining the original fonts and formatting tools would be difficult without the PDF standard and the use of Reader and Acrobat.\n\n One feature of Acrobat that speeds downloads of large documents and that works in the background is Fast Web View. If you are downloading a large PDF document containing several or dozens of pages, the document’s creator can allow usage of Fast Web View where only the page you’ve requested is downloaded. Other requested pages are downloaded individually.\n\n PDF documents allow for backward compatibility with Reader, too. If you have an older version of Reader installed, such as version 3.0, you still can view basic documents created in a newer version of Acrobat, such as version 5.0. However, some of the newer features built into Acrobat 5.0 wouldn’t be viewable in the older version of Reader. This means that you will probably want to upgrade as soon as possible.\n\n You can open a PDF document file outside of the Internet, too. Reader will automatically open when you double-click on a PDF document stored on your hard drive, network, or on CD-ROM.\n\n A fully functional PDF write is available for downloading for personal use from the Internet from Web site www.ctrip.com. I have used it to create the PDF file for this news letter , which should be available for downloading from the Association's Web site www.computers.org.nz\n\n Thanks to SmartComputing for the use of their article.\n\n

Type the text for 'Gibson Research'

//by Shane Petterd// \n\nSo that we don't get lost on our yacht, my wife, Diane, bought me a Garmin GPS 12 Personal Navigator for Christmas. \n\nThis small hand-held GPS (Global Positioning System) 12 channel receiver is a navigation tool which uses United States Government satellite information to deter-mine your position, bearing and speed. \n\nThe satellite-based navigation system is a network consisting of 24 orbiting satellites that are eleven thousand nautical miles in space and in six different orbital paths. The satellites are constantly moving, making two complete orbits around the Earth in just under 24 hours. If your into math, that's about 1.8 miles per second. That's really moving! \n\nWith the GPS 12 you can plot up to 500 waypoints, 1024 trackpoints, store 20 reversible routes or use the ~TracBack feature to retrace your path. At the present time the accuracy of all commercial GPS receivers can vary between 15 to 100 metre depending on the level of degradation being imposed by the U.S. Department of Defence. \n\nSo what does all this have to do with computers you may well ask? \n\nWell, as you might have guessed Garmin advertise a PC interface kit for the GPS 12 which is simply a cable and some software to connect the unit to the serial port on any IBM compatible computer. The bad news is that it costs US$92.19 plus shipping. As this was over half the cost of the unit I decided to do some research on the Internet. \n\nThe connector at the GPS 12 end of the inter-face cable is proprietary and not available through Garmin, however the excellent local nautical web site hosted by the Kapiti Boating Club - Waypoint 1 http://www.e-media.co.nz/wp1/tindex.html pointed me towards Peter Bennett's GPS software site http://Vancouver-webpages.com/pub/peter/index.html. This is another excellent site with information and links on everything to do with GPS. \n\nFrom here I was able to access Larry Berg's Purple Computing site http://pfranc.com where Larry has made a mould and through a pledge system and "Pfranc" distributors in over 70 countries world-wide the Garmin connector is available. The site also has excellent information on assembling your connector once it arrives. \n\nThe New Zealand "Pfranc" distributor is in Christchurch and after an e-mail pledge of NZ$15.00 I was sent three connectors ready for assembly. \n\nA dead mouse provided an excellent 9 pin serial plug and lead, after some soldering expertise (thanks Ian), I had a very professional looking interface cable. \n\nPeter Bennett's web page also provided the software, I settled on two freeware programs - Waypoint + and ~SeaClear. \n\nWaypoint + is an excellent Windows 95 program which allows me to upload and download the routes, tracks, and way points, simplifying the processes of creating and editing this data. I can plot and print the waypoints and tracks on a map grid and save data files in ASCII format with comma de-limited fields for export to ~SeaClear. I believe this software is even better than that offered in the Garmin kit. \n\n~SeaClear is another Windows 95 navigational aid, which, when connected to the GPS 12, will display the yacht live on a chart, as well as data on current position, speed and direction. New charts are loaded as needed when set up for automatic loading. The track may be traced to a file. Routes may be created and used to assist in the navigation. \n\nNew charts are scanned in and calibrated using a utility called ~MapCal which is provided with ~SeaClear. \n\nWhere to from here, well we won't be doing a world circumnavigation just yet but the whole exercise and using both programs has given us a better grasp of the features the GPS 12 has to offer (at an affordable cost). \n\nI note that both the Coastguard and Maritime Safety Authority recommend that a GPS should not be used as your primary source of navigation. Sound advise, as Mike Golding, skipper of the leading yacht (Team Group 4) in the 1998-99 Around Alone race will no doubt attest. \n\nHe suffered damage to his hull and had to withdraw from the race after running into a sand bank 4 miles off Cape Reinga on 1 January due to an error plotting his GPS waypoints.

Google is about a lot more than searching.\n\nAt the moment, it seems as if Google release another interesting product almost every week or two, and their latest product is no exception. Although Google own Blogger and offer free blog hosting, a few days ago they released a free webhosting product - Google Pages. Publishing your own content to a blog is easy enough, but a weblog doesn't suit all types of content. And (honestly) Google Pages is even easier to use than Blogger.\n\nWith Google Pages, you don't get dynamic websites or journals that practically organise themselves as you do with Blogger, but you do get 100MB of free online storage. That is a significant amount of storage, and to be able to access this at no cost is quite amazing. You would normally pay up to $50.00 a year for 10MB of storage. The downside is that Google Pages are static, and there are only basic tools to manage your stored files. However, for quickly putting together a quick web page with a simple and easy to use online editor, and to have a working website online in minutes, you definitely should look at Google pages. Even if you know nothing about HTML or how web pages work, you will have no trouble using Google Pages. If you want to be more adventurous, or to have a look at what is going on behind the scenes, you can view and edit the HTML directly.\n\nThe online page editor (Page Creator) is basic, but Google seem to have much of the required functionality built in; there are enough tools to be able to format and layout text, add graphics, headings, links, and so on. The HTML editor is as easy to use as the gmail HTML editor. It is easy to create and link to additional pages, and all your pages can be manages through a page manager. You can build a page but not publish it until you are satisfied with the end result. Google offer more than forty page themes (or styles) and four different page layouts so although you are limited to these, you'll probably find something acceptable, and I'm sure that more will be available in future.\n\nThe Web was always intended to be a two-way medium, with people publishing web pages as easily as they read them. Now you can try your hand at building your own little part of the internet. You'll need a Google account, so sign up and get started - I've got 100 invitations for any members who don't have a gmail account yet, just email me ( usually@mail.com). The demand when Google launched Google Pages was such that they had to halt new sign ups for a few days, but hopefully everything will be working smoothly by the time you read this article.\n\nExpect other new products from Google shortly - speculation is rife that Google will soon offer unlimited personal online storage.\n\nLinks\n\nhttp://pages.google.com will get you to the Google Pages sign in\n\nhttp://www.google.com/intl/en/options/ has an incomplete list of Google's own products\n\nhttp://www.answers.com/topic/google-desktop-search is a more complete list of products, but doesn't list Google Pages yet

By Antone Gonsalves. 8 March 2005 03:07PM. General News: Sourced from ~PCAuthority magazine \n \nGoogle moved its desktop search tool out of beta in March this year, formally launching version 1.0 with support for more browsers and file types and better protection of sensitive documents. \n\nAvailable for free download, Google Desktop Search improves upon the beta version with the ability to search over the full text of PDF files and the meta-information stored with music, image and video files.\n \nIn addition, the software supports Firefox and Netscape browsers, as well as Thunderbird and Netscape email clients. The search tool is also available in Chinese and Korean languages. \n\nIn formally releasing its product, Google has jumped ahead of rivals Microsoft and Yahoo, which have similar free products still in beta. The companies, however, have taken slightly different approaches.\n \nMicrosoft's desktop search is part of its MSN Toolbar Suite, which also provides web search, a pop-up ad blocker and other capabilities. The tool is installed in Outlook, the Windows taskbar, Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer. Yahoo, on the other hand, is developing its tool through a partnership with desktop-search specialist X1 Technologies. \n\nAmerica Online has announced plans for releasing a desktop search tool, licensing the technology from Copernic Technologies. No release date has been set.\n \nThe interest in desktop search among the four web portal giants stems from the fact that most people looking to buy or research products on the web head to a search engine first, analysts say. Tying a person's PC to a shopping and entertainment portal through a desktop-search engine makes it more likely a shopper will start with that site. \n\nThe fact that Google is developing its product in-house while some of its other rivals are using partners indicates the level of importance Google has placed on desktop search, Whit Andrews, analyst for Gartner said. Using its own developers, Google can move quickly in adding features to meet changes in the market. \n\n"This is something that Google is clearly treating as strategic," Andrews said. "We have to see (search) as Google's reason to exist. Anything that is search-related is part of the Google DNA." \n\nAlong with searching files and e-mail, Google Desktop Search also indexes all the web pages a person has viewed and places them in a cache on the PC's hard drive. In addition, the application enables users to block secure web pages, such as those used in online banking, and to exclude all password-protected Microsoft Word and Excel documents.\n \nFor developers, Google has provided application-programming interfaces for developing applications that leverage the search product. Google also provides plug-ins that add more capabilities to the product, such as searching the full-text of scanned images, such as faxes. \n\nGoogle Desktop Search is available as a floating box that can be placed anywhere on a user's desktop.\n \nBeyond competing for consumers with its portal rivals, Google's new product, as well as those from competitors, is a potential threat to makers of desktop search products for the enterprise, Andrews said. Those companies include ISYS Search Software, DTSearch Corp. and Enfish Software.\n \nThose companies offer many features unavailable in consumer products, such as index management, interface customisation, beefed-up security and a more robust search engine, Andrews said. Nevertheless, these companies do not have the brand recognition of Google, and are unknown to many corporations. The fact that Google is free is also a big draw. \n\n"Enterprises would probably consider (Google) because they just don't know of an alternative," Andrews said. \n\nGoogle Desktop Search is available for Windows XP and Windows 2000 Service Pack 3 and above.\n\n

//Article extract from: http://sunsite.queensu.ca/rmc/BUS300/graphicspage/ - be sure to visit and support the website//\n\n A brief explanation of the two most common types of graphic format used on the web and in small publication like the Megabyte.\n\n World Wide Web browsers support a limited number of file formats, the two most popular ones being GIF and JPEG image formats.\n\n'' GIF''\n The Graphic Interchange Format (GIF) was originally designed by the Compuserve Information Service in the 1980s as an efficient means to transmit images across data networks. It was not until the the early 1990s that the original designers of the World Wide Web adopted the GIF format for its efficiency and widespread familiarity. Today the overwhelming majority of images, such as logos, line art and buttons are in GIF format.\n\n ''JPEG''\n Another graphics file format commonly used on the Web is the Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG), which unlike the GIF format, has the advantage of compressing full-color images. Thus the JPEG format is preferred among photographers, artists, graphic designers, medical imaging specialists, art historians, and other groups for whom image quality is paramount and cannot be compromised.\n\n ''Advantages of GIF Files:''\n*The most widely supported graphics format on the Web\n*All graphic Web viewers support the GIF format for inlined images.\n*~GIFs of diagrammatic images look better than ~JPEGs.\n*GIF supports transparency and interlacing.\n\n ''Advantages of JPEG Images:''\n*Huge compression ratios are possible, for faster download speeds.\n*Gives excellent results in most photographs and medical images.\n*Supports full-color images (24-bit "true color" images).\n\n '' There are three main ways to obtain graphics:''\n*Finding them already made\n*Creating your own.\n*Digitally scanning in existing pictures.\n\n ''Finding:''\n It is very easy to use a graphic that is already on the Web for your own page. When you find a graphic you like, poise your mouse arrow over it and click on the right mouse button (or the main one if you are using a Mac). From the selection of options that appears, choose to Save the image onto your hard drive or a floppy disk. When using this method of obtaining images, however, be very aware of copyright laws. Make sure to obtain graphics in this manner from sites especially maintained to offer copyright-free graphics. Using an image created by someone else without giving credit or obtaining permission violates current copyright laws and may bring you more trouble than you ever thought possible!\n\n Here is a graphics library for you to use in your web page construction:\n*A. ~St-Pierre's Collection #1 ftp://emo451b.rmc.ca/Clipart-Images/Animations/\n*A. ~St-Pierre's Collection #2 http://sol1/academic/busadm/courses/stpierre/intedied/weedte/wwwmedia.htm\n*Barry's Clip Art Server http://ns2.clever.net/~graphics/clip_art/clipart.html\n*Texture Land http://www.meat.com/textures/oindex.html\n*Bullets http://www.pixelator.com/pixspher.html\n*Molly's personal favorite http://www.dumpsterdive.com/\n \n Try also performing a Web search for the keywords "graphics" or "clipart."\n\n ''Creating:''\nMany graphics programs exist which you can use to draw or paint your own graphics. Be sure to save your files in GIF or JPEG forms. Visit the Alchemy Mindworks GIF Construction Set for Windows, for software to help you with your GIF animation. This program is user-friendly and will cost you only $10 to register. For general information and other links to software tools, visit: http://members.aol.com/royalef/gifanim.htm, or the Adobe Home Page, creator of Adobe Paint Shop Pro, the most popular GIF animator.\n\n ''Additional Options When Creating an Image:''\n ''Imagemaps:'' These are simply pictures with areas called hot regions, that users can click to go to different web locations. They look good, but off course they take longer to download and they can be more difficult to navigate with, because they relay on coordinates. Visit the Nabisco Home Page to see an imagemap.\n\n ''Interlaced GIF or Progressive JPEG:'' Images can be stored in such way that a draft of the picture appears quickly and then the details are slowly filled in as the download finishes.Note: browsers that do not support this feature, will not show the image at all.\n\n ''Transparent:'' Graphics that are saved in such a way as to allow the background of the web page to show through. Such a transparent image is the "GRAPHICS" label on the top of this page. (This is on the web site form which this article was obtained - Ed) Note: JPEG images cannot be made transparent.\n\n '' Animated ~GIFs:'' You can create simple animations using GIF files. To do so, you will need any software program (such as Paint Shop Pro or GIF Construction Set), as well as a selection of images that are to projected one after the other. Take a look at this link to view simple GIF animations.\n\n ''Scanning:'' You can take an existing picture on a piece of paper or a photograph and convert it to a digital form by using a scanner. Operation procedures for each scanner vary, but scanning is usually as easy as laying the picture on the glass screen of the scanner and clicking Scan. Be sure to save your files in GIF or JPEG forms.\n\n ''Digital Camera:'' The advantage of using a digital cameras is the fact that they store the photographs directly in a digital format, and the photos can then be used immediately.\n\n Once an image is saved to your disk, you can insert it into your web page document. While using Netscape Composer: Go to Insert an Image. Type in the name of the image file, including the GIF or JPEG extension. An image can also be used as the background. Go to Format and down to Page Colors and Properties. Under Colors and Background, then Background Image, click on Use Image and type in the filename. This command will cause the browser to tile the image, repeating it over and over to fill the background. Remember that although data transmission rates vary, depending on the type of modem, the speed of your Web server, the type of Internet net connection used, and other factors, the overall point is that the more graphics you use, the longer your reader will have to wait to see your page. A better strategy would be to gradually increase the graphics loading of your pages. In this way, you will be drawing users into your site with reasonable download times.\n\n\n

We all have our favourite programs and in particular shareware, or even freeware, that we have used and got used to and wouldn't give up for anything. I have mentioned some form time to time, including some commercial software which is available free off the web. Of course there is a motive in giving away free commercially developed software - they want you to get hooked on what is a superseded version, so you will jump on the up-grade train and start paying for it. I must admit I have done that, but I have no regrets in upgrading a program I use a lot.\n \nSome of my favourites are described below. //- Richard Elam//\n\n ''Serif ~PagePlus''\n This desktop publishing program must be one of the great bargains around. I obtained my first (free) copy off a magazine disk probably 8-10 years ago, and I registered it and paid for a hard copy manual. PDF format was in its infancy at that time so could not download the manual for nothing.\n Since then I have upgraded a number of times. On more than one occasion it only cost me a fraction of the full cost, as I was offered special discounted upgrade prices before the new version was released. Most recently I have upgraded to version 8 PDF which exports PDF files as well as printing and saving in its own native format.\n\n Why don't you give it a go. Go to the website http://www.freeserifsoftware.com and see what they have. Last time I looked (this evening) they were offering:\n*~PagePlus 5 - DTP\n*~DrawPlus 4 - vector graphics creation\n*~PhotoPlus 5.5 - photo editing,\n*3Dplus 2 - bitmap graphics\n*~WebPlus 6 - web page creation.\n\n These are all fully functional and can be registered. If you do register you will get emails form the main site www.serif.com offering you upgrades at reduced cost. You don't have to respond and can opt out of receiving such offers. Have a look at the main website, though, because you may find free PDF format manual downlaods for your free software. Definitely worth it.\n\n ''Split Files Shell Extension''\n I downloaded a freebee some years ago and have used it often to split up large files greater than 1.44 MB, so I could spread them over a number of floppy disks. This need (for me anyway) is less now that I have USB ports and a "flash drive" with a 128 MB capacity. However, this sort of utility is still very useful to swap files into and out of Win 95 machines and those without flash drives and similar.\n \n The software I have is called Split File Shell Extension written by a Frenchman called Laurent Berger. If you search with Google its best to search for his name. I did find a site at http://www.webattack.com/get/splitext.htm and checked that this was the one I had. It hasn't been updated for some time, but it claims compatibility with 98/NT/ME/2000 and I know it works with 95. If it works with Win2000 the chances are it will work also with XP. This is a file download of about 287 KB zipped file and has a reasonable help file. It can split the files directly to successive floppies and the recipient can recreate the whole file again without having the program.\n \nBy comparison with the smaller software programs I found, this is quite sophisticated and is my recommendation.\n\n ''Splitfile 2''\n I searched for "splitfile" and got a large number of hits, but they were of other pieces of freeware, with the same name and doing similar things. One I installed on XP and its fine. It's a tiny download file of about 19 KB (again a zipped file) and has very simple help in the form of a short text readme file.\n \n Although I have only had a quick look at it, it seems very simple. When you run it, it presents you with a small dialogue box where you select the size if the files you want to split up into, then select the large file in question and press enter.\n \nIt immediately creates a number of files of the size selected, and names them with the original file name, but with an extra sequential number on the end, and an extent of .0, .1, .2 etc. You then have to transfer the individual files onto a floppy each. The recipient copies the split files into a folder, then runs the program that he/she also has to have. I think this is rather fiddly.\n\n ''Another Split File ..''\n Yet another split file utility was found at www.jituonline.freeservers.com/splitfile.htm which was also a small download of about 19 KB. This seemed, from the screen shots on the download page, to be more like the Split File Shell Extension, and could be worth having a look at. Have a go and let me know what you think of them.

// Many thanks to member David for this contribution. David sent me an email which is printed below ... Ed//\n\n The arrival of the "~MegaByte" in the mail is always a welcome event, but every time I read it I am filled with guilt that I haven't contributed to it, while stalwarts like Roger and Arthur have clearly spent a lot of time on their regular and informative articles. It is also very disturbing to see that very few members (me included) make any contribution, which is a pity because there is a wealth of experience out there which could do so much to improve our utilisation of "the dreaded PC".\n\n I ventured to make a contribution (so long ago that I don't want to be specific about the date) about the arrangement of a second hard drive to provide a system backup which would be invulnerable to viruses and catastrophic installs, and make it easy to restore the "system quo".\n \n Perhaps some members would be interested to know about the longer term experience with this arrangement, which I and several of my friends now can't live without. It relies on the certainty that a "dead" hard drive cannot be written to or accessed in any way.\n\n Conveniently, in all the PC's I have had the pleasure of meeting, the BIOS has been very accommodating in it's tolerance of the presence or absence of the hard drive on the secondary IDE connector on the motherboard, the presence or absence being determined by the switch controlling the power to the hard drive. If you have two hard drives, and the secondary master has it's power supply governed by a toggle switch, then if you boot up with power "on", it's "there", and if you boot up with power "off", it “ain't there”.\n\n It seems that most motherboards will tolerate a "dead" hard drive hanging on the IDE outlet without fuss. The only visible indication of a "different" configuration is the indicator light for hard drive activity, which behaves a little differently from usual if the second HDD is un-powered. The big advantage of this system is that a "dead" hard drive can "sit" there totally invulnerable to the many adverse situations which can befall a PC, (bad installs, utilities from Hell, un-uninstallable "upgrades", etc), and provide a means of restoring the system via a utility like Ghost, so that a major disaster becomes a 30 minute (or so) restoration exercise, rather than a complete re-installation of the system.\n\n Of course, it requires discipline to back up the nicely operating system to the second HDD before "experimenting". However, a safely stored (and switched off) back-up is a very comforting asset and almost a licence to "play", knowing that rescue is always at hand. As a small business user I am absolutely paranoid over any risk to my precious system. The presence of the back up allows me to sleep at night!\n \nI recommend it to you, and also for you to contribute from you own experience for the benefit of the club members!\n\n Regards //- David Tolton-Smith //

I have been using a handy browser utility to make Web surfing easier - it enables you to waste time much more efficiently... \n\nThis is Netsonic, which has been reviewed in a number of publications. It is sometimes described as a Web accelerator, but it does not increase the download speed of pages arriving at your machine. It creates its own cache (replacing the browser one) and each time you visit a Web page the image goes into the cache. The next time you go to the same URL, the image flashes up from the cache, while your machine downloads the page in the background. If nothing has changed, a Netsonic on-screen message says so. If there has been an update, the message alerts you to this, and a click will bring up the later page. \n\nThis is all quicker than trying to read the page for changes, and it really does help the getting around. It can be customised in various ways, and will sit quietly in the background until you connect with another page. It needs a 32 bit browser. The program is freeware and the current version is on the BBS (as Petsonic.exe). There is a fancier commercial version, but I understand it has a few bugs. \n\nWhen you first run Netsonic, it will nip through to its home page (Web3000) to log you in as a user, and you will occasionally receive promotional messages. \n\nThere are a number of utilities which will pretty up Windows Explorer, or put functions in your tray. I have been using ~PK95CTP. ZIP, which sits in your tray and can call up all sorts of useful Win tasks (File manager, Explorer, Notepad, Registry Editor, Sysedit, etc etc). There are menu spaces for you to add in 6 functions of your own choice.) Freeware and on the BBS. \n\nAnd as a long time user (like Jim O) of a DOS utility Directory Freedom I have it as a Win98 shortcut, and also as a tray item. You can do all sorts of things with a couple of keystrokes instead of much mousing around. Get it off the BBS (~DF461.zip) and have a go. You can customise the menus with an editor, with List, with other utilities, and it has built-in viewers for a number of file types. It will happily read text files, even if the filename ends in .nco for example (which defeats Explorer), and it will do this before you can call up Quickview. You can quickly rename/copy/move files, add/remove attributes,etc etc. V useful !! DOS for speed!!.... \n\nNo doubt others in NZPCA have their favourites - put finger to keyboard and tell us about them.\n\nTony Fitchett\n

I used to say, "I've been on the Internet for more than 4 years, and never had a problem with a computer virus. It's all Scare Tactics!" Well, NOW I'm Scared! \n\nA good friend found a file in a BBS. She opened it, liked it, and shared it. One of the most wonderful things about the Internet is the sharing, but this was not wonderful. \n\nI opened the Happy99.exe file, and enjoyed the pretty fireworks she sent to me. Oh, wasn't it sweet for her to think of me, and share this pretty program! I was very pleased. \n\nThat night another friend called me and said she had sent him the program, too. He did not open it because his antivirus program discovered and warned him that it contained a WORM VIRUS, and after calling her to see who else she may have shared this with, he wanted to warn me. \nI was mildly nervous, but still wasn't too worried. After all, I had been surfing and sharing for more than 4 years, and never had a virus problem. \nThe next day, my e-mail program would not send. I tried, and crashed, rebooted, tried again, and crashed. Everything else seemed to be fine, so again and again I tried, and crashed. OKAY! It was time to worry about something! I started getting reports that some of my friends were receiving duplicate e-mails from me. One containing the Happy99.exe as an attached file. Oh NO!!! I tried to remember who I had sent e-mail to between the time I opened the fireworks, and the time my e-mail program would no longer send, so I could warn them not to open the attachment in the duplicates, though I feared it may be too late for them, too. \n\nI installed and updated an anti-virus program. It said I had the Happy99 Worm Virus in 3 files, which had to be deleted to eliminate the virus. To make a long story short, the Zookeeper has a knack for doing things the hard way, and I started reinstalling from my Windows 3.11 up to get back the wsock32.dll that I had deleted as instructed by the antivirus program. Arrrgh!!! \n\nThere, of course, was a much simpler way of dealing with this, as you will find in the following e-mail, that I received after the fact. If you did look at it ... then follow the instructions below. \n\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nHappy99.exe WORM VIRUS Fix \n\nHow to remove Happy99.exe Virus \n\nYou can remove this trojan manually from your computer. To do that, first check the WINDOWS\sSYSTEM folder for the presence of these files. \n\n1.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; SKA.EXE \n2.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; SKA.DLL \n3.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; WSOCK32.SKA\n \nIf you find these files then you have been attacked by the Happy99 Trojan.\n \nTo remove this Trojan do the following: \n1.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Delete SKA.EXE, SKA.DLL and ~WSOCK32.DLL \n2.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Rename ~WSOCK32.SKA as ~WSOCK32.DLL \nMake sure that you have ~WSOCK32.SKA file before deleting ~WSOCK32.DLL and ensure that you have renamed this file properly. You may have to close your Browser, Email software, etc. to delete and rename the DLL files. (Zookeeper note: If you have Internet Explorer integrated Windows, as I did, you may have to do it in ms-dos mode). \n\n1.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Shut down windows with the RESTART IN ~MS-DOS MODE option. \n2.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; At the prompt type the bold text. \n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; C:\sWINDOWS ''cd system''\n3.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Next prompt and command: \n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; C:\sWINDOWS\sSYSTEM ''del wsock32.dll''\n4.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; And finally: \n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; C:\sWINDOWS\sSYSTEM ''ren wsock32.ska wsock32.dll''\n\nThen restart your computer.\nOpen the file ''C:\sWINDOWS\sSYSTEM\sliste.ska'' in your NOTEPAD to see a list of who you may have infected with the Happy99 worm virus.) \n\n''More help :)'' \n\nI'm clean now, but I note that your instructions on that page are a little sketchy for the less technically minded folks. It was necessary to use the attrib command to remove the read only and system attributes from the infected wsock32.dll before it could be deleted. I made the following step by step list of instructions for those less technically minded [those using win95 and win98 who've never seen dos before] in my crowd so they could clean their machines, and I thought I'd pass it on to you for that page. \n\nReboot to dos mode \n\nType each of the following commands as shown, and hit the enter key after each one. \n\ncd \swindows\ssystem\nattrib -r -s wsock32.dll\ndel wsock32.dll\ndel ska.dll\ndel ska.exe\nrename wsock32.ska wsock32.dll\nattrib +r +s wsock32.dll\nexit \n\nNote that the exit command will take you back into windows 95 after the dos session, which is strange since we weren't at a dos prompt within win95, but it does work. 8-) \n\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nFrom: Kate Wing \n\nThanks for your tip on the Happy99 Worm. I'm sending along Semantics' page on the bug which has detailed instructions for all sorts of computer set-ups, in case you want to link to it (perhaps you are now getting lots of Email about "how do I fix this?").\n\nhttp://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/happy99.worm.html \n\nKate \n\n

I've recently been experimenting with audio recording on my PC. I have a lot of old vinyl records that I want to copy to media that will make them more easily played. Cassette tape is adequate for short term recording, but deteriorates quite remarkably over time, so I have been looking at alternative methods of reccording.\n\nI don't have a CDR or CDRW drive, so I've been looking at hard drive recording, which is in any case an intermediate step to recording to CDR or CDRW.\n\nHard drive recording would have been un-thinkable even just a couple of years ago, but with the ever decreasing cost of hardware and good choice of free software it is very practical today. This article is based on my own experience, which may differ from yours; if you disagree or have something to add please write an article about your own experiences next month.\nRemember, ''Megabyte needs your articles!'' \n\n''Hardware required:''\nI've been getting good results with a ~PPro200, an old ISA Vibra16 soundcard, and a reasonable amplifier and speakers. The limiting component is the soundcard, because these generally have very poor signal/noise performance. \nThis is partly due to the environment they are installed in (~PCs are electrically very noisy) and that they were never originally designed for high quality recording - they were intended to replace the beeps of the original PC speaker, and for enhanced sound in games. Modern soundcards may well offer improved performance, but I'm unlikely to be learning more about that in the foreseeable future.\n\nDon't waste your time with PC "multimedia" type speakers: in my opinion (and this is my article, right?) they are rubbish. Don't bother using the inbuilt soundcard amplifier, either. If you have room, almost any old amplifier and speakers will give you better results, and these are usually sold very cheaply at garage sales, school fairs and auctions. If you plan on recording from a turntable you will need an external amplifier, anyway. This article assumes the use of an external amplifier, but it is possible to record any audio source that you can connect to your soundcard input.\n\nYou will also need some kind of audio source - tuner, turntable, microphone or tape deck.\n\nMost ~PCs with a CDROM drive are already set up so that you can play audio ~CDs, but because ~CDs are already a digital format it doesn't make sense to record from them as an audio source, so I won't cover that in this article. \nNormally you will use ripping software to extract the information directly from the CD in digital form. \n\nThe last requirement is hard drive space, and plenty of it; more on that later.\n\n''Connections:''\n\n(picture here)\n\nYour soundcard should have a proper line output (some of the cheaper ones only have a speaker output which serves as both speaker and line output, and these may not produce acceptable results).\n\nYou use a pair of RCA plug to 3.5mm plug leads to connect your amplifier to the soundcard. Jaycar sell 3.0 metre leads for $8.95, at that price it isn't worth making your own. Connect your PC to the amplifier as if the PC were a cassette tape deck: \n\nAmplifier&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; PC Soundcard\ntape record ----->&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; line input \ntape play ----->&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; line output \n\nIf you intend to record from a cassette tape deck, you will need to move the tape deck output to one of the other amplifier inputs, unless your amplifier supports two tape decks.\n\n''Software:''\nYou will need software, but most of this you may already have. The list below briefly describes the software in general terms and the order in which it is used. The range of software is very large, and some other NZPCA members may wish to write about their experiences - especially about suites like the Adaptec software, which is worthy of an article itself; there isn't space to go into any detail here.\n\n''1. Mixer''\nThis enables you to control input and output levels on the soundcard, and will usually be supplied by the soundcard manufacturer or come with your operating system. Use your mixer to adjust the levels of the devices you are recording or playing back from. It is a good idea to mute any devices you are not actually using while recording.\n\n''2. Recording software'' \n\n\nThis converts the audio input into a digital format which is stored on the hard drive. The most common recording format is probably .wav (which will be familiar to most Windows users) but other formats also exist. It doesn't matter what format you use, provided your other software supports the same format. I've been getting good results using wavrec (which also includes wavplay and xltwavplay) under Linux.\n\n''3. Sound Editor''\nThis is optional, but will allow you to manipulate your recorded .wav files before encoding them, as manipulating mp3 files is difficult. I don't edit my recordings as they are at this stage only temporary, but for serious recording you may want to remove scratches, hiss, clicks and pops, or to assemble your recordings into a particular order.\n\n''4. Encoder'' \nIt is common to encode recorded .wav files as mp3s to save hard drive space, although other formats (such as .ogg, .aac and .wma) may have size and/or quality advantages. Generally it is possible to easily reduce file sizes by 10:1 or more, with even smaller file sizes possible at reduced quality.\n\nI've been using LAME, which is available for most operating systems. It can be run from a console (which I prefer), but there is a range of software which presents the user with a GUI, while using lame to do the real work.\n\nUsing Linux and the ~PPro200 I get much faster than realtime encoding at even high mp3 quality settings using LAME. \n\n''5. Player''\nI've been using XMMS (X ~MultiMedia System), but there are several players available for Linux, while Winamp is probably one of the more popular Windows mp3 players. Don't forget that these mp3 players often have many other capabilities and may play your .wav files, audio ~CDs and interact with CDDB (the CD Database) too. \n\nAdaptec EZ CD is an excellent suite of programs that will perform most of the functions required for recording, and this comes bundled with some CDRW drives. \n\n''The process:''\nThe steps involved are quite straightforward. Connect your amplifier to your PC soundcard. Set your amplifier so that it is monitoring the output from your PC soundcard - most amplifiers have a "Tape Monitor" button or switch for this purpose (remember that your PC has effectively replaced the cassette tape deck). You can now bypass the PC soundcard by deselecting the "Tape Monitor" switch. \n\nConnect your audio source(s) to the amplifier and select the source you are going to use. Set your recording levels using your mixer software, you will probably use two of your mixer controls; line input, which determines the input level to the soundcard, and PCM, which determines the output or replay level from the soundcard.\n\nOnce you have your sound working right, use your recording software to make a brief test recording to a .wav file. If necessary edit or manipulate this file in your editor. \n\nConvert the resulting .wav file to mp3 using your encoder, .\n\nPlay the mp3 file and check it is of appropriate quality. Once you have the result you want, you can delete or overwrite the .wav file.\n\n''File formats and file sizes:''\nHard drive recording has only recently become practical because the process of recording produces truly huge files, and until recently hard drive space was just too expensive to consider using for this application. For example, a 2 hour recording from a tuner, will produce a 704MB file when using a 16bit, 24KHz sample rate in stereo, and this would not generally be considered an adequately high sample rate for recording from a turntable. You can figure that a full length 33rpm vinyl record is going to take about 700MB for both sides at 48KHz sample rate.\n\nIf you accept lower quality, file sizes will be correspondingly smaller - a mono recording at telephone quality (could be used for phone or ham radio logging or recording talkback radio) would probably record a day's events in the same file size.\n\nIf you encode the same 704MB file to mp3, at 96KHz (fm quality) the resulting file size is only 88MB, and the difference in quality is negligible. Other formats are reputedly able to provide better quality in half the file size of mp3, however their use is (at this stage) not as widespread as mp3.\n\n''Storage requirements:'' \nHard drive recording produces very large files, and these will fill even the largest hard drive very quickly. Encoding to mp3 alleviates the problem but even mp3 files are quite large.\n\nThere are several ways around this problem, the most popular being to move the files off the hard drive onto a recordable CDROM. This can be done so that the CDR is recorded so that it behaves like an ordinary audio CD, which can be played in most modern audio CD players. This limits you to about 74 minutes of recording per CD.\n\nIf the files are encoded as mp3 and moved to a CDR, much higher recording times are possible - 800 minutes being easily achievable on one CD - but with the inconvenience of having to play the CDR back on a PC or on one of the very few CD players available that recognise mp3 files.\n\nAnother option is the one I'm currently using - I have a separate file server at home, and I use that just to store files. \nIn fact, because I never have any space on my PC hard drive at any time, I use the file server as storage when making the initial recording, and again when converting to mp3.\nThis all works flawlessly, even using a relatively slow 10Mbs network.\nIt is possible that in a few years time, we'll all be buying and downloading our music from the 'net and houses will have the equivalent of a file server for storing information of all kinds. It may even be a function built into your digital TV set top box. \n\nAdvantages:\nThere is no doubt that cassettes are an established and convenient method of recording audio, but PC recording offers some significant advantages.\n\nRecording can easily be scheduled to start and finish unattended, by using a scheduler or cron. Duration is not restricted to the time provided by one side of a cassette tape (commonly 45 minutes), in fact I have several times recorded for periods of more than 4 hours duration with no problems.\n\nPC recording allows you to choose the balance between the quality you require and file size, and (limited by your soundcard) is capable of exceeding the capabilities of most average cassette recorders, with no reduction in quality of all subsequent copies.\n\nWhile not as cheap as cassettes, hard drives are competitive. A 10.2GB hard drive now costs around $250.00, and will give about 10,000 minutes of (mp3) recording time, equivalent to 110 cassette tapes. \n\nOf course, it is unusual to lose the entire contents of 110 tapes due to some mishap or failure, whereas losing the contents of a 10.2GB hard drive is easily possible. \n\nConclusion: \nHard drive recording is a worthwhile alternative to other forms of audio recording in some situations, hardware requirements are modest, and there is plenty of software available. \n\nIf you haven't tried PC recording give it a go. It isn't difficult, and you may find it to be surprisingly useful.\n

Your programs read from and write to a hard drive. Over time, the information you have stored on your hard drive may become fragmented - in other words, a file may be stored in various non-contiguous sectors. It takes much longer for your computer to access fragmented files than it does to access unfragmented files. This is because the read and write heads have to skip between sectors to access the information. To decrease the time it takes for your computer to access a file; you can defragment your drives with Disk Defragmenter (defrag.exe), a 16bit Windows-based application. This can be used on compressed or uncompressed drives to move files to new locations in order to free contiguous disk space.\n\nNote: - Disk Defragmenter does not work with most compression software from other vendors. If you want to defragment a file on your A: drive, an easy way to do this is to click the Start button, and then choose Programs, Accessories, System Tools and finally Disk Defragmenter. You can also access disk defragmenter if you click Start button and then Run and type defrag, then click OK.\n\nTroubleshooting Disk Errors (using scandisk)\nYou are most probably aware of system failures, and may even have unintentionally deleted files or folders. The troubleshooting tools included with Windows 95 help prevent these sort of problems. One of the troubleshooting tools, ~ScanDisk, can check disk, files, and folder errors on\n\nHard disk drives\nFloppy disk drives\nRam drives\nMemory cards\n\nNote: - Scandisk cannot find or fix errors on ~CD-ROM drives, Network drives, or drives created by using assign, subst, join or interlink. Scandisk will identify and fix the affected areas before data loss occurs. Windows 95/98 includes two version of scandisk-\n\nscandskw.exe, a 16bit Windows utility\nscandisk.exe an ~MS-DOS based utility\n\nThe ~MS-DOS version is used during Windows 95 setup. You can also use it if you need to run Scandisk in ~MS-DOS mode. It can work on DMF formatted floppy disks and detect problems with long filenames.\n\nNote: - Distribution Media Format (DMF) is a method of storing 1.68 MB of data on a high-density 3.5 floppy disk. DMF reduces the gap between sectors so you can write to a DMF floppy disk using standard disk copying tools without damaging the floppy disk\n\nScandisk for ~MS-DOS, unlike Scandisk for Windows, can be used to scan and repair compressed volumes files on host drives. Suppose you are using Windows 95 ~OSR2 or Windows 98 and owing to a system crash, you are unable to shut down, your computer correctly. In this case, scandisk for ~MS-DOS is automatically invoked when you restart your system, so any errors that may have occurred from improper shut down are addressed before Windows 95/98 starts. If while using ~OSR2 or Windows 98, a hard sector error is detected upon startup, Scandisk for ~MS-DOS is immediately invoked to perform a surface scan.\n\nScandisk for Windows offers the same trouble shooting tools capacity as the ~MS-DOS version except that it cannot fix CVF (Compressed Volume Files). It can however, correct long file name problems. This version can be run in the background while you run other applications that do not write to the disk. Scandisk for Windows includes an /n switch. The /n switch enables you to run Scandisk in non-interactive mode. This means that users cannot close the utility before the Scandisk check is complete. Generally it's recommended that you use the Windows version of Scandisk first and then the ~MS-DOS version if you still need to correct other problems.\n\nTrouble Shooting Disk Errors.\nSuppose you want to run scandisk in order to check for disk, folder, and file errors on the C drive of your computer. To do this you click the Start button, then choose Accessories, System tools and click Scandisk. Both versions of Scandisk enable you to check your disk surface, files, and folders for lost clusters and correct them if they exist. This also has the effect of freeing disk space by getting rid of unusable information. Checking for disk errors ahead of time can also prevent data loss problems.\n\nScandisk offers you two checking options.\n\n1. Standard mode checks the files and folders on the selected drives or drives for errors.\n2. Thorough mode does the same thing and checks the physical integrity of the disk's surface.\n\nIf you don't want Scandisk to prompt you before repairing each error it finds, you should ensure that the Automatically Fix Errors checkbox is selected. You can click the options button to specify which ares of the disk to check or which type of processing to perform. For example you can get Scandisk to check System Areas Only.\n\nIf you are having trouble with cross-linked files. Note: - Crossed link files occur when two or more files are marked as owning the same section. Usually the last file updated is the correct, the other is correct except for the cluster's content that is part of the other file. You would click the advanced button. The Scandisk advanced Option dialog box allows you to specify what action must be taken for errors that Scandisk identifies.\n\nTo start the scanning process you click the Start button. Scandisk checks the disk using the options you specified. Scandisk reports the results of the scan and summaries information about the disk. To ensure the optimum hard disk performance you should run Scandisk, Disk Defragmenter, ~DriveSpace, and if you are using Drive Space 3, Compression agent.\n\nHowever, running these utilities can be time consuming. Microsoft Plus and Windows 95 ~OSR2, Windows 98 comes with a Win 32 - based application, System agent. You can use System agent for scheduling system maintenance tasks to run at times convenient to you. Note: - By default, system agent only runs System Tools when you aren't using your computer.\n\nOnce you've installed and configured it on a computer it periodically runs programs according to your preferences. System Agent allows you to specify options to run applications such as,\n\nCompression Agent\nDisk Defragmenter\nScandisk\n\nIt also notifies you of conditions such as low disk space. When you install Microsoft Plus for Windows 95/98 it includes the System Agent, Scandisk and Disk Defragmenter are automatically scheduled. By default, a standard Scandisk and Defragmenter check is scheduled every workday, and a thorough Scandisk check is scheduled every month.\n\nIf you've compressed any drives of the fixed drives on your computer with ~DriveSpace3, System Agent runs Compression Agent daily to recompress new files and ultrapack any files that have reached archive status. System Agent also checks your hard drive every hour and notifies you if you are running low on disk space.\n\nSuppose you want to schedule a monthly backup using System agent. You double click the System Agent icon on the task bar. Then on the Program menu, you click Schedule a new program. You may want to schedule Backup, so you type Backup.exe in the program field. To select the time when you want the automatic backup to occur, you click the When to Run button. You select the monthly radio button and click OK to return to the System Agent dialog box. When the Postpone backup.exe dialog box is displayed, you click the No button. The program will run at the scheduled time. Like all system agent tasks, the task you've scheduled will be stored in the System Agent database (sage.dat). System Agent maintains a log file (sagelog.txt). You can view it by choosing Advanced - View log. The file contains a history of all System Agents tasks and can be read by any text editor.\n

Whew!\n\nI'm sure that all NZPCA members are careful and sensible enough to keep backups of all their important data (including configuration data and those articles for Megabyte that Arthur so desperately needs!) but these days - with hard drives being so large, it is very difficult to back up everything. \n\nWhen did you last backup your partition table?\n\nI had a very unpleasant experience a couple of months ago, when I ran a hard drive benchmarking program (~HDDSpeed) on my main PC. The system refused to boot afterwards - in fact the entire 6.4Gb disk appeared as blank space. Although I had a reasonable backup of my really important data I must admit that I didn't feel particularly happy when this happened. Personal computers are personal, and they tend to mutate to suit the user over a period of use,as software is installed and settings are changed. My systems are very personal - nobody else can figure where anything is! \n\nMany ~PCs will only have one partition - usually this is a big ~FAT32 partition that occupies the entire drive. This usually appears to most users a their C: drive. Subsequent (logical) partitions (if configured) will appear as D:, E:, etc \n\nThere are considerable advantages in splitting a large drive into several partitions, as this makes it possible to keep your important data on its own partition (where being separate from the operating system, it is usually safer and easier to back up) and also permits the installation (and reinstallation with minimal disruption) of several different operating systems on the same PC. \n\nPerhaps having about a dozen partitions (as I have) is a little excessive, but I have found it very useful, although handling drive letters up to K: can be a little awkward - but no problems in Linux, which doesn't use drive letters anyway.\n\nThe benchmark program had deleted the Master Boot record. This is an area near the beginning of the drive, which contains some code which tells the PC which partition the PC is to be started from, and the primary partition table, which lists the information necessary to locate the beginning and end of each primary partition on the hard drive. If logical partitions exist on the drive, these are pointed to by an entry in the partition table known as an extended partition - this entry replaces one of the available four primary partitions listed in the partition table. \n\nI realised that the benchmark program may only have damaged the partition table, and would not necessarily have damaged the contents of the disk itself. When viewing the drive with a disk editor, I could see there was data on the drive - it was just inaccessible.\n\nI needed to rebuild the partition table, but how? And how was I going to find and recover all twelve partitions?\n \nThe first thing I did was - nothing. I left everything as it was - after all, the data was safe enough where it was, so I used another PC to do some research. No need to panic! \n\nOne option was to use a disk editor to search the drive for the codes indicating the beginning, end, and partition type of each partition, and build the table manually - quite a daunting task considering I only have 10 fingers and thumbs and I would need to count in hexadecimal. \nCommercial software is available (from Ontrack, for example) that will enable the recovery of the raw data from a damaged disk so that it can be copied to another disk - but really, all I wanted was my old system back, and I knew there was nothing wrong with the disk itself. \n\nI asked around, and eventually another NZPCA member (see the value of membership?) suggested using a small program called gpart (Guess Partition). This marvelous little piece of beta software is included in the ~SuSE Linux distribution and a more recent version is available from the web, and of course it is free. \n\nAll I had to do was install the software on a working Linux system, install the problem disk as a slave on that system, and let gpart examine the disk and see what it thought the partition table should look like. I did this several times and in different ways, and each time it came up with the same answers, which also agreed with my memory of what the disk had looked like - so with fingers crossed I eventually let it write a new partition table.\n\nWith a little more work (reinstalling Boot Manager, and making the disk startable - FDISK /MBR) I had the system up and running exactly as it had been before the disaster.\n\nNow *that* was a good feeling - and Linux and NZPCA contacts had enabled me to recover from a situation that could well have resulted in a reformat and reinstallation of everything.\n\nFor detailed information about partition tables and recovery, visit \n\n{{http://www.datarescue.com/laboratory/partition.htm \n

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Another month has gone by and the day is cold, wet and miserable. A good day to make a start on this month’s article in that nice warm kitchen or so I thought. That was till my wife drew my attention to the DVS outlet in the lounge. Was it supposed to drip water? Not according to the manufacture specs’. After crawling around in the roof space and not seeing much as the outlet is installed close to an outer wall and above the fire place, we dismantled the DVS outlet to get a better look. The news wasn’t good. The roof had sprung a leak. Out came the necessary containers to hold the water till the rain stopped. At that point we noticed that none of the lights were working in that end of the house. Checked the fuse. It showed signs of melt down indicating a short somewhere. Back into the roof space to check that I hadn’t damaged any cables. All OK. Back to the switchboard to check out the individual circuits. Traced the fault to the switch for the back porch light. It was very wet and had arced over. Another water leak but this one was running down inside the wall. Must be about time that roof was replaced. \n\nBack to the computers. Last month we replaced the USB card in Anne’s computer and got it talking to the Microdrive and the printer. A week later it developed another fault and refused to boot-up. We have had several computers lately developing this problem. Robin Hinde had given us several second hand computers and spare drives, so I decided to use the HP Pavilion desktop. (Figs 1 and 2) It comes with its own USB ports which is an added bonus. Installed Windows Me, added the modem card and the SCSI card for the scanner, installed the SCSI drivers and the software for the scanner and printer. Every thing worked. After finding the drivers for the modem card, we installed it and then proceeded to set-up the Dial-up network for connecting to the Internet. At this point it started to go wrong. For some reason, ME refused to load the TCP/IP setting even though it kept telling us that it had. It meant that we could dial and connect to our ISP but not connect to the Internet, as this requires the TCP/IP protocols. Looks like we have to reload the operating system again. Ran out of time and left reloading for Saturdays meeting. Trying to reload the operating system and do several other jobs at the same time doesn’t work. The end result was the computer got slower and kept losing files. Gave up on that and bought the computer home. Started again by cleaning out the previous Windows installations and reloading Windows 98SE. Reloaded the modem drivers and successfully set-up the Internet connection. Connected to the Internet and logged onto several sites with no problems. The problem showed up a little later when I tried to go back to a site that I had already visited. For some reason the site had stopped updating and I got the “Unable to find web page” message. It did this several times even after redialling and reconnecting. Using my main computer I checked out the same sites with no problems. Even though the Network Icon indicated we were still connected to the ISP, I strongly suspect we weren’t. Next step was to try another modem. Installed the new modem and when I went to reload the drivers for it using the USB Microdrive, I found out the USB port wasn’t working either and nothing I did would kick it into life. Worked OK the day before. That meant going to option two. Burning the files I needed onto a CD rom, I placed the CD in the CD drive only to discover that it was no longer being seen by the operating system. Checked the BIOS. Not there. Must have lost it while I was checking the USB ports. Reinstalled it in the BIOS and rebooted the operating system. Still not there. The CD drive must be faulty. Tried another CD drive with the same results. At this point that computer was two steps away from the rubbish tip. There was one thing left. I went right back to the beginning and set every thing in the BIOS back to their default values. That worked. The operating system could now see the D drive, that missing CD drive but unfortunately not the USB ports. I re-installed the original modem and CD drive and both tested OK. Windows ME is more USB friendly than Windows 98 and now that I had the CD drive back I re-installed Windows ME hoping that that might fix the USB problem. No such luck. I had no idea what was causing the problem so pushed the computer to one side and got on with some thing else. \n\nA couple of days later I thought that I had better check it again before I returned it, so stuck it on the bench and fired it up. To my amazement It started loading the drivers for the USB Hub and the Microdrive plus all the drivers for the modem. It was now installing every thing it didn’t want to load a couple of days ago. Plugged in the USB Microdrive to check USB port. Worked fine. Plugged in a USB mouse. No problems. Every thing was working. Looks like a few muttered threats of the rubbish tip and the back of the cupboard for a couple of days works wonders. During last month Don installed the book shelf. Fig 3 shows the trainees carpenters helping to install the shelf. The next photo shows the shelf in use. It also shows John and Don working on Don’s laptop. See John’s article for more details \n\nLast month I asked if anybody had the original Win95 3.5 inch install disks. Both John Marchington and Percy Harpham had the Win95 upgrade disks and Don Stewart had the original Win95 disks but one disk was faulty. Fortunately it wasn’t the disk we required. On the upgrade disks, the individual files are not accessible due to the compressed format used. John Hand had a second option. He has an external hard drive that connects via the printer port. A printer port is what all old laptops have. That would also give us access to the files we need. \n\nUsing the required floppy disk we were able to install the network drivers. We can now dial out using Hyper terminal or the dial-up network via the PCMCIA card and log-on onto the ISP. Without the browser we can not surf the Net. Installing the browers is a job for John H and his External hard drive. Fig 5 shows the laptop with the PCMCIA card installed and the special interface cable. \n\nWin Brendgens gave us the three computers that were minus their hard drives. Fortunately Percy had given us some spare hard drives . Thanks to you all.\n\nFig 6. shows Ian and David installing a drive in one of the computers. Getting into and installing drives in some of the desktop computers can be an exercise in its own right. \n\n''John Marchington wrote:'' \n\nWhen Ian and John M arrived at Ron’s and made their presence known, Ron showed them the computer belonging to a friend of his. Apparently there was no longer sound to be heard from the speakers attached to the sound card’s speaker output when playing a suitable CD. John wondered whether the audio lead between the ~CD-ROM drive and sound card might have somehow been dislodged or removed from one end of the circuit. The computer’s cover was removed and it was immediately apparent that the audio lead was correctly fitted into the respective socket at each end, so the cause of the problem seemed to be elsewhere. The speakers were certainly functioning, so it was decided to try a new sound card and a suitable ~ISA-slotted card was found in a cardboard box in Ron’s basement. Fitting the board was straightforward, Windows found a suitable driver for it and installed it and sound was soon heard from the speakers. Another satisfied customer! \n\nDon Stewart arrived with his Digital laptop, which had been assembled, dismantled and reassembled the previous Wednesday at Washington Avenue. It was time to see if an operating system could be installed that would function correctly on the machine. Win3.1 and Win3.11 installation diskettes were both available and one of those would be necessary to allow installation of the upgrade version of Win95. John M had brought along a bootable DOS disk and this was used to bring up a DOS prompt. It was decided to try the Win3.1 disks first. Installation began satisfactorily and Setup.ini was copied across correctly. Unfortunately, for some inexplicable reason the XMS memory manager would not copy and the process came to an abrupt halt at that point. The process was repeated with exactly the same result, so both Don and John concluded that the diskette must have somehow become corrupted. \n\nDon then wondered whether it was time to attempt to set-up the ~CD-ROM drive he connects to the Digital through its parallel port and he has a suitable DOS set-up program called CD Blazer, which he uses. If that drive could be correctly configured, the Win95 ~CD-ROM could be used for installation instead of the usual pack of diskettes. However, the ~CD-ROM was the upgrade version as well, so an earlier version of Windows had to firstly be up and running on the computer. Accordingly the diskette of the DOS version of CD Blazer was selected and installation began. All was going well until it couldn’t find MSCDEX.EXE on the C: drive. A diskette was found with both it and SBIDE.SYS on it and they were both copied across to the root directory on the hard drive. When we tried to install CD Blazer again, we realised that the two files (well, MSCDEX.EXE at any rate) should have bee copied across to a DOS directory on the drive. A new directory was soon created, the files transferre to it and a third attempt at installing CD Blazer seemed to be successful, except that there did not appear to be any CD drive activity of any kind, so we weren’t sure. \n\nWith the installation of Win3.1 unsuccessful, it seemed to be time to look at the 3.11 alternative. John had thought that the installation disks would have had systems on them that would have at least provided DOS prompts for commencing the installations, but this did not appear to be the case and the DOS bootable disk was used frequently to start the ball rolling. The installation proceeded smoothly enough, but the last two disks seemed to involve setting up a specified network, which appeared to be a mandatory part of the process. Completing the installation then proved to be something of an ordeal and neither of us thought it was particularly logical. Nevertheless, we were eventually successful. At that stage, a reboot would NOT start Win3.11 (keying in Win<cr> would, however) and the conclusion reached was that COMMAND.COM, IO, SYS and MSDOS.SYS were NOT on the hard drive’s root directory and would need to copied to it. As the latter two are usually hidden files, we weren’t sure whether they were present or not. That had to be left for another day.\n\nThat’s all for this month. The next Hardware Sig meeting is on the 5th August at Ron’s place. See\nyou there.

nAother month has gone and there still is a lot of work to catch up with. Last month we mounted the monitors on the new shelves. This month we installed another video splitter and connected it to the left hand monitor and fed the cable down to the computer that sits in the work area. (Fig 1. Left-most monitor) This is the area where we try to fix the computers. This allows anyone standing at the back to see what is being done on the computer which is being repaired. The other two monitors are connected to the main computer. A sound card was installed in the main computer. This feeds the speakers sitting on the shelves. Between monitors two and three. We are now in a position to show tutorial videos. With out a permanent location to house this equipment and leave it setup, we wouldn't be able to have such a good setup. Very many thanks to Ron for the use of his spare downstairs room. \n\nAlex Marshall donated us a Epson 915, five colour printer. Does very good colour prints. Many thanks Alex. Also thanks to those who have donated equipment. \n\nFig 2 shows Don's Toshiba laptop on it's side with the keyboard removed. Don has had ongoing problems with this laptop. April 2005's Megabyte has an article in it when we cleaned up the hard drive. The hard drive has played up again so we decided that it needed formatting. This wasn't straight forward as the laptop also had a unreliable A drive and we were worried that if we formatted the hard drive we wouldn't be able to re-install Windows. To overcome this problem it was decided to remove the hard drive and attach it to another computer using an adaptor. \n\nAfter much poking and prodding we couldn't find out how to access the hard drive. We then resorted to that great repository of all knowledge, the Internet, and found that some kind soul had put up an article on how to gain access to the inside of the laptop. The secret was a little screw hidden underneath. First you removed an service panel which gave access to a small daughter board. Removing the daughter board gives access to the bottom of the mother board and what looked like a heat sink. The black circular area in the photo is the other side of it. In the centre of the heat sink was a small screw painted red. This screw locks down the keyboard. You remove the screw, then flip the laptop over and slide back three small levers discretely hidden in the front of the keyboard. This allows the keyboard to be tipped up to allow access to unplug the keyboard cable and remove the keyboard. You now have access to 10 more screws that hold the top cover. Removing the top cover gives access to the hard drive, mother board etc. \n\nDon and John M had the hard drive checked and it was found to be failing so bought a replacement, which was reinstalled in the laptop. We powered up the laptop and accessed the BIOS to set up the new drive. That's when we discovered that certain keys on the keyboard weren't working. Don is going to check out the keyboard. At that point we called a halt. \n\nDuring the week, we had tried to play a video DVD on the main computer only to be faced with a error message saying the video CODEC was missing. We then realised that the proper drivers had never been installed and it was a case of finding where the install CD had got to. This was duly found and the correct drivers installed. Office 97 was also installed. Now we can play video DVD's Raja had been having trouble installing a CD ROM and a CD writer into a computer he had been trying to set up. The computer could see the new hardware but could not read the CD's. Kept telling us to put in a disc. Using another CD ROM we checked out the IDE ports. No problem with either port. It could see the hardware and read the CD. \n\nChecked out the CD ROM and writer on another computer. CD ROM tested OK, the CD writer tested faulty. Re-installed the CD ROM back into Raja's computer and it failed again. Reset the boot sequence from "CD, Hard drive, A drive" to "A Drive, Hard drive, CD". This fixed the problem. Part of the problem was caused by the bootable CD that Raja had been using. It was a commercial CD that had a LINUX program called Nopix on it. This was stopping it booting into Windows. CD writer is another problem. See Fig 3. \n\nAnn's computer had been having trouble logging onto the Internet. It would dial up the ISP and 'Log on', but that was as far as it would go. I suspect the problem was the TCP/IP protocols used for working the Internet had been corrupted. Reloaded WIN98 over the current version but that failed to fix the problem. I then reloaded Internet Explorer, and used the repair feature. This cured the Internet problem. Was unable to do a proper check as Paradise seemed to be having problems and kept tossing us off. The same problem was happening on another computer. \n\nOn Saturday we tried out Ann's computer again and found the same problem had returned. This time I tried a clean install by renaming the existing Windows directory to Windows.old and then re-installing Window98. Window installed correctly. When I went to install Internet Explorer matters got worse and Windows failed completely. Failed to even load correctly. At that stage it looks like there is either a problem with the hard drive or the version of Internet Explorer is faulty. We had run out of time to re-install Window98 so will try again on Wednesday. \n\nThat's all for this month. Next Hardware SIG is on the 6 May at Ron's place. You are all welcome\nto come along and try it out. We may even be able to fix your problems.

//Arthur Harris reports on the Hardware SIG meeting held on Saturday 5 July 2006//\n\nW e are now into August and that much closer to Xmas. Better get thinking about those Xmas presents. Yes I have fixed those leaks. After patching several other potential leaks the roof should see out the winter.\n\nGot another of those what initially looked liked a simple fault to fix that turned out to be a nasty problem. This one started as a computer that wasn't starting correctly and for some reason, locked up when trying to set-up the screen saver mode. (See June's article for original fault). The screen saving problem was fixed by reloading the operating system. The starting problem was intermittent and didn't show up in June. Looking back, it was the indicator of a bigger fault. At the July Hardware meeting we decided to give the computer a finally check before giving it back. The check showed that the modem wasn't working and despite trying to re-installing it several times, had no luck in getting it to work. Once again time was against us so I decided to take it home and work on it there. Bad mistake. \n\nThe first problem that showed up was, despite downloading the correct driver and being told by Windows that the modem had installed correctly, it still refused to work. Testing the modem in another computer proved that the modem was working correctly. The modem from that computer worked OK in the faulty computer. That suggested that there was an incompatibility problem somewhere. At this stage I noticed the display adapter was a not holding the higher resolution setting especially after trying to get the modem to work. Must be more damaged files somewhere so I decided to clear out the current operating system and reload afresh. After running scandisk to check out the hard drive, I reloading ~Win98SE and re-installed the AGP video adapter and modem drivers. I checked to see if the modem was working. Still no go and I was now getting Windows protection errors and the computer kept shutting down. Things had got worse. Back to basics. \n\nReducing the computer to a basic set-up, (the minimum parts need for the computer to work), I noticed that there were two RAM modules, both 64 Megs. That was odd, the computer was only reporting 64 Megs when it should of reported 128 Megs. Leaving in only one RAM module the computer booted up and ran Windows with no problems. Re-installing the second RAM module caused the computer to crash. This looked like the second module was faulty. To prove it, I removed both RAM modules and put the suspect module back in the No 1 position. The computer worked OK. Nothing wrong with the RAM modules. Put both modules back and the computer crashed again. Both RAM modules were good so that left the display adapter. Replaced the display adapter with the spare, reloaded the new drivers, and rebooted the computer. The computer worked OK on one RAM module so I re-installed the second RAM module. This time the computer correctly reported the amount of RAM and the display worked OK on the higher resolution. The computer was quite happy in it's basic mode. Checked the display adapter out in the another computer and it worked OK. Something funny going on. Left the spare display card in the computer as it worked OK. \n\nThe next step was to re-install the modem. Again the modem refused to work and the display started to play up again. This meant there was an unwanted connection between the modem card and the display card. Checking the interrupt settings, proved this to be cause of the problem. For some unknown reason Windows was assigning the same interrupt to both the modem card and the display card. This was the reason the computer was happy in the basic mode but played up when extra cards were installed. For some reason Windows wasn't busying out interrupt 11 once it had been allocated, and re-allocating it despite there being spare interrupts. This meant that the microprocessor (CPU) was addressing the two card simultaneously. The end result being that the information being sent to the microprocessor was being corrupted, resulting in neither card working correctly. With the earlier model of cards you can set which interrupt you wished to use, which would have eliminated this problem. Unfortunately with modern cards, the interupts are allocated by Windows when it boots up. This left me with one option. One of the settings in the BIOS is to allocate a specific interrupt to the older type ISA slots. This allows for non Plug and Pray cards and takes it out of the list of spare interrupts. The motherboard had one ISA slot that wasn't being used so I allocated interrupt 11 to it, re-installed the modem card and rebooted the computer. This time Windows allocated a different interrupts to the display card and the modem card eliminating the problem. The modem worked and had no affect on the display settings. After two and half days of poking and prodding I had finally fixed it. \n\nTechnical info. The purpose of the interrupts is to allow the CPU (Central Processing Unit) to select which device (Hard drives, RAM, video card, modem, printer etc) to send data to or receive data from. The data is passed down a parallel BUS which is connected to each device in parallel. Each device has an individual interrupt lead and when activated by the CPU, connects that device to the parallel BUS. This allows the CPU to control that device and only that device. Each device must be addressed separately for the computer to work. If two devices are connected simultaneously it results in the data on the BUS being corrupted and the computer crashing. \n\nThe next computer we looked at was from the Patels. This computer had slowed right down taking much longer than normal to do normal functions. It had also dialled up an overseas number causing an unwanted toll bill. The main purpose for this computer is to surf the net and to communicate through the chat rooms. The only virus protection it had was AVG but that had not been updated or used to scan the hard drive. The first thing we did was to load the latest version of Spybot, Adaware and Zone alarm. We also updated AVG. We then ran then in turn and cleaned out over two hundred viruses and spyware programs. No wonder the computer was running slow as it had a lot of unwanted programs running in the background. \n\nWhat they were doing we can only guess. One guess is that it was being used to propagate unwanted spam mail. One of the unwanted program was the "Key Logger" That meant passwords and other private information was being transmitted to an unknown person. Once the viruses and unwanted programs had been cleaned out the computer sped up to its normal speed. If nothing else this illustrates the need for good virus protection. The virus protection programs we used are all free and as a general rule would use less than 20 minutes of your internet time to keep them up to date. Also you must regularly use them to scan your computer for any new viruses or spyware programs that you may have picked up. I do it on a weekly basis and so far have been virus free. The CD on the Net guide magazine is a good source of antivirus programs. The other problem we had was when our main computer suddenly failed. It had been having the odd problem but this time it failed to start. Stripping the computer down to its minimum components we tested out each to see which was causing the problem. It turned out to be one of the two 256 Meg DDR RAM modules. Luckily it was fitted with two RAM modules and worked OK with one. \n\nThe other problem we had was the hard drive had been split into two partitions. The first partition was 5 Gigs and had been formatted using FAT. (File Allocation Table). The second partition was 15 Gigs and had been formatted using NTFS. (NT File System). When we started the computer using the Windows98 start-up disk, all we could see was the first partition. This presented a problem in that the main files were in the second partition, and we had no access to that partition. To overcome this problem we had to install the hard drive as a second drive in another computer running XP. This gave us access to the second partition and allowed us to shift the required files to another hard drive.\nReloaded the operating system and the computer\nis up and running. \n\nThat's all for this month. See you at Ron's place on the 2nd of September. All welcome.

Recycling - We've been doing a bit of that lately at the hardware sig. Disassembling Floppy drives, hard drives printers and such like, extracting the screws, the small shafts, the opto - isolators and of course the stepper motors. The guys are now quite proficient at dismantling things.\n\nWe have benefitted from some donations recently. Geoff Lethbridge contacted two of the local computer suppliers and was successful in obtaining faulty equipment from them.\n\nThanks must go to ''Frank Wong from Quay Computers'' and ''Marty Waring from Infinite Technology Limited'' for their recent contribution to our stepper motor etc collection.\n\nJim has worked out how to use the printed circuit board from a disk drive to control a stepper motor without a PC. Here are the details.\n*Set the drive ID to one using the new jumpers or dip switch.\n*Connect track 10 of the edge connector to ground.\n*Connect a 4k7 ohm resistor between track 20 and +5 Volts (Step)\n*Supply the printed circuit board with +12 Volts and +5 Volts.\n\nStepping will occur if you briefly short track 20 to ground, each time you short the track to ground the motor will step.\nDirection can be reversed by shorting track 18 to ground.\nBy creating a pulse circuit and applying it to track 20 the motor will continuously step.\n\nI spent a lot of time with the circuit over the holiday period and have completed the testing of it. A small amount of redesign was done to simplify it. I wrote four Qbasic routines to test the function of the board and during that time I discovered some anomalies which necessitated the changes. (I couldn't figure out how to program a test so redesigned the board!)\nOk now the nitty gritty how does it work? Starting with the easy bits.\n\n''Digital Out.''\n\nA 74LS245 provides both way buffering for the digital information.\nTo enable us to send digital outputs we need to indicate to the 74LS245 the direction the data will be going. This is done by enabling the circuitry inside the chip with either pin 1 or 19. Pin 1 low will allow data to pass from our printer port through the chip so we must apply a low voltage (0 Volts) to pin 1 to enable the 'a' direction. We will need to hold this "low" while we send our data through. To do this we've used a latch (74LS74).\nThe latch is controlled by a 'strobe' signal and the data presewnted to its inputs. Pin 1 of the printer port is the strobe - it signals to the printer that there is data ready to be printed so we've used this line to control the latch as well.\nBy making pin 16 of the printer go HIGH (+5 Volts) a low is placed onto the D2 input of the latch (74LS74) (The high is inverted by the inverter because the logic from the printer port is reversed on pin 16). We then send a high out of pin 1 on the printer port (strobe) and the low which is on the D2 pin will appear at the output Q2. Now this low will be applied to the 74LS245 to enable our output data.\nBy writing a bit pattern to the port we can switch on and off the individual pins on the Digital In/Out port.\n\n''Digital In''\n\nThe procedure is the same for digital in except that we need to make pin 19 of the 74LS245 go low.\nWe must also put the Printer port into input mode. This is done by writing to the control port of the printer.\n\nAll we have todo is make D1 on out 74LS74 go HIGH and we'll get a low out of Q1 pin 6, making sure that we don't also have a low coming out of Q2 pin 9 so we must make pin 16 of the printer port go low and pin 14 also low.\n\nWe again make the pin 1 of the printer port go HIGH and the Low at D1 on the 74LS74 will appear at pin 6 causing the 74LS245 to enable the inputs.\n\nBy doing a read of the Printer port we will be able to see the bit pattern places at the Digital Input.\n\n''Analogue Out.''\n\nEnabling the ~MAX506 and doing digital output will let us create an analogue voltage. We can select which pin of the ~MAX506 to use by outputtingto the control port the binary number corresponding to the required output pin and taking the WR line low. So by writing a 0100 to the control port will select pin 2 of the Max506 and by adding that to 0010 and toggling the strobe (Pin 1) we will have chosen Vouta and an analogue representation of the digital outputs will appear at Vouta. As a matter of interest all data lines high will give 2.5 Volts out. All data lines low will give 0 Volts.\n\n''Analogue In''\n\nThis turned out to be relatively simple. I used the input control lines to provide inputs from the ~MAX118.\nAs there are only 4 of these inputs we must make two stabs at reading in one byte of data.\nTo do this a ~74LS157 was used. The signal present on the Strobe line determines which half of the byte is input. i.e. when the Strobe is low the MSN (Most Significant Nibble) will be input.\nThe control port output lines are used to select the Analogue input to be read and the MSN of the data port controls the setting up of the ~MAX118 via pins 12, 13 and 17.\n\nTo test all this the Qbasic routines were written to enable each function and then data either read or written.\n\nThe control lines for the ~MAX118 and ~MAX506 were monitored with a logic probe to ensure that they changed. The ~MAX118 and ~MAX506 were not in circuit. This means there will still be some software development to do but at least the basic functions could be tested.\n\nI'll upload my test routines to ~MegaBaud in the next day or so.

Welcome back to the land of computers. Hope you all had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I decided not to make any New Year resolutions this year, and that saves me from breaking them. The one thing I do want to get done this year is to learn a programming language. Have made several starts learning Python. A simplified version of C++. Made several starts last year but kept hitting the proverbial brick wall or extra hard bits. This year I hope to do better. \n\nAt our first meeting for this year, the main emphasis was to regain some more floor space. This meant getting rid of some of the older monitors. Each monitor was connected to the test computer and checked for a good display quality. Those that didn’t pass the test were discarded. See Fig 1. Those that failed were loaded into the back of Ian’s car. Last seen on the way to the Silverstream tip. As fast as we made room there was other equipment waiting to take available space See Fig 2 and 3. Thanks to Lindsay, David and Ian Godfrey for the new equipment. Once we had got some space back it was down to the hard stuff. John M. also updated the AVG software on the network computer. \n\nJohn Hand had a problem with a Genealogy database he was trying to set up in MS Word. David was giving him a hand to sort it out. Must have been the tea break when this photo was taken. He also had a Toshiba laptop that required a PCMCIA (Short for Personal Computer Memory Card International Association - also known as PC cards - Ed) card modem to be installed. After plugging the card into the PCMCIA slot on the side of the laptop, we checked to see if it was being recognised by the computer by clicking on the PCMCIA Icon located on the Control Panel. The control panel showed it installed in slot 1 and it’s make and model. We now had to install the driver software. Clicking on the “Add Hardware” Icon, we let Windows install the drivers. This time we were lucky and Windows 95 had the drivers. For once Plug and Pray worked. The normal checks showed the PCMCIA modem to be working, but we couldn’t connect to the web as there was no Internet software installed on the laptop. That is John’s next job when he gets home. \n\nWhile I working on John Hand’s problem, John M. and David were looking an a problem that Don Stewart had on his second laptop. Don’s laptop had been affect by a “Worm” which was affecting printer drivers, hence problems with printing. Between them they tracked the problem to a Window’s ini file that had been altered. AVG had found the viruses (Worms) and disabled them but could not fix the corrupted files. \n\nThat’s all for this month. The next Hardware SIG meeting is on Saturday, 4th of March. //- Arthur Harris//

Another month has gone by and the day is cold, wet and miserable. A good day to make a start on this month’s article in that nice warm kitchen or so I thought. That was till my wife drew my attention to the DVS outlet in the lounge. Was it supposed to drip water? Not according to the manufacture specs’. After crawling around in the roof space and not seeing much as the outlet is installed close to an outer wall and above the fire place, we dismantled the DVS outlet to get a better look. The news wasn’t good. The roof had sprung a leak. Out came the necessary containers to hold the water till the rain stopped. At that point we noticed that none of the lights were working in that end of the house. Checked the fuse. It showed signs of melt down indicating a short somewhere. Back into the roof space to check that I hadn’t damaged any cables. All OK. Back to the switchboard to check out the individual circuits. Traced the fault to the switch for the back porch light. It was very wet and had arced over. Another water leak but this one was running down inside the wall. Must be about time that roof was replaced. \n\nBack to the computers. Last month we replaced the USB card in Anne’s computer and got it talking to the Microdrive and the printer. A week later it developed another fault and refused to boot-up. We have had several computers lately developing this problem. Robin Hinde had given us several second hand computers and spare drives, so I decided to use the HP Pavilion desktop. (Figs 1 and 2) It comes with its own USB ports which is an added bonus. Installed Windows Me, added the modem card and the SCSI card for the scanner, installed the SCSI drivers and the software for the scanner and printer. Every thing worked. After finding the drivers for the modem card, we installed it and then proceeded to set-up the Dial-up network for connecting to the Internet. At this point it started to go wrong. For some reason, ME refused to load the TCP/IP setting even though it kept telling us that it had. It meant that we could dial and connect to our ISP but not connect to the Internet, as this requires the TCP/IP protocols. Looks like we have to reload the operating system again. Ran out of time and left reloading for Saturdays meeting. Trying to reload the operating system and do several other jobs at the same time doesn’t work. The end result was the computer got slower and kept losing files. Gave up on that and bought the computer home. Started again by cleaning out the previous Windows installations and reloading Windows 98SE. Reloaded the modem drivers and successfully set-up the Internet connection. Connected to the Internet and logged onto several sites with no problems. The problem showed up a little later when I tried to go back to a site that I had already visited. For some reason the site had stopped updating and I got the “Unable to find web page” message. It did this several times even after redialling and reconnecting. Using my main computer I checked out the same sites with no problems. Even though the Network Icon indicated we were still connected to the ISP, I strongly suspect we weren’t. Next step was to try another modem. Installed the new modem and when I went to reload the drivers for it using the USB Microdrive, I found out the USB port wasn’t working either and nothing I did would kick it into life. Worked OK the day before. That meant going to option two. Burning the files I needed onto a CD rom, I placed the CD in the CD drive only to discover that it was no longer being seen by the operating system. Checked the BIOS. Not there. Must have lost it while I was checking the USB ports. Reinstalled it in the BIOS and rebooted the operating system. Still not there. The CD drive must be faulty. Tried another CD drive with the same results. At this point that computer was two steps away from the rubbish tip. There was one thing left. I went right back to the beginning and set every thing in the BIOS back to their default values. That worked. The operating system could now see the D drive, that missing CD drive but unfortunately not the USB ports. I re-installed the original modem and CD drive and both tested OK. Windows ME is more USB friendly than Windows 98 and now that I had the CD drive back I re-installed Windows ME hoping that that might fix the USB problem. No such luck. I had no idea what was causing the problem so pushed the computer to one side and got on with some thing else. \n\nA couple of days later I thought that I had better check it again before I returned it, so stuck it on the bench and fired it up. To my amazement It started loading the drivers for the USB Hub and the Microdrive plus all the drivers for the modem. It was now installing every thing it didn’t want to load a couple of days ago. Plugged in the USB Microdrive to check USB port. Worked fine. Plugged in a USB mouse. No problems. Every thing was working. Looks like a few muttered threats of the rubbish tip and the back of the cupboard for a couple of days works wonders. During last month Don installed the book shelf. Fig 3 shows the trainees carpenters helping to install the shelf. The next photo shows the shelf in use. It also shows John and Don working on Don’s laptop. See John’s article for more details \n\nLast month I asked if anybody had the original Win95 3.5 inch install disks. Both John Marchington and Percy Harpham had the Win95 upgrade disks and Don Stewart had the original Win95 disks but one disk was faulty. Fortunately it wasn’t the disk we required. On the upgrade disks, the individual files are not accessible due to the compressed format used. John Hand had a second option. He has an external hard drive that connects via the printer port. A printer port is what all old laptops have. That would also give us access to the files we need. \n\nUsing the required floppy disk we were able to install the network drivers. We can now dial out using Hyper terminal or the dial-up network via the PCMCIA card and log-on onto the ISP. Without the browser we can not surf the Net. Installing the browers is a job for John H and his External hard drive. Fig 5 shows the laptop with the PCMCIA card installed and the special interface cable. \n\nWin Brendgens gave us the three computers that were minus their hard drives. Fortunately Percy had given us some spare hard drives . Thanks to you all.\n\nFig 6. shows Ian and David installing a drive in one of the computers. Getting into and installing drives in some of the desktop computers can be an exercise in its own right. \n\n''John Marchington wrote:'' \n\nWhen Ian and John M arrived at Ron’s and made their presence known, Ron showed them the computer belonging to a friend of his. Apparently there was no longer sound to be heard from the speakers attached to the sound card’s speaker output when playing a suitable CD. John wondered whether the audio lead between the ~CD-ROM drive and sound card might have somehow been dislodged or removed from one end of the circuit. The computer’s cover was removed and it was immediately apparent that the audio lead was correctly fitted into the respective socket at each end, so the cause of the problem seemed to be elsewhere. The speakers were certainly functioning, so it was decided to try a new sound card and a suitable ~ISA-slotted card was found in a cardboard box in Ron’s basement. Fitting the board was straightforward, Windows found a suitable driver for it and installed it and sound was soon heard from the speakers. Another satisfied customer! \n\nDon Stewart arrived with his Digital laptop, which had been assembled, dismantled and reassembled the previous Wednesday at Washington Avenue. It was time to see if an operating system could be installed that would function correctly on the machine. Win3.1 and Win3.11 installation diskettes were both available and one of those would be necessary to allow installation of the upgrade version of Win95. John M had brought along a bootable DOS disk and this was used to bring up a DOS prompt. It was decided to try the Win3.1 disks first. Installation began satisfactorily and Setup.ini was copied across correctly. Unfortunately, for some inexplicable reason the XMS memory manager would not copy and the process came to an abrupt halt at that point. The process was repeated with exactly the same result, so both Don and John concluded that the diskette must have somehow become corrupted. \n\nDon then wondered whether it was time to attempt to set-up the ~CD-ROM drive he connects to the Digital through its parallel port and he has a suitable DOS set-up program called CD Blazer, which he uses. If that drive could be correctly configured, the Win95 ~CD-ROM could be used for installation instead of the usual pack of diskettes. However, the ~CD-ROM was the upgrade version as well, so an earlier version of Windows had to firstly be up and running on the computer. Accordingly the diskette of the DOS version of CD Blazer was selected and installation began. All was going well until it couldn’t find MSCDEX.EXE on the C: drive. A diskette was found with both it and SBIDE.SYS on it and they were both copied across to the root directory on the hard drive. When we tried to install CD Blazer again, we realised that the two files (well, MSCDEX.EXE at any rate) should have bee copied across to a DOS directory on the drive. A new directory was soon created, the files transferre to it and a third attempt at installing CD Blazer seemed to be successful, except that there did not appear to be any CD drive activity of any kind, so we weren’t sure. \n\nWith the installation of Win3.1 unsuccessful, it seemed to be time to look at the 3.11 alternative. John had thought that the installation disks would have had systems on them that would have at least provided DOS prompts for commencing the installations, but this did not appear to be the case and the DOS bootable disk was used frequently to start the ball rolling. The installation proceeded smoothly enough, but the last two disks seemed to involve setting up a specified network, which appeared to be a mandatory part of the process. Completing the installation then proved to be something of an ordeal and neither of us thought it was particularly logical. Nevertheless, we were eventually successful. At that stage, a reboot would NOT start Win3.11 (keying in Win<cr> would, however) and the conclusion reached was that COMMAND.COM, IO, SYS and MSDOS.SYS were NOT on the hard drive’s root directory and would need to copied to it. As the latter two are usually hidden files, we weren’t sure whether they were present or not. That had to be left for another day.\n\nThat’s all for this month. The next Hardware Sig meeting is on the 5th August at Ron’s place. See\nyou there.

We are now into June and the ground is covered in a white frost. No wonder my brain is a bit sluggish as I try to think of what to put in this article. One advantage of using a Laptop is that I can use it on the kitchen table in a nice warm sunny room rather than the cold bedroom where the desktop is located. \n\nLast month we were having problems with Anne’s computer in getting it to recognise the 4 port USB card that we had installed. (See previous months article) It was okay when talking to a USB micro drive but failing to recognise the slower ~USB1 printer. To overcome this problem, we had decided to replace the 4 port ~USB-2 card with a 2 port ~USB-1 card. After taking the covers off the computer again, removing the 4 port USB board and installing the 2 port board, we rebooted the computer. Apart from an unrelated error report, Windows loaded correctly and installed the ~USB-1 card. Next we tested the USB port by plugging in the Microdrive. Windows responded by bringing up the USB ‘connect’ icon giving us a choice of programs. By selecting ‘Windows Explorer’ we were able to look at the files on the Microdrive, proving the USB card was working. The next test was to see if the computer could see the printer. We reloaded the printer drivers and connected the printer USB cable to the USB port. Opening the ‘Control panel’, we clicked on the printer icon and then opened ‘Properties’. Checking the printer was connected to the “USB port” we then clicked on the ‘Test printer’ icon. This test was successful. The final test was to disconnect everything and return the computer and printer to Anne’s place, reconnect and test. This time the computer saw the printer, connected and printed the page we had selected. That little problem is fixed. \n\nNow for that unrelated problem. When the computer was booting up from a ‘powered off’ state, it kept reporting that it couldn’t find the D drive. Checking the BIOS showed that the BIOS had seen and was reporting the D drive correctly. This information is held on and read from the hard drive. It is also held on the RAM on the BIOS chip. Looks like the computer was having trouble reading the drive. Changing the IDE cables made no difference. Looking around we found another hard drive and installed that. This to install it on the Hardware Sigs network as a server. Those that want practice with setting up a server are welcome. The only problem is that you may have to learn LINUX. \n\nJohn Hand had bought in one of his computers. Known as Computer No 3 from the Ghuznee Street days. The computer had “lost” its hard drives and couldn’t find the ‘boot up’ files. Checking the BIOS showed that there were no hard drives being reported. Dead BIOS battery we thought, but that tested OK. A closer inspection of the motherboard around the BIOS battery revealed the problem. See Fig 2. The battery had been leaking and the corrosion had eaten away the copper tracks around the battery. Scratch one motherboard. In our pile of spares we found another motherboard complete with CPU and RAM and installed that into Computer No 3. It fitted in the case with a few minor adjustments. We had upgraded from a 486 motherboard to a 586 motherboard with 133 ~MHz CPU and 64 Mbits of RAM. This meant that the Video card and the sound card no longer fitted and had to be replaced. Re-booting using the original Win98 installation worked but had some odd effects. A colour monitor that displayed a black and white picture. Trying to run a Trident video card with the drivers for a Cryix video card is not a recommend practice. The correct Trident drivers fixed that little problem. The other problem we had were the wires that feed the front panel. You can see them hanging out the top left corner in Fig 3. The socket layout is different to the original motherboard. The printing is also hard to read. That meant finding a manual for this motherboard. After much searching on the Internet, John M managed to find the manual and downloaded the required info. Will need to re- install windows 98 and clean out the hard drive. A job for next week. While we were down loading the manual we had a look at another computer that John had bought in. It had two problems. \n\n# It has the same problem of losing the hard drive info. Unfortunately this problem is intermittent so we were unable to find the cause. It is either the BIOS chip or the hard drive starting to fail. \n# When you went to set up the screen saver, the computer would lock up. I suspect the screen saver files have been damaged at some stage. May also be an indication of the hard drive starting to fail. Reloading Windows 98 over the existing installation cured this problem. Will need to run scandisk to check out the hard drive. \n\nWhile we had our heads buried in the computers, Anne was quietly working away on sorting out the pile of computers and monitors that had crept all over the floor and found that missing bench seat. See Fig 5. We must definitely learn to be tidier, putting parts back where they should be. Another trip to the tip is a must. Thanks Anne. \n\nAfter all that hard work it was time to retire upstairs to a well earned cuppa. Thanks to our host. \n\nWe have another problem that will require the help of members. John Hand bought in a Toshiba T2100 laptop that belongs to Don ~McDonald. He had purchased a Xircom PCMCIA 56K modem card that fits the Laptop. A PCMCIA card is a small card, size of a credit card, that plugs into the side of the laptop and allows you to extend the functions of the laptop. In this case a 56K modem for access to the Internet. With the correct drivers installed, the card was recognised by the laptop. The problem occurred when we tried to set up the Dial-up network. The Laptop is running Windows 95. To correctly install the network, Windows needs to see the original install disks. Our problem is that due to the age of the laptop it is not fitted with a CDROM, only the 3.5 inch floppy drive. What we need is Windows 95 installation file the original 3.5 inch diskettes. If anyone has Windows 95 on the original diskettes, could they contact me on Ph 9724028. \n\n''From John Marchington. ''\n\nRon Oliver had managed to acquire an HP ~DeskJet 710C for $3.00 and only needed a driver for it. He had previously downloaded one from a website but it didn't turned out to be suitable, so John M told him he would get one for him online and bring it in. That was successfully accomplished, the executable file (dj705en.exe, 4.80MB) was uncompressed and installation proceeded effortlessly. It turned out to be exactly what was required! The printer was soon up and running and test print outs were carried out. The results looked quite good, particularly the colour stripes but there were some gaps in the black ones, which successive head cleans would not eliminate. However, a couple of wipes along the bottom of the black cartridge with warm water on a rag and a re-clean of the heads and the resulted test printout was virtually perfect. John Hand had been present while the installation and checking had taken place and to say that both he and Ron were pleased with the outcome would be something of an understatement!\n\nThat’s all for this month. The next Hardware SIG meeting is on Saturday the 1st July at Ron’s place.

''Firewalls!''\n\nIf there ever was a black art in computing -Firewalls would be it.\n\nDuring our last committee meeting Tony Fitchett's small but intriguing column became a topic for debate, various experiences related and it was decide that someone should do a presentation on Firewalls. As it I'd had a bit of a play with a couple of personal ones, I accepted Roger's invite to do a talk on them (Mug). Now I had better find out what they were and why a home user might need one. I'd have to admit that I had not read Tony's column and so I have fished out last months ~MegaByte to see what it was he'd written to get people interested. \n\nIt seems that Tony had visited http://www.grc.com (Steve Gibson of Spinrite fame) and had his ports probed. (Completely painless I assure you). My guess would be that Tony (like myself some months back,) discovered to his horror (and mine) just how insecure his PC was while attached the Big 'friendly' world wide web. Following the simple instructions on the site quickly 'closed' my PC. Having revisited the site I was surprised to see how much it has changed and all the extra information on Firewalls. This site is really worth a visit......... But please wait until I've finished here. \n\n''What is a Firewall?'' \n\nIn computer terms it can be a hardware device or some software operating on a computer. It is the latter I will be covering, in particular personal ones. \n\nThere are a number of the programs out there, some of which were mentioned in Tony's column. \nA Firewall filters information entering and leaving your PC. The filters are a set of rules which dictate what can and what cannot pass through to the Internet and from the Internet to your PC. \n\nThe information packets that are send to and from the Internet are checked against the rules and if the packet complies with the rules then it is allowed to pass. The information packets are passed via 'Ports'. A Port in TCP/IP networks is an endpoint to a logical connection. I.e. your PC connected to the Internet browsing. The port number identifies what type of port it is. For example, port 80 is used for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) traffic. There are 65535 ports available - not all are used however and the ones above 1024 are not always used for the same function.\n\nA search on the Internet for 'TCP/IP ports' will provide you with a huge amount of info regarding these ports and there normal and not so normal uses. \n\nSo why would I want a Firewall? - I've been to www.grc.com had my ports probed and made the recommended changes and now my machine is 'closed'. \n\nIf you spent time browsing the web before making the changes oultined on the web site you may have had an unwelcome, uninvited visitor, would you know? That visitor could have conceivably installed something like 'Back Orifice' a piece of software that allows access to your PC while connected to the net. \n\n"But I have now 'closed' my ports" I heard you say, yes but this Trojan software could be inside your PC - a bit like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. \n\nWhile nothing can get in, things can get out! If the request for packets comes from your machine and sent to another then even though your ports are closed, because your PC has initiated a request then the returning intruder can get in. And it doesn't have to be Trojan software. \n\nHave you got the Windows version of ~PKZip installed on you machine? Ever wondered what that 'Timesink' directory was and why it keeps recreating itself even after you have deleted it for the umpteenth time?\n\nWell the nice people at ~PKWare want to be able to send you adverts when you are using Pkzip for windows (while online). The Timesink stuff appears to connect to the ~PKWare site and send ad info back to your PC. I had uninstalled the ~PKWare software and deleted the Timesink directory. Imagine my surprise when ~ZoneAlarm (the free firewall advertised by Steve Gibson on his web site) asked me if I'd allow 'Tsadbot' to connect to the Internet - Not Bloody likey Mate!\n\n''What is it? ''\n\nA quick search of my registry soon told me - Yes that damn Timesink thingy from ~PKWare! Swift and deft use of the 'delete' key soon fixed that! Luckily I had never had the fortune to view any of these 'ads' as I always unzip files offline. A Firewall will protect and alert you to this sort of activity. \n\n So what do these Firewall programs do to alert me? ~ZoneAlarm will pop up a dialogue window like this. It may indicate which port was probed.\n\nClicking on More info, retrieves info from the Zone Alarm site about the probe. \nThis particular probe I initiated myself, from a web site which gives information about the IP address typed in. To see this in action come along to the Wellington meeting where I'll be doing a presentation on Firewalls - And I wont be going in too deep, mainly because I don't know a whole more than presented here, but I'll have another week to do some more research.\n\nYou should gain a better idea about how to make your web surfing a little more secure. \n

//Arthur Harris and John Marchington report on the Hardware Special Interest Group meeting held on Saturday 4 March 2006 - Arthur goes first ....//\n\nContinuing on with last months clean out. John M, Ron, Ann and myself checked out all of the printers we had scattered around the room. Those that wouldn’t work or were too old were placed on the discard pile. This included several dot matrix printer. Although these printers still work, they were very slow when it came to printing from a Windows based program. Several of the Inkjets worked but the ink cartridges were empty or dried out. These were put aside while we check out the cost of replacement cartridges. If the cost of the cartridges is more than the cost of a modern inkjet printer, then these will also be discarded. That left us with one laser printer and an Inkjet with a good black cartridge. We then turned our attention to the scanners. Most of these required a SCSI port to connect to a computer. \n\nThese were placed on the back bench (See Fig 1) while we found a SCSI card and installed it into one of the good computers. Here we had a bit of luck as the SCSI card came with a port for a hard drive. The socket on one of the hard drives we had checked out earlier was found to be larger than the standard IDE connector. The socket on the SCSI was the same size. We also managed to find the correct ribbon and installed the drive into the same computer. We had found a USB 1 card and installed that as well. With fingers crossed, we booted up the computer and asked Windows 98 to install the new hardware. After a couple of tries every thing worked correctly. Good old Windows 98. We ran out of time and didn’t get round to testing the scanners. While we were waiting for Win 98 to boot, as part of the on going clean up, the equipment/cards etc that were sitting on the bench set was sorted into boxes and the computer cases etc stacked under the benches at the back The equipment on the shelves was consolidated into boxes and now takes up less room. The bench can now be sat on. \n\nDuring the week Don had mounted some shelves for us. The purpose of the shelves was to get the monitors off the desk tops and up into an area where everybody could see what was being worked on. The top monitors are being fed by a video splitter and are displaying what’s on the bottom monitor. The monitor being pointed at in Fig 3. The network hub is now located on the shelve out of harms way. See Fig3. When we install the second splitter, the monitor at this end of the shelf will be linked to the second monitor. \n\nOne of John Hand’s ongoing projects is to record the tombstone inscriptions and burial records of the Kelvin Grove cemetery in Palmerston Nth into a computer database. This involves scanning burial records and linking them with the inscriptions on the tombstone. A big job. His biggest problem is how to automate the process to cut down the hours of typing and data entry into an Access database. About four months. The current records are being scanned into a computer and converted to text documents. The next step would be to import those text document to the Access database. Unfortunately the irregular layout and length of paragraphs in the text documents makes this unreliable and would require a lot of work on the text document before importing it. Fig 4 shows me and John working on one of his problems. The data in the text document needs to be in columns with the correct data in the correct column to import cleanly into Access. We set up a basic Access database for the Kelvin grove cemetery records and now have to solve the problem of importing the data or failing that find plenty of free willing typists. \n\nWhile all the brain cell burning was going on upstairs, John M and Ian were installing a card reader into David Ryrie’s computer. The card reader is mounted in the spare floppy disk drive position and linked via a USB cable to the USB socket on the motherboard. \n\nAfter a few minor teething problems, the card reader and drivers were installed. By the look of the picture on the screen, Fig 5, it passed it’s final acceptance tests. \n\n''John Marchington continues ...'' \n\nWhen Ian H and John M arrived at Ron’s, David Ryrie’s computer and digital camera card reader were found on one of the tables in the workshop. Knowing that the card reader was to be installed in the computer, its cover was removed, a false front panel pushed out and the reader was then screwed into its mounting frame so that the lettering on its front panel was the right way up. A search began to see where the lead attached to the reader would plug in. Ian then discovered two rows of spare pins entitled ~USB1 and both he and John felt that one of those rows would be the correct entry point. One row had five pins, while the one directly in front of it had four, in line with the left hand four from the back row. Closer inspection of the socket on the end of the reader lead disclosed that there were only four metal connectors in it, with a spare space in the moulding on one side. Logic suggested that the four-pin row was the correct one and the orientation of the socket such that the spaces would match. \n\nThe socket was plugged in, everything checked to see that it was all OK and a test was then made with a card David had provided. Initially, it did not seem as if the card would fit into any of the reader’s slots – and John Hand suggested we try the card in his camera to see if it was smaller. \n\nUnfortunately, the same situation appeared to exist with the reader not accommodating that card either – and it was only while John M was refitting the card into John H’s camera and found that he had to turn it around to fit that the penny (cent?) dropped. With the writing on David’s card facing downwards, a successful conclusion was reached and all the pictures stored on the card could be displayed on the monitor attached to David’s computer.

We are into May already and winter is not that far off. Time flies when you are busy. Continuing on from last month. Haven’t heard back from Don about his laptop’s keyboard so no further progress in that area. Fig 1 shows the bottom of Don’s laptop with the battery held in place by tape. In front is the keyboard and to the left is the home made cradle which normally supports the laptop. Raja solved his problems. Turned out the hard drive was failing. \n\nFig 2 shows the Hardware SIG’s main computer. Casting your minds back to the middle of last year, you should remember an article by John Marchington about his old computer with faulty capacitors on the mother board. This is that computer with the repaired motherboard, fitted with replacement parts purchased by John, it has been working well. It is our main computer and acts as the server on our network At the time we installed 510 Mbytes of RAM. \n\nAlex Marshall upgraded his computer and donated us his old equipment for which we are most grateful. That’s on top of the printer he gave us last month. ( See John’s article for more details) John installed Alex’s RAM into the computer. Fig 3 is a close up of the mother board showing the RAM installed. It sits between the CPU fan and the free plug. With a ~3.06GHz processor, 1Gig of RAM and a fast mother board, it does every thing you want before you think of it and even when you do think of it, it still tells you that you are wrong. We have plans for the rest of the equipment. With these faster computers we are in a position to handle most of the software that is available. \n\nFig 4 is to prove that your committee does meet. This photo was taken in one of the meeting rooms in the basement of the Beehive. An air conditioned room with a large table and soft seats. I don’t think there is any top level secret info on the notice board behind us. Also provides good coffee. Join the committee and enjoy all these benefits. Its thanks to Richard that we have access to this room. His office is across the corridor. \n\nLast month I mentioned the trouble that we were having with Anne’s computer. We changed the hard drive, but that didn’t seem to cure the problem so upgraded her to another computer. That worked well on Win98, but for some reason had problems accepting the modem. It would tell us the modem had installed correctly, but when we went to dial out we would get an error message telling us the modem was unavailable. Closer inspection showed that there were no interrupt or IO conflicts. It should have been OK. Further checks using the modem diagnostics showed that Windows had installed the modem on Com port 5 and when we tried to test the modem, (see a previous article for more detail), we kept getting the “Port already open” message. I then remembered that we were using a serial mouse that is connected to COM port 1. Com port 1 and Com port 5 are connected internally. Com port 1 is used for external devices ie. Serial mouse or external modem. Com port 5 is used internally, ie. Internal modems. You can not use the two together. The same applies for Com ports 2 and 4. The serial mouse was conflicting with the internal modem. Windows for some reason does not recognise this conflict and insisted on installing the modem on Com port 5 even though Comport 4 was free. After must skulduggery, frustration and no swearing, ladies present, we finally manage to force the modem onto Com port 4 fixing the problem. A little trick to overcome this problem, is to go into the BIOS and turn ‘OFF’ Com port 2. Re-install the modem manually and you should be offered a choice of Com ports 2 and 4. If 4 is not offered take 2. As 2 is linked to 4 the internal modem will work. That fixed the dialling out problem. Unfortunately another problem was just around the corner. This computer has no ~LPT1 printer port. Normally fixed by adding a IO board. It also has no USB ports and John Little had just given Anne a USB printer. No problems there. Just install a USB card. John M. purchased a four port USB card from Quay computers with all the correct drivers. The card and drivers installed correctly, but for some reason refused to connected to the printer or the USB micro drives. Further enquires by John M. revealed that this was not uncommon with this particular model and Windows 98.. In some case ~USB-1 would work but not ~USB-2. The answer is to upgrade your software. We upgraded to Windows ME. It recognised the USB board and even talked to the USB micro drive when we plugged it in. Checked t it out with the clubs USB printer. Every thing worked on the bench. Turned every thing off and Anne took it back to her place. \n\nJohn Little arrived on Friday to install the printer. Shouldn’t take more than half an hour he thought. Three hours later and several phone calls for help, we were stumped. For some reason the USB card refused to talk to the printer. The following Wednesday, we took the computer and printer back, stuck it on the bench and connected every thing up. Plugged the Micro drive into the USB port and the computer recognised it was there t giving us full access to the drive. Plugged in the printer, found a text document and pressed print. Printed OK. Found a colour picture and printed that. No problems. Anne took it home and again it refused to talk to the printer. We thought it might have been the Micro dive that was keep the USB card active, but a further check showed that while the card would always see the Micro drive, it was very touchy when it came to the printer. Once again we had hit the proverbial brick wall. We still have one option left. We have an earlier version USB card installed in one of the computer used in the network that has become surplus. Will try that card out in Anne’s computer. \n\nRon had a good buy. For four dollars he bought a 166 Meg computer with a 1.4 G/byte hard drive and a ~HP710 Inkjet. Looks like the tip might be a good source of smaller hard drives That’s all for this month. Next month we will continue with an other exciting issue of ‘Anne’s computer’. Will it work, or will the BIG AXE fall on it, or will somebody with infinite wisdom and knowledge come up with the answer to the problem. Next Hardware Sig meeting is on the 4th of June at Ron’s place. John \n\n''Marchington continues .. ''\n\nAlex Marshall has kindly contributed some fine components to the hardware SIG, as follows:\n\n*A Philips 107S 17” monitor\n*A Gigabyte 478 socket ATX motherboard\n*A 300 watt power supply for the above\n*A 2.4GHz Intel P4 Processor\n*512MB of ~DDR400 RAM\n*A CD Writer \n\nThese were given to the hardware SIG after Alex upgraded to a faster processor and more RAM to suit a video game he has recently purchased. The 3GHz processor purchased would not function reliably in the above motherboard, so further upgrading was necessary there too. Unfortunately, Alex’s son took the original video card – also superseded, as the game really required 3D capability – so a suitable AGP card (of at least 4x AGP, to suit the motherboard’s configuration) had to be purchased to replace it. The only AGP cards the hardware SIG already has are 2x ones and the keying slot is in a different position and does not match the key in the motherboard’s AGP socket). Alex had obviously retained the hard drive, so it was decided to buy a fairly large one to allow for a reasonable amount of storage capacity and a suitable ATX case to house everything had to be bought too. The game was supplied on a DVD, so Alex figured he had no further use for the CD drive after purchasing a DVD writer and, finally, he decided to buy a 19” monitor so the Philips 17” became surplus to requirements as well. \n\nThe 512MB of RAM was installed in the SIG’s ~3GHz Soltek motherboard, so a further 512MB of RAM was purchased for the Gigabyte board. \n\nAlex informed John M that an ethernet card would also be included but that was somwhow mislaid and was certainly not present when the motherboard was unpacked. Furthermore, all the PCI slots were empty upon arrival and it is definitely not part of the motherboard. \n\nWith a suitable video card and hard drive now purchased, the computer is in the process of being\nassembled and it is hoped to have it working in the near future. It should provide the SIG with a\nsecond, excellent system.

This month our circuit has been completed and now we are ready to build up the prototype on vero board for testing. Jim has done some hard graft getting the circuit details sorted.\n \nThose of you following our progress will have noticed that the specification has changed from the original. The original was perhaps a little ambitious for 'us beginners'. \n\nOthers have been busy as well. Geoff has been sourcing connectors for the final board - looks like we 'll have some very nice screw terminal/plug arrangements, he has also been designing his own version of the automatic curtain opener and has some interesting cogs. \n\nBarry is well on the way with his version of the auto curtain opener with some carefully machined cogs. Raja and Paul have been working with a basic prototype and developing the software. The rest of us have been pouring through the Internet and magazines for all detail we can find on PC interfacing. So its all go! \n\nI gave a demo of a self contained stepper motor driver I have been working on for a long time. It can be used to test bi-polar stepper motors. This device is based on a Motorola 68HC05J1 micro-controller. Speed can be adjusted, direction can be changed and the step type altered between half and full steps. \n\nI have had a response to my request for motors and parts and the group now has six lovely stepper motors to play with. Thanks Bruce. We can still use some more so if you have an old disk drive (or three like Bruce!) dead printers or other interesting motorised nicknacks Let us know - we can arrange to pick them up. \n\nA couple of web sites I've come across recently, the first is a search engine which is very fast, I was going to suggest it as a mystery link on our web page - only to find it was already there. \n\nhttp://www.google.com this engine really flies and seems to provide the goods as well. Well worth a look.\nhttp://www.senet.com.au/~cpeacock has some excellent articles on interfacing to your PC. \nThe circuit operation will be described next month.\n

It's been a bit quiet lately. I've been putting plenty of lines and boxes into Visio but I've come unglued with some of the logic and need to consult with my cohorts. Our little SIG group is going great guns, sources of motors and power supplies etc are popping up all over and the mechanical designs for the automatic curtain closers are progressing. If you have an old faulty printer or disk drive lets us know - some of the parts may be reusable.\n\nSome interesting Internet links for this month: \nhttp://www.fcc.gov\nhttp://www.sbsdirect.com \narmed with an FCC number from that unbranded I/O card or mother board you'll be able to locate the manufacturer and hopefully an operators manual for it.

By Arthur Harris\n\n //Arthur Harris reports on the second Hardware Special Interest Group meeting ....//\n\n The second Hardware SIG. was held on the 22nd May. The weather was still cool but not as wet as the previous month. Thanks to John Blakeley for giving us some of his surplus computers and printers. Win also supplied some surplus equipment and Jack ~DeSimone also bought along a computer and parts. We now have plenty of computer for you to learn on. Most of it is 486 mother boards with varying speeds and amount of RAM. Good stuff to learn on. Many thanks to those who supplied equipment.\n At this meeting we had a look at an ATX mother board (See Photo 1) and learnt how to identify the\n# ISA slots.\n# PCI slots.\n# the RAM slots.\n# the IDE slots.\n# The power slots.\n# The CPU and fan.\nand the correct way to plug in the IDE cables, power cable and the CPU. Also on the board is the Bios chip. Your job to find it.\n{{{\n ATX motherboard.jpg\n}}}\nWe also had a look at installing the hard drive and the settings. The next two photos (Photos 2 & 3) show Ian holding the hard drive and the drawing of the connections.\n \n ''The main points are:''\n# Where the power supply is connected. Sockets are polarised making it fool proof on the hard drive and the later types of mother boards . If you have the old type of power supply, two power plugs, put the black wires together in the centre of the socket.\n# Where the IDE ribbon is connected. The red stripe on the ribbon (Pin 1) is always nearest to the power socket on the hard drive and pin 1 on the IDE sockets on the mother board.\n# The links that determine if it is a master or slave drive. One drive, master or single drive setting. Two drives, make one a master and the other a slave. Use the primary IDE first.\n \n\n The last photo show a close up of the links on the hard drive.\n\n MA = Master. SL = Slave. CS = Cable select.\n\n This photo (Photo 4) was cropped from a larger photo that was taken using a digital camera and a magnifying glass using the technique the Robin showed in last months megabyte. See Contents page for the original photo\n To see the full photo go to NZPCA web site and look in the photo gallery under NZPCA events.\n\n The next meeting is on the 26th of June at 39 Washington Ave. Ron's place.\n PS. Ron does a mean cuppa with chocolate biscuits thrown in.\n

HARDWARE SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP MEETING 6th August 2005\n\nAnother month has gone and Christmas is only four months away. In the June article we had our major clean out. I managed to get some photos of all that space. See Fig 1. This photo was taken from just inside the door, looking at the far wall. The benches now have room on top and the floor space is clear. Prior to the clean up that whole area was covered in monitors, printers and computers. Don Stewart built some shelves for the remaining equipment (not in the photo) and a bench seat. See Fig 2. Looks like we may have to move some boxes before we can use it. Thanks Don.\n \n This month’s meeting was largely devoted to computer problems brought by John Hand. The first problem was to get the printer donated by Roger going. John had bought some new ink cartridges and had installed them in the printer. \n\nThe printer refused to co-operate and even after reloading the drivers, the printer would make all the right noises and load the paper but refused to print. Rechecking the new cartridge, John found this label attached to the bottom of the ink cartridge that said, “Please remove before installing cartridge”. Oops. John now know why that label is there and why it must be removed. The printer works well. Thanks Roger.\n \nJohn’s main problem was his new computer. He was testing a hard drive for a friend of his. The easiest way to do this, is to install the hard drive in your computer as a slave to the main drive, tell the BIOS it’s there, and fire up your computer. You can then use the Windows tools to check it. In John’s case, even though the BIOS said that his main drive was the “Primary master” and the new drive was the “Primary slave”, the computer for some reason booted from the “slave” drive and loaded Windows 98 instead of Windows 2000, the main operating system for his computer. When John removed the second drive and rebooted the computer, he discovered the bad news. The computer would start loading Windows 2000 and then crash and start reloading again. Looks like some thing on the main drive has been corrupted. Next step was to reload the operating system. Another minor hitch. John had temporarily mislaid the CD. All was not lost. \n\n We had a copy of Windows XP. We put in a Windows 98 start up disk and rebooted the computer. That worked and we had access to the CD ROM. Tried to load Windows XP. No go. The copy of Windows XP that we had needed a earlier version of Windows already loaded. No problem. We had a copy of Windows 98SE. That refused to load as it could see that there was a later version of Windows already loaded. That meant that we had to delete the current version from the C drive. At this point things went pear shaped. We could not see the C drive. We could see every other drive. Digging deep into back recesses of all knowledge, I remembered where I had come across this problem before. When Windows 2000 had been originally load onto John’s computer, the file system had been converted to NTFS file system. Windows 98 uses the FAT file system. The two are not compatible. That was the reason while we could not access the hard drive. \nThat left us with three options.\n# Reparation and reformat the hard drive. This would remove the NTFS and give us access to the hard drive. Not an option at this point as John still had some valuable data on the drive.\n# Put that drive as a slave drive into another computer already running XP and remove the wanted data. No go, we didn’t have one at the Hardware Sig..\n# John had to find his missing CD.\n That is where we stopped. Fig 3 is a photo of John’s computer with the hard drive laying on it’s back. You have to guess the reason for that cork. Yes it is a cork and it is there for a good reason. Ask John at the next meeting.\n\nThe next problem was Patel’s computer. There was no audio being feed to the speakers from the audio output jack. The output jacks are connected to the mother board. No audio card to change. A closer look showed the volume control Icon was missing. Further inspection showed that the mixer controls were also reported as missing or not working. This is caused by either the audio drivers being corrupted or the audio chip having failed. As the operating system had been reloaded a month earlier and had not fixed the problem, we needed the driver disk that came with the mother board to reload the correct audio drivers. John was tasked to get it. At this point we ran out of time.\n\nFor all his hard work, John has been made a life and founding member of the New XP club. See Fig 4. \nThe next Hardware Sig is on Saturday the 3rd September. All welcome.\n\nArthur.\n \n\n''Photo used:''\nFig 1 Clear space.jpg\nFig 2 New seat.jpg\nFig 3 Johns new computer.jpg\nFig 4 The XP club.jpg\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

HARDWARE SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP MEETING 4th June 2005\n\nAnother month gone. We managed to have our clean up during the week. Checked out all the monitors we had and dumped those that didn't work, plus went through all of the computers we had, cleaned out the 386's and 486's, keeping 586's and above. Old motherboards and cases were also dumped. It was a case of being ruthless as we had boxes of equipment scattered every where and there was no floor space left. The tables and benches were also covered. Working space was at a premium.\n \nThe computers we threw out were stripped of their RAM and cards, which were placed into large boxes for later sorting. At the end of the day we had as much stuff outside as we had inside. I took a boot load to the tip. That only managed to reduce our outside heap by half. Don and John M. installed some shelves and a seat along one wall. After all the sorting out we still have approx. 10 computers and monitors left. These are in various states.\n\nAt the latest meeting most of the large boxes were sorted out and cards, leads etc placed into smaller boxes and put on the shelves. We now have our floor space and bench space back. Meant to get a photo of it. In the attached photo, fig 1, the area in the back of the photo, was before the clean up stacked with printers and monitors. You can now see the top of the bench.\n\nJohn Hand brought in a friend's computer that was having modem problems. Not connecting. John Thomson helped him sort out the problem. See Fig 3. They got the 33k modem to work. One of the biggest problems with modems is that the modem, despite being found and installed by the computer, will not connect to the Internet with out the correct driver. Sometimes the generic modem drivers provided by Windows, will work but don't rely on them to work correctly. You must have the correct driver for that type of modem. The type and make of modem, if not printed on the modem card, can normally be found on the main IC chip. An Internet search on this number will normally point you in the right direction.\n \nThe quickest way I have found for testing if the modem is working correctly is to go to the Control panel and click on the 'modem' Icon. This brings up the modem 'properties' window. \n\nClick on 'Diagnostics'; highlight the 'Com port' that your modem is installed on and then click on 'More info'. The computer will now interrogate your modem and return with a window similar to Fig 2. If the modem is installed incorrectly or has the wrong drivers, you will not get this window. \n\nWe also installed a second hard drive into Ann's computer. That gives her another 540 Mbytes of storage to go with the 540 Mbytes on the C drive. No problems with installing the drive.\n\nThe attempt to install Windows 98SE onto Ron's computer was unfortunately plagued with problems. The problem was caused by lack of space on the C drive and the inability of the 16X speed CD ROM, installed in Ron's computer, to read one the CD's. The version of Windows 98 we were trying to install was an Upgrade version and not an OEM version. To allow the Upgrade to install, John had provided a CD with Windows 98 (First edition) to be installed first and then the Upgrade. Unfortunately this was the CD that the CD ROM could not read. It could however read the CD with the Windows 98SE upgrade on it. We tried installing it from that CD, but it needed Windows to work and as we had already deleted Window 95 to make room on the C drive, we were stuck. Using a Windows 98 boot up disk to give us access to the CD ROM we tried to reload Window 95. Alas it would not let us load the program. We needed a Windows 95 boot up disk for that. Will get my Windows 98SE OEM version and install it.\n\nThe main lesson to be learnt from this exercise is that if you are burning software or even music, photos etc to a CD for someone who has an older computer, always use the slowest speed that your CD burner will work at. This also applies to making music CD's for the older types of CD players. Modern CD players are CD R/W capable. This will makes your CD's more reliable with older equipment. Ron wasn't left without a computer. I had a spare in the car that I gave him until we get his up and working again.\n\nI forgot to mention last month that we had purchased a video splitter for the hardware sig. The idea is to mount a couple of monitors on the shelves at a level where everybody can see them, and connect them to the computer that is being fixed. This will allow everybody to see what is happening.\n\nThat's all for this month.\nNext meeting in on the 2nd July.\n \n\nPhotos used:\nFig 1. HW-MoreSpace.jpg\nFig 2. HW-info window.jpg\nFig 3. HW-Fixing modem.jpg\n\n

I missed the last meeting. I see it went well. I was enjoying a 3 week holiday touring around Tasmania and visiting my brother and family who live south of Melbourne. We flew in to Melbourne from Tasmania, picked up a rental car for the drive south. This meant driving through Melbourne on a tolled motorway system call the “City Link”. It was built by private money hence the toll. I was expecting to see toll booths and the delays and congestion normally associated with them. There wasn’t a toll booth to be seen. \n The way they collect the toll is really high tech. At the airport and I assume there are many others around the city, there are computer terminals that looks like the latest parking meters. You can prepay or pay after your trip. You enter your destination, date of trip, car registration and where registered on a touch screen and then insert your credit card. It automatically bills you. You set off on your trip and there’s not a toll booth to be seen, in fact even the CCTV cameras are hard to spot. I assume that every car using the toll way has it’s number plate read using the CCTV camera and then compared with those that have been entered into its database using the pay terminals. You have a week in which to pay or you are fined. For further info go to the link below. http://www.transurban.com.au/transurban_online/tu_nav.nsf/alltitle/Projects#\nWith out computers, none of this would be possible. Quite a jump when you think of the Auckland harbour bridge tolls system.\n\n At the last meeting Don Stewart bought along his laptop. He was having problems with a lot of errors being reported when booting and the hard drive was fast running out of space. Despite trying to reload Window95 to fix the error problems nothing was making any difference. It was getting to the stage of Control/Alt/Delete. Wiping every thing and formatting the hard drive. This was a last resort option. In Don’s case it was made worse by the intermittent operation of his floppy drive, and being a laptop there was no spares. Formatting the C drive would delete everything and we would be forced to reboot from the A drive. Also we would lose contact with the external CD drive. Things looked bad and the plug was nearly pulled. See fig 1.\n\nA close look at what files were on the C drive showed that all the CAD (install) files for Window95 were there. This made quite a difference in that we didn’t need the CD rom to reload from. The problem now was to clean up the hard drive and still keep the CAD file. Reloading Windows over the existing Window95 operating does not cure many problems and only seems the make the Window directory larger. Using up valuable space especially when the C drive is only 540 Mbits. The best option is to remove the current Windows directory and reload afresh.\n\n We had two choices. (1.) Delete all the files in the Windows directory and its sub directories using the “Del *.*” command. A long job at the best of times or (2) use a good old DOS program called ‘Deltree.exe’. This deletes the named directory and all the sub directories and files underneath it in one operation. Using this option allows you to remove the Windows directory and keep all of the valuable data files that reside outside the Window directory. It does mean you will need to reload any programs you were running under Windows. As a general rule I load this program onto all start up disks that I make and it has come in very handy. You will find it in the Windows\sCommand directory. Remember to move ‘Deltree’ to the root drive. (C:\s) We chose the 2nd option. It took over 30 minutes to erase the Windows directory and we still had all the other wanted files etc. It would have taken us much longer using option 1. We then rebooted the computer which booted up to the basic DOS screen, changed to the ~WIN95 directory which held the CAD files, and typed ‘setup’. Windows95 reloaded and all of the error reports were gone. Don then reloaded the drivers for the external CD drive. See fig 2\n\nThe computer was now up and running and over 50% of the hard drive became free. We are still getting one error message. There is an Interrupt conflict between VGA screen and the CD drive. It doesn’t stop either from working and doesn’t show up in the device manager. We quit while we were ahead. Even the A drive seemed to be working more reliably. The two photos show Don’s setup. The hinge holding the display is broken and it is attached to a frame that incorporates the base and the external CD \n\nFig 3 shows John Thomson working on John Hands new computer. I’m not sure what the problem was but think it has to do with Windows 2000 that was on the computer when John bought it.\n\nIn the back ground you can just see some boxes. They were loaded with more computer parts from PCS Computer training. Many thanks for Ken and ~Rose-Maree. We are planning, or have done, weather permitting, by the time you read this, a good clean out. Sort the good from the bad and get every thing labelled. The equipment has expanded to fill the available space and 3 hours on a Saturday afternoon is not long enough to fix computers and have a good clean up. Many thanks to all those who have provided equipment.\n\nNow that I have finished this months article, I can go back to the other project that is driving me crazy. I should blame Roger for mentioning this program in an previous article. It’s called Python. A simplified version of the programming language called C++. I have got a small program written that runs well and displays on a note pad like screen. It’s trying to get a proper GUI screen to work that is causing me fun and games. To get ‘Buttons’, ‘List menus’ and text screen to run and link properly is the problem. The programs are written in modular form which makes tracing out how some one else has achieved it very difficult to trace. Python has a good debug program but the way the program jumps from module to module, it becomes very hard to remember which module is calling which module (Sub routines) and which is the ‘main’ part of the program. Given time and persistence I will finally crack it. If there is no article next month, it might be that it got the better of me and I trashed the computer.\n\nOur next meeting is at Ron’s place on the 6th of May.\nSee you there,\nArthur.\n\n\nPhoto used:\nFig 1. Dons computer.jpg\nFig 2. Reloading drivers.jpg\nFig 3. Reloading drivers.jpg\n \n\n\n

The forth Hardware Sig. was held on the 31st of July. Lynda Wang bought along another computer which had stopped working. (See fig 1. I forgot to allow bright light in the window. Should have forced the flash on.)\n\nFig 1. S_Linda fixing her computer.jpg\n\n Once again we ran into that problem of nothing being displayed on the screen. No even a blinking cursor. We changed the video board and monitor for a known good ones, but still no luck. I suspect it is either the mother board or the BIOS chip. The CMOS battery was OK. If any body can help us determine the cause of the lack of video, it would be most helpful. We have two computers with this problem and one of my older computers has developed the same problem. Still we had great fun in trying to get them to go. Good hands on experience and you don't have to worry about breaking it. Its already broke.\n \nRon bought his computer along which was running very slow and taking ages to load Window 95 and Internet Explorer. (See fig 2. John waiting very patiently.) That problem was much easier to fix. Called the "Turbo button".\n\nFig 2. S_John waiting for windows to load.jpg\n\nWas turned off for some reason. Probably bumped. Windows loaded in one third of the time. The "Turbo Button" allows you to speed up the computer and has largely disappeared from modern computers. I suspect its main function was to allow you run some of the older programs that were speed dependant DOS programs. Ron's computer is a 486 with 12 Megs of RAM and a 33MHz CPU. Sufficient for running Windows 95 and Internet Explorer 4. \n\nTo improve Ron's Internet access time we decided to upgraded his modem from 14Kbit/s to 56Kbit/s modem. See Figs 3 and 4. Unfortunately we couldn't get the proper drivers for the internal 56K modem and it refused to install properly, despite Windows telling us so. Had to settle for a 33Kbit/s external modem. That worked well and Ron can now access the net 200% faster. Next project will be to find him a faster motherboard. His current mother board will not take a faster CPU. It's not that long ago that that a 33Mhz CPU was considered very fast. \n\nFig 3: S_Ron in front of the computer.jpg\nFig 4: S_Installing a modem in Rons computer.jpg\n \nIf anybody can help us with the lack of video problem, it would be most appreciated. With nothing been displayed and no CMOS error beeps, we are stuck in the proverbial mud as far as those computers are concerned. \n\nThanks again to all those who provided us with their unwanted computers. Thanks to John Blakeley for his help, and the best of luck and good health in Auckland.\n\nThe next meeting is on the 28th of August. \nArthur. \n

HARDWARE SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP\nMEETING 27TH November 2004\n\n''Part 1'' by Arthur harris\nOn arriving at Ron's place for our monthly Hardware meeting, and after having some problems in finding a parking spot due to the Brooklyn festival, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Ron and Ann had tided up the club's room. Some new shelves had been erected and some of the surplus equipment had been put into cupboards. See attached photos. Photo 1 is looking into the room and photo 2 is looking at the new shelves. Many thanks to Ann and Ron for that hard work.\n\nDon bought his computer back again. (See October Megabyte). He was having problems trying to reload Windows 95. The version running on his computer had a different serial number to that on the CD ROM and it would not let us reload the version off the CD ROM. Don didn't have the serial number. The next action was to delete the current version by booting from the "A" drive with the Windows startup floppy. \nThis would have allowed us to reload the new version. Alas all went wrong at this point. The computer refused to recognise "A" drive, and despite installing another "A" drive and changing the ribbon cable, we could not get it to work. The problem was on the motherboard. At this point we called it quits, stripped out the drives and other usable parts. The motherboard was then consigned to the place where all parts that refuse to work go. ''THE TIP''. Don has another computer that he will install the hard drive and CD ROM into. After that we turned our attention to a computer that John had bought. John will tell you about that.\n\nThanks to the scanners and monitor donated by Robin Hinde. Raja had a use for the computer case. I had no sooner unloaded that lot out of the back of my car, and it filled up again with a pile of parts from Ian Godfrey. Will have to sort through it. Thanks Ian. \n\n''Part 2'' by John Hand \nThe eighth meeting of the Hardware SIG was held on Saturday, 27th October. Seven members and the Pikelet Lady (Anne Duncan) attended this meeting. Grateful thanks to Anne for another batch of scrumptious pikelets which may just be seen in Photo 1 (above).\n\nDianne Oswald of Seatoun recently suffered a computer malfunction or, as Ron Oliver would say, “Dianne’s computer packed a sad”. Dianne is another genealogist. She attends meetings of the KGB (Kilbirnie Genealogy Branch) and also the associated Computing Class which is conducted by John Hand at St. Patrick’s College, Kilbirnie. Ron Oliver and John Little (Treasurer, NZPCA) also periodically attend this class. John H. suggested to Dianne that the members of the Hardware SIG may be willing to help her with technical support! Alternatively, John L. offered to put Dianne in touch with a couple of computer technicians who are known to him.\n\nThe second item on the fix-it list was Dianne’s Compaq Prolinea 575e. Whenever Dianne attempted to start up her computer absolutely nothing would appear on the screen. A few weeks prior to this SIG meeting John H had taken the computer home for a preliminary examination. John had determined that the hard disk drive was functioning and that the problem appeared to be the connection between the computer and the monitor. This type of computer has a connection from the monitor port at the back of the computer directly into the motherboard (refer to Item 3 below). Arthur immediately suggested fitting a separate monitor card. The Hardware SIG had at least three available.\n\nBefore the monitor would function properly it was necessary to reload Windows 98. This was due to some type of “Interrupt Error”. Later that same night Ron Oliver refitted the two essential parts. Now Dianne’s computer is waiting to have both the modem and the sound card tested. It is planned for this to be done soon and to have the computer returned to Dianne before she leaves on 18th December to spend Xmas in Australia with some members of her family. Merry Xmas, Dianne and continued happy computing.\n\nIt is envisaged that this computer repair story will become incorporated in the annals of Dianne’s own personal family history.\n\nNotes :\nMegaByte, November 2004, Number 193, Page 9. \n1. Callout (on the left) should read :- (showing lug and fixing screw)\n2. Note 2. Please insert missing line :- Fig 2 - Ron waiting for Windows to load\n\n\n

Finishing off the network. Readers should remember that we had set up a network between two computers using a network hub from previous articles. The two computers are located in the down stairs work shop. What we wanted to do was extend the network to Ron’s computer upstairs. That meant running a Cat5 cable upstairs which Ron did before the meeting. A Cat5 is a cable designed for high speed data application and is installed in most offices and homes that run networks. It is designed to handle both the phone circuit and data circuits in the same cable. The first job was to terminate the cable in the wall sockets and install the network card into Ron’s computer. See fig 1 \n\nYou can see the wall socket mounted on the wall with the cables terminated and Ron’s computer ready for the network card to be installed.. Fig 2 shows the computer up and running with the network card installed and the address allocated. \nThe next step was to terminate the cable downstairs. After sorting out which cable was which, the cable was terminated onto the sockets. See fig 3. The sockets can be seen at the end of the cable. The face plate was then mounted on the wall sockets and the excess cable pushed back in to the wall. The next job was to put the plugs on the jumper lead. Fig 4 show the plug being inspected to see that all the wires were in their correct place. The jumper was then plugged into a port on the network hub. The hub can be seen under the key board. \n\nWhile the cable was being terminated, John M. and Ian were removing the 56K modem from another computer and installing it into the new computer. See Figs 5 and 6. The new computer is the one that John donated that had the bad caps on the mother board. The mother board had been repaired and the correct DDR SDRAM purchased and installed. They had installed XP home and all that remained was to install the modem card and set up the network card. The driver for the modem was on the other computer so we had to get the network up and running again. After a few false starts and a correction in the cable wiring, we managed to get the network to connect to Ron’s computer. The new computer being the fastest and having the 20 Gig drive, was made the server. See Fig 7. The old server became just another computer. After transferring the modem drivers across, the modem was set up so we could now connect to the Internet. See fig 8. After getting the network working it started to lose contact with the other computers. Some computers see only one another but not the server. Being a Peer to Peer setup, all the computers should have seen each other. After much frustration and looking in the wrong places, John M. discovered that for some reason, XP kept on switching the work group name on the sever back to “MS Home”. The default name.\n\n This meant although the sever was connected to the network, it was looking for the wrong workgroup name. After removing that workgroup name from the server the system settled down. \nAfter all that hard work it was time for a cuppa thanks to Ron.\n\nThat’s all for this year. From the Hardware Sig, we wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. \nSee you at Ron’s place next year.\n\n__Photos used:__\n*Fig 1. Rons computer.JPG\n*Fig 2. Network card installed.jpg\n*Fig 3. Downstairs cable.jpg\n*Fig 4. Inspecting the plug.jpg\n*Fig 5. Removing the modem.jpg\n*Fig 6. Installing the modem.jpg\n*Fig 7. The new computer.jpg\n*Fig 8. The old server.jpg\n*Fig 9. A welcome cuppa.jpg\n

HARDWARE SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP\n//Arthur Harris report on the Hardware Special Interest Group meetings of 18 December 2004 and 5 February 2005 ....//\n\n''MEETINGS 18th December 2004 and 4th February 2005''\nWe had our pre Christmas and post Christmas meetings and looking back, the Hardware Sig has flourished with new members and a pile of computers and parts donated by the NZPCA members. By swapping various computer parts, using boards that worked and chucking those that didn't, we have managed to upgrade several computers for the Hardware Sig members and learnt a lot about computers as we go.\n\nIn the December meeting John bought along a computer that had a 14.4 modem and we tried installing a 56k modem. Unfortunately we didn't meet with much success. Suspect that we didn't find the correct driver. \n\nThe computer we loaned to Ann is fitted with a 56K modem, but when she tried to connect to the Internet, she had no joy. Further checks showed that the computer did not recognise the modem. Using the information displayed on the modem, we used Ron's computer to down load the correct driver and installed it on Ann's machine. With the correct driver, the computer recognised the modem and all was well. Another convert to that great black hole we call the Internet.\n\nThe next story is a good example of how computers can chew up time. Ron's computer has a problem in that it cannot run Outlook express. It has Internet Explorer loaded and running, but when you try to load up Outlook express it doesn't seen to exist. Outlook will run. To try and overcome this problem we decided to unload Internet Explorer 4 and reload Internet Explore 5.5. Ron's machine is 486. 66Mhz CPU and 64 Mbits of RAM. It still took 20 minutes to uninstall Internet Explorer. Reinstalled Internet Explorer. 15 mins. Set up Internet Explorer. Again it gave us no options to set up the mail package. Back where we started. Then decided to reload Windows 95. Used the restore option as we didn't have install code. Another 20 minutes. Still no luck. Tried reloading Win95 and Internet explorer again. Before we knew it, 3 hours had been used up with very little gain and plenty of frustration. See Fig 1.The option left was to wipe the hard drive and start again. That was left for another day. If anybody knows what may be causing this problem, please let us know.\n\nThe day wasn't totally wasted. John Hand had been given another spare computer from friends. It came with Motherboard, power supply, case and graphics board only.\n\nUsing the RAM and hard drives from another computer we managed to get it going. See Fig 2. It was a 133 ~MHz Pentium. All fingers were crossed to make sure that it worked. See Fig 3. \n\nThe idea is use it to upgrade Ron's computer to a faster machine using the modem, RAM and hard drive currently in Ron's. 486. Load Windows 98Se and Internet Explorer plus Outlook Express. This will cut down the time it now take to read his E-mail on line by allowing him to down load to his computer. \n \nSome think he can not do now due to the problem with Outlook Express.\n\nThe next Hardware Sig is on the 5th of March.\n\nPhotos used:\nFig 1. S_Hardware Rons computer.jpg\nFig 2. S_Hardware The 133 ~MHz computer.jpg\nFig 3. S_Hardware Fingers crossed.jpg\n\n

The third Hardware Sig. was held on the 19th of June. The weather has improved a bit. Lynda Wang bought along her old computer which had stopped working. Helping her are John and Ian with Ron holding the light. Lynda was very keen to get stuck into it. See photo. The first problem was a dead power supply. That was changed for another power supply from one of several computers we have been given. The computer started to boot up ok, but then we found another problem. Nothing was being displayed on the screen. No Bios info at all. The video card turned out to be faulty and we had no spare. That was as far as we could go. \n \nGeorge Braithwaite brought along an IBM laptop that was displaying errors. We were unable to do too much in fixing the problems. The greatest mystery attached to laptops is how to get them apart with out breaking the case. Finding the well hidden release point. \nIf any member can give George a hand with his laptop, I am sure that he would appreciate it. \nThe next Hardware Sig meeting is on Saturday 31 July. All are welcome.\n\nBios back up batteries.A question was raised at the Wellington meeting about where to find the Bios backup battery on your mother board.\nIn most cases, they are easy to spot. On older motherboards, pre 486's, it would be either (a) mounted on the motherboard. See Fig 1. These may also be mounted inside a small brown holder and stuck to the chassis.\n\nOn later boards the button type is used. See fig 2. These are easy to spot and are latched into a special holder.\nA third type is also used and this one is not easy to find. See fig 3. It is a real time clock module with a 10 year battery and a small amount of RAM. The Bios info is held on the RAM inside this module.\n\nI have included a link to a web site that describes these batteries and their uses in much greater detail.\nhttp://www.resource800.com/ccbtypes.html\n

\n//John Marchington, Ron Oliver and John Hand report on the Hardware SIG meeting held on Saturday, 2 July 2005.\n(Regrettably neither Arthur Harris nor John Thomson were able to attend this meeting.)//\n\n''Part I. Contributed by John Marchington.''\n//The following description was written by John M, who had been asked to look at Ron O’s 133 ~MHz Pentium machine.//\n\nDue to illness, John missed the June meeting, when an attempt had been made to install Windows 98 on Ron’s computer – unsuccessfully, due to the fact that the ~CD-ROM drive fitted at the time was not fast enough to read the Win98 ~CD-R. In the interim period, the drive had been replaced by a 52x one, so it was felt another attempt could be made to install the Operating System (O/S).\n\nThere were, however, problems galore to begin with. On boot-up, a message appeared informing that the Primary Master and Primary Slave Hard Drives (of around 540MB and 1GB capacity) could not be found, so it was into the BIOS for Auto Detection. When nothing but zeros appeared for the drives’ information, it was clear that either both drives were faulty (unlikely) or one or more of the associated cables were loose. Unfortunately, the ~CD-ROM drive made it difficult to see the HDD cables so it was decided to remove the drive for better access. The right-angle-positioned 3.5” diskette drive had to be removed as well to gain access to the mounting screws on that side of the cage. It was then found that the upper HDD adapter frame was simply sitting there, floating – not a particularly good idea! The cables were pushed in firmly at the rear of the drives and on the motherboard and, with all the disconnected hardware still loose, the computer was turned on again – and normal boot-up occurred. The Win95 screen appeared until we received a message informing us that the WIN.COM file could not be found and further loading of the O/S ceased.\n\nAt that stage it was decided to put everything back together. After a number of attempts at fitting the hard disk drive to the frame, so that the latter could be mounted in the cage, (the screw holes in the frame could not be lined up with those in the cage previously), a successful combination was found. Everything was securely fastened and all cables plugged in. Unfortunately, the original hard drive messages reappeared on boot-up and it was found that some of the cables had been incorrectly fitted. (It was very difficult to see where each cable went, because there was very little room between the rear of the drives and the power supply cage). The problem was eventually sorted out and normal boot-up recommenced. It was now time to try installing Win98 again. All the hardware appeared to be working correctly by this time, so the Win98 ~CD-R was inserted into the drive and the Win98 startup diskette was used to set up ~CD-ROM operation. At last, some success! After initialising the setup, installation appeared to be progressing satisfactorily until, with 18 minutes remaining, the monitor screen went blank. Ron noticed that the light on the front of the monitor should have been green but was now amber, which suggested to John M. that there was no signal reaching the monitor. When a warm boot (~CTRL-ALT-DEL) failed, there seemed to be no other option but to press the Reset button on the front panel. Immediately, O/S installation resumed and was successful through to the end.\n\nThe screen resolution was then set to 800 x 600 pixels and with 24-bit colour.\n\nThis had all taken a considerable amount of time, but it was still felt that an attempt to install ~Win98SE should be made. Once again everything seemed to be progressing nicely until a message appeared, informing us that there was a problem with the C: drive and that the DOS version of Scandisk should be used to check and correct any errors found. This was duly done and two errors were indeed discovered and supposedly rectified. A surface scan was then done out of interest and was found to be error–free (although considerable fragmentation was noticed). Sadly, the drive error message appeared again and so the DOS Scandisk was repeated – and one of the previously discovered errors reappeared, despite asking for both to be fixed earlier. This was repeated and for the third time ~Win98SE installation began. This time NO errors were detected – but we were soon told that the C: drive was not large enough for the installation – and at that point we decided to call it a day.\n\nWith a larger drive fitted, and with ~Win98SE eventually installed, it looks as if Ron might at long last have quite a nice system.\n\nCaption : Maxine, John M., Ian and Don Stewart (obscured) in Ron’s dining room concentrating on solving Ron’s computer problems.\n\n''Part II. Contributed by Ron Oliver. (This is a short supplement to Part I.)''\nOn the following Thursday, Arthur solved the problem by replacing my computer with a ~Pentium-MMX CPU 200 ~MHz machine with 96 MB RAM and a 2 GB hard disk drive that he had brought into the workshop last month. It had on it all the essential programs including Windows 98 SE and Outlook Express. This computer is the one I am now using. \n\nThe 52x ~CD-ROM that originally John M. had used to load Windows 98 was retrieved and swapped for a 40x ~CD-ROM drive from another computer that Arthur had brought with him on Thursday.\n\nThanks to John M., Ian and Maxine on Saturday and to Arthur and John H., on Thursday, I now have a really good operating computer at my disposal.\n\nRegarding the Pentium 133 ~MHz machine I had been using, and which had been worked on by John M., the major problems of the lack of memory (only 48 MB of RAM) and limited space on the C: drive were finally solved. This machine has now been removed to the workshop.\n\nAlso, grateful thanks to Jim Parnell who, at the June members’ meeting, had offered a free NEC, P2200, 24-pin, dot-matrix printer and an almost full carton of continuous, fan-folded, sprocket-punched and perforated A4 computer paper. The day after the members’ meeting John H. and I visited Jim and took delivery of these items.\n\nOn the Thursday, after Arthur had left, John H. and I set up the printer and changed the ribbon for a recycled one which Jim had supplied. For the first time for some years I now have a working printer connected to my computer. No more dashing into town to get my documents printed. Further, I now need to call on the services of Tom Clarke to have Jim’s originally-fitted ribbon re-inked.\n\n''Part III. Contributed by John Hand (with assistance from David Ryrie).''\nFor the second time, due to ongoing as well as new problems with his computer, David Ryrie attended today’s meeting.\n\nIt is interesting to note that David’s computer was “made to order” by Computer Broking Services. Quite notably this computer firm has been in existence in Wellington since 1970 and continues to be in business today.\n\nSubsequent to the SIG members’ efforts during David’s first visit (reported in ~MegaByte, May 2005, Number 198) his ~CD-ROM drive was not functioning. Hence his computer has been working without it for two months. On his second visit David supplied his own keyboard and his own mouse. On the previous occasion there had been some suggestion that the keyboard and the mouse were connected the wrong way around! On Saturday the problem with the ~CD-ROM drive was the first to be tackled. The computer was separated from its case in order to verify that all three cables were properly connected to the ~CD-ROM drive. It was found to be advantageous to move the computer out of the workshop and into the sunshine. (Believe it or not we were blessed with some!) \n\nGeorge was ready with his camera for some excellent pictures.\nCaption : David and John H. outside in the sunshine checking the three connections to the ~CD-ROM drive.\n\nBack in the workshop the computer was re-connected to the necessary peripherals and the CD ......... still did not work:(:(:(!!!\n\nNow, John H. had brought along his relatively “new” (actually previously-owned), “dead-donkey-slow” computer for some TLC (which it didn’t receive – Boo:(! Hoo:(!). Thankfully, this computer was sporting a working ~CD-RW which John H. had “acquired” some time ago from our Hardware SIG. Thanks to Robin Hinde (-=rjh=-). John H. had successfully fitted this CD himself:). [At these SIG meetings we are definitely learning to be our own cobblers. (Jim Parnell, please note: – “This success was achieved without recourse to a boot-maker’s last!”)] \n\nSo the next plan of action was to swap this ~CD-RW for David’s non-functioning ~CD-R. Guess what! The ~CD-RW failed to work in David’s machine. Next, David’s ~CD-R was connected to the John H. computer. Eureka! It worked perfectly! So, why had it failed when fitted into David’s computer?\n\nAfter all this time and effort David and his relatively inexperienced helpers were thoroughly mystified.\nAs reported above, John M. was upstairs in the dining room engrossed with Ron’s sick computer. However, David approached John M. for advice. This was to check that David’s ~CD-ROM cable was firmly fitted into the motherboard.\n\nFollowing John’s advice, and upon closer investigation deep into the bowels of David’s computer, the true, incredibly simple solution was finally determined!\nAgain George was poised with camera to capture forever the grave oversight which had occurred on the occasion of David’s attendance at the May meeting. Sincere apologies to David for this.\n\nCaption : George’s extreme close-up of the ~CD-ROM cable dangling idly in space and hence not performing any useful function!\nCaption : The ultimate “fix-it” step. David is fitting the plug on the end of the errant cable firmly back into its socket on the motherboard.\n\nMany thanks to George for his huge contribution of 25 photographs. Just before the meeting ended the photos were transferred from the camera to the computer belonging to John H.\n\nSpecial thanks to John Little and Ron Oliver for their assistance with the proof-reading and amending of this entire report. They very kindly helped out while they were attending the computing class at St. Patrick’s College on Tuesday afternoon (12th July).\nThe next meeting is scheduled for Saturday, 6th August 2005.\n

The Hardware Sig\nBy John Hand\n\n On 1st May, in spite of quite inclement weather, we held a very successful introductory meeting of the Hardware Sig group at Ron Oliver's place in Washington Ave. The meeting commenced at 2:00 pm and some members remained until after 5:00 pm! Four members were still there at 6:00 pm!!! .\n Arthur Harris explained various aspects of computer hardware including modems, motherboards and the different ports (~COM1, ~COM2, ~LPT1, etc.) found on a computer. Basic operating level.\n\n The highlight was fixing the modem in "Computer 3" which John Hand had purchased from the NZPCA. Several months ago the modem had ceased to function. Arthur successfully got it working again. Members were shown how to uninstall, check the IO and IRQ settings on the modem board, (Non plug and play), reinstall and set up Window 95 to accept the modem. This enabled the SIG members to send this message to themselves. (Reason it stopped working was the dip switch settings on the front of the modem had be altered accidentally. This meant that the computer could no longer see the modem despite the fact it was installed on the motherboard.)\n{{{\n Johns Computer.jpg\n The black board.jpg\n}}}\n With his digital camera Arthur took about five photos of the room that Ron Oliver had very kindly made available for the use of the Hardware SIG. One photo is of the blackboard which Ron had painted and mounted on the wall. On the board Arthur has drawn a diagram of a computer showing the CPU and the Motherboard with four "Cards" inserted into it. (Very rough). Also a list of 15 abbreviations was compiled with the intention of publishing their full meanings. Especially for John.\n\nExcellent "hardware computing" enjoyed by eight enthusiastic members.\nGrateful thanks also to Ron Oliver for afternoon tea and biscuits.\n{{{\n Raja - Win and George.jpg\n John and Ian setting up the address book.jpg\n}}}\n If any club member has surplus computer parts and a working monitor they no longer have a need for, the Hardware sig will be most graceful to look after, mind, make use of, and store in interests of teaching our members about computer hardware.\n \nThe next meeting is planned for the 22nd May 2004 at 2pm.\n Location: 39 Washington Ave,\n Brooklyn\n \n John Hand (#125)

''HARDWARE SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP MEETING 7th May 2005''\n\nI am still here and so far all the software problems I mentioned in last months article have not got the better of me.\nGave up on the GUI screens for the time being. They were taking too much of my spare time and too many other jobs were piling up. Concentrated more on learning the basics and stuck with the default screen.\nThe planned clean out didn’t happen due to sickness. Hoping to have another go on Thursday this week. That will be last week by the time you read this magazine.\n \nThe last meeting was not as successful as we would have liked. David Ryrie brought along his computer. He was having problems with the computer locking up for no apparent reason in the middle of applications. This type of problem is usually caused by the computer memory (RAM) starting to fail.\n\nRemoved the RAM from it’s slot and replaced it. The action of removing and replacing the RAM was to clean the contacts in the holder and pins on the RAM board. Wiping the RAM contacts with a cloth is not recommended as this can generate a static charge and kill the RAM. The removing and replacing the RAM will have the desired cleaning effect. In our case it had a noticeable affect on the speed and the rate at which the computer booted up. It unfortunately didn’t cure our problem. In fact the problem seemed to get worse. The computer was having trouble booting up. It was when we booted up in the ‘Safe’ mode that we discover the main cause. The keyboard and mouse were very erratic in their operations and even stopped working. After blaming several keyboards and marking them as faulty we came to the conclusion that it wasn’t the keyboards at fault. A closer inspection revealed that the power to the keyboard was intermittent. The ‘Num Lock’ LED kept flicking on and off. This meant that the power to the keyboard and mouse was being affected. As you all would have found out from passed experiences, that it is very difficult to operate a computer without them. \n\nThe problem was traced back to the connectors on the back of the motherboard that the mouse and keyboard plugged into. We removed and visually checked the connectors and where they soldered onto the motherboard. With our limited facility, there wasn’t much we could do.\n \nThe modern motherboard is very complex and repairing it is very specialised and expensive. It is cheaper to buy a new one. This was David’s option. In the process of removing the motherboard, I unplug the cables feeding the front panel LED’s and switches. The plugs were marked and I made the assumption the motherboard would also be marked. Wrong move. If there were any markings, we couldn’t find them. It became a case of suck and see. We managed to get all plugs back onto their correct pins and the ‘Off/On’ switch, ‘Reset line, ‘Power’ and ‘Drive’ all working as the should. To stop it happening again we took a photo as a record of where they should be. See Fig 2.\n\n We then moved onto another computer that we had been given. This one was unusual in that the monitor and case were joined together. More like the earlier style of computers. It was well-designed and easy to work on. The motherboard is attached to the back panel and unplugs from the main chassis when you take the back panel off.\n\nThe drives are easily accessed from the front panel. Four screws are all you need to undo. It was missing a hard drive. Found a spare hard drive and installed it. Once again Murphies law struck. The computer only had enough RAM to run Windows 95 and the only boot disk we had was for Windows 98. The Windows 98 boot disk allowed us to start the computer and gave us access to the CD drive but would not allow us to load an earlier version of Windows. The DOS boot disk allowed us to start the computer but didn’t give access to the CD drive. With out the CD drive we could not load Windows. We were stuck either way. In the end that long overdue cup of tea, pikelets and biscuits won out and we called it quits. Pikelets thanks to Ann. Will need to make up Windows 95 boot disk with CD drive access.\n \nWith winter and the cold weather coming on I moved my second computer from the bedroom to the kitchen table. Closer to the lounge and fire place. Much warmer and saved heating two rooms. The network cable had been installed two years ago. Had to drop the network speed to 10 Mbits/s to allow for the longer cable. That was no problem and every thing worked well until I switched it on two days later and the second computer was dead. The power supply had given up the ghost. Back to the cold room while I get it fixed.\n\nThat’s all for this month. Next meeting on the 4th of June.\n\n\nPhotos used:\nFig 1. Reinstalling motherboard.jpg\nFig 2. Front panel connections.jpg\n

// Ron Oliver and John Hand report on the most recent Hardware Special Interest Group meeting.//\n\n''PART I (Contributed by Ron Oliver)''\nOn Saturday 12 enthusiasts attended the seventh Hardware SIG meeting at 39 Washington Ave., Brooklyn. In between cups of coffee, tea, chocolate biscuits and creamed jam pikelets (1) an attempt was made to see why Maxine ~McNabb’s Pentium computer had, over a period of time, packed two or three sads. One in particular kept on informing its user that perfectly well-used and formatted floppy disks were not formatted. This problem had occurred over the last 11 months. More of that later.\n\nAlso, Ian was trying out the new digital camera purchased recently by the NZPCA and borrowed specially for use at this SIG meeting. Details of this Nikon COOLPIX 2200 camera were reported in ~MegaByte, October 2004, Number 192, Page 9.\nSeveral photos were taken and, with a USB cable, the camera was connected to the front of Maxine’s computer and the photos were downloaded. The photos were then displayed on the monitor. See samples over the page.\n\nAt this stage John Thomson arrived at the door. This was his first attendance at a meeting of the Hardware SIG. His advice and down-to-earth expertise were most welcome.\n\n''PART II (Contributed by John Hand)''\nAt the members’ meeting on 20th October, during “Good News / Bad News”, Maxine ~McNabb described the problem she was experiencing with her monitor. It was displaying numerous horizontal lines (losing synchronization). Since no member could shed any light on a possible solution, John Hand suggested that Maxine might consider attending the next Hardware SIG meeting and that if the problem could not be resolved then the SIG may be in a position to lend Maxine a fully functioning monitor.\n\nThe 30th duly arrived and, on his way to Ron’s place, John called at Maxine’s home in Vogeltown to help to move her tremendously heavy monitor from the front door of her house to her car. This required carrying the monitor down 37 steps to the garage and placing it in Maxine’s car. A while later, having arrived at Ron’s place, Arthur was called upon to carry the monitor across the street and up Ron’s 26 steps to the “workshop”. The effort required left Arthur somewhat short of breath. (That was the 6th trip carrying equipment up those steps that day.) Grateful thanks to John M. and Ian H. for their willingness to help Maxine (much later in the afternoon) to get her monitor back to her place along with one loaned by the SIG.\n\nThe entire afternoon (and a large part of the evening) was devoted to resolving problems with Maxine’s computer. Numerous attempts were made to fix the problem of the horizontal lines appearing on the monitor. Time was spent viewing the photos taken by Ian H. with the Club’s new digital camera. Arthur needed to be home “early”. So after he left John T. assumed the role of computer mechanic. Maxine had revealed that a second problem was that her “new” floppy drive had not been working for about 18 months. Maxine’s floppy drive was replaced. Still no joy. John T. suggested incompatibility between the motherboard and the floppy drive. Soon after, John T. had to leave and then John M. and Ian H. occupied the mechanic’s chair. Further trials and much frustration. However, the drive finally decided to function. But then, fitting the replacement floppy drive firmly back into the computer was proving to be extremely difficult. The holes in the mounting bracket and the screw holes in the drive itself did not line up. At about 5:30 pm Maxine, John M. and Ian H. needed to call it a day. Maxine agreed to leave her computer for Ron O. and John H. - the two least knowledgeable ~SIGgers - (with Anne Duncan observing) to re-mount the drive and to ensure that it was then working effectively!\n\nThe mounting problem was overcome when Ron brilliantly suggested fitting the screws into two lugs, one on each side of the mounting bracket and protruding forwards from the front of the inner metal case. A very unusual piece of computer engineering.\nThanks to Maxine for taking photos of her computer with its case open.\n\nJust before 8:30 pm Ron and John had satisfied themselves that the replacement floppy drive was working and that the computer could then be returned to Maxine. Time for fish and chips.\n\nMaxine collected her computer on Sunday. Got it home and, horror of horrors, her first attempt to read a floppy disk resulted in the dreaded message “This disk is not formatted”. During a telephone discussion between Maxine and John it was learned that Maxine was always using diskettes provided by her friend who has her own computer and who shares Maxine’s house. John then suggested that there exists an incompatibility between their two floppy drives. This theory is quite sound since before Maxine left on the Saturday she had agreed to permit John to take home her own “new” floppy drive to be tested. This was easily done and it has been proved conclusively that Maxine’s own drive is perfectly OK. It just remains for Maxine to test the replacement drive with a brand new diskette and then to re-format it herself. Also the original drive will be refitted to Maxine’s computer. Hopefully this will be achieved before the November SIG meeting.\n\nGrateful thanks to David ~Tolton-Smith for donating a complete working computer (486 ~DX2, 66 ~MHz) plus a monitor and a dot-matrix printer (Star ~LC-20). Ron Oliver is putting this equipment to very good use.\n\nNotes :1. The date on the photo of John Thomson should read 30.10.2004. The date and time in the Club’s camera were incorrect.\n2. ~MegaByte, August 2004, Number 190, Page 8. The lower caption should read :- \n3. The pikelets were very nicely made by Anne Duncan (Ron’s friend and neighbour). Very yummy with whipped cream. Thank you, Anne.\n\n\n

''HARDWARE SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP MEETING 5th November 2005''\n\nFixing the NEXT’s and the FEXT’s. Those terms will get you guessing . I must admit that one of my pet hates is the use of acronym in articles and manuals on the assumption that the reader knows what they mean. It leaves you guessing or having to constantly refer back to the one page where they may have given the full wording.\n\nIt all started when we set up the network at the Hardware Sig. After a few minor hiccups the network fired up and was still working at the last meeting. We even connected to the new laptop. I bought the laptop home to load the Anti-virus and Internet browser programs via my home network. See Fig 1. The 100 Mbps network consists of two computers connected via a 8 port hub. The hub is under the desk. You can see the cables connecting to it. This allows me to connect other computers to my network. Very handy for transferring large files.\n\nI connected the laptop to the network using a spare cable and set the network name on the Laptop to the same as my home network The indicating lights on the hub showed all three computers connecting at 100 Mbits. Using Windows Explorer, I checked to see if I could see the Laptop’s hard drive. No go. I could see my two computers but not the Laptop. The Laptop could not see my two computers. The network seemed very sluggish. The Laptop was having a bad affect on the network.\nTo check the Laptop, I took the network cable from the back of one of my computers and plugged it into the laptop. Every thing connected OK and my computer could see the Laptop and the Laptop could see my computer. Nothing wrong with the Laptop’s network card. Reconnected the system back to the original setup and again the network slowed down. That said the spare cable was faulty. That seemed odd as I had used it on other computers with out any problems. \n\nWhen I set up the network, I ran a cable from the bedroom to the kitchen. This allowed me to set up a computer on the kitchen table when I needed more room. I had no problem with that link, but the laptop still refused to connect. Everything was saying the computer was connected but no way would they talk to each other. Then I remembered that the computer that I used in the kitchen had the network card set to 10 Mbps\n\nI reset the Laptop network card to 10 Mbps and every thing connected. Something wasn’t quite right. Time to look further.\nAt work we have a tester for checking network cable up to speeds of 100 Mbps. It does a range of tests. The first test checks continuity. No problems there. The length showed up as 10 metres. Well within the maximum length for that speed.\n \nThe next tests failed. These are the crosstalk checks. The NEXT (Near End Cross Talk) and FEXT (Far End Cross Talk) tests. These tests, inject a signal onto one pair of the cable and measure the level of signal on all the remaining pairs. The higher the amount of returned signal, the higher the cross talk Both my home made cables were suffering from bad crosstalk. This explained why I could run them at the slower speeds but not at the higher speeds. The cable I used was rated as Cat 5 and should have had no problems handling data at that speed. At this point I spotted my mistake. \n\n I had made the assumption that the ~RJ45 plug’s pins 1 and 2 connected to pair 1, Pins 3 and 4 connected to pair 2, Pins 5 and 6 to pair 3, Pins 7 and 8 to pair 4, and had wired both ends accordingly. This my workmate kindly pointed out, was a false assumption and handed me his little book of all knowledge electrical. In there was the correct wiring. I also found it in the back of the Dick Smith’s catalogue.\n\n Pins 1 and 2 went to pair 1. Pins 3 and 6 to pair 2. Pins 4 and 5 to pair 3. Pins 7 and 8 to pair 4. When the cable is manufactured, each pair is twisted together and the pairs are then twisted together to form a bundle. The purpose of twisting the pairs is to reduce the crosstalk in the cable. If you compare the way I wired the plug with the way I should have wired it, you will see that I used one wire in pair 2 and one wire in pair 3. The result of this was to negate the crosstalk canceling. Even though I had good physical connections and the Network Hub was telling me that I had a 100 Mbps connection, the resulting crosstalk was distorting the signal and therefore rendering it unusable especially at 100 Mbps. The error correction circuits were able to cope at the 10 Mbps level due to the lesser amount of crosstalk and would have resulted in a slower data transfer rate. \n \nThe step was to cut off the incorrectly wired plugs and replace them with correctly wired plugs. The whole network now runs at the top speed and now when I plug the Laptop into the network it connects straight away. That’s my problem fixed.\nThe November Hardware Sig meeting went well. The floppy drive on Ann’s computer was playing up. Ron had changed the original drive with one that John had supplied. Even with this drive we had trouble reading his floppy disc. Some it could read and some it couldn’t. I suspect that the heads are out of alignment. We replaced it with one from another computer. That made the world of difference. Had no problems reading floppy discs. The CD drive also started working. The computer was starting to get sluggish. This was being caused by the “C” drive being over full, leaving little room for the Swap files etc. Transferred about a 100 Mbytes of files to the “D” drive helped to fix this problem. Always leave plenty of room on the “C” drive for use by the operating system. See fig 2. Many heads sorting out Ann’s problem. \n\nJohn had installed the capacitors on the motherboard so we installed it back into its case. Reinstalled the CPU and graphics card and connected the power supply and ancillary leads. Went to plug in the RAM and found it wouldn’t fit. We had static RAM and the Motherboard required dynamic RAM. Will have to finish the assembly next month. \n \nThe next meeting is the 3rd of December at Ron’s place. All welcome. See page 13 for more details.\n\nPhotos used:\nFig 1. Home network1.jpg\nFig 2. Many hands.jpg\n\n

The sixth meeting of the Hardware SIG was held on the 25th Sept. We had a new member attend, Don Stewart (Photo 2), and a visitor. (See Photo 1) Ann. I will let you guess which one is Ann. Thanks for the lovely afternoon tea that Ann bought for us. Looks like that window has caused the same problem as last time and I picked the right moment to look away.\n\nAlso shown in Photo 1 is Don's computer. We helped him install the CD Rom. Worked Ok but in the process discovered the floppy IDE connector on the motherboard had a fault. It wasn't a major problem as Don only uses this computer to read CD's. A problem to be fixed on another day.\nWe did our best to find a driver for Linda's modem, but didn't have the success we hoped for. Did manage to give Linda a few pointers on where to look for a modem driver, what information she needed to find the correct driver and where on the modem board to find the information. Linda had already tried and had downloaded a modem driver. The modem refused to work with this driver. Armed with the new information she is going to try again. Good luck to her.\n\nIn photos 3 and 4 is John's computer. (Computer 3). Following on from last month saga. As previously mentioned we wanted to fit a CD ROM to Johns' computer but due to the problem caused by already having two hard drives fitted and the 2nd IDE port not working this was not possible. Ended up bringing it home and having another go.\n\nThe next option was to remove one of the hard drives and fit the CD ROM in its place. This meant reloading Windows and checking out what was on the two 540 Mbit drives. After much deliberation and guessing I managed to reduce it down to 180 Mbytes of data. Now to reload Internet explorer, Outlook Express, Microsoft Office, Publisher, any Genealogy programs the John might have wanted. Ops the 540 Mbit drive wasn't big enough. Looked like the CD ROM wasn't an option. \n\nThe Gods then smiled on John. In one of the donated computers was a 2Gbit Bigfoot hard drive. Suddenly the CD ROM was on again. Fitted the hard drive and the CD ROM, loaded Windows 98 and all of the above programs and still had room left. We now have two spare hard drives that can be used elsewhere.\n\nI also had added more RAM to the computer. It was fitted with 32 Mbits of RAM and I had two more 16 Mbit SIMMs. Installed those and fired up the computer. The BIOS recognised the extra RAM as 64 Mbits and loaded windows OK. I did notice that there was a problem transferring large files. I started to look for this problem.\n \nChanged the IDE card, ribbon, Hard drives and it made no difference. This finally bought me back to the extra RAM that I had added. Removed the two extra SIMMs and rebooted. No problems transferring files.\n\nTried putting the new RAM in slots 1 and 2 and the original RAM in 3 and 4. The BIOS would not recognise it. After more trial and error, threw out the 16 Meg SIMMs and replace them with 8 Meg SIMMs. Problem solved and we had to settle for a smaller increase in the amount of RAM available. 48 instead of 64 Mbits.\n\nThat's all for this month. The next meeting is on the 30th of October.\nArthur.\n\nPhoto 1: ~S_George - Ian and Ann.jpg\nPhoto 2: ~s_Finding a modem driver.jpg\nPhoto 3: ~s_Johns upgraded computer.jpg\nPhoto 4: ~s_Johns computer.jpg\n

HARDWARE SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP MEETING 1st October 2005\n\nBoth John’s and the Patel’s computers are going well. John said that he still has the odd problem, but they were more operational than mechanical or electrical. Getting used to Windows XP. \n\n Ann’s computer played up last month. Stopped booting up. Got so far then crashed. Couldn’t find the “C” drive. The error message tends to be “Non system disk or Disk error”. First thoughts were that the hard drive had failed. Checked the BIOS, “C” drive, still there. Using the Win98 start up disk, rebooted the computer and restarted it on the ‘A’ drive in the DOS mode. Rechecked the ‘C’ drive, still there and DOS could see all the files. That only left the system files the DOS couldn’t see. These files are critical for getting your computer to boot up and load your operating system. They are placed on the hard drive during formatting or when your operating system is loaded for the first time.\n \nThe best option here is to re-install them. On the Win95 start up disk there is a file called “Sys.com”. It is not on the Win98 or the ~WinME start up disks. When you boot from either of the these two floppy disks, they create a “Virtual Disk” in your computer’s RAM and load the start up and help files there including the sys.com file. The “Virtual Disk” will be allocated the last disk drive letter. ie. If you have one disk drive it will be “D”. If you have 2 disk drives or a partition on your C drive it will be “E”. \n\n While in the DOS mode, change to the drive that has the sys.com file on it, and type “sys.com C:”. Press enter. The computer will install the system files onto the “C” drive. Remove the floppy disk from the “A” drive and reboot your computer.\nYour computer should now see your “C” drive and reload your operating system. In Ann’s computer it worked OK and loaded Windows98. See fig1. Club members commenting on the screen saver that Ann was using. \n\nOnce Windows was up and running, we used “Scandisk” to check out the “C” drive. Use the “Through mode”. This carries out a full surface scan of the drive and will pick up areas that are starting to fail. Takes a bit longer. No problem found. What ever caused the system files to become corrupt remains a mystery. To make it easier I have copied the sys.com onto my Win98 start disk. That means that I don’t have to run the Win98 setup to get access to that file.\n\nOur next project was to try and get the network going. We had two computers fitted up with the necessary network cards and the hub. Fig 2 shows John Marchington fitting a CD Read/Writer to the master computer. The second computer had the network drivers updated and the IP address added. The master computer had been set up earlier.\n\nAll we had to do know was to link the two together via the network hub. At this point it all went pear shaped. Both computers could see the hub, but no matter what we tried we could not get the two computers to see each other. At this point we ran out of time. Will have to bring that crossed cable from home and see if we can get them working with out the hub.\n\nJohn Marchington had another go at getting the network to go last Sunday. After much trial and error we finally succeeded. Xp could see the other computer but for some reason, Win98 could not see the files on the Xp computer despite being able to ping it. After much trial and error and getting no where fast we decided to go back to basics. We uninstalled the network program from both computers and then reloaded them. Bingo it worked. The problem seemed to be that XP seemed to remember old settings and kept telling us that we were connected to computers that were no longer connected to the network. The full clean out got rid of the old setting. All I can say is the Windows XP is a barstard when it comes to setting up networks compared to Windows 98.\n\nThe NZPCA has purchased a new piece of equipment. See Fig 3. Yes it is a new laptop computer.\nAn Acer Aspire 3000. It has a 2800 ~MHz AMD processor, 40 Gigs hard drive, with 700 Megs of RAM running Microsoft XP. Home edition.. Its main function will be to assist those in setting and giving presentation at our main meetings. It will be available to members when not required for that function. We will be able to demonstrate it during the November meetings. Should have learnt how to run it by then.\n\n The next meeting is the 5th of November at Ron’s place. All welcome.\n See page 13 for more details\n\nArthur.\n\n//Ps. For those who are wondering what a Virtual disk is. It is a space in your computer’s memory (Ram) that is made to look like a hard drive. It looks and acts like a hard drive, holds the start up files loaded into it and can be viewed by Windows Explorer. The main difference is that it exists only when the computer is turned on. Hence the term Virtual. If you turn the computer ‘off’ and then ‘on’ again with out running the start up disk , you will find that the Virtual drive no longer exists. Virtual drives are used mainly on computers that are in areas of high vibrations that would damage a standard hard drive. The data is saved to the virtual drive during normal operation BUT MUST be saved to an external drive before turning the computer off.//\n\n\nPhoto used:\nFig 1. S_HWsig-Ann's screen saver.jpg\nFig 2. HWsig-John installing drive.jpg\nFig 3. HWsig-NZPCA Laptop.JPG\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

//Arthur Harris reports on the most recent Hardware Special Interest Group meeting....//\n\nThe fifth meeting of the Hardware SIG was held on the 28th of August. John Thomson had donated two surplus monitors, a CD ROM drive and some video cards. Both monitors were checked and worked perfectly. Thanks John. John also supplied a tape drive which we weren't able to get working properly. It was recognised by the computer as a floppy drive, but without its proper drivers, it refused to run properly. Raja brought along a friend, Ian.\n \nUpgraded Ron's computer to a 486 100Mhz with 32MBits of RAM. In fact we rebuilt another computer for Ron. All that it needs is for his external modem to be attached and his files transferred from his old computer and he is in business. That's Ron's new computer in the back of the photo (Fig 1.) with the red toolbox sitting on top. On the bottom left is the 15-inch monitor that John gave us.\n\nIn the above photo (Fig 1. //~S_AhappyJohn.jpg//) John has a happy smile on his face. This was at the point that things went wrong. The computer in front of him is his main computer that he wanted a CD ROM fitted to. On the surface it should have been an easy job. At first look we found that the computer had two hard drives and there seemed to be only one IDE port. Looked like no CD ROM. A closer inspection of the HDD card and the CMOS BIOS showed two IDE ports. The 2nd IDE port was hidden under the 1st IDE port and was not visible when the IDE ribbon was connected. Things looked good. Installed the CD ROM, set it to 'master' and fired up the computer. Oh dear! The computer refused to boot and didn't recognise its normal hard drives. Removed the CD ROM and the computer booted up OK. Further checking showed the 2nd IDE port to be faulty. At this stage the swapping of drives and rebooting had corrupted the Windows operating system and it needed to be reloaded. No CD ROM, no loading of Windows. At this stage we called it quits.\n\n All was not lost as there was another computer available for John to use. This computer was a combination of two computers that didn't work. One was found to have a faulty BIOS chip and the other a faulty motherboard. As both motherboards were 586's, I managed to rebuild one working computer and ended up with a spare CPU. It still has one problem. The video card seems to be a bit touchy to moving the computer about. When the fault occurred the display was dead. A temporary fix was to lift out the video card and then put it back in. This gets the display working again. Apart from that it is faster than John's own computer and has a CD ROM fitted. \n\nMissed out on a good photo of this computer with its motherboard, power supply and hard drive out of the case and spread across a table. The motherboard had only the video card installed. The monitor, keyboard and mouse were attached with everything powered up and working. Ribbons and cords going in all directions. Made it a lot easier to swap the CPU, RAM and BIOS chips. Also plugging cards in and out was a lot easier. \n\nPhoto (Fig 2. //~S_Thegroup.jpg//) shows, from the left, John Marchington, Ron Oliver, John Hand and me.\nThat's all for this month. The next meeting is on the 25th September.\n\nArthur.\n\nFootnote : In the photo (Fig 1) the computer is one that John purchased from the Club when the NZPCA computer room in Ghuznee Street was closed down. The Club's label "COMPUTER 3" remains on the top.\n\n

\nCarrying on from last months article, we were left with two problems. \n#John Hand’s computer had a corrupted hard drive and we had problem accessing the drive to reload the Windows operating system, as the drive had been formatted with the Windows NTFS format.(see last months article for full details.) Also John still had valuable data on the hard drive. \n#The Patel’s computer that had lost its audio amplifier. The amplifier was part of the motherboard. We needed the install CD to reload the drivers.\nWe were able to recover the data from John’s hard drive by using the Patel’s computer. As it used Windows XP as its operating system, we were able read John’s hard drive, by making it a slave to the Patel’s computer main drive and telling the computer that it was there. This allowed us to read the drive and save his valuable data to the Patel’s hard drive. \n\nWe then installed it back into John’s computer and rebooted using the Windows 98 start up disk.The next step was to run Fdisk and we used it to delete the non DOS partition. (The NTFS partition) We then repartitioned the hard drive and formatted it using the Fat32 format. We now had access to the hard drive. We could now reload the operating system. First we installed ~Window98SE and then upgraded it to Windows XP. This was to allow John to remain a member of the Xp club. We then reinstalled the hard drive back into the Patel’s computer, making sure that it was configured as a slave drive, and copied John’s valuable data back onto his hard drive. Not much room left on either his 4 Gig drive and the second 504 Meg drive. John’s next job it to clean out the unwanted files. See Fig 1 \n\nThe next problem was that the computer had only 64 Mbytes of ~SDRam A little under resourced for Xp. Needed to be increased. A close inspection of the ~SDram module revealed it to be 128 Mbyte but John’s computer was only seeing half of what was available. I checked out the ram module in my spare computer. It showed as 128 Mbytes. Tried out another 128 Mbyte ram module from my computer in John’s computer to check out the pins on the Ram socket and it read as a 128 ~MBytes. After a bit of swapping around I decided to keep John’s module and he kept mine. \n\nSwapping to Xp showed up another problem. The screen resolution on Johns computer was limited to 640 by 480 and Xp requires a minimum 600 by 800. The video feed is directly from the motherboard. Could not find any info on the motherboard as to its make and therefore any drivers to improve the resolution so went for the second option and installed a video card. That together with the correct drivers improved the resolution and eliminated that problem.\n \nThat wasn’t the finish. I should have known better and stopped testing. The audio stages didn’t work either. The volume control and mixer devices were all greyed out. Using the device manager, checked that the audio device was install. Guess what. A big fat “NO” and also located on the motherboard. At the least I would have expected the default settings. Back to option 2 again and installed an audio board and its correct drivers. We now had our mixer and volume control back and working and the device manager telling me that the audio device was installed. Even managed to get it to play some soothing music. John reckons that the computer has never gone better and all it cost was two boxes of chocolate almonds. Also thanks to those who have donated their old computers as that was where the parts used in John’s computer came from.\n\nNow for the Patel’s computer. See Fig 2. The same audio problem and symptoms as with John’s computer and also located on the mother board. Also the same answer. The Patel’s computer had a nasty little surprise. The ~PS2 keyboard socket is worn and was making poor contact and quite often no contact with the keyboard. A nasty little problem and most annoying as you had to wait till the computer had finished loading the operating system before you found out the keyboard wasn’t working. You can do quite a bit with just the mouse working in a windows program, but you can not enter text. That makes fault finding and reloading the software very difficult. Managed to get round it by keeping a bit of sideways pressure on keyboard plug while the operating system was loading. Once it had recognised the keyboard is was happy to keep working until you had to turn the computer off. The key board socket is attached directly to the motherboard and being an ATX motherboard shares the same socket holder with the mouse socket. At least that computer had easy access to the motherboard compared with John’s computer which has an AT motherboard. See photos Fig 1 and Fig 2. You can see the motherboard in Fig 2.\n\n In both computers the loss of the audio stages have been caused by failures on the motherboard. The onboard facilities are generally the basic and designed for general use. As computers are designed to be upgraded, the BOIS looks for the added boards/upgrades, loading their driver before the onboard systems. This allowed us to get round the problem since the complexity of the modern motherboard makes it non repairable. \n\nAt the Saturdays Hardware meeting we had a new member turn up. Alan Royal had a second hand computer that his grand children were finding a bit slow for games. He was looking for some more memory. After checking through what we had we managed to increase from 8 Megs to 72 Megs. That should make a difference. \nWe are also in the process of setting up a network. One of the computers being set up is on the desk in front of Alan and the second one, the planned master is behind him. You can just see the monitor. I had set up the master during the week and connected it to a network hub that had been donated. The plan is to link these two computers and then run a lead upstairs and connected in Ron’s machine as well. The hub has eight ports so there is provision for linking other computers and upload and download software. I had to leave early so the project never got completed. There is always next month.\n\nThanks to George Braithwaite for the photos.\nNext months hardware is on Saturday the 1st October at Ron’s Place. All are welcome.\n\nArthur.\n\nPhotos used:\nFig 1. S_HW-Johns Hands computer cropped.JPG\nFig 2. S_HW-Patels computer cropped.JPG\nFig 3. HW-Alan plugging in his computer.jpg\n\n\n

Kirk Seers of PC World\nKeep your PC's internals and externals in tiptop shape by following the advice of Kirk Steers, and Perk Up Your PC With Six Quick and Easy Tweaks.\nSimple system tuneup suggestions; create virtual ~CDs on your notebook's hard drive\nFrom the March 2004 issue of PC World magazine\n\nWith spring right around the corner, it's time to give your PC its annual sprucing up. Here are six no-cost, no-hassle tune-up tips to keep your system purring.\n \n''Prevent your disks from slipping: ''\nThe venerable ~ScanDisk utility in Windows 98 and Me is reduced to a dialog box section labeled 'Error-checking' in Windows 2000 and XP, but it's still a great tool for identifying bad sectors and gauging the disk's health. In 98 and Me, click Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, ~ScanDisk. Select the Thorough option and click Start. At the prompt let ~ScanDisk automatically fix any errors it finds. To scan a disk in Windows 2000 and XP, right-click the drive's icon in Windows Explorer or any folder window and select Properties, Tools, Check Now. Choose Automatically fix file system errors and click Start.\n\n''Take out the garbage:'' \nNow toss the temporary files that clutter up your system. Click Start, Programs (All Programs in XP), Accessories, System Tools, Disk Cleanup. Select your drive and click OK. Check or uncheck the options and click OK and Yes.\n\n''Keep your drivers up-to-date:'' \nIf your PC is working well, there's no reason to install updates for your hardware drivers, with three exceptions: First, while the latest graphics driver might not perceptibly change the quality of your display, it may prevent system crashes or other conflicts. Second, update the driver for any device that was not originally installed in your PC. The driver that shipped with the product is probably out of date. And third, set Windows to check for updates automatically. (See "76 Ways to Get More Out of Windows" for more on managing your Windows updates.) \n\n''Delete doppelgänger drivers:'' \nWhen adding new hardware or updating drivers, Windows may create two Registry entries for one device or fail to delete the entry for a removed component. To delete duplicate or unnecessary Registry entries, right-click My Computer and select Properties. In Windows 98 and Me, click the Device Manager tab. In Windows 2000 and XP, click the Hardware tab and then the Device Manager button. Double-click a device type to see its installed devices, and double-click a device to view its drivers. Remove duplicate or unneeded entries by selecting them and pressing Delete.\nGet your data ducks in a row: Over time, Windows and various programs scatter data all over your hard disk. Your apps slow down because they must take longer to read the files they need. Windows' Disk Defragmenter reorganizes your data into contiguous, easy-to-read blocks. Click Start, Programs (All Programs in Windows XP), Accessories, System Tools, Disk Defragmenter. Note: Defragmenting multigigabyte drives takes hours, so run the utility overnight with no other apps open. Close all background programs as well, including your firewall, antivirus software, and screen saver. Deactivate hibernate or sleep mode to keep the defragmenter from being shut down before it finishes. \n\n''Speed your swap file:'' \nYour virtual memory (aka swap file) runs fastest if it's not fragmented. But Disk Defragmenter doesn't work on swap files. If you have a second hard disk or a single disk with two partitions, defragment the partition or disk not holding the swap file, and then move the file to that disk or partition. To optimize virtual memory in Windows XP, click Start, Control Panel (select Performance and Maintenance if you're in Category view), System, Advanced. Under 'Performance' select Settings and choose Advanced, Change. Select a drive in the top box and click Custom size (see FIGURE 1). In Windows 2000, click Start, Settings, Control Panel, System, Advanced, Performance Options, Change. In Windows 98 and Me, choose Start, Settings, Control Panel, System, Performance, Virtual Memory. Select Let me specify my own virtual memory settings. Your swap file should be 2.5 to 3 times the size of your system's RAM. Enter this amount in both the 'Minimum' and 'Maximum' boxes ('Initial size' and 'Maximum size' in 2000 and XP). Click OK and Yes (if necessary) to confirm the change.\n\n''And ... The Discless Wonder''\nCDs: Don't leave home with them! V Communications' CD Anywhere lets you create virtual CDs on your hard drive so you no longer have to carry jewel cases with you. The virtual CD on the hard drive runs exactly like the real one would in a standard CD drive, without the hassle of inserting a disc. CD Anywhere is really handy for whiling away the hours on long, cramped flights with a notebook full of tunes. The program is free to try and $40 to keep. Visit our CD Anywhere review page for more information. (you will need to buy the March 2004 issue of PC World USA)\n\n

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Most computer hobbyists visit a computer shop on an almost daily basis, packing home an ever-growing number of peripherals such as video cards, hard disks, ~CD-ROM drives and similar equipment that needs to be built into their computer system. The reason for visiting the computer shop is twofold; their main objective is purchasing peripherals of choice, for which most have saved up for a considerable amount of time. Shortly followed by consulting the shop's service technician for the correct installation procedure, thereby further decreasing the chance of mis-installing or wrongly configuring the newly acquired hardware.\n \nThese hardware-savvy computer hobbyists can be easily recognised, as they start thinking about doing the next upgrade right after purchasing that new video card and may actually never put their cases back on as that would only slow down a weekly upgrade. They also know all their motherboards' BIOS settings by heart and how each affects performance. Also, don't be surprised if they know every version number of the drivers they install and can write down a minimum of ten serial numbers for the installed third-party software.\n\nAlthough such hobbyists know what's best for their computer systems, there're a couple of drawbacks to this never-ending upgrade frenzy. First off, whenever these users buy a peripheral, for example a video card, they usually bring it back within 30 days, to exchange, not refund, because the new revision of the video card has 5 ns SDRAM chips instead of 6 ns. Or, more commonly, they buy a motherboard and bring it back the next day 'cause they want to use Revision X's undocumented jumper settings, which the version they brought home does not support.\n\nAnd to give you a couple more fine examples, they'll convince the service technician at the shop to pre-test their new CPU, not because they want to know if it works, but because they want to be sure it runs at some insane over clocked speed. For that they bring their own system, lock themselves in with the technician and debate with him whether they should go with the CPU that runs 801 ~MHz at default voltage or the one that hits 836 ~MHz at 1.8 volts. \n\nAlso, and this one's a classic, they buy the biggest CPU Cooler they can find, and when the printing on the box reads 'Dual Fans spinning at 6000 RPM', they head back to the store the next day when they find out that the fans actually spin at 5800 RPM. \n\nAnd the best one yet; they buy the next generation, state-of-the-art CPU or video card, of which the retailer has just one in stock since they are very hard to come by. They pay for it with dad's credit card and bring it back the next day stating that it doesn't work in their system. If the retailer browses the web that same evening he comes across a little 'hardware' website with 12 people on the statcounter that has just done an 'exclusive' review of that very same product. \n\nHopefully I've gotten my point across, that these hobbyists are a retailer's nightmare; the constant flow of hardware back and forth puts a considerable amount of stress on the retailer and his service personnel. They have to deal with awkward reasons for exchanging hardware such as perfectly fine, working video cards, unlike defective products which can be sent back to the manufacturer. As a result, they have stacks of opened boxes with products that have been used for a couple of hours each. \n\nWell, for the sake of these retailers as well as the people having to buy these opened boxes the following article covers the basics of how to NOT install newly bought hardware into your system. Please give it a good read and take the advice to heart: \n\n//Thanks to ~HardwareCentral for this article.\n{{http://www.hardwarecentral.com/hardwarecentral/\n//

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//From the AVG Antivirus help files.////Supplied by Arthur Harris.//\n\n ''What is a Bootable Diskette''\n \nIn connection with computer viruses, you may often see the terms System or Bootable diskette. Mostly, your computer starts its operating system from the hard disk. But, if the operating system is infected by a virus, this virus becomes active immediately after a computer ~Boots-Up.\n \nFor reliable results of virus detection and especially healing process it is necessary to start the operating system from a virus-free Bootable diskette.\n\n ''How to create Bootable Diskette''\n\n You can create it, yourself. Put any diskette into A: drive (floppy drive) and enter this command\n{{{\n FORMAT A: /S\n}}}\nThe diskette will be formatted and the most important system files, will be copied to it.\n\n ''How to use a Bootable Diskette''\n\n Put Bootable Diskette into A: drive and (re)start your computer. Unless this option is switched off in the BIOS of your computer, the computer will the start operating system from the Bootable diskette, instead of hard disk.\n \n You can start ~MS-DOS operating system in this way, but not Windows.\n \nFor starting Window from a bootable disc you need the "Startup Disk" you should have created when you loaded Windows. To create a disk go into "Settings", " Control Panel", " Add/Remove programs", "Startup Disk", "Create" then follow the instructions\n\n '' Important''\n\n Create the bootable diskette only on a virus-free computer. Otherwise the diskette will be infected by a virus, and it will be useless and viruses may spread from it. Set the write protection tab of bootable diskette and never change it if you are not absolutely sure the computer is virus-free.\n\n '' What is BIOS?''\n\n The BIOS is a set of programs which control the PC hardware (e.g. disks, keyboard, display) and is stored in a memory chip on the motherboard.\n \nThe chip is a ROM (Read Only Memory) chip which retains its contents when the PC is switched off so the programs in it are always available when the machine is powered up. The BIOS programs are used by both the operating system and application software.\n \n The most important function to us is called ~INT13 which controls access to the disks in the system. It is low-level in that it understands only sectors on the disks not how they may be grouped to make files or folders.�\n \n'' What is the Operating System?''\n\n Other functions are handled by the second program installed which is the operating system. This program is not part of the computer and has to be installed on your hard disk separately. Most PC's are provided with operating systems of the ~MS-DOS and WINDOWS family from Microsoft.\n \n The operating system is loaded into RAM when the computer is started and it remains there all the time you are using the computer. The operating system handles communication at the higher level (between the user, or user programs, and the computer) using the lower level BIOS services.\n\n '' RAM Memory''\n\n RAM is short for Random Access Memory very often referred to as just 'memory'. It is where programs must be loaded so that the processor can execute them, instruction by instruction. Unlike disks, RAM cannot keep its contents if the computer is switched off and is thus used only for short term storage. RAM is used by viruses to spread effectively. A memory resident virus can monitor certain functions of the operating system and infect or 'trigger' when the right circumstances arise.\n \n Obviously, a virus will be removed from memory by switching off or resetting the computer, but remember that it will reload whenever an infected program is executed.\n \n For example, a Boot sector virus will therefore load every time you boot from an infected drive/diskette.\n\n '' Memory resident programs under Windows''\n\n Windows is a more complex operating system than DOS. Memory resident components in Windows can be spread across disks in many drivers, libraries, and other files.\n \n Every Windows version (3.1, 95, 98, NT) has own way in which executable code can be loaded into memory and applies its own rules as to what is or isn�t allowed.\n \nIt's important to realize that choosing the files which are loaded at the start of Windows is not a simple task and that booting up Windows without some files from a hard disk (in a clean environment) is very close to impossible.\n\n '' Memory Resident Programs Under ~MS-DOS''\n\n All programs run in memory, where they remain until they finish. At that point the memory is freed by the operating system for further use. Some programs behave a little differently though. These are memory resident programs.\n \n A memory resident program starts and runs in the normal way but remains in memory when it has finished, hence the name "resident". These programs stay in memory while you work with other applications until you restart your computer. Some memory resident programs can be unloaded "on the fly". This can be done, for example, by having a hot-key which deactivates them. Although a memory resident program takes up valuable memory space there is a good reason for it. It changes interrupt vectors to point to itself instead of the BIOS or the operating system services. So when one of these services is requested, the resident program will be executed instead of (or before) the requested service.\n \n So what is the point of these programs? To help explain, let us introduce a simple example. Imagine that you have a very old program which only prints to ~LPT1. But you have two printers and you want to print to the one on ~LPT2. One way to resolve this problem is to keep swapping the printer cables at the back of your PC. A better way is to run a resident program that takes over the system service that manages printing. Every time this program detects data being sent to ~LPT1 it will redirect it to ~LPT2.\n \n Resident programs are very common and most users will have come across them at one time or another. Typical examples are drivers for ~CD-ROMS, AV resident scanners and behavior blockers. Unfortunately, this technique was seized upon very quickly by virus writers with great success. Most modern viruses are memory resident programs.\n

''From the AVG Antivirus help files.''\n(&nbsp) Supplied by Arthur Harris.\n\n ''What is a Bootable Diskette''\n In connection with computer viruses, you may often see the terms System or Bootable diskette. Mostly, your computer starts its operating system from the hard disk. But, if the operating system is infected by a virus, this virus becomes active immediately after a computer Boots-Up.\n For reliable results of virus detection and especially healing process it is necessary to start the operating system from a virus-free Bootable diskette.\n\n ''How to create Bootable Diskette''\n You can create it, yourself. Put any diskette into A: drive (floppy drive) and enter this command\n FORMAT A: /S\n The diskette will be formatted and the most important system files, will be copied to it.\n\n ''How to use a Bootable Diskette''\n Put Bootable Diskette into A: drive and (re)start your computer. Unless this option is switched off in the BIOS of your computer, the computer will the start operating system from the Bootable diskette, instead of hard disk.\n You can start MS-DOS operating system in this way, but not Windows.\n For starting Window from a bootable disc you need the "Startup Disk" you should have created when you loaded Windows. To create a disk go into "Settings", " Control Panel", " Add/Remove programs", "Startup Disk", "Create" then follow the instructions\n\n ''Important''\n Create the bootable diskette only on a virus-free computer. Otherwise the diskette will be infected by a virus, and it will be useless and viruses may spread from it. Set the write protection tab of bootable diskette and never change it if you are not absolutely sure the computer is virus-free.\n\n ''What is BIOS?''\n The BIOS is a set of programs which control the PC hardware (e.g. disks, keyboard, display) and is stored in a memory chip on the motherboard.\n The chip is a ROM (Read Only Memory) chip which retains its contents when the PC is switched off so the programs in it are always available when the machine is powered up. The BIOS programs are used by both the operating system and application software.\n The most important function to us is called INT13 which controls access to the disks in the system. It is low-level in that it understands only sectors on the disks not how they may be grouped to make files or folders. \n What is the Operating System?\n Other functions are handled by the second program installed which is the operating system. This program is not part of the computer and has to be installed on your hard disk separately. Most PC's are provided with operating systems of the MS-DOS and WINDOWS family from Microsoft.\n The operating system is loaded into RAM when the computer is started and it remains there all the time you are using the computer. The operating system handles communication at the higher level (between the user, or user programs, and the computer) using the lower level BIOS services.\n\n ''RAM Memory''\n RAM is short for Random Access Memory very often referred to as just 'memory'. It is where programs must be loaded so that the processor can execute them, instruction by instruction. Unlike disks, RAM cannot keep its contents if the computer is switched off and is thus used only for short term storage. RAM is used by viruses to spread effectively. A memory resident virus can monitor certain functions of the operating system and infect or 'trigger' when the right circumstances arise.\n Obviously, a virus will be removed from memory by switching off or resetting the computer, but remember that it will reload whenever an infected program is executed.\n For example, a Boot sector virus will therefore load every time you boot from an infected drive/diskette.\n\n ''Memory resident programs under Windows''\n Windows is a more complex operating system than DOS. Memory resident components in Windows can be spread across disks in many drivers, libraries, and other files.\n Every Windows version (3.1, 95, 98, NT) has own way in which executable code can be loaded into memory and applies its own rules as to what is or isn’t allowed.\n It’s important to realize that choosing the files which are loaded at the start of Windows is not a simple task and that booting up Windows without some files from a hard disk (in a clean environment ) is very close to impossible.\n\n ''Memory Resident Programs Under MS-DOS''\n All programs run in memory, where they remain until they finish. At that point the memory is freed by the operating system for further use. Some programs behave a little differently though. These are memory resident programs.\n A memory resident program starts and runs in the normal way but remains in memory when it has finished, hence the name ”resident”. These programs stay in memory while you work with other applications until you restart your computer. Some memory resident programs can be unloaded ”on the fly.” This can be done, for example, by having a hot-key which deactivates them. Although a memory resident program takes up valuable memory space there is a good reason for it. It changes interrupt vectors to point to itself instead of the BIOS or the operating system services. So when one of these services is requested, the resident program will be executed instead of (or before) the requested service.\n So what is the point of these programs? To help explain, let us introduce a simple example. Imagine that you have a very old program which only prints to LPT1. But you have two printers and you want to print to the one on LPT2. One way to resolve this problem is to keep swapping the printer cables at the back of your PC. A better way is to run a resident program that takes over the system service that manages printing. Every time this program detects data being sent to LPT1 it will redirect it to LPT2.\n Resident programs are very common and most users will have come across them at one time or another. Typical examples are drivers for CD-ROMS, AV resident scanners and behavior blockers. Unfortunately, this technique was seized upon very quickly by virus writers with great success. Most modern viruses are memory resident programs.\n

Supplied by John Blakeley\n\n Deleting attachments won't save us from a new breed of virus.\n Malicious computer viruses hidden inside plain text messages can cause havoc when they are read in many common e-mail packages,security experts have discovered. The finding means it is no longer enough to delete suspicious looking e-mail attachments.\n The discovery also means home computer users will need much morepowerful antivirus soft -ware, or, failing that, switch to internet service providers (ISPs) which sweep all mail for malicious hugs.\n\n Until recently, many viruses spread in the form of small programmes, known as executable files, attached to largely textbased e-mails. Reading the text is safe, hut opening the attachment runs the programme. It can then corrupt information on a hard disc and send more emails with the attachment, spreading the infection.\n Traditional antivirus software simply scans attachments before they are opened, looking for telltale lines of code--the "signature" - of known viruses.\n\n Last year, the Bubble Boy virus exploited a security loophole in Microsoft's Outlook e-mail programme. It comprised a single text message containing lines of HTML -- the code that determines how Web pages look. Outlook opens it as a Web page and programmes buried within it, called applets, can then run and corrupt files. Microsoft has a patch for this loophole.\n\n A new virus, variously known as Verona, Romeo and Juliet, or BlaBla, plays a much more devious trick, one that can fool a wider range of PC e-mail soft ware packages. A text message with a trivial subject line, such as "Hey You" or "Sorry", arrives with two attachments: a help file called "Myjuliet.chm" and an executable programme called "Myromeo.exe".\n When the text is read, the help file, itself a small programme, makes Windows save the attachments. Then the help file triggers the executable programme. This infects the PC. You only need to open the text message for this to happen. By the time you've opened the mail and deleted the attachments, the bug has done its work.\n\n The bug received little publicity because Romeo and Juliet was harmless. "But the code is now a template which hackers can share and modify to make it much more dangerous," warned Nick Galea of GPI, a software company in Malta that first encountered the virus. "Then hard discs will be corrupted as soon as people read a text message."\n\n Galea said antivirus software should check e-mails more thoroughly, examining what they try to do rather than simply looking for signatures. However, this is much easier with office networks than with home PCs. A network server can check all incoming e-mails before distributing them, whereas home PCs collect email in job lots direct from an ISP.\n Eric Chien, at Symantec's Anti Virus Centre in Europe, said his firm has developed a system that shunts incoming e-mail into a buffer file on the PC, where text is checked before the user has the chance to see it .\n\n Graham Cluley, of Sophas, thinks the better solution is for individuals to use e-mail services such as CompuServe, AOL or Cix, which use proprietary software on both the server and your PC. This creates a protective barrier controlled by the company, and means they can ignore any HTML files or compiled HTML (.chm) files that arrive uninvited.\n New Scientist 9 December 2000.

Recently while on holiday in Thailand I spent a very pleasant day shopping at Pantip Plaza in Bangkok. \n\nPantip Plaza is the main PC shopping complex in Thailand, and while it is not as big as similar plazas in Singapore (for example), its 5 floors packed with hundreds of small shops and stalls have a lot to offer. \n\nPrices in general are slightly better than NZ prices, but not sufficiently soas to justify warranty hassles and the like - but what is amazing is the wide range of products available there, and some items that are not available in NZ at all are very reasonably priced. \n\nFor example, translucent mid tower cases were about NZ$100, and very stylish good quality coloured steel cases were around NZ$60.\n\nI didn't buy much - I'm not really into flash cases and new gear, but I did buy a cordless pen and tablet. NZ$180 got me an Acecat Flair, which is very much cheaper than anything similar available in NZ. \n\nEven better - I bought the tablet because it had OS/2 drivers, and although the manufacturer doesn't support Linux (~XFree86 really) somebody else has done the work for them, so the tablet has been supported in Xwindow for some months. The manufacturer won't even have their own drivers for Win2000 available until mid-year! \n\nThe range of software available at Pantip Plaza was vast, and Linux featured in most stalls and shops. Strangely enough, pricing was the same for Linux software as for just about anything else...\n\nIf you are planning to pass through Bangkok, a visit to Pantip Plaza is well worth while - even if you don't buy much.\n\nIt is easy walking distance from the Skyrail. And if you can't bear to be without email or Internet access, in Thailand that won't be a problem as there are Internet cafes everywhere - besides, checking your hotmail will give you a break from the temples and food halls. \n\n//Robin Hinde//\n

/***\nTo use, add {{{[[HorizontalMainMenuStyles]]}}} to your StyleSheet tiddler, or you can just paste the CSS in directly. See also HorizontalMainMenu and PageTemplate.\n***/\n/*{{{*/\n\n#topMenu br {display:none; }\n#topMenu { background: #069; }\n#topMenu { padding:2px; }\n#topMenu .button, #topMenu .tiddlyLink {\n margin-left:0.5em; margin-right:0.5em;\n padding-left:3px; padding-right:3px;\n color:white; font-size:115%;\n}\n#topMenu .button:hover, #topMenu .tiddlyLink:hover { background:#17a;}\n\n#displayArea { margin: 1em 15.7em 0em 1em; } /* so we use the freed up space */\n\n/* just in case want some QuickOpenTags in your topMenu */\n#topMenu .quickopentag { padding:0px; margin:0px; border:0px; }\n#topMenu .quickopentag .tiddlyLink { padding-right:1px; margin-right:0px; }\n#topMenu .quickopentag .button { padding-left:1px; margin-left:0px; border:0px; }\n\n@media print { #topMenu {display: none ! important;} }\n\n/*}}}*/

//By Tony Fitchett//\n\n John Little wrote about search engines in the last issue, and this article is about how Google does what constantly surprises many folk. A check around friends suggests that Google is their usual first call, and maybe their requirements differ from those who go to Yahoo. (I understand that Google is the default search engine for Yahoo).The most recent figures I have seen say that Google gets 150,000,000 queries daily, and it does seem that the invasion of the Weblogs has boosted the figure recently.\n\n Where many search engines are one or more big servers with lots of crunch power, Google has an array of quite ordinary ~PCs. They started off in 1998 with a handful of ~PCs. It became popular and grew rapidly. They added 2000 ~PCs last year, running Celerons, and earlier this year they were over 6000 and climbing ! (10,000 expected by the end of this year , being added at about 30 per day !) They have these in four locations, linked by very fast pipes, and an extra location in Europe is being planned.Their first batch used Celeron 450s but I think currently it is Celeron 1000 or so. Each machine currently has 256 Megs of Ram and a HD of 60-80 Gigs. As Google usage is going up by about 30% per month, more machines will soon be needed, and adding them in is no problem. It is all much less expensive than having grunty servers�\n\n But what about software? Robin will be pleased to know that it runs on Linux Red Hat, but a much cut-down version - they kept only the essentials needed for the task. This was much cheaper than any Windows option. But the real heart is how it chooses to put before you a tiny fraction of the terabytes (or is it now petabytes?) available in its storage.\n\n Google, like many search engines, has other machines which ceaselessly go prowling around the Internet scooping up and logging everything in sight. Each of these pages goes through an internal indexing system which notes how often each page is referenced (linked) to from other pages, how often those pages are referenced etc etc This is an indication of the significance of each page, as seen by others on the Internet, and so each is given a Page Rank. This is a continually updated process as the system endlessly scoops in new stuff, which may alter the rankings.\n\n Google now has 2500,000,000 web pages indexed. When you type in your query, the system notes everything containing your question (and this may amount to a millions of pages) , works through the rankings in a very elaborate process, sorts it into an order of preference, and puts it up on your screen - all in a second or so! As an example, a search for "Richard Elam" produced 45,100 fascinating pages in 0.12 seconds��\n\n From what I have read, the system is much more complex than my brief words, and it probably justifies about 6 articles�. (or you could do a search on "Google Page Rank" which will overload you with info).\n\nMeantime, happy surfing !\n

I’m sure a lot of club members don’t realise that it’s relatively easy to access your normal e-mail account and pick-up your messages overseas. It always surprises me, that when I travel away, people stop e-mailing me because they think I can’t pick-up my e-mail messages via Paradise. I believe picking up your e-mail's from your existing provider is a better option than setting up new accounts in another country. \n\nThis is how you do it.\n#Go to an Internet Cafe. There are Internet Cafes all over the World. Three weeks ago I used one in Hong Kong.\n#Purchase 1-hour minimum Internetaccess time. Prices in Cebu in the Philippines are 80 Pesos per hour, about $4.00 New Zealand. Many cafes also allow you to work per minute. Note: - you need access time because you will be working on-line, rather than going on-line and down loading your e-mails and then reading them off-line. \n#Log onto the Internet and go to http://www.paradise.net.nz. (This is my provider, but using another provider is much the same). \n#Log into the Members Area (lower left-hand corner). The Paradise Web Server will realise you are using another provider (ISP) and request your username and password. Enter these details and press OK. \n#Now that you are in the Member Area, click on the e-mail hyperlink on the left-hand side of the page. You will need to resupply your username and password again.\n#You should now be in the International Mailman account area. From here you will be able to read your e-mails, delete e-mails, and compose new e-mails. It maybe a little different than ~OutLook Express, but you should be able to find your way around. You can also attach files (text messages and photo files) to your new e-mails. \n\nI find this method easier than setting up new e-mail addresses and even better than using a Hotmail address. It may cost a little more, but $4.00 once or twice a week to keep in touch with home is a small cost. And you don’t have to tell everyone your overseas e-mail address. Just tell them to e-mail you at your normal address. If you don’t understand e-mail me.\n\n//John Thomson. \ngella@paradise.net.nz \nc/-Boracay Beach, Philippines.\nSee the beautiful Boracay Beach, visit.\nhttp://gella.bizhosting. com/boracay.html \n//

Supplied by SmartComputing\n\n ''Share Your Photos Online Without Eating Up Lots Of Bandwidth''\nYou've seen the sites: e-stores and online photo galleries that are so overwhelmed by graphics that they seem to bring out some sort of on-hold feature in your Internet connection. Photographs and other images on Web sites can not only create a positive user experience, but in many cases, such as with photo albums or art collections, they are an essential design element. Cramming dozens of bandwidth-busting pictures on a page, however, is a bad idea; try using thumbnail images instead.\n\n Thumbnails are smaller versions of photographs and other images that people create and then usually link back to their original images. These smaller representations of larger images serve a couple of important purposes. For one, they let designers easily post many graphics that users can browse. Even more importantly, thumbnails give users more control over the size of pictures they view. With thumbnails, users can view only the small versions of pictures, saving bandwidth space and surfing time. Then when a user finds a picture she likes, she can click the thumbnail to view the full-sized image. Your users will thank you, and you'll get extra points for efficient, effective Web design.\n\n ''Manually Create Thumbnail Images.''\n So thumbnails are a good thing, but how do you go about creating them? One way is to create and code them by hand. This method requires some form of a graphics program (we're using Paint Shop Pro 6 in the following example, but you can replicate these techniques with many other graphics programs) and a willingness to play around with a little HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) code.\n\n First, you'll need to create the thumbnail. Open the picture you want to make a thumbnail of in Paint Shop Pro and choose Resize from the Image menu. You'll see two resize options: resizing by pixel size or resizing by a percentage of the original. If you make an entry in the width box of either option, Paint Shop Pro will automatically fill in the height box and vice versa. This ensures that your image will stay proportional as you resize it.\n \nWith a graphics program such as Paint Shop Pro, you can create thumbnails by resizing pictures and saving them under a different name.\n\n Note that resizing a graphic can make it blurry and result in a loss of detail, but this usually isn't a big issue because thumbnails are used more to get a sense of picture content than detail. If it is an issue, cropping an image down to a representative portion of the whole will give you a thumbnail of higher quality.\n\n ''Pixel or percentage?''\n So, which is better, resizing your image using the pixel or percentage option? Most of the time, particularly if you have a number of images for which you're creating thumbnails, reducing the images to a set pixel size will be the best way to go. Reducing by percentage will result in thumbnails of various sizes (depending on the size of each original image), while reducing both the height and width to a set pixel length will create a uniform look. Keeping all the thumbnails on a page to a uniform size looks better and makes them easier to browse.\n\n The actual pixel length you'll want to go with will vary depending on how large you want the thumbnail to be. (100 to 200 pixels makes for a nice-sized thumbnail.) Play around with a variety of numbers to find the right size. After selecting the size, click OK. Select Save As from the File menu and give your thumbnail a new name.\n\n ''Link to the original.''\n To create a link from the thumbnail to the original, large image, make sure the two images are in the same folder. Then insert the following line of code into your Web site where you want the thumbnail to appear (where your own file names replace biggraphic.jpg and smallgraphic.jpg):\n\n HREF = "biggraphic .jpg" IMG SRC = "smallgraphic.jpg" BORDER="0"\n\n Now users will be able to click the thumbnail to open the larger image in another browser window. It's a good idea to let users know, somewhere in the general area of the thumbnail, the size of the image that it leads to. This will give users more information when they are trying to decide if they want to click certain thumbnails to view the larger image.\n Those with a little Web design experience may know that it is possible to tinker with specifications in the "IMG" tag to control how large images will appear in some browsers. This is not, however, an alternative for thumbnails. Browsers still load large images in their entirety and then just display them in reduced form. Because you pulled the large images into your browser cache first, this kind of defeats one of the primary benefits that thumbnails have going for them: bandwidth relief.\n\n ''The Software Solution.''\n Those who aren't thrilled about getting down to the nitty-gritty of manually creating thumbnails for their Web site will be happy to know that there are many software solutions to expedite this chore. First, consider the HTML editor you're currently using to build your Web site. Chances are good that, if you're using a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor such as FrontPage or Dreamweaver, the ability to generate thumbnails and Web page coding is built right into the program.\n\n For example, in Microsoft FrontPage 2000, you can easily generate a thumbnail without leaving the editor by selecting an image and clicking the Auto Thumbnailer button on the Picture toolbar. (Alternately, you can select the picture and use the keyboard shortcut CTRL-T.) FrontPage will then create a thumbnail and generate a hyperlink to the full-sized version of the image. You can change how FrontPage makes thumbnails (set the height or width, border size, whether to bevel the thumbnail, and more) by opening the Tools menu, selecting Page Options, and clicking the Auto Thumbnailer tab.\n\n The following programs are some of the best solutions available in this area.\n\n ''Web Thumbnailer.''\n If you're looking for a quick and easy way to process proportional thumbnails and crank out HTML code for them, try Web Thumbnailer. This DragonWorks Software program lets you select one or more images to work with. Large icons along the top of the work area let you generate code with a single mouse click, save images and thumbnails as JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) or PNG (Portable Network Graphics) files, arrange thumbnails in various ways, and more. You can set HTML table properties for borders, colors, background images, and font specifications, and the program's built-in HTML editor lets you easily work with code.\n\n Web Thumbnailer also offers a number of features that let you compress thumbnails (making them up to eight times smaller), select default browsers for viewing Web pages, and more. If you're just looking for a quick way to whip out a simple page of thumbnails for the Web, Web Thumbnailer, at $11.95, is an excellent, low-cost choice. You can get more information on Web Thumbnailer (and download a demo for the application) at the DragonWorks Software Web site,\n http://www.majordomo.net/dragonworks/webthumb.htm\n \nAutoGraphicsHTML gives you 32 different template styles to choose from, but you can create your own if you don't see something you like here.\n\n ''Web Album Creator.''\n There are many reasons why you'd want to post photographs to the Web, but if you're specifically looking to create a Web photo album, you should download Web Album Creator and put it through its paces.\n This application from Galleria Software lets you put together a photo album for the Web, complete with custom buttons, in five easy steps: select the images you want to use, choose a template and adjust any of the many configuration settings, select file names, generate the HTML code and thumbnails, and upload the files to a server via FTP (File Transfer Protocol).\n\n Web Album Creator provides a variety of templates, such as bamboo and exam paper, for you to choose from, but if you don't see something there you like, you can design and add your own. The entire program is highly customizable, so you can tinker with the color scheme, font, thumbnail sizes, hyperlinks, and much more. You can add labels to thumbnails, create contact sheets, and resequence thumbnails by simply dragging and dropping them. In addition to creating frame-based or nonframe-based pages, Web Album Creator also lets you make Web-based slide shows that let users choose the time interval for themselves.\n\n This application supports a wide variety of graphics file formats, such as JPEG, GIF (Graphics Interchange Format), BMP (bit map), PSP, TGA, PCX, and TIFF (Tagged Image File Format). It also comes in two flavors: a Pro version ($19.95) that is fully functional and includes a built-in FTP client and a free Lite version that has some limitations, such as fewer albums and no built-in FTP client. You can download Web Album Creator from\n http://www.galleriasoftware.com/webalbum/albinfo.htm\n\n ''AutoGraphicsHTML.''\n Another application that consistently receives high marks from Web-based software sites such as Tucows and The File Transit is AutoGraphicsHTML from fCoder. AutoGraphicsHTML uses a simple wizard to lead you step by step through the process of creating thumbnails and HTML and organizing hyperlinks. There are 32 styles to choose from, but if you can't find what you want there, you can create your own, and you can easily view the Web site you've created before you upload it. This program offers a great way to create a unified, professional look for your photo Web pages.\n\n The demo version of AutoGraphicsHTML adds a watermark to saved images that stipulates that you are using an unregistered version of the software. Once you pay the $29 registration fee, this will disappear, and you'll get the wallpaper utility BackFlip for free. You can find AutoGraphicsHTML at http://www.fcodersoft.com/products/autograph.htm.\n\n ''Thumb An Online Ride.''\n Thumbnails are not difficult to create, and because many people still connect to the Internet through a dial-up modem, they are a perfect way to present your photos on the Web in a way that is both light on bandwidth and easy to browse.\n by Rich Gray of SmartComputing.com\n

''Introduction''\nWe ran an article on creating audio ~CDs from vinyl LP records two years ago (Megabyte, June 2002). Perhaps it is now timely to revisit the subject in view of the advancements in technology since then. It should be noted though – the information in the earlier article is still current if you use the software referred to.\n\n''What Has Changed?''\nBack then the process was rather tricky to perform, with various connections and volume levels needing to be checked before anything could be recorded. These days, it has become rather easier to convert records to CD using a standard computer with a ~CD-RW drive and some relatively cheap or “free” software – generally the software that comes bundled with the drive when you purchase it. Many of the latest software programs have features which automate much of the processing.\n\nThe standard ~CD-recording applications supplied when you buy a ~CD-RW drive are usually Roxio Easy CD Creator, or Nero Burning Rom. I’ve chosen the latter to describe in this article because it contains ‘wizards’ which help to simplify the procedures. I’ve used Windows XP, but the steps are very similar in older versions of Windows. Nero’s ‘wizard’ guides you through the individual steps in the process, from recording right through to burning the CD.\n\n''The Steps to follow:''\nStep 1: You first need to set up a physical connection between your turntable and your PC’s sound card. As my own stereo system does not have RCA output sockets on the amplifier, I needed an alternative. All I had to do was to make a connection from my amplifier’s ~line-out or Aux socket to my sound card’s ~line-in socket via a 3.5mm plug. (If you don’t have a line-out or Aux socket on your stereo, you can use the headphone socket instead). If using the headphone socket, it is recommended that the volume from the stereo be kept low, so as not to distort the recordings.\n \nStep 2: The connection in Step 1 should now be tested. In Windows go to <Programs> <Accessories> <Entertainment> and choose Volume Control to open the mixer control for your sound card. Click on the Options menu and click in the box for Recording (under ‘Properties’) so a tick appears inside. Be sure there is a tick in the box marked Line-in. The mixer controls for recording will now show. Place a tick in the box marked Select at the bottom of the mixer control for ~Line-In and position the slider at around the halfway mark.\n\nStep 3 : Start “~SoundTrax” by clicking on <Start> <Programs> <Ahead Nero> <Nero ~SoundTrax>. Refer to Figure 1. In the Tools menu, select Wizards and choose the LP to CD Wizard. You need to confirm the input on your sound card by clicking the box marked ‘Audio input line:’ and selecting Line In. You will see a recording volume slider bar which can be adjusted to set the optimum recording level; as a guide, the incoming audio peaks mostly in the yellow area of the slider bar. After setting this level, click on the red Record button. When your recording is complete, press the Stop button, followed by the Next button to move on to the next stage of the process. Refer to figure 2.\n\nStep 4: Nero’s ‘Automatic Track Detection’ splits up the recording into individual tracks. To enable this feature, you need to select the maximum noise level in pauses between tracks, and the minimum length of pauses and tracks. Click “Detect” to divide the recording into different tracks. Then click on Next to go to the next step.\n\nStep 5: Nero’s “~SoundTrax” contains adjustable settings designed to reduce the clicks, pops, scratches and other audio defects common with older ~LPs. There are sliders to allow you to set the level of the noise suppression filter (Denoiser), the scratch removal filter (Declicker), and the crackle removal filter (Decrackler). You can experiment with these settings and preview the results. When you’re happy with the level of noise removal obtained, click on Next to continue.\n\nStep 6 : The final stage is the burning of the tracks on to a blank recordable ~CD-R. The Nero wizard guides you through this process. Tick the box marked Burn Project Immediately and then click on the Finish button. Another screen will then open, just press the Burn button to write your tracks on to CD.\n\n''Conclusion''\nYour CD should be playable in any CD player or ~CD-ROM drive. In my experience, even without making maximum use of the settings provided in the software for reducing static etc., the audio quality of my new CD was a noticeable improvement over my old and rather worn LP album.\nThe software enables you to create ~CDs from other music sources too, for example from cassette tapes, or from the radio.\nFinally, just a reminder about copyright issues. Under New Zealand copyright law, you need to be given permission by the relevant copyright holders before you can legally copy an album or tracks to CD or other media. \n

A friend rang me one night, because he was having trouble with his computer. After trying unsuccessfully to sort out his problem, I suggested his best option was to reformat his C: drive. I originally divided up his 4.3 meg hard drive into three separate drives, so he would only need to reformat drive C: And because I'd put the Windows CAB files on the end of the last drive (E:) he could use these files to re-install Windows 98. (Cab files are compressed Windows 98 or 95 installation setup files). He agreed, but told me the reason why he didn't want to do this.\n\nI'll loose my address book and email files. Can you tell me how to save these files and re-installed them?\nBelow are my instructions, I emailed to him.\n\nTo save your e-mail address book (Microsoft Outlook Express, IE 4.0 or 5.0 ).\n\nUse Windows Explorer or Dos to copy the two WAB files from your C: drive to a floppy disk in your A: drive. They can be found at \n\n{{{C:\sWindows\s~ApplicationData\sMicrosoft\s Address book\s }}}\n\n(if using Dos, use the Copy *.* A: command to copy the files to your A: drive. In DOS the address will look like this. \n \n{{{C:\sWINDOW~1\sAPPLIC~1\sMICRO~1\s ADDRES~1)}}}\n\nThe 2 required files \n\n(~YourEmailName~1) WAB~\n(~YourEmailName~1) Wab \n\nYour email name will obviously be the name your have given your email account.\n\n//(WAB = Windows Address Book)//\n\nTo save your Email files.\nUse Windows or Dos again and go to:-\n\n{{{C:\sWindows\sApplication Data\sIdentities\s{C10946454 E4565 G56754}\sMicrosoft\s~OutLook Express\s}}}\n\nIn this area you may find a lot of files with the extension DBX. It's better to save all the files even if you have to save the files to more than one disk. Or if you have a large drive with several patitions, transfer these files to a temporary directory on your last drive.\n\nOnce you have re-installed Win95/98 and other programs, including IE 4.0 or 5.0.\n\n#Open up ~OutLook Express.\n#Go to ~File-Import-Address Book.\n#Browse to your A: drive and highlight the files you saved.\n#When you click OK your address book will automatically re-install.\n\nNow use Windows Explorer (or DOS) to transfer your Email files from disk to Outlook Express. \nThey must be re-installed to {{{C:\sWindows\sApplication Data\sIdentities\s{C10946454 E4565\nG56754\sMicrosoft\sOutlook Express}}}. Note: - The number starting C10946 will be different on your machine.\n\nNote.\n#If you cannot follow these simply instructions please let me know, gella@iname.com\n#This same method can be used if you are upgrading your computer.\n#In earlier versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer, emails files were filed in a different location.\n\nJohn Thomson. \n

By David Jung of Smartcomputing\n\n ''Must-See Features Of This Digital Music Powerhouse''\n\nWhen you think of the Windows Media Player, what comes to mind? You most likely think of digital audio and video playback, and the latest version of the Windows Media Player does that and a whole lot more. With version 7, you can listen to music from Internet radio, MP3 files, and CDs; view and listen to video and audio playback that is either downloaded or streamed to your computer; and more. Here is an overview of the Media Player's features that will help you get the most out of your listening and viewing experiences.\n\n ''How To Get It.''\n Only Windows Me ships with version 7 of the Windows Media Player. If you have Windows 98, 98 Second Edition, or 2000, you can download Windows Media Player 7 for free from Microsoft's Web site (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/en/download/default.asp). You can also use your version of Media Player to search for newer versions. If you're connected to the Internet, choose Check For Player Upgrade from the Windows Media Player's Help menu. Then click Upgrade Now if your browser detects a newer version and you're ready to get it. Windows Media Player 7 is about a 9MB download, so it will take about 45 minutes to download if you are using a 28.8Kbps (kilobits per second) modem. (NOTE: Version 7 is not available for Windows 95 and NT 4.0 users; they will have to stick with version 6.4.)\n\n ''Features.''\n Once you upgrade to version 7 of the Windows Media Player, you will see that it has a lot of features previous versions didn't have. The program itself has a look that might come out of an episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation." It does not look like a traditional Windows application; instead, it has buttons along the left side, controls on the bottom, and the main content in the center. It does, however, have the familiar File, View, Play, Tools, and Help menus along the top. The Media Player is designed for simple, one-click access to most of the commonly used features, similar to how your car stereo or home VCR works.\n\n The Media Player's main features are along the left side of the player. These features include Now Playing, Media Guide, CD Audio, Media Library, Radio Tuner, Portable Device, and Skin Chooser. Let's take a look at each feature and how it works.\n\n ''Now Playing.''\n This feature gives you a quick summary of what the Media Player is doing. When you listen to an audio CD, it will display an interesting visualization; you can choose to also have it display the CD's Playlist and Equalizer and Settings controls. You control what appears on the main screen with the three icons next to the name of the CD at the top of the player. If you want to change the visualization that appears, do so by choosing Visualizations from the View menu and selecting the one you like best.\n\n During video playback, you can change the size of the video image to 50%, 100%, or 200% of the original. You can also choose the Fit To Window or Full Screen options. The Fit To Window option will make the image the same size as the viewing area within the Media Player. If you resize the Media Player's window with this feature selected, the video image will resize, as well. The Full Screen option will make the video fill the entire screen of your computer monitor.\n\n To change the size of the playback image, select Zoom from the View menu. From the menu that opens, choose at which percentage you want to view the video or select Fit To Window. To make the video image use the entire screen, select Full Screen from the View menu. Press ESC to return to the normal view in the Media Player.\n\n''Media Guide.''\n The Media Guide button is a direct link to the WindowsMedia.com Web site. If you're connected to the Internet, you can access this site to get links to thousands of different music videos, movie trailers, entertainment broadcasts, and Internet radio stations.\n\n ''CD Audio.''\n This feature lets you play audio CDs on your computer and use the Internet to collect information about each CD. When you put a CD into your CD-ROM drive, the Media Player will read the unique identification number that all audio CDs have and try to obtain the artist information, album name and audio track titles, and other information that pertains to that CD from music databases on the Internet. The information the Media Player finds is then stored in a music database on your computer so the next time you play the CD, Media Player won't have to search the Internet for information again. If you're not connected to the Internet when you play an audio CD for the first time, you can get the information later by connecting to the Internet and then pressing the Get Names button in the upper-right corner of the player.\n\n Aside from the standard features, such as Play, Skip, and Shuffle, that a standalone CD player has, Media Player comes with a program that will let you create your own audio CDs from your playlists. Of course, you can only use this feature if you have a CD-R (CD-recordable) or CD-RW (CD-rewriteable) drive. A playlist lets you group media content together. The content does not have to reside only on your computer; some of the content could be on another computer that you have access to over your network or somewhere on the Internet. The only drawback is that you can only create your own CD from stored content, which means you can't store live Internet radio broadcasts.\n\n ''Media Library.''\n The Media Library is where you can manage your media content, create and manage playlists, and store links to your favorite Internet radio stations. The interface of the Media Library is very similar to Windows Explorer; the content is broken down into five categories: Audio, Video, My Playlists, Radio Tuner Presets, and Deleted Items.\n\n To add media content to the Media Library, click the Add button on the top right with the plus sign (+) and an upside down triangle. You can add media content in the form of a file or a URL (uniform resource locator; Web address). You can use many file formats, including MP3, WAV, WMA (Windows Media Audio), ASF (Active Streaming Format), and AVI (Audio Video Interleave). When you add a URL, it can be for an Internet Radio station or a Web site that has streaming media.\n\n To remove media content from the Media Library, select the content you want to remove and click the Delete button (the one with an "X" and upside down triangle) next to the Add button. Choose Delete From Library from the pop-up menu. This will move the selected file to the All Deleted Media folder, which is similar to the Recycle Bin in Windows. To completely remove the content from the Media Library, right-click the Deleted Items folder and choose Empty Deleted Items. If you want to permanently delete the file from your hard drive, place a check mark in the Remove Files Permanently From Hard Drive checkbox in the ensuing dialog box and click Yes.\n\n Adding media content to your playlist is similar to adding content to the Media Library. The difference is that you first need to select the playlist to which you want to add. Then click either the Add or Add To Playlist button.\n\n To remove content from a playlist, select the playlist first, then select the content you want to remove. Click the Delete button and choose Delete From Playlist from the pop-up menu if you want to remove the content only from the playlist. The Delete From Library choice will remove the file from both the playlist and the Media Library, and the Delete Playlist choice will remove the playlist from the Media Library. If the content is in more than one playlist, Media Library will remove it from all the playlists in which it resides. Unless you emptied your Deleted Items folder, you can restore any files you deleted by right-clicking them in the Deleted Items folder.\n\n ''Radio Tuner.''\nThis one is pretty straightforward. To use your Internet connection to listen to radio stations from all over the world, click Radio Tuner. The Media Player lists many default radio stations for you, but you can add your own, as well.\n\n ''Portable Devices.''\n This feature lets you copy Media Player audio files from your computer to a portable audio player (such as an MP3 player) or storage media used by a portable device. You can also copy audio files to a PocketPC handheld computer such as the Casio E-115 or HP Jornada 540 series.\n\n To transfer the content from the Media Player to your portable device, simply list the files you want to copy in the left Music To Copy window and press the Copy Music button at the top left of the player. Of course, you can only copy as many files as the portable device can hold. A status window along the bottom of the screen displays how much memory is already used, how much memory the files you are copying require, and how much memory is still free after the copy is complete.\n\n ''Skin Chooser.''\n Use the Skin Chooser area to pick a look for your Media Player. Version 7 offers eight default choices; to use one, select it and click Apply Skin. To see more skin choices, click More Skins or go directly to WindowsMedia.com's Skin Gallery at http://windowsmedia.com/MediaGuide/gallery.\n\n Last But Not Least. As we mentioned earlier, the Media Player has File, View, Play, Tools, and Help menus at the top left. These menus offer many of the same commands as you get from the main buttons along the side of the player. A good item to check out is Options in the Tools menu. The Options dialog box lets you tweak many of your player's characteristics.\n\n Another cool feature is the arrow in the bottom right corner of the player. Click this arrow to collapse the player into a smaller, more basic version. Click the arrow again (it should be in the bottom right corner of your screen) and choose Return To Full Mode from the pop-up menu to restore the player.\n\n ''A Powerful Media Tool.''\n The Windows Media Player 7 offers a lot of features for you to enjoy. As an all-in-one digital media player, it handles the task very effectively, making your life easier by letting you control your Internet radio stations, CDs, MP3 files, and video files with one device. Also, its ability to copy content to portable devices such as MP3 players and PocketPC handhelds is very handy. This player means you will no longer have to fumble between programs just so you can travel with your tunes.\n by David Jung \n

By Arthur Harris\n\n Your modem is the device that your computer uses to talk to other computers. This is normally done using a phone line to connect to another computer or a network of computers via a server. In most cases this will be via an ISP (Internet Service Provider) server. The function of the modem is to convert the digital signals from the computer to an analogue signals in a format that can be sent over telephone lines. It also provides the necessary signaling that controls the speed and flow of data.\n{{{\n Digital wave form. analogue wave form.\n}}}\n The above pictures help represent a digital signal and an analogue signal. All computer data is stored and transmitted within the computer in digital format 1s and 0s. In order for this data to be transmitted over analogue phone lines the data must be converted into an analogue signal which is the noise you hear when connecting to another computer. Once the other modem receives this signal it will translate the signal back into its original digital format. Your modem may be internal, located on the motherboard inside the computer or external, outside the computer and connected to the computer via the com ports or USB ports. They both function the same way\n\n Typical modems are referred to as an asynchronous device. Meaning that the transmitter converts the data from the computer into an intermittent stream of small packets. The receiving system then takes the data in the packets and reassembles it into a form the computer can use. Refer to Chart 1.\n\n|>|>|>|>|>|>|>|>| Chart 1 |\n|>|>|Start 1 bit|Data 8 bits|Stop 1 bit ||Start 1 bit|Data 8 bits|Stop 1 bit|\n|>|>|>|>| 1st Packet 10 bits ||>|>|>| 2nd Packet 10 bits |\n\n This chart represents how an asynchronous transmission would be transmitted over a phone line. In asynchronous communication 1 byte (8 bits) is transferred within 1 packet which is equivalent to one character. However for the computer to receive this information each packet must contain a Start and a Stop bit, therefore the complete packet would be 10 bits. These setting may be changed in the Modem properties box. Fig 1. Click on "Settings, Control panel, Modems, Properties, Connection".\n Leave these settings as they are. This is the International standard for the Internet.\n\n ''Flow control.''\n To control the flow of data between computers, modems can use either hardware or software control.\n See fig 2. Click on "Settings, Control panel, Modems, Properties, Connection, Advanced". During the process of sending data, both modems are constantly talking to each other.\n\n ''Hardware Control.''\n Hardware Control uses the RTS (Ready to Send) and CTS (Clear to Send) control wire. These appear at the COM ports and can be seen as indicator lights on external modem. They are built into internal modems. When computer "A" is ready to send data, it activates the RTS line on modem "A". The modem then sends a signal to modem "B" which activates its CTS line and informs computer "B" that computer "A" is ready to send data. When computer "B" is ready to receive data from computer "A", it activates the RTS line on modem "B" which then sends a signal to modem "A" to activate its CTS line and inform computer "A" that it can start sending the data. If computer 'A" is sending faster than computer "B" can handle, computer "B" de-activates its RTS line which causes modem "A" to de-activate its CTS line to computer "A". This tells computer "A" to stop sending data and wait for the signal from computer "B" before sending more data.\n When computer "A" has finished sending the data, it de-activates the RTS line. This de-activates the CTS line on modem "B" letting computer "B" know that there is no more data. This process works in both directions. Hardware control is the standard.\n\n ''Software control''\n Software control uses a preset character built in to the data packet to control the flow of data. A preset character is sent from computer "a" to computer "b", to tell computer "b" that computer "a" is ready to send. When computer "b" is ready, it sends the same preset character to computer "a", telling computer "a" to start sending data. If "a" is sending faster than "b" can handle, computer "b" removes the preset character from the data being sent to computer "a". The removal of the preset character causes computer "a" to stop sending until computer "b" resends the preset character to tell it to start sending again. If the data being sent uses the preset character for other purposes, it will cause problems in transmission.\n\n ''Error control.'' \n Click on "Settings, Control panel, Modems, Properties, Connection, Advanced". Error control is used to ensure that the data being received hasn't been corrupted during transmission.\n This is achieved by adding a check sum to the data being sent. A basic form of a check is to count the number of "1"s in the data and use the number as the check sum. When the data is received, the same count is made and if the two numbers are the same the data is passed on. If the two numbers are different the data is rejected and a request is made to send it again. Error control can slow down the data rate, if there are lots of errors, but will ensure correct data.\n\n ''AT commands''\n AT commands are a set of instructions, which allows you to setup the configuration of your modem. You can get various information on your modem by going into "start/settings/control panel/modems/diagnostics" and highlighting the port that the modem is listed on and clicking on the "more info" button. This is a good way of testing to see if you have installed your modem correctly. If the computer can't see your modem, it has been installed incorrectly. The AT commands were developed for the standardization of controlling modems.\n\n ''To access your modem, use a Terminal program like ~HyperTerminal.''\n\n 1. Click "Start/Programs/Accessories/ Communications/~HyperTerminal".\n 2. Click on "~HyperTerminal.exe" icon and open a new window. Enter a name for your new connection and click "OK".\n 3. Check that your modem's name is displayed in this window and then click "cancel". If your modem isn't displayed, click on the down arrow in the "Connect using" box and select on your modem. If you are using an external modem select the COM port to which it is connected.\n 4. You are now connected to your modem. Type "at". The letters "at" should appear on the screen as you type. Press the "enter" key. The letters "OK" should appear.\n 5. Type "ati" and press enter. The name and type of your modem will be displayed. On an external modem the speed of your modem will be displayed.\n 6. Type "atdt" and your phone number. Press "enter". The modem will dial your number and return a busy signal. The word "Busy" will appear on the screen. If the phone rings you while you are connected to the modem but haven't dialed out, the word "Ring" will appear.\n\n The above is only quick look at what AT commands do. They are normally buried within your browser program. More next month on using AT or Hayes commands.\n

By Arthur Harris\n\n Last month we started looking at the "AT" commands and how they control your modem. How you can control your modem by using a terminal program like ~HyperTerminal. If you are using an internal modem, using the command "atdt" and then your ISP phone number, you will get the connect speed and protcol followed by the server name. (This will vary depending upon which ISP you use and what they wish to display). This is followed by the request to "Logon". Logon on using your username and password when requested. The ISP responds by send their IP address. See example.\n{{{\n Atdt (ISP phone number)\n From ISP: CONNECT 49333 V42bis\n From ISP: ** Ascend TNT Terminal Server **\n From ISP: Login: (Your username)\n From ISP: Password: (Your password)\n From ISP: Entering PPP Session.\n From ISP: IP address is 203.96.147.36\n From ISP: MTU is 1524.\n}}}\n This is as far as you can go with out a proper browser. Click on "Call" then "Disconnect" on ~HyperTerminal to logoff \nfrom your ISP.\n\n ''AT commands. (AT = attention computer)''\n{{{\n Used to identify the software and features in your modem. (Uses ATI1 to ATI4)\n i.e. MTS V.90 Data+Fax+Voice+Dsvd Modem Version 5.15b\n\n ATE0 and ATE1: Turns the online echo feature "off" and "on". When turned "off", the key board strokes do not appear\n on the screen.\n\n ATL1. Set modem's speaker volume level. 1=low. 2=medium. 3= high.\n\n ATM0. Speaker 'off'\n ATM1. Speaker 'on' until carrier detected, then 'off'.\n ATM2. Speaker stays 'on'\n ATM3. Speaker 'off' during dialing, 'on' during ring back, 'off' when carriers detected.\n\n ATT and ATP: T sets the dialing to tone dialing and P to pulse or decatic dialing.\n\n ATQ0. Allow result codes to be shown. ie. OK, Busy, No carrier, etc.\n ATQ1. Result codes not displayed.\n\n ATV0. Shows result codes as numbers.\n ATV1. Show result codes as words.\n\n ATZ. Soft reset of the modem. Sets the modem to profile 0.\n}}}\n The above codes are a small list of AT commands available for controlling modems.\n* · They determine the speed the modem sends and receives at.\n* · The procedure it follows when contacting another modem and the training sequence to establishing the speed and mode at which they will communicate at.\n* · Which modem will be the master/originator and which will be the slave.\n* · Which type of flow control is used. Hardware or software.\n* · Which type of error control is used.\n* · If the modem is auto-answer or manual-answer.\n* · If the modem is a dial-up modem or a leased line (fixed) modem. Some modem do both. Operates normally on the leased line communicating with the slave modem at the other end, in the event of a failure on the leased line, switches to the dial up mode (Originator) and dials a preset number which reconnects with the slave modem operating in the auto-answer mode. Communications are restored.\n* · Determines the test functions available. Ie. Digital loop-back (input to the modem) and analogue loop-back (output or line) and far-end loop-back ( the modem at the far-end applies a loop-back allowing testing of the whole circuit.)\n\n The list goes on. In fact it is spread over 52 pages in the reference book I have got this info from. \n\n ''There are two ways of feeding these instructions to your modem.''\n# In the power-up mode when you turn the modem on, it load from a RAM in the modem, profile 0 or factory default, into the active or working profile. Profile 0 has all the setup instructions that the modem requires. For a internal modem this will occur when you turn the computer on.\n# When you "open" your communications program or your web browser, it sends to the modem an initializing string that changes the setup of the modem from its power-up setting.\n\n ''Profile 0 or Factory default.''\n To program you modem it has to be in the off-line mode or command mode. When the modem is on-line, connected to another modem, all instructions are passed straight through as data. Using the AT commands, you set up the configuration for the modem into the active profile memory. You then save it using the save commands.\n* AT&W writes to the active profile memory.\n* AT&W0 writes to profile 0 or the factory default..\n* AT&W1 writes to Profile 1.\n\n You can view the profiles using AT&V. To understand the profile shown below you will need a list of AT commands. You should recognize a few. The list shown will vary between different modems. The instruction manual or CD ROM with the modem drivers may have a list that are included in your modem. If not try the internet.\n{{{\n Active profile:\n B1 E1 L2 M1 N1 T Q0 V1 W0 X4 Y0 &C1 &D2 &G0 &J0 &P0 &Q0 &S0 &U0 &Y0\n %A013 %C1 %E1 %G1 \sA3 \sC0 \sG0 \sJ0 \sK5 \sN3 \sQ3 \sT000 \sX0 -C0 -J1 "H3 "O032\n S00:000 S01:000 S02:043 S03:013 S04:010 S05:008 S06:002 S07:060 S08:002\n S09:006 S10:014 S11:070 S12:050 S18:000 S25:005 S30:000 S33:000 S37:000\n}}}\n ''Initializing strings''\n The initializing string is a limited set of AT commands the modifies the active profile. This is done by using the "Advanced Connections Setting" window. See fig 2 previous issue. Type the commands into the "Extra settings" window. Use the following format. AT followed by the commands with no spaces.\n\n AT&F&C1&D2\n or\n AT&FE1Q0V1X4&C1&D2\n \n The above commands mean.\n* &F. Recall factory profile or profile 0.\n* &C1. Determine the state of the carrier detect indication. DCD.\n* &D2. Determines the state Data Terminal Ready indication. DTR.\n* E1 Echo on.\n* Q0 Instructs the modem to go to its last online settings.\n* V1. Display result codes as word.\n* X4. Dial tone detection enabled.\n\n The last bit of all is that there are also "S" registers that also modify the AT commands. The last two rows shown in the active profile are the "S" register but that is getting a bit deep for this article.\n For further information go to http://www.computerhope.com/atcom.htm#02.\n\n Using the information from this site I was able to fix a problem with my external modem. It would work Topnet, but not with Paradise. By altering the communication protocol to include a buffer, fixed that problem. I added the command "at\sn1" to the Initializing strings. The modem now works like a dream and saved me having to buy a more expensive USB modem. The one I bought is a external Cnet 56K fax modem connected to the serial port.\n\n

Anonymous\n\n ''Married Bliss''\n My wife and I have the secret to making a marriage last:\n Two times a week, we go to a nice restaurant, have a little wine, somegood food and companionship. She goes Tuesday's, I go Fridays.\n We also sleep in separate beds. Hers is in Auckland and mine is in Wellington.\n I take my wife everywhere, but she keeps finding her way back.\n I asked my wife where she wanted to go for our anniversary. "Somewhere I haven't been in a long time!" she said. So I suggested the kitchen.\n We always hold hands. If I let go, she shops.\n She has an electric blender, electric toaster and electric bread maker. Then she said, "There are too many gadgets and no place to sit down!" So I bought her an electric chair.\n Remember.... Marriage is the number one cause of divorce. Statistically, 100% of all divorces started with marriage.\n I married Miss Right. I just didn't know her first name was Always.\n I haven't spoken to my wife for 18 months. I don't like to interrupt her.\n The last fight was my fault. My wife asked, "What's on the TV?" ... I said, "Dust!"\n In the beginning, God created earth and rested. Then God created man and rested. Then God created woman. Since then, neither God nor man has rested.\n Why do men die before their wives? 'Cause they want to.\n\n

''Bits of Humour From the Web''\n\n A man staggers into an emergency room with a concussion, multiple bruises, two black eyes, arm in a sling, and a five iron wrapped tightly around his neck. Naturally, the doctor asks him what happened.\n\n "Well, it was like this", said the man. "I was having a quiet round of golf with my wife, when at a difficult hole, we both sliced our balls into a pasture of cows. We went to look for them, and while I was rooting around I noticed one of the cows had something white at its rear end. I walked over and lifted up the tail, and sure enough, there was a golf ball with my wife's monogram on it--stuck right in the middle of the cow's butt. That's when I made my big mistake."\n \n"What did you do?" asks the doctor.\n\n "Well, I lifted the cow's tail and yelled to my wife, "Hey, this looks like yours!". I don't remember much after that."\n\n----\n \n''Truth?''\n\n A husband looking through the paper came upon a study that said women use more words than men. Excited to prove to his wife his long-held contention that women in general and his wife in particular talked too much, he showed her the study results, which stated "Men use about 15,000 words per day, but women use 30,000." His wife thought awhile, then finally she said to her husband, "It's because we have to repeat everything we say." The husband said, "What?"

