Computer Info – November 28, 2001

This Week’s Meeting

        We will start the meeting with a 15 minute presentation on Taking Snapshots by Mitch Barchuk – composition of the background and foreground of the picture. This will be followed by a question and answer session and maybe discussing subjects that have been on the latest handouts.

Taking Snapshots

        Snapshots are what most of us are taking with our cameras. We are not into taking portraits; but instead are just taking a quick capture of what is going on at the moment.
        (1) You should always try to make your snapshot interesting. So, learn to get closer. If you think you are close enough – then take a couple of steps forward before taking that picture.
        (2) Hold your camera steady. Spread your feet apart – this helps to steady you and therefore your camera. Press your elbows into the front of your body – not out to the side. Put the camera against your face – don’t try to hold it away from your face. And, last, slowly squeeze the button -- don’t punch it down.
        Kodak published a book entitled "How to Take Good Pictures" 55 years ago. This photo taking procedures in this book have not changed – only the cameras that they talk about.
        If you are going to mark (write) on a photo (front or back) – try using a permanent marker (like a Sharpie). This dries rapidly and will not smudge.
        If you have old negatives that are on a roll and you can not get it straighten out, try this. Hang the roll of negatives by a metal clip – place another metal clip at the bottom to weight it down. Leave it hanging for a couple of weeks or more to straighten out.
A Symbol of America
Written by: Sgt Marty L. Harris - United States Air Force
 I am the spirit of Freedom, that rings throughout the world.
I am lady liberty, igniting a spark of hope to all those who look upon me.
I am the Mother of Democracy, giving birth to the independence of others.
I have seen the dirt and the soil of many lands and have fought many battles and wars, in the hope
        of keeping freedom alive around the world.
Whenever democracy and freedom lay in the balance; whenever the rights of others have been unjustly
        taken away; whenever the adversary has persisted in the dominance of those less powerful, against
        their will, I have been there.
I have felt the joy of victory, from the American Revolution to the liberation of Kuwait. I have seen hope
        in the eyes of others when they hear the sound of my name. But, I have also felt the heartbreak and
        sadness of civil war, when brothers fought against brother for what each believed to be right.
But, through all of this, I have survived. Today I am stronger than I have ever been.
I will to be a symbol of freedom; of democracy; of justice.
I am that hope. I am that spirit.                         I am America! ** Betty Rawlings sent us this poem that she was using in one of her PowerPoint presentations and I thought maybe it should be included here.

Hard Drives
(Info from Smart Computing – January, 2002)

        Why should you upgrade your hard drive? Anyone with a large collection of MP3 music files can outgrow their storage space quickly. Typical MP3 files are megabytes in size, so any kind of sizable collection is likely to be hundreds of megabytes or even gigabytes in size. Video is even more demanding. Most video capture applications are huge – a typical 1-minute slice of digital video is 8 MB. Not only does digital video require a lot of storage space, but the hard drive must also be very fast in order to deliver good quality video.
        If your drive controller only supports ATA/33 or ATA/66 and you are purchasing an ATA/100 hard drive, then you should also purchase a PCI controller card that supports ATA/100.
        The makeup of a hard drive – A hard drive uses two main sets of components to store and retrieve information. The first set is spinning circular disks or platters and the second is the read/write heads that move from the center of a disk to its outer edge. Each disk has two sides and both sides can contain information. A typical specification that you will encounter will be a head to disk ratio. A typical value is 8/4, where eight read/write heads access information located on four disks with two sides each (one read/write head per side of each disk).
        Each side of the disk is divided into tracks, or concentric circles on the surface. Because they span a circular area, tracks get smaller and smaller in diameter as they approach the center of the disk. Each track is divided into equal sections of 512 bytes each, called sectors.
        Cylinders are the total number of tracks on all the disks in a hard drive that are at equal distances from the spindle that holds the disks together. So, on a four-platter hard drive containing eight sides that can hold information, a single cylinder comprises eight tracks. If each of the disks has 500 tracks, then the entire hard drive contains 4,000 tracks, or 500 cylinders consisting of eight tracks each.
        Hard drives store information in great quantities, but eventually some of that information must make its way to the computer’s memory. This is where interfaces come in. An interface is a data pipeline that permits transfers between the hard drive and the host. Hard drive interfaces are IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics) and EIDE (Enhanced IDE). EIDE supports larger storage capacities and larger data transfer rates. SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) is another popular interface standard. SCSI hard drives have faster rotational speeds and lower seek times and higher performance; but the cost is greater and it is more complex to set up.
        There are only two drive rotation speeds for EIDE hard drives – 5400 rpm and 7200 rpm. The 7200 rpm is becoming the standard, so, unless your budget considerations override others, resist the temptation to settle for a 5400 rpm drive.

Viruses and File Extensions

        The default of Windows is to hide all of the file extensions. If you are using any version of Windows, you are vulnerable until you can find and reverse this setting. The one reason that the I Love You virus was able to do so much damage was because people thought that it was a TXT (text) file because the extensions were hidden. Thousands of people with the default Windows setting that hides extensions didn’t know they were opening a VBS (Visual Basic Script) file instead of an innocuous text file.
        It is still not possible to put an executing virus inside a TXT or an RTF file. Although several viruses specifically attack and erase or overwrite MP3 music files and various graphic files, there are no known viruses traveling in these file types.
    To expose All File Extensions ----
                    Double click MY COMPUTER
                    Click VIEW – FOLDER OPTIONS (In Windows ME, you will find this under
                                the CONTROL PANEL.
                    Click the VIEW tab
                    Remove checks from HIDE FILES OF THESE TYPES and HIDE FILE EXTENSIONS FOR
                                KNOWN FILE TYPES boxes
                    Put a check in SHOW ALL FILES box
                    Click OK

        To stop Windows from hiding the Windows Shell Scrap files, you must modify the registry. Remember that modifying the Windows Registry improperly can damage your system so severely that you may have to reinstall Windows. So, to remove the NeverShowExt value
        Click the START button
        Select RUN and type regedit to open the Registry editor
        From the EDIT menu, click FIND
        Remove check marks from the Keys and Data entries under Look At, and put a check in the Values box.
        Type NeverShowExt in the Find What box and click Find Next
        When a value is found, right-click the value name and click DELETE.
        Press F3 to find the next occurrence of NeverShowExt
        Repeat the Find Next until you’ve found and removed all occurrences of NeverShowExt from the Registry
        Exit and reboot