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THE BUG REPORT
A monthly publication of
GS-BUG Inc. (c) copyright 1996.
Reproduction of any material herein by any means is expressly prohibited
unless written permission is granted. Exception: Articles may be reprinted
by other users groups in unaltered form if credit is given to the author
and the original publication.
STAFF
Editor - Kay Burton
SONY "CD-MAVICA" DIGITAL CAMERA
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Message From The President By Gary Sexton |
The annual elections are approaching, George Austin has agreed to
be nominating committee chairman. Because of health reasons Herman
Krouse will not be running for reelection as Vice President, a canadate
for this position is needed. Any one desiring to run for any position
please contact George Austin 310-375-7213.
Oct. meeting should do final nomination and the election will be held at
the November meeting.
I have been using a “laptopdesk” it folds to the size of my laptop,
but opens to sit across your lap to 11 x 22. When unfolded part of
the way there is a lip that allows partial opening so the angle appears
to be between 10 degrees and 30 degrees in 5 steps. The surfaces
are non-skid so the laptop does not slide. There are groves allowing ventilation.
To me the surprising thing was when open to 10 deg. this made using the
laptop on a desk very comfortable and my thumb does not hit the touch pad
as it does when at desk height without it. Ergonomically the hand
position is very comfortable and tolerated for extended periods. The nonskid
makes it great to work on your lap and ventilation allows me to use on
the lap or bed as a work area. I am able to pack it in the laptop
case to carry with me. Weight is 22 Oz. Good travel addition
and don’t begrudge the extra weight but because of the comfort use it constantly
at home. The web site is laptopdesk.net. for further information.
Price on web site is 24.95.
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PERSPECTIVES
By Dr. John Hanson |
Topics for August:
1. Printer Repair
2. Las Vegas Conference
3. Paint Shop Pro Class
4. Modify your computer
5. Flash Card Reader
1. Printer Repair: There are a number of
things you can do yourself to keep your printer
working well. While ink jets are inexpensive and can do a great
job you are asking for trouble if you don’t use
them at least once or twice a week because the water
based ink tends to dry out at the nozzles. On the other
hand if you have a dot matrix or laser it’s always ready,
even after six months of non use. The ink ribbon on the
dot matrix might dry up a little but that is easy and inexpensive
to replace if necessary. I have a number of Panasonic
1124 printers and some are used every day.
Bill Juneau gave me his old 1124 when he bought an ink jet.
My HP-4’s are also very reliable and do such a great job that I have
about six of them churning out pages when something important is coming
up.
If you do a lot of printing like
I do it’s a good idea to have a laser printer. They are
much faster than ink jets or dot matrix and the results
are excellent at very low consumables cost, especially
if you buy refilled cartridges. While HP doesn’t make very
good computers for the personal market their laser printers
are very good. Brother is also quite good and I would guess
Canon also as they make the print engine for HP and possibly
many others also. For my heavy printing load I prefer
the HP-4 plus which you can get used for under $200.
Even after printing 300,000 pages they still work very well.
They do have two design flaws. The first is that they
omitted a buffer dump in case you start a long print job and
decide you need to stop it. There is no stop button
so you need to pull out the paper tray at just the right
moment or you will cause a serious paper jam inside.
Then you turn off the machine and wait for the
buffer to die. The other serious flaw is that the rear
rollers are not very accessible or easy to change or clean as the
rubber ages and hardens. This results in a paper jam
and causes an accordion fold in the last part of your page.
Other than that it is a marvelous printer. In fact, it is so good
that I have about five or six of them and often several are running at
once.
HP has fixed the problem in some of their
lower cost lasers by avoiding the problem. Instead of having
the pages come out in the right order they come out in reverse order thus
voiding the necessity of having rollers that turn the paper over.
I fixed Virginia Pfiffner’s HP-4 by cleaning her
rollers with paint thinner, then acetone and alcohol
but it is still a pain to get at the rollers. If
you can get some rubber rejuvenator at a printing
supply house like Kelly Paper it should
work even better. HP should have designed
it so that when you open the back, the paper can pass straight
thru and not be folded over but that may have seemed like an inelegant
solution to their designers.
In ink jet printers HP does
provide nice output but much more expensive consumables than Epson
so my favorite is the Epson 880. If anyone is upgrading and
wants to get rid of their 880 please let me know.
My 880 cranks out beautiful 8 1/2 by 11 color prints
of pictures of my Tootie products at very low cost.
Ink cartridges are very cheap at CSI (327-2775) at 1601 W.
