Making Music CDs from LPs Preparations and Other Analog ... · three-plus pages were devoted to...

The RCSi Monitor / October 2002 1

Making Music CDs from LPsand Other Analog Devices

by Ruth LewartAmateur Computer Group of New Jersey

Cass* uncle was a classical composer ofnote. In 1974 he gave us an auto-graphed LP album featuring many of

his compositions. One of my goals in pur-chasing a CD-ReWriter last year was toconvert some irreplaceable LPs and 45 RPMrecords into a more convenient. more dura-ble medium. I read many articles on theInternet about copying already digitizedmusic files to CD, and copying one CD toanother, hut found few that even talkedabout — never mind telling you how to do itthe more complex conversion from an analog(continuous in time) source (radio, cassettetape. and LP) to the digital language of thePC.

When the widow of said uncle bemoanedthe fact that she didn*t have a CD version ofthe album, I decided it was time to bite thebullet. I knew that Easy CD Creator 4 De-luxe was capable of the conversion from ananalog source to digital CD, but you rarelyheard of anyone who has actually tried it. I*ddone some test recordings with that version,but was discouraged when the hisses, clicks,and pops on my test transferred perfectly toCD, in spite of the filters that were supposedto suppress them. Staples had a good dealrecently, so I splurged on the upgrade toEasy CD Creator 5 Platinum (EZ for short),which had all the modules I needed to do thejob. The upgrade was worth it because nowI had a real manual with sixteen chapters, auseful glossary, and an index. But onlythree-plus pages were devoted to using SpinDoctor, the module for recording from ananalog source!

PreparationsI*d already acquired a room-full of audio

cables at a flea market so that we couldconnect the turntable (or radio or cassettedeck) via the stereo system in the livingroom to the line in (usually blue) plug of thecomputer*s sound card — the computer satin another room. I didn*t relish the prospectof moving either the stereo or the computersystem, so connected several cables in tan-dem. For goodresults, youwant (1) an ana-log source (LPhere) attachedto a stereo re-ceiver that hasan audio outputjack; (2) a qual-ity 16-bit stereosound card; and(3) a computerwith 64 MBRAM and plenty of hard disk space to holdthose .wav files. You also want to make surethat the line input is enabled during record-ing. On my audio system, I discovered a got-cha if the microphone/headphone input isenabled, then the line input is not. You alsoneed to set your audio for maximum quality(44 MI-Iz, 16-bit stereo is CD quality), oryou*ll get the inferior sound quality that*stypical of laptop speakers.Ready, Set, Go

Now came the hard part — determiningby trial and error the right volume at whichto record. Note that the stereo, sound cardand recording software all have volumecontrols. If you set the volume too low, you*llhear noise when you try later to amplify thesound. If it*s high enough that the softwarebar chart displays in the red area, you*ll

The RCSi Monitor / October 20022

experience distortion. So you preview thesound until you*re satisfied. Of course, if youwant to be certain that your volume settingis optimum over tile entire range of therecording, you may have to listen for 45minutes or longer, and then repeat themonitoring at a different setting. Or, youcould use the normalizer to record all tracksat equal volume. Now I know why you seeaudio engineers sitting at the controls intheaters — they*re constantly adjustingamplitude and equalization!

I started recording to my hard drive,rather than directly to the CD, for reasonsexplained below. I then signaled my accom-plice, who was stationed at the turntable, toput the needle down, and we were off. Thespeakers attached to the sound card allowedme to monitor the recording progress. Nextproblem — most LPs are scratchy, and whileyour ear may have tuned out the hisses andpops, your extraction and recording equip-ment hasn*t. So you can use the snap,crackle, and pop inhibitor that is part of thesoftware, or you use a record that doesn*thave any defects — fortunately we had anunopened album as well as the one we hadplayed. The only clicks were at the very end,after the record had finished playing, whichyour audio engineer didn*t catch because shewas otherwise distracted.

The manual tells you it*s a good Idea torecord to your hard drive first, rather thandirectly to the CD. The advantages are thatyou can listen to your preview before burn-ing an unintentional coaster, you can workon the hisses and pops offline, and you canadd effects to your heart*s content using theSound Editor Only when you are satisfied doyou commit to CD. My CD-Rewriter, as it*slast year*s model, doesn*t do more than 8x(this translates to a write speed of 1200

KB/second), so I used CD-Rs (not CD-RWs)that were certified for at least 8x. Youshould be able to record a track at a time,with a 2-second (your choice) gap betweentracks. But though I had carefully chosenmy options, I ended up with only one trackper side. The original digital extraction,using SoundStream, resulted in .wav filesand took about 43 minutes. Recording to CD, which resulted in two audio tracks, tookabout the same time. I could have convertedto mp3 or wma. files if I had wanted com-pression, but I just wanted to be able to playthe CD from any stereo system, even aportable one, without any loss in quality. Allthat was left was to make a CD label. Forthis I used my Neato applicator and softwareand an image I had scanned from the origi-nal album for my theme. EZ includes a labelcreator, but Neato*s is more flexible.

I shipped the finished CD off to Califor-nia. Cass* aunt was excited when the sur-prise arrived — and immediately asked for25 additional copies!Euphoria

I was just astounded by the results — notonly did this amateur succeed in getting ahigh-quality recording, but I was able to usethe sound editing software to get rid of thenoise introduced by the needle when itlanded on the platter at the beginning of thesession, and the clicks after the recordinghad finished. Flushed with this success, Ifigured out how to add a leader and a trailer,and decided to experiment with fade-in andfade-out. I haven*t exercised the graphicequalizer yet — have to leave something forthe next time! I couldn*t believe that all ofthis was possible with non-commercial hard-ware and software, an inexpensive soundcard in my computer, flea market cables, and

The RCSi Monitor / October 2002 3 The RCSi Monitor / October 20024

our home stereo system, in my own littlemakeshift recording studio!Computer Law:

Did He ReallySay That?

by Bill WoodAlamoPC Organization, Inc.

Sometimes I read something that I justdon’t believe. That happened to merecently when I read an article in the

July 1, 2002 issue of eWeek magazine. Itreported that a member of Congress, Rep.Howard Berman, had delivered a speech inwhich he said, “Peer-to-peer networks arehotbeds of copyright piracy and that legisla-tion is needed to help artists and companiesprotect themselves.” It went on to report thathe intended to introduce legislation thatwould allow copyright holds to use self-helpremedies to protect themselves. Specifically,it mentioned: file blocking, spoofs, decoysand interdiction as possible techniques thatwould be allowed.

In other words, they would search otherpeople’s computers without a search warrantlooking for files that allegedly infringe oncopyrights despite the fact that some of thoseactivities may be illegal under current fed-eral law. Further, they would be free to take“self-help” action to stop the sharing ofcopyright protected files without court actionor independent review.

A visit to the Congressman’s Websitecarried not only a copy of that speech to theComputer and Communications IndustryAssociation (Berman Announces Legislationto Foil Peer to Peer Piracy but a positionpaper in which he has these observations:

“One approach for dealing with P2Ppiracy that has not been adequately exploredis whether it could be addressed, at least

partially, through technological self-helpmeasures. Copyright owners could employ a variety oftechnological tools to prevent the distribu-tion of copyrighted works over a P2P net-work. Interdiction, decoy, redirection, fileblocking, and spoofing technologies can helpprevent unauthorized P2P distribution.

