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Newsletter
Connecticut PC User’s Group
Next CTPC Meeting
Tuesday, November 25, 2014 - 6:30 p.m.
November Roundtable
The November round-table discussion
won’t be limited to a single topic. There
are plenty of interesting things going on in
the tech world so we’ll try to touch on a
few. Here are five ideas:
• Password management (postponed
from a previous meeting)
• Net Neutrality (the President weighed
in on this recently so it’s been in the
news)
• Privacy vs. the surveillance state
• The hassle of updates and software
changes
• What else is bugging you? Please feel
free to sound off!
As usual we’ll try to answer Random
Access questions and adjourn to Uncle
Joe’s for pizza and refreshments after the
meeting. Don’t forget our new location:
the United Congregational Church of
Norwalk at 275 Richards Avenue in Norwalk.
We hope to see you there! ♠
November 2014
Vol. 33 No. 3
th
Nov 25 , Tuesday, 6:30 p.m.
CTPC Meeting
Location: United Congregational
Church, 275 Richards Avenue, Norwalk
December plans TBD - Happy holidays!
GENERAL MEETINGS
Meetings are held on the 4th (not last)
Tuesday of the month. There is no charge
to attend general meetings. See back page
for directions.
www.ctpc.org
ra Wilsker - Ira hosts “My Computer Show” a call-in tech support show on KLVI radio, 560AM, from 4-5 p.m. Mondays, Pacific
time. The show streams live over the net at KLVI.com and on the free iHeartRadio app. His call-in number is 800-330-5584
New 2015 Security Suites Released, and Bargains are Available
WEBSITES:
http://www.trendmicro.com/us/
http://www.bitdefender.com/media/html/60-second/index.html
http://www.bitdefender.com/solutions/internet-security.html
http://sharewareonsale.com/s/bitdefender-total-securitysale
http://home.mcafee.com/store?CategoryId=pcsecurity
http://home.mcafee.com/store/totalprotection
http://www.techsupportalert.com/bestfree-security-list-part1.htm?page=0,1
http://dealnews.com/c127/Computers/Software/Utilities/
As normally happens shortly after Labor Day, most of the major security software publishers have released the 2015
versions of their security software products. As is common, most of these newly
Table of Contents
Have Meetings, Have Pizza, Have Fun
1
Overview of Image Processing Software
2
A New Android Tablet — Now What?
3
Interesting Internet Finds
4
10 Tips for Online Shopping Safety
4
The Tip Corner
5
Save Money When Buying a Cell Phone
6
Create and Save a Custom Footer in Word
7
Merging Photos
7
Disable Images in Browsers
9
released upgrades and updates incorporate
greater protection then the previous versions, as well as new or improved safeguards against types of threats that have
appeared in the past year, or otherwise
have become a greater security threat than
in the past. Several of the security suites
now include protection for portable devices, such as smart phones and tablets,
password managers that work across multiple platforms, and other enhanced features.
Notice in the above paragraph that I explicitly used the words “security suite”
rather than just the more traditional “antivirus” software, which is also available
from most of the security software publishers. Most of the security software publishers take advantage of the blissful
ignorance or traditional software purchasing patterns of countless computer users,
and still publish and sell a minimally protective antivirus only product at the lowest
price of any of their current offerings. At
computer club meetings, listening to shoppers in the big box stores, students, and
others, I still frequently hear that the users’
have only antivirus software installed,
rather than a more comprehensive, and
usually more expensive suite of security
products.
Many personal computer users, both
novice and experienced, have heard for
years that computer viruses are dangerous,
which they may very well be. While vi-
ruses were the primary computing security
threat several years ago, today according to
published reports, computer viruses only
make up about 14% of contemporary
threats. Those who have only antivirus
software installed, even if from a reputable
publisher and continuously updated, lack
protection from about 86% of the current
threats. It is a false economy to save
money by purchasing minimal protection,
but then suffering substantial losses in
time and money when machines are infected by malware. I have been asked to
clean the malware from countless computers, and it is common to hear the lament
from the purloined user, “But I don’t understand how it got infected; I have
BRAND ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE
WHICH IS FREQUENTLY UPDATED. SHOULDN’T IT HAVE
STOPPED THE INFECTION AND
TAKEOVER OF MY COMPUTER?”
SADLY, THE ANSWER IS NO, BECAUSE IN ALMOST ALL CASES
THE MALWARE WAS NOT A TRADITIONAL VIRUS WHICH WOULD
HAVE LIKELY BEEN BLOCKED,
BUT ONE OF THE SIX TIMES
MORE COMMON MALWARE
THREATS THAT ARE NOT
BLOCKED BY TRADITIONAL ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE.
In order to appeal to different price
points in the retail market, most security
Continued on Page 8
Phil Sorrentino, Staff Writer, The Computer Club, Inc., Sun City Center, FL, www.scccomputerclub.org/,
philsorr (at) yahoo.com
Windows 8 Tablet - A Tablet for All Reasons
Well, maybe not “all” reasons, but it
certainly has some very good points in its
favor. I have used an iPad, an Android
tablet, and now finally a Windows 8 tablet. And let me tell you they are all great
tablets and any one would be a good addition to ones computing inventory. But, as
similar as they are, they are all very different in the details, and, in my opinion, that
is where the ownership decision lies. I
must admit that most of my experience
has been with Android tablets and smartphones, so my tendency has been towards
the Android “ecosystem.” Yes, the literature considers these different varieties,
“ecosystems”, and right now there are
three major ecosystems out there, Apple’s
iOS, Google’s Android, and Microsoft’s
Windows 8. (Blackberry would have also
been considered a few years ago, but they
seem to have been eclipsed by the other
three, but that might change in the future.)
Tablets, of all types, are great devices
for “consuming data.” They are not the
best choice for creating data, though they
can be used to create short documents and
review most any document. Can you
imagine writing your memoirs on a tablet?
