CyberCoyote - January 8, 2009

NEWS and NOTES
Spreadsheet Class

Karen Bland will be starting an Excel/OpenOffice class on February 10. It will run on Tuesdays and Fridays for 5 sessions (and optionally more). The class will meet from 9:00 - 11:00 AM in the Computer Room. It will be geared to a level that suits the most students.

RSS Feeds

RSS is a really dumb name for a brilliant idea. It's easier to use than email, and it delivers just what you want from the Internet when you want it. The notes for the RSS demo today will lead you to the same places we visited to illustrate the concept. There's also more information at our website. We'll schedule a workshop if there is enough interest.

Backup Methods

George described three backup methods today (and gave away one backup program as the door prize).

  1. Seagate Free Agent is integrated with an attractive series of external hard drives.
  2. NTI Backup Now 5 is a full featured backup suite that starts at $30.
  3. Acronis True Image is primarily a disk imaging program, but includes a conventional backup program.
TECH TOPICS
Help with that new computer

Microsoft has opened a new website that may have the answers you need for that new computer you acquired over the holidays.

Waiting for Windows 7

Time has been kind to Windows Vista. Many XP programs have finally been rewritten for Vista, manufacturers have updated hardware drivers, and Microsoft has fixed some problems with their SP1 update. Most people now get along happily with Vista. I'm waiting for Windows 7 though, and I'll buy a couple of new computers when it's available.

It looks as if Windows 7 will be what Microsoft wishes Vista had been, along with some nice improvements. Lifehacker and PC World have early looks at the pre-beta release of Windows 7, and Slate reviewed a leaked copy of the first beta version.

A fateful edition of Popular Electronics

The newsstand that sold the January 1975 issue, featuring the early Altair 8800, to Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, is going out of business. The article started Allen and his friend Bill Gates thinking about personal computers.

WEB PICK
Micro-forecasts

Spokane has had more than six feet of snow so far this winter — most of it in the last couple of weeks. Quite a few commercial and a few house roofs have collapsed, and I've been worried about ours. Naturally I've had an eye on the weather, and a couple of days ago that lead me directly to the National Weather Service site, which is fabulous.

Navigation: I started at the Western Regional Headquarters page (zoom out for the National map). I clicked near Spokane on the map, which took me to a Spokane area map. Then I clicked as closely as I could to where our house is located on this second map. It was easy to get to the exact location by using trial and error on the third, "Detailed Point Forecast" map.

The point forecast is for a ten square mile area that includes our house. It was finally starting to look better. Since then, a Pineapple Express arrived on schedule, so I am breathing much easier. :-) [situation page]

FUN and GAMES
Extraterrestrial life

Another perspective to balance the the one from the previous issue.

Dead-stick takeoff

Followed by a dead-stick landing. :-)

Fun with Firefox

A modern browser is much like a computer within a computer. Browsers use operating-system-like tools -- Java, Javascript (no relation), Flash and others -- to run mini-programs installed to the browner, not to Windows directly.

Hundreds of these little programs are in the form of Firefox add-ons (extensions). Many of them are games, and Firefox Facts has a nice group to pick from. The best thing about them is that they're much quicker and easier to install and uninstall than regular programs. So give a few of them a try. It's not much harder to install or uninstall Firefox for that matter. ;-)

That's all, folks.