Humour from the Internet\n\n One day an Irishman, who has been stranded on a desert island for over ten years, sees an unusual speck on the horizon. “It's certainly not a ship” he thinks to himself. As the speck gets closer and closer, he begins to rule out possibilities of a small boat, then even a raft.\n\n Suddenly, emerging from the surf comes a drop dead gorgeous blonde wearing a wet suit and scuba gear. She approaches the stunned man and says to him, “Tell me how long has it been since you've had a cigarette?” “Ten years .” replies the Irishman. With that, she reaches over and unzips a waterproof pocket on her left sleeve and pulls out a pack of fresh cigarettes. He takes one, lights it, takes a long drag and says, “Faith and begorra! Is that good!” “And how long has it been since you've had a sip of whisky?” she asks him. Trembling, the castaway replies, “Ten years.”\n\n She reaches over, unzips her right sleeve, pulls out a flask and hands it to him. He opens the flask, takes a long swig and says, “'Tis absolutely fantastic!”\n\n At this point she starts slowly unzipping the long zipper that runs down the front of her wet suit, looks at the man and asks, “And how long has it been since you've played around?”\n With tears in his eyes, the man falls to his knees and sobs, “Oh, sweet Jesus! Don't tell me you've got golf clubs in there too!”\n

// The Washington Post recently published a contest for readers in which they were asked to supply alternate meanings for various words. The following were some of the winning entries//\n\n ''Abdicate (v.)'', to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.\n ''Esplanade (v.)'', to attempt an explanation while drunk.\n ''Willy-nilly (adj.)'', impotent.\n ''Flabbergasted (adj.)'', appalled over how much weight you have gained.\n ''Negligent (adj.)'', describes a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightie.\n ''Lymph (v.)'', to walk with a lisp.\n ''Gargoyle (n.)'', an olive-flavoured mouthwash.\n ''Coffee (n.)'', a person who is coughed upon.\n ''Flatulence (n.)'' the emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.\n ''Balderdash (n.)'', a rapidly receding hairline.\n ''Testicle (n.)'', a humorous question on an exam.\n ''Semantics (n.)'', pranks conducted by young men studying for the priesthood, including such things as gluing the pages of the priest's prayer book together just before vespers.\n ''Rectitude (n.)'', the formal, dignified demeanour assumed by a proctologist immediately before he examines you.\n ''Oyster (n.)'', a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddish expressions.\n ''Circumvent (n.)'', the opening in the front of boxer shorts.\n ''Frisbatarianism (n.)'', The belief that, when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck there.\n\n //The Washington Post's Style Invitational also asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting or changing on letter, and supply a new definition. Here are some recent winners://\n\n ''Sarchasm:'' The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the reader who doesn't get it.\n ''Reintarnation:'' Coming back to life as a hillbilly.\n ''Giraffiti:'' Vandalism spray-painted very high.\n ''Foreploy:'' Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of obtaining sex.\n ''Inoculatte:'' To take coffee intravenously.\n ''Osteopornosis:'' A degenerate disease.\n ''Karmageddon:'' It's like, when everybody is sending off all these, really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like a serious bummer.\n ''Glibido:'' All talk and no action.\n ''Dopeler Effect:'' The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.\n ''Intaxication:'' Euphoria at getting a refund from the Taxation Office, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.\n\n //And, best of all ...//\n\n ''Ignoranus:'' A person who's both stupid AND an arse.\n

\n Please find my reply to Puzzle No 2 in September MEGABYTE. I suspect that this is a leg-pull, especially in view of the comment that you don,t need a computer???? \nIf what I suspect is true then the question, viz "How far will it have travelled after 10 seconds?" refers not to the rubber ball as 'it', but rather to the Leaning Tower of Pisa which lies in a cultural? vacuum.\n\n Dare I reply that 'it' will not have travelled any distance? I rather think not, without raising Einstein's Theory of Relativity and saying 'With relation to what?' So let's assume that this whole aspect is trivial, and that my suspicious, dirty (GOTO L) mind is using an altogether paranoid approach to a perfectly straight forward honest question. viz 'How far will the rubber ball have travelled after 10 seconds?'. But is this a perfectly straight forward honest question? THINKS! Is it (L).\n\n Does it mean 'What absolute distance, in metres, does the rubber ball move through, measured consecutively from it's point of release, it's point of striking the ground, it's first point of rest relative to the ground upon rebound, it's point of again striking the ground etc. etc. in 10 seconds.' You don't need a computer, the figure, correct to eleven decimal places, is 157.67693743781 metres. \n\n Or does it mean "How far from it's point of release is the rubber ball after 10 seconds has elapsed ?' Again, you don't need a computer, This distance, correct to ten decimal places, is 82.3230625622 metres. \n\n Of course, neither of these answers is correct! \n There are three possible reasons why. \n\n Firstly, I've been 'outsmarted' by the question and my paranoia. Lurking hidden under the web of ambiguity in the question itself is a pitfall I've missed. However, I enjoyed the problem, and will take the medicine I guess, when you point out to me that there is more to 'it'.\n\n Secondly, the accepted value for the acceleration arising in the close proximity of the Earth's surface due to gravity is 9.80662 metres/sec2 for which 9.8 is a better approximation than 9.75. \n\n Thirdly, I have not taken into account the Coriolis component of acceleration arising from the Earth's rotation. There is a lot \nmore, too!\n\n Nothing has been said about how the rubber ball was dropped from the Leaning Tower. From which point at the top for instance. \nInside? or outside? I had to assume that it was dropped in such a way as to have a clear orbit to the ground. What Coriolis could do in a \ndrop of 90 m I haven't tried to ascertain, but it is probably negligible. So I'll plump for my first answer as a reasonable essay to the solution viz:-\n\n The ball is released and falls 90m to the ground under the acceleration due to gravity. Using Newton's Laws of Motion, interpreted eg distance moved = initial velocity x time under consideration + 0.5 x acceleration x the square of the time under consideration -- usually expressed as the following --\n\n S = u.t + 0.5a.t^2 then t = sqrt(2xS/a) = sqrt(180/9.75)\n = (by pocket calculator) 4.29668924423 seconds. Note u=0\n\n After hitting the ground, the ball rebounds to 90/3 = 30m height. To fall to the ground again from this height the ball will take sqrt(60/9.75) = 2.48069469178 seconds. It is also true that the ball will take this same time to rise to 30m after first striking the \nground. Therefore, from its time of release until it's return to earth after the first bounce the ball has been in motion for :- 4.29668etc + 2 x 2.4806 etc = 9.25807862779 seconds\n\n It is now in the process of starting on it's second bounce.\nOn this bounce it will rise to 10m height under the this time deceleration of gravity. We need to know the velocity of the ball at the instant of rebound. We know that the ball will rise 10m on this bounce, so let's use V squared = U squared minus 2 x a x S where V = 0, and S = 10m to get U = 13.9642400438 metres/sec.\n\n Going back to our first formula, but this time with U having a value (not zero as before) and seeing that 10 seconds will elapse \nin 0.74192137221 secs of time we get S = 13.964etc x 0.7419etc - 0.5 x 9.75 x 0.7419etc squared\n = 7.67693743781 metres.\n\nThat is how far up the second bounce the ball is at 10 seconds elapsed time.\n\nTotal distance is 90down + 30up + 30down + 7.6769etc up = 157.677m near nuff!\n\nRegards and best wishes\n\nRalph Hopkins.\n\n''ED''\n What about the distance travelled by the Earth orbiting round the Sun and the Sun orbiting around the centre of the Universe, what about the time dilation effect of the ball travelling at a speed some small fraction of the speed of light?\n\n However using my super computer taking all these things into account, they just happened to cancel each other out during the 10 seconds involved your answer is correct. Well done & thanks for a humourous answer.\n\n

Some NZPCA members may be interested to know that the Hutt City library catalogue is now available online, grab your library membership card and your PIN number and go to\n\nhttp://library.huttcity.govt.nz\n\nThe library has had online access for several years, the recently replaced Urica OPAC system has been accessible by modem during work hours. This allowed library users to search the catalogue, see what items were currently issued to them, and renew any of these if necessary. When accessing the system by modem, your home PC displayed exactly the same interface as the terminals located in the library did.\nThe Urica system had a text based interface - and although it was not a particularly inviting system, it was relatively straightforward to use.\nWhen the Urica OPAC system was replaced with new software from Geac some months ago, I admit to being very critical of what the library had done, and I still am. The interface that users were presented with (again, text based) was without a doubt the most appallingly badly designed software that I have ever had the misfortune to have to use - and this last statement is from somebody who spent several years using TIMMS, another fine Geac product ;-) I had always been a bit dismissive of the state of mind currently known a "computer rage" - until I met this new system.\n\nIn the context of trying to encourage library users who may not be particularly confident with PCs or any text based interface, I thought the system was a huge step backwards. I have not spoken with anyone who liked the new system, and I could not understand why the old text terminals were replaced with new Windows systems, just to display a text terminal window. I was also disappointed that modem access had been discontinued, and that all of this had been done with little or no communication with library users. \n\nA few weeks ago, everything became clear, when the new graphical interface appeared on the system at my local branch of the library. All functions of the catalogue are now available via a web browser window - so now, from either a display at the library, or from your own home, you can search the catalogue, reserve items to loan (and track the status of reservations you have made), review your own issues (and renew these) and send email to library staff. Access appears to be available 24 hours/day, except during maintenance that sometimes takes place outside of opening hours.\n\n//(large picture/web page inserted here)//\n\nThe interface is very plain and straightforward, and it uses a bare minimum of graphics, which definitely makes it easier to use. It is difficult to avoid comparing it to the Wellington City Library's award winning website, which, while it may look nice, is quite slow to load and use. Besides which, Wellington Library users cannot even renew their books via their website! \nSimilarly, while Wellington City Library may have an award winning building, the Hutt City Library building is plain but functional - and in my view, the Hutt Library has a much better collection. I hope some Councillors are reading this!\n \nThere are a few problems with the system. It is definitely easier to use from home than in the library, where the decision to disable the right mouse button and some of Explorer's functionality had not been thought through initially. I'm sure that idle minds will find all sorts of ways of playing around with the system, especially during the school holidays. Some library branches are continuing to use the text interface, either alone or alongside a system running the browser interface.\n\nI think that Hutt City Library has done a very good job of getting this new system going, and although I was initially sceptical about the need for www access to the catalogue, I am now definitely a convert. Why not visit the site and send an email telling the library staff what you think?\n

Wayne Methorst, manager of Monitor and Terminal (http://www.monitor.co.nz) gave an excellent presentation to the September meeting of the Hutt SIG.\n\nWhile there were not many samples on display (monitors are quite difficult to transport) the nature of the presentation and the discussion that followed more than made up for this. Wayne did, however bring along a good quality 17" monitor, and for comparison a flat screen LCD display. Unfortunately Wayne did not bring along any freebies for this presentation.\n\nA wide range of topics was covered in the course of the evening, although none of it was particularly technical, it was useful and interesting.\n\nMost NZPCA members will be aware that video card memory directly affects the resolution that a monitor can display. For example, 1Mb of memory will allow resolutions up to 800x600 in 64K colours, whereas 2Mb of memory is required to achieve 1024x768 in 64K colours. Wayne expanded on this correlation to include the effect of monitor refresh rate (and its effect on flicker, and the comfort of the viewer) and the subsequent speed requirement of the video card, known as pixel or dot clock rate. Anyone who has installed Linux will probably be familiar with this parameter.\n\nAlthough a video card may have enough memory to display (for example) 1600x1200 in 16.7M colours, the card's pixel rate may not be fast enough to permit this resolution at a high enough refresh rate for comfortable viewing. It is important consider this factor when purchasing a video card or a monitor.\n\nTo the inevitable question "which monitors are best?" Wayne offered the SIG the benefit of his experience - which was that virtually every manufacturer has had bad experiences with their monitors at some stage, but that the Japanese manufactured units are generally of better quality and give fewer problems. All monitors have a finite life, so don't expect yours to last forever. Consider turning your monitor off when not in use, and reducing the brightness control to extend the life of the monitor.\n\nWayne also pointed out that when transporting monitors in vehicles, they should not be sitting upright on their swivel base, as they are unstable and very heavy and this can deform or break the casing and mainboard. The best method is to remove the swivel base or to tip the monitor upside down. Never transport a monitor with the screen facing down, as impurities in the tube can then fall onto the back of the screen surface or the aperture grille where they will be visible for the remainder of the life of the tube. Always remember that monitors are heavy and should be secured to minimise injury to people in an accident.\n\nEnsure that the monitor and PC are both connected to the mains, ie earthed but switched off, before plugging the video cable into the back of the PC. A monitor is capable of building up and holding quite a large static charge which can destroy a video card if incorrectly connected.\n\nFrom personal experience, I can say that Monitor and Terminal provide a competent, fast and efficient service. and even provide a replacement monitor while yours is being repaired. They also sell good quality new and refurbished monitors at competitive prices.\n

If you're using an ordinary cathode-ray tube (CRT) monitor, there are two settings that make a big difference to how good the image looks.\n\n''Monitor resolution''\nLots of monitors these days can accept a very high resolution input signal. Low-cost 17in monitors capable of resolutions of 1,600 by 1,200 and higher are common. It's nice to have these super-resolution modes, but just because a monitor can display a given resolution doesn't mean it can display it clearly.\nYour monitor's display is made up of lots of tiny red, green and blue phosphor dots that can display any colour if they're lit up appropriately. The maximum resolution a monitor can display clearly is determined by the size and arrangement of the dots. Monitor specifications include a pitch number. The pitch tells you the distance between dots of the same colour, and is expressed as a fraction of a millimetre. Well, that's what it's supposed to tell you, anyway.\nMost monitors use the shadow mask design, where dots are arranged in a hexagonal pattern. The most common arrangement is shown in the close-up below.\n\n//(Picture goes here)//\n\nThis is part of the screen of a 19in monitor running at 1,280 by 960. It is specified as a 0.22mm dot pitch unit, but this figure is the horizontal dot pitch: the horizontal distance between dots of identical colours. However, the hexagonal arrangement means you can't actually get from one dot to any of its nearest neighbours of the same colour just by moving horizontally; there's a vertical component as well. The real dot pitch is 0.25mm.\nThe dimensions of the standard Windows mouse pointer in the picture are 19 by 11 pixels. Analysing just the height, the pointer covers 41 dot-rows.\nThe minimum full-colour rendering unit on the monitor isn't an individual dot, because each dot can only show one of the three primary colours. You need three dots in a triangle -- or 'triad' -- to get full colour.\nBecause the rectangular pixels of the image don't map neatly on to the tightly packed dot triads, it's impossible to display as many pixels as you have triads clearly. Exactly how many pixels you can display clearly depends on your exact definition of the word clear, but generally it's about three-quarters to four-fifths of the number a simple calculation of the number of triads would give.\nEach triad is two rows high, so in this example there are 20.5 triad-rows to cover the 19-pixel-high pointer. Apply the three-quarters rule and you can see that 25 triad-rows would be better, but this isn't too bad.\nAbout the highest resolution that this monitor can effectively display is 1,280 by 960 . A resolution of 1,280 by 1,024 has less than 7% more pixels and so will look much the same, but 1,600 by 1,200 is well over the top.\nIn Sony Trinitron, Mitsubishi Diamondtron and other aperture grille monitors, the dots are actually vertical stripes, with less space between them and quite different horizontal and vertical spacing, as shown in the close-up below.\n\n//(Picture goes here)//\n\nThis picture also shows the shadow of a damper wire -- a supporting wire that keeps the many vertical wires of the grille stable. You can roughly compare stripe-pitch figures with dot-pitch ones by adding about 15% to the stripe pitch.\nMass-market monitors these days have dot pitch specs that vary between about 0.29 and 0.20mm, but the smallest pitch ones often quote horizontal pitch, overstating their quality.\nA genuine 0.20mm 17in screen can manage 1,280 by 960 clearly. However, generally speaking, 800 by 600 is the highest resolution a 15in screen can display clearly, 1,024 by 768 is the maximum for a 17in monitor, and a 19in monitor can handle 1,280 by 960. Only 21in monitors with a low dot pitch can manage 1,600 by 1,200 clearly.\n\n''Flicker fixing''\nThe second, and less obvious, monitor setting is its refresh rate. This is the number of times per second that the screen image is redrawn. If the refresh rate is too slow the image will flicker.\nMost people notice flicker if the refresh rate is below about 70Hz (redraws per second). Video cards default to a 60Hz refresh rate after you install them, to make sure they'll work with whichever monitor you're using. Flickering is quite obvious at 60Hz.\nThe point where noticeable flicker goes away is generally understood to be 72Hz , but different people have different opinions. Most people find that 75Hz is good enough, 85Hz might be a bit better, but anything greater won't make a visible difference.\nMany older monitors deal with high refresh rates by using interlaced mode -- drawing only every second line, then filling in the gaps on the next redraw. This is a poor solution. A refresh rate of 100Hz interlaced generally looks better than 50Hz non-interlaced, but the result is still poor. If you've got an old interlaced monitor, you should seriously consider upgrading.\n\nDaniel Rutter, "Australian Personal Computer" magazine\nhttp://www.apcmag.com\n

By Ricky Berg\n\nInstant Messengers are wonderful computer programs that really enhance the “communication” abilities of the machine and, more importantly, the computer user.\n\nE-mail is recognised as both a great leap technologically and in the speed at which humans can nowadays communicate with each other, but instant messengers take a further step in the immediacy of such communications.\n\nInstant messengers essentially bring e-mail into “real time” by allowing two or more people to exchange messages/text conversations with each other at the same time whilst logged onto the Internet. \n\nInstant messengers these days not only allow text messages to be exchanged virtually instantaneously, but also allow many enhancements such as –\n* See when your contacts are online and available, and send text messages back and forth. \n* Send pictures, music, or documents to your contacts. \n* Call a contact and have a video/voice conversation using your computer’s microphone, speakers, and camera.\n* Voice, visual, and document conferencing & collaboration.\nThe joy of instant messengers is that they work quite independently of what computer you have, who your ISP is, or any other such factors … AND IT’S ALL FREE!\nSome of you may have already used Microsoft’s early version of an instant messenger, called ~NetMeeting, and of course it came already bundled with your Windows Operating System (Win98 onwards). \n\nThis is but one of a number of many instant messengers available including -\n*ICQ (http://www.icq.com/)\n*AIM (http://www.aim.com/)\n*MSN Messenger (http://messenger.msn.com/Xp/Default.aspx)\n*Google Talk (http://www.google.com/talk/)\n*Yahoo (http://messenger.yahoo.com/)\n\nUntil recently the only significant drawbacks with instant messaging was the fact that all your contacts had to be using the same IM service, or you needed to have more than one IM program running at the same time. \n \nHowever, there is now an instant messenger program that recognises a number of other instant messaging services … promoted as the “Swiss Army knife of IM”, the program is called Trillian (http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/ ) and currently supports AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo Messenger, and IRC.\n\nSo, why not give one of these terrific programs a go? They are all very easy to install, set up, and use.\nIf you try AIM or Trillian, for example, give me a shout next time we are online together … my contact name on AIM is rickynz \n\nIf you have any other questions about instant messengers, an e-mail is always welcome.\nRicky Berg (ricky_nz@compuserve.com)\n\nPhoto 1. - InstMessagPic1.gif\nPhoto 2. - InstMessagPic2.jpg\n\n\n

Type the text for 'Ian Godfrey'

Recently I went to computer parts auction overseas (it was totally different than a Turner's computer auction); all the parts were brand new. There were hundreds of boards and various PCI cards. Obviously they had come from an Asian manufacturer who had gone bankrupt. Because they had not been placed into there appropriate boxes, it was difficult to immediately identify many of the cards and boards in question. Clearly cards with ~RJ-45 plugs on the back are generally network cards, but the cards I picked up had five plugs, several ~LEDs numbered 1 to 7 and two small switches with no indication as to their function. Was it some sort of PCI network card, network hub, network repeater or what?\n\n At one point I stood next to two men who were looking at some unmarked PCI cards. "All this stuff is not worth a dime" one of them stated. "I agree," the other man said, "We can't tell what these cards are?" I nearly opened my mouth but decided to keep it firmly shut. Why should I enlighten them? Before I left I wrote down several numbers from a few of the more interesting looking PCI cards, before starting back to my hotel. On the way I stopped off at an Internet café to find out information about the PCI cards (I love overseas Internet Cafes, they're always so exciting). Was I surprised when I realised that most cards were recently manufactured and met the latest specifications? Even if I paid $10 or $20 each they would still be a bargain. When I had spoken to one of the auctioneers, he had indicated that he was expected only a few dollars each. How could I miss out at this price, especially now that I had found out what they were, via the Internet?\n\n What did I know that the other two gentlemen standing next to me didn't know, or the auctioneer? I do not believe I'm a smart Kiwi, but to survive in today world you need to understand a few things.\n\n Nearly all ~PCs cards have a FCC identification number. Even devices such as your mouse will probably have one. Turn it over and have a look, there is a good chance it will have a FCC ID. This FCC marking will be follows by several letters (probably three) and then a number (generally eight). It does not matter what type of PC card, modem, networkcard, controller, or USB card they will all have a FCC ID number. Basically if you want to sell your product (network card or whatever) you need a licensing authorization number. It's a standard, which states whether the card meets certain standards, (like the ~TelePermit sign on the base of your telephone). Without it to sell PC related items in the USA and other parts of the world is difficult. So all manufacturers including foreign suppliers apply for appropriate coding.\n\n So if you find an unmarked PCI modem card or an old ISA card at a junk sale or VESA card in you cupboard and you don't know what it's don't throw it away. Go to the FCC database at http://www.fcc.gov/ and match your FCC ID number to a manufacturer's name. From here it easy to obtain the drivers and further information from the manufacturers website. Items may look extremely useful, but without determining the make, model plus drivers the card is doomed for the rubbish.\n\n The cards I purchased at the action for $2.50 each sold for $55 each with drivers and a text information file; I downloaded from the web. It definitely helped pay for my trip. With my receipt in hand for fifty items New Zealand customs let me bring them in for free.\n\n //John Thomson\n Kingston\n Gella@paradise.net.nz//

January 1, 2000\n\nDear Valued Employee\nRe: Vacation Pay\n\n&nbsp;&nbsp; Our records indicate that you have not used any vacation time over the past 100 year(s). As I'm sure you are aware, employees are granted 3 weeks of paid leave per year or pay in lieu of time off.\n&nbsp;&nbsp; One additional week is granted for every 5 years of service. Please either take 9,400 days off work or notify our office and your next pay cheque will reflect payment of $8,277,432.22 which will include all pay and interest for the past 1,200 months.\n\nSincerely,\nAutomated Payroll Processing

/***\n''Import Tiddlers Plugin for TiddlyWiki version 1.2.x and 2.0''\n^^author: Eric Shulman - ELS Design Studios\nsource: http://www.TiddlyTools.com/#ImportTiddlersPlugin\nlicense: [[Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License|http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/]]^^\n\nWhen many people share and edit copies of the same TiddlyWiki document, the ability to quickly collect all these changes back into a single, updated document that can then be redistributed to the entire group is very important. This plugin lets you selectively combine tiddlers from any two TiddlyWiki documents. It can also be very useful when moving your own tiddlers from document to document (e.g., when upgrading to the latest version of TiddlyWiki, or 'pre-loading' your favorite stylesheets into a new 'empty' TiddlyWiki document.)\n\n!!!!!Inline interface (live)\n<<<\n<<importTiddlers inline>>\n<<<\n!!!!!Macro Syntax\n<<<\n{{{<<importTiddlers>>}}}\ncreates "import tiddlers" link. click to show/hide import control panel\n\n{{{<<importTiddlers inline>>}}}\ncreates import control panel directly in tiddler content\n\n{{{<<importTiddlers filter source quiet ask>>}}}\nnon-interactive 'automatic' import.\n''filter'' determines which tiddlers will be automatically selected for importing. Use one of the following keywords:\n>''"new"'' retrieves only tiddlers that are found in the import source document, but do not yet exist in the destination document\n>''"changes"'' retrieves only tiddlers that exist in both documents for which the import source tiddler is newer than the existing tiddler\n>''"updates"'' retrieves both ''new'' and ''changed'' tiddlers (this is the default action when none is specified)\n>''"all"'' retrieves ALL tiddlers from the import source document, even if they have not been changed.\n''source'' is the location of the imported document. It can be either a local document or an URL:\n>filename is any local path/file, in whatever format your system requires\n>URL is any remote web location that starts with "http://" or "https://"\n''"quiet"'' (optional)\n>supresses all status message during the import processing (e.g., "opening local file...", "found NN tiddlers..." etc). Note that if ANY tiddlers are actualy imported, a final information message will still be displayed (along with the ImportedTiddlers report), even when 'quiet' is specified. This ensures that changes to your document cannot occur without any visible indication at all.\n''"ask"'' (optional)\n>adds interactive confirmation. A browser message box (OK/Cancel) is displayed for each tiddler that will be imported, so that you can manually bypass any tiddlers that you do not want to import.\n\n''Special tag values: importReplace and importPublic''\n\nBy adding these special tags to an existing tiddler, you can precisely control whether or not to allow updates to that tiddler as well as decide which tiddlers in your document can be automatically imported by others.\n*''For maximum safety, the default action is to prevent existing tiddlers from being unintentionally overwritten by incoming tiddlers.'' To allow an existing tiddler to be overwritten by an imported tiddler, you must tag the existing tiddler with ''<<tag importReplace>>''\n*''For maximum privacy, the default action for //outgoing// tiddlers is to NOT automatically share your tiddlers with others.'' To allow a tiddler in your document to be shared via auto-import actions by others, you must tag it with ''<<tag importPublic>>''\n//Note: these tags are only applied when using the auto-import processing. When using the interactive control panel, all tiddlers in the imported document are available in the listbox, regardless of their tag values.//\n<<<\n!!!!!Interactive Usage\n<<<\nWhen used interactively, a control panel is displayed consisting of an "import source document" filename input (text field plus a ''[Browse...]'' button), a listbox of available tiddlers, a "differences only" checkbox, an "add tags" input field and four push buttons: ''[open]'', ''[select all]'', ''[import]'' and ''[close]''.\n\nPress ''[browse]'' to select a TiddlyWiki document file to import. You can also type in the path/filename or a remote document URL (starting with http://)and press ''[open]''. //Note: There may be some delay to permit the browser time to access and load the document before updating the listbox with the titles of all tiddlers that are available to be imported.//\n\nSelect one or more titles from the listbox (hold CTRL or SHIFT while clicking to add/remove the highlight from individual list items). You can press ''[select all]'' to quickly highlight all tiddler titles in the list. Use the ''[-]'', ''[+]'', or ''[=]'' links to adjust the listbox size so you can view more (or less) tiddler titles at one time. When you have chosen the tiddlers you want to import and entered any extra tags, press ''[import]'' to begin copying them to the current TiddlyWiki document.\n\n''select: all, new, changes, or differences''\n\nYou can click on ''all'', ''new'', ''changes'', or ''differences'' to automatically select a subset of tiddlers from the list. This makes it very quick and easy to find and import just the updated tiddlers you are interested in:\n>''"all"'' selects ALL tiddlers from the import source document, even if they have not been changed.\n>''"new"'' selects only tiddlers that are found in the import source document, but do not yet exist in the destination document\n>''"changes"'' selects only tiddlers that exist in both documents but that are newer in the source document\n>''"differences"'' selects all new and existing tiddlers that are different from the destination document (even if destination tiddler is newer)\n\n''Import Tagging:''\n\nTiddlers that have been imported can be automatically tagged, so they will be easier to find later on, after they have been added to your document. New tags are entered into the "add tags" input field, and then //added// to the existing tags for each tiddler as it is imported.\n\n''Skip, Rename, Merge, or Replace:''\n\nWhen importing a tiddler whose title is identical to one that already exists, the import process pauses and the tiddler title is displayed in an input field, along with four push buttons: ''[skip]'', ''[rename]'', ''[merge]'' and ''[replace]''.\n\nTo bypass importing this tiddler, press ''[skip]''. To import the tiddler with a different name (so that both the tiddlers will exist when the import is done), enter a new title in the input field and then press ''[rename]''. Press ''[merge]'' to combine the content from both tiddlers into a single tiddler. Press ''[replace]'' to overwrite the existing tiddler with the imported one, discarding the previous tiddler content.\n\n//Note: if both the title ''and'' modification date/////time match, the imported tiddler is assumed to be identical to the existing one, and will be automatically skipped (i.e., not imported) without asking.//\n\n''Import Report History''\n\nWhen tiddlers are imported, a report is generated into ImportedTiddlers, indicating when the latest import was performed, the number of tiddlers successfully imported, from what location, and by whom. It also includes a list with the title, date and author of each tiddler that was imported.\n\nWhen the import process is completed, the ImportedTiddlers report is automatically displayed for your review. If more tiddlers are subsequently imported, a new report is //added// to ImportedTiddlers, above the previous report (i.e., at the top of the tiddler), so that a reverse-chronological history of imports is maintained.\n\nIf a cumulative record is not desired, the ImportedTiddlers report may be deleted at any time. A new ImportedTiddlers report will be created the next time tiddlers are imported.\n\nNote: You can prevent the ImportedTiddlers report from being generated for any given import activity by clearing the "create a report" checkbox before beginning the import processing.\n\n<<<\n!!!!!Installation\n<<<\ncopy/paste the following tiddlers into your document:\n''ImportTiddlersPlugin'' (tagged with <<tag systemConfig>>)\n\ncreate/edit ''SideBarOptions'': (sidebar menu items) \n^^Add "< < ImportTiddlers > >" macro^^\n\n''Quick Installation Tip #1:''\nIf you are using an unmodified version of TiddlyWiki (core release version <<version>>), you can get a new, empty TiddlyWiki with the Import Tiddlers plugin pre-installed (''[[download from here|TW+ImportExport.html]]''), and then simply import all your content from your old document into this new, empty document.\n<<<\n!!!!!Revision History\n<<<\n''2006.02.21 [2.7.1]''\nClean up layout problems with IE. (Use tables for alignment instead of SPANs styled with float:left and float:right)\n''2006.02.21 [2.7.0]''\nAdded "local file" and "web server" radio buttons for selecting dynamic import source controls in ImportPanel. Default file control is replaced with URL text input field when "web server" is selected. Default remote document URL is defined in SiteURL tiddler. Also, added option for prepending SiteProxy URL as prefix to remote URL to mask cross-domain document access (requires compatible server-side script)\n''2006.02.17 [2.6.0]''\nRemoved "differences only" listbox display mode, replaced with selection filter 'presets': all/new/changes/differences. Also fixed initialization handling for "add new tags" so that checkbox state is correctly tracked when panel is first displayed.\n''2006.02.16 [2.5.4]''\nadded checkbox options to control "import remote tags" and "keep existing tags" behavior, in addition to existing "add new tags" functionality.\n''2006.02.14 [2.5.3]''\nFF1501 corrected unintended global 't' (loop index) in importReport() and autoImportTiddlers()\n''2006.02.10 [2.5.2]''\ncorrected unintended global variable in importReport().\n''2006.02.05 [2.5.1]''\nmoved globals from window.* to config.macros.importTiddlers.* to avoid FireFox 1.5.0.1 crash bug when referencing globals\n''2006.01.18 [2.5.0]''\nadded checkbox for "create a report". Default is to create/update the ImportedTiddlers report. Clear the checkbox to skip this step.\n''2006.01.15 [2.4.1]''\nadded "importPublic" tag and inverted default so that auto sharing is NOT done unless tagged with importPublic\n''2006.01.15 [2.4.0]''\nAdded support for tagging individual tiddlers with importSkip, importReplace, and/or importPrivate to control which tiddlers can be overwritten or shared with others when using auto-import macro syntax. Defaults are to SKIP overwriting existing tiddlers with imported tiddlers, and ALLOW your tiddlers to be auto-imported by others.\n''2006.01.15 [2.3.2]''\nAdded "ask" parameter to confirm each tiddler before importing (for use with auto-importing)\n''2006.01.15 [2.3.1]''\nStrip TW core scripts from import source content and load just the storeArea into the hidden IFRAME. Makes loading more efficient by reducing the document size and by preventing the import document from executing its TW initialization (including plugins). Seems to resolve the "Found 0 tiddlers" problem. Also, when importing local documents, use convertUTF8ToUnicode() to convert the file contents so support international characters sets.\n''2006.01.12 [2.3.0]''\nReorganized code to use callback function for loading import files to support event-driven I/O via an ASYNCHRONOUS XMLHttpRequest. Let's processing continue while waiting for remote hosts to respond to URL requests. Added non-interactive 'batch' macro mode, using parameters to specify which tiddlers to import, and from what document source. Improved error messages and diagnostics, plus an optional 'quiet' switch for batch mode to eliminate //most// feedback.\n''2006.01.11 [2.2.0]''\nAdded "[by tags]" to list of tiddlers, based on code submitted by BradleyMeck\n''2006.01.09 [2.1.1]''\nWhen a URL is typed in, and then the "open" button is pressed, it generates both an onChange event for the file input and a click event for open button. This results in multiple XMLHttpRequest()'s which seem to jam things up quite a bit. I removed the onChange handling for file input field. To open a file (local or URL), you must now explicitly press the "open" button in the control panel.\n''2006.01.08 [2.1.0]''\nIMPORT FROM ANYWHERE!!! re-write getImportedTiddlers() logic to either read a local file (using local I/O), OR... read a remote file, using a combination of XML and an iframe to permit cross-domain reading of DOM elements. Adapted from example code and techniques courtesy of Jonny LeRoy.\n''2006.01.06 [2.0.2]''\nWhen refreshing list contents, fixed check for tiddlerExists() when "show differences only" is selected, so that imported tiddlers that don't exist in the current file will be recognized as differences and included in the list.\n''2006.01.04 [2.0.1]''\nWhen "show differences only" is NOT checked, import all tiddlers that have been selected even when they have a matching title and date.\n''2005.12.27 [2.0.0]''\nUpdate for TW2.0\nDefer initial panel creation and only register a notification function when panel first is created\n''2005.12.22 [1.3.1]''\ntweak formatting in importReport() and add 'discard report' link to output\n''2005.12.03 [1.3.0]''\nDynamically create/remove importPanel as needed to ensure only one instance of interface elements exists, even if there are multiple instances of macro embedding. Also, dynamically create/recreate importFrame each time an external TW document is loaded for importation (reduces DOM overhead and ensures a 'fresh' frame for each document)\n''2005.11.29 [1.2.1]''\nfixed formatting of 'detail info' in importReport()\n''2005.11.11 [1.2.0]''\nadded 'inline' param to embed controls in a tiddler\n''2005.11.09 [1.1.0]''\nonly load HTML and CSS the first time the macro handler is called. Allows for redundant placement of the macro without creating multiple instances of controls with the same ID's.\n''2005.10.25 [1.0.5]''\nfixed typo in importReport() that prevented reports from being generated\n''2005.10.09 [1.0.4]''\ncombined documentation with plugin code instead of using separate tiddlers\n''2005.08.05 [1.0.3]''\nmoved CSS and HTML definitions into plugin code instead of using separate tiddlers\n''2005.07.27 [1.0.2]''\ncore update 1.2.29: custom overlayStyleSheet() replaced with new core setStylesheet()\n''2005.07.23 [1.0.1]''\nadded parameter checks and corrected addNotification() usage\n''2005.07.20 [1.0.0]''\nInitial Release\n<<<\n!!!!!Credits\n<<<\nThis feature was developed by EricShulman from [[ELS Design Studios|http:/www.elsdesign.com]]\n<<<\n!!!!!Code\n***/\n\n// // Version\n//{{{\nversion.extensions.importTiddlers = {major: 2, minor: 7, revision: 1, date: new Date(2006,2,21)};\n//}}}\n\n// // 1.2.x compatibility\n//{{{\nif (!window.story) window.story=window;\nif (!store.getTiddler) store.getTiddler=function(title){return store.tiddlers[title]}\nif (!store.addTiddler) store.addTiddler=function(tiddler){store.tiddlers[tiddler.title]=tiddler}\nif (!store.deleteTiddler) store.deleteTiddler=function(title){delete store.tiddlers[title]}\n//}}}\n\n// // IE needs explicit global scoping for functions/vars called from browser events\n//{{{\nwindow.onClickImportButton=onClickImportButton;\nwindow.loadImportFile=loadImportFile;\nwindow.refreshImportList=refreshImportList;\n//}}}\n\n// // default cookie/option values\n//{{{\nif (!config.options.chkImportReport) config.options.chkImportReport=true;\n//}}}\n\n\n// // ''MACRO DEFINITION''\n\n//{{{\nconfig.macros.importTiddlers = { };\nconfig.macros.importTiddlers = {\n label: "import tiddlers",\n prompt: "Copy tiddlers from another document",\n countMsg: "%0 tiddlers selected for import",\n src: "", // path/filename or URL of document to import (retrieved from SiteUrl tiddler)\n proxy: "", // URL for remote proxy script (retrieved from SiteProxy tiddler)\n useProxy: false, // use specific proxy script in front of remote URL\n inbound: null, // hash-indexed array of tiddlers from other document\n newTags: "", // text of tags added to imported tiddlers\n addTags: true, // add new tags to imported tiddlers\n listsize: 8, // # of lines to show in imported tiddler list\n importTags: true, // include tags from remote source document when importing a tiddler\n keepTags: true, // retain existing tags when replacing a tiddler\n index: 0, // current processing index in import list\n sort: "" // sort order for imported tiddler listbox\n};\n\nconfig.macros.importTiddlers.handler = function(place,macroName,params) {\n // LINK WITH FLOATING PANEL\n if (!params[0]) {\n createTiddlyButton(place,this.label,this.prompt,onClickImportMenu);\n return;\n }\n // INLINE TIDDLER CONTENT\n if (params[0]=="inline") {\n createImportPanel(place);\n document.getElementById("importPanel").style.position="static";\n document.getElementById("importPanel").style.display="block";\n return;\n }\n // NON-INTERACTIVE BATCH MODE\n switch (params[0]) {\n case 'all':\n case 'new':\n case 'changes':\n case 'updates':\n var filter=params.shift();\n break;\n default:\n var filter="updates";\n break;\n } \n if (!params[0]||!params[0].length) return; // filename is required\n config.macros.importTiddlers.src=params.shift();\n var quiet=(params[0]=="quiet"); if (quiet) params.shift();\n var ask=(params[0]=="ask"); if (ask) params.shift();\n config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound=null; // clear the imported tiddler buffer\n // load storeArea from a hidden IFRAME, then apply import rules and add/replace tiddlers\n loadImportFile(config.macros.importTiddlers.src,filter,quiet,ask,autoImportTiddlers);\n}\n//}}}\n\n// // ''READ TIDDLERS FROM ANOTHER DOCUMENT''\n\n//{{{\nfunction loadImportFile(src,filter,quiet,ask,callback) {\n if (!quiet) clearMessage();\n // LOCAL FILE\n if ((src.substr(0,7)!="http://")&&(src.substr(0,8)!="https://")) {\n if (!quiet) displayMessage("Opening local document: "+ src);\n var txt=loadFile(src);\n if(!txt) { if (!quiet) displayMessage("Could not open local document: "+src); }\n else {\n var s="<html><body>"+txt.substr(txt.indexOf('<div id="storeArea">'));\n if (!quiet) displayMessage(txt.length+" bytes in document. ("+s.length+" bytes used for tiddler storage)");\n config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound = readImportedTiddlers(convertUTF8ToUnicode(s));\n var count=config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound?config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound.length:0;\n if (!quiet) displayMessage("Found "+count+" tiddlers in "+src);\n if (callback) callback(src,filter,quiet,ask);\n }\n return;\n }\n // REMOTE FILE\n var x; // XML object\n try {x = new XMLHttpRequest()}\n catch(e) {\n try {x = new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP")}\n catch (e) {\n try {x = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP")}\n catch (e) { return }\n }\n }\n x.onreadystatechange = function() {\n if (x.readyState == 4) {\n if (x.status == 200) {\n var sa="<html><body>"+x.responseText.substr(x.responseText.indexOf('<div id="storeArea">'));\n if (!quiet) displayMessage(x.responseText.length+" bytes in document. ("+sa.length+" bytes used for tiddler storage)");\n config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound = readImportedTiddlers(sa);\n var count=config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound?config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound.length:0;\n if (!quiet) displayMessage("Found "+count+" tiddlers in "+src);\n if (callback) callback(src,filter,quiet,ask);\n }\n else\n if (!quiet) displayMessage("Could not open remote document:"+ src+" (error="+x.status+")");\n }\n }\n if (document.location.protocol=="file:") { // UniversalBrowserRead only works from a local file context\n try {netscape.security.PrivilegeManager.enablePrivilege('UniversalBrowserRead')}\n catch (e) { if (!quiet) displayMessage(e.description?e.description:e.toString()); }\n }\n if (config.macros.importTiddlers.useProxy) src=config.macros.importTiddlers.proxy+src;\n if (!quiet) displayMessage("Opening remote document: "+ src);\n try {\n var url=src+(src.indexOf('?')<0?'?':'&')+'nocache='+Math.random();\n x.open("GET",url,true);\n x.overrideMimeType('text/html');\n x.send(null);\n }\n catch (e) {\n if (!quiet) {\n displayMessage("Could not open remote document: "+src);\n displayMessage(e.description?e.description:e.toString());\n }\n }\n}\n\nfunction readImportedTiddlers(txt)\n{\n var importedTiddlers = [];\n // create frame\n var f=document.getElementById("importFrame");\n if (f) document.body.removeChild(f);\n f=document.createElement("iframe");\n f.id="importFrame";\n f.style.width="0px"; f.style.height="0px"; f.style.border="0px";\n document.body.appendChild(f);\n // get document\n var d=f.document;\n if (f.contentDocument) d=f.contentDocument; // For NS6\n else if (f.contentWindow) d=f.contentWindow.document; // For IE5.5 and IE6\n // load source into document\n d.open(); d.writeln(txt); d.close();\n // read tiddler DIVs from storeArea DOM element \n var importStore = [];\n var importStoreArea = d.getElementById("storeArea");\n if (!importStoreArea || !(importStore=importStoreArea.childNodes) || (importStore.length==0)) { return null; }\n importStoreArea.normalize();\n for(var t = 0; t < importStore.length; t++) {\n var e = importStore[t];\n var title = null;\n if(e.getAttribute)\n title = e.getAttribute("tiddler");\n if(!title && e.id && (e.id.substr(0,5) == "store"))\n title = e.id.substr(5);\n if(title && title != "") {\n var theImported = new Tiddler();\n theImported.loadFromDiv(e,title);\n importedTiddlers.push(theImported);\n }\n }\n return importedTiddlers;\n}\n//}}}\n\n// // ''NON-INTERACTIVE IMPORT''\n\n// // import all/new/changed tiddlers into store, replacing or adding tiddlers as needed\n//{{{\nfunction autoImportTiddlers(src,filter,quiet,ask)\n{\n var count=0;\n if (config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound) for (var t=0;t<config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound.length;t++) {\n var theImported = config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound[t];\n var theExisting = store.getTiddler(theImported.title);\n\n // only import tiddlers if tagged with "importPublic"\n if (theImported.tags && theImported.tags.find("importPublic")==null)\n { config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound[t].status=""; continue; } // status=="" means don't show in report\n\n // never import the "ImportedTiddlers" history from the other document...\n if (theImported.title=='ImportedTiddlers')\n { config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound[t].status=""; continue; } // status=="" means don't show in report\n\n // check existing tiddler for importReplace, or systemConfig tags\n config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound[t].status="added"; // default - add any tiddlers not filtered out\n if (store.tiddlerExists(theImported.title)) {\n config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound[t].status="replaced";\n if (!theExisting.tags||(theExisting.tags.find("importReplace")==null))\n { config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound[t].status="not imported - tiddler already exists (use importReplace to allow changes)"; continue; }\n if ((theExisting.tags.find("systemConfig")!=null)||(theImported.tags.find("systemConfig")!=null))\n config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound[t].status+=" - WARNING: an active systemConfig plugin has been added or updated";\n }\n\n // apply the all/new/changes/updates filter \n if (filter!="all") {\n if ((filter=="new") && store.tiddlerExists(theImported.title))\n { config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound[t].status="not imported - tiddler already exists"; continue; }\n if ((filter=="changes") && !store.tiddlerExists(theImported.title))\n { config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound[t].status="not imported - new tiddler"; continue; }\n if (store.tiddlerExists(theImported.title) && ((theExisting.modified.getTime()-theImported.modified.getTime())>=0))\n { config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound[t].status="not imported - tiddler is unchanged"; continue; }\n }\n\n // get confirmation if required\n if (ask && !confirm("Import "+(theExisting?"updated":"new")+" tiddler '"+theImported.title+"'\snfrom "+src))\n { config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound[t].status="skipped - cancelled by user"; continue; }\n\n // DO THE IMPORT!!\n store.addTiddler(theImported); count++;\n }\n importReport(quiet); // generate a report (as needed) and display it if not 'quiet'\n if (count) store.setDirty(true); \n // always show final message when tiddlers were actually imported\n if (!quiet||count) displayMessage("Imported "+count+" tiddler"+(count!=1?"s":"")+" from "+src);\n}\n//}}}\n\n// // ''REPORT GENERATOR''\n\n//{{{\nfunction importReport(quiet)\n{\n if (!config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound) return;\n // DEBUG alert('importReport: start');\n\n // if import was not completed, the Ask panel will still be open... close it now.\n var askpanel=document.getElementById('importAskPanel'); if (askpanel) askpanel.style.display='none'; \n // get the alphasorted list of tiddlers\n var tiddlers = config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound;\n tiddlers.sort(function (a,b) {if(a['title'] == b['title']) return(0); else return (a['title'] < b['title']) ? -1 : +1; });\n // gather the statistics\n var count=tiddlers.length;\n var added=0; var replaced=0; var renamed=0; var skipped=0; var merged=0;\n for (var t=0; t<count; t++)\n if (tiddlers[t].status)\n {\n if (tiddlers[t].status=='added') added++;\n if (tiddlers[t].status.substr(0,7)=='skipped') skipped++;\n if (tiddlers[t].status.substr(0,6)=='rename') renamed++;\n if (tiddlers[t].status.substr(0,7)=='replace') replaced++;\n if (tiddlers[t].status.substr(0,6)=='merged') merged++;\n }\n var omitted=count-(added+replaced+renamed+skipped+merged);\n // DEBUG alert('stats done: '+count+' total, '+added+' added, '+skipped+' skipped, '+renamed+' renamed, '+replaced+' replaced, '+merged+' merged');\n // skip the report if nothing was imported\n if (added+replaced+renamed+merged==0) return;\n // skip the report if not desired by user\n if (!config.options.chkImportReport) {\n // reset status flags\n for (var t=0; t<count; t++) config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound[t].status="";\n // refresh display since tiddlers have been imported\n store.notifyAll();\n // quick message area summary report\n var msg=(added+replaced+renamed+merged)+' of '+count+' tiddler'+((count!=1)?'s':"");\n msg+=' imported from '+config.macros.importTiddlers.src.replace(/\s\s/g,'/')\n displayMessage(msg);\n return;\n }\n // create the report tiddler (if not already present)\n var tiddler = store.getTiddler('ImportedTiddlers');\n if (!tiddler) // create new report tiddler if it doesn't exist\n {\n tiddler = new Tiddler();\n tiddler.title = 'ImportedTiddlers';\n tiddler.text = "";\n }\n // format the report header\n var now = new Date();\n var newText = "";\n newText += "On "+now.toLocaleString()+", "+config.options.txtUserName+" imported tiddlers from\sn";\n newText += "[["+config.macros.importTiddlers.src+"|"+config.macros.importTiddlers.src+"]]:\sn";\n newText += "<"+"<"+"<\sn";\n newText += "Out of "+count+" tiddler"+((count!=1)?"s ":" ")+" in {{{"+config.macros.importTiddlers.src.replace(/\s\s/g,'/')+"}}}:\sn";\n if (added+renamed>0)\n newText += (added+renamed)+" new tiddler"+(((added+renamed)!=1)?"s were":" was")+" added to your document.\sn";\n if (merged>0)\n newText += merged+" tiddler"+((merged!=1)?"s were":" was")+" merged with "+((merged!=1)?"":"an ")+"existing tiddler"+((merged!=1)?"s":"")+".\sn"; \n if (replaced>0)\n newText += replaced+" existing tiddler"+((replaced!=1)?"s were":" was")+" replaced.\sn"; \n if (skipped>0)\n newText += skipped+" tiddler"+((skipped!=1)?"s were":" was")+" skipped after asking.\sn"; \n if (omitted>0)\n newText += omitted+" tiddler"+((omitted!=1)?"s":"")+((omitted!=1)?" were":" was")+" not imported.\sn";\n if (config.macros.importTiddlers.addTags && config.macros.importTiddlers.newTags.trim().length)\n newText += "imported tiddlers were tagged with: \s""+config.macros.importTiddlers.newTags+"\s"\sn";\n // output the tiddler detail and reset status flags\n for (var t=0; t<count; t++)\n if (tiddlers[t].status!="")\n {\n newText += "#["+"["+tiddlers[t].title+"]"+"]";\n newText += ((tiddlers[t].status!="added")?("^^\sn"+tiddlers[t].status+"^^"):"")+"\sn";\n config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound[t].status="";\n }\n newText += "<"+"<"+"<\sn";\n // output 'discard report' link\n newText += "<html><input type=\s"button\s" href=\s"javascript:;\s" ";\n newText += "onclick=\s"story.closeTiddler('"+tiddler.title+"'); store.deleteTiddler('"+tiddler.title+"');\s" ";\n newText += "value=\s"discard report\s"></html>";\n // update the ImportedTiddlers content and show the tiddler\n tiddler.text = newText+((tiddler.text!="")?'\sn----\sn':"")+tiddler.text;\n tiddler.modifier = config.options.txtUserName;\n tiddler.modified = new Date();\n store.addTiddler(tiddler);\n if (!quiet) story.displayTiddler(null,"ImportedTiddlers",1,null,null,false);\n story.refreshTiddler("ImportedTiddlers",1,true);\n // refresh the display\n store.notifyAll();\n}\n//}}}\n\n// // ''INTERFACE DEFINITION''\n\n// // Handle link click to create/show/hide control panel\n//{{{\nfunction onClickImportMenu(e)\n{\n if (!e) var e = window.event;\n var parent=resolveTarget(e).parentNode;\n var panel = document.getElementById("importPanel");\n if (panel==undefined || panel.parentNode!=parent)\n panel=createImportPanel(parent);\n var isOpen = panel.style.display=="block";\n if(config.options.chkAnimate)\n anim.startAnimating(new Slider(panel,!isOpen,e.shiftKey || e.altKey,"none"));\n else\n panel.style.display = isOpen ? "none" : "block" ;\n e.cancelBubble = true;\n if (e.stopPropagation) e.stopPropagation();\n return(false);\n}\n//}}}\n\n// // Create control panel: HTML, CSS, register for notification\n//{{{\nfunction createImportPanel(place) {\n var panel=document.getElementById("importPanel");\n if (panel) { panel.parentNode.removeChild(panel); }\n setStylesheet(config.macros.importTiddlers.css,"importTiddlers");\n panel=createTiddlyElement(place,"span","importPanel",null,null)\n panel.innerHTML=config.macros.importTiddlers.html;\n store.addNotification(null,refreshImportList); // refresh listbox after every tiddler change\n refreshImportList();\n var siteURL=store.getTiddlerText("SiteUrl"); if (!siteURL) siteURL="";\n document.getElementById("importSourceURL").value=siteURL;\n config.macros.importTiddlers.src=siteURL;\n var siteProxy=store.getTiddlerText("SiteProxy"); if (!siteProxy) siteProxy="SiteProxy";\n document.getElementById("importSiteProxy").value=siteProxy;\n config.macros.importTiddlers.proxy=siteProxy;\n return panel;\n}\n//}}}\n\n// // CSS\n//{{{\nconfig.macros.importTiddlers.css = '\s\n#importPanel {\s\n display: none; position:absolute; z-index:11; width:35em; right:105%; top:3em;\s\n background-color: #eee; color:#000; font-size: 8pt; line-height:110%;\s\n border:1px solid black; border-bottom-width: 3px; border-right-width: 3px;\s\n padding: 0.5em; margin:0em; -moz-border-radius:1em;\s\n}\s\n#importPanel a, #importPanel td a { color:#009; display:inline; margin:0px; padding:1px; }\s\n#importPanel table { width:100%; border:0px; padding:0px; margin:0px; font-size:8pt; line-height:110%; background:transparent; }\s\n#importPanel tr { border:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px; background:transparent; }\s\n#importPanel td { color:#000; border:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px; background:transparent; }\s\n#importPanel select { width:98%;margin:0px;font-size:8pt;line-height:110%;}\s\n#importPanel input { width:98%;padding:0px;margin:0px;font-size:8pt;line-height:110%}\s\n#importPanel .box { border:1px solid black; padding:3px; margin-bottom:5px; background:#f8f8f8; -moz-border-radius:5px;}\s\n#importPanel .topline { border-top:2px solid black; padding-top:3px; margin-bottom:5px; }\s\n#importPanel .rad { width:auto; }\s\n#importPanel .chk { width:auto; margin:1px; }\s\n#importPanel .btn { width:auto; }\s\n#importPanel .btn1 { width:98%; }\s\n#importPanel .btn2 { width:48%; }\s\n#importPanel .btn3 { width:32%; }\s\n#importPanel .btn4 { width:24%; }\s\n#importPanel .btn5 { width:19%; }\s\n#importPanel .importButton { padding: 0em; margin: 0px; font-size:8pt; }\s\n#importPanel .importListButton { padding:0em 0.25em 0em 0.25em; color: #000000; display:inline }\s\n#importAskPanel { display:none; margin:0.5em 0em 0em 0em; }\s\n';\n//}}}\n\n// // HTML \n//{{{\nconfig.macros.importTiddlers.html = '\s\n<!-- source and report -->\s\n<table><tr><td align=left>\s\n import from\s\n <input type="radio" class="rad" name="importFrom" value="file" CHECKED\s\n onClick="document.getElementById(\s'importLocalPanel\s').style.display=this.checked?\s'block\s':\s'none\s';\s\n document.getElementById(\s'importHTTPPanel\s').style.display=!this.checked?\s'block\s':\s'none\s'"> local file\s\n <input type="radio" class="rad" name="importFrom" value="http"\s\n onClick="document.getElementById(\s'importLocalPanel\s').style.display=!this.checked?\s'block\s':\s'none\s';\s\n document.getElementById(\s'importHTTPPanel\s').style.display=this.checked?\s'block\s':\s'none\s'"> web server\s\n</td><td align=right>\s\n <input type=checkbox class="chk" id="chkImportReport" checked\s\n onClick="config.options[\s'chkImportReport\s']=this.checked;"> create a report\s\n</td></tr></table>\s\n<!-- import from local file -->\s\n<div id="importLocalPanel" style="display:block;margin-bottom:5px;margin-top:5px;padding-top:3px;border-top:1px solid #999">\s\nlocal document path/filename:<br>\s\n<input type="file" id="fileImportSource" size=57 style="width:100%"\s\n onKeyUp="config.macros.importTiddlers.src=this.value"\s\n onChange="config.macros.importTiddlers.src=this.value;">\s\n</div><!--panel-->\s\n\s\n<!-- import from http server -->\s\n<div id="importHTTPPanel" style="display:none;margin-bottom:5px;margin-top:5px;padding-top:3px;border-top:1px solid #999">\s\n<table><tr><td align=left>\s\n remote document URL:<br>\s\n</td><td align=right>\s\n <input type="checkbox" class="chk" id="importUseProxy"\s\n onClick="config.macros.importTiddlers.useProxy=this.checked;\s\n document.getElementById(\s'importSiteProxy\s').style.display=this.checked?\s'block\s':\s'none\s'"> use a proxy script\s\n</td></tr></table>\s\n<input type="text" id="importSiteProxy" style="display:none;margin-bottom:1px" onfocus="this.select()" value="SiteProxy"\s\n onKeyUp="config.macros.importTiddlers.proxy=this.value"\s\n onChange="config.macros.importTiddlers.proxy=this.value;">\s\n<input type="text" id="importSourceURL" onfocus="this.select()" value="SiteUrl"\s\n onKeyUp="config.macros.importTiddlers.src=this.value"\s\n onChange="config.macros.importTiddlers.src=this.value;">\s\n</div><!--panel-->\s\n\s\n<table><tr><td align=left>\s\n select:\s\n <a href="JavaScript:;" id="importSelectAll"\s\n onclick="onClickImportButton(this)" title="select all tiddlers">\s\n &nbsp;all&nbsp;</a>\s\n <a href="JavaScript:;" id="importSelectNew"\s\n onclick="onClickImportButton(this)" title="select tiddlers not already in destination document">\s\n &nbsp;added&nbsp;</a> \s\n <a href="JavaScript:;" id="importSelectChanges"\s\n onclick="onClickImportButton(this)" title="select tiddlers that have been updated in source document">\s\n &nbsp;changes&nbsp;</a> \s\n <a href="JavaScript:;" id="importSelectDifferences"\s\n onclick="onClickImportButton(this)" title="select tiddlers that have been added or are different from existing tiddlers">\s\n &nbsp;differences&nbsp;</a> \s\n <a href="JavaScript:;" id="importToggleFilter"\s\n onclick="onClickImportButton(this)" title="show/hide selection filter">\s\n &nbsp;filter&nbsp;</a> \s\n</td><td align=right>\s\n <a href="JavaScript:;" id="importListSmaller"\s\n onclick="onClickImportButton(this)" title="reduce list size">\s\n &nbsp;&#150;&nbsp;</a>\s\n <a href="JavaScript:;" id="importListLarger"\s\n onclick="onClickImportButton(this)" title="increase list size">\s\n &nbsp;+&nbsp;</a>\s\n <a href="JavaScript:;" id="importListMaximize"\s\n onclick="onClickImportButton(this)" title="maximize/restore list size">\s\n &nbsp;=&nbsp;</a>\s\n</td></tr></table>\s\n<select id="importList" size=8 multiple\s\n onchange="setTimeout(\s'refreshImportList(\s'+this.selectedIndex+\s')\s',1)">\s\n <!-- NOTE: delay refresh so list is updated AFTER onchange event is handled -->\s\n</select>\s\n<input type=checkbox class="chk" id="chkAddTags" checked\s\n onClick="config.macros.importTiddlers.addTags=this.checked;">add new tags &nbsp;\s\n<input type=checkbox class="chk" id="chkImportTags" checked\s\n onClick="config.macros.importTiddlers.importTags=this.checked;">import source tags &nbsp;\s\n<input type=checkbox class="chk" id="chkKeepTags" checked\s\n onClick="config.macros.importTiddlers.keepTags=this.checked;">keep existing tags<br>\s\n<input type=text id="txtNewTags" size=15 onKeyUp="config.macros.importTiddlers.newTags=this.value" autocomplete=off>\s\n<div align=center>\s\n <input type=button id="importOpen" class="importButton" style="width:32%" value="open"\s\n onclick="onClickImportButton(this)">\s\n <input type=button id="importStart" class="importButton" style="width:32%" value="import"\s\n onclick="onClickImportButton(this)">\s\n <input type=button id="importClose" class="importButton" style="width:32%" value="close"\s\n onclick="onClickImportButton(this)">\s\n</div>\s\n<div id="importAskPanel">\s\n tiddler already exists:\s\n <input type=text id="importNewTitle" size=15 autocomplete=off">\s\n <div align=center>\s\n <input type=button id="importSkip" class="importButton" style="width:23%" value="skip"\s\n onclick="onClickImportButton(this)">\s\n <input type=button id="importRename" class="importButton" style="width:23%" value="rename"\s\n onclick="onClickImportButton(this)">\s\n <input type=button id="importMerge" class="importButton" style="width:23%" value="merge"\s\n onclick="onClickImportButton(this)">\s\n <input type=button id="importReplace" class="importButton" style="width:23%" value="replace"\s\n onclick="onClickImportButton(this)">\s\n </div>\s\n</div>\s\n';\n//}}}\n\n// // refresh listbox\n//{{{\nfunction refreshImportList(selectedIndex)\n{\n var theList = document.getElementById("importList");\n if (!theList) return;\n // if nothing to show, reset list content and size\n if (!config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound) \n {\n while (theList.length > 0) { theList.options[0] = null; }\n theList.options[0]=new Option('please open a document...',"",false,false);\n theList.size=config.macros.importTiddlers.listsize;\n return;\n }\n // get the sort order\n if (!selectedIndex) selectedIndex=0;\n if (selectedIndex==0) config.macros.importTiddlers.sort='title'; // heading\n if (selectedIndex==1) config.macros.importTiddlers.sort='title';\n if (selectedIndex==2) config.macros.importTiddlers.sort='modified';\n if (selectedIndex==3) config.macros.importTiddlers.sort='tags';\n if (selectedIndex>3) {\n // display selected tiddler count\n for (var t=0,count=0; t < theList.options.length; t++) count+=(theList.options[t].selected&&theList.options[t].value!="")?1:0;\n clearMessage(); displayMessage(config.macros.importTiddlers.countMsg.format([count]));\n return; // no refresh needed\n }\n\n // get the alphasorted list of tiddlers (optionally, filter out unchanged tiddlers)\n var tiddlers=config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound;\n tiddlers.sort(function (a,b) {if(a['title'] == b['title']) return(0); else return (a['title'] < b['title']) ? -1 : +1; });\n // clear current list contents\n while (theList.length > 0) { theList.options[0] = null; }\n // add heading and control items to list\n var i=0;\n var indent=String.fromCharCode(160)+String.fromCharCode(160);\n theList.options[i++]=new Option(tiddlers.length+' tiddler'+((tiddlers.length!=1)?'s are':' is')+' in the document',"",false,false);\n theList.options[i++]=new Option(((config.macros.importTiddlers.sort=="title" )?">":indent)+' [by title]',"",false,false);\n theList.options[i++]=new Option(((config.macros.importTiddlers.sort=="modified")?">":indent)+' [by date]',"",false,false);\n theList.options[i++]=new Option(((config.macros.importTiddlers.sort=="tags")?">":indent)+' [by tags]',"",false,false);\n // output the tiddler list\n switch(config.macros.importTiddlers.sort)\n {\n case "title":\n for(var t = 0; t < tiddlers.length; t++)\n theList.options[i++] = new Option(tiddlers[t].title,tiddlers[t].title,false,false);\n break;\n case "modified":\n // sort descending for newest date first\n tiddlers.sort(function (a,b) {if(a['modified'] == b['modified']) return(0); else return (a['modified'] > b['modified']) ? -1 : +1; });\n var lastSection = "";\n for(var t = 0; t < tiddlers.length; t++) {\n var tiddler = tiddlers[t];\n var theSection = tiddler.modified.toLocaleDateString();\n if (theSection != lastSection) {\n theList.options[i++] = new Option(theSection,"",false,false);\n lastSection = theSection;\n }\n theList.options[i++] = new Option(indent+indent+tiddler.title,tiddler.title,false,false);\n }\n break;\n case "tags":\n var theTitles = {}; // all tiddler titles, hash indexed by tag value\n var theTags = new Array();\n for(var t=0; t<tiddlers.length; t++) {\n var title=tiddlers[t].title;\n var tags=tiddlers[t].tags;\n for(var s=0; s<tags.length; s++) {\n if (theTitles[tags[s]]==undefined) { theTags.push(tags[s]); theTitles[tags[s]]=new Array(); }\n theTitles[tags[s]].push(title);\n }\n }\n theTags.sort();\n for(var tagindex=0; tagindex<theTags.length; tagindex++) {\n var theTag=theTags[tagindex];\n theList.options[i++]=new Option(theTag,"",false,false);\n for(var t=0; t<theTitles[theTag].length; t++)\n theList.options[i++]=new Option(indent+indent+theTitles[theTag][t],theTitles[theTag][t],false,false);\n }\n break;\n }\n theList.selectedIndex=selectedIndex; // select current control item\n if (theList.size<config.macros.importTiddlers.listsize) theList.size=config.macros.importTiddlers.listsize;\n if (theList.size>theList.options.length) theList.size=theList.options.length;\n}\n//}}}\n\n// // Control interactions\n//{{{\nfunction onClickImportButton(which)\n{\n // DEBUG alert(which.id);\n var theList = document.getElementById('importList');\n if (!theList) return;\n var thePanel = document.getElementById('importPanel');\n var theAskPanel = document.getElementById('importAskPanel');\n var theNewTitle = document.getElementById('importNewTitle');\n var count=0;\n switch (which.id)\n {\n case 'fileImportSource':\n case 'importOpen': // load import source into hidden frame\n importReport(); // if an import was in progress, generate a report\n config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound=null; // clear the imported tiddler buffer\n refreshImportList(); // reset/resize the listbox\n if (config.macros.importTiddlers.src=="") break;\n // Load document into hidden iframe so we can read it's DOM and fill the list\n loadImportFile(config.macros.importTiddlers.src,"all",null,null,function(src,filter,quiet,ask){window.refreshImportList(0);});\n break;\n case 'importSelectAll': // select all tiddler list items (i.e., not headings)\n importReport(); // if an import was in progress, generate a report\n for (var t=0,count=0; t < theList.options.length; t++) {\n if (theList.options[t].value=="") continue;\n theList.options[t].selected=true;\n count++;\n }\n clearMessage(); displayMessage(config.macros.importTiddlers.countMsg.format([count]));\n break;\n case 'importSelectNew': // select tiddlers not in current document\n importReport(); // if an import was in progress, generate a report\n for (var t=0,count=0; t < theList.options.length; t++) {\n theList.options[t].selected=false;\n if (theList.options[t].value=="") continue;\n theList.options[t].selected=!store.tiddlerExists(theList.options[t].value);\n count+=theList.options[t].selected?1:0;\n }\n clearMessage(); displayMessage(config.macros.importTiddlers.countMsg.format([count]));\n break;\n case 'importSelectChanges': // select tiddlers that are updated from existing tiddlers\n importReport(); // if an import was in progress, generate a report\n for (var t=0,count=0; t < theList.options.length; t++) {\n theList.options[t].selected=false;\n if (theList.options[t].value==""||!store.tiddlerExists(theList.options[t].value)) continue;\n for (var i=0; i<config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound.length; i++) // find matching inbound tiddler\n { var inbound=config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound[i]; if (inbound.title==theList.options[t].value) break; }\n theList.options[t].selected=(inbound.modified-store.getTiddler(theList.options[t].value).modified>0); // updated tiddler\n count+=theList.options[t].selected?1:0;\n }\n clearMessage(); displayMessage(config.macros.importTiddlers.countMsg.format([count]));\n break;\n case 'importSelectDifferences': // select tiddlers that are new or different from existing tiddlers\n importReport(); // if an import was in progress, generate a report\n for (var t=0,count=0; t < theList.options.length; t++) {\n theList.options[t].selected=false;\n if (theList.options[t].value=="") continue;\n if (!store.tiddlerExists(theList.options[t].value)) { theList.options[t].selected=true; count++; continue; }\n for (var i=0; i<config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound.length; i++) // find matching inbound tiddler\n { var inbound=config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound[i]; if (inbound.title==theList.options[t].value) break; }\n theList.options[t].selected=(inbound.modified-store.getTiddler(theList.options[t].value).modified!=0); // changed tiddler\n count+=theList.options[t].selected?1:0;\n }\n clearMessage(); displayMessage(config.macros.importTiddlers.countMsg.format([count]));\n break;\n case 'importToggleFilter': // show/hide filter\n case 'importFilter': // apply filter\n alert("coming soon!");\n break;\n case 'importStart': // initiate the import processing\n importReport(); // if an import was in progress, generate a report\n config.macros.importTiddlers.index=0;\n config.macros.importTiddlers.index=importTiddlers(0);\n importStopped();\n break;\n case 'importClose': // unload imported tiddlers or hide the import control panel\n // if imported tiddlers not loaded, close the import control panel\n if (!config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound) { thePanel.style.display='none'; break; }\n importReport(); // if an import was in progress, generate a report\n config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound=null; // clear the imported tiddler buffer\n refreshImportList(); // reset/resize the listbox\n break;\n case 'importSkip': // don't import the tiddler\n var theItem = theList.options[config.macros.importTiddlers.index];\n for (var j=0;j<config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound.length;j++)\n if (config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound[j].title==theItem.value) break;\n var theImported = config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound[j];\n theImported.status='skipped after asking'; // mark item as skipped\n theAskPanel.style.display='none';\n config.macros.importTiddlers.index=importTiddlers(config.macros.importTiddlers.index+1); // resume with NEXT item\n importStopped();\n break;\n case 'importRename': // change name of imported tiddler\n var theItem = theList.options[config.macros.importTiddlers.index];\n for (var j=0;j<config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound.length;j++)\n if (config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound[j].title==theItem.value) break;\n var theImported = config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound[j];\n theImported.status = 'renamed from '+theImported.title; // mark item as renamed\n theImported.set(theNewTitle.value,null,null,null,null); // change the tiddler title\n theItem.value = theNewTitle.value; // change the listbox item text\n theItem.text = theNewTitle.value; // change the listbox item text\n theAskPanel.style.display='none';\n config.macros.importTiddlers.index=importTiddlers(config.macros.importTiddlers.index); // resume with THIS item\n importStopped();\n break;\n case 'importMerge': // join existing and imported tiddler content\n var theItem = theList.options[config.macros.importTiddlers.index];\n for (var j=0;j<config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound.length;j++)\n if (config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound[j].title==theItem.value) break;\n var theImported = config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound[j];\n var theExisting = store.getTiddler(theItem.value);\n var theText = theExisting.text+'\sn----\sn^^merged from: [['+config.macros.importTiddlers.src+'#'+theItem.value+'|'+config.macros.importTiddlers.src+'#'+theItem.value+']]^^\sn^^'+theImported.modified.toLocaleString()+' by '+theImported.modifier+'^^\sn'+theImported.text;\n var theDate = new Date();\n var theTags = theExisting.getTags()+' '+theImported.getTags();\n theImported.set(null,theText,null,theDate,theTags);\n theImported.status = 'merged with '+theExisting.title; // mark item as merged\n theImported.status += ' - '+theExisting.modified.formatString("MM/DD/YYYY hh:mm:ss");\n theImported.status += ' by '+theExisting.modifier;\n theAskPanel.style.display='none';\n config.macros.importTiddlers.index=importTiddlers(config.macros.importTiddlers.index); // resume with this item\n importStopped();\n break;\n case 'importReplace': // substitute imported tiddler for existing tiddler\n var theItem = theList.options[config.macros.importTiddlers.index];\n for (var j=0;j<config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound.length;j++)\n if (config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound[j].title==theItem.value) break;\n var theImported = config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound[j];\n var theExisting = store.getTiddler(theItem.value);\n theImported.status = 'replaces '+theExisting.title; // mark item for replace\n theImported.status += ' - '+theExisting.modified.formatString("MM/DD/YYYY hh:mm:ss");\n theImported.status += ' by '+theExisting.modifier;\n theAskPanel.style.display='none';\n config.macros.importTiddlers.index=importTiddlers(config.macros.importTiddlers.index); // resume with THIS item\n importStopped();\n break;\n case 'importListSmaller': // decrease current listbox size, minimum=5\n if (theList.options.length==1) break;\n theList.size-=(theList.size>5)?1:0;\n config.macros.importTiddlers.listsize=theList.size;\n break;\n case 'importListLarger': // increase current listbox size, maximum=number of items in list\n if (theList.options.length==1) break;\n theList.size+=(theList.size<theList.options.length)?1:0;\n config.macros.importTiddlers.listsize=theList.size;\n break;\n case 'importListMaximize': // toggle listbox size between current and maximum\n if (theList.options.length==1) break;\n theList.size=(theList.size==theList.options.length)?config.macros.importTiddlers.listsize:theList.options.length;\n break;\n }\n}\n//}}}\n\n// // re-entrant processing for handling import with interactive collision prompting\n//{{{\nfunction importTiddlers(startIndex)\n{\n if (!config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound) return -1;\n\n var theList = document.getElementById('importList');\n if (!theList) return;\n var t;\n // if starting new import, reset import status flags\n if (startIndex==0)\n for (var t=0;t<config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound.length;t++)\n config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound[t].status="";\n for (var i=startIndex; i<theList.options.length; i++)\n {\n // if list item is not selected or is a heading (i.e., has no value), skip it\n if ((!theList.options[i].selected) || ((t=theList.options[i].value)==""))\n continue;\n for (var j=0;j<config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound.length;j++)\n if (config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound[j].title==t) break;\n var theImported = config.macros.importTiddlers.inbound[j];\n var theExisting = store.getTiddler(theImported.title);\n // avoid redundant import for tiddlers that are listed multiple times (when 'by tags')\n if (theImported.status=="added")\n continue;\n // don't import the "ImportedTiddlers" history from the other document...\n if (theImported.title=='ImportedTiddlers')\n continue;\n // if tiddler exists and import not marked for replace or merge, stop importing\n if (theExisting && (theImported.status.substr(0,7)!="replace") && (theImported.status.substr(0,5)!="merge"))\n return i;\n // assemble tags (remote + existing + added)\n var newTags = "";\n if (config.macros.importTiddlers.importTags)\n newTags+=theImported.getTags() // import remote tags\n if (config.macros.importTiddlers.keepTags && theExisting)\n newTags+=" "+theExisting.getTags(); // keep existing tags\n if (config.macros.importTiddlers.addTags && config.macros.importTiddlers.newTags.trim().length)\n newTags+=" "+config.macros.importTiddlers.newTags; // add new tags\n theImported.set(null,null,null,null,newTags.trim());\n // set the status to 'added' (if not already set by the 'ask the user' UI)\n theImported.status=(theImported.status=="")?'added':theImported.status;\n // do the import!\n store.addTiddler(theImported);\n store.setDirty(true);\n }\n return(-1); // signals that we really finished the entire list\n}\n//}}}\n\n//{{{\nfunction importStopped()\n{\n var theList = document.getElementById('importList');\n var theNewTitle = document.getElementById('importNewTitle');\n if (!theList) return;\n if (config.macros.importTiddlers.index==-1)\n importReport(); // import finished... generate the report\n else\n {\n // DEBUG alert('import stopped at: '+config.macros.importTiddlers.index);\n // import collision... show the ask panel and set the title edit field\n document.getElementById('importAskPanel').style.display='block';\n theNewTitle.value=theList.options[config.macros.importTiddlers.index].value;\n }\n}\n//}}}\n

On Monday, 25 September 2006 01:19:21 p.m., YourName imported tiddlers from\n[[\s\s192.168.0.4\sdata\snzpca\sMegabyte as TiddlyWiki\sContributed\sArthur Harris\smegabytemarch1991from arthur.html|\s\s192.168.0.4\sdata\snzpca\sMegabyte as TiddlyWiki\sContributed\sArthur Harris\smegabytemarch1991from arthur.html]]:\n<<<\nOut of 794 tiddlers in {{{//192.168.0.4/data/nzpca/Megabyte as TiddlyWiki/Contributed/Arthur Harris/megabytemarch1991from arthur.html}}}:\n8 new tiddlers were added to your document.\n786 tiddlers were not imported.\nimported tiddlers were tagged with: "auto [[from arthur]] [[to be cleaned up]]"\n#[[Considering Communications]]\n#[[Introducing You to Your Computer]]\n#[[March 1991]]\n#[[March 1991 Help files]]\n#[[March 1991 Notice Board]]\n#[[Sampling The Creative Music System]]\n#[[September 1991]]\n#[[modems]]\n<<<\n<html><input type="button" href="javascript:;" onclick="story.closeTiddler('ImportedTiddlers'); store.deleteTiddler('ImportedTiddlers');" value="discard report"></html>\n----\nOn Saturday, 23 September 2006 05:25:28 p.m., YourName imported tiddlers from\n[[http://www.ggg777.com/|http://www.ggg777.com/]]:\n<<<\nOut of 206 tiddlers in {{{http://www.ggg777.com/}}}:\n4 new tiddlers were added to your document.\n202 tiddlers were not imported.\nimported tiddlers were tagged with: "experimental"\n#[[AttachFilePlugin]]\n#[[AttachFilePluginFormatters]]\n#[[AttachFileServerScripts]]\n#[[NewDocumentPlugin]]\n<<<\n<html><input type="button" href="javascript:;" onclick="story.closeTiddler('ImportedTiddlers'); store.deleteTiddler('ImportedTiddlers');" value="discard report"></html>\n----\nOn Saturday, 23 September 2006 02:24:12 p.m., YourName imported tiddlers from\n[[http://www.ggg777.com/|http://www.ggg777.com/]]:\n<<<\nOut of 206 tiddlers in {{{http://www.ggg777.com/}}}:\n2 new tiddlers were added to your document.\n204 tiddlers were not imported.\nimported tiddlers were tagged with: "experimental"\n#[[TableOfContentsPlugin]]\n#[[TagCloudPlugin]]\n<<<\n<html><input type="button" href="javascript:;" onclick="story.closeTiddler('ImportedTiddlers'); store.deleteTiddler('ImportedTiddlers');" value="discard report"></html>\n----\nOn Saturday, 23 September 2006 12:26:16 p.m., YourName imported tiddlers from\n[[http://www.tiddlytools.com/|http://www.tiddlytools.com/]]:\n<<<\nOut of 223 tiddlers in {{{http://www.tiddlytools.com/}}}:\n2 new tiddlers were added to your document.\n221 tiddlers were not imported.\nimported tiddlers were tagged with: "experimental"\n#[[CollapseTiddlersPlugin]]\n#[[CollapsedTemplate]]\n<<<\n<html><input type="button" href="javascript:;" onclick="story.closeTiddler('ImportedTiddlers'); store.deleteTiddler('ImportedTiddlers');" value="discard report"></html>\n----\nOn Saturday, 23 September 2006 12:08:00 p.m., YourName imported tiddlers from\n[[http://www.tiddlytools.com/|http://www.tiddlytools.com/]]:\n<<<\nOut of 223 tiddlers in {{{http://www.tiddlytools.com/}}}:\n2 new tiddlers were added to your document.\n221 tiddlers were not imported.\nimported tiddlers were tagged with: "experimental"\n#[[RearrangeTiddlersPlugin]]\n#[[SinglePageModePlugin]]\n<<<\n<html><input type="button" href="javascript:;" onclick="story.closeTiddler('ImportedTiddlers'); store.deleteTiddler('ImportedTiddlers');" value="discard report"></html>\n----\nOn Tuesday, 19 September 2006 09:35:44 a.m., YourName imported tiddlers from\n[[\s\sFileserver\sdata\snzpca\sMegabyte as TiddlyWiki\sContributed\sArthur Harris\smegabyteoct91fromarthur.html|\s\sFileserver\sdata\snzpca\sMegabyte as TiddlyWiki\sContributed\sArthur Harris\smegabyteoct91fromarthur.html]]:\n<<<\nOut of 787 tiddlers in {{{//Fileserver/data/nzpca/Megabyte as TiddlyWiki/Contributed/Arthur Harris/megabyteoct91fromarthur.html}}}:\n12 new tiddlers were added to your document.\n775 tiddlers were not imported.\nimported tiddlers were tagged with: "[[from arthur]] [[to be cleaned up]]"\n#[[ Clarion Help]]\n#[[1991**]]\n#[[Bulletin Boards. What is it?]]\n#[[Checked your batteries lately?]]\n#[[Humours Answer to Puzzle No 2]]\n#[[Is Borland out of date?]]\n#[[Letters to the Editor. Letter 1]]\n#[[Letters to the Editor. Letter 2]]\n#[[Puzzle No 3]]\n#[[Understanding PC.]]\n#[[Unknown]]\n#[[What's going on with your Hard Disk??]]\n<<<\n<html><input type="button" href="javascript:;" onclick="story.closeTiddler('ImportedTiddlers'); store.deleteTiddler('ImportedTiddlers');" value="discard report"></html>\n----\nOn Tuesday, 05 September 2006 09:21:30 p.m., YourName imported tiddlers from\n[[\s\sFileserver\sdata\snzpca\sMegabyte as TiddlyWiki\sContributed\sArthur Harris\smegabyte Oct_Dec 2005.html|\s\sFileserver\sdata\snzpca\sMegabyte as TiddlyWiki\sContributed\sArthur Harris\smegabyte Oct_Dec 2005.html]]:\n<<<\nOut of 769 tiddlers in {{{//Fileserver/data/nzpca/Megabyte as TiddlyWiki/Contributed/Arthur Harris/megabyte Oct_Dec 2005.html}}}:\n22 new tiddlers were added to your document.\n747 tiddlers were not imported.\nimported tiddlers were tagged with: "auto [[to be cleaned up]] [[from arthur]]"\n#[[Bad Caps]]\n#[[December 2005]]\n#[[Del.icio.us]]\n#[[Hardware Sig. December 2005]]\n#[[Hardware Sig. November 2005]]\n#[[Hardware Sig. October 2005]]\n#[[INSTANT MESSENGERS]]\n#[[Jim's Jottings]]\n#[[Miscellaneous]]\n#[[November 2005]]\n#[[October 2005]]\n#[[PagePlus SE - Free Desktop Publishing Software]]\n#[[Podcasting]]\n#[[President's Report December 2005]]\n#[[President's Report November 2005]]\n#[[President's Report October 2005]]\n#[[Protopage]]\n#[[Quantum bubbles are the key]]\n#[[Security off the Web. No 7]]\n#[[Security off the Web. No 8]]\n#[[Security off the Web. No 9]]\n#[[Things move fast in the world of the Internet.]]\n<<<\n<html><input type="button" href="javascript:;" onclick="story.closeTiddler('ImportedTiddlers'); store.deleteTiddler('ImportedTiddlers');" value="discard report"></html>\n----\nOn Monday, 04 September 2006 05:30:17 p.m., YourName imported tiddlers from\n[[\s\sFileserver\sdata\snzpca\sMegabyte as TiddlyWiki\sContributed\sArthur Harris\smegabyte 2005may-sep.html|\s\sFileserver\sdata\snzpca\sMegabyte as TiddlyWiki\sContributed\sArthur Harris\smegabyte 2005may-sep.html]]:\n<<<\nOut of 747 tiddlers in {{{//Fileserver/data/nzpca/Megabyte as TiddlyWiki/Contributed/Arthur Harris/megabyte 2005may-sep.html}}}:\n34 new tiddlers were added to your document.\n713 tiddlers were not imported.\nimported tiddlers were tagged with: "auto [[from arthur]] [[to be cleaned up]]"\n#[[August 2005]]\n#[[Cheap Windows Tricks]]\n#[[CompuServe Today]]\n#[[Electronic Pricing]]\n#[[From the Web]]\n#[[GENEALOGISTS’ CORNER]]\n#[[Google desktop search leaves beta ]]\n#[[Hardware Sig. August 2005]]\n#[[Hardware Sig. June 2005]]\n#[[Hardware Sig. July 2005]]\n#[[Hardware Sig. May 2005]]\n#[[Hardware Sig. September 2005]]\n#[[July 2005]]\n#[[June 2005]]\n#[[Lean Word Documents]]\n#[[LightScribe]]\n#[[May 2005]]\n#[[Microsoft and Adobe to square off?]]\n#[[President's Report February 2005]]\n#[[President's Report June 2005]]\n#[[President's Report September 2005]]\n#[[President's Report August 2001]]\n#[[President's Report August 2005]]\n#[[President's Report May 2005]]\n#[[President’s Report August 2004]]\n#[[President’s Report July 2005]]\n#[[Security off the Web. No 4]]\n#[[Security off the Web. No 5]]\n#[[Security off the Web. No 6]]\n#[[September 2005]]\n#[[Smarter and Sharper: New Digital Cameras for Fall]]\n#[[Splitting URLs]]\n#[[Why computers are like the weather.]]\n#[[Wireless Technology.]]\n<<<\n<html><input type="button" href="javascript:;" onclick="story.closeTiddler('ImportedTiddlers'); store.deleteTiddler('ImportedTiddlers');" value="discard report"></html>\n----\nOn Thursday, 31 August 2006 09:45:35 p.m., YourName imported tiddlers from\n[[\s\sFileserver\sdata\snzpca\sMegabyte as TiddlyWiki\sContributed\sArthur Harris\smegfebmarapr05.html|\s\sFileserver\sdata\snzpca\sMegabyte as TiddlyWiki\sContributed\sArthur Harris\smegfebmarapr05.html]]:\n<<<\nOut of 717 tiddlers in {{{//Fileserver/data/nzpca/Megabyte as TiddlyWiki/Contributed/Arthur Harris/megfebmarapr05.html}}}:\n19 new tiddlers were added to your document.\n698 tiddlers were not imported.\nimported tiddlers were tagged with: "auto [[to be cleaned up]] [[from arthur]]"\n#[[ Hardware Sig. March 2005]]\n#[[April 2005]]\n#[[February 2005]]\n#[[Funnies from the Web .... And Elsewhere]]\n#[[Funnies from the web -- and Elsewhere. No 2]]\n#[[Hardware Sig. April 2005]]\n#[[Hardware Sig. February 2005]]\n#[[MSN Launches New Search Engine]]\n#[[March 2005]]\n#[[Mini Mac - PCs ]]\n#[[Open Office.org Ver 1.1]]\n#[[President's Report April 2005]]\n#[[President's Report February 2005]]\n#[[President’s Report March 2005]]\n#[[Re-installing an OS]]\n#[[Security off the Web. No 1]]\n#[[Security off the Web. No 2]]\n#[[Security off the Web. No 3]]\n#[[Triscape FXFoto : The Ideal Photo E-mailer?]]\n<<<\n<html><input type="button" href="javascript:;" onclick="story.closeTiddler('ImportedTiddlers'); store.deleteTiddler('ImportedTiddlers');" value="discard report"></html>\n----\nOn Monday, 28 August 2006 09:01:56 p.m., YourName imported tiddlers from\n[[\s\sFileserver\sdata\snzpca\sMegabyte as TiddlyWiki\sContributed\sJohn Marchington\sJM'sMod1999.html|\s\sFileserver\sdata\snzpca\sMegabyte as TiddlyWiki\sContributed\sJohn Marchington\sJM'sMod1999.html]]:\n<<<\nOut of 353 tiddlers in {{{//Fileserver/data/nzpca/Megabyte as TiddlyWiki/Contributed/John Marchington/JM'sMod1999.html}}}:\n125 new tiddlers were added to your document.\n228 tiddlers were not imported.\nimported tiddlers were tagged with: "auto [[to be cleaned up]] fromjohnm"\n#[[1999]]\n#[[1999 Index]]\n#[[A Very Slow PC]]\n#[[Accurate PC Clocks]]\n#[[Alchemy Mindworks Inc - Year 2000]]\n#[[All About Plug-and-Play]]\n#[[Another Bug]]\n#[[Answers]]\n#[[April 1999]]\n#[[Arthur Harris]]\n#[[August 1999]]\n#[[Back to Basics Part 3 -- Printer Control]]\n#[[Building the Perfect PC]]\n#[[Canterbury, England, AD 999]]\n#[[CompuServe April 1999]]\n#[[CompuServe August 1999]]\n#[[CompuServe December 1999]]\n#[[CompuServe February 1999]]\n#[[CompuServe November 1999]]\n#[[CompuServe October 1999]]\n#[[CompuServe September 1999]]\n#[[Computer Addiction]]\n#[[Cooling Tools]]\n#[[Create a System Disk]]\n#[[Creating a Windows Screen Background]]\n#[[Cruising the Web with QNX]]\n#[[Customising Netscape]]\n#[[December 1999]]\n#[[Early Times]]\n#[[Editorial Comment April 1999]]\n#[[Editorial Comment February 1999]]\n#[[Editorial Comment June 1999]]\n#[[Editorial Comment May 1999]]\n#[[Elements of a Good Video Card]]\n#[[Fear of the Y2K problem]]\n#[[February 1999]]\n#[[For all those hard workers]]\n#[[Formatting a Hard Drive]]\n#[[Free 20 Meg Web Sites]]\n#[[Gambling Part 1]]\n#[[Global Positioning Systems]]\n#[[Handy stuff]]\n#[[Happy99.exe Worm Virus doesn't make for Happy Computing]]\n#[[Hard Drive Maintenance]]\n#[[Hardware]]\n#[[Hardware Central]]\n#[[Hardware SIG July 2006]]\n#[[Hardware SIG October 1999]]\n#[[Hardware SIG September 1999]]\n#[[Hutt Library Catalogue]]\n#[[Hutt SIG October 1999]]\n#[[Ian Godfrey]]\n#[[If Only]]\n#[[Inside Intel (Book Review)]]\n#[[Installing BIOS]]\n#[[Jim Oliver]]\n#[[John Blakeley]]\n#[[John Little]]\n#[[John Marchington]]\n#[[John Thomson]]\n#[[July 1999]]\n#[[June 1999]]\n#[[Kapiti SIG April 1999]]\n#[[Kapiti SIG February 1999]]\n#[[Kapiti SIG June 1999]]\n#[[Kapiti SIG March 1999]]\n#[[Lighter moments]]\n#[[Linux Advocates of Wellington]]\n#[[Linux on a single floppy]]\n#[[Long File Names Supported by Windows 95/98]]\n#[[Lower Hutt SIG March 1999]]\n#[[MIcrosoft or Acorn]]\n#[[MP3 Files and Music Players]]\n#[[Male or Female]]\n#[[Managing Disks - FAT and FAT32 systems]]\n#[[March 1999]]\n#[[May 1999]]\n#[[MegaBaud February 1999]]\n#[[Modems]]\n#[[NZPCA Office]]\n#[[NZPCA Website]]\n#[[NZPCA Website February 1999]]\n#[[NZPCA Website May 1999]]\n#[[November 1999]]\n#[[October 1999]]\n#[[PC Control July 1999]]\n#[[PC Control SIG June 1999]]\n#[[PC Control SIG March 1999]]\n#[[PC Control SIG May 1999]]\n#[[President's Report April 1999]]\n#[[President's Report August 1999]]\n#[[President's Report December 1999]]\n#[[President's Report February 1999]]\n#[[President's Report July 1999]]\n#[[President's Report June 1999]]\n#[[President's Report March 1999]]\n#[[President's Report May 1999]]\n#[[President's Report November 1999]]\n#[[President's Report October 1999]]\n#[[President's Report September 1999]]\n#[[Presidents report. February 2004]]\n#[[Richard Elam]]\n#[[Robin Hinde]]\n#[[Roger Currier]]\n#[[Selecting Computer Components February 1999]]\n#[[Selecting Computer Components March 1999]]\n#[[September 1999]]\n#[[Taming a Hard Drive]]\n#[[TechKnow on Inkjets]]\n#[[Test of knowledge]]\n#[[The next step for man, Virtual Reality Part 1]]\n#[[The next step for man, Virtual Reality Part 2]]\n#[[The next step for man, Virtual Reality Part 3]]\n#[[Those BIG Disks]]\n#[[To the memory of Andrew]]\n#[[Translated from Latin scroll dated 2BC]]\n#[[Understanding URL's]]\n#[[VGA & SVGA]]\n#[[Virus Alert - Melissa]]\n#[[Virus Warning]]\n#[[Web Watch]]\n#[[Year 2000]]\n#[[humour]]\n#[[internet]]\n#[[slide1998]]\n<<<\n<html><input type="button" href="javascript:;" onclick="story.closeTiddler('ImportedTiddlers'); store.deleteTiddler('ImportedTiddlers');" value="discard report"></html>\n----\nOn Monday, 28 August 2006 08:46:29 p.m., YourName imported tiddlers from\n[[\s\sFileserver\sdata\snzpca\sMegabyte as TiddlyWiki\sContributed\sArthur Harris\smegabyte Nov - Dec.html|\s\sFileserver\sdata\snzpca\sMegabyte as TiddlyWiki\sContributed\sArthur Harris\smegabyte Nov - Dec.html]]:\n<<<\nOut of 572 tiddlers in {{{//Fileserver/data/nzpca/Megabyte as TiddlyWiki/Contributed/Arthur Harris/megabyte Nov - Dec.html}}}:\n10 new tiddlers were added to your document.\n562 tiddlers were not imported.\nimported tiddlers were tagged with: "auto [[to be cleaned up]] fromarthur"\n#[[December 2004]]\n#[[Funnies from the web -- and Elsewhere]]\n#[[Hardware Sig. December 2004]]\n#[[Hardware Sig. November 2004]]\n#[[MS Media Centre missing in action]]\n#[[November 2004]]\n#[[President's Report December 2004]]\n#[[President’s report November 2004]]\n#[[Saving Electricity]]\n#[[XP Media Centre Edition]]\n<<<\n<html><input type="button" href="javascript:;" onclick="story.closeTiddler('ImportedTiddlers'); store.deleteTiddler('ImportedTiddlers');" value="discard report"></html>\n----\nOn Sunday, 27 August 2006 06:34:49 p.m., YourName imported tiddlers from\n[[\s\sFileserver\sdata\snzpca\sMegabyte as TiddlyWiki\smegabytemayoct04arthur.html|\s\sFileserver\sdata\snzpca\sMegabyte as TiddlyWiki\smegabytemayoct04arthur.html]]:\n<<<\nOut of 548 tiddlers in {{{//Fileserver/data/nzpca/Megabyte as TiddlyWiki/megabytemayoct04arthur.html}}}:\n60 new tiddlers were added to your document.\n488 tiddlers were not imported.\nimported tiddlers were tagged with: "auto [[to be cleaned up]] [[from arthur]]"\n#[["Windows Shares Worm" Found!]]\n#[[A Starter's Guide to Video Editing April 2000]]\n#[[A Starter's Guide to Video Editing February 2000]]\n#[[A Starter's Guide to Video Editing March 2000]]\n#[[April 2004]]\n#[[Auckland Library to RFID books]]\n#[[August 2004]]\n#[[Barcodes - How They Work]]\n#[[Billy Connolly's 13 things I hate about people:]]\n#[[Close-up Camera]]\n#[[Club Computer Equipment. ]]\n#[[DIY Networking]]\n#[[Editorial Comment/Web Page April 2000]]\n#[[Excel Homework]]\n#[[FOG LIBRARY DISKS]]\n#[[Funnies]]\n#[[Funnies from the Web]]\n#[[Funny Page]]\n#[[Gambling]]\n#[[Hardware SIG. June 2004]]\n#[[Hardware Sig. August 2004]]\n#[[Hardware Sig. July 2004]]\n#[[Hardware Sig. May 2004]]\n#[[Hardware Sig. October 2004]]\n#[[Hardware Sig. September 2004]]\n#[[Hardware Tips]]\n#[[HardwareCentral]]\n#[[Helpful info about you computer]]\n#[[How to put your Records Collection to CD]]\n#[[How your Modem works]]\n#[[How your modem works. Part 2.]]\n#[[Humour from the Internet]]\n#[[July 2004]]\n#[[June 2004]]\n#[[Lighter Moments]]\n#[[May 2004]]\n#[[MegaByte]]\n#[[Miscellany]]\n#[[Notices. October 2004]]\n#[[October 2004]]\n#[[Photo Editing Software]]\n#[[President's Report April 2004]]\n#[[President's Report October 2004]]\n#[[President's Report. June 2004]]\n#[[President's Report. May 2004]]\n#[[President's report September 2004]]\n#[[Presidents Report December 2001]]\n#[[President’s Report August 2004]]\n#[[President’s Report July 2004]]\n#[[Q&A on the Windows XP SP2]]\n#[[SP2]]\n#[[September 2004]]\n#[[Stop Spyware with Ad-aware]]\n#[[Strategies for choosing Good Passwords]]\n#[[The Queue at Pack and Save]]\n#[[The new face of Cybercrime]]\n#[[VGA Digital Camera]]\n#[[Windows Compatibility Mode]]\n#[[Windows Search]]\n#[[Windows vs. Linux]]\n<<<\n<html><input type="button" href="javascript:;" onclick="story.closeTiddler('ImportedTiddlers'); store.deleteTiddler('ImportedTiddlers');" value="discard report"></html>\n----\nOn Monday, 21 August 2006 08:51:36 p.m., YourName imported tiddlers from\n[[\s\sfileserver\sfiles\sFF Downloads\smegabyteahcorrected.html|\s\sfileserver\sfiles\sFF Downloads\smegabyteahcorrected.html]]:\n<<<\nOut of 436 tiddlers in {{{//fileserver/files/FF Downloads/megabyteahcorrected.html}}}:\n7 new tiddlers were added to your document.\n429 tiddlers were not imported.\nimported tiddlers were tagged with: "corrected [[by arthur harris]] [[to be cleaned up]]"\n#[[ DVD Players & Computer DVD-ROM drives]]\n#[[A small USB network for your home.]]\n#[[December 2001]]\n#[[Identifying PC junk.]]\n#[[NZPCA Website Development]]\n#[[President's Report. December 2001]]\n#[[Spies like us]]\n<<<\n<html><input type="button" href="javascript:;" onclick="story.closeTiddler('ImportedTiddlers'); store.deleteTiddler('ImportedTiddlers');" value="discard report"></html>\n----\nOn Monday, 21 August 2006 11:25:55 a.m., nzpca imported tiddlers from\n[[C:\sDocuments and Settings\sR J Hinde\sMy Documents\sJM'sMod2.html|C:\sDocuments and Settings\sR J Hinde\sMy Documents\sJM'sMod2.html]]:\n<<<\nOut of 367 tiddlers in {{{C:/Documents and Settings/R J Hinde/My Documents/JM'sMod2.html}}}:\n72 new tiddlers were added to your document.\n295 tiddlers were not imported.\nimported tiddlers were tagged with: "auto [[to be cleaned up]]"\n#[[ Lighter Moments]]\n#[["Windows Shares Worm" Found!]]\n#[[A Starter's Guide to Video Editing April 2000]]\n#[[A Starter's Guide to Video Editing February 2000]]\n#[[A Starter's Guide to Video Editing March 2000]]\n#[[AGM]]\n#[[CompuServe]]\n#[[CompuServe August 2000]]\n#[[CompuServe December 2000]]\n#[[CompuServe July 2000]]\n#[[CompuServe October 2000]]\n#[[CompuServe September 2000]]\n#[[David Risley]]\n#[[E-Mail Options]]\n#[[Editor's Comments]]\n#[[Editorial Comment]]\n#[[File Servers]]\n#[[File Transfer - Old Drive to New Drive]]\n#[[Floppy Drives]]\n#[[From the Editor]]\n#[[Gambling]]\n#[[Gibson Research]]\n#[[Hard Drive Audio Recording]]\n#[[HardwareCentral]]\n#[[I can see clearly now]]\n#[[Inside Your CD Drive]]\n#[[Installing an Internal Modem]]\n#[[Internet]]\n#[[KaK Worm still lurking the Web]]\n#[[Kapiti SIG]]\n#[[Kapiti SIG August 2000]]\n#[[Kapiti SIG July 2000]]\n#[[Keep your old E-mail Address]]\n#[[Late news from Silicon Valley]]\n#[[Let's Watch TV]]\n#[[Lighter Moments June 2000]]\n#[[Lighter Moments November 2000]]\n#[[May 2000]]\n#[[NZPCA Mailing Lists]]\n#[[OS/2]]\n#[[OS/2 to survive in the marketplace]]\n#[[P E N C A M]]\n#[[Photography]]\n#[[President's Report August 2000]]\n#[[President's Report December 2000]]\n#[[President's Report November 2000]]\n#[[President's Report October 2000]]\n#[[President's Report September 2000]]\n#[[Protecting your Computer from Hackers]]\n#[[Security Warning]]\n#[[Setting up a Network]]\n#[[Software Complexity]]\n#[[Some deep thoughts from comedian Steven Wright]]\n#[[Steve Gibson]]\n#[[Surf the Internet for Free!]]\n#[[The Case of the Disappearing Hard Drive]]\n#[[The KAK worm]]\n#[[The cost of Viruses]]\n#[[TraceRoute]]\n#[[USB Explained]]\n#[[Using those Older Hard Drives]]\n#[[VBug!! VBug!! VBug!!]]\n#[[Video Editing]]\n#[[Virus Alerts]]\n#[[Voice Recognition ]]\n#[[Wanted]]\n#[[Windows]]\n#[[Windows 98's "Hidden System Tools"]]\n#[[Windows Boot Options]]\n#[[Windows File Utilities]]\n#[[Windows Millenium Edition and Frontpage 2000]]\n#[[Windows Tips and Tricks August 2000]]\n<<<\n<html><input type="button" href="javascript:;" onclick="story.closeTiddler('ImportedTiddlers'); store.deleteTiddler('ImportedTiddlers');" value="discard report"></html>\n----\nOn Wednesday, 16 August 2006 10:38:41 a.m., nzpca imported tiddlers from\n[[\s\sFileserver\sdata\snzpca\sMegabyte as TiddlyWiki\sTiddlyWiki 2001fromarthur.html|\s\sFileserver\sdata\snzpca\sMegabyte as TiddlyWiki\sTiddlyWiki 2001fromarthur.html]]:\n<<<\nOut of 304 tiddlers in {{{//Fileserver/data/nzpca/Megabyte as TiddlyWiki/TiddlyWiki 2001fromarthur.html}}}:\n43 new tiddlers were added to your document.\n261 tiddlers were not imported.\nimported tiddlers were tagged with: "auto [[from arthur]] [[to be cleaned up]]"\n#[[ The Web vs. The Library: An Information Showdown]]\n#[[A Light-hearted Look at PC Progress Across the Tasman]]\n#[[AAAAH...From the mouths of Babes]]\n#[[Book Lovers Ahoy]]\n#[[CPIP and RFC1149 implemented on Linux!]]\n#[[Commodity Hardware? I don't think so!]]\n#[[Compuserve]]\n#[[DVD-R on Test]]\n#[[Excel Worksheet Problems]]\n#[[Flash is more than candy]]\n#[[Fun with old PCs and DOS]]\n#[[Get active with Browser Add-ins]]\n#[[Get active with Browser Add-ins. Part II]]\n#[[Getting familar with Adobe Acrobat & Acrobat reader]]\n#[[Helpful info about you computer]]\n#[[How to create Thumbnail Images]]\n#[[How to.. use Windows Media Player 7]]\n#[[Humour]]\n#[[Keep Track of your MPS files]]\n#[[Letters to the Editor]]\n#[[Life in the 1500's]]\n#[[Linux Mandrake 8.0]]\n#[[Looking into and Fixing the Registry]]\n#[[MIME Encoding]]\n#[[More on Anaglyphs]]\n#[[Partition magic 5.0]]\n#[[President's Report. July 2001]]\n#[[President's Report. May 2002]]\n#[[Presidents Report. August 2001]]\n#[[Presidents Report. December 2001]]\n#[[Presidents Report. June 2001]]\n#[[Presidents Report. May 2001]]\n#[[Presidents Report. November 2001]]\n#[[Presidents Report. October 2001]]\n#[[Presidents Report. September 2001]]\n#[[Psst: Wanna buy a Pentium 4?]]\n#[[Speed Limits for Athletes]]\n#[[The Windows Registry]]\n#[[Understanding the Internet. Part 2]]\n#[[Virus]]\n#[[Waste Electro-stuff]]\n#[[Window ME and Internet Explorer Conflict]]\n#[[Windows XP Installation & Cracking WPA]]\n<<<\n<html><input type="button" href="javascript:;" onclick="story.closeTiddler('ImportedTiddlers'); store.deleteTiddler('ImportedTiddlers');" value="discard report"></html>\n----\nOn Monday, 14 August 2006 10:56:15 p.m., nzpca imported tiddlers from\n[[E:\sJM's Mod\sJM'sMod2.html|E:\sJM's Mod\sJM'sMod2.html]]:\n<<<\nOut of 303 tiddlers in {{{E:/JM's Mod/JM'sMod2.html}}}:\n81 new tiddlers were added to your document.\n222 tiddlers were not imported.\n#[["Windows Shares Worm" Found!]]\n#[[A Starter's Guide to Video Editing April 2000]]\n#[[A Starter's Guide to Video Editing March 2000]]\n#[[AGM]]\n#[[AGM July 2000]]\n#[[After Y2K]]\n#[[AllAdvantage.com]]\n#[[Announcing my NEW freeware: "OptOut"]]\n#[[April 2000]]\n#[[Are you being hacked (off?)]]\n#[[Arthur Harris]]\n#[[Bruce Robb]]\n#[[Check the cache]]\n#[[CompuServe]]\n#[[CompuServe April 2000]]\n#[[CompuServe February 2000]]\n#[[CompuServe June 2000]]\n#[[CompuServe May 2000]]\n#[[Compuserve]]\n#[[Crispen's *SIX* Antivirus Rules (from 13 December 1999) ]]\n#[[Editorial Comment July 2000]]\n#[[Editorial Comment/Web Page April 2000]]\n#[[Final Judgement (excerpts)]]\n#[[Freesco]]\n#[[From New Scientist, 29 January 2000 (Issue No. 2223)]]\n#[[Gambling]]\n#[[Gambling April 2000]]\n#[[Gambling March 2000]]\n#[[Gambling May 2000]]\n#[[Gibson Research]]\n#[[Hard drive failure]]\n#[[Hardware SIG March 2000]]\n#[[HardwareCentral Newsletter]]\n#[[Holiday in Thailand]]\n#[[How to Access Your Normal ISP E-Mail Account when Travelling Overseas]]\n#[[How to save your Email Address Book & Email Files]]\n#[[Humour]]\n#[[Installing a Battery]]\n#[[Internet]]\n#[[John Blakeley]]\n#[[John Little]]\n#[[John Marchington]]\n#[[John Thomson]]\n#[[July 2000]]\n#[[June 2000]]\n#[[Kapiti SIG April 2000]]\n#[[Kapiti SIG May 2000]]\n#[[Lighter Moments]]\n#[[Linnette Horne]]\n#[[Linux]]\n#[[March 2000]]\n#[[May 2000]]\n#[[New Version of Navigator]]\n#[[Oh Bugger]]\n#[[On-Line Internet Share Trading]]\n#[[PKZIP/PKUNZIP software]]\n#[[President's Report April 2000]]\n#[[President's Report February 2004]]\n#[[President's Report July 2000]]\n#[[President's Report June 2000]]\n#[[President's Report March 2000]]\n#[[President's Report May 2000]]\n#[[Richard Elam]]\n#[[Robin Hinde]]\n#[[Roger Currier]]\n#[[Scanning and Graphics Software]]\n#[[Steve Gibson]]\n#[[Thinking about Email]]\n#[[Thinking about upgrading to Windows 2000?]]\n#[[Tony Fitchett]]\n#[[Universal Serial Bus (USB) and IEEE 1394 bus]]\n#[[Video Editing]]\n#[[Weakness of the Internet]]\n#[[Windows]]\n#[[daniel renaud]]\n#[[humour]]\n#[[Ian Godfrey]]\n#[[linux]]\n#[[photography]]\n#[[Richard Elam]]\n#[[robin hinde]]\n<<<\n<html><input type="button" href="javascript:;" onclick="story.closeTiddler('ImportedTiddlers'); store.deleteTiddler('ImportedTiddlers');" value="discard report"></html>\n----\nOn Sunday, 13 August 2006 06:48:19 p.m., nzpca imported tiddlers from\n[[\s\sFileserver\sdata\snzpca\sMegabyte as TiddlyWiki\sallmegabytetabbed.arthur2001.html|\s\sFileserver\sdata\snzpca\sMegabyte as TiddlyWiki\sallmegabytetabbed.arthur2001.html]]:\n<<<\nOut of 252 tiddlers in {{{//Fileserver/data/nzpca/Megabyte as TiddlyWiki/allmegabytetabbed.arthur2001.html}}}:\n38 new tiddlers were added to your document.\n214 tiddlers were not imported.\nimported tiddlers were tagged with: "[[to be cleaned up]]"\n#[[2001]]\n#[[A Liquid Computer]]\n#[[A Scientist's Napster?]]\n#[[AGP]]\n#[[AMD Wins the PR Battle]]\n#[[Anaglyphs]]\n#[[April 2001]]\n#[[DVD. Hard or Soft]]\n#[[February 2001]]\n#[[Freeing Disk Space]]\n#[[Freeing up Memory]]\n#[[From the past. June 1993]]\n#[[Hidden adgenda]]\n#[[March 2001]]\n#[[May 2001]]\n#[[My progress in Computing]]\n#[[NZPCA Auction Rules]]\n#[[Password Security:]]\n#[[President's Report. April 2001]]\n#[[President's Report. February 2001]]\n#[[President's Report. March 2001]]\n#[[President's Report. May 2001]]\n#[[Quick Tips.]]\n#[[SmartComputing]]\n#[[Storing your Music Files]]\n#[[Taking Control]]\n#[[The E-book Revolution?]]\n#[[The User's Lament]]\n#[[Understanding the Internet]]\n#[[Virus]]\n#[[Virus Warnings]]\n#[[Why Hotmail]]\n#[[Your wish is my machine code]]\n#[[humour]]\n#[[internet]]\n#[[music]]\n#[[photography]]\n#[[windows]]\n<<<\n<html><input type="button" href="javascript:;" onclick="story.closeTiddler('ImportedTiddlers'); store.deleteTiddler('ImportedTiddlers');" value="discard report"></html>\n----\nOn Friday, 11 August 2006 10:31:09 p.m., nzpca imported tiddlers from\n[[C:\sDocuments and Settings\sR J Hinde\sMy Documents\sJM'sMod1.html|C:\sDocuments and Settings\sR J Hinde\sMy Documents\sJM'sMod1.html]]:\n<<<\nOut of 233 tiddlers in {{{C:/Documents and Settings/R J Hinde/My Documents/JM'sMod1.html}}}:\n17 new tiddlers were added to your document.\n216 tiddlers were not imported.\nimported tiddlers were tagged with: "[[to be cleaned up]]"\n#[[2000]]\n#[[2000 Index]]\n#[[2006 Index]]\n#[[A Starter's Guide to Video Editing February 2000]]\n#[[Compuserve]]\n#[[February 2000]]\n#[[Gambling]]\n#[[Gambling February 2000]]\n#[[Hardware SIG February 2000]]\n#[[Linux ate my Laptop!]]\n#[[President's Report February 2000]]\n#[[Virus Alert:W95.Babylonia]]\n#[[linux]]\n#[[robin hinde]]\n#[[Roger Currier]]\n#[[slide1999]]\n#[[slide2000]]\n<<<\n<html><input type="button" href="javascript:;" onclick="story.closeTiddler('ImportedTiddlers'); store.deleteTiddler('ImportedTiddlers');" value="discard report"></html>\n----\nOn Sunday, 06 August 2006 08:51:12 p.m., YourName imported tiddlers from\n[[http://tiddlyspot.com/demosite_mgtd/|http://tiddlyspot.com/demosite_mgtd/]]:\n<<<\nOut of 60 tiddlers in {{{http://tiddlyspot.com/demosite_mgtd/}}}:\n1 new tiddler was added to your document.\n59 tiddlers were not imported.\n#[[NewerTiddlerPlugin]]\n<<<\n<html><input type="button" href="javascript:;" onclick="story.closeTiddler('ImportedTiddlers'); store.deleteTiddler('ImportedTiddlers');" value="discard report"></html>\n----\nOn Sunday, 06 August 2006 07:39:58 p.m., nzpca imported tiddlers from\n[[http://tiddlyspot.com/megabyte/|http://tiddlyspot.com/megabyte/]]:\n<<<\nOut of 8 tiddlers in {{{http://tiddlyspot.com/megabyte/}}}:\n7 new tiddlers were added to your document.\n1 tiddler was not imported.\n#[[AboutTiddlySpot]]\n#[[AllowOnlineEdit]]\n#[[BigThemePack]]\n#[[KubrickTheme]]\n#[[SelectThemePlugin]]\n#[[UploadLog]]\n#[[UploadPlugin]]\n<<<\n<html><input type="button" href="javascript:;" onclick="story.closeTiddler('ImportedTiddlers'); store.deleteTiddler('ImportedTiddlers');" value="discard report"></html>\n----\nOn Saturday, 05 August 2006 11:08:03 p.m., nzpca imported tiddlers from\n[[http://www.tiddlyforge.net/pytw/|http://www.tiddlyforge.net/pytw/]]:\n<<<\nOut of 246 tiddlers in {{{http://www.tiddlyforge.net/pytw/}}}:\n1 new tiddler was added to your document.\n245 tiddlers were not imported.\n#[[AutoTaggerPlugin]]\n<<<\n<html><input type="button" href="javascript:;" onclick="story.closeTiddler('ImportedTiddlers'); store.deleteTiddler('ImportedTiddlers');" value="discard report"></html>\n----\nOn Saturday, 05 August 2006 01:00:09 p.m., nzpca imported tiddlers from\n[[http://tiddlyspot.com/mptw/|http://tiddlyspot.com/mptw/]]:\n<<<\nOut of 154 tiddlers in {{{http://tiddlyspot.com/mptw/}}}:\n1 new tiddler was added to your document.\n153 tiddlers were not imported.\n#[[QuickOpenTagPlugin]]\n<<<\n<html><input type="button" href="javascript:;" onclick="story.closeTiddler('ImportedTiddlers'); store.deleteTiddler('ImportedTiddlers');" value="discard report"></html>\n----\nOn Saturday, 05 August 2006 10:32:51 a.m., nzpca imported tiddlers from\n[[C:\sDocuments and Settings\sR J Hinde\sMy Documents\sexporttw|C:\sDocuments and Settings\sR J Hinde\sMy Documents\sexporttw]]:\n<<<\nOut of 1 tiddler in {{{C:/Documents and Settings/R J Hinde/My Documents/exporttw}}}:\n1 new tiddler was added to your document.\n#[[Browse Megabyte]]\n<<<\n<html><input type="button" href="javascript:;" onclick="story.closeTiddler('ImportedTiddlers'); store.deleteTiddler('ImportedTiddlers');" value="discard report"></html>\n----\nOn Wednesday, 02 August 2006 10:20:37 a.m., nzpca imported tiddlers from\n[[\s\sFileserver\sfiles\sFF Downloads\smegabyte2006_AH.html|\s\sFileserver\sfiles\sFF Downloads\smegabyte2006_AH.html]]:\n<<<\nOut of 55 tiddlers in {{{//Fileserver/files/FF Downloads/megabyte2006_AH.html}}}:\n13 new tiddlers were added to your document.\n42 tiddlers were not imported.\n#[[FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF USING A MAINFRAME COMPUTER]]\n#[[Hardware Sig July 2006]]\n#[[Jumble Manor. Zmodem]]\n#[[June 1998]]\n#[[Kermit]]\n#[[Our new 35mm Film Scanner]]\n#[[President's Report. March 2004]]\n#[[President's report. May 1998]]\n#[[President's report. June 1998]]\n#[[Presidents report. February 2004]]\n#[[TERMINAL EMULATION]]\n#[[This blasted thing dosen't work.]]\n#[[Windows XP's Big Security fix]]\n<<<\n<html><input type="button" href="javascript:;" onclick="story.closeTiddler('ImportedTiddlers'); store.deleteTiddler('ImportedTiddlers');" value="discard report"></html>

Here's a tip that I picked up the other day. If you don't use your ink jet printer very much you\nrun the risk of the print heads becoming clogged. To help prevent this, get a 7-day 24-\nhour mains timer that has a day over-ride function from Dick Smith or similar stores. A\nsuitable timer is an HPM 7 day 24 hour Digital Timer - stock item M7372 at about $30.00 from Dick Smith.\n\nSet the timer to switch on for about 10 minutes then off at a time when the printer is not normally in use - say 3:00 am - on one day each week. Plug the printer into the timer and leave the printer switched on. When the printer comes to life, it will go through a head-cleaning routine which pumps ink through the nozzles thus keeping them clean.\n\nWhen you want to use the printer in anger, use the day over-ride or on-off buttons on the timer to control the printer and do your work. //- Tim Adams//

Inside Intel by Tim Jackson, (Penguin 1997, 424pp). Available from Hutt City public libraries. \n\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nAlthough the title may be seem a bit daunting, Inside Intel is very interesting reading. Readers who have some memory of ancient PC history (30 years ago!) may enjoy remembering the proliferation of integrated electronics manufacturers from that time, and the interaction of some of the identities involved. I know that I can always relate events in books of this type to what I was doing at the time - I can remember my introduction to the ~TRS80, for example, and find it very interesting to read about other events from the same era. I recall seeing an early microprocessor in action, (reading from a cassette tape, controlled by switches and display to an array of ~LEDs) and wondering what possible use such a device could have. \n\nNow we know. \n\nThe journey from the primitive Intel 4004 chip to todays Pentium processors is paralleled by equally significant changes in almost every aspect of the industry; from a product that was initially aimed solely at engineers, that Intel deliberately (and successfully) marketed as a consumer item; from an industry that initially grew from informal cooperation to one where every possible legal method (and some illegal methods) have been used to gain every possible advantage over the competition. \n\nIt is tempting to view the development of the microprocessor as a logical and methodical process, with each new generation of processors being a well planned improvement on its predecessors - rather than the rather chaotic and reactionary process depicted by Inside Intel. The decision to continue manufacturing early microprocessors was far from a foregone conclusion, and the development of the EPROM was pure chance coupled with extraordinary vision. Even today's Pentium processors are derived from an architecture that was only ever designed as a temporary stopgap measure. \n\nInside Intel is well worth the time to read, although I found I enjoyed the detail of the earlier parts of the book, far more than the mixture of hurried generalisations and personal tragedies that mar the latter part of the book. It is almost as if Tim Jackson realised he was running out of room as the book progressed, or perhaps began to find it harder to get information. \n\nIntel has not been the subject of many books, and after reading "Inside Intel", I can see why. Intel did not get to its current position as a result of its technical superiority (sound familiar?) and its treatment of perceived competitors - and even its own employees - as revealed in "Intel Inside" is quite disturbing. I know that after reading this book I was tempted to undertake to never buy any Intel product again. \n\nRecent reports that National Semiconductor (manufacturer of Cyrix microprocessors) is to abandon the PC processor business are timely and sobering. See www.pcworld.co.nz/magazine/pcworld/News/news7May99.htm for details.\n

~CD-ROM drives are an integrated part of most modern systems. There may be differences in graphics capabilities, sound, and even raw processing power, but just about every system has a ~CD-ROM installed.This is because both the drives and media are cheap to manufacture and are packed with capacity, compared to the storage methods that preceded them.\n\n''Audio isn't memory -- or is it?''\nThe CD didn't start out as a computer storage medium. It was originally produced in 1980 as a high-fidelity audio medium, although the basic ideas behind the CD had been developing since the 1960s.\n\nThe principles of audio and data ~CD-ROMs are still essentially the same. Unlike floppy disks or hard drives, ~CD-ROMs use optical technology to store data on a compact disc. A laser diode within the ~CD-ROM drive shines a light out to the head, which is basically just a reflecting mirror array. The head moves across the compact disc, shining the reflected light onto its surface. \n\nThe disc has a tightly wound spiral imprinted onto it, referred to as a track. Covering the entire track is an aluminium coating that reflects light. The light emitted from the head shines back at a particular intensity, based on whether or not it hits an indent (usually referred to as a 'pit') on the CD surface. The presence or absence of a pit determines how much light bounces back, and can be expressed as zeroes and ones. The data can be audio, video, numeric, or any combination of these.\n\n''CD media''\nThe physical construction of a CD isn't difficult to grasp. A standard disc is 12cm in diameter, with a musical capacity of about 74 minutes. In data terms, these discs can hold about 650M of data. The disc is made from a polycarbonate substrate with a layer of aluminium applied for reflectivity. A thin plastic coating is then applied to protect the disc. As ~CDs were designed mainly for home audio, it was important to make a disc that could survive the cat walking on it. Compact discs might seem flimsy, but they were designed to replace ~LPs, and there's little argument about which is the winner in the durability stakes. It was originally claimed that ~CDs would have a life span of centuries. That was certainly hyperbole, but CD is a very reliable removable data format. \n\n''~CD-ROM drives and speed''\nOne thing you often see referred to with ~CD-ROM drives is the speed of the drive. ~CD-ROM drive speed originally referred to the common speed that ~CD-Audio drives needed to read data and translate it into music. For a ~CD-ROM drive to deliver data at a constant rate it must read that data at a constant rate. As the CD spins in the drive, a read head moves over its surface, reading the data.\n\nThis poses a simple problem. Let's say that the disc spins once every second and the length of the track closest to the centre of the disc is 5cm. The drive head is reading data at 5cm per second. However, at the outer edges of the disc the tracks are much longer and the disc is still spinning at one revolution per second (rps). The head must now read and deliver data at a much higher rate, as it will pass over a greater circumference area in that single spin. The solution to this problem is also simple. In order to maintain a constant data delivery rate, the drive alters the rate at which the CD is spun, depending on where the read head is currently situated on the disc. This is known as Constant Linear Velocity (CLV).\n\nCLV is fine for audio, where a constant stream at a low data rate is required, but the jump to using ~CDs for other data applications brought with it the desire for higher data rates. The earliest ~CD-ROM drives increased the CLV spin rate, and used multipliers of that spin rate to determine their eventual data throughput. If you bought a 2x, 4x or 8x ~CD-ROM drive, you would get two, four or eight times more data through than the specification for an audio drive. The data rate of a 1x ~CD-ROM drive is roughly 150Kps, so an 8x CLV drive optimally puts out 1.2Mps.\n\nFor audio ~CDs running at 150Kps, CLV was fine, but data transfer's need for higher speeds posed serious problems. There's only so fast you can spin a disc before it starts sounding like a jet engine. If you have to continually accelerate and decelerate the drive, the braking mechan- ism needs to be particularly tough. This increases the cost of the drive and shortens its life span.\n\nLate model ~CD-ROM drives use a technology that's been standard in hard drives for a while: Constant Angular Velocity (CAV). CAV appeared as CLV drives were reaching 12x spin speeds and solved the acceleration/deceleration problem. CAV drives always spin at their highest possible speed.\n\nManufacturers can be a little dishonest when rating CAV drives. A 24x CAV drive delivers 3.6Mps on the outer tracks, but nowhere near that capacity on the inner tracks. Some drive manufacturers are less deceptive. They list dual speed ratings for the inner and outer tracks. If you see a drive listed as 12/32x, the lower rating reflects the speed you get on the inner tracks. CAV drives seem slow to get moving on an initial data read, but this is because of the high speeds they run at. They often run at three to four times the speed of their CLV counterparts, and it takes longer to reach those speeds. \n\n''Master versus pyromaniac.''\nThe recording industry leapt at compact discs, and not only for their capacity for high-quality sound. Until fairly recently they were basically impossible to copy. Almost all brand name ~CDs begin with a CD master, from which an imprint is made. This imprint is then used to press as many discs as required. Mastering is expensive and is usually only done for discs with production runs in the thousands. The machinery required to master and press ~CDs was (and still is) very costly and this meant that home piracy wasn't possible. ~CD-R changed all that. The growing availability of drives and cheap media to use with them has meant that CD recording is now open to almost anybody. ~CD-Rs work in a fundamentally different way to mastered ~CD-ROMs. With a mastered disc, a substrate is pressed with the pits already in place for whatever software is contained on the disc. ~CD-Rs (and ~CD-RWs, which are rewritable) use blank discs, and support other options such as the ability to write to the disc one portion at a time.\n\n~CD-Rs differ from mastered discs in two important ways. First, they have the formatting spiral pre-stamped. This means that the data capacity of a ~CD-R is set in stone, even if its contents aren't. The second difference, and the one that makes ~CD-R recordable, is a layer of photoreactive dye above the reflective layer of the CD. This dye is affected by light. A laser beam within the ~CD-R drive burns away specific sections of the dye to create the pits and levels on the disc. This is why ~CD-R recording is often referred to as burning. Once the dye is burnt away, the CD is the same as a mastered disc, with contents that can't be changed.\n\n~CD-Rs allow for multisession recording, which means that the ~CDs can be written in stages. This sounds great in theory, but there is a catch. The first section of the CD that needs to be written is the table of contents (TOC), along with a section to lead into and out of the data. The TOC tells the reader what's on the disc and where, rather like a directory readout of a folder on your hard drive. The first time you burn a multisession disc, a TOC is created for those contents only. This TOC can't be altered. When you add content, a new TOC must be created, and this uses up about 13M of space each time.\n\nThe need for the lead in and out of areas is a result of the original audio specification of ~CDs. A sufficient gap was allotted for error checking, as well as a period of silence before and after full albums. TOC requirements make planning ~CD-Rs, rather than burning them one bit at a time, worthwhile. A newer standard, ISO 13346, allows for multisessioning without this overhead, but older drives don't always read ISO 13346 discs properly, so it's still worth planning ahead.\n\nAlex Kidman, "Australian Personal Computer" magazine\nhttp://www.apcmag.com\n

''INTRODUCTION''\nIf you have an old computer that can't play with the newer parts available, one option is to upgrade your BIOS. The BIOS in some computers just can't handle things like ~CD-ROMs or even 31/2" floppy drives. BIOS won't make your computer run any faster; it just helps it play with the big boys in a slow manner. Finding the BIOS chips can be somewhat frustrating. To make sure you get the right kind, you can go to the place where you bought your motherboard and see if they have any left. You can also look in computer magazines for ads that advertise ~ROM-BIOS. Just make sure you know what kind you're looking for. (A description as to how to find your BIOS is on the Motherboards page.) You can also find out what type you have on start-up; watch the screen, and it may say something similar to "AMIBIOS (c)1992."\n \n''INSTALLING THE BIOS''\nTurn off the computer, unplug it, and take the case off. Find your old BIOS. If you have several BIOS chips, note their order--sometimes they are marked as such. The new BIOS will need to be put in in the same order. Remove the old chips. If there is anything in the way, get it out. Now, get a chip-puller. This is a tweezer-like tool. This makes it easier to yank your BIOS chips out. If you don't have a chip-puller, you can gently use a flat-head screwdriver to lift up each side of the chip little by little. Insert the new ones in the correct order. Also, make sure the notched end of the chip matches the notched end of the socket. Make sure that the little pins on the chip are straight. While installing them, put the first row of pins in first. Then slowly lower the other side into the socket, making sure they line up with the holes. After you're finished, give the chips a final push down, just to make sure. Put everything you took out back in!\n\n. Clean up your mess. Put the case on. Turn your computer on. It should boot up and give you a new BIOS date on the screen. \n\n''UPGRADING FLASH BIOS FOR PNP''\nOlder computers may have BIOS too old to handle plug and play, fancy video cards, or large hard drives. In this case, it is wise to upgrade your BIOS. Many machines require that you install a whole new motherboard in order to swap the BIOS for something newer. Many Pentium machines, though, have Flash ROM, or Flash EPROM. If such chips are used in the BIOS, the machine is said to have Flash BIOS. In such machines, you simply run an update utility to upgrade your BIOS; the software performs all of the modifications for you. While this can be very easy to do, you must do it according to the instructions that come with the update. If the BIOS is installed wrong, your computer might not start at all. \nBefore upgrading, enter your CMOS and record your settings. On most machines you can get to CMOS by pressing F1 after start up. Once there, record your setting either by hand or by printing them. Make sure you get all of the settings. Using the PRINT SCREEN button might be the best way. This step will make sure you can rebuild the settings if your CMOS gets erased during the upgrade. If the computer you're upgrading has a modem, you can log on to the company's BBS and usually download the new BIOS program for free. When you download it, download them to a bootable, high-density diskette. Make sure you format and copy system files to the diskette before use. This option is given in the Windows 95 format screen. If the system has no modem, you will need to contact the company and ask them to send you the BIOS on diskette. Once you have the upgrade file on diskette, insert the disk in A:. Unzip the file if it is zipped. Then read any *.TXT files or any other file that has installation instructions. \nThese are your prime instructions to follow; you may want to print them.\n\nThis article in its entirety can be found at: www.hardwarecentral.com\n\nDavid Risley, Hardware Central\nhttp://www.hardwarecentral.com\n

If your computer forgets important information about itself that is stored in the CMOS, you need a new battery. This is usually a simple repair, but some manufacturers actually soldered the batteries in, making this a much tougher job. If your battery is soldered in, you may want to take the whole thing to the shop. If you are experienced with soldering, then you can tackle it yourself. Before you do anything, you should record what your computer is supposed to know. If your battery is already dead, there's nothing you can do. If your configuration is still there, record it. Go into CMOS and write down the information. After you remove the old battery, your computer will forget everything.\n \n''How to Install a Battery...'' \n\nTurn off the computer, unplug it, and remove the case.\n\nRemove the old battery. Record which end faced what direction. Each end has a + or -- on it. With skill and dexterity, the battery should snap out. Just study it, and you'll figure out how to get it out. Don't force it, though. It may be soldered in.\n\nGet a replacement battery. Take the old one to the store and match them up.\n\nPut the new battery in. Make sure the + and -- face the same way as before. It should snap in. If you are experienced at soldering, and your computer demands this, you may want to do that yourself. \n\nPut the case back on and plug your computer in. When you turn it on, expect some type of error message like incorrect CMOS. Don't cry; this will happen. You just need to go into CMOS and plug in all the information that you recorded before you started.\n\nIf you didn't do that, you'll need to break out the manuals and find the information the hard way.\n\n//David Risley, of Hardware Central//

//By David Risley, Hardware Central//\n\n''Installation''\nInstalling an internal modem can be very easy or your biggest nightmare. Either way, being an internal card, it is harder to install than an external modem.\n\nTurn the power off and take the case off of your computer. Choose a slot for your modem. Most modems require an 8-bit slot, but some may require a 16-bit slot. 16-bit slots are longer than 8-bit slots; your motherboard probably has both. Try to pick a slot with room on either side to give your modem plenty of room.\n\nRemove the corresponding metal plate from the back of the computer. Save the screw for use with your modem.\n\nRemove the modem from its packaging. Handle it by its edges to avoid static electricity. Don't touch its connector pins or the chips on the board. Push the modem into the slot. You might need to roll the card into the slot to get a snug fit.\nThe back plate of the modem should line up with the open hole in the back of the case. If so, tighten the modem into place using your saved screw.\n\nNow attach the phone lines to the modem. The line from the wall jack goes to Line on the modem. Then, if you want to, you can connect your phone to the other jack on the modem, labeled Phone.\n\nReconnect all cables and turn the computer back on. It's probably best to leave the case off until you have tested the modem, just in case you need to remove it again.\n\nThe computer should boot normally. If you are using Windows 95 and your modem is plug-n-play compatible, your computer should detect the new modem upon startup. In this case, just follow the instructions to install the software.\nUnder Windows 3.1, you can first test your modem in Terminal, under Accessories. Type a command, like AT, in the box. If it responds with OK, the modem is probably working. If you can't type or you get an error, your modem is not set correctly. You need to choose a different COM Port, or IRQ. If it is working, install the software.\n\n''High Speed Considerations''\nIf you're planning on using a 28.8, 33.6, or faster modem, make sure you have a 16550 UART, or Universal Asynchronous Receiver/ Transmitter. This manages the communication between your modem software and the modem. Your modem may be able to operate at 115,200 bps, but with a slower UART, like 8250 or 16450, you will have data loss at these transfer speeds.\n\nYou can check your UART through MSD; many other diagnostic programs might tell you as well. Most modern computers have it. If you can't find out, just keep this in mind if you have problems later.\n\nIf you do have an older UART, slow the software down. Choose 9600bps or 19200bps. Even if you have a fast modem, your software the then limit the modem to this speed.\n\nThe good news, though, is that internal modems don't have to worry about this because they have an updated UART on the card. This overrides the one on your computer. External modems are limited my the computer's UART, though! The only way around it is to by a new I/O card.\n\n''Configuration''\nMaking an internal modem work can be a real nightmare because of IRQ and COM Port conflicts. Your modem cannot share an IRQ or a COM port with another device.\n\nTo change your modem settings, you'll need your manual. Most modems come configured for a certain setting. If this doesn't work and causes conflicts, you'll need to change it. Most modems have jumpers, and you simply move the bridge(s) to cover whatever pins are required for your setting. Again, consult the manual for the jumper configurations. Other modems have DIP switches. Newer modems are plug-n-play and will configure themselves, but a good plug-n-play modem will have the jumpers just in case.\n\nDuring installation, you will be asked to select what type of modem you have from a list. Try to pick the exact modem. If it isn't there, try picking one as close as possible, such as the internal version of the same modem for an external modem. If you can't find any of these, usually picking a standard Hayes compatibl! e setting will work. This will usually get you online so that you can look for better configurations at the manufacturer's Web site or BBS.\n\nMost modems do not require a driver. If yours does, it is called a "host-controlled" modem. This means that the error-checking is done by the software, not the hardware. These modems can be problematic and are best avoided. If the modem box says "requires Windows", there's a high chance of it being a host controlled modem.\n\nThe original version of this article can be found at "http://www.hardwarecentral.com/hardwarecentral/tutorials/55/1/\n\n \n\n

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//Supplied by John Little////\n\n You may be addicted to the Internet, if ...//\n \n*You decide to stay in college for an additional year or two, just for the free Internet access.\n* You wake up at 2 a.m. to go to the bathroom and stop and check your e-mail on the way back to bed.\n* You turn off your modem and get this awful empty feeling, like you just pulled the plug on a loved one.\n* You start using smileys in your snail mail.\n* You name your children Mosaic, Java and Eudora.\n* You spend half of a plane trip with your laptop on your lap ... and your child in the overhead compartment.\n* You refuse to go to a vacation spot with no electricity and no phone lines.\n* And even your night dreams are in HTML.\n* You think Webster's Dictionary is a directory of Web sites.\n* All of your friends have an @ in their names.\n* You chat six times a day with a stranger from South Africa but haven't spoken to your next-door neighbour yet this year.\n* Your ISP names you Customer of the Month for the third consecutive time.\n* Batteries in the TV remote now last for months.\n* New mail alarm on your palmtop annoys other churchgoers.\n* Your mouse-clicking forearm rivals Popeye's.\n* You unsuccessfully try to download a pizza from www.dominos.com.\n* You try to order a movie from Blockbuster video by downloading it at 44,000 BPS.\n* You check your mail. It says "no new messages." So you check it again.\n* You tell the taxi driver you live at http://1100.sunset.ave/mansion/brick.html\n* Your desk collapses under the weight of your computer peripherals.\n* You double click your TV remote\n* You have more than 5 e-mail addresses.\n* You set up a Web page for each of your kids.\n* Your dog has its own home page too.\n* You use more than 20 passwords.\n* If you can write a list like this.

//Thanks to Microsoft//\n\n ''Advanced Browser Topics: HTML, Active Desktop, and FTP''\n\n This section takes you to the next level of detail on the basics of Internet savvy. The more you understand, the easier it is to effectively use the power of the Internet.\n* What is HTML?\n* Why do some Web pages take so long to download?\n* What is Active Desktop?\n* What is FTP, and what does it have to do with downloading?\n\n'' What is HTML?''\n\n HTML (or hypertext markup language) is a programming language used to build Web sites. It contains standard codes (or tags) that determine how a Web page looks when your browser displays it. HTML tags also make possible the hyper-links that connect information on the World Wide Web.\n\n'' Sites to Visit''\n* A Beginner's Guide to HTML\n* World Wide Web Consortium (~W3C) Web site\n* MSDN(r) Online-resources for Web developers\n* Microsoft(r) ~FrontPage(r) Home Page-all about the Web site creation and management tool\n* Creating a Web Site chapter in the Internet Guide-for more information about HTML\n\n'' Why do some Web pages take so long to download?''\n\n Many factors affect how fast a Web page travels from its Web site to your computer. Web pages may load slowly for these reasons:\n* Your modem transmits data slowly.\n* Traffic on the Web site you are loading is heavy.\n* The page's file is large. It contains graphic, sound, or video files, for example, in addition to text.\n* The server and connecting lines used by your online service, your Internet service provider, or the Web site transmit data slowly.\n\n To decrease download time, try these pointers:\n* Get the latest version of your browser software.\n* Buy a faster modem that transmits at a rate of at least 28,800 baud or 28 kbps (56 kpbs is typically now considered to be the standard), or look into purchasing a broadband (DSL or cable modem) solution.\n* Browse during off-peak hours.\n* Turn off sound and images in your browser software. Text-only pages load faster.\n* If a page is loading so slowly that you think it may be stuck, click the Stop button on your browser's toolbar, and try to load the page again in a few minutes.\n\n'' Sites to Visit''\n* See if your House can be wired for Broadband Access\n* Download Microsoft Internet Explorer 6\n\n'' What is Active Desktop?''\n\n The Active Desktop(r) interface is a feature of Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 that allows your desktop to function like a browser. Here are some of the things you can do using Active Desktop:\n* Get easy, instant access to your most-used applications, including tools such as corporate directories and search engines.\n* Display multiple HTML pages and pictures from the World Wide Web or your local network or hard disk.\n* Create windows on your desktop for the objects you're interested in so the information you need is delivered directly to you.\n* Place ~ActiveX(r) controls and Java components alongside existing desktop icons, giving you customizable space for your favorite Web content and notifications of new e-mail. Sites to Visit\n* Active Desktop Overview to learn more about Active Desktop\n\n'' What is FTP, and what does it have to do with downloading?''\n\n FTP is short for "file transfer protocol." It's a system of rules for communicating over the Internet, and it allows you to transfer files to and download files from other computers. A browser software such as Microsoft Internet Explorer contains the tools you need to handle FTP. So with Internet Explorer, you can download any file available on the Internet.\n\n'' Sites to Visit''\n* MSDN Library on FTP - for more on FTP tools\n* PBS Guide to FTP - a guide to FTP applications and information\n

\n''Working with Directories''\nDOS gives the PC user the ability to organise related files in separate areas called directories. It is often necessary to create, move between and remove directories and subdirectories.\n\nThe directory currently being worked in is called the default directory, it along with all other directories/subdirectories take their reference from the root directory. So when it is time to move/change directories/subdirectories, a DOS command is issued which ordinarily takes the root direct as its reference point.\n\nCHDIR is the DOS abbreviation to change directory. DOS allows it to be shortened further to CD. The format used would be [directory pathname]. This changes the workspace to the given pathname which then becomes \nthe new default or working directory.\n\nCD\s makes the root directory the working directory, and CD\sWP makes the WP directory the working directory. CD\sWP\sDOC makes the \sWP\sDOC directory the working directory.\n\nIt does not matter if these commands are typed in capital letters or not, however it does matter that you get the directory/subdirectory names correct, because if you try to go to a directory that does not exist then the message "Invalid Directory" is returned.\n\nAs can be seen, moving around directories/subdirectories tests one's ability to type. The longer the directory/subdirectory name the more that has to be typed. It is strongly suggested that the names of directories/subdirectories be kept descriptively short, i.e. Do not call you Word Processing directory ~WordProc, rather call it Word or better still WP.\n\nDOS is often accused of being unfriendly. Certainly when moving between directories/ subdirectories and all the screen shows is C>, can be confusing. It is suggested that you add "Prompt $p$g" to your "Autoexec.bat" file. This way, the screen informs the user as to what subdirectory is the current default.\n\nSimilar processes apply to making a directory/subdirectory. The DOS command for making a directory or subdirectory is MKDIR. DOS allows this command to be abbreviated to MD\s[directory pathname}. MD\sWP makes a directory \sWP and MD\sWP\sDOC makes a directory \sWP\sDOC\n\nIf no message is displayed, it means the directory/subdirectory has been created. If the error message Unable to create directory is displayed it usually means the directory pathname is already in use, either as a directory name or a file name. (A directory cannot be given the same name as a file.)\n\nTo remove a directory follows the same pattern. The DOS command for removing a directory is RMDIR and it is abbreviated to RD. The command to remove a directory is therefore RD\s[directory pathname]. RD\s WP removes the directory \sWP. and RD\sWP\sDOC removes the directory \sWP\sDOC.\n\nIf no message is displayed the directory/ subdirectory has been removed. If an error occurs then the message "Invalid Path, not directory or directory not empty" is displayed. This means the pathname specified does not exist, or that the directory/subdirectory still has files in it or a subdirectory attached to it and they have to be deleted first.\n\n

Welcome to the omnibus edition of Megabyte.\n\nThis document holds (or will hold, when it is complete) all the issues of Megabyte for the years 2000 - 2006, in one easy to browse and easily searchable format.\n\nIt might not be immediately obvious just how this document works or what it will achieve. Bear in mind when using this document (which is a [[TiddlyWiki|http://www.tiddlywiki.com/]]), that it was ''entirely'' generated and managed using this document itself.\n\nThe text of this document is completely contained in ''one'' HTML file; using Javascript and CSS the same content can be presented in different ways, even with this document. To view, you will need a modern browser with javascript enabled. \n\nAs you can see, the content is quite interactive, in fact it behaves almost as it would if it were hosted on a webserver as these types of documents normally are. Because this file does not require a web server to run, it is possible to publish this file by email, or on CDROM. It can also be placed on a webserver, too, of course. if you are viewing this document on the web, you can download a copy to your hard drive by using this link: [[Download|http://tiddlyspot.com/?action=download&site=megabyte]]. Save the file locally then open it in your browser.\n\n''Advantages:''\n*Searchable - try typing ~DBASE4 into the search box on the right and see what happens! Searching will happen as you type. If you pause all parts of the document that match your criteria will be displayed; if you refine your search term, the results will be refined also. Start by typing dba then look at the results before adding se4. Look at the results then delete the last 4. Clever, isn't it!\n*Taggable - browse the tags on the right (select the "Tags" tab first).\n*Browsable - select the "All" tab on the right to see a list of articles included in this document.\n*Fast - because the entire document is downloaded before viewing, navigation is extremely fast, especially if you disable animations in the "options" panel.\n*Editable - any copy of this document can edit and save itself, using only the web browser you are using to view it.\n*Portability - this can run from a web server, hard drive, thumbdrive, CDROM\n*Accessibility - only requires a web browser to view\n*Simplicity - formatting is relatively basic and easy and well suited to Megabyte content.\n\nTo get the most out of using this document, be sure to read the [[Help]] section.\n\n

2k not Ok or the Damn the ~DuoMillenium!\n\nI was peacefully listing old records for destruction and inserted a date ten years hence when I found that I could no longer get previously orderly sorting of dates from less distant to very distant. The problem is the YEAR 2000! The brainless computer believes that 02 or 2 is less than 91 simply because the software doesn't make allowance for the thousands and hundreds of years which the human race have accumulated at such cost and effort. Though some programmes have thought of the onset of the dreaded second millenium, many haven't imagined surviving the perils of the market for so long.\n\nThis problem has occurred before; there was a tricky change in 1899 but the Mother of All Millenium Changes, was in 999 when there were potential computer problems the like of which we will not see again until the year 9999. Now some of the more frivolous members of the NZPCA may think they have more pressing problems than planning for 9999 but it is never too soon to fore-stall trouble. Back in the year 999, a lot of people considered that the state of the world had got so bad that it was reasonable to expect the world to end on or before it attained four digits. \nIn fact, as users of Roman numerals, and blissfully ignorant of the arabic number system, they did not even know the full extent of the problems that they were living through. Fortunately also for them, the computer of the day, a large black and white check tablecloth (the still dreaded Exchequer), had not yet been invented. If the people in 999 had known they had a problem coming, they could have done something about it; we are more fortunate and have time to prepare for the chaos of the Year 0.\n\nNow some weak kneed members may decide that the current state of things is so bad (the energy crisis, global warming, the ozone layer,the Budget, the state of the All Blacks and the ubiquity of cat dung on the lawn) that there is no point in looking forward to the difficulties we will have in eight or so years' time. But such pessimists are wrong; even after the Black Death, the few people left still had to fill in tax returns and put the milk \nbottles out. The equivalent of the End of the World has been with us for hundreds of years; lately its been the chilly promise of nuclear winter, the warm threat of hydrogen bombs, a new ice age and global warming. We have still to come Aids, loss of genetic diversity, the Credit Crunch, Global Recession and a continuation of the two thousand year old Continuous Moral Decline. And if you cant do anything about those, you can at least worry about your computer being unready to get its dates in order. \nSomething ought to be tidy when the Martians come to look over the ruins and as we perish beneath the final earthquake, we should go knowing that our dates were correct not only to the end but forward Beyond 2000! Don't just sit there! be positive and start worrying that your computer won't share in the excitement and achievement of the year 2000 but will chip in after midnight of 31-Dec-99 with a snivelling 1-1-0.\n\nA serious thought; Lotus 123 seems ok; Paradox 3.5 thinks 03 is the Wright Brothers' big year. (Sorry I got that wrong; 03 was the Wright Brothers' big year; if you tell Paradox the year is 03, it displays the year as 3 and the sorting is wrong; if you tell Paradox the year is 2003, it displays the year not as 03 nor as 3, but in full as 2003 and all is as it should be; Sorry 'bout that Mr Borland) Try your favourite software. \n\nWilliam Sly

Usually, no January issue of Megabyte is published. Try [[February]] instead.

Type the text for 'Jim Oliver'

//Member Jim Parnell shares some thoughts about a couple of subjects arising from recent association meetings//\n\n''Picasa''\nAfter the demonstration by George on Picasa2 at the September meeting, I decided that it was the next best thing to be invented since sliced bread (question – what was the best thing before sliced bread?). and so downloaded it onto my computer. It took an age to scan my system for images. But I do have 160 GB of hard drives on my system and hundreds of images. It hung several times as it tried to find a deleted image. Presumably it looked for an image suffix and then couldn't comprehend the fact that the image had been deleted.\n\nApart from that, it seemed to work OK but not very fast.\n\nHowever, every time that I restarted my computer, it insisted on doing a scandisk and then a surface scan (which I used to exit from) before finishing the boot process. Oops– exiting was a bad thing to do as I found out when I let it complete a surface scan. It then booted normally afterwards.\n\nSo I had a look at the program information and found that it was for Win 2000 or XP. I am running 98 and intend to keep on using it! As a result, Picasa2 is no longer on my system.\n\nHowever, using the tucows site (www.tucows.com/) for downloads, I found that there was an earlier version, Picasa1.618, for \nWin 98 that was available, and I downloaded and installed it.\n\nIt works well on Win98. It took a couple of hours without any problems to find all my images - but I do have lots, 2880 in fact, spread over 160 GB of hard drives.\n\nScrolling the images was not smooth as it took time to bring them up from the hard drives. But installing more memory to the \nmaximum that Win 98 will handle (512 MB) helped greatly. But if I bring my image files together, that would help too.\n\nSo maybe there is a Father Christmas. Picasa seems to be a very useful program to have on my computer. BUT there is no facility of printing a list of albums. Now that would be a really useful addition to the program.\n\nJim Parnell.\n\n----\n\n''Windows special characters.''\nThe question of Windows special characters came up at the September meeting.\nThese characters are very useful. For instance if you want a £ sign, you type 0163 on the numbers keypad while holding down the “Alt” key. If you need a dagger (†), try alt 0134; copyright (©), try alt 0169 and so on.\n\nYou can get a list of them at:\nhttp://www.levtechinc.com/specchrs.pdf \n\nIt is the best formatted list that I have found so far. But you can do a google search on the subject using “windows special characters” as a search string. \n\nJim Parnell. \n \n

Type the text for 'John Blakeley'

Type the text for 'John Little'

Type the text for 'John Marchington'

Type the text for 'John Thomson'

Table of Contents\n----\n[[President's Report]]\n[[Space Shuttle Live]]\n[[PicasaWeb]]\n[[Launchy]]\n[[Hardware SIG]]\n[[Equipment Available]]\n\n

To open all articles for July 1999, click on "July 1999" to the right and select "open all".

To open all articles for July 2004, click on "July 2004" to the right and select "open all".\nEdition No: 189

To open all articles for July 2005, click on "July 2005" to the right and select "open all".\nEdition No: 200

To open all articles for July 2006, click on "July 2006" to the right and select "open all".

[[Open articles|President's Report]]\n<<tabs contents\n"President's Report" "Priority 1" "President's Report"\n"Space Shuttle" "Priority 2" "Space Shuttle Live"\n"PicasaWeb" "Priority 3" "PicasaWeb"\n"Launchy" "Launchy" "Launchy"\n"Hardware SIG" "Hardware SIG" "Hardware SIG"\n"Club Equipment" "Equipment" "Equipment Available"\n>>

Suffering from software shock from the proliferation of new programs I have acquired this month. I feel like a beginner all over again. What happened to the days when I could just pick up a program & muddle my way through. Find great difficulty in learning a program from the manual, somehow the people who write manuals think differently from me. They use different and complicated phrases to explain simple things. They never do things in the order that I would do them, don't use word that I would use etc. I am just looking for a program that will design a database suite, produce a perfectly formatted document, or fill in my spreadsheet with a few strokes of a key, preferably allowing me to play Go at the same time.\n\n Somehow these manuals change with time. After I have been using a program for a while and I go back to the manual I find it has all changed. I feel the writers use a special ink which subtly changes the text into something intelligible. Why can't they start off using intelligible ink?\n\n ''INTRODUCTION TO ~DBASE4''\n\n The last time I did any serious programming in dBase was over a year ago, and that was in dBase3. Now I have been given a job writing a fairly major program in dBase4 so I set about reading the manuals. Usual problem so I ran the tutorial and looked at some sample programs supplied with the package. Very nice, not simple but very nice. Pop up windows and fancy menus at the front end and an automatic compiler and disk caching at the other. The assist menu system is a million percent better and it has a very clever system of writing the program for you.\n\n Using the Application generator I initially set up a start-up menu, just a bar at the top with pop down menus giving entry into the program proper. Then told it to generate the program, it uses what's called a template which calls up standard routines and writes the program for you. I was amazed, my menu generated a program 2000+ lines long, with lots of variables & lines apparently catering for conditions which not relevant to my menu. Later on I wrote the same thing manually in 50 lines. Reading the manual and the book I bought, (yes I do read them), I discovered that professional programmers generally use this self generating menu system to initially create the body of the program, just adding the non standard bits manually. You can see how these programs become so large!\n\n '' FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF USING A MAINFRAME COMPUTER''\n\n The program I am writing in dBase is for use on a VAX mainframe computer. Another learning hurdle! I obtained a terminal, arranged the connection, rang the operator who logged me on and I was in. It's horrible, it's antiquated, it's not at all friendly. The VAX comes with a word processor/electronic mail package called Allin1 which I understand has been going for the last 20 years. Using it is like going back 15 years to the early days of PC computing.\n\n If you type dir it only shows your files, no list of programs available - you just have to know what is on the system. The terminology uses phrases like 'Connect to Server' and 'Show Quota' whatever they mean. There is an extensive help system ranging from on-line help and a help desk but the on line help never gives the answer you want, if you don't know what you are looking for you don't know what to ask for! I tried creating and printing a document which arrived two days later in the internal mail having been printed out on a printer one mile away from my desk (literally). I got that sorted out straight away.\n\n Anyway I typed dBase and lo and behold up came the logo and the Assistant ran up looking more or less like the PC version. I looked for the Alt key to get at the main menu items as one does on a PC and there it wasn't. There was no Alt key on the keyboard. Ok I thought, stay loose, read the screen, use the help button etc and saw a message to use F10 to get at the menu, pressed F10, nothing..., pressed every key I could think of - no menu, something happened the screen went from a nice graphical display to an ASCII display which I could not get rid of. I couldn't even get out of the program! Oh for the power of the red button on the front of my PC.\n\n Called for help and was told use F17 for F10 - logical?? The help desk informed me that there was a 'dBase4 technical release notes' document that I should have read before going into the prog. I must say I feel very guilty about that! Apparently all the function keys are different, even from what is shown on the screen. More about this later.\n\n All this has made me realise the power of market forces. The enormous PC market has lead to development of user friendly software. Developers have been able to spend time creating programs because they knew they had a market of millions. The market for the VAX computer is probably less than 100,000.\n\n '' TERMINAL EMULATION''\n\n Wasn't going to be beaten by the system, hated using the terminal and the it was taking up too much space on my desk, so I decided to use a terminal emulation program on my PC. The emulation program I used is called Mirror which turns out to be very powerful and flexible, the more I use it the more I like it. It came with my Amstrad portable PC three years ago. A terminal emulation program does exactly what it says, it allows a PC to pretend it is a computer terminal and gives you the ability to switch over to the PC functions whilst still connected to the remote computer. Most BBS programs will function as a terminal, after all that is what they are doing when you connect to a BBS.\n\n Mirror allows me to program the function keys (~F1-F10) to give whatever output is desired, they can be set to output a particular string of control characters or to issue commands to the pc to send a package or perform a dos command. I decided to program F10 to do what F17 did on the terminal.\n\n First I had to find out what string was sent when the F17 key was pressed. I requested the manual for the terminal which came very quickly, searched for the key output and after a struggle ascertained that it was Esc [ ~. The last character is called a tilde. Loaded the F10 key up and went on line, of course it was going to work, of course it didn't.\n\n Turned out that Mirror intercepted the tilde and interpreted it as an instruction to delay the next command for one second. I couldn't even put '~ ~ ~' because all it was doing was introducing a series of one second delays, so I was stuck. Then recalled a function in Mirror which would strip off the top bit of characters when sending them up the line. Put in the 8 bit character instead of the tilde, Mirror ignored it and sent it up the line stripping off the high bit and the VAX accepted it.\n\n I now have a terminal which is beginning to behave like a PC. I'll bend the system yet!\n\n ''STRIPPING THE TOP BIT''\n\n Here's what I did with the tilde.\n{{{\n ASCII\n Character Binary Code Hex Code\n þ 11111110 FE\n ~ 01111110 7E\n}}}\n I initially entered the tilde into the code, saved the Mirror file to disk, it saves all the key settings in a table which is easy to edit. Using Xtree I then View/Edited the hex code to change the 7E to FE which as you can see changed the binary code by setting the high bit.\n\n When I reloaded the file the tilde had changed to the square block that you see above it. Mirror accepted the block as a character rather than an instruction and sent it up the line stripping off the high bit and changing the code back to the tilde.\n\n ''KERMIT''\n\n How can one believe in a program with a name like Kermit, well at least you don't forget it! Was asked to send some DOS files up the line so that they could be used at a terminal. Was advised to use Kermit. Mirror supports Kermit but I had never used it. So with help I ran Kermit. First you log in on to the VAX and type 'Kermit' then tell it to go into server mode. After that you are in control, all control comes from your end. You can send files up the line or instruct the other end to download files.\n\n Entered 'Kermit send A:\s*.*' at my end and very sweetly 120 files went up the line at 9600 baud. Took about half an hour with Mirror showing progress on each file and only stopped when the VAX refused to accept any more files. It turns out that my limit on disk space on the VAX is approx 600k. It only took me a week to fill that! Really though Kermit is very sweet and flexible, you don't have to tell it things like start and stop bits, it just automatically adjusts itself to the lowest common denominator and handles the load. I understand that Kermit is the normal way of transferring files up to/down mainframes. Perhaps these main-frame people have got something right.\n\n ''GO''\n\n Picked up a copy of 'GO' (well it called itself Nemesis) from a board the other night. I had heard that it was not possible to program 'Go' because of the complexity involved. Well they've done it! It beat me even with three tiles/disks start. The first game I didn't capture a single tile and the second game I only won 1 to its 27 but as you see I am improving. It's addictive and very challenging. Another of these gems of public domain (actually shareware) well worth getting.\n\n I loaded it onto the club's BBS under the name 'GO.ZIP'.\n\n Roger Currier

'' Zmodem''\n\n I've been converted! Another of life's problems has been resolved. I am now amongst the elite. You are now talking to a Zmodem user.\n\n There is no other standard worth considering (Till the next time!). Gone are the days of the individual file download, frantically telling my machine the file name to receive and where to put it while the BBS is counting out the time limit. Gone are the days of having to restart a download at the beginning after one of my daughters have picked up the extension during my communing with a BBS.\n\n The other night I was on the Stargate bulletin board downloading files using my old & trusted Xmodem standard, patiently entering the names of the file wanted and waiting whilst it came down so I could enter the next one, when the sysop came on line. David Benfell had obviously been watching me and decided that it was time for my conversion. He suggested I used Zmodem, I pointed out that my BBS program didn't have it, he suggested that I got one that did and having several on the board he pointed me in the right direction. I started to download them (using Xmodem) and after getting about half a meg the dreaded 'Call Waiting' came on the line and I lost connection.\n\n I eventually got Telix (a BBS program with Zmodem) and set it up. Sliced bread eat your heart out Zmodem is the 'bees-knees'. For a start you don't need to frantically type in the downloading instructions to your machine, it's automatic. It is also faster, averages about 230 characters per second as against 160 using Xmodem. But the big plus in my case is the ability to resume an interrupted download at the point it had reached. Oh the heartache and frustration it has saved, as well as my daughter's lives.\n\n You may take this as a recommendation!\n\n ''THE END OF THE FAX?''\n\n Heard of a new trend recently. Businesses using 9600 baud modems for inter- office communication between computers. Documents are scanned into the pc and sent down the line to the other pc where they are printed out on a lazer. No longer the flimsy thermal fax paper at the output! Documents can be typed out on the wp and sent down the line without becoming paper records at all. At 9600 baud a modem can send four pages of A4 to the fax's one, and it's all existing office technology.\n\n'' PROGRESS ON THE VAX''\n\n The VAX is slowly bending. A friend gently guided me into the system and gave me a few pointers. The first thing was that the VAX has batch files just like a pc but instead of being labelled .BAT they are .COM files. Another thing is that when you logon a program called LOGON.COM is run just like AUTOEXEC.BAT. This can be used to set up your area and establish variables. I was given a program called CD which emulated the DOS instruction and also set up directory names as the PROMPT command is used in DOS.\n\n I am in the habit of creating temporary sub-directories to control the limits of experimental commands or to contain a program's data. Did this on the VAX only to discover that I can't remove them. So my area is full of temps & frog directory carcasses. Ah well - back to the drawing board.\n\n'' TRIPLETS''\n\n Some devious person uploaded Triplets to the club's BBS. One of these very simple games that I like where you have to put counters down on to a board to make lines in multiples of three. There are several levels of play against the pc and I can beat it on a 9 x 9 and even a 18 x 18 board at a simple level. Tried it on the full size board 32 x 24 and my eyes gave out trying to count rows of 24 counters etc. Worth playing, needs Windows. On the board as TRIPLETS.ZIP..\n

[[Mightier than the Mouse]]

Type the text for 'New Tiddler'

To open all articles for June 1999, click on "June 1999" to the right and select "open all".

To open all articles for June 2004, click on "June 2004" to the right and select "open all".\nEdition No: 188

To open all articles for June 2005, click on "June 2005" to the right and select "open all".\nEdition No: 199

To open all articles for June 2006, click on "June 2006" to the right and select "open all".\n\n

<<tabs contents\n"President's Report" "President" "President's Report"\n"Keyboard Utilities" "Keyboard" "Mightier than the Mouse"\n\n>>

The KAK worm infected several of my friends’ computers including my second computer last month. One of the real problems, hence the danger, you may not know you have it until someone tells you, unless you regularly check your machine.\n\nThe Kak worm can attaches itself to outgoing emails, using the signature files in Outlook Express. It can modify registry files and shut down Windows. I have seen it do all these, including stopping a printer from working correctly.\n\nWhat is different about the Kak, is that it is an automatic worm. This means a user doesn’t have to open the attachment to become infected. Just reading the e-mail is enough. The worm uses known security holes in ~OutLook Express. These ~ActiveX vulnerabilities allow a malicious file to be created on an infected computer without the user knowing. The worm copies a file called KAK.hta or KAK.htm to the users hard drive. The worm then renames the current Autoexec.bat file to AE.KAK, and creates a new Autoexec.bat file that runs the KAK.HTA. Current version of Internet Explorer can execute .HTA files. The computer must be restarted before the file executes. When the KAK.HTA file runs users may see the following message: "~Kagou-Anti-Kro$oft says not today!" or another possible message "S3 driver memory alloc failed."\n\nIf you’ve been infected this is how to manually delete KAK from your system.\n*Open up ~OutLook Express. \n*Go to Tools \n*Open up Options \n*Open up signatures. \n*If you have the Kak worm you will see in the top box something like Default Signature. And below in the File Box C:/Windows/KAK.htm. Use the remove button to Remove this signature. \n\nTo locate the other files AE.KAK and KAK.HTA or KAK.HTM. From Start , choose Find. Fill in the name of the file, be sure to look in the root drive (usually C:), then click on Find Now. Once you have found the files, take note where they are. Open Windows Explorer. Locate the file, highlight it, and under File choose delete. \n\nTo edit Autoexec.bat, highlight it. Use your right mouse button and then choose Edit. Edit Autoexec as required, deleting the line which points to the Kak.htm. The Kak will probably also be in the Windows startup file, ie:- C:\sWindows\sstartmenu\sprograms\sstartup. Make sure you also remove it from here.\n\nPlease be warned the KAK.htm will probably be a hidden file so you’ll need to within Window Explorer: - Go to View, Open folder Options, Click the button "Show All Files", Click Apply.\n\nWhen you have successfully removed the Kak Worm you should install the Service Patch 1 for Internet Explorer 4.0 or 5.0.\n\nTo get the Service Patch, go to http://www.microsoft.com. Click on Downloads and go to Download Center. In the Product Name area go to Internet Explorer 5.01 ~SP1. Click on Find it. Download the "Internet Explorer Service Pack 1". When you have downloaded it, you will be given the opportunity to install it. Once installed the KAK worm will not work automatically. Or you can download Internet Explorer 5.5 or grab a copy from a CD given away with new computer magazines.\n\nOne computer I fixed, the worm was still in the registry. You’ll need to run Regedit to fix this problem. If someone needs further instructions, email me.\n\n//John Thomson gella@free.net.nz. \n //\n\n

Type the text for 'Kapiti SIG'

by John Blakely \n\nMany thanks to Wellingtonians Hugh Roberton and Ian Godfrey for driving on April 6 on one of the most dangerous roads in the country -- and on a drizzly, miserable evening too -- to put on a show for Kapiti members. \n\nThey brought a laptop and projection apparatus so we could watch comfortably while Hugh commented on a selection of NZPCA library ~CDs he screened. Then Ian took us on a guided tour of the NZPCA's Megabaud, showing how to download a selection of files, including emails received and Year 2000 PC checks. \n\nEach of us went away clutching a goodie -- a CD we chose and were lent free for a month to try out on our home PC. [Memo to members: please get them to me (John Blakeley) by the end of the month so that I can return them to Hugh. Thanks!]. \n\nI emailed some members a reminder of the April 6 meeting. The rest I had to phone -- and collected another 22 email addresses in the process; I expect there are more among the eight who didn't answer their phone. \n\nNone of the 22 gave their NZPCA email address, to which we're all entitled because of our membership. Just as a reminder, here's what that address is: \n\n1stname.2ndname@ nzpca.org.nzSo, for example, my email address is \njohn.blakeley@nzpca.org.nz Remember to put the dot between first and second names. Any of us can have as many email addresses as we wish, through jobs, paid providers or ad-sponsored providers. Thus, my other email address is \nno1mland@kp.planet.gen.nzAs I watched and learnt from Ian Godfrey's demo tour of the Megabaud I recalled comments by some members I'd contacted about that meeting. Comments that they were resigning or not renewing their subscription because they couldn't see what they got from membership, or that Senior Net offered more. \nIn fact, Senior Net doesn't offer as much, and costs more. It doesn't have Email addresses and connection facility, for instance. It doesn't have anything like the Megabaud, with its constantly updated lists of useful files and programmes and facilities to connect with FIDO, GENBOARD and so on. \n\nSenior Net has an advantage in sponsorship by commercial organisations. When we asked the local council to be considered among organisations given a grant, or have replaced ~PCs thrown our way, we were rejected because we're "not a social service". \n\nWhat's in a name? Perhaps we should set up a Senior SIG? It does have a place set up with machines in place ready for use. So could the NZPCA, if members turned up at meetings and asked for it and helped to set it up. The association is people helping people. But you can't be a teacher unless there are learners who ask and you can't be a learner unless there's a teacher to ask: like knife and fork, they go together. Keep on asking and one day you'll put in your bit as a teacher and be surprised at how much you get out of that. \n\nPhilosophically, it's all the same if the organisation is a government, a local body, a union, the NZPCA, a philatelic club, a shop, or whatever. You can't get more than you give, but if you don't put in you might get what you've not asked for. Or, if you're lucky, nothing. It's no use plonking down your $45 and sitting at home waiting for something to be done. Even God doesn't work like that . . . putting money in the church collection doesn't mean you'll get a hand-out. \n\nKapiti SIG's meeting next month is on the first Tuesday, May, 4th. John Glover will show how to compose a data bank, such as a simple address book, using Microsoft Access. Kapiti Internet Services are still waiting to move into bigger premises so we can't visit there yet.\n

You can run a business when you're travelling without humping a laptop in your luggage. Just board a plane and fly off to distant parts. There's umpteen ways to pick up email and reply, hear your voice mail and generally keep in touch and up to date with events at your home base. A laptop is helpful and convenient, but it isn't essential.\n\nRon Wilkinson, a Kapiti member whose business keeps him moving around the world, made this clear at our April meeting in the first of two talks he plans about "Can travel, keep talking". \n\n"It's easy," he said. "Just figure what you want to do and arrange it!" He kept saying "It's easy" as he went from cyber cafes to hotel bedrooms and cell phones. When Ron is to stay in one locality for two or three weeks he finds it convenient and cost-saving to get a temporary local phone number. As a ~ComPuserve member he has this in many parts of the world, and he hires one in others. This avoids the sometimes not too efficient hotel external phone system, especially if there's a delay through line problems. \n\nHe held up his small portable. Soon, he said, one like it but with a small keyboard built at one end would be available, combining laptop and phone.\n\nRon filled in with his talk at short notice when the booked speaker couldn't come to the meeting. We didn't have to set up a circle of monitors for him, with three or four members staring at little screens. He brought along his overhead projector to show diagrams he'd made to illustrate his points as he went along. In fact, he was the best prepared member of the 19 present: we didn't record his talk, which was stuffed with facts that needed a better RAM than most of us had between our ears. \n\nA question session afterwards expanded some points and provided more information. We look forward to his next talk, which will be about what you can do when you have a laptop in your carry-on bag. And we will prepare better. \n\nIf Wellington members can catch Ron when he's home on a third Wednesday in a month with an evening to spare, try to get him along while he's still got those diagrams. Be sure to switch on an audio recorder so that we can borrow a tape and write it down!\n\nTwo members, Tony Edwards and Vicki Bunch, who had noted Ian Godfrey's comments in the March ~MegaByte had installed a firewall in their machines. They reported they were pleased with the result. Vicki had done some more research and described developments from this. Opinions were divided. Some members thought the risk of hackers' intrusion was not sufficient to justify the inconvenience of using a firewall.\n\n//- John Blakeley //\n\n//See the NZPCA web site for a list of web sites for travellers attached to this item// \n\n

Some recent pamphlets - one today from "Freenet" . one last week from Saturn about "Chello". Because I'm a Saturn customer now, the charge to me for joining this month would be $73 a month. Otherwise, $90 a month. Chello is supposed to give immediate and unlimited internet access. Nothing is said about security. \nBut as soon as you switch on there are programmes which alert watching eyes? ears? electrons? that your computer portal's open. Enter, Sesame!\n\nI was at a political party conference over the weekend and an item being investigated is a directory of members' email addresses and the setting up "chat" groups (Vicki Bunch is our local expert) to stimulate more grassroots input, avoid having to travel long-distances to political meetings yet be able to chat at your own convenience, and be kept up to date with party information.\n\nFor "party" there we could read "computer club". On this evening's agenda.\n\nI was told this morning about a man at Paraparaumu Beach, probably in 40s, so too old for senior net . He has a state of the art equipment but not much idea about how to use it. He's been told about us and trying to find out if it would be worth while joining us to learn.. \n\nI call myself the convener. I think it's time we conned someone else to be convener. Any suggestions?\n\n//John Blakeley//

1999 began well, with a bumper crop of people at our first meeting of the year, including some non-members who signed up on the spot. \n\nA four-man team from Wellington - president Roger Currier, secretary Richard Elam, Hugh Robertson with his CD library and Ian Godfrey, Megabyte editor (Ed.This Month!)-- joined us. The display gear they'd hoped to bring was unavailable, but their input more than made up for this. \n\nScottie Baxter, local technician and supplier, turned on a brain-storming session: if you had a question or problem, ask Scottie. His usual first comment: "What do you want to do that for? Do you really need that?" was a practical pragmatic approach that rang bells for most of us. Scottie's answers, members' supplementary questions and extra comments from the Wellington Four and the more literate members produced a lively atmosphere that sparkled with information. \n\nToo much for two ladies who have confided they don't think they'll join yet because it was "above their heads". My punning reply: "Join the club!" -- there were many of us like that. Most of us have joined to get answers and be shown how. \n\nHugh Roberton had a crowd around his CD library at the end of the meeting, and Ian Godfrey said training manuals such as "Internet for Dummies" and "Access 97" could be hired for $5 a month. \n\nKevin Sartorelli will tell us more about the Internet at our next meeting, on 2 March. \n\nFor those who didn't get Scottie's card, he's at 025-277-9717.\n

\n//More about August 7. //\n\nIt is pointless to ask an outside person to speak. However, we've done very well between ourselves at the past two or three gatherings and the amount of practical knowledge produced by usually reticent people has been surprising -- a small, close, grouping obviously has advantages over the firing squads of rows of eyes. Personally, as I have stood before a large group of people I have often thought of white bait fritters. I can't bring myself even to taste the things. I'm put off by all those little black eyes looking at me.\n\nI expect to be able to report about events at the AGM at St Pat's on the 19th. As members of the NZPCA, a computer organisation, maybe we should use Internet facilities for group discussions. Let's throw this idea around on the 7th. I'll ask for info at St Pat's, and perhaps Vicki Bunch could develop the idea from her experience. \n\nHere's a true tale about another keyboard error many years ago.\n\nPart of one of my jobs in 1942 in the RAF was to track down the what, how and why of mistakes and correct and/or report back about them.\n\nIn those days, a message from an outlying station was sent to a regional HQ, where it was manually re-transmitted to another regional HQ for re-transmission to the receiving station It sounds cumbersome, but auto equipment was rare, and line-time on scarce long-distance landlines had to be regulated.\n\nThis time I had to find where (and by whom) an order for 10,000 sandbags had become 100,000 bags of sand.\n\nThere were two mistakes. One by an operator who added an extra zero during manual re-transmission, the other at the supply unit, where sandbags was unquestionably interpreted by a senior supply officer as bags of sand. \n\nThe trouble was the supply unit was in central England. The order was from RAF station Jurby on the Isle of Man.\n\nJurby stood on sand.\n\n//- John Blakeley// \n

1st Monday in June -- 7 June, 7.30 p.m., Masonic Lodge, Tararua Street (off Hinemoa Street), Paraparaumu. That's the Monday of Queen's Birthday weekend. Anyone not there, of course, will be at a garden party at the royal residence. \n\nI apologise for no Kapiti contribution in the last Megabyte. The deadline was well past by the time I woke up to the fact I'd sent nothing to the editor. I got caught up in domestic affairs, and I'm still trying to catch up. And the taxman cometh on 7 June. \n\nFifteen members attended the May meeting -- our first at the Masonic Lodge. Two members were overseas (they are still), another was in the South Island (I suppose across Cook Strait is also over a sea), and two more apologised with other commitments that evening. That is just over half our Kapiti membership who were interested enough to be there or regret being unable to be there. \n\nThe room is at least twice as big as the one we used at the Credit Union Centre. The Genealogical Society's Computer Club meets there too and stores several monitors in a cupboard with the equipment to link them together. However, that club does not keep a computer there and relies on a member taking a laptop for their monthly meeting. \n\nWe reached an understanding for us to use their monitors while they used a computer which we would supply and leave in their cupboard. \n\nA member has lent us a computer on an indefinite loan and we used this and the series of monitors at the May meeting, when John Glover presented the first part of a demonstration on using Access to set up a data base. This was very successful. Like the the Genealogical Computer Club, we found members more interested and able to follow a demonstration better with a few around each screen than they did with projection on to a wall screen. \n\nWe made no firm decision about a subject for June, apart from suggestions about getting an Internet connection and doing a guided tour of it. We have encountered machine problems about this. \n\nThe computer we have on loan has no modem, which is essential for internet working. \n\nThe NZPCA in Wellington has sent us a spare computer to use in place of the one we have on loan. The replacement has no monitor and the hard drive has been stripped of everything except DOS 6.1 It was formerly used to control the NZPCA's bulletin board, so it does have a modem. The lack of a monitor can be overcome by using one of the genealogical club's, but it is a nuisance insofar as it means a group around the computer and the person giving a demonstration. \n\nNeither computer has a CD drive, which is essential for the genealogical club -- they need one for the programmes they work with. Similarly, we could use one to demonstrate programmes, such as those in the NZPCA's shareware library, which are usually supplied on CDs. A genealogical club expert has the NZPCA's computer at his home workshop and is trying to get a CD drive cheaply for it. However, he has had to go to the Chatham Islands on business for a few weeks so that machine is in limbo. \n\nPeter Hug, a Kapiti Internet Services executive, would provide us, the Kapiti NZPCA group, with a connection and four hours of internet time free for our monthly meetings. This is conditional on his being guaranteed of the security of our connection against other users outside our monthly meetings. He would be prepared to attend a meeting at which theconnection could be installed and demonstrated to and by members. \n\nPeter Hug says that before an internet connection could be installed, the computer we have on loan would need a modem, or the computer supplied by the NZPCA committee would need more than DOS 6.1. \n\nThe owner of the machine on loan to us says he can have a CD drive and modem built into it, perhaps, but can't guarantee it, before our June meeting. \n\nDiscussions with NZPCA committee members about the need for more than DOS 6.1 on their machine evokes mutterings about legalities and nothing very helpful. It seems to me it's like being given a car without wheels. \n\nJohn Glover will be at the June meeting, prepared to answer questions members may have from homework on the May lesson on Access database, and John will also be able to go on to the next step. \n\nI know some members have difficulties and problems, some of which might need one-to-one help at their home. I think we should regularly hold a session early in our meetings for such difficulties to be aired. Members have approached me at times for information about technical help, which in general I'm not sufficiently clued up to give. My best approach so far has been to suggest other members who know more and could help more. \n\nI have always regarded the NZPCA as more than just a social chit chat affair for computer buffs. I see it as an organisation where people with common interests can share information and know-how -- a people helping people co-operative. I suppose that sometimes, especially at first, we tend to take more than we give, but it is surprising how often the experts find an inexpert holds a key to their problems. \n\nAn example of the sort of thing I mean is the 12-year-old Glasgow boy who told a group of engineers and bus experts how to extricate a double-decker bus jammed under a railway arch. Or me, telling the makers of an electronic doorbell that the thing won't work when the sun shines on it. \n\nFor members who might be interested, my technical know-how is rudimentary and I am better qualified in other spheres. I am, for instance, a founder member of the Association of Logodaedalus Practitioners -- "If you have to ask what it means, you need our help!" \n\nAt some time convenient to Kapiti Internet Services we still have a tentative arrangement to have a look round their set-up. When I last spoke to them about this they were moving into bigger premises formerly used by Saturn. I suggest we could raise this with Peter Hug if we manage to get him to come to a meeting and give us an internet connection. \n\nWhile there is no fixed agenda for next Monday's meeting, it seems to me there's plenty to talk about. Not the least of which is, please, suggestions for what members would like to have on the agenda for the next three or four monthly meetings. Surely those members who pay their annual sub but haven't yet met other members have something they can peep or cheep about? \n\nTill Monday. Be Calm. Have Peace. JWHB\n

by John Blakely \n\nKevin Sartorelli, a dedicated Internet enthusiast, travelled out from Wellington on 2 March to spread some of his knowledge around in Kapiti. Members who gave the evening a miss lost an opportunity to learn about how the Internet began and how it works and is growing. Kevin distributed photo copies of his History of the Internet and we've a few extra copies left over. First come, first served. \n\nThe explosion of availability of know-ledge is already having an effect on communities in the shape of a greatly increased demand for more communication facilities, more international cables and so on. Governments eye it nervously and finger ways to control it, but even the U.S. Administration's bid to stop encryption that it couldn't decipher has been countered. \n\nAll of which are good reasons for ordinary folk like us to learn more about the Internet and what it can do, and Kevin obviously thrives on questions. If we have demonstration gear at our meeting place he said he will be happy to come back and take us on a guided tour of the Internet. \n\nAnyone who knows where such gear can be got cheaply please get in touch with John Blakeley. \n\nPeter Hug, who talked to us in November about Kapiti Internet Services, says the visit on 6 April by our group to K.I.S. will have to be postponed because they're moving into bigger premises vacated by Saturn. More on this later. \n\nInstead, Hugh Roberton has agreed to bring the NZPCA's library of CD programmes and games and the wiring to hook up half a dozen screens to give live demonstrations of what there is and what it does. There will also be demos of several Year 2000 cures for PCs. To help with this, one member offers to bring a laptop 486 and CD player and we'd like to hear from members who could bring a screen. We need five. Phone John Blakeley, 298-4444. \n\nSee you on 6 April, 7.30p.m.\n

Twenty-two of us met on the evening of May 1 to hear a talk by Dean Curlew, proprietor of a computer "superstore". Two members are overseas and three others "regretfully" had other commitments. These totalled 75% of our Kapiti members who would/could be there and represented one of the best gatherings we'd had for some time.\n\nI don't know how much that was due to a reminder I sent to members a few days before the meeting. I pointed out Dean would have to drive at least half an hour each way on State Highway 1 to be with us I suggested that when a speaker went to that trouble over a dangerous stretch of road to be our guest, it was good manners for us to do at least as much to listen to him.\n\nDean didn't arrive.\n\nWe had a little social get-together instead. These exchanges of experiences and solutions to each other's problems are useful. It is surprising how much knowledge and information is tossed casually into conversation and remembered. And we get to know each other better.\n\nSeveral speakers at other meetings have been a bit diffident about speaking before a group. I've been wondering if a small amplifier would be useful. I have speakers (electronic ones, not those with tongues!) and microphones . . . I was told of a secondhand goods shop with a CD set for sale which had a small PA system built into it. Later, I learnt that had been sold, and that when shops display such items they are snapped up quickly.\n\nThen I began to think about the computer and monitors we store at our meeting room. Some members regularly talk through their computers and the internet to people around the world. The computer we use has a modem. Could the monitors be fitted with a small speaker (we wouldn't need stereo) each, and perhaps even a microphone too? \n\nThat would make our meetings interactive. Not only the listeners could be seated, perhaps looking at a screen, but so could the talker. So much less intimidating than that battery of eyes looking over noses like the sighting aim of a firing squad. And we would all be able to hear what was said.\n\nCan any of the club's electronic wizards give us an opinion on this? \n\nDean ? I phoned his store the morning after our meeting. A staffer said he was there and was well. So he hadn't had an accident on the way here (the possibility had worried me). I was glad he was well, and forwarded to him the reminder I'd sent our members, saying I regretted I hadn't included him in its earlier distribution, but he wouldn't hear from us again. \n\n//John Blakeley. \n//

By Marty Sems of Smartcomputing\n\nSo, your collection of MP3 music files is the envy of everyone around you. So, you have all those songs safely stored on CD-RWs (compact disc, rewriteables) or Iomega Zip disks. So, you really don't mind having to check seven or eight disks every time you're looking for a particular MP3. Sure you don't.\n\n Get a grip on your removable storage files with 1 Disk 3.1. It adds a new drive letter, such as V:, to Windows Explorer and then keeps track of the files on each and every disk, diskette, and CD you access. 1 Disk will ask you to choose a name for each unlabeled disk. It then stores the directory of each piece of removable media as a separate folder in the V: drive and can update the directory whenever you access the media. This lets you use Windows' Find feature to locate the file you want. Later, it will prompt you to insert the proper medium whenever you want to open one of its files.\n\n We installed 1 Disk 3.1 on an IBM PC running Windows 98 and let it scan a few diskettes and a CD. It did keep track of our files and asked us for the right disk whenever we tried to access something that wasn't in the drive. 1 Disk 3.1 even let us perform drag-and-drop file transfers between the real CD-ROM or hard drive and the virtual diskettes, but it couldn't directly transfer (or even copy and paste) files from one virtual diskette to another.\n\n 1 Disk 3.1 is compatible with Windows 9x, Windows 2000, and Windows NT4. Although it will only work on a local (non-networked) hard drive, it can accommodate nearly any removable media drive that has its own drive letter. This includes SuperDisk and Castlewood ORB drives, along with Iomega products, CDs, DVDs, and certain tape drives.\n by Marty Sems \n

A number of people have said to me that they don’t want to change their Internet Service Provider (ISP), because they will forfeit their current email address. They tell me, I have given this address to so many people here in New Zealand and to friends overseas who only email me once or twice a year.\n \nKeeping your old email address and leaving your account active solves this problem. Most ISP’s are prepared to leave old email accounts active, probably in the hope you’ll return to use their service in the future.\n\nLets look at it in a completely different way. For the last two years I have not paid Voyager one cent, but my email account is still active and I continue to pickup my emails from this Internet Service Provider. \n\nI have a friend who has not paid XTRA any money for the last eighteen months and he still using his XTRA email address. He has told me many times there are still a few people out there with my old business card. Once or twice a month I get an email via XTRA. And sometimes I even use Xtra to send my emails \n\nSo if you change providers, just keep your old email address and set-up ~OutLook Express to go to your old ISP’s email server and pickup your emails for free.\n\nMy email reader (~OutLook Express) is setup to go to four different email servers, including one in the US. In some ways it’s like going to several different postal centers and picking up your letters. You start at Marion Street Post Office and then go to the Main Postal Center in Petone and then finally you rush off to the mail center in San Francisco. And the good thing about this it will cost you nothing. You are not using the front door of any ISP, you are going around to the side door (called Port 110 and Port 25) and accessing your emails. Because you are not using server time in the strict sense you will not be charged for time used picking up your emails. \n\nHow do you setup Microsoft ~OutLook Express to do this?\n* Open up ~Outlook Express.\n* Go to ''Tools'' and open up ''Accounts''. You should already see one account setup. This will be your current ISP It’s a simple matter to add another account.\n* Click on ''Add'' new account. \n* Choose ''Mail''.\n* Enter your name or the name you want to appear in your outgoing mail. Click ''Next''.\n* Enter the email address you want to use.\n* Enter your incoming mail server’s name. Generally it will start with ~POP3 and then have a full stop. (Machines use a full stop, rather than a @ sign used in email addresses). Example ~POP3.Voyager.co.nz \n* Enter your outgoing mail server’s name. Generally SMTP plus a full stop etc. Example SMTP.Voyager.co.nz.\n* Click ''Next''. \n* Enter your account name (username) and your password. Make sure there is a tick in the small box "Remember Password". And click ''Next''. You have now completed the setup, click ''Finish''. \nThe next time, you check your email, Outlook Express will also go to the other ISP’s email server and check for emails also. \n\nIf you do have problems getting it to work, there is one setting you may have to check and possibly change, because it maybe trying to connect to the wrong provider.\n* Go back into ''Accounts''. \n* Highlight the account, which is giving you the problem. \n* Click ''Properties''. \n* Click ''Connections''. \n* Make sure the little box ("Always connect to this account using.") is unchecked. No tick. \n* Click ''Apply''. \n* Repeat above (2 to 6) for any other accounts. \n* When you have checked all accounts! Click ''OK''. Then ''Close''. \nAny problems email: -\n &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;gella@free.net.nz\n &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;gella@paradise.net.nz\n &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;gella@iname.com \n//John Thomson //

How can one believe in a program with a name like Kermit, well at least you don't forget it! Was asked to send some DOS files up the line so that they could be used at a terminal. Was advised to use Kermit. Mirror supports Kermit but I had never used it. So with help I ran Kermit. First you log in on to the VAX and type {{{Kermit}}} then tell it to go into server mode. After that you are in control, all control comes from your end. You can send files up the line or instruct the other end to download files.\n\nEntered {{{Kermit send A:\s*.*}}} at my end and very sweetly 120 files went up the line at 9600 baud. Took about half an hour with Mirror showing progress on each file and only stopped when the VAX refused to accept any more files. It turns out that my limit on disk space on the VAX is approx 600k. It only took me a week to fill that! Really though Kermit is very sweet and flexible, you don't have to tell it things like start and stop bits, it just automatically adjusts itself to the lowest common denominator and handles the load. I understand that Kermit is the normal way of transferring files up to/down mainframes. Perhaps these main-frame people have got something right.\n\n''GO''\n\nPicked up a copy of 'GO' (well it called itself Nemesis) from a board the other night. I had heard that it was not possible to program 'Go' because of the complexity involved. Well they've done it! It beat me even with three tiles/disks start. The first game I didn't capture a single tile and the second game I only won 1 to its 27 but as you see I am improving. It's addictive and very challenging. Another of these gems of public domain (actually shareware) well worth getting.\n\nI loaded it onto the club's BBS under the name 'GO.ZIP'.\n\n//Roger Currier//

Well, I'm late.\n\n In order, I've found a job, a place to live, and now I'm wrestling with getting transportation. I'm about 2km from work, so transport isn't such an issue. I've rented a car for the last two months, and I'm about to give that up.\n\n The job and in fact the job hunt happened very quickly. Companies are very hungry for experienced people, and I had a series of grueling multi-party interviews with dot-com companies. I'm not used to sequential interviews with 5 or 6 people in a row, lasting 2 - 3 hours in all, and it added to the shock.\n\n And there's a lot to be shocked about. Traffic is horrendous here, with the morning and evening rush hours lasting 2 - 3 hours each. Traffic slows to a crawl for at least a solid hour of that time, and that's if there are no accidents. A traffic accident can lock up an area the size of Wellington city due to the long distances many people commute. There are many families who have moved 1-1/2 to 2 hours out of the area so they could afford homes, and the breadwinner (maybe both) is driving that distance twice daily.\n\nAnd rents have trebled or more. I was paying ~$500/month when I left, now I have a place for $1650/month and I'm happy it's not more. I wonder where the people who don't work in software live - how can they afford the rents?\n\nFor those of us in the software business, however, the pay is amazing too. The company I settled on has turned some people away - they don't just want warm bodies. Two of the companies I inter -viewed with declined me - I wasn't 'technical' enough for them.\n\nI am here for two reasons workwise:\n\n1)&nbsp;&nbsp; Earn and save money,\n\n2)&nbsp;&nbsp; Learn skills that will make me more employable in New Zealand. I've specialized to date in Automated Software Testing, which is too specialised for the New Zealand market. In NZ, companies can't afford to hire lots of employees, so they don't want specialists, they need generalists - persons who can handle several roles at once. My experience to date is good, but too focused.\n\nThe company I chose is paying me well. They are a dot-com startup company, but an unusually well placed one. They have a good product, and are being funded by the likes of Ford, and Compaq and several other big players, so it's not just my opinion that they have a good product.\nThey are pre-IPO, which means pre-Initial Public Offering. The Public Offering is their stock - they're not traded on the market yet. This is the standard get-rich attempt that has been happening for the last 5 years, and especially the last 2 - get funding, go public, clean up on the stock.\n\nI have elected not to go that route with them, although they offered that at first. For one, I don't think I can stay with them long enough to fulfill my stock awards, so that's moot for me. As well, I am fairly conservative, so I prefer cash. They were willing to make me an offer as a contract worker, paid hourly, so I am with them.\n\n It has been three years since I worked in the US, and I am paid now 1-1/2 times what I was making then.\n\nThe position I have is Software Test, but White Box testing. When you don't know what's inside something, that's a "Black Box". Most of the software you use is a Black Box to you - you don't know how it's put together inside, you only know it from the outside. Black Box testing is like that - you use the software as a user would, and note any problems.\n\nThe literal opposite of Black Box would be something like "Glass Box" but that's not what it's called, it's called White Box testing. That means the tester (me) knows what's inside, and I know it by having access to and reading the code the programmers wrote. I can look at the code and understand it, and so I can focus my testing to make sure everything is tested. I can spot potential issues that the Black Box tester's might only accidently stumble across (or never encounter).\n\nWell, it turns out that White Box testers are hunted almost to extinction in Silicon Valley right now. I'm very much in demand. I didn't expect this, but I don't mind.\n\nDon't envy me, though, it's APPALLING here. The crowding and the pace lend an air of urgency to almost every aspect of life, and there isn't a lot of respite from it. California has laws that say a pedestrian has the right of way over a vehicle no matter where the pedestrian steps into the road, and it used to be that way. A pedestrian could get a ticket for jaywalking, but the cars had still better stop. When I first came to California from the urban East Coast, I stepped out to thread my way between the cars in the middle of a block, and four lanes of traffic came to an immediate halt (I had no idea what to make of that at the time - I literally halted with one foot in the air). Not anynore. Drivers are callous. Most people drive big gleaming Four Wheel Drive machines (that will never go off-road) so they don't have to notice anyone else, or else they drive the omnipresent Porsche Boxster.\nThere's a plague of Porsche Boxsters on the road, like someone convinced all the Yuppie Engineers that that was the only car worth having, and they all fell for it.\nThere's an ad on commerical radio, right alongside the ads for the restaurants and plumbing services, that tells you if you're afraid you'll be embarrased in front of the other engineers when your code is reviewed you can solve all your problems by using tools from IBM's web site! Such in the specialist magazines I expect, but on public radio stations?!??\n\nIt took me about three weeks after I arrived to psychically re-armor myself for living here, and I'm mostly toughened and bemused now, but I also have a secret weapon - I get to return to New Zealand!\n\nFrom the Bleeding Edge,\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Bret\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; (Bret Comstock Waldow)\n\n

I suppose I'm not unusual in that on my Windows system, I have so many applications installed that my Start Menu, when expanded, covers my entire screen?\n\nHow do you find stuff in your start menu? I sometimes scan the entire list several times - forwards and backwards - and still not find the application I'm looking for. Little wonder, I'm sure I have something like 600 items in my Start menu.\n\nApplication launchers can help with this problem, and can do much more besides. I'll cover Launchy here, but there are others equally worth investigating.\n\n''What is it?''\n\nLaunchy is a small utility that starts when your Windows desktop loads (it is put into your Startup Folder), and is completely invisible until you use it. It scans the contents of your start menu and some other folders, as well as any other folders you specify.\n\n''Then What?''\n\nTo use Launchy, you press Alt+Space together; this will bring the Launchy window to the foreground. Then press the first letter of the name of the application you wish to launch. You will be presented with a scrollable, drop down list of possibilities to choose from. If you press the second letter of the application name, you will be presented with more refined choices. Select your choice, then press Enter. The application starts, and the Launchy window will close.\n[img[Launchy Screenshot|launchy.gif]]\n\n''Is that all?''\n\nThat in itself is quite useful, but Launchy does far more. For starters, it doesn't arrange applications in alphabetical order - it arranges them by frequency of use, too, so items you use often will appear near the top of the list.\n\nLaunchy can also open folders - for example, typing 'my' into Launchy will bring up a list that includes 'My Documents', 'My Pictures' and so on.\n\nYou can associate file types with Launchy, so it will index your music, picture files or bookmarks - you could also index your documents or scripts. So, you can launch a document, a web page or an audio file by typing its name into Launchy.\n\nLaunchy is skinnable, so you can choose a look that fits your system (including some Vista themes) and comes with documentation. There is also some discussion and help in the support forums.\n\n''What do I need to use Launchy?''\n\nWindows XP, or Windows 2000. If you use Windows 2000 you'll need to download gdiplus.dll from Microsoft if you don't already have it on your system, then just put it in the Launchy directory.\n\n''How much does it cost?''\n\nNothing. Like all the best software, Launchy is opensource and free.\n\n''Links:''\n\nLaunchy:\nhttp://www.launchy.net\n\ngdiplus.dll:\nhttp://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=6A63AB9C-DF12-4D41-933C-BE590FEAA05A&displaylang=en\n\nSee also:\n\n~SlickRun at http://www.bayden.com/SlickRun/\n\nColibri at http://colibri.leetspeak.org/\n\nQuicksilver (OSX) at http://quicksilver.blacktree.com/\n\n----

//At the AGM last month, following a question by John Hand, there was a discussion about personal and editing information that can be left in a Word document without realising it. In particular, members wondered how one could remove that information, before saving a Word document or sending it on to others. Coincidently the same question was asked and answered in the August 2005 issue of ~PCUser magazine.//\n__//Please note that this method only works with Word XP (also known as Word 2002) and Word 2003 ......//__\n\n''Q.'' Are there things I can do to help keep my Word documents clean and lean? By that, I mean having no tracking information that people can view, no personal details included, and no huge flies embedded, such as graphics. I believe Microsoft offers a free utility to help strip documents down. Is this so? - Michelle Rainor\n\nA There are a number of ways to keep a Word document clean and lean. One is to click Tools -> Options -> Save tab and disable the 'Allow fast saves' checkbox. This ensures that the entire Word document is saved each time, not just a record of the most recent changes. If fast saves are enabled, you will find the size of Word files blows out very quickly when you edit them repeatedly.\n\nTo remove tracking from a Word document, you must accept or reject the tracked changes either individually or one at a time. If you prefer not to have to do this, configure Word to warn you if the document contains tracked changes by clicking Tools -> Options -> Security tab and\nticking the 'Warn before printing, saving or sending a file that contains tracked changes or comments' box. At the same time, tick 'Remove personal information from file properties on save' so these details are removed from the file before you save them. The setting for tracked changes is 'sticky' and will be retained from one document to the next, but the selection for removing personal information from a file's properties is document specific, so you will need to enable this for each document individually.\n\nTo compress images in your file, right-click the image and go to Format -> Picture -> Picture tab. Click the Compress button and select either 'Selected pictures' or All pictures in document' and then choose the resolution you want. If you will be reading the document on the computer screen and not printing it, choose Web/screen to reduce the resolution of the images. You can also choose to compress the pictures and/or delete the cropped areas of the pictures to reduce the image size in the document.\n\nWhile it is important to embed images in Word documents if you plan to share the documents with other people, if you won't be sharing the files or moving them around on your computer, you can insert a picture as a link instead of embedding it. To do that, select the 'Link to file' option. This places a link to the external image in the Word document, so the actual image is not saved within the document. If you move the document or image, the link will break and the image will no longer appear in the document, so make sure you understand what you're doing before you choose this option.\n\nMicrosoft also provides a downloadable tool for Office 2003 and Office XP, which removes more hidden data than the built-in Microsoft Word options. You'll find more detail about this program at http://tinyurl.com/5bams. - Helen Bradley\n\n{{{\nThe above article about how to rid Word documents of unwanted hidden data information raised another interesting point about very long web page addresses (URLs) and how to reduce them by the use of “TinyURLs” or “SnipURLs”. Probably NOT by coincidence there is another Q&A exchange in the August PCUser magazine which gives an explanation of what they are, how you can use them and even create the short URLs yourself. There is even a button you can add to your Web browser to create short cut URLs either form \nTinyURL or SnipURL. See the next page for the article...\n}}}

''~TiddlyWiki:''\n\nTiddlyWiki © [[osmosoft|http://www.osmosoft.com]] 2006\n(See [[TiddlyWiki.com|http://tiddlywiki.com/]] for [[license information|http://tiddlywiki.com/#OpenSourceLicense]])\n\n''Content:''\n\nAll content © original authors, external sites where attributed, or NZPCA.\n

http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/lets.watch.tv.hoax.html\n\nDescription\nThe following message has been sent out by email. It is a hoax. This "virus" does not exist. The hoax message includes the following "warning":\n\n"OFFICIAL IBM VIRUS WARNING. PASS THIS ON TO ANYONE YOU HAVE AN E-MAIL ADDRESS FOR." \n\n//*** THIS IS NO JOKE - PAY ATTENTION: ***// \n\n"If you receive an email titled "Lets watch TV"\nDO NOT OPEN IT. It will erase everything on your hard drive. This information was announced yesterday morning from IBM; AOL states that "KALI" is a very dangerous virus, much worse than "Melissa," and that there is NO remedy for it at this time. Some very sick individual has succeeded in using the reformat function from Norton Utilities causing it to completely erase all documents on the hard drive. It has been designed to work with Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer.It destroys Macintosh and IBM compatible computers. \n\nThis is a new, very malicious virus and not many people know about it. Pass this warning along to EVERYONE in your address book and please share it with all your online friends ASAP so that this threat may be stopped. Please practice cautionary measures and tell anyone that may have access to your computer. \nForward this warning to everyone that might access the Internet." \n\n''Please ignore any messages regarding this "hoax" and do not pass on any messages regarding it. Passing on messages about this hoax serves only to further propagate it.'' \n\nWrite-up by: Patrick Martin \nFeb 8, 2000 \nFurther info at http://www.symantec.com\n\nSupplied by Colin Candy.

It is nice to know that other computer-holics' wives suffer.\n\n I was pleased to read in Penny Currier's article in the last newsletter that she has problems with her husband's continual upgrading. I suffer from the same problem, as Arthur is always doing major or minor revamps to our computers.\n\n I confess that I am computer illiterate, but it is very frustrating to find that just when I think I am making progress, something has gone wrong or my Internet sites are no longer easily accessed. It is amazing what a tick in the wrong box can do to destroy the e-mail system, eh Arthur! We have at least two computers up and running ( hopefully!) and numerous others in bits and pieces in another bedroom, and in the caravan.\n\n Each time we go to the tip I try and con Arthur into getting rid of something. It is like drawing teeth!\n\n// - Pauline //\n

//From don.mcdonald@paradise.net.nz #1048..//\n\n Dear Editor\n\n "This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man's number." (Revelation 13:18, New International Version.) The authoritative on-line reference for integer sequences occurring in mathematics is Sloane's...(Greetings from the ...) ~On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences ! (google eis njas integer lookup research att.)\n\n You may expect to find the Fibonacci sequence (1 1 2 3 5 8..), digits of number pi = .14159.., or Mersenne primes, 2^prime -1, etc. ** When does a decimal string 'n' occur even at the nth place of number pi? ** Sloane's ID A057679, says it happens just 3 times up to the 5 millionth place... ID\n\n Number: A057679 Sequence: 5, 242424, 271070\n Name: String n is found at position n in the decimal digits of pi. Example: 5 is a term because 5 is the 5th digit of pi (3.1415)\n Author(s): Mike Keith (domnei@aol.com), Oct 19 2000 ...Maintained by N. J. A. Sloane (njas@research.att.com )\n\n The string '242424' occurs at the 242424th digits of pi. The full string is '2424 2424 2'. www.angio.net/pi/piquery. This fraction is also extremely close to the frequency of Leap years. Gregorian calendar, 97/400 years = .2425.\n \nSubtract 4 years (and 1 leap year); it would be even closer to the tropical year of 365.24220 mean solar days. (~McGraw-Hill encyclopedia of Astronomy, 2nd edn.) Leap years, 96/396 = 8/33 = .242424 days.\n New Zealand Science monthly, retorts, Improved Calendar, 1995/12. or (google hkmensa ij9904x mcdonald.)\n\n Let's lookup those strings, 5 and 2424, in Strong's Greek dictionary of the New Testament.\n 5 = Abba, father, vocative?\n 2424 = Iesous, (Jesus.)\n 2421, Hebrew and Chaldee dictionary = save, revive, give life.\n\n Continuing along with this theme, Bible numerics says the value of (the Greek) 'Jesus' is 888. (Astounding new discoveries. Russian Scientist proves divine inspiration of Bible, by Karl Sabiers (c) 1941. pub. Tell International, Los Angeles.)\n \nUnfortunately, Strong's exhaustive concordance of the Bible turns a tad ambivalent at this point!!\n 888 = gk, Useless, unprofitable.\n 888 (Hebrew dictionary) = displease.\n \nGee, that's landed a double negative! 2424 (base 7) = 2*343+4*49+2*7+4 = 900 (base 10) = (2*3*5)^2, = 30 squared.\n \nyours sincerely\n don.mcdonald@paradise.net.nz #1048.

