Computer News Inside This Issue The Napa Valley Personal

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Napa Valley Personal Computer Users Group http://www. nvpcug.org P.O. Box 2866 Napa, California 94558 COMPUTER NEWS Volume 29, No. 7 July 2012 Inside This Issue 2 2 3 4 4 5 5 6 7 8 9 12 15 17 18 19 21 22 23 24 2012 Potluck Picnic set for Interesting Internet Finds Officers List How to find Twitter’s hidden options NVPCUG Calendar Evernote 4 Kaspersky One Universal Security The Problem: Muffled Sound OpenClipArt Parted Magic Roxio Creator 2012 Perfect Photo Suite 6 Light Housekeeping for a Safe and Healthy Computer Microsoft OneNote, an All-Purpose Planner Get Your Photography on the Web Media Sharing & Devices POyNT Mastering Landscape Photography: Learn By Video The Painter Wow!, Book, 10th Edition Membership Application/Renewal * The Napa Valley Personal Computer Users Group will meet Wednesday, July 18th, 7:00-9:00 P.M. At the Napa Senior Activity Center, 1500 Jefferson Street, Napa, California The meeting begins with RandomAccess, an openfloor question-and-answer period during which attendees can ask questions about computers and computer-related problems and receive helpful information from other meeting attendees. Questions may be submitted before the meeting by emailing them to Random Access moderator Jerry Brown at [email protected]. Therewill not be Computer Tutor Topic for the July 18th Meeting . Jeff Solomon will be not be in attendance. Please email your ideas to the Computer Tutor, Jeff Solomon at [email protected]. The program for the July 18, 2012 meeting is TBA. If you have an idea or questions regarding Programs, email Ken Manfree at [email protected]. Susy Ball and Beth Pickering attended the Southwest Technolgy and Computer Confernce in San Diego in June. They attended several presentations given by user group members and vendors and participated in an EXPO by several vendors. There was also a digital photo contest. The DigitalArt catagory was won by Susy Ball. Next years conference will be held a bit closer to Napa at approximately the same time of year. You might want to bookmark www.theswcc.org and watch for details. Could you use some practical information that would help you make better use of your computer? Come to this meeting! Guests are always welcome. Admission is always free. Interested in becoming a member? See page 24 for application information. NVPCUG Computer News, July 2012 2012 Potluck Picnic set for Saturday, August 4th By coordinator Dianne Prior Please note that the picnic is early this year – the FIRST SATURDAY. Many thanks to Dick and Sandy Peterson for again graciously hosting our August Members Potluck Picnic. The location is the redwood grove and pond at Peterson’s Family Christmas Tree Farm, 1120 Darms Lane, Napa. The date is Saturday, August 4th from 12:00 Noon to 5:00 PM. You may sign up at the meeting on July 18th or at least by August 1st. You may e-mail me at [email protected]. I need to know your name, the names of any guest you are bringing, what food you are bringing for the potluck, and if you can help with setup or cleanup. NVPCUG Extra chairs are needed also. Napa Valley P.C. Users Group will barbeque chicken, hotdogs and tri-tip. The group will also provide nonalcoholic beverages, ice, and table service. Alcoholic beverages are BYOB. There will be games including, washer toss and floppy (CD) throw with prizes awarded to the winners. Other games (no prizes) include horseshoes, Yahtzee, Cribbage, etc. You’re welcome to bring cards or board games as well. This is a time to visit with old friends and make new ones. We hope to see you all there. The potluck picnic is always a lot of fun with plentiful delicious food. SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS & MAC GROUP Interesting Internet Finds In SIG meetings you can learn about a subject in greater detail than is feasible at NVPCUG general meetings. SIG meetings are open to everyone. Meeting times and locations occasionally change, so for current meeting information, see our Web site, www.nvpcug.org, or contact the SIG leaders. By Steve Costello, President/Editor, Boca Raton Computer Society, Florida, May 2012 Boca Bits, http:// about.me/sefcug, [email protected] In the course of going through the more than 200 news feeds in my Google Reader, I often run across things that I think might be of interest to other user group members. The following are some items I found interesting during the month of April 2012. Investors SIG (Long URLs shortened with the Google URL shortener http://goo.gl/ ) Meets: Monthly, second Monday 5:30 to 7:30 p.m Jerry Brown’s home, 23 Skipping Rock Way, Napa Leader: Jerry Brown (707) 254-9607 bqandjbb @sbcglobal.net Napa Valley Mac User Group Meets: Monthly, second Thursday 6:30 - 8:30 p.m. Napa Senior Activity Center 1500 Jefferson St., Napa Facilitator: Don Crandall (707) 322-0844 ronrogersnapamug @gmail.com Deciphering the Power Label on Your A/C Adapters http://goo.gl/6ljEj The Best Free Portable Apps for Your Flash Drive Toolkit http://goo.gl/JtJio Best Free Android Apps http://goo.gl/XyQr6 Webinar #11 - Mastering your own domain http://goo.gl/xSygZ How to Pick the Perfect Laptop http://goo.gl/whLEM * Term From Smart Computing: quit To end a session with a program by purposely closing the application. Reprinted with permission from Smart Computing. Visit www.SmartComputing.com/Groups to learn what Smart Computing can do for you and your user group! NVPCUG Computer News, July 2012, Page 2 Napa Valley Personal Computer Users Group Contact Information Officers for 2011 Board of Directors President Jim Gray unlisted [email protected] Vice President Ron Dack Julie Jerome unlisted [email protected] Secretary Marcia Waddell 252-2060 [email protected] Treasurer Roy Wagner 253-2721 [email protected] [email protected] Other Directors: Susy Ball, Bernhard Krevet , Dick Peterson, Bob Simmerman, Tom Uboldi, Mel Cohen, Ron Rogers and Jerry Brown Appointed Positions Computer Tutor Coordinator Jeff Solomon 553-2114 [email protected] Facility Arrangements Coordinator Dianne Prior 252-1506 [email protected] Greeter Coordinator Bob Simmerman 259-6113 needs an Assistant [email protected] Membership Director Bob Simmerman 259-6113 [email protected] Newsletter Editor Susy Ball 337-3998 [email protected] Product Review CoCoordinator Susy Ball Marcia Waddell 337-3998 252-2060 [email protected] [email protected] Programs Director Ken Manfree 707-224-3722 Bernhard Krevet-asst. (unlisted) [email protected] [email protected] Publicity Director Mel Cohen unlisted [email protected] Random Access Moderator Jerry Brown 254-9607 [email protected] Webmaster Ron Dack unlisted [email protected] needs an Assistant ( All telephone numbers are in Area Code 707) NVPCUG General Meetings Held the third Wednesday of each month, 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. Napa Senior Activity Center, 1500 Jefferson Street, Napa NVPCUG Computer News, July 2012, Page 3 NVPCUG Computer News Computer News (ISS 0897-5744) is published monthly by the Napa Valley Personal Computer Users Group, Inc. (NVPCUG), P.O. Box 2866, Napa, CA 94558-0286. Subscriptions: $30 for one year (12 issues). Editor: Susy Ball, [email protected]. The material in Computer News is intended for noncommercial purposes and may not be reproduced without prior written permission, except that permission for reproducing articles, with authors properly credited, is granted to other computer user groups for their internal, nonprofit use only. The information in this newsletter is believed to be correct. However, the NVPCUG can assume neither responsibility for errors or omissions nor liability for any damages resulting from the use or misuse of any information. The NVPCUG is an IRC 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit educational organization (EIN 680069663) and is a member of the Association of Personal Computer User Groups (APCUG), an international organization. Donations to the NVPCUG are taxdeductible as charitable contributions to the extent allowed by law. Copyright © 2012 by NVPCUG. How to find Twitter’s hidden options By Linda Gonse, Editor/Webmaster, ORCOPUG (Orange County PCUG), California, April 2012 issue, Nibbles ‘n Bits, www.orcopug.org, [email protected] More people are using the Twitter social networking site If I hover my cursor over someone else’s tweet the and finding out that they like the mini-blog that allows them options are Reply, Retweet, Favorite, and Open. 140 characters to say whatever they want to say. But, There’s no Delete. there is more to Twitter than tweeting (posting a comment). A new Twitter user might not realize there are options that are hidden, unless a user knows how to find them hiding in plain sight. Clicking on the Open hyperlink allows the tweet to For instance, hovering over a tweet will reveal links that expand when other tweets are associated with it. The expanded tweet will also reveal if other people have might not be found anywhere else. What’s more, depending on the type of tweet the hidden favorited your tweet or retweeted it. options will be different. For instance, if I am just looking at my tweet on the page and not hovering the cursor over it, I only see the time or date when it was written in the upper right-hand corner. If I hover my cursor over the tweet, however, hyperlinked options — Reply, Delete, Favorite, Open — appear on the same line as my name at the top of the tweet, but in the right corner in green text. I can click on Reply to the person who posted the tweet. I can Delete the tweet. This option is only available to the person whose tweet is posted. In other words, only I will see the Delete link for my tweets. And, only I can delete my tweets. I can mark it as a Favorite—it won’t be cycled out of my timeline, but parked in a permanent area on my Profile page for favorite tweets when I want to reference it again. Finally, I can Open the tweet to read replies that others have had to this specific tweet. This is a recent innovation at Twitter. It is now possible to view your tweets in a thread, including replies to another person in their open threads. It is very convenient to view the conversations that are revealed, because there may be several hours, or sometimes days, between a tweet being posted and replies to it. The Open link automatically changes to a Close link. You can collapse all the tweets again, except the original tweet, when you have finished reading them. * NVPCUG Calendar Jul 18 Aug 3 Aug 4 Aug 9 Aug 13 Aug 22 Sept 10 Sept 14 Sept 19 Oct 8 Oct 11 Oct 17 Nov 21 7:00-9:00 p.m. 10:00-11:30 am. 7:00-9:00 p.m. 6:30-8:30 p.m. 5:30-7:30 p.m. 7:00-9:00 p.m. 5:30-7:30 p.m. 6:30-8:30 p.m. 7:00-9:00 p.m. 5:30-7:30 p.m. 6:30-8:30 p.m. 7:00-9:00 p.m. 7:00-9:00 p.m. NVPCUG General Meeting, + A Board of Directors meeting + E NVPCUG General Meeting, + D Napa Valley Mac User Group + A Investors SIG meeting + C NVPCUG General Meeting, + A Investors SIG meeting + C Napa Valley Mac User Group + A NVPCUG General Meeting, + A Investors SIG meeting + C Napa Valley Mac User Group + A NVPCUG General Meeting, + A NVPCUG General Meeting, + A Meeting Locations A - Napa Senior Activity Center, 1500 Jefferson Street, Napa B - Piner’s Nursing Home, 1800 Pueblo Ave., Napa C - Jerry Brown’s home, 23 Skipping Rock Way, Napa D - Peterson’s Family Christmas Tree Farm, 1120 Darms Lane, Napa E - Napa Senior Activity Complex, 1524 Jefferson Street, Napa NVPCUG Computer News, July 2012, Page 4 Evernote 4 Reviewed by Hewie Poplock, APCUG Director; VP, Central Florida Computer Society, Hewie’s Views & Reviews, http://www.hewie.net I like