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Front Range PC Users Group Newsletter k-Byte |
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| v. 19, n. 7/8 July/August 2002 | Users Helping Users |
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Contents 1 State of the Group - Rick Mattingly 2 About k-Byte 3 June/July Meeting Reports - Mike Meyer 4 Paying The Rent - Rick Mattingly 6 Those ZIP & PDF Files - Bob Elgines 7 Research on Spreadsheet Errors 8 Resolution For Digital Prints - Robert Cooper 9 Clipboard Clutter 9 USB Wizard 10 Sneaky Viruses 10 Photoshop Alternative: The Gimp - Paul Vaughn 12 Backing Up Your Hard Drive - Gene Barlow 14 Calendar of Events 16 August/September Calendars 18 Membership Application 20 Six Arrested Over 'Nigerian E-Mail Fraud'- Graeme Wearden 21 Nigerian Scam E-Mail Sample 22 The Network Server Technician 24 Digital Camera Imaging Clinic 28 FujiFilm Unveils Tiny Hard Drive 30 Trading Post 31 FRPCUG Contacts State of the Group by Rick Mattingly Remember-no General Forum Meeting in August. Enjoy the rest of the summer but stay out of the sun and do a rain dance or two! The next scheduled General Forum Meeting will take place on Tuesday, September 3. There will be a Board Meeting in August though-on Wednesday, August 14. Oh, and if you do need to get out of the sun for a while in August, consider attending the Digital Camera Imaging Clinic on the 24th. Details on page 24 of this issue. See you at the meetings. Published bi-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 k-Byte, 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 k-Byte is copyrighted ©2002 by the Front Range Personal Computer 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 proper author and publication credits are given and that a copy of the publication in which the article appears is sent at no cost to k-Byte at the above mailing address. User groups wishing to exchange newsletters with FRPCUG are invited to send a copy of their newsletter together with an exchange request. IBM PC, OS/2, Compaq, MS-DOS, UNIX, Windows and other trademarks occasionally mentioned in k-Byte are registered trademarks of International Business Machines, Inc., Compaq Corporation, Microsoft, Digital Research, AT&T or their owners respectively. Neither FRPCUG nor its newsletter k-Byte are connected in any way with any manufacturer or seller. We, however, gratefully acknowledge sponsorship of our group by Data Service Center, Jim Becker, owner. Advertising Classified advertising is free to members for non-business ads. See “Trading Post” for pricing for camera-ready display ads. Charges for ad makeup from sketches, etc., are available on request. Deadline for camera-ready and classified ads is listed in the Calendar of Upcoming Events. Deadline for ad-makeup is the same as for articles. About FRPCUG FRPCUG is an independent nonprofit computer society, open to anyone interested in MS-DOS, OS/2, or UNIX 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, SIGs and selected seminars. Annual dues are $25 for individual/family membership and $50 for corporate/group membership. June Meeting Report by Rick Mattingly Twenty six members attended the June Meeting for the presentation on the Alpha Five database software application by Allen Klimeck. Allen drove all the way up from Colorado Springs to provide this presentation for us. Allen is actually an end user of Alpha Five himself, utilizing this product to customize the accounting for his own business. He also provides consulting for other businesses on this product. Allen also provided us with a full version of Alpha Five and a number of related items which will be raffled off at the July Meeting. July Meeting Report by Mike Meyer 29 people attended this month's meeting. During the Announcements Period, President Rick Mattingly reminded the membership that there will be no regular meeting in August, due to the annual summer maintenance program at the Ft. Collins Senior Center; however, there will be a Board Meeting. He then mentioned that there would be a drawing for free donated software and T-shirts (Alpha 5 Database) later in the program. The Main Program was presented by Rick Mattingly, who ably covered the very interesting subject of digital cameras. He had given a presentation on this subject some time ago, but decided that enough new material became available to warrant an update of his earlier subject matter. He began by providing a handout listing the types of available camera storage media; the common graphic file formats, including descriptive information on each; and print sizes, as related to camera resolution (i.e., megapixel rating). He also provided a hand-out containing some useful web-site addresses to obtain additional information and software. Rick then discussed zoom features (optical rating is the most important factor, being supplemented by the software capability). Another important factor discussed was the downloading method, with USB capability being the most desirable. When operating in the field, the availability of a good photo shop can be very helpful, since it usually can process the storage media on-site. There was further discussion on the subject of less expensive software for manipulating the photo images (e.g., Picture Windows Pro by Digital Light & Color). Cost via the Internet for this shareware program is approx. $49. Mention also was made of a lower cost version of Adobe Photo Shop being available, although this wasn't yet confirmed. Rick indicated that the Epson 800 series printers seem to work quite well for producing high-quality images, especially with the photo-quality papers. More discussion then ensued in a Q & A format on various matters, particularly related to picture taking techniques. The Open Forum Session opened with a discussion of a Dynamic Disk Drive (DDO) problem, possibly related to corrupted files or errors in the Autoexec.bat file. Some discussion then took place about the possible availability of programs to monitor a variety of computer operations, including certain aspects of motherboard operations (e.g., battery status and internal temperatures related to fan performance). For some years now FRPCUG members have enjoyed meeting in the fine facilities of the Fort Collins Senior Center. We especially appreciate access to the computerized projection system and large format screen for group presentations. Normally, renting the meeting facilities at the Senior Center costs an average of $45 per hour. In FRPCUG's case we exchange computer instruction for our meeting facility rent. This is a definite win-win situation for all involved as we could not afford the $45 per hour rent fee and the computer instruction which we provide meets the intent of FRPCUG's non-profit state incorporation status as a community educational incorporation. The computer instruction which our members have been providing for the Fort Collins Senior Center to date includes the following topics: Microsoft Word - 8 hour session Quicken - 4 hour session Beginning Windows - 8 hour session Advanced Windows - 8 hour session Beginning Internet - 4 hour session Internet Email - 4 hour session These training sessions have been provided in three cycles per year. The training is informal and classes are small, never more than eight attendees at a time. The classes are normally provided on Saturday mornings in the FCSC library, with the 8 hour topics provided in two 4 hour blocks on consecutive Saturdays. FPCUG members who have repeatedly assisted with this important program to date include Howard Norland, Brandt Irion, Don Anderson, Dennis Nimetz, Charles McJilton, Glenn York, Jim Bragonier and Rick Mattingly. A