President's Report

Welcome to spring (?). As I sit here writing this report the weather today again exceeded all January expectations. Actually, I'm pretty sure we will have to "pay" for this before winter actually departs.

One thing is for sure though, this weather makes one think about spring things-and one sure sign of spring is Comdex and a trip of learning, fun, great food, and "togetherness" I hope everyone is planning to join us on our voyage to Chicago. The snacks, the bingo, the computer technologies, the food, the fun talk all for just $25 (guests $35).

As an added incentive to encourage more to jdn the trip, am personally committing a new scanner or printer (winner's choice) as a prize for a WAUC member attending the trip. The details have to be worked out, but they will be announced at this month's General meeting. I am sure that there will be no entry fee, just attendance on the bus and WAUC membership-another reason to sign up, if you haven't already done so.

If you know of anyone thinking of joining our club or traveling with us on the bus as a guest, this might be the time for them to join WAUC. Join and pay before the trip and go for the member price (saving $10) and become eligible to win the bus trip prize.

I really hope this helps us get a full bus of WAUC members.

Roger Brinkmeier, President of WAUC

Those present at the board meeting on December 27, 2001, included Roger Brinkmeier, Dons Regner, Marcia Zientek, Terry Harvey. Bob Banerian, Made Bellin, and Bruce Kosbab. Leo Hoffer was recovering from a surgical procedure. The meeting was held at Marcia's home.

WAUC will again be chartering a bus to go to Comdex Chicago 2002, on Tuesday, March 5th. The estimated expenses were discussed and it was determined tickets would be sold for $25 for WAUC members, and $35 for non-WAUC members. That price will include a Polish buffet at Jolly's Restaurant and is nonrefundable. We will have flyers and a sign-up sheet at the January general meeting.

The Milwaukee PC and WAUC association was discussed. For Internet technical support WAUC members may contact their closest MPC store or Ken or Justin at (414) 332-0874. Roger will work up a brochure that will be included with the purchase of all MPC computers. Roger has eighteen software programs from LaFarge that he will bring for future door prizes.

Doris will purchase additional sweatshirts to be embroidered.

Membership directory expenses were discussed The printing costs alone for the 2001 directory were $170. Many members pick up their directory at the general meeting but for those who don't, we mail them out and postage becomes another expense. It was decided that in the future, directories will only be given out at the meetings. We will no longer be mailing them.

For those who haven't renewed their WAUC memberships, the February issue of WAUCtalk will be the last we will send out.

Submitted by Terry Harvey

If there is a program that you would liek to automatically start each time you start Windows, place a copy of the startup or executable icon in the Programs/Startup folder. One thing to keep in mind is that doing so will increase your boot time.

- Michael Vincent
 

Roger Brinkmeier opened his first meeting as WAUC president, January 3, by welcoming seventy members. Roger then outlined some of the goals he hoped to achieve in 2002, namely, updating the bylaws to define the responsibilities of the Board and hopefully to involve more members in greater participation in WAUC activities.

Milwaukee PC: Roger updated the membership on the meeting some Board members had with Milwaukee PC, WAUC's preferred ISP (Internet Service Provider). By establishing some guidelines, new members will have a more positive set-up and on-

COMDEX 2002: Roger urged anyone even remotely considering going to COMDEX on Tuesday, March 5th, to sign up so Leo Hoffer can determine how many to plan for before opening attendance to non-WAUC members. Details of the trip can be found in the newsletter. Leo also gave some of the highlights of the trip.

Newsletter:  Roger recognized WAUCtalk editor Marie Bellin for the work she puts forth putting together the monthly newsletter.

New Members: Roger asked new members and guests to introduce themselves.

E-Mail Addresses: Members are urged to inform either this secretary or any Board member of a change of E-mail address so as not to miss any of the bulletins Terry Harvey sends informing us of the latest WAUC news and useful Internet addresses.

SIG (Special Interest Group) Report:  Some SIGs were canceled due to the holidays, but Bruce Schneider told us the Investment SIG would be looking at buying stocks on line, commission free. At the Desktop Publishing SIG, Doris Regner will be demonstrating how to make a greeting card organizer.

Consult the WAUCtalk for dates and locations.

Secretary's Report: Terry reported on the December 27th Board meeting, which is included in this WAUCtalk.

Treasurer's Report: Bob Banerian reported.

DOM (Disk of the Month): New DOM Librarian Bruce Kosbab has a very timely program this month, Tax-Act 2001, with tax forms and laws; also a conversion calculator to use with measuring temperature, distance, volume, weight and energy.