190th at $2.00 for black and about $3.50 for color. It’s even
cheaper than refilling and avoids the mess. I recently bought
an Epson C-80 but haven’t used it enough to give any comments
on cost of consumables. I don’t have any experience with Canon
but presume their bubble jets are about as good as Epson.
If you use fax machines I would be leery
of getting a plain paper type which is becoming quite popular.
This is because they may use ink jet technology which tends to clog if
not used regularly. Some plain paper types use
a film roll which then imprints on the paper. While
this type doesn’t clog 11 inches is used up for every sheet
of paper processed. This could be very expensive.
On the other hand my thermal roll fax machines are ready
all the time even after months of non use. To get around the
problem of the thermal paper being hard to read or fading
that is solved easily by making a laser copy of the fax.
Alvin Aiken thot he had ruined his Epson
880 by not replacing the cartridge properly so brought it to the
hardware SIG and we got it working for him. He was very delighted.
All it needed was a little knowledge of how the 880 works and a little
extra cleaning of the nozzles with a wet rag.
There is a place on Aviation
Blvd. called Laser Service (372-5331) that
specializes in repairing printers but mostly selling
a do it yourself repair kit with everything you mightneed
for your model printer, including a videotape of how to do it.
It’s a messy looking place, worse than my garage, but the people
are very nice. It is on the east side of Aviation just
north of Grand. I have no idea how good their work is so let
me know if you try them.
A nice young man, who sells
at the TRW Ham swap meet the last Saturday of each month might
be considered. He sold a laser to Emmett Ingram that worked out very
well. He is called “John’s Printers” (562-402-1054) near the
605 and 91 freeways.
Another place called Laser Care, 3750 S.
Robertson in Culver City (204-6121) www.LaserCareUSA.com might be
considered if you have troubles with your laser. Let me know
how good they are.
There is another fellow who
repairs print ers who does a terrific job but he
is a little far from us on the east side of Los Angeles but he comes
to you. Call me, I’ll give you his con-tact information. I bought
a refurbished HP-4 plus from him recently and it was in immaculate
condition and works perfectly.
2. Las Vegas Conference: It is held the weekend
before Comdex and extends till Thursday during
Comdex. It is a marvelous affair intended
for the education of Club officers but if you want to go it
might be arranged if we haven’t exceeded our limit. Different
vendors sponsor the various meals at which time most give
excellent presentations of their products. Comdex is
the week of 18 November. I go every year and stay for the whole
ten days and still don’t see everything. It’s very
intellectually stimulating.
On Saturday and Sunday there are
educational sessions all day and a great opportunity
to meet other club members from all over the world. Beginning
Monday we have the sponsored breakfast and dinner meals and presentations.
Adobe which makes the fan-tastic Photoshop program usually has the
best dinner and presentations. Each vendor usually gives all
attendees a copy of their latest software which is greatly appreciated.
You easily get all your registration money back in software and meals,
not to mention all the interesting and useful educational sessions.
Coming up this month is the Computer conference
I mentioned in a recent article. It’s only
for a weekend but also very intellectually stimulating.
3. Paint Shop Pro Class: This class at Narbonne High
is excellent by teacher Mike Ochoa. You learn about
digital cameras, scanners and the Paint Shop program.
Version 7 is only $60 at Costco and $40 from Amazon
after rebates. Even at full price this is a wonderful
program. In many ways just as powerful as Photoshop
but commands are a little difference so I was worried that I might
be confused as I usually use Photoshop every day to process
my many pictures. So far, learning the other program
hasn’t bothered me. In fact, it helps me get better at Photoshop
so even if you are a dedicated Photoshop user I think it would be wise
to learn Paint Shop also. In some things, like selection, Photoshop
clearly better but some other things are easier in Paint Shop.
Then after you learn them in Paint Shop you try to try the same in
Photoshop. You can enroll anytime, even after
the class is started so don’t worry about coming in late.
You don’t even need to have Paint Shop as all the computers
at the school have it. Give it a try. It’s really worth
your time. See previous issue for more details.
4. Modify your computer: If you are handy with tools
there are several things you might consider doing. One
is to add a chest handle on the top of your computer.
This works best with ATX computers as the top is fixed
and only the sides come off. One serious caution is to use
masking tape and magnets to keep metal chips from shorting your motherboard
when drilling the holes. Be sure to put a round dowel under the computer
to find the correct balance point. The handle makes it so much
easier when you have to carry it.
