Oct 00 Monitor · 2002-10-23 · Delorme’s yellow hockey puck that performs only that function. It was also indicated that an update to DataSend would be forthcom-ing. The RCS Monitor

The RCS Monitor / October 2000 1

GPS-ingby Fred Thorlin

Houston Area League of PC Users

You are Here!Who needs a GPS (Global PositioningSystem)? Now you do. Even if you

don’t go adventuring in the great outdoorsor sailing out of sight of the coast, it doesn’tmatter. You need a GPS now.

A GPS is a device that can determineyour location on the earth, based on infor-mation it receives from satellites. From thatinformation, it can develop a lot of otherhandy information, e.g., your speed. Thesedevices have been available since the late1980s.

What has changed recently? At leastone GPS has gotten so easy to operate,economical to buy, and reliable to use, thatnow I can’t imagine going far from homewithout it. Consider the following experi-ences:• I visited a friend in Las Vegas. He gave

me directions to his house, but I knewif I missed one landmark that I was indire straits. Before going, I looked upthe latitude and longitude of his houseand entered it in my GPS. I intention-ally ignored his directions and justwent to where the GPS pointed. Follow-ing the arrow got me within 100 feet ofhis house. If I missed a turn, so what?I may not get there in the minimumamount of time, but on the other hand,I won’t have the frustration at not be-ing able to follow his directions.

• Driving past the Sands ConventionCenter I pressed a button twice on my

GPS. Two days later I got disoriented inthe canyons behind the strip hotels. MyGPS pointed me straight to the Center.The two taps were enough to record thelocation.

• I stayed with a friend in the mountains.His house was not visible from the mainroad and the entrance road was undis-tinguished. In the past, I had severaltimes spent 20 minutes wandering upand down that road trying to identifyhis driveway. With the GPS, even atnight, I found my way flawlessly.The Magellan 315 is a big improvement

over an earlier Magellan GPS I own. The315 only weighs 7 ounces, is waterproof, andis available for as little as $135. It identifiesmy position quicker and hangs on to itthrough bad visibility better than its prede-cessor that cost twice as much. The newmodel provides more, and more useful infor-mation. It provides so much information youwant to turn some of it off. Fortunately, youcan.

The display shows the Magellan’s cleverway of overcoming a common complaintwith earlier GPSs. The circle represents acompass, as you would expect. The arrow inthe center points in the direction you aremoving and the compass ring rotates aroundit. The gray arrow points to your destinationas long as you are moving. But what if youare standing still? There are two marksoutside the ring. One represents the sunand the other the moon. Orient the GPSwith the sun or moon, whichever is visible,and you will be correctly oriented, i.e., itnow gives you the same information as acompass. A backlight is included. The text

The RCS Monitor / October 20002

above the compass ring identifies the desti-nation, declares the compass bearing youare moving along and the compass bearingof your destination. The last field tells youthe distance to your destination in miles orkilometers. If you haven’t entered anydestinations, the unit comes with thou-sands of international landmarks alreadyloaded. These range from Baytown, Texasto Veraval, India.

Another eight displays are offered foryour insatiable appetite for navigationaldata. Some are interesting. One draws amap of your movements superimposed overyour collection of landmarks. Another is acute, animated odometer. One shows theorientation of locally visible navigationsatellites. The others I don’t look at.

I am very enthusiastic about this unit,but it isn’t without flaws. The most seriousone is there is no way of telling if your unitcan still compute its position. This couldlead to you to following it when it didn’tknow where it was going. In practice, thishasn’t been a problem, but it is certainly astep backwards from the earlier models.The manual is weak. The database of citiesprovided is laughable. For unknown rea-sons, Magellan partitioned the list of pro-vided cities into major, large and mediumcities based on some demographic criteria.Unless you happen to know the populationof the city you are looking for, you can’tpredict which group it will turn up in. Youend up searching all three. Try looking upAlbany. There are three of them in themedium city group and one of them in themajor city group, and there is no qualifyinginformation, excluding latitude and longi-

tude, to indicate you are selecting the Al-bany in Alabama, California, Georgia, Iowa,Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana,Minnesota, Montana or elsewhere! A reallycool feature that reduces the severity of thisproblem is that the 315 will produce a list ofthe roughly, 20 closest locations in its data-base. There is a program, DataSend, avail-able to load thousands of additional loca-tions. It even includes about 20 restaurantswithin a few miles of me. On the otherhand, the program is so flaky I didn’t at-tempt the transfer. I highly recommend the315, just not the supplementary software.

The product works beautifully withDelorme Street Atlas 6.0 and, presumably,comparable mapping programs. I havelooked up the latitude and longitude ofseveral appointments here in Houston. I canthen drive to these meetings without havingto worry about missing a turn here or alandmark there. I now explore alternateroutes and different areas of Houston with-out the slightest concern about becomingdisoriented, which used to make me veryfrustrated. I am looking forward to my nexttrip to a strange city. I will be able to wan-der around completely at random withouthaving to worry about getting lost in astrange land. At the Consumer ElectronicsShow 2000, I was told I could connect the315 to a notebook computer running StreetAtlas, and it would track my movements onthe map just as well as if I had purchasedDelorme’s yellow hockey puck that performsonly that function. It was also indicated thatan update to DataSend would be forthcom-ing.


On May 1, 2000 President Clinton an-nounced that “selective availability (SA)”will be discontinued by 2006 and will bediminished immediately. SA refers to theerror introduced into GPS data by the De-partment of Defense.

This can currently range up to 100meters. With the removal of SA, other errorsources will become significant, but we canlook forward to their impact to be 10 metersor less. This will materially increase theutility and applicability of handheld GPSunits such as the Magellan 315.

The Magellan 315, like most GPSs, ismarketed to the offshore fishing crowd.There are features that are only useful inthat context. There are some pricey GPSmodels intended for use in cars. Nonethe-less, I think Magellan is missing out on abig market because the rest of us can makegood use of their low priced GPSs now. Ifyou do get a 315, I believe you will shortlystart wondering how you got along withoutit.

From the June 2000 issue of HAL-PC Magazine.Fred Thorlin is a long-term Houston Area League of PCUsers member who can be reached at [email protected].

ReviewDeneba Canvas 7 (SE)

Jorga RiggenbachTucson Computer Society

Canvas 7 is an interesting product incompetition with a whole raft ofgraphics software. For that matter,

Deneba itself is an intriguing, 70-employeecompany headquartered in Miami, Florida.Launched in 1986, graphics software istheir raison d'etre. The Deneba name isperhaps better known overseas, and Can-vas is available in French, German, Italian,

and Japanese versions. Deneba has astrong Mac OS following and also makesDenebaCAD2. Canvas 7 Standard Edition (SE)

Installation was fast and easy andmenu-driven from the CD. Uninstalling wasa piece of cake too.

Canvas 7's primary claim to fame is thatit is multi-functional. The first thing thatstruck me was that some of the icons lookedjust like some of the Adobe icons and per-formed the same functions. That is not tosay it is like the Adobe environment. Thereare basic similarities among all graphicsprograms.

One weird little quirk I noticed rightaway was that you have to hit "escape" tostop a function or get out of a tool. I'vegotten out of the habit of using the "escape"button for much of anything and it seems alittle clunky to go back to it, but it's nobiggie.

The four basic functions of Canvas 7 areanimation, illustration, presentation, andpublication. Whenever you create a new file,you choose an option from those categories.Illustration

Canvas 7 makes vector graphics and letsyou apply effects to them — these are thingsyou'd ordinarily only be able to do to abitmap image. The ability to do 3-D designsand images easily and quickly is one of themore spectacular features.

The interface is fairly typical with amenu bar, toolbar, docking bar, toolbox,layout area, zoom bar, and status bar.

The docking bar is particularly niftybecause you can use it to customize theinterface by docking palettes for easy, quickuse. Once docked, the palettes appear astabs which can be easily sized and arranged.


Most of us are used to working with float-ing palettes that stack up and often get lostbehind each other. The docking bar is asweet alternative to floating palettes andyou can use both simultaneously.

Of course, Canvas 7 offers an undo/redofeature. What would we dowithout undo/redo? Howdid we ever get alongwithout it? You can specifythe minimum/maximumundo/redo number inFile/Preferences/General.

A quick note here —Canvas 7 offers a Wizardoption for setting up newdocuments. Wizards arealways handy when youare exploring unknownterritory and can be veryhelpful. Of course, onceyou catch onto the process, you can skip thewizard and work on your own.

The tool box is chock full of goodies.Some of them take a fair amount ofeye-hand coordination, since they requireholding the shift key and doing some fancymouse work.

The Arc tool is fun and gives you aperfect quarter circle. EasyShapes also hasan interesting selection from arrows andcall-outs to cubes and spirals. Myhands-down favorite is the cube — a per-fectly proportioned, dimensional cube intwo mouse clicks.

