SLO Bytes Newsletter - March 2012 - PUSH Articles Index

3D Digital Picture Frame by George Harding, Treasurer, Tucson Computer Society, AZ (approx. 434 words). Picture frame devices are designed to show your pictures in a slide show sort of display, one at a time, sometimes with other information on the screen. They come in various sizes, from small enough to attach to a bracelet to as large as a piece of letter paper. How about one that has 3D capability?

Adobe Photoshop Elements 10 & Premier Elements 10 reviewed by Clint Tinsley, Editor, Idaho PCUG (approx. 2,452 words). What he covers in this review is what has been added since the 2009 versions. The four major additions to Photoshop Elements since Version 8 are: Layer Mask Creation, Content-Aware Healing Bruch, Overlay Guides, and new guided tasks. Photoshop Premier Elements 10 shares the all the new features found in the new Elements Organizer for managing, sharing and selecting the content to be used in your video production. It has wider support for more video formats including AVCHD disks, a new three-way color corrector, and continues to build on all the features it is known for including green screen effects where you can fly people and objects over other content and motion tracking.

Auslogics BoostSpeed, User review by Jim Fromm, Editor, The TUG, MOAA UG, Hawaii (approx. 509 words). Jim is a registered user of the award-winning Auslogics BoostSpeed and has demonstrated or talked about the apps at their WINSIG meetings. This utility program offers just about everything except the ability to start your coffee in the morning. One of his favorites is Tweak Manager.

Buying a Computer – Things to think about (Part 1) by Phil Sorrentino, past president, Sarasota PCUG, Florida (1 – approx. 1,086 words; 2 – approx. 1,116 words; 3 – approx. 1,720 words). The thought of buying a new computer is always very exciting, whether you are buying your first computer or replacing an aged one. Part 1 covers deciding on the manufacturer and making the laptop or desktop decision. Deciding on the CPU is also covered in Part 1. Part 2 discusses laptop size, memory, and the hard disk drive. Part 3 discusses the considerations for a desktop.
    Buying a Computer – Things to think about (Part 2)
    Buying a Computer – Things to think about (Part 3)

CES Innovation Awards by Lou Torraca, President, The TUG MOAA Computer User Group, Hawaii (approx. 1,208 words). A preeminent panel of independent industrial designers, independent engineers and members of the trade press had the opportunity to see, touch, feel, and understand the future of consumer technology. Products chosen as the most impressive in each category were selected as honorees and were featured at CES. His article covers some of the Best of Innovations winners.

Choosing a Smartphone by Sandy Berger, CompuKISS.com (Approx. 90 words). There are so many different smartphones available today that choosing between them can be difficult. Each phone and each operating system has many different pluses and minuses. Sandy gives you a brief rundown of what you can expect in a smartphone.

Copyright, Internet create a difficult conflict by Toby Scott, technical Advisor, Channel Islands PCUG, CA (approx. 956 words). Now that the Stop Online Privacy Act and Protect IP Act (SOPA/PIPA) have been defeated, it is time to look at the dynamics of the conflict between copyright holders and Internet hosts.

Crime and Conflict by Greg Skalka, President, Under the Computer Hood UG, San Diego (approx. 1,245 words). Greg’s article covers cyber-attacks, hacking accounts, stolen data, political conflict and more.

Dynamic Pricing Gives Different Pricing to Different People by Sandy Berger, CompuKISS.com (approx. 734 words). If you walked into Wal-Mart to purchase a camera and the sales person told you the camera you were interested in was $300 and then offered it to the next person in line for $200, you would probably be aggravated. Yet, this is what is happening with online shopping.

East-Tec Eraser – Take out the garbage permanently and forever, a software review by Herb Goldstein, Editor, Sarasota PCUG, Florida (approx. 622 words). There’s no shortage of software that will permanently erase files, but if you simply want the very best there is and one that spares none of the bells and whistles, East-Tec Eraser leads the pack.

Goodnight iPad, a Parody for the next generation and a modern bedtime story, reviewed by Judy Taylour, President, SCV Computer Club, CA (approx. 431 words). Many of you read Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown to your children as well as your grandchildren…over and over again. You will want to get a copy of Goodnight iPad to renew the pleasure you had in reading the original book, but this one is a hoot.

Is Your Computer Running Slower and Slower? By Jim Cerney, Director, Sarasota PCUG, Florida (approx. 526 words). Have you noticed that your computer is taking longer to turn on? Do programs take longer to run? Are you getting lots of “pop-up windows asking about things that you don’t know anything about? Jim recommends you bit the bullet and pay to have a good tech person to get it back in shape, just like you would have your car looked at by a technical expert for a maintenance of safety check.

GoGo by George Harding, Treasurer, Tucson Computer Society, AZ (approx. 182 words). When you fly, whether commercial or private, you are prohibited from using your laptop, tablet or mobile phone to access the Internet. No longer! GoGo has available technology that allows you to surf the Internet once your aircraft has reached 10,000 feet.

HTML5 Canvas, Native Interactivity and Animation for the Web by Iris Yoffa, Member, Tucson Computer Society, AZ (approx. 586 words). Not sure what it is or if you need it? With the recent announcement by Adobe that support for the development of the flash plug-in for mobile devices will not be continued, there is cause for developers of Flash-based mobile apps to look at other technologies. Adobe also stated that HTML5 and JavaScript would be the technologies to focus on. This book is divided into 11 chapters and is all about learning the HTML5 Canvas API (Application Programming Interface).