to share information, especially with members of my screen. I can edit the user group. I read a lot of articles about computer hardware formatting, and other & software. When I find an article of interest, which may typical text edits. I can be news, pricing, reviews, or tutorials, I have to decide how even change the font or font size. to keep that information. I often save it as an Acrobat PDF Evernote does include a link to the original document and file, or I may copy and paste the article and email to myself, links in the article are live. I always like to include a link to or send the link to myself. the original make sure that the author is cited and given I frequently forget where I stored them, to follow proper credit. through with a link, or to go back later to save it. Many Once I have created an Evernote, it will sync with all of times I do not even remember the article or how I tried to my other devices that are signed into my account. So when save it. I read an article on my desktop, I can create a note and it I have actually created an email address to send myself will almost immediately be available on my notebook, my articles to keep track of them in one place. I have begun iPad, my iPod, and my netbook. I can share the article with to save other articles in several folders in an attempt to others via Twitter, Facebook, or email directly from Evernote. become organized. The program is available for mobile devices with iOS, Recently I was asked about a free program that I tried a few years ago, Evernote. I decided to once again take a Android, Blackberry, Windows Phone 7 and WebOS as look at it and discovered that it is an organizational tool that well as computers with Mac OS X, Windows, Safari , I need to be using. Since I have started using it, I find it to Chrome, and Firefox. be an important part of my everyday computer life. There are some limits to the program which can be As I read an article, an email, a webpage, I just highlight addressed with a premium account for $45 a year or $5 a the information that I want to save, right mouse click add month. Evernote can be downloaded from http:// to Evernote 4.0, and I have the article. It is clean and www.evernote.com and for info comparing the free usually just the information that I want, usually eliminating account verses the premium account, see http:// ads or other information that is not part of the article. If any w w w . r e v i e w s y n c . c o m / e v e r n o t e of it does get into the note, I can delete it. I can also add pricing.html. The iOS & Android versions can be something that I missed or was on a different part of the found in their respective Apps Store. * Software Review Kaspersky One Universal Security By George Harding, Treasurer, Tucson Computer Society, AZ, June 2012 issue, eJournal, www.aztcs.org, [email protected] There are many programs available to use to Macs are also. What’s included? A lot! protect our computers . It must be a profitable • Anti-virus – for mail, file and web field to have so many players wanting your • Firewall – two way • Application control business. Kaspersky One is a protection • Anti-phishing • Mobile security service that sets itself apart from all the • Anti-spam • Tablet security others. One way it is different is that it is sold • Anti-banner in combinations to protect multiple computers. • Password manager There are three versions: three computers, • Pro-active defense • and more five computers and ten computers. For those of us who have This is a good program for protecting all your computers at more than one computer, this is a boon, being able to acquire one a single price, whether you have three, five or ten computers. protection package that can be installed in several computers. There is a 30-day free trial available. A second way it is different is that not just computers can About: Kaspersky One Universal Security be protected, but also certain smart phones and tablets. Vendor: Kaspersky Blackberry, Symbian, Android and Windows Mobile phones www.kaspersky.com are currently supported A third way it is different is that not Price: Three computers, $80; five computers, $85; only the Windows computer platforms are supported, but ten computers, $150 (download) * NVPCUG Computer News, July 2012, Page 5 The Problem: Muffled Sound By Steve Baer, Feature Writer, Hilton Head Island Computer Club, SC, May 2012 issue, Island Computing, www.hhicc.org, [email protected] Lately when I’m with groups of friends there is an increasing chance that some subset of people will complain to me about how bad TV and DVD sound is getting, and how hard it is to at times to understand the dialog. I have been noticing this myself and decided to try to understand what is happening. There are several things going on, all of which conspire against us. 1. As we get older our ears become less able, especially at higher frequencies. This is called Presbycusis, and there is good information on it on the web. Coming from Bell Labs, I learned about this almost 50 years ago, but I never thought it would apply to me! 2. Many of the newer flat-screen TV’s have very small bezels, and hence have small speakers or worse, put them at the sides or rear. When we put these sets in cabinets, or bookcases, the sound – especially the high frequencies, gets absorbed in the cabinets. 3. Many DVDs have a very large dynamic range, the difference between the softest and loudest parts. Hence, in order to avoid being blown away during a car chase or explosions, we lower the volume overall. Then at the dialog passages, the sound is too low for our older ears. 4. Many new DVDs are encoded with multi-channel sound. When you play the DVD, you probably have seen the setup menu where the multi-channel options are labeled with terms such as: 5.1, 6.1, 7.1, DTS, THX, etc. This refers to the number of channels of sound that are in the film, if you have the equipment to decode and the right number of speakers. (The .1 represents the sub-woofer channel.) One of these channels is the center channel that usually carries most of the dialog. If you have made an incorrect selection on the DVD setup menu or an external amplifier, and are trying to play back multichannel sound through a system without all the multichannel speakers, you will miss a lot of the audio. If you are watching a movie through an ordinary TV without multichannel sound capability, be sure to pick the appropriate audio option on the movie setup menu. type earphones that they wear. I have tried these, and they work extremely well. However, they are expensive and I have found them to be mechanically fragile. I have already had to repair two sets for friends – both failing in the same way. (Perhaps newer models are better made.) Two people would also require two sets. Be sure that you understand where the base station will plug in to your system in order to broadcast the audio to the stethoscope part. 2. Several of my friends have supplemented the flimsy and poorly aimed speakers in their TVs with sound bars such as shown in the figure below. This is a Vizio model available from WalMart for about $100. This does not solve the multi-channel problem, but for one or two channel sound, with the speakers facing the listener, they work amazingly well. In my experience, good one or two channel sound is far superior to poor multi-channel sound. I heard this particular sound bar unit a few nights ago and I was amazed at the clarity. It is an active speaker, meaning that it has its own small amplifier built in. It can receive audio input from your DVD player or your TV set via red (right) and white (left) type of standard RCA cables. Some sound bars also have digital inputs for more complex setups. 3. If you use an amplifier to drive a multi-channel speaker system, make sure that the center channel speaker is aimed, directly firing at the listener. Also raise the treble to make up for your possible high frequency loss from Presbycusis. Finally, many amplifiers will have a compression setting that minimizes the differences between loud and soft passages. Make sure that you engage that feature. I recently did these three things in my system, providing a large improvement in intelligibility. * Some Solutions There are some ways around these problems: 1. Many people use a product such as “TV Ears” which wirelessly puts the sound into stethoscope VIZIO VSB200 Speaker Bar NVPCUG Computer News, July 2012, Page 6 OpenClipArt By Cal Esneault, President, Cajun Clickers Computer Club, LA and leader of many Open Source Workshops & SIGs, May 2012 issue, Cajun Clickers Computer News, http://cccclinuxsig.pbwiki.com, OpenClipArt is a large compilation of clip art in which images have been released to the public domain (unless specifically stated otherwise), and thus are free to use without any restrictions. Numerous collections are available for free download at OpenClipArt.org. The larger sets of images are in compressed file format (.zip, .gz, .bz2). You have to unpack the compressed files by double clicking on the downloaded package to extract images (note: Windows users may need to install the 7ZIP program to access .gz or .bz2 files). Images are generally available in .svg vector format or common bitmap formats. LibreOffice programs load all file types, but MS Office programs will not load .svg files. Vector graphic files have the advantage of being editable (can add, delete, change, or move primitive components). The best way to edit them is to install the open source vector editor Inkscape. However, a limited web-based editor Imagebot is available at the OpenClipArt site. Here you can see a chicken cartoon to which I have added several objects using Imagebot. Modified images can be saved to vector or bitmap formats. Once you have downloaded the images, you can “insert” them into the appropriate document just as you would for any picture. With LibreOffice (or OpenOffice.org), a better way is to link the images to the Gallery. For example, in LibreOffice, find the small bar directly under the main top panel that has 5 small dots. Double-click on it to show the gallery (close Gallery with a subsequent double click). You can click and drag on this bar to increase the viewable area. The following illustration shows the word-processor Writer with the www.clickers.org, [email protected] Gallery showing between the menus and the text editing area. LibreOffice comes with only a few basic images (background, bullets, ruler, etc.). To add more, click on the New Themes button, give it a new name under the General tab, and then go to the Files tab and link the folder with your images via Find Files. In my example, “small set” is my new theme name. Once the folder is added, it appears in the drop-down list and small thumbnails appear for each image. To add an image to the document, click on it and simply drag it to the appropriate spot. For Linux users, many package managers will load main OpenClipArt collections for you and put images into OpenOffice.org or LibreOffice. Below is a screenshot of the Gallery that was automatically prepared on my copy of LibreOffice on Ubuntu 11.10. MS Office clipart is generally stated to be for personal or non-commercial use. For other purposes, you are directed to read the EULA or contact Microsoft. Since Microsoft artwork can be from third parties, permission to widely distribute may get complicated. OpenClipArt images have the advantage of being public domain with no restrictions (unless specifically stated). This opensource set is a valuable resource readily available for cross-platform use. Check it out at openclipart.org. New images are added