There is a selection of super fill toolsand a second CD with a huge clip art collec-tion. Drawing curved paths is a breeze andyou can define curves with anchor pointswhile tangent lines control the curve shape.Curves can be handled manually or with anAuto Curve tool. Curves have been notori-

ously difficult to handle in graphics pro-grams, but Canvas 7 has made it easier.Sprite Effects

One of the big features of Canvas 7 isSpriteEffects. I love that name, and the wayit works is sensational. Basically it is a

feature based on a ren-dering engine that isquick and agile and givesthe user the ability tocombine painterly effectslike Gaussian Blur withvector control.

There is also a fabu-lous lens effect that cre-ates a lens object fromvector or text objects andyou can add SpriteEffectsto lenses for some incred-ibly far-out graphics. Ex-truding 3D objects is an-

other great feature. It is like turning an object on a digital

lathe. In fact, that was the first thing Ithought of — how I could perfect an objectdigitally with the extrusion palette and thencut the pattern and replicate it on my lathein the woodworking shop. Typography and Page Layout

Canvas 7 contains a fairly comprehen-sive page layout environment. I say that,but I must also tell you that I only use onepage layout program, PageMaker, so that isthe only comparison I can make. In fact,Canvas has many similarities to Page-Maker.

Of course, there is a well-done tutorial,as there are with the other major sections.The page layout contains the usual charac-ters including layers, master pages, textwrapping and so on.


ImageEditing Again, this is a standard fea-

ture with vignettes and such, but vectormasks, channel masks, and more sophisti-cated features than some other productshave pump it up to offer a wide-array ofpossibilities. Web Publishing

You can create buttons, animated GIFsand just about anything else for webgraphics and layouts. Using the Save to Web command tooptimize images.

Although you can do this directly, theyrecommend that you save the file first as aCanvas document so you can come back andedit it if need be.Is It Right For You?

There are so many competing products,each with its own many claims, that it isdifficult to decide which of them to get.Canvas 7 is an excellent choice because itdoes such a wide range of jobs. I won't tellyou it is easy to use, but it's certainly notthe most difficult program either.

There are tutorials and the 120-pagemanual that comes with it is easy to under-stand and follow. If that isn't enough, ontheir web site they sell a video tutorial for$49.

I will say that all graphics programstake a lot of work and patience to learn touse well. That isn't so bad, because they areso much a hoot to work with and Canvas 7is right up there in the fun-to-use-category.

You already have a graphics programor two? So do I, but I recently heard apresentation by JASC representative, ToddMatzke, and he explained that a carpenterwouldn't limit himself to just one tool. He'dhave whatever tools it took to get the jobdone. Todd suggested that graphics soft-

ware is the same way. You should have asmany graphics programs as you need to getthe exact result you want and you use all ofthem as the tools of your trade. I think Toddhas exactly the right idea.Requirements and Price

A word of caution: There are two ver-sions of this product — a Standard Editionand a Professional Edition. You must readvery carefully to determine which editionDeneba is describing.

The Standard Edition, the basis of thisreview, contains 10,000 Clip art images, 500Fonts, web features, drawing tools,photo-editing tools, and page layout fea-tures. It sells for $85–$100 and it is sold onthe Deneba web site and at CompUSA andBest Buy, so it is worthwhile to watch theads and look for the lowest price.

The program requires a Pentium-classprocessor, Windows 95/98/ 2000, NT 4.0, orlater, 32 MB RAM (I think this is way toolow for a graphics program like Canvas 7),80 megabytes of free hard disk space, 16-bitcolor or higher and 800 x 600 or higherscreen resolution.

You can also download a 15-day freetrial from Deneba's web site.

RevieweGems Professional

by Russell J. JacobsenStanford Palo Also User Group

The program eGems Professional is apowerful new technology that worksalongside other applications including

your word processor, spreadsheet, webbrowser or any other Windows application.Whether you want a particular quote, table,statistic or picture, you need only drag theselected item to the always-available eGemsLogo and a gem will be created for you,


complete with 13 available bibliographicalformats. The data is stored in your ownpersonal gem database for later use in yourwork. It is more robust than other softwareapplications because it does not integrateitself into your browser. eGems workssmoothly alongside multiple browsers withno need to switch back and forth betweenapplications.

eGems helps the user organize andmaintain facts, quotes, graphics, or anytype of electronic information into a simple,graphical application. It even tracks thereference source where the informationcame from so the user can go back to thesource if need be. Get a free trial athttp://egems.com.

From the Stanford Palo Also User Group newslet-ter of August 2000.

ChallengeChange Your Mouse Hand

Try using your non-dominant hand foryour mouse. Your dominant hand willthen be free to make notes, use the

phone, and otherwise make itself useful.

From The Dealsguyby Bob Click

Greater OrlandoComputer Users Group

Talking about “paid referral URLs,” I’lltry to leave out the ones that areobvious, but I think some are actually

just a shorter way to take you to an infor-mation page. I’m going to leave it up toyour own discretion whether you will use anumbered URL or not, now that you knowthe possibilities.

Some feedback on freedsl.com says thatif you don’t keep the service for one year,there is a stiff termination fee. I noticed

that you are forwarded to a different URL,but the information is the same. Thanks forthe feedback.Offer Still Good–Including Two NewGames

The Hang2000 game is still good andKen Winograd e-mailed me that he hasreleased two new games that are very edu-cational. They are “States3000" and “Presi-dents3000" and are based on an improvedHang2000 engine. You can check for moreinfo at his Web site [http://www.winograd.com]. The “private” URL for PC users groupmembers is [http://www.winograd.com/pcug2.html].I’m Keepin’ Mine

I think you can still take advantage ofthe Sizzlin’ Summer offer for the FriendlyRobotics lawn mower. I have kept a diary onmy Web site (Announcements page) for youto read. I’ve had some minor problems, butso far I love it. They have offered to send mea new mower to correct a bad chargingmessage which I’ll take advantage of. Thatdoesn’t keep the mower from doing its joband I certainly have the neighborsintrigued. How embarrassing that I didn’tinclude the ordering number (1-888-244-5178) last month. A few people e-mailedme about it.This One’s For You Cheapskate Inves-tors

I know many of you are trading stocksfor as low as $8 per trade, but how abouttrading securities for free. Freetradez.com isthe latest entry in the online brokeragefield. They said they went into operation onJune 19, 2000 with the intention of doingoptions trading towards fall. They are offer-ing trades with NO commission charge,


even for limit orders, plus, they offerNasdaq Level II quotes.

You guessed it, advertising pays for it.If you type in a ticker symbol, up pops anad from that very company. Or, get this, ifthat company wasn’t interested, the ad atthe top of your screen will be for their com-petitor or a related company. How’s that forstrategy! And, another company will spon-sor confirmations. Your monthly statementhas an ad from that same company.

Most trades should be executed in onesecond, but if it is not executed in 45 sec-onds, your account is credited with $5. Aday trader can set a price at the bid, orbelow the bid. Just so you know, anytimeyou type in a stock symbol, an advertiserpays them. And yes, they accept trades anytime of the day or night. Check them out at[http://www.freetradez.com].Convert Those Old Videos (AfterBrushing Off the Dust)

Here is an announcement I receivedsome time ago from Bill Loesch, vice-presi-dent of Consumer Products for PinnacleSystems. I’ve not tried their products whichappear to be just for PCS.

“Do your members want to edit thosebaby videos collecting dust in their attics,or maybe preserve the memories of theirbest vacations? With Pinnacle Systems’Emmy-award-winning technology, videoediting is simple.

“All you need is a Pentium-based com-puter, a video camera and/or a VCR. Signup your Users Group at the Users GroupSupport Program Web site at [http://usergroup.pinnaclesys.com/] and review ourproducts for your newsletter on a 60-dayloan. [DealsGuy note — “a loan” just doesn’twork for me. If the reviewer can’t keep itfor all their work, forget it.] User group

members receive 15 percent off suggestedretail price (SRP) on all our Studio line ofvideo editing products; arrange for a cus-tomized demo from a Pinnacle Systemsrepresentative in your area. Sincerely, BillLoesch.”Check Out E-mail Hoaxes.

I hate to take up column space with thiskind of stuff, but I have been deluged withso-called warnings lately and many peopleread this column. If you are a person that“insists” on sending out all those “warnings”to your friends, do them a favor and checkfurther before you send them any more“spam.” Here are some informational sitesgleaned from newsletters I receive. Out ofall those URLs I read and tried, severaleither didn’t work, or else I couldn’t find thecorrelation, but here are the ones thatworked for me:1. http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/

index.html]2. http://www.avp.ch/avpve]3. [http://www.datafellows.com/virus-info]4. http://www.datafellows.com/news/

hoax]5. [http://www.icsa.net/services/consortia/

anti-virus/aler-hoax.html] (I had prob-lems with this one but I’m including itanyway).

6. [http://www.kumite.com/myths] 7. [http://www.snopes.com] (This one also

has music so it loads slowly.)8. [http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org/]Can Your Web Browser Get A Ticket?

