| **** NewsBytes **** NewsBytes **** NewsBytes **** |
AOL may be planning to stop supplying Internet Explorer in its Web access software in an attempt to boost take-up of its own Netscape web browser. At present, Netscape's market share amounts to around 8%, in the face over 90% for Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Guinea pigs for the Netscape web browser will be limited within AOL's 3 million CompuServe users, who comprise 15% of all Internet users.
A new version 9.0 of VERITAS Backup Exec™ for NetWare now takes advantage of pure IP environment efficiencies and delivers high service levels without costly infrastructure upgrades. Complete IP support increases network bandwidth by allowing users to remotely manage VERITAS Backup Exec from Microsoft Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows NT and Windows 2000. Remote connectivity further eliminates the need for support of additional client protocols. Support for NetWare 6, Intelligent Disaster Recovery™ and recovery from diskette, CD R/W, or bootable tape rank among the new features.
Can you walk, chew gum and type? Maybe not all of the record 6.9 million notebook computers sold in 2001 were for use on-the-move, but there is a trend towards take up of smaller machines where performance and screen size approaches their desktop equivalents. Employees regard notebooks as a prime perk (a position once held by the company car), while employers hope to gain extra working hours as a result of portability. Saturation cannot be many years away, however, with 2001 sales only increasing by 5.6%, compared 2000's boom increase of 22%.
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Up to our ears in conversations! For the first time in mobile phone history, global sales dropped. However, this saturation point was marked by the fact that the world's population purchased a mere 400 million units last year. Source: Gartner.
Office rents go up: Sun is to implement licence charges for the Linux and Windows versions of StarOffice in May, although the good news is that the new charges are likely to be lower than Microsoft's Office equivalents. This may help to attract the interest of larger organisations, following the Central Scotland Police's (CSP) wholesale migration to StarOffice at the beginning of 2002. Better support from Sun is also promised. Solaris versions, under the OpenOffice Community Edition banner, will continue to remain free distributions.
Microsoft have extended the last date on which Software Assurance and Upgrade Advantage can be purchased to 31st July 2002 (see Office upgrade article in InfoBulletin September 2001 on our Web site). After this date, Upgrade Advantage (upgrading to the latest version of a Microsoft product as before) will no longer be available and only a new full licence may be bought, unless already enrolled in the Software Assurance programme.
Until 31st July, Windows 2000 and Office 2000 will be considered current, in addition to Office XP and Windows XP. Certain Upgrade Advantage licences (purchased via Open Licence) may qualify for a 5% discount before 30th June 2002.
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1. Interpreting Projector technology
Projectors have become a lot cheaper recently - and we're not talking old, overhead, light boxes with dim, smeared acetates.
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What is it ?
Simply plug your computer video connector into a box about the size of a laptop and you can be projecting the results on to a screen (or any good white surface) to your audience right away. Anything you can do on your PC, can be displayed, and with at least the same light intensity as with slide projection.
What could we use one for ?
Travel to other offices to make presentations or as part of a meeting where discussing graphical details needs to be interactive, eg 'whiteboarding'
Suppliers coming to visit your organisation can present their products without having to bring yet another box
Ease internal IT training sessions: users sit comfortably and view a large clear projection instead of 'gathering round' a small PC screen
How it works/worked
In the early 90s, a few "LCD overhead projector displays" were available. Assuming you already owned an overhead projector, this constituted a relatively cheap way of projecting computer images, by placing a large, semi-transparent LCD panel on the overhead projector where the acetate/slide would normally sit. The light from the projector bulb simply carried the PC's LCD image, via the video cable, on to the ordinary, white overhead screen.
All well and good, but this slightly 'Heath-Robinson' arrangement suffered from all the failures of the overhead system in the first place - poor brightness, distortion from a tilted screen, dirty surfaces, limited contrast - as well as a low resolution (often 640x480 VGA) from the LCD panel.
Clever designers soon bundled all this into one box - a more powerful bulb, a smaller LCD but with higher resolution and a host of built-in alignment devices to prevent distortion - so now we have easy-to-view projections with hands-on PC convenience.
Projector specification checklist
Units are typically notebook PC size - A4, but also thicker, say the equivalent of 2 or 3 notebooks. The same goes for the weight you can expect to lug around - anything from a fly-weight 1.3 Kg up to a heavyweight 6 Kg. Typical prices are higher than notebook PCs, with entry-level projectors starting at £1200 and rising to £5500 for a 'bells and whistles' job.