Another thing I did recently was to tap
into the purple wire coming out of the power supply and running it to a
green LED via a limiting resistor. I drilled a
tiny hole in the front and glued the LED in.
Even when the computer is off it glows green letting me
know the power to the computer is available when I want
to turn it on. It also warns me to pull the plug before I install
or remove any components inside.
The old AT computers had a
receptacle on the back of the power supply that
came alive when the computer was turned on. The new ATX’s
don’t have that wonderful feature which could turn on your monitor,
and various plug in adapters for sound, USB and scanners, etc.
It’s not a good idea to leave them
on when the computer is not in use as some are poorly
designed and could overheat and
possibly start a fire. Skill, the company
that manufactures great cordless drills makes the poorest adapter
of all for charging their batteries. I have several and all have
melted and deformed the plastic. On the other hand the company
that makes the terrific electric Wahl shaver makes an excellent adapter
that has remained plugged in for the last four
years. You may have noticed in the
fine print that most of them say to unplug the adapter when
not using it. Very impractical but it legally gets them off
the hook.
So the modification I am making
to my computer is to tap into the 12 volts (yellow and
black wire) and running it to the outside via two pin jacks.
Then I will hook that up to an old, empty power supply box
and add a 12 volt relay inside that will activate a power
strip with my various adapters whenever the computer
is turned on. An easier way, if you are not good with tools,
is to buy one of those flat panels with several switches in
front and receptacles in the back into which you plug
your power strip but you have to remember to turn it on.
5. Flash Card Reader: If you have a digital camera it
the best way to go in unloading your pictures to the computer.
My Kodak 4800 uses Compact Flash and Emmett Ingram’s new Minolta
uses the newer SD Flash. At Frys you can get a PQI reader that
reads all but the Sony memory stick for only $30. It’s
USB, fits in your shirt pocket and is great for transferring
large files and programs from one computer to another.
Frys has 32 mb Smart Media for only $10 and 96 mb Compact Flash
for only $25 when on sale. Both Emmett Ingram and I have
one and they work great. Even tho I use Compact Flash
for my camera I bought two of the $10 Smart Media cards and
will leave them plugged in so I have 32 mb all the time
when I want to transfer files too large for a floppy.
Recently they had a 384 mb Compact Flash for only $109.
Now, when I am using my digital camera even at high resolution it
is hare to believe I can take more than 300 pictures and of
course now I can transfer even bigger files. Anyone want
to uy my almost new 100 mb USB Zip disk drive.
Editor’s Note: John Hanson is the inventor of Tooties,
a superb self-teaching system used by millions in schools,
homes, and by eye doctors around the world to improve vision.
He also invented a new form of psychology called QET
(Quick Effective Therapy) which transforms poor
students into good students, almost overnight,
usually in 5 to 15 days. He has also had
outstanding success in helping brain damaged people, even years
after their accident. Why go to therapy for years and spend lots
of money when you can improve quite fast with QET?
He uses computers to document his cases for his books so that others
may benefit and improve their vision and other skills. Visit his
web site at www.Tooties.com for more information.
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INTERNET TALK
By Frank Chao |
Allow me to extend a warm welcome to the 48th article in the “Internet
Talk” series. This article resides in the fifth newsletter that is being
generated by Kay Burton, our reliable editor. Kay has instituted an early
deadline for all article submissions, so please get your contributions
to her on or before the 20th of each month. The best way for
you to submit articles and other information to her is by sending them
as file attachments to her email address which is
orchidkay@earthlink.net
LANGENBERG COMPUTER VIRUS INFORMATION
In previous months, various club members asked me to help them locate
information on various computer viruses that their computers contracted.
A good starting point for researching any virus that you contract is http://antivirus.langenberg.com/
It contains search engine links to 4 excellent Websites that provide
free information on computer viruses.
Be sure to keep your anti-virus software up to date, since new viruses
are created and released into the “wild” every week.
BELARC ADVISOR
Kostek Haussman (kostekh@yahoo.com)
recommends a diagnostic software application called the “Belarc Advisor”.
You can download it for free from
http://belarc.com/free_download.html
After installing it onto your Windows computer, this software application
can provide you with details on the hardware and software of your computer.
According the Belarc’s website:
“The Belarc Advisor builds a detailed profile of your installed
software and hardware and displays the results in your Web browser. All
of your PC profile information is kept private on your PC and is not sent
to any web server.”
During the past two weeks, this free software application has provided
me with an accurate analysis on the hardware and software of various Windows
XP, Windows 2000, and Windows 95 computers. Try it—you’ll like it !!
