JULY 2002 - Vol 18 - Issue 07

Newsletter - Internet Edition

The July Meeting will include some back-to-basics and an easy slide show program.

Jon will be doing some computer maintenance, including, making and organizing files and folders, cleaning up directories, and getting rid of old junk files.

Sherry will be showing a program called Irfanview which is an easy to use program for quickly viewing graphic files, individually, or as a slide show. She will show how to create a self-running slide show and how to burn it to a CD.

Think of the amount of help people could "give" if they would volunteer one hour to the user group each month or even two hours, preferably not at one time. With our group, the Atlanta PC Users Group, that would amount to about 160 hours (or four weeks of one full time employee). What sort of resources for the club could this yield? One on-going ad for the newsletter each month, discounts at local merchants, materials for checkout from the user group library (in our case creation of a user group library), five new leads for possible programs, brochures in all local computer related stores, visibility at all computer related events in town, home generated articles for the newsletter, locally generated content for the web site, and less work for the chosen few. Having one member clean up the room before our meeting makes a nice improvement. User Groups don't need more titles and roles, what we need is active members willing to volunteer one hour a month.

Ask what you can give to the User Group. Look around, listen and you will find a task that is simple for you to do, and meets your time requirement. The leaders don't want to do everything. If you offer to pick up the mail weekly and get it to the next meeting, that's one less trip for an officer. It all adds up and helps a bunch. Ask to distribute program evaluations and then collect and tally them for a short sweet report to the board. They would love the constructive criticism. This is a very little time commitment on your part, but great feedback for the club.

So you bought and installed something new on your machine, write about the problems or puzzling aspects you encountered. You aren't unique and knowing what you encountered and how you got past it can help others. When you are buying computer stuff this weekend, take along brochures and ask if they will let you put them on the counter. Small things are small time commitments but they will add up to major rewards for the user group.your user group, and your friends.

So you are the quiet type, if so ask one of your board members what small task you could do to help them. Board members must be cognizant of breaking down the roles into small tasks that can be shared with others. For example, in holding a monthly meeting there are numerous small tasks that take place that can be done - clean room, arrange seating, greet people, having literature ready, hand out door prize tickets, setting up the microphone, and after the meeting help putting everything away. Just ask an officer what you can do within your time frame. Everyone likes help.

You get a reward too! Everyone gains from your help. Officers actually get time to explore their own computer world. The club gets the additional resources. Officers get time to explore new growth ideas. You gain from all the above, but what really happens is that you become friends with other members. The friendships lead to tips, tricks, new ideas and free help with projects from people you trust. Guess what? By volunteering you get the full strength of the rewards of joining a user group. Try it. I recently networked my home computers, 3 floors and 3 different computers. I only paid $120 for a router; all the remaining hardware, cables, and labor were free. Through friendships from volunteering with a user group I have friends who had access to the rest as throwaways or upgrades. We ran the wire and completed the work in one evening. Saved big bucks and had real fun.

Now what? Get off that "thang" and call or e-mail your user group officers and ask to help. Suggest something now, as it is always perplexing to come up with something on the spot. If you can't suggest something, ask them to discuss with you some smaller tasks that you can perform. Don't worry about the title of the job; just find a way to help. As that great philosopher Ringo Star so eloquently sang, "I can get by with a little help from my friends."

Jon Slough, a long time EPCUG member, former officer, and all-around good guy, recently mentioned he awoke one morning to discover five used computers had taken up residence on his doorstep. As Jon has no idea who left the computers there or why, he assumed they are meant for the Elkhart PC Users Group's computer Recycling SIG.

While Jon often provides his invaluable expertise to the recycling program, he would rather avoid having to step around old computers as he walks out his door. As would any of us that are involved in the Recycling SIG.

Jon and I have worked out a way to remove the computers from his home and get them into our recycling program. The point I wanted to raise is that, while we appreciate the donated computers that keep the recycling program going, there is a better way to get them to us.

Perhaps the easiest way to donate a computer is to bring it our monthly general meeting and approach me about taking it off your hands. A second option would be to stop by and visit us on our monthly Build Days. Build Days are usually held the Saturday immediately following the general membership meeting. We meet and work on refurbishing the old computers in the basement of Primerica Financial Services, 135 S. Main St., in Goshen.

If neither of those options works for you, please drop me an E-mail at pubrelations@epcug.org, and I'll try to come up with a better plan.

Generally speaking, we are interested in receiving Pentium class computers and higher. The computers are refurbished by a group of dedicated EPCUG volunteers and then donated to non-profit groups, charities and disadvantaged households. In addition to providing computers to those who may not otherwise be able to afford them, this project keeps those old machines out of our local landfills.