Here's what to expect in the features list:
- Image brightness:
... is measured in lumens. Expect 1000 minimum to over 3000 lumens and halogen bulbs of 160 Watts to 200 Watts.
- Image clarity
... is measured by the number of pixels; higher numbers equals a clearer projection (if your PC can match it).
Low: 640x480 pixels (VGA)
Medium: 800x600 pixels (SVGA)
High: 1024x768 pixels (XGA)
(See a detailed explanation of resolution in our article on Digital Cameras).
- Colour rendition
... is measured by the number of 'bits' processed. The best current ratings are 24-bits giving 16.7 million colours.
- Focussing and distortion
Most projectors have auto-focus built-in which compensates for temperature changes. Some sort of control to compensate for the trapezoid distortion of projecting upwards (where the screen or wall is not oblique) is useful.
- Zoom
... may be manual or motorised. You need this to accommodate the size of room; more specifically the distance from projector to screen. A 'short-throw' lens means a wide-angle picture can be displayed from only a short distance, which is good for small rooms - you don't want your grand idea being displayed as only A4 size! Expect a 'throw distance' of typically 1.5 metres to 10 metres.
- Remote control input device
... gibes you TV-like remote control for operating projector functions like zoom, but some remotes also include a red 'laser' pointer type device for picking out details on screen.
- Sound
... is commonly provided by built-in stereo speakers in an increasing number of projectors and feeds direct from the PC.
- Noise levels
... are specified in decibels. Look for a low number (eg 36dB) which indicates a quiet cooling fan - a boon in intimate surroundings.
High-end features
The more expensive units now boast features suitable for incorporating projection into your organisation's network:
- network-ready projectors with their own assignable IP address
- built-in PC card (PCMCIA) slot
- wireless networking adaptor
- video inputs for the main TV standards: NTSC, SECAM and various versions of PAL
- USB interface to connect direct to the back of a PC
Examples to look out for
Entry-level:
NEC VT45G, or
Sony VPL-CS4
Loadsa money:
Epson EMP-5600, or
Sony VPL-PX15
How to make it happen
You can't beat getting a look at a working projector, preferably your chosen model, if only to see how impressive this technology has become. Ensure it fulfils the basics: a sharp, bright picture which reaches evenly into the corners, with no distortions like 'barrelling' or 'pincushion'.
If your scenario is "presentations on the move", do pick up the projector units to see if you'd really be happy with carrying one around.
And finally, make sure you hang on to your successful new purchase - portability equals nick-ability! Get a suitable bag, keep it concealed!
Do contact us for quotes on any projection items and accessories.
Benefits
Go 'straight-to-projector' with professional presentations
No conversion to other media needed - use the material straight from your PC or network
Built-in pointer - the mouse cursor doubles up
No need to copy whiteboarding sessions or flip charts - results are instantly stored because all the activity happens on the PC. Add-on touch-screens whiteboards available.
-IB-
[Paul Craig]
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2. Free typing tutors
If we'd been born to type on keyboards, surely 'Homo qwerty-ens' would have adapted itself more readily? A faster alternative to waiting for evolution to catch up, is simply a bit of practice at this, the most overlooked IT skill ....
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Waht is it ?
You need some typing practice or you have never learnt to touch-type properly. Mmmm - me tyo.
If you can't be bothered to buy the "Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing" classics, but just want to download an application and get going, these freebies are probably for you. We took a couple of freeware offerings and hammered the keyboard to test them.
- The Classic - "KP Typing Tutor 3.0"
- Description
The classic typing tutor helps you learn the key skills - finger placement on the keyboard and building up typing speed. A virtual on-screen keyboard highlights the appropriate key/finger combination.
Practice options include basic typing exercises, sentences and longer texts, but you can also alter the contents to suit each user. Less starchy than before, KP now includes a typing game to combine practice with fun.
- Download size: 610KB
- Typical download time on 56K modem: 1.5 minutes
- Publisher: Arlido
- Operating systems: Any of Windows 95/98/NT/2000
- Download it from:
http://www.arlido.com/zijianhuang/kpe.html
or any shareware distributor.