big thank you to the listed people. In addition, a small number of other members have assisted with this program in the past. My apologies, as I do not know the names of all who may have assisted in the past but be aware that your help has been infinitely appreciated as well! These are the people who have been paying the rent folks. While the trainers to date have thoroughly enjoyed working with citizens of the community who have attended these training sessions, we are wearing down. We need help from other members to spread out the load. Given enough active participants this important task could be very easy on everyone. How can you assist? Simple. Chose one of the instruction topics above and contact Rick Mattingly to offer your services. Remember, you do not need to be well versed in the particular subject. In fact, this would be an excellent way to learn about the subject for yourself. We will then put you in touch with the individual who is presently the primary instructor for that topic and you can attend the next training session as an assistant. Over time you may then utilize the developed class outline to ultimately assist as a primary and/or backup instructor. Obviously, if you are already well versed in the subject topic we will certainly accept your assistance forthwith! FRPCUG members, please step up to the plate and "help pay the rent." Your club, and the community, needs you. by Bob Elgines Trouble with some of those attach-ments and downloads? What do I do with those ZIP (a data compressed file) and *.pdf (Portable Document Format compressed) files? One of the most important things we need first is a program to unzip com-pressed files labeled as Zip files. There are several programs out there such as Aladdin, Winzip, etc. Winzip is the easiest and most widely used and a trial version can be downloaded free from the internet: http://www.winzip.com After downloading Winzip, (winzip80.exe is the latest version) save it to a folder such as “My Downloads” or whatever folder you want, so you can find it. If you have an older version, remove it first by going to START/ SETTINGS/CONTROL PANEL, then double click on ADD/REMOVE PROGRAMS. See if Winzip is on the list. If Winzip is there, then click on it to highlight, then click on the Remove button to uninstall it. Now you are ready to install Winzip by finding your file using Windows Ex-plorer (file management tool) and doing a double click on your down-loaded file (winzip80.exe), or go to START/RUN, type in C:\My Down-loads\winzip80.exe and click on OK. The program called WINZIP will in-stall itself and put icons on the Start Up menu, the Desktop and in the Pro-gram listing. (I delete the one on the Desktop with a right click and select-ing Delete). Now we are ready to unzip those compressed files received from email, web, etc. To unzip a file is very easy, just select your file and do a double click, Winzip will automatically come up showing you what is in the zip file. Go to the top right and click on EXTRACT. This will bring up the menu that allows you to select the folder you wish to extract and save the file(s). After you have the folder selected click on the EXTRACT button. That's all there is. Now you can go to your folder and work your ex-tracted or unzipped file(s). If your unzipped files are picture files and you double click on them they will come up in Windows Paint (*.bmp) or Internet Explorer (*.jpg, *.gif, etc.), unless you have a photo program. If the files are text files your will see them in Notepad or Wordpad, or you can view them in your word processor. If they are PDF (Portable Document Format) files then we need a special program called Acrobat Reader by Adobe. To get your free Acrobat Reader, go to the Adobe web site at: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep.html Save your file (ar50eng.exe) in your special folder such as “My Down-loads”. Before installing this program be sure you remove the old version (this is Version 4) just like we did for Winzip. Now go to your special folder and locate the Acrobat file and double click to install it, or go to START/RUN and enter: C:\My Downloads\ar50eng.exe, then click on OK. Restart windows! Once this is installed and Windows is back up, you can double click on any PDF file and the Acrobat Reader will come up automatically. I hope this helps people to read those email attachments and program manu-als! Note: Bob Elgines is Editor for the Colorado River Computer Club user group located in Lake Havasu City, Arizona. If this article is used please keep it in context, give proper credit, and notify him by email: elginesz@redrivernet.com There is no restriction against anyone using the article as long as it is kept in context, with proper credit given to the author. This article is brought to you by the Editorial Committee of the As-sociation of Personal Computer User Groups (APCUG), an International organization to which this user group belongs. Research on Spreadsheet Errors Using a spreadsheet can be hazardous to your company's bottom line. It's far too easy to simply assume that your spreadsheet produces accurate results every single time. If you use the results of a spreadsheet to make a major decision, it's especially important to make sure that the formulas return accurate and meaningful results. Researchers have conducted quite a few studies that deal with spreadsheet errors. Generally, these studies have found that between 20 and 40 percent of all spreadsheets contain some type of error. If this type of research interests you, why not check out the Spreadsheet Research (SSR) Web site maintained by Ray Panko of the University of Hawaii. Dummies Daily [http://www.dummiesdaily.com] The following snippet of conversation explains a lot. "My family came over on the Mayflower." "Rad dude! Mine crash landed at Roswell." by Robert Cooper To figure out what size prints you can make from today's digital cameras, you have to first break down the pixel measurements. For example, a 4.1-megapixel camera works out to a picture with dimensions of 1704 x 2272 pixels at its highest resolution; a 3.34 megapixel camera works out to 1536 x 2048 pixels;and, a 2.24 megapixel camera works out to approximately 1280 x 1600 pixels. For a reasonable quality print you need approximately 150 pixels per inch of resolution (we'll call this medium quality), while for professional quality prints you need at least double that. For simplicity's sake, pick either the long or short dimension of the print/camera resolution and work with that one. For this instance we'll use the long edge of the print. Let's work through a couple of examples: 2.24 Megapixels Maximum print size (medium quality) for a 2.24 megapixel camera: 1600 divided by 150 = 10.7." Using this example, you could get a medium quality print of up to about 10 inches (so you could get a medium quality 8"x10") Maximum pro quality print size would be 1600 divided by 300 = 5.3". In this case, you'd be able to get a pro quality print at 3.5" x 5". 3.34 Megapixels Maximum print size (medium quality) for a 3.34 megapixel camera: 2048 divided by 150 = 13.65", so you'd be able to get a medium quality print of close to 11" x 14". Maximum pro quality print size would be 2048 divided by 300 = 6.8." In this case, you'd be able to get a pro quality print at 5" x 7." 