Vol. 21 number 7 September 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 Sep 08 Speaker TBA (check our website - opcug.ca) Oct 13 Gord Hopkins - Digital Image Processing - Selections and Masks Nov 10 Ian Stewart - GMC Guardian Mobility Corporation - Global Positioning System applications Dec 08 Harley Bloom & associates - BMT MicroTech - 6th Annual Christmas Wish List Internet SIG (I-SIG) After the OPCUG General Meeting, at the Museum. Orphan SIG After the OPCUG General Meeting, at the Museum. Digital Imaging 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). ____________________________ Speakers Wanted "We should have more member presentations" is amongst the most common feedback we hear from our audience. We would like to do this, but we can't leave it all up to a few members. Perhaps you can help us out. Do you have a favourite software that you'd like to tell us all about - or foolproof procedures for minimizing spam or backing up your critical data? It doesn't have to be a full-length presentation. If we get several members willing to give shorter talks, we can combine them in a members' presentations evening. Remember, "Users helping Users" is what it's all about. If you can help, please email me ( bob.gowan@@opcug.ca ) with your name, topic/title and time needed. Editor's note: You may have noticed that the September speaker is still TBA (as of August 24). Please help out your club in these situations by offering to present future topics. It will be much appreciated (and you may find it a rewarding experience after all!). ____________________________ September Raffle At the September meeting, thanks to the generosity of Microsoft Canada, we have a copy of Digital Image Suite 9. If you have a digital camera, or want to manipulate any other images, this is a powerful, simple-to-use image editing and cataloguing pair of programs. For my review, see the May issue of the newsletter - opcug.ca/public/articles/0405.pdf. Besides getting a chance on this terrific prize, priced locally at about $140, you will help keep membership dues low. Raffle tickets are $1 for one, $2 for three, or $5 for ten. ____________________________ Missing your "T's" ? At the March 2004 general meeting, some of our members did not receive a free T-shirt and signed a list to get one later. Unfortunately, those "T's" were available in limited supply only for that particular promotion, so our speaker, Josh McPherson, was unable to get more. When we announced this at our June 2004 meeting, Corel's Michel Daw generously offered to provide T-shirts for those who missed out in March. I will have the Corel shirts at our September 2004 meeting. If you will be at the meeting, you can get your T- shirt then. If you WILL NOT be able to attend the September meeting, and DID NOT receive a shirt in March, please e-mail me ( bob.gowan@@opcug.ca ) before September 7, 2004, and I will set one aside for you. Bob Gowan Program Co-ordinator ____________________________ Want to Review a Book? Did you know you can request a free book from O'Reilly Press to review for OPCUG? We can also forward O'Reilly's newsletter that will let you know what books are available. If you are interested in either of these offers, please contact our O'Reilly Group Leader, Bob Gowan ( bob.gowan@@opcug.ca ) for details. For book review writing tips and suggestions, go to: http://ug.oreilly.com/bookreviews.html Don't forget, you can receive 20% off any O'Reilly, No Starch, Paraglyph, Pragmatic Bookshelf, or Syngress book. Please click on the "Promos" button on our website (http://opcug.ca) and look for the link to O'Reilly. ____________________________ Product Review Reviews of pdfFactory and pdfFactory Pro by Eric Clyde, Coordinator, Internet Special Interest Group For a number of reasons, the pdf format has become a popular way of providing documentation and other information in the last few years. Authors can be sure that the viewers are seeing exactly what was intended, no matter whether the file is being viewed on a Macintosh-, Linux-, or Windows-based computer. This can be important, also, when planning to have something printed elsewhere, as I have learned through some bad experiences - what appears and prints nicely formatted on one computer will not necessarily appear the same way on another computer or with a different printer! Also, as will be seen below, the resulting file size can be much smaller than the original document, an important consideration when downloading from or exchanging files via the Internet. The software firm, Adobe, developed Acrobat to produce pdf files. It is a great tool and is very versatile but, at a cost of $299(U.S.) for the standard version and $449(U.S.) for the Pro version, is much too expensive for the casual user who just wants to produce the occasional pdf file. Fortunately, Adobe wanted the format to become a de-facto standard and published the specifications for the format so that other developers would be able to create compatible, if less versatile, applications. pdfFactory, like other similar programs, works by pretending to be an additional printer attached to your computer. When installed, pdfFactory, like other similar programs, sets up a new printer driver. It is easy to use. To produce a pdf file of a document as it appears on the screen, start to print it, but select pdfFactory as the printer. Almost immediately a preview screen appears showing approximately what the final product will look like. If the original document is lengthy, the percentage completion of the final pdf file is shown as the conversion progresses. (Note that only part of the top of the screen is shown here for legibility). There are a number of options. [Fonts] shows the fonts used in the document. If there are unusual fonts which intended viewers may not have, these can easily be embedded in the final product. Otherwise the intended user's machine may substitute another font, which may not give the intended effect or appearance. However embedding will increase the size of the resulting pdf file. [Doc