in this issue Views From the Top From The Font & Election News Upcoming Meeting Topics Don Talk Special Interest Group (SIG) November 2003 Board Minutes New equipment observations PC Security Web Potpourri

This will be PCCC's Annual Christmas Party
Good Food, Good Friends and Good Door Prizes.
I'll see all ticket holders there!!

Views From the Top

Richard Kinkel, President

By the time you read my report, the club's Christmas party will be occurring this week and you'll get a chance to socialize with all of your computer buddies and their significant others. I can't wait, since the Christmas party is a lot of fun. The event also marks the end of the year, and I think it is a good time to reflect.

At the beginning of the year the club: 1) was predicted to die, 2) very few members came to any of the programs, 3) most of the board positions were unfilled, 4) the only people who were willing to do the programs were a few of the remaining active members, 5) the only SIGs going were the digital Photo SIG & 6) the club President wasn't coming to any of the board meetings. I apologize to have to bring up the negatives.

BUT WHAT A DIFFERENCE A YEAR MAKES!

Going into the end of the year the club: 1) is predicted to strive, 2) we're filling the room with people who come to the programs, 3) We only have two board vacancies, 4) We're getting qualified outside speakers for our programs, 5) We have three active SIGs and a fourth on the way & 6) We got a new club President, me!

Additionally, Paul Reiss will be responsible for getting the speaker for our January program; he told us he's trying to get a security expert from IBM. And our programs for February and March will be a service community out reach program, where we will bring in donated computers that need refurbishing and at the general meeting we will ask our membership to help us refurbish these computers. And then donate these computers to a worthy cause. Don King just helped an individual in need get a computer, his first name is Ben. And I would like to welcome Bob Carraway to the Board. Bob will be membership Chair. WHAT AN EXCITING TIME TO BE A MEMBER OF THIS CLUB.

And I want to say: what a nice way to end the year. I'll see you at the Christmas Party.

The list of prizes is at the link below. Dewey did his normal great job of getting donations to make the party complete.

Christmas Party Prize List

	From The Font & Election News
Keith Wales, Sr. Ted Hessberg Well here we are the Holiday Season!! Turkey on Thursday check out lines on Friday. Or if that is not your thing check out the Web Potpourri this month. It has many online places to shop. Remember when you shop on line be sure you know who you are buying from and that the little padlock in the lower left corner, on most browsers, shows it is locked to indicate that you are in a secure site. As most of you know the Christmas Party is this month's meeting and will be on the regular night December 11th. As we have in the past the party will be at St. Gabriel's Catholic Church on the corner of Sharon Lane and Providence Road. For any one who has not been there before come down Providence and turn in at the back of the church. The Party will be in the building on your right. Come in the center doors and there will be a sign pointing out where the party is. There will no doubt be a lot of traffic around as the church has its Christmas Tree Lot going and there is always a lot of activity. Unfortunately by the time you get this newsletter it will be too late to get tickets as we have to let the Church know by December 1 how many will be coming. But for those of you have gotten tickets I am looking forward to seeing you at the party. I am very happy to welcome an old column and friend back to our pages, Don Talk returns for this month and hopefully more to come. The message of Don Talk this month is different from previous ones and it shows that community spirit is alive and well. Don King spearheaded an effort of club members to help a gentleman get a computer so he could try to be self sufficient. Please read this article if you don't have time to read anything else. We have another civic project and learning experience coming in early 2004. Bill Barnes and Paul Reiss have acquired several computers that need refurbishing and rebuilding in order to make them usable for needy individuals. The Board at its last meeting decided that we would make this club meeting project. We are presently planning on doing this the February and March meetings. This will be an opportunity for every member to get their hands inside a computer and help with the restoration. But we do need things in order to make this a reality. These computers do not have CD-ROM drives and they don't all have monitors with them. The CD-ROM drives will have to be purchased by the club or a member, these are not expensive anymore. But the monitors present more of a problem. If you are one of the lucky ones that Santa brings a new Flat Panel Monitor to for Christmas would you please consider donating your old working monitor to the club for this project. Remember that old monitor is full of hazardous waste and should not be thrown away. If you have a monitor that fits this please email the board at board@pc3.org and let us know what you have. Someone will contact you and let you when and where to bring it. Well, enough for this month see you at the Christmas Party and next month in the "Font".   Club Elections Are Coming Ted Hessberg Elections are coming. PC3 elections for President, Vice President, Treasurer, Secretary and Newsletter Editor will be held at the March 11, 2004, General Meeting. The nominating committee is charged with receiving nominations from club members. Once an individual has been nominated, the nominating committee will ascertain that the nominee is ready and willing to assume the office if elected. The nominating committee will also conduct the elections. And, oh yea, hanging chads will not be permitted. The current slate of nominees is as follows: Office...................Nominee President ................Richard Kinkel Vice President Secretary Treasurer ................Pam Wales Newsletter Editor......Keith Wales As you can see, nominees are needed to fill out the slate of elected officials. PC3 is our club. We need a Vice President and a Secretary just to run it. Please contact Ted Hessberg, that's me, to nominate someone for any position. Nominees will be accepted and qualified right up to the March 11th, elections. Traditionally, other Board members are needed to run the club. These Board members include: Office.......................Designee Membership................Bob Carraway Webmaster.................Dewey Williams Assistant Treasurer Forum Director............Virginia Host SIG Director................Bill Barnes Database/PigSig/Office..Bill Barnes Digital Photography.......Richard Kinkel Club members interested in assisting as a board member should also contact Ted Hessberg. My email address is nominating_chair@pc3.org   Nominate a Friend »

