The Hartford User Group Ex change, Inc. Founded in 1981 presents The Pulp April 2004 – Volume 22, Number 4 http://www.huge.org Spring has Sprung GENERAL CHIT–CHAT STARTS AT 6:00 P.M. General Meeting Investing On-line without a Broker 7:00 P.M. MEETINGS ARE HELD AT THE EAST HARTFORD PUBLIC LIBRARY MAIN ST. AND CENTRAL AVE., EAST HARTFORD, CT. Coming General Meetings HUGE this month! May – Software developer April 12 OS X Beginners SIG – Topic: The Finder Contents Page Wethersfi eld Public Library..................7 P.M.. Meetings ....................................1 April 19 General Meeting — See above 7 P.M. Presidentʼs Message ..................2 April 20 Deadline for ALL Articles. Please upload A Great Deal .............................2 articles to [email protected] or give them to User Group Store ......................2 the Pulp Editor................................Midnight GuruNet .....................................3 May 10 OS X Beginners SIG – Topic: The Finder Opera Software .........................3 Wethersfi eld Public Library..................7 P.M.. TidBITS ....................................5 Stuʼs Quiz ..................................6 March Answers .........................6 HUGE Infomation Page ..............9 Calendar ..................................10 The PULP is published monthly by and for members of the Hartford User Group Exchange, Inc. (HUGE). HUGE is a nonprofit organization whose aim is to provide an exchange of information between users of personal computers. EETING OCATIONS The PULP is not in any way affiliated with any computer manufacturer or software M L company. East Hartford Public Library Original, uncopyrighted articles appearing in the PULP may be reproduced without Main & Central Avenue prior permission by other nonprofit groups. Please give credit to the author and the in the Lionʼs Community Room PULP, and send a copy to HUGE. The opinions and views herein are those of the authors and not necessarily those Downstairs of HUGE. Damages caused by use or abuse of information appearing in the PULP are the sole responsibility of the user of the information. Wethersfield Public Library We reserve the right to edit or reject any articles submitted for publication in the 500 Silas Deane Hwy., Wethersfield, CT PULP. Trademarks used in this publication belong to the owners of those trademarks. The President’s Message George Carbonell The March Internet and General Meeting featured topics relating to the Internet. The Internet topic was setting up an Airport router at the East Hartford Public Library. Many thanks to the Library for allowing us to access the Internet. Peter and Ralph did a very nice tech clinic in taking an Airport base station and completely reconfiguring it to be used during our meetings. Now we can have multiple wireless and one wired computer running during our meetings. The April General Meeting will feature a presentation If you do not want your computer by Charles on Stocks Online. like this one, install a virus protection The April Internet is member choice, and which is currently the best search engine. program The Apple MUG Store A Great Deal The Apple MUG Store is giving away printers, MP3 players, extra RAM and more to MUG members with the purchase Steve Bass sent this 50% Belkin products offer out … to of select new Apple computers. To take advantage of these those of us who subscribe to his Yahoo Groups list. deals, or browse the selection of refurbished Macs and blowout specials, go to: http://www.applemugstore.com “The 50 percent Belkin discount is back. Use coupon User ID: iPod code “12345”. No expiration date given. My buddy Gus [Thanks, Gus!] doesnʼt know where the code is from, Password: mini but, he placed an order today and it worked. www. You can also order by calling one of the belkin.com” PowerMax consultants at 800–689–8191. Donʼt forget to tell them the name of your User To paraphrase Steve Bass—Iʼm only the conduit of this Group (HUGE). When you purchase and are a offer—I only send it as information about a discount confirmed Apple User Group member, your particular group offered by Belkin. I canʼt help you with anything other will receive special awards points which can be redeemed for than the fact that I forwarded the e–mail to you. merchandise and Apple logo materials. 