PEGASUS E-MAIL CLIENT
The Pegasus “Post Office Protocol” e-mail software client that you
can run on your Windows computer is totally free. You can download a copy
from
http://www.pmail.com/
I have been using the various versions of this fine free software
for the past five years. This software package does a much better job of
saving e-mail messages to text (.txt) files than any other software package
that I have ever used. Each month, I use the “Save Messages to Disk..”
feature of the “Folders” pull-down menu to save some of my e-mail messages
into a text file. For example, at the end of July, I saved all of the e-mail
messages that I received during the month to a file called 07_2002.txt
If I need to retrieve any e-mail messages at a later date, I can
do one of two things:
I can use any program that can open a text file such as Windows
“WordPad” or Microsoft Word to look at the file and search for messages
of interest
OR
I can drag and drop 07_2002.txt into a WinZip window. If I drop
07_2002.txt into a WinZip window, I can then retrieve the various e-mail
messages as separate text files. In addition, WinZip also allows me to
retrieve any binary file attachments that I were attached to the original
e-mail messages.
GOOGLE NEWSGROUP SEARCH
To search Usenet archives of newsgroup postings, go to http://www.google.com
Click on the “Groups” button.
Put your search terms or phrase into the search engine form.
Then click on the “Google Search” button.
I can often find information by searching newsgroup postings in
this manner after searches of the Web itself fails to find information
that I am looking for.
695ONLINE
“695 ONLINE” offers unlimited dialup Internet access for $6.95 per
month http://www.695online.com/ They
have local access numbers all across the 48 contiguous states of the United
States. However, I have been unable to find out much about them. If you
try them out, let me know what you find out.
FIREWIRE FOR INTERNET CONNECTION SHARING
Last month, I visited an interesting home network in Redondo Beach.
Here is what I found:
Broadband Internet access is provided by a cable modem that is provided
by Earthlink Cable. This cable modem connects via a 10Base-T “Category
5” modular data cable to the “Wide Area Networking” side of a D-Link Internet
Gateway. The “Local Area Networking” of the D-Link Internet Gateway
connects, via a 10Base-T “Category 5” modular data cable, to a Pentium
2.0 Gigahertz computer that runs Windows XP Home Edition. The Pentium 2.0
Gigahertz computer contains a PCI Firewire adapter card and this card connects
via a 10-foot Firewire cable to a similar PCI Firewire adapter in a Pentium
1.0 Gigahertz computer. Microsoft’s “Internet Connection Sharing”
is enabled on the Pentium 2.0 Gigahertz computer so that the Pentium 1.0
Gigahertz computer can access the Internet through the Pentium 2.0 Gigahertz
computer, by means of the Firewire link. The 2 computers also shared files
with each other by means of the Firewire link. Also, the Pentium 1.0 Gigahertz
computer was able to send print jobs to a printer that was attached to
the USB port of the Pentium 2.0 Gigahertz computer.
To summarize, at this residence, Internet access is provided by
a cable modem which connects to D-link Internet Gateway which connects
via a 10Base-T modular Ethernet cable to a Pentium 2.0 Gigahertz computer
which connects via a Firewire cable to a Pentium 1.0 Gigahertz computer.
The bottom line is that a 400-Megabit per second Firewire link is
used to connect two Windows XP computers together in order to facilitate
Internet Connection sharing, file sharing, and printer sharing. Cool
!!
More information about Firewire home networking will be provided
in future articles.
WAYS TO CONTACT ME:
If you have any questions or problems, I can be contacted by the
following methods:
1. Leave a voice message for me at (310)768-3896.
2. Send me e-mail at: fchao@pacbell.net
3. Send “snail” U.S. Postal Service mail to:
Frank Chao
PO Box 6930, Torrance, CA 90504-0030.
Or sell your computer and take up golf instead !!
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SOFTWARE LIBRARY NEWS
By BOB HUDAK |
WANTED: D-Base 3 or 4 original manuals. One of our members needs
the books to deal with some files. Please check your pile of old programs
and see if you can help out. Call me if you come up with the books.
Last month I brought you the collection of Jeff Levy’s tips about
working with computers and programs. This month the tips are for PhotoShop
6. Disk # 94 has a PDF file that has over 300 tips to help you with the
program. There is also a index file that you can print out to help you
find the page the tip you are looking for is on. You can read the tip on
screen or print it out. All the tips are on 49 pages so youcould print
them all out on 25 sheets of paper. Print the odd pages first and then
reload the paper and print the even pages. The tips are in a number of
categories to make things easier to find. Come to the Library table to
check the list of tips and pick up a disk.