Not likely, but I assume everybody isinterested in accelerating his or her browserpower. Murray Davis of Akron/ Canton PCUG passed this one on to me. Your browser’scache is meant to help if visiting a Web siteagain by already having the data to load it.However, you have little control over that


cache. There is PC software to speed thewhole process called “NetSonic.” It workswith any browser and they can shareNetSonic’s cache, thus saving space on yourhard drive as well.

It also retains Domain Name Serverinformation. There’s more, so I suggest youvisit their Web site and take a look at thisFREE program. They are hoping you willlike it enough that you will eventuallypurchase their more full-featured “NetSonicPro” that sells for $39.95. ($29.95 if you usea special URL given to me by their market-ing people) [http:/ /www.netsonic.com/redir/buy_redirect.asp?DIRECT_FLAG=25off&netsonic=~,~c~,~]. Find outmore about the software at [http://www.netsonic.com] where you can also seea description for the Pro version. Unfortu-nately, I had to wrap up this column a bitearly and the special ordering URL doesn’tfind the $29.95 price. If it is a problem thismonth, I’ll feature the special offer nextmonth for the Pro version. That will giveyou time to see if you like the free versionenough to buy it.A Way to Combine Both Your PC andthe Web for Some Projects

Beth Fordyce from Southeastern Michi-gan Computer Organization referred this tome some time ago and I’m just now follow-ing up. I e-mailed French Prescott of EnfishSoftware and the following is what he toldme:

“Enfish’s current release product is‘Onespace.’ This product has supercededthe Tracker Pro, their original flagshipproduct. It incorporates the same trackingand search function of Tracker Pro, but itnow extends the product to bring Webcontent and the user’s own content into oneunified workspace.

“For example, if you’re working on aproject, say the annual Christmas party,you can earmark the relevant Web pages(maybe caterers or decoration suppliers) andsee it all in context with all the e-mail yousend and receive about the project. You’llsee any documents (word processing,spreadsheets, etc.) related to the planning,and any other files that you specificallyindicate are involved. Onespace does thetracking on your own system automaticallyand you can use search tools (much likeInternet search engines) to expand thetracking. The user can set up and configurethe working area to fit individual needs.”

This product is a free working downloadfrom the Enfish site: [http://www.enfish.com]. The latest release version was madeavailable July 19. French gave me manymore details, so check the above Web site formore information. Looks like it is for PConly. I’ve seen good reviews on it.More Invasion Testing forHacker-Worried Computer Owners

You’ve all read in many places aboutSteve Gibson’s “Shields Up” for testing yourmachine for hacker invasion, a great serviceat no cost. In case you want an additionaltest to check further, I read that you canvisit Webtrend’s site at [http://www.webtrends.net/tools/security /scan.asp]. Ortry Hacker-Wacker at [http://www.hackerwacker.com] and click on “Free SecurityScan.”

That’s it for this month. Meet me hereagain next month if your editor permits.This column is written to make user groupmembers aware of special offers I havefound or arranged, and my commentsshould not be interpreted to encourage, ordiscourage, the purchase of products, no


matter how enthused I might sound. Bob(The Cheapskate) Click [[email protected]]. Visit my Web site at[http://www.dealsguy.com] for past col-umns. Also check out the distribution page.

Napster Redux: Round IIComin’ at ya

by Tim Condon, Esq.Tampa PC Users Group

So here we have it: A federal judgeentered an injunction to shut downthe Napster music-sharing server and

shut out its more than 20 million users. OnJuly 26, 2000 Judge Marilyn Patel shockedjust about everyone, including the lawyersfor the Recording Industry Association ofAmerica (RIAA), by abruptly entering averbal order for Napster to shut down itsserver by midnight on Friday, July 28th(Pacific Standard Time). Then, within 48hours of that ruling, the next judicial levelup, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, heardan entreaty from the Napster lawyers …and countermanded the lower court’s in-junction. So Napster remains online andserving its millions of customers ... for thetime being, at least.

“Pirates” is how the RIAA characterizesboth Napster and the music-copying andmusic-trading fans of the software. Whilethe RIAA argued that the entire Napsteroperation was a front for wholesale copy-right infringement and piracy, the Napsterlawyers argued that people have an inher-ent right to copy and share music down-loaded on the Internet as long as no moneyis changing hands. Round I for the RIAA.Round one-and-a-half for Napster. Where tonow? Good question!

The Napster phenomenon has become acause celebre for both sides of the struggle.

Probably because the issues presentedinvolve digitized information that can beutilized for writings as well as pictures,recordings, software and any other kind ofinformation. The battle has been joined onthe frontlines of most media outlets, includ-ing newspapers, magazines, online forums,online magazines, television reports, etc.And now the stars of the music industryhave begun to weigh in, complementing thesplit ranks (about 85 percent to 15 percent)of the music industry “suits.” So let’s take alook at who’s who among those manningeach side of the Napster/Anti-Napster barri-cades: 1. On the Anti-side is a growing list ofmusicians who feel their work is being“ripped off” by consumers utilizing theNapster software and web site … con-sumers who they believe would otherwise bebuying their pricey music CD’s. A shortreview of current articles on the questionshows that these include Aimee Mann,Kristin Hersh (a founding member of TheThrowing Muses), Scott Sapp (lead singer ofCreed), Chris Robinson (lead singer of theBlack Crowes), Sean “Puffy” Combs (aka“Puff Daddy”), Jonathan Brook, MorganRose of the hard rock band Sevendust,Mandy Barnett, former Blondie star DebbieHarry, and last but not least, recording starBif Naked. 2. But wait! Coming up fast on the outsideis a list of music writers and performerswho, if they’re not as numerous as theAnti’s, make up for it with their star-power.Included on this side is a list of people whoargue that the “music industry” as it isconstituted today is based upon the whole-sale exploitation and abuse of artists, andthat the destruction of this distribution andmarketing semi-monopoly can do nothing


other than benefit both artists and theirfans. Examples?

Courtney Love, lead singer of the bandHole, who has indicted the music industryas little more than an organized system ofstealing from artists (her recent inflamma-tory speech before a Chicago conventioncan be found at http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/love/); rapper Chuck D(who says “I believe in the technology … it’sa fantastic way to build a minor leaguesystem of artists”); Grateful Dead song-writer and philosopher John Perry Barlow(who maintains that the music industry isinherently corrupt, greedy, abusive andgrasping); the band Limp Bizkit; MarianneFaithfull; and non-star musician ChristianViveros, who simply says “The recordingindustry is a Mafia.”

In addition, there are renegade musicindustry professionals who are bolting fromthe anti-Napster line and saying that themusic-sharing revolution can birth anentirely new (and profitable) way of doingbusiness. Included are Alan Kovac, presi-dent of a management company that repre-sents the bands Motley Crue, the Bee Gees,and others. Ditto for Jim Guerinot, a man-ager for the bands Offspring and No Doubt,who thinks that the music industry andNapster can work together to birth a newway of serving both artists and fans.

What’s going to happen? Well, first ofall Napster is probably going to lose thelawsuit that the RIAA has brought againstit (although the case could well end upgoing all the way to the U.S. SupremeCourt). Most copyright lawyers and otherprofessionals seem to agree that Napsterand the services it offers are clear examplesof copyright violation as the law existstoday.

Secondly, it looks like “the genie is outof the bottle” when it comes to digital copy-ing and trading of music (not to mentionpictures, movies, software, books, and allother forms of information transfer). Evenas the Judge Patel was ordering Napster toshut down, alternate methods of doing thesame thing were being revved up on theInternet in different parts of the world. Allof these alternatives do essentially the samething as Napster, allowing the wholesalefree copying and sharing of music files.They include Gnutella (a decentralizedsoftware system for sharing music files);AudioGnome (which relies on about 70servers in half a dozen countries running afree program called OpenNap); Freenet(which makes every participating computerin essence a file-sharing server and is be-lieved to be “invulnerable to any attack” bythe authorities because of its de-centralizednature and the use of encryption);Napigator and the “Open Napster” move-ment (which consists of more than 100Napster servers running Napster- clonesoftware located in a number of countries);and even MP3Board, Inc., which is beingsued by the RIAA for being a companywhich points to locations on the Internetwhere bootleg music recordings may befound.

Stay tuned. The recording industry isfighting for its right to force music buyers tobuy CD’s for $17 or $18 which cost about 35cents to manufacture (and which havemultiple songs on them that no one wants tohear instead of just the song hits whichpeople do want to buy). Essentially, themusic/recording industry is fighting anyeffort to use the Internet to cut them out ofthe distribution function which up until nowthey have dominated. In the long run, how-


ever, look for the death of the “music indus-try” and the birth of a new industry whichcould be called “the artists and fans indus-try.”

From the September 2000 issue of Bits of Blue thejournal of the Tampa PC Users Group. Tim Condon canbe reached at tim@free- market.net.