weekly, and there are groups of special topic images (sports, people, seasons, etc.). NVPCUG Computer News, July 2012, Page 7 * Parted Magic By Dick Maybach, April 2012 issue, BUG Bytes, Brookdale Computer Users’ Group, NJ, www.bcug.com, n2nd@ charter.net Although modern operating systems are robust, sometimes the desktop are particularly useful: the File Manager and they need maintenance, either to repair problems or because the Partition Editor (GParted). The screenshot below we want to make changes. And many times the things we shows the latter in operation. want to do are not possible within the operating system, either because the tools aren’t available or because the operations can’t take place while the system is live. One solution is to use a live-CD, which is an operating system that boots directly from a CD-ROM or a USB memory stick and doesn’t use the hard disk at all. This has the advantage that you can perform any operation you like on the dormant hard disk. The situation is similar to doing an autopsy. Doing the same thing in an operating system that is running from the hard disk is like trying to operate on a patient who is awake. My current favorite maintenance tool is Parted Magic, h t t p : / / www.partedmagic.com which is small enough (187 Mbytes) to fit comfortably on a CD-ROM or a USB memory stick. See the Web page for instructions on how Here we’ve selected an NTFS partition, which (among to create either. other things) we could resize. GParted can operate on Parted Magic requires a computer with at least an Intel Microsoft, Apple, and Linux partitions. Other partition PII compatible processor and 175MB of RAM, although tools allow you to create a file containing an image of an it will run much faster if there are 400 MB or more. You will entire partition or to clone a disk, copy everything on a disk have problems if your computer has peripherals that need to different one (usually done when you want to replace proprietary drivers, for example, some wireless keyboards your hard disk with a larger one). An important tool that and mice. As it boots, you will be asked a couple of few people use is one that securely erases a hard disk. You questions, but I’ve found that accepting the defaults should always do this before disposing of a PC, since works, then you will see the screen below. deleting files and even partitions does not really remove the information. A determined person, with a lot a time could recover your passwords and other sensitive data. (See the next paragraph.) There are many tools to recover deleted files, rescue files from damaged disks, and replace boot loaders and boot records, but only for Linux and Microsoft file systems. Some of these are quite specialized, and it will take some study to determine the best one for each case. Many are called from the command-line, which means further study before you can use them effectively. Since all the documentation is on-line, using Parted Magic requires Internet access. Be careful, especially when trying to correct serious problems; the safe approach here is to clone the disk and perform the surgery on the copy. There is also a virus detector, but it detects only; it can’t disinfect A few tools appear as desktop icons, but most are in menus files. that you can access through the start button in the lower An important program is chntpw, which resets Windows left corner. To its right are icons to mount devices, use the passwords. It’s not uncommon for people to forget their command line, get help, and switch between desktops. At passwords, which locks them out of their own PCs; I’ve the far right of the menu bar are icons for the network done this myself. The safe way to use this is to remove the status, sound volume, and clock. The display on the right password completely, and then log back into Windows to of the main screen shows the load on the PC, CPU and set a new one. Note that some of the upper-end Windows RAM usage, as well as the programs that are using the versions include the ability to encrypt files and folders and most processor and RAM resources. Two of the tools on NVPCUG Computer News, July 2012, Page 8 resetting their passwords will render these unreadable. If you need only to recover a few files, you needn’t reset the password. All of Windows’ files are accessible from Parted Magic, unless they’ve been encrypted; just copy them onto a different medium. (Keep this in mind before you leave your laptop alone.) A similar program, cmospwd, recovers CMOS setup passwords, which can be helpful for dealing with used PCs. By the way, you don’t need special tools to reset Linux passwords, which you can do from the command line with standard commands. Also included are programs to identify, benchmark, and test the hardware, including comprehensive RAM and disk tests. The screenshot below shows the peripheral devices (top) and details on the Host bridge (bottom). You can learn a lot about your PC just by poking about (and, of course, searching the Internet for what the terms mean). I recently gave my 10- and 11-year-old grandchildren netbooks. The computers came with Windows 7 installed, but I wanted to install Linux, because there are many educational programs for it and because it’s much more resistant to malware. (My 9 year-old grandson, at the advice of one of his friends, installed a free game on his mother’s laptop, and it took her a lot of effort to remove the free virus that was included. I’d like him to survive to see 10.) The netbooks had 350-GByte hard disks, so there was plenty of room for both Windows and Linux. It would have easy to replace Windows with Linux, but the genes I inherited from my Scotch grandmother wouldn’t let me delete the Windows I had paid for. Since the netbooks have no CD/DVD drive, I installed Parted Magic on a USB memory stick and used GParted to reduce the Windows partition to 100 GBytes, leaving 200 GBytes for Linux; the remaining 50 GBytes is for a recovery partition. After configuring Windows and installing Linux, I made images of both partitions using the command-line program fsarchiver. (There are several partition imaging tools available, but this one was the best for my use, because it could handle both NTFS and Linux file systems.) For another example, a friend’s son, by downloading pirated songs, infected his folks’ PC to the extent that it wouldn’t boot. Booting Parted Magic and using the ClamAV anti-virus tool I identified the infected song files, but Windows was hopelessly corrupted. I was able to move all the user data onto an external disk, so after the PC was restored to its as-delivered state, I could restore the data (minus the infected songs), thus converting a disaster into a nuisance. If you’re reading this, you probably serve as the computer support person for your friends and family. Parted Magic provides many tools to help you do this, but it’s up to you to learn how to use them. * Software Review Roxio Creator 2012 By Mark Mattson, Editor, Computer Users of Erie, PA, June 2012 issue, Horizons, www.cuerie.com, [email protected] It’s been a while since this program old and trusted friend. suite was last reviewed in these Originally owned and sold by Adaptec, it has had a pages. In fact, it was when the couple owners over the years, the most recent of which is software was known as Easy Media Corel (as of late 2011). Creator, and version 7.5 was the Please note that there are two versions of Creator subject of the review. This was available: the standard (reviewed here) and the PRO around 2005, and Gene Meeks did a version. The PRO version offers all the features of the great job with that review. standard edition, and adds additional features to enhance Fast forward to the present. This your projects even more. You can find out more about that review will introduce you to Roxio version on the Roxio website at www.roxio.com. Creator 2012, the latest and greatest in this long-running As the software has evolved, so has the size of the suite line. package. The version I used in 1994 came on a single CDLong running indeed - the first version of this software ROM disc. Subsequent versions grew to two CDs, and was bundled with my very first CD-R burner, which I then moved to DVD discs when the capacity limits of CDs bought in 1994. I have tried several other burning applications over the years, but always come back to this one, as it’s an Roxio Creator 2012 cont. on page 10 NVPCUG Computer News, July 2012, Page 9 Roxio Creator 2012 cont. from page 9 were reached. Indeed, Creator 2012 is so large, the download files were two 1GB archives. As the version I obtained for review came as an electronic download, I cannot tell you if the physical boxed version comes on one or two DVDs. No matter what, the package is large. If you have a slow Internet connection, you may want to opt for physical delivery. Installation can take a bit of time to perform, especially if your machine is slower. On a dual-core 2.6 GHz system running Windows 7 here, it took about 20 minutes to install the applications package, and an additional 15 minutes for the Content files (backgrounds, music tracks, etc.). Installation is not difficult. Just answer a few questions in the Installer, and you’re off and running. So what can you do with the software? The most basic feature of the package allows you to burn data, pictures, audio files and documents (or any other files you have on your system) to removable optical media, such as CDs, DVDs and now Blu-Ray discs. This allows you to free up hard drive space, especially if you have smaller drives in your machine. Rather than taking up space on your drives, the data can be stored on removable discs, and restored when needed. But you can do so much more with it than just offloading files to discs. There is basic file backup and recovery tools included in the package, giving you the ability to save your important files to disc, and restore them when needed. Please note however, that this is NOT a full-featured system backup application. For those functions, you would need the PRO version, or an external application. With the explosion of mobile devices into the digital lifestyle, you can share and produce content for iPod, iPad, iPhone and other supported devices without the need for an external program. You can convert from one file format to another, and then output it to your selected device. If you enjoy listening to music, you can create compilations of your favorite tracks, convert files to digital audio, and burn them to disc…or again, output to your mobile device. Do you like to share your home movies with others, or create unique video content to share? You can do so with Creator 2012 as well. Capture video streams, convert them to DivX or DVD movies, or even to 3D features. If you want to (or need to) produce Hi-def video, you have that ability also, using the optional Blu-ray plug-in available from the Roxio store (this plug-in is part of the PRO package, and therefore only needs to be bought if you buy the standard version). NOTE: If you just need to burn data to Blu-ray discs, you do not need the plug-in. Blu-ray burning is available as an option when creating data discs. But to burn movies to Blu-ray, you DO need the plug-in. Working with photos? There is an assortment of features in the suite for you as well. You can create sideshows complete with music to share, do basic image editing and enhancements, and so much more. When you’re done, you can output them to DVD to watch on your TV, share with others, or even upload them to Facebook (as you can also do with your video projects to upload to YouTube). Do you like to record television