Vol. 29 number 7 September 2012 The newsletter of the Ottawa PC Users' Group Calendar OPCUG General Meeting National Museum of Science and Technology 1867 St. Laurent Blvd. Second (*first) Wednesday of each month, 7:30pm Beginner SIG After the OPCUG General Meeting, at the Museum. Linux SIG After the OPCUG General Meeting, at the Museum. Beer BOF (Wing SIG East), after all the SIGs, at 10 p.m. Liam Maguire's, 1705 St. Laurent at Innes (formerly Hooters) Please note that unless otherwise noted, SIGs meet at 9:00 p.m. (immediately following the OPCUG General Meeting). ____________________________ Coming Up... Wednesday, September 12, 2012 Speaker: Dr. John C. Nash Topic: "Reproducible research: tools to write reports that adapt to changes in programs and data". This would be about some nice (and relatively new) developments, mostly out of the R community but generalizable, that let you embed code to draw graphs and create tables etc. in reports for publication. The tools are cross platform. (See his article below: "Sensible Report Updates"). Dr. John C. Nash obtained his B.Sc. from the University of Calgary (in Chemistry, 1968) and his doctorate in Mathematics from Oxford (1972). He was in charge of a statistical analysis unit for Agriculture Canada until 1980, and is now retired Full Professor in the Telfer School of Management of the University of Ottawa where he taught statistics, forecasting, government online, and managing technological risk. Dr. Nash is the author of several books on scientific and statistical computation and numerous scientific and popular articles. He was Editor and Managing Editor of SSC Liaison for the Statistical Society of Canada from 1991 to 1994. Earlier he was a columnist for Interface Age and the scientific computing editor for Byte. He has been President of Nash Information Services since 1980 (incorporated 1982), through which he has conducted a number of practical applications of his ideas. He is Past-President of the Ottawa Canada Linux Users Group, co-organizer (with Paul Gilbert of the Bank of Canada) of the Ottawa Gatineau R User Group, and an organizer of the Foresight Synergy Network for which he runs the wiki/website. Since his formal retirement, Prof. Nash has been actively working on Free/Libre software initiatives, in particular the R statistical system (www.r-project.org), in which several of his optimization codes are prominent. ____________________________ September Raffle by Chris Taylor I happened to have a brand new HP printer still unopened in the box that I have no need for. So I am happy to donate it for the September raffle. It is an HP Deskjet F4480. It is an "all-in-one", combining a printer with a scanner that scans up to 4,800x4,800 ppi or up to 19,200 ppi with software enhancement. It prints up to 28 pages per minute in black and 22 pages per minute in colour. The HP Deskjet F4480 is valued at $100 Tickets are, as always, a good deal at $1 for one, a great deal at $2 for three or the unbelievable bargain of $5 for ten! ____________________________ June Prize Winners Our two prize winners at the June 13th OPCUG meeting were: John Barnhardt who won our raffle prize (an SZ5002 MP3/FM Radio Speaker) courtesy of SoundZone and Anthony Toscano who won a National Capital Freenet coffee mug courtesy of our evening,s speaker, Ross Kouhi, Executive Director of the NCF. Of course many more of us who came out on June 13th were treated to a great pizza feed before the meeting. Thanks to all of the members of the OPCUG who helped organize the event (particularly Brigitte Lord and Bob Gowan) for making this happen! ____________________________ Notice One of our members has asked if someone could bring a crimper to replace some RJ-45 plugs, the connector at each end of a network cable, and since I have one, I will bring it at our September meeting. The process is normally not very complicated and takes about 5 minutes, and if you don't have RJ-45 connectors, I'll have some regular plugs for a $1 each. For those interested, I can also explain how the cable is built inside and some of the theory behind it. We'll probably meet in one of the free classes after the regular meeting. Jocelyn Doire ____________________________ Help Wanted - Your OPCUG needs you! The Ottawa PC Users' Group has a dedicated band of individuals that manages the affairs of the club and, in particular, organizes our meetings and produces the newsletter each month. While those on the Board of Directors don't get any complaints about these two important aspects of our club, neither