SPCUG Volunteer of the Month

Nathan Walker

Nathan was born in Rochester, New York. He moved to Sarasota three years ago at the age of twenty three and joined SPCUG in October 2003.
He volunteered immediately. This, however, is nothing new to Nathan, he tends to do many things in a shorter time span than others. Nathan was "home schooled" and at the age of fourteen entered, college graduating from the State University of New York at Brockport (SUNY Brockport) with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Computer Science. He worked for several years as a programmer and took part in developing financial software which is currently being utilized by thousand of
people across the country. In Sarasota he has been primarily associated with Real Estate sales. In the short time that he has been a SPCUG member, Nathan has been a conspicuous teaching component in Windows classes. He has assisted Nancy DeMarte, Jim Unger, Jim Cerny in their class rooms and has also taught four Windows classes of his own.
To answer one the most unasked questions in his classes, "Yes Ladies, he is single and available." What's next? Nathan has volunteered again. On August 17th, Nathan will be starting his basic training in the United States Army and ultimately will become a "Signal Intelligence Specialist". Thank you Nathan and the best of luck!

Here's Another Email Scam Alert
submitted by Vinny La Bash

Subject: LOTTERY WINNING NOTICE!

FROM: PROMOTIONS DEPARTMENT OF INTERNATIONAL LOTTO BV WINNING NOTICE FOR CATEGORY A WINNER 

Ref No:lL/03/357856256/NL

Attention:

International Lotto BV (www.internationallottobv.com) has just concluded its final draws of it's periodical promotional program. An exclusive list of email addresses of thousands of individual and corporate bodies were picked by automated random computer search from the Internet.

No tickets were sold.

Your email address emerged as one of three winners in the category A as email addresses were soughted, from a total number of 25,000 addresses drawn from all over the globe.
 
After an automated computer ballot of our International Promotions Program, only THREE winners emerged in this category and therefore each are to receive payouts of ?5,000,000,00 from the total of ?15,000,000.00 (FIFTEEN MILLION
EUROS).

However, every email address selected was accompanied by a reference and ticket number, after the cyber lotto selection, the below ticket andreference numbers emerged as one of the lucky winners in the above category.

CONGRATULATIONS!!!

Reference number for your prize is: lL/03/357856256/NL, Ticket number: lL252/03/78.

For confirmation of the claim of your prize money, you are to send an email to our customer service representative with in formations below for further instructions on how you can claim your prize:

Adams Gate
Customer Service Representative
International Lotto BV Netherlands
Email: adamsgate@tiscali.nl
Cell: +88 216 333 51329

you may be required to provide any of the above information during the process of collecting your prize. We congratulate you once again and it is our hope that you participate in any of our international programs in the nearest future.

Thank you and CONGRATULATIONS!

Sincerely,
Helen Carrington
Promotions Manager
International Lotto BV

Note from Dave: The day after Vinny passed this info to me I started receiving this hoax ....
How disappointing .. I was looking forward to an early retirement !!!

PowerQuest & More Online!

The "User Group Store"

Our friends Gene & Linda Barlow have created a site where user group members and their guests may purchase computer software and accessories at excellent user group discounts. They offer a wide range of products at user group discount prices. So, let this site become your one-stop shopping place for user group discounts. Check back often to see the latest offerings.

Remember to use the special code UGUGS04 when ordering
Click on Linda & Gene to email any questions

Please Sign The Dave "Bytes" Guestbook

The Coming Rebirth of Email Marketing

Email marketing has been taking a pounding. There has been so much abuse of email by spammers that the entire medium is right now in the pits. End users are increasingly avoiding email, because they don't want to wade through an endless stream of spam. Similarly, they're afraid to give their email addresses to legitimate companies, because they fear that those companies will sell their addresses to someone else.

The federal CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 was designed to stop spammers, but its only notable effect was to frighten legitimate email marketers into avoiding email altogether. It certainly hasn't dented the volume of spam.

As a result, the world is looking for a better solution, and this time it won't be a legislative one. The solution to the spam problem will likely emerge as the puzzle solution that's currently being promoted by Microsoft and is now widely discussed by the major ISPs (Yahoo, AOL, MSN).

