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The Monthly Edition Of The k-Byte Newsletter |
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| V. 26, No. 10, October 2009 | Users Helping Users |
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The Monthly Edition Of The k-Byte Newsletter |
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| V. 26, No. 10, October 2009 | Users Helping Users |
Contents
Meeting Previews on Page 6
October: Online File & Photo Sharing Resources
November: Social Networking Tools
Quote of the Month
Technology . . . the knack of so arranging the world that we don't have to experience it.
Max Frisch [1957]
by George Harding, President, Tucson Computer Society, AZ, http://www.aztcs.org, georgehardingsbd(at)earthlink.ne
This book is the greatest! If you are interested in anything Google, this is the place to go to find out about it.
This is a Que book, the 3rd edition, by Michael Miller, who is a prolific author for Que. He's written some 80 non-fiction how-to books, mostly about computer-related subjects.
The book numbers are: ISBN-10: 0789738201, ISBN-13: 978-0789738202.
The price is $30, $24 with free membership
The book has over 700 pages, including a comprehensive index, a very complete Table of Contents, 46 chapters and 3 appendices.
I suspect that a 4th edition is not far off, because Google is constantly developing new tools that you will want to know about.
The best known Google tool is the Web Search engine. In the olden days, say five years ago, there were several search engines, all of which produced a list of results that contained many duplicates and may not even have produced something useful to you. Google took a new approach to produce search results that do not have duplicates, are up-to-date and are sequenced by probable usefulness to you. They do this by the following process:
Periodically, usually every few weeks, their GoogleBot crawler searches the web for each page, tracks every link in the page and saves a copy of each page it encounters on its servers.
Google creates an index to each of the saved pages, storing every important word on each page.
Once a search of the pages is complete, the results are ranked by methods known only by Google.
The rankings are displayed on the search results page in order by what is likely to be the most important to you, to the least likely. There are many techniques to making a successful search, and these are described fully in the book. Using quotes or operators can significantly improve the accuracy of your search.
What's most interesting, though, is all the other services provided by Google. I suspect you, like me, are not aware of many of these:
Each chapter tells you about a Google service and how to use it. Each description is described simply to begin with, but continues with more details about how to make use of special features. You can easily be an expert user of any of their tools through this book.
All of these services came out of the Google Labs, which is essentially an R & D facility. It is constantly on the search for new, useful tools for users. One recently announced service is Google Voice that gives you free phone calls within the US, but also forwards calls to your cell phone and land line and transcribes voice messages into email.
I found this book fascinating, because it opened my eyes to all the things that are available from Google. It will take me some time to learn about the ones in which I'm interested.
This article has been obtained from APCUG with the author's permission for publication by APCUG member groups; all other uses require the permission of the author (see e-mail address above).
Published monthly, k-Byte is the official newsletter of the Front Range Personal Computer Users Group (FRPCUG): our mailing address is PMB 152, 305 W. Magnolia, Fort Collins, Colorado 80521.
Opinions expressed in k-Byte are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the group or its members. Publication of information in k-Byte constitutes no guarantee of accuracy. Use of any information found in this publication is at the sole risk of the user. Neither k-Byte, nor its officers, nor its editors or contributors assume any liability for damages resulting from use of information in this publication.
Submissions
Articles, letters and short items of interest on computer-related topics are welcome and encouraged. All items submitted for publication are subject to editing. Send your contribution to the editor via e-mail attachment or submit on disk. If you have questions about a submission, please contact the editor for information.
Copyright and Trademark Information
k-Byte is copyrighted ©2009 by the Front Range Personal Computer Users Group. The k-Byte logo and the Front Range PC Users Group logo are Trademarked by the Front Range PC Users Group. Unless otherwise noted, other nonprofit users groups may reprint or quote from any articles appearing in k-Byte without prior permission, provided that: a) proper author and publication credits are given; b) that a copy of the publication in which the article appears is sent at no cost to k-Byte at the above mailing address, or emailed to contact(at)frpcug.org; and c) any additional instructions/restrictions contained in the article are followed. User groups wishing to exchange newsletters with FRPCUG are invited to send a copy of their newsletter together with an exchange request.
