Dave Bytes

Dave "Bytes"

Please remember to use your thinker, before you tinker!

January 29, 2005

A Periodic Newsletter for the Members of the Sarasota PC User Group and the World!!

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Here's A Microsoft Outlook Tip

Private E-Mail in Outlook

A reader asks:
Our family has four e-mail addresses, and we do not log on to Microsoft Windows with different user accounts. I would like to set up Identities for private e-mail, as you can with Microsoft Outlook Express, but we use Outlook. Is there a way we can do this with Outlook so we can get our separate mail?

Outlook has a feature that's very similar to Identities in Outlook Express, but you don't set it up from within Outlook itself. Close Outlook and launch the Mail applet from Control Panel. Click on the Show Profiles button. Click on Add, enter the name of one of your e-mail users, and click on OK. The Outlook E-mail Accounts wizard will appear; fill in the information for this particular account. Repeat for the other accounts. Make sure the option "Prompt for a profile to be used" is selected, and click on OK.

From now on, Outlook will ask which profile to use when you launch it, and you will have to enter the password for that profile's e-mail account. There is no equivalent to Outlook Express's Exit and Log Off Identity menu item—the current profile is always logged off when you exit.

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Google to Release TV Search Service
Yahoo Launching Video Venture

Google Inc. plans to unveil today a test version of a way for computer users to search the content of television programs, the next step in the company's efforts to make information available to computer users from a growing number of sources.

For Google, which has indexed more than 8 billion documents on the Internet, the TV venture is in keeping with its strategy to expand the universe of data that can be searched to include information not already online. For example, Google recently launched a pilot project to make tens of millions of books available for online search.

Dubbed Google Video, the new TV service is limited, since it provides only still shots and texts of certain programs broadcast since December on the Public Broadcasting Service, C-SPAN, Fox News and certain other stations. The company's long-term strategy is to enable computer users not only to search for still shots and text from television programs but also to provide them with a way to replay TV programs on their computers, although it is unclear how long that might take to become available.

Google's chief search rival, Yahoo Inc., also is releasing a new video service today that is designed to make it easier to find movie trailers, music videos and other programs online. The Yahoo release, available on www.yahoo.com, follows a multi-month test of an earlier version of the service.

Both PBS and the National Basketball Association said they are partnering with Google in the venture to expand the availability of their television programming by making it searchable on the Internet.

PBS President Pat Mitchell said the new service would "increase the reach and impact of PBS content."

NBA Commissioner David Stern said Google's strategy was likely to appeal to sports fans. "NBA fans are tech-savvy early adopters," Stern said in a statement. "With our partnership with Google on the pioneering Google Video service, we enhance our ability to meet the needs of NBA fans, delivering to them content and information in a new and innovative way."

Google officials said the new service is a breakthrough in their ongoing goal of organizing data and making it searchable.

"Our mission is to help Google users find the information they need, whether it's on the Web, in a library or on TV," said Larry Page, co-founder of the company. "Google Video unlocks the information that streams across our TVs every day. Now users can search the content of TV programs, find the shows that have the information they're looking for, and learn when they can watch them."

Initially, the broadcasts available for search at www.google.com/videowill be quite limited, said Google product manager John Piscitello. In an interview, Piscitello said users who search for a phrase spoken on a TV program that Google has recorded and indexed since December will see a still image from the show. If the computer user clicks on that image, five still images will be available, as well as text snippets canvassed from closed captioning of the shows.

In addition, a personalization feature will enable computer users to type in their Zip code and find out when and on what station the next episode of the program they are searching will be broadcast.

"Connecting users to playback is an obvious next step," Piscitello said, adding that he did not know when that feature might become available. Since Google does not own the rights to the television shows, it is unclear what sort of revenue-sharing arrangements it might have to reach to rebroadcast the programs over the Internet and what sort of legal issues it might encounter.

Computer Term

Computer /nm./: a device designed to speed and automate errors.

At the February, 2005, General Meeting the PC Refurbishing Project will be offering a new, unopened eView 17f3 (17 inch) color monitor as a drawing item. Details concerning this monitor can be seen by clicking the wheel.

Tickets will be for sale for $1 each or 6 for $5.

An extra monitor is always good to have on hand or you can have a full-sized monitor for your laptop.

Just When You Thought You've Seen Everything

USB Ashtray

How many times have you thought, "Gee, life would be grand if I just had a smoke-less ashtray, that was also USB powered"?
Well, want no more...

