in this issue Views From the Top From The Font Upcoming Meeting Topics Web Thoughts Special Interest Group (SIG) January Board Minutes Excel- The Missing Manual My New Computer Web Potpourri

Views From the Top

Richard Kinkel, President

Well it's time for another views from the top and I'm preoccupied with the thought that we might go without power for two or three days, since it's snowing heavily, and the weather service is calling for .5-1 inch of ice tonight. So I better get this out before I lose power. I'll let you know at the next meeting what happened. In this modern electronic age, if the power goes out, my activities come to a stand still. All my telephone numbers are stored on the computer. In fact, I can't even write a check since that's done with Quicken. Without power, I can't even call my friends for help. Now, I do have an old fashion rotary phone and I can make a call as long as I have a phone number to call. But with the computer down, the flow of information stops.

Now for some club business: we are very lucky to have Dan (who's a PhD) to talk about making better financial investments using your computer. So you won't want to miss it. Please tell all your friends about it. I promise that the presentation will be the best the club has had this year. I use Quicken, so I'm interested to hear what Dan has to say.

Also, don't forget to attend the SIGs, and don't forget to take note of the new schedule, which you can find in the club newsletter. And finally, let me remind you that club elections are coming soon; anyone interested?

Now let me go outside and take some snow photos. See you soon.

Go to the PC Club's Website

	From The Font
Keith Wales, Sr. The following about the Market Pro Show is more important than my ramblings. From The Font will be back next month for the Series Finale. See you then. Dewey Williams The MarketProShows Computer Show at Metrolina Expo was a success, for MarketProShows, the vendors the attendees and, best of all, for the PC Club of Charlotte. Throughout the day Saturday and Sunday, our volunteers handed out PCCC business cards and talked with people about the club. Over 20 people signed up for the newsletter by noon Saturday, which could mean new faces at the meetings and new members. I spoke with the MarketProShows liaison who said that they hope to come back 3 or 4 times a year. We can be assured of a table whenever they have a show. I want to thank the volunteers who worked the show. A big thanks also goes to Bill Barnes and Jim McClanahan, who quickly put together flyers for display and distribution. For the next computer show we will be more prepared, organized and have more notice. Thanks again to everyone involved Dewey Editor Bytes & Bits »

	Upcoming Meeting Topics
February Usng Your Computer to Invest March Officer Elections

	Web Thoughts
Bill Barnes, PCCC Many years ago, when the local TV station was looking for a successor to Dr. Who, they showed the short-lived, 1987 series Star Cops, placed in the 2020s. One of the props was a device a little larger than a double-pack of cards that the lead character carried in his pocket and referred to as "Box." His possession of Box was mildly scandalous, not because it was illicit; but because its purchase required near Gatesian resources and he was a mere civil servant. The explanation was that his father worked with the developer and it was a token of appreciation. Box was a magical device because its owner simply had to ask a question and it could access all the global information stores and find a response in a few minutes. Sounds sorta like Google on your Treo. Last time I touched on the concept of remote control that allows you to work on your computer as though you were sitting at your desk from any PC on the internet. Now, replace the home computer in this picture with a service bureau and visualize the possibilities. You sit down at any thin client** anywhere in the world. Log in with biometric authentication and encryption and you're connected to a virtualization of your desktop with your data and your preferences. It doesn't matter whether the client is in your cubicle at work, your cell phone, or an ATM; it has the same information. There is no issue of synchronizing your contact list between Outlook and your Palm because you only have one, live, contact list. If you're in the middle of writing an email, paying bills, or watching a video when it's time to leave for work; just hit "suspend" and pick up at that exact point on the train or in the coffee shop. Did you forget the grocery list? Pull out your PDA and there it is, including the dinner ingredient your spouse just discovered wasn't in the pantry and a request from your children to pick them up at the library because it's raining. At work your company data and programs are seamlessly integrated into or judiciously isolated from your personal activities. Email can be filtered so you don't get the vacation pictures from your brother until you switch from "at work" to "at home." On the other hand, your calendar is merged (at least during working hours) so you know you'll miss that safety lecture because of your dentist appointment. If you are required to, or restricted from, accessing certain tasks at certain times, it's appropriately managed. All of this personal computing comes to you from central servers for a competitive monthly fee. You don't have to think about hard drive crashes, backups, software updates, or virus attacks because the system's managed by professionals. If you need more computing power, either for today or permanently, just upgrade your subscription. You can lease your applications by the month to be assured of always having the latest revision or buy a "lifetime" license. Either way, software costs should come down because publishers are assured that every user will pay for his use. Programs should be better because programmers don't have to spend time making sure they work with every configuration of Windows on every type of PC installed by people with all levels of expertise. Meanwhile, if you want to try out a new program, you're not stuck with either bootlegging it or laying out big bucks to buy it. Just add it to your subscription list for a month. The publisher may even make the first month free, hoping you'll subscribe. This story may be as accurate a picture of next year as Detroit's concept cars, but it's not totally pie-in-the-sky. All of this technology exists today. It may not be totally integrated or broadly used outside certain markets, but it's here. It just needs someone to bring it all together, put a friendly face on it, and sell it to a billion users worldwide (Dewey and I will opt out). Who will be the next Steve Jobs or Sergey Brin? Thin client A terminal that provides input to and displays results from a program running on another computer. In this case it could be an installed program such as those from RealVNC or Citrix; a browser plug-in such as the Java programs used by RealVNC or GoToMyPC; or a text screen such as you might get connecting from a cell phone, ATM, or drink machine. In any case, it runs the same program with the same data and essentially the same user interface that you're always familiar with on the central server. The experience is independent of your terminal's operating system, whether it's a PC, Mac, PDA, or Linux system. Non Sequitor In my article I made reference to Sergey Brin. Since I wasn't sure how to spell his first name, I opened Google and typed "Brin" in the search box. "Sergey" came up as the second item. This was a link to his staff profile as a graduate assistant at Stanford in 1998. Read last month's article » More on Firefox. It's official. Both Business Week and Newsweek had articles on Firefox in their January 24 issues. When the general press starts telling Microsoft to watch their rear-view mirror, you know something's up. Business Week article Newsweek article