- The Gameplayer - "TypingMaster Typing Test 6.2"
- Description
The second in our free selection has more emphasis on fun, but still remains a full-featured typing tester. With plenty of standard test texts to evaluate your skills, TypingMaster 6.2 will record your personal result history, produce printable reports and even a certificate. However, you can also add your own documents, making practice sessions highly relevant, simply by clicking the "Add" link and browsing to your own directory, though it may be necessary to save MS Word documents as text (.txt). Other features include a choice of warm-up games and multi-user profiles.
- Download size: 1.8MB
- Typical download time on 56K modem: 4.5 minutes
- Publisher: TypingMaster, Inc.
- Operating systems: Any of Windows 95/98/NT/2000
- Download it from
http://www.typingmaster.com/index.asp?go=typetestwin
Benefits
Probably the biggest IT skills benefit to your organisation. Typers spend less time looking at the keyboard and correcting 'typos'.
Slash document production time by 50-75%. Since office users produce documents and emails more than any other type of data, increasing their typing speed benefits everyone.
Users find satisfaction in learning another skill, especially as it's self-taught.
Drawbacks
You have to invest some time, but with these tutors, at least you don't have to invest any cash since both programs are freeware!
How to make it happen
Offer time out for staff to practice, maybe even suggest speed and accuracy targets for them to achieve (eg 100 wpm by week 2) to maintain interest.
Provide typing tutor applications on the local network for self- or home-installation, or supply them pre-installed on workstations.
Contacts
http://www.typingmaster.com/
http://www.arlido.com/
-IB-
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3. Interpreting Bluetooth technology
Take an old technology called "radio" and stuff it into a chip. Result? Hey - Bluetooth!
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What is it ?
Everyone’s talking about it. It’s going to be the next big thing in wireless technology.
There are 2,000-plus affiliated companies behind the technology, such as IBM, 3Com, Intel, Nokia and Microsoft, to name but a few. This year alone 20% of new laptops and another 40,000 handsets will be incorporating the technology. But what exactly is Bluetooth?
What advantages does it have?
Bluetooth is a new wireless standard. It provides cheap, wireless radio connectivity between devices, and at the same time does not result in an increase in either weight or size. It will enable users to connect to up to seven other compliant devices that are within range, thus creating their own Personal Area Network (PAN).
Unlike infrared, it doesn’t require a line of sight for devices to talk to each other. This means your device can communicate with other devices between rooms. Another design feature of Bluetooth is the simplicity of the user interface. The main target is to integrate the user interface of Bluetooth with the operating system of whichever device it is being used on.
Bluetooth uses the universally available frequency of 2.4 GHz ISM band (Industrial, Scientific and Medical band) and supports both voice and data transmission at rates of 1Mbit/sec.
The basic transmission range is 10 metres, but use of an amplifier can increase this to 100 metres. Such amplifiers would have to be stored on central base stations, as they would be too large and consume too much power to build into devices like PDAs and organisers.
It has built-in encryption and authentication, and a power adaption feature that will enable you to decrease the range in order to prevent the risk of other devices accessing your Bluetooth connection.
What products will be available ?
You will find Bluetooth chips embedded into devices like organisers, PDAs, printers, cars, TVs and - inevitably - computers.
In what ways can these be used ?
A typical scenario:
You're are at a conference and a colleague has some useful sector contacts that you need a copy of.
Pre-Bluetooth, you got your colleague to send the contacts to your PDA via infrared. Then when you got home you copied the contacts on to your desktop PC. Then maybe you printed the contacts, so you had a hard copy. Now with Bluetooth technology, there is no need to copy the contacts on to your PC before printing; you just send the data from your PDA to your printer, assuming your printer has a Bluetooth chip embedded in it. HP already has one such printer available.
One of the most useful Bluetooth applications is the ability to connect a laptop or PDA to the Internet via your mobile phone. It means no need for infrared, which requires a direct a line of sight, and also no need for cables.
Another possible use is take your mobile phone within range of a Bluetooth-enabled landline socket and benefit from cheaper landline rates; then go back to mobile rates when you are on the move again.
Motorola have already launched a hands-free device for cars that uses Bluetooth technology. It works in the same way as the traditional hands-free system, but without wires. Suppose you are having a phone conversation whilst entering your car. When the car is switched on, the call will automatically convert over to the car system, and, because there are no wires, the phone can just be placed in a pocket.
Microsoft will be using Bluetooth with its latest version of its operating system, Windows CE .Net. It’s an operating system for 'embedded' devices like mobile phones. It will be shipping with Bluetooth drivers pre-installed, making it easier for products to be developed using this standard. Up and coming products based on CE .Net will be a next-generation PDA by Hitachi, an I-Pad mobile sales terminal by Fujitsu and an enhanced TV viewer by Motorola.
