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December 2000 Meeting Report |
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The December 14, 2000 meeting of the Alaska Computer Society was held at the Anchorage Museum of History and Art starting at 7:05 pm. President Gene White was back on duty and introduced the board members present. The January meeting will be back on our regular schedule at BP Exploration. Questions & Answers Howard reported on reading in a ZD Net press release that the present software firewall programs have a serious hole in them that makes it very easy for the hackers to bypass them. They report an article in eWeek by Scott Berenito which confirms that firewall products from several manufacturers were susceptible to attack. The hackers can rename their rogue files to something that would be accepted by a user's defenses as innocuous. This is a serious danger that needs to be followed closely by everyone depending on software for protection. For more information, log on to www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2663028,00.html . Ron reports that he is having an intermittent problem with his printer. Every few lines there will be a smear across the page. He was advised to first try a new cartridge. Some cartridges that have been on the shelf too long can develop problems of the jets becoming clogged. Also, find out if the print head is part of the cartridge or if it is separate and could need cleaning. Some printers have a "clean head" utility that may help. Fred asked if anyone knows of an inexpensive data base that could be used to keep an inventory of used books for resale over the Internet. It would be useful if it could handle bar code input. Al reports his new high speed computer chip is having a problem. When he shuts down, it sometimes loses some of the data that is still residing in the cache. This is probably a cache rather than a CPU problem. This same problem occurred when caching was first introduced. You must wait long enough after your last save before you close down to make sure the cache has time to unload. Gene asked if anyone knew of a e-mail package that could be used for mass mailing. Howard just happened to have one in the software evaluation library. Gene will write a report on it for publication in exchange for receiving the software. Al reports his Office 2000 worked great when he first loaded it but after about three days of use it slowed way down when it first loaded up. It may be that something has been loaded into the start folder that shouldn't be there. Go to C:\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup and turn everything off. Also run the System Configuration Utility, msconfig.exe, which is available in Win98. Check all the configuration files to see what is being started at boot up. Main Meeting Gene called the regular meeting to order at 7:16 pm. He welcomed everyone and then introduced the board members and volunteers present. The regular meeting will be back at the BP Exploration building on January 11th. Presentation subject to be announced. ACS and the Apple Users Group will be jointly staffing a booth at Diamond Mall on January 20 to promote our groups to the public. A special joint meeting is being held with the Apple Users Group for a presentation by Corel on Draw 8. It will be on January 29 starting at 7:00 PM. It is tentatively scheduled to be at Providence Hospital but watch the paper to be sure. We will send out an announcement via E-mail to all ACS members. We did not have a drawing for the door prizes. Everyone had the opportunity to choose from a collection of t-shirts and other premiums that had been provided by vendors. The Presentation ACS Member's Favorite Web Sites Last month we asked our members to send in their favorite web sites with a brief description of why they like them. Mike Jacquot sat in for Dawn Scott for a live on-line demonstration of the reasons our members had selected these sites. We were able to visit them all and see for ourselves why they are considered special. The following list has been posted on the ACS web site at www.ACS-PCUG.org. Howard Bonar - Product Information http://Softbase.Hypermart.net - When I was researching my meeting report on small business accounting software I came across this site. It went to the top of my list of useful sources for current information on products. On it you will find lists of about 80 categories of the top 100 software, shareware, freeware, payware titles, and some hardware. In each list is information on the features, costs, comparisons, and availability of each product. There are WWW-links and email-addresses to the most important 3,000 suppliers, authors, companies, distributors, FTP-sites, service providers, etc. If that's not enough, they list the top 3000 Shareware and Freeware Software programs. If you know the name of the software you can usually download it or get more information from the vendor pages listed. www.AK.org - Alaska Health and Human Resource Information. Names, Addresses, Telephone, Email, and web pages for hundreds of Alaska