Web Page: Webmaster John Hirsh reported that 2500 hits were made on www.wauc.info, WAUC's home page. John is planning to write articles in WAUCtalk regarding the webpage.

Questions/Problems:  Chris Gardner wanted to know what to look for when buying a new computer, considering that Don is heavy on gaming and she is graphic intensive. Terry recommended buying the standard amount of RAM when buying from the company, and buying extra RAM separately, which would be much cheaper.   Roger suggested more video memory, 64 megs would be good; also an accelerator card for game playing. Talking with computer makers for their recommendations would be advisable.

Ron Toro told us about PitStop, a free diagnostic site that analyzes one's computer. He installed more RAM into his computer and the report said his computer could not support more than the 64 megs. that he now has.

Leslie Saint wondered if anyone else had problems   sending e-mail on Naspa during mid-December. There seems to have been some problem, which had been corrected. Water damage seems to be a factor.

Marie Bellin wanted to know what is the best format to save graphics.   Leslie suggested saving as a .bmp or .tiff which would preserve all the data.

Bruce Kosbab cannot get into the Delphi board using Netscape, only with Explorer. Terry suggested logging in with a different name, also using the Internet addresses she sends out. Sandy Karolovich had a similar problem and called Milwaukee PC. The tech made some ad-

Calling one's ISP might be helpful.

Mike Kalawa wanted to know how compatible Windows XP is with the software that's on the market. According to Bill Regner, most of it is; besides, XP has a 95 and 98 emulator. Roger said we should save our Windows XP questions for next month when Microsoft Representative David Severino will be giving a presentation.

Raffle: Compton's 99 Encyclopedia for the PC; Family Tree for the Mac, and a WAUC sweatshirt.

Presentation: WAUC was again fortunate to have Emeritus Professor Leonard Levine of the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee give us some commentary on the world of computers, which included a worldview.  We never give a second thought to how doors open and close and the mechanics controlling them. And we seem to adapt to inconsistencies in how engineers design elevators with control panels on opposite sides of the door, or car door locks that open clockwise on the driver's side, and counterclockwise on the passenger side. We were amused to learn that Mrs. Levine, with a Ph.D., could not master their universal remote control, designed by engineers with little regard for the consumer. Do we wonder why pushing the up arrow on the remote advances the channels to the higher numbers, but when viewing the pro-gram schedule on the master channel, the numbers advance downward. Then Dr. Levine compared two important devices that are in constant use but with numerical arrangements opposite: the telephone and calculator. The calculator has the lower numbers on the bottom; the telephone has an opposite arrangement.

Dr. Levine explained the reason for these inconsistencies is because engineers designed for symmetry and to control costs, but did not allow for the confusion of the user.

In the computer world, as in word processing, we control a document by advancing a document using the scrollbar to move it up or down; but in Adobe Acrobat, we move the document down by pushing the hand up. None of this is wrong, but engineers do not design with a worldview in mind. If one is not attuned to the "proper" worldview, confusion could result in disastrous results. 

Dr. Levine gave more amusing examples of worldviews that held everyone's attention.  I'm sure as we look at our worldviews, we'll see more inconsistencies if we look closely enough and consider the applications.

But what are we supposed to do about this? If you are an Engineer or designer you are not to design the product for yourself, but for t but for the consumer. If you are a consumer of any product, whether it is furniture, appliances, or whatever, and are not able to use the product in the way it was designed, write or call the manufacturer letting them know of your difficulty. That is the only way we can get changes made in the equipment or merchandise we use.

Again, we are grateful to Dr. Levine for graciously sharing his insights with us.

Marcia Zientek, Secretary

Investment SIG

At Corporate Technologies, the meeting place of the Investment Tracking SIG, a class was in session and the SIG took over the back office, which this time, overflowed as fifteen WAUC members showed up. Glen Ehnert handed out printouts from one of the many websites offering investment analysis, www.BullMarket.com. Lots of interesting analysis.

While Bruce Schneider was setting up the projector, several members mentioned that they were not able to open the tax program on the January Disk of the Month. It has to be un-zipped, replied others. Still doesn't work, they said. Before anything could be resolved, Bruce began his presentation on how to buy stocks for free, using a series of links he had already set up on the old WAUC website, wauc@naspa.net.

What buying stocks for free means, is buying stock directly from the company for the normal price thereby avoiding the broker's com mission fees. This is done by taking advantage of what are known as Direct Purchase Plans, Dip's, and Dividend Reinvestment Plans, DRIPs. If the company has a DPP, stock can be purchased directly from the company, if a DPP is not offered, stock can be acquired as usual, through a broker, and then more stock can be acquired without commission, by having the dividends, or a portion of the dividends, reinvested in more shares, that is, using DRIP.