Disclaimer
IBM PC, OS/2, Compaq, HP, Dell, UNIX, Windows and other trademarks occasionally mentioned in k-Byte are registered trademarks of International Business Machines, Inc., Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Microsoft, Dell Inc., or their owners respectively. Neither FRPCUG nor its newsletter k-Byte are connected in any way with any manufacturer or seller. Acceptance by FRPCUG of donated products or services from suppliers, or inclusion of a supplier in the FRPCUG Partner list does not imply that any continuing financial support is received or expected by FRPCUG. Nor do such activities imply an endorsement of either the supplier or product or service. Such information is made available to members as a service. Use of any product or supplier found in this publication, or any FRPCUG publication, is at the sole risk of the user.
About FRPCUG
FRPCUG is an independent nonprofit computer society, so incorporated with the State of Colorado and open to anyone interested in Windows, or UNIX/LINUX microcomputers. Its purpose is to provide an educational and scientific forum of mutual benefit for members of the micro-computer community. FRPCUG holds a monthly meeting and conducts various special interest groups (SIGs) and seminars. Members have voting privileges, subscription to k-Byte newsletter, and access to SIGs and selected seminars. Annual dues are $25 for individual/family membership ($20 for students) and $50 for corporate/group membership.
by Gary Bentley, Editor, SouthWest International Personal Computer Club (TX), http://www.swipcc.org, bentley.gary (at) gmail.com
When I evaluate what might be done to maximize the performance of a computer system, whether that be a system already in use or one I might be specifying for order (i.e., specifying the hardware with a particular level of performance in mind for the intended application) I look at several key factors.
The most critical factor is how much system RAM is available (if you are ordering a new system then you can also order faster RAM and be cognizant of addressing issues). I will state flatly that, all factors being equal, the more RAM available, the faster your computer system will operate. In the same vein, if you want to make full use of that system RAM, get an external graphics card with its own RAM so you don't force your system to share RAM with the video display. If you are specifying a new computer, get the fastest FSB (front side bus) speed you can afford with the microprocessor and then match the RAM bus speed to take advantage of that high bus speed. Don't let a computer maker fool you with a low system price while handing off old slow RAM to you when the motherboard and processor would support faster bus speed RAM. New systems will always use DDR RAM, so that should not be a consideration (and older systems will not be able to use it).
Don't be confused by discussions of virtual memory and page files. If you have a large amount of RAM (1 GB or more with Windows XP-3 or 4 GB with Vista, the OS memory hog of all time), your system will rarely need to page out process memory onto the hard drive paging file. You can check that in Task Manager (hit CTRL SHIFT ESC or CTRL ALT DEL or right click the Task Bar and select Task Manager) by looking at the Performance tab and the Physical Memory Total in conjunction with the Commit Charge. The Physical Memory Total is the amount of RAM you have in your system. The Commit Charge is the total memory allocated to programs and the operating system. If the Commit Charge (Total or Peak) doesn't exceed the amount of RAM, then the hard drive pagefile is rarely if ever being used and your system should be running at full RAM speed without hard drive performance issues (except when loading the OS and starting an application, etc.).
You can also use Performance Monitor (Start, Administrative Tools, Performance) and look at the Memory, Pages Output/Sec parameter. Even if the amount of committed memory exceeds available RAM, if the actual Pages Output/ Sec is low or zero most of the time (quoting Microsoft) there is no significant performance problem related to available RAM. I doubt there would be any reason for the typical home user to require a 64 bit computer in order to utilize sufficient RAM.