“The day for cleaning up P2P networksthrough court action may now be past . . . Itmay be that truly decentralized P2P systemscannot be shut down, either by a court ortechnologically, unless the client P2P soft-ware is removed from each and every filetrader’s computer.

“Congress should free copyright creatorsand owners to develop and deploy technolog-ical tools for addressing P2P piracy. Wecould do this by creating a safe harbor fromliability for copyright owners that use tech-nological means to prevent the unauthorizeddistribution of their copyrighted works viaP2P networks.”

It appears that he did say what eWeekhad reported and more. He went so far as tosay that some federal laws, such as theComputer Fraud and Abuse Act, currentlymake the activities he proposed illegal. Hissolution? The copyright holders would enjoyan exemption to authorize them to seek outand destroy the offending files trading.

What is P2P or peer to peer? In generalterms, a P2P system enables multiple com-puters to share certain files. The owners ofthe computers must set up a system toidentify which files are available. There is nocentral repository for the files, and eachcomputer as a peer of every other computerin the system makes some of its files avail-able to other users. As pointed out by theCongressman, P2P systems do allow com-puter owners to use the Internet to share


music files and other protected contentwithout paying royalties. What he doesn’taddress are the many valuable uses for P2Pnetworks, and I’m concerned that his ap-proach will generate unintended conse-quences to those legitimate uses.

He does have at least one valid point.Theft is theft and theft is wrong. I agree thatcopyright infringement can be theft. How-ever, some uses of copyright protected mate-rial without permission from the owner isperfectly legal. Education, research andcriticisms are examples of “fair use” excep-tions to the general copyright protection.

It is just as true that trespass is trespass.(Yes, I know that trespass is commonly anentry upon another’s real property, but thereis no legal reason why entry into one’s com-puter without permission wouldn’t also be atrespass. The USA Patriot Act was passed byCongress in response to the terrorist attackson the United States and it actually has adefinition of a “Computer Trespasser” thatseems to protect any computer used in inter-state commerce. What computer hooked tothe Internet isn’t used in Interstate Com-merce?) There is a process under law fordealing with theft. If you think someone hasstolen your property you can either report itto police or sue in court. Even the policedon’t have the right to go into someone’shouse without permission to search for yourproperty unless they obtain a search war-rant.

For the Congressman to make the state-ment that litigation in the courts is no longera viable option for copyright owners is toomuch for me. Even under the recentlypassed Patriot Act the government mustmake a showing before a federal judge beforeit intercepts on-line traffic. Is the Congress-

man implying that any large copyrightholder should have more rights to snoopthrough your computer than the FBI hashunting for terrorists?

As we all know with technology, mistakeshappen. Software has bugs. Hardware fails.Congressman Berman, who incidentallyrepresents the Los Angeles area, did indicatethat there should be strong remedies forthose who are wrongly damaged, ... suchlegislation should ensure that a P2Pfile-trader who has been subjected to techno-logical self-help measures has effectiveremedies if he believes a copyright ownerhas acted improperly.

He points out that the copyright ownersshould not be allowed to damage someoneelse’s computer.

But, with no burden upon the copyrightowner to show an impartial judge that theintrusion is necessary, the only recoursewould be for the innocent party to sue the


copyright owner. If litigation is too burden-some for the owners, would it be any lessburdensome for a truly innocent partyseeking redress for the trespass?

Also, would the owners do the deedsthemselves or contract it out to investigationcompanies with no assets to satisfy a judg-ment? To be truly effective the full resourcesof the copyright owners must back the rem-edy for the innocent party.

The technology already exists to do it adifferent way. The Washington Post reportedthat the motion picture association hadcontracted with a company to search forillegal copies of motion pictures on the In-ternet. However the motion picture associa-tion program doesn’t include the self-helpprovisions proposed by Rep. Berman. Theirefforts rely upon traditional cease and desistletters and contacts with the ISP’s thatmaintain the servers. According to the Post,the MPAA sent out more than 50,000 letterslast year and expects to send out more thisyear. So long as they are searching publicdirectories and files and then taking the casethrough the established channels that pro-vide both sides a fair hearing, I have noproblem with it.

But, if Congress approves the Bermaninitiative, what lawyer would ever advise aclient to use P2P systems — even in situa-tions that have nothing to do with copyrightmaterial? If another entity has legal sanctionto enter, search and take self-help action justbecause the computers are part of a P2Psystem then it could never be used for sensi-tive information. In short, the client wouldbe setting its system up as a target for intru-sion by copyright owners searching for anillegal copy of some song.

In a perfect world, everyone would re-spect everyone else and their property.

When things don’t go perfectly, the courtsystem is still a better system for handlingallegations of copyright infringement thanthe proposed self-help system.

The DealsGuyby Bob Click

Greater Orlando Computer UsersGroup

Aladdin Update

Aladdin has released some updates anda special offer. They offer user groupsa discount as usual. You can check it

out on my Web site from my Announcementspage [http://www.dealsguy.com] or registerat [http://www.aladdinsys.com/support/usergroups/index.html] How About Secure E-mail For A ChangeI received this offer from Eric Leve atCenturiansoft. I realize that some folks don’tcare if somebody might read their e-mail, buthere is software to encrypt it at a good price,bundled with another great product. I’ll postthe information received from Centuriansofton my Web site’s announcement page[http://www.dealsguy.com] where you cansee their argument for encryption, full de-scriptions of the products in this deal, andtheir offer. Please read it all carefully.

Briefly, SoftClan “e-cryptor” allows theuser to create and send self-decryptinge-mails that do not require the recipient tohave any additional software to decode themessage. Once received, the recipient needsonly to expand or execute the attachment,click on the resulting envelope icon, andfinally, input the password to access theenclosed and formerly encoded information.

Also, for a limited time Centuriansoft willinclude a free copy of “Steganos 3 SecuritySuite” with your order. Steganos 3 SecuritySuite is a complete security solution for yourPC. Its features include seven great products


and I liked the looks of them all. MSRP forSoftClan “e-cryptor is $59.95, but DealsGuyreaders can get the entire package for just$39.96, shipping included. $7.00 shipping forCanadian customers. Call 1-202-293-1634, ore-mail [[email protected]] and men-tion promotion code 777 to order. Visit theirWeb site for information on their entire lineof products. [http://www.centuriansoft.com]More next month.

That’s it for this month. Meet me hereagain next month if your editor permits.This column is written to make user groupmembers aware of special offers I have foundor arranged, and my comments should notbe interpreted to encourage, or discourage,the purchase of products, no matter howenthused I might sound.

Bob (The Cheapskate) Click [[email protected]]. Visit my Web site at[http://www.dealsguy.com] for past columns.Also, I keep adding interesting articles (takenfrom user group newsletters) to my “Articles ofInterest” page for viewing or downloading.

Is Anything New in Technology?

by K. Joyce McDonaldAlamo PC Organization, Inc.

Everything that can be invented hasalready been invented. –Charles H. Duell,Director, U. S. Patent Office, 1899

Iremember reading this prediction in 1989and being incredulous that someone inMr. Duell’s position could be so

short-sighted. Why is it that today thisprediction doesn’t seem quite as ridiculous?Does my attitude simply reflect generaleconomic malaise, or is technological devel-opment actually at a standstill?

Where are the “killer apps” that promisedto make us richer, happier and more produc-tive? Two years ago, virtually every com-

pany was working with NASA-level secrecyon a piece of hardware or software thatwould change the world. Today we’re moreconcerned with staying in the black, keepingauditors under control and preventing ter-rorists from using our nifty inventionsagainst us.