ReviewGet it TogetherWith Act! 2000by Cindy Thorson

Greater Victoria PC Users’ Association

Let me start this review by letting youknow up-front that I’m writing itf rom the v iewpo int o f a

small-business owner. This is a personalreview about the features I find useful andproductive for my small business. There areplenty of excellent software reviews on Act!2000 from various sources in magazinesand on the web. However, I found that mostof them were either tediously bogged downwith details on features for high-end corpo-rate users that I would never use, or lack-ing in any detail at all and opting for thegeneric “canned” review approach. I’ll try todo neither here and hope that some of youwill get a good enough picture as to whatand why you would benefit from using Act!2000.

There’s a saying “knowledge is power”From an entrepreneurial point of view, I’dlike to add a word to that: “customer know-ledge is power.” Your business, whether asmall home-based one operating from yourspare-bedroom or a full-scale retail store orindustrial plant, all have one thing in com-mon: the need to keep selling to the custom-ers you do have and be in a position toattract and follow-up on new customers. Allof that depends on having customer infor-

mation at your fingertips-which means youneed a dependable way of maintaining goodclient records. The current computer buzz-word for keeping client information recordsis called “contact management.” Who is Contact Management Software For?

It used to be when you heard the word“contact manager” you were most likelytalking about the idea of a big corporationwith hundreds of networked users pluggedinto a mainframe server computer. Compli-cated databases sometimes meant outdatedcustomer or sales data and the need forwhole plethora of system and databaseadministrators to keep the thing gluedtogether.

Those mammoth database systems areall well and good for the “suits” of theblue-chip corporate world, but what aboutthe little guy and gal, the small businessowner? The networked contact-manage-ment solutions are not in reach nor are theyterribly useful for today’s on-their-ownentrepreneurs. As a response to the growingsmall-business sector, several excellentmid-range contact systems have been devel-oped to fill the gap. The new off theshelf-products don’t cost a lot and learninghow to use them properly is well worth thetime and effort. Symantec Act! 2000 is thedefacto standard in this arena and morethan you’ll most likely ever need and thensome.

My company comes under the SOHO(small-office/ home-office) category. I am asmall computer-tech and tutorial business,and most times a one-person show. While Imay not use some the more grandeur net-worked-features included with Act! 2000,the features that I do use serve me well. AsI learn the product more I’m adding uses forthe additional features so that as my com-


pany grows I can use Act! to be repaired forit. Contact Management à la Dysfunctional

This is how I, and I bet many of you,have been managing contacts thus far: • Crumpled bits of paper — very useful

for the first 15 minutes or until I didthe laundry — whichever came first.

• A paper-based Rolodex. Good for aboutthree to six weeks until the informationwas outdated or until I grabbed one outof the Rolodex because I couldn’t seethe tiny printing of the phone number.Afterwards, I promptly forgot to put thecard back in and it found its way to therecycle basket just beneath my feet.

• The phone-index pages at the back ofmy day-timer. Also good for a limitedtime, but more importantly good onlyfor a phone number and little else, nocustomer notes available here.

• The speed dial list on my phone. Lot’s ofuseful information there too. I see you’re beginning to get the picture

so let’s move on. It’s time for out with theold and in with the new fangled-way ofdoing things. Keeping in Touch With Your World

ACT! 2000 allows you to put all of thecontact information you will use the mostright at your fingertips. You can use one ofthe pre-defined layouts provided or you canhighly customize the layout screens to meetyour specific needs. I am big on customi-zation, it’s one of the reasons I chose Act!over other popular contact managementsoftware.

Everything you need is within easyreach. The screen is divided into twoup/down screens. The top has the maincontact information and the bottom halfuses the tabs approach to let you get to all

the other information with minimal effort. Ifyou choose one of the existing pre-madelayouts, the tabs will consist of a clientsNotes/History tab where you can enter notessay on a conversation you had, an Activitiestab which keeps track of all specific activi-ties such as meetings, a Sales Opportunitiestab to keep track of what marketing, calls,or sales you’ve made, a Groups tab to let youknow what groups the contact belongs toosuch as Big Blue and Cousins members,Suppliers and Golf buddies. An additionaltab called “User Fields” lets you add custom-ized fields for any information that theothers don’t cover such as birthdays, ac-count numbers and whatever you can thinkof. A Home/Phone tab is included for yourcontacts personal phone numbers and homeaddress. And finally, there is a tab for alter-nate contacts such as assistant’s names andother associated contact info.

The main contact screen at the top hasall the usual information such as phonenumbers, addresses, company name, etc.,and anything else you’d like to appear. Ihave made myself a customized Contactscreen by adding several other fields that Iwant to see immediately when I call up apersons record. In my customized layout, Isee at once who referred me the business,their customer account number, a gazilliondifferent phone numbers including toll-free,direct-line, main-company line, fax, cell-phone, home phone, e-mail, and finally asmall Comments field.

Some people I know have six different e-mail addresses. While I may not want to listall six on the main-contact page, I still wantto have them handy for reference. So, I haveeven created a custom tab dedicated toall-things Internet for each of my contacts.E-mail addresses, their home web-page,


Listen every Saturday at 1 p.m.

their companies web-site, their ftp serverand password, their ICQ nickname and, forthose techie friends ofmine that still have aBBS running in theirbasements, I keeptrack of the dial-inphone numbers andpasswords for thattoo. Now, you may ormay not want thatmuch detail in yourlayout, but it worksfor me, and that’s justthe point; I like soft-ware that can workfor me, instead of meworking for it! Find the Informa-tion You Need

Each field isneatly kept in theAct! database and canbe grouped, sorted,filtered, and searched in a number of differ-ent ways so you can get lists of contactsgenerated for all sorts of reasons. I havecreated groups for Big Blue and Cousins,the ladies luncheon group I attend, mycustomers, my suppliers, my medical doc-tors, and family and friends (yes eventech-heads do have some). So you can seethat you can use Act 2000 for both personaland business reasons. Depending on whatsorting-type function you’re using, lists canbe generated on a one-time or recurringbasis too. An example might be that you’dlike a list of every person whose occupationis “owner/opera-tor” or a list of all contactswho live in B.C.

You can also set up “Reports” that canbe very specific and run on special days or

the month or year.You can find the bestsales leads, for anygiven period of days,weeks, or months. Ina nutshell, Act hasmany ways that youcan get and organizethe information inyour contact data-base. Keep Your Timesand Dates Straight

You can also useAct! to keep fromfrittering away yourvaluable time. I findAct ! keeps mefocused. The smallamount of effort ittakes me to type inan activity or task,

phone call, or a reminder alarm, is farshorter that the time I waste trying to re-member all this stuff in my head and takingup brainpower worrying that I’ll forgetsomething. I am now free to keep my energyfocused on whatever task needs doing in thehere and now. Handy to-do lists replacelittle pieces or paper that I often lose.On-screen reminders are a lifesaver for thelittle things. You can set alarms to let youknow that you should leave for that appoint-ment, take a pill, get prepared for a client,or any other reason you want to be given areminder about. Daily, weekly, and monthlycalendars that I can enter information orcorrect on the fly work great. You can set upmultiple tasks that you repeat frequentlysuch as a monthly board meeting, or that


Tuesday afternoon squash game with yourbuddy. You can schedule automatic tasks tobe performed such as mailing letters, andlist a set of follow-up sales calls you need tomake. Just about anything can be sched-uled and followed-up easily in a one-stepprocess.Keep Client Docs, Notes, and E-mailsHandy

This aspect of Act! 2000 is one of myfavorites. Not only can I keep detailed noteson phone calls, meetings, and scheduledactivities, I can also use Act! to collect allcorrespondence, e-mails, invoices, or anyother file in one place so that they are ineasy reach when the client calls. You canattach shortcuts to documents, photos, e-mails, driving directions to a client’s busi-ness, scans of business receipts and in-voices, etc. right with the contact.

Embarrassing question of the day: Haveyou ever made an appointment over thephone to meet an old associate at a café, butcan’t remember what they look like? So nowyou can cover your butt by attaching an oldphoto permanently to his contact record.Double-click the icon; up comes his mug-shot that you can print out and re-etch intoyour memory before you drive off to meethim. Would you like directions to a client’soffice? Just attach it to the client’s record,double-click on its icon and presto thedirections come up on your screen, ready tobe printed out to take with you in the car.

With Act! you can create, send, andreceive e-mail, produce letters, memos,quotes, or a dozen other template docu-ments automatically. You can also fax toyour client right from within Act! usingWinfax Pro.

Other Cool Features of Act! 2000 Side Act! — a little applet that runs

independently of the full program. You canjot down to-do’s, appointments, and otherstuff quickly and later transfer it to themain program. Runs in the Windows Sys-tem Tray.

Built-in Sales training and tips fromDale Carnegie.