Why haven’t I heard more about it until now ?
After suffering one of the most drawn-out launches in history of any technology, devices are now starting to appear. Bluetooth devices were supposed to be the big Christmas arrival of 1999, and over two years later they are finally starting to appear.
Bluetooth did receive some bad press at a demonstration last year, which didn’t help its launch. An attempt to create a network, using 100 base-station transmitters within a conference hall ended in failure. This lead to questions about whether there was a conflict with the different companies implementations of the protocol. Interference with medical equipment on the same crammed 2.4GHz frequency was also a concern. Although other Bluetooth implementations have been successfully demonstrated, their media coverage has been slim.
Despite this bad publicity, products are still coming to market from many different companies. And with so many companies committed to Bluetooth, it will take a lot more than a poor review and demonstration to knock the confidence in this latest technology.
Contacts
The official site:
http://www.bluetooth.com
Bluetooth resource centre:
http://www.palowireless.com/bluetooth/
-IB-
[Tony Weeks]
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5. Grab more deskspace
You know you're stressed when you have so many applications open you can't read the icons on the taskbar anymore ... and you haven't seen your Windows desktop for days! Organise your virtual space and regain some desktop space and sanity.
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What is it ?
Remember those days when you had a virtually empty desktop? Now it's cluttered with 57 varieties of icons and the taskbar and system tray are so full of little coloured icons that a PlayStation 2 begins to look dull in comparison.
Here are a few tips for cleaning up the way your PC appears.
Desktop
(the main background where application icons are shown, like the Recycle Bin)
- Minimise all application windows
This is the simplest means to regain your desktop - akin to shoving a (real) desktop full of papers into one corner!
Find an empty space between icons on the taskbar (usually resides at the bottom of your screen) and then
Right-click | Minimize All Windows
All the 'live' applications collapse back on to the taskbar. It's a cheap trick, but an efficient way to find an icon on your desktop again, instead of having to drill though the Start | Programs menu.
- Group icons in folders
Create folders on the desktop (Right-click | New | Folder) in which to group icons (just drag the icons over the new folder).
This is particularly handy for grouping icons in a similar context, often when continuous access isn't essential, eg:
- Office tools group: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access
- Desktop publishing group: PhotoShop, PageMaker, InDesign
- Web editing group: DreamWeaver, AceHTML, Netscape Composer
Taskbar
(the grey line of icons at the bottom of your screen)
Expand the taskbar by dragging it up (place the cursor over the top border of the taskbar) to give icons more space to live and breathe. You can even pull the taskbar half way up the screen (at a considerable cost of desktop area) but this has the uplifting effect of 'covering up your desktop with a new sheet'!
With this bigger 'menu area', icons are easier to read.
Create single click-icons (not in Windows95) for those applications where you need instant access. See our example for a single-click Notepad.
System Tray
(the bottom right-hand section containing the clock)
A cursory investigation (literally place your cursor over the icons) will show you that some of these run crucial continuous processes - like anti-virus detection - but others are simply for your convenience and may even have been placed in the system tray without your explicit consent. The latter category you can choose to remove by right-clicking and looking for menu options like "Exit", "Disable" or "Preferences". The newly-honed system tray also shortens your PC start-up time in the morning.
Suitable candidates for dumping include email notifiers, a vast array of 'monitoring agents' and real.com's RealPlayer, which installs itself pervasively into the Start menu, desktop area and system tray by default. Unless your core job concerns monitoring video media, you can live without the extra shortcut.
Make it all bigger
If none of these measures are helping and you need to see your display area 'writ large', it's probably time to get a larger monitor (do talk to us first) with a higher screen resolution and maybe make your existing screen easier to read.
-IB-
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6. Build a quick, paperless phone message pad
The phone rings. It's for a colleague. You scrabble around looking for yellow sticky notes and a pen. Sound familiar? But does it sound efficient? 'Save it for Mondays' ....
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A digital solution to the rescue
A single icon-click and you're typing! And talking!
And the solution to this 'phone note-taker par excellence' is the much-underrated Notepad, launched from the taskbar. Available on any Windows machine, Notepad pops up in a few milliseconds, if you configure it conveniently.
