| Home | Events | Newsletter | Club Info | Programs | Comments | |
|
April 1998 Newsbyte | |
EDITOR'S
CORNER
SPRING!!! Thought it would never get here! I love spring, where everything is
coming up green fresh and new.
Windows 98 is blazing along. It speeded up my 133MHz computer about the
same as if I had put a 200MHz chip in. Can't believer the power, speed and ease that
it takes on tasks. Now if IBM would just get rid of the insane 640 K RAM barrier, and
IRQ's they'd really have a computer!! Although the RAM is rather insignificant
when you only run Windows 95 or 98, I guess. It is a little maddening when you have
48Megs of RAM and get the hated "Out of Memory" message!!
The Computer Club seems to be gaining a little on membership. We have 43 on
the roster, but several are non-paying, complimentary members. The saving grace is
the E-Mail members. Saves a lot of $$$!!!
Have you checked our web page lately?? It is updated periodically and has the
newsletters in from July 1997 to the present one. It is updated with the current
newsletter the week before the monthly meeting.
Special Program!
Designing Your Own Web Page
by Brian Powell, TCC Webmaster
| President | Willis Troyer | 669-3925 |
| Vice Presidents | Brian Powell | 828-8365 |
| Tom Zimmerman | 264-5521 | |
| Secretary-Treasurer | Pat Johnston | 264-8726 |
| Librarians | Joe Luster | 682-7815 |
| Phillip Crosby | 264-1444 | |
| Editor | Harry Geiser | 682-7486 |
Controversy is brewing over Java, and the result may be a bitter cup for Web
lovers.
Java is the programming language that enables small programs called applets to be
transmitted along with regular Web page information. Today, these applets are typically
used to animate logos and pictures on Web sites, but they can be used for more
serious endeavors, such as interactive learning and health care applications. And since
Java programs can run on nearly any type of computer (Windows PC, Macintosh, Sun
workstation, and so on), many people consider it a new computing platform as well, not
unlike Windows 95 is for millions of PC owners.
But Microsoft, for one, is apparently not flattered by the comparison. Microsoft
has licensed Java from Sun Microsystems, but made some alterations when it put Java
support into version 4.0 of its Internet Explorer browser. The result is that Java applets
written to run with Internet Explorer might not run on other browsers and computers -
exactly the sort of cross-platform trouble Java seeks to avoid. Sun has sued Microsoft
for breaching its Java licensing contract, while Microsoft denies the charge and says it
has the right to tailor its software. So much for World Wide peace. -- C.O.
As the Internet tent continues to expand, some of its earliest tenants are getting
ready to find new shelter. The so-called Internet2, a high-speed network designed to
link researchers across the United States, the way the original Internet did before it
became crowded with the rest of us, made its first connections recently.
The first two high-speed hubs, known "gigapops" because they are points of
presence (pops) that can operate at speeds up to billions of bits per second (gigabits),
made a connection between centers in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, and
Georgia Tech in Atlanta, Georgia. The first connection is running at 43 million bits per
second, but faster speeds are planned. Nationwide, more than 100 schools and
research centers have been collaborating to create Internet2.
The regular Internet, meanwhile, continues to pack them in. One recent report by
International Data Corp. estimates that more than 53 million people worldwide now
have access to the Internet - the first time it has surpassed the 50 million mark - with
more than 44 million using the Web. Many other reports reveal smaller numbers, but
still show steady growth. -- C.O.
by David Barboza
Her name is Lara Croft, and she seems to be everywhere.
Her image is popping up in magazines, on television and computer screens,
even on pinup posters like the one in the current issue of PC Games magazine, which
shows her reclining in a bikini, a handgun resting suggestively on her hip.
And she's not even real. Lara is a digitized female image from one of the hottest-selling
video games of the year, Tomb Raider 2, which is published by Eidos Interactive,
based in London.
But that has not stopped Lara -- whose tanned, voluptuous cyberframe is the
equivalent of 34-24-34 -- from becoming a popular female icon. She is a far cry from
Betty Boop, and she is no Barbie doll. She is more like a female Indiana Jones, but
pumped up, vertically and horizontally, in the fashion of the 1990s.
Her fans say she is gritty, sexy, sassy, smart and, well, virtually real. And that's
exactly what her British creators were hoping for.
"It's really a strange phenomenon because people talk about her as if she's a
real person," said Cindy Church, a spokeswoman for Eidos. "A lot of people who play
video games fantasize about her."