\nDear Editor,\n Letter. Internet Addresses.\n\n President's Report last month (Roger Currier, Megabyte #159, October 2001) discusses internet addresses, including 256^4 = (2^8)^4 = 2^32 > 4 billion = 4e9. Contrast world population, 2000 AD, passed 6e9 = 6,ooo,ooo,ooo approx.\n\n The next standard for internet addresses may be vastly larger, Rog :- 256^6 = (2^8)^6 = 2^48 > 10^14.4 = 2.814,75e14. (^ = raised to the power of..)\n\n Myprogram, c22.bas, by don.mcdonald can factor credit card numbers of this size (2^52) in about 10 minutes usually.\n\n Consider powers of 2, e.g. 2^n, n an integer. Very occasionally is (2^n+1) ever a prime number. For, if n contains an odd factor, then 2^(3n)+1, 2^(5n)+1, etc. can be factored as a cube plus a cube, and so on.\n\n The mathematical identity. (a^3+1) = (a+1)(a*a -a +1). Consider the number, 1 billion raised to the power of 1 billion. One billion is a cube of 1000, and a 1-billionth power is also a 5th power.\n\n At my prompting, an Australian mathematician found the factor 864,000,001 divides (1e9 ^ 1e9 +1.) The factor amazingly is the number of seconds in 10,000 days plus a heartbeat!\n\n Much harder is to find (by trial ) that 1,580,187,223 is a factor of (1e9^1e9+3). New Zealand Science Monthly ad, sci.math newsgroup, IsPrime(10^9e9+3)?, (don.mcdonald 100 hrs on 486 laptop, UBASIC.)\n\n If n contains no odd factor, then n must be the product of a certain number of 2s only. E.g. 2^32+1 = 2^(2^5)+1. However, Leonhard Euler (1732) found F(5)=(2^32+1) =641 x 6,700,417. And I showed further the same 641 factor also divides each of (5^32+1) and (1e32-1.)\n\n Yours faithfully\n Don S. Mcdonald (Wellington)\n voice +64 NZ ( 4-WN) - 389 6820.\n\n ********************************************************************\n\n Dear Editor\n\n In reading today's (actually 25th in UK) Daily Telegraph, I was refered to an article by their correspondent John Naughton in the Sunday Observer of 21 October titled "Why we should chuck XP out the Windows. That article includes the comment\n\n "XP also comes with ingenious licensing options, all of which have the effect of locking you into upgrading not when you want to but when Microsoft decides you ought to.\n\n This is bad news, of course, for small companies; but it also scares the pants off industry giants such as BP, Argos, Cadbury Schweppes, Dixons, Marks & Spencer, GlaxoSmithKline and Shell. They have collectively written to DTI Minister Patricia Hewitt complaining that Microsoft's new tariff will generate a 94 per cent increase in the cost of software licences. They estimate that their licensing costs will rise by £880 million a year as a result, and want Hewitt to refer Microsoft to the Office of Fair Trading."\n\n It concluded with the words:-\n\n "In the end, of course, even New Labour will realise that XP is a step too far. In the meantime, taxpayers seeking alternatives to paying the Gates tithe may find something useful at http://www.livingwithoutmicrosoft. org " and that one is a beaut. It's pretty new and one probably ought look at it before it gets swamped.\n\n Yours, Norman Major (memeber 031)

''Dear Editor:''\n\n Paul Phipps' item (September issue, Mega Byte) on his Autoexec.bat and Config.sys files set me off on the `try it and see' trail.\n\n I most frequently write batch files with PC Tools. However I discovered that the Tools word processor does not readily insert an <ESC> code. Indeed, using the Ctrl/[ or the Alt/27 (numeric keypad) options caused the program to ask me if I wanted to save the file before leaving Tools. Not exactly what I was wanting to do. What was worst, an error in keyboarding made me lose control of my machine on rebooting, and I have to resort to a boot disk to get it under control.\n\n As I had been cunning enough to back up my root directory before I started, I ultimately solved the control problem by deleting all the *.bat files from the hard disk root directory and copying across the working set saved to backup disk. [Stop whispering about the smug b!]\n\n Enquiries suggested I could save the file without the escape code, call in up in the Tools View/Edit mode, change to the joint Hex/ASCII presentation, and then invoke the edit option (F3), and find the relevant place in the file and type in the hex code for escape (1B). All rather cumbersome.\n\n It was easier to use WordPerfect, call up the Autoexec.bat file using the DOS text in/out routine, and then use the numeric keypad and Alt 27 at the appropriate point, and save the result again as an ASCII file. \n\n Using a word processor that will save pure ASCII files seems to be superior to Tools when escape codes are required in batch files.\n\n I'm pleased to report that I have one of Paul Phipps' ideas working, and that I will try others shortly (after backing up my hard disk root directory again).\n\n''DOS 5''\n In his item on DOS 5 (September issue, Mega Byte) J. C. Colin points out that the new /L switch `will display the output in lowercase text rather than the usual uppercase letter', he goes on to comment `a feature useful only to nostalgic Unix hounds'.\n\n This disparagement of lowercase file listing is both unworthy and ill-founded. Research clearly shows that text presented in all uppercase (capitals) is some 30-60% less readily comprehensible than text presented in lowercase. \n\n Here are some file names from the last issue of MegaByte presented in both formats:\nCommand .com COMMAND .COM\nConfig .sys CONFIG .SYS\nAutoexec.Bat AUTOEXEC.BAT\nLogon .com LOGON .COM\nAnsi .sys ANSI .SYS\nTriplets.zip TRIPLETS.ZIP\nWin .ini WIN .INI\n\n It takes less time, and there will be less errors, in reading the lowercase schedule. If these examples were also sorted alphabetically, it would take significantly less time to read and identify the required file. \n\n The convention of displaying file names and extensions in capital letters stems from the early days of computing when hard copy was generated by telex and teleprinter equipment. The technology of the times only permitted upper case presentation. This choice was a compromise forced by inadequate resources, not by a rational application of long established typographical conventions or principles.\n\n Here endth this homily.\n Lindsay Rollo\n

Dear Roger,\n\n Topics, September MegaByte\n\n There were three topics in your list for discussion which interested me to the extent of becoming involved. These topics are\n\n 1)......ASCII Character Set.\n 2)......Printer Control Codes.\n 3)......FAT.\n\n The first two are, I suspect, closely related. I have spent many frustrating hours struggling with the 'problem' of how to send Control Codes to the printer; which codes are invariably ASCII characters. All the printer manuals I have read describe how to write a BASIC Language program for sending these codes, but I found my efforts were tedious in the extreme, and unpredictable in operation. I never have found a way to write an "executable" program in my version of BASIC viz GWBASIC, and therefore resorted to a batch file method for running them, but again I always seemed to have trouble with Input. \n\n Since starting to use TurboPascal (I'm still a tyro at it, and would very much like to know why you consider the use of GOTO to be dirty programming), I have had more success in sending ASCII codes to the printer. The ASCII character set itself I understand as being codes which are used by the computer to 'switch' it's circuits, each code being an unique combination of bits in a byte, or 8 bit, sequence. I have gotten far enough into the 'Computer Priesthood of the Nile' to begin to understand this process, just by trial and error! Every time one presses a key in the keyboard one does just that, I gather. The key pressed does nothing else, unless told to do so by one or other of the operating systems eg DOS. \n\n Thanks to reading, rather painstakingly, the TurboPascal Programmer's Reference Manual, also the DOS Programmer's Reference Manual, I have enjoyed the revelation! of starting to understand the significance of the keyboard. If I press, say, a lower case letter p, nothing will happen unless the 'system' tells the computer what to do. The system (or program) can tell the machine to display the letter p on the/a monitor screen, or to print the p on a printer, or to accept the letter p as a signal to do all sorts of astonishing things. So much for the ASCII Character set. It doesn't matter what symbol is used for each character, though it is obviously convenient for characters to look like letters, numbers etc. so that Word Processing types can see their efforts displayed in plain English or Dutch or whatever, whilst Number Crunching types can see the arithmetical values resulting from their efforts.\n\n Perhaps this is very simple for trained Programmers to understand, and this is part of the difficulty of communicating it to lesser mortals. In my own specialisation I can ramble glibly about elasticity, and strain energy, and plastic deformation,etc etc without perhaps realising that my audience has no idea what I'm talking about. Like the old chestnut "Loose Elastic" by Seymour Nicks. Or was it "See more Knicks" by Lucy Lastic. \n\n This leads on to the next revelation. If pressing a key is a device for operating an 'eight pole' switch in an electronic circuit, then various combinations of these switchings can be used, just like the way one switches an electric light on and off. The TurboPascal programming system has a built-in method for doing just that. It's in a unit called Printer, and it sends the character, corresponding to the key which is pressed, indirectly to the printer. If this happens to be a printer control character then the printer will interpret it, not to print the character, but to set or reset a printer function. \n\n Study of printer manuals show, for instance, that if the ASCII character 12 (dec) is sent to the printer it will perform a page feed, or character 15 (dec) will perform Compressed Printing. Typical examples from my own printer manual are straightforward enough, though it does need some knowledge of the ASCII table of characters to see that the character referred to as ESC is character 27 (dec) in the tabular sequence. For members who have a Panasonic KX-P1124 printer set up to the IBM Proprinter mode, I enclose TurboPascal source language and a compiled version called Princode.exe which should enable them to send printer control codes to their printer. It has limited use, but if one wished to print a file through the DOS print command, for instance, it should enable them to set compressed, or double width printing etc. \n\n What I have said should not to be seen as fact, but a view; I am all too ready to accept that my understanding is not correct, and would welcome comments or criticism; even a resounding raspberry may be, whilst not welcome, perhaps tolerable. [1]\n\n Now for the FAT. I read William Sly's article on 'Cloning the FAT' with much interest. FAT is initial abbreviation for File Allocation Table. My understanding of this must make Sector 1 of any disk the busiest sector of the whole disk. However, there is a paragraph or two about the FAT in the DOS Programmers Reference (this is the QUE 2nd Edition version) which makes it appear that loss or corruption of the FAT is not a situation from which recovery is easilypossible. So for my part I have accepted this as a fact, and faced up to accepting that the only way to cope with such a catastrophe is to have the best backup one can. [2]\n\n However, I am not aware of the mirror thing, and do not use PCTools. If it is possible to copy the FAT to another place on the disk, and then to restore it to its Sector 1 place if failure occurs, then AOK. This is something I would like to know more about; the same thing goes for viruses etc. To me the answer has always been BACKUP.\n\n There is one question arising in my mind, relevant to backup, which is "Can a write protected floppy disk have its FAT lost or damaged by any 'normal' means; ie not by being subjected to hostile environment such as magnetic or ultra-violet radiation". I believe suppliers of software are generally amenable to replacing disks which become damaged at small cost eg postage etc.\n\nRalph Hopkins. \n\n''Editor's Reply''\n\n[1] The ASCII code is an agreed standard for storing alphabetic data on a computer and for communicating with a printer. This standard was derived in the days when computers only used 8 bits instead of the 16 or 32 bit machines that exist today. However the standard has 'stood' the test of time and is quite adequate for its needs.\n\nUsing 8 bits (8 different permutations of 1s & 0s) it is possible to represent 256 different letters or characters. Rather than keep referring to 1s & 0s programmers, who like all good mathematicians are inherently lazy, converted the combinations to the decimal (base 10) or hexadecimal (base 16) equivalent for easy reference. \n\nThe ASCII standard defined the letters of the alphabet and other symbols, punctuation, mathematical symbols etc to a particular combination of 1 & 0s and hence letters are someimes referred to as being 95 (dec) or 3F (hex).\n\nAll the upper case, lower case and symbols only take up 96 of these codes and can be contained in 7 bits and still leaving some 32 spare codes for controlling a device. If the full 8 bits are used it is normal for the alphabetical letters to be repeated and other symbols to be allocated. This is where the ASCII code is less adhered to. I have even seen characters such as racing cars or trains defined in a computers 8 bit character set.\n\nNow a printer is just a dumb machine with the instruction to print whatever it receives. That's fine for the 96 printable chars but what happens when you want to give it an instruction to change the font etc. This is where the 32 spare codes come in. When the printer receives one of the '32' it says 'Oh-HO! this is an instruction to do something I had better check my table of instructions for what it means'. \n\nAs it turns out most of the 32 codes were used in controlling teletype machines only leaving four or five codes for our use so a combination of codes had to be developed for printer control. For convenience most of these codes begin with Esc which is 27 (dec) or 1B (hex). This is why, if you look at your printer manual, you see most control codes beginning with Esc or 027 or 1Bh.\n\nI hope this gives you some background on the derivation and use of printer control codes\n\n[2] The FAT. Think about how a disk is used. Files are added and deleted all over its surface and in time the surface of a disk must become quite chaotic with gaps where files have been deleted. In time you could get to the stage where even though overall there was space on a disk you couldn't load a file onto it because there wasn't enough overall continuous space. There are two answers to this; 1) Constantly move the files around to create space or 2) create an index of the files showing where each bit lies on the disk. \nAnother name for this index is the File Allocation Table. \n\nThe answer is obviously 2) imagine having to move 100 megabytes of files just to allow for a small program deletion! \n\nA repercussion of this index is that it has to keep track of each part of a program and not just the beginning. This is where the chain comes in, one part of the index leads to the next & so on.\n\nYou can now see that if the FAT becomes damaged it can be very difficult to recover a program even if the directory is intact. As a safety precaution there are two copies of the FAT on each disk and as a further safety precaution a program called Mirror has been devised to take a copy of the directory and the fat, either at the beginning of a session or the end so that if a virus gets into the FAT there is a record of the locations of the files as they were at one time. Not perfect but pretty good in most cases.\n\nFAT tables do get damaged, disks loose their magnetic fields with time, viruses get at them, some badly written programs damage them, a crash can cause the disk heads to write over them. Fortunately it's pretty rare. Even if they are damaged it does not mean that the program or data is damaged, that should be untouched. The problem lies in finding them not repairing them. It's like looking for something in a book where the index is missing. That's where Norton and the other disk utilities come in and that's another story...\n

Anonymous\n\n Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May and still smelled pretty good by June. However, they were starting to smell so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odour.\n\n Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children - last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it - hence the saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water."\n\n Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw, piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the dogs, cats and other small animals (mice rats, and bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof, hence the saying "It's raining cats and dogs."\n\n There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could really mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence.\n\n The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt, hence the saying "dirt poor."\n\n The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh on the floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they kept adding more thresh until when you opened the door it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entranceway-hence, a "thresh hold."\n\n They cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes the stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while - hence the rhyme, "peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old."\n\n Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man "could bring home the bacon". They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and "chew the fat."\n\n Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with a high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning and death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.\n\n Most people did not have pewter plates, but had trenchers, a piece of wood with the middle scooped out like a bowl. Often trenchers were made from stale pays and bread which was so old and hard that they could use them for quite some time. Trenchers were never washed and a lot of times worms and mould got into the wood and old bread. After eating off wormy moody trenchers, one would get "trench mouth". Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or "upper crust".\n\n Lead cups were used to drink ale or whiskey. The combination would sometimes knock them out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up hence the custom of holding a "wake".\n\n England is old and small and they started out running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a "bone-house" and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realised they had been burying people alive. So they thought they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the "graveyard shift") to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be "saved by the bell" or was considered a "dead ringer".\n

//John Marchington shares his experiences with us about a new way of printing on recordable ~CDs//\n\n''What is it and is it worth considering?''\n~LightScribe is a relatively new method for printing labels on ~CD-Rs or ~DVD-Rs and was developed by Hewlett Packard. I first found out about it when I upgraded a labelling program called ~SureThing, which I have been using for some time. I suddenly found that this upgrade supported ~LightScribe and I became immediately interested in finding out more about it. I had been reading a number of articles about the long-term effects of self-adhesive paper labels on discs. Suggestions had been made that the adhesive could become less effective over time and that label and disc could eventually part company with catastrophic results. There is also a theory that the adhesive will ultimately affect the readability of the disc by causing the reflective upper layer to deteriorate through interaction, although this doesn’t seem to be often publicised. I have also personally found air bubbles between label and disc surface to be troublesome, even though I have a proper applicator to do the job. ~LightScribe promised to end all these problems and provide professional looking results. It seemed too good to be true.\n\nI decided to do further research and the more I delved into it, the more I realised that it wasn’t necessarily going to be the panacea for all one’s printing problems. This would seem to be a good time to explain how it works. A DVD writer with a special laser fitted is required, as are ~CD-Rs/~DVD-Rs with a specific dye coating on their upper surface that is receptive to being chemically altered by laser light. Standard CD or DVD burners/writers are not so equipped, so a special “~LightScribe compatible’ drive is necessary and that has the ~LightScribe logo on the front panel to identify it. At the moment two drive manufacturers appear to be offering ~LightScribe drives – HP (obviously) and a company called Lacie. I now have a Lacie ‘~LightScribe compatible’ 16x internal DVD drive that will handle DVD+/-R and dual layer ~DVDs. I imported it from the US and it cost me the equivalent of NZ$214.99. I also bought a pack of 10x ~CD-Rs from ~LabelGear that are ~LightScribe compatible (NZ$45.50 ouch!) and I have burnt two labels so far with what I consider to be impressive results.\n\nIn effect, one burns one’s data on the disc in the usual way, then one flips the disc over and ‘burns’ the label, using software that is equipped for the task. Up till now, I have neglected to mention one aspect of ~LightScribe technology that might well be the stumbling block for many people, apart from the not inconsiderable cost to implement it. It will not yet handle colour. The results are what one might term ‘sepia-looking’ because the special upper surface coating – at least on the Verbatim discs I have – has a gold tinge so that lettering or areas which would normally be white retain that tinge. Darker areas tend also to come out slightly lighter than expected so that, overall, there is a reduction in contrast when compared with the original artwork. Nevertheless, definition is excellent with sharp lettering and detailed graphics.\n\nOne other aspect of ~LightScribe printing that is pleasing is the positioning of the printing on the label. There is always the possibility with die-cut self-adhesive paper labels that the printing will not appear in precisely the right place on the label and one then either has to make small adjustments and repeat the process, or be prepared to put up with the consequences. The two ~LightScribe labels I have printed so far have reflected the artwork layout exactly and I found that satisfying. I cannot comment on printers that can print directly to discs but my understanding is that such a process has its own special problems as well, notably with ink distribution and drying.\n\nRegarding the long-term stability of ~LightScribe printing, the information I have is that it will possibly fade in time and that will depend particularly on the label’s exposure to sunlight. The high incidence of UV here in New Zealand might well exacerbate the problem, so my advice would be to return the discs to their cases and keep them there when they are not being played. I also understand that the labelling is virtually scratchproof, although I presume damage would occur with a misdirected fingernail, but that will probably be no worse with ~LightScribe.\n\nColour might become a reality in the future but probably as a background aid rather than providing 24-bit or higher colour prints.\n\nI have included a couple of labels that were made by Peter Calkins, a moderator of the ~SureThing forum that I often visit. Peter also provided the ~LightScribe driver that I have installed. Without the driver, the special ~LightScribe template available in ~SureThing is not detected. Certain, later versions of Nero also support ~LightScribe.\n\nPerhaps a pertinent remark made by Kelvin Frame, at the Hutt branch of Quay Computers, might sum up the technology for many people when I happened to mention my interest in it to him. “Two years too late” was his comment. You might agree with him, even if I don’t.\n\nJohn Marchington.\n\nPhotos used:\nLabel 1. LS_Scan2.jpeg\nLabel 2. LS_Scan3.jpeg\n\n

''Are you an Internet Junkie?''\n1. A friend stops to see you since your phone has been busy for a year. \n2. You forgot how to work the TV remote control \n3. You tell everyone that after surgery, your Mum went to ICQ ...... instead of ICU! \n4. You sign off and your screen says you were on for 3 days and 45 minutes. \n5. You place the refrigerator beside you computer. \n6. Tech support calls YOU for help. \n7. You beg your friends to get an account so you "hand Out" \n8. You think faster than the computer.\n \n''Warning signs that you are a little too connected to the Internet..'' \n1. You try to enter your computer password on the microwave. \n2. You have a list of 15 phone and pager numbers and Email address to reach your family of three. \n3. You Email your kid in his room to tell him that dinner is ready. He Emails you back. What’s for Dinner? \n

''Are you an Internet Junkie?''\n#A friend stops to see you since your phone has been busy for a year. \n#You forgot how to work the TV remote control \n#You tell everyone that after surgery, your Mum went to ICQ ...... instead of ICU! \n#You sign off and your screen says you were on for 3 days and 45 minutes. \n#You place the refrigerator beside you computer. \n#Tech support calls YOU for help. \n#You beg your friends to get an account so you "hand Out" \n#You think faster than the computer.\n \n''Warning signs that you are a little too connected to the Internet..'' \n#You try to enter your computer password on the microwave. \n#You have a list of 15 phone and pager numbers and Email address to reach your family of three. \n#You Email your kid in his room to tell him that dinner is ready. He Emails you back. What’s for Dinner? \n

//Supplied by Richard Elam//\n\nThis memo is from an unnamed computer company. It went to all field engineers about a computer\nperipheral problem. The author of this memo was quite serious.\n\n The engineers rolled on the floor! (Especially note last sentence...)\n\nMouse balls are now available as FRU (Field Replacement Units.) Therefore, if a mouse fails to operate or should it perform erratically, it may need a ball replacement.\n\n Because of the delicate nature of this procedure, replacement of mouse balls should only be attempted by properly trained personnel.\n\n Before proceeding, determine the type of mouse balls by examining the underside of the mouse. Domestic balls will be larger and harder than foreign balls. Ball removal procedures differ depending upon the manufacture of the mouse. Foreign balls can be replaced using the pop-off method.\n\nDomestic balls are replaced by using the twist-off method. Mouse balls are not usually static-sensitive. However, excessive handling can result in sudden discharge. Upon completion of ball replacement, the mouse may be used immediately. It is recommended that each replacer have a pair of spare balls for maintaining optimum customer satisfaction.\n\nAny customer missing his balls should contact the local personnel in charge of removing and replacing these necessary items.\n

A confused caller to IBM was having troubles printing documents. He told the technician that the computer had said it couldn't find the printer. The user had tried turning the computer to face the printer - but his computer still couldn't 'see' the printer.\n\nAn exasperated caller couldn't get her new computer to work. After ensuring the computer was plugged in, the technician asked what happened when she pushed the power button. Her response, 'I pushed and pushed on the foot pedal and nothing happened'. The foot pedal turned out to be the computer's mouse.\n\nA technician advised his customer to put his troubled floppy disk back in the drive and close the door.. The customer asked the tech to 'hold on' and was heard putting the phone down, getting up and crossing the room to close the door.\n\n

Type the text for 'Linux'

For those member who are interested in LINUX and would like to belong to a group of enthusiastic LINUX users, LAW is a Wellington based group and everybody is welcome - from the current user to the member who is interested in learning more about LINUX. There were plans to create a LINUX SIG group with in the NZPCA, but as this group covers the same topics the committee decided that it would be better to support it and make a larger group than have two separate smaller groups. \n\nThe LAW group meets on the 2nd Thursday of each month at: \n{{{\nVenue:\n Meeting Room 2\n Ground floor,\n WCC Building\n Wakefield Street\n Wellington\n\nTime: 7:30pm to 10:00 pm\n}}}\nClub resources\nWeb site: http://www.dvs.net.nz/lug/\n{{{\nGeneral Linux discussion mailing list:\nRequest: Linux-request@linux.topnz.ac.nz\nBody: Subscribe\nList: Linux@linux.topnz.ac.nz\n}}}\nFor further information contact\n&nbsp;&nbsp; Geof Lethbridge\n

Supplied by Robin Hinde\n\n ''First Impressions''\n Linux just keeps getting better.\n\n I have been very happy running SuSE Linux (5.3, then 6.3) for some time now, but recently decided to upgrade to a more recent Linux distribution with many of the new features that are now available. I use Linux at home to run a file server, an Internet gateway and as my main desktop operating system. I find it works flawlessly, is easy to configure, supports all my hardware and runs all the software I need - all at a price I can afford.\n\n I had for some time intended to upgrade to SuSE 7.1 - I like SuSE and have become quite familiar with it; I know where most things are, and where you go to configure various parts of the system. Unfortunately SuSE 7.1 was one of the first distributions to include the new 2.4 kernel, and also included the first release of KDE2 as well as XFree86 v4. As is often the case with initial releases, all of these features have been much improved in the few weeks since SuSE 7.1 was released. The Linux 2.4 kernel is significant in that it adds support for USB and other hardware; my interest in it is because it has improved handling of multiple processors.\n\n I have previously demonstrated and been very impressed with Mandrake 6.0 and although I'm not very familiar with Mandrake I decided that it was worth spending $30.00 to see if the latest release (Mandrake 8.0) was as good as people have been saying. My copy (2 CDs) was delivered one working day after I ordered it from http://www.copyleft.co.nz.\n\n Hardware requirements for running the latest Linux graphical environments are quite high - I have been happy enough running KDE1 on a Pentium Pro200 with 64MB of RAM, but decided a hardware upgrade was warranted. I am now running KDE 2.1.1 on a dual Pentium Pro with 196MB of RAM and I find the system runs well, but I think that my original hardware would have been minimal at best. I find that RAM (rather than CPU speed) is the deciding factor when running software - excluding games of course.\n\n Installing Mandrake 8.0 is easy - just put the CDROM in your drive and start your PC. I would expect that if your PC won't boot off your CDROM drive, you can as easily install Mandrake from within Windows. As usual, Linux installed flawlessly, but in this case the installation detected a few more details than previously - even correctly identifying the system as having dual processors and installing the correct kernel.\n\n The whole installation process is graphical, and looks absolutely stunning - definitely a taste of things to come. You can choose from a range of default installation configurations, or if you wish you can select what you want to install yourself. This could take you some time, there is a lot to choose from. There is also a console based installation option available.\n\n After the installation is complete, the system starts (no rebooting is required at any stage) and you are presented with a graphical desktop (in my case, I'd selected KDE as my desktop - there are almost a dozen window managers available). Even the KDE splash screen is a work of art - a lot of work has gone into developing KDE over the last couple of years, and obviously not all the contributions have been from programmers.\n\n The KDE2 desktop is the most impressive desktop I've used, even straight "out of the box". It is almost as clean as Beos, but is endlessly customisable. While a Windows user would certainly feel at home, (and in fact could set things so they couldn't tell the difference) the KDE2 desktop makes Windows 2000 look like the old Windows 3.1 Program Manager in comparison, both in terms of appearance and functionality.\n\n There is a good selection of software on the 2 CDs supplied, as well as a tour of Mandrake and a good tutorial on how to use its features.\n\n The software included covers a whole range of interests - multimedia, networking and Internet applications (including about 6 web browsers and several HTML editors, email, chat, FTP and news clients), graphics, CD burning and archiving utilities, many office applications (KOffice is now usable and has been included), CAD software, accounting, text editors and emulators.\n\n In the last category I include WINE (Windows Is Not an Emulator) which has improved dramatically since I last tried it 18 months ago - I am writing this article in MS Write running on Linux. MS Office is now reported to run under WINE, as do a surprising number of other Windows applications. Unreal is reported to run faster under WINE than native Windows.\n\n Many applications have been improved and there are several stunning new ones. Evolution is the Linux equivalent of Outlook, except it looks better and doesn't suffer from Outlook's security problems. Konqueror is the KDE2 file manager, which also works as a file viewer, web browser and FTP client - handling files anywhere on the desktop or network is seamless.\n\n Some of the other applications are bewildering. I have yet to get to grips with aRTS builder, an application that lets you connect a huge array of audio processing modules into each other (a bit like Lego) to generate and process audio.\n\n My old favorites are here - Qcad, Kmail, Netscape, Kwrite, the Gimp, XMMS and of course, the ever useful command line with cdrecord, waverec, telnet etc.\n\n If you are thinking of spending $500.00 or so to buy Windows2000 or the next Windows operating system (and even if you are not), I'd certainly recommend spending $30.00 to try Mandrake 8.0 first. Even if it doesn't run your favourite software (or a very close equivalent) you will gain some idea of just how much you will be missing.\n\n Links:\n http://www.copyleft.co.nz\n http://www.mandrake.com\n http://www.kernel.org\n http://www.kde.org\n http://www.ximian.org\n http://www.xfree86.org\n http://www.gimp.org\n http://www.winehq.org\n http://wine.codeweavers.com \n

I'm not sure, but I may possibly qualify as a Southern Man - for the time being, anyway. Southern Men don't eat quiche, and they wouldn't use text editors (if they used computers, that is).\n\nThis entire article is brought to you by the copy command, which is all that is available from my only boot disk. \n{{{\n copy con filename.txt\n}}}\ngets input from the keyboard (con is console) to the file, while \n{{{\n copy filename1+filename2 filenamex \n}}}\nis used to join (concatenate) individual parts of the article together. It isn't recommended, and it isn't pretty, but given no other choices and a rainy wet and cold (it is snowing on the hills around here) day at Tekapo, it gets the job done.\n\nI had a fully functional laptop when this holiday started at Christmas, but for some reason, the hard drive died while trying to install muLinux on it. I'd resized a partition, and created a couple of partitions for muLinux to install onto (a swap partition and a data partition of about 20Mb each) without any problems, then tried installing the X11 modules for muLinux using the swap partition. This took quite a long time, and was accompanied by a lot of disk activity, so I left it running while I went away and had dinner.\n\nWhen I returned, I rebooted my laptop, to the sound of screeching and rhythmic clunking noises coming from my hard drive. I don't know why the hard drive failed (I hope it is the drive, and not the controller) and it is probably pure coincidence that I was running Linux at the time - but you never know. This particular hard drive has given several years of good service, although it uses a drive overlay to enable it to work in this laptop, and this could also be a cause of the problem.\n\nMy only option was to remove the hard drive (fortunately I could use a nail file to undo the laptop screws) but this also removed DOS, Windows and OS/2 - all I had left was my Partition Magic boot floppy, with the DOS commands that are internal to command.com*\n\nBeing a good NZPCA member, I know how much Arthur depends on getting articles from us - so it had to be done.\n\nI guess there are several lessons to be learned from this experience:\n*Take care when installing Linux (or any other operating system or software, for that matter)\n*Be prepared when travelling, at the very least, take an emergency boot/utility disk\n*Even when trying to learn about Linux, you may well end up learning more about DOS.\n*Share your experiences with other NZPCA members - write an article for megabyte - even if you have to use command.com to do it!\n \nEnough of this computer stuff - I'm off to find some Speights :-)\n\n //*Windows 95/98 users please note that command.com is not a web site :-)//

Right, this is the real thing. Linux is now being used here for some real work, especially as I just collected my repaired monitor from Monitor & Terminal. Good service, with a two day turnaround, and a loan monitor for free. Although VGA paints the screen very quickly, it gives a very cramped workspace which can be very annoying if you work with lots of windows open, and are needing to switch between them constantly. This has been particularly bad on my 12" IBM (8513) monitor so I'm relieved to get my 15" monitor back. \n\nThe system I am currently using is ~SuSE6.1 (beta), with KDE Desktop Environment. This isn't very different to Windows, although it is very much more configurable and far better looking. I currently have a lot of help and documentation windows open, which is why I prefer a good high resolution monitor. Remember "unix is not just an operating system, it also teaches you to read". \n\nThere is a huge learning curve involved if you are new to Linux (like me) but you've probably forgotten how much time you spent learning DOS in the early days. Using Linux will make you realise just how easy to use some modern operating systems have become - although this is at some considerable cost in terms of features and capabilities. Of course, Linux is itself becoming easier to use by the month, so it should overtake other operating systems in a very short time. \n\nFor example, before I could save what I've written of this article to this point, I had to learn how to mount a MSDOS filesystem under Linux, so that I could save it in the correct directory (ie with all my other data.) Of course, all this takes time, but there is no substitute for using new software (be it application or operating system) to actually do something so that you learn how to use it, rather than playing around with it for a while and then going back to what you know best. \n\nThose who have downloaded and tried the QNX demo I showed at the Hutt SIG last month, and who would like a look at Linux without installing it to your hard drive, may also be interested in muLinux (or ~MicroLinux). muLinux is a remarkable Linux distribution, in that it fits on a single floppy disk. ~XWindows functionality is provided with a second (optional) disk, and some additional features are supplied on a third. \n\nThe boot disk gives you internet mail, news, and a couple of web browsers, as well as a fair selection of utilities. I was able to browse www.computers. org.nz while listening to ~CDs within 30 minutes of making the disks, and able to ping one of the other systems on my network shortly after that. Make no mistake, the first floppy is in itself a complete and useful Linux system. \n\nThe whole thing is remarkably easy to setup - you follow a series of questions when you boot the system for the first time - and has the ability to save configuration data back to the boot floppy. Multiple configurations are able to be saved. muLinux works well on systems with a reasonable amount of memory (I have tried it with 32Mb and 64Mb, but 16Mb should also be OK) and because it resides entirely in memory, it is extremely fast. \n\nUnlike the QNX demo, muLinux can access your hard drive if you wish (you need to mount it first) but this isn't recommended unless you know what you are doing. As you log on with root access, take care. \n\nObtaining muLinux is easy; go to http://mulinux.nevalabs.org and download the files you require. Unzip the files into a directory, then from DOS, run install.bat from that directory. Linux will start from DOS, format your floppy disks, then copy files to them. Use good quality floppies when you make the disks, as they will be formatted to 1.72Mb - I had one cheap floppy fail a couple of days after I made it. \n\nAfter the disks have been written, the system will reboot to Linux, and you can begin the configuration process. Be very careful in your choice of answer to each question, and you shouldn't have any problems, although the questions can be a bit daunting for first time users. You will need to know information about your system (where your mouse and modem are connected, what NIC and printer you have - if any) and also need to know your ISP details if you intend to connect to the internet. \n\n//(picture inserted here -- muLinux screen)//\n\nMichael Callahan produced this screenshot \nWhile muLinux isn't as slick as the QNX demo, it certainly serves as a good introduction to Linux, and is capable of being used for real work. It is also useful as a learning tool, as any mistakes you make will at worst (hopefully) only require writing a new floppy disk - so it is excellent for playing around with. \n\nHave fun.\n

\n\n#You accidentally try to enter your password on the microwave.\n#You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.\n#You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of three.\n#You e-mail your mate who works at the desk next to you.\n#Your reason for not staying in touch with friends is that they do not have e-mail addresses.\n#When you go home after a long day at work you still answer the phone in a business manner.\n#When you make phone calls from home, you accidentally insert a "1" to get an outside line.\n#You've sat at the same desk for four years and worked for three different companies.\n#Your company's welcome sign is attached with Velcro.\n#Your CV is on a disk in your pocket.\n#You learn about your redundancy on the 11o'clock news.\n#Your biggest loss from a system crash was when you lost all of your best jokes.\n#Your boss doesn't have the ability to do your job.\n#Contractors outnumber permanent staff and are more likely to get long-service awards.\n#Board members salaries are higher than all the Third World countries annual budgets combined.\n#Interviewees, despite not having the relevant knowledge or experience, terminate the interview when told of the starting salary.\n#Free food left over from meetings is your staple diet.\n#Your boss gets a brand-new state-of-the-art laptop with all the latest features, while you have time to go for lunch while yours boots up.\n#Being sick is defined as you can't walk or you're in hospital.\n#There's no money in the budget for the five permanent staff your department desperately needs, but they can afford four full-time management consultants advising your boss's boss on strategy.\n#Your relatives and family describe your job as "works with computers".\n \n AND THE CLINCHERS ARE ...\n#You read this entire list, and kept nodding and smiling.\n#As you read this list, you think about forwarding it to your "friends"\n#You got this email from a friend that never talks to you anymore, except to send you jokes from the net.

Do you understand this file structure? \n\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; COMPUT~1.doc\n \nIn ~MS-DOS file names can not exceed eight characters, plus a three-character extension. The file is separated from the extension by a period [.] giving rise to the 8.3 naming convention. Windows 95/98 support of long file-names ~LFNs does away with the limitations of the 8.3 file naming convention. Windows 95/98 allows you to create files with names that are up to 255 characters in length and that contain more than one period or space. Although file-names can be up to 255 characters it is advisable not to use file-names greater than 30 characters. ~LFNs are any files that exceed 8.3 characters in length. As stated above, a long file-name can have a maximum of 255 characters, but the entire path to the file may not exceed 260 characters.\n \nLFN files are automatically given 8.3 ~MS-DOS names as well. This is done so that applications that cannot read LFN files are still able to access the files. For example, you cannot attach a file with a long file-name to an e-mail message. The e-mail message requires the 8.3 format. Windows 95/98 imposes long file-names on FAT partitions by bringing together a series of ~MS-DOS compatible entries into a single file-name entry. Each ~MS-DOS compatible directory entry can host 13 characters. A 26-character entry for example would require 2 directory entries. The first bit in each entry identifies the sequence of the entry in the chain. ~LFNs are given the following attributes. \n\n\nSystem\nHidden\nRead only\nVolume label\n\n~MS-DOS doesn't recognise the attribute of ~LFNs. Therefore it ignores the directory entries with these attributes. \n\nThe files that are associated with FAT and ~FAT32 partitions are associated with two file-names. These are a long file-name and an ~MS-DOS name. An ~MS-DOS name is an ~MS-DOS compatible file-name that conforms to a 8.3 character naming convention. The file-names cannot exceed 8 characters and the extension cannot exceed 3. ~MS-DOS names are all uppercase, whereas ~LFNs don't have to be. The ~MS-DOS name comprises three parts. These are a basic name, a numeric tail, and an extension. Ie: - COMPUT~1.TXT. Converting the first six characters in the long-file-name to upper case creates the name. All alphanumeric characters are useable. Some symbol, such as @ ! # $ % are unusable. Spaces are not allowed as part of the basic name. The numeric tail consists of a tilde ~, and a number. If the file name is unique, then the number 1 will be used. If there are multiple files with the same name, they will receive differing numeric tails. ~2, ~3, ~4. The extension is created from the first three characters following the final period in the long file-name. \n\nIf a document is called ~ComputerClubMaterial.doc the ~MS-DOS name would be COMPUT~1.DOC If this name already exists for a file in that folder, then it would be called COMPUT~2.DOC \n\nWhen you move a file from one folder to another folder, the ~MS-DOS name will change. If you have a number of files on the subject of ~ComputerClub in the Club directory. Their ~MS-DOS names are \n\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; COMPUT~2.DOC\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; COMPUT~3.DOC\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; COMPUT~4.DOC\n\nIf you move the file called COMPUT ~3.DOC to ~LHClub directory, and it's the only ~ComputerClub file in the ~LHClub directory, it would be called COMPUT~1 .DOC. Even if the file was moved using ~LFNs in Windows 95/98 the same process would take place. This is because a corresponding file is automatically generated in ~MS-DOS. \n\nThere are problems that are frequently associated with file-names, and some of these can be rectified. Often long file names are not available when you want to boot to a command prompt. This is because support for ~LFNs is provided by protected mode files system drives. These drives are not loaded when booting to a command prompt. The solution to the problem is to use a ~MS-DOS prompt from inside Windows 95/98. \n\nOccasionally the ~MS-DOS names for long file-names are deleted. This is because the alias structure uses the same field entries as typical ~MS-DOS file-names. Some ~MS-DOS utilities don't expect to see a value in these fields, and when they attempt to repair them, they inadvertently destroy them. The best thing to do is to use a Windows 95/98 utility in place of the ~MS-DOS utility. You may find the ~MS-DOS names for long file-names are changed. This can happen during operations such as edit, copy, restore and backup, when the alias associated with the file might change. Suppose you copy a file called COMPUT~3.DOC to a different directory. If there is not a similar name in the target directory already, then the file might be registered as COMPUT~1.DOC. You need to be aware that the name can change, so that you will recognise the file. Long file-names are destroyed if an operation such as copy, edit or backup is performed on the alias rather than the long file-name itself. For example if you edit the file ~ComputerClubMaterial under the alias COMPUT~1.DOC, then the long file-name will be destroyed and changed to the alias.\n\nJohn Thomson.\nGella@voyager.co.nz\n\n

By John Thomson\n\nRecently a friend rang me because his Internet Explorer was opening a second home page everytime he re-booted his computer. Plus his default home page was being changed to a junk mail page, even when he reset Internet Explorer to his favourite default page. To fix this problem, follow these instructions.\n\nA word of warning: going into the registry and changing settings can be extremely risky. Only change what is listed below and nothing else.\n\n* Start > Run > Regedit.exe (Type regedit.exe in the small box and press Ok).\n* Go to the following section in your registry.\nHKEY_CURRENT_USER\sSoftware\sMicrosoft\sWindows\sCurrentVersion\sRun\n* Find the any string there and delete it. It may look like this. C:\swindows\ssystems32\sgozip.tmp. But it can be any file, which shouldn't be there. RUN acts as an AutoStart. So you can remove everything unnecessary from here. Don't delete the default setting. It may also be located in other directory sections in your registry.\n* Close Regedit.\n* Open Internet Explorer.\n* Change your default page to the one you want. (Tools > Internet Options > Home page.) The box gives you three options. 1. Use current. 2. Use default or 3. Use Blank. I prefer to use blank so my computer is not racing off to download an Internet page I don't want.\n* If you don't want the latter to happen again, change your security options in Internet Explorer to prompt you whether to run or download any ActiveX controls and always answer NO. Especially if you are unsure.\n{{{\n[Registry Editor]\n}}}\nMy friend gave the above information to another friend who also had a similar problem. Although the above partly fixed the problem, I found in his program files list an additional program which I realised was probably causing the problem. C:/Program Files/BrowserEnh is a type of browser enhancement plug-in; I deleted the directory BrowserEnh. This fixed the problem. Most users of Windows will realise that this is not the correct way to delete a program. The best way is to use the icon in Control Panel. Start>Settings>Control Panel>Add/Remove Programs. Doing it this way you're hopefully removing all the relevant little bits and pieces. Also you can see if there are any other problem programs installed you do not want.\n\nUsing RegClean as described by Jim in last months MegaByte is also something to be tried when having a problem. As stated in his article "a complete re-installation, is sometimes not a bad thing if the PC has become so garbled as to mess up these vital (registry) files." I agree. After doing all of the above remember to defrag and scandisk your machine.\n\nOn a lighter note, recently I went to a mid city auction and checked a computer for a friend. I was surprised when a company name and user name appeared for a person who has recently been sent to prison for fraud. Many novices don't realise that you can use regedit.exe to find such things as owner's name, user's name, computer name, and registration number, embedded in your registry.\n{{{\n[Microsoft RegClean]\n}}}\nCheckout these locations using Regedit.\nHKEY_CURRENT_USER\sSoftware\sMicrosoft\sWindows\sCurrentVersion\sSyncmgr.\nHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\sSystem\sCurrentControlSet\sControl\nHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\s System\sCurrentControlSet\sControl \scomputername\scomputername.\nJohn Thomson\nGella@paradise.net.nz \n

by John Marchington \n\nJohn Greally, General Manager of Edge Computer NZ Ltd, talked to the Hutt SIG of the Association on Monday night at the Moera Community House about his company and its involvement in the KTX range of computer products. He even generously handed out a KTX mouse as a gift to each of those present. \n\nKTX was the result of a Hong Kong Chinese businessman's involvement in electronics who began in a small way, steadily purchasing businesses to build his empire. He eventually emigrated to Australia and is reputed to be one of the wealthiest men across the Tasman. \n\nAmongst other matters, John spoke of a new Internet Service Provider his company is involved with, as KTX has purchased the Australasian arm of the Microsoft Network and membership will be included in future KTX computer systems purchased. He expects that to be a big drawcard and play a part in helping Edge to become one of the big players in the country in the not-too-distant future. \n\nHe also spoke about the computer industry generally and this member was disturbed by the apparent wheeling and dealing which is currently taking place, some of it sounding unethical to say the least. Many will say that much of it is standard business practice which most companies get involved in, yet one gets the feeling that it is a somewhat unhealthy environment where businesses do not always have control over their own destinies. Today's successes can become tomorrow's casualties through no fault of their own. In the manufacturing sector of the industry, it was also unsettling to hear statements about the high failure rates of some companies' microprocessors due to inadequate testing during production. \n\nThe meeting went on for rather longer than usual and it was obvious that those present found John to be an interesting and knowledgeable character, and it is understood that his company might be contributing some hardware for the forth coming auction at St Pats at the April meeting. \n\nThe speaker at next months meeting on the 12th of April, will be the manager of Quay Computers in the Hutt.\n

By Roger Currier\n\n ''MIME'' - Simply explained\n What is it? What's it for? Why are files sent in MIME encoding?\n\n ''What is it?''\n MIME encoding is the encoding used to send files over the internet. Your files are not just sent, they are encoded on your machine and decoded at the other end - normally without you being aware of it. Just occasionally you may receive a file that looks like this which tells you it has not been encoded.\n{{{\n ----=_NextPart_000_01BAFECC.1A249AE0\n Content-Type: application/octet-stream; name="draft.doc"\n Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64\n \n 0M8R4KGxGuEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPgADAP7/CQAGAAAAAAAAAAAACAAAAdQAAA EAAAdgAAAAAEAARD+////AAAAAHQAAACAAAAA//////////////////////// ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// pWgAV+AJBAAACAB1AAAAAAAAAAAAAwAAsQYAABXnAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAL 0M8R4KGxGuEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPgADAP7/CQAGAAAAAAAAAAAACAAAAdQAAA AAAAAAAC24gAAAAAAALbiAAAAAAtuIAABQAADg4gAAAAAAODiAAAAAA4OIAAA\n}}}\n This article is not an explanation of how to decode the file - (that's easy you just use a decoding program) - it's an explanation of why it is encoded in the first place.\n\n ''What's it for?''\n\n To overcome one of the early Internet design faults.\n\n ''Why are files sent in MIME encoding?''\n When the Internet was invented modems were slow, operating systems were simple and only text files were exchanged. This could be done most easily by sending messages in ASCII. ASCII is an American Standard for storing letters and numbers in computers using 8 bits of binary data. (Which was the biggest piece of data storage envisaged at the time). Now 8 bits of binary data will store up to 256 different combinations of 1s & 0s - so there was ample space to hold the alphabet - upper and lower case, numbers and punctuation characters.\n\n Typically 26+26 (for the alphabet upper and lower case)+10 (for numbers)+say 20 for some punctuation and control characters is all you may need for a simple text message. I suspect when some engineer saw this he said 'hey this only adds up to 82 we can store 82 characters in 7 bits. Why bother sending 8 bits when we can do it in 7 - that will give us a 12.5% improvement in speed' - he was right in fact you can store up to 128 different characters in 7 bits.\n\n As it was modems were not as reliable in those days and they decided to use all 8 bits to send data using the spare bit as an error check. (If the 7 bits added up to an odd number set the 8th bit to 0 and make it 1 if they are even).\n\n So the data was (and still is) sent using 8 bits - but not all the bits being data.\n\n Now with our complicated files, different fonts, pictures, games, etc etc that we want to send over the net we have a problem because we cannot hold the data in 7 bits we need all 8. That's where MIME comes in. How do you get 8 bits in the space taken by 7? Well you can't so there!\n\n What you have to do is send two or more sets of 8 bits and chop off the bits you don't want. But that means that you have to send two bytes for every one byte of information you want to send. Ever wondered why the Internet is so slow?\n\n It's not quite that bad. What MIME encoding does is convert two sets of 8 bits into 3 sets by using six of the seven bits in each byte. Ie it converts the signal from say.\n{{{\n Two lots of 8 bits 10101011 10101111\n Converted into xx101010 xx111010 xxxx1111 the 'x' used for error checking.\n}}}\n The spare bits shown as xx are used for error checking and error correction which somewhat alleviates the problem.\n\n I have deliberately simplified this explanation but I don't think there is anything which will lead you astray. MIME is much more sophisticate than indicated here. The intention is to give you some explanation as to why MIME is necessary.\n Rog

//by Don McDonald//\n\nI have used an IBM compatible windowscomputer at the church office for 4 years to enter the banking and cheques. We are satisfied with the Quicken accounts programme.\n\nTwo months ago I bought a 486 Toshiba laptop computer from Cash Converters. \nAll the criticisms of (its) Microsoft Windows 95 operating system were justified. One book which helped me was "Big book of windows 95 basics", cost about $40 (reduced.) I have also worked through MS Word-97 Introduction and Intermediate training on CD-ROM at NZPC office. (Compact Disc, read-only memory.) My test scores were 50 % (less or more), depending on the number of times I had read the lesson.\n\nA problem is that Bill Gates' Microsoft company has 90 per cent of market share of windows operating systems. I have owned BBC -model B microcomputer (32 kilo-bytes RAM, 1987) and Acorn Archimedes A4000 Home Office Computer (1993.) The Archimedes A4000 computer comes with 2 mega-bytes of Read Only memory (operating system), 2 MB of RAM (upgradeable to 4 MB, random access memory) 80 MB of IDE Hard Disc drive (80 million characters of permanent storage) and RISC OS (reduced instruction set computer, operating system version 3.11) \nAcorn provides a very good dialect of BBC BASIC V (Beginners All purpose symbolic instruction code programming language.) (I write 90% of my software myself.) A text editor, drawing program, and paint program are standard. Eight (8x) half hour audio tape lessons tell you step by step what to do. \nRemember! Microsoft Pentium chip would not do floating-point divide correctly (FDIV.) Is your computer ~Y2K (year 2000) compliant? For Internet access I pay my ISP Internet Service Provider www.actrix.gen.nz about $14 per month for BBS service. (Bulletin Board, Wellington New Zeal.) A smaller charge for www (world wide web) traffic may be payable (cheaper in advance) on top of this.\nI use a communication program called Connector9.2 for Acorn (NOT MS DOS.) It includes text, no graphics, no frames, no audio, no mouse, no cookies, no video, no browser no viruses, no favourites. This is almost good enough for e-mail (electronic mail) and news groups (discussions.) I have a 2400 BPS (bits per second) Modem (modulator de-modulator) which connects my computer to the telephone network. A newer home computer may vastly exceed these specifications. \n\nTO CREATE A LETTER AND SAVE.\n(Menzed #351 Dec 1999.) \nPower on the Acorn computer. \nLook for a small graphic 'icon' on the task bar (bottom of screen.) It includes a drawing pencil, painting brush, an editor pen.\nThe hand adjustable mouse device has 3x buttons: left button means 'select', middle 'menu ', and right 'adjust' (Mnemonic SMA.ll- SMA.rt etc. left to right) The 'Wimp' systems involve W-indows, Icons, Menus, Pointers.\nLeft select on 'Apps' icon, the ink pen. A 'folder' containing application files appears on the pin board. Double left-select on "edit" ink pen icon, the text editor in Apps directory and then similarly (single click) again at the icon bar. \nType your letter. (address, body etc.) Press middle mouse button for menu. Choose "save". Beginner- Save at the beginning and after every dozen or so lines until you know what you are doing. Can prevent having to laboriously re-enter 1000 word essay. \nA 'dialogue box' appears that invites "save textfile ok." If you would click on 'ok' the operating system may answer: "Error from Edit /!\s. To save, drag the icon to a directory display. OK" When I confirm ok ..(I understand the error advice)-- I say again save "textfile" (it is recommended that you enter your more meaningful file name) . This time (if I haven't learnt before) I drag (hold down left mouse button) on the little picture icon , moving it to a folder, and release. Is this (any) more helpful / easier/ than Win 95? I found Acorn's ~RISC-OS operating system more familiar to the user.\nI refer to everything from Power on to shutdown? The computer is a difficult *learning curve*. Important. 'Shutdown' the computer via the Acorn icon on task bar. \n\nP.S. regretably Acorn Computer User Group NZ ~INc. is in hiding. I'll bet you lost one or five letters on the computer when you were ?learning? Well!! I typed (so I hoped) "OLD" to recover a BASIC program. But I hit "zero" instead of "ooh". The result= I replaced my brilliant program with a program with *line zero* only ! Ouchh!\nThanks to T.C. or other authors for raising this debate.\n

//Presentation by Jim Oliver\nArticle by Robin Hinde//\n \nNZPCA member Jim Oliver gave a well prepared and interesting presentation on audio file formats and players at the September NZPCA meeting. \n\nNot unexpectedly, the main topic of discussion was ~MP3 files and PC players, although Jim also talked about other file formats and demonstrated a small ~MP3 hardware player, similar to a Walkman.\n\nAbout 2 years ago, I was asked by a friend how practical it would be to download music ~CDs directly from the internet. My reply was that I couldn't see it happening for some time - of course, I was very wrong.\n\nThe problem is one of file size - an audio CD contains a huge amount of data. To download that at modem speeds could require more than a day of continuous connection time, obviously not practical or economic for the average person.\n\nAt that time, audio compression technology was not in widespread use (although it existed - work on ~ISO-MPEG Audio Layer-3, the basis of ~MP3 audio, was started in 1987). Layer-3 technology can compress CD audio by a factor of 12, with no perceptible reduction in quality, and by reducing sampling bitrate, and limiting bandwidth and stereo effects, higher compression rates can be achieved with only slightly noticeable loss of quality. Sampling bitrates of 112 - 114 kbps (compression of 12-14:1) are commonly used to produce CD quality ~MP3 files available over the Internet, while in extreme cases, telephone quality mono audio can be coded with a compression of 96:1. \n\nShoutcast (http://www.shoutcast.com) uses a streaming ~MP3 format, with sample rates varying from 128kbps to 20kbps. Recently I was listening to a radio station in Texas, and a sample rate of 28kbps (I only have a 28k8 modem) gave audio quality somewhere between AM and FM radio quality.\n\nIt is the widespread use of this compression technology, combined with the ability to transfer and copy the resulting files over the Internet that has opened the floodgates of ~MP3 availablity, and this has the record companies seriously worried.\n\nJim demonstrated a range of music that he had encoded at different sample rates, and the difference in quality was readily apparent when played through a good quality stereo. Also noticeable, was the effect on some instruments, with harpsichords in particular being very intolerant of lower sample rates.\n \nThere are many ~MP3 players available for ~PCs, (no matter what OS you use) with Winamp probably being the most commonly used for Windows - and it is now freeware. Winamp is quite an impressive piece of software, as it supports skins and plugins. Skins allow users to design their own interface for Winamp, and plugins allow programmers to extend Winamp's capabilities. Jim demonstrated a plugin designed to produce a screensaver-like display controlled by the audio being played. See http://www.winamp.com for more details.\n\nJim also demonstrated ~K-Jofol, a rather visually interesting freeware ~MP3 player. Again, skins are supported, and with a little work it should be possible to design an interface that nobody could ever figure out how to use!\n\n//(picture inserted here)// \n\nThere was a brief discussion about digitally extracting audio from ~CDs (rather than playing them through the soundcard, with a resulting reduction in quality); for this, a "ripper" is used. Encoding is done by using either a freeware encoder like Blade, or if speed is essential, buying a commercial encoder. See http://www.mp3.com for details on making your own ~MP3 files.\n\nFor those that would like to learn more, there is a large resource of information related to digital audio compression at the Fraunhofer Institute:\n\nhttp://www.iis.fhg.de/amm/techinf/layer3/index.html\n \nMany thanks to Jim Oliver for taking the time to prepare for this presentation (twice - Jim has presented this topic to the Hutt SIG previously).\n\nPerhaps some other NZPCA members with an interest or expertise would be prepared to give similar presentations in future, as these are often of more relevance to NZPCA members than commercial presentations.\n

//From IDG's New Zealand Reseller News. Wednesday, 13 October, 2004. Bill Bennett, Auckland//\n\n\nThis morning (NZ time) Microsoft’s Bill Gates unveiled a consumer-oriented version of his company’s Windows operating system designed to take PC technology out of the office and into the living room. \n\nWindows XP Media Centre Edition 2005 can turn a PC into an entertainment centre; downloading, controlling and recording music, radio, movies and television. Hardware running the OS can link to high definition televisions, portable devices and other home entertainment hardware. \n\nAlthough the OS is being rolled out internationally in time to catch an anticipated Christmas sales rush, Microsoft is not formally launching Media Centre in New Zealand. \nFrom IDG's New Zealand Reseller News\n\nA spokesman for the company said part of the reason for this is the lack of a local electronic programme guide (EPG), which allows users to select TV shows in advance from a menu similar to that found on Sky’s existing hardware. TV programme guides form part of a TV network’s intellectual property and are closely guarded. \n\nMicrosoft says negotiations over a local EPG are continuing, until these are complete the operating system remains an early adopter product. The company is formally launching the OS in other markets where EPG negotiations have not been completed. \n\nA handful of hardware makers, including ~Hewlett-Packard, are planning to introduce Media Centre products in the near future despite the lack of an EPG.\n\nOne local vendor, Albany-based Arche Technologies, has been selling a product based on the technology for the past year. Sales Manager Darren Smith says that to date his company’s Media Centre-based Megabox system has not sold in large numbers. \n\nHe says, “We’re releasing a new version to our dealers on November 1. We’ve revamped everything, the box has gone black. In the past we only offered one model, we’ll now offer a range with a variety of looks. The earlier version looked like a Shuttle PC, the new models have been sized and designed to fit in with a stereo or home theatre system.”\n\nArche’s Megaboxes are custom built, but retail prices start at $2499. \n\nSmith says the absence of an EPG is not a big issue for users, “It means little because the functionality of a Media Centre box is so good anyway.” \n\n

''MSN Continues to Take on Google''\n//(A news article from MSN’s Website)//\n\nOn 31 January 2005 MSN launched its new search engine, which it said it has built from scratch to consumers’ tastes.\nIn the ongoing battle to challenge Google’s supremacy, Microsoft said the final version was built on feedback from its second public beta version of the service, launched in November 2004. This has allowed it to refine MSN Search into a search tool that is faster than ever and more relevant to consumers’ needs.\n\nThe tool has a five billion document index, which is refreshed every two days and users can also link to the online resources of Microsoft’s encyclopedia, Encarta. The facility also includes free access to Encarta online Premium content.\n\nChoosing certain search criteria, such as specific websites, country, region or language, can narrow searches down. Customers who have specific criteria they want to apply to their searches can refer to a menu of adjustable onscreen ‘graphic equalisers’.\nMSN Search is at http://search.msn.com\n

[[Introduction]] [[Browse Megabyte]] [[SiteMap|sitemaptest]] [[Legal|Legal Information]] [[Help]] [[CDROM|About this CDROM]] [[Administration]] <<search>>

As you are aware ships have long been characterised as being female,\n(eg "Steady as she goes"). Recently a group of computer scientists announced that computers should also be referred to as female.\nTheir reasons for drawing this conclusion follow:\n* No-one but their Creator understands their internal logic.\n* The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else.\n* The message "Bad Command or File Name" is about as informative as "If you don't know why I am mad at you, then I'm not going to tell you!"\n* Even your smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for later retrieval.\n* As soon as you make the commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your pay cheque on accessories for it.\n\nHowever, another group of computer scientists think that computers should be referred to as male. Their reasons follow:\n* They have a lot of data but are still clueless.\n* They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they __are__ the problem.\n* In order to get their attention, you have to turn them on.\n* Big power surges knock them out for the rest of the night.

Windows 95 uses the File Allocation Table (FAT) file system. This is the standard format used by ~MS-DOS-based and Windows -based personal computers. A FAT partition is a section of storage area on a hard drive. It is created during the initial preparation of the hard disk before the disk is formatted.\n\nWindows 95 ~OSR2 supports the ~FAT32 system, as well as the FAT system. It uses disk space more efficiently by allocating space in smaller units. These units are called clusters. The FAT partitions are accessible by Windows 95/98, Windows NT and MS-Dos. This is achieved by supporting long file names that are compatible with Windows NT, while maintaining short 8.3 alias for ~MS-DOS. ~FAT32 is compatible with programs designed to run on earlier version of ~MS-DOS and Windows.\n\n''Partitioning Hard drives.''\nPartitioning is usually done during initial preparation of the hard drive, before the disk is formatted. A Primary partition is a portion of a physical disk that can be marked as active. There can be up to four primary partitions per physical disk.\n\nNote: - There can only be up to three primary partitions if one of them is an extended partition. Only one partition can be active at any one time. A primary partition cannot be sub-partitioned. You can use multiple primary partitions to boot under different operating systems, or multiple configuration of the same operating system.\n\nNote: - Some operating systems like ~MS-DOS 5.0 cannot see more than one primary partition per physical disk. An extended partition is created from free space on a hard disk. There can only be one extended partition on a hard drive. You should make sure that you use all the available space beyond the primary partitions for your extended partitions.\n\nYou can subdivide the area of your extended partition into multiple partitions. Each one is treated as a logical drive. This allows you to circumvent the four-partition limit. The additional logical drives can be used for organising applications, data files, email etc.\n\n''Multiple file systems.''\nTo create a new partition, you select Programs|~MS-DOS Prompt from the Start menu. An ~MS-DOS prompt should appear. You type Fdisk, then press Enter. You just follow the instructions to create new partitions. You can not use Fdisk to create more than two partitions on a single disk. To create more than two partitions you would use Windows NT or a third-party disk utility. The most effective way of using space is to create multiple partitions and logical drives on your hard drive.\n\nBoth the ~FAT and ~FAT32 systems divide partitions into units called clusters. A maximum of 65,535 clusters is allowed on a partition. As the partition size grows, so does the cluster size. A cluster cannot be shared among multiple files. For example, if you place a 5k file in a 16k cluster, you are wasting 11k of disk space. ~FAT32 is more efficient than ~FAT, because it uses a smaller cluster size for any given partition size.\n\nIf you want to use ~FAT32 on a Windows 95 ~OSR2, Windows 98 computer, then you must use Fdisk to enable Large Disk Support. When you start Fdisk on a Windows ~OSR2 machine with a hard disk larger than 512Mb, Fdisk will ask you if you want to enable Large Disk Support. If you choose to enable Large Disk Support, then any partition over 512MB that you create during that session will use ~FAT32. If you don't enable Large Disk Support, then you cannot create disk partitions larger than 2GB, unless you exit and restart Fdisk.\n\nIf you decide that you want to delete partitions, then you should do so in a specific order. First you should delete any non-DOS partitions, then any logical drives in the extended partition. Next you should delete any extended partitions. You delete primary partitions last. Note; - If you delete a disk partition by using Fdisk, then all the data in that partition will be permanently destroyed.\n\n''Formatting a Partition.''\nOnce you have created a partition with Fdisk, you must restart your computer and format the drive before you can store data on it. To format partitions, you can either use Windows Explorer or the format command at the ~MS-DOS command prompt. Windows 95/98 Explorer supports three types of format operations.\n\nThe quick (erase) option erases the directory table, which contains the list of files and folders on the hard disk, but not the actual data from the disk. \nThe full option erases all data from the disk. \nCopy system files only, is the third option. This option does not format the partition, but copies the required file to boot Windows 95 and creates a Windows 95 boot sector on the partition. \nNote: - Windows can not reformat compressed drives. You use the Drive Space utility to reformat compressed drives.\n\n''How to Format.''\nTo begin to format a partition on your desktop, you double click the MyComputer icon. Then you right click the drive icon you want to format. And you select format. In the format dialog box, you select the full radio button, to erase all existing data. In the label field you type a name for the drive. Then you click Start button. A warning dialog box comes up. You click OK to dismiss it. When the format is complete, a summary dialog box appears. You click the close button. Now you have formatted the partition. you are now able to put data onto this area of the disk.\n

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To open all articles for March 1991, click on "March 1991" to the right and select "open all".\nEdition No: 44

\n''Private Files''\nIf you have a file you don't want any others snooping through, you can use the DOS "ren" command to prevent others from using it.\nIf you want to protect a file named "budget.txt" for example, at the DOS prompt type "ren budget.xtx budget.tx", and after the second x, instead of pressing the Enter key, hold down the Alt key and type 255. Then press Enter.\nThis adds the invisible ASCII character 255 to the end of the filename. It will appear in a directory, but anyone who attempts to “type” "budget.tx" will get a "file not found" message.\nYou'll have to rename the file again to something without ASCII 255 to use it yourself.\nA minor warning. You may have trouble typing ASCII 255 with some memory resident programs in the background.\n\n''The DOS "Fail" Command''\nMore recent versions of DOS (3.3 onwards) give you an extra option "Fail” added to the tried and true error message "Abort, Retry, Ignore".\nThe new "Fail" option, gives you a way to continue the program that was running but send it an error message that says the attempt to access the file failed. Fail is closely akin to Ignore, which permits the application program to continue as if nothing had happened.\nThe fail option also gives you the opportunity to recover from a disk problem without rebooting your system. You respond with "F" or "Fail" prompting the system message "Current drive is no longer valid>". Enter the valid drive designator and you're ready to go.\n\n''Tips on Telecommunicating''\nIt has finally happened. Some very intelligent SYSOP gave some great thought to how a BBS should be operated and came up with the Thirty BBS Commandments. I would be very remiss if I kept these from you, so here they are:\n\n1. Thou shalt love thy BBS with all thy heart and all thy bytes.\n2. Thou shalt love thy fellow hacker as thyself.\n3. Thou shaft remember thy name and password.\n4. Thou shalt not POST IN ALL CAPS!\n5. Thou shalt not use an alias.\n6. Thou shalt only call a BBS two times a day (at most).\n7. Honour thy SYSOP.\n8. Thou shalt not covert thy neighbour's password, nor his or her real name, computer software, nor any other thing belonging to him/her.\n9. Thou shalt not post messages that are stupid, worthless, or have no meaning whatsoever.\n10. Thou shaft use the English language properly.\n11. Thou shalt spell they words correctly.\n12. Thou shall delete thine own mail.\n13. Thou shalt delete thin olden messages.\n14. Thou shalt help other users.\n15. Thou shalt not post anonymously when offering criticism.\n16. Thou shalt keep thy foul language to thyself.\n17. Thou shalt not occupy thy BBS with thine arguments, for verily, I say unto thee that thou shalt maketh a fool of thyself.\n18. Woe be unto the user who attempts to crash thy BBS, for he or she shalt be cast out from the sanctuary of thy hobby and must repent by doing forty days and forty nights of penance of voice only communications.\n19. Thou shalt first dial a BBS during the day by way of voice line to assure correct numbers.\n20. Thou shalt not post other users' real names.\n21. Thou shalt not post messages while drunk.\n22. Thou shalt confine thy messages to those of friendship, requests for assistance, aid to the needs, advice, and advancement of thy hobby; and thou art obligated to repel any who wouldst accordingly transgress.\n23. If thou doth promise to reply to a message and thou doth not, then surely thou shalt spill coffee into they keyboard and burn out thy central processing chip.\n24. Thou shalt not giveth any false information when applying for membership to thy BBS, for verily it is written that whosoever shall do so will surely be found out and thy welcome on all boards will be thus denied forever and ever.\n25. Thou shaft log on properly and in accordance with they SYSOP's rules.\n26. Thou shalt observe BBS time limits.\n27. Thou shalt not upload “worm/virus"\nprograms.\n28. Thou shalt not ask stupid questions that are already fuH explained in the BBS instructions.\n29. Thou shalt not compromise the security of New Zealand through postings and hackings.\n30. Thou shalt not violate applicable state or local laws and regulations, or thy will face the wrath of thy judicial system.\n\n//By Gil Levitch,\n~Kentucky-Indiana Personal Computer User Group\nEdited for New Zealand conditions.\nPublished with Permission.//\n\n''A Glaring Solution''\nIf you suffer from glare, before you purchase an anti-glare filter, try the following.\nIf you have the option of setting the colours of your display, choose black or blue type on a white background. For a mono system choose black letters on a light background.\nThe reason for this is that glare is mom noticeable against the default black background that many programs display. Since white or cyan backgrounds are closer to the shade of the reflections off windows or overhead light, those reflections are not at noticeable.\n\n''Q&A''\n''Splitting a Field''\nNeed to split an existing Q&A database field - for example, a Name field that contains both first and last names? At the File menu, choose Design, then Redesign. Create new fields called First Name and Last Name, make them text fields. At the File Menu, choose Mass Update. At the Retrieve Spec, press F10 to select all records. At the Update Spec, enter the following programming statements: Name: #1 :#2=@left(#l,@instr(#l,”,”)-!) ;#3 =@right(#l ,@instr(#l,”,") + 1) \nFirst Name:#2 \nLast Name:#3\n\nPress F10 to continue the mass update. When you're done, use Redesign again to delete the old Name field.\n\n''Print Multiple Copies''\nQ&A has not menu choice that lets you print multiple copies of a report. However multiple copies can be printed by creating a macro to do the job.\nFirst create a macro that prints one copy of a report, then you can make Q&A repeat the report-printing macro several times by invoking it from a second macro.\nLet's assume you start your report printing macro by pressing the ~Alt-R combination; to run two copies of the report, simply create a second macro that includes the two commands ~Altl-R, ~Alt-R. For three copies, create a macro that invokes the ~Alt-R command three times, and so on.\n

''Many Thanks''\nThe Association if grateful to those members who have donated components towards the completion of our second copying machine. We are pleased to say that we now have memory chips, a 360k floppy disk, floppy disk controller and cables, and a monitor.\nGraeme Roberts or Barry Thomson would be grateful to hear from any member who has another spare 360K floppy disk which they could donate.\n\n''New Users Group''\nThe group will not meet at the March meeting as this session will have been replaced by the Saturday Session with Dos.\n\n''BBS Sysop Required''\nIf any member is interested in being Sysop for the Association's Bulletin Board, would you please contact Graeme Roberts.\n\n''Editor's BBS''\nThe Bulletin Board by which the articles can be left for the editor is not a public board. If you have applied to join this board and subsequently found you have not been given access, please don't take it personally.\n\n''Closing Down the Copying Machines and Library''\nOut of consideration for those who bring the copying machines and library disks along it has been decided that they will officially “close” at lO:OOpm each meeting night.\nThis is not to say the venue will close at that time, but that the people who are looking after these assets have the permission to gather them up and to be able to get home before midnight!\n\n''April Meeting''\nAt next months meeting there will be a presentation by Stephen Newman from Renaissance Software. The main focus of his presentation will be Corel Draw 2.0, however he will also spend some time outlining the improvements to PageMaker.\n\n''NZPCA Buying Privileges''\nMembers are reminded that Computer X'Press, Bennetts Books and Computer Eats will give buying privileges to N.Z.P.C.A. members.\nThe Computer X'Press discount is 15% discount on the normal Computer X'Press price of hardware, software and peripherals. This buying privilege applies only to the Computer X'Press shop at 15 Dixon Street, Wellington and is subject to review at any stage.\nBennetts Books will give a 10% discount on computer books.\nComputer Eats offers a 5% discount on consumables purchased from them.\nAll stores will only give discount to current members who produce their current membership card. I\n\n''Modem for Hire''\nThe NZPCA has an external Smart Modem which runs at 300 and 1200 baud. It can be rented for $10 per month.\nContact Phil Richardson. A deposit of $50 (including rental fee) may also be asked for.\n\n''Computers and Family History''\nAt the last Club night, the President mentioned Genealogy as something which might interest Club members. Tony Fitchett is the Convenor of the Wellington area Geanealogy Computing Group; a SIG of the NZ Society of Genealogists. If there are members interested in this group, you can find him on voice 785-575, or at Wednesday's meeting.\n\n''Beginners Disks''\nThe Public Domain and Shareware Library has the following disks which are particularly suitable for beginners.\n \n|||\n||Beginners|CF 257|\n||DOS Tutorial ver 4.4|CF 256|\n||DOS Tutorial ver 4.31|FOG 30|\n||Tutorial ver 4.2|PC-SIG 403|\n||DOS Help ver 1.1|CF 225|\n||Help DOS|SIG 686|\n||Batch Utilities|PC-SIG 82|\n||Professor BASIC Tutorial|PC-SIG 105|\n||BASIC Instruction | PC-SIG 595|\n||Touch Type | PC-SIG 320|\n

To open all articles for March 1999, click on "March 1999" to the right and select "open all".

To open all articles for March 2001, click on "March 2001" to the right and select "open all".\nEdition No: 152

To open all articles for March 2005, click on "March 2005" to the right and select "open all".\nEdition No: 196

To open all articles for March 2006, click on "March 2006" to the right and select "open all".

<<tabs contents\n"President's Report" "Presidents report" "President's Report"\n"Philips PhotoFrame" "PhotoFrame" "Philips PhotoFrame"\n\n>>

FolderSize

To open all articles for May 1999, click on "May 1999" to the right and select "open all".

To open all articles for May 2001, click on "May 2001" to the right and select "open all".\nEdition No: 152

To open all articles for May 2004, click on "May 2004" to the right and select "open all".\nEdition No: 187

To open all articles for May 2005, click on "May 2005" to the right and select "open all".\nEdition No: 198

To open all articles for May 2006, click on "May 2006" to the right and select "open all".

<<tabs contents\n"President's Report" "Presidents report" "President's Report"\n"FolderSize" "FolderSize" "FolderSize"\n\n>>

Well ~MegaBaud is on the move again (should have moved by the time this reaches print - new numbers should with any luck be in here somewhere) \n\nOur sysop has changed as well. Adrianus has decided to move to warmer climes - he's heading north and I believe we'll be getting the odd article from him still. We wish him well and thank him for his most valiant efforts with the BBS and all the other activities with the group. This will probably be the last ~MegaBaud page as well, as there really isn't a lot to write about our BBS - so if you need some tips etc. I'd suggest a message to the editor with your requirements and I'll do my best to give you an answer via this medium so we can all learn. \n\nI will have headed into the unknown this month with the first meeting of the Hardware Sig.\n\nWe'll have had a meeting at the Ghuznee Street office and decided on what project/s we're going to tackle in the upcoming year. \n\nIt is my intention that we publish the progress each month here in ~MegaByte in project form so that those who are unable to attend the meetings can follow our progress and hopefully if interested build their own version of the groups project/s. \n\nThe basic idea is to have the group attempt to build real world interfaces for our PC's from scratch. A lot of us have an old PC that isn't worth much in monetary terms but too valuable to toss out or part with - so lets put it to some use. \n\nA burglar alarm, house automation, garden watering system, greenhouse controller; the possibilities are endless. Knowing that the skill base within a small group will be varied, I'd expect that we'd make use of those skills eg. I know for example that our editor can create the Printed circuit board layouts for us. Others will be able to write the software. Even those unable to meet with the rest of the group but who wish to contribute can via Email, BBS or normal post. \n\nSo to get started I have created a small interface that will let you experiment with your printer port and some BASIC programming. The circuit is deliberately simple so that it should work on any PC, in particular the older PC/XTs which are still out there. \n\nPC Printer Port Interface. \n\nParts required: \n\n1 D25 male connector \n8 red LED (Light Emitting Diodes) \n8 330 ohm resistors\n\nEach resistor is in series with an LED and is connected to its cathode lead. The anodes of each LED are conncted to pins 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 (D0 - D7 respectively) of a male D25 connector, while pin 18 (GND) of the connector is connected to the other end of all the resistors joined together.\n \nNow all that is required is to write a program to communicate with the printer port. \nCHASER.BAS\n~DataPort = &H378 'set to match your port\n~ControlPort = ~DataPort + 2\n~ControlMask = &HB\n\nOUT ~ControlPort, &HF 'Sets control port high \nDO\nstart: FOR A = 0 TO 14\nDisplay:\nIF A = 0 THEN ~DataByte = 1\nIF A = 1 THEN ~DataByte = 2\nIF A = 2 THEN ~DataByte = 4\nIF A = 3 THEN ~DataByte = 8\nIF A = 4 THEN ~DataByte = 16 \nIF A = 5 THEN ~DataByte = 32\nIF A = 6 THEN ~DataByte = 64\nIF A = 7 THEN ~DataByte = 128\nIF A = 8 THEN ~DataByte = 64\nIF A = 9 THEN ~DataByte = 32\nIF A = 10 THEN ~DataByte = 16\nIF A = 11 THEN ~DataByte = 8\nIF A = 12 THEN ~DataByte = 4\nIF A = 13 THEN ~DataByte = 2\nIF A = 14 THEN ~DataByte = 1\nOUT ~DataPort, ~DataByte\nFOR b = 1 TO 3000\nNEXT b\nNEXT A\nIF A = 15 THEN GOTO start\nGOTO Display\nLOOP\nEND\n\nThe above is written in QBASIC and can easily be adapted to other ~BASICs. Hopefully that should be enough to whet your appetite. Next month I'll have the outcome of the Hardware Sig meeting the regular meeting date and the project/s going to be undertaken.\n\nIan Godfrey\n

The New Zealand Personal Computer Association Inc monthly Newsletter

Recently (June 2006) Roger mentioned that he thought it would be worthwhile to collect all issues of Megabyte - this has been published for almost 2 decades and amounts to a considerable body of work - mostly contributed by NZPCA members. Some of the older articles certainly show how computing has changed quite remarkably in that time.\n\nFor example, in a 1991 article, Roger Currier mentions that in less than a week, he'd run out of disk space allocated to him while using a VAX mainframe. The amount he'd been allocated? 600KB! While the older articles may not be useful from a technical point of view, they certainly still are interesting.\n\nI got to considering how this collection of articles might best be presented to NZPCA members, and thought that something I'd been playing around with recently might complement other formats that I would assume we will use - .pdf and .txt immediately spring to mind of course.\n\nI'd been playing with ~TiddlyWiki - I first came across this a couple of months ago - and it seemed to offer some quite remarkable opportunities for dealing with large numbers of articles like our Megabyte collection.\n\n~TiddlyWiki is itself a rather novel concept, and certainly one that takes some getting used to. It is a single, quite large and very complex web page, comprised of javascript, html and CSS, which when viewed in a modern web browser has some remarkable capabilities:\n\n* it can edit itself and save the result; at the same time making backups if required\n* it can manage itself and plugins, which can be used to provide added functionality\n* it can display the content it contains in multiple ways, often automatically\n* it behaves like a hosted dynamic website, but does this using one file and no server-side scripts or database\n\nThe implications of the above probably are not readily apparent, but once you start working with this software, you rapidly become quite astounded at what Jeremy Rushton (the author) has achieved. To pick out the main points, the advantages of this system are:\n\n* the document can search itself - and the functionality and speed of searching has to be seen to be believed\n* articles are taggable - this gives many ways to browse and organise content\n* the document is non-linearly browsable - there are many ways to navigate, from using formal menus to jumping to articles with the same tags or dates\n* speed - because the entire document is downloaded before viewing, navigation is extremely fast, especially if you disable animations in the "options" box\n* editable - any copy of the document can edit and save itself\n* portable - can run from a web server, hard drive, thumbdrive, CDROM, floppy disk\n* accessible - only requires a web browser to view\n* simple - formatting is relatively basic and easy and well suited to Megabyte content\n\nMany people are developing new uses for ~TiddlyWiki - from using it as a blog to using it as a PIM or organiser - and there is a thriving community developing around it, with several competent people adding themes and plugins to extend capabilities.\n\nThere is a rough concept version of Megabyte in ~TiddlyWiki at http://tiddlyspot.com/megabyte - if you have a modern browser (Internet Explorer 6 or newer, Firefox, Opera etc) and javascript enabled, have a look. I'd appreciate any feedback you can offer. Be aware that this web page is large, so you'll need to be patient if you are on dialup, however once the page has loaded navigation is extremely fast. You can save the page locally to your hard drive if you wish ( use the "Download" link in "Introduction", or right click anywhere on the Megabyte page, or use this link http://tiddlyspot.com/?action=download&site=megabyte) to avoid the delay next time you access it - since the page is self contained, it makes absolutely no difference whether you access the page locally or on the web server. Just save the file to your hard drive and open it with your web browser.\n\nYou can explore the document's features, in particular be sure to try the search and browsing by tags. You might also be interested in editing - just create a new tiddler or double click on any existing article to edit it. Articles for 2003 and 2006 have been added, with some articles for 1991 and 2004 partially added at this stage. If you'd like to help with adding content, let me know.\n\nLinks:\n\n~TiddlyWiki: http://www.tiddlywiki.com\nMegabyte Online: http://tiddlyspot.com/megabyte\n\n

//Demise of the NZPCA Bulletin Board System (BBS)\nContributed by John W. Hand (Member # 125)//\n\n //To mark the occassion of the demise of the BBS, John Hand has offered this contribution....//\n\n It was in the middle of the night - early hours of the morning - of Saturday, 22nd December 2001. The plug was about to be pulled! The power would be switched off! The hardware would be dismantled! Our members' communications would be crippled for life! The BBS would be D#E*A%D$! R.I.P. Long live the website.\n\n During the final few hours, while the minutes were rapidly ticking by, an attempt was made to capture, and to record, the thoughts and feelings of a few of the club members regarding the demise (thanks to Tony Fitchett for this word) of the BBS.\n\n Particular condolences to Don ~McDonald (the champion seeker of help from the BBS Sysops and from the Help Desk).\n\n Here are some of our members' count-down messages sent and received before the twinkling lights of the BBS were extinguished forever. The list comprises 6 BBS only messages and 2 e-mail messages.\n\n{{{\n Date: 12/12/01 (01:31) Number: 12149 of 12154 (Refer#NONE)\n To: ALL\n From: MEGABAUD\n Subj: Wellington Meeting\n Read: (N/A) Status: RECEIVER ONLY\n Conf: Main Board (0) Read Type: GENERAL (-)\n Hi! ~MegaBaud here :-)\n\n N. Z. P E R S O N A L C O M P U T E R A S S O C I A T I O N INC.\n\n MONTHLY MEMBERS' MEETING\n\n N E W V E N U E\n\n ST. GILES CHURCH HOUSE\n\n Corner Kilbirnie Crescent and Vallance Street, Kilbirnie.]\n\n Just a friendly reminder that the usual meeting will be held on W E D N E S D A Y\n of next week.\n Please do not reply to this message (It is automatically generated.)\n}}}\n\n Note re message # 12149 :-\n This is the automatic message which the BBS transmitted on the Tuesday and the Wednesday of the week BEFORE each monthly meeting. This version was introduced at the beginning of July last year, one month after the meeting venue was switched from St Patrick's College to St. Giles Church House.\n\n{{{\n Date: 13/12/01 (19:41)\n Number: 12150 of 12154 (Refer# NONE)\n To: ALL\n From: ARTHUR HARRIS\n Subj: Megabaud closing\n Read: (N/A) Status: PUBLIC MESSAGE\n Conf: Main Board (0) Read Type: GENERAL (-) HAS REPLIES\n\n Due to the high cost of running the BBS and the low usage, the committee has\n decided to terminate the BBS on the 19th of December. Some of the functions of\n the BBS will be replaced by the upgrading of our web page. Most of the functions\n that were available on the BBS are now available via the Internet. We thank you\n for your support over the past years.\n Arthur Harris.\n Sysop.\n}}}\n\n Note re message # 12150 :-\n This is the message to ALL users of the BBS advising them of the pending sad moment which will create an item of history in the annals of the NZPCA.\n\n{{{\n Date: 13/12/01 (20:12)\n Number: 12151 of 12154 (Refer# 12150)\n To: ARTHUR HARRIS\n From: DON MCDONALD\n Subj: Megabaud closing\n Read: 16/12/10 (07:24) Status: PUBLIC MESSAGE\n Conf: Main Board (0) Read Type: GENERAL (-)\n\n Thanks Arthur, John, Committee, is that 19.12.2001. Very Sorry. Is that decision\n reversible. What is the usage, calls, minutes, messages?\n\n I haven't got any newsgroups on don.mcdonald@paradise.net.nz only email. It\n will be a big loss to me. What is the objects of nzpca? Well, thanks for the\n service for 3 years..whatever however long I have been here. Best wishes like\n to hear others opinions.\n regards don.mcdonald@paradise.net.nz\n please transfer nzpcagen@topica.com to this address.\n 04 389 6820. 12.12.2001\n}}}\n\n Note re message # 12151 :-\n The first response, in the very next message, regarding the demise of the BBS.\n\n{{{\n Date: 15/12/01 (14:43)\n Number: 12152 of 12154 (Refer# NONE)\n To: ALL\n From: ROBIN HINDE\n Subj: My last message on Megabaud...\n Read: (N/A) Status: PUBLIC MESSAGE\n Conf: Main Board (0) Read Type: GENERAL (+)\n\n Hello all,\n\n It is a little sad to see Megabaud closing after all this time. first started\n using it with a 2400 modem, back before the Web became as popular as it is today. \n Today, I'm using a 2400 modem too, because that is the only modem I have on my Mac :-)\n \n Times have certainly changed - there used to be dozens of ~BBSs in Wellington, \n some had a great sense of community which is largely missing from the Internet. \n In many respects, ~BBSs are like villages, in an age of large cities.\n\n It is a tribute to the time and expertise invested in Megabaud that it is still \n running (with so little attention) after all these years, and I'm sure those \n members who also invested time and effort in learning how to use it will miss it.\n\n The website at http://www.computers.org.nz will be upgraded after Christmas, and\n many of the functions of Megabaud will be available, hopefully in an easier to use\n format. Details have been published in the latest edition of Megabyte.\n\n Hope to see you on the new website!\n\n Best wishes to you all,\n\n -=rjh=-\n\n (usually@mail.com)\n}}}\n\n Note re message # 12152 :-\n ". . . so little attention. . ."!!! It appears that Robin was unaware of the seriousness and lengthy duration of some of the BBS problems that occurred during the year 2000. Don ~McDonald will certainly attest to this.\n\n{{{\n Date: 17/12/01 (17:48)\n Number: 12153 of 12154 (Refer# NONE)\n To: ALL\n From: TONY FITCHETT\n Subj: Megabaud demise\n Read: (N/A) Status: PUBLIC MESSAGE\n Conf: Main Board (0) Read Type: GENERAL (-) HAS REPLIES\n\n Indeed sad after all these years. Genboard is the only other BBS I look at, \n and it now has only about 3 callers. Does anyone know what other BBS are still going ?\n\n CU all on the revised Web page ....\n\n Cheers Tony\n}}}\n\n Note re message # 12153 :-\n Genboard : This is the Wellington Genealogy Bulletin Board which was established many years ago by the Wellington sub-group of the national Genealogical Computing Group (GCG) of the NZ Society of Genealogists Inc. Tony is a former Convener of the GCG.\n\n{{{\n Date: 18/12/01 (14:17) Number: 12155 of 12155 (Refer# 12154)\n To: DON MCDONALD\n From: TONY FITCHETT\n Subj: Megabaud demise\n Read: 8 (20:17) Status: PUBLIC MESSAGE\n Conf: Main Board (0) Read Type: GENERAL (-)\n\n Greeting Tony\n Any Wgtn BBS with newsgroups nz.general? Sorry - don't know what else is still running.\n I am waiting for new software so i can post from paradise.net.nz. New software - more \n fun. Maybe you could join in the hunt for the next Mersenne prime after the very recent\n find .\n\n Cheers Tony\n}}}\n\n Notes re message # 12155 :\n This message was the last BBS message sent from one member to another. Lines beginning with > are from Don's message to Tony. Don's message (#12154) was not saved. Does any member claim to have sent a message later than this one?\n\n{{{\n Date: 21/12/01 (20:03) Number: 151475 of 151475 (Refer# 151381)\n To: siwalter@hotmail.com, SIMONE WALTER\n From: WIN BRENDGENS\n Subj: Lebst Du noch?\n Read: 1 (22:00) Status: RECEIVER ONLY (Echo)\n Conf: Internet E-mail (200) Read Type: GENERAL (-)\n\n hullu mein schnurrfzu ! das bulletin-board war kaputt alles bestens ok hier herzlichen\n glueckwunsch der DW zur afghanistan-sendung erstklassig ! wunder schoen. bald mehr mein\n engelchen frohe weihnachten\n\n brigitte und meau !!\n}}}\n\n Notes re message # 151475 :\n - This message is believed to be the seventh to last e-mail sent via the BBS. The following is the corresponding entry in the Node 1 Users' Log. It details the events that occurred during the 5 minutes that Win was logged on.\n\n{{{\n 12-21-01 (20:04) (1) WIN BRENDGENS Off Normally\n Minutes Used: 5\n Message Left: Internet E-ma (200) Conference # 151475\n Internet E-ma (200) Conference Joined\n Caller Security: 60\n Caller Number: 112,913\n Modem: CONNECT 19200/ARQ/V34/LAPM\n 12-21-01 (19:59) (1) WIN BRENDGENS (19200E) (G) KARORI WELLING\n\n *****************************************\n\n Date: 22/12/01 (02:31) Number: 151481 of 151481 (Refer# NONE)\n To: chrisshaw27@paradise.net.nz\n From: JOHN HAND\n Subj: E-mail address termination\n Read: NO Status: RECEIVER ONLY (Echo)\n Conf: Internet E-mail (200) Read Type: GENERAL (-)\n\n Hi Chris,\n This is just a quick message to let you know that in less than 7 hours\n my e-mail address will no longer be available. The NZPCA BBS is about \n to have the plug pulled. Please await further advice.\n\n Hope you have a very enjoyable Xmas and New Year in your new environment.\n\n Love,\n Dad.\n}}}\n\n Notes re message # 151481 :-\n This message is believed to be the very last e-mail sent via the BBS. Observe the time!\n\n----\n\n Well! What a way to end the first(?) year of the new computing millennium!!!! The NZPCA website address is http://www.computers.org.nz\n\n Finally, very special thanks and appreciation to the BBS maestro, Ian Godfrey, who made it all possible by introducing the BBS into our computing lives.\n\n// John Hand\n Assistant BBS Sysop (Demised)\n ("&%#@!+&%" Redundant again!!!)//\n

'' Free Prizes - Read ON!!''\n\n The new NZPCA web site is at http://www.computers.org.nz is up and running.\n\n This totally new website really is a must-see. It has absolutely heaps of features, and now offers almost all that the old BBS did, and more. It is easy to use and navigate - although very mouse-centric.\n\n The significance of the new website lies in the ability of any NZPCA member to contribute to the website directly, using nothing more than their web browser. It is easy for members to add news items, comments, calendar events, favourite web links and downloads.\n\n The website is no longer dependent on one or two people who know HTML to make changes, add content and keep the site up to date - now anybody can do this. Some areas are moderated, while some items will need approval after they are submitted, but despite this, the website is now very interactive.\n\n However, there is no point having an interactive website unless it has people using it, so it is really important that NZPCA members visit the website and register.\n\n If you have previously registered, just login using the username you chose, and the password you received by e-mail. You probably will not need to login again on your next visit unless you specifically logout before leaving the website.\n\n However, if you are using a PC that is not your own, you should always logout before leaving, to prevent other users of that PC having access to your website account.\n\n Your ~MegaBaud BBS registration is not valid on the new website, although you may use your BBS username and password if you wish.\n\n If you have not yet registered, please do so. It isn't compulsory, but many features of the website are only available to registered visitors. You can set your own preferences for how you would like the site to appear You can participate in discussion forums You can comment on news, polls, and other items You can vote in polls You can send and receive private local messages You can receive NZPCA updates, meeting reminders, and news by e-mail\n\n Register by clicking on the third link in the "Main Menu" ("Login/Account"), then follow the link "Register" on the subsequent page; or by clicking on "create one" in the "Login" box at top right. In both cases you will be taken to a screen where you can enter your details.\n\n Choose a username and supply a valid e-mail address so that your password can be sent to you. The e-mail address is only used for purposes relating to this website and NZPCA business; it will not be passed on to anyone else. You can choose to make your e-mail address visible to others, a substitute "~UCE-proof" e-mail address visible, or no e-mail address visible at all.\n\n You may like to use a short username, all lowercase, which will make logging into the web site easier. The NZPCA is a small community, and it would be community minded to supply some other information about yourself, but this is strictly optional - just supply details that you are comfortable with.\n\n NZPCA members who register will be upgraded to subscriber status, and have access to yet more website features. Our membership officer does this at present, so it would help if you would identify yourself as an NZPCA member when registering, if your username or other details are obscure.\n\n When you register, you will immediately be sent an e-mail to the address you entered in the registration form. This happens automatically. Hopefully, if you haven't registered yet, try it out!\n\n If you forget your password, just visit the website and automatically have your password e-mailed to you, at the address you originally supplied. It is important that you ensure your e-mail address is always current.\n\n It is also important to remember your user (or login) name! Password retrieval is a two-stage process, and is now automated. Please read the instructions carefully.\n\n You may change your password at any time, and it is recommended that you do this, as the passwords generated by the website are not easy to remember. There is no way to send your password other than by the automated system. The system administrator(s) cannot view your password, but can delete your existing password and enter a new one. Passwords can be changed, but user names cannot.\n\n There are some issues evident when visiting this website using Opera. These relate mainly to registration and user preferences, most other areas of the website seem to work fine. We hope these problems can be resolved soon.\n\n As an incentive to get NZPCA members registered on the website, the registered NZPCA members who get the user IDs 55 and 75 will receive their choice of a pack of 5 ~CDRs or a box of 10 floppy disks. At the time of writing, user ID 50 had just been issued, so you'd better be quick! Don't register more than once, we'll only count your first registration.\n\n See you there soon - leave a comment, or vote in the poll! //- Robin Hinde//\n

\n<<tabs years\n"1991" "1991" "1991TabbedView"\n"2001" "2001" "2001TabbedView"\n"2002" "2002" "2002TabbedView"\n"2003" "2003" "2003TabbedView"\n"2004" "2004" "2004TabbedView"\n"2005" "2005" "2005TabbedView"\n"2006" "2006" "2006TabbedView"\n>>\n

Thought I'd better set out some points about style (and other points) as I run across issues as I import tiddlers into the main ~TiddlyWiki.\n\nThis isn't suggesting that there is a wrong or right way of doing things, just that we need to be consistent.\n\nFirst off, work within the limitations of the Wiki layout - don't try to match how an article looks when prviously published, either on paper or as HTML.\n!!Layout\nDon't indent the beginning of paragraphs, just let the Wiki deal with this. If we indent paras and then change the style sheet to turn on this feature, we'll have inconsistent results. Let the Wiki do the styles, concentrate on the content.\n\nDon't use {{{&nbsp}}} to force layout. If appropriate use the two monospaced options available, use lists, or use a table.\n!!Space\nLeave lots of space in articles, there aren't images to break up the page so use space instead. Leave an empty line between paragraphs, and after headers. Not required immediately before a list (this is built into the list style).\n!!Titles\n*remember the article will be tagged with the month and year it wwas published so it is redundant to include thie in the title except where the article appears monthly (like Hardware SIG May 2004 for example)\n*Case in titles is very important; use Presideent's Report March 2002, not Presidents report. March 2002.\n!!Tagging\n*Case is important!\n*plurals to be avoided where possible (we have tags for camera and cameras, for example - just camera would be adequate).\n*Use the auto tag where appropriate (or use "autotagged article" instead of "new tiddler") but delete after using it, and also delete any irrelevant tags that it adds.\n*Tags are all lowercase except where they refer to names (for example, {{{Windows}}} is correct, {{{[[Video Editing]]}}} is not.\n*Add tags for authors where the author is an NZPCA member, but not for articles from elsewhere. Use correct case (eg, {{{[[Roger Currier]]}}}\n*Every article is tagged with the month and year of publication eg {{{[[July 2005]]}}}\n!!Extra Tiddlers\nDon't create extra tiddlers because the tags seem to require it - the tags will work fine without these tiddlers, which will only clutter up the search results. Likewise, Tiddlers aren't required for people's names, the wiki can deal with all this by itself.\n!!Links\nLinks are prefixed with {{{http://}}} so that the wiki can recognise them as links and display them correctly. Don't obscure links by prettifying them - the link information is lost if the page is printed.\n!!Credits and copyright\nWhere an article was copied from another source, it is ''absolutely'' vital that due credit be given, with a link to the original article. Original articles are usually easily found by searching for a phrase using Gooogle. My personal view is that we should concentrate on content provided by members at this stage anyway.\n\n

One of the features of our new web server is the ability to send broadcast Emails to all members. This will allow us to keep you upto date with changes to our monthly meeting and any other revelant information. We hereby promise not to use it for spam mail.\n\n To allow us to use this facility we need your current Email address. The "username@nzpca.org.nz" email address is no longer valid. It will need to be Email address associate with a current ISP providers. ie Xtra or paradise or a web mail address like hotmail, nzoomail etc.\n\n The offer for Free Email and limited internet access is still available from Planet Free NZ. See your March Megabyte. page 18. (John H. take note and action)\n\n For those members already registered and have received the following email, we have your current email address. Just acknowledge the Email.\n If you hadn't registered but received the email, it means the we already had your current email. Just follow the second part of the Email.\n\n Part A\n As part of update our new web page we are also updating our membership records. This message is a general message to all current NZPCA members. If you have all ready registered please acknowledge this message as a check that your email address is correct.\n\n Part B\n If you haven't previously registered but have received this message, it is because we have entered your details from our current records.\n\n Please log onto the webpage www.computers.org.nz and check that the details we have entered are correct.\n\n If we have registered you you will need to check and update the information. Logon from the home page using the panel on the top right.Your user name will be your first name plus the first letter of your surname. ie. ~ArthurH\n\n You don't need a password at this stage.\n* Press enter.\n\n This will bring you back to the home page.\n* On the to left side click on "Login/ Account". This will bring you to your personal page.\n* Click on "Change your info". This will take you to your personal info page.\n* Make what additions and correction you want.\n* At the bottom of the page enter your password twice.\n* Click on save changes.\n\n You have now updated your change and will need your password to log back in.\n If you want to change your user name you will need to let me know when you reply to this email. I will change it for you.\n\n Most of the information is optional, but if you can leave your full name it makes it easier for me to administer the records.\n\n If you have problems contact me by Email at Arthurh@paradise.net.nz or by phone 972 4028.\n Arthur Harris.\n Asst membership officier.\n\n For those member that haven't yet logged onto the NZPCA web page can they please do so or if you wish, you can send me your current email address and I will log you onto the web page. Send to Arthurh@paradise.net.nz or by phone 972 4028.\n\n Some members have reported some problem when trying to relog onto the web page.\n We have some problems where, the NZPCA home screen that your trying to log onto, is from the cache of your computer and not from the server. Try refreshing your screen before logging on by clicking on the refresh button at the top of your browser screen. If this dosen't work get back to me and I will check your page out.\n\n Once you are in the web page, you don't need to logout. When you close your browser or go offline your computer will remember your user name and password and relog you in automatically the next time you log back onto our web page. This function is due to a cookie left on your computer. If you have your computer set to not accepting cookies, then the automatic log in functions will not work.\n\n //Arthur Harris\n Arthurh@paradise.net.nz//

By Paul Festa\nhttp://news.com.com/Microsoft+and+Adobe+to+square+off/2100-1012_3-5751793.html \n\nAfter two decades of successfully steering clear of Microsoft, Adobe Systems is edging closer to the software giant's crosshairs.\n \nSince its launch in 1982, when Microsoft was 7 years old, Adobe has built up a commanding lead in the markets for digital document and image editing software, among the few areas in PC software Microsoft has failed to dominate.\n\nMicrosoft's test release last week of the Acrylic graphic design tool and the demonstration of its Metro digital document format indicate that the company may be growing less tolerant of Adobe as it encroaches on Microsoft's turf with the proposed acquisition of Macromedia and its Flash and Flex framework for building Web-based applications.\n\nThe combined forces of Adobe's PDF and Macromedia's Flash particularly, say analysts, have brightened the bull's-eye on the San Jose, Calif., graphics software company.\n\n"Microsoft is already showing signs that Flash is more than just an annoyance," said Burton Group analyst Gary Hein. "Announcements like Metro, Avalon and Acrylic show that Microsoft is taking Adobe plus Macromedia much more seriously. (Adobe Chief Executive Bruce) Chizen should be worried."\n\nIn the race to sell technology for building Web-based applications, the competitive landscape is far from stable. Microsoft has described its vision of Windows applications integrated tightly into the Internet through the company's Longhorn operating system, but numerous delays have allowed alternatives such as Flash and "AJAX" to gain traction.\n\nAdobe declined to comment on the strategic implications of its proposed acquisition. But Macromedia called "ridiculous" the idea that it is competing with Microsoft's operating system at all.\n\n"I don't think Flash is any threat to Windows," said Kevin Lynch, chief software architect for Macromedia. "We're a really small company compared to Microsoft. Flash is specifically designed for Internet use, for Internet applications, and that's very different from an operating system."\nAnalysts take a different view of the strategic importance of Flash, and compare it to the threat the Web posed to Windows before Microsoft launched its defensive, ultimately successful campaign with the Internet Explorer browser 10 years ago.\n\n"I'd agree that Flash is not a direct threat to the OS, but it's a threat to portions of the OS" such as developers' tools, said Hein. "It's kind of like the old Netscape push in that if you can develop all of your apps in a browser, it makes the OS less relevant."\n\nUnlike Netscape, which came to Microsoft's attention as a head-on threat, Adobe has made its living over the years by dominating areas Microsoft tended to neglect. Until now.\n\n"For Adobe, competition with Microsoft is its manifest destiny," said Jesse Garrett, a consultant with the San Francisco consulting company Adaptive Path, which works with Macromedia. "The Macromedia acquisition makes Adobe a threat that Microsoft can no longer afford to ignore." \n\nFor their part, Microsoft executives play down the competition, or as they like to call it, the "competition." For years, Microsoft has both competed and partnered with a number of other companies, ranging from database maker Oracle to Intuit, the leader in financial software for consumers and small businesses. Adobe, even with Macromedia, is no different. "There are certain areas where our products overlap. At the same time, Adobe and Macromedia are important partners for us," says John Montgomery, director of product management in Microsoft's developer division.\n\nAssuming Adobe completes its acquisition of Macromedia, the combined company competes with Microsoft in three product areas.\n\nIn image editing, Adobe leads the market with its tightly integrated Photoshop and Illustrator applications. Microsoft last week released a test version of Acrylic, a vector- and pixel-based image creation and editing software title, though Montgomery downplays the direct competition.\n\nIn digital documents, Adobe rules the roost with PDF (Portable Document Format). The core of what the company calls its Intelligent Document Platform, PDF is widely considered the industry standard, in widespread use in government and the enterprise. (Adobe makes a point of noting, in its PDF fact sheet, that Microsoft applications Word, Excel, and ~PowerPoint all produce PDF files with the click of a button.)\nMicrosoft showed off its answer to PDF, called Metro, last month, as part of a demonstration of the capabilities of its upcoming, and late, Longhorn operating system.\n\nIn Web-based application platform technology, Flash and the recently introduced Flex server software have begun making inroads in the enterprise. Meanwhile, the world awaits even a test version of Longhorn amid continued evidence that Microsoft is having significant difficulty driving upgrades to newer operating systems.\n\nWith Longhorn late, Acrylic still in a test version and earning mixed reviews on developer forums, and Metro tied to Longhorn's fate, many see plenty of breathing room for Adobe and its intended acquisition target. Illustrator and Photoshop, part of Adobe's recently updated Creative Suite 2 package, are seen as all but invulnerable for the foreseeable future.\n\n"It seems to us that the likelihood of prying creative pro customers away from either Adobe product, especially with the advances delivered in the new Creative Suite 2 releases, is not high at all," wrote Merill Lynch equity analyst Jay Vleeschhouwer in a report circulated last week.\n\nBut concern about Adobe's prospects--as reflected in a dip in the company's share price following the Acrylic release--has less to do with the quality of Microsoft's offering than with the fact that Adobe has provoked Microsoft's competitive ire.\n\nRather than competing with products or technologies, Hein said, Microsoft identifies competitive threats on a company-by-company basis.\n\n"And they go after the company," Hein said. "Adobe and Macromedia are more of a competitor than either standalone, and Microsoft will compete by offering a free version that's better integrated with the OS. None of Microsoft's announcements or trial versions will displace Adobe, but it's a clear signal that Adobe just popped much higher on Microsoft's competitive radar."\nCopyright ©1995-2005 CNET Networks, Inc. All rights reserved.\n\n\n{{{\n''What's new:''\nAfter two decades of successfully steering clear of Microsoft, Adobe Systems, with its pending\n buyout of Macromedia, is edging closer to the software giant's crosshairs.\n \n''Bottom line:''\nWith the next version of Windows--Longhorn--delayed; the graphic design tool Acrylic still \nin a test version and earning mixed reviews; and digital document format Metro tied to \nLonghorn's fate, many see plenty of breathing room for Adobe. Still, Microsoft has clearly \nbecome ill at ease with Adobe, and Microsoft is Microsoft.\n}}}

Even as much computer use becomes inceasingly WIMP (Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointing) oriented, there are times when it is far easier to use a keyboard than a mouse.\n\nEasy web browsing almost certainly requires the use of a mouse, but data input is usually done using a keyboard.\n\nWindows and other operating systems will come with many predefined keyboard shortcuts (and some people even use them regularly) but there are utilities available that will allow customisation of these shortcuts that will make your PC easier to use. This article will concern itself mostly with Windows, as most Linux distributions already come with the required software to make changes, unlike Windows.\n\n''Default Shortcuts:''\n\nThe most common shortcuts are probably those associated with editing documents, and these are pretty well common to most opearting systems:\n\nMove caret right Right Arrow\nMove caret right to begining of next word Ctrl+Right Arrow\nMove caret to end of line End\n\nSelect Shift+Right Arrow\nSelect word Shift+Ctrl+Right Arrow\nSelect to end of line Shift+End\n\nCut Ctrl+X\nCopy Ctrl+C\nPaste Ctrl+V\n\nBold Ctrl+B\nItalic Ctrl+I\nUnderline Ctrl+U\n\nand so on are all extremely well known and most people would probably use these in the normal course of typing, as it is far easier to use a keyboard shortcut than break your typing and use the mouse.\n\nHowever, Windows also has some other signifcant shortcuts available. All keyboards available today have what are known as modifier keys (L Shift, R Shift, L Ctrl, R Ctrl, L Alt, R Alt) and these are used in the common shortcuts listed above.\n\n''Those extra keys:''\n\nMore recently, though, keyboards will almost all also have two new keys, the Windows key and the Application key.\n\nThe Application key will bring up the context menu in whatever application you are using at the time it is invoked, so is quite useful; but the Windows key is an extra modifier key so is especially useful. Using it to bring up the Start Menu is fairly obvious but insignificant when compared to what it can really do.\n\nA default Windows installation will have the following shortcuts available, for example:\n\nWin Start Menu\nWin+Break "System Properties" Dialog Box\nWin+D Show Desktop\nWin+E Open Explorer at "My Computer"\nWin+R Open "Run" Dialog Box\n\nand so on; for a complete list see the links at the end of this article.\n\nThe Windows key is only used for around 15 or so shortcuts, and these are not able to be customised in a default Windows installation - to do so requires the use of a utility to address this shortcoming.\n\n''Winkey:''\n\nThe venerable Winkey utility is still around and is still free and works well, with the proviso that it may require administration rights in Windows 2000 and XP, and keyboard shortcuts are global and may apply to all users of the PC. This easy to use utility will allow you to create your own keyboard shortcuts, and is well worth a download.\n\nUsing Winkey, you can set up shortcuts to launch applications that you use regularly, like Win+C to launch Calculator, for example. This is a lot quicker than finding the calculator in its default location in Accessories, and the Quicklaunch area gets crowded and harder to use it you put too many shortcuts there.\n\nWinkey comes with a number of useful keyboard shortcuts already defined, and it is easy to add more. Be careful, though, that you don't change the common keyboard shortcuts as things can become confusing if you do.\n\nThere are many other similar utilites, most of them free; just use google to find them, and watch out for spyware.\n\nIf you get serious about doing even more with the keyboard, consider using one of the many free keyboard macro utilities; some of these enable you to specify keyboard sequences that are specific to each application. I usually find that having too many keyboard shortcuts isn't productive, as it is easy to forget seldom used shortcuts, and this especially a problem if you use more than one system regularly.\n\n''Changing Keyboard Layout:''\n\nI don't know about you, but I find the Caps Lock key to be one of the most annoying keys on the keyboard, and not only because it doesn't do what it says. A hangover from the typewriter keyboard, this key should shift all subsequent keys into uppercase, but it doesn't - it inverts the case of all subsequent keys. In combination with its proximity to the Shift key, I often find that I've inadvertently pressed the key without noticing while typing and found it has messed things up.\n\nThere is a fix for this - remap your keyboard keys to do what you want them to do. Linux users have the ability to do this built in, but Windows users can download and install a free utility called ~KeyTweak. I use this to remap the Caps Lock key so that it performs the same function as the L Shift key, and that works well for me.\n\n~KeyTweak is only one of many free tools that can be used to remap keyboards; but since these utilities make changes to the Windows registry, take care and backup your registry before making changes. You almost certainly won't have any problems, but you can never be too careful. Power users can edit the registry directly.\n\nSome keyboards have unusual layouts (especially laptops) so this utility is useful for tweaking those to your own preferences\n\nIt is also possible to remap all the keyboard keys so that none of them behave in the way they are marked. Finding the effect of this on an unsuspecting user is left as an exercise to the reader.\n\nHave fun!\n\n''Links:''\n\nhttp://www.microsoft.com/enable/products/keyboard.aspx has a comprehensive list of keyboard shortcuts for many Microsoft products.\n\nhttp://www.internet4classrooms.com/winkeyboard.htm is an interactive guide to keyboard keys.\n\nhttp://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_description/0,fid,5506,00.asp provides information about Winkey and a link to download. Note that the original developer of this utility no longer supports it or offers it for download.\n\nhttp://www.usnetizen.com/fix_capslock.html is an in-depth article about key mapping, with links to tools to do this.\n\nhttp://webpages.charter.net/krumsick/ is the KeyTweak developer's page.\n\nhttp://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_description/0,fid,22060,00.asp\nhttp://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_description/0,fid,7666,00.asp\nhttp://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_description/0,fid,22120,00.asp\nare links to macro utiltities that might be of interest.

PC Authority, April, 2005 | ~PCs \nBy Tim Dean Email to a friend Print this story \n\n //This story from PC Authority of April 2005 shows some of us were impressed recently with Apple Mac’s ..\nStory by Tim Deans//\n\nLike clowns piling out of the other kind of Mini, you’ll be similarly surprised at how much Apple has managed to squeeze into the Mac mini. \n\nThe mini is sold sans keyboard, mouse or display, although they can be purchased separately, of course. The idea is that the Mac mini will appeal to users (preferably Windows users) who already have at least one PC in the house, and they can use the peripherals from that and just hook them up to the Mac mini. This is a nice piece of marketing work, although the reality is many ex-Windows users will need to buy at least one peripheral to work with the mini as most keyboards and mice from a couple of years ago still use the old PS/2 connector.\n\nEven so, you can pick up the base model Mac mini, and buy a USB keyboard and mouse if necessary, and still have enough change from $1000 for a good meal.\n\nThe exterior of the unit is fairly Spartan – unobtrusive seems to have been the aesthetic mantra in the mini’s design. There’s only a slot for the optical drive at the front, the various ports at the back, and the tiniest of lights at the front to indicate when it’s powered up. The ports include two USB 2.0, a ~FireWire, Ethernet, 56K modem, DVI (with included VGA adapter), audio out and power.\n\nThere are no user serviceable parts in the Mac mini, so there’s no easy way to open the unit. In fact, you need a sharpened putty knife to get it open, and even then it’s a fiddly task. If you do want to have new hardware installed, you need to take it back to an Apple store and have a technician do it for you.\n\n(The para below is a title to a photo of the rear of the MAC mini) \nWhile there are a lot of ports, equip yourself with a USB hub as you'll lose both USB ports above with a keyboard and mouse, leaving just the ~FireWire. \n\nInside the case is a fairly sparse spec to match the exterior. You only get the basics in the mini – enough to run OS X and the included iLife ’05 with a fair amount of chugging. At the heart of the system is a 1.25GHz or 1.42GHz G4 processor backed up by 256MB of ~DDR333 RAM, although the frontside bus speed is only 166MHz, so the extra ~DDR bandwidth goes unused. We’d also strongly suggest an upgrade to 512MB of RAM (+$120) or even 1GB (+$520).\n\nStorage is handled by a 40GB or 80GB 2.5in notebook hard drive, spinning at 4200rpm, which is substantially slower than the 7200rpm found in most desktop drives. You also have a choice of a ~DVD-ROM/CD-RW combo drive, or Apple’s ~SuperDrive with ~DVD+/-RW and ~CD-RW. \n\nIf you want Bluetooth or ~Wi-Fi, that’ll also cost you extra, at +$79 and +$119 respectively.\n\nLike all Macs, the Mac mini comes with OS X and the excellent iLife ’05 suite, which would be worth a few hundred bucks alone if you were to hunt down decent Windows equivalents. \n\nThe Mac mini in its basic form (1.25GHz G4 and 40GB hard drive) is quite affordable at $799, and is reasonably capable as a basic home system that is used mainly for web browsing and storing your music and photos. For any more strenuous tasks, like iMovie or ~GarageBand, we’d suggest the 1.42GHz with 80GB drive version with at least 512MB of RAM. If you add wireless to this, the price nears the $1200 mark, and the value proposition starts to slip away.\n\nThere are some interesting possibilities for the Mac mini though, and the net has been flooded with enthusiasts doing everything from overclocking them, to making the mini the hub of a media centre, to installing them in cars. There’s also talk of a currently unused daughterboard in the mini that seems to be geared as another external port, with ~FireWire and power, so Apple may have more features yet to come. \n\n''SUMMARY'' \nSPECS : 1.25GHz G4 processor; 256MB ~DDR333 RAM; 40GB 4200rpm hard disk; ~DVD-ROM/~CD-RW; ATI RADEON 9200 32MB graphics; 10/100 Ethernet; 56K modem; OS X; iLife ’05; 1 year RTB warranty. \nPRICE : $799 \nSUPPLIER : Apple 13 36 22 \nWEBSITE : Now \nPCA VERDICT : Cute and unobtrusive, and affordable in base configuration, but short on power. \n \n OVERALL RATING How we test \n \n

''One notice and a couple of interesting items''\n\n\n''Googlemail Invitations''\nOK, can you also put a note somewhere in Megabyte that I have some google mail invitations for any members that want one? Gmail is currently available by invitation only, but it is a good service, with little advertising, 2.6GB of storage, and pop3 access - so you aren't restricted to just webmail.\n\nI've got about 97 invitations left, use my usually@mail.com email address.\ncheers\n\n----\n\n''Switching small superconductors''\nSemiconducting nanowires could one day store and process data in quantum computers.\n\nA team of researchers led by Silvano De Franceschi of the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands made nanowires out of indium arsenide, each about 100 nanometres in diameter and 100 times as long. By attaching aluminium electrodes to the ends of the wires, they could probe the wires' behaviour at temperatures close to absolute zero. At such temperatures aluminium becomes superconducting, able to conduct electrical current with zero resistance.\n\nThe team found that the superconducting electrodes induced similar behaviour in the nanowires because the superconducting properties leaked into the wire -- the so-called "proximity effect". By applying a voltage to the substrate on which the nanowires rested they could alter the strength of the proximity effect and so turn the superconductivity on and off at will (Science, vol.309, p272).\n\nBecause superconductivity is an inherently quantum effect, superconducting nanowires could form part of the quantum circuitry necessary for a future quantum computer. They could store information, or help read out the result of a calculation.\n\nCourtesy NewScientist. \n\n----\n\n''No Point In Stealing This Screen!''\nEmployees tempted to steal the computer equipment they work with will be frustrated by monitors that the Netherlands-based multinational Philips is selling to businesses. Its SmartManage monitors all contain a chip that "handshakes" regularly with an office network. While the screen is connected to the network it works normally. But 10 minutes after being disconnected it will automatically go into standby mode and remain unusable until it is reconnected to the network. The technology also allows IT technicians to adjust the monitor from afar.\n\nCourtesy NewScientist.\n

''MEGABYTE BY EMAIL''\nAs mentioned in the President’s report, there was little interest in receiving this news-letter electronically by email. In PDF form, in colour and with all graphics to a reason-able resolution the file can be anywhere from 500 Kb to 1 Mb. \nWe will still continue to post out the hardcopy of MegaByte, but if any members would like to trial receipt by email, let Richard Elam know by email to elamr@paradise.net.nz.\n\n----\n\n''HELP DESK''\nJohn Fanning has again agreed to co-ordinate the Help Desk, and his phone number continues to be published for members to call if they need help in any way. However John isn’t an expert in all things and needs assistance with his task. If any members with special knowledge of some hardware, software or firmware should let John know so he can retain their contact details and so be able to pass on any requests to those who can best help. Phone John on his help desk number, (04) 479-9203\n\n----\n\n''MEMBERS’ TIPS, TRICKS & ADVERTS''\nOccasionally members ask for adverts to be placed in this newsletter, and last month Perce Harpham offered a tip which will have been very useful to some of you. We welcome contributions of tips and tricks, and even better if you can writer an article. It doesn’t have to be long, but it can be if you have something of interest to say.\nWe will also run members advertisements for things to sell, give away or wanted to buy. This will cost you nothing but an email, with “copy”, to Richard Elam.\n\n----\n\n''Committe for 2004/2005''\nAt the 2004 July AGM the following people were elected to the committe. Any members wishing to assist can be co-opted onto the committe.\n\n''President''\nRoger Currier\nrogerc@clear.net.nz\n\n''Secretary & Megabyte Editor''\nRichard Elam\nelamr@paradise.net.nz\n\n''Meeting Venue Manager''\nJohn Hand\njohn.hand@nzpca.org.nz\n\n''Membership & Assistant Editor''\nArthur Harris\narthurh@paradise.net.nz\n\n''Treasurer''\nJohn Little\nlittlejn@actrix.gen.nz\n\n''Help Desk''\nJohn Fanning\njohn.fanning@xtra.co.nz\n\n''Webmaster''\nRobin Hinde\nrjhinde@mail.computers.org.nz\n\n''Members''\nWin Brendgens\nhenry_w_ezra@clear.net.nz\n\nIan Heppleston\nianh@paradise.net.nz\n\nJohn Marchington\njohnm@paradise.net.nz\n\n''CD ROM Librarian''\nHugh Roberton\nhugh@tele-data-systems.com\n\n''The following members also assist: Lower Hutt SIG''\nJohn Foster\nJohn Marchington\n\n

Modems connect digital computers to the analog world of telephone networks. The first modem designed by Bell operated at a speed of 300 bits per second. As soon as the first modem went into service, users wanted faster and more dependable modems. It continues today, even though modern-day modems operate at speeds up to 56,000 bits-per second. Bell's next modems operated at 1,200 bits-per second four times the speed of earlier modems. Although the operating speed was higher, they were susceptible to noise and signal degradation on the telephone system. Before the breakup of Bell in 1984, AT&T set all modem standards. Bell engineers designed new modems and AT&T manufactured them. With few exceptions, all new modems designs came from AT&T, but after the breakup, AT&T was no longer in a position to impose standards to the rest of the industry. This coincided with the boom years in personal computer growth, which was in the middle of a phenomenal growth. It began with the introduction of the IBM PC late 1981. This presented some unique opportunities for modem manufacturers. Hayes took the lead in the personal modem business, pioneering the use of microprocessor chips inside the modem. Unlike other modems their units could take the phone off the hook, wait for a dial tone, and dial a telephone number all by itself. \n\nThe Hayes modem was quickly copied by other modem manufacturers, but as it was the first it held the patents relating to smart modems. Major advances came again in 1985 with the 2,400 bits-per second modems, (designated V.22bis) created by ''CCITT''; an industry standard setting organisation comprising hundreds of telecommunication companies world wide. CCITT is now called (~ITU-T), and continues to set industry standards for modems. ~ITU-T modem standards include V.32 (9,600bps), V.32bis (14,400bps), V.34 (33,600bps), V.42 (error control), V.42bis (data compression), V.90 (56,000bps). Nearly all modems conform to ~ITU-T standards. Which assures compatibility between modems world wide. V.90 (56,000bps) modems are likely the end of the road for analog modems, as the laws of physics with the existing telephone network represent a formidable barrier to faster analog modems. Today several other communication technologies offer reliable fast connections. \n\n''Integrated Services Digital Network.'' \nIntegrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) is a digital telephone service that provides reliable voice and data communications using the same wiring as the existing telephone networks. It provides two 64kbps connections and each channel can be used for voice or data communications. Each of the 64kbps channels (called B channels) operates independently of the other or they can be combined into one 128Kbps connection. A third 16Kbps D channel carries ringing and caller ID information for the other two channels. Most ISDN lines have two numbers, one for each channel, in many cases a single ISDN line is cheaper than two business POTS lines. \n\nUnlike POTS the ISDN signals are all digital. When connecting an ISDN line to a computer you need a device called a Terminal Adapter (TA). This provides an interface between the PC and the ISDN line; much like a modem does on analog lines. But because ISDN lines are all digital, there is no analog-to-digital conversion process like there is in a conventional modem. ~TAs also provide one or two POTS jacks that allow users to use an analog telephone or fax on their ISDN line. \n\n''Digital Subscriber Line.'' \nDigital Subscriber Line (DSL) is a new technology that is just coming available. Like ISDN, DSL technology uses ordinary pre-existing copper telephone lines to deliver a high speed, all-digital connection. DSL can share a wire path with a conventional phone line, so you can deliver DSL service and conventional phone service on the same line. DSL provides a single data channel and that data channel is a dedicated point to point circuit, usually used to connect an office directly to an ISP. At the customer's end a splitter box separates the DSL and Pots phone signals. Ordinary telephones and faxes attach to the Pots phone line as usual. The splitter connects to a DSL modem, which connects to a user's PC. At the phone company a device called a DSL Access Module (DSLAM) separates the phone signal and connects it to the normal telephone network. Equipment suppliers are working on a standard, but DSL data speeds range up to several megabits per second. Telecom is presently conducting trial with this system in a Wellington suburb. \n\n''Cable Modems.'' \nCable modems deliver high speeds by using your local cable companies' cable TV network. You don't need to subscribe to cable TV to use a cable modem, and vice versa. All houses in a street share a common coaxial cable, which carries the cable TV signal, and it also carries a signal for the cable modem. Cable modems are very fast up to 10Mbps. Therefore they connects to your PC via an Ethernet connection, instead of the ~RS-232C serial port used by conventional modems. Cable modems use one or two TV channels (to transmit & receive data) which connect to a concentrator, which combines the data from several areas into one high-speed fiber optic cable. This then connects to the cable companies headend, where a router collects and routes the TCP/IP data into the Internet (via an ISP or high-speed connection). Saturn is conducting tests using this system in Petone.\n\n//John Thomson\ngella@iname.com//\n

'' Bad driving in the stars.''\n\n'' Born a Gemini?''\n\n Watch out on the roads and get insurance. Better still, have a Capricorn drive your car. A study by Australian financial service group Suncorp Midway, which ranked 160.000 car crash claimants by star sign found the most accident-prone were Geminis considered restless, closely followed by obstinate Taureans and daredevil Pisceans. Then came Virgo, Cancer, Aquarius, Aries, Leo, Libya, Sagittarius, Scorpio, and safest of all, patient Capricorn.\n\n'' Legal Hell?''\n\n A lawyer died and came before St Peter. "What exactly have you done to earn eternal happiness?" St Peter said. The lawyer recalled that he had given a derelict a 50-cent handout just the other day. St Peter looked over to his assistant Gabriel and asked, "Is that in the records?" Gabriel nodded, but St Peter told the lawyer it wasn't enough."Wait, wait, there's more." said the lawyer. He told of tripping over a homeless boy the week before and giving the lad a dollar. Gabriel checked the records and confirmed the man's story. St Peter then asked Gabriel, "What should we do?"\n \n Gabriel glanced at the lawyer disgustedly and said, "I say we give him back his dollar fifty and tell him to go to hell"\n\n'' Don�t you wish ...''\n\n A man walking along a California beach was deep in prayer. All of a sudden, he said out loud "Lord grant me one wish.\n\n "Suddenly the sky clouded above his head and in a booming voice the lord said, "Because you have TRIED to be faithful to me in all ways. I will grant you one wish."\n\n The man said "Build a bridge to Hawaii so I can drive over anytime I want."\n\n The Lord said, "Your request is very materialistic. Think of the enormous challenges for that kind of undertaking. The supports required to reach the bottom of the Pacific! The concrete and steel it would take! I can do it, but it is hard for me to justify your desire for worldly things. Take a little more time and think of another wish, a wish you think would honour and glorify me."�\n\n The man thought about it for a long time.� Finally he said. "Lord. I wish that I could understand women. I want to know how they feel inside, what they are thinking when they give me the silent treatment, why they cry, what they mean when they say �nothing� and how I can make a women truly happy."\n\n The Lord replied, "You want two lanes or four lanes on that bridge?"\n\n'' Its not what you eat, its how you say it!''\n\n The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British, Americans, Australians or New Zealanders.\n\n The French, on the other hand, eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British, Americans, Australians or New Zealanders.\n\n The Japanese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British, Americans, Australians or New Zealanders.\n\n The Italians, on the other hand, drink lots of red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British, Americans, Australians or New Zealanders.\n\n The conclusion to be drawn from this is that you can eat and drink what you like. It's speaking English that kills you.

//Contributed by John Little, who says:I think that this is a very clever e-mail which a friend in the UK sent to me. Someone out there either has too much spare time or is deadly at Scrabble.//\n\nGEORGE BUSH: When you rearrange the letters: HE BUGS GORE\n\nDORMITORY: When you rearrange the letters: DIRTY ROOM\n\nEVANGELIST: When you rearrange the letters: EVIL'S AGENT\n\nPRESBYTERIAN: When you rearrange the letters: BEST IN PRAYER\n\nDESPERATION: When you rearrange the letters: A ROPE ENDS IT\n\nTHE MORSE CODE: When you rearrange the letters: HERE COME DOTS\n\nSLOT MACHINE: When you rearrange the letters: CASH LOST IN ME\n\nANIMOSITY: When you rearrange the letters: IS NO AMITY\n\n~MOTHER-IN-LAW: When you rearrange the letters: WOMAN HITLER\n\nSNOOZE ALARMS: When you rearrange the letters: ALAS! NO MORE Z'S\n\nA DECIMAL POINT:When you rearrange the letters: I'M A DOT IN PLACE\n\nTHE EARTHQUAKES: When you rearrange the letters: THAT QUEER SHAKE\n\nELEVEN PLUS TWO: When you rearrange the letters: TWELVE PLUS ONE\n\nAnd for a grand finale:\n\nPRESIDENT CLINTON OF THE USA: When you rearrange the letters (with no letters left over and using each letter only once), TO COPULATE HE FINDS INTERNS

By Ian Godfrey\n\n In the March issue I touched briefly on Anaglyphs and some of you may well have taken a look, even gone to the trouble of finding or making 3D Glasses. If you have gone to the trouble of creating some Anaglyphs – Good on You!\n Bring them along to the next meeting (Wed the 16th ) and We'll project them up all big and all on the wall.\n To view these picture you need 3D Glasses. These glasses consist of two different coloured lenses (filters). In my case one red and one blue. Ever tried to find any of these? No? Ever tried to find a lot of these? No? Well it was very difficult and I was contemplating the unenviable task of manufacturing a large number.\n At 1 am the other morning searching the Internet I found some 3D Glasses that were in New Zealand. I made a phone call later in the day and thanks to Nicki from NZSKI.com in Christchurch and a rather nice bottle of red liquid I can now do the presentation in 3D and those of you who attend will be able to see (eyesight willing) these pictures.\n Please support our 'informal sponsor' and at least visit www.nzski.com the next time your surfing in that area.\n I'll be providing a disk with some Anaglyphs on and an HTML file with some links in in case you want find out more.\n\n Some techie stuff for those who want to know a bit more. The hard ware required for creating the pictures the way I do is relatively cheap and some of you may have digital cameras which will make it even easier. (I'll ask Rog to bring his along so that we can demo that side of it).\n\n I use a TV Tuner/Capture card. Dick Smith has these for $149.00 retail (in the 2000-2001 catalogue). You can get a capture card by itself for $89.00. ( You can also get one with an FM tuner and TV Tuner combined $169.00.)\n These cards can also be used for video conferencing as well.\n I have a camcorder that doesn't record and play too well but the video signal itself is fine. The software provided with the card has a capture function which allows the capture of full motion video as well as snapshots. Snapshots are what we require for creating the Anaglyph.\n\n Lets get on with the method. This is the same for all equipment. As explained in the march issue we'll need two pictures both of the same subject taken from slightly different positions. Measure or use your best estimate of the distance to the subject, divide this by 30. The result is the distance to move the camera for the second picture. Take the first snapshot then move the camera the distance calculated, keeping the camera parallel to the subject maintaining the same distance from the subject. We now have a left and a right picture.\n\n Using my video camera and capture card limits me to taking pictures to areas where there is mains power, as my PC isn't really portable.\n This is where a digital camera will give you some flexibility. Lets not forget the emulsion film cameras either, you can take two pictures as described above get them developed and have them scanned to get digital versions. Don't forget the club has a scanner in the office if you don't have your own.\n\n Moving right along, loading the pictures into the program mentioned in March will allow you to create the Anaglyph.\n The picture can be adjusted to improve the view especially if the two pictures are out of alignment. The resulting picture can be saved and printed if required.\n The software (Anamaker) allows the pictures to be created such that when they are viewed they appear in Black and White, as well as colour.\n You also have the option to create the picture so it can be viewed with red green glasses. So to get your free 3D Glasses courtesy of NZSki.com come along to the meeting on Wednesday the 16th May and add some depth to your outlook.

\nBy Paul Phipps\n\n ''Editor's Note''\n //Your PC first looks for a CONFIG.SYS file when it runs up. This file tells the PC how to configure itself for the equipment loaded on the PC. It can be used to load a mouse driver, configure high memory, or even tell it what language to use. The AUTOEXEC.BAT file is similar but is generally used to run programs eg to run up a menu every time the computer is started up. It can load up system variables like the PATH, tell it where programs are located and generally save you a great deal of bothersome initialising. Below is an excellent article from Paul Phipps which warrants some study. If you don't understand something first look it up in you DOS manual, and if that fails write and ask for a more detailed explanation, we are always looking for inspiration for articles!//\n\n My system is a 386SX clone with 2Mb memory and is set up to run Windows 3.0 in 386 Enhanced mode, in ~MS-DOS 3.3.\n{{{\n Memory (bytes) CONFIG.SYS\n 1.6k files = 30\n 10.3k buffers = 20\n 0 stacks=0,0\n 2896 stacks=0,0\n 14128 device=C:\sWINDOWS\ssmartdrv.sys 768\n 1584 device=\sdos\sansi.sys\n 0 country=61,437,c:\sdos\scountry.sys\n 3776 (SHELL=C:\sCOMMAND.COM /P /E:160)\n (this is the default)\n}}}\n*{{{Files=30}}} and {{{Buffers=20}}}. Each file handle uses about 53 bytes, and each buffer uses 528 bytes. The Windows manual recommends files=30 and buffers=10 if the SMARTDRV disk cache is installed. However, increasing the buffers to 20 significantly decreases the time that Windows takes to load itself (39 secs vs. 25 secs on my system), and provides a little more of a disk cache for non-Windows DOS programs.\n*{{{Stacks=0,0}}} reduces the amount of memory taken by the default stacks=9,128 setting, by 3280 bytes, without seeming to have any detrimental effect.\n*{{{device=c:\shimem.sys}}} is the extended memory manager that comes with Windows.\n*{{{device=c:\swindows\ssmartdrv.sys 768}}} is the disk cache that comes with Windows. 768 sets the cache size to 768k maximum, 0 minimum, which seems to work fine within the 2M memory that my system has. (If the minimum is set greater than 0, then Windows doesn't automatically go into 386 Enhanced mode because I only have 2M total memory.)\n*{{{device=\sdos\sansi.sys}}} allows me to change screen colours and redefine keys using the AUTOEXEC.BAT file.\n*{{{country=61,437,c:\sdos\scountry.sys}}} means that the dates of files in DIR lists will come up with the day and month in the right order instead of the default American m/d/y order.\n\n Another useful line to add is\n {{{ SHELL=C:\sCOMMAND.COM /P /E:256}}}\n which increases the amount of environment space, which you might want to do if you have a long PATH command in the AUTOEXEC.BAT. I can live with the default 160 bytes, but only just, so I don't need the SHELL in my CONFIG.SYS.\n\n It is possible to put comments is the CONFIG.SYS file but the system usually prints 'Unrecognised command in CONFIG.SYS' messages. The way I get rid of the messages is to keep the system happy with a small utility called REM which is a device driver that takes up no memory. This allows me to have lines in my CONFIG.SYS like this:\n{{{\n DEVICE=REM this is a comment.\n AUTOEXEC.BAT\n @echo off\n \spower\snumoff\n \spower\sfastatkb 00\n \sutils\schktsr DOSEDIT /E\n if errorlevel 1 goto there\n \sutils\sdosedit\n :there\n \sutils\smouse704\n path=C:\sWINDOWS;c:\sdos;c:\sutils;...\n prompt $t[3D $p$g\n set TEMP=C:\sWINDOWS\sTEMP\n echo [0;18;"exit";13p\n echo [0;25;"park";13p\n echo [1;33m\n echo [3A\n cookie\n \sutils\sfastmous \n}}}\n*memory use for these, together with the default COMSPEC=C:\sCOMMAND.COM (22 bytes) is taken from the Environment space of 160 bytes, with 25 bytes to spare. is the escape character, ASCII 27.\n*{{{@echo off}}} means I don't need to see each line of the AUTOEXEC.BAT file as it is executing.\n*{{{\spower\snumoff}}} - the system boots up with numlock on by default; this turns it off.\n*{{{\spower\sfastatkb 00}}} speeds up the keyboard response from the default sluggish rate to acceptable, without having the annoying feature of some keyboard accelerators of suddenly leaping across the page when the auto repeat cuts in. Uses no memory.\n*{{{\sutils\schktsr}}} checks to see if a resident program (a TSR) is already loaded. If it is, it returns errorlevel greater than one. DOSEDIT does not check to see if there is already a copy of itself in memory, so it is possible to have multiple (useless) copies of DOSEDIT loaded. CHKTSR enables the AUTOEXEC.BAT FILE to be executed more than once without using up more memory each time.\n*{{{\sutils\sdosedit}}} allows easy recall and editing of previously entered DOS commands. (DOS should know by now that I really mean COPY when I type CPOY).\n*{{{\sutils\smouse704}}} is a mouse.com mouse driver renamed so that I know the version number, for DOS programs that use a mouse. Mouse.com can be removed from memory using 'mouse off' (you can't do that if you use MOUSE.SYS in your CONFIG.SYS file).\n*{{{path=C:\sWINDOWS;c:\sdos;...}}} note that the TSR's (i.e. DOSEDIT and ~MOUSE704) are loaded BEFORE the PATH, SET and PROMPT lines, to minimise memory use. TSR's get a copy of the current environment when they are loaded and some of them don't release their environment memory when they go resident.\n*{{{prompt $t[3D $p$g}}} sets the DOS prompt to display the time (hh:mm:ss, without the hundredths of a second), the current directory, and a ">" .\n*{{{set TEMP=C:\sWINDOWS\sTEMP}}} sets a directory for temporary Windows files.\n*{{{echo [0;18;"exit";13p}}} means that pressing Alt/e will send the command "exit" followed by an enter to DOS. Extremely useful for returning to programs that you have shelled out of to execute a DOS command. E.g. if from Windows you have shelled to the DOS prompt, you can go back to Windows by pressing Alt/e. Echo commands like this are made possible by having ANSI.SYS in the CONFIG.SYS file.\n*{{{echo [0;25;"park";13p Alt/p}}} will execute a Park command to park the hard disk before switching off.\n*{{{echo [1;33m}}} changes the DOS colour from grey on black to yellow on black.\n*{{{echo [3A}}} moves the cursor up three lines so that the blank lines left on the screen by the other echo commands can be overwritten.\n*{{{cookie}}} is a recent addition which randomly chooses a quote and displays it.\n*{{{\sutils\sfastmous}}} is a little utility that I wrote which resets the mouse driver, speeds up the mouse cursor, then waits for a key press or a mouse button press after printing the message:\n{{{\nPress ESC to exit to DOS or any other key for Windows 3\n}}}\n\n Another TSR which I use is ~PRN2FILE which captures output sent to the printer (e.g. screen dumps via the print screen key) and puts it in a disk file where it can be edited. (Uses 5872 bytes).\n\n Some of the utilities mentioned only work with DOS 3.0 or later, most will work fine with DOS 2.0 to 4.0\n\n| Utility | Author | Source |\n|REM |Jeffry J. Hamilton |PC Magazine, 30/01/90, p.307|\n|NUMOFF |Mike Cohn |PC Magazine's DOS Power Tools|\n|FASTATKB |Robert Patenaude |PC Magazine's DOS Power Tools|\n|CHKTSR |Christopher J. Dunford |Computer Software Library of NZ, disk 2758|\n|DOSEDIT |J. Gersbach |Lost in the mists of time|\n|MOUSE |Microsoft |Comes with various software products|\n|COOKIE |Danen Computer Consulting |Hamilton Software library|\n|FASTMOUS |Me |\n|~PRN2FILE |Tom Kihlken |PC Magazine's DOS Power Tools|

Back in 1994, I attended Comdex, (Comdex is the World's largest computer show, held each year in Las Vegas, USA. Covering five venues, 22 acres and several hotel conference halls and attended by 230,000 plus in 1994). I can still remember going to one of the venues (MGM Grand Hotel) by bus and siting in on a seminar where they were demonstrating a new product release. The Casio ~QV-10 digital camera. I'd never seen anything like it before and probably this applied to others there. The German next to me said its fantastic. I'll take one home as a demo. Me too I replied. It was one of those products I had to own. At the time I couldn't believe the technology. Just like advances in "Bluetooth Technology" today. Out with the credit card and zip zap it was mine. After they rang my wife in New Zealand to check if I was really in the United States.\n\n On the way back to LA I stopped off in the High Desert (Apple Valley, Victorville) and stayed with an old American friend. I can still remember him telling me this camera is going to completely change the way we take pictures. Travelling back through Australia with a friend who had also purchased a digital camera, we surprised people with our new cameras. One morning another friend borrowed one of the cameras and caught a few topless girls on the beach at Surfers. Naughty boy! Visiting Courtney Place one night I remember a guy who was slightly under the weather, tapping me on the shoulder saying you hold your camera up to your face Mate. Not this one I said showing him the small LCD screen on the back of the camera.\n\n That Casio camera the first of its type released to the market was probably well ahead of its time. 3/4 of a million pixels, many digital cameras that appeared later were only 1/3 of a million pixels and had no LCD viewing screen.\n \n Near the end of last year while away I purchased a new digital camera. How things have changed. Lets get it right, digital cameras are not now a new product, but today for the same price I brought my original camera in the USA, you can now buy a 4 million pixel camera. Fully automatic, with build in flash, with macro image capabilities, and capable of storing over a hundred images (depending on the size of the memory card). USB support now makes it so easy to download your images to your computer. Or you can take out the memory card and use a floppy disk adapter or put the memory card straight into one of the new stand-alone printers that don't need a computer attached. And most of the latest cameras are like new printers; technology fills in the gaps between the pixels so your 4 Meg camera produces pictures like a six Meg camera. Sample picture taken at night in Courtney Place.\n\n Christmas 2001 (not 2002), I decided to stop sending out Christmas Cards, it's outdated I told my wife. She definitely didn't agreed! And it costs too much money. Married to someone who comes from another country has advantages, but when you have girlfriends, cousins, nieces, aunts, uncles and relations spread around "The World" it doesn't help. To send a card to the USA $1.50, England $2.00 and if your cards are over size $3.00. Plus there is the cost of all the nice cards. My wife doesn't like cards from the "$2 Shop". So card prices start at $3.00 or $4.00. And then there are the extras that somehow end up in the envelopes. I'm sure you now realized the full cost is several hundred dollars. And then all those foreign students I've had in my flat, all send us cards and greetings. So cards get sent back. There has to be a better way I told the wife. So last Christmas 2001, time does fly, I put together a small video clip. I sat on the lounge and shouted "Happy New Year" my wife did the same. But it was a hassle using my video camera. And transferring the video into my computer. Finding a program to edit it. Finding another program to compress the video to an acceptable size for emailing. And I realized everyone wouldn't have Windows Media Player. So I had to find a program which wrapped it up into a small file with its own viewer. I reasoned if it had its own viewer, it wouldn't matter whether friends had the right program, it would work regardless. All of this took a great deal of time and effort. The final size was about 600 KB just on the borderline to email to people without getting too many complaints. But my wife pointed out what about friends who don't have a computer. Simple I told her. I will load it onto a free web server where friends can view it even if they're at the North Pole or in Central Africa. Not sure my wife liked this idea, but I told her it's about time they understood the Internet. Visit an Internet Café and view our message. Generally it was a hit, but too much bother to ever contemplate doing it again.\n\n Roll on Christmas 2002 with my new digital camera. Nearly all-new digital cameras now come with a video clip function. I sat in the lounge again with my wife (same position) and one of our foreign students from the flat used the camera. One practice shot and then the final take. Even Peter Jackson couldn't have done it better. Within two minutes I was viewing it on computer. Unlike digital cameras in the past new cameras today come with good photo and video editing software. Within the next two minutes I'd edited and inserted a profession looking opening page. Just like the movies, with a transition into our message. And the free software came with its own viewer so I was not dependent on Microsoft. By this stage I'd a 550 KB exe file plus a 620 KB.avi file. So friends and relative would've a choice to view it under Microsoft Media Player or use the file with the built in viewer. Friends and foe Worldwide received the message. It was another hit. And I modified it easily for Chinese New Year. It saved money. Three hundred dollars deducted from $1500 (the cost of the Fuji Pix camera), not to mention the price of the trip.\n\n //John Thomson Gella@paradise.net.nz//\n\n PS. Even my little niece in Asia viewed our Christmas/New Year message four times before dragging her parents, two brothers, several girlfriends and others to a local Internet shop.

Don McDonald\n\n I think I had about one week of lessons on computing in 7th form (Upper Sixth form secondary education, 1965) if that is what it was about!\n I went directly on to Auckland University and sat Applied Maths 3 from 1967-70. They possibly had Facit electric calculating machines there but I hardly used them.\n The university computer was IBM 1620 and it had just been programmed by the staff to calculate the square root of 2 to about 1000 decimal places. The next year I learned FORTRAN IV for IBM 1130.\n\n I discovered Mersenne numbers like 2^11-1 =23*89. And I commented perceptively about the factors, 23 = 2*11+1 and 89 =8*11+1. The pattern is reliable. Try factoring 2^23-1. Yes, I wasn't the original discoverer.\n\n In 1968 I worked at Forest Research Institute, Rotorua. Soon later the world's first desk top computer came out. Olivetti Programma 101. It had 22 places of decimals.\n\n The senior scientist used a Monroe electric calculator. He loved it. It had about 10 rows of 15? digit keys. You would enter a number, e.g. 3 000 005, and square. The result gave you 9 (3 squared) 30 (2x*y crossproduct) and 25 (5 squared.) And the total number of items was Sx, Sy, N. (Sigma = sum symbol, etc.)\n\n I calculated cubic contents of forest sawlogs from sectional measurements. NZ Jourl Forestry Science, vol. 1(2). I also cut up logs into wood boards (on the computer) simulating the effects of tree malformation.\n\n Programma 101 used key stroke instructions, like arrow up ^ (enter into stack) and <> (swap contents of x register with y register.) The answer was in A register or accumulator. I taught some technicians how to program an example of cube roots.\n\n The next generation was HP 9100 A/B, from Hewlett Packard. I could do genuine non-linear least squares of simple exponential curvefit.\n I was sent to Wellington for a week to learn *PROSPER.\n In 1975 a hand held programmable calculator could be purchased for NZ $300. HP-25. It had about 7 addressable registers and 49 instruction steps. It was probably used by rocket scientists.\n\n I worked in NZ Post Office, Research and Development section.\n The Hewlett Packard computers, HP 9830, had 4 or 8 K of memory and extra plug-in ROMS (kilobytes = 1000 characters, read only memory) for graphics (e.g. scale axis and label axes etc.), STR$ing operations, and Matrix operations. (MAT multiply, MAT Inverse.) An HP 9845 desk top computer cost nearly $50 000 in 1980s. It had thermal printer and green cathode ray tube monitor. Until then the commonest computer display was led = light emitting diodes.\n I used to shop for hobby computers. I didn't actually get my own until 1987. It was educationally sound BBC model-B, made in U.K., and offered 32 KB RAM. (Of course I checked it had to give correct math results. The Pentium FDIV was later severely flawed in this respect.)\n\n My BBC-b had ROMS installed so that the original owner (not me) started up in Interword word processor. Which in year 2000 still does the best printout and multicolumns for me. To obtain hard copy I (still) photograph the screen. (from teletext- it isn't such a long story as newspaper garbage.)\n I needed a television with UHF tuner to see the computer display and TISCO television service co. charged me $200 to fit that. One night a month I visited the Wellington college computer workshop.\n\n I was sending 20 programs a year to Beeblet, magazine of BBC Acorn computer user group. The first program I published in Beeblet was typed on an Imperial/60 manual office typewriter; I had no printer, no floppy disk (only data-cassette) or screen. These came at 1, 12, or 24 month intervals.\n What a way to learn, using keyboard (shift, ESCape, BREAK, *BASIC, OLD - that's an Ooh! it isn't a nought! to recover a crashed program from BREAK) and counting the frequency of beep. - BBC model-B micro, 32 kilobytes RAM random access memory, 1987, to 486 laptop computer, 2000. ...\n\n I didn't get onto what I was going to say.\n However, this will do as a tribute to July 2000 meeting, AGM topic early computers.\n Don.Mcdonald

\n ''Generally''\n Final bid is when the hammer goes down Auctioneers decision is final - he is God in all earthly matters relating to this auction\n\n ''Bidding''\n If you win a bid please give your name so we can enter it into the database\n\n ''Payment''\n Please only pay at the end, ie don't keep coming up to pay for goods. There will be a break at about 9.00pm when we can do some intermediate sales / reimbursements. We can accept cheques or cash. IOU's may need some negotiation with a higher authority.\n\n Keep your receipt, you may need it as evidence of purchase if it is not what it appeared to be or is non-working when it was advertised as working. You will need it to get your purchases out of the door.\n\n ''Vendors''\n The NZPCA charge 20% commission on the sale with a minimum commission of $10 or the value of the goods sold if less.\n\n ''Eg''\n Goods sold for $5. NZPCA commission $5. Return to Vendor $0.\n\n Goods sold for $15. NZPCA commission $10. Return to Vendor. $5\n\n Goods sold for $60. NZPCA commission $12. Return to Vendor $48.\n Please indicate whether the goods are:\n\n*1. To be sold on Commission or as a Donation to the NZPCA\n*2. Working or ~Non-Working\n*3. Who the owner is if the goods are not yours.\n\n If goods are not as advertised and we have to refund the purchaser we reserve the right for a full refund from the vendor.\n\n ''Non NZPCA members.''\n You are very welcome to sell and to buy all you wish however the committee has decided that to be fair on members we should charge an extra 10% commission on sales and the same on purchase price paid. However if you join the NZPCA on the night the 10% will not apply.\n\n ''All''\n Please remove any goods purchased or not sold at the end of the auction\n

The NZPCA now has mailing lists.\n \nThese are an easy way for NZPCA members to be kept up to date with news, and for members to discuss topics currently of interest to them, and it all happens by email.\n\nOnce you have subscribed to a mailing list, a copy of all mail sent to that list automatically gets sent to your email address. \n\nSubscribing is easy - you just send a blank email to the subscribe address; unsubscribing is done the same way - send a blank email to the unsubscribe address. Please note that *all* NZPCA members have an email address - you can participate in the discussions using your Megabaud email address (firstname.lastname@ nzpca.org.nz) if you have BBS access but no ISP account.\n\nCheck the mailing list page at http://www.computers.org.nz to subscribe using your web browser, next time you visit the website.\nDetails of the lists are also available on that page. \n\nYou participate in discussions by sending an email to the posting address. \nPlease do not send attachments, and please post in text (not HTML) - check your email client settings. You can also participate in discussions by viewing the mailing list archive online at the appropriate address, although to do this you need to register with topica.com first.\nRegistration is only necessary if you visit topica.com directly, it is not required for any other use of the mailing lists. \n\nThere are three mailing lists that members should consider joining, these are explained below. \n\n''nzpcanews''\nPrimarily a mailing list for announcements and news. Meeting reminders will also be sent to this mailing list. To keep traffic a low as possible, members cannot post to this list. Megabyte may be sent to this list, or depending on feedback, may be the subject of its own mailing list. \n\nSubscribe Address: nzpcanews-subscribe@topica.com\n\nUnsubscribe Address: nzpcanews-unsubscribe@topica.com\n\nPosting Address: nzpcanews-post-[list password]@topica.com\n\nList Info: http://www.topica.com/lists/nzpcanews \n\n''nzpcageneral''\nA general discussion list for all members to post to. This is not moderated -please be considerate when posting and replying, and remeber that all subscribers to this list will receive replies made to the list. Do not try to post attachments to this list.\n\nSubscribe Address: nzpcagen-subscribe@topica.com \n\nUnsubscribe Address: nzpcagen-unsubscribe@topica.com \n\nPosting Address: nzpcagen@topica.com\n\nList Info: http://www.topica.com/lists/nzpcagen\n\n''nzpcahelp''\nA mailing list set up specifically to provide assistance to members. All members can post to this mailing list, but please ensure that the subject contains a clear indication of the type of problem that help is wanted with.\nDo not use "Help Please!" as the subject! \n\nSubscribe Address: nzpcahelp-subscribe@topica.com \n\nUnsubscribe Address: nzpcahelp-unsubscribe@topica.com \n\nPosting Address: nzpcahelp@topica.com \n\nList Info: http://www.topica.com/lists/nzpcahelp \n\nAll NZPCA members should subscribe to nzpcanews, and consider joining the others to see how they develop. \n\nAny feedback and suggestions about these lists (or any new ones members would find useful) will be appreciated - subscribe by sending a blank email to: \n\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; nzpcagen-subscribe@topica.com \n\nand send your suggestions to\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; nzpcagen@topica.com. \n

//Colin Candy// \n\nThe NZPCA Office is located at: \n\n75 Ghuznee St, Wellington \nPhone 384 6223.\nor Colin Candy 479 5252\n\n''Opening Times:'' \nMonday 11am - 2pm (Colin Candy) \nWednesday 4pm - 7pm (Graham Rogers) \nFriday 11am - 2pm (Kris Truscott)\n\n''Library books. \nRecently purchased:'' \n"Internet Slick Tricks": This book was written in 1994 so is not as up to date as it might be but it may be worth your while dipping into, especially if you are fairly new to the Internet.\nIt gives a short tour of the Internet to make sure readers know exactly what it is, what it can do, and what hardware and software techniques are available. Then over 200 pages describe how to make the most of your time on the Internet. \n\nThis book can be borrowed for just $1 per 4 weeks. \n\n''Other books:'' \n"The Internet: No Experience Required." (Reviewed in last months MegaByte).\n"The Internet for Dummies".\n"Access 97 for Windows for Dummies".\n\nCost $5 per 4 weeks\n\n''Available resources:'' \n''~Photo-Copying:'' 7 cents per A4 sheet, 11 cents per A3 sheet. (please bring the right change - rounded up). \n\n''Training ~CD-ROMs:'' "Word 97" - three discs. Cost $2.50 at the office, or $5 per disc per week at home. \n\n''Library ~CD-ROMs:'' Cost of hire $5 per disc per month. A great variety of ~CDs to choose from. \n\n''Scanning:'' Have your old photos or old documents scanned. $1 per first item, $2 for two to four. \n\nPlease note: It may be advisable to ring the office 384 6223 during open hours to check availability of any particular item you wish to borrow.\n

Type the text for 'NZPCA Website'

// Last month Roger mentioned in his President's Report that the NZPCA website was under some redevelopment. I think now is a good time to clarify what this development involves.//\n\n ''Background:''\n\n The aim is to use the website to replace some of the existing BBS features (as far as possible), provide some additional features on the website, and try to make the site easier to maintain.\n\n At the moment, I have the new website running on a PC at home (a P100, with 40MB of RAM), and hope to have it publicly accessible in December. It seems likely we will be able to run our website on our own hardware, which has the advantage that we will be able to maintain our own file archive (currently available on the BBS). The disadvantage is that we will need to maintain our own server - a great learning experience for those that are interested, by the way.\n\n Our current website consists entirely of static webpages edited and uploaded by those who maintain the website. The new site generates almost all its pages on the fly, assembling them from a database as well as other files. This has some significant implications and some advantages.\n\n The website can be much more interactive, and while the site itself has become very complex (there are a lot of things happening behind the scenes), maintainence is much easier. For general administration, no knowledge of HTML is required (though helpful) as almost everything can be done by web browser. Technical configuration is performed by ssh or telnet.\n\n Presentation and content have been separated. By this, I mean the information that determines the way the content is presented (details like fonts, colours, graphics, etc) is separate from the content itself (what is actually being said), unlike our current website. This enables viewers to select a theme or style that they may prefer to view the website in. This might be influenced by the resolution of their monitor, their eyesight, the way they like things to look, or because of the limited display on their WAP phone. The site can also be made available in any language, if required.\n\n ''Major Features:''\n\n At the moment the site has many features, more than I can cover in this article.\n\n Members can browse the site without registering, but registered members can access additional features. Registration is quite straightforward, with a password being emailed automatically. Forgotten passwords can also be retrieved automatically by registered members via email.\n\n Registration allows viewers to select a preferred theme for their view of the website, as well as post comments, vote in polls, access articles and news, etc. We are able to decide what unregistered viewers are able to do and see.\n\n Some information can be made to be viewed only by unregistered users, or registered users, or administrators.\n\n There is an interactive calendar, which will make it much easier to keep meeting and other announcements up to date. In addition, items can be scheduled to show only on specific dates, which could be used to display meeting reminders.\n\n A forum system is available, this would be useful for general discussions or for the helpdesk. This is similar to the conference system on the BBS, but is web-based. It will be up to members to decide how to use the forums and somebody will need to keep an eye on these. Private messaging for registered users is also available.\n\n Members can submit articles, news, hints and tips. Display of these can be scheduled if desired - useful for setting up things to happen automatically - maybe for meeting announcements and the like. Past articles are archived for access future reference.\n\n We can run polls, either to try and find out what our members really think (always difficult!) or for amusement. We can have a selection of random items so that every time you view the page, there will be something new to see - these can be graphics, hints, quotes, links or even mystery links.\n\n We have a page where members can submit their favourite or interesting links, as well as another page for links to downloads. With some work, this can be used to access our existing file archive from the BBS. Pages track the most popular sites visited, articles read, and files downloaded.\n\n A statistics page gives quite detailed information about web site traffic, and there is a facility to search the entire site by various criteria. We can also display a list of members currently on line, and most activities on the website can be moderated if required.\n\n Banners can be displayed - these could be to announce events or for advertising should the NZPCA ever require this. Banner impressions can be monitored.\n\n A printer friendly version of most pages is available, for those who prefer to keep or read paper copies of articles.\n\n There is considerable scope for future development, for example, we can add an image gallery if members are interested in contributing to (and maintaining) this.\n\n ''Technical Details:''\n\n For those interested in the technical details, the website is currently hosted on a server running Linux. Although this could as easily be done with Windows, it lacks the tools for remote management that makes Linux ideal for this type of work; besides, by using Linux we avoid licensing, security and reliability issues.\n\n The web server is apache, with ~PHP4 server side scripting installed, the database is ~MySQL, and email is handled by postfix. Remote administration at the commandline or console is either by telnet or ssh; midnight commander is available to make file management easy. A graphical (browser based) administration facility is provided by webmin.\n\n The scripts that run the website are from an open source project called ~PostNuke - this is a fork of phpnuke, one of several projects developing this type of software. These are all really beta software, although I've seen commercial software that is less useable than this. Being beta means there is a steady stream of upgrades as the product is developed and becomes more mature, as well as an expanding range of additional functions being developed by people worldwide.\n\n ''How you can help:''\n\n Having read this far, I know you are thinking, "This is really interesting! How can I help?"\n\n If you are interested in contributing, contact Roger (as he mentioned in his article) or myself. If you know how to use a web browser, and are able to spend a little time familiarising yourself with the website, you can help.\n\n We need people who can keep an eye on some of the website functions, moderate forums, and help to make the site interesting and up to date (perhaps by submitting or managing links, downloads, and news). The only requirement for helping in this way is access to a web browser and some commonsense - no knowledge of HTML is required.\n\n If you know HTML and want to learn more, we need some themes developed so our members have more choice of how the website looks. If you have some ideas it is now possible to develop your own theme, and share it with others (or the whole world - you could be famous).\n\n We need somebody to develop brief documentation to help members use the website, and additional documentation for administrators would be helpful.\n\n If you are familiar with Linux server administration, boy, do we have a job for you - likewise anyone familiar with SQL database administration, and PHP scripting.\n\n And of course, we need members visit and interact with the site - the more people who use it, the more useful the website will be.\n\n As you can see, there is room for people to contribute with a wide range of interests and skills, so don't hold back. Take an interest in the website, and help to make it a success.\n\n ''Related links:''\n Roger mailto:rogerc@clear.net.nz\n Robin mailto:usually@mail.com\n Linux http://www.linux.org\n Apache http://www.apache.org\n PHP http://www.zend.com\n ~MySQL http://www.mysql.com\n phpnuke http://www.phpnuke.org\n postnuke http://www.postnuke.com\n myphpnuke http://www.myphpnuke.com\n webmin http://www.webmin.org\n\n//Robin Hinde//

Members who do not use Megabaud may not be aware of recent improvements to the NZPCA website. \n\nNew URL: \n\nTo better promote the NZPCA, we have registered the domain name computers.org.nz, as this is more meaningful and more likely to interest potential visitors (and hopefully, potential members) than nzpca.org.nz. The website can be accessed by both http://www.computers.org.nz and http://www.nzpca.org.nz so you do not need to change your bookmarks, however it may be preferable to refer people to www.computers.org.nz as it is easier for non-members to remember. \n\nIt is important to note that this domain name only relates to the website, it is not a valid email address. \n\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nVisitor Tracking: \nThe site now has a counter (provided by eXTReMe Tracking) which produces a remarkable amount of information. Click on the blue sphere on the Welcome page to access the information collected to date. \n\nSome of the statistics are quite interesting: \n\n| ''Browsers'' | ''Visitors'' | ''User Percentage'' |\n| MSIE 4 | 57 | 44.18% |\n| Netscape4 | 44 | 34.10% |\n| Netscape3 | 18 | 13.95% |\n| MSIE 3 | 7 | 5.42% |\n| MSIE 4 | 2 | 1.55% |\n| Netscape2 | 1 | 0.77% |\n\n|>| ''Percentage Browser Use by Type'' |\n| Netscape | 48.83% |\n| MSIE | 51.16% |\n| Other | 0% |\n\nAlthough it appears that members use Netscape and Internet Explorer almost equally, watching the statistics after drawing attention to the website in usenet brings a remarkable increase in the number of visitors, who probably are not NZPCA members, using Netscape. Internet Explorer appears to be the predominant browser for NZPCA members regularly visiting the site. Note that somebody is already using Internet Explorer 5.0; we are still waiting for visitors using Qnx, ~NeoPlanet, Arachne and Opera. \n\n| ''Operating Systems'' | ''Unique Visitors'' | ''User Percentage'' |\n| Windows 95 | 55 | 42.63% |\n| Windows 98 | 48 | 37.20% |\n| OS/2 | 9 | 6.97% |\n| Windows NT | 5 | 3.87% |\n| Linux | 4 | 3.10% |\n| ~FreeBSD | 4 | 3.10% |\n| Windows 3.1 | 3 | 2.32% |\n| Macintosh | 1 | 0.77% |\n\n|>| ''Percentage OS Use by Type'' |\n| Windows | 86.04% |\n| Mac | 0.77% |\n| Unix | 6.20% |\n| Other | 6.97% |\n \nWindows 3.1 usage is practically nil, while Windows 95 and 98 are most used and almost equal. There also appears to be some techie type person using BSD, which is an unusual choice of operating system, and OS/2 doesn't appear to be dead yet. \n\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nJavascript: \nThere is a power savings calculator tucked away on the experimental page, for members interested in javascript or how the recent price reductions by Transalta will affect them, or how much they will save by moving to First Electric. \n\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nBe sure to visit the website soon, especially if you have not previously seen it. All feedback and contributions to the website are welcome - if you have favorite links that you think may interest other members, let me know.

NZPCA subscribers who have not yet visited the NZPCA website; take the time to visit http://www.nzpca.org.nz today, and while you are there save the price of a stamp and complete the Membership Update form which is available online. \n\nDon't forget that every completed form goes into a draw for small (but useful) prizes. \n\nCheck out the Mystery Links page (you never know where you will end up) and work out how much extra your next power bill will be using the rather inappropriately named Power Savings Calculator. Have a look at the CD Library collection, and see what upcoming meetings may interest you. \n\nAll of the above (and more) is available on the NZPCA website. Please support the site by visiting it regularly. \n\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nThe site statistics show that while Windows users account for 80% of all visits to the NZPCA website, Linux visitors are increasing in number and there was even a recent visit by a Solaris (~SunOS 5) system. \n\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nAlthough the website has been fairly quiet over summer (especially with the excellent weather we have been enjoying) there will be some more development of the site over the next few months. If any members have any ideas that they would like to see implemented, please let us know - email webmaster@nzpca.org. \n\nWebsite visitors will note that there are some suggestions for services related to email offered as choices on the online Membership Update form. If there is sufficient interest it may be possible to offer these services - but you need to complete the form so that we know you are interested. Don't leave it to other people to do. \n\n

Have a look at the links on the menu at the top of the page and see what happens when you use them. Any part of the document that you open will reveal options just above and to the right of the title when you hover your mouse over it; you can close any unwanted text by selecting "close" there, or use the "close all" link on the right of the window. In general links will open at the top of the window and push already open links further down the page.\n\nYou can also use the "jump" option to navigate between open tiddlers. \n

/***\n''NestedSlidersPlugin for TiddlyWiki version 1.2.x and 2.0''\n^^author: Eric Shulman\nsource: http://www.TiddlyTools.com/#NestedSlidersPlugin\nlicense: [[Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License|http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/]]^^\n\nQuickly make any tiddler content into an expandable 'slider' panel, without needing to create a separate tiddler to contain the slider content. Optional syntax allows ''default to open'', ''custom button label/tooltip'' and ''automatic blockquote formatting.''\n\nYou can also 'nest' these sliders as deep as you like (see complex nesting example below), so that expandable 'tree-like' hierarchical displays can be created. This is most useful when converting existing in-line text content to create in-line annotations, footnotes, context-sensitive help, or other subordinate information displays.\n\nFor more details, please click on a section headline below:\n++++!!!!![Configuration]>\nDebugging messages for 'lazy sliders' deferred rendering:\n<<option chkDebugLazySliderDefer>> show debugging alert when deferring slider rendering\n<<option chkDebugLazySliderRender>> show debugging alert when deferred slider is actually rendered\n===\n++++!!!!![Usage]>\nWhen installed, this plugin adds new wiki syntax for embedding 'slider' panels directly into tiddler content. Use {{{+++}}} and {{{===}}} to delimit the slider content. Additional optional syntax elements let you specify\n*default to open\n*cookiename\n*heading level\n*floater (with optional CSS width value)\n*mouse auto rollover\n*custom label/tooltip/accesskey\n*automatic blockquote\n*deferred rendering\nThe complete syntax, using all options, is:\n//{{{\n++++(cookiename)!!!!!^width^*[label=key|tooltip]>...\ncontent goes here\n===\n//}}}\nwhere:\n* {{{+++}}} (or {{{++++}}}) and {{{===}}}^^\nmarks the start and end of the slider definition, respectively. When the extra {{{+}}} is used, the slider will be open when initially displayed.^^\n* {{{(cookiename)}}}^^\nsaves the slider opened/closed state, and restores this state whenever the slider is re-rendered.^^\n* {{{!}}} through {{{!!!!!}}}^^\ndisplays the slider label using a formatted headline (Hn) style instead of a button/link style^^\n* {{{^width^}}} (or just {{{^}}})^^\nmakes the slider 'float' on top of other content rather than shifting that content downward. 'width' must be a valid CSS value (e.g., "30em", "180px", "50%", etc.). If omitted, the default width is "auto" (i.e., fit to content)^^\n* {{{*}}}^^\nautomatically opens/closes slider on "rollover" as well as when clicked^^\n* {{{[label=key|tooltip]}}}^^\nuses custom label/tooltip/accesskey. {{{=key}}} and {{{|tooltip}}} are optional. 'key' is must be a ''single letter only''. Default labels/tootips are: ">" (more) and "<" (less), with no default access key assignment.^^\n* {{{">"}}} //(without the quotes)//^^\nautomatically adds blockquote formatting to slider content^^\n* {{{"..."}}} //(without the quotes)//^^\ndefers rendering of closed sliders until the first time they are opened. //Note: deferred rendering may produce unexpected results in some cases. Use with care.//^^\n\n//Note: to make slider definitions easier to read and recognize when editing a tiddler, newlines immediately following the {{{+++}}} 'start slider' or preceding the {{{===}}} 'end slider' sequence are automatically supressed so that excess whitespace is eliminated from the output.//\n===\n++++!!!!![Examples]>\nsimple in-line slider: \n{{{\n+++\n content\n===\n}}}\n+++\n content\n===\n----\nuse a custom label and tooltip: \n{{{\n+++[label|tooltip]\n content\n===\n}}}\n+++[label|tooltip]\n content\n===\n----\ncontent automatically blockquoted: \n{{{\n+++>\n content\n===\n}}}\n+++>\n content\n===\n----\nall options combined //(default open, cookie, heading, sized floater, rollover, label/tooltip/key, blockquoted, deferred)//\n{{{\n++++(testcookie)!!!^30em^*[label=Z|click or press Alt-Z to open]>...\n content\n===\n}}}\n++++(testcookie)!!!^30em^*[label=Z|click or press Alt-Z to open]>...\n content\n===\n----\ncomplex nesting example:\n{{{\n+++^[get info...=I|click for information or press Alt-I]\n put some general information here, plus a floating slider with more specific info:\n +++^10em^[view details...|click for details]\n put some detail here, which could include a rollover with a +++^25em^*[glossary definition]explaining technical terms===\n ===\n===\n}}}\n+++^[get info...=I|click for information or press Alt-I]\n put some general information here, plus a floating slider with more specific info:\n +++^10em^[view details...|click for details]\n put some detail here, which could include a rollover with a +++^25em^*[glossary definition]explaining technical terms===\n ===\n===\n----\nnested floaters\n>menu: <<tiddler NestedSlidersExample>>\n(see [[NestedSlidersExample]] for definition)\n----\n===\n!!!!!Installation\n<<<\nimport (or copy/paste) the following tiddlers into your document:\n''NestedSlidersPlugin'' (tagged with <<tag systemConfig>>)\n<<<\n!!!!!Revision History\n<<<\n''2006.07.25 - 1.9.3'' when parsing slider, save default open/closed state in button element, then in onClickNestedSlider(), if slider state matches saved default, instead of saving cookie, delete it\n''2006.06.29 - 1.9.2'' in onClickNestedSlider(), when setting focus to first control, skip over type="hidden"\n''2006.06.22 - 1.9.1'' added panel.defaultPanelWidth to save requested panel width, even after resizing has changed the style value\n''2006.05.11 - 1.9.0'' added optional '^width^' syntax for floating sliders and '=key' syntax for setting an access key on a slider label\n''2006.05.09 - 1.8.0'' in onClickNestedSlider(), when showing panel, set focus to first child input/textarea/select element\n''2006.04.24 - 1.7.8'' in adjustSliderPos(), if floating panel is contained inside another floating panel, subtract offset of containing panel to find correct position\n''2006.02.16 - 1.7.7'' corrected deferred rendering to account for use-case where show/hide state is tracked in a cookie\n''2006.02.15 - 1.7.6'' in adjustSliderPos(), ensure that floating panel is positioned completely within the browser window (i.e., does not go beyond the right edge of the browser window)\n''2006.02.04 - 1.7.5'' add 'var' to unintended global variable declarations to avoid FireFox 1.5.0.1 crash bug when assigning to globals\n''2006.01.18 - 1.7.4'' only define adjustSliderPos() function if it has not already been provided by another plugin. This lets other plugins 'hijack' the function even when they are loaded first.\n''2006.01.16 - 1.7.3'' added adjustSliderPos(place,btn,panel,panelClass) function to permit specialized logic for placement of floating panels. While it provides improved placement for many uses of floating panels, it exhibits a relative offset positioning error when used within *nested* floating panels. Short-term workaround is to only adjust the position for 'top-level' floaters.\n''2006.01.16 - 1.7.2'' added button property to slider panel elements so that slider panel can tell which button it belongs to. Also, re-activated and corrected animation handling so that nested sliders aren't clipped by hijacking Slider.prototype.stop so that "overflow:hidden" can be reset to "overflow:visible" after animation ends\n''2006.01.14 - 1.7.1'' added optional "^" syntax for floating panels. Defines new CSS class, ".floatingPanel", as an alternative for standard in-line ".sliderPanel" styles.\n''2006.01.14 - 1.7.0'' added optional "*" syntax for rollover handling to show/hide slider without requiring a click (Based on a suggestion by tw4efl)\n''2006.01.03 - 1.6.2'' When using optional "!" heading style, instead of creating a clickable "Hn" element, create an "A" element inside the "Hn" element. (allows click-through in SlideShowPlugin, which captures nearly all click events, except for hyperlinks)\n''2005.12.15 - 1.6.1'' added optional "..." syntax to invoke deferred ('lazy') rendering for initially hidden sliders\nremoved checkbox option for 'global' application of lazy sliders\n''2005.11.25 - 1.6.0'' added optional handling for 'lazy sliders' (deferred rendering for initially hidden sliders)\n''2005.11.21 - 1.5.1'' revised regular expressions: if present, a single newline //preceding// and/or //following// a slider definition will be suppressed so start/end syntax can be place on separate lines in the tiddler 'source' for improved readability. Similarly, any whitespace (newlines, tabs, spaces, etc.) trailing the 'start slider' syntax or preceding the 'end slider' syntax is also suppressed.\n''2005.11.20 - 1.5.0'' added (cookiename) syntax for optional tracking and restoring of slider open/close state\n''2005.11.11 - 1.4.0'' added !!!!! syntax to render slider label as a header (Hn) style instead of a button/link style\n''2005.11.07 - 1.3.0'' removed alternative syntax {{{(((}}} and {{{)))}}} (so they can be used by other\nformatting extensions) and simplified/improved regular expressions to trim multiple excess newlines\n''2005.11.05 - 1.2.1'' changed name to NestedSlidersPlugin\nmore documentation\n''2005.11.04 - 1.2.0'' added alternative character-mode syntax {{{(((}}} and {{{)))}}}\ntweaked "eat newlines" logic for line-mode {{{+++}}} and {{{===}}} syntax\n''2005.11.03 - 1.1.1'' fixed toggling of default tooltips ("more..." and "less...") when a non-default button label is used\ncode cleanup, added documentation\n''2005.11.03 - 1.1.0'' changed delimiter syntax from {{{(((}}} and {{{)))}}} to {{{+++}}} and {{{===}}}\nchanged name to EasySlidersPlugin\n''2005.11.03 - 1.0.0'' initial public release\n<<<\n!!!!!Credits\n<<<\nThis feature was implemented by EricShulman from [[ELS Design Studios|http:/www.elsdesign.com]] with initial research and suggestions from RodneyGomes, GeoffSlocock, and PaulPetterson.\n<<<\n!!!!!Code\n***/\n//{{{\nversion.extensions.nestedSliders = {major: 1, minor: 9, revision: 3, date: new Date(2006,7,25)};\n//}}}\n\n//{{{\n// options for deferred rendering of sliders that are not initially displayed\nif (config.options.chkDebugLazySliderDefer==undefined) config.options.chkDebugLazySliderDefer=false;\nif (config.options.chkDebugLazySliderRender==undefined) config.options.chkDebugLazySliderRender=false;\n\n// default styles for 'floating' class\nsetStylesheet(".floatingPanel { position:absolute; z-index:10; padding:0.5em; margin:0em; \s\n background-color:#eee; color:#000; border:1px solid #000; text-align:left; }","floatingPanelStylesheet");\n//}}}\n\n//{{{\nconfig.formatters.push( {\n name: "nestedSliders",\n match: "\s\sn?\s\s+{3}",\n terminator: "\s\ss*\s\s={3}\s\sn?",\n lookahead: "\s\sn?\s\s+{3}(\s\s+)?(\s\s([^\s\s)]*\s\s))?(\s\s!*)?(\s\s^(?:[^\s\s^\s\s*\s\s[\s\s>]*\s\s^)?)?(\s\s*)?(\s\s[[^\s\s]]*\s\s])?(\s\s>)?(\s\s.\s\s.\s\s.)?\s\ss*",\n handler: function(w)\n {\n var lookaheadRegExp = new RegExp(this.lookahead,"mg");\n lookaheadRegExp.lastIndex = w.matchStart;\n var lookaheadMatch = lookaheadRegExp.exec(w.source)\n if(lookaheadMatch && lookaheadMatch.index == w.matchStart)\n {\n // location for rendering button and panel\n var place=w.output;\n\n // default to closed, no cookie, no accesskey\n var show="none"; var title=">"; var tooltip="show"; var cookie=""; var key="";\n\n // extra "+", default to open\n if (lookaheadMatch[1])\n { show="block"; title="<"; tooltip="hide"; }\n\n // cookie, use saved open/closed state\n if (lookaheadMatch[2]) {\n cookie=lookaheadMatch[2].trim().slice(1,-1);\n cookie="chkSlider"+cookie;\n if (config.options[cookie]==undefined)\n { config.options[cookie] = (show=="block") }\n if (config.options[cookie])\n { show="block"; title="<"; tooltip="hide"; }\n else\n { show="none"; title=">"; tooltip="show"; }\n }\n\n // parse custom label/tooltip/accesskey: [label=X|tooltip]\n if (lookaheadMatch[6]) {\n title = lookaheadMatch[6].trim().slice(1,-1);\n var pos=title.indexOf("|");\n if (pos!=-1) { tooltip = title.substr(pos+1,title.length); title=title.substr(0,pos); }\n if (title.substr(title.length-2,1)=="=") { key=title.substr(title.length-1,1); title=title.slice(0,-2); }\n if (pos==-1) tooltip += " "+title; // default tooltip: "show/hide <title>"\n }\n\n // create the button\n if (lookaheadMatch[3]) { // use "Hn" header format instead of button/link\n var lvl=(lookaheadMatch[3].length>6)?6:lookaheadMatch[3].length;\n var btn = createTiddlyElement(createTiddlyElement(place,"h"+lvl,null,null,null),"a",null,null,title);\n btn.onclick=onClickNestedSlider;\n btn.setAttribute("href","javascript:;");\n btn.setAttribute("title",tooltip);\n }\n else\n var btn = createTiddlyButton(place,title,tooltip,onClickNestedSlider);\n\n // set extra button attributes\n btn.sliderCookie = cookie; // save the cookiename (if any) in the button object\n btn.defOpen=lookaheadMatch[1]!=null; // save default open/closed state (boolean)\n btn.keyparam=key; // save the access key letter ("" if none)\n if (key.length) {\n btn.setAttribute("accessKey",key); // init access key\n btn.onfocus=function(){this.setAttribute("accessKey",this.keyparam);}; // **reclaim** access key on focus\n }\n\n // "non-click" MouseOver open/close slider\n if (lookaheadMatch[5]) btn.onmouseover=onClickNestedSlider;\n\n // create slider panel\n var panelClass=lookaheadMatch[4]?"floatingPanel":"sliderPanel";\n var panel=createTiddlyElement(place,"div",null,panelClass,null);\n panel.button = btn; // so the slider panel know which button it belongs to\n panel.defaultPanelWidth=(lookaheadMatch[4] && lookaheadMatch[4].length>2)?lookaheadMatch[4].slice(1,-1):""; // save requested panel size\n btn.sliderPanel=panel;\n panel.style.display = show;\n panel.style.width=panel.defaultPanelWidth;\n\n // render slider (or defer until shown) \n w.nextMatch = lookaheadMatch.index + lookaheadMatch[0].length;\n if ((show=="block")||!lookaheadMatch[8]) {\n // render now if panel is supposed to be shown or NOT deferred rendering\n w.subWikify(lookaheadMatch[7]?createTiddlyElement(panel,"blockquote"):panel,this.terminator);\n // align slider/floater position with button\n adjustSliderPos(place,btn,panel,panelClass);\n }\n else {\n var src = w.source.substr(w.nextMatch);\n var endpos=findMatchingDelimiter(src,"+++","===");\n panel.setAttribute("raw",src.substr(0,endpos));\n panel.setAttribute("blockquote",lookaheadMatch[7]?"true":"false");\n panel.setAttribute("rendered","false");\n w.nextMatch += endpos+3;\n if (w.source.substr(w.nextMatch,1)=="\sn") w.nextMatch++;\n if (config.options.chkDebugLazySliderDefer) alert("deferred '"+title+"':\sn\sn"+panel.getAttribute("raw"));\n }\n }\n }\n }\n)\n\n// TBD: ignore 'quoted' delimiters (e.g., "{{{+++foo===}}}" isn't really a slider)\nfunction findMatchingDelimiter(src,starttext,endtext) {\n var startpos = 0;\n var endpos = src.indexOf(endtext);\n // check for nested delimiters\n while (src.substring(startpos,endpos-1).indexOf(starttext)!=-1) {\n // count number of nested 'starts'\n var startcount=0;\n var temp = src.substring(startpos,endpos-1);\n var pos=temp.indexOf(starttext);\n while (pos!=-1) { startcount++; pos=temp.indexOf(starttext,pos+starttext.length); }\n // set up to check for additional 'starts' after adjusting endpos\n startpos=endpos+endtext.length;\n // find endpos for corresponding number of matching 'ends'\n while (startcount && endpos!=-1) {\n endpos = src.indexOf(endtext,endpos+endtext.length);\n startcount--;\n }\n }\n return (endpos==-1)?src.length:endpos;\n}\n//}}}\n\n//{{{\nwindow.onClickNestedSlider=function(e)\n{\n if (!e) var e = window.event;\n var theTarget = resolveTarget(e);\n var theLabel = theTarget.firstChild.data;\n var theSlider = theTarget.sliderPanel\n var isOpen = theSlider.style.display!="none";\n // if using default button labels, toggle labels\n if (theLabel==">") theTarget.firstChild.data = "<";\n else if (theLabel=="<") theTarget.firstChild.data = ">";\n // if using default tooltips, toggle tooltips\n if (theTarget.getAttribute("title")=="show")\n theTarget.setAttribute("title","hide");\n else if (theTarget.getAttribute("title")=="hide")\n theTarget.setAttribute("title","show");\n if (theTarget.getAttribute("title")=="show "+theLabel)\n theTarget.setAttribute("title","hide "+theLabel);\n else if (theTarget.getAttribute("title")=="hide "+theLabel)\n theTarget.setAttribute("title","show "+theLabel);\n // deferred rendering (if needed)\n if (theSlider.getAttribute("rendered")=="false") {\n if (config.options.chkDebugLazySliderRender)\n alert("rendering '"+theLabel+"':\sn\sn"+theSlider.getAttribute("raw"));\n var place=theSlider;\n if (theSlider.getAttribute("blockquote")=="true")\n place=createTiddlyElement(place,"blockquote");\n wikify(theSlider.getAttribute("raw"),place);\n theSlider.setAttribute("rendered","true");\n }\n // show/hide the slider\n if(config.options.chkAnimate)\n anim.startAnimating(new Slider(theSlider,!isOpen,e.shiftKey || e.altKey,"none"));\n else\n theSlider.style.display = isOpen ? "none" : "block";\n // reset to default width (might have been changed via plugin code)\n theSlider.style.width=theSlider.defaultPanelWidth;\n // align slider/floater position with target button\n if (!isOpen) adjustSliderPos(theSlider.parentNode,theTarget,theSlider,theSlider.className);\n // if showing panel, set focus to first 'focus-able' element in panel\n if (theSlider.style.display!="none") {\n var ctrls=theSlider.getElementsByTagName("*");\n for (var c=0; c<ctrls.length; c++) {\n var t=ctrls[c].tagName.toLowerCase();\n if ((t=="input" && ctrls[c].type!="hidden") || t=="textarea" || t=="select")\n { ctrls[c].focus(); break; }\n }\n }\n if (this.sliderCookie && this.sliderCookie.length) {\n config.options[this.sliderCookie]=!isOpen;\n if (config.options[this.sliderCookie]!=this.defOpen)\n saveOptionCookie(this.sliderCookie);\n else { // remove cookie if slider is in default display state\n var ex=new Date(); ex.setTime(ex.getTime()-1000);\n document.cookie = this.sliderCookie+"=novalue; path=/; expires="+ex.toGMTString();\n }\n }\n return false;\n}\n\n// hijack animation handler 'stop' handler so overflow is visible after animation has completed\nSlider.prototype.coreStop = Slider.prototype.stop;\nSlider.prototype.stop = function() { this.coreStop(); this.element.style.overflow = "visible"; }\n\n// adjust panel position based on button position\nif (window.adjustSliderPos==undefined) window.adjustSliderPos=function(place,btn,panel,panelClass) {\n if (panelClass=="floatingPanel") {\n var left=0;\n var top=btn.offsetHeight; \n if (place.style.position!="relative") {\n var left=findPosX(btn);\n var top=findPosY(btn)+btn.offsetHeight;\n var p=place; while (p && p.className!='floatingPanel') p=p.parentNode;\n if (p) { left-=findPosX(p); top-=findPosY(p); }\n }\n if (left+panel.offsetWidth > getWindowWidth()) left=getWindowWidth()-panel.offsetWidth-10;\n panel.style.left=left+"px"; panel.style.top=top+"px";\n }\n}\n\nfunction getWindowWidth() {\n if(document.width!=undefined)\n return document.width; // moz (FF)\n if(document.documentElement && ( document.documentElement.clientWidth || document.documentElement.clientHeight ) )\n return document.documentElement.clientWidth; // IE6\n if(document.body && ( document.body.clientWidth || document.body.clientHeight ) )\n return document.body.clientWidth; // IE4\n if(window.innerWidth!=undefined)\n return window.innerWidth; // IE - general\n return 0; // unknown\n}\n//}}}

Today it's very easy to networks several computers, especially if you are using Windows XP on at least one of your computers. XP has a built in guide on how to Network two or more computers, plus a network setup wizard. When you run the wizard it steps you through the process and gives to the opportunity to make a setup disc for your second and third ~PCs. All you have to do is put the disc into the other machines and run the wizard again. It's really very simple, almost fool proof. It will also set up your printer so it can be used via your other computers. Internet connection sharing is also easily setup using the wizard on your other computers.\n\n To network two computers you need a crossover cable to join the two computers together. But it you decide later to add another computer and hub the crossover cable becomes surplus. For more than two computers you need to use standard cables. What I've tried to suggest to others instead of using a crossover cable initially use a standard cable and purchase a small crossover plug. It's just a small adapter with the crossover part inside the plug. By doing it this way you are not left with a surplus 15-metre crossover cable, if you add a third computer.// - John Thomson Gella@paradise.net.nz //

//More from the Internet//\n\n A Kindergarten teacher was observing her classroom of children while they drew. She would occasionally walk around to see each child's work. As she got to one little girl who was working diligently, she asked what the drawing was? The girl replied, "I'm drawing God." The teacher paused and said, "But no one knows what God looks like." Without missing a beat, or looking up from her drawing, the girl replied, "They will in a minute."\n\n The children had all been photographed, and the teacher was trying to persuade them each to buy a copy of the group picture. "Just think how nice it will be to look at it when you are all grownup and say, 'There's Jennifer; she's a lawyer,' or 'That's Michael, he's a doctor.'" A small voice at the back of the room rang out, "And there's the teacher. She's dead."\n\n A teacher was giving a lesson on the circulation of the blood. Trying to make the matter clearer, she said, "Now, class, if I stood on my head, the blood, as you know, would run into it, and I would turn red in the face." "Yes," the class said. "Then why is it that while I am standing upright in the ordinary position the blood doesn't run into my feet?" A little fellow shouted, "Cause your feet ain't empty."\n\n The children were lined up in the cafeteria of a Catholic elementary school for lunch. At the head of the table was a large pile of apples. The nun made a note, and posted on the apple tray: "Take only ONE. God is watching." Moving further along the lunch line, at the Other end of the table was a large pile of chocolate chip cookies. A child had written a note, "Take all you want. God is watching the apples."\n

Netscape, the Internet browser at the heart of the Microsoft antitrust trial, has unveiled its newest version of Navigator that includes a new automatic translation feature for Web pages. \n\nThe new browser is developed according to an open source platform, which allows users to see the codes of the software, making the browser more flexible to specific needs. \n\nAt 5.5 megabytes, the new version of Navigator is "slimmer" than most recent versions, which should make Web pages display faster and runs on computers using Windows, Macintosh and Linux operating systems. \n\nThe new browser enables users to take a Web page written in a foreign language and have it translated seconds later into the language of their choice

/***\n''NewDocumentPlugin for TiddlyWiki version 2.0''\n^^author: Eric Shulman - ELS Design Studios\nsource: http://www.TiddlyTools.com/#NewDocumentPlugin\nlicense: [[Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License|http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/]]^^\n\nQuickly create new TiddlyWiki documents from your existing document, with just one click! Use the {{{<<newDocument>>}}} macro to place a "new document" link into your sidebar/mainmenu/any tiddler (wherever you like). Select this command to automatically create a "new.html" document containing a specific set of tagged tiddlers. Optional parameters let you specify an alternate path/filename for the new file, or different tags to match. You can also indicate "ask" for either parameter, which will trigger a prompt for input when the command is selected.\n\n!!!!!Usage\n<<<\n{{{<<newDocument label:text filename tag tag tag...>>}}}\n{{{<<newDocument label:text filename all>>}}}\n{{{<<newDocument label:text filename snap>>}}}\n where:\n* ''label:text'' defines //optional// alternative link text (replaces default "new document" display)\n* ''filename'' is any local path-and-filename. If no parameters are provided, the default is to create the file "new.html" in the current directory. If a filename is provided without a path (i.e., there is no "/" in the input), then the current directory is also assumed. Otherwise, this parameter is expected to contain the complete path and filename needed to write the file to your local hard disk. If ''ask'' is used in place of the filename parameter then, when the command link is selected, a message box will be automatically displayed so you can select/enter the path and filename.\n* ''tag tag tag...'' is a list of one or more space-separated tags (use quotes or {{{[[]]}}} around tags that contain spaces). The new document will include all tiddlers that match at least one of the tags in the list. The default is to include tiddlers tagged with <<tag includeNew>>. The special value ''all'' may be used to match every tiddler (even those without tags). If ''ask'' is used in place of the tags then, when the command link is selected, a message box will be automatically displayed so you can enter the desired tags at that time.\n* When the keyword ''snap'' is used in place of tags to match, the plugin generates a file containing the //rendered// CSS-and-HTML for all tiddlers currently displayed in the document.\n\nNote: as of version 1.4.0 of this plugin, support for selecting tiddlers by using tag *expressions* has been replaced with simpler, more efficient "containsAny()" logic. To create new ~TiddlyWiki documents that contain only those tiddlers selected with advanced AND/OR/NOT Boolean expressions, you can use the filtering features provided by the ExportTiddlersPlugin (see www.TiddlyTools.com/#ExportTiddlersPlugin).\n<<<\n!!!!!Examples:\n<<<\n{{{<<newDocument>>}}}\nequivalent to {{{<<newDocument new.htm includeNew systemTiddlers>>}}}\ncreates default "new.html" containing tiddlers tagged with either<<tag includeNew>>or<<tag systemTiddlers>>\ntry it: <<newDocument>>\n\n{{{<<newDocument empty.html systemTiddlers>>}}}\ncreates "empty.html" containing only tiddlers tagged with<<tag systemTiddlers>>\n//(reproduces old-style (pre 2.0.2) empty file)//\ntry it: <<newDocument empty.html systemTiddlers>>\n\n{{{<<newDocument "label:create Import/Export starter" ask importexport>>}}}\nsave importexport tiddlers to a new file, prompts for path/file\ntry it: <<newDocument "label:create Import/Export starter" ask importexport>>\n\n{{{<<newDocument ask ask>>}}}\nprompts for path/file, prompts for tags to match\ntry it: <<newDocument ask ask>>\n\n{{{<<newDocument ask all>>}}}\nsave all current TiddlyWiki contents to a new file, prompts for path/file\ntry it: <<newDocument ask all>>\n\n{{{<<newDocument ask snap>>}}}\ngenerates snapshot of currently displayed document, prompts for path/file\ntry it: <<newDocument ask snap>>\n\n<<<\n!!!!!Installation\n<<<\nImport (or copy/paste) the following tiddlers into your document:\n''NewDocumentPlugin'' (tagged with <<tag systemConfig>>)\n<<<\n!!!!!Revision History\n<<<\n''2006.08.03 [1.4.3]'' in promptForFilename(), for IE (WinXP only), added handling for UserAccounts.CommonDialog\n''2006.07.29 [1.4.2]'' in onClickNewDocument(), okmsg display is now linked to newly created file\n''2006.07.24 [1.4.1]'' in promptForFilename(), check for nsIFilePicker.returnCancel to allow nsIFilePicker.returnOK **OR** nsIFilePicker.returnReplace to be processed.\n''2006.05.23 [1.4.0]'' due to very poor performance, support for tag *expressions* has been removed, in favor of a simpler "containsAny()" scan for tags.\n''2006.04.09 [1.3.6]'' in onClickNewDocument, added call to convertUnicodeToUTF8() to better handle international characters.\n''2006.03.15 [1.3.5]'' added nsIFilePicker() handler for selecting filename in moz-based browsers. IE and other non-moz browsers still use simple prompt() dialog\n''2006.03.15 [1.3.0]'' added "label:text" param for custom link text. added special "all" filter parameter for "save as..." handling (writes all tiddlers to output file)\n''2006.03.09 [1.2.0]'' added special "snap" filter parameter to generate and write "snapshot" files containing static HTML+CSS for currently rendered document.\n''2006.02.24 [1.1.2]'' Fix incompatiblity with TW 2.0.5 by removing custom definition of getLocalPath() (which is now part of TW core)\n''2006.02.03 [1.1.1]'' concatentate 'extra' params so that tag expressions don't have to be quoted. moved all text to 'formatted' string definitions for easier translation.\n''2006.02.03 [1.1.0]'' added support for tag EXPRESSIONS. plus improved documentation and code cleanup\n''2006.02.03 [1.0.0]'' Created.\n<<<\n!!!!!Credits\n<<<\nThis feature was developed by EricShulman from [[ELS Design Studios|http:/www.elsdesign.com]]\n<<<\n!!!!!Code\n***/\n//{{{\nversion.extensions.newDocument = {major: 1, minor: 4, revision: 3, date: new Date(2006,8,3)};\n\nconfig.macros.newDocument = {\n newlabel: "new document",\n newprompt: "Create a new TiddlyWiki 'starter' document",\n newdefault: "new.html",\n allparam: "all",\n saveaslabel: "save as...",\n saveasprompt: "Save current TiddlyWiki to a different file",\n snapparam: "snap",\n snaplabel: "create a snapshot",\n snapprompt: "Create a 'snapshot' of the current TiddlyWiki display",\n snapdefault: "snapshot.html",\n askparam: "ask",\n labelparam: "label:",\n fileprompt: "Please enter a filename",\n filter: "includeNew",\n filterprompt: "Match one or more tags:\sn(space-separated, use [[...]] around tags containing spaces)",\n filtererrmsg: "Error in tag filter '%0'",\n snapmsg: "Document snapshot written to %1",\n okmsg: "%0 tiddlers written to %1",\n failmsg: "An error occurred while creating %0"\n};\n\nconfig.macros.newDocument.handler = function(place,macroName,params) {\n\n var path=getLocalPath(document.location.href);\n var slashpos=path.lastIndexOf("/"); if (slashpos==-1) slashpos=path.lastIndexOf("\s\s"); \n if (slashpos!=-1) path = path.substr(0,slashpos+1); // remove filename from path, leave the trailing slash\n\n if (params[0] && params[0].substr(0,config.macros.newDocument.labelparam.length)==config.macros.newDocument.labelparam)\n var label=params.shift().substr(config.macros.newDocument.labelparam.length)\n var filename=params.shift(); if (!filename) filename=config.macros.newDocument.newdefault;\n if (params[0]==config.macros.newDocument.snapparam) {\n if (!label) var label=config.macros.newDocument.snaplabel;\n var prompt=config.macros.newDocument.snapprompt;\n var defaultfile=config.macros.newDocument.snapdefault;\n }\n if (params[0]==config.macros.newDocument.allparam) {\n if (!label) var label=config.macros.newDocument.saveaslabel;\n var prompt=config.macros.newDocument.saveasprompt;\n var defaultfile=getLocalPath(document.location.href);\n var slashpos=defaultfile.lastIndexOf("/"); if (slashpos==-1) slashpos=defaultfile.lastIndexOf("\s\s");\n if (slashpos!=-1) defaultfile=defaultfile.substr(slashpos+1); // get filename only\n }\n if (!prompt) var prompt=config.macros.newDocument.newprompt;\n if (!label) var label=config.macros.newDocument.newlabel;\n if (!defaultfile) var defaultfile=config.macros.newDocument.newdefault;\n\n var btn=createTiddlyButton(place,label,prompt,onClickNewDocument);\n btn.path=path;\n btn.file=filename;\n btn.defaultfile=defaultfile;\n btn.filter=params.length?params:[config.macros.newDocument.filter]; \n}\n\n// IE needs explicit global scoping for functions called by browser events\nwindow.onClickNewDocument=function(e)\n{\n if (!e) var e = window.event; var btn=resolveTarget(e);\n\n // assemble document content, write file, report result\n var okmsg=config.macros.newDocument.okmsg;\n var failmsg=config.macros.newDocument.failmsg;\n var count=0;\n var out="";\n if (btn.filter[0]==config.macros.newDocument.snapparam) { // HTML+CSS snapshot\n var styles=document.getElementsByTagName("style");\n out+="<html>\sn<head>\sn<style>\sn";\n for(var i=0; i < styles.length; i++)\n out +="/* stylesheet from tiddler:"+styles[i].getAttribute("id")+" */\sn"+styles[i].innerHTML+"\sn\sn";\n out+="</style>\sn</head>\sn<body>\sn\sn"+document.getElementById("contentWrapper").innerHTML+"\sn\sn</body>\sn</html>";\n okmsg=config.macros.newDocument.snapmsg;\n } else { // TW starter document\n // get the TiddlyWiki core code source\n var sourcefile=getLocalPath(document.location.href);\n var source=loadFile(sourcefile);\n if(source==null) { alert(config.messages.cantSaveError); return null; }\n var posOpeningDiv=source.indexOf(startSaveArea);\n var posClosingDiv=source.lastIndexOf(endSaveArea);\n if((posOpeningDiv==-1)||(posClosingDiv==-1)) { alert(config.messages.invalidFileError.format([sourcefile])); return; }\n // get the matching tiddler divs\n var match=btn.filter;\n if (match[0]==config.macros.newDocument.askparam) {\n var newfilt=prompt(config.macros.newDocument.filterprompt,config.macros.newDocument.filter);\n if (!newfilt) return; // cancelled by user\n match=newfilt.readMacroParams();\n }\n var storeAreaDivs=[];\n var tiddlers=store.getTiddlers('title');\n for (var i=0; i<tiddlers.length; i++)\n if (match[0]==config.macros.newDocument.allparam || (tiddlers[i].tags && tiddlers[i].tags.containsAny(match)) )\n storeAreaDivs.push(tiddlers[i].saveToDiv());\n out+=source.substr(0,posOpeningDiv+startSaveArea.length);\n out+=convertUnicodeToUTF8(storeAreaDivs.join("\sn"))+"\sn\st\st";\n out+=source.substr(posClosingDiv);\n count=storeAreaDivs.length;\n }\n // get output path/filename\n var filename=btn.file;\n if (filename==config.macros.newDocument.askparam)\n filename=promptForFilename(config.macros.newDocument.fileprompt,btn.path,btn.defaultfile);\n if (!filename) return; // cancelled by user\n // if specified file does not include a path, assemble fully qualified path and filename\n var slashpos=filename.lastIndexOf("/"); if (slashpos==-1) slashpos=filename.lastIndexOf("\s\s");\n if (slashpos==-1) filename=btn.path+filename;\n var ok=saveFile(filename,out);\n var msg=ok?okmsg.format([count,filename]):failmsg.format([filename]);\n var link=ok?"file:///"+filename.replace(regexpBackSlash,'/'):""; // change local path to link text\n clearMessage(); displayMessage(msg,link);\n e.cancelBubble = true; if (e.stopPropagation) e.stopPropagation(); return(false);\n}\n//}}}\n\n//{{{\nfunction promptForFilename(msg,path,file)\n{\n if(window.Components) { // moz\n try {\n netscape.security.PrivilegeManager.enablePrivilege('UniversalXPConnect');\n var nsIFilePicker = window.Components.interfaces.nsIFilePicker;\n var picker = Components.classes['@mozilla.org/filepicker;1'].createInstance(nsIFilePicker);\n picker.init(window, msg, nsIFilePicker.modeSave);\n var thispath = Components.classes['@mozilla.org/file/local;1'].createInstance(Components.interfaces.nsILocalFile);\n thispath.initWithPath(path);\n picker.displayDirectory=thispath;\n picker.defaultExtension='html';\n picker.defaultString=file;\n picker.appendFilters(nsIFilePicker.filterAll|nsIFilePicker.filterText|nsIFilePicker.filterHTML);\n if (picker.show()!=nsIFilePicker.returnCancel) var result=picker.file.persistentDescriptor;\n }\n catch(e) { alert('error during local file access: '+e.toString()) }\n }\n else { // IE\n try { // XP only\n var s = new ActiveXObject('UserAccounts.CommonDialog');\n s.Filter='All files|*.*|Text files|*.txt|HTML files|*.htm;*.html|';\n s.FilterIndex=3; // default to HTML files;\n s.InitialDir=path;\n s.FileName=file;\n if (s.showOpen()) var result=s.FileName;\n }\n catch(e) { var result=prompt(msg,path+file); } // fallback for non-XP IE\n }\n return result;\n}\n//}}}

/***\n|''Name:''|NewerTiddlerPlugin|\n|''Version:''|$Revision: 13 $ |\n|''Source:''|http://thePettersons.org/tiddlywiki.html#NewerTiddlerPlugin |\n|''Author:''|[[Paul Petterson]] |\n|''Type:''|Macro Extension |\n|''Requires:''|TiddlyWiki 1.2.33 or higher |\n!Description\nCreate a 'new tiddler' button with lots more options! Specify the text to show on the button, the name of the new tiddler (with date macro expansion), one or more tags for the new tiddlers, and what text if any to include in the new tiddler body! Uses a named parameter format, simalar to the reminder plugin.\n\nAlso - if the tiddler already exists it won't replace any of it's existing data (like tags).\n\n!Syntax\n* {{{<<newerTiddler button:"Inbox" name:"Inbox YYYY/MM/DD" tags:"Journal, inbox" text:"New stuff for today:">>}}}\n* {{{<<newerTiddler button:"@Action" name:"Action: what" tags:"@Action" text:"Add project and describe action">>}}}\n* {{{<<newerTiddler button:"New Project" name:"Project Name?" tags:"My Projects, My Inbox, Journal" template:"MyTemplate">>}}}\n!!Parameters\n* name:"Name of Tiddler"\n* tags:"Tag1, Tag2, Tag3" - tags for new tiddler, comma seperated //don't use square brackets //({{{[[}}})// for tags!//\n* button:"name for button" - the name to display instead of "new tiddler"\n* body:"what to put in the tiddler body"\n* template:"Name of a tiddler containing the text to use as the body of the new tiddler"\n\n''Note:'' if you sepecify both body and template parameters, then template parameter will be used and the body parameter overridden.\n\n!Sample Output\n* <<newerTiddler button:"Inbox" name:"Inbox YYYY/MM/DD" tags:"Journal inbox" text:"New stuff for today:">>\n* <<newerTiddler button:"@Action" name:"Action: what" tags:"@Action" text:"Add project and describe action">>\n* <<newerTiddler button:"New Project" name:"Project Name?" tags:"[[My Projects]] [[My Inbox]] Journal" template:"MyTemplate">>\n\n!Todo\n<<projectTemplate>>\n\n!Known issues\n* Must use double quotes (") around parameter values if they contain a space, can't use single quotes (').\n* can't use standard bracketted style tags, ust type in the tags space and all and put a comma between them. For example tags:"one big tag, another big tag" uses 2 tags ''one big tag'' and ''another big tag''.\n\n!Notes\n* It works fine, and I use it daily, however I haven't really tested edge cases or multiple platforms. If you run into bugs or problems, let me know!\n\n!Requests\n* Have delta-date specifiers on the name: name:"Inbox YYY/MM/DD+1" ( ceruleat@gmail.com )\n* Option to just open the tiddler instead of immediately edit it ( ceruleat@gmail.com )\n* Have date formatters in tags as well as in name (me)\n\n!Revision history\n$History: PaulsNotepad.html $\n * \n * ***************** Version 2 *****************\n * User: paulpet Date: 2/26/06 Time: 7:25p\n * Updated in $/PaulsNotepad3.0.root/PaulsNotepad3.0/PaulsPlugins/systemConfig\n * Port to tw2.0, bug fixes, and simplification!\nv1.0.2 (not released) - fixed small documentation issues.\nv1.0.1 October 13th - fixed a bug occurring only in FF\nv1.0 October 11th - Initial public release\nv0.8 October 10th - Feature complete... \nv0.7 Initial public preview\n\n!Code\n***/\n//{{{\nconfig.macros.newerTiddler = { \nname:"New(er) Tiddler",\ntags:"",\ntext:"Type Tiddler Contents Here.",\nbutton:"new(er) tiddler",\n\nreparse: function( params ) {\n var re = /([^:\s'\s"\ss]+)(?::([^\s'\s":\ss]+)|:[\s'\s"]([^\s'\s"\s\s]*(?:\s\s.[^\s'\s"\s\s]*)*)[\s'\s"])?(?=\ss|$)/g;\n var ret = new Array() ;\n var m ;\n\n while( (m = re.exec( params )) != null )\n ret[ m[1] ] = m[2]?m[2]:m[3]?m[3]:true ;\n\n return ret ;\n},\nhandler: function(place,macroName,params,wikifier,paramString,tiddler) {\n if ( readOnly ) return ;\n\n var input = this.reparse( paramString ) ;\n var tiddlerName = input["name"]?input["name"].trim():config.macros.newerTiddler.name ;\n var tiddlerTags = input["tags"]?input["tags"]:config.macros.newerTiddler.tags ;\n var tiddlerBody = input["text"]?input["text"]:config.macros.newerTiddler.text ;\n var buttonText = input["button"]?input["button"]:config.macros.newerTiddler.button ;\n var template = input["template"]?input["template"]:null;\n\n // if there is a template, use it - otherwise use the tiddlerBody text\n if ( template ) {\n tiddlerBody = store.getTiddlerText( template );\n }\n if ( tiddlerBody == null || tiddlerBody.length == 0 )\n tiddlerBody = config.macros.newerTiddler.text ;\n\n // mptw hack\n tiddlerBody = tiddlerBody.replace(/\s$\s)\s)/g,">>");\n tiddlerBody = tiddlerBody.replace(/\s$\s}\s}/g,">>");\n\n var now = new Date() ;\n tiddlerName = now.formatString( tiddlerName ) ;\n \n createTiddlyButton( place, buttonText, "", function() {\n var exists = store.tiddlerExists( tiddlerName );\n var t = store.createTiddler( tiddlerName );\n if ( ! exists )\n t.assign( tiddlerName, tiddlerBody, config.views.wikified.defaultModifier, now, tiddlerTags.readBracketedList() );\n \n story.displayTiddler(null,tiddlerName,DEFAULT_EDIT_TEMPLATE);\n story.focusTiddler(tiddlerName,"title");\n return false;\n });\n}}\n//}}}\n/***\nThis plugin is released under the [[Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License|http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/]]\n***/\n\n

''MEGABYTE BY EMAIL''\nAs mentioned in the President’s report, there was little interest in receiving this newsletter electronically by email. In PDF form, in colour and with all graphics to a reasonable resolution the file can be anywhere from 500 Kb to 1 Mb.\nWe will still continue to post out the hardcopy of MegaByte, but if any members would like to trial receipt by email, let Richard Elam know by email to elamr@paradise.net.nz.\n\n----\n\n''HARDWARE SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP (SIG)''\nThe next meeting of the Hardware SIG will take place on: Saturday 30 October 2004 at 2:00 pm @ Ron Oliver’s place 39 Washington Avenue, Brooklyn\nThese meetings take the form of “hands on” working with PC’s and some low level software applications.\n\nContacts for further information:\nArthur Harris 972 4028\nRon Oliver 934 2816\nJohn Hand 389 3113\n\nIf you are interested in attending these meetings please advise one of the above members. If you possess any appropriate tools please bring them along. Unwanted items of hardware would be most welcome.\n

To open all articles for November 1999, click on "November 1999" to the right and select "open all".

To open all articles for November 2004, click on "November 2004" to the right and select "open all".\nEdition No: 193

To open all articles for November 2005, click on "November 2005" to the right and select "open all".\nEdition No: 204

Now for something completely different ... I'm writing this on a Palm m505.\n\n I don't own one - in fact I've never seen a real one - but I'm learning a lot about how one of these might be useful to me by running the Palm OS emulator. This is an excellent way of trying different models of Palm computer, as well as a safe way to evaluate software you might want to try out on a real Palm device.\n\n Although the emulator is intended as an aid to software developers working with the ~PalmOS, the emulator is a great tool for people just wishing to learn about Palm computers in general; it would also make an excellent training or demonstration tool. Using an emulator also allows you to use all of the facilities on your PC (keyboard, for example) to input data for your Palm, changes can be updated to your Palm device next time you ~HotSync it.\n \nSetting up and running the emulator is quite easy, although there are several files required.\n\n Visit http://www.palmos.com/dev/tools/emulator/ to download the following files:\n* Emulator Application 3.5\n* Emulator Skins 1.9\n\n From http://www.palm.com/support/downloads/win_desktop.html download: Palm Desktop 4.1 PC software (optional) \n \nUnzip the emulator into a directory of your choice. Unzip the skins into a subdirectory called "skins" in that directory.The first time you run the emulator directly from this directory you will be asked if you want a shortcut added to your start menu.\n\n You do not yet have a functioning Palm emulator; all you have at this stage is a Palm without any operating system - so now you need to go and find one.\n\n The Palm operating system is written into the device read only memory (ROM); it is not available on disc or for download in the same way some other operating systems are.\n\n You have several ways to obtain the operating system (ROM).\n\n#Go to the Palm website and go through the process of signing up to become a developer, sign an NDA, and gain access to the official ~ROMs from Palm directly.\n#Connect a real Palm device to your PC and use the emulator to download a copy of the ROM from the Palm computer.\n#Get a ROM from somebody else. Google is your friend :-)\n \n Put the ROM into a directory below your emulator directory; right click on your running emulator and load the ROM into it. Your emulator skin will change from the default Pilot skin to the one that matches the ROM you have selected.\n\n You should now have a fully functioning emulator to play with; one that you cannot sit on or drop on the floor. You can save and reload the state of your Palm emulator at any time; you can have multiple emulators open concurrently.\n \nThe level of functionality that the emulator is capable of is amazing; you can even ~HotSync several emulated devices via the same Palm Desktop software to share data between them. Grafitti (Palm's handwriting system) works well, although it is harder to use a mouse for this than a stylus. Web browsing and email can be performed if your host PC has network access.\n \n Unfortunately the emulator only emulates Motorola 68x-based Palm devices, which are currently being phased out and replaced by newer processors, so Palm "m" series (m130, m515) are the last Palm devices able to be emulated at present.\n\n These are currently being sold at quite low prices but will soon be unavailable in NZ. New devices ("Zire" and "Tungsten" series) are not able to be emulated, however the user interface is very similar, and most older software will run on the new devices, so the emulator will continue to be useful for some time yet. A simulator for new devices running ~OS5 is available (see the Palm website), and a full emulator for new Palm devices is under development.\n \n While it is possible to buy secondhand Palm devices on http://www.trademe.co.nz, great care is needed if considering this as prices can be relatively high for quite old models, which will not be covered by any warranty, and Palm devices are almost impossible to repair if they develop problems. At the same time, newer models will have more features - better displays, faster processors and more memory - and will be covered by a manufacturer's warranty.\n \n Take time to play with something new, you may find that a Palm device could be more useful than you previously thought. There is a huge range of software available for them; they are far more than just an address book or portable calendar. Lots of software is available from http://www.palmgear.com, http://www.tucows.com and http://software.palm.com.\n

Type the text for 'OS/2'

By Paul Ridgway.\n\n IBM claim that their new operating system will provide a better OS/2 than OS/2, a better DOS than DOS and a better WINDOWS than WINDOWS. It will be user friendly, make good use of the protected environment and be reliable. So how do these claims stack up?\n\n Recently I was fortunate enough to attend a course on the new OS/2. This was the first time that IBM have run a course on a product which has not even been officially announced yet.\n\n In this article, I will briefly outline some of the main features and then describe some of my impressions from the hands-on sessions we had with a beta version. There is a heap of technical stuff on how it works which I will not cover. I will attempt to relate the features to a practical situation where possible.\n Features:\n\n*OS/2 version 2.0 is a 32-bit implementation, which means you will require a 386-SX or better to run it on. It also requires a minimum of 4Mb of RAM and 15Mb of Disk space (you could probably allow 2-3 times this amount). Sorry folks - this is not for your ~XTs or ~ATs.\n*Memory is managed in 4K pages to a maximum of 512Mb of real RAM and 4 Gigabytes virtual, using a flat memory model (doesn't that techie stuff sound impressive? - in other words you can have lots of HUGE programs if you have the memory available).\n*MOST(Multiple Operating System Tool) allows the installation and use of several different operating systems on a single or multiple hard disks.\n*ATM(Adobe Type Manager) is built into OS/2.\n*MVDM(Multiple Virtual DOS Machines) allows up to 230 concurrent DOS sessions, dependant upon your memory of course. This feature means you can run several DOS programs at the same time - all of them thinking that they have the whole PC to themselves.\n*Run Windows applications directly without needing Windows.\n*The Workplace Shell is a new user interface which makes the screen look just like a Mac. If you don't like this feature - you can replace it with the older PM(Presentation Manager) or DOS or even your own interface. It even comes with some games!!\n\n ''Hands-on''\n\n Installation was our first job - from ten 720K diskettes. This was very straightforward as the machines we used had pre-formatted disks - we just followed the installation program instructions. We did not use MOST or the HPFS(High Performance File System), which would have made installation more complex.\n The interface we used was similar to the PM, as the new shell was not yet ready. Windows users would have no trouble finding their way around the applications which are placed in 'groups'.\n The 'Main Group' contained a Tutorial, Command Reference, Editor and file manager. The 'Utilities Group' had a partition manager and the Control Panel. The 'Tools and Games Group' consisted of an enhanced editor, a file finder, Icon editor, wallpaper, lockup and games(solitaire, reversi, blox, scramble, jigsaw and biorythm).\n\n It looked OK up to here, so now we added a new group to the menu which we called "DOS Applications", and then added a DOS application to it. This is a very easy process - 1:Give the application a title which will appear on the menu, 2:enter the path and program name, 3:specify how the program is to be started - e.g. full screen, DOS windowed, etc.\n\n Options include specifying what the 'current' directory should be, and the ability to adjust a whole host of DOS settings, relating to memory, device drivers, video mode and others, just by clicking the mouse(this is a topic for a whole article on its own). A subset of the DOS settings could also be altered while the application was running.\n\n As an example of this, we had a look at the free conventional memory - 632K!!! We adjusted the video to CGA mode and had 728K free - amazing.\n\n We set up several entries in our group which would start up DOS sessions on different versions of DOS(4 and 5) from the hard disk, and DR DOS 5.0 from a floppy - and we had them running all at the same time!\n\n Now it was time for the REAL test - could we run our favourite DOS programs? I had brought along Paradox 3.5, Quattro Pro 3.0 and a game to try out.\n\n I opened a DOS window, installed Paradox with no problems, and added it to my group. I then started installing Quattro and reduced the window to an icon. While the installation was chugging away I fired up Paradox and was happily running scripts and displaying graphs, only pausing briefly to change diskettes for the install when needed. When Quattro was loaded I added that to my group and started using it as the game was installed.\n\n This was quite impressive - having all the programs running at the same time. When I first ran the game it locked up - no problem - I just closed the window, adjusted the DOS settings, and presto - back in business. All this without upsetting the other programs that were running. One of the other people on the course had three Paradox sessions running the same script to produce graphs at the same time!\n\n I did notice that graphics in a window were a lot slower than when displayed full screen. Other than that the performance appeared fine. One feature I did like was the ability to adjust the font size of the text in the window. This meant that I could view a complete 80x25 text screen in a window, which took up about a quarter of the actual screen, just by reducing the font size.\n\n ''Would I buy it?''\n\n Despite the fact that this beta version still has a way to go and there are some limitations which I don't have space to cover, I would happily use it as is. I most certainly will be buying the final version when it is released - expected price is around NZ$300.\n\n Although I do not have any OS/2 applications - I'm sold on just the stable DOS multi-sessions and the ease of memory management(being able to say how much memory I will allocate to which application,etc.). I could run a modem session in one DOS window, run a large print job in another, and continue working on something else without the worry that I might have to reboot if one of them crashed. This is what I have been waiting for.\n\n While all the recent media hype has been focused on Windows 3.0, IBM have been quietly working on an OS/2 version that can be called a real operating system. It delivers the facilities that QEMM and Windows paved the way for. I think we may find that this is the OS/2 version, that like the Phoenix, rises from the ashes the media had consigned it to.\n

''Skinning Windows''\n \nAs a bit of a newcomer to Windows, I have been very disappointed with the interface, which hasn't changed in any substantial way since the introduction of Windows95 in the closing years of the last millennium. Even then it didn't bear comparison with other alternatives already available.\n\nEven in Windows2000, something as simple as making the desktop icon text background transparent (so you can see a desktop image through the text, instead of a solid block of colour) seems to be beyond Microsoft's ability or interest. Not that having this feature in 1994 helped Among other features that are missing from the Windows interface (missing software and functionality is a whole different issue) are multiple virtual desktops, the ability to set titlebar colours and bitmaps for individual applications, and the feature I miss most - a windowshade feature (which minimises a window to just a titlebar). Unless you use other operating systems on a regular basis, you don't realise just how much is missing from Windows. \n\nUsers of Winamp and other music players will be familiar with the concept of skins. These are now available for Windows itself. \n\nThe accompanying graphic shows a part of a screen shot taken from the system I am writing this article on; it is not a composite of several systems, the desktop really does look like that, with the different titlebars, controls and shadows displayed concurrently.\n\nWordpad (in the background) has a ~BeOS skin set, with the G:\sdownload folder view on top of that using a theme called Windows3000. Notepad is next, using an OS/2 theme but with a difference - the whole window is transparent. You can see the icons in the download folder behind it. The top window is Aladdin Expander, using a technical looking theme called Attacker.\n \nIn this case, Windows3000 is set as the default theme for the whole system - individual applications can have their own themes set, or be excluded from having any themes applied to them at all. The top three windows all have a windowshade button available.\n\nThemes that are much more radical than those shown here are available, and you can generate your own themes. Not all the features are useful, though - it is very disconcerting writing an article in a transparent Notepad window as I am doing now, and the transparent Start Menu is very hard to use! Of course this can be disabled, but where is the fun in that? \n\nThe software that makes all this possible is produced by Stardock (http://www.stardock.com) and is part of one of their suites of products, Object Desktop. This is a Windows product based on one of their original products developed for OS/2.\n\nThe titlebars and window skins are generated by a free version of ~WindowBlinds - the full version also changes other window components like scrollbars and progress indicators.\n\nAnimation effects, shadows and transparency (transparent windows and menus are only available in Win2000) are generated by ~WindowFX, which is also free.\n\nBe aware that both these programs will have an effect on the responsiveness of Windows, and may also affect system stability - of course, the same could be said of any software. Use with caution, and try excluding any applications that don't work well with skins installed. \n\nIf you are a compulsive desktop arranger, and like to fiddle about with icons, themes and colour schemes, it may be best to avoid this software - you won't get any work done!\n\n//- Robin Hinde//

To open all articles for October 1999, click on "October 1999" to the right and select "open all".