Still I do miss the rush of excitement thataccompanies news of the next must-havegadget or application. Sadly, in the past fewmonths, the closest that I have come to thatkind of rush is when I saw the movie Minor-ity Report. And even their killer app of fiftyyears hence ends up flawed by fatal securitygaps.

Certainly, not a lot is new, but somerecent technological developments are worthmentioning. First, we can turn the tables onterrorists with a technology called datamining.

Credit card companies already use net-worked computer systems to follow card-holders as they rent cars, place long-distancecalls, and use automated teller machines.These systems scan massive amounts oftransaction data with data-mining softwarethat flags suspicious users and dispatchesreal-time alerts to clerks or security guardswhen a suspected crook surfaces.

The al Qaeda cell that attacked on Sept.11 threw off a string of red flags that likelywould have been detected by a system thatcombined FBI watch-lists with transactiondata-mining. Such a system would allowlaw-enforcement officials in a variety oflocales to share leads and working hypothe-ses, an invaluable tool in fighting terror.

For the home user, even less is new, andmost of it is from Microsoft. Their Tablet PCis only mildly interesting, since it appears tobe a rehash of some older ideas with only aslightly newer approach: you can either


write on the screen with a stylus or stand itup on a keyboard to transform it into note-book PC (Didn’t Apple call this a Newton?).It features handwriting recognition that isless than perfect, so don’t expect the ma-chine to translate your scribbles intoword-processor ready text. According to AlexLoeb, Microsoft VP in charge of Tablet PCdevelopment, many people prefer to keeptheir notes handwritten rather than convert-ing them to computer text. Microsoft issuedthe prototype for the Tablet PC two yearsago, with the “revolutionary” idea that nowbusiness people could take hand-writtennotes in a meeting. And to think that Ibegged, pleaded, cajoled a former employerfor a laptop to keep notes in meetings sincewriting my notes longhand was too slow andmade me miss too much of the meetingcontent.

If you want to take handwritten notes ina business meeting and store it on an elec-tronic device why pay $2000 bucks for thisfeature? The Palm M105 offers an onscreenhandwriting feature and it costs only $149.If you want to spend a couple hundred more,you can get the Palm M130 and have a crispcolor version. Either one saves your scribblesjust as they are (great for those who like tosketch).

Microsoft also recently introduced of theTV Photo Viewer. (You’d think that Micro-soft could afford to hire someone to come upwith jazzier names for its products.) Thisdevice allows you to view your digital pic-tures and slides on your TV set. About thesize of a thick paperback book, the vieweraccepts standard 1.44 megabyte floppy disksthat hold 20 to 40 pictures per disk (it recom-mends closer to 20, because they don’t haveto be quite as compressed and thus producehigher quality graphics). The viewer comes

with a remote that lets you flip through theelectronic photo album or slide show your-self, or you can set it to automatically show.

Because it uses standard floppy disks, youhave to put your pictures on the disk usingyour PC (assuming that you have a floppydrive on your computer — not all of us donowadays). Aside from the fact that I wouldlove to force my guests to view photos of mygrandchildren on our TV screen, this prod-uct caught my interest because I have boxesand boxes of floppy disks that I have no usefor, and I hate to throw anything away. Itwould be much easier, however, if the TVPhoto Viewer accepted CDs so its ownerdoesn’t have to get up and change disks asoften. CDs, because they do not incorporatemagnetic media, also have a longer shelf life.

Outside of Microsoft, is anyone creatinganything new? Yes, a few are, and we maywish that they weren’t. Some Internet siteshave come up with their own “killer app.” Ittakes over your browser by changing yourstart page, (the Web page that appears firstwhenever you launch Internet Explorer.)Certain sites install malicious code on yourPC, some of which overrides your own startpage selection. In some cases, this can beembarrassing, since this type of technologyis often employed by pornographic websites.

If this happens, all is not lost. You candownload a free program that is effective inblocking such sabotage. StartPage Guardkills malicious code and allows you to restoreyour favorite start page. It can also automat-ically check to make sure your choice isn’toverridden again. You can downloadStartPage Guard (search for “start page”). Itmight be prudent to install StartPage Guardbefore you taste any forbidden Internet fruit.

If you prefer another type of forbiddenfruit (and I do admit to a weakness for


Margaritas), one new dot-com may not bethe answer to Amazon, but its product iscertainly interesting. Check out Boat-Blender. It offers a bottle that fits on the endof your cordless drill allowing you to makethe perfect “drilled” Margaritas while youentertain on your boat. I wonder if anyonehas invented something that will allow me tomake a pina colada while water skiing.

Another frivolous invention has actuallybeen quite useful. You can log onto the Palmwebsite and download a freeware utility foryour color PDA called AK Mirror. This pro-gram is a first offering from Akeysoft and itdoes only two things: it turns your screen allblack or all white. In all black mode, you canuse your PDA as a mirror with good enoughclarity to check your teeth for a stray pieceof spinach, although it may not be much usewhen inserting your contact lenses. In allwhite mode, it becomes a flashlight. A singlepull-down menu item allows you to invertthe screen from one to the other. I havekeyed one of my Palm’s buttons to this pro-gram and keep the program itself on flash-light mode so that I can access the flashlightwith one touch even in total darkness. Theflashlight feature won’t put EverReady outof business, but it will help find your housekeys in a pinch.

While I’m enthralled with most newdevelopments for handheld computers, I stillreserve judgment for the Blackberry-stylekeyboards that appear to be replacing thefull-travel keyboards that you could get forthe last generation of PDAs. The blackberrytype keyboards (those that are only aboutthree inches across by two inches high andsport tiny keys that you operate with yourthumbs) are much less expensive than thefull-travel ones ($24 for one that attaches tothe Palm M130 compared to $129 for the full

travel model). However, aside from enteringan occasional address or short memo, I don’tknow how much use they would be for awriter and touch typist like me.

If you are working for a company that islooking for ways to squeeze production out ofevery salary nickel, you had better hope thatyour CFO isn’t aware that hardware makerIngersoll-Rand and software maker Kronoshave come up with a time clock that recog-nizes employees by scanning their hands. Ifyou work for the government, it’s already toolate. You’ll have to quit asking your officemate to clock you in when you’re caught intraffic or slept too late. (I’m sure that retinalscans will soon follow, and with it, new typesof criminal activity. The movie MinorityReport features an ophthalmologist-cum-backstreet butcher who will swap out youreyeballs for a hefty fee.)

And finally another good idea for thehome user. Some printers now work evenwhen not attached to a computer. If youwant to print pictures from your digitalcamera, Hewlett-Packard and Epson makephoto-oriented printers that can accept amemory card from a digital camera andmake prints from the stored data. In theabsence of a PC, you control these printersthrough a small built-in screen and printerbuttons. A few high-end models even have alittle color screen that shows you the picturebefore you print it.

Reprinted from the August 2002 issue of PCAlamode, newsletter of the Alamo PC Organiza-tion, Inc. Joyce is a senior technical writer for aSan Antonio software company. See her web pageat http://home.satx.rr.com/mcdonaldlotts/


Quick: Delete the jdbgmgr.exe File!!

by Gabe KingsleyPIBMUG’s San Francisco Special Correspondent

I’ve received a few of these dumb alertsover the past week. You haven’t receivedone? It’s an e-mail hoax pretending to be

a virus warning that tells people to deletetheir Java Debugger Manager file, calledjdbgmgr.exe.

