in this issue Views From the Top From The Font Upcoming Meeting Topics Book Review Special Interest Group (SIG) October 2003 Board Minutes It's Scary Out There The Christmas Party is Coming Web Potpourri

Speaker for November
Brown Bobbitt of Camera World
Ms. Bobbit is in charge of professional sales, will bring the latest and greatest camera equipment for us to look at, and talk about "Current Product Choices" and the future of digital photography.

Views From the Top

Richard Kinkel, President

Can you believe it; we only have one more pc general meeting this year? Then in December we have our Christmas Party. This year has passed by extremely fast. Looking back, the club got a lot accomplished. Last month was the club's best program in my opinion. For those who didn't make it to the meeting, you missed a good one. And the program for November looks like a good one too. We're having Brown Bobbitt from Camera World who will bring the latest and greatest camera equipment for us to salivate at, and he'll be talking about products and choices and the future of digital photography. So tell your friends and plan to attend.

We got two new board members and created or filled a new position; Publicity. We're happy to welcome Loran Dobosy and Jack LaPointe to the board. Jack has always been a very close and vital friend to the board, but now he's an official board member.

We're also getting involved with community projects. Bill Barnes has 6 to 10 computers that he would like to donate to charity, but they need reformatting and cleaning up. We want to make this a club project. You will hear more about this from Bill. If you want to help, go to pc3.org to contact and tell him you would like to help. Additionally, Don King is helping; his first name is Greg, and Greg is handicapped and needs a computer. More details will follow from Don. I must say that this is a fine computer club to be part of.

And lastly, send in your $5 membership dues if you haven't already done so. Go to pc3.org to get info on how to do that. Buy your Christmas Party tickets early so Virginia knows how many meals to order. And on a final note, the board appointed Ted Hessberg as Nominating Committee Chair.

See you at the general meeting.

Go to the PC Club's Website

	From The Font
Keith Wales, Sr. Well here we are in November already, where has this year gone to. The leaves are falling in my yard and in my gutters. I am sure that two fall in the gutters for every one that makes it to the ground. Most of the year I enjoy living in the "Forest Primeval" but not when the leaves start to fall. Well enough of my ramblings about fall. As you may have noticed the name of this column has changed. Thanks to Jack Lapointe for the new name. His entry was the unanimous choice of the editorial staff; actually his was the only entry. Participation in the all phases of the club's activities has been this boards key theme, we still have a long way to go but it is better today than it has been in several years. As we go to press on this issue I look at the contributors and it is a familiar list. Thanks to Bill Barnes for always being there both with articles and help. I am only a few months away from finishing my second term as editor and from the start it is always a struggle to get content from you the members. I am not looking for a Tom Clancy novel. I know if everyone of you thought about it you did something this month to your computer or with your computer that others would be interested in hearing about. Write it down and send it to editor@pc3.org this is your newsletter and would like to see it filled with your input. The Web Potpourri was designed to make it easy for you to send in a link and just a two lines about it. Most months my faithful editorial assistant and long time love of my life comes up with something, this month is no different. Remember that the Christmas Party is 11 December. Tickets will be available at the November General Meeting from Pam at the side table. We are hoping to see all of you at the meeting as well as the party. Tickets this year are $20.00 each member or guest. This year's entrée will be London Broil with several side dishes and dessert. We will not be having wine on the tables this year though. Dewey and his elves have been collecting presents and we will have gifts like always. See you at the meeting I hope. Membership Levels »

	Upcoming Meeting Topics
November Richard Kinkel will introduce a speaker on Digital Photography December The Annual PCCC Christmas Party and Supper January Keith Wales will lead a discussion group on "How do I use that neat "thingamajig" I got for Christmas"