programs on a TiVo unit? There is now support for these devices included in the suite. You can record your programs to disc, or even transfer them to mobile devices to take on the road with you. Once you have your project completed and ready to share, dress up those boring looking DVDs and CDs with a custom label that you can create using the included application designed just for that purpose. Add your photos, backgrounds and text to complete your project. There are many more features to the software; you can find a complete list on the Roxio website. With all this horsepower under the hood of the software, the system you run it on needs to be capable of running it as well. If not, then you will be unable to perform some of the tasks you may want or need to. NVPCUG Computer News, July 2012, Page 10 The following list is taken from the Roxio website. Please note that updates to the programs may add new requirements not listed here. For video capture: OHCI compliant IEEE 1394 FireWire card for use with DV camera or Roxio Video Capture USB for analog sources • Blu-ray authoring requires an additional plug-in which can be purchased at www.roxio.com • Setting up of media access server capability requires and always on PC connected to a wired network 3D • • • Minimum System Requirements: Microsoft® 7 Home Premium, Professional or Ultimate (32- or 64-bit), Microsoft® Windows Vista™ SP2 (32- or 64-bit), Windows® XP SP3 (32-bit), Windows® XP SP2 (64-bit) For data burning and copy, audio capture and editing: Intel® 1.6GHz Pentium 4 processor or AMD equivalent, 512MB RAM for windows XP and 1GB RAM for Windows Vista and Windows 7. For video editing and conversion and DVD playback Intel Pentium 4 2GHz processor or AMD equivalent and 1GB RAM. Multi-core processor with at least 2GB RAM recommended • 1024x768 DirectX 9.0c compatible graphics card with at least 16-bit color setting, sound card, DVD-ROM drive • ATI Stream® and CUDA™ acceleration only available with AMD ATI Stream and NVIDIA® CUDA enabled graphics cards • Hard drive with at least 3GB free space for the installation process. DVD and BD copy, video editing and authoring may require large amount of free disk space, up to 10’s of GB • Windows Media Player version 10, 11 or 12 • Internet Explorer 7, 8 or 9 • Internet connection required for installation, registration, product updates and some features. Any Internet charges are the user’s Responsibility. • QuickTime® player version 7 required for some functionality • iTunes® version 8 for some functionality • TiVo® requires a TiVo® Series2™, Series3™, TiVo HD DVR or other TiVoToGo™ compatible DVR connected to your home network and TiVo Desktop. Does not work with DirecTV® provided TiVo DVRs. See www.tivo.com for more information. 3D glasses and other 3D hardware is the user’s responsibility 3D video input formats: over/under full and half height, side-by-side full and half width, anaglyph red/cyan, RealD, Fuji FinePix REAL 3D 3D video output formats: anaglyph red/cyan, sideby-side and full and half-width, over/under full and half height, RealD Input Formats: • • • Video: AVI, DV, HDV, DV-AVI, MKV, MPEG1/2/4, MPEG2-HD, DVD-Video, IFO/VOB, XviD, DVR-MS, TiVo, ASF, MOV, WMV, QuickTime, 3GP, MPEG2 Transport Stream, AVC (H.264), AVCHD Audio: Audio CD, MP3, WAV, WMA, Dolby® Digital AC-3, AAC, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, M4A, MP4, Playlists (WPL, ASX, M3U, PLS, XSPF) Image: MPO, JPG, PNG, TIFF, BMP, GIF Output Formats: • • • • Video: AVI, DV-AVI, HDV, MPEG-1/2/ 4, MPEG2-HD, , WMV, WMV HD, AVC (H.264), MP4, 3GP Audio: MP3, WAV, WMA, Dolby Digital AC-3, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, MPEG-1/2, M4A, M4B AAC, Playlists (M3U, PLS, XSPF, WPL) Image: JPG, PNG, TIFF, BMP, GIF Video disc formats: DVD, Video CD(VCD), Super Video CD (SVCD), Mini DVD Recordable Formats: CD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, DVD-R/RW, DVD-R DL, DVD+R DL, DVD-RAM, BD-R/RE, BD-R/RE DL Roxio Creator 2012 cont. on page 12 NVPCUG Computer News, July 2012, Page 11 Roxio Creator 2012 cont. from page 11 • Disc image formats: read ISO, C2D, BIN/CUE and GI; write ISO and GI As can be seen from the above list, it takes quite a bit to enable execution of certain operations. If your machine is more than three years old, it MAY not have enough under the hood to run parts of the suite. Such is my case and my two ‘antique’ machines. To do this review, I had to put it on my wife’s newly built computer, which definitely meets the specs. Most of what I have used the suite for has been to offload files from my systems, and burn it to disc for archival storage. Starting out in the 90’s with CDs, it progressed to DVDs into the 80’s and beyond, and now to Blu-ray discs, for increased storage capacity. Being that Tanya and I are both photographers, the 25 and 50 GB capacities of Blu-ray media will be important as we migrate image files to disc for a secondary backup of our work. At present, to burn both our image libraries to DVD would mean burning about 200 4.7GB DVD discs. Using Blu-ray, this is cut down to around 50 BD-R discs (25 GB capacity each). Before doing the archiving, however, I need to investigate the system further. Burning a test BD-R disc took about 1.5 hours for a full 25 GB disc, and an additional 45 minutes for verification. The writer was only burning at 1x speed, while the discs I used were rated for 6x recording. Evidently I need to upgrade the burner’s firmware, or check the settings in the software. Another area of investigation concerns the creation of DVD movies. During testing, I noticed some audio dropouts during playback of the compilations I assembled into a DVD movie. Referring to the Roxio forums brought forth some tips and tricks to try to resolve this. After applying some of those recommendations, I now have the dropouts minimized, but they still occur randomly. I will need to further test this, using different media, and perhaps trying the DVDs on different players than my own home machine. Overall, the Creator 2012 suite is a powerful, highly useful package. There is not much you CAN’T do with it, and a lot you CAN. This package has matured as the years have gone by into one that no serious media creator should be without. Even though aimed at the home market, many small businesses looking to create rich media presentations and projects will find the power of this software to more than meet their needs. For further details on this version, or the PRO version, please go to the Roxio website at www.roxio.com. Roxio Creator 2012 is selling for $79.99 after a $20 mail-in rebate. The rebate also applies to the PRO version, if you decide to purchase the added power and features it offers. If you own Creator 2011, you qualify for a special upgrade price of $69.99. However, you can’t upgrade at this price from an older version. Remember, you can get delivery via electronic download, or a physical box. If your Internet connection is not a broadband one, opt for the box delivery. It will save you hours of downloading. Would I recommend this package? Definitely YES. It has been a steady and reliable friend for almost 20 years, and not many others can come close to the features it offers. * Perfect Photo Suite 6 Reviewed by Bryan Anslow, Member, Thousand Oaks PC Club, CA, www.topcc.org, [email protected] Perfect Photo Suite 6, produced Here is a quick overview of the seven by OnOne Software utilities included; (www.onOneSoftware.com), is • Perfect Portrait 1 - Smart Retouching a collection of seven image for Portraits, automates many of the enhancement utilities. Perfect retouching tasks. Photo Suite 6 can be used as a • Perfect Layers 2 - Layers for Photographers, stand-alone set of utilities, or the fast and easy creation of layers outside of utilities can be invoked from Photoshop, to blend and combine multiple images. within Adobe CS4 or CS5, • Perfect Effects 3 - Create Images with Impact, Photoshop Elements 9 or 10, using a library of over 300 photographic and Lightroom 2 or 3 and Aperture creative effects. 2.1 or 3. NVPCUG Computer News, July 2012, Page 12 • Perfect Mask 5 - Replace Backgrounds with Ease, automates many common masking tasks with incredible accuracy. • Perfect Resize 7 - Enlarge Images to Any Size using Genuine Fractals – the industry standard for image resizing. • FocalPoint 2 - Instant Bokeh for your Images, selective focus, blur, depth of field, vignette, tilt shift, etc. • PhotoFrame - 4.6 - ProLayouts, Edges & Adornments, adds perfect finishing touches to your images, also textures, backgrounds, and even complete layouts. Requirements for installation are Windows XP, Vista or 7, or MAC OS/x 10.6 or 10.7. RAM – 4GB, 8GB recommended. Display resolution should be OPEN GL 2.0 compatible with at least 256MB dedicated RAM, resolution at least 1280x800. My copy came as a 2.2GB download from the manufacturer’s website, together with a license key. There were no surprises in the installation. It just asks for an install directory and installs itself. I have Photoshop Elements 9 already installed. The Photo Suite installation process integrated Perfect Photo Suite 6 utilities into it automatically. HTML Help files are available from the website. There are also PDF Files available, but these are just PDF prints of the HTML Help files and are not well formatted. There are many “How To” videos on the Website in case you may be unsure of how to accomplish some task. The Photo Suite utilities automatically create layers for the changes made to the image. The changes are fully compatible with CS4/5, Photoshop Elements, Lightroom and Aperture. If the utilities are used in stand-alone mode, the resulting file is saved as a PSD or PSB file, which is also compatible with CS4/5, Elements 9/10, Lightroom and Aperture. The image can be exported as a jpg or tiff file. There are just so many possibilities using this software that it would take several pages to review them all, so here is a small selection of their capabilities. • Perfect Portrait 1 – When a portrait is loaded, color casts can be removed giving more natural skin tones. The skin-tune parameters can be finetuned manually to get just the right skin tones. When loading a portrait image into Perfect Portrait, it will automatically find skin, hair, eyes, and mouth as well as lips and teeth, allowing each to be changed independently. The masks that define these features can be refined as necessary for full flexibility. Multiple faces within an image can be enhanced independently and each is on its own layer. Most of the changes are done using simple sliders. Blemishes can be easily removed, teeth and eyes brightened, and fine lines in the skin removed. The retouch brush can be used to remove blemishes, acne, scratches and any other marks you just want to hide. It is also good for hiding wrinkles and dark areas under the eyes, while maintaining a natural look. A set of thumbnail views appears along the bottom of the screen to show how each possible preset will look if applied. A particular set of adjustments can be saved as a preset and applied to similar portraits in the future. • Perfect Layers – When using Photo Suite in stand-alone mode, perfect layers acts as the hub for all of the utilities. Use the masking brush to paint-in or paint-out to achieve perfect masks. Use the masking “bug” tool to achieve perfect blending of multiple layers. Every time you make changes and save (click Apply), your changes appear on a separate layer. Using “view”, a set of thumbnails gives a preview of how the multiple layers will interact together. Perfect Layers also contains tools for masking, healing and