What really ticks me off is the open list ofrecipients, often 30 to 50 of them, that be-come fodder for all sorts of junk through thesystems of others.

So I’m on a one-man crusade to get peopleto use Blind Ccs for all mail, unless there isa compelling reason (such as a work group,etc.) in which they need to know who elsereceived the message. Heck, I even send outtutorials for most e-mail programs to elimi-nate any excuses they may have.

Here’s what I tell people whenever theyforward me an ALERT!! ALERT!! About anyvirus:Hey, Klez?The most recent e-mail virus you’re askingabout is the Klez, and it has powers not seenin earlier types.

Klez can select an e-mail address at ran-dom from a CC list in a message on your orsomeone else’s computer and send itself tothe recipients of other messages. It’s notlimited to those addresses in your addressbook. In addition, it can “spoof” the returnaddress, so that even if you were not thesender of a message infected with the Klezvirus, your name and address may appear asthe originator.

This is bad stuff and we should expect araft of “me too” versions to come along!

Another, less harmful but no less irritat-ing offense is the warning running aroundthe world, advising you to delete a specificfile from your system because it contains avirus. This is a hoax! The file, jdbgmgr.exe,is one that Windows put there and enablescertain Java scripting capabilities. You needit!

You may receive either the Klez virus orthe relatively innocuous hoax warning de-scribed above because your name and ad-dress were in someone’s CC list. One of thegreatest potential dangers is in the e-mailsthat are forwarded, forwarded and for-warded again by unwitting people. I’m sureyou get them every day, and may even passthem along. The result is list after list ofavailable addresses the Klez virus can use tosend itself to people you don’t know, and forpeople you don’t know to send it to you,possibly giving the impression it came fromyou.

When you forward a message, COPYONLY THE TEXT into a new message andsend it to your friends. DO NOT just forwardthe existing message, complete with theprevious lists of recipients and their ad-dresses. If you want to forward a message,take care to manually remove the list ofprevious recipients to preserve their safety.It’s really easy.Learn and Use Blind CCWhen sending messages to a group of people,unless it is REQUIRED that each one seethe names of all others who received themessage, PLEASE USE A BLIND RECIPI-ENT list. I am not aware of an e-mail pro-gram that does not allow you to send mes-sages to a list of “blind” recipients, in whicheach person who receives the messages seesonly their own address, and not the entirelist of recipients.


If you have AOL, it is the easiest thing todo: Simply bracket all recipients in a pair ofparentheses (address1, address2) each sepa-rated by a comma.

If you use Microsoft Outlook or OutlookExpress, there is a special field for “Bcc”(Blind copies) just below the “To” and “Cc”rows. If you do not see it when you open theprogram, click on View and select “BccField.” Eudora and Netscape Navigator alsohave blind recipient capabilities.

Yahoo! And Hotmail users can find the“Bcc” field for entering addresses in theonline address header. The Juno mail soft-ware works very just like AOL, in that youcan enclose multiple addresses in parenthe-ses to make them blind, and as with AOL,they must be separated by a comma. Bydoing this each recipient will see only theirown address, and not anyone else’s, just aswith this message.

So far, because Mac’s represent such asmall percentage of the computers in use,the people who create the worms and virusesdo not make them work with Mac comput-ers. However, anyone using a Mac who doesnot hide the recipients of their e-mailsmakes their recipients vulnerable to thepossibility of being hit with a virus fromsomeone else on their CC list!

Anyone who wants to protect their pri-vacy and safety will appreciate your doingthis. Few things about e-mail bother memore than when something I sent gets for-warded to a large list of people I don’t know,and because my address is now in theirmessage base, I am then vulnerable to re-ceiving a virus or one of those hoax warningsfrom them ... or anyone to whom they for-ward that message.

Please try to use blind recipient lists. Itwill make us all safer from viruses, worms

and *hoaxes.f Copyright©2002 by GabeKingsley. Reproduced with permission. Articlereproduction coordinated by Steve Bass, Pasa-dena IBM Users Group. Gabe Kingsley is a SanFrancisco Bay Area based consultant and can bereached by e-mail: [email protected] only ifyou promise to blind copy him.

Media Notesby Bill Pettit

Southwest Virginia Computer Group

Could Hollywood hack your PC?

Congress is about to consider an enter-tainment industry proposal thatwould authorize copyright holders to

disable PCs used for illicit file trading. A draft bill published in July marks the

boldest political effort to date by recordlabels and movie studios to disrupt peer-to-peer networks that they view as an increas-ingly dire threat to their bottom line. Spon-sored by Reps. Howard Berman, D-Calif.,and Howard Coble, R-N.C., the measurewould permit copyright holders to performnearly unchecked electronic hacking if theyhave a “reasonable basis” to believe thatpiracy is taking place. Berman and Cobleplan to introduce the 10-page bill this week.

The legislation would immunize groupssuch as the Motion Picture Association ofAmerica and the Recording Industry Associ-ation of America from all state and federallaws if they disable, block or otherwiseimpair a “publicly accessible peer-to-peernetwork.”

Anyone whose computer was damaged inthe process must receive the permission ofthe U.S. attorney general before filing alawsuit, and a suit could be filed only if theactual monetary loss was more than $250.According to the draft, the attorney generalmust be given complete details about the“specific technologies the copyright holder


intends to use to impair” the normal opera-tion of the peer-to-peer network. Thosedetails would remain secret and would notbe divulged to the public.

The draft bill doesn’t specify what tech-niques, such as viruses, worms, denial-of-service attacks, or domain name hijacking,would be permissible. It does say that acopyright-hacker should not delete files, butit limits the right of anyone subject to anintrusion to sue if files are accidentallyerased.

Because Congress only has about fivework weeks left before it is scheduled toadjourn for the year, the outlook for thedraft bill is uncertain.

But because its sponsors include topRepublican and Democratic committee chair-men, it could receive a warm welcome in theHouse of Representatives at a hearing tenta-tively scheduled for this fall. Coble is thechairman of the House subcommittee onintellectual property, and Berman is the topDemocrat on the panel. Berman wrote in anopinion article last month that “currently,copyright owners are unable to use someuseful technological tools to deal with P2Ppiracy because they face potential, if unin-tended, liability under a variety of state andfederal laws.”

“It’s a good bill,” Gene Smith, a spokes-woman for Berman, said recently. “It’s al-ways hard to defend theft and piracy — thisbill just puts into the hands of the copyrightowners technologies that are already beingused by the pirates.” Smith said the purposeof the draft bill was to “fight fire with fire,fight technology with technology.” JessicaLitman, a professor at Wayne State Univer-sity who specializes in copyright law, saidthe draft bill improperly encourages “vigi-lante justice.”

“I think it’s wildly overreaching,” Litmansaid. “Copyright owners are in essence ask-ing Congress to say that peer-to-peer filetrading is such a scourge, is so bad, thatstopping it is more important than enforcingany other laws that federal or state govern-ments may have passed on computer secu-rity, privacy, fraud and so forth.” Litmansaid that even if a copyright holder acciden-tally deleted a home video titled “SnowWhite,” the owner of that PC could be out ofluck. “Unless I can show economic harm, Ican’t even be compensated,” Litman said.“Even if I want to be compensated, I have tojump through procedural hoops.”

The film and music industries already aredeveloping tools to use against rogue fileswapping, though they’ve remained mum onthe details. The RIAA says its members havethe right to use any “lawful and appropriateself-help measure.” Fritz Attaway, theMPAA’s senior vice president for govern-ment relations, endorsed Berman’s approachon Monday, stressing that law- abidingInternet users should not be concerned.

