What a Show!

EPCUG has had a great year. If you missed the presentation on Thursday, September 28, 2000, you missed seeing your group working at its best. Last year’s Board Members did a great job. Jon presented last year’s Board Members with Certificates of Special Recognition, for jobs well done, and to show his appreciation. We want to thank Jon and Jocelyne for all they have done.

After final nominations were taken from the floor, the new officers were elected by ballot.

Vice President - Bob Brown
Secretary - Linda Corwin
Program Director - Bill Roberts
Membership Director - Larry VanOsdol
Directors-at-Large - Paul Boggs & Ken Kendall
Treasurer - Marty Mielke
Web Director - Mark Meidel
Public Relations - Doyle Ramey
Advertising - Nina Hershberger
Resource Center and Computer Restoration Director - Bob Brown
Newsletter Editor - Sherry Nisly
Grant Committee Researcher - Joanne Patrick

SIG Director - Promote and oversee various Special Interest groups. Recruit and assist leaders. - No Nominations

We still are looking for this appointed position, If you or someone you know would like to fill this position, please notify any board member. I believe what you give to this group, you receive back in many ways, far more than you put in, I know I have.

We were presented with a demo of AutoCAD Design & Manufacturing. Jon displayed his experience, and how easy it is to use this program.

The scheduled presenter couldn’t get here on time from Salt Lake City, but he did release 4 copies of his programs. A $280.00 value. In addition to the programs from PowerQuest, we gave a complete copy of LINUX Redhat.

We want to thank NIBCO for the use of their amazing International Conference Center, and Nina & Eldon Hershberger for allowing us there. Thank You.

NIBCO donated two boxes of power cords to our Computer recycling cause. They also offered any members present, with all the power cords they could use.

Don’t miss the October presentation from MICROSOFT with regional representative, David Severino, presenting their latest personal operating system, Windows Millennium ME. We’ll see you at NIBCO, 1516 Middlebury St. Elkhart IN on October 26, 2000. The show starts at 7 P.M.. Bring a friend and any computer questions you may have. There will be some great door prizes (including at least one copy of Windows ME upgrade, plus whatever Microsoft brings, and a copy of Windows ME for Dummies book) and fellow users helping users.

Bring the richness and convenience of the digital world to your home.

I daresay that all of us have numerous photos that have been around for years. Some are becoming yellowed and are deteriorating more each year. I, myself, attempting to be an amateur photographer years past, have accumulated an immense amount of photos. Starting with the old reliable “Brownie” camera, which did a pretty good job for its time, and gradually using better equipment that allowed sharper focusing and better depth of field. Then on to the development of color photography and through the lens metering with electric eyes, we were rewarded with a much better end product.

So we’ve taken all these mementos of our families, children and friends through many occasions and holidays as the years passed and carefully sorted, segregated and preserved them in photo albums. But time and humidity has taken its toll and the realization occurs that we cannot preserve these forever. Then we are faced with the specter that after we are gone, what we have treasured might not be treated with the same care. Also, there is always the possibility of tragedies happening. This comes to mind when we see the homes that were lost at Los Alamos during a disastrous forest fire. It is very doubtful that these poor residents were able to save all their photos and mementos when they had to evacuate. Others have lost everything to floods.

An incident that has always stuck in my memory is of a fellow worker who became very despondent one day. Upon asking what was wrong, she informed me that she had to pick her parents up at the airport as they returned from a vacation in Europe. But the kicker was, that she had to inform them that while they were gone, their house burned completely, leaving nothing to be salvaged. Lost was every photo in their possession, plus all their other mementos.

Today however, computer technology has given us a surefire method to preserve these photos and other important documents. Scanning is a fairly easy operation to perform. A familiarization with the scanner and its accompanying software will not take much effort and then the procedures to begin preserving your photos and documents can begin.

The scanner that I have is the Visioneer One-Touch purchased a year ago for $149.00 Today the price is about $80.00. I have found this unit to be very easy to use and quite satisfactory. It came with Paperport software, which makes the task easy to accomplish. The scan window will offer a few settings to be made. First of all, the scan mode and resolution has to be set.