	Special Interest Group (SIG)
Special Interest Group The NEW SIG schedule is as follows: Web Design Wednesday, February 2, 2005, 7:00pm CompUSA, South Boulevard and I-485 The Topic is No Meeting this Month Office SIG Monday, January 17,2005 at 7:00pm CompUSA, South Boulevard and I-485 The Topic is TBD . Internet SIG Thursday, January 20, 2005 7:00pm CompUSA, South Boulevard and I-485 The Topic is See PC3 Web Site Digital Camera SIG Tuesday, November 16, 2004, 7:00pm CompUSA, South Boulevard and I-485 The Topic is See PC3 Web Site SIG Calendar »

	January Board Minutes
Bill Barnes, Vice President The PCCC Board met January 24, 2005 at Gus' Sir Beef. Attending were Richard Kinkle, president; Bill Barnes, vice president; Bob Carraway, membership; Jim McClanahan, membership development; and Paul Reiss and Galen Bolin, SIG leaders. Jim reported that, despite a late start on our organization, we had a good response to our table at the MarketPro Computer Show. We got 30 new email addresses and at least 3 of these showed up at the MS Office SIG the next week. Jim wrote a letter he will send them that we will also post to the membership section of the website. Welcome to our new members! Bob reported that we have 58 paid members. Everyone's membership will be due in April. We had a lively discussion over our policy of making all memberships expire in April. There were several suggestions of ways to make the cost of dues more equitable for new members. 1) Make all dues paid after January 1 valid until April of the next year. 2) Prorate dues of members who join after April. 3) Return to a variable membership expiration so all dues are for 12 months. We deferred decision for more discussion. If you have any ideas, please pass them on to Bob or Jim at membership@pc3.org. Once again, we are out of program ideas for the General Meeting. Everyone wants to have outside speakers, but no one has any contacts or is willing to chase them down. Paul will try to get the speaker who ran out of time a year ago to come back. Galen volunteered to revisit his presentations on PC video or burning CDs. Dewey and Bill are considering a hands-on session on networking. If you have any thoughts on program topics, please pass them on to Richard. Especially, if you have contacts for outside speakers or are willing to contribute as Program Chairman, contact Richard or come to the Board meeting. The next Board meeting will be 5:30 February 28 at the Ole Smokehouse, 1513 Montford Dr. All members are invited to give their input. If you have any questions, contact Richard Kinkel at president@pc3.org. January Treasurers Report Beginning Balance...................$2870.27 Current Balance......................$2738.11 Submitted By Pam Wales Join the Forum! »

	Excel- The Missing Manual
Bob Carraway I attended the recent MS Office Significant Interest Group (SIG) last week held at CompUSA and sponsored by the Personal Computer Club of Charlotte. At the meeting I won a book on Microsoft Excel. One of the great benefits of attending these SIGs is the occasional opportunity to take one of these great gifts home with you. The book is published by O'Reilly and is titled, "Excel The Missing Manual." The book written by Matthew MacDonald is over seven hundred pages long and covers versions 2002 and 2003. I really expected the book to be too complex and not user-friendly, however, I was delighted to find the book to be well written and designed for a "Regular Joe." I have found it to be easy reading and very informative. The name of the book is apropos. It truly is a timely book that should be included with Excel software. There are eight sections in the book which include, Worksheet Basics, Formulas and Functions, Organizing Worksheets, Charts and Graphics, and much more. The book retails for $40.00 in the US, but I found it on Amazon for about $20.00, but with 600 pages. I don't know which version is the newest, but either one would be a great addition to anyone's computer book library. I highly recommend this book to anyone who uses Excel, and the price is right too.