“No one in the motion picture industryhas any interest in invading your computeror doing anything malicious with your files,”Attaway said. “The idea is to make unautho-rized file sharing sufficiently inconvenient orat least unsuccessful.” The MPAA and RIAAdid not respond to requests for comment onTuesday. The Electronic Frontier Founda-tion condemned the draft bill as a sop toHollywood and the recording industry.Klez: The Virus That Won’t Die Already the most prolific virus ever, Klezcontinues to wreak havoc.

The Klez worm is approaching its seventhmonth of wriggling across the Web, makingit one of the most persistent viruses ever.And experts warn that it may be a harbinger


of new viruses that use a combination ofpernicious approaches to go from PC to PC.

Antivirus software makers Symantec andMcAfee both report more than 2000 newinfections daily, with no sign of letup atpress time. The British security firmMessageLabs estimates that 1 in every 300e-mail messages holds a variation of the Klezvirus, and says that Klez has already sur-passed last summer’s SirCam as the mostprolific virus ever. And some newer Klezvariants aren’t merely nuisances — they cancarry other viruses in them that corruptyour data. How It Works Klez is an example of a blended threat:software that distributes itself like a virusbut sometimes behaves like a worm and atother times like a Trojan horse. Klez usuallyarrives in the in-boxes of unsuspectingvictims as a file attachment. It uses varioussubject lines, including “Klez removal tool.”(For the real tool, visit http://www.pcworld

.com/downloads/file_description/0,fid,22260,00.asp) Some variants also drawsubject lines from random words in files ona victim’s hard drive. When the victim dou-ble-clicks the attachment, or even just pre-views the message, the fun begins for Klez.It pilfers addresses from the victim’s e-mailaddress books, and also searches the harddrive for addresses from the Web browsercache or temporary files.

What makes Klez particularly insidious isthat it draws both a new sender and a newrecipient from the infected party’s sources.This creates at least three victims: the per-son who first got the worm, the one who issent the worm, and the one whose addresswas taken from the original victim and isused as the new. Because the infectedsender’s address is not on the new e-mail,the worm is difficult to track. And blockingthe return address is ineffective, becausethat person didn’t send the worm. Worse, theinnocent sender may well be someone you

know, making youmore likely to openthe message, click onthe attachment, andperpetuate the virus.“These types ofsocial-engineeringtricks are extremelyeffective,” says virusresearcher SarahGordon. People don’twant to ignore afriend or colleague,she says. “They feelcompelled to look atan attachment —even though they’veheard the warning.”

In the months


since Klez was first identified, antivirusvendors have discovered seven versions ofthe virus. These strains share many behav-ioral traits but act slightly differently fromone another. For example, some later ver-sions can attack other systems over net-works by copying infected files to file serversand shared hard drives. One of the newestvariants, W32 .Klez.H@mm, contains an-other worm called ElKern that can damagean operating system beyond repair. In someinstances, users must reformat the entirehard drive and reinstall Windows to purgethe virus from a PC. (Note: I’ve had to repair3 different systems this summer that wereaffected by ElKern.) Can You Fight Back? With these types of blended threats, it’s notenough just to update your antivirus soft-ware’s data definitions regularly; you needcomprehensive security protection, includingboth privacy and intrusion protection, ac-cording to Vincent Weafer, senior director ofSymantec Security Response. Users who alsomake it a habit to install new securitypatches are better equipped to defend theirPCs against the kinds of worms that attackwell-known Windows weaknesses. But evenif you take all appropriate measures, otherswho have your e-mail address in their booksmay not. You won’t get the worm, but youwill still get neutralized and irritating notesin your in-box. There’s little you can do toprevent such e-mail from reaching you;however, your ISP may be able to help. SomeISPs use so-called antivirus appliances thatare capable of filtering millions of messagesand stopping infected ones from getting toyour in-box. But ultimately, each of us whouses a PC is responsible, in a small way, forpreserving our neighbors’ security — bykeeping our own PC clean.

Safety Tips Regularly update your antivirus software.Install the latest IE and Outlook/OutlookExpress security patches. (Check frequentlyat Windows Update www.microsoft.com/update.) Look for messages with attach-ments that range in size between 110KB and150KB. Watch for odd subject lines that areatypical of those you normally receive. Use aproduct such as SpamKiller to screen yourmail and make deleting suspicious noteseasier.

From the Sept. 2002 issue of The UmbrellaOnline.

Shareware & Freewareby Tim Hoke

Alamo PC Organization, Inc.

For those of you who like to watch mov-ies (and who doesn’t?) the wonderfulworld of computing has just made it

easier to do so. No longer do you have to goto the video store or even leave your com-puter station for that matter! Now, in thecomfort of your computer environment youcan be a couch potato while sitting in front ofyour computer monitor. That’s right, you canwatch movies from your computer. What’sthat you said? Something about this beingold news? Been doing that for a long time viayour DVD drive? I’m not talking about DVDdrives and disks. These movies come rightover the Internet into your computer withthe click of a mouse button. Perhaps you’vealready been watching movie clips; now youcan watch an entire movie! You can streammovies from a Web site or download them toyour hard drive.

Either way, you’ll need some specialviewing software. Would you pay $100 to forsoftware to watch movies on your computer?How about $50? OK, then, would you pay$25 for the sheer convenience of sitting back


and not lifting a finger to escape into yourfavorite film? Well, then, all you tightwads,how about getting the viewing software forfree? There are several viewers you candownload and use at absolutely no charge.That’s right, you heard it here!

By far the most popular software packagethat plays movies on the computer is DivXVideo Bundle 5.0.2. Formerly known as DivxPlayer and DivX Codec, this major update tothe popular video software introduces a newgeneration of DivX technology, and containsall the software you need to create andwatch videos in the popular DivX videoformat.

DivX 5.0 includes many new features,such as enhanced video quality, more effec-tive compression capabilities, and full sup-port for the MPEG-4 Advanced Simple Pro-file decoding method. Version 5.0 is alsooptimized for AMD Athlon and Athlon XPprocessors and supports the new MPEG-4based DivX file format. DivX Video Bundlealso includes the new DivX Player 2.0 alpha,which supports the MPEG-4 format andoffers a skinnable interface system. Version5.0.2 is a bug fix release that fixes issuesdiscovered in DivX 5.0.1. If you’d like anadvanced version of the same then also tryfor free DivX Pro. It is the most advancedversion of DivX software available and isdesigned for higher-end users. DivX Proincludes advanced video features that pro-duce the best quality video and smaller filesizes. This version of DivX Pro is completelyfree, but it includes ad-support softwarefrom GAIN. If you don’t want the irritationof the ads, then fork over $30. Downloadfrom http://www.divx.com/

Another piece of software that will enableyou to watch movies via your computer isQuick-VCD Player Version 3.0. It is an easy

media player, especially for playing VideoCDs. The Quick-VCD Player requires Win-dows Media Player 6 or above already in-stalled in the Windows. Auto detects themedia CD, and displays the available videofiles to play in the ‘PlayList’. Clicking on anynumber in the playlist will loads and playsthe corresponding media file. Tracker bar inall modes (Full Screen, Default .etc). Contextmenu support for advanced streaming set-tings, available in the Windows MediaPlayer. Feature List: Short cut keys for approx. allthe functions available in the menus. Up-dates to this version include: unlimited CDfiles/tracks list, Loop + CD Continous playfeature added, MPG/MPEG file support onfiles/track list buttons.

