THE SOUNDBOARD KEEPING PACE IN
CYBERSPACE
|
Heritage Village Computer Club June 2003 http://www.hvcomputerclub.org |
GENERAL MEMBERSHIP MONTHLY MEETING
IN HERITAGE HALL
Wednesday, July 9, 2003
Time: 10:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
Program: How-to Demo on downloading, viewing,
editing, and
saving
pictures to a slide show from digital cameras
BY: WALTER FAIR
EVERYONE WELCOME, BRING A
FRIEND
PC
WORLD RANKS DESKTOP PC’s
PC
World (the online version) recently evaluated 15 Desktop PC’s (7 “Power” PC’s;
8 “Value” PC’s), and offer a side-by-side comparison using your own
choices. If you are thinking about
buying a new desktop PC, this is a must read for getting the most for your
money. The POWER PC’s are the most
expensive in the list.
Systems powered by Intel's 3.06-GHz Pentium 4 CPU occupy four of the top seven places on the power side of our chart, but an ABS PC equipped with an Athlon XP 3000+ chip retains the top spot
http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,110658,tk,wb061603x,00.asp
The rankings for the POWER PC’S:
1. ABS AWESOME 3450 (2.167-GHz Athlon XP
3000+) priced at $1,929;
2. DELL DIMENSION 8300 (3.06-GHz Pentium 4)
priced at $3,117;
3. SYS TECHNOLOGY PERFORMANCE 3000+ (Athlon XP
300+);
4. MICRO EXPRESS MICROFLEX 30A (Athlon XP
300+);
5. GATEWAY 700XL (Pentium 4);
6. MPC MILLENIA 910i DREAM MACHINE (Pentium
4);
7. FALCON NORTHWEST MACH V (Pentium 4);
It’s important to understand whether you
REALLY NEED ALL THAT POWER???
The rankings for the VALUE
PC’S:
1. ABS AWESOME 3380 (2.25-GHz Athlon XP 2800+)
priced at $1,749;
2. MICRO EXPRESS MICROFLEX 24A (2-GHz Athlon
XP 2400+);
3. GATEWAY 500X (2.53-GHz Pentium 4);
4. POLYWELL POLY 880NF2-2700 (2.17-GHz Athlon
XP 2700+);
5. COMPAQ PRESARIO 6470NX (2.67-GHz Pentium
4);
6. POLYWELL POLY 880NF2-2500 1.83-GHz Athlon
XP 2500+);
7. AMAX P4V VALUE (2.53-GHz Pentium 4);
8. EMACHINES T2460 (2-GHz Athlon XP
2400+).
NONE of the 15 reviewed PC’s received 5 out of
5 stars in the ratings.
WINDOWS
XP UPDATES
NNT@silver.lyris.net
<NNT@silver.lyris.net
NNT (Neat Net Tricks) is one of my favorite newsletters because they offer technical as well as amusing information. Some recent offers are the following tip on Windows XP Updates and two links.
Windows XP has a nice feature to automatically download Windows updates but you must configure it to do so. To do this, click on START | CONTROL PANEL | PERFORMANCE AND MAINTENANCE | SYSTEM. Then, in the System properties dialog, click the Automatic Updates tab, click on "Download the update automatically and notify me when they are ready to be installed" and Apply.
NEWSDESK
Retrieve headlines and summaries from 5,700 news sources in 25 languages with NewsDesk at
I checked out the first page of the website and it appears to be a free download to your desktop and they are asking for donations to keep the site going. Donating to websites appears to be more and more popular to keep information available to everyone.
PROTECTED
BY THE FBI?
All in fun, the FBI is tracking down terrorists. Keeping track of your every mouse movement and mouse click will help them to find terrorists in our midst. See the results at http://users.chartertn.net/tonytemplin/FBI_eyes/
THE FEDS STEP IN
Article by Anne Kandra, a
contributing editor for PC World.
http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,110315,tk,wb051903x,00.asp
Federal agencies are cracking down. The Federal Trade Commission launched Operation
Cure-All http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/cureall/index.html
in 1999 to educate consumers on how to recognize health fraud.