To open all articles for October 2004, click on "October 2004" to the right and select "open all".\nEdition No: 192

To open all articles for October 2005, click on "October 2005" to the right and select "open all".\nEdition No: 203

Geoff Breach, of Neutral Bay, read with interest an article in this paper on Friday about the Big Bang theory of creation. "It is a little known fact," he says, "that just seconds before the Big Bang, another, much fainter sound was heard. Researchers have determined that the noise sounded a lot like 'Bugger'." \n

By the time most club members read this articles I will be on holiday in Asia after cashing in several stock investments. On-line Internet trading is now possible via Direct Brokerage and Access Brokerage here in Wellington. In the past an investor had to go thorough the normal brokerage system. Hopefully on-line Internet trading will cut costs and make it much easier for the average investor to invest. In the past orders went thorough the system and prices changed before orders were placed. The Internet will allow it to happen instantly and a trader will not have to wait until the next day for a confirmation of purchase. If New Zealand adoption of technology is anything to go by then it should be well received. \n\nIf an investor wants to get started using an online system they can open an account with Direct Brokerage (22 Panama St, Wellington) and gain full access to all information for the New Zealand market. Later when you are ready to start trading you will need to open up a Call Account. A linking bank account, so that when an order is placed payment can be tagged. Obviously sufficient funds needs to be in your account or the order will not be placed. When selling shares, money is deposited back into your Call Account.\n\nBoth above companies are for the New Zealand market. If you want to online trade the Australian market you will need to join an Australian online broker (example: - ~E-Trade http://www.etrade.com.au ) and set up a Call Account in Australia. This is relatively easy to do from New Zealand, as most N.Z. Banks have branches in Australia. Returning money to New Zealand is also very easy. \n\nOriginally I traded shares on the NZ market (NZSE), but I found it not very profitable, as most NZ shares are illiquid. Later I started trading the Australian market using a traditional brokerages system and later via an online Australia real-time broker. (Real-time = shares up dated automatic as trades take place). In recent times I have traded the American market. There are hundreds of on-line Internet brokers in the USA. But it’s not as easy as it looks to open an account. And Non US citizens are not allowed to open US bank accounts. Plus most of the very large brokers are not interested in Non Americans unless you have a million dollars to invest. I use a very small US broker, plus a Canadian broker. \n\nThe American market is very large. And it can be very risky if you don’t fully understand what you are doing. Before completing a technical analysis course via a US University and reading several technical books, I burnt my fingers a few times. But after finishing the course, I can now pick up-trends and market swings. And use Stochastic and MACD (moving average convergence divergence) 13 & 50 day price graphs to determine what will happen next. I now understand, when a stock hits a record low and the histogram is lurking below centre line, it’s a good idea to consider buying.\n\nAll Companies on the stock exchange uses symbols. For example: - Globespan Semi uses GSPN. If you go to http://finance.yahoo.com and use this symbol you will be able to get the latest price. By changing the view to details, and selecting big 5 days or 1 year you should be able see what the stock is doing.\n\nTo gain more technical information go to Quotes.com or http://www.insiderscores.com/ or http://www. bigchats.com/. This location gives information about Splits and EMA (exponential moving average). By using these graphs, and stochastic you can pick trends. It probably sounds complicated? It’s not really. It’s all about seeing patterns in the movements of stock’s price. In essence, the lines are mapping traders’ buying and selling patterns. Those patterns can help predict whether trends will continue or reverse.\n\nGenerally today if someone give me an anonymous tip for a stock whose price signal graph is dominated by red bars, I hang up the phone. If green dominates, I start taking notes. \n\nSome US on-line stockbrokers let you play a game. See. http://www.etrade.com. Games start 1 Jan, 1 Apr etc. Basically they give you $100,000 play money. You buy and sell stocks and compete with other people world wide. Some games have several thousand contestants who are generally from the States. The game that I played I was placed within the top fifty. The winner received $~US1000 dollars; I’m still waiting for my T-shirt.\n\nOnline trading also opens up the doors to Day Trading. Buying and selling shares on the same day. Taking advantage of the highs and lows each day. By making lots of small profits, this adds up to an overall high profit rate. But to do this you need to be setup with PRE and POST hour trading capabilities. This is when you can buy shares one hour before and one hour after the market opens.\n\nIt’s important when purchasing shares you place a Stop Limit Loss under your purchase price. I use a 20% loss and a 30% loss limit for volatile Internet shares. Once this is established, your sell decision is less emotional, because you know what your downside limit is. Daily price changes shouldn’t disturb you. In January this year I purchased with a friend shares in EFNT. They climbed 60% in two months. In early/mid March several signals told a friend and me we should cash up. About a week later a correction took place. The price dropped 35% and is presently down 50%. And will drop further. Many other stocks that I have looked at (in this period) have also dropped. This is probably due to an end of financial year correction in the USA (31 March 00). When the market is volatile and difficult to predict it’s better to have your money in the bank. This type of volatility also happened at the end of last year with the unpredictable ~Y2K. At the present time most technological shares are over valued. \n\nMy favourite end of March pick is CEV trading on the Canadian Venture Exchange.\n \nFor Canadian shares use http://canda.bigcharts. com/ or http://finance.yahoo.com/ and add .V to the end of the symbol (CEV.V). And if I owned Microsoft shares I would sell them immediately. Not enough space here to explain why. \n\n//John Thomson.\nGella@iname.com //\n

[[President's Report]]\n[[Space Shuttle Live]]\n[[PicasaWeb]]\n[[Launchy]]\n[[Hardware SIG]]\n[[Equipment Available]]\n

''The free world-beating office productivity suite.''\n~OpenOffice.org 1.1 for Microsoft Windows,Linux, Solaris, ~FreeBSD, and Mac OS X X11\n\n''A new approach to office productivity software''\nWhen ~OpenOffice.org 1.0 was launched, no one could believe that software this good could be free.\n\nAn estimated 16 million+ people worldwide downloaded the software; many more installed it from ~CDs, or were passed copies by enthusiastic users. Community members produced local translations in over 30 languages.\n\nThe ~OpenOffice.org community is now proud to announce ~OpenOffice.org version 1.1.\nMore powerful, more compatible, more international, more open than ever - and best of all, our world class software is still free!\n\n''A new approach to office productivity software''\n~OpenOffice.org 1.1 gives you everything you'd expect in office software. You can create dynamic documents, analyse data, design eyecatching presentations, and produce dramatic illustrations. If you're used to using other office suites - such as Microsoft Office - you'll be completely at home from day one. However, as you become used to ~OpenOffice.org 1.1, you'll start to appreciate the extras that just make your life easier.\n\n\n''Freedom of choice''\nYou can of course continue to use your old Microsoft Office files without any problems - and if you need to exchange files with people still using Microsoft Office, that's no problem either.\nIf you like the sound of ~OpenOffice.org 1.1, but prefer the security of buying software products with full commercial support, then look at ~StarOffice from Sun Microsystems, Inc., which is built from the same codebase as ~OpenOffice.org - for further information see: http://www.sun.com/staroffice.\n\n''Freedom at work''\n~OpenOffice.org's open licensing model means you are not required to pay licensing fees - just download via the Internet and install. You can give the software away freely to employees, students, customers, friends...\nThe ~OpenOffice.org community encourages individuals across the world to help develop the product further - not just software developers, but people with skills in translation, graphics, marketing, legal... join us today at the community site http://www.openoffice.org.\n\n''Highlights''\nDownload today from http://www.openoffice.org/download\n*The all-in-one office software package for beginners and power users alike\n* Four best-in-class tools: CALC (spreadsheet); WRITER (word processor); DRAW (graphics); and IMPRESS (multimedia presentations)\n* Free licence means your copy of ~OpenOffice.org 1.1 is free to use and distribute - for ever \n* International language support, including complex text and vertical writing languages\n* Reads and writes commonly used file formats, such as Microsoft Office\n* Runs on Microsoft Windows 98/NT/Me/2000/XP, Linux, ~FreeBSD, Solaris, and Mac OS X (under X11)\n* Now also exports to .pdf format, and graphics files in .swf (Flash) format ? All your data is stored in open-format future proof XML files\n* Developed, supported, and marketed by members of the ~OpenOffice.org community - visit our website at http://www.openoffice.org\n\n''~OpenOffice.org 1.1 Key Features''\n''New in version 1.1''\n* best conversion ever of Microsoft Office documents (improvements in stability, accuracy, and international feature support)\n* enhanced file format support including PDF (Portable Document Format) and Macromedia Flash (SWF) creation, and mobile device formats like ~AportisDoc (Palm), Pocket Word and Pocket Excel\n* greatly increased support for international languages including complex text layout (CTL) languages (such as Thai, Hindi, Arabic, and Hebrew) and vertical writing languages, plus improved accessibility features\n* many more new features such as: enhancements to footnotes and hyperlinks in Tables of Contents in WRITER; intelligent sum button in CALC; Flash export in DRAW and IMPRESS; and a new Report ~AutoPilot.\n\n''Common features throughout ~OpenOffice.org 1.1''\n* a genuine office suite - single installation program; create/open any type of document from any application; common help system (both context-sensitive and tutorial), language tools, etc. across all programs. "Learn once - use everywhere".\n* familiar interface for anyone used to common office software. User configurable menus, shortcut keys, status bar, and tool bars. Common ~APIs for programmers.\n* documents are held in compressed XML to minimise disk usage and maximise futureproofing. Filters for Microsoft Word 6,95,97,2000,XP; RTF; ~DocBook; Excel 4,5,95,97,2000, XP; DIF, dBASE, SYLK; Lotus 1-2-3; Powerpoint 97,2000,XP; CGM; ~AutoCAD; EMF; EPS; Mac PICT; Windows Metafile / Bitmap; GIF; JPEG; PBM; Kodak Photo CD; PNG; Adobe Photoshop; Targa; TIFF; HTML; ~MathML; text\n\n''WRITER (word processor)''\n* all the 'best in class' features you would expect such as spellcheck (as you type or in batch), hyphenation, auto-correct and auto-format, multi-level undo/redo, word count; tool bars for functions, objects (context sensitive - e.g. text, table, graphics...), hyperlinks, and formulas; 'clickable' status bar for quick access to common functions • supports styles at page, frame, paragraph, or character level through menus or Stylist, with configurable: indents & spacing; text alignment and flow including orphans and widows; full range of font effects including rotation, super/subscript, small cabs, embossed / engraved effects; tabs; borders; background colours and images • full WYSIWYG graphics, re-size, flip, and crop; page / paragraph / character anchors; float and wrap (including contour editor); arrange front / back; captions; single-click filters\n* power user features for the most complex document: single / multi columns; sections, headers, footers, bookmarks, tables (including calculations), cross-references, footnotes, end notes, table of contents, index, bibliography, multiple document versions and comparisons\n\n''CALC (spreadsheet)''\n* supports spreadsheets up to 32,000 rows; 256 columns; 8,192,000 cells; 256 sheets • over 450 functions from 9 categories (maths, database, financial, date/time, information, logical, array, statistical, text) with optional auto-pilot and context sensitive help\n* full range of cell formats (numbers, date, time, scientific, currency, boolean...) with rotateable text, single click borders, etc\n* use previews to select from thirteen categories of 2-D and 3-D charts including line, area, column, pie, XY, stock, and net with dozens of variants\n* data operators, with sorting, filtering, subtotals (including statistical operators); ~DataPilot for Row / Column data analysis from spreadsheet or external databases\n* complex spreadsheet support including pages, links, consolidation, formula detective to trace dependents / precedents, and version checking across multiple authors\n\n''IMPRESS (presentations) and DRAW (graphics)''\n* full range of graphic editing features on individually dockable toolbars, including smart connectors with user-definable 'glue points'; automatically dimensioned lines; 2-D and 3-D objects; animated objects (text and graphic); fontworks and 3-D effects • align, centre, flip, rotate, and group objects; visible / invisible snap-to grids and snap lines; convert vectors to bitmaps and vice versa • ~AutoPilot for new users; optional Navigator and Stylist (Impress) • view drawing / outline / slides / notes / handouts; single click to toggle between slides and master (Impress); switchable display quality \n* dozens of different transition effects with previews, speed and sound effect control (Impress)\n\n''Database Tools''\n* spreadsheet-like interface for dBASE and ODBC and JDBC compliant databases\n* insert, change, delete data; create, modify, drop databases, tables, indexes, and queries (including multi-table); sort, filter, and mail merge data\n* ~AutoPilots for Forms and Reports\n\n''System Requirements''\n* Microsoft Windows 98, NT, ME, 2000 and XP: Pentium-compatible PC ; 64 MB RAM recommended ; 250 MB hard disk space ; min.display 800x600, 256 colours\n* Linux: kernel 2.2.13 or higher, glibc2 2.1.3 or higher; Pentium-compatible PC or higher; 64 MB RAM recommended; 250 MB hard disk space; X Server with min.800x600, 256 colours\n* Sun Solaris 8 Operating Environment: 128 MB RAM recommended; 250 MB hard disk space; X Server with min.800x600, 256 colours\n* Mac OS X 10.2.x and Darwin PPC platforms with ~XWindows from Xfree86.org\n\n

//''By Rob Zorn'' - from the May 2006 Newsletter of Actrix ISP with thanks for kind permission to reproduce in Megabyte//\n\n^^''Disclaimer'' This article has been written because open source software is an interesting and important aspect of computing and the Internet. Many people enjoy open source software and benefit from it. If you decide to experiment with it, however, you do so at your own risk. Actrix cannot promise support for difficulties you encounter, and accepts no responsibility for damage of any kind that may result.^^\n\n''The latest version of Windows XP - $535.00… \nMicrosoft Office Basic Version - $319.00… ''\n\nFinding an alternative operating system and free tools and software? Well… priceless. It's not hard to understand why software is so expensive. Think of the incredible things it can do and imagine all the hours and expertise put into developing it, and it's no wonder we're willing to pay about as much for the programs we run as we are for the computers that run them. \n\nBut what if there was a community of experienced developers out there who just wanted to develop great software for its own sake, and who were happy to share it around without cost? \n\nWell there is. The open source movement has been around for a long time, producing all sorts of alternative software from operating systems and office tools to editors and instant messengers. The sort of stuff they're releasing these days for free is getting better and better, and is gaining an ever increasing community of enthusiastic users. \n\nOpen source software is growing in popularity for all sort of reasons, but the main one is, of course, the cost. There simply isn't one in most cases, and unlike shareware, there's little in the way of restrictions or strings attached. Some also use it because they don't like the way big companies have muscled in and tried to monopolise the software that runs the Internet. Geeks tend to love it because it gives them so much more control over what they can do on their own computers. Many users also argue that it is more secure than Windows operating systems. \n\n''What is Open Source and why is it free?''\n\nIn basic terms, source code is the stuff that a program is made out of at its most basic level. Once written, source code is "compiled" into a program that can be used by a computer. Once a program has been compiled, it is very hard to work out anything about its source code. It's a bit like how once a piece of chicken has been covered in muck and deep-fried, it would be quite difficult to work backwards and determine the exact nature and quantity of its secret herbs and spices. \n\nA commercial software company will attempt to keep its source code secret so that others can't use it, or learn any "tricks of the trade" from it, just like a restaurant chain might guard its chicken recipe. \n\nBy contrast, open source programs have their source code deliberately released so that others can see it, work with it, and even change it for their own purposes. The code is usually released under a general public license (GPL), which allows anyone to change or improve the software as long as they release their changes back to others who might be interested. It's a bit like a team of chefs all working together and pooling their ideas so they can make a better piece of chicken for all. It's not about money. It's about results. \n\nFor the average user, though, the GPL doesn't matter. Most just want to use the software, and they wouldn't have a clue how to make changes to its source code anyway. \n\n''Why do Open Source enthusiasts consider it superior?''\n\nBecause it is so easy to "look under the hood," so to speak, peer review tends to happen naturally. Any bugs, flaws and vulnerabilities are found and announced by the open source community, and somebody then comes up with a fix. In proprietary systems, all the code is secret, so a lot of good natured experts that could find flaws don't. If the bad guys find the flaws before the good guys (as frequently happens), they can use those flaws for their own evil purposes such as creating effective viruses or programming malicious web sites, and they certainly won't work towards getting them fixed. Open source enthusiasts tend also to be an idealistic lot, often believing that if everyone helps each other, we'll all be better off, even financially. \n\nExponents of the proprietary method argue that keeping their source code secret makes it harder for hackers and virus writers. Even without access to the source code, hackers continually find exploitable flaws in Windows and Internet Explorer. Imagine what they could find if they could see into the very heart of the recipe! They also argue that the profit motivation works just as well in the software arena as it does in any other commercial sphere. Better software is developed by the motivation to be better than your competitors, and that can't be achieved as easily if we're all sharing ideas. \n\n''Linux Desktops''\n\n By far the most popular open source software would be Linux desktop operating systems. These alternatives to Windows will run on any PC. They’ll do pretty much anything Windows will do, but they’re free to install, use, update and add to. \n\nBecause so many developers have worked on the basic Linux source code to produce their own versions, there is plenty of choice. Linux comes in all sorts of flavours which are called “distributions”. They’re all reasonably similar, though some are definitely better-geared for newcomers. Mandriva (http://www.mandriva.com) and Ubuntu (http://www.ubuntu.com) are easy to install, and resemble Windows pretty closely in the way they work. \n\nThe real Linux power-users swear by more advanced versions such as Debian or Gentoo. These are a lot less similar to Windows and probably aren’t the best for new comers to open source. \n\nThere’s also an endless supply of programs that can be downloaded to run on Linux, and the most you’ll ever pay is a distribution charge of a few dollars. A wide variety of programs are included with the install, and others can be freely downloaded later as needed. \n\n''Moving to Linux''\n\n Moving to Linux is a big step. Unless you're clever enough to partition your hard drive, it's going to mean a re-format, and erasure of all your Windows stuff. It's something you might want to think about before rushing into, and a smarter move might be to first experiment with Linux on an old second-hand PC before you make any permanent changes to your main machine. \n\nKnoppix Linux (http://www.knoppix.net/ get.php) is designed to run from a CD and will temporarily take over your PC and run it as if it was a Linux system without altering anything on your hard drive. This makes it an ideal starter option. If you don't like it, remove the CD and re-start your machine. Everything will be back to normal. \n\nThere are lots of avenues of support open to novice Linux users. ~LUGs (Linux User Groups) exist all over the country, and are pretty good sources of free advice as well as free copies of Linux and open source programs. Linux users tend to want others to join them, and will happily talk "newbies" through solutions to the problems they faced themselves. Information about Linux in New Zealand and ~LUGs around the country can be found at http:// www.linux.net.nz/. You'll probably also find that someone at your local computer store is a bit of a Linux expert who may be able to help you with advice and copies of open source software on ~CDs. This could save you a fair bit of download time. \n\n''Open Source under Windows''\n\nYou don't have to go the whole hog and move to Linux before you can benefit from open source software. A number of programs have been developed that will happily run under Windows. The most famous of these is the web browser Firefox which is becoming a very popular alternative to Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Because it's open source, the flaws in Firefox tend to get found and quickly fixed. It's also less of a target for hackers because it's much less commonly used than Internet Explorer. But what's really great about Firefox is that because the source code is available, it's easy for developers to come up with enhancements (called plug-ins or extensions) that you can download and install. This makes it a whole lot more customisable and fun than the browser you might be used to right now. Some of these plug-ins are mentioned in the callout box to the right. \n\nAnother open source program that is very popular and runs under Windows is Open Office, a fully working but free alternative to the more expensive suites of office programs commonly available. You can download it for no cost from http://www.openoffice.org. It comes with a word processor that can open, work on and save documents in Microsoft Word or other proprietary formats (so you can swap documents with someone using WORD). It has a spreadsheet like Excel, an HTML editor like ~FrontPage, a drawing program, and more. It can be a little clunky at times (there's still some room for development) but it's fine for everyday use.

Upload Password:\n<<option pasUploadPassword>>\n\nThese InterfaceOptions for customising TiddlyWiki are saved in your browser\n\nYour username for signing your edits. Write it as a WikiWord (eg JoeBloggs)\n\n<<option txtUserName>>\n<<option chkSaveBackups>> SaveBackups\n<<option chkAutoSave>> AutoSave\n<<option chkRegExpSearch>> RegExpSearch\n<<option chkCaseSensitiveSearch>> CaseSensitiveSearch\n<<option chkAnimate>> EnableAnimations\n\nSee AdvancedOptions

//From Robin Hinde, our overworked Web Master//\n\n The new web server is now installed and running. Robin advises there are a couple of things to sort out, but basically its OK. There has been a problem with restoring the ~MegaByte issues for 2002 and some of a previous year. Arthur and Robin will be working on this. Pictures from Robins new digital camera.\n \nIf you can view this page then the above problems have been solved. If you can't, then you won't know about it.\n\n Here are some server details:\n* AMD Duron 1.1GHz, MSI 6367X-L motherboard.\n* 256MB RAM.\n* 2 x 40GB Barracuda ~HDDs.\n* Red Novia ~E-Star case.\n* Realtek network card (DSE).

// The following has been extracted and edited by Richard Elam from an article on Hardwarezone.com on the Internet. The full article is at http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles/print.php?cid=13&id=868. Look for more details of how to use the TWAIN software next month//\n\n ''Introduction''\n\n The process of archiving your old photos has never been simpler, thanks to today's high resolution scanning technology. However, most users actually archive their photos from prints instead of scanning them directly from the source, which is the film itself. Unless the film is no longer within the user's possession, users should not scan their photos directly from the prints as that is actually one of the worst archiving methods. This is due to the fact that prints are never a correct representation of what is originally imprinted on the film as prints generally suffer from colour inaccuracies, poor focus, degradation and dirt, and why users should archive their old (and new) films with a proper film scanner.\n\n We all know that dust and scratches are one of the most lethal enemies of the celluloid film and they are most of the time not within our control. Poor processing, dusty cameras, improper handling and poorly maintained cameras all lead to the degradation of your precious films. Even films stored in cool, clean and dry places are probably not going to last the test of time as chemical (colour) degradation will occur whether you like it or not.\n \nThis is why Pacific Image Electronics, a company dedicated to solely designing and manufacturing high quality scanners, have recently introduced the new ~PF3650 ~PRO3 which is meant to address the issues related to dust, scratches and degradation. The ~PF3650 ~PRO3 not only scans, but will actively restore your precious photos through its Digital ~ICE3 technology.\n\nThe ~PrimeFilm ~PF3650PRO3 Film Scanner Technical Specifications are:\n*Scanning Media: - 35 mm slides, filmstrips or roll film\n*Optical Resolution: 3600 dpi x 3600 dpi\n*Max. Scanning Area: - 24.3 mm x 36.5 mm\n*Data Conversion: 24/48 bits per pixel (colour mode). 12 bits per pixel (grayscale mode)\n*Image Sensor: Linear array colour CCD\n*Scan Method: Single pass\n*Light Source: White & Infrared LED array\n*Scan Time: 3 min 30 sec with ICE function at 3600 dpi. 70 sec without ICE function at 3600 dpi\n*Interface: USB 2.0 & IEEE 1394\n*Dimensions: 260 mm (L) x 90 mm (W) x 165 mm (H)\n*Net Weight: 2.10 kg (4.6 lb)\n*Minimum System Requirements:\n**PC or compatibles: Pentium II 300 ~MHz or higher with a minimum of 256 MB RAM. \n**Macintosh : ~PowerPC G3 or later. USB or IEEE 1394 Interface. \n**Windows ~98SE or later or ~MacOS 9.0 or later\n \nElectrical Requirements:\n*Output: 12 V DC/1.25 A. Input: AC 100-110V 60 Hz or AC 220-240 V 50 Hz\n\n ''The Digital ~ICE3 Technology''\n\n The ~PF3650 ~PRO3 is designed to scan all sorts of 35 mm films, ranging from the typical colour negatives to black & white negatives and slide positives. You can scan films in two ways, either through the slide loader, or through the strip loader located on the right side of the scanner. Obviously, the best way to archive your films is through the strip loader as the TWAIN driver allows one to scan the entire roll of film in a one-click automated process.\n \nThe ~PF3650 ~PRO3's maximum optical resolution is set at ~3600x3600 dpi, thus, you can be assured of getting the highest quality scans from your tiny film negative. At 3600 dpi, you should not have problems printing your scanned pictures on full 8R size photo paper. Although it is always recommended that you scan your films at the highest possible resolution for archiving purposes, the scanner's software also lets you adjust the scanning resolution. In fact, the advanced setting controls actually let you freely specify your desired resolution - any number between 72 to 3600.\n\n Perhaps the main highlight of the ~PF3650 ~PRO3 is its highly acclaimed Digital ~ICE3 technology which is licensed from Kodak's Austin Development Center (Applied Science Fiction). There are three types of enhancements provided by the Digital ~ICE3 technology. They are :-\n \nDigital ICE\n*This is the heart and soul of the ~PF3650 ~PRO3 which plays its part in solving the problems of poorly scanned images due to scratches, dust and fungus on the original film. The removal of all those unwanted artifacts are done through a two stage scanning process, one of which is an infrared scan designed specifically to detect these anomalies. After the second pass, which is the RGB scan of the image, the image is then digitally repaired using the information first gathered from the infrared scan. This method can effectively remove scratches and dust particles from the image and has proven to be quite effective.\n\nDigital ROC\n*Old films suffer from colour degradation and it's especially obvious with films that were improperly stored (these films normally produce pictures with reddish or bluish tints). The digital ROC process attempts to reconstruct the original colour values of the picture. This is a must-have feature for those planning to archive really old films.\n\nDigital GEM\n*Known as Grain Equalization and Management, this technology helps to eliminate the grainy look and feel of highly magnified images. Such image noise are normally present in high speed films, adverse lighting conditions or directly as a result of the scanner CCD's noise. With the Digital GEM technology enabled in the scanning process, film grain patterns are analysed and then reconstructed without affecting image details.\n\n ''Using the ~PF3650 ~PRO3''\n\n The scanner comes with support for both popular interfaces, USB 2.0 and IEEE 1394 ~FireWire. \n\nUsers who have either one of the interfaces built into their PC can immediately make use of the ~PF3650 ~PRO3. Those with older ~PCs may need an upgrade card to add either USB 2.0 or 1394 support (USB 1.1 should work just fine, but you can expect slower scanning speeds). We would recommend that you get yourself an IEEE 1394 card as our tests showed that it's faster although USB 2.0 does have its advantages especially with its wide array of USB 2.0 devices available in the market today.\n\n Front view showing slide feeder. In the package, the scanner is bundled together with the following :\n*Power adapter and cable\n*USB 2.0 cable\n*IEEE 1394 cable\n*CD containing ~CyberView ~X-MF driver and ~NewSoft Application software\n*Adobe Photoshop Elements software CD - Printed User Manual\n*Two slide mount\n\n The new ~CyberView ~X-MF TWAIN driver has most of the photo enhancing tools available in a separate menu and they allow one to adjust colour variations, colour balance and curves/levels. Since the scanner's own automatic colour correction is already quite advance, there's really not a need to use these tools unless you're the sort who wants nothing but perfection.\n \n Adobe Photoshop Elements software is bundled together with the scanner. Although it's a simpler and less complicated version of the more expensive Adobe Photoshop software, Elements does come with all of the various tools that you'll require to digitally manipulate your photos such as cropping, resizing, despeckling, sharpen, blur, contrast/brightness enhancements and even layering.\n\n Besides Adobe Photoshop Elements, the package also includes two different software applications from ~NewSoft, Presto! ~ImageFolio and Presto! Mr. Photo. The ~NewSoft Presto! ~ImageFolio is quite similar in function to Adobe Photoshop Elements. It also allows one to manipulate images with cropping, resizing and sharpening functions. If you're one that has gotten very used to Photoshop Elements, then Presto! ~ImageFolio is quite useless. We wonder why it was ever bundled in the package in the first place as we found it quite redundant (and there's no way that ~ImageFolio could be better than Photoshop).\n\n The other software from ~NewSoft known as Presto! Mr. Photo is a photo management application which lets you sort and keep your images in an orderly manner. It also allows one to perform some light editing such as rotation, sharpen, crop and red-eye removal.\n\n However, it is more than just an archival software as it also allows you to create an AVI file from a series of pictures, download pictures from the Internet, set pictures as your desktop wallpaper, print pictures to your printer, compose pictures and set pictures as a screen saver. This nifty little application can be quite fun once you get your hang of it and it should provide you with lots of creative ways to store and manage your photo library. With Digital ~ICE3 enabled, the scanning times will drop by as much 2.3 times depending on which pre/post-processing option(s) were enabled. The chart below will give you an idea of how much time is taken to scan a film at 2400 dpi resolution with 24-bit colour depth \n \n Next month we will continue with a more detailed explanation of the special scanning capabilities of this great scanner. \n\n

The smallest digital camera in the world - so far.\n\nIn the October issue of Megabyte, our president was talking about the difficulties of video-conferencing the meeting at St Pats out to members.\nOne aspect of this is the live video itself, and I thought members might be interested in hearing about my latest gadget - the pencam.\n\nThis device is a very small digital camera, being the length of a fountain pen and about twice the thickness. It has only two switches - a shutter to take the photos, and a button to scroll through various commands. These include hi-res, low-res, clear, and a counter of the number of exposures left. The pencam will take twenty high resolution photos or eighty low resolution, and you then connect it by cable to the camera jack in your PC to upload them. The high resolution pictures are remarkably good since there are no controls for aperture, focus or shutter speed.\n\nWhen the photos are on your HDD, the ULEAD software that comes with the pencam enables editing such as brightness and contrast changes, and lots of fancy stuff. You can send the image as an attachment to an email or print it, or simply store it. Format is TIF and the pencam runs on two AAA batteries.\n\nThe video aspect of the pencam is two-fold. While the pencam is offline, video clips are limited to about eleven seconds. You set the pencam to low-res, and off you go. But when the pencam is online, there is no limitation of time or length, and you can video-conference.\n\nIf you are on the net in chat mode, you can see and hear the other person.\nA video clip which is made and stored with audio can be sent with an email or put on the net.\n\nThe blurb says you can connect up in a ~NetMeeting. I can't guarantee this one, but I can say that if the camera is reasonably close to the subject, you get a very good image without black lipstick!! My computer room has only a 60 watt bulb in the ceiling, and the image was very clear, if unflattering.\n\nSo there you are Roger, Pencams all round and not a black lipstick in sight!\n\nThe cost is $187 from DSE, and it's worth every cent if only for the fun you can have with it.\n\nPatricia Clark\n\n

(Meets 1st Wednesday of the month, at the 75 Ghuznee Street office, level 5, room 11 at 7pm.) \n\nOur group numbers are fluctuating - up again this month. \n\nAnalogue interface is this month's effort. \n\nThis interface has as I suspected it would, is proving to be the most dificult. I still haven't worked out how to deal with the actual decoding such that we can switch between reading the digital and analogue inputs without crossing them up. Anyway, lets take a look at the chip I chosen to do our eight analogue inputs with - the ~MAX118. \n\n//(circuit diagram of ~MAX118 IC connections inserted here)//\n \nThe input channels ~IN1-IN8 are selected with the ~A0-A2 lines. Taking the RD and CS lines low at the same time will start the conversions. INT will go low at the of the conversion. \n\nThe lines ~D0-D7 can then be read. Taking the RD and CS lines high again resets the the ~MAX118. If ayone can see a way where we can interface this chip with as much functionality as posible into the design so far then drop me an Email ian.godfrey@nzpca.org.nz \n\nWhile researching stuff for this project I have found a few links on the web you may find interesting. \n\nhttp://www.arrow.co.au - Components chips etc.\nhttp://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~ih/ - Stepper motors galore - good animations of how how they operate.\nhttp://www.bull-electrical.com - large clearing warehouse in the UK.\nhttp://www.theref.aquaspace.com - Details of Hard disk drives and manuals for various controllers.\nhttp://www.falstaff.demon.co.uk - A large database of ~ICs with a risque name.\nhttp://www.webopedia.com - Encylopedia of Web and PC terms.\nhttp://www.PCguide.com - More information on the technical aspects of ~PCs.\nhttp://www.techadvice.com - A lot of info on ~PCs.\nhttp://margo.student.utwente.nl/stefan/chipdir/index.htm - Index at the Chip directory.\n\nThat should keep a few of you busy.\n

Meets 1st Wednesday of the month, at the 75 Ghuznee Street office, level 5,room 11 at 7pm.) \n\nA larger number of people ventured out on the first Wednesday of the month, six of us sat around the shrinking conference table on level 5 of the Guznee street office. For those who forgot or didn't know we meet at 7 pm level 5 number 75 Guznee street, on the first Wednesday of the month. Graham Rogers is manning the office on Wednesday evenings so there is no trouble getting into the building. A quick phone call to him will confirm the meeting. Check the Office times in Megabyte. \n\nThe analogue circuits will have to wait until next month as I haven't decided on which chips to use. \n\nThis month we'll take a look at the power supply. \n\n//(circuit diagram for regulated power supplies inserted here and described next)//\n\nThe interface is to be powered by a 12 volt (nominal) plug pack rated at 900 mA. Then what's all this stuff for ? Starting at the left the plug pack is to be connected to a standard connector. D1 provides reverse polarity protection. I did originally look at using a bridge here so that even if a plug pack of reverse polarity or an AC (Alternating Current) was applied the interface would still function correctly, however it is simpler and cheaper to use the diode and specify the Plug pack to be a nominal 12 volts. \n\nThe output from the diode is fed into a pair of 3 terminal regulators, one for twelve volts and one for 5 volts. \n\nThe regulators require at least 1.2 volts of head room to operate correctly. This means that we need at least 13.2 volts at the input to the 12 volt regulator and as D1 will also drop 0.6 of a volt, 13.8 volts is going to be the minimum voltage required. \n\nPlug packs are rated at their current rating so a 12 volt 900 mA pack will deliver 12 volts at 900 mA and as the current requirement reduces the output voltage increases and vice versa. \n\nIt should also be noted that 900 mA is all that will be available to the circuits and loads attached (unless a larger plug pack is used) to the interface and will be shared by the regulators. That is to say if the 12 volt regulator is supplying 400 mA, 500 mA will be available for the 5 volt regulator. \n\nThe regulators have a maximum current rating of 1.2 Amps (they must be mounted on a heat sink) and are thermally protected. (shut down if they get too hot). The supply voltages will then be fed around the interface board to the various chips and to the connectors supplying the various loads.\n

Ian Godfrey \n\n(Meets 1st Wednesday of the month, at the 75 Ghuznee Street office, level 5, room 11 at 7pm.) \n\nSeven members turned out on Feb. 14th for the first meeting of the PC Control SIG. \n\nWe decided to try and build a generic type of interface that will enable us to control a wide variety of devices from mains appliances to stepper motors and accept a variety of inputs. \n\nBy using software modules to control the interface we will be able to choose from weather station to burglar alarm. We'll also attempt to integrate some of the standard peripherals such as modems, (to dial phone/pager etc. in the event of burglary or accident). \n\nThe group has a wide array of skills, from engravers, specialist welders, programmers, builders and technicians. Many hands make light work as they say so if you are interested in joining us then please do, you'll be welcome. As I mentioned last month, progress will be reported through MegaByte each month ( I hope I can fill a page). Files associated with the SIG can be found on MegaBaud in conference 2. PC Control SIG, this conference has its own file areas. \n\nWednesday 3rd of March was our second meeting and it went very well. \n\nThe basic design was decided. Based on the input/output capabilities of the parallel port we decided upon 12 digital inputs and 8 analogue inputs, 12 digital outputs and 1 analogue output (even though we couldn't think of a use for it). The digital inputs and outputs will have LED indicators to give a visual indication of their status. It will have a plastic box for a housing and will be powered by a 12 volt plug pack. The connectors to interface to the outside world have yet to be decided. \n\n//{picture inserted here}//\n \nIt is intended to provide the interface as a kit, and as a kit only the parts required by each individual user need be inserted into the board. For example should the constructor only want to control stepper motors then only the parts required to control the stepper can be fitted. Should the constructor's requirement change the additional parts can be added at a later date. \n\nThe software to control the board will (probably) be specific to the task, avoiding unnecessary overhead and complications for automated systems. Hopefully most of the tasks required will fit onto a floppy so that even the most basic setup can be used.\n

Four of us braved the weather and met at the Ghuznee St office. I revealed the past months work, figure 1 shows my attempt at creating the buffers for our interface. \n\n//(circuit diagram inserted here)//\n \nHow it's supposed to work. The 74LS245 is a bidirectional tristate buffer it will be used to buffer the bidirectional part of our printer port. The send / receive direction is to be controlled by the printer port strobe line. A high on the strobe line will put the buffers into the send mode so data can be output. The low on the strobe line reverses the situation and we will be able to read data in. The 74LS244 is used to buffer the unidirectional ports, again directional control is provided by the strobe line, but in this case it controls the chip enable lines. Figure 2 shows the high current and indication circuits. \n\n//(circuit diagram insertted here)//\n \nThe ~ULN2003 are darlington output devices and have been chosen to enable small stepper motors to be driven directly. The Leds will be in bar graph type packages and the resistors will be packs so as to simplify construction. Next month I hope to have finalised the analogue input details.\n

Age 37. Passed away unexpectedly on Fri., April 14, 2000. Beloved son of Hildegard and beloved brother of Cynthia. \n\nAlso survived by other relatives and friends. Phil was a graduate of UWM Computer Science Engineering Program. He was the author of the PKZIP/PKUNZIP software and owner of PKWARE Inc. Co. Private services have been held. Memorials to the charity of your choice would be appreciated. \n\n----\nM I L W A U K E E, April 22 _ A man who developed one of the world's most popular pieces of computer software has died at age 37. Phillip W. Katz died of complications from chronic alcoholism, according to the Milwaulkee medical examiner's records. \n\nFound Dead With Liquor \n\nKatz was found dead April 14 in a motel room holding a bottle of liquor, the Milwaukee County medical examiner's report said. Five other empty liquor bottles were also found in the room, according to the report.\n\nIn a 1993 Milwaukee Journal interview, Katz said the concept behind ~PKZip was launched at his mother's kitchen table in 1986. The product's popularity exploded.\n\n"It was just a hobby," he said. "I didn't expect it to turn into a business." \n\nDespite his success as a software engineer, Katz had troubles in his personal life. Authorities obtained search warrant in 1997 after Katz's Mequon neighbors complained about odors, insects and mice at his luxury condominium. \n\nAuthorities said they found knee-deep garbage and decaying food at the condo. Katz's lawyers paid the city of Mequon about $8,000 for the cost of the cleanup, pest exterminators and legal fees.\n\n//Quite sad really. Almost all NZPCA members must have used Phil's software.//\n

//Excerpts from the AVG Anti-virus help files.//\n\n To understand how viruses spread, it is necessary to know the sequence of events which occur after the computer is switched on. When the computer is powered up the computer executes a test routine which is part of the BIOS . This routine, known as the POST (Power On Self Test), takes an inventory of the hardware, tests it, initialises it and reports any errors. If the POST is passed then the BIOS will try to boot from a diskette or hard disk.\n\n If there is a diskette in drive A: the computer will try to boot from it. A non-system diskette will display the message: Non-system disk or disk error replace and press any key when ready\n \n//Note - BIOS manufacturers recently made it possible to amend the boot sequence so that the PC looks for the hard disk prior to the diskette. Many viruses spread by infecting from the boot sector of a diskette, so we recommend that your machine be set to boot from the hard disk first.//\n\n When booting from a diskette, the Boot sector is first to load and execute and it, in turn, loads the operating system. However when booting from a hard drive, it is the Partition sector which is loaded and executed first. Its purpose is to locate and execute the hard disk boot sector.\n\n The boot sector loads fundamental system files into RAM. In the case of ~MS-DOS these files are ~MS-DOS.SYS and IO.SYS.\n At the end of the start sequence the operating system performs the following steps:\n\n*it configures itself according to the instructions in CONFIG.SYS\n*loads COMMAND.COM (in CONFIG.SYS it is possible to set a different program)\n*runs the commands and programs listed in AUTOEXEC.BAT \n\n During the boot sequence there are opportunities for viruses to infect before any protection is in place. As you can see, two programs are run the first in the partition sector and the second in the boot sector. If a virus can infect these areas and replace the original code with its own code it will be activated every time the computer is started.\n \n It is dangerous to leave an untested diskette in drive A: when the computer is started. If an infected diskette's boot sector is executed, the virus will immediately infect the hard disk. However, you will probably not realize this as the message "non-system disk or disk error" would still appear on the screen.\n

//A bit of a plug for a favourite of Richard's,which you can try out free at ''www.freeserifsoftware.com''//\n\n''What's the difference between Desktop Publishing and Word Processing?''\nWhile Desktop Publishing software has evolved to encapsulate many of the principles of word processing, the emphasis is on layout and design. Simplicity and ease of use, combined with absolute layout control are what set a good Desktop Publishing package apart from it's word processing rivals. This makes Desktop Publishing the ideal choice for putting together your printed publications without wasting time battling against your computer. ~PagePlus SE makes light work of a number of jobs which would be drawn-out, complicated and often downright painful to do with most word-processors. Here are just a few examples of how ~PagePlus SE will leave your word processor behind…\n\n''Text Frames''\nA word processor doesn’t allow you to be very creative with your text. ~PagePlus SE uses Text Frames making it much more sophisticated in its formatting abilities! When you type into a frame, ~PagePlus works just like a word processor with a built-in spell checker, font settings and justification. What’s more impressive, however, is the ability to re-size and re-position your text frame anywhere on the page with just a simple click and drag of the mouse! You can have as many text frames as you like on the page and can even rotate and overlap them – something you’ll struggle to achieve with your word processor!\n\n''Insert a photo in a fixed position''\nWith ~PagePlus SE, you can insert a photo into the page simply by clicking the ‘Import Picture’ button at the bottom of the left hand toolbar. You can place your photo anywhere on the page – on top of other objects or behind them. You can even make text automatically flow around your photo in a number of different ways, simply by selecting ‘wrap settings’ on the top toolbar, making it really easy to create professional-looking results every time.\n\n''Folded Publications''\nIf you want to create a greetings card, menu, booklet or more complicated folded document then you’ll find your word processor isn’t up to the job! ~PagePlus SE, on the other hand, will make light work of this design task. You don’t have to worry about splitting the page up yourself or working upside down. ~PagePlus handles the layout, leaving you to concentrate on the fun stuff, like the design! It even lets you check your document before you print, so you’ll see all your pages have been orientated on the page ready for you to fold – now that’s what we call clever! \n\n''Create Headlines that really stand out''\nWhen you type in a standard word processor, you can use different fonts for your headings, increase the font size or use bold, but it’s difficult to get your text to really stand out from the page. ~PagePlus SE allows you to release your creative potential! The Artistic Text Tool enables you to create outstanding headings and logos that will leap from the page to catch the eye!\n\n__''~PagePlus SE - Free Desktop Publishing Software''__\nWhy Use ~PagePlus SE?The result of over a decade of continual development, ~PagePlus makes Desktop Publishing more intuitive, more productive and more fun than ever before. Now our specially designed SE version makes Desktop Publishing available to everyone - and all for free! \n\nIf you're starting out as a Desktop Publisher, the award-winning ~PagePlus offers Automated Templates for just about every job, making it really easy to get professional quality results every time. Even if you've never used ~PagePlus or any other Desktop Publisher, we're confident you'll find this brand new version so easy to learn that you will be up and running in minutes.\nSo what can it do for me?\n\n''Multiple Document Types'' \nAmazing ~PagePlus SE gives you a whole host of preset document layouts to help you design professional looking documents. Choose from greetings card, booklets, banners, posters and many more!\n\n''Stunning ~QuickShapes''\nCan’t draw, won’t draw? ~QuickShapes are the answer! With an array of fully customizable designs including complex shapes like spirals, petals and stars ~QuickShapes really will add impact to your documents.\n\n''Table Tool''\nThe outstanding Table Tool lets you design high-impact, powerful tables directly within ~PagePlus SE and makes it simple to position them precisely in your documents.\n\n''Artistic Text''\nWith amazing ~PagePlus SE you can instantly create high impact, designer text with stunning transparency effects, bitmap fills and outstanding graduated colors.\n\n''~On-Screen Spell Checker''\nOne less thing to worry about. ~PagePlus SE comes complete with its very own ~On-Screen Spell Checker which will automatically underline mis-spelt words.\n\n''Design Studio''\nThe amazing Design Studio is your one-stop design toolkit. Simple drag and drop access to hundreds of colors, fills, fonts, line styles and more.\n\n''Graphics Inline With Text''\n~PagePlus SE lets you set graphics to stay with their associated text. If the text changes position as more copy is added the graphics will automatically move with it.\n\n''Color Schemes'' \n~PagePlus SE comes complete with its very own professionally designed color schemes. It's easy to color coordinate your documents.\n\n''Multiple Master Pages'' \nMultiple Master Pages gives you a choice of templates for all of your longer documents allowing you to easily define different page styles for different sections of your projects.\n\n''Page Manager'' \n~PagePlus SE gives you a great new way to organize your multi-page publications, the Page Manager allows you to add, copy and delete pages or to assign a new underlying masterpage.\n\n''Automated Templates'' \nIf you need professional-looking, high quality results in a hurry, simply download our free, ready made template packs, fill in your details, customize the look and feel, then print. It really is that simple.\n~PagePlus SE has to be one of the best free Desktop Publishing software titles around, so don't waste any more time - download now for free!\n\n__''Frequently Asked Questions''__\nHere are answers to some of the frequently asked questions about ~PagePlus desktop publishing free software.\n\n1. //''What versions of Windows does ~PagePlus SE work on?''//\n*~PagePlus SE works on all recent versions of Windows including 98/98 SE, 2000, Me, & XP.\n\n2. //''Can I create a calendar with ~PagePlus SE?''//\n*Yes. The calendar tool in ~PagePlus SE makes it easier than ever to create a yearly or monthly calendar in no time at all. There are many free design and template options for you to choose from in our “Free Designs” section. The ~PagePlus SE Wizard functionality takes you step-by-step through creating any type of calendar you choose.\n \n3. //''Does ~PagePlus SE have word processing tools built in?''//\n*Yes. ~PagePlus SE has spell check for easy editing and corrections. ~WritePlus is the handy word processor interface that gives access to all of the word processing features such as word count, applying paragraph and character text styles, as well as importing and exporting text. Therefore, you can create documents in their entirety within ~PagePlus SE without the hassle of using a separate word processing program.\n\n4. //''Can I create Press Ready PDF’s with ~PagePlus SE?''//\n*No, but both ~PagePlus versions 9 and 10 allow you to create PDF documents as well as many other file formats. With ~PagePlus versions 9 and 10, the PDF output is 100% press-ready and compliant with PDF/X1a standard. This new output makes ~PagePlus compatible with printing presses all over the world so you can get your documents professionally printed or share them with friends, family, and colleagues.\n\n5.//''Will I be able to import my own pictures and artwork to use in ~PagePlus SE?''//\n*Yes. There are many file formats accepted by ~PagePlus SE including: BMP, EMF, GIF, JPG, PNG, TIF, WMF and many others. You are able to import your pictures and then decide whether to link or embed them based on your preference. At any time the Resource Manager can be accessed from the tools menu which gives you a list of the images in your design, their type, size and whether they are linked or embedded in your publication. This feature is important for the placement, accessibility and management of your images.\n

<!---\nI've just tweaked my gradient colours and the topMenu bit. See HorizontalMainMenu.\n--->\n<!--{{{-->\n<div class='header' macro='gradient vert #013 #069'>\n<div class='headerShadow'>\n<span class='siteTitle' refresh='content' tiddler='SiteTitle'></span>&nbsp;\n<span class='siteSubtitle' refresh='content' tiddler='SiteSubtitle'></span>\n</div>\n<div class='headerForeground'>\n<span class='siteTitle' refresh='content' tiddler='SiteTitle'></span>&nbsp;\n<span class='siteSubtitle' refresh='content' tiddler='SiteSubtitle'></span>\n</div>\n<div id='topMenu' refresh='content' tiddler='MainMenu'></div>\n</div>\n<div id='sidebar'>\n<div id='sidebarOptions' refresh='content' tiddler='SideBarOptions'></div>\n<div id='sidebarTabs' refresh='content' force='true' tiddler='SideBarTabs'></div>\n</div>\n<div id='displayArea'>\n<div id='messageArea'></div>\n<div id='tiddlerDisplay'></div>\n</div>\n<!--}}}-->\n

It is definitely something you do not want. A parasite is unsolicited software that literally sneaks onto your system. A parasite will do things you do not want it to do, for someone else's profit and performs other activities totally hidden to you. It's a program that gets installed you probably never ever asked for. Over the last two years the parasite problem has grown. And has got real bad in the last six months. At the present time there are millions of computers affected around the world. Recent articles in overseas magazines and technical journals suggest that over 75% of PC users have an active spyware program on their machines.\n \nExamples of advertising spyware are Bonzi Buddy, Bargain Buddy, Ezula, Searchex, Lop.com, Gator, Mysearch. This is partial a list, it goes on and on.\n\n At Christmas I had a friend who thought I was in New Zealand as I was using my regular e-mail account (Paradise, to pick up my e-mails). I have a virus he told me via e-mail, my computer is acting strange, but AVG is unable to find it. E-mailing someone who is in a different time zone can be a real problem. When you are going to bed the other person is getting up. They're expecting a reply when you're in transit or have no access to the Internet. After a few e-mails backwards and forwards, I told my friend to e-mail AVG (as he was a licensed user) and simply complain. Specially, if he thought he had a virus and the software was unable to find it. He e-mailed me back a few hours later telling me he had received a reply from AVG within ten minutes. Good service we agreed. They had instructed him to update his software and re-run the virus program and then e-mail the error and log sheets. AVG had then told him there were probably no viruses on his system and presumably it was a different problem.\n\n About this stage I was getting a bit cheesed off with my friend. As it was hot 42 degrees and the beautiful clear water looked so inviting. And there were a few cool San ~McGils left. In bold writing I asked him, tell me the real facts. Three weeks ago I was getting 20 junk e-mails a day he said, 40 a day last week and this week 60 plus a day. And it was brought to my attention that under my e-mail address very questionable material has been sent to some of my best friends. This is really embarrassing especially for me because most of them are average users and have no idea I really did not send it. I told him to go to a web site I developed a few years ago in conjunction with a friend and use a Javascript detector program on our main page. The program checks all visitors (to the home page) and warns them if they have any known string codes on their system.\n \nBecause I do not want visitors going to my personal site, I'll not put the address here, but if you want to check your PC, visit http://www.doxdesk.com/parasites/ Or down load the Javascript from this site and run it on your own system, or run a link to the script.\n\n What my friend discovered he had over twenty Parasites on his computer. Generally I go into the registry, and remove them. But in this case I suggested he purchase a copy of NZ PC World magazine and use a program on the attached CD, Spybot or Lavasoft. He informed me a day later that Spybot had removed all the Parasites except lop/ayb. This type of parasite is extremely difficult to find. I instructed him how to manually remove it, but in the end we activated Remote Assistance (which comes with Microsoft Windows XP), so I could (via the Internet) enter his machine from Borcay Beach, 4500 thousand miles away and kill the little beast. Over the next week his e-mail count slowly dropped, now that his PC was not broadcasting to the World.\n\n Many web users unknowingly have unsolicited software installed on their computers. It can cause instability, spy on everything you do on the web, add unwanted advertising, and jeopardise your security. And some spy programs, spy on information entered into forms (even secure forms). Other Parasites make your modem call overseas phone numbers (diallers); others create security holes, which allows the makers to download and run software on your machine. Others can add advertising links to web pages even re-direct payments from affiliated fee schemes to the writers of the software and plague you with unwanted advertising and never ending pop up windows. But most importantly it can degrade your systems performance and causes errors, because generally the code is written extremely crudely.\n\n How come my anti-virus program does not detect parasitises?\n \nMost Parasites do not spread from one computer to another. They just get installed on your computer; so most anti-virus programs do not attempt to find them. This does not mean they are not harmful. They definitely are! AVG professional (not the free one) does detect a few parasites that install using Internet Explorer security holes. Anti-virus software retailers do not want to be in both camps. They have been known to use Adware to keep PC users buying their anti-virus product. Lavasoft anti-adware and Spybot are the best ones to use. Many others, which are advertised through junk e-mails, install adware and spyware on your machine and with several, follow up e-mails endeavouring to sell you a program to remove them. But these programs, more than likely have their own built in spyware program, which gets installed, when the other one is removed. Many companies who distribute spyware are generally the same companies who market junk e-mails and anti-adware software. They are just not as trustworthy as we would hope, by offering both products.\n\n ''How do they get on our PC?''\n\n Spyware applications are usually bundled as hidden components in mis-labeled "Freeware" and "Shareware" applications. Down-loaded from the Internet or from a CD, a spear module may be active on your computer at this moment without your knowledge. These modules are almost always installed on the system secretively, suggesting that spyware companies know how users feel about such software and figure that the best and only way to ensure its widespread use is to prevent the end user from discovering it.\n\n Parasites can also load using IE ~ActiveX options. When a page has a link to an ~ActiveX program, a window may appear asking us to execute it. If IE security setting are set low so it never asks or you click YES, the software has permission to install and run and can then do anything it likes on your computer. Many pop-up adverts may fool you into clicking YES by telling you this program is necessary to view their site. And if you click NO, endless error windows open forcing you into clicking yes at some stage.\n\n As I said many freeware programs are packaged with Adware. When you install the software, parasites are also installed at the corresponding time. Most freeware authors provide the free version with ads and a registered version whereby the ads are disabled. As such, you the user have (in some way) the choice; you either use the freeware with ads or you purchase the registered version. Under US law you must be warned, but very few people read the licence agreement. Learn to always read the small print, before you install the software. But even if you do any such discloses are often buried in a long densely worded licencing agreement, slipped in among pages and pages of legal jargon. With topics like disclaimers, copyrights distribution, government and similar topics of little relevance to you and me. To most of us, a phrase such as "may include software that will occasionally notify you of important news." Is not equivalent to, "will place a covert Trojan Horse on your PC that you can't easily get rid of which will collect information about you, websites you have visited and send it to us, and allow us to pester you with targeted advertisements every day of the week/month." Once the Spyware has been "disclosed" (even if it's a flowery statement) the Spyware Company can argue that you agreed with it by continuing beyond the licence agreement. Even if you are totally unaware of the spy that would now be living on your computer. Some Spyware Companies do not even mention the spyware at all often pointing the finger at the company whose software utilises it for not disclosing it, how convenient.\n\n Other Spyware and Adware programs execute by exploiting security holes in Internet Explorer by using techniques of getting programs to run that are not technically supposed to be possible. Internet Explorer is the only browser affected.\n\n Also sharing files stored on your hard drive with others, using software that allows you access to other user's computers over the Internet, can also be a way of picking up parasites. With the shut down of Napster, another system is now used; peer to peer file sharing. Basically, if you store a music file in ~MP3 format in a folder on your D drive you can share that music file by down-loading a peer to peer program. Kazaa is not a good one as it contains parasites (Adware/Spyware). Avoid it like Sars, so you are not plagued with Spyware. Many Peer to Peer file sharing programs are a guaranteed source of Spyware. A ~P2P program should only allow others to access the folders you want to share only when you are online. You can search for a music file, and the ~P2P (shorthand for Peer to Peer) sends out a request to search other computers on the network. Sometimes there are millions of private personal computers worldwide who have joined the network. When the search ends (which may take up to 10 minutes) and you click on a file, it downloads to your computer via the Internet, straight from the computer who has that file, which could be in Russia or just next door. It's a good system but you can easily download a parasite or virus with the file from someone else's computer as the file comes straight from their hard drive, which probably has no protection in place. \n\n''How to lower your risk and clean Parasites from your system.''\n\n Learn to reduce your risk by setting your level of security for the Internet, higher. Tools >Internet options >Security, to reset your Internet Zone. And always get the latest updates and patches from PC magazine CD's or from Microsoft, http://v4.windowsupdate.microsoft.com/en/default.asp this Microsoft site will check your system for required updates (98SE through to XP). Visit Doxdesk to detector parasites. Install either Lavasoft or Spybot and regularly update these programs. New Parasites are being developed all the time. There should be no problem installing both of these programs. One targets and removes spyware the other one misses. And prevent regular tracking by doing a clean up and delete all temporary Internet files, cookies and the like often. Be aware if you disable cookies, Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator will still send out existing cookies. You must delete all cookies on you PC to eliminate being tracked by Adware, Spyware and third-party providers. If you do use a Peer to Peer file sharing program (for ~MP3 files or trial programs) download your files to another drive. By downloading files and programs to the D-drive (and installing ~FreeWare on this drive) it is far easier to uninstall a program, as it will not affect your C-drive.\n\n '' Some anti-Spyware Software Sites:''\n# Spybot software at: http://security.koll.de/\n# ~Lava-AD-Aware software at: http://www.lavasoft.de/software/adaware/\n# ~PestPatrol software at: http://www.pestpatrol.com/ \n\n Pest Patrol costs $30. The trial version is free, which will not let you delete any spyware it finds, but because it has told you where they are located you can then go ahead and manually delete them, via Windows, DOS or the Registry. If you clean your system manually you do this at your own risk. Editing the Registry without basic understanding of the dangers may result in your PC not starting up any more. You may need to reinstall Windows, which can be a real pain. So it's important you follow the instructions VERY carefully.\n\n More removal info at http://www.simplythebest.net/info/spyware.html. This website lists information on how to remove most Parasites. And Andrew at Doxdesk has good instructions for removal of items on his list.\n\n // - John Thomson Gella@paradise.net.nz//\n\n PS. The more you understand about these little demons, the better you'll be able to fight them off.\n

By Chad Denton of SmartComputing\n\n Breaking up your large hard drive into several smaller drives is known as partitioning. Partitioning a hard drive divides a single physical drive into multiple "virtual" drives.\n\nPartitioning lets you add additional operating systems, work around limitations to hard drive size, or simply oganize the hard drive. FDISK, a partition ultility distributed with Windows, and other partitioning utilities often destroy data. However, Partition Magic from Power-Quest lets you reap the benefits of a partitioned hard drive without damaging any of your data.\n\n Partition Magic version 5.0 is every bit as indispensable to chronic hard drive partitioners as its ancestors. The graphical interface hasn't changed much from version 4.0, but we still really like it. You can quickly get a picture of the overall structure of your hard drive and right-click on various partitions to easily resize, delete, or label a partition. We like the four wizards that guide new users through common tasks, such as creating a new partition, redistributing free space, and merging partitions. The new Merge Partition feature lets you merge two adjacent Windows partitions.\n\n If the changes you're making don't involve the Windows partition (the C: drive), all the changes are made right from Windows. If you are making a change to the partition containing your Windows directory, your system will reboot and make the proper changes before booting into Windows.\n\n Because many users partition a hard drive to make room for additional operating systems, we like the fact that Partition Magic operates on Windows/DOS, Windows NT/2000, Linux, and even OS/2, making it extremely flexible.\n\n New users will have Partition Magic up and running in minutes, and experienced users will like the control it provides them. The one thing we don't like is its $65 street price, which is expensive for the casual user who wants to reorganize a hard drive. If you want to install a second operating system however, Partition Magic will probably save you a lot of time and trouble.\n\n by Chad Denton\n Partition Magic 5.0\n US$65\n PowerQuest\n (800) 379-2566\n (801) 437-8900\n http://www.powerquest.com/ \n

''Selecting and Storing Your Password''\nby Lanette Olsen\nhttp://www.ucdavis.edu/\n\n Security: Measures adopted to guarantee freedom or secrecy of action, communication, or the like.\n\n ''Password:'' A secret word or phrase that one uses to gain admittance or access to information.\n Your password -- your secret word or phrase -- allows only you access to the University of California, Davis' computing resources. Like the key to your home's front door, your password keeps out unwanted intruders. Would you leave your house keys lying around to be picked up by just anybody? And in this day and age, how many people hide their keys underneath the front door mat? So then, why are electronic passwords still scribbled on sticky notes on computer screens or stashed under keyboards or in the back of desk drawers?\n According to some analysts, more than a million passwords have been stolen to date. It is surprisingly easy to guess or steal passwords. Hackers can launch a dictionary attack by comparing your password with every word in a dictionary -- foreign as well as English -- in a matter of minutes. Or they can use "sniffers," programs that read every keystroke sent from a machine, including passwords. You can take measures, however, to reduce the likelihood that such schemes will be successful when it comes to your password. Memorize your password, rather than writing it down; never share your password with anyone; never send your password via email; and don't choose one that is too predictable or easy to guess.\n\n ''Why is this important?''\n Someone who guesses or steals a password can conceivably access files, email messages, funds, and personal information. This may allow the hacker to change or destroy files or send email threats in someone else's name. And this chaos can extend beyond just one account. Once intruders gain access to a system, \nthey can monitor other machines and systems on the same network and even monitor the remote systems to which the local users connect. For example, an unwanted intruder might, by way of a stolen password, gain access to confidential student or University financial information.\n\n ''What can you do to help?''\n Well, to start with, don't leave that password lying around. Passwords, like the keys to your front door, provide security only if handled properly. Network and systems administrators can enhance security through the use of advanced security features (such as firewalls, encryption and authentication), but ultimate responsibility comes back to you, the end user.\n*What to include in your password:\n**Choose a password that is easy for you to remember but difficult to guess. It should contain at least seven characters.\n**Use punctuation marks or symbols within your password. Do not use a blank space!\n**Always mix upper- and lowercase letters.\n**Select a unique password, not one that you are using for some other purpose.\n**Specifically, if you are or will be using central computing systems at UC Davis, your password must include\n***7 to 8 characters\n***At least one upper-case letter\n***At least one lower-case letter\n**At least one number\n**At least one special character (must be $ if you are or will be using VMS).\n\n ''What not to do:''\n**Don't write down your password!\n**Don't send your password via email. Email is not secure. (Keys in the mail? Never!)\n**Don't store your password in a file on your computer.\n**Don't use dictionary or foreign words, names, doubled names or first/last names and initials.\n**Stay away from simple transformations of words (e.g., 7eleven, seven11, etc.) or any alphabet or keyboard sequence (backwards or forwards).\n**Don't even consider short words, single characters, phone numbers, birth dates or numbers substituted for letters (like a zero instead of the letter O).\n**Be wary of programs unnecessarily requiring your password. Once you are logged in to a given computer system, it should not need to know your password again.\n\n And remember to change your password if:\n**You have had the same one for more than six months.\n**You have told it to anyone (even Mom) or have written it down anywhere.\n**You have logged onto a system from another city or campus.\n**You are notified that it does not meet current standards.\n\n Strategies for choosing a good password The following are only suggestions for developing a secure password. Please, please do not use these examples! Including them in this document compromises their security.\n\n**Lines from a favorite childhood verse.\n***Example: London Bridge Is Falling Down\n***Password: LBif%Down\n\n**Expressions about a favorite geographical area.\n***Example: I left my heart in San Francisco\n***Password: iLmHiS#F\n***Example: Sunny California\n***Password: suNIc*al!\n\n**Foods liked or disliked as a child.\n***Example: Fish on Fridays\n***Password: FoFda!\n***Example: Chocolate Pudding\n***Password: cHO%dinG \n\n Try substituting antonyms or synonyms for your chosen words or interweave letters and characters from successive words. Ultimately, any password you choose has to be known to you and you alone and must conform to local procedures for constructing passwords.\n For further information on this and other security issues, visit the Web at *http://security.ucdavis.edu/. And remember, ditch those sticky notes!\n Lanette Olsen is a technical writer. Doreen Meyer, from IT's Distributed Computing Analysis Support (DCAS), contributed to this QuickTip.\n

''Overview''\n\n The personal computer (PC) has revolutionized business and personal activities and even the way people talk and think; however, its development has been less of a revolution than an evolution and convergence of three critical elements - thought, hardware, and software. Although the PC traces its lineage to the mainframe and minicomputers of the 1950's and 1960's, the conventional thought that was prevalent during the first thirty years of the computer age saw no value in a small computer that could be used by individuals.\n\n A PC is a microcomputer, so named because it is smaller than a minicomputer, which in turn is smaller than a mainframe computer. While early mainframes and their peripheral devices often took up the floor space of a house, minicomputers are about the size of a refrigerator and stove. The microcomputer, whose modern development traces back to the early 1970's, and fits on a desk.\n From the start, the creation of the computer was centred around the concept that a single unit would be used to perform complex calculations with greater speed and accuracy than humans could achieve.\n\n ''The Transistor''\n\n On December 23, 1947, one of the most far-reaching technologies of the 20th Century was developed at Bell Laboratories by John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley - the transistor. But the transistor wasn't available to U.S. manufacturers until 1956, when a seven year-old antitrust law suit against AT&T, the owners of Bell Labs, was settled. The judgment required that AT&T give away licenses to manufacture the transistor to American companies. Following this decision, the transistor was used to replace thousands of vacuum tubes in computers and began the miniaturization of electronics.\n \nBecause it drastically reduced the size and heat considerations of the large vacuum tubes, the transistor enabled the computer to become a viable tool for business and government.\n\n '' The Computer Mystique''\n\n From the beginning, computers baffled the populous with their capability. In corporate and government offices and on university campuses, information processing departments sprouted up to serve the computer. The IBM 701, which was introduced in 1952 as a business computer, was comprised of several units that could be shipped and connected at a customer's location, rather than the earlier massive units that had to be assembled on site. In 1953, IBM began shipping the first mass-produced computer, the IBM 650. IBM introduced the first solid-state (transistorized) computer in 1959, the IBM 7090. Then in 1964, IBM culminated over $1 billion in research when it brought out the System/360 series of computers. Unlike other mainframes, the System/360 computers were compatible with each other.\n \nBy 1960, the computer was king. Companies hired armies of technicians and programmers to write its operating programs and software, fix it, and allocate the precious computer time. The capability of the machines was more than a mere mortal could fathom, but gathering raw data and "keying" it in so the computer could "crunch the numbers" was a complicated and time-consuming task.\n \nFrustrations abounded, computer errors were called "glitches," and the phrases "garbage in/garbage out," "It's a computer mistake," and "Sorry, the computer's down and we can't do anything," were introduced into the lexicon.\n\n On college campuses in the 1960s, students carried bundles of computer cards to and from class, hoping that their share of the valuable computer time would not be bumped or allocated to someone else. The term, "Do not fold, spindle or mutilate," was coined so people wouldn't disable the process of feeding the punched computer cards into punch card readers, where the intricate patterns of holes were decoded.\n \nThe computer mystique was reinforced in people every time they heard of some new accomplishment. In 1961, a computer calculated the value of pi to 100,000 decimal places. A computer could play checkers, and in 1967 a chess playing computer program was made an honorary member of the United States Chess Federation. Banks began printing checks with magnetic ink so they could be processed by the computers.\n\n '' A Small Change in Thought''\n\n Until 1971, nobody even thought of a computer as anything but a big, fast, electronic brain that resided in a climate-controlled room and consumed data and electricity in massive quantities. In 1971, an Intel 4004 chip containing 4004 transistors was programmed to perform complex mathematical calculations; the hand-held calculator was born. Suddenly, scientists and engineers could carry the computational power of a computer with them to job sites, classrooms, and laboratories; but the hand-held calculator, like the ENIAC before it, was not yet a computer. The microprocessor was developed by Robert Noyce, the founder of Intel and one of the inventors of the integrated circuit, and brought with it a change in the way people worked.\n\n '' New Technologies and New Ideas''\n\n Small, hand-held calculators had provided an idea, or at least a "what if," to some people. Still, in the early 1970s, computers were used for number crunching and printing out long streams of green and white paper. IBM Selectric typewriters were the top of the line "word processors" and Xerox copiers churned out photocopies. Most people never imagined that a computer could process data in real time, be used to write letters, or fit on a desk.\n \nIn 1972, Intel brought out its 8008 chip, capable of processing 8-bits of data, enough to convey numbers and letters of the alphabet. In that same year, Xerox began working on a personal computer at their Palo Alto Research Center. For the next several years, a team of Xerox scientists worked on the "Alto," a small computer that would have become the first PC if only the development team had been able to convince someone of its usefulness.\n \nLikewise, in 1972 Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), a minicomputer manufacturing company headed by Kenneth Olsen, had a group of product engineers developing the DEC Datacenter. This PC incorporated not only the computer hardware but the desk as well. The DEC Datacenter could have put tremendous computing capability in the home or at work, but management saw no value to the product and halted its development.\n \nIn the end, none of the giant companies whose names had been synonymous with computers would introduce the PC to the world. There seemed to be no future in an inexpensive product that would replace the million dollar "Big Iron" that they were selling as fast as they could make them. The people who eventually introduced the PC were rebels. Many had spent time in the bowels of the big companies and were frustrated by the lack of vision they encountered. They retreated into their own garages and attended meetings with other "computer nuts" who saw a much different future than the one laid out over the previous 30 years by the giants of the computer industry.\n\n ''The PC is Born''\n\n In 1975, Rubik's Cube was put on store shelves and proved to many that the human brain was incapable of complex problem solving. But a ray of hope also appeared; the first PC was introduced. Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems, Inc. (MITS) sold a kit for the MITS Altair 8800 that enabled computer hobbyists to assemble their own computers. It had no monitor, no keyboard, no printer, and couldn't store data, but the demand for it, like Rubik's Cube, was overwhelming.\n \nThe Altair proved that a PC was both possible and popular, but only with those people who would spend hours in their basements with soldering irons and wire strippers. The Altair, which looked like a control panel for a sprinkler system, didn't last, but it helped launch one of the largest companies in the computer world and gave a couple of young software programmers a start. In 1974, Bill Gates and Paul Allen wrote a version of BASIC for the Altair and started a company called Microsoft Corporation. In 1976, another computer kit was sold to hobbyists - the Apple I. Stephen Wozniak sold his Volkswagen and Steve Jobs sold his programmable calculator to get enough money to start Apple. In 1977, they introduced the Apple II, a pre-assembled PC with a color monitor, sound, and graphics. It was popular, but everyone knew that a serious computer didn't need any of this. The kits were just a hobby and the Apple II was seen as a toy. Even the Apple name wasn't a serious, corporate sounding name like IBM, Digital Equipment Corporation, or Control Data.\n \nBut 1977 also brought competition. The Zilog ~Z-80 microprocessor, which had been introduced in 1975, was used in the Tandy Radio Shack ~TRS-80, affectionately called the "Trash 80." Apple, Commodore, and Tandy dominated the PC marketplace. The Apple II had 16K bytes of RAM and 16K bytes of ROM; Commodore Business Machines' Personal Electronic Transactor (PET) included 4K RAM and 14K ROM; and the ~TRS-80 had 4K RAM and 4K ROM.\n\n Also in 1977, the Central Program for Microprocessors (CP/M) operating system was developed by Digital Research and Gary Kildall. From its introduction until 1980, CP/M was used in most ~PCs, but even that did not guarantee that a program or document could be written on one machine and read on another because each manufacturer used different floppy disk drives.\n \nApple introduced the floppy disk drive in 1978, allowing Apple II users to store data on something other than the cumbersome and unreliable tape cassettes that had been used up to that point. But despite the popularity of the three ~PCs, non-computer people still saw little reason to buy an expensive calculator when there were other ways to do the same things. In 1979, that all changed. \n\nWhen ~VisiCalc was introduced for the Apple II, non-computer people suddenly saw a reason to buy a computer. ~VisiCalc, a spreadsheet program created by Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston, allowed people to change one number in a budget and watch the effect it had on the entire budget. It was something new and valuable that could only be done with a computer. For thousands of people, the toy, the computer few could find a use for, had been transformed into a device that could actually do something worthwhile.\n\n Microprocessors and high-tech gadgets were gradually worming their way into people's lives. In 1978, Sony introduced the Beta format video cassette recorder, and a year later the VHS video recorder and the Sony Walkman. And to remind everyone of how far we had to go, Star Trek: The Motion Picture came to theaters in 1979.\n\n The Sinclair ~ZX-80 PC, which hit the market in 1980, used the same ~Z-80 chip as Commodore's PET and the Tandy ~TRS-80. The ~ZX-80 had 1K RAM and 4K ROM. Developed by British entrepreneur Clive Sinclair, the ~ZX-80 meant that people could enter the computer revolution for under $200. Its small size and price attracted people who had never thought about owning a PC.\n \nThe Commodore ~VIC-20, also introduced in 1980, had a color monitor and would eventually become the first PC to sell more than one million units.\n \nEven with all of the success the early PC manufacturers had in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the advances in microprocessor speeds, and the creation of software, the PC was still not seen as a serious business tool. Unknown to everyone in the computer industry; however, a huge oak tree was about to drop an acorn that would fall close to the tree and change everything.\n\n ''Validation of the PC''\n\n Two events occurred in 1981 that would have a tremendous impact on the future of the PC. In 1980, IBM had started a secret project in Boca Raton, Florida called "Acorn." Thirteen months later, in 1981, IBM introduced the IBM PC, a product that validated the PC as a legitimate business tool. For many people, even those who prided themselves on being able to operate the "Big Iron," if IBM was making ~PCs then the small desk-top units were worthy of respect.\n \nWhen the IBM PC hit the market, it was a compete system. Secretly, IBM had provided software developers with prototypes of their PC so they could develop an array of programs that would be available when the machine hit the streets. IBM also developed printers, monitors, and expansion cards for the PC and made it an open system so other manufacturers could develop peripherals for it. The IBM PC used an Intel 8088 microprocessor, had 16K of RAM, was expandable to 256K, came with one 5.25-inch disk drive and room for a second, and was available with a choice of operating systems; CP/M-86 or IBM ~PC-DOS, which had been developed by Microsoft.\n \nThe second major event of 1981 was the introduction of the first luggable computer, the Osborne 1. This self-contained, suitcase-sized PC, developed by Adam Osborne, was not only the first portable PC, but also the first to be sold with software. The Osborne I came with BASIC, CBASIC, ~WordStar for word processing, and the ~SuperCalc spreadsheet program. Over the next two years, the Osborne Computing Company would go from nothing to a company with $70 million in annual revenue and then into bankruptcy.\n \nPrior to 1980, the most common method of storing data was to connect an audio tape recorder to the PC and dump data to standard tape cassettes. Large word processors and some ~PCs had 8-inch disk drives, but in 1980 Al Shugart introduced the Winchester hard-disk drive.\n\n ''The Race was On''\n\n Now that the PC had been validated, it began appearing on desk-tops in large and small companies to produce work schedules and payrolls, write letters and memos, and generate budgets. Software enabled people to do more in less time and business was promised the "paperless office" as an added benefit of the PC.\n \nManagers attended classes and began writing memos and letters, but many felt that the work they could now do themselves on a PC was demeaning; it was the work that secretaries and clerks had always done. For some, having a PC on the desk meant that they now had to do the work, not just delegate it, and for others it meant they no longer supervised a person, but a machine.\n \nThere was also a strong fear factor. The ~PCs were expensive and many people were afraid they would damage the units or erase everything in one keystroke. People who had always worked with things they could see and understand were suddenly putting their faith in chips and hard drives that they not only couldn't see or touch, but they also didn't understand. Suddenly it was permissible to make a mistake in spelling or grammar; it could be changed and rewritten until it was correct. The whole thought process didn't set well with some, for others it freed them from the drudgery of using white correction-fluid to cover up mistakes on printed documents.\n\n The early 1980s were a time of furious change in the computer industry. More than 100 companies were manufacturing ~PCs, each with its own unique features, each with its own software. When IBM entered the market in 1981, software companies knew that writing IBM compatible software would be profitable. Software for the Apple II had exploded to 16,000 titles and IBM would do the same. New software in the 1980s included ~WordStar, Lotus 1-2-3, Microsoft Word, and Word Perfect.\n\n In 1981, Hayes Micromodem brought the ~MOdulator/~DEModulator (MODEM) to the market for ~PCs. The modem had been invented at AT&T Bell Labs in 1960 to connect mainframes and minicomputers. Hayes' modem allowed ~PCs to communicate with each other and access ~CompuServe and The Source, the online services that started up in 1979. ~CompuServe showed people what to do with their 300 baud modems by offering them an array of services and databases to connect with.\n \nIn 1982 Compaq introduced the first IBM compatible machine. Until Compaq, most manufacturers feared IBM and would not bring out a machine that was compatible with the PC. Later the compatibles would be termed "clones."\n\n Also in 1982, Tandy brought out the ~TRS-80 Model 16, which was based on the Motorola 68000 and Z-80 microprocessors. The Model 16 retailed for $5,000 and included 128K RAM, an 8-inch floppy disk drive, as well as the Xenix operating system, a derivative of UNIX.\n \nIn January, 1983 Time magazine anointed the PC as the "Man of the Year," a designation by the editors that the computer had been the most influential newsmaker of 1982. The magazine estimated 80 million ~PCs would be in use by the end of the century. Industry leaders included Texas Instruments, Timex, Commodore, Atari, Apple, IBM, and Tandy, with Osborne leading the way in the portable market. The individuals pushing the PC into the future were John Opel at IBM, Adam Osborne of Osborne Computers, ~VisiCalc creator Dan Bricklin, Jack Tramiel of Commodore, and Clive Sinclair who founded Sinclair Research.\n\n The leading products of 1982 and their sales figures included the Timex/Sinclair 1000 - 600,000; Commodore ~VIC-20 - over 600,000, Atari 400 and Atari 800 - 600,000; Texas Instruments 99/4A - 530,000; ~TRS-80 Model III - 300,000; Apple II Plus - 270,000; IBM PC - 200,000; and Osborne 1 - 55,000. These computers ranged in price from the $99 Timex/Sinclair to the Osborne 1 at $1,795 with bundled software. In the opinion of Time, computers priced over $2,000 would appeal to a market of "…growing small businesses and big corporate clients…" Manufacturers of these higher end ~PCs included Altos, Corvus, Cromemco, Control Data, Digital Equipment, ~Hewlett-Packard, North Star, Olivetti, Tele Video, Toshiba, Xerox, and Zenith.\n\n But in 1983 there was once again a wind of change blowing across the PC landscape.\n \n//Part 2 will complete this article in next month's ~MegaByte.//\n

// Last month we started this article with the early history of the PC up until about 1983. Then came the Apple Mac...!//\n\n ''The Mac Attack''\n\n In 1983, Apple brought out a machine that failed to sell but nonetheless showed consumers and manufacturers a new direction for the PC. The Lisa, an expensive PC with a graphical user interface (GUI), hit the market with a thud. At $10,000, it had few friends and even fewer buyers. Also in 1983, IBM introduced IBM XT with a 10 MB hard drive, three additional expansion slots, 128 KB RAM, and a 360 KB floppy drive. To many buyers, the 10 MB storage capacity seemed large enough to last a lifetime.\n\n Immediately after the failure of Lisa, Steven Jobs rethought the machine and in 1984, out came the Macintosh. The Macintosh was powered by Motorola's 68000 processor and came with 128KB of RAM. It was so radically different from any other PC that it split the PC world into two halves that would not be rejoined for another decade. In addition to the GUI that made the computer an "intuitive" extension of the user, the "Mac" had its own operating system that was incompatible with IBM's ~MS-DOS system. Suddenly PC meant ~DOS-based and IBM compatible and Mac meant GUI and mouse.\n \n The Mac was introduced to the world in an extravagant television commercial that was shown only once during half-time of the NFL Super Bowl. The commercial changed the advertising industry almost as much as the Mac changed computing. Suffering from the failure of the Apple III and Lisa, Apple was literally saved by the Mac. \n\nPeople who hated computers loved the simplicity of Mac. The GUI allowed the user to click a mouse button on an icon to launch a program, print a document, or copy a file. No longer did users have to know combinations of keys or special codes to get the computer to do what they wanted it to do. The Mac was "user friendly."\n\nAlthough not the first PC with a mouse or GUI (that distinction went to Xerox's $50,000 Star that came out in 1981 and immediately failed), the Mac did set the computer world on its ear because of its ease of operation and its operating system.\n\nWhen Apple came out with the Apple ~LaserWriter in 1985 it was with Adobe Systems Inc.'s ~PostScript page description language. By 1986, with its what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) display and printing, desk-top publishing was born. WYSIWYG meant that a person could format a document with special fonts and spacing and be assured that what came out of the printer would look like what they had created on the screen.\n\nAdobe, founded in 1982 by John Warnock and Charles Geschke, turned the printed page into a graphic image. The bit map made each pixel on the screen a definable image that could be moved and changed without the limitations of a standard text format. ~PostScript changed the way people thought about fonts, page layout, and the visual impact of the documents they produced with their PC. Printers like the Apple ~LaserWriter and the ~Hewlett-Packard HP ~LaserJet made every document look like it had been professionally typeset and printed.\n\nIn 1985, the Commodore Amiga 1000, which featured multitasking, graphics, sound, and video in a windowing operating system, exposed people to multimedia. At the same time Toshiba came out with the T1100 laptop, Tandy introduced the Tandy 200 laptop, and AT&T introduced the UNIX PC. Intel took the microprocessor to a new level when it brought out the 386 microprocessor in 1985, proving that ~PCs were not only getting better, they were getting faster.\n\nThe 1980's were very active times for hardware manufacturers and software producers. Small software companies locked in with either IBM or Macintosh, but large companies like Microsoft were able to create new applications for both operating systems. While Aldus brought out ~PageMaker, and Lotus introduced Jazz, Microsoft announced Excel for the Mac, C 3.0, and finally shipped a long-awaited program called Windows.\n\nBill Gates, a founder of Microsoft, tried three times to interest IBM in Windows but was turned down each time. Although the Mac operating system had changed the interface between users and their ~PCs, many DOS users continued to hang on to their command line-driven ~MS-DOS operating system, and it would be several more years until the Windows concept caught on.\n\nWith the availability of hundreds of software programs, hard disk space became valuable real estate. The 10 MB hard disk on the IBM XT began to fill up so hard drive manufacturers started the process of doubling their capacity.\n\nAs modems proliferated and the Hayes Smartmodem was accepted as the standard for modems, just about everyone either knew someone they could get online with, subscribed to an online service such as ~CompuServe, or wanted to access the 1000 host sites on the Internet.\n\nBut ~PCs that were connected to the outside world were also vulnerable to a new phenomenon called viruses. Once downloaded, these programs could attach themselves without warning to a PC's hard drive and gradually or in the blink of an eye destroy or overwrite files. Virus checkers then became the rage for anyone who received data over telephone lines.\n\nBy 1987 enough people were writing their own software and sharing it that the Association of Shareware Professionals was formed to market and protect the inexpensive software. In 1987 a new computer language, C++, stimulated the growth of object-oriented programming (OOP). Out of the Box and Obsolete\n\nFor consumers, the late 1980s were a time of frustration. No sooner had they learned to run their new PC and Macs than a new, better, larger, faster model was on the shelf. New versions of software, printers, and modems made it impossible to have the latest of anything.\n\nIn 1990, Intel's 386 and Motorola's 68030 microprocessors were at the top, then in 1991 Intel brought out the i486SX 20 ~MHz chip and Motorola introduced the 68040. Less than a year later Intel introduced the 50 ~MHz 486 chip and Tandy brought out its $400 ~CD-ROM drive for ~PCs. Then, just to make everyone wonder what was going on, in 1991 Apple and IBM agreed to share technology by integrating the Mac into IBM's systems and using the IBM Power PC chip.\n\nIn 1992, Apple brought out the Apple ~PowerBook, a laptop that made everyone wonder just how small a full-function computer could get. A year later everyone knew the answer when Apple introduced the Newton Personal Digital Assistant (PDA). The Newton was supposed to be able to recognize hand-written notes and Apple sold 50,000 of them in 10 weeks.\n\nIn 1993, Intel introduced the 60 ~MHz Pentium chip, the next generation of chips. The Pentium; however, had a nasty mathematical bug and its acceptance was slowed. Apple discontinued the workhorse of its fleet, the Apple II, which, despite the mind boggling changes in the industry, had lasted 17 years. Not only were hardware and software obsolete, people were also getting caught up in their own obsolescence. For years, employers had included the operating systems and software names in their advertising for clerical and secretarial positions. As companies used more temporary workers and included both IBM clones and Macintosh's in their operations, proficiency with only one slammed the door on employment opportunities.\n\nMany people enrolled in classes to learn the latest software or update their computer skills. A good, well-rounded employee needed to know desktop publishing, two or more word processing programs, at least one spreadsheet program, and a graphics package. They had to be able to access the company local area network (LAN), send and receive E-mail using high-speed modems, and solve problems with hardware and software to maximize their output. Microprocessor-driven telephones, cellular phones, and pagers added to the complexity of the job, and repetitive motion syndrome from using keyboards hour after hour created an army of people wearing wrist braces.\n\nMany people left a job where their day was spent working at a computer terminal or PC and went home to enjoy the quite, relaxing camaraderie they found in Internet chat rooms, by visiting the World Wide Web, or reading their favourite newspapers and electronic magazines (ezines).\n\nFrom its inception in 1975, the PC has become a focal point of business, education, and home life. The microprocessor, an amazing technology when it had 4000 transistors on a single chip, is now even more amazing when it has over 3 billion transistors on an even smaller chip. In 1982, when Time magazine made the computer its "Man of the Year," the PC was still in its infancy. "Big Iron" still dominated the high-tech environment and having a personal computer was a luxury. \n

//Robin Hinde reviews another of his digital “geek” toys!//\n\nThis is one of those products that people often don't "get" until they experience one first hand, and yet the requirement for something like this is fairly obvious when you look at current trends in photography.\n\nMany people have made the move to digital photography, yet still think in terms of film once a photo has been taken. So people still print out their best images and store them in albums (actually, a good idea, as this gives you a hard copy backup of your most prized images) and yet, that doesn't really make any use of the fact that the medium is digital. Photo albums are often put away and only viewed very occasionally.\n\nWhy not "get" digital, and share with friends and family by publishing on Flickr; and instead of just putting one print into a photo frame at home, why not fit hundreds so you can change them according to your mood, or have them constantly changing as a slideshow.\n\n''Description:''\n\nThe Philips Photo Display is a high resolution LCD display, approximately the size of a 6x4 photo print. The display is 720x480 pixels, giving a dotpitch of less than 0.2mm - much finer than even the best LCD monitors generally available - and the end result is really stunning. It looks as good as any printed photograph and is easily bright enough to be viewed indoors in daylight.\n\nThe display is intended to run from mains power (an adapter is supplied), but is also capable of running for an hour or so on its own internal battery, It has around 12MB of memory for storing photos internally (more than 50 images) but it also has a built in card reader. This can be used to transfer photos from memory cards to the display, or to display images directly from the memory card.\n\nUSB connectivity allows you to connect other devices to the display - external card readers, thumbdrives or digital cameras - or to manage the display from a PC. Note that a PC is not required to use this display - you could just use a digital camera with this display without involving a PC at any stage. Images (which can be up to 12MB) are automatically resized as they are transferred to the display.\n\nThe display has its own operating system, and its own unique user interface. A row of buttons along the top edge on the back of the display correspond with icons displayed on the top edge of the screen when the display is in an interactive mode, as when changing settings, for example. This is reasonably intuitive to use, although the icons and navigation take a little getting used to (I've found some other Philips products to be let down by their menu systems). The display has a lot of settings - brightness, orientation, slideshow transition effects, language, and time. If you set the time correctly, the display will be able to switch itself on and off at times you select, and can also run at a different brightness setting between 6pm and 6am if desired.\n\nSeveral display modes are available - slideshow mode allows you to sequentially or randomly display images at intervals from <5 seconds to one day. Browse mode allows you to select a photo to display, and to manually move forward and back through the collection. A thumbnail mode allows you to manage the image collection - you can add images from external media, or rotate or delete internal photos in this mode. I would think that slideshow mode will be most commonly used.\n\nThe display ships with a brief introductory manual, a full manual on CDROM, a power adapter, a clip on stand, and two USB cables.\n\n''Other photo displays:''\n\nThere are other photo frames available, some are larger, most have lower resolution, and most are more expensive. A large sampling of what is available in the US can be seen at: http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/103-5326680-3007853?search-alias=electronics-aps&keywords=digital%20picture%20frame\n\nThinkgeek has a small range of displays listed, including an 8" display capable of playing mp3s and video: http://www.thinkgeek.com/electronics/cameras/7e13/\n\nCeiva was one of the first developers of photoframes, but require a phone line to retrieve images from a central server:\nhttp://www.ceiva.com/home/hp/index.jsp\n\nOne of the most interesting ones I've found is the eStarling, which has ~WiFi built in. This can display images from a memory card, but can also retrieve images from its own dedicated email account or from a specified RSS feed. This gives you the option of sending new photos to your display by email, or automatically adding photos whenever you upload photos to Flickr, as your Flickr account has RSS feeds out:\nhttp://www.thinkgeek.com/electronics/cameras/7edc/\n\n''The good points:''\n\n* stunningly good display\n* easy to use - no PC required\n* built in card reader\n* good USB connectivity\n* unobtrusive and contemporary design\n* reasonably priced compared to other photoframes.\n\n''The bad points:''\n\n* expensive for what it does\n* won't read XD cards, requiring external card reader\n* lacks date or calendar functions\n* cannot customise display settings to day of the week\n* prominent Philips logo on front of display is upended if the display is used in portrait orientation\n* navigating through large image collections can be slow. \n\n''Conclusion:''\n\nA very impressive device. While there are photo displays available overseas, this is one of the few currently readily available in NZ. In addition, this unit is priced well below some of the other devices available, and has much higher resolution. It has good connectivity to USB devices and the built in card reader is very useful. While other connectivity would be nice (for example, bluetooth or wifi) the display would be considerably more expensive if these were included. The price seems quite expensive for what you get, but it has dropped since the display was first available in NZ, and I'm sure it will drop further.\n\nSince the display has a clock built in, I think Philips missed an opportunity to include simple calendar functions in the device (so it could be set to not display on weekends, for example), but also so it could display time and date as an overlay on the image if desired. I'm sure that would increase the appeal of the display to some. Since the display runs its own operating system, perhaps Philips will be able to include new functionality in future firmware updates.\n\nThese displays make fantastic presents - I've bought two of these units as presents in the past few months, and they've been very well received. While people are usually sceptical when you describe the photoframe to them, people who see the real thing are invariably impressed, in some cases not realising they aren't looking at a printed photograph.\n\nExpensive, but very highly recommended.\n\n''Links:''\n\nAvailable from Flashcards, usually arrives within 24 hours of ordering:\n\nhttp://www.flashcards.co.nz/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=27&products_id=735\n\nNote that Flashcards also have the best value memory card prices in NZ.\n\n\n

By Richard Elam\n\n Over the last few months club members have been exposed to a number of presentations which involved the need for some photo manipulation. Win Brendgens demonstrated the use of his scanner and some software he had been supplied with his scanner form ~ArcSoft.\n\n Roger showed us both at the Wellington meeting and recently at Lower Hutt how our new slide and film strip scanner worked and Robin Hinde at that meeting then demonstrated some genuine free photo-editing software called Photofiltre. You will notice the spelling of the name which reflects the French software house where it was written.\n I myself have a number of programmes which can manipulate, convert and modify photo images.\n\n ''Freeware''\n Photofiltre as shown us by Robin is quite an amazing little programme. It is less than 2 MB to download and yet has a selection of filters and effects that are normally only available in expensive commercial programs. It has selection tools that enable effects top be applied to part of the picture. One feature missing is "layers" - you can only work on the single layer of the picture, but for normal digital photo corrections and enhancement I don't think that is so important.\n Apart from that however it can save in most required bitmap formats (BMP, JPEG, TIFF, GIF, Targa and PNG) with control over the JPEG compression rate. It has 17 filter effects on the drop-down filter menu and many of those have up to four or five sub-selections. One interesting filter is "~PhotoMasque" which masks around the edges of the picture with various shapes and blends, creating a "frame" around the picture. Varying degrees of transparency can be applied in selected colours and with control over blur and opacity.\n{{{\n Photofiltre - showing the range of tools and menus\n}}}\n All the usual controls are present for colour saturation, contrast, brightness, and even has a simple gamma adjustment, in all or selected channels. There are no "wizards" in this great little program but as it costs little but some time to find it and download it, its great value and a lot of fun to use. Find it by searching on the web by name or try www.photofiltre.com. You have to read and understand French however on that website, and in the end I downloaded from download site I found using Google. The software I have is in English, although some og the sentence structure is a little quaint.\n Another favourite of mine which is also free, is ~PhotoPlus published by Serif. I have sung the praises of Serif software for many years, and they have made earlier versions of al their commercial software available free and registrable for some years. ~PhotoPlus 5.5 is available free from www.freeserifsoftware.com, although the latest edition for purchase is about version 8. ~PhotoPlus appears more sophisticated than Photofiltre, because of its appearance (rather like a clone of Photoshop) and more particularly its provision of layers. Because of this you can apply a number of effects with semitransparent overlays, and write editable text on other layers. On the other hand I don't think it has as many filter effects as Photofiltre which is obviously that little programs strength.\n\n Irfanview is freely available and on nearly every magazine disk each month. I see it presented mainly as a file viewer, but it will also play sound and video if the right codecs are installed. In addition it will do simple editing and file conversion form one graphic format to a large number of alternatives. I have little experience in this program, but other club members swear by it.\n\n ''Shareware''\n In the past, ~PaintShop Pro was the shareware program of choice for photo-editing. Up until version 4.13 (I think) it was traditional shareware, which you could try for ever and a day. Beyond that it became more commercial and it is now only available for purchase at similar prices to Adobe Photoshop Elements, and other of the simpler photo programs published by ~U_Lead, Microsoft, ~ArcSoft, etc. The current version has layers, filters and "plug-ins" in much the same way as the full Adobe Photoshop, but you have to pay for it. If you would like to try a shareware version you can still find it on the web - use Google or similar to search for "~PaintShop Pro 4.13" and see what you fined.\n{{{\n Photoplus - note the layer palette in the bottom right hand corner\n}}}\n ''Commercial Programs''\n I have been able to try three version of Adobe Photoshop, and I think that Photoshop Elements 2 is very good at something over $200. It is a cut-down version of the full program (currently at version 7) which cost nearer to $900-$1,000. It has layers, many filters, plug-ins that are compatible with its big brother, navigator bars and very detailed control of colour, brightness, contrast and colour saturation. One tool that was well demonstrated by Roger recently was the "clone" tool to manually remove marks and blemishes from a scanned photograph. The same tool some publications use to remove the wrinkles and age lines from models and celebrities! Photoshop Elements is supplied with many scanners, digital cameras and has developed from an earlier series of Photoshop LE ("Light Edition") which rose to version 5.0 before being superseded by Elements. A good pedigree and now established as one of the best of the cheaper affordable photo-editing software on the market.\n{{{\n Photoshop Elements - look like the full-blown big brother with layers and navigator bar. \n}}}

//By Trevor Morris//\n\n ''Rendering small type.''\n* Double-click on an existing type layer to enter type-edit mode. To cause the anti-aliasing to re-render, move the type in the image window by holding down Ctrl. Once you are pleased with the anti-aliasing, accept the type changes by pressing Ctrl+Enter. You can reposition the type as desired without affecting the anti-aliasing. Adjusting the anti-aliasing can be done as often as you like by entering edit mode and moving the type. Once out of edit mode, you can move the type without affecting the anti-aliasing.\n\n '' Dealing with text changes.''\n* Use the Enter key on the numeric keypad, or Ctrl+Enter on the main keyboard to commit text changes. Press Esc to cancel and discard the changes. You can also use the Commit Changes button in the Options palette (Window, Show Options) to accept any type changes. Use the Cancel Changes button there to discard changes.\n\n ''Hide a text selection.''\n* While in type/edit mode, use the View, Show Extras (Ctrl+H) command.\n\n '' Displaying text boxes.''\n* To display a Paragraph Text Size dialog box, hold Alt as you click or drag a text box. The dialog box displays the current text box dimensions; you can enter the desired values for width and height. Another option when creating a text box of a specific size is to watch the width and height values in the Info palette (F8 or Window, Show Info) as you draw the text box. If you continue to hold Alt down after the mouse button has been depressed (and you begin to drag), the text box will be drawn from the centre. When you release the mouse button, the Text Box Size dialog box will appear.\n\n '' Modify the properties of several type layers.''\n* Simultaneously (for example, font, colour and size). Link the desired type layers together and hold Shift while changing the type properties. This feature applies to changes performed in the Options palette, the Character palette and the Paragraph palette (Window, Show Options/Character/Paragraph).\n\n '' Minimise anti-aliased type inconsistencies.''\n* Anti-aliased type may be rendered inconsistently at small sizes (or low resolutions). To minimise this, turn off the Fractional Widths option in the Character palette menu.\n\n '' Restrict the use of certain fonts to Adobe applications.''\n* Place them in C:\s\sProgram Files\s\sCommon Files\s\s Adobe\s\sFonts\s\s.\n\n '' Colour tip.''\n* Although the Edit, Fill command and the Paint Bucket tool are disabled for type layers, Alt+Backspace (fill with foreground colour) and Ctrl+Backspace (fill with background colour) still work!\n\n '' Crashes when Photoshop attempts to load.''\n* Try deleting the adobefnt.lst file (in C:\s\sProgram Files\s\sCommon Files\s\sAdobe\s\sFonts\s\s). Deleting this file forces Photoshop to recreate its font list and might fix the problem.\n\n '' Font name auto-complete.''\n* Instead of searching through the font list, simply type the first few characters of the desired font into Photoshop's font (family) name field (in the Options palette) and it will be completed.\n\n '' Display context menus with formatting options.''\n* Using the Type tool, right-click on type layers in the image window. The right-click menu that appears in ~ImageReady offers many more options than the one that appears in Photoshop.\n\n '' Convert point text to paragraph text or vice versa.''\n* Right-click with the Type tool and choose Convert to Paragraph Text (or choose Layer, Type, Convert to Paragraph Text from the menus).\n\n '' Display the Character and Paragraph palettes.''\n* While in type mode, press Ctrl+T, or press the Palettes button in the Options palette.\n\n '' For bold or italic fonts.''\n* If there is no associated bold or italic equivalent of your font, try using the Faux Bold and Faux Italic options in the Character palette menu. You can also access the Faux Bold and Faux Italic options by right-clicking on a type layer with the Type tool.

Picasa Web\n\nGoogle have recently announced a significant update to Picasa - web albums have now been incorporated into Picasa. It has never been easier to share your images online.\n\nThis is an invitation only beta test, so if you are interested in trying ''~PicasaWeb'', go to http://picasaweb.google.com/ and sign up for an invitation. Mine took a few weeks to arrive, so be patient. You will eventually receive an email with a link to the updated version of Picasa for download. When you have installed Picasa you will be able to create your own web albums.\n\nThe Picasa interface hasn't changed much (there is a new "Web Album" button to the left of the existing buttons at the bottom of the window), but there are several new item in some of the menus. Probably most notable are "Geotagging", "Upload to Google Video" and display options; however, there are a lot of other new entries as well.\n\nOne of the significant differences behind the scenes is that Picasa can now save changes that you make to images (using File|Save) so it is possible to affect your original images. This is different to the previous behaviour, which was to never change your original images, ever, and to apply all changes when you exported images.\n\nThe web album interface is likewise very simple and clean, with lots of space and, at this stage, no advertising. Google gives you 250MB of storage free, you can purchase more if you require it.One of the significant advantages over Flickr, is that image size is not restricted for people using the free service. All the normal features appear to be available - slideshows and RSS feeds, for example. You can make albums public or unlisted, but not completely private.\n\nThere is a very small sample gallery at http://picasaweb.google.com/hindesight (hindesite was already taken :-( )\n\nIf you need an invitation to gmail, send me an email at usually@mail.com\n\n\n

'' //Podcasting - Word of the Year! - By Robin Hinde//''\n\nThe editors of the New Oxford American Dictionary have selected "podcast" as the Word of the Year, which is unfortunate as I think it is one of the worst words ever - possibly even worse than "blog". Their definition is "a digital recording of a radio broadcast or similar program, made available on the internet for downloading to a personal audio player".\nFrom the name - Podcast - you would think that it was a product from Apple, and that it involved broadcasting or Shoutcast, and iPods. Mostly wrong on all counts.\n\n''What are Podcasts?''\nPodcasts are an audio attachment to a RSS feed; you can also get video casts. Formats are well suited to use on portable devices (which may be an iPod) but equally well suited to any media player, whether portable or desktop. The idea of attachments to RSS feeds is that you can find podcasts that you would like to listen to, and then subscribe to them. They will then be automatically downloaded to your client when they become available. It is possible to arrange to have the content loaded directly onto your portable media player, so you have something to listen to if you are commuting to work. It is almost like radio that you can listen to at a time that suits you. \n\nIn some ways, this is like the idea of "Channels" that Microsoft tried to incorporate into Windows, but while Microsoft was unsuccessful, podcasting has really taken off. I'm sure there are lessons to be learned from this. \nThe invention of podcasting is generally credited to Adam Curry and Dave Winer; Curry's first podcast was on August 13, 2004 - so you can see, it is a relatively new development. It has almost become mainstream, there was an article about Ricky Gervais (from "The Office") and podcasting on TV3 News recently.\n \n''The Developers''\nAdam Curry is a fairly controversial figure, he has formerly been a VJ for MTV, and some people have said that he is just too pretty to have ever thought of something original! A search on Google Images ( http://images.google.com/images?q=adam%20curry) brings up more hits than many celebrities. Curry is a tireless self-promoter, and was recently caught anonymously editing the Wikipedia entry on podcasting, to make his own part in the development seem more important than it was. Curry's podcasts and commentary can be found are http://www.dailysourcecode.com/ and his web log at http://www.curry.com/\n\nDave Winer (another controversial figure) was involved in the early development of web logging and in fact set up Weblogs.com, which was later acquired by Verisign. Winer is involved in web develoment generally, and is a key figure in RSS - hence his involvement in podcasting. He runs several web logs: http://www.scripting.com/, http://www.reallysimplesyndication.com/, http://radio.weblogs.com/0001015/ and has his own page in Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Winer, which makes clear that Winer has played a large part in many of the technologies used on the Internet today. \n\n''Podcasting clients''\nThis article is about receiving podcasts, not making them, so the first thing you need is a podcasting client. This is the software that keeps track of what podcasts you are subscribed to, and when new podcasts are available, the client downloads them for you. Often, clients will also keep track of old podcasts, delete them after a certain time (if you wish), add podcasts automatically to playlists, and may even keep track of which podcasts you have listened to. \nYou may already have a podcasting client installed - Apple finally added podcasting to iTunes at version 6.0, just click on "Podcasts" in the "Source" panel, to be taken to the iTunes online podcast directory. You can browse a range of categories from there. You can subscribe to podcasts, and they will be downloaded and added to your playlist and played, all from within iTunes. It really couldn't be easier.\n \nThere is a downside to this ease of use, however. Being suspicious of the DRM built into iTunes, I don't use it much, and prefer to use a separate dedicated podcast client. There are many of these available, but I prefer to use open source and cross platform software where possible, so iPodder is my client of choice, from http://ipodder.sourceforge.net.The interface is a little more complex than iTunes, but since I normally never see it, that isn't a problem. In Windows, iPodder runs minimised in the system tray, and all I ever see of it once I have subscribed to podcasts is the files magically arriving in the specified folders.\n \niPodder is a terrible name for a podcast client, as it implies some kind of relationship to iPods. I use iPodder and it works just fine, even though I don't own an iPod. I broadcast the podcasts around the house, where I can listen to them on any FM receiver. I probably download 1 - 2 GB of podcasts every month, and this all happens automatically. \n\n''Directories''\nTo find a podcast, you need to either browse a list of podcast categories if your client supports this internally, or go and visit a podcast directory using your web browser. \nDel.icio.us is a good place to start searching for pointers to podcast directories, and in fact http://del.icio.us/search/?all=podcast+directory brings up a listing of nearly 800 bookmarks for directories!\n\nPodcast Alley (http://www.podcastalley.com ) is as good a place as any to start, and even a brief look at any of the categories will show the scale of podcasting. For example, in the Podcast Alley Music/Radio category, you will find well over 2,500 podcast feeds, and each of these may have dozens, if not hundreds of actual podcasts.\nOther directories can be found at http://www.ipodder.org, http://www.gigadial.com, http://ipodderx.com, or work through the list given by del.icio.us\n\nWhen browsing these directories, it is often possible to download a single podcast in your web browser, and this is a good way of testing to see if a podcast is worth subscribing to, but the real benefits come from having everything happen automatically. \n\nYou will be truly amazed at just how wide ranging the material broadcast by podcasts is, from current affairs and news, to tech shows and discussions, music, comedy, health. There is so much material available, that the biggest problem is filtering out what you aren't interested in, and then finding time to listen to what you have downloaded. \n\n''More Reading''\nWikipedia has an excellent article on podcasting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcast \n\nIt is a long article, but well worth the read. Podcasting is one of those technologies that you need to try for a while before you'll see how useful it is. One of the "killer apps" of broadband, although it works on dialup, too - just be careful about what you subscribe to. While music podcasts may be over 100MB in size, generally talk or discussion will be much smaller (between 3 and 9MB, depending on length and quality) and quite manageable on dialup.\n \nWhy not use those rainy days over Christmas to organise your podcast feeds for the coming year? Let Megabyte know if you find any that other members might be interested in!\n\nAnd, if you've ever wanted to try your hand a running your own radio station, podcasts are a good way to give it a try - you can reach a large world-wide audience without actually transmitting anything.\n

// John Thomson with yet another of his clever little tips ...//\n\n When I was leaving the hotel in Cebu (last Christmas), the receptionist asked where was I going. When I replied they looked at me in amazement. Not safe going there alone Sir. Where is your minder, your local friend who generally goes with you and follows you around? He's busy. Oh, they said, take a hotel courtesy cellphone and call us if you need assistance or get lost. We'll send the hotel car to pick you up. The phone is a prepaid; it has enough credit to call us if needed. If you want to use it personally, use your credit card at one of the ATM machines at the local bank. Just follow the instructions on the side of the machine.\n\n Later in the day I used the phone to locate a local business friend who I was supposes to meet for lunch at 1:00 pm. I always find in Asia that Asians will tell you they will meet you at a certain time but turn up later. It's something you just have to accept. My business friends call it Asian-time. After lunch I decided on the way back to top up the pre-paid phone. At the bank I pushed the appropriate button and successfully credited three hundred Pesos' to the phone (about $10 dollars New Zealand).\n\n Last week when I met a friend in Cuba Mall I asked could I use his phone (had left my phone in the car). Sorry, he said, it is a prepaid from the Warehouse. It needs topping up, I've been there twice and there're never any car parks. There is an easier way to re-charge it I told him; you don't have to go the Warehouse. Oh he said. What bank do you use I asked, ANZ, Westpac? Westpac he replied. We can top it up at the Westpac ATM over there. There was a look of real surprise on his face.\n\n Last week when I met a friend in Cuba Mall I asked could I use his phone (had left my phone in the car). Sorry, he said, it is a prepaid from the Warehouse. It needs topping up, I've been there twice and there're never any car parks. There is an easier way to re-charge it I told him; you don't have to go the Warehouse. Oh he said. What bank do you use I asked, ANZ, Westpac? Westpac he replied. We can top it up at the Westpac ATM over there. There was a look of real surprise on his face.\n\n At the machine he inserted his bankcard and pin details. I pushed "Other Services". It's an 025 phone, he nodded, so therefore it uses the Telecom network I said, pushing the $50 button before he could say a lower amount. And out popped a recharge slip. We keyed in the numbers, and the phone now had a $56 credit balance.\n \n\n// - John Thomson. Gella@paradise.net.nz //\n

''Your hard drive is going to fail.''\n\nIt could happen tomorrow, or in a few years, but eventually, your hard drive will fail. That is why you keep automated, regular, complete backups of your data and your system. You do keep backups, don't you?\n\nModern hard drives are not only bigger, faster and cheaper than previous models, they are a lot smarter, too. They often know when they are going to fail, but they may not tell you. This was brought home to me the other week, when one of my fileservers failed to reboot after an extended power outage; this system had not rebooted for more than a year. When I dragged it out from where I'd hidden it, connected a monitor and keyboard to it and switched it on, I was greeted with a message saying that S.M.A.R.T. had detected problems with the drive, and that failure was imminent.\n\n''What is S.M.A.R.T.?''\n\nSMART is //~Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology//, and is currently a very loosely defined industry quasi standard. Almost all hard drive manufacturers say they support SMART, but in fact only do so in their own fashion, and to varying degrees. It was originally developed by Compaq so I guess it is interesting that hard drive manufacturers are even interested in supporting it at all.\n\nSMART is capable of monitoring a large range of physical parameters related to drive performance and reliabilty, ranging from temperature, running hours, error rates, start up times, as well as more than twenty other parameters. Not only are these parameters monitored, but they are logged by the drive, too. By using the appropriate software tools, it is possible to access this data and use it to predict some types of hard drive failure - apparently up to 60% of all failures are predictable.\n\n''SMART tools.''\n\nYour motherboard and BIOS will have some rudimentary SMART monitoring capability built in, but this is only going to be very able to predict large problems or immiment failure. To have a proper look, you'll need some better tools.\n\nWindows users could try the freeware tool HDD Health (http://www.panterasoft.com/) which will monitor SMART status and build up an estimate of likely failure or TEC (Threshold Exceeded Condition) for your drive as it is used. SMART attribute changes are logged, so you have a good idea of any events happening to your drive whether you notice them as they happen, or not.\n\nIf you want a broader picture of your hard drive's condition, try HD Tune (also free) as this gives you a lot of information about your drive and will also run benchmarks to check I/O speed, and show current SMART attributes. For example, the "Health" tab for HD Tune shows SMART attributes like this:\n{{{\nHD Tune: TOSHIBA MK1516GAP Health\n\nID Current Worst ThresholdData Status \n(01) Raw Read Error Rate 253 100 50 0 Ok \n(02) Throughput Performance 100 100 50 0 Ok \n(03) Spin Up Time 100 100 1 1881 Ok \n(04) Start/Stop Count 100 100 0 1875 Ok \n(05) Reallocated Sector Count 100 100 1 0 Ok \n(08) Seek Time Performance 100 100 50 0 Ok \n(09) Power On Hours Count 91 91 50 3941 Ok \n(0A) Spin Retry Count 137 100 30 0 Ok \n(0C) Power Cycle Count 100 100 0 705 Ok \n(C7) Ultra DMA CRC Error Count 100 100 0 0 Ok \n(DC) (unknown attribute) 100 100 1 4141 Ok \n(DE) (unknown attribute) 96 96 50 1739 Ok \n(DF) (unknown attribute) 100 100 50 0 Ok \n(E0) (unknown attribute) 100 100 50 0 Ok \n(E1) (unknown attribute) 85 85 70 159740 Ok \n(E2) (unknown attribute) 100 100 1 389 Ok \n(E4) (unknown attribute) 100 100 60 82 Ok \n(F0) (unknown attribute) 100 100 1 7 Ok \n\nPower On Time : 3941\nHealth Status : Ok\n}}}\n\nNotice that the SMART attribute values Current, Worst and Threshold are not real numbers. Drive manufacturers convert the real values involved into something easier to manage, so values will be between 1 and 253. In the example above, HD Tune cannot identify several "unknown attributes", but HDD Health can identify these. Notice also the attribute called "Reallocated Sector Count" - we'll cover that one later.\n\nLavalys (http://www.lavalys.com/) used to supply a freeware system information tool called Everest Home Edition, which is a derivative of AIDA32. If you search you will certainly still be able to find it. Everest is amazing - it can tell you absolutely everything about your system (both software and hardware, in extreme detail) including SMART status.\n\nSmartmontools http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/ is open source and runs under Windows and Linux - being console based it is ideal for remote use and is very versatile. The (edited) output from using smartmontools on my fileserver drive are below:\n{{{\n=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===\nSMART overall-health self-assessment test result: FAILED!\nDrive failure expected in less than 24 hours. SAVE ALL DATA.\nSee vendor-specific Attribute list for failed Attributes.\n}}}\nOuch! And:\n{{{\nID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE\n 1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x000b 200 064 051 Pre-fail Always - 0\n 3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0007 089 086 021 Pre-fail Always - 2083\n 4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 100 100 040 Old_age Always - 61\n 5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 196 196 140 Pre-fail Always - 54\n 7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000b 200 200 051 Pre-fail Always - 0\n 9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 072 072 000 Old_age Always - 20948\n 10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0013 100 253 051 Pre-fail Always - 0\n 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0013 100 253 051 Pre-fail Always - 0\n 12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 57\n194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 107 253 000 Old_age Always - 36\n196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 174 174 000 Old_age Always - 26\n197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0012 111 111 000 Old_age Always - 1160\n198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0012 001 130 000 Old_age Always - 4115\n199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x000a 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 3\n200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x0009 035 085 051 Pre-fail Offline FAILING_NOW 5312\n}}}\nThat last line is more than a litle worrying.\n\n''Other attribute monitoring:''\n\nRecent Apple Power and iBooks have an accelerometer built into the system board. This is capable of determining the laptop's orientation and will park the hard drive heads if sudden motion or acceleration is detected. I would expect to find this feature built into hard drives themselves in the near future (if it isn't already).\n\nSome developers have been having a lot of fun with this feature, as not only does it protect the hard drive, it can also be used as a game or interface controller (you tilt the whole laptop to scroll, for example). Somebody has even written a widget that turns your laptop into a carpenter's level: http://pallit.lhi.is/palli/dashlevel/\n\n\n''Scandisk and reallocated sectors:''\n\nNow to go back to "reallocated sector count". These days, running scandisk or other utilites on hard drives to check for surface errors is likely to be a waste of time, as they will not find any errors early enough. Modern drives are able to continuously monitor themselves for bad sectors, and when they identify one, they will move the contents of the bad sector into one of a number of spare sectors reserved for this, and mark the bad sector so that it isn't used. The bad sector is effectively remapped (or reallocated) onto a good spare sector, and the drive appears to be in perfect condition.\n\nAll of this happens inside the drive itself, and scandisk will never even be able to see the bad sector. What scandisk will be able to see is bad sectors that occur after the drive has used all its spare sectors and is unable to remap any more defective ones, and at this stage you will already be starting to lose data.\n\nSo, rather than running scandisk to surface test your drive regularly, it is probably better to run some SMART monitoring tools, and monitor drive condition so that you will be more likely to be aware of any imminent failure - including bad sectors, which it will tell you about before scandisk ever will. Scandisk is still useful when used for checking files and directories, however.\n\nRemember, SMART won't predict all hard drive failures, particularly if they involve electronic components. But, there is no reason to worry, because even if you aren't able to predict your hard drive failure before it happens, you've got complete backups anyway.\n\n''Useful links:''\n\nWikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-Monitoring%2C_Analysis_and_Reporting_Technology\nEverest Home Edition: http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/System-Info/Everest-Home-Edition.shtml\nHDD Health: http://www.panterasoft.com/\nHD Tune: http://www.hdtune.com/\nSmartmontools: http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/\nBackup software: http://www.2brightsparks.com/syncback/sbse-features.html\n\n\n

Roger Currier\n\n Hurry up and use the slide scanner, I have found another two boxes of slides that need doing. There goes another week! I have been playing with the images I previously scanned and am feeling rather proud of myself. It 's certainly worth while taking the time to learn and understand your graphics program, the results can be very rewarding. I mentioned this to someone at work and he brought I an old photograph that had been in their family for years. It was the only image of Uncle George they had and he had a great big fungus growing on the end of his nose. No, a real one, it was slowly devouring the photo image and if nothing was done about it it soon would be too late.\n\n It took me 10 minutes to scan the photo and clean up the nose. With a bit of guesswork as to what his old nose looked like! Fortunately it was so long since he died that the family had forgotten. I printed the new image and put it on a disk and gave them back to the owner. Next morning he came in and told me his wife had been in tears over the photo, she had been worrying about it for years not knowing what to do about it. Should have charged him for the service!\n Robin Hinde gave us an excellent demonstration of the capabilities of free graphic editing programs at St Giles the other night. He showed how an obtrusive light switch on a photograph could be removed and how adjustments could be made for under and over exposed photos. Robin got gasps of appreciation or astonishment from the members at the meeting, he was that good! He demonstrated two free programs, Irfanview and xxxxx both are available on the net. The second has the better graphics editing facilities.\n\n Do spend some time playing with your graphic program, read the instructions or buy a book, it's well worth while.\n I have been doing some research on the net on the anticipated lifetime of data stored on ~CDs. It's a bit difficult to prove any lifetime as ~CDs have only been around for a few years. I discovered that there was some adverse publicity where a reporter was saying they are only good for 10 years. This was refuted by Kodak who did some ageing experiments on their gold ~CDs, by exposing them to alternate heat / cold for a period. The ~CDs did not fail and on that basis Kodak estimate, and it can be no more than an estimate, that gold ~CDs are good for at least 100 years. So I recommend that if you want to save your scanned slides or images put them on a Kodak gold CD and they should see you out. Of course in a 100 years there may not be CD players to play it on but that's another problem.\n\n Reminds me of an SF story where the problem of storing all the knowledge in the universe was solved. It was done by building a library of memory chips that only occupied three planets. While they were building it they had another technological advance and managed to compress the data to one planet. Whilst developing this they had another technological advance in compressing silicon and got the data down to one shelf. While they were developing this another advance got all the data into one chip etc etc. Of course in the end someone lost the chip!\n\n I have to say that I am getting very worried about what's happening to the Internet. Have just checked my email, on-line at Clear, and have found 158 spam emails that they have filtered out. I had only four legitimate emails! I have just read an article which says that it is estimated that 60% of the email on the Net is now spam and that will rise to over 90% in a year. I know Bill Gates has undertaken to do something about the email problem but currently the only practical solution seems to be to charge for sending emails. And that I don't want - it will ruin the freedom to send messages, to send photos and everything else we now do. Please don't encourage email, don't respond to unsolicited emails no matter how much you might want the service / goods/ drugs etc. We are at a crisis and will have to do something about it or loose it.\n \nSee you at St Giles.\n Rog

I believe we are beginning to see the demise of the Internet as we know it. Do you remember the time when you could send an email and the person at the other end would get it within 5 minutes? These days it is normal for the email not to arrive for several hours or even take overnight. I have just had a battle getting a 50meg file from Auckland to Wellington. To send it we had to split it into 10 x 5 meg files because our internet provider sets a maximum file limit. The files were sent, via a broadband connection, at roughly 1 minute intervals – ie the time it took for the lady to individually attach each part of the file onto an email. The files arrived, again via a broadband connection, up to three hours later, not all at once but at irregular intervals. Not even in the same order in which they were sent. It took 3 hours to get the last file and it had to be sent three times – I expect the other copies will be in my Inbox tomorrow morning.\n\nOf course the main problem is spam – do I remember Bill Gates saying he would have a solution to the spam problem in two years? And wasn’t that several years ago? Or is it? It certainly seems that the Internet slows up during school holidays and it’s much quicker at 3am than at 6pm. I suspect that Internet telephone calls also take a good proportion of the bandwidth also! Telecom are doing their best to get us all to get ‘Broadbanded’, (my word – I invented it – remember you saw it here first), yet the consequences of it are that the net gets overloaded and email gets slower. \n\nOk it’s still faster than snail mail and it’s lovely to attach photos and sound bytes but the difference between snail mail and ‘sloth mail’ is getting less – and there is something special about reading a hand written letter!\n\nOh yes, I recommend the file splitter program, it’s from http://www.dekabyte.com/filesplitter - easy to use – free. It defaults to 1.44meg floppies (remember those?) but can be made to create any size of file. Of course it increases the load on the Internet as it has to send a file to combine the separated files – but who cares?\n\nDo you get the impression that more spam is getting through your spam filter/s these days – I have two, Clear and Mailwasher – maybe I need another it will only slow things down even more.\n\nSaw on the news the other day a lady was conned into giving out the PIN number to her bank card by someone who stole her card then rang her saying they were from the bank and had found her card and for ‘security reasons’ would have to cancel it and to do so they needed her PIN number. Never Never Never give out your PIN number even if the other person says they are from the police, the bank or The Pentagon or even George Bush! Be warned these con-men are very ingenious and will come up with all kinds of reasons. Unless of course you want to support an unregistered charity!\n\nBrady Bringham of Canon gave a very interesting presentation at the last St Giles meeting with lots of interesting gadgets to play with. I fancied one of their very small cameras, an Ixus55, but already having a digital camera I had no excuse. Canon were offering 5% discount through Key Computers but I knew I would never get away with it. However, the next night at the Petone Working Man’s Club I won $1,200 in the members draw so had the ideal excuse for a R to R present. A few days before I had been in Dick Smiths and overheard a conversation where a customer was asking for and getting a price reduction because he found a parallel importer who was selling a camera cheaper. I went to ~PriceSpy on the net and found the cheapest price was nearly $200 cheaper than Dick Smith’s price so took in a printout of the web page. No problems - DS immediately agreed to the reduced price. This is a Dick Smith policy so don’t be afraid of asking for it. Of course a couple of weeks later I found a newspaper ad with an even cheaper price but that’s life!\n\nIt’s that season again – no not the big ‘C’ – it’s the time for the grand exchange of computer parts and books. Yes it’s the NZPCA annual bring and buy sale. It’s time for you to get rid of that long loved but long unused bit of equipment and replace it with a new piece to love and long for. Bring along your bits and pieces and let’s see what you have. I only ask that you accurately state the condition it’s in and don’t ask ridiculous prices. The intention of the sale is to clear your computer table to make room for those things you really want – till next year! If you like we will help you smuggle the stuff into your house so your partner doesn’t see. Married couples as club members are excepted.\n\nNo Megabyte in January. I am going to spend time reading and playing with my machine – and my new purchases – and the Roger to Roger presents. If I don’t see you at St Giles I wish you a peaceful Christmas and a very Happy New Year. PS the cake is cooking!\n

''Happy New Year ''\nWell I can tell you there’s not much new in computing in the UK. Lots of emphasis on high-speed Internet connections and wireless networks but that’s just the same over here. Went round lots of big computer shops and, apart from Maplins, on Tottenham Court road there was nowt new. Maplins – they are on the web – always went for the odd thing, the kit, the little electronic circuit and I enjoyed going round their shop even though the only thing I bought was a rewritable DVD disk. I suppose the effect of the Internet and the strong NZ dollar keeps us up to date with the market – and of course I wasn’t looking for a new machine or a laptop.\n\nI have to confess we didn’t freeze either – weather was surprisingly mild. Guess it’s global warming!\nBut I did have fun in Bangkok! Ten minutes from our hotel was the Pantip Computer Plaza. I knew I was in the right place when, as I entered, I was approached with an offer of Windows XP for the equivalent of NZ$1.25. Of course I refused it, I was so shocked that I felt I should carry on and explore the seven floors of computer shops. There was everything one could want from the fastest machine to a second hand machine built for you while you wait for $10. Lots of pirate software, ~DVDs, memory chips, USB fans and lights, palmtops, (a few too many cell phone shops for my liking – waste of computing space), printers, portable printers, mini printers, ink cartridge refill kits (decided against it in case of problems with the luggage). If you go to Bangkok do pop in there for a day or two.\n\nLearned a few things about security on a wireless network. We rented a house for a week and, because in Britain you have to pay for local calls, the phone was barred for outgoing calls. This was a real pain because we needed Internet connection to collect our emails and to use the AA map route finder. We tried one or two things but nothing was really satisfactory till we tried the laptop wireless network. We didn’t have the network where we were staying but we could see there were several networks in the vicinity. Most of them were locked securely but we found one similar to the one we had set up in London, we tried the manufacturers password and hey presto we were in the server and had complete access to all their network. We looked out of curiosity to see how far we could get and there didn’t seem any limit, right down to the floppy drives on someone’s laptop. Didn’t do any harm, respected their privacy, set up the system so we couldn’t be seen and then surfed the net.\n\nIt was great, they had a very fast connection and the email came in a treat. We could have downloaded gigabytes of software but didn’t, we could have wiped their hard disks or found out their bank account details but didn’t, we could have changed all their passwords but didn’t and I doubt if they will ever realise we were there. We left a file on a C drive, called frog.txt, which announced that they had been hacked but judging by the garbage on their hard disks they will never find it. Learn the lesson, if you have a wireless network set up the security and change the manufacturers password, - You are at risk.\n\nSaw lots of photos whilst over there, ‘this is auntie Flo – pity part of her head has been chopped off’, ‘here’s the new baby in the window – shame the picture is so dark’ and lots of pictures of family members who were so far away from the camera they could have been your relatives. It gave me an idea about what our next talk should be about. We have demonstrated the digital camera and shown how to print but we have not demonstrated how to take good photos – so we are going to. We have a professional coming along to show how to take photos, to understand the light and lighting effects – could be very interesting. Do come along next Wed at St Giles.\n\nLook forward to seeing you there.\nRog\n

Did you notice it, did you notice the next computer revolution. The next step in computing that will eventually free mankind of all his (or her) labours. It’s been happening for about a year now and it will soon start making a difference. What am I talking about? I’m talking about the new generation of chips coming from Intel and AMD. No they are not faster, they seem to be hitting against the stops trying to get more speed out of smaller and smaller lumps of silicon, no it’s the fact that the new chips have more than one microprocessor (CPU) unit on board. Currently AMD have two ~CPUs in the one chip.\n\nJust like the early days of chip manufacture someone said why not put more transistors on a chip now the question will arise – how many ~CPUs can we get on the chip? If two why not five, if five why not ten etc etc. Why should the ~CPUs be the same? Why can’t one CPU deal with graphics, one with mathematics, one with speech recognition why not a whole range of specialised ~CPUs with one CPU controlling and allocating jobs to the specialist parts.\n\nCurrently computers normally have just the one CPU, (though there is a great deal of computing power on modern graphics cards). It spends it’s time being constantly interrupted and jumping from one job to the other. Currently I am running Windows XP and have 31 visible processes running, not counting the mouse, keyboard, hard drive, cd roms and various other hidden processes. My CPU is jumping from one job to another and doing it so fast that, to me, it looks like it’s doing them all at once. In fact it is constantly stopping what it is doing, saving the data, jumping to another job, being interrupted and jumping to another job. Just like me at work!\n\nWhat will happen is each CPU will become dedicated to deal with one or more of these processes with the allocating CPU deciding which is best, or more available to do a particular job.\n\nOf course this will increase computing speed byyet another order of magnitude, probably by magnitudes of magnitudes. It means that intelligent speech recognition will come of age. Artificial intelligence will no longer be artificial.\nComputers will have true vision and be able to recognise faces – oh yes they can already do that! And maybe my TV card will work properly!\n\nI don’t recommend that you go out and sell your current PC, not for a few years as yet, but be prepared. Lock up your daughters, insulate your house against wireless networks, have that high intensity radiation source on hand for when the rent man calls. Go back to DOS and limit the amount of RAM people can bring into your house. The future of the human race is in peril – what will we have to talk about if trains run on time, if we know what the weather will be for the next 3 months and why 42 is the answer to the question of life the universe and everything!\n\nDown boy down – it won’t happen in my lifetime – trust me!\n\n I picked up a smashing free program the other day, Copernic Desktop Search, it was a freebee on the latest APC magazine CD/DVD. No it doesn’t help me find things hidden under the pile of paper in front of me but it does help me find stuff on my PC – and on Penny’s PC as we are networked. When you load it, CDS spends about 10 minutes searching and indexing your hard disk and from then on any document you prepare, load etc gets added to the index.\n\nLooking for a file, of letters you wrote about / to auntie flo? Just type it in to CDS and in less than a second it brings up a list of all the files containing her name – and gives you a preview.\n\nEver saved a file and can’t remember where you put it? CDS will find it for you, just enter a keyword from the text and bang, there it is. It will pull up most kinds of files and preview them showing where the word is. Just checked I talked about auntie flo in my Feb 05 President’s Report – see it works! It will also search emails as well. Don’t know why it’s free – it’s such a good program – maybe the CPUs are getting into my system already!\n\nAfter doing years of sterling service as the NZPCA help desk operator, John Fanning has decided he can’t do it any more and has resigned. I don’t know if you have had any dealings with John but if you had I am sure you found him very helpful and polite – even when you asked stupid questions. John was the first to admit he did not know the answer to every question but he acted as a call in point and could direct people to someone with a possible solution. Thank you very much John, your help\nwas much appreciated and you did a good job.\n\nAccording to CDS John was doing the job as far back as the year 2000 and if I checked Megabyte I will bet he was there for at least another 5 years previous. We need a new help desk organiser – AGM coming up!\n\nCome along to St Giles – Robin is doing a talk on handheld computers – blow the rugby the result is a foregone conclusion!\nRog\n

By Roger Currier.\n\nNot been doing much computing this month, more of decorating bathrooms and painting decks. Never the less I have been doing some thinking – well it helps to pass the time as I am wielding the paint brush.\n\nWe have got into Suduko and it’s taking an awful lot of our time. Be warned it is addictive and challenging and very satisfying when you get one out but it occupies too much time. The process of solving the puzzle is fairly simple, initially fitting in the obvious numbers then eliminating any numbers that can’t be in a box. Then going to bed and leaving it to the middle of the night when your subconscious comes up with the answer. Trouble is there is a new puzzle every day in the paper and I need my sleep!\n\nFor the uninitiated the game consists of a block of squares 9x9 each row column and 3x3 box can only hold one of the numbers 1-9 so the rules are very simple – ideal as a programming exercise! And that’s where I have been spending my time between brush strokes.\n\nAs I see it there are two ways of writing a program to beat it, one that identifies the rules and works out what will fit or to create a model of all the possible arrays and just compare the given numbers to see which will fit. As I see it creating a model that obays / uses the rules is too much like hard work so I think the array solution will be easier. As I see it all I have to do is create 81 thousand arrays. I don’t think I will do it here but it reminds me of one of the techniques used to solve the Enigma codes during the War. You know which war I mean!\n\nNot having computers – or not computers as we know – one of the techniques the code breakers used was to have enormous sheets of paper with holes in arrays and placed them over the code to see if they could read the message. It must have been very difficult because the message was, of course, written in German and there were many errors in writing down the intercepted messages. \n\nWhereas I am considering doing it as an intellectual exercise the code breakers were doing it for life and death and country and had a considerable incentive. I remember reading an assessment of the effect of the code breaking had on the war’s duration and the historian came to the conclusion that they shortened the war by two years and saved about 10 million lives – some incentive! \n\nMaybe this could be the start of a programming special interest group – to solve the Suduko problems – not the Enigma code! Let me know if you are interested.\n\nIf you attended the meetings at St Giles and the Hutt you will have heard Chris Johnson give us some understanding of Microsoft’s problems with even making minor changes to the code in their operating systems. When there are billions of users out there it can become a significant problem in updating people’s systems. I now realize why Microsoft regularly produce new operating systems – computing is changing, the Internet was only becoming used seriously when Win 98 came out and it wasn’t really set up to withstand the rigors of hackers and spam and it’s becoming difficult to keep issuing updates. Computers are also getting faster with more memory and hard disk space and hence are capable of doing more things at the same time. Apparently Microsoft are looking at issuing a cut down version of XP to replace systems running Win 98 to make updating simpler.\n\nIt was good to see some new faces and some old ones that we had not seen for a long time at St Giles last month- we look forward to seeing you again.\n \nCannon are coming along to St Giles next time to show their wares. We are trying to arrange some special offers on printers through them. If you are looking for a new printer I suggest you come along – oh hell come along anyway you know it’s fun.\n\nWe are looking for someone to give us a talk on recording programmes off tv – on to a computer not a VHS tape. If you feel capable and would like to give a presentation please let us know.\n\n\n

I’ve discovered something even more annoying than a network that won’t connect. A wireless network that won’t connect! Penny has a new laptop that we want to talk to our network from upstairs, so she can print and access her files from her office. It came ready equipped with a wireless network card and so I bought a card for my Win XP machine. Both machines tried to talk to each other but neither would admit the other was there.\n\nHow was I to find out which was the offending machine? At least with a wireless network I didn’t have the concern that the fault could be cabling but which machine was faulty. Neither could see any kind of a network. Decided the best thing I could do was go and have a coffee at Starbucks who happen to have a wireless network for the trendies.\n\nSo I took the laptop for a coffee and found Café Net. I also found Telecom’s network and lots of other networks so the problem wasn’t with the laptop. I then dawdled over my coffee watching tv, listening to the radio and generally surfing round Wellington’s free facilities. Could have paid $10 but I am too mean – after all the purpose of the exercise was to confirm the ability to pick up network signals – will leave the cracking of that network for another day!\n\nSo the problem is with my pc, running XP pro and the new wireless network card. Next step consult the font of all wisdom – the Net. The trouble with searching on the net is that you have to work out the correct search keywords. Wireless, not connect, disconnected, fails to connect, can’t see the network etc etc. Lots of fruitless searching, millions of hits, hunting through forums, vague references, circumstances that initially seem to be right but when checked out they were talking about something else! Sound familiar? Oh I have been there so many times! No good anyway.\nTried Microsoft’s site. Found the problem – trouble is I have to ring them and you know how long that can take also it costs if they decide to charge. And I know from experience that emails are not even responded to. Ok they might have a million stupid enquires a day but they could look out for mine!\n\nSo that’s where it sits. I will probably put the card into our old network machine running Win98 and it will probably work. Oh computers you are sent to frustrate and annoy – and you succeed!!\n\nWe now have a new laptop. The NZPCA has a new laptop – no it’s not the one Penny has that’s just coincidence – ‘Oh Yea’. Yes, we decided that we couldn’t continue borrowing Richard’s laptop for our presentations and the Hardware Sig were just too busy, (eating chocolate biscuits), to make one so we decided to buy one. Cost about $1,000 and is available for members to use – for a nominal charge of $10 per month but on the basis that it’s returned for our meetings. So if you want to impress, just borrow our machine and flash it about – so long as it’s not on the third Wed of the month! \n\nBought a new book this last week, ‘PC Annoyances’, - well it would be wouldn’t it! Actually it’s very entertaining and is full of work-arounds and fixes. Suggest you add it to your Christmas present list – it’s by Steve Bass published by O’Reilly $39.95 (less NZPCA discount if you get it from Capital Books on Featherston St.\n\nDo come along next Wed. Microsoft are going to give us a demo of the new Windows operating system – was Longhorn but I can’t remember what it is now called. (Vista – Ed) There will be the usual collection of free caps and pens – you know it pays to belong to the NZPCA!\nRog\n

Whoops, I sent the wrong file to Richard last month and you got an old version of my President’s report. Apologies, and hands up all those who didn’t notice! Anyway for what it’s worth here’s the report you should have got.\n\nI remember going to a talk on computers, it must have been in the early 70’s. There was much being made about making computers go faster and increasing screen resolution from 64 x 20. I couldn’t understand as I was amazed at what my 4.7khz computer would do. That’s 4.7khz not mhz or ghz ie a million times slower than the computers we have today – actually it may be more but I can’t work it out. Anyway what I was going on to say was that I was amazed at the speed of my computer. It would play the tennis game faster than I could and would always beat me. I could never demolish all the bricks from the wall and the ambulance game would always end in disaster.\n\nSo what’s changed, I still can’t beat those games? It’s Richard Elam who got me to think back on those early days when he told me today that we are now on our 201st issue of Megabyte, at 11 a year that’s – pauses whilst he calls up the calculator on the screen – that’s 18.272727272727272727272727272727 years we have been publishing.\n \nI looked out some very early issues of Megabyte – pauses whilst opening up a floppy disk and a zip file – August 89 issue – blow they are all wpf files (~WordPerfect files) – pauses whilst loading the ~WordPerfect converter – It turns out ’89 wasn’t in the dark ages, people were talking about 40 megabyte hard disks and I found this:\n\n//The one exception, which was more a problem of expression, was in saying Word was loathed by most of its users. As with most word processors, attitudes towards it are a very personal thing. Amongst our users Word 3 is popular for its power amongst stenographic staff, although some casual users find it difficult to learn.//\n\nSo you are not alone – but I tell you ~WordPerfect was much harder to learn.\n\nOf course that’s the difference! We think nothing of opening another program whilst working in Word, of watching tv whilst designing a spreadsheet, of surfing the net whilst playing music – the net was going in ’89 but we didn’t know about it yet. It’s not that things happen faster – well they do but we don’t notice – who can tell the difference between an oscillator going at 4.7khz and one going at 4.7ghz anyway? But more things are going on to make our lives easier, more rewarding (yuch!), and more complicated. Yes – lets get back to DOS – at least when a machine crashed it would run up again in 20 seconds – life was so simple in those day when everything was in monochrome, photographs were made from negatives and 640k of RAM was all you ever needed.\n\nMaybe I can beat those games now! I certainly don’t have a chance with ‘Brothers in Arms’ or ‘Flight Simulator’ - can’t even fly the Wright Brother’s plane – don’t know how they managed!\n\nI have to admit I have not done much computing this month – busy reading ‘The Big Bang’ by Simon Singh story of how the Big Bang theory evolved from earliest astronomers – not heavy reading – very entertaining – I recommend it. Next book is Harry Potter.\n\nHave you found Stumble yet? It’s a web service for surfing with preset parameters. I love it, I tell it to look at science subjects, humour & astronomy and I just click and find fascinating web sites. I have to admit that I have spent a whole evening just surfing and playing on the net – if only I had broadband! Try http://www.idiots-guide.org/badday.htm!\n\nOh yes - we are going to change the web site. Currently we are paying $40 per month to Planet for hosting our web site and not making much use of it so we are changing it to a free Blog site. It’s at the same address http://computers.org.nz but you will be redirected. Still experimental but we can but up notices of meetings and articles. Have a look at it and give us your comments.\nSee you at St Giles.\n

I was tidying up my computer room over last weekend, I had to, it was tidy it up or don't eat, so I tidied up. Going through old magazines I found one dated November 1987 which had an article on a new Novix ~NC4016 chip which will do 4 million instructions a second. I thought this will be a good read to see how far we have come in the last 10 years or so. I chuckled to myself at 4 million instructions per second, at clock speeds of 8meg, of the thought of trying to manage with 32k of ram. Then I read something which really brought me up short. This chip would run Forth (a computer language) at a speed of about 100 times an XT. Norton tells me that my pc, a 100meg Cyrix, runs at 29.5 times an XT. What's going on?\n \nOf course it's Windows. Windows with it's massive overhead, Windows with it's graphical interface, Windows with it's common standard is throttling my PC back to a speed roughly one third of what I could have got 10 years ago. Now I know it's not a true comparison but it is a comparison of sorts and I am sure the trend is there, we are paying a big price for this fancy W... interface. \n\nI know speed isn't everything, I am sure for most of my purposes the speed of an XT would be sufficient, (word processing and the like), but we have come to expect spelling checkers, audio input, graphical interfaces and a myriad of other things happening and without speed we would be back to using the dictionary and the DOS prompt. Speed gives us more convenience, easier operation, and flexibility. Just think how fast a modern Novix chip could be today running Forth or some other fast language. I am sure it would be running at least at 10,000 times an XT. With that computing power what could I do? \n\nTo tell the truth I don't know, certainly voice interaction man/ machine would be commonplace, Multi-tasking would work properly and seamlessly fax, modem, games etc all running at the same time. Maybe some other kind of interface where I would tell the machine what kind of article to write and it would write in my style with just a few pointers. Maybe I would have a chip implant in my head so that I did not need a keyboard or microphone, just think an instruction and it would be done. \n\nI suppose what I am saying is that it is time to move on, to look at other languages, Linux, Unix, and the like to see just how much W... has been holding us back. (Or saving us from the future if you don't fancy having a chip implanted!!). To this end I propose we start up a Linux sig group to help each other over the learning hurdles and to regain the computing power that was once promised. Anyone interested please give me a bell on 473 9520. \n\nAnd I must remind you about the AUCTION, as if you would forget. It's that time to sell..... to buy....... Etc etc. If you havn't been you havn't lived etc etc. Come along. Unfortunately I can't make it, my daughter is graduating on that day in Chch and I couldn't persuade the university to change the date. Do enjoy it. \n\nRoger Currier,\nPresident NZPCA \n\n

‘Bring out your dead... No that doesn’t sound right, it should be ‘Bring out your live….’ Circuit boards, computers, printers etc. Bring out your software, bring out those reference books you no longer use, bring out those disks that have been sitting gathering dust. Get it all together for this month is month of the Great Computer Parts Exchange. You know what it is, you look forward to it every year don’t you, and this year it is the event of the Millennium, …it’s the NZPCA auction – again!\n\nFor the uninitiated it happens at St Pats on Wednesday 19th April from about 7.30pm onwards.\n\nIf you have something to sell please bring it along for 7pm. We have to catalogue and number the goods and even with a computer it will take time, there is rather a lot to do and that time is rather frantic. From experience we know that we have to sell a lot of stuff rather than auction it because we get so much, so the earlier you get there the better your chances of getting a bargain. Oh yes and bring your ''cheque books or money'', we don’t have Efpost facilities.\n\nAND make sure you understand the auction rules, they are set out in Megabyte and will be posted at the event.\n\nOne of the most important things about a successful auction is to know whether or not the goods are still working. If we can guarantee the goods are working you get a better price (and we get more commission). So please let us know appropriately. If we sell something as working and it isn’t then we are obliged to refund the money, in which case we will come looking for you…. And the hardware SIG has some very interesting conversions on old hard disk mechanisms which they would love to try out on you… so be warned. \n\nWe will need some help on the night, we need people to do the cataloguing, to sell stuff and generally sort things out. I suspect we may need to set up some kind of delivery service but without knowing where the goods are to go it is difficult to predict the need. If you have suitable wheels please make yourself known to us and we will use you for delivery if it is not too far out of your way. \n\nI have a bee in my bonnet about firewalls. It looks as if the dangers of surfing the net or even just sending/ receiving your email may be as dangerous as computer viruses and you all have an anti-virus program //don’t you?// There are people out there who would just love to get onto your machine to show off just how clever they are by wiping your hard disk or worse. If you are on the net you are vulnerable and I recommend you get a firewall on your machine. At the last St Pats meeting Ian Godfrey gave a talk on firewalls and what people were trying to do in getting inside your PC. Before he started we asked how many people had a firewall and less than 50% of members put their hands up. Do read the articles in the last two Megabytes.\n\nDiscovered a new computer game, it’s called Sokoban, apparently it is a Japanese game, very simple and very addictive so be warned. For potential addicts I have loaded it up to Megabaud, the file is called Soko15.exe. \n\nAGM in July, we need new committee members. If you would like to influence the direction of the club do join in. It is fun and very rewarding. Think on. \n\nAh well back to Sokoban, I am nearly at level 12.\n\n//- Rog //\n\n

Helped a friend out to install Windows ME on a new computer last weekend. No problems, loaded and ran first time went like a dream. ‘ Show me where Windows Explorer is’ - he asked. Found it after a struggle and left a shortcut on his desktop to make his life easy – went home, a good job done, lots of credit (and a bottle of whisky), with little work. Felt good. Later that evening was accused by him of finding the wrong version of Windows Explorer - he wanted the version with the icons, not the list of files, could I come over and sort him out. Of course it was just a question of adjusting a setting on the View menu and we resolved it within 30 seconds.\n\n He made me realise the problems that people have. I practically don’t have to think to change or fix things like that. To him it was an enormous problem that caused him some considerable frustration and he would probably have spent several hours trying to sort it out, in his case looking for another version of Windows Explorer. I think this kind of thing is one of the reasons why people join a computer club. They need help at a very basic level, at a level where they don’t even know what question to ask. ‘ Where do I find the other Windows Explorers’ ‘ I don’t want my files to look like that, do I have to reload Windows?’ They are all perfectly logical questions to a beginner in computing.\n\n So, in an effort to ease frustration in this world I propose that at each meeting we have a brief session on some elementary aspect of computing, a brief question and answer session on basics. I have no intention of doing it all on my own so will be asking for volunteers – if I have to I will use the army system of getting volunteers!\n\n The Auction is here again, just in case you had forgotten – how could you!! Now go and look out the stuff you have been saving for a rainy day that, you know in your heart of hearts, will never come. Gather it all together and bring it along for us to sell for you. You know we can sell anything, (that hasn’t got a ridiculous reserve on it), and that the prices are unbelievable, (high or low I don’t know which). Come along to St Pats, bring money or cheque book, we don’t have credit card facilities, and enjoy the evening and forever reminisce over the bargains you got and cry in your beer over the ones you missed.\n\n We will try to start at about 8pm but if you have stuff to auction or want to look for the bargain come along early. It’s usually pretty frantic just before so make it as early as you can.\n\n Went to a really good meeting of the Hutt group last night. We had a video of what happened between Steve Jobs (Apple) and Bill Gates (you know who) in the early days of computing. It showed how Steve started off in a garage, how Apple developed from nothing, and how Bill (I suppose a kind of villain) took Windows off him and made his money. John Foster really does a good job in getting interesting subjects and, if you turn up, I am sure you will have an interesting evening.\n\n Do come along on Wednesday, it’s usually interesting, definitely funny and there are bargains to be had.\n \n//- Rog //

It looks like our finances are beginning to turn round now that we have closed the Ghuznee Street office. Things haven't quite settled down yet, the odd bill keeps appearing out of the woodwork but we are beginning to relax a bit now, at long last our cash flow is in the black. It's only taken five years to sort it out! Maybe we should have had Arthur Anderson doing our books it would have been quicker!!\n\n I am not a believer in the club acting as a bank with your subscriptions, I want to keep as little in the bank as is conducive to running the club in a financially sound way.\n \nWe have approximately $3,000 that I think we can spend without rocking the PC too much. At the last committee meeting we decided to do some research in external hard disk or storage units. It seems there is still a problem in transferring data between machines, saving data and generally getting software into machines. These days it's not too hard to transfer 5 or even 10 megs happens if you want to transfer, or save the contents of your hard disk, say 2 gigs worth? That's a lot of floppies!\n\n The idea is to have a disk that members can borrow. It needs to be easy to install the transferring software and it probably has to work on the printer port, not all members having USB ports. I have seen several on the Internet but if you know of a local supply please let me know. My e-mail address is at the back of the newsletter.\n\n Also would appreciate any other suggestions� Not bottles of wine!!\n \nThe search for decent quality paper for printing photos continues. If you have missed this in the past I have been grousing about the cost of paper for printing photographs on my ~DeskJet. Photo quality paper costs more than getting a film processed and printed and I am paying for the ink! Found some "Cyber Star" paper in the Paper Warehouse at about $13 for 250 A4 sheets which is pretty good for now, it's not glossy but has a pretty dense finish. If you know of a source of better paper that maybe the club could buy in bulk for members. Again let me know.\n\n Bruce Robb died this week. He joined the club very early on and gave so much of his time and energy to the club. He was on the committee and was always willing to help and assist. He had been ill for several years and was not able to get to our meetings but he still ran the help line, for as long as he could, from home. He was a life member. I haven't seen him for several years but I know the world will be a lesser place without his cheery helpful presence. His funeral was on 8 th of April, three club members attended.\n\n The Lower Hutt group had Microsoft along on Monday. Showing off XP and Word XP. I can see it's got many useful features and is more user friendly but they still have a way to go. Leave it for a year to two till you can pick up a cheap copy.\n\n By the way have you been to a meeting of the Hutt group? They have some very interesting meetings. Watch the web page to see what's coming up, it's nearly always worth a visit, especially when I am doing a presentation!!\n\n Keep bashing the keys!\n \n//Roger Currier//\n

I am doing a talk on ~NetMeeting at the next St Giles meeting so I decided I had better find out about it. So I wandered ‘all innocent’ into the world of chat rooms and Windows Messenger. I went this way because I had heard about there being directories with a world full of people who just want to communicate using ~NetMeeting.\n\n Before I go much further I should explain that ~NetMeeting is a free program that comes with Windows, it’s intention is to allow you to use the Internet for voice and video communications. – So you can see the person you are chatting to.\n\n Goodbye Telecom hello ~NetMeeting I said to myself – and if you want to find out more you will have to come to my talk…\n\n What I did find was a world of people who just wanted to talk about sex of any kind I wanted. Most of them wanted to see my video and many would not connect without video. I went for one which sounded innocuous ‘City Chat’ but that was the same. I don’t think I have spent enough time searching there is bound to be some kind of sensible chat out there but it seems to me that a keyboard is the nearest thing to heaven for many perversions. I found one room where people indicated they were married and their interest was romance! I guess it takes all sorts. Fortunately you don’t have to go into that world to use ~NetMeeting, there is a much simpler way of connecting. Hopefully there will be someone at the meeting who can show us how to use Windows Messenger without getting dragged into that stuff- hint hint!\n\n For those who can’t get to the meeting a brief review of it is that it works, just! It needs a fast connection – Jetstream or the like – with a 56k modem it’s hard work and you can’t do any fancy sharing and you have to sit still or the video takes up all the bandwidth. It‘s nearly there' we just need faster systems – Now where have I heard that before??\n\n I have a new fast PC with USB connections for things like my video camera, the mouse and anything else I may want to plug in. Trouble is the plugs are at the back of the case just where I can’t get at them and the devices I plug in don’t have on-off switches. It has been a pain for several months and in the end I decided to go looking for a solution. Of course there are solutions out there, some costing many hundreds of dollars. I searched the net and found an internal USB hub which fits in the front of my case. Life is so much better – I recommend you get one. From reading my manual I find that I can have up to 128 simultaneous USB connections – a few too many for me at the moment! My hub has four.\n\n Whilst searching I found the most useless computer asset so far – a front panel for the pc that is a drawer! Can anyone beat that?\n\n See you at St Giles //- Roger//\n

\nThere is nothing quite so frustrating as a network that won't. Penny was, quite rightly, complaining that her modem kept disconnecting. So, after reloading drivers and trying various modem strings all to no avail I decided to share my modem over the network. ie I decided to use Internet Connection\nSharing (ICS). After all it made sense, quite often we both wanted to go on the net simultaneously, my modem was reliable and everybody knows how good XP is at ICS!\n\nThere is a wizard in XP which does it all for you so I started it up, created the floppy to configure Penny's machine, and installed it. That's when my problems started. The network didn't.\n\nI uninstalled ICS; nothing; I reloaded the network protocol drivers; nothing; I updated the network card drivers; nothing; You can guess I was getting pretty frustrated by now. When installing ICS I had moved my machine so I checked the network cable connections; you guessed it – nothing!\n\nThe trouble with a non-functioning network when you only have two machines on the network is that it's very difficult to work out what's wrong. Is it this machine? is it that one? is it the network cable? is it a network card and if so which one? The only reliable and systematic way of solving the\nproblem is to introduce a new machine, get it working with one machine then with the other then let the original machines talk together. I did all that - would they talk together - yes - Yay! - but oh so slowly and I couldn't save files across the network.\n\nDo you know about Ping? Ping is a lovely program, it comes with your computer and is designed to test networks. The way it's used is, at the DOS prompt, enter 'Ping ComputerName' (without the quotes). Ie Ping Penny or Ping www.microsoft.com. What it does is search for the computer / web page and tell you how long it took to connect to it - or what's more important in my case - that it couldn't connect to it. Try it - even if you do not have a network - it will try to dial out and connect to a site. It's a program to remember for that time when your system doesn't work.\n\nI Ping'd everywhere, Penny's machine would, my machine wouldn't - but they were talking! I was extremely pinged off! \n\nHaving loaded XP Service Pack 2 some time ago, I had decided to use the Microsoft firewall instead of Zone Alarm. So I turned ZA off by removing it from the start-up menu. I now realise that, since then, I had had intermittent problems connecting to and surfing the net. Some pages refused to open (as happens sometimes anyway), Norton Antivirus Live Update didn't - I spent days trying to resolve that one – and my connection speed seemed low. I had checked on Penny's machine and she could access the pages that I couldn't so there was nothing wrong on the net. Bloody Microsoft SP2!\n\nSpent ages searching the net for answers to my problem, - it's not easy to describe this problem in a search engine - 'page will not load' - 'slow modem' etc. At last I found a comment in a technical forum where someone else had a similar problem, blamed it on ZA which they had similarly 'stopped' and their problems went away only when they completely uninstalled ZA. So I did a complete uninstall, and my network did, and the Internet did. \n\nOh the pleasure of seeing the Norton Live Update icon appear automatically when I went on the net, of opening the pages normally again, of having a reasonable speed connection again! It appears that ZA makes modifications to the registry and in particular resets the TPC stack - whatever that is. So if you no longer want to use Zone Alarm - uninstall it - don't just turn it off.\n\nDon't get me wrong I really rate Zone Alarm, I use it on Penny's machine (Win 98) and it has never let me down and it's free. It took me about two weeks of searching the net to find this answer - took a lot of trying this and that - rebooted thousands of times. Drank gallons of coffee and nearly\ngot divorced! And I learned a few things!\n\nI learned that we cannot access every Internet site. It appears that some sites on the seven name servers (the sites that convert www.microsoft.com into an address like 23.233.1.33) do not have all the addresses and there are sites like free.tibet that you can’t access. Suggest you go to www.support.open-rsc.org for instructions how to access the additional sites. It will take time to research the implications of this additional access – and I have spent all my time this month sorting out my network so have nothing to report on the advantages of adding additional DNS servers. There is a reference to it on the Microsoft site that implies that the American government has a hand in restricting the names – who knows – and I thought the Internet was free of interference.\n\nI suppose all that time spent searching and fiddling did do me some good. I learned more about networks, firewalls and the Internet – so it wasn’t time completely wasted – only wish I hadn’t drunk as much coffee and lost so much sleep!\n\nWe have a new project, to make a club CD or DVD if necessary. The idea is to provide all club members with a CD containing lots of files, of shareware or freeware programs, of drivers for things like modems and video cards and anything else we find is useful. I know spend a great deal of time searching for programs, for tools to do certain things and to have a good chance of getting them from one CD will make my life easier.\n\nIt still needs some working out but the idea is that members send programs to a common point with a description of the program and we put it on a CD with a front end interface like magazines do. It won’t be as flashy as magazines but it won’t have the garbage and fillers that come with most mags CDs these days. Watch this space.\n\nSee you at St Giles\n\n\n\n

The company my daughter works for has banned their staff from accessing Trademe. In fact they have prevented staff members from surfing into Trademe to do their buying and selling. That’s a like showing a red rag to a bull as far as I am concerned and I set about beating the system. \n\nFirst thing I did was go to ~TinyUrl and get an alternative Internet address for Trademe. It came up with http://tinyurl.com/27f5a - try it, it will take you to Trademe just the same as usual. Actually ~TinyUrl is intended for long Internet address names but works with any address. (http://tinyurl.com). She tried it – the system stopped it – back to the drawing board. \n\nThen I pinged Trademe (Start/ Run/ Ping Trademe.co.nz) – what I was after was the actual Internet address not the Trademe address. It came back with 202.21.128.2 – which is the real address for Trademe – Try putting those numbers in the address bar at the top of IE or whatever you use. She tried that – NBG their system administrators are up to that one. \n\nSo I had some work to do. I did some research on the net and found ‘How to Obscure any URL’ at pc-help.org. It’s a very interesting article on how spammers cheat Internet addresses and I hope how to defeat system administrators. I tried http://!$*={}@%54r%61d%45%4De%2e%43o%2e%6e%5a which substitutes hex characters for letters. She tried that – no go – one up to the system administrator! Try it – if you can be bothered to put the letters in – it works. The % sign tells your browser that the next two characters are in hex (base 16 numerics). \n{{{\nhttp://!$*={} @%54r%61d%45%4De%2e%43o%2e%6e%5a\nhttp://nonsense@ t r a d e me . C o . n z\n}}}\nNext step, redirect from a web site. Set up a link on a web site to Trademe – The idea being to surf to an innocuous web site then jump into Trademe. Bloody system administrators – stopped again. \n\nGetting frustrated by now – why doesn’t she go to a different trading site? Why can’t she do it at home? Why did I ever start this stupid exercise? \n\nThen I read on and suggested she tried http://3390406658 which is the decimal equivalent of the 202.21.128.2 above. Didn’t work on my browser which is Netscape based but worked like a treat on hers. Ya Boo Suks – system operator. \n\nShe now tells me she doesn’t want to use it in case she gets caught – and could she send emails to me at work so I can go on for her!!! I won’t tell you my answer to that. \n\nRecommend you read ‘How to Obscure any URL’ – it’s a good article – well written and will increase your understanding of how the Internet works. \n\nThank you all those kind people who sent me the modem cut-off timer I asked for in my last article – found one that works a treat. So don’t try ringing me between 10:30 and 6am because I will be doing downloads using ~BitTorrent – even if World War 3 has started – and I know you would all be concerned that I was safe!! \n\nPenny’s machine has crashed and Windows won’t work any more. Pretty sure it’s the hard disk on it’s way out – had intended to try that program Robin Hinde wrote about to test the condition of your hard disk – but never got round to it. Fortunately I had backed her data up to my machine the week before so no real pain. Except she/ we lost our address book! Tried all sorts of ways of getting into the hard disk without success till I remembered the Knoppix CD we gave away to members a couple of years ago. \n\nIf you recall this CD was set up to boot your machine straight from the CD drive without using the hard drive at all. Of course it runs up in Linux but that’s no problem to someone as proficient in Linux as I !! Found I could read the hard disk, chunks of it were in a mess but the address book was ok – I managed to get it off the machine via the floppy drive – remember those things – like memory cards but only 1.4 megabyte. \n\nI am doing a talk on Chief Architect at St Giles this coming meeting. If you are intending to design a new house or do an extension it’s an ideal tool. Bit of a learning curve but very powerful. Will bring along some blank CDs for those who want to try it out. // - Roger Currier//

The AGM happened at last, we nearly didn't have a quorum until a member (tried) to sneak in late and we all let out a cheer and were able to get on with the meeting. All the modifications to the Constitution were passed, the controversial one about committee members not paying subs causing most discussion. As it is we will be free to chose to pay subs as a donation or not, if a committee member does pay it will be a donation which is GST exclusive so there is some advantage to the club.\n \nOur speaker didn't work out, (communication problem), so Tony Fitchett stood in and in about 3/4 hour gave us an introduction to genealogy which I wouldn't have missed for the world. It was full of good practical advice about sources of information, computer programmes, the rewards and the pitfalls. Thank you Tony, I think your genealogy society will gain some new members as a result. \n\nAlistair is back on the scene organising speakers for us for which I am very grateful. He knows our policy of not always having major presentations and having smaller more intimate presentations from members or local suppliers at times. Without him we have had too many of the latter presentations and now I feel we will have the right mix. \n\nWhen you surf the web, and I am sure many of us do, you will occasionally come across a gem, a web page with something special, a good source of information or just that spark that makes it different. Why not share it with other members by sending it to our editor, Arthur Harris or go on to our web page at www.computers.org.nz and send it to our webmaster who will (if it is appropriate, and you know what I mean by inappropriate!) put a link on the page for other members to use. On the other hand why not try the links that he has already set up there. You never know what you will find! \n\nTried buying software from the Warehouse? It's cheap and excellent quality. I picked up a house design package for $19.50 and it even does 3D imaging. Nothing to match the Autocads of this world but you don't need to go on a course to learn Autocad. It does it's stuff and is perfectly adequate for domestic jobs. \n\nAh well off we go another fun filled year of NZPCA meetings, a year of sorting out computers, having my mind blown by some new gismo that runs faster holds more and costs half the price that it would have been if it had been brought out six months ago, (something wrong there!!!), Do come along to the meetings, do socialise do share your problems and your successes. And try to encourage someone else to join the club.\n\nRoger Currier,\nPresident NZPCA \n

Got an email virus the other day, well actually I had been receiving this virus from the same person for several weeks. I thought there was something funny about their email because Internet Explorer kept coming up with a message saying ‘An Active X control on this page is not safe….’ and my current security settings prohibit running unsafe controls. (Heaven knows where I set my security settings but thank goodness I had set them). As it was it didn’t cause me any problems as the email was just a 3 line message which I could read after OK’ing the Microsoft warning. \n\nAnyway I got fed up with this message and decided to have a look at the email itself to see what I was missing. So I examined the message’s Properties. The Properties show what the message was as it was received and not as Internet Explorer formats it and puts up on the screen. It was very interesting. If you want to try this click on the message then right click, chose Properties and then click the Details tab. From there you can examine the Message Source. \n\nTurned out that the Active X control was a virus, here are a few lines from the virus \n{{{\n~ActiveXObject('Scripting.~FileSystemObject');\nkk=3D(fs.~FileExists= (kfr))?kfr:ken;aek=3D'C:\s\s\s\sAE.KAK';\naeb=3D'C:\s\s\s\sAutoexec.bat';\nif(!fs.Fil=eExists(aek)){re=3D/kak.hta/i;if(hO.commandLine.search(re)!=3D-1){f1=3Dfs= .~GetFile(aeb); \nf1.Copy(aek);t1=3Df1.~OpenAsTextStream(8);pth=3D(kk=3D=3Dkfr=)?wd+'MENUD=90~1\s\s\s\sPROGRA~1\s\s\s\sD=90MARR~1\s\s\s\skak.hta':ken;t1.~WriteLine('= @echo off>'+pth); t1.\n~WriteLine('[~HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \s\s\s\sSOFTWARE\s\s\s\sMicrosoft\s\s\s\sWindows\s\s\s\s~CurrentVersion\s\s\s\sRun]')= ;t2.\nWrite('\s"cAg0u\s"=3D\s"C:\s\s\s\s\s\s\s\sWINDOWS\s\s\s\s\s\s\s\sSYSTEM\s\s\s\s\s\s\s\s'+fic+'. h=ta\s"'); \nt2.~WriteBlankLines(2);t2.close();wsh.Run(wd+'Regedit.exe -s = ~CreateTextFile(wd+'kak.htm',1);t3.Write('B= ~RUNDLL32.EXE =user.exe,exitwindows');}self.close(); \n}}}\nI can’t make head nor tail of it either, (I have chopped out lots of it anyway) but some of the lines I don’t like are the reference to ~HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE where it is trying to write to the Windows registry and the last line where it seems to be shutting Windows down. I think it is the ‘ KAK’ virus and it looks pretty nasty. (See separate article about the virus)\n\nTold my friend about it and she said she suspected she had one but thought she had got rid of it because she ran the latest ~MacAfee anti virus program and it didn’t detect it. She didn’t know what to do about it – and quite frankly neither did I! \n\nAs luck would have it I went on the net last night and instead of opening up on my Clear home page as usual IE put me through to the Microsoft update file, (don’t you hate it when it does that!), and there right in front of me was a security update to avoid Active X viruses. I tried to download it. Unfortunately I had not been on the how to download files from Microsoft course and had quite a struggle, in the end I had to download 17 meg of update for IE and Outlook Express to version 5.5, it wouldn’t let me just download the security upgrade, that’s for another night.\n\nAfter downloading tried to send an email to my friend, - the one with the virus, - no way!Outlook Express would not Send and Receive email. Clear helpdesk tried without success, I could connect to the net with IE but mail would not work. Cursing Microsoft I tried lots of things to no avail. All the time I was ignoring messages from my firewall program ~ZoneAlarm till Penny said what’s that? Yes ~ZoneAlarm had detected that OE had changed and was refusing it access to the net. Gave it permission and I was back in business.\n\nLesson learned, (till next time at least), keep your updates current – it’s a pain but can save a lot of grief in the long run – if you run ~ZoneAlarm or probably any other kind of firewall beware it may detect changes to your email system and refuse to send / receive messages. And you can’t always trust your anti-virus program. \n\nChange of Subject, new year, new members on our committee, new blood and new ideas. The committee meeting was quite lively with everyone attending and some good ideas came about. One of them relates to the use of Compuserve. Because of the work Linette Horne does with Compuserve we are given two accounts with more or less unlimited access. We can’t let everyone have the passwords etc because that would defeat the spirit of our agreement. Somehow we want to give members access to the services that Compuserve have that are not readily available on the net. The proposal is that we set up one of the machines at the Guznee Street office so that if you want to have a go you can get on. OH YES we are also looking for a member who will assist Linette in updating the Pacific Forum with news. If you can help let us know. \n\nWe also need more help, or contacts, to assist on the help desk. John Fanning is running the help line and needs people who have skills so he can direct calls to appropriate people. If you have skills in some aspect of computing please let us know so we can put you on the list. We are very careful about people calling and arrange things so you call them back rather than just handing out your phone number. \n\nAnd lastly with greatest of pleasure I want to say a huge thanks to STU MOUNTJOY for the sterling work he did in helping out Ray & Betty Weeber with their computer problem. I am told he came in from Tawa to their place in Kilbirnie to sort their problems. Thank you very much Stu your help is much appreciated and it is what this club is all about. Very well done – pat yourself on the back Stu. \n\n//- Rog //\n

It's no use, it doesn't feel right, there is something special about receiving Megabyte in the mail. I know that in theory there is no difference in reading it on the screen but somehow it isn't as personal and it certainly isn't as flexible. I usually read Megabyte in bed and I know that Penny would object if I brought my computer to bed to read.\n\n I understand that Adobe are suing a hacker who cracked their protection on their book reading software. This software is designed to allow you to buy a book, very cheaply, on the Internet and read it on your computer. It was very carefully protected and you couldn't even copy the software to another computer, you couldn't copy pages from the books, all you could do was read the book. I don't see much point in the software myself; somehow I can't curl up with a computer like I can with a book.\n\n What's the point of all of this? Well we need to save money and we were looking at saving money by delivering Megabyte by email. It would have saved us quite a lot of money, I asked at meetings for opinions and though there was some support for this it wasn't very enthusiastic and I had the feeling that it wasn't really supported. So we have to do something else.\n\n Our other major expenditure is the BBS, we pay for two telephone lines, we have to rent space for the computer, pay for power for the computer etc. Several people have suggested that we put the BBS on a web page. We have been looking at this and the costs seem very favourable. Currently Robin is looking at what is involved in setting it up. We want to provide email facilities, file upload and download, access to newsgroups and perhaps even a chat room for members to discuss their problems. We may be able to provide limited access to those members who do not have an Internet account. I know there are members who are not using Windows however I am satisfied that there are now browsers and email readers available for most operating systems. Don't worry if you don't have the fastest most super computer, even the most basic machine is much faster than the Internet it's the speed of the modem that counts.. Watch this space.\n\n Robin is going to need a hand, if you are interested in helping maintain an element of the web page let me know (~RogerC@Clear.net.nz). It should be an interesting project and I anticipate it will grow as the Internet evolves.\n\n Been fighting Access this month. Hit a bug where an old tried and tested routine suddenly stopped working. Cost me two days to sort it out. It appears that somehow an internal setting gets switched and it won't go back. In the end I, (and in desperation), I took an old working programme, stripped out all the old tables, forms etc and them imported them from the program I was developing. Everything worked fine after that. Microsoft you still haven't got it right! Just try searching the net for the words Access and help and see how many Access programmers have hit problems! There that feel better!\n\n We had a suggestion, I think it was at the AGM, that we buy a digital camera for the members to hire. It would give members the opportunity to try one out to see if it suited their needs, they could use it for a project and save the cost of film and processing. Sometimes it's nice to have images in electronic format for sending via emails. Feedback please.\n\n A member came up to me the other day to thank me for a tip I had given him. I hadn't even realised it was a tip. All I had done was demonstrate the use of the 'Send to' option in Windows to send a file to Notepad. (Right click on a file in Windows Explorer and one of the options is Send to). He hadn't realised that the 'Send to' was a folder and any programmes in that folder could have files sent to them. I have a copy, (well a shortcut - you can send to a shortcut just as you can to an ordinary file), of Notepad in my Send to folder and it's very useful for viewing the contents of a file (any file be it an .exe, a txt, a dll, or a gif). Sometimes the result is garbage but it is often useful to just open up a file to see what it is used for. I notice that Outlook Express has also put 'Mail recipient' in my Send to folder and it's very easy to email a file by using the Send To facility. Try it - it's worth getting used to.\n\n Think I'll just Send to this report to Richard!\n\n//- Rog //

Beginning to get a lot of spam mail. Initially I just swore and deleted it but of course it keeps coming. I don�t respond to it as that tells the spammer that they are getting through to someone. It does annoy me, it just takes up time, fills my hard disk � for a while at least, and takes up Internet resources. Decided to see what I could do about it.\n\n I know there are all kinds of spam filters and programs that will stop them from downloading but they have to be paid for and there is something Scottish in me! I decided to see if I could do anything myself. First I opened up one of these emails to see what it actually contained. It was from a Hotmail address and I considered setting my message rules so that it would delete anything from that address. The next email was from a different address altogether so I abandoned that idea. Then I noticed that it was not directly addressed to me, I was on the CC list, (my email is ~RogerC@Clear.net.nz), and the email had also been sent to ~RogerA, ~RogerB, ~RogerC, ~RogerD etc etc all at Clear. Someone had obviously been doing a bit of string handling and had created the addresses manually using the search and replace from a word processor programme.\n\n They just don't care do they! They will send out thousands of emails, trying all kinds of different addresses in the hope of catching one. It doesn't cost them anything and if they get say .0001% response on say 10 million emails it makes it worth while for them. It just costs us in having to pay, albeit indirectly, for increased Internet capacity.\n\n Now I know this doesn't reduce the load on the Internet but I fixed it by setting up my message rules such that if the email is CC'd to ~RogerB@Clear.net.nz it goes directly into the deleted folder so I don't see it. Checked some other junk mails which, though not set up the same, are CC'd to people I don't know so I have added their name to the delete message rule. I suspect there is someone out there is selling ~CDs with my email address and this may be the way to defeat it. For those who don't use Message rules in Internet Explorer they are on the Tools/ Message Rules menu and are a life saver if you get a lot of email particularly to different members of your family. You can set them up to automatically file messages in a person's folder, copy it, delete it, forward it and generally ease the problem of handling lots of mail. Try it out, it costs nothing and is very easy to do.\n\n Made another discovery about reading Web pages. I wanted to purchase some additional memory for my camera so went on line to see what I could find. (saved myself $100+) Found some promising web sites but on one of them the font was just too small to read. Informed the web master who was kind enough to reply and pointed out the option on the View menu of Internet Explorer there is an item which allows you to change the Text size on a Web page. So no more squinting for me - if it's too small I just blow it up.\n\n The AGM happened and the proposed Constitutional amendments were passed. Thank you all those members who turned up for the meeting. The only one of any significance is the reduction in the size of a quorum. The new committee was appointed and I am very pleased to say that John Little is now the Treasurer. The old committee is pretty much the same with a few responsibilities switched. There was some discussion on the impression our NZPCA name gives to prospective members who may be put off at the thought of joining a New Zealand wide Association. The point from the floor was made that we now provide a social function and that really are a club, We are not about to change the name from NZPCA but we may be able to "soften" our promotional material. Incidentally Colin Candy is producing new flyers, which will soon be available, it would be helpful if you could hand some out or pin them up at your work, social club etc.\n \nEnjoy your computing.\n \n//- Rog//\n

I'm determined to learn Linux so have bought a bigger hard disk and partitioned it so I can run both Windows and Linux. After a struggle I have set up a menu when my machine starts up giving me the option of going to W or L. Well actually it's to go to NT (as Linux thinks my version of W is NT and not XP) - confused yet? Well I am and those are just common abbreviations. Linux is probably the best thing since sticky tape was invented. It's probably the most stable operating system going, it's Windows emulation is very slick and clever but it just won't make it unless it changes course. Linux needs a marketing agent and someone who understands computing. Linux comes with every program under the sun, it has all the graphics, word processing, spreadsheeting programs you could want - trouble is that the names chosen for the programs are ambiguous to say the least. If you didn't know what would you think a program called Gnome did? Which program would you chose if you were looking for a graphic editor; "Picture It" or Gimp?\n\nThis is the blurb of the back of one of my Linux books describing a program called Heartbeat:\n"Heartbeat is a host monitor and a high availability solution for Linux that promotes reliability, availability, and a serviceability through a community development effort"\n\nNow what on earth does all that jargon mean?\n\nI know computing has it's own language, it took me ages to work out what a "platform" was, but at least I was only worrying about one word in a conversation where I understood most of the other words. There is a rate at which the average person can understand new concepts and to use familiar words in a normal context helps.\n\nDuring the early days of computing there were many languages and programs. Amongst many there were Fortran, Pilot, Forth, Pascal and Basic. I believe that Basic - a very simple programming language - is one of the reasons why computing has come so far. It was easy for the beginner to program - OH the pleasure of getting my first program to work and print "Hello World" on the screen! I knew children who would work all weekend and produce a thousand-line program in Basic that played a game, that did something clever, (or nearly did!), and through that they got into computing. I know that Basic is not a very good language to program in, your programs can get tied in knots, it's very slow, it's badly documented but it works and through it many people have become programmers.\n\nI am able to write this because I am at the beginning of a long path into Linux. I can only see a few steps ahead and probably many of them end up in dead ends. I will become contaminated with Linux, I will gimp, I will samba with Windows and maybe I will understand what Heartbeat is about.\n\nI want you to make me a promise - please. When my President's report becomes gobbledygook to you, begins to sound like Heartbeat, put me out to graze (or gimp) because I will have become contaminated and only able to talk Linux! Maybe I shouldn't go down this road - I may never find my way back!\n\nIf you weren't clear about my first paragraph then maybe the next meeting at St Pats will assist. Hugh Roberton is going to explain partitioning a hard disk, he will show you how to do it, explain why you may want partitions and tell you what a fat table is - and it's nothing to do with carving meat!\n\nThank you for re-electing me I only hope I can hold off the gobbledygook till the end of my session.\n\n//- Rog//

There is nothing quite so frustrating as a network that won't. Penny was, quite rightly, complaining that her modem kept disconnecting. So, after reloading drivers and trying various modem strings all to no avail I decided to share my modem over the network. ie I decided to use Internet Connection Sharing (ICS). After all it made sense, quite often we both wanted to go on the net simultaneously, my modem was reliable and everybody knows how good XP is at ICS!\n\nThere is a wizard in XP which does it all for you so I started it up, created the floppy to configure Penny's machine, and installed it. That's when my problems started. The network didn't.\nI uninstalled ICS; nothing; I reloaded the network protocol drivers; nothing; I updated the network card drivers; nothing; You can guess I was getting pretty frustrated by now. When installing ICS I had moved my machine so I checked the network cable connections; you guessed it – nothing!\n\nThe trouble with a non-functioning network when you only have two machines on the network is that it's very difficult to work out what's wrong. Is it this machine? is it that one? is it the network cable? is it a network card and if so which one? The only reliable and systematic way of solving the problem is to introduce a new machine, get it working with one machine then with the other then let the original machines talk together. I did all that - would they talk together - yes - Yay! - but oh so slowly and I couldn't save files across the network.\n\nDo you know about Ping? Ping is a lovely program, it comes with your computer and is designed to test networks. The way it's used is, at the DOS prompt, enter 'Ping ~ComputerName' (without the quotes). Ie Ping Penny or Ping www.microsoft.com. What it does is search for the computer / web page and tell you how long it took to connect to it - or what's more important in my case - that it couldn't connect to it. Try it - even if you do not have a network - it will try to dial out and connect to a site. It's a program to remember for that time when your system doesn't work. I Ping'd everywhere, Penny's machine would, my machine wouldn't - but they were talking! I was extremely pinged off! \n\nHaving loaded XP Service Pack 2 some time ago, I had decided to use the Microsoft firewall instead of Zone Alarm. So I turned ZA off by removing it from the start-up menu. I now realise that, since then, I had had intermittent problems connecting to and surfing the net. Some pages refused to open (as happens sometimes anyway), Norton Antivirus Live Update didn't - I spent days trying to resolve that one – and my connection speed seemed low. I had checked on Penny's machine and she could access the pages that I couldn't so there was nothing wrong on the net. Bloody Microsoft SP2!\n\nSpent ages searching the net for answers to my problem, - it's not easy to describe this problem in a search engine - 'page will not load' - 'slow modem' etc. At last I found a comment in a technical forum where someone else had a similar problem, blamed it on ZA which they had similarly 'stopped' and their problems went away only when they completely uninstalled ZA. So I did a complete uninstall, and my network did, and the Internet did. \n \nOh the pleasure of seeing the Norton Live Update icon appear automatically when I went on the net, of opening the pages normally again, of having a reasonable speed connection again! It appears that ZA makes modifications to the registry and in particular resets the TPC stack - whatever that is. So if you no longer want to use Zone Alarm - uninstall it - don't just turn it off.\nDon't get me wrong I really rate Zone Alarm, I use it on Penny's machine (Win 98) and it has never let me down and it's free. It took me about two weeks of searching the net to find this answer - took a lot of trying this and that - rebooted thousands of times. Drank gallons of coffee and nearly got divorced! And I learned a few things!\n\nI learned that we cannot access every Internet site. It appears that some sites on the seven name servers (the sites that convert www.microsoft.com into an address like 23.233.1.33) do not have all the addresses and there are sites like free.tibet that you can’t access. Suggest you go to www.support.open-rsc.org for instructions how to access the additional sites. It will take time to research the implications of this additional access – and I have spent all my time this month sorting out my network so have nothing to report on the advantages of adding additional DNS servers. There is a reference to it on the Microsoft site that implies that the American government has a hand in restricting the names – who knows – and I thought the Internet was free of interference.\n\nI suppose all that time spent searching and fiddling did do me some good. I learned more about networks, firewalls and the Internet – so it wasn’t time completely wasted – only wish I hadn’t drunk as much coffee and lost so much sleep!\n\nWe have a new project, to make a club CD or DVD if necessary. The idea is to provide all club members with a CD containing lots of files, of shareware or freeware programs, of drivers for things like modems and video cards and anything else we find is useful. I know spend a great deal of time searching for programs, for tools to do certain things and to have a good chance of getting them from one CD will make my life easier.\n\nIt still needs some working out but the idea is that members send programs to a common point with a description of the program and we put it on a CD with a front end interface like magazines do. It won’t be as flashy as magazines but it won’t have the garbage and fillers that come with most mags CDs these days. Watch this space.\nSee you at St Giles\n

//This month, by Richard Elam//\n\nWell, the AGM has come and gone, the committee is more or less the same (less actually) but there are still some interesting things to see and talk about. One of the subjects Roger has raised at our committee meetings recently has been the archiving electronically of our ~MegaByte collection. Adriannus Hollander (a well remembered life member now living in the far north) has offered his extensive hard copy set of Megabytes, and Arthur Harris and I have a good few years of electronic copy in one form or another, but how to store them in an easily retreived and searchable manner. \n\nTrue to form, Robin Hinde has been giving it lots of thought and has come across “~TiddliWiki” - a java script based method of displaying and navigating documents. Robin has put a number of Megabytes into ~TiddliWiki format for the committee to look at and evaluate, and John Marchington only this evening told me he had put a whole issue of Megabyte into ~TiddliWiki format. \n\nRobin has written an article on this, and has given web links to some trial pages he has developed. Its really worth reading, and Robin will demonstrate what he has done so far, at the Hutt meeting at Moera on Monday 14 August. \n\nAnother member, Ken Chandler, has kindly offered to give presentations to our meeting on voice recognition. Software for voice recognition has been developing steadily over recent years and with the release of Dragon Naturally Speaking Version 9 it has reached a very useful and functional stage. Ken will demonstrate the software and hardware, and will show how a new user can be trained quite quickly. Those unable to get to St Giles this month will have a chance to hear Ken at the Hutt meeting in September.\n\nOver recent months I have had the fortune, and bad luck, to strike a few milestones in my computing. One really good thing was to get broadband. I am fortunate enough to be in the Saturn cable TV area, and when recently upgrading to digital TV over cable I took the opportunity to change from dial-up to the cheapest cable modem broadband available from ~TelstraClear. This gives me 2 Mbps both download and upload , with a 1 GB data “cap” for about $30 per month (I think that is what it is - its part of a bundle and it is hard to work out the actual costs of each component!) and an extra cost per block of data (not that I can remember what the blocks are!) but with no throttling if I go over my monthly “cap”. \n\nI am mainly emailing and web surfing, so I haven’t gone over my cap limit so far, but the improvement is worth any extra cost. To download 20 MB data file in less than 3 minutes is magic, and email just races. Family can now send good high resolution pictures and we have had some great ones from afar, received sometimes the day they were taken on the other side of the world! I really recommend it! \n\nAnother milestone which I was not pleased with was the first (and second and third!) restore of my Windows XP operating system. After years of good and consistent performance of my slowish P4 system, I started to find that booting up was taking a very long time, and sometimes seemed to hang; my digital camera download software didn’t appear on screen although task manager said it was running and my USB scanner was playing up and not being recognised, even though it was showing power. Yet other USB devices were working! \n\nAfter three system restores from time to time over a few weeks, (which didn’t always fix the problem) I found what was apparently the probl;em. While moving my scanner on my small, cramped (and untidy) desk I must have partially locked the scanner head. There is a small tab under one corner to lock the head when transporting it, and that preventing the scanner form physically responding every time it was interrogated at start up. \n\nWhat a simple thing and how much frustration it caused! I assume the camera software problem was caused by some relationship between the twain driver for the scanner and the twain driver for the camera. The slow computer was most likely due to the never resolved search for my scanner. \n\nThe lack of scanning capability and not being able to get my photos out of my camera has just shown me how much the PC is now an integral part of our daily life even at home. \n\nLook forward to seeing you at our August meetings. Roger will be back in September after having got sunburnt in Europe! \n\n//Cheers, Richard//

I have been baking this week, it’s the annual Christmas cake that the President has to produce. Who started this rule, I can’t find it in the constitution!\n \nUnfortunately Symantec couldn’t make the last meeting at St Pats so at the last minute Bret Comstock Waldow stood in and gave us an excellent demonstration of video conferencing. It was remarkable really, Ian Godfrey brought along his laptop and at the meeting they transferred the Net Meeting software to his machine using the infra-red link. They inserted a video card, configured it and set up his machine for the video conference using a digital camera for the video link. Talk about doing things on the fly! \n\nIan then went out on the net, dialed Bret’s machine IP number and ‘ring ring’ they were in conference. It was an excellent demonstration with one talking and the other machine receiving the sound / picture about half a second later. Bret then showed how he could share software and allow the other party to drive software on his machine. He ran up Autocad, shared it and then Ian could drive Autocad using his machine even though he didn’t have Autocad loaded. Bret tells me he regularly conferences with his father in the USA and is able to demonstrate how to do something on his father’s machine or even sort out problems with the machine. \n\nIt convinced me that video conferencing works and will become more and more into common use as people develop their systems. I have added a small video camera to my Christmas present list – I know I will probably get socks or handkerchiefs as usual but there is always the Roger to Roger Christmas present. \n\nThank you Bret for standing in at the last minute and for giving and excellent demo. \n\nLast night I went to the Kapiti meeting where Robin Hinde was giving a demonstration on how to load Linux. They are well set up up there with multiple vdu s and a powered splitter box. Means a few trailing wires but it works and every one is able to see comfortably. Robin’s demo was excellent, he showed what decisions are important and the significance of the Linux disk referencing system. (They don’t use drive C: D; etc). There are now so many free systems you can load, some being more automatic than others. (if you want to try it try Corel Linux which is very automatic). Do understand Linux is not like Windows where everything is done for you, Linux is very flexible and allows you to change very basic settings such as the video frequency and if you don’t feel confident about fiddling and tweaking then I recommend you stick to Windows or Dos. \n\nWe are planning another Auction. Probably in March, so save your pennies and sort out what you want to sell. Andrew Wilkinson’s widow has kindly donated all his computing equipment to the club and much of it will go in the auction. We had a look at it the other day and there are a lot of early laptops, lots of software & books and some machines which should be in a museum. We are going to test the pcs as best we can so that you will have some idea of what you are getting. \n\nNo response to my request for help in documenting the BBS so we are looking at going down another road using HTML and CGI software. Watch this space. \n\nThere won’t be a club meeting in January so keep an eye open in Feb for your next edition of Megabyte. That is Y2K permitting. Season’s greeting to you all and will see you in the new year. \n\nPS Do come along to the St Pats meeting this month, it’s the Microsoft games meeting and there are special prizes and givaways, especially to anyone who can land Concorde. \n\n\nRoger Currier, \nPresident NZPCA\n\n

I still haven't stopped trying to sort out the web cam thing so we can broadcast our meetings on the net. Bought myself a web cam as an early Christmas present – well it isn't just for me – Penny will like it as well! It has a USB connection which, to those who don’t know, is the latest thing in connecting ancillaries to computers. USB allows you to plug and unplug accessories without powering down, the computer automatically recognising the device and configuring itself appropriately. Well that's the theory anyway, of course it comes with the unwritten assumption that your computer was designed and built last week and you are running an appropriate operating system.\n\nAs you might guess I am not. My motherboard does not even have a USB port and my BIOS was created in 1994 which was before USB was a twinkle in Bill Gates' or whoever's eye. I knew that! I bought myself a Dynalink USB card that plugs into one of my PCI slots and expected to be away. Computer recognised it, a test software program says my PC is USB compliant, my webcam says oh no it isn't and crashes with the dreaded blue screen every time I look at it. No snide comments please!! And anyway the camera works fine on my office laptop!\n\nYet another hassle, why do they always occur when I don't have time, when I want it just to work – I am sure there is something about silicon that recognises when you need something to just work – as it should without the usual battle. I am sure there is a Murphy's law to that effect. I suppose it's solving problems like this is what gave me the experience to solve problems like this …. something wrong there! Does anyone have any suggestions? (//Isn't that called learning by experience, ed.//) \n\nDawn is moving on. Dawn Gorman, our treasurer, is moving up the coast and can not continue as treasurer beyond the end of this financial year. In fact she would prefer to hand the job over to someone before then. SO if you have the necessary skills, or even if you haven’t and would like to learn how to keep a set of books give me a ring on 473 9520. We have simplified the job as far as possible, these days we are not even GST registered so don’t have to keep filing GST returns. We will be looking for someone at our AGM!! Hint Hint. \n\n \nLast meeting at St Pats this year on 20th December. Microsoft are going to show off their latest games and other goodies no doubt. Come along it should be a fun night and of course someone wonderful will be bringing along a Christmas cake! No meeting in January, first meeting in the proper new millennium will be in February – we are having a month off. Happy Christmas And here’s hoping all your Christmas software and hardware work first time.\n

I got another virus this week it was the Badtrans (W32.Badtrans.B @ mm) virus and this is it's story. Beware and be warned!\n\n I received an email from a friend that, from the subject line, appeared to be a response to one I sent her. When I clicked on it there was no text, just an attachment called Hedgehog.doc. I was immediately suspicious and deleted it congratulating myself on defeating another virus and knowing I was quite safe as I have Norton 2000 running on my machine. Mentioned it to another person in the office who said - 'watch it, with some viruses you don't even have to open the file'. I didn't worry as I have Norton 2000 running and my virus images were up to date.\n\n My friend then sent me an email warning me that she had a virus that had been sent out to everyone in her address book - and that it was difficult to delete. I didn't worry as I had Norton 2000 running.\n\n Something on my machine then tried to dial out! Fortunately I was off the network and I had Norton 2000 running . . . .\n\n I guess it was about then that I woke up to the fact that all was not right so I looked at Norton 2000. The sysop in our office is very careful about anti-virus updates and regularly emails us to say the latest copy of the virus images is available on the server. I had always updated my images. I then tried Live Update on Norton, and, as well as downloading the latest image file it downloaded alterations and amendments to Norton 2000 and insisted on rebooting my machine. At which point the red screen came up with the message that I had a virus and what did it want me to do about it. The file it was in was called kernel32.exe.\n\n Now I know that the kernel files are pretty important files so I was very worried and all I could do was quarantine the file. Did so and Windows ran up normally much to my surprise.\n\n Turns out the virus puts the kernel32.exe file in the system folder and modifies the registry so that it runs immediately the pc is rebooted. The file is a back door entry file that allows hackers to get into the machine so that they can get at passwords or do anything they like.\n\n Norton couldn't correct the file, it wasn't broken, the whole file was a virus. Had to run Norton program to delete the file, modify the registry and I was ok. - Until I accidentally touched the file in the deleted files folder of Outlook express and . . . . .\n\n Please learn the lesson, do get an anti virus program, keep it up to date with more than just the virus image files and you are not safe these days just deleting the file from your inbox. Oh and by the way it can take several downloads to get Norton completely up to date, just continue doing live updates until Norton tells you that you are up to date.\n\n I have received the same virus subsequently from a member of the NZPCA!! But of course Norton 2000 saved me as it always would!!\n\n The office in Guhznee St is to close at the end of this month. It was costing us about $250 a month to keep going with the phone lines etc and we just can't afford that sort of money. The BBS will close - But - the new web page will be up with some files either available for download or links to the source which will of course give the most up to date copy of the file. We anticipate having a help service, a chat room and every member will be able to have his / her own web page. Robin and Ian are currently building a 'box' (a new pc from the BBS parts) that will be physically installed at our Internet provider. Should be exciting with lots of opportunities for interaction and self-development. Watch that space.\n\n John Thompson gave an interesting talk on his experience of the new version of Windows, Windows XP. It seems very stable and reliable but at a big cost in both financial and machine requirements. I think it was generally decided that it didn't offer anything that people currently wanted and the best thing to do was to leave it some time for the bugs to be sorted out and for the price to come down. Eventually one will have to buy it, just to be able to run the latest software but not just yet.\n\n Just loaded the latest Windows version of Star Office, version 6, currently in beta. Very impressed, looks like Microsoft may have a challenge coming. Oh yes it's free. Try it you may like it, it has most of the features Word and Excel have and some that they don't have. Make this your Christmas project.\n\n Or alternatively learn Linux, - from reading NZ PC World it has become of age and can stand up against the big M. And of course it's free, and it has Star Office.\n\n Have a good Christmas, make your resolution to learn a new language / program feature for the New Year, mail merge is a great tool and a good way to start.\n\n See you in February, if not at the December meeting.\n \n//- Rog //

I got my Roger to Roger present early this year, why not I don�t believe in waiting for a surprise if I know what it is. I bought myself a new watch, my old one having given up the ghost. I bought it over the Internet. I have bought several things this way, and never had any problems. It's much cheaper this way, typically saving about 50% plus postage so it's well worth while. I use my credit card and make sure when I am entering the number the page name is https: ie has the "s" at the end of http, indicating a secure page.\n\n The one lesson I have learned is to make sure I include the cost of the postage when comparing prices. The postage on my watch was US$18.50 - a not insignificant amount but it was still much cheaper than buying in NZ. Also I have been told that if the value is less than $1,000 NZ customs don't charge GST. Next time you want a "me to me" present do go looking. Oh yes the watch is programmable and comes with an infra red communication device - none of this setting watches manually any more. Well Bill Gates is a geek as well!!\n\n Well we now have two projectors! Having demonstrated it at the St Giles meeting and stretched the display to 2048 x 1536 without problems it�s going to make our presentations much more professional. It's for hire of course, see the ad elsewhere in Megabyte. The other one we will sell off. I remember a girl wanted to join the NZPCA just to hire the projector for seven days continuous use in a display for the Wellington Festival of The Arts. That's not the sort of way we want it used, the bulb, (or whatever it is these days), costs a fortune to replace. We didn't accept the hire.\n \nI remind you we still have some Knoppix ~CDs which are freely available from me at rogerC@clear.net.nz as a club service to members, we can always record some more if we wish. It's a fascinating CD, amazing what can be included on a single CD. Really shows how far Linux has come - and yet how far it still has to go. If you can set your PC so that it boots from the CD ROM drive and have about 100 meg of ram it will run fine. If you have less ram it will still run but spends more time swapping stuff to and from the hard disk.\n\n No meeting in January, no Megabyte in January, so prepare yourself for some disappointment in the New Year!\n\n Trying to set up meetings for next year. Going to see if we can get Microsoft to give us a demonstration of the Xbox and show us what you can really do with it - actually we want a technical demonstration of what's inside the Xbox - as you know I am not really interested in games!\n \nThe December meeting at St Giles is going to be a bring and buy sale. Bring that program, circuit board etc along and replace it with a new one to play with over the New Year. Please indicate whether it is working or not working and bring a friend, preferably one with plenty money.\n \n If I don't see you before I wish you well, enjoy the holiday and rest - or not as appropriate. Have a happy New Year and I look forward to seeing you in February. Note - FEBRUARY.//- Rog//\n

I have long maintained that the NZPCA is not a bank, not that anyone else disagreed, but I have always been conscious that we have your money, (well some of your money), sitting in our bank account. We obviously need some money to keep the NZPCA going but I want to spend the rest. So I'm going Christmas shopping Yay!\n\n No, the committee won't let me, (unless I take them along), and I have to pretend to be responsible. My husband and I - sorry the committee and I have been trying to work out what to spend it on to the benefit of the members. Some members would have us buy an astronomical telescope others a computer driven microscope and we have to work out what would suit most of the members.\n \nAbout two meetings ago Win Brendgens gave a talk on scanning and as part of the evening he scanned a colour slide then printed it on the HP. It was very successful and got me thinking that many people have slides that could be copied and stored on a PC or written to CD. I know of several members, including me, who have many slides which they have not looked at for years and which are probably slowly deteriorating in a box or slide carrier. Even though I have not looked at them for years I know I would be upset if my slides were destroyed or deteriorated beyond saving. Viewing slides, and films, is a fiddly process especially if your slide projector has long disappeared and they would be much easier to see on a PC.\n\n So, we want your opinion. Do we get a slide scanner for members to use or do we keep the money in the bank for some other project. I am not talking about a flat bed scanner that has facilities for slides rather a machine dedicated to copying slides and films. I have been investigating these scanners on the net and have been very impressed with the technology used in copying film. We will have to choose between a vary basic scanner which just scans the slide/ negative and relies on your skill with a graphics program to remove scratches and fungus marks or get one that will do this automatically. Personally I favour the latter but of course there is a price trade off. The cheaper machines are about US$200 while the machine I have in mind is about US$400. They all have USB interfaces. If you want to investigate yourself I am looking at a Minolta or a ~PrimeFilm ~PF3650. I enquired what it would cost to get my slides copied NZ$3.00 each.\n\n Let me have your opinion please to rogerc@clear.net.nz. I know there are lots of other scanners out there but these seem the best choice within our price range. We will discuss it at our next meeting at St Giles'.\n\n A long time ago I did a talk to the NZPCA called 'Gems of Public Domain' or something like that. I was demonstrating programs that I had found which were freely available and which were used regularly and with advantage on my machine. I recall I was very surprised at the number of members who wanted to know where they could get them or wanted a copy on a floppy. We are going to do it again at St Giles' next Wednesday, but this time we would like you to bring along your favourite little program, either on floppy or CD so we can share these gems. There is so much software out there that no one can try it all and I believe there are still gems which we all would find useful.\n\n So, please, take a look at your machine and see what little programs you have. It may be something you have had for years, something that's an add-on to Word or Excel. A print macro or similar. Please share it with us - I know I have learned a lot from the little software packages and some have made my life easier or more manageable. Bring a floppy as well - you may just see something you like!\n \nNo Megabyte in January - time off for good behaviour - meetings and Megabyte start in February. Season's greetings to you all - may you get the silicon you deserve! //- Rog//\n

When you read this, assuming you are not one of those people who save my report for reading on the lavatory in March, I will be huddled over a fire in a draughty house in the UK. I will be suffering for you, doing my diligent searching for new things to write about every month, and researching the UK computer scene. So please feel sorry for me while you sit around in shorts with a cold beer or glass of wine in your hand, - the foreseeable future getting hotter and hotter – while my foreseeable future will be getting colder and colder – at least the telly will be good.\n\nYes, for the first time in years I will miss the NZPCA meeting and it will be a good one. We have Jay Templeton to give us a talk on what’s coming up in the world of the big M and he’s always good value – the sacrifices I make for you! On the way home I am going through Bangkok so I will get warm again and there may be one or two interesting pieces to hide in my luggage. If you have any good addresses in Bangkok please email me – I mean computer shops!!\n\nWe have a new secretary who was asked to address the Christmas card envelopes. After some searching she found the list of addresses, printed it out and started writing the addresses manually on the envelopes. She is 21 and should have known better! I suggested she used Word and Mail merge to print labels but she didn’t know how to do it and was too scared to try. She had heard vaguely about it but didn’t know where to start. I asked her, which was better; to spend 20 minutes finding out how to Mail merge or to spend the rest of the afternoon writing out the addresses. Even then she hesitated! Even then! Of course in the end I showed her how and she finished the job in half an hour. But this was a girl who came to us as a secretary capable of using Word!! \n\nThere’s something scary about using advanced, (well I wouldn’t call Mail merge advanced), functions in a program. Something puts people off and stops them even trying, preferring to do the job in the old way. “Tried and true you know, tried and true – we have always done that because that’s the way it’s done – My boy!”\n\nReminds me of a story, well an experiment really. 12 Monkeys were put in a room; a banana was hanging from the ceiling with a ladder under. Immediately a monkey saw the banana it ran up the ladder to get it. And a jet of freezing cold water sprayed on the monkey and all the other monkeys. It tried again, same thing, and again, same thing. Eventually all the monkeys gave up trying for the banana because they were freezing cold and uncomfortable. One monkey was removed and a new one introduced. Immediately it went for the banana and the same thing happened. Eventually all the other monkeys jumped on it and stopped it going for the banana so it stopped trying.\n\nMore monkeys were exchanged with the same effect, the monkeys jumping on it to stop it going for the banana – even though the cold water spray had long since stopped. Eventually none of the original monkeys remained, none of the new ones had experienced the spray and any new monkey was jumped on immediately it tried for the banana. “That’s the way it’s done round here” Ring any bells with anyone you know?\n\nSomehow we have to convince people that the cold spray is no longer there and computers are made to make life easy!\n\nI have been modifying and playing with digital images for several years. I have been cutting glossy print paper down to 6”x4” and struggling to get my printer to print decent photographs – usually with about 50% success. That’s why I like the club photo printer so much – it does it for you. Richard gave a talk on printing photos last time and, almost as an aside, he showed how the printing wizard in Windows XP would print, one, two, three, four or a range of greater numbers of photos on a page of A4. I had been looking for a program that would do this for years and there it was just a right click away on my mouse. “That’s the way it’s done round here” Why didn’t I look for it in my software? Sometimes it pays to RTFI. \n\nThe Christmas holidays are coming up – don’t I know it – yay! – No Megabyte in January – ‘Oh no’ they cried. Club meetings start again in Feb. Why don’t you consider borrowing the slide scanner, the turntable or the digital camera or printer to give you a project over those long Summer evenings.\n\nHave a good break, the season’s greetings to you all from me and the committee.\n \n

Hi Ho it's the start of a new year already, another year of learning, of struggling with programmes, of trying to find out why that thing I could do last week won't work now, of trying to find that file that I saved last week. Ring any bells?? Rest assured you are not alone. It appears that this is what computing is about. It doesn't matter what level of computing you have reached there is always something which won't work as you expect it to. That's what the NZPCA is about.\n \nIn the early days of the club we were working with Dos, with CPM, with acorn and machine code operating systems. Sometimes a Dos program would work on my machine sometimes not. Sometimes I could get a version of a program that worked on my machine - mostly not. Now if my machine has Windows xx I have a 99% chance of a program working on my machine so I suppose there is progress. The problem / challenge these days is that this program won't work with that, that this won't work in this video mode, that I must have 100meg free on my hard disk etc. It is getting easier. I regard it as normal to run half a dozen programs on my computer simultaneously, to have my spelling checked as I type, to be able to configure the spelling checker for my language. The problems don't go away, they just change and resolving them is what the NZPCA is all about. \n\nAdrianus is leaving us. He's moving up North, way way North, too far to man the help desk, too far to take your computer to him if it won't work. He will be sadly missed. Are you reading this Adrianus? - 'You will be missed and you were very much appreciated. No-one can replace you.' So if NoOne is out there, if NoOne is reading this we need Someone to take over the job. If you are Someone who has some knowledge of computing and, perhaps what's more important, knows when you have to say 'I don't know - but I know someone who does' please volunteer for the job of running the Help desk. The job is intended to be one where you field the calls to the Help Desk and pass them on to someone who knows, we have lots of volunteers with specialist knowledge. Adrianus made the job his own, he grew in knowledge and skills and developed a social group of people that he helped. We need you, the club needs you. That's what the NZPCA is all about. \n\nOf course he also ran the BBS and we will have to move it. This will probably mean a new phone number so keep your eyes open for a change of number notice. And he was our Auditor so...... That....about. \n\nBeginning to plan for this year. Next month we will have another auction (Ed. April actually Rog) so start hunting out those things, that program you no longer use, those spare memory chips. April is the time of year when we all exchange computer parts and programs with the club creaming off a margin. Every year I say to myself I will just get rid of this junk, er sorry good stuff, and not buy anything. Do plan, do come along, there are genuine bargains, some things do go for ridiculous prices, both high and low and it's always a fun evening. That's what we are trying to make computing, fun. That's what the NZPCA is all about. \n\nRoger Currier, President NZPCA\n

Well did the bug hit you? I have only heard of one company with problems and that was a video shop where the computer calculated the late fine as being from the year 1900 rather than 2000. The owner was quite phlegmatic about it he said he only has to have one member pay the fine and he will be on the first boat to the Bahamas. He did not see any challenge in crossing out the bill and calculating the amount owing with pencil and paper.\n\nI had a friend who was in the parliamentary disaster management group. His job, for which he was very highly paid, was to sit in the basement of parliament on new years eve and respond to any emergencies. In fact they were more concerned at any terrorist activity than Y2k bugs. Anyway at 11:40pm they got a call from Ashburton ''substation'' saying that a possum had burnt out an insulator, (and itself), and they would have problems for a few hours. The press got hold of this saying to my friend that we hear that Ashburton ''power station'' has gone down with a Y2k bug and accused him of holding out on them, (there isn't a power station at Ashburton). I think the only people who were disappointed were the press beacuse they didn't have anything to write about. I know when I walked past parliament at 11:30pm there were lots of vans and spotlights and people hanging around just looking for a story. Now the only thing to worry about is the 29th Feb when your computer may skip the date and get the day wrong. Worry worry worry.\n\nWould like to hear about anybody's Y2k problems at the next meeting. Come along and tell us about it, chances are there will be someone there who can help if it really causes you problems.\n\nOh happy new Millennium by the way.\n\nIt's fixed at last, the projector I mean. Arthur Harris and Ian Godfrey did some sterling work in tracing the circuit and identifying the faulty component which turned out to be a very small chip. Could we buy this chip in NZ, no way. We had to go to the USA (and South Africa) to get them, when we enquired they would give us a price for 1000 but for just one they were not interested. Can't really blame them the chips only coast about US$1 each. I managed to find a company in South Africa who had one in stock and thay sent us that for free and Jim Oliver got hold of a further six via a friend in the US, again for free. Ian dropped the chips in, after having to bend the leads because the chip configuration has changed but they worked and we now have a fully working projector and some spare chips for it. Think on you may find good use for this machine, it works with a video recorder to project films or your holiday recordings. Next time there is a major sporting event borrow (hire) it and show all your friends how the other half live. I an working on using the projector on my deck onto my neighbours house, to show images of my last holiday 50 feet wide! (Thinks - must get him to use reflective paint next time he paints his house).\n\nWhat are we going to do this year? All I can promise you is more of the same, more meetings, different speakers, new files to download, more viruses, (have you backed up lately?), more interesting web sites, (have you tried {{http://www.eeggs.com?), the auction and more challenges. Welcome to the new year, come on in the water is fine.\n\n//- Rog//

\nI suppose it’s a bit late to bid you happy new year, nevertheless I do. It’s been a smashing break and I have had, a little, time for programming. Unusual to program during the day, I normally seem to do it in the wee small hours.\n\n What are we going to do this year? What do we want to do with the club? I want to do something new and useful but what it is escapes me. When the NZPCA started off it was always interesting going along to the meetings because Andrew Wilkinson would bring along his suitcases of disks, 5½” of course. They were full of the latest in shareware from the Hutt Valley Library or from BBS’s. It was fascinating, you could get a database program for nothing, (if you declined to pay the royalty fees), and use it to make an address list or the like. Much of it was rubbish and it’s life on my machine was less than 5 mins.\n N\n\n owadays we are all suffering from software overload, there is always this new program, usually at least 10meg bigger than a previous version. - and we find this out just as soon as we have downloaded the earlier version. We set up a CD library with donated ~CDs. There is some interest but nothing like the early days of shareware.\n\n The Hardware SIG (Special Interest Group), is thriving though small. The BBS is used about 10 times a day with a few members still getting their email through it. What we need is another driving interest like the shareware disks, the times when people brought their PCs to the meeting to discuss and modify their set-up. What would you like to happen? What would make you want to come to the meetings, and to meet outside the usual monthly meeting. We are looking for suggestions and ideas. If you come up with anything please email me at ~RogerC@Clear.Net.nz.\n\n We would also like some suggestions as to speakers or subject for the meeting.\n\n St Pats has changed it’s internal meeting dates and venues and it may mean that the staff room is not available on our usual 3rd Wednesday of the month. Be sure to keep an eye open for any announcements and alternative venues or you may be attending a meeting with a lot of strange faces! Actually it looks like we will be using the classroom for our meetings more often than not and that’s not really satisfactory. Please let me know if you know of an alternative venue with equivalent facilities.\n\n By the way Bryan Helm has some old Ashton Tate software which will go to the tip unless someone collects old software. It includes ~FrameworkXE and III (plus manuals) (described as useful to managers and small businesses), Rapid File (a database program) and Applause II (a graphics for presentation program). Bryan will bring them to the next meeting.\n\n Are you doing anything interesting with your machine, I know Arthur Harris will be very glad of an article about what you are doing. Don’t be afraid, don’t think it’s not advanced enough for Megabyte, you could be very pleasantly surprised by the feedback you get and may find someone else who is doing the same thing.\n\n Oh Yes!!! Be prepared for the NZPCA grand exchange of computer memorabilia coming up soon. By that I mean the auction! Get out all those boards, software and computer parts you so enthusiastically purchased last year and any other items you want to sell. The auction will probably be in April.\n\n Still looking for a new Treasurer, Dawn has moved up the coast and can’t properly service the NZPCA – please help. Surprised no one wanted to borrow the projector for the Sevens! Jonah is awesome at a larger than life size.\n \nSee you at St Pats\n \n//- Rog //

Saw an article saying that there are some new hard disks coming out 400 gig+!! Now who could possibly want a 400 gig hard disk? I have a 40 gig disk and I can't possibly fill it if I live to be 200. Or can I?\n\nMaybe we are just beginning to see the start of the second computer revolution, beginning to see that it's possible to have a processor running at 10 ~GHz, having 100s of gigs of ram and having hard disks with virtually unlimited capacity. Having all that, would it change the way you compute? I bet you can't even think what you would do with it!\n\nTalking to Penny about it, she said that computers are too hard to work for a lot of people, you have to follow certain predefined steps to get the outcome and you have to learn the language. How would it be if instead of typing at the keyboard you just said "new letter to mum" and the computer just responded and opened the file. - See I am still talking the jargon and I am trying to think out of the box!!\n\nMaybe the second revolution will be that computers will get to be easy to use. Will be sufficiently intelligent to recognise my voice so that when I say "letter to mum" it knows it's my mum� and if my mum were dead (which she isn't) it would know I wanted to send one to Penny's mum. Would have the ability to intelligently interpret what I was saying� just as we do between ourselves (most of the time) and to learn from what has happened in the past, (as we don't most of the time).\n\nWhy should we bother about saving letters, files etc with all that hard disk space? Everything should be saved automatically, just the same as your brain works. Perhaps saved in some hierarchical order sorted by subject, by date, by person, by shape, by size, by smell etc, etc, etc. Again just as the way our brain works. The computer could spend its spare time cataloguing every file, deciding which are relevant and when and where they are relevant.\n\nNone of this loading drivers, all hardware should have it's own drivers incorporated within the board/chip. Isn't it stupid getting a board with a disk and loading the appropriate driver for your operating system. Most boards come with a disk of software to drive it� and, let's face it most drivers are less than 1 meg - chicken feed to today's EPROM memory chips. The hardware should be capable of identifying the operating system and configuring itself to suit..\n\nI suppose I am realising how primitive we are. Our natural form of communication is through spoken language yet we have adapted ourselves to a process of wriggling fingers or wobbling a mouse to communicate with computers. Don't get me wrong, computers are invaluable, they are just too hard to use at the moment and they won't progress until they become easy to use.\n\nGet your stories ready for when your grandchild is sitting on your knee and says. "Tell me about those funny computers that were so stupid hardly anyone could use them" or "what's a keyboard?" Another subject\n\nRobin Hinde has done some great work in setting up our new web page and is going to talk about what you can do with it. About you creating your own web page through the NZPCA. Come along and join this revolution before it gets superseded!! //-Rog//

I have to admit that I haven't been very fair to Penny. Her computer has a Cyrix 100 processor, (about the equivalent of a Pentium 160), and had 48meg of ram. She was quite used to having to wait for it to transfer stuff to and from the hard disk as she moved from Word to Outlook and back. She was resigned to continual crashes and 'out of memory' messages. Seeing a special offer for cheap ram I decided to appease my conscience and do something abut it.\n\nI bought another 64meg and now she has 96meg, (I now have two 8meg sims for sale by the way!). Boy did it make a difference, she was jumping from program to program and the reliability certainly has improved, (which says something about the state of her hard disk). Being somewhat encouraged I decided to see what else I could do to speed it up.\n\nI first ran msconfig.exe, it runs the System Configuration Utility. If you are running Windows you will have this programme in your Windows folder. It shows what programs are loaded at start-up and allows you to turn them on and off as you see fit.\n\n Her machine hadn't been cleaned up for years and I un-ticked several items. If you try this be careful, only remove one item at a time if you are not sure. You can always run up in safe mode and re-tick the box if you are in trouble. I checked what was in Config.sys, Autoexec.bat and the others and removed some more garbage, said OK and rebooted. Somewhat faster but not as much a gain as the memory increase.\n \n By then I had the bit between my teeth, I then had a go at removing her fonts via the control panel. There were over 300 fonts, a hang-over from a desktop publishing programme which had long since gone. Left her with Times Roman, Arial and Wingdings. Haven't told her about the loss of her fonts, which are all safely stored in a folder on the hard disk in case she wants them back. Her machine now runs very sweetly indeed and hasn't crashed since.\n\n The point of all this is to say to you, before you throw away that old 'dunger' of a machine, consider is it worth while upgrading or checking to see what is causing the lethargy. By improving Penny's machine I made her much happier and saved buying a new one thus providing more funds for mine! Thank you to those who came to the Bring & Buy sale just before Christmas. Especially to those kind people who donated the money to the club. We made $90.\n\n The next meeting at St Giles will be a 'Brains Trust' a trouble shooting forum, a discussion forum about anything in computing. I am going to try to control it but, as you know I will be in danger of succumbing - especially if we get into the Linux/Windows debate.\n \nOh yes a belated but still sincere Happy New Year to you //- Rog//\n

The NZPCA bought me a new toy this Christmas, well for a few weeks at least. It bought me the slide scanner and it's a beaut. I can see it will be in great demand for preserving the slides and photographs that we all have stored at the bottom of wardrobes. I spent about a week scanning my father in-law's slides and learned that slides do not last forever and some penicillin bacteria have a great affinity to photographic emulsion - especially that on images of people's faces!\n\nThe scanner is very clever - to think that I would ever say that about software! - you can tell the scanner to detect dust, fungus, hairs etc on the surface of the image and it will eliminate them from the photograph. It will adjust the exposure to allow for those photographs where the flash didn't work, it will adjust for faded negatives and correct excessive grain. It will change negatives into positives, scan at up to 3600 dpi resolution and handle filmstrips as well as slides. Wow what a machine and what a lot of time it takes to do the job!\n\nThe instructions that came with it recommended that the scanner be run through a graphics program using its scanner input. I soon realised that this was a waste of time, and computing power, as, whilst scanning, the graphics program is locked up and no use to man nor beast. I found the best way to use it was to run it independently, to set it scanning and then run up the graphics program and play with photos previously scanned. The scanner does most of its computing internally leaving my PC free for other things. Thank goodness for Windows - Did I say that??\n\nSeriously folks it is a very clever piece of equipment and I am sure will be in great demand. From experience we are going to have to hire it out, ($10 a time), for a week at a time just to give people enough time to get acquainted and to scan all their collection. Be warned the process takes time, particularly if you want it to remove hairs etc.\n\nThe machine requires a USB connection, (fast or slow), about 200 meg of ram and at least a 200 meg Pentium and lots of spare disk space. Lots of cups of coffee to drink and some good games to play while it's working.\n\nI think this is the way the club should go, to buy equipment for members to use and share, equipment that may only get used once in a blue moon but which will be so useful. We now have a video projector, a colour photograph printer and a scanner. If you can think of something else appropriate let one of the committee know. We have already considered a digital camera but decided it isn't what we want, most people already have a camera, digital or otherwise, and the demand for a camera for a week will be fairly limited. Anyway now we can scan the negatives you have from your old camera!\n\nOh yes - Happy New Year - sorry I forgot, I am so excited about the scanner.\n\nOne of my intentions this year is to learn how to use graphics programs (Adobe, ~PhotoImpact etc), (as well as learn Linux an how to program in HTML and Java). Having the scanner gave me the incentive to do final tweaking, remove red-eye etc. (No the scanner does not remove red eye). I want to understand how to use layers and what colour correction and saturation really mean. I now have 400 new images to practice on!\n\nI will be doing a talk at St Giles demonstrating the scanner next Wednesday, if you want to get some first hand experience from an expert come along!!\n\n//- Rog//\n

''Happy New Year ''\nWell I can tell you there’s not much new in computing in the UK. Lots of emphasis on high-speed Internet connections and wireless networks but that’s just the same over here. Went round lots of big computer shops and, apart from Maplins, on Tottenham Court road there was nowt new. Maplins – they are on the web – always went for the odd thing, the kit, the little electronic circuit and I enjoyed going round their shop even though the only thing I bought was a rewritable DVD disk. I suppose the effect of the Internet and the strong NZ dollar keeps us up to date with the market – and of course I wasn’t looking for a new machine or a laptop.\n\nI have to confess we didn’t freeze either – weather was surprisingly mild. Guess it’s global warming!\nBut I did have fun in Bangkok! Ten minutes from our hotel was the Pantip Computer Plaza. I knew I was in the right place when, as I entered, I was approached with an offer of Windows XP for the equivalent of NZ$1.25. Of course I refused it, I was so shocked that I felt I should carry on and explore the seven floors of computer shops. There was everything one could want from the fastest machine to a second hand machine built for you while you wait for $10. Lots of pirate software, ~DVDs, memory chips, USB fans and lights, palmtops, (a few too many cell phone shops for my liking – waste of computing space), printers, portable printers, mini printers, ink cartridge refill kits (decided against it in case of problems with the luggage). If you go to Bangkok do pop in there for a day or two.\n\nLearned a few things about security on a wireless network. We rented a house for a week and, because in Britain you have to pay for local calls, the phone was barred for outgoing calls. This was a real pain because we needed Internet connection to collect our emails and to use the AA map route finder. We tried one or two things but nothing was really satisfactory till we tried the laptop wireless network. We didn’t have the network where we were staying but we could see there were several networks in the vicinity. Most of them were locked securely but we found one similar to the one we had set up in London, we tried the manufacturers password and hey presto we were in the server and had complete access to all their network. We looked out of curiosity to see how far we could get and there didn’t seem any limit, right down to the floppy drives on someone’s laptop. Didn’t do any harm, respected their privacy, set up the system so we couldn’t be seen and then surfed the net.\n\nIt was great, they had a very fast connection and the email came in a treat. We could have downloaded gigabytes of software but didn’t, we could have wiped their hard disks or found out their bank account details but didn’t, we could have changed all their passwords but didn’t and I doubt if they will ever realise we were there. We left a file on a C drive, called frog.txt, which announced that they had been hacked but judging by the garbage on their hard disks they will never find it. Learn the lesson, if you have a wireless network set up the security and change the manufacturers password, - You are at risk.\n\nSaw lots of photos whilst over there, ‘this is auntie Flo – pity part of her head has been chopped off’, ‘here’s the new baby in the window – shame the picture is so dark’ and lots of pictures of family members who were so far away from the camera they could have been your relatives. It gave me an idea about what our next talk should be about. We have demonstrated the digital camera and shown how to print but we have not demonstrated how to take good photos – so we are going to. We have a professional coming along to show how to take photos, to understand the light and lighting effects – could be very interesting. Do come along next Wed at St Giles.\n\nLook forward to seeing you there.\nRog\n

I hate laptops! They are so difficult to get into and ‘fix’ – there seems to be at least 50 tiny screws of varying sizes and lengths each of which will only fit in the hole they came from. Even when you have removed the screws the plastic parts have to be sprung apart whilst supporting the screen – and of course there is always one screw underneath a security label marked ‘No user serviceable parts inside’. What do they think we are aliens who have never seen a hard disk or a connector plug. \n\nThe reason for all this complaining is my daughter, who shall be called Eleanor because that’s her name, has a laptop that will only go for me. She tried pressing the start button at least ten times and nothing happened then I leaned over, just touched the machine and off it went running up Windows beautifully. That was my mistake! She said ‘Dad will you take it home and fix it for me?’ and like the gullible father I am I said yes. Three evenings wasted later I managed to get into the machine – don’t know why; there was very little there, just a peculiarly shaped motherboard, a hard disk, a fan and lots of funny shaped bits of metal with a tolerance of zero when putting the machine back together. I cleaned connections, pushed chips to make sure they were properly seated, unplugged and replugged plugs, polished bits that looked like they would work better if they were shiny, removed a bit of fluff, cleaned the spilt coffee of the hard disk and put it back together again – another evening. Of course it went, it ran up beautifully, every time for me, I even showed Penny that it ran up – then I rang Eleanor to come over and show how much she loved her clever daddy. You know what happened – yes I must have missed polishing a bit and it won’t start for her – or for me for that matter. So now I have to take it to the dealer to get it fixed, the dealer will no doubt complain about the disturbed ‘No user serviceable parts’ label – even though I took half an hour getting it off taking the utmost care not to tear it. It will probably cost me something to get it fixed – but I could have done it and not wasted three evenings with those fiddly screws. Ah well – that’s what dad’s are for! \n\nOver Christmas I have been finalising the design of our new house. I am using a program called Chief Architect and it’s superb. Bit of a monster to learn with interfaces for specifying walls and doors and windows etc but it’s doing the job and it lets us view the results in 3D. It’s great to get started, you draw the walls, tell it to create a roof, put in the windows & doors then it gets more difficult. It comes with a few graphics, very few graphics, and to show a wc or a hand basin I have to draw it using CAD and that takes as long to learn as the original CA programme. I searched the Internet to see if I could find suitable graphics and found them, millions of them, there’s an enormous market in 3D graphics out there. If you want the design of a wc it’s there, you can look at it from any direction – yes from there too – and it only costs $10, basins another $10 etc etc. The electrical plugs are all American and it would cost me $30 for a full set of NZ/OZ compatible plugs. Clearly the designers of the programme have an eye on the main chance and are more interested in selling graphics than selling the programme itself. Fortunately I got my copy in Bangkok! May do a demo one night if people are interested. \n\nHad a difficult problem to solve in Excel the other day. Bit complicated to explain but it would have meant filling a dozen columns with formulae over several thousand rows. The formulae would have been complicated ‘if then else if then else’ statements nested to about six levels. Difficult to create initially and very difficult to maintain and debug. After some thought I realised I could do it very simply with a user defined function. Normally Excel had functions like Sum, Average, ~DSum etc., and there are hundreds of function built in – many of which I have no idea about. But it is possible to create your own functions. A trivial example is to calculate the area of a rectangle. I know it’s just length times width but you can write a function called Area which calls in the length and width from adjoining cells so it looks like =Area(B11, C11). Try pressing Alt + F11 and it will take you into Visual Basic and look for User Defined Functions on the net. It is extremely powerful and will open up a new level of Excel functionality for you. \n\nOne of the annoying things about viewing video clips on the Internet is that you can only see them whilst on line and they are frustratingly slow with only a 56k modem. I know I should get Broadband but can’t justify the costs when the cheapest Broadband is only 6 times faster than my old faithful ‘56’. Anyway I was on a web site in Finland – heaven knows how I got there – and it turns out that the Finnish government have just introduced a law prohibiting copy or file sharing programs and this web site was closing down. They had lots of free software and one program they had was Streambox. Streambox pretends to be a video program that’s downloading and playing a video whilst it is actually saving the file to your hard disk. So you can play and replay the video at your leisure. It lets you stop and resume downloads so you can download massive files over several evenings – and seems to do it at a faster rate than normal. Very useful – BBC Dr Who here I come! Oh yes – I know how much you like Real Player – Not. I picked up an emulator without the advertising and constant reminders to buy and update – called Real Alternative well worth looking at. \n\nGosh I have been busy over Christmas! See you at St Giles //- Rog.//

The AGM didn't happen, there weren't enough members there to form a quorum so we will hold another AGM at the next meeting at St Pats. Our constitution allows for this and this time the quorum will be smaller. If it does not work this time I will call a special meeting, at our usual St Pats venue, and we will hold the AGM then. Thanks to all those who did turn up to the aborted AGM.\n \nI know that this is an old plug but we do need some more people to help on the committee, we welcome new opinions and suggestions. If you feel you would like to contribute have a word with me on 473 9520 or at the St Pats meeting. We will be very grateful for your contribution. \n\nPlease take special note of when and where the next meeting is at St Pats, the room has been booked and we have had to make other arrangements, see elsewhere in Megabyte. \n\nI am glad to say that Alastair is now back on the committee to arrange presentations so we will be able to arrange some more major presentations. I still want to hold the minor, more intimate presentations but there has to be a place for the major organisations to show us their wares. \n\nNot had much time to do any computing this month so things are a bit thin. Took Ian Godfrey's advice when sorting out a machine that was in such a mess that the only thing to do was reformat the hard disk. Rather than spend ages getting data off the machine using floppies or linking to another machine, (I can't get 'Direct Cable Connection' working no matter what I try), I just fitted another hard disk into the machine. This allowed for a quick and reliable saving of data, (in fact I off loaded the whole of the hard disk to the new one), and in all it only took an hour to reformat the hard disk and reload Win 95. Doesn't Win95 load quickly and easily on a virgin hard disk! Thank you Ian. \n\nDid some surfing found a fascinating series of articles on the future of computing, the potential of virtual reality. It made me realise how we are still restricted by the speed, or lack of speed, of our computers. We are just beginning to see the potential of VR with the fast Pentium III's. There are lots of challenges to overcome, one being data storage, another introducing tactile sensation so that you can't walk through walls. Maybe there will come a time when we have a plug in our head for a computer connection. Seen the film The Matrix??? I will upload the file to Arthur for inclusion in Megabyte sometime. \n\nRoger Currier,\nPresident NZPCA \n

So what did you learn this year? Have you cracked that program? Did you write that program/ macro you had intended to. Did it work? Is your PC still giving trouble? Another year has gone by and it’s a time for reflection. I suppose the most important thing to ask from my point of view is - Did you get what you wanted from the club? Did we help solve your problems?\n \nI regularly ask for feedback, for what members want, it is important to me that the club serves you members as I believe you members will serve the club in exchange. We do get some feedback responses and try to respond to them. We obviously cannot respond to everything, we have to judge what will be interesting to most members whilst looking forward at what is coming up. Sometimes we get it right, sometimes not quite. So give us your feedback, tell us what you want and we will see what we can do.\n\nWhoops it’s the AGM and I have to talk about it!! Do come along, you won’t be press-ganged into a position on the committee if you don’t want to, most committee members are happy to carry on though they won’t mind moving over if you fancy a job. Does the fact that many of the committee members have been there for years tell you anything about how they feel about and what they get out of the position \nAnyway it’s time to elect / re-elect people, time to find new people, time for you to have your say. And most of all time to say thanks to those good people who did such good service during the year. I am not going to list them, they know who they are, and so do you by now. Thanks for everything you have done this past year, thanks for playing, come and play next year.\n\nSo do come along, give us your half penny worth and maybe join the committee so you can do some steering. We welcome new committee members, we want new blood. The present positions are as set out below and if you want you can come on as an ex-officio member. I will take nominations at the meeting. Everyone will be standing down but are prepared to re stand.\n\n|!Position|!Committee Members|\n|''President'' |Roger Currier |\n|''Secretary'' |Richard Elam |\n|''Treasurer'' |Dawn Gorman |\n|''Editor/Membership Officer'' |Arthur Harris |\n|''Training'' |Colin Candy |\n|''Web page'' |Robin Hinde |\n|''Buletin Board Sysop'' ||\n|''BBS assistant'' |Ian Godfrey |\n|''Help Line'' |John Fanning |\n|''Hutt Sig'' |John Foster (needs help) |\n|''Kapiti Sig'' |John Blakeley |\n|''CD Rom Library'' |Hugh Roberton |\n|''Sales'' |Robert Di Mattina |\n|''~CompuServe'' |Linnette Horne |\n|''Programmes'' |Alistair Clarke |\n|''Publicity Officer'' ||\n \nThe role of the ''Publicity officer'' to keep members up to date, to Email members, to tell them what events are happening and to update them with last minute news. The job could grow but that would be up to the person.\n \nSo what have I been doing this month? Interesting project at work writing visual basic code for an Excel program so that it will produce a report formerly produced in Word. The procedure used to be that the data was entered into Excel to do the calculations, then the results, and there were lots of them, entered into a Word template. The trouble with that system was that it took two people to do it, the senior member of staff refusing to use Word as being beneath him – he claimed he could write letters quicker by hand than in a wp program, (ignoring the time it took to get it wp’d, checked etc – heard that one before?), and then the Word document had to be checked for accuracy, corrected, checked, corrected etc etc. \n\nIt was like a red rag to a bull for me. I get annoyed / frustrated when I see human beings used for mundane tasks when a tiny piece of silicon and a bit of ingenuity can do the job just as well. I spent a weekend writing the program, and learning a lot. Now Excel produces the report immediately and it doesn’t need checking. Of course there were some teething problems and some things had to be done differently, and we went through a stage where I could see the staff member was having doubts and wanted to go back to the Ark. I persevered and now it is the standard way of doing it in the office.\n\nThe other thing is I have been playing. I think life is too short to be taken seriously and it is very important to me that I find time to play. I got my Sinclair Spectrum going, (after a struggle), and spent many unproductive but happy hours playing games from the past. To tell the truth I got more pleasure in remembering how I had cracked the games, beaten the copy protection so that I could put the game onto a microdrive, (an early mass storage device – 72k), giving myself infinite lives, making myself invincible etc.\n \nYou will see the results at the next meeting at St Pats. I will let you play Jet Set Willy if you are nice to me.\n\n//- Rog//

If Megabyte is late this month it's my fault, I lost track of the date and poor Richard has been frantically chasing me all over the country to try to get my report.\n\n If you don't already know it's time for our AGM, time to look where we are going and for you members to tell us what you want. We committee members do listen to your requests and we do try to have them serviced but it's not always easy. Some of your requests we are able to respond to by a member of the committee, or a club member, giving a talk but we can't do too much of that as we don't want the club to become incestuous and have the same talker every few months. Anyway if you do want something talked about do something about it and tell us what it is.\n\n You will see our accounts also in this issue and, those who study them avidly, (and who doesn't?), will note that at last we are in profit, to the extent of $170. It may not seem much but it is a major thing to us, for the past 5 years we have made a loss and although the profit isn't much it is a sign of things to come, I hope! With the close down of the BBS and our office in Ghuznee Street we have removed our major expense items, rent and telephone rental charges. We now have a Web site, (and more about that later), which I am hopeful will do what the BBS and Ghuznee Street did and more. It's really up to you to make use of the web site and help it to grow the way you want.\n\n Those regular surfers to the web site will have noted that it is down currently. This is because the hard disk has failed and we are going to need a new one. The hard disk we were using was one from our BBS so it would have gone there as well. Robin Hinde is doing great works in setting up a new machine - brand new with a faster processor, larger hard disk etc etc, (where have I heard that before??), which will get us back up and let us develop our next project which is to allow all members to have their own web page for free. Watch this (or an accompanying) space.\n\n I quite like this time of the year, it's the time when I get to thank those club members for helping during the past year. I like to thank those people who work quietly in the background and whose contribution has made the NZPCA work. Thank you Ann Loveridge for another year of folding and sticking all those labels on Megabyte. Thanks to John Foster and John Blakely for running the regional sigs, thanks Tom Clarke for re-inking ribbons. Thank you John Fanning for the help desk, John Little for clearing the mail box and forwarding mail. Thank you John Goodwin for helping with meetings. Of course many thanks to all the committee members for contributing coming along to the committee meetings, (on the Wed following the St Giles meeting hint hint). If I have forgotten someone thank you anyway.\n\n In particular I must thank Richard Elam, he has been doing three major jobs this year and it should be recognized. He is Treasurer, Megabyte Editor and Secretary and it's through his good offices that we have somewhere to hold our committee meetings. Thank you Richard.\n\n It's time for some new blood, for someone else to join the committee and make their mark on the club. There are places on the committee and we will create them if necessary! The places are currently as follows, and anything can and I hope will change�.. Please don't be shy, you don't need to be a computer guru, we just want someone with common sense and who can tolerate me!\n\n|President |Roger Currier |Assuming I will be re-elected this is my last year, it's time for someone else to have fun|\n|Treasurer |Richard Elam| |\n|Editor |Richard Elam| |\n|Secretary |Richard Elam |Richard would be very happy if someone else took part of this workload, particularly secretarial|\n|Sysop|Arthur Harris | |\n|Asst Editor |Arthur Harris |Ditto. Would like to share and have help|\n|Membership|John Hand | |\n|Asst Sysop|John Hand | |\n|St Giles Door |John Hand | |\n|Web site |Robin Hinde |Robin would also like some help|\n|Presentations |??? | |\n|Help desk |John Fanning | |\n|CD Library |Hugh Roberton | |\n\n Colin Candy is standing down this year - thank you Colin.\n As usual we have quorum problems so please come to the AGM, we are modifying the constitution to resolve the problem but of course we need a quorum to be able to get the modifications passed.\n\n Oh yes, how could I forget! Thank you members of the NZPCA for making it the club / association that it is.\n //Rog //

It's always this time of year when I get philosophical and ask where are we going. So this year I won't. Too late too late he cried! The truth is I am enjoying myself too much and don't want to change anything. The NZPCA is a group of friends with a common theme and that's the way it is and that's the way I want it to be - and I am not going to change it - so there!\n\n Of course it's not up to me - we live in a democratic society and have rules, we have a committee. We have always done things this way and that's the way it is. We don't like people who rock the boat, who stir the pot, who move the goal posts they make us think and that's uncomfortable, - well a little uncomfortable, - welll challenging, - welll different, - wellll sometimes interesting and exciting. But I don't want it all the time - let's make that clear, I like my comfortable arm chair. I just want someone who will gently rock me, who will soothe my aching brow, who thinks they can make a little difference - not a lot - just a little bit. Could that be you?\n\n We do need more help, we do want someone who will show us a different model of the NZPCA, who will suggest changes, (minor ones at first please or you will wake us up!). We have a model of the club and it's wearing a bit thin, don't worry it will stretch yet another year but be warned the seams are showing and there are one or two darned patches. (Scuse me committee members I am not referring to you as darned patches).We would like some help.\n\n It's not too onerous, the committee meets on the 4th Wednesday of the month, or whatever time it suits us. We are dead posh - we meet in Parliament - we hob nob with the ~MPs - well, below the ~MPs. Our meetings are usually quite social and chatty occasions and I have heard it said that some committee members learn more about computing at the committee meetings than they do at the monthly club meetings.\n\n If you would like to have a go then do - we won't hold it over you if you make mistakes.\n\n If you haven't already guessed by now it's AGM time. It's time for feedback and suggestions and conversations and elections. It's time to find new people, time for you to have your say. And most of all time to say thanks to those good people who did such good service during the year. I am not going to list them, they know who they are, and so do you by now. Thanks for everything you have done this past year, thanks for playing, come and play next year.\n\n So do come along, give us your half penny worth and maybe join the committee so you can do some steering. We welcome new committee members, we want new blood (not on the floor I promise). The present positions are as set out below and if you want you can come on as an ex-officio member. I will take nominations at the meeting. Everyone will be standing down but are prepared to re stand. You know the positions - but we are prepared to create new positions to suit - we have always wanted a muffin bringer! After the AGM has taken it's usual 5 minutes we are going to show you how to put in a new hard disk - into your computer not your record player. We have a video and will open up a machine to show you what is involved.\n \nDo come along// - Rog//\n

As usual I did things the hard way! Talking about copying all those floppies last month. Following my report Lindsay Rollo came up with a program ~Floppy_to_CD_Archiver which sounds as if it would have made my life much simpler. Apparently it asks you to enter the number of disks in the set [1, 2, or ...], then asks for a folder name, and proceeds to create the folder and save the floppy content(s) to the folder, creating as many sub-folders as necessary, labeled disk 1, disk 2 etc. As it was I just dumped them to CD, (when I could read them), in separate folders, guessing what the contents were. I must admit I am in a bit of a mess there but, in less of a mess than having 12 boxes of floppies in some kind of orderly randomisation. \n\nI also re-learned that the floppies were not that reliable – I knew that but needed reminding! It’s probably a good idea that I put them on to a CD which is supposed to be better – till a newer technology comes along. \n\nHave to admit I can’t remember what half the programs are anyway! But someday they will come in useful even if it’s only showing my grandchildren what DOS was. ‘Tell us again Granddad how you had to type in the name of the program even though you were thinking it!’ \n\nLast month’s talk was superb Maarten Kleintjes works for the police forensic unit and gave us an overview of how criminals are trying to take your money. He had samples of scanners, photographs of false fronts of ATM machines and so many stories of how the Internet is being used and abused. One lesson learned, never, never, never tell anyone your pin number. Even if you think it’s the bank you are talking to. Remember never! \n\nI want to set up a system where non-attending members can hear and see what went on at the meeting. In the past I had ideas of videoing the presentation but it’s just too difficult, the light levels are too low and, even with broadband the data transmission requirements are too much. Maybe there’s an alternative where we record what was projected on the screen and the spoken presentation. I understand there’s a program out there called Lotus Screen Cam which will do the stuff – if anybody knows of it or something better… \n\nMaybe we could bind a mini CD containing the presentation into Megabyte? \n\nDoes anyone out there have a projector screen they are willing to donate to the club? The one we use at St Giles is on its last two legs of 3 and getting difficult to set up. We want one that comes with feet and can stand on its own, not a table top one? \n\nIt’s the AGM next meeting so please come along if you can. All the committee members are willing to re-stand so you won’t be pressured into something. We would like new blood, new ideas etc and I am sure we could find a non-onerous place for someone. I should tell you the committee meetings are more of a continuation of the last club meeting and we are hard pressed to stick to the agenda. \n\nIt seems that I miss every AGM these days, last year I was on holiday in OZ and this year I will be away in the UK at my daughter ‘s wedding, computer shops, compute shows etc etc so Richard will be running the meeting. I know he won’t let me get away from this job unless there’s someone else who wants a go! \n\nI want to say thanks to all those people who helped run the club this year – we are a voluntary organization and people willingly give their time for something they love. We all know that really the NZPCA is a social club there to help anyone and everyone who has problems with their machine. We all do, and it’s great to have someone to consult and discuss a problem with. I think it’s also something to do with pikelet consumption as far as the hardware SIG is concerned! \n\nThank you all very much for your support and feedback over the years – I do appreciate feedback – sometimes I sit down to write this article not knowing what to say – I just go through the email and away I go. The madness goes on and on!