do they receive a lot of feedback about how well members enjoyed past meeting topics and newsletter articles, nor are there a lot of suggestions for future such items, or offers of assistance to help develop future meetings and publications. We would like to change this - with your help. So, how can you assist? Well, let us count the ways... (1) Do you have an idea for a main meeting topic and a speaker that you think would interest the membership at large? If so, just provide your suggestion to Jocelyn Doire (our Meeting Coordinator) or one of the other members of the Board. You don't have to do anything else. Jocelyn will follow-up and try to organize the speaker. (2) Of course, if you would like to help even more by actually approaching the individual that you have in mind to make a presentation, that would be even better! Just let us know what you have in mind, and let's see if we can coordinate a likely meeting date. (3) Perhaps you have a specific interest in some aspect of computing and you would like to make a presentation to the group on this topic. At previous meetings, some of our members have given really good presentations. We would really like to hear from you! (4) A member's presentation doesn't necessarily have to take up the whole meeting. We could schedule two or three different individuals to talk about their favourite topics. You could be one of these. (5) Each year, we usually have at least one members' night where several people give mini-presentations. You could participate in the next members' night and showcase your favourite piece of computer hardware or software (6) You could also provide a suggested topic or a speaker for one of our Special Interest Groups (SIG), give a presentation yourself (or even take charge of the Linux SIG which is seeking a new leader). (7) If you don't like giving presentations, perhaps you would rather write an article for the newsletter? We have had all sorts of reviews of hardware and software, discussions of technical issues, difficulties, and solutions published in the past and we believe that a mix of topics probably appeals to the widest audience. So, just send your contribution to Brigitte Lord, the newsletter's Editor. The material can be short, or you can provide a long article which may be serialized. Either way, Brigitte will make sure that your work is published in an upcoming issue of Ottawa PC News. (8) Newsletter material doesn't necessarily have to be original. Have you seen an item published elsewhere (that isn't subject to copyright) that you think would be of interest to the membership and that OPCUG could reprint? Send the reference to the item to Brigitte. She will take a look to see if the material can be included in a future OPCUG newsletter and arrange for due attribution. (9) Perhaps you just have a suggestion for an article or a series of articles that could usefully be included in the newsletter. Please send your ideas along. However, no guarantees on this one. We would have to find a volunteer to research and write up the topic, and that might be the most difficult of all the above tasks! (10) It seems a shame that we can't come up with ten things that you, as an individual, could do to assist the club, so did we mention that you could suggest a meeting topic and a speaker, approach a speaker to give a presentation, give a presentation yourself - at a main meeting, as part of a team of speakers, or by participating in members' night - suggest a topic or give a presentation at one of our SIG meetings, lead the Linux SIG, write a newsletter article, provide the reference to a previously-published article, or even make a suggestion for a newsletter topic? Contacts Jocelyn Doire, Meeting Coordinator jocelyn.doire@@opcug.ca Brigitte Lord, Newsletter Editor brigittelord@@opcug.ca ____________________________ OPCUG PRESENTATIONS AT THE OTTAWA PUBLIC LIBRARY by Chris Taylor Following are upcoming presentations currently scheduled (for updates visit http://www.opcug.ca/public/OPL.htm). September - December 2012 Is Free Software Really Free Wednesday, September 12, 6:15 - 8:15 PM, Manotick Branch And, if it is free, can it be any good? In this session, we will find that the answer to both questions is a resounding yes. There is lots of free software available, and many free programs are very good indeed. So, join Alan German from the Ottawa PC Users'Group to find out about some must-have - and absolutely free - software! So You Want to be a Blogger? Wednesday, September 19, 2012, 6:30 - 8:30 PM, Orleans Branch