	Upcoming Meeting Topics
December The Annual PCCC Christmas Party and Supper   January Dr. Paul Reiss will introduce a speaker from IBM, Topic to be Determined.   February We will start our computer rebuilding.   March Election of New Officers We will hopefully complete our computer rebuilding.

	Don Talk
Don King This column is your PC3.0rg place to ask questions, which will not always get the thought they deserve. Technical data is usually gleaned from maintaining computers for Grandchildren and surfing the Internet. It is usually written under duress because I hate deadlines. It lacks research because I throw out all of my old PC Magazines. This is not always the serious stuff this club is known for, and nothing is planned too far in advance of publishing date.   On the serious side, a tale of helping hands A few weeks ago, our President, Richard Kinkel passed on to members of the Board what I thought was an unusual inquiry for a volunteer to fix an old 385 computer. We didn't usually receive requests that carried some of these social implications. I was intrigued by the content of the message and the very personal revelations revealed in asking for help. Our requests for help are usually of the technical nature, but this contained some clues to needs beyond the usual computer Nerd type of inquiry fielded by our broad based techs. The message started out "I am permanently disabled and contained some clues: · Lives on $1,000 a month." · Need a better computer · I'm not computer literate · I believe I can write books · Disabled · I started a book · The 386 broke · PhD · Skills and discipline · Can someone in "your" club help me? · Sincerely · I may have met you · Library Email Many of you may have seen the movie "The Gospel of John" the scene where Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the well. I thought of that scene because her needs were great, almost unimaginable to those of us who have not been frowned on because of our disabilities, shortcomings, or our ethnic origins. The word permanent kept gnawing at me and then decided to brush sincerity and caution aside. I called the number provided and learned a great deal through the first telephone conversation. I heard things like; · PhD from University of Florida · Masters thesis · Doctoral dissertation · Two cats · No car · Terminated by LSU · Teaching · Loves to read · Hates Housekeeping · Loves his Part Time work with NC Wildlife · Frustrated by computer problems · Cannot put down thoughts except 1hr at a time at the library. We decided to get together for coffee, and we met at the library, and had coffee across the street. We talked about me, and how he would be the same age as my late son, Neil. He appeared healthy to me, except his arms and chest seemed out of proportion to the rest of his body. (I learned later that this was due to his disability treatments). He works with a rehab center and the NC Career Opportunity agency, and because of budget limitations, help has been difficult. He has reached out to his church and Alpha program where help has been consistent, but sometimes transportation becomes an issue. When help hasn't been inconsistent, he has run up credit card debt, far beyond the limits of most card companies, and his creditor's keep him under surveillance at all times. I left that first meeting counting my Blessings, and family support through the difficult times. As we parted, we arranged to get together again, and I suggested that we would try to send out an appeal for help in restoring his computer, or securing something better. I offered to loan him my lap top until we determined what was out there would work. We met again a week later and he took me to the apartment that was near by. His adoration for books was very evident, with books stacked everywhere. We set up the lap top and he was back in the business of writing. He had hard copy of his book, and we are gradually restoring this through typing and scanning. My wife received a call expressing Thanks, and disbelief that he was back working at home. The next event was something I will always remember. A pc3.org member called and wondered if I could use a computer that was taken out of the rubbish at the curb. He and his buddy (another Pc3.org member) picked it up in the rain, dried it out, reformatted the drive, and installed the Win 98 operating system. He brought it over and the donated copy of MS Works 2000 was installed. All we were interested in was the Word 2000 piece of the Works program. The computer runs fine, but it is a small hard drive and limited resources. This was delivered to our client soon after, and my wife received another call of happiness and Thank You. The club support was an essential part of seeing this through. The computer from the curb is a solution, but I still feel he needs a computer with a little larger capacity, and peripheral storage capability. I could see other needs beyond a computer. I can also appreciate how a missed pay check puts some folks out on the street. Our fondest hope is that our friend (and former member) will hang tough and earn sufficient funds to sustain comfort and he will find meaning in the work he is doing. We didn't change the world, but we wanted our members to know that we helped someone who sat in our meetings, where we have been sitting. I have not revealed here the name of our client, because I do not want to exploit a person with problems that have implication beyond an ordinary friendship.