The second most critical factor is the performance of the hard drive, i.e., the amount of utilization of your hard drive (present or anticipated for the application), the speed at which the drive platters rotate, and the speed of the interface to your hard drive. You never want to reach 50% of capacity of your hard drive. The more data you have on a hard drive the farther the disk drive read/write head has to move inward on the spinning platter to get to the data (on the average). This increases the seek time, the time required for the read/write head to position itself over the desired concentric data track on the spinning disk platter. So, use a hard drive with sufficient storage that you do not exceed 40% or so of the storage capacity (high performance server hard drives often are destroked or short stroked, i.e., limited to 40% or less so as to keep the data on the outer edge of the platters where it can be quickly reached).
Once the read/write head reaches a track then the rotational speed of the platter comes into play, introducing latency, the time required for the desired sector of the track to rotate into position beneath the head. How do you reduce latency? Get a hard drive that spins as fast as you can afford. Most desktop hard drives now spin at 7200 RPM (don't let them slip you a 5400 RPM drive on your desktop or your laptop!). If your drive has a slower RPM, you can increase performance by purchasing a 7200 RPM drive. Note that high performance server drives spin at 10,000 and 15,000 RPM, but those drives are expensive.
If you are evaluating a replacement drive (or specifying the hard drive in a new system), look at the access time parameter for the drive. This will generally be around 11 milliseconds for 7200 RPM desktop PC ATA/SATA drives. The access time will include seek time and rotational latency. As for the type of interface, ATA drives (which peaked at around 133 MB/sec interface performance, setting aside internal data rate of around 60 MB/s and PCI bus rate considerations) are no longer offered, so you will see SATA (serial ATA) drives in a new computer. I wouldn't bother attempting to replace an ATA drive in an old PC with a SATA drive. You would need a SATA controller card as well as SATA drive and you might as well just purchase a new computer.
The current SATA interface rate is 3 Gbps (the initial SATA interface was 1.5 Gbps), i.e., 3 gigabits per second. That translates to approximately 300 MB/sec. However, the actual rate that the read head can read the data off the spinning platter of the drive is closer to 100 MB/sec (the internal data rate). You therefore can benefit by having a drive with a large cache memory, where a large amount of data has been read internally by the hard drive before the interface is accessed, at which time the interface can burst perform at the full interface speed of 3 Gbps/300 MB/sec. I note that even the expensive server grade SCSI and SAS drives have about that same external interface transfer rate, i.e., 300 - 320 MB/sec, so their increased performance is coming directly from the high rotational speeds (10 - 15 K) and fast seeks, giving access times of 3 - 5 ms vs. 11 ms or so for desktop SATA drives. Defragmenting your drive regularly will help keep the drive operating at peak efficiency.
A less critical factor is the speed of the microprocessor itself (FSB considerations aside as they relate to RAM access speed). A faster microprocessor or a dual or quad core processor will allow applications, their processes and threads to execute faster (to actually run the microprocessor instructions of which a program is composed) once the instructions and data reach the microprocessor.
So, if you have processing intensive applications like video or music (studio) production and editing (or scientific number crunching), faster and more core processors will speed things up considerably, but only if you have plenty of RAM and a high performance hard drive.
This article has been obtained from APCUG with the author's permission for publication by APCUG member groups; all other uses require the permission of the author (see e-mail address above).
Mr. Bentley studied electrical engineering at the University of Texas, began working in the electronics industry in 1978 with GTE Network Systems (Lenkurt), then software engineering with various startups in the 1980's, designing and implementing, among other things, pre-Internet email communications systems multitasking on Intel platforms and MSDOS PC's. 1984 - 1986. Gary now provides Information Technology consulting services in the El Paso,Texas and Las Cruces, New Mexico areas. Gary has edited and contributed articles to the award-winning Southwest International Personal Computer Club monthly magazine, "Throughput", since December, 2003.
Great News!
Current members who are up to date with dues will NOT have to pay for membership in the new year (November 2009 to October 2010). The dues holiday declared last year has been extended for one (and only one) more year. The FRPCUG Board of Directors will evaluate the financial status of the group next year, and each year following to determine future dues assessments.
The fee for new members will be $25, a value that is constant for any time of the year that they join FRPCUG (In the past, a pro-rated fee was applied, depending on the time of year a new member joined). That $25 represents a very modest investment with a high rate of return—of information.
