Remember our meeting this Tuesday (6:45) at
Clearwater Central Catholic High School (map)!
Rita Oakes from Microsoft
will be our speaker.
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Come on out and join us at the Resource Center this Saturday! The
doors open at 9 AM, and the festivities continue throughout the day.
We'll be serving coffee, doughnuts, hot dogs, sodas, and popcorn, and
it's all on the house. Do you have some computer questions?
Stop by our hands-on computer training lab and we'll see if we can help
you out.
The Center will be open throughout the day for TBCS members and their
guests to network. Frank Bucca and Howard Poindexter will be available in
the computer lab all day to answer computer questions and put on ad hoc
demonstrations.
We hope to be able to better accommodate visitors this time around with
an arrangement that allows you to sit down to eat and chat. We had a great
time the last time we tried this. Come on out and give it a try. You don't
have to register, and refreshments and training are free!
Random
Acts of Kindness Computer Clinic
Free to TBCS Members AND Their Guests!
From 1to 5 PM we will be performing another Random Acts of Kindness
(RAK) Computer Clinic for our members and their guests.
While we're happy to work on member's computers for free, you MUST
register in advance for this service. Please go to:
www.synergypublishing.com
and click on the "Register Me" hyperlink near the top of the page.
While we repair our member's computers for free at least 2 days every
week, some people prefer to bring them in during our RAK events. We fix a
lot of computers, and we have a lot of fun doing it. We hold these clinics
to promote the concept of performing random acts of kindness for others.
It's not the "size" of the kindness that you perform for someone that's
important; it's the giving of yourself that makes a difference. I happen
to believe that "kindness is catching".
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Free tacos,
some free alcohol, we get to sit together, and a quieter atmosphere.
Come on out and hang with us and network with fellow club members.
We liked the atmosphere at Rio Bravo the last time we partied there.
The atmosphere was conducive to conversation, and we were given our own
area so that we could hang out as a group.
The party officially lasts from 5:30 - 7:30, but several of us ended up
staying 'til 9 or 10 at the last one.
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Last week on our radio show I made a prediction that a
new virus called Bugbear was soon going to be running rampant (this was no
great feat of prognostication on my part - it was obvious that this was
going to occur). I started getting emails from club members on
Friday asking some rather strange questions about emails that I had
supposedly sent out within the last couple of days.
After a little bit of detective work, I was able to
confirm that this is indeed the Bugbear virus at work. A TBCS member
has been infected, and their computer is sending out copies of the virus,
and "spoofing" the Sender's address.
Why is this important?
Well, for starters, it means that you should
never open attachments - even from friends - unless you have
first confirmed who sent them and why. It also means that for the
foreseeable future, we are all going to receive seemingly strange emails
from our friends that we're going to have to learn to ignore and delete.
Klez was the harbinger of a new type of virus with
capabilities that Bugbear (and others soon to come) will emulate.
These viruses are going to be terribly hard to put out of commission
because you cannot track them back to the source of infection. We're
going to have to learn to live with them.
What action(s) should I take?
- If you are running Microsoft Outlook or
Microsoft Outlook Express, you really need to go to
www.microsoft.com and download
all Critical Updates.
Note: In my opinion, it is
more important to update your email software than it is to download the latest virus data
files for your virus protection software. I don't run any virus
protection software because Outlook will simply not permit access to any
attachments that are potentially dangerous.
- Virus scan your computer.
Trend Micro's Housecall is a good online scanner (and it's free!).
- Don't open any email attachments unless you are
positive that you can safely do so!
- I never send attachments without explaining what they are and why
I'm sending them in the email they are attached to.
Interesting Info about Bugbear:
Bugbear is a virus that is more properly termed a worm. It has the
"standard" capabilities that all "good" viruses come with these days: it
can mail copies of itself to anyone in your address book, it can protect
itself from your virus protection software (after it has infected your
machine), it can record the keystrokes that you type on your computer and
then send them to another computer (thus compromising your passwords and
financial data).
While I despise the virus writers, I do admire their
creativity. Bugbear does something I haven't seen before: it
can send a copy of itself to your printer. If this happens, your
printer will waste dozens of pages of paper by printing gibberish on them
and spitting them out.
How quaint!
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Monday, October 14, 7-9pm
Photoshop SIG. Led by Stan Ashbrook
bashbro1@tampabay.rr.com
I plan to show you the 800 photos I took on vacation – just
kidding. I'll introduce you to an amazing Photoshop plug-in for correcting
old slides that have lost their color, another slide show program, and a
panorama I shot on vacation. We'll also look at different image
editing and selection methods, and Photoshop Elements 2.0 (the latest
revision). Have a nice weekend and I'll look forward to seeing you
on Monday. - Stan
Tuesday, October 15, 1-3pm
Novice SIG. Led by Jan Norman. EVERY Tuesday afternoon.
lnorman1@tampabay.rr.com
Lots of Windows basics info
presented here.
Tuesday, October 15, 5:30-6:30pm
Novice SIG. Led by Chuck Vroman
Chuck.vroman@honeywell.com
Chuck's SIG takes place
at Clearwater Central Catholic High School just before our Monthly
Meeting.
Tuesday, October 15, 6:45pm
Monthly Meeting at CCCHS
Thursday, October 17, 7-9pm
Genealogy SIG. Led by Howard T. Smith
htsmith1015@yahoo.com
Saturday, October 19, 2-4pm
Microsoft Office SIG. Led by Margaret McMullen
Margaret_Mcmullen@msn.com
Note: Sorry to Margaret's many
fans, but her SIG is cancelled this month so that we can fix computers in
the SIG room.
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I (Doc) will be teaching an Internet and email seminar
this coming Saturday morning at the Palm Harbor Library from 10 AM 'til
noon. I'm sorry that it conflicts with the TBCS open house, but it
couldn't be helped. I plan on teaching the seminar and then going
down to the Resource Center to take part in the festivities.
This particular seminar is a good one for those who need
some help learning to find their way around the Internet, and who are
trying to understand the basics of emailing.
This seminar is free and open to the public (no
registration required). It takes place on Saturday morning, October
19, at 10 AM at the Palm Harbor Library (map).
------------
Adobe presents a free seminar in Tampa on November 21st:
"Attend this
FREE Tools for the New Work seminar, co-sponsored by Hewlett-Packard and
Total Training for an in-depth look at what you can achieve with Adobe
InDesign 2.0. You'll also explore new features of Adobe Photoshop 7.0 and
see how easily you can leverage your print assets online with Adobe GoLive
6.0. Native for Mac OS X and Windows XP, these Adobe applications let you
take full advantage of the latest system software."
For more
info...
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I am an unabashed fan of "Plain Text" email - it's
simple, safe, and elegant. However, HTML email can look sooo much
better. I'm going to try once again to produce this modest little
rag in HTML.
For those of you who will not receive it in HTML format
(because your ISP has sent on a plain text version), you have the option
of reading it online at:
http://tampa-bay.org/boardbiz/bulletin/2002/1013.htm
I hope you like what you see! - Doc
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