Vol. 20 number 8 October 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 Oct 08: Brian Donovan of Macromedia, Dreamweaver and Flash Nov 12: Peter Bauer, CD Mastering and Production Dec 10: Harley Bloom, What's New for the Holidays? Internet SIG (I-SIG) After the OPCUG General Meeting, at the Museum. Orphan SIG After the OPCUG General Meeting, at the Museum. Developers SIG After the OPCUG General Meeting, at the Museum, and occasionally at other locations in the region. Delphi User Group, 8:00 p.m. To Be Announced PIG (or Wing?) SIG, after all the other SIGs, at 10 p.m. Chances "R", 1365 Woodroffe (at Baseline), College Square Please note that unless otherwise noted, SIGs meet at 9:00 p.m. (immediately following the OPCUG General Meeting). ____________________________ Raffle Double Header This month, due to the generosity of the McAfee division of Network Associates, we will have two raffle prizes-McAfee Firewall 4 and McAfee SpamKiller 4. So even if your ticket is not chosen first, you will get a second chance for a great prize. The person holding the first ticket drawn will get their choice. Keep the bad guys out of your computer with a copy of McAfee Firewall 4. This program includes both incoming and outgoing protection and an intrusion detection system. All in an easy-to-configure and maintain package. And keep the bad buys out of your e-mail with a copy of McAfee SpamKiller 4. It works with MSN/Hotmail or any POP3 or MAPI mailbox. Tickets are $1 for one, $2 for three, or $5 for ten. ____________________________ Coming Up in October MACROMEDIA INTRODUCES NEXT GENERATION OF MX Join Brian Donovan, Senior Systems Engineer from Macromedia, as he introduces the newest Macromedia Rich Media products Recently, Macromedia unveiled the next generation of its award-winning MX product family used by professional developers and designers to build web sites and applications. Major new versions of the industry-leading Macromedia Dreamweaver, Flash, and Fireworks tools continue to move the digital world from inaction to interactive experiences, while new products such as Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 bring the power of the Internet to a new class of advanced developers. Dreamweaver is the professional choice for building web sites and applications. Dreamweaver MX 2004 continues this tradition of innovation with new and updated support for standards and server technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), secure FTP, and ASP.NET. Dreamweaver MX 2004 continues to simplify web site and application development. Flash is the standard for creating rich interactive experiences on the Internet. Flash MX 2004 makes it easier than ever before to create rich, interactive content and enables designers and developers to accelerate projects, increase creative control, and extend their workspace with new functionality. Flash MX Professional 2004 is a new product that builds on the strengths of Flash with an entirely new development environment for advanced application developers. Flash MX Professional 2004 provides visual developers with a familiar forms-based programming metaphor, enabling them to build and deploy rich Internet applications. Flash MX Professional 2004 also allows developers to deliver video-rich, interactive experiences. Fireworks is the leading tool for designing and optimizing web graphics. Fireworks MX 2004 delivers a broad array of new design tools and effects for web graphics, and promotes collaboration through expanded integration with other MX products. Macromedia Studio MX, first released in 2002, became the most successful product in the company's history by providing a comprehensive suite of design and development solutions for creating great web sites and applications. Studio MX 2004 combines the new MX 2004 tools with FreeHand MX to provide an integrated and convenient development suite with a workflow that will reduce time to value for our customers. Each MX 2004 product shares consistent interface, design, and development elements, and functionality that enable developers to work more efficiently across multiple products. Studio MX 2004 will include either Flash MX 2004 or Flash MX Professional 2004. In addition, Brian will introduce Macromedia Breeze, the company's integrated solution for rapid online training and communication. Breeze makes it easy to author, manage, deliver, and track rich multimedia presentations throughout your organization. http://www.macromedia.com/ http://www.macromedia.com/macromedia/proom/pr/2003/studio_mx _2004.html ____________________________ COMING UP IN NOVEMBER: Our speaker in November will be Peter Bauer of Media Replication Services (http://www.mediars.com) on the topic of "CD Mastering and Production" AND IN DECEMBER: Harley Bloom and friends of Bloom MicroTech (http://www.bmtnet.com) will be back for their annual presentation of "What's New for the Holdays?" Lots of fun to be had, for sure! ____________________________ 2004 Elections Election time is coming up again and not just for the province. After those elections are over, we expect everyone to be in prime shape for the all-important OPCUG elections. This is your chance to speak up and help shape the future of the club. Nominations for positions on the 2004 Board of Directors will be accepted. Watch for more details in next month's newsletter. ____________________________ SPECIAL EVENT OPCUG