The first rule of scanning is that the resolution is determined by the final output. If a scan is to be printed out, then the requirements of the printer will determine the scanning resolution. However, if you are scanning only to archive, then output determination can be set aside. Using archiving as your end result, then other parameters can be undertaken. Assuming we start with our oldest black and white photos, the mode should be set to Gray Scale, and the resolution to 75 or 100 dpi (dots per inch). The main idea is to have the scan so it looks good on the monitor and keeps the file to a moderate size. The larger the file, the longer it will take to move through your system after scanning.

For colored pictures, an appropriate resolution would be 100 dpi to 150 dpi. Colored prints stop yielding additional data at about 200 dpi. Scanning at a higher figure will produce a larger file but not more detail. Doug Gennetten is the engineer with HP Home Imaging Division who did the HP PhotoSmart printer and scanner introduction. At this event, he posted a message on the web that among other things said that 200 dpi is the maximum resolution you need if your original is a normal silver halide color print.

After scanning, the file can be sent to a graphic application, usually through a link on the Paperport screen. I currently have 3 graphic applications with links on the Paperport screen. They are MGI Photo Suite III, Microsoft Picture It 99, and Photoshop L. E. (limited Edition). I have found that Photo Suite III is the one that I prefer to work with. It makes easy work of the tasks required. You start by cropping the photo to size. Many times I will scan 4 or more, whatever will fit on the scan glass, then crop them apart one at a time. This saves scanning time and reduces the number of scans. After cropping, necessary tasks can be performed, such as adjusting brightness and contrast, (I am able to improve 90 per cent of these old photos), removing red eye, removing creases and unwanted blemishes. More complicated exercises such as cloning and removing unwanted persons or objects can also be accomplished.

All of these small graphic applications can handle all of these things. Also Corel Draw and Adobe Photoshop will do an excellent job on all these procedures. However, that’s a bit of overkill as these programs are large and expensive, and are used for much more demanding applications.

Finally, the pictures are finished and ready for labeling. It is a good idea before starting labeling to give some thought how to identify many pictures. Set up some sort of system that will allow you to recall what each picture is about when viewing its description. As you get into the hundreds, this becomes a daunting task, as no two titles can be alike. A good way is to set up a set of folders that will allow sorting of pictures into various family groups or time line designations.

The last description that has to be applied to the photo is the format that it will be saved as. For general purposes, there are 3 or 4 common file formats, and for the home scanner type, these will be sufficient. They are TIFF, JPEG, GIF AND PNG.

TIFF - Tag Image File format
TIFF has been a format of choice for use for master copies of images for several years. Not the only one, but a good one. TIFF format was developed by Aldus, before Adobe bought them, and is the most widely supported format across other platforms, PC, Max, Unix, etc. TIFF writes a large file, and it optionally uses lossless compression meaning there are no quality losses. Ideal for important master images. If you might modify and save the file a second time, then use a non-Iossy format like TIFF. TIFF files are large, but it’s the price we pay, it’s how large the data is.

JPEG - Joint Photographic
Experts Group
This is easily the best format for scanned photographs to be used on web sites, or for sending your photographic images in e-mail, because the file is wonderfully small, often compressed to only 1/10 or 1/15 size, which is very kind to modems. However, this fantastic compression efficiency comes with a high price. JPEG uses a Iossy compression (Iossy meaning “with losses”). Lossy means that some quality is lost when the JPEG data is compressed and saved, and this quality can never be recovered. Even worse, more quality is lost every time the JPEG file is compressed and saved again, so even editing a JPEG image is a questionable decision. JPG discards image pixel data that is inconvenient for its compression method, allowing phenomenal size results. This “lost data” is seen as lost purity, or lost integrity due to mild corruption of the data, rather like added noise. There is no magic answer providing both high compression and high quality, but some quality losses are acceptable for some purposes.