To run Quick-VCD Player Version 3.0 youwill need Windows Media Player 7.1, whichconsists of seven features in a single applica-tion: a CD player, an audio and video player,a media jukebox, a media guide, an Internetradio tuner, a portable device that you cantransfer music files, to an audio CD burner.

These software programs are combined

has a weekly listener call-in computertalk show featuring news, productreviews, helpful tips, and special guests.It’s broad-cast live on Monday eveningsfrom 6:30 to 7:30 with a taped replay onSaturday mornings from 8 to 9. It’ssimulcast live on the web at http://www.wysl1040.com


into one easy-to-use application designed tomake playing digital media a mainstreamexperience. An audio CD creator and aunified player are also included with theprogram. This program also allows you toplay streaming and downloadable digitalaudio, video, and other Internet content;play back CD and digital recordings; use thejukebox functionality to play or copy anentire CD to your PC in just a few minuteswith one click; and much more. WindowsMedia Player 7.0 incorporated new built-insupport for custom CD creation. It alsoincluded new skins, new visualizations, anda new Digital DJ skin that allows MediaPlayer to create playlists. Version 7.1 addsWMA8 (Windows Media Audio 8) encoding,Windows Media Audio and Video 8 decoding,new smart transcode support for high-qual-ity transfer to portable devices, and otherenhancements and bug fixes. Download fromhttp://www.zdnet.com/

A third software option for watchingmovies from your computer is I-Video CDPlayer 1.0. I-Video CD Player supportsVideoCD, MPEG, AVI, DAT, and MOV fileformats. You can view x1, x2, and full-screen size with I-Video CD Player. I-VideoCD Player can be used free, unless it’s forcommercial use, which is strictly prohibited.Distribution via CD-ROM or DVD is prohib-ited regardless of personal or commercialuse; however, if you would like to find outabout doing this, you can contact I-ON.Download from http://www.i-on.net/

From the July 2002 issue of PC Alamode,newsletter of the Alamo PC Organization,Inc. of San Antonio TX.

Archive Your WindowsUpdates

from the Macon Users Group (serving S.W.North Carolina and N.E. Georgia)

If after downloading and installing Win-dows updates through the default liveWindows update process it becomes

necessary to use a restore disk or formatyour hard drive and reinstall Windows-youwill lose all the Windows updates that youhad installed online and then have to down-load them all over again. If you have a dial-up connection, this can be a formidable task.

To download the updates, install themmanually, and save them for future installa-tions-use the following link instead:http://v4.windowsupdate.microsoft.com/en/default.asp?corporate=true

You must be logged in as administrator ifyou use Windows 2000 or XP. From here,you can specify a download directory on yourhard drive. Once downloaded, you can burnthem to a CD and save them for future use.

An XP AggravationAnn Harney in Umbrella Online

Stop Windows XP from asking if youwant to send a report to Microsoftwhenever a program crashes.

Whenever a program crashes, whetherit’s a Microsoft application, a component ofWindows, or a third-party application, awindow appears, prompting you to send a"report" to Microsoft. If you actually believethat Microsoft will use the data you sendthem to fix bugs in Windows, I have somebeach-front property in Nevada to sell you...Here's how to disable this feature, eithercompletely or selectively:

Open System in the Control Panel (orright-click on the My Computer icon andselect Properties.


Choose the Advanced tab, and click ErrorReporting. You can disable error reportingentirely here, or enable it selectively forcertain programs. Click Ok when you'redone. Chances are slim to none that I wishto bother MS with my computer problems!

Uses for old CDs?by Gordon Woolf

What do you do with that pile ofnow-useless CDs? One-off transfersof large

files that will neverbe needed again,last year’s editionsof anti-virus pro-grams and free tri-als of ISPs thatmerged or wentbelly-up.

There are also the many “frisbees” — theoutput of CD writers when you forget todisable the screen saver or defragmenter orthere was a hesitation in the power supply.

Increasingly too there will be the backupCDs made with low-grade dyes that fail aftera year or less.

Recyclers don’t want any of these plasticdiscs so they end in the wheelie bin on theirway to landfills. But why? There are uses forsome of them at least, as I found when Iasked some net-friends (people I’ve nevermet face-to-face, but who are everydaycontacts over the Internet).

A common suggestion is to use them ascoasters, but they have a problem in thatrole — the liquid stays on the surface andstill drips from the glass or stubby.

Carole Majors in the USA had an answerfor that: “I found a lovely recipe for crochet-ing CD covers that make them into realabsorbable coasters. I think it turned up oneday while I was ‘googling’ for some resource

on CD-R uses... <http://www .crochetmemo-ries.com/archive/misc4.html>

Marc Zeedar (who wrote a very differentkind of word processor, Z-Write, that iscurrently only for the Mac but which he’spromised to transport to Windows): “I’veheard they make beautiful mobiles — thelovely rainbow colors from the CDs lookpretty spinning around.”

Former Adobe magazine editor WendyKatz in Seattle tells: “My husband had anold microwave oven that he was intent ondestroying, and he used to put the trashedCDs in it and fire it up. Made a heckuvasound and light show, with an olfactorytrack to boot. One new microwave and twoimpressionable kids later, he’s kicked thehabit.” That’s one suggestion we don’t recom-mend.

Sue Mitchell in Fairbanks, Alaska, look-ing forward to a summer which we wouldregard as being too cold for winter, but who,unbelievably, has an ISP with the name“mosquitonet,” wrote: “I’ve seen people sell-ing clocks made from CDs with the handsinserted through the hole in the center.Either with painted faces or just plain asthey were manufactured.

To that, and closer to home, LoraineChapman, who seemingly commutes be-tween publication production work in Bris-bane and Thailand, added: “You have givenme an idea Sue. I am going to use one of my‘dead’ CDs as a backing for a cross stitchclock — been wondering what to use for a‘circle’! Perfect!!

Others suggested some commercial siteson the web where I found a desk organizer.The blurb states: “Made with three CDs, thisdesktop object d’art has a place for yourbusiness cards (or sheets of notepaper), ahandy clip to hold urgent notices, and a


spring funnel for your favorite pen. And, itbrightens up your desk with color and bits offancy.”

These seem highly priced at $30 in UScurrency, but they seem to be works of art:“Myra’s famous abstract designs are outputon a digital press, then laminated on to aused, discarded CD. Add some clever con-struction and glass beads... and voila! AllDis-Organizers have a cork, felt or foambottom so as not to mar your desk or slip.From friendly ceramic animals and minia-tures to floral landscapes and witty mechan-ical puns... Recycle with style!”

There’s more information and pictures at<http://www.nanosite.com/confab/dis-organizer.htm>

The same artist has also recreated fromtwo reject CDs a handbag based on thosebeaded bags of the early 20th century. Myradescribed them as a “homage to the past,using discards of the present...” She’s sellingthem for up to US$120!

If anyone has better ideas, let me know,either through PC-Update or direct [email protected]

Incidentally, the site with the crochet-CDcoasters also has a pattern for covers forusable CDs. Little woolly jackets for CDsseem a step up on the so-called jewel case.

Gordon Woolf has written a number of bookswhich include Publication Production using Page-Maker, and How to Start and Produce a Maga-zine. Contact details: [email protected] orhttp://www.worsleypress.com Copyright: GordonWoolf 2002.

What’s Your E-mail License Number?