A small ashtray with USB power to operate the absorbing fan/filter. Use it to cut down on smoke and odors around your desk or take it on the road using the included Car to USB Adaptor. The ashtray section can easily removed for quick cleaning. Opening and closing the cover turns the unit on/off.

This product has these fine features.

USB power connection
Also runs on two "AA" batteries
Tray and filter can be removed for easy cleaning
Open/close the cover to turn on/off
Minimize smoke and odors in your work area
Red LED "headlights" indicate power status

Price $19.99

Click Here To Buy

The "Bytes" Beg, Bargain & Barter Basement

Got something "computer related" to sell? Looking for that rare peripheral? If it's computer related you can submit a short classified ad for exposure in Dave "Bytes". Be sure to include your name and e-mail address in the ad. You can also include a picture of the item. Now some would suggest that there be a charge for this feature but alas, since my bookkeeping skills leave much to be desired I've determined that this will be a free service to all SPCUG members in good standing. "Bytes" is currently sent to almost 1500 homes in the area. Ad requests will be included as soon as possible. I assume absolutely no responsibility as to the accuracy or completeness of supplied info. All transactions are between consulting adults which leaves me entirely off the hook. Please let me know by clicking HERE when your merchandise is sold so that I can remove it from the listing. I will try to run each ad for a month.

Click Here To Submit Your Ad

	Nikon D-100 Digital SLR Camera and complete set of accessories. Includes 2 Zoom Lenses (28-105mm and 70-300mm) Nikon Speedlight Flash Multi-Function Battery Pack/Vertical Grip 4 Lithium-Ion Batteries Battery Charger AC Adapter Electronic Remote Cord 2 UV Haze Filters Wide Angle Polarizing Filter

Florida Association of Computer User Groups, Inc.

Spring 2005 Conference

Dear Fellow SPCUG Members,
FACUG was founded in 1993 to assist user groups in the performance of their managerial and educational activities, to promote communications among local user groups, and to facilitate relations between user groups and the computer industry.

FACUG is the successor organization to the Florida Suncoast Conference of PC User Groups. Suncoast was one of the early regional groups having been started in 1989 in Sarasota by our own Gary Schweinshaupt.

Currently there are 62 member User Groups that belong to FACUG. The Annual Spring Conference is being held on March 4-6 in Kissimmee.

Over the years many SPCUG volunteers have devoted countless hours of their time in an effort to help make SPCUG a stronger organization and to their credit, have succeeded. Years ago Gary encouraged me to attend a conference and to get involved which I gladly did. Since then I have been a Director and now serve as President because I have seen, first hand, how FACUG helps to not only strengthen SPCUG, but the User Group Community as a whole.

That being said, I would like to encourage all Officers and Volunteers to register for the Spring Conference.

FACUG member attendees-$60 on site, $55 by mail before February 20, 2005 and $40 if postmarked before February 10, 2005.

This fee covers breakfast, lunch, dinner, and participation in the various roundtable panel discussions and door prizes, All volunteers who attend are entitled to a $35 per day reimbursement from SPCUG. If you have any questions, please contact me @ gerber@spcug.org

Hotel arrangements are in place

Make your reservation for hotel directly:
Super 8 Suites
1815 W.Vine St.,
Kissimmee, FL
1-800-325-4348
$39.95 + tax/night double person room.
A limited number of rooms are being held until 2/17/05 .
Request the group rate for the Florida Association of Computer User Groups, Inc.
( I strongly recommend booking your hotel reservation NOW! This is the height of the tourist season.)

Click HERE for the Registration Form.

Need the Free Acrobat Reader? Get it here !

All things considered, I'm sure that you will bring back to SPCUG information and ideas that will serve the Sarasota PC User Group well while having a good time in the process.
                                                         I hope to see you there,
                                                                       Dave Gerber
                                                                           President - FACUG

And Now

Dave's Cool Downloads

Picasa 2 is software that helps you instantly find, edit and share all the pictures on your PC. Every time you open Picasa, it automatically locates all your pictures (even ones you forgot you had) and sorts them into visual albums organized by date with folder names you know. You can drag and drop to arrange your albums and make labels to create new groups. Picasa makes sure your pictures are always organized.

Picasa also makes advanced editing simple by putting one-click fixes and powerful effects at your fingertips. And Picasa makes it a snap to share your pictures – you can email, print at home, make gift CDs, instantly share via Hello™, and even put pictures on your own blog.

