Paul hosted the show, Glenn joined in later from Sacramento.

Paul asked the listeners using Windows what program they use for back-ups. Mail your replies to zen (at) kvmr.org

Using docs.google.com you can upload, store & edit MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint compatible & PDF documents, You'll need gmail account.
It works pretty well with just a dialup connection.
You can share your documents with others who don't have to have a gmail account. You can set whether they can read-only or else edit those documents.
Be careful about exposing your personal information.

Gmail can be set up to provide POP3 or IMAP access to your mail for free. This is where you can retrieve mail from your gmail account using a mail reader like Outlook or Thunderbird running on your local computer; that is without having to use your browser to login to gmail itself. Notes about this from previous shows here. IMAP has the advantage of synching your mail (but not the address book) across multiple computers. AOL also offers IMAP but unresolved is whether you need to have a paid account.

On the last show Glenn mentioned AVG was not updating properly. His solution was to uninstall it and install a fresh copy. The AVG update server is at guru.grisoft.com (not intended for browser viewing).

XP Anti-Virus 2009, see previous notes here, is very ingenious. It keeps updating itself from the net, thus morphing and evading anti-virus software. So, run your AVG in save mode (f8 key at bootup); version 8 of AVG can be run in safe mode unlike earlier versions.

drop.io allows you to send files of up to 100megs for free, bypassing the problem normal email may have with large files. You just upload your file to drop.io and you'll be given a link that you give to those who will be downloading it. It doesn't require any personal info so it can be used anonymously. Again, be careful what data you place on the net, this site may be run by a malevolent government, or even a foreign one, trying to gather incriminating evidence. Encrypting your files may just draw attention to you.

Most internet connections are asymmetrical — you can download much faster than you can upload, there's often about 6 to 10 times difference.

A new version of Open Office is available at openoffice.org. It can read & write MS Office compatible files.

Use checkip.com, see previous notes here, to find out what info about you is known to web sites you visit.
Use domaintools.com to find out about the sites you visit.

Paul uses fake info when he registers for various things on the net. Just don't forget what you tell them.

A caller asks whether the mic input connection on a laptop is mono or stereo. It's usually stereo. To test it, plug in a stereo mike and record sound coming from the left & right while viewing the level meters in a program such as Audacity (a free sound editor), see previous notes here,
Built-in mics may pick up the noise from the hard drive.
It's best to avoid putting a line-level signal into the mic port thru an attenuator because the quality can be degraded.
For computers without a mic input, search on Ebay for "usb audio" or "usb sound" for a USB device (about $5) that has a mic input & headphone output.

A caller wants his accountant to be able to carry the data between his client and the accountant's own office; will an external hard drive work? Yes, but it can be important for the accounting software be the same (and upgraded to the same level) at both locations.

Also, as the data file grows large, performance may suffer as with earlier versions of Quickbooks. The solution is to get a later version that uses SQL to access records. But with the SQL version the data is NOT portable and can't be carried between machines, as above.

To try Migration Wizard on an XP, at the command prompt; type migwiz. It's "supposed to take a snapshot of everything on your machine, permitting it to migrate onto another machine"

A message from a listener claims the HP Pavilion laptops have a mono mic input and no line-in. And the USB audio device mentioned earlier did not work with Microsoft Vista.

Mentioned is a leaked document for AT&T customer support personnel that has suggestions for countering customer complains.

Additional notes 

Paul's Guestt is Coryon Redd. Glenn is homeward bound and checks in from the Sac airport, later in the show.

Coryon is teaching a class on internet marketing
Nov 18, 6pm to 8:30pm
Sponsored by Sierra Economic Development Corp.
560 Wall Street Suite F
Auburn, CA.
530-823-4703
sedd.org

It covers basic internet marketing and how to get your web site found by Google using free or nearly free tools.

The previous show on marketing with Coryon:
notes — http://zen.kvmr.org/content/view/68/11/
Audio — http://zen.kvmr.org/archive/ZenTech_Aug_11_2008.mp3

The focus of this show is using social networking sites, e.g. Facebook.com and MySpace.com, for marketing. Offering your expertise on such sites helps promote your products & web site.

Google uses sophisticated algorithms to devalue link farming but favor legitimate blogs.

To find a suitable forum in which to participate, google using the keywords for your product and add the word 'forum', e.g. essential oils forum. Then look for those forums with high usage.

Yahoo Site Explorer
siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com
Enter the URL to the forum of interest or a competitor's web site to see who links to that site to find other relevant web sites.
2 settings in the pull-down menus are important:
Set "except this domain" to see only links coming from external sites.
Set "including all the pages" to see links to any page in the domain, not just the home page.