4.1 Megapixels Maximum print size (medium quality) for a 4.1 megapixel camera: 2272 divided by 150 = 15.14", so you'd be able to get a medium quality print of close to 11" x 14" with the option of cropping an inch around the edges to emphasize your subject some more. Maximum pro quality print size would be 2272 divided by 300 = 7.57." In this case, you'd be able to get a pro quality print at 8" x 10" with a border. Keep in mind that these guidelines are not absolute! Your lens, lighting, CCD quality and method of printing all play a part in the final results. Also, the resolutions quoted are based on optical resolution and not interpolated (upsampled) resolution. The formulas can be applied to cameras of any resolution, or you can work the formula backwards to find out how many megapixels are required to get the image quality you require at the size you will be printing. Good luck! Clipboard Clutter Windows 98 allows a user to make cut/copy of something and paste it into another application. This is a great tool, but also can be a memory hog, causing your computer to slow down. To alleviate this, simply copy a single word in a document, and whatever image or object that filled that spot previously will be pushed out. eMazing.com USB Wizard With so many gadgets -- printers and digital cameras and camcorders, oh my -- using so few USB connections, it's easy to run out of connecting ports and/or lose track of what's connected to where. While admittedly self-serving, Belkin's USB Wizard can help you find the exact USB hub you need to tame your "USBeasts." Select the OS (PC/Mac), type of PC (desktop/laptop) and what type of devices (and how many) will be connected. For example, 1 PDA, 2 printers, 1 wireless mouse, well, you get the idea. Click the Submit button and ba-bing, there's a list of products designed to solve your USB connection conundrums. http://web.belkin.com/config/usb/usbconfig.asp eMazing.com HAVING TROUBLE WITH VIRUSES SNEAKING THROUGH? DON'T ASSUME IT IS A PROBLEM WITH YOUR AV PROGRAM! Why is it that people who are religiously running their anti-virus software are still getting viruses? Will Collins, Ontrack Software Technician, has some simple advice for you. "The viruses making headlines today have been around for awhile...they are just taking advantage of security holes in the Windows operating system," says Collins. If you are running Ontrack SystemSuite 4.0, for instance, and have the most current AV update running, a virus can get in anyway if the Windows OS is out of date. The best thing you can do, according to Collins, is continually run a Windows update to make sure you don't have any critical issues remaining. As an example, Internet Explorer had known security holes that Microsoft has fixed. If you have not updated to at least the IE version 5.5 Service Pack 2, you could be at risk. "It would be the equivalent of locking the front door to your house, but only after the bad guys are already inside," he says. Collins says you can remain virus free by doing three simple things. "Run the Windows updates and keep your AV program up to date," he says. "But most importantly, don't open suspicious attachments!" To update your Microsoft Windows now, either use the shortcuts from your Start button, or visit the URL below: http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com Ontrack Software eNewsletter, July 9, 2002 http://www.ontrack.com by Paul Vaughn By now, everyone knows (or sus-pects) that Adobe Photoshop is the best tool for manipulation and photo retouch-ing (of images). However, it is good to periodically look at some of the alterna-tives. This article covers the Open Source program called, “The Gimp.” GIMP stands for Image Manipulation Program, and it is constantly being up-dated by a variety of programmers and developers. It is available as a free down-load from http://www.gimp.org. The Gimp runs on Linux, Unix, and Windows 9x. Some enterprising people have gotten it working on MacOS X, and an official MacOS X version is forthcoming. The one I used for this artide is Gimp version 1.2 for Windows, running in Windows 98. The Gimp has a full set of image tools including Paint Brush, Rubber Stamp, Air Brush, Pencil, Bezier Curves, Dodge and Burn, Sharpen and Blur, and Gradients. There is a wide assortment of predefined brushes, many simulating natural media, and some that are just plain goofy. The Gimp has a robust support for layers, with most of the vanous compositing modes from Photoshop, and some new ones like “Addition and Subtraction.” It does lack some of Photoshop's higher-end tools like Layer Masks and Layer Effects. Almost all of the items that Photoshop has in its menus are accessed in the Gimp, but right-clicking on the image to bring up a copious cascading menu. This is how you find the filters, selection tools, and image modes. Like Photoshop, the Gimp is expand-able with plugins, over one hundred are already available. The plugins are smaller programs that run within the Gimp to accomplish a specific task. Plugins can render clouds or a page curl effect, blur and image, or distort it like its being seen through glass. The program is fully scriptable, allow-ing unattended batch processing of images. The Gimp supports a wide variety of graphic file formats, and is useful as a file conversion utility. The Gimp's native for-mat is XCF, which allows the saving of layers in the image. It will open Photoshop's PSD files, preserving the layer informa-tion. It can also be used to make animated GIFs. The program sports high quality antialiasing and full alpha channel support. The interface of the Gimp is not as refined as Photoshop's or most commer-cial image editors, but it is very usable. Tips pop up when your cursor lingers over a tool, and there is a complete help system. The program greets you with a “Tip of the Day” whenever you launch it. The Gimp for Windows is still very much a work in progress, and is not as stable as the Linux version. The program may not be completely reliable when run in Windows, but it is an intriguing look into where Open Source software can take us. Long Just the prov-ince of hardcore geek tools, the Open Source movement has finally delivered a program with more mass appeal. All in all, the Gimp is a great, free competitor to Adobe's flagship, Photoshop. It is not yet completely there for Windows, but if you are running Linux, the Gimp is a great choice. Reprinted with permission from PC Alamode, San Antonio, TX 78265-5180, August 200!. The author is Paul Vaughn, who is a freelance graphic artist, writer, and Web designer. Mr. Vaughn likes free software; it's great to see people contrib-uting to the betterment of our commu-nity. Color versions of the examples may be seen at <http://www.graphicsguy.org>. Contributed by Dan Jerome. The Digital Viking newsletter - March 2002 by Gene Barlow Your computer hard drive is very im-portant: Your hard drive is the heart of your computer system. It contains your Windows operating system, which is the master control program of your computer. It also contains all of your application pro-grams that help you do productive things with your computer. But, most impor-tantly, it contains all the data files that you create using your application programs. These data files are the most valuable part of your computer and the hardest to re-place if something should happen to your hard drive. Yes, your hard drive will fail on you someday: Your hard drive is a mechanical device that spins constantly and is certain to wear out. The life of a hard drive is only 2-3 years. If you are lucky, your drive may last you 4 or 5 years, but it could go out in just 6 months. It is not a question of if your hard drive will fail, but it's a question of when it will fail. All you can do is to be ready when it does fail by having a copy of all of the files on your hard drive saved away from your computer. Then you can replace the failed drive with an empty new drive and put all of the files on the new hard drive. This lets you be backup and running in a mater of minutes