(I wouldn’t even want to write this article
on a tablet.) Tablets are very good at
checking your email, checking on your
stocks, sharing pictures and videos, listening to music, social interactions, finding a
nearby restaurant, getting driving directions, keeping a calendar, accessing your
cloud storage, and many more very specific
activities. But they are not so good for
writing lengthy documents, writing and
sending lengthy emails with attachments,
managing your stock portfolio, managing a
large picture or document database, ripping your CD music, editing pictures, creating elaborate spreadsheets, and many
more generally complex computing activities.
The latest addition to my tablet collection is an 8” Dell, Windows 8 tablet.
Those of us who are familiar with Windows 8 will feel right at home in front of
this tablet. Yes, there are differences in the
User Interface between Windows 8 on a
non-touchscreen computer and on a tablet
because you don’t use a mouse, you use
only your fingers. But all the Windows 8
functionality is right there in front of you.
(Although on an 8” screen, some of the
buttons are very small and may be difficult
Page 2
to actuate with a large finger.) Windows
8, as any user will tell you, has two distinct
modes of operation, Desktop (like Windows 7) and Tiles (on the Start Screen).
Those who are only familiar with Windows 7, may look at the Tile mode as unnecessary and maybe even unusual, but it is
my feeling that the Tile mode really shines
on a tablet. So, why didn’t Microsoft develop two different Operating Systems,
each optimized for the specific target
hardware, computer or tablet? The answer
to that is way above my pay grade, but,
maybe having to maintain multiple OSs in
synchronism is more difficult than combining the functionality into one OS. Only
the gurus at Microsoft know the reasons
and only time will tell if it was a good decision, but I’m betting that it will be a
winner. The reason being; simply, Microsoft enjoys a strong corporate presence.
The Tile mode seems to be a good default for a tablet, even if it is not a good
starting point for a Laptop. (For a laptop
it would probably make more sense for it
to start in the Desktop mode.) The tiles in
Windows 8 are like the icons on an Android or Apple tablet. The Tiles are rectangular and re-sizeable. The sizes for
many Tiles are Small, Medium, Wide, and
Large. Because many of the Tiles are
“live,” meaning that changing data is being
displayed on the tile, the Wide and Large
sizes are useful. Tiles that don’t reveal any
data can be relegated to Small or Medium
size, leaving more screen room for information. Tiles can be grouped and the
groups can be named. With a group of
only a few tiles, you can get a really good
idea of what is happening in the world, at
a glance. Live Tiles for Email, News, Finance, Weather, and a Calendar, will give
you a pretty good summary. When you
want more detailed information, just touch
the appropriate tile.
One nice thing about a Windows 8 tablet is that it is a full network participant,
showing up in the Network folder in Windows Explorer, with ease. Yes, you have to
set it up just like any other computer you
want on your network, but once that is
done, it can share files, folders, and
printers just like any other network participant. You can easily watch movies that reside on one of your other networked
computers, on the tablet. You can play
music that resides on another networked
computer, on the tablet. You can access
CTPC NEWSLETTER
any information that has been shared on
your network, easily and efficiently. Everything you know about networking applies
to the tablet. Anything you do, on the network, can be done on your tablet. Most of
these things can also be done with Android tablets, but in my experience, it was
much more difficult with the Android
Apps that I used. And, when things did
work, you had an entirely different User
Interface with which to become familiar.
Most of the App provided User Interface’s
were very different from the well known
Windows (File) Explorer.
Apps really make the tablet useful. And
in this area, the lack of Windows 8 Apps
is probably the biggest detractor. Currently, in the battle for the largest number
of Apps, both Apple and Google boast
over 1 Million. Microsoft on the other
hand can list only about 100,000, so they
are really way behind in this area. (However, some tasks, like moving your camera
pictures to your home computer, that require an Apple or Android App to accomplish can be accomplished with Windows
Explorer, which is an integral part of
Windows 8.) Many, of what I’ll call “basic
Apps,” are available. There are multiple
Apps for email, news, finance, weather,
cloud storage, maps, calendars, search, picture and video viewing, music playing, social interaction, reading, and internet
browsing. But, when I looked for my favorite picture viewer, it wasn’t available;
however the Photo Viewer that comes
with the tablet works quite well. Although
many of the basic Apps are available, there
is certainly nowhere near the selection that
is available with Apple and Android. So, if
a large number of Apps is important to
your decision, then the Windows 8 tablets
are probably not ready for prime time. But,
if taking advantage of the storehouse of
knowledge that you have acquired, using
Windows 8 and previous Windows Operating systems, is important to you then a
Windows 8 tablet might be the right
choice.
Windows 8 tablets are certainly late to
the party, but once they are available at
reasonable prices, and the Apps store gets
a good bit larger, they just might be a
really good tablet choice.♠
November 2014
Dick Maybach, Member, Brookdale Computer Users’ Group, N,J., March 2014 issue, BUG Bytes, www.bcug.com/, n2nd (@) att.net
Image Processing Software, Part 2
In the first article (February 2014 newsletter available at www.bcug.com) we discussed photo retouching using GIMP
(GNU Image Processing Program). However, GIMP does not develop raw files; for
that you need a program such as RawTherapee. Why would you want to bother
with this extra step? In the picture inside
a church, the frame on the left is the
JPEG image as produced by my camera,
while the one on the right is the same image, but I used RawTherapee to process it
from a raw file. (I have my camera set up
to save every picture as both a JPEG and a
raw image and decide what processing to
use after I see the results.) This example
shows one advantage of working with a
raw images. In the JPEG, the roof is essentially black with no visible detail, while
in the processed raw image, the details are
visible. This is not a simple exposure compensation, as you can see by noting that
the highlights in the two images (for example as seen through the open door on
the right) have about the same brightness.
While adjusting the brightness, I also
compensated for the perspective distortion
resulting from the wide-angle lens. As a
result, the image on the right is much
closer to what your eye would see. (The
changes here are modest, in an attempt to
keep the result realistic. You can easily go
off the rails and produce results that belong in a comic strip.) The improvement is
possible because the camera records 12 bits
per pixel per color, while a JPEG image
has only 8. In other words, the raw image
has 16 times the dynamic range of the
JPEG one. In photo terms, this means
that the raw image has two to three more
f-stops of range that a corresponding
JPEG.