''The President's Report to the 1998 Annual General Meeting of the NZPCA''\n\nIt's not half gone fast, seems like only yesterday that you elected me in my absence whilst I was on a pleasure jaunt around Europe. It has been a busy year for the NZPCA committee members, we have had an auction, lots of speakers, purchased a video projector, a scanner, set up a training system using proprietary CD roms, got the CD rom library going, moved our Email provider and changed the format of Megabyte.\n\nThis next year we are planning a web page, more training CD roms, Megabyte distribution by Email and a change to the use of the Betty Campbell Centre - see below\n\n''Financial Matters''\n\nYou will see from the accounts that expenditure has again exceeded income. This time we have reached the stage where we have to do something about it. The main reason for the loss is that our income is substantially diminished because membership is falling. Somehow we are not serving the needs of the members and they are voting with their feet. There appears to be two levels of members in the club. Those who are experienced users, normally having some knowledge of computer languages and hardware, the others who joined because they need help and advice on how to set-up and use the software on their machines. Somehow we have to serve both camps.\n\nI feel this is best done by a mixture of training, elementary and advanced presentations, a good BBS/Web facility and a CD rom library. If there is anything else you would like please let us know.\n\nWe must also make some alterations to our expenditure pattern. You will see from the Treasurer's report that we have three major items of expenditure, each approximately equal to the deficit. We can either trim all of them or eliminate one to get us back on track. The one that I think we could eliminate is the Betty Campbell centre. If we do this we will have to look for somewhere else to hold the BBS and the training machines. We may be forced to abandon the BCC or it's equivalent anyway with the changes that the WCC are currently implementing. I would like your feedback.\n\n''Other alternatives are:''\n*Megabyte magazine to be entirely by Email or to be obtained by dialling into the BBS.\n*Abandon Email on the BBS, or reduce the number of phone lines.\n\nComments please\n\n''Nominations''\n\nAs is usual in these things all the committee resigns at the end of the financial year. Fortunately some of them are prepared to stand again, often in a different role. This means there are several roles which need filling. Last month I listed the positions, since then we have had one nomination. We are looking for more helpers. If you feel you could do the job, even with some assistance please volunteer. It is fun and very rewarding contributing to the club. It's also good experience.\n\n''The committee positions are:''\n\n*President (I am prepared to stand again)\n*Treasurer\n*Secretary\n*Training\n*Editor\n*Editor's Assistant\n*BBS\n*BBS Assistant\n*BCC Coordinator\n*Help Desk Coordinator\n*Membership Officer\n*Programme Officer\n\n''Thanks''\n\nI am not going to name anybody because I know I will miss someone and may cause offence. If you have contributed to the club this past year these thanks are to you.\n\nThank you to all the members of the committee who have contributed so much of their time in the service of the club, to those people who fold and stamp Megabyte, to those people who have contributed to Megabyte, no matter how small your contribution it makes a difference. Thanks to those who run the Kapiti and Hutt sigs.\n\nAnd a special thanks to those who come along every week to man the desk in the Betty Campbell Centre\n\nThanks to those members who regularly turn up to the meetings,\n\n''The AGM''\n\nThe AGM provides another opportunity for members to identify, clarify and direct the future of the Association. I urge all members to attend the AGM. You will not be pressured to accept any office, there are already volunteers for most positions and I believe that the present committee nominations if elected will continue to serve you very well. However all positions are open for further nomination. There are many other opportunities and areas to volunteer for where we really need your assistance. Your contribution however small will make a difference, otherwise we will need to start hiring help with obvious cost implications. Become involved in the Association's direction. In this way the direction will be in your best interest, you will also find greater enjoyment through involvement in your computing pursuits and the Association will flourish.\n\n//Roger Currier, President NZPCA //\n\n

The 1999 NZPCA AGM \nThe next meeting at St Pats is the AGM. The AGM is an opportunity to look both backwards and forwards and to change the direction of the club. I feel that the club is going in the direction that members want, is doing what you want, is giving you the support you feel you need. In the absence of feedback to the contrary I will continue pushing for more of the same. This is your opportunity to give me feedback. So do come along, give us your half penny worth and maybe join the committee so you can do some steering. We welcome new committee members, we want new blood, I know any or all of the present members will not mind stepping aside or wearing a new hat this next year if someone wants, is willing to come on board. The present positions are as set out below and if you want you can come on as an ex-officio member. I will take nominations at the meeting. Another year and what have you learned? Did you sort out that program, are you still struggling to get something working properly, is your computer working like a dog, (with apologies to dogs), isn't it about time you got help and sorted your com-puter out? Why oh why can't I listen to the old maxim, if a program is working properly then leave it alone. I constantly fiddle, look for shortcuts, stretch programs, and learn, mainly by making mistakes (sometimes I sweat a little tho'). \n\nHere is an absolutely typical computing problem that sooner or later will happen to you. This happened in the office where I am currently working. An Excel spreadsheet with some essential records would not load, it just crashed Excel every time we tried opening it irrespective of which machine we tried it on. The backup was a week old so there was a weeks work to catch up. What would you do? Would you redo the weeks work or would you experiment to see if you could get it back? The answer is at the end, but don't read it until you have thought about it. It is important that you think about it, realise where your limitations are, and do something now before it happens to you. All the pc had on it was Win95 and the Microsoft Office programs Word, Excel, and Powerpoint...........\n\nAGM\nThe next meeting at St Giles is the AGM. The AGM is an opportunity to look both backwards and forwards and to change the direction of the club. I feel that the club is going in the direction that members want, is doing what you want, is giving you the support you feel you need. In the absence of feedback to the contrary I will continue pushing for more of the same. This is your opportunity to give me feedback. So do come along, give us your half penny worth and maybe join the committee so you can do some steering. We welcome new committee members, we want new blood, I know any or all of the present members will not mind stepping aside or wearing a new hat this next year if someone wants, is willing to come on board. The present positions are as set out below and if you want you can come on as an ex-officio member. I will take nominations at the meeting.\n{{{\nPresident Roger Currier \nSecretary Richard Elam \nTreasurer Dawn Gorman \nEditor Arthur Harris \nTraining Colin Candy \nWeb Site Robin Hinde \nMegabaud BBS Shane Petterd (Resigning)\nBBS Assistant Ian Godfrey \nHelp Line John Fanning (New position)\nHutt Sig John Foster\nKapiti Sig John Blakeley\nCD ROM Library Hugh Roberton\nSales Robert Di Mattina\nCompuServe Linnette Horne\nProgrammes Available\n}}}\nWe are also suggesting changes to the constitution. Two minor technical changes and one change to reduce the size of a quorum for the AGM and one change, probably controversial, to reward committee members for their service by removing their requirement to pay subs. I think I initially proposed this, and intend it to be a way of rewarding committee members for giving up their spare time and for their contributions to the club. The reward is small, a saving of $45, which some committee members say they will donate anyway, and it is all we can afford. The intention is that it will act as an incentive for people to join the committee and to serve for at least a year. If you study the accounts in this edition of Megabyte you will see we have again made a loss for the year, not as bad as previous years and the main reason being the depreciation (write off) of the value of our computing equipment. Steps have been taken to eliminate the loss next year by reducing our rent in moving to 75 Ghunznee Street and various other economies. It won't allow us to buy lots of new equipment but it will keep us in the black. \nThank you to everyone who has contributed to the running of the club, to all the committee members, to those who wrote articles, to those who made comments or even asked questions at meetings, to those who made new members welcome. Thanks to Claude Rowland for auditing the accounts at such short notice. \n\nSome of the significant events in the past year spring to mind at this time, the loss of Adrianus (he's not dead just moved on to greener pastures with less access to mains electricity), exploring the Y2k problem and showing it up as being very minor to the average pc owner, the auction, (which I missed - so you will have to wait till next year to get back the stuff I bought last year), Quay computers explanation of the Pentium II & III, the incredible growth of the internet and Linux. Five years ago we would have only dreamed of the power of a Pentium II, of 8 -10 gigabyte hard disks, no more cramming programs or pruning programs down to fit, of cheap ram, 128 megabyte is becoming the standard. I was reading an article on yet another new process to produce microprocessors chips which seems to allow a further density factor of 1000 on a single chip. I don't know what it is but I feel computing is getting ready to take another of those leaps into the dark. Hang on in there, I am confident someone in the club will be able to explain what's happening! \n\nAnswer to the Excel Problem. First I checked the file size, it hadn't changed significantly so it probably wasn't a major disk error thus the data was probably still ok. Looked at it with Notepad and I could see the data though not in a useable form. (Have you tried looking at a spreadsheet with Notepad?). It was probably just one byte that had got itself set / unset messing up an internal pointer in the spreadsheet. \n\nAs I saw it I had two options, importing the file into Word or to try reading the file with Access. I used the former. It formed a very large table but the data was all intact, I just copied it and pasted it back into a blank Excel spreadsheet and it worked. I had to reform the spreadsheet but that only took a couple of minutes and all was back to normal - except that they all think I an wonderful and I knew that already.\n\nRoger Currier,\nPresident NZPCA \n\n

Spit! I just can’t get this game to go out! One of my favourite games is a solitaire patience game called Forty Thieves and, even though I say so myself, I am rather good at it. For those who don’t know the game it is available off the Net in a program called Good Solitaire. This program has about 100 different games of solitaire and I recommend it. The days of playing solitaire with a pack of cards has gone.\n \nOK so what’s happening. Been having fun? trying to get my Sinclair Spectrum to go. I can get a display on the screen but can’t get the tape loader to work. I recall this was a black art and you had to have the volume level of the playback exactly right. I had little blobs of Whiteout on the volume control of the tape recorder and of course that machine has long since got separated from the computer. Why am I doing it, why am I dealing with old technology? Those of you who read this column, (does anybody? one of these days I will just write a page of gobbledegook and see if there is any reaction come to think of it that’s what I have been doing for years anyway, I just sit down and write what comes to me) Anyway the reason I was playing with the Spectrum is that I am preparing for the next meeting, not this one coming but the July programme. This one coming is Symantec who make the Norton series of packages,\n\nThe idea of the July nostalgia program is to get people that means you to bring along your early computer. Bring out that black box & trailing leads that have been sitting in the bottom of your wardrobe, next to the tennis rackets. Get it going, find a program that runs on it and bring it along. I would love to give everyone a chance to explain about their machine and what it would or wouldn’t do. Should be fun and may give people an insight into what the early days were like. \n\nBy the way if you haven’t got your machine it is possible to get emulators off the net that you can run on a modern pc try http://www.emuclassics.com/ and links from there. There is a whole world of emulators and arcade machine games.\n\nThanks to Paul Hillier for standing in at the last moment last month. He gave an excellent talk on digital cameras, he had created a really professional ~PowerPoint presentation and brought along several digital cameras and memory devices. I learned a lot, particularly of the specification of the kind of camera I will get next. I don’t want a camera that will give me enormous prints with incredible resolution, rather one that I can put in my pocket and carry around but will still produce 10 x 6 prints. Now I know what to go for. Thank you Paul.\n\nTo see the full size photo that Paul took click on the photo below - it will take a few minutes to load.\n \nRobin Hinde pointed out a trap for young players the other day. He had responded to an ad on the net and received an email in response. This email was copied to him and about 1500 other people, their addresses showing on the email. A few days later he got an advertising email from another organisation with many of the same names showing. Obviously someone had just copied the names from the email and pasted into their email address list. I recall a change of address email we got in the office the other day which was a two liner email that took two pages to print out because the addresses of all the recipients were showing. Be warned and protect your friends, if you copy emails to many people use the blind copy (BC) facility this way the addresses of other recipients do not show up.\n \nWe are looking for a new committee member, the idea is that we need a ''publicity officer'' to keep members up to date. We anticipate that the main role of the job will be to email members, (using blind copy), to tell them what events are happening and to update them with last minute news. The job could grow but that would be up to the person. If you are interested let us know, we will ask for nominations at the AGM.\n\nAh yes that’s it the AGM July 19th at St Pats. I knew there was something I had to remind you about. If you would like to come onto the committee just let me know we will find you a position.\n\nNow back to this game….\n\n//- Rog //\n

Been walking on the dark side this past month! Heard about a program for decoding broadcasts from Sky and decided to investigate. It appears that a group of hackers, but let�s call them enthusiasts, have worked out how Sky encodes it's TV signal and how the decoder on your set sorts it out. The story of how they worked it out reminded me of the Enigma decoding during the war.\n\n (For those who don't know, the Enigma machine was a coding/decoding machine used by the German forces during the war. It is well worth reading about how the code was broken by the English, how the original Enigma machines were obtained, the coding system understood and the tremendous intellectual exercise involved in breaking the code which was changed every day. In particular about how lazy Enigma operators would use their girlfriend's name or the words "Heil Hitler" as the code word seed)\n\n It appears that the signal from Sky is scrambled so that the line scan on your screen which creates the picture is broken up and sent in jumbled form and the decoder puts it back together again. By this I mean if the line scan is 1234567890 Sky breaks it up so that your set receives 45678901234 and the decoder recreates the 1234567890. The encoding decides where to break the line up, sends the signal and a code which the decoder uses to reform the original signal. Of course Sky are not stupid and there is lots of protection on this encoding so that it is very difficult to find out how to work out the correct decode without their decoder and a current card. It appears that there is a computer in the card that Sky can talk to and turn on or off as necessary.\n\n The process of how the encoding was broken is fascinating and reminded me so much of the breaking of the Enigma code. It started when Sky was changing cards in the decoders and broadcast the same encoding signals for quite a long period, this gave the "enthusiasts" a window when the encoding was vulnerable and they could work out the decoded signal. Then Sky went back to normal coding which set them back and they couldn't decode it. They persevered and gradually managed to work out the encoding, slowly improving picture quality until they had an acceptable picture. Sky then caught on and changed the encoding again though this meant they had to send out new cards to all their users. The hackers again broke the code, I suspect using an inside source and there it sat until European TV went digital and the process starts up again.\n\n The hackers used all kinds of information sources, the Sky patent application of how to encode tv signals, the fact that adjoining tv lines are very similar so it could be possible to try all the different combinations of line encoding to find the most similar. This takes such expensive computing power that it would have been much cheaper to subscribe to Sky -� but that's not the point!\n\n The decoding program is available at http://hvcplus.cjb.net/ - apparently it still works on NZ tv but I haven't tried it myself - I don't have a TV tuner card. - read the explanation files that's where the interest lies. Much of it is in German but there are English translations. The early days of computing were like this - manufacturers would put all kinds of copy protection on their programs ranging from; programs that would only auto-run; programs that wrote to normally unused areas of the original disks and would not work if the area was not there; disks with laser burns on them and software that checked. There was a constant battle between manufacturers and the hackers many of whom were only interested in defeating the protection as an intellectual exercise - a sort of crossword puzzle or just a different kind of computer game. The hackers won. You may or may not agree with this hacking, I agree it's akin to writing viruses - the intellectual exercise is very similar. I believe computing is the better for it, even viruses because they force programmers to write more robust code, it's just that they haven't got there yet. I just know that computing wouldn't have got where it is now without people exploring, finding out or just writing better programs than someone else. That's how CPM was created, how DOS came from CPM etc etc.\n\n As you probably know the NZPCA web page is up and running. We need some input from members now, this means you. What we want are your links, those web pages you have found in your travels, the ones you have added to your favourites. To work properly the web site has to be a living site, constantly changing and always interesting to go to. Come on find that address and send it up. We have Microsoft coming this time to give us a talk, not about XP, not about the newest version of Office but about where they think computing is going. Come along it should be an interesting and challenging evening.\n\n Fancy joining the committee - we need some new members! Now back to the encoding!.\n\n // Rog//\n

Even though I shouldn’t I do enjoy surfing on the wild side. I have learned more about computing by going to sites where they tell you how to overcome a manufacturer’s software protection than I would have ever learned by reading manuals and how to program. This isn’t to say I go around cracking and pirating programs, rather that I enjoy seeing how programs work and what can be done with them. In going to these sites I have had many a virus attack my systems, have had lots of opportunities to download software that will get me free this or to win that. I have learned - the hard way that there are people out there who just want to dump on you or to profit from your greed or innocence.\n\n Had a lovely example of this the other day in the office. One of my colleagues complained that his PC was very slow and that advertisements popped up about every hour even when he wasn’t on the web. He had got used to this happening on the web and thought it was normal. He had an up to date version of Norton anti virus running but it wasn’t reporting anything wrong and he blamed it for all his problems. (As an aside I can’t see why anyone would even consider buying anything through an annoying program that had illicitly installed itself on their computer)\n\n Of course the advertisements were a clue and I got hold of Adaware and ran that for him. It found nearly 200 advertising related programs. They were everywhere, in the Registry, in Microsoft Office and there were four folders with programs just related to advertising. He said he had seen the folders but thought they were just part of the computer system. Adaware cleaned them up and he now runs it regularly - and it still finds stuff - he will insist on surfing without protection.\n \nAs an experiment I ran it on my machine and found none - (that’s how clever I am!!). I put it down to my firewall and the fact that I have set Internet Explorer to high security. Having IE set to high security can be a pain when going to legitimate sites - you get messages saying the page cannot be displayed properly because my security settings are too high. If I am happy that the site is ‘safe’, I will add it to my ‘Trusted’ sites list where I have set the security settings to low. The page normally displays properly upon hitting refresh.\n\n In addition this colleague downloads a lot of video files at home, (he always has free copies of the latest films). The other day he heard the modem dialling out, even though he was already on line. He thought it was just reconnecting but after a few minutes got uneasy about it and pulled the plug. It was a good job he did - on his phone bill was a long distance call to somewhere in the Cayman Islands - the time and date tied up. And he still leaves his machine unattended all night to download a film! - could be a very expensive free film!! Learn the lesson, get a firewall - something like Zonealarm, make sure your security settings are high - it could save you hundreds of dollars and a lot of annoyances on your machine. There be monsters out there capt’n!\n\n Again in the office I received a 200 page printed document from an Architect who works on her own. She had had it printed outside her office as her printer had broken down. It was a mess and she was very embarrassed about it, promising she will never use that bureau again! I had a look at the original Word file and it wasn’t the bureau’s fault it was her lack of knowledge of Word. She had made fundamental mistakes in how she set the document up which didn’t show up on her office printer but when used on a different printer with different settings things went from bad to worse. And that’s what we will be talking about this month, how to set Word up properly and how to use it’s in-built formatting commands.\n\n So if you are having a problem with Word, or just want to make your life a bit easier, or just want to save yourself some embarrassment, do come along, bring a copy of that document you are having trouble with and will sort it out - famous last words!\n \n See you at St Giles. //- Roger //

I have been having a tidy up. On the top shelf in my room I had ten boxes of 3.5” floppies Igoing back to the days when a floppy was the only way of transferring programs between machines. I was reluctant to throw them out because they were holding programs and files going back to my early days - of computing and I remember paying $75 for my first box of disks and wanted to have my money’s worth. \n\nI bit the bullet and started the process of saving them on to my hard disk. Only about 60% of them would read even though I had two disk drives to try them in but I persevered over about a fortnight and eventually got what was worth saving. I then saved all the files from about 400 floppies onto one CD! It was very hard throwing out the floppies, they felt so valuable but really they were beyond their use by date. \n\nFound several early Megabytes, going back to August 89, written in Wordperfect and somewhat disjointed, more a series of files rather than the one pdf file we now have. Does anyone out there have any earlier copies, it would be useful to have a complete record of our Megabytes? They will be stored in the National Library Archives somewhere but of course it’s much more useful and convenient to have them in electronic format. \n\nBeginning to get concerned about the great number of email and web scams that are doing the rounds. I probably get 5 ‘Nigerian’ letters a week offering me vast sums if I only help out the unfortunate person who has lots of money tied up somehow. They always seem polite but illiterate. I have won so many lotteries all over the world without paying a cent for tickets. My bank and various other banks where I appear to have accounts without knowing it, are constantly having problems with their systems and want me to register with them. The frustrating thing is that these scams wouldn’t keep happening if people just ignored them. \n\nAnother spam which I find annoying is someone telling me that shares in a company are going to rocket – presumably they are trying to persuade me to buy shares – I haven’t bothered to check if the companies actually exist but I have examined the email in detail. Every email has a different source address, the text is just a picture – hence spam filters don’t pick it up – other than changing my email address I don’t know how to stop them coming. It will be interesting to see if they are breaking the law and some authority can stop them. I doubt it. \n\nI heard today of someone who had bought a compendium of ~CDs by the Rolling Stones. The site was an American site and he paid for them with his credit card – about $50. Three ~CDs arrived – from Russia – they were obvious copies – the covers had been scanned and one of them would not work. Initially he was concerned about paying for them with his credit card but I pointed out that the bank cover his transactions and he went ahead. Had he known he was dealing with someone in Russia he definitely would not have bought the ~CDs even though his money was safe. Strikes me Russia has some cleaning out to do. \n\nRobin gave us a super talk last month. He covered the latest things happening on the Internet – as far as one can be up to date with the Internet. He introduced me to Flikr (www.flickr.com), which is an enormous library of photographs - you can put your own photos on there if you like. I was searching for fireplace designs, having a new house built at Pekapeka, and we couldn’t decide on a suitable design. I found 14,000 fireplaces, ranging from cheery fires to Christmas decorations on fireplaces. Didn’t manage to find what we liked but certainly found what we didn’t like. We found it a very useful tool. Just go to the site and enter keywords into the search engine. \n\nDo come to this month’s talk it’s about security on the Internet and about what current scams there are. See details elsewhere in Megabyte.\n\nNow where did I put that CD of my floppies??

It's just like the early days of computing, someone has produced another operating system which is better than all the others put together. Yes I'm talking about Linux, the new operating system which is going to knock Microsoft off it's perch. Well perhaps not knock them off their perch but make them move along a bit.\n\nI remember a time when a new computer language came out every week, when the capacity of 51/4"disks varied from 100k to 2000k and they were considered alternatives to hard disks. It was like this in the early days of the NZPCA when there were four current operating systems, MS Dos, CPM, Acorn and Apple. Andrew Wilkinson had about 12 suitcases full of 51/4"floppies with the latest shareware and there was always a scramble for his latest disks. People brought their computers along to the meetings and we spent hours discussing problems and ways of cramming a program into the 64k of ram the machine had. Haven't things changed? Or have they?\n\nAdmittedly most people are now MS Dos or Windows based, but we still have the odd 'rogue' who sticks with ~OS2 or the apple operating system, People are trying Linux, (not for the faint hearted or inexperienced), People are still trying surfing the net with alternative systems, it seems that some people will go a long way to avoid Microsoft products, and I have to sympathise and emulate them to a certain extent. Here lies the advantage of being a member of a club, if it won't work you are not on your own - you can ask someone for help or advice. Long may the club live, it still has a purpose.\n\nTo business.\nWe need more helpers, the Help line needs more volunteers, if you have a skill, and who hasn't, ring the Help line and register your abilities or speciality. The Help line is an important aspect of the club. You know how you feel when you hit one of those frustrating computing problems and have no-one to turn to. This is a way of providing a service to other members who, in turn, may be able to help you.\n\nAdrianus was our Auditor, we need someone to audit the accounts at the end of the financial year. We long ago decided at an AGM that the auditor would not be held to account if something was wrong. The alternative is to get the books professionally audited at a cost of approximately $1,500 which I regard as just throwing money away.\n\nWe also need more members, there must be some people out there who are just looking for what the NZPCA provides, I won't go through all the details I'm sure you know what the club can provide. Please keep your ears open and if you hear of someone new to computing mention the NZPCA.\n\nMay your keys never stick and your mouse balls always roll...\n\nRoger Currier, \nPresident NZPCA

Tony Fitchett warned us about his experience when surfing the net at the main meeting. I am afraid he is right, there are sharks out there ready to get you. So be warned, you are going to have to up your level of protection when going out on the Internet. Here’s a story about what can and has happened in Canada:\n\nPeople surfed into an started looking at an interesting and innocuous looking site somewhere in Canada.. Whilst they were reading the text the site downloaded a little program into their machine and then set it going. The first thing it did was to turn off the sound on the modem, (so you couldn’t hear the beep beeps while it was dialing), then it disconnected your modem from your ISP. All the time people were busy reading the text which had been downloaded into their machine and wouldn’t notice being disconnected. Then the program dialed out to an 0900 number in Moldavia, (somewhere in Russia I think but a long way away and a very expensive telephone call). This put them on to a board with the same appearance as the one they were looking at so most people didn’t notice. People then surfed on and eventually when they finished disconnected the modem, (or so they thought – the program wouldn’t let the modem disconnect). A month or so later the people got their phone bill some up to $2,500.The thieves having long gone with the 0900 fee.\n\nNasty isn’t it. I have been surfing for years happy in the knowledge that I have a good anti-virus program and don’t have anything on my machine that would interest anyone and why should anyone pick on me amongst the millions of people out there surfing. Tony told us that the firewall that he had recently put on his machine had picked up two attempts to hack into it, one from someone in LA and one from someone on Paradise. Ian Godfrey reported a similar attack on his machine. You must do something about it!!! The kind of people who try to get into your machine are the ones who want to do something just to show they have been there. They may do something benign such as change your screen background to something saying you have been hacked or who knows what. It is just not worth the risk.\n\nThere is an excellent site on the net called {{http://grc.com which will test your machine for security and tell you how good your system is. They give some recommendations as to how you should modify your networking settings, (if you are using the net you will have networking settings). It also has a link to a free program called ~ZoneAlarm 2.0 which they recommend (Tony has put it on our BBS, it’s called ~ZONALM20.exe). I am using it and it seems to do the trick. It is certainly worth going there and letting them test your defences. Thank you Tony.\n\nI must publicly thank John Thomson for standing in at the last minute when our speaker let us down. You may recall John wrote an article in Megabyte a couple of months ago, (Nov 99 “Free 20 Meg Web Sites”), about how to set up a web site. He showed us how to view the contents of a site using notepad, modify it and then upload it to the site. John had very little time to prepare and in a way it was better because when he hit problems he showed us how he solved them. I now understand the principles of html and why graphics are used for text, how links are made. Thank you John. Now I have yet another project. \n\nI know I told you the projector was fixed last month, it still is, I just want to say how brilliant and clear the picture was at the last meeting. It is well worth hiring. Hint Hint.\n\n//Roger Currier//

\n We really are going to have to do something about St Pats as a venue. It appears that the board room is no longer available to the school board and they have now decided to have their meetings in the staff room and of course it clashes with our meetings in a lot of cases. The staff room was ideal for our purposes because it had car parking, easy access, we could curtain off the room when using the projector and it had a telephone. We have decided to look for somewhere else. If you know of another suitable venue please let a member of the committee know, preferably after finding out the cost. It is easy to find a venue if you pay enough but we would rather spend funds on member services rather than supporting some other organisation.\n\n Been having problems with the BBS. Telephone problems we think. It appears that somehow a voice mail box has been put on our modem line and this is messing up the connection particularly if the pc is busy and is a bit slow in answering the call. You should be aware of one thing though, that the pc dials up our mail provider seven times a day to collect the mail. When it is doing this it is fully occupied getting the mail. decompressing it and allocating it to the recipient. Also we have an automatic time switch which turns off the power three times a day so that if there is a fault we know the system will do a full reboot and sort itself out. The times are as follows:\n\n Midday, Midnight & 5pm Power off – reboot\n\n 13:00, 15:00, 19:00, 22:00, 02:30 07:00 09:30 - Till done (10-15mins) - Email Sent and Received Node 1 only (node 2 is available but will probably be a bit slow)\n\n 23:50 - 01:30 - Midnight System updates, User Backups and Housekeeping\n 06:00 - 07:00 - Fidonet Mailhour - Node 1 Only - No users Allowed.\n\n I suggest you take a note of these times if you use the BBS regularly, it may save you a lot of frustration. Also if Node 1 is busy go to Node 2. Please also recognise that this service is being run by volunteers who can’t and won’t race over to the office at all hours of the day to sort out a mail problem particularly as it will probably be automatically resolved by one of the timed reboots.\n\n Alistair’s new job is tying him up more and more and he needs some help with organising programmes. If you would like to help please give me a bell on 473 9520.\n\n Our membership has been going down for some time and the committee have been analysing what we think members want and discussing how we can provide it. One good point that has been raised is that buying a computer these days is similar to buying a toaster. They come ready and working off the shelf and you can be surfing the net, or writing a letter within 10 mins of turning one on. That’s fine until something doesn’t work or you can’t find a file or you keep getting the dreaded blue screen of death. We think this is where members need help. We think you want to be able to sort out the problems, to put an item on the menu, to maintain your computer, to get rid of surplus and duplicate copies of files, and be able to cope when all that happens is a series of beeps. Are we right? Let us know your opinion, either email me at ~RogerC@Clear.net.nz or collar one of the committee members at a meeting.\n\n All the committee members have been members of this club for a long time, (most have been on the committee for a long time), and do so want this club to succeed and serve the members.\n\n Another reminder, the Auction. Start getting those parts out, sort out your old software now is the time to exchange it for something new (er)\n \n//See you at St Pats, Rog //

I followed up on what I was talking about last month, the new, (or true), computer revolution, and decided to see how well my computer would respond to the spoken word. I bought Dragon Naturally Speaking, (DNS), which is a dictation interface where the computer translates the spoken word into commands or a word processor.\n\n The first thing I discovered is that it's embarrassing talking to a computer! Sitting there with the headset on chatting away with no one there. People look at me most peculiarly and then smile tolerantly when I explain what I am doing - 'computers can't possibly do that'- was one response. Well I have to say they very nearly can, and that's after only two weeks of training.\n\n I should explain, with DNS it's necessary to teach the computer to recognise your voice and to train it to recognise the words you use. It uses a process of analysing the shape of the sound wave and frequency and compares that with an internal vocabulary of some 66,000 words. We have all met people who have such strong accents or speech impediments that we find it difficult to understand them, it's just that the computer hasn't got the benefit of our years of experience of doing this, it needs treating like a child. In particular it needs lots of patience.\n\n DNS is clever, it asks to read some documents you have previously typed, it analyses them for word frequency and pulls out any words it doesn't know asking how I pronounce words like NZ, Eli, etc that it doesn't know. It doesn't make spelling mistakes, unless you teach it wrongly, as it uses it's internal dictionary as it's library against which it checks sounds.\n\n DNS has been programmed to translate sounds into words, it has some skills in analysing context but I suspect it's main skill relates to most frequently used words. I am running a pretty fast computer, Athlon 1.8, and it gulps before completing translation. Admittedly I am talking to it at normal speed. I am going to persevere as I think it will work and make my life easier. When 10gig machines come along and software advances another stage I can see it will become normal to talk to one's computer. (Instead of swearing about it as happens mostly!)\n\n I will give a demonstration in the next few months.\n\n Sorry to tell you that Claude Rowland has died. Claude was a very early member of the NZPCA and served on the committee and as auditor. He had been in ill health for the past few years but, despite that, made the effort to come to our ~AGMs to help get the numbers up. I suppose his primary interest was bridge but I know computing came high on his list of interests. Sorry to see you go Claude....\n\n Do get onto our website. Login and then subscribe to the forums. Robin has done great work in setting it up and now it needs users to really make it perform. If you have subscribed to a forum the system automatically emails you when there is a new message so you don't need to keep going on line and checking.\n \n //Roger. //

Penny reports. "What a surprise to find I am part of the newsletter. I feel it's important to make a personal statement - What is it that makes computer persons think it's imperative to upgrade, improve, and change the slow plodding pc that I know and does what I require of it? To be honest I didn't notice the changes Roger made to my computer until it started to go wrong. I could not collect my email, though it always worked for Roger! The Internet connection would not work (even for Roger) and I was left stranded, unable to get my university coursework till he came home. If it works - leave it alone - now I know it's really slow and labouring hard which I hadn't realised before. What I really want is a computer that works reliably by my brain waves and thought patterns, none of this keyboard and mouse interface, thank you. Anyone with the ability to produce such a machine let me know"\n\n Having been duly chastised and warned off Penny's machine - back to my President's report.\n\n One of the things that has always attracted me to Linux is the ability to have multiple screens. By this I mean have the ability to jump from screen to screen and have different programs working and displaying on separate windows as if they were on a different monitor. At work I run a lot of Microsoft Office programs simultaneously and my task bar gets cluttered up and overloaded with the tabs for different programs. On a whim I decided to see if I could do multiple screens in Windows.\n\n I searched the net for "multiple screens' (note the quotes), and of course found lots of programs which would do it for me. I settled on Perfect Screens at http://www.pitrinec.com - as usual it took a bit of playing with to get it right but now I happily jump from screen to screen all day. I have set up one screen for each Office program and one for anything else. Things are much clearer, the task bar only has three or four items on it at a time and I can jump to an 'official work' screen from a game or suchlike with an ~Alt-J and it doesn't show on the task bar. Suggest you try it, there's a free 30 day trial and it's certainly made my life simpler.\n\n Listening to a discussion programme on the radio the other day, about the UN & Iraq. One of the participants said she couldn't find out exactly what Hans Blix did say and felt her opinion was being too directed by the media. Everyone else shot her down, (not literally), and referred her to the Internet. Hans Blix's speeches to the UN are all there - not too long and it's very interesting what the press does not report. If you want to be fully informed search for "Hans Blix" (again note the quotes), you should find his speech in the first few items of the search engine report. It's easy to have an opinion about the war - yay or nay - but at least let it be an informed opinion knowing the progress and extent of the inspections being carried out. I haven't the time or inclination to investigate what the Iraq web pages are saying, and am overwhelmed by the American pages - at least Hans Blix is a voice of calm and quiet in the maelstrom of opinions.\n\n I think last month's Brains Trust went down very well. Richard Elam brought along his computer and we were able to show how to overcome problems and lots of quick ways of doing things. I think we will do it again, it was fun and I learned a few things. (Though I kept quiet about it)\n John Hand had a mail merge problem that turned out to be a mixture of a virus and a Microsoft idiosyncrasy where the mail merge program was assuming the data was numeric whereas it was actually text. I had go at it a few days later and found by putting "zz" in the first three rows of the data column I managed to convince it that the data was text. If that does not make much sense to you - beware of intelligent programs that are there to help you - sometimes you can trip over them because they are too intelligent (or stupid!)\n\n Microsoft are coming along to St Giles this coming Wednesday. They are going to demonstrate the Xbox, and we hope tell us what's in it - if it's not a trade secret. Now none of this reference to Linux - you know it all gets back to Bill Gates and really hurts him! Bite your tongue Roger!\n That's not really fair. Microsoft do give excellent presentations and go to a lot of trouble for us. The presenter's are usually fun and knowledgeable. Where would we be without M….\n

I couldn't resist ~ComputerLink's special offer the other day and am now the proud possessor of a DVD read/write drive. I didn't realise what a maze I've got myself into. Of course the first thing I did was play LOTR. on it. It didn't work and came up with a message insinuating that I my video card was illegal because it had a tv output. I tried all kinds of things to sort it out but eventually I had to resort to the big doctor in the sky - the Internet.\n\n Having got about 50 hits on Google, and looked at about 49 of them, I discovered that I was getting into the world of copy protection and encryption of DVD video disks. The Macrovision protection, (whatever that was), was preventing the video from playing in any mode where the DVD could be copied. I tried several fixes but in the end discovered that all I had to do was to use an earlier video driver and it worked fine. I then lost several evenings watching LOTR, stopping the video at the points where you are supposed to be able to see faults I the making. Well I couldn't so there - I think Peter Jackson is perfect - so there. After playing the video backwards and watching orcs pulling trees back into place and sparks returning to the fireworks I decided to see what this protection system is about and what I could do about it. It turns out that the video manufacturers are paranoid about people copying their disks, they even restrict the disks to certain parts of the world so that if, say, I bought a DVD video in the States I would not be able to play it on my machine at home. Weelll - that's like a red rag to a bull to me so I decided to do something about it.\n\n The regional protection is easy to overcome, there are free programs on the net which will let you overcome it. They work fine but the program creators want money if the program is to work for more than a month. Still it has possibilities.\n \n The Macrovision and encryption is another kettle of fish, some very bright people have been spending a lot of time creating protection systems. And of course a lot of other people on the net have been burning the midnight oil breaking the protection. Found several programs that would allow you to copy the DVD to your hard disk and back to a DVD. If you are interested try 'DVD Decrypter' or 'Smart Ripper', both look interesting and worth exploring.\n\n What's this? The President of the NZPCA advocates illegal copying? No not at all, I have the ~DVDs already. The truth is I am fascinated by the extremes some people go to, to prevent copying and similarly the extremes people go to, to overcome it. The same thing happened early on in computing, manufacturers did everything they could to prevent you copying programs from floppies. Some put laser burns on which had to be there before the program would run, some disks had secret codes that could only be used 5 times before the floppy was useless, some auto-run programs took over your computer and prevented you using the copy command and some had a telephone number, (in the States), you had to ring up to get a code to make the thing work, (the number was unobtainable). Every copy protection system created was eventually overcome and the program or a technique which went round the world from BBS to BBS in less time than it took to say MS DOS.\n\n In a way putting copy protection on a system is like giving someone a crossword puzzle or a jigsaw. If you are like me you will spend hours trying to solve that last clue or making the bits fit. It's just the same with protection systems, ok you need more knowledge of programming and how some hardware works but once you have that it's the equivalent of the Times Crossword Puzzle - and far more satisfying solving it. Thank you DVD producers, you don't realise what a wonderful invention you have created!\n \nI have been using the slide scanner on my laptop, which is below the scanner manufacturer's specification. It works but is slow and I can't really run another program at the same time. However if you are prepared to give it a go do put your name down. All you need is a machine with a USB connection and plenty time. Just contact Arthur Harris and he will add your name to the list it's worth trying.\n \nAh well back to the 'crossword puzzle'. See you at St Giles //- Rog//\n

Don’t throw that old computer away, scavenge it! I was offered an old computer that’s ‘going like a dead sea lion’, whatever that means, by someone at work. They brought it in, having taken out the ‘hard disk’ so their data was safe and I could have what was left. Within 10 seconds of opening the cover the scavengers were there but I had first dibs. \n\nI first took the hard disk; the owner had removed the floppy drive! Saved it for him. Then I went for the ram – it was just right for my office computer which was well on it’s way to join the ‘sea lion’ club. The scavengers pushed me out of the way, first they took the DVD drive, then the modem card, then the video card, then the led mouse and all I was left with was a chassis with power supply and motherboard – less ram. Anybody want a 900meg Celerion – gratis? \n\nI know I will have to get rid of the thing somehow but it will probably go next time I go to the tip but there are at least four people who are better off as a result of having some of the bits. AND \n\nMore important! Why on earth did he throw the machine away in the first place? No doubt Windows was getting clogged up and the machine was suffering from lack of ram but it would be quite easy to reformat the hard disk, reinstall Windows or Linux, add another 256k of ram and the machine would have been perfectly usable for most purposes – after all most machines are just used for word processing. You only need a fast machine if you are handling BIG files or have a lot of heavy computing. Somehow computers work much better if you just give them a bigger monitor, a new keyboard and a decent mouse. Admittedly there does come a time when the computer has to be consigned to the big sea lion in the sky but a bit of TLC will keep it going for a long time. \n\nI suppose most of you have heard about the sale of Trade Me. I don’t blame the guy/ guys for selling it – what I am not so happy about is that it has been sold to Fairfax – an Australian company. I figure if they are prepared to pay $700m for it they expect to get back more than that and who do you think is going to pay them? Maybe there is a business opportunity here – to create a Trade Me clone – or similarity and promise that a good proportion of t profits will go to NZ charities, the owner taking 10% or so of the profit. Just watch Trade Me now the accountants will get into it, those little extras which were free will now start to cost and it will loose it’s Kiwi friendliness. \n\nDon’t know why some people expect their PC to carry on working without any maintenance. ‘I spent $3,000 on my new laptop and I expect it to keep working on it’s own!” – Thinks nothing of having spent $50k on a new car and having to get serviced – just can’t understand that you have to look after a pc just like anything else. A friend called for help – ‘I have just restarted my machine and it tells me I have fourteen viruses on it’ It mus be something wrong with restarting it – something like this happened last time I restarted it”. Went along to have a look and yes there were or had been 14 viruses – the anti-virus program was giving the message ‘found this virus and have deleted it’ – but he hadn’t read that even though it was on the screen in front of him. Turns out that the network he’s on, reloads the latest virus image when the machine is restarted and, having not restarted the machine the virus images were out of date. He gets lots of emails from his daughter and suspect her machine is riddled. He will reboot his machine for about a week then forget about it – lik he forgets to delete the 6000 emails in his Inbox! \n\nWhat do you know about blogging, or RSS? It looks like this is one of the latest things on the net Trying to organise a talk. There must be a lot of Mrs Bloggs about! \n\nSee you at St Giles or Moera. Oh yes thanks Jim and Robin for the talk on Bit Torrents. My phone line has been taking quite a hammering this last week – at night when I am in bed. Nearly completed a 1 gig download! Does anyone have a program to turn a modem off at a particular time - it’s such a pain having to get up early to turn the darned thing off! //- Rog//

'' Video Projector''\n\n I guess those at the last meeting at St Pats will have caught on - we've gone and bought a video projector.\n\n We were looking for a projector for the Invircible demonstration and Graeme Roberts knew someone who might have one as a trial. We took up their offer and it was so good that we decided there and then to buy it. It cost $1,500 plus GST, two years ago it would have cost $15,000. It's a lovely unit and will solve the monthly problem of how to display the video. So hopefully no more complicated links of ~VDUs and splitter boxes.\n\n The other good thing about it is that as well as connecting to a PC it will connect to a video recorder thus allowing the projection of TV programmes. We have decided to try to make some money out of it, for the club, and hire it out, both to members (at preferential rates) or commercially. See the ad in this issue for more details. So next time you want to get the lads over for that All Black match or show the video of your daughter's wedding you know where to come, don't you? Ring the Betty Campbell centre if you want to hire, we can probably do special terms for an extended hire.\n Annual General Meeting\n\n The AGM is to be held 17 June at St Pats, this is your official notice. The following positions are open for nomination. We do have nominations for some of the positions but if you would like to help.... actually it's good experience and very rewarding.\n\n* President (I am prepared to stand again)\n* Treasurer\n* Secretary\n* Training\n* Editor\n* Editor's Assistant\n* BBS\n* BBS Assistant\n* BCC Coordinator\n* Help Desk Coordinator\n* Membership Officer\n* Programme Officer \n\n Do come along to the AGM, it is your opportunity to have a say in the way the club is run and to contribute to its life. The committee wants feedback from all the members on how the club is going and which way it should go. Don't just be part of a disgruntled majority saying nothing - contribute and give your opinion.\n\n Look forward to seeing you there, //Roger //

I started writing this under Linux, it was horrible! The display was different, I didn't know how to save the file, I didn't know where to set the defaults, and it didn't check my spelling. Oh how it's great to be back to the wonderful Windows environment!\n \nOf course I am not being fair, Linux has only been running on my machine for about an hour, I have not read the manual, I was using an editor instead of a word processor and I was playing a new game whilst thinking what to write. Loading a new operating system has been good for me, it really makes me realise how difficult computing is to a newcomer. And, (heaven forbid), how good the Windows install programs really are. Windows doesn't ask me what the maximum vertical sync frequency of my monitor is whilst warning me that I could damage the monitor if I get it wrong, It has a very large range of printers I can choose from, and above all has file names that give me some kind of a clue as to what they are/do. \n\nNevertheless I will persevere with Linux. I will go down that road of frustration, looking through manuals, reading the books in Whitcoulls, searching the net etc and trying to find how to make it do things my way. Why? Because it's good for me and that's how I really learned to use Windows, DOS, CPM etc. And one has to move on in computing, you can't just sit still because you will be out of date in the blink of an eye. \n\nWhen I learned to use the above languages I could have just relied on the 'For Dummies' etc series of books. I could have used just the programs that Windows initially presented to me I could have left settings as they were, could have managed on a 640x480 screen, had the Windows logo in my face all the time, struggled with the Windows menu manager, had DOS's dir command just so that it gave me a long list of file names and lots of other standard settings. Instead I read (browsed) the manuals, read and tried the tips in magazines and experimented. \n\nDo you experiment? Have you really stretched your system. Have you tried changing file extensions from .txt to .exe? and then double clicking on the program in W.... (tip - make a copy of it first and close all your programs before you do this). Have you tried reading an exe file in a text editor? What happens if you right click on the Start button, on a file name, on the screen? How far can you stretch your screen resolution? Usually it ends in failure or at worst a reboot but every now and then I find something which is worth keeping and using. Try putting a shortcut to Notepad in the Send To folder then right clicking on a file name. \n\nI suppose one of the most important lessons I learned about computing is that you can't physically harm your machine with software. The worst that can happen is a reboot or a reload of the operating system. Make sure all your essential files are backed up and go to it - you have everything to gain and the only thing you loose is time. But watch it you are going along the road to becoming a guru - or horror of horrors - a nerd! (Did you know that the world's richest man was once called a nerd!) \n\nIf you get in trouble use the help line, ask someone in the club or raise it at the President's roundup at St Pats - that's what the club is about. \n\nNow I must get on - let me see rpm -qa | grep ^x - what on earth does that mean??? \n\nRoger Currier, \nPresident NZPCA \n\n

We made $1065.45 at the auction. Very well done everybody. I hope everyone is pleased with what they got, I certainly am. All I had to do was to smuggle them into the house without being found out and this time I think I got away with it! If you didn’t get what you wanted there is always next year and you can always get rid of the surplus stuff you bought. I hope you had an enjoyable evening, I did. \n \nThanks to John Blakeley for the photos of the Auction. The full set in colour will be at the Wgtn meeting.\n\nFor the first time I have had success in refilling a colour ink cartridge for my HP deskjet printer. I bought a Calidad Trio Inkjet Refiller kit from the Paper Warehouse which came with two short lengths of aluminium angle for fixing to a door & frame to get the green top off the cartridge. Needed them too, I had to use quite some force to get the cap off. Once off it was dead easy to squeeze the ink into the sponges through the holes in the top of the cartridge. Refitted the cap and held it on with a bit of Insulation tape, put it in the printer and away it went. The refills still are about half full so the kit is quite economic. Recommend it.\n\nJohn Foster can no longer keep the Hutt group going. His workload is getting too much and we need someone to replace him. John has done great things with the group, arranging very good talks as many people from Wellington have also found out. We are looking for someone to take his place. Some dedicated, enthusiastic, wonderfull person. Does that description fit you?? \n\nSimilarly we need some equally wonderful person to assist in running the Guznee Street office for one or two hours per week. Let me know if you can help.\n\nWe are in the early stages of planning a nostalgia evening at St Pats. Our thoughts are to bring along early computers, ~ZX81s, Spectrums etc etc as well as early software games, wps etc. It should be fun showing all the newbees what wonderful software there was in those days and how much things have changed. What?… you could only run one program at a time?? Do you remember Jet Set Willy? King Kong, Wordstar? DOS 2.1? Look out that stuff from the cupboard, that stuff you couldn’t quite bring yourself to throw away. Now is the time to show it off. \n\n''I Love You….'' No not another virus warning, if you havn’t heard about it by now it’s probably too late. I got it, didn’t open it but put it through a dissasembler. It’s frighteningly easy to change the message from ~IloveYou to anything else and it’s already happening. What protection do you have against this happening again? Does it mean you sholdn’t ever open an attachment to an email again? No.. but it means you will have to be more carefull. \n\nThe ILY virus gets into someone’s machine and emails itself to everyone in the address book. This means that if you get it the file will probably be from someone you know. The only thing to distinguish it from a legitimate file is that there won’t be a message, just the attached file. So the rule is, DON”T OPEN AN ATTACHED FILE UNLESS THERE IS A MESSAGE WITH IT OR YOU ARE EXPECTING IT.\n\nVirus writers, (actually ILY is techically a worm), havn’t YET worked out how to add a message to email. Though I don’t suppose it will take them long to catch on. At best the kind of message they could attach would be something short like ‘Try this’ or ‘This is great’ or some other universal message so keep an eye open for this kind of message and beware, and if you have reason to be suspicious check with the source. \n\nEmail and it’s facilities for sending files has now become an essential part of life. To allow some *?$#@*&^ program writer to inhibit our lives is to give in to the forces of chaos and destruction. So remember keep The Force with you, back up regularly and Email, Attach, Open etc to your hearts content, and damnation to those who need to cause destruction to support their egos. \n\nThat’s better, got that off my chest – now I will go and open all the attached files to all my email. If you don’t hear from me next month you know what’s happened! \n\n//- Rog //\n

These virus writers are a pain but you have to admire them for how cunning they are and what they can make the machine do. Just had experience of the Klez virus and by gum if the person who wrote that was on the straight & narrow he / she could make a mint!\n\n It's an email virus and it's very smart. When you click on it in Outlook Express, not even opening it, the virus grabs all the names and email addresses in your address book and forwards itself onwards to everyone you know. That's pretty sneaky in itself but the clever part is how it grabs a line of text, I think from the subject line of one of your emails, and the name of a file from your system that it sends with it.\n\n Then all kinds of peculiar things start happening, people you have never heard of email you, with what looks like proper emails all with Klez incorporated. People you have never heard of start to receive your emails and of course they respond saying please stop sending me viruses. It's called email spoofing, this is where your system sends out an email with the From address being someone in your address book and the to address being anyone else in your address book. The significance of this is that it looks like people who are not infected with the virus have the virus and of course waste time checking to see if they have it. And of course you, being that person, can be accused of having a virus, of being careless and maybe be embarrassed about something that is not your fault.\n\n Oh yes and another thing, Klez has it's own SMTP engine which means that it does not use Outlook to send email. The outgoing mail does not appear in your address book, it just gets sent. If you are on line at the time it could mail out to everyone in your address book without you even knowing it!\n\n We are already beginning to see the effect of what this and other similar viruses do. Many people and companies now have policies of not letting attached files into their system. People are becoming afraid of using email - one of the major inventions of the last century - and a lot of time and money is wasted.\n\n The latest Norton anti-virus update spots it. Since first getting it I have had 8 emails that have been affected. Learn the lesson get virus protection but above all keep using your email - it's too good to let these unthinking people stop you. They should write to Microsoft and offer their services in writing good software.\n\n I do get annoyed and frustrated at what virus writers do, I can admire how clever they are but I know that because of them the Internet is not the free and exciting place it could be.\n\n Saw a useful trick recently. If you want to go to a specific website and know the address type it's name (including the www.) in the Start/ Run box. This will take you straight there without your browser stopping at your ISP home page.\n\n Our AGM is coming up in July, it's time to elect new members of the committee and for you to tell us in what direction you would like the club going, what subjects you would like to hear from speakers etc etc. Think on and raise it at the meeting.\n\n Robin is asking for contributions to the Web page, we all have a favorite web page and we could share this with others by putting a link on our page. I look after the Wellington Botanical Society web page and people are so grateful for the links, sending us emails saying things like 'I have spent years looking for the name of a plant and there it was on one of your links'. Please don't be shy in coming forward.\n\n//- Rog//\n

These virus writers are a pain but you have to admire them for how cunning they are and what they can make the machine do. Just had experience of the Klez virus and by gum if the person who wrote that was on the straight & narrow he / she could make a mint!\n\n It's an email virus and it's very smart. When you click on it in Outlook Express, not even opening it, the virus grabs all the names and email addresses in your address book and forwards itself onwards to everyone you know. That's pretty sneaky in itself but the clever part is how it grabs a line of text, I think from the subject line of one of your emails, and the name of a file from your system that it sends with it.\n\n Then all kinds of peculiar things start happening, people you have never heard of email you, with what looks like proper emails all with Klez incorporated. People you have never heard of start to receive your emails and of course they respond saying please stop sending me viruses. It's called email spoofing, this is where your system sends out an email with the From address being someone in your address book and the to address being anyone else in your address book. The significance of this is that it looks like people who are not infected with the virus have the virus and of course waste time checking to see if they have it. And of course you, being that person, can be accused of having a virus, of being careless and maybe be embarrassed about something that is not your fault.\n\n Oh yes and another thing, Klez has it's own SMTP engine which means that it does not use Outlook to send email. The outgoing mail does not appear in your address book, it just gets sent. If you are on line at the time it could mail out to everyone in your address book without you even knowing it!\n\n We are already beginning to see the effect of what this and other similar viruses do. Many people and companies now have policies of not letting attached files into their system. People are becoming afraid of using email - one of the major inventions of the last century - and a lot of time and money is wasted.\n\n The latest Norton anti-virus update spots it. Since first getting it I have had 8 emails that have been affected. Learn the lesson get virus protection but above all keep using your email - it's too good to let these unthinking people stop you. They should write to Microsoft and offer their services in writing good software.\n\n I do get annoyed and frustrated at what virus writers do, I can admire how clever they are but I know that because of them the Internet is not the free and exciting place it could be.\n\n Saw a useful trick recently. If you want to go to a specific website and know the address type it's name (including the www.) in the Start/ Run box. This will take you straight there without your browser stopping at your ISP home page.\n\n Our AGM is coming up in July, it's time to elect new members of the committee and for you to tell us in what direction you would like the club going, what subjects you would like to hear from speakers etc etc. Think on and raise it at the meeting.\n\n Robin is asking for contributions to the Web page, we all have a favorite web page and we could share this with others by putting a link on our page. I look after the Wellington Botanical Society web page and people are so grateful for the links, sending us emails saying things like 'I have spent years looking for the name of a plant and there it was on one of your links'. Please don't be shy in coming forward.\n// - Rog//

I always learn something when I do a talk. I think it was last month that I did a talk about ~etMeeting, Microsoft’s way of talking over the Internet. We talked to Adrianus up in Kaitaia and, because of the speed of the modem lines we had to turn the video off to make the sound work properly. Still it was good to see his face again and to catch up with him. Thank you Adrianus. At the end of the meeting Vicky Bunch suggested I try Paltalk, and being somewhat disenchanted with ~NetMeeting tried it out. It took several frustrating goes to get hold of their software and to register with them but eventually I got in and explored their meetings. Paltalk is a commercial organisation that provides software to run group meetings of all kinds. Usually they are already set up on their site but if you want to you can set one up for yourself and just allow friends or relatives to attend thus effectively making an Internet telephone call. Paltalk’s software is streets ahead of Microsoft’s and it really works. The system is set up so you have to press the control button to speak but it is possible to adjust microphone and speaker levels so you can just talk.\n\n Paltalk is free unless you want to upgrade and then you have to subscribe for a period of 3 months or a year. It has video as well as voice and appears to be able to drive multiple video screens at once. Though I expect there would be some degradation of sound quality if you had too many video lines working at once.\n I spent several interesting hours going through the newsgroups and just listening and eventually plucked up enough courage to ask some questions of one of the technical groups. I got the answer I was looking for but the technical controller was more interested in NZ and wanted to know if we really had Hobbits wandering about - I didn’t disillusion him. My daughter was at home that weekend and she kept looking at me most peculiarly - talking to his computer? Penny soon sorted her out - ‘you should know he always talks to his computer’!\n\n I had problems understanding what was going on at the meetings. As well as audio communication there was a constant exchange of text messages. I found them very difficult to understand as much of it was in abbreviated jargon with messages like lol - meaning laugh out loud. Even the technical groups were very social and “in” - obviously there were a lot of regular users who knew each other.\n\n There is an adult content that I tried out - purely for interest’s sake of course! Some of the groups wouldn’t let me in - there were too many people logged on - there’s a limit of 200 people at a meeting at any one time. I couldn’t understand the one I did get on - seemed like a long conversation of lol LOL lol. I’m missing something somewhere and you know - I don’t mind! Try it out - even if it’s not for you - and I don’t mean the ‘adult’ content - it’s worth knowing how good speech systems can be over the Internet and if you want to work at it you could save yourself a lot in international phone calls.\n\n Some time back we had a ‘brains trust’ evening which was very successful and interesting. One of the things that came out of that was that people wanted to know more about Word. Sometimes basic things like how to use tables, how to link files, to make indexes etc. So I think we will have another Word evening soon. If you have any questions jot them down, and let one of the committee members know it. That way we will have something relevant to talk about and maybe resolve an issue you have had for a long time. Apparently most Word users don’t use more than about 10% of it’s functions - come on join the 90% of us who use 20% of it’s functions!\n\n See you at St Pats St Giles.//- Rog//\n

\nWhat do you want for Christmas? I know it's a bit early but I want to get you thinking. The AGM is in July and we want to review what the club is doing and would like some suggestions as to what the club can buy for you members to share. Despite buying the camera, turntable and tripod we still made a slight gain on the funds for this year so we are open to suggestions. I have long since said the NZPCA is not a bank and don't want to keep funds in the bank which could be used to the member's advantage.\n\nWe have a couple of suggestions, a network cable tester - that's from me, I needed it when I was having problems with my network, and DVD films for sharing - complications with that one! It really wants a lot of thinking about to get something that suits all the members so think on - please. Oh and I remind you that the slide scanner is becoming available these days - it 's a great way to save all those slides which are slowly growing penicillin!\n\nAnother question is do we want to have a web page? It's easy to say yes, but web pages require maintenance and supervision. We have the offer of a server so we can get one out there without much cost - it just needs someone / somepeople to look after it. If you are interested let us know and we will see if we can set up a team.\n\nIn my relentless searching the universe for programs for you I set myself the project of finding a program to print multiple pages of spreadsheets on one sheet of paper. This happens to be a problem I am currently struggling with at work, I have an Excel file which, if printed out on normal A4 would require 100 pages of printout. I only want the ability to take the data with me and cross off items which are present. Not easy taking a desktop or even a laptop to do the job - Tablet PC maybe but my finances won't stretch. (Maybe the club could buy me one??). Anyway I found a program Fineprint which will print up to 8 pages of printout on one side of A4 - just legible with a bit of imagination and knowing what you are looking at. In addition it will allow you to print double sided by printing out one side then refeeding the paper through the printer. \n\nWord comes with the ability to print multiple pages but Excel doesn't. Stupid really should be the other way round if anything. Fineprint does the job for me I did the 100 page printout in 13 sheets - 4 pages per side. It's out there, shareware but free to try - Googleit - to use a new word - and you should find it. Works with any program.\n\nThe talk we had on Epson printers last time at St Giles went down very well. Hadn't realised that the technology was so advanced and that the output equalled printed photographs. Some of the really large photographs they showed were really amazing and make me want to buy a new printer. My problem is my HP Deskjet is now 10 years old and keeps going, it has ink blotches all over it, I have to keep cleaning the wheels so it handles the paper - occasionally I take it apart to clear the paper dust - but it will not pack up and allow me to justify getting a new printer. Trouble is I have been given a present of another one 'for spares - because I can't get it to work' - I just plugged it in and away it went. Looks like will have to wait at least another 10 years. Oh no - just realised I bought my daughter an HP and she has it stored in our wardrobe - she has long since bought a new printer - kindly donating her old one to the 'oldies'. Why don't HP build in redundancy to their printers - some customers would be much happier!\n\nThe next talk at St Giles is the 'Brains Trust'. This is a session where people can come along and ask any question - on computing and we try to answer it. We did it once before with great success - so come along and see if you can stump the panel - It's easier than you think.\n\nSee you at St Giles\n\n\n\n \n\n\n

I was getting very frustrated at my network! I could see two of the computers from my XP Imachine but no way could I see my XP machine from the other ones. It had been working fine, I had been doing a bit of fine tuning when it stopped working properly and started locking me out. \n\nI have long since learned that thinking and the Internet are good ways to solve the problem and, being inherently lazy I decided to surf the net. So I Googled my problem and came up with 50 million hits. Having read 49 million of them I decided I was wasting my time and would have to go back to the old fashioned way of solving problems – trial and error. Tried all kinds of different settings, tried reversing the network cables to see if there was a fault there and tried turning off my firewalls. All to no avail. \n\nBy now I had been struggling for about a week, either I had to admit defeat – no point I needed the network, ask for help – unthinkable, or think what had I been doing to cause the problem. I had loaded a new version of Norton anti-virus - but that didn’t have a firewall, I had tried half a dozen programs from magazines but they weren’t the kind to cause the problem – what could it be. \n\nI had noticed a nice pop-up window from Symantec saying it had saved my machine from and attack from such and such a worm – thought ‘good’ and then thought no more about it. Until in desperation I turned off the worm protection – straight away the network worked as it always had. Turned the protection on again and no network. I investigated further – it appears that in Symantec 2005 there is a firewall – unreported. Googled that and the net had a hundred million people having had the same problem. So be warned you may have a firewall that you didn’t intend. \n\nThe frustrating part of all this is the amount of time I could have spent ‘playing’ er working at my computer, reading books or even watching telly. It’s probably done me some good because I have learned some more about networks and how they work but it is information my aging brain does not need to hold – I just want a network to work and to allow me to get on with patience. \n\nI am now struggling to get Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) working – This allows all three of my machines to surf the net using just one modem. The wizard’s magic is not working and it messes up my network, (which I know how to fix), and again I just want it to work. The problem is that he wizard allocates a specific a TCP address on my ‘server’ machine but my router won’t accept that address as being legitimate on my network and won’t let the computer on to the network. I suppose I will sort it out eventually but it’s all interfering with my ‘telly’ time! \n\nI know, I know – I only have a modem – no high speed Internet connection, no cable, no satellite dish or Whoosh - you should be grateful to me – it’s because of me and other poor people like me that the Government has decided to unbundle the loop – if I had got a high speed connection would have waited years for the tangle to be sorted out and I would have been paying an exorbitant fee for ever more. \n\nI think Telecom did not want to release the lines because it will mean we will start making free phone calls on the high speed lines – long distance and overseas calls. Will be able to video call our friends – going to be great – hooray for the Gov’t – I think they have done a great thing. \n\nWe have decided to go broadband anyway, to get an account with Whoosh for members to share and try. The idea is that you may borrow the laptop with the Whoosh connection and surf, download etc etc – if it works from your place – just to see if it’s for you. With Whoosh there are some limits on the amount you can download so we will have to work out a way of charging – watch this space for details.\n\nRog

Some members are still having problems with Megabaud and I can't quite get to grips with where the difficulty lies. You may recall I talked about this several months ago and asked for someone to give me a copy of the instruction manual. Well I got one and it's excellent, it goes into great detail and does a pretty good job of explaining the commands. Trouble is it's 27 pages long and not very user friendly. It's easy enough to understand if you know how to drive Megabaud but I can see that if you are unfamiliar with the manual it can be daunting.\n \nAt the moment we are stuck with Megabaud as it is. There is very little possibility of changing it from the present keyboard operated system to the Windows mouse environment that most members are now using. To change it over to a Windows environment or a Web page would be very difficult and could cost. Also I have to bear in mind that the people who would do it are unpaid volunteers with their own life to lead. As it stands Megabaud works, it serves the needs of those wanting a cheap email facility, those wanting access to files and CD ROMs and those who just want to play games. What is needed is a simple way for members who, let's say, are not as computer literate as others to be able to easily get familiar with its functions. \n\nMegabaud training classes have been successful and do work but somehow do not suit everyone and they don't always stick. I think people forget their way around and loose touch with the commands they learned. I have been thinking about this and I think a possible solution is to produce a laminated A5 card with a summary of the commands for each page. I say A5 so that it can be distributed with Megabyte to all members. I think it would look something like this, don't try to read the words they will be too small for this printing of Megabyte, and there is something wrong with the left hand text boxes. \n\n|>|>| ''Date: 29/10/99''&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; ''MEGABAUD MAIN MENU''&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; ''Time: 15:46''|\n|(''F'')ile Directories* |(''J'')oin a Conference** |(''B'')ulletins*** |\n|(''D'')own Load a File |(''A'')bandon a Conference |(''P'')age Length |\n|(''U'')p Load a File |(''E'')nter a Message |(''X'')pert Toggle |\n|(''Z'')ippy File Search |(''R'')ead Messages |(''News'') System News |\n|(''L'')ocate a File |(''C'')omment to Sysop |(''QWK'') Mail Packets |\n|(''T'')ransfer Protocol |(''Select'') Cont to Scan |(''G'')oodbye Log Off |\n|(''N'')ew File scan |(''Q'')uick Message Scan |(''TS'') Text Search |\n|&nbsp; | | |\n|(''OP'')en a Door |(''I'')nternet Email ||\n|(''Chat'') W/Others |(''Ma'')il Door |(''CD'') Rom Selector |\n|(''Game'') Menu |(''Bank'') Time & Bytes |(''Utes'') Utility Menu |\n|>|>|&nbsp; |\n|>|>|Mail Board**** |\n|>|>|''(60 min. left) Main Board Command?'' |\n|>|>|&nbsp; |\n\nFor the single-asterisk (*) column in the above table: -\n(''F'') Access to files for downloading\n(''D'') Download a file from Megabaud to your computer (normally) afer you have chosen it in (''F''))\n(''U'') Upload a file from your computer to Magabaud\n(''Z'') Search for a file by name or content(the search is only of the current file directory)\n(''T'') Set up Megabaud so that the protocol used to transfer files uits your machine\n(''N'') Search Megabaud for any new files uploaded since you last searched\n(''OP'') Access to various programmes that yoiy can run on Megabaud\n(''Chat'') Type live messages to someone else who is on lin to Megabaud\n(''Game'') Games you can play on Megabaud\n\nFor the double-asterisk (**) column: -\n(''J'') Access to discussion areas. You may access more than one\n(''A'') No longer bother with a discussion area\n(''E'') Acess to Mail\n(''R'') Read your Mail\n(''C'') Leave a comment for the Sysop (System Operator) for any reason\n(''Select'') Choose which conference or file you wish to search\n(''Q'') Quickly check for messages\n(''I'') Access the Internet Email system\n(''Ma'') Go to the mail system\n(''Bank'') Accumulate time each day to enable you to download very large files\n\nFor the triple-asterisk (***) column: -\n(''B'') System messages\n(''P'') Sets the length of your screen (normally 24 lines)\n(''X'') Expert switch, avoids having to view the menu. Use (''X'') to turn it on again.\n(''News'') System News\n(''QWK'') ~CamMail download mail and newsgroup messages in bulk\n(''G'') Leave Megabaud\n(''TS'') Search for items by word\n(''CD'') Select which ~CD-ROM you wish to search/peruse\n(''Utes'') Utility setup ??????\n\nFor the quadruple-asterisk (****) at the bottom of the table: -\nName of Screen\nTime left on-line\nRequesting a command letter/word\n\nI envisage about six screens of information (3) on each side of the page with some added notes. It will take some playing with to get it right and, most important we must try it out on some members to see if it helps before going to the expense of reproducing and laminating it. \n\nOK so here's the crunch, we need help with this. What I envisage is six people each producing one screen explanation and someone else putting it together to form one document. It would probably be best done in Word 95 unless someone has a better (and freely available) programme. Drop me a line at rogerc@clear.net.nz if you are willing to volunteer. \n\n~CompuServe have kindly given us almost unlimited access in exchange for our looking after their South Pacific forum. This entails sending articles and information to the forum and I suspect answering people's questions. So far Linnette Horne has been looking after it and now she needs some help. This help is a classic win win situation where in exchange for doing the above you will be able to surf Compuserve, get the new files and access the newsgroups. If you are interested contact me at the above and I will put Linnette in touch with you. \n\nRoger Currier,\nPresident NZPCA \n

You still haven’t caught on. Robin Hinde tells me that there are only about 20 subscribers to the account at Topica. The idea of the account is that we have access to a common location where we can send email which will get distributed to NZPCA members. www.Topica.Com operate a system of mailing lists to which people can subscribe. We have set up several accounts one (~NZPCANews) for announcements and news, one (~NZPCAGeneral) as a general discussion list on all kinds of subject and one (~NZPCAHelp).\n\nThe use of Topica has the advantage that you only need to subscribe to the accounts you are interested in and that your email address is confidential. It also eliminates the need to have someone administrating email accounts. If you change your email address all you have to do is inform Topica and they will direct any NZPCA mail to your new address.\n\n The intention of the News account is that it provides a quick way of getting hold of you if a meeting is cancelled or (as once happened) we distributed a free disk which accidentally included a virus. All you have to do to register with the accounts is to send emails to ~NZPCANews-Subscribe@Topica.com to ~NZPCAGen-Subscribe@Topica,com and ~NZPCAHelp-Subscribe@Topica.com.\n\nDo subscribe it may save you an abortive journey or virus problems. See Robin’s article in October Megabyte for more details Got a free copy of Checkit last week, it came on a CD from PC Plus. For those who don’t know Checkit is a good all round checking programme which also gives a benchmark of your machine’s speed. It allows you to try different speed settings and see the results. It also allows you to compare speeds of different machines – very useful for one-upmanship!\n\n Put it on my office laptop which has been playing up for several months. The laptop which is a fairly fast 433meg Celerion seemed to be running very slowly at times. I ran Checkit and after some experimentation discovered that the clock speed was changing, sometimes it ran at the 433meg and at others it ran at 57meg. Rang Acer who had never met the problem and of course queried what software I was running and who initially could not suggest what was wrong. Later they ran back to ask that I took it into a dealer to have the fan thermostat checked – they suspected overheating of the system causing the CPU to throttle back. I haven’t had time to take it in as yet – hate being without my pc – but have discovered that if I rest the machine on two pencils so that there is ventilation underneath the problem goes away. Lesson learned – make sure your machine stays cool!\n\n If you want a copy of Checkit I suggest you go to the PC Plus website where you can download copies of the software that have been on their CDs. It may be a month or two before it appears there – there would be little point in giving away programs with a magazine if they were immediately available on a web site. It’s well worth having – of course it is an early Windows version – talks about ’95 but runs fine on ’98.\n\nExcellent talk from Michael Best of Microsoft last month at St Pats. He was introducing Windows ME and had the usual Microsoft professional setup. (wish we had a projector like his). Michael was very frank about ME – told us that if our machines were not fast enough not to bother – to stay with ’95 or ’98 and that ME wasn’t for everyone. It does have some great features, I do like the one where if system files are accidentally deleted it will automatically restore them and the ability to go back to a previous state after loading new software will save many people a lot of heartache. Thank you Michael – look forward to seeing you at Christmas with your games presentation.\n\nGood Computing\n\nRoger Currier\n

I remember leaving NZPCA meetings with my mind "blown" at what I had seen demonstrated. I remember seeing graphics demonstrations, Excel 3D graphs being rotated and viewed from underneath, of amazing scanned pictures, of DR Dos. All these programs were demonstrated on the latest '286' or '386' computers with up to 10 Meg of ram and a 5 Meg hard disk. I thought I was becoming used to it or complacent as it hasn't happened for some time recently. That was until I got the October issue of NZ PC World with it's free CD!\n\nThe CD contains 350 meg of Linux files and will auto boot. What this means is that if I tell my computer (adjust the BIOS) to boot from the ~CD-ROM it will look there for the start-up files instead of my hard disk. I did this, expecting problems, and none happened. The CD booted beautifully and ran up in a Windows environment which, though not identical to Microsoft's Windows, was sufficiently familiar to allow me to use it straight away. What amazed me was the content of the CD. It comes with several word processors/ editors, a spreadsheet, lots of games, graphical programs and many others that I haven�t yet clicked on. I am writing this president's report using ~KWord a word processor that came on the CD.\n\nWe decided to do a demonstration of the CD to the club and realised that you would want copies of the CD to "play" with yourself. Robin was delegated to investigate the CD source and came back telling us that the PC World CD was a much cut down version and the full version, which is available free over the net, (as is all Linux software), contains far more. So we are getting the full CD and hope to have copies available to members at the meeting. If you can't get to the meeting copies will also be available from me, just email me at ~RogerC@Clear.net.nz or write to the club.\n\nNow I am not saying that using this CD will be easy, Linux is a strange environment with unfamiliar program names, with different folder arrangements and ways of doing things. Play with it, you can't do any harm as it's on CD and to write to the hard disk you have to "Unmount" make the disk writeable and then "Mount" the disk. It needs a machine with plenty ram and space on the hard disk. You can ask it to save your settings for next time.\n\nLinux represents a new philosophy in computing. The inventor, a student at the university of Helsinki called Linus Torvalds gave it to the world. Linux software is free, except maybe for the cost of producing the CD and a manual, you can alter it, (if you know how), and publish it - for free. Apparently Microsoft has tried to buy it but no one owns it so they can't. It still needs further development of the interfaces to make it as user friendly as Windows but I think this CD is a major step along the way. Try it the experience will do you good and may even convert you.\n\nOh yes I heard the other day that future versions of Internet Explorer will not be free, if you want them you will have to either "rent it" on a monthly basis or use Microsoft as your Internet provider. If you decide to stay with the last free version it will get out of date because there are new things happening on the net which it won't support and your browsing will become limited. It may be that Netscape or Mozilla will continue for free. Linux comes with an Internet browser by the way. I also heard that M will no longer be supporting Office 97.\n\nSomething else. Before the presentation we are going to start a "How do I?" session. We recognise that many people get frustrated with their machines / software because they just can't find out how to do something or can't understand instructions written in Microsoft. The intention is to have a 10-15 minute session going through these items and maybe even publishing them in Megabyte. Not everyone can get to the meeting so if you want help send and email to the editor who will raise it at the next available meeting.\n\nNext month we are having a Bring and Buy sale. We all have unused software, hardware, books etc lying around. This is your opportunity to get rid of it and buy more. Start collecting it together now, you could have something "new" for Christmas or at the very least more space!\n\nAs usual we need more articles for Megabyte. Tell us your experiences of software, hardware etc. Tell us of that program you bought and realised was rubbish or wouldn't work properly. At worst it will stop others from buying it and someone may have a fix for it.\n\nOh yes - if you are coming to the meeting bring a friend, we are always happy to see new faces and visitors are welcome.\n\nSee you at St Giles. //- Rog//

Most offended by this month's NZ PC World. They are doing a special on laptops saying they have at last come of age and have pictures of the evolution of portables with pictures of evolving men on the front cover. Offended? Yes the most antiquated machine they have is the same model I had when I started. It had a 386 processor and 100meg hard disk and to this day I thought it was the most super machine in the world. Ah - such is progress!\n\n Now I know you have lots of computer bits, if you have been computing for any length of time you will have acquired parts and bits that no longer suit your set-up. You will have software long since gone hard and crumbly. That printer you have had as a backup has not been used for ages and it gradually getting covered by spare copies of Megabyte. Yes and now is the time to let us help you get rid of it! Just imagine what your computer desk could look like without all that clutter. Just think how much space you could gain on your hard disk. What did your CD rack look like when you first bought it and only had 3 ~CDs to put in it? Oh yes and the big C is coming time for that new printer, a modem that works faster than 14k, a new optical mouse - oh wouldn't it be lovely not to have to force the mouse across the page. Well now you can!\n\n "How"? I hear you all asking.. "Tell us Oh tell us" those little small voices are calling. "Don't hold us in suspense any longer - Please Please"!\n\n The answer is simple, you sell all your junk for money and buy new (stuff) using that money at the NZPCA's approximately annual Bring and Buy Sale. Yes folks it's that time again when the annual exchange of computer parts takes place. You bring along your (valuable) junk and buy really super stuff from other members who for some reason only bring along exactly what you have been looking for. - St Giles - third Wednesday is starting at approx. 7:00. Do come it's usually interesting what surfaces and can be very interesting and educational.\n\n The photo printer is beginning to be used with varying degrees of success - as usual it takes some time and practice and, if you want to manipulate images on your PC, a USB connection to your computer. Do try it - I think it's well worth while. Ring me - my number is in here somewhere and I will sort it out for you.\n \n For those anxious readers of last month's article - Penny's machine won, (thank goodness), I gave up and am buying her a new (second hand) machine from Computer Link - they have some good deals with excellent machines and some big monitors.\n \n See you at St Giles?// - Rog//

I don't know if you are the same but has the attraction of surfing the net waned for you as it has for me? Either I am overwhelmed with the number of sites or underwhelmed with the paucity of good sites. I get fed up with the advertising that flashes across my screen and the time it takes to load a page. I get annoyed when I jump to a link only to find it is no longer there. I get extremely frustrated when searching to find the same link has umpteen references in my search engine and when I jump to a link I can't find the thing the search engine says is there. \nI suppose what has happened is that the Web has just become overloaded with sites and there to many people taking their bit of bandwidth. The entrepreneurs have got their fingers into the http pages, advertising and selling and are making a lot of money without putting anything back. The ISP providers are vying for new members, new people to surf the net, it costs them nothing for another member the effect is a tiny increase in loading on the net that no one notices. The more people they can get to surf the net the greater the revenue and they don't care that with every new user the Web slows down just that little bit. The old marketing ploy of the more people who walk past your front door the more goods you sell certainly applies to the Web. Just think what is going to happen in the next 10 years when the Chinese come on line! \n\nAnother thing is that there is now some clever software out there which apparently speeds up the Web by loading pages linked to the page that you are currently viewing, that way you don't have to wait to view them. Of course this causes additional traffic on the Web, 90% of which is probably unused. Nice to the user but has the effect of one user taking up the bandwidth of ten. \n\nI don't begrudge people getting on to the net in fact I positively encourage it. What I want to do is to open it up to all and to allow them to surf / explore without waiting 5 minutes for each page to load. To do this we want a set of standards designed to minimise unnecessary traffic and to optimise the bandwidth by filling in the unused spaces. By this I am suggesting that ISP providers send email packages onwards when the traffic is less than 80% of optimum. I doubt if the average user would notice the difference with emails taking maybe 5 minutes extra to get to the recipient. \n\nThere are some things you can do to help. You can put filters on your machine to prevent some advertising from getting through (Try Internet Junkbuster). Instead of running a multi-page loader as above right click on the next link that you want to load the page in the background by opening up a new page in your web browser, (particularly useful with search engines). This allows you to load a page while you are reading another. \n\nAnother thing you can do is to tell your search engine when a link no longer works. \n\nI still use the Internet a lot, I tend to use it for a specific purpose and rather than just surfing. I do have some favourite pages that I visit fairly regularly and I have a favourite search engine who's logic I understand and have configured its Web page to suit my needs. The Internet is an excellent reference source, a way of getting a new printer driver or a recipe for banana cake. It's a way of updating my software and obtaining new programs to try out. And of course email is the best thing since sliced bread. \n\nWhy have I said all that? Well I wanted to get it off my chest and I want to start you thinking and to come to our next presentation, (if the arrangements are successful). We are hopeful of getting Jim Higgins the President of the New Zealand Internet Society to come along and speak on the future of the Internet. Do come along. \n\nRoger Currier,\nPresident NZPCA \n

Well it still needs some work, ~NetMeeting I mean. For those who weren’t at St Pats last month we were experimenting with setting up ~NetMeeting so that we could broadcast our meetings on the net to other members. Ian an I had machines with ~NetMeeting running and set up an Internet connection which worked fine, we could communicate between the machines via the net, we could send messages, I could get into his machine, move the mouse about and run programs on his machine from mine. Trouble is we couldn’t get the video to work.\n\nNot sure what the problem with the video was, Ian’s camera could pick me up and show a (somewhat distorted and dark) picture on his screen but it wouldn’t transmit that picture to my machine. Still haven’t been able to sort it out. We did learn a few things though. \n\nIn particular the lighting level at St Pats was too low and to be able to see me properly and I would have to wear makeup. Worse than that I would have to have black lips, eyebrows and all the other paraphernalia that they had to use for early TV shows. Let’s make this quite clear right now, I am prepared to make sacrifices for the club but wearing black makeup is beyond my limits. (If it was red lipstick maybe but not black - it just doesn’t suit me). \n\nAlso we would have to work out how to get an image straight from the computer rather than trying to capture a projected image with the video camera. The definition just wasn’t good enough using the camera to capture the projected image and it was too cumbersome.\n\nI am sure that all these things can be resolved, it will just take time and effort. Watch this space (or watch your VDU for developments). I suppose the problem is really that we are pushing at the limits of technology and in a few years what we want to do will be commonplace. \n\nAt the meeting it became clear that not everyone knew what ~NetMeeting was - so here goes. ~NetMeeting is a Microsoft freebee that comes with the Internet Explorer suite of programmes. It’s quite a clever program in that it allows two, (or more), computers to connect over the Internet and provides video facilities, ie you can see each other (when it works!! and have a video camera at each end), sound, control of each other’s computer (only if you want it), a white board so that you can draw on each others screen, (presumably to exchange designs). All you have to do is tell the other person what your address is on the net (something like 193.23.34.45), which you can get from ~NetMeeting anyway and the other person just points his version of ~NetMeeting at that address and ring ring you are connected. \nOf course there are limits, the video speed is limited by the bandwidth of the net, you wouldn’t use it to view a motor car race but someone sitting reasonably still is perfectly satisfactory.\n\nNot much else going on I’m afraid. Do come along to see what the new version of Windows has to offer. \n\nRog \n

I love looking through the free magazines you get with all sorts of junk electronic toys, jewelry, tie hangers etc., it fascinates me to consider that people will actually buy the stuff. Whilst on holiday in California, (name dropper!), I had great fun going round the shops that actually sold this stuff (junk?). Here's some of the items I found. My apologies if you have heard of some of these things most of them were new to me.\n*Stones, plastic wrapped, to hide your keys under in the garden.\n*A knife that plays happy birthday as you cut the cake. - I wonder if they do them for funerals as well!\n*Combined TV, radio, torch, light, siren, and compass!\n*Waterproof colour TV set.\n*Travel clock that automatically synchronizes itself to an atomic clock so that it's always right.\n*Self-opening waste bin. It keeps opening as you walk past it! I could see our dog rapidly learning how to operate it.\n*Hot lather machine for shaving.\n*Nose hair trimmer\n*Digital wine thermometer collar so you always serve the wine at the right temperature.\n*Voice operated TV controller, - hope you don't have a cold!\n*Picture frame with a button so you could program it to talk to you.\n*Digital picture frame that would show up to 20 pictures.\n*A telephone that will tell you who is calling.\n*A TV for in the shower.\n*A personal DVD player so you could watch films anywhere.\n\n Maybe it's me, maybe I don't appreciate the benefits of civilization!\n\n One of the other things I was on the look out for was to see how much more advanced the USA was in computer usage. I had heard that NZ was about 3rd in the world and I wanted to see what was missing.\n\n We have a way to go. I was impressed with the way I could book something on the phone at 11pm and the coach driver would turn up the next day with a printed list bearing my name. In several restaurants the waiters had hand held computers to take your order and in one he just pressed a button and your order was telephoned back to the kitchen. I saw some good database software that helped me to book a hotel, it automatically checked if there were rooms available and gave me a list of the available rooms, distance away, price, air conditioned or not, smoking / non smoking etc etc. Apparently the hotel software suites automatically informed the database as people booked in / checked out. There was a shortage of Internet cafes, NZ can certainly boast that it has more Internet terminals per head of population that USA.\n\n Strangely enough I didn't see a computer shop - they must exist! I can only surmise that people use mail order much more. Seeing the way some people were struggling with their machines I came to the conclusion that the level of computing skill was about the same as here. I gave one waiter a real problem with his 'hand held' when I asked for something different from what was on the menu. He had to manually take the order back to the kitchen!\n\n Back to business. We need more speakers for our evening presentations. I feel there is too much being put onto the committee members. If you know of someone doing something different with their machine or even having a special skill please let us know and we will try to get them to come along.\n\n As it is it's good to be back, apologies to those people who rang for help whilst we were away, I hope you will understand. See you at the next meeting.//- Rog //

Penny's let me loose on her machine again! Yay I am forgiven. For weeks she has been complaining that it was slow, took ages to get programs going and there was something wrong with the display. So I was let loose - under strict guidelines - no new programs - no updates - leave the icons where they are and 'don't eat biscuits or drink coffee over my keyboard' - as if I would!\n\n First thing I did was clean the screen and her 'computer glasses' - that sorted out the display problem! 10 points to me.\n\n Then came the hard part. I secretly loaded my Tune Up Utilities program and confidently ran that. All it found was that the machine would run faster with rounded fonts - big deal, I can't distinguish between rounded fonts and non-rounded fonts anyway. I suppose part of the problem is that we are both using such small monitors that detail like that is lost. That's one of the disadvantages of being able to keep things going - I rarely get the smartest and newest components and our monitors are years old. Come to think of it both our monitors are at least 10 years ago and mine must be getting clogged up with discarded playing cards and dead Sims (thanks to my daughters). Thinks 'I must get into the habit of putting my coffee cup on top of my monitor' - well it will keep it warm! Christmas is coming up - time for Roger to Roger presents.\n\n I helped a neighbour out with his network the other day - they have four computers all networked - super fast machines with clean keyboards and enormous monitors and high speed Internet connections - sigh! His systems were in a real mess with files all over the place and no shared printers - they have four printers of course - he didn't know they could share them! No problems really, four hours playing work and no restrictions on coffee or biscuits. By gum it's nice working with big monitors when I back to my machine it was like peering though a keyhole. Take my advice/ learning, get a decent sized monitor - it's just more comfortable - and you don't need to keep cleaning your glasses.\n\n Tune Up Utilities then crashed - it must have heard my comments about the fonts. I downloaded several diagnostic programs which all crashed in sympathy - I was rapidly eating into my points - and I wasn't allowed biscuits instead. Reload Win98 - that would do it! The universal answer, when the system doesn't work, reload the operating system - the second response to a computing failure after rebooting. I did reload the system and it made no difference. The machine still ran like a dog. Defrag - still the same animal. Delete all non-essential files - you got it!\n\n And that's where it sits - just stubborn I guess, too many discarded playing cards, and too old a system, needs mending with a new one. My entire brownie points gone. Ah well back to my machine - at least I can eat properly! Will keep you informed. My printer will print colour photos. It produces quite a good prints if I use the proper paper and set it to quality printing. It's just too much trouble printing photos because the paper is A4 size and I have to cut it down. I do hate a stack of photos all different size. It appears that many members feel the same so we have done something about it. We have bought a new HP 130 photo printer for members to use. This printer produces photo quality 6"x4" photos either from your computer or from your camera memory card. The intention is to let members have free us of the printer but to charge a nominal charge for each print. We estimate 50c per print will cover the cost of paper and ink and we will trust you to put the right amount in the box.\n\n I have seen prices of Internet photo printing as low as 60c per print, and I suspect there are other costs on top of that, so it's not really a saving. It does however let you play with the photo on your computer and print out a decent photo and to have another go to get it right. Don't get too excited though, it has a USB connection to the computer so if your machine is too old you may not be able to connect - we are investigating a special adapter to connect to older printer ports.\n \nSo - come along to St Giles to see it demonstrated and we will sort out a booking system. //- Rog//\n

By Roger Currier.\n\nJim Oliver gave a superb talk at St Giles last month. I asked him to talk on making recordings from records, and I have to admit I left it pretty late to ask him, and he came to the party and gave one of the best talks we have had in ages. Jim didn’t want to bring his turntable so I brought my old hi-fi which was the weakest link in the demonstration. I still don’t accept the comments made about my Beach Boys records though!\n\nJim showed how to connect the turn table to the computer and demonstrated some really good software, freeware, which allowed you to edit, to adjust and to save the music to your computer. At the end of the demonstration he made copies of a CD containing the software, and demonstration videos which attendees took away. Thanks Jim – great one.\n\nThe committee decided this was an area where we could help our members and we have decided to buy a turntable to lend out. I know of several members who have record collections they haven’t been able to play in years because their turntable has been donated to a more worthy cause – normally space in the house. Now you have the opportunity to transfer those records to CD – assuming you have the appropriate equipment.\nThe turntable, from Dick Smiths, is surprisingly good quality. It is belt driven with a magnetic stylus, pretty well automatic and will play 33 & 45 rpm records. (Those of you with 78’s don’t give up - the software has a facility to adjust the speed). It plugs into the Line In socket of your sound card and the software does the rest. \n\nWe will enclose Jim’s CD with even more software as well as a set of instructions so you should be able to hear those long forgotten scratchy records. (The software will remove noises and scratches but it can take time and patience). We will sort out how we handle the loan of the turntable at the next meeting.\n\nThere was an underwhelming response to my request for comments on whether we have Megabyte by post or by email. The person who expressed an opinion wanted to retain the status quo. However we did discuss this at the committee meeting and decided that, if you want Megabyte by email, you can let us know and we will set it up. Do be aware though it will come as a PDF file set up for the printers with page 1 then page 16 etc. If you don’t understand undo the staples in Megabyte and see how the pages are actually printed. It can be read electronically but with difficulty and imagination.\n\nWe have had a request from the Helpdesk for volunteers with different areas of skills. If you feel able and are willing to help the occasional person out send me an email at RogerC@Clear.net.nz with your contact details and speciality. We keep the contact details confidential – we ring you so you can ring the person needing help. Please help.\n\nAnother thing that was suggested at the AGM was a digital camera. Their costs are coming down so we decided to get one of these as well. It won’t be a top of the line model, if you read these articles you know my opinion on having so many megapixels that your computer can’t handle them. We are looking at a camera about 3mp+, battery operated, not rechargeable, with about 3 times optical zoom. And we want an easy interface with computers so photos can be uploaded.\n\nIf you get this in time you might like to go to the Hutt meeting where Microsoft are talking about the XP service pack – Monday night 7:30. Vodafone are going to show us what you can do with their latest toys, (whoops), developments in communication and computing at St Giles.\nAh well back to the Beach Boys – if only my hair was longer!Rog\n

As well as belonging to the NZPCA, I am the NZ co-ordinator for an organisation called the ~UNHAVs. We are a group of people who had accounts in the UK with the Halifax Building Society and when it became a public company we did not get the shares we were promised. Won't go into the reasons it's too complicated and not the point of what I want to say. My job is to write to all 70 NZ members to keep them up to date. I normally do this by mail merging a document in Word and using snail mail. It occurred to me that as many of them have email it may be of advantage to e-mail merge my letter.\n \nI searched in vain in Outlook express for something I could use, I considered copying the merged letter from Word and individually addressing each letter, thought better of it. Eventually, after searching the net, I found a little known feature in Word's mail merge menu which would allow me to mail merge to email but not to Outlook Express. Instead I had to use Microsoft Exchange.\n\nNow Exchange is a very primitive programme, I have never really been happy with it, partly because I could never find an overview help file which told me what it was intended to do and what it could and couldn't do. (Microsoft hint hint). I downloaded the email addition from the net, in the Word mail merge page pressed the mail merge icon which had a drop down list with an option to mail merge to electronic mail. Bobs your uncle etc followed my nose and there I was 50 mail merged emails sent out at a cost of about $1 instead of 40 cents a pop and a lot of envelope labelling and sticking. Took me four hours to solve the problem but only 5 mins next time. \n\nBe aware of it, it's well worth knowing. But more important if you think it would be a good thing if a program would do something then look for it, search the net, RTFM, there is a good chance it will be there. Software developers spend a lot of time thinking about their programs and what people would want them to do. \n\nThe NZPCA spend a lot of time thinking what the members would want. At the last meeting we decided we would push the web page so that it could become an attractive home page, (or at least a page worth visiting regularly), with lots of links to interesting sites, updates on events in the club, a possibility of games and even file downloads. We would like to put the full BBS facilities up there but technical reasons, (beyond me), prevent this. \n\nTo this end we want your input. If when surfing you find an interesting site, a good source of files, cheap software, special offers etc please send it via email to the web master with a description and of course the URL. We will work out some way of categorising the items and maybe have a top ten sites. \n\nSome members seem to have trouble using our BBS and we want to be able to give them a copy of the BBS instruction book. Trouble is we can't find one. Does anyone out there have one, or better still an electronic copy? \n\nI am sorry to have to tell you that Andrew Wilkinson died. You will find an obituary elsewhere in Megabyte but I would like to add my personal tribute to Andrew who was one of the founders of the NZPCA, always a strong supporter, he was on the committee for several years and ran the library till CD-ROMs replaced his suitcases of disks. He regularly came to meetings and contributed to the running of the club. Good one Andrew you are missed. \n\nRoger Currier, \nPresident NZPCA \n\n

We are going to try an experiment! We have become aware that quite a few members can’t or don’t want to make the meetings at St Pats, probably because they have too far to travel or are unwilling to come out at night. We are going to try broadcasting our meetings on the Web so that you can watch and take part, (to a certain extent), from the comfort of your own. \n\nThe idea is to broadcast using Net Meeting with one video & sound signal coming from St Pats and, (this is the one of the experimental parts), to allow the viewer to type messages back. (No there isn’t enough bandwidth to allow you to broadcast back!) I am not sure how well this will work, (depends on all kind of things including the resolution of the video camera), and as yet it is an experiment. \n\nIf it works it could be great. People could attend from all parts of the country, or the world. I could become word famous, (or infamous), I could be running meetings on my own with an audience of millions. I could let it go to my head. \n\nSeriously though it could be a very interesting way of making use of modern technology. There will be teething troubles and it will take some time to settle down. For one thing someone at St Pats will have to control the camera and I don’t know how well the camera will pick up a projected image. It will allow members from Kapiti and the Hutt to attend without the long journey and even people like Adreanus and Bret to attend (Bret from the USA). \nWe will see how the experiment goes at St Pats next meeting, do come along it may be the last time you have to attend. Thinks! ‘we will have to amend the constitution to allow for virtual attendees’ . Hey and no eating chocolate biscuits whilst I am talking! \n\nNot much else going on this month, playing with forms in Word and trying to hack an Excel add-in. \n\nLooking for someone to give a talk on ‘Searching Intelligently on the Net’ … if you know someone. \n\nIf you have the Kak virus we have a good fix for it. Napster still lives so go for it! Go well.. \n\n//- Rog //\n

I've been using Excel for years and would say I am an experienced user yet I still discovered some new things about it this month. The first was a greater use of the copy format icon. This icon, looks like a paintbrush, is used by selecting a formatted area you want to use elsewhere, clicking the icon then swiping across the area you want formatted the same. I've been doing it for years and thought that was all there was to it. At the talk I gave the other night someone pointed out that if you double click the icon it retains the format copied and it can be used time after time. Very useful.\n\n The other thing I learned was to use the Consolidate Spreadsheet function. You know when you get a spreadsheet with totals and alongside it you have names etc. If you chose the Data/ Consolidate function it will give you a total value for each name without having to add each name up separately. It's very powerful and allows you to count, average etc etc. The only thing you have to remember is to re-consolidate if you change any of the figures. You may not like Microsoft products but you have to admit they are smart and they do have some useful features.\n\n Robin has been working hard and the Web site up and running again. There are some interesting photos of the hard disk from the old computer that served the web site. You just can't rely on anything these days, the hard disks had been running almost continuously from about 1995. Roll on solid state bulk memory!\n\n The new server is much faster and has lottttts of space (40gig) and a fast processor (1.1 gig) - 256meg ram. It is our intention that club members can set up their own personal web page, for free, without limit on size. If we need more space we just buy a bigger hard disk. It now has a photo gallery where you can put your photos, images, movies etc and you can give your relatives / friends etc the link to them.\n \nWe do need some help with the web site and I know some people have already volunteered but we need more. The jobs we would like help with are:\n* Discussion Forum Moderation & Instigation.\n* Photo Gallery moderation.\n* Web links & file downloads.\n\n We think it would be best if the jobs were shared between 2 or 3 people. If you have already volunteered please do so again. Please register to the webmaster. You do know that you can use the site for webmail which allows you to access your email from anywhere in the world? If spam and viruses become more prolific it may be the only way to have some control on your email.\n\n Robin also pointed out that the site can be used to transfer files between computers, and for file storage if necessary - though downloading 20meg of files on a 56k baud modem wouldn't be much fun! Thank you all those kind people who directed me to Mailwasher to solve my spam mail problem. Having read the article in NZPC world I can see that spam isn't going to go away and will probably get worse. I am very pleased with the way Mailwasher identifies the spam and bounces it back. Of course the bounced mail probably never gets to its originator but it is all one can do.\n\n I am off on holiday, to California, so will miss the next series of NZPCA meetings and there probably won�t bee a president�s report next month - Penny has banned my PC from the luggage. Take care.\n\n//- Rog//\n

The Linux war continues. I have had my setbacks, my mini victories but I still don't have the opposition under control. Just when I think Linux will succumb I get messages like "The pppd daemon died unexpectedly" - It didn't need to die, I could have killed it. After reading the manual I started configuring my terminal - I pressed the configuration button, it gave me the error message "This terminal is not properly configured, press the configuration button". At that stage I did kill it. (It still has more victories than I do).\n\n I must confess I like Microsoft products. They have long got past the stage of "Keyboard error, press F1 to continue". The bugs have been worked out of it. Microsoft have a knowledge base you can search and have a reasonable chance of finding what's wrong. Linux have ~FAQs with screeds of writing which demand you read other ~FAQs which demand you read other ~FAQs …. Now I know where the press the configuration button message comes from! The problem with Linux is that it is too young and the human interface has not yet been worked out. It's fine if you speak the language but to learn the language you have to speak it.\n\n It reminds me of the early days of the NZPCA when we had a library of 51/4" floppies, - they filled 12 suitcases and had thousands of programs - I didn't understand what most of the programs did. The catalogue, on miles of printout paper, had things like databases, and editors and programs to configure your ports - up to port 127 as I recall. I tried many of these programs, many didn't work - they must have worked for someone - what did I do wrong? Their life expectancy on my machine was about 5 minutes, "Try it chuck it" was my motto. But out of this came some wonderful programs - I remember Xtree was one which was developed from shareware. Wait a minute what was I saying about working out what Gimp did last week?\n\n Still that's different, Xtree was DOS and we all knew what DOS did, didn't we!\n\n See what I mean, you get used to it, the names become part of you, you eventually work out how to use a program and find it's short cuts. Rubbish programs do die by the side of the disk and it doesn't matter what the good ones are called. The sorting the dross process with Linux is much faster because there are more users and the Internet is a wonderful tool for exchanging data and opinions.\n\n So, much refreshed from all that back into the fray - well after I finish this in Windows - can't get my networked printer to work under Linux. I want to keep going, I will keep reading through my five Linux books, (including Linux for dummies), somewhere there will be an explanation I can understand - I hope!\n\n We have got about $5000 in the bank at the moment. We are not a bank and the committee is trying to work out what to buy with it. (Apart from chocolate biscuits and wine for committee meetings). One suggestion is that we get a printer for colour photographs. I know HP and Kodak do nice small ones suitable for 6x4 photos and it would be nice to print out my own photos so they look like proper prints. Won't be cheaper than sending them away to be processed - Dick Smith's tell me that photos cost about $2 using the printers and I have seen ads on TV down to 60c per print. Still it would be good to be able to mess about with photos and produce proper prints of the same size rather than the scraps of photos I usually get after messing with my printer.\n\n Does anyone know where we can get a good deal on photo quality gloss paper? The retail prices are rip-offs!\n\n We would like to hear your suggestions of something we could buy. Please remember though not everyone wants a computer controlled astronomical telescope! The committee will have final say. If you want to join the committee though . . . !\n \nSee you at St Giles. Hugh has recovered so we will be discussing formatting and partitioning of disks. //- Rog//\n

Roger Currier\n\n It was my birthday last month and I did my usual and bought myself a Roger to Roger present! Well it’s the only way to make sure I get what I want and I have enough socks and ties. - I bought myself a digital camera, a posh one. Having been to meetings at the club I knew what kind of specification I wanted so I decided it was the time to indulge. Especially as our film camera never recovered from a dunking in the Wanganui.\n\n Of course I took lots of photos and have tried out lots of it’s tricks and learned some lessons. One very interesting lesson I learned was how different programs create different file sizes. I pasted 3 .jpg images of approx. 900k (compressed) each into a Word document. It took ages to do, (typically 3 minutes for the image to appear after pasting), and the file took about 5 minutes to save. Of course Word decided to do an automatic backup save whilst the image was being pasted – that didn’t help! When I checked the Word file was some 33 Mb.\n\n I needed to get the file printed at our local copy bureau. It was too big for floppies, too big for an e-mail really and the only way out was to burn it onto a CD. Rang the bureau and they recommended I dropped it to Adobe which I did. The file size was, (are you sitting down?), 256k. Yes it had gone from 33 meg to 256k and it fitted on one floppy, - I didn’t believe it at first and was suspicious that the images were stored somewhere else on our network. No they were all there. I took the floppy round to the bureau and they printed the images perfectly.\n\n The learning is significant, I couldn’t have created the file directly in Adobe Acrobat, (with the software that I had), but to initially create it (albeit painfully) in Word and then transfer it over works. I have high hopes that we will be able to e-mail Megabyte in Acrobat PDF format and still produce manageable e-mail files. We will see over the next few months.\n\n I am sure you know it’s the AGM this Wednesday coming – so do come along to St Pats. What am I saying!! We have changed religion and we are now at St Giles – see elsewhere for details of how to get there. We need to make up a quorum of 30 or will have to continue holding AGMs until morale improves! Do come along and get your point across. It’s a time for looking forward and changing direction if that’s what you want. We need new blood on the committee but won’t break your arm if you don’t feel you can help.\n\n This is also a time to thank people, to thank those people who work quietly in the background. Those who contribute to Megabyte, those who go out of their way to help other members like Stu Mountjoy did. Thank you Ann Loveridge for sticking all those labels on Megabyte. Thank you Dawn Gorman for doing the accounts, thank you John Fanning for the help desk, Robert Di Mattina thank you for selling disks etc, Tom Clarke thank you for re-inking ribbons, John Little who assisted with the office and mail collection, Ian Godfrey for all your sterling work in all sorts of areas – only you know all the places where you made a difference! Thanks to John Foster and John Blakely for running the regional SIGs and many thanks to all those who were on the committee. I know I will have forgotten someone thank you anyway.\n\n And thank you members of the NZPCA for making it the club / association that it is.\n Rog\n

Roger Currier\n\n It's surprising how easy it is to slip behind progress! At the last committee meeting we were discussing payment of subscriptions which are now coming due, (no hint intended), and someone pointed out that they paid most of their bills by Internet banking. "Why don't we do that!" everybody said. So, to this end, if you wish to, you can pay your subs by Internet banking to account no 0305 21 0168108 00. Make sure you set up the payment so that we know who it's from or we will keep chasing you and, what's more important, you may miss getting a copy of Megabyte!\n\n I did a talk on Excel for beginners last month and set homework. Either it was too hard or too easy as I only had one sent in for me to mark. So you are all in for detention after school! Do try doing the homework if you are new to Excel, (ie not Excel gurus), it will probably take you a few hours and if you finish it you will be well on the way to being able to use Excel which is an essential tool these days. If you can't finish it, it's all the more important that you send it in so I can sort you out and show you where you are going wrong. (The truth is I want to try out the Remote Desktop feature that comes with Windows XP). For those who missed the lesson the homework is at the end of the article.\n\n The Linux battle continues. The trouble is it is so easy to carry on using Windows and, when I run Linux up it has all these games - and they have to be properly evaluated. Also I don't know enough about Linux to properly remove them from temptation. Catch 22 and all that. It's a bit like learning Excel, it's obviously a useful program but without a real purpose there's little point in learning how to use it. - hence the homework above - it gives you a reason and a challenge to learn it. Anyway back to the point in question - Linux.\n\n I now have two versions of Linux loaded - Linux for Non Geeks (which is a simplified version of Red Hat) and Xandros desktop which is advertised as being as easy to use as Windows. (I suppose that could be called Linux for Geeks!) I find having two versions lets me take advantage of each, to try the simple examples in the Non Geeks version then go over to Xandros to see if I can do them there. It's not easy, especially as there are twice the games and I can't get the modem working, (as it's a Winmodem), and go online for help. I suppose I am getting somewhere, I have compiled my first program and loaded yet another game on the system but somehow I keep getting distracted!\n\n One of the essential skills these days is to know how to search for what you want on the Internet. Most of us have a favourite search engine but how many of us know how to use the different switches on the search engines to make the search more effective and avoid bringing up the garbage. The Internet is a wonderful dustbin, full of gems hidden amongst the rubbish and to be able to find the gems without getting your hands dirty is a very useful skill. Our next presentation at St Giles is on Internet searching and we will see what we can do to stretch the search engines to their limit.\n\n Maybe you can think up something which will test the searching gurus!\n See you at St Giles

Roger Currier\n\n Until now I hadn't realised the extent of the quiet revolution that's going on in computing and I have to say that I am very excited. I knew about Linux and how that had / was being developed by a Finnish student but I didn't know how the local networks and the Internet community of programmers came together and helped.\n\n In the early days of computing it was quite normal to get free software. Writers of software produced it just because of the challenge and the pleasure of writing - Well written software has been considered an art form and I think I agree. Currently there are major software projects being undertaken by groups of hackers, as they call themselves, and the outcomes are free, fully functional, flexible and high quality software.\n\n Unfortunately these days the term hacker has become synonymous with the writing of viruses or the software used to get addresses off the Internet for spam. In fact the majority of hackers are experienced programmers, normally employed in the computer industry in the daytime but at night they get on with the project that they are developing with sometimes hundreds of other hackers. Linus Torvalds didn't just write Linux on his own. He developed a crude working kernel and put it on an ftp site and invited other hackers to use it, to comment on it and to correct and improve it. The only stipulation Linus put on it was that any software had to be free for anyone else to use and it had to come with the source. Note 1. Not to take it away from Linus, he coordinated the contributions, wrote much of the Linux software himself and successfully controlled its production. - All while continuing with his university studies. (His programming output during the university holidays was prolific - he appeared to be programming 12+ hours a day for 7 days a week). But the important thing is that lots of people were involved in the testing and production of the program.\n\n Linus wasn't the first to do this, many other programmers/ hackers were doing the same and much of the Internet is currently being driven by software produced the same way.\n\n Netscape was commercially produced, initially it easily outpaced Microsoft's Internet Explorer, but eventually could not keep pace with the Microsoft giant. Netscape decided the only way they could compete, (and remember the personal version of Netscape was free), was to put the source out on the net and let the hackers get at it. Before they could do this they had to remove various sections of the code which they had bought from other companies and who did not want their source code published. For instance the security encoding for secure web pages had to be removed. Within a week of publishing the source someone came up with replacement software - for free!\n\n It's no longer called Netscape it's called Mozilla available from www.mozilla.org and if you go to the web site you will see that it is 'open source' so, if you are clever enough, you can modify it. You may wish to consider changing over to Mozilla when Microsoft do the next upgrade of Internet Explorer - I understand they are proposing to charge for it! At last I have found a version of Linux which I can get on with, it's Xandros. It has a mode which is very similar to Windows and comes with a very useful Windows explorer look-alike which helps significantly. I know eventually I will want to get into it's 'innards' and use the terminal windows and other non-windows features but for the time being I just want to use it and find out how it performs. Will report later.\n\n This month at St Giles I am doing an introduction to Excel. Excel gurus beware; this is going to be at a very basic level, I don't want to confuse people with different or smarter ways of doing things. Beginners beware; you will get homework so pay attention!\n Rog\n\n //1. Source is the human readable form of software such as "IF A = B then" and allows the use of comments which makes the software much easier to understand. Software itself is in binary, represented in a hexadecimal code and looks like "3F 2D 44 AA 23". Much more difficult to understand and modify.//\n

Jim Oliver gave a superb talk at St Giles last month. I asked him to talk on making recordings from records, and I have to admit I left it pretty late to ask him, and he came to the party and gave one of the best talks we have had in ages. Jim didn’t want to bring his turntable so I brought my old hi-fi which was the weakest link in the demonstration. I still don’t accept the comments made about my Beach Boys records though!\nJim showed how to connect the turn table to the computer and demonstrated some really good software, freeware, which allowed you to edit, to adjust and to save the music to your computer. At the end of the demonstration he made copies of a CD containing the software, and demonstration videos which attendees took away. Thanks Jim – great one.\nThe committee decided this was an area where we could help our members and we have decided to buy a turntable to lend out. I know of several members who have record collections they haven’t been able to play in years because their turntable has been donated to a more worthy cause – normally space in the house. Now you have the opportunity to transfer those records to CD – assuming you have the appropriate equipment.\nThe turntable, from Dick Smiths, is surprisingly good quality. It is belt driven with a magnetic stylus, pretty well automatic and will play 33 & 45 rpm records. (Those of you with 78’s don’t give up - the software has a facility to adjust the speed). It plugs into the Line In socket of your sound card and the software does the rest. \nWe will enclose Jim’s CD with even more software as well as a set of instructions so you should be able to hear those long forgotten scratchy records. (The software will remove noises and scratches but it can take time and patience). We will sort out how we handle the loan of the turntable at the next meeting.\nThere was an underwhelming response to my request for comments on whether we have Megabyte by post or by email. The person who expressed an opinion wanted to retain the status quo. However we did discuss this at the committee meeting and decided that, if you want Megabyte by email, you can let us know and we will set it up. Do be aware though it will come as a PDF file set up for the printers with page 1 then page 16 etc. If you don’t understand undo the staples in Megabyte and see how the pages are actually printed. It can be read electronically but with difficulty and imagination.\nWe have had a request from the Helpdesk for volunteers with different areas of skills. If you feel able and are willing to help the occasional person out send me an email at RogerC@Clear.net.nz with your contact details and speciality. We keep the contact details confidential – we ring you so you can ring the person needing help. Please help.\nAnother thing that was suggested at the AGM was a digital camera. Their costs are coming down so we decided to get one of these as well. It won’t be a top of the line model, if you read these articles you know my opinion on having so many megapixels that your computer can’t handle them. We are looking at a camera about 3mp+, battery operated, not rechargeable, with about 3 times optical zoom. And we want an easy interface with computers so photos can be uploaded.\nIf you get this in time you might like to go to the Hutt meeting where Microsoft are talking about the XP service pack – Monday night 7:30. Vodafone are going to show us what you can do with their latest toys, (whoops), developments in communication and computing at St Giles.\nAh well back to the Beach Boys – if only my hair was longer!\nRog\n

It's no use, it doesn't feel right, there is something special about receiving Megabyte in the mail. I know that in theory there is no difference in reading it on the screen but somehow it isn't as personal and it certainly isn't as flexible. I usually read Megabyte in bed and I know that Penny would object if I brought my computer to bed to read.\n\n I understand that Adobe are suing a hacker who cracked their protection on their book reading software. This software is designed to allow you to buy a book, very cheaply, on the Internet and read it on your computer. It was very carefully protected and you couldn't even copy the software to another computer, you couldn't copy pages from the books, all you could do was read the book. I don't see much point in the software myself; somehow I can't curl up with a computer like I can with a book.\n\n What's the point of all of this? Well we need to save money and we were looking at saving money by delivering Megabyte by email. It would have saved us quite a lot of money, I asked at meetings for opinions and though there was some support for this it wasn't very enthusiastic and I had the feeling that it wasn't really supported. So we have to do something else.\n\n Our other major expenditure is the BBS, we pay for two telephone lines, we have to rent space for the computer, pay for power for the computer etc. Several people have suggested that we put the BBS on a web page. We have been looking at this and the costs seem very favourable. Currently Robin is looking at what is involved in setting it up. We want to provide email facilities, file upload and download, access to newsgroups and perhaps even a chat room for members to discuss their problems. We may be able to provide limited access to those members who do not have an Internet account. I know there are members who are not using Windows however I am satisfied that there are now browsers and email readers available for most operating systems. Don't worry if you don't have the fastest most super computer, even the most basic machine is much faster than the Internet it's the speed of the modem that counts.. Watch this space.\n\n Robin is going to need a hand, if you are interested in helping maintain an element of the web page let me know (~RogerC@Clear.net.nz). It should be an interesting project and I anticipate it will grow as the Internet evolves.\n\n Been fighting Access this month. Hit a bug where an old tried and tested routine suddenly stopped working. Cost me two days to sort it out. It appears that somehow an internal setting gets switched and it won't go back. In the end I, (and in desperation), I took an old working programme, stripped out all the old tables, forms etc and them imported them from the program I was developing. Everything worked fine after that. Microsoft you still haven't got it right! Just try searching the net for the words Access and help and see how many Access programmers have hit problems! There that feel better!\n\n We had a suggestion, I think it was at the AGM, that we buy a digital camera for the members to hire. It would give members the opportunity to try one out to see if it suited their needs, they could use it for a project and save the cost of film and processing. Sometimes it's nice to have images in electronic format for sending via emails. Feedback please.\n\n A member came up to me the other day to thank me for a tip I had given him. I hadn't even realised it was a tip. All I had done was demonstrate the use of the 'Send to' option in Windows to send a file to Notepad. (Right click on a file in Windows Explorer and one of the options is Send to). He hadn't realised that the 'Send to' was a folder and any programmes in that folder could have files sent to them. I have a copy, (well a shortcut - you can send to a shortcut just as you can to an ordinary file), of Notepad in my Send to folder and it's very useful for viewing the contents of a file (any file be it an .exe, a txt, a dll, or a gif). Sometimes the result is garbage but it is often useful to just open up a file to see what it is used for. I notice that Outlook Express has also put 'Mail recipient' in my Send to folder and it's very easy to email a file by using the Send To facility. Try it - it's worth getting used to.\n\n Think I'll just Send to this report to Richard!\n\n//- Rog //

I got my Roger to Roger present early this year, why not I don’t believe in waiting for a surprise if I know what it is. I bought myself a new watch, my old one having given up the ghost. I bought it over the Internet. I have bought several things this way, and never had any problems. It’s much cheaper this way, typically saving about 50% plus postage so it’s well worth while. I use my credit card and make sure when I am entering the number the page name is https: ie has the ‘s’ at the end of http, indicating a secure page.\n\n The one lesson I have learned is to make sure I include the cost of the postage when comparing prices. The postage on my watch was US$18.50 – a not insignificant amount but it was still much cheaper than buying in NZ. Also I have been told that if the value is less than $1,000 NZ customs don’t charge GST. Next time you want a ‘me to me’ present do go looking. Oh yes the watch is programmable and comes with an infra red communication device – none of this setting watches manually any more. Well Bill Gates is a geek as well!!\n\n Well we now have two projectors! Having demonstrated it at the St Giles meeting and stretched the display to 2048 x 1536 without problems it’s going to make our presentations much more professional. It’s for hire of course, see the ad elsewhere in Megabyte. The other one we will sell off. I remember a girl wanted to join the NZPCA just to hire the projector for seven days continuous use in a display for the Wellington Festival of The Arts. That’s not the sort of way we want it used, the bulb, (or whatever it is these days), costs a fortune to replace. We didn’t accept the hire.\n \nI remind you we still have some Knoppix ~CDs which are freely available from me at rogerC@clear.net.nz as a club service to members, we can always record some more if we wish. It’s a fascinating CD, amazing what can be included on a single CD. Really shows how far Linux has come – and yet how far it still has to go. If you can set your PC so that it boots from the CD ROM drive and have about 100 meg of ram it will run fine. If you have less ram it will still run but spends more time swapping stuff to and from the hard disk.\n\n No meeting in January, no Megabyte in January, so prepare yourself for some disappointment in the New Year!\n\n Trying to set up meetings for next year. Going to see if we can get Microsoft to give us a demonstration of the Xbox and show us what you can really do with it - actually we want a technical demonstration of what’s inside the Xbox – as you know I am not really interested in games!\n \nThe December meeting at St Giles is going to be a bring and buy sale. Bring that program, circuit board etc along and replace it with a new one to play with over the New Year. Please indicate whether it is working or not working and bring a friend, preferably one with plenty money.\n \nIf I don’t see you before I wish you well, enjoy the holiday and rest – or not as appropriate. Have a happy New Year and I look forward to seeing you in February. Note - FEBRUARY.\n \n//- Rog//\n

One of our major expense items these days is the production of Megabyte, (it costs the NZPCA about $3,000 pa), and to reduce our operating costs I want to revisit distributing the newsletter electronically. I know we have looked at this previously but I believe that technology has changed and now is the time to reconsider the issues.\n\n Previously we have considered having it available on the BBS so people could dial in to get it with the corresponding problems of access and remembering when to dial in. We also had the problem of what format the file should take. I believe these days with the advent of email and free copies of Adobe reader we can overcome the problems.\n\n I know everyone does not have email and may not be able to use Adobe because of limitations of their computer and we will probably have to continue using the mail for these people. However I believe this applies to less than 5% of our membership, (of 150), and we should be able to !!!!cope with this.\n\n I am one of those people who do like to receive Megabyte through the post. There is something satisfying about getting hold of it and sitting down to read it. It also reminds me of the meeting at St Pats. Offset against this is the cost to the club of it's production and the time of those good people who print it, print the sticky labels, fold and attach the labels and post them. If I could get it in a form whereby I could print it out so I could read it just as before I would be satisfied.\n\n I want your feedback, email me at ~RogerC@Clear.net.nz (please put NZPCA in the subject line), if you want to express your opinion.\n\n The AGM is coming up in July and I want to take the opportunity to look both backwards and forwards and to change the direction of the club as you members want. I think the club is going in the direction that members want - but that's my feeling. I want to know what you think. Is it giving you the support you want, are the meetings at the right level, are they interesting? In the absence of feedback to the contrary there will be more of the same. This is your opportunity to give me feedback. If you want to change things email me at the above (with suggestions) or come along on the night and give us your half penny worth. Maybe even join the committee so you can do some steering. We welcome new committee members, we want new blood, I know any or all of the present members will be delighted to step aside or take on a new hat to make room for you if you want to contribute. The present positions are as set out below. \n\n\n|President|Roger Currier|\n|Secretary|Richard Elam|\n|Treasurer|Vacant|\n|Editor|Arthur Harris|\n|Training|Colin Candy|\n|Web Page|Robin Hinde|\n|BBS|John Hand, Linnette Horne|\n|BBS Assistant|Ian Godfrey|\n|Help Line|John Fanning|\n|Kapiti Sig|John Blakley|\n|CD Rom Library|Hugh Roberton|\n|Sales|Robert Di Mattina|\n|Compuserve|Linnette Horne|\n|Programmes|Alistair Clarke|\n\n\nIn the news recently there was great publicity about how the confidential files of an ACC counsellor became public. Just how secure are your files? At the next St Pat's meeting we are going to have a debate on computer security. We will show how to encrypt files and how to break the encryption, how to hide files and how to find them. Ever lost a file??? Come along it should be fun and you may learn something.\n\n//Rog .......//

We almost broke even this year, early returns from the accounts are showing that we made a very small loss. I am quite relieved we usually make a large one and obviously we can’t carry on like that. We have been cutting back on expenditure and watching the pennies and it shows. However next year we have to do more.\n\n Membership has been declining for about 3 years and now we are down to about 150 members. Our main source of income is your annual sub so with declining membership comes declining income. Another source of income is the annual auction which was not really successful this year - we only made just over $200 whereas in previous years we have made over $1,000. So as punishment we are going to hold auctions every month until things improve!!\n\n The room at St Pats is now used by the school board for their meetings and is not always available to us. We have had to use a classroom instead. It’s not really satisfactory so we have decided to look elsewhere as a venue for the main meeting. Watch this space.\n\n Talking about the auction It appears that people are no longer satisfied with the annual exchange of hardware and software and are either hanging on to their purchases or are no longer interested in purchasing motherboards or hard disk drives. We had a 6 Gig hard drive go for $1.50 – now aren’t you sorry you didn’t come to the auction!\n Thanks to all those people who helped and donated to the club.\n\n Found a new function in Excel this week, {{{SUBTOTAL(type, range)}}}. Use the number {{{9}}} for the type, it means {{{SUM}}}.\n Something like {{{SUBTOTAL(9,A1:A23)}}}. The type allows you to do averages, max, min etc using the same function – read the help file for more info. Very useful for inserting subtotals in the middle of tables and them not being included in the grand total (so long as you use the subtotal function for the grand total) Try it and see, it’s another string to your bow.\n\n If you are using Outlook in Office 2000 DON”T load Service pack 2. Microsoft have now gone security mad and won’t let you open up any kind of attachment that could possibly be a virus or harmfull. This includes .exe .mdb and lots of other file types. There is a work around which involves importing the file into Outlook Express but that’s a pain. People regularly send me attached files both at work and at home and to have to do the work around wastes a lot of time. I know some people need protection against viruses but to have a switch we could turn off if we felt capable of dealing with suspect files would be much more sensible.\n\n Did you send me an email with something like 3QQQQQQQQ+ on the subject line and an attached file called fgiesxx.exe (or something like that). I deleted it without examining it. If you did and it’s legit please resend with an explanation.\n\n If you know of a possible alternative venue to St Pats please give me a bell 473 9520, it should have adequate parking and potential phone line facilities.\n \nHappy computing\n\n//- Rog //

It's becoming obvious to me that an essential skill these days is the ability to design, or at least to modify, web pages. There are millions of web pages out there, most organisations have one and pay expensive consultants to maintain them so why shouldn't I get on to the band wagon. I suspect I may have left it too late to get the creamy jobs - most teenagers seem to be able to produce the pages but at least at my age I look like a senior consultant so I may have a chance!\n\n I bought a book "Sams Teach Yourself HTML 4 in 24 hours" by Dick Oliver which I cannot recommend highly enough. I find I can do one of their hours in about ten minutes, just skimming the information and not trying to remember it all, just to know what information is there and to have some idea of what to do. I will go back and re-read the hours when I need more information. (I bought the book from Capital Books who give discount to NZPCA members - just tell them you are a member of the NZPCA they will believe you).\n\n The book really is great, it gives information on everything from HTML coding to Java, Active X, creating forms, page layout and is full of good common sense tips and recommendations on software, where to get information, how to create images including moving images and lots of good stuff. It's also quite funny.\n\n The point I am making is that I am going through the learning experience of learning a new language. It was just the same when I learned DOS, Pascal, Access, Excel etc etc. It's a frustrating experience with deep lows and the occasional ecstatic high. The lows when I struggle and struggle and it still doesn't work, when I give up, consider suicide or coffee, it's always been coffee so far! I think about it, I try to find something I once read, I play a computer game and come up with an idea - I try it and ... it doesn't work. Try again, ring someone for help - (I find that's hard - akin to asking for directions), try something else and .... it works. OH Joy of Joys I am back on track. And so on. This is the process of learning a new language for me.\n\n Admittedly it gets easier as I get more experienced with languages. I know most of the pitfalls to look for, I know how programs work, I know how programmers think but there is always something new to trip me up and I keep making spelling mistakes. And above all I know that I haven't got a special bug on my computer which makes the program work for everyone else in the universe but not for me. Also I have confidence that I can do it and I am just going through the frustrating stage that happens with EVERY language, and EVERY computer programme.\n\n It's good for me to take on a new language, it makes me recognise what a beginner to computing is going through. For a beginner the hurdles are higher and the tools are unfamiliar (some people have difficulty with a mouse!), the concepts can be completely alien (I don't want to open a file - I just want to use it. What's the difference between a file and a program?) - know what I mean? That's what the NZPCA is about. It's a group of people with similar interests and provides a forum for people to ask for help, to have sessions together.\n\n We have regular monthly meetings but I believe there are many more benefits to come from sessions together helping each other.\n\n So next time it won't work use the NZPCA, use the help desk, ask for help at a meeting, offer to help. The hurdles are not so high when you can help each other over them.\n\n One thing I didn't say about learning a new language is that I can't learn it in a vacuum. I need a reason to learn it, I have to have a purpose or outcome. You probably know we are developing a new web page to replace the BBS - Robin Hinde is doing most of it. The purpose for you, if you are interested, could be to contribute to it's design, maintenance and expansion. Obviously this needs control, we can't have the main page changing every day to reflect a someone's idea of art! What we can do is to give you a link to a page you can develop or to give you an area of responsibility when we are satisfied you have the requisite skills.\n\n To do this we will need a training course, not to learn the finer points of HTML or Java, (but it could include some simple elements) to learn where the files have to be stored, the style to use, what files are not to be changed etc. What is allowed and what is NOT allowed - you know what I mean!\n\n Before we go down this road I want to know if you are interested, and what your level of skill is. So if you are send me an email to ~RogerC@Clear.net.nz with NZPCA WEB PAGE on the subject line. We will see if it's worth while setting up the training and control systems.\n\n Good programming - keep drinking the coffee!\n\n//- Rog //

I really must put a firewall on my car; the hackers have been at it again! I know I left it just outside but my phone tells me it's halfway to Auckland. It's fortunate that I installed the remote disable feature and now they are stuck on the desert road. I can't tell who they are because the first thing they did was to blank off the web cam but at least they have a long walk. Will give them half an hour to clear off then tell the car to come home.\n\n What shall I have for tea tonight? The range of recipes based on the contents of the fridge are decidedly few, I must get the bachelor addition to the naked fridge cookbook. I am fed up with the cheese omelette it keeps suggesting, I will get the fridge to order some more vegetables and a kebab. Better not order any more milk it keeps getting it wrong!\n\n Whoops the dog walker is bleeping again - he's into next doors dustbin. They are just not with it, their dustbin doesn't have the voice operated security lock and he knows all he has to do is knock it over and he gets to scavenge. It's no good I will have to go back to manually walking him.\n\n Impossible, unlikely? Well think back 20 years and consider the concept of sending letters instantly without using paper, of accessing a database 10,000 miles away, of remotely controlling a tv set, of watches with cameras in them (they do exist), of calculators (well perhaps 30 years), of taking photographs without using film, of remote banking, of bombs that can hit any target at night, of aeroplanes deliberately crashing into buildings!\n\n What put this in mind for me was a meeting of the Lower Hutt group where Paradise told us what's going on and what will be coming soon on the Net. I suppose the major change is that Internet addressing (IP addressing), will soon be by six numbers rather than by four. I should explain.\n\n Currently the addresses of web pages, ~ISPs etc are held in four numbers ranging from 0 to 255. So there is a maximum number of addresses of 256x256x256x256 (including the 0) ie 4,294,967,296 separate addresses. Normally this is hidden from you by a clever bit of software that converts www.microsoft.com to its IP address. We are already banging against the stops only having four numbers so there is going to be a change to six numbers. My calculator won't show what 256x256x256x256x256x256 comes to but I am assured that it equates to about three addresses for every person in the world.\n\n With the 6 numbers it will be possible to allocate an IP address to your fridge, your car (Mercedes and BMW are already doing it), in fact anything that would benefit from having an address can have one. I can just about see why a fridge should have an address but can't see why a toaster should! It will be possible to control almost anything from your cell phone; implant or whatever is the most convenient means of accessing the data. The real challenge will be to design a simple interface to control all these devices. I don't think text messaging will do it, (famous last words).\n\n And there lies the rub. If I can access my fridge so can a hacker, if I can call my car to me a hacker can call it to him. The world will be full of passwords, ever changing to avoid hackers - you won't be able to have the same password for your dog walker as for your gardening robot. The problems that will be caused by someone accidentally calling for their fridge instead of their car - the mind boggles - the Auckland motorway blocked by fridges!\n\n I suppose it will all sort itself out, if it isn't convenient it won't be adopted. I recommend you don't buy a new fridge though!\n Rog

Got fed up with Notepad this week. Been intending to change from Notepad for a long time but never found time to actually go and look for something else. The crunch came this week when I had to examine a 32meg log file of problems I have had with Access and Foxpro communicating. Of course Notepad said 'I can't handle this, do you want to use Wordpad?' which then struggled for 5 minutes just to load the file and then another 5 minutes when I moved down a page. The crunch had come!\n\n Went on the net to see what there was, searched for editors and I found ~NotesPad (note the 's') at http://www.newbie.net/NotesPad/index.html. It's freeware, does not have advertising and I keep finding more and more things I like about it. It comes with instructions on how to replace Notepad and the 'Send To' trick I was talking about last month (ah there's nothing new under the Sun - sighs!!) and it suits me. I see from the web site that various dictionaries are available but I have not yet explored this.\n\n To those not familiar with Notepad, it is an editor which comes with Windows. An editor like Notepad can be used to examine ANY file. It will look at program files, .dlls .doc files etc. (Be careful not to change anything if you look at program files). Mostly the details look like garbage but sometimes it is useful if you are trying to find out what a file is used for, there is often a legible section at the beginning. I find it most useful for rescuing damaged Word files in that I can read the file and extract the text, albeit without formatting and also for reading text or log files.\n\n Those users of the BBS may notice that it is slightly more difficult to get on now. This is because we have removed node two to save money. We are still investigating future alternatives. Compuserve have contacted us with an offer which may suit our needs. Watch this space.\n\n We are still looking for feedback from those surfing the net, for the sites with something special, something with a good reason to go back again and again. If you find a site like that let us know, go on the NZPCA web site and send an email to the webmaster. He will put a link to it on the web page if it's appropriate, and not if it's inappropriate, (you know what I mean by inappropriate!) put a link on the page for other members to use. On the other hand why not try the links that he has already set up there. You never know what you will find!\n\n St Giles seems to be working out, though we are looking at another alternative. It's cosy but holds us all, we need to sort out a screen for the projector and maybe re-arrange the room but it will suit us fine in the meanwhile.\n\n Thank you Robin for giving us such a good talk on operating systems. I have to admit I was surprised there are so many current ones out there. Robin took a chance and did a complete load of the Windows operating system on his machine - and it worked without a hitch.\n\n It looks like I am going to be doing a talk on how to mail merge next meeting. Come along and be indoctrinated into the black art.\n \n//- Rog //

I got my Roger to Roger present early this year, why not I don’t believe in waiting for a surprise if I know what it is. I bought myself a new watch, my old one having given up the ghost. I bought it over the Internet. I have bought several things this way, and never had any problems. It’s much cheaper this way, typically saving about 50% plus postage so it’s well worth while. I use my credit card and make sure when I am entering the number the page name is https: ie has the ‘s’ at the end of http, indicating a secure page.\n\n The one lesson I have learned is to make sure I include the cost of the postage when comparing prices. The postage on my watch was US$18.50 – a not insignificant amount but it was still much cheaper than buying in NZ. Also I have been told that if the value is less than $1,000 NZ customs don’t charge GST. Next time you want a ‘me to me’ present do go looking. Oh yes the watch is programmable and comes with an infra red communication device – none of this setting watches manually any more. Well Bill Gates is a geek as well!!\n\n Well we now have two projectors! Having demonstrated it at the St Giles meeting and stretched the display to 2048 x 1536 without problems it’s going to make our presentations much more professional. It’s for hire of course, see the ad elsewhere in Megabyte. The other one we will sell off. I remember a girl wanted to join the NZPCA just to hire the projector for seven days continuous use in a display for the Wellington Festival of The Arts. That’s not the sort of way we want it used, the bulb, (or whatever it is these days), costs a fortune to replace. We didn’t accept the hire.\n \nI remind you we still have some Knoppix ~CDs which are freely available from me at rogerC@clear.net.nz as a club service to members, we can always record some more if we wish. It’s a fascinating CD, amazing what can be included on a single CD. Really shows how far Linux has come – and yet how far it still has to go. If you can set your PC so that it boots from the CD ROM drive and have about 100 meg of ram it will run fine. If you have less ram it will still run but spends more time swapping stuff to and from the hard disk.\n\n No meeting in January, no Megabyte in January, so prepare yourself for some disappointment in the New Year!\n\n Trying to set up meetings for next year. Going to see if we can get Microsoft to give us a demonstration of the Xbox and show us what you can really do with it - actually we want a technical demonstration of what’s inside the Xbox – as you know I am not really interested in games!\n \nThe December meeting at St Giles is going to be a bring and buy sale. Bring that program, circuit board etc along and replace it with a new one to play with over the New Year. Please indicate whether it is working or not working and bring a friend, preferably one with plenty money.\n \nIf I don’t see you before I wish you well, enjoy the holiday and rest – or not as appropriate. Have a happy New Year and I look forward to seeing you in February. Note - FEBRUARY.\n \n//- Rog//\n

Presidents Report. February\nRoger Currier\n\n The NZPCA bought me a new toy this Christmas, well for a few weeks at least. It bought me the slide scanner and it's a beaut. I can see it will be in great demand for preserving the slides and photographs that we all have stored at the bottom of wardrobes. I spent about a week scanning my father in-law's slides and learned that slides do not last forever and some penicillin bacteria have a great affinity to photographic emulsion - especially that on images of people's faces!\n\n The scanner is very clever - to think that I would ever say that about software! - you can tell the scanner to detect dust, fungus, hairs etc on the surface of the image and it will eliminate them from the photograph. It will adjust the exposure to allow for those photographs where the flash didn't work, it will adjust for faded negatives and correct excessive grain. It will change negatives into positives, scan at up to 3600 dpi resolution and handle filmstrips as well as slides. Wow what a machine and what a lot of time it takes to do the job!\n\n The instructions that came with it recommended that the scanner be run through a graphics program using its scanner input. I soon realised that this was a waste of time, and computing power, as, whilst scanning, the graphics program is locked up and no use to man nor beast. I found the best way to use it was to run it independently, to set it scanning and then run up the graphics program and play with photos previously scanned. The scanner does most of its computing internally leaving my PC free for other things. Thank goodness for Windows - Did I say that??\n\n Seriously folks it is a very clever piece of equipment and I am sure will be in great demand. From experience we are going to have to hire it out, ($10 a time), for a week at a time just to give people enough time to get acquainted and to scan all their collection. Be warned the process takes time, particularly if you want it to remove hairs etc.\n The machine requires a USB connection, (fast or slow), about 200 meg of ram and at least a 200 meg Pentium and lots of spare disk space. Lots of cups of coffee to drink and some good games to play while it's working.\n I think this is the way the club should go, to buy equipment for members to use and share, equipment that may only get used once in a blue moon but which will be so useful. We now have a video projector, a colour photograph printer and a scanner. If you can think of something else appropriate let one of the committee know. We have already considered a digital camera but decided it isn't what we want, most people already have a camera, digital or otherwise, and the demand for a camera for a week will be fairly limited. Anyway now we can scan the negatives you have from your old camera!\n\n Oh yes - Happy New Year - sorry I forgot, I am so excited about the scanner.\n One of my intentions this year is to learn how to use graphics programs (Adobe, PhotoImpact etc), (as well as learn Linux an how to program in HTML and Java). Having the scanner gave me the incentive to do final tweaking, remove red-eye etc. (No the scanner does not remove red eye). I want to understand how to use layers and what colour correction and saturation really mean. I now have 400 new images to practice on!\n\n I will be doing a talk at St Giles demonstrating the scanner next Wednesday, if you want to get some first hand experience from an expert come along!!\n Rog\n\n\n

\nSome time ago I gave a talk about ~NetMeeting, I demonstrated an Internet connection to Adreanus in Northland. The connection worked but was only really effective when the web cam was turned off, it took too much of the signal and messed up the audio. I said then that we should leave things a few years and I am glad to say things have changed and are much better now.\n\nFor my birthday my daughters, who live in London, sent me a set of headphones with microphone. They have been using Microsoft MSN Messenger to talk to their friends all over the world for some time and decided it was about time that we were dragged into the 21st Century. As instructed by the email they sent me I loaded MSN, (version 6.2). I declined the ‘opportunity’ to create a Hotmail account – there is now an option to use your own email address. I set up a net passport which just required a password with my registered email address – and I (or we were away).\n\nI rang London and told them to go on line and went on line myself. Having already loaded my daughter’s email address into MSN, I ran it up and there she was already on line. (Her computer is much faster than mine!). After a bit of clicking and trying I connected and could carry on a normal conversation. At that point I lost the use of my computer for two hours whilst Penny took over the conversation. I wanted to try the web cam and some other settings but wasn’t allowed to change anything whilst the conversation went on. By the way I don’t have a high speed Internet connection, I am using a standard 56k modem.\n\nAt last my computer was returned and I asked them to turn on the web cam. It works, refreshing the, very small, picture about every 3 seconds. I was given a guided tour around their flat – somewhat limited by the length of the web cam cable but enough to show all except the bathroom, (it’s a very small flat). Seems funny seeing my daughter in a Summer dress whilst huddling over an electric fire at my computer desk!\n\nIf you haven’t already I suggest you try it out. It’s free up to the limit of your Internet connection time. Do use version 6.2 of MSN, the earlier versions do not handle the web cam images as well. It’s a bit of a nuisance having to ring first though it’s possible to set up a common time to connect. Another possibility is to use a web phone connection (you can dial a phone number through MSN) – but that means you have to set up an account and that costs about US$25. Set MSN up with a local friend or a next door neighbour, that way you can play with settings to get it working properly then contact your overseas friends and drag them into this century. It’s free and works very well. And you can play solitaire whilst chatting!\n\nAt the AGM we discussed the distribution of Megabyte by email. I know this has been talked about before but things have changed and I think by now everyone will have the ability to receive email. It’s not as nice as getting it through the post and having something you can read in bed – you do read it don’t you? But it has the advantage of being free, effectively saving us about $1,000 per annum, not to mention volunteers time taken folding it and sticking labels. It could also have other advantages in that we could attach files to Megabyte with programs talked about at the meetings. I am sure there are lots of possibilities. We anticipate it being sent as a PDF file so everyone can read it. I need your feedback and ask for you to send me an email to ~RogerC@Clear.net.nz with your comments – for or against. To simplify my life please put NZPCA on the subject line.\n\nApart from slides another hangover I have from my youth is lots of records – well the Beach Boys don’t sound the same without scratches, pops & whistles! One thing I must do sometime is transfer them over to ~CDs before I loose my record player to dust and general decay or the Salvation Army. Jim Oliver has kindly agreed to show us how it’s done. We will try to do it using freeware or shareware so you can do it yourself with a bit of trial and error and patience. Come along and we will let you how to shake a rag or croon to Elvis. \n\nRoger\n

\nI have lost track of how many of these I have done, another year, another month, another article. This is another year. It’s the end of another financial year, time to say thanks, time to take stock and time to move on. Even if you read no further do come along to the AGM.\n\nIn my humble opinion I think the club is going in the direction that members want – but that’s my opinion. We have continued with the sessions at St Giles and Mana, we now have a hardware sig (which I think has something to do with the current world shortage of chocolate biscuits), we have various items of equipment for members to borrow and of course we have Megabyte and our web page and that’s going through a process of change at the moment. I would love to know if this is what you want, do you want more of the same or less of some and more of others? Are we giving you support you want, are the meetings at the right level, are they interesting? In the absence of feedback to the contrary there will be more of the same. The AGM is your opportunity to give us feedback. \n \nIf you want to change things email me at RogerC@Clear.net.nz (with or without suggestions) or come along on the night and give us your half penny worth. Maybe even join the committee so you can do some steering. We welcome new committee members, we want new blood, I know any or all of the present members will be delighted to step aside or take on a new hat to make room for you if you want to contribute. The present positions are as set out below. \n\n|President |Roger Currier |\n|Secretary / Editor |Richard Elam |\n|Treasurer |John Little |\n|Membership|Arthur Harris |\n|Training|Available |\n|Web Page|Robin Hinde |\n|St Giles Coordinator |John Hand |\n|Help Line|Available |\n|Hutt Sig|John Foster |\n|CD Rom Library|Hugh Roberton |\n\nThe committee meets in Parliament, (nothing but the best you know), on the Wed following the St Giles meeting. The meetings are very computer related, solving hardware and software problems and are very relaxed and informal. You don’t have to be a member of the committee to come along, just let us know and we will make arrangements for you – it’s an interesting free trip and the meetings are fun.\n\nI think our policy of buying equipment that members can share is very successful. I would like to buy more though I don’t know what of – perhaps you could suggest something. Normally all our equipment is listed in Megabyte.\n\nThank you committee members, thank you Ann Loveridge, (who folds, labels and posts Megabyte), thank you John Foster (for organising the Hutt meetings), thank you John Fanning (for running the help desk all these years) and thank you members for keeping turning up at our meetings – somehow it wouldn’t be the same without you.\n\nFound a new site where you can spend lots of money, it’s www.firstin.co.nz. It specialises in selling off the ends of ranges for all kinds of companies. Every day there is a new special offer, normally at a much-reduced price from normal. Currently typing this with a new Microsoft Office keyboard which I bought for $29, normally they are over $100 (the box had a label on it saying ‘only to be sold with a new computer’). As I say, things change every day, and you have to keep an eye open to get what you want. It’s not been going long and I understand that this keyboard has been the day’s special offer before. I doubt if there is any point in chasing to see if they have anything left over – you have to keep looking. There is an email service, which lets you know what’s there.\n\nIt seems that one of the things you want is more on Word. We have had requests for explanations of Tracking Changes and Fields in Word so I will be doing a talk next Wed at St Giles. But only for those of you who are good!\n

\nSome time ago I gave a talk about ~NetMeeting, I demonstrated an Internet connection to Adreanus in Northland. The connection worked but was only really effective when the web cam was turned off, it took too much of the signal and messed up the audio. I said then that we should leave things a few years and I am glad to say things have changed and are much better now.\n\nFor my birthday my daughters, who live in London, sent me a set of headphones with microphone. They have been using Microsoft MSN Messenger to talk to their friends all over the world for some time and decided it was about time that we were dragged into the 21st Century. As instructed by the email they sent me I loaded MSN, (version 6.2). I declined the ‘opportunity’ to create a Hotmail account – there is now an option to use your own email address. I set up a net passport which just required a password with my registered email address – and I (or we were away).\n\nI rang London and told them to go on line and went on line myself. Having already loaded my daughter’s email address into MSN, I ran it up and there she was already on line. (Her computer is much faster than mine!). After a bit of clicking and trying I connected and could carry on a normal conversation. At that point I lost the use of my computer for two hours whilst Penny took over the conversation. I wanted to try the web cam and some other settings but wasn’t allowed to change anything whilst the conversation went on. By the way I don’t have a high speed Internet connection, I am using a standard 56k modem.\n\nAt last my computer was returned and I asked them to turn on the web cam. It works, refreshing the, very small, picture about every 3 seconds. I was given a guided tour around their flat – somewhat limited by the length of the web cam cable but enough to show all except the bathroom, (it’s a very small flat). Seems funny seeing my daughter in a Summer dress whilst huddling over an electric fire at my computer desk!\n\nIf you haven’t already I suggest you try it out. It’s free up to the limit of your Internet connection time. Do use version 6.2 of MSN, the earlier versions do not handle the web cam images as well. It’s a bit of a nuisance having to ring first though it’s possible to set up a common time to connect. Another possibility is to use a web phone connection (you can dial a phone number through MSN) – but that means you have to set up an account and that costs about US$25. Set MSN up with a local friend or a next door neighbour, that way you can play with settings to get it working properly then contact your overseas friends and drag them into this century. It’s free and works very well. And you can play solitaire whilst chatting!\n\nAt the AGM we discussed the distribution of Megabyte by email. I know this has been talked about before but things have changed and I think by now everyone will have the ability to receive email. It’s not as nice as getting it through the post and having something you can read in bed – you do read it don’t you? But it has the advantage of being free, effectively saving us about $1,000 per annum, not to mention volunteers time taken folding it and sticking labels. It could also have other advantages in that we could attach files to Megabyte with programs talked about at the meetings. I am sure there are lots of possibilities. We anticipate it being sent as a PDF file so everyone can read it. I need your feedback and ask for you to send me an email to ~RogerC@Clear.net.nz with your comments – for or against. To simplify my life please put NZPCA on the subject line.\n\nApart from slides another hangover I have from my youth is lots of records – well the Beach Boys don’t sound the same without scratches, pops & whistles! One thing I must do sometime is transfer them over to ~CDs before I loose my record player to dust and general decay or the Salvation Army. Jim Oliver has kindly agreed to show us how it’s done. We will try to do it using freeware or shareware so you can do it yourself with a bit of trial and error and patience. Come along and we will let you how to shake a rag or croon to Elvis. \n\nRoger\n

Roger Currier\n\nWe have just been on hol, been to Oz, four wheel driving, tramping and camping in the Outback. I took my digital camera and many of my friends did as well. The trip was so sophisticated that we had a laptop computer with us – well not the tramping bit – but the 4WD part. I felt most at home! I know it sounds a bit extreme taking a computer on a camping holiday but it was so useful. We could send emails, send pictures, and, as our camera memory cards filled up, we were able to burn the images compact disk. (It was used for computer games as well – but I would never admit to that!)\n\nI bought my camera too soon, I bought it pretty soon after digital cameras came out and it only has 2.2 megapixel resolution. My friends’ cameras are more modern and go up to about 5 megapixels and having up to 10 times optical resolution as well as extended battery life. (They had more bells and whistles as well – they made better noises!). Their cameras produced jpg files of 5 megabytes which, when opened up to view in the PC, expanded to 50 megabytes. That’s when we started to have problems.\nThe laptop, though not the most modern, and could handle my 300 kb jpg files no problem, (they expanded to about 2 megabytes). Trying to modify / manipulate the 50 meg images was such a pain we decided that drinking wine was more important. Promising ourselves that we would take more computing power next time. \n\nTake my advice, having a machine that records high-resolution images has great kudos but also has great disadvantages and it’s worth considering if you really need the facility.\n\nIf you are considering buying a digital camera I recommend you carefully consider how big images you really want. My 2.2 Mp camera will produce perfectly satisfactory A4 size prints, I don’t want prints the size of an advertising hoarding! Also I find my wider-angle lens useful as it saves me having to climb out of the window to take indoor photos of a group of people. My close up function is really nice as well - it’s really nice to take close-ups of flowers. Think on, next time are canoeing up the Zambezi a thousand miles from civilisation you will be able to get that snap of a crocodile attacking the lead canoe without fear of running out of memory space. And the lesser the resolution the less the cost – but do watch battery life.\n \nI know if you have a high megapixel resolution you can enlarge small sections of the photograph. As I know that I don’t have the same capability I just have to get closer.\n\nI had about 6 homework submissions, (the spreadsheet calculating plant & fertiliser costs), all were different and most produced the answer in the right way. I wasn’t so interested in the answer but in how the answer was obtained. My main comment was of a lack of flexibility, what would have happened if the fertiliser requirement changed? If you added another vegetable to the purchase list? When designing spreadsheets bear in mind the need for future maintenance / changes. \n \nOne submission, and I have his permission to tell you this, had no formulae at all. The figures had all been calculated manually and entered into the spreadsheet as if it were a passive piece of paper. When I explained to him what a spreadsheet would do it was a delight to see a new world of possibilities opening up in his eyes.\nNo it’s not Christmas yet it’s AGM time again. It’s time for feedback and suggestions and conversations and elections. It’s time to find new people, time for you to have your say. And most of all time to say thanks to those good people who did such good service during the year. I am not going to list them, they know who they are, and so do you by now. Thanks for everything you have done this past year, thanks for playing, come and play next year.\n\nThe NZPCA is really a social club that has a common theme of computers and their ills, (and occasional successes). We try to keep things interesting and varied. Every committee meeting we rack our brains to find something new and current to talk about and, I think, generally manage it. Everyone on the committee has agreed to stand again, which tells you how (non) onerous and fun it is, (the committee meetings sometimes sound like one of our regular club meetings – well we keep getting sidetracked!). If you want to help put your hand up, if not it’s ok. We would appreciate new blood on the committee but we understand that time is precious and transport not always available.\nAnyway do come along to the AGM, give us your feedback and any suggestions you may have for meetings, for club purchases or just generally how we could make things more fun. Look forward to seeing you at St Giles on Wed.\n\nBy the way, after the AGM, George Braithwaite is going to show us some practical uses of spreadsheets and how to use pivot tables.\nRog\n

\nMust get on with my report – Richard warned me that he would fill the space with Bla Bla Bla etc if I don’t.\n\nWhy do I get landed with the computers that just won’t go? With the ones that have so many programmes running that nothing else will run. With the ones that used to run Word, Excel, Outlook Express and Internet Explorer all at the same time on only 25 meg of ram – and now they won’t even run Word?\n\nHeard it before? Seen it before? It seems that there are still people who are surfing the Internet without a firewall, not worrying about an anti-virus program – or at least not updating the virus definitions. The one I am struggling with now has or had Norton Anti-virus 2001 that hadn’t been updated since. I know it has at least five viruses and dread to think how much advertising material on. ‘About every 10 minutes it keeps coming up with this pornographic site – but I have never even been there!’ It won’t let me load an updated Norton, the Windows ME disks are lost. Oh boy!\n\nAh – at last got into Safe Mode so very little was running and managed to get Norton running checking the system, will leave it running all night, after having done a virus scan – hopefully it finds them – I will run Scandisk with the advanced/ detailed setting so it can check the hard disk. Tomorrow I will buy 250 or 500 meg of ram and will be well on the way to recovery. If they object to the cost they can have their viruses back.\n\nPlease Please use a firewall, anti-virus including updating the virus definitions, run Adaware or some other advertising software detector. If you are running a modern operating system set system restore points. It will save you a lot of time and heartache. Oh yes get some RAM. ALL the more important if you use the machine for Internet banking or holding sensitive financial information! If you can’t be bothered doing this I suggest you respond to the next Nigerian spam letter you get and give them your bank account number!\n\nOh yes, please delete or archive emails from your email program. I was asked to fix a fast machine running – or trying to run Outlook – Outlook just wouldn’t start and you had to click the Outlook icon several times before it ran up. Problem was there were over 5000 emails in the Inbox and it just took time to load them. \n\nSorry about that I just had to get it off my chest. It is so frustrating fighting a computer that doesn’t want to run. After all I am using a virtually non responsive computer to try to tell me what’s wrong with it. Bit like people on drugs saying ‘it doesn’t affect me’ when the drugs are affecting the brain which is the only tool you have for measuring its effect.\n\nWas chatting to Richard Elam this afternoon – he’s right PDF files are becoming more and more prevalent. They have the advantage that PDFs are becoming a universal standard, they are much smaller than Word files – particularly if the document has graphics – (If you doubt this try creating a single line Word file, save it, see how big the file is in Windows Explorer. Then put a picture into the document and save it again etc – Then try deleting the picture and saving yet again. Bet you never get anywhere near the size of the original saved file!) . I know most of you have Adobe’s free PDF reader but you have to go searching if you want to create PDF files. You can always lash out and pay about $1,000 for a copy of Adobe PageMaker (Acrobat? – Ed) and work your way up the learning curve. There are other programs out there, some free, which allow you to ‘print’ to a PDF file creator. If you have to send documents externally to be printed you will find a PDF creator an essential. It’s the printing world standard.\n\nAh, Norton has just finished – 28 viruses! Most of them attached to some very interestingly named graphics files!\nSmashing talk at St Giles last month, digital cameras – how to choose one, how to take good photos and an introduction into professional photo editing. Jim Oliver is giving us a talk on Freeware. Last time he gave one he gave copies of the files on CD - should be worth having!\n\nSee you at St Giles \n

\nWhoops, who saw the deliberate mistake! If you didn’t then shame on you for not reading my articles every month – you have no idea of the blood sweat & coffee that goes into them. To those who did see the mistake – apologies – keep it under your hat.\n\nBeen playing with Python this month - it’s a very simple programming language. Don’t let the name put you off, it was written by a fan of Monty Python and is very simple and easy to learn.. It’s freeware and high quality and worth a look. Available on the net. I don’t suppose I will get very far in it, I find a need a purpose to drive me to make me learn a new program / language – but it’s still interesting to see how the programmer’s mind works. \n\nPython is an interpreted language, ie the instructions I write are analysed by Python which then calls up a pre-written routine to perform my instructions. For instance if I write the word PRINT the code looks for what’s following PRINT and outputs that to the screen by a series of instructions that I need know nothing about. It’s a bit like driving a car, you press the clutch then change gear and your car performs appropriately. You need have no knowledge of what happens on the other end of the clutch pedal or gear stick – you just need to know when and in what order to press the peddle / gear stick.\n\nLike driving a car, you can get more out of it if you do have some inkling of what’s on the other end of the pedal but you have to think about it. I once analysed a program written in Excel which played Noughts & Crosses. Who said Excel is only good for arithmetic? If you know Excel you are probably used to seeing statements like IF(A5=C4, IF(E4=34),then do this, then do this, do this if it doesn’t ) horribly confusing and difficult to modify or debug. The program I analysed avoided using the IF statement by knowing that TRUE statements evaluated to 1 and FALSE statements evaluate to 0. It made his program much easier to understand and follow once you got away from the premise that you must use IF().\n\nIf that doesn’t make sense to you run up Excel and try the statement =(2=2)*4 then try =(2=3)*4.\n\nKnowing this he, (for the purpose of this article I assume the programmer was a he!), was able to build up statements like =(a3=B4)+(C5=B7)+(G3>34). This threw me initially but I suddenly realised he was building up a probability table to optimise his move. He had avoided a long convoluted sequence of IF statements by knowing how Excel evaluated comparisons. Try it, experiment with it, it may be useful sometime.\n\nThe programmer obviously knew what was going on under Excel’s hood – well he maybe had an inkling as to what the clutch pedal did and because of that he could make his life simpler. This is why I like to examine languages. This is why I am intrigued at how Python works. I know that my programming in other languages is better as a result. It’s a bit like doing crosswords, the more you do the easier they get (until you get to the Cryptic crossword that has no logic whatsoever!)\n\nWe now have a digital camera for members to use. It’s only rated at 2 megapixels with a 3x optical zoom but that will produce 6x4 prints no problem, (and allow a bit of selective enlargement). It has a USB connection to your computer or direct connection to the video input on your tv/ video recorder. If you haven’t got a USB connection the memory card fits directly into the club’s printer and it’s possible to print out photos direct without them ever entering your computer – bit clumsy but it works. These days you can take your memory card into the chemists and they will print direct from it. \n\nThe idea is to give you the opportunity to try one out, to get used to just taking pictures and throwing them away if they are no good, to learn the limitations of a digital camera and to help you find out what your needs are. I have already made my point about 5 megapixel cameras and the amount of memory you need to manipulate your images. We will sort out how we are going to lend it out at the next committee meeting. If you would like to try it out send me an email at ~RogerC@Clear.net.nz and we will work out how to get it to you.\n\nRichard is going to give a demonstration at St Giles on Wednesday – come along and see what you can do with it and other digital cameras\n\nI think this is the way the club should go, to purchase equipment for members to use, to try out. It makes sense to share expensive equipment which once used would probably be sitting on a shelf for another year. If you have any suggestions about what we could get send me an email at the above. No promises but we will see what we can do.\n\nJust to remind you we have a video projector, a slide scanner, a colour photo print printer, a digital camera and a record turntable – all available to members.\n\nSee you on Wednesday - Now back to wrestling the snake!\n

I refer to your recent article in ~MegaByte regarding the ~ZoneAlarm software firewall product.\nI note that you start your article thus "A small tale to scare you". Now, whilst this may certainly catch the eye of the reader, I do think that perhaps such statements will cause more concern to NZPCA members than really neccessary.\n\nConsider, for a moment, firstly the use of a software "firewall" solution (if there actually is a problem), secondly if there is a problem, and thirdly does it apply to "me" bearing in mind that (I would guess) some 99% of NZPCA members would use a dial-up modem access to their ISP, for a finite length of time rather than an open line for hours at time.\n\nA few facts to keep in mind are:\n\n1.&nbsp;&nbsp; Your computer must be listening on one of the TCP ports to connect with the Internet, and it must be willing to interact with the remote host or client for anything good or bad to happen.\n\n\n2.&nbsp;&nbsp; No matter how hard anyone tries to hack you, if number one isn't present, they will not have any success.\n\n3.&nbsp;&nbsp; There are literally millions of connections on the internet. The likelyhood of some act of sabotage hitting you specifically is extremely small, unless you have made an enemy of some hacker.\n\nThat said, a few suggestions for keeping your computer "safe"\n* By not enabling file sharing, you have eliminated the most serious loophole in Windows operating systems.\n* The next most serious problem is your web browser. Make sure you have the latest versions and all security updates installed, especially with Internet Explorer, and take the time to learn the security features in the browser and use them with intelligence. Make sure you have the features turned on that will alert you if something 'funny' is going on\n* Carry on E-commerce only on secure sites. You can look at the little padlock icon on your browser, and generally secured site addresses will start with https rather than the normal http. By E-commerce I mean anything where private and/or sensitive information is exchanged.\n* Use common sense with emails. Do NOT open attachements you aren't expecting, even if they are from 'friends.' The "I Love You" virus spread like wildfire because people opened the attachment in Outlook and it used scripting to spread its wrath. No firewall will protect you from an unknown virus attack. Your best defense is your brain: use it! Its also a good idea to turn off the 'auto view' feature in your mail client, especially if it will launch imbedded scripts.\n* Good virus protection is always a good idea. But remember, even the best anti virus software can't protect you from a new and unknown virus.\n* If you are using PC Anywhere over the internet, don't use any version below 9.2 (there was a security hole previously), and be sure to set it to use encryption and to deny unencrypted connections. Set a password!!!!\n* On the home and small business front, probably the most dangerous software are multiplayer interactive games that work over the internet. They are generally not written by developers who have security foremost in their minds, and they tend to open up multiple ports. And, because they are games, they attract the sort of people who love to hack. Stay away from them.\n* With a dial-up access (via an ISP) your connection will these days usually be allocated a dynamic IP address each time you connect, and also means that when you shut down your computer, the address is released. The upshot of this is that you are a difficult target to hit because your address keeps changing. It would be like someone trying to burglarize your home when you move every day and never leave a forwarding address. Static IP addresses (where your computer retains the same identification) are now the domain of permanent leased lines.....pretty expensive and used by corporates who have hardware/router firewalls in place).\n* If you do maintain a 24 X 7 Internet connection, consider either automating regular logoffs and logons, or a hardware/router firewall. Personally, I feel if you don't need to have your PC on all the time, then don't leave it on all the time. Aside from the hacker issue, one of the best surge protectors and power saving devices is the off switch.\n Following the above will keep most computer users out of trouble. In NZ, we do have ADSL and cable modems, which are still pretty pricey for the "domestic" market, but even these ISP's use thousands of dynamic IP addresses. Even if you were connected to the Internet for a few hours at a time, remember that the hacker is more than likely using an automatic port scanning program.....by the time he/she has bothered to scan their logs for an open port, you will have moved on.\n\nThe biggest "hazard" of software consumer firewall products is that they may create a false sense of security and cause people to let their guard down. The internet is like a great big counrty fair.....there are lots of things to see and do, but there are also unscrupulous merchants and the occasional pickpocket. Don't make yourself a target and you should do fine. Hackers are looking for thrills and bragging rights. Individual ~PCs are just not that interesting. Companies are the more likely target.\n\nHaving said all that, I do agree that under certain circumstances good firewall protection is as desirable as an up to date virus scan program. ~ZoneAlarm, ~BlackIce, Sygate, are but a few available, but as third-party products I would strongly recommend reading the manual and learning the settings and the products compatibilty with your machine before installing.\n\nHardware/router firewalls are becoming increasingly popular for ADSL/cable-modem acccess to the Internet, especially since the prices are dropping commensurately *and* are significantly easier to use and maintain.\nWith regard to your desire to know just who has tried to access your machine, you may very well never know. The best one could do is to notify the ISP to whom the hacker subscribes. A neat program for this may be found at http://clearice.hypermart.net/clearzone/ which reads ~ZoneAlarm logs, sorts it a few different ways, but most importantly, will run a trace on the attack and email their ISP.\n\nAgain, a note of caution.....remember that the hacker has merely rattled your door handles and tried (excuse the pun) your windows, so getting all upset and spending hours a day trying to track down the source and sending e-mails to their ISP's could be a complete waste of time. The hacker will be using different ID's and different ISP's literally hourly, and bet your bottom dollar their ISP's will reside in the northern hemisphere.\n \nCheers.......Ricky Berg\nMember Number 808.\n\n//Thanks for your reply to my article. Editor.//\n\n

Protopage - you must see this! By Robin Hinde\n\nIf you haven't seen a Protopage yet, you'd better get along to http://www.protopage.com/computers.start right now and have a look! Read on for the password - you'll need it. See also this protopage or this one (no passwords required).\n\nThere has been talk of web based applications for some years, and many exist, but Protopage is one of the slickest things I've seen to date. While sites like Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! have all had personalised start pages available for some time, none of these approaches the simplicity, style and hackability of ~ProtoPage. A similar product is Netvibes, which is more oriented to tracking RSS feeds. live.com went live a few days ago, and is the start of Microsoft's latest foray into these services. Compared to Protopage, I think they have already dropped the ball - although you are able to customise your own start page, this consists mainly of adding RSS feeds and gadgets, so you are effectively a spectator, and unable to add any real content of your own.\n \nProtopage is intended as a very simple, free online personal start page - ideal for keeping your favourite links (and other bits and pieces) either for yourself - especially useful if you find you have trouble synchronising bookmarks between multiple web browsers, or to share with others; family, friends and within organisations. You can have all your favorite bookmarks available to you when travelling.\n\nAdding bookmarks is easy, and made even simpler with the addition of a bookmarklet that adds a button to your browser toolbar.\n\nLink panels are limited as to how they can be modified, but the notes panels accept a range of HTML and scripts so there is a lot that can be done with them; they can display an RSS feed, images, weather, links, notes and so on.\n\nThe technology behind Protopages is AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript and XML) and is becoming quite widespread. The same techniques are used to build online calendars, spreadsheets, wordprocessors and project management applications. Google it. In fact, AJAX methodology is used by Google Maps, and is the reason why such large images seem to load quickly.\nThere is a short list of online applications at redferret.\n\nI've set up this very basic page for NZPCA members to add to, it would be very much appreciated if you would take the time to add a couple of your favorite links, or even just leave a note. This page is not visible to the public - you have to be logged in to see it, and once you are, you are able to makes changes which will be saved automatically. Please only add bookmarks that will be of interest or suitable for NZPCA members; if you have other bookmarks that you wish to add, create your own Protopage and enter a link to that. Don't delete or change bookmarks added by others.\n\nLeave a note or drop me a line and let me know what you think. \nBe sure to visit http://www.protopage.com/computers.start \n\nThe password is in the URL, between the last "/" and the last "."\nEnjoy. \n\nGraphics used: protopagescreen.jpg

By Vince Freeman of Hardware Central\n\n We all know Dell and Compaq can get all the parts they want, but can your local reseller or white-box system builder? And what does street-level parts availability say about products' market acceptance?\n\n I ask because an interesting thing happened to me last week. I was setting up an Intel Pentium 4-based reference desktop system and madly searching for a few missing components. The most glaring need was for a new ATX 2.03 system case to house the PC -- due to the physical and power requirements of the motherboard itself, I couldn't just jury-rig it into an existing ATX case and replace the power supply.\n\n No problem, I thought, I'll just do a bit of searching in the local PC publications and find a new case. The pickings were quite slim, but I was able to find a few meager P4 case listings -- but after making a few calls and finding them all "out of stock," I moved my search to the Web. On eBay, I found a small selection of Pentium 4 cases listed, but without the housing and high-end power supply I required -- and the number of results returned was so small I thought I must have typed the wrong text string.\n\n This was becoming a decidedly more difficult affair than I'd envisioned, so I once again started calling local outlets to inquire about special-ordering a Pentium 4 case. Surprisingly, there was still no luck -- in fact, a few dealers openly laughed at the prospect of purchasing any P4 equipment, citing virtually nonexistent sales, low consumer interest, and steep inventory costs.\n\n The manager at one relatively large store even told me that he'd stocked Pentium 4 systems for a few months, but hadn't seen a single sale in that time, so the company had unceremoniously dropped the line from its product selection and had no current Pentium 4 distributor lists on hand.\n\n To be blunt, every single one of the vendors I contacted over a period of four or five days told me that Intel Pentium III and AMD Athlon platforms made up the vast majority of their desktop sales. Naturally, if I wanted to buy SDRAM or DDR memory or a standard ATX case, they had page after page of options I could pick from.\n\n Don't Build It; They Won't Come\n\n One universal truth I gleaned from this exercise is that, if a market is unable to sell a particular finished platform in sufficient numbers, your chances of finding individual components for it are slim to none. This was even true for several large warehouse dealers; even RDRAM was a lot tougher to find than I expected.\n\n By contrast, anticipation for the new 0.13-micron Pentium 4 "Northwood" processor seems high -- in fact, many of the vendors I contacted assumed I was asking about Northwood availability rather than simply a new case for an 0.18-micron P4. I was even told it would be stupid for me to buy a Pentium 4 now, with the new CPUs right around the corner. After all, I could use SDRAM with the newer, faster models!\n\n I don't know if this is the kind of in-store PR Intel wants, but according to vendors in my neighborhood, "everyone" is waiting for second-generation Pentium 4s and turning up their noses at existing offerings. True, enthusiasts' and IT insiders' sites like this one have written about waiting for Northwood, but I had no idea the phenomenon had become so widespread among resellers and their customers.\n\n Ditto for disdain for the current P4's RDRAM memory architecture. Now, I don't like Rambus or its strong-arm, royalty-seeking legal tactics in the least, but I draw a distinction between the company and the RDRAM technology it designs and licenses. Apparently, many do not -- and the debut of the P4 Northwood seems less anticipated for itself than for the concurrent launch of Intel's i845 SDRAM chipset. Whether it's cost, availability, or just plain bias, street-level consumers and dealers seem to view both Rambus and RDRAM with disdain.\n\n What became crystal-clear in my hunt is that, while the current Pentium 4 is reputedly selling well enough, its "street impact" is substantially less than anticipated. Sales of Pentium 4 processors, motherboards, and systems may be adequate, but seem almost totally dependent on big brands like Dell, Compaq, and HP. From my experience, if Intel had to rely on resellers and assemblers for Pentium 4 revenues, it would make for some interesting quarterly results.\n\n If you're wondering how my search for a P4 case turned out, I was finally able to find one at a corporate-oriented online vendor. Nonetheless, no matter what you read or hear, there's nothing like beating the streets (both literal and online) for a few days to illuminate exactly who's buying what.\n\n Vince Freeman\n Hardware Central

'' A remarkable coincidence''\n\n My Aunt Maud went shopping the other day, she had to buy four items from the supermarket. She is very careful with her money she took her new calculator with her and as she was putting the goods into the basket she very carefully entered the prices into the calculator. Unfortunately instead of pressing the + sign she pressed the multiply sign. When she came to the checkout the checkout and her calculator totals both matched at $7.11. She paid for the goods and continued on her way not knowing of the remarkable coincidence she had initiated.\n\n What were the prices of the goods?\n\n Hint Aunt Maud still lives in the days where cents were the minimum currency and she didn't bother with half cents\n\n First answer and fastest program to calculate the answer win a box of disks and instant fame!\n

To date no entries have been recieved for Puzzle No 1. Still it's early days yet and at the time of writing this you will have only had two weeks to go mad!\n\n No prizes this time! You don't even need a computer????\n\n If a rubber ball is dropped from the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa which we will say is 90 metres high, and on each rebound the ball rises exactly one third of it's previous height. How far will it have travelled after ten seconds?\n\n As you know the Leaning Tower of Pisa lies in a cultural vacuum hence you can ignore air resistance. Assume a gravitational constant of 9.75m/second2.

