Part One - Summary: 01/10/07 Wed Nite KH Computer Help Desk Chatroom Session

[mommalina]

Part One - Summary: 01/10/07 Wed Nite KH Computer Help Desk Chatroom Session

T'was a quiet night, with members stopping by throughout the evening and
Rich working on a computer during the entire session. KH tied for 4th place in
computer rooms. We closed at about 12:20 AM, when Lawrence and his
fellow Australian, new visitor phantomgryphon, ended a lengthy conversation
which was way above my head (I had sneaked into the other room to check on
the status of my Korean soap opera ..:violin:.. the heroine is going away
without telling her boyfriend, hoping that he once again will be accepted by
his parents.)

WHO WAS THERE

KH MEMBERS - Lina, Lawrence, John, Dan, Billy (Wildred), Elliot
(back in town!) Pete, Rich, Photolady, Rob (kern).

PARTICIPATING VISITORS - shapeless, tdiedwards, coyote, soheyman_3,
nett_usa, phantomgryphon, wdewdpkr

COMPUTER TOPICS DISCUSSED

XP MICROPHONE BOOST

If you have a problem increasing your microphone volume while on Paltalk,
go to Control Panel > Sounds.

VISTA

Vista isn't getting the "gung-ho" that XP and the previous versions got. No
surprise. After putting up with W98, many users are still enamored and
comfortable with XP......except for Al, of course, who fears separation
anxiety if he abandons his beloved W98ME .. ;)

Vista Home Premium does not have abilities of more expensive versions.

John: I have sent two coupons out for ordering Vista. If you want to keep
current and add value to your pc, Vista is a solid decision. It should keep
you current for another three to five years.

Windows Vista has no reactivation. It is WGA. Activate every 6 months.

There's Vista Volume Activation 1 and Vista Volume Activation 2.
Every single copy over 25 requires activation.

Check Newegg for Vista and Vista upgrades:
http://promotions.newegg.com/microsoft/vista/index.html

OEM at newegg was $139 a month ago, may still be. Home upgrade was
$89 two days ago.

WHAT DO YOU GET FOR VISTA UPGRADE COUPONS?

John: My order specially stated the 'CD/DVD' for the upgrade would be
shipped. The order includes shipping for the media. You don't pay shipping
for a download.

Dan: It is a DOWNLOAD. You will have to download the 2.5 gb from
Microsoft, and what you are going to get is a Product Key in the mail.
Vista upgrade to end users will NOT be a media. It is going to be a
download. What you decided on is whether you are going to get the cd iso
download or the dvd download - you get the entire 2.5gb because that is
how MS has released Vista.

Tune in next week or watch the forum for clarification when John's Vista
upgrade arrives in the mail.

LINUX

Linux seems to be developing at a rapid pace. Linux l APC Magazine
(Australian publication) - http://www.apcmag.com.au/

Lawrence's Linux magazine says they're not happy with Vista--activation,
malware problems.

Suse Linux 10 is a direct download. Lots of information via Google:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=suse+10&btnG=Google+Search

SWITCHING AOL MAIL TO OUTLOOK, OUTLOOK EXPRESS

Dan: There's a tool to do this........Rich: Don't try it!

AOL used to be the only ISP around, offered programs for free. Those
now switching to broadband stay with their programs because that's all they
know or it's too much trouble to switch mail programs.

AOL is notorious for compressing any email attachment of 2 or more files
sent to or from.

AIM (AOL INSTANT MESSENGER) UPGRADE

Elliot had problem with AIM upgrade. Dan said the upgrade was one of the
worst and advised him to go to Add/Remove, take it out, then install earlier
version.