Take a tour of Picasa

3 mb

WebMon is a web page monitoring program that automatically checks web pages to see if they have changed. For each page you'd like to monitor, you can specify the URL, the time interval between checks (from every minute to every thirty days) and the part of the page to be checked. If a page has changed, WebMon can alert you with a pop-up window, a sound, and/or a modified tray icon; it can also run a specified program when an update is found. WebMon can maintain a log file of all updates and supports proxy servers with authentication. Finally, it can import Internet Explorer favorites and Netscape bookmarks.

All-in-One Secretmaker combines nine powerful tools: Spam Fighter, Pop-Up Killer, Banner Blocker, Privacy Protector, History Cleaner, Worm Hunter, Cookie Eraser, Messenger Spam Blocker, and Garbage Cleaner. Spam Fighter recognizes spam and works with any POP3 e-mail client; spam is rated, and the fully automated whitelist keeps preferred contacts up-to-date. Banner Blocker reduces banner and Flash ads, blocks spyware sources, and improves surfing speeds. Pop-Up Killer stops unwanted pop-ups, and Privacy Protector hides your identity while you surf. Cookie Eraser circumvents profiling. Whitelists allow user-specific optimizations. History Cleaner clears needless files, logs, and tracks. You also can create your own plug-ins. All-in-One Secretmaker is suitable for novices, as well as for professionals.

Review of All-in-One Secretmaker

The best innovation of All-in-One Secretmaker's generous list of features is the NetBIOS protection that stops tracking companies from identifying you. Not only can you delete temporary and history files from Windows, Microsoft Office, and Internet Explorer, the free utility also cleans the traces left by Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, WinZip, Acrobat Reader, GetRight, and Google Toolbar.
The program effectively kills pop-up windows, including those sent through the Windows Messenger service, and marks spam. Its old-fashioned, self-explanatory interface is accessible from a system-tray icon. The program includes whitelists for banners, pop-ups, and spam. All-in-One Secretmaker would suit most undemanding users, especially considering it's free.

Who Says There's No Humor In Computing?

A father noticed that his son was spending way too much time playing computer games.

In an effort to motivate the boy to focus more attention on his schoolwork, the father said to his son, "When Lincoln was your age, he was studying books by the light of the fireplace."

The son replied, "But Dad, when Lincoln was your age, he was President of The United States!"

IRS Partners Offer Free Online Tax Filings

Through a partnership with three software companies, the Internal Revenue Service will offer free online tax services to virtually anyone this year.

Under the agency's Free File program, consumers are being offered the chance to use online tools developed by private software makers to help get their tax documents directly to the IRS at little or no charge. The IRS said Wednesday marked the first day that people could begin electronically filing their 2004 taxes.
Previously, the companies involved in the program offered free online tax filing to only a select group of people, specifically individuals in certain age or income brackets. But now IRS partners Intuit, TaxAct and eSmartTax are offering no-cost services to everyone. Two additional companies, FreeTaxUSA.com and FileYourTaxes.com, are extending free services to residents of certain U.S. states. The 10 remaining participating companies, including tax giant H&R Block, have no-cost programs for specific demographics, such as people over the age of 60 or members of the military.
The IRS is expecting that roughly half of the nation's 133 million taxpayers will use electronic tax filing in 2005, compared with the 62 million Americans who filed returns online last year.
The cost-free program was created in 2003 through a partnership between the IRS and the Free File Alliance, a consortium of financial software companies. It was used by 3.5 million taxpayers last year. Under the terms of the initiative, each member of the alliance is allowed to set its own eligibility parameters, but the IRS requires that the group provides free services to at least 60 percent of the nation's taxpayers as a whole.
"IRS e-file has proven itself to taxpayers year after year; it is fast, accurate and secure," IRS Commissioner Mark W. Everson said in a statement. "We've once again expanded the population of those who can participate."

The IRS said that the vast majority of electronically prepared returns are still filed by tax professionals, but it indicated that the number of taxpayers who use software to prepare their own returns is growing quickly. The agency said the number of self-prepared electronic tax returns nearly tripled to 14.5 million individuals in 2004 from 5 million in 2000.

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the free filing program expansion is the emergence of software maker Intuit as one of the no-cost providers. The company did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment on its decision to offer its applications for no charge. But last week, the company said that overall sales of its TurboTax package for federal tax filings were 5 percent lower through the first week of January than they were a year ago.

Under the Free File program, the IRS tests its partners' products for security and privacy vulnerabilities, but it does not officially endorse any company or product. The IRS e-file initiative began as a pilot project in 1986 and garnered 25,000 returns. The program opened nationwide in 1990, when 4.1 million returns were electronically filed.