	Book Review
Bill Barnes Windows XP(r) Killer Tips by Kleber Stephenson (c) 2003, published by New Riders Publishing Occasionally publishers will donate to the club books or even programs for review. We pass these donations on to members who write a review of the product for our monthly newsletter. They're free for the receiving member; all the publisher asks is that we give them some publicity. We received this book from the publisher. If you would like to be a reviewer for us, contact gift procurer Dewey Williams to see what goodies he has in his bag. This book has 250 pages of tips, two illustrated tips on a page, so you get an idea of the detail and difficulty of the tips. It also tells you this is a great book to pick up, flip to a random page, and read 2 paragraphs. Since I intended to review it, I had to read it from the beginning (how many people actually read a computer manual for entertainment?). As I started the first chapters, I felt the tips were either trivial, obscure, specific to a narrow interest, or simply cutsey customizations I don't bother doing to my computer. But the farther I got into the book, the more pages I dogeared to indicate a tip I wanted to try for myself or pass on to others. Either way, with 500 tips you'll be sure to find enough goodies to help you out. Windows XP(r) Killer Tips "Let's be paranoid", pg 161 In Internet Explorer (I know, that's not strictly Win XP, but it's in the book), go to Tools (on the menus) | Internet Options. On the General tab are buttons to delete your temporary files and clear the history. While there, click the Settings button to change the amount of space your cache uses. "Be shifty with dialog boxes", pg 93 & 111 When there's a confirmation box with "Yes", "Yes to All", "No", and "Cancel" buttons; do you ever wish there were a "No to All? option? Just hold the shift key as you click "No" and you will answer . . . to all. When you go to "Turn off computer" you get the options to "Standby", "Restart", or "Shut down". Hibernate is a better option to Standby because it immediately saves your RAM to disc and protects your data better. Just hold the shift as you click Standby and you'll hibernate. By the way, I hope you always save your work before you activate either Standby or Hibernate. These options are much faster to resume than booting your computer, but there is a chance Windows will lose your place and require a hard restart.   Read the collected Killer Tips »

	Special Interest Group (SIG)
Special Interest Group Next week will be our SIG week and we will have several during that week. The schedule is as follows: Database/Graphics SIG -- aka PIG SIG Will meet at a new time Our regular General Meeting Night November 13, 2003 at 5:30pm At Ole Smokehouse, 1513 Montford Dr. Office SIG Monday, November 17, 2003, 7:00pm CompUSA, South Boulevard and I-485 Digital Camera SIG Tuesday, November 18, 2003, 7:00pm CompUSA, South Boulevard and I-485 Internet SIG Thursday, November 20, 2003, 7:00pm CompUSA, South Boulevard and I-485 SIG Calendar »

	October 2003 Board Minutes
October 2003 Board Minutes The PCCC Board met October 20 at The Ole Smokehouse on Montford. Attending were guest Bob Carraway, newly appointed co-Publicity chair Loran Dobosy, Pam, Keith, Ted, Bill, Richard, Dewey, and Paul. We welcomed Loran who volunteered to help Jack LaPointe with publicity. He has already put some miles on tracking down publicity opportunities on the east and south side of Charlotte. If you have any ideas or contacts to display a poster or publish our notices, contact publicity@pc3.org. We still need more people to participate in the advisory and administrative opportunities for the club. Open Board positions include vice president, secretary, membership, and publicity. We particularly need someone to take up the mantle of SIG Director. The demands on your time are not onerous, but this is one of the more publicly visible positions - that means opportunity to get goodies from vendors. Filling all of these positions is important to the vitality of the club. If you don't volunteer for one, you'll have to read this paragraph again next month. Ted Hessberg volunteered to lead the arm twisting.... er, nominating committee for next spring. Think about which position you'll volunteer for. Don't be shy, all current officers will take a challenger as an opportunity to fill other positions in the club. Bill Barnes presented the club with a service opportunity for the club to fulfill it's premise. His company is donating a number of old computers to be used by some charitable organization. We may turn our noses up at these computers, but they should be adequate in a less stressful environment. Before they can be given out, they need to be refurbished and have software installed. There will be a task for everyone of any skill level. Come to the General Meeting to catch the buzz. The November general meeting will be will be Brown Bobbitt, of Camera World on "interesting stuff". Brown comes to us through the efforts of Richard Kinkel. December is, of course, the party. We are hoping to get Ralph Blanco in January and considering doing "use your Christmas gifts" in February, so tell us what you got that you can't figure out. Later we may configure the donated computers or do another session on share/freeware. If you have any ideas, contacts, or suggestions for meeting topics; please pass them on to the board at board@pc3.org. Remember that only Paid Subscribers may attend SIG meetings. Subscription is only $5 and you can pay at any meeting or mail it to PCCC Treasurer, Pam Wales, 15214 Millview Trace Lane, Mint Hill, NC 28277, treasurer@pc3.org. The next Board meeting will be 5:30 October 20 at the Ole Smokehouse, 1513 Montford Dr. If you have any questions, contact Bill Barnes at office@pc3.org or 704- 607-6461. Submitted by Bill Barnes October Treasurers Report Beginning Balance............................$2573.70 Income (From Membership, Tickets & Interest).....................190.22 Expenses (Newletter, Bank Fee )................27.00 Current Balance...............................$2736.92 Submitted By Pam Wales Volunteer! »