blending of layers. • Perfect Effects – for your creativity - comes with a library of effects. Full or partial effects can be stored as presets to be used to make similar changes on other images. These presets are stored as layers which can be changed and saved. Multiple effects can be stacked and will be applied to the image in the order given, which can be re-ordered as required. The way the effects are blended can also be controlled. The preview engine shows examples of the effects as thumbnails along the bottom of the screen. Any changes to the effects will re-render the thumbnails. • Perfect Mask has so many tools for masking/ punching through to the layer below, that the lasso tool normally used in image masking may not be required. Perfect mask has a library of backgrounds which can be used, or you can add a layer with your own background. There are also Perfect Photo Suite 6 cont. on page 14 NVPCUG Computer News, July 2012, Page 13 Perfect Photo Suite 6 cont. from page 13 tools to remove the halo from around an object to blend the edges between the image and the background. • Perfect Resize will use Document Size presets to crop and resize an image in one step from the camera size ratio to the paper size ratio. The tile option can be used to break up a very large print into several “tiles,” which can be printed on a smaller printer and then be assembled to form the large printed image. The Gallery Wrap option can increase the image size, with several options, to allow for the wrap-around required by Gallery Wrapped images. Using an industry-standard method, instead of Bi-Cubic, to resize the images, the image can be resized up to 1000% with no loss of clarity. There is a built-in sharpening tool, a texture tool, and you can even add film grain to the image. • Focal Point is mostly used to apply selective focus, bokeh, and vignettes. The unique focus “bug” tool is used to control the effects. No complicated selections are required, nor having to learn to use settings and dials. Using the Focus Brush, areas of an image can be “painted” in and out of focus. You can control blur/focus to mimic that of popular lenses chosen from a library in Focal Point. A popular tilt/shift effect can also be created. • Perfect Frame has a large library of Frames and Borders which can be applied to your images. You can also create your own frames and save them for use on other images. Similarly, layouts which you create can be saved as presets. Perfect Frame also allows textures and shadows to be applied to the image. The Instant frame option allows you to quickly create your own frame with just a few clicks of the mouse. The utilities in Perfect Photo Suite 6 are designed to make Photoshop quicker and easier to use. I think that they do. Even the simple tasks I tried seemed easier to do than navigating the vast and complex menus of options that Photoshop has available. The ability to save many layouts, etc., that you create as “presets,” is a great help too. One of the real-world tasks I needed to do was create a frame, with a drop shadow, to apply to 20-30 images. Once I had created the frame, and added the shadow, I saved it as a preset. Then, using Perfect Frame from within Elements, I was able to use batch mode to select the images I wanted and apply the preset to them. Really slick and I still have the preset for next time. As a Photoshop Elements user, I can certainly recommend Perfect Photo Suite 6 for either beginners in Photoshop, or more advanced users who will find it makes their lives easier. It just makes many of the tasks not only easier to do, but also makes the final result much better. Photo Suite 6 also includes many libraries containing sample frames, backgrounds, effects, and presets which add a more creative and professional look to the images. A major advantage of Photo Suite 6 is that changes to images are saved as Photoshop “Layers,” so that they may be reviewed, further edited or deleted in Photoshop. The documentation downloaded from the OnOne Software website is basically the html help file printed as a PDF file. However, the vast number of how-to videos and Tutorials on the OnOneSoftware University website more than make up for this. Users of CS4, CS5, Lightroom or Aperture will similarly find that Photo Suite 6 adds great value. Perfect Photo Suite 6 is a product of OnOne Software Inc., 15333 SW Sequoia Parkway, Suite 150, Portland, Oregon 97224, phone (503)968-1468. Fax: (503)968-1469. Price: the software can be found at about $250 Street. There is also a 30-day free trial version available. Technical support is reachable via a problem report form on the website at; http://www.onOneSoftware. com/support/ Support is free to registered users and is available Monday through Friday, 8am to 5pm Pacific time. The OnOne Software “University,” containing over 100 free how-to videos, can be found at; http:// www.onOneSoftware.com/university/#!/ video/welcome-to-the-onone-university Webinars are run several times a week; a timetable is available on the website. Here is another review of Perfect Photo Suite from an HDR point of view: (HDR, or High Dynamic Range is an image processing technique that attempts to make pictures look more natural by taking multiple pictures at different exposure levels and intelligently stitching them together so that we get a picture that is clear in both, dark and bright areas.) http://thehdrimage.com/?p=1569 NVPCUG Computer News, July 2012, Page 14 * Light Housekeeping for a Safe and Healthy Computer By Mike Morris, Editor, Front Range PC Users Group, Fort Collins, CO, http:// www.frpcug.org, [email protected] The Front Range PC Users Group (FRPCUG) provides free computer help to the community and to several other local non-profit organizations. As a result of these efforts, we have concluded that there are two tasks and several free and reliable utilities that help to maintain a safe and healthy computer. Without a doubt, the two most important safety and security tasks for every Windows computer user are: 1. Keep the Operating System up to date 2. Keep the security software up to date In addition to those two tasks, there is some computer “housekeeping” required to keep your computer healthy (for those of you who consider yourselves not knowledgeable enough to “maintain” your computer, think of these utilities as cleaning tools, not maintenance tools). For housekeeping, these utilities are recommended: 1. Revo Uninstaller This free utility does an excellent job of uninstalling unwanted software—even better than the Windows utility. You can use the default settings of Revo. It is important to note that Revo first runs the uninstaller program provided with the program you want to remove. At the end of that process, you are asked if you want to restart your computer. At this point, DO NOT RESTART YOUR COMPUTER. Click on “No” or “Restart later” (or whatever similar message is displayed). That will allow the rest of Revo to run. It will check for left-over files in the Windows Registry and the directories. Whatever files or file remnants it finds, select everything it finds and delete them. You can download Revo from h t t p : / / w w w . revouninstaller.com/revo_ uninstaller_free_download.html. The free version is the one in the left column. When installing this (or any program), proceed carefully, because very likely there is additional software “bundled” with what you want—that additional software is usually unnecessary. Examine each screen as it is displayed and uncheck or refuse any of the extra unwanted software. Sometimes, even Revo needs some help. When combined with a registry cleaner, unwanted software can be effectively removed. The registry cleaner we recommend is: 2. CCleaner This is another free, excellent utility. There is much debate in the computer world about registry cleaners. Since the Windows Registry is so crucial to correct operation, one viewpoint is that no one but an expert should use them. It is true that modifying the Windows Registry has the potential to create problems. However, those of us in FRPCUG have used CCleaner on many computers without problems. When using the registry cleaner option of CCleaner, you will be asked if you want to backup your registry. It’s a safety factor that is up to you. There are two parts to cleaning your computer of unwanted/left-over junk using CCleaner: Cleaner and Registry. Use both—once a week is recommended, but at least once a month. There are cases where, after running Revo, it may be necessary to run CCleaner 3 or 4 times before all of the junk is removed. For example, if you have Norton security software installed on your computer and want to remove it, it will take Revo and possibly 3 or 4 passes of CCleaner (restarting your computer after each CCleaner run) to completely remove the Norton software (more on Norton in a moment). You can download CCleaner from h t t p : / / www.filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/. Use the “Download Latest Version” button with the green background at the right side of the page. For computer security: Virtually all new Windows computers are delivered with a trial version of one brand or another of security software Light Housekeeping cont. on page 16 NVPCUG Computer News, July 2012, Page 15 Light Housekeeping cont. from page 15 installed, usually good for up to 90 days. Once that trial is over, you need to pay for an annual subscription for updates. In today’s world, there is no need to pay for security software. There are a number of excellent, free security software programs available. And, there are cases where the free software might actually be better than security software that you buy. For example, in the past, Norton security software acquired a reputation for slowing down the computers on which it was installed (my own experience with Norton software—at least the older versions, based on helping other computer users, is that it is not as good at catching malicious software (malware) as other programs). Of the many free security software applications available, FRPCUG members have used these four, and found them to be reliable and effective (just because the software is free does not mean it is less capable): One is Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE). You can download MSE from http://www. microsoft.com/download/en/ details.aspx?id=5201. Note that there are 2 versions available, depending on whether your computer has an AMD or an Intel processor. Another is Avira Free. This application received excellent reviews from the independent security software testing organization, AV-Comparatives - Independent Tests of Anti-Virus Software, h t t p : / / w w w . a v comparatives.org/ (enter: review of—and the application name—into a Google search, or use the AV Comparitives website mentioned above). If you decide to use one these applications, download it from http://www.filehippo.com. You are less likely to encounter excess, unnecessary additional software (sometimes called “bloatware” or “sneakware”). Once you connect to the filehippo website, just enter the name of the application into the search box. Another area of debate regarding security software is the number of different security software applications that should be installed and running and one computer. With one exception, described below, you are probably going to be better off with only one. Since these applications are always running (in the background), it is very likely that two or more security applications running simultaneously will cause conflicts (and/or slow down your computer). It is possible, with a lot of experimentation, to find multiple