Vol. 21 number 1 January 2004 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 14: Joe Donnelly, Hemera Photo-Objects Feb 12: Corel Smart Graphics Studio and SVG Mar 10: Peter Bauer, CD Mastering and Production Apr 14: Peter Andrews of SoftMap Publishing, Digital Maps 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). ____________________________ January Raffle At the January general meeting, due to the generosity of McAfee Canada, we have a copy of McAfee Personal Firewall Plus v5.0. Use this program to help keep the bad guys from attacking your computer or using it as a relay to attack others while you are connected to the Internet. For more information about this program, see http://us.mcafee.com/root/package.asp?pkgid=103 Raffle tickets are $1 for one, $2 for three, or $5 for ten. Help keep your membership dues low and take a chance (or ten) on this prize, valued at approximately $50. ____________________________ Coming Up in January... January 14, 2004 Speaker: Joe Donnelly, Product Manager, Hemera Photo-Objects Hemera Photo-Objects -- using transparent images in your software. Photo-Objects are photographic images of people, animals, plants and objects that have been pre-masked, or cut from their original background so they can be inserted quickly into any project. They are designed to be used as easily as traditional clip art, for a more professional, polished look. Hemera Photo-Objects images come with their own transparency and clipping paths so that they can be seamlessly placed into a new context. They are available individually, or in collections. Hemera is a local digital content company whose focus is images. They create them - their collection is amongst the world's largest and it offers all popular types of images: stock photos, vector clip art, illustrations, Web graphics, animations, textured photos, Photo Clip Art, and their signature image type, the Hemera Photo-Objects image. Hemera creates images for everyone: from graphics professionals creating innovative designs for their clients, to the business user to illustrate reports and presentations, and for the rest of us with our home, school, community and office projects needs. Joe Donnelly, Product Manager, Hemera Technologies, will be at the January meeting of OPCUG to tell us more about Hemera and Photo-Objects, and how to use these high quality images in brochures, presentations, Web projects and more. With almost 15 years of experience in the graphics industry, including 9 years as Product Manager for Corel's award- winning graphics suite CorelDRAW, he has brought several successful products to market, including The Big Box of Art, Hemera Photo-Objects and BizArt. He is also the principal of Joe Donnelly Design. Hemera's VP - Marketing, Ms. Alison Canavan will also be present to answer your questions. Alison has over 10 years experience in the graphics software industry, having held several senior executive positions with Corel Corporation, including Director Marketing Communications, Director Corporate Sponsorship and Events, and Vice President Creative Services. Alison managed worldwide marketing initiatives and activities, and was a key project leader in the creation and launch of the procreate(tm) brand. ____________________________ And Coming in February... Speaker: Rob Williamson Product Manager Corel Smart Graphics Studio Rob Williamson is the Product Manager for Corel Smart Graphics Studio. Coming out of the New Ventures team at Corel, his history includes developing and launching new technology products to address emerging markets based on quantifiable business needs. Abstract: Introducing Smart Graphics Studio - an enterprise product for building and deploying graphical applications bound to data. Common uses include Technical Graphics, Web Mapping, Systems Automation, and Business Intelligence. This general overview will focus on how to leverage new Web Service standards using Scalable Vector Graphic (SVG) interfaces. Web services have been recognized throughout the industry for their open architecture, promise of component reuse, platform independence, and drag and drop tools. But to date, their development has tended to be limited to back-end connectivity and infrastructure. SVG is the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standard for graphics. Based on XML, SVG's graphical capabilities make it a compelling graphics format for any enterprise project where application longevity and interoperability is a critical success factor. Combining SVG with Web Services is one compelling method to deliver Smart Graphics solutions. Smart Graphics are drawn from data, dynamic, bi-directional, multi-channel and printable. Smart Graphics Studio is a product for building Smart Graphics and it will be demonstrated during this presentation. NOTE: The February meeting takes place on a Thursday (February 12, 2004). ____________________________ Product Review VirusScan 7.0 - Home Edition by Alan German I don't intend to subject OPCUG members to yet another lengthy tale of my adventures with McAfee software, especially since my review of the VirusScan package is still underway. However, just in case Santa stuffed someone's