MIKE'S COMMENTARY THIS WEEK'S SCHEDULE NEWS & NOTES BY SUE FOUST
MIKE'S COMMENTARY AND/OR BITS OF WISDOM:
Although the lottery for women had been banned by the church, the mid-February holiday in commemoration of St. Valentine was still used by Roman men to seek the affection of women. It became a tradition for the men to give the ones they admired handwritten messages of affection, containing Valentine's name. Cupid The first Valentine card grew out of this practice. The first true Valentine card was sent in 1415 by Charles, duke of Orleans, to his wife. He was imprisoned in the Tower of London at the time. Cupid, another symbol of the holiday, became associated with it because he was the son of Venus, the Roman god of love and beauty. Cupid often appears on Valentine cards. The oldest known valentine still in existence today was a poem written by Charles, Duke of Orleans to his wife while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London following his capture at the Battle of Agincourt. The greeting, which was written in 1415, is part of the manuscript collection of the British Library in London, England. Several years later, it is believed that King Henry V hired a writer named John Lydgate to compose a valentine note to Catherine of Valois.
But I send you a cream-white rosebud, With a flush on its petal tips; For the love that is purest and sweetest Has a kiss of desire on the lips.
~ John Boyle O'Reilly (1844-1890) ~
The tea master, who had no experience with swords, asked the advice of a fellow Zen master who did possess such skill. As he was served by his friend, the Zen swordsman could not help but notice how the tea master performed his art with perfect concentration and tranquility.
"Tomorrow," the Zen swordsman said, "when you duel the soldier, hold your weapon above your head, as if ready to strike, and face him with the same concentration and tranquility with which you perform the tea ceremony."
The next day, at the appointed time and place for the duel, the tea master followed this advice. The soldier, readying himself to strike, stared for a long time into the fully attentive but calm face of the tea master. Finally, the soldier lowered his sword, apologized for his arrogance, and left without a blow being struck.
~ Author Unknown~
Milk for the Cat
When the tea is brought at five o’clock, And all the neat curtains are drawn with care, The little black cat with bright green eyes Is suddenly purring there.
At first she pretends, having nothing to do, She has come in merely to blink by the grate, But, though tea may be late or the milk may be sour, She is never late.
And presently her agate eyes Take a soft large milky haze, And her independent casual glance Becomes a stiff hard gaze.
Then she stamps her claws or lifts her ears Or twists her tail and begins to stir, Till suddenly all her lithe body becomes One breathing trembling purr.
The children eat and wriggle and laugh; The two old ladies stroke their silk: But the cat is grown small and thin with desire, Transformed to a creeping lust for milk.
The white saucer like some full moon descends At last from the clouds of the table above; She sighs and dreams and thrills and glows, Transfigured with love.
She nestles over the shining rim, Buries her chin in the creamy sea; Her tail hangs loose; each drowsy paw Is doubled under each bending knee.
A long dim ecstasy holds her life; Her world is an infinite shapeless white, Till her tongue has curled the last holy drop, Then she sinks back into the night.
Draws and dips her body to heap Her sleepy nerves in the great arm-chair, Lies defeated and buried deep Three or four hours unconscious there.
~ Harold Monro (1879-1932)~
The main accomplishment of almost all organized protests is to annoy people who are not in them.
Never lick a steak knife.
Now that the holiday season is over, you are probably spending more time at your computer. Are you having trouble getting that new computer accessory or program to work properly? Or are you experiencing problems with your current computer system? We can help! You may have known Keystone Community Network only as an Internet Service Provider, but the secret is getting out. We have skilled computer technicians who are ready to address your computer woes.
Problems we can fix: The computer is running slower than usual Errors are displayed as soon as the computer starts or it will not turn on The computer is infected with a virus or worm Popup advertisements create a slow and non-enjoyable internet experience The modem stops working The hard drive has "crashed" The CDROM or CDRW drive does not work properly …and many more
Pricing: The majority of computers brought in are repaired under our minimum bench fee. This cost covers problems dealing with software repair and new hardware installation. Computers brought in because of software errors or for virus and worm removal may require a complete system reformat. A system reformat will erase everything on the hard drive. A technician will back up any data that you want saved before starting this process. Once your data is backed up, a technician will then reinstall and configure the operating system.
You will always be contacted by phone before new hardware is installed in your computer or if the cost of repair exceeds the original quote. Our technicians can advise whether it would be more cost effective to purchase a new computer versus repairing your broken computer. We understand that you are concerned about how much you spend on your computer. This approach to computer repair allows you, the customer, to be in charge of how much money is invested into your computer.