November 2014
The screen-shot below shows an image
being processed by RawTherapee
(http://rawtherapee.com/ for Linux, OS
X, and Windows). The panel on the right
shows the tools availalbe, and these are
grouped with tabs. The color adjustment
tab has been selected and the white balance tool within it. From left to right the
tabs are exposure, detail, color, transform,
raw processing, and metadata. Histograms
for luminance, and the three primary colors are visible at the top of this panel. The
left panel shows the history of the changes,
and the center one the current state of the
image. If you look carefully, you will see a
button on the bottom, just to the left of
the orange “Ready” button. Clicking this
develops the image and sends it to GIMP
as a 16-bit TIFF file. (As I noted in the
previous article, the current version of
GIMP is capable of only 8-bit processing,
so it immediately converts the file to 8-bit
TIFF. Hopefully, this butchering will stop
with the next version of GIMP.) The next
button to the left outputs a JPEG, TIFF,
or PNG file directly. I frequently skip
GIMP altogether as RawTherapee can often do all the processing I need.
RawTherapee is a
non-destructive editor; that is, it makes
no changes to the image file. Instead, it
creates a separate
script file that specifies the processing to
be done when the raw
image is developed.
The processing occurs
in the order the program deems optimal.
As a result, the order
in which you perform
CTPC NEWSLETTER
your editing is unimportant. TJhis is much
different than with a program such as
GIMP, which changes the image directly
in sync with what you do. In the latter
case, the order of the editing steps is quite
important. RawTherapee requires some
persistence to master, partly because it has
no help file. Expect to spend some time
reading the manual
and searching the
Web for examples before you become comfortable with it.
Finally, although it
should run on a 32-bit
operating system without difficulty, a 64-bit
one is recommended.
RawTherapee has a
unique ability to correct for lens distortion.
When your camera
saves an image in raw
format, the file includes a JPEG thumbnail in which the
lens distortion has been corrected (providing that if your camera has a removable
lens, it’s compatible with the camera). The
program uses the thumbnail to correct any
distortion in the raw image. All other programs that incorporate automatic distortion correction, including Photoshop, use
databases, and these don’t cover all combinations of cameras and lenses. Indeed,
RawTherapee can use the same Adobe
camera and lens profiles used by Photoshop, but it is a non-trivial process to
adapt them.
Lightzone (http://www.lightzoneproject.org/ for Linux, OS X, and Windows)
is a raw developer with a much different
approach. For one, you can specify only a
portion of the image for a particular processing step, while RawTherapee always
works on the entire image. It can also
show you which portions of the image
have similar luminosities, which is frequently helpful. The screen-shot below
shows an image being edited in LightZone. In the right-hand panel, the icons
below the thumbnail bring up windows, a
new one each time you click on an icon.
Each window is one application of an editing tool, which can apply to the whole image or just a portion. If you delete a
window, the changes you made using that
step are also discarded. When you develop
Continued on Page 7
Page 3
st
Nancy DeMarte, 1
VP, Sarasota Technology Users Group, FL, May 2014 Issue, PC Monitor, www.thestug.org, ndemarte (at) Verizon.net
3 Word Tools That Provide Quick Help
It doesn’t matter how much experience
you have with Microsoft Word, at times
you run into little problems that need solving immediately. Here are three tools in
Word that have helped me get out of some
frustrating situations.
1. Show/Hide:
Located in the Paragraph group on the
Home tab in Word, the Show/Hide tool
tool, scroll down to the blank page, and
delete any formatting marks that appear
there, the blank page will disappear. Another special use of Show/Hide is controlling the spaces between paragraphs by
changing the size of the paragraph marks
between them. If you want to decrease the
space, select the Paragraph mark between
the paragraphs and click a smaller font
size.
2. Margins:
looks like a paragraph symbol. Its primary
purpose is to assist you in proofreading a
document, but it has other uses, too.
When turned on by clicking, it displays a
variety of otherwise hidden formatting
marks which are only visible on the screen,
not in the printed document. These marks
give you basic formatting information,
such as a dot for each space, a paragraph
sign to show a new paragraph, and a
right-pointing arrow where words are
aligned to tabs on the ruler. Reading
through a document with the tool enabled
will help you find spots where you accidentally double-spaced between words or
pressed Enter unnecessarily, adding extra
space between lines. In longer documents,
being able to see the dotted section break
line can make it easier to position both a
full page heading and a two column article
on the same page.
With all these marks visible on the
screen, the document looks cluttered. For
this reason, the Show/Hide tool has a bad
reputation with some Word users. On the
other hand, some users want certain marks
to be visible all the time, not just when the
Show/Hide tool is enabled. This can be
set up in Word Options (File – Word Options or Options – Display – “Always
show these formatting marks on the
screen”) by checking the marks you want
to see all the time. I choose not to do this,
but the list is a good place to view what
the formatting marks mean.
The Show/Hide tool can be handy in
several ways besides proofing. Let’s say
you have completed a one page document,
but find when you print it, a blank page
comes out of the printer along with the
document. If you turn on the Show/Hide
Page 4
All documents have margins around
the outside of the page. Each new version of Word
seems to have
different default margin
sizes. In Word
2003, top and
bottom margins
are 1”; the two
sides are 1.25”.
In Word 2010/13, the default margins are
1” on all four sides. Recent Word versions
also have a Margins gallery. On the Page
Layout tab in the Page Setup group, click
Margins to see the choices. If none of
these dimensions fits your needs, you can
create your own custom margins using the
command at the bottom of the gallery.
One kind of problem this tool solves is
similar to one addressed by Show/Hide.
Assume you’ve typed a document that is a
bit longer than one page. Your choices are
to revise the text, use a smaller font size, or
reduce the size of the page margins. I often click the Narrow margins choice (.5”
on all sides) to eliminate spillover text.
That’s about the smallest margin setting
possible to ensure all the text will print.
Another problem which margin
changes can solve is the need to put a
document into a ring notebook or bind it
in book form. In this case you want the inside margin wider than the outside. Here’s
where the
Mirrored option comes in handy, as
shown.