The next disk I have for your library is a book called “The Little
Black Book Of Viruses”. It is a 183 page book in PDF file form that tells
you how different viruses work. The more you know about how viruses do
their job, the better you are prepared to defend against them. Something
a little different. I hope you take the time to read it. Ask for Disk #
101.
John Hanson told you about the program ADVISOR last month. He told
you I would have a copy in the Library. I do have copiesthis month. Disk
# 99 is what you want. It tells all about your computer. CPU, memory, hard
drive, operating system and all about all the other hardware you have.
Then it lists all the programs you have and where they are. Print the report
and you will have a nice profile of your computer on hand.
Power Supplies:
At our Tuesday Hardware Sig we have seen a number of
computer power supplies fail. Burn out. Quit. A number of our electronic
experts have been taking them apart to see if they are repairable and where
they failed. Jack Burton and Emmett Ingram have been working on black boxes
to check power supplies. John Hanson has also been poking the little boxes.
So what have we found out? They seem to fail at the same place.
They can’t be fixed. A number of power supplies with the name “Deer”on
it failed. I was talking to Ray Shinn, who bought two of the Dr.
Hanson type computer. He was happy with them EXCEPT for the noisy
power supplies. I ran into this problem a while back and had to try 3 different
ones before I got rid of the noise. Doing a little reading I found two
power supply manufacturers that make good quality units. PC Power &
Cooling Inc (www.powercooling.com) and Antec
are the two names I found. Going to www.pricewatch.com I did a search and
found both power supplies. The Antec 300w with adj. fan speed was $39.00.
The PC Power & Cooling unit with 300w was $89.00 This unit had a noise
level of 44db(A) and a built in line conditioning circuit that results
in an ultra clean output. Go to PC Power’s web site and check out all their
different units and prices. They have a lot of information on power supplies.
Spend a little time reading. I did not really search out the best prices
but just wanted to get a idea. It’s hard for a vender to sell you a computer
for $300.00 if it has a $90.00 power supply in it. Ask what the MTBF is.
One that has a 100K rating is of higher quality. There is no free
lunch in this area. If you have information on power supplies that would
help our membership, send an email to me and tell all so I can pass on
the info.
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SONY "CD-MAVICA" DIGITAL CAMERA
by
John Sullivan, GSBUG
If you’re thinking of buying one of these, wait until after you
read this column. This camera is the successor to the Sony Mavica that
used to take pictures and save them onto a floppy disk. The new “Cd-Mavica”
saves your pictures onto a CD, which obviously holds a lot more! Plus,
it can record and save short videos with sound, that you can play back
from the camera into a TV, record to tape, or playback on your computer
in your regular CD drive.
So far, it all sounds wonderful.
I bought one for a couple of friends of mine who are hiking the
Appalachian Trail (2000 miles from Georgia to Maine) and wanted to send
me photos and videos from the Trail that I could put up on their website.
(www.habitatlb.org/AThike) I researched all the different analog
and digital cameras and camcorders that were on the market at the time,
and only the CD Mavica had the right combination of storage, portability
and price.
The camera actually uses a 3" CD disc, which is readily available
from major computer chains, however not many people have ever seen one.
They look like a regular CD, only smaller, and are often used to record
short corporate videos, which people can hand out as digital business cards.
Rather than a standard, cardboard business card, people can record short
presentations about their business onto the CD’s, and supposedly you can
play them back in any computer with a standard CD Rom drive. If you open
the CD drive on your computer, you’ll probably see the tray has a depression
in the center, just large enough to hold a 3" CD disc!
These discs hold about 150 Megabytes, which is quite a bit more
than the old floppy disc, which holds 1.44 MB. It will hold quite a few
photos, depending on what size you record them at, plus a number of videos
(which end up at about 5 MB for 60 secs of video and sound).
The problem with the discs is that they just don’t seem to sit right
in the CD drives! I have two drives, a newer Plextor 24x10x40 CD-RW, and
an older 24x CD Rom, but neither one reads the little CD’s reliably everytime.
You have to open the Cd tray and relocate the disc a few times before the
computer will recognize it. It just doesn’t seem to center well in the
tray. Sony even includes a plastic adapter collar, which you snap around
the outside of the 3" CD, which makes it fit into the regular 5" CD groove,
but even that doesn’t work all the time. I did, however, have good luck
with the Cd drive on my laptop, which has a center spindle which holds
the CD perfectly centered in the drive.