The ability in this version of Act! tofurther divide your groups into subgroupswhich helps keep all related contacts orga-nized

Integration with industry softwarepackages such as Microsoft Word, Outlook,WinFax Pro, and third-party e-mail pro-grams. You can perform mail merges, multi-ple faxing, and e-mails right within Act!2000, making it a great tool for generatingand distributing information to a variety ofsources.

Download contacts to your Cell-Phone!Using FoneSync software. Cool!

If you subscribe to your telephone com-pany’s Caller ID service, you can even getAct! to bring up the person’s name andinformation automatically when the phonerings!

Great third-party add-ons for businessapplications. Quicken’s Expensable is a goodexample, where you can keep track of ex-penses associated with each of your clients.If you use Dragon Naturally Speaking, youcan even speak your activities into Act! Cindy’s “Cut That Out!” Gripe list:

No review would be complete with outthe “it’s-not-perfect” list. So, here goes:

My biggest peeve is that you must asso-ciate every to-do and calendar event with aperson (contact). So e.g. if I want to jot downa to-do, to pick up my dry cleaning, I have to


either create a contact-record for thedry-cleaner (which is absurd) or create ascheduled event with myself to pick up mydry cleaning (only slightly less absurd).

Another example is I wanted to write“Canada Day” on the July 1st square in mycalendar. I have to associate this “event”with a contact. Dumb! Cut that Out!

You can type a small text-only signa-ture file for e-mail, but you can’t use yourown text file and therefore have no format-ting options. Cut that Out!

No on-screen dialog box for typing in aquick name search. Must go to the Menuand choose Lookup to find your contact’sname.

Having no choice for the alarm soundfor an activity. Act! uses whatever soundWindows 95/98 uses for the exclamationalarm. Which usually means a very boring“ding” sound. I believe multiple dings mightqualify as “torture” during wartime. Cutthat Out!

No place to keep company documentssuch as Invoice templates, Company PolicyManuals, or other collections of companyfiles that are not related to just one contact,but which would be handy to retrievewithin the contact management software.

All attached documents to a client’srecord must have a mandatory date. No-where is there a repository for non-date-oriented items such a photo attach-ment, or a text-document of driving direc-tions to your client’s place of business. So, ifyou want to attach a photo of your client tohis record, it will be just one among manyentries in the Notes/History tab and youwill have to search for it manually amongthe dates (a minor, but annoying proposi-tion).

Side Act! would be a lot handier if it alsoincluded a quick way of looking up a phonenumber.

Act! rolls over uncompleted activities toshow up on the following day. While thatfeature is a good idea, I really hate that itimplies that it is an original activity for thecurrent day and doesn’t display the originaldate of the scheduled activity. I may want toknow how long something has been goingundone so I can sufficiently shame myselfinto getting off my butt! In a nutshell:

Act! 2000 is a great product; it’s notperfect, but it is highly customizable andthat comes as close to perfect as I need. Ofcourse, the usefulness of any software pack-age is directly proportional to the willing-ness of the individual to spend the time andenergy needed to learn new skills. Goingthrough the awkward stage of retrainingyourself to use the tools that can effectivelyenhance those skills can be a challenge. Ifyou are willing to take the plunge, then youwill no doubt meet with success in usingthis product.

Act! 2000 System Requirements: Win-dows 95/98/NT. 80486/66 MHZ or higherCPU (Pentium 133 MHZ or higher recom-mended). 16 MB of RAM (32 MB recom-mended). 50 MB of free hard disk space(minimum). CD ROM drive, VGA or higherresolution monitor. Windows compatiblemodem required for auto-dialing or mo-dem-based synchronization. More informa-tion can be obtained on their website at:www.actsoftware.com.

From the July 2000 issue of Big Blue & CousinsNewsletter, published by the Greater Victoria PC Users’Association of British Columbia.


CD-RW Problemsby Bob LaFave

Tampa PC Users Group

Part One Last September I bought aCD burner because my son Chris wasinterested in making music CD’s and

because I wanted to have the use of one forcopying larger files without having to use azip utility and spanning multiple floppydisks. I was able to find an Imation on saleat BestBuy and installed it into the com-puter that Chris and his brother Joshuause, a homemade (Merle Nicholson brand)running an AMD233-MMX. It installedeasily, and we encountered the first prob-lem. I had installed it on the IDE cable thatcontained a 40X CD, and when we tried tocopy from one CD to the other CD we en-countered buffer error messages. Callingthe local Tech Support (Merle), it was sug-gested that we needed to have each CD ana separate IDE controller, and after somerearranging of both CD’s and both harddrives we were up and running. Everythingappeared to be working, and we bothlearned how to use the Adaptec softwarethat was included with the CD writer.Between the kids and myself we made useof it one or two times a day for differentprojects and had become very happy withits performance.

Then a couple of months ago Chrisstarted complaining that it wasn’t workingright, and that he was getting blue screenswhich were preventing him from making aCD. I would use it daily to copy downloadedfiles that I could use on my computer andalso take to other locations. Without the useof a cable modem this allowed me to onlydownload once at night when less trafficwas on the net. Very seldom did I copy a

CD, but I was continually adding files tore-writeable CD’s. I had not encounteredany blue screen copying single files andasked Chris if he could create a blue screenfor me.

The blue screen message offered noclues on which file had a problem so I could-n’t look at a specific problem file, but I hadhad a similar experience in the past thatsuggested maybe an overheating problemwith the AMD processor. I had encounteredcountless similar problems when the com-puter was built. I removed the AMD chipand replaced it with a Cyrix chip that rangreat and found out later that the AMDneeded a special heat sink and fan for cool-ing, I replaced them with AMD approvedequipment and solved those early bluescreen problems.

I opened the computer case to see ifmaybe the fan wasn’t working or wasoff-center and saw what was a possibleproblem: one of the IDE cables was directlyover the fan, cutting down the air flow. Ithan called Imation to find out if there wasanything else I could try to get it workingagain, and they suggested that I update thefirmware. So I obtained a longer IDE cableand downloaded the suggested version offirmware. Since I had the case open toreplace the cable I decided that I would addsome grease to the heat sink to further helpwith the cooling, and I routed all cablesaway from the chip. I then went to replacethe firmware as suggested and proceeded tokill the CD completely. The access lightstayed on at all times, the ejection buttonsdid not work and the CD properties ap-peared as the firmware update. Imation wascalled and more help was requested. Theyapologized and stated that sometimes thefirmware updates didn’t work, but they


would e-mail me the original firmwareversion to return it to the beginning condi-tion. That also didn’t work, and the CDremained locked. When I called Imationand offered to return it to them, theyagreed and issued the RMA authorization.That night when I walked in to dismantlethe case and remove the CD, I noticed theCD access light was off and pushed theeject button. It was working, so I went tothe CD properties to see what it showedand saw that the original version wasthere. I was impressed to say the least. Igrabbed a blank CD and proceed to makean audio CD. It worked correctly, and I toldChris that his machine was back in work-ing order. I called Imation and offered tokeep the CD and give it a week of use be-fore taking them up on their return andexchange for a new CD-RW. It performedwith no problems for a month and all waswell until....Part Two Chris wanted to replace the4x4x20 CD-RW drive with a faster CD-RW,and we started watching the ads to see ifwe could find an affordable 8x speed forhim. BestBuy had an ACER 8x4x32 on saleso here we go again. I removed the Imationand replaced it with the ACER and haveexperienced no problems (other than henow wants a faster CD-ROM installed tokeep up with the new CD-RW — he wantsa 50X instead of the 40X ) up to the time Iam writing this. But what to do with theImation CD-RW?

My computer has an empty bay, and wecan’t have that now can we. The CD-RWinstalled quite easily in my case, and theAdaptec software as well. The CD-RWproperties showed correctly, so I proceededto try to create a CD as a test. A BlueScreen appeared the minute the computer

tried to read the blank CD, but this time Igot files included in the blue screen andstarted to look for help. Both files were vxd(device drivers), so I began to experimentwith them. I called Imation and explainedthat I was moving the CD-RW to anothermachine and was having problems again. Ideclined the first suggestion to upgrade thefirmware because of the last experience withthat update.

We started by renaming the vxd’s to seewhat would happen. We were able to get theCD-RW to work sometimes but eventuallywe would get a blue screen referencing thesame two files, CD_Read.vxd and CDVSD.vxd, even after they were re-named. I couldget the CD-RW to work making data CD’s orAudio CD’s depending on which file wasrenamed, but I wasn’t going to rename fileseach time I wanted to make a CD. Thesef i l e s w h e r e l o c a t e d i nWINDOWS\SYSTEM\IOSUBSYS andCD_Reader.vxd was also located in an addi-tional folder called Recordit for a programfrom IOMEGA. The tech person suggestedthat maybe the IOMEGA Zip that was onthe same IDE cable might be causing theproblem. He suggested that we uninstallRecordit and also remove the ZIP drive fromthe cable. The problem remained.

