PLEASE NOTE: In an attempt to make it a little harder for spammers to harvest e-mail addresses, most if not all, e-mail addresses listed in this electronic version of the newsletter have had the "@" symbol doubled. If you want to use any of these addresses, please remove the second "@" before sending. Vol. 20 number 1 January 2003 The newsletter of the Ottawa PC Users' Group Calendar OPCUG General Meeting National Museum of Science and Technology 1867 St. Laurent Blvd. Second Wednesday of each month, 7:30pm Jan 8, tentatively: "What's New at Intel" Ottawa Paradox Users Group Corel Bldg, 1600 Carling Ave. Third Thursday of each month 6:00-8:00 pm Internet SIG(I-SIG) Second Wednesday of each month, immediately following the OPCUG General Meeting at the Museum. Developers SIG Second Wednesday of each month, immediately following the OPCUG General Meeting at the Museum of Science and Technology, and occasionally at other locations in the region. Delphi User Group, 8:00 p.m. at Chapters Store in the Pinecrest Mall (at the Queensway) PIG SIG (or is it WING SIG?) After all the other SIGS. PIG SIG (i.e., Wing SIG) **** NEW LOCATION **** Good Times Cafe - 1125 Iris, corner of Baxter & Iris Please note that unless otherwise noted, SIGs meet at 9:00 p.m. (immediately following the OPCUG General Meeting). _________________________ Ottawa PC News Volume 20, Number 1 January 2003 FTP Server over a Dynamic IP by Jocelyn Doire Ever wanted to run an FTP server on your machine using a dynamic IP? Well, it can be done, and for free. Why? Because I wanted to share files easily with other people using the familiar FTP protocol, which works in both directions, is fairly secure and is available to anyone. First, I should warn you that many internet providers don't allow you to run a server, so I had to find one that would let me use the bandwidth I paid for the way I wanted it, that is high speed and for a reasonable price. Finding an FTP server was relatively easy. I picked http://www.cerberusftp.com/ for no particular reason other than it was the first one I found and it was free for home users. War FTP is a bit more complicated alternative, but is considered one of the best. I then configured the FTP server (also called FTP daemon) to allow only selected people to access my computer with a username and password, and provided a path where the files could be up/downloaded, and gave them the appropriate rights. With that in place, they could then access my ftp site with something like ftp://username:password@@1.1.1.1/dirname. One major drawback with that setup is that my IP address is dynamic, which means that the IP changes regularly, and every time it does, I have to inform everyone of my new address! The easiest way to solve that problem is to pay my internet provider for a fixed IP address (from $4 to $15 per month when I last checked). Another solution is to post my new IP address on an HTML page on the web space provided by my ISP. Finally, another solution is to use the services of a dynamic DNS, such as http://ods.org or http://dyndns.org (used by OPCUG). I've picked ods.org because they were the first I found and because they are free for home users. The way it works is that you register yourself, then your site, and finally you run a program to send an update every time your IP changes. To register yourself, click on "register" at http://ods.org, enter your name, email address, etc, and click on "register" at the bottom. Second, login to the site by entering the name/password you selected when you registered, then you will see a manager screen. Let's say I would like to add make "opcug.ods.org" accessible to the world, which is currently at address 1.1.1.1. I would enter the following: After clicking on the "Add Host" button, it will take a few minutes to propagate the new URL, and then anybody will be able to find your site. The final step is to run a program to update the dynamic DNS site every time my IP changes, and for that I used "ODS Connector", available on the ODS site. The program is fairly simple to use, enter the hostname (for example opcug.ods.org), your username/password that you selected when you registered, select if it's dial or lan (cable and DSL), and if everything works out, you should get "Server is up and running...". The ODS site has more info available at http://www.ods.org/~scott/, and http://www.ods.org/support.php, and it even has a forum at http://www.ods.org/forum/. The whole site is