You want to keep your family up to date on your world travels, share your mouth-watering recipes with friends, or simply impart your philosophy to the world. You need a blog. Alan German, Treasurer, Ottawa PC Users' Group will have you creating a blog, and making your first post, within 15 minutes of deciding what to name your blog. And it won't cost you a cent. How to Buy a PC Thursday, September 20, 2012, 6:30 - 8:30 PM, Sunnyside Branch When buying a PC, you are faced with a lot of choices, laptop or desktop, dual or quad core processor, AMD or Intel, how big a hard drive, how big a monitor, is it better to buy a faster processor or more memory ... Chris Taylor, President of the Ottawa PC Users' Group will help sort out the choices so you can buy the computer that is right for your needs. Basic Digital Photo Editing Saturday, September 22, 2012, 10:30 AM - 12:30 PM, Main Branch It is easy to take dozens or hundreds of photos with your digital camera. But then what? Chris Taylor, President of the Ottawa PC Users' Group will help you discover some easy ways of fixing up your photos to correct many basic flaws so you will be proud to display them. How to Buy a Digital Camera Tuesday, September 25, 2012, 6:15 - 8:15 PM, Blackburn Hamlet Branch When buying a digital camera, you are faced with a bewildering array of choices. Chris Taylor, Ottawa PC Users' Group President will help "focus" your search for the ideal digital camera. Clicking, Flicking and Tweeting: Social Networking Controversy Thursday, September 27, 2012, 6:15 - 8:15 PM, Manotick Branch The explosion of social networking websites such as Flickr, Facebook, blogging sites and Twitter has raised more than privacy concerns. Join the discussion with Chris Taylor and Andrea Wells from the Ottawa PC Users' Group. Andrea will describe the value of social media sites, while Chris will give the cautions about using these tools so that you don't compromise your computer, your job, your identity, or worse. How to Secure a Home Wireless Network Tuesday, October 2, 2012, 6:15 - 8:15 PM, North Gloucester Branch Most wireless routers do not default to the most secure configuration. Make sure you are not the "low hanging fruit" that someone will decide to attack. It is surprisingly easy to make sure your network is secure. Chris Taylor, President of the Ottawa PC Users' Group will show you just how easy it is. Basic Digital Photo Editing Wednesday, October 3, 2012, 6:15 - 8:15 PM, Orleans Branch It is easy to take dozens or hundreds of photos with your digital camera. But then what? Chris Taylor, President of the Ottawa PC Users' Group will help you discover some easy ways of fixing up your photos to correct many basic flaws so you will be proud to display them. How to Buy a Digital Camera Thursday, October 4, 2012, 6:15 - 8:15 PM, Elmvale Branch When buying a digital camera, you are faced with a bewildering array of choices. Chris Taylor, Ottawa PC Users' Group President will help "focus" your search for the ideal digital camera. How to Buy a PC Thursday, October 11, 2012, 6:15 - 8:15 PM, Rosemount Branch When buying a PC, you are faced with a lot of choices, laptop or desktop, dual or quad core processor, AMD or Intel, how big a hard drive, how big a monitor, is it better to buy a faster processor or more memory ... Chris Taylor, President of the Ottawa PC Users' Group will help sort out the choices so you can buy the computer that is right for your needs. Protecting Your Computer Tuesday, October 16, 2012, 6:15 - 8:15 PM, North Gloucester Branch The average time it takes for an unprotected computer to be compromised after connecting to the Internet is under 15 minutes. Don't let it be yours. Chris Taylor, President of the Ottawa PC Users' Group will show you the simple steps you need to take to keep your computer from being hacked. Basic Digital Photo Editing Wednesday, October 17, 2012, 6:30 - 8:30 PM, Alta Vista Branch It is easy to take dozens or hundreds of photos with your digital camera. But then what? Chris Taylor, President of the Ottawa PC Users' Group will help you discover some easy ways of fixing up your photos to correct many basic flaws so you will be proud to display them. Basic Digital Photo Editing Saturday, October 20, 2012, 10:30 AM - 12:30 PM, Nepean Centrepointe Branch It is easy to take dozens or hundreds of photos with your digital camera. But then what? Chris Taylor, President of the Ottawa PC Users' Group will help you discover some easy ways of fixing up your photos to correct many basic flaws so you will