The nice thing about this is that over a period of time, it takes advantage of dollar cost averaging and dividends tend to increase. Some disadvantages are that the companies do charge fees when shares are sold and one has to keep ones own records of transactions, something your broker usually takes care of. Bruce took us to several very useful and interesting websites having to do with DRIPs. Among them were MotleyFool.com and InvestorsGuide.

com, which shows a very long list of impressive well-known companies offering DPPs and DRIPs.

As usual, whenever Bruce has access to a keyboard, he takes advantage of it to also show some of his website design work. The SIG ended with Dick Straub passing out directions to his residence where he will be demonstrating an investment service on Roadrunner, the Online Investors Advantage. OIA offers a system for selecting, analyzing, and timing the buying and selling ofstocks. This promises to be really good, so if you weren't at this SIG to get directions, go to www.Expedia.com or www.Mapquest.com and enter Dick's address, which is 6021Sycamore St. Greendale. See you there.

Submitted by Richard Durand

The first WAUC Apple II SIG for the new year of 2002 took place on Tuesday, January 8th. In attendance were the usual suspects, WAUC members Sister Sam-uel, Pat Nye, Dick Reinhard, Richard and Lorraine Schmit, Jim Gustavson, and Richard Durand.

As planned, we began reexamining the long neglected WAUC Apple II software library of forgotten treasures.  Richard Durand passed out additional copies of the library catalog which had been printed out at the last SIG. There were 20 pages listing an abundance of graphics, business and educational programs, and of course, games.

From the catalog, we each decided what we were most interested in. Jim selected one of the still well known Carmen Santiago games. Dick chose Amigo, an educational game of Spanish nouns and verbs, also a font editor and a keyboarding practice program.   Pat looked at some disks with card games and math puzzles. Richard & Lorraine looked at Print Shop, Word Challenge, and another keyboard practice program. Richard Durand selected a disk with business programs about investments, loans, and trend line analysis.

You can see what incredible variety is available and this is just scratching the surface. We all had to leave early so this was an abbreviated SIG but next month we will demonstrate the programs we chose to the other SIG members and continue examining the Apple II software library. Apple II Forever!

Submitted by Richard Durand

Comdex 2002

Preliminary Information to Determine Interest:

It's that time of the year, again, for all of you computer geeks to head south to Chicago for Comdex 2002. WAUC is planning on chartering a bus for Tuesday, March 5th, 2002.

We will leave at 8:30 a.m. from the Park and Ride lot on 6th and Holt. If you are not there on time, we will leave without you! We should get to Comdex about 10:30 a.m. We will serve juice and doughnuts on the way down, followed by a short Bingo session, with prizes. We will leave Comdex at 4:30 p.m. and proceed to the Jolly Inn for a 5:30 p.m. buffet dinner of genuine Polish food.

The cost this year will be $25 for WAUC members and $35 for non-WAUC members. This includes bus fare, tip for bus driver, juice and doughnuts, bingo, buffet dinner and restaurant gratuity. In order to determine if we have enough people interested in going, we request that you contact Leo Hoffer.

The bus normally accommodates 47 people, but we can order a 55 passenger bus if necessary. Seating and reservations are on a first come, first serve basis. You do not have to be a member to go on the trip. Invite your spouse, friends, neighbors, etc. We also welcome other computer club members.

Make your checks payable to Wisconsin All-computer Users Club. NO REFUNDS WILL BE ALLOWED. You must also pre-register with Comdex. See a copy of the registration form, or register on line at http://www.comdex.com for your free $100 exhibit pass. Priority code UAESSA!

Be sure to wear comfortable shoes, carry a bag for all the freebies, and have a supply of business cards or labels, so you won't have to fill out all the registration forms at the vendor booths.

Again, contact Leo or any board officer if you have any questions.

The Desktop Publishing SIG was held January 10^th 2002 at Corporate Technologies.

Doris demonstrated how to make Greeting Card Organizers. This is a booklet that has pockets for each month. On these pockets there are spaces for each day of the month where you can enter birthdays, anniversaries, etc. The front cover of the organizer can be personalized. The front inside and back inside covers have address pages. This is a great gift item for the organized card giver.

We started out the evening looking at Doris Regner and Sandy Karlovich's card organizers. They both were very similar with their own little touches.  Marcia brought along a homemade (tiny) box with graphics and name which she used as a place card for a table setting. A great idea which could be used later to hold candies etc. Doris also brought along a card she made with an edge decoration of gold self-sticking foil paper strips which she cut out using her decorative scissors. A great idea. Marcia said she had picked up paper like that at the Science Surplus Store on Oklahoma Avenue a while ago.