not terribly friendly and it takes some digging to find the information, but have patience - there is quite a bit there. I was rather pleased with the speed and the quality of the answers I got after posting questions on the forum. The whole process can be a bit intimidating, but I found it quite rewarding to be able to post on the net what I wanted the way I wanted, to get free of many of the limitations of my internet provider, and to learn a new aspect of the internet along the way. _________________________ Coming Up in January OPCUG is tentatively scheduling a presentation on "What's New at Intel" (the speaker has not yet confirmed by the newsletter deadline) for the January 8th meeting. Topic details to be posted on the OPCUG Website soon. Please check often. _________________________ January Raffle by Chris Taylor The goodies from Microsoft's Mindshare program continue into 2003! At the January general meeting we will be having a raffle for a copy of the latest version of Microsoft Works. Works v7.0 is a great tool for the home or small business user. It includes a word processor, spreadsheet, database, calendar, e-mail and Internet tools, and a project organizer. For more information, see works.msn.com. Street price approximately $70. Raffle tickets are $1 for one, $2 for three, or $5 for ten. _________________________ Meeting Dates 2003 We have confirmation of our meeting dates from the museum for the 2003 season. With the exception of February, we will be continuing with the second Wednesday of each month. The February meeting will be the second Monday (February 10th) Meeting are held at the Canada Science and Technology Museum, 1867 St. Laurent Blvd. at 7:30 p.m. You can see the upcoming schedule of meetings at anytime by going to the web site at http://opcug.ca and clicking the "Meetings" button. _________________________ CPU History Surf If you are interested in the history of CPUs used in PCs from the 8086, which was introduced by Intel in 1978, up to the latest Intel Pentium IV and AMD Athlon processors, check out A CPU History at the PC Mechanic web site - www.pcmech.com/show/processors/35/1/ _________________________ Newsletter Production Notes by Bert Schopf This issue of The Ottawa PC News is a first and a last in more than one way. It marks the first issue in many years that it was not produced using the venerable Corel Ventura Publisher; it was made using Microsoft Publisher. MS Publisher was chosen because of its overall simplicity and fact that we have a "fresh" version donated graciously by Ted May (who won the software as a door prize). Funny thing though, both formats name their native files with a .PUB file extension. This is also the last issue to be laid out by yours truly. Work and home renovations are taking up what is left of any free time, so I am stepping down as newsletter editor after this edition. However, it is with great pleasure that I pass the graphic torch onto Brigitte Lord, who will undoubtedly do a fine job - just look at the fine web pages she's put together for OPCUG! Maybe now I'll have time to contribute the occasional newsletter article. _________________________ President's Report for 2002 by Chris Taylor We had a nice balance of vendor vs. non-vendor presentations in 2002. Both types are useful in their own way. Vendor presentations are a good chance to see the latest toys on the market and non-vendor presentations are nice for getting information from someone less likely to have a vested interest. Techstar came back to visit us and let us know how their peer-to-peer collaboration software S-Peer has advanced. Former OPCUG member Hugh Chatfield let us know what XML was all about and what it brings to the Web. Eurocom showed off their latest notebook computers. ExitCertified let us know it is possible to have heterogeneous network with Windows, Solaris, and Linux all functioning, doing what they do best. OPCUG member Suzanne Blain showed us how to make an effective presentation with PowerPoint. In June we had our first ever BBQ. It was a big hit and we intend to repeat this. We started off the fall season with a presentation by OPCUG Facilities coordinator Bob Walker, who gave us a walk through the software application development cycle and showed us how complex programs are developed. Injury Prevention Plus showed us how not to hurt our bodies while using our computers. Bill Hanigsberg of Dawson College in Montreal demonstrated how easy it was to develop