BULLGUARD AV

Lawrence gets Bullguard's newsletter, says it's great. I check out their web
site daily, it's great too! http://www.bullguard.com/news/

AI (ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE)

Visitor tdiedwards asked, "Anyone tried programming AI?" When he did
not get an immediate reply, he wrote, "k, i guess you guys aren't nerdy
enough to help me, cheers anyway, see ya." ..... Hmph! Not nerdy enough?
Stick and stones will break our bones but names will never harm us. .. :argue:

AI is actually a source code algorithm used in Lisp programming language.
For Lisp see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisp_programming_language

ZIP FILES

Elliot: How to open RAR Zip file (email friend in UK)? Get a RAR program.

WinRAR - Windows data compression utility that focuses on the RAR and
ZIP data compression formats for all Windows users. Supports RAR, ZIP,
CAB, ARJ, etc -- http://www.win-rar.com/

IZArc - freeware archive utility supporting many archive formats like:
7-ZIP, A, ACE, ARC, ARJ, B64, BH,; BIN, BZ2, BZA...
http://www.izarc.org/

PKunzip - compresses files an average of 50-70% with many large text and
database files compressing ..
http://membrane.com/synapse/library/pkunzip.html

Dan: pictures (jpg, gif, tif, etc ) don't compress

PHOTOLADY AND HER MICROPHONES

She thinks she broke the one Elliot sent her. Billy has come to her rescue
and sent her another! Great example of our family of users helping users.
Thanks, guys! .. :grouphug:

MAC TV, iPHONE

Pete was bursting with enthusiasm for the Steve Jobs presentation
about MAC TV or iPhone and urged us to watch it:
http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/j47d52oo/event/

iPhone is a computer, iPod, cell phone; a full fledged computer you use
your finger to change the screen.

Apple stock went up nicely the past few days.

USB MEMORY STICK QUESTION

Elliot asked the question. Lengthy oral and typed discussion way above
my head. Looks like a lot of helpful information. Sorry.........that's why
you gotta be there! See what you missed?

(See next post for Part Two of Summary)

[Terry Hanushek]

Lina

Lawrence's Linux magazine says they're not happy with Vista--activation, malware problems.
What a surprise .. a Linux pub taking a shot at Windows :)

ZIP FILES

....

PKunzip - compresses files an average of 50-70% with many large text and database files compressing .. http://membrane.com/synapse/library/pkunzip.html
There is a bit of computer nostalgia - the original pc file decompression program and companion to the famous PKZIP - in its original DOS format and unchanged since 1993. PKZIP / PKUNZIP was one of the first computer utility programs that I actually bought.

Terry

[qldit]

What a surprise .. a Linux pub taking a shot at Windows :)


Good Morning All, actually that particular magazine was essentially a technical computer persons magazine mainly catering for general computing and all different operating systems, the interesting thing was that when they began introducing Linux articles the sales "skyrocketed" so they began introducing more items.

The finding was that at higher technical levels there was a great deal of interest in Linux systems. Especially servers and that kind of thing.

The majority of items remain MS Windows orientated and give a lot of data on high-end machines, this month (Feb 07) is especially Vista related.
As Rich suggested a gig of RAM minimum, but they also suggest high-end products for the complete machine build to be able to obtain the "Vista" experience.

The magazine contains a DVD with all the latest information industry wide, plus all the latest drivers and utilities, maybe a playable game demo, often "how to" video turorials mainly windows systems, sometimes a Linux distro and other programs accompanied with freshly superceded mainstream commercial software full programs.
These commonly have upgrade special deals, but the idea is excellent from my perspective.
Typically this month has a Streaming Flash Video Encoder to convert ordinary video to stream ing flash media, so these kinds of things can be useful.
A complete CAD program and others have also been presented.

So as technical magazines go, this particular one is a decent benchmark in the industry with focus on technical people, and is more or less required reading generally!!!

One really interesting item is that advertisers must be prepared to allow all their products to be openly discuussed and compared with other items in benchmarking and other tests.
This has resulted in some degree of advertising truthfulness in this magazine, it often happens where advertised items may be kind of ridiculed, so a degree of integrity in advertising has evolved, more or less like "advertise here if you dare" so it does have some interesting asides.

Cheers, Lawrence.