The organizer was made using the Print Artist Program, in the sign format. Pick a graphic and/or border for the front of the organizer. We decided that a nice touch when putting the text on the front of the organizer was to hook the font together. To do that: When in Print Artist go to effect and highlight touching. Then go to co/or, customize and pick the color you want for your text. You could also pick an outline color if you like.

To make a page of lines (such as for the address page) you open a text box. Use a sans serif font; such as Arial make an underscore for each line you want. When done click OK, go to alignment and check horizontal stretch, vertical justified. You will have lines stretched across your project that are evenly spaced. Marcia found this out on the PALs site that a lot of us belong to. PALs stands for Print Artist Lovers Site. Thanks Marcia.

To glue the right side of the Month sheets together you can use Aleenes or Elmers glue. The left side of the month sheet is left unglued. That's the side the comb goes onto when you put your booklet together. When you're done with your booklet you can go to Office Depot or Print Qra-fix on 76th Street to put on the combs.

We also went to iPhoto Plus 4 — opened Print Artist and picked a graphic. Doris showed us how to crop, lighten, resize and focus any graphic with this program.  IPhoto Plus 4 is a scanner program.

We also checked out a graphic viewer, Irfanview. We viewed graphics from of the computer and a CD that Doris brought along. We viewed the graphics in thumbnail size. Irfan-view seems to load graphics faster than ACDSee. Irfanview was a disk of the month for November 2000. Next month we will be checking out Irfanview further.

Sandy Karlovich

Once again Roger Brinkmeier filled two hours with excellent information to an overcrowded room of WAUC members at the Internet SIG for January.

During the initial question period Leo had several questions on Netscape. One question was whether you could upgrade Netscape and not loose your addresses.  The answer was "yes."

Several members reported having trouble with the McAfee antivirus program. In Roger's opinion, at this time, Norton is the better program.

There was a question about deleting files in "quarantine". If, when checking, the Norton program finds a problem that can't be fixed, it will send the problem file or files to "Quarantine". It is, without question, safe to delete any e-mail files but not safe to delete some Windows files. Best to notify Norton to have files in quarantine deleted. Should you delete an important Windows file, you can, of course, reload it. Remember, however, that it is a "reload", not a "new load."

There was a light discussion on the value of listening to Mozart while working: www.classicalarchive.com, you can locate an enormous number of classics to copy. The question arose about copyright regulations. One of our members ventured that the old arrangements are no longer covered by the laws. It is only the arrangements of recent times that fall under the copyright laws.

www.Howstuffworks.com was a site I found truly amazing.  Do check it out.   We visited the link which showed how screening technology now works, e.g. at an airport to match a person to a picture in a database. There is a huge data base of just passport pictures which can be matched in addition to all the other places where pictures are on file.

If you are interested in setting up networking at home this site will help you. At this point, Roger advised that you consider carefully the brand name you start with because he thinks it is advisable to stick with one brand name for all components of networking to avoid conflicts. Roger happens to like the brand Net Gear. 

E-mail filters was the second topic we covered. Each e-mail program has a slightly different procedure for setting up filters. All e-mails have some means by which you can filter your mail; be it to eliminate porn or to sort in any manner to different folders. With today's technology you are subject to receiving lots of e-mail, and learning to manage incoming mail through filtering is very helpful. Don't think responding to e-mail messages you don't want by using "please remove" works. Using this convenience only confirms to the sender that they have an active e-mail address.

The third topic this evening was photos. Roger showed us how it is possible to resize when you receive an e-mail with a very large picture. For a simple resize or crop procedure, you can use "stretch & skew" in your "Paint" Program.  More sophisticated work on a picture will require a photo editing program. Roger likes the "Photo Studio" by Arcsoft, but there are many other excellent programs.

Roger showed us another program "Print Screen" which he purchased for about $18. This program allows you to choose all or part of a screen and save it, print it, do whatever with it easily.

Thanks Roger — a good SIG.

A little aside — PLEASE refrain from side conversations during a presentation. It is very disconcerting for the presenter, the note taker and other members. It is also not a comfortable task for the leader to have to interrupt to remind you.

Nancy Setlock

Linux and Windows were on the minds of several people at the show, which included seminars in Windows XP.

At the show, some computer enthusiasts said companies have adopted Linux because it was more stable and less expensive. Also, some people were using Star Office, which they said was similar to Microsoft Word.