Webmaster tools were mentioned in the previous show.

To optimize your web site; google "keyword tool" for a free tool to find out how much people search for different phrases. Then add the relevant keywords to your web page.

Wordtracker, a tool (free trial, then a monthly subscription) looks at the content of well-rated competitor web sites and recommends keywords to use.

Other marketing resources:
Searchengine World; search engine optimizing, seoptimizing.com, selfpromotion.com

Glenn at terminal A of the Sac Airport says there are now kiosks to accommodate USB powered devices.

He also mentions trouble updating AVG anitvirus. It's suggested that the AVG company temporarily disabled that to give themselves time to correct problems with false positives involving system files. Also, the update sites themselves are sometimes targets of denile of service attacks.

MicroAV Antivirus 2009 is bogus antivirus virus. It runs a Flash animation that appears to do a virus scan and then warns people that they have an virus just to get them to click on a link which will then compromise their machine. Beware of any attempt to get you to click on a link.

Windows Xp Antivirus 2008 is another one to watch out for; it works the same way. This, and Smitfraud, were mentioned in the Aug 25, 2008 show notes

Spybot Search and Destroy has been updated to 1.6; get it at download.com. When there, type in the full name Spybot Search and Destroy and look down past the sponsored links. Same thing for "AVG" or "AVG free". AVG now has built-in spyware detection. Also, see the show notes for Dec 17, 2007 for links to antivirus, antispyware and other useful tools.

Mentioned in the previous show is the book on web site usability "Don't Make Me Think" by Steven Krug. And also the tool Google analytics.

Notes for the show

 AXIA digital technology, used in studio B at KVMR, uses ethernet to send digitized audio signals.
And Livewire is used to render sound over ethernet between various piece of equipment
www.axiaaudio.com
www.axiaaudio.com/livewire/

Alan Stahler reports there is an asteroid (2008 TC3) that's predicted to hit earth at about 7:46pm over Sudan. It's only a few meters across, so wear sweater and enjoy.
spaceweather.com
astronomy.com

Microsoft moved forward the expiration date for sale & support of Windows XP. At buy.com Paul saw XP for $149 if you buy a 100gig hard drive for $49.

AWS is Amazon Web Services, "cloud computing" for businesses.
http://aws.amazon.com/

When was FAX invented? The telegraph was the original FAX.
British patent to Alexander Bain in 1843.
http://inventors.about.com/od/bstartinventors/a/fax_machine.htm

DSL is coming to various areas near Nevada City; check with att.com.
Also see local DSL providers; nccn.net, spiral.com, omsoft.com fullspectrumia.com
A list of ISP providers & methods of connecting to the net:
http://zen.kvmr.org/content/view/46/

It's speculated that the PUC no longer regulates AT&T's long distance rates.
AT&T DSL has been unbundled, you no longer need a phone account to get DSL.
You will pay a premium but it's still cheaper than paying for the phone too.
Virtual FAX is available thru, e.g. myfax.com and efax.com. You can use your current FAX number at these services

Paul uses a physical VOIP unit that can be plugged into a DSL router. Can be used over satellite with some delay.

To stop telemarketers go to donotcall.gov. Your registration there will not expire due to a congressional act in 2007. Political groups, non-profits, & those businesses you've dealt with before are exempt. Otherwise, just ask solicitors & junk mailers to stop; they sometimes will.

When disputing charges it's often a good idea to pay at the point of sale and dispute later.

There is a do not mail list. Be careful not to cash checks you're not expecting. They may be scams or you may be signing a contract that's printed on the back of the check.
http://dmachoice.org/

For a free credit report freecreditreport.com is not the correct link
annualcreditreport.com

A caller asks if Magic Jack, a VOIP unit, is any good.
Yes, it seems to work well with windows XP, Vista & Intel Macs

The last few items were discussed in the 7-28-8 show.
http://zen.kvmr.org/content/view/67/11/

The same caller asks about CAD software to design landscapes on the PC
AutoSketch, an old product, may still be available; freecad.com; Google's Sketch 3D (Sketch-Up)

The same caller wants a PC based DVR setup to record off of cable and make the recordings available to devices in other rooms.
Apple TV; Media Center is unimpressive; Nero 7 nero.com has the ability to capture the data from a media card that's being fed a video signal. There's Toast for the Mac that can get the signal from a Tivo.
www.apple.com/appletv/
www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/mediacenter/default.mspx
http://www.nero.com/

The same caller asks about a physical mp3 player that's convenient for a Parkinson patient to use. Listeners are invited to make suggestions.
afb.org, a site for the blind, may have some info. Glenn found this on eBay.