2 This is a great product for teachers, students, or anybody GuruNet that does a great deal of searching for information in dictionaries, encyclopedias, or on the Internet. It may Stuart Rabinowitz not completely replace going to the library, but it will help you focus on where the information maybe located. GuruNet is a research tool, it is a bit less than an encyclopedia, a bit more than a dictionary, and a lot . more than an I nternet search engine. Actually, it is all of E the above, and a lot more, wrapped up in a rather small package. The only real problem I have with it is that it does not work on a Mac (yet). GuruNet allows both random (your curiosity carries you along) and structured (you follow the suggested links) searches. There is a set of links available for Opera 6.03 for Mac OS X starting a search. A number of tools are available to use. These include a dictionary (including pronunciation), Ted Bade encyclopedia, thesaurus, links to the web, and others. Company: The Opera Company email: press@opera. You can store the results of your searches within com Web Site: http://www.opera.com/company/ GuruNet or copy the information to your work Software web site: http://www.opera.com document. It even includes the information necessary for source citation. Access to all of the research tools are Cost: $39 (Check web site for specials, which do just a mouse click away, available either through the tool occur.) Free version includes advertising in the browser bar or tabs on the browser page. window. Download site: http://www.opera.com/ download/ One of the niftiest features I use is the hot–key function. While working in another application (writing that System requirements: MacOS X. Optimized for Panther. research paper or computer quiz) holding the cursor on Experience needed: Basic. Strengths: Quick. Offers a word, clicking the mouse button, while depressing a number of useful controls to the user. Weaknesses: the ʻaltʼ key opens a GuruNet browser window to Cost or live with advertising. Unique interface can take information on the selected word. The hot key is user– some getting used to. Some features arenʼt available for changeable so as not to conflict with other applications. MacOS X. GuruNet runs on PCs with Windows 98, ME, NT4, 2000 or XP (Windows 95 is not supported). It requires Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 (or newer) to be installed; you do not have to actually browse with it, GuruNet is a browser. You do need to be on–line in order to use Opera is an excellent web browser, offers lots of features GuruNet, and a Broadband connection is best. It is not to make surfing the web safe and easy and is quick. But, yet available for Macintosh or Linux. as a web browser that needs to be paid for, it is facing a tough market. There are some remarkable features that GuruNet is a 186K download (www.GuruNet.com) for make Opera stand out and worth considering. the installer. The installer then opens a connection to the site and installs the balance (about 1.5 MB) of the Opera considers itself the fastest web browser. I didnʼt package. You select whether to activate it upon start–up, perform any official specific speed tests, but it does feel load an icon on the desktop, or into the system tray. faster then both Netscape and Internet Explorer. I was quite impressed at how much faster Opera is in dealing There are several varieties available; GuruNet Free, with images and downloading them the Netscape (I use GuruNet, and GuruNet Homework Edition. The version 7.1 for MacOS X). Say you go to a site like differentiation is based on content, and advertising. A Macdesktops.com to look for a cool desktop image. full GuruNet content is available as a trial for the first The image you want to download is open in a browser seven days. The cost ranges from free to a $29.99 yearly window. What I do at this point is to right-click [control- subscription for single license, with discounts for group click] to get the contextual menu and select save image purchases for both corporate and educational customers from this menu. It is at this point that one notices that (deeper discounts). See www.GuruNet.com/products_ Opera is really fast. I downloaded the same image with GuruNet.html for full list. Opera, Netscape, and Safari. Netscape took the longest 3 Continued on page 4 Opera continued Opera, I imported my bookmarks from that program. What this created was a bookmark floating window and Opera was the fastest, but barely faster the Safari. which I can browse easily to get to my favorite places. There is an option to “dock” bookmarks. When I As far as other web sites, it is generally hard to selected to dock them, only the main bookmark determine if a site is slow because of web traffic or window disappeared (not the window of my imported a slow browser. In my opinion, Opera appears to be bookmarks), but it took me a while to find where it went. at least as fast as Safari while being faster the both I couldnʼt find it anywhere on the Opera window, until Netscape and Internet Explorer. Perhaps not the fastest, I noticed that when I waved the mouse over left hand but definitely fast. side of the window the cursor changed to one that lets you slide the window.