GIF - Graphic Interchange Format
This is an older format developed by CompuServe, and it was fantastic in its day, with relatively small LZW (Lempel-Ziv-Welch, same compression as used for PKZIP) compressed file sizes (but nothing like JPEG’s small size). However, GIF is limited to only 256 colors, a great match for the older 8 bit video boards, and for graphics, but which makes it poorly suited today for 24 bit photographic images. The file is also large if used for photographic images, as compared to 24 bit JPEG. And GIF files do not store the images scaled resolution dpi value, making scaling necessary every time the file is printed. GIF uses lossless compression like TIFF. JPEG is much better for 24 bit photographic images, and the JPEG file is very much smaller too (although lossy)

PNG - Portable Network Graphics

PNG was intended to be the replacement for GIF, due to LZW patent problems, and due to GIF being limited to only 256 colors. PNG was designed with the advantage of knowing all that went before. PNG supports 24 and 48 bit color with an awesome set of technical specifications and features, sort of the modern universal “be all, end all” of file formats, including superior lossless compression. The PNG basic compression is called the ZIP method, and is like the “deflate” method in PKZIP, but the big deal is that PNG also incorporates special preprocessing filters that greatly improve the compression efficiency, especially for typical gradient data often found in 24 bit photographic images.

PNG may be of great interest for us today, because it is lossless compression well suited for master copy data, and because PNG is noticeably smaller than LZW TIFF. Looks like about 30% smaller than TIFF LZW for 24 bit files, and is about 10% to 30% smaller than 8 bit GIF files. Web browsers Netscape and Internet Explorer at first did not support PNG on WEB pages, but they now include support for PNG files on web pages and it might become popular, not to replace JPEG, but to replace GIF perhaps. Most image programs like Photo Impact, Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro already support PNG, so compatibility transferring files is probably not an issue.

I have picked PNG for saving all my pictures. I have no need to print any of them out and am only interested in archiving them. I feel that in the future, if these need to be reworked or printed out, then the PNG format will work out just fine. I also use the ACDSee program to save my folders with corresponding pictures in them. This program allows me to use thumbnail display and to make the thumbnails any size that I want. By making them small enough, I am able to view 32 photos at one time on the desktop. This is helpful in sorting and rearranging.

When I accumulate 650 MB of photos, I transfer then to a CD-R. Then it is a simple matter to duplicate the CD and make as many copies as I want. At this point, I can give a copy to everyone in my family. This makes the selection of photos available to all interested persons and assures that the pictures will never be lost due to any one incident. So far, I have scanned and put on one CD, 1900 photos, many of them black and whites. On the second CD, I have 1100 photos. I estimate that I am about 70% finished with all my photos. Then I will undertake to do the same with about 2000 slides that I have. That, however, will not be as easy, as I will have to see about acquiring a slide scanner.

I have also started to scan all my important documents and put then all in one separate folder. I got the idea about a year ago, when I could not find some very important papers, most notably my college degrees. I sweated about three months and really turned things upside down, and lo and behold, there they were in a very “safe place”. At that point, I decided to scan every paper that meant anything. I dragged out all the birth certificates, my children’s school and college records, military discharge papers, and anything else that I didn’t want to have to search for again.

Scanning text is much simpler than photos. You scan at line art mode. On some scanners, the designation is Editing text (OCR) Using this instead of Gray Scale will make the file about 8 times smaller. This should be scanned at 300 dpi. After scanning, the software can perform the “Edit for Text” operation. At that point, it can be transferred to a text program. There you can delete parts if necessary, label it and save it as a PNG file. I have done this with all my papers and put them into a folder that I named “Certificates” I now rest easy, and, of course, that folder of originals is always underfoot. I’ll have to find another “safe place” to keep it.

ClickBook has always been an interesting program for me, and while I had a ‘mini’ program, I’ve often wished I had a ‘full version’ like ClickBook. Why would I want such a program? Well, let me tell you about the things I’m going to do with it:

1) I do genealogy. I have acquired some serious sized databases from cousins down several lines. There’s no way I’m going to email them to other cousins working on the same lines! I have a CD-RW drive, and since I watch for cd-r disks to be on sale or nearly free after rebate, I only pay between 19˘-25˘ per disk. At that price, I can afford to give them to relatives and not think twice. Now, I can do up a really nice booklet to put inside the jewel case with loading instructions and family information!

2) My daughter is in 4-H and we are going to do a cookbook this year. Now I can do a folded, stapled in the center, with no sweat. The hard part will be collecting those ribbon winning recipes from the kids!

