(BUSSLINE is the term for the complex multi- functional circuitry on a computer mother- Your technology helper for over 30 years. board, a PC’s heart.) Vol. 110 No. 9 Newsletter of the Central Florida Computer Society, Inc. [Non-Profit, 501(c)3] October, 2010 At- UPCOMING TECH/COMPUTER EVENTS NOT TO BE MISSED! October 17 ENJOY the CITY - ORLANDO Michael McAlpin will be our speaker for the The NEW 2011 Coupon Books are in! Good pre-Halloween meeting. He will review the crea- through Dec. 2011 (Your 2010 Books are still good tion, development and explosive growth in wire- through December 2010!) They still cost just $20! less telephone systems including the major archi- HUNDREDS Of $$$$$ In Savings!! tectures, services, software environments and mar- Get one free Oil Change at Firestone, Value = $20 keting "ecosystems" available nationally and inter- ++!! And, 2 $10 off on your next two changes. nationally. Value = $20. See any CFCS Board of Directors member or SIG Leader to purchase one. They'll also He will also discuss the future of the wireless soon be available in some computer stores; more on telephone as a general computing and networking that later. More details on page 20. platform. Mr. McAlpin has, for nearly 30 years, successfully led engineering and management teams. He led a team of 75 to build a corporate November 21 network with over 250,000 terminal connections Mark Shulman will present BUILDING A on a packet backbone, which generated over $1 SOFTWARE SWISS ARMY KNIFE . Every com- Billion in annual charge-back revenue. Mr. McAl- puter geek should have the software equivalent of a pin managed and delivered projects for multi- Swiss Army Knife. Learn how to turn an ordinary protocol support, voice, satellite packet network, flash drive and a couple of CDs into the software inter-airlines data networks, computer telephony equivalent of Batman's utility belt. You'll find out (Continued on page 2) integration, protocol development, integration and certification. Mr. McAlpin developed the commu- nications simulators for all on orbit data from the Inside this issue: Space Shuttle Training facility at Mission Control, Houston. He started his career with the National Page Security Agency teaching secure digital telephony. 4 …………………. …………..The Deals Guy 10 …………………………….. Space Corner Mr. McAlpin currently works as a consulting 13 …………………….Hackproof your Account software engineer and is building software for An- 15 ......………….….…….……………..Audacity droid devices. For fun he is a part-time professor 22 …………………….……………....Helpline teaching all phases of undergraduate software en- 23 ……………...…………..Calendar of Events gineering. 24 ……...…. Map to General Monthly Meeting Unless otherwise noted, all article continuations are to the page immediately following where you are reading. PAGE 2 CFCS BUSSLINE NEWSLETTER October, 2010 drive is adequately protected and can recover from about portable apps, boot CDs, and self-contained any unforeseen events, such as hard drive failures, bootable utilities, and learn how they can save viruses or unstable software downloads. By having your bacon when the chips are down. & implementing a well thought-out Backup and Re- December 4 covery Plan, you can put your system together again On Sat. Dec. 4th at 1:00 PM, Mark Schulman will fairly quickly, instead of days or weeks. This is an be presenting a "Build Your Own Computer" important topic that every PC User should implement seminar, where users will be actually building their on their computer. Gene will demonstrate Acronis own computers. A complete technical guide writ- True Image Home, one of the most popular computer ten by computer science students at UCF for par- backup and recovery programs on the market today. ticipants to take home will be supplied. See our The last part of his presentation will focus on website at CFCS.org for further info. the best way to Organize Your Hard Drive. Acronis The cost will be $10 for members and $50 just released a new version of their partitioning prod for non-members, which will include a member- uct, Disk Director 11 Home with support for the Win ship in the CFCS. The above fee covers instruction dows7 OS. With large terabyte hard drives today, and guidance only. The cost of components is ex they need to be set up & organized to take advantage tra, ranging from $349 and up, including the Win- of the additional space. This can be done very eas- dows 7 operating system, depending on how pow- ily. A special "partitioning utility" is needed to make erful you want your machine to be. CFCS has ar- this organization process easy and simple to ranged special pricing from Smart Guys com- do. Gene will demonstrate the most recent release of puters. Once you have registered at our website, Acronis Disk Director Home