The Bug Report

The only Bug that's good for your computer!

A Publication of the Greater South Bay PC Users Group

Volume 21 Number 12

December 2003

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 - Sharon Grant
 

FEATURE ARTICLES:


INTERNET TALK

SOFTWARE LIBRARY NEWS

STOP CERTAIN SITES FROM DROPPING COOKIES
 
  

INTERNET TALK
By Frank Chao

This is the 64th "Internet Talk" article. The Internet and how we use it has changed a great deal during this period of time.
Liz and I wish to thank Kay Burton for serving as editor for the past
nineteen issues of this newsletter.
We hope that someone else will volunteer for this important job.
We also hope you are having a wonderful holiday season.

 

TEMPORARY WEB-ONLY NEWSLETTER

Effective immediately, the Greater South Bay PC Users Group (GSBUG) will be without a paper version of the monthly newsletter for indeterminate period of time while our new editor takes over.  During this time, "The Bug Report", will become "Web only".  This is a temporary situation that will remain in place for only a month or two. While the newsletter is in this Web-only state, you will  probably want to print all or part of any of the Web-based newsletter when it comes out each month. Bob Hudak asked me to provide you with the following step-by-step instructions:

NEWSLETTER PRINTING  INSTRUCTIONS:

Start Internet Explorer or your Web browser of choice.

Go to
http://gsbug.apcug.org

Click on the "Current Issue" link.

If you wish to print the entire newsletter:
Using the keyboard, press "Control" + "a"
(or click on "Edit" on the menu bar and then click on "Select All")

OR

If you wish to print just one portion of the newsletter:
Using the keyboard, hold down a "Shift" key.
Then use your mouse to drag through and highlight just the portion of the newsletter that you wish to print.
Then release the "Shift" key.

Using the keyboard, press "Control" + "c"
(or click on "Edit" on the menu bar and then click on "Copy")

Start "Microsoft Word", Wordpad, or Wordperfect.
After it opens up into a stable "Document" window:

Perform a single click anywhere in the "Document" window.

Using the keyboard, press "Control" + "v"
(or click on "Edit" on the menu bar and then click on "Paste")

Remove as many blank lines as you wish.

Click on the "Print" icon on the Standard toolbar
(or click on "File" on the menu bar and then click on "Print Preview".
 

Make sure that it looks right.

If it does not look right, add or remove blank lines and modify the document, as desired.

Click on the "Print" icon on the Standard toolbar
(or click on "File" on the menu bar and then click on the "Okay" button.

SAVING OR PRINTING A GRAPHIC FROM THE  NEWSLETTER:

Pictures and drawings from the newsletter can be printed or saved as follows:

Start Internet Explorer or your Web browser of choice.

Go to
http://gsbug.apcug.org

Click on the "Current Issue" link.

Locate the picture or drawing that you wish to save.

Use your RIGHT mouse button to perform a click to perform a single click on the desired picture or drawing.

Use either mouse button (left or right) to click on "Save Picture As..."

Select the location on a hard or removable drive where you wish to store the file.

Provide a name for the file, if the default name is unacceptible.

Click on the "Save" button.

PRINTING A GRAPHIC FROM THE NEWSLETTER:

How you print a graphic file depends on what graphical and printing software you have in your computer. If you have Microsoft Office installed in your computer, you can print from "Microsoft Photo Editor". Or you could use Adobe Photoshop
or Adobe Photoshop Elements or Corel Draw.  Or you could insert the graphic file into a Microsoft Word or Wordpad file and then print it from within Microsoft Word or Wordpad.

The trick to printing a graphic file is to move and resize it before printing it.
How you move and resize it depends on which of the above-mentioned software programs you use. For example, if you use "Microsoft Photo Editor", you can adjust the position and size that it prints on the page right after clicking on the "Print" icon in the Standard tool bar. However, if you are using Microsoft Word or Wordpad, you should click on the graphic and adjust it's size and location from within the basic text area of Microsoft Word or Wordpad, prior to clicking on the "Print" icon on the Standard tool bar.

SOUTH BAY ADULT SCHOOL

Liz and I just finished a four-week course on Digital Photography at the Torrance Adult School.  We both learned to use "Adobe Photoshop Elements 2" to do all sorts of magical tricks on the pictures that I and Liz take in our travels. We highly recommend this course. It is taught by Don Stouder, who is an experienced digital photograper.  To learn more about this course and others that are offered go to:

http://www.torranceadultschool.com/

The informative course that we took was held on four consecutive Wednesdays at the Levy School in south Torrance.

MATADOR SPAM BLOCKER

If  you are using Outlook Express, Outlook 2000, or Outlook 2003, and you are sick of getting spam in your e-mail inbox, go to

http://www.mailfrontier.com/

Click on the "Individual E-mail Protection" hyperlink and learn about their "Matador" system.