3) I’ve done several folding brochures for various reasons in the past, and I know of at least two coming up in my near future. This program will take care of all the details on where the folds go, and where the text needs to be for me.

You ask, “Can’t you do all that with your current DTP programs?” Sure I can, but I’d rather do them in a program that is designed specifically for that function and does it well, than wrestle with the manual for my current programs. I’ve done all the above with what I have, that just doesn’t mean I want to do it again, nor that I liked doing it.

One thing I lack is the ability to do macros. And without macros, doing the above types of things once is no big deal, it’s when you come back to do the same type again and sure wish you’d recorded all the steps the last time!

Laying out the pages, shrinking them down to smaller sizes, deciding which page prints when for double-sided printing, and keeping it all in order! That’s ClickBook’s job. Put that 50-page genealogy report into an 81/2 x 11 folded book in a snap! Type up that recipe book in a Windows compatible word processor, then send it to ClickBook to lay it out.

Yes, many of them will do this themselves, but you only have to learn the basics of this program to do ALL these things, whereas when you learn them through your wordprocessor or DTP layout program, it’s almost like learning a new program with each one of them. Then next month (or next year?) you have to remember which program does it which way? Anyway, I like it and what’s more, it prints my schedules for my mini notebook, so I can keep track of myself. Now that’s important!

That’s a mere tip of the iceberg, ClickBook does a lot of other things. It “rotates, reduces, and realigns files to print double or single sided books, business cards, day planner pages, wallet booklets, brochures, greeting cards, catalogs, microfiche, and more! ClickBook helps users scale, rotate, and duplex digital photos, favorite on-line content, or other critical information into 40+ mobile and convenient layouts. Users can even design their own custom layouts.” There’s even a place to share your layouts with other ClickBook users!

User group members get a 10% discount. And the staplers for larger size and up to 25 page booklets are on sale: Reg - $39.95-$49.95 On Sale - $29.95

System Requirements
Pentium 100 or faster processor
Windows 95/98/NT
16 MB of RAM
5.5 MB of free disk space
Laser or DeskJet printer

If you are new to computers, and you don’t know how to move blocks of text or graphics from one document to another, or from one place in a document to another, you need to read on. The great thing about PCs is that you NEVER have to retype something that’s already been typed.

When you get information (or a joke or story) in an email, and you want to send it to someone else without all those previous addresses attached to it, this is a solution to that problem. If you have a photo or picture in one place on your computer or a Web site, this trick will move it anywhere else (into a document or a new email message).

It’s called CUT & PASTE or COPY & PASTE. The difference between cutting something and copying something is quite simple. CUT means to remove it from where it is. COPY means to leave the original where it is and make a copy of it for transport to another location. PASTE is what you do when you place it in a new location.

Four simple steps will move text (or graphics) from one place to another.

• Highlight the text you want to move
• Cut or Copy the highlighted text
• Place the cursor in the new location where you want the text
• Paste the text in its new location

There are four ways to copy & paste or cut & paste. All four do the same thing, but they were developed by people who are accustomed to using the computer in different ways.

Keyboard method
(you never have to fight that mouse)

• Highlight: with your cursor at the beginning of the text, hold down the Shift key, and tap the right arrow key until you have highlighted the text you want (you can also arrow back, up, and down to highlight in any direction)
• To Copy: hold down the Control key and tap the letter C (called Ctrl + C)
• To Cut: hold down the Control key and tap the letter X (called Ctrl + X)
• Place your cursor where you want the text to appear (this may involve opening another document)
• To Paste: hold down the Control key and tap the letter V (called Ctrl + V)

Quick recap:

• Highlight: Shift + arrow
• Copy: Ctrl + C; or Cut: Ctrl + X
• Place cursor where you want the text to appear
• Paste: Ctrl + V

Mouse method
(you never have to touch that keyboard)

• Highlight: place cursor at the beginning of text; click and drag the mouse to highlight the text
• Copy or Cut: right-click (a menu drops down) and left-click on your choice
• Place cursor where you want the text
• Paste: right-click (a menu drops down); left-click on Paste