at the presentation. The you will be given instructions to get combination of one or both of these excellent hard your components. drive utilities would give you the power to Protect You might find one cheaper, but it won't be as Your Hard Drive from system failure and Organize good, and you won't have the pride of building it Your Hard Drive for better safety of your data files. yourself. Gene has been a presenter in the user group community for over 28 years. For many years he managed IBM's user group support organization and December 19 has been called the Father of PC User Groups. Now Sean Kane. New things from Apple . Sean is retired, Gene started his own company called User a Mac Administrator and leads the CFCS/FLMUG Group Relations ( www.ugr.com ), providing support iOS SIG. He will be presenting information about to the user group community for the software compa- the many products from Apple. He will show some nies he represents. He is an informative and easy to of the many features of Mac computers, as well as understand presenter. Don't miss this important pres- the iPod, Apple TV, iPhone, & the iPad. Many of entation. our members are multiple computer owners and may be thinking about adding a Mac to their home or business. This will be a good meeting to find All events through December are held at 2 pm in out what the advantages will be. You will also see the Jackson Hewitt office on Lee Rd. and Turner Rd. that the Mac is capable of running both Mac and See map on pg. 24 of the online edition at cfcs.org. Windows operating systems. Jan. Feb. and Mar. presentations will be at the Uni- versity Club of Winter Park. For details and maps, consult our website at cfcs.org . January 16 Gene Barlow presents The Best Backup Also, earlier on the same day of each talk, Plan to protect your System from Failure & the Windows SIG* m eeting is held. (*Special Organizing Your Hard Drive Interest Group) The WinSIG always meets at 12:30 Gene and Linda Barlow represent Acronis pm, just before the CFCS General Meeting. If you use Software to the user group community. Acronis or plan to use Windows, these discussions, demonstra- True Image Home is their backup and recovery tions, and Q&A sessions will be of immense value to product. This product provides the maximum you. Geared to intermediate level Windows users. flexibility to ensure that your computer’s hard October, 2010 CFCS BUSSLINE NEWSLETTER PAGE 3 Tips, tricks, and information on all versions of Win- ence @ Sea. For more information see FACUG.org dows are discussed. An e-newsletter is sent periodi- 2011 FACUG Technology Conference Mex- cally with meeting information and links discussed at ico Cruise January 27th through January 31st - the meeting. You need not attend both meetings, but 2011 Rates go up Oct. 22!!! many members do. Non members always welcome. There is no better bargain vacation than a Sign up for the free e-newsletter at cfcs.org . cruise, add to it a fully fledged Computer and Tech- nology Conference and it becomes an outstanding January 29 (Note: This event does not event. Be part of the FACUG's second Confer- take place in Orlando.) ence@Sea. Be with us for this will be another out- You are invited to attend the 5th annual North- standing Sail - Abration . Rates go up Oct. 22!!! west Florida Computer Tech Conference (2011) on Saturday, January 29, 2011, at Northwest Florida Special Interest Groups (SIGs) State College, Niceville. Florida. The co-sponsors are: The iSIG meets every third Monday at 7:00 · The PRIME TIME Northwest Florida State pm at Denny's on Lee Rd & I-4. The iSIG meetings College http://www.nwfsc.edu/ContEd/ cover the products that use the iPhoneOS, which in PRIMETime.cfm cludes the iPhone, iPad, and iPod. This is a com- bined effort of the Central Florida Computer Soci- · Northwest Florida Association of Computer ety http://www.cfcs.org and the Florida Macintosh User Groups (NWFACUG) http://NWFACUG.org Users Group http://www.flmug.com . Other groups are invited to participate. Attendees are consumers, · Association of Personal Computer User Groups developers, consultants, and publishers. The SIG leader is Sean Kane, Certified Apple Technical Co- (APCUG.) http://www.APCUG.org ordinator, longtime Mac and iPhone user, and a Our organizations come together once a Good technologist and consultant to Walt Disney Feature through Animation Florida. year to present you with the best computer Dec. Please note that the iSIG meets at the training in Northwest Florida. We will host 2011 the annual APCUG Meeting in conjunction Denny's on Lee Rd. The Tech-SIG and the Board with Computer Tech 2011. We had 394 computer of Directors meetings continue to meet at Denny's enthusiasts attend Computer Tech 2010 and expect to on 436 & Oxford Rd in Casselberry.