instead of days or weeks rebuilding your drive. This process is called backing up and restoring your hard drive and is the topic of this ar-ticle. What files should you backup: One of the first decisions you must make is what files need to be backed up to adequately protect you. I consider your data files as the most important ones to backup. Your data files are those files that you create us-ing your application programs. If you use Quicken, then the data file that needs to be backed up contains all of your financial records entered into Quicken. If you re-search your genealogy, then the database of your ancestors that you've collected for years is the important data file that must be backed up. If you correspond exten-sively using E-mail, then the folders of your E-mail correspondence needs to be backed up. You should plan on backing up your data files at least daily. The second most important thing to backup is your entire hard drive and all of the files on it. This includes your Win-dows operating system as well as all of your application programs. By backing up the entire hard drive, you will not have to rebuild your system from scratch, but will be able to quickly get your system back up and running again. Some would suggest that you really don't need to backup your operating system and application programs because you can always reload them from the CDs they came on. While this is mostly true, you need to consider how much time this will take you to reinstall the operating system and all of the appli-cations you own. Then, how long will it take you to download all of the software patches and add-ons that you have added to your system. Finally, how long will it take you to enter all of the special settings that you must do to have your system work exactly as you like it to. To this lengthy time, consider how you can recover the many programs and files for which you do not have a CD. I think when you consider all of these factors you'll agree that having a backup of your entire hard drive is a wise investment of your time. You should plan on backing up your entire hard drive on a monthly basis. What media is best for backup: The next question you need to consider is “what is the best media to backup your files from your hard drive?” A few years ago, tape backup systems were the most popular backup media. The only problem with these tape systems was that they were very slow. Backing up a 1-2GB hard drive in a couple of hours was reasonable, but back-ing up today's 40GB hard drives to tape would take too long. You would not do it often enough to be usable. The next popu-lar backup media to come along were the removable disk cartridge drives. These were much faster than tape, but the car-tridges tended to be expensive. For exam-ple, a 40GB hard drive would need 10-20 Jazz (2GB) cartridges to backup the entire drive. At $100 each, you would need to in-vest over $2,000 in cartridges to backup your entire drive. Writing to blank CDs promises to be one of the best backup me-dia today, but even the fastest drives are slow and it takes many blank CDs to backup a large hard drive. So, what is the best media to backup a 40GB hard drive today? Another 40GB hard drive! Hard drives are much faster than tape and are even faster than the disk cartridge systems. You can backup an entire 40GB hard drive in less than an hour or so. Since it is fast, you'll tend to backup your system more often and this means better protection for you. Hard drives are also very inexpensive to purchase. If you watch prices carefully, you can get a 40GB hard drive for $99 or less. I would plan on having an extra hard drive for backup pur-poses for each hard drive that you save data on. What type of backup software is avail-able: There are two very different backup utilities on the market today - File backup utilities and Partition backup utili-ties. File backup utilities are by far the most common. These utilities backup in-dividual flies one at a time. They can also be used to restore individual files to your hard drive. A good feature of File backup utilities is that they can select individual files from all parts of your hard drive. This is great for picking and choosing your im-portant data files to backup. On the other hand, File backup utilities tend to be quite slow in backing up your entire hard drive and you would need to make many extra steps in rebuilding your hard drive parti-tions in case of a total failure. That is where Partition backup utilities have the advantage. Partition backup utilities backup entire partitions and all the files contained in them. Some of these Parti-tion backup utilities work at the lowest hardware level and are very fast. Restoring a partition to an empty hard drive using a partition backup utility will create and for-mat partitions as it restores the partition file. PowerQuest Corporation has an excel-lent backup software package that contains both a File backup utility and a Partition backup utility combined in one product. This product is called Drive Image and has a list price of $69.95. The File backup utility in this product is called DataKeeper and is designed to backup your individual data files on a frequent basis. The Parti-tion backup utility in the product is called Drive Image and is designed to backup your entire hard drive every month or so. Let's take a look at how these two utilities can be used to backup your system. Backing up your important Data files: As mentioned earlier, the data files on your system are the most important files on your computer. They are also the hard-est to replace if something should happen to your hard drive. Backing up your data files should be your first objective in estab-lishing a good backup plan for your sys-tem. Data files change daily and need to be backed up on a daily basis. Using PowerQuest's DataKeeper utility, you can select all of your important data files from various part of your hard drive. If you have spent a little preparation in or-ganizing your hard drive, you may already have all of your data files collected to-gether in the same partition. This makes it easier to identify and backup these impor-tant data files. DataKeeper will let you backup all of your data files or backup only those that have changed since the last backup. You can also compress the backup files to about half their original size when you save them to conserve space. You can backup an individual file up to 99 times without replacing an earlier backup copy of that file. This gives you the ability to keep multiple backup versions of a data file as it is being developed. If you need to see the file, as it was several versions ago, you can do so with DataKeeper. It will backup these files to any device having a standard drive letter, such as a special backup parti-tion on a hard drive or a removable car-tridge drive. If you create your data file backups on a hard drive, try to place them on another hard drive than the one the original data files are stored on. Also, you should copy these backup files to a blank CD every month so that you will have some removable media that you can store away from your computer. One of the best features of DataKeeper is its ability to monitor the import data files that you select and to automatically backup a file as soon as it is changes. Us-ing this monitoring approach, you never have to think about backing up your data files since this is done for you automati-cally. It also assures that you have a backup of these important files that is current to the last minute or so. This is a powerful feature of DataKeeper and one that I would highly recommend using. Backing up your entire hard drive: The second most important part of your backup plan is to backup your entire hard drive at least once a month. Having this backup in place will protect you from a major failure of your entire hard drive. Us-ing PowerQuest's Drive Image to backup your entire hard drive you have two ap-proaches to select from. Let's look at each of these approaches separately. The first full-drive backup approach is to use Drive Image to copy all of the par-titions from your main hard drive to a backup hard drive. Both hard drives must be installed on the same computer system to do this approach. Using Drive Image's Disk-to-Disk Copying facility, you copy the partitions from your main drive to the backup drive, one at a time. 