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March 1998 Newsbyte | |
EDITOR'S
CORNER
Will we make it 'till spring? Seems like winter has been here forever
but guess we go through that every year about this time... Seems like the only time I
crave a laptop is in the spring where I can be outside all
my waking hours. But then it gets too hot, and I'm glad to retreat indoors into the
air-conditioned and bug free environment. a couple of bad things about living in the
woods are the gnats, and mosquitoes. Otherwise I really like to set on the deck in the
shade and feed the birds, squirrels and chipmunks......
I received an E-Mail from Gerald L. Schaefer about a web site that he
suggested I investigate. I did, and was really pleased to see our club in
the list of clubs in the region. The address is: http://www.bright.net/~ccs/.
Gerald's E-Mail address is: schaefer@mail.bright.net
Well, I've graduated to Windows 98 (Beta 3)!!! Was going through
the Microsoft web page, and saw where I could Beta test the Win98 program.
It has been a real experience!!! To say the least! Computer lockups, not
able to run some programs, more lockups. Shades of Windows 3.1!! That was
the one that turned me completely against Windows. I reset the computer so
many times with Win3.1, it almost got to the point where it would reset
automaticallly!!! Anyhow, don't know if I'll stay with Win 98 or go back
to the old proven and true Windows 95B. Stay Tuned!!!
I also want to tell the group that I got a Commodore 64 from Bernie
Fairbourne. Anyone interested can contact me I guarantee the price will
be right.
Special Program!
Using the Internet
by Margaret Sander from the Orrville Public Library
| 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 |
NEW YORK (AP) -
America Online today sued three more bulk e-mail companies,
seeking to halt their practice of bombarding the online service's members
with unsolicited messages. The nation's largest online service provider
filed the suit yesterday, seeking an injunction and damages from the
companies. According to the suit, the three companies sent thousands of
unsolicited e-mails to AOL members, a practice known as "spamming". AOL in
December had a court victory against Over the Air Equipment, which was
enjoined from sending similar bulk e-mails to AOL members and forced to
pay the company damages.
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.
The Merced River may flow through the San Joaquin Valley in central
California, but it's nearby Silicon Valley that hopes to ride the Merced
into the next century. Intel's next major microprocessor is code-named
Merced, and while it's not due until 1999, it's already making a splash with
PC makers and users.
Merced will be the first in a new family of chips, processing data
in 64-bit chunks rather than the Pentium's 32-bit segments. Intel has yet
to affix any megahertz speeds to Merced, but it's expected to be at least
twice as fast as today's speediest Pentium chip, which currently peaks at
300MHz. Intel says Merced will be able to handle all of the Windows
software now running on Pentium machines.
But for all of its compatibility, Merced will be a significant
departure from the norm in some ways. Intel is developing the chip with
Hewlett-Packard to ensure compatibility with not only Windows software,
but also with all of the Unix software that today runs on Hewlett-Packard's
RISC processors, which are used in scientific workstations. That means
Merced will have a completely new design-the first Intel processor not
based on the x86 instruction set, which goes back 20 years. Intel also has
a simulated system using Merced up and running, so software makers can
write and test software long before the chip's release. And Intel is
using a new 0.18-micron chip-making technology that should make Merced
one of the smallest chips to date. Intel says it will continue to develop
and sell 32-bit Pentium chips even after Merced becomes available. -- C.O.
You can get a fairly good computer for about $1,000. So what do you
get by forking over more money and moving up to the top shelf? Three things,
and only three: speed, capacity and features.
The good news is that if you buy a cheap machine that has plenty of
room for expansion, you can add capacity and features whenever you need
them. Virtually everything in the box, from hard drive to video card, can
be enhanced or upgraded. The processor is the tricky part: Although you
may be able to upgrade it, that rarely turns out to be a bargain.
Besides, more processor speed does not get you as much more
performance as you might suspect. Every machine has bottlenecks like
relatively slow "buses" that the processor must use to communicate with
things like the memory, hard drive and video card. Those bottlenecks mean
that in the real world, the difference between a computer with a
266-megahertz processor and a 300-megahertz model is not even the piddling
13 percent it might seem, and it is meaningless in a world where speed
improvements of even 50 percent are rarely perceptible. Apart from
graphics-intensive games and programs that do things like editing photos,
most software leaves the processor idling along, waiting for the user's
keystrokes or mouse clicks.
If you are not a hard-core game-player or graphic artist, a slower
computer's biggest disadvantage will probably be its shelf life. As new
programs inevitably demand more hardware power, slower machines will be
quicker to be frozen out of running them. My 3-year-old 90-megahertz
Pentium machine was top dog in its day, and it still runs my old programs
just fine. But it is no longer able to with handle the latest
processor-intensive programs like dictation software and fast-moving games.
The price difference between the top of the line and the bottom is
less than ever. Today $2,000 will buy a 266-megahertz Pentium II machine
with twice the speed, twice the memory and three times the capacity of a
unit half the price. But to keep from looking like the interchangeable
commodities they really are, expensive computers often come loaded down
with features of dubious value, like special Internet and speaker phone
buttons.
The model 4850, flagship of Compaq Computer Company's Presario line,
actually has backlit buttons, including one with the logo of a rocket ship.
