Computer Info – June 12, 2002

This Week’s Meeting

Discussion of articles from previous handouts and a look at Excel. That’s the topic for this week.

Magic Lantern

For those of you who were not at the meeting last week, Steve mentioned about the Magic Lantern project. Criminals are now using good encryption software to scramble their correspondence via the internet – which take years to break the code (or discover the key or password). The FBI’s Magic Lantern is an electronic surveillance tool and experts believe it may also be able to secretly install itself on an unsuspecting user's computer, much like a computer virus. The program could be disguised as a harmless computer file — a so-called "Trojan horse" program — and sent as an attachment to another computer via e-mail.

Security experts suggest that like other Trojan horse viruses, the FBI's Magic Lantern may be discovered by anti-virus programs. And security software makers such as Symantec and Sophos have already taken the position that they won't treat a Magic Lantern bug any differently than any other computer virus. "Malicious code is malicious code," said Graham Cluely, senior technology consultant for Sophos Anti-Virus, in a statement last month. "If a customer suspects they may be under surveillance and sends a Trojan horse to us, we're going to provide protection against it.

You can read about it at

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/CuttingEdge/cuttingedge011221.html

Adding Controls to Excel Worksheet

SPINNER – The spinner lets you alter the value in a cell by clicking an up or down arrow on the control.

First, create a worksheet with these values

Cell A1 Savings calculator

Cell A2 Interest rate p.a.

Cell B2 6%

Cell A3 Number of years

Cell B3 4

Cell A4 Monthly deposit

Cell B4 -200

Cell A5 Initial balance

Cell B5 -100

Cell A7 Amount saved

Cell B7 =FV(B2/12,B3*12,B4,B5,0)

This worksheet calculates the amount saved at the end of four years if you start with $100 and save $200 a month at an interest rate of 6 percent compounded monthly. Monies paid out are expressed as negative values, so your starting deposit and the monthly payments are negative.

Let’s begin by creating a spinner to adjust the number of years shown in cell B3. Choose VIEW – TOOLBARS – FORMS to display the FORMS toolbar and locate the SPINNER control. Click the control and place it by using your mouse to draw a rectangle in cell C3. Right click the control, choose FORMAT CONTROL, and select the CONTROL tab. Set the CURRENT VALUE to 4, the MAXIMUM value to 20, and the CELL LINK to B3, then click OK.

Deselect the spinner by clicking away from it in the worksheet. Test the spinner by clicking its up and down arrows.

Excel – Calculating a Due Date

If you would like Excel to calculate a date 7 days after the date that you enter – you would first format the two columns to contain dates. Next, in the first column, you would type in a date. In the second column, you would put the following formula

=if(ISBLANK(B2)=TRUE,””,B2+7)

where B2 would be the cell where you placed the date. If B2 was blank, then nothing would be entered in the second column. If B2 was not blank, then the second column would contain a date that was equal to the date that you typed into B2 plus 7 days.

Excel 2002

GETTING HELP

Remember the Office Assistant from previous versions that kept popping up on-screen like an unwanted guest. Microsoft no longer displays the Office Assistant by default, although you can still turn it on. Instead, you can get help through the Ask A Question box, which is tucked at the far right side of the Menu bar. To use this feature, click in the Type A Question For Help field, type the topic in which you are interested, and press ENTER. Click the subject on the drop-down list that appears and Excel will display the appropriate information in a Help window.

Networking – Windows XP

(info from Smart Computing – July, 2002)

Each PC in your network must have a NIC (network interface card). The NIC should have an Ethernet port and can either be internal (connected to the motherboard inside the PC case) or external (usually plugged into a USB port).

If you have only two PCs, you can take the simple approach and use a patch cable with an RJ-45 connector on each end.

The main computer in your network must be running Windows XP and must be the PC that has the internet connection. Microsoft calls this PC, the ICS (Internet Connection Sharing) host.

Once you have installed all of the hardware and cables, it’s time to power up all the devices and put Windows XP to work. Turn on every PC and printer you want to connect. On the main computer in the network, click START – ALL PROGRAMS – ACCESSORIES – COMMUNICATIONS – NETWORK SETUP WIZARD. This launches a series of Network Setup Wizard dialog boxes. When the first dialog box appears, click NEXT. The next dialog box gives you a chance to double-check your network before continuing. Click NEXT. The Give This Computer A Description and A Name dialog box lets you identify the computer however you want, but watch out: it is best to not change the name, but give it any description you wish. Click NEXT and in the Name Your Network dialog box leave the name as is and click NEXT again.

The Ready To Apply Network Settings dialog box gives you a chance to back up and make changes before you make your network settings effective. Click NEXT. In the You’re Almost Done dialog box, if all the other networked PCs are running Windows XP, click Just Finish The Wizard radio button and then click NEXT. If other networked PCs are running Windows 98/98se/ME, insert a blank, formatted floppy into drive A; click the Create A Network Setup Disk radio button; and click FINISH. Use this floppy to set up the other computers that you are networking.