Unsure of just how to portray the silicon icon, Church went on, "She's not overly
sexual," then paused. "OK, she is physically sexual, but she has a personality behind
her."
Because of those attributes, Eidos executives are being flooded with gifts and
presents for the silicon princess. There are flowers, Christmas gifts, even vows from
young boys and men. "People all over the world have sent in their pictures," said Tricia
Gray at the Eidos office in San Francisco. "She's had dozens of marriage proposals
and all these cheesy letters."
Indeed, in Britain, only the bubbly Spice Girls are said to be more popular. And in the
United States, her Indiana Jones-like video exploits are being sold in large quantities to
game players who are well into their 30s.
Lara's first game, Tomb Raider, was released in November 1996 and sold about
3.5 million copies worldwide. Tomb Raider 2, which came out last November, has sold
several million, according to Eidos.
As a result, just about every game and computer magazine wants to reprint
Lara's sexy image. There are even entire World Wide Web sites devoted to her and
sites created by individuals who even take the liberty of posing the digital Lara in the
nude.
"The most obvious reason Lara Croft is so popular is that 99.5 percent of the gaming
population is young men," says Steve Klett, editor of PC Games magazine, which has
Lara gracing its cover this month. "And it doesn't hurt that she's so outrageously
proportioned."
Indeed, the craze surrounding Lara (there is also an online newspaper
dedicated to chronicling her life) might be yet another sign that technological advances
in human imagery are creating lifelike portraits that further blur the line between reality
and fantasy.
Devoted fans, who see a three-dimensional image and hear a real British voice
projecting out of their computer speakers, have dubbed Lara a "cyberbabe" and the
"silicon chick."
And to bolster such realism, Lara has her own biography and a rebellious past.
Born into an aristocratic family in Wimbledon, England, Lara Croft -- whose given age
is 29 -- grew up in a world of private tutors, boarding schools and a Swiss finishing
school.
But on a skiing trip to the Himalayas, her plane crashed. Lara, who was the sole
survivor, soon realized that she could not stand the "suffocating atmosphere of the
upper-class British society" and preferred a new adventurous life. Thus she began
searching for ancient artifacts and fighting villains and a zoo of animals, like tigers and
wolves.
But her creators say that Lara's future is not about slaying dragons but winning
eyeballs. "The digital Lara is going to sign a modeling contract with a big agency,"
Church boasts. "She'll become a supermodel, like Naomi Campbell and Linda
Evangelista."
Even her creators think she's real.
by Robert Lemos, ZDNN
February 18, 1998
AUSTIN, Texas --
Eight months ago, diverse groups on the Internet joined forces to voice their
opposition to a bill designed to keep "objectionable content" off the worldwide network.
When the Communications Decency Act was overturned in the Supreme Court, most
congratulated themselves on a job well done. Now legal experts and cyber-rights
supporters are girding themselves again for war, and declaring that the Supreme Court
did not do enough in its June 1997 ruling. "I thought this year I would be celebrating,"
said Ann Beeson, staff consul for the American Civil Liberties Union, speaking at the
Conference on Computers, Freedom, and Privacy here Wednesday, "but I was wrong."
Instead, the ACLU is involved in fighting legislation aimed at curbing the Net's ability to
deliver disturbing content to minors. Originally, the June ruling against the CDA was
considered an unqualified success by most observers. The Supreme Court ruled in
strong words that the Internet was afforded the same protections as newspapers and
television. Yet the ruling did not go far enough, said Beeson. The bills being drafted
now exploit the court's original position. The original ruling accused the CDA of being
very broad and limiting the Internet without proving that less restrictive alternatives
were not as effective. "This leaves open the possibility that less broad legislation
backed by expert opinion to its efficacy would be satisfactory," said Eugene Volokh, a
professor of law at UCLA, also speaking at CFP98. The most well-known bill is Sen.
Dan Coats' (R-Ind.) replacement for the CDA, called the "Son of CDA" or just "CDA II."