'When Drive Image copies a partition, it creates a new partition on the backup drive, so the drive can be empty of partitions before you start the process. Also, copying a partition cop-ies not only the partition, but also all of the hidden files, system files, and other files contained in the partition to the backup hard drive. So, when you finish copying all of the partitions from your main drive to the backup drive, you have an exact duplicate of your main drive that could be used if your main drive failed. After copying all of the partitions to your backup hard drive, you need to dis-connect the backup drive and remove it from your computer system. You should store the drive away from your computer, so that if anything happens to your com-puter, your backup drive will not be af-fected, too. Once a month, you'll need to retrieve this backup hard drive and insert and connect it back into your computer and repeat the backing up of all of your partitions, then remove it again from your computer. If something should happen to your main hard drive, simply get your backup hard drive and replace your main hard drive with the backup drive, setting it as a master drive, and you should be able to immediately start your computer and have it run. To simplify the frequent re-moval and replacement of your backup hard drive, you can purchase a hard drive rack mounting system from your computer store for about $25 that will let you re-move and insert the drive without remov-ing the covers of your computer. The second full-drive backup approach is to use Drive Image to cross backup one hard drive to another. With this approach, you install and leave both hard drives in your computer all the time. For this ap-proach to work, you'll need to setup a large backup partition at the end of each of the two hard drives. PowerQuest's Partition-Magic utility is the best way to create these backup partitions on your hard drives. Once the two drives are in place with a large backup partition on each of them, you can use Drive Image to create condensed image files of entire partitions and store them on the backup partition of the other hard drive. To make this a little easier to understand, let's look at a simple example. You have two hard drives and the following partitions on each of the two hard drives: Drive 1: C: partition (Contains your Operating System) D: partition (A backup partition) Drive 2: E: partition (Contains your Application Programs) F: partition (Contains your Data Files) C: partition (A backup partition) Using Drive Image, create an image file of your entire C: partition and all of its contents on your G: backup partition. Then, using Drive Image, create an image file of your E: and F: partitions on your D: backup partition. These image files repre-sent the entire partition and all of their ac-tive content. These image files can be condensed by 40-50% to save room on your backup partition. Notice that we save the images from one hard drive to the other hard drive's backup partition and visa-versa. Hence, we call this the cross backup approach. Once a month, you'd repeat this cross backup approach from one drive to the other until you fill up the backup partition. Then you'd delete the oldest image file to make room for the new image file to be stored in your backup partition. If either of your hard drives should fail on you, all you have to do is to remove the failed drive and place an empty new drive in its place. Then using Drive Image, you find the latest condensed image of the partitions on the failed drive on the other drive's backup partition and restore that image to recreate the partitions and all of their content on the empty drive. This lets you be back up and running your computer in a matter of minutes instead of days or weeks rebuilding your system. If the drive that failed was your first drive containing your operating system, that is no problem. You can boot Drive Image from a DOS diskette and quickly rebuild your operating system partitions from the second drive's backup partition. What if both hard drives fail together: While it is rare, it is possible for both of your hard drives to fail at the same time, thus leaving you without either of your backup partitions to use to rebuild the other hard drive. For example, your computer could be burned in a fire or taken by a thief. In these cases, you'd loose not only your main drive, but your backup images as well. So, you need to make some special provisions to guard against these situations. I'd recommend that every 3 months, after you have backed up your partitions using the cross backup approach, you use Drive Image's ImageExplorer to split your condensed image file into multiple seg-ments that will fit on blank CDs. Drive Image will burn these image segments on multiple CDs for you or you can use the CD burning utility that came with your CD-R/RW drive. While this may take a while to do, it will give you an inexpensive removable backup of your entire hard drive that you can store away from your computer. I would repeat this process of creat-ing backup CDs of your entire hard drive every 3 months or so. Summary: If you follow the suggestions in this article, then you will have a comprehensive backup plan that will protect both your important data files as well as your entire hard drive. You must make sure that you follow the time intervals sug-gested so that your backups are current enough to be usable. PowerQuest's Drive Image product, a second hard drive, and a CD-R/RW drive are all the software and hardware you need to run this backup plan. A second hard drive and a CD-R/RW drive can both be purchased for about $100 each. Faster models are available for only a few dollars more. User group members can purchase Drive Image at the user group price of $35 by accessing a secure web order form at http://www.ugr.com/order/. You will need to enter the name of your user group and the special code UGNL02. I wish you success in setting up your backup plan. Gene Barlow, PowerQuest User Group Relations Copyright January 2002 From Connecticut PC User's Group newsletter - March 2002 Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson are going camping. They pitch their tent under the stars and go to sleep. Sometime in the middle of the night Holmes wakes Watson up. "Watson, look up at the stars, and tell me what you deduce." Watson says, "I see millions of stars, and if there are millions of stars, and if even a few of those have planets, it's quite likely there are some planets like Earth, and if there are a few planets like Earth out there, there might also be life." Holmes replies, "Watson, you idiot, somebody stole our tent!" - IMPORTANT NOTICE - FRPCUG meetings are held at the Fort Collins Senior Center. Check below for directions to the Senior Center. August General Forum Meeting No meeting in August due to maintenance at the Fort Collins Senior Center Have a great August - and THINK RAIN! September General Forum Meeting We will meet at the Fort Collins Senior Center on Tuesday, September 3 at 7:00 pm. Meeting Agenda 7:00 - 7:30 Announcements 7:30 - 8:30 PDA Computing-A presentation and live demo of the Compaq iPAQ handheld computer and the Pocket PC operating system. 