	Special Interest Group (SIG)
Special Interest Group NO SIG's WILL MEET IN DECEMBER FROM ALL THE SIG LEADERS HAVE A HAPPY AND SAFE HOLIDAY SEASON WE HOPE TO SEE EVERYONE BACK IN JANUARY     SIG Calendar »

	November 2003 Board Minutes
November 2003 Board Minutes The PCCC Board met November 24 at The Ole Smokehouse on Montford. Attending were new membership chairman Bob Carraway, Ted, Richard, Loren, Paul, Jack, Bill, Keith, and Pam (if you don't know everyone, come to the meetings and meet us). We welcomed Bob who volunteered to help with membership recruitment, retention, and identification. We still need more people to participate in the advisory and administrative opportunities for the club. Open Board positions include vice president and secretary. We particularly need someone to take up the mantle of SIG Director. The demands on your time are not onerous, but this is one of the more publicly visible positions - that means opportunity to get goodies from vendors. Filling all of these positions is important to the vitality of the club. If you don't volunteer for one, you'll have to read this paragraph again next month. The Board voted to acquire business cards. CF&S (computor@bellsouth.net) printers offered to produce them for free. Please remember them for your forms and card needs. Much of the discussion was how to proceed with the club's service project of refurbishing old computers for charitable needs. We will be doing major work on some already donated computers as the February and March general meetings. Before that time, two or three people need to help Bill with preparations. This will require one or two Saturday mornings in January. If you are interested, please contact Bill at Bill@pc3.org or 704-607-6461. There's something here for everyone to do to help and possibly to learn. We look forward to seeing all our paid members at the Holiday Party. If you need to join to have an opportunity for all our fun, subscription is only $5 and you can pay at any meeting or mail it to PCCC Treasurer, Pam Wales, 15214 Millview Trace Lane, Mint Hill, NC 28277, treasurer@pc3.org.   Submitted by Bill Barnes October Treasurers Report Beginning Balance............................$2736.92 Income (From Membership, Tickets & Interest).....................505.22 Expenses (Newletter, Bank Fee )................37.63 Current Balance...............................$3204.51 Submitted By Pam Wales Help with the service project. »

	New equipment observations
Bill Barnes, PCCC HP Gets a Clue I manage about 50 Hewlett Packard LaserJets, including 23 LJ 1200s. I recently ordered another and received an LJ 1300 -- the successor to the 1200. Although they're both built on the same chassis, HP made some minor changes that I appreciate. For about 5 years HP has hidden the plug for the printer cable -- and on some models, the power, too -- behind a panel that ranges from difficult to impossible to remove and reattach. The LJ 1300 moves these connections back to the outside of the case. They even returned a power switch to the printer, although it is on the back. They still have just a 3-light "indicator panel" and single button that you have to pull the manual out every time you want to use them. Unfortunately, the 1300 uses a different toner cartridge than the 1200. I haven't investigated the changes in detail, but the new cartridge appears to have electrical contacts on it, so they probably put an anti-recycling chip in it. It's such a joy that my 1998-vintage LJ 5 Si uses the same cartridge as my 2001 LJ 8000. Dell Drops a Plug I recently ordered a couple Dell Inspiron 5100 laptops for a client. Inspiron is Dell's consumer-grade laptop while the Latitude adds features for a managed corporate environment and a couple hundred dollars to the price. I have an Inspiron 4100 that is essentially the same case as my Latitude C410s. They come with a full complement of legacy peripheral connectors. The I-5100 has exactly 1 power jack, 1 network jack, 1 VGA jack, 1 SVGA jack, 1 firewire jack, 2 USB jacks, and 1 PCMCIA slot; as well as modem and sound connectors. In that list did you miss anything? There's no parallel or serial port. The 3-1/2" disc drive is a third-party option. There's not even a keyboard/mouse jack. And if you use your laptop solely on the road you might not notice, but there's no docking station connector either. The idea is that all your peripherals now are USB-based. Most new top-line mice and printers are USB, and I know USB keyboards exist even though I've never seen one. But how do you connect an older Palm or printer? Last year I could shove my closed laptop in the docking station and instantly had a fully functional workcenter with permanently connected keyboard, mouse, monitor, network, and speakers, plus power. The new model is a USB port replicator. Now I connect a USB cable and still have to connect the monitor and power directly to the laptop. And since the power switch requires the laptop be opened, I have to turn it on before I put it aside.