\nIt is said that the ancient Egyptians were aware of and used a 3 4 5 triangle as a right angled triangle in the construction of the pyramids. As every schoolgirl knows the explanation of this is that there is a special property of right angled triangles in that the square on the hypoteneuse equals the sum of the squares of the other two sides. \n\nThat is to say 3 squared plus 4 squared equals 5 squared and a triangle with sides of 3, 4 & 5 will be right angled.\n\nThere are other known triangles where the sides are also integer numbers a 9 12 15 triangle is another example.\n\nThis month's challenge is to advance the sum of human knowledge and find the right angled triangle whos longest side is an integer nearest to and below 100,000 whilst the smaller sides are still integer units.\n\nI am after original triangles, not ones who's sides are just multiples of smaller triangles. For instance a 3000 4000 5000 triangle will not do. \n\nWorth a box of disks (double density) to the winner. In the case of a tie program originality and humour will be taken into accout in deciding.\n\n

''Q&A on the Windows XP update'' \nAfter a year or more of preparation, home users can now get their hands on the SP2 security update for Windows XP. Here BBC News Online answers some of the most common questions about the package. \n\n''What is SP2?'' \nThe full name is Service Pack 2 and it is a software package that makes lots of changes to Microsoft's Windows XP operating system. Since Windows XP was launched in October 2001, the software has proved to be something of a virus writer and hacker's playground. SP2 is a bid by Microsoft to remove many of the bugs that make XP so vulnerable to attack. The Service Pack was first promised in 2003 but has taken a year of testing to get ready. \n\nSP2 is one of the most visible parts of Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing initiative. This aims to make Windows harder for hackers and virus writers to exploit. Ironically since Microsoft announced this initiative its software has suffered some of the biggest virus outbreaks and hack attacks ever seen. \n\n''What does SP2 do?'' \nThe update makes lots of changes to Windows XP. Some are visible, others not. One of the most obvious changes is the creation of a "Security Center" that lets people manage firewall, anti-virus and updates for XP in one place. \n\nIt also lets users know the risks they are taking if they do not have the firewall turned on, do not update their anti-virus software or install future updates for XP. \n\nAnyone that connects an unprotected PC to the net via a high-speed link is taking a huge risk. Studies have shown that unprotected ~PCs are typically found and attacked within 20 minutes of being put online. \n\nThe update also blocks pop-up ads and makes it much harder for spyware to download on to your computer. Users will also get warnings about potentially malicious attachments on e-mail messages or programs that attempt to install themselves without permission \n\nOut of sight SP2 also makes changes to the way Windows XP handles data to make it much less vulnerable to viruses that, for instance, exploit its willingness to run programs attached to e-mail messages. \n\n''Where can I get SP2?'' \nOnly from Microsoft. The software, which for consumers weighs in at about 80MB, can be downloaded via its auto-update service, ordered on a CD or found on cover CDs that come with some consumer technology magazines. \n\nEfforts to help Microsoft reach people with SP2 by putting the update on file-sharing networks were squashed by the software giant. \n\nBusiness users were the first to get hold of the update and the consumer version is being released this week. Users of the Professional version will have to wait until late August to get a version tailored for them. \n\n''How will it affect my computer?'' \nIt should protect you from some, not all, attacks on Windows by virus writers and malicious hackers. However, if you install it on a PC without making sure the computer is free of spyware, viruses and the like then you might be no more secure. \n\nAlso many of the most successful viruses play only on the gullibility of e-mail users rather than exploit bugs. The SP2 update will stop some, but probably not all, of the malicious attachments on e-mail messages that help viruses spread. \n\nA German magazine has found that the update still leaves inventive hackers a route to infect Windows and it is probably only a matter of time before these loopholes are exploited. \n\nInstalling the patch might make some of the programs you have got used to using on your PC stop working properly. Microsoft has produced a list of programs that suffer, to a greater or lesser extent, when SP2 is installed. Surprisingly many of the programs affected are Microsoft programs. \n\nMicrosoft does give advice about how to get these programs working again but the advice could prove too tricky for many users. \n\n''So should I install SP2?'' \nProbably. Windows is a hugely tempting target for virus writers, malicious hackers, clever criminals and many others. With SP2 you can probably avoid falling victim to many of the most obvious viruses, attacks and scams. \n\nHowever, you should not think that once you have installed SP2 that you are immune from future attack. If you have not cleaned up your machine before installing it and your machine has been compromised you may be no more secure than before. \n\nAs well as installing SP2 you need to keep your anti-virus software up to date and ensure you have other critical updates to Windows. Use anti-spyware programs to regularly clean up your PC. You should also be suspicious about e-mails from friends or acquaintances that you were not expecting and that have attachments. \n\nYou should also find out if you use any of the programs that SP2 conflicts with and see if you have the skill to carry out the steps necessary to get that program working again. \n\nS//tory from BBC NEWS:\nhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/technology/3576378.stm\nPublished: 2004/08/18 11:50:05 GMT\n\n© BBC MMIV//\n

//John Marchington found this in the New Scientist and offers it for your consideration!//\n\n As futuristic as quantum computers seem, what with all those qubits and entangled atoms, here is an idea that promises to make atom-based quantum computers look passé even before anyone has built a full-sized version.\n\n It seems that bubbles of electrons lined up in ultracold liquid helium could be used to build a quantum computer capable of carrying out a staggering 1030 simultaneous calculations.\n\n To carry out these simultaneous calculations, quantum computers normally exploit entities such as atoms and molecules, which can be in several quantum states at once, to encode bits in those quantum states – the famous qubits. But Weijun Yao of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, wants to replace atoms with curious things called bubbles.\n\n To make an electron bubble, start with liquid helium that has been cooled below 2.17 kelvin so that it behaves like a superfluid, a state of matter with zero viscosity. Now inject a fast-moving electron into the superfluid. When the electron eventually slows to a halt, after numerous collisions with helium atoms, it creates a cavity about 3.8 nanometres across by repelling nearly 700 atoms’ worth of helium around it.\n\n It is this cavity that makes the electron bubble so very valuable. In a quantum computer, the quantum entities need to be isolated from their surroundings to preserve their fragile states. “What could be more isolated than an electron in a bubble?” askes Yao. “The electron inside each bubble interacts very weakly with the background helium atoms.” Yao says 0s or 1s could be encoded in the electrons’ spins. In the presence of a magnetic field, the spins can either be parallel or anti-parallel to the field. Crucially, an electron’s spin can exist in both states at the same time, enabling the qubit to be both 0 and 1.\n\n According to Yao, large numbers of electrons, each in its own bubble, can be neatly caged using a combination of a device called a linear quadrupole trap, which traps the electrons in a line, and a set of conducting rings, which create a voltage “valley” for each bubble.\n\n All the spins can be initialised to the same value by cooling the apparatus to 0.1 kelvin. You can then manipulate the electrons by applying a combination of a magnetic field gradient along the line and varying the frequency of the voltages in the quadrupole trap. This changes the spin of individual electrons and makes them interact to perform logic-gate operations (www.arxiv.org/cond-mat/0510757). To read the spin of the electron, the voltage at the end of the electron chain can be lowered so that each bubble drofts in the magnetic field gradient at a velocitythat depends on the electron’s spin. This drift velocity can be read using lasers.\n\n Because each qubit carries two values, a quantum computer with two qubits could carry out four parallel calculations, one with three qubits eight calculations, and so on. “I see no major technical obstacles to the system I envisage working with 100 qubits,” saya Yao. “That means it could do 1000 billion billion operations at once.”\n\nCourtesy of “~NewScientist” 26 November 2005.\n\nNow I wonder where I can get some cheap liquid helium?\n\n----\n\n''IBM’s ~BlueGene tops chart again''\n\n Having doubled the number of processors in its ~BlueGene /L system, IBM has once again topped the twice-yearly supercomputer chart, the “Top 500”. The machine, housed at the Lawrence Livermore nuclear lab in California, has held top billing for 18 months, and now runs at 280,000 million floating point operations (teraflops) per second. No competitor has yet broken the 100,000 teraflops barrier.\n\n Demonstrating the power of PC clusters, an array of 8000 standard Dell ~PCs is at number 5 (see chart below), one place ahead of a 10,800-processor system from supercomputer veteran Cray Research.\n\n NEC’s climate-modelling Earth Simulator, which held the top slot for two-and-a-half years until ~BlueGene /L ousted it, has now slipped to 7th place.\n\nCourtesy "~NewScientist", 19 November 2005.\n\n\n

Secrets to Succeeding in common tasks\nVicki Garro of SmartComputing.\n\n ''Image-Editing Software''\n A nice feature of most consumer image-editing programs is that they are generally easy enough to begin using immediately without requiring a lot of guidance or instruction. You’ll still want to scan a program’s documentation, help files, and tutorials to learn about a program’s nuances before you dive in and crop, resize, and apply numerous effects to an image. Some programs, for example, will only let you undo a certain number of changes you’ve made, which means if you don’t like an edit, you may have to close the image and start completely from scratch.\n\n ''Digital Cameras''\n When buying a digital camera, consumers sometimes overlook the type of battery the camera uses. Many cameras can use either AA alkaline or rechargeable AA batteries. However, certain cameras can only operate using a proprietary power source, meaning only a battery from the camera’s manufacturer will power the camera. For example, the Kodak DC4800 only operates using a proprietary rechargeable lithiumion battery. In such cases, purchase an extra battery as soon as possible. If not, it may only be a matter of time before you miss a photo opportunity because your battery is dead.\n\n ''Buying PCs''\n If you’re comfortable working on the inside of a computer, you may be able to save a few dollars the next time you’re ready to buy a new PC. Do some investigating first and then stop before customizing the machine with all the components you want in it. For instance, the price a manufacturer may charge to add an optional CD-RW optical drive or more memory may be higher than what you can get those components for from a third-party vendor or online source. If so, purchase the PC without the components, buy them cheaper elsewhere, and install them yourself.\n\n ''Windows''\n Adding wallpaper to your computer’s Desktop extends your personality to your PC. You can give a folder that same personal feel by applying a background image. The easiest way to do this is by opening Windows Explorer and highlighting the folder you want to add a background to. Click the View drop-down menu and select Customize This Folder. A wizard provides three options: Choose A Background Picture, Remove A Customization, and Create Or Edit An HTML Document. To add a background, click the background option and select one of the choices presented.\n\n ''Quicken''\n If you use Quicken to keep track of your checking accounts, online bill paying, or credit card transactions, be sure to save some space on your hard drive to retain your records. With new checking account benefits and lower interest rates, it is common for people to close and open new accounts. Rather than delete every account each time you open a new account, hide the account so you can refer to it later if needed.\n\n ''Windows Media Player''\n If you’re planning to upgrade to or install Windows Me, be sure to save 1GB of hard drive space for the Windows Media Player version 7. This player requires a lot of space so you can use it as a jukebox, watch video broadcasts, and listen to Web radio broadcasts and MP3 (MPEG Audio Layer 3) files. The file itself is only 9,547KB, but you need the additional space to accommodate the extra files you save to listen to or watch.\n\n ''Security''\n Before upgrading to cable modem, you should plan to take a few steps to protect your PC. Since cable modems are always connected to the Internet, your PC could fall prey to hackers. First of all, be sure to turn off the file and print sharing settings on your PC. If the settings are set to sharing, hackers could access your hard drive and its files without your knowledge. For further protection, install firewall software designed to guard against hackers.\n\n ''Eudora''\n The I Love You and Melissa viruses opened our eyes to the need for security in e-mail applications. Although most exploits center around Microsoft Outlook, safeguard yourself no matter what e-mail system you use. In Eudora 4.3, disable a couple of advanced features. Select Options from the Tools pull-down menu and in the View Mail menu, uncheck Allow Executable In HTML Content. In the Extra Warning menu, uncheck Launch A Program From A Message.\n\n ''Hotmail''\n In its default configuration, MSN’s Hotmail produces fairly utilitarian e-mail. To spice up your e-mail, add a little color with Hotmail’s Add Stationery feature. At the Compose screen, click the Add Stationery button, review your options by selecting one of the backgrounds and borders available (22 at press time), and click OK. Hotmail returns to the Compose screen, and although you won’t see it in your message, your selection will appear in your message upon reaching its destination.\n\n ''Microsoft Money''\n Microsoft Money’s MoneyCentral Synchronization lets you access your account information and enter transactions even if you’re not at your home or office PC. From your Money Home Page, click Access My Money Data On The Web and then click the Setup button. If you don’t use Microsoft’s Passport online password and user name service, you’ll need to sign up here. Verify your Money account information when prompted, and you’ll be able to access information on these accounts at http://www.moneycentral.msn.com/ from any computer with Internet access, using your Passport Sign-in name and Password.\n\n ''Scanners''\n When installing a printer or scanner, you sometimes have to reconfigure your PC’s parallel port settings. If you need to change your port setting to ECP (Extended Capabilities Port) or EPP (Enhanced Parallel Port), you’ll need to access your PC’s BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) settings. Reboot your PC and press the appropriate key (usually F1) during startup. If you don’t see a prompt to enter setup during your PC’s startup, check your owner’s manual for instructions. At the main BIOS screen, highlight Devices and I/O Ports or Peripheral Configuration (labels differ among BIOS programs) with your keyboard’s arrow keys and press ENTER. Highlight the parallel port, or Parallel Port Setup, and press ENTER. Choose the appropriate configuration (ECP, EPP, etc.), press ENTER again, save your new settings, and exit the setup program.\n\n ''Reader Tips. Printing''\n When you find a portion of a Web site you want to print, including pictures, you don’t have to print everything on the page. Highlight the sections you want to print, starting on the left side of the section or page. Hold down the mouse button and drag it across the section from left to right, continuing to hold down the mouse button until you’ve highlighted everything you want to print. Release the mouse, pull down the File menu, and click Print. When the Print dialog box appears, click the Selection radio button and click OK. You will print only what you highlighted.\n\n Microsoft Word If you’re using Word to create greeting cards, remember that Word 2000 treats a WordArt Image as a graphic and will let you rotate that image. To put text on the inside of your card, pull down the Insert menu, click Picture, WordArt. Choose the WordArt style you want to use and click OK, then select a font, type your message, and click OK. The WordArt is now in your document. Click the Rotate tool (it looks like an arrow turning clockwise), click one of the corner markers, and rotate the text so it is upside down. When you print and fold your card, it will appear right side up.\n Vicki Garro\n Superior, WI\n http://www.smartcomputing.com

/***\n| Name:|QuickOpenTagPlugin|\n| Purpose:|Makes tag links into a Taggly style open tag plus a normal style drop down menu|\n| Creator:|SimonBaird|\n| Source:|http://simonbaird.com/mptw/#QuickOpenTagPlugin|\n| Requires:|TW 2.x|\n| Version|1.1.1 (19-May-06)|\n\n!History\n* Version 1.1.1 (19/05/2006)\n** Added a little more CSS so the tags look good in standard main menus and normal tiddlers\n* Version 1.1 (07/02/2006)\n** Fix Firefox 1.5.0.1 crashes\n** Updated by ~BidiX[at]~BidiX.info\n* Version 1.0 (?/01/2006)\n** First release\n\n***/\n//{{{\n\n//⊻ ⊽ ⋁ ▼ \n\nwindow.createTagButton_orig_mptw = createTagButton;\nwindow.createTagButton = function(place,tag,excludeTiddler) {\n var sp = createTiddlyElement(place,"span",null,"quickopentag");\n createTiddlyLink(sp,tag,true,"button");\n var theTag = createTiddlyButton(sp,config.macros.miniTag.dropdownchar,config.views.wikified.tag.tooltip.format([tag]),onClickTag);\n theTag.setAttribute("tag",tag);\n if(excludeTiddler)\n theTag.setAttribute("tiddler",excludeTiddler);\n return(theTag);\n};\n\nconfig.macros.miniTag = {handler:function(place,macroName,params,wikifier,paramString,tiddler) {\n var tagged = store.getTaggedTiddlers(tiddler.title);\n if (tagged.length > 0) {\n var theTag = createTiddlyButton(place,config.macros.miniTag.dropdownchar,config.views.wikified.tag.tooltip.format([tiddler.title]),onClickTag);\n theTag.setAttribute("tag",tiddler.title);\n theTag.className = "miniTag";\n }\n}};\n\nconfig.macros.miniTag.dropdownchar = (document.all?"▼":"▾"); // the fat one is the only one that works in IE\n\nconfig.macros.allTags.handler = function(place,macroName,params)\n{\n var tags = store.getTags();\n var theDateList = createTiddlyElement(place,"ul",null,null,null);\n if(tags.length === 0)\n createTiddlyElement(theDateList,"li",null,"listTitle",this.noTags);\n for (var t=0; t<tags.length; t++)\n {\n var theListItem =createTiddlyElement(theDateList,"li",null,null,null);\n var theLink = createTiddlyLink(theListItem,tags[t][0],true);\n var theCount = " (" + tags[t][1] + ")";\n theLink.appendChild(document.createTextNode(theCount));\n\n var theDropDownBtn = createTiddlyButton(theListItem," "+config.macros.miniTag.dropdownchar,this.tooltip.format([tags[t][0]]),onClickTag);\n theDropDownBtn.setAttribute("tag",tags[t][0]);\n }\n};\n\n\n// probably could redo these styles a bit cleaner..\nsetStylesheet(\n ".tagglyTagged .quickopentag, .tagged .quickopentag \sn"+\n " { margin-right:1.2em; border:1px solid #eee; padding:2px; padding-right:0px; padding-left:1px; }\sn"+\n ".quickopentag .tiddlyLink { padding:2px; padding-left:3px; }\sn"+\n ".quickopentag a.button { padding:1px; padding-left:2px; padding-right:2px;}\sn"+\n// extra specificity to make it work?\n "#displayArea .viewer .quickopentag a.button, \sn"+\n "#displayArea .viewer .quickopentag a.tiddyLink, \sn"+\n "#mainMenu .quickopentag a.tiddyLink, \sn"+\n "#mainMenu .quickopentag a.tiddyLink \sn"+\n " { border:0px solid black; }\sn"+\n "#displayArea .viewer .quickopentag a.button, \sn"+\n "#mainMenu .quickopentag a.button \sn"+\n "{ margin-left:0px; padding-left:2px; }\sn"+\n "#displayArea .viewer .quickopentag a.tiddlyLink, \sn"+\n "#mainMenu .quickopentag a.tiddlyLink \sn"+\n " { margin-right:0px; padding-right:0px; padding-left:0px; margin-left:0px; }\sn"+\n "a.miniTag {font-size:150%;} \sn"+\n "#mainMenu .quickopentag a.button \sn"+\n "{ margin-left:0px; padding-left:2px; margin-right:0px; padding-right:0px; }\sn"+ // looks better in right justified main menus\n "",\n"QuickOpenTagStyles");\n\n//}}}\n\n/***\n<html>&#x22bb; &#x22bd; &#x22c1; &#x25bc; &#x25be;</html>\n***/\n

It might not be immediately obvious just how this document works or what it will achieve. Bear in mind when using this document (which is a [[TiddlyWiki|http://www.tiddlywiki.com/]]), that it was ''entirely'' generated using this document itself.\n\nHave a look at the links on the left and see what happens when you use them. Any part of the document that you open will reveal options just above and to the right of the title when you hover your mouse over it; you can close any unwanted text by selecting "close" there, or use the "close all" link on the right of the window. In general links will open at the top of the window and push already open links further down the page. Tabbed views avoid this.\n\nYou can also use the "jump" option to navigate between open tiddlers. You might also like to try editing a tiddler.\n\nThis text of this document is completely contained in ''one'' HTML file; using Javascript and CSS the same content can be presented in different ways, even with this document. For example, compare the individual month view below ''Megabyte 2006'' (try "[[July]]") with the "[[All Megabyte, Tabbed|Megabyte]]" view, the "[[2006 Tabbed view|2006TabbedView]]"and the "[[July - Tabbed View!|July06 Tabbed View]]" view. To view, you will need a modern browser with javascript enabled. Images are individual files so may not appear in the document as you view it. Image files can either be located on the internet or in the same folder as this document. Note that even if specified images are not available, the document continues to display correctly with no indication the images are missing.\n\nAs you can see, the content is quite interactive, in fact it behaves almost as it would if it were hosted on a webserver as these types of documents normally are. Because this file does not require a web server to run, it is possible to publish this file by email, or on CDROM. It can also be placed on a webserver, too, of course.\n\nIf you want to see how this looks on the web, go to http://[[Robin Hinde]].googlepages.com/allmegabytetabbed.html, in particular look at http://[[Robin Hinde]].googlepages.com/allmegabytetabbed.html#Launchy to see how images might be displayed. If you are on dialup, the page may take a while to download as it is about 300KB at present. Once downloaded, you will see how fast navigation is.\n\n''Advantages:''\n\n*Searchable - try typing ~DBASE4 into the search box on the right and see what happens! Searching will happen as you type. If you pause all parts of the document that match your criteria will be displayed; if you refine your search term, the results will be refined also. Start by typing dba then look at the results before adding se4. Look at the results then delete the last 4. Clever, isn't it!\n*Taggable - browse the tags on the right (select the "Tags" tab first).\n*Browsable - select the "All" tab on the right to see a list of articles included in this document.\n*Fast - because the entire document is downloaded before viewing, navigation is blindly fast, especially if you disable animations in the "options" box.\n*Editable - any copy of this document can edit and save itself.\n*Portability - this can run from a web server, hard drive, thumbdrive, CDROM\n*Accessibilty - only requires a web browser to view\n*Simplicity - formatting is relatively basic and easy and well suited to Megabyte content.\n\n''Disadvantages:''\n\n*Size - the complete Megabyte collection may make this document too large to work effectively, but we won't know that until we try it. If necessary we can split the document into smaller parts, but we lose the ability to search all issues of Megabyte if we do that. I have no way of estimating how large the document might grow, I'm guessing that our entire Megabyte collection might fit in 2-3MB. I have no way of knowing how well the document will work at that size - some people are reporting problems at ~600KB, others say there are no problems even at ~3MB.\n*Input - it is a fair amount of work to input the existing Megayte articles. Although it is mostly copy and paste, there is some work required for formatting and navigation (although much less than the original web version of Megabyte).\n*Content is mixed with presentation in the same file, which isn't good practice (even though word processors do this).\n\n''Suggestion:''\n\nI'm suggesting that we should consider using this format as one of the formats (along with .pdf, maybe) we use to publish a collection of all of Megabyte's issues to CDROM as suggested by Roger at the last committee meeting. Bear in mind that this is only an initial first sketch of the solution and let me know what you think. Could it work? What do you think?\n\nI'd also like to suggest we consider filling out the 2006 Megabytes into this format to see how well it works and if there are any problems, before working back towards earlier issues. \n\nI've spent a few weeks looking at this software, and the more I see of it, the more impressed I am. It doesn't do everything perfectly, but what it does do is amazing; but will it fit in with what we want to do?\n\nThe big plusses that I see are the speed, the ability to search the whole document, and browse by tags and titles. \n\nAlso bear in mind that this document can pretty well look however we want it to look, independent of content as CSS determines the appearance and document style.\n\n

Can't get enough of Kim Hill? \n\nRadio NZ are making available on a trial basis, RSS feeds to some of their programmes listings, and are also offering podcasts of some programmes for free download. \n\nRemember, you don't need an iPod to listen to podcasts! \n\nTry them - they are free, and you can get them from http://www.radionz.co.nz/rss

\n//Can you list the procedure for preparing for a clean install of the operating system on an existing PC please.//\n\nEveryone, at some time or other, will be faced with the task of the dreaded “Format and Reinstall” If you're one of those people who have a “Brand Name” computer you’ll most likely have a “Recovery CD” or a hidden partition on your hard drive containing your system’s installation files, and your task will be relatively simple and painless. Those who have previously used ‘Imaging’ software to create a backup copy of their system when it was in good working order will also have a quite simple task in front of them.\n \nBut for the rest of us, who are simply faced with wiping everything clean, the task can be a daunting one. Preparation is the key to success of course, and this guide is aimed at identifying what you’ll need to do before you start.\n\n''GENERAL'' \nWhy not prepare yourself a CD beforehand that contains the items you’ll need when you reinstall? Having everything you need on the one CD will help make installing them a less onerous task. Collect the necessaries together, put them into a sensible directory structure that will make them easy to find later, and write the lot to CD.\n\nThis is more a "how to make life easier down the track" than a "what to do now" suggestion: Create a Downloads folder within My Documents. When you download and install anything from the Web, put it in there (you can put a shortcut to the folder on your desktop). Within the Downloads folder create a Reinstall Essentials sub-folder. Every fortnight or month, go through the contents of the Downloads folder and drag anything you can't live without into the Reinstall Essentials sub-folder. – Rose Vines\n\nAnd take a tip! If any of the bits ‘n’ pieces that you collect together are in ‘zipped’ archive files, extract them before you write them to CD. You’ll only be putting an unnecessary obstacle in front of you if you don’t, particularly if those archives are of a format such as ‘.ACE’, .RAR or any other of the archive formats which Windows doesn’t directly handle!\n\nI find that sorting out the various files into a directory structure on the hard drive first is worth the effort.\n\nMost items should be downloaded from the internet, to ensure you have the latest versions. But those with dial-up connections may prefer to collect them from elsewhere. If you’ve kept the cover ~CDs from your PC User magazines you’ll find yourself with a head start. Use ~HelpStation’s Site Search to find out which CD contains the files you’re looking for. Make sure you check “Cover CD” for the Section you wish to search. When you’ve identified which CD contains the files you want browse the CD to locate them using ‘My Computer’ and copy the relevant folders and files to your hard drive.\n\nIt may sound easier to simply install the various bits ‘n’ pieces from the cover ~CDs themselves later on but consider this:\n\nThere’s less ‘disk-swapping’ involved if you collect the stuff together first \nYou’ll get more practice at locating, copying and organizing files if you follow my suggestion and \nYou might get into the habit of collecting together the ‘important bits’ as you obtain them, instead of leaving it all for another ‘big job’ next time you need to re-install \n\nIf you also purchase other more specialized magazines in the pursuit of your computing interests (such as a genealogy magazine?), you might find relevant material on the cover CDs for those to add to the list discussed in this article.\n\n''DRIVERS'' \nAlthough device drivers can be downloaded from the internet after you install Windows on your system, it’s best to download and collect them together before you start. Downloading and using updated drivers is always the best option. After all, those drivers on the disk which accompanied your component or peripheral were probably out of date by the time the component hit the Shop shelves!\n\n''Motherboard''\nVisit the manufacturer’s website for your motherboard and download the most recent drivers for chipset and any on-board facilities that you plan to use. Make sure you download the versions for your particular version of Windows.\n\nAlso download any ‘extras’ that are on offer, such as Hardware monitoring Utilities, BIOS updates and such, and while you’re at it you may as well collect the most recent version of the manual for your motherboard. \n\n''Graphics Card'' \nRather than downloading drivers from the manufacturer’s website for your graphics card, it’s perfectly adequate (and often better) to download the ‘reference’ drivers from the graphics processor manufacturer’s website. Most graphics cards differ very little from the ‘reference’ design for the card in any case.\n\nEnsure you get the version for your Windows version, and it’s a good idea to browse the ‘archived drivers’ section and collect a couple of older versions as well. If your display card is an older model, you may find that an older version of the driver works best with it.\n\n''Soundcard'' \nIf you’re using ‘onboard’ sound, these will have been collected with the motherboard drivers. If you are using an add-in soundcard, however, make sure you have the latest drivers for it. Most sound cards in use are versions of ‘Creative ~SoundBlaster’ cards still, and it’s important to note that two categories of driver are provided by Creative. Make sure you get the ‘Full’ version of the driver pack and not the ‘Update’ version, because the latter isn’t actually a full driver installation set.\n\n''Other components'' \nDownload the latest driver available for your component and Windows version from the website of the component manufacturer. If you can’t find a website to source the drivers for any of your other component drivers from, try searching for suitable drivers from driver archives such as ~DriverGuide www.driverguide.com \n\n\n''OPERATING SYSTEM UPDATES'' \nMuch of the later work of downloading “Windows Updates” can be eliminated with a bit of careful collection and preparation. If you’ve a recent copy of Windows XP it will most likely already have Service Pack 1 included with the installation, but if you haven’t, you can obtain a free Security Update CD from Microsoft, which includes all Security updates for the various versions of Windows which were issued prior to October, 2003. The CD also includes Internet Explorer 6 with Service Pack 1, Windows Media Player 9, and ~DirectX 9.\n\nYou can obtain the CD by visiting Microsoft’s website and ordering it. \n\nWindows XP Service Pack 2 should be released soon, and when it becomes available I’d suggest that everyone download and save it to CD, rather than installing it directly from the Windows Update website. \n\nHaving as many updates as possible stored on CD will reduce dramatically the amount of time you’ll later need to spend updating your Windows installation.\n\n''SOFTWARE'' \nI’d advise you to avoid using the ‘Bundled Software’ that comes on component and peripherals installation Disks where possible. There are usually better programs available elsewhere. In particular, avoid using the bundled software included with older components and peripherals, as it will be most likely outdated programs, and if you’ve updated to Windows XP they may be program versions which don’t work particularly well with the newer OS.\n\n*Start off by collecting the various ‘Utility’ programs that you frequently use. My personal list includes:\n*Acrobat Reader \n*~AdAware \n*Spybot Search & Destroy \n*~CloneCD \n*Belarc Advisor …..and so on\n\nInclude the ones you consider to be ‘must haves’ and that you’ve downloaded from the internet or install from Cover ~CDs. Collecting them together in one place makes things easier for you.\n\nNext, locate and collect together the installation CDs for the commercial software and games that you wish to load back onto your system. \n\nAnd finally, when you’ve got all this collected, sorted and assembled Stop! Think! And have a good look through your programs list, your Add/Remove programs entries, and your hard drives to see if there’s anything you rely on that you’ve forgotten to include.\n\n''DO YOU NEED A STARTUP DISKETTE?'' \nWhen you have all the files you’ll need assembled, whatever way you decide to do so, it’s time to make yourself a new Windows Start-up diskette if you are a Windows 98 or Windows Me user. Windows 2000 and Windows XP users should not need to use a Startup diskette, as the Installation CD is capable of removing old partitions on your hard drive, and creating fresh ones for a clean installation.\n\n“Got one already!” do I hear you say?\n\nWell make another one as well! Floppy diskettes are fragile things at best, and I don’t know how many times I’ve heard of people getting to format and install time and finding that their precious ‘Startup Diskette’ is no longer readable, or generates errors when it’s used to boot the system from. Make sure you have a fresh, new diskette and open up Control Pane, Add/Remove Programs to create a new one.\n\n''WHAT ABOUT YOUR DATA?'' \nOf course, make sure you’ve got all your data files backed up as well. You’ll need to back up your data files, whatever they may be – documents, music, videos and images and so on. You’ll also need to back up your Internet favourites, email, word templates, Savegames, and any other data you wish to retain. Your Internet Explorer ‘Favourites’ can be backed up simply by using the ‘Import and Export’ function to be found on the ‘Files’ menu. Backing up mail and setting for Outlook Express users has been addressed in “How do I know what Outlook files to back up?” and for Microsoft Outlook users in “Why Did Outlook start archiving by itself?” To find assistance with backing up the various templates and so on you may use with Microsoft Office, you should use the Search function at Microsoft Office Online \n\nTo find assistance with backing up data for other Software Applications programs, search the ‘Support’ or ‘FAQ’ sections of the relevant product websites.\n\nMake sure you also have a record of any passwords you need for internet sites and such as well, because if you’ve previously enabled “Remember this Password” your automatic logins will be lost after the format and re-install!\n\n\n''Resource List''\n''Some Motherboard Manufacturers'' \n*~ABit \n*Albatron \n*~AOpen \n*Asus \n*ECS \n*Epox \n*Gigabyte \n*MSI \n*~NForce chipset drivers \n*Shuttle \n*Soltek \n*VIA Hyperion chipset drivers \n\n''Graphics Drivers'' \n*nVidia Cards \n*~ATi Cards \n\n''Sound Card Drivers ''\n*~SoundBlaster \n*Hercules Muse \n\n''Other Components'' \n*Driver Guide \n*Software Websites \n*Acrobat Reader \n*~AdAware \n*AVG ~AntiVirus \n*Belarc Advisor \n*~MBM5 \n*~SiSoft Sandra \n*Spybot \n*~ZoneAlarm \n\nCheers, and good luck with it all,\nTerry O’Shanassy\n

/***\n|''Name:''|RearrangeTiddlersPlugin|\n|''Source:''|http://www.TiddlyTools.com/#AttachFilePlugin|\n|''Author:''|Joe Raii|\n|''License:''|[[Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License|http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/]]|\n|''~CoreVersion:''|2.0.10|\n\nadapted from: http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~joeraii/dragn/#Draggable\nchanges by ELS:\n* hijack refreshTiddler() instead of overridding createTiddler()\n* find title element by className instead of elementID\n* set cursor style via code instead of stylesheet\n* set tooltip help text\n* set tiddler "position:relative" when starting drag event, restore saved value when drag ends\n* update 2006.08.07: use getElementsByTagName("*") to find title element, even when it is 'buried' deep in tiddler DOM elements (due to custom template usage)\n\n***/\n//{{{\n\nStory.prototype.rearrangeTiddlersHijack_refreshTiddler = Story.prototype.refreshTiddler;\nStory.prototype.refreshTiddler = function(title,template,unused1,unused2,unused3,unused4,unused5)\n{\n this.rearrangeTiddlersHijack_refreshTiddler(title,template,unused1,unused2,unused3,unused4,unused5);\n var theTiddler = document.getElementById(this.idPrefix + title); if (!theTiddler) return;\n var theHandle;\n var children=theTiddler.getElementsByTagName("*");\n for (var i=0; i<children.length; i++) if (hasClass(children[i],"title")) { theHandle=children[i]; break; }\n if (!theHandle) return theTiddler;\n\n Drag.init(theHandle, theTiddler, 0, 0, null, null);\n theHandle.style.cursor="move";\n theHandle.title="drag title to re-arrange tiddlers"\n theTiddler.onDrag = function(x,y,myElem) {\n if (this.style.position!="relative")\n { this.savedstyle=this.style.position; this.style.position="relative"; }\n y = myElem.offsetTop;\n var next = myElem.nextSibling;\n var prev = myElem.previousSibling;\n if (next && y + myElem.offsetHeight > next.offsetTop + next.offsetHeight/2) { \n myElem.parentNode.removeChild(myElem);\n next.parentNode.insertBefore(myElem, next.nextSibling);//elems[pos+1]);\n myElem.style["top"] = -next.offsetHeight/2+"px";\n }\n if (prev && y < prev.offsetTop + prev.offsetHeight/2) { \n myElem.parentNode.removeChild(myElem);\n prev.parentNode.insertBefore(myElem, prev);\n myElem.style["top"] = prev.offsetHeight/2+"px";\n }\n };\n theTiddler.onDragEnd = function(x,y,myElem) {\n myElem.style["top"] = "0px";\n if (this.savedstyle!=undefined)\n this.style.position=this.savedstyle;\n }\n return theTiddler;\n}\n\n/**************************************************\n * dom-drag.js\n * 09.25.2001\n * www.youngpup.net\n **************************************************\n * 10.28.2001 - fixed minor bug where events\n * sometimes fired off the handle, not the root.\n **************************************************/\n\nvar Drag = {\n obj:null,\n\n init:\n function(o, oRoot, minX, maxX, minY, maxY) {\n o.onmousedown = Drag.start;\n o.root = oRoot && oRoot != null ? oRoot : o ;\n if (isNaN(parseInt(o.root.style.left))) o.root.style.left="0px";\n if (isNaN(parseInt(o.root.style.top))) o.root.style.top="0px";\n o.minX = typeof minX != 'undefined' ? minX : null;\n o.minY = typeof minY != 'undefined' ? minY : null;\n o.maxX = typeof maxX != 'undefined' ? maxX : null;\n o.maxY = typeof maxY != 'undefined' ? maxY : null;\n o.root.onDragStart = new Function();\n o.root.onDragEnd = new Function();\n o.root.onDrag = new Function();\n },\n\n start:\n function(e) {\n var o = Drag.obj = this;\n e = Drag.fixE(e);\n var y = parseInt(o.root.style.top);\n var x = parseInt(o.root.style.left);\n o.root.onDragStart(x, y, Drag.obj.root);\n o.lastMouseX = e.clientX;\n o.lastMouseY = e.clientY;\n if (o.minX != null) o.minMouseX = e.clientX - x + o.minX;\n if (o.maxX != null) o.maxMouseX = o.minMouseX + o.maxX - o.minX;\n if (o.minY != null) o.minMouseY = e.clientY - y + o.minY;\n if (o.maxY != null) o.maxMouseY = o.minMouseY + o.maxY - o.minY;\n document.onmousemove = Drag.drag;\n document.onmouseup = Drag.end;\n Drag.obj.root.style["z-index"] = "10";\n return false;\n },\n\n drag:\n function(e) {\n e = Drag.fixE(e);\n var o = Drag.obj;\n var ey = e.clientY;\n var ex = e.clientX;\n var y = parseInt(o.root.style.top);\n var x = parseInt(o.root.style.left);\n var nx, ny;\n if (o.minX != null) ex = Math.max(ex, o.minMouseX);\n if (o.maxX != null) ex = Math.min(ex, o.maxMouseX);\n if (o.minY != null) ey = Math.max(ey, o.minMouseY);\n if (o.maxY != null) ey = Math.min(ey, o.maxMouseY);\n nx = x + (ex - o.lastMouseX);\n ny = y + (ey - o.lastMouseY);\n Drag.obj.root.style["left"] = nx + "px";\n Drag.obj.root.style["top"] = ny + "px";\n Drag.obj.lastMouseX = ex;\n Drag.obj.lastMouseY = ey;\n Drag.obj.root.onDrag(nx, ny, Drag.obj.root);\n return false;\n },\n\n end:\n function() {\n document.onmousemove = null;\n document.onmouseup = null;\n Drag.obj.root.style["z-index"] = "0";\n Drag.obj.root.onDragEnd(parseInt(Drag.obj.root.style["left"]), parseInt(Drag.obj.root.style["top"]), Drag.obj.root);\n Drag.obj = null;\n },\n\n fixE:\n function(e) {\n if (typeof e == 'undefined') e = window.event;\n if (typeof e.layerX == 'undefined') e.layerX = e.offsetX;\n if (typeof e.layerY == 'undefined') e.layerY = e.offsetY;\n return e;\n }\n};\n//}}}\n

//Humour by 'Anonymous'//\n\n Most contemporary icons are produced with great care and attention to detail. However, being subjected to repeated clicking and constant bombardment by cathode rays, they tend to deteriorate over time.\n In order to maintain their graphic integrity, it is recommended that the following procedure be followed at least once every six months:\n\n#Remove the icon from the monitor, being careful to handle it only by the edges to avoid pixel damage.\n#Soak in a lukewarm, soapy solution for 5 to 10 minutes. Do not rub or scrub, or pixels may be shifted, resulting in serious disintegration of the image.\n#Remove from bath and stand on edge to dry. Under no circumstance attempt to dry with a rag or lens tissue, and never subject to blow-drying, or permanent damage may result. If more than 5% of the pixels have been lost, replace icon with a new one.\n#Carefully replace cleaned icon in monitor, taking special care not to touch the surface. Allow to set one hour before using.\n\n If icons need to be exchanged from one computer to another, they should be transported only in specially prepared icon cases available at any computer or electronic supply store. Remember, icons are the heart and soul of the Windows environment, and should be treated accordingly.\n

// John Little shares his experiences with digital picture manipulation ...//\n\n ''Introduction''\n Have you ever scanned then e-mailed some favourite family photographs to your relatives, and received the response 'Well, we loved the photos but they were much too big to fit our screen and we had to scroll downwards and sideways to see them!' or 'Help, our e-mail account is overloaded with huge picture files. They take an age to download!' This has certainly happened to me in the past, and I therefore decided to seek out a solution to the problem. These notes may hopefully assist others who have had a similar situation.\n\n '' Why Resize?''\n Digital photos may be in a variety of resolutions, some - especially from digital cameras - having a high number of pixels. When you send a photo by e-mail, big images produce big files which can lead to the problems outlined above, ie too many pixels increasing download times, and making the photo appear to be much larger than the monitor so that it becomes necessary to scroll around to see different parts of it. However, changing the size of images is quite easy to do.\n\n'' Reducing Picture Size''\n Just about all image editors allow you to resize pictures. The free graphics program ~IrfanView includes this facility (you can download it from http://www.irfanview.com). Open a picture file and select Image>Resize to open the Resize dialogue box. From here you are able to change the image by a choice of either pixel size, percentage of the original, or based on print size. Be sure to tick the Maintain aspect ratio checkbox; this will keep the image's proportions correct as you resize it.\n\n When you want to send a photo by e-mail, the first option - pixel size - is generally the recommended one. Change the width to (say) 600 or 700 pixels; the pixel adjustment for the height will change accordingly, based on the image's aspect ratio. Click OK, and the image will shrink to a much lesser size suitable for e-mailing. If you save the image with a different filename, you will retain the original high-resolution version of the photo in case you want to print it later on.\n\n'' Actual Print Size''\n Reducing an image using the 'print size' option mentioned above is useful if your e-mail recipient wants to print a photo in a particular size. For example, if a 5x7 inch print is required, follow these steps: Open the picture file and then the Resize dialogue box and click on Actual/print size. Set the resolution to 200 pixels/inch, which is what most inkjet printers are optimised for. Now enter a width of 5 inches, and make sure the height is close to 7 inches. Click OK and save the file.\n\n'' Resizing for your Printer''\n Another very good graphics program is VuePrint. A trial version is available as a free download from http://www.hamrick.com I like to use this program to resize scanned images before printing them on my own inkjet printer. As an example, to produce a print of approx. 5x7 inches follow these steps: Open the file, select File resize, and change the width to 6.8 inches (the height adjusts itself). Then select File>print margins and enter Top=140mm. Set the printer properties (for type of paper, ink colour or black, etc). Printing at about 300 dpi is recommended. On clicking OK, the resulting print should match the size and quality expected.\n\n'' Enlarging Pictures''\n Unfortunately, using the Resize tools for enlarging images does not give good results. There are just not enough pixels to allow an enlargement of acceptable quality. Apparently, there is some special software which claims to help in the enlargement of digital images to a satisfactory standard, but it is expensive to buy.\n\n'' Good News''\n If you use Internet Explorer v6, it has the capability of resizing images to fit your screen.\n\n More good news for users of Windows XP. I've read that one of the '~PowerToys' for Win. XP released in 2002 includes an Image Resizer that enables users to resize one or many image files with one right-click. For people like myself who don't yet have XP, now there's something to look forward to!\n

Type the text for 'Richard Elam'

'' What is SMS Shorthand & Internet Shorthand?''\n\n Most Computer Club members wouldn't understand SMS Shorthand but most of our children (who own a cell phone) would definitely understand. SMS stands for "Short Message Service" and it's used mainly with mobile phones to shorten long text messages. Reducing a regular sentence into a text message means replacing certain letters in words with numbers, leaving out some altogether and adding symbols. When that word is said out loud it still sounds the same as the original word, but is shorter. Much the same way people do with some personalized number plates. Text messaging is a kind of critic message. Sometimes it can be hard to understand, especially for someone who has never used it before. It can be your own secret language to another person. A great deal of SMS Shorthand is using the first letter of a word, and capitalizing that first letter, example "See You Later" would be "SYL." Most of us understand ASAP (As Soon As Possible). But only a few understand AML (All My Love) or LY (Love You). First time users need to be aware that there are different ways of shortening words. So make sure the person you are sending to can figure it out. Stick to standard abbreviations that are easy for others to understand.\n\n A few years ago I brought my wife a personalized number plate. After a lot of trial and error and reading a South African book "The Power of One" on a plane from China to kiwi land. I came up with ~PWROF1. I can still remember racing off to another office to show it to a person who was good at critic crosswords and word puzzles. "Power of One" he said instantly. But when my wife went into service stations most of the staff scratched their head. What does it mean? My wife never liked to explain, she would say PWR was short for POWER. Some got it but others couldn't work it out. This is just the same as SMS. The word POWER has the O and E missing. And the number 1 replaces ONE. It's a much shorter way of saying and spelling it. The Americans have been doing it for years. Bicycle became bike and motor hotel, motel. And the Australians shortened utility vehicle to Ute. Or was it the Yanks? You only have to do an Internet search to realize how a number of words have been shortened over the last twenty to thirty years.\n\n ''Internet Shorthand.''\n\n Internet Shorthand is a little different to SMS text as it is mainly used in Internet chat rooms. Lots of words are the same and rules are very similar. You use letters, abbreviations and symbols to type shorthand messages when chatting on-line. It's a much faster than typing out full sentences. Therefore much quicker conversations can be carried on with another person. But it can be tricky to understand. But as you get the hang of it your typing speed increases. Example equals "grin" and ~F2F "face to face" and FIA = "Thanks in advance." BTW = "By the Way". ~AW8 = "await." Visit http://lingo2words.com for a larger list.\n\n Probably most of us more senior club members (said with a ) would have trouble inputting a text message into a cell phone. It's not easy. I personally have trouble putting someone's first name into my cell phone'. Pushing the number 5 button three times to get the L is not easy. It usually takes me three or four goes. Probably don't have the patience I had when I was younger. So my address book only includes first names. It's too much hassle and effort for me to even think about adding second names and email addresses. My phone has its own type of SMS with things like Mr. T, P for Peter, B for Bill and B2 for Bill number two.\n\n'' An Easier Way.''\n\n But there are easier ways for you and me. To understand SMS Shorthand better you probably need to visit a website that deals with SMS and Internet Shorthand. Most sites have a large shorthand dictionary for people like you and me who have problems. And lingo translators that can be used to shorten a plain text sentence. You can type in your message in standard text, and hit go. It will convert your message into a text message. And if you want send it (via email) to a friend. And some sites allow you to send your text message to a cell phone anywhere worldwide. That is real easy for me because I prefer using full size standard keyboards. And if you don't understand a text message that you have received you can use the site to input the text message and it will convert it back into plain text.\n\n'' Two-sample text message: ''\n\n The first one I sent to a girl who is overseas back in early February.\n A Specl X 4 ~VLNtine dy Frm jon\n Dz an Apple a day Rly Kp D Dr away? Ys, F U aim it Wel Nuf.\n Shorthand translation web site\n\n If you can't work it out email me at gella@paradise.net.nz or visit http://lingo2word.com/index.php for a translation. It's real easy just type in the text message as it's written and hit GO. The original message will be displayed.\n\n//- John Thomson//

''What is SP2?''\nThe full name is Service Pack 2 and it is a software package that makes lots of changes to Microsoft's Windows XP operating system. Since Windows XP was launched in October 2001, the software has proved to be something of a virus writer and hacker's playground. SP2 is a bid by Microsoft to remove many of the bugs that make XP so vulnerable to attack. The Service Pack was first promised in 2003 but has taken a year of testing to get ready.\nSP2 is one of the most visible parts of Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing initiative. This aims to make Windows harder for hackers and virus writers to exploit. Ironically since Microsoft announced this initiative its software has suffered some of the biggest virus outbreaks and hack attacks ever seen.\n\n''What does SP2 do?''\nThe update makes lots of changes to Windows XP. Some are visible, others not. One of the most obvious changes is the creation of a "Security Center" that lets people manage firewall, anti-virus and updates for XP in one place.\nIt also lets users know the risks they are taking if they do not have the firewall turned on, do not update their anti-virus software or install future updates for XP.\nAnyone that connects an unprotected PC to the net via a high-speed link is taking a huge risk. Studies have shown that unprotected ~PCs are typically found and attacked within 20 minutes of being put online.\nThe update also blocks pop-up ads and makes it much harder for spyware to download on to your computer. Users will also get warnings about potentially malicious attachments on e-mail messages or programs that attempt to install themselves without permission\nOut of sight SP2 also makes changes to the way Windows XP handles data to make it much less vulnerable to viruses that, for instance, exploit its willingness to run programs attached to e-mail messages.\n\n

\nThe Creative Music System is a 12-voice (12-voice means that you can have 12 notes playing at one tune) music \nsynthesizer from Creative Music Lab. in Singapore. It requires an IBM or compatible with at least 256 kB and ~MS-DOS or ~PC-DOS 2.0 or higher. The package contains seven disks with five manuals and a "Creative Music Card" that fits into a spare slot in your computer.\n\n''Installation''\nThis was quite easy to perform. After finding out how to open my computer I inserted the card. It fitted in perfectly. Then I powered up the computer and selected one of the 47 songs on the song disks. The music came through the headphones I had plugged in and was very loud. Fortunately there is a volume control at the back of the card that I reached for as soon as the sound came through, and believe me, that sound was very loud. Anyway, the screen lit up with some pictures that moved with the music to advertise the CMS. After listening to a few songs I got some audio cables and connected the CMS to a ~Hi-Fi. The ~Hi-Fi gave a much fuller sound to the music than the headphones did.\nNext I wanted to try out the the card with a Sierra adventure game. I re-installed Space Quest 3 (one of the Sierra games) to use the CMS and then booted it up. The game had some of the most beautiful computer music I have ever heard. I don't know if it is the Sierra series of games or the author of the music or just the CMS but it was just amazing.\n\n''Composing''\nFor my next task I tried to compose some music for the CMS. At first I thought that getting good music was not easy, but there were a lot of programs that increased the quality of the music. One of these was the ~Auto-Bass-Chord-Rhythm compiler (known as ABCR) which added to the music chords, drums, cymbals, rhythm and bass melody for various types of music (eg. waltz, rock and roll, and blues) which are all recorded in separate files.\nYou can design your own rhythms by entering the pattern for each line of music. When composing you use an ASCII editor (Sidekick is recommended for editing music files) and enter the music with a variety of codes which are easy to understand even for someone who has very little musical knowledge. Even if you don't know anything about music, the user manual has lists of how to transfer sheet music to the "Creative Digital Music Score" which is the method of entering music for the CMS.\nI entered 'Feelings', a song that I found hidden away in some piles of paper. I added guitar chords and chose a rhythm called slow. I "Composed" (Compose is a program that compiles the song so the computer can read it faster) the song and listened to it, after it had played right through I went back and slowed it down, and then listened again. This time it was perfect. I then had a good piece of music that I entered by myself in a short time.\n\n''Utilities''\nThe package includes a utilities disk that contains a sing-along program that displays words with music (Sing), a program that displays pictures with the music (Aplay), and two programs to pack and unpack pictures for use with Aplay. The sing-along program sing uses two files one that contains the music and one that contains the words. The words are displayed with the music in text mode, but there is another program that displays the words in graphics mode; but I will discuss it later.\nAplay, as described above, combines pictures with music. There are three types of pictures Aplay can use. First, there is a text mode but only four pictures can be displayed. There is a 320x200 CGA graphics mode which displays up to 16 pictures in the duration of the song and there is a 640x200 CGA mode that also displays up to 16 pictures. A program not included in the utilities manual is 'capture1 which saves pictures for use in Aplay by pressing alt-scroll lock. Captured pictures can be used in Basic programs and displayed with music. Codes for playing music in any computer language are provided if you want to use music in your programs.\n\n''Pop-up music''\nA bonus program is provided that plays music in the background while the computer performs another task. This program is memory resident and works very well with other programs except certain CGA programs. VGA, EGA, and text programs work perfectly although the menu will not appear in VGA and EGA screen modes. I use this program in preference to the PLAYER as I can call up music at any time. In fact I am listening to music from the pop-up music player while I am writing this article.\n\n''The Intelligent Organ''\nThe Intelligent Organ is a program that turns your keyboard into a make-believe organ. The organ can play only one note at a time but that means that song files will be shorter. With the Intelligent Organ there are 202 songs from almost every country in the world. The organ is designed to be easy to use, but still have many functions. There are 20 instuments and 20 rhythms to choose from. There are six arpeggios and four keys that play trills and scales. You can load a song and listen to it, get the computer to teach you it, or play it with the computer. While your are learning a song the computer displays a keyboard on the screen and tells you what key to press. There is a list of simple songs for you to play in the back of the Intelligent Organ manual. The Intelligent Organ is fun to use and a good way to experiment with music.\n\n~Sing-Along II Another bonus program called ~Sing-Along II (~SING2) is provided with the CMS. ~SING2 displays words with music in EGA, CGA, or MGA graphics mode depending on your graphics card. Sing-along II is menu driven and has four fonts—Normal, Bold, Roman, and Special—all of which enhances the feel of the music. \nTempo and key can be changed. It is amusing to hear Waltzing Matilda at twice the normal speed. Once you have chosen a song to play the screen blanks and the words appear in whatever font you have choosen, unless the song has a font that it always uses. A little triangle bounces above the words as they are played. Sometimes if the tempo is too fast the triangle cannot keep up with the music. Songs on the Sing-along II disk include Rudof the ~Red-Nosed Reindeer, Amazing Grace, and My Old Kentucky Home.\n\n''Conclusion''\nThe Creative Music System is great for home use, and enhances the Sierra game series very well. But if you wanted to enter music on a real instrument you would need a synthesizer with a MIDI interface (MIDI is a language that most electrical instruments understand and it is easy to play an instrument you know instead of typing the music) .\nSierra recommends the Roland ~MT-32 Sound Module as a good MIDI synthesizer, as it will plug into electrical instruments and it will work with most commercial games. This sells for about U.S. $550. The Creative Music System is distributed in Australia by REMLIG International and sold at Dick Smith for about $260 (Aust).\n\nCharles Gutjahr (aged 11 years)\nReprinted from PC Update July 1990, the journal of Melbourne PC User Group Inc.\n\n

//John Thomson once again give us food for thought with another article on a useful gadget.//\n\nThree months ago a business colleague loaned me a ~Cent-A-Meter. As it was on loan I put it away promising myself when I had time I would test it. So when my friend rang requesting it back, I thought maybe I should have at least looked at it. I realised many years ago that most of us don’t appreciate or understand the potential of many new devices that appear on the market. \n \n''What is a ~Cent-A-Meter?'' \nIt’s a device you clip onto your electrical power supply meter which transmits an RF signal to a second device (a receiver) inside your house so you can monitor the usage of your electricity. See photo showing transmitter (inside electrical supply meter box) and receiver unit inside the house.\nMost people who know me realise I have two flats. In one flat the students pay their own bills, so I don’t care if they use lots of electricity. If they don’t pay, the power gets cut off. The students in the flat below our house have a different arrangement with an inclusive cost (they are like homestay). So I’m the one who pays. A few years ago my electrical mate and I separated the hot points so each bedroom (1,2,3,4) has its own separate trip fuse. This made it easy to work out who has left his or her heater on in the mornings without going into each bedroom. \n \nI quickly realised one day that checking the electrical meter once was no guarantee all the heaters were switched off. For example if a heater has a thermostat and the heater has reached the desired heat the thermostat will have switched the heater off and the outside meter will not be recording any usage. When the room temperature cools down the thermostat will switch the heater back on again. So there was a need to check the meter more than once.\n \n''Using a ~Cent-A-Meter to monitor your electrical usage.''\nThe transmitter unit is clipped to the electrical supply meter you want to check. See photo, (as it uses an inductive loop it’s very easy to swap between different meters). The receiver unit with its large LED screen can be placed anywhere within a range of 20 metres. Most people would probably install it near the front door so when they enter or leave their house they can see whether items are switched on or off. In my case I placed the receiver on my work desk (which is upstairs above the flat). By placing the receiver in a place where you can easily see it, you can observe the amount of electricity being used.\n\nWithin a few days of clipping the transmitter to the lower flats supply meter I was able to tell who was using heaters and if any were left on in the morning. No need to go outside in the cold and open the meter box. The device is so sensitive that if several heaters are on and one student goes out I can tell if the heater in that room has been turned off. And it’s easy to tell the difference between heaters and other small electrical appliances.\n\nAfter educating the students for a few weeks I moved the ~Cent-A-Meter to the other flat where the students were claiming the Power Company was ripping them off. They could not see how they were using over $300 dollars of electricity per month. Initially the ~Cent-A-Meter created an argument. They could now see who was using heaters and who was not. Surprisingly they realised that clothes dryer use a great deal of power. Before installing the ~Cent-A-Meter they didn’t give a continental. Wash the clothes and put them in the clothes dryer to dry. Who cares if it’s a nice sunny warm day, and clothes will dry outside within half an hour in the sun? It’s easier to put them in the dryer. But students watching other students’ electrical usage can really ensure others change their habits.\n \nWithin a week I noticed the meter was recording ¼ of what it was recording the week before and 1/3 less a week later. These were the same foreign students who had told me the electrical supply meter must be faulty. I had previously explained to them I had worked for Capital Power and it was unlikely the electrical meter was faulty. Generally electrical meters slow up over the years, and I told them I can still remember several consumers complaining but when their meters were replaced their consumption went up rather than down.\n \nAfter three weeks I removed the ~Cent-A-Meter from the students flat and clipped it onto my own electrical meter. Was my wife into trouble when I told her she had left the stove on for too long? But then I was forced into switching off my computers. Dam, no ~WiFi network, no node! No Internet. Surprisingly, computers don’t draw very much electricity even if you leave them on 24/7. Hot water elements and electrical heaters use the most electricity. \n\nTo change the transmitter unit from one electrical meter to another is very easy. As you can probably see from the photograph the current senor is really just an inductive loop, which clips onto the wire coming out of the meter. There is no physical connection. The manufacturer does warn you in the instructions that only a licensed electrical trade’s person or similar competent person should install the current senor. But I believe most people who play around with computers should have no trouble clipping this device to their electrical meter. Besides, house owners are permitted to do their own house wiring. The fine print in the regulations does restrict you from touching or change wiring within the fuse or meter box. Clipping something onto a wire is really not touching or changing anything.\n\nThe unit has many other features. It will display the temperature and humidity inside your house. This is a benefit because if you can see the temperature is rising the heaters should be off. Cost at the House & Garden Show was $149.\n\nMore info at www.centameter.co.nz\nJohn Thomson.\ngella@paradise.net.nz\n

Members using our club's scanner at the Ghuznee Street office may have noticed that an alternative to the ULEAD/~PhotoImpact software is now available. Some of us found ~PhotoImpact rather less than user-friendly, so the new application called ~PhotoStudio is well worth a try.\n\nThis article outlines some of the features of ~PhotoStudio, a 32-bit digital imaging package. ~PhotoStudio can access Twain-compliant scanners (and digital cameras) to load images directly into the application. It will open and save images in most of the commonly-used file formats e.g. BMP, GIF, JPG, PCX, and TIF. There is a complete set of photo editing and retouching tools like air brush, bucket fill, paint brush and others. Additionally there are masking features to apply operations and effects to specific areas. \n\nWhen you first start the program you are presented with the main application window, with floating toolbar and palette windows. Open an image using File | Open and you'll see that information about the image is shown in the status panels at the bottom of the main application window, including the view scale, resolution and colour depth of the image. If you move the mouse pointer over the tool icons in the toolbar, you'll see the name and function of each tool is briefly explained in the status panels. \n\nSelect a tool by single-clicking on it. Double-clicking will produce a dialog box giving any options for that particular tool. From the descriptions it is obvious what most of the tools do. The Clone tool is useful for removing objects that you don't want in a photo - you select the tool, right-click in an area close to the part you want to erase, then paint over the feature. Careful application of the Smudge tool afterwards will smooth over any cracks in the retouching. \n\nThe Magic Wand tool is designed to automatically select specific areas of an image, according to colour similarity. This makes it easy to select whole objects in a picture - for instance, a person against a dark background, and you can then use the Area Move tool to drag them to a new location, or select Copy and Paste from the Edit menu to transfer them to a new image. \n\n~PhotoStudio provides over 40 special effects and enhancements with unlimited levels of modifications and thumbnail previews. As an example, if you have a recent colour photo and you want to give it a more atmospheric feel, you can simulate the look of an old grainy b/w print : First, open the photo, then click on Convert | To 8-bit Grayscale. ~PhotoStudio will apply the change and produce the result in a new window. Now click on Effects | Fine Art | Film Grain. In the dialog box that appears, drag the Intensity slider to around 20. Click OK and the effect will be applied. If you decide you don't like the results, simply click on Edit | Undo Film Grain. \n\nWe need to be careful though, since ~PhotoStudio's Undo feature is single-level, so you can only undo the last operation. Although this is helped by the fact that many operations produce a new image rather than operating on the original. \n\nAnother interesting feature is the Stitch function, something you don't find in many other packages. If you have a sequence of digital camera pictures you've taken as a panorama that require assembly, or a document thats been scanned with a hand scanner and needs merging into a seamless image, the stich feature can make the process quite easy. \n\nAn exclusive feature is an Album Manager - an image database that provides easy file searching, drag-and-drop arranging and multiple file retrieving. You can also create a slide show with descriptive text and they claim “over 100 transition effects”.\n\nThe on-line help in ~PhotoStudio gives comprehensive descriptions of all the application's functions.This is a package that I have found relatively easy to use. I acknowledge the kind consideration of the late Graham Rogers in installing the software for our members' benefit.\n\n//John Little//\n

Search is extensively documented, see the introduction at [[YourSearch]] and extensive usage and examples at [[YourSearch Help]]\n\nBest to just try search and see, you will be amazed at just how well search works - it is very quick, dynamic and has many hidden features.\n\nYou can try search in the box at the top of the page, or here: \n\n<<search>>\n\n\n\n

//Article contributed by Arthur Harris from the Microsoft site.//\n\n Once you get connected to the Internet, you need to know how to find the World Wide Web sites and newsgroups that interest you. You may find, as many people do, that it's fun just to wander-or surf-from site to site, going wherever the links take you. But if you want to find something specific and find it as soon as possible, you need to use a search engine. Below you'll find information on how to find the search engine and newsgroups that suit your needs. Or jump to Advanced Search Tips for hints on how to get the most out of your search.\n\n* Search engines: Finding the needle in the haystack\n* Which search engine should I use?\n\n ''Search engines: Finding the needle in the haystack''\n\n A search engine is a service that indexes, organizes, and often rates and reviews Web sites. It helps you find the one needle you're looking for in the Internet haystack. Different search engines work in different ways:\n\n* Some rely on people to maintain a catalog of Web sites or pages.\n* Some use software to identify key information on sites across the Internet.\n* Some combine both types of service.\n\n So when you search different search engine listings, you're bound to get some different results. Some Web sites are large enough, and have enough varied content, that they have their own search engine built into them, to find content only on that site. Microsoft is a great example. Search on Microsoft.com includes top recent downloads, technical support requests, and recent searches.\n\n '' Which search engine should I use?''\n\n No search engine keeps track of all the content on the Internet. Even the major search engines - such as MSN(r) Web Search, ~AltaVista, Overture, ~HotBot, and Google - won't give you everything. (Some studies indicate that even the top search engines find less than half of what's really out there!) So try several search engines to see which produce the most useful results for the types of information you usually look for. Whenever a search fails to produce the results you want, try another search engine.\n\n Here's a quick introduction to some of the major search engines:\n* MSN Web Search. Using this search page, you can conduct a basic Web search or an advanced search, specifying one or more of the following: the type of information, the language, the origin, the domain, the date created, and the types of files contained in the Web page.\n* ~AltaVista. At ~AltaVista, you can search for keywords or type your query in the form of a question. Other features include Babelfish, which translates sites in several languages; Photo & Media Finder, which searches for images; and Family Filter, which helps you limit the types of results produced by the search.\n* Google. Google is a versatile search engine with several options. You can search Web for sites, search only for images, find newsgroups, or use their directory to find things by category.\n* Overture. Overture's search engine boasts an extensive catalog of sites. This site has a directory too, that categorizes sites by topic using software. Some sites have been reviewed and are recommended.\n* ~HotBot. Like Overture, ~HotBot is a search engine with a directory, organized by subject.\n* Excite. A hybrid search engine, Excite fulfills the traditional search engine definition (it is always visiting Web sites and cataloging them using a software program) but also has a directory-a subsection of its cataloged sites that have been reviewed by people.\n* Yahoo! This is actually a directory rather than a search engine, meaning humans compile and categorize the sites it searches. So you may get fewer results. But Yahoo! makes it easy to search for sites by category and to continue your search using a search engine if you want to.\n* ~MetaCrawler. Rather than keeping its own database of Web sites, ~MetaCrawler conducts your search simultaneously on several search engines including Excite, Infoseek, Lycos, and Yahoo! This takes a little longer than using just one search engine, but it is likely to yield a more comprehensive set of results.\n\n Major search sites generally provide more than a search engine for finding Web sites. They also allow you to look up information such as recent news stories, newsgroup postings, reference material (such as dictionary entries and maps), and e-mail addresses, street addresses, and telephone numbers of business and individuals.\n\n Here are two guidelines for picking a search engine:\n* If you're looking for a broad, common topic, such as how to buy a personal computer, use a search engine that tends to give you fewer results of higher quality (usually the type that relies on people to catalog sites), such as Yahoo! or Google.\n* If you're looking for a rare topic, such as 19th-century Hungarian authors, use a site that may be less discriminating but yields more results (usually the type compiled by a software program), such as Excite or ~AltaVista.\n\n '' Sites to Visit''\n\n* MSN Web Search - choose MSN or another engine to search the Web\n* ~AltaVista\n* Google\n* Overture\n* ~HotBot, from Lycos\n* Excite\n* Yahoo!\n* ~MetaCrawler\n* Search Microsoft.com\n* Search Engine Watch - Keeps up with what search engines are out there, rates them, and gives you extensive information on how to use them\n

We have been informed of the following scam, which is targeting females in particular. They receive a phone call from the Post Office asking them to confirm their company postcode. When this is given they are told they have become eligible for some gift vouchers for their co-operation and are asked to provide their home address and postcode in order to receive the vouchers.\n\nSo far 90% of the women who have provided this information have been burgled as it is assumed their homes are empty during office hours.\n \nThe police are aware of this scam and the Post Office have confirmed they are NOT conducting postcode surveys.\n \nAlso, if you receive a telephone call from someone who identifies himself/herself as being an AT & T Service Technician who is conducting a test on that telephone line, or anyone else who asks you to do the following, don't. They will state that to complete the test the recipient should touch nine, zero, the hash (90#) and then hang up. To do this gives full access to your phone line, which allows them to place a long distance international or chat-line calls billed to your account.\n\nThe information which the police have suggests many of these calls are emanating from local jails. The information has been checked by the police and is correct:\n\n''DO NOT PRESS 90# FOR ANYONE.'' \n\nPlease pass the information on to colleagues, friends, etc. otherwise it could cost someone a lot of money.\n

\n//The following short articles are summaries of lengthier stories published by various sources in the USA. They all relate to IT security and were taken from a newsletter emailed daily to the Editor. Where available, the web site is identified where a fuller article can be read ....//\n\n"Spammers' New Strategy"\n//Washington Post (02/04/05) P. E1 ; Krim, Jonathan//\n \nExperts warn that spammers have found a way to circumvent spamming machine "blacklists" by sending their junk email through ISP computers rather than transmitting it directly from individual ~PCs, a strategy that could further inflate the spam problem. Spamhaus Project director Steve Linford says spammers' discussion forums indicate that the leading bulk emailers are adopting this new tactic, and unless ~ISPs rapidly implement preventative measures, "We're really looking at a bleak thing.\n\n"America Online director of anti-spam operations Carl Hutzler reports that ISP machines are now the direct source of 95 percent of all spam aimed at AOL members, and he and Linford agree that ~ISPs must be more assertive in monitoring and restricting the amount of mail sent from individual machines on their networks. Linford says ~ISPs should also adopt a more aggressive email authentication scheme, and laments the lack of improved anti-spam enforcement among many U.S. ~ISPs. "We're trying to get the word out, but we're not sure that people have taken us that seriously," Hutzler notes. Linford says the spammers' blacklist-subverting mechanism is contained in ~Send-Safe software available on a Web site hosted by ~MCI's ~UUNet Technologies division, and Spamhaus has repeatedly requested that MCI remove the site. \n\nTimothy Vogel with MCI's legal team for tech issues reports that his company cannot censor a product that is merely being advertised; what is more, ~UUNet does not actually host the site, but leases the Internet address to a company that serves as host. A recent study from Rockbridge Associates and the University of Maryland Robert H. Smith School of Business' Center for Excellence in Services estimates that deleting spam adds up to $22 billion in yearly productivity losses.\n \n''Bluetooth Security Threat Starting to Spread''\n//~TechNewsWorld (02/02/05) ; Korzeniowski, Paul//\n \nThe rise in popularity of Bluetooth devices means hackers are increasingly interested in the technology as a means of not only attacking handheld Bluetooth devices but also the desktops, laptops, and networks to which they are connected. Hackers are also taking advantage of the technology's network option that scans for nearby Bluetooth devices in order to secretly connect, steal information, or simply render the device inoperable.\n\n Analyst Bob Egan says, "In some cases, IT departments think there are maybe a few hundred Bluetooth devices in their organization, and then they find out that there are a thousand, or more." Sending malicious messages to other Bluetooth devices is known as bluejacking, while accessing stored information on the target device is called bluesnarfing. Although most devices are able to network with other devices at a distance of up to 30 feet, attaching a special antennas allows for a networking range of about one kilometer. \n\nSecuring against these threats involves disallowing devices from joining local networks, avoiding unknown or suspicious file downloads, increased user education about the growing risks associated with Bluetooth, and the deliverance of tighter security software. Russia just recently became the ninth country to report Bluetooth-related hacking incidents.\n\n\n''Smart Phone Growth Boosts Risk of Viruses''\n//Investor's Business Daily (01/18/05) P. A7 ; Angell, Mike//\n \nSmart phones, which run stripped-down computer software, were targets of at least two viruses released last year; however, both viruses were released by security experts to show that smart phones are subject to hacking. Smart phones are increasingly common and therefore growing in popularity among hackers, according to experts. ~F-Secure's Travis Witteven says, "With millions of cell phones out there, it's a pretty tempting target. The biggest challenge is to get people thinking seriously about security." Cabir, a virus spreading to cell phones via a Web site offering ring tones, games, and screen savers, constantly searches for new phones to infect and quickly wears down a phones battery.\n\n Another virus, known as Skulls, is also downloaded from a Web site or spread from another phone, and changes icons to skulls. Cell phone companies are increasingly installing virus-scanning technology to prevent attacks, even though most hackers still remain focused on PC attacks since cell phones have a limited amount of processing power and therefore limited utility for hackers. Still, as cell phones gain new technologies such as Bluetooth, more avenues are available to hackers. Witteven says, "It's just like a PC connected over the Internet. All of a sudden mobile phones have text messages, Internet connections, downloads, and all these things hackers can exploit and use."\nhttp://www.investors.com/\n\n''Phishers Migrating to Trojan Horse Attacks''\n//Computerworld (01/06/05) ; Dunn, John E.//\n \nFindings from a new report by the ~Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) offer a disturbing pattern in phishing trends. For the month of November, APWG found phishing scams shot up 28 percent from the four months prior. The most troubling trend APWG noted among phishers was an increasing use of Trojan horse keyloggers. The pattern implies phishers are becoming more sophisticated in carrying out their attacks because this sort of "technical subterfuge" is difficult to defend against. "We've already seen indications that phishers are ... commanding automated distribution systems, apparently leveraging botnets, known as zombies," says APWG Chairman David Jevans. "Those resources, combined with conventional key logging and other innovative malicious code, is a threat scenario that could deliver more sophisticated attacks."\nhttp://www.computerworld.com/printthis/2005/0,4814,98760,00.html\n\n

//The following short articles are summaries of lengthier stories published by various sources in the USA. They all relate to IT security and were taken from a newsletter emailed daily to the the Editor. Where available, the web site is identified where a fuller article can be read ....//\n\n----\n\n''Four Passwords Needed to Foil Hackers''\n~VNUNet (02/22/05) ; Ranger, Steve \nThe Computing Technology Industry Association (~CompTIA) recommends computer users employ four different kinds of passwords to ensure protection from hackers. The first password, which is easy to remember, is used for low-risk places where consequences from hacking are minimal, and the second password should involve a combination of numbers and letters and be used for e-commerce Web sites. The third password, which is used for online banking, is very complex with a combination of numbers, letters, and other marks in both upper case and lower case. The final password is a very different combination from other passwords that is used only for the workplace. ~CompTIA also recommends that the three passwords used to access sensitive resources undergo a change at least every 90 days.\n(go to web site) \nhttp://www.vnu.com/vnu/index.jsp\n\n----\n\n''Is Your TV ~Virus-Proof?''\n~CNet (02/11/05) ; Hines, Matt; Lemos, Robert \nComputer viruses are likely to appear in people's home appliances, media gadgets, cars, phones, and ~PDAs as those devices increase their electronic sophistication and are wirelessly enabled. Wireless connectivity is relatively cheap nowadays, and protocols such as Bluetooth make it easy for different devices to talk to one another. Security software firms are already considering how to protect mobile and previously standalone devices from virus infections even though there has not been a major attack on non-PC devices yet. The Cabir and Skulls viruses have shown the feasibility of such attacks on mobile phones, and a recent IBM report warns against impending mobile viruses based on mutations of the Cabir source code; the report also warns of new attack vectors, including Bluetooth and ~VoIP networks. Consultant David Emm says Cabir and Skulls are very basic virus programs and that hackers will come up with subtle attacks that are not easily recognized by end users; moreover, the Cabir worm shows that replicable malicious code needs devices with only a small amount of processing and memory capacity, along with connectivity. With that thought, it is conceivable that malware such as Cabir could infect vehicle navigation systems, or the slew of connected home appliances that were unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. Home-automation products might not be a direct target for viruses, but could become infected by way of a home computer acting as a networking hub. Smarthome's Dan Cregg says home-automation devices are not tempting targets for hackers because there is little of value in attacking them, but he notes that terrorists could conceivably launch malware that shuts down furnaces during a cold snap. Home entertainment networks could be pilfered for media stored on connected devices, such as personal video recorders, especially since Microsoft's Media Center operating system is built on the familiar Windows platform.\n(go to web site) \nhttp://news.com.com/Is+your+TV+virus-proof/2100-7349_3-5571752.html\n\n

//The following short articles are summaries of lengthier stories published by various sources in the USA. They all relate to IT security and were taken from a newsletter emailed daily to the the Editor. Where available, the web site is identified where a fuller article can be read.//\n\n\n"Intrusion Protection Winning Fans in 2005"\nInvestor's Business Daily (02/09/05) P. A4 ; Howell, Donna \nIntrusion prevention system (IPS) products, anti-virus solutions, and ID tokens that authenticate users will be the best performing parts of the security market this year, predicts analyst Gregg Moskowitz. IPS expands upon the protection offered by anti-virus solutions in that it also protects email and firewalls, and actively searches for attacks already underway and implements counter measures. Infonetics Research predicts a 35 percent rise in IPS and intrusion detection system products by the third quarter of 2005 compared to the same period last year. Moskowitz says IPS is "becoming more accepted by customers who realize they need more protection beyond...just a firewall." Internet pioneer Vinton Cerf says proactive security systems are necessary to prevent attacks rather than just identify them. He says, "Not only do we need tools for detecting these kinds of attacks, but we also need a way to drop them into a black hole." Symantec, ~McAfee, and Check Point Software are all leading vendors in the IPS market, offering software as well as IDS appliances that plug into the network. Check Point CEO Gil Shwed says that many customers "are interested in new technologies like Web, internal, and endpoint security as well as in perimeter security."\n\nhttp://www.investors.com/\nAbstracts Copyright © 2005 Information, Inc. Bethesda, MD \n\n----\n\n"Malware 101: University Offers Course on Spyware"\n~TechNewsWorld (02/10/05) ; Mello, John P. \nThe University of Calgary's computer science department next fall will offer a class on spyware and spam that will lead to each student writing their own spyware program. The class is not the department's first controversial offering; two years ago the department began a course on computer viruses that also had students writing their own virus. "The best way to teach people something so that they really understand it is to have them do it," says University of Calgary assistant professor John Aycock, who designed both class offerings. The spyware course will involve the students writing their own spyware programs for testing in a separate and secure environment created especially for the course. Enrollment in the class involves a heavy screening process, sometimes an admissions essay, and a signature on an agreement that information from the course will not be misused. Aycock says, "Spam and spyware are huge problems for society, so in some ways it would seem irresponsible not to be teaching our students about these topics." Still, others are not so sure. ~ClearSwift threat lab manager Pete Simpson lacks trust for college students who could eventually use this knowledge for financial gain, while ~CipherTrust strategic development vice president Phyllis Schneck believes the students will avoid misuse with the teachings of proper ethical framework.\n\nAbstracts Copyright © 2005 Information, Inc. Bethesda, MD \nhttp://www.technewsworld.com/story/40479.html \n\n\n\n\n\n\n

//The following short articles are summaries of lengthier stories published by various sources in the USA. They all relate to IT security and were taken from a newsletter emailed daily to the the Editor. Where available, the web site is identified where a fuller article can be read.//\n\n''"Captcha the Puzzle"''\nScience News (04/16/05) Vol. 167, No. 16, ; Peterson, Ivars \nOver the last few years, computer scientists have developed ~CAPTCHAs (Completely Automated Turing Tests to Tell Computers and Humans Apart) as a security measure which uses computer programs that automatically generate and grade puzzles that most people can solve without difficulty, but that current programs cannot. One type of ~CAPTCHA puzzle presents distorted text that users must decipher, while others present pattern recognition problems, distorted imagery, or even sound puzzles. ~CAPTCHAs were originally developed by IBM's John Langford and Carnegie Mellon University's Luis von Ahn, Manel Blum, and Nicholas Hopper as a solution to the problem of spammers using bots to automatically sign up for scores of free email accounts for the purpose of distributing junk mail. Yahoo! and other companies now employ ~CAPTCHAs to confirm that real people are participating in Internet transactions, email account registrations, online voting, and other activities. Von Ahn, Blum, and Langford write in Communications of the ACM's February 2004 issue that image- and sound-based ~CAPTCHAs are inaccessible to visually and hearing impaired Web users. Meanwhile, a recent paper published in the College Mathematics Journal reports that certain kinds of text-based ~CAPTCHAs can be cracked using fairly basic mathematical methods, and the authors recommend the use of nonstandard fonts to eliminate such a vulnerability. Von Ahn and his collaborators think the arms race between ~CAPTCHA authors and ~CAPTCHA hackers is positive no matter what the outcome. "Either the ~CAPTCHA is not broken and there is a way to differentiate humans from computers, or the ~CAPTCHA is broken and a useful [artificial intelligence] problem is solved," they write. \nhttp://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20050416/mathtrek.asp\n\n----\n\n''"Skeletons on Your Hard Drive"''\n~CNet (04/20/05) ; Hines, Matt \nExperts say it is inordinately difficult to completely erase data on unwanted hard drives, even using commercial wiping software to overwrite the data. The National Association for Information Destruction (NAID) said it could not endorse the use of wiping software alone because studies have shown such software is not enough to ensure data deletion. Instead, the group says users should use wiping software in addition to material destruction to make sure hackers cannot pull sensitive information off of the drives, such as login data. NAID executive director Bob Johnson also says professional services that claim to wipe large numbers of computer hard drives for organizations lack adequate testing measures to check if data is inaccessible. Studies have shown the majority of resold hard drives still contain some information. The U.S. Department of Defense requires seven passes with wiping software for hard drives that do not require physical destruction, says Acronis' director Stephen Lawton, whose company sells such software. Only one pass is not enough even for home users, he says. Stronger protection is afforded through crushing services or degaussing, which is a magnetic striping process usually applied to large collections of machines. ~Hewlett-Packard's John Frey says the reason PC data is difficult to erase is because hardware and software makers had to ensure users did not accidentally delete information during the DOS era.\nhttp://news.com.com/Skeletons+on+your+hard+drive/2100-1029_3-5676995.html\n\n

//The following short articles are summaries of lengthier stories published by various sources in the USA. They all relate to IT security and were taken from a newsletter emailed daily to the the Editor. Where available, the web site is identified where a fuller article can be read.//\n\n''"Human Firewalls Are a Must, Says Mitnick"''\n~ZDNet Australia (04/14/05) ; Kotadia, Munir \nSpeaking at a recent social engineering prevention workshop in Australia, security expert and former hacker Kevin Mitnick urged companies to create a "human firewall" by focusing on employee security education. The weakest links in security are often employees who are easily fooled by hackers pretending to be with the company's IT department to gain passwords and other key data. Social engineering is a technique used by most hackers, and companies need to prepare each of their employees for such attacks dependent on their specific jobs within the company. Mitnick also discussed dumpster diving as a means to obtain IT network data and personal information. Mitnick allegedly crawled through a dumpster outside a female entertainer's home and discovered valuable information such as celebrity phone numbers, Web site passwords and usernames, telephone bills, pay slips, and other discarded information. Mitnick warned companies to watch what information is available in their trash cans due to hackers often utilizing this source of information in attacks.\n\nhttp://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/security/0,39020375,39195060,00.htm\n\n----\n\n''"Skeletons on Your Hard Drive"''\n~CNet (04/20/05) ; Hines, Matt \nExperts say it is inordinately difficult to completely erase data on unwanted hard drives, even using commercial wiping software to overwrite the data. The National Association for Information Destruction (NAID) said it could not endorse the use of wiping software alone because studies have shown such software is not enough to ensure data deletion. Instead, the group says users should use wiping software in addition to material destruction to make sure hackers cannot pull sensitive information off of the drives, such as login data. NAID executive director Bob Johnson also says professional services that claim to wipe large numbers of computer hard drives for organizations lack adequate testing measures to check if data is inaccessible. Studies have shown the majority of resold hard drives still contain some information. The U.S. Department of Defense requires seven passes with wiping software for hard drives that do not require physical destruction, says Acronis' director Stephen Lawton, whose company sells such software. Only one pass is not enough even for home users, he says. Stronger protection is afforded through crushing services or degaussing, which is a magnetic striping process usually applied to large collections of machines. ~Hewlett-Packard's John Frey says the reason PC data is difficult to erase is because hardware and software makers had to ensure users did not accidentally delete information during the DOS era.\nhttp://news.com.com/Skeletons+on+your+hard+drive/2100-1029_3-5676995.html\n\n----\n\n''"Web Mobs"''\nBaseline (03/05) Vol. 1, No. 41, P. 28 ; ~McCormick, John; Gage, Deborah \nWeb mobs are criminal organizations that operate exclusively online, selling stolen and counterfeit credit card numbers, email accounts, and other forms of personal ID. ~EBay chief security strategist Howard Schmidt warns that Web mobs can destroy the carefully cultivated trust between companies and customers by promoting and expediting identity theft and credit card fraud, undermining confidence in the Internet, and inhibiting the growth of e-commerce. Web mobs consist of young, crafty, and cautious operators who conceal their real identities behind online aliases, and confuse attempts to track their communications by encrypting messages and routing them through multiple servers. But such tactics do not make Web mobs impregnable: One group, Shadowcrew, was busted by the Secret Service with the help of an informant within the organization; the group is said to have had 4,000 members, making it the largest, best organized, and most popular Web mob at the time. The Shadowcrew hierarchy included a handful of top-level "administrators" who managed the group's business operations, while day-to-day operations were handled by moderators who ran information and discussion forums, reviewers who assessed the quality of stolen ~IDs, vendors who sold the merchandise, and general members who accumulated and shared techniques for committing credit card fraud and other crimes on the Shadowcrew Web site. Combating Web mobs is difficult, as the electronic infrastructure for apprehending these groups is still nonexistent. Technology experts say tech vendors are withholding the tools companies need to thwart cybercriminals, and they recommend better email filtering and email sender authentication schemes, a standardized methodology for reporting attacks to both companies and law enforcement, and the monitoring of domain names by businesses to deter criminals from spoofing Web addresses.\nhttp://www.baselinemag.com/article2/0,1397,1774870,00.asp\nAbstracts Copyright © 2005 Information, Inc. Bethesda, MD \n\n

//The following short articles are summaries of lengthier stories published by various sources in the USA. They all relate to IT security and were taken from a newsletter emailed daily to the the Editor. Where available, the web site is identified where a fuller article can be read.//\n\n''Bluetooth Gear May Be Open to Snooping''\nWall Street Journal (06/16/05) P. B1 ; Winstein, Keith J. \nThe Bluetooth wireless communication standard is vulnerable to being cracked by eavesdropping devices, according to a presentation unveiled by two Israeli researchers last week. The researchers made their presentation at the Association for Computing Machinery's mobile systems specialists conference. Counterpane Internet Security CTO Bruce Schneier, calling the Israeli researchers' presentation "really impressive," said that Bluetooth was designed sloppily with little regard for security. Bluetooth-enabled devices link together through identification of a special security code and set of randomly generated digits, but most of the top headset makers use the same unchangeable security code--0000--meaning that eavesdroppers need only find out the random digits to crack a device. The Israeli researchers said that eavesdroppers could use a special, disruptive signal that would require a Bluetooth user to retype the security code. This would create another random number that potentially could be captured by the listener and used in conjunction with the 0000 code to tap the connection. Handheld computers and other Bluetooth devices permit users to enter their own strings of security code, and the organization responsible for developing Bluetooth standards recommends that these strings consist of at least 16 numbers and letters. However, many device makers allow the strings to be composed of as few as four numbers, and the researchers noted that a PC can uncover such a string within one-tenth of a second.\n\n----\n\n''~PCs Have 50-50 Shot at Infection in Just 12 Minutes''\n~TechWeb (07/06/05) ; Keizer, Gregg \nAn unprotected new computer now faces a 50 percent chance of being infected by a computer worm just 12 minutes after being connected to the Internet, according to new research from the Sophos security research group. The total number of new worms, Trojan horses, and viruses has increased by 59 percent during the first six months of this year, compared to the same time period in 2004, Sophos said. In total, Sophos identified 7,944 new pieces of malware during the first half of 2005, and the category of keylogging Trojan horses tripled in number over the previous year. The large number of new Trojans that appear every day may represent "the most significant development in malware writing," said Sophos senior security analyst Gregg Mastoras. Keylogging programs allow criminals to record computer users' keystrokes, and these strokes are sent back to hackers who use the information to empty out online banking accounts. "Trojans typically don't make the [monthly Top 10] charts because they don't spread on their own and are used for targeted attacks, which are designed to make money or steal information," Mastoras explained. The Sober.n worm was the most prevalent computer worm of the first half of 2005, according to Sophos's tabulations. "The Sober family is an example of how damaging the collaborative efforts between virus writers and spammers can be, hijacking the computers of legitimate organizations to create zombies, whose purpose is to perpetuate the generation of more spam," said Mastoras.\nhttp://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=165700342\n\n\n

//The following short articles are summaries of lengthier stories published by various sources in the USA. They all relate to IT security and were taken from a newsletter emailed daily to the the Editor. Where available, the web site is identified where a fuller article can be read.//\n\n''Brazilians Blazing Trails With Internet Technology''\n~Knight-Ridder Wire Services (09/26/05) ; Chang, Jack \nDespite crippling levels of poverty and violence, Brazil is home to some of the world's most innovative technology, and plays host to some of the most sophisticated hackers. Brazil often finds itself the locus of international debates over intellectual property rights and private media controls, and though it does not have in place the infrastructure that other developing nations do, Brazil has made significant advances in open access technology that place it at the forefront of the Third World. Brazil received a major economic boost when Google acquired the native firm Akwan Information Technologies and established an office in Sao Paolo. There is still a wide gulf between rich and poor in Brazil, and while its 22 million-plus residents with Internet access rank it in the top 10 worldwide, that number still only represents 12 percent of the population. Piracy is also a major issue, as roughly 60 percent of the software and 70 percent of the hardware in use in Brazil infringes on copyright laws; Brazil is also a notorious haven for cyber criminals, as it is estimated that approximately 80 percent of the world's hackers are based in Brazil. The country's emerging IT industry has reached the $10 billion mark in annual sales. The spirit of unfettered access has led to the widespread implementation of the Linux platform in government and private industry, along with a host of other open-source applications. Throughout Brazil, open access movements are seeking to provide free Internet capability to computer users, and its vibrant open-source community draws on innovation from all over the country to maintain Web sites, provide tech support, and develop new technologies.\nhttp://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/12745472.htm\n\n----\n\n''Passwords Become So Passe''\nSalt Lake Tribune (UT) (09/28/05) ; Mims, Bob \nPasswords, whether they be a pet's name or a unique combination of letters and numbers, are still the most common form of authentication even as biometrics, especially fingerprint readers, grow in popularity. Meanwhile, retinal and facial recognition authentication technology is gaining, as more commercially available options for consumers become available. The problem with passwords is that people are likely to have so many passwords, they are unable to remember them. Therefore, they store them on paper near their computers or in word files on their desktops, which means the passwords are vulnerable to theft. Meanwhile, hackers are using a variety of password-based attacks to crack them. Xmission President Pete Ashdown says it is not a matter of if a password will be cracked by a hacker but when. Brigham Young University's School of Technology associate professor Jay Christofferson utilizes a password program that locks away different passwords only to retrieve them as needed, and University of Utah computer science professor Jay Lepreau suggests users who keep their passwords written down in a locked drawer are less vulnerable since most hackers do their work online. The overall sense is that effective passwords are too long and complex for users to store just in their heads.\nhttp://www.sltrib.com/

//The following short articles are summaries of lengthier stories published by various sources in the USA. They all relate to IT security and were taken from a newsletter emailed daily to the the Editor. Where available, the web site is identified where a fuller article can be read.//\n\n''Sony CD Protection Sparks Security Concerns''\n~CNet (11/01/05) ; Borland, John \n\nSony uses a cloaking tool known as a rootkit to shield its copy protection software on its ~CDs, a technique that is not inherently dangerous, but is often used by virus writers to obscure their activities on a computer. While the threat rootkits on ~CDs pose to computers is still largely theoretical, many in the software security community have voiced concerns, and the discovery has also breathed new life into the debate between digital rights management and fair use. The rootkit's creator, First 4 Internet, claims that the cloaking device is designed to make it difficult to hack the contents of ~CDs or other products, but that it worked closely with Symantec and other antivirus companies to ensure it was secure. Sony has said the software can be uninstalled easily, and First 4 Internet has not heard of any malware incidents in the eight months that ~CDs with rootkits have been out. Rootkits are designed to embed themselves deep within an operating system to mask the existence of certain programs, and are ordinarily difficult to remove. Because it remains in a computer's memory, the rootkit has the potential to be exploited by virus writers, though many security experts dismiss that threat as theoretical. The controversy over protection techniques strikes at the heart of the balance the entertainment industry is attempting to strike between security and digital rights. At present, commercial ~CDs can be copied onto backup discs or ripped onto a computer, with the caveat that such activities are intended for personal use.\nhttp://tinyurl.com/alunt\n\n----\n\n''Protect Your Passwords''\nCBS ~MarketWatch (10/16/05) ; Loeb, Marshall\n\nPasswords cause an estimated 80 percent of network security problems, according to Carnegie Mellon University's Computer Emergency Response Team/Coordination Center (CERT/CC). ~SecurityStats.com advises Internet users to avoid personal information, such as birth dates, family names, addresses, phone numbers, and street names, when creating a password. Identity thieves are likely to guess such passwords as well as the four most common passwords: God, Love, Sex, and Money. Tough passwords use a combination of both letters, numbers, and special characters and avoid common words. Password memorization is the best when it comes to security. The Wall Street Journal recommends Internet users change small phrases into a string of upper and lowercase letters and numbers, such as ~Ez4u2Say, so the password is easy to remember yet still difficult to crack. Users can check the strength of their passwords by going to ~SecurityStats.com and using the Password Strength Meter.\n\n

//The following short articles are summaries of lengthier stories published by various sources in the USA. They all relate to IT security and were taken from a newsletter emailed daily to the the Editor. Where available, the web site is identified where a fuller article can be read.//\n\n''Getting the Blues?''\nAmerican City & County (10/05) Vol. 120, No. 11, P. 28 ; Hernacki, Brian \n\nBluetooth's rising popularity in wireless devices has also created a growing security concern, writes Symantec Research Labs architect Brian Hernacki. Bluetooth technology is vulnerable to numerous security threats, including one known as bluejacking, that involves using a Bluetooth device to locate other nearby devices in order to send unsolicited messages. Another threat, known as bluesnarfing, uses the same ability to conduct denial-of-service attacks, eavesdropping, and to access stored information. Bluetooth is also susceptible to viruses and worms. ~CIOs and IT managers need to alert Bluetooth users of potential dangers and vulnerabilities; create comprehensive guidelines for proper use of the technology; ensure use of complex ~PINs when pairing devices, because shorter ~PINs are easily cracked; require employees to register all Bluetooth devices so that IT staff can track all devices connected to the network; demand that employees shut off their wireless access when it is not needed; and consider implementation of technology that can recognize and deal with ongoing, Bluetooth-related security risks.\nhttp://americancityandcounty.com/mag/government_getting_blues/\n\n----\n\n''Will Certification Legitimize Adware?''\n~CNet (11/17/05) ; Evers, Joris \n\nA new certification program unveiled this week called the Trusted Download Program promises to help people avoid adware and spyware by guaranteeing that a downloaded program only does what it says. For instance, software that displays advertisements or tracks user behavior must disclose what types of ads will be displayed and what information will be tracked, as well as which user settings can be changed. Software makers must obtain consent for the download, and the software must also come with instructions to uninstall the software. In addition, displayed ads must be labeled with the name of the ad-serving software. The plan is backed by America Online, Yahoo!, Computer Associates, and Verizon, among others, as well as several members of Congress. The program will launch in a trial version early next year when online privacy watchdog group Truste publishes its first list of certified applications. Despite the program's high-profile supporters, critics say the plan will not put an end to ad-serving downloads. Alex Eckelberry, president of ~CounterSpy anti-spyware tool-maker Sunbelt Software, says the plan will in effect legitimize adware. "Adware companies such as Claria and ~WhenU--assuming they get certified--will now have the ability to greatly increase their distribution network, under the cloak of certification," he said.\nhttp://tinyurl.com/cq24p\n

''The Case'' \nIts hard to find a good case. Lots of them are scrawny thin tin pieces of junk. Getting them mail order is even tougher because if you get it and it's bad, it costs a bunch to send back. If you can inspect the case, here are some things to look for:\n\nDoes it feel physically sturdy? Can you twist it easily? Is it big enough for all the components you need to put in there? Will things be easy to access once they are installed? Is there enough space to work inside the case easily?\n\nI have one of those $35 cases that everything is crammed into and impossible to access. It works fine though, so if you're really cheap, maybe you can skimp here. I also have a couple really nice $135 cases. These suckers have doors on the side that swing open or are removable if you need, have dual fans to keep things cool (a larger case keeps things cooler too), they are pretty big and are much wider than most cases, have drive slots that you can slide components (such as ~CD-ROM drives, DAT drives) in and out of easily, floppy drives are easy to remove, everything lines up correctly, and it's a lot more sturdy. I'll never buy a cheap case again. But go ahead and save a few bucks if you want...\n\n''The Power Supply'' \nMake sure your case comes with a power supply, or you'll have to buy one. A 250W power supply is probably fine and I believe it is the most common. If you are going to have skads of components get a 300W one just for kicks. \n\n''Rack Mounted Chassis'' \nIf you want to be the coolest person on your block, you'll get a 19" rack and a rack mounted chassis for your machine. I have a couple PC chassis from Bandy and a hard drive chassis from Sliger. \n\n\n''Keyboards'' \nThere are a ton of keyboards on the market. Keytronics are very popular, but I think they're junk. I'm a bit of an oddball here. I go to a used computer store and try to find one of those old IBM PS/2 keyboards (they also used them on a bunch of other systems too, like the RS/6000). These suckers weigh a ton and are really solid. You can't twist them at all, and they don't fail often. I think they have a great feel to them too. You'll have to make sure that you get an AT cable or adapter for it, since most of them have the PS/2 cable. I'm in the minority on this, so just find one you like that doesn't feel cheap, and get it. Some keyboards have a trackball built into them. I've never used one, but I imagine they work fine (they can't be that hard to build, can they?). \n\n''Monitors'' \nGet the biggest monitor you can afford. Sell the kids. A big monitor is a delight. I think having a big monitor comes in only second to having tons of RAM. I'd sacrifice 33Mhz for 2 inches of video.\n\n''What brand?'' \nSony's are good. I have a Sigma Designs ~ErgoView 17 that I love (it can do everthing), but they aren't exactly the easiest to find. Don't buy NEC just because I'm mad at the company. Thanks. I've gotten a ~CD-ROM drive, a monitor, and a laptop from them--only the ~CD-ROM hasn't had a problem. They have a decent reputation for some reason though. I'm starting to think that it's because they have fold-out ads in every major computer magazine. Who knows? FNORD \n\n''What to look for (briefly!)'' \nLook at the monitor before you buy it. Make sure that it is bright and that the picture isn't fuzzy. The more resolutions it can do the better. Common ones are 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, and 1152x870. Your picture will look better if it can do these resolutions at high scan rates. If you are looking at a screen that is scanning at 45Hz, it will flicker, drive you nuts, and make you blind (eventually). 70Hz+ is ok to look at using the above resolutions. Higher is even better. Your video card has to be capable of these rates too, otherwise you won't be able to use them.\n\n''Controls?'' \nOh! Nice fancy buttons right up front where you can adjust them and easily tell what they do. Sure beats climbing over the back of the thing. A good monitor will save your settings for you and let you switch back and forth. For instance, my Sigma will let you switch resolutions on the fly and automatically switch to the settings I have for that resolution. The settings are the horizontal and vertical height, width, and location. On a cheaper monitor, each time you change resolution, you have to move the picture over a bit and make it bigger or smaller. If you switch resolutions a lot, this is a major pain. \n\n\n© 1995-1998 Jeff Moe, E-Mail: jeffpc@verinet.com \n\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\nThanks to John Blakely for finding these articles

Reproduced with permission of Jeff Moe (jeffpc@verinet.com), visit his site http://www.verinet.com/pc for more information and links\n\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n__''Cards''__\n \n''Serial & Parallel'' \nIf your motherboard doesn't have built-in serial or parallel ports, you'll have to buy a card. Get one with 16550 ~UARTs. They are faster and nicer. You'll need one so you can plug in your mouse, printer, external modem, and whatever else you use. They're cheap too.\n\n''IDE & floppy controllers'' \nIf you are using IDE drives and you don't have it built into the motherboard, you'll have to get a card for these too. You can get them with serial and parallel ports on them too.\n \n''Ethernet'' \nI've had good luck with both 3Com and SMC. ~NE2000 clones don't work well with Linux. They come in 10-Base-T (twisted pair), thinnet, and coax. I use twisted pair without problems. The card at right can do thinnet (left), thicknet (center), and 10-Base-T.\n\n__''Sound Cards''__ \nDerwin W. Cupp wrote the following for your enjoyment:\n\nThe choice in what to buy for sound cards used to be much simpler than it is today. The first, and most important, feature is what type of MIDI synthesis your sound card will have. I've never seen a board without some sort of MIDI (musical instrument digital interface) compliance, but if nothing else, make sure your card supports the General MIDI standard. MIDI is just a set of commands issued by the application that tells the sound card which instrument to play, at what note, and for what duration. Older cards, and some that are still manufactured, still use FM synthesis. This synthesis uses a combination of sine waves to imitate the sounds of the different instruments. The result, if you've listened closely to programmed music on most computer games sold a few years ago, is just that; imitation music that has an arcade-like sound. \n\nThe superior method of MIDI synthesis used on some modern sound boards is called wavetable synthesis. A wavetable lookup synthesizer uses digitized samples of actual instrument sounds that are stored on what is called a wavetable; a name given, I believe, to the ROM chips where the samples are stored. However, not all wavetable cards have the same amount of stored samples. Some cards have 4MB of samples while others will have 8MB. Also, the sound sample quality is not always the same for every board. Usually, the more ROM on the card the better the samples will sound. It's also nice to have 1MB of RAM on the board to store samples of sound that can be loaded from your hard disk. Some boards provide this memory while others provide the memory slots so that you can add RAM later. If nothing else, make sure that the card can record and play back 16-bit 44.1kHz stereo sound as well as digital audio, .WAV, and .MIDI files. \n\nAnother feature that you may want to consider on wavetables is called DSP (digital signal processing) which can add a variety of tasks to your card, and a task that this chip performs means less of a burden on the machine's CPU. Some of these chips are even software-programmable. 3-D sound effects are also included on some cards. Whether the system used is SRS (Sound Retrieval System), ~Q-Sound, or Spatializer, it is designed to improve the perceived stereo effect of your speakers. They work by delaying the timing of certain portions of the audio signal so that different frequencies hit your ear as slightly different times. The down side is that some of the cards equipped with 3-D sound add a noticeable amount of noise to the card's output. \n\nAnother big feature is compatibility. If you play a lot of computer games, pay attention. DOS games are written almost exclusively for the Creative Labs specification. You will need, at the very least, a card that is 100% Sound Blaster compatible. But be careful. Many vendors do not license the Creative Labs specification but claim that their cards are 100% game compatible. This means that the sound will work, but not all sounds that you hear will be the ones that the game programmers intended. If you play many DOS games, it would be best to buy a Sound Blaster and save yourself a migraine. \n\nAnd lastly, try to avoid sound cards with built-in amplifiers that are more powerful than 4 watts/channel. Sound cards that have more powerful amplifiers are said to have the problem of added noise to the card's output. Use powered speakers with a 4 watt/channel card to solve this problem. Most cards are equipped with 4 watts/channel anyway. Wavetable cards are so inexpensive these days that it's almost worth their additional cost over a regular FM synthesis card. If you decide to settle for an FM card, make sure that there is a daughterboard made for the card that will let you upgrade to wavetable synthesis. In some cases, however, the wavetable card is cheaper than buying an FM card and then deciding that you want the wavetable upgrade. If you do decide on the wavetable as your card of choice, PC Magazine rated the best MIDI wavetables (MIDI being the most important feature in my opinion) the Media Vision Premium 3-D, Media Vision Pro 3-D, Creative Labs Sound Blaster ~AWE32, and the Turtle Beach Monterey (although there are value editions of the Sound Blaster 32 that have fewer ROM instrument samples but maintain the superior MIDI wavetable synthesis). \n\n\n© 1995-1998 Jeff Moe, E-Mail: jeffpc@verinet.com \n\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\nThanks to John Blakely for finding these articles

To open all articles for September 1991, click on "September 1991" to the right and select "open all".

To open all articles for September 1999, click on "September 1999" to the right and select "open all".

To open all articles for September 2004, click on "September 2004" to the right and select "open all".\nEdition No: 191

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<<tabs contents\n"Caching Revisited" "Caching Revisited" "Caching Revisited" \n"Bulletin Boards" "Bulletin Boards" "Bulletin Boards" \n"My AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files" "My AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files" "My AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files" \n"DIR The new DOS 5 standard" "DIR The new DOS 5 standard" "DIR The new DOS 5 standard" \n"Jumble Manor" "Jumble Manor September 1991" "Jumble Manor September 1991" \n"OS/2 Version 2.0" "OS/2 Version 2.0" "OS/2 Version 2.0" \n"Computers - Why?" "Computers - Why?" "Computers - Why?"\n"Answer to Puzzle No 1" "Answer to Puzzle No 1" "Answer to Puzzle No 1" \n"Puzzle No 2" "Puzzle No 2" "Puzzle No 2" \n\n>>

The following article was written as a reminder to me, and as a useful aid to others on what setting you need for Emailing. There are so many boxes that need to be ticked or not ticked and the trick is knowing which one. I made the mistake of ticking the wrong box and effectively locking out my Emails. Finally had to swallow my pride and call the Paradise help desk. Hence the other article that appears in this edition. This was most annoying as we use it as the main means of keeping in touch with the kids while they are overseas.\n\n The following is a series of windows with the necessary boxes that have to be setup.\n\n This page shows your Email account with you Internet provider. (ISP). This is a ~POP3 account. This means that after you logon the Emails are automatically downloaded (Receiving) or uploaded (Sending) to/from your computer. The Emails don't stay on the ISP server as they do with Web mail. To check your setting click on "Properties" button.\n \n The "Properties" window shows your Email account, your name and Email address. This info also appears in the Email headers. Check that it is correct. Also tick the "Include this Account" box. With out it, the computer doesn't know which account to look for.\n\n Next click on the "Server" tag. The Server window tells you what type of mail server you are using. Leave it as POP3. The next 2 lines are your Incoming and outgoing mail servers. Should read pop3.--- followed by your ISP's address for incoming mail and smtp.--- for outgoing mail. These dictate the protocols used for sending and receiving mail. The 2 next lines are your Username and Password. The Username is the name you use to logon. The Password is your choice and is recommend to consist of letters and numbers. Tick the "Remember password" box if you want the computer to automatically fill in the password when you logon. Write down your password somewhere safe. Loosing it can causes problems. Next click on "Connection" tab\n \nTo change your account settings click on the arrow and select the account you want. When the account name is highlighted, click on the "Settings" button. This window allows you to enter the ISP's phone number. If you are using a 0800 number or a local number, leave the "Use area code" box clear. On a 0800 it will cause problem if ticked. If you change your modem, click on the "Connect using" menu arrow and select the correct modem. In most cases there will only be one modem shown. If you haven't uninstall a previous modem, it will still show as being installed. Next click on "Configure".\n \n This window shows your modem, the port to which it is connected and the speed at which the computer talks to the modem. It is not the speed the modem talks to the Internet servers. Leave it set at the maximum speed. The only time you may need to alter it is, if you are having trouble connecting to and ISP. By using this setting on a lower speed you can force your modem to connect at a slower speed. Leave "Connect at this speed" box clear. This allows the modem to select the best speed for the phone line you are using.\n\n The speaker volume is controlled from here.\n\n Next click on "Connection" tab. This window sets up the data protocol. Leave it as shown. This is the standard used on the Internet. Tick "Wait for dial tone" and "Cancel call" boxes. The 1st one stops the computer from dialing out if there is no dial tone and the 2nd will disconnect the phone line if the computer was unable to establish a proper connection after the time shown. You can type in the time.\n\n The 3rd box will disconnect the computer from line after a set time if there is no activity. Watch this setting if you are downloading large files. It looks for activity from the keyboard and treats a file being downloaded as no activity. Next click on "Advanced"\n \n In the advanced window, tick the "Use error control" and "Compressed data" boxes. The use of error control means that if a packet of data is corrupted during transmission, it is thrown out and the same packet is sent again. The cost of error control is it can take longer to receive a file, but there should be no errors due to transmission. Also tick the "Flow control and Hardware" boxes. This means that any loss of the physical link (phone line and modems), the computer will stop sending or receiving the data. With out flow control the computer could treat the line noise as data and fill your hard drive with rubbish. \n\n In the previous window, clicking on "Port setting" allows you to set the buffers. Adjusting the buffers can help if you are having transmission problem. Normally leave them at there default settings.\n Next click on "OK" twice and then the Server type" tab.\n \n In this window, for normal dialup connection use the PPP option. (Point to point protocol) The rest are for LAN connection. In advanced options leave as set by the default settings. In the "Allowed network protocols" tick the TCP/IP box and untick the other two. TCP/IP is the most common Internet protocol. ~NetBeui and IPX/SPX are early versions of network protocols and are still in use.\n \nNext click the "TCP/IP" settings button\n \n Most ISP run dynamic allocation of IP address. When you logon to their server, you are automatically allocated an IP address from a group allocated to your IPS. This allows for the most efficient use of the IP address. Because of this, all you need to tick is the "Server assigned" buttons and the rest is done for you.\n\n The above applies to dial-up networks.\n\n If your ISP doesn't use dynamic allocation, they will need to provide you with an IP address. If you are running a local network you will have to specify an IP address for your computer and enter that into the area provided.\n \nLeave the other two boxes at their default setting. Click "OK" twice to return to the 1st window. \n\n//- Arthur Harris//

''Hardware:''\n\nTwo network cards, Coax and 2 terminating resistors or twisted pair cable. Most of it can be bought at Dick Smiths or obtained from other sources. Check if your computer has either an ISA slot or a PCI slot free. Whatever type of slot is free will determine what type of network card you buy.\n\nThe 486's and older will have the ISA slots only where as the Pentiums have both types installed. The PCI slot is smaller and more compact than the ISA slot. Not to be mistaken with a VESA slot which lies directly behind an ISA slot.\n\nWith a coax installation, put the T adapters on the card, the terminating resistors on one side and the coax on the other side. There must be a terminating resister at each end of the cable. If there are more than two computers the coaxes go each side of the T adaptor.\n\nWith twisted pair cable you will need a hub. For two computers you can use a cable with the pairs reversed at the second computer.\n\n''Software:''\n\nThe software to set up the network cards will come with the cards if purchased or can be obtained off the Internet. The network software is included with Windows.\n\n''Setting up:''\n\nTurn off your computers and install the network cards into each computer. If the network card has jumpers, take note of the IRQ (Interrupt) and IO (Input/output ports) settings. If not, the settings will be done by the install software that comes with the card.\n\nMake sure the card is sitting correctly and the front plate is secure.\n\nTurn on the computer and let it reboot.\n\nIf the cards are Plug and Play, Windows will install try to install the cards and allocate IRQ and IO settings.\n\nThese IRQ and IO settings are the next lot of setting that are free and NOT those of your network card.\nIf you know your Network card setting you can change the selection that Windows offers you to match the card at this point. Check that there are no conflicts. An asterisk beside the number means a conflict. Select one that is free.\n\nIf not, let the program run. They can be changed via the Control panel but do take note of what settings Windows offer you.\n\nPlace the setup disc in the A drive and run the set up programs. You may need to reboot to MSDOS mode to run the setup program. The setup program looks for the network card and shows you the default setting. \nYou will be given the option to change them. Set the IQ to 10 or 11 and the IO to 0280 or 0300 or you can set it to the values offer by Windows if they are free of conflicts. This should keep you clear of conflicts. Make a note of these settings.\n\nDisable the Plug and Play option and setup the output medium, Coax or UTP. Some cards have both. 10 base 2 is another term for coax and 10 base T is the same as UTP or twisted pair. Leave the rest of the settings at their default value.\n\nAt this stage run the internal diagnostic that comes with the setup software. The network tests will only work if the two network cards are by the same manufacture. The internal test will work OK. As you exit the setup software you will be asked to reboot the computer.\n\nWhen the computer has finished rebooting, Select "Settings" on the Start menu and then "Control Panel"\nOn the Control Panel select "Network". This brings up the network panel. If you have a modem installed you should see the following. \n\n**Clients for networks \n**Dialup Adapter \n**The protocol. TCP/IP\n \n(By clicking on each line you will be given a description of what each line means) If Windows has installed the Network card the Network window should be similar to below.\n\n|>|>|! The following network components are installed |\n|!|Client for Microsoft Networks |!|\n|!|~Dial-Up Adapter |!|\n|!|Intel ~EtherExpress PRO/10 |!|\n|!|TCP/IP -> ~Dial-Up Adapter |!|\n|!|TCP/IP -> Intel ~EtherExpress PRO/10 |!|\n|!|File and printer sharing for Microsoft Networks&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; |!|\n|>|>|! |\n\nLines 3 and 5 will have the name of the network card. If none of the following lines appear, you will have to install them.\n\n1.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Click on "Add" then select "Client". Then Click on "Add" and select "Microsoft" in the left window. In the right window select "Clients for Microsoft networks" Then "OK". The "Clients for Microsoft Networks" will appear in the Network Window.\n\n2.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Click on "Add" again and select "Adapter" and click on "Add". This will give you a list of manufacturers in the left window and their devices in the right window. If the manufacture of your network doesn't appear and you have the installation disks the click on "Have Disk" and load it from there. When you have selected your network card click OK. This will take to the network window. The name of your network card will appear beside the Adapter symbol.\n\n3.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Click on "Add" again and then select "Protocol" and click on "Add". \n\n4.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Click on this line to highlight and them click on "Properties". This will give you a list of manufactures in the left window and their protocols in the right window. Select "TCP/IP"\nThere are other protocols you can use if need be. Click "OK" \n\n5.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The next step is to set up the network card. In the network window select the network card (Adapter) and then click on "Properties". In the properties window, select "Bindings" tab and check that the TCP/IP line is ticked. Tick if not.\nNext select the "Resource" tab. This will show you IRQ and IO setting. Check they are the same as the settings on your network card as you noted earlier. If not change by clicking on the arrows. Make sure there are no conflicts as indicated by the asterisks. If the current settings on the card are causing conflicts, then reset the card to those allocated by Windows.(You will need to reconfigure the network card to match with its setup software).\nClick OK\n\n6.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; You should be back in the Network window.\nSelect the "Identification" tab. In the "Computer name" window put the name you wish to identify the computer by. This must be different for each computer.\nIn the "Workgroup" window, enter the name for your network. This must be the same for all computers on the network.\nYou may enter what you wish in the "Description" window. This appears in the comments in Explorer.\n\n7.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Click the "Access Control" tab and click on "Shared level access control". Now click "OK". This returns you to the network window.\n\n8.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Click on the "File and printer sharing" button. Tick the "Allow file access" box and the "Access to printer" box if you have a printer attached to your computer. Then click "OK". This will bring up the File and printer sharing line in the windows box.\n\n9.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In the Network Window highlight the "TCP/IP" protocol line. Then click on "properties"\nThis will give you access to the TCP/IP properties window. Click on the "IP address" tab. \nHighlight the "Specify an IP address box. This will highlight the IP address windows.\nEnter the following address. \n\n**IP Address: 192.168.001.001 \n**Subnet mask: 255.255.255.000 \n\nIn the 2nd and 3rd computers etc, increment the IP address by one. i.e. 192.168.001.002. Leave the subnet mask address the same in all computers. Click on the "Bindings" tab and check that the File and printer sharing and the Clients for Networks boxes are ticked. If not click on the boxes. Next click "OK". This will return you to the network window.\n\n10.&nbsp;&nbsp; The computer will load the necessary files to enable your network configuration. Make sure that you have your Windows installation CD ROM handy. Also if you loaded the Network card driver from a floppy disc, place it in the floppy disc drive. You will be asked for it. You may need to tell the computer on which folder the driver is located. i.e. ~WIN95.\n\n11.&nbsp;&nbsp; At this point you will be asked if you want to reboot your computer. Click "No"\nYou now need to set up the host file which tell the computer were to find the other computers.\n\nRun "Notepad" and in the "Windows" folder open a file called "Host.sam" This a sample file of how to setup the host file. First the IP address, Second the computer name, Third the computer name.Work group name. Everything after the # sign is descriptive and doesn't affect the address.\n\n{{{\n Example\n 127.0.0.1 localhost\n 192.168.1.1 maddy maddy.harris #Office\n 192.168.1.2 milo milo.harris #Service\n}}}\n\nSave the file as HOST. No extension. The Host file is the same in all computers\n(The computer names are from my cats)\n\nOnce all files and drivers are loaded you will need to reboot the computer. Remove the floppy disc before you reboot. After the computer has rebooted, open "Windows explorer" and right click on the "C drive" folder. In the menu selected "shared". In the properties window tha opens, tick "Shared as". Naming is optional. Do this on both computers. It allows files to be shared between computer.\n\nAt this stage you should have installed your network. There are several ways to check.\n\nIn an ~MS-Dos window type 'Ping localhost' you should get 'Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time (10ms TTL=128)> or very similar.\n\nIn the ~MS-Dos window type "Ping" followed by the name of your computer. ie. Ping Maddy.\nThe Ping program will look for the computer named Maddy and return an echo saying if it found the computer and how long the ping took to return. Do both the computers, the one you're testing from and the computer at the other end of your network.\n\nOn you desktop click on the "Network Neighborhood" Icon. This will open a window. In it you should see the following icons.\n\n**Entire Network. \n**The name of the computer you are using \n**The name's of the other computers on the network.\n\nIf you can not see the other computers then the network is down.\n\nClicking on these icons should show the folders you enable for sharing.\n\n''Fault finding.''\n\nIf the computer can not see the network, check the following.\n#The IRQ and IO settings on the card and in the computer are the same and there are no conflicts. This can vary between computers.\n#The cable is installed correctly and there are no short circuits or opens. The coax is terminated correctly.\n#The IP addresses are valid as shown in example and the same as used in the Host file.\n#You have set the network cards up correctly. i.e. using the correct cable interface.\n#Put the IP address in Zonal if you are running it.\nIf all else fails then carefully check the setup again, step by step and if that still fails then give the help desk a ring and one of the experts will pay a visit. ;-) \n\n//- Arthur Harris and Ian Godfrey//

//By Arthur Harris//\n\n The following article is from the talk given at the AGM on how to set up a simple home page. It only cover the basics in setting up a home page and will give you a simple working web page. A working example can be found at Simple Homepage\n\n ''Step 1.''\n See if your Internet Provider provide a free homepage area on his server.\n Paradise provides a 10 Megabyte storage as part of your normal Internet fees.\n Other ISP provide a similar setup.\n The NZPCA will be providing a similar service on our web page when the upgrade is completed.\n\n ''Step 2. Internet address.'' (URL) The ISP provider will supply you with an URL.\n http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/arthurh\n This is the web address that allows other people to view your web site. They can view but not change. They can also copy what is on your page.\n\n ''Step 3. Server address.''\n The ISP provider will supply you with a server address. www.homepages.paradise.net.nz\n This address is the one you use to allow access to your web page using FTP program.\n (FTP. File transfer Protocol. Ie. ~CuteFTP)\n\n'' Step 4. Login and password''\n The ISP provider will supply you Login and password.\n These are needed to allow you to access and change the content. In Paradise case it is the same Login and Password you need for logging on to paradise.\n\n Login: Your-login-name\n Password: ********\n\n'' Step 5. Index file (Index.htm)''\n This is the first and most important file on your homepage. This is the file that server will look for when a viewer clicks on your home page address. With out this file the server will not be able to locate your home page. The contents of this file will be the first page of your home page.\n See example below.\n \n{{{\n<HTML lang="en">\n<HEAD>\n<TITLE>Welcome to the Harris Family</TITLE>\n<META NAME="keywords" content'"Home page">\n</HEAD>\n}}}\n\n The first part tells the browser that the document has been formatted in the HTML format and the name of the web site/page. This can be different to the page heading.\n\n{{{\n<BODY TEXT="B;ack" LINK="Red" VLINK="Purple" background="background_skyblue.gif" ALINK="Blue">\n}}}\n\n These instructions sets up the colour of the text, the background colour or graphic of the page and the colours of the active links\n\n{{{\n<h1><div align="center"><font color="Black">The Harris Family Home Page</font></div></h1>\n}}}\n\n These instructions print the title of the page in large bold, black print and locate it in the center of the page The code "H1" defines it as a heading and the number defines the size of print. The higher the number the smaller the print.\n\n{{{\n<p><font color="Black">Greetings<br>\nI ahve loaded the wedding photos onto my home page so you can view\n them with out tying up your web mail</font></p>\n}}}\n\n These instructions step down a line and print the text in the default font. The code "BR" acts as a carriage return and starts a new line. The codes "P" and "/P" act a paragraphs and put a line after the text. The text between the >&< is the text you see on screen.\n\n{{{\n<blockquote><blockquote>\n<p><A HREF="John's wedding/John wedding1.html" target=" top" name="John's wedding">John's\n wedding</A></FONT></p>\n\n<p><A HREF="Martyn's wedding/martyns wedding1.html" target="top" name="Martyn's\n wedding">Martyn's wedding</A></FONT></p>\n\n<p><A HREF="Jeanettes page/The mad pair.html" target=" top" name="Jeanettes page">Jeanette and\nIan</A></FONT></P></blockquote></blockquote>\n}}}\n\n The last three paragraphs set up the links to the three separate pages that make up your home page. The instructions tell your browser where to find the pages. It also prints the text in the colour defined for links earlier and underlines the text to indicate that it is a link to another page. The code {A HREF=".."} tells the browser where the page is located. {Target = "Top"} tells it to display the page on top of the current page. "Blockquotes" act as tab controls and steps the following text in from the edge of the page.\n \n{{{\n</BODY></HTML>\n}}}\n\n End of text and end of HTML document\n \n This homepage was been kept very basic as its purpose was to allow others to view the photos. It saved attaching large files to your Email and the time taken to send them and then download them by the recipient. The average time is 5 minutes for every Megabyte of data you send or receive. A 5 Megabyte file will take 25 minutes. You upload it once to your web page and then inform others with a simple fast text message the web address of the photos. This gives them the choice of selecting what they want to see and reducing the amount of time waiting for the files to download.\n\n The basic web page uses 3 Megabytes of file space and would take 15 minutes to download. By splitting it into three sections, the download time has been reduced to 5 minutes per section. It also gives the recipient a chance to stop the download as parts of the web page will be seen well before the download is complete. This option is not available if it is attached to a Email.\n

//By David Edwards who will be talking this month on this subject at both Lower Hutt and St Giles meetings this month.//\n\nAround 1999, I was told about a site that explains some of the communication settings that are installed on a ~WIN9x or NT machine. These are Internet settings that are installed by default with the standard setup, and can be very detrimental to your Internet security. The screen shots come from this time as I have since fixed these holes. \n\nThe site is the Gibson Research Centre located at http://www.grc.com. The section of the site that you require is called Shields Up. \n\nWhen I first went into the Shields Up opening page , it came back with “Greetings David”. Apparently I was broadcasting my details over the net. This is the first hint at what I needed to be worried about. And this got me more than a little bit worried! \n\nThis page goes on to summarise the 10 main sections which make up this site. I would advise a good read thru, at least, the first five sections, if not the first seven. \n\nThe page has some benign tests that can be performed on your connection to the Internet. These are ‘File Sharing’, ‘Common Ports’, ‘All Service Ports’ and ‘Messenger Spam’.. They are benign tests that do no damage but give you an idea as to how secure your connection really is. \n\nSections Two to Seven cover the following topics: Explain this to me; Am I really in any danger?; What can I do about this?; Network bondage; Evil port monitors; Personal firewalls. \n\nThe key area is at the bottom of Section 5 where there are links to the instruction pages for Win9x & WinNT systems. These instructions are about 16 pages long. It is a very good idea to print these pages. You will need to refer to these as you make your changes. They are a detailed hand-holding set of instructions, which include screenshots of the system areas that need changing. \n\nA full discussion on the problem, its cause and a fix is listed within this site. But to briefly summarise the root cause. \n\nThe main problem is that the Microsoft networking client is installed with the setting turned on for TCP/IP File and Printer Sharing. \n\nThe “binding” of the file and Printer shares to TCP/IP (Transfer Control Protocol / Internet Protocol) allows other people to access your hard drive and files via your Internet connection. \n\nSo, are you really in danger? Oh yes. Many Internet scanners specifically seek out and locate windows file and printer shares. Malicious computer vandals leave these scanners running night and day collecting IP addresses. \n\nYou do need TCP/IP for Internet browsing but you do not need it to be bound to anything else. \n\nIf you are on the Internet for short spells and access it via a dial up connection then your exposure to this danger is very small. This is because you get a different IP address every time you log onto your ISP. But if you have a cable connection or have an ISP access account that lets you stay connected ‘forever’ then you are at a far greater risk. \n\nI had assumed that my PC had a single connection to the Internet thru a modem and then via an ISP. But this is not the case. Although there is only one physical wire connection, there are a number of electronic connections, called Ports, within your applications and PC. The browser/mail programs open up approximately 3 port connections in a simple session. These cover such items as: incoming mail, outgoing mail, HTTP, FTP, Telnet, IMAP. So there are a lot more connections available than just the one that you think is open. In fact there are a possible total of 65535 port connections which are available. Of course not all of these have been assigned a use. This is where the hackers come in and exploit the unassigned ports. \n\nA firewall is an extra program that sits between your machine (port connections) & the Internet (wire to the outside world). Its function is to test each packet of data as it arrives and filter out any unauthorized access. A good program blocks/checks both incoming message packets and outgoing packets. So if you do have an unknown program already in your system then this will stop the rouge program from sending any information out. Every PC should have a firewall installed and with free versions available (~ZoneAlarm) there is no excuse. \n\nSteve Gibson comes across as very knowledgeable. This site is written in a format that is very easy to understand for the layman. Descriptions are explained with minimal jargon. He provides alternative sources for collaboration or further explanation of technical features. He has provided this information for free. As well as developing further security checking programs and then providing them as freeware. \n\nI have found this site to be very enlightening and useful. I would encourage all of you to visit it and spend some time reading through the information provided. Security is a major issue that is not going to go away. //- David Edwards (#1311)//

<<collapseAll>><<expandAll>><<closeAll>><<permaview>><<newTiddler>><<newerTiddler button:"autotagged article" tags:"auto" name:"New Article" text:"This tiddler will automatically generate tags when you save it. To stop this from happening remove the auto tag.">><<importTiddlers>><<exportTiddlers>><<saveChanges>><<upload http://tiddlyspot.com/megabyte/store.cgi index.html . . megabyte>><<slider chkSliderOptionsPanel OptionsPanel 'options »' 'Change TiddlyWiki advanced options'>>

/***\n|''Name:''|SinglePageModePlugin|\n|''Source:''|http://www.TiddlyTools.com/#SinglePageModePlugin|\n|''Author:''|Eric Shulman - ELS Design Studios|\n|''License:''|[[Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License|http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/]]|\n|''~CoreVersion:''|2.0.10|\n\nNormally, as you click on the links in TiddlyWiki, more and more tiddlers are displayed on the page. The order of this tiddler display depends upon when and where you have clicked. Some people like this non-linear method of reading the document, while others have reported that when many tiddlers have been opened, it can get somewhat confusing.\n\n!!!!!Usage\n<<<\nSinglePageMode allows you to configure TiddlyWiki to navigate more like a traditional multipage web site with only one item displayed at a time. When SinglePageMode is enabled, the title of the current tiddler is automatically displayed in the browser window's titlebar and the browser's location URL is updated with a 'permalink' for the current tiddler so that it is easier to create a browser 'bookmark' for the current tiddler.\n\nEven when SinglePageMode is disabled (i.e., displaying multiple tiddlers is permitted), you can reduce the potential for confusion by enable TopOfPageMode, which forces tiddlers to always open at the top of the page instead of being displayed following the tiddler containing the link that was clicked.\n<<<\n!!!!!Configuration\n<<<\nWhen installed, this plugin automatically adds checkboxes in the AdvancedOptions tiddler so you can enable/disable the plugin behavior. For convenience, these checkboxes are also included here:\n\n<<option chkSinglePageMode>> Display one tiddler at a time\n<<option chkTopOfPageMode>> Always open tiddlers at the top of the page\n<<<\n!!!!!Installation\n<<<\nimport (or copy/paste) the following tiddlers into your document:\n''SinglePageModePlugin'' (tagged with <<tag systemConfig>>)\n^^documentation and javascript for SinglePageMode handling^^\n\nWhen installed, this plugin automatically adds checkboxes in the ''shadow'' AdvancedOptions tiddler so you can enable/disable this behavior. However, if you have customized your AdvancedOptions, you will need to ''manually add these checkboxes to your customized tiddler.''\n<<<\n!!!!!Revision History\n<<<\n''2006.07.04 [2.2.1]'' in hijack for displayTiddlers(), suspend TPM as well as SPM so that DefaultTiddlers displays in the correct order.\n''2006.06.01 [2.2.0]'' added chkTopOfPageMode (TPM) handling\n''2006.02.04 [2.1.1]'' moved global variable declarations to config.* to avoid FireFox 1.5.0.1 crash bug when assigning to globals\n''2005.12.27 [2.1.0]'' hijack displayTiddlers() so that SPM can be suspended during startup while displaying the DefaultTiddlers (or #hash list). Also, corrected initialization for undefined SPM flag to "false", so default behavior is to display multiple tiddlers\n''2005.12.27 [2.0.0]'' Update for TW2.0\n''2005.11.24 [1.1.2]'' When the back and forward buttons are used, the page now changes to match the URL. Based on code added by Clint Checketts\n''2005.10.14 [1.1.1]'' permalink creation now calls encodeTiddlyLink() to handle tiddler titles with spaces in them\n''2005.10.14 [1.1.0]'' added automatic setting of window title and location bar ('auto-permalink'). feature suggestion by David Dickens.\n''2005.10.09 [1.0.1]'' combined documentation and code in a single tiddler\n''2005.08.15 [1.0.0]'' Initial Release\n<<<\n!!!!!Credits\n<<<\nThis feature was developed by EricShulman from [[ELS Design Studios|http:/www.elsdesign.com]].\nSupport for BACK/FORWARD buttons adapted from code developed by Clint Checketts\n<<<\n!!!!!Code\n***/\n//{{{\nversion.extensions.SinglePageMode= {major: 2, minor: 2, revision: 1, date: new Date(2006,7,3)};\n\nif (config.options.chkSinglePageMode==undefined) config.options.chkSinglePageMode=false;\nconfig.shadowTiddlers.AdvancedOptions += "\sn<<option chkSinglePageMode>> Display one tiddler at a time";\n\nif (config.options.chkTopOfPageMode==undefined) config.options.chkTopOfPageMode=false;\nconfig.shadowTiddlers.AdvancedOptions += "\sn<<option chkTopOfPageMode>> Always open tiddlers at the top of the page";\n\nconfig.SPMTimer = 0;\nconfig.lastURL = window.location.hash;\nfunction checkLastURL()\n{\n if (!config.options.chkSinglePageMode)\n { window.clearInterval(config.SPMTimer); config.SPMTimer=0; return; }\n if (config.lastURL == window.location.hash)\n return;\n var tiddlerName = convertUTF8ToUnicode(decodeURI(window.location.hash.substr(1)));\n tiddlerName=tiddlerName.replace(/\s[\s[/,"").replace(/\s]\s]/,""); // strip any [[ ]] bracketing\n if (tiddlerName.length) story.displayTiddler(null,tiddlerName,1,null,null);\n}\n\nif (Story.prototype.SPM_coreDisplayTiddler==undefined) Story.prototype.SPM_coreDisplayTiddler=Story.prototype.displayTiddler;\nStory.prototype.displayTiddler = function(srcElement,title,template,animate,slowly)\n{\n if (config.options.chkSinglePageMode) {\n window.location.hash = encodeURIComponent(String.encodeTiddlyLink(title));\n config.lastURL = window.location.hash;\n document.title = wikifyPlain("SiteTitle") + " - " + title;\n story.closeAllTiddlers();\n if (!config.SPMTimer) config.SPMTimer=window.setInterval(function() {checkLastURL();},1000);\n }\n if (config.options.chkTopOfPageMode) { story.closeTiddler(title); window.scrollTo(0,0); srcElement=null; }\n this.SPM_coreDisplayTiddler(srcElement,title,template,animate,slowly)\n}\n\nif (Story.prototype.SPM_coreDisplayTiddlers==undefined) Story.prototype.SPM_coreDisplayTiddlers=Story.prototype.displayTiddlers;\nStory.prototype.displayTiddlers = function(srcElement,titles,template,unused1,unused2,animate,slowly)\n{\n // suspend single-page mode when displaying multiple tiddlers\n var saveSPM=config.options.chkSinglePageMode; config.options.chkSinglePageMode=false;\n var saveTPM=config.options.chkTopOfPageMode; config.options.chkTopOfPageMode=false;\n this.SPM_coreDisplayTiddlers(srcElement,titles,template,unused1,unused2,animate,slowly);\n config.options.chkSinglePageMode=saveSPM; config.options.chkTopOfPageMode=saveTPM;\n}\n//}}}

/***\n''Single Page Mode Plugin for TiddlyWiki version 2.0 or above''\n^^author: Eric Shulman - ELS Design Studios\nsource: http://www.TiddlyTools.com/#SinglePageModePlugin\nlicense: [[Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License|http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/]]^^\n\nNormally, as you click on the links in TiddlyWiki, more and more tiddlers are displayed on the page. The order of this tiddler display depends upon when and where you have clicked. Some people like this non-linear method of reading the document, while others have reported that when many tiddlers have been opened, it can get somewhat confusing.\n\n!!!!!Usage\n<<<\nSinglePageMode allows you to configure TiddlyWiki to navigate more like a traditional multipage web site with only one item displayed at a time. You can select a checkbox in the AdvancedOptions tiddler to enable this behavior or revert to the standard TiddlyWiki multiple tiddler display behavior.\n\nWhen SinglePageMode is enabled, the title of the current tiddler is automatically displayed in the browser window's titlebar and the browser's location URL is updated with a 'permalink' for the current tiddler so that it is easier to create a browser 'bookmark' for the current tiddler.\n\n//Note: This feature currently effects ALL tiddler display behavior, including features that normally result in multiple tiddlers being displayed, such as the results of searches or the initial DefaultTiddlers shown when the document is loaded. //\n<<<\n!!!!!Configuration\n<<<\nWhen installed, this plugin automatically adds a checkbox in the AdvancedOptions tiddler so you can enable/disable the plugin behavior. You can also use the following ''control panel'' checkbox to change the current plugin handling:\n\n<<option chkSinglePageMode>> Display one tiddler at a time\n<<<\n!!!!!Installation\n<<<\nimport (or copy/paste) the following tiddlers into your document:\n''SinglePageModePlugin'' (tagged with <<tag systemConfig>>)\n^^documentation and javascript for SinglePageMode handling^^\n\nWhen installed, this plugin automatically adds a checkbox in the AdvancedOptions tiddler so you can enable/disable this behavior. However, if you have customized your AdvancedOptions, you will need to manually add ''"<< {{{option chkSinglePageMode}}} >> display one tiddler at a time"'' to your customized tiddler.\n<<<\n!!!!!Revision History\n<<<\n''2006.02.04 [2.1.1]''\nmoved global variable declarations to config.* to avoid FireFox 1.5.0.1 crash bug when assigning to globals\n''2005.12.27 [2.1.0]''\nhijack displayTiddlers() so that SPM can be suspended during startup while displaying the DefaultTiddlers (or #hash list) \nalso, corrected initialization for undefined SPM flag to "false", so default behavior is to display multiple tiddlers\n''2005.12.27 [2.0.0]''\nUpdate for TW2.0\n''2005.11.24 [1.1.2]''\nWhen the back and forward buttons are used, the page now changes to match the URL. Based on code added by Clint Checketts\n''2005.10.14 [1.1.1]''\npermalink creation now calls encodeTiddlyLink() to handle tiddler titles with spaces in them\n''2005.10.14 [1.1.0]''\nadded automatic setting of window title and location bar ('auto-permalink').\nfeature suggestion by David Dickens.\n''2005.10.09 [1.0.1]''\ncombined documentation and code in a single tiddler\n''2005.08.15 [1.0.0]''\nInitial Release\n<<<\n!!!!!Credits\n<<<\nThis feature was developed by EricShulman from [[ELS Design Studios|http:/www.elsdesign.com]].\nSupport for BACK/FORWARD buttons adapted from code developed by Clint Checketts\n<<<\n!!!!!Code\n***/\n//{{{\nversion.extensions.SinglePageMode= {major: 2, minor: 1, revision: 1, date: new Date(2006,2,4)};\n\nif (config.options.chkSinglePageMode==undefined)\n config.options.chkSinglePageMode=false;\n\nconfig.shadowTiddlers.AdvancedOptions\n += "\sn<<option chkSinglePageMode>> Display one tiddler at a time";\n\nconfig.SPMTimer = 0;\nconfig.lastURL = window.location.hash;\nfunction checkLastURL()\n{\n if (!config.options.chkSinglePageMode)\n { window.clearInterval(config.SPMTimer); config.SPMTimer=0; return; }\n if (config.lastURL == window.location.hash)\n return;\n var tiddlerName = convertUTF8ToUnicode(decodeURI(window.location.hash.substr(1)));\n tiddlerName=tiddlerName.replace(/\s[\s[/,"").replace(/\s]\s]/,""); // strip any [[ ]] bracketing\n if (tiddlerName.length) story.displayTiddler(null,tiddlerName,1,null,null);\n}\n\nStory.prototype.coreDisplayTiddler=Story.prototype.displayTiddler;\nStory.prototype.displayTiddler = function(srcElement,title,template,animate,slowly)\n{\n if (config.options.chkSinglePageMode) {\n window.location.hash = encodeURIComponent(String.encodeTiddlyLink(title));\n config.lastURL = window.location.hash;\n document.title = wikifyPlain("SiteTitle") + " - " + title;\n story.closeAllTiddlers();\n if (!config.SPMTimer) config.SPMTimer=window.setInterval(function() {checkLastURL();},1000);\n }\n this.coreDisplayTiddler(srcElement,title,template,animate,slowly)\n}\n\nStory.prototype.coreDisplayTiddlers=Story.prototype.displayTiddlers;\nStory.prototype.displayTiddlers = function(srcElement,titles,template,unused1,unused2,animate,slowly)\n{\n // suspend single-page mode when displaying multiple tiddlers\n var save=config.options.chkSinglePageMode;\n config.options.chkSinglePageMode=false;\n this.coreDisplayTiddlers(srcElement,titles,template,unused1,unused2,animate,slowly);\n config.options.chkSinglePageMode=save;\n}\n//}}}

/***\n| Name:|SiteMapMacro|\n| Author:|Simon Baird|\n| Location:|http://simonbaird.com/mptw/#SiteMapMacro|\n| Version:|1.0.3, 15-Mar-06|\n\n!!Examples\nSee SiteMap and SliderSiteMap for example usage.\n\n!!Parameters\n* Name of tiddler to start at\n* Max depth (a number) \n* Format (eg, nested, see formats below)\n* Don't show root flag (anything other than null turns it on)\n* Tags - a string containing a bracketed list of tags that we are interested in\n\n!!History\n* 1.0.3 (15-Mar-06)\n** added tag filtering\n* 1.0.2 (15-Mar-06)\n** Added json format and dontshowroot option\n* 1.0.1 (9-Mar-06)\n** Added selectable formats and fixed nested slider format\n* 1.0.0 (8-Mar-06)\n** first release\n\n***/\n//{{{\n\nversion.extensions.SiteMapMacro = {\n major: 1,\n minor: 0,\n revision: 3,\n date: new Date(2006,3,15),\n source: "http://simonbaird.com/mptw/#SiteMapMacro"\n};\n\nconfig.macros.siteMap = {\n\n formats: {\n bullets: {\n formatString: "%0[[%1]]\sn%2",\n indentString: "*"\n },\n\n // put this in your StyleSheet to make it look good.\n // .sliderPanel { margin-left: 2em; }\n\n sliders: {\n formatString: "[[%1]]+++\sn%2===\sn\sn",\n formatStringLeaf: "[[%1]]\sn"\n },\n\n openSliders: {\n formatString: "[[%1]]++++\sn%2===\sn\sn",\n formatStringLeaf: "[[%1]]\sn"\n },\n\n popups: {\n formatString: "[[%1]]+++^\sn%2===\sn\sn",\n formatStringLeaf: "[[%1]]\sn"\n },\n\n // these don't work too well\n openPopups: {\n formatString: "[[%1]]++++^\sn%2===\sn\sn",\n formatStringLeaf: "[[%1]]\sn"\n },\n \n // this is a little nuts but it works\n json: {\n formatString: '\sn%0{"%1":[%2\sn%0]}',\n formatStringLeaf: '\sn%0"%1"',\n indentString: " ",\n separatorString: ","\n }\n\n\n },\n\n defaultFormat: "bullets",\n\n treeTraverse: function(title,depth,maxdepth,format,dontshowroot,tags,excludetags) {\n\n var tiddler = store.getTiddler(title);\n var tagging = store.getTaggedTiddlers(title);\n\n if (dontshowroot)\n depth = 0;\n\n var indent = "";\n if (this.formats[format].indentString)\n for (var j=0;j<depth;j++)\n indent += this.formats[format].indentString;\n\n var childOutput = "";\n if (!maxdepth || depth < parseInt(maxdepth)) \n for (var i=0;i<tagging.length;i++)\n if (tagging[i].title != title) {\n if (this.formats[format].separatorString && i != 0)\n childOutput += this.formats[format].separatorString;\n childOutput += this.treeTraverse(tagging[i].title,depth+1,maxdepth,format,null,tags,excludetags);\n }\n\n if (childOutput == "" && (\n (tags && tags != "" && !tiddler.tags.containsAll(tags.readBracketedList())) ||\n (excludetags && excludetags != "" && tiddler.tags.containsAny(excludetags.readBracketedList()))\n )\n ) {\n // so prune it cos it doesn't have the right tags and neither do any of it's children\n return "";\n }\n\n if (dontshowroot)\n return childOutput;\n\n if (this.formats[format].formatStringLeaf && childOutput == "") {\n // required for nestedSliders\n return this.formats[format].formatStringLeaf.format([indent,title,childOutput]);\n }\n\n return this.formats[format].formatString.format([indent,title,childOutput]);\n },\n\n handler: function (place,macroName,params,wikifier,paramString,tiddler) {\n wikify(this.treeTraverse(\n params[0] && params[0] != '.' ? params[0] : tiddler.title, 1, \n params[1] && params[1] != '.' ? params[1] : null, // maxdepth\n params[2] && params[2] != '.' ? params[2] : this.defaultFormat, // format\n params[3] && params[3] != '.' ? params[3] : null, // dontshowroot\n params[4] && params[4] != '.' ? params[4] : null, // tags\n params[5] && params[5] != '.' ? params[5] : null // excludetags\n ),place);\n }\n\n}\n\n//}}}\n

experimental, by -=rjh=- [[TiddlyWiki|http://www.tiddlywiki.com]] v<<version>>

''~MegaByte Concept - Online''

A publishing group on the Internet who allowed us to use their articles. Their web site. SmartComputing.com

By Eric Grevstad for Hardware Central -\nNote that the seasons and prices are for the USA in the Northern Hemisphere\n\n''Take It, Don't Shake It''\nThu 8/4/05 -- OK, so you're hiking in the woods and suddenly you see Bigfoot. The legendary monster is roaring and running straight toward you. What's the first thing you need? A digital camera that takes sharp pictures even if your hands are shaking. \n\nHappily, many of the new cameras coming this fall offer technology that can make handheld shots look more like steady tripod images, as well as other image-enhancement features -- and, of course, the usual rising resolution and falling prices. Here's our latest roundup; as with past reports, all references to zoom are reserved for the real (optical) thing instead of icky, pixelated digital zoom. \n\nCasio says the newest version of its minicams' Exilim engine incorporates an Anti Shake DSP (digital signal processor), which reduces blurring caused by shaking hands or moving subjects, as well as Auto Macro and Quick Shutter functions that ensure photos are properly focused. \n\nIt's available in the Exilim ~EX-S500 ($400), a 5-megapixel (2,560 by 1,920) model with 3X zoom that measures 2.3 by 3.5 by an anorexic 0.6 inches. Available in orange, gray, and white, the ~EX-S500 can not only shoot ~VGA-resolution ~MPEG-4 movies -- starting filming, if you're late to the scene, 5 seconds before you actually press the recording button -- but take a still snapshot while filming. Other features include a 2.2-inch LCD, 33 different "best shot" settings or scene modes, and continuous shooting at approximately 1-second intervals until you've filled the memory card. \n\nCasio has promised U.K. customers a similar ~EX-Z500 model with larger 2.7-inch monitor and a proprietary Super Life lithium-ion battery that allows up to 500 shots on a charge; it'll ship in September for £300 but isn't listed on the U.S. site at this writing. But Americans will be able to get more Anti Shake assistance from the 6-megapixel ~EX-Z110 ($279) and 7-megapixel ~EX-Z120 ($329), which offer 28 and 32 "best shot" modes respectively. They're 3X zoom cameras with 2.0-inch ~LCDs; each measures 2.4 by 3.5 by 1.1 inches and has a High Sensitivity mode for capturing pictures in dim lighting without the flash. \n\n''Steady As a Rock''\nKonica Minolta Photo Imaging USA boasts that last fall's Maxxum 7D was the first digital SLR with built-in anti-shake technology, which uses a ~CCD-shift mechanism to compensate for camera shake. Now that camera has a slightly smaller and lighter sibling, the 6-megapixel (3,008 by 2,000 resolution) Maxxum 5D. \n\nPros can enjoy its manual controls and compatibility with all Maxxum autofocus lenses, including the company's new Digital Technology lenses. Casual shutterbugs can choose from portrait, landscape, sports, evening sunset, and night modes with automatic exposure control and autofocus -- the 2.5-inch LCD automatically switches from horizontal to vertical for upright portrait shots -- or get a bit more creative with a Digital Effect control that lets users select and save parameters for 10 scene types. The 5D can also capture up to 30 frames at roughly 3 frames per second. \n\nKonica Minolta's ultra-slim Dimage X line is getting its first anti-shake model, too. The 8-megapixel (3,264 by 2,448) Dimage X1's 0.8-inch width accommodates a "folded" 3X zoom lens (37mm to 111mm equivalent) that doesn't protrude while zooming; both the zoom and ~Anti-Shake work during ~VGA-resolution video recording as well as still shooting. Portrait, landscape, sunset, night portrait, night view, and super macro (2 inches) modes compliment a 2.5-inch LCD with an extra-brightness setting for outdoor viewing. The Dimage X1 -- whose price, like the Maxxum 5D's, is unannounced for now -- comes with a multifunction recharging cradle for easy connection to PC or TV. \n\nFinally, next month Panasonic will ship two compact 3X-zoom cameras with what it calls MEGA Optical Image Stabilization technology, using a gyrosensor, microcomputer, and linear motor to shift the lens as necessary to offset jittery hands. \n\nThe 5-megapixel Lumix ~DMC-FX8 ($350) and 6-megapixel Lumix ~DMC-FX9 ($400) share a 2.5-inch LCD and the ability to capture 3 frames per second until their memory cards fill. They also share an unmatched array of scene-mode names -- not only day and night versions of Portrait and Scenery but ~Self-Portrait, Sports, Party, Fireworks, Snow, Baby, and Soft Skin. \n\nAnother camera-shake-canceling model from Panasonic is the 8-megapixel (3,840 by 2,160) Lumix ~DMC-LX1 -- not cheap at $700, but the first digital camera we've seen that takes 16:9 widescreen photos, suitable for ~HDTVs or wide notebook screens, as well as the more familiar 4:3- and 3:2-aspect-ratio shots. The 4X-zoom camera can also record 30-fps videos in what the company calls widescreen VGA (848 by 480 pixels). \n\nIf you prefer an ~SLR- instead of bar-of-soap-shaped camera, Panasonic's ~MEGA-equipped Lumix ~DMC-FZ30 ($700) combines 8-megapixel resolution with an impressive 12X (35mm to 420mm equivalent) optical zoom -- or even more zoom if you need only the center of the CCD sensor, yielding 15.3X at 5 megapixels and 19.1X at 3 megapixels. Equipped with a manual zoom ring as well as manual focus ring, the ~FZ30 offers a pivoting 2.0-inch LCD, 14 scene modes for autofocus fans, and a lithium-ion battery that promises up to 280 shots on a charge. \n\n''More Pixels Per Penny''\nThink the above cameras are a little too pricey? Pentax's newest model is a good example of what good values you can find nowadays: For $200, the Optio60 combines 6-megapixel resolution with 3X zoom and a 2.0-inch LCD in a 2.4 by 3.6 by 1.5-inch, shirt-pocket package. Its easy-to-use mode dial starts with a fully automatic focus and exposure setting, but if you're offended by its name -- Simple Mode -- you can choose from Portrait, Landscape, Night Scene, and Sport setups plus aperture- and shutter-priority and metered manual modes and a 2-inch macro setting. It runs on two AA batteries and combines 12MB of onboard memory with an SD card slot. \n\nReally-low-budget shooters can check out two 5-megapixel models from DXG USA -- the ~DXG-568 and deck-of-cards-sized ~DXG-552 are just $130 and $140, respectively. The former has a 1.5-inch and the latter a 2.0-inch LCD, but neither has optical zoom. \n\nHP also promotes family values -- we mean values for the family -- with its Photosmart consumer camera line. New models for summer include the M517, with 5-megapixel resolution, 3X zoom, in-camera red-eye removal, ~HP's Adaptive Lighting to bring details out of shadow, and HP Image Advice -- tips on how to improve a specific photo the next time you take one like it. The $229 camera has a 2-inch indoor/outdoor-viewable LCD and 32MB of internal memory plus an SD/MMC card slot. \n\nThe externally similar, brushed-stainless-steel Photosmart R817 ($349) mixes 5-megapixel resolution with a ~5X-zoom Pentax lens, 15 scene plus macro and super macro modes, 30-fps VGA video with sound, and not only in-camera red-eye fix and Adaptive Lighting, but bracketing of the latter -- automatically capturing three shots with the exposure feature turned off, set to low, and set to high. It not only takes panorama shots, but lets users align, capture, and review panoramic images before downloading to a PC. For $50 more, the Photosmart R818 adds more manual controls, faster continuous shooting, and the ability to make prints of video frames and take pictures in a theater (think school play, not Broadway -- Ed.) with no flash yet optimal exposure of the stage. \n\nAnother family-friendly manufacturer, Kodak, says its new P series brings other ~EasyShare cameras' simplicity of operation -- including use with Kodak's kindergarten-simple image-uploading and -sharing docks -- to advanced cameras for avid photographers. Positioned as an affordable alternative to larger, more costly digital ~SLRs, the ~EasyShare P880 ($600) is an 8-megapixel (3,264 by 2,448) camera with 5.8X zoom that ranges from a 24mm wide angle setting to 140mm distance work; a 25-point autofocus system compliments the manual focus ring and hot shoe flash connector. \n\nAutomatic and scene modes including backlight and anti-shake night portrait join manual, program, and aperture- and shutter-priority modes -- and, Kodak brags, digital ~SLRs can't match the P880's 30-fps VGA video with full optical zoom and in-camera clip trimming, splicing, and merging. The 5-megapixel ~EasyShare P580 has a 12X (36mm to 432mm equivalent) zoom lens with optical image stabilization for clear shots at slower shutter speeds and minimizing camera shake when using longer focal lengths without a tripod; it's $500. \n\n''Haute Couture''\nFashion-conscious? Sony Electronics' new ~Cyber-Shot ~DSC-T5 ($350) is a super-slim (2.4 by 3.7 by 0.8-inch), 5-megapixel camera available in red, black, and "champagne gold" as well as silver, though only the last will ship in September rather than October. It offers a 3X zoom lens; a 2.5-inch transmissive/reflective LCD for fighting outdoor glare; 32MB of internal memory plus a Memory Stick Pro flash slot (which must be used for capturing MPEG VX Fine-quality videos); and 10 preset picture-taking modes ranging from Magnifying Glass (0.4 inch) to Soft Snap, ~High-Speed Shutter, Twilight Portrait, and Candle. \n\nTo cap the fall lineup, Fujifilm says it's introducing the first consumer-level digital cameras with 9-megapixel (3,488 by 2,616) resolution. Both the ~SLR-style ~FinePix S9000 and more compact ~FinePix E900 have what Fujifilm calls Real Photo Technology, combining a new image processor with a fifth-generation ~SuperCCD HR sensor and a Fujinon lens for better low-light shooting, higher shutter speeds, and reduced noise at high ISO settings for sharper pictures. \n\nThe S9000, priced at $700, features 10.7X (28mm to 300mm equivalent) zoom; both xD-Picture Card and Microdrive slots; a tilting 1.8-inch LCD; and full manual controls in addition to helpful settings such as ~Anti-Blur and Natural Light that, respectively, combat camera shake and offer more natural colors and skin tones in low-light situations. The chunky, compact ~FinePix E900 ($500) pairs 9-megapixel resolution with 4X optical zoom and Natural Light, Portrait, Sports, Night, and fully automatic modes as well as manual, macro, and movie settings. \n\nThere's also a new ~SLR-style 5-megapixel model, the ~FinePix S5200 ($400), with 10X zoom and manual features including continuous shooting, continuous autofocus, and shutter- and aperture-priority autoexposure. \n

So you want the day off. Let's take a look at what you are asking for.\n* There are 365 days per year available for work. There are 52 weeks per year in which you already have two days off per week, leaving 251 days available for work.\n* Since you spend 16 hours each day away from work, you have used up 170 days, leaving only 81 days available.\n* You spend 30 minutes each day on coffee breaks; that accounts for 23 days each year, leaving only 68 days available.\n* With a one hour lunch period each day, you have used up another 46 days, leaving only 22 days available for work.\n* You normally spend 2 days per year on sick leave. This leaves you only 20 days available for work.\n* We are off for 5 holidays per year, so your available working time is down to 15 days.\n* We generously give you 14 days vacation per year, which leaves only 1 day available for work and I'll be damned if you're going to take that day off.

Copyright 2000, The Los Angeles Times, All Rights Reserved\n\nFriends,\n\nBelow is my Los Angeles Times column for today, Monday, November 27, 2000. As always, please feel free to pass this on, but please retain the copyright notice.\n\nThe column below is sort of old news to people in the computing field, but it's something I had to get off my chest! \nAnd it's generating a lot of supportive e-mail already. Lots of angry users out there. . . .\n \n''DIGITAL NATION''\nNo 'Silver Bullet' for Software's Growing Complexity Industry and society suffer when design bugs eat up worker hours and users who don't get with the program fall behind.\n\nSoftware complexity and its effects on society and the economy is likely to be one of the more significant problems we'll face in the next few decades, and it appears to be getting worse instead of better.\n \nRecently I worked long into the night setting up a digital subscriber line Internet connection and an office computer network for a small nonprofit organization. After wading through a thicket of acronyms such as DHCP and NAT and staring at uncooperative screens for a long time, I called technical support for the Macintosh operating system. Four hours later, we discovered an obscure check-box option that should have been checked but wasn't. After that, everything worked fine -- until the next software glitch a few days later. \n\nThis is an experience increasingly familiar to computer users, and such experiences are having wide and important effects on the economy. \nLast month at the Department of Commerce's Technology Opportunities Program convention in Arlington, Va., keynote speaker Mario Marino, a venture capitalist and philanthropist, estimated that 90% of nonprofit organizations in the U.S. cannot afford to have more than 15 networked computers. The technical-support requirements for more machines are just too expensive. There was no disagreement among the nonprofit managers in the audience.\n\nIn Austin, Texas, where I live, the technical-support ratio in the local school district is about 2,500 computers per tech-support person. The district's ratio means a majority of its computers get no attention at all. One local high school has computers still sitting in boxes, months after their purchase, because no one available knows how to set them up.\n\nAndrew Grove, the founder and chairman of Intel Corp., once joked that at current levels of growth in the tech-support field, early in the new century every person on the planet should be a tech-support specialist. Intel employs more than 5,000 tech supporters. \n\nMuch of this is due to software complexity, program bugs and poor quality in software programming. These all add up to an immense burden on the economy. \n\nCapers Jones, chief scientist for the consulting firm Software Productivity Research in Burlington, Mass., has estimated that " about 60% of the U.S. software work force are engaged in fixing errors which might have been avoided. " Moreover, he writes, for software engineers, "only about 47 working days in a full calendar year are available for actually developing or enhancing software applications." The rest of their time, about 150 days, is spent on testing, fixing bugs and working on projects that are later canceled.\n\nJones concludes in his published paper, "There would probably be no software labor shortage if software quality could be brought under full control."\n\nJones writes, "Much of the work of software engineering is basically 'wasted' because it concerns either working on projects that will not be completed, or working on repairing defects that should not be present at all."\nJones' figures do not even address the vast overhead of tech support and maintenance required within organizations that use even modestly sophisticated computer software and networks.\n\nIn 1986, computer scientist Frederick P. Brooks -- this year's winner of the Turing Award, something akin to a Nobel Prize in computer science -- wrote an influential essay titled "No Silver Bullet." Brooks compared large software projects to werewolves "because they transform unexpectedly from the familiar into horrors." Werewolves have to be killed with silver bullets, according to the legend, wrote Brooks, and so people have searched for a "silver bullet" to end software complexities and difficulties. But there is none and will be none, he said. \n\nOne problem is that software projects begin with a nearly limitless number of possible approaches; on top of that, software has to work with so many different and uncontrollable variables, such as other software, hardware of unimaginable variety and users with wide variations in skills.\n\nOn the user end, repeated experiences with software glitches tend to narrow one's use of computers to the familiar and routine. Studies have shown that most users rely on less than 10% of the features of common programs such as Microsoft Word or Netscape Communicator. It takes a high tolerance for frustration and failure to explore beyond the boundaries of one's own comfort level. This adds to the exasperation of tech-support personnel, who often don't understand hy users are reluctant to venture into the unfamiliar features of a program. It also calls into question how much money and energy we spend on new software features that most people don't use or even know about. \n\n"This is just a national scandal, this problem with software complexity and unreliability," says Leon Kappelman, director of the Information Systems Research Center at the University of North Texas in Denton. "No one should have to put up with computers being so unreliable or so difficult. We don't put up with this with any other product we use." \n\nAcross the country these days, community and national leaders are talking about such issues as the "digital divide," the severe shortage in technically skilled workers, massive investments in education to increase the skills of young people and those willing to be retrained and how high salaries in tech fields are transforming neighborhoods.\n\nBut few people are talking about how to make technology easier to use. There's a universal assumption that people will have to adjust to the rampant, irrational and escalating complexity of a hyper-technologized society -- or fall into the ranks of the losers and the ignorant. This split is likely to characterize modern life in the 21st century.\n\nGary Chapman is director of the 21st Century Project at the University of Texas at Austin. He can be reached at \n\ngary.chapman@mail.utexas.edu.\n\n

// Sorry, but again I have a shortage of articles, So this is another gap filler!//\n\n Deja Moo: The feeling that you've heard this bull**** before.\n\n Our ice cream man was found dead on the floor of his van covered with hundreds and thousands. Police say that he topped himself.\n\n Answer phone message “... If you want to buy marijuana, press the hash key ...”\n\n Our local chemist was robbed last week and a quantity of viagra was stolen. Police say that they are looking for a gang of hardened criminals.\n\n Police arrested two kids yesterday, one was drinking battery acid, the other was eating fireworks. They charged one and let the other one off.\n\n I went to buy some camouflage trousers the other day but I couldn't find any.\n\n My friend drowned in a bowl of muesli. He was pulled in by a strong currant.\n\n I went to a seafood disco last week .... and pulled a muscle.\n\n Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly; but when they lit a fire in the craft, it sank, proving once and for all that you can't have your kayak and heat it too.\n \nThis bloke walks into a public toilet where he finds two cubicles, one is already occupied.\n So he enters the other one, closes the door, drops 'em and sits down. A voice then comes from the cubicle next to him "G'day mate, how are you going?"\n Thinking this a bit strange but not wanting to be rude the guy replies "Yeh, not too bad thanks"\n After a short pause, he hears the voice again."So, what are you up to mate?\n Again answering reluctantly, but unsure what to say, replies "Ahhm, just having a quick poo. How about yourself?"\n He then hears the voice for the 3rd time ..... "Sorry mate, I'll have to call you back, I've got some idiot next to me answering all my questions"

//Member Perce Harpham shares his experience with changing to Woosh wireless broadband Internet connection. He has found it an enjoyable and worthwhile experience ...//\n\nLate last year the frustration level with Paradise on dial-up finally boiled over and I decided to try Woosh. The special was only $198 to start up and the costs of a Woosh modem and phone system were the same as for Telecom plus Paradise but toll calls, both national and international, would be only 10 cents per minute. \n\nThe easily installed user friendly system arrived within 24 hours and the fog descended. The instructions were appalling. The two systems were packaged together with a special insert saying to use the instructions in the phone package and not the modem instructions. This was reinforced by a sticker across modem’s plug for interconnection to say not to remove the sticker until the software had been installed. It emerged, after puzzling over the manual, that if you followed the instructions in the phone system you could not install the modem’s software without removing the sticker. And so on. If I was doing it again I would install the modem first following the modem system instructions. \n\nApparently one is expected to get a signal once the modem is installed and to use the modem software to optimise the signal. No such luck. Contacting the excellent support service resulted in an extension antennae (EA) being sent next day without charge. I find it hard to believe that any significant number of installations can work without this. With the EA I got an erratic signal. Again after talking to the help desk and finding where the Woosh aerial was located I shoved a hole in the wall and put the EA on a window facing the aerial. Result, permanent solid signal. \n\nBy this time there was an even better special on offer at half the initial cost. The help desk readily agreed to credit me $99. The monthly rental has now been reduced another $5 per month and the 256kb ( low level broadband) usage increased to 500 meg per month. You can buy more but we don’t need to do so. \n\nIn the event we are delighted with the service. For less than it used to cost us we can now (when overwhelmed with grandchildren) run 3 machines on the Web ( Woosh specify a router but an old hub works fine) and talk on the phone at the same time. Incredibly even when the monthly limit is reached and the line speed drops to 56 kb this is still the case and the phone quality stays the same. This quality is akin to that on a mobile phone and occasionally it is best to redial but the incidence of this is now very small – Woosh seem to be improving things progressively. Being always on is great and the Web suddenly becomes an integral part of life instead of a constant frustration.

During Win Brendgens' talk on scanning and printing photos, I mentioned some free software I had downloaded some time ago from ~ArcSoft, the same company as one of Win's picture "enhancing" programs. In particular I was thinking of ~PhotoPrinter LE and ~PhotoStudio 2.0 LE.\n \nI went to the ~ArcSoft website after the meeting to see if they were still available and found that the ~ArcSoft site only now offered downloadable "trial" versions of their latest software. I scratched my head for a while and thought I was too late to find them. Later I found my 3.5 floppies with my archived copy of the install files, and so I reloaded them on my PC and reminded myself how good they were (or weren't).\n\n ''~PhotoStudio 2.0 LE''\n \n The install file for this is larger than a single floppy and I had saved the file on two disks, which I had "spanned" with another great little freebee called "~SplitFile". Anyway, I joined the two pieces together and installed the program. Considering its less than 2 MB I think its petty good. The features of the program are fairly full and although there are no automatic features such as "red-eye" removal, there are lots of filters, capability to change brightness, contract and colour saturation, and so on. Figure 1 shows the general screen with the "Effects" menu dropped down and a sub-menu open for "Fine Art" effects. I am quite a fan of "water colour" or "oil painting" effects. They can be particularly effective on landscape photos.\n \nOther effects available just on that menu item are liquid effects, tiling, emboss and motion blur. Followed by fish-eye, cone, sphere, whirlpool, spiral, cylinder and ribbon! All this for nothing, but wait here is more! Another set of features is the ability to blur, smooth or sharpen. These cannot do the impossible on a poor photo but it can be very helpful in some difficult situations.\n\n Finally, a feature of most photo-enhancement programs is the ability to open and save files in various formats. This means that you have the ability to compress files for emailing, reducing the bit depth where it is unnecessary to place 42 bit colour on the web, and so forth. With ~PhotoStudio LE you can open and save in BMP, TIF, PCX, GIF, TGA and JPG formats. GIF is particularly suitable for the web as it has only 256 colours, is compressed to some extent and in some circumstances (not in this case) be provided with some transparency, which is useful if you want background colour to go right up the edge of an irregularly shaped picture.\n \nFigure 2 shows a screen shot with the "save-as" dialogue box open, which lists the file formats and gives there full names.\n\n In addition, this version is TWAIN compatible, which means it will acquire pictures form any TWAIN input device such as a scanner or digital camera.\n \nOne thing, this is quite and old program and it's only 16 bit. It works fine for Win 95 and will even work on Win 3.11 with Win32 installed. However I have it running fine on XP Home.\n\n ''~PhotoPrinter LE''\n \n This is a fun little program. Its primary function is to layout one or more photos on a single large sheet of printer paper, and allow printing all at once. You can mix and match pictures of different sizes and different pictures or all the same! This software has a more "up to date" appearance than ~PhotoStudio 2.0 LE and has a very cheery and colourful interface. There doesn't seem to be much, if any, help but pressing F1 does the usual thing and brings up a simple set of help screens and useful information. See Figure 3 for the usual opening screen, since loaded with 12 different equal sized photos. Along the bottom is a visual display of some picture layouts available. The up and down arrows on the right scroll through a selection of more layouts based on the selection to the left. In this case they are "one-size photos" but this selection can be changed with the double down arrow. The size of the pictures can be changed with the slide button just above the sheet pictures.\n\n The size of the pictures can be changed with the slide button just above the sheet pictures.\n \nFigure 4 shows a screen shot with the preview screen showing the same photo laid out in various sizes, in landscape mode. Notice the small yellow "screen tip" saying Crop Photo - this is because the cursor was hovering over the large button with scissors, and Figure 5 shows the crop screen. The cropping is fairly restricted but can be chosen to show landscape or portrait modes, and various proportions. The bought version of ~PhotoPrinter of course has more features and better control for the user. Picture files of JPG, BMP, TIF, PCD, GIF, TGA, PCX and ~FlashPix can be imported for printing. You have to pay for the full commercial program to get more special effects, TWAIN compliance, album manager and some more image editing. I think this is a great little program, an well worth trying, if only for fun!'\n \n ''Getting a Copy''\n\n As I said earlier, I had no luck with ~ArcSoft website, but just try a Google search for "~PhotoStudio LE" or "~PhotoPrinter LE" and you will get dozens of hits. Search around a bit, and you will find a site form which you can download the freeware. Have fun!\n

A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station.\n\nWe live in a world where noses run and feet smell. Shouldn't it be the other way around?\n\nDo Lipton employees take coffee breaks?\n\nWhat hair colour do they put on the driver's licences of bald men?\n\nI was thinking that women should put pictures of missing husbands on beer cans.\n\nI was thinking about how people seem to read the Bible a lot more as they get older, then it dawned on me they were cramming for their finals.\n\nI thought about how mothers feed their babies with little tiny spoons and forks, so I wonder what Chinese mothers use. Toothpicks?\n\nHow much deeper would oceans be if sponges didn't live there?\n\nIf it's true that we are here to help others, then what exactly are the OTHERS here for?\n\nNostalgia isn't what it used to be.

~STS-121\n\nThis afternoon I was watching - live - thunderstorms on the coast of South America. Isn't technology wonderful?\n\nI've heard that there is a major sporting event on at the moment - some World Cup or something - but I have seen none of it. I've been using broadband to watch NASA live coverage of the ~STS-121 space shuttle mission instead. The coverage has been astounding.\n\nAlthough the resolution of the video isn't great, the ability to watch the shuttle launch live, and to see in real time, pictures from onboard the space station and of the spacewalks, is really quite remarkable - all the more so when you consider that the ISS and Discovery are travelling at 17,500mph and are often on the other side of the planet.\n\nThe NASA website http://www.nasa.gov has all you'll need, with links to multimedia, live video in several formats, TV schedules, and lots of continually updated information about the mission. ~STS-121 has been extended to 13 days, so you should be able to watch the end of it if you hurry - and don't forget that it looks likely that shuttle flights will be more frequent in future.\n\n(Image from NASA website)\n

Don McDonald\n\n The following is a letter by Don McDonald published in the Evening Post a few years ago that Don thought would be of interest to some members.\n\n Letter to the Editor, EVENING POST\n Published, EVG POST, OCT 1, 1993, p. 4, "Speed limits for athletes."\n\n Sir, Limits of Speed.\n\n Sporting academic, Trevor Kitson, predicted in 1984 that "the trend in record-breaking mile runs since the first sub-four-minute mile, 1954, leads to the conclusion that the Ultimate Mile will be run in 1998 in a time of 3 m 46.66 s." (This was the lowest point of a quadratically extrapolated curve fit. New Scientist magazine, 2 August 1984.)\n\n But [already,] the first year after Dr Kitson's statement, Steve Cram set a time of 3m: 46.32s in 1985, which time stood for 8 years.\n\n On 6 September, 1993, Noureddine Morceli reduced the record by [almost] a further 2 seconds. The new time "has taken the World mile record beyond the reach of anyone running at present", averred John Walker, (Post, 6 September 1993.)\n\n Dr Kitson's mathematical study showed that from 1910 to 1984 the reductions in the mile time were steady; "the most striking observation is the remarkable linearity of the graph." The linear graph, though, predicts that the one mile time would be whittled away to zero seconds (the speed of light) by August 2528.\n Predictive speed graph\n\n On the other hand, the quadratic function forecasts that mile times will lengthen after 1998. Both formulas contradict common sense.\n\n But I excelled in modified exponential curves about 9 years ago and I would like to redevelop their suitable application to running records.\n\n In the mean time, the best straight line curve I swivel-led between all the data in the Post graphic shows that Morceli's time is possibly 6-10ths of a second slower than might have been expected in 1993.\n\n A few runners, including Elliott, Ryun (twice), Coe, Cram, and Morceli, were close to a limiting envelope of 'speed versus year'.\n\n Yours faithfully,\n DONALD S McDonald.\n\n (The men's 1 mile track record has been broken 3-4 years ago.)

//William Maher of [[APC Magazine|http://www.apcmag.com]]//\n\n Every day, billions of email messages are sent around the world. Many contain personal information meant only for the people to whom they are addressed: names, addresses, phone numbers and private discussions. Many people don't realise how easy it can be for a third party to read this information, most of the time without your knowledge.\n\n This problem has been brought to light by ongoing discoveries of security holes in popular software. For example, Microsoft has had to deal with a continuous string of highly publicised security holes, some involving its Outlook email browser.\n\n However, it's unfair to suggest that Microsoft customers are the only potential targets for spies. There are question marks over all sorts of Internet security technology, even the digital signature algorithm used to protect credit card details. Hackers have managed to weasel their way into the largest of corporate networks, including Microsoft's.\n\n This doesn't mean that people should start disconnecting their modems. There is usually no reason for anyone to want to tap into your private data. However, it's important to understand what sort of snooping is currently possible.\n\n With the right technical knowledge, it is surprising how easy it can be to pry into other people's affairs online. Indeed, the Internet has the potential to make spying a whole lot easier.\n\n Government intelligence agencies realised this long ago, and suspicion is growing that the Internet is being used for more than we realise.\n\n ''Who's watching who''\n\n Despite their best efforts to keep their activities quiet, intelligence agencies have managed to attract a lot of attention to the spying that can be done online. Take, for example, the case of the US Federal Bureau of Intelligence (FBI) and a small piece of software named ~DCS1000. Don't be surprised if you haven't heard of ~DCS1000; until early this year, the software went by the far more colourful name of Carnivore. Carnivore has sparked a great deal of controversy in the US, with privacy and consumer rights groups calling for all details about the tool to be released. There has even been a congressional hearing to examine the software, during which the FBI was forced to release documents proving that Carnivore exists.\n \n So what is it about Carnivore that has caused so much interest? The tool allows the FBI to intercept and monitor private email and Internet traffic secretly. Targets don't know their ~PCs are being monitored.\n\n Exactly how much data is intercepted depends on the type of warrant obtained by the FBI. For example, the system could be used to record the To: and From: lines in an email address, subject headers, or in extreme cases, entire email messages.\n \n The system consists of a terminal box loaded with the Carnivore software which is then mounted on a rack next to a commercial ISP's network equipment. The software acts as a packet sniffer, filtering all Internet traffic while it looks for certain data such as email messages. The ISP knows the box is there, but the target and other Internet users are none the wiser.\n \n Carnivore has existed for a number of years. Work officially began on a prototype in 1997; and by late 1999 Carnivore was no longer beta software. By mid-2000, there were 16 instances on public record of the system being used; six times in criminal cases and also in 10 national security cases involving suspected espionage or terrorism. The FBI has said that the tool is only ever used to eavesdrop on suspects, not the general public.\n\n Anonymous spies tapping into our email is one thing, but what if they could monitor our every move? What if they could secretly monitor our phone conversations, faxes and emails -- anything transmitted over phone lines or data cables? Some people believe an international spy network codenamed Echelon is already doing this.\n According to much-hyped media coverage, Echelon is a network of spy bases around the world that monitor terrorist activity and other security threats. It's alleged that the main form of surveillance utilises satellite dishes located in Australia, the US, Canada, the UK, New Zealand and elsewhere.\n\n Echelon's capabilities are subject to much speculation. Some sources suggest that Echelon could intercept 3 billion phone calls, faxes or emails every day. It's also suggested that the system sifts through 90% of the world's Internet traffic. As if that's not enough, US divers have allegedly installed wiretaps on data cables under the ocean. Perhaps the most well-known Echelon device is the Dictionary. Data collected through Echelon is supposedly fed through a massive search system that looks for keywords. The Dictionary, as it is known, is supposedly updated continually and used to flag phone conversations or emails that might warrant eavesdropping.\n\n It should be noted that many reports about the network are based on speculation. The US Government won't talk about Echelon, but other countries, including Australia, have admitted to taking part in international electronic spying. The name has certainly sparked fear and paranoia among many people; there is even an Internet site concerning Echelon at echelonwatch.org.\n \n What about government spying efforts in Australia? Is there any evidence that law enforcement and intelligence groups are interested in gaining access to private computer files? The answer is yes.\n\n In January 1999, a privacy group announced that it had obtained a government report on electronic security. The report, Review of Policy Relating to Encryption Technologies, was written in 1996 but withdrawn from sale. Some copies must have slipped through, because years later a university student reportedly stumbled across the document in the State Library in Hobart.\n \n The report revealed a government push to have laws changed to allow the police and other law enforcement agencies to hack into private computers. There was also a proposal to give Australian Federal Police, the National Crime Authority and ASIO power to alter proprietary software, effectively turning ~PCs into listening devices. The proposals became the basis for the ASIO Amendment Act 1999, which gave ASIO the power to tap into private computer systems for surveillance purposes.\n\n Under the new rules, ASIO can use "a computer; or a telecommunications facility operated or provided by the Commonwealth or a carrier; or any other electronic equipment; for the purpose of obtaining access to data that is relevant to the security matter and is stored in the target computer and, if necessary to achieve that purpose, adding, deleting or altering other data in the target computer".\n \n Politicians stressed that they were only modernising ASIO's existing powers, but some people were alarmed by the change. Of particular concern is the clause that gives ASIO the power to add, delete or alter data on remote computers. ASIO is also allowed to conceal the fact that it has been spying on someone's data.\n\n Does ASIO potentially have the ability to pry into the hard drives in people's offices and homes? Not without permission. A warrant must be approved by the ~Attorney-General before any spying can take place. Permission can only be granted if there are "reasonable grounds" for believing the data will substantially assist investigations into a security matter.\n \n How ASIO agents would break into private data systems isn't clear. If there are difficulties, the act allows ASIO to use the help of telecommunication carriers such as Telstra or Optus to gain access to data.\n \n Laws are also being passed in other countries to ensure that carriers can be enlisted to help pry into private data. In the UK, a new law came into effect late last year that allows police with a warrant to sift through a suspect's email and Internet traffic. In some cases, 'black boxes' can even be placed inside ~ISPs, allowing law enforcers to read encrypted messages.\n\n ''DIY spying''\n\n It's not just Echelon and secret agents that you have to worry about. A lot of electronic eavesdropping happens for reasons other than national security -- some Internet users are realising it's possible to do some simple spying themselves.\n \nInternet users can 'bug' email conversations, just like spies used to do in the old days. The technique was supposedly first discovered years ago, but there has only recently been discussion about what this might mean for privacy.\n \n The process of bugging an email conversation is relatively straightforward. First, a passage of ~JavaScript about 20 or 30 lines long is embedded in an email message. In most cases, ~JavaScript is used to help build Web pages, but in this case it is programmed to copy and forward the contents of an email message. The ~JavaScript is also invisible to anyone reading the email message.\n\n With the ~JavaScript embedded, the email is sent to the unsuspecting recipient. That person might forward the message to someone else, along with his or her own comments. Each time this occurs, the ~JavaScript copies the message and sends it to the eavesdropper. In this way, an entire email conversation can be secretly monitored.\n \n It is possible to detect a Web bug if you know what you are looking for; just view the source code of the message and look for any suspicious ~JavaScript. You can even find out where the text is being sent.\n\n This isn't the only way that Web bugs can be hidden in email. Instructions can be inserted telling the email reader to insert a tiny invisible image in the message. When a request is sent to a remote server for the image, other information can be gathered about the victim, including their IP address.\n \n Not all email is affected by Web bugs. The bugs only work in email readers that recognise html-enabled email; in other words, messages that can include elements of a Web page. Even if your email reader can display these Web components, it might not allow ~JavaScript to operate, rendering the bug useless. For example, ~JavaScript doesn't work with Web mail services such as Hotmail.\n\n It is important to understand that most Internet users will never encounter an email bug. Unless someone is determined to discover personal information and happens to know a lot about ~JavaScript, it is unlikely they would ever resort to email for eavesdropping.\n \n Web bugs are just one of many ways to see what's inside another person's PC. Hackers have managed to exploit all sorts of security holes in popular software, and not just Windows. Linux, Unix, Solaris and Macintosh machines are all vulnerable to hacks from Internet snoops.\n \nWith the right contacts, it is even possible to collect tools specifically designed to spy on other people. Back Orifice is possibly the most infamous example; the ultimate 'back door' for spying on someone's PC.\n\n Back Orifice first made headlines several years ago, with startling claims that the tool could be used to monitor remote PCs secretly. Snoops supposedly got complete control over their target PC, including the ability to upload and download files, read everything typed on the keyboard, and capture images from the PC's monitor.\n \n\n Again, most people would be very unlucky to fall prey to Back Orifice, as the program needs to be installed on the machine for it to work. However, it can be hidden or disguised as another program.\n\n IP numbers are often necessary to track someone online, and can be particularly useful when the target uses a cable modem. Dialup ISP customers have a different Web address, or IP number, every time they go online. However, many cable modem users have a permanent IP address, making them a fixed target for would-be spies.\n \n IP numbers are particularly useful to those trying to pry into a server. There are a number of Unix hacking tools that can be used to scan server ports or that try other means of gaining entry to Web-connected machines.\n\n ''How safe are we?''\n\n Many people probably think their data is safest on their office PC; after all, most large companies have firewalls and intrusion detection. However, the opposite is probably true. Computers connected to office networks are accessible to a multitude of prying eyes, often people working within the company.\n \n One of the more invasive spying technologies available to employers is the keyboard logger -- a small piece of hardware designed to connect discreetly to a computer keyboard. The keyboard logger invisibly records everything typed on a PC. There is no software installed and unless the worker closely examines the keyboard connection, there is no indication that they are being monitored.\n\n Software loggers take the spying game a step further, recording everything that happens on the computer screen. This can include which applications are run, by whom and for how long. All the information is secretly emailed to whoever is in charge of monitoring the company's network. Some IT departments in large companies have free rein over virtually all Internet traffic and server activity on the network. That means they can examine which Web sites staff are looking at, what they are downloading, even who they send email messages to. IT staff sometimes even open email attachments to check that bandwidth is not being wasted by adult content or spam.\n \n Telstra staff know all too well that their data can be read by others. Last year, 27 staff were suspended and another 35 issued with warnings after porn was found stored on company servers. Similar incidents have occurred at ~WorkCover and the Australian Bureau of Statistics.\n \n Workers can also be watched automatically using monitoring software. ~NetMaster records the sites each person visits, when they use the Internet, and even where they send email. The program could be used to find out who spends the most time online, who receives the most email, which staff surf the Web late at night, or even who is searching for jobs online. ~WebSpy is a similar program. Both programs are sold to employers who want to cut Internet costs and crack down on staff who misuse company resources.\n\n It's not only employees who are being watched as they surf the Web. There is growing evidence that Web-savvy companies are trying to monitor the activities of Web surfers for marketing purposes. In most cases, Internet surfers are totally unaware they are being watched.\n \n There are two simple techniques used on many commercial Web sites to spy on visitors. The first is the Web bug. Web bugs can be placed on an Internet page and when a person visits that page, the bug records the visit as well as the visitor's IP address and type of browser.\n\n The bug can also request information from cookies stored on the visitor's PC. A cookie is a small file created when a person visits a particular Internet site. That information might include the times the surfer visited the site, but it doesn't include personal details like names or addresses. If you check your hard drive, you might find a cookie for each of the sites you visit regularly.\n\n By collecting data from the cookies on a Web surfer's hard drive, advertisers can build a profile of an individual's Web surfing habits. It's possible for people to contribute to this profile without ever choosing to be involved.\n \n In the US, Internet users have reacted strongly to this snooping, with some filing lawsuits against advertising companies. Last year, Internet advertising company ~DoubleClick even planned to match up anonymous cookie data with real names and addresses. The plan was quickly shelved after public outcry.\n\n ''Corporate spying: who's getting caught''\n\n No-one disputes that large companies and institutions are popular targets for spies, and the problem is increasing.\n \n In November 1998, a computer crime survey involving the Victorian Police and Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu was sent to 350 of Australia's largest companies. One-third of the respondents reported an 'attack' in the previous 12 months and 58% of those attacks were thought to be from outside the company's internal network. In 71% of cases, the most likely cause for the attack was thought to be curiosity.\n\n The Australian Computer Emergency Response Team (~AusCERT), an assistance centre attached to the University of Queensland, claimed to have received reports of 8,197 IT security 'incidents' last year. These included attempts to hack into private data systems, as well as malicious attempts at damage by planting viruses or crashing servers.\n \n Yet only a fraction of intruders ever seem to be caught. Five years ago in the US, laws were introduced to stop trade secrets from being stolen, usually electronically. Media reports say that authorities are yet to charge anyone under those laws for stealing secrets across state borders.\n\n Meanwhile, fears are growing that electronic espionage is increasing. There have even been claims that Echelon has been used to help US companies secure lucrative contracts. French companies have accused the US National Security Agency of spying on their commercial dealings and passing secrets on to US competitors. Similar allegations have been tabled in the European parliament.\n \n True or not, the stories make for great headlines. Data security is a hot topic and has encouraged many companies to investigate data security risks. Corporate consultants such as ~PricewaterhouseCoopers now hire out investigators to deal with hackers.\n \n''Do you have protection?''\n\nKeeping the contents of your PC private requires the use of numerous programs working in concert with each other. In this section, APC takes a look at the main ways you can protect your PC from unwanted intruders. Many of the programs discussed in this article have also been included on our cover CD.\n\n ''Email encryption''\n\n Good encryption is one of the best forms of privacy protection, and this is particularly true when it comes to the Net. When you send an email, it travels through other computer systems to reach its destination. Every computer your email passes through is a potential spot where it can be captured and read. Many of the latest email clients, such as Microsoft Outlook and Eudora, come with basic forms of encryption to guard your mail from observers. For the best protection, you really need to use a dedicated program that uses digital certificates.\n \n One of the most widely accepted and utilised standards is PGP (Pretty Good Privacy). PGP gives every user a pair of 'keys': one to encrypt and one to decrypt data. If someone wants to send you a secure email using PGP, you must provide them with your encryption key (or public key) which they then use to encrypt the message. Your second key is private, and allows you to decrypt emails that have been encrypted using your public key. Without this second key, which is password-protected, no-one can read your emails.\n \n The biggest problem with high-end encryption is that most of the time the recipient needs a copy of your mail encryption software to decrypt your email upon delivery. For email encryption to take off properly, everyone needs to start using it; its biggest shortcoming is that it is mainly confined to privacy fanatics.\n\n ''Cookie washers''\n\n Most people will have heard of Internet cookies. They are small text files that Web sites use to store information on your computer so that it can be retrieved at a later date. These can be handy for many Web users, as they are often used to save personal preferences and mean you don't have to sign in every time you visit a Web page. For example, when you visit Amazon.com and enter your user details, the computer you are using will subsequently be recognised as you (unless someone else signs on using the same machine).\n \n Recently, cookies have been used by advertisers to track individual surfing habits. This information is then used to identify which people are most suited to different ads. One of the most prominent advertisers on the Web, ~DoubleClick, has been threatened with lawsuits over its use of cookie technology to create customer profiles.\n \nThe easiest way to get rid of cookies is to turn them off in your browser. However, the problem with this approach is that many Web sites now require cookies to be turned on for you to view the content.\n Cookie washers allow you to control which cookies your computer accepts and which ones are deleted. Most of them learn by tracking which cookies you accept and reject, creating a profile of their own to combat cookie glut.\n\n Web browsing anonymisers If you want to stay truly anonymous when surfing the Net, a Web anonymiser might suit you better. These allow you to surf anonymously by passing your Net connection through a secondary 'proxy' server. The proxy requests Web pages on your behalf.\n \n Anybody monitoring your Net access will only see traffic to and from the proxy. This means that people cannot monitor your Web surfing remotely, and cookies cannot be stored on your computer permanently, thus keeping your Web habits private.\n \nOne of the main disadvantages of using a Web anonymiser is that you must rely on a secondary server to retrieve the Web pages you visit. This can slow down page loading, especially if you are using a dialup connection.\n\n ''Firewalls''\n \nA firewall is another means of preventing your computer from giving out private data. When you are online, your computer uses ports to communicate with the Web. There are 6,334 different ports, each used for different types of data transmission. For example, port 80 is used for standard HTTP Web surfing and port 21 for FTP servers. Unused ports are often used to gain entry to your PC without your knowledge. Firewalls monitor the ports on your PC and alert you to any unauthorised attempts to transmit or receive data.\n \nAPC recently did a comparative review of the best firewalls on offer. The winning product was ~BlackICE Defender from Network ICE, and Zone Labs ~ZoneAlarm received our highly commended award (see story).\n\n ''Spyware''\n\n A recent development in customer tracking is the use of programs known as 'spyware'. Many downloadable freeware, shareware and trial-version programs contain hidden components which covertly use the Net to send data back to their parent companies without your knowledge. Some of the biggest players on the Net have been caught using spyware, including ~RealNetworks (which has since issued press releases proclaiming a complete turnaround in company policy with regard to the issue).\n\n The Gibson Research Corporation (www.grc.com) is dedicated to online security and privacy, and its freeware ~OptOut program (included on the cover CD) does a good job of finding any spyware programs running on your system. An updated list of spyware is available at www.infoforce.qc.ca/spyware, and a searchable database can be found at www.spychecker.com.\n\n\n

\n''Question: - ''When I send email containing a Web address, the address sometimes breaks over a couple of lines and when the recipient tries to click it, they get an error message in their browser. Is there a way to avoid this? -Tim Gilligan\n\n''Answer: - ''Experienced users will know to copy and paste the entire URL into their browser instead of clicking the broken URL in the email; inexperienced users won't. But sometimes even the copy-and-paste method fails when a hard return gets stuck in the middle of the URL.\nYou can avoid the problem entirely by using ~TinyURL (http://tinyurl.com) or ~SnipURL (http://snipurl.com). Both these services convert long ~URLs into short ones. Clicking the short one sends you to the same site as the long URL, but it's infinitely more manageable. Observant readers will have seen us use ~TinyURLs in PC User whenever we refer to an ultra-long link - it saves you from having to type long and complex links.\nTo use either service, paste the long URL into a box on the ~SnipURL or ~TinyURL page, then click the 'Snip URL' or 'Make ~TinyURL' button. You will be given a link that is much shorter. The new URL is copied automatically to your Windows clipboard so you can paste it into your email message.\n~TinyURL and ~SnipURL also provide an additional, even quicker option: by dragging the ~TinyURL link or Snip This! link onto your browser's toolbar, whenever you visit a page with a long URL, simply click the appropriate button on your toolbar and the long link will be converted to a short one. - Helen Bradley\n\n\n

//(A Genealogical Data conversion Project)\nBy John Hand. (#125)//\n\n ''PART I''\n\n During September, 2001 my genealogy and computing colleague (we are "computing genealogists" or "genealogical computerists"), Gary Black of Roseneath, showed me a Family Descendancy Chart that he had received from a sixth cousin who lives in Kurawao. To produce this chart (refer to Fig. I) Gary's cousin had employed the spreadsheet program contained in MS Works (Version 4). My personal belief is that no computer user in his or her right mind would use any but one of the numerous, specially-written genealogy programs that are readily available for the purpose. In Spread Sheet format the file cannot then be used to produce any of the other forms of chart that every genealogist desires. Some of these are Family Group Record, Pedigree Chart, Family Wheel (Fan Chart), Bow Tie Chart, etc.\n\n Since 1997 Gary had been utilising the genealogy program known as Personal Ancestral File (PAF). This is a very popular genealogy program produced by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS).\n\n Quite naturally Gary's approach to transferring the data from the Spread Sheet file was to sit at his keyboard and to exercise his typing fingers by re-keying (!!!!!) all of the information, one record at a time, into his own PAF file\n\n My suggestion to Gary was that the Spread Sheet file could probably be converted to a GEDCOM file which, due to its very special and precise format, enables a computerist to Import its contents into any Family Tree database file.\n\n GE D COM means ~GEnealogical Data ~COMmunications\n\n A file in this format may be readily transported from one genealogy program to any other genealogy program and also from any type of computer to any other type of computer.\n \nHere is a portion of the original Spread Sheet file as displayed on the monitor screen by the MS Works program.\n [Note : For privacy reasons ALL original names and places have been altered.]\n NIGEL (Cell A29) is the Common Ancestor of all of the individuals whose names and details are contained in the remainder of the Spread Sheet. In total there are over 120 descendants.\n \n Conversion Procedure : Step by Step.\n The following procedure was demonstrated to the NZPCA members who attended the monthly meeting at St Giles Church House on 17th April. Gary Black accepted an invitation to attend.\n\n 1. ''Reduced'' the Spread Sheet file from 13 columns (A to M) to a single column (A).\n Only five columns (A, D, G, J & M) contained names and demographic details of family members. The contents of columns D, G, J & M were moved so that all the important data was then recorded in a single column (A). Then the unwanted data in columns B to M were deleted.\n 2. ''Inserted'' the first three essential GEDCOM tags.\n The left column in Fig. II shows a portion of a GEDCOM file in which each line contains a single item of data about one individual family member. Each item of data is preceded by a GEDCOM tag. Several lines constitute a complete set of data for one individual. Also each tag is identified with a number (0, 1 or 2) in position 1.\n|!GEDCOM File Entry|!*Note No|\n|0 @I001@ INDI 1 |1|\n|1 SEX M | 2|\n|1 NAME MAURICE Mason /BLUETT/ |3|\n|1 BIRT |4|\n|2 DATE 3O Jun 1929 |5|\n|2 PLAC Auckland, New Zealand |6|\n *Notes :-\n#First entry in the set of tags for one ~INDIvidual. It contains a unique Record Identification Number (RIN) enclosed between @ signs.\n#This tag identifies the SEX of the individual. The value may be M, F or U (Unknown). For convenience this entry has been placed before the NAME field.\n#This tag identifies the NAME of the individual. The person's surname is enclosed between forward slashes (/).\n#This tag specifies a ~BIRTh entry. It is followed by two second level (2) tags. The first is for the ...\n#DATE of the event. Every date conforms to the standard format dd mmm yyyy where mmm is a month- name abbreviation - specifically the first 3 letters of the name. The next second level tag is for the ...\n#~PLACe of the event.\n\n 3. ''Inserted'' the INDI tag, the SEX tag and the NAME tag together (for speed and convenience) into the Spread Sheet file in one line. The three will be separated in a subsequent step. Every occurrence of a surname in the single-column Spread Sheet file must now have this treble tag inserted into an empty row immediately ahead of it. In many cases it was first necessary to insert a blank row. A portion of the resulting Spread Sheet file is shown in Fig. III. The hash signs (#) were inserted as place holders for subsequent editing.\n| |\n|0 @I00#@ INDI 1 SEX # 1 NAME|\n|MAURICE Mason /Bluett/|\n|b.3O/6/29; d.3/7/01|\n|0 @I00#@ INDI 1 SEX # 1 NAME|\n|m.Renee V. Saunders|\n|(23/6/56)|\n \n Fig. III\n\n 4. ''Saved'' the Spread Sheet file to a new file in Text format.\n \n5. ''Edited'' this new file using MS Word. The Replace... (Ctrl+H) command was employed to re-format the three amalgamated tags so that each was then on a line of its own. Fig. IV shows the Find and Replace window with the dialog boxes filled in. In the Find what: box the Paragraph mark (^p) following the word NAME is included. In the Replace with: box there is a single blank space (invisible) following the word NAME. The result is that the tag 1 NAME and the name of the individual will then appear on a single line. Also in the Replace with: box the two Paragraph marks (^p) cause the INDI tag and the SEX tag to appear on separate lines.\n \nThe resulting Spread Sheet file will be shown in Part II in a future editon of Megabyte.\n\n

^^[[click here|July]]^^

Type the text for 'Steve Gibson'

Here’s how to get rid of unwanted programs loading and bugging you at startup.\n\n '' 1. Infections in your Windows Start Up folder.''\n\n When junk programs run themselves at startup, they typically do it by placing a shortcut to themselves into your Windows ~StartUp folder, usually located at c:\sWindows\sStart Menu\sPrograms\s~StartUp\s. Usually deleting the startup shortcut and the program it points to, is enough to make it stop bothering you. Note that some programs will keep re-installing themselves into your startup folder no matter how many times you delete them! This is where a dummy executable comes in handy. Replace the program with a dummy executable (copy over the unwanted app), leaving the startup entry intact. This’ll usually trick the installer into thinking it's installed! As an added measure, make the dummy executable read-only.\n\n'' 2. Infections your win.ini file.''\n\n Some junk programs, particularly those that fancy themselves device drivers will put references to themselves in your system's win.ini file. They are loaded by a line in this file starting with either "load=" or "run=", similar to the following: load="C:\sTrash\sApp\sjunkprogram.exe" To fix this, open your win.ini file (normally located at C:\sWindows\swin.ini) in Notepad or another text editor, and delete the line starting with load= or run= that loads your junk application. They are usually near the beginning of the file. Restart the computer, and the application will not load on startup anymore. If you don't want to actually delete the entry (eg. if you are trying to determine which of several entries is the problems), you can instead place a semicolon (;) at the beginning of the offending line. This will make Windows ignore it while giving you the ability to restore it later. Note: Don't delete anything if you don't know what it is. It may be a legitimate program, or a device driver used by your system.\n\n'' 3. Infections in your Registry.''\n\n Been all through your ~StartUp folder and win.ini and couldn't find it? Sometimes a particularly nasty junk program will install a reference to itself, not in your ~StartUp folder (where you'd expect to find it), but in your System Registry. So, if a problem program is running at start-up, and it's not in your ~StartUp folder or win.ini, it's in your Registry. Here's how to get rid of it:\n\n\n (A) Open REGEDIT. It should have been installed when you installed Windows. You can do this by clicking Start > Run, and entering REGEDIT in the box. (Click OK). The Registry Editor window will appear.\n\n You may have heard somewhere that editing the Registry is dangerous. Incidentally, this is why so many makers of adware junk applications place the start-up information here. Many PC users have never heard of the Registry, let alone edited it. The Registry is an important part of your system, so don't go randomly changing things in there if you don't know what you are doing, this is how problems happen, and this is why people tell you that you shouldn't go messing with your Registry. Carefully follow the instructions below and it will be a very safe process. Randomly change/delete lines and you may end up reinstalling Windows.\n\n (B) Once in Registry Editor, press the F3 key to bring up the Find dialogue. Type "~RunServices" in the box. This probably won't find your problem application, but it will bring us to about the right location in the Registry.\n \nWhen the Find completes, you should have a folder named ~RunServices highlighted in the left pane, with several similar-sounding folders (Run, ~RunOnce, etc.) listed nearby. Click on the first one, "Run". The righthand pane will list the applications that run at start-up. Under "Name" will be the program names, and under "Data" will be the path and filename of the program. Look carefully at the list and see if you find the program that is annoying you. If you find it, highlight it and use Edit > Delete to remove it. If you don't see it, cycle through the other nearby Run-like folders (there may be several) and look for them there. Be careful not to delete anything unless you are sure it is your problem application.\n\n (C) If you have looked through all the visible "Run"-like folders and still haven't found the problem application, press F3 again to find the next ~RunServices folder, and repeat the steps above. On some Windows setups, particularly where several people share the same machine, there will be several Run folders. Continue in this manner until you receive a message such as "Finished searching through the registry." You should have found it by now!\n\n (D) Close Registry Editor. The next time you restart your computer, the problem application will not bother you!\n\n Many Adware programs that have one goal and one goal only: To forcibly install themselves on your computer, intentionally making themselves hard to find and harder to eliminate, and annoy you every time you start your computer. Why do these programs subversively install themselves into your computer's Startup files so they continually pester you, over and over, every time you reboot? Usually it is some form of promotion or advertising, it will either install a program that somehow makes someone else money when you use it, or install a small program that will beg you and beg you to install their a program.\n\n The marketeers of Quicktime (video player) use these tactics. That is why I just don’t like it. I question why is it necessary to load this program at start-up? There is no video clips run during the boot sequence. It turns out the application that loads checks that .mov files are still associated with the Quicktime Player, and changes them back if you'd had the courage to select another video player.\n\n Realplayer also uses similar tactics, it automatically downloads, and tries to get you to use a collection of sponsored "channels", represented by flickering ad-banners. The program will also load a "~SmartStart" or more recently, "~StartCenter" application on start-up that will needlessly display the ~RealPlayer logo in your task tray and waste memory.\n \nSome ad-delivery programs sole purposes is to worm their way into your computer and assault you with paid advertising.\n\n//- John Thomson Gella@paradise.net.nz //

By John Little\n\n John Little tells us how to keep spyware at bay with Ad-aware 6 - the latest version.\n\n Ad-aware 6.0 by Lavasoft software is the latest version of this free utility which will scan your computer and identify any spyware components that may be installed. Once located, any offending items can be instantly removed. Ad-aware is compatible with Windows 98/98SE/Me/2000 and XP.\n\n ''What is Spyware and Adware?''\n Spyware uses the Internet connection in the background to send information about your computer and how you use it. Adware brings targeted advertising to your computer and will typically track your browsing habits and send the information to someone else. Trackware cookies record and send your browsing habits and what files you share and with whom.\n \n\n ''How to get Protection''\n You can download the Ad-aware software from the Internet by going to the website address www.lavasoftusa.com The file is about 1.6 megabytes in size and will take around four minutes to download using a 56 Kbs modem. It will be called aaw6.exe. Double-clicking on the file will install the program and place an icon for Ad-aware on your Windows desktop. The Ad-aware program will also be listed on the Start menu under Programs.\n\n ''Scanning your System''\n To check whether you have spyware lurking somewhere in your system, open the program and click the Scan Now button. You are given several options: scan individual folders and drives, customise your scan, or perform a quick system check. However, using the default scanning options is recommended to give the most comprehensive results ; ensure the in-depth scan mode is ticked then click on Next to start the scan.\n\n Ad-aware will proceed to scan your computer's memory, registry and all hard drives for known datamining (information stealing), unwanted advertising, and tracking components.\n When the scan is complete, click on Next and a list of results will appear. It is likely that most of the objects found will be the spyware, adware or 'trackware cookies' referred to above. It is recommended that you tick each check box next to every found object and click on Next. A warning will appear to confirm your deletion - click on OK and the files will be deleted from your system.\n\n ''Restoring Deleted Files''\n In the unlikely event that some important files were deleted, Ad-aware automatically creates a quarantine file that can be used to restore your original settings. To access this backup file, click on Open Quarantine List. To reinstate deleted files, click on Restore.\n\n ''Ad-aware Updates''\n There is provision on the main interface screen to ensure that your installed software can receive any new revisions. Simply connect to the Internet and click on 'Check for Updates'. Ad-aware will automatically download and install any available updates to your system. Two other versions of the software called Ad-aware Professional and Ad-aware Plus claim to offer additional protection - these can also be downloaded, but they are not freeware.\n\n ''My Experience''\n I installed Ad-aware v 6.0 only a couple of weeks ago. Imagine my surprise (horror!) when my first scan using the program identified 62 files apparently containing spyware, adware or 'trackware cookies'. I wasted no time ticking the boxes and deleting them all. After that experience, I intend to re-scan at regular intervals!\n There are a several other programs available offering similar protection. At a recent club meeting two were discussed briefly: Spybot (free) and Spy Hunter (not free). I also discovered Spy Checker at www.spychecker.com I have not tried these yet, but if other members have used any of them it would be interesting to read their opinions in a future issue of ~MegaByte.\n \n

John Little\n\n With the ready availability of MP3 music downloads from the internet these days some of us - myself included - have built up quite large music collections. The music files reside on our HDD’s - unless we are lucky enough to own and use a CD-RW (writeable disk drive).\n\n The downloads are fine, with the audio quality often quite impressive. However a problem can arise if we decide to change computers and hold a collection of favourite music files that we don’t want to lose. If we are planning to dispose of our present PC, how do we transfer our highly valued music files to our new machine?\n\n Being in the process of changing to a newer PC, I was faced with this situatuon. After considering various software programs that move files etc from one HDD to another using a cable, I became aware of a simpler way - and with no costs at all!\n\n It is done by use of a ‘Winamp Locker’. This is a website that will store up to 3 gigabytes of your music. You simply upload them to the site and later download them to your new computer. Winamp claims that no files will be lost in this process.\n\n Their website is http://myplay.winamp.com\n\n As well as storing music, the Locker lets you organise and play your music collection anywhere you connect on the internet.\n This may be of interest to other music fans wanting to move their files to a new PC.

The following are only suggestions for developing a secure password. Please, please do not use these examples! Including them in this document compromises their security.\n\n• Lines from a favourite childhood verse.\n**Example: London Bridge Is Falling Down\n**Password: ~LBif%Down\n• Expressions about a favourite geographical area.\n**Example: I left my heart in San Francisco\n***Password: iLmHiS#F\n**Example: Sunny California\n***Password: suNIc*al!\n• Foods liked or disliked as a child.\n**Example: Fish on Fridays\n***Password: ~FoFda!\n**Example: Chocolate Pudding\n***Password: cHO%dinG\n\nTry substituting antonyms or synonyms for your chosen words or interweave letters and characters from successive words. Ultimately, any password you choose has to be known to you and you alone and must conform to local procedures for constructing passwords.\nFor farther information on this and other security issues, visit the Web at http://securitv.ucdavis.edu/. And remember, ditch those sticky notes!\n\n\n//Lanette Olsen is a technical writer. Doreen Meyer, from IT'S Distributed Computing Analysis Support\n(DCAS), contributed to this ~QuickTip.//\n

/***\nCosmetic fixes that probably should be included in a future TW...\n***/\n/*{{{*/\n.viewer .listTitle { list-style-type:none; margin-left:-2em; }\n.editorFooter .button { padding-top: 0px; padding-bottom:0px; }\n/*}}}*/\n/***\nImportant stuff. See TagglyTaggingStyles and HorizontalMainMenuStyles\n***/\n/*{{{*/\n[[TagglyTaggingStyles]]\n[[HorizontalMainMenuStyles]]\n/*}}}*/\n/***\nClint's fix for weird IE behaviours\n***/\n/*{{{*/\nbody {position:static;}\n.tagClear{margin-top:1em;clear:both;}\n/*}}}*/\n/***\nJust colours, fonts, tweaks etc. See SideBarWhiteAndGrey\n***/\n/*{{{*/\nbody {background:#eee; /* font-size:103%; */}\na{ color: #069; }\na:hover{ background: #069; color: #fff; }\n.popup { background: #069; border: 1px solid #035; }\n.headerForeground a { color: #38a; font-weight:bold;}\n.headerShadow a { font-weight:bold;}\n.headerShadow { left: 2px; top: 2px;}\n.title { padding:0px; margin:0px; }\n.siteSubtitle { padding:0px; margin:0px; padding-left:1.5em; font-weight:bold; }\n.headerForeground .siteSubtitle { color:#38a; }\n.subtitle { font-size:90%; color:#ccc; padding-left:0.25em; }\nh1,h2,h3,h4,h5 { color: #000; background: transparent; }\n.title {color:black; font-size:2em;}\n.shadow .title {color:#999; }\n.viewer pre { background-color:#f8f8ff; border-color:#ddf; }\n.viewer { padding-top:0px; }\n.editor textarea { font-family:monospace; }\n#sidebarOptions { border:1px #ccc solid; }\n.tiddler {\n border-bottom:1px solid #ccc; border-right:1px solid #ccc; padding-bottom:1em; margin-bottom:1em; \n background:#fff; padding-right:1.5em; }\n#messageArea { background-color:#bde; border-color:#8ab; border-width:4px; border-style:dotted; font-size:90%; }\n#messageArea .button { text-decoration:none; font-weight:bold; background:transparent; border:0px; }\n#messageArea .button:hover {background: #acd;}\n[[SideBarWhiteAndGrey]]\n\n.viewer td {vertical-align:top;}\n\n.viewer table.noBorder {border-style:none;}\n.viewer table.noBorder td {border-style:none;}\n.viewer table.threeCol td {width:33%;}\n\n#adsense {\n margin: 1em 15.7em 0em 1em; border:1px solid #ddd;\n background:#f8f8f8; text-align:center;margin-bottom:1em;overflow:hidden;padding:0.5em;} \n\n.sliderPanel { margin-left: 2em; }\n\n.viewer th { background:#ddd; color:black; }\n/*}}}*/\n/*{{{*/\n/* for testing clint's new formatter. eg {{red{asdfaf}}} */\n.red { color:white; background:red; display:block; padding:1em; } \n\n/* FF doesn't need this. but IE seems to want to make first one white */\n.txtMainTab .tabset { background:#eee; }\n.txtMoreTab .tabset { background:transparent; }\n\n.faq ol li { padding-top:1em; font-size:120%; }\n.faq ol ul li { padding-top:0px; font-size:100%; }\n\n#adsenseBox { background:white; padding:1em 1em; border:1px solid #ccc; margin-bottom:1em; margin-top:1em; }\n#adsenseBar { text-align:center; background:#fff; padding:1em 1em; border:1px solid #ccc; margin-bottom:1em; margin-top:0; overflow:hidden; }\n\n\n/*}}}*/\n

/***\n!Colors Used\n*@@bgcolor(#8cf): #8cf - Background blue@@\n*@@bgcolor(#18f): #18f - Top blue@@\n*@@bgcolor(#04b): #04b - Mid blue@@\n*@@bgcolor(#014):color(#fff): #014 - Bottom blue@@\n*@@bgcolor(#ffc): #ffc - Bright yellow@@\n*@@bgcolor(#fe8): #fe8 - Highlight yellow@@\n*@@bgcolor(#db4): #db4 - Background yellow@@\n*@@bgcolor(#841): #841 - Border yellow@@\n*@@bgcolor(#703):color(#fff): #703 - Title red@@\n*@@bgcolor(#866): #866 - Subtitle grey@@\n!Generic Rules /%==============================================%/\n***/\n/*{{{*/\nbody {\n background: #fff;\n color: #000;\n}\n\na{\n color: #04b;\n}\n\na:hover{\n background: #04b;\n color: #fff;\n}\n\na img{\n border: 0;\n}\n\nh1,h2,h3,h4,h5 {\n color: #703;\n background: #8cf;\n}\n\n.button {\n color: #014;\n border: 1px solid #fff;\n}\n\n.button:hover {\n color: #014;\n background: #fe8;\n border-color: #db4;\n}\n\n.button:active {\n color: #fff;\n background: #db4;\n border: 1px solid #841;\n}\n\n/*}}}*/\n/***\n!Header /%==================================================%/\n***/\n/*{{{*/\n.header {\n background: #04b;\n}\n\n.headerShadow {\n color: #000;\n}\n\n.headerShadow a {\n font-weight: normal;\n color: #000;\n}\n\n.headerForeground {\n color: #fff;\n}\n\n.headerForeground a {\n font-weight: normal;\n color: #8cf;\n}\n\n/*}}}*/\n/***\n!General tabs /%=================================================%/\n***/\n/*{{{*/\n\n.tabSelected{\n color: #014;\n background: #eee;\n border-left: 1px solid #ccc;\n border-top: 1px solid #ccc;\n border-right: 1px solid #ccc;\n}\n\n.tabUnselected {\n color: #fff;\n background: #999;\n}\n\n.tabContents {\n color: #014;\n background: #eee;\n border: 1px solid #ccc;\n}\n\n.tabContents .button {\n border: 0;}\n\n/*}}}*/\n/***\n!Sidebar options /%=================================================%/\n~TiddlyLinks and buttons are treated identically in the sidebar and slider panel\n***/\n/*{{{*/\n#sidebar {\n}\n\n#sidebarOptions input {\n border: 1px solid #04b;\n}\n\n#sidebarOptions .sliderPanel {\n background: #8cf;\n}\n\n#sidebarOptions .sliderPanel a {\n border: none;\n color: #04b;\n}\n\n#sidebarOptions .sliderPanel a:hover {\n color: #fff;\n background: #04b;\n}\n\n#sidebarOptions .sliderPanel a:active {\n color: #04b;\n background: #fff;\n}\n/*}}}*/\n/***\n!Message Area /%=================================================%/\n***/\n/*{{{*/\n#messageArea {\n border: 1px solid #841;\n background: #db4;\n color: #014;\n}\n\n#messageArea .button {\n padding: 0.2em 0.2em 0.2em 0.2em;\n color: #014;\n background: #fff;\n}\n\n/*}}}*/\n/***\n!Popup /%=================================================%/\n***/\n/*{{{*/\n.popup {\n background: #18f;\n border: 1px solid #04b;\n}\n\n.popup hr {\n color: #014;\n background: #014;\n border-bottom: 1px;\n}\n\n.popup li.disabled {\n color: #04b;\n}\n\n.popup li a, .popup li a:visited {\n color: #eee;\n border: none;\n}\n\n.popup li a:hover {\n background: #014;\n color: #fff;\n border: none;\n}\n/*}}}*/\n/***\n!Tiddler Display /%=================================================%/\n***/\n/*{{{*/\n.tiddler .defaultCommand {\n font-weight: bold;\n}\n\n.shadow .title {\n color: #866;\n}\n\n.title {\n color: #703;\n}\n\n.subtitle {\n color: #866;\n}\n\n.toolbar {\n color: #04b;\n}\n\n.tagging, .tagged {\n border: 1px solid #eee;\n background-color: #eee;\n}\n\n.selected .tagging, .selected .tagged {\n background-color: #ddd;\n border: 1px solid #bbb;\n}\n\n.tagging .listTitle, .tagged .listTitle {\n color: #014;\n}\n\n.tagging .button, .tagged .button {\n border: none;\n}\n\n.footer {\n color: #ddd;\n}\n\n.selected .footer {\n color: #888;\n}\n\n.sparkline {\n background: #8cf;\n border: 0;\n}\n\n.sparktick {\n background: #014;\n}\n\n.errorButton {\n color: #ff0;\n background: #f00;\n}\n\n.cascade {\n background: #eef;\n color: #aac;\n border: 1px solid #aac;\n}\n\n.imageLink, #displayArea .imageLink {\n background: transparent;\n}\n\n/*}}}*/\n/***\n''The viewer is where the tiddler content is displayed'' /%------------------------------------------------%/\n***/\n/*{{{*/\n\n.viewer .listTitle {list-style-type: none; margin-left: -2em;}\n\n.viewer .button {\n border: 1px solid #db4;\n}\n\n.viewer blockquote {\n border-left: 3px solid #666;\n}\n\n.viewer table {\n border: 2px solid #333;\n}\n\n.viewer th, thead td {\n background: #db4;\n border: 1px solid #666;\n color: #fff;\n}\n\n.viewer td, .viewer tr {\n border: 1px solid #666;\n}\n\n.viewer pre {\n border: 1px solid #fe8;\n background: #ffc;\n}\n\n.viewer code {\n color: #703;\n}\n\n.viewer hr {\n border: 0;\n border-top: dashed 1px #666;\n color: #666;\n}\n\n.highlight, .marked {\n background: #fe8;\n}\n/*}}}*/\n/***\n''The editor replaces the viewer in the tiddler'' /%------------------------------------------------%/\n***/\n/*{{{*/\n.editor input {\n border: 1px solid #04b;\n}\n\n.editor textarea {\n border: 1px solid #04b;\n width: 100%;\n}\n\n.editorFooter {\n color: #aaa;\n}\n\n/*}}}*/

/***\n!Sections in this Tiddler:\n*Generic rules\n**Links styles\n**Link Exceptions\n*Header\n*Main menu\n*Sidebar\n**Sidebar options\n**Sidebar tabs\n*Message area\n*Popup\n*Tabs\n*Tiddler display\n**Viewer\n**Editor\n*Misc. rules\n!Generic Rules /%==============================================%/\n***/\n/*{{{*/\nbody {\n font-size: .75em;\n font-family: arial,helvetica;\n position: relative;\n margin: 0;\n padding: 0;\n}\n\nh1,h2,h3,h4,h5 {\n font-weight: bold;\n text-decoration: none;\n padding-left: 0.4em;\n}\n\nh1 {font-size: 1.35em;}\nh2 {font-size: 1.25em;}\nh3 {font-size: 1.1em;}\nh4 {font-size: 1em;}\nh5 {font-size: .9em;}\n\nhr {\n height: 1px;\n}\n\na{\n text-decoration: none;\n}\n\nol { list-style-type: decimal }\nol ol { list-style-type: lower-alpha }\nol ol ol { list-style-type: lower-roman }\nol ol ol ol { list-style-type: decimal }\nol ol ol ol ol { list-style-type: lower-alpha }\nol ol ol ol ol ol { list-style-type: lower-roman }\nol ol ol ol ol ol ol { list-style-type: decimal }\n/*}}}*/\n/***\n''General Link Styles'' /%-----------------------------------------------------------------------------%/\n***/\n/*{{{*/\n.externalLink {\n text-decoration: underline;\n}\n\n.tiddlyLinkExisting {\n font-weight: bold;\n}\n\n.tiddlyLinkNonExisting {\n font-style: italic;\n}\n\n/* the 'a' is required for IE, otherwise it renders the whole tiddler a bold */\na.tiddlyLinkNonExisting.shadow {\n font-weight: bold;\n}\n/*}}}*/\n/***\n''Exceptions to common link styles'' /%------------------------------------------------------------------%/\n***/\n/*{{{*/\n\n#mainMenu .tiddlyLinkExisting, \n#mainMenu .tiddlyLinkNonExisting,\n#sidebarTabs .tiddlyLinkExisting,\n#sidebarTabs .tiddlyLinkNonExisting{\n font-weight: normal;\n font-style: normal;\n}\n\n/*}}}*/\n/***\n!Header /%==================================================%/\n***/\n/*{{{*/\n\n.header {\n position: relative;\n}\n\n.header a:hover {\n background: transparent;\n}\n\n.headerShadow {\n position: relative;\n padding: 4.5em 0em 1em 1em;\n left: -1px;\n top: -1px;\n}\n\n.headerForeground {\n position: absolute;\n padding: 4.5em 0em 1em 1em;\n left: 0px;\n top: 0px;\n}\n\n.siteTitle {\n font-size: 3em;\n}\n\n.siteSubtitle {\n font-size: 1.2em;\n}\n\n/*}}}*/\n/***\n!Main menu /%==================================================%/\n***/\n/*{{{*/\n#mainMenu {\n position: absolute;\n left: 0;\n width: 10em;\n text-align: right;\n line-height: 1.6em;\n padding: 1.5em 0.5em 0.5em 0.5em;\n font-size: 1.1em;\n}\n\n/*}}}*/\n/***\n!Sidebar rules /%==================================================%/\n***/\n/*{{{*/\n#sidebar {\n position: absolute;\n right: 3px;\n width: 16em;\n font-size: .9em;\n}\n/*}}}*/\n/***\n''Sidebar options'' /%----------------------------------------------------------------------------------%/\n***/\n/*{{{*/\n#sidebarOptions {\n padding-top: 0.3em;\n}\n\n#sidebarOptions a {\n margin: 0em 0.2em;\n padding: 0.2em 0.3em;\n display: block;\n}\n\n#sidebarOptions input {\n margin: 0.4em 0.5em;\n}\n\n#sidebarOptions .sliderPanel {\n margin-left: 1em;\n padding: 0.5em;\n font-size: .85em;\n}\n\n#sidebarOptions .sliderPanel a {\n font-weight: bold;\n display: inline;\n padding: 0;\n}\n\n#sidebarOptions .sliderPanel input {\n margin: 0 0 .3em 0;\n}\n/*}}}*/\n/***\n''Sidebar tabs'' /%-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------%/\n***/\n/*{{{*/\n\n#sidebarTabs .tabContents {\n width: 15em;\n overflow: hidden;\n}\n\n/*}}}*/\n/***\n!Message area /%==================================================%/\n***/\n/*{{{*/\n#messageArea {\nposition:absolute; top:0; right:0; margin: 0.5em; padding: 0.5em;\n}\n\n*[id='messageArea'] {\nposition:fixed !important; z-index:99;}\n\n.messageToolbar {\ndisplay: block;\ntext-align: right;\n}\n\n#messageArea a{\n text-decoration: underline;\n}\n/*}}}*/\n/***\n!Popup /%==================================================%/\n***/\n/*{{{*/\n.popup {\n font-size: .9em;\n padding: 0.2em;\n list-style: none;\n margin: 0;\n}\n\n.popup hr {\n display: block;\n height: 1px;\n width: auto;\n padding: 0;\n margin: 0.2em 0em;\n}\n\n.popup li.disabled {\n padding: 0.2em;\n}\n\n.popup li a{\n display: block;\n padding: 0.2em;\n}\n/*}}}*/\n/***\n!Tabs /%==================================================%/\n***/\n/*{{{*/\n.tabset {\n padding: 1em 0em 0em 0.5em;\n}\n\n.tab {\n margin: 0em 0em 0em 0.25em;\n padding: 2px;\n}\n\n.tabContents {\n padding: 0.5em;\n}\n\n.tabContents ul, .tabContents ol {\n margin: 0;\n padding: 0;\n}\n\n.txtMainTab .tabContents li {\n list-style: none;\n}\n\n.tabContents li.listLink {\n margin-left: .75em;\n}\n/*}}}*/\n/***\n!Tiddler display rules /%==================================================%/\n***/\n/*{{{*/\n#displayArea {\n margin: 1em 17em 0em 14em;\n}\n\n\n.toolbar {\n text-align: right;\n font-size: .9em;\n visibility: hidden;\n}\n\n.selected .toolbar {\n visibility: visible;\n}\n\n.tiddler {\n padding: 1em 1em 0em 1em;\n}\n\n.missing .viewer,.missing .title {\n font-style: italic;\n}\n\n.title {\n font-size: 1.6em;\n font-weight: bold;\n}\n\n.missing .subtitle {\n display: none;\n}\n\n.subtitle {\n font-size: 1.1em;\n}\n\n/* I'm not a fan of how button looks in tiddlers... */\n.tiddler .button {\n padding: 0.2em 0.4em;\n}\n\n.tagging {\nmargin: 0.5em 0.5em 0.5em 0;\nfloat: left;\ndisplay: none;\n}\n\n.isTag .tagging {\ndisplay: block;\n}\n\n.tagged {\nmargin: 0.5em;\nfloat: right;\n}\n\n.tagging, .tagged {\nfont-size: 0.9em;\npadding: 0.25em;\n}\n\n.tagging ul, .tagged ul {\nlist-style: none;margin: 0.25em;\npadding: 0;\n}\n\n.tagClear {\nclear: both;\n}\n\n.footer {\n font-size: .9em;\n}\n\n.footer li {\ndisplay: inline;\n}\n/***\n''The viewer is where the tiddler content is displayed'' /%------------------------------------------------%/\n***/\n/*{{{*/\n* html .viewer pre {\n width: 99%;\n padding: 0 0 1em 0;\n}\n\n.viewer {\n line-height: 1.4em;\n padding-top: 0.5em;\n}\n\n.viewer .button {\n margin: 0em 0.25em;\n padding: 0em 0.25em;\n}\n\n.viewer blockquote {\n line-height: 1.5em;\n padding-left: 0.8em;\n margin-left: 2.5em;\n}\n\n.viewer ul, .viewer ol{\n margin-left: 0.5em;\n padding-left: 1.5em;\n}\n\n.viewer table {\n border-collapse: collapse;\n margin: 0.8em 1.0em;\n}\n\n.viewer th, .viewer td, .viewer tr,.viewer caption{\n padding: 3px;\n}\n\n.viewer pre {\n padding: 0.5em;\n margin-left: 0.5em;\n font-size: 1.2em;\n line-height: 1.4em;\n overflow: auto;\n}\n\n.viewer code {\n font-size: 1.2em;\n line-height: 1.4em;\n}\n/*}}}*/\n/***\n''The editor replaces the viewer in the tiddler'' /%------------------------------------------------%/\n***/\n/*{{{*/\n.editor {\nfont-size: 1.1em;\n}\n\n.editor input, .editor textarea {\n display: block;\n width: 100%;\n font: inherit;\n}\n\n.editorFooter {\n padding: 0.25em 0em;\n font-size: .9em;\n}\n\n.editorFooter .button {\npadding-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px;}\n\n.fieldsetFix {border: 0;\npadding: 0;\nmargin: 1px 0px 1px 0px;\n}\n/*}}}*/\n/***\n!Misc rules /%==================================================%/\n***/\n/*{{{*/\n.sparkline {\n line-height: 1em;\n}\n\n.sparktick {\n outline: 0;\n}\n\n.zoomer {\n font-size: 1.1em;\n position: absolute;\n padding: 1em;\n}\n\n.cascade {\n font-size: 1.1em;\n position: absolute;\n overflow: hidden;\n}\n/*}}}*/

There are now three Free ISP’s, ~ZFree, ~I4Free and ~FreeNet. By using one of these ISP’s (Internet Service Providers) you can surf the Internet for free. But what’s the catch? \n\nIncredibly there isn’t one. So far more than 130,000 New Zealanders are now surfing the Internet for free. A little slower, probably a little less reliable and less functional than Xtra, Clear and Saturn and the other pay ISP’s. But who cares if it’s for FREE.\n \nI personally prefer ~FreeNet, run by Compass Communications as it’s the most advanced, offering both emails and its own newsgroup servers. This means you can access newsgroups directly using newsgroup reader software rather than web browsers. And they use an 0867 number, rather than a local number, which could incur additional Telecom charges.\n\nGetting connected and signed up with ~FreeNet is probably the easiest of all the providers, because you are able to download an install wizard, which configures your computer for you. It is unbelievably simple.\n\nIn fact it’s the quickest and easiest set-up to an ISP that I have ever experienced. After you have connected to ~FreeNet with the ~FreeNet connection wizard you’ll be wondering why your old ISP made you jump through hoops and got you to learn about DNS, Proxy, Gateways, TCP/IP etc.\n\nHere are the steps you need to get FREE access via ~FreeNet.\n#Log onto the Internet via your present provider. Go to "http://www.free.net.nz" (If you are not presently signed up to a provider see note 1.)\n#Click on I want to join now. Then click on "Click here to sign up".\n#Read the material and click again, "Click here to sign up". If you receive a Security Alert click "Yes".\n#Fill in the required information. Note: - the user ID you choose will be your email address. Most common names have been used so if you want to use your name, place a number after your name. I.e. Jack15. When ready click "Next".\n#The information you entered will now be displayed. If something is not correct click the "Back" button and change it. If you are happy click "Next".\n#Click on "Click here for instructions on connecting to ~FreeNet". Note: - click "Yes" if you receive a "Security Alert". \n#Click on the "Download ~FreeNet connection wizard". The installer is small and will only take 2-3 minutes to download at 33kbps. It will automatically configure your dial up Networking connection to ~FreeNet with the optimum setting and create your new FreeNet email account, if you are running Outlook Express.\n#The wizard will now download to your system. Size 357kb. Depending on your system, you’ll be given the opportunity to "Run" the installer. See note 1. Click "Run".\n#Click "Next and then click on the radio button "I accept the terms in the license agreement" and click "Next".\n#Enter your username. This is the name you entered on the sign up page. I.e. Jack15, click "Next" \n#Enter your password and click "Next". The connection wizard, will now set-up your system automatically for you. When the installation of your ~FreeNet Dialup networking is finished click "OK".\nThe next time you log onto the Internet you’ll be able to use ~FreeNet, (which will now be your default) plus you’ll be able to use your previous ISP if needed. And if you choose to stay with your present pay provider, your ~FreeNet account will access your present providers email box. This means you can still pick up your emails from your Pay ISP by using ~FreeNet even if you cancel your account.\n \n''Note 1.'' If you not presently connected to the Internet visit one of the local Internet Cafes and download the install wizard to a floppy disk and run it from the A drive. \n\n''Note 2.'' On some systems the download wizard will download to your Desktop and you’ll need to run it from here. Any problems email me at gella@paradise.net.nz or gella@free.net.nz.\n\n//- John Thomson.//\n

<<tagListPart a-e>>

\nWasn't going to be beaten by the system, hated using the terminal and the it was taking up too much space on my desk, so I decided to use a terminal emulation program on my PC. The emulation program I used is called Mirror which turns out to be very powerful and flexible, the more I use it the more I like it. It came with my Amstrad portable PC three years ago. A terminal emulation program does exactly what it says, it allows a PC to pretend it is a computer terminal and gives you the ability to switch over to the PC functions whilst still connected to the remote computer. Most BBS programs will function as a terminal, after all that is what they are doing when you connect to a BBS.\n\nMirror allows me to program the function keys (F1-F10) to give whatever output is desired, they can be set to output a particular string of control characters or to issue commands to the pc to send a package or perform a dos command. I decided to program F10 to do what F17 did on the terminal.\n\nFirst I had to find out what string was sent when the F17 key was pressed. I requested the manual for the terminal which came very quickly, searched for the key output and after a struggle ascertained that it was Esc [ ~. The last character is called a tilde. Loaded the F10 key up and went on line, of course it was going to work, of course it didn't.\n\nTurned out that Mirror intercepted the tilde and interpreted it as an instruction to delay the next command for one second. I couldn't even put '~' because all it was doing was introducing a series of one second delays, so I was stuck. Then recalled a function in Mirror which would strip off the top bit of characters when sending them up the line. Put in the 8 bit character instead of the tilde, Mirror ignored it and sent it up the line stripping off the high bit and the VAX accepted it.\n\nI now have a terminal which is beginning to behave like a PC. I'll bend the system yet!\n\nSTRIPPING THE TOP BIT\nHere's what I did with the tilde.\nASCII\nCharacter Binary Code Hex Code\nþ 11111110 FE\n~ 01111110 7E\n\nI initially entered the tilde into the code, saved the Mirror file to disk, it saves all the key settings in a table which is easy to edit. Using Xtree I then View/Edited the hex code to change the 7E to FE which as you can see changed the binary code by setting the high bit.\n\nWhen I reloaded the file the tilde had changed to the square block that you see above it. Mirror accepted the block as a character rather than an instruction and sent it up the line stripping off the high bit and changing the code back to the tilde.\n\n

/***\n''Table of Contents Plugin for TiddlyWiki version 1.2.x and 2.0''\n^^author: Eric Shulman - ELS Design Studios\nsource: http://www.TiddlyTools.com/#TableOfContentsPlugin\nlicense: [[Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License|http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/]]^^\n\nWhen there are many tiddlers in a document, the standard 'tabbed list of tiddlers' in the right-hand sidebar can become very long, occupying a lot of page space and requiring a lot scrolling in order to locate and select a tiddler.\n\nThe TableOfContentsPlugin addresses this problem by replacing the standard tabbed list display with a single listbox/droplist control that uses a very small amount of page space, regardless of the number of tiddlers in the document.\n\n!!!!!Usage\n<<<\nTo view a tiddler, simply select (or double-click) its title from the listbox and it will automatically be displayed on the page. The listbox also includes special 'command' items that determine the order and type of tiddlers that are shown in the list:\n\n''[by title]'' displays all tiddlers in the document.\n''[by date/author/tags]'' displays indented sections, sorted accordingly, with headings (indicated by a '+') that can be expanded, one at a time, to view the list of tiddlers in that section.\n''[missing]'' displays tiddlers that have been referenced within the document but do not yet exist.\n''[orphans]'' displays tiddlers that do exist in the document but have not been referenced by a link from anywhere else within the document.\n''[system]'' displays special tiddlers that are used by TiddlyWiki to configure built-in features and add-on macros/extensions. The list includes all tiddlers tagged with <<tag systemTiddlers>> ("templates") or <<tag systemConfig>> (plug-in extensions), plus any 'shadow tiddlers' (built-in default systemTiddlers) that have not been over-ridden by custom tiddler definitions.\n\nThe current list ''display setting is indicated by an arrow (">")'' symbol to the left of command item. Selecting a command item causes the listbox to be reloaded with the appropriate contents and sort order.\n\nWhen you are viewing a list of tiddlers by date/author/tags, ''shift-clicking'' on a section heading or command item causes the listbox display to ''toggle between "show-one-section-at-a-time" and "expand-all-sections"'' display options, allowing you to quickly see all tiddler titles at once without having to view individual indented sections one at a time.\n\nThe ''size of the listbox can be adjusted'' so you can view more (or less) tiddler titles at one time. Select ''[-]'' to reduce the size by one line, ''[+]'' to increase the size by one line, or ''[=]'' to autosize the list to fit the current contents (toggles on/off). //Note: If the listbox is reduced to a single line, it displayed as a droplist instead of a fixed-sized listbox.// You can ''show/hide the entire listbox'' by selecting the "contents" label that appears above the listbox.\n<<<\n!!!!!Control Panel\n<<<\nBy default, tiddlers tagged with <<tag excludeLists>>, are omitted from the TableOfContents so that 'system' tiddlers (e.g. MainMenu, SiteTitle, StyleSheet, etc.) can be hidden, reducing "information overload" and making it easier to select relevant tiddlers when reading your document. However, when //editing// your document, including these hidden tiddlers in the list can be more helpful, so that changes to the menus, titles, styles, etc. can be more quickly accomplished.\n----\n''To include hidden tiddlers in the TableOfContents display, select the following option:''\n<<option chkTOCIncludeHidden>> include hidden tiddlers in TableOfContents(ignores <<tag excludeLists>> tag)\n^^note: this setting is ignored when ''<<option chkHttpReadOnly>> HideEditingFeatures when viewed over HTTP'' is enabled^^\n<<<\n!!!!!Parameters\n<<<\nThe macro accepts optional parameters to control various features and functions:\n* ''label:text''\nReplace the default text ("contents") that appears above the TableOfContents listbox. //Note: to include spaces in the label text, you must enclose the entire parameter in quotes// (e.g., {{{"label:my list of tiddlers"}}})\n* ''sort:fieldtype''\nSets the initial display order for items in the listbox. 'fieldtype' is one of the following pre-defined keywords: ''title'', ''modified'' //(date)//, ''modifier'' //(author)//, ''tags'', ''missing'', ''orphans'', or ''system''\n* ''date:format''\nControls the formatting of dates in TableOfContents display. 'format' is a text-substitution template containing one or more of the following special notations.\n** DDD - day of week in full (eg, "Monday")\n** DD - day of month, 0DD - adds leading zero\n** MMM - month in full (eg, "July")\n** MM - month number, 0MM - adds leading zero\n** YYYY - full year, YY - two digit year\n** hh - hours\n** mm - minutes\n** ss - seconds\n//Note: to include spaces in the formatting template, you must enclose the entire parameter in quotes// (e.g., {{{"date:DDD, DD/MM/YY"}}})\n* ''size:nnn''\nSets the initial number of lines to display in the listbox. If this parameter is omitted or "size:1" is specified, a single-line droplist is created. When a size > 1 is provided, a standard, fixed-size scrollable listbox is created. You can use "size:0" or "size:auto" to display a varible-height listbox that automatically adjusts to fit the current list contents without scrolling.\n* ''width:nnn[cm|px|em|%]''\nSets the width of the listbox control. Overrides the built-in CSS width declaration (=100%). Use standard CSS width units (cm=centimeters, px=pixels, em=M-space, %=proportional to containing area). You can also use a ".TOCList" custom CSS class definition to override the built-in CSS declarations for the listbox.\n* ''hidelist''\nHides the listbox when the TableOfContents is first displayed. Initially, only the listbox label and size controls will appear. Clicking on the listbox label text will alternately show/hide the listbox display. //Note: this setting does not affect the content of the listbox, only whether or not it is initially visible.//\n* ''prompt''\nSets the non-selectable prompt text that is displayed as the first line of the listbox //(note: this feature is not supported by the listbox control on all browsers)//. Let's you include a short text message (such as "select a tiddler"), even when displaying a compact single-line droplist.\n* ''padding:nnn[cm|px|em|%]''\nOverrides default listbox control padding. Sets the CSS padding style.\n* ''margin:nnn[cm|px|em|%]''\nOverrides default listbox control spacing. Sets the CSS margin style.\n* ''inline''\nNormally, the TableOfContents plugin is contained inside a {{{<div>}}} element. This setting causes the plugin to use a {{{<span>}}} instead, allowing for more flexible 'inline' placement when embedded within other content.\n<<<\n!!!!!Examples\n<<<\n<<tableOfContents "label:all tiddlers" sort:title width:40% size:1>>\n<<tableOfContents "label:by date" sort:modified size:1 width:40%>>\n<<tableOfContents "label:tagged tiddlers" sort:tags size:1 width:40%>>\n<<tableOfContents "label:system tiddlers" sort:system size:1 width:40%>>\n<<<\n!!!!!Installation\n<<<\nimport (or copy/paste) the following tiddlers into your document:\n''TableOfContentsPlugin'' (tagged with <<tag systemConfig>>)\n^^documentation and javascript for TableOfContents handling^^\n\ncreate/edit ''SideBarOptions'': (sidebar menu items) \n^^Add {{{<<tableOfContents>>}}} macro^^\n\n<<<\n!!!!!Revision History\n<<<\n''2006.05.21 [2.2.7]'' added onkeyup handling for enter key (=view selected tiddler, equivalent to double-click)\n''2006.02.14 [2.2.6]'' FF1501 fix: add 'var r' and 'var k' to unintended global variable declarations in refreshTOCList() and getTOCListFromButton(). Thanks for report from AndreasHoefler.\n''2006.02.04 [2.2.5]'' add 'var' to unintended global variable declarations to avoid FireFox 1.5.0.1 crash bug when assigning to globals\n''2005.12.21 [2.2.2]'' in onClickTOCList() and onDblClickTOCList(), prevent mouse events from 'bubbling' up to other handlers\n''2005.10.30 [2.2.1]'' in refreshTOCList(), fixed calculation of "showHidden" to check for 'readOnly' (i.e., "via HTTP") flag. Based on a report from LyallPearce\n''2005.10.30 [2.2.0]'' hide tiddlers tagged with 'excludeLists' (with option to override, i.e., "include hidden tiddlers")\n''2005.10.09 [2.1.0]'' combined documentation and code in a single tiddler\nadded click toggle for expand-all vs. show-one-branch\n''2005.08.07 [2.0.0]'' major re-write to not use static ID values for listbox controls, so that multiple macro instances can exist without corrupting each other or the DOM. Moved HTML and CSS definitions into plugin code instead of using separate tiddlers. Added macro parameters for label, sort, date, size, width, hidelist and showtabs\n''2005.08.03 [1.0.3]'' added "showtabs" optional parameter\n''2005.07.27 [1.0.2]'' core update 1.2.29: custom overlayStyleSheet() replaced with new core setStylesheet(). Added show/hide toggle (click on 'contents' link)\n''2005.07.23 [1.0.1]'' added parameter checks and corrected addNotification() usage\n''2005.07.20 [1.0.0]'' Initial Release\n<<<\n!!!!!Credits\n<<<\nThis feature was developed by EricShulman from [[ELS Design Studios|http:/www.elsdesign.com]]\n<<<\n!!!!!Code\n***/\n//{{{\nversion.extensions.tableOfContents = {major: 2, minor: 2, revision: 7, date: new Date(2006,5,21)};\n//}}}\n\n// // 1.2.x compatibility\n//{{{\nif (!window.story) window.story=window;\nif (!store.getTiddler) store.getTiddler=function(title){return store.tiddlers[title]}\nif (!store.addTiddler) store.addTiddler=function(tiddler){store.tiddlers[tiddler.title]=tiddler}\nif (!store.deleteTiddler) store.deleteTiddler=function(title){delete store.tiddlers[title]}\n//}}}\n\n//{{{\n// define defaults for cookie-based option values\nif (config.options.txtTOCSortBy==undefined) config.options.txtTOCSortBy="modified";\nif (config.options.txtTOCListSize==undefined) config.options.txtTOCListSize=19;\nif (config.options.chkTOCShow==undefined) config.options.chkTOCShow=true;\nif (config.options.chkTOCIncludeHidden==undefined) config.options.chkTOCIncludeHidden=false;\n\nconfig.shadowTiddlers.AdvancedOptions += "\sn<<option chkTOCIncludeHidden>> include hidden tiddlers in TableOfContents";\n\n// define macro "tableOfContents" to render controls\nconfig.macros.tableOfContents = { label: "contents" };\nconfig.macros.tableOfContents.cmdMax=7;\n\nconfig.macros.tableOfContents.css = '\s\n.TOC { padding:0.5em 1em 0.5em 1em; }\s\n.TOC a { padding:0em 0.25em 0em 0.25em; color:inherit; }\s\n.TOCList { width: 100%; font-size:8pt; margin:0em; }\s\n';\n\nconfig.macros.tableOfContents.html = '\s\n<div style="text-align:right">\s\n <span style="float:left">\s\n <a href="JavaScript:;" id="TOCMenu" style="padding: 0em;"\s\n onclick="onClickTOCMenu(this)" title="show/hide table of contents">%label%</a>\s\n </span>\s\n <a href="JavaScript:;" id="TOCSmaller" style="display:inline"\s\n onclick="resizeTOC(this)" title="reduce list size">&#150;</a>\s\n <a href="JavaScript:;" id="TOCLarger"style="display:inline"\s\n onclick="resizeTOC(this)" title="increase list size">+</a>\s\n <a href="JavaScript:;" id="TOCMaximize"style="display:inline"\s\n onclick="resizeTOC(this)" title="maximize/restore list size">=</a>\s\n</div>\s\n';\n\nconfig.macros.tableOfContents.handler = function(place,macroName,params) { \n var parsedParams = new Array();\n parsedParams['label']=this.label;\n parsedParams['inline']=false;\n while (params.length>0) {\n if (params[0]=="label:none")\n parsedParams['label']="";\n else if (params[0].substr(0,6)=="label:")\n parsedParams['label']=params[0].substr(6);\n if (params[0].substr(0,7)=="prompt:")\n parsedParams['prompt']=params[0].substr(7);\n if (params[0].substr(0,8)=="padding:")\n parsedParams['padding']=params[0].substr(8);\n if (params[0].substr(0,7)=="margin:")\n parsedParams['margin']=params[0].substr(7);\n if (params[0].substr(0,5)=="sort:")\n parsedParams['sortby']=params[0].substr(5);\n if (params[0].substr(0,5)=="date:")\n parsedParams['date']=params[0].substr(5);\n if ((params[0]=="size:auto")||(params[0]=="size:0"))\n parsedParams['autosize']=true;\n else if (params[0] && (params[0].substr(0,5)=="size:"))\n parsedParams['requestedSize']=params[0].substr(5);\n if (params[0].substr(0,6)=="width:")\n parsedParams['width']=params[0].substr(6);\n if (params[0]=="hidelist")\n parsedParams['hidelist']=true;\n if (params[0]=="inline")\n parsedParams['inline']=true;\n params.shift(); \n }\n setStylesheet(config.macros.tableOfContents.css,"tableOfContents");\n var newTOC=createTiddlyElement(place,parsedParams['inline']?"span":"div",null,"TOC",null)\n if (parsedParams['margin']) { newTOC.style.margin=parsedParams['margin']; }\n if (parsedParams['padding']) { newTOC.style.padding=parsedParams['padding']; }\n if (parsedParams['label']!="") newTOC.innerHTML=config.macros.tableOfContents.html.replace(/%label%/,parsedParams['label']);\n var newTOCList=createTOCList(newTOC,parsedParams)\n refreshTOCList(newTOCList);\n store.addNotification(null,reloadTOCLists); // reload listbox after every tiddler change\n}\n\n// IE needs explicit global scoping for functions/vars called from browser events\nwindow.onChangeTOCList=onChangeTOCList;\nwindow.onClickTOCList=onClickTOCList;\nwindow.onDblClickTOCList=onDblClickTOCList;\nwindow.reloadTOCLists=reloadTOCLists;\nwindow.refreshTOCList=refreshTOCList;\nwindow.onClickTOCMenu=onClickTOCMenu;\nwindow.resizeTOC=resizeTOC;\n \nfunction createTOCList(place,params)\n{\n var theList = createTiddlyElement(place,"select",null,"TOCList",params['prompt'])\n theList.onchange=onChangeTOCList;\n theList.onclick=onClickTOCList;\n theList.ondblclick=onDblClickTOCList;\n theList.onkeyup=onKeyUpTOCList;\n theList.style.display=config.options.chkTOCShow ? "block" : "none" ;\n theList.sortBy=config.options.txtTOCSortBy;\n theList.dateFormat="DD MMM YYYY";\n theList.requestedSize=config.options.txtTOCListSize;\n theList.expandall=false;\n if (params['sortby'])\n { theList.sortBy=params['sortby']; theList.noSortCookie=true; }\n if (params['date'])\n { theList.dateFormat=params['date']; }\n if (params['autosize'])\n { theList.autosize=true; theList.noSizeCookie=true; }\n if (params['requestedSize'])\n { theList.requestedSize=params['requestedSize']; theList.noSizeCookie=true; }\n if (params['width'])\n { theList.style.width=params['width']; }\n if (params['hidelist'])\n { theList.style.display ="none" ; theList.noShowCookie=true; }\n if (params['expandall'])\n { theList.expandall=true; }\n return theList;\n}\n\nfunction onChangeTOCList()\n{\n var thisTiddler=this.options[this.selectedIndex].value;\n if ((this.size==1)&&(thisTiddler!='')) story.displayTiddler(null,thisTiddler,1);\n refreshTOCList(this);\n return false;\n}\n\nfunction onClickTOCList(e)\n{\n\n if (!e) var e = window.event;\n if (this.size==1)\n return; // don't toggle display for droplist\n if (e.shiftKey)\n { this.expandall=!this.expandall; refreshTOCList(this);}\n e.cancelBubble = true; if (e.stopPropagation) e.stopPropagation();\n return true;\n}\n\nfunction onDblClickTOCList(e)\n{\n if (!e) var e = window.event;\n var thisTiddler=this.options[this.selectedIndex].value;\n if (thisTiddler!='') story.displayTiddler(null,thisTiddler,1);\n e.cancelBubble = true; if (e.stopPropagation) e.stopPropagation();\n return false;\n}\n\nfunction onKeyUpTOCList(e)\n{\n if (!e) var e = window.event;\n if (e.keyCode!=13) return true;\n var thisTiddler=this.options[this.selectedIndex].value;\n if (thisTiddler!='') story.displayTiddler(null,thisTiddler,1);\n e.cancelBubble = true; if (e.stopPropagation) e.stopPropagation();\n return false;\n}\n\nfunction reloadTOCLists()\n{\n var all=document.all? document.all : document.getElementsByTagName("*");\n for (var i=0; i<all.length; i++)\n if (all[i].className=="TOCList")\n { all[i].selectedIndex=-1; refreshTOCList(all[i]); }\n}\n\nfunction refreshTOCList(theList)\n{\n // DEBUG var starttime=new Date();\n var selectedIndex = theList.selectedIndex;\n if (selectedIndex==-1) selectedIndex=0;\n var sortBy = theList.sortBy;\n var showHidden = config.options.chkTOCIncludeHidden\n && !(config.options.chkHttpReadOnly && readOnly);\n\n if (selectedIndex==0) sortBy=theList.sortBy; // "nnn tiddlers" heading\n if (selectedIndex==1) sortBy='title';\n if (selectedIndex==2) sortBy='modified';\n if (selectedIndex==3) sortBy='modifier';\n if (selectedIndex==4) sortBy='tags';\n if (selectedIndex==5) sortBy='missing';\n if (selectedIndex==6) sortBy='orphans';\n if (selectedIndex==7) sortBy='system';\n if (selectedIndex>config.macros.tableOfContents.cmdMax)\n {\n if (theList.options[theList.selectedIndex].value=='')\n expandTOC(theList);\n return;\n }\n theList.sortBy = sortBy;\n if (!theList.noSortCookie)\n { config.options.txtTOCSortBy=sortBy; saveOptionCookie("txtTOCSortBy"); }\n\n // get the list of tiddlers and filter out 'hidden' tiddlers (i.e., tagged with "excludeLists")\n var tiddlers = [];\n switch (sortBy) {\n case "missing":\n tiddlers = store.getMissingLinks();\n break;\n case "tags":\n tiddlers = store.getTags();\n break;\n case "orphans":\n var titles = store.getOrphans();\n for (var t = 0; t < titles.length; t++)\n if (showHidden || store.getTiddler(titles[t]).tags.find("excludeLists")==null)\n tiddlers.push(titles[t]);\n break;\n case "system":\n var temp = store.getTaggedTiddlers("systemTiddlers");\n for (var t = 0; t < temp.length; t++)\n if (showHidden || temp[t].tags.find("excludeLists")==null)\n tiddlers.pushUnique(temp[t].title,true);\n var temp = store.getTaggedTiddlers("systemConfig");\n for (var t = 0; t < temp.length; t++)\n if (showHidden || temp[t].tags.find("excludeLists")==null)\n tiddlers.pushUnique(temp[t].title,true);\n for (var t in config.shadowTiddlers) tiddlers.pushUnique(t,true);\n tiddlers.sort();\n break;\n default:\n var temp = store.getTiddlers(sortBy);\n for (var t = 0; t < temp.length; t++)\n if (showHidden || temp[t].tags.find("excludeLists")==null)\n tiddlers.push(temp[t]);\n }\n\n // clear current list contents\n while (theList.length > 0) { theList.options[0] = null; }\n theList.saved=null;\n\n // add heading and control items to list\n var i=0;\n var theHeading=tiddlers.length+' tiddlers:';\n if (sortBy=='missing') theHeading=tiddlers.length+' missing tiddlers:';\n if (sortBy=='orphans') theHeading=tiddlers.length+' orphaned tiddlers:';\n if (sortBy=='tags') theHeading=tiddlers.length+' tags:';\n if (sortBy=='system') theHeading=tiddlers.length+' system tiddlers:';\n var indent=String.fromCharCode(160)+String.fromCharCode(160);\n var sel=">";\n theList.options[i++]=new Option(theHeading,'',false,false);\n theList.options[i++]=new Option(((sortBy=="title")?sel:indent)+' [by title]','',false,false);\n theList.options[i++]=new Option(((sortBy=="modified")?sel:indent)+' [by date]','',false,false);\n theList.options[i++]=new Option(((sortBy=="modifier")?sel:indent)+' [by author]','',false,false);\n theList.options[i++]=new Option(((sortBy=="tags")?sel:indent)+' [by tags]','',false,false);\n theList.options[i++]=new Option(((sortBy=="missing")?sel:indent)+' [missing]','',false,false);\n theList.options[i++]=new Option(((sortBy=="orphans")?sel:indent)+' [orphans]','',false,false);\n theList.options[i++]=new Option(((sortBy=="system")?sel:indent)+' [system]','',false,false);\n // output the tiddler list\n switch(sortBy)\n {\n case "title":\n for (var t = 0; t < tiddlers.length; t++)\n theList.options[i++] = new Option(tiddlers[t].title,tiddlers[t].title,false,false);\n break;\n case "modified":\n // sort descending for newest date first\n tiddlers.sort(function (a,b) {if(a['modified'] == b['modified']) return(0); else return (a['modified'] > b['modified']) ? -1 : +1; });\n // continue with same logic as for 'modifier'...\n case "modifier":\n var lastSection = "";\n for (var t = 0; t < tiddlers.length; t++)\n {\n var tiddler = tiddlers[t];\n var theSection = "";\n if (sortBy=="modified") theSection = tiddler.modified.formatString(theList.dateFormat);\n if (sortBy=="modifier") theSection = tiddler.modifier;\n if (theSection != lastSection)\n {\n theList.options[i++] = new Option('+ '+theSection,"",false,false);\n lastSection = theSection;\n }\n theList.options[i++] = new Option(indent+indent+tiddler.title,tiddler.title,false,false);\n }\n expandTOC(theList);\n break;\n case "tags":\n // tagged tiddlers, by tag\n var tagcount=0;\n var lastTag = null;\n for (var t = 0; t < tiddlers.length; t++) // actually a list of tags, not tiddlers...\n {\n var theTag = tiddlers[t][0];\n var tagged = new Array();\n var temp = store.getTaggedTiddlers(theTag);\n for(var r=0; r<temp.length; r++)\n if (showHidden || temp[r].tags.find("excludeLists")==null)\n tagged.push(temp[r]);\n if (tagged.length)\n {\n tagcount++;\n theList.options[i++]= new\n Option('+ '+theTag+" ("+tagged.length+")","",false,false);\n for(var r=0; r<tagged.length; r++)\n theList.options[i++] = new\n Option(indent+indent+tagged[r].title,tagged[r].title,false,false);\n }\n }\n // count untagged tiddlers\n var temp = store.getTiddlers("title");\n var c=0; for (var r=0; r<temp.length;r++) if (!temp[r].tags.length) c++;\n // create 'pseudo-tag' listing untagged tiddlers (if any)\n if (c>0)\n {\n theList.options[i++] = new Option("+ untagged ("+c+")","",false,false);\n for (var r=0; r<temp.length;r++) if (!temp[r].tags.length)\n theList.options[i++] = new\n Option(indent+indent+temp[r].title,temp[r].title,false,false);\n }\n theList.options[0].text=tagcount+' tags:';\n expandTOC(theList);\n break;\n case "missing":\n case "orphans":\n case "system":\n for (var t = 0; t < tiddlers.length; t++)\n theList.options[i++] = new Option(tiddlers[t],tiddlers[t],false,false);\n break;\n }\n theList.selectedIndex=selectedIndex; // select current control item\n theList.size = (theList.autosize)?theList.options.length:theList.requestedSize;\n // DEBUG var endtime=new Date();\n // DEBUG alert("refreshTOC() elapsed time: "+(endtime-starttime)+" msec");\n}\n\n// show/hide branch of TOCList based on current selection\nfunction expandTOC(theList)\n{\n var selectedIndex = theList.selectedIndex;\n if (selectedIndex==-1) selectedIndex=0;\n var sortBy = theList.sortBy;\n\n // don't collapse/expand list for alpha-sorted "flatlist" TOC contents\n if ((sortBy=="title")||(sortBy=="missing")||(sortBy=="orphans")||(sortBy=="system"))\n return;\n // or list control items\n if ((selectedIndex>0)&&(selectedIndex<=config.macros.tableOfContents.cmdMax))\n return;\n\n var theText = theList.options[selectedIndex].text;\n var theValue = theList.options[selectedIndex].value;\n // save fully expanded list contents (if not already saved)\n if (!theList.saved)\n {\n theList.saved = new Array();\n for (var i=0; i < theList.length; i++)\n {\n opt = theList.options[i];\n theList.saved[i] = new Option(opt.text, opt.value, opt.defaultSelected, opt.selected);\n }\n }\n // clear current list contents\n while (theList.length > 0) { theList.options[0] = null; }\n\n // put back all items \n if (theList.expandall)\n {\n var i=0;\n for (var t=0; t<theList.saved.length; t++)\n {\n var opt=theList.saved[t];\n theList.options[i++] = new Option(opt.text,opt.value,opt.defaultSelected,opt.selected);\n if (opt.text==theText) selectedIndex=i-1;\n }\n theList.selectedIndex = selectedIndex;\n theList.size = (theList.autosize)?theList.options.length:theList.requestedSize;\n return;\n }\n\n // put back heading items until item text matches current selected heading\n var i=0;\n for (var t=0; t<theList.saved.length; t++)\n {\n var opt=theList.saved[t];\n if (opt.value=='')\n theList.options[i++] = new Option(opt.text,opt.value,opt.defaultSelected,opt.selected);\n if (opt.text==theText)\n break;\n }\n selectedIndex=i-1; // this is the NEW index of the current selected heading\n // put back items with value!='' until value==''\n for ( t++; t<theList.saved.length; t++)\n {\n var opt=theList.saved[t];\n if (opt.value!='')\n theList.options[i++] = new Option(opt.text,opt.value,opt.defaultSelected,opt.selected);\n if (opt.value=='')\n break;\n }\n // put back remaining items with value==''\n for ( ; t<theList.saved.length; t++)\n {\n var opt=theList.saved[t];\n if (opt.value=='')\n theList.options[i++] = new Option(opt.text,opt.value,opt.defaultSelected,opt.selected);\n }\n theList.selectedIndex = selectedIndex;\n theList.size = (theList.autosize)?theList.options.length:theList.requestedSize;\n}\n\n// these functions process clicks on the 'control links' that are displayed above the listbox\nfunction getTOCListFromButton(which)\n{\n var theList = null;\n switch (which.id)\n {\n case 'TOCMenu':\n var theSiblings = which.parentNode.parentNode.parentNode.childNodes;\n var thePlace=which.parentNode.parentNode.parentNode.parentNode.parentNode.id;\n break;\n case 'TOCSmaller':\n case 'TOCLarger':\n case 'TOCMaximize':\n var theSiblings = which.parentNode.parentNode.childNodes;\n var thePlace=which.parentNode.parentNode.parentNode.parentNode.id;\n break;\n }\n for (var k=0; k<theSiblings.length; k++)\n if (theSiblings[k].className=="TOCList") { theList=theSiblings[k]; break; }\n // DEBUG if (theList) alert('found '+theList.className+' for '+which.id+' button in '+thePlace);\n return theList;\n}\n\nfunction onClickTOCMenu(which)\n{\n var theList=getTOCListFromButton(which);\n if (!theList) return;\n var opening = theList.style.display=="none";\n if(config.options.chkAnimate)\n anim.startAnimating(new Slider(theList,opening,false,"none"));\n else\n theList.style.display = opening ? "block" : "none" ;\n if (!theList.noShowCookie)\n { config.options.chkTOCShow = opening; saveOptionCookie("chkTOCShow"); }\n return(false);\n}\n\nfunction resizeTOC(which)\n{\n var theList=getTOCListFromButton(which);\n if (!theList) return;\n\n var size = theList.size;\n if (theList.style.display=="none") // make sure list is visible\n if(config.options.chkAnimate)\n anim.startAnimating(new Slider(theList,true,false,"none"));\n else\n theList.style.display = "block" ;\n switch (which.id)\n {\n case 'TOCSmaller': // decrease current listbox size\n if (theList.autosize) { theList.autosize=false; size=config.options.txtTOCListSize; }\n if (size==1) break;\n size -= 1; // shrink by one line\n theList.requestedSize = theList.size = size;\n break;\n case 'TOCLarger': // increase current listbox size\n if (theList.autosize) { theList.autosize=false; size=config.options.txtTOCListSize; }\n if (size>=theList.options.length) break;\n size += 1; // grow by one line\n theList.requestedSize = theList.size = size;\n break;\n case 'TOCMaximize': // toggle autosize\n theList.autosize = (theList.size!=theList.options.length);\n theList.size = (theList.autosize)?theList.options.length:theList.requestedSize;\n break;\n }\n if (!theList.noSizeCookie && !theList.autosize)\n { config.options.txtTOCListSize=size; saveOptionCookie("txtTOCListSize"); }\n}\n//}}}\n