security applications that do not conflict (one FRPCUG member has done so), but for most computer users, one application is sufficient. The best way to change security software is to download, but don’t install, the new security software. Then use Revo (and if necessary, CCleaner) to remove the old security software. Finally, install the new security software. A supplementary security software program that works extremely well is Malwarebytes. You can download this program from h t t p : / / w w w . f i l e h i p p o . c o m / search?q=malwarebytes. The free version does not run continuously in the background, as do other security software applications. That means Malwarebytes does not conflict with any other security software. The only disadvantage to this program is that you have to remember to run a manual scan (say once a week). It’s worth it—Malwarebytes finds problems other security software does not. A third choice is Avast Free, and a fourth choice is AVG Free. We suggest you read the reviews on these products NVPCUG Computer News, July 2012, Page 16 The best way to keep your computer secure, as mentioned above, is to keep the operating system and security software up to date. You can set Windows computers for automatic operating system updates. Virtually all security software programs, including the free ones can be set up for automatic updates. For more information on this topic, connect to http:/ /frpcug.org/presentations/ BB_Present04.pdf and http://frpcug.org/ presentations/comp_maint_security.pdf. One other suggestion: Another free, useful utility is Belarc Advisor. The program provides a detailed list of the hardware installed in your computer. You can download Belarc Advisor from http://www.belarc.com/free_ download.html. While not crucial, like security software and maintenance utilities, Belarc is a helpful program to have on your computer. We have installed and run these programs on many computers without any problems. There is, however, always the chance that some unusual combination of hardware and software may result in a problem. So you should backup at the very least your important data, even if it is just copying that data temporarily to a flash drive. Please read our disclaimer at h t t p : / / www.frpcug.org/k-byte/current.pdf * Hap py Computing! Happ Software Review Microsoft OneNote, an All-Purpose Planner By Nancy DeMarte, Regular Columnist (Office Talk), Sarasota PCUG, Florida, May 2012 issue, Sarasota PC Monitor, www.spcug.org, [email protected] If you purchased a recent from your computer. To capture a portion of a web page, for home version of MS Office, example, you highlight the section, click ‘Insert Screen which includes the programs, Clipping,’ and the web section appears on the OneNote page. Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, Besides text, you can copy and paste photos, drawings, or any you also got a lesser known file from your computer such as a document or spreadsheet. program called OneNote (file PowerPoint slide shows appear as printouts. You can create extension .one). OneNote was audio or video recordings of meetings or interviews directly in created in 2002, and has been OneNote. One Note saves your work continuously and a part of some versions of the automatically so nothing is lost. It also keeps a backup copy Office suite since Office 2003. It was, however, a long on your computer or online. time before I even opened this program. It was described as being good for “note-keeping and sharing,” which Organizing a Notebook weren’t activities I commonly did on my computer. It was OneNote gives the user many options for organizing only recently that I decided to find out what OneNote was notebooks. These range from practically random to highly all about. I was pleasantly surprised. Read on to find out structured layouts. You can expand the page size, add, why. rename, and reorganize pages any time. Page and whole notebook templates are available at the MS website to help Adding Information to a Notebook with layout of the OneNote content. Just looking through OneNote lets you create notes, gather information, and the templates gave me ideas on uses for One Note. organize it all using a simple system modeled after a ring Interesting template topics I found included landscape binder. You open a new Notebook, add Sections, indicated by planning, preparing for a residential move, a family reunion tabs, and insert Pages within the sections. You can type notes organizer, and a cookbook. Practical page designs included anywhere on a page. Each ‘note’ will be in its own “note address and phone lists, to-do lists, and a health history container,” somewhat like a text box, which you can move, chart. Just like in Word, you can design your own notebook resize or merge with other notes. This basic feature makes the layout and save it as a template. program popular with college students who use it to take lecture notes. You can also add items from the web or files Microsoft OneNote cont. on page 18 NVPCUG Computer News, July 2012, Page 17 To find out how OneNote works, I decided to use it to plan a fall cruise/land tour vacation in the New England – Eastern Canada region. First I opened OneNote and displayed the Ribbon by clicking the small arrow next to the Help icon. The ribbon is not displayed by default, but contains all the commands and editing tools. Then I opened a new Notebook (File – New) and named it Canadian Cruise. Once I recognized that the Tabs along the top of the notebook indicated Sections and that I could name them and add as many pages as I wanted, I created a few section Tabs to get started: Cruise Itineraries, Land Tours, Budget, and a To Do List complete with checkboxes to keep track of my planning tasks. In the Cruise Itineraries section, I created three pages. On my Cruise Lines page, I added my favorite cruise lines with contact information and website addresses, each which appears as a hyperlink. Pressing the Tab key after each bit of information automatically creates a table. Pressing Enter adds a new row. On the Ports to Visit page, I listed those stops we wanted to make, knowing I could add more detail later. My last page, Itineraries, was my first experiment in gathering research material into OneNote. Using Insert – Screen Clipping, I captured a specific itinerary offered by Norwegian Cruise Lines which listed dates, times, ports, and a map of the trip. I typed a few notes to accompany this snip, such as the cost of a balcony cabin, and dragged them onto a corner of the map. Then I added a larger map of the New England and Canadian Maritimes area from Google Maps. I did the same sort of captures for two other cruise lines and pasted them in below the first. I noticed that my pages expanded as needed. Sharing a Notebook At this point I decided to share my Notebook with our Kentucky friends who often travel with us and might be enticed to accompany us on this trip. I logged in to my SkyDrive page (skydrive.live.com), the Microsoft cloud storage location. I also have a copy of this notebook saved on my computer. (Another option for sharing would have been Dropbox, a free program for file-sharing.) My friends already have access to one folder on my SkyDrive site so adding a new folder was easy. I uploaded my Canadian Cruise OneNote notebook to SkyDrive, adjusted the permissions to let my friends view it, and then notified them by email. It is also possible in OneNote 2010 to create shared notebooks which can be edited by more than one person at the same time. I saved that for another day. My final step was to add the free OneNote app to my iPad so I could synchronize my work between devices. OneNote has free apps for many mobile devices, including Android cell phones and tablets as well as iPhones, iPads, and Windows phones. It can be synchronized across devices – PC’s, laptops, and mobiles – using Live Mesh, a free syncing program from Microsoft. If you don’t have MS Office, the stand alone OneNote program can be purchased from Microsoft for about $80. If you do own MS Office, certainly try OneNote. It is easy to learn and amazingly flexible. Get Your Photography on the Web * By Donna Kamper, Member, Tucson Computer Society, AZ, April 2012 issue, TCS eJournal, www.aztcs.org, [email protected] The only reason you need this as the author, Raphael (RC) Conceptión shows you, it book is if you’re looking for a can be so much more. quick, inexpensive and easy way With this book, an Internet connection and basic for people to see your photos on computer skills you can literally create a showcase the Internet. If you prefer time- website in a matter of hours for next to no cost – totally consuming, difficult and costly free, if you don’t want a domain name and in less than an you need to keep looking. This hour if you have all your ducks in a row ahead of time. book was a complete revelation And RC tells you exactly what those ducks are and how to me and inspired me to revamp to line them up. our long-neglected (cob)web site He quickly discusses that all-important “Getting a kamper.com. Instead of working Domain Name,” and then moves into hosting. He in HTML and Dreamweaver, I simply downloaded and recommends GoDaddy.com and walks you through the installed a free program – WordPress. Following the procedure. As with most Kelby Training books, this is guidelines in the book, I literally had my new site up and done very clearly with screen-shots on the outside margins running in minutes. and brief descriptive text to the inside. Completely finished? No! No website is ever “finished,” Since our website has been active since 1992, hosted they’re always (read: should be) in transition. But was it locally through dakotacom.net (with whom we’re ready for viewing? Yes. Get Your Photography on the incredibly pleased), I skipped this chapter. However, Web targets photographers who want to showcase their from reading I did outside this book I discovered a work. While WordPress is primarily a blogging software, WordPress site must be hosted on servers supporting NVPCUG Computer News, July 2012, Page 18 PHP and MySQL. So if you have your own domain and are thinking about revamping it using WordPress, check that first. What good is a website without content? The next chapters are “Getting Your Images Ready” which encompasses a lot more than retouching. Color Space, Sharpening, Size, Watermarks, Copyright – all in 27 pages. Then we really start to rock, setting up your first pages and adding content. More than images, even slide shows, right off the bat! Then RC moves us into how to get our site looking the way we want it to. After all, it’s important that it be the proper frame for our work. To that end, he introduces us to Themes and Plugins. It turns out WordPress is a bit of a blank slate, ready for anyone to write over it. “Themes” are overlays, if you will, for the basic WordPress installation. By changing the Theme the entire look of a site can change just by clicking “Activate.” If a global rework isn’t sufficient there are Plugins, little applets that nestle inside your WordPress installation ready to spring to action. These can do anything from popping out an image in a shadowbox to creating custom menus for your site navigation. There are literally hundreds of these, and the list keeps growing. Oh, and they’re all free. See my WordPress note at end of this review.