be proud to display them. How to Buy a Digital Camera Monday, October 22, 2012, 1:30 - 3:30 PM, Carlingwood Branch When buying a digital camera, you are faced with a bewildering array of choices. Chris Taylor, Ottawa PC Users' Group President will help "focus" your search for the ideal digital camera. How to Buy a PC Tuesday, October 23, 2012, 6:15 - 8:15 PM, St. Laurent Branch When buying a PC, you are faced with a lot of choices, laptop or desktop, dual or quad core processor, AMD or Intel, how big a hard drive, how big a monitor, is it better to buy a faster processor or more memory ... Chris Taylor, President of the Ottawa PC Users' Group will help sort out the choices so you can buy the computer that is right for your needs. Protecting Your Computer Wednesday, October 24, 2012, 6:15 - 8:15 PM, Ruth E. Dickinson Branch The average time it takes for an unprotected computer to be compromised after connecting to the Internet is under 15 minutes. Don't let it be yours. Chris Taylor, President of the Ottawa PC Users' Group will show you the simple steps you need to take to keep your computer from being hacked. How to Buy a Digital Camera Tuesday, November 6, 2012, 6:15 - 8:15 PM, St. Laurent Branch When buying a digital camera, you are faced with a bewildering array of choices. Chris Taylor, Ottawa PC Users' Group President will help "focus" your search for the ideal digital camera. Basic Digital Photo Editing Wednesday, November 7, 2012, 6:30 - 8:30 PM, Cumberland Branch It is easy to take dozens or hundreds of photos with your digital camera. But then what? Chris Taylor, President of the Ottawa PC Users' Group will help you discover some easy ways of fixing up your photos to correct many basic flaws so you will be proud to display them. How to Buy a PC Thursday, November 8, 2012, 6:15 - 8:15 PM, Carlingwood Branch When buying a PC, you are faced with a lot of choices, laptop or desktop, dual or quad core processor, AMD or Intel, how big a hard drive, how big a monitor, is it better to buy a faster processor or more memory ... Chris Taylor, President of the Ottawa PC Users' Group will help sort out the choices so you can buy the computer that is right for your needs. Protecting Your Computer Thursday, November 15, 2012, 6:15 - 8:15 PM, Elmvale Branch The average time it takes for an unprotected computer to be compromised after connecting to the Internet is under 15 minutes. Don't let it be yours. Chris Taylor, President of the Ottawa PC Users' Group will show you the simple steps you need to take to keep your computer from being hacked. How to Buy a Digital Camera Wednesday, November 21, 2012, 6:15 - 8:15 PM, Orleans Branch When buying a digital camera, you are faced with a bewildering array of choices. Chris Taylor, Ottawa PC Users' Group President will help "focus" your search for the ideal digital camera. How to Buy a Digital Camera Thursday, November 22, 2012, 6:30 - 8:30 PM, Sunnyside Branch When buying a digital camera, you are faced with a bewildering array of choices. Chris Taylor, Ottawa PC Users' Group President will help "focus" your search for the ideal digital camera. Clicking, Flicking and Tweeting: Social Networking Controversy Saturday, November 24, 2012, 2:00 - 4:00 PM, Greenboro Branch The explosion of social networking websites such as Flickr, Facebook, blogging sites and Twitter has raised more than privacy concerns. Join the discussion with Chris Taylor and Andrea Wells from the Ottawa PC Users' Group. Andrea will describe the value of social media sites, while Chris will give the cautions about using these tools so that you don't compromise your computer, your job, your identity, or worse. Clicking, Flicking and Tweeting: Social Networking Controversy Tuesday, November 27, 2012, 6:30 - 8:30 PM, Nepean Centrepointe Branch The explosion of social networking websites such as Flickr, Facebook, blogging sites and Twitter has raised more than privacy concerns. Join the discussion with Chris Taylor and Andrea Wells from the Ottawa PC Users' Group. Andrea will describe the value of social media sites, while Chris will give the cautions about using these tools so that you don't compromise your computer, your job, your identity, or worse. Basic Digital Photo Editing Wednesday, November 28, 2012, 6:15 - 8:15 PM, Beaverbrook Branch It is easy to take dozens or hundreds of photos with your digital camera. But then what? Chris Taylor, President of the Ottawa PC Users' Group will help you discover some easy ways of fixing up your photos to correct many basic flaws so you will be