January 2003
Volume 21, Issue 1
Kokomo PC
Users Group
A Message from the President:
Welcome to a New Year of PC computing. The snow is flying, the temperature is cold, and Santa left us some tech toys in our stockings. Life doesn't get any better than this.
In past years I have dusted off my crystal ball and made some predictions for our computing future in the new year. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to try again.
I predict that the tablet PC will fail again. In spite of Microsoft's backing and all the hype that money can buy, people will not buy a $2000 palm pilot. I also find it hard to believe that electronic `ink' will become a serious data type. Like the Segway human transporter, it is a great idea that will not attract enough mainstream attention to make it fly.
I predict Gateway will continue to have problems in the marketplace. Their move to the low cost side of the value equation has made them no different than any other cheap PC maker.
I predict Microsoft's new licensing and support plan will backfire and be rejected by many businesses. Microsoft will back off on some provisions and build in loop holes, especially for smaller businesses. It will also push a number of major accounts to move to Linux and Star office. I suspect we may have open revolt by the end of the year if the recession continues to press companies to reduce costs for computing.
I also have some wishes for the new year.
I wish we could boost our membership to 50 members. We will all need to invite a friend or get involved in some community project like Tech-no-fest at Ivy Tech or the Howard County Fair.
I wish someone in the Justice department would get serious with Microsoft and bust them up into three companies. The Windows company, the Office company and the Networking company. This may be too little too late, but I believe it would start us down the road to a more competitive environment for software. (If all the money that Windows generates was actually plugged back into Windows, rather than financing all the other power grabs that Microsoft is making, we might actually get a good, stable, secure system for a change.)
I have had a great technology Christmas. (Well, actually Christmas and Birthday combined.) I got a new Dell computer, Broadband internet, a digital camera and a Palm Pilot. In fact I have been totally overwhelmed by all the stuff I got. I am still reading all the manuals and trying to figure it all out.
The Dell computer is a 2.4 GHz Pentium 4 in a mini-tower case. I have a 19 inch monitor, a DVD drive a CD Burner.
The cable guys installed my broadband modem and I installed the software. Then I installed a broadband router and hooked up my second computer. I had to make a 100 foot long Ethernet cable to reach between rooms.
The digital camera is a Canon Powershot A40. It is an older model, but loaded with features. I have been very happy with it so far. The movie mode is very nice.
I have a Palm Pilot m500. I have barely had it out of the box. So many toys, so little time.
Mark Pendergast
Da Prez
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A Reload Story
I have had Microsoft Encyclopedia Encarta for a couple of years. I tried to use it after I had my computer updated a year ago. It didn't work. I forgot about it. About 2 weeks or so ago I decided I wanted to play with it. The disk drive would not read my encarta disks. It said there was a component missing. I uninstalled the program and tried to reinstall. Again, the disk drive would not read the disks. I had my son-in-law come over to try it. He concluded the disk was bad. I called Mark and he had some suggestions. I tried all of them without success.
I didn't believe the disk was bad because I had some file icons show up even though they soon disappeared. I took the installation disk to Staples and asked them to put it on one of their computers. Lo and behold! The home page showed upon three monitors. So, we proved the disk was not bad. The only other alternative was a bad disk drive. I went to Circuit City. They had a good deal on a CD/RW drive. I was ready for that. I put the disk drive in. I was very careful to put it in the same way the old one came out. Wha hoppen?????
When I tried to boot the computer, a little note says "hard disk drive failure." Eeeeeeeeh. I sure didn't expect that.
I called my son-in-law again. He brought his family over one evening and spent about an hour and a half trying to get it to work. Finally did. Something about one drive being slave to the other. Makes sense, maybe. We downloaded the software for the burner. Then loaded my Encarta on the computer.
The next day I tried to burn a CD. Couldn't. It would go so far and then say put in the disk. The disk was already in. I don't know how many times I went over this. Called my neighbor, Stud Whitcomb, who had burned my genealogy CDs. He brought over some CD/R disks. He was able to write to them. He was not able to write to my CD/RW disk. We have concluded the disk is bad. Took it back to Circuit City. They are going to get me a new one. I could buy some more but am not sure how much I would use them. Hopefully, a new disk will solve the problem. END
A couple days later I tried to use my Encarta. Again, the disk drive would not read the installation disk. Horsed around for a while. Finally, uninstalled the thing. I crossed my fingers and hoped it would reinstall. Yippee! It did.
Ken Berryman
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Free Musicmatch Jukebox
Any of the new computers that I have seen ordered in the recent past have come with a program installed in them called Musicmatch.
I am on my third version of Musicmatch Jukebox. You go to www.musicmatch.com. After you get there go to the Musicmatch product link. Select "download". Then if you select download "Basic", it is FREE! It takes about one half to one hour to download, depending on your speed.