/***\n''Plugin:'' Tag Cloud Macro\n''Author:'' Clint Checketts\n''Source URL:''\n\n!Usage\n<<tagCloud>>\n\n!Code\n***/\n//{{{\nversion.extensions.tagCloud = {major: 1, minor: 0 , revision: 0, date: new Date(2006,2,04)};\n//Created by Clint Checketts, contributions by Jonny Leroy and Eric Shulman\n\nconfig.macros.tagCloud = {\n noTags: "No tag cloud created because there are no tags.",\n tooltip: "%1 tiddlers tagged with '%0'"\n};\n\nconfig.macros.tagCloud.handler = function(place,macroName,params) {\n \nvar tagCloudWrapper = createTiddlyElement(place,"div",null,"tagCloud",null);\n\nvar tags = store.getTags();\nfor (var t=0; t<tags.length; t++) {\n for (var p=0;p<params.length; p++) if (tags[t][0] == params[p]) tags[t][0] = "";\n}\n\n if(tags.length == 0) \n createTiddlyElement(tagCloudWrapper,"span",null,null,this.noTags);\n //Findout the maximum number of tags\n var mostTags = 0;\n for (var t=0; t<tags.length; t++) if (tags[t][0].length > 0){\n if (tags[t][1] > mostTags) mostTags = tags[t][1];\n }\n //divide the mostTags into 4 segments for the 4 different tagCloud sizes\n var tagSegment = mostTags / 4;\n\n for (var t=0; t<tags.length; t++) if (tags[t][0].length > 0){\n var tagCloudElement = createTiddlyElement(tagCloudWrapper,"span",null,null,null);\n tagCloudWrapper.appendChild(document.createTextNode(" "));\n var theTag = createTiddlyButton(tagCloudElement,tags[t][0],this.tooltip.format(tags[t]),onClickTag,"tagCloudtag tagCloud" + (Math.round(tags[t][1]/tagSegment)+1));\n theTag.setAttribute("tag",tags[t][0]);\n }\n\n};\n\nsetStylesheet(".tagCloud span{height: 1.8em;margin: 3px;}.tagCloud1{font-size: 1.2em;}.tagCloud2{font-size: 1.4em;}.tagCloud3{font-size: 1.6em;}.tagCloud4{font-size: 1.8em;}.tagCloud5{font-size: 1.8em;font-weight: bold;}","tagCloudsStyles");\n//}}}

Picking The Mouse Or Trackball That’s Right For You & Making It Work\nby Lori Robison. http://www.smartcomputing.com\n\n Imagine performing all your computing tasks without the benefit of a mouse or trackball, and you can begin to appreciate just how much computer users have come to rely on these small, ubiquitous pointing devices. To help you get the most from them, we’ve outlined a few things to keep in mind when choosing and caring for your mouse or trackball.\n\n Before You Buy\n Although many mice and trackballs come with both USB (Universal Serial Bus) and PS/2 connectors, some models come with just one or the other. Be sure you know which variety you need before you buy.\n\n If desktop space is tight, keep in mind that trackballs remain stationary and don’t require extra space for mousepads. Also, because trackballs let you move your Windows pointer with a finger or a thumb instead of an entire hand and arm, some users find trackballs less taxing for extended use.\n\n For even greater comfort, consider an ergonomic mouse or trackball. Ergonomic devices can help alleviate strain on tired, aching hand and wrist muscles. We would offer one caveat, however; some, like Logitech’s MouseMan Wheel mice, fit comfortably into the palm of your right hand in its relaxed, slightly cupped state. This makes them great for most users but disqualifies them for use by left-handers.\n\n Cordless mice can reduce the number of wires around your desktop. There are two categories of cordless mice: IR (infrared) and RF (radio frequency) devices. IR devices are often cheaper than their RF counterparts, but many of them require a clear line of sight to their receivers to function properly (like a TV remote control), unlike RF mice that can face away from their receivers and still work smoothly Performance\n If you’re having trouble with mouse or trackball accuracy, you may need to adjust its speed setting. In some cases you can do this using the software that came with your mouse. Otherwise, you can use the Mouse Properties dialog box in Windows’ Control Panel. Click the Start button, point to Settings, and click Control Panel. Click the Mouse icon, then click either the Motion tab or the Pointer Options tab, adjust according to preference, and click OK.\n\n Sometimes control problems are the result of sluggish, erratic pointer movement. This may mean that your mouse or trackball is wearing out, or it might just mean a good cleaning is in order. Remove your device’s ball (your user’s manual may offer some help with this) and gently clean it and its cradle with a cotton swab and some rubbing alcohol or tap water.\n\n While we’re on the subject of dirt and particle buildup, one type of pointing device is immune to such problems. Optical mice and trackballs use solid-state electronic sensors instead of moving parts to move your pointer, so although they cost a bit more, they will most likely last longer.\n\n Features & Settings\n Left-handed users can set the buttons on most mice to perform the opposites of their usual functions. Open Windows’ Control Panel, click the Mouse icon, and click the Buttons tab in the Mouse Properties dialog box. Click the Left-Handed radio button in the Button Configuration area and click OK.\n by Lori Robison\n http://www.smartcomputing.com\n

//From the NZPCA production of "Early Times with your PC"// \n\n//Most of the information in this article refers to the DOS based PC's. and is still relevant on Window based PCs.// \n\nTaming a computer's hard drive amounts to little more than a dose of preventive medicine against those things that usurp the disk's power. \n\nAs the number of files on a hard drive increases, disk access speeds decline and it becomes harder to find and organise files. Furthermore, data files files tend to fragment or split over time, meaning that the data in a single file becomes stored at several locations on the disk. Though this doesn't make it harder to find files, or cause reliability problems, it dramatically slows access speed because the hard drive head (the disk's slowest moving part) must move farther across the disk in order to retrieve file. Another reason why the hard disk speed suffers is that the disk head must take more time to read the File Allocation Table (FAT table), which stores the location of every piece of data residing on the disk. \n\nA five step process of backing up, deleting unneeded data, organising the remaining data, eliminating fragmented files and developing searching techniques, can go a long way towards preventing problems. (For obvious reasons the first four steps should be performed in order.) \n\n''Backup'' \nBacking up a hard disk is a process which comes hand in hand with the purchase of the disk. Back up should always be the first step when you delete or rearrange data on a hard disk. The chances of accidentally deleting important files are too great to not have backed up before you begin. It is prudent to have a back-up routine that's followed regularly; which involves more than one set of back up disks and to use a recognised, well tested commercial back-up program. \n\n''Deleting Unneeded Files'' \nWith your disk backed up, purge the hard disk of unneeded data files, applications, directories and sub-directories. (Even empty directories take up a minimum of 2k. It also makes it easier to remember where you or the program places your data. ) Be ruthless. The easiest way to delete files is by using a program like ~XtreePro, DOS's Shell or ~PCTools. (Later programs are File manager on Windows3.x or Explorer on Windows 95) \n\nIf DOS is used to delete files, don't forget its wilds-card characters * and ?, which enables the user to remove more than one file with one single command. e.g. del *.bak removes all back-up files in a particular directory. \n\nA lot of room is taken up by graphics and a desktop publishing files. The Temporary Internet Files are a modern disk space waster. A single graph can take up as much room as a 10 page word processing document. Delete as many of these as possible. Eliminate data that is repeated in two or more different location on the hard drive. \n\n''Organise the Remains'' \nDirectories and Subdirectories are DOS's way of helping users organise files. (Windows refers to them as folders) It is important that directories and sub-directories provide the most efficient categories for your work. For example an accountant would find it useful to set up separate directories for each client and sub-directories within those. \n\n''Eliminate Fragmented Files'' \nOver time, adding and deleting files causes disks to become highly fragmented. When DOS stores a file to disk, it places file in the first unused space. If the entire file doesn't fit, the remaining part go into the next available space or spaces. Eventually most files are splattered all over the disk and even though unneeded files have been eliminated, this ultimately slows performance down to a crawl and can lead to a premature death of the disk. The solution is a defragmenting program, an essential utility which organises the files into tidy groups and which should run regularly. \n\nChkdsk or (scandisk) are also useful to check individual files or group of files. Typing chkdsk followed by file or files needing to be checked, Chkdsk will list the fragmented files and tell how many pieces the file is broken into. Adding /F to the end of the command instructs DOS to correct any errors it finds. \n\nThere are two ways to eliminate fragmented files: either by reformatting the hard drive (a cheap but rather drastic approach), or running one of the many utilities designed to eliminate fragment-ation. e.g. ~PCTools, Norton's Utilities, Mac Utilities, Disk Optimiser etc. (Windows 95 also provides this utility) \n\nUnfragmenting files is a relatively safe procedure, however it is worth pointing out that most developers of utility packages warn workers in a multi-user environment to make sure no one tries to access the hard drive during the unfragmenting process. The developers also recommend that RAM resident and some disk caching programs be disabled when unfragmenting. \n\nBefore the disk has been unfragmented, accidentally deleting a file means there is no chance of recovering it. However having unfragmented the disk, and them accidentally deleting a file means it is much more likely to be able to get the deleted file back. \n\n''Searching Procedures'' \nRegardless of how well organised the files on your disk, they will sometimes be difficult to find. A number of searching techniques are available that enable searching for a file based on a single word, part of a word, or a file name. \n\nDOS offers several methods of searching . The Find command, for instance, will search for a string of text in any number of specified files. This is particularly useful if key words in a file are known but the location of the file unknown. By adding /V to the find command, Find will display all lines that don't contain the string being searched for. /C tells you how many lines there are in each file that match the specified string. Taking this one step further, /N displays the line number and text of each line in the file that has the string being searched for. Find only works ASCII files, and not on specially formatted files. e.g. Lotus 123. Most text based application support searching of some kind. \n\nFrequent care and maintenance is by far the best method of keeping a hard disk from growing wild. A tamed hard disk will pay off with better organisation of data, and quicker access to it.\n

Article from GROVE ENTERPRISES, INC web site http://www.inkjet-gei.com/ \n\n''How Inkjets Operate''\nAll inkjet systems have a means for holding the ink supply in reserve, a means for moving the ink from the reserve to the printhead and a method for very precisely positioning carefully measured amounts of ink onto the paper. \n\nAll of the systems are essentially open systems that have a way for air to enter the ink reservoir in direct proportion to the amount of ink that has moved out through the printhead. Because the systems are open the ink must be held (i.e. not allowed to flow) until there is a need to put some of it onto the paper. Various methods are used to hold back the flow of ink until electrical pulses cause the ink to leave the printhead. One of the most common ways that manufacturers use is to have a sponge-like material in the ink reservoir and a venting system that includes an opening small enough to provide a resistance to the ink's flow. This is necessary to prevent the ink from spontaneously moving through the printhead. \n\nSome HP cartridges use a system that consists of an automatic venting system at the bottom of the cartridge. It is normally closed by a snorkel-like ball. As ink leaves the cartridge the air pressure inside becomes less than the ambient air pressure outside. The ball then changes position, briefly opening the vent until the pressure has equalized again. \n\nThe printhead has a number of very small openings that allow the ink to pass through to form characters or graphics. The very small openings in the printhead hold ink until an electronic signal causes the ink to move onto the paper. There are two different methods being used that precisely move ink through the printhead and onto the paper. \n\nThe bubble jet method selectively heats the ink in the small openings which causes very small drops of ink to be fired down onto the paper. The other method currently being used is the piezoelectric method. It utilizes the principle that certain crystals can be made to expand or contract when subjected to an electric field. This movement of the crystal is utilized in a way that allows a precise amount of ink in a selected printhead opening to be put down on the paper. Epson and others use this method. Another variation in inkjet systems is the ink cartridge versus the print cartridge. The ink cartridge only acts as the ink reservoir. When the cartridge is put into place its exit hole docks with a receptor that carries the ink through a channel or tubing to the printhead. The print cartridge on the other hand is the complete ink delivery system. \n\nIts upper portion is the ink reservoir and the lower portion contains the printhead. The print cartridge has a distinct advantage in that a blocked or damaged printhead that can’t be fixed can be corrected by replacing the cartridge. On the other hand, a system that uses ink cartridges and has the same problem, must have the printer serviced. \n\n

//From the Internet - contributed by Clarry Webber//\n\n Dear Tech Support,\n\n Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0. It wasn't long before I noticed that the new programme began making significant changes to the accounting modules, which severely limited access to wardrobe, flower and jewellery applications - all of which had operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0. No mention was made of this in the product brochure, I have also noticed that Husband 1.0 has uninstalled several valuable programmes, in particular ~Dinner/Dancing 7.5, ~TheatreGoing 2.3, and ~ExoticHoliday 6.1 and has installed some new very undesirable programmes such as ~FridayNightFootball 5.0, Golf 2.4 and ~ClutterEverywhere 4.5.\n\n I've also found that Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and ~HouseCleaning 2.6 invariably crashes the system.\n\n I've tried running Nag 5.3 to fix the problems, but nothing seems to help!\n\n Please advise at your earliest convenience!\n\n Desperate.\n ------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n Dear Desperate,\n\n This is a very common problem, caused mainly by a primary misconception.\n\n Many people upgrade without really understanding that Boyfriend 5.0 is simply an entertainment package. Husband 1.0 on the other hand, is an operating system designed to run as few applications as possible, and certainly not in any kind of multitasking role. Further, you will find that you are unable to uninstall, delete or purge Husband 1.0 and re-install Boyfriend 5.0, because hidden system files simply cause Boyfriend 5.0 to crash without warning.\n\n Can we suggest that you read the section regarding General Partnership Faults (~GPFs) within your help screen? This is a feature of Husband 1.0 and an integral part of the operating system. To activate this feature, enter the command: {{{C:\sI THOUGHT YOU LOVED ME}}} Sometimes this command needs to be run in conjunction with Tears 6.2. Husband 1.0 should then automatically run the applications Apologise 12.3 and Flowers 7.8.\n\n We would advise against excessive use of this command line, however, as overuse can cause serious ~GPFs and you may have to enter the command: {{{C:\sOKAY I APOLOGISE}}} before things will return to normal. We have found that excessive use can also cause Husband 1.0 to default to ~GrumpySilence 2.5 and, in extreme cases, to revert to ~GoneUpThePub 6.1 and Beer 7.5. Beer 7.5 is a very bad programme that causes Husband 1.0 to create Fatbelly files and Snoring Loudly wave files which are difficult to delete.\n\n You are advised NOT under any circumstances, to install the programme Motherinlaw 1.0, as this application is not supported and will cause the selective shutdown of Husband 1.0\n\n Finally do remember that, whilst Husband 1.0 is a great programme, it does have limited memory, cannot learn new applications quickly, and will often cause errors. We would recommend that you consider the purchase of additional software to improve Husband 1.0"s performance, such as ~HotFood 5.3, Lingerie 3.0 and the very latest Patience 10.1\n\n We hope this helps. Regards,\n Tech Support

Pay close attention! There are 10 questions, so you should be able to answer them all in 5 minutes. DO NOT look at the answers found in the tag "Answers". That would be cheating! Write each of your answers down, it makes a difference!\n\n1) Some months have 30 days, some months have 31 days. How many months have 28 days?\n\n2) If a doctor gives you 3 pills and tells you to take one pill every half hour, how long would it be before all the pills have been taken?\n\n3) I went to bed at eight o'clock in the evening and wound up my clcok and set the alarm to sound at nine o'clock in the morning. How many hours sleep would I get before being woken by the alarm?\n\n4) Divide 30 by half and add ten. What do you get?\n\n5) A farmer had 17 sheep. All but 9 died. How many live sheep were left.\n\n6) If you had only one match and entered a COLD and DARK room, where there was an oil heater, an oil lamp and a candle. What would you light first?\n\n7. A man builds a house with four sides of rectangular construction, each side having a southern exposure. A big bear comes along. What colour is the bear?\n\n8) Take 2 apples from 3 apples. What do you have?\n\n9) How many animals of each species did Moses take with him in the Ark?\n\n10) If you drove a bus with 43 people on board from Chicago and stopped at Pittsburgh to pick up 7 more people and drop off 5 passengers and at Cleveland to drop off 8 passengers and pick up 4 more and eventually arrive at Philadelphia 20 hours later, what's the name of the driver?\n\nClick on the tag "Answers"\n\n

/***\n''TextAreaPlugin for TiddlyWiki version 2.0''\n^^author: Eric Shulman - ELS Design Studios\nsource: http://www.TiddlyTools.com/#TextAreaPlugin\nlicense: [[Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License|http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/]]^^\n\nThis plugin 'hijacks' the TW core function, ''Story.prototype.focusTiddler()'', so it can add special 'keyDown' handlers to adjust several behaviors associated with the textarea control used in the tiddler editor. Specifically, it:\n* Option to set cursor at top of edit field instead of auto-selecting contents\s\n* Option to disable use of the ESC key to cancel editing\n* Adds text search INSIDE of edit fields.^^\nUse ~CTRL-F for "Find" (prompts for search text), and ~CTRL-G for "Find Next" (uses previous search text)^^\n* Enables TAB characters to be entered into field content^^\n(instead of moving to next field)^^\n\n!!!!!Configuration\n<<<\n<<option chkDisableAutoSelect>> place cursor at start of textarea instead of pre-selecting content\n<<option chkDisableEscapeKey>> don't cancel editor when ''escape'' key is pressed\n<<option chkTextAreaExtensions>> add control-f (find), control-g (find again) and allow TABs as input in textarea\n<<<\n!!!!!Installation\n<<<\nImport (or copy/paste) the following tiddlers into your document:\n''TextAreaPlugin'' (tagged with <<tag systemConfig>>)\n<<<\n!!!!!Revision History\n<<<\n''2006.02.14 [1.1.0]''\nadded option for chkDisableEscapeKey (default is standard action)\n''2006.01.22 [1.0.1]''\nonly add extra key processing for TEXTAREA elements (not other edit fields).\nadded option to enable/disable textarea keydown extensions (default is "standard keys" only)\n''2006.01.22 [1.0.0]''\nMoved from temporary "System Tweaks" tiddler into 'real' TextAreaPlugin tiddler.\n<<<\n!!!!!Code\n***/\n//{{{\nversion.extensions.textAreaPlugin= {major: 1, minor: 1, revision: 0, date: new Date(2006,2,14)};\n//}}}\n\n//{{{\nif (!config.options.chkDisableAutoSelect) config.options.chkDisableAutoSelect=false; // default to standard action\nif (!config.options.chkTextAreaExtensions) config.options.chkTextAreaExtensions=false; // default to standard action\nif (!config.options.chkDisableEscapeKey) config.options.chkDisableEscapeKey=false; // default to standard action\n\n// Focus a specified tiddler. Attempts to focus the specified field, otherwise the first edit field it finds\nStory.prototype.focusTiddler = function(title,field)\n{\n var tiddler = document.getElementById(this.idPrefix + title);\n if(tiddler != null)\n {\n var children = tiddler.getElementsByTagName("*")\n var e = null;\n for (var t=0; t<children.length; t++)\n {\n var c = children[t];\n if(c.tagName.toLowerCase() == "input" || c.tagName.toLowerCase() == "textarea")\n {\n if(!e)\n e = c;\n if(c.getAttribute("edit") == field)\n e = c;\n }\n }\n if(e)\n {\n e.focus();\n e.select(); // select entire contents\n\n // TWEAK: add TAB and "find" key handlers\n if (config.options.chkTextAreaExtensions) // add extra key handlers\n addKeyDownHandlers(e);\n\n // TWEAK: option to NOT autoselect contents\n if (config.options.chkDisableAutoSelect) // set cursor to start of field content\n if (e.setSelectionRange) e.setSelectionRange(0,0); // for FF\n else if (e.createTextRange) { var r=e.createTextRange(); r.collapse(true); r.select(); } // for IE\n\n }\n }\n\n tiddler.onkeypress = function(e) {\n if (!e) var e = window.event;\n clearMessage();\n var consume = false;\n switch(e.keyCode)\n {\n case 13: // Ctrl-Enter\n case 10: // Ctrl-Enter on IE PC\n case 77: // Ctrl-Enter is "M" on some platforms\n if(e.ctrlKey)\n {\n story.blurTiddler(this.title);\n config.macros.toolbar.invokeCommand(this,"defaultCommand",e);\n consume = true;\n }\n break;\n case 27: // Escape\n if (config.options.chkDisableEscapeKey) break; // ignore ESCAPE if option is set\n story.blurTiddler(this.title);\n config.macros.toolbar.invokeCommand(this,"cancelCommand",e);\n consume = true;\n break;\n }\n e.cancelBubble = consume;\n if(consume)\n if (e.stopPropagation) e.stopPropagation();\n return(!consume);\n };\n}\n//}}}\n\n//{{{\nfunction addKeyDownHandlers(e)\n{\n // exit if not textarea or element doesn't allow selections\n if (e.tagName.toLowerCase()!="textarea" || !e.setSelectionRange) return;\n\n // utility function: exits keydown handler and prevents browser from processing the keystroke\n var processed=function(ev) { ev.cancelBubble=true; if (ev.stopPropagation) ev.stopPropagation(); return false; }\n\n // capture keypress in edit field\n e.onkeydown = function(ev) { if (!ev) var ev=window.event;\n\n // process TAB\n if (!ev.shiftKey && ev.keyCode==9) { \n // replace current selection with a TAB character\n var start=e.selectionStart; var end=e.selectionEnd;\n e.value=e.value.substr(0,start)+String.fromCharCode(9)+e.value.substr(end);\n // update insertion point, scroll it into view\n e.setSelectionRange(start+1,start+1);\n var linecount=e.value.split('\sn').length;\n var thisline=e.value.substr(0,e.selectionStart).split('\sn').length-1;\n e.scrollTop=Math.floor((thisline-e.rows/2)*e.scrollHeight/linecount);\n return processed(ev);\n }\n\n // process CTRL-F (find matching text) or CTRL-G (find next match)\n if (ev.ctrlKey && (ev.keyCode==70||ev.keyCode==71)) {\n // if ctrl-f or no previous search, prompt for search text (default to previous text or current selection)... if no search text, exit\n if (ev.keyCode==70||!e.find||!e.find.length)\n { var f=prompt("find:",e.find?e.find:e.value.substring(e.selectionStart,e.selectionEnd)); e.focus(); e.find=f?f:e.find; }\n if (!e.find||!e.find.length) return processed(ev);\n // do case-insensitive match with 'wraparound'... if not found, alert and exit \n var newstart=e.value.toLowerCase().indexOf(e.find.toLowerCase(),e.selectionStart+1);\n if (newstart==-1) newstart=e.value.toLowerCase().indexOf(e.find.toLowerCase());\n if (newstart==-1) { alert("'"+e.find+"' not found"); e.focus(); return processed(ev); }\n // set new selection, scroll it into view, and report line position in status bar\n e.setSelectionRange(newstart,newstart+e.find.length);\n var linecount=e.value.split('\sn').length;\n var thisline=e.value.substr(0,e.selectionStart).split('\sn').length;\n e.scrollTop=Math.floor((thisline-1-e.rows/2)*e.scrollHeight/linecount);\n window.status="line: "+thisline+"/"+linecount;\n return processed(ev);\n }\n }\n}\n//}}}

It all started with a warning message "Insufficient Hard Drive Space" when I was trying to install some new software.\n \nWhen I bought my latest PC eighteen months ago I thought that the 3.2GB hard drive it had was extravagantly large and it was quite unlikely I would ever fill something of that magnitude. Where have you heard that before? \n\nThe warning message came as a sharp reminder that things had moved on and it was time to look at upgrading. I dithered about whether to install a 10GB unit, and in the end decided that for the relatively small extra cost, it would be better to learn from the previous experience and purchase a 20GB unit. It’s quite unlikely I would ever fill something of that magnitude\n\nI run a one man business selling electrical test equipment and I am totally dependent on my computer for just about everything associated with the activity. So, you will understand if I am quite paranoiac about anything that represents a threat to my precious PC, but I was, in a corner. I simply couldn’t do nothing. Casting procrastination aside, I gritted my teeth and ordered a new hard drive, and on a Friday afternoon, plunged in to effect the upgrade. \n\nIt wasn’t easy. I had been fed two pieces of misinformation: Your new hard drive must be installed as the master and The new hard drive will be supplied pre-formatted. You wouldn’t believe how long it took me as a mere mortal to disprove those two statements. (I have since put contracts out on the people who uttered them). I reached an absolute low point when it was quite clear that the BIOS recognized the additional drive with all it’s 20GB, but I couldn’t find the new drive on Windows Explorer, or even access it via DOS.(Invalid drive specification came the extremely helpful message). It finally dawned on me that the new drive could not have been pre-formatted, and I resorted to my venerable DOS 6.2 Installation Disks to overcome the problem. With the drive installed all on it’s own as the primary, the disk set first self-booted, formatted the drive, and then installed DOS. At last, all was sweetness and light, and I had a working hard drive! \n\nVery quickly I established that the new drive was quite happy working as a slave to the old one, and it became quite noticeable too, how adaptable was the BIOS to all this chopping and changing. With my confidence soaring to new heights, I wondered if it was possible to play a few extra tunes with the drives. For instance, what would happen if the power to the slave drive was removed. Would the master be affected if the IDE connector remained on the unpowered drive? It wasn’t, and the BIOS duly reported that there was now only one drive. \n\nThis opened up some very interesting possibilities. Now, with a two-pole switch installed discretely at the rear of my PC I can, at will, interrupt the power to the slave drive. Bearing in mind that this switch must only be operated while the PC power is off, then on booting, the slave drive will be present or non-existent according to the switch position. Now you see it, now you don’t!\n\nThe significance of this to me was that I could now use the old 3.2GB drive as a slave drive, to be a secure back up facility, and for normal day to day operations, leave it unpowered and inaccessible. That way, no Internet-born virus can infect it, no hacker can ever gain access to it and for all intents and purposes it is bomb proof. I can arrange for the slave drive to be a perfectly good bootable drive, with images of all my precious programs and data on it, ready to take over as the primary master when the inevitable happens and I fall foul of a virus.\n\n(For most of us it’s not IF, it’s WHEN). \n\nA further step can be taken: employing a three-pole drive power interrupter switch, the third section can be used to ensure that while the slave drive is powered up, no connection can be made to the telephone line. \n\nYou might call this final configuration mutual exclusivity, I call it paranoia. \n\n// - David ~Tolton-Smith //\n

Vince Freeman of Hardware Central\n\n Early last year, the concept of E-Books really started to gain a push from both industry and media outlets. This new digital format, which encompasses any type of conventional book, magazine or other publication, was supposed to be a transition away from paper-based products. This move was compared to how Walkmans, laptops or other portable devices transformed other industries and it was hoped that E-Books would have similar success in the publication business. But a funny thing happened on the way to this E-Book revolution; the consumer just did not buy in.\n\n Not surprisingly, the industry's hype is a bit off base, especially considering that books are highly portable to begin with. The Walkman did not become a mass-market success because it was technically superior, but because it allowed portable music, without needing to lug an entire home stereo on your back. Another reason E-Books have been a non-event is that publishers desire digital technology far more than the average consumer does.\n\n Moving books and other publications to an electronic format would lower or eliminate costs such as printing, distribution, storage, and disposal. These are very tangible cost savings, but consumers continue to pay very high prices for E-Books. While older material can be found at value prices in E-Book format, the new bestsellers do not come cheap. Prices are also far from consistent, and vary widely depending on the digital format and the publication's current lifecycle (hardcover vs. paperback). When a paperback can be purchased for six dollars, compared to twenty dollars for the PDA E-Book version, we have a serious discrepancy between perceived value and price.\n\n Book publishers have also been hesitant to abandon the old paper-based pricing model. The reasons for this entrenchment are clear, since incredible profit levels could be attained if the transition from paper to electronic books could be done while maintaining the current price structure. They are also buoyed by the odd E-Book success story. Popular horror author Stephen King made quite a splash with his E-Book-only "Riding the Bullet" novella, which sold are ported six hundred thousand copies. On the flip side King's pay-per-chapter experiment with "The Plant" fizzled and was halted mid-way through when the writer decided to pursue other interests.\n\n The issue of E-Book standards is also a thorny one, with many competing proprietary methods of formatting and encrypting, along with various digital rights management (DRM) schemes. Because of this situation, many companies are simply not supporting all of the standards. Amazon.com for instance, only sells E-Books for use with Microsoft Reader on an IBM-compatible PC.\n Potential customers with PDAs, proprietary readers, or even Macs need not apply. Peanutpress.com has taken a different route, and caters specifically to the PDA market with proprietary reader software. This market fragmentation has really hampered the impact of E-Books, since portability between reader software and hardware standard is virtually non-existent. Those interested in reading the book on their PDA at work and Rocket eBook at home, will need to make multiple purchases of essentially the same physical product.\n\n This was supposed to change with the initiation of the Open eBook Publication Structure, an open source specification designed to give E-Books the ability to be highly accessible and portable between different reading platforms. Having a real standard is the only way to achieve mass-market acceptance for E-Books. Unfortunately, although many big players such as Microsoft, Nuvomedia and Barnes & Noble are firmly behind the new specification, this will be a very long and drawn out transition. Current dedicated reading devices simply are not designed for the new format and few are powerful enough to even work with this new XML-like standard.\n\n One of the most troubling aspects of E-Books revolves around the question of ownership. Since copyright has become so prevalent with all digital media, it has also spread to E-Books. The usual method of delivery is to either download the file to a locked computer reader, or to allow encrypted downloading from the PC to a hardware device.\n Although "E-Book loaning" is supported in a few cases, most copyright agreements afford you a single, non-transferable license to read the supplied data. In fact, most reader programs do not even allow printing of the purchased E-Book. The overt data encryption of E-Books has even negated its use as a gift, since it cannot be easily distributed or transferred. Buying an E-Book is a distinctly different kind of sale compared to purchasing a physical book, which can easily be traded, collected, given away, purchased as a gift, or even sold through a used bookstore.\n\n Although the current E-Book model is not making a huge impact with conventional books, the format may be better suited to a more disposable type of print media. For instance, I would never buy a set of classic books in electronic format, since the ownership and display is part of their charm. But downloading a cheap E-Book copy of a magazine, newspaper or paperback would be a welcome enhancement to the distribution methods.\n Betting on the current PDA or laptop market is also a key element to success. Consumers will usually choose a multi-function device over a dedicated solution and they have been hesitant to buy into this form of single-use reading hardware. In the area of consumer electronics, today's must-have item can easily turn into an expensive doorstop within months. The PDA and portable computer device segment is a large, ready-made market for E-Books and many of these devices are also equipped with wireless access, which would facilitate easier distribution in the future.\n\n The last area that should be concentrated on is the environment. Using E-Books will save trees and this fact needs to be hammered directly into the consumer consciousness. Studies have repeatedly shown that when given the option of an environmentally friendly alternative, most consumers will vote that way with their spending.\n\n If the E-Book is to truly thrive in the mass market, then how these products are marketed and priced needs to change. Ensuring that a greater selection of published work is made available in digital format is a critical factor as well. E-Book publishers also need to move towards an open standard and clear up the murky area of digital copyright issues. E-Books are definitely going to be a forcesomewhere down to the road, but how publishers react to these challenges will determine how long the trip will take.\n Vince Freeman. Hardware Central\n http://www.Hardwarecentral.com \n

Following on my President’s report here are details of what the KAK virus / worm does.\n \nKak is written in ~JavaScript and it works on both English and French versions of Windows 95/98 if Outlook Express 5.0 is installed. It does not work in a typical Windows NT installation.\n\nThe worm uses a known security vulnerability that affects Outlook Express. Once the user receives an infected email message, and opens or views the message in the preview pane, the worm creates a file {{{kak.hta}}} to the Windows Startup directory. \n\nNext time when the system is restarted, the worm activates. It replaces {{{c:\sautoexec.bat}}} with a batch file that deletes the worm from the Startup directory. The original {{{autoexec.bat}}} is copied to {{{C:\sAE.KAK}}}\n\nIt also modifies the message signature settings of Outlook Express 5.0 replacing the current signature with an infected file, {{{C:\sWindows\skak.htm}}}\n\nTherefore every message sent with Outlook Express after that will contain the worm. \n\nNext it modifies the Windows registry in a such way that it will be executed in every system startup. The key it adds to the registry is:\n\n{{{HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\sSOFTWARE\sMicrosoft\sWindows\s~CurrentVersion\sRun\scAg0u}}}\n\nThe .hta file that the virus creates and will be executed is saved to Windows System directory. In first day of each month if the number of hours is more than 17 (i.e. 6pm or later), the worm will show an alert box with the following text:\n\n{{{Kagou-Anit-Kro$oft say not today!}}}\n\nThen the worm causes the Windows to shut down. Nasty isn’t it, can cause hours of strife and only appears once a month.\n\n//Roger Currier//\n

By now you be aware that the BBS has shut down on the way to becoming a new entity. During this process the hardware had to be de-commisioned. This meant there was a danger of loosing all the local files we had accumulated over the last few years. A few of us wanted to secure these in ~CD-ROM form. There are some files that have been updated since they were uploaded and some have become outdated, but the majority are still useful and considered to be worth saving.\n\n Arthur Harris, Ian Godfrey and myself fought with all the hardware to get these files, all 1200 Mb of them onto a hard drive so I could bring this home and burn 2 CD's from them.\n\n This has also now been done. I have a few sets of ~CD-ROMs which I will sell for $5 a set of two to anyone who wants them.\n\n After these few have gone I can consider how to handle any more enquiries for them. As more sets are released into the wild the need for me to burn new copies will diminish.\n\n I have downloaded a complete set of news, bulletins, log files, and some other menus etc so we never forget that we had a BBS really worth something. Certainly the last BBS in Wellington worth anything, possibly *the last BBS.\n\n Here's the complete set of the files listings for those who don't know what was on the BBS :\n{{{\n MegaBaud BBS\n Main Board Conference Available File Directories\n Last updated on 17/12/2001 at 12:18 am\n Summary of File Directories for Conference\n WGM-DMS v.3.6\n\n Directory Description Files Bytes\n 1. MegaBaud Support Files 15 15,193,394\n 2. Virus Related Programs 30 24,695,819\n 3. Compression Utilities & Shell 50 19,608,859\n 5. Offline QWK Mail Utilities 9 994,155\n 6. DOS Utility Programs 248 45,318,825\n 7. Hardware Utility Programs 163 47,027,765\n 8. DOS Application Programs 31 7,655,092\n 9. Free Downloads Directory 54 13,737,970\n 10. Games and Fun Stuff A-M 28 29,001,770\n 11. Games and Fun Stuff N-Z 39 36,682,924\n 12. Games - Apogee Software 1 91,600\n 13. Games - Epic Software 0 0\n 14. Children's Programs & Games 35 18,958,175\n 15. Text Editors & Word Processors 59 22,511,413\n 16. Graphics Programs and Utilities 65 45,148,490\n 17. Comms Programs & Utilities 32 26,057,249\n 18. Progr Languages & Utilities 33 10,220,719\n 19. CompuServe Info & Programs 46 3,514,895\n 20. OS/2 - Application Programs 64 47,788,939\n 21. OS/2 - Utility Programs 33 13,151,103\n 22. Crafts & Hobbies 9 8,540,607\n 23. Win - Application Programs 34 34,581,713\n 24. Windows - Utility Programs 22,610,737\n 25. Windows - Games 18 13,916,964\n 26. Drivers 9 6,783,910\n 27. Internet Files & Related Progs 22 142,611,105\n 28. Religious Files 4 1,480,157\n 29. Sound Files 40 16,846,711\n 30. Sound Utilities 116 51,508,025\n 31. Video Files 7 5,200,162\n 32. Video Utilities 7 4,872,154\n 33. Text Files 55 7,098,519\n 34. Doom & Related Files 1 43,288\n 35. Geoworks Programs 42 6,467,882\n 36. Network Programs & Utilities 11 2,404,055\n 37. Windows 95 - Applications 174 124,899,963\n 38. Windows 95 - Utils 361 196,048,209\n 39. Windows 95 - Desktop 166 67,317,120\n 40. Windows 95 - Games 76 61,608,087\n 41. 4DOS Utilities and Programs 6 588,005\n 42. PCBoard & BBS Files - PPE's etc 91 10,171,023\n 43. Genealogy 9 3,771,679\n 44. Business - Finance & Investment 32 15,610,230\n 45. Database Applications 26 14,661,161\n 46. Graphics - GIF JPG PCX etc 22 5,232,042\n 47. Offline Mail readers (non QWK 13,044,462\n 48. Windows NT Applications 1 567,872\n 49. Demonstration Software 47 20,234,645\n 50. CD-R + CD-RW utilities and apps 1 799,006\n 51. Public Upload Directory 6 2,531,438\n Totals for Main Board Conference 2,728 301,171,037\n \n}}}\n Many thanks to all those people over the years who kept Megabaud up and running, But especially a big thank you to Ian Godfrey. Without him we would all have been in a large hole.\n\n //Jim Oliver//

(Monetary National Income Analogue computer)\nBy Max Burnet\n\n //(Another email sent to me ... Ed}//\n Click here for original article.\n\n I was browsing your NZPCA web page and came across the excellent description of the "water computer" made at the London School of Economics. I thought you might be interested to learn that a copy exists in the Melbourne University economic faculty. Two pics enclosed. Not good quality because taken thru glass.\n\n Cheers\n Max Burnet\n Hon Sec Australian Computer Museum Society Inc\n Email mburnet@bigpond.net.au\n Web www.acms.org.au/burnet-max.htm\n Water computer Water Moniac sign\n\n\n\n The MONIAC is a hydraulic model of the economy which was used originally in the training of economics. Today, econometric modeling is undertaken in modern Research Computer Laboratories. Visit the Commerce Research Laboratory on this floor (of Melbourne University - Ed) to compare the vastly changed environment for teaching and research.\n\n The MONIAC was designed by A W Phillips, (an engineer turned economist of "Phillips Curve" fame) who constructed a working model of the Keynesian System utilising coloured water (representing incomes, expenditures, etc) flowing through pipes.\n\n Only 3 or 4 models were built and this is the only known model in Australia. A working model is located in London. The cost of restoring this MONIAC to working order has been quoted in the vicinity of $40,000+!\n\n'' By the way...''\n \n The "computer" had a reputation for leaking during demonstrations!\n Could this be the origin of terms used a great deal by Keynesian economists namely "Injection" and "Leakages"?\n

I've a friend who at Christmas brought what club members understand as a Roger to Roger present. His wife was never going to agree, but later was telling everyone that it was her Christmas present to her husband Jack. But the real problem started he told me when the $3000 computer arrived. He explained to me he made a fatal mistake, he let his two children use it. Big problem he told me, they now don't want to use their own $500 PC. I need an upgrade at zero cost. Don't tell the wife but 50% of my new PC is on the Visa card. Ouch!\n\n I looked at the kids' PC before dinner and told him over dinner that it was not really upgrade-able. But he insisted it's only three years old. Let us get it right I said probably closer to five. It could take a faster AMD processor, but I would've to upgrade the BIOS. It only understands chips up to certain speeds. If you put in a faster chip it wouldn't recognize it. Flashing the BIOS to accept a faster chip is risky I told him. And there is a chance I could destroy the motherboard. It's not foolproof; I've wiped out a motherboard in the past.\n\n When dessert arrived I'd asked, why don't you just sell the old machine and let the children use the new machine? He'd given my wife and I a look of absolute horror. You don't use your machine when the kids want to use it and it would make better use of the $3,000 computer. You want their machine in the lounge where you can monitor their Internet activity, and your machine is here; it makes sense. \n\nYou are partly right he told me, except for one thing, the kids would tie the new computer up in notes within an hour. It has happen too many times before. No way, I wanted your help not some silly suggestion. Believe me I'm trying to help I told him. Be open-minded. If I could tell you a foolproof method where you and the kids could use the same machine without mucking it up, would you do it? It would cost under three hundred, the price you would get for the old machine. 150% guaranteed. Yes he said but there is no way you can do that.\n\n The solution was easy; I installed an additional 40 gig hard drive in conjunction with a commercial front mounted three position hard-drive-switching device. It fitted into a spare CD bay. So basically now there were two similar machines inside the same box. Both taking advantage of the same Motherboard, Intel P4 processor, with 1024 Megs of ram, CD/RW, DVD, AGP card and cable modem. When Jack wants to use his computer he pushed button A. Which connected his hard drive to the motherboard and powers it up. And when the kids want to use it they pushed button B. Which totally disconnects Jack's HD and connects & powers up the kids' hard-drive. Even though there are two different hard-drives the BIOS still recognized the difference (SMART enabled). I installed a password so the kids couldn't access Jack's computer. Note you can also get switches with key locks. Total cost $268 not counting my free trip out to dinner with Susan (my wife) and Jack and his wife Barbara. Which he'd promised, if I could keep the cost under what he could recover selling the old machine.\n\n The above story brings up an interesting point. Eighteen months ago I wrote an article about Microsoft's Activation process for Windows XP. The article must have hit a nerve because to date I've probably received over fifty emails (mostly from people in the US, Canada and England) after the article was posted on the club's web-site all requesting the Chinese Boys 25 digit code to get around the activation process. At a Lower Hutt meeting two months before Christmas I passed around some of these emails. I've never really bothered to help these people because I suspect they maybe they're just trying to break the law. And they're not members of our club. Don't get me wrong, I don't believe in wholesale pirating of software. What I do believe, if I buy a software program, I'm the legal owner and I should be able to use it on my machines. I do this with other software. Within say my house? Some programs, which are on one computer, I access via another. And I've made backup copies of programs, including music ~CDs. And installed a licensed program on a laptop when I've gone away.\n\n Jack's story is an interesting one, because he purchased an original copy of XP with his new computer. Microsoft does say that if you install it on a different machine you need to purchase additional copies. But in this case everything was within the same case. In theory the activation process should have worked a second time, as the components were the same. But it didn't. This made me very suspicious. So I had no hesitation going into the registry and prefixing the registration number and nuking the activation code. It's really very simple. I did this so he could use it without hassles. The way I see it Jack's copy is only being used while the other hard-drive is having a sleep. Unlike my friends who have private household networks, where Windows XP and 98SE is mirrored across several computers.\n\n I will repeat what I've said in the past Microsoft doesn't seem to me to be addressing the real problem of pirated software. At Christmas several more Chinese student arrived to stay in our flat. They all had the latest copies of XP, Word and most other programs. Mostly all the software was Chinese language versions, not much good to you and me. Their activation code does not work with our version. Why is it that you and I are being forced to only use Windows on one computer when others pirate it a will? But I'm guilty; one of the students had a good copy of Lord of the Rings, Twin Towers. I watched it for an hour on our multi zone (re-chipped zone 4) DVD before I deciding that I prefer going out to the movies.\n\n John Thomson\n Gella@paradise.net.nz\n Ps. The last time I heard Jack's kids loved using the new PC.\n

February's Megabyte had an interesting article by Rob Zorn about RSS, and while it formed a good introduction to the subject, it did only look at RSS from the viewpoint of an information consumer. These days, anyone can publish on the Internet easily and at no cost, and RSS is playing a large part in this. This article will mostly expand on this "other side" to RSS - using RSS as a content publisher. And in the near future (Apple users are already doing this) you may be publishing using RSS without realising it, I'll cover why this is nearer to the end of the article. This is going to be messy, so sit down and follow the links where provided, or you won't really appreciate what is going on here. \n\n''More on Consumption.''\n\n Let's just backtrack to content consumption for a moment, though. Personally, I don't think you can make the best use of RSS unless it seamlessly integrates into your other activities. \n\nThere are many online RSS aggregators available - there has been a huge explosion of personal and feed portals like Microsoft's truly awful start.com, the somewhat better Google Reader (http://www.google.com/ reader), the excellent and rapidly improving ~PageFlakes (http://www.pageflakes.com) and other portals or "Start Pages" where you can arrange any number of RSS feeds and some other gadgets into a page that makes it easy to keep track of all that is going on in the world. Some of these are great tools, and I use Protopage http://www.protopage.com/hindesite.public) - although I really don't use the RSS feeds features much. I just don't see myself visiting these pages very regularly. Even if I set such a page as my browser's start page, I'd rarely see it, since I only start my web browser every week or two. \n\nI could also run a dedicated RSS client on my system as described in Rob Zorn's article, but why should I load and manage yet another application? Where RSS feeds belong on my system, is right in my email client. Right next to my email and newsgroups. Thunderbird is a very capable RSS feed reader, and seamlessly integrates RSS feeds into all my other similar information sources. You know Thunderbird is on the right track when you see that the next version of Outlook will have RSS reader capability built in. That is how important RSS is going to be; in fact, the next version of Internet Explorer will have RSS reading built in, in a very similar fashion to how Rob Zorn's article describes how Firefox has been dealing with RSS for the past year or two. (Internet Explorer will have almost all the features that Firefox users have been enjoying for the past couple of years, and that diehard IE users have been claiming are unnecessary - such as tabbed browsing - and hopefully might have better security than in the past, too). Meanwhile, I recommend using both Thunderbird and Firefox since they are both available now. \n\n''Publishing''\n\n RSS is extremely useful when publishing. For example, the latest issues of Megabyte are hosted by Openomy (who incidentally, offer 1GB of online storage free). The differentiating feature that Openomy has, is that you can assign tags to your files (in much the same way that you do with Flickr or del.icio.us ) but, even better, you can set up RSS feeds of files, organised by tags. We just upload our Megabytes to Openomy and ta them, then having already set up a feed for those tags, we can take that feed and do anything we want with it - for example, if people wanted, they could add the feed for Megabyte to their feed reader, and they would automatically be notified there was a new issue of Megabyte when it became available. As a publisher, we don't have to worry about subscriptions, or who wants to receive Megabyte this way, from our viewpoint, it all happens automatically. If you want to subscribe to the Megabyte RSS feed, it is at http://rss.openomy.com/rss/nzpca/megabyte \n\nNow, it so happens, that we can do other things with that Megabyte feed; using another free service (~RSSInclude) we can have that feed formatted to appear on our web log at http://www.computers.org.nz - and in fact, the second box in the right hand column shows the most recen three issues of Megabyte in just this way. You just click on the links in the feed to retrieve the issue of Megabyte that you want to read. (Note, for those o you who don't receive Megabyte as a .pdf, Megabyte is published in colour - it is much better to download and read it that way). But what about personal publishing? RSS can be quite useful here, too. Many web logs have or can be made to produce an RSS feed of the content in the web log. For example, the contents of the NZPCA web log Megabaud ( http://www.computers.org.nz) are syndicated by a third party and available as an RSS feed; the URL for the feed is at http://feeds.feedburner.com/ Megabaud30 \n\nYou are encouraged to add that URL to list of feeds that you regularly read. You'll always be up to date with everything that is happening in the NZPCA then! \n\nThe same applies to any personal blogs that you might keep - you might not be thinking about using RSS feeds from those blogs now, but when more Internet users begin to use RSS readers, you'll find them extremely useful. When everyone is using RSS readers as easily as they use email clients today, instead of sending photos or documents by email, you'll just update your content; your RSS feeds will catch this and update your subscribers, and your family will always get the latest photos of your favourite grandchild/pet. \n\n''Gluing it Together''\n\nRSS feeds are also available at many of the "Web2.0" online services and applications available now. For example, I can set up one or many different RSS feeds from my del.icio.us bookmark collection, so that when I add a bookmark, or a bookmark with a specific tag, it will automatically be added to the RSS feed set up to do this. The feed for all my bookmarks is at http://del.icio.us/rss/hindesite (don't worry, all del.icio.us bookmarks are public, you are welcome to browse these if you wish - they are also available directly at http://del.icio.us/hindesite). \n\nFlickr offers RSS feeds, too. These can be for your entire photo collection, or for specific tags. For example, part of my Flickr collection is tagged karla, and it has an RSS feed at: http://www.flickr.com/services/feeds/photos_public.gne?id=54091570@N00&tags=karla&format=rss_200 Family members will always have the latest photos of Karla, always at the same address. They don't have to check the website for the latest images, they'll be available automatically in their RSS reader almost as soon as they are published. \n\nI also try to maintain a small web log, mainly of photographs that I think are worth sharing; I also have several other disjointed projects around the Internet as well. \n\nIt rapidly becomes clear that with so much publishing happening, you could easily end up with different content spread all over the Internet, with no way to hold it together. Which is where sites like Suprglu ( http://www.suprglu.com) come in. This site is able to aggregate a mixture of your RSS feeds (it is intended to be used only as a personal RSS feed aggregator, for content that you own), content published in your own blog(s), and on other sites like Flickr and del.icio.us and present this an a continually updated public page. Once you have set this up, the entire collection of pages updates automatically - you can view an example at http://[[Robin Hinde]].suprglu.com. Although this isn't done using RSS feeds alone, they do make up a proportion of the end result. And guess what? Suprglu pages can output an RSS feed themselves, so you can aggregate your content - a mixture of RSS and other content - into a single RSS feed (which in this case is at http://[[Robin Hinde]].suprglu.com/ feed/rss20/supr.xml) \n\n''Invisible RSS''\n\nBack to Apple. Earlier this year, Apple released a new version of ~iLife (~iLife06), a suite of products that includes iPhoto. One of the interesting new features in iPhoto is that you can arrange for photos to be subscribed to by others; you can invite people to view photos selected by tags. They then just set up a subscription in their own iPhoto application to the feed that you've made available from your album, and then your updated photos will automatically appear in their photo album. Ideal for sharing photos among families, and of course, nobody needs to know they are using RSS. \n\nMicrosoft has extended RSS so that it can work in both directions; the next release of Outlook will include the ability for people to synchronise their address books automatically. No need to know that this is being done behind the scenes by RSS. \n\n''Conclusion''\n\nBear in mind that this article has only covered a very small part of the other side to RSS, and that RSS is also used behind the scenes for podcasting, videocasting and similar techniques. For example, it is now possible to use RSS to enable particular files (TV shows, for example) to be downloaded (using Bit Torrent) to your PC automatically, as they become available. Even Google Mail offers an RSS feed from your own gmail inbox, and in the opposite sense, Feedblitz turns your feeds into a daily email. \n\nYou may not be explicitly aware of it, but in the coming years, RSS and its derivatives are going to be everywhere. Best to learn about RSS while things are still simple. \n\n''Other Links''\n\nAs usual, the first place to find out more about RSS is Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_(file_format) \n\nAn extensive list of resources relevant to this article has already been made, and is at http://www.sacredcowdung.com/archives/2006/03/all_things_web.html \n\nI don't think I can add anything to it, so have a look - in particular at the sections Portal 2.0, RSS 2.0, and News 2.0. There is a lot of other stuff on that list; the Internet is a very interesting place at the\nmoment!\n\nAnd most importantly, don't forget to subscribe to the Megabaud RSS feed at http://feeds.feedburner.com/Megabaud30 and also subscribe to the Megabyte RSS feed at http://rss.openomy.com/rss/nzpca/megabyte

//Thanks to John Marchington who sent this in//\n\n While visiting England, George W. Bush is invited to tea with the Queen. He asks her what her leadership philosophy is. She says that it is to surround herself with intelligent people. He asks her how she knows if they're intelligent. "I do so by asking them the right questions." says the Queen. "Allow me to demonstrate."\n\n She phones Tony Blair and says, "Mr Prime Minister. Please answer this question. Your mother has a child, and your father has a child and this child is not your brother or sister. Who is it?" Tony Blair responds immediately. "It's me, ma'am."\n\n "Correct. Thank you and goodbye, sir." says the Queen. She hangs up and says, "Did you get that, Mr Bush?"\n\n "Yes, ma'am. Thanks a lot. I'll definitely be using that!"\n\n Upon returning to Washington, he decides he'd better put the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to the test. He summons Jesse Helms to the White House and says. "Senator Helms, I wonder if you can answer a question for me."\n\n "Why of course, sir. What's on your mind?"\n\n "Your mother has a child, and your father has a child, and this child is not your brother or your sister. Who is it?" Helms thinks a few moments and finally asks, "Can I think about it and get back to you?"\n\n Bush agrees, and Helms leaves. Helms immediately calls a meeting of other senior Republican senators and they puzzle over the question for several hours, but nobody can come up with an answer.\n\n Finally, in desperation, Helms calls Colin Powell at the State Department and explains his problem. "Now look here, your mother has a child, and your father has a child, and this child is not your brother or your sister. Who is it?"\n\n Powell answers immediately. "It's me, of course, you idiot."\n\n Much relieved, Helms rushes back to the White House and says, "I know the answer, sir! I know who it is! It's Colin Powell."\n\n And Bush replies impatiently, "No, stupid, it's Tony Blair."

By John Thomson\n\n John Thomson has some interesting things to tell us about developments in retail computing.\n\n ''Radio frequency identification (RFID) tags.''\n Waiting in the queue at Pack N Save is something I absolutely hate. For me it's like being in a LA traffic jam. But supermarket queues could disappear when radio frequency identification (RFID) tags replace the barcode system. RFID tags (also called smart labels) are intelligent barcodes that can talk to a computer system to track products that you put into your shopping trolley. Just imagine going to ~PacknSave, filling your trolley and walking out the door past a RF reader. No longer will you have to wait while the operator reads the barcode on each item in your trolley one at time. Instead, these RFID tags will communicate with a reader that will track every item in your trolley and ring each item up almost instantly. The electronic reader will be connected to the retailer's computer system that will not only present you with an EFTPOS account it will also send product information to local suppliers and the manufacturers. Keying in your EFTPOS numbers to pay for your groceries will be your only wait. There will be no queues and no waiting. ~PacknSave shop and go scanners require you to scan each item. It is still a hassle, especially when you get repeated rescans.\n\n RFID tags, a technology once limited to tracking animals, airline bags and heavy trucks on US toll roads, will soon be tracking millions of consumer products. Manufacturers will know the location of each product they make from the time it's made until it's used and sent to the rubbish dump or placed into the recycle bin. RFID tags can be read while in motion, in any orientation, regardless of dirt or smudges, and through intervening objects. Perhaps the most significant is the fact that many RFID tags can be read at once automatically, while barcodes have to be scanned manually one by one. This RF technology allows shoppers to checkout and pay for purchases simply by wheeling their trolley past an RF reader.\n\n ''The UPC Bar Code system.''\n Everything we purchase today from retailers has a UPC barcode printed on it. UPC stands for Universal Product Code. These barcodes help manufacturers such as Nestle's and retailers like Woolworth keep track of their inventory. They also give valuable information about the quantity of products being bought. These barcodes are machine-readable parallel bars that store a binary code. Barcodes were created in the 1970s (introduced into NZ in the late eighties) to speed up the check out process, but the system quickly spread to all other retail products because it was so successful. In today consumer world, barcodes have many disadvantages. To keep up with inventories, companies must scan each bar code on every box of a particular product. Going through the checkout involves the same process of scanning each barcode on each item. And the barcode is a read-only technology, which means that it cannot send out any information. Unlike the new RFID tags that have read and write capabilities, which means that the data stored on these tags can be changed, updated and locked.\n\n There are two different types of RFID tags in development; inductive and capacity coupled RFID tags. Inductively coupled RFID tags have been used for years to track nearly everything. (They are similar to the Bluetooth tags I talked about in an earlier article.) There are three parts to a typical inductively coupled RFID tag. The silicon microprocessor, the tag's antenna (this transmits signals to the RF reader, the read distance is determined by the size of the antenna), the encapsulating material around the microchip and coil. Inductively RFID tags are powered by the magnetic field generated by the RF reader. The tag's antenna picks up the magnetic energy, and the tag communicates with the reader. The tag then modulates the magnetic field in order to retrieve and transmit data back to the reader. Data is transmitted back to the reader, which directs it to the host computer. Inductively RFID tags are expensive, costing from $~NZ2 for passive tags to $~NZ300 for battery-powered, read-write tags. The high cost for these tags are due to the silicon (in the microprocessor), the coil antenna and the process that is needed to wind the coil around the surface of the tag.\n\n Capacitively Coupled RFID Tags have been created in an attempt to lower the cost of the radio-tag systems. These tags do away with the metal coil and use a small amount of silicon to perform that same function as an inductively coupled RFID tag. A capacitive coupled tag also has three parts. 1. Silicon microprocessor - Motorola's ~Bi-Statix RFID tags use a silicon chip that is only 3mm2. These tags can store 96 bits of information, which would allow for trillions of unique numbers that can be assigned to products. 2. Conductive carbon ink - This special ink acts as the tag's antenna. It is applied to the paper substrate through conventional printing. 3. Paper -The silicon chip is attached to printed carbon-ink electrodes on the back of a paper label, creating a low-cost, disposable tag that can be integrated on conventional product labels.\n\n By using conductive ink instead of metal coils, the prices of the capacitive coupled tags are presently around 70 cents NZ. These tags are also more flexible than the inductive coupled tag. Capacitive coupled tags, the ones made by Motorola, can be bent, torn and even crumpled, and can still relay data to the tag reader. In contrast to the magnetic energy that powers the inductively coupled tag, capacitive coupled tags are powered by electric fields generated by the reader. The only disadvantage to this kind of tag is that it has a limited range. The range of the Motorola tag is limited to 150mm. Making the tag cover a larger area of the product packaging will increase the range, but not to the extent that would be ideal for the system that retailers would want. In order for a global system of millions of talking tags to work, the range needs to be boosted to a metre or more. Intermec a US company has developed RFID tags that meet these needs. They are presently too expensive to be cost-effective. Researchers at several other companies are now looking for ways to create a tag with a range of 1 or 2 metres that costs the same as the barcode technology. In order for retailers to implement a widespread RFID tag system, the cost of the tags will have to get down to 1 or 2 cent per tag.\n\n ''Talking Tags.''\n When researchers are able to increase the range and lower the price of RFID tags, it will lead to a ubiquitous network of smart packages that track every phase of the supply chain. Store shelves will be full of smart-labelled products that can be tracked from purchase to the re-cycle bin. The shelves themselves will communicate wirelessly with the network. The tags will be just one component of this large product-tracking network to collect data.\n\n The other two pieces to this network will be the readers that communicate directly with these smart labels and the Internet, which will serve as the communications lines for the network. Readers could soon be everywhere, including home appliances and gadgets. Readers could be built directly into the walls during construction becoming an unseen part of our homes.\n How this system might work: On a typical trip to the supermarket, one of the items you require is cheese. The cheese packet will have a RFID tag that stores the expiration date and price. When you pick up the cheese from the shelf, the shelf may display that cheeses packet's specific expiration date or the information could be wirelessly sent to your PDA (personal digital assistant) or cell phone. The cheese and all of the other items you've picked up at the store are automatically counted as you walk through the exist doors that have an embedded tag reader. The information from the purchases that you've made is sent to your bank, which deducts the amount from your account. Product manufacturers know that you've bought their product and the store's computers know exactly how many of each product that needs to be reordered. When you get home, you put the cheese in the refrigerator, which is also equipped with a tag reader. This smart refrigerator is capable of tracking all of your purchases stored in it. It can track the foods you use how often you restock your frig and can let you know when that cheese and other foods pass their expiry date. Products are also tracked when they are thrown into a rubbish bin or recycled. At this point, your frig could add cheese to your shopping list, or you could program your PDA to order these items automatically.\n\n For this system to work, each product will have to be given a unique product number. An international organisation that was established a few years ago is working on an Electronic Product Code (EPC) identifier that could replace the barcode. Every RFID label could contain 96 bits of information, including the product manufacturer, product name and a 40-bit serial number. Using this system, a RFID tag could communicate with a network database. This database would retrieve information about a product and then direct information to the manufacturer's computers. The information stored on the RFID tags would be written in a Product Markup Language (PML), which is based on the eXtensible Markup Language (XML). PML would allow all computers to communicate with any computer system in a similar way that Web servers read Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML), the common language used to create Web pages.\n Researchers believe that RFID tags (smart labels) will start appearing on your favourite consumer products by 2005. Once the technical challenges are overcome, the only obstacle might be the public's reaction to a network system that can track everything that consumers buy and keep in their cupboards.\n\n The ~WareHouse, where everyone gets a bargain and maybe a RFID tag.\n Club members who read NZ ~InfoTech (attached to Monday's Dominion Post) might have read the article dated 5th April, page C10, "Doors open for RFID tags." The Warehouse it stated has begun laying the groundwork for introducing RFID smart label technology in New Zealand.\n Clothing retailers and The ~WareHouse have been using the basic form of RF tags Electronic Article Surveillance (EAS tags) also called ~Anti-Thief Devices, to protect high value goods for several years now. They are familiar to most shoppers; EAS tags contain a single Bit of information. To indicate their presence and to trigger an alarm if they pass through a store exit without first being deactivated by the checkout staff. The new system The Warehouse is installing via Checkpoint Systems is capable of being upgraded to read information from more sophisticated RFID tags. A point that most people do not comprehend, a RFID system can also provide retailers with item level EAS protection. Every single item in the store is anti-thief protected.\n ~Wal-Mart the World's largest retailer is promoting the RFID tags by instructing suppliers to ensure that from the beginning of 2005, all pallets and containers they receive at their bulk distribution warehouses are tagged with RFID tags, identifying their contents and primary manufacturer. Security in the USA is also a driving force.\n Further information at http://www.tagsys.net \n\n

Last month I wrote an article about Palm computers and the Palm emulator - which I used to write that article. This month I'm writing on the real thing, having bought a refurbished Palm ~IIIxe a couple of weeks ago on http://www.trademe.co.nz. I'm very happy with it; it is difficult to appreciate how you will use such a small and portable device until you actually have one.\n\n'' About the Palm ~IIIxe:''\n\n The Palm ~IIIxe was the last model of the III series produced by Palm, launched early 2000. It has a 18MHz Dragonball EZ (Motorola) processor, monochrome display and 8MB of RAM; it is powered by 2 AAA cells. This may seem minimal hardware compared to current PC hardware, but is in fact more than adequate for most uses of Palm devices, where battery life and portability is the most important consideration.\n\n When looking at ~PCs - they have quite different uses and users expectations are quite different. The spectacular success of Palm-based ~PDAs compared to Pocket PC devices is good evidence of this. Palms have been successful despite slow processors and small memory, while Pocket ~PCs with processors 20 times faster and with 10 times the memory still struggle to compete.\n\n '' Usage:''\n\n ~PDAs are used for quite different tasks than a PC; this is partly due to the small display and lack of keyboard, but is also due to the PDA's excellent portability and "alway on" nature. When using applications you never close them, you just switch to your next application (which will appear just as you left it).\n \nThese characteristics make Palm ~PDAs ideal for maintaining lists, databases and calendars - in fact the applications that are built into the ~PalmOS mostly perform these functions. I suspect that many people use only the built-in applicatons, but it is easy to supplement these - there is a large amount of software available. I have already installed around 50 or so applications and system enhancements on my own Palm, I've summarised some of the more useful ones below.\n \n''Reading:''\n\n One of the main uses I've found for my Palm is reading. Although it cannot compare with paper, I often use it to read electronic documents that I would normally read sitting at a PC.\n\n Adobe publish a version of ''Acrobat Reader'' for the Palm, so .pdf documents are easily accessible. One of the first .pdf documents I read on the Palm was the 360 page "Unix Hater's Handbook", which isn't available on paper.\n\n Using ''Weasel'' I can view text documents (these can be 1/10th the size of equivalent .pdf files).\n\n ''Plucker'' is an offline web browser that is gathering quite a following. Offline web browsing is a huge timesaver - your desktop PC can be scheduled to automatically download websites (BBC News, for example) to your Palm. You can then view the website anytime you like, without waiting for pages to download. It is like having a newspaper in your pocket! \n\n'' Writing:''\n\n I'm writing this on my Palm using ''~FreeWrite''. It isn't as good as using a PC or a laptop - but neither of those will fit in my pocket.\n\n'' Databases:''\n\n ''~HandyShopper'' is an excellent shopping list manager; because it is a very powerful database system an active community has developed around it. Its use has extended to far more than shopping, for example I also use it as an inventory for insurance purposes. ''~Pilot-DB'' is an open source database application that is easy to use to develop your own databases. \n\n '' Accessories:''\n\n There is a huge range of software accessories available, and of these many are free or open source. My favourites are ''~BigClock, Calcul-8! and ~FuelLog.''\n\n '' Other accessories I use include:''\n\n* ''~PmRemote'', which uses the Palm infra-red port to work as a learning remote control - as well as operating my TV and VCR, I can even lock and unlock my car!\n* ''Keyring'', which is a database that encrypts important information, such as passwords and account details.\n* ''~DiddleBug'' is useful for drawing simple graphics, and has more features than the ~PalmOS equivalent, Notepad.\n* I use ''~TimeWhiz'' for timetracking, as my confidence in it develops I can see it replacing my handwritten diary. It can export its data as CSV for use in other applications like spreadsheets.\n* ''Today'' is a freeware accessory that presents a summary page of the Palm's status when it is switched on; ''Launcher III'' is a great improvement on the ~PalmOS default application launcher.\n* ''Graffiti Anywhere'' allows the entire screen to be used for graffiti input, rather than just the small silk screen area below it.\n\n '' Utilities:''\n\n* ''~SysInfo'' - displays several different screens showing information about the Palm's status.\n* ''~BatteryGraph'' - comprehensive monitoring and graphing of battery voltage, including actual usage of the Palm.\n\n ''System Extensions:''\n\n Because the ~PalmOS is necessarily limited, software developers have put a lot of effort into improving it by the use of hacks. Sometimes the features these hacks provide appear in later versions of the ~PalmOS. My favourite hacks currently are:\n\n* ''~MiddleCapsHack'' - provides one of the features in Graffiti 2 (appeared in ~PalmOS 5) by making characters drawn in a specific part of the screen uppercase, removing the need to use an extra Graffiti stroke.\n* ''~ClearHack'' - removes the annoyiing ruled lines the ~PalmOS draws in ~MemoPad and other text input areas.\n* ''Font Hack 123'' - augments the ~PalmOS supplied fonts with many others.\n* ''~McPhling'' - allows users to assign a stylus stroke to pop up a list of most popular or most recently used applications (thus bypassing the application launcher) and another stroke to switch between two applications.\n* ''Off Hack'' - switches the Palm off with a stroke.\n* ''~SelectHack'' - double and triple tapping selects words and paragraphs similar to mouse clicks on a PC.\n\n ''A whole new world:''\n\n The software listed above may give you an idea of what is available, but it is only representative of my own use of my PDA. There is a lot of other software out there - fractal drawing programs,.for example, and games (there is a Gameboy emulator for the Palm). It is a whole different world to using ~PCs; while Palms may not have multitasking, applications are simple to use and very small - when downloading an application, the download is often complete *before* you have selected the download path and filename!\n\n//- Robin Hinde//\n

Editor\n\n The start of another year and another Megabyte to go out. This one being No: 151. Looking back I found this little piece in one of our previous editions April 1993. No: 66\n \n The User's Lament\n When there seems to be nothing happening\n And your programs becoming a pain\n When the light from a million pixels\n is boring a hole in your brain\n When you can't see the trees for the forest\n And there's nothing to do but give in,\n Find something new!\n Its the best thing for you\n ... At the risk of our life and your limb!\n \n \n Consider the sport of skydiving,\n Or desending way into the deep.\n Why not get drastic, try the elastic!\n Its said to be terribly cheap.\n Perhaps you'd prefer training tigers.\n Then again you could find it a trial\n I'm told that their humor\n If one trusts a rumor\n Is nowhere as sweet as their smile.\n \n \n So I guess when the odds are all given\n Pros and cons taken into account\n A computer is safer,\n So cry "Hip Hooray!" for\n A 484DX IBM computer with a 400 Megabyte hard disk\n and 16 megabytes of RAM running OS/2 (version 2, of course). \n \n Grace Stanners\n \n \n\n You were lucky, I nearly selected the full description of this new and wonderfull operating system called DOS Ver 6. Keep the articles coming or I will print it in a future edition.\n A Microsoft joke for you.\n \n \n\n A Microsoft Windows programmer was driving his new Lexus through downtown Redmond. He had two passengers in the car. One was an electrical engineer and the other a chemical engineer.\n All of a sudden the car stopped dead in its tracks.\n The electrical engineer jumped out, saying, "It must be an ignition problem. Open the hood and I will fix it."\n The chemical engineer also jumped out, saying, "It probably has something to do with the fuel line, I will fix it."\n As the two engineers looked under the hood, all of a sudden the engine-started running, and from behind the wheel, the Windows programmer yelled, "Its OK, I fixed it."\n When they got back in the car, they asked him what he did.\n "Simple" he said, "I just closed all the windows and then opened them."\n \n \n The Question: Why not use a Linux Programmer for this joke ?\n Answer: Sorry, but there are no Linux Drivers available for this joke.

By "Mr Sticky" (AKA known as Jim Oliver!)\n\n The Windows Registry is the entity that controls nearly all of the ways Windows sees your PC and the world outside it. The Registry contains all the myriad settings that tell Windows where things are to be found, where they should be placed on the desktop, all the settings for the hardware found inside the PC and many many other things as well.\n\n The Registry actually consists of two files in the windows subdirectory or "folder". The two files are SYSTEM.DAT and USER.DAT. These two files cannot normally be seen from a DIR listing or from Windows Explorer unless you arrange for each method to view files that have their 'system' and 'read only' attributes set.\n\n e.g "DIR /as system.dat" from a DOS window will reveal a file that is usually a few megabytes in size.\n\n These two files are an essential part of a Windows installation, if they become corrupted or deleted your Windows will not work. Sometimes the operating system will try to resurrect them for you, sometimes not or worse, unsuccessfully. Loosing either one of them can mean a complete re-installation, which is sometimes not a bad thing if the PC has become so garbled as to mess up these vital files.\n\n Each time you install a new piece of software or hardware the registry (i.e both files) has new data written to it. This process increases it's size. Conversely when old files and applications are removed the old data should be (but more than aften isn't) deleted from the registry. This is where things can go wrong. Files can be deleted accidentally leaving old data behind in the registry. This means that it is sometimes larger in size than it needs to be.\n\n Microsoft have released some software called REGCLEAN. This can be run to check the registry for dead ends and unwanted data, but normally this only relates to Microsoft programs. Other companies programs unwanted data is often left untouched.\n\n A process of gradual bloat takes place and if left completely alone the registry can become large and complex enough to affect the overall performance of the PC.\n\n As new data is added the registry has blank data written to it. When the blank bit becomes larger than 0.5 Mb the system is intelligent enough to trim this out automatically, you don't even know it's occurring. You can also manually trim the registry to it's optimum size and take out most of the dead links and thus keep it as small as needed.\n\n The following information must ''NOT BE USED BY WINDOWS 95 USERS'' since this method does not work properly for very long names and data strings. For all versions of Windows 98 this method works well. I have used it many times to fix up non working registrys and to trim them for size.\n (See notes at the end for Win95 users)\n\n Now. Just at the point where you thought it was all going to happen .... wait. First, the most important thing of all :\n''\n{{{\n =========================================\n BACKUP THE REGISTRY BEFORE DOING ANYTHING.\n =========================================\n}}}\n''\nIt's a really good idea to have backups anyway, you never know. Actually Windows 98 and higher actually do make backups that can be restored using SCANREG /RESTORE on the START|RUN command line, but I assume the worst and make my own backups. Actually doing the backup can be tricky and there are many ways of doing it. This subject deserves an article on it's own. (See the references at the end)\n\n I use a little known utility from Microsoft called ERU (Emergency Recovery Utility) found on the Win95 CD under \sother\smisc\seru. Copy all the files to the hard drive in it's own folder, then right click the INF file and click on INSTALL. When you then click on the ERU.EXE file you will asked where you want the backup to go, click on "Other Directory", don't be sucked into selecting A: drive. The files that are to be backed up WILL NOT FIT on a 1.44 Mb floppy, naughty old Microsoft. Anyway select a sensible name for the directory and click twice. This will back up all the sensitive files you need as well as the registry.\n\n Now. The good part, to reduce and rejuvenate your registry.\n\n Preferably first run REGCLEAN (get the file from Microsoft under the imaginative name OADIST.ZIP (from www.microsoft.com/kb/articles/q164/5/29.htm). You don't *have* to do this but it might fix and remove extraneous stuff first before running the next step.\n\n First boot the PC to an MS-DOS prompt : START|SHUTDOWN|RESTART IN MS-DOS MODE. Remember the case of any commands entered here does not matter.\n\n Make sure the PC has a DOS command line prompt in view ( e.g C:\sWINDOWS)\n\n Type : SMARTDRV /V (then the enter key)\n\n If you get an error or it doesn't run then you haven't yet got out of Windows. Ensure the smartdrv screen shows that the hard drive is being cached properly. It will say "YES" under hard drive (C:) caching.\n\n Type : REGEDIT /E myrego (then the enter key) (E = Export)\n\n Now you'll have to wait a few minutes depending the on the size of your registry. This creates a (very large) pure text file called "myrego" which is your entire registry. When the C:\swindows prompt comes back ;\n\n Type : REGEDIT /C myrego (then the enter key) (C = Create)\n\n You will now see the progress (as a percentage) as a new registry is built for your PC.\n\n ''DO NOT TYPE THESE COMMANDS OUT OF ORDER. ALWAYS DO THE (E)XPORT COMMAND BEFORE THE (C)REATE COMMAND.'' If you do type "REGEDIT /C myrego"before /E you'll stuff up things mightily, then you will need your backup from ERU. If you do need to restore the registry using ERU, first boot the PC to the MS-DOS prompt again and change to the ERU folder (the one that you created above (CD\swhatever-dir) then type ERD.EXE. You will then be asked if you want to recover the registry. Answer Y and stand back. When the prompt returns hit the re-boot button and everything will be honky dory.\n\n Whenever I have used the above method to shrink the registry I find the size of system.dat is reduced by around 300,000 Kb and user.dat about 100,000 Kb or so. I have brought non working registrys back to life and regularly run it to keep the size under control. My registry still contains a few old keys and outdated links but it always runs better after this procedure.\n\n Windows 95 users : Open control panel and click on SYSTEM. The will show a version number. If it says 4.00.950B or later then your'e Ok, carry on, BUT if it is earlier than this, e.g 4.00.950 or 4.00.950A then don't use the above procedures, it MAY NOT WORK. There are ways around this but it gets a bit tedious and tricky. (See references below)\n\n ''References :''\n -http:// members.aol.com/ axcel216/newtip3.htm\n (search for "shrink")from the above download : W95-11D.ZIP : it is nearly a megabyte in size and FULL of EXCELLENT TIPS.\n -support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q82/8/21.ASP\n -support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q182/1/12.asp"\n -www.regedit.com/help\n -http://itp-journals.com/sasample/e1208.pdf\n

// (Passing requires 4 correct answers)//\n#How long did the Hundred Years War last?\n#Which country makes Panama hats?\n#From which animal do we get catgut?\n#In which month do Russians celebrate the October Revolution?\n#What is a camel's hair brush made of?\n#The Canary Islands in the Pacific are named after what animal?\n#What was King George VI's first name?\n#What colour is a purple finch?\n#Where are Chinese gooseberries from?\n\n All done? Click [[here|Answer to the Worlds easiest quiz]] to Check your answers\n

''Computer viruses prove costly.''\n\nProliferating computer viruses will cost business around the world more than $~US1.5 trillion this year according to a new study.\n\nAbout 50,000 companies operating in the United states are large enough to feel the impact and accurately tally the cost of viruses such as Melissa and the Love bug.\n\nViruses and computer hacking will cost these firms $~US266 billion this year which is more than 2.5% of US GDP.\n\nThe study conducted by Information Research covered 4,900 information technology professionals in 30 nations.\n\nAs viruses idle computer networks, the study says in 2000, wordwide losses will amount to 39,363 man years lost. \n\nReport author John ~DiStefano says losses of such magnitudes cannot be ignored by Wall Street and other World markets. \n\n//Article supplied by Don Mcdonald//\n

By Philip ~Hallam-Baker ~C-Net News.com - 22/7/2004\n\nYou once could explain away Internet attacks as destruction for destruction's sake. But many of the juvenile delinquents of the 1990s have since graduated from mere vandalism to hacking for monetary gain. One of the consequences of this change is spam. Who hasn't received dubious e-mail propositions from people purporting to be Nigerian merchants? Respond to them, and you risk joining a crowd of people who have lost huge sums in scams run by organized crime. \n\nMost spammers do not intend to sell. All they want is to "phish" your credit card number. Messages now zip around the Internet purporting to come from trusted companies and asking you to "verify your account." The victim is taken to a Web site that looks genuine but is run by a fraud ring. Besides the direct loss from the stolen card numbers, this fraud damages confidence in Internet security. \n\nThis is the new face of cybercrime. Whereas hacker vandals once coveted bragging rights, professional hackers have profit in mind. What's more, they are considerably more determined and have better resources than vandals. A new approach is necessary, and we must unlearn some of the lessons drawn from hacker vandalism. \n\nConventional wisdom has it that a system is only as secure as its weakest link. Hacker vandals instead concentrated their efforts on compromising the parts of the system that were the most difficult to break. That's where the bragging rights were to be had.\n \nBut latter-day professional hackers are not too proud to attack the weakest link in the system. Why spend months beating your head against the ring of steel constructed by a top security architect working for a major bank? That method doesn't make sense, when you can find customers who will just tell you their account number and password if you ask in the right way. \n\nE-mail provides the gap in the ring of steel. Even though practically every e-mail client is capable of sending and receiving secure e-mail, these features are rarely used. Why bother, when the hacker vandals consider e-mail forgery beneath them? Phishing fraud creates the need for secure e-mail, but we cannot simply wait for the world to agree on that point.\n \nWe must design e-mail security for everyday use by real users, not occasional use by experts. When a real letter comes from my bank, it is printed on letterhead with a prominent bank logo. We need an e-mail security solution that shows the difference between genuine and fake e-mails with equal simplicity. \n\nThe Internet Engineering Task Force's MARID working group is currently considering ~Sender-ID, a simple proposal for e-mail authentication. Computer security specialists have often dismissed schemes of this type, arguing that an expert user could in theory circumvent them. But a professional spammer has no use for a security vulnerability that only works for a limited time and allows a limited number of messages to be sent. Such a vulnerability is not profitable.\n \nAnother example of the different approach required is the reverse firewall. A traditional firewall is designed to stop attacks from the outside coming in; a reverse firewall stops an attack going out. This precaution reduces the value of recruiting your home computer as a member of a "botnet," a group of "zombie" machines hijacked to distribute huge amounts of fraudulent e-mail or launch denial-of-service attacks without being traced directly. \n\nI would like to see reverse firewalls embedded in every cable modem and wireless access point for home users. Normal users have no need to send out floods of e-mail, which reverse firewalls can stop, but they do allow a normal flow of e-mail. \n\nPart of the ~VeriSign ~Anti-Phishing Solution is a service that tracks down the sources of “phishing” attacks and asks the Internet service provider to shut them down. This is not the type of service that ~VeriSign would have considered offering five years ago.\n \nTraditional law enforcement techniques are a poor match for hacker vandals seeking thrills. The result often feels like playing "whack a mole," the carnival game that requires the player to smack mechanical moles quickly and repetitively with a mallet. \n\nThe professional hacker rarely tires of doing the same thing until it stops making a profit, establishing an identifiable modus operandi. The tools used, the targets chosen, the zombies exploited and the language used all combine to provide a detailed profile of the perpetrator. One long-term aspiration is that by combining data from all the information sources we manage--payment services, firewalls and DNS (domain name service) infrastructure--we may uncover future attacks and their perpetrators before they occur. \n\nThe rise of the professional hacker is certainly a cause for concern, but it is also a challenge and an opportunity--one that I and many other security professionals intend to rise to meet. \n\n//Original article: http://www.crime-research.org/news/21.07.2004/507//\n

Bataal 27/6/93\n\nhttp://www.bataal.demon.co.uk/vrthenextstep.htm \n\n1.&nbsp; ''A brief history, mundane aspects and implications of VR.''\nSeventeen hundred years ago an alchemist by the name of Ko Hung revealed to the Chinese imperial court at Beijing his new invention, gunpowder, and was hailed as a saviour of the human race; he was using it to find the elixir of immortality. Five hundred years later it was used to make the worlds first fireworks, the spectacle of which inspired such awe in the minds of the people that it only took some sixty years for some bright, if malevolent spark, to realise and develop its potential as a weapon. Its use had come around one hundred and sixty degrees from an agent of immortality to becoming an harbinger of untimely death.\n\nSuch radical and unforeseen twists of fate litter the history of technical development. Could the Wright brothers foresee the stealth bomber when designing the kitty hawk, or could Marconi foresee the military surveillance satellite when sending the first signals across the Atlantic.\n\nA valid benchmark of man's development can be drawn, though, when we consider that it was nearly six hundred years before gunpowder was used as a weapon, whilst it only took twenty years or less for aircraft to be used in this way. Only fifty years later, we flew to the moon. Today, at the end of the nineties, we see the weapon before anything else, and then develop the technology to suit the concept of the weapon rather than the other way around.\n\nThis is a rather interesting turn of events for man, and I believe a positive one. We develop weaponry and in doing so bestow upon mankind many peaceful benefits, this despite ourselves. A true example of negative flowing to the positive and an indication that things have at least the potential to come more into balance for us as regards fulfilling our cosmic role. Our insecurity as individuals and as nations provide the motivation to commit the financial resources to research and to develop those ideas that the commercial sector are to conservative to invest in.\n\nThe computer is one example of the product of this type of process. The name computer was originally used as a title to denote the person (usually women) who's function during the first world war was to calculate firing tables for artillery pieces. Then it was appended to refer to a type of machine used to decode enemy messages during the second world war, the most famous of which was developed in southern England. It was so good at its job that it is no exaggeration to say that it was this single piece of equipment that allowed us to win this war. This was because it was such a conceptual leap that the enemy did not believe that such a machine could be made, a machine that would decode the encrypted messages that their encoders, known as enigma, could produce. Consequently they fought the whole of the war with the allies knowing their plans before they were enacted.\n\nAfter the second world war the enemy was the USSR and its satellite states, and when the USSR managed to put Yuri Gagarin into orbit, the space race was on. Fuelled by the insecurity of the west a massive program was conceived to make sure that the it was the west that dominated the earth's outer-atmosphere in the belief that whoever controlled space controlled the earth. Not very altruistic, but a very typical philosophy during the so called 'cold war' years and one that still prevails today.\n\nBut, along with the space race came a wave of positive energy that brought to NASA's door not only the warmonger, but also visionaries, whose conceptual genius was given full support to the extent that it enabled a man to fly to the moon, across two hundred and fifty thousand miles of weightless vacuum and come home again.\nThe main area of development that has reached us as a result of the space race and has revolutionised the way we live our lives, is the process of miniaturisation. This has affected us to the extent that, what we take for granted today, from colour television to pocket calculators, are things hardly conceivable to the man on the street in 1960.\n\nThat first computer, used to break the axis codes, filled a stately home from top to bottom, and yet I sit before a machine that is infinitely more potent, and write these words, and it sits on the desk, a common everyday tool available to anybody. And we come to this point in less than sixty years.\n\nThe question is 'where will this take us in another sixty years'?, the mind boggles. To get an angle on this question we must leave the history behind, the point of accelerating technology having been made, and look at the position today, given that it is the military that is still dominating the course of our technological and sociological evolution (and thereby aspects of our personal evolution as well). What will we be taking for granted in, say, twenty fifty?\n\nThe new interest of the military today is in further development of the computer, but now not as a method of calculating trajectories or decoding as in ~WW2, but in further miniaturisation (this has by no means reached a plateau), and as a control device. That is to say they are interested in getting the computer to take charge of other devices. Well they have succeeded to the extent that a computer can run weapons, aircraft, buildings, anything you care to mention. People are the devices that enable the military to achieve their objectives.\n\nThis is nothing new, drilling is a means of instilling unthinking obedience and has gone on since the days of the roman empire. A little nearer to our own time they have experimented with drugs and various brain-washing techniques, but with very limited success. But now they have a new tool, based on computer technology, that can demonstrate a high success rate in this area.\n\nThis new tool began life as an instrument to train people to use highly specialised and sophisticated equipment. Aircraft and battle vehicles, especially submarines, are enormously powerful weapons and extremely expensive to produce. In order to have confidence to release such equipment into the hands of individuals they first condition them to use these weapons on a simulator.\n\nSimulators have been around for quite some time, and almost everybody will know what they are. But just as the space race put this computer on my desktop, simulators have leached out into society in general, mostly in the form of games played in arcades and at fairs and seaside resorts. Their use in the civilian world other than this, is at the moment, quite limited. There are plenty of things available to use on computers that masquerade as simulators, but these fall short of the definition, for in reality these are just presenting the user with a facsimile rather than a simulation.\n\nIn order be a simulator proper then it must stimulate all the physical senses, not just vision and hearing. To do this at the moment requires a dedicated physical representation of whatever is being simulated. The cockpit of the aircraft, the ready room of the submarine etc. And, there must be a degree of movement in order to simulate a dive or a turn. Naturally all this equipment is based on computers interpreting the decision's and movements of the trainee in real time, that is to say with no perceptible time lag between decision and execution. Because of this they need a high degree of mechanical engineering and are large. This is the reason that in order for a member of the public to experience this type of simulator they must travel to the local arcade. Cost and size of these machines makes them prohibitive for home use and the nature of them limit them to leisure, just super computer games.\n\nBut from this military technology has evolved a new form of simulator that requires must less hardware and it only costs a fraction of its mechanically dependant predecessors. It began life as a project to provide a cheap and transportable training device for the military, but just like the other things described, it has broken out, or rather is breaking out, into society. It has captured the imagination of the media and has become to be known as Virtual Reality (abb. VR).\n\nThe potential of VR is truly unlimited, and just as radio and then television has profoundly changed our nature and perspective, both culturally and individually, VR will do so again but in an even more profound way than anything man has experienced before. The reason for this is that we have stumbled upon a gateway to another universe, although there are not yet many who have come to appreciate this.\n\nVR is more than a fledgling technology. It is not widely available only because it has not yet been packaged to the satisfaction of commercial organisations. But, if I may write in metaphor, the engine is built but the bodywork needs to be streamlined to be both efficient and ascetically pleasing, at the moment it cannot be both. \n\nBut its only a matter of a short period of time until the headgear and heavy gloves necessary to interface with this alternate universe have been reduced to spectacles and mittens. It is not that these items of hardware are at present heavy or awkward or uncomfortable, they are light and flexible and can be plushly lined, but, because the majority of the development outside the military interest is corporate, they are concerned that if marketed there would be safety problems. This is because it de-sensitises users to their immediate environment and accidents may lead to costly court cases.\n\nSo, I had better describe what VR is in its present state of the art. Headgear is donned that contains a pair of liquid crystal monitors, one for each eye giving a stereoscopic view into the VR world, allowing the user to view it in 3D. The world that is viewed is generated by a dedicated computer known as a 'reality engine' although in reality, this is based on a conventional computer. The sound is bi aurall, like stereo only more so. Placed in a dark room you could be easily fooled into thinking that your hair is actually being cut if the sound of a haircut was played back to you bi aurally. It is very powerful. The user also wears a glove, called a data glove. This glove allows him to see his hand in the VR world and with it he can control and manipulate objects within that world in real time.\n\nAs the user looks around the movement of his head is detected by a magnetic sensor, and the movement is reproduced and the view of the VR world is altered, to give exactly the right angles and perspectives. And it happens smoothly, just as in our own everyday world. The view of the VR world is not tunnelled, peripheral vision is present, so our angle of view is not in anyway restricted or distorted relative to how we see in the everyday world.\n\nLikewise, the glove ensures that the movements of the hand are reproduced exactly and by the use of micro-hydraulics, tactile sensation is provided. So, when we touch or grasp something in VR, we receive tactile sensory feedback. The VR world is manipulated by the hand just as is the everyday world. But also, the user can communicate his wishes to the reality engine by gesture. To move in VR we fly, and we fly to where we want to go merely by pointing. We can walk in the VR world but this requires a treadmill for the user. \n\nThe only real challenge to be overcome with the software component of the technology is to make walls solid. At the moment you can just pass through them. They are opaque but cannot obstruct. This is a significant problem that must be overcome, and is the only significant factor holding VR back from further development into areas other than games. Giving a solidity to walls is just a matter of raw computing power, but with faster computers coming onto the market every six months or so, this problem will be overcome eventually, and sooner rather than later. Also, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that as an alternative, the solid wall problem will be defeated by a software solution.\n\nContinued next month.\nPart2 \n\n

Bataal 27/6/93\n\nhttp://www.bataal.demon.co.uk/vrthenextstep.htm\n\n(Continued from last month)\n\nBefore we move on to explore possibilities other than games, it is worth considering the effect VR will have even if taken no further than a technology of leisure, as in the early days this will be the main area of impact to the man on the street. It has already proven itself as a powerful training tool, for its development would have been stunted without the investment that the military have poured into it. But it is worth bearing in mind that its success in both these areas is for the following reasons.\n\nIf you listen to an FM stereo radio program you can get carried away on the strains of your favourite music. If you watch TV you can to some extent be affected by being moved or frightened, form opinions about things, even become mildly absorbed to the extent that you are less aware of what's going on around you. If you go to the cinema and sit near the front so that the whole of your vision is filled by the screen you can experience dizziness and butterflies when presented with the appropriate images. If you play a computer game (which add a degree of interaction, they are active as opposed to passive) you can become extremely absorbed. Watch a child play Sonic The Hedgehog, a fashionable and popular state of the art game used in millions of homes at the moment, and you will observe that the child becomes absorbed in the game to a point where absorption is total, and the house could literally burn around them without them noticing, make enquiries of parents, this is no exaggeration.\n\nNow, VR takes this several steps further and instead of absorption, a state of total immersion occurs. The VR world becomes more real than the real world and you are in the machine instead of just looking at it. You are not playing the part of the character in the game, or remotely controlling a character in the game, you are the character. Add to this the fact that in the VR world there are no restrictions upon your actions or even your appearance, you can be a dog or a cat if you wish, or anything else for that matter.\n\nThe laws of physics do not apply in the VR world, you can fly and survive anything, you can be superman if you just wish it. What's more, you can design you own world. On the market this year is a virtual reality toolkit for designing your own VR world. It is menu and icon driven, and you need no experience of programming to use it. The cost, £150 or less.\n\nIt is easy to see where the man of the twenty first century will spend his leisure time especially when we take into account of the fact that there will definitely be virtual sex, not necessarily of a pornographic nature (although this area will be explored, well I will anyway!) but more importantly from an educational perspective. Sound far fetched? Well VR is already being used by doctors to carry out complicated surgical procedures. The patient is first body mapped using magnetic resonance and then the surgeon performs the operation in VR before moving onto the real patient.\n\nPhysicists manipulate virtual molecules and geneticist's work on manipulating virtual genes. Eventually, real molecules and genes will be manipulated instantaneously in tandem with the users actions, just as if the scientist had been shrunk down to be small enough to work on these things like a mechanic works upon a car. \n\nArchitects will design buildings and be able to travel through them to see what the building will look like, and how efficient it is to move from one part to another before the foundation stone is laid. Pedestrian traffic flow through office blocks has always been a major headache in the design of modern buildings, making for costly corrections at very late stages of construction.\n\nThere is the possibility that VR can greatly relieve the drain on the earth's resources. This could come about because of its potential use in the area of travel, especially commuting, or more correctly, tele-commuting. Thousands of office personnel tele-commute to work everyday. Tele-commuting is the term used for working from home by connecting their computers to the office by telephone. This is an area that is fast becoming the norm rather than the exception due to our congested city roads.\n\nThe copper cable that constitutes our telephone network is being replaced by fibre optic cable. Copper cable does not have the bandwidth to carry VR, but fibre optic cable can carry VR easily. When these two technologies are married together, not only will the trip into the city be rendered obsolete, but so will the office block. Why go to the expense of a large building when you can create one in VR. Imagine, whole commercial estates contained in a single room housing a dedicated reality engine, networked to other reality engines all over the world, and each of these containing the whole of the commercial districts of each city. The workers log on instead of going to work in the physical. As VR is refined the facial expression and body language of each individual user can be expressed through their VR persona so nothing is lost from personal communication.\n\nOne of the most expensive business tools in use today is tele-conferencing with video link. It is cheaper to fly out for meetings at the moment, but with VR tele-conferencing would become the normal way to carry out everyday business. Political disputes will be definitely much harder to be kept on the boil when the leaders can be face to face on an ongoing and as required basis. All the time that is spent travelling, and all the resources used up by doing so, can be saved and put to better use. Presently, also, there is a two second lag in this type of communication when intercontinental distances are involved, but this is caused mainly by copper wire. This delay could be brought down to a few milli-seconds by using fibre optics and full and efficient satellite links.\n\nHow about a VR tour of the Louvre or the Acropolis. With VR tourism may become to be considered anti-social behaviour. Why expend all those dwindling resources on something as trivial as travelling all the way to Egypt to walk around the Pyramids when you can do the whole thing in VR. I am not talking of viewing these things like we view a video tape. You will be networked to the real thing in real time and experience the tour more positively than if you went in the physical. The heat and the insects will not be missed, but if you do require these things you will no doubt be catered for.\n\nThen there is the virtual shopping trip. Why go to town and have to find a parking space and lug heavy shopping about when you can enter VR, do the shopping at the virtual supermarket and have it delivered the same day by bicycle boy. You can examine the goods, pick them up and read the labels. You may not be able to identify silk from its texture but you will be able to check the colour under various lighting conditions. You can feel the weight of things by pulling on a torsion bar. Go to the library and walk amongst the shelves browsing before choosing which book to download. If the demand is enough, go to any library in the world as easily as your local one.\n\nBased on the history of technological development all these things will and must come about. And it will come about faster than we think. I am 36, if I live to be eighty I would bet anything that VR is as common as colour television is in the home today. I am also sure that many taken for granted social conventions will fall by the wayside. It may be that all this is curtailed for a time due to political problems such as border controls not being feasible and centralised power being clung to. The changes in the way these things are expressed and viewed are staggering to contemplate. But just like the atomic bomb, because it can be done, it will be done, of this there can be no doubt.\n\nFinally, there is even further possibilities to consider when we take into account other technologies that are being developed and will converge with VR. One that will no doubt play a role equally as potent in changing the present state of affairs as regards our future evolvement, is artificial intelligence (abb. AI). This is something I will dwell upon in the second part of this paper but would like to leave the reader with this very practical question to ponder. If these things I have described come about, even in a small way, how would the user know if the person he was talking to in the VR world was real or not?\n\n2. The Possible Effects Of VR On Mans Continued Evolution.\nTo the majority of people when they ponder the word evolution they think of, by association, Darwin and apes. They think of prehistoric man and dinosaurs. Personally I think of Raquel Welch in the film 1,000,000 years BC, and reflect on the fact that I and a large percentage of my fellows on the earth, do not seem to have come on much!\n\nBut personal evolvement depends as much on getting a decent roll of the genetic dice as anything else, so I cannot offer the above comment as anything other than an objective and observable fact, rather than as a criticism of my fellows.\n\nNow I go along with Darwin as far as the survival of the fittest is concerned, right up to the apes. But as far as man is concerned I have to beg to differ with science. I don't believe in prehistoric man at all, I would rename that whole class of fossil evidence of man's beginnings, "experimental man", as opposed to prehistoric man. \n\nI am not suggesting though, that our origin lies somewhere other than the earth, but something's had a tinker, of this I am personally sure. Now, the word god springs to mind, but not having a conscious recollection of being around at the time that the tinkering was going on, I shall leave the question as to what or who open, and offer the reader who cannot quite stretch themselves to understand this obvious fact with the following observation.\n\nWe have subtle elements in our make-up that, relative to the rest of the earth's inhabitants, are synthetic. The major of these special qualities that we possess over and above our fellows is creativity. And we have consistently expressed this quality by externalising our inner attributes through the arts, and also by forcing the environment that we inhabit to conform to our will. This latter aspect of our creativity we express mainly through our technology.\n\nWe have many elements in common with our co-inhabitants of the planet, but I believe that these are present in order to allow us to interface with the earth in a proper manner. Man has deliberate enhancements that allow him to emulate the most successful natural fauna of the earth. This may be in order to make us integrate efficiently, and we do this so successfully that our real origin has become obscured.\n\nArt and technology have always been seen to be opposite poles of our creative potential. The artistic expression of man is rooted in his deeper self and manifests into consciousness, borne upon a wave of energy that we call inspiration. This feeling of inspiration is caused by a wave of energy passing through the individual, and this energy can be correctly labelled creative, or perhaps even unitive energy. But in reality mans technology and art must be one and the same, as this energy flow, perceived as inspiration and manifesting into the environment as a data stream (putting it down on paper at the very least), can be experienced when dealing with things of a more mundane nature, such as in the area of design and building of apparatus.\n\nThe opposition of art and technology is an illusion brought about by the fact that artistic expression flows from an area of ourselves that is deeper than everyday awareness. Whereas, technological expression flows from an area that we are very aware of, namely, the intellect. Our individual self worth is identified with the fact that we have, and can demonstrate that we have, intelligence. And because we deem this a precious commodity (due to egoism and social conditioning), we have retained this area of our makeup more in the foreground of our consciousness.\n\nTo be continued next month.\nPart 3\n\n

Bataal 27/6/93 \n\nhttp://www.bataal.demon.co.uk/vrthenextstep.htm\n\n(Continued from last month)\n\nVR is a medium that may allow us to reconcile technology and art in a way hitherto impossible. VR offers to take us to new heights of self expression. Man has always sought to express himself graphically through drawings. Symbolism is the machine code of our mind and VR is a medium in which we may find an outlet to express those deeper aspects of ourselves, and in doing so, give us the potential to bring our spiritual nature back into the foreground of our consciousness, where it rightly belongs. In creating VR man has found himself a freedom that surpasses the wildest expectations of the most optimistic visionaries of the past. It puts before the individual all the tools necessary to complete themselves and to realise their full potential. The tragedy of man has always been that our time on earth is so short, that we are not able to assimilate the knowledge necessary, to attain a sufficient degree of enlightenment, to allow us to cross the abyss of death. \n\nGenerations of the more enlightened have exhorted us to explore ourselves through the medium of dreams. We are told, time and again, that our liberation lies within, not out-here. But we have lost the art of dreaming for we can only bring through fragments of our dreams into everyday awareness. But I am sure, that others like myself, who work upon themselves, would agree with me, that it is not that when we dream we communicate with higher beings who guide us, that makes this aspect of working upon ourselves important and useful, but more the fact that the dream world that we all inhabit every night, is a reflection of ourselves, and as such, it offers us the opportunity to integrate and bring into balance all the different aspects that make up our psyche. In doing this we are able to define ourselves, and eventually bring to bear, that same creative/unitive energy and use it.\n\nIn western culture the dream world is known as the astral plane. One of the main practises of those of us who are trying to evolve spiritually is to learn to retain everyday consciousness whilst present on the astral. In doing this a full memory of the experiences of the dream world are brought back into the world of the mundane, allowing the individual practitioner the opportunity to understand their inner processes and establish a better definition of their own nature. Knowledge of these areas is one of the most powerful tools that we possess in our arsenal of abilities necessary to complete this act of self creation that is life!\n\nBut, generations of repressive sociological conditioning have made this natural ability that we should all possess, atrophy, to the point of it being necessary to dedicate a huge and disproportionate amount of time and energy to re-establish it. VR could play a major part in re-educating us to use this innate ability. When we enter VR we have so completely interfaced with the hardware that we are using to generate it, that a state of immersion occurs. The generated environment of VR overrides the sensory input of our physical environment, just as happens when we are asleep and dreaming. When we are dreaming we are said to be present on the astral plane. In VR we are present on a different plane as well is malleable to thought. VR is malleable to ideas. The astral reflects the situations of everyday life that are on the mind. VR will reflect the same situations if we so desire because it is mutable to whim. The astral exists as a product of the mind. VR is a product of the mind also, just several steps removed. There are the more esoteric levels to consider about the astral, such as the fact that although the astral is personal to us, in that we each have a bit of it, so to speak, it is also universal in that we can be interlinked to other minds. VR likewise, can be networked to other systems created by other minds. \n\nThe major difference between the astral and VR is that we can be in control in a fuller sense with VR. In VR we can personally apply whatever laws we choose to the environment. The fact that VR is computer based, whereas the astral is mind based, does not really matter, for the computer is a manifestation of mind also, and one that mimics and amplifies certain powers of the mind. Furthermore, the more advanced the computer, the better it corresponds with the processes that take place within our nervous systems. In reality, the only major difference between a computer system and a nervous system is the fact that computers are digital and very huge, still, for what they are capable of. The biological mind that we possess is analogue rather that digital and therefore can manifest a third state beyond the simple 'on off' states, of a computer. But when we enter VR or even sit at the keyboard, as we do now, we project ourselves into the machinery and manipulate it into performing creative acts. We add the third, missing component, creativity, to the machine.\n\nThis interaction is enhanced, with VR, to the point where we have presence in the machine, and just as in real life, our presence in an environment endows it with a consciousness of its own. We may find that the environment of VR will respond in surprising ways, just as our present physical environment does in real life, and as our astral world certainly does. Still only time will tell. In bringing the VR world into being we are opening up another universe for we are in fact bringing the astral into manifestation, in an even lower micro-cosmos than our own mundane world. Just as we have been inspired to imitate our bodies with our mechanical systems, through electronics, particularly with computers, we are inspired to imitate our minds. \n\nAnother technology that will no doubt converge with VR is Artificial Intelligence (abb. AI). AI opens the possibility to the computer, of generating a graphical representation of itself in VR, taking whatever form the user finds pleasing. The computer can act through this to respond to our communications, putting us literally face to face with a 'genie' that can grant our every wish as regards to the world around us. It could act as a guide when navigating our way through a database in search of information, or even chauffeur us to work through the by-ways and highways of the fibre optic network, preserving our structural integrity by refreshing the data that holds our image for other users. It does not need to be intrusive but can happily sit in the pocket running in a minimised mode, perhaps in the form of a plastic card! This genie could replace the car as a status symbol in the business world. \n\nOne major advantage of travelling 'a la VR' is the fact that you won't get killed on the way to work. But you may occasionally cease to those around you because the, 'silver cord of the fibre optic', has snapped, and you will not be able to get back to your VR body. Don't apply the old occult maxim, 'as it is above, so it is below', to this, or you'll get a headache. How about having people born into VR instead of being aborted due to malformation in the foetus. Why have people suffer the agonies of being disabled when perhaps they could be given mobility and freedom in VR cheaply, their physical foundation being cared for automatically. It would relieve us of the burden of murdering them before birth because we could provide them with a high standard of, quality of existence, in VR.\n\nA bit of a wild speculation, I know, but if something along these lines came about we could end up creating a class of beings that may be the foundation of an entirely new race. They, like the first root race of the earth, could reasonably be described as fire mist. An interesting correspondence. Another question that springs to mind is the implications of VR relative to the perspective of Ghaya. Because each of us are a component of the consciousness of the earth itself, and given that all things either evolve or atrophy, including planets, then, is it possible that VR has in reality, come about because the earth is evolving a new level of consciousness? Will the earth begin to dream? And just as our dreams are inhabited by entities composed of components of our own consciousness, will we inhabit hers? We think of the things we have created and claim them as our own, when, in reality, all these things, including VR, may be only by-products of the continuing evolvement of Ghaya. Perhaps we are unconsciously constructing a bridge between ourselves and our spiritual mother, only time will tell.\n\nGiven a reasonable political stability over the next decade these speculations will bear fruit for the generations that succeed us. A world in which networked interactive VR is as common as television is almost here.\n

''Another contribution from Robin Hinde''\n\nLast month Megabyte published an article about del.icio.us, a superb "social" bookmarking application; last week Yahoo! bought del.icio.us.\n\nThe deal is rumoured to be for between US$15m and US$20m - not bad for a couple of years part time work. One of the best reports on the deal is at http://business2.blogs.com/business2blog/2005/12/delicious_deal__1.html\nIn some ways, this is Yahoo! going full circle, as it started as a directory service; now del.icio.us allows the work to be distributed, although instead of using a directory structure, tagging is used instead. Despite being deceptively simple, tagging has been demonstrated to be a very powerful tool when used on a large scale. It is expected that Yahoo! will incorporate some aspects of del.icio.us into its new My Web 2.0 service.\n\nYahoo! has previously acquired Flickr (http://www.flickr.com), a photosharing service that uses tags to manage image collections.\n

//At the February Hutt SIG meeting, a member asked for help with a problem they were having with Outlook Express.\n\nAlthough the problem was not resolved, several suggestions were made - including the unhelpful one of using a different email program. Since I made that suggestion, I thought I'd like to expand on the topic. If you disagree, feel free to write your own article in next month's Megabyte:-)//\n\n''Think about what email client you use:''\n\nOutlook Express seems to give many people problems, as well as being a common vehicle for the transfer of email viruses and trojans. I'm sure that the only reason people use it is because it is free with some versions of Windows. \n\nI personally prefer Pegasus, which besides being free, was written by David Harris of Dunedin. Support your local software industry! Pegasus is available in DOS, and 16 bit and 32 bit windows versions - so it will in fact run on just about anything - including OS/2 and probably Linux. It has more features than the average user will probably require, including the ability to filter messages (and even execute programs) according to various user-definable criteria.\n\nIts one shortcoming is that it doesn't deal with multiple ~POP3 accounts particularly well, although it does integrate well with your existing Web browser, and can even display HTML or RTF documents itself if necessary (see later). \n\nThere are other choices available - Eudora is free (but beware the version with the advertising banner!) and there is an email client built into Netscape Communicator. And of course, Linux users have dozens of free email clients to choose from.\n\n''Think about Bcc: and Cc:''\n\nWhen sending the same email to several people, think about when to use Cc: (Carbon copy) and Bcc: (Blind carbon copy).\n \nMost email programs use Cc: by default, where as often Bcc: is more appropriate, especially when the recipients do not know each other.\n\nIf your mailing list is large, or contains personal email addresses, it is safest to use Bcc: Consider that some people do not wish to have their email addresses widely circulated, to avoid receiving unsolicited email (often incorrectly called spam - which is strictly a usenet phenomenon). \n\nI once entered an online competition run by a major NZ PC distributor,and was dismayed to find a huge file in my inbox some months later. The distributor - who should have known better - had Cc:ed an email to everybody on the mailing list - about 1500 names in all. Because Cc: had been used, all these names appeared in the message header! \n\nTwo days later, I received some unsolicited commercial email which was also Cc:ed to several hundred people - who happened to correspond exactly with a block of the 1500 names included in the PC distributor's list. People do collect email addresses for their own use, or to pass on to other people.\n \n''Think about what message format to use:'' \n\nMost email clients will send email formatted as plain text. This guarantees that the email client the recipient is using will display a message that is readable - no matter what software or operating system they are using.\n\nHowever, Outlook Express and some other email programs allow (in fact encourage!) the use of HTML or other formatting in email messages. This provides the ability to use coloured backgrounds and text,different font sizes, and to control the layout of the message. The trade off is that you can no longer guarantee the message will be readable by the recipient. In addition, the message size increases, so it takes more resources to send and store the message as it travels to the recipient. \n\nEmails of this nature when sent to NZPCA members at nzpca.org.nz are almost unreadable, as they are displayed in a text only mail reader. (Especially word documents) I don't believe that HTML formatting usually adds much to the message, and that plain text should be used wherever possible.\n\n''Think before you send attachments:''\n\nRecently I was showing the neighbours how to check their email, and found that although they only had a couple of messages, it took 35 minutes to download them! A friend had sent them a large .avi file, and although I'm sure it only took a few minutes to send the email (using a 56K modem), it took a lot longer to receive it using a 14k4 modem.\n\nConsider that large attachments effectively block a person's email until they are downloaded - so ask before you send a large file. Alternatively, use a service like http://www.xdrive.com to put the file where it can be accessed easily, but can also be password protected.\n\nUsers at nzpca.org.nz can receive attachments, but with some difficulty - it is probably best to avoid sending attachments as there is a limit to the amount of free email that members are entitled to anyway.\n\nRemember that the Megabyte Editor is always happy to receive attachments of almost any size - in fact the bigger, the better - provided they are articles for next month's Megabyte! \n\n''Think before forwarding frivolous email:'' \n\nPeople sometimes find themselves in the situation where they will receive email of an amusing or "interesting" nature, and be tempted to pass this on to their friends and aquaintances. \n\nThere are risks associated with doing this - if the email contains an attachment, how would you know you are notpassing on a virus infected file or a trojan?\n\nIn the workplace, many employers (particularly government departments) specifically prohibit forwarding email warnings about viruses to your co-workers as although people do this to try to be helpful, such warnings are more often than not, hoaxes. \n\nBear in mind also, that email is not private - this is especially important to consider when using email at work. People get into serious conflict with their employers because they don't realise that email activity is often monitored and inappropriate (and indeed, illegal) usage is uncovered as a matter of course. \n\n''And finally...think about what you write:'' \n\nLook at how useful Microsoft's email has been to the prosecution in their antitrust trial! \n\n//Robin Hinde//\n

Windows 2000 is upon us. It has many good features, but unless you have the right system for it, Windows 2000 experience can be a nightmare. Here are some important topics which you will need to think about before buying it.\n\n''Windows 2000 is NOT the newest update of the Windows 95/98 operating systems.''\n*It is the upgrade to the Windows NT operating systems, NT being a business operating system. Essentially, Windows 2000 is still NT with a new interface. Windows Millennium, most likely to be called Windows 98 Third Edition, is the next big release of Windows 95/98 and will be released later in the year. \n\n''Windows 2000 requires very new hardware.''\n*If your machine is more than one or two years old it is most likely not suitable for Windows 2000. Although the minimum recommended system is a Pentium 133 with 32 MB of RAM, it is really not worth running Windows 2000 on a machine slower than a Pentium II (or equivalent) 350 MHz machine, and with no less than 96 MB of RAM. Windows 2000 will run if you don't have at least this, but with a noticeable undesirably huge decrease in performance. \n\n''Windows 2000 is NOT a suitable gaming operating system yet.''\n*Windows 2000 is based on Windows NT which manages CPU and Memory differently, therefore 3D games designed for 95/98 and DOS will not run as fast or, in some cases, not at all, and may act differently. As new games are developed and gaming equipment made, there will be better support for games to run in Windows 2000. \n\n''Windows 2000 requires a BIG hard drive.''\n*If you have a machine with a 4gig hard drive or less, it may not meet other requirements for Windows 2000. The basic install for Windows 2000 takes a little more than half a gigabyte (500 megabytes) of disk space. This is more than double a basic installation of Windows 98 or four times that of Windows 95. So make sure you have at least one to two gigabytes of free space on your hard drive to give room to install other applications.\n\n''Windows 2000 doesn't run over the top of DOS.''\n*Windows 2000, like its predecessor, when you boot it you can only boot straight into Windows 2000. You can't boot to DOS first because DOS does not exist. When you are inside Windows 2000 you may use DOS applications because Windows 2000 emulates it. Also, if you use many DOS programmes, Windows 2000 DOS support is minimal because DOS is being phased out.\n\n''Your computer may have hardware not yet supported in Windows 2000.''\n*Unless you have a newer computer with new name brand components, things like your sound card or modem may not work inside Windows 2000. If you have a new system, but it is a "cheapy" -- that is, one of the integrated machines which usually come with a rebate -- it is likely that your sound card or modem or video is not yet supported. If you have such a machine, consider holding off buying Windows 2000 yet.\n\n*Some people will have to get new drivers for some hardware, even though Windows 2000 comes with drivers for that device. If you have a 3D video card, Windows 2000 will most likely have a driver, but it will only support the 2D part of it. If you want to play 3D games inside Windows 2000 you will have to get new drivers for your 2D/3D video card \n\nAll these factors are important when deciding to upgrade to Windows. It might be worth while taking your machine to a reputable computer shop which could determine if you can upgrade safely.\n\n

''By Jonathan Leger at kricket.net.''\n\n It's bound to happen sooner or later: you turn on the old computer, and something that was working fine before is no longer working at all, or is having weird problems. Whether it's your modem, your sound card, a scanner, or some other device in or connected to your PC, there are a few things that you can do to get it working again.\n\n To find out exactly how you should go about troubleshooting your computer, choose which one of the following scenarios describes your situation:\n\n#I just installed this device. This is the first time I've ever had this kind of device in my computer.\n#I just installed this device to replace an old device of the same kind.\n#I haven't changed anything. This device just stopped working.\n\n Regardless of which situation describes you, ask yourself a few key questions:\n*Did I install the driver for this device?\n Almost all new hardware will require you to install a "device driver". A device driver is a program that tells Windows how to control, or "drive" the device.\n\n*After installing the device, did I check for conflicts in the Device Manager?\n Just because Windows appeared to install the device just fine, doesn't necessarily mean that it's not conflicting (that is, getting in the way of) another device in your computer. If you have not installed the driver, do that first. Your hardware should have come with a How-To guide (sometimes called Getting Started) that will explain how to install the driver. If it did not, or if you no longer have the manual, see 'Scenario [3]' for instructions on how to reinstall the driver.\n If you have installed the driver, but don't know how to check for conflicts, see the section further down entitled "Resolving Device Conflicts."\n\n Scenario [1]:\n I just installed this device. This is the first time I've ever had this kind of device in my computer. After having installed the driver and checked for conflicts with other devices, if your device still is not working properly, there are two things you can do:\n#Go to the manufacturer's website (which is usually shown in the device's documentation), and download the latest driver for the device. You will usually find driver updates in a section of the website called "Support" if there is not a specific section on the main page for downloading new drivers.\n#After having installed that latest driver, if the device still does not work, try installing the device in a friend's computer. If it does not work in another computer, either, you might have gotten a bad device. This does happen. We occasionally receive equipment here that was tested before it left from the vendor, but may have been damaged during shipping. Hopefully you kept the receipt and can return the item.\n\n Scenario [2]:\n I installed this device to replace an old device of the same kind.\n After having installed the driver and checked for conflicts with other devices, if your device still is not working properly, ask yourself the following two questions:\n#Did I remove/disable the old device before I installed the new one?\n When installing a new modem, for example, it is always a good idea to remove the old one, especially you are working with an old computer, because the old modem may not be Plug-N-Play, and so that could cause trouble.\n#Did I remove the old device driver before installing the new one?\n Even if you took the old device out of the computer, or unplugged it from the computer, you may still need to remove the drive for the old device to avoid hidden conflicts. Do the following:\n*Right-click on 'My Computer' on the desktop and choose 'Properties'.\n*A window will appear that says 'System Properties.' Click on the tab at the top of the window that says 'Device Manager.'\n*Double-click on the type of device that is giving you problems (i.e., if you installed a new modem, double-click on the 'Modem' icon, if it's a sound card, double-click on the 'Sound, video and game controllers' icon.)\n*Single-click on the driver for the OLD device, and then click the button that says 'Remove'.\n*Restart your computer.\n If that does not solve your problem, follow the two steps outlined under 'Scenario [1]' above, downloading and installing the latest driver from the manufacturer and trying the device in another computer.\n\n Scenario [3]:\n I haven't changed anything: the device just stopped working.\n After having installed the driver and checked for conflicts with other devices, if your device still is not working properly, you will want to remove the driver. (See 'Scenario [2]' above for detailed instructions on how to remove the driver). Reinstall the driver from off the diskette or CD that came with the device.\n\n ''DO NOT LET WINDOWS JUST FIND AND INSTALL ITS OWN COPY OF THE DRIVER.''\n\n If, after rebooting the computer, Windows "finds" your new hardware and installs the driver for it (which you don't want it to do in case there is something wrong with the driver), do the following:\n \nIf your device came with a CD-ROM, put the CD-ROM in the CD-ROM drive and wait for a few seconds to see if a menu will pop-up. A menu should pop up because Windows has what is called an 'Autorun' feature that will automatically run the program on the CD (or play a music CD) once you put it in the drive. When the menu appears, see if there is an option to install the driver. If you cannot find one, or if the device came with a floppy diskette, do the following:\n*Right-click on 'My Computer' on your desktop and choose 'Properties'.\n*A window will appear that says 'System Properties.' Click on the tab at the top of the window that says 'Device Manager.'\n*Double-click on the type of device that is giving you problems (i.e., if you installed a new modem, double-click on the 'Modem' icon, if it's a sound card, double-click on the 'Sound, video and game controllers' icon.)\n*Single-click on the driver for the OLD device, and then click the button that says 'Properties'.\n*A window will appear that has the name of the device on it. Click on the 'Driver' tab at the top of the window, and then click on the 'Update Driver' button.\n*The 'Update Device Driver' wizard will appear. Click 'Next'.\n*Make sure 'Search for a better driver' is selected, and then click 'Next' again.\n*If your device came with a floppy diskette, click the box next to 'Floppy Disk drives' so that there is a check mark in it. If your device came on a CD-ROM, click the box next to 'CD-ROM drives' so that there is a check mark in it. If it is located somewhere else, click the box next to 'Specify a Location' and type in the path to the driver.\n*Be sure that you have the diskette or CD-ROM in the drive before clicking 'Next' again.\n*If there is more than one driver on the diskette or CD-ROM, Windows will ask you to choose which one you want to install. Select the one that you need (it will usually match the name on the box for the device) and then click 'Next'. If you are not given a list, but Windows tells you that it is ready to install the device, then click 'Next'.\n*Windows will now install your device. You will probably have to restart the computer after it is done.\n\n Check the now reinstalled device for conflicts. If you don't know how, see the section below entitled "Resolving Device Conflicts". Resolving Device Conflicts\n \n~Plug-N-Play was supposed to solve the problem of driver conflicts. Windows is supposed to look at everything in your computer, see where there is room to put the new device, and put it there. This works pretty good most of the time, but sometimes Windows gets confused and doesn't put the device where it's supposed to go.\n \nImagine that you had a lamp plugged into a socket in the wall, and you then wanted to plug another lamp into that same socket. You can't do it, can you? You have to unplug one of them to get the other one in. It works the same way with a computer. You can't have to devices using the same space, but sometimes Windows tries to do that anyway, and it causes what you call a "conflict". Sometimes this causes one device to stop working while the other one keeps working fine, but sometimes it stops them both from working.\n\n To resolve a device conflict, do the following:\n*Right-click on 'My Computer' on your desktop and choose 'Properties'.\n*A window will appear that says 'System Properties.' Click on the tab at the top of the window that says 'Device Manager.'\n*If there is a conflict, a yellow exclamation point (!) will appear next to the device name.\n*Single-click on the driver that has the conflict (if there is more than one, click on the first one), and then click on the button that says 'Properties'.\n*A window will appear that has the name of the device on it. Click on the 'Resources' tab at the top of the window.\n*Towards the bottom of the window you will see a box that is labeled 'Conflicting device list'. This will tell you which device is conflicting with the one you are looking at.\n*To solve the problem, click on the box next to 'Use automatic settings' so that there is not a check in the box.\n*Click on the box next to 'Setting based on' and select each of the configurations in the list until the 'Conflicting device list' box says 'No conflicts'. Once it says that, click 'OK'.\n*Once you're back at the 'System Properties' window, click 'OK'. You will probably be asked to restart your computer. Do so. Repeat those steps for each device that has a yellow exclamation point (!) next to it. That should remove any problems with conflicts.\n\n ''Summary''\n\n So there you have it, the basic steps for troubleshooting your hardware woes. If, after having followed all of the steps above, you still are having troubles. Ask yourself this question:\n*Do I have a whole lot of neat stuff in my computer (i.e., a scanner, a modem, a CD-ROM drive, a DVD drive, a video card, a sound card, a DVD decoder card, etc.)?\n \nJust as your house only has so many outlets on the wall, your computer can only support so many different devices at a time. If you have a whole bunch of devices, you may simply be out of room, in which case you will have to sacrifice one device for the sake of the one you're trying to get working.\n

When Andrew Wilkinson's extensive computer collection was cleaned out recently I ended up with the 13 suitcases of disks. I already had the old CP/M disk library, so I was deemed the obvious choice. \n\nApparently the disk library was given by the club to Andrew at some time in the past, therefore they were his property. Now they are mine. \n\nThe obvious solution is to dump the lot, but I felt that I should give the members some input into this decision. \n\nI'll give you 7 days after receipt of this Megabyte before getting rid of any of the disks. Inside that time if there are any members who would like to own the library or part thereof, please let me know before a week is up. If you only want selected disks thats quite Ok by me, BUT you'll have to come to my place and sort through them and take what you want. This will be done the next weekend after reading this. \n\nIt is a huge pity to have to throw them out, but I have to face facts, not many people have 5.25 inch drives anymore, no-one wants thousands of 360K disks sitting around on the off chance that a special piece of old, nay ancient, software is needed. ALL the disks are 360Kb DSDD 5.25 inch disks. \n\nSome of the software I've tried won't run in a DOS session of the Windows, other programs have long since been updated to new versions. Some of it is useful, but in reality no more useful than modern software. The hard decision I've made includes the CP/M library as well. \n\nBoth libraries are well catalogued, but the catalogues are not all that well documented. The latest catalogue is on Megabaud under the name ~LHAX901.ZIP. This was current as at October 1990. It has some 4333 disks listed, I suspect there's more than this in the suitcases. \n\nDuring his time at both the NZPCA and also the Hutt Group known as Central Region Osborne Group (CROG) Andrew collected 400 odd disks that make up the First Osborne Group (FOG) library. This consists of the ~MS-DOS library and the CP/M library. I plan to keep one suitcase that is the FOG DOS library. \n\nIt is well documented and consists of high quality (old) software. I just don't have the heart to dump this and I have ideas of making a ~CD-ROM of this at some later stage. The catalogue for the DOS and CP/M libraries are on Megabaud as ~FOG-DOS.ZIP and ~FOG-CPM.ZIP. All these catalogues are in the same area as all the other ~CD-ROM catalogues (Area 1). \n\np.s Bring your own suitcases, some of the current ones are mine.\n

Thanks Jim Oliver for his talk on "How to get the most out of your computer by using the "Right" key on your mouse". (Hutt Sigs Meeting on the 8th September)\n\n As part of that talk he mentioned that he uses Ad-aware 6 as one part of his security measures in keeping his computer free of unwanted adverts and spyware. Jim even mentioned that he was prepared to pay for it. That I gather is a good recommendation in itself.\n\n The following day I ran Ad-aware on my home computer and found 18 unwanted spyware programs. I installed Ad-ware on my computer last year, but hadn't done a scan recently so wasn't surprised to find the unwanted programs. All of the unwanted spy programs came off the Internet without my knowledge and demonstrates the need to run so form of protection on your computer if you browse the net.\n\n I am currently using Zone Alarm as the firewall, Ad-aware 6 and Spybot to clean out the unwanted spyware programs and ~AVG6 as my virus protection. The best part about these programs is that that are all free.\n So far Zone alarm has blocked 2548 intrusions and 89 of those were rated as high. Many of those will be repeats and it is not unusual to see the popup window several time while you browse the net.\n\n When upgrading Ad-aware, I found another site that offers free anti-spy, anti-spam and anti virus program.\n\n Goto http://www.pcworld.com and click on "Privacy and Security" under the "downloads". There is quite a range of programs available. Free, 30 day trial and demos. Some of these programs suit the older computers and software.\n\n Be brave and try them out. //- Arthur. //

/***\n|''Name:''|TiddlerListMacro|\n|''Version:''|2.0.10 (01-May-2006)|\n|''Source''|http://jackparke.googlepages.com/jtw.html#TiddlerListMacro ([[del.icio.us|http://del.icio.us/post?url=http://jackparke.googlepages.com/jtw.html%23TiddlerListMacro]])|\n|''Author:''|[[Jack]]|\n|''Type:''|Macro|\n|''Documentation:''|TiddlerListMacroDocumentation|\n!Usage\n{{{<<tiddlerList parameter1:"value1" parameter2:"value2" ...>>}}}\nSee TiddlerListMacroDocumentation and TiddlerListMacroExamples\n!Code\n***/\n//{{{\nversion.extensions.tiddlerList = {major: 2, minor: 0, revision: 10, date: new Date("May 2, 2006")};\n// template = [header, item, seperator, group, footer]\nconfig.macros.tiddlerList={\n formats : {list:true, nlist:true, span:true, stack:true, csv:true, table:true},\n templates : {\n list : [ "%0\sn", "* %0\sn", "", "%group\sn", "%0\sn"],\n nlist : [ "%0", "# %0\sn", "", "%group\sn", "%0\sn"],\n span : [ "%0", "%0", " ", "%group", "%0"],\n stack : [ "%0", "%0", "\sn", "%group", "%0"],\n csv : [ "%0", "%0", ", ", "%0", "%0\sn"],\n table : ["|!%0|\sn", "|%0|\sn", "", "|%group|\sn", "|%0|\sn"]\n },\n dateFormat : "DD MMM YYYY"\n}\n\nif (!gCurrentTiddler)\n var gCurrentTiddler;\n\nconfig.macros.tiddlerList.handler = function(place,macroName,params,wikifier,paramString,tiddler)\n{\n // Some globals\n var count=0, groupCount=0, theGroup="", lastGroup="";\n var currentTiddler = tiddler;\n gCurrentTiddler = tiddler;\n var listWikiText="";\n var formats = this.formats;\n \n // SQL-Like parameters\n var parameters = paramString.parseParams("name",null,true);\n var pTags = parameters[0]["tags"]?parameters[0]["tags"][0].split(","):[];\n var pOrder = parameters[0]["order"]?parameters[0]["order"][0]:"title";\n var pTop = parameters[0]["top"]?parameters[0]["top"][0]:-1;\n var pText = parameters[0]["text"]?parameters[0]["text"][0]:"";\n var pTitle = parameters[0]["title"]?parameters[0]["title"][0]:"";\n var pSearch = parameters[0]["search"]?parameters[0]["search"][0]:"";\n var pFilter = parameters[0]["filter"]?parameters[0]["filter"][0]:"";\n var pHeader = parameters[0]["header"]?paramFormat(parameters[0]["header"][0]):"";\n var pFooter = parameters[0]["footer"]?paramFormat(parameters[0]["footer"][0]):"";\n var pGroup = parameters[0]["group"]?parameters[0]["group"][0]:"";\n var pDateFormat = parameters[0]["dateFormat"]?parameters[0]["dateFormat"][0]:this.dateFormat;\n var pCustomParameter = parameters[0]["customParameter"]?parameters[0]["customParameter"][0]:"";\n var pFormat = parameters[0]["format"]?parameters[0]["format"][0]:"list";\n pFormat = formats[pFormat]?pFormat:"list"\n \n // Seperator\n var pSeperator = parameters[0]["seperator"]?paramFormat(parameters[0]["seperator"][0]):this.templates[pFormat][2]\n\n // Template for group\n var pGroupTemplate = this.templates[pFormat][3];\n if (parameters[0]["groupTemplate"])\n pGroupTemplate = paramFormat(parameters[0]["groupTemplate"][0])\n pGroupTemplate = pGroupTemplate.replace("$))", ">>")\n \n // Template for group footer\n var pGroupFooterTemplate = "";\n if (parameters[0]["groupFooterTemplate"])\n pGroupFooterTemplate = paramFormat(parameters[0]["groupFooterTemplate"][0])\n pGroupFooterTemplate = pGroupFooterTemplate.replace("$))", ">>")\n \n // Template for item\n var pItemTemplate = this.templates[pFormat][1];\n if (parameters[0]["itemTemplate"])\n pItemTemplate = paramFormat(parameters[0]["itemTemplate"][0])\n pItemTemplate = pItemTemplate.replace("$))", ">>").replace("%link", "%0").replace("%item", "%1").replace("%abstract", "%2").replace("%text", "%3").replace("%created", "%4").replace("%modified", "%5").replace("%modifier", "%6").replace("%group", "%7").replace("%title", "%8").replace("%tags", "%9").replace("%nolink", "%10").replace("%custom", "%11")\n // Template for footer\n var pFooterTemplate = this.templates[pFormat][4].replace("%count", "%1")\n\n // Get all tiddlers\n var tiddlers = store.reverseLookup("tags","excludeLists",false);\n\n // Sorting\n if(!pOrder)\n pOrder = "title";\n if (pOrder.match(/^\s-/i)) {\n pOrder = pOrder.substr(1)\n var sortDesc = true;\n }\n if (sortDesc)\n tiddlers.sort(function (a,b) {if(a[pOrder] == b[pOrder]) return(0); else return (a[pOrder] > b[pOrder]) ? -1 : +1; });\n else\n tiddlers.sort(function (a,b) {if(a[pOrder] == b[pOrder]) return(0); else return (a[pOrder] < b[pOrder]) ? -1 : +1; });\n\n // Header\n if (pHeader)\n listWikiText += formatItem(this.templates[pFormat][0], [pHeader], pFormat)\n \n for(var t=0; t<tiddlers.length; t++) {\n tiddler = tiddlers[t];\n if (pTop==-1 || count<pTop) {\n if (pText=="" || tiddler.text.match(pText)) {\n if (pTitle=="" || tiddler.title.match(pTitle)) {\n if (pSearch=="" || (tiddler.title.match(pSearch) || tiddler.text.match(pSearch))) {\n if (pFilter=="" || eval(pFilter)) {\n if (pTags.length==0 || compareArrays(tiddler.tags, pTags, "all")) {\n count++;\n // Grouping\n if (pGroup) {\n theGroup = eval(pGroup);\n if(theGroup != lastGroup) {\n groupCount++;\n if (pGroupFooterTemplate && groupCount>1)\n listWikiText += pGroupFooterTemplate.replace("%group", theGroup)\n listWikiText += pGroupTemplate.replace("%group", theGroup)\n lastGroup = theGroup;\n }\n }\n // Seperators\n if (count>1) listWikiText += pSeperator;\n //Plaintext title\n var noLink = tiddler.title.match(config.textPrimitives.wikiLink)?"~" + tiddler.title:tiddler.title;\n // Custom parameter\n if (pCustomParameter)\n var custom="";\n try {\n custom = eval(pCustomParameter)\n } catch (e) {}\n // List individual tiddler\n listWikiText += formatItem(pItemTemplate,["[[" + tiddler.title + "]]",count,tiddler.text.substr(0,100),tiddler.text,tiddler.created.formatString(pDateFormat),tiddler.modified.formatString(pDateFormat),tiddler.modifier,theGroup,tiddler.title,tiddler.tags.join(" "),noLink,custom], pFormat)\n }\n }\n }\n }\n }\n }\n }\n \n // Last group footer\n if (pGroup && pGroupFooterTemplate && count>0)\n listWikiText += pGroupFooterTemplate.replace("%group", theGroup)\n\n // Footer\n if (pFooter) {\n pFooter = pFooter.replace("%count", count)\n listWikiText += formatItem(pFooterTemplate, [pFooter], pFormat)\n }\n \n // Render result\n if (!parameters[0]["debug"])\n wikify(listWikiText,place, null, currentTiddler)\n else\n place.innerHTML = "<textarea style=\s"width:100%;\s" rows=30>" + listWikiText + "</textarea>"\n \n \n // Local functions\n \n function paramFormat(param) {\n // Allow "\sn" in non evalled parameters\n return param.replace(/\s\sn/g, "\sn");\n }\n \n function formatItem(template, values, format) {\n // Fill template with values (depending on list format)\n if (format.match(/table/) && values[0].match(/\s|/))\n return ("%0\sn").format(values)\n else\n return template.format(values)\n }\n \n function compareArrays(array, values, logic) {\n // Compare items in array with AND("all") or OR("any") logic\n var matches=0;\n for(var v=0; v<values.length; v++)\n if(values[v].match(/^\s-/) && !array.contains(values[v].substr(1)))\n matches++;\n else if (array.contains(values[v]))\n matches++;\n return ((logic=="all" && matches==values.length) || (logic!="all" && matches>0))\n }\n \n}\n\nString.prototype.prettyTrim = function(len,prefix,postfix) {\n var result = this.trim().replace(/\sr\sn/g,' ').replace(/\sn/g,' ');\n if (!prefix) prefix = '';\n if (!postfix) postfix = '';\n if (result.length > len - 3)\n return prefix + result.substr(0,len) + '...' + postfix;\n else if (result.length > 0)\n return prefix + result + postfix;\n else\n return result;\n}\n\n//}}}

!Description\nThe TiddlerListMacro lists tiddlers with ~SQL-Like features:\n* List tiddlers containing a word in the title or text (case-sensitive)\n* List tiddlers tagged with given tags or exclude certain tags\n* Ascending and descending sorting of single fields\n* Limit number of tiddlers displayed\n* Specify different HTML formats for the lists\n* Grouping of items in a list\n* Customizable wiki templates\n* Numbering and totals\n!Revision History\n* Original by [[Jack]] 17-Apr-2006\n* Added formatting (v2.0.1 18-Apr-2006)\n* Added grouping (v2.0.2 18-Apr-2006)\n* Added flexible filtering (v2.0.3 19-Apr-2006)\n* Added custom item templates (v2.0.4 20-Apr-2006)\n* Added custom templates (v2.0.5 21-Apr-2006)\n* Allow evalled parameters (v2.0.7 23-Apr-2006)\n* Allow groupFooterTemplate (v2.0.9 30-Apr-2006)\n* Added the customParameter (v2.0.10 2-May-2006)\n!To Do\n* Case-insensitive searching\n* Sorting on multiple fields\n!Usage\n{{{<<tiddlerList parameter1:"value1" parameter2:"value2" ...>>}}}\n!Examples ([[TiddlerListMacroExamples]])\nList all tiddlers tagged with "Plugin"\n{{{<<tiddlerList tags:Plugin>>}}}\nList newest 3 plugins which are not templates:\n{{{<<tiddlerList tags:"Plugin,-Template" top:3 order:"-created">>}}}\nList all tiddlers containing "Jack" in their title or text (last modified first):\n{{{<<tiddlerList search:"Jack" order:"-modified">>}}}\nList all tiddlers starting with "T" in a table:\n{{{<<tiddlerList title:"^T" format:"table" header:"Tiddlers beginning with T" footer:"%count items listed">>}}}\nGroup tiddlers by first letter\n{{{<<tiddlerList top:"15" group:"tiddler.title.substr(0,1)" groupTemplate:"''%group''">>}}}\nShow a list of all tiddlers with creation date (overrides default item template)\n{{{<<tiddlerList itemTemplate:"* %link (%created)\sn">>}}}\nShow all tiddlers that have the host's tiddler title in their tag list\n{{{<<tiddlerList filter:"tiddler.tags.contains(currentTiddler.title)">>}}}\n!Parameters\n|!Parameter|!Type|!Meaning|!Example|\n|top|Integer|Number of tiddlers to display|"10"|\n|tags|String|List tiddlers with matching tags (AND Logic). Leading - to exclude.|"~ToDo,Urgent,-Done"|\n|title|~RegEx|List tiddlers with matching title|"^[Pp]"|\n|text|~RegEx|List tiddlers with matching text|"Searchtext"|\n|search|~RegEx|List tiddlers with matching title OR text|"Problem"|\n|filter*|~JavaScript|List tiddlers according to boolean expression)|"tiddler.title.length<4 && tiddler.tags.contains('Idea')"|\n|format|String (fixed list)|HTML formatting of list. list (ul, default), nlist (ol), span, stack (div), csv, table.|"list"|\n|order|String|Sort order of tiddlers. - is descending, + ascending|"-created"|\n|group*|~JavaScript|Grouping field|tiddler.title.substr(0,1)|\n|customParameter*|~JavaScript|Custom parameter to be evalled for use in the itemTemplate|tiddler.text.match(/Version: (.*)/)[1]|\n|header|String|Top caption|"Tiddlers beginning with T"|\n|footer|String|Bottom caption|"End of list"|\n|itemTemplate|~WikiTemplate|~WikiText with %placeholders|"%link\sn%abstract\sn%modified"|\n|groupTemplate|~WikiTemplate|~WikiText with %placeholders for the start of each group|"!!%group"|\n|groupFooterTemplate|~WikiTemplate|~WikiText with %placeholders for the end of each group|"----\sn"|\n|dateFormat|String|Date formatting string when displaying dates|~YYYY-MM-DD|\n|seperator|String|Define a string or character to be inserted between items listed|" "|\n|debug|Boolean|Set to 1 or true for debug mode where only wikitext will be output|debug:1|\n{{{*}}} Parameter will be evalled (do not pass with {{{{{ }} }}} unless you want it evalled twice!)\n!Template Placeholders\nPlaceholder values for itemTemplate parameter\n|!Placeholder|!Field|\n|%item|List item number|\n|%link|Link to Tiddler {{{[[MyTiddler]]}}}|\n|%title|Tiddler Name {{{MyTiddler}}}|\n|%nolink|Unlinked Tiddler Title {{{~MyTiddler}}}|\n|%abstract|First 100 chars of tiddler text|\n|%text|All tiddler text|\n|%tags|Tags seperated by space|\n|%created|Creation date|\n|%modified|Modified date|\n|%modifier|Last modifier|\n|%group|Name of group field|\n|%custom|The result of your evalled customParameter|\n|%count|Number of items listed (footer only)|\n!Variables\n{{{{{currentTiddler}} }}}refers to the current (host) tiddler in function scope (i.e. within the filter or group parameters)\n{{{{{gCurrentTiddler}} }}}refers to the current (host) tiddler in global scope (i.e. within{{{ {{}} }}}evalled parameters. Example:\n{{{<<tiddlerList tags:{{gCurrentTiddler.title}}>>}}}\n!Style\nNo styles are pre-assigned to the lists. Use {{{@@}}} notation to define custom styles in the header, footer, groupTemplate and itemTemplate parameters.

Examples using the TiddlerListMacro:\n!List Formatting\nList all tiddlers tagged with "Plugin"\n{{{<<tiddlerList tags:Plugin>>}}}\n<<tiddlerList tags:Plugin>>\nList top 1 plugins which are not templates:\n{{{<<tiddlerList tags:"Plugin,-Template" top:1>>}}}\n<<tiddlerList tags:"Plugin,-Template" top:1>>\nList all tiddlers containing "Plugin" in their title and text (newest first):\n{{{<<tiddlerList title:"Plugin" text:"Plugin" order:"-created">>}}}\n<<tiddlerList title:"Plugin" text:"Plugin" order:"-created">>\nList all tiddlers containing "Jack" in their title or text (oldest first):\n{{{<<tiddlerList search:"Jack" order:"created">>}}}\n<<tiddlerList search:"Jack" order:"created">>\nList all tiddlers starting with "T":\n{{{<<tiddlerList title:"^T">>}}}\n<<tiddlerList title:"^T">>\n!Other Formats\nSimple unnumbered list of tiddlers\n{{{<<tiddlerList top:"3" format:"list">>}}}\n<<tiddlerList top:"3" format:"list">>\nNumbered list of tiddlers\n{{{<<tiddlerList top:"3" format:"nlist">>}}}\n<<tiddlerList top:"3" format:"nlist">>\nTable with header and footer\n{{{<<tiddlerList top:"3" format:"table" header:"Plugins" footer:"Tiddlers: %count">>}}}\n<<tiddlerList top:"3" format:"table" header:"Plugins" footer:"Tiddlers: %count">>\nSimple horizontal list:\n{{{<<tiddlerList top:"3" format:"span">>}}}\n<<tiddlerList top:"3" format:"span">>\nComma Seperated list\n{{{<<tiddlerList top:"3" format:"csv" header:"Plugins: [ " footer:" ]">>}}}\n<<tiddlerList top:"3" format:"csv" header:"Plugins: [ " footer:" ]">>\nCustom Seperated list\n{{{<<tiddlerList top:"10" seperator:" - " format:"span">>}}}\n<<tiddlerList top:"10" seperator:" - " format:"span">>\n!Grouping\nGroup tiddlers by first letter\n{{{<<tiddlerList top:"7" group:"tiddler.title.substr(0,1)">>}}}\n<<tiddlerList top:"7" group:"tiddler.title.substr(0,1)">>\n!Custom Item Templates\nList tiddlers in a custom format (title, date, abstract)\n{{{<<tiddlerList tags:"News,-Template" itemTemplate:"* %link (%created)<<br>>%abstract\sn" order:"-created">>}}}\n<<tiddlerList tags:"News,-Template" filter:"tiddler.title!=currentTiddler.title" itemTemplate:"%link (%created)\sn%abstract" order:"-created">>\n!!!Beware of infinite recursion!!\n!Advanced\nTiddlers created today\n{{{<<tiddlerList format:table filter:"tiddler.created.formatString('YYYYMMDD')==(new Date()).formatString('YYYYMMDD')" header:{{'Tiddlers created on ' + (new Date()).formatString('DDD, DD MMM YYYY')}}>>}}}\n<<tiddlerList format:table filter:"tiddler.created.formatString('YYYYMMDD')==(new Date()).formatString('YYYYMMDD')" header:{{'Tiddlers created on ' + (new Date()).formatString('DDD, DD MMM YYYY')}}>>\nFancy table with grouping on modified date\n{{{<<tiddlerList top:"10" header:"|>|!Tiddlers|\sn|bgcolor(#ddf):''Title''|bgcolor(#ddf):''Created''|" itemTemplate:"|%0|%4|\sn" format:"table" group:"tiddler.created.formatString('DD MMM YYYY')" groupTemplate:"|>|bgcolor(#eef): ''Updated: %group'' |\sn" dateFormat:"DDD, DD MM YYYY">>}}}\n<<tiddlerList top:"10" header:"|>|!Tiddlers|\sn|bgcolor(#ddf):''Title''|bgcolor(#ddf):''Created''|" itemTemplate:"|%0|%4|\sn" format:"table" group:"tiddler.created.formatString('DD MMM YYYY')" groupTemplate:"|>|bgcolor(#eef): ''Updated: %group'' |\sn" dateFormat:"DDD, DD MM YYYY">>

'' SYSEDIT IN WINDOWS''\n\n Windows comes with a nice undocumented utility called SYSEDIT which is buried within the windows files under the name of SYSEDIT.EXE. SYSEDIT displays your CONFIG.SYS, AUTOEXEC.BAT, WIN.INI and SYSTEM.INI files. It comes as a simple editor to make it easy to configure them to your liking.\n\n You can either run it from the File manager or drag it from there into your Program manager window where it will appear with it's own icon.\n\n Remember to change the functions of these files you will either have to reboot in the case of AUTOEXEC.BAT & CONFIG.SYS or leave & reload windows for the other two.\n\n Beats using the notepad.\n \n '' ADDING COLUMNS OF FIGURES IN LOTUS''\n\n One of the powers of a spreadsheet is the ability to insert and delete rows. This can be very dangerous when you are inserting/ deleting rows at the top or bottom of a column of figures. At the best it can result in an ERR message in the totalling cell, at the worst the answer will be wrong without any warning.\n\n To avoid this include the dollar sign at the top and the separator line at the bottom in the @SUM() range. See below:\n{{{\n $\n Include the dollar and 234.45\n the separator line in 583.34\n the @SUM() range. 584.33\n ----------\n Total 1402.12\n}}}\n Now if any rows are inserted/deleted the @SUM range will automatically adjust itself. You aren't likely to put any figures above the dollar or below the separator.\n\n One other thing.. Use global format to set your default format to commas delimited. I have seen so many mistakes where figures have been misread from printed spreadsheets, especially when in condensed mode.\n \n '' SETTING WORDPERFECT UP''\n\n Are you having problems with Wordperfect? (Who isn't?) One of the beginner's problems often arises when they can't find the files that they have so painfully written. If you are not careful Wordperfect will put the files into the DOS default directory and although you can find the file this session the next session it is nowhere to be found.\n\n The secret (it's not really a secret but the manual is so big that you can't find anything) lies in the use of the SETUP function (Shift F1). Option 6 'Location of files' allows you to set the default directory.\n\n First create a subdirectory say 'FILES'. If you are already in WP use the ~Ctrl-F1 function to take you to DOS. Decide where you want the FILES directory, either as a sub-directory of WP or in a separate directory, go to where you want it and type MD FILES (Dos command for Make directory 'FILES'), then type 'EXIT'. This will return you to WP.\n\n Press ~Shift-F1 6 and complete options 1 & 6 with the name of the directory you have just created. It will probably be C:\sFILES or C:\s~WP51\sFILES. Exit by pressing enter and you are set up. Now unless you tell WP otherwise all your files will be saved in that directory.\n \n '' AUTOMATIC SAVES IN WORDPERFECT''\n\n Wordperfect comes with a facility to automatically save your document at regular intervals. Very often this has been turned off because of an error message saying that WP can't find the directory and your work hasn't been saved. If you set up the directory as above this error message shouldn't occur so you can turn the facility on.\n\n The keys are ~Shift-F1, 3,1,1. WP comes set to save every 30 minutes which to my mind is too long. I have set mine to 5 minutes which seems about long enough. The time taken to save is barely noticeable and it saves me what seems like hours of heartache when the power supply fails or the kids come in and unplug the computer.

Normally I put Public speaking and writing articles among those activities that should be avoided like the plague. However, there are events that can't be allowed to pass without comment.\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nOn Friday 13th, August 1999 our club lost one of it's most dedicated members.\n\nAndrew Cameron Howitt Wilkinson ~MBChB, F.R.A.C.P., ~BSc., passed away mid-morning at the Hutt Hospital Coronary Care Unit. His family was at his bedside. \n\nWhen I first joined the NZ Personal Computer Users Association as member number 44, Andrew was already a member (No6). My earliest copy of the club magazine (#7), dated November 1987, lists him as Librarian. He was also a founder of the Lower Hutt club known as CROG which had it's first meeting at St Steven's Church Hall on February 6th, 1989. CROG (Central Region Osborne Group) later amalgamated with the NZPCA in July 1992.\n\nHe served both of these organisations well and in many ways, but especially in his role of Librarian. As one of his assistants in Lower Hutt, I'm well aware of the time and effort he devoted to the collecting together of interesting and useful Public Domain and Shareware titbits. Members benefitted greatly from his hours spent copying and cataloging, and his printed listings were eagerly awaited by members at each club meeting. He would regularly turn up with his car packed to the gunwales with computer equipment and literally a dozen or more suitcases and boxes full of 5-1/4" floppy disks.\n\nThe Hutt meetings were very social occaisions, being mainly copying sessions and discussions of the latest offerings supplied by Andrew. He would also bring members up to date with the latest computer news gathered throughout the month.\n\nI personally knew Andrew for more than 35 years, firstly as our family doctor, and later as a friend sharing a common interest in computing. Andrew will always be remembered by me not just for the work he put into the club, but for the knowledge and sense of humour which he shared with us all. He will be very much missed. \n\nA Service of Commendation was held at St Steven's Church on Tuesday August 17th. I'm sure Andrew would have been pleased to see among the more than 250 people present, a number of club members with whom he had shared so many enjoyable evenings at the meeting room next door.\n\nTo his wife Marilyn and children James and Ruth, I'm sure all members will join with me in expressing deepest sympathy.\n\nDick Jones \n(Member No.516), August 1999

An easy way to gain an idea of just who might be trying to infiltrate your computer (rather than using a dedicated program) is to use Window's TRACEROUTE command combined with your web browser.\n\nFor example, taking one of your ~ZoneAlarm log reports, I can exit to DOS, then type -\n \nTRACERT 150.216.104.207\n \nThis command will attempt to connect to the remote host concerned and actually shows you all the various Internet connections/computers along the way. The whole point here is that it will use these other computers to "look up" the Domain Name of the various hosts including our target. As it transpires, your hacker eminated from something called tnr0330. students. ecu.edu which at first looks suspiciously like an educational institution coupled with a student identification.\nIf we now fire up a web browser and enter the URL www.ecu.edu we indeed arrive at East Carolina Univerity in the USA, and I bet a weeks wages that your hacker is sitting in one of their computer labs !! If one wanted to, you could send a copy of your ~ZoneAlarm log to the University's Network Administrator and I'm sure he/she would be able to nobble the student who has been allocated the ID tnr0330.\n\nUsing the same process for IP 203.167.26.87 we see that the access originated from an ISP called Manila in the Philipines. They may be able to trace their customer with the ID aa1-87, but as will be the case with most ISP's, don't count on it .......this is for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the culprit may have already cancelled that particular account and reopened another one; secondly the ISP may actually not be too concerned about castigating a paying customer (sad, but true).\n\nRicky Berg,\nMember Number 808.\n

Dear Cassius:\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Are you still working in the Y zero K problem? This change from BC to AD is giving us a lot of headaches and we haven't much time left. I don't know how people will cope with working the wrong way around. Having been working happily downward forever, now we have to start thinking upwards. You would think that someone would have thought of it earlier and not left it to us to sort it all out at this last moment.\n\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I spoke to Caesar the other evening. He was livid that Julius hadn't done something about it when he was sorting out the calendar. He said he could see why Brutus turned nasty. We called in Consultus, but he simply said that continuing downwards using minus BC won't work and as usual charged a fortune for doing nothing useful. Surely we will not have to throw out all our hardware and start again? Macrohard will make yet another fortune out of this I suppose.\n\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The money lenders are paranoid of course! They have been told that all usuary rates will invert and they will have to pay their clients to take out loans. Its an ill-wind....\n\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; As for myself, I can't see the sand in the hourglass flowing upwards. We have heard that there are three wisemen in the east who have been working on the problem, but unfortunately they won't arrive until it's all over.\n\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I have heard that there are plans to stable all the horses at midnight at the turn of the year as there are fears that they will stop and try to run backwards, causing immense damage to chariots and possible loss of life.\n\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Some say the world will cease to exist at the moment of transition. Anyway, we are still continuing to work on this blasted Y zero K problem. I will send a parchment to you if anything further develops. If you have any ideas please let me know.\n\nPlutonius.\n

//John Little again makes an interesting contribution.//\n\n''Introduction''\nIn an earlier issue of Megabyte (October 2003) we ran an article on Resizing Digital Pictures including some suggestions on ways to re-size digital image files for the purpose of e-mailing them. There are now some easier ways of doing this – read on!\n\n''Why Resize?''\nDigital photos may be in a variety of resolutions, some – especially from digital cameras – having a high number of pixels. When you send a photo by e-mail, big images produce big files which can lead to problems for the recipient, such as greatly increased download times, and making the photo appear to be much larger than the monitor so that it becomes necessary to scroll around to see different parts of it. Changing the size of an image to a more suitable size for e-mailing can be quite easy to do with the right software.\nIf your software doesn’t have a resize option, or makes it a complicated process, try another program. The program reviewed below is capable of resizing the photo and sending it to your default e-mail program as an attachment, and it is very simple to use.\n\n''Triscape ~FXFoto''\n~FXFoto is a very good photo handling program that can resize pictures you send in e-mail so that they transfer faster and are easier to view by the receiver. You are given a choice of full size (not recommended for e-mail) and three reductions – 400 pixels (or less), 640 pixels and 800 pixels. It also provides a custom option where you can choose the width.\n\nOther features include red-eye reduction; white balance; improved image quality (including gamma, contrast and brightness); blemish removal; cropping; framing; and filters (black and white, sepia, sharpen, unsharp mask, blur, soften, texture and more). You can import photos from your digital camera, scan them in, print them, and make slide shows. Like many other programs, there are ‘free’ and ‘paid’ versions. With the latter you can make multi-photo collages and special slide shows.\n\n~FXFoto has a good selection of useful tools, even in its free version. It is easy to learn to use and is particularly good for e-mailing photos. Should you need more features than the standard free version offers you are asked to register the software and pay $US29.95. The free version then upgrades to the deluxe collage edition.\n\nThe program is available for download from Triscape’s website: www.fxfoto.com\n\n''Tutorial''\nIf you are not familiar with the process of attaching a photo or document to an e-mail, follow this link for a simple tutorial: www.learnthenet.com/english/html/94attach.htm\n(Editor’s note: there is also a very good “tour” of the program itself at http://www.fxfoto.com/fxtour.htm.)\n\nPhoto used: The main screen of Triscape ~FXFoto. TriscapeScreen.jpeg\n\n\n

''Windows XP''\n*to turn off your machine, then resume later where you left off, use Hibernate . To Hibernate: at the closing display, Stand By | Turn Off | Restart , hold down the Shift key and Stand By changes to Hibernate . Click it.\n\n''~Spreadsheet-Excel''\n*display of grouped Sheet(s). Excel shows grouped Sheets by changing the background colour of the Sheet tabs from blue-grey to white. On some monitors, the difference is very hard to see. To improve this, change the Colour scheme. Right-click on Desktop>Properties>>Appearance , then [Color Scheme:]>Silver { instead of >Default (blue) } should do the trick. You can experiment with [Windows and buttons:]> Windows Classic style which gives a long list of choices under [Color Scheme]

''Introduction''\n\nIn a day and age where personal computers are used for a myriad of applications, many new devices have sprung up since IBM's original two serial port personal computer some twenty years ago. Scanners, portable hard drives, Zip drives, and force-feedback joysticks are just a few examples of devices appearing on the desktop. Although attempts have been made to provide four to eight serial ports on a single PC, there was no real standard that gained widespread acceptance. SCSI seemed to be the solution of choice for many vendors of scanners and external drives, however, interface cards and devices were expensive and the standard lacked complete unity. Therefore, many began work on specifications for new interconnecting solutions, such as IEEE 1394 (~FireWire) and USB.\n \n''The Solution: USB'' \n\nUniversal Serial Bus (USB) is the solution touted by seven leaders of the PC and telecom industry: Compaq, DEC, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, NEC and Northern Telecom (now, Nortel Networks! ). Though slower than ~FireWire (IEEE 1394), USB still boasts a data rate of 12 Mbps (mega-bits per second) and allows you to connect up to 127 devices to your PC. It is designed to support modems, keyboards, mice, 4x – 6x CD ROM drives, joysticks, tape/floppy/hard drives, scanners and printers. In addition, a new wave of peripherals such as telephones, digital speakers, digital snapshot and motion cameras, data gloves and digitizers are to take advantage of this exciting and versatile new interface. \n\n''How Does USB Work?'' \n\nThere are three physical parts to the USB system. These include the host (computer), hubs, and devices. All connectors are one-size-fits-all, so a device can be plugged directly into the host, or into a hub, which in turn is plugged into the host.\n \nThe USB cable is thin (four wires) and carries enough power for low-power devices, like keyboards and mice. The maximum bandwidth is 12 Mbps, which is shared amongst all devices on the USB network. Since devices are organized in a tiered fashion, not every device needs a direct connection to the host. A device can be plugged into a hub, into another hub, and then the host, thus avoiding a clutter of wires behind the computer.\n\nWhenever you plug in a device, the host senses voltage differences in the USB network and proceeds to query (enumerate) the device for type, vendor, functionality and bandwidth required. That device is assigned a unique address ID and co-exists with all other USB devices. Even if two identical devices are plugged in, they will each have a unique address and can be distinguished separately by the computer. Once enumeration is complete, the appropriate device driver is loaded by the operating system (O/S) and the user will be prompted for the driver disk if necessary. All contention of devices is handled by the host and by the software residing on the host. There is no need to configure interrupt ~IRQs, addresses, or DMA channels. When devices are detached (unplugged) from the USB network, the host computer detects the detachment, alerts the appropriate application and unloads the drivers.\n\nOther than plugging and unplugging the devices, there is no user intervention in configuring the devices. \n\n''What’s in it For You?''\n\nFirst off, you can simultaneously connect up to 127 devices to your PC, with cable connections reaching five meters in length. This means that the number of devices you can have is notlimited to the number of ports at the back of your PC, nor is it limited to the space of your desktop since you can place devices quite far from the host.\n\nA standardized plug interface means convenient and headache-free addition of new peripherals. The same plug is used for different types of devices so you don’t have to worry about an adapter for the mouse or video camera. Since USB is an industry-wide and royalty-free open standard, everyone can develop USB devices. This ends the need for proprietary interfaces and guarantees cross-vendor compatibility.\n\nThe most exciting innovations of USB are its Plug and Play features. The inclusion of software and driver requirements as part of the USB specification ensures Plug and Play functionality. Another amazing feature of USB is hot-plugging, which means you can plug a device into your machine without turning it off With serial port based devices, you can always plug and unplug the cables, although it is not recommended. The PC usually does not know when these attachments and detachments are made and what to do with them. With USB, you can be updating your homepage and decide you want to post up some video clips from your trip to Cancun. All you need to do is plug in your digital camera into a USB port and your computer automatically installs the necessary drivers for it (No need to reboot!). The ~USB-compliant O/S is so intelligent that it will unload the drivers to save memory when you unplug your camera. Now that’s Plug and Play \n\nSince most of the intelligence needed to manage the USB devices is software based, peripherals are simpler to design and produce, and this efficiency translates into lower costs for the consumer.\n\n''The Near Future''\n\nWe've mentioned new input devices that bring the user and the machine closer together. We also talked about easily importing multimedia into our applications. Although we all look forward to these new and creative devices made possible through USB in the near future, we’ll probably be seeing more commonplace peripherals ported over to USB. Keyboards, mice, modems, and scanners are among the first to wade USB waters. Soon after, some common devices with new features will appear, such as speakers that can be tuned from an onscreen control panel. A possible development is that iMac (equipped with USB) users may gain access to a larger variety of peripherals, since only a driver rewrite will make a USB device platform portable.\n\n''Conclusion''\n\nSince the personal computer has evolved from a small business tool to a common information appliance in the modern household, the demands placed on it in terms of usability have also changed. Users are less tolerant to problems with installation and setup. USB is just another step closer to making the personal computer the ultimate household appliance that will answer your calls and make your coffee.\n\nFor more information on USB, visit the Official USB Homepage\n\n//Jimmy Fan, HardwareCentral\nhttp://www.hardwarecentral.com \n//

Have you ever noticed that other computer users are either complete brainy gurus who know everything and talk well above your head or mindless morons who know nothing, let alone what you are talking about. There seems nobody around on your level of competence which after all is the complete average user.\n \nOne of the most difficult DOS commands I had in comprehending was "Path". I just couldn't grasp the fact that it was just a pointer indicating where my commands were. Have any other readers had problems with specific commands?\n\n \nWhen I first got a Pc I didn't know anything - let alone amything about organising a hard disk. I always thought that if I could start again, I would organise things differently. Anyway, recently I replaced my hard drive with a larger one. The result is, you've guessed it, my hard drive is still unorganised! Perhaps someone would like to write about organising same.\n\n \nThere are now four local BBS with CD Rom, Romboard (the first), Major Force, The Board and ourselves. And which one has the best files, well us of course - our disk is the latest. One thing I would like to see here, is a report back on any special little gems members come cross amongst the forest of files.\n\n \nOne thing the downturn in the economy has produced is the lower cost of hardware (and the power to negotiate cheaper prices). Anybody purchasing new gear should be prepared to bargain - you will be surprised at what you can get off the awful "recommended retail price".\n

URL is an acronym for Uniform Resource Locator. URL is a pointer to a particular resource at a particular location on the Internet. Or putting it another way it's the means of locating another computer on the Web. A URL is usually pronounced you-are-el. You need to know ~URLs if you are working with HTML and Java script. Our computer club's URL is http://www.computers.org.nz. \n\nYou can think of a URL as being like a post office box or a mailing address. ~URLs are the only method of locating targeted Web home pages. Each URL allows your Web Browser software to access any file on about any Web Server. Besides providing a method of identifying a target home page, a URL expresses the address of a resource and the method by which you can access that resource. The URL naming system is extremely simple yet powerful. \n\nA standard URL consists of three parts, the transfer format, the host name of the machine that holds the file you want too access, and the path to the file. \n\nThe general format of a URL is as follows. Format:/ /host name.com/path/filename. HTML. \n\nAlthough you've probably used ~URLs often, you might not have considered all the information they contain. A well formed URL specifics the following. \n * The protocol (format) used to access the server (i.e. http, ftp.) \n * The name of the server. \n * Port on the server. \n * The path \n * The name of the specific file on the server. \n * The anchor or reference point within the file. (#ref)\n \nSyntax of a URL. Protocol:/ /host name [:port]/path/file[#ref] \nThe standard format for the WWW (World Wide Web) is HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol). Several other formats are available, however, including FTP (file transfer protocol) and news (Usenet newsgroups). For http, a colon and two slashes (:/ /) separate the transfer format (protocol) from the host name. For the other standards, you use only a colon (no slashes). Standard Internet naming conventions are used for the host name part of the URL.\n\nfrp:microsoft.co.nz This URL will take you directly to the Microsoft patch page.\n\nWhen you type the URL into your browser, the port is optional unless you want to connect to a non-standard port. Http protocol normally connects to port 80. The #ref is also optional unless you want to direct the browser to an anchor point (specific subject) on a page. For example you may want to send someone to an article or reference point on a web page. Rather than let them find it via the main page or homepage. \n\nIf you don't provide a file name, the Web Server will automatically load the main page, which will be named either index.HTML or default.html. In many cases, you don't have to worry about a full path. \n\nhttp://www.nzpca.org.nz/huttsig.htm &nbsp; This example will send you directly to our NZPCA Hutt SIG meeting page. \n\nDomain Names and IP Addresses. \nEvery computer attached to an IP network (even when you connect via an ISP) has a unique address and most have a domain name. For example, the domain name for the IP address 203.96.152.4 is www.paradise.co.nz. You can enter either version of the address into the location field of your Web browser and it will connect to the correct web site. Try this. You'll notice that Domain Names are easier to remember than IP addresses. IP addresses are easy for computers to work with but are not easy for humans to remember. This is why networks also provide names for the nodes, so we can remember them. \n\nThe Domain Name System (DNS) was developed to translate between IP addresses and Domain Names. Whenever you log into the Internet and attempt to connect to a server using its domain name, the browser first communicates with the DNS Server (Domain Name System Server) to learn the corresponding numeric IP address. The numeric address (not the domain name) is used by the Internet protocol to find the Web Server you want and to move information (packets) from the source to the destination. Generally most people use a commercial Internet Service Provider (ISP) that assigns a potentially different IP address to you each time you log on, so your IP address will be different each time. If you have a fixed connection (ISDN or dedicated line) your IP address will be the same. For example if you are connecting to the Internet via your work. \n\nMany times, a URL becomes extremely long, partly because the UNIX computer system (on which the Internet is based) allows filenames of virtually unlimited length. Also, ~URLs are case sensitive, due mainly to the fact that UNIX has a case-sensitive file structure. \n\nKey: A protocol is a set of rules that lets computers agree on how they are to communicate. There are many protocols, for example ftp, telnet, and http.\n

''A brief look at a Revolution in Communications''\n\n When future generations of Americans look back on the years between 1990 and 2000, what will they identify as the most significant event? The O.J. Simpson murder trial or the death of Princess Diana? Maybe. The Oklahoma bombing or the Gulf War? Perhaps. The presidential impeachment or the ethnic uprisings in eastern Europe?\n Possibly. Then again, it’s possible that they will see something a little bigger than royalty or a bomb. Something that directly involves and affects all of us instead of just a few. Something that engulfs and is part of all other events.\n No, not the Macarena craze. We’re talking about the rise of the Internet. This phenomenon has spawned entire industries, launched a lucrative economic boom, added dozens of words to the popular lexicon, and given us the ability to do things that were once darn near impossible.\n\n Yes, indeed, the Internet has changed everything: the way we communicate, the way we conduct business, the way we get the news, the way we shop, the way we live. For this reason, it’s important for you to understand what the Internet is, where it came from, and how it works. It’s the least you could do for something that plays such a pivotal role in our world.\n\n''What Is The Internet?''\n The Internet is a vast configuration of interconnected computers—a network of networks—stretching from Washington D.C. to Johannesburg, Berlin to Taipei, and everywhere in between. It’s an infrastructure, a conglomeration of transmission channels and control mechanisms. It consists of computers, peripheral components, telephone lines, satellites, and an assortment of other infrastructural devices.\n\n This is the Internet, and it’s exactly what its creators had in mind when they conceived the idea to build a communication system nearly forty years ago. It all began when several scientists at ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) decided that they needed a better way to share research. The new communication system not only had to support remote project collaboration, but also prove capable of carrying data under less than ideal circumstances, such as when servers in route were incapacitated. ARPA’s IPTO (Information Processing Techniques Office) was responsible for building such a system.\n\n The IPTO put together a team of the best networking professionals in the United States at that time. These professionals used their expertise in long-distance networking to craft the ARPA network (later dubbed ARPANet). When ARPANet was launched in October 1969, it enabled participating universities and research institutions to access data on the network’s remote computers.\n\n Over the years, ARPANet grew and evolved. The IPTO, not having enough resources to oversee its burgeoning project, eventually relinquished control to the DCA (Defense Communications Agency) in the mid-1970s.\n The National Science Foundation (NSF) took over shortly after that, reorganizing the existing ARPANet into a new communication structure called NSFNET. NSFNET served as the primary communications infrastructure connecting educational institutions, military bases, government offices, research laboratories, and, starting in 1991, commercial enterprises. This led to even more growth, and the NSF eventually realized it did not have the resources to manage it properly. In 1995, the Internet became a wholly commercial structure, dominated by major telecommunications companies including AT&T, Sprint, and Worldcom.\n Much has changed with the Internet since its inception in 1969. Perhaps what has changed the most, however, is our perception of it. We now view the Internet not just as a massive infrastructure but also as a wide assortment of content and a broad base of end users. Indeed, the interplay among these three components—infrastructure, content, and users—has become so tight and pervasive that it’s difficult to distinguish where one ends and other begins.\n\n ''The Infrastructure.''\n One way to think about the Internet infrastructure is in comparison to our system of roads. Instead of roads, the Internet has transmission channels; instead of intersections, it has interconnect points. The transmission channels, like roads, come in various sizes and speed limits. The roads are owned and maintained by various parties to which you pay taxes or tolls. The Internet is owned by many different companies and institutions to which you pay subscription fees. See, there’s a reason they call it the Information Highway.\n\n This is an analogy, though. To truly understand the Internet infrastructure, you must understand the various components that hold it together.\n\n ''Backbones.''\n Backbones are high-speed transmission channels that provide the fastest and most direct paths for data to travel. They’re the bonds that tie together multiple networks. Backbones are typically built around fiber optic cables called optical carrier (OC) and digital signal (DS) lines. The OC lines support transmission capacities as high as 2.48Gbps (gigabits per second), and the DS lines (also referred to as T-carrier lines, such as T-1 or T-3) support data transmission capacities as high as 274.2Mbps (megabits per second). The data may travel wirelessly by satellite, as well.\n\n In addition to the high-speed OC and DS lines that form a communications spine, the typical backbone also consists of many secondary lines. These lines provide high-speed transmission capabilities to outlying cities and businesses that are off the backbone path. The resulting backbone network can provide connectivity to a wide area. In this way, the largest backbone networks may be accessible to an entire country or even several countries.\n\n Backbone networks are developed and maintained by national backbone operators, such as the @Home Network (http://work.home.net/backbone.html), AT&T (http://www.ipservices. att.com/), and Qwest (http://www.qwest.com/about/inside/network/nationip.html). These operators secure each end of the backbone with routers, which are the devices that receive and forward incoming transmissions to a specified destination via the shortest route possible. The operators own the routers, but they may not own the lines that constitute the backbone itself. They can lease these lines from local and long-distance telephone service providers instead.\n\n ''Internet exchange points.''\n Think about a road for a second. A particular road travels between two points. If you want to reach a destination that isn’t located directly between these two points, you must take another road. That requires an intersection or junction.\n\n The Internet needs junctions, too. A single backbone network can’t provide access to all the data currently available online. It must have some means of connecting to other networks. That’s where Internet exchange points come in to the picture. These are the designated points where backbones and smaller regional networks can peer (intersect) with one another. Back when the Internet infrastructure was largely under government control, only a few major exchange points existed in the United States. Today, there are dozens of them.\n\n Internet exchange points, which are also called NAPs (network access points), are owned and managed by private businesses and public institutions. The Chicago NAP (http://nap.aads.net/main.html) is run by Ameritech, for instance; MAE West (http://www.mae.net/), an exchange point in San Jose, Calif., is run by MCI Worldcom.\n\n ''PoPs.''\n PoPs, short for Points of Presence, are the points at which individuals connect to the Internet. They’re maintained by ISPs (Internet service providers), which typically charge a small subscription fee as a toll for accessing the Internet. A connection may be made to a PoP through any number of ways, including a POTS (plain old telephone service) line, a television cable, or wireless airwaves. If you have a dial-up connection, your PoP must be located within your local calling region or you’ll have to pay a long-distance charge for the time that you spend connected to the Internet.\n\n ''Servers.''\n The content may be distinct from the infrastructure, just as cars are separate from the road, but the two are in perpetual contact. Indeed, the computers that store the content are part of the Internet infrastructure. These computers are called servers and they are identified by the type of content they contain. Web servers contain hyperlinked Web content, mail servers contain e-mail messages, and news servers contain messages sent to electronic newsgroups.\n Any computer can act as a server, including your own PC, and servers can exist anywhere in the Internet infrastructure. Most servers, however, are located at PoPs.\n\n A server corresponds to a particular Internet address. When you type in an Internet address or click a hyperlink, you actually are telling your browser the location of the server that contains the content you want to see. Surfing the Internet, then, is really just a process of accessing various servers situated throughout the Internet.\n\n ''Other lines.''\n Unfortunately, not all Internet transmission channels have the bandwidth (data capacity) of an OC or DS line. If they did, you could watch full-motion video on your PC, download large programs in a matter of seconds, and never have to wait for a Web page to load. That isn’t reality, though. The fact is that most transmission channels bottleneck as they reach the end user.\n\n The bottleneck is due to the other types of lines that are used to transport data on the Internet, typically between the PoP and the end user. The most common of these lines is the copper-wire telephone line. These telephone lines support a limited bandwidth of 56Kbps for users of dial-up service, 128Kbps for users of ISDN (integrated services digital network), and an average between 144Kbps and 1.5Mbps for user of DSL (digital subscriber line).\n\n Copper-wire telephone lines aren’t the only other type of line used in the Internet. Television cables and wireless airwaves are part of the transmission infrastructure. Internal networking technologies, such as the RJ-45 cables used in most Ethernet (a local-area networking protocol designed by Xerox and used in most business networks) networks, can be part of the Internet, too.\n\n ''Protocols.''\n Protocols are the rules that govern the Internet. They dictate how the various infrastructural components work with one another to carry data.\n\n TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) is the most famous Internet protocol. Actually a combination of two protocols, TCP/IP not only establishes a method for transmitting data across the Internet but also verifies the integrity of data transmissions. All the data that travels across the Internet is subject to the rules set forth by TCP/IP.\n\n Other common Internet protocols include:\n\n*FTP—The File Transfer Protocol, or FTP, governs much of the file sharing that occurs on the Internet. When you download a file or application, FTP may be involved in the process.\n*HTTP—Everybody recognizes the abbreviation for Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)because it’s at the front of most Web addresses. This is the protocol that allows you to access hyperlinked (interconnected) documents on the Web.\n*POP3—This is the most recent version of the Post Office Protocol (POP), which governs the storage of e-mail messages on a mail server. It complements SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol), which governs the transmission of electronic messages across the Internet.\n*PPP—Most dial-up Internet connections are controlled by the Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP), which dictates how the dial-up connection is made and monitors for transmission errors.\n*SSL—The Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is a popular online encryption protocol that protects Web data during transmission. Sites that are protected by SSL are identified by the HTTPS:// prefix (instead of HTTP://) at the front of their URLs (uniform resource locators; Internet addresses).\n\n ''The Content.''\n Technically, the Internet is only an infrastructure. However, we often speak of the Internet as an amalgam of both data and network. You can thank the development of the World Wide Web for this difference. The Web is a vast body of interconnected data accessible via the Internet. Since its invention in 1990, the Web has become the most important collection of data to grace the earth since the invention of the encyclopedia. To view Web content, you must have a program called a Web browser. Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer are the most popular Web browsers.\n\n Most of the information that constitutes the World Wide Web exists as HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) files.\n HTML is a formatting language, which means it defines the presentation of information. It allows Web developers to position images and text so that they appear in specific locations in the viewing field. It lets them create effects such as scrolling or blinking text. HTML also supports all the popular online programming languages, including Java (a programming language that allows programmers to write applications that can be downloaded and run immediately—they don’t have to be installed first—on practically any computer). Other formatting languages in use on the Web are XML (Extensible Markup Language), which is basically a version of HTML that can be customized to meet the personal specifications of each content developer, and VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language), which lets you build 3-D worlds on the Internet.\n\n Not all of the content that exists online is part of the Web. Newsgroups, which are areas of the Internet where individuals can post messages about specific subjects, provide a significant amount of content on the Internet.\n Online services, such as America Online or Lexis/Nexis, also provide content via their own private networks and exist separate from the World Wide Web (although it should be noted that most online services now interface with the Web).\n Several older content areas are still around, although now they are rarely used. These areas include Gopher (a body of hierarchically organized data) and BBSes (bulletin board systems; private dial-up networks of text-only data and downloadable files).\n\n*by Jeff Dodd of SmartComputing.com\n//Continued next Month// \n

//Thanks to Microsoft//\n\n Prior to planning and implementing your Web site, you should understand each of the components required to establish a Web site on a computer running Windows NT Server.\n\n This chapter answers the following questions:\n#What is the Internet?\n#What is an Intranet?\n#What is Internet Explorer?\n\n '' What is the Internet?''\n The Internet is a global network of computers that communicate using a common language. It is similar to the international telephone system - no one owns or controls the whole thing, but it is connected in a way that makes it work like one big network.\n\n The World Wide Web (WWW or simply the Web) gives you a graphical, easy-to-navigate interface for looking at documents on the Internet. These documents, as well as the links between them, comprise a "web" of information.\n\n Files, or pages, on the Web are interconnected. You connect to other pages by clicking special text or graphics, which are called hyperlinks.\n\n Pages can contain text, images, movies, sounds - just about anything. These pages can be located on computers anywhere in the world. When you are connected to the Web, you have equal access to information world wide.\n\n Hyperlinks are words or graphics that have Web addresses embedded in them. By clicking a hyperlink, you jump to a particular page in a particular Web site. You can easily identify a hyperlink. Hyperlink text is usually a different colour from the rest of the text on a Web page, and hyperlink graphics often have a coloured border.\n\n Each Web page, including a Web site's home page, has a unique address called a Uniform Resource Locator (URL), for example, http://www.microsoft.com/home.htm. The URL specifies the name of the computer on which the page is stored and the exact path to the page.\n\n'' What is an Intranet?''\n In this book, intranet refers to any TCP/IP network that is not connected to the Internet but uses Internet communication standards and tools to provide information to users on the private network. For example, a company can set up Web servers that are accessible only by employees to publish company newsletters, sales figures, and other corporate documents. Employees access information by using Web browsers.\n \n Web servers can be configured to provide an intranet with the same features and services found on the Internet, such as serving hypertext pages (which can contain text, hyperlinks, images, and sounds), responding to Web client requests for information, and accessing a database. In this guide, these publishing services are described as "Internet services" whether they are running on an intranet or on the Internet.\n\n'' What is Internet Explorer?''\n Microsoft Internet Explorer is a Web browser. Just as Microsoft(r) Word is a tool to create and format documents, or Microsoft(r) Excel is a tool to create spreadsheets and perform calculations, Internet Explorer is a tool to navigate and access, or "browse," information on the Web.\n\n The Internet Explorer toolbar provides a range of detailed functions and commands for managing the browser. The address bar below the toolbar displays the address of the current Web page. To go to a new Web page, you type the page's URL directly into the white space on this bar and then press "ENTER" on your keyboard. You can also go to a new page by clicking a hyperlink that jumps to the new page.\n\n The Microsoft Windows NT(r) operating system includes Internet Explorer for Windows NT. Internet Explorer is also available for Windows(r) for Workgroups, Windows version 3.1, and Windows 95.\n\n'' What is Internet Information Server?''\n Microsoft(r) Internet Information Server is a Web server that enables you to publish information on a corporate intranet or on the Internet. Internet Information Server transmits information by using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). Internet Information Server can also be configured to provide File Transfer Protocol (FTP) and gopher services. The FTP service enables users to transfer files to and from your Web site. The gopher service uses a menu-driven protocol for locating documents. The gopher protocol has been largely superseded by the HTTP protocol.\n\n'' What Can I Do with Internet Information Server?''\n The creative possibilities of what you can offer on an Internet Information Server Web site are endless. Some familiar uses are to:\n\n* Publish a home page on the Internet for your business featuring a newsletter, sales ;information, or employment opportunities.\n* Publish a catalog and take orders from customers.\n* Publish interactive programs.\n* Provide your remote sales force easy access to your sales database.\n* Use an order-tracking database.\n\n'' How Does Internet Information Server Work?''\n The Web is fundamentally a system of requests and responses. Web browsers request information by sending a URL to a Web server. The Web server responds by returning a Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) page.\n\n The HTML page can be a static page that has already been formatted and stored in the Web site, a page that the server dynamically creates in response to information provided by the user, or a page that lists the available files and folders on the Web site.\n\n'' Web Browser URL Request''\n Every page on an intranet or on the Internet has a unique URL that identifies it. Web browsers request a page by sending a URL to a Web server. The server uses the information in the URL to locate and display the page.\n\n URL syntax is a specific sequence of protocol, domain name, and path to the requested information. The protocol is the communication method used to gain access to information; for example, Hypertext Transport Protocol (HTTP).\n\n Internet Information Server supports the HTTP, FTP, and gopher protocols.\n\n The domain name is the Domain Name System (DNS) name of the computer that contains the information. The path is the path to the requested information on the computer. The following table shows examples of different ~URLs:\n\n|! Protocol |! Domain Name |! Path to Information |\n|http://|www.microsoft.com|/backoffice|\n|https://(secure HTTP)|www.company.com|/catalog/orders.htm|\n|[[gopher://]]|gopher.college.edu|/research/astronomy/index.htm|\n|[[ftp://]]|orion.bureau.gov|/stars/alpha quadrant/starlist.txt|\n\n A URL can also contain information that the Web server must process before returning a page. The data is added to the end of the path. The Web server passes the data to a program or a script for processing and returns the results in a Web page. Example request types are listed in the following table:\n \n|! Request Type |! URL |\n|Static HTML page |http://www.microsoft.com/backoffice/home.htm|\n|ISAPI application |http://www.msn.com/custom/page1.dll?CUST=on|\n|Internet Database Connector |http://www.microsoft.com/feedback/input.idc|\n|Common Gateway Interface (CGI) script |http://www.company.com/calculator/add.pl?2.2|\n\n'' Web Server Response''\n A Web server responds to a Web browser request by returning an HTML page. The returned page can be one of three types: a static HTML page, a dynamic HTML page, or a directory-listing page.\n\n'' Static Pages''\n Static pages are static HTML pages that are prepared in advance of the request. The Web server returns the HTML pages to the user, but takes no special action. The user requests a static page by typing in an URL (in the following illustration, http://www.company.com/home.htm) or by clicking a link pointing to an URL. The URL request is sent to the server. The server responds by returning the static HTML page.\n\n '' Dynamic Pages''\n Dynamic pages are created in response to a user's request. A Web browser collects information by presenting a page with text boxes, menus, and check boxes that the user fills in or selects. When the user clicks a button on a form, the data from the form is sent to the Web server. The server either passes the data to a script or application to be processed, or it queries or posts data to a database. The server returns the results to the user in an HTML page.\n\n The following illustration shows how a user can send a query to an Internet Server API (ISAPI) application that adds two numbers. The user types the two numbers to be added, then clicks a button, which in turn sends the two numbers to the Web server. The Web server calls the ISAPI application to add the numbers, then returns the results to the user in an HTML page.\n\n The following illustration shows a user posting an order to a database using the Internet Database Connector. The user completes a form, then clicks a button, which in turn sends the data in the form to the server. The server posts the data to a database, then confirms the order by sending an HTML page.\n\n'' Directory Listing''\n If users might send queries without specifying a particular file, you can either create a default document for a Web site or for a particular directory, or you can configure your server for directory browsing. If no default document is created for a directory and directory browsing is configured, a directory listing (a hypertext version of a Windows Explorer or File Manager listing) is returned to the user in the form of an HTML page. The user can then jump to the appropriate file by clicking it in the directory listing.\n\n '' How Do I Use Internet Information Server?''\n Internet Information Server is flexible enough to perform many important functions for your organization. It is scalable from supporting a single-server site to supporting large multi-server installations. For example, www.microsoft.com and www.msn.com are among the busiest Web sites on the Internet today, and both use multiple servers running Microsoft Internet Information Server. One of the primary factors that determines the configuration and use of Internet Information Server is whether it will be used internally by employees on your intranet, or if it will be connected to the Internet.\n\n The following scenarios are intended to help you understand the range of possibilities for using Internet Information Server.\n\n Internet Information Server integrates well into almost any existing environment. Because Internet Information Server integrates Windows NT security and networking, you can often add the software to an existing computer and use existing user accounts. It is not necessary to use a dedicated computer to run Internet Information Server.\n \n For example, in a small workgroup you can add Internet Information Server to an existing file and print server. The workgroup's Web server can host personal Web-style pages, customized workgroup applications, serve as an interface to the workgroup's Structured Query Language (SQL) database, or use Remote Access Service (RAS) to provide dial-up access to the workgroup's resources from remote sites.\n\n In a larger business with multiple departments or workgroups, each department might run Internet Information Server on an existing file server for workgroup-specific information. A central information server might be used for company-wide information, such as an employee manual or company directory.\n\n Internet Information Server can function as a simple dedicated Web server on the Internet, as shown in the following illustration.\n\n In larger sites you can provide access from your internal network to the Internet Information Server, allowing employees to browse the server or to use authoring tools, such as Microsoft ~FrontPage(tm), to create content for your server.\n\n Internet Information Server's integration with all of the Windows NT services can also create servers with multiple functions. For example, a company with sites in different parts of the world can use Internet Information Server to provide communication between sites, with the added flexiblity of Internet access. You can even add RAS to an Internet Information Server to provide dial-up access to your intranet or the Internet.\n\n

A brief look at a Revolution in Communications\n\n //(Continued from last month)//\n\n ''The End User.''\n The third component in the collective idea of the Internet is the people who use it. The end users are responsible for the amount of content on the Internet. Not only do they put it there in vast quantities, but they also access it in droves, which in turn prompts the addition of even more content.\n\n For an end user to get involved with the Internet requires four things. You need the necessary hardware, the necessary software, an account with a service provider, and the address of the content.\n\n ''Hardware.''\n Accessing the Internet requires at least two hardware components: an access mechanism, such as a modem or a network card, and a viewing mechanism, such as a computer with monitor, an Internet appliance, or a Web-enabled cellular phone. Each access mechanism has its pros and cons. The one you choose will depend on where you need to access the Internet, how you plan to use your Internet connection, and the type of viewing mechanism you have. Currently, the most popular access mechanisms are:\n\n •an analog modem, which uses a standard telephone line to create a dial-up connection to the Internet. Analog modems have a maximum throughput of 56 kilobits per second (Kbps) and are used most frequently with home computers.\n\n •an ISDN terminal adapter, which uses a standard telephone line to establish a digital connection to the Internet.\n ISDN terminal adapters have a maximum throughput of 128Kbps and are used with PCs in homes or small offices.\n\n •a DSL (digital subscriber line) modem, which carries data in both analog and digital format. DSL modems have a typical throughput of 144Kbps to 1.5Mbps. DSL is primarily used with PCs in homes or small businesses.\n\n •a cable modem, which provides an Internet connection via television cable. At 30Mbps, cable modems have the fastest theoretical throughput of any consumer-oriented access mechanism. However, most users of cable modems will enjoy throughput of approximately 1Mbps. Cable modems are used almost exclusively with PCs or Internet appliances in the home.\n\n •wireless modems, which allow you to connect a laptop PC, handheld computer, or wireless telephone to the Internet without connecting to a telephone line or television cable. Wireless modems are slow, with a throughput of 19.2 Kbps. New technologies promise to improve throughput to 56Kbps.\n\n •a NIC (network interface card), which enables a PC to connect to a private network. In order to access the Internet, the network must have a perpetual connection to an Internet PoP.\n\n ''Software.''\n In addition to the requisite hardware, you also need the software that can process the data and present it in a viewable format. At the very least, you need a browser. PC users can get a PC-oriented browser, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator, from their ISPs. Similarly, they can download a browser for free from the Internet. Handheld PCs, Internet appliances, and Web-enabled cellular phones often come equipped with proprietary browsing software.\n\n Other Internet-related applications that you may want to consider getting are an e-mail client, such as Microsoft Outlook ($109; http://www.microsoft.com/) or QUALCOMM’s Eudora ($49.95; http://www.eudora.com/); decompression software, such as PKWARE’s PKZIP ($34; http://www.pkware.com/); and FTP software, such as WS_FTP Pro from Ipswitch ($39.95; http://www.ipswitch.com/). Most Internet-related software, including the titles mentioned above, are designed for desktop or laptop computers only.\n\n ''Service provider.''\n Once the hardware and software is in place, you need an account with a service provider. The service provider is usually a company contracted by your employer or with whom you maintain a personal account. If you don’t have an account with a service provider, you should look in the Yellow Pages under Internet service providers or ask a friend for a referral.\n\n ''Addresses.''\n Finally, the last thing you need is the address of some content. Internet content is organized and addressed according to a hierarchical system called the DNS (domain name system). The domain name is the identifying title given to a computer or group of computers. It includes a top-level domain, which is a two- or three-letter suffix. In the URL http://www.smartcomputing.com/, the domain name is smartcomputing .com and the top-level domain is .com. In the e-mail address name@email.net, email.net is the domain name and .net is the top-level domain.\n\n ''Putting It All Together.''\n So how does all of this work together? Before we explain that, we first must describe the general principle that governs the way data travels across the Internet. This principle is called packet-switching, which essentially means that the Internet carries data in small groups, called packets. The packets are sent across the Internet separately; they don’t travel in a bunch. The packets are transmitted—or switched—from one router to the next, always directed closer to their destination. When they finally arrive at their destination, they’re put back together for presentation in a Web browser or other viewing application. Got it?\n\n Now we can illustrate the way the Internet works. When you request data from the Internet—by clicking on a hyperlink, for instance—your request is broken into packets by the Internet application, which is the Web browser in most cases. The browser sends the packets to the access mechanism, which propels it through the transmission channel to the PoP. The PoP compiles the packets and makes sure the request came through without errors.\n Then it determines where the request needs to go, breaks it down into packets, and sends it off across the Internet backbone to its destination. En route, the packets pass through a hierarchy of local, regional, and national or even international service providers and numerous routers, which constantly direct the packets to their ultimate goal.\n\n When the packets finally reach the intended destination, which is the server that contains the desired data, they’re compiled. The server checks for errors in the request and, upon finding none, processes the requested content for transmission back to your computer. The content sent back to you is actually a copy of the original data, which remains on the server. The copied content is broken into packets and sent across the Internet backbone to you in the same manner that your request was sent to the server. When the requested data arrives at your PC, the browser compiles it into a viewable format and displays it on-screen.\n\n Such a basic description would make a computer scientist cringe, but that’s how the Internet works in a nutshell. And, depending on the amount of data requested, it can all happen in less time than it takes you to read this sentence. It’s pretty amazing and definitely something that will impress future generations for years to come by.\n\n by Jeff Dodd of SmartComputing.com \n

In recent times, developments in bus technologies and standards have resulted in new high-speed serial buses. One of these is called the Universal Serial Bus (USB) and the other is the IEEE 1394 bus.\n \nThe USB is a bus standard developed by PC and telecommunications companies Compaq, DEC, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, NEC, and Northern Telecom. It is very different from the buses that have gone before it. The USB system is an external bus system that can potentially remove the need for serial and parallel ports in the future. Devices are connected to the USB using a port on the back of the computer, rather than a slot located on the motherboard. Up to 127 USB devices can be connected on one system and data is transferred at 12 Mbps. The USB automatically detects when devices are added and removed, without turning the system off. In other words, it is fully ~Plug-and-Play compatible. The USB allocates system resources such as bus bandwidth and drivers, without user intervention. And it allocates power from the computer, eliminating the need for a separate power cable. The USB system is still relativity new, but since 1996, most computer manufacturers have started including USB support in their new machines.\n\nThe IEEE 1394 bus is very similar to the USB in terms of functionality. Like the USB, it can support multiple devices and is extremely fast and efficient. At the present time, the IEEE organization has approved one version of the IEEE bus 1394. Several extensions to it are being considered, but a definitive standard has not yet been finalized.\n

Type the text for '1991'

This is a second shot at how we might present Megabyte in an accessible format, and I'll assume you have read my previous note in [[README!!!!]]\n\nI've added some more content (2003) and the document is now about ~650kB in size and still seems to be working fine. I'm estimating that we'll be adding about 250-300kB for each year we add, so for the existing issues we'll be up around the 6MB mark. Possibly a bit large.\n\nThe content can be added as separate TiddlyWikis and imported into a larger document, so it is possible for more than one person to add content, if we set up some clear guidelines for tagging and formatting.\n\n''Presentation''\n\nHow the document is presented is totally separate from the content, so it is possible to experiement as much as we like without having to re-input any content. We can change colours, menus, sidebars etc, and even change what is shown on each article without affecting the underlying content. For example, I've removed the author, modified date and created date that showed as a subtitle in the previous version of this document (since it isn't required for our use of ~TiddlyWiki).\n\n''Scope''\n\nIt is my feeling that this will not be a standalone document - that we'll certainly provide a .pdf of every issue of Megabyte so people can see them exactly as they were and can print them out, and they'll always refer to those .pdfs for any sort of historical interest.\n\nThe utility of the ~TiddlyWiki lies in its ability to navigate freely between documents (for example, you can navigate to other documents with the same tags - author, topic, month, year etc) and the ability to search the entire document extremely quickly.\n\nSo I don't see any reason at this stage to include images. They will need to accompany the TW which makes it less portable, and also they will slow down the loading of pages that have images. If the article needs to be viewde with images, the .pdf version can fulfil that requirement.\n\nOne of the advantages of the TW is the ability to include links to external sites. I think that an effort should be made to ensure that external links work, as that functionality won't be available in some of the .pdf versions.\n\nNow go on and open [[Megabyte]] or better still, [[Browse Megabyte]] especially the entries for 1991, 2003 and 2006.\n\nEnjoy!\n\nLet me know what you think!\n\n

| !date | !user | !location | !storeUrl | !uploadDir | !toFilename | !backupdir | !origin |\n| 6/8/2006 19:19:21 | YourName | [[/|http://tiddlyspot.com/megabyte/]] | [[store.cgi|http://tiddlyspot.com/megabyte/store.cgi]] | . | index.html | . |\n| 6/8/2006 19:20:33 | YourName | [[/|http://tiddlyspot.com/megabyte/]] | [[store.cgi|http://tiddlyspot.com/megabyte/store.cgi]] | . | index.html | . |\n| 6/8/2006 19:46:7 | nzpca | [[megabyteonline.html|file://///Fileserver/data/robin/Thumbdrive%20project/tiddlywiki/megabyteonline.html]] | [[store.cgi|http://tiddlyspot.com/megabyte/store.cgi]] | . | index.html | . | Ok |\n| 6/8/2006 19:56:19 | nzpca | [[megabyteonline.html|file://///Fileserver/data/robin/Thumbdrive%20project/tiddlywiki/megabyteonline.html]] | [[store.cgi|http://tiddlyspot.com/megabyte/store.cgi]] | . | index.html | . |\n| 6/8/2006 20:35:14 | YourName | [[/|http://tiddlyspot.com/megabyte/]] | [[store.cgi|http://tiddlyspot.com/megabyte/store.cgi]] | . | index.html | . |\n| 6/8/2006 20:53:25 | YourName | [[/|http://tiddlyspot.com/megabyte/]] | [[store.cgi|http://tiddlyspot.com/megabyte/store.cgi]] | . | index.html | . |\n| 6/8/2006 21:16:50 | nzpca | [[megabyte.html|file://///fileserver/data/robin/Thumbdrive%20project/tiddlywiki/megabyte.html]] | [[store.cgi|http://tiddlyspot.com/megabyte/store.cgi]] | . | index.html | . |\n| 7/8/2006 8:32:22 | nzpca | [[megabyte.html|file://///fileserver/data/robin/Thumbdrive%20project/tiddlywiki/megabyte.html]] | [[store.cgi|http://tiddlyspot.com/megabyte/store.cgi]] | . | index.html | . |\n| 10/8/2006 12:49:21 | nzpca | [[megabyte.html|file://///192.168.0.4/data/robin/Thumbdrive%20project/tiddlywiki/megabyte.html]] | [[store.cgi|http://tiddlyspot.com/megabyte/store.cgi]] | . | index.html | . |\n| 10/8/2006 12:53:40 | nzpca | [[megabyte.html|file://///192.168.0.4/data/robin/Thumbdrive%20project/tiddlywiki/megabyte.html]] | [[store.cgi|http://tiddlyspot.com/megabyte/store.cgi]] | . | index.html | . | Ok |\n| 10/8/2006 17:51:55 | nzpca | [[megabyte.html|file://///192.168.0.4/data/robin/Thumbdrive%20project/tiddlywiki/megabyte.html#%5B%5BMay%202002%5D%5D]] | [[store.cgi|http://tiddlyspot.com/megabyte/store.cgi]] | . | index.html | . | Ok |\n| 12/8/2006 17:54:18 | nzpca | [[megabyte.html|file://///192.168.0.4/data/robin/Thumbdrive%20project/tiddlywiki/megabyte.html]] | [[store.cgi|http://tiddlyspot.com/megabyte/store.cgi]] | . | index.html | . |\n| 13/8/2006 19:43:30 | nzpca | [[megabyte.html|file://///Fileserver/data/nzpca/Megabyte%20as%20TiddlyWiki/megabyte.html]] | [[store.cgi|http://tiddlyspot.com/megabyte/store.cgi]] | . | index.html | . |\n| 16/8/2006 10:40:52 | nzpca | [[megabyte.html|file://///Fileserver/data/nzpca/Megabyte%20as%20TiddlyWiki/megabyte.html]] | [[store.cgi|http://tiddlyspot.com/megabyte/store.cgi]] | . | index.html | . |\n| 21/8/2006 11:37:27 | nzpca | [[megabyte.html|file://///192.168.0.4/data/nzpca/Megabyte%20as%20TiddlyWiki/megabyte.html]] | [[store.cgi|http://tiddlyspot.com/megabyte/store.cgi]] | . | index.html | . |\n| 27/8/2006 18:38:54 | YourName | [[megabyte.html|file://///Fileserver/data/nzpca/Megabyte%20as%20TiddlyWiki/megabyte.html]] | [[store.cgi|http://tiddlyspot.com/megabyte/store.cgi]] | . | index.html | . |\n| 28/8/2006 21:36:8 | YourName | [[megabyte.html|file://///Fileserver/data/nzpca/Megabyte%20as%20TiddlyWiki/megabyte.html]] | [[store.cgi|http://tiddlyspot.com/megabyte/store.cgi]] | . | index.html | . |\n| 28/8/2006 22:4:7 | YourName | [[megabyte.html|file://///Fileserver/data/nzpca/Megabyte%20as%20TiddlyWiki/megabyte.html]] | [[store.cgi|http://tiddlyspot.com/megabyte/store.cgi]] | . | index.html | . | Ok |\n| 31/8/2006 21:49:29 | YourName | [[megabyte.html|file://///Fileserver/data/nzpca/Megabyte%20as%20TiddlyWiki/megabyte.html]] | [[store.cgi|http://tiddlyspot.com/megabyte/store.cgi]] | . | index.html | . |\n| 31/8/2006 21:54:26 | YourName | [[megabyte.html|file://///Fileserver/data/nzpca/Megabyte%20as%20TiddlyWiki/megabyte.html]] | [[store.cgi|http://tiddlyspot.com/megabyte/store.cgi]] | . | index.html | . |\n| 4/9/2006 18:9:0 | YourName | [[megabyte.html|file://///fileserver/data/nzpca/Megabyte%20as%20TiddlyWiki/megabyte.html]] | [[store.cgi|http://tiddlyspot.com/megabyte/store.cgi]] | . | index.html | . |\n| 5/9/2006 21:29:53 | YourName | [[megabyte.html|file://///Fileserver/data/nzpca/Megabyte%20as%20TiddlyWiki/megabyte.html]] | [[store.cgi|http://tiddlyspot.com/megabyte/store.cgi]] | . | index.html | . |\n| 19/9/2006 9:44:13 | YourName | [[megabyte.html|file://///fileserver/data/nzpca/Megabyte%20as%20TiddlyWiki/megabyte.html]] | [[store.cgi|http://tiddlyspot.com/megabyte/store.cgi]] | . | index.html | . |\n| 25/9/2006 13:28:48 | YourName | [[megabyte.html|file://///192.168.0.4/data/nzpca/Megabyte%20as%20TiddlyWiki/megabyte.html#AdvancedOptions]] | [[store.cgi|http://tiddlyspot.com/megabyte/store.cgi]] | . | index.html | . |