stocking with a shiny, red, anti-virus package, an interim word of caution is advisable. In short, the installation process as specified by McAfee, is fatally flawed and users should be prepared to use a little discretion in order to safely place the software on their machines. Once correctly installed, the virus scanning software has some very nice features, but more on this next time... Having ripped the shrink-wrap from the box, placed the CD- ROM in drive, and answered the first few questions for the installation process, I was confronted by an indication that I should uninstall my previous version of VirusScan before continuing. Although, there was no indication to this effect in the manual, I didn't see this as a major problem, as I am constantly updating the signature files and am used to seeing a lot of files being replaced. So, at this point I dutifully removed the earlier version of VirusScan. The next installation attempt determined that I now had to remove my ZoneAlarm firewall since this "can't co-exist with VirusScan Home Edition's Firewall feature". My antennae went up a little at this point, but I'm reviewing the product for the benefit of mankind, or at least for my fellow members of OPCUG, and so felt that I should "follow the bouncing ball" to give the package a fair test. So, I said goodbye to my old friend, and waited for the machine to reboot. Now, I was finally motoring, the CD and hard drives were whirring, a "Typical" installation had been selected, registration information gathered, and files copied. The next major way point was that the installation routine recommended to check for, download, and install updated files. Doubtless, the package had been inside the shrink- wrap for some time, and so it seemed like a good idea to follow the recommendation. So, I pressed the button to start, and was told that the system had to download 64 files, of around 140 KB each. Things were going just fine, 30 plus files downloaded, and counting, when the machine abruptly rebooted. Hmmh! You know, there was no firewall icon visible in the system tray. And, machines that spontaneously reboot when connected to the Internet just may have a little problem with a worm. Once the computer came back to life, I checked Help - About McAfee VirusScan to determine that the virus signature files were Version 4.0.4233, dated 11/13/2002. I then manually updated these to the then-current Version 4.0.4296. Running a virus scan on my hard drive soon identified the problem - the W32/Nachi worm in the files SCCHOST.EXE and DLLHOST.EXE. The worm obviously entered my machine during the file download process while there was no firewall in place to protect against such incursions. The situation was quickly resolved by reloading a previous disk image of the operating system, and going through the VirusScan installation process once more, complete with the removal of Zone Alarm. But, this time, I made sure that the option to check for updates was firmly unchecked, and continued with the main installation process. There were no worms downloaded this time, but I found the process somewhat confusing. Part of the installation process indicates to wait "while Windows configures McAfee's Personal Firewall". This seems to suggest that the firewall has been installed, configured and is doing its job. Consequently, when the installation continues and congratulates you on a successful installation of McAfee's VirusScan Home Edition, and recommends "that you check for updates", of course, you feel good about hitting "Next". Don't do it! Instead, as noted above, first uncheck the box for "Check for an available McAfee VirusScan Home Edition update", then press Next. The subsequent dialogue box indicate that the installation of VirusScan is complete and offers to start the program. Hit Finish. VirusScan's splash screen is displayed, the program icon appears in the system tray, the main menu screen pops up, and a system scan automatically starts. Stop the scan since you are essentially wasting time checking your systems against old signature files. A pop up window indicates that the scan operation was aborted. Clearing this message removes the main menu. Double-click on the icon in the system tray to restore the menu. One of the options on the menu screen is "Firewall". Click on this link to run the McAfee Firewall Configuration Assistant, a wizard that "will activate McAfee Firewall on your PC". So, here's the rub. The installation process loaded the firewall but didn't activate it. If you go out to the Internet with no firewall, you have no protection against malicious data packets. You may update your virus scanner, but you may also receive the W32/Nachi worm, or similar! I opted to run the wizard and further configure the firewall's operational characteristics. With both VirusScan and Personal Firewall installed, I could manually request a check for software updates, download all the required files, and safely bring the system up to date. So, the word of caution is as follows: Under no circumstances should you blindly follow McAfee's instructions for this software package. Make sure that you activate the firewall portion of the package - before - allowing the program to go out onto the Internet to look for any updates! I have to say that, after installing VirusScan and the Personal Firewall in a more logical fashion than that suggested by the installation process, I have had no further difficulties. In fact, the Home Edition of VirusScan has an automatic update feature that provides a very slick method of keeping the signature files up to date. But, as I said earlier, more on this in a future article... Bottom Line: VirusScan 7.0 $59.99 (for currently available VirusScan 8.0) McAfee Security http://mcafee-at-home.com ____________________________ Product Review SpamBayes by Chris Taylor From September to December, 2002, I wrote a series of articles and reviews on anti-spam programs. If you missed them, you can find them on the OPCUG web site in the Articles section at http://opcug.ca/public/Articles/2002.htm. Since then spam has continued to increase at prodigious rates and anti-spam options continue to proliferate. Last February, when Microsoft released beta 2 of Office 2003, they finally added decent anti-spam filtering to Outlook. I found it to be at least as effective as my previous favourite - iHateSpam from Sunbelt Software, and it seemed to work more smoothly. I happily used that until a little over a month ago. Alan German did a review of McAfee's SpamKiller (http://opcug.ca/public/Reviews/SpamKiller.htm) in the November issue of Ottawa PC News. But there was nothing about SpamKiller that would convince me to switch from the native Outlook 2003 filters. So, what was it that made me stop using Outlook's built-in filters? A truly wonderful, free, open source program called SpamBayes. As the name implies, SpamBayes uses Bayesian statistics to determine what is and isn't spam. It is based on algorithms developed by Paul Graham and described in a white paper he penned in August 2002, A Plan for Spam - www.paulgraham.com/spam.html. According to Webster, Bayesian involves the application of Bayes' theorem and the use of probabilities based on prior knowledge and accumulated experience. Basically, Bayesian anti-spam predicts the likelihood of a new item being spam based upon your assessment of emails received in the past. An anti-spam program that works on Bayesian principals starts out not making any assumptions about spam. It should have no concept of Viagra being any different from airplane or fence. It should have no pre-conceived notion that a particular header attribute is an indication that something is spam or not. You train a Bayesian anti-spam program what you think is spam. If done right, such a system has a very high degree of accuracy with very few false positives where a non-spam email is treated as spam. And believe me, SpamBayes does it right! SpamBayes is available for free on SourceForge at spambayes.sourceforge.net. There are different packages available. If you use Outlook 2000, XP, or 2003 (not Outlook Express), go for the Outlook plug-in - it is by far the easiest to install and operate. If you use any other mail program that accesses a POP3 or IMAP mail server, you need to install a copy of Python, the source code for SpamBayes (which are Python scripts) and either a POP3 or IMAP proxy depending on how you get your email from your ISP's server. All required files may be downloaded from the SpamBayes site. I use Outlook 2003, so I went with the Outlook plug- in. Note that while all versions use the same algorithms to determine what is and isn't spam, the way you install and interact with the program differs considerably depending on the version. The easiest way to get SpamBayes working effectively is to make sure you have a couple of training folders ready. You should have one or more folders with 250 to 500 emails that you consider to be spam and one or more folders with 250 to 500 emails that you consider to be non-spam. To the extent possible, you should ensure they represent all types of emails you typically receive in each category - spam and non-spam. Remember, you are training SpamBayes to understand what you think is spam and non-spam. The 250 to 500 numbers are broad approximations. Much less than 250 may cause SpamBayes to make more errors initially. More than 500 are unlikely to make a big difference in the accuracy of spam detection. It will not, however, be harmful to use more than 500. Installation was very straightforward with only the standard prompts for the location to install the program. The next time I started Outlook, the SpamBayes Configuration wizard automatically popped up to help me get things started. As I had already prepared training folders, I chose the option to do an immediate training. SpamBayes chugged away for about ten minutes analyzing the emails. SpamBayes looks at the content of the body as well as header content and attributes. After it finished training, it allowed me to select the folders to use for items it is certain are spam and for items that may be spam. I chose folders called Junk E-mail and Junk Suspects. You do not have to train SpamBayes based on pre-existing emails - you can also have SpamBayes "learn as you go". In this mode, initially all emails are treated as possible