A caller wants to capture Youtube video/audio to a file on the PC.
v4f firefox add-on. Sorry I couldn't find this one, but search for similar add-ons here:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/

To convert flash video to, for instance, avi, search google for "flv to avi" & use at your own risk (no recommendation given).

1. Image resolution is correctly stated in Pixels Per Inch or in Pixels (H) by Pixels (V), not Dots Per Inch. There's a reason for that, because …

2. Physical printer and display resolution (resolving power) is accurately and consistently stated in Dots (or Lines) per Inch.

3. Keep in mind that a digital file in and of itself does not have a physical size in inches or millimeters. It's just a collection of numbers arranged in an array. You can display or paint them out in any size you want. If you want actual size, the dpi of the display device needs to match the ppi of the image, and all of the iamge pixels need to be mapped 1:1 to their respective display pixels.

These two resolution definitions are not the same and are easily confused by many people, especially when combined with a discussion of the resolution of their graphics cards, a third "resolution" number.

For example, one can have a JPEG image with a resolution of, say, 1024 x 768 pixels per inch, which was downscaled (i.e., crushed to some degree) from an original 2048 x 1536 pixels per inch "raw" data file. One can then display this on a monitor with a graphics card setting of 1280 x 960 pixels (a dimensionless pair of numbers) and then display it on a 20.1" monitor with a native resolution of 1600 x 1200 pixels, or 100 dpi. (More below on where the 100 dpi comes from.)

Printers (not the machines, the guys) typically discuss lines per inch rather than dots per inch when discussing the resolving power of their printing process. Laser printers, like monitors, are best described by their resolving power in dots per inch (as placed on paper).

The point of all of this blather is that image resolution (digital files) is best described using the term pixels per inch (PPI), while native resolution of physical devices (monitors and printers) is best described by dots per inch (DPI). It is inappropriate to assign "inches" to a graphics card setting as the resulting "dpi" depends on the physical size of the display. That is, you should not refer to the setting of your graphics card as set to 1280 x 1024 dpi' it's just a rendering of the image that is 1280 x 1024 pixels per side.

You'll hear all kinds of nonsense about 72 dpi and 96 dpi as if they had some special meaning for Macintosh and Windows systems. Balderdash. It's an old-wives tale. At one time, early Macintosh systems with closed (i.e., fixed) graphics systems and built-in monitors *might* have had 72 dpi screens by default. My Samsung monitors have a native resolution of 100 dpi, simply because they are 20.1" diagonal screens with a 1600 x 1200 array of pixels. A larger monitor with the same number of pixels has a lower dpi value. Both will give the best picture when the image file is 1600 x 1200 pixels per inch and the graphics card resolution is 1600 x1200 pixels.

Standard GIF files, by the way, only support 256 colors. They are therefore compressed and should not be used for high-quality photographic images.

Underlying all of this is yet another description of resolution usually totally rejected by many computer graphics people when trying to de-confuse them. You can have two different JPEG images with the same resolution (say, 1600 x 1200 ppi) but with different degrees of compression. If one were looking for detail, the least compressed one would generally offer more of it. That is, it offers more detail (information) to the viewer than the other one. One could argue (successfully, I might add) that even though both images have the same resolution (1600 x 1200), the least compressed one has more resolution because you can resolve more detail. The heavily-compressed one will be blurry and "fuzz out" some details. Of course you knew this, but you'd be surprised how many "experts" will argue that the two files have the same resolution. It all depends on how you use the terminology and what it means to you. That's what prompted me to write this missive.

End.

1. Never, never publish a screen shot in JPG (or JPEG, if you prefer) format. Always use BMP or something similar like GIF. The JPEG format will always "soften" the image and it will not look as "real" as it could. One would think a GIF file would be perfect, especially if the color palette used is the standard Windows palette.

2. Save continuous tone images (photographs) in JPEG format. Note: Start with the highest resolution originals if possible, preferably in a raw or bitmapped format if possible. Save the originals in a safe place and always work on (tamper with) copies. I know you know this, because I heard you say so on Zen-Tech.

3. On a Windows machine, you can always obtain a screen shot by pressing the Print Screen button. This saves an image to the clipboard in the resolution set by the graphics card. See the attachment, for example. It is an image of this screen with a resolution of 1280 x 960 pixels.