	My New Computer
By Walt Kreiling Editors Note: This is a reprint form an old Bytes and Bits but it has things to ponder for us today. Let me tell you about my new computer. I can't reveal where or how I came to get this amazing machine, but I got it and it is truly an exceptional unit. As a matter of fact I'm not supposed to let anyone know about it, but being a member of the PCCC I decided to let you all know. Promise you won't let anyone outside of the PCCC know, or else don't read the following. While most of you are getting the latest state of the art Pentium II's with about 300mhz speeds, I have got a Pentium XV (or Pentium 15 for those of you who can't read Roman Numerals) with infinite speed. This machine won't be generally available to the public until late 2015. Specific application software is no longer a problem for me. This machine communicates with the Manufacture's Software data base and downloads whatever software is required instantly. This way I always have instant access to all available software with all the very latest features. You may ask how this is accomplished, but I better not tell you. Suffice it to say that the communications path is via a sub-space variable harmonic link using direct Omega pattern radial parameters with gravimetric modulation. Similar to those you hear of on Star-Trek. There is no keyboard or mouse with this machine. The Input normally done via a keyboard is now by voice. The mouse function was replaced with a device which follows your eye movements. One of the very first things I did after receiving this miraculous machine was to go on line on the internet, and being a faithful PCCC member I called up pc3.org. I received a message, "address does not exist", but I know it does exist! I did a whole lot of fuming and fussing and was finally able to determine the problem. It seems the internal date and time were set incorrectly! That is the date/time was mostly OK, but the year was incorrect in that the year shown was 2015. I tried to set the year to 1998 but to no avail. The machine was being built for a future time and would not accept any year prior to 2000. I guess this is a reverse of the millennium problem we are looking forward to next year. I reset the year to 2000, and tried again to access pc3.org. This time I was successful and the club's home page was displayed. However, on closer examination to my utter surprise, I could see that the date on the latest club newsletter was January 2000. Truly amazing, I could see into the future! How this computer accomplished this I'll never know. Reading through this future newsletter, although it was a much shorter publication than it is today, I could see that the club president and other officers were still pleading for other members to come forward and take a more active part in the club. It seemed to me to be a part of the continuing effort at sparking some membership interest in the club. They were using the same old arguments in trying to get members more interested in the club. You know the lines, "Only a very few of the members are willing to take active parts, and this is an overload on them." Same old stuff we've heard at the latest meetings. Not very interesting, and it didn't hold my attention. So, I changed the date to 2001 and accessed pc3.org again. "Address does not exist" was the response. Now what could be the problem? Did the club drop its web page? Other attempts to find pc3.org with dates past 2001 were also unsuccessful. What could have happen? I went back to the year 2000 newsletter and looked up the Email address of the club president (I'm not going to tell you who that was/will be.) I wondered what if I sent an Email to the president with the year set to beyond 2000. Setting the year to 2003, I Emailed him/her with the question, "What was going on with the PCCC web page?" No response. Tried again, same no response. Then, I had a thought "what if the responses are coming to me in the year 2003? I then asked them to resend with the year changed to 1998 so that I could run some checks on my machine. I lied and made the excuse that my machine was old and not millennium compliant and would not accept anything dated beyond 1999. This time I was successful. Email came back from the year 2003!!! As you may suspect by now, the responses from 2003 indicated that the newsletter had died in early 2000. The web page lasted only a few months beyond that The entire club folded before the start of 2001. The few members who had been doing the jobs necessary for running the club had reached their point of overload, and had walked away from those jobs. Without any new membership interest in keeping the club going, it simply ceased to exist. However, the members who had been carrying the ball all those years, still continued to get together on a regular basis, sort of a mini-PCCC. I was invited to join them, but only if I would commit to being an "active" participant. I had to decline; they did not know that I was still back in 1998. This really got me to thinking. What will it mean to me if the club folds? I have to admit, it would be a real loss to me. I enjoy the people, the meetings, and I have learned a lot by just being a member. The club is a give and take organization. Have I been taking more than I'm giving? Sadly I had to admit it was true. Many times I have thought of writing something for the newsletter, but never got around to it. I've been "felt out" to see if I would accept an club officers position, but politely made excuses to not accept. I have given a little, in that I've worked the PCCC booth at the Computer shows attempting to drum up new members but is that enough?. Even this little bit of working the Computer shows has an underlying motive in that it gets me free admission to the show (saving me $6.). So now (1998), can I prevent the possible future collapse of the PCCC? No. I'll continue to work the Computer shows and I will become more active in contributing to the newsletter (evidence this article). I can not at this time commit to an office but I am entertaining thoughts of next year. Maybe I should just shut down this new computer and let the future take whatever course it will. Whatever will be will be? Or will it. Can the whole of the membership prevent a future collapse? Yes. But will they?

	Web Potpourri
Keith Wales, Sr., PCCC The following link to Computer Stupidities was submitted by Dewey Williams. It is a real riot of a site. Send me your favorite sites and you to could be in the spotlight next month. Computer Stupidities »

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