proud to display them. How to Secure a Home Wireless Network Thursday, November 29, 2012, 6:15 - 8:15 PM, Rosemount Branch Most wireless routers do not default to the most secure configuration. Make sure you are not the "low hanging fruit" that someone will decide to attack. It is surprisingly easy to make sure your network is secure. Chris Taylor, President of the Ottawa PC Users' Group will show you just how easy it is. Protecting Your Computer Tuesday, December 4, 2012, 6:15 - 8:15 PM, Rideau Branch The average time it takes for an unprotected computer to be compromised after connecting to the Internet is under 15 minutes. Don't let it be yours. Chris Taylor, President of the Ottawa PC Users' Group will show you the simple steps you need to take to keep your computer from being hacked. How to Buy a PC Thursday, December 6, 2012, 6:15 - 8:15 PM, Blackburn Hamlet Branch When buying a PC, you are faced with a lot of choices, laptop or desktop, dual or quad core processor, AMD or Intel, how big a hard drive, how big a monitor, is it better to buy a faster processor or more memory ... Chris Taylor, President of the Ottawa PC Users' Group will help sort out the choices so you can buy the computer that is right for your needs. Presentations are scheduled as they are arranged with the Ottawa Public Library. This list will be updated in coming newsletter issues as things change (you can also visit http://www.opcug.ca/public/OPL.htm for updates). For more information about these presentations, you can check the Ottawa Public Library web site: biblioottawalibrary.ca/en/main/program Free registration is required. ____________________________ Article Sensible Report Updates by John C. Nash, Telfer School of Management, University of Ottawa September 2012 (Dr. Nash is the guest speaker at our September general meeting. Due to space restrictions, an excerpt of his article appears here. The entire article is available online in PDF format at: http://www.opcug.ca/public/Articles/ReportUpdates.pdf) Abstract Many people need to generate reports more than once. Monthly sales reports, for example, or evolving graphs of measurements and statistics. Sometimes it is useful to be able to include fresh calculations. This need has been part of the motivation of the Microsoft OLE framework and similar ventures, but the complexity of such approaches is unattractive. Worse, they only work on one platform and collaboration may be awkward. The R project for statistical computing developed a rather diffrent and more flexible approach. Under the rubric "Reproducible Research", several tools have been developed, originally so important studies (clinical trials of drugs, for example) could be sure the resulting report contained exactly the results it should, and could be revised properly as new data arrived. These ideas have applicability much wider than statistical computing, and ultimately much wider than the scope of R. Moreover, the tools are cross-platform, very powerful, and can be used collaboratively. The speaker will show some examples to illustrate how reports can be prepared that automatically update when their content and data are changed. In doing so, he will present a few introductory ideas about R that may be useful to and usable by a general audience. One last point: R is open source software and the "cost" is a download of approximately 50 MB for the base system. There are, however, more than 3500 add in packages for a huge variety of tasks. 1. Motivations Many people need to prepare monthly reports in a similar format but with new data. Nevertheless, I see persistent copy-and-paste work going on, with attendant disasters. This is not new. In 1978, a colleague at Agriculture Canada who was the beef marketing specialist sent a tape (remember those big reels of 1/2 inch tape?) to Statistics Canada with the 1978 table of production figures. A copy and paste operation resulted in a recall and pulping of many hundreds of printed reports because the figures published used the 1977 figures. Humans have a short attention span. Mouse or pointer operations are fine when we only do one or two. They are an onerous chore when we do 50 to 100, and essentially certain to have errors beyond that. (There are studies on spreadsheet correctness under the authorship of Ray Panko of the University of Hawaii for those interested.) The way round this is to make computers do the dirty and boring work for us. This is usually called scripting, since programming can scare folk. However, it is a form of programming, though it