Enjoy your holidays, and another whole year of free FRPCUG membership.
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October General Forum Meeting
We will meet at the Fort Collins Senior Center on: |
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Day
Tuesday |
Date
October 6th |
Time
7:00 PM |
| Meeting Agenda | |
| Time | Topic |
| 7:00 to 7:15 | Announcements |
| 7:15 to 8:00 | Open Forum |
| 8:00 to 8:15 | Break |
| 8:15 to 9:00 | Online File & Photo Sharing Resources |
To check on FRPCUG events in 2009 using a familiar graphical calendar format, connect to the 2009 Graphical Events Calendar
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November General Forum Meeting
We will meet at the Fort Collins Senior Center on: |
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Day
Tuesday |
Date
November 3rd |
Time
7:00 PM |
| Meeting Agenda | |
| Time | Topic |
| 7:00 to 7:15 | Announcements |
| 7:15 to 8:00 | Open Forum |
| 8:00 to 8:15 | Break |
| 8:15 to 9:00 | Social Networking Tools |
See you at the meetings!
Get full membership benefits. If you are not a current member, download and complete a Membership Application. Mail the completed application and your payment to the address listed, or better yet, bring the application to the next meeting.
How many ways can you think of to share family photos with other family members and friends? It is time (after all, the holidays are near), to learn how to share those photos online. That is the topic for the October meeting: Online File & Photo Sharing Resources.
The topic for the November meeting is Social Networking Tools. Perhaps you don't know anything about them. But your children or grandchildren do, and therefore so should you. Come to the meeting for a sample of a few of these web sites, a little about how they work and some surprising information on why businesses are using them.
And don't forget that nominations for officers are due at the November meeting.
Digital Imaging SIG
The Digital Imaging SIG is a forum for discussion of digital imaging hardware and software. The meetings are held every 2nd Tuesday of the month at 7:00 PM in the Senior Center Lobby. The meeting format is informal, using the Shop Talk sessions as a basis. For more information, contact Mike Morris at twriterext(at)gmail.com.
New Technology SIG
The New Technology SIG provides advance support for all PC related operating system and telecommunication issues. The meetings are held at 7:00 PM on the third Thursday of each month at Bluebird Manufacturing Inc., 1421 Webster Avenue, in Fort Collins. For more information, contact Chuck McJilton at 970-493-2987.
Shop Talk
One-on-one assistance. Drop in to the Senior Center lobby on any Saturday (holidays excepted) from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM
Board Meeting
FRPCUG's executive board meets on Wednesday of the week following the General Forum meeting. All members are welcome and are encouraged to attend. These meetings are held at 7:00 PM in the Staff Board Room of the Fort Collins Senior Center.
For a view of FRPCUG activities in 2009, in a traditional graphical calendar format, connect to the Graphical Events Calendar
Here is a summary of FRPCUG activities and other important dates for the next two months:
October 2009
3 Shop Talk 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM
6 General Forum Meeting 7:00 PM
10 Shop Talk 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM
13 Digital Imaging SIG Meeting 7:00 PM
14 FRPCUG Board Meeting 7:00 PM
15 Technology SIG Meeting 7:00 PM
17 Shop Talk 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM
24 Shop Talk 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM
31 Shop Talk 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM
November 2009
3 General Forum Meeting 7:00 PM
7 Shop Talk 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM
10 Digital Imaging SIG Meeting 7:00 PM
11 FRPCUG Board Meeting 7:00 PM
14 Shop Talk 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM
19 Technology SIG Meeting 7:00 PM
21 Shop Talk 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM
26 Thanksgiving Holiday
28 No Shop Talk
by Mike Morris, Front Range PC Users Group, http://www.frpcug.org
Free, open to the public, drop-in, computer help.
That is the service provided by FRPCUG volunteers at the Saturday Morning Shop Talk sessions. Shop Talk is available in the Fort Collins Senior Center lobby from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm every Saturday the Senior Center is open (except the Saturday after Thanksgiving).
