General Meeting

by Richard Hall
Tulsa Computer Society
From the March, 2005 issue of the I/O Port Newsletter

Richard Hall started the meeting with an issue that had recently been in the news about spyware. He demoed an article at http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1755221,00.asp that said that PC users had been lulled into a false sense of security. Many users think that because they have anti-spyware software loaded that they are safe. He highlighted a portion of article for the members that said that the programs only catch a portion of spyware.

He directed the meeting to free CNet educational courses at http://courses.help.com/?mcid=forums0804 that cover spyware and a number of other computer topics.

Richard took the group to http://www.windowssecrets.com/050127/#story1 that explained that anti-spyware programs catch only a portion of spyware installed on computers. Richard then took the members to http://spywarewarrior.com/asw-test-guide.htm to get recommendations from Eric Howes about the anti-spyware programs. Finally, the group went to http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=321cd7a2-6a57-4c57-a8bd-dbf62eda9671&DisplayLang=en to look at the new, free Microsoft AntiSpyware beta program that does a good job of finding spyware.

Member Mike Sheehan demoed Skype, the voice over IP program at http://www.skype.com/.

Mike phoned Don Singleton at home. The Internet connection was evidently not up the challenge and Mike had to phone Don several times after being cut off. Mike and Don explained their experiences and adventures with the program in talking with people all over the world. [Editors note: I have communicated with several different people: in Tulsa, elsewhere in the USA, and in several other countries, including Australia, and I have never experienced the problems that Mike and I had. The problems must have been with the internet connection at CompUSA. If members would like to test it for themselves they are welcome to call me via Skype. My Skype ID is "donsingleton".]

Mike Sheehan demoed Adobe Photoshop Elements, V. 3 by editing family photos of his brothers and sisters. Mike showed how to work with layers to enhance the family pictures and showed some historic pictures that he had edited at home. He showed how to apply different artistic filters to his own portrait.

The members discussed what to do at the March meeting. They agreed to continue on with photo editing and to invite an Intel representative to the meeting to inform the group what is happening in the computer hardware field.



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Tulsa Computer Society 3/01/2005
Don Singleton, President