spam and moved to the Junk Suspects folder. As you correct the program and classify emails as either spam or non-spam, SpamBayes learns and gets more and more accurate. The trait of having a possible spam category in addition to certain spam is very nice and sets it aside from many other anti-spam programs. The world of spam is frequently not black and white. Sometimes an email may contain some or even many characteristics of emails you consider spam, yet not be spam. It is a matter of degrees. SpamBayes rates new items on a spaminess scale from 0 to 100. By default, if an item reaches a spaminess rating of 90, it is treated as certain spam and moved to the Junk E- mail folder. If it has a spaminess rating between 15 and 90, it is treated as possible spam and moved to the Junk Suspects folder. While these values are adjustable, you should use the program for a while with the defaults before adjusting them and then only adjust in small increments. Of the couple of dozen people I know using SpamBayes, all are quite happy with the default values. When the current folder is anything other than the Junk E- mail or Junk Suspects folders, the SpamBayes toolbar shows a Delete As Spam button. If I find spams that were not caught, I select them and click this button. SpamBayes analyses the message to add to its body of knowledge about spam and then moves the messages to the Junk E-mail folder. If the current folder is the Junk E-mail folder, the toolbar sports a Recover from Spam button. If I find false positives in the Junk E-mail folder, I select them and click this button. SpamBayes analyses the messages so it will be less likely to treat similar items as spam in the future. Then it moves the items to the Inbox. Finally, if my current folder is the Junk Suspects folder, the toolbar has both buttons, allowing me to classify items there as either spam or non-spam. Since the initial 10 minute training session, I have not run into a single instance where emails in the Junk E-mail folder were false positives. All have always been spam. I know people who get 300 spams per day who say the same thing. Very impressive! The Junk Suspects folder typically does collect some spam and some non-spam. This is to be expected, especially when first using the program. Fortunately, not too many messages end up here so they are pretty easy to deal with. As you classify messages found here as either spam or non-spam, SpamBayes learns from these actions and continually improves. SpamBayes does not have whitelists - addresses that should never be treated as spammers, or blacklist - addresses that should always be treated as spammers. My experience bears out the assertion that these are really not required in a Bayesian anti-spam program. But it does lead to a possible curious effect. Say you get the Daily Dilbert and SpamBayes moves it to the Junk Suspects folder (I hope SpamBayes would never move the Daily Dilbert to Junk E-mail folder!). Of course, you use the toolbar button Recover from Spam to move it back to your Inbox and train SpamBayes that this is not actually spam. But you may find that it is caught the next day...and the next. At first I found this sort of thing puzzling. But then it dawned on me. Perhaps the first day, the Daily Dilbert got a spaminess rating of 50. By clicking on Recover from Spam, SpamBayes trained on it and the next day, it thought it was less likely to be spam. Maybe then it got a spaminess rating of 35. Then because it was corrected again, perhaps the third day it got a rating of 20. Finally, on the fourth day, it fell below the rating of 15 and was no longer treated as possible spam. SpamBayes allows you to see the spaminess rating of any email. I found it somewhat interesting to look at the ratings, particularly for those emails that ended up in the Junk Suspects folder. So far, after over a month using SpamBayes, I am very impressed with it. I have found the Outlook plug-in to be very easy to install and use. It has not caused any problems with Outlook and has been amazingly effective at getting spam out of my Inbox. Well over 95% of spam ends up being shuttled directly to the Junk E-mail folder. Virtually all remaining spam has gone to the Junk Suspects folder. Absolutely no non-spams have ended up in the Junk E-mail folder and well under 1% of non-spams have been sent to the Junk Suspects folder. I am almost to the point where I will delete the contents of the Junk E-mail folder without reviewing to look for false positives. System Requirements: For the Outlook plug in, you need Outlook 2000, XP, or 2003 and Windows 98 or better. You need no additional software. For use with other email programs, you will need to install a copy of Python, the source files for SpamBayes (which are Python script files), and either a POP3 or IMAP proxy. Links to all required files are at the SpamBayes site on SourceForge at spambayes.sourceforge.net Cost: SpamBayes is free and open source, released under the Python Software Foundation license. ____________________________ Club Life President's Report for 2003 by Chris Taylor We had a wide variety of presentations throughout the year. Eight vendors came out to show their