This puzzle solution requires all outbound email to undergo 10 seconds of intensive calculations to be stamped. Mailers are essentially paying for each email in terms of CPU cycles, not pennies, but the result is the same: a near-instant wiping out of spam, since spammers can afford to spend even 10 seconds of CPU time per email--the economics just don't make sense for them.

If this solution is successfully implemented by the major ISPs, the rest of the world will quickly comply, since virtually everyone sends at least some email to Yahoo, AOL, or MSN. In this way the puzzle solution approach to stopping spam could quickly become standard, and spam could vanish almost overnight.

Although the timetable on this scenario is uncertain, implementation of this puzzle solution seems likely, based on current industry dynamics. There is a strong economic incentive for ISPs to adopt it, for one thing, since they spend millions of dollars each year dealing with the flood of spam.

When the puzzle solution rolls out the whole world is suddenly going to wake up to something they haven't seen in years: empty email boxes. The spam will have stopped, and spam filters are no longer needed.

It is here that email marketing will experience a rebirth of interest. But this time around, email marketing really means one-to-one marketing, not just blasting out a message to everybody in the database. The reason? It will cost time and money to send email. So marketers will have to more carefully choose which people in their database receive each message.

The result will be much higher relevancy of email messages appearing in the inboxes of end users. It will be a lot like postal mail, in fact: People will still receive unsolicited offers, but the number of those offers will be very low and the subject of those offers will be highly relevant. Indiscriminate mailing will be history.

In this environment end users will pay far more attention to the few emails they receive, breathing new life into the targeted email marketing industry. Of course, people will still justifiably complain if they receive email they didn't ask for, so permission-marketing practices will naturally be important, if not mandatory.

All this could happen in 2004 or 2005. It will shatter the current thinking about email marketing and herald the coming of a whole new Internet where mailers act responsibly and end users pay more attention to their email. All that's necessary for this to happen is the adoption of the puzzle solution at a few major ISPs, and that's in the works right now.

Make no mistake: Permission-based email marketing has a very bright future, and spammers' days are numbered.

Who Says There's No Place For Humor In Computing?

Those who know me are very aware that I am not fond of receiving jokes via email. There are a few reasons but the most annoying ones are getting a joke .....

1. That has been around the world at least 100 times
2. That's not even a bit humorous
3. When it's pages and pages long and not worth the "punch line" putting unnecessary wear and tear on my scroll mouse
AND MOST IMPORTANTLY .....
4. Sent to all recipients along the way using TO: and not BCC:

So, occasionally I'll include the ones that I think are are worth the time without clogging your INBOX.
Dave

Here's A Windows Tip

Putting Multimedia Clips into Documents

Windows makes it easy to include multimedia clips in electronic documents.

Click Start.

Select Programs, Accessories, WordPad.

Select Insert, Object.

Select Wave Sound as the type of object to insert.

Click OK to close the dialog box and continue.

Click the Record button to record the message.

Click the Close button to return to WordPad.

Double-click the sound object icon to play back the message.

Click the Save button to save the document.

If you're sending the document file to someone else, it's a good idea to include text to tell the recipient to double-click the icon to hear the sounds or to view the video.

Here's A SPAM Tip from Comcast
Submitted by Peter Bloxam

There are a couple ways to battle spam for those using Comcast Hi-Speed Internet.
You can turn on the spam filters through the "Account Management" section of "Service Center" on our portal.
( www.comcast.net ).

Or you can turn on parental controls and list the e-mail addresses that you wish to receive. I did this as I was receiving alot of spam even with the spam filter on. So finally I turned on the parental control and put all the e-mail addresses in my address book as e-mail addresses I was willing to get e-mail from and now I get no spam on my e-mail account.

Only problem with that is you need to add new people to your list in order to receive e-mail from them. Which may be hard if you don't know their e-mail address. For example, you order pharmacy re-fills online.
They usually send a confirmation e-mail, but they don't always list what that address is.

From The "Bytes" Mailbag

I read your newsletter all the time and appreciate your good advice and answers to questions. My question is this.