Agencies, Hospitals, Clinics, Shelters, etc. A place to start if you need help. Dawn Scott . . . Bookworms Unite! www.AllReaders.com - You're looking for that perfect book--whether it's a gift or just a title that you keep hearing about and want to read. Do you think having access to 2,000 types of literary criteria might aid your search? You're in luck because that's what you'll find here. AllReaders.com is a book review driven search engine that features over 10,000 reviews of fiction titles. The broad categories to search on are: Sci-fi/Fantasy, Mystery/Thriller/Adventure/War, Literature, Romance, Biographies, or History. Use the "Detailed Search Link" to get information about the plots, characters, and much more. www.DigiScents.com - Finally we can smell our computers -- and they're gonna smell like roses and pizza and ... baby poop for a birth announcement? When we first heard about this Web site, we thought it was a joke. But like Smell-O-Vision, digital scent actually exists and appears to be the wave of the future. Don't turn your nose up at the idea just yet. Visit DigiScents and then judge for yourself. www.OldChristmasLights.com - History of the development of the Xmas tree lights and some great old pictures. Dawn added this one after the meeting. Elaine Hulse - Opt out of the Spam World and into the Space World. http://Opt-Out.CDT.org/pp.shtml - by the Center for Democracy and Technology tells you how to opt out and provides links to doing so online. Find out how to protect your privacy. www.Space.com - has many links to astronomy, astronauts, science fiction, current events, etc. You are guaranteed to get sidetracked with the many links. This site is associated with DoubleClick.com so don't forget to opt out. http://SpaceFlight.NASA.Gov - The National Aeronautics and Space Administration website. This could be fun to look at because there will be astronauts at the International Space Station. www.WhatIs.com - Find those elusive file extensions from a list of over 3000. www.REI.com/cgi-bin/imagemap/map/hnavgg.map?186,3 - REI's Learn and Share, tons of learning opportunities about all kinds of things sport and health related! www.ExpressAutoParts.com/customersvc - Online automobile consultation. Buy parts, check on car prices, publications, etc. http://Cartalk.Cars.com/Radio - Car Talk radio show, Back tracks for history of previous discussion about car problems. Ed Caldwell - An educational Screen Saver here www.TechTV.com/screensavers - A television show on TechTV (formerly ZDNet). It is quite informative on all aspects of computing. Waltraud Barron - Learn How Stuff Works and Internet Jargon www.HowStuffWorks.com - How stuff works. Computers, autos, Electronics, Science and Technology, health and our bodies and much more. www.SteveGrossman.com/jargpge.htm#Jargon - Internet Chat jargon. Mike Rath - Comics www.uComics.com/calvinandhobbes/viewch.htm - If you are a Calvin & Hobbes fan the following site is a fun one to visit on occasion. Karen Ciocchi - Learn HTML and Calculators www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/tut - Best online HTML tutorial I've found, plus its style and structure are so straightforward and usable. http://sun2.lib.uci.edu/HSG/RefCalculators.html - Martindale's Calculators Online designed for every conceivable mathematical speciality. Truly mind-boggling. Brett Woerns - Go shopping or cooking www.Lehmans.com - Non-electric catalog shopping - products for that remote homestead hideaway including the wood stove. www.CookingWithSpirits.com - Lots of recipes with pizazz! Llana Markey - Brush up on Genealogy www.Ancestry.com - I visit this site often because I do a lot of genealogy research there. Lots of free stuff but some of its best resources are available by subscription only. www.ZDNet.com/anchordesk/stories/story/0,10738,2657430,00.html - Genealogy review, to go with the above genealogy site. Vera Crews - Music, Baseball, and Style www.KPLU.com - For jazz. Listen to music in one window while you browse in another. The continuous music connection keeps you from getting bumped off the line because of inactivity. www.AnchorageBucs.com- If you are interesting in following the local ball team. www.Elle.com - For the latest in Style and Beauty products. Mike Jacquot - If you need technology help and/or want to play www.555-1212.com - Phone number lookup. www.MapQuest.com - Online maps, driving directions, etc. www.ConsumerSearch.org - Consumer product reviews. www.NetCraft.com - Look up web sites containing a text string. www.BootDisk.com - Need a boot disk? Find it here. www.DeBarCode.com - Decode product bar codes. www.WordBot.com - Automated word reference lookup. www.HoganBooks.com/freebook/webbooks.html - Free books on the web. www.SodaPlay.com - Creative constructor. www.MagicEye.com - Stereograms - challenges your ability to see the buried images Additional sites brought up in the meeting: www.Copernic.com - Download free to search the best search engines simultaneously. www.eSnipe.com - Simplifies the placing of bids on EBay |
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