Excellent Service: KCnet is a leader in computer repair services. We always provide free computer technical support over the phone. If you would prefer to receive assistance by email, you can email our technical support team at: support@kcnet.org. We can provide you with PC troubleshooting techniques that can help identify your problems in a few simple steps. If the problem cannot be resolved over the phone, or through email correspondence, then an appointment can be made to have your computer serviced at our local computer repair center. We strive for a maximum three day turn around on all computers brought in for service.
You may have heard that KCnet only services internet related problems. The truth is that we have the tools and personnel to service all** of your computer, software and hardware, problems. Start taking advantage of these great computer repair services today!
** Issues that involve third party software or hardware devices may require support from the product vendor. Our technicians will provide an explanation of the problem and will do their best to guide you to the answer.
KCNET CLASSES:
Beginner Windows 9x/XP 4 session course Topics include an introduction to all parts of the computer, learning about the desktop, mouse features and operation, and features and operation of the keyboard. Also creating shortcut icons, using recycle bin, wallpaper and screen savers, toolbars and taskbars, drag and drop, using window features (minimize, maximize, resize, etc), control panel, accessing the different drives, and more. There is always time for questions and general exploration.
Intermediate Windows 9x/XP 4 session course Topics include organization of windows programs, creating and organizing folders, file extensions, saving files from Internet, folder and file views, formatting floppy disks, installing programs, download programs from Internet, HTML email, uninstall vs delete, scandisk and defrag, email attachments, and more. There is always time for questions and general exploration.
Advanced Windows 9x/XP 4 session course Topics include a review of the management of folders and files, an introduction to photo manipulation, introduction to web page creation, using the sound recorder, attaching recordings to emails, introduction to eyeball cams and Internet transmission, and an introduction to burning your own CDs. There is always time for questions and general exploration.
KCnet Users Group: (formerly know as "Senior Net Learners" most recently called "Advanced Class"). I wanted to call this class "The Abusers Group", but Sue would not hear of that. Attendees are persistent in their search for computer knowledge. They ask great questions and present interesting challenges. The cost for this class is $0.00 for members of KCnet and $2.00 per session for non KCnet members. There is no set format for the sessions. Occasionally we will take a specific subject and do a detailed study over a period of successive weeks. Don't be afraid to ask questions. The folks that have been attending for awhile are always happy for a review and in most cases new or better ways to do things will surface. Questions stimulate in-depth exploration with the usual result being an understanding of how and why. We welcome new attendees from the Advanced sessions and our forever growing KCnet membership. This is an advanced group and we cover a lot of territory. We are kind of free flowing. You never know what will transpire. It is not necessary for attendees to have their own computers but it sure helps with the learning curve. KCnet Advanced Class computer knowledge and Advanced Class computer skills are necessary.
OTHER CLASSES: CLICK HERE FOR ORIENTATION - BEGINNERS - INTERMEDIATE - ADVANCED CLICK HERE FOR SCANNING - MAC- GENEALOGY - WEB PAGE - EXCEL - WORD - DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY - PHOTO MANIPULATION - OTHER SPECIALTIES
THIS WEEK'S CLASS SCHEDULE:
INTERMEDIATE WINDOWS First and Second Sessions Mondays February 14 & 21 -- 9:00-11:00 AM Instructor: Wayne Smith
EMAIL TO THE INTERNET Tuesday and Thursday 12:00 - 2:00 PM Two Sessions -- February 15 & 17 Instructor: Wayne Smith
EBAY CLASS Saturdays --9:00--12 Noon First of two Sessions February 19 Instructor: Kerry Clausen
KCnet Users Group: Every Wednesday The starting time is 9:00 AM on this Wednesday February 16. We meet in Computer Lab 1 (The Big Room). For the third week running I thank Wayne Smith for his leadership with the Advanced Users. Here is an "edited" copy of the email Wayne sent me describing this past Wednesday session. As Sue probably told you it was an interesting day. Time to start and the internet/email was down. A lot of what I planned was either links or emails I had sent to the teacher machine. So....... Started out explaining why Mike was absent. Then talked about the ebay spoof you had told me about last week and then the weakness in all browsers except IE. Mike interrupts here...of course Wayne is really smiling at this point because this is a first time in years (maybe never) that a vulnerability affected mozilla like browsers and did not attack the Internet Explorer based browsers. Back to Wayne... Also showed some optical illusions and gave an IQ exam. Played a