Beginners' Workshop True to their motto of "Users Helping Users", the Ottawa PC Users' Group will host a Beginners' Workshop this fall. A group of knowledgeable and experienced members of the club will provide sessions on a number of topics that will be of interest to the new computer user, and even those not-so-new users who need to know a little more about their hardware and software. Developed from queries raised at past meetings of the Beginners' SIG, and more recently the Orphans' SIG, the workshop sessions are designed to provide practical information on issues of concern to many computer users. The one-day course will cover the basics of applications like word processors, spreadsheets and databases; provide maintenance tips for both operating systems and hard drives; show how to burn CDs; take a look at electronic mail and browsing the Internet; and indicate means to protect against viruses and worms. When faced with the multiple choices of a typical office- type software package, new users are often unsure about which program is best to use for a given purpose. A session on word processors, spreadsheets and databases will highlight the main features of each of these applications. If you know the basics of one of these programs, but want to know how to kick your expertise up a notch, we can probably help by demonstrating some of the more useful, but perhaps somewhat obscure, aspects of these software workhorses. Many users load multiple software packages onto their computer, download and save more and more files to the hard disk until, inexplicably, the system performance noticeably deteriorates. If you have never removed an installed program, or deleted an entire set of file directories, you need to know how to tune-up your disk. One of the sessions at the workshop will focus on identifying and deleting unused files, emptying the recycle bin, scanning the hard drive for corrupt areas, and defragging the hard disk. Burn CDs -- without creating more coasters! These days, CD-Rs and CD-RWs, and the hardware necessary to copy files to these media, are so affordable that the technology has wide application for the home user. However, one topic that frequently crops up at OPCUG meetings is how to burn CDs without creating more coasters! First-hand knowledge of some of the associated problems allows club members to provide a primer on using CD burners for tasks such as: backing up important data, providing extra storage, and creating long-term archives. You have mail! Is your E-mail system in complete chaos? Are you swimming in Spam? Have you filed an E-mail message "somewhere", but have no idea how to locate it? If so, you are a prime candidate for the session on how to efficiently organize E- mail. Learning how to use folders and filters, and add-on E-mail utilities, will give you the tools to manage your mail. Do you access the Internet? Would you like to keep hackers out, but allow useful information into your personal computer? With the increasing prevalence of web-based viruses and worms, you really need to know how to practice safe computing. At the workshop, tips will be provided on important system maintenance items such as: obtaining and installing patches to the operating system, keeping virus scanners up to date, and how to configure a firewall. Our Beginners' Workshop is scheduled to run from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Saturday, November 22nd, at the Margaret Rywack Center (68 Knoxdale Road). The facility has on-site parking and is also readily accessible by bus (OC Transpo No. 172 and 174). You can bring a lunch, go out to one of several nearby food outlets, or we are looking at the possibilities for having lunch delivered to order. The cost to attend the entire day's sessions is $30.00. As part of this registration fee, non-members of OPCUG will receive a one-year membership in the club (a $25.00 value); so tell all of your friends! But, we haven't forgotten about current club members. OPCUG members paying the $30.00 fee to attend the workshop will have their membership extended by one year. Also, each workshop participant will receive a CD-ROM containing documentation from the presentations made at the various sessions, plus a number of associated freeware and shareware software packages. You can pre-register for the workshop by sending an E-mail message to course_registration@opcug.ca. Be sure to include your name and a return E-mail address. Space at the workshop venue is limited so, in order to confirm your registration, and guarantee that a place will be held for you, send us a registration form and your cheque for the $30.00 registration fee. Make the cheque payable to "OPCUG" and mail it, with the workshop registration form, to: OPCUG, 3 Thatcher Street, Nepean, ON K2G 1S6. The price at the door is $35.00, so register early and save $5. The registration form can be found on the back page of this newsletter and on the OPCUG website: (http://opcug.ca). Click on the WORKSHOP button ____________________________ TIPS & TRICKS Adjusting your Level 2 Cache Setting by Morris Turpin If you are using Windows XP and have a relatively new computer you may not be getting all the performance you paid for. The problem is that during the installation of Windows XP, the Setup program queries the system processor to determine the size of the Level 2 cache. Unfortunately, it doesn't always succeed. When this happens, Setup configures a default L2 cache setting of 256 KB in the registry. If your processor has a larger Level 2 cache than Setup configured in the registry, your system won't perform optimally. To significantly increase the performance of your system, change the value in the registry to match your Level 2 cache. Here's how: 1. Launch the Registry Editor (Regedit.exe). 