At about $2,500, it is as expensive as any standard home computer is
likely to get, and it offers useful examples of what to look for and what
to avoid. It is a big black floor-standing tower with a 300-megahertz
Pentium processor, a 6.5-gigabyte hard drive, a "56K" modem and 48
megabytes of random access memory, not to mention a DVD-ROM drive and
video capture circuitry.
Its companion "17-inch" monitor, the 1725S, costs about $700. It has
a built-in microphone, but its picture quality is only fair. Its volume
knob controls software on the computer, but it does not always work. And
the speakers you can hang on it are virtually identical to the ones that
come with Compaq's $1,000 system. Because they lack internal amplification,
the weak amplifier of the system's sound circuitry must drive them. Even
with the volume cranked up to the max, the speakers cannot play loudly, and
they emit plenty of noise during quiet passages.
The DVD-ROM world seemed to have enormous potential just a year or
so ago. Now it is a mess. First-generation DVD-ROM players could play
CD-ROM and audio disks but choked on the recordable CD-R format. Current
models, dubbed DVD-II, can play those disks and are twice as fast, besides.
Compaq includes one in this machine, but plenty of early model units
remain in other computers now on store shelves. Those should be avoided.
But I would avoid DVD entirely for a while. In their infinite
unwisdom, two competing industry factions have come up with incompatible
standards for rewriteable disks, and DVD-II players cannot read either
of them. So-called DVD-III models that should play one or another of the
new formats (known as DVD-RAM and DVD-RW) are expected by summer at lower
prices than today's models. Besides, DVD software is virtually nonexistent
at the moment, except for reworked titles that are already available on
CD-ROM.
And then there are movies. For a variety of technical reasons,
computers do not yet do a great job of playing DVD movies, and Compaq's DVD
movie software is dreadful. It lacks features found on even the cheapest
DVD players meant for TV, and in my tests skipped frames of movies,
produced strange anomalies in on-screen menus and crashed again and again.
Besides, Compaq's engineers ignored the problems of audio
interference from the electrical signals that course through a computer's
innards. When you play a DVD movie on this machine, its potentially
high-quality sound is laced with interference that sounds as though a
creaky 16-millimeter projector is clattering along in the neighborhood.
For now, there are better places than DVD to invest your computing
dollar. A backup device like a Zip drive is one, and so is software you
really want. A better monitor, sound card and speakers are others, and they
will come in handy if and when you spring for DVD. One way to get the
features you really want instead of the ones some company bundles together
is to buy a machine from a build-to-order direct-sales company or a local
computer builder with a good track record and a reputation for using
high-quality components.
Remember, there is almost never a penalty for sitting on the
sidelines. The computer bargain you pass up at Christmas is guaranteed
to be a even better deal by Valentine's Day.
Intel Corp. demonstrated new software Thursday that would enable
personal computers to receive digital, high-definition television signals
-- providing a possible end to a format war the computer industry has
fought against the broadcasting and consumer-electronics industries.
Since early this year, Intel and its allies -- Microsoft Corp. and
Compaq Computer Corp. -- have urged broadcasters and manufacturers of
television sets to abandon high-definition in favor of the lower-resolution
digital signals that the computer industry favors.
The companies said they wanted to build digital-television receivers
into personal computers starting next year. But they said they could not
hold prices down if the PCs were required to receive all 18 display formats
set out in the digital television system the broadcasters and TV-set
makers have established.
The computer industry said that its new TV-equipped personal
computers would go dark when receiving HDTV signals that the networks plan
to begin broadcasting next year. That move started a loud and angry row
with broadcasters and set makers that has lasted much of this year.
Unlike its partners, Intel has been saying for several months that
PCs should be able to receive any signal. The demonstration Thursday in
its Santa Clara, Calif., offices was of software based on a format
converter developed by Hitachi America Ltd. It receives any of the 18
formats, including HDTV signals, and converts that format into one for
display on TVs -- and on computer monitors.
"Our objective is to remove barriers between us and the
broadcasters," said Ron Whittier, a senior vice president for Intel. "The
format issue was an unfortunate discussion that sidetracked us from making
investments and getting on with implementation."
Jack Fuhrer, senior director for research and development at
Hitachi, agreed. "There's no reason for a format war," he said. "With the
converter, you can have a production in high-definition and watch a
converted signal on a computer, and it will look fine."
Hitachi is not the only company that has produced a format converter.
Matsushita Electric Corp. has shown a similar product, and other
consumer-electronics companies have said they are working on similar
devices. Intel and Hitachi have no business agreement, but Fuhrer said he
believed his company would charge a small licensing fee. "My hope is that,
now that Intel has said yes, other computer companies will come in, and
this thing will snowball," he said.
Steve Goldberg, director for corporate development for Compaq,
said his company had not seen Intel's software and was not ready to say
what it might mean. "It's unclear right now; these things are still in the
lab, and we are evaluating a number of different approaches." Microsoft
declined to comment.
A price has not been set for the Intel-Hitachi software, but
Whittier said that starting sometime next year, computers would be
available equipped with it as well as with a digital television-receiver
board costing about $200. These machines could receive HDTV signals,
though initially signals would be converted for display on the computers
at a lower resolution.
But by sometime in 1999, he said, "we believe computing power will
have increased so that we can display on high-definition monitors."