should not be scary or difficult. Building spreadsheets is a similar form of user-based programming, and people are doing lots of that - often badly of course. A second motivation is collaboration. Major reports - and even pretty minor ones - rarely have just one author. This results in lots of file attachments being emailed. Inevitably, we have the follow-up messages: * "Your file won't open on my machine" * "I can't see anything but gobbledygook in my special- gold-plated editing system" * "Which version are we talking about?" * "Why are you not using a proper system like (MacOS / Windows 7 Idiots Edition / SuperLinux4GeeksOnly / FacebookTellTheCompetitionEverything)?" Or (for uOttawa types like me) * "My email system truncated the file at 2 MB" Sidebar: Every September, some funky in the senior administration gets it into their head that an "important message" needs to be sent to every employee and student of the University. They make sure that a good quality - large file size - image is part of the message, and attach it in Word format, using the most recent version of Office. The resulting 1.5MB message is then dutifully "sent" to about 45000 addresses, and the network slows to a crawl or collapses. Moreover, the recipients usually can't read the message because they don't have the requisite software version. A simple text message will go through fine, and it can include a link to fancy stuff on a server. In the rest of this article and related talk, I will present a set of tools I have found useful to address the issues raised. As my audience is presumably people using personal computers, I will note here that I fully expect people to select and adapt the ideas to their own needs, or perhaps simply file them away for future reference. 2. Some attempts to address wishlist Computer systems developers have been aware of the issues for some time. Microsoft introduced OLE (Object Linking and Embedding) and evolved it through COM (Component Object Model) towards their .NET infrastructure. These are, however, directed either exclusively or primarily to Microsoft-based platforms. Furthermore, there are complexities that I prefer to avoid, with the involvement of many files and settings, and questions of which applications are compliant with the tools. For a while there were attempts to build alternatives, such as the OpenDoc structure. This was aban-doned, with Apple giving up the trademark finally in 2005. While Apple makes some very nice products, I have a difficult time forgetting Apple 3, Lisa, and Newton on the hardware side, with several ventures in software that have been similarly "dumped". From my perspective, a more promising line of development comes from the "Literate Programming" initiatives of Donald Knuth and others, starting in 1984, followed up by the "Reproducible Research" thrust that I date to about a decade ago. There are a number of workers from different areas of activity who have contributed. I am most familiar with contributions of Frank Harrell and Friedrich Leisch in the R community, where the importance of getting correctly matched data and calculations has already been mentioned. 3. Reproducible Research The desiderata we will aim to satisfy under the "reproducible research" banner are as follows. * A single file or archive should contain all the material to generate the report. This will rarely be perfect, of course, as all calculations are carried out within some sort of computing environment, and controlling such environments can be tricky. Nevertheless, we will aim towards this goal. * With a particular version of the master file, we should get a particular "published" report. Hence: reproducible output. * We would like our tools that accomplish these goals to be fast, reliable, and efficient in memory, disk, and computing time. * If possible, we want the whole process, if not the details, to be comprehensible to mere mortals. To continue reading the article from this point, go online at http://www.opcug.ca/public/Articles/ReportUpdates.pdf and go to page 3 ("A simple example"). ____________________________ Product Review Modifying PDF Documents by Alan German Many programs these days have the capability of saving original documents as PDF files but few applications are able to edit the contents of a PDF file. However, there are some programs that can modify an existing PDF file. One such piece of software is PDFTK Builder, which will let you re-arrange pages in a single PDF file, append pages from a second PDF file, split pages out of a PDF file, add