October 2000 Meeting Report
by Howard L. Bonar
Secretary, Alaska Computer Society

The October 12, 2000 meeting of the Alaska Computer Society was held at the BP building at Benson Boulevard and New Seward Highway starting at 7:02 pm.

Questions and Answers

President Gene White started the evening off with the question and answer session.

Warren has a problem with Java scripts doing strange things when viewed with Netscape Navigator 4.x. At this point, we couldn't come up with any ideas to help him out other than "do not use Navigator".

A member asked the question about GCI's firewalls. He was referred to our August meeting report and Bill Poletti's presentation on network security. The web sites listed offer excellent information on network security. Cable modems and DSL connections are vulnerable to intrusion. Recommend a router, such as the one- or four-port LinkSys EtherFast Cable/DSL router, between the computer and the modem or use ZoneAlarm, a readily available free software firewall that will offer a lot of protection. One member reported that GCI had done something recently and they could no longer see other systems using network neighborhood. Howard reported seeing lots of neighbors from one location. (Subsequently looked again - counted 23 systems in the neighborhood.) A serious hacker could probably be into any one of them in short order if they are not protected.

Someone that recently installed Microsoft Office 2000 has a lot of problems. Recommend uninstalling Office 97 before trying to install 2000.

One user tried to use an external CD-writer drive on his parallel port but the internal unit keeps getting in the way. Suggested going into control panel and disabling the internal driver before installing the external. Once it is installed then reactivate the internal drive.

Main Meeting

President Gene White called the regular meeting to order at 7:16 pm. He welcomed all the new members and visitors then introduced the board members present.

Program Director Dawn Scott reported on the upcoming meetings. For the November 9th meeting, Steve Dike, the Senior Manager of the IT Department of the local public accounting firm, Mikunda, Cottrell & Company, will speak on business accounting software for small to medium-sized businesses. We are attempting to get AT&T to give us the story on their wireless connectivity that is about ready to hit the market. Dallas, Texas will be their first market and Anchorage will be number two. Other subjects we are working on are Palm Pilots and another Favorite Web Sites presentation, perhaps in December.

Dawn also reported on the Peachpit Press publishing company's offer of a sizeable discount to User Group members for volume purchases of books. The Alaskan Apple Users Group has been using the service for some time and would like to partner with us to gain the volume necessary for the deep discounts. We will be working on this proposal to work out details.

Howard reported on the computer training classes at the AARP Information Center and at the Anchorage Senior Center.

Mike Jacquot, our web master, reported on the status of the ACS web site at ACS-PCUG.org. He welcomed any suggestions for improvements.

Howard explained the working of the software evaluation program. We are presently out of products to review but are hopeful that our group representative, Robert Crager, who is going to the COMDEX show in November, will come back with lots of good stuff.

Howard reported on the recent Information & Business Technology EXPO with special thanks to the many volunteers who made it possible. Helping to set up and staff the ACS table were: Ed Stonedall, Fred Erickson, Bronwyn Hillman, Dawn Scott, Al Schuerger, and Gene White. Special thanks to Brenda Oakley for getting the ACS brochures updated and printed and to Ed Caldwell and Mike Jacquot for getting a static copy of the ACS PCUG web site installed on the computer Ed loaned for the show. It worked out very well.

AND THE DOOR PRIZES ...

It was very worth while for two of our new members who just joined because of the Expo specials. They were the big winners. New members Eric Wren chose the digital camera given by Canon USA and Robert Posna chose the Microsoft Office 2000 Premium Edition provided by Microsoft. Carol Sheridan won the computer carrying case donated by Canon USA.

The Presentation

OFFICE TECHNOLOGY - WHERE IT IS HEADING AND CANON'S PART IN IT.

Mr. Randy Akers, Account Executive with the Distributor Sales Division Imaging Systems Group of Canon USA, made our presentation of the evening. Randy worked for Xerox for five years then spent two years in Japan learning the ins and outs of the printing business. He has spent the last seven years working for Canon. His territory covers 28 states which keeps him on the go.

Randy had just spent two days working at the Lewis and Lewis Computer booth at the Expo 2000 in the Egan Center. Exhaustion slowed him down a little bit but working on a reserve of adrenalin he was able to make an energetic and interesting presentation.

THE COMPANY

Canon USA, Inc. is headquartered in Lake Success, New York. It is one of the leading producers of professional and consumer imaging equipment and information systems.

Canon products include color and black and white copiers; printers; micrographics and image filing systems; facsimile machines; calculators; cameras and lenses; camcorders; semiconductor, broadcast and optical equipment, and other specialized industrial products. Canon employs more than 11,000 people at more than 30 facilities. Their 1999 sales in the Americas reached $8 billion.

Canon is the main source for all laser printer engines providing 95% of all those sold including the HP (Hewlett Packard) line. Laser printers cost more to purchase than the ink jets but the life time cost per copy may well be much cheaper.