2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management. 3. Right-click on the Memory Management folder in the left- hand pane and select Export from the popup list. Give it a filename (L2) and save it to your desktop. This is your backup in case you do something unintended. 4. Now, in the right-hand pane, double-click SecondLevelDataCache DWORD value. 5. Using the options below, change the value in the Value Data text box to a value that matches the size of your Level 2 cache. Then click OK. Level 2 cache Value Data setting 256 KB 0 384 KB 160 512 KB 200 1024 KB 400 6. Click OK and close the Registry Editor. You may need to restart the system or log out of Windows XP for the change to take effect. If you're not sure of the actual size of your system's Level 2 cache, copy this script and save it as L2Cache.vbs: Set ProSet = GetObject("winmgmts:").InstancesOf("Win32_Processor") For each Pro in ProSet WScript.Echo "Level 2 Cache:" & " " & Pro.L2CacheSize & " KB" Next Double-click the script to run it, and you'll see a dialog box that displays the size of your system's Level 2 cache. If you made changes to your registry L2 cache size, run L2Cache.vbs again to verify that the changes were saved. If you want to return your registry to its state before you made the change, double-click on L2.reg that you created in step 3 above. Note: Editing the registry is risky, so be sure you have a verified backup before making any changes. With thanks to TechRepublic (http://techrepublic.com.com/) ____________________________ Accessing PUB II by Chris Taylor Due to a drop-off in demand for the service, last June it was decided to drop the last dial-up line for the OPCUG communications server-PUB II. I thought this might be an opportune time to review just what services are offered through PUB II and how to access them. PUB II is the second major version of on-line services offered by the Ottawa PC Users' Group. The name stands for the PC Users' Group Board, and is meant to be a friendly, informal place for members to meet, share experiences, help each other trouble-shoot problems, access shareware and public domain software, and find out information about Group activities. There are three main areas or services provided through PUB II. Information about the OPCUG: Most of this is publicly accessible through our web site at http://opcug.ca. There, you can find out the topic of upcoming meetings, read about the history of the Group, read past newsletters on-line or download the text or Adobe Acrobat versions to your PC, read stand-alone reviews of software and hardware, obtain contact information about the board if directors, and more. Most of the information is accessible only through a web browser. Character mode, through Telnet or the proprietary Wildcat client, has some of the information, such as meeting announcements. Conferencing: The motto of the OPCUG is Users Helping Users and one of the means of supporting this is through the conference areas on PUB II. In addition to a private messaging area, which supports private e-mail both on PUB II as well as to and from the Internet, there is a General conference area and topic-specific conference areas to support the special interest groups (SIGs). Conference areas may be accessed through many means; a web interface, Telnet, a Listserver, a newsreader, and the Wildcat client. Files: In days long gone, electronic bulletin board systems (BBSs) were a major means people could use to access shareware and freeware applications. As the web gained popularity in the 90's, BBSs started to lose their shine. The web provided, in many cases, the very latest release, by the author of the program, from their own web site. While there is not a great deal of activity in the file areas on PUB II, there remain thousands of useful programs, some of them now hard to find in other locations. The file areas may be accessed through a web interface, an FTP client, Telnet, or the Wildcat client. Creating an account on PUB II As mentioned, the information side of PUB II is freely available to anyone with a Web browser at http://opcug.ca. However, to access conference and file areas, you must be a registered user. Registering is easy. The simplest method is through a web browser. Browse to http://opcug.ca and click the PUB II button on the left side of the screen. New information will appear on the right. Click the button labelled New User. Leave the radio button at the top set to Dynamic HTML and fill in the other three boxes. For name, use your real name, and separate your first name from your last name with a space, as in Sam Spade. Choose a password, plug it in the two remaining boxes, and click the Continue button. A dialog box will pop up asking you to log in. Do so using the exact same information you just provided. You will then be prompted to input a location you want to be considered from and whether you would like others to be able to page you while you are connected to PUB II. There is an on-line chat feature on PUB II that may be used, if users choose