Introduction
Next PC SIG Meeting
- 8 March, 2011 in the Atrium:
- Coffee at 9:30 a.m.
- Meeting starts at 10:00 a.m.
Kaffee
Klatch Articles (New
Articles/Links since last meeting) -
(Link)
Meeting Notes of Last KK Meeting: (Link)
Windows 7 - The
newly renamed Win7
SIG (effective in early March), meets on third
Tuesdays, 10
a.m., in the CyberCenter Annex. The next meeting is on 15
March.
Sun City Texas Computer Club Forum - Visit the Forum
at
<http://www.sctxcc.com/>
and browse around to get a feel for it. It's easy to register
- after clicking Register, fill in the blanks. Don't forget
your username
and password
for
subsequent logins, and sign your submissions so we know who you are.
Once registration info is submitted, there will be a short delay until
your
club membership is verified and your registration is approved.
A
welcome e-mail will advise you of the action taken on your
registration. Posting questions to the SIG Forum is preferred over
sending personal e-mails to the SIG Leader. Note: This forum will be
renamed PC SIG in early March. Other than the name change, it will
continue to function with no changes.
Questions/Comments
from the floor -
(added after meeting to reflect items discussed at the
meeting)
- Name changes of Kaffee Klatch to PC SIG and Kaffee Klatch-Win7 to Win7 SIG - The infratsructure changes, e.g., new Websites and links from the SCTxCC SIG page are in place. The SCTxCC Forum support for the newly named SIGs should be completed very soon.
- Chrome Browser - Google's Chrome
browser is getting very good ratings. It's fast and has advanced
security features. Some predict that it will overtake Firefox in
popularity. Chrome is available for Windows XP, Vista, and 7.
- MSIE9 RC
- It's quite different than earlier versions but safe to use. It's more
like Chrome. It has compatibility modes with older versions of MSIE (thanks, Bill Buppert).
- Advantages of Win7 over WinXP - Good article: (Link)
- Office 2007 in WinXP - Yes, Office 2007 will run in WinXP SP3 (Link). Office 2003 will run in Vista and Win7 too.
- Computer Security/Good Judgement - There's no simple definition of 'good judgement', but here's a link to an article that should be helpful toward that end: (Link)
- Web of Trust - Web of Trust
(WOT) is a very good Website advisor. It reliably classifies safeness
of sites returned in Web searches. Available as an add-on for Firefox,
Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Safari, and Opera. A Bookmarklet is
available for other browsers.
- Antivirus (AV) Programs
- No need to pay money -- good free ones are available. There are lots
of opinions regarding which free one is best. There is no single best
one, and there is none that is 100% effective. Among the better ones,
the top ratings will vary over time. As new viruses are launched, they
have to be identified and AV programs need to be updated to cover them.
So there's always a chance of being infected by a brand new virus not
yet covered by an AV program. (Do all AV program updates immediately as
they become available.) The new Microsoft Security Essentials
(available for WinXP SP3, Vista and Win7) is good and presents minimum
hassles to users -- good for Sun Citians. AVG is another perennial
favorite.
- Speedup of Older PCs - (This subject can even apply to new PCs.)
- First, a hard drive with less than 20% free space can slow down a PC. Remove
unnecessary files and programs, or get a bigger hard drive. Also, an
unemptied Recycle Bin can use up a lot of hard drive space -- empty it.
- Even
though there are no infections or corruptions, a PC can be slowed down
simply because too many unnecessary programs & processes are
launched on startup. This can be handled by disabling the launch of
unnecessary programs using MSCONFIG's Startup tab or CCleaner's Startup Tool.
- Infections and corruptions can cause serious slowdown problems. Look here: (Link).
- Here's an article that covers the whole field of speeding up Windows: (Link)
- Offsite/Online Backups - Carbonite (get promo code from Kim Komando) and Mozy,
both offer online backup services. Don't expect to use these services
for complete hard drive image backups. They don't accept any program
files -- only personal data and picture files. There are several
emerging options associated with Cloud Computing, e.g., Microsoft's Sky
Drive.
- Popups from double underlined links
- They really aren't links like we're used to seeing. Vibrant Media
calls it "in-text advertising". Here's an article that explains
the mechanism and how to use Adblock Plus browser add-in to disable them: (Link). Other organizations offer similar services, e.g., qklinkserver.com. Here's another good reference: (Link)
Topics
-
- New Name for our SIG
- The name change to PC
SIG
will occur in early March. Our next meeting will be the first meeting
under the new name. Kaffee Klatch membership and Forum subscriptions
will be transferred with no action needed by the members.
- Win7 SP1 - I have its RTM on DVD. I'm willing to swap a blank DVD-R for a DVD containing Win7 SP1. Contact me privately. (Link)
- MSIE 9 - MSIE9 Release Candidate (RC) for Vista and Win7 has been released for public evaluation. (Download) (Feature Overview) (Kim Komando) (PCMag)
- Broadband Falls Short in U.S. (Link)
- Balabolka: Free Text-To-Speech Software for Windows (Link)
E-mailed
Questions/Comments (Also,
look in KK
Forum). -
My new PC SIG E-mail address
- Dale Cockle <pc-sig@sctxcompclub.org> (now functional)
|