3. Format Painter:
I wrote about this tool a couple of years
ago, but it’s so useful, it needs another
CTPC NEWSLETTER
mention. For those who are new to it,
Format Painter copies text formats, like
fonts, font effects (bold,
italics), and
font colors;
and paragraph
formats, like
indents, line
spacing, and bulleting from one place to
another within a document.
Here’s how it works. You are in the
middle of a document and find you want
to copy a paragraph into
this one from another
document saved on your
computer. You open the
second document, highlight the paragraph, and
click Copy or press
Ctrl+C. Click in the
first document where
the copied selection will
go, and click Paste or press Ctrl+V. Now
you notice that the new paragraph is in a
different font and font size from the rest
of the text. Instead of manually making
these format changes, click anywhere in
the original section of the document, and
then click the Format Painter icon (Home
tab – Clipboard group). Select the new
paragraph (You can select a whole paragraph with a triple click.) and it will
change to match the rest of the document.
This works especially well to match the indenting pattern when using bullets or
automatic numbering.
Sometimes you need to copy a format
to more than one place in a document.
Format Painter makes it easy. Pretend you
have created a document with six subheads scattered throughout. After you finish, you decide to emphasize the subheads by changing the font, adding boldface, and making the text blue. You select
the first sub-head and manually make
these changes to it. Then you click inside
this newly-formatted heading, and double
click the Format Painter icon. Double
clicking keeps Format Painter active until
you click its icon to close it. Drag over
each of the other sub-heads one by one,
and each will take on the format of the
first one. Then click Format Painter again
to turn it off. You’ll be surprised how often Format Painter can help you fix mismatched formats in an instant. That’s why
I put it on my Quick Access toolbar. Little
tools can cure big headaches.♠
November 2014
Bill Sheff, Chair, Grants Committee & Co-Chair, Novice SIG, Lehigh Valley Computer Group, PA, July 2014 issue, The LVCG
Journal, www.lvcg.org, nsheff (at)aol.com
The Tip Corner
You don’t need the http://www.
portion of a web page url
I would be surprised if anyone still
didn’t know that you do not need to type
http:// or even the www. in a web address.
For example, instead of typing
http://www.Yahoo.com. In the address
bar, you can just type Yahoo.com and get
there. But did you know that if the site
you want to go to is a .com you can even
eliminate the .com by typing the address
and then press Ctrl + Enter.
A Few Windows 8 Tips
Navigation with a Mouse
Spin the scroll wheel on your mouse to
move backwards or forwards through the
tiles on the Home screen. You can point
your cursor to the tile you want to open.
Remove Tiles
Remove a tile by clicking it with your
mouse and selecting Unpin From Start.
Add Tile
Right-click on an open area (a space
where there aren’t any tiles) and select the
All Apps button, which will bring up the
various applications on your PC. Rightclick any of the programs you want on
your Home screen and click Pin To Start.
Create Columns
Move your tiles into columns by dragging and dropping the tile horizontally.
When you do so, a gray bar will appear,
which is where you can add other tiles that
fit your grouping
Find Open Programs Using
Keyboard
To see which programs are running in
the background, hold down the WIN and
TAB keys to bring up a pane on the lefthand side of your screen that will show
you the various open applications on your
PC.
Tabbed Browsing
If you can’t find what you want in a
search box, try surrounding the text in
quotes. For example, if you search for ‘computer help’ without quotes you can get
return results with “computer” and “help”
anywhere on the page. But surrounding
‘computer help’ with quotes (“ “) will return pages with ‘computer’ and ‘help’ next
to each other.
Changing Your Desktop Icons
When you click “New Folder” on the
desktop, you usually end up with an icon
that looks like a folder. But if you want to
start making those icons look like something else here is the solution:
First, right click on the icon you’d like
to change. Select PROPERTIES. Then,
click on the “Change Icon” button under
the “Shortcut” tab. Select the icon you
prefer and click OK.
Your Recycle Bin
Most of us know that when we delete a
file, we’re not really deleting it, but sending it to our Recycle Bin. There, the file
will sit until we empty the Recycle Bin or
restore the file to its original location. It is
a good idea to clean the Recycle Bin every
once in a while. Using some programs like
Ccleaner does the job but to clean it out
yourself just click on the Recycle icon then
click on FILEEMPTY RECYCLE BIN.
To delete a file and bypass the Recycle
Bin hold down the SHIFT button on your
keyboard while deleting it. (Make sure you
really want to avoid the Recycle Bin before
you use this method).
If you delete a file the normal way you
can restore it to where it once was.
On your desktop, double click on your
Recycle Bin icon. Find the file you want to
restore and click on it once to highlight it.
Then, at the top of the screen, click
FILERESTORE. The file will disappear
from the screen and will be replaced in the
folder from where it had been deleted.
Move Your Taskbar
While on a web page, if there is a link
that interests you open the link in a new
tab by either pressing the Ctrl key and
clicking on the link or if you have a mouse
with a wheel press down on the wheel to
use it as a middle mouse button to open
the link in a new tab.
Although most of us have the Taskbar
on the bottom of our screen, it can be
moved to the top or either side. With you
mouse over the Taskbar, hold down the
left button and then drag the Taskbar
where you want it.
Better Searching
Try alternative browsers
I don’t think we have to mention that
November 2014
CTPC NEWSLETTER
Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) comes
packaged free with any Windows version,
and can be updated for free. However be
aware that there are many other browsers
that are all free to download and use and
may have features your current browser
does not include.
A few of them are: Google Chrome,
Mozilla Firefox and Opera. You can as
many browsers as you want loaded onto
your computer, and even open up more
than one at a time.
Install plugins and add-ons
There are many add-ons and plugins
that can be added to a browser. They provide all sorts of information and shortcuts
to improve your computing time such as
being able to change the color and/or skin
of the browser, how it looks, placing the
current weather on your desktop and hundreds more. But one plug in does fit all
browsers, so make sure you add the correct
one to the correct browser. For your information, many of these plugins and addons are developed by volunteers.