However, this system will not work for you if you are using a Web-based e-mail system like Hotmail or Yahoo mail.

WHISPER-QUIET COMPUTERS

Super quiet computers are becoming more and more popular:
See
http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~me/quiet_desktop.html
for a Web page of links and information that was created by Michael Elkins who belongs to the Linux @ LAX User Group.
You have to pay extra for silent computers or for quiet components to reduce the noise level of an existing computer.  Lots of folks think that the silence is worth paying for. Let me know what you think of the concept.
 

WAYS TO CONTACT ME:

If you have any questions or problems, I can be contacted by the following methods:
1.  Send me e-mail at: fchao@pacbell.net
2.  Leave me a voice message at
     (310)768-3896.
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 !!

 

SOFTWARE LIBRARY NEWS
By BOB HUDAK

Great breaking news! I brought in a new member who is willing to be our newsletter editor. Her name is Sharon Grant. Her e-mail address is yeptune@netzero.com  She was at the board meeting on Wednesday December 3rd and was confirmed as our Editor. She has a lot of ideas and will be a asset to the club. We want to get January articles to her as soon as possible so she can put the first letter together before the holidays take over her time.

I now have a copy of the presentation on HDTV that we had at the general meeting on Nov 3 2003. It is about 70 pages that you can read on screen or print. It fits on a 3 1/2" floppy that sells for $3.00. It is in Power Point. You need Power Point to view it or a Power Point viewer. I can put it on a CD along with a viewer program for $5.00. There were a number of members that wanted a copy so here is your chance to order what you want. Floppy or CD. Call me ( 323-0579 ) or email a request. Pickup at Hardware SIG on Tue. This sure has a lot of information if you are in the market to buy a new TV set.

I have been working on a few old computers and needed some software help to clean up the Registry in Windows after cleaning off some programs from the hard drive. The Add/Remove icon in Control Panel does a pretty good job but some traces of some programs seem to remain in the Registry. This slows down the startup process because each line needs to be read and acted on. So if it is not need it helps to get rid of it. I used Regcleaner on disk # 4 to clean up the Registry. It works great. You can run it from a floppy. Another good reason to keep that 3 1/2" drive in your new machine. This is another utility you should have and use after deleting a program.

The next program I need was Ram Idle on disk # 72. I was having so problems on my machine with low memory. I loaded the program and configured it. Stayed mostly with the default settings. A number icon appears in the right side of the tray when you minimize the program. This tells you how much memory is available in MB. You can watch what happens to memory as you load several programs. You can set the recovery rate and the min amount of memory you want to work with. It takes what is not being used in Ram and transfers it to the Swap File. It also monitors your CPU usage. Tells you how hard your computer is working while running some task. It helped me see what was going on with my system. Give it a try.

A few issues ago I told you about Speed Fan on disk #84. If your CMOS reports on the temperature of your CPU and the speed of the CPU fan, this is a nice reporting program to let you know what is going on. Emmett Ingram was having a heat problem on one of his computers and he was watching what was going on by going into CMOS at startup. The problem with that is you are not using the computer for anything except watching the temp of the CPU go up. We installed the program and now while working he can see what is going on with the heat problem. The temperature is displayed in the tray. Works well.

I want to take this opportunity to wish all a Happy Holiday season. Thank the members working to make the club a great resource for all members. You know about the Board members and the SIG leaders but some of the others need to be thanked at this time of the year. Bill Champlin who brings us copies of Computer User magazine every month. He has been doing this for many years. Members helping with the Christmas party, writing articles for our newsletter. Etc. They are the oil that makes the club run. A big THANK YOU to them
 

STOP CERTAIN SITES FROM DROPPING COOKIES
You can stop certain sites from planting cookies on your computer, if you like. In Internet Explorer, click Tools>Internet Options. Select the Privacy tab and click Edit. Enter the address of the Web site and click Block.  In Netscape, click File>Preferences. Under Privacy & Security, click Cookies. Click Manage Stored Cookies. Scan the Stored Cookies list to find the site you want to block. Click Remove Cookie and select "Don't allow removed cookies to be accepted later."
DELETE ALL COOKIES IN IE, NETSCAPE & AOL
You can also delete all of your cookies. But if you do that, many sites will no longer know you. You'll have to enter passwords, where, before, you bypassed the password requirement. Other sites with which you do business will no longer customize their site for you.   In Internet Explorer, click Tools>Internet Options. On the General tab, click Delete Cookies. In Netscape, click Edit>Preferences. Under Privacy & Security, click Cookies. Click Manage Stored Cookies. Select the Stored Cookies tab and click Remove All Cookies.  If you use America Online, click Start>Control Panel (in Windows 98 and ME, click Start>Settings>Control Panel). Double?click Internet Options. On the General tab, click Delete Cookies.