	It's Scary Out There
Ted Hessberg This morning my email messages included one from john.williams@earthlink.net. Mr. Williams advised that there was a problem with my email account and that I would have to re-register and provide, again, credit card and banking information. The links in the email led me to a what appeared to be a secure site. Its url was something like https://earthlink.net/accountverification. It looked like the real thing. I began to fill it out. It asked for real name, Social Security Number, address, driver's license number, passport number. Some of these numbers were clearly none of Earthlink's business. Now if they asked for them well maybe. I have held the same email account for more than ten years. And the ISP has never asked for this type information before. Furthermore, traditional navigation in the form was turned off. The only command button on the form was a "Submit" button. Fortunately, Ctrl-Alt- Del, the three finger salute from days of yore, brings up a task manager on my computer so I was able to end the task without submitting the requested information. Yet Williams' message was so authentic and the url looked so real that I kept going back to check. Each time I had to use the three finger salute to exit. I finally called Earthlink, not at the telephone number provided by Mr. Williams or one of his links-for that was not Earthlink's number and it did not work. I reached them at 888-847-4708. And I am glad I did. What is scary is that I almost got suckered into answering. Beware. It's dangerous out there.

	The Christmas Party is Coming
Keith Wales, Sr. The Annual PCCC CHRISTMAS PARTY will be held at St. Gabreil Catholic Church on December 11th. The menu this year has changed and the Main Course is going to be London Broil. We will also have a variety of side dishes. The cost this year will be $20.00 per person. Family members of the PCCC member will also be $20.00. Remember only paid up members and their immediate families are eligiible to attend. Tickets will be available at the October and November General Meetings or by sending a check to: Treasurer 15214 Millview Trace Lane Mint Hill, NC 28227 I hope you are looking as forward to this evening with friends as I am.

	Web Potpourri
Bill Barnes Cue and aye What's a bigger nuisance than having to go around and reset all the clocks when daylight saving time ends? Having some of your clocks automatically adjust themselves so you don't know which is correct. I stumbled on http://www.programming.de/. This guy is a programmer-for-the-fun-of-it and shares some of his practice programs. Great utilities programmed to completion without over-fussing. The "manual" is a half- page text file. Better still, most of the programs are freeware. I use Multi Timer all the time. This is 9 count- up or count-down timers with available sound alarm in 122 KB. After October's security presentation, you might want to invest 86 KB in Password Generator. This will generate up to 1,000 (at a time) random passwords with a selectable level of complexity. Submitted by Bill Barnes Send me your favorite sites and you to could be in the spotlight next month. Link of the day »

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