Since launching the site, U.S. authorities have
filed 18 actions against Internet sites for allegedly making unsubstantiated
health claims; and the Food and Drug Administration has ramped up its efforts
to curtail Internet medical fraud.
Earlier this year, federal officials working with authorities in Canada
and Mexico shut down a Canadian company charged with luring American cancer
patients to Mexico for phony treatments involving magnetic fields. The FTC estimates that hundreds of other
sites have shut down after the commission filed suit against them or have
excised unproven medical claims from their online literature after receiving advisory
letters from the commission.
No amount of government action will eliminate
all online quacks, however. They're notoriously difficult to police--not only
because they are so numerous, but because many of them operate overseas, beyond
the reach of U.S. laws.
Besides robbing people of time and money,
medical fraudsters can mislead critically ill victims into thinking that
they're cured; convince them to discontinue other, life-prolonging treatments;
or induce them to stop taking precautions that prevent spreading the illness.
Unfortunately, it's not always easy to tell
which medical Web sites are peddling cyberplacebos. To gain credibility, some
sites imitate medical logos or icons, or include the names of well-known
organizations to imply an affiliation with them.
Your best bet in seeking online medical
information is to try university-affiliated sites and such well-established
medical Web sites as those hosted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Cancer Society,
the Mayo Clinic,
Medlineplus,
and the National
Institutes of Health.
Also, although no universally recognized Better
Business Bureaua?? style icon is synonymous with trustworthy online medical
information, an organization called Health
on the Net Foundation http://www.hon.ch/ has
established a set of standards that can help you find sites with medical
integrity; for more information, click on the HONcode link at the site.
STEP-BY-STEP: FIND SOFTWARE EASTER EGGS
Uncover the well-hidden treats in your software. Happy hunting!
Stan Miastkowski
From the April 2003
issue of PC World magazine
For a quick break from your serious computer
work, try accessing the Easter eggs that programmers have tucked inside many
applications and utilities. These hidden goodies range from mundane lists of
the program's developers to unusual messages, eye-popping graphics, hidden
features, and even entertaining games. All provide a short diversion from your
otherwise-productive day.
Nobody knows who coined the term Easter
egg, but it's a fitting description. All Easter eggs are well hidden,
and to find them you must type a series of specific--and sometimes
complicated--keystrokes.
Below you'll find some examples of the most
popular Windows-based Easter eggs and instructions on how to access them. We've
mixed the simple with the complex. And we've shown only a couple of screens
because part of the fun of finding Easter eggs is in seeing the results.
One caveat, though: Easter eggs depend heavily
on specific versions of applications. If you've patched or updated the
application with a service pack, the egg may be cracked and no longer
accessible. So if it doesn't work, don't blame us.
To see if your specific applications have Easter
eggs, check out Eeggs.com
or Egg Heaven 2000.
Another popular trend these days involves hiding away Easter eggs in DVD movie
discs. You can find out all about them at Dvdeasteregg.com.
Stan Miastkowski is a PC World contributing editor.
Contact him at stan_miastkowski@pcworld.com.
Click here
for past Step-By-Step columns.
MEMBERS OF THE BOARD: http://hvcomputerclub.org/officers.html
SOUNDBOARD CONTRIBUTIONS: scottie2@att.net
theweb@snet.net
CLASSES, JUNE 2003 http://www.supercalendar.com/view.php?a=893
HELPERS:
AutoCAD........ Ken Pelletier.................. 264-2310 Digital Camera........ Joe Franzino.......... 264-2922
MS Word........ Arnold Deutchman........ 267-7355 MS Word................. Joe
Franzino.......... 264-2922
MS Excel........ Diana Scott................... 264-2134 Paint Shop Pro........ Ken Pelletier.......... 264-2310
Publishing...... Joe Franzino................. 264-2922 Quicken................... Arnold Sail............. 264-2540
Scanning........ Joe Franzino................. 264-2922 WordPerfect........... Jean Van Loon....... 267-5397