Using FIND
If you forget where you placed a file,
don’t despair. Use your FIND utility.
Click on STARTFINDFILES OR
FOLDERS. Type in the name of your file
and search.
If you downloaded the file in Firefox
you can find it by clicking TOOLSDownloads and then Right- click Help! And to
find the folder just click ToolDownloads,
and then Right-Click the download in
question. If you’re using Firefox 4.0, click
the Firefox button, then Downloads to get
here.
Now, select Open Containing Folder
and you’ll be taken to where your download resides!
View All Open Programs
If you would like to view all your open
program just find an empty space on your
Taskbar and right click. Then choose either “Tile Windows Vertically” or “Tile
Windows Horizontally.”
Add a Program to Your START
Menu
To add a program that is on your desktop to your START menu, hold your
mouse over the program icon, left click.
Continued on Page 9
Page 5
,
Ilona Merritt, Editor, The Journal of the Computer Club of Sun City Center, FL., www.scccomputerclub.org/ ilonamerritt7201
(at) gmail.com
Could You Save By Changing Fonts?
The U. S. government uses Times New
Roman or Century Gothic font in all of its
documentation. It was recently discovered
that if the feds switch to Garamond — which
uses thinner strokes for its letters, which
means less ink used per letter — they could
save $136 million per year. Maybe we should
all change.
The above article was sent to me by
Jack Fischer for the Journal. That $136
million really peaked my curiosity and so it
was off to Wikipedia for some lessons in
fonts.
Personally I either like a font or I don’t
and I have more fonts in my computer
than should be allowed. When I design
flyers or invitations, etc. I frequently study
my font file or will look for something new
to fit a specific purpose. However, it is
very important that an absolute minimal
number of different fonts are used in one
publication ... that is if you want anyone to
read what you produced. Why? The more
fonts are used the more the eye has to adjust and causes one’s eyes to tire easily.
Ergo ... the person stops reading and your
work goes into the waste basket.
I researched Times New Roman, Century Gothic, Garamond and Minion. Each
font described is written in that typeface
and all are at 12 point.
TIMES NEW ROMAN gets its name
from the Times of London, the British
newspaper. In 1929, the Times hired typographer Stanley Morison of Monotype,
a British font foundry, to create a new text
font.
After Monotype completed Times New
Roman, it had to license the design to
then-rival Linotype, because the Times
used Linotype’s typesetting machines.
(Think of Monotype and Linotype as the
Depression-era Microsoft and Apple.)
Since then, Monotype has sold the font as
“Times New Roman” and Linotype has
marketed its version as “Times Roman.”
Typesetting technology has evolved, but
due to its enduring popularity, Times New
Roman has always been one of the first
fonts available in each new format. Objectively, there’s nothing wrong with Times
New Roman. It was designed for a newspaper, so it’s a bit narrower than most text
fonts. Times New Roman is a workhorse
font that’s been successful for a reason.
CENTURY GOTHIC is a geometric
sans-serif typeface designed for Monotype
Page 6
Imaging in 1991. It is a digital typeface
that has never been made into actual foundry type.
The Century Gothic face is distinct for
its single-story lowercase a and g. Century
Gothic is more closely related to Avant
Garde Gothic, designed by Herb Lubalin,
and released by the International Typeface
Corporation (ITC) in 1970. Century
Gothic is similar to ITC Avant Garde in
its pure geometry, and does not possess
the subtle variation in stroke width found
in either Futura or Twentieth Century.
GARAMOND is the name given to a
Renaissance-era type.
Minion Pro — An Open Type update
of the original family, released in 2000.
The font was designed based on Minion
MM, but with redesigns, which include
slight changes to the selection of instances,
and also alteration of font metrics.
Minion Pro is rapidly becoming THE
FONT TO USE ... I have been using it
for the Computer Club Journal for well
over two years.
Now do you see what I mean about using
too many fonts? I apologize!
group of old-style serif typefaces named
after the punch-cutter Claude Garamont
(also spelled as Garamond, Latinised as
garamondus) (c. 1480–1561). Many of the
Garamond faces are more closely related to
the work of a later punch-cutter, Jean Jannon. A direct relationship between Garamond’s letterforms and contemporary type
can be found in the Roman versions of the
typefaces Adobe Garamond, Granjon, Sabon, and Stempel Garamond.
Garamond is considered to be among
the most legible and readable serif typefaces for use in print (offline) applications.
It has also been noted as using much less
ink than Times New Roman at similar
size.
MINION (TYPEFACE) is a digital
typeface designed by Robert Slimbach in
1990 for Adobe Systems. The name comes
from the traditional naming system for
type sizes, in which minion is between
nonpareil and brevier. It is inspired by late
CTPC NEWSLETTER
November 2014
Image Processing Software - continued from Page 3
the image, the processing is done in the
same order as the tool windows, so unlike
RawTherapee, their order can be important. You can reorder the processing by
drag-and-drop moving of the tool windows. You can also change the way in
which the effects of each tool are combined in the final image. The left-hand
panel shows the editing history. Here, I’ve
adjusted the white balance, applied the re-
The combination of GIMP, RawTherapee, and LightZone will provide the
tools to do almost all your image processing. I’ve introduced these because they
have good reputations and I’m familiar
with them. However, an Internet search
using “image processing software” will reveal dozens of alternatives, both free and
commercial.
References
• Montabone: Be-
light tool (which lightened the shadows
and darkened the highlights) and further
lightened the shadows. Then I used the
color selector to select the very bright areas
(the window and the sun-lit highlights on
the table) and reduced the luminosity of
only those regions. Finally, I rotated the
image. All this takes longer to describe
than to do. The screen-shot shows a region selected based on its luminosity, but I
could have based it on color, or just by
drawing an outline.
Like RAWTherapee, LightZone has
several pre-defined styles, and often applying one of these is the only thing you need
do to obtain a satisfactory result. Unlike
RawTherapee and UFRaw, LightZone
has no provisions for correcting distortions. (If you look carefully at the window
frame and the bookcase, you can see some
curvature, which results from my particular
lens, a wide-range zoom. Better lenses
have less distortion and some cameras correct for it in their raw images.)