powerful applications in Alpha Five v5. Bloom Microtech came out in what has become a tradition - to give us some great gift ideas going into the holiday season. They ranged from stocking stuffers that cost under $10 to a big and beautiful LCD panel that cost way more than my entire computer. Raffles continued through the year, with prizes donated by Microsoft (Encarta Reference Library 2002, Publisher 2002, FrontPage 2002, Picture It! Digital Image Pro v7), Connectix (Virtual PC), PowerQuest (Partition Magic 7), Winternals (ERD Commander 2002), Alpha Software (Alpha Five v4.5), and inkSaver (inkSaver v1.0). Many thanks to the vendors for donating the prizes and to the membership for purchasing raffle tickets. We upgraded WinServer, the software used to run PUB II in the spring. This provided a richer interface on the Web side, with threaded messaging and more. It also added a newsreader interface to the conference areas. You can now access PUB II through the web, Telnet, dial-up, FTP, POP3, and NNTP and Wildcat. When we started having major problems with the free DNS hosting services provided by The Public DNS, we switched our DNS hosting to DynDNS. This required a one-time charge of US$30, but has proven to be a very stable service. When it was pointed out that we were approaching the 20th anniversary of the Group, we realized we had a rich history that was not recorded, other than scattered in past Board of Directors' minutes, newsletters, etc. A history page, hosted on our web site, was started by Jocelyn Doire. This will be a living document where we can keep track of significant events in the evolution of the OPCUG. Check it out at opcug.ca/public/history. If you can add any interesting tidbits or anecdotes, please see the information at the top of that page about submissions. The Board of Directors keeps looking for ways to encourage memberships. In the fall, we tried something new whereby those who bring in new members will get a $5 reward. Nobody took us up on it. We did have some new memberships, so perhaps some members preferred to leave the $5 with the Group. After many years of providing newsletter editor and layout services to the OPCUG, Bert Schopf announced his intention to step down. A big thank-you to Bert for all the great work he has done over the years. We are pleased to announce that Brigitte Lord will take over these duties. On behalf of the Board of Directors, I would like to extend my thanks to all who have contributed to making the OPCUG what it is today. I hope 2003 will be as successful as 2002. _________________________ Spamming a spammer by Chris Taylor You have to love it. Alan Ralsky brags to the Detroit Free Press about the money he makes sending spam. He talks about his brand new 8000- square-foot luxury home worth US$740,000. "I'll never quit," said the 57-year-old master of spam. "I like what I do. This is the greatest business in the world." Well, he may be rethinking that a bit lately. The folks at Slashdot (Slashdot.org) got hold of the address of his luxury home and proceeded to sign him up for every imaginable catalogue, book club, ad, and brochure. Ralsky claims, "They've signed me up for every advertising campaign and mailing list there is. These people are out of their minds. They're harassing me." Read more about it at slashdot.org/articles/02/12/06/1554227.shtml?tid=133. _________________________ How to own the Internet in your spare time by Chris Taylor Pretty scary title, eh? This is a paper that appeared in the Proceedings of the 11th USENIX Security Symposium (Security '02). It is an analysis of the threats posed by Internet worms - self-replicating code that can spread automatically from one Internet host to another. It begins with an analysis of the Code Red and Nimda worms and goes on to discuss contagion worms, which are slower spreading but much more difficult to detect because they hide within normal traffic. Remember Andy Warhol, who claimed everyone would be famous for 15 minutes? Well now we have the idea of a Warhol worm, which would be capable of infecting every vulnerable host on the Internet in 15 minutes. As if that is not scary enough, how about the idea of flash worms which would be capable of infecting every vulnerable host on the Internet in less than thirty seconds! A truly fascinating read at www.icir.org/vern/papers/cdc- usenix-sec02/index.html. _________________________ Rewind ... by Bob Gowan It's always great to find out that