As the Elkhart PC Users Group is a non-profit organization, donating your old computer to us may entitle you to an income tax deduction. Of course, you should consult with a qualified tax professional to find out how to obtain this deduction.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Bruce Von Deylen is a self-employed personal computer repair technician. Working under the name of The PC Guy, Bruce holds an A+ certification and has been helping computer users professionally since 1996. Before striking out on his own, Bruce spent nearly 20 years in journalism, working most recently for the South Bend Tribune. He joined the Elkhart PC Users Group in January 2001 and was appointed as public relations director in October. His E-mail address is pcguy@attbi.com.

At the July meeting, we will begin taking nominations for next year's officers. Elections will take place in September, with the new officers taking command at the October board meeting.

Treasurer, Marty Mielke, will be in charge of nominations, in lieu of the recent vice-president's resignation. Please contact Marty either by phone or email, or in person at the meeting if you are interested in any of the positions, particularly the appointed positions, as those will probably not be opened on the floor of the meeting, but will be accepted privately by Marty.

Listed below are all the positions, next month's newsletter will include compete descriptions. If you feel you cannot accept the complete responsibilities of an office, but perhaps could assist, please make that known to Marty as well, since there might be someone who would take the office, if they had help!

Be sure to read this month's feature article "Just One Hour". It is very true that many officers would be very grateful if you could give them 'just one hour' a month to make their job easier. Interestingly, several of these jobs take little more than that, but many of you are afraid that there must be more to it than is listed. Take time this year to read the descriptions, and decide if you could accept or even help with one of them.

Officers:
President	Elected Officer
Vice-President	Elected Officer
Secretary	Elected Officer
Treasurer	Appointed by Board
Directors:
Program Director	Elected Officer
SIG Director	Elected Officer
Membership Director	Elected Officer
2 Directors-at-Large	Elected Officers
Additional Members (includes but not limited to):
Advertising Director	Appointed by Board
Public Relations Director	Appointed by Board
Resource Librarian	Appointed by Board
Newsletter Editor	Appointed by Board
Web Editor	Appointed by Board

A very powerful command in Windows 95 is found on the START menu. It's the FIND command, and it can be initiated from anywhere in Windows by using the F3 function key. If you have a browser open the FIND window may be hidden but will be shown on the TASK BAR.

The most time-saving feature is being able to use a "fuzzy search" to find a file. . While you can find a recently opened or saved file by using the "Documents" command on the "Start " menu, what if you forgot the name you saved it under? With the FIND command you never have to include the extension or even the full spelling of the file name. It can even find a file when you list only a few characters in the middle of the name.

You don't remember anything about the file name? Then use the DATE MODIFIED tab to search within a date frame during which you remember saving the file. Can't remember the dates at all? How about the subject of the file? Using the ADVANCED tab, you can search for files that contain a certain combination of words within the file, such as the subject matter or name of a person mentioned there. The three main tabs can even be combined to make up a very narrow search.

If this same or similar search criteria is likely to be needed again, click on the "SAVE SEARCH" option under the FILE menu. This will put an icon on your desktop to click on for another search.

As in the other Explorer type Windows, the way these found files are displayed can be changed using the VIEW options. You can show just icons, (small or large), full file details, or just a simple list. When showing all details you may need to expand the "IN FOLDER" space to show the full path for the files. (Click and drag the separator lines beside the headings.)

I frequently find all sound files for a quick sound system test by typing *.wav or *.mid into the "Named" box. Then I just click on one of them to play it. You can search multiple drives by entering the drive letters separated by a semicolon. (such as C:\; A:\)

Now comes the powerful and fun part of the FIND command: How to make use of the files you have found.

>> Once an application is registered to open a file, just clicking on the file name will run that application and open that file for you.

>> By right-clicking on the file name you are presented with a bunch of options, such as COPY (to the clipboard), SEND TO (to the A: drive, mail, or briefcase), RENAME, DELETE, and ZIP functions. (SEND TO is a very quick way to copy a file to a floppy disk.)

>> Any file found here can be added to the DESKTOP as a shortcut, allowing very quick access to it the next time you need it.

>> By clicking on PROPERTIES for this file you can get all sorts of details, such as date created, date modified, type of file, etc.

By looking at the files this way you can recognize duplicate and backup files so you can remove them from your hard drive. When you are sure they are safe to delete, holding down the SHIFT key when you hit DELETE will keep the files from being saved again in your RECYCLE BIN.

From the "Blue Chip News" a publication of the Saginaw Valley Computer Association - Saginaw, MI. User Groups should feel free to reproduce this article in their publications. All we ask is that proper credit be given to the author of the article, the Blue Chip News and/or the Saginaw Valley Computer Association. We would appreciate receipt of a copy of the newsletter that carries an article from the SVCA and participation in a newsletter exchange program.