I bought the camera because my friends could buy the blank CD’s
for a few bucks each, which is cheap enough that I don’t have to send them
back to them after I’ve downloaded all the photos; I just save them till
they get back from their adventure. Most cameras nowadays use the Smart
Media / Compact Flash type of cards, and under normal circumstances, I
would have bought one of these instead.
FDISK.......
Recently I’ve been asked to do a demonstration at one of the
Meetings of Partition Magic. I’ve been wanting to buy a bigger hardrive
so that I’d have room to experiment with digital video, so I thought
this would be a good time. By searching Price Grabber (www.pricegrabber.com),
I found a new IBM Deskstar 80 GB for about $76.00. I planned to use this
to show how Partition Magic compares to using the old DOS command “fdisk”.
After installing the drive, I opened Partition Magic and made the
whole drive into one large 80 GB partition, and formatted it FAT 32. This
took about 10 minutes. When I exited Partition Magic back to Windows 98
SE, and checked the drive, the whole 80 GB was sitting there waiting to
be used. (actually about 78 GB after the formatting info is written to
it). It seemed to be OK, so I rebooted to a DOS prompt and ran fdisk.
Fdisk recognized the drive OK, and I used it to first delete the
partition I made with Partition Magic. But when I tried to create a Primary
Partition, it would only allow a 13 GB size!
Over the years, there’s been a number of obstacles that hardrive
manufacturers have had to overcome. Computers originally were never visualized
as having multi-megabyte drives, let alone multi-gigabytes! There are a
few “limitations” built into IBM compatible computers, things like the
INT 13 setting, the 1024 cylinder limit, and the 2 GB limitation. Whether
or not you can install a large hardrive on your computer depends on things
like how old your BIOS is, and which version of Windows you’re using.
I’d heard about and read about all these limitations, but had never
run across a 13 GB limit. I checked my BIOS manufacturer for updates and
read the Partition Magic manual (how many people do that?). The CD that
comes with Partition Magic also has an extensive tutorial on hardrive theory,
but none of this mentioned a 13 GB limit!
Finally I went to the Microsoft Knowledge Base (support.microsoft.com)
and started typing in searches for fdisk problems. Eventually, I found
that there’s a newer version of fdisk for Windows 98, which I downloaded
and installed. This actually fixed the problem with fdisk ... apparently
when Microsoft published Windows 98, they also could not envision people
having hardrives larger than 13 gigabytes. When bigger hardrives came onto
the market, they had to rewrite fdisk to accomodate them!
Zone Alarm
Zone Alarm is a highly-recommended software firewall for your computer
that you should be running if you access the Internet at all. It will hide
your computer from hackers who are cruising around the Internet looking
for computers to break into. After you install it, you can go to Steve
Gibson’s site at www.grc.com and test your computer, and you’ll see that
Zone Alarm is making your computer invisible to hackers! Zone Alarm is
available Free from www.zonealarm.com. (There’s also a pay version with
more features, but start with the free one).
I’ve been using Zone Alarm for a few years, ever since I first heard
about it, and never had a bit of trouble until the other day. My
neighbor’s computer was acting up ... all kinds of things were messed up,
giving lots of different error messages whenever she tried to do anything.
She hadn’t even been able to read her email for days! I took a look and
found that her antivirus software was out of date. Sure enough, after updating
Norton Antivirus, and running a virus scan, we found a few viruses hanging
around. Norton corraled them and cleaned them all out.
After all was running well again, I decided to install Zone Alarm
for her, to help indicate if she ever had any future virus activity. (Some
viruses, trojans, etc. will try to access the Internet without your permission,
and Zone Alarm will see it and notify you that such and such program is
trying to get onto the Internet). After installing Zone Alarm, I gave the
computer over to her so she could check her email, but it wouldn’t work.
The modem made the connection OK to her service, but Outlook Express just
couldn’t seem to connect to the email server. I looked through the different
settings, but couldn’t pick out anything wrong, so I started thinking that
Zone Alarm was causing a problem somehow. I’d never heard of anyone having
problems with Zone Alarm, but I though that maybe the viruses had corrupted
something that made programs like Zone Alarm incompatible. Going into Control
Panel, I selected Add/Remove Programs and removed Zone Alarm, however,
this didn’t fix the problem.
Next I uninstalled Norton AntiVirus, thinking the same thing: maybe
somehow the viruses had changed something so that antivirus
software no longer would work. That fixed it ... Outlook Express was able
to find the server again, and tons of email (junkmail) starting coming
in. But Norton AV is a reputable program, so we weren’t done yet. We had
to make Norton work with this system.