* The more I read the more I was inspired by what could be done. Then I discovered WordPress can be used for more than blogging. That’s when I really snapped to attention. Blogging is not for me. I was never a diarist, I never kept a journal, and I will not keep to a blogging schedule. But WordPress is so plastic, so malleable, so pliable that it can be used as a content management system (CMS), meaning it can hold static pages that don’t change regularly if at all, and pages with other content. In fact, with a little judicious juggling and a friendly Plugin, it’s even possible to run an e-store right out of my website. Oh really!? All those years of writing materials for front-of-class instruction have left me with manuals and workbooks. Coupling that with Camtasia’s on-screen recording, and I just may create a little business niche for myself. All I have to do is get it done. This is a great book. Clearly written, visually-assisted step-by-step instructions and an attainable result. What’s not to like. Now, back to my WordPress Dashboard. There are edits to be made! About: Get Your Photography on the Web Author: Rafael “RC” Conceptión Publisher: Kelby Media/Peachpit Press www.kelbytraining.com, www.peachpit.com ISBN-10: 978-0-321-75393-9 ISBN-13: 0-321-75393-3 Price: $39.99, $23.99 @ Amazon *What’s this about free? WordPress is Open Source Software, as are its Themes and Plugins. These are created by users and uploaded for people to use. WordPress itself is free for the download. Thousands of Themes are also freely available, and there are also multiple sites devoted to custom or for-pay Themes. As of the writing of this review there are 19,064 free Plugins available at WordPress.org. There are two WordPress sites: WordPress.org is where you download the WordPress software, its Themes and Plugins and learn how to use the software. WordPress.com is a free hosting service begun by some of the original WordPress developers. It’s “a hosted version of the open source package where you can start a blog in seconds without any technical knowledge.” [http:// en.WordPress.com/about/] It is “financially supported via paid upgrades, “VIP” services and advertising.” [Wikipedia.com] * Media Sharing & Devices By Jerry Grommes, Editor, Sandwich Computer Users Group, IL, April 2012 issue, SCUG News, www.scug.org As many of you know I feel strongly that my media, devices. The number is about five in the average home whether it’s pictures, videos, music, recorded TV, etc., now — tablet, gaming console, PC — and it’s going to 15 should be available to me on whatever device I own and to 20. You’re going to have a home with more technology not just tied to a computer, CD/DVD player or a DVR. and, hopefully, it will be managed in a way that’s a lot more With the increasing number of different kinds devices efficient.” I thought that over a bit and started counting. I coming to market, each with its own nitch, I have finally have eight, which puts me a little above average but less resolved myself to the conclusion that there is not going to than half of where they are predicting us to be at in the next five years. be a one size fits all anywhere in the near future. Where are you at? Start counting, (Desktop PC, About three weeks ago Bob Dell sent me a quote from the Tribune’s business section (Visions of technology’s Notebook, Digital Camera, MP3 player, Smart phone, future): “Five years from now,” says Nate Williams, Smart TV, Tablet) that’s 7, so you can see, they are adding Motorola Mobility’s senior director, head of product up fast. Do they all share your media? The answer is yes, marketing for the Converged Experiences group, “you’re going to see a dramatic increase in the number of connected Media Sharing cont. on page 20 NVPCUG Computer News, July 2012, Page 19 Media Sharing cont. from page 19 but not easily. In my opinion the industry has a long way to go to make it seamless for end users to have their content available across all devices and platforms. All this lead in was to get to the point of sharing recorded TV and device #9. Ever since migrating from the Commodore to a PC, I have had a TV tuner card in every one of my PCs and if I want to record TV that’s how I do it (record it on my computer). From there I can convert the recording to various formats for different devices or burn to DVD. This worked well until the arrival of digital TV. I have cable and they gradually kept dropping the analog channels till it got to the point where I had to add a DTA (Digital Transport Adapter) to the TV tuner in my computer in order to get most of the basic channels again. This happened about the time that I migrated to Windows 7. Since most versions of Windows 7 include MCE (Media Center Edition), I decided to try MCE and found it to be an excellent avenue for watching TV in a little window or for recording TV. The programming guide makes it a snap to schedule recordings. 2650. Once you buy it, it’s yours to use forever. But you still need to sign up for cable TV service, and you will still need to rent a digital cable card from your local cable operator. After reading the 3rd bullet point, that it could record HD channels, I changed my search to a shopping search and had my order placed before the show I wanted to record was even over. How’s that for impulse buying? As you can see from the Quick Setup Guide instructions, there is not much to the setup and installation, it took approximately a half hour to complete the 1st time through. However, I had to repeat step 4 three additional times before everything was fully functional and that took over three hours because after every call I was instructed to wait 45 minutes or more before all the channels would be available. Overall, approx four hours from out-of-the-box to watching and recording High Definition TV on my computer. Device #9 So on to device #9. Two weeks ago I was surfing the channels and found a program that I wanted to record to watch later, problem was it was a High Definition channel which is not broadcast on an alternative digital channel thus I could not record it. Comcast seems to be doing more of this High Definition-only thing lately (not because you get a better viewing experience but rather they can rent you more HD boxes). While watching the show I couldn’t record, I grabbed my tablet and started searching for a solution for recording HD on my computer. In a few clicks I was at the Hauppauge web site reading the specs on the WinTV-DCR-2650, a dual tuner CableCARD™ receiver for your Windows 7 PC. I then clicked on the “Features” tab which stated: WinTV-DCR-2650 is just like a cable TV set top box (a “DVR” box) in that it can be used to watch and record TV from digital cable. There are a couple of differences: • WinTV-DCR-2650 needs a PC to work. Currently, only a PC with Windows 7 Media Center is compatible with the WinTV-DCR2650. • WinTV-DCR-2650 does not have any internal disk storage: it uses your PC for storing recorded TV programs. The nice thing about using your PC for storage is that if you fill up your hard drive with TV programs, you can easily add a new hard drive to your PC. • WinTV-DCR-2650 records in the original transmitted quality. For example, if you record from an HD channel, the recording will be HD. • There is no monthly fee for the WinTV-DCR- Installation instructions for the WinTV-DCR-2650 • • • • Step 1. Run the Windows Digital Cable Advisor to make sure your PC is compatible with the WinTV-DCR-2650. Step 2. Plug the WinTV-DCR-2650 into your PC via the USB cable. Connect cable TV. Insert the cable card you received from your cable operator into the back of WinTV-DCR-2650. Step 3. Run the Windows Media Center TV Tuner setup and select your cable TV operator. Step 4. Call your cable TV company to activate your cable card and “pair” it to the WinTV-DCR-2650 Four calls In each of the four calls to Comcast a different support person was on the other end, each was very courteous, spoke very good English and seemed very knowledgeable. In the first call the support person activated the card and told me to wait 45 minutes or more before all the channels would be available. After 45 minutes I had all of the digital channels but only the basic (2, 5, 7, & 9) HD channels. NVPCUG Computer News, July 2012, Page 20 Second call In the second call the support person said she would resend the activation to the card and told me to wait 45 minutes or more before all the channels would be available. This netted the same results so I ran the Hauppauge diagnostic program that was included on the installation CD. It reported that the firmware on the CableCard was out-of-date and not supported. Third call On the 3rd call I gave the diagnostic information to the support person who put me on hold while he collaborated with another technician. When he returned he stated that he would have to flash the firmware of my CableCard and told me to wait 45 minutes or more before all the channels would be available. He also gave me a different phone number to reach a higher level of support if flashing the card didn’t work. After my 45 minute wait I retried and had all digital channels but no HD channels (lost ground). I reran the Hauppauge diagnostic and it reported no errors and said all is well. Fourth call The 4th call was to the new number given by the last rep and the support person on the other end had all my information from the previous calls and said she would run some diagnostics on the card from her end, after which she said she would reactivate the card asked me to tell her what lights were flashing while she was doing it. While this was going on she said that if this didn’t work she would schedule a service call. By the time we were done talking the reactivating had completed and I had all channels (including the HD Channels) that I subscribe to and I didn’t have to wait for 45 minutes. All Channels I am very pleased with the Hauppauge WinTV-DCR2650 picture quality; it is very good and since I was already using MCE there was no learning curve. I can receive every channel on my computer that I can get from the Comcast HD Box except On Demand and Pay Per View. With two tuners built-in you can watch one show while recording another. As for media sharing I give it a thumbs up because I can now record a HD TV show and use Windows Live Movie Maker to save it to a format that can be viewed on my Android Tablet. Hauppauge is headquartered in Hauppauge, NY and has been bringing TV to the PC since 1992. The Company is the worldwide leader in developing and manufacturing PC based TV tuners and data broadcast receiver products. Hauppauge’s products allow PC users to watch television on their PC screens, videoconference and create both still video images and digital TV recordings. Hauppauge’s flagship product, the WinTV, is the leading branded TV tuner card for PCs. POyNT By George Harding, Treasurer, Tucson Computer Society, AZ, April 2012 issue, eJournal, www.aztcs.org, [email protected] This is a nifty app for your iPhone or Blackberry. It points you to various services or places of business. The choices are Businesses, People, Movies, Restaurants, Gas, Events and Offers. For Businesses, you can enter a business name, such as “Wendy’s” which produces a list of Wendy’s restaurants sequenced by distance from your position. The list also includes other entries which include the name Wendy, such as a dentist, a veterinarian and a hospital! But it does show the fast-food restaurants you wanted to find. When you touch one of them, you get location information, including a map and directions. If you choose People, you can search by name, phone or address. I tried the search by phone, using my phone number and got my name and address, along with directions and a map for location. The search by name works very efficiently, producing a list of people with the name you entered and their phone and location