to. Once you have completed this process, you are presented with the web interface to the private areas on PUB II. However, you will still have limited access. In order to have your account upgraded to member status, you need to send an e- mail to sysop@@opcug.ca. Include your name as it appeared when you registered on PUB II, your postal address, and your membership number, if known. Once your membership has been verified, your account will be upgraded and you will have complete access to all member areas on PUB II. This generally happens within 24 hours. Next month, I will begin covering the different means of accessing the services provided on PUB II and what advantages and disadvantages exist with each access method. ____________________________ Wanna swap? For many years, the OPCUG held an annual swap meet. As time went by, and as computer equipment became more and more "commodity" items, the level of participation dropped off. A few years ago, we stopped holding the annual event. For people who wish to simply rid themselves of old computer- related material for no remuneration, we now have the recycle table outside of the auditorium on regular meeting nights. Still, every now and then, we do receive enquiries as to whether the OPCUG has a swap meet. The board of directors thought it would be a good idea to find out if there is sufficient interest in holding a swap meet again. The idea is simple; those who would like to try and sell legal software and equipment no longer needed, haul it down to the museum one evening. Those who are looking to acquire older equipment and software at reasonable prices bring their money. And then the haggling begins. Swap meets are fun and serve a useful purpose, However, while we rarely had a problem getting enough buyers, getting enough sellers, with enough worthwhile items to sell, at reasonable prices, was increasingly difficult. Without sufficient items for sale, the swap meets became rather pointless. If you are interested in the OPCUG once again holding a swap meet, please send me an e-mail at chris.taylor@@opcug.ca. Indicate in your message if you are interested in buying or selling. If you are interested in selling, please indicate the numbers and types of items you would be trying to sell. If there seems to be sufficient interest, the board will see what can be arranged. ____________________________ OPCUG History Rewind.... By Ted May OPCUG historian 5 years ago. The first article, "The evils of spam" by Chris Taylor described the frustration of users with all the spam they receive. He described the problem with Storm and SMTP setting not to accept connections from SMTP servers within adsl.bellglobal.com domain and how they got it corrected. The next article, "Listserve part two" Chris Taylor describes the Listserve on PUB II and what is included, such as plain text and pdf versions of the newsletter sent to lists of members. An item, "Calendar" listed meeting dates. The next article, "Microsoft Publisher 98" by James Fridrich talked about starting your own business in Electronic Publishing industry. He described what was in the box and also how to use Publisher 98. He described the user interface. In addition, he described Web publishing and automatic checking tools such as spell checker among others. He described the Image setter printer driver included with the application and the problems that might be experienced with it. He told who might be best served by this application. The next article, "Electronic newsletter" by Jocelyn Doire told about his problem with his old listserve lists and told how to subscribe to the plain text or pdf newsletters. Under the heading: DUNC PETRIE'S CORNER, the article, "Why you need a server" told why you would want to have a "server." It also told how to get your Windows 95 or 98 Systems to act like a network server. The next article, "Disable programs running at bootup in Windows 95 or 98" told about the programs that were running at startup and how to stop them from running at startup but leaving them able to be run from the startup folder. The next article, "Reduce system freezes" told about problems with video drivers and how to correct the problem by using the most stable set of drivers. The next item, "Computer fair" told about the Canadian Computer Fairs being at the Nepean Sportsplex and when it would be there. There was a "Swap meet alert" on the back page of the newsletter. Also Prize winners were listed. 10 years ago. The first article, "If I Had A Hammer" by Jackson Hibler described his project management when he built a carport and surrounding porches to his old stone house. Then he speculated about what if he was building not one carport but many having several crews, suppliers and three municipal building codes to satisfy or coordinating scores of students and many instructors at three locations. He said that is what project management software is designed to provide. He discussed various aspects of such software. The next article, "Review of September's disks" by Norm Dafoe described what was on the Disk of the Month as well as 5 specialty disks. The next article, "YO! The year of Office, Word for Windows 6, Mozart and Stravinsky" by Linda Simons. Bob Scowcroft would be presenting the new version of Microsoft Office, some CD-ROMs, and some fun software aimed at kids. She said that Microsoft bypassed versions 3, 4, and 5 to synchronize the