Kokomo PC Users Group
Volume 15 Issue 3 ...March 2001
Message from the president:
I hope all of you enjoyed the last meeting about wireless Internet; I have enjoyed my wireless connection so far. This month we have decided to have someone in to talk about Cable Modems! Our vice president Arthur Wohlford has the Cable Modem service installed in his home. This will give all of you a chance to compare "Wireless" -vs.- "Cable" Internet service.
I also want to make a comment on how important it is these days to have an up to date Virus program installed and running on your system. And you must keep the DAT files updated at least monthly if not weekly. They’re a lot of EMAIL Viruses going around. So you have been forewarned! (And stay away from pictures of attractive female tennis players.)
I installed a new DVD player and CDRW in my new system this past week. Believe It or not it was the first time I had experienced a DVD movie. I also had another first experience with Napster, although they are going to be shutdown soon. And one more comment, now is a good time to upgrade your memory in your system, just $49.00 for a stick of 128 MB of SDRAM, and compared to last years price of over $300.00 it’s pretty hard to believe. Prices have come down a lot this year, which I think is just fantastic.
Well that is all for now! Our next PC Users Group Meeting will be on Thursday March 8th. I hope to see you all there! Happy Computing!
President: Scott Cox
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NAVIDAD
There Is a new virus sweeping our area called NAVIDAD. So this is a good time to remind everyone about the importance of virus protection software.
Anti-virus HELPS protect you from getting infected and HELPS disinfect, so new seems like a good time to remind everyone about the importance of virus protection software.
Anti-virus software HELPS protect you from getting infected and HELPS disinfect you if you do get infected.
I use the word "helps" because there is absolutely no program in the world that will absolutely protect you absolutely. Absolutely. There is always a risk that you could get infected even if you do everything you can do to protect yourself.
It works by scanning the files on your computer for virus signatures. When it finds one, it will attempt to remove it. If it can’t remove it, your next option will be to delete it. Newer virus scanners also have a "real-time" scanning feature. That means it watches what you do and checks all incoming files as you work. If it comes across a KNOWN virus signature or definition it will take the appropriate action.
This "known virus" thing is important. Occasionally, I recommend once per week, you need to get on the Internet and download the latest virus definitions. It is these definitions that the virus scanning software uses to determine whether or not a particular file is infected.
If your software doesn’t know what a new virus looks like, you are at risk of not being protected against it.
Some virii (plural for virus) do really nasty things. Others are just annoying. Generally speaking, the longer you are infected, the more damage the virus can do.
Not all virii can be removed. There are times where you will have to format your hard drive and reinstall everything from scratch.
There are even virii out there that can physically damage some of the components of your computer, but these are rare.
You will generally get a virus through e-mail. The Navidad virus sends a copy of itself to everyone in your inbox.
Navidad takes advantage of the auto-preview that Outlook Express has. As soon as you click on the e-mail with the virus Outlook Express opens it in the preview pane.
Most of us don’t really count that as opening it but technically speaking it does.
Submitted by Richard Coop By David Makin
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Bookmarks On DisplayYou know that browsers such as Netscape Navigator let you choose what first shows up in their windows. A blank page is the fastest because nothing needs to load. A page from your hard drive is also quite fast, though a particular Web page online may have information you always want to see right away. There's another practical choice in Netscape Navigator: make your Bookmarks into your default home page. After all, they're stored as a Web page on your hard drive, anyway.1. Open Edit, Preferences.2. Choose Navigator.3. Check the button for Netscape starts with Home page.Type the address of your Bookmarks page into the home page location line. Typically this will be C:\ProgramFiles\Netscape\Users\Your Name\Bookmark.htm -- of course with "Your Name" replaced by your own user name.
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COPY URLS INTO MESSAGES Suppose you are viewing a Web page you would like to e-mail to a friend. Press Ctrl-M to open a new Mail Composition Window.Using your mouse, drag the Location icon (between the words Bookmarks and Location on your Location Bar) into the outgoing message. As a result, in the body of your message you will have the title of the Web page, linked by HTML to the corresponding URL. All your friend has to do is click it to go directly to the page.
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HOME PAGES LIKE MAMA USED TO MAKE
Create a simple Web page using Composer, save it to the hard drive, then instead of having to download the page or stare at a blank gray screen, you can fill it with a page of your choice--and change it as often as you want." To specify your newly created page as the Communicator home page, click Edit, Preferences. Select Navigator on the left side of the Preferences window. On the right, under Navigator Starts With, choose Home Page. Under Home Page, click Browse and locate the page you've created. Click Open to specify it, then click OK to save your changes. Test your efforts by clicking the Home Page button on your toolbar; click Go, Home; or close and restart Communicator.
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All Out Of CacheYour browser cache keeps copies of pages -- and elements of the pages -- that you've visited recently. This speeds page loading because the browser can grab unchanged page elements directly from your hard drive. But the cache is also a great place for snoopy types to look at what you're doing online. If you're worried that someone is poking into your business, you can clear the cache. But it will then start filling up again as soon as you use the Web. For more privacy -- at the expense of some speed -- you can set the cache size to 0, so it won't hold anything. In Netscape Navigator 4:1. Open Edit, Preferences.2. Choose Advanced.3. Under the Advanced area, choose Cache.4. Click to Clear the Disk Cache.5. Enter 0 for the Kbytes of Disk Cache.6. Click OK.You can also set the Memory Cache to 0, for perfect privacy, but it will already and automatically disappear each time you quit the Netscape program.
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NETSCAPE 6
For readers considering the switch to Netscape 6 (or those who have already switched), I've included a few URLs that feature some interesting reading. Netscape's information and the What's New page about Netscape 6 is a good place to start. Here Netscape toots its own horn a bit and gives us a description of some of the features and performance we can expect from the new Netscape: http://home.netscape.com/browsers/6/index.html The next links go to news stories and opinion pieces about Netscape and its release of Netscape 6: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-3670409.html http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-3935388.html http://www.pcworld.com/news/article.asp?aid=34779
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President Scott L. Cox
Vice-President Arthur Wohlford
Treasurer Richard Coop Sr., 459-8731
Member Services Rodney Malkoff, 453-1159
Newsletter Editor Jerry Henry 453-4144
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Richard Coop $1
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