	PC Security
Commonsense Steps For Protecting Your System On A Budget Jack LaPointe Our speaker for October was Jeff Jancula. Jeff is the VP for Corporate Information Security at Wachovia. His presentation was "PC Security - Commonsense Steps For Protecting Your System On A Budget". Jeff's extensive knowledge and experience maintaining information security throughout the Wachovia system gave us a first hand look at the security threats we face on a day to day basis. But, computer security is a limitless ideal, and enormous amounts of time and money can be spent pursuing it. Jeff was a member of our club a number of years ago and knows precisely how limited both of these resources can be in the home or small business setting. As a result, he tailored his presentation to dealing with this vast menace on a shoestring budget. That is, Jeff showed us how to get the most bang for the buck in fending off the countless threats present on the internet and in our workspace. Surprisingly, there are a great many defenses available to us. Some are just commonsense measures we can take on our own such as choosing strong passwords and not being careless about compromising them. Others are built into Windows such as the NAT firewall in XP, and the security upgrades available from Microsoft. It's just a matter of knowing how to put them into service. In addition, there is still a lot of security "freeware" out there. One must, however, be able to differentiate between the "Freeware" and "Malware". Finally, there are some issues so crucial that a good commercial product is a must. Antivirus programs fall into this category. Jeff gave us his views on dealing with these subjects. A copy of the PowerPoint slides from his presentation is available on line at the link at the bottom of this article For those who spend any time at all on the internet or who are responsible for a computer with crucial information on it, Jeff's program was an excellent source of information on the dangers that are out there and what can realistically be done about them.   Presentation Slides »

	Web Potpourri
The shopping frenzy has just begun. Personally, I like to stay out of the malls in November and December. I do most of my shopping online. When done properly, it's safe, fast and virtually headache free! This week, I've got the lowdown on coupon codes, low prices and more. SAVE SOME MONEY Shopping on the Net is the best because you can compare prices quickly and easily. Comparison shopping is where it's at. Grab those prices! http://www.pricegrabber.com/index.php/ut=42d2f682d5f 7d559 Looking for great deals this holiday season? PriceGrabber.com searches through many sites for any item you're trying to find. In addition to providing price comparisons, it also compares delivery rates Lets make a deal http://www.deal-finder.com/ Find the hottest deals of the day with this shopping search engine. There are bargains, all updated daily, on jewelry, electronics and clothing. Search the site for deals or pick up coupons to get big discounts on items you want! Get a jump on it http://www.jumpondeals.com/ JumpOnDeals.com has the latest coupons, sales, steals and deals for all major online stores. There's even a forum section where you can boast about your latest find. It's a bargain! http://www.techbargains.com/ Looking for computers, gadgets and electronic goods at an awesome price? Techbargains.com specializes in the world of personal technology. They've got coupons, rebates and alerts on special deals. DON'T RUN WITH SCISSORS Many times you can get free shipping or money off certain purchases just by entering a code. Before you buy anything online, check to see if you can save some money! Are you naughty or nice? http://www.naughtycodes.com Quickly and easily look up coupon codes from dozens of stores. They have a reporting system for new and invalid codes. Don't be left in the cold http://www.coolsavings.com Save money by registering with Cool Savings. You'll find printable coupons for a variety of deals. Save on groceries, clothing, dining out and more! TIPS Unfortunately, the holidays are also a time when scam- artists and swindlers try to take advantage of unaware shoppers. These sites offer information and tips to make your online purchases safer. Better Business Bureau online http://www.bbb.org/ The Better Business Bureau online allows you to file a consumer complaint online. It will forward your complaint to the vendor, and the BBB's participation can give a merchant that little extra incentive to comply. How much postage do I need? http://www.iship.com/priceit/price.asp You've found the perfect gift but you don't know if you should buy it online and have it directly shipped or buy it locally and ship it yourself. Find out what would be cheaper by estimating the postage with this handy calculator. AND FINALLY Sale of the century http://www.louisianapurchase2003.com/home.cfm 2003 marks the Bicentennial of the Louisiana Purchase. At 4 cents an acre, we bought enough land to create 15 states!   Dr. Paul Reiss, ISig Director This issue of Brian Livingston's newsletter was done from Comdex, the super-show electronics and technology event in Las Vegas. Among other items, it has pieces on overcoming a locked up Win 2K machine, asking for help solving a situation that occurred when installing an MS patch wiped out Outlook Express e- mails, Steve Bass' first book, PC Annoyances: A lot of tricks, all in one place -- including a site with lots of free scripts and programs to do them, as well as the award winners from Comdex and more. Please share this information with your colleagues You're encouraged to refer your friends and colleagues to this free newsletter. Because most e-mail programs don't correctly display a formatted message that's been forwarded, simply call people's attention to the permanent Web address of this issue: BriansBuzz.com/w/031120/.   Send me your favorite sites and you to could be in the spotlight next month. Link of the day »

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