The bill, proposed in November 1997, requires that commercial Web sites prevent
minors from accessing sexually explicit material on the Web. And the Son of CDA is
not alone. Last week, a bill was introduced by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to prohibit
government funding Internet access to schools that refused to filter out certain
objectionable Web sites. The bill is just the first drip in what could easily turn into a
torrent of legislation, said experts. "The [original] court ruling implies that you can
protect children while upholding the right to free speech," said UCLA's Volokh. "That's
just wrong." "This is the second battle for the Net," said ACLU's Beeson. "We are now
trying to save and secure the quality of the Internet." Beeson remarked that key
segments of society -- including teen-agers, the disenfranchised, and the marginalized
and minority speakers -- would be hurt by the new bills. Legislators feeling pressure to
draft bills restricting the Internet and technologies such as rating schemes to help
censor content are the biggest dangers, said Beeson. "Couldn't [the legislators] all go
home?" she said.
By Charles Cooper, February 18, 1998
Dell Computer Corp. is now selling more than $4 million per day through its
home page on the World Wide Web.
The Austin, Texas-based company, which started selling computer products over
the Internet 1 1/2 years ago, made the disclosure Wednesday afternoon in conjunction
with the release of its fourth-quarter earnings. In December, Dell (DELL) said its Web
site was registering about $3 million in daily sales.
But the success of Dell's cyber story is taking an unexpected twist. Consumers
and small business buyers account for about half of the company's burgeoning Web
business. By comparison, Dell derives about 90 percent of revenues from sales to
medium and big businesses.
"What's absolutely true is that it's been disproportionate," said T.R. Reid, the
company's director of corporate communications. At the same time, Reid said the
company was not backing away from a projection offered by the company's CEO,
Michael Dell, last fall when he said Dell could derive about half its revenues off the
Web by the turn of the century.
"It's not so much a projection but a goal," he said. "Michael said he expected
we'd get there within the next couple of years. That would make it something like 50
percent of all our transactions online. Perhaps we'll exceed that as large corporate
customers increasingly come to recognize the benefit of buying online."
Still, analysts caution that at this stage, most of the company's Web revenues
come from customers who would have otherwise ordered products by phone or by
placing orders with Dell's outbound sales force.
"I would suspect it's that," said Charles Smulders, an analyst with Dataquest Inc.
"It's not incremental revenue."
Even so, he said Dell could realize tangible cost savings as a larger percentage
of its business comes from online sales. "If they can get a large percentage of their
customer base to buy off the Web, it could be a very significant cost saving because
the Internet [model] is very efficient," he said.
Reid was unable to exactly gauge the magnitude of dollars-and-cents savings
realized by Dell because of the growth in the company's online sales. However, he said
there are some general ways to quantify the figure, noting that it costs Dell $5 each
time it mails out a product catalog.
"If someone's first gone to the Web, you have a savings there. And even people
who call up to buy usually require fewer telephone calls if they've been to the Net first,"
he said.
What do you get when you merge a digital voice recorder and conversational
speech-recognition software? According to IBM and Olympus, you get a "virtual
office"-and probably the next best thing to a
traveling assistant with good steno skills.
The two companies have teamed up to take voice recognition on the road.
Olympus' D1000 digital voice recorder, which records sounds as computer data on
flash memory cards, is being paired with IBM's ViaVoice software. ViaVoice, like
Dragon's similar Naturally Speaking software, is a "continuous speech"
voice-recognition program that does not require distinct pauses between words. A
cable or PC Card adapter will allow you to transfer voice notes from the recorder to a
PC and have them automatically transcribed into editable text on the screen.
The yet-to-be-named bundle is expected to cost less than $400 (the recorder
alone costs about $250), and the package is slated to be available this month. -- Chris
O'Malley
We've mentioned in a previous tip that surge protection power strips are
recommended to protect your computer system from a power spike coming through
electrical outlets. Sometimes however, people forget about the current that runs
through the phone line.
If you're connecting to the Internet through a modem, you most likely have a
phone line that directly connects to your PC. Phone line power surges can cause the
same type of damage as a surge through your electrical outlets. That's why it's a good
idea to invest in a surge-protection device for your phone line as well. You'll find such
devices in your local electronics store.
If your CD-ROM drive is having a problem reading a certain disc, the CD-ROM
disc may need some light cleaning.
Try using a soft clean cloth such as one used to clean camera lenses, and
gently wipe any smudges, finger prints, or dirt from the surface of the disc. It's best to
move from the inside of the CD ROM disc towards the outside.
If you have some spots that will not wipe off using this method, try using a good
quality tape recorder head cleaning solution on the cloth. You may also purchase
audio CD disc cleaning solutions at most music stores and electronic departments of
large department stores. (Radio Shack has a neat CD-ROM cleaner, one for disks,
and the CD-ROM drive itself. It works!