someone actually read your article! In last month's column, I asked whether anyone knew if there was a newsletter published in December 1997. To my great delight, no fewer than three sharp-eyed readers came to my aid. First off the mark was Keith Martinsen, who reported that although there was no formal newsletter due to a postal strike; Jocelyn Doire had distributed an abbreviated e-mail version of the newsletter. Next, Bob Thomas got back to me with the exact URL for locating this mini-newsletter on PUB II; that is http://opcug.ca/public/Articles/9712.txt. You can go there for the details, but I'll complete the story by summarizing its content here. It contained articles by Chris Seal and Bert Schopf that were also in the January 1998 newsletter (see below), and an announcement for the National Museum of Science and Technology's upcoming "Great Computer Swap." I recall that OPCUG had a table staffed by several of our members, who answered computer-related questions of all kinds. 5 Years Ago... Lead story in the January 1998 issue of The Ottawa PC News was OPCUG Sysop Chris Taylor's article announcing the new "PUB II" and the groups new website (at that old URL we don't use anymore). The article summarized some of the options considered (cable modem access and Chat Canada) before settling on ADSL and a 30-day pilot project using Wildcat Interactive Net Server. In another article, OPCUG Secretary David Reeves outlined the role of the PUB II Committee in "modernizing access to the PUB and improving our electronic messaging service." I believe almost all of the 19 committee members listed are still active members of OPCUG. The newsletter announced that PowerQuest would be presenting PartitionMagic, Drive Copy and Drive Image at the upcoming (January) meeting. It also included a timely review by OPCUG Chairman Harald Friese on the PowerQuest's newest product, Drive Image. This issue featured another review, by OPCUG member Alan German, on the shareware HTML editor, HomeSite, from Allaire Corp. The Desktop Publishing (DTP) SIG column by Bert Schopf included brief reviews of standing-room only presentations at the November and December SIG meetings by Dunc Petrie on "Scanning the scanners." I suspect much of this is still relevant today based on recent PUB II messages. Bert was shown on the masthead as the new editor of the newsletter, but in a footnote to the final article of the issue, in which long-time previous editor Chris Seal announces his retirement, it is indicated that Bert is an interim editor. His interim period has now been 5 years. 10 Years Ago... "Fun, fun, fun 'til your daddy takes the T-bird away" read the headline of The Ottawa PC News of January 1993. The front page review by John MacManus of Microsoft's December presentation described the new features of Access for Windows, Windows for Workgroups, the Windows Sound System, CineMania, Encarta, and more. January's speaker, Mark Minasi, a Washington DC author and consultant, making a second January trip to OPCUG, was introduced in an article by Assistant Editor Julie Dustin. His presentation was to grade Windows 3.1, Windows NT and OS/2 in terms of memory management, multi-tasking and graphical user interface. The centre-spread of this issue was an article on photo- realism in computer graphics using ray tracing, by John MacManus. It includes a bit of theory, a description of features in the copyrighted freeware product, Persistence of Vision Ray Tracer (POV-Ray), and some books on the subject. One of the reasons for the strength of our group 10 years ago was the active role played by Special Interest Groups. In this issue, FoxSIG co-ordinator Andrew Ross MacNeill described some of the new features of the just released DOS and Windows varieties of FoxPro 2.5, which were to be previewed at the February SIG meeting. Unix and Macintosh versions were to follow. Jackson Hibler presented a "farmers' almanac" summary of PUB conversations of about 15 OS/2 users. Perhaps a former OS/2 SIG member can explain to me the "gardening" analogy? The DTP SIG column by Julie Dustin covered some inexpensive (under $300) word processors like Lotus Write, Professional Write and Just Write, the new LaserJet 4/4M, Windows and Mac varieties of Word, and recent "show-and-tell" events at SIG meetings. Beginner's Corner leader Eric Clyde provided a brief introduction to "how to find your way" around OPCUG's Bulletin Board - the PUB. 15 Years Ago... The January 1988 