Some of the people who attended said they had successfully installed Windows XP. Dean Berg, vice president of Milwaukee Computer Society, said the most common problems on Friday were that there were people who had purchased Windows XP at the show in November, but later learned the product had no activation keys. When people came back to this show the vendor who had sold the Windows XP was nowhere to be found. Blue Star Productions of Minneapolis made amends by giving one couple an 80-day trial.

One person who came to the show said he had installed Windows XP with a double-boot. That allowed a person to still have Windows 98 or Windows ME still operate and also have some of the functions of Windows XP. Some people who had purchased Windows XP had software that would not work.

There were some values, but you had to be with Bill Vath, of IBM PC Users Club of Milwaukee to identify what was really good. Bill, who worked with IBM for 20 years, had purchased computers from the show for his church. He has also purchased items from Micomp.com of Chicago.

Obviously, the best time to buy is the last hour on Sunday when vendors want to lessen their product for the trip home. Some books could be purchased at 1/3 of the price. A cost of Norton SystemWorks 2002 is $75 in the store. Out of the box it's only $30.

Two events coming up are the Cyber Explosion, which will be held January 12th and 13th at the Midwest Express Center and the next Blue Star Super Computer Sale which will be held in March.

Submitted by John Hirsh

It’s only ten years since Tim Berners-Lee and a friend created the World Wide Web in Switzerland. His major concern was that the World Wide Web be free because at that time the University of Minnesota's Gopher system wanted to charge everyone. There was evidence that was the case since there were services such as Dialog Information Service, BRS, Lexus-Nexus, and CompuServe.

Our www.wauc.info was written using HTML (Hyper-Text Markup Language) otherwise known as the World Wide Web. The World Wide Web is an experiment and one thing you know from such things is that mistakes make the Web better I would like a lot of people to look at our site now, and again a month from now because it's going to be even better. Also, there is a Comments link on the top of wauc.info. I need to have you click it, open it up, say something about wauc.info and then push Submit Comments. If I see any messages, I will know this program works.

I think the most important part of www.wauc.info is information of what's coming up and who the officers are. But it also includes information for more help. The reason is that in computers, things change fast because no one knows everything in this fast-changing world. If you look at Media Links, there are sources such as USA Today where articles are both accurate and easier-to-read. Our Media Links and Latest Computer Technology includes sources from the New York Times, Silicon Valley, and other user groups from around the world.

You can make use of the Search Me link, which you can find at the top of your screen. I will eventually list some examples at the bottom of that page, but this is how it's supposed to work. On the top row of our web page, look for Search and/or Content . Choose a word and use the Search. That will take you to a month. Click there.

If you use Internet Explorer, go to Edit, Find Now. Type in the respective word. If it works, it should go right to the document. In Netscape 6.2, go to Search/Find on this Page or Find Again. Type in the word. That should go right to the item on the document you are interested in.

We recently changed our provider and web page address from wauc. naspa.net to www.wauc.info. With the help of Roger Brinkmeier (now president of WAUC), and former webmaster Bruce Schneider, we were able to save some of the history of WAUC in its articles and the links Terry Harvey had saved. In setting up the wauc.info site, I discovered broken links here and there. What I did not want was someone trying to open a link and find himself or herself with a bad link or a crash.

Fortunately, Frontpage 2002 has a new Reports function to find broken links. I am not sure if that's available elsewhere, but it's very helpful.

It is hard to know why there are broken links other than there are changes in ISP's (Internet Service Providers) from time to time.  On wauc.info, there are something like 3,000 links. Fortunately, I only had to fix, correct, or eliminate 150. As of January 2, 2002, we had something like 2,500 hits in only two months. That's remarkable since some of my other webs got up to only 2,000 hits in five years. That tells me WAUC is a very vigorous, vital user group, which I think is great.

I am currently using Frontpage 2002 on Windows 98SE. When I get Windows XP installed with Frontpage 2002, I will be able to get more statistics that would allow complex usage studies of www.wauc.info. At any rate, have a good time using www.wauc.info.

John Hirsh, Webmaster

The disk of the month has something to make your Valentine's Day a little brighter plus addictive game to keep you busy during those long winter days.

Funny Ball 2000 is a graphically enticing game.   Try to clear a path among the blocks to let the funny ball roll downhill to the escape hole. Choose from three skill levels Shooric's Love Fish is a screen saver that transforms a broken heart into a fish.

Bruce Kosbab, WAUC Software Librarian

Condolences

Our deepest sympathies to the family of John Quiery. John passed away on January 3, 2002. He was buried at the new Veteran's cemetery in Union Grove, after receiving full military honors. Our thoughts are with his family at this difficult time.