To get the best results from LightZone
you must start from a raw image, as JPEG
has discarded much of the photo’s dynamic range. Since the program can’t correct lens distortion, you would pass the
developed image file to GIMP in TIFF
format (to avoid degrading it with JPEG
compression). There, you would correct he
image in GIMP, perhaps by comparing it
to a JPEG version of a photo as processed
by your camera.
November 2014
ginning Digital
Image processing
Using Free Tools
for Photographers
– provides a good
overview of the
tools I’ve discussed, although
the book is less
helpful than it
could be as all the
example images are in black and white.
• http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/ –
contains many very valuable tutorials
on photography and image processing.
If you check only one photo Web site,
this should be the one.
• Make a search for “RawTherapee 4
User Manual” to find a very good manual (hosted on Google Books). This is
essential as the program has no help
feature
• http://sunburntandinneedofashave.blogspot.com/2010/03/lightzone-beginners
-tutorial-well-sort.html – will get you
started with LightZone, although the
program does have very good help
features.♠
Larry Piper, President, Midland Computer Club, MI, April 2014 issue, Bits and Bytes
Newsletter, mcc.apcug.org , webbyte (at) yahoo.com
Merging Photos
Ever see a row of photos at the top of a
Facebook or website page? I'll bet it
crossed your mind that this would be a
good idea for one of your own projects.
I'll bet your next thought was that it
would take a powerful photo editing tool,
most likely Photoshop, to accomplish this
horizontal photo montage'. Sure enough,
when you did some cursory checking,
words like 'layers' and 'flattening' began to
appear. Or maybe you found how-to ideas
for creating a photo collage', which is
NOT what you had in mind.
I too went down this same road. I also
discovered that the most recommended
solution is to use Paint, a free program
that comes with Windows. I found the
Paint solution not very intuitive and a little
time consuming to use. Then I discovered
another solution that had been right in
front of me for a number of years. It is also
a free program, IrfanView. This little utility has been around since the days of Windows 95. It will open virtually every
graphic file type—as well as most sound
and video file types. I use it as a fast image
resizer. But right there in the opening
screen under the Image drop-down menu
CTPC NEWSLETTER
is the choice Create Panoramic Image.
Perfect!
IrfanView gives you the choice of horizontal or vertical merging of photos. You
add the photos you want, rearrange their
order and then hit the Create key. Save
the resulting photo-merge, give it a name
and you are good to go. You could even
resize the final image if it is too big or too
small for your application.
So what about merging photos of different pixel size or resolution. No problem. I ran a few tests where the height
dimensions were five times different. IrfanView makes the horizontal photo montage' a constant height. The same thing
occurred when merging photos of very different resolution. Again, the merged photos were a nearly constant total pixel size.
The overall picture quality has been reduced substantially, but who cares when it
is being viewed over the Internet.
IrfanView is the product of Irfan
Skiljan, who lists himself as graduate of
Vienna University. Be sure to get the latest
version which is 4.37 as of this writing.♠
Page 7
New 2015 Security Suites Released - continued from Page 1
software publishers publish several different products, each progressively offering
more protection and security, and an ascending price for the more comprehensive
products. In some cases, some of the software publishers produce relatively expensive ‘top of the line" products that are so
feature rich that they often may contain
products and services that many users will
never use. It is up to the user to intelligently decide which level of protection is
most appropriate, and balance that protection against the cost of the service. If purchased at retail, the boxes containing the
software almost always have a chart displaying the comparative features and levels
of protection of each of the types of security software published by that company.
As an example of the differences in features and costs, I compared the features
and prices of the different versions of the
2015 offerings from TrendMicro. In full
disclosure, I have been a satisfied user of
TrendMicro products for many years.
While there are several iterations of coverage, including the number of PCs and
other devices protected, TrendMicro is
now offering four major versions in its
2015 product line. These products range
from the most basic and least expensive
“Antivirus and Security”, to “Internet Security”, to “Maximum Security” (the level
of protection that I use), to the top of the
line “Premium Security”. Each product
offering includes all of the protections of
the lesser offerings, but adds more features
and functionality, albeit at a generally
higher price. In terms of price, please
keep in mind that “MSRP” or list price is
commonly charged, but almost all security
products are often available from some
sellers deeply discounted, even as low as
“free after rebate” from some of the big
box electronics and office supply stores.
In terms of TrendMicro, the most basic
level of protection is the “Antivirus plus
Security” which retails in the $30 - $40
range, and covers 1 PC for 1 year, and includes cloud based protection from viruses
and malware that is continuously kept up
to date when connected to the internet.
Other than minimal protection, this basic
product also includes some basic identity
theft protection that may block phishing
emails; this is the limit on this minimal
level of protection. The second tier of
protection, commonly called “Internet Security” in the industry, includes all of the
Page 8
more basic features, but adds utilities to
improve system performance, parental
controls (controls the online activities of
children), helps manage online reputation
on social networking services, controls
which desktop applications can be accessed
by children, and scans for and recommends privacy settings on social networking services (Facebook, Twitter, Google+,
LinkedIn). This second tier of protection,
which many pundits consider a minimal
level of protection, retails from $60 - $80
for 3 computers for one year.
For those desiring additional features
and functionally, as well as protection for
smart devices including Android and iOS
phones and tablets, a “Maximum Security”
product is available which includes all of
the above features, but also adds a secure
password manager that can be utilized
across devices; a secure browser for safe
online banking and shopping; identifies
installed apps on portable devices that may
be involved in “data stealing”; helps find
lost or stolen portable devices; backs up,
shares, and restores contacts between devices; and offers 5GB of secured backup
storage in the cloud. A license for any
combination of three devices for one year
ranges from $67 - $90. The “Premium
Security” features are almost identical to
the Maximum version, but it offers 25GB
of cloud storage, and five licenses for any
combination of devices for $75 - $100.