background images to pages, rotate pages, and password protect a PDF file. Not a comprehensive content editor it's true, but still an impressive list of features by which an existing PDF file can be modified. PDFTK Builder is essentially a Windows version of PDFTK (http://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-the-pdf-toolkit/), a command-line program from Sid Steward of PDF Labs. Angus Johnson, the developer of PDFTK Builder, has built a graphical front end onto the original utility to produce an easy-to-use Windows version of the software. It will probably be useful to consult the help file in order to determine how the various options work. For example, to remove pages from a document, you open the file, specify which pages you wish to retain, and then use Save As to save a copy of the desired pages from the original file. This process removes any pages that were not specified from the document - a slightly strange way of doing things - but effective nonetheless. Another way to extract certain pages from various documents and combine these into a single file is to use both the Split and Collate functions. For example, the club's financial report (the balance sheet and income statement) were published on pages 3-4 of the February newsletter, while the reviewer's report was published on page 3 of the June issue. We can use PDFTK Builder to extract these three pages from the two PDF newsletter files, and then combine them into a new PDF file. Firstly, we use the Split tab and open the February newsletter (stored as NEWS1202.pdf) as the source PDF file. Pressing the Save button creates a series of PDF files, each containing a single page of the newsletter. The two pages of interest are therefore NEWS1202_003.pdf and NEWS1202_004.pdf, these being pages 3 and 4 respectively of the newsletter. Processing the June issue in a similar fashion provides access to the reviewer's report in the file NEWS1206_003.pdf. Now, we can open the Collate tab, press the Add button, and select the above-noted three files as our input data. Pressing Save As and specifying the new file financial_report_2011.pdf results in the three desired pages being stored in the new file (see image of dialogue box). PDFTK Builder is a little quirky in terms of its operations, and is limited in terms of its functionality for modifying PDF file, but it does have some useful features should you need to do simple modifications on an existing PDF file. Bottom Line PDFTK Builder (Open-source) Version 3.6 Angus Johnson http://www.angusj.com/pdftkb/ ____________________________ Article Waiting, waiting, waiting - is that site working? By John Weigle, Channel Islands PC Users Group If you've ever sat in front of your computer waiting for a website to load and wondering if your ISP is just slow, the Internet is dying, or the one site you want isn't working, consider bookmarking the easy-to-use website at http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com. The site has one of the easiest interfaces I've ever seen. There's an ad, and a line that asks: "Is google.com down for everyone or just me?" Type the name of the site you want to check in the box that contains "google.com," which overwrites that name, and watch for results. You don't have to press the Enter key. Within a second or two you'll get an answer to the question. Of course, if you can't reach the 'Is it down ..." site or any other location on the Internet, it's time to start a little troubleshooting. Are your modem and router on? Are all the connections properly made? If you're on DSL is your phone connection up and running? If the answer to all those questions is yes, it's probably time to call your ISP. And while your connection is working, it's a good idea to go to your ISP's website and copy the phone numbers to contact it. You might not be able to find them without an Internet connection. Originally published in the February, 2012 issue of The Outer Edge, the newsletter of the Channel Islands PC Users Group (CIPCUG), Ventura California, this article reprinted here with permission of CIPCUG. ____________________________ OPCUG Free Software Guide - Part 33 compiled by Alan German This guide features an annotated list of free computer programs. The software mentioned has not been reviewed (except where noted) nor have any tests necessarily been conducted. Consequently, no guarantees are provided that the individual programs will perform as described. Rather the list of available software is provided for the information of our members who may find one