ISSN 1061-5725 This Month’s Presentation Tom Wharton columnist for the Salt Lake Tribune will talk about Gear, Gadgets, and Gimmicks Vol ume 23, No. 12 December 2005 www.ucs.org This Month’s Meeting: Wednesday 14th at 7 pm James Alexander Check “How To” presentation: “From slides/pictures to DVD Out movie, preserving and sharing Images” Reviews Watch the Powerpoint Presentation of SanDisk’s USB Flash Drives These Blue Chip guys sure on want a lot of computer stuff Pages 4-16 for Christmas! Utah’s Award Winning Computer Magazine! y liff illward, ditor [email protected] Thanks Has FireWire Fizzled? I wish to thank all of you that sent me e-mail about Is Apple about to drop FireWire, the standard it my illness last month. It was nice to know that people are created and for so long fostered. concerned about my health. It seems as though I am still Certainly, that’s what Apple notebook-oriented having some problems after the flu shot, but not serious. website O’Grady’s PowerPage suggests. Apple has al- I just don’t feel quite up to par. ready dropped FireWire from the latest iPods, much to Enough about me, lets get on the news! the annoyance of numerous users. It’s clearly shifting its allegiance to USB 2.0, which while What’s for Christmas? technologically inferior to FireWire is Guess What? LCD prices are com- fast enough for almost all PC-peripheral ing down! Promotional pricing on LCD connections. monitors caused unit sales to increase by Recent 36 percent during Thanksgiving week. Batteries, inc. Some retail stores cut prices on 17-inch Engineers in Japan have developed monitors to $150, while 19-inch moni- News a flexible battery that is less than a mil- tors could be had for as low as $169. limeter thick and can be charged in half Overall, the average price of an LCD a minute. dropped from $365 during Thanksgiving The battery has been designed for week in 2004 to $318 this year. use in applications such as active radio Proview Technology, which offered deep discounts, frequency identification (RFID) cards and could provide led LCD monitor sales for the week, capturing 24 per- enough power to keep such cards running for several cent of sales. Samsung followed with 20 percent, while weeks before requiring a recharge. Hewlett-Packard and Gateway tied for third with 17 The device is an “organic radical battery,” a technol- percent. ogy developed by NEC that uses materials that are more Is this Christmas the time to get rid of that old CRT environmentally friendly than the chemicals found in monitor? I’m holding out for a wide 24 incher for about common rechargeable batteries $500. (Guess I’ll be waiting for quite a while!) One of the features of such batteries is their ability to be charged quickly. The device unveiled yesterday Online content to remain free? can be charged to about 80% of its capacity in about European publishers warned Tuesday that they can- 30 seconds. not keep allowing Internet search engines such as Google Inc. to make money from their content. The new models Diana Grants You Funds? of Google and others reverse the traditional permission- Antivirus experts have warned us to beware of a based copyright model of content trading that we have spam campaign that promises a sizable grant from The built up over many years. Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund. This stance backs French news agency AFP, which Some of the messages contain links to Web sites is suing Google for pulling together photos and story asking for bank account details, and in some messages excerpts from thousands of news Web sites. recipients are directed to wire funds by Western Union Can this be a harbinger of things to come in the US? to certain people. Will we eventually have to pay for everything we see or Finally, I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and do on the Internet? Personally, I don’t think so, but ev- a Happy New year! erything seems to be possible with computers. Finè Page 2 Blue Chips Magazine —December 2005 Blue Chips Magazine “Utah’s Award Winning Publi ca tion” Magazine Staff Charter Member of the Editor — Cliff Millward 955-9633 Association of PC User Groups Review Program Liaison — James Alexander 250-2269 Review Product Editor — Donna Nendell 565-9594 Review Editor/Product Recruiter — Don Nendell 565-9594 Photography — LeRoy Johnson Officers and Trustees Eve. Phone E-mail Proof Reader — Larry Lamph, Doug Jackson President, Rick Gregory 582-7783 [email protected] Vice President, Sean Wolsey 489-3819 [email protected] Advertising Rates Secretary, Lowell Kenedy 278-3035 lkenedy@networld,com Treasurer, John Witzel 296-1390 [email protected] Ad costs 1 month 3 months 6 months 12 months 2 Page Spread $150 $400 $700 $1200 Stuart Gygi 576-1891 [email protected] Full Page $100 $275 $500 $900 Frank Herriott 943-7765 [email protected] Half Page $50 $130 $250 $450 Doug Jackson 322-2337 [email protected] Quarter Page $25 $70 $130 $225 LeRoy Johnson 581-1348 [email protected] Business Card $15 $30 $60 $120 Larry Lamph 571-2908 [email protected] Full page size is 71⁄2 x 10 inches. All other page sizes are based on a 7 x 10 inch page in order to conform to editorial style. Half-page ads may be 7 x 5 inches or 31⁄2 x 10 inches. Quarter-page ads are 31⁄2 x 5 inches. Business card ads are 31⁄2 Information x 21⁄2 inches. Persons or companies may join or renew at the meeting, or by sending a check payable Classified Advertising to the Utah Computer Society to: Utah Blue Chips members may place personal classified ads at no charge. Maximum ad size is 7 lines, 35 characters per line. Utah Computer Society Membership Secretary Submissions P.O. Box 510811 Members are encouraged to submit text articles for pub li ca tion in ASCII Salt Lake City UT 84151 text only. Photos in .TIF or .JPG format only. Line graphics, tables, in almost any vector or .TIF format. Do not imbed graphics or tables in text files. All articles Individual memberships are $25/year. Business Memberships are $35.00 a year. must be received by the 15th of the month preceding the month of publication. All Corporate sponsorships are available at two levels. Corporate Sponsors enjoy all benefits articles become the property of the Utah Computer Society and by submitting an of mem ber ship including multiple individual membership and prepaid advertising coverage. article, the author gives per mis sion for the Blue Chips Magazine Staff to edit the submission. The author also gives permission for republication in other users groups’ Contact a Board Member for more information. $10/year memberships without the magazine communications. are available for students other family and Senior Citizen Center members Permission to Copy Other important information: Permission is granted to other nonprofit PC user groups to reproduce any Meeting Information http://www.ucs.org article published in this newsletter, provided credit is given Blue Chips Mag a zine Group Business (James Alexander) 250-2269 and the author (s) of the reproduced materials. Re print ed articles are subject to the Magazine (Cliff Millward) 955-9633 terms of their respective copyright holders. Program Coordinator (James Alexander) 250-2269 Web Site http://www.ucs.org WebMaster 272-8949 Membership (evenings) (Bob) 262-6045 MONTHLY MEETING LOCATION 2nd Wednesday of every month December Renewals Cliff Millward Ryan Millward Douglas J. N. Taylor University of Utah Engineering & Mines Classroom Bldg. Room 104, 7:00 p.m. Page 3 Blue Chips Magazine —December 2005 SanDisk Titanium USB Flash Drive (Part 1) Highest Performance in Armor Plating Reviewed by Don Nendell Free! Includes the full version CruzerLock™ 2 data security software (upgrade to version 2.1), Hardware Review PocketCache™ (back_up) and CruzerSync™ (Outlook & My Documents folder synchroniza- Manufacturer: tion) software SanDisk, Inc. Hi_Speed USB 2.0 certified (backwards 111 Java Drive compatible with all USB 1.1 ports) Sunnyvale, CA 94089 Retractable USB connector Phone: (408) 542_0500 Distinctive Blue LED FAX: (408) 542_0503 Compatible with Windows 98SE, ME, 2000, XP and Mac OS 9.1.x+, OS X v10.1.2+ Product Support: Certifi ed Windows XP and Mac OS X (866) SANDISK (726-3475) Web Site: http://www.sandisk.com Introduction Pricing, Availability Having spent quite a lot of time Available in capacities ranging from 256MB these past few years closely following to 1GB The complete line of Cruzer USB Flash the development, and subsequently re- Drives are available through authorized SanDisk viewing these tiny, amazing “Phenoms,” retailers and e-tailers across the country, or direct (Note. See also all my past USB Flash from their web site at: <http: //www.esend.com/ Drive reviews at <www.ucs.org/mag/ sandisk/> Street prices for the Titanium Cruzer USB mag.php>) I present to you a couple Flash Drives vary widely (See my comments of “new” ones to favorably consider. below), but visit their web site for latest pricing Yesiree Bob, for the 512MB Titanium, 1GB Titanium and the 2GB Titanium To Find the Nearest Retail Store to you goto: “It’s 2-fer time. Step right up <http: //www.sandisk.com/Retail/Buy.aspx> folks. Two reviews for the price of one.” Today we are beyond fortunate to devices with digital data. Sure beats System Requirements be able to bring to you the top two (2) of those old floppy disks, wouldn’t you Windows / Macintosh the latest, greatest and fastest of a long say? And, cheap too! Pentium PC or Macintosh Computer with USB Support line of outstanding USB fl ash Drives Windows XP (Home or Pro), ME or 2000 available on the market today.