Other security software publishers offer
somewhat similar protection at different
levels. One very highly rated, but not very
well known publisher of security software,
BitDefender, offers three levels of protection, “Antivirus Plus 2015" ($60, 3 PCs, 1
year), ”Internet Security" ($80, 3 PCs, 1
year), and “Total Security” ($90, 3 PCs, 1
year). The basic Antivirus Plus 2015 offers comprehensive protection from malware, performance enhancement utilities,
secured online banking and shopping, a
secure payment wallet, and secure browsing. The Internet Security 2015 also includes an two-way firewall, Parental
Controls, and a cloud based Anti-Spam
function. The top of the line Total Security 2015 adds secure online storage, device anti-theft capabilities (especially
useful on laptop computers), and file encryption.
One of the perennial market leaders in
retail sales for many years, McAfee offers a
variety of product and service levels that
CTPC NEWSLETTER
offer protection for a variety and number
of devices. As is common among its competitors, McAfee offers a minimal featured
“McAfee AntiVirus Plus”, which protects
one computer for $35 - $50; this version
offers protection against viruses and malware, and can optimize the PC. The “Total Protection” has the basic feature set of
the AntiVirus, but adds family protection
(parental controls), a spam filter, protection from online threats including hackers
and thieves, and social networking protection; this version retails for $90 and is licensed to run on three PCs. McAfee
offers “McAfee All Access” which has a
one year license for an unlimited number
of devices, including PCs, MACs, smart
phones, and tablets; and an integral password manager. McAfee All Access retails
for $100, but is available directly from
McAfee for half-price, $50. “McAfee
LiveSafe” offers the same unlimited,
multi-platform device protection, but adds
cloud storage and access to ‘McAfee Security Advisors" for $80.
Other security software publishers such
as Symantec/Norton, and Kaspersky, offer
somewhat similar levels of protection at
generally completive prices. While there
may be some variation in the naming of
the products from the different suppliers,
most of the publishers offer somewhat
similar levels of protection among their respective offerings.
It would not be typical of me to close a
column without telling about deals which
may be currently available, including both
deeply discounted, and free security suites.
As far as free security suites that are often
very comparable in features and protection
to the commercial (paid) suites, one of the
most reliable listings is in section 2.3 of
Gizmo’s TechSupportAlert.com “Probably
the Best Free Security List in the World Part I”. Among the reviewed and rated
free security suites are offerings from
ZoneAlarm, Agnitum (Outpost), Comodo, Forticlient, Roboscan, and 5nine
Cloud Security for Hyper-V Free Edition.
Again, in terms of full disclosure, I have
personally installed Agnitum’s Outpost
Security Suite on many computers where
the user stated a preference for a free comprehensive security suite rather than a paid
suite.
As far as getting legitimate deals on
Continued on Page 10
November 2014
The Tip Corner - continued from Page 5
While holding the mouse button down,
drag it and drop it onto your START button.
ALTTAB. This will move you between
open programs. To go backward, hit
SHIFTALTTAB.
Add a Program to Your Desktop
Windows Calculator
To add a shortcut to a frequently used
program to your Desktop, navigate to the
desired program by clicking on
STARTPROGRAMSDESIRED
PROGRAM then right click on the name
of the program. Choose SEND
TODESKTOP (Create Shortcut). An
icon will be added to your desktop. You
can use this method to add documents or
favorites.
There is a nifty calculator in windows.
You can get to it by clicking on
STARTPROGRAMS
ACCESSORIESCALCULATOR, but
just hit start and type in calculator in the
search box. It offers many different types
of calculators. Just click the View button
and see what else this calculator can do.
Entering numbers can be done by clicking
on them with the mouse or even use the
number pad on your keyboard for most of
the buttons. Besides the numbers you can
press + button for plus, the - button for
minus * is multiplication and the Enter
Move between Open Programs
Besides using the mouse to click on a
file in the taskbar you can also hit
http://ctublog.sefcug.com/
Interesting Internet Finds
How can I manage a lot of scanned
documents?
http://askleo.com/how-can-imanage-a-lot-of-scanned-documents/
Leo Notenboom explains how he manages a lot of scanned documents. Check
this post out to get an idea of how to handle your own collection of scanned documents.
How to Record Screencast Videos on
Android
http://www.labnol.org/software/record-android-screencast/4929/
Have an Android and thinking about
recording screencasts with it? If so, you
should read this post first.
How to Make a YouTube Video Easily
http://www.aha-now.com/how-tomake-a-youtube-video/
Another interesting post, this time
about how to easily make a YouTube
video. This post explains how you can create your own YouTube video without a lot
of specialized equipment and lighting.
November 2014
Shortcut to Shutdown
You can create a shortcut on your desktop to shut down your computer.
Right Click any blank part of your
desktop and choose NEW |
SHORTCUT. In the command line type
“C:\WINDOWS\RUNDLL.EXE
user.exe,exitwindows” without the quotes.
Click NEXT and name your shortcut.
Click FINISH.
Quick Access to the FIND Utility
Need to find a file using Windows
FIND Utility? Just click an empty spot on
your desktop and hit the F3 button on
your keyboard.
Select Multiple Items At Once
Steve Costello, Boca Raton Computer Society, editor@brcs.org,
In the course of going through the more
than 300 RSS feeds, I often run across
things that I think might be of interest to
other user group members.
The following are some items I found
interesting during the month of June
2014.
key is =. To access the Backspace function,
use your left arrow key.
Is Your PC Updating Correctly? Are
You Sure?
http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/your-pc-updatingcorrectly-are-you-sure.htm
You’re updating your Windows PC all
the time. Are you sure the updates are actually being done? Gizmo’s Freeware tells
you how to check in this post. I think this
is something you should do periodically.
In fact, the post reminded me to check my
Windows machines. They all checked out,
giving me some peace of mind.
Going Paperless Quick Tip: Clipping
Email with the Evernote Web Clipper
http://www.jamierubin.net/2014/06/17/going-paperless-qu
ick-tip-clipping-email-with-the-evernote
-web-clipper/
In this Going Paperless tip, Jamie
shows how to clip your email into Evernote using the Web Clipper. I found the
tip useful, and thought you might also if
you use Evernote and email.