newsletter of the Ottawa IBM-PC Users Group lists in its masthead a "Newsletter Team" with seven members. This slick-looking three-column edition was produced with Aldus PageMaker for Windows. Mike Roy provides a brief review of the product and some problems he had working with PageMaker. Elsewhere in the issue, we are told that OPCUG had over 400 members, with membership costing $20 per year (April 1 to March 31). To help avoid the year-end renewal crunch, members were encouraged, through three monthly draws of Disk-of-the-Month subscriptions worth $25, to complete and mail in the renewal form on page 6. Page 7 contained a full-page chart prepared by D.E. Macmillan showing the differences between three new IBM PS2 video modes - MCGA, VGA, and 8514A. The cover story, Jackson M. Hibler's regular column, "Flushing the Buffer", was about "Telecommunications and your PC". The article was at least partly a review of the December presentation on this topic by Sandy Black of Omzig Corporation. (Does any one remember them?) No question, modems were tricky in those days, but the good news was that hardware prices would drop to the point that hardware would be bundled with software and that long distance telecommunications rates might be falling. A postscript to the article points to proof that the former prediction was realized. The cover story and another article in this issue provide a review of Omzig's communications software, Alexander Plus, which was made available, in the software library to members only, for a special price of $12 for the 4-disk application. The other main article in this issue is a review of programmer's utilities known as "the Norton Guides". These consist of an "Instant Access Program" and a database for one of various languages (Assembly, BASIC, C and Turbo Pascal). An interesting tidbit from this issue was the news that "IBM has demonstrated that a 3.5" hard disk can theoretically support up to 1.25 gigabytes of storage." Finally, the presentation at the January meeting, by the Auditor General's office, was "Microcomputers in the Federal Government." The announced door prize was "an audit". _________________________ HUGO History by Bob Gowan At the December general meeting, former HUGO member, Alex Mack, passed along to me the HUGO Archives. This consisted of a bankers box and a smaller file box containing an assortment of diskettes, receipts, membership and financial records, newsletters and other papers, and a copy of an ancient (Windows 3.0) version of ACT contact manager software. I will attempt to make an itemized listing of the contents over the short term, but will not have much time to "dig into" these archives until I have finished going through the full collection of OPCUG newsletters. If there is a former HUGO member who would like to take on the task of more formally documenting the HUGO History, please get in touch with me. In the meantime, I acknowledge that was a close co-operation between OPCUG and HUGO during our early days, and so I would greatly appreciate hearing any stories of this interaction. _________________________ "Buy the Latest Version..." All software vendors stop supporting older versions of their software at some point. Microsoft has recently posted a web page which details the lifecycle for support of all their products. While you might not be happy to know they will tell you, "Buy the latest version" at some point if you call them about a problem, at least you know the rules they are going to play by. See support.microsoft.com/lifecycle. _________________________ Hunt for Historical Photos by Bob Gowan The Ottawa PC News and its predecessors did not regularly contain a lot of photographs of OPCUG activities. Nonetheless, I suspect that some of our members may have taken along a camera and snapped a few at a major presentation, swap meet or other special event. If you, dear reader, think that you can lay your hands on some photographic evidence of OPCUG history, please get in touch with me at the e-mail address shown on the masthead, or at a future general meeting. ____________________________ CLUB NEWS Membership has its rewards by Jocelyn Doire A $5 reward is offered to any member who locates confused, lost, or frustrated newbies, experts or anybody who deals with computers and brings them to membership director Mark Cayer. Mark will have everything ready to quickly process the subscription and get your reward. You can go out and help as many poor