There are 3 important characteristics of Shop Talk:
Here are photographs of a recent Shop Talk session. Sample topics: operating system software (including two current Microsoft Windows® operating systems, XP and Vista®, plus various Linux versions); "office" applications (such as word processing); and using free security software applications.
Please tell your family, friends, acquaintances and neighbors about this service.
Thanks to the FRPCUG members that volunteer their time for this effort (listed in no particular order):
That list is based on this author's memory. So I must apologize in advance if a "memory failure" has resulted in a name missing from that list that belongs there.
Photo Gallery
This month's featured photographer:
Paul Ostrof using a Leica D-LUX2 Camera.
Sun and Shade
Camera Settings:
Mode = Auto, F Number = 2.8, Exposure time = 1/50 seconds, Focal Length = 6.30 mm
ISO = 100, White Balance = Auto, Scene Capture Type = Standard
Copyright © 2009 by Paul Ostrof. All rights reserved. Send requests for copies/reprint permissions to kbyte(at)frpcug.org
Pamela Tabak receives numerous computer-related questions via e-mail and during classroom presentations. She selects those she feels are of common interest to most members and forwards them to us for publication.
Pamela invites members to ask their questions at http://tinyurl.com/ask-pamela. More often than not you will receive and answer within 24 hours.
QUESTION: Is it possible to make the icons on the Quick Launch Bar Larger with the Vista Operating System?
ANSWER: Yes, with Windows Vista it's a few easy steps to enlarge the icons on your Quick Launch Bar:
QUESTION: How do I print two photos from MY PICTURES folder on one page i.e. the two photos lying side by side? I know how to get them both on screen but when I print only one photo appears on the print.
ANSWER: There are several ways to place pictures side by side for printing but the steps below describe the way I think works really well especially if you do not have a photo editing program installed on your computer.
First you need to open a WORD document in Microsoft WORD
QUESTION: How do I email my photographs after I have transferred all my digital pictures from my camera onto a USB storage device?
ANSWER: To transfer digital photos from your USB device to emails you can save them to your hard drive first or you can transfer them directly from your external device.
To transfer them from your external device: PLUG YOUR USB DEVICE INTO YOUR COMPUTER:
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FRPCUG CONTACTS
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Telephone Area Code 970
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| Title | Name | Work Phone | Home Phone | |
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FRPCUG Officers |
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| President | Rick Mattingly | 613-8968 | rickmatt(at)q.com | |
| Vice President | Don Anderson | 498-3534 | 482-0943 | doande(at)gmail.com |
| Treasurer | Virginia Febinger | 498-2127 | gingercln(at)comcast.net | |
| Secretary | Jim Bragonier | 221-5500 | 484-9061 | james.bragonier(at)comcast.net |
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k-Byte Staff |
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| Editor-in-Chief | Mike Morris | 461-2002 | twriterext(at)gmail.com | |
| Features Editor | Mike Morris | 461-2002 | twriterext(at)gmail.com | |
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Other Contacts |
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| Membership Coordinator | Jack Linder | 663-2151 | jack(at)frpcug.org | |
| Technology SIG Leader | Chuck McJilton | 491-1011 | 493-2987 | cdmcjs(at)gmail.com |
| Digital Imaging SIG Leader | Mike Morris | 461-2002 | twriterext(at)gmail.com | |
| Publicity | Mike Morris | 461-2002 | twriterext(at)gmail.com | |
| FRPCUG Fax Line | 493-1408 | |||
| FRPCUG Home Page w/ E-Mail | http://www.frpcug.org | |||
| FRPCUG Officer E-Mail | board(at)frpcug.org | |||
| Library Request E-Mail | library(at)frpcug.org | |||
The Fort Collins Senior Center is located at 1200 Raintree Drive. This site is situated at the northwest corner of the Shields and Raintree Drive intersection, on the north side of the Raintree Shopping Center, and just west of the bank building on the corner of Shields and Raintree (see map at right).
Check the marquee at the main entrance for directions to the specific meeting room.