info. For Movies, you can search by theaters nearby, movies, top 10 and genres. You get a list of theaters with the movies currently being shown, times, phone, location and the availability of a trailer. You can search nearby Restaurants or by cuisine. You get a list of restaurants sequenced by increasing distance from your location, with info about location, phone, map and website. Searching for Gas or Events gives the same sort of information, in a helpful and easy-to-use format. I recommend this app highly. It’s fun to use and very helpful in finding the sort of item you’re looking for without having to resort to the Yellow Pages books. You can even use your mobile phone to download the app from m.poynt.com (but not with a browser). About: POYNT Vendor: Poynt www.poynt.com Price: Free * NVPCUG Computer News, July 2012, Page 21 * Book Review Mastering Landscape Photography: Learn By Video By Mark Mattson, Editor, Computer Users of Erie, PA, June 2012 issue, Horizons, www.cuerie.com, [email protected] The video quality is excellent, with saturated colors and This was somewhat of a different book review than high production standards throughout. You can choose to all the others. Not only is it view the videos in the small window, but use the full screen a book, it is also a complete view…you can lose yourself in the view, and almost think video workshop on a DVD. you’re on location. The lessons are divided into three main sections: The book itself is a 28 page supplement to the 1. Before You Go Out DVD training videos. It 2. Capturing the Scene presents supplemental 3. Post Processing materials that enhance the learning experience of the The first section covers the basics needed for successful DVD. There is also a Glossary of terms at the end to landscape photography. Phil covers such details as choosing a good tripod, setting you camera for the best quality clarify anything you may not be sure of. images, choosing the best lenses, and other vital information. The DVD is actually the star of this package. Produced Capturing the Scene will teach you how to photograph by Austrian-based Video2Brain, it is one of their newest for the best quality images. Topics covered in this section offerings in their series of training packages (release date include how to read the histogram, exposure considerations, of this title is December 31, 2011). panoramic image capture, and others. Your instructor for the video lessons is noted landscape The final section, Post Processing, presents information photographer Phil Hawkins, who has shot many stunning on processing your images to further increase the quality images in and around the Yosemite area, as well as other of your captures. Here you will learn how to process your subjects during his career (you can check his website at RAW files, workflow basics, and other topics. You will http://philhawkinsphoto.com/ ). even learn how to process images for HDR. The key word The workshop is comprised of four hours of High to most of the processes covered here is that less is better. Definition video, all of which are accessed via the software That is why you want to get it as close to a finished look player developed to make your learning experience smooth in the camera when shooting your photos. Thus the need and seamless. to view the entire disc, paying attention to all sections, When you first open the DVD, you are presented with particularly the first two. The less processing you need to the user interface, which looks like this: do on your images to achieve the final print, the better. On the left side of the screen is the navigation area, where you can launch specific sections of the training, or choose to play all the videos in sequence. The central area is the video playback window, while the right side contains links to supplemental items. Each section also contains a short Test Yourself section, where you can test your knowledge on what you’ve learned in each section. Another advantage the interface gives you is the ability to bookmark sections of the disc you want to refer to at later times. Thus you can refer to sections of the disc you enjoy most, without having to search for them. Mastering Landscape Photography: Learn By Video is available direct from the publisher, Peachpit for $27.99. As a member of CUE, you are eligible for the usual 35% discount when you buy from them (this brings it down to $18.19). This is lower than what Amazon.com charges, so you can save yourself about $8 when buying from Peachpit. Go to www.peachpit.com to purchase. Is this video worth the purchase? Definitely, especially if you are hooked on landscape photography, either as a NVPCUG Computer News, July 2012, Page 22 hobby, or a way to make an income. The techniques and information presented are well worth the purchase price, and give you a solid basis to build upon in the future, as your skills improve and grow. Even though the author lives in the western US (California), the information would apply just as well to anywhere in the world. True, certain locales would require some adaptations or modifications to what is presented here (such as shooting techniques for snowy locations), but you would learn those by experience and growing your knowledge over time. If you want to learn landscape photography, this is an excellent place to start your journey. * Book Review The Painter Wow!, Book, 10th Edition By Iris Yoffa, Member, Tucson Computer Society, Arizona, June 2012 issue, eJournal, www.aztcs.org, [email protected] If you have worked through each of the Chapter 3 Cher Threinen-Pendarvis exercises, you should have a good feeling for what the has been authoring The program has to offer and what direction you would like Painter Wow! Book series for over 15 years. The books to further explore. You have also navigated from are always packed with an accomplishing basic to quite complex digital painting overwhelming amount of projects. The chapters continue with the titles of information and inspiring Building Brushes, Selections, Shapes and Masks; Using examples of original art by Layers, Enhancing Photos, Montage and Collage, a variety of digital artists, Exploring Special Effects, Using Painter with Photoshop, Animation and Film with Painter and finally including Cher herself. The 10 th edition in this Printing Options. This is a very thorough and detailed coverage of a series covers all the new rather complex program. I found the Study Guide and numerous features of projects (PDF file on the CD) to be a great asset for Corel Painter 12. The companion CD contains goodies for personal use from contributing authors as well as adding a structure for using the Wow! Book and brushes, patterns, photos, scripts, textures and sample delving deeper into Painter. I recall that when I first used a very early edition of Painter files contributed by Cher. There is also a study Cher’s great book to learn more about Painter, I had to guide which could serve as a syllabus for learning digest very small bits at a time. Then and now, this is Painter either in the classroom or on your own. The book is divided into 11 chapters, appendixes, and a presentation to teach not only about Corel Painter an index, totaling 407 pages. The page layout is two- but the principles of art and composition, with a lot of column with a main content area and a sidebar with creativity thrown into the mix. A great resource for related content and tips. Each chapter begins with a digital artists everywhere. About: The Painter Wow! Book, 10 th Edition brief introduction, continues with pertinent content interspersed with a variety of exercises and ends with Author: Cher Threinen-Pendarvis full color pages of magnificent original art. Publisher: Peachpit Press • Chapter 1, “Getting to Know Painter,” is your www.peachpit.com basic introduction to the program, system ISBN-13: 978-0321792648 requirements, file characteristics and file Price: $59.99 US/$51.99 CAN, $37.79 @ Amazon types, followed by how to navigate and * manage the Painter workspace. • Chapter 2, “The Power of Color,” gives some very useful explanations of what constitutes a color and how to work it in the digital world. The exercises lead you through the Painter tools related to the subject. “Painting with Brushes” is Chapter 3 and builds on the previous chapters and gets you started with digital painting. The primers, 25 if I didn’t lose count, provide step-bystep introductions to a wide range of media and techniques. At chapter’s end you will find yourself at page 151 of 407. Term From Smart Computing: Bay A term used to describe the area toward the front of a computer typically where the disk drives and CD-ROM drives are housed. Bays usually are stacked on top of each other. The word comes from the telephone industry, where equipment was mounted on racks in similar bays. Reprinted with permission from Smart Computing. Visit www.SmartComputing.com/Groups to learn what Smart Computing can do for you and your user group! NVPCUG Computer News, July 2012, Page 23 Offering Financial Services throughout the Napa Valley; with offices in American Canyon, Calistoga, Napa, St. Helena and Yountville 947 Lincoln Avenue Napa, CA 94559-5066 800-869-3557 www.wellsfargo.com (707) 299-1000 www.napanet.net • [email protected] Napa Valley Personal Computer Users Group Membership Application/Renewal *  New  Renewal  Information Update Please Print Full Name: _____________________________ Nickname: _____________________________________________ Street/PO Box: ___________________________________________________________________________________ City: _______________________________ State: ____________ ZIP Code: ________________ - _______________ Phone (check preferred):  Home: ____________ ( ____________ ) __________________________________  Work: _____________ ( ____________ ) __________________________________ E-mail (check preferred):  Home: ________________________________________   Work: _________________________________________ Ocupation/Profession ______________________________________________________ Retired? _____________ Do you want to be added to the following NVPCUG e-mail lists?  Yes  No News and announcements: General discussion of computer-related topics:  Yes  No If you do not want your preferred phone number and/or e-mail address published in the NVPCUG Directory, which is for the exclusive use of NVPCUG members, check the appropriate box(es):  Do not list phone number  Do not list e-mail address Family members whom you want to sponsor as Associate Members: (Associate Members have the same membership rights as their sponsors, except for receiving newsletters) Full Name E-mail Address ______________________________________________ _____________________________________________ ______________________________________________ _____________________________________________ Annual Dues:  $30 Regular Member - an individual who is not a full-time student  $20 Student Member - a full-time student who is not eligible for Associate membership.  $10 Associate Member - a family member of a Regular or Student member. Associate memberships run concurrently with sponsors’ memberships. Make check payable to: Napa Valley Personal Computer Users Group Mail application/renewal to: Napa Valley Personal Computer Users Group Attn.: Membership Director, P.O. Box 2866 Napa, CA 94558-0286. The NVPCUG is an accredited IRC 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Your dues payment may be tax-deductible as a charitable contribution. * To request a Corporate Membership Application / Renewal form, e-mail: [email protected] NVPCUG Computer News, July 2012, Page 24 Revised 2-14-2010