8:30 - 8:45 Break 8:45 - 9:30 Open Forum See you at the meetings! Directions The Fort Collins Senior Center is located at 1200 Raintree Drive. This site is situated at the northwest corner of the Shields and West Drake intersection, on the north side of the Raintree Shopping Center. Check the marquee at the main entrance for directions to the specific meeting room. Up-Coming SIG's, Seminars and Meetings Board Meeting FRPCUG's executive board meets on Wednesday of the week following the General Forum Meeting at 7:00 p.m. All members are welcome and are encouraged to attend. These meetings are held at the offices of JYM Information Systems: 311 S College Avenue in Fort Collins. LINUX SIG This SIG, supports LINUX and other non-Windows operating systems for PC compatible hardware. This includes all distributions of LINUX, the BE Operating system, and OS2. These meetings are held at the offices of JYM Information Systems: 311 S College Avenue in Fort Collins. For more information contact Chuck McJilton at 493-2987 or email linuxsig@jymis.com. Northern Front Range Netware Users Group NFRNUG meets at 5:30 pm on the second Wednesday of each month at the U.S. Fish & Wildlife building, 2101 Oakridge Drive in Fort Collins. NFRNUG meetings are open to any users that are involved with Novell networking products and integration of other networking products into the Novell environment (Unix, NT, Mac, etc.). Contact Jim Stephens at 303-541-3376 or jcsteph@concentric.net or contact Chuck Kluko at 970-663-4770 or c.kluko@ix.netcom.com for further membership information. Yearly dues are $000.00 (yes, FREE) with pizza and pop served at 5:00 pm prior to meeting. Saturday labs and training sessions open to NRFNUG members only, space is limited. Rocky Mountain Internet Users Group Meets on the second Tuesday of 'odd' months at NCAR in Boulder. Meetings start at 7:00 pm, but members are encouraged to arrive at 6:30 pm for informal networking and refreshments. NCAR is located in Boulder at 1850 Table Mesa Drive. For more information see the RMIUG Web site at: http://www.rmiug.org/. Telecommuncation SIG The Telecommunications SIG covers topics related to computer communications hardware and software including modems, xDSL, networking, ISDN and the Internet. The meetings are held at 7:00 PM on the third Thursdays of each month at the offices of JYM Information Systems: 311 S College Avenue in Fort Collins. For more information contact Chuck McJilton at 493-2987 or email telecomsig@jymis.com. Web Design SIG If you're an HTML author/WEB page designer, or would like to learn, contact SIG coordinator Doug Boicourt at 495-6949 or e-mail db@jymis.com for the date and location of the next SIG meeting. Upcoming FRPCUG Meetings Along with presentations of new hardware and software, we will certainly continue to present tips, hints, solutions, as well as what is new with Public Domain and Shareware offerings. If you have ideas for presentations which you would like to see at future General Forum meetings or seminars, please let us know. We would appreciate the input and opportunity to improve your meetings. Know of a another computer-related meeting in our area? Please let us know so we can post it here. 7 NO GENERAL FORUM MEETING THIS MONTH! 14 FRPCUG Board Meeting 7:00PM NRFNUG Meeting 5:00PM 15 Telcomm SIG 7:00PM 22 LINUX SIG 7:00PM 24 Digital Camera Imaging ClinicSeptember 2002 2 Labor Day 3 FRPCUG General Forum Meeting 7:00PM 11 FRPCUG Board Meeting 7:00PM NRFNUG Meeting 5:00PM 19 Telcomm SIG 7:00PM 26 LINUX SIG 7:00PMREMINDER! NO FRPCUG GENERAL FORUM MEETING IN AUGUST DUE TO MAINTENANCE AT THE FORT COLLINS SENIOR CENTER by Graeme Wearden ZDNet (UK) May 21, 2002 Six people were arrested in South Africa over the weekend on suspicion of being involved in the infamous "Nigerian" e-mail and letter fraud. Four of those detained were Nigerian, one was Cameroonian and the sixth was South African. Police in South Africa believe that the six are part of an international fraud and drug-dealing cartel, sending out thousands of e-mail and letters in an attempt to defraud. Police seized a large amount of drugs, as well as computer equipment and false identification papers. According to published reports from South Africa, officers from the UK's Scotland Yard were also involved in the operation. A Metropolitan police spokesman was unable to confirm this, however. The arrests could mark an important breakthrough in the battle against the international scam, which is thought to have defrauded hundreds of millions of dollars from victims. The fraud is also known as the "West African advanced fee fraud" or the "419 fraud" -- 419 being the relevant section of the Nigerian criminal code. Potential victims receive a letter -- or, more recently, an e-mail -- telling them that the sender is trying to move a large sum of money and offering them a substantial percentage of the cash in return for letting it be deposited into their bank account. Often the perpetrators claim that the Nigerian government is paying out this money in return for a completed contract, while other versions claim to involve insurance payouts after airplane crashes. People who express an interest are then told that they must first hand over an amount of money to cover expenses such as banking fees and administrative costs. These "advanced fees" often cost a bundle; there are cases where U.S. victims have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Nigerian government has set up a unit in London to fight the fraud, but many people are still being taken in. One problem is that many victims don't report that they have been defrauded, either through embarrassment or because they aren't sure who to contact. Roland Perry, vice chairman of the Internet Crime Forum, said last month that it isn't clear which law enforcement body people should contact with cybercrime complaints. "Where do you go if you get a Nigerian e-mail?" asked Perry. "Do you report it to the National Criminal Intelligence Service, the Metropolitan Police, the Fraud Squad, the National High-Tech Crime Unit or your local police? If you take one of these e-mails to your local police, what is the chap behind the desk supposed to do with it?" The Metropolitan Police, in conjunction with the Specialist Crime Operational Command Unit, has set up a Web page containing advice about the West African advanced fee fraud. Those who have fallen victim to the fraud are encouraged to contact the Specialist Crime OCU Fraud Squad by e-mail at 419@spring39.demon.co.uk. The following is an actual example of the Nigerian scam e-mail. This slime comes in hundreds of different versions. The common factor is always “Send your bank account number and we will give you all this 'free money'. From: "joe amiol" To: Subject: Confidential Date: Thursday, February 22, 2001 Dear John Doe, I salute you in the name of the most high God. I am Mr. Kadiri Abacha, the second son of the late Gen. Sanni Abacha, former Nigerian Military Head of State who died mysteriously as a result of cardiac arrest. Since the death of my Father, our entire family has been under restriction of movement by successive Governments and we are being molested and constantly under watch by the security agents. the Nigerian Government has frozen our discovered Bank accounts here and abroad. Furthermore, my elder brother has been in detention for further interrogation about our family assets and some vital documents. Following