song titled, "I don't look good naked, anymore!" That got a laugh. I explained it was an .MP3 file but one that was very compressed and lossy. This lead into the topic of the day. I explained about ripping music from a CD. Just then Sue announced the internet was working. So I back tracked and went through the mail and demonstrated how a spoofed url looked real but went to a bogus site. Used the demonstration provided by Tourbus. Mike again interrupts: Readers can learn more about this subject in this week's TECHNICAL section of this Newsletter: http://www.seniorcenter.net/netlearnernews/srspg3_02_135.html) or access the Tourbus article at: http://www.netsquirrel.com/articles/mozilla_spoofing.html Now back to Wayne... Back on track, I then showed and played a song I had previously ripped. Then played same song with .wma extension, and then with .mp3 extension. The raw file was about 10 times the size of a .mp3. The .wma was even more compressed. However, we couldn't hear the difference with the sound system in the room. I then downloaded the audacity sound editor from the internet http://audacity.sourceforge.net and showed how we could do some simple edits and special effects. I hooked a microphone to the computer and we recorded a sound clip and edited it. I explained how I had ripped a song from a 33 1/3 record. I showed the special cords I had purchased and how they "got it done." Also explained how raw files had to be encoded to convert them to .mp3. A special helper program called "lame" (pronounced laaw-me) had to be downloaded so "Audacity" could convert. The programs were free downloaded separately, but if you wanted a single program to do the job you had to pay fees. (Music industry regulations or whatever) We were running out of time and I didn't get a chance to demonstrate a program that "ripped" files from an audio CD. Tried with Windows Media Player but could only rip to .wma. Not useful since only Media Player can play this extension. Then Wendy Stiver from the Express came in, was introduced and took pictures of the class. Apparently we weren't too photogenic as set up, so she arranged us in different ways to get pictures. She also interviewed several members. Sue can give you the details. Thus ended a wild and woolly Wednesday. Went really well. Wayne Wayne also told me about an interesting movie starring a soccer playing elephant. Tom Livingston brought the clip in.
I know that Wayne puts extra effort and enthusiasm into the preparation and presentation and it shows. Thanks again Wayne. This class often becomes idea swapping and we learn by sharing our many experiences and I'll tell you all again, that really happened this week. Thanks to all that brought in suggestions, asked questions, and helped with explanations.
Orientation to KCnet One-Session Class – No Charge for KCnet Members Wednesday February 16 -- 6:00 – 8:00 pm Instructor: Bob Fenton
OTHER KCNET CLASSES STARTING SOON Call KCnet 893-8111 to register
Music Creation Starting when four students register--call 893-8111 to register. Participants should be able to play a piano/keyboard by sight or ear. Instructors: Carsten "Jon" Ahrens & Mike Foust
Orientation to KCnet One-Session Class – No Charge for KCnet Members Third Wednesday of Every Month 6:00 – 8:00 pm Instructor: Bob Fenton
Genealogy Session 2 of 4 Sessions -- Feb. 28 Other sessions are Mar 28 and Apr 25 All sessions start at 5:30 PM Instructor: David Wallace
MAC User Group New Sessions will begin soon. Meets 2nd Wednesday of each month Time is 4:30 PM Instructor: Clair Falls
For more class details and to register visit: http://www.kcnet.org/class/ Registration can be done online, simply click on the course you are interested in and enter the information requested. Registration can be done via phone 893-8111.
NEWS AND NOTES WITH SUE FOUST:
As a provider of Internet service, I feel that KCnet has a certain responsibility to help parents understand some of the wonders as well as the dangers of the Internet. At this time, many, many parents are not computer-literate. They are the 25-40 year olds that missed out on computer education in the schools and don’t have the time it takes to learn now.
On the other hand, the kids of today are receiving computer education in kindergarten through college and are so very computer savvy that they can do rings around their parents when it comes to Internet access. There are ways to fool parents into thinking that “work” is going on when, in fact, there is a conversation going on with a “friend” on the Internet.
CNet, an educational tool that I use, recently covered this subject. They listed some of the programs available for parents or guardians to monitor children’s computer use. In addition, parents related their methods of keeping tabs on their children’s activities, sites they visited on the Internet, and even Instant Messenger pictures and messages. KCnet has offered sessions in the past for parents to learn about these things and it appeared that there was very little interest. It may be, instead, that there is very little time for parents to attend such a session. Therefore, I will try to cover some of this in a few paragraphs with a promise to provide more information when requested.