Bass explores ways to send better e-mail, not waste your recipient’s time,

and make sure your mail’s readby Steve Bass

Pasadena IBM Users Group

Washington is considering legislationthat will force you to get a licensebefore you can send e-mail. No,

don’t worry, you’ll still be able to receive e-mail without any restrictions.

Sure I’m kidding. But it’s no joke: Peoplesend out lots of email, with much of it need-lessly long, valueless, bandwidth-hogging,inaccurate, and, of course, dumb. (Did I missanything? Right-e-mails full of fwd.: Fwd.:Fwd.: and >>.)

Over the years, I’ve collected e-mail tips:ways to help you create e-mail that not onlydoesn’t annoy others, but actually makesyour e-mail worth reading.Think in Paragraphs: You’d be surprised howmany e-mails have one, long paragraph.Oddly enough, you may be using paragraphsbut your e-mail program may be missing thehard carriage returns. Suggestion: sendyourself, or a buddy, an e-mail and see howit looks. If necessary, add two “returns”between paragraphs when creating the e-mail.Write Short: Keep your sentences short andlimit yourself to three short paragraphs. Gobeyond the Bass Intel. limit of, say, fourparagraphs, there’s a good chance it won’t beread.No Subject? Adios: Here’s my steadfastrule: If I don’t know you very well and yourmessage has a blank subject line, it goes into


Listen at 12:20 pm every Saturday on AM1180. Call 295-1180 to ask your question.

the trash. The reason is there’s a strongpossibility a virus or worm is attached.Use Smart Subjects: Say the right thing inthe subject line and your recipient gets fairwarning what to expect in the message.

For instance, even before I started usingYahoo groups, I started my message subjectwith “PIBMUG.” For one thing, it helps AOLand Hotmail users, the people who get tonsof spam, sort out real messages. (Othersthought PIBMUG messages were spam, butthat’s another story.)

More important, it makes applying rulesor filters to e-mail easy. For example, after aHome Office column hits the newsstand, Isometimes receive 100 messages a day.That’s in addition to the usual stuff from PRflacks and PIBMUG correspondence. So I’veencouraged everyone who sends me jokes tostart the subject line with “jokes” enablingme to separate them from business mes-sages.“Fwd. Fwd. Fwd.”: Of course if you get lots ofemail, your threshold for junk isn’t veryhigh and subjects can give strong clues forwhat to delete right off the bat. For instance,if I see more than two “Fwd.: Fwd.:” in thesubject, it’s immediately sent to the trash.Adios. That’s Not Funny: Make sure you at leastread the joke before sending it. That’s agreat technique for determining if it’s reallyfunny. No, really — people often send melame jokes that are excruciatingly bad. Keepa mental note of the type of joke you sendand match it up with their response (or non-response). You may notice you rarely hearback when you send a text joke but often getan “AOL” from a cartoon.

Want to see if people are reading yourmail? Flood them with lame jokes-I meanfifth generation forwards of ribald stories or

cartoons that weren’t funny when they firstran in Playboy 20 years ago. Then slip in alegit e-mail and see if you get a response.

And if you’re still going to send jokes,remove the millions of “>>>” brackets. Thedamn things make everything difficult toread.No Reply Needed: I send dozens of e-mailseach day with an explicit message that therecipient needn’t reply. That’s only politebecause in many times the e-mail’s just anFYI. So right above the message, I type,“This is just an FYI so no reply is necessaryor expected. –Steve.” Who Are You? Many users haven’t changedthe “Reply to” name in their e-mail program,and it drives me crazy trying to figure outwho’s writing. For instance, one person usesa period — that’s right, a dot — as his name.So when I look at the e-mail header, I have-n’t a clue (and still don’t) who he is. Anotherperson didn’t know what to use so she stuck“Netscape” into the field figuring, well, some-


thing needed to go there. Head for your e-mail program’s Options and poke arounduntil you find a spot that asks for a “Replywith” or “Real Name” and put in your name.Mail List NetiquetteMany of you subscribe to interactive maillists. I’m on many, and I moderate quite afew, including my broadband and CD-ROMYahoo groups. When you reply to a messageon this sort of list, it’s essentially the sameas sending e-mail, but with added restric-tions.

Here are a few list rules to consider ad-hering to and maybe applying to your e-mails.Don’t Waste Bandwidth: So many messages,so little time, right? Well, avoid responsesthat the entire list won’t find useful and feelobligated to at least glance at. So don’t replyto the entire list with “thanks,” “good idea,”or “I’ll try it!” Instead, reply to the sender.Look carefully and you’ll probably see thesender’s e-mail address near the top of themessage.Good one, Steve! In case you weren’t clearabout Wasting Bandwidth, consider this:When replying to messages, do it only whenyou have something substantive to say.Sorry, “Good one, Steve” does not qualify assubstantive. Snip, Snip: When replying, it takes a fewseconds to snip extraneous junk and leaveonly essential portions of the previous mes-sage. No matter what you do, get rid of thetag line-the info about subscribing and un-subscribing — from the previous message.Keep Snipping: Did I explain that it’s best toquote only those brief portions of the previ-ous message, and only items that are neces-sary to make your point? Good. I’m notkidding.

Avoid HTML: Stick with straight text whenreplying or sending messages on lists. Noteveryone’s e-mail program can read all yourfancy fonts and formatting.Keep Files to Yourself: Attachments areusually frowned upon on mail lists to avoidany chance of getting a virus.

Steve Bass is a Contributing Editor with PCWorld and runs the Pasadena IBM Users Group.He’s also a founding member of APCUG. CheckPCW’s current edition at www.pcworld.com/re-source/toc/index.asp and sign up for the SteveBass online newsletter at www.pcworld.com/bass_letter.Society News

President’s Columnby Ron Matteson

We have given our new location atBryant & Stratton a test run, andthe feedback that I get indicates

that the facilities are more than adequate.We are indebted to B&S for letting us usetheir facilities. Our next Program Meetingthere will be on October 8. In addition to ourmain speaker (to be announced) we will bebringing several boxes of books which havebeen donated to the RCSi. These books willbe free to members desiring them (donationto RCSi is welcome). A list of the books isincluded in this newsletter.

The usual SIG groups will be meeting-New Users on October 1, and Digital Photog-raphy and Scanners on October 3. I will begiving a talk on scanners at the latter meet-ing: techniques for different types of docu-ments, resolutions required for differentscanner applications, etc.

We still have lots of software and hard-ware we would like to turn into cash. Wemay do something like we are doing with thebooks- give it to members, and hope fordonations; or maybe raffle off some of the


better items. We’ll try to give you somedetails about the items we have by publish-ing lists in this newsletter. Our budget isstill on shaky grounds, but if we can figureout a way to reduce Monitor costs, we shouldbe able to avoid a dues increase.

Planning Meeting Minutes September 17, 2002

by Larilyn E. Bauer, Secretary

The Board of the Rochester ComputerSociety, Inc., met Tuesday, September17, 2002 at Sally Springett’s home, 335

Wilmot Road, at 7:00 p.m. In attendancewere Ron Matteson (President), Bob Avery(Webmaster), Stephen Staub (Treasurer),Charles Grover, Jim McGrath (SoftwareChair), Sally Springett (Monitor Editor),Warren Ganter, and Larilyn Bauer (Secre-tary).

Following the President’s agenda, webegan with old business we began with lastweek’s program meeting, in which Stevereported that Arpad Kovacs (Vice President)answered many of the questions presentedin Help’s Half Hour. Next program meetingat Bryant & Stratton on 10/8/02, Roomchange to #127. The folding machine insur-ance is a mute subject at the present timeuntil other avenues can be looked into. Theofficial change of address for RCSI mail cannow be presented to the U.S. Post Office.