Note: The image you see in the attachment when opened has, when viewed on my screen, a bit less brightness and a slight greenish-gray hue added to it, more so than the original screen image. Why, you might ask? Good question. I'm not sure, but I *think* it probably has something to do with the path from the image to the screen. In the original case, the screen is driven by the graphics card directly from the OS. In the reproduced case, it is a view of an image generated from a file. It would seem that the brightness, hue and contrast values in the file would be the same as those generated by the OS, and since they are processed by the same graphics card, they would look alike…..but then this is a Windows environment. Who knows for sure how the system and the graphics card drivers handle the same data from different sources? So tell me, what does the image look like….white background or an odd hue to it? Also, keep in mind that the screen capture is taken from the output of the graphics card and then stored when saved. When viewed again, it must pass through the graphics card again…do you agree? If so, the card could muck it up. i haven't calibrated anything, but I'll bet an expert could tweak the graphics drivers so that this problem would go away. The NVIDIA driver offers color management options. Heck, I don't know.

4. Invest in a program like Adobe Illustrator to create line art; then save and use it in a vector-based format like PDF or EPS. These can be resized in the target application without loss of quality. You can export these as a bit-mapped file such as GIF or BMP, but why do it and lose valuable resolution?

5. Programs may be better behaved if you place images in them by reference rather than embedding the image in the file. Caution: Avoid OLE, especially if an XP OS has been upgraded to Service Pack 3. OLE is a failed concept. Note also that It's been a long time since I used PowerPoint 2003 and I have no newer version, so I don't know what image placement options are available in the various versions of the application.

6. You lose a generation of quality if you open a file in an editing application like Photoshop and then resave it as a compressed file over itself, even if you don't edit the file. This applies to MPEG and JPEG files of all types. However, view an image file or playing a music file in something like iTunes does no damage to the original file, as the data is only uncompressed for viewing or for your listening pleasure.

7. In Photoshop, for example, you can increase the PPI of an image (JPG, for example) without decreasing the number of pixels. The resulting picture will appear smaller when displayed on the screen but the file will be the same size in megabytes. The image quality in terms of inherent resolution will the same (no loss of pixel data), but of course as soon as it is re-saved (i.e., re-compressed) there will be a JPG) generation loss, the magnitude of which depends on the degree of re-compression. Note that one could argue that the resolution is higher if you do this, since the PPI is larger, but it's not true. The resolving power is the same; it's just smaller when displayed. Mind you, while all of this image adjustment in Photoshop was taking place, the DPI of the screen (its native resolution*) cannot be changed, but the graphics card resolution  (The number of generated pixels in the H direction by the number of generated pixels in the V direction) are independently set at the discretion of the user using the Properties > Settings interface found by right-clicking on the desktop. These different interactions that affect the resolution of the image and the size of an image as seen on the screen or as printed are the reasons why it is important to talk about the different aspects of *resolution* using the proper units—or none at all. It's the only way to communicate accurately when giving advice or trying to understand what's going on when you are creating, processing, viewing or printing an image.

*This applies to both analog (CRT) and digital (LCD) displays and the type of interface (VGA, DVI, HDMI, etc.). However, if one is serious about it, they should obtain a high quality LCD display(s) with digital inputs and use a graphics card with a matching digital interface (or interfaces, in the case of dual-head, matching dual-monitor setups.) Furthermore, be cautious when selecting your LCD monitors. They should (if possible) always be driven by a graphics card whose resolution setting is the same as the native resolution of the display. However, if you choose a monitor with a native resolution of, say, 1600 x 1200 *and* if it is only a 20.1" monitor (measured diagonally), setting the graphics card to 1600 x 1200 pixels results in icons and text that are too small for comfortable viewing. My monitors are like this, so I have to set both graphics card drivers to 1280 x 960 in order to get reasonably-viewable results. This is a suboptimal setting that results in aliasing of the image due to the mismatch in resolutions (1280 x 960 versus 1600 x 1200). There is not a 1-to-1 correspondence between the image pixels and the monitor's display pixels. In my case, bigger is better only if talking about the physical screen size and not the native resolution of the monitor. A better approach when buying an LCD monitor for use with contemporary graphics cards would be to choose a monitor with a DPI rating of about 80 DPI rather than the 100 DPI that I have. In other words, a 20" monitor is easier on the eyes when looking at a typical windows screen if both the graphics card and the monitor's native resolution match and in the neighborhood of 1280 x 960. My monitors would be easier to use with most Windows applications if they were 24" monitors rather than 20.1" monitors. However…

…there is this important caveat!  If you are just viewing or working with high resolution photographs, higher resolutions are always desirable. In other words, my 1600 x 1200 monitors with 100 dpi resolution (The actual viewing area is exactly 16" wide by 12" high, by the way. That's how the 100 dpi figure is derived.) display full-screen, 1600 x 1200 images in near-perfect quality.

End of Tidbits…