Menu bar method
(the menu bar is the line of words across the top of your screen)

• Highlight: use either method above to highlight (to highlight the whole document, click Edit in your menu bar, and click Select All)
• Copy or Cut: select Copy or Cut from the Edit menu in the menu bar at the top of the page
• Place cursor where you want the text to go
• Paste: select Paste from the Edit menu

Icon method

• Highlight: drag mouse or use Shift + arrows to highlight
• To Copy: click on the Copy icon (2 pieces of paper) in your toolbar
• To Cut: click Cut icon (scissors) in toolbar
• Place your cursor where you want the text to go
• To Paste: click on the Paste icon (clipboard) in your toolbar

When you cut or copy something, it is placed in a holding area called the “clipboard.” You can’t see the clipboard, but your data is there. It will stay there UNTIL you

1. copy or cut something else
2. turn off your computer

You can paste what’s on your clipboard over and over, as long as you don’t copy or cut something else on top of it. The clipboard that comes with Windows 95 will hold only one selected item at a time. You can copy or cut and paste large blocks of text, graphics, all or part of the text of an email, text on a Web page, graphics on Web pages, tables, and just about anything else a computer has on it. There IS a limit to how much material the clipboard can hold, but if you exceed it, you can possibly do it in several steps.

There is NO reason that a forwarded email has to have hundreds of names and headers included with the message. The only reason I can think of for leaving the names on is to show where the message has been. With COPY & PASTE, you can send your friends ONLY the message and not the email addresses of everyone in the Universe. This also will help cut down on spam (junk email). (NOTE: you cannot CUT text from an email or a Web page; you can only HIGHLIGHT/COPY/PASTE.)

One last tip: if you want to move a small amount of text or a picture just a short distance within the document you are in, simply highlight it and click and drag it with you mouse. This works best when the phrase or picture is being moved only within the area you can see on your screen.

TWEAK UI UPDATE AVAILABLE
Ever heard of Tweak UI? It’s a free, Microsoft-created-yet-unsupported tool that allows you to—what else?—tweak the Windows user interface. If you haven’t used it before, do. You won’t be sorry. You can do things like adjust your menu delay and disable the startup logo.

If you’re familiar with Tweak UI, you should know that an update, Tweak UI 1.33, is now available for download. Whether you’re a first-time user or an old pro, you can download this newest version from http://www.microsoft.com/ntworkstation/downloads/PowerToys

Tweak UI 1.33 is supported by Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, or Windows Me (but again, not by Microsoft).

Did you do the Windows Millennium Upgrade? Are you looking for places to fix/turn off/understand those little quirky things it came with? I have a few links that should help you. If you find others that quickly become your favorites, please send them to me! I would also like to hear from those that are running Windows ME, good/bad/indifferent I’d like opinions and stories. Names will not be revealed, I’ll use initials only. Also, whether you use it or not, have you read something extremely interesting about it? Send it along, I’ll check it out and print some of them if I can. Thanks!

My first useful tip came from Paul Thurrott’s Windows Millennium Edition FAQ: http://www.winsupersite.com/faq/millennium.asp

There is a ton of other great stuff, but this is the one that *I* wanted the most!

“Q: The Personalized Start Menu is driving me insane. How can I turn it off?”

“Right-click the taskbar and choose Properties. Then uncheck the option called “Use Personalized Menus.” Incidentally, the Favorites Menu in IE has an even more diabolical “Personalized” feature. To turn that off, open IE and choose Tools then Internet Options. On the Advanced tab, uncheck the option called “Enable Personalized Favorites Menu”.” www.putergeek.com/newsletter/2000/issue__39.shtml

www.winmag.com

There is some very well written information on the upcoming Windows Millennium Edition on the Internet. I wish I could include all of it for you, but, unfortunately, the newsletter is not that big! So, what I will do is include the links, and those with internet connection can go read them, and those without, can send an email to me, and I will get them the information.

I would also like to touch a few bases on this new OS. I know many of you are like me, wanting to know what kinds of features are going to be included. Well, personally, I was looking forward to it. I figured I might have to get some new computer guts to use it, but I’m due for some more upgrades anyway!