This program allows you to record into your computer all of your favorite CD's and tag them according to what type of music they are. You will have them organized by title, artist, album, genre (ie: country, pop, ballad, etc.). It will also keep track of the time for each track. After they are organized, you can play them in any group or order while you are working on your computer. These groupings can be saved as a "playlist" and recalled anytime you want.
The music library can be sorted by any one of these categories (ie: title, artist, album, genre) for easy selection as to your preference. I find this program a very useful tool to use in conjunction with Roxio CD Creator.
This program makes spending long hours on the computer relaxing by having some of your favorite music in the background. Try it out!
James E. Calabro
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My new Dell Computer
I finally ordered my new computer. It took about two years longer than I anticipated, but I have been busy lately. I ordered from Dell. This was the first time I actually ordered it on the internet. This is also the first time I used e-check to pay for it.
The computer is a 2.4 GHz Pentium 4 in a black mini-tower case. I ordered 256 MB of RAM and a humongous 120 GB hard drive. I have both a CD burner and a DVD drive. The Nvidia video card has 64 MB of memory. I also got a 56 KB modem, an Ethernet card and some Harmon Kardon speakers.
I ordered the system on Sunday December 8th at 3pm. I used the Dell web site and submitted the order on-line. (This is the first time I used the on-line order process for a computer. Normally I configure the system on-line and then call the 800 number to actually order the system.) The menus were a little confusing, but I made it through. I almost didn't find the confirm button. (It took a while to paint on the screen.)
I selected the e-check method of payment at the insistence of my wife. (One new adventure per day is my rule, but she didn't want to put it on a credit card. - All in all this is probably a good thing - I have preached the evils of credit cards for many years!) The e-check was a disaster, and delayed the shipment by a few days, but that is another story. (My wife has promised to write it for me - should make a good addition.)
The system arrived, as usual, a few days ahead of schedule. I was on vacation so I was able to open it up right away.
My first job was to make room for the new system. I knew from experience that I had to keep my old system running for a period of time to reduce my risk of having something not work on the new system. I dismantled the old Gateway P100 and stuck it in the corner on top of my filing cabinet.
I get a spiral notebook for my new system. I have learned to write everything down so I can refer to it if I need to call tech support or reconstruct what happened.
The first entry was the packing list for each of the boxes I received. (Not the packing list they sent, but my own packing list of what was actually in the boxes.) The system unit looked OK. I collected all the documentation and CDs and stuck them in a box for later reference.
The second box posed my first problem. I had ordered a 19 inch flat screen monitor. The monitor in the second box was just a normal CRT. I called the Dell customer service 800 number. The hold time was only about 4 minutes. I talked to the representative and she told me the monitor was a flat screen CRT, not a flat panel display. (I thought the price had been too good to be true.) The flat screen CRT had a totally flat screen to the glass so it did not curve at the edges to distort the picture. I checked the part number on the order against the part number on the packing list - It was the same monitor I had ordered. She offered to upgrade it to a flat panel monitor for the difference in price of the monitor. (I suspect this would have been about $1000.) I declined and thanked her for her service.
I set the computer at my old computer desk. I had to put the case on the floor because the new mini-tower would not fit where my old desktop gateway was. This was not all bad - I have room to do this, because I pitched the old UPS I had with the Gateway. It also freed up some desk space I could use for other things.
I fired up the computer and everything came up pretty well. I installed all the stuff that popped up asking to be installed. I created accounts for all my family members. Now I will get a chance to become familiar with Windows XP Home so I can debug problems on my kids PC. I ran the checkpoint program and check-pointed a recovery point just after a clean install.
I ran MS Word. It jumped into the MS Office install program. The install was pretty smooth. Then it asked me if I wanted to register the software. I didn't have the internet hooked up yet so I told it to ask me later - it said I could only use the software 30 times before registering.
This was a new situation for me. (My first Dell had all the software pre-registered.) For those of you who are not using Windows XP - the registration now ties your software license to a hardware configuration to prevent software piracy. You must contact Microsoft and activate your software with that particular hardware. In theory if you were stealing thousands of copies of the software Microsoft would notice all the different activations of the same software serial number with thousands of hardware configurations and bust you.
After getting my Broadband Ethernet and router set up I was able to register my software.
I also ran Windows Update. It was pretty cool to download all the 8 MB of patches to my system in just a few minutes.
I did have another small shock. I went to try MS PowerPoint and couldn't find it. This time I checked the web site and found out that Microsoft, in their infinite wisdom, has replaced PowerPoint with MS Publisher in their MS Office Small Business OEM Edition. One of the main reasons I bought MS Office, instead of the cheaper MS Works suite was to get PowerPoint so I could work on work at home. Now I will have to upgrade to the Professional Edition to get PowerPoint. (Oh well, another lesson learned.)
As you can see (read?) I have had a good Christmas. I will keep you up to date as I learn more about Windows XP and my new computer.
Mark Pendergast
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