The version of Norton we were using is the new 2002, so there aren’t
any newer versions available at the website, but I did look around their
tech support section, and finally found that a feature in Norton Antivirus
called “email scanning” just plain didn’t work on some versions of Windows.
Their solution? : turn it off!
Going into the Norton program, I found the setting for email scanning
and disabled it. Norton says that this is just an added layer of protection,
and that the program will still protect you from email viruses with this
extra “feature” (aka: bug) turned off.
Having done all that, we checked Outlook Express, and then Internet
Explorer. Both were Ok, so I re-installed Zone Alarm, so that she’d have
firewall protection. Checking the programs again, I found the email
OK, but Internet Explorer could not access any web pages! None!!
Uninstalling Zone Alarm fixed it, but I wanted ZA installed and
running. Finally, I again suspected that Windows had somehow been damaged
by the viruses that Norton hadn’t repaired, so I re-installed Windows on
top of itself. That was a hassle in itself, but we finally
got through it and had a computer that actually ran pretty good! Until
I re-installed Zone Alarm.
Finally I went to the Zone Alarm website and dug down through their
tech support FAQ’s. Because the program is free, they say they don’t
provide very much in the way of support (if you want hand-holding, you
have to buy the full version). However, there was a notation along the
way, something to the effect that when you uninstall Zone Alarm using Add/Remove
Programs, it leaves behind what they call their True Vector service. There
had been a complaint from someone who’d upgraded their computer from Win
98 to ME, and then could no longer access the Internet.
Tech support answered that the only proper way to uninstall ZA was
with the included Uninstall utility. So we tried this on my neighbor’s
computer, first uninstalling ZA with the built-in utility, then reinstalling
it. This time, Internet Explorer worked fine. That was it!
Now she’s got her computer back, with IE and Outlook Express working,
and Norton and Zone Alarm guarding it. Having also ran Disk Defragmenter,
the computer runs like new. Now all she has to do is answer all those
emails!
John Sullivan can be reached at: CAEnnis@aol.
com
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THE POWER OF SMALL
(Small is Beautiful!)
by Guenter Schott, Editor and one-man producer of 28-page award-winning
monthly newsmagazine for the Fallbrook PC Users Group Fallbrook, California
The above headline may appear to you as “strange”, but I want to
emphasize an important ingredient of good communications when you transmit
images as a file attachment over the Internet.
Yes, there is an unwritten protocol that calls for courtesy in this
process and of what happens when you, for instance, send a family photograph
to a friend or family member with the help of an E-mail client.
Most of us don’t have the luxury of a fast DSL phone line. And that
is the problem when you transmit an image from point A to point B. You
probably have only a 56K modem connection and so does the other person
you communicate with on the other end of the Internet data transmission
highway.
So, what are we really talking about? Two simple words are the explanation:
File size. Why is that so important, you might want to know? Well, let’s
first describe what a modem is and what it actually does. It’s an acronym
for modulator-demodulator. A modem is a device or program that enables
a computer to transmit data over telephone lines. Computer information
is stored digitally, whereas information transmitted over telephone lines
is transmitted in the form of analog waves. A modem converts between these
two forms. The next thing you have to understand is bandwidth. It’s the
amount of data that can be transmitted in a fixed amount of time. For digital
devices (your computer), the bandwidth is usually expressed in bits per
second (bps) or bytes per second. For analog devices, the bandwidth is
expressed in cycles per second, or Hertz (Hz).
A bottleneck in transmission of data through the circuits of a computer’s
microprocessor or over a TCP/IP (abbreviation for Transmission Control
Protocol/Internet Protocol) network is the key point in this discussion.
The delay typically occurs when a system’s bandwidth cannot support the
amount of information being relayed at the speed it is being processed.
TCP/IP connections were originally designed to transmit only text files,
and the proliferation of bandwidth-intensive transmissions such as high-resolution
graphics has caused bottlenecks in the process; therefore, the data moves
more slowly across networks. TCP/IP, the suite of communications protocols
used to connect hosts on the Internet, uses several protocols, the two
main ones being TCP and IP.
All communications between devices require that the devices agree
on the format of the data. The set of rules defining a format is called
a protocol. At the very least, a communications protocol must define the
following: Rate of transmission (in baud or bps).
Whether transmission is to be synchronous (occurring at regular
intervals) or asynchronous (most communication between computers and devices
is asynchronous — it can occur at any time and at irregular intervals).