Steve Staub reported the financial status:Bank balance $826.81, with 61 paid-upmembers. Book sale brought in $55.00 andwe made $64.06 from the picnic. Not manypeople attended. Next Market-Pro is Oct. 20,‘02. The remaining books for sale will betaken to the next Market-Pro, and Steve andArpad will be in attendance for our table.Any other volunteers welcomed.

Bob Avery (our new Webmaster) reportedhe is looking into comparing Dream Weaver

versus Front Page for the website. He needsto update all links to our website to be surethe new address is posted.

Arpad is evaluating some scanners forraffling at future program meetings. Decem-ber program meeting there will be a discus-sion about less expensive, high-speed, localISP providers. Some discussion evolvedwhether there might be any interest for aSIG for Linux Setup. We are hoping thatsomeone representing a SIG will give a shortpresentation at our program meeting shar-ing with other members and guests whatthey are discussing or working on. Eachmonth, SIG representation will rotate sothat all SIG’s have the opportunity to share.

From November 30 through December 17,WXXI will be having a telethon. We wouldlike to try to set up dates/times when some ofour members can man the phones for thisevent and we may be able to display one ofour banners showing our organization’sname. If you can volunteer any time at all,please call Steve Staub to sign up.

Empty deskjet cartridges are being col-lected by Ron Matteson for a fund-raiser forOpen Door Mission. This is one of our Com-munity Service activities.

There will be a meeting to discuss theMonitor printing, on Tuesday, Sept. 24, ‘02at 7:00 p.m. at Larilyn Bauer’s home. If youare interested in attending, please callLarilyn Bauer at 458-1820.

New Users QuestionsSept. 3, 2002

by John McMillan

ANorton’s user got a message “Cannotuninstall this file.” He tried severaltimes to uninstall and reinstall the

anti virus software but the message re-mained. It was suggested that he use theuninstall program supplied with the soft-


ware. If there was no uninstall programsupplied, he should use Add/Remove Pro-grams from the Control Panel. If the mes-sage persisted, the file could be removed byhand, but he was advised to leave it there,lest some other program also use the file.Further questioning indicated that he wastrying to eliminate E-mail files that mightnot have been stored on his computer andthus could not be deleted. He stated that theNorton’s status bar showed a red X for read-ing and writing E-mail, so it was thoughtthat he might need to download the latestupdates to Outlook Express. Bill Statt men-tioned that the Sound Bytes Forum recom-mends the site http://housecalls.antivirus.com/ that provides a free anti virus check online. Joe Pia’s article in the Sept. Monitordiscussed AVG 6.0, another free viruschecker.

Another user who composes music washaving problems with uneven timing. Fileswould change speed and when restartedwould play at different speeds or with mo-mentary stops. I have had similar problemswith video editing. The processor speedswere 400 and 1,000mhz with 196 and 1,280kb of ram respectively. One machine wasrunning Windows 98 and the other WindowsME. A possible cause might be swap file sizethat could be adjusted by going to set-tings>controlpanel>system>performance>virtualmemory and selecting let me specify my ownvirtual memory settings. The suggestedsetting of 3 times the actual memory sizeshould be used for both the minimum andmaximum.

A question was raised about modemsconnecting to an ISP where a choice can bemade between phone numbers identified asK56 or V90. K56 and V90 refer to communi-cation standards but transmission speed is

most likely to be affected by the connectionthat is made. Lucky users may connect atspeeds between 48 and 52 K but lower ratesare not uncommon.

Bill Statt used his laptop to demonstrate,Catchup, a software package that identifiesthe software on a machine and reports allprograms for which updates are available.Care should be taken since some of theupdates are Beta testing versions. Catchupprovides an easy method for downloadingupdates if you desire and lists latest prices ifthey are not free. Downloads.com, offerssoftware updates; finds security holes anddoes add aware detecting. It gives a descrip-tion of the programs functions, plus both asummary and detailed positive and negativeuser opinions. Tucows and ZDnet were citedas other sources of program updates anddownloads.

A user who was trying to resolve a prob-lem with McAfee was asked to submit aWinzip file with a password. He had PKZip,not Winzip and had no experience withpassword protection. Bill Statt pointed outthat McAfee Online users can use a closedchat environment where a tech rep will talkyou through a problem. There is also PDFfile that provides a users guide with muchmore information than is available on readme and other files.

Another user who runs the firewall ZoneAlarm, mentioned getting repeated interrup-tions as someone tried to break into hismachine and wondered what could be done.Gregg Sayre said he would need to get theperpetrators Internet Service Providersaddress and report it to the ISP. Zone Alarmis protecting against break ins but does notdo much to identify sources. The firewalldoes not stop E-mail so you should verifythat anti virus software checks incoming


mail. Any incoming attachments should bestored on disk and virus checked beforeopening.

Statt discussed some of the problemsusers have when trying to clean up the startup menu or prepare for installing softwarethat recommends shutting down all pro-grams except explorer and systray. He men-tioned an Internet site http://www.3feetunder.com/krick/startup/list.html thatidentifies many program abbreviations,names and suffixes and provides a briefdescription of the function and whether it isnecessary to have in the start up list. Whenasked if the list could be printed, windowtiling or the use of Alt + Tab were suggestedas ways of viewing this list in combinationwith the start up list.

People who want to clean up the systemtray should click start in the lower left cor-ner of their monitor; click on Run; typeMSConfig; and click ok; which opens thesystem configuration utility. Click the start-up tab which will show all of the programsin the start up list. The list from http://www.3feetunder.com/krick /startup/list.html willhelp identify programs that do not need tobe in the start up list or systray.

Treasurer’s Reportby Steve Staub

Balance as of 08/19/02 $816.45IncomeDues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $240.00Book Sales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34.00Total Income . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $274.00ExpensesPicnic Supplies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $48.03Lease . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86.72St. Stephens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100.00Total Expense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $234.75Balance as of 09/25/02 $855.70

The Lighter SideA few years ago, I was working as a Com-

puter Programmer for a school district inSouthern California. When we went out to bidon a new computer system, my boss (whosetitle was “Director of Information Systems”)came to me to ask about a line item in thequote she had received.

Her question? “What is an operating sys-tem and why do we need one?”

fThe Computer Museum in Boston is a very

cool place and should not be judged by thisanecdote. Their star attraction is a giantplywood model of a computer you can tour.The tour I took in 1995 was led by a younggentleman.

The guide failed to make a stellar impres-sion early in the tour (Did you know they’recalled microchips because they’re really,really small?), but I hung on bravely until heexplained what a floppy is. He pulled a 3 1/2"disk out of his pocket and said: “A lot of peo-ple don’t know why they call it a floppy be-cause, you see here“ (shakes disk) “it’s notfloppy. But you see that’s just the outside.”(Pries case apart, removes interior, shakes it.)“Inside, you see, it’s floppy. That’s why theycall it that. You need floppies because some-times the computer can have what's called afall-down. I dunno why they call it a fall-down, but that’s why you need the floppies orelse you lose the stuff in the computer.”

At this point I snuck off to explore on myown but I almost wish I’d stayed. Suppose hefinished by showing the giant plywood cupholder!

fWhen my son turned on his new com-

puter for the first time, the following mes-sage box appeared: “Press and release themonitor power button if it is not on or blink-ing already.”

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