the recent discovery of my late father's bank accounts by the present Nigerian Government with my elder brother's Bank account in which a huge sum of US$700million and Dutch Mark 450 million was lodged and 1.6 Billion Pound Sterling belonging to my late father was seized by the Nigerian Government through the co-operation of Western Governments. I therefore wish to personally appeal to you seriously and religiously for your urgent assistance to transfer the sum of US$12.5 million into your account confidentially where I believe it will be safe since we can not both leave the country due to the restriction of movement imposed on the members of my family. You can contact me on my e-mail address (amio_222us@yahoo.com). Upon receipt of your good response, I will liase with you towards effective completion of this transaction. However arrangement have been put in place to move this money in secret through a trust worthy security company to any of the West African State; Europe or America as soon as you indicate your inerest. I will send to you the certificate of deposit, number and airway bill of the luggage and other related documents to enable you claim the luggage which shall be tagged,”Family Treasures”. Conclusively, we have agreed to offer you 25% of the total sum while the 75% is to be held in trust by you, until we decide on a suitable business investment in your country as soon as we overcome this ordeal. Please send to me urgently your contact address, telephone and fax numbers to enable me proceed. While thanking you for anticipated co-operation, your early response, absolute confidentiality and sincerity of purpose will be highly appreciated. Yours Sincerely, Kadiri Abacha. 8:05am User called to say they forgot password. Told them to use password retrieval utility called FDISK. Blissfully ignorant, they thank me and hang up. God, we let the people vote and drive, too? 8:12am Accounting called to say they couldn't access expense reports database. Gave them Standard Sys Admin Answer #112, "Well, it works for me." Let them rant and rave while I unplugged my coffeemaker from the UPS and plugged their server back in. Suggested they try it again. One more happy customer... 8:14 am User from 8:05 call said they received error message "Error accessing Drive 0." Told them it was an OS problem. Transferred them to microsupport. 11:00 am Relatively quiet for last few hours. Decide to plug support phone back in so I can call my girlfriend. Says parents are coming into town this weekend. Put her on hold and transferred her to janitorial closet down in basement. What is she thinking? The "Myst" and "Doom" nationals are this weekend! 11:34 am Another user calls (do they ever learn?). Says they want ACL changed on HR performance review database so that nobody but HR can access database. Tell them no problem. Hang up. Change ACL. Add @MailSend so performance reviews are sent to */US. 12:00 pm Lunch 3:30 pm Return from lunch. 3:55 pm Wake up from nap. Bad dream makes me cranky. Bounce servers for no reason. Return to napping. 4:23 pm Yet another user calls. Wants to know how to change fonts on form. Ask them what chip set they're using. Tell them to call back when they find out. 4:55 pm Decide to run "Create Save/Replication Conflicts" macro so next shift has something to do. Tuesday 8:30 am Finish reading support log from last night. Sounded busy. Terrible time with Save/Replication conflicts. 9:00 am Support manager arrives. Wants to discuss my attitude. Click on PhoneNotes SmartIcon. "Love to, but kinda busy. Put something in the calendar database!" I yell as I grab for the support lines, which have (mysteriously) lit up. Walks away grumbling. 9:35 pm Team leader from R&D needs ID for new employee. Tell them they need form J-19R=9C9\\DARR\K1. Say they never heard of such a form. Tell them it's in the SPECIAL FORMS database. Say they never heard of such a database. Transfer them to janitorial closet in basement. 10:00 am Perky sounding intern from R&D calls and says she needs new ID. Tell her I need employee number, department name, manager name, and marital status. Run @DbLookup gainst state parole board database, Centers for Disease Control database, and my Oprah Winfrey database. No hits. Tell her ID will be ready tonight. Drawing from the lessons learned in last week's "Reengineering for Customer Partnership," I offer to personally deliver ID to her apartment. 10:07 am Janitor stops by to say he keeps getting strange calls in basement. Offer to train him on Notes. Begin now. Let him watch console while I grab a smoke. 1:00 pm Return from smoking break. Janitor says phones kept ringing, so he transferred them to cafeteria lady. I like this guy. 1:05 pm Big commotion! Support manager falls in hole left where I pulled floor tiles outside his office door. Stress to him importance of not running in computer room, even if I do yell "Omigod -- Fire!" 1:15 pm Development Standards Committee calls and complains about umlauts in form names. Apologizing for the inconvenience, I tell them I will fix it. Hang up and run global search/replace using gaks. 1:20 pm Mary Hairnet from cafeteria calls. Says she keeps getting calls for "Notice Loads" or "NoLoad Goats," she's not sure, couldn't hear over industrial-grade blender. Tell her it was probably "Lettuce Nodes." Maybe the food distributor with a new product? She thinks about it and hangs up. 2:00 pm Legal secretary calls and says she lost password. Ask her to check in her purse, floor of car, and on bathroom counter. Tell her it probably fell out of back of machine. Suggest she put duct tape over all the airvents she can find on the PC. Grudgingly offer to create new ID for her while she does that. 2:49 pm Janitor comes back. Wants more lessons. I take off rest of day. Wednesday 8:30 am Irate user calls to say chipset has nothing to do with fonts on form. Tell them Of course, they should have been checking "Bitset," not "chipset." Sheepish user apologizes and hangs up. 9:10am Support manager, with foot in cast, returns to office. Schedules 10:00am meeting with me. User calls and wants to talk to support manager about terrible help at support desk. Tell them manager about to go into meeting. Sometimes life hands you material... 10:00 am Call Louie in janitorial services to cover for me. Go to support manager's office. He says he can't dismiss me but can suggest several lateral career moves. Most involve farm implements in third-world countries with moderate to heavy political turmoil. By and by, I ask if he's aware of new bug which takes full-text indexed random e-mail databases and puts all references to furry handcuffs and Bambi Boomer in Marketing on the corporate Web page. Meeting is adjourned as he reaches for keyboard, Web browser, and Tums. 10:30 am Tell Louie he's doing great job. Offer to show him mainframe corporate PBX system sometime. 11:00 am Lunch. 4:55 pm Return from lunch. 5:00 pm Shift change; Going home. Thursday 8:00 am New guy ("Marvin") started today. "Nice plaids" I offer. Show him server room, wiring closet, and technical library. Set him up with IBM PC-XT. Tell him to quit whining, Notes runs the same in both monochrome and color. 8:45 am New guy's PC finishes booting up. Tell him I'll create new ID for him. Set minimum password length to 64. Go grab smoke. 9:30 am Introduce Louie the custodian to Marvin. "Nice plaids" Louie comments. Is this guy great or what?! 11:00 am Beat Louie in dominos game. Louie leaves. Fish spare dominos out of sleeves ("Always have backups"). User calls, says Accounting server is down. Untie Ethernet cable from radio antenna (better reception) and plug back into hub. Tell user to try again. Another happy customer! 