When I send an e-mail with Outlook Express, I don't always want people to know my full name, only my e-mail address, how can I keep my full name from showing?

Thanks, Linda

Sure thing Linda,

It is easy to remove your full name from outgoing e-mails.

1. Open Outlook Express and click "Tools" then "Accounts" in the menu bar.

2. In the Accounts window, click on your e-mail account in the list. You might have to click on the Mail tab first, and then
click the "Properties" button on the right.

3. In the account properties window, click the "General" tab and then in the Name section, delete your last name, or clear the whole thing and put in whatever you want.

4. Click "OK" and you will be all set.

Want to Join SPCUG or Renew Your Membership?

Pause For Thought

         It's time for the human race to enter the solar system
                                              - Dan Quayle

Dave's Cool Downloads

Audacity from Download.com

With so many identical audio editors out there, finding the right tool for the job can be difficult. The multiplatform, open-source editor Audacity has leaped to the top of our list with its clean interface, excellent features, and support for 32-bit floating-point audio. We like it because it succeeds at being both feature-rich and flexible, while keeping the toolbar and work space uncluttered. It does this by relegating most functions, such as effects, edits, and project management, to handy drop-down menus. Audacity supports uncompressed audio standards such as WAV and AIFF in addition to OGG and MP3 files.
A full complement of basic effects such as reverb, delay, and compression are included. VST plug-in support also is available if you're looking to expand. Another eye-catching feature is the Beat Analyzer, which helps you peg the beats per minute of a phrase. The performance of most functions is quick, including even CPU-hogging tasks such as exporting to MP3 or adding complex effects. Though Audacity doesn't offer complex effects or advanced features out of the box, its usability and price set this freeware wonder above the crowd.

ACID® XPress software is a free version of Sony's award-winning music creation tool.
Create your own original music using a pick, paint and play interface. It's easy – just pick some loops, paint them into a
track and play your music back. It's the most fun you'll ever have creating music. Integrated "Show Me How" tutorials guide you along the music creation process beginning to end. Download sample songs from sony.com/mediasoftware, or use any of the Loops for ACID™ collection or Loop Starter Kit libraries. You can choose any loops you want to use because ACID XPress software matches the tempo and pitch automatically in real-time. Share your music by publishing it to ACIDplanet.com and Screenblast.com, or stream it from your own website.*

Why ACID Xpress 4.0 software?
Easy to use — Making music is so easy anyone can do it. You don't have to know how to play an instrument, sing or DJ – all you need is your creative instincts and ACID XPress software.

Fun — With the intuitive "pick, paint, and play" interface it's never been easier to create your own original, royalty-free music. You can use your musical creations anywhere you want or share it with others.
Simply pick the sounds you like, build your mix and enjoy your music.

FREE — Get started immediately creating your own music. This entry-level version of the application gives you a taste of what ACID software has to offer at no cost.

What you can do with ACID XPress 4.0 software
ACID® XPress 4.0 software lets you create your own original music with the click of a mouse and a few "painted" strokes. It's easy—point to the loops you want to preview, click and drag to add the loops to your song, and "paint" the loops into your tracks. Create songs instantly from pre-recorded sounds called "loops". Just pick some loops, paint them into a track, and play them back. Let ACID XPress software do the rest.

Audition loops with your music in real-time before adding them to your mix. Use the best material before laying your mix down.

Publish your music to the web at ACIDplanet.com™, the premier music web site from Sony Pictures Digital. Listen to other remixers, grab free loops and compete in remix contests.

Export your music to portable devices including MP3 players, Sony® Net-MD® players and Sony CLIÉ™ handheld devices to take your mix with you.

New Features
Enhanced "Show Me How" tutorials

Publish to Screenblast.com and ACIDplanet.com

Windows Media® 9 series support

Get Media from Screenblast.com and ACIDplanet.com™

Export to Sony® Net-MD® players and Sony CLIÉ™ handheld devices

Don't Be an Invisible Member Get Involved To inquire about volunteer opportunities Click Here  Remember.. "The more you put in.... the more you'll take out"