Microsoft says ME is being built around four issues: PC health, digital media, home networking, and the online experience. These are all very good ideas when you realize that without digital media, the newer faster games and graphics cannot excel, and who wouldn’t love to not have to continue to make jokes about their computer ‘crashing once a day whether it needs it or not’.

According to Greg Sullivan, lead product manager for Windows Me at Microsoft: “Research shows that 28 percent of the homes in the U.S. have more than one PC; of those, nearly one quarter have a home network. Also, people are buying second and third PCs faster than people who don’t have a computer are buying their first.” (‘Windows Me Delivers Updated Home Networking Features’ http://www.microsoft.com/PressPass/features/2000/aug00/08-24winme.asp)

With ‘free’ Internet services continuing to pop up here and there, the ‘online’ statistics are probably a great deal higher than the multiple PC homes. That makes these some very important issues for the home operating system. I’m sure there are going to be drawbacks, but the requirements don’t look too far out of line for most people, although a larger hard drive may be the first order! While this depends on your personal system, additions of such things as DVD, WebTV, Movie Maker, and others, will cause your needs to be different, but according to Microsoft’s web site, the very basic requirements for Windows Me are:

• VGA or higher resolution monitor
• Pentium 150MHz processor or better
• 32MB of RAM or better
• Minimum 295MB free hard-disk space
• CD-ROM drive
• 28.8 Kbs modem or faster with current Internet connection
• Sound card
• Speakers or headphones
• Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device

Check out these sites and see what you think. Remember, if you only have email, let me know, I’ll get the information to you.

Microsoft’s web page for Windows ME http://www.microsoft.com/windowsme/default.asp

PressPass - The latest information from Microsoft on their products http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/newsroom/winme/

Windows Me on PressPass - Features - Where you can find the following excellent 4-part series by Microsoft on ME http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/newsroom/winme/features.asp

Windows Me Delivers Next-Generation Online Experience — With Ease - 1/4

Windows Me Brings Home Users Into the Digital World - 2/4

Windows Me Delivers Updated Home Networking Features - 3/4

Windows Me: PC Health Features Keep PCs Stable, Secure and Reliable — and Take the Frustration Out of Computing for Home Users - 4/4

News and Reviews on ME - Here you can read what others have to say, as well as Microsoft’s own articles and releases. http://www.microsoft.com/windowsme/news/default.asp

PC Magazine/July 18, 2000 - “Microsoft Windows ME”

PC Magazine gives Windows Me a 4-star rating. Says the publication: “Windows Me adds multimedia razzle-dazzle to the staid Windows environment and adds troubleshooting features that will rescue users from hours of frustration.” http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/stories/overview/0,9835,176419,00.html

ZDNET/May 5, 2000 - “Windows Millennium Edition Preview” - ZDNET predicts that Windows Me will be “a compelling upgrade for most users.” This review focuses on improvements that provide greater stability and reliability, easier home networking, and richer digital media. The article also includes a guided tour of the upcoming operating system for home users. http://www.zdnet.com/products/stories/reviews/0,4161,2563275,00.html

Chicago Tribune/April 23, 2000 - “A Small Thing, but Millennium Edition is Worth the Wait” - The Chicago Tribune reports “there is much that is wonderful” in Windows Me. This article highlights the digital media and entertainment features in Windows Me, as well as its System Restore benefits. http://chicagotribune.com/tech/coates/pastcolumns/0,1018,0004230311X,00.html

PC Magazine/April 17, 2000 - “Get Ready for Windows Me” - PC Magazine says that “under the hood, Microsoft has made some improvements to the core OS and has added some impressive digital media features.” The most prominent improvement, the magazine says, is the inclusion of new drivers and compression technology that make importing and managing digital images easier. http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/stories/trends/0,7607,2523694,00.html

Our October meetings will again be held in NIBCO’s corporate office, at 1516 Middlebury St., Elkhart.

The drive to NIBCO is off Simpson, NOT Middlebury. It is actually behind the KeyBank building.

There is a small parking lot straight in the drive, this should be left to handicapped and those with materials & equipment to unload. Others should turn left at the fork and park in the main lot.