Moving to a New Computer System
by Gene Barlow
User Group Relations
Copyrighted January 2005

Many users buy a new computer during the holiday season when sales are everywhere and prices are low. Perhaps you got a new computer recently, too. By now, you have your new computer all set up and you are busy learning all the new things you can do with it. But, you find that you miss having a familiar program or some files from your old computer on your new computer. How can you move your programs and data files from your old computer to your new computer is a question I hear often. Done a step at a time, this can be a long and hard process to complete. Finding all of your programs and files on your old computer and then installing them and getting them to work on your new computer is not the easiest thing to do. There is a software utility called Move Me by Spearit software in New Jersey that can make this process a quick and easy thing to accomplish. Let me share with you this month a bit of information about this amazing software utility.

First, you place your old computer and your new computer next to each other on a work table or counter. Then you connect the two computers together with one of three different communication cables that will let your two computers talk to each other and move files between them. The fastest of these communication cables in a standard local area network (LAN) connection. If both your old and new computers have ethernet ports on them, you can connect the two with either an inexpensive CAT-5e UTP Crossover cable (under $5 typically) or a couple of standard LAN patch cables connected to a LAN Hub. If you don't have ethernet ports on both computers, but have USB ports on both of them, you can use a special USB1.1 or USB2 File Transfer Cable ($30-40 from www.spearit.com) to connect your old and new computer. The third option is to use a special parallel transfer cable ($12) between the two parallel (printer) ports on the two computers. While this is slower than the other two connection options, you can always count on your computers having parallel ports.

When you have your old and new computer connected together with one of the three cable options above, you run Move Me on both computers. Before you begin to transfer your files between the two computers, Move Me needs to validate your serial number with Spearit software. You will need an internet connection on one of your two computers or even a third nearby computer to do this. The Move Me screen on your old computer will tell you where to connect to and what information to submit in your Validation internet run. Move Me is licensed for moving files from a single computer and cannot be used to move files from another computer later on. The validation takes only a minute or two to complete and then you are ready to start moving all of your files from your old computer to your new computer.

Here's what happens as the move progresses. Move Me gets a file from your old computer and looks to see if it is already on your new computer. If not, it copies the file across the cable and installs it on your new computer. Then it goes back and gets the next file on your old computer. It continues this process until all files have been copied from your old computer to your new computer. The entire process may take an hour or more to complete, depending on the number of files on your old computer needing to be copied and the transfer cable speed. Move Me copies all of your data and setting files between the two computers. It also copies all of your application programs between the two computers. It even copies the registry entries from your old computer and merges these into the registry of your new computer so that your application programs can run on your new computer. The only things that are not copied to the new computer are your operating system and any files that were already installed on the new computer.

Your old computer is not changed in the Move Me process. So, it will continue to run exactly as it did before the move. Your new computer should now have all of you applications, data files, and setting on it from your old computer as well as anything that was on it before the move began. At this point, you should test all of your programs to make sure they run on your new computer. Some older DOS and Windows applications may not run on Windows XP whether they were transferred with Move Me or installed directly on the new computer. You will need to get a new version of these older applications from the software developer. Other low level utilities, like PartitionMagic, will need to be reinstalled on your new computer in order to get the WinXP version of the program on your new computer. In general, you will find that most of your application programs will work just fine on WinXP.

Move Me is an amazing utility that can save you hours of work migrating all of your files from one computer to another. If you have an older computer that you want to retire as soon as you can get all of your files off it, Move Me is exactly what you need to use. Move Me on a CD lists for $50, but you can purchase the same product at the user group discount price of just $30. Look for it in our User Group Store at www.usergroupstore.com and click on any of the yellow "Buy Now" buttons to get to our secure web order form. Complete the form including the special user group code of UGNL0105 and submit it. You may share this discount offer with your immediate family and close friends. These prices are not available to others not involved with a user group.

I hope this month's newsletter has made you aware of this exciting Move Me utility from Spearit software to help you move to a new computer. Let me know if you have questions about anything in this newsletter by sending me a note to gene@ugr.com. Thank you for your attention.