I also had noticed, each time a BlueScreen froze the computer, upon the restartan error message from AdaptecDirectCDstated that the CD properties had either the“Disconnect” or the “AutoInsert” settingsunchecked and that they needed to be re-turned to the correct settings and the com-puter restarted. According to the tech,Imation had reports that on some computersthe “AutoInsert” needs to be turned off butnever that the “Disconnect” needed to orcould be turned off.


We then decided to try turn them bothoff to see what would happen, but first weneeded to stop the error message fromAdaptecDirectCD each time that the ma-chine started. We uninstalled the Adaptecprogram then went and turned off both the“AutoInsert” and “Disconnect,” returned thetwo vxd’s to their original names andrebooted the machine.

I have made one each Data and AudioCD’s successfully as of this writing with noapparent problems and definitely no bluescreens. Imation says that the “Disconnect”setting should be enabled in order for theCD-RW to work correctly, but the tech andI agree that if it works not to change it. Ihad told them that the IDE controllers andchipset were capable of UDMA66 the firsttime that I called after installing in thesecond machine, and they now “think” thatmay be the reason for the problems.

Imation also offered that this model wasnot designed for Windows98 or for theUDMA66 speed.

I have learned a few more things aboutcomputers with this experience, which isalways good, but the one I will remember isthat, eight months after I purchased anImation CD-RW I was able to get a supportperson on the phone each time I calledwithin two minutes and they were morethan helpful. I will look for their productsin any future purchase simply because ofthis terrific support.

From the August 2000 issue of Bits of Blue, themonthly publications of the Tampa PC Users Group.

A Newbie’s Viewby Louise Alderman

Click in a big OPEN space, Gramma!”Those words still ring in my earsafter almost three years of owning a

PC. In fact they were said in chorus manytimes, with the word Gramma overlaid with“Mom” and “Louise.” This problem wasdefinitely not due to my age, I have been 55and holding for a few years, but has been aproblem for most of my life.

The fact is that I hit a stone wall everyonce in a while when I am trying to learnsomething. For some reason it seems to takemy brain forever to take in what is some-times a very simple fact. The example aboveis among “my most embarrassing moments.”

I used to panic on a regular schedule.My PC was not in good working order and itwould freeze, sometimes every few minutes,sometimes just once in awhile. Each time Iwould reach for the panic button. I no lon-ger have that button, it wore out finally andI threw it away. Now I just start clickingkeys and/or my mouse. If that doesn’t work,I’ll try rebooting my system. I can, most ofthe time, work my way out of a situationthese days. I feel like I have progressedquite well. I still have things that shake mebut I always know that I can pick up thephone and call my mentor.

My granddaughter is the one responsi-ble for me sitting here, right now, typingaway on an article that she feels may be ofinterest to people new to PCs and mighteven be encouraging to older Newbie’s. Youare not alone. I know it feels like it quiteoften, and I know also that you may feelthat you will never get beyond a certainpoint, but it will happen. I have really sur-prised myself in this new world of comput-


ing technology. I entered it with the feelingI would never be able to cope with it even tothe point of knowing what I was doing andespecially not to the point of actually enjoy-ing it. Now I can say I not only enjoy it, Ilove it!

Even the bold face type I just used onlycame to fruition about a week ago. Eachday or so I learn a little something new. Sohopefully this will be encouraging to othersand give them the incentive to go aheadand try things. If you are already into PCs,keep on keeping on. It will come to you nomatter what your age. You can alwayslearn enough to enjoy yourself. That is thepoint of the whole thing for me. I enjoymyself immensely!

Something you will want to do is to seekout a group of fellow PC users. Go to meet-ings and meet people with whom you feel arapport. Most are very willing to give assis-tance to newbies. Even those with years ofexperience consult with each other at times.“Not everyone can know everything” is agood motto to live by. Just knowing whereto go for an answer is the only criterianecessary.

To make finding an answer easier,build a list of people who are willing to helpyou, keep a list of phone numbers handy —AT ALL TIMES. You never know when youmay need assistance. Remember that theofficers in the club and the SIG leaders arededicated to helping others. That is whythey have these positions — to teach andassist.

Do not be shy about asking someone forhelp. If all the clicking of the keys and themouse do not solve my problem my solutionat that point is to pick up the phone andcall my granddaughter. I only hope each of

you, who feel that you may be a little too farup the line of years to learn this new tech-nology, will have or find someone as dedi-cated to helping you as Cheryl is to helpingme. Like the kitty on the refrigerator,“Hang in there.”

ReviewSecure Cleanby Don Nendell

Utah Computer Society

What if...?” “If only I’d known/done/(fill-in-your-own-blankshere)...?” “Looking back now, I can

clearly see...?” “If foresight was as good ashindsight...?” “The saddest words . . . whatmight have been?” And, on and on it goes —ad infinitum, ad nauseam. A perfect exam-ple immediately comes to mind. Oliver “Oly”North is still muttering to himself, “If onlyI’d known about SecureClean™, I’d be aGeneral now?” Monica — yes that one —might never have become so well known,given that she was the primary focus ofinterest in “The” Sensation of 1999, whenshe was (and, just like 99+% of all Windowsusers still are) ignorant of the fact thatWindows does not erase the contents ofdeleted files — yes, they have been “deleted”but, they are still totally recoverable as ourprotagonists herein so tragically found out.The world is replete with such sad stories,any one of which should be enough to showjust how important SecureClean (plus fileencryption) is to a person’s complete pri-vacy? Expressed more succinctly, “You havenone with the likes of programs such asNorton’s Undelete, PowerQuest’s Lost &Found, et al.!”

I first became aware of AccessDataCorp. in an insightful, delightful and educa-tional article by Vince Horiuchi in the Sat-


urday, March 4, 2000 Salt Lake Tribune,Tech Connection Section (pg. D-12), entitled“Cracking The Code.” In the article,“AccessData says it is the only one in thecountry that makes its bread and butter onthe fact people forget their passwords.”Thoroughly intrigued, I visited AccessData,a couple of months ago, was totally con-vinced of their veracity, and I’ve been usingSecureClean ever since. “I love this thing!”

The “Oly” and “Monica” episodes men-tioned above are merely the tip of the ice-berg really. For example, did you know thateven after reformatting your hard drive,anyone with access to your computer canrecover your e-mail, personal documents,and sensitive files — this includes unautho-rized persons/employees, corporate intrud-ers/bosses, or possibly even the person whojust bought your old computer? I’ve men-tioned encryption above because programssuch as: (The FBI’s) Carnivore, Napster,Trojan Horses, Worms, Hackers, et al.,literally own your PC. Then, there’s theever-faithful trusted insider — current andformer employees, temps, onsite contrac-tors, consultants, partners and suppliers —who represent the greatest threat to corpo-rate intellectual property, says the 1999ASIS Survey. Then too, the 1999 CSI-FBISurvey reported fully, “61% of surveyedcorporations experienced . . . unauthorizeduse of computer systems,” and that, “. . .disgruntled employees or former employeeswho seek to damage the company in someway or who sell corporate information arethe greatest sources of stolen corporatesecrets and data.”

Still need more to convince you? OK!Completely unbeknownst to the naive PCuser, Windows™ simply does not provide thesecurity you’d expect. Every Windows O/S

stores unwanted data in various locationson your hard drive like: Swap files, RAMslack, File Slack, Free Space, TemporaryFiles, Spool Files, File Names, Recycle Binand Heaven only knows where else? So howcan you protect yourself in all this mess?How do you decrease the risk of intellectualproperty loss? How do you continuouslyeliminate data liabilities? The simple an-swer is, use SecureClean religiously (andadd file encryption to all your other impor-tant/private “stuff”). It’s the safe, effectiveand thorough way of keeping your systemclean of unwanted PC data.

The kicker to all this diatribe? I person-ally heard, “Get Insurance,” mentionedmore than a few times at the July 2000 USABlack Hat Briefings in Las Vegas. So, con-trary to what you’ve ever thought, or notthought, or been taught, “Your PC is notsafe — never has been,” period.

Bottom line? Your best bet for security,I feel, is to get and use SecureClean (andother safety measures, like using file en-cryption and the Virus and PC Firewallprotection. SecureClean completely solvesthe biggest part of these security problemsby removing the deleted data, files andfolders you specify quickly, easily and per-manently, while everything else remainssafe and untouched.

That’s the “Why?” you should useSecureClean — or its benefit(s) — here’s thenitty-gritty on it being Reliable and Compre-hensive — It is easy to Use, Highly Secureand has Automated Cleaning Options. Reliable and Comprehensive.

SecureClean: Securely eliminates ALLpreviously deleted and unwanted files;Cleans all PC media (ZIP, JAZ, Syquest,SuperDisk, Tape, Floppy, Hard Drive, etal.); Cleans compressed or uncompressed


FAT and NTFS drives; cleans free space,file slack, RAM slack and swap files; elimi-nates deleted file names and folder names;securely deletes individual files on a net-work. Easy to Use.