wares. Eurocom led off in February and showed us their portables computers. McAfee told us what sort of damage viruses and hackers can do to our machines. Toggle Software showed off their utility programs. We were the first in the world to see Raxco's disk defragmenter PerfectDisk v6 when our May meeting was two days after code freeze. Raxco even managed to get 100 demo CD-ROMs made and shipped in time for our meeting. In June, to complement our annual barbeque, Microsoft showed us what to expect in Office 2003, then still in beta. In the fall, Total Voice Control brought out some nifty home automation software and hardware. Macromedia showed how easy it is to make interactive web sites using Studio MX. Harley Bloom of Bloom MicroTech came out in December to help us fill our holiday wish lists with everything from stocking stuffers to full blown systems. We also had presentations by members. In January, Bob Walker showed how relational databases worked. In November, Pete Roberts gave an enlightening presentation on scanning and let us know how there are "lies, damn lies, and scanner specifications." This year marked the 20th anniversary of the OPCUG and in April we celebrated in fine fashion. There was a panel discussion on the how people had used their computers over the years. We had a trivia contest which was lively and fun. Thanks to Microsoft, we had lots of small prizes for people who knew the answers - or, in some cases, came close. As well, we had an artefact display showing off some "ancient" hardware. We continued our very successful raffles through the year, which helps keep the membership dues at $25. The last time we raised membership dues was February, 1990, which I think is an incredible accomplishment. Harley Bloom from Bloom MicroTech surprised us all in December when he announced that they would be using the raffle tickets for the all the door prizes he brought. That night we brought in record revenues for the raffle - $201. Next time you happen to be out at Bloom MicroTech, be sure to tell Harley "thanks". In the spring, Alan German came to the Board of Directors with a terrific idea - to have a workshop on a variety of beginner's topics. November 22nd, we held a very successful workshop. The aim was to help existing members and spread the word to hopefully bring in new members. In that regard, it was a resounding success, with 83 attendees and 56 new members. Planning for another workshop next fall has already begun. Although we obtained our own domain name - opcug.ca - over 2 years ago, the old domain name - opcug.ottawa.com - was still active. In December, Southam Publications, who owns the domain name ottawa.com finally dropped opcug.ottawa.com from DNS. The end of an era. My personal thanks to all who have made the OPCUG what it is; a terrific organization dedicated to helping users get the most out of their computers. That includes the many volunteers who give their time to make sure things keep running as well as the members who join and participate in the OPCUG activities. Here's to another 20 years! ____________________________ Orphans' SIG Word from the Interim Coordinator We still need a volunteer to act as SIG Coordinator. (Is this on your list of New Year's resolutions?) Nevertheless, there will be a meeting of the Orphans' SIG following the club's regular monthly meeting on January 14, 2004. The last couple of SIG meetings have been pretty packed with semi-formal presentations and hands-on workshops so it's probably time for us all to sit down and "calmly" discuss issues of interest to individual SIG members. No doubt, Santa brought you a shiny-new computer gizmo or a piece of new software. So, come along prepared to tell the group your experiences with it -- good or bad! And, bring along your computing problems so that we have lots of material to discuss in our usual inimitable fashion! Alan German ____________________________ OPCUG History Rewind.... by Ted May, OPCUG Historian 5 years ago. The first article "StarOffice 5.0" by Jocelyn Doire described the then free office suite, version 5.0. It included several modules, among them modules to create documents, spreadsheets, databases, presentations, graphics and more. It also included a browser program group that included a browser, e-mail client, news reader, http editor, and more. It also described the user interface. It has filters to make transfer between StarOffice and software from other software companies. Surprisingly, there was no filter for WordPerfect. It described a little about the use of the modules and explained that it was internet ready. It mentioned a difficulty starting the e-mail client. The next item "Coming up in January" mentioned that the January presenter, David F. Skoll would be introducing the new operating system, Linux. The Calendar listed the scheduled meetings for January 6th and other dates. The next article, "Networking 101: the upgrade that makes sense" by Ken Freemoyle talked about networking. That was then... talked about past networking consisting of "sneaker networking" and then "poor-boy networking." This is now... discussed setting up a "real" network using a peer-to-peer network and