souls as you can find, and then we will do our best to help then with monthly meetings, monthly newsletter, SIGs, message board, web site, etc or by simply having a place to chat about computers. Good luck to all! ____________________________ CLUB NEWS OPCUG mugs and multitools are in! Check out these great thermal coffee mugs and multitools sporting our club logo at the back of the auditorium at General Meetings! OPCUG insulated mugs are $15 and OPCUG multitools are $20. _________________________ Club News Reuse, recycle Bring your old computer books, software, hardware, and paraphernalia you want to GIVE AWAY to the general meetings, and leave them at the table near the auditorium's entrance. Please limit your magazines to publication dates of less than two years old. If you don't bring something, you may want to TAKE AWAY something of interest, so look in on this area. Any item left over at the end of the meeting will be sent to the... recycle bin. ____________________________ OTTAWA PC NEWS Ottawa PC News is the newsletter of the Ottawa PC Users' Group (OPCUG), and is published monthly except in July and August. The opinions expressed in this newsletter may not necessarily represent the views of the club or its members. Member participation is encouraged! If you would like to contribute an article to Ottawa PC News, please submit it to the newsletter editor (contact info below). Deadline for submissions is three Saturdays before the General Meeting. Group meetings OPCUG normally meets on the first Wednesday in the month, except in July and August, at the National Museum of Science and Technology, 1867 St. Laurent Blvd, Ottawa. Meetings are 7:30-9:00 p.m. and Special Interest Groups go until 10 p.m. Fees: OPCUG annual membership: $25 per year. Mailing address: 3 Thatcher St., Nepean, Ontario, K2G 1S6 Web address: http://opcug.ca/ Bulletin board - the PUB II (BBS): Up to 33.6 kbps v.34, 228-8951 Chairman and System Administrator: Chris Taylor, ctaylor@@nrcan.gc.ca, 727-5453 Meeting Coordinator Tim Mahoney, timothyr@@cyberus.ca, 225-2630 Treasurer: Vince Pizzamiglio, vince@@monisys.ca Webmaster Brigitte Lord, opcug-webmaster@@opcug.ca Secretary: (Mr.) Jocelyn Doire, jocelyn.doire@@opcug.ca Membership Chairman: Mark Cayer, Mark.Cayer@@opcug.ca, 823-0354 Newsletter: Bert Schopf, bert@@blackbirdpcd.com, 232-8427 Email: (Mr.)Jocelyn Doire, Jocelyn.Doire@@opcug.ca Public Relations: Morris Turpin, morris.turpin@@rogers.com, 729-6955 Historian: Bob Gowan, gowanb@@inac.gc.ca Directors without portfolio Ted May, tamay@@rogers.com Facilities: Bob Walker, skywalk@@iname.ca, 489-2084 Beginners' and Windows SIG coordinator: Duncan Petrie, gdpetr@@hotmail.com, 841-6119 Internet SIG coordinator: Norm Dafoe, ndafoe@@sirius.ca Paradox SIG coordinator: John Ladds, laddsj@@statcan.ca, 951-4581 Delphi SIG coordinator Stan Isbrandt, isbrandt@@trytel.com, 992-8141/729-7793 Orphan SIG Coordinator Henry Sims, ha4326@@rogers.com Developers' SIG Bob Thomas, BobThomas@@msn.com (c) OPCUG 2002. Reprints permission is granted* to non- profit organizations, provided credits is given to the author and The Ottawa PC News. OPCUG request a copy of the newsletter in which reprints appear. *Permission is granted only for articles written by OPCUG members, and which are not copyrighted by the author. ____________________________ To receive the newsletter by e-mail, send a message to listserve@opcug.ca with the text "subscribe Newslettertxt" or "subscribe NewsletterPDF" (without the quotes) in the body of the message. No subject line is required. You can help the environment and save us some costs by sending an e-mail to Mark.Cayer@@opcug.ca asking to cancel the delivery of the paper version of the newsletter (or ask him in person - Mark is usually at the back of the auditorium at General Meetings). To subscribe to the Announcements List, e-mail listserve@opcug.ca. Leave the subject blank. In the body of the message put "subscribe announcements" (without the quotes).Within a couple of minutes you will receive a confirmation message from the listserver. "Announcements" is a low volume list that the Board of Directors can use to get in touch with the membership. Subscribers can expect at least one message per month - the meeting reminder that goes out a few days in advance of the general meeting. Other than that, the only time it is used is when the Board feels there is some important news that should be brought to the attention of all members.