Features and benefits such as: There isa Special trash bin on the Desktop for easydrag and drop file deletion (even from theRecycle Bin itself); Quickly clean a file,folder or drive with a simple right click ofthe mouse; Easily discover and view wheredeleted data is stored; and, It is very simpleto install (even on a network), to use, cus-tomize and uninstall (should the needarise). Highly Secure.

SecureClean: Cleans without risk ofdamage to the file system integrity (nodirect disk writes); Has adjustable dataoverwrites corresponding to Department ofDefense standards; and, has been tested bycomputer forensic specialists. Automated Cleaning Options.

SecureClean: Automatically empties theRecycle Bin, Temp folder, Spool folder andother User selectable locations duringcleaning operations; Can be scheduled forautomatic system cleaning; and, can auto-matically clean at shutdown or log off.

Just like all other SecureClean capabili-ties, it’s as easy as 1-2-3-4 to SecureZap(ping) Files and Folders Using theSecureClean Zap Icon (on the Desktop): 1. Open Windows Explorer and select the

files or folders you want to destroy;2. Size Windows Explorer so you can see

the SecureClean Zap Icon on the desk-top;

3. Drag the selection onto the desktopSecureClean Zap Icon; and,

4. Follow the prompts for destroying thefiles. Warning: When you Zap a file, it’sgone forever! Voila! Be sure to get, and use, this very valu-

able product designed with your safety inmind. You’ll be very glad you did. Or, thenagain, maybe you’d like the notoriety givento Monica, Oly, and those yet to make thelist? Ciao! P.S. AccessData Corporation specializes in:1. Password Recovery (with PASSWORD

RECOVERY Windows95/98/2000 NT 4.0Software which recovers passwords forPKZip, WinZip, Word, Excel, Word-Perfect, Lotus1-2-3, Paradox, Q&A,Quattro-Pro, Ami Pro, Approach, Quick-Books, Act!, Pro Write, Access, WordPro, DataPerfect, dBase, Symphony,Outlook, Express, MS Money, Quicken,Scheduler+, Ascend, NetWare, andWindows NT Server /Workstation);

2. Cryptographic Design; and, 3. Forensic Investigation (with its brand

new comprehensive computer crimesinvestigation tool, the Forensic Toolkit),as well as File Security with Secure-Clean, that is, if you have the need ofsuch things? If so, please contact: AmberSchroader, the General Manager (seedata above), whose E-mail address is:[email protected]: AccessData Corporation,

2500 N. University Ave. Suite 200, Provo,UT 84604. Web Site: Phone: 801.377.5410Fax: 801.377.5426 E-mail: info@securecleancom. Suggested Retail: $49.95. SystemRequirements: Windows 95/98/2000 /NT CDROM drive.

From the September 2000 issue of Blue Chips, themagazine of the Utah Computer Society.


Society NewsPresident’s Letter

Joe Varga

Hello to all! I hope you all had a greatsummer. The New Year has begunand we are off to a terrific start. I

was not at the first meeting of the year, dueto unforeseen circumstances. I have heard,though, that it was a success. I hope thepresentation was up to everyone’s expecta-tions. We still have more great presenta-tions to come in the next meetings. We willalso do our best to provide you with qualitydoor prizes that will be both useful andhelpful.

As always, we still need volunteers tohelp with some of the club duties. Someonein the past had volunteered to be the librar-ian and that position is still available. Wehave the books sorted and ordered so thatthey can be easily stored. We also still needa Communications Chairperson. This posi-tion will entail both telephone and emailcommunication that relate to club business.Your job will be to maintain a database ofemail addresses and telephone numbers ofpeople and companies that we contact andto communicate with them as needed. Bothof these positions are easy to handle andtraining and support are available for bothpositions.

I am also ready to give the maintenanceof the web page up to a willing volunteer. Iwill train who ever has the interest andhelp with it until you are comfortable. Weare regularly getting 25 to 50 or so “hits” aweek, and I would like to see that numbergo up, but I no longer have the time toperform regular maintenance and improve-ments. If anyone has an interest in fillingany of the positions above, please call me at

233-7841 or email me at [email protected]

There is only one other thing tomention. When we give out door prizes ofsoftware and books, we need a review of theproduct to return to the provider. We havebeen doing this on the honor system and ithas been working well, but not perfectly. Ifwe do not return a review for every productwe give away, we will not be able to getmore free products in the future. We need areview back within 60 days of when youreceive the product. Your cooperation in thiseffort will only benefit you, as there will bemore products to give away.

Overall, I think the club is in prettygood shape. We are still always open tosuggestions for improvements, so please feelfree to offer ideas at your convenience.

NEW USER GROUP MEETINGSeptember 5, 2000

John McMillan

Three guests joined seven regulars atthe September New Users GroupMeeting at the Monroe Developmental

Center, 630 Westfall Rd. The first questionof the evening arose from a class in whichmultiple E-mail providers were described.One reason for multiple servers or accountswould be to separate messages intended fordifferent family members or business mailfrom personal mail. Most users do not needmore than one or two servers (Hotmail,AOL, Juno etc.). It was felt that class mem-bers would likely be using different systemsso the teachers described a number of ser-vices which might differ in minor ways.Some of the systems could even be config-


ured to check multiple mail boxes with asimple procedure.

The discussion turned to downloadingmusic with a question of how to get wordsas well as music. Bill Statt mentioned apiano tutoring program which claims thatmusic in a midi format will be printed withboth notes and words. Bill wondered if hewent to Napster or Gnuetella could hedownload midi files with both words andnotes. Midi format has been composed oninstruments or a computer and compressedby a factor of ten or more. It contains de-compression instructions to generate wavesounds when executed. MP3 files are digitalfiles that have been converted from ananalogue (.Wav) file. Another suggestionwas to do a web search to see if the particu-lar song was available somewhere.

It was pointed out that music could bedownloaded onto a hard drive, read intomemory and played that way but thattrying to create a CD required a CDW orCDRW unit. CDRW generated disks did notplay as well on other hi-fi equipment butthe price of one time writeables hasdropped to about 20 cents apiece in bulk. Itwas mentioned that Napster, which isunder fire in the courts, provides bothsoftware for downloading and a massivecentral file of available music. Gnuetella onthe other hand provides software that letsyou communicate, via the Internet, withother individuals who are willing to sharemusic files they have.

Another user who was trying to playradio stations from the web said that forsome stations there is no sound. It was feltthat he might need a plug in for the

browser quite possibly real player. Thatcould be downloaded from www.real.comeither for free or in a $30 version. GregSayre has used the free one without prob-lems. It was also recommended that he go toMicrosoft’s web page and download MediaPlayer 7. It was pointed out that some sta-tions are not transmitting. Users of thisfeature were reaching for distant stationssuch as Los Angeles which is not availableon a regular radio.

Another user wondered if he should buyexpensive speakers for his Pentium I. Theadvice he got was that if he was consideringupgrading the computer within the nextyear and a half, get the lowest cost accept-able quality speakers since any new ma-chine would probably include balancedspeakers in the package.

One of the newcomers mentioned get-ting the dreaded illegal operation messageand not knowing how to shut the machineoff.

Gregg Sayre described the proper way toget out of a similar situation. First choosedetails which will display a window filledwith what to most of us is gibberish. Care-fully write down exactly what the displayshows for possible use in trouble shootingafterwards. Then try to shut the machinedown in the preferred sequence. The keycombination of control, alt., and deleteshould present a list of all open programswith the hung program first. Try closingthat program and each successive programin the list and then a normal shut down.Sometimes when a program hangs up, thefiles cannot be saved and may cause prob-lems upon restart.


If the shutdown is abnormal, whenwindows is started next time, a messagestates that scan disk will be executed beforeopening windows to determine if any fileshave been corrupted. If files have beencorrupted and the illegal operation messagerepeats, then the software package shouldbe uninstalled and reinstalled to correctany software problems. Concern was ex-pressed by several of the attendees over thetone of this and similar messages that leavepeople with a feeling of guilt, wonderingwhat they did wrong.

The advisability of upgrading to Win-dows Millennium Edition was questioned.Several people thought that users shouldwait until it had a chance to be shakendown pointing to experiences with severalversions of Windows 95 and 98. Early pur-chasers are often frustrated as they helpdebug the process and lead the way to fixesthat are incorporated in future versions.

The next question came from a user ofLotus 1-2-3 within Windows 98. He experi-ences a machine lock up about half the timewhen Lotus is shut down. Gregg thoughtthis might be caused by Lotus changing thevideo resolution to a size that the video cardcould not handle. He suggested right click-ing on desktop; choosing properties; andselecting the setting tab which would tellwhat resolution and color depth the desktop is being set at. That should be comparedwith the amount of video memory which isbriefly displayed when the computer is firstturned on. This is also available by rightclicking on my computer; select properties;select device manager; then hit the plussign next to video devices or double click

video devices. This provides a description ofthe video card and on most Dell machineswill also tell how many megs of ram thereare on the video card. A good commonground for resolution would be 800 x 600with a color depth of 256. Findfast wasmentioned as another possible cause of theproblem and Dell technical support wassuggested as an alternative source of infor-mation.