Info] allows the setting of attributes, such as keywords, to be written into the final product. [Links] If there are URLs and email addresses in the document, this option allows a choice of how these will appear. [Settings] allows for a number of global options, such as the number of "Autosaves" in which results of previous sessions are saved automatically. At the bottom of the screen the following tabs appear: [View PDF] loads Adobe Acrobat and shows the final product. [Save] saves the final product. [Send] allows you to send the pdf file by email. [Help] provides ... help! [Close] aborts the whole process. [Print] allows you to print the pdf file on your printer. One of the documents pdfFactory was tested on was a fold-out brochure produced using Adobe Pagemaker. (There were six pages on each side of the foldout, and each side was prepared as a separate document). Camera ready input was to be emailed to a commercial printer. The documents used two type fonts, one of which was a calligraphic one and is not commonly available, plus various special characters and numerous jpegs. While the documents could have been sent in PageMaker format, the file sizes totalled almost 29 MB; in pdf format, they came to less than 600KB! The latter format had the additional advantage that the documents could emailed to other people for proofreading - not too many people have access to PageMaker! Other features are the ability to add or delete pages in the pdf file, and also to combine documents, even from different programs, into one file. In one test a Word Perfect document, a Quattro Pro spreadsheet, and one of the above PageMaker documents were easily combined into one pdf document. pdfFactory is shareware. A trial version can be downloaded from www.pdffactory.com. Until it is registered it, the following note appears at the foot of each page: "PDF created with pdfFactory trial version www.pdffactory.com" Registration costs $49.95(U.S.) The program is recommended. It is easy to use and is quite versatile. pdfFactory Pro The Pro version has some additional features, the principal ones dealing with security, bookmarks, and the ability to rearrange jobs. The security tab, as shown in the partial screen print to the right, allows various options, including that of to requiring a password to view the document. The documentation points out, though, that password breaking programs are available and recommends lengthy and unusual passwords). It is also possible to prevent changes to or copying parts of the document or printing it out. Some pdf files have two windows. The left one bookmarks (indexes) the text on the right. If a bookmark is clicked in the left window, the appropriate part of the document is displayed in the right window. pdfFactory Pro allows the making of such bookmarks. It can be done in two ways -- manually, or automatically by detecting headings, etc. In the manual method, each page to be bookmarked is looked at in the preview screen, and either right clicked and select "bookmark this page," or hit Ctrl-B. In the automatic method, a consistent style has to have been used, e.g. headings and subheadings have to be either in a different size or font from that of the main text, and from each other. Part of a pdf file produced using this method appears below. As can be seen, the automatic bookmarking feature works very well. pdfFactoryPro is also shareware. A trial version can be downloaded from www.pdffactory.com. Until it is registered, the following note appears at the foot of each page: "PDF created with pdfFactory Pro trial version www.pdffactory.com" Registration costs $99.95(U.S.) Like pdfFactory, it is easy to use. Also recommended. ____________________________ Product Review A New Keyboard and Mouse by Chris Taylor Even though I already had a Logitech Internet keyboard and a Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer, I decided to throw $5 into the raffle at the June OPCUG meeting and take a chance on the Microsoft MultiMedia Keyboard and Wireless Intellimouse Explorer. And I won! I was a little leery about switching to a wireless mouse. First, I am really cheap and therefore did not look forward to buying batteries for a mouse. My past experiences with battery life in mice was...shall we say, less than stellar. And secondly, I was worried that I would lose it all the time under the heaps of junk I keep on my computer table. My first concern may or may not be warranted. Microsoft touts this mouse as having "3x longer battery life". But longer than what? The web site has a line "Many users experience a half year of battery life!" Hmmm...does not sound so great to this cheapskate. At least it takes 2 double-A batteries, which are not too expensive. After three months, it is still going strong. The operation of the mouse is exceptional. Very smooth and responsive. I have always liked Microsoft mice and when they moved to optical technologies I loved that I could get rid of my mousepads. Unfortunately, I discovered in my new computer room set-up that optical mice do not work on glass table-tops. Oh well, I am back to a mousepad. There were a couple of things new to me for this mouse. The wheel rolls smoothly, rather than with clicks. It took a couple of days to get used to it, but I really like it. Also, the wheel is one of the new "tilt" models. You can scroll sideways by tilting the wheel from side to side. Personally, I have never really gotten used to using this feature. But it has never accidentally interfered with anything either. The keyboard has some very nice features. Across the top is an array of buttons. There are buttons to open the My Documents, My Pictures, and My Music folders. There are buttons to launch your web browser, email program, instant messenger and media player. Finally, there are multi-media control buttons for play, pause, fast forward/reverse, volume up/down, and a mute button. Those I really like. But then there is a weird dual nature for the function keys. All the function keys can either be used normally or for additional