Managing the “Autos” in MS Office 2007/2010 by Nancy DeMarte, Regular Columnist (Office Talk), Sarasota PCUG, Florida (approx. 1,005 words). Most of us like the “auto” feature but some of them can be a pain. Nancy shows us some of her favorites as well as some that aren’t her favorites.

More Than You Ever Wanted To Know About Solid State Devices by Ted Wirtz, Member, Orange County PCUG, CA (approx. 4,510 words…Linda Gonse, editor, divided this article into several parts and published it in several issues of her newsletter). This article started out to be something rather simple. Explain why standard “Secure Erase” procedures don’t really work on a Solid State Device. However, delving into the technology of these devices was an exercise in peeling layers off an onion. Answering one question raised another and Ted takes us on his SSD journey.

Let’s Use iCloud by Ernie Cox, Jr., member of the Computer Club of Green Valley, AZ (approx. 419 words). iCloud from Apple is waiting for all those using 3Gs or later iPhones with iOS-5, along with the 3rd generation or later iPod Touch and all iPads, and don’t leave our Macs running OS X Lion.

Linux Mint 12 by Cal Esneault, President, Cajun Clickers Computer Club, LA (approx. 519 words). Linux Mint, a community-based operating system (OS) for PC’s is among the four most popular OS types for average users (Windows, Mac OS, Ubuntu, Mint). Although Mint is a derivative of Ubuntu, it has recently passed its parent in popularity.

NOOK Q & A by Mary Phillips, member, ICON (Interactive Computer Owners Network), MO (approx. 1,521 words). From What you can do with your new Simple Touch Nook eReader with a Wi-Fi connection to the Friday free book, NOOK friends and more is covered in 12 questions and answers.

Own the Cloud with ownCloud! by Drew Kwashnak, Member, Danbury Area Computer Society, CT (approx. 397 words). Drew loves the cloud. He loves the accessibility and freedom it provides. Unfortunately that freedom is limited because the host can go offline; hold is files for ransom, or worse! Perhaps a solutions could be a “private cloud.” Where it gives you the advantages of the cloud, yet you have full control over the content.

PaintshopTM Pro X4 by Clint Tinsley, Editor, Idaho PCUG (approx. 1,849 words). Tis version has been extensively reworked with new defined workspaces and a number of new features. With new features and enhancements totaling over 75, it is awesome.

Power USB by Clint Tinsley, Editor, Idaho PCUG (approx. 941 words). This article discusses some considerations in using the USB connectors on your computer.

Shopping Web Site Experience by Steve Baer, featured writer, Hilton Head Island Computer Club, SC (approx. 594 words). Steve discusses his (and Mrs. Gadget’s) experience with several shopping web sites. Some receive an A rating and others a C.

Shortcuts and How to Type Strange / Odd Symbols on Your Computer by Tanya Mattson, Librarian, Computer Users of Erie, PA (approx.. 486 words). Ever wondered how people manage to type those “strange’ symbols (for instance ¶) that are seen in e-mails, websites and letters? Tanya shows us some simple shortcuts as well as shortcuts for the ‘odd’ ones.

Tips for Mixing Graphics with Text by Nancy DeMarte, Regular Columnist (Office Talk), Sarasota PCUG, Florida (approx. 1,067 words). Have you had this frustrating experience when working with Microsoft Office? You are writing a newsletter in Word and have some good photos of the cousins and grandparents to include. You have chosen the appropriate spot for the first photo to appear and when you click Insert – Picture, the photo appears but not where you want it. Welcome to the tricky world of mixing graphics with text.

Weather Bug by George Harding, Treasurer, Tucson Computer Society, AZ (approx. 258 words). We all look to information about the weather for our daily activities and for future planning. Do you have weather info on your computer and your mobile device? Enter Weather Bug. After reading article, you might to check it out.

What’s the Difference Between “Save” and “Save As…?” by Jim Cerney, Sarasota PCUG, Florida (approx. 464 words). Jim’s usual answer to this question in “always use Save as…” and he explains why.

Windows 7 Partitioning by Dick Maybach (approx. 881 words). In the dark ages (before XP), it was important to partition your hard disk so that your data did not reside on C:, because early versions of Windows crashed frequently, and in the process, sometimes corrupted the C: drive. Do we still need to partition our HDs….read Dick’s article.

Convert Books for eReaders by Len Nasman, Editor, Bristol Village Computer Club, Ohio (approx. 694 words). I discovered a free program called Calibre calibre-ebook.com that makes it almost easy to convert books and send them to different ereaders like Kindle, Nook, Android and others.

Memo To Software Developers by Walt Graham, President, Connecticut PC Users Group (approx. 762 words). It seems no matter how carefully I configure my computers and other devices to work the way I want, there's always some programmer just one step ahead of me. Just when I think everything is perfect, he or she manages to break it!

Evolving Technology by Bill James, Editor/Webmaster, Computer Club of Oklahoma City (approx. 597 words). I have a Motorola Bionic, an Android phone that I have decided to make my laptop replacement. I am challenging myself to do as much as I can just using a phone.

These articles have been provided to APCUG by the author solely for publication by APCUG member groups.