There is a "number of copies per month" rating for printers and copiers. Exceeding the design limits of a machine may shorten its life expectancy. Before you buy a product, make your best estimate on how many copies per month will be needed and purchase your equipment accordingly.

Estimating the cost per page for printing is very difficult as there are so many variables. The printing industry has some standard test pages that are used to make comparisons. When manufacturers are predicting costs per page, you need to know what is the percentage of coverage. Canon predicts a typical color business letter with mostly black and white text with some color graphics to be about 3.5 cents. A color newsletter would be about 5.4 cents, and a full color photograph about 17.4 cents on plain paper. Using photo-quality paper would boost that cost much higher.

In the early 90s, Bill Gates predicted the demise of paper in the work place with the proliferation of computers. He was wrong. With the increase in printer/copier availability and improvements in ease of use, the amount of paper flowing has substantially increased. More copies are made for more people to make sure that all who need it get important information. Also, some people just like to see their work in print.

MIS - MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS

There are five essential tools you will need to equip your home or small business office. They are a telephone, a computer or word processor, a printer, fax, and a copier. In small offices, new multi-use devices are making it possible to combine several of these functions. There are two categories of these devices. The first is called MF or "Multi-functional" printer devices. They can print, scan, copy, and fax but can only do one thing at a time. The MT or "Multitasking" device does all of the above, some of it simultaneously. This provides much faster response to a request for service. These MT units have separate CPU's for the scanner, fax, and printer boards.

Low end MF & MT machines incorporate a page scanner. Document feeders can be added to speed up the process. They cannot be used to scan images from a book without tearing out the pages. A flat bed scanner is needed to perform that function. It may be worthwhile to invest in a separate scanner.

In the traditional office, the water cooler was where the staff kept up on the office gossip and much of the networking which makes an office work. In recent years, the copier center took the place of the water cooler as the preferred meeting place. Most offices only had one copier as they were very expensive. A lot of time was lost walking to the copier, waiting your turn at the machine, getting the gossip out of the way, then finally going back to work. With the steady drop in machine prices and the development of the multi-function equipment, the sneaker net is going away.

NEW IDEAS AND NEW PRODUCTS

The advent of the digital camera has opened up a new way to advertise houses, used cars, pets, and many other products. Snap a few pictures, select the best one immediately, then post it on your web page or stick it in a document to send to a prospective customer. Print it out or e-mail it, the options are many. Time and picture development cost savings can be substantial in a busy office.

Digital photography is growing rapidly among business users. Real estate companies can file photos of the houses they've sold. Insurance adjusters file images of cars involved in crashes. Digital photographs can be used to create newsletters, flyers, electronic presentations and web pages. Since most of these applications call for the photo to be digitized, the fastest and easiest way is to shoot it digitally.

Digital photographs are basically images that will be used on a computer. And the motivation to shoot digitally is to get the photo into the computer, whether to print the image out, save it on the database, or transfer it electronically via the Internet.

The main advantage of digital photography is immediate access to the picture. Snap a picture and immediately see it on the digital camera's LCD screen. Transfer it into a computer using a serial or parallel cable or removable PCMCIA card. Digital images can be produced immediately, either printed or electronically distributed over the Internet.

A recent development which brings a real boost to the digital world is the use of miniature CD-ROM disks to serve as business card, catalog, sales brochure, and clever promotional tool. Mt. West Office, an office supply house located in Cedar City, Utah, supplies a miniature 3" CD disk to their prospective customers which includes video clips of the staff, pictures of their product lines, and catalog information. It works in a standard CD drive with the slide-out disk drawer. At less than $1.00 per copy, it is far more economical than printing brochures and catalogs. Also, information is much easier to update for new editions.

FACSIMILE

One of the problems with the old style faxes was when a document gets forwarded several times, the quality deteriorates badly. With electronic faxing, you get an original each time it is forwarded.

With the new printing technologies, new products using digital images are proliferating. One example is a poster on Mylar. It is so tough that it is almost impossible to tear by hand.

Laser color printing uses four toner colors. They are referred to as CMYK - Cyan (Blue), Magenta (Red), Yellow, & Black. The separate black color is much more economical than mixing the three primaries to get black. In the print process, the color is printed first then black to avoid color bleeding into the black areas.

Most color printers, ink-jet, laser, dye-sublimation, thermal, and crayon printers use these as their printer colors. One of the biggest challenges of desktop publishing is color matching because the conversion from RGB for the computer monitor to CMYK for the printer can cause color shifts. This makes it difficult to match the print with what is on your monitor.

RECHARGING INK AND TONER CARTRIDGES

Canon does not recommend refilling cartridges however there are people doing it up to three times with some success. It can save some money but be forewarned that use of refilled cartridges may void the warranty on the print engines. For the past ten years, Canon has been recycling toner cartridges as part of its "recycling in the workplace" program. The re-manufacturing process is much more stringent than merely refilling the cartridge.

TO LEARN MORE

Check out the Canon USA web site at www.USA.Canon.com to learn more about their products and digital technology. They have posted a short history of photography and a glossary of digital and camera technology terms that is very informative.