11:55 am Brief Marvin on Corporate Policy 98.022.01: "Whereas all new employee beginning on days ending in 'Y' shall enjoy all proper aspects with said corporation, said employee is obligated to provide sustenance and relief to senior technical analyst on shift." Marvin doubts. I point to "Corporate Policy" database (a fine piece of work, if I say so myself!). "Remember, that's DOUBLE pepperoni and NO peppers!" I yell to Marvin as he steps over open floor tile to get to exit door. 1:00 pm Oooooh! Pizza makes me so sleepy... 4:30 pm Wake from refreshing nap. Catch Marvin scanning want ads. 5:00 pm Shift change. Flick HR's server off and on several times (just testing the On/Off button...). See ya tomorrow. Friday 8:00 am Night shift still trying to replace power supply in HR server. Told them it worked fine before I left. 9:00 am Marvin still not here. Decide I might start answering these calls myself. Unforward phones from Mailroom. 9:02 am Yep. A user call. Users in Des Moines can't replicate. Me and the Oiuji board determine it's sunspots. Tell them to call Telecommunications. 9:30 am Good God, another user! They're like ants. Says he's in San Diego and can't replicate with Des Moines. Tell him it's sunspots, but with a two-hour difference. Suggest he reset the time on the server back two hours. 10:17 am Pensacola calls. Says they can't route mail to San Diego. Tell them to set server ahead three hours. 11:00 am E-mail from corporate says for everybody to quit resetting the time on their servers. I change the date stamp and forward it to Milwaukee. 11:20 am Finish @CoffeeMake macro. Put phone back on hook. 11:23 am Milwaukee calls, asks what day it is. 11:25 am Support manager stops by to say Marvin called in to quit. "So hard to get good help..." I respond. Support manager says he has appointment with orthopedic doctor this afternoon, and asks if I mind sitting in on the weekly department head meeting for him. "No problem!" 11:30 am Call Louie and tell him opportunity knocks and he's invited to a meeting this afternoon. "Yeah, sure. You can bring your snuff" I tell him. 12:00 am Lunch. 1:00 pm Start full backups on UNIX server. Route them to device NULL to make them fast. 1:03 pm Full weekly backups done. Man, I love modern technology! 2:30 pm Look in support manager's contact management database. Cancel 2:45 pm appointment for him. He really should be at home resting, you know. 2:39 pm New user calls. Says want to learn how to create a connection document. Tell them to run connection document utility CTRL-ALT-DEL. Says PC rebooted. Tell them to call microsupport. 2:50 pm Support manager calls to say mixup at doctor's office means appointment cancelled. Says he's just going to go on home. Ask him if he's seen corporate Web page lately. 3:00 pm Another (novice) user calls. Says periodic macro not working. Suggest they place @DeleteDocument at end of formula. Promise to send them document addendum which says so. 4:00 pm Finish changing foreground color in all documents to white. Also set point size to "2" in help databases. 4:30 pm User calls to say they can't see anything in documents. Tell them to go to view, do a "Edit -- Select All", hit delete key, and then refresh. Promise to send them document addendum which says so. 4:45 pm Another user calls. Says they can't read help documents. Tell them I'll fix it. Hang up. Change font to Wingdings. 4:58 pm Plug coffee maker into Ethernet hub to see what happens. Not (too) much. 5:00 pm Night shift shows up. Tell them that the hub is acting funny and to have a good weekend. On Saturday, August 24 Rick Mattingly will provide a three hour clinic on manipulating graphic imaging from the digital camera. Digital cameras are a marvelous tool but taking the photograph is only half of the process. This clinic will address the software side of the process. Topics of discussion will include: image download options, adjusting/correcting images, resizing images, enhancing images, image file storage options, thumbnail image cataloguing, useful free or low cost software utilities and hardcopy printing techniques. Manipulating photographic images from others sources, such as the optical scanning of existing hardcopy photos, will also be discussed. This clinic is free to FRPCUG members and will take place at the JYM offices, located at 311 South College Avenue in Fort Collins. This location is directly across the street from Perkins Restaurant. The clinic will begin at 9:00 AM sharp and will end at 12:00 PM. Space is limited so please contact Rick Mattingly in Fort Collins at (970) 223-6618 evenings to reserve a spot. Come to the clinic and show that digital camera who is the boss! "Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people." - W. C. Fields FujiFilm Unveils Tiny Hard Drive USB Drive starts at $50 for 32MB of portable storage, readable without drivers. Lincoln Spector, special to PCWorld.com Wednesday, July 10, 2002 FujiFilm is helping revive Sneakernet with the release of its straightforwardly named USB Drive, the newest in a growing array of pocket-size, large-capacity storage devices that easily move among PCs. This small flash RAM "drive" is available in sizes ranging from 32MB to 256MB, with a 512MB version expected out in the fall. The 32MB drive costs $50; the 64MB unit, $70; and the 128MB drive, $150. Fuji initially announced 8MB and 16MB versions, too, but isn't shipping them because apparently no one wants them. The unit's physical size, not its capacity, will catch people's attention. Forget the proverbial pack of cards or cigarettes. Measuring less than 4 by 1 by 1 inches, the USB Drive more closely resembles a short, stubby marker or a fat electric thermometer with a nose that plugs directly into your computer's USB port. It weighs only 0.7 ounce and is powered by the USB port, so there's no need for a battery or AC adapter. Designate No Drivers Besides being small and light, it offers real plug and play--not the usual process (plug in, install the driver, identify driver conflicts that keep it from working, update the driver over the Internet, and finally hope it plays). That's because the FujiFilm Drive comes with a built-in processor that lets it work (in many cases) without drivers. Driverless plug and play is especially important if you want to move data from one place to another. After all, you might be willing to install the driver on your own computer, but the owners of the other computers might object. And unlike Archos's MiniHD 20GB, the USB Drive works driver-free with USB 1.0 as well as 2.0. But it won't work that way with everything. The drive still requires drivers for Windows 98 and Mac OS 8.6, which are the earliest versions of those operating systems that it supports. (And yes, you can use it to share data between PCs and Macs.) You can even configure the USB Drive as a bootable device, like a floppy or CD drive. You would have to put an operating system on it, of course. PCWorld.com July 12, 2002 Members: Place your FREE ad here! k-Byte runs classified ads in Trading Post for three consecutive issues. Trading Post ads up to 10 lines (or 70 words) long are free to FRPCUG members: $5 for non-members. To place an ad in Trading Post contact Will Horton at 223-2154 or email whorton@will-design.com. Commercial Advertising Specifications (Monthly rate) Full Page (8 1/2” X 7”) $30 Half Page (3 1/4” X 7”) $20 One Third Page (3” X 4”) $15 Business Card (2 3/4” X 1 1/2”) $ 5 We offer a substantial discount for repeat ads and continuing contracts. For additional charge, we will design your ad for you. Contact Will Horton for information on this service at 223-2154 or email whorton@will-design.com. |