Newsletter
| August 2009 | Issue 327 |
VILLANOVA UNIVERSITY, ST. AUGUSTINE CENTER, ROOM 110
MEETING STARTS - 09:30 -- AUGUST 8th
UPCOMING MEETING
MAIN MEETING TOPIC: MS WINDOWS UTILITIES
NOTE: Our August meeting will be back in ROOM 110, our normal meeting room.
For our August meeting we plan to continue and finish our presentation on MS Windows utilities. At our July meeting we began to take a look at some of the tools and utilities that Microsoft makes for WinXP and Vista.
The intent of this presentation is to provide a high level overview to make sure you are aware these utilities exist and why and when you might want to use them. Since some of the features of the individual utilities vary between versions of Windows, I suggest you consult Windows help or review online information for your specific OS before you use them yourself.
The utilities we plan to review in August include:
- System File Checker (SFC)
- Windows Defender
- MSConfig
- Task Manager
- Windows Installer CleanUp Utility
- MGADiag
- MS Baseline Security Analyzer
- SysInternals
- Autoruns
- DiskView
- ProcessExplorer
- TCPview
ANNOUNCEMENTS & REMINDERS
1) If you are a member and did not attend the December 2008 meeting, then you likely missed out on getting one of the end of year club flash drives with embedded software as a Christmas gift. If so, and you would like one, contact John D to make arrangements to get yours. The flash drives will normally be available to members at our regular monthly meeting.
2) Club membership entitles you to receive a copy of the newsletter and access to our email list server, which is run for the benefit of our members. Please do not hesitate to post club and computer related notices and problems to it. If we can't solve your problem remotely, we can be alerted to it ahead of the monthly meeting where more hands-on may help resolve your problem.
3) A few of the regular attendees usually partake of lunch at the Country Squire Diner in Broomall near the intersection of Routes 3 and 320. So, after the meeting, why not join us? It's an opportunity to get more help and to discuss our common interests.
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LAST MONTH'S MEETING
Attendance:
13 people in all attended the meeting on Saturday, July 11th.
Main Meeting Q&A:
We began last month's meeting with our normal round of questions and announcements. Among the questions and announcements, John D spoke about rebuilding Vista on his MacBook after MagicDisc caused problems with installing, removing and upgrading Adobe Reader, starting to use Google Bookmarks and his use of GMarks on FireFox, switching between using Plex and Boxee on his Mac Mini media center, how Weather Pulse and other weather apps were broken by changes to the weather.com website, the need to re-install Real Player after upgrading to FF3.5, the announced release of a Google Chrome OS in the later half of 2010, the drop.io website, and the 45 minute Plex media center tutorial available free from iTunes or the screencastsonline.com website; Tom J mentioned the learning curve associated with using Quickbooks Pro for his condo association; Bill D brought attention to his display driver problem and he was advised to provide make and model info for his computer; Marty C had info on WhoCrashed software available at the http://resplendence.com website (WARNING: McAfee Site Advisor warns this site may contain links to adware) and BIOS updates (ADVICE: if it is not broken, do not arbitrarily update your BIOS, the risk of bricking the computer is too great); Don W followed up on his HP battery replacement issue from last month and mentioned his problems with IE upon which he was advised to try using the FireFox browser instead as others were noticing similar problems; Joan brought her Canon camera mentioned last month for ``show and tell'' and presented a hard copy of a picture she had taken and printed using Photoshop to drive an inexpensive Epson printer; Layton spoke of his having replaced a computer power supply and BIOS battery and its impact on BIOS settings; Peter mentioned the open source REACT OS for running Windows XP/2003 compatible apps; Rich followed up on his external HD problem and NSO Technologies and then spoke about acquiring a Wii Fit system, shared drive issues, and Win 7 pre-release sale; and Ed C mentioned his Yahoo! mail message delete problem.
Main Meeting Program:
This month's main meeting topic was the start of an introductory overview of several MS Windows utilities given by John D. Though many of these utilities were known to several members in attendance, there were those in attendance who were not in the know. It was felt that all could benefit from the ensuing presentation and discussions.
The utilities we discussed during this meeting included Disk Cleanup, Disk Error Checking, Disk Defragmenter, and Backup. Backup and the related subject in general received a lot of discussion.
What follows are references to Microsoft website information concerning these utilities.
Disk Error Checking -- a detailed usage guide and overview can be found at:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315265
Disk error checking is recommended before defragging a disk and especially after a hard crash of your system where your power is lost or interrupted or if you are experiencing frequent system crashes.
Disk Cleanup -- a detailed usage guide and overview can be found at:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310312
Disk cleanup should be run periodically, but frequency of usage will vary depending on how much your computer is used. A disk cleanup is recommended before defragging a disk or possibly before a full scan for malware.
If using Vista, it is recommended you do not let disk cleanup remove your hibernation file. Removal of the hibernation file will disable the hibernation feature in Vista and is not easily restored without specific actions to do so on the part of the user.