or more of the programs useful. PDFTK Builder Use this utility to modify the pages of PDF files. You can reorder, delete, duplicate, rotate and add watermarks to pages in a single document and/or merge pages from multiple PDF files Current Release: Version 3.6 Web Site: http://www.angusj.com/pdftkb/#pdftkbuilder VirtualBox Want to run a virtual machine on your current operating system? VirtualBox, from Oracle, is open-source software that runs on Windows, Linux, Macintosh, and Solaris hosts, and supports a large number of guest operating systems, including DOS, Windows and Linux. Current Release: Version 4.1.16 Web Site: https://www.virtualbox.org/ Windows Live Photo Gallery This free Windows 7 utility from Microsoft includes powerful and easy-to-use photo-editing tools. Adjust color and exposure, fix red eye, and even "fuse" two or more photos (such as different versions of a group shot) into one. Web Site: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-CA/windows- live/essentials-home Adblock Plus This extension for the Firefox and Chrome browsers removes advertisements to provide "annoyance-free web surfing". Individual URL requests made by web pages are blocked if the requested address matches a filter in Adblock Plus. You can subscribe to filter sets or create your own. Web Site: http://adblockplus.org/en/ Color Cop This color picker identifies on-screen colors by their hex color codes. Simply drag the eyedropper control to any location on the screen and release. The hex code for the selected color will be automatically copied to the clipboard. Current Release: Version 5.4.3 Web Site: http://colorcop.net/ Screenshot Captor A great tool for grabbing, manipulating, annotating, and sharing screenshots. Screenshot Captor loads into the system tray for ready access and is highly configurable to make it work precisely the way that you want. Current Release: Version 3.07.01 Web Site: http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/ Mouser/screenshotcaptor TeamViewer Use this software to connect your computer to any PC or server around the world within a few seconds. You can take control of a remote computer just as if you were sitting right in front of it. TeamViewer is free for all non- commercial users. Current Release: Version 7.0.12979 Web Site: http://www.teamviewer.com/en/indexa.aspx DS Clock This free digital desktop clock allows you to fully customize its look and feel, and can synchronize your computer with atomic clocks. Current Release: Version 2.6.2 Web Site: http://www.dualitysoft.com/dsclock/ ____________________________ 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/ Bulletin Board - PUB II (BBS): http://opcug.ca/default.htm President and System Administrator: Chris Taylor, chris.taylor@@opcug.ca, 613 727-5453 Meeting Coordinator: (Mr.) Jocelyn Doire, Jocelyn.Doire@@opcug.ca Treasurer: Alan German, alan.german@@opcug.ca Secretary: Gail Eagen, gail.Eagen@@opcug.ca Membership Chairman: Mark Cayer, Mark.Cayer@@opcug.ca, 613 823-0354 Newsletter: Brigitte Lord, Brigittelord@@opcug.ca Email: (Mr.) Jocelyn Doire, Jocelyn.Doire@@opcug.ca Public Relations: Morris Turpin, PR@@opcug.ca, 613 729-6955 Facilities: Bob Walker, 613 489-2084 Webmaster: Brigitte Lord, opcug-webmaster2@@opcug.ca Privacy Director: Wayne Houston, privacy2@@opcug.ca Special Events Coordinator: Bob Gowan, bob.gowan@@opcug.ca Beginners' SIG Coordinator: Chris Taylor, chris.taylor@@opcug.ca, 613 727-5453 Linux / Open-Source software SIG: (vacant) Note: We added an extra "@" to the emails to reduce spam. (c) OPCUG 2012. 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) in the body of the message. No subject line is required. To cancel e-mailing, send a message to listserve@@opcug.ca with the plain text "unsubscribe NewsletterTXT" or "unsubscribe NewsletterPDF" (without quotes). To change your e-mail address, cancel using the old e-mail address and re-subscribe using your new e-mail address. 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). Within a couple of minutes you will receive a confirmation message from the list server. OPCUG clock/calendar/calculator and mug: Check out the clock/calendar/calculator and thermal coffee mug sporting our club logo at the back of the auditorium at General Meetings! OPCUG insulated mugs are $15 and OPCUG clocks 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. Please note: If you bring anything for the recycle table, you are responsible to check on your way out and if the items you brought are still there, you must take them home with you.