version numbers with the Macintosh and DOS versions of Word. WordPerfect was also at version 6, so everything matched! This version of Office focused on consistency between applications in the package. This version of Word would anticipate your needs: it's got intellisense. The next article, "Internet at a glance" by Jerry Gault described what the internet was all about. He also mentioned the National Capital Freenet and told about what and why one would want to connect to the Internet. The next article, "Making multiple copies in WordPerfect 6.0" by Eric Clyde described how to make multiple copies (that is, copies of text or images) in WordPerfect 6.0. The next article, "I bought my house via computer" by Julie Dustin described how, through a real estate agent and the help of a computerized database purchased her new home (complete with mortgage). The next article, "Understanding your system: part 2, floppy disks and hard disks" by Eric Clyde. He continued the article that appeared in the September 1993 newsletter. He described the various types of backup devices, such as floppy drives, hard disk drives and others, such as Bernoulli drives, floptical drives. He gave descriptions of floppy and hard drives in detail. 15 years ago. First header: PC Magazine, the first article, "Editor reveals computer industry trends" by Jackson Hibler. He told how Gus Venditto, an executive editor of PC Magazine talked about the trends in the computer industry. The next article, "Computer character sets can be modified" by Alex Mommers, Ottawa University. He talked about the character sets available for the IBM PC and compatibles and how to change between the character sets available. There were two more parts to this series written for the next two issues of the newsletter. A small item, "Flea market. . ." advertised the upcoming flea market at the RA center. The next article, "Area has many bulletin board operations" has a long list of BBSs on the page along with a couple of paragraph giving additional information. The next (small) article, "WordPerfect gets LAN feature" told that WordPerfect v5.0 could be operated on a LAN-quite expensive though! $995 plus $225 for each workstation. The next (small) article, "WordPerfect has new management system" told about OVERDRIVE from Turbosoft-a document management system for WordPerfect. It was an add-on program for WP. The header: OPCUG'S new bulletin board, the next article, "The PUB opens for business" described in detail the setup of the BBS. The next article, "OPCUG introduces new bulletin board" showed The PUB map on the rest of the page. The last page contains what was called LATE NEWS where late news about the PUB BBS was told. ____________________________ OPCUG Beginners' Workshop Registration Form Location: (do not send Form to this address, see address further down) Margaret Rywack Center 68 Knoxdale Road Ottawa, ON November 22, 2003 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Name: _____________________________ Address: ____________________________ Tel: ____________________________ E-mail: ____________________________ I wish to register for this workshop. Please find enclosed my cheque in the amount of $30.00, made payable to: OPCUG Mail the completed registration form and your cheque to: OPCUG 3 Thatcher Street Nepean, ON, K2G 1S6 ____________________________ 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/ President and System Administrator: Chris Taylor, chris.taylor@@opcug.ca, 727-5453 Meeting Coordinator Bob Gowan, bob.gowan@@opcug.ca 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: Brigitte Lord, brigitte.lord@@opcug.ca Email: (Mr.)Jocelyn Doire, Jocelyn.Doire@@opcug.ca Public Relations: Morris Turpin, morris.turpin@@opcug.ca, 729-6955 Historian: Ted May, tamay@@rogers.com Directors without portfolio Alan German, alan.german@@opcug.ca 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 Delphi SIG coordinator Martin Pagnan, mpagnan@@cyberus.ca Orphan SIG Coordinator We are looking for a volunteer. Developers' SIG Bob Thomas, BobThomas@@msn.com Note: We added an extra "@" to the emails to reduce spam. (c) OPCUG 2003. 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 not copyrighted by the author. ____________________________ Newsletter by email: To receive the newsletter by e-mail, send a message to listserve@@opcug.ca with the plain text "subscribe NewsletterTXT" or "subscribe NewsletterPDF" (without quotes nor HTML code) in the body of the message. No subject line is required. Cancelling the Paper Newsletter: You can help the environment and save us some costs by sending an email 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). Announcements Mailing List: To subscribe to the Announcements List send an email to listserve@@opcug.ca, leave the subject blank and in the body of the message put "subscribe announcements" (without the quotes nor HTML code). Within a couple of minutes you will receive a confirmation message from the list server. 5$ Membership Reward: A $5 reward is offered to any member who brings a visitor that subscribes to the OPCUG. See the membership director Mark Cayer for details. OPCUG mugs and multi-tools: Check out these great thermal coffee mugs and multi-tools sporting our club logo at the back of the auditorium at General Meetings! OPCUG insulated mugs are $15 and OPCUG multi-tools are $20. 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.