functions; Help, Undo, Redo, New, Open, Close, Reply, Fwd, Send, Spell, Save, and Print. You can toggle between the two sets of keyboard definitions with the F Lock key visible at the top right in image Microsoft. If you normally don't use function keys, I suppose these can be really handy. But most keyboard jockeys use function keys a lot. So I find I always leave the function keys in their normal mode. What I really hate is that fact that when I boot the computer it always comes up with the function keys in the enhanced mode with the different definitions. I have not been able to find any way to get the computer to boot with the function keys in normal mode. I am glad I don't boot my computer very often. But now I come to what I really, really hate about this keyboard. It would seem that Microsoft decided in their infinite wisdom that the keyboard needed to be a little bit narrower. So they decided to mess with the layout of the cursor movement keys above the arrow keys (PgUp, PgDn, Home, End, etc.). I happen to use the End key a lot. If I am making a correction to something, the next thing I am likely to do is return to where I was by using the arrow keys to get to the right line and then hitting the End key to move to the end of the line and continue typing. Take a look at the 2 images of keyboards. Keytronic is the layout of every sensible keyboard since the 1980s. Microsoft shows the layout of the Microsoft MultiMedia Keyboard. Do you see the problem? Every time I go to hit the End key, I end up hitting the Delete key instead! And don't get me started on trying to get to the Insert key, which I use all the time to select files in the wonderful file management program Total Commander. I tried to find someone at Microsoft willing to talk about why they saw fit to mess around with a perfectly good keyboard layout, but nobody ever got back to me. I could get used to the new layout, but I work with computers all day. There are 4 computers I use every day and I am frequently logging on at other machines as well. I am still using the keyboard and still deleting all kinds of stuff accidentally. At some point, I will probably throw the keyboard through a window or something. If anyone at Microsoft is reading this, if you will trade this keyboard for one with the keys laid out the way God intended, let me know. ____________________________ Review of X1 Search coming by Chris Taylor If you find it a struggle to find specific files and emails on your computer, you might want to look at X1 Search from X1 Technologies - www.x1.com. I have written a review of X1, but it won't be published until the October issue of the newsletter. Why the advance notice? X1 has reduced the price 25% through September 15th. Until then the price is US$75. After that, the price goes up to US$99. Not only that, but X1 is offering members of the OPCUG a 20% discount off the web site price through the end of 2004. Contact me by email (see the newsletter masthead) for instructions on how you can obtain the extra 20% discount. You can download a 15-day, fully functional eval copy of X1 from their web site to try it out and see if it does everything they promise. ____________________________ Tips&Tricks Add a Safe Mode option to the Windows XP Pro Boot menu by Morris Turpin If you're experiencing a problem with Windows XP you might want to boot into the Safe Mode. Those who have upgraded from previous versions of the Windows operating system will have noticed that XP has no menu option at boot up time to allow you to select Safe Mode. If you have a good memory you might remember to press [F8] at just the right time. This will present a menu from which Safe Mode may then be selected. Wouldn't it be a lot easier if Safe Mode were available right from the Boot menu? Here's how to do it. Follow these steps: -Open the System Properties dialog box -- either right-click on the My Computer icon and select Properties or press [Windows][Break]. -Click on the Advanced tab then click the Settings button in the Startup And Recovery section. -In the System Startup section, click the Edit button. -When the Boot.ini file opens in Notepad, locate the line that ends with the /fastdetect switch. -Highlight and copy that line, and paste it in the line below. -Change the section on the line that reads WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" to WINDOWS="Safe Mode" and add the following to the end of the line: /safeboot:minimal /sos /bootlog -Save the changed file in notepad, then close the file. -Click on the Cancel button to close the Startup and Recovery window. -Click on the Cancel button to close the System Properties window. Now the next time you reboot your computer you will have the option to boot into Safe Mode right from the boot menu. ____________________________ What? No updates? by Chris Taylor Make sure the date is set right on your computer. I am subscribed to a technical mailing list for Windows issues. Someone had a computer that had been turned off for about 6 months and was then plugged back in. He went to the Windows Update site to get the latest security updates but the site reported that no updates were needed. Since the computer had not had any updates in at least 6 months, he knew that was wrong. Another person on the mailing list suggested they check the date on the computer. Windows Update can fail if the date is significantly out. The gent with the problem checked. Apparently the battery that maintains the date and time while the computer is off had gone dead and the clock had reset to January 1, 2000. Once he corrected the date and time, Windows Update listed 27 critical updates required and allowed them to be installed. This problem is documented in Microsoft Knowledge Base article 826715 - http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=826715 ____________________________ April Fool's Day Hoaxes by Chris Taylor I don't know how the rankings were decided, but the "Museum of Hoaxes" web site has a list of the top 100 April Fool's Day hoaxes of all time. They lead off