Having gone 'straight to digital', your converted conversation is now ready to copy/paste into an email, a document, a spreadsheet or edit further as it is.
You can do this with plenty of other applications - an email client is an obvious candidate - but by the time such a heavyweight application has taken 10 seconds or so to launch, you've already missed the caller's crucial name and phone number and the delay has put your brain into 'fluster' mode. Notepad has the crucial advantage of speed.
Benefits
Save your colleagues' time - unless you're a first class calligrapher, they're more likely to be able to read your print than your handwriting!
No more re-typing from paper notes to send an email.
After the phone conversation is over, Notepad is easier to edit than a scrawled note.
Bend technology to suit you - feel like a tech dude with no effort!
Drawbacks
Unless you're a demon one-handed typist, you'll need to hone your phone skills, preferably evolving a lump on the side of your neck to keep the handset jammed in place.
You may need to hone your typing skills too.
If your PC crashes, you lose the note, unless you saved it. Sort out the machine and your priorities in one go.
How to make it happen
To make a one-click phone note-taker:
- Make a shortcut to Notepad
Desktop | right-click | New | Shortcut | Browse to | "C:\WINDOWS\Notepad.exe" (on Win95/98)
or "C:\WINNT\Notepad.exe" (on WinNT/2000)
- Drag the new shortcut down over the taskbar next to the Start button
You now have Notepad icon on the taskbar which opens with a single click.
Refinements
Notepad comes configured with a 'one-size-fits-all' font - usually
"Fixedsys 9 point".
Change it to a larger, easy-to-read type, like
"Tahoma Bold 14 point" inside Notepad using:
Edit menu | Set font
Alternative solutions
Just keep your favourite application open, that might be a word processor or an email application (some of the latter have phone message pads built in). Beware: when the phone rings, finding the handset and restoring that app is easier said than done!
Voice recognition - need to have a headset ready and a voice recognition package pre-trained to your vocal idiosyncrasies. You record only your side of the conversation - good for legal compliance, but since it's the other person's details you want, it may mean repeating them. Not a bad practice to get into for items like phone numbers, as long you don't start sounding like a parrot!
-IB-
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7. CSV files: what are they for ?
You've heard of "comma-delimited" and "CSV" but what do they mean?
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What is it ?
A CSV file is used for exchanging data between databases, spreadsheets or any application that handles 'table-like' information, that is, rows and columns. The "Comma Separated Variable" or 'Comma-delimited' format has 2 big advantages :
- It's the most universal format around,
- The file is still a plain text file, with no strange formatting characters, so can be examined with a simple text editor or word processor.
This filename often has a .CSV or .TXT ending (extension).
How do I use a CSV file ?
A typical example would be to export a list of invoices from a finance application and import them into a database. The CSV file contents might look like this :
"Invoice", "Company", "Item", "Cost", "Date"
"00123","Co-Op Systems", "10 pack CD-RWs", 26.95, "21-Oct-2002"
"00124","Paperback", "500 sheets A4 paper", 8.59, "1-Sep-2002"
How it works
A Carriage-Return or end-of-line separates records or rows;
A comma separates fields or columns;
A pair of quotes surrounds characters that are to be treated as text not numbers;
A top row is often present that is simply a header which defines the field names.
The database imports these values and lines up the rows and columns.
In the example above, the Costs values are imported as numbers and thus can have mathematical operations performed on them (eg addition, decimal rounding, percentages) - otherwise impossible if they were defined as text. However, the Invoice numbers are imported as text strings since they are unlikely to be used in calculations, though most spreadsheets or databases, can still sort alphabetically on text or numbers.
Summary
Many applications can swap table data with each other quite happily within a particular office suite (eg MS Excel, Access and Word), but the CSV format guarantees to transfer data between applications from any manufacturer (eg MS Access to Corel Quattro Pro) because the format is universal and non-proprietary.
-IB-
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8. Disabling that Annoying Disk Optimiser!
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What is it ?
There are times when the Windows Disk Optimiser runs upon log on and causes your PC to freeze.
This can be disabled by editing the registry keys with regedit.exe:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ MICROSOFT \ OFFICE \ 9.0 \ COMMON
and
HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ SOFTWARE \ MICROSOFT \ OFFICE \ 9.0 \ COMMON
If you do not have a sub key called TUNEUP, add it on by clicking EDIT and NEW, then set DISABLED to "1".
That should do the trick!
[Nishal Rooplal]
-IB-
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