/***\n<<tiddler UploadPluginDoc>>\n!Code\n***/\n//{{{\nversion.extensions.UploadPlugin = {\n major: 3, minor: 3, revision: 3, \n date: new Date(2006,6,30),\n type: 'macro',\n source: 'http://tiddlywiki.bidix.info/#UploadPlugin',\n docs: 'http://tiddlywiki.bidix.info/#UploadPluginDoc'\n};\n//}}}\n\n////+++!![config.lib.file]\n\n//{{{\nif (!config.lib) config.lib = {};\nif (!config.lib.file) config.lib.file= {\n author: 'BidiX',\n version: {major: 0, minor: 1, revision: 0}, \n date: new Date(2006,3,9)\n};\nconfig.lib.file.dirname = function (filePath) {\n var lastpos;\n if ((lastpos = filePath.lastIndexOf("/")) != -1) {\n return filePath.substring(0, lastpos);\n } else {\n return filePath.substring(0, filePath.lastIndexOf("\s\s"));\n }\n};\nconfig.lib.file.basename = function (filePath) {\n var lastpos;\n if ((lastpos = filePath.lastIndexOf("#")) != -1) \n filePath = filePath.substring(0, lastpos);\n if ((lastpos = filePath.lastIndexOf("/")) != -1) {\n return filePath.substring(lastpos + 1);\n } else\n return filePath.substring(filePath.lastIndexOf("\s\s")+1);\n};\nwindow.basename = function() {return "@@deprecated@@";};\n//}}}\n////===\n\n////+++!![config.lib.log]\n\n//{{{\nif (!config.lib) config.lib = {};\nif (!config.lib.log) config.lib.log= {\n author: 'BidiX',\n version: {major: 0, minor: 1, revision: 0}, \n date: new Date(2006,3,9)\n};\nconfig.lib.Log = function(tiddlerTitle, logHeader) {\n if (version.major < 2)\n this.tiddler = store.tiddlers[tiddlerTitle];\n else\n this.tiddler = store.getTiddler(tiddlerTitle);\n if (!this.tiddler) {\n this.tiddler = new Tiddler();\n this.tiddler.title = tiddlerTitle;\n this.tiddler.text = "| !date | !user | !location |" + logHeader;\n this.tiddler.created = new Date();\n this.tiddler.modifier = config.options.txtUserName;\n this.tiddler.modified = new Date();\n if (version.major < 2)\n store.tiddlers[tiddlerTitle] = this.tiddler;\n else\n store.addTiddler(this.tiddler);\n }\n return this;\n};\n\nconfig.lib.Log.prototype.newLine = function (line) {\n var now = new Date();\n var newText = "| ";\n newText += now.getDate()+"/"+(now.getMonth()+1)+"/"+now.getFullYear() + " ";\n newText += now.getHours()+":"+now.getMinutes()+":"+now.getSeconds()+" | ";\n newText += config.options.txtUserName + " | ";\n var location = document.location.toString();\n var filename = config.lib.file.basename(location);\n if (!filename) filename = '/';\n newText += "[["+filename+"|"+location + "]] |";\n this.tiddler.text = this.tiddler.text + "\sn" + newText;\n this.addToLine(line);\n};\n\nconfig.lib.Log.prototype.addToLine = function (text) {\n this.tiddler.text = this.tiddler.text + text;\n this.tiddler.modifier = config.options.txtUserName;\n this.tiddler.modified = new Date();\n if (version.major < 2)\n store.tiddlers[this.tiddler.tittle] = this.tiddler;\n else {\n store.addTiddler(this.tiddler);\n story.refreshTiddler(this.tiddler.title);\n store.notify(this.tiddler.title, true);\n }\n if (version.major < 2)\n store.notifyAll(); \n};\n//}}}\n////===\n\n////+++!![config.lib.options]\n\n//{{{\nif (!config.lib) config.lib = {};\nif (!config.lib.options) config.lib.options = {\n author: 'BidiX',\n version: {major: 0, minor: 1, revision: 0}, \n date: new Date(2006,3,9)\n};\n\nconfig.lib.options.init = function (name, defaultValue) {\n if (!config.options[name]) {\n config.options[name] = defaultValue;\n saveOptionCookie(name);\n }\n};\n//}}}\n////===\n\n////+++!![PasswordTweak]\n\n//{{{\nversion.extensions.PasswordTweak = {\n major: 1, minor: 0, revision: 2, date: new Date(2006,3,11),\n type: 'tweak',\n source: 'http://tiddlywiki.bidix.info/#PasswordTweak'\n};\n//}}}\n/***\n!!config.macros.option\n***/\n//{{{\nconfig.macros.option.passwordCheckboxLabel = "Save this password on this computer";\nconfig.macros.option.passwordType = "password"; // password | text\n\nconfig.macros.option.onChangeOption = function(e)\n{\n var opt = this.getAttribute("option");\n var elementType,valueField;\n if(opt) {\n switch(opt.substr(0,3)) {\n case "txt":\n elementType = "input";\n valueField = "value";\n break;\n case "pas":\n elementType = "input";\n valueField = "value";\n break;\n case "chk":\n elementType = "input";\n valueField = "checked";\n break;\n }\n config.options[opt] = this[valueField];\n saveOptionCookie(opt);\n var nodes = document.getElementsByTagName(elementType);\n for(var t=0; t<nodes.length; t++) {\n var optNode = nodes[t].getAttribute("option");\n if (opt == optNode) \n nodes[t][valueField] = this[valueField];\n }\n }\n return(true);\n};\n\nconfig.macros.option.handler = function(place,macroName,params)\n{\n var opt = params[0];\n var size = 15;\n if (params[1])\n size = params[1];\n if(config.options[opt] === undefined) {\n return;}\n var c;\n switch(opt.substr(0,3)) {\n case "txt":\n c = document.createElement("input");\n c.onkeyup = this.onChangeOption;\n c.setAttribute ("option",opt);\n c.size = size;\n c.value = config.options[opt];\n place.appendChild(c);\n break;\n case "pas":\n // input password\n c = document.createElement ("input");\n c.setAttribute("type",config.macros.option.passwordType);\n c.onkeyup = this.onChangeOption;\n c.setAttribute("option",opt);\n c.size = size;\n c.value = config.options[opt];\n place.appendChild(c);\n // checkbox link with this password "save this password on this computer"\n c = document.createElement("input");\n c.setAttribute("type","checkbox");\n c.onclick = this.onChangeOption;\n c.setAttribute("option","chk"+opt);\n place.appendChild(c);\n c.checked = config.options["chk"+opt];\n // text savePasswordCheckboxLabel\n place.appendChild(document.createTextNode(config.macros.option.passwordCheckboxLabel));\n break;\n case "chk":\n c = document.createElement("input");\n c.setAttribute("type","checkbox");\n c.onclick = this.onChangeOption;\n c.setAttribute("option",opt);\n place.appendChild(c);\n c.checked = config.options[opt];\n break;\n }\n};\n//}}}\n/***\n!! Option cookie stuff\n***/\n//{{{\nwindow.loadOptionsCookie_orig_PasswordTweak = window.loadOptionsCookie;\nwindow.loadOptionsCookie = function()\n{\n var cookies = document.cookie.split(";");\n for(var c=0; c<cookies.length; c++) {\n var p = cookies[c].indexOf("=");\n if(p != -1) {\n var name = cookies[c].substr(0,p).trim();\n var value = cookies[c].substr(p+1).trim();\n switch(name.substr(0,3)) {\n case "txt":\n config.options[name] = unescape(value);\n break;\n case "pas":\n config.options[name] = unescape(value);\n break;\n case "chk":\n config.options[name] = value == "true";\n break;\n }\n }\n }\n};\n\nwindow.saveOptionCookie_orig_PasswordTweak = window.saveOptionCookie;\nwindow.saveOptionCookie = function(name)\n{\n var c = name + "=";\n switch(name.substr(0,3)) {\n case "txt":\n c += escape(config.options[name].toString());\n break;\n case "chk":\n c += config.options[name] ? "true" : "false";\n // is there an option link with this chk ?\n if (config.options[name.substr(3)]) {\n saveOptionCookie(name.substr(3));\n }\n break;\n case "pas":\n if (config.options["chk"+name]) {\n c += escape(config.options[name].toString());\n } else {\n c += "";\n }\n break;\n }\n c += "; expires=Fri, 1 Jan 2038 12:00:00 UTC; path=/";\n document.cookie = c;\n};\n//}}}\n/***\n!! Initializations\n***/\n//{{{\n// define config.options.pasPassword\nif (!config.options.pasPassword) {\n config.options.pasPassword = 'defaultPassword';\n window.saveOptionCookie('pasPassword');\n}\n// since loadCookies is first called befor password definition\n// we need to reload cookies\nwindow.loadOptionsCookie();\n//}}}\n////===\n\n////+++!![config.macros.upload]\n\n//{{{\nconfig.macros.upload = {\n accessKey: "U",\n formName: "UploadPlugin",\n contentType: "text/html;charset=UTF-8",\n defaultStoreScript: "store.php"\n};\n\n// only this two configs need to be translated\nconfig.macros.upload.messages = {\n aboutToUpload: "About to upload TiddlyWiki to %0",\n errorDownloading: "Error downloading",\n errorUploadingContent: "Error uploading content",\n fileNotFound: "file to upload not found",\n fileNotUploaded: "File %0 NOT uploaded",\n mainFileUploaded: "Main TiddlyWiki file uploaded to %0",\n urlParamMissing: "url param missing",\n rssFileNotUploaded: "RssFile %0 NOT uploaded",\n rssFileUploaded: "Rss File uploaded to %0"\n};\n\nconfig.macros.upload.label = {\n promptOption: "Save and Upload this TiddlyWiki with UploadOptions",\n promptParamMacro: "Save and Upload this TiddlyWiki in %0",\n saveLabel: "save to web", \n saveToDisk: "save to disk",\n uploadLabel: "upload" \n};\n\nconfig.macros.upload.handler = function(place,macroName,params){\n // parameters initialization\n var storeUrl = params[0];\n var toFilename = params[1];\n var backupDir = params[2];\n var uploadDir = params[3];\n var username = params[4];\n var password; // for security reason no password as macro parameter\n var label;\n if (document.location.toString().substr(0,4) == "http")\n label = this.label.saveLabel;\n else\n label = this.label.uploadLabel;\n var prompt;\n if (storeUrl) {\n prompt = this.label.promptParamMacro.toString().format([this.dirname(storeUrl)]);\n }\n else {\n prompt = this.label.promptOption;\n }\n createTiddlyButton(place, label, prompt, \n function () {\n config.macros.upload.upload(storeUrl, toFilename, uploadDir, backupDir, username, password); \n return false;}, \n null, null, this.accessKey);\n};\nconfig.macros.upload.UploadLog = function() {\n return new config.lib.Log('UploadLog', " !storeUrl | !uploadDir | !toFilename | !backupdir | !origin |" );\n};\nconfig.macros.upload.UploadLog.prototype = config.lib.Log.prototype;\nconfig.macros.upload.UploadLog.prototype.startUpload = function(storeUrl, toFilename, uploadDir, backupDir) {\n var line = " [[" + config.lib.file.basename(storeUrl) + "|" + storeUrl + "]] | ";\n line += uploadDir + " | " + toFilename + " | " + backupDir + " |";\n this.newLine(line);\n};\nconfig.macros.upload.UploadLog.prototype.endUpload = function() {\n this.addToLine(" Ok |");\n};\nconfig.macros.upload.basename = config.lib.file.basename;\nconfig.macros.upload.dirname = config.lib.file.dirname;\nconfig.macros.upload.upload = function(storeUrl, toFilename, uploadDir, backupDir, username, password)\n{\n // parameters initialization\n storeUrl = (storeUrl ? storeUrl : config.options.txtUploadStoreUrl);\n toFilename = (toFilename ? toFilename : config.options.txtUploadFilename);\n backupDir = (backupDir ? backupDir : config.options.txtUploadBackupDir);\n uploadDir = (uploadDir ? uploadDir : config.options.txtUploadDir);\n username = (username ? username : config.options.txtUploadUserName);\n password = config.options.pasUploadPassword; // for security reason no password as macro parameter\n if (storeUrl === '') {\n config.macros.upload.defaultStoreScript;\n }\n if (config.lib.file.dirname(storeUrl) === '') {\n storeUrl = config.lib.file.dirname(document.location.toString())+'/'+storeUrl;\n }\n if (toFilename === '') {\n toFilename = config.lib.file.basename(document.location.toString());\n }\n\n clearMessage();\n // only for forcing the message to display\n if (version.major < 2)\n store.notifyAll();\n if (!storeUrl) {\n alert(config.macros.upload.messages.urlParamMissing);\n return;\n }\n \n var log = new this.UploadLog();\n log.startUpload(storeUrl, toFilename, uploadDir, backupDir);\n if (document.location.toString().substr(0,5) == "file:") {\n saveChanges();\n }\n displayMessage(config.macros.upload.messages.aboutToUpload.format([this.dirname(storeUrl)]), this.dirname(storeUrl));\n this.uploadChanges(storeUrl, toFilename, uploadDir, backupDir, username, password);\n if(config.options.chkGenerateAnRssFeed) {\n //var rssContent = convertUnicodeToUTF8(generateRss());\n var rssContent = generateRss();\n var rssPath = toFilename.substr(0,toFilename.lastIndexOf(".")) + ".xml";\n this.uploadContent(rssContent, storeUrl, rssPath, uploadDir, '', username, password, \n function (responseText) {\n if (responseText.substring(0,1) != '0') {\n displayMessage(config.macros.upload.messages.rssFileNotUploaded.format([rssPath]));\n }\n else {\n if (uploadDir) {\n rssPath = uploadDir + "/" + config.macros.upload.basename(rssPath);\n } else {\n rssPath = config.macros.upload.basename(rssPath);\n }\n displayMessage(config.macros.upload.messages.rssFileUploaded.format(\n [config.macros.upload.dirname(storeUrl)+"/"+rssPath]), config.macros.upload.dirname(storeUrl)+"/"+rssPath);\n }\n // for debugging store.php uncomment last line\n //DEBUG alert(responseText);\n });\n }\n return;\n};\n\nconfig.macros.upload.uploadChanges = function(storeUrl, toFilename, uploadDir, backupDir, \n username, password) {\n var original;\n if (document.location.toString().substr(0,4) == "http") {\n original = this.download(storeUrl, toFilename, uploadDir, backupDir, username, password);\n return;\n }\n else {\n // standard way : Local file\n \n original = loadFile(getLocalPath(document.location.toString()));\n if(window.Components) {\n // it's a mozilla browser\n try {\n netscape.security.PrivilegeManager.enablePrivilege("UniversalXPConnect");\n var converter = Components.classes["@mozilla.org/intl/scriptableunicodeconverter"]\n .createInstance(Components.interfaces.nsIScriptableUnicodeConverter);\n converter.charset = "UTF-8";\n original = converter.ConvertToUnicode(original);\n }\n catch(e) {\n }\n }\n }\n //DEBUG alert(original);\n this.uploadChangesFrom(original, storeUrl, toFilename, uploadDir, backupDir, \n username, password);\n};\n\nconfig.macros.upload.uploadChangesFrom = function(original, storeUrl, toFilename, uploadDir, backupDir, \n username, password) {\n var startSaveArea = '<div id="' + 'storeArea">'; // Split up into two so that indexOf() of this source doesn't find it\n var endSaveArea = '</d' + 'iv>';\n // Locate the storeArea div's\n var posOpeningDiv = original.indexOf(startSaveArea);\n var posClosingDiv = original.lastIndexOf(endSaveArea);\n if((posOpeningDiv == -1) || (posClosingDiv == -1))\n {\n alert(config.messages.invalidFileError.format([document.location.toString()]));\n return;\n }\n var revised = original.substr(0,posOpeningDiv + startSaveArea.length) + \n allTiddlersAsHtml() + "\sn\st\st" +\n original.substr(posClosingDiv);\n var newSiteTitle;\n if(version.major < 2){\n newSiteTitle = (getElementText("siteTitle") + " - " + getElementText("siteSubtitle")).htmlEncode();\n } else {\n newSiteTitle = (wikifyPlain ("SiteTitle") + " - " + wikifyPlain ("SiteSubtitle")).htmlEncode();\n }\n revised = revised.replace(new RegExp("<title>[^<]*</title>", "im"),"<title>"+ newSiteTitle +"</title>");\n var response = this.uploadContent(revised, storeUrl, toFilename, uploadDir, backupDir, \n username, password, function (responseText) {\n if (responseText.substring(0,1) != '0') {\n alert(responseText);\n displayMessage(config.macros.upload.messages.fileNotUploaded.format([getLocalPath(document.location.toString())]));\n }\n else {\n if (uploadDir !== '') {\n toFilename = uploadDir + "/" + config.macros.upload.basename(toFilename);\n } else {\n toFilename = config.macros.upload.basename(toFilename);\n }\n displayMessage(config.macros.upload.messages.mainFileUploaded.format(\n [config.macros.upload.dirname(storeUrl)+"/"+toFilename]), config.macros.upload.dirname(storeUrl)+"/"+toFilename);\n var log = new config.macros.upload.UploadLog();\n log.endUpload();\n store.setDirty(false);\n }\n // for debugging store.php uncomment last line\n //DEBUG alert(responseText);\n }\n );\n};\n\nconfig.macros.upload.uploadContent = function(content, storeUrl, toFilename, uploadDir, backupDir, \n username, password, callbackFn) {\n var boundary = "---------------------------"+"AaB03x"; \n var request;\n try {\n request = new XMLHttpRequest();\n } \n catch (e) { \n request = new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP"); \n }\n if (window.netscape){\n try {\n if (document.location.toString().substr(0,4) != "http") {\n netscape.security.PrivilegeManager.enablePrivilege('UniversalBrowserRead');}\n }\n catch (e) { }\n } \n //DEBUG alert("user["+config.options.txtUploadUserName+"] password[" + config.options.pasUploadPassword + "]");\n // compose headers data\n var sheader = "";\n sheader += "--" + boundary + "\sr\snContent-disposition: form-data; name=\s"";\n sheader += config.macros.upload.formName +"\s"\sr\sn\sr\sn";\n sheader += "backupDir="+backupDir\n +";user=" + username \n +";password=" + password\n +";uploaddir=" + uploadDir\n + ";;\sr\sn"; \n sheader += "\sr\sn" + "--" + boundary + "\sr\sn";\n sheader += "Content-disposition: form-data; name=\s"userfile\s"; filename=\s""+toFilename+"\s"\sr\sn";\n sheader += "Content-Type: " + config.macros.upload.contentType + "\sr\sn";\n sheader += "Content-Length: " + content.length + "\sr\sn\sr\sn";\n // compose trailer data\n var strailer = new String();\n strailer = "\sr\sn--" + boundary + "--\sr\sn";\n var data;\n data = sheader + content + strailer;\n //request.open("POST", storeUrl, true, username, password);\n request.open("POST", storeUrl, true);\n request.onreadystatechange = function () {\n if (request.readyState == 4) {\n if (request.status == 200)\n callbackFn(request.responseText);\n else\n alert(config.macros.upload.messages.errorUploadingContent);\n }\n };\n request.setRequestHeader("Content-Length",data.length);\n request.setRequestHeader("Content-Type","multipart/form-data; boundary="+boundary);\n request.send(data); \n};\n\n\nconfig.macros.upload.download = function(uploadUrl, uploadToFilename, uploadDir, uploadBackupDir, \n username, password) {\n var request;\n try {\n request = new XMLHttpRequest();\n } \n catch (e) { \n request = new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP"); \n }\n try {\n if (uploadUrl.substr(0,4) == "http") {\n netscape.security.PrivilegeManager.enablePrivilege("UniversalBrowserRead");\n }\n else {\n netscape.security.PrivilegeManager.enablePrivilege("UniversalXPConnect");\n }\n } catch (e) { }\n //request.open("GET", document.location.toString(), true, username, password);\n request.open("GET", document.location.toString(), true);\n request.onreadystatechange = function () {\n if (request.readyState == 4) {\n if(request.status == 200) {\n config.macros.upload.uploadChangesFrom(request.responseText, uploadUrl, \n uploadToFilename, uploadDir, uploadBackupDir, username, password);\n }\n else\n alert(config.macros.upload.messages.errorDownloading.format(\n [document.location.toString()]));\n }\n };\n request.send(null);\n};\n\n//}}}\n////===\n\n////+++!![Initializations]\n\n//{{{\nconfig.lib.options.init('txtUploadStoreUrl','store.php');\nconfig.lib.options.init('txtUploadFilename','');\nconfig.lib.options.init('txtUploadDir','');\nconfig.lib.options.init('txtUploadBackupDir','');\nconfig.lib.options.init('txtUploadUserName',config.options.txtUserName);\nconfig.lib.options.init('pasUploadPassword','');\nconfig.shadowTiddlers.UploadPluginDoc = "[[Full Documentation|http://tiddlywiki.bidix.info/l#UploadPluginDoc ]]\sn"; \n\n\n//}}}\n////===\n\n////+++!![Core Hijacking]\n\n//{{{\nconfig.macros.saveChanges.label_orig_UploadPlugin = config.macros.saveChanges.label;\nconfig.macros.saveChanges.label = config.macros.upload.label.saveToDisk;\n\nconfig.macros.saveChanges.handler_orig_UploadPlugin = config.macros.saveChanges.handler;\n\nconfig.macros.saveChanges.handler = function(place)\n{\n if ((!readOnly) && (document.location.toString().substr(0,4) != "http"))\n createTiddlyButton(place,this.label,this.prompt,this.onClick,null,null,this.accessKey);\n}\n\n//}}}\n////===

At an NZPCA meeting recently, one of our members asked for advice on the best way to identify and remove duplicate lines in a very long listing of names and addresses.\n\n Nobody at the meeting was able to give a satisfactory answer as to how this simple task could be done under Windows. Yet this can easily be done in any unix-like operating system in seconds.\n\n The tool used to achieve this is called uniq, and is one of a suite of text and file manipulation tools known as the Gnu Utilities. There are versions of these available for most operating systems - including DOS and Win-dows, but they are not included with Windows - you have to find these tools yourself. Most Windows users are unaware the tools even exist, yet their ability to slice and dice text files makes them extremely useful.\n\n Forget using your mouse, as these utilities are all run from the command line, which makes them ideal for use in batch files. They are actually more powerful and flexible because you don't need a GUI to use them.\n\n The version of uniq that I used was uniq v1.2, which I downloaded from Simtel, at http://www.simtel.net/pub/ msdos/txtutl/. This listing gives access to hundreds of text manipulation tools. Also, try a search - in Opera, just type {{{g gnu utilities dos}}} and see what comes up.\n\n Unzip the archive and put the files somewhere convenient, preferably in a directory in your "path" statement - {{{c:/windows/command}}} would be a good place. If you don't do this, you will need to specify the complete path to the uniq executable, and PCs are supposed to make things easier - not harder.\n\n Just typing "uniq" at the DOS prompt gives the following output, and explains its usage.\n{{{\n ======================================\n uniq (C) 1992-95 Jason Mathews\n Usage: uniq [ -cdu ] [ +|-n ] [ inputfile [ outputfile ] ]\n -c Precede each line with a count of the number of times it occurred\n -d Write one copy of duplicate lines\n -u Copy only lines not repeated in the orginal file\n +n Skips over the first n characters\n -n Skips over the first n fields\n ====================================== \n}}}\n I suppose this looks complicated for people who only point and click, but it is actually really simple.\n I generated a test file (named testtext.txt) with the following contents:\n{{{\n line 1 is here\n line 1 is here\n line 2 is here\n line 2 is here\n line 1 is here\n}}}\n Running the uniq command with the parameters as below:\n{{{\n >uniq -du testtext.txt testout.txt\n}}}\n produced a text file (called testout.txt) with the following con-tents:\n{{{\n line 1 is here\n line 2 is here \n}}}\n As you can see, all duplicate lines have been removed. Easy. Done. No need for $1000 office suites to achieve this simple task!\n\n But wait - there's more! The GNU Utilities consist of dozens (for some operating systems, hundreds) of small, highly specialised tools that can be used as building blocks to achieve almost anything. You can use redirection, pipe, and tee output from one operation straight into the next.\n These tools can all be used at the command line, but show their real power when used in scripts.\n\n Look for Windows and DOS versions of tools like grep (searches for specified character strings), sed (a text stream editor), sort (sorts lines in a file to your specification), cut (remove sections from each line of files), sdiff (find differences between two files and merge interactively), wc (print the number of bytes, words, and lines in files), and less (a much better pager, cf. more).\n\n Remember, you can often export databases and spreadsheets as delimited text files, which lend themselves to manipulation by these tools. You can then import the modified files back into the original application.\n \nYou may not need this type of software often, but it can be a real time saver if you have them available.\n

The first computer I bought several years ago was a 486SX with a 100 ~MHz clock, 850 Mbytes hard drive and 8 Mbytes of RAM. Enough to run Windows 95 comfortably. I have since increased the RAM to 24 Mbytes, with a noticeable increase in speed, and added an internal 56K modem. I am still using it today as my main computer.\n \nMy only problem was with the increasing size of current programs, I was fast running out of space on my hard drive. The down loading of shareware and other programs to try out was also increasing the size of my Window's system directory. The Windows directory went from 50 Mbytes at installation to over 200 Mbytes due to all the different types of software that I had tried out over the past years. With my current set up, Windows takes up 140 Mbytes and the basic programs like Word, Excel, Internet Explorer etc take up another 270 Megabytes. 50% of the current hard drive. That doesn't take into account any other type of program that you might wish to run. Crunch time was fast approaching. I was faced with two choices. To upgrade the existing computer with a bigger hard drive or buy a new computer. Both of these options meant lots of money. \n\nA third cheaper option then presented itself . With the purchase of my second computer at the NZPCA auction for $25.00, (no monitor), I already had a second 486 mother board, a 25 ~MHz CPU and two hard drives plus a floppy drive. It also came with a 10 Meg network card. I managed to get a second hand 14 inch SVGA monitor which needed some minor repairs. (One of the advantages of belonging to the Hardware Sigs group). Looking around I also picked another 850 Mbytes hard drive.\nI now had four hard drives. A 60 Mbytes, a 85 Mbytes, a 220 Mbytes and the 850 Mbytes with a total storage capacity 1215 Mbytes plus the 850 Mbytes drive on the original computer. A total of 2000 Mbytes. These smaller capacity drives, by them selves are becoming redundant due to large amount of disc space required by the operating system and the current user programs but linked together they were equivalent to a much bigger drive. The problem was how to link all these hard drives. The answer is networking.\n\nNetwork is a way of connecting several computers together to allow access from any computer, to the hard drives, floppy drives and CD ROM drives that are installed on the other computers. It is the same as having many hard drives on the one computer. This is the option that I chose. Thanks to Robin giving me another 486 mother board with a 66 ~MHz CPU, IDE and video board, I had two fully working computers with enough parts to make a third. The following is how to set up a computer network.\n\n''Hardware:''\nTwo network cards, Coax and 2 terminating resistors or twisted pair cable. Most of it can be bought at Dick Smiths or obtained from other sources. Check if your computer has either an ISA slot or a PCI slot free. What ever type of slot is free will determine what type of network card you buy. The 486's and older will have the ISA slots only where as the Pentiums have both types installed. The PCI slot is smaller and more compact than the ISA slot. Not to be mistaken with a VESA slot which fits directly behind an ISA slot. \n\nFor those that would like to learn more about their computers, how to install and uninstall software etc, Which files they can delete and which they can't, this is a good way to go and it is relatively cheap. It gave good experience and confidence and as to date I have managed to upgraded and connect to a network. I bought and old 386 computer for its case and for the $25.00 I paid for it, I also got a power supply, IDE board and another 60 Mbytes hard drive.\n

What exactly is a VBUG? A very big user guide? No, it's a group of people who enjoy learning about ~MicroSoft Visual Basic and/or ~MicroSoft Access.\n\nAnybody can come along, not just students doing a course in VB, but those who programme in VB and/or Access as part of their job. For example, people who create Access databases could pick up quite a few tips from our resident consultant, Rick Hook.\n\nFor those who are interested, contact Bob Pretty (email: bpretty@clear.net.nz) or me, Stu Mountjoy (email:~Stu_Mtjoy@ compuserve. com). \n\nThe group meets on the 4th Tuesday of the month, from February next year.\n\nI will be telling people about the VBUG meeting, at the next NZPCA meeting,where ~MicroSoft's Michael Best will be demonstrating the latest games.\n\nStu Mountjoy (Member #272 of NZPCA)\n

''VGA''\nVGA stands for Video Graphics Array. It was introduced on April 2, 1987 by IBM, the same day it introduced the MCGA and 8514/A adapters. Although all three were advances for the time, only VGA became increasingly popular. VGA, although now more advanced, has become the standard for desktop video, leaving both the MCGA and 8514 in the dust.\n\nIBM PS/2 systems contained the VGA circuitry on a single VLSI chip which was integrated onto the motherboard. In order for users to use the new adapter in earlier systems, IBM developed the PS/2 Display Adapter, or the VGA video card. This card contained all the circuitry needed to produce VGA graphics, and like all expansion cards, it plugged into a slot on the motherboard, via an 8-bit interface. In the light of advances, IBM has discontinued this basic VGA card, although many third party cards are available. Today, the VGA card is not much used, and usually serves as a "spare". \n\nVGA offers clean images at higher resolutions. The standard VGA can produce as many as 256 colours at a time from a palette of 262,144 colours. The original VGA, though, had to be at a 320x400 resolution to display this amount of colour. At the standard 640x480 resolution, it was only capable of 16 colours at a time. Also, VGA extends into the monochrome world. It uses colour summing to translate colour graphics into graphics using 64 different shades of grey. This, in effect, simulates colour on a monochrome monitor. VGA requires a VGA monitor, or one capable of accepting the analog output of a VGA card. \n\n''SVGA''\nThe Super VGA category of video card is really rather loosely named. It refers to a group of video cards, all with roughly the same capabilities. It does not refer to a specific card, like the VGA technically does. SVGA was developed by third party companies in order to compete with IBM's XGA and 8514/A display adapters. They probably thought it would be cheaper to develop new hardware rather than try to adapt the new capabilities onto the standard VGA card.\n\nSVGA is much more advanced than VGA. In most cases, one SVGA card can produce millions of colours at a choice of resolutions. But, the abilities depend on the card and the manufacturer. Since SVGA is a loose term created by several companies, there is no actual standard to SVGA.\n\nIn order to create some standard out of the chaos of SVGA, the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) introduced a SVGA standard. This SVGA standard did not deal with certain methods of implementation of capabilities, but, instead, defined a standard interface called the VESA BIOS Extension. This provided programmers with one common interface to write for instead of trying to tailor their programs to work with several different SVGA cards, all different. All SVGA cards in use today comply to the VESA standard. \n\nAt first, the VESA SVGA standard was criticised, and manufacturers were slow to integrate it. At first, they distributed the extension as a program to be loaded each and every time you booted the computer. Finally, though, manufacturers integrated the extension as a part of their SVGA BIOS.\n\nDavid Risley, Hardware Central,\nhttp://www.hardwarecentral.com\n

By Robin Hinde\n\n Robin Hinde reviews the Aiptek Pencam Trio VGA+ digital camera.\n A Digital camera for less than $50.00. Aiptek_pencam. \n\n Compared to even just two or three years ago, digital cameras have become significantly cheaper, at the same time offering more features; as well, there are many more models available. And unlike a film camera, where you might buy one camera and not replace it for several years (or decades!) it is quite likely the digital camera you bought a couple of years ago is looking rather tired and due for replacement.\n\n Such short product lifetimes are reflected in the very hectic rate of product improvement. While it might be nice to be a manufacturer of a product in what is obviously a huge market, the cost of product development must be crippling.\n On the other hand, iterations of older products tend to get cheaper because there isn't as much development required. A good example of this type of product is the Aiptek Pencam. It originally started life as a 352x288 pixel camera called the Pencam Trio, and has undergone several upgrades since then, at the same time dropping in price. The current top version of this camera (the MiniPencam 1.3) has a 1.3 Megapixel CMOS sensor, a better lens, and 16 MB of memory. And it is smaller, too. Really small.\n On the way to the ~MiniPencam, though, the product passed through a couple of iterations; the Pencam Trio VGA+, and the Pencam 2. The Pencam Trio VGA+ is currently available at a very competitive price from Dick Smith Electronics, although the version they sell is branded as a Dolphin Peripherals product.\n It has a 640x480 pixel CMOS sensor, and 8 MB of memory. It can be used as a digital camera, or a webcam. It can be used as a very rudimentary video camera. The camera is quite small, 135x35x23mm, and very light. It easily fits in a pocket, unlike a full size digital camera.\n\n Connection to a PC is by a USB cable, which is used if the camera is being used as a webcam, or for downloading images from the camera's memory. Power is supplied by a pair of AAA alkaline cells (although rechargeable ~NiMH cells also work just fine). When the camera is connected to a PC, power is supplied from the USB port.\n The camera user interface is very rudimentary, consisting of two buttons and a small 2 digit LCD display. One button activates the camera and cycles through a range of choices, while the other button (the "shutter" button) is used to select choices or operate the camera. The display is a little cryptic, but allows the user to select either of two image resolutions, whether images are to be compressed or not, single shot or continuous mode, and whether to delete the last photo taken, or delete everything currently on the camera. With so few options, almost anybody is capable of using this camera!\n\n The Camera Manager software installed on the PC is similarly simple, but not particularly intuitive. It allows you to download images from the camera and for you to organise them into photo albums, and also forms the interface when using the camera as a webcam. Other (bundled) image manipulation software is included; of course, you can use other software for this. Irfanview or Photofiltre are good choices if you are looking for simple (and free) image manipulation software, and there are a couple of reasons why you might want to consider using them.\n \n\n The camera is capable of producing quite reasonable images when used in favourable lighting conditions, but you will find that images will often require adjustment - most likely to increase saturation, brightness or contrast. Irfanview and Photofiltre are both easily capable of making these adjustments, and can also be used to sharpen images if required. One of the shortcomings of the Camera Manager software is that it outputs the camera images only as .bmp files, which are a very inefficient format - for the level of quality that this camera is capable of, .jpg files are more than adequate, and very much smaller. To deal with this shortcoming, use Irfanview - it is capable of performing batch file conversions, as well as simple batch image manipulations. The Aiptek Pencam Trio VGA+ is (for the price) good value; good enough for emailing snapshots or for small prints, yet easy to use and cheap enough to make an excellent first digital camera for young children to experiment with. Or even for adults to experiment with - check out the following links to an article about using one of these cameras at the edge of space. While the technical details are interesting, be sure to read the account of the flight - and view the pictures, of course :-)\n\n Article: http://vpizza.org/~jmeehan/balloon/\n Photos: http://vpizza.org/~jmeehan/photo/index.cgi?album=20021103-balloon-highlights&mode=view\n \n ''Other links:''\n Irfanview: http://www.irfanview.com/\n Aiptek: http://www.aiptek.com/products/pencams/trio-vga.htm\n Photofiltre: http://www.photofiltre.com\n \n *Price was $49.95 in January 2004, but has recently increased to $69.00 - still a good deal! \n

I recently had a small disaster with my favourite laptop, which made it useless for a month or so. I'd previously been given an old 486 laptop (~DX2/66 with 8 MB of RAM, colour LCD screen)so I considered using that as a temporary replacement. It didn't work very well - these days a 486 really isn't fast enough to run a modern web browser on (not even Opera).\n\n I considered other ways of using the 486 laptop, and remembered some software I'd tried a couple of years ago, Virtual Network Computing (VNC).\n\n VNC is a ~GPLed (Open Source) product from AT&T Laboratories in Cambridge; they have recently been closed. Fortunately, this won't affect the software, since it is Open Source, and there are several people actively developing and improving VNC for their own use.\n\n VNC is cross-platform software that allows remote control of one PC by another, over a network. This is an over simplification, because in fact several ~PCs can simultaneously control one remote PC, and more advanced operating systems allow some fairly interesting usage of this software. A remote server can be controlled by a client - generally the client is the PC you are sitting at, although Linux allows you to view a server on the same PC. Servers are available for Mac, Windows, Unix and Linux; viewers (or clients) are available for all these and DOS.\n\n The viewer displays the remote desktop so that it appears exactly as it would if you were sitting at the remote desktop itself, although there is an unavoidable lag when the remote desktop or the client PC is connected through a slow network connection, (ie, through a modem).\n\n The VNC server is easy to install, and the viewer itself is one single executable that easily fits on a floppy disk.\n\n You are probably wondering just what possible use this might be - maybe you are still living in the 20th century, and you still don't have a network at home or work. However, you probably do have access to the Internet, and VNC allows you to control a remote PC connected to the Internet. Now you can fix friends and relatives problems or demonstrate how to do things without having to go and sit at their PC. If you know their IP address (use www.selfhost.com) you can access their PC if they have a VNC server installed and running. There are security issues to be considered when doing this, however, so make sure you read all the documentation, and don't leave the server running unnecessarily.\n\n Windows is a fairly limited operating system - it only allows one user and one desktop. Using VNC with Linux (which allows multiple concurrent users and multiple desktops) leads to some very interesting uses. I can use a Linux viewer and server on the same system, which allows me to have different desktops concurrently available to me; an application started on a server continues running even when there is no viewer connected to it, and this application is able to be controlled by any viewer on any PC that is able to connect to the server. I use this method to run my ~MP3 player (XMMS) continuously, and control it either from a Linux or a Windows viewer as convenient. (I can also control the same ~MP3 player by web browser and from a commandline, but that is worth an article itself).\n\n It is easy to remotely control a Windows PC from a Linux viewer, but I have found some issues with doing this - Windows with a VNC server just doesn't seem stable enough for extended use on the systems I have tried to date. YMMV. But the other way round, viewing a Linux VNC server from any platform is extremely reliable, and very fast.\n\n I am writing this article on a dual processor SCSI based Linux system, but using my ~P75 laptop (I eventually fixed it :-) to do this. It just wouldn't be possible to install my desktop Linux configuration on this laptop, yet with VNC I have what appears to be my exact Linux desktop on my laptop. Over a 10Mbs network, speed is adequate and quite comfortable to use - in fact, running the viewer full screen means I'm not even aware the laptop is actually running Windows. Bonus!\n\n Gnome and KDE on my laptop looks very pretty. I can even run xfractint, CAD and graphics applications on it, something the laptop itself will never be able to do. The accompanying graphic is a screenshot from the P75 laptop, taken in Windows using ~PrintScreen->Paste into ~MSPaint->Save file (.bmp) to fileserver; then on the remote Linux system open the .bmp file with Gimp and convert to .gif. The screenshot shows xfractint in the background, with XMMS running in the top right corner, with ~KWord below. The desktop is Gnome using the Sawfish window manager running the default theme.\n\n There are other advantages, too - I can use all my Linux applications without having to maintain separate configurations on both the laptop and desktop; I can stop what I am doing and shut down the laptop and leave the applications I'm using running, then reconnect to them later, even from a different system (or from the Linux system itself); and if Windows on the laptop has a hiccup, it doesn't matter, since the applications I am using just continue to run on the Linux desktop.\n\n I can run multiple servers on the Linux system, with different resolutions and window managers, and leave different applicatons running in each; I can access the Linux system as different users. It would be practical to make use of this system at home or in a small office, where low-end hardware running Windows VNC viewers would be able to connect several people to their own private VNC servers, all running on the same Linux (or perhaps NT) system.\n\n This software could also be used for demonstrations to groups, where multiple ~PCs at a meeting can display the same view, instead of using a video splitter. The ~PCs don't even need to be in the same location, and viewers are able to participate using the keyboard and mouse of the PC they are viewing.\n \nThis software is significant enough that recent Microsoft Windows ~EULAs (End User Licence Agreements) prohibit the use of VNC on Windows-based ~PCs. That's right - Microsoft are now telling you what software you aren't allowed to run on *your* PC. They would prefer that you use one of their products (~NetMeeting), which is considerably more limited in its ability to do the things that VNC does, doesn't run on any platforms other than Windows, and requires registration and a Passport account. No thanks!\n\n Try VNC - even if you can't imagine any possible use for it, having a quick play with it is very much an "Aha!" experience. Try something new, and have fun.\n\n Related links:\n\n VNC\n http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/index.html\n\n Tight VNC (optimised for slow networks)\n http://www.tightvnc.com\n\n DOSVNC\n http://c0w.inode.at/mjy/dosvnc.html\n\n The VNC FAQ\n http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/faq.html\n \n//Robin Hinde //

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(If you receive a message with: \n\n--- PLEASE READ IMMEDIATELY --- \n\nin the subject line and a Word document attached, DELETE IT IMMEDIATELY -- even if you know the sender! The body of the message reads, "Here is that document you asked for . . . don't show anyone else ;-)." The attachment carries the ~W97M Melissa virus/worm and a list of pornographic sites. \n\nThe virus is called 'Melissa' or more properly ~W97M/Melissa.A, virus, also called ~W97M_Melissa or 97M.Mailissa.A.) \n\nWhat does the Melissa virus do? \n\nThe new "Melissa" virus infects Microsoft Word documents using Visual Basic for Applications -- the built-in scripting language in the Microsoft Office suite. The virus has three main actions: \n\nIt infects Word and spreads to all Word documents you open. \nIt changes some settings to ease infection. \nIt e-mails itself using Microsoft Outlook, masquerading as a message from you. \nWhen you open an infected Word document, Melissa spreads to your NORMAL.DOT document template. This is where Word stores your custom settings and default macros. By copying itself into NORMAL. DOT, Melissa ensures that your Word installation is infected and any documents or templates you create will get the virus added. It also ensures that the virus code runs every time you open or close a document. \n\n~HKEY_Current_UserSoftwareMicrosoftOfficeMelissa? \n\nAnd give it the value: "... by Kwyjibo". If you have this registry key, then that machine has been infected by Melissa at some stage. \n\nAltering Word 97 and Word 2000 \n\nMelissa checks which version of Word you have installed. It acts differently depending on whether you are running Word 97 or the forthcoming Word 2000. Melissa does not infect Word 95 or earlier versions. \n\nIf you have Word 97... \n\nAfter an infected document is opened in Word 97, the virus takes these actions: \n\nIt greys out and blocks access to the "Macro" command in the Tools menu. This effectively stops you from checking any macro that may be present in a document or template. \nMelissa changes some Word 97 settings, making it easier for the virus to spread itself. Specifically, the "Macro virus protection," "Prompt to save Normal template," and "Confirm Conversion at Open" options are disabled. \nIf you have Word 2000... \n\nIn the upcoming version of Microsoft's word processor, the virus acts slightly differently: \n\nMelissa greys out and blocks access to the Security settings command in the Tools | Macro menu. This effectively stops you from raising your macro-virus security to a level which prevents macros from running. \nIt also sets Word to the lowest macro-virus security level, so there's zero protection from unsafe macros. \nHow to protect yourself from Melissa \n\nIf you receive an e-mail message fitting the following description, you should delete it immediately and advise the sender that they have been infected: \n\nSUBJECT: Important Message From (the name of someone you know)\nBODY: Here is that document you asked for ... don't show anyone else ;-)\nATTACHMENT: (a document of any name)\n\n\nMake sure Office's built-in macro guards are turned on: \n\nWord 97: go to the menu option Tools | Options | General | Macro virus protection and put a check in the box. \nWord 2000: go to the menu option Tools | Macro | Security and make sure the Security Level is set to medium or high. The dialog box explains what each of those settings means. \n\nThis isn't complete protection -- all it does it give you a warning when a document or template you open has a macro in it. The macro may, or may not, be a virus. \n\nAnti-virus programs \n\nAny of the popular anti-virus programs are fine, provided they are the current version. \n\nOpening e-mail attachments \n\nIt appears emails are safer but attachments to e-mail (like any other document or program you receive) can contain a virus. Before opening any e-mail attachment, it should be checked That means any attachment from anyone \n\nFor all attachments, user should save them to their disk and scan them for viruses before opening. \n\nSave a Word document to your hard disk then scan it using your anti-virus software. \n\nIf you are infected by the Melissa virus \n\nDon't panic. The Melissa virus is a nuisance but doesn't destroy any documents or erase your hard drive. It'll take a little time to remove the virus from your computer, but there'll be no lasting damage. \nRemove or clean all infected documents from your hard disk drive. This is easy to do with any current anti-virus program. The program will scan all the documents saved to drives and remove any known viruses it finds. (Since Melissa is very new, it's vital that you have the very latest anti-virus updates.) Make sure the virus scanner checks all disk drives -- not just drive C - \nRemove any infected documents from your Email program -- both the Inbox, Sent Items and any other folder you may have moved a message to. You are only concerned with messages that have attachment. \nReverse the Word settings that the Melissa virus changed. In Word 97. check the following settings: \n* Tools | Options | General | Confirm Conversion at Open -- should be checked on\n* Tools | Options | General | Macro virus protection -- should be checked on \n* Tools | Options | Save | Prompt to save Normal template -- should be checked on \n\nIn Word 2000 check the following menu settings: \n\n* Change your macro security level to medium (meaning you can choose to run macros or not) or high. \n\nNotify anyone who may have received an infected document from you. Look in the Sent Items folder of your e-mail program and see if any documents have been sent out. If you mailed any Word attachments after Thursday 25th March --either sent by you manually or as part of the message that Melissa makes and sends -- write a polite message to all the receivers informing them of possible infection and suggesting that they check their systems.\n \n//My thanks to Linnette and CompuServe for this article on the Melissa virus. Editor.// \n\n

W95 Babylonia ia a complex virus that infects mainly to other computer users via MIRC or as regular attachment in an e-mail message.\nAdditionally, all infected .HLP and .EXE files can cause infection on other systems.\n\n''Opening a help (.HLP) file''\nWhen an infected .HLP file is introduced on a Windows 9x system, the virus code will be activated. The virus modifies the entry point of .HLP files to a short script routine. This routine transfers control from the script interpretation to the binary virus code that is placed at the end of .HLP files in variable packed form.\nWhen the binary virus code assumes control, the virus attempts to install itself to kernel memory area on the machine and hooks the file system to its own code. The virus hen creates a 4KB file named c:\sbabylonia.exe. Finally this file is executed.\n\n''Execution of Babylonia.exe''\nWhen Babylonia.exe gets control, it copies itself to the Windows system directory as ~KENEL32.EXE and registers this copy in the registry at: Software\sMicrosoft\sWindows\s~CurrentVersion\sRun.\nAs a result, this copy will be executed at each system start. This module is registered as a system service and as a result it cannot be seen on the Windows 9x task list. The trojan checks if the RNAAPP.EXE application is running by enumerating the active processes. If it does not find a similar process, it will sleep for some time and try it again later.\n\nRNAAPP.EXE is active on Windows 9x machines during dial-up connections. When the application is loaded, the virus attempts to connect to a virus writer's website in Japan.\n\nFirst, the trojan downloads a text file named virus.txt. This text file lists a few file names (currently 4). The file names are: dropper.dat, greetz.dat, ircworm.dat and poll.dat. They appear to use a special file format with a header that begins with 'VMOD'. This stands for 'Virus Module'. The header of the virus modules contains an entry point for the module. The trojan then downloads the files and executes then inside its own process, one by one.\nThis way the trojan can introduce additional functionality on the already infected system. If the system is disinfected but the trojan is active, the virus code will be introduced on the machine again since the dropper virus module will create a 17KB application (INSTALAR.EXE) and execute it. This file is infected with the virus. Finally the file is deleted. The greetz.dat module modifies the c:\sautoexec.bat file in January.\n\nPart of the "marker" for this virus includes the following text in the c:\sautoexec.bat file: W95/Babylonia by Vecna(c) 1999.\n\nThe ircworm.dat appears to be an MIRC worm installer. The worm seems to propagate two files: 2kbug-MircFix.EXE and 2kbugfix.ini to everyone on the active MIRC channel.\n\nThe last module in virus.txt sends messages to babylonia_counter@hotmail.com with a message Quando o mestre chegara? This information was intended by the virus writer to track the number of infections that W95.Babylonia causes.\n\n''Infected .EXE and .HLP files''\nW95.Babylonia hooks the file system to itself and checks for .EXE and .HLP file extensions. It infects such files whenever they are accessed. Infected Windows .HLP files and 32-bit PE .EXE files can introduce the full functionality of the virus to new systems.\nThe virus uses an inserting technique (does not modify the entry point of PE files) when it infects them, probably in an attempt to avouid detection from heuristic analyzers that could catch the virus more easily. The virus body is attached to the end of the infected files. As long as the virus is in memory the virus cannot be easily removed from the system. This infection mechanism is very similar to the W95.CIH virus.\n\n~WSOCK32.DLL Modifications\nAnother very important detail of the virus infection is that W95.Babylonia will be able to modify ~WSOCK32.DLL when the file is not loaded in memory. The virus adds a very short hook routine to the "Send" API of ~WSOCK32.DLL similarly to the Happy99 worm (aka W32.SKA.A). This short hook routine transfers control to the active part of the virus code when an e-mail is sent. The end result of this code is that the virus adds a ~MIME-encoded attachment of itself to all outgoing e-mail, thus increasing its rate of spread. W95.Babylonia is technically a worm as well as a virus.\nThe possible file names of the e-mail attachments are:\n**~I-WATCH-U.EXE\n**BABILONIA.EXE\n**~X-MAS.EXE\n**SURPRISE!.EXE\n**JESUS.EXE\n**BUHH.EXE\n**CHOCOLATE.EXE\nIt seems the virus has a bug in this routine and therefore only the ~X-MAS.EXE file name will be used. This file appears to be the same as the INSTALAR.EXE that is created by one of the virus modules that has a Santa Claus icon:\n\n

http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.prolin.worm.html\n\nI have received the following virus alert from a reputable source. jwhb \n\nA new virus IS being distributed. Do not open any email with the following in the subject etc.\n\nSubject = A great Shockwave flash movie\nBody = Check out this new flash movie that I downloaded just now ... It's Great Bye \n\nDo not open any attachment from unknown sources.\nThis virus has been assessed as high by McAffee. It will distribute itself via email so be aware of any unexpected alerts that Mail Watcher may give you.\nHere are some technical details of the virus This is an Internet worm coded in Visual Basic 6 and compiled as an executable named "CREATIVE.EXE". It carries the icon of a Shockwave Media Player application however it is not. \n\nThis Internet worm may be received via email in this form:\nSubject = A great Shockwave flash movie \nBody =Check out this new flash movie that I downloaded just now ... It's Great Bye \nAttachment = creative.exe\n\nWhen run, this Internet worm will write a copy of itself to the local system in these folders: \n\nc:\screative.exe \nc:\s[WINDOWS folder]\sTEMP\screative.exe\nc:\s[WINDOWS folder]\sStart Menu\sPrograms\sStartUp\screative.exe\n\nIt then will send a copy of itself via MAPI email to all users in the address book. As a final note, it sends a note to presumably the author:\n\nAuthor = z14xym432@yahoo.com \nSubject = Job complete \nBody = Got yet another idiot \n\nFurther info at http://www.symantec.com\n\nSupplied by John Blakely\n

If you receive an e-mail entitled "Badtimes", delete it immediately.\nDo not open it. Apparently this one is pretty nasty.\n* It will not only erase everything on your hard drive, but it will also delete anything on disks withn 20 feet of your computer.\n* \n* It demagnetizes the stripes on ALL of your credit cards.\n*\n* It reprograms your ATM access code, screws up the tracking on your VCR and uses sub space field harmonics to scratch any ~CDs you attempt to play.\n*\n* It will recalibrate your refrigerator's coolness settings so all your ice cream melts and your milk curdles.\n*\n* It will program your phone auto-dial to call only your mother-in-law's number.\n*\n* This virus will mix antifreeze into your fish tank.\n*\n* It will drink all your beer.\n*\n* It will leave dirty socks on the coffee table when you are expecting company.\n*\n* It will replace your shampoo with Nair and your Nair with Rogaine, all while dating your current boy/girlfriend behind your back and billing their hotel rendezvous to your Visa card.\n*\n* It will cause you to run with scissors and throw things in a a way that is only fun until someone loses an eye.\n*\n* It will give you Dutch Elm Disease and scurvy.\n*\n* It will rewrite your backup files, changing all your active verbs in passive tense and incorporating undetectable misspellings which grossly change the interpretation of key sentences.\n*\n* If the "Badtimes" message is opened in a Windows95 environment, it will leave the toilet seat up and leave your hair dryer plugged in dangerously close to a full bathtub.\n*\n* It will not only remove the forbidden tags from your mattresses and pillows, but it will also refill your skim milk with whole milk.\n*\n* It will replace all your luncheon meat with Spam.\n*\n* It will molecularly rearrange your cologne or perfume, causing it to smell like dill pickles.\n*\n* It is insidious and subtle. It is dangerous and terrifying to behold.\n*\n* It is also a rather interesting shade of mauve.

Vicki Bunch\n\n ''Subject: Checking the validity of virus warnings''\n\n There are several sites on the Internet where you can go to checkthe validity or otherwise of virus warnings. My usual first port of call is the Symantec site, which usually has at least some information about these things, whether they be genuine viruses/worms/trojans, or hoaxes. The easiest way to find out about these critters is to type in a key word or two in the search box on this page:\n http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/vinfodb. html\n\n This database is usually very up-to-date, and the nice thing about it is, it will bring up any available information, whether it be a real threat or just a hoax. Another site for checking the validity of viruses is:\n http://www.antivirus.com/vinfo/virusencyclo/\n\n Removal tools for many common viruses etc can be found on the site below, where there is also a link to a free online virus and security check which will check your system if you think you may be infected with something nasty.\n http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/\n\n There is another free online virus checker at: http://housecall.antivirus.com/\n\n One word to the wise to finish off: Some viruses and trojans are now being written with code which prevents computer users from accessing the main Anti-virus software sites. Using a good anti-virus program and updating it at least weekly is much easier than having to contend with a computer which has been infected with something nasty.\n\n Hope this information is helpful.\n Cheers, Vicki

When I was recently overseas, I rang an Information Customer Service Centre only to find I was talking to a machine, that was using speech recognition software (speech recognition software identifies the words a person says).\n\nLet’s back up a little. When you call the IRD on the phone it asks questions. Please key in your IRD number, or press 1 for your tax pack or press 2 for? And so on. When you ring Telecom after the human operator has found the person you want you are passed to a machine, which then plays you the number. Though we may not like them, we have grown accustomed to these machines.\n\nBut when I called the machine overseas, it asked questions and I answered. It was listening to my voice and deciding what I wanted. It understood my question and gave me an answer, all without human intervention. An Austrian person, who was with me "Herman" said, "Lets see if it understands my English." Even if he spoke differently it also gave the correct answer. This was surprising, as sometimes even I had trouble understanding Herman.\n\nWhen we asked for information about this service we were told that it was Nuance Communications Software, that listened to your voice and decided what you wanted. Technically we’re talking about a software platform that consists of software servers that runs on industry-standards machines and performs speech recognition, and has natural language understanding and voice authentication. Basically speech recognition identifies the words a person says. And natural language understanding derives the meaning of what is said. And voice authentication verifies the identity of the speaker based on the unique qualities of his voice.\n\nThe company claims it’s usually faster than human operators are, and a lot cheaper to operate. The average cost of a call handled by a customer service representative ranges from $~US3.00 to $~US7.00 while the average cost of a speech recognition call is between $~US0.10 to $~US0.30. Obviously these machines are here to stay.\n\nThis software is currently available in fifteen languages and dialects, including US English, UK English, Australian English, Latin American Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, German, Italian, Canadian French, European French, Japanese, Mandarin and Cantonese. With more to be released shortly.\n\nI was told that when you now call American Airlines and ask the machine if your flight is on time it’s using the same software. And when you call Bell Atlantic directory assistance and tell the machine whose number you’re looking for it’s the same software. In addition to these companies over 180 business have licensed the software platform, either directly or through resellers in the US and eighteen countries outside the US. \n\nYou may be asking, where is all this leading? I’m not really sure? About six months ago I was told Netscape was working on developing a voice activated browser, which will be commercially available later this year. With it you can navigate traditional telephony applications and access voice-enabled Internet content. Are we going to use our voices in the future to browse the Web? \n\nBut then I realized that cell phones are becoming Internet capable. Cell phones don’t use HTML they use XML. But how do you browse the Web on your cell phone? Somewhere I read an article on ~VoiceXML and the answer was very clear. Obviously using your voice.\n\nRecognizing this, plenty of companies have worked to turn cell phones into little computers, with tiny screens and keyboards that mimic what a full sized computer can do. The human voice is the most natural form of communications. So why not use your voice to navigate the Internet through your browser. We are already navigating with our voices in a very limited fashion, when we call machines. And in the future you’ll probably be doing it a lot more.....using your mobile phone. \n\n//John Thomson. \ngella@paradise.net.nz \n//

Wanted\nA part time programmer in Visual Basic to upgrade games written for handicap people.\nRemuneration to be negotiated \n\nFor further details contact Arthur Speer\nPhone 3899972

//(Dead or alive ?)//\n\nCeceile Kay Richer came across a reference to our FOG DOS library while doing a Google search on the Internet. She wonders what is in the FOG DOS library (I have answered her - Ed) and states that she has a client who who will pay market price or better for a 1982 DOS disk, the original Version 1.0 of Norton Utilities .\nCan anyone help?\nIf you can, get in touch with Ceceile Kay Richter\ncrichter@mindspring.com, or\ncrichter@~ResearchSource.com

by Colin Candy\n\n Information Foundation, a registered charitable trust, would appreciate your interest, your electrowaste, and any help you might be able to offer.\n The Trust recycles used and defunct electrowaste to the benefit of 'at risk children', and in particular, state wards and orphans. The trust’s mission is primarily directed towards improving the futures of children from troubled families, and an aim is to put new computers into children’s institutions and health camps.\n\n Troubled youths and petty offenders of today can become the serious offenders of tomorrow. The trust adds to the pool of resources made available for detached and troubled children in the hope that they will be less inclined to turn to crime.\n The trust accepts donations of all electronic and electrical appliances and equipment (and provides tax-deductible receipts for cash donations from benefactors) in New Zealand. Proceeds are sorted and redistributed or sold for recycling overseas or locally. This business funds the philanthropic work.\n\n CRT glass, fluorescent lights and batteries constitute the most hazardous of waste and are still being allowed in landfills. Battery packs clearly state that the battery should be recycled! The trust’s work is thus also helping to keep our environment clean.\n The Trust is still getting itself established on an efficient and good economic basis, and still needs resources and some skilled people.\n\n Can you provide your spare time to this worthy cause?\n\n The trustees welcome suggestions from interested prospective participants in all the major centers in New Zealand. The trustees require land and shipping containers, transportation and resources.\n\n Are you management, marketing, accounting, or technically trained?\n Do you have money?\n Do you have electrowaste?\n\n Contact: chairman@if.org.nz 8 Maher St, Upper Hutt, Wellington. ph.527 8833\n\n ''Wellington Computer Flea Market:''\n The Trust also runs the Wellington Computer Flea Market at Petone Central School (hall) 16 Britannia Street each Saturday from 8.00am until 1.00pm. Anyone having computer or telecommunication or similar stuff to sell may like to hire a table (cost $25). Setting up starts at 7am. ..\n Everyone is welcome to visit the flea market. Refreshments available.\n\n Trust information may be found on www.geocities.com/infoundnz\n See also www.geocities.com/wpcfm\n Notes recyled by Colin Candy \n

Last week, officials from the government and the computer industrygathered in the wake of the massive denial of service attacks against commercial web sites and the outbreak of the "I Love You" virus. The real problem the United States and much of the world faces is that people are overwhelmingly dependent upon a single computer operating system that is exceedingly vulnerable to even simple attacks. The PC and the Internet have become indispensable - while remaining indefensible.\n\n''Analysis'' \n\nLast week, U.S. government and computer industry officials gathered in California for a summit on computer security. The meeting took place in the wake of a recent spate of computer viruses and attacks, including the massive denial of a service attack, apparently launched by a Canadian teenager, and the "I Love You" virus, seemingly launched by someone in the Philippines.\nIt is important to realize that neither of these attacks were developed by computer geniuses. The Canadian teenager's ability to shut down Amazon.com was perhaps one notch more sophisticated than setting an autodialier on a telephone to repeatedly call someone's phone, making it impossible for real callers to ge through.\n\nThe "I >Love You" virus was a simple macro written in a fairly simple language, Visual Basic, that took advantage of the lack of security on Microsoft's e-mail package.\n\nNo one is going to be offering either of these software creators jobs at the National Security Agency. Some people are taking comfort in this. John Dvorak, a usually astute observer of the computing world, wrote in PC Week, "The Love Bug Virus is the type of thing that's great for keeping journalists busy on a slow news day. I've never seen anything get so much ink. \n\n"The question of the day: Will writing two-bit destructive viruses become the way that loners and goofballs get their 15 minutes of fame? I suspect this is the case. It certainly beats setting oneself up on the school clock tower and picking off fellow classmates with a rifle." Dvorak is of course right - but he's missing his own point. Vitally important news is being made. The news is this: It is now possible for a comparatively unsophisticated computer programmer to create absolute havoc.\n\nIt is not the hacker's psychological profile that is interesting; it is the intellectual profile that is stunning. It used to be possible for a brilliant but unstable person to wreak havoc. Today, a not particularly bright crackpot can achieve the same outcome.\n\nAnd that is the point. There are few brilliant people in the world. There are lots of dullards. Based on the ratio of fools to geniuses, the likelihood of future attacks increases.\n\nThe problem is this: the personal computer and the Internet are both revolutionary - and yet, terrifically vulnerable. Both are less than a generation old and comparatively primitive, like the telephone or automobile early on in their evolution. Yet the revolutionary nature of computing today allows all kinds of people to do important things in ways once impossible. \n\nEveryday people in all walks of life and work have become dependent on these systems. The vulnerability of these systems stems from the simple fact that they were never intended to be the center of such dependency. The personal computer was developed as a stand-alone system. Unlike mainframes with multiple users using multiple accounts, the PC was deliberately designed to serve the needs of an individual. The entire purpose of the PC was to be a functioning system that provided the user unfettered access to his data, programs and even operating system. Hence its name. \n\nIt followed from this that the individual was unlikely to seek to harm his own computer or the data on it. Security was hardly a priority. Connectivity between ~PCs has crept in slowly. Not so long ago, people couldn't conceive of a mass market for ~PCs. As word processors and spreadsheets emerged, the usefulness of the PC became more apparent. Still, few people in the 1980s imagined that one of the PC's primary roles would be that of a communications device. At first limited to a handful of military and academic users, e-mail usage began to explode in the late 1980s. \n\nEarly e-mail had been built around a few academic mainframes. A PC user would get a campus account - either on a mainframe or minicomputer - in terminal mode, not as a true computer. He would dial up to that account via a modem, at 300 or 1200 baud. That computer would link to other computers in a crazy quilt pattern called Bitnet, which had spun off from ~ARPAnet (a Defense Department initiative).\n\nOver time, data files were stored on various university mainframes. One of the biggest was at the University of Minnesota, with tons of non-graphical information. Using this network of computers, the user could hop around the world. Out of this primitive connectivity, came the explosion of the World Wide Web.\n\nBut the PC was never intended for this purpose - it was created for a single user. Efficient usage meant that much of the function of the operating system was hidden from the user, who really didn't need to know what was going on within the system. \n\nAlso, in the interest of ease of use, the different applications became more tightly integrated with each other and within the file system. The out come, of course, was the Microsoft-driven computer of today where the word processor, spread sheet, e-mail package, web browser and file system are intimately connected. \nAs a result, it is difficult today to figure out exactly what is going on inside your own computer. The integration of processes obfuscates the operating system. \n\nA good example can be found in the famous "blue screen of death" that functions like a "service engine" light. It tells you that you are in trouble, but doesn't tell you why. The inability of the Microsoft Operating System (OS) to tell the user what is wrong is a feature, not a bug, as they say. OS frequently doesn't have any idea what has failed. The complexity of the system itself makes transparency impossible. Microsoft triumphed because it provided for the easy exchange of files within the PC and between ~PCs. But that very ease of exchange created the current potential crisis. The Microsoft operating system took advantage of connectivity opportunities. Once the computer became connected, it was no longer under the sole control of the owner, whose interest was in protecting his computer and his data; instead, the owner is now exchanging information with others who might have more malicious interests. The structure of the Microsoft OS made it extremely difficult to deal with malice for two reasons: \n#The increasingly tight integration of the OS with applications and links between applications means malicious imported code can migrate rapidly from one part of the system to another. The "I Love You" virus, for example, attacked the address book of the email system, as well as attacking music and graphics files. \n#The lack of transparency of the operating system makes it extremely difficult to create programs that can see what is happening inside of the computer in real time, creating shut-offs or fail-safes. Current anti-virus software is forced to identify known viruses by scanning incoming files. This means that new, unknown viruses can't be stopped.\nDuring the denial of service attacks on web sites, no one could figure out where attacks came from because a single attacker can route attacks through thousands of computers. It is possible to plant malicious code on a computer whose mission is not to attack the host computer - but to propagate itself to other computers and then to begin simply linking to Internet sites, shutting them down by sheer overload. \n\nFinding these tiny bits of malicious code on a server is mind-numbingly difficult. It can be anywhere in the file system and called virtually anything. There is some software designed to detect this code. But it needs to be installed by people who are concerned with damage to other servers - altruism that is fairly rare.\n\nA teenage kid can knock out hundreds of corporate systems because the foundation of modern computing, the operating system, has been in rapid, forced development since the success of ~MS-DOS. It was designed for one user who would treat it right. The hyper-connectivity of the Internet exposes it to code delivered by others. The Windows operating system was simply not built with this in mind. It has served brilliantly as a tool for exchanging information. \n\nBut its very success has created the menace. The neat macros created in a spreadsheet can be made malicious by a teenage kid. Interoperability and interconnectivity were created without regard to security.\n\nAnd there can be none without transparency. You can't be secure if there is no method for knowing what is happening in your operating system. It is the perfect environment in which viruses can flourish. That is true on the client and the server.\n\nThe problem is that we are dependent on these systems for our daily work and our daily work can be used to spread harmful programs. If a teenager can wreak this havoc, imagine what a concerted effort by a well-funded government intelligence agency can do.\n\nThat, of course, is the point. Dependency on the computer and the Internet at this primitive stage of development opens us to attack, particularly from societies that are not dependent on ~PCs and the internet, but that do possess the intellectual skills needed to mount the attack.\n\nOne executive of an anti-virus company has suggested that you should never open a file from someone you don't know. That is a measure of how shallow our defenses are. How can you be sure that the person you know hasn't become infected?\n\nIn fact, how can you be sure that the person you know doesn't want to zap you? \n\nSome companies have solved the problem by prohibiting attachments and removing floppy drives. In other words, they have solved the problem by losing the capability. The solution is not in policies, but in technology. The problem's center of gravity is the operating system...\n\nSecurity requires a complete re-engineering of the operating system to permit rapid diagnosis through complete transparency. It will not be easy to evolve Windows or NT in this direction. It seems that officials may want to deal with this problem. After all, the real threat from rogue states won't be nuclear attack, but cyber attack.\n\nRogue states won't launch nuclear attack for fear of the counterattack. But how do we retaliate against a virus attack? We depend on computers. They don't. \n

//By Robin Hinde//\n\n Megabaud 2.0 visitors will have noticed the website has gone on holiday, and been replaced with a temporary page.\n \nPlease visit this page (http://www.computers.org.nz} to check on meeting announcements and the latest Megabyte.\n\n This article is a brief update on the status of the server, and also covers some events related to the software we are using to run the server and for the website itself.\n \nLast week our server's main hard drive finally failed (it had been deteriorating steadily). The server hardware all came from the old Megabaud BBS setup - it is quite old - so instead of just replacing the hard drive, we've decided to upgrade the complete system. This should significantly improve the speed of the webserver, and at the same time we will increase the services we can offer our members. The old hardware has enabled us to prove that running our own web (and mail) server is quite feasible.\n \n Since the new website was launched in February this year, there have been significant upgrades to ~SME-Server (the server operating system). This has moved from version 5.0 to 5.1, with the addition of new features, and was as recently as last week at version 5.1.2, with the addition of fixes for several recently discovered and widely publicised vulnerabilities. During the time I've been writing this article, a new version (V5.5) has been released, and we shall be using this.\n\n ~SME-Server is capable of far more than just serving web pages - it is an excellent (and free) option for small offices that require file sharing, email and internet connection sharing. Visit http://www.e-smith.org for details.\n\n Over the same period, there have been dramatic changes to the Content Management System (CMS) we run on our website. ~PostNuke has gone from Version 0.64 (the Mutant release) to 0.703 to 0.714 (in the Rogue release series) over the past few months, with huge changes (and consequently breaking many things) along the way. This software is alpha software, so this is expected - and the changes are far greater than the release numbering suggests.\n\n We had intended to avoid any upgrade to our ~PostNuke installation until a stable V1.0 was released, but since the webserver is being upgraded, we will be installing ~PostNuke 0.715 or 0.72, due to be released next week. Unfortunately this may delay getting our webserver back on line slightly, and it is possible we may encounter "issues" with this release - we shall see.\n \n~PostNuke 0.72 is supposed to be the final maintainence release in the Rogue series, as work focuses on the next release series. 0.80, due September. This series was to have been called Raganarok, but this has been changed to adam_baum. To see why, read on.\n\n It is worth visiting http://www.postnuke.com to get a feel for just what is involved in large collaborative projects like ~PostNuke. The following are a couple of excerpts from articles posted on that website.\n\n----\n ~PostNuke Anniversary\n Posted by: niceguyeddie on Jul 01, 2002 - 07:40 PM | (389 Reads)\n One year ago today, ~PostNuke .5 was officially released......~PostNuke started with just four people with a vision. Harry Zink, Sean Finkle, Greg Allan and myself were the original folks that tossed around a few ideas, had a few arguments, and came up with the vision of ~PostNuke.\n Since that time we have been very fortunate to have developers from around the world contribute to the project..\n\n----\n ~PostNuke Mourns Loss of Lead Developer\n Posted by grape on Jun 18, 2002 - 12:35 AM\n Greg Allan a.k.a. ~Adam_Baum, the lead core developer and one of the four founding members of the ~PostNuke CMS Development Project passed away from injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident. The accident occurred June 16, 2002 near his home in Meaford, Ontario in Canada.\n\n Greg was an invaluable asset to the ~PostNuke development team, and a dear and trusted friend and co-worker to thousands of people on every continent. Through this first year of ~PostNuke's existence, Greg's personable and giving nature has been a guiding light and inspiration to many people and projects that have shaped the development landscape and social personality of the ~PostNuke project...\n----\n Visit http://www.postnuke.com for the full articles. There is also a very interesting and detailed interview with one of the ~PostNuke lead developers at:\n http://www.easino.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=53&mo de=thread&order=0&thold=0\n Keep an eye on http://www.computers.org to see what the website looks like when it comes back on line!

This month we review a Linux web site, Specialized Systems Consultants, Inc. (SSC). \n\nThe first site we look at is the publishers (SSC) of the Linux Journal. SSC specialize in publications on Linux, UNIX and the Internet. This site is not to be missed if you are or would like to be into Linux. \n\nI recommend you check out the following three web pages: \n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; the Linux Journal\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; the Linux Gazette\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; and the Linux Resources. \n\nThe Linux Journal page lists the advertisers, this list contains most of the Linux distributions [Red Hat, ~SuSE, etc.] and is a fast way to find their web page or just about any one selling anything to do with Linux. \n\nLinux Gazette has some interesting articles and is well worth a read. [I will be doing that when I finish this column.] \n\nThe Linux Resources web page is well laid out. If you would like to know what Linux is or about the person who started it, then check out the About Linux page.\n

//Contributed by John Little//\n\n A number of different approaches are being tried. //(We are still guessing at this point).//\n\n Major technological breakthrough! //(It works ok, but looks very hi-tech).//\n\n Test results were extremely gratifying! //(Unbelievable! It actually worked).//\n\n The entire concept will have to be abandoned. //(The only person who understood the thing quit).//\n\n All new. //(Parts are not interchangeable with previous design).//\n\n No maintenance. //(Impossible to fix).//\n\n Low maintenance. //(Nearly impossible to fix).//\n\n E-mail me - or fax me - the data. //(I'm too lazy to write it down).//

//Excerpt from the Adobe.com site//\n\n Portable Document Format (PDF) is the defacto standard for the secure and reliable distribution and exchange of electronic documents and forms around the world, with a ten-year proven track record. PDF is a universal file format that preserves the fonts, images, graphics, and layout of any source document, regardless of the application and platform used to create it. Adobe® PDF files are compact and complete, and can be shared, viewed, and printed by anyone with free Adobe Reader® software. To date, more than 500 million copies of the software have been distributed. You can convert any document to Adobe PDF using Adobe Acrobat® software products, enabling business, engineering, and creative professionals to create, distribute, and exchange secure and reliable Adobe PDF documents. For more information, see the Adobe Acrobat product family.\n\n Governments and enterprises around the world have adopted PDF to streamline document management, increase productivity, and reduce reliance on paper. For example, PDF is the standard format for the electronic submission of drug approvals to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and in for electronic case filing in U.S. federal courts. It is also used by the governments of the United Kingdom and Germany for electronic document exchange. Finally, the ISO's PDF/X specification is the standard file format used for the digital distribution of advertisements for publication.\n\n An open file format specification, PDF is available to anyone who wants to develop tools to create, view, or manipulate PDF documents. Indeed, more than 1,800 vendors offer ~PDF-based solutions, ensuring that organisations that adopt the PDF standard have a variety of tools to leverage the Portable Document Format and to customise document processes.\n \nConsumers benefit from PDF's platform ubiquity as well, because Adobe Reader lets them view rich-media PDF slide shows and electronic cards created using Adobe Photoshop® Album software.

It's a new technology that promises to take away all those messy wires, cables and connection hassles. Cables have become a real problem and a nuisance in many offices and even in our homes. And technicians (including myself) have experienced problems trying to figure out which cable goes where. This is where Bluetooth can help. It's a form of cable replacement technology. The term used to describe the protocol of a short-range frequency hopping radio link between devices.\n\n Let us step back to 1994 when Ericsson began researching how to connect electronic devices by using very small radios built into each device. Thus eliminating the need for wires and solving the connection hassle. Bluetooth has now become a worldwide standard for really tiny radio chips that can be used in any electronic device from mobile phones, printers, computers, scanners, keyboards to mouse's. The Bluetooth chip replaces cables by taking the information normally carried by lots of cables and transmits it at a radio frequency of 2.45 gigahertz to a Bluetooth receiver chip. Over the years others manufactures have become interested in the potential of this technology so a Bluetooth Special Interest Group was formed. Just over 2000 computer, telecommunication, networking companies are now involved in further developing this new wireless technology. Companies such as Microsoft, Toshiba, Lucent Technologies, 3Com, Nokia, Logitech, HP, Sony, HEC, Intel and the original researcher Ericsson are all members of this SIG (Special Interest Group).\n \nIt was realized very early that if you could transmit information between a mouse and a computer it would also be possible to transmit information to and from a printer or to a digital camera or a mobile phone. The relatively low cost of the Bluetooth chip (less than $8) and very low power usage makes it possible to put them or hide them almost anywhere. The primary ideas have been expanded and fresh ideas are constantly emerging. For example to make our electronics friendlier, we need a better way for electronics appliances to talk to each other. That's where Bluetooth can help. Interest in this wireless technology is soaring; lots of ideas are emerging, some practical and some not so feasible. Bluetooth headset\n \nThe first time I became full aware of Bluetooth technology was at the Hong Kong Electronics Trade Fair two years ago. A Sony Ericsson cell phone was pass to the audience. And we were told to hide it. It moved around a bit before a gentlemen a few seats in front of me tucked it into the back of his belt. The number of the phone was written on the white board and someone at random was chosen to ring the number. We all thought the man up the front conducting the seminar would have to find the Sony phone first before answering it. But instead when the cell phone rang he clip on a Bluetooth enabled headset that clipped over his ear and answered the ringing phone.\n\n A similar Bluetooth enabled headset was used in the movie Tomb Raider staring Lara Croft. A film that many teenagers would have seen. The adverting billboard pictured Lara wearing this headset. And I've seen rally drivers on the TV using the Ericsson Bluetooth enabled headset. Today there are many Bluetooth enabled products already on the market. There are Bluetooth enabled printers, scanners, laptops, keyboards and mice. A Chinese student who came to stay in our flat has a new model laptop, which is Bluetooth enabled. And Nokia has just released their ~N-Gage all in one wireless cell phone that allows you to play video games over a cellular network. It's revolutionary with games from Sega and Bluetooth connection so other gamers located within the piconet area (10 metres) can compete for free without it costing a connection fee. Games are stored on a memory card, which plugs into the phone. Plug in different games as required. And Fuji Pix have a digital camera that can be used with a Nokia mobile phone to take pictures and then send them in JPEG format to a web site where they can be viewed almost instantaneous via the Internet. I can do this with my new Fuji Pix camera but I need to rush home, plug my camera into its cradle, and transfer images to computer and download to the Fuji website. Just not so easy. And there are Bluetooth enabled networking devices but generally (at the present time) Bluetooth is more about connecting devices to computers rather than about connecting computers to computers.\n\n \n''How does Bluetooth wireless technology work?''\n\n When Bluetooth enabled devices come within range of each other; an electronic conversation takes place to decide whether they have data to share or whether one needs to control the other. The user does not have to do anything, the electronic conversation happens automatically. Once the conversation has occurred, the devices form a network. Bluetooth systems create a personal-area network (PAN), or piconet. Once a piconet has been set up, the members randomly change frequencies at the same time so that they can communicate with each other without any inference with other piconets that may also be operating in the same room. Bluetooth communicates on a frequency of 2.45 gigahertz, which has been set aside by an international agreement for the use of industrial, scientific and medical devices (ISM). A number of devices that you may already use take advantage of this same radio-frequency band. Cordless phones and automatic doors and infrared devices make use of frequencies in the ISM band. Making sure that Bluetooth and these other devices do not interfere with each other has been a very important part of Bluetooth's design process.\n\n Bluetooth devices avoid interfering with each other by sending out very weak radio signals. The weak signal limits the range of a Bluetooth device to about 10 metres. In a large office situation signal boosters can be used to extend the range to 100 metres. With so many different types of Bluetooth devices that can share a room, you might think they would interfere with each other, but it's unlikely as Bluetooth uses a special technique called spread-spectrum frequency hopping. With this technique a device uses 79 individual, randomly chosen frequencies within an allocated range, changing from one to another on a regular basis. Since every Bluetooth transmitter uses spread-spectrum transmitting automatically, it's unlikely that two transmitters will be on the same frequency at the same time. Using this technique ensures that devices like cordless phones will not disrupt Bluetooth devices, since any inference on a particular frequency lasts only a tiny fraction of a second.\n\n There are many other ways of getting around using cables, but they all seem to have limitations. Pocket ~PCs, Palm Pilots and Windows CE devices use cable synchronizing where you attach your device to your PC generally via a cradle. Making sure you have the right cradle to connect can be a headache. Another way is using infrared to carry the information via beams of light in the infrared spectrum. It's already used for remote controls for ~TVs, door controls systems and with peripheral devices such as ~PDAs and printers. Bluetooth gets around the problems of using infrared and cable synchronizing systems. It's a superior method, with no connection hassles.\n\n ''Why the name Bluetooth?''\n\n Choosing Bluetooth as a name for this wireless standard shows how important companies from the Baltic region are to the communications industry. Baltic nations include Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark. The technology is named after a Danish Viking and King, Harald Blatand (translated as Bluetooth into English), who lived in the later part of the 10th century (940 to 985). He managed to unite and control Denmark and Norway (hence the inspiration on the name; uniting devices through Bluetooth). He also introduced Christianity into Denmark. He got his name from his very dark hair which was extremely unusual for Vikings, Blatand means very dark complexion. However a more popular story (told to us in Hong Kong) suggests that Old Harald had an inclination for eating Blueberries, so much so his teeth became stained with the colour, leaving Harald with a rather unique set of coloured teeth.\n\n ''Present Situation 2003''\n\n Bluetooth is set to take off this year. It promises to change the way we use computers, devices and machines. Consumers are going to be forced into using it whether they want to or not because too many companies have invested in its implementation. This wireless technology is going to have a big impact on our lives. Can you image a future time when Bluetooth electronic devices can talk to one another, turn others on or off, up date information and perform other functions. It could be not to far off with technology streaking pass us at 100 kilometres an hour.\n //John Thomson Gella@paradise.net.nz//\n\n More information about Bluetooth resource at http://www.ericsson.com/bluetooth

When I was in Dick Smiths recently, I got one of the CD Rom's that have their catalogue on it. When I had a closer look at what else was on the CD besides the catalogue, I found several free programs. The program that interested me the most was ~OpenOffice. As you can see ~OpenOffice has quite a few features and is compatible with Microsoft programs. The best feature being that it is free.\n\n ''What is ~OpenOffice''\n\n This is a package of applications to provide Word Processing, Spread Sheet, Presentation, Charting, and Drawing capabilities. It is probably the easiest to use and best package of these applications available for the Linux and Solaris platforms. Also the fact that is an open source project, and can be easily installed for all machines on site (and off site) is a clear bonus.\n\n ~OpenOffice has a clear strength in the fact that it is fully compatible with Microsoft Office and ~StarOffice documents. On the Linux and Solaris platforms this now gives you the ability to interact with people using Microsoft Office on Windows.\n\n There is another clear strength to ~OpenOffice, beyond the cross platform support and support for documents from other Office packages, and that is the native document format for ~OpenOffice are well defined XML text files. Anything you save in ~OpenOffice can be read and edited with other programs, your data and documents are not out of your control and locked into the use of a given package to just be able to see what you have done.\n \n'' Programs ~OpenOffice provides:''\n\n*Calc - A spreadsheet\n*Impress - A presentation program\n*Writer. A Word Processor\n*Draw. Charting and Drawing\n*Maths\n \n With the short time that I have had a look at I have been most impressed with it. For those that don't have Microsoft Office this program is a very good second.\n\n Calc is similar to MS Excel, Impress is similar to Power Point and Writer is similar to MS word. Draw is much better than any drawing program MS Office has to offer. Maths I still have to work out what it does.\n\n As it is free try it out for your self. //- Arthur Harris//

//From the Actrix Customer Newsletters, Jan and Feb 2006 By Rob Zorn (courtesy of John Little)//\n\nRSS is another one of those great Internet things that you probably don't yet realise you need. It's a very useful service that is becoming more and more prominent, and will one day be quite commonplace. It's easy to understand and use, and there are plenty of free RSS readers around that you can download in a short amount of time. \n\nAn RSS reader looks and works a little bit like an e-mail or usenet program. It connects to various sites for you (you specify them) and downloads headlines. All you have to do is click the headlines and the story will load into the reader from the web site in question. So the usefulness of RSS is mainly to do with time- saving and convenience. You don't have to surf to all the news or blog web sites you normally visit, and you can easily see when a site has been updated with a new article or story. \n\nAll these tech-related acronyms sound complicated, but RSS is really simple in concept. In fact, RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, or Rich Site Summary, or RDF Site Summary, or a variation on one of those. But who really cares what it stands for (really smelly squid?). The important thing is what it does. \n\n''Making RSS work''\n\nNot all news sites have an RSS feed, but one that does is said to be "syndicated". You can tell an RSS capable site because it will usually have a button on it that looks something like [RSS] or [XML]. It can vary because RSS is a type of XML, but you don't need to know or care about that. If you see a button like this on a syndicated site, click it to bring up a page that lets you choose what links you want to add to your reader. Sometimes it's as simple as just dragging the orange button into your RSS reader program. Note that sometimes the orange button can be hard to find. Often it's right down the bottom of the page (but not always). \n\nThe NZ Herald site, for example, lets you customise to the extent that all headlines, or just headlines about certain things in certain sections appear in your reader. You then select and copy the link, click the Add button (or similar) in your reader, and paste in the link. Your reader will then display your new "feed" on the left. When you click that "feed" all the related headlines will come up on the right hand side, and you can click to read them. Move from feed to feed to select different sets of headlines. The program will automatically update itself, too. It's really that simple! \n\n''Getting a reader''\n\nFree RSS readers can be downloaded from various sites such as the following:\n\n*RSS Reader (pictured above): http://www.rssreader.com/ \n*Amphetadesk - http://www.disobey.com/amphetadesk/ \n*Feedreader - http://www.feedreader.com/ \n*Headline Viewer - http://www.headlineviewer.com/ \n*Net Newswire (Mac OS X) - http://ranchero.com/netnewswire/ \n\nI haven't tried all of the above, but the various screen shots at each site indicate that they probably all work pretty similarly, and you should be able to intuit your way around them reasonably easily. Of course each will have its own settings that you can fiddle around with so that you can get things just right. \n\nWe have looked at what RSS (Really Simple Syndication) was, and how to set it up on a computer quickly and easily. An RSS reader can deliver updates and new articles from news pages and blogs straight to you, avoiding the need to visit all those pages individually. Now, let's have a quick look at how Firefox handles RSS, avoiding the need to download and install your own RSS reader. \n\nFirefox is an alternative browser to Internet Explorer (IE). It's produced by Mozilla, and is rapidly gaining a following of people who prefer it to IE because they believe it to be quicker, better designed, more secure, and they like the fact that it is produced by the open source community for free. Some use it just because they like to be different. Estimates vary, but it could be as high as 11% of Internet users who now prefer Firefox, and that number appears to be growing. \nPersonally, I really like it (its built in RSS feature is just one of the reasons why) and that is really the focus of this month's article. But if you want to try Firefox, it's a 5Mb download from http://www.getfirefox.com/. \n\nIf a news or blog site is RSS capable (syndicated), Firefox will let you know by putting a little orange symbol in the browser address window (see top picture above). In the pictured example, if I wanted to add the BBC News site to my automatic live feed feature of Firefox, all I would have to do is click that orange symbol. An Add Live Bookmark box pops up and all I then have to do is click Okay. The box will allow me to choose various options as to where I might want to save the live bookmark, but the Bookmarks feature, which is selected by default, will do fine. \n\nThe third picture above shows how I can automatically read the news stories from the BBC page as they are syndicated to me. First I click on Bookmarks on the menu at the top of s the Firefox browser, then on BBC News in the drop down menu. Once I do that, all the latest news headlines magically appear in a new menu that pops up to the right. \n\nEvery couple of days, old links will disappear whether I've read them or not and this stops the list of new pop-up links getting too large and unmanageable. \n\n''Some Good Syndicated Sites:''\n\n*NZ Herald - http://www.nzherald.co.nz/ \n*The Register - http://www.theregister.co.uk/ \n*The BBC News Page - http://news.bbc.co.uk/\n*CNN - http://edition.cnn.com/\n*Computerworld - http://www.computerworld.co.nz/\n

\n//"Sector not found error reading Drive C:"\n"Abort, Retry, Ignore?"//\n\nThis is the start of what could be your worst day! Your hard disk has been running great up to now. In fact, so good that you forgot to do any backups recently. This is the first sign that it has gone down in a major way. It might be the last time you can use that disk. I will not assume that it is an executable or program file that you are trying because you can always copy the original disk files to overcome the error - right? Yes you sure can. It takes time but you can do it. In this case, if it is a file that you created and did not bother to back up yet, you really have a problem. In earlier days the disk file would have been gone forever. Even now most people will not be able to recover your file. In all probability your disk is almost dead. Usless - so much potential junk! Dead weight, trashed. Well - not so quick. Maybe if I tell you a bit more about the basics of your hard disk mechanism you could avoid this error. You could understand what happened and take the right steps to recover. Even if you do not have backups and do no hard disk maintenance, you can still overcome this sort of problem. Want to know more? Just read on. However I will have to go back to basics. \n\n''Hard Disk Drives''\nI will deal, here, with the common MFM HDD. Although other ~HDDs are similar they are outside the scope of this article. Oops, here I am lapsing into jargon right away! I'm sorry you'll have to put up with a bit of that. What I said was: \n\nHDD - //Hard Disk Drive//, \nMFM - //Modified Frequency Modulation,//\nRLL - //Run Length Limited//\n (well - I didn't say this yet)\n\nMFM is the method of recording data on a HDD, and so is RLL. The normal 20 mb hard disk probably uses MFM and you can record 30 mb on the same disk using RLL techniques. The actual method described by MFM and RLL are also outside the scope of this article. What we want to deal with here is the mechanics of a HDD. If you look at one inside your computer you will see a sealed case, generally rectangular and about the size of a floppy drive mechanism. It should not be opened. It has one opening to the outside and that is a carefully filtered air vent. HDD can be either full- or half-height, generally the older technology ones are full-height. The reason they are about the size of a floppy mechanism is \nthat they contain one or more five and a quarter inch disks. That's about where the similarity ends. The disk, or disks - there may be more than one, and I'll sometimes call them platters - are made of aluminium coated with magnetic medium. They spin at 3600 rpm and the pickup or \nread/write heads ride close to the disk, but not touching it, on a film of air. The heads are very close to the disk, about a tenth the thickness of a human hair, so the air inside the case has to be very dust-free. That's the reason for the case filter, and why you should no \nopen the case. \nLet's summarise. A hard disk drive has a sealed case, a platter (or two) and some read/write heads. OK so far? There is a motor that whirls the platters at their normal speed and another that drives the heads across the disk surface. They stroke from near the outer edge towards the middle, across about 28 mm of the available surface. If one head is on track 65, then so are all the others. The head positioning motor is very special too. There are two possibilities of motor type to drive the heads. The most common for the older, cheaper, drives is a "stepping" motor. The more expensive possibility is a "voice-coil" motor. Each has its abilities and liabilities - again much of them outside this article's field. \n\n''Stepping Motors''\nStepping motors are a special type of servo-motor where the electro-mechanical arrangement is such that the motor can turn exact portions of a rotation - accurately. For example it may be able to rotate exactly thirty degrees, no more - no less. That means twelve "steps" to one \nrotation of 360 degrees - get it? Steps - stepping. These motors are handy for positioning things, like drive heads, they will always get them into the same physical relationship - so long as wear and tear doesn't interfere. They operate in a complex circulating ounter-rotating \nmagnetic field. The stepping motor is linked to the head by various mechanisms designed to position the head onto somewhere about 600 to 1000 tracks within an inch of radial travel (about 25 mm for you converted people). The linkage is quite complex and usually can cope with some wear during the life of the disk without mispositioning the head. Expensive drives may have special wear adjusting gears. \n\n''Voice-coil Motors''\nThese are not so much a "motor" as an electro-mechanical linear actuator. (Oh dear - I've done it again - sorry). It is a type of magnetic device that can position an output arm because the electro-magnetic flux is varied. It works very much like the mechanism that drives a sound speaker in your Hi-fi, that's where the name comes from. Being linear, it has no in-built "steps", so it works on some form of "feed-back" where a mechanism watches the output and controls the input that is causing the output. When the proper position is reached the output watcher cancels the input signal. \nThis allows the same head-positioning as for the stepping motor above, about 0.045 mm track to track separation. In most cases the output arm from the motor drives through a gearing to position the heads, this gearing is often simpler than that for a stepping motor but it is still subject to wear. \n\n''Disk Platters ''\nAs I said earlier there are one or more fixed (hard) disk platters spinning inside the case. Each side of the platter(s) has a coating of ferro-magnetic material ("media" in the jargon) much like a floppy disk's coating, except it is much more refined and controlled coating and ble to accept a much denser signal. You can get some idea of the density from the fact that there are between about 614 and 1024 tracks on a HDD (vs 40 or 80 on floppys), 17 or 26 sectors per track for MFM and RLL respectively (vs 9 or 15 on floppys). Additionally, the data is applied much more densely. \nThe size of the read/write head is also much smaller than that for a floppy drive, and there is a limit to how far away from the surface it can be if the signal is to impress itself onto the media. Too far away and not enough signal gets onto the disk. This signal strength effect is a problem for both vertical distance and horizontal distance - too far across track error will move the head out of the signal path. But more of this later. \nSo far I have been talking "tracks" on the disk, but in real life the term "cylinder" is used to describe a "single track" on a HDD. I will use the term cylinder from now on when I mean the complete set of concentric tracks on the platter(s) extending from the top side of the top platter to the bottom side of the lowest platter. I will assume that we have two platters and so the heads are numbered 0, 1, 2 and 3 from top to bottom. The cylinders are numbered from the outside to the inside starting at 0 and ending at 614. (Uh oh - that makes 615 altogether! Another secret here. A 20 mb disk with 614 cylinders actually is most likely to have an extra "engineering" cylinder on which the head is parked and the "bad block" table is recorded at manufacture,cylinder 614, which is the six hundred and fifteenth!) \nSo, we have a sealed case with two platters driven at 3600 rpm and four heads supported on a film of air and positioned by some form of motor and arm mechanism. The film is entrained by the rotating platters, that is why you park the heads before shutting your system down. \n\n''YOU DON'T! WOW!'' \nNo wonder you are still reading this. OK, please read on. \n\n//Read/write Heads//\n\nThe read/write heads have the main purpose of recording (writing) and then reading the signal on the platters. They also are shaped aerodynamically so that they ride smoothly on the airflow induced by the disk rotation. They must ride at a preset height and keep that height \nconstant - no fluctuations means no dropouts. \nThey have to be constructed strong enough to stand crash-landing on the disk surface when you turn the computer off - whether you have parked the heads or not. The reason this happens is that as the unpowered platters slow down the airflow past the heads slows too - soon there is \nnot enough lift to support the head and it gets closer to the platter just like an aircraft coming in to land. Soon it touches the disk! Whack - it bounces back up into the air (no pilot you see), and soon flops down again! If you have parked the heads there is little chance of hurting a vital part of the platter surface. If not - one of these days the head is going to become unstable just as you knock the table, we have an earth-tremor or whatever (maybe just a bad day for your drive). Too bad. The heads may take a scoop out of the platter surface just like scooping ice-cream out of the carton. Remember that the heads always crash-land on some types of HDD, they are built to stand it, it is the disk surface that is not robust enough. A sidebar here: there are a number of ways of overcoming this problem of the heads striking the surface of the disk. Plus Hardcards(TM) have air pressure driven heads that retract off the disk surface when the drive senses no power. Other disks drive the heads up a ramp at the inner limit of their stroke when you park the heads. \nRead/write heads do not read and write the same patterns of 0's and 1's that the computer uses. That would be too inefficient. An MFM disk controller sends a special compressed code of signals to the head to record, an RLL controller sends a more compressed signal to get more data onto the same space. \nThe controller sends a "check-sum" to the head too. That means that minor errors can be overcome on the "read" cycle. In addition DOS will force the controller to have ten tries at reading the signal off the disk before giving up and sending you that message "Sector not found ...." \n\n''Source of Errors''\nIf you have been following this carefully you already have a few ideas where errors occur. I will deal with a few of them now. Dropouts. These are "blank" spots on the platter. Places where the media has no signal, this can be because of a pinhole or some other fault in the media or because of insufficient flux at the time of recording or because of physical damage to the surface - gouges and suchlike. \nMisalignments. The read/write head can be operating in a track that is not exactly aligned with the cylinder laid down when the drive was formatted. This can be because of wear or jarring. If the head is too far away from its formatted track, and maybe the track signal is a bit weak, the chance of a missed bit is greater. Error correction covers for a while, but as the missed bits get greater in number the reliability goes down. \nAnother possibility is that as the drive heads misalign they start trying to record onto pre-existing media defects that were not on the line of the track recorded before. Lastly there is the problem of not being able to read the track header. Each track on a HDD stores 4096 bits in MFM format. The data is arranged into 512 bytes. There are 17 such sectors and each is identified with a header that is referenced by the FAT. Sorry; File \n\nAllocation Table - like the contents list of a book. If the header cannot be read by the drive controller the following data is lost too. This can happen even if the data was only recently placed there in the real track of the worn mechanism. The reason the header cannot be read is because it was recorded on the platters when the drive was last low level formatted, that was most likely when the drive was new. \n\nPower-up erasures. Have you ever noticed that when you turn on some Hi-fi sets you get a little "thump" from the speakers. That is because some power gets through the sets amplifiers when they are coming on-line and the power hits the speaker coils and moves them. Well, the similar sort of thing happens with HDD. When you switch on a surge can get to the head motor and to the read/write head itself. If the head is positioned over a data bit the signal coming in to it can partly erase the data bit below it (called "softening" the data). Makes it hard to read even when the head is in line. The learn'ed, electronic types, amongst you will also know that such power leakage can also cause a coil to become magnetised. The read/write head is just such a coil, if it gets magnetised it will not be able to read data so accurately. \nThe next thing that happens in this saga is that the stepping motor tends to power-up violently. Because of its electromagnetic construction, it jumps violently to its nearest step. That sweeps the heads violently, and if they are slightly magnetised - BANG goes another bit or two. Well, we get more softening anyway. Unfortunately this happens in the areas of the disk that you use most frequently (if you don't park the heads). You then loose the data you most need! \nParking the HDD heads is the best way of defeating this problem. You position the heads at the inner edge of the platter. There is usually no data there and so it cannot be erased by power-up surges. \n\n''DOS's solutions''\nBut we still have to contend with wear, misalignment and surface defects. This is where the error checking by DOS comes in. When the drive controller gets some errors it uses the CRC (Cyclic Redundancy Checksum), an error fixing algorithm, to try to straighten the mess out. \nThis works OK until the errors exceed a certain magnitude. Then DOS gets an error report. It usually responds by telling the controller to go back and try again. It actually tells it ten times before you get that bad message I opened with - "Sector error ...". DOS gives up. You can press the "R" key and hope, DOS has another 10 tries and repeats the message if it was not successful. Amazingly, beyond reason, I usually try five or six times to get DOS to retry in situations like this. For some reason it sometimes works! However it generally does not. This is where low level formatting comes in. \n\n''Your solutions''\nLow level formatting. The DOS command FDISK is the low level format command for HDD. It does the same exercise on the disk that FORMAT does on a floppy disk. It replaces the FAT and renews the disk tracks and lays down new sector headers. The only minor problem is that, for best results, you have to know what "bad blocks" pre-existed on the disk. \nThus, when DOS gives up, you get out your backup disks. Low level format the HDD, set the partitions and high-level format and then replace all that software you have just sent to oblivion. You will find that the new tracks accept data just like a new drive. You should find that the media dropouts are set aside as "bad blocks" and your drive may even seem to operate faster - it is not having to error correct as it goes along. Also the replacement software is not "fractured" - a story later - but recorded in contiguous sectors where it can be read with the least positioning of the heads. \n\n''You forgot to backup!''\nThis is a disaster. If you do not have backups there is no way you can afford to low-level format the drive. All of your software will be destroyed. What can you do? \n\n''The last step''\nThere is a limited range of proprietary software that can solve this problem too. Spinrite(TM) and PC Tools(TM), that I know of, can non-destructively low-level format a HDD. Basically the software takes direct control of the read/write head and forces the drive controller to do what it wants. These programs work only on MFM and RLL controllers. They reposition data using spare cylinders that are found to be good, or by using that "engineering" and parking cylinder. Then format the drive one cylinder at a time, sector by sector. As they work there is an option to very comprehensively check the media surface for defects. The programs will lock out doubtful areas, recover bad blocks found OK, and give you a complete report on the HDD's bill of health. The data you had will normally be quite useable - just as it was before. It will not be de-fractured or "compressed" as it is known, that is a different operation. \nBut your HDD will be back in fine form again. The wear that may have caused the problem is allowed for, because the cylinders are re-aligned to the heads, and all of the media defects will have been segregated. DOS will be happy and start hiding incipient defects from you all over again. That's when you get them again. \nIt's only those gouges in the surface that will be a source of future difficulty. They normally upset the smooth flow of air and will upset the head positioning in relation to the platter surface. What happens then is that you start getting continuous random errors appearing on the drive. No matter how often you run the error correcting software there is no cure for this problem, except to buy a new drive. \n\nThat is a good part of the story. I would like to thank Gibson Research Corporation (Spinrite) and Central Point Software (PC Tools) for their educational material. Maybe, if you liked this, I can do something more on Hard Disk Drives later. \n\nLin M Hall\n\n

Robin Hinde\n\n At one time Hotmail was the service that set the standard for web based email, and for reasons that totally confound me it continues to be considered a synonym for web mail. There are many other better services available and a growing list of reasons for avoiding Hotmail completely.\n\n ''About email:''\n Email is generally available by two methods, web mail and POP mail:\n\n Web mail requires a browser to access, and this makes it easy to access email from any internet capable system. No other software is required, and there are no special settings required. Your email generally resides on a server until you delete it. Web mail is well suited to people who travel, or want email access from more than one PC or location.\n\n Web mail is usually the basis for free email services - because you have to view a website in a web browser to receive, compose and send your email, the cost of providing the service can be met by presenting advertising and other services. In Hotmail's case, the service is free because they use it as an entry portal to MSN.\n\n POP (Post Office Protocol) mail requires the use of specific email software, such as Pegasus Mail, Eudora, Kmail, Outlook etc. Netscape will also handle POP mail, using built in functionality not actually related to web browsing.\n\n Because the email client has requires specific settings to retrieve and send email, POP mail is best suited for use on one PC. Generally email is tranferred to that PC and deleted from the server. An advantage is that you do not need to be on line apart from when you are sending and receiving email. Once you have collected your email you can work on it at your leisure.\n\n ''Alternatives to Hotmail:''\n Many of the larger NZ ISPs (Clear, Paradise, Xtra) are now providing both web mail and POP mail as a matter of course, and this being the case, if you need web mail for some reason - consider using your ISP's facilities instead of Hotmail.\n\n In general, free email is web based, and there is a lot of choice these days. Many web portals (Yahoo!, AltaVista, etc) offer free, competent web mail service as a part of their business - Yahoo! in particular is quite impressive, with many additional features (like spell checking) included.\n\n Many NZPCA members use Paradise.net as their ISP, but may not have tried their web mail. It works well, but little thought has been given to readability; mail appears as white text on a black background and can be very tiring to read. (Why an ISP finds it necessary to use Flash on their own website is something else I'm sure their designer would have trouble justifying).\n\n I have been most impressed (apart from the occasional hiccup) with mail.com's free offering. Because mail is their core business, they offer comprehensive services that leave others far behind. When accessing your web mail by web browser, you can collect all your email from any POP3 accounts you may have, and this is a real advantage when travelling. If you don't want to access your mail.com email by web browser, you can enable mail forwarding to any other valid email address, and pick it up by POP3 from there.\n\n The advantage of email forwarding like the above is that you can set up a "disposable" email address, which you might use for newsgroup postings and mailing lists, and have all mail sent to that address forwarded to your "real" (and private) email address. That way, when the amount of junk email you receive becomes annoying you can delete your disposable email account and set up another one. You deal with all email through your private email account, which remains private at all times.\n\n Mail.com also offer POP3 and other email services, however these are subscription based services.\n\n A NZ company has recently started offering free web based mail, and even better - free POP mail (and 10MB of webspace) as well!\n Orcon.net.nz have recently made this offer to NZ residents, and you do not need to be a customer of theirs to take advantage of the offer. Visit http://www.orcon.net.nz and join - signing up is easy and only takes a moment, as as you can see from the screenshot below, it has a very clean interface.\nI have my "private" email address at oron.net.nz, any mail sent to me (usually@mail. com) gets forwarded to Orcon automatically.\nIf the foregoing hasn't convinced you that there are alternatives to Hotmail, read the following (from the MS Passport Terms of Use, a service closely tied to Hotmail):\n====\n\nFrom http://www.passport.com/Consumer/TermsOfUse.asp\n\n "By posting messages, uploading files, inputting data, submitting any feedback or suggestions, or engaging in any other form of communication with or through the Passport Web Site ... you are granting Microsoft and its affiliated companies permission to:\n\n** Use, modify, copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, publish, sublicense, create derivative works from, transfer, or sell any such communication.\n** Sublicense to third parties the unrestricted right to exercise any of the foregoing rights granted with respect to the communication.\n** Publish your name in connection with any such communication." ....\n\nThe foregoing grants shall include the right to exploit any proprietary rights in such communication, including but not limited to rights under copyright, trademark, service mark or patent laws under any relevant jurisdiction. No compensation will be paid with respect to Microsoft's use of the materials contained within such communication.\n====\n\nThe above Terms of Use was from the organisation that (with their .NET initiative) wants you to trust them and similar entities with all your data and applications. By the time you read this article it is likely the document will have been changed due to public pressure.\n\nIn addition to what most users would consider to be unacceptable Terms of Use, Hotmail has suffered both software problems (due to the difficulties Microsoft had converting the operation to Windows after they bought Hotmail) and more recently, fairly severe security problems.\n\nSome ISPs and business organisations do not accept email from Hotmail accounts, and I have experience delays of several hours between sending several emails to a Hotmail account and the emails arriving there.\n\nThere are many alternatives to Hotmail available. We've never had it so good, be sure to use them.\n\nLinks:\n**http://webmail.paradise.net.nz/cgi-bin/mailman\n**http://www.mail.com\n**http://www.mail.com/login/mailcom/login.jhtml\n**http://www.orcon.net.nz\n**http://login.yahoo.com/config/mail?.intl=au\n**http://www.pmail.com/\n\n* There is also a third email system available, IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol), but this is outside the scope of this article. \n

\nIf you think the complex microchips that drive modern computers are models of deterministic precision, think again. Their behaviour is inherently unpredictable and chaotic, a property one normally associates with the weather.\n\nIntel’s widely used Pentium 4 microprocessor has 42 million transistors and the newer Itanium 2 has no fewer than 410 million. “Their performance can be highly variable and difficult to predict,” says Hugues Berry of the National Research Institute for Information and Automation in Orsay, France.\n\nBerry, Daniel Pérez and Olivier Temam say that chaos theory can explain the unpredictable behaviour. The team ran a standard program repeatedly on a simulator which engineers routinely use to design and test microprocessors, and found that the time taken to complete a task varied greatly from one run to the next.\n\nBut within the irregularity, the team detected a pattern, the mathematical signature of “deterministic chaos”, a property that governs other chaotic systems such as weather. Such systems are extremely sensitive – a small change at one point can lead to wide fluctuations at a later time. For complex microprocessors, this means that the precise course of a computation, including how long it takes, is sensitive to the processor’s state when the computation began.\nwww.arxiv.org/nlin.AO/0506030\n(Courtesy of “NewScientist”, 9 July, 2005, page 17).\n\nAnd to think we were blaming it all on Microsoft? (John Marchington).\n

John Caughley\n\n Recently a problem occurred when I tried to send e-mail from my Notebook PC (Toshiba 1710) using Outlook Express. For about 2 months, since I bought the notebook, I had no trouble with e-mail. I had manually set the Internet Connection values by copying them from my Desktop PC. This time, the computer logged on to my Internet Service Provider (Xtra.co.nz) and checked my name and password, but when I clicked on Send/Receive, under a heading "Finding host...", it showed the progress bar which stayed empty.\n\n After about half a minute it disconnected and showed an error message: "Error: Account pop3.xtra.co.nz, Server pop3.xtra.co.nz ....", finishing with an 8-digit hexadecimal error code. Similarly, when I tried to access the Xtra home page (or any other site that I had on my favourites list) with Internet Explorer (version 5.5), after connecting the progress bar stopped at about a quarter and a page headed "This page cannot be displayed" came up.\n\n I spent some time comparing the settings on my notebook with those on the Desktop, but couldn't find any change that would overcome the problem. I tried updating to Internet Explorer 6 and its Outlook Express (from a CD-ROM). It installed without any difficulty, but struck the same problems that I had with the previous version.\n\n I suspected that I had changed something on the Notebook a few days before I had the e-mail problem, when setting up a Direct Cable Connection between it and the Desktop. I went back over the procedure and noticed that I had installed all Communications components (from Control Panel, Add/Remove programs, Windows Setup, Communications). I really only needed to add Direct Cable Connection. On the Desktop I only had 6 of the 10 components installed. So I deleted the four extras from the Notebook. When I tried Internet Explorer (v6) and Outlook Express, they both worked once more, to my relief!\n\n Some experimenting showed me that it was the component "Internet Connection Sharing" which caused the problem. I think that since using DCC with the Notebook as Client and Desktop as Host, the Notebook expected the Host to be present to access the Internet.\n\n I have not updated Windows Me since installing it. (It shows version 4.90.3000). Perhaps an update would have cured the problem. It is possible that the problem also occurs with earlier versions of Windows.\n\n If you have encountered anything similar or would like to share comments on this situation, please e-mail me on jr.caughley@xtra.co.nz and/or send your comments to MegaByte for sharing with others.\n\n John Caughley,\n Carterton\n

Type the text for 'Windows'

''Excerpts from "The Complete Idiots Guide to Fixing your PC"''\n \nWhile Microsoft System information gives you a snap shot of your entire system configuration, Window 98 includes even more utilities to monitor various aspects of your systems performance. All of these "hidden" tools are accessible from the Tools menu in the Microsoft System Information utility and are described below. \n\n1.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; ''Window Report Tool.''\nUsed to create a report that can be sent to Microsoft technical Support, detailing the specifics of a given problem.\n\n2.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; ''Update Wizard Uninstall.''\nUninstall the latest changes downloaded via the System Update utility.\n\n3.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; ''System File Checker.'' \nVerifies system file integrity, restores corrupted system file, and extracts compressed from the Windows 98 installation CD.\n\n4.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; ''Signature Verification Tool.'' \nLocates certified ("signed") and uncertified ("unsigned") files on your system.\n\n5.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; ''Registry Checker.''\nUsed to find and fix errors in the Windows register.\n\n6.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; ''Automatic Skip Driver agent.''\nIdentifies driver that have caused Windows 98 to stop responding on a previous start-ups, then marks them so that they are bypassed on subsequent start-ups. \n\n7.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; ''Dr Watson.'' \nThe familiar tool to experienced Windows users; takes a snapshot of your system whenever a system fault occurs, aiding diagnoses of tricky problems. \n\n8.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; ''System Configuration Utility.''\nAutomates major system trouble shooting. \n\n9.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; ''Scandisk.''\nFinds and fixes errors on your hard drives. \n\n10.&nbsp;&nbsp; ''Version Conflict Manager'' \nUsed to restore old drivers that have been replaced by newer versions.\n\nWindows 98 (not Windows 95) includes several Trouble-shooters (Wizards, actually) to help you walk through device conflicts on your system.\nAll you have to do is answer the interactive question in the Trouble-shooter, and you'll be lead to the probable solution to your problem.\nThe following trouble-shooters are included in Windows 98.\n* ~Dial-Up network \n* Direct cable connection \n* ~DirectX \n* Display \n* ~DriveSpace 3 \n* Hardware conflict \n* Memory \n* Modem \n* ~MS-DOS Programs \n* Networking \n* PC card \n* Print \n* Sound \n* Start-up and Shutdown \n* The Microsoft network \nTo run a Trouble-shooter , click the ''Start'' button and select ''Help''. When the help window appears, Click the ''Contents'' tab, click ''Trouble shooting'', then click ''Windows 98 Trouble shooter''. Select the Trouble-shooter for your specific problem in the left pane; the Trouble shooter itself will be displayed in the right panel. All you have to do now is to follow the interactive directions to troubleshoot your particular hardware problem.\n\n//Thanks to Alistair Clarke for the use of his book. More helping hints next month.// \n \n

//Article by Jim Oliver//\n\n Last month Richard Elam told us about his home network and how he set it up. It was a reminder to me to get MAIG and write a follow-up. Richard said he used the Internet but didn't tell us if he was able to access it from both ~PCs that he has on the network.\n \nSome time ago I decided to set up a home network for exactly the same reasons as Richard. Why throw out perfectly good ~PCs when they can be pressed into service? I had three, mine, my wife's and my daughter's. Guess what? We all wanted / needed to be able to browse the Internet. This was getting awful tricky. I won't go into the obvious questions that this dilemma throws up, I'll leave that up to you.\n\n I was idly reading a magazine article somewhere soon afterward that mentioned a thing called ICS, and wasn't it wonderful that Mr Gates had decided to include this in ~Win98SE. (Windows 98 Second Edition was the first Windows version to feature ICS. All the later versions have it.)\n \n Now everyone on a network can use the one modem. This sounded like just the ticket. I setup the network, I got the whole thing running correctly which as Richard hints at can be tricky. I got all the printers working and shared. But we still couldn't share the Internet connections through one modem.\n\n Next I did some serious reading on Internet Connection Sharing (ICS). I suggest you do the same at http://www.annoyances.org/exec/show/ics.\n \nIf you do everything suggested there you can be in pig heaven with your family in about 30 minutes. With only one 56K modem the experience can be slower with three people than with one, but it's still great for e-mail, as long as each person has a separate account. I have a Paradise account with 3 alias'. That means 4 people at once can access the one account. Cheap eh?\n \nThe very first thing you must do is enable ICS in your ~Win98SE setup. To do this follow the details at the above web site :\n\n Double-click on the Add/Remove Programs icon in Control Panel, choose the Windows Setup tab. Highlight the Internet Tools without altering the checkbox next to it. If you check or uncheck this box, click Cancel and try again. Click Details, and then put a checkmark next to the first item, Internet Connection Sharing. For now, don't add or remove any other components - it'll just make it more complicated. If the ICS option is already checked, you'll have to uncheck it now, click Ok, wait for the system to reboot, and then attempt to add it again. Click Ok, and then Ok again. There will be some delays, some hard disk access, and some more delays. Insert the Windows CD when prompted. The next thing you see should be the Internet Sharing Setup Wizard.\n\n ''Important:'' Don't click Cancel or restart your computer before completing this Wizard. There's no way to start it again, so if it's interrupted, you'll have to start over, which means removing and reinstalling ICS.\n \nDuring the install it asks for a floppy disk to be placed in the A: drive. This disk is used to set up the other ~PCs in the network.\n \nNow the bad news. Most of the time it work really well and is easy to setup. In my case I had some big problems. For some inexplicable reason it wouldn't work. Everything was set up correctly and should have worked, but it didn't. I didn't follow the exact procedure given in the above article and that�s where I went wrong.\n\n The main points are :\n*ALWAYS uninstall ICS if you need to change the NIC (network Interface Card) on the main PC. Always re-install ICS AFTER you install the new NIC. (I didn't)\n*Ensure the network is working properly before installing ICS.\n*Get the Internet connection on the PC with the modem in it working properly before installing ICS.\n*Do not mess around too much with the TCP/IP settings, stick to the plan on Windows Annoyances.\n\n After a ''LOT'' of shagging around I found the answer at a web site that is still around but the article has been removed. It involves hacking around in the registry and it avoids the need for a complete re-install of Windows. Someone paid Microsoft Support to get the info. I have a hard copy. Now the good news. ICS uses a form on Network Address Translation (NAT).This has the effect of protecting your PC from the outside world. The PC when connected is using an IP address, with ICS working the IP address is disguised from the outside world. Don't believe me? When you do get ICS working go to www.grs.com and test / probe your ports.\n\n It is very important that you don't have "File & Print Sharing" bound to any TCP/IP component. Confirm this by using the Network applet in the Control Panel. It goes without saying that this should done in ANY home network setup, not just an ICS one. Binding file and print sharing to ONLY the local network ~PCs prevents pirates from coming through the TCP/IP back door into your PC.\n \nIf you are still paranoid and want to use a firewall be aware that not all of them support ICS, have a look at http://www.secureup.com/compare/ before jumping into a firewall.\n \nOther operating systems install a form of ICS by default. Linux is one. You can buy software for Windows that does the same thing, Sygate is one. I've tried it and others but found them inferior to Microsoft ICS.\n\n ''Additional info:''\n\n http://support.microsoft.com/\n This gives all the Microsoft info and is very good and worth reading.\n There is a readme in the \swindows\ssystem folder called ICSRM.txt which is written there during the ICS install. This is worth a glance as well.\n\n Excellent up to date info at : ics_troubleshoot.htm \n Also icsconfiguration.htm if you want to alter port assigned by ICS.\n

Some time ago, an NZPCA member asked me how to customise the way Windows starts. It has taken me quite a long time to find this information, and because this might be of some interest to other members, a short summary follows.\n\nNormally, Windows (95,98) boots directly to the Graphical User Interface (GUI). It does this by first booting DOS 7.0, and then calling a file named WIN.COM which starts the GUI. All of this activity is hidden by the startup logo - you can press "Esc" to see what is going on behind the scenes. \n\nAs your PC starts, it is possible to modify the boot sequence by pressing key combinations while "Starting Windows95" is displayed: \n\n{{{\nF4. Starts previous version of DOS or Windows in some circumstances \nF5. Starts Windows in safe mode (VGA, no network, bypasses startup files) \nShift+F5. Start DOS commandline, without processing startup files \nCtrl+F5. DOS commandline, without processing startup files or mounting compressed drives \nF6. Safe mode but with networking available \nF8. Displays Windows startup menu \nShift+F8. Interactive startup, each startup file is processed after user confirmation\n}}}\n\nIn fact, just pressing F8 will bring up the Windows start menu, from which most of the other choices are available. It is possible to make loading Windows always stop at the DOS prompt without any intervention by creating an empty batch file called WIN.BAT - normally this will load instead of WIN.COM. Windows can subsequently be started by executing WIN.COM at the DOS prompt.\n\nThere are also extensive options available for people confident enough to edit MSDOS .SYS. This file is important, and should not be edited unless you know what you are doing. It is normally a read-only, hidden system file, and these attributes must be changed before it can be edited.\n\nOptions can be added under the [Options] section of this file. Some of the many options available are: \n\n{{{\nBootGUI=1 (or 0) Starts DOS 7.0 only (not Windows) when set to 0 \nBootKeys=1 (or 0) Disables the function keys during boot if set to 0 \nLogo=1 (or 0) Disables the startup logo when set to 0 \nBootMenu=0 (or 1) Displays the startup menu when set to 1 \nBootMenuDefault=n Set the default action to occur from the startup menu (n=seconds) \nBootMenuDelay=n Set the time the startup menu is displayed before the default action occurs\n}}}\n\nNote that when booting to DOS 7.0 in this way, some hardware functionality may not be available (sound cards and CDROM drives particularly) unless they are configured by CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files.\n\nIn addition to the above, the old method of configuring multiple boot choices with DOS 6.0 CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT are still available. These are too complex to go into here, but are a good way of dealing with different hardware configurations or for setting up a choice where in one instance DOS is optimised for older games, but in another instance DOS is optimised for Windows.\n\nOnce you start looking, you can see there is a huge amount of choice in the way you start Windows. I often set up ~PCs so they pause before loading SMARTDRV.EXE and pause before loading the GUI. With low memory older ~PCs this is an easy way to get to a DOS menu for games without too much difficulty, but still allows Windows to load normally unless interrupted.\n\n//- Robin Hinde//\n

When Microsoft released Windows XP back in 2001, one of its main features was its broad compatibility with applications, old and new. However, there are still a great number of older applications and games, mainly written for Windows 95, that refuse to run under XP for one reason or another. If you're having trouble firing up an old program or a classic game, all is not lost, as Windows does have a number of useful built-in utilities to get things running again.\n\nThe first thing to do is make sure your system and drivers are as up to date as possible. It's also worth checking the software developer's website to see if there's an update that could fix the problem. Unfortunately this isn't always feasible for applications and games that were released a long time ago, where the developers may not be supporting it any more, or they may have even disappeared all together. \n\nIf you know everything is up to date and the program is still not working, then it's time to get down to business. Many applications are compatible with Windows XP, but they were coded with other operating systems in mind, and fail when they come up against a Windows ~XP-specific feature. For example, some older installers aren't prepared for long file names, such as 'Program Files', and try to truncate it to 'PROGRA~1', which can cause problems. Other programs try and install things in the Windows or Windows/System folder, but unlike Windows 95, the system folder is called System32 in XP. The app might also try and install 16-bit drivers, or change the system.ini or win.ini files, or it might just poll the operating system to make sure it's Windows 95. Some of these things are unrecoverable, such as if the application requires 16-bit code. Other things are easily fixed, such as if the application just won't run because the OS is not specifically Windows 95.\n\nThe first port of call in resolving these compatibility issues is Windows' Compatibility mode. Find the EXE file for the program you're trying to run, right click, and go to the Properties. In the Compatibility tab you'll find a number of helpful options. First off, you can have Windows 'lie' to the program and tell it you're running the version of Windows it expects. If you know the program ran under Windows 95, try setting it in the 'Run this program in compatibility mode for:' drop down list. If you get other problems, like graphical glitches, you can also try each of the Display settings options. \n\nWith these enabled, XP will intercept certain program commands, such as the notorious ~GetVersion and ~GetVersionEx ~APIs, which ask what operating system is being run, and will feed the program the information it expects as well as directing it to use XP's file structure. \n\nIf that still isn't enough, you can try uninstalling the program, and reinstalling it - except this time run the setup.exe using Compatibility Mode. That might insure that the files at least go into the right directories.\n\nWhen running games, one more thing to try is setting either video or audio acceleration to None, or different levels of acceleration. \n\nIf all this fails, then you can delve a little deeper with a utility that's actually hiding on your Windows XP install CD. It's called the Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT), and it's in the ~Support/Tools directory. The installer is act20.exe, or you can jump on to the Microsoft site and download the latest version. \n\nThe ACT will install a number of applications, but the one you want is called ~QFixApp.exe. When you first fire up ~QFixApp, you'll need to browse for the application that is causing you grief. From there you can experiment with a number of compatibility fixes. The Layers tab gives you access to a number of compatibility modes, which group together multiple individual fixes for a particular operating system or issue, such as colour depth or themes. On the Fixes tab, you can see a complete list of compatibility fixes, and can manually enable or disable them.\n \nChoose a compatibility mode from the Layers tab, and hit the Run button. This will fire up the app in question, and if there are problems, ~QFixApp will try and apply a fix. If everything works, you can check the log in ~QFixApp to see exactly what fixes it applied. This is especially handy if you want to rollout the app on a number of similar systems. To do this, click the Advanced button, and then the Create fix support button. This will create a file in Windows/~AppPatch with the same name as your app, but with an extension SDB. You can then copy that to other systems and double click it to install the necessary settings in the registry to run the problem app.\n\nYou can also use ~QFixApp's logs to streamline your compatibility fixes. Browsing through the log file you might see a fix that is only needed for Windows NT or 2000, in which case you can disable that fix, which sometimes improves performance. \n\n//PCAuthority: Section: Features Tech Support - Windows Compatibility Mode By Staff Writers | 8 September 2004 | Tech Support //\n

//Anonymous humour contributed by John Little//\n* Enter any 11-digit prime number to continue.\n* Press any key to continue or any other key to quit.\n* Press any key except - no, No, NO, NOT THAT ONE!\n* Bad command or file name! Go stand in the corner.\n* This will end your Windows session. Do you want to play another game?\n* Windows message "Error saving file! Format drive now? (Y/Y)"\n* This is a message from God Gates "Rebooting the world. Please log off."\n* To �shut down� your system, type "WIN"\n* BREAKFAST.SYS halted! Cereal port not responding.\n* COFFEE.SYS missing! Insert cup in holder and press any key.\n* File not found. Should I fake it? (Y/N)\n* Bad or missing mouse. Spank the cat? (Y/N)\n* Runtime Error 6D at 417A32CF. Incompetent User.\n* Error reading FAT record. Try the SKINNY one? (Y/N)\n* ~WinErr 16457. ~LPT1 not found. Use backup (PENCIL&PAPER.SYS)\n* User error. Replace user.\n* Windows Virus Scan 1.0 - "Windows found. Remove it? (Y/N)"\n* Your hard drive has been scanned and all stolen software titles have been deleted. The police are on the way.\n

At the last club meeting in Wellington, Roger Currier, Ian Godfrey and I demonstrated some Windows utilities that we particularly like. Two that I mentioned were ~PowerDesk and ~QuickView Plus that are file management shareware programmes. The great thing about these programs is that there are FREE versions available for personal use which are fully functional, although in the case of ~PowerDesk, lacking in some optional enhanced features. None the less they are extremely useful utilities and I use them all the time.\n \n~PowerDesk is a replacement for Windows Explorer and is a file manager. Those of you who remember Xtree Gold or ~PCTools will have missed the ability with Windows Explorer to display two file trees and associated file lists, or to actually see inside various files either in ASCII text or hexadecimal code. Well, ~PowerDesk will do all this for you and more.\n\nYou can display two file trees at once, either one above the other or side by side. The file lists can be of the same drive or different drives. Of course there is full drag and drop for copying or moving files, and whether you have one or two file lists open you can also open a file viewer pane. A neat trick is the ability for ~PowerDesk to list compressed files as directories, and display the contents of the compressed files in the file list. The files can even be viewed in the viewer pane. \n\nThere are many other enhanced and additional features, such as configurable button bars, enhanced right click contextual menu and the facility to zip and unzip files even if you don’t have ~PKZip or another file compression utility installed. \n\nThe viewer pane can be configured to display the file in native format, text, hexadecimal or whatever is appropriate for the file. This feature is dependent however on you having ~QuickView loaded. ~QuickView is a Microsoft feature of windows and works with Windows Explorer as well. ~QuickView Plus, which I mentioned above, is an enhanced version produced as shareware but a fully functional version, is also available for personal use. It is necessary to have at the least the free version of ~QuickView installed as it provides ~PowerDesk with the file viewing facility.\n\nLike a lot of software the original ownership has changed. A company called Mijenix first published ~PowerDesk, but was bought out by Ontrack who have produced the current upgraded version 4. ~QuickView was originally published by Inso who produced the version 4.5 that I have and was free on the cover disc. The latest version 6 is now produced by JASC who also produce the well-known shareware graphic programme Paint Shop Pro.\n\nBoth ~PowerDesk 4 and ~QuickView Plus v4.5 are available on cover discs from the English magazine ~PCPlus. ~QuickView is on Disc B from issue 156 of October 1999 and ~PowerDesk 4 is on Disc B from issue 167 of September 2000. In addition, the full working copy of ~PowerDesk 4 and the free ~QuickView can be downloaded from the web, as can an evaluation copy of the latest ~QuickView Plus. Web sites are as follows; \n\n~PowerDesk (free) http://www.ontrack.com/freesoftware/ (about 1.2 Mb)\n\n~QuickView (free) http://www.ontrack.com/freesoftware/ (about 588 kb)\n\n~QuickView Plus v6 http://www.jasc.com/download_4.asp (evaluation copy 10 Mb) \n\nIn addition, I really recommend you look at the ~PCPlus magazine site in the UK. There are articles to view, forums to join and a large download section of shareware and freeware. \n\nTry this web site http://www.pcplus.co.uk/ \n\n//- Richard Elam//\n

I am pleased with ME now but.....!.\nLoading the ME update over Windows 98 went well until ME told me that I had an incompatible Microsoft Program and aborted. The message gave me the full name but not the file name and suggested I refer to my documentation. There was no documentation - the Quick Start Guide didn't have a trouble shooting section. I guessed file names and found one in the registry but not elsewhere so I patched out all the references in the registry. Installation was then fine and everything ran well. \n\nBut after a few days I began to have odd occurrences. Things got even odder and I checked for viruses, ran scan disk and so on. The oddities increased and became intermittent. Sometimes two or more attempts were required to boot up.\n\nMy hard drives are mounted in racks. So I put the hard disk with my Beta Copy of ME back as a C drive and everything was fine. Was it the hard disk I had taken out? After replacing it as the C drive it would not then boot up at all for me to uninstall ME. I ran scan disk and defrag. They showed some errors but nothing that appeared as if it should have been fatal. It still would not boot. So I booted from the startup floppy and reinstalled my "update" ME. This then acted as if it was doing a clean new install and obviously built a new registry so that few of my installed programs would run without a fresh install.\n\nHowever ME and the hard disk have been running happily ever since. Did I stuff up the registry when I patched out the redundant "incompatible" references and then cause an escalating problem? I don't know.\n\nI had to reinstall Frontpage 2000 and later had reports that some links on the website I had just modified didn't work any more. After much tribulation and learning from my son much that I did not want to know I have fixed the problem. The key thing is that ~FP2000 does not automatically install a personal web server as did its predecessor. If there is a PWS present then Frontpage will update it but ~FP2000 will work without a PWS. This is great and saves resources but it means that the hyperlinks are held as local addresses not relative addresses. The conversion is done when you publish. But if you are working with an ISP, like Paradise, which does not have the FP extensions then you must publish with FTP. This is okay if you use the Frontpage FTP but if, like me, you use ~CuteFTP then you transfer to the ISP server hyperlinks which refer to your local machine - not relative ones which will then refer to the ISP machine. They do not work!\n\nSome useful information on the problem is hidden in Frontpage 2000 help - type Server then select "Use your computer as a server".\n\nApart from all this I am beginning to suspect that there are some problems with Frontpage 2000 running under ME. There is nothing in the MS knowledge base - in fact there is practically nothing there about ME at all. But I get various hangups either with Frontpage 2000 or with it in the mix.\n\nPerce Harpham\n139/1 Knights Road, Lower Hutt, New Zealand 6009. \nPhone +64 4 570 0525, Fax +64 4 570 0494 \nperce@harpham.co.nz\n

//PC Authority staff writer explain some advanced way of searching for files on your harddrive....//\n\nIt's a sad situation we're faced with where it's easier to find something from amongst the billions of web pages on the internet using Google, than it is to find that damn Word document you created last week. Windows' Search function is a fickle beast, but there are a few things you can do to tame it, and make it work for you.\n\nFirst off, you need to configure Search to be as efficient and effective as possible. The easiest way to activate Search is with the <Windows key> + <F> combination, or you can drag it from the Start menu onto the desktop, or into the Quick Launch bar.\n\nWhen you first fire up Windows XP's Search, you'll be confronted by an animated character. To disable it, right click and choose Turn off the animated character or, if you really want to make sure it's gone (or you just draw some kind of sadistic satisfaction from surgically removing it yourself), you can enter the registry and change your search interface back to the Windows 2000 style. Go to ~HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/~CurrentVersion/Explorer/~CabinetState. Create a new String called Use Search Asst and set the value to no. Lo and behold, Search is back to its old self.\n\nIf you do want to use the XP style, you can still have more control over your Searching options, and also suffer less redundant clicks, by setting it to Advanced mode. Open Search, go to Change Preferences | Change files and folders search behaviour and set to Advanced.\nOne way to improve search performance is by switching on the Indexing Service. This uses idle CPU time to make a database of all your files, which is then used to assist in searching. This can speed up a search, but it will mean your system will resort to crunching in its spare time. If you find this slows your system down, you can turn it off through the Change preferences button in Search, or by running services.msc from the Start | Run command (or <Windows key> + <R>). Locate the Indexing Service, Stop it, go to its Properties, and set it to Disabled.\nIndexing is not perfect though, as it doesn't index all file types, which makes it hard to find obscure files, such as those installed with applications or games. To force the Indexing Service to index everything, Run compmgmt.msc, expand Services and Applications and right click on Indexing Service. From this window, tick 'Index files with unknown extensions'.\n \nSearch also has a small blockage when it comes to searching for text within certain files. Originally Microsoft set it so Windows would ignore all files that are not registered with a filter, although recent updates and Service Packs have added many more file types. If there's still a file type that Windows is not searching, you can manually add a text filter to the file by Running regedit, and browsing to ~HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT and the file extension you're interested in. Then create a new key called ~PersistentHandler, and in the key, set the Default string value to {5e941d80-bf96-11cd-b579-08002b30bfeb}. Restart, and you should be able to search for text within that file type.\n\nIf you have lots of compressed CAB or ZIP files as archives, and don't want Windows to search within them, then you can disable this feature by unregistering the relevant files. Open a command prompt and type regsvr32 /u zipfldr.dll, and then regsvr32 /u cabview.dll. If you want to re-enable the searching within archives, then you need to reregister the files by typing regsvr32 cabview.dll and regsvr32 zipfldr.dll. \nIf you find you use a lot of advanced search options such as searching for hidden files or within subfolders, you can set these as the default using the registry. Run regedit and go to ~HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/~CurrentVersion/Explorer and you can enable the following settings by making their value '1'. ~CaseSensitive; ~SearchSubFolders; ~SearchHidden, which will search for files that Windows normally hides, like system files; ~SearchSlowFiles, which searches tape backups attached to the system; ~SearchSystemDirs, which will search within system folders, like C:/Windows.\n\nFinally, once you've searched your system to within an inch of tolerance, you can clear your search history by once again delving into the registry. Go to ~HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Search Assistant/~ACMru. Here you'll find one or two folders. These contain file/folder searches and text string searches. Delete the content of these to wipe the slate clean. You can also disable the saving of search terms by turning off ~AutoComplete in Internet Explorer.\n\n//~PCAuthoritySection: Features Tech Support - Windows Search By Staff Writers | 8 September 2004 | Tech Support// \n

//From Steve Gibson's GRC web site//\n\n''Internet Connection Security for Windows Users''\n\nAt 8:00 AM, Saturday morning, April 1st — this is NOT an April Fools joke — the FBI announced the existence of a self-replicating, i.e. viral worm, that moves from machine to machine across the Internet by exploiting open Windows shares!\n \nBecause of the unfortunate timing of this announcement on April 1st, this could be mistaken for an April Fools prank it is not! Therefore, here is a link to the FBI notice at the National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) \nIt was bound to happen sooner or later . . . it has happened NOW: Viral code combining a Windows shares scanner with Windows file sharing to locate and copy itself into other Internet-connected Windows machines across the Internet! Because of the vast number of Windows machines with exposed, shared, directories visible to the Internet, this represents a significant new threat.\n\nFortunately, people who have previously visited the ~ShieldsUP! site will probably be safe, but millions of machines are still at significant risk. The SANS Institute has dubbed this the "911" worm because shortly before erasing the user's entire hard drive it uses the system's modem to dial 911, producing a large number of "false positive" emergency calls.\n\nStrictly speaking this is a "worm" more than a "virus" since worms propagate and reproduce themselves without any sort of user involvement or action, whereas a virus requires some inadvertent action on the part of the user. This is the second such worm to have been found "in the wild" and, interestingly, this one knows about and deletes its predecessor when encountered. (A jealous worm?) The worm's payload triggers on the 19th of the month, deleting files from crucial Windows system directories. (You want to be very sure that your system is not infected with it at that time!)\n\nIt is not a "high tech" worm, since it was written in the Visual Basic Scripting language. But what's sad — and should be frightening — is that the creation of such a serious and quite damaging Internet threat has become so easy for the "script kiddies." \n\n''Preventing Propagation and Reproduction:'' \n\nAre your shields up? If you have not done so already, be certain that your own Windows system is not exposing any open directories to the Internet. And then, most importantly, spread the word to any Internet-connected friends, relatives, and associates who might not have already taken these precautions.\n\nIt is more important now than ever, because now we have predatory viruses capable of roaming the Internet and jumping from machine to machine without anyone being aware!\nAs you know, the ~ShieldsUP! web site is here to help everyone quickly check their systems for known Windows file sharing vulnerabilities. PLEASE encourage everyone to take advantage of this completely free service so that the spread of this frighteningly potent and highly destructive virus can be stopped quickly! \n\n''Detecting the Virus' Presence:''\n\nThe anti-virus companies have already received virus patterning data from the FBI. Check for updates which recognize the new 911 Virus. \n\nYou can scan your system for the following three HIDDEN directories which the 911 virus is known to create: "chode", "foreskin", and "dickhair". "sigh" Yes, the author(s) of this virus are apparently not very mature. Classic "script kiddie" nonsense. \n\n''IMPORTANT NOTE:'' Before scanning with the Windows "Find" function, you must be certain that your Windows Explorer is configured to display hidden files and directories: Under the Windows Explorer View/Options menu, select "Show All Files." \n\nIf any of the directories listed above are found, delete them immediately!!\n\nI am certain that we have not seen the last of this sort of virus. Please do what you can to educate your friends, relatives, and associates about the dangers of indiscriminate Windows file sharing over the Internet. \n\nThey are always welcome to visit the ~ShieldsUP! web site to test or verify their security and learn more about the risks of careless Internet use. \n\nThanks for your attention. Spread the word!\n\n//Steve Gibson, Gibson Research Corporation - http://grc.com//\n

Do you get brassed off every time Windows does not / has not been shut down properly and that dreaded Scandisk Utility runs every time on start up? Well you can control it by checking the "Disable Scandisk after a bad shutdown" box. Here is how you do it;\n*Choose Start, Run, type msconfig and press <enter> \n*Up will pop the general tab in front \n*Click the Advanced Button. \n*Then check the box to "Disable Scandisk after a bad shutdown". \n*Click OK twice to close the Advanced Trouble Setting dialogue box and exit the System Configuration Utility. \n*You can click yes to restart your computer, or click no and wait for the setting to be applied the next time you restart. You will not be bothered again\n\n//Barry Thomson, NZPCA founder member 101 //

John Thomson\n\n I installed the Windows XP Release Candidate given away at the September Wellington club meeting on a Pentium II, 333Mhz with 384Mb of Ram.\n\n I don't condone software piracy, but I'm not happy about Microsoft new subscription based software. If users want to buy a copy of XP outright then they should be able to do so. A licence to me is the right to use it from purchase to whenever. Previous Windows products worked this way, but now I'm forced to activate the product within a short time period (14 days) and if I don't it expires even if I have purchased the product outright. The 180-day evaluation software from the meeting still needs activating.\n\n I realise why they have done it. It's designed to put a stop on copying of software. What I don't like is the WPA (Windows Product activation) process. Behind the scenes XP does take a full audit of your hardware. The process creates a unique numeric identifier of a PCs hardware, by looking at 10 hardware components. This includes the serial number of the system volume, network interface card NIC and media access control MAC address, hard drive, graphic adaptor, IDE controller, CPU, CD-Rom & DVD drives, SCSI adaptor, processor model and the amount of Ram. This identifier is transmitted over the Web when you WPA to Microsoft, along with the product key. Microsoft insists there's no way they can discover what hardware is inside your machine.\n\n The reason they give is that the code is generated using a one-way mathematical transformation, and only a part of the resultant code is transmitted to Microsoft. This gives anonymity they insist. But they have drawn a lot of criticism from people like myself who are always changing hardware and computer technicians who upgrade machines, who may now be looked upon as pirates. So Microsoft has now change it so WPA will not challenge unless multiple components are changed within a very short period of time. After 120 days, we all start with a clean sheet again. But this imposes many questions. If I buy XP outright can I or can I not install it on all my computers in my house (home network). Maybe I'll wait 120 days (four months), and then install it on a second machine so the identifier will not be challenged. That is a good trick. But why should I have to do this?\n\n I've worked out (reading some Microsoft releases) it has something to do with the network card which has a unique factory created MAC address. WPA can identify this and use it as a control. If the network card is not replaced, you can change up to six components before WPA requests a re-activation. If you don't have a network card, this figure (above) changes to three components. With a USB network the identifier is different, so I can only change three items. Factory installed XP is also different as it identifies the machine by looking at the BIOS.\n\n So the most negative part of XP is the activation process, which can only be done on one machine per licence. The main purpose of course is to prevent users from installing a single copy of XP on multiple machines (home networks). Something determined crackers will surely view as a real challenge. Companies will probably be OK as they are buying a complete system, and it will probably never need reinstallation. But the enthusiast like myself, who changes components and has to reinstall quite often it's going to be a pain in the neck. It will be a real headache to reactivate the licence via Microsoft support all the time. Microsoft OS systems are known for getting really muck up.\n{{{\nMS Activation window\n}}}\n\n Experienced computer users have long known that installing Windows on a drive that does not already contain the operating system is the best way to improve performance and avoid upgrade problems. This is especially true with Microsoft. By doing it this way you end up with a system in a predictable state with no accumulated rubbish and no old incompatible dynamic links libraries, conflicting configuration files and programs that will not run on Windows XP.\n\n But this time Microsoft is suggesting you upgrade from supported versions of Windows instead of clean installs (especially for home users). The XP installation process automatically backs up your existing OS, making it very easy to revert back to your old operating system. The file created is just over 300 MB (depending on your system), after 30 days Windows XP will ask if you want to delete it, to regain space on your hard drive.\n\n The trouble is there is no way Microsoft knows every possible configuration and can make sure upgrades work in every situation. So my choice is to play it safe and do a clean install, rather than upgrade over an existing operating system. The major drawback is that it takes time to reinstall all your existing applications. Not like when you reinstall everything on an E-Machine or Compaq. With these machine you boot the CD-Rom and basically everything is reinstalled automatically, including your modem, and word processor. So there are disadvantages to a clean installation. It can be a tedious chore if you have a lot of applications and customised settings. But Windows XP does come with Internet Explorer 6, Windows XP Media Player 8 and other latest products. So you will not need to install these as additions applications.\n\n So the choice is to either play it safe and do a clean install, or upgrade over an existing system. Basically there are two ways to do a clean install.\n 1. Delete your existing Windows installation by reformatting your hard drive.\n 2. Set up a dual boot system.\n\n For a clean install follow these steps. Boot your computer up using any Windows 9x emergency floppy boot disk. Or obtain an Ultimate Boot Disk from http://www.startdisk.com, a free alternative to the standard boot disk, which has built in trouble features. Use Fdisk to change and recreate any hard drive partitions. I personally like a partition at the end of my main drive to store important files I may need in the future or files to reinstall Windows. 800 MB is generally sufficient. Format your hard drive-using format C: /s, when completed, remove your emergency disk and re-start your machine. Hit delete (or whatever you use) to get into your Bios. Change your Bios (in advanced setting) to boot from the CD-Rom drive (Windows XP at the present time doesn't come with bootable floppy images.\n\n Microsoft has advised they will be available via the web before Christmas) (also be aware that some earlier Bios don't come with the facility to change your system to boot from the CD-Rom). Save your settings and let your machine continue to restart. At some point you will see a sign appear "Do you want to boot from the CD-Rom?" Press enter immediately. If you are not quick enough it'll go to the C: drive and you'll have to re-boot your machine again. Note: if you do let your machine go to the C: and use Dos mode to change to your CD-Rom drive and type setup.exe it'll not activate your Windows XP CD, as it's not designed to work in Dos mode. It must be booted. Even if you use an emergency disk to start the computer with CD-Rom drive support.\n\n Once you have got your machine to boot from the CD-Rom drive the rest of the installation process is straightforward. Standard blue screen, follow instructions.\n\n In the early stages of the installation process you will be asked if you want to use NTFS instead of Fat32 as the file system on your hard drive. NTFS results in better performance than converting from Fat32 later on. But be warned: Windows NT4.0 doesn't understand this version of NTFS used by Windows XP, nor does Windows 95/98/ME understand any version of NTFS. Dos and older versions can not handle Fat32 or NTFS. If you are a home user go for Fat32. But be warned if you convert your hard drive from Fat32 to NTFS later, you will not be able to revert to your previous operating system easily.\n\n To set up a dual boot system you need to give each operating system its own partition on the hard drive. Do it manually with Fdisk or use Partition Magic to create an additional partition. Make sure you give each operating system a unique computer name. If you do have to install an older operating system (Windows 98, ME, 2000, NT4.0) do this before installing Windows XP.\n\n So far I have found that Windows XP is definitely more robust and stable than Windows 98 or ME. My DVD drive doesn't crash when playing Video CD's (VCD's). I have now installed Windows XP on six different machines. And surprised that all has worked perfectly. I've never installed Windows so easily before. XP detected everything perfectly. Drivers were installed for all its hardware.\n\n On the machines I upgraded over an existing operating system, I ran the Windows XP compatibility adviser to check all hardware and applications were recognised. The compatibility test revealed a number of possible hardware issues. It warned me that the software for a HP 710c printer may not work and Power DVD 2.5 software had an incompatibility problem. And may need reinstalling or upgrading to new drivers. But when I upgraded, surprisingly everything worked. I really expected more problems, for example: graphic cards that may work perfectly under older version of Windows to not give their best under Windows XP. Windows XP definitely has improved compatibility with existing software such as games, DVD players, and multimedia applications and older 16 bit applications. I still can't believe it.\n\n I don't think that I'll be permanently upgrading to XP. The trouble is WPA is not going fix the real problem where piracy is out of controlled. It's specifically pointed at the little guys. The trouble is Microsoft knows they have no hope in hell of getting the price of XP out of the Asians. The foreign students in my flat all have the latest copies of everything. They tell me piracy is rampant, very few people buy original copies, only the copiers. My wife recently came back from Asia with a big bag of VCD & DVD movies all the very latest, $2 each. I watched Planet of the Apes (the new version) and Moulin Rouge before it hit the cinemas here in New Zealand. But Microsoft is hoping to get more money out of us. That's you and me. Not this time for yours truly, when the trial finishes (180-40days) back to 98SE. Microsoft Millennium edition was not very good. I'm getting sick and tired of all these constant upgrades that cost a great deal of money. Or maybe I'll start using the Chinese boys' 25-digit code, which gets around the WPA in XP and Office 2000. Or the Tech number which does the same.\n\n John Thomson\n Gella@paradise.net.nz

\n''By Paul Thurrot of PC World Magazine''\n\n //This article is by Paul Thurrot, published in the March 2004 issue of PC World Magazine USA Issue ..\n \nTheir test drive suggests that Service Pack 2 is a keeper--assuming no incompatibilities.//\n\n If you've been longing for a more secure version of Windows, Windows XP Service Pack 2, due in mid-2004, should fit the bill. A response to the electronic attacks that crippled Windows ~PCs worldwide last year, Windows XP ~SP2 is a crucial upgrade centred on what Microsoft calls security technologies.\n\n I tested a beta of XP ~SP2 and came away impressed: With a simple installation (I experienced none of the compatibility hassles that some users encountered with ~SP1), much-needed security enhancements, and a friendlier front-end to wireless networking, XP ~SP2 is shaping up as a must-have upgrade for all Windows XP users.\n \n Service Pack 2 will be free, but Microsoft hasn't yet said how it will distribute the pack.\n\n ''A Finer Firewall''\n\n One component of the original Windows XP is the Internet Connection Firewall, but this line of defence is disabled by default and is difficult to find and configure. The version in XP ~SP2, now renamed Windows Firewall, receives more-prominent advertising and is enabled by default, providing a decent level of network protection even when the system is booting up.\n \nIn addition, the new Windows Firewall is more powerful than the previous version, with both inbound and outbound scanning capabilities similar to those of third-party firewalls such as ~ZoneAlarm. For example, the first time an application wants to access the Internet, Windows Firewall pops up a dialog box in which you can configure the firewall to grant such access. Windows XP included wireless networking support but Microsoft then hobbled the feature somewhat with Service Pack 1, forcing users to log on manually to insecure networks (a hassle for most home users). With ~SP2, the software giant has significantly improved the user interface for wireless networking, simplifying the tasks of browsing, configuring, and connecting to wireless networks. One nice touch is an option that lets you pick the wireless network you always want to connect to when you are within range of it. In Service Pack 2, Internet Explorer has been updated to include pop-up ad blocking, a key feature that some competing browsers have had for months. And if you do choose to allow pop-ups, Internet Explorer prevents questionable Web sites from altering those windows in ways that might harm your system; this innovation should put an end to the annoying proliferation of windows at some Web sites.\n\n In another welcome nod to security, Internet Explorer includes a new browser add-on module that helps deter spyware by controlling how XP installs, configures, and enables add-ons. In the short term, some IE add-ons--for example, various Netscape-style plug-ins--may not work after the upgrade; but even so, the additional security and stability are worth it.\n \nBoth Outlook Express and Windows Messenger will now protect you from dangerous file types, isolating attachments so that they cannot attack your system. OE has also been updated with a feature drawn from Outlook 2003: By default, HTML e-mail messages will not download images; this keeps spammers from figuring out that your e-mail address is valid by having the embedded images phone home. This is a fine feature, but the ability to set up a whitelist of approved senders whose images aren't to be filtered would have been nice, too.\n \nMicrosoft has significantly changed Windows Update for use with ~SP2, placing the most critical software updates into a friendly, new, single-step installation routine. Other software and driver updates are available separately.\n \nBehind the scenes, Microsoft has made many low-level changes to XP in ~SP2 to make the operating system as secure as possible. A new memory protection system guards XP against common buffer overrun errors that many viruses and worms exploit to compromise the OS. And new networking technologies will help ensure that attackers find fewer vulnerabilities when probing ~SP2-protected Windows systems over the Internet.\n\n ''A ~Must-Have Upgrade''\n\n Windows XP Service Pack 2 may not solve all of your security problems: Hackers are notoriously industrious, and Windows will continue to be their target of choice. It's also too early to tell whether ~SP2 will generate any woes similar to those that plagued many users who installed ~SP1.\n \nNevertheless, this update does provide much of the basic plumbing you need for a better-protected operating system. If the beta is any indication, Windows XP Service Pack 2 will be a winner.\n\n ''~SP2's Greatest Hits (According to PC World)''\n\n*Simple, secure wireless networking\n* Stronger firewall enabled by default\n* Pop-up blocking in Internet Explorer\n* Attachment protection in Outlook Express and Windows Messenger\n* Automatic updates\n\n

''The truth about the Linux vs. Windows level of security ''\n~SyS63478 www.zone-h.org admin \n\n//Richard Elam found this article on the Internet, and thought it was an interesting claim about the truth about Linux versus Windows level of security...//\n\nThe following graphs are representing the data collected from Zone-h web-server intrusions between January 2003 and January 2004. \nThe scope of this analysis is to demonstrate that so far the subjects who expressed an opinion about the Linux/Windows level of security didn't have any idea of what they where talking about. \nFirst of all, let's analyze the following graph which is representing the total amout of monthly attack based on Single IP. \n\n[file://C:/1all-os.jpg]\n\nAs we can see the level of the attacks is fluctuating very much within the 2.500 to 4.500 attacks threshold. \nThe reasons of these fluctuations are multiple: \n- geopolitical situation in regards of those attacks specifically performed for political reason \n- school vacation time (summer, xmas etc.) \n- inherent decay of the 0day effectiveness / patches application cycles still, the trend compared to one year earlier is growing steady.\n \nThe next graph (Fig 2) represent the grouping of the attacks in the three big families: Windows, Linux and BSD. The scope of this graph is to satisfy all those who always complained about the different distros of Linux or the different releases of Windows. \n\n[file://C:/2Comp-Grph.jpg]\n\nAs we can see, except from the period between Aug 03 and Nov 03, the Linux family was far more attacked than the Windows family. Finally we have the graph representing all the attacks over the different OSs. \n\n[file://C:/3DiffGrph.jpg]\n\nAgain, we can see that Linux is at the moment far more attacked than Windows. The following table is reporting the values extracted from Zone-h database, on which the above graphs are built \n\n[file://C:/4SpredSht.jpg]\n\nSo far, so good except from one detail: the only exact action after watching these data is that ''YOU SHOULD SEND ALL THIS ANALYSIS AND THESE GRAPHS IN /DEV/NULL''\n\n''Why? The reason is simple.''\nFirst of all, somebody might argue that the data should be re-evaluated and proportioned to the total amount of worldwide installations.\nSecond, crackers are choosing OS depending of what is "leet" at that very moment (remember the Solaris Armageddon 18 months ago?)\nAvailability of 0days for particular OSs is also contributing to the "mumbo jumbo" curves of the above graph.\n\n''EVEN THEN, EVERYTHING SHOULD STILL GO TO /DEV/NULL''\n\nIn fact, nowadays many of the intrusions are performed at database or application level. Regardless the OS.Regardless the web server. Sql injection and file inclusion are the most used tecniques in the latest months. This is happening because the usual "availability" of exploiting codes has been constantly decreasing over the last 12 months since groups like Teso has stopped to release to the public.\n\nThe moral is, in this historical period of the Internet, don't trust anybody who is "lecturing" about the inherent vulnerability of a particular Operating System.\n\n~SyS64738 www.zone-h.org admin\n\n\n\n\n

//Another contribution from member John Thomson, who wrote this while waiting for his wife!//\n\n''Goodbye wires, Hello wireless technology.''\nRecently I attended a Wireless Technology Seminar. The important people went to Te Papa and had free lunch. We just got sandwiches and endless cups of free coffee. The following is my notes and thoughts.\n\nOne of the problems facing telephone companies is the copper cables that go from the telephone poles into our homes. Replacing these cables New Zealand wide would be a major exercise. And the cost to replace underground cables and services would be even more expensive. And don’t forget the little bit of copper wiring inside our house, someone remind us.\n\nTelecom NZ, we were told is presently fibre-optic cabling a new subdivision in Auckland. This is just a trial, upgrading to fibre-optic nation-wide would be outrageously costly. So what are the options?\n\nIt was suggested that wireless technology could be used to replace copper cables as an alternative to upgrading them to fibre-optic. A Telecom guest speaker said that one scenario would be to replace the copper on telephone poles with fibre-optic cables and then use wireless access points attached to these existing poles to serve four or five houses. With added directional antennas more houses could be added to these access points in some areas.\n\nEverybody agreed that in the last few years there has been advances in ADSL technology, but copper lines will never provide the required capacity most companies need to deliver ~Broad-Band Internet, Triple play voice, and HDV (hi-definition video) to homes through existing copper phone lines. \n\nPresently I use ~WiFi to network personal computers in my own home and a flat, which has four foreign students. And when I want a fast Internet connection, I use my laptop with a wireless 802.11 connection in the CBD area. I realised a year ago that it would be very easy to convert cellphones so they automatically find and connect to the most efficient and appropriate wireless network (a cellphone network, Bluetooth network or a ~WiFi network access point). Switching networks could be handled by software inside the cellphone. This software can be easily changed or upgraded. I’ve patched my wife’s cellphone from the Nokia’s website. It’s just like down loading screen savers and installing them. \nUsing wireless technology to replace copper cables is already being done overseas. British Teleco (BT) in the UK recently launched a “~Blue-Phone” cellphone that can make calls over a landline network via a “Bluetooth” connection when you are within a PAN (personal area network) of a Bluetooth wireless access point in an office or house. When you move outside of the PAN area the “blue-phone” converts to a normal cellphone, which then connects to the local cellphone network. \n \nTelecom NZ is looking at ~WiFi cellphones that would do much the same using ~WiFi instead of Bluetooth, to connect to the normal telephone network. So wireless access links (on existing telephone poles) maybe the way Telecom NZ upgrades our aging system. This will probably not happen for four or five years. Other telephone companies and cellphone manufactures are also making great advances in mobile phone technology converging fixed and mobile telecommunication services. It is a bit of a race. Who will be the winner?\n\nJohn Thomson\nGella@paradise.net.nz\n\n''Definitions:''\n''ADSL'' divides up the available frequencies in a phone line on the assumption that most Internet users look at or download much more information than they send or upload. Under this assumption, if the connection speed from the Internet to the user is three to four times faster than the connection from the user back to the Internet, then the user will see the most benefit most of the time.\n\n''~WiFi'' is wireless way to handle networking. It is also known as 802.11 networking and wireless networking. The big advantage of ~WiFi is its simplicity. You can connect computers anywhere in your home or office without the need for wires. The computers connect to the network using radio signals, and computers can be up to 30 metres or so apart.\n\n''Bluetooth'' is a standard that allows any sort of electronic equipment from computers, cellphones to keyboards and headphones, to make its own connection without wires, cables. Bluetooth works on two levels. And communicates on a frequency of 2.4 gigahertz. It uses a technique called ~Spread-Spectrum-Frequency-Hopping. A Bluetooth device uses 79 individual, randomly chosen frequencies within a designated range, changing from one to another on a regular basis. In Bluetooth, the transmitter changes frequencies 1600 times every second.\n\n\n\n

Last month a world wide survey was conducted by the United Nations.\n The only question that was asked was:\n\n // "Would you please give your honest opinion about solutions to the food shortage in the rest of the world."//\n\n*Evidently, the survey was a huge failure.\n\n*In Africa people did not know what "food" meant.\n \n*In Western Europe they did not know what "shortage" meant.\n \n*In China they did not know what "opinion" meant.\n\n*In the Middle East they did not know what "solution" meant.\n \n*In the United States they did not know what "The rest of the world" meant.\n

This story was printed from ~ZDNet UK, located at http://news.zdnet.co.uk/ \nStory URL: http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/0,39020351,39169268,00.htm \n\nNew version of XP Media Centre Edition to be released\nIna Fried\nCNET News.com\nOctober 06, 2004, 15:40 GMT \n\nWith the next generation of Media Center ~PCs, you'll be able to have your TV and record it too.\n\nFor the first time, Microsoft's Windows XP Media Center Edition is supporting multiple tuners, meaning that consumers will be able to watch one channel while recording another or record two stations at once, ~ZDNet UK sister site CNET News.com has learned. The feature is one of several improvements Microsoft has made with Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, an update that the company plans to announce next week.\n\nAt the same time, Microsoft is also allowing computer makers to create Media Center ~PCs that lack the TV recording feature altogether, a move that will allow computer makers to offer ~PCs with the operating system for less than $800. It's all part of an effort by Microsoft to position Media Center as a more mainstream consumer OS.\n\nWithout an all-new version of Windows until Longhorn in 2006, Microsoft is hoping that an improved Media Center OS can help reignite interest in the 3-year-old Windows XP operating system. The launch of the updated Media Center, along with several new companion products, will form a key part of Microsoft's fall marketing blitz designed to sell consumers on the benefits of XP.\n\nThe entertainment-oriented Media Center OS is similar to other flavours of Microsoft's flagship Windows XP, but adds a second interface that can play movies, music, digital pictures or television and be controlled via remote control. In its first two incarnations, Media Center has attracted only a niche of the PC market, largely those interested in recording TV shows onto their hard drives.\n\nMicrosoft has thus far been largely mum about the new version of Media Center OS, though details have begun to trickle out. As previously reported, the new version has several new features designed to address current shortcomings, such as the ability to burn ~CDs and ~DVDs from within the remote-controlled interface.\n\nSources tell ~ZDNet UK sister site CNET News.com that the product will also include the ability to exchange ~MSN-compatible instant messages while doing other things, such as watching television or viewing a photo slideshow. The instant messages appear as an overlay to the TV or other main image.\n\nMedia Center Edition 2005 will offer limited support for high-definition television, but only the type of high-definition signal received through an antenna -- not high-definition satellite or cable. Microsoft declined to comment on the new version of Media Center or its features.\n\nMuch of the focus with the new version, which is code-named Symphony, has been on improving the audio and video quality, with the goal being to rival consumer electronics devices such as DVD players and digital video recorders that cost far less and have outshined the Media Center in quality. With this version, sources say, they believe Microsoft has at least caught up to ~TiVo. The program guide has also been improved, including the ability to browse upcoming movies using "cover art" images.\n\n''New products for the Media Center family''\nMicrosoft has also announced plans for two products that will complement the new OS. One is a handheld device known as a Portable Media Center that will allow content from a Media Center PC to be taken on the go. The other is a type of set-top box known as a Media Center Extender, which allows consumers to view content in one room that is stored on a Media Center PC in another room.\n\nThe company is expected to use next week's "Experience More" event in Los Angeles to tout other digital home efforts, including several moves designed to make it easier to move content around the home while still offering digital rights management. For example, Microsoft has been developing technology, code-named Janus, that paves the way for a new class of portable music devices capable of playing music that is rented on a subscription basis rather than purchased. And, in addition to Media Center extenders, which work only with Media Center PCs, Microsoft has a broader Windows Media Connect effort designed to let many different living-room products grab video, music and photos that are stored on a Windows XP computer.\n\nSome details have come from the companies making Media Center products. Two tuner manufacturers, Hauppauge and Vixs have announced dual-tuner products that are designed specifically to work with Media Center 2005.\n\nComputer makers are also starting to tip their hand. Sony, for example, posted several new models to its ~SonyStyle Web site.\n\nThe machines are part of Sony's existing "R" series of Vaio Desktops. In addition to sporting the new OS, the machines add faster processors and larger hard drives as well as the option to automatically create a backup of data using RAID. For now, Sony's machines stick to offering a single TV tuner.\n\n~Hewlett-Packard has announced its Digital Entertainment Centre, a Media Center device that is designed to look more like a consumer electronics device than a PC and is also expected to offer dual tuners, among other features. HP has yet to announce pricing or when the device will be available, though. The company is also expected to have more traditional Media Center PCs and is expected to offer an upgrade program for existing Media Center ~PCs, but details are not yet available.\n\nDell, Gateway and Toshiba are among the other big-name computer makers expected to offer machines with the new operating system, sources said.\n\nAs for the Media Center extenders, HP has announced plans to offer such a device and online retailer Buy.com has started taking orders for a similar product from Linksys. Creative and Samsung recently started selling the first Portable Media Centers.\n\nAll of the Microsoft devices find themselves competing, at least to some degree, with non-Microsoft alternatives. In the portable category, RCA and Archos offer competing portable video players that do not interface directly with Media Center. There are also other companies that offer features similar to Media Center both for Linux and Windows-based machines.\n\nIntel showed off many such designs at its recent developer forum, though it is unclear how many big-name PC makers will choose to offer entertainment-oriented ~PCs that are not Microsoft-based. Instead, the challenge may come more from consumer electronics makers.\n\nDevices that could both burn ~DVDs and record TV shows were once rare but are increasingly more common. Cable and satellite operators are also starting to ship digital video recorders in larger numbers, again potentially challenging Microsoft's Media Center ambitions.\n\n

''Year 2000'' solutions, if you want to keep that old computer or continue to use software that may not be ~Y2K compliant. \n\nThe original IBM PC XT did not have a clock. Software in the PC BIOS and DOS simply counted the number of ticks, since the last time the system thought it was midnight. The system interval timer set the number of ticks. You had to tell the computer what the time was every time you turned the computer on. Once it knew the time it used this to convert the current time into understandable human format. \n\nThe IBM AT 386-based computer (ie all PC's today) added a hardware clock. This was a Motorola MC 146818 CMOS RTC and all systems even today must emulate this RTC (Real Time Clock) to remain compatible. This chip stored the date and time and had a battery backup so that it ran even when the computer was turned off. All this chip was designed to do was to avoid the user having to type in the time, every time the computer was switched on. Therefore the PC clock system has remained unchanged from the original XT or AT. When you switch on your PC the date and time stored in the RTC are read and the PC interval timer is set. Unfortunately, the Motorola RTC chip doesn't determine the century. This means that 1999 is stored as 99. \n\nBack in the 70's and 80's the year 2000 looked so remote and memory was so expensive that most programs stored only the last two digits of the year. Some of these programs, still in use today will produce surprising results after 2000, they may believe that 1 Jan 2000 is before 29 Dec 1999 (00<99) and may also result in the day of the week being wrong. \n\nTaking all of the above into account, there are two methods that software could use to obtain the date and time from the computer hardware. It can either obtain it from the RTC or from the BIOS (Basic Input Output System). Most new software that we are using today usually obtains (date and time) from the BIOS through Microsoft Windows, therefore with a proper BIOS loaded, it shouldn't be a problem for the year 2000, because Windows 98 is year 2000 compliant. (According to Bill). However there are other ways for software to obtain the time. \n\nThe Motorola ~MC146818 RTC only uses three bytes to store the date information, therefore 1 December 1999 will be stored as 120199, so from what we can see, three bytes will not be sufficient to contain the century part of the date. Since the ~MC146818 also utilizes non-volatile RAM, IBM specified 32h in memory to hold the century information. By combining the century and the year part, software can obtain a full 4-digit year. However, when PS/2 was introduced, IBM changed the location of the memory, which holds the century information from 32h to 37h. Therefore, low-level language programmers will then have to determine whether if it's an AT machine or a PS/2 machine. That is why it's very unreliable to obtain the time from the RTC. What will happen right after 23:59:59 (31 December 1999). The problem is, the RTC cannot update the century information by itself, so the time will be 00:00:00 1 January 1900 not 00:00:00 1 Jan 2000. \n\nHow can we get around this problem? Most programs that have been written fairly recently, all call the BIOS to ask for the current time. Therefore, with a new implemented BIOS it will be easy to get around the problem, and this is the most common way to solve the ~Y2K problem. The advantage of using this method is it's inexpensive to implement. But the disadvantage is software applications that gain direct access to RTC will still be having problems if the machine doesn't reboot after 2000, because the BIOS can only update the RTC when powered up. Thus depending on the software to update the real time and date (a TSR program). There are many software packages that can update the century info right after the 1999 roll over, this is another inexpensive way of solving the problem. The disadvantage, without a new-updated BIOS, this kind of program can only work if it has been loaded. If you remove the program, (delete it, or reformat the hard) disaster can strike. Viruses, power spikes, or a hard drive failure can also easily corrupt this ~Y2K software fix. \n\nInstalling a hardware ISA Bus board (or similar PCI card) is probably the best way to prevent the hardware from succumbing to the ~Y2K problem. The board catches that request for date and time from the software and directs it to the new RTC on the board to obtain the current date and time. The installed card is like a roadblock in between the BIOS and the old RTC. The real problem will be solved; because no matter how the software requests the date (from BIOS or RTC), it will return the correct value. The disadvantage with this method, it uses up an ISA slot and costs $140 (local trade suppliers cost). This is one method a company could use if they don't want to upgrade several hundred computers and install new software. \n\nImportant computer dates. \n*1983 IBM PC XT 2 digit date/time, with manual update on start up. \n*1984 IBM AT Computer, with automated time from CMOS 2 digit date. \n*1996 First Pentium CMOS 4 digit time, not RTC time which is still 2 digit. \n*1999 First 4 digit date & time CMOS/RTC motherboard.\n//John Thomson//

//By Justin Kranzl of APC Magazine//\n\n Ours is a complex world full of complex problems. Your average computers can handle the day-to-day digital drudge work. But when it comes to predicting worldwide climate change, mapping the stellar skies or creating an army of other-worldy hordes for this summer's big-screen blockbuster, you need more than just an over-clocked desktop. A super task calls for, well, a supercomputer.\n\n Supercomputing is typically the domain of massive development teams with equally massive funds, whose budgets usually don't extend to a decent paint job on the final product. But looks don't count for much. It's more about grunt than glam. As technology continues to race past last month's cutting edge, the computational power required to push development further forward again has also grown exponentially.\n\n The real world applications for this kind of raw power abound. Today's supercomputer installations calculate global tectonic and atmospheric movement at unprecedented levels of detail, model space flight, unlocking the secrets of our very biochemical composition, analyse the performance and breakdown of nuclear stockpiles, and a whole host of other research and scientific calculations. And, as their power and sophistication increase, the time-saving and number-crunching prowess of ever newer breeds of supercomputer ensure that just as much as they abet it, they are also a key indicator of technology's progress.\n\n ''Four Supercomputers to Consider''\n* Numero uno: Earth Simulator, Japan\n* Local hero: National Facility: Australian Partnership for Advanced Computing\n* Group effort: Heidelberg Linux Cluster System (HELICS) -- University of Heidelberg, Germany\n* Speed of light entertainment: Weta Digital, New Zealand\n\n'' ~TeraFlops of processing power''\n\n Both University of Mannheim's Professor Hans Meuer, the "father" of the Top 500 and APAC's Professor John O'Callaghan agree that the real bottleneck is network latency. A "traditional" supercomputer approach builds new technology to a purpose, including interconnects. Today's clusters rely on networking technology which ranges from the distributed computing model of Internet connection through to custom network solutions such as HELICS's Myricom 2000 network setup. As the supercomputer heavyweights throw increased attention to clustered computing, expect the issue of interconnects to continue to soar in importance.\n\n It's trends like clustering that provide real world, grounded comparisons for everyday PC users to follow. Often supercomputing is painted as an esoteric art, rows upon rows of stark cabinets bearing little resemblance to most people's perception of computing. By bringing the model closer to a commodity-based one, not only are the benefits and power more easily understood, as the hardware has already hit the mass market, the typical user is drawn closer to the cutting edge of development.\n\n IBM, Sony and Toshiba are busy collaborating on advanced chipset technologies, codenamed "Cell". The "supercomputer-on-a-chip" project has seen the big three commit US$400 million over five years in an effort to merge super-fast processors with broadband computing and consumer devices. No figures are available at the moment, but the phrase "~TeraFlops of processing power" has been mentioned.\n\n That's not to say that the traditional supercomputer model is ready to roll over just yet.\n \n''Definitions''\n* ''~GigaFlop/s:'' One thousand million floating point operations per second. Also referred to as Gflop/s\n* '' Linpack:'' Benchmarking system used to test performance on supercomputers\n* ''Node:'' The smallest standalone computational element in a supercomputer\n* ''SMP:'' Symmetric Multiprocessor System the easiest example - a dual processor motherboard-based PC\n* ''~TeraFlops/s:'' Trillion floating point operations per second. Also referred to as Tflop/s\n* ''Vector Processing:'' Using one instruction to perform multiple operations\n

//From the AVG Antivirus help files//\n\n Nearly all the information stored in your computer is saved on a hard disk. The hard disk is where all your programs are installed and your data is saved. Modern hard disks have a capacity of 500 megabytes or more.\n \nImagine your hard disk as one big repository where programs and data are stored. With ordinary use, there is no need for you to understand how data on the hard disk is organized because all communication with the hard disk is managed by the operating system.\n \nComputer viruses make use of certain areas on the hard disk. To understand how viruses work you must understand the structure of a hard disk.\n \nA hard disk stores data on circular platters. Magnetic heads read and write information on the surface of these platters. Each platter is divided into concentric rings, called tracks, which are further separated into smaller sections called sectors.\n\n ''Sector, Head, Cylinder''\n\n A sector is the smallest single storage unit on a hard disk and is typically 512 bytes long. Its location is expressed in the form of three numbers: \n*HEAD (each side of a platter has its own head), \n*CYLINDER (tracks on all surfaces which are directly beneath each other) and \n*SECTOR (the number of a sector in a track).\n \n From this we get one important result - the entire hard disk is divided into small parts, called sectors which are uniquely numbered. These numbers are the 'address' of a sector.\n \n This type of addressing is used internally by the operating system and for ease of use is translated into files with names.\n\n '' Logical Drives''\n\n Before a hard disk can be used, it must be prepared - partitioned. A hard disk can be partitioned into one section and become one logical drive, known as drive "C:", or you can split the hard disk into numerous sections, each becoming another logical drive. The first drive is always "C:", the others follow in alphabetical order "D:", "E: ",... "Z:".\n \n For example, you can partition your 1600 MB hard disk into just one drive named C:, or you could split it into 4 drives - C:, D:, E:, F:. The sizes of these drives can be any combination which totals 1600 MB (e.g. C: 50MB, D: 350MB, E: 600MB, F: 600MB).\n \n Typically, new machines come with one logical drive installed. If your computer has more than one drive, it is not easy to recognize at first glance whether you have several hard disks or just one partitioned into several logical drives. To find out, you need to know something about the CMOS and the partition table.\n\n '' Partition Table''\n\n The very first sector on a hard disk is known as the Partition Sector or Partition Table, or sometimes the Master Boot Record. It contains a short program (the boot-strap) which loads part of the operating system into memory after the computer has been turned on.\n \n The partition sector is the principle target for many viruses as it is the only place from which they can load before the operating system does. It also contains a table which describes how the hard disk is partitioned in the partition table.\n \n There is always only one partition sector on each hard disk and it is always the first sector. Only hard disks have partition sectors, never diskettes.\n\n '' An infected partition sector is a problem because:''\n*You do not know it is there. Microsoft's FDISK.EXE, a program for partitioning hard disks, does not display the boot strap code and most users do not have a utility program to view the contents of the partition sector.\n*You cannot delete it the way any infected file can simply be deleted. The partition sector cannot be removed; it must be repaired. Formatting (using program FORMAT.EXE) does not help; many have taken the drastic measure of formatting their disk in the hope of removing the virus.\n \nHowever, FORMAT.EXE (supplied with ~MS-DOS and Windows'95) will erase all data, but leave the partition sector intact. You could loose your data and an infected partition sector can, and often does, make your hard disk inaccessible. In this case, if you are lucky, you may lose just the operating system but recover your data by booting from a diskette. However, all too often it leads to a complete loss of data.\n\n '' Boot Sector''\n\n From the diagram, you can see that at the beginning of every logical drive is a boot sector (do not confuse this with the Master Boot Record or Partition sector). The boot sector contains information about the drive and a short program which loads the operating system. This area can also be the target of a virus, but the majority infect the partition sector.\n \nA boot sector is found on both logical drives and diskettes. Because diskettes do not have a partition sector their boot sector is the only possible target for this type of virus.\n\n ''FAT Table''\n\n Fixed behind the boot sector is a data area called the FAT (File Allocation Table) where information about the location of all files is stored. The structure of the FAT is complex and is not important to this help file. It is just a data area from which a virus cannot replicate. The data in the FAT is indispensable and makes an ideal target to damage. If this small area of a few tens of sectors is amended improperly or erased, then data will be lost because the operating system will lose track of where each file is stored.\n\n '' Root Directory''\n\n The root directory is placed after the FAT. It holds a limited number of entries (files and directories) unlike sub-directories (folders), which are limited only by the hard disk space. Sometimes the root directory is used by older viruses for storage.\n\n '' File Area''\n\n The rest of the disk, the largest part, is allocated for your use - your FILES. This is where your programs, data and directories are saved (apart from the root directory, of course).\n

//By Robin Hinde//\n\n Are you getting annoyed with those huge graphic attachments that friends and relatives email to you at this time of year? You can avoid filling *your* friends' and relatives' email boxes by using the NZPCA online photo gallery. Read on to find out how.\n\n Over the past year or two there has been a significant increase in the number, type and complexity of online applications generically known as LAMP applications. LAMP* (Linux, Apache, ~MySQL and PHP) applications combine the abilities of a web server, database, and some form of scripting to build what are often quite impressive interactive, dynamic online facilities. While these by definition are web based (in that they display HTML pages as the user interface) some of these applications would not normally be considered as web pages**.\n\n The NZPCA web site (Megabaud 2.1) runs on ~PostNuke. ~PostNuke is itself a LAMP application, and consists of a large number of scripts that take user input, interact with an SQL database, and produce dynamic output as a web page to be displayed on your screen (or phone, PDA or speakers). ~PostNuke has been designed in a way that allows its capabilities to be expanded by the addition of other scripted applications, referred to as modules. Megabaud 2.1 uses several modules to extend its basic functionality - for example, the discussion forums run under the quite complex module ~phpBB1.4; the calender is another module.\n\n We have the ability to add new modules and features as they become available, the most recent module added is a photo gallery. This is not a strictly accurate name, as any of several graphic formats can be stored and displayed, as well as video clips. There is even a 3D photo in the gallery at present. Gallery v1.3.1 is a very clever application with more features than I can cover in this article, (and I'm still discovering new features) so have a look at it at:\n http://www.computers.org.nz/modules.php?op=modload&name=gallery&file=index\n\n The photo gallery is available to all NZPCA members, but to prevent abuse of this facility, it is necessary to log in to the website before creating your own photo gallery. Once logged in, you will be able to see publicly viewable photo albums, or create your own. You have extensive control over how your albums are displayed, and who can view them. Please do not upload images of an objectionable nature, or that you do not own the copyright to.\n\n Creating albums is easy; just go to the "Personal Albums" link from the photo gallery page: http://www.computers.org.nz/modules.php?set_albumName=album02&op=modload&name=gallery&file=index&include=view_album.php and click on "create album". Choose a sensible name for your album, it is helpful if your name appears in the title. Then click on the album you just created to view its contents (it should be empty) and then click on "properties" to check the settings for your album. Click on "permissions" to control who is able to view, add, edit or comment on photos, then start adding your own photos. You can add as many albums inside your album, and you can further nest albums inside those, so there is no excuse for being disorganised!\n\n Add photos by clicking on the "add photos" link, and follow the instructions in the dialogue box that pops up. It isn't necessary to worry about the size of the photos as Gallery will organise resizing automatically, however it is pointless to upload images of more than around 1200 pixels in either dimension for on screen viewing. After the photos have been uploaded, Gallery will produce two copies of the original; one will be a thumbnail (of the default size you specified for your album) while the other will be a resized version of the original that can be used for the default display (again, you control this size for each album).\n\n Within each album, there are extensive facilities for organising photos and albums from the drop down list below each photo or album; you can move, delete, and add comments for each item from here. You can select "highlight photo" to place a particular photo on the album cover. Once you have your album(s) organised, you need to share them with others. The easiest way to do this is to view your album online, and copy the URL in your browser location bar, and paste this into an email that you can send to whoever you are sharing your photos with.\n \n\nFor example, this URL may look something like: http://www.computers.org.nz/modules.php?set_albumName=album04&op=modload&name=gallery&file=index&include=view_album.php which is a bit of a mouthful, but will display the album when clicked on or pasted into a browser location bar. This URL will display the album as part of the Megabaud 2.1 website, with the menu on the left side of the screen. The "Name=album04" section of the url above is what differentiates this album from all others in the gallery.\n\n If you like, you can use this information to display the album outside of the Megabaud 2.1 context, (Gallery is capable of running as a standalone application as well as a module) by specifying the URL as: http://www.computers.org.nz/modules/gallery/album04\n \nJust change the album number at the end of the URL to one that corresponds to your album. You can also post a link to your album in the Megabaud "Web Links" pages, just submit your link as you would any other. You can use the search facility on the initial photo gallery page to find photos in your albums if you wish.\n \nIf you own a digital camera, using our photo gallery is a good way of sharing your photos with others - try it and see. You can also use the gallery as a way of getting your photos home if you use a digital camera while traveling - without filling up your own mailbox.\n \nLog on and try it out soon.\n\n *The advantage of using LAMP is that the software (and often the scripts themselves) are all open source (so they can easily be modified or fixed) and free. Apache, ~MySQL and PHP will all run under Windows, and of course, other webservers, databases and scripting languages can achieve the same result, although usually at considerable expense. The software that runs Megabaud 2.1 cost $0.00.\n\n **For example, I use such an application to control a CD changer that plays music ~CDs. The CD player interface is a web page, but instead of displaying text and graphics, it displays controls that enables ~CDs to be played, as well as the current status of the player, track listings, playlists and so on. This has advantages if remote control is desirable (from more than one location at home, for example, but a webserver and browser can also be run on the same PC).\n

Duncan Graham-Rowe of the New Scientist\n\n Who needs software engineers? Soon we'll all be programmers WRITING software is a painstaking business in which you can't afford to slip up: get a single character wrong and the instructions either do nothing or go horribly wrong. In one infamous software error, a misplaced minus sign resulted in a fighter jet's control system flipping the aircraft on its back whenever it crossed the equator.\n Now a new system that takes the drudgery - and some of the potential for slip-ups - out of programming is about to be launched. Its inventor hopes it will one day turn us all into programmers.\n\n Bob Brennan, a software engineer at Cambridge-based start-up Synapse Solutions, has developed a piece of software that allows you to write a program by keying in what you want it to do in everyday language.\n Dubbed MI-Tech - short for machine intelligence technology - the software translates a typed wish list into machine code, the basic mathematical language understood by the microprocessors inside computers. But this is no easy task, because everyday language is riddled with ambiguities and double meanings. "MI-Tech can resolve these ambiguities," claims Brennan, because it has been taught about the significance of context in the English language.\n\n At the heart of MI-Tech is a store of logical rules. These allow it to extract instructions from statements in ordinary language, which it then translates into machine code. In its present form, MI-Tech has a limited lexicon of only a few hundred words, but Brennan claims this is sufficient for most of the tasks you might ask it to carry out.\n\n Brennan says his program can write code in a fraction of the time that it takes trained programmers. He spent months writing a program manually, producing hundreds of pages of code. But given "just three pages of monologue", MI-Tech generated a program that performed exactly the same tasks.\n\n Vikram Adve, a programming-language researcher at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign remains sceptical. "Every programming language that I have heard of has a well-defined syntax and well- defined semantics," he says. And for a very good reason: all programming languages operate on instruction compilers and hardware that are essentially dumb. "Neither can really interpret the intention of the programmer," says Adve. So programming languages are deliberately designed to be unambiguous to avoid confusion.\n\n Brennan agrees that previously this required strict syntax. "The problem before was that computers couldn't cope with ambiguities, but now they can," he says. MI-Tech's small lexicon means there is less room for confusion. And if it's unsure of your meaning, MI-Tech will just say it doesn't understand.\n\n Brennan is not going into any detail about how the system works until his patents are granted. But he hopes to be licensing his program to software companies within 18 months so that they can build it into their own packages. If that happens, you might well be able to add programs of your own design to your PC - without knowing how to code.\n*Duncan Graham-Rowe\n*7 April 2001\n

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_a3=getMatchedTextCount(_9f);var pos=0;for(var i=0;i<_9f.length;i++){var t=_9f[i];var _a7=t.text;if(t.isMatch){var _a8=getContextRangeAround(s,pos,pos+_a7.length,_a3,_a1);addRange(_a2,_a8.start,_a8.end);}pos+=_a7.length;}return _a2;};var fillUpRanges=function(s,_aa,_ab){var _ac=_ab-getTotalRangesSize(_aa);while(_ac>0){if(_aa.length==0){addRange(_aa,0,moveToWordBorder(s,_ab,false));return;}else{var _ad=_aa[0];var _ae;var _af;if(_ad.start==0){_ae=_ad.end;if(_aa.length>1){_af=_aa[1].start;}else{addRange(_aa,_ae,moveToWordBorder(s,_ae+_ac,false));return;}}else{_ae=0;_af=_ad.start;}var _b0=Math.min(_af,_ae+_ac);addRange(_aa,_ae,_b0);_ac-=(_b0-_ae);}}};var writeRanges=function(_b1,s,_b3,_b4,_b5){if(_b4.length==0){return;}if(_b4[0].start>0){createEllipsis(_b1);}var _b6=_b5;for(var i=0;i<_b4.length&&_b6>0;i++){var _b8=_b4[i];var len=Math.min(_b8.end-_b8.start,_b6);writeTextAndMatchRange(_b1,s,_b3,_b8.start,_b8.start+len);_b6-=len;}};var createLimitedTextWithMarksAndContext=function(_ba,s,_bc){if(!lastQuery){return;}if(s.length<_bc){_bc=s.length;}var _bd=getTextAndMatchArray(s,lastQuery.getMarkRegExp());var _be=getMatchedTextWithContextRanges(_bd,s,_bc);fillUpRanges(s,_be,_bc);writeRanges(_ba,s,_bd,_be,_bc);};var createLimitedTextWithMarks=function(_bf,s,_c1){return createLimitedTextWithMarksAndContext(_bf,s,_c1);};var myStorySearch=function(_c2,_c3,_c4){highlightHack=new RegExp(_c4?_c2:_c2.escapeRegExp(),_c3?"mg":"img");var _c5=findMatches(store,_c2,_c3,_c4,"title","excludeSearch");firstIndexOnPage=0;showResult();highlightHack=null;};var myMacroSearchHandler=function(_c6,_c7,_c8){var _c9="";var _ca=null;var _cb=function(txt){if(config.options.chkUseYourSearch){myStorySearch(txt.value,config.options.chkCaseSensitiveSearch,config.options.chkRegExpSearch);}else{story.search(txt.value,config.options.chkCaseSensitiveSearch,config.options.chkRegExpSearch);}_c9=txt.value;};var _cd=function(e){_cb(searchInputField);return false;};var _cf=function(e){if(!e){var e=window.event;}switch(e.keyCode){case 13:_cb(this);break;case 27:if(isResultOpen()){closeResult();}else{this.value="";clearMessage();}break;}if(String.fromCharCode(e.keyCode)==this.accessKey||e.altKey){reopenResultIfApplicable();}if(this.value.length<3&&_ca){clearTimeout(_ca);}if((this.value.length>2)&&(this.value!=_c9)){if(!config.options.chkUseYourSearch||config.options.chkSearchAsYouType){if(_ca){clearTimeout(_ca);}var txt=this;_ca=setTimeout(function(){_cb(txt);},500);}}if(this.value.length==0){closeResult();}};var _d3=function(e){this.select();reopenResultIfApplicable();};var btn=createTiddlyButton(_c6,this.label,this.prompt,_cd);var txt=createTiddlyElement(_c6,"input",null,null,null);if(_c8[0]){txt.value=_c8[0];}txt.onkeyup=_cf;txt.onfocus=_d3;txt.setAttribute("size",this.sizeTextbox);txt.setAttribute("accessKey",this.accessKey);txt.setAttribute("autocomplete","off");if(config.browser.isSafari){txt.setAttribute("type","search");txt.setAttribute("results","5");}else{txt.setAttribute("type","text");}searchInputField=txt;searchButton=btn;};var isResultOpen=function(){return resultElement!=null&&resultElement.parentNode==document.body;};var closeResult=function(){if(isResultOpen()){document.body.removeChild(resultElement);}};var openAllFoundTiddlers=function(){closeResult();if(lastResults){var _d7=[];for(var i=0;i<lastResults.length;i++){_d7.push(lastResults[i].title);}story.displayTiddlers(null,_d7);}};var refreshResult=function(){if(!resultElement||!searchInputField){return;}var _d9=store.getTiddlerText("YourSearchResultTemplate");if(!_d9){_d9="<b>Tiddler YourSearchResultTemplate not found</b>";}resultElement.innerHTML=_d9;firstIndexOnPage=Math.floor(firstIndexOnPage/getItemsPerPage())*getItemsPerPage();applyHtmlMacros(resultElement,null);refreshElements(resultElement,null);if(lastResults&&lastResults.length>0){var _da=store.getTiddlerText("YourSearchItemTemplate");if(!_da){alertAndThrow("YourSearchItemTemplate not found");}var _db=document.getElementById(yourSearchResultItemsID);if(!_db){_db=createTiddlyElement(resultElement,"div",yourSearchResultItemsID);}var _dc=Math.min(firstIndexOnPage+getItemsPerPage(),lastResults.length);indexInPage=-1;for(var i=firstIndexOnPage;i<_dc;i++){currentTiddler=lastResults[i];indexInPage++;indexInResult=i;var _de=createTiddlyElement(_db,"div",null,"yourSearchItem");_de.innerHTML=_da;applyHtmlMacros(_de,null);refreshElements(_de,null);}}currentTiddler=null;ensureResultIsDisplayedNicely();};var ensureResultIsDisplayedNicely=function(){adjustResultPositionAndSize();scrollVisible();};var scrollVisible=function(){if(resultElement){window.scrollTo(0,ensureVisible(resultElement));}if(searchInputField){window.scrollTo(0,ensureVisible(searchInputField));}};var adjustResultPositionAndSize=function(){if(!searchInputField){return;}var _df=searchInputField;var _e0=findPosX(_df);var _e1=findPosY(_df);var _e2=_df.offsetHeight;var _e3=_e0;var _e4=_e1+_e2;var _e5=findWindowWidth();if(_e5<resultElement.offsetWidth){resultElement.style.width=(_e5-100)+"px";_e5=findWindowWidth();}var _e6=resultElement.offsetWidth;if(_e3+_e6>_e5){_e3=_e5-_e6-30;}if(_e3<0){_e3=0;}resultElement.style.left=_e3+"px";resultElement.style.top=_e4+"px";resultElement.style.display="block";};var showResult=function(){if(!resultElement){resultElement=createTiddlyElement(document.body,"div",yourSearchResultID,"yourSearchResult");}else{if(resultElement.parentNode!=document.body){document.body.appendChild(resultElement);}}refreshResult();};var reopenResultIfApplicable=function(){if(searchInputField==null||!config.options.chkUseYourSearch){return;}if((searchInputField.value==lastSearchText)&&lastSearchText&&!isResultOpen()){if(resultElement&&(resultElement.parentNode!=document.body)){document.body.appendChild(resultElement);ensureResultIsDisplayedNicely();}else{showResult();}}};var setFirstIndexOnPage=function(_e7){if(!lastResults||lastResults.length==0){return;}firstIndexOnPage=Math.min(Math.max(0,_e7),lastResults.length-1);refreshResult();};var onDocumentClick=function(e){if(e.target==searchInputField){return;}if(e.target==searchButton){return;}if(resultElement&&isDescendantOrSelf(resultElement,e.target)){return;}closeResult();};var onDocumentKeyup=function(e){if(e.keyCode==27){closeResult();}};addEvent(document,"click",onDocumentClick);addEvent(document,"keyup",onDocumentKeyup);config.macros.yourSearch={label:"yourSearch",prompt:"Gives access to the current/last YourSearch result",funcs:{},tests:{"true":function(){return true;},"false":function(){return false;},"found":function(){return lastResults&&lastResults.length>0;},"previewText":function(){return config.options.chkPreviewText;}}};config.macros.yourSearch.handler=function(_ea,_eb,_ec,_ed,_ee,_ef){if(_ec.length==0){return;}var _f0=_ec[0];var _f1=config.macros.yourSearch.funcs[_f0];if(_f1){_f1(_ea,_eb,_ec,_ed,_ee,_ef);}};config.macros.yourSearch.funcs.itemRange=function(_f2){if(lastResults){var _f3=Math.min(firstIndexOnPage+getItemsPerPage(),lastResults.length);var s="%0 - %1".format([firstIndexOnPage+1,_f3]);createTiddlyText(_f2,s);}};config.macros.yourSearch.funcs.count=function(_f5){if(lastSearchText){createTiddlyText(_f5,lastResults.length.toString());}};config.macros.yourSearch.funcs.query=function(_f6){if(lastResults){createTiddlyText(_f6,lastSearchText);}};config.macros.yourSearch.funcs.version=function(_f7){var t="YourSearch %0.%1.%2".format([version.extensions.YourSearchPlugin.major,version.extensions.YourSearchPlugin.minor,version.extensions.YourSearchPlugin.revision]);var e=createTiddlyElement(_f7,"a");e.setAttribute("href","http://tiddlywiki.abego-software.de/#YourSearchPlugin");e.innerHTML="<font color=\s"black\s" face=\s"Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\s">"+t+"<font>";};config.macros.yourSearch.funcs.copyright=function(_fa){var e=createTiddlyElement(_fa,"a");e.setAttribute("href","http://tiddlywiki.abego-software.de");e.innerHTML="<font color=\s"black\s" face=\s"Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\s">&copy; 2005-2006 <b><font color=\s"red\s">abego</font></b> Software<font>";};config.macros.yourSearch.funcs.linkButton=function(_fc,_fd,_fe,_ff,_100,_101){if(_fe<2){return;}var _102=_fe[1];var text=_fe<3?_102:_fe[2];var _104=_fe<4?text:_fe[3];var _105=_fe<5?null:_fe[4];var btn=createTiddlyButton(_fc,text,_104,closeResultAndDisplayTiddler,null,null,_105);btn.setAttribute("tiddlyLink",_102);};config.macros.yourSearch.funcs.closeButton=function(_107,_108,_109,_10a,_10b,_10c){var _10d=createTiddlyButton(_107,"close","Close the Search Results (Shortcut: ESC)",closeResult);};config.macros.yourSearch.funcs.openAllButton=function(_10e,_10f,_110,_111,_112,_113){if(!lastResults){return;}var n=lastResults.length;if(n==0){return;}var _115=n==1?"open tiddler":"open all %0 tiddlers".format([n]);var _116=createTiddlyButton(_10e,_115,"Open all found tiddlers (Shortcut: Alt-O)",openAllFoundTiddlers);_116.setAttribute("accessKey","O");};var onNaviButtonClick=function(e){if(!e){var e=window.event;}var _119=getIntAttribute(this,"page");setFirstIndexOnPage(_119*getItemsPerPage(),0);};config.macros.yourSearch.funcs.naviBar=function(_11a,_11b,_11c,_11d,_11e,_11f){if(!lastResults||lastResults.length==0){return;}var _120;var _121=Math.floor(firstIndexOnPage/getItemsPerPage());var _122=Math.floor((lastResults.length-1)/getItemsPerPage());if(_121>0){_120=createTiddlyButton(_11a,"Previous","Go to previous page (Shortcut: Alt-'<')",onNaviButtonClick,"prev");_120.setAttribute("page",(_121-1).toString());_120.setAttribute("accessKey","<");}for(var i=-maxPagesInNaviBar;i<maxPagesInNaviBar;i++){var _124=_121+i;if(_124<0){continue;}if(_124>_122){break;}var _125=(i+_121+1).toString();var _126=_124==_121?"currentPage":"otherPage";_120=createTiddlyButton(_11a,_125,"Go to page %0".format([_125]),onNaviButtonClick,_126);_120.setAttribute("page",(_124).toString());}if(_121<_122){_120=createTiddlyButton(_11a,"Next","Go to next page (Shortcut: Alt-'>')",onNaviButtonClick,"next");_120.setAttribute("page",(_121+1).toString());_120.setAttribute("accessKey",">");}};config.macros.yourSearch.funcs["if"]=function(_127,_128,_129,_12a,_12b,_12c){if(_129.length<2){return;}var _12d=_129[1];var _12e=(_12d=="not");if(_12e){if(_129.length<3){return;}_12d=_129[2];}var test=config.macros.yourSearch.tests[_12d];var _130=false;try{if(test){_130=test(_127,_128,_129,_12a,_12b,_12c)!=_12e;}else{_130=(!eval(_12d))==_12e;}}catch(ex){}if(!_130){_127.style.display="none";}};var createOptionWithRefresh=function(_131,_132,_133,_134){invokeMacro(_131,"option",_132,_133,_134);var elem=_131.lastChild;var _136=elem.onclick;elem.onclick=function(e){var _138=_136.apply(this,arguments);refreshResult();return _138;};return elem;};config.macros.yourSearch.funcs.chkPreviewText=function(_139,_13a,_13b,_13c,_13d,_13e){var _13f=_13b.slice(1).join(" ");var elem=createOptionWithRefresh(_139,"chkPreviewText",_13c,_13e);elem.setAttribute("accessKey","P");elem.title="Show text preview of found tiddlers (Shortcut: Alt-P)";return elem;};config.macros.foundTiddler={label:"foundTiddler",prompt:"Provides information on the tiddler currently processed on the YourSearch result page",funcs:{}};config.macros.foundTiddler.handler=function(_141,_142,_143,_144,_145,_146){if(!currentTiddler){return;}var name=_143[0];var func=config.macros.foundTiddler.funcs[name];if(func){func(_141,_142,_143,_144,_145,_146);}};var closeResultAndDisplayTiddler=function(e){closeResult();var _14a=this.getAttribute("tiddlyLink");if(_14a){var _14b=this.getAttribute("withHilite");var _14c=highlightHack;if(_14b&&_14b=="true"&&lastQuery){highlightHack=lastQuery.getMarkRegExp();}story.displayTiddler(this,_14a);highlightHack=_14c;}return (false);};var getShortCutNumber=function(){if(!currentTiddler){return -1;}if(indexInPage>=0&&indexInPage<=9){return indexInPage<9?(indexInPage+1):0;}else{return -1;}};config.macros.foundTiddler.funcs.title=function(_14d,_14e,_14f,_150,_151,_152){if(!currentTiddler){return;}var _153=getShortCutNumber();var _154=_153>=0?"Open tiddler (Shortcut: Alt-%0)".format([_153.toString()]):"Open tiddler";var btn=createTiddlyButton(_14d,null,_154,closeResultAndDisplayTiddler,null);btn.setAttribute("tiddlyLink",currentTiddler.title);btn.setAttribute("withHilite","true");createLimitedTextWithMarks(btn,currentTiddler.title,maxCharsInTitle);if(_153>=0){btn.setAttribute("accessKey",_153.toString());}};config.macros.foundTiddler.funcs.tags=function(_156,_157,_158,_159,_15a,_15b){if(!currentTiddler){return;}createLimitedTextWithMarks(_156,currentTiddler.getTags(),maxCharsInTags);};config.macros.foundTiddler.funcs.text=function(_15c,_15d,_15e,_15f,_160,_161){if(!currentTiddler){return;}createLimitedTextWithMarks(_15c,removeTextDecoration(currentTiddler.text),maxCharsInText);};config.macros.foundTiddler.funcs.number=function(_162,_163,_164,_165,_166,_167){var _168=getShortCutNumber();if(_168>=0){var text="%0)".format([_168.toString()]);createTiddlyElement(_162,"span",null,"shortcutNumber",text);}};function scrollToAnchor(name){return false;}if(config.options.chkUseYourSearch==undefined){config.options.chkUseYourSearch=true;}if(config.options.chkPreviewText==undefined){config.options.chkPreviewText=true;}if(config.options.chkSearchAsYouType==undefined){config.options.chkSearchAsYouType=true;}if(config.options.chkSearchInTitle==undefined){config.options.chkSearchInTitle=true;}if(config.options.chkSearchInText==undefined){config.options.chkSearchInText=true;}if(config.options.chkSearchInTags==undefined){config.options.chkSearchInTags=true;}if(config.options.txtItemsPerPage==undefined){config.options.txtItemsPerPage=itemsPerPageDefault;}if(config.options.txtItemsPerPageWithPreview==undefined){config.options.txtItemsPerPageWithPreview=itemsPerPageWithPreviewDefault;}config.shadowTiddlers.AdvancedOptions+="\sn<<option chkUseYourSearch>> Use 'Your Search' //([[more options|YourSearch Options]])//";config.shadowTiddlers["YourSearch Introduction"]="!About YourSearch\sn"+"\sn"+"YourSearch gives you a bunch of new features to simplify and speed up your daily searches in TiddlyWiki. It seamlessly integrates into the standard TiddlyWiki search: just start typing into the 'search' field and explore!\sn"+"\sn"+"''May the '~Alt-F' be with you.''\sn"+"\sn"+"\sn"+"!Features\sn"+"* YourSearch searches for tiddlers that match your query ''as you type'' into the 'search' field. It presents a list of the ''\s"Top Ten\s"'' tiddlers in a ''popup-like window'': the ''[[YourSearch Result]]''. The tiddlers currently displayed in your TiddlyWiki are not affected.\sn"+"* Using ''~TiddlerRank technology'' the [[YourSearch Result]] lists the ''most interesting tiddlers first''.\sn"+"* Through ''Filtered Search'' and ''Boolean Search'' you can easily refining your search, like excluding words or searching for multiple words. This way less tiddlers are displayed in the [[YourSearch Result]] and you can faster scan the result for the tiddler you are looking for.\sn"+"* The [[YourSearch Result]] lists the found tiddlers ''page-wise'', e.g. 10 per page. Use the ''Result Page Navigation Bar'' to navigate between pages if the result does not fit on one page.\sn"+"* The [[YourSearch Result]] states the ''total number of found tiddlers''. This way you can quickly decide if you want to browse the result list or if you want to refine your search first to shorten the result list.\sn"+"* Beside the ''title of the found tiddlers'' the [[YourSearch Result]] also ''displays tags'' and ''tiddler text previews''. The ''tiddler text preview'' is an extract of the tiddler's content, showing the most interesting parts related to your query (e.g. the texts around the words you are looking for).\sn"+"* The words you are looking for are hilited in the titles, tags and text previews of the [[YourSearch Result]].\sn"+"* If you are not interested in the tiddler text previews but prefer to get longer lists of tiddlers on one result page you may ''switch of the text preview''.\sn"+"* If the [[YourSearch Result]] contains the tiddler you are looking for you can just ''click its title to display'' it in your TiddlyWiki. Alternatively you may also ''open all found tiddlers'' at once. \sn"+"* Use [[YourSearch Options]] to customize YourSearch to your needs. E.g. depending on the size of your screen you may change the number of tiddlers displayed in the [[YourSearch Result]]. In the [[YourSearch Options]] and the AdvancedOptions you may also switch off YourSearch in case you temporarily want to use the standard search.\sn"+"* For the most frequently actions ''access keys'' are defined so you can perform your search without using the mouse.\sn"+"\sn";config.shadowTiddlers["YourSearch Help"]="<<tiddler [[YourSearch Introduction]]>>"+"\sn"+"!Filtered Search<html><a name='Filtered'/></html>\sn"+"Using the Filtered Search you can restrict your search to certain parts of a tiddler, e.g only search the tags or only the titles.\sn"+"|!What you want|!What you type|!Example|\sn"+"|Search ''titles only''|start word with ''!''|{{{!jonny}}}|\sn"+"|Search ''contents only''|start word with ''%''|{{{%football}}}|\sn"+"|Search ''tags only''|start word with ''#''|{{{#Plugin}}}|\sn"+"\sn"+"You may use more than one filter for a word. E.g. {{{!#Plugin}}} finds tiddlers containing \s"Plugin\s" either in the title or in the tags (but does not look for \s"Plugin\s" in the content).\sn"+"\sn"+"!Boolean Search<html><a name='Boolean'/></html>\sn"+"The Boolean Search is useful when searching for multiple words.\sn"+"|!What you want|!What you type|!Example|\sn"+"|''All words'' must exist|List of words|{{{jonny jeremy}}}|\sn"+"|''At least one word'' must exist|Separate words by ''or''|{{{jonny or jeremy}}}|\sn"+"|A word ''must not exist''|Start word with ''-''|{{{-jonny}}}|\sn"+"\sn"+"''Note:'' When you specify two words, separated with a space, YourSearch finds all tiddlers that contain both words, but not necessarily next to each other. If you want to find a sequence of word, e.g. '{{{John Brown}}}', you need to put the words into quotes. I.e. you type: {{{\s"john brown\s"}}}.\sn"+"\sn"+"!'Exact Word' Search<html><a name='Exact'/></html>\sn"+"By default a search result all matches that 'contain' the searched text. \sn"+" E.g. if you search for 'Task' you will get all tiddlers containing 'Task', but also 'CompletedTask', 'TaskForce' etc.\sn"+"\sn"+"If you only want to get the tiddlers that contain 'exactly the word' you need to prefix it with a '='. E.g. typing '=Task' will the tiddlers that contain the word 'Task', ignoring words that just contain 'Task' as a substring.\sn"+"\sn"+"!Combined Search<html><a name='Combined'/></html>\sn"+"You are free to combine the various search options. \sn"+"\sn"+"''Examples''\sn"+"|!What you type|!Result|\sn"+"|{{{!jonny !jeremy -%football}}}| all tiddlers with both {{{jonny}}} and {{{jeremy}}} in its titles, but no {{{football}}} in content.|\sn"+"|{{{#=Task}}}|All tiddlers tagged with 'Task' (the exact word). Tags named 'CompletedTask', 'TaskForce' etc. are not considered.|\sn"+"\sn"+"!~CaseSensitiveSearch and ~RegExpSearch<html><a name='Case'/></html>\sn"+"The standard search options ~CaseSensitiveSearch and ~RegExpSearch are fully supported by YourSearch. However when ''~RegExpSearch'' is on Filtered and Boolean Search are disabled.\sn"+"\sn"+"!Access Keys<html><a name='Access'/></html>\sn"+"You are encouraged to use the access keys (also called \s"shortcut\s" keys) for the most frequently used operations. For quick reference these shortcuts are also mentioned in the tooltip for the various buttons etc.\sn"+"\sn"+"|!Key|!Operation|\sn"+"|{{{Alt-F}}}|''The most important keystroke'': It moves the cursor to the search input field so you can directly start typing your query. Pressing {{{Alt-F}}} will also display the previous search result. This way you can quickly display multiple tiddlers using \s"Press {{{Alt-F}}}. Select tiddler.\s" sequences.|\sn"+"|{{{ESC}}}|Closes the [[YourSearch Result]]. When the [[YourSearch Result]] is already closed and the cursor is in the search input field the field's content is cleared so you start a new query.|\sn"+"|{{{Alt-1}}}, {{{Alt-2}}},... |Pressing these keys opens the first, second etc. tiddler from the result list.|\sn"+"|{{{Alt-O}}}|Opens all found tiddlers.|\sn"+"|{{{Alt-P}}}|Toggles the 'Preview Text' mode.|\sn"+"|{{{Alt-'<'}}}, {{{Alt-'>'}}}|Displays the previous or next page in the [[YourSearch Result]].|\sn"+"|{{{Return}}}|When you have turned off the 'as you type' search mode pressing the {{{Return}}} key actually starts the search (as does pressing the 'search' button).|\sn"+"\sn";config.shadowTiddlers["YourSearch Options"]="|>|!YourSearch Options|\sn"+"|>|<<option chkUseYourSearch>> Use 'Your Search'|\sn"+"|!|<<option chkPreviewText>> Show Text Preview|\sn"+"|!|<<option chkSearchAsYouType>> 'Search As You Type' Mode (No RETURN required to start search)|\sn"+"|!|Default Search Filter:<<option chkSearchInTitle>>Titles ('!') <<option chkSearchInText>>Texts ('%') <<option chkSearchInTags>>Tags ('#') <html><br><font size=\s"-2\s">The parts of a tiddlers that are searched when you don't explicitly specify a filter in the search text (using a '!', '%' or '#' prefix).</font></html>|\sn"+"|!|Number of items on search result page: <<option txtItemsPerPage>>|\sn"+"|!|Number of items on search result page with preview text: <<option txtItemsPerPageWithPreview>>|\sn";config.shadowTiddlers["YourSearchStyleSheet"]="/***\sn"+"!~YourSearchResult Stylesheet\sn"+"***/\sn"+"/*{{{*/\sn"+".yourSearchResult {\sn"+"\stposition: absolute;\sn"+"\stwidth: 800px;\sn"+"\sn"+"\stpadding: 0.2em;\sn"+"\stlist-style: none;\sn"+"\stmargin: 0;\sn"+"\sn"+"\stbackground: White;\sn"+"\stborder: 1px solid DarkGray;\sn"+"}\sn"+"\sn"+"/*}}}*/\sn"+"/***\sn"+"!!Summary Section\sn"+"***/\sn"+"/*{{{*/\sn"+".yourSearchResult .summary {\sn"+"\stborder-bottom-width: thin;\sn"+"\stborder-bottom-style: solid;\sn"+"\stborder-bottom-color: #999999;\sn"+"\stpadding-bottom: 4px;\sn"+"}\sn"+"\sn"+".yourSearchRange, .yourSearchCount, .yourSearchQuery {\sn"+"\stfont-weight: bold;\sn"+"}\sn"+"\sn"+".yourSearchResult .summary .button {\sn"+"\stfont-size: 10px;\sn"+"\sn"+"\stpadding-left: 0.3em;\sn"+"\stpadding-right: 0.3em;\sn"+"}\sn"+"\sn"+".yourSearchResult .summary .chkBoxLabel {\sn"+"\stfont-size: 10px;\sn"+"\sn"+"\stpadding-right: 0.3em;\sn"+"}\sn"+"\sn"+"/*}}}*/\sn"+"/***\sn"+"!!Items Area\sn"+"***/\sn"+"/*{{{*/\sn"+".yourSearchResult .marked {\sn"+"\stbackground: none;\sn"+"\stfont-weight: bold;\sn"+"}\sn"+"\sn"+".yourSearchItem {\sn"+"\stmargin-top: 2px;\sn"+"}\sn"+"\sn"+".yourSearchNumber {\sn"+"\stcolor: #808080;\sn"+"}\sn"+"\sn"+"\sn"+".yourSearchTags {\sn"+"\stcolor: #008000;\sn"+"}\sn"+"\sn"+".yourSearchText {\sn"+"\stcolor: #808080;\sn"+"\stmargin-bottom: 6px;\sn"+"}\sn"+"\sn"+"/*}}}*/\sn"+"/***\sn"+"!!Footer\sn"+"***/\sn"+"/*{{{*/\sn"+".yourSearchFooter {\sn"+"\stmargin-top: 8px;\sn"+"\stborder-top-width: thin;\sn"+"\stborder-top-style: solid;\sn"+"\stborder-top-color: #999999;\sn"+"}\sn"+"\sn"+".yourSearchFooter a:hover{\sn"+"\stbackground: none;\sn"+"\stcolor: none;\sn"+"}\sn"+"/*}}}*/\sn"+"/***\sn"+"!!Navigation Bar\sn"+"***/\sn"+"/*{{{*/\sn"+".yourSearchNaviBar a {\sn"+"\stfont-size: 16px;\sn"+"\stmargin-left: 4px;\sn"+"\stmargin-right: 4px;\sn"+"\stcolor: black;\sn"+"\sttext-decoration: underline;\sn"+"}\sn"+"\sn"+".yourSearchNaviBar a:hover {\sn"+"\stbackground-color: none;\sn"+"}\sn"+"\sn"+".yourSearchNaviBar .prev {\sn"+"\stfont-weight: bold;\sn"+"\stcolor: blue;\sn"+"}\sn"+"\sn"+".yourSearchNaviBar .currentPage {\sn"+"\stcolor: #FF0000;\sn"+"\stfont-weight: bold;\sn"+"\sttext-decoration: none;\sn"+"}\sn"+"\sn"+".yourSearchNaviBar .next {\sn"+"\stfont-weight: bold;\sn"+"\stcolor: blue;\sn"+"}\sn"+"/*}}}*/\sn";config.shadowTiddlers["YourSearchResultTemplate"]="<!--\sn"+"{{{\sn"+"-->\sn"+"<span macro=\s"yourSearch if found\s">\sn"+"<!-- The Summary Header ============================================ -->\sn"+"<table class=\s"summary\s" border=\s"0\s" width=\s"100%\s" cellspacing=\s"0\s" cellpadding=\s"0\s"><tbody>\sn"+" <tr>\sn"+"\st<td align=\s"left\s">\sn"+"\st\stYourSearch Result <span class=\s"yourSearchRange\s" macro=\s"yourSearch itemRange\s"></span>\sn"+"\st\st&nbsp;of&nbsp;<span class=\s"yourSearchCount\s" macro=\s"yourSearch count\s"></span>\sn"+"\st\stfor&nbsp;<span class=\s"yourSearchQuery\s" macro=\s"yourSearch query\s"></span>\sn"+"\st</td>\sn"+"\st<td class=\s"yourSearchButtons\s" align=\s"right\s">\sn"+"\st\st<span macro=\s"yourSearch chkPreviewText\s"></span><span class=\s"chkBoxLabel\s">preview text</span>\sn"+"\st\st<span macro=\s"yourSearch openAllButton\s"></span>\sn"+"\st\st<span macro=\s"yourSearch linkButton 'YourSearch Options' options 'Configure YourSearch'\s"></span>\sn"+"\st\st<span macro=\s"yourSearch linkButton 'YourSearch Help' help 'Get help how to use YourSearch'\s"></span>\sn"+"\st\st<span macro=\s"yourSearch closeButton\s"></span>\sn"+"\st</td>\sn"+" </tr>\sn"+"</tbody></table>\sn"+"\sn"+"<!-- The List of Found Tiddlers ============================================ -->\sn"+"<div id=\s"yourSearchResultItems\s" itemsPerPage=\s"25\s" itemsPerPageWithPreview=\s"10\s"></div>\sn"+"\sn"+"<!-- The Footer (with the Navigation) ============================================ -->\sn"+"<table class=\s"yourSearchFooter\s" border=\s"0\s" width=\s"100%\s" cellspacing=\s"0\s" cellpadding=\s"0\s"><tbody>\sn"+" <tr>\sn"+"\st<td align=\s"left\s">\sn"+"\st\stResult page: <span class=\s"yourSearchNaviBar\s" macro=\s"yourSearch naviBar\s"></span>\sn"+"\st</td>\sn"+"\st<td align=\s"right\s"><span macro=\s"yourSearch version\s"></span>, <span macro=\s"yourSearch copyright\s"></span>\sn"+"\st</td>\sn"+" </tr>\sn"+"</tbody></table>\sn"+"<!-- end of the 'tiddlers found' case =========================================== -->\sn"+"</span>\sn"+"\sn"+"\sn"+"<!-- The \s"No tiddlers found\s" case =========================================== -->\sn"+"<span macro=\s"yourSearch if not found\s">\sn"+"<table class=\s"summary\s" border=\s"0\s" width=\s"100%\s" cellspacing=\s"0\s" cellpadding=\s"0\s"><tbody>\sn"+" <tr>\sn"+"\st<td align=\s"left\s">\sn"+"\st\stYourSearch Result: No tiddlers found for <span class=\s"yourSearchQuery\s" macro=\s"yourSearch query\s"></span>.\sn"+"\st</td>\sn"+"\st<td class=\s"yourSearchButtons\s" align=\s"right\s">\sn"+"\st\st<span macro=\s"yourSearch linkButton 'YourSearch Options' options 'Configure YourSearch'\s"></span>\sn"+"\st\st<span macro=\s"yourSearch linkButton 'YourSearch Help' help 'Get help how to use YourSearch'\s"></span>\sn"+"\st\st<span macro=\s"yourSearch closeButton\s"></span>\sn"+"\st</td>\sn"+" </tr>\sn"+"</tbody></table>\sn"+"</span>\sn"+"\sn"+"\sn"+"<!--\sn"+"}}}\sn"+"-->\sn";config.shadowTiddlers["YourSearchItemTemplate"]="<!--\sn"+"{{{\sn"+"-->\sn"+"<span class='yourSearchNumber' macro='foundTiddler number'></span>\sn"+"<span class='yourSearchTitle' macro='foundTiddler title'/></span>&nbsp;-&nbsp;\sn"+"<span class='yourSearchTags' macro='foundTiddler tags'/></span>\sn"+"<span macro=\s"yourSearch if previewText\s"><div class='yourSearchText' macro='foundTiddler text'/></div></span>\sn"+"<!--\sn"+"}}}\sn"+"-->";config.shadowTiddlers["YourSearch"]="<<tiddler [[YourSearch Help]]>>";config.shadowTiddlers["YourSearch Result"]="The popup-like window displaying the result of a YourSearch query.";setStylesheet(store.getTiddlerText("YourSearchStyleSheet"),"yourSearch");var origMacros_search_handler=config.macros.search.handler;config.macros.search.handler=myMacroSearchHandler;var ownsOverwrittenFunctions=function(){var _16b=(config.macros.search.handler==myMacroSearchHandler);return _16b;};var checkForOtherHijacker=function(){if(!ownsOverwrittenFunctions()){alert("Message from YourSearchPlugin:\sn\sn\sn"+"Another plugin has disabled the 'Your Search' features.\sn\sn\sn"+"You may disable the other plugin or change the load order of \sn"+"the plugins (by changing the names of the tiddlers)\sn"+"to enable the 'Your Search' features.");}};setTimeout(checkForOtherHijacker,5000);abego.YourSearch.getStandardRankFunction=function(){return standardRankFunction;};abego.YourSearch.getRankFunction=function(){return abego.YourSearch.getStandardRankFunction();};abego.YourSearch.getCurrentTiddler=function(){return currentTiddler;};}\n/***\n%/\n!Licence and Copyright\nCopyright (c) abego Software ~GmbH, 2005-2006 ([[www.abego-software.de|http://www.abego-software.de]])\n\nRedistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification,\nare permitted provided that the following conditions are met:\n\nRedistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this\nlist of conditions and the following disclaimer.\n\nRedistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this\nlist of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other\nmaterials provided with the distribution.\n\nNeither the name of abego Software nor the names of its contributors may be\nused to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific\nprior written permission.\n\nTHIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY\nEXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES\nOF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT\nSHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT,\nINCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED\nTO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR\nBUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN\nCONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN\nANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH\nDAMAGE.\n***/\n\n

A device that is used to connect two or more computers together via a standard telephone line.

<<newDocument label:text filename snap>>\n<<newDocument label:new TW new.htm includeNew systemTiddlers systemConfig>>

//ToDo \n*rename this tiddler\n*figure how to sort months in calendar order - good suggestion was to use the Megabyte issue number\n*figure out the rules this macro uses - seem to be that the lower tiddlers have to be tagged with the name of the containing tiddler; ie Megabyte -> Year (tagged with Megabyte) -> Month (tagged with year) -> Article (tagged with month)\n*order articles correctly (non alphabetically) - may not matter.\n*break into maps by year? Or use popouts or openSliders\n\n//\n\n<<siteMap "2006" . popups>><<siteMap "Megabyte" . openSliders>><<siteMap "Megabyte">>

||<<tag "February 1998">>|<<tag "March 1998">>|<<tag "April 1998">>|\n|<<tag "May 1998">>|<<tag "June 1998">>|<<tag "July 1998">>|<<tag "August 1998">>|\n|<<tag "September 1998">>|<<tag "October 1998">>|<<tag "November 1998">>|<<tag "December 1998">>|\n

||<<tag "February 1999">>|<<tag "March 1999">>|<<tag "April 1999">>|\n|<<tag "May 1999">>|<<tag "June 1999">>|<<tag "July 1999">>|<<tag "August 1999">>|\n|<<tag "September 1999">>|<<tag "October 1999">>|<<tag "November 1999">>|<<tag "December 1999">>|\n

||<<tag "February 2000">>|<<tag "March 2000">>|<<tag "April 2000">>|\n|<<tag "May 2000">>|<<tag "June 2000">>|<<tag "July 2000">>|<<tag "August 2000">>|\n|<<tag "September 2000">>|<<tag "October 2000">>|<<tag "November 2000">>|<<tag "December 2000">>|\n

||<<tag "February 2003">>|<<tag "March 2003">>|<<tag "April 2003">>|\n|<<tag "May 2003">>|<<tag "June 2003">>|<<tag "July 2003">>|<<tag "August 2003">>|\n|<<tag "September 2003">>|<<tag "October 2003">>|<<tag "November 2003">>|<<tag "December 2003">>|\n

||<<tag "February 2005">>|<<tag "March 2005">>|<<tag "April 2005">>|\n|<<tag "May 2005">>|<<tag "June 2005">>|<<tag "July 2005">>|<<tag "August 2005">>|\n|<<tag "September 2005">>|<<tag "October 2005">>|<<tag "November 2005">>|<<tag "December 2005">>|\n

||<<tag "February 2006">>|<<tag "March 2006">>|<<tag "April 2006">>|\n|<<tag "May 2006">>|<<tag "June 2006">>|<<tag "July 2006">>|<<tag "August 2006">>|\n|<<tag "September 2006">>|<<tag "October 2006">>|<<tag "November 2006">>|<<tag "December 2006">>|\n

have I disabled WikiWords here

<<tiddlerList tags:"September 1991">>

//By David Risley of Hardware Central//\n\n//''This month's meeting: This is not about the latest software, but many members who won’t have “Partition Magic” will still have FDISK .... Come and hear what Hugh Roberton has to say about HDD partitioning at our meeting on 20 August ....''//\n\n '' Introduction''\n\n Partitioning is one of the necessary steps to prepare a drive for use. It is the process of defining certain areas of the hard disk for the operating system to use. A volume is a section of the drive with a letter, like C: or D:. All hard drives must be partitioned, even if they will have only one partition.\n \nA partition program writes a master partition boot sector to cylinder 0, head 0, sector 1. The data in this sector defines the start and end locations of each of the other partitions. It also indicates which of these partitions is active, or bootable, thus telling the computer where to look for the operating system.\n \nAll systems can handle 24 partitions, either spread out on the same drive or many drives. This means that one can have up to 24 different hard drives, according to DOS. DOS can't recognize more than 24 partitions, although some other operating systems may. The limiting factor is simply the availability of letters. All partitions must have a letter. There are 26 letters, A: and B: are reserved for floppy drives, leaving 24 letters available.\n\n Although there are third party partitioning programs that boast added capabilities, DOS FDISK is the accepted program for partitioning. FDISK sets up the partition in an optimum way and allows more than one OS to operate on one system.\n \n FDISK only shows two DOS partitions, the primary partition and the extended partition. The extended partition is divided into logical DOS volumes, each being a separate partition. The minimum partition size is one megabyte, due to the fact that FDISK in DOS 4.0 or later creates partitions based on numbers of MB. Partition size is usually limited to 2G. DOS versions earlier than 4.0 allow max partitions of 32 MB. Using the ~FAT32 system under DOS 7 and Windows 95 ~OSR2, max partition size is kicked up to 2 TB (2 TB = 2048 GB = 2,097,152 MB = 2,147,483,648 KB = 2,199,023,255,552 bytes).\n\n ''How to Partition''\n\n The first partition is your primary DOS partition. This is your C: drive and can't be divided. This is also called the active partition. You can only have one active partition.\n \nThe second partition is optional. It is called an extended partition. This is the space left over after the primary partition. Each extended partition must be labeled with a letter D: through Z:.\n \n To start this, type "fdisk" at the A: prompt. If this doesn't work, it is because your drive is not installed correctly.\n \n First, you have to setup a primary DOS partition. Choose Option 1 (Create DOS partition or Logical DOS drive). Choose Option 1 in the next menu. Now you can make your entire or only part of the C: drive the primary partition. Many people make the entire drive one partition just to stay simple. If you don't want to do so, specify the amount of drive space you want to partition in either megabytes or percentage of total drive. If you are using a percentage, be sure to follow the number by a "%" or the computer will think you're talking ~MBs.\n\n Next, you'll need to make this partition active. Return to the main FDISK menu and choose Option 2 (Set Active Partition). Follow the prompts.\n \nIf you're going to create an extended partition, choose Option 1 again, but this time choose Option 2 in the next menu (Create Extended DOS partition). Plug in the percentage of drive to partition for this one. Do not make this partition active. Only one can be active.\n \nAfter you create an extended partition, you will be given the Create Logical Drives option in the extended partition menu. Follow the on-screen instructions to assign drive letters to your partitions D: through Z:. Keep in mind that D: is often used for the ~CD-ROM.\n \nAfter all this is done, you can choose Option 4 (Display Partition Information) and check your work.\n\n ''Optional FDISK Functions''\n\n FDISK in DOS 5.0 or later is more powerful than most people know. There are several options available with the program that are undocumented in the DOS manuals. The bad news is that these commands are unavailable with Windows 95. Instead, you will have to purchase a third party program such as Norton Utilities.\n \n The most useful, in my opinion, is the "/MBR" parameter. This parameter tells FDISK to rewrite the Master Partition boot sector based on the partitions present on the drive without damaging the partitions on the drive. This is very useful when recovering from a virus that infects the boot sector of the drive. Use it by typing "FDISK /MBR" at the A: prompt.\n \n To back up the partition table onto a floppy diskette, type "MIRROR /PARTN". This uses the MIRROR program to copy the partition table into a file called PARTNSAV.FIL. This can then be stored on your system disk. To restore this partition info, type "UNFORMAT /PARTN".\n