This information is from various people who submitted comments on CNET. “A great monitoring program called Win-Spy (http://www.win-spy.com). This program not only takes screen shots of the entire computer screen at predefined intervals, it also records every key stroke typed on the keyboard. It also e-mails this key stroke log to a specified e-mail address after so many captured pages.”
“As a mom of two, I completely understand your concerns. There are quite a few software programs available to check on what is being done on your computer. Spector Pro will record everything that happens on your computer, including recording all chats and e-mails. In addition to checking on your daughters’ activities, you would be wise to install a parental control software to block different web & e-mail activities. These software programs also allow you to monitor her Internet use. I would suggest either Content Protect and Cyber Sitter. They are both good and have slight different features. Content Protect allow you to set up different features for each users, will e-mail you usage reports and you can access the information from any computer. Cyber Sitter can run in the background so users do not know that it is installed.”
“While there is a ton of software out there that allows you to “spy” on anyone using your computer, please remember that you can not monitor your daughters online conversations if she is at school or a friends house. The best approach for your daughters’ online safety is to educate her (and yourself) on the actual dangers that are out there. Many teenagers do not understand why parents get concerned on this issue and think that we are being “old fashioned”. If you start monitoring her actions and confront her on something she has written or said, expect a backlash from it; remember how mad we got when we suspected that our moms read our diary. Even teenagers need and want some privacy.”
And another, longer but worth reading: “I had the same problem with my teenage daughter a few years ago. She started using instant messaging with the promise that she would not do anything that she knew was inappropriate. I had been teaching her for years about internet dangers and what to do and not to do. I had AOL parental controls set to block chat rooms and e-mails and so on at the time so I felt that I had all the bases covered and I trusted her. Shortly after allowing her to use instant messaging to talk to her "friends" at school she started frantically closing open Im windows every time I came near. She always gave me some lame excuse when I asked why she was doing this, but I knew the answer already. I did some internet research on available spyware and came across one called SpectorSoft and it sounded like just what I was looking for. I did some checking on the internet for user reviews and found no negative comments.
”I downloaded their software that took a couple of minutes and cost only $69.95, and believe me that was the best $70 I ever spent. It can be completely hidden from everyone but you. It has a series of keystrokes that you use to bring up the logon screen. It also has an options tab that allows you to set everything and I mean everything. It is very simple to use and I have had no problem whatsoever with it. A day after I installed it my daughter asked to get on the internet, and after she got off several hours later I checked to see what she had been up to. What an eye opener that was, this was not the daughter that I thought I knew. To make a long story short, that software prevented a possibly bad situation and wised me and her mother up considerably. Needless to say, she was forbidden access to the internet for a year after that. She was dumbfounded at how I discovered this and probably still does not know. One suggestion if you purchase this is to set the screen snapshot for every 5 seconds or less in order to capture everything that is typed since instant messages can be exchanged very quickly and you can miss a lot of it if set for longer periods. I set mine for internet activity only since they can't do much off line anyway. If you are interested simply go to http://www.spectorsoft.com/products/Spector_Windows and check it out. Caution: be mentally prepared for what you discover.”
There are more. I’ve tried to give you a sample of what parents are saying and doing. Many of the parents who commented, stressed the importance of trust, honesty and open lines of communication between parents and children. Many suggested moving the computer to a more traveled part of the house – not in a child’s bedroom. Some use programs that limit the time a computer can be on or limit the time the computer can be connected to the Internet. All of these parents have passwords that are not shared with the children.
There were those who felt this way: “If your daughter is trying to keep you from knowing her actions on the computer the answer is not in software. It is in the location of the computer, her time allowed on it, and your management of it. A simple technician visit would uncover all the info you could ever want to know and may alienate your daughter.
The Internet has become a dangerous place and parents need to be firm in this area. Move the computer to a room where there is lots of family traffic and drop by to see what she is doing. This is not an invasion of privacy. She is a child and you are the parent.”
If you have opinions or need help, let us know. We’ll do what we can to help.
Thank you, and until next week…
KCnet Board Of Directors Officers: President Judy Yoho, Vice President Bill Raco, Secretary Donna Lannan, and Treasurer Don Miller. Other members of the board: Carsten Jon Ahrens, Fred Bierly, R. Keith Kelly, Paul Korn, Amy Lapriola, Tom Livingston, Ray McGill, Bob Rolley, and Rich Wykoff.