Whether data is to be transmitted in half-duplex (refers to the
transmission of data in just one direction at a time). For example, a walkie-talkie
is a half-duplex device because only one party can talk at a time. Or in
full-duplex mode (refers to the transmission of data in two directions
simultaneously). For example, a telephone is a full-duplex device because
both parties can talk at once.
In addition to the standard protocols, there are a number of protocols
that complement these standards by adding additional functions such as
file transfer capability, error detection and recovery, and data compression.
All of the above now leads us to the core information I want to
address, and that is the all- important data compression. Data compression
is particularly useful in communications because it enables devices to
transmit the same amount of data in fewer bits. There are a variety of
data compression techniques, but only a few have been standardized. The
CCITT (abbreviation of Comité Consultatif International Téléphonique
et Télégraphique, an organization that sets international
communications standards. CCITT, now known as ITU — the parent organization)
has defined many important standards for data communications, including
the V.90 compression standard for full-duplex modems sending and receiving
data across phone lines at up to 56,600 bps In addition, there are file
compression formats, such as ARC and ZIP.
OK, now that we have covered all the fundamentals, we can talk about
some of the file formats when images and graphics are to be transmitted
over the wires and cables of the communications industry. First of all,
keep in mind that — just like the rendering of images on Web sites — the
viewer will get irritated if it takes too long to hold your attention.
E-mail is certainly no exception. Have you ever downloaded your messages
from your ISP (Internet Service Provider) server and seen the blue progression
bar draw at a snail’s pace? It makes you furious when, after perhaps 20
minutes, you have 4 messages on your computer and one came with a file
attachment (your brother-in-law’s birthday party picture) that alone took
19 minutes of the entire download process?
Here is the explanation: The image file was way too large and should
have been compressed or put into a JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group)
appearance. He had a real nice photograph and probably digitized it by
passing it through an optical scanner. A scanner works by digitizing an
image — dividing it into a grid of boxes and representing each box with
either a zero or a one, depending on whether the box is filled in. (For
color and gray scaling, the same principle applies, but each box is then
represented by up to 24 bits.) The resulting matrix of bits, called a bit
map, can then be stored in a file, displayed on a screen, manipulated by
programs, or sent to someone else by E-mail.
A photo scanner is a type of optical scanner designed especially
for scanning photographs. Photo scanners are smaller than general-purpose
scanners but offer high resolution. A typical photo scanner is a sheet-fed
scanner that can scan 3x5-inch or 4x6-inch photographs at 300 dpi or higher
resolution. Some high-end photo scanners can also scan negatives and slides.
As for E-mailing photos, you must avoid creating images on your
scanner that are megabyte monsters. The two important points to always
keep in mind are size (dimensions) and resolution (dpi). Normally, there
is no good reason to scan anything higher than 72 or 96 dpi for anything
that’s going to be viewed on a computer monitor.
You have to “optimize” photos or graphics and find the right balance
between file compression and quality. Most professional graphics programs
are able to do this effectively. A good jpg cruncher is available at http://spinwave.com/crunchers.html.
Had uncle Joe used his newly acquired digital camera (a camera that
captures and stores still images as digital data instead of on photographic
film) instead and then sent the image to his relative, the outcome would
have been considerably different.
Now a word about the most universal file formats. It appears to
be a somewhat confusing area and when it comes to the question of which
one is best for your purpose, I would first look at one of the following
and keep the explanation handy. Graphics file formats are file formats
designed specifically for representing graphical images.
TIFF is the acronym for Tagged Image File Format, one of the most
widely supported file formats for storing bit-mapped images on personal
computers. Other popular formats are BMP and PCX. TIFF graphics can be
any resolution, and they can be black and white, gray-scaled, or color.
Files in TIFF format often end with a .tif extension.
JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) is a lossy compression technique
for color images. Although it can reduce files sizes to about 5% of their
normal size, some detail is lost in the compression. Lossy compression
technologies attempt to eliminate redundant or unnecessary information.
Most video compression technologies, such as MPEG, use a lossy technique.
GIF (pronounced jiff or giff) stands for Graphics Interchange Format,
a bit-mapped graphics file format used by the World Wide Web, ompuServe
and many BBSs. GIF supports color and various resolutions. It also includes
data compression, making it especially effective for scanned photos.
The Golden Rule: No screenful of data should take longer than 25
seconds to load. That is not only true on the Internet but can also be
applied to sending graphic images by E-mail. Assume 1K per second at 28.8
bps, and that will allow you 25K of data.
You can write Guenter at schott@tfb.com
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