6 Tips to Help You Go Paperless On
Android
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/6tips-go-paperless-android/
This MakeUseOf post explains ways to
be paperless on your Android, by scanning
receipts and documents, using a notekeep-
If you’re in a list, whether it be on a web
page, in your Windows Explorer, etc., you
can select (highlight) multiple items at
once.
Hold down the ALT key on your keyboard while clicking on the items.
If you want to select many items, click
on the first item, and while holding down
the SHIFT key on your keyboard, click
the last item.
Check Today’s Date
To see the date, simply hold your
mouse cursor over the time in your system
tray for a second. It will pop right up.
Switching Between Open Windows
If you have multiple windows open, you
can switch between them quickly by hitting ALT + ESC on your keyboard.
Incidentally, you can switch between
screens within one program by hitting
CTRL + TAB on your keyboard.
Remove the Speaker Icon
If you need a bit more room on your
taskbar, you can remove the speaker icon
from your system tray.
Click on START | SETTINGS |
CONTROL PANEL. Double click on
MULTIMEDIA.
Under the AUDIO tab, un-check the
box next to “Show Volume Control On
Taskbar.” ♠
Continued on Page 10
CTPC NEWSLETTER
Page 9
New 2015 Security Suites Released - continued from Page 8
commercial security software suites, there
are many opportunities available to those
who may seek them out, and many of
these offerings are fleeting, as they are often only available for a very limited time,
but they tend to periodically reappear.
One of the most popular deals on the major suites can be found at the local big box
electronics and office supply stores, such as
Fry’s, OfficeDepot (OfficeMax), Staples,
MEI MicroCenter, and similar outlets.
Almost every week, in their respective
newspapers advertisements, each of these
retailers has deeply discounted deals and
high value rebates for security suites. For
example, one of my favorite big box stores
is offering this week (probably will be different when you read this): Kaspersky
Internet Security 2015, 1 PC license, regularly $50 in store, free after $25 mail in rebate, and another $25 upgrade rebate (if
qualified); AVG Ultimate 2015, unlimited
devices, 2 year license, regular in store
price $85, on sale (no rebate) for $35;
Norton 360 2014, 3 PCs - 1 year license,
regularly $90 in store for $40 (no rebate).
For those who do not have the time or
inclination to watch the weekly newspaper
ads, the shopping bot site DealNews.com,
which is continuously updated, (dealnews.com/c127/Computers/Software/Utilities) lists some of the best
currently available security software deals.
As I type this, Dealnews.com has a listing
linked to a free 6 month license and download for BitDefender Internet Security
2015, available directly from BitDefender
at bitdefender.com/media/html/60second/index.html . Another daily deal
website, ShareWareOnSale.com is currently offering a 3 computer, 1 year license
and download for the top of the line BitDefender Total Security 2015, regularly
$90 for $15 (sharewareonsale.com/s/bitdefender-total-security-sale).
In recent days, the website ShareWareOnSale.com has had free or deeply discounted
deals (now expired) on security suites from
Kaspersky, Panda, and other reputable
publishers of commercial security software.
Bargain hunters who like software (and
other) deals should consider the free daily
email subscription from DealNews and
ShareWareOnSale.
There is still another way to get deeply
discounted security suites, and that is from
online sites such as eBay. There are hundreds, if not thousands of people who intentionally purchase the “Free After
Rebate” deals from the big box stores, tear
off the UPC code from the otherwise
sealed box, and then resell the sealed boxes
that cost them virtually nothing after rebate for whatever they can get for them.
Sometimes the sellers, who typically have
very high eBay ratings for reliability, will
simply scan the license or registration code
from the sealed software CD, and email
the registration code, rather than ship the
box. The user can then download the latest version directly from the publisher, and
register it with the purchased code. Reputable sellers will then destroy the original
registration code so it cannot be illicitly resold. I have twice demonstrated this process to the local computer club, resulting
in several of the members successfully getting super deals on major name brand security suites which downloaded and
registered without any problems. Also be
aware that by policy, most of the major
publishers allow for an unused registration
code from a previous version to be used to
register a new version. For example, I recently assisted someone who purchased on
eBay a 1 year, 3 PC license for Trend Micro Maximum Security 2014 for only
$7.50; he downloaded directly from
TrendMicro the newly released 2015 version of Maximum Security, and proceeded
to install a properly registered 2015 version on 2 PCs and one Android smart
phone, all (in his words) “Without a
hitch”.
MEETING LOCATION
Now that performance drags have been
dramatically reduced in the newer security
suites, and the protection capabilities
greatly enhanced, there is no valid reason
not to use a comprehensive security suite
on a PC, MAC, Android, or iOS device.
The threat landscape is very real; with
good quality, free and deeply discounted
security suites readily available, there is no
reason to leave our machines vulnerable to
attack.♠
Internet Findsfrom Page 9
ing app, printing to PDF, and more.
****************
Most Fridays, more interesting finds
will be posted on the Computers,
Technology, and User Groups Blog:
http://ctublog.sefcug.com/tag/inter
esting-internet-finds/
The posts are under Creative Commons licensing.♠
DISCLAIMER
United Congregational Church
275 Richards Avenue, Norwalk
REPRINTING OF ARTICLES
Unless otherwise noted, nonprofit user
groups may reprint or quote from any
uncopyrighted articles appearing in the
CTPC newsletter without prior
permission as long as credit is given to the
author and the original publication.
Page 10
The opinions expressed herein are those
of the authors and do not necessarily reHeading north on Richards Avenue from flect those of the CTPC or its members.
Neither the CTPC, contributors nor
the Post Road, go past NCC and past the
the Editor of this newsletter assume any litraffic light at Scribner Avenue – the
ability for damages arising out of the pubchurch is on the left hand side, just past
lication or non-publication of any
Temple Shalom. We will meet in the
fellowship area adjacent to the sanctuary so advertisement, article or any other item in
park in front and come in the front door. this newsletter. Articles are published at
the discretion of the Editor.
CTPC NEWSLETTER
November 2014