keeping your old machine with the software still on it and putting only 32-bit software on the new one. It described what you needed and the best way to go about setting up a network. The next item "Computer Swap" advertised the upcoming swap meet on January 9th, 1999. The next item "Fly West for Questions and Answers!" described going to the "Good Times" café for wings and a drink. In Dunc Petrie's Corner, we have the article, "Whither removable storage?" gave a look at high capacity (hard drive replacements) and floppy drive upgrades such as the Iomega Jaz drives (1- and 2-GB cartridges) - very expensive. It also mentioned a new one that never appeared called the Orb. The sub topic High capacity floppies - iomega's Zip, discussed the then newest variant, the 250-MB capacity unit. The sub topic, The Zip's competition described the Sony High Capacity Floppy Disk - backward compatible with the 1.44 MB floppy. It also described the Caleb Technology UHD144 offered a 144-MB capacity disk also backward compatible with the 1.44 MB floppy. It gave conclusions about the speed, capacity, and cost of the media. The sub topic Buyer's considerations discussed the things a buyer should consider before buying high capacity removable storage devices. Also in Dunc Petrie's Corner, is the next article, "The BIOS Companion by Phil Croucher" reviewed a manual (also on a separate CD for the same price) about the BIOS settings for many Motherboards. The CD contained more than just the book, such as: "The Hard Disk Database", "Communications, Networks and Windows (for the reluctant network manager)", "Motherboards (listing jumper settings for hundreds of boards", and "The PC User's Handbook (subtitled 'the book that doesn't come with your PC - for the reluctant computer user')". The next item "Want A SIG?" discussed the various Special Interest Groups (SIGs) and about setting up a new SIG. 10 years ago. The first article, "Multimedia, Minasi, and moving on..." by Jackson Hibler described a program called Multimedia Explorer, the next level called Animator Pro, and the top version called 3D Studio and what each could do along with a 10-second "intro" done for the Canadian Ski Patrol. The sub topic Minasi. Mark Minasi came wearing his "Cassandra" cloak...warning of the looming "Twilight of the PC". He discussed how things were too quiet. Technoweebs have the same computers that Grandmother has, and so on. The item Calendar gave the date and topics of the next three meetings including the January meeting. The next article, "The Lotus position" by Julie Dustin discussed what would be presented at the January meeting. The presentation, entitled "Working Together", consisted of short demonstrations of all the products offered in the suite. They showed Ami Pro 3.01, Lotus 1-2-3 4.01, Freelance Graphics 2.01, Approach 2.1, and Organizer 1.1. A short description was given for two of the products in the suite, Approach 2.1, an end user database tool, and Organizer 1.1, a time management product. It also discussed Lotus Notes (not in the presentation). The next article, "What's new at the PUB" by Chris Taylor talked about some renovations to the PUB - expanded to six incoming lines, same number with high speed (v.32bis, 14.4 kbps) modems. Also, they changed the PUB so that downloads were unaffected by the time limit even though each user was limited to 60 minutes per day. This was done because a growing number of files could not be downloaded in 60 minutes at 1200bps or even 2400bps. The next item, "The PUB in review" by Chris Taylor talked about how busy the PUB was during the past year (1998). It also gave a list of the top ten downloads and the number of downloads for each. The next item "We can't always say "No"" is the presentation by Jack Stekelenburg about his running for the position of convener in the upcoming elections. The next article, "1994 nominations and elections to the executive" by Doug Poulter, Past Chairman stated that only one nomination for each of the four elected positions resulted in acclamation for those nominated. There were two candidates for the position of convener so an election would be held at the January meeting. The next article, "The Ottawa Paradox Users Group" by Larry Chop discussed the Users Group and the scheduled topics for the January 19th meeting. It also mentioned the schedule for the February meeting. The next item, "Internet SIG" by Jerry Gault talked about the topics to be discussed at the January meeting. Under Software Library, the item "December 1993 Shareware" by Norman Dafoe listed several games available at December meeting. It also mentioned some other shareware programs in the December set. It mentioned several of the utilities available on the Disk of the Month #104. The final article, "Understanding your system: part 5: CONFIG.SYS" by Eric Clyde discussed how to setup CONFIG.SYS and the various entries in the .sys file. 15 years ago. There is no copy of the January 1989 issue of the newsletter. ____________________________ 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 2004. 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. 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.