Disk Defragmenter -- a detailed usage guide and overview can be found at:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314848
Disk defragmentation will help to improve the speed of file reads and writes, especially for larger files. However, defragging a disk that has any kind of disk errors should not be done as this will likely cause additional disk errors and corruption of files! If you decide to automate disk defragmentation thru Task Scheduler or other means, you should only do so if you have a full system backup and restore program in place.
Backup -- a detailed usage guide and overview can be found at:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/320820
and
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/security/learnmore/backup.mspx
NOTE: The features and functionality of Windows Backup vary between versions of Windows. In XP Pro the Backup utility is much more capable than in the XP Home version. A similar situation exists in Vista where the business and ultimate versions of Vista Backup are much more capable than the Basic and Premium versions of Vista.
At a minimum, Windows Backup will backup all your user data. The more capable versions of Windows Backup will create a complete disk image file.
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YOU BE THE JUDGE
Hollywood vs. RealDVD
From: http://www.realdvd.com/litigation
What's At Stake
Hollywood's six largest movie studios have banded together in a lawsuit to shut down RealDVD, a possibility that would be a blow to your consumer rights. The bottom line is that Hollywood does not want you to have the same "fair use rights" to make a backup copy of your DVDs in the same way that you have had with your music CDs for more than a decade.
Hollywood argues that RealDVD circumvents the technology that prevents illegal copying; RealDVD does not compromise any such protections. In fact, RealDVD adds more stringent protections to prevent piracy or other illegal copying. Real respects the rights of content creators and legitimate rights holders, and we want to work with them to continue delivering innovative digital entertainment technology (like RealDVD) that ultimately benefit you.
The 2 basic laws that apply to the Hollywood vs RealDVD Case are:
1. Fair Use
Fair use
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Fair use is a doctrine in United States copyright law that allows limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the rights holders, such as use for scholarship or review. It provides for the legal, non-licensed citation or incorporation of copyrighted material in another author's work under a four-factor balancing test. The term "fair use" originated in the United States, but has been added to Israeli law as well; a similar principle, fair dealing, exists in some other common law jurisdictions. Civil law jurisdictions have other limitations and exceptions to copyright.
Fair use under United States law
The legal concept of "Test copyright" was first ratified by the Kingdom of Great Britain's Statute of Anne of 1709. As room was not made for the authorized reproduction of copyrighted content within this newly formulated statutory right, the courts gradually created a doctrine of "fair abridgment," which later became "fair use," that recognized the utility of such actions. The doctrine only existed in the U.S. as common law until it was incorporated into the Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. § 107, reprinted here:
"Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 17 U.S.C. § 106 and 17 U.S.C. § 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phono records or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include:
Digital Millennium Copyright Act
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures (commonly known as Digital Rights Management or DRM) that control access to copyrighted works. It also criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself. In addition, the DMCA heightens the penalties for copyright infringement on the Internet. Passed on October 12, 1998 by a unanimous vote in the U.S. Senate and signed into law by President Bill Clinton on October 28, 1998, the DMCA amended Title 17 of the United States Code to extend the reach of copyright, while limiting the liability of the providers of on-line services for copyright infringement by their users.
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DIRECTIONS FOR ST. AUGUSTINE CENTER MEETING ROOM
Meetings are in the St. Augustine Center at Villanova University. The regular monthly sessions meet in Room 110.
Enter from the ITHAN AVENUE main gate, then proceed to the upper level of the 2-level parking building adjacent to the St. Augustine Center, on the Ithan Avenue side of the building.
NOTE: maps on our web page - http://micug.org/
MLCUG STEERING COMMITTEE;
PRESIDENT: John Deker 610-828-7897
TREASURER/SEC: John Deker 610-828-7897
WEBMASTER: Peter Whinnery 610-284-5234
AT LARGE: Tom Johnson 610-896-2434
AT LARGE: Wendy Emery 215-765-3328
V.PRESIDENT: Al Gottlieb 215-793-9725
DATABASE: Layton Fireng 610-688-2080
AT LARGE: Nelson Schrock 610-834-0117
AT LARGE: John Murphy 610-935-4398
2. Digital Millennium Copyright Act
The four factors of analysis for fair use set forth above derive from the classic opinion of Joseph Story in Folsom v. Marsh, 9 F.Cas. 342 (1841), in which the defendant had copied 353 pages from the plaintiff's 12-volume biography of George Washington in order to produce a separate two-volume work of his own.
MLCUG Meetings 2009 Steering Committee Meetings
August 8 August 12
September 12 September 16
October 10 October 14
EDITOR: John W. Deker, Jr. 2210 Lantern Lane, Lafayette Hill, PA 19444-2211
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OUR WEB PAGE: http://mlcug.org/
PUBLICITY: Position OPEN!
VILLANOVA SPONSOR: Prof. Frank Maloney, Dept. of Astronomy