Gene Barlow
User Group Relations
PO Box 911600
St George, UT 84791-1600
435-652-3005
gene@ugr.com
www.ugr.com

Why not give the gift that keeps on giving all year round? I'm referring to a subscription to either Smart Computing, PC Today, CE Tips or CPU Magazines. If you are a current subscriber and order a gift subscription, the folks at Smart Computing will add 2 additional issues to your current subscription at no charge. And remember that even gift subscriptions will be credited to the SPCUG account so that we can accumulate free subscriptions to give away to our membership. If you aren't a subscriber you should be. These publications are geared towards the very same thing that caused you to join a PC User Group which is easy to read and understand computer information for folks at any level. If you already subscribe, be sure to use the appropriate SPCUG code when you renew !!!

To order call 1-800-733-3809 and be sure to give the following Code Numbers so that SPCUG gets proper credit.
Smart Computing (11607) CPU Magazine (272) PC Today (146) CE Tips (219)

Free Tech Support

Many people view “free” as one of the nicest words in the English language. “Tech Support,” however, may not be such a positive term to computer users, especially if it evokes memories of the hours they’ve spent on the phone trying to get help for various computer problems.
The thing is, there’s a lot of troubleshooting we can do ourselves without relying on tech support reps, but we just need a little nudge in the right direction. Well, that’s what SmartComputing.com’s Tech Support Center tries to do: help people fix their own problems.

On SmartComputing.com’s Search Options page, combining a phrase and a category search can produce more targeted results.

For instance, if you keep seeing an error message appear on-screen that doesn’t make sense, you can take advantage of the Tech Support Center’s alphabetized, searchable list of error messages to get both a translation of the error and a possible resolution.

The Security & Privacy area and the daily Weblog keep you current on the latest malware (software created for malicious purposes) news. The Preventative & Regular Maintenance section should be required reading for all computer owners, and the Driver Education area helps you find device drivers online. But don’t go anywhere yet; the Tech Support Center offers much more. Need a list of file extensions? Trying to find info about eliminating viruses? Want to know more about stopping spam? Tech Support Center addresses all of these questions and more.
Plus, it’s not just a resource for solving problems; you can use it on an ongoing basis to learn more about preventing computing problems.
Spend 10 minutes a day at the center for a few months, and you won’t have to call your brother for help again; heck, he may even start calling you.

Ready for the best news? If you’ve exhausted all of the site’s resources, including the Q&A Board (see the next section), you can call the Web Services staff at (800) 368-8304, and someone will try to help you with your problem. And it’s still—there’s that nice word again—free.

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While Wandering The Web

The Hollywood Sign Webcam Site

One of the most recognizable signs in the world sits high above the city of Los Angles. The very name of the sign spells magic, mystery, and the stuff dreams are made of. But have you ever wondered about the history of that sign. Today's edition looks at the sign and the history behind it, as well as how it is now a part of the Internet.

Called The Hollywood Sign Webcam Site, the site looks at this world famous sign in real time using live webcam pictures. You can look at the sign, as well as see what the city looks like from the sign, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. But you also learn about the history of the sign, the real estate development that created it, and how it became the symbol of the screen capitol of the world. You
can also get different views of the sign from around town, as well as the famous Walk of Fame.

This is an interesting site due to the mystique and magnetism that Hollywood has had for over 90 years. Enjoy your visit here, as you get ready for lights, camera, and action.

http://www.hollywoodsign.org

Here's A "Mouse" Tip

If you're using a wireless optical mouse then get a white or light-colored mouse pad. The mouse's infrared transmitter/receiver uses less power if it's reading a light-colored surface. This will make your batteries last longer.

Pause For Thought

"All my life I've wanted to be someone; I guess I should have been more specific."

Here's A WORD Tip

Create a Simple Word Table

The Insert Table button, which resides on the Standard toolbar in Microsoft Word, is the fastest way to create a simple table. First, click on the spot where you want your table to appear in the document. Next, click on the Insert Table button (a small white box with gray grid lines and a dark blue bar on the top); a drop-down grid then appears. Select the desired number of columns and rows by dragging the cursor down and across the grid, and release the button to create the table. Easy, huh?
If you prefer the dialog-box approach to creating a table, then use this command: Table, Insert Table. The advantages of using this command over the Insert Table button are that you can pick an arbitrary number of rows and columns, and you can access the Table AutoFormat features.

Follow these steps to create a formatted table using the Table, Insert Table command:

Position the toothpick cursor where you want to insert the new table.

Choose Table, Insert Table.

The Insert Table dialog box appears.

Adjust the number of rows and columns you want to create in the Number of Columns and Number of Rows fields.

Click OK to insert the table.

Want to Join SPCUG or Renew Your Membership?

Click the SPCUG Logo for an online
Membership Application that you can
type into and print