Another user questioned random lockups of his machine. The need for adequateventilation and a dust free environmentwere discussed with methods for checkingthe cpu fan operation. Memory hoggingprograms were also mentioned as a possiblecause. A word processing program might beopened several times to work on differentdocuments rather than minimizing thedocuments and working within one activecopy of the program. Running defrag mightalso prevent the lockups.

“If you’ve got questions, we try to an-swer.” Join us at the Oct. 3rd meeting at theMonroe Developmental Center, 630 West-fall Rd.

Planning Meeting MinutesSeptember 19, 2000

Ron Matteson, acting secretary

President Joe Varga convened theSeptember, 2000, Planning Meeting ofthe RCSi Board at 7:17 p.m. at the

offices of Heveron & Heveron, Rochester.Also present were Steve Staub, Treasurer;Ron Matteson, Larilyn Bauer, Joe Pia, andSally Springett.

Sally inquired about the mailing cost ofadding one additional sheet to the Monitor


(four pages). It was determined by weighinga previous issue that there should be noincrease in postage.

Steve recommended changing the RCSiaccount to the HSBC bank, based on theavailability of electronic banking, balancerequirements, and cost. There was a corre-sponding motion to take this action, and itwas unanimously approved.

The September program meeting will beheld on September 24 at East High, from2:00 to 4:00 p.m. Ron will do Help’s HalfHour, and introduce the speaker, Ms SonalShaw from Microsoft. Some Microsoft soft-ware will be raffled.

Two short program are scheduled forOctober. Merrill Lynch will give a 20 min-ute demonstration of their on-line investingservices, and plan also to provide refresh-ments and a Palm Pilot as door prize. Somesoftware will also be available for the raffle.Also, a representative from Frontier willtalk about DSL (Digital Subscriber Link, ahigh speed Internet service available overtelephone lines in some locations).

In November, the SoundBytes crew willrun the meeting, and tape the proceedingsfor a future broadcast.

Other possible future programs include:MGI will discuss Video Wave and Photo

Suite IV. Corel will talk about Word PerfectSuite and Linux. Joe Varga may give amini-presentation on OmniUpdate andPageCharmer. Other possible programs incooperation with the Buffalo Users Group,chaired by Rita Gay.

The educational programs for newusers have been delayed until computerresources are located for potential students.

The meeting was adjourned at 7:55 p.m.

Program Meeting MinutesSeptember 24, 2000

Charles Grover, Secretary

Our September meeting was held on aSunday, September 24, at 2 p.m. tomake it possible for a representative

from Microsoft to be our speaker. We met atour usual place, East High School, begrim-ing with Ron Matteson leading Helps HalfHour.

Ms Sonal Shah, Channel Marketingrepresentative for Microsoft Corporation,presented a program about Windows Millen-nium Edition. The program was a fast-pacedreview of the operating system emphasizingadditions and changes from Windows 98.

Ms Shah focused extensively on “DigitalMedia,” “User Experience,” “Home Network-ing,” and “Internet Experience.” Some of thefeatures provided in Windows Me to im-prove user experience are the ability torestore the system to a previous state usinga “snapshot” taken earlier of the system,scheduling automatic updates from Micro-soft's web site, and “System File Protection”to restore necessary system files should theybe deleted.

Ms Shah described how RCSI membersmay order MS Press titles at 20 percentdiscount. During a question and answersession, Ms. Shah handled our queries well,showing her knowledge of the product.

We were informed of a special upgradepackage available to users of Windows 98until January 15, 2000, with a street priceof less than $50. After that, upgrading fromWin 98 will require the package now re-


quired for a Win 95 upgrade, costing abouttwice as much.

Treasurer’s ReportSteve Staub

Income . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $150.00Expenses

St. Stephens (2 mo.) . . . . . . . . $30.00Picnic food . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.00Sam's Club . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113.40Paper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33.70Food for newsletter staff . . . . . . 15.35Rent of folding machine (2 mo.) 150.00Copier rental . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100.00Total expenses . . . . . . . . . . . $450.45

Balance as of 9/29/00 . . . . . . . . . $1,365.32

The Lighter SideInstructions for Your New Device

IMPORTANT!READ THIS BEFORE USING

YOUR NEW DEVICE

Congratulations! You have purchasedan extremely fine device that shouldgive you thousands of years of trou-

ble-free service, except that you undoubt-

edly will destroy it via some typical bone-head consumer maneuver. Which is why weask you to: Please, for heaven’s sake, readthis owner’s manual carefully before youunpack the device.

You already unpacked it, didn’t you?You unpacked it and plugged it in andturned it on and fiddled with the knobs,didn’t you? And now your child, the sameone who once shoved a Polish sausage intoyour VCR and set it to Fast Forward is alsofiddling with the knobs, right? Hell, wemight as well just break these things beforewe ship them out, you know that?

Sorry! We just get a little crazy some-times because we’re always getting back“defective” merchandise where it turns outthe consumer “inadvertently” bathed thedevice in iced tea for six days. So, in writingthese instructions, we naturally tend toassume that your skull is filled with deadinsects, but we mean nothing personal by it.OK? Now let’s talk about: Unpacking the Device

The device is encased in foam to protectit from the Shipping People, who like noth-ing more than to jab spears into outgoingboxes. Please inspect the contents carefullyfor evidence of spear jabs or bottle caps, pulltabs, candy wrappers, and Lord knows whatelse.

WARNING: Do not ever, as long as youlive, throw away the box or any of the piecesof Styrofoam, especially the ones shaped likepeanuts. If you attempt to return the deviceto the store, and you are missing one singlepeanut, the store personnel will laugh in thechilling manner exhibited by Joseph Stalin

Procedure for RCSi members toorder from MS Press at 20 percentdiscount.1. E-Mail [email protected].

Tell them you belong to theRochester Computer Society, Inc,and request the discount code.

2. Go to www.mspress.microsoft.com toview available titles.

3. Call1-800-MSPRESS; give them thecode and order your books.


just after he enslaved Eastern Europe.Besides the device, the box should contain:• Eight little rectangular snippets of

paper that say “WARNING”• A little plastic packet containing four

5/17 inch pilfer grommets• Two club-ended 6/93 inch boxcar

prawns.You will need to supply:• a matrix wrench• 60,000 feet of tram cable.If anything is damaged or missing:

You immediately should turn to yourspouse and say “Margaret, you know whythis country can’t make a car that can getall the way through the drive-through atBurger King without a major transmissionoverhaul? Because nobody cares, that’swhy.” WARNING: This is assuming yourspouse’s name is Margaret and not some-thing else.1. PLUGGING IN THE DEVICE

The plug on this device represents thelatest thinking of the electrical industry’sPlug Mutation Group, which, in a continu-ing effort to prevent consumers from caus-ing hazardous electrical current to flowthrough their appliances, developed theThree-Pronged Plug, then the plug whereone prong is bigger than the other.

Your device is equipped with the revo-lutionary new plug whose prongs consist ofsix small religious figurines made of choco-late.

Adapters are sold separately and re-quire 16 weeks for delivery. Please call1-900- YOU-FOOL for current pricing. (Youmust be 18 or older to call at $17.95 perminute. Average call duration: three

hours.) Do not try to plug it in! Lay it gentlyon the floor near an outlet, but out of directsunlight, and clean it first with a damphandkerchief. Then, give us a call. 2. OPERATION OF THE DEVICE

WARNING: We manufacture only theattractive designer case. The actual workingparts are manufactured in Japan. Theinstructions were translated by Mrs. ShirleyPeltwater of Accounts Receivable, who hasnever actually been to Japan (or anywhereelse for that matter), but has a secondcousin who once was.

INSTRUCTIONS: For results that canbe the finest, we advising that: NEVER tohold these buttons two times!! Except thebattery. Next taking the (something) earthsection may cause a large occurrence! How-ever. If this is not a trouble, such rotation isa very maintenance action, as a kindly(something) virepoint from Drawing B.3. WARRANTY

Be it hereby known that this device,together with (but not excluding) all thosecertain parts thereunto, shall be warrantedagainst all defects, failures, and malfunc-tions as shall occur between now and nextThursday afternoon and shall be repaired/replaced at no cost to the owner. After thattime, a slight service and shipping chargeshall apply. Information on this extendedwarranty is available from Mr. Lance Has-kill of the Last National Bank’s Third Mort-gage Department in Last Gasp, Wyoming.

This warranty does not cover the attrac-tive designer case.

Documents

Oct 00 Monitor · 2002-10-23 · Delorme’s yellow hockey puck that performs only that function. It was also indicated that an update to DataSend would be forthcom-ing. The RCS Monitor