with "The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest", a BBC broadcast from 1957 that talked of the bumper crop of spaghetti due to a mild winter and the virtual elimination of the spaghetti weevil. A link to a BBC archive of the original broadcast is included. In 17th place is "The Sydney Iceberg", which details how a local millionaire towed an Antarctic iceberg to Australia to sell in ice cube sized chunks to improve the flavour of drinks. There is the "15th Annual New York City April Fool's Day Parade" at number 20. CNN and Fox actually sent news crews to cover this parade in which there were to be floats such as "Where's Mars", built at a cost of $10 billion, and "Atlanta Braves Baseball Tribute to Racism". For the entire list, visit http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/aprilfool/ ____________________________ Computer Security The following is reprinted with permission from US-CERT (http://www.us-cert.gov/index.html), the US Computer Emergency Readiness Team. Cyber Security Tip ST04-003 Good Security Habits There are some simple habits you can adopt that, if performed consistently, may dramatically reduce the chances that the information on your computer will be lost or corrupted. How can you minimize the access other people have to your information? You may be able to easily identify people who could, legitimately or not, gain physical access to your computer - family members, roommates, co-workers, members of a cleaning crew, and maybe others. Identifying the people who could gain remote access to your computer becomes much more difficult. As long as you have a computer and connect it to a network, you are vulnerable to someone or something else accessing or corrupting your information; however, you can develop habits that make it more difficult. Lock your computer when you are away from it. Even if you only step away from your computer for a few minutes, it's enough time for someone else to destroy or corrupt your information. Locking your computer prevents another person from being able to simply sit down at your computer and access all of your information. Disconnect your computer from the Internet when you aren't using it. The development of technologies such as DSL and cable modems have made it possible for users to be online all the time, but this convenience comes with risks. The likelihood that attackers or viruses scanning the network for available computers will target your computer becomes much higher if your computer is always connected. Depending on what method you use to connect to the Internet, disconnecting may mean ending a dial-up connection, turning off your computer or modem, or disconnecting cables. Evaluate your security settings. Most software, including browsers and email programs, offers a variety of features that you can tailor to meet your needs and requirements. Enabling certain features to increase convenience or functionality may leave you more vulnerable to being attacked. It is important to examine the settings, particularly the security settings, and select options that meet your needs without putting you at increased risk. If you install a patch or a new version of the software, or if you hear of something that might affect your settings, reevaluate your settings to make sure they are still appropriate. What other steps can you take? Sometimes the threats to your information aren't from other people but from natural or technological causes. Although there is no way to control or prevent these problems, you can prepare for them and try to minimize the damage. Protect your computer against power surges. Aside from providing outlets to plug in your computer and all of its peripherals, some power strips protect your computer against power surges. Many power strips now advertise compensation if they do not effectively protect your computer. During a lightning storm or construction work that increases the odds of power surges, consider shutting your computer down and unplugging it from all power sources. Power strips alone will not protect you from power outages, but there are products that do offer an uninterruptible power supply when there are power surges or outages. Back up all of your data. Whether or not you take steps to protect yourself, there will always be a possibility that something will happen to destroy your data. You have probably already experienced this at least once - losing one or more files due to an accident, a virus or worm, a natural event, or a problem with your equipment. Regularly backing up your data on a CD or network reduces the stress and other negative consequences that result from losing important information. Determining how often to back up your data is a personal decision. If you are constantly adding or changing data, you may find weekly backups to be the best alternative; if your content rarely changes, you may decide that your backups do not need to be as frequent. You don't need to back up software that you own on CD-ROM or DVD-ROM - you can reinstall the software from the original media if necessary. Both the National Cyber Security Alliance and US-CERT have identified this topic as one of the top ten for home users. Authors: Mindi McDowell, Allen Householder Copyright 2004 Carnegie Mellon University. ____________________________ 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 second 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: Alan German, alan.german@@opcug.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 Vince Pizzamiglio, vince@@monisys.ca Tim Mahoney, timothy.mahoney@@opcug.ca Facilities: Bob Walker, 489-2084 Beginners' and Windows SIG coordinator: Duncan Petrie, gdpetr@@hotmail.com, 841-6119 Internet SIG coordinator: Eric Clyde, eclyde@@rogers.com, 749-2387 Delphi SIG coordinator Martin Pagnan, mpagnan@@cyberus.ca Orphan SIG Coordinator We are looking for a volunteer. Developers' SIG Bob Thomas, BobThomas@@msn.com Digital Imaging SIG Chris Taylor, chris.taylor@@opcug.ca, 727-5453 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.