This
Month’s Topic
Music
Future
Meetings
Below is a list of dates the for 2008, these dates have been confirmed.
March 12th
April 9th
May 7th
June 4th
July 2nd
August 20th
September 17th
October 15th
November 12th
December 10th
Subscriptions
It’s the time of the year again when we need to collect
some money from you. The rates will remain unchanged again at
£12:00 for full membership and £1.00 for associate
members.
If you are unable to attend the meeting please post your cheque
to Derek at the address given below. Please make cheques payable
to “Melton Computer Club”.
59 Tamar Road
Melton Mowbray
Leics
LE13 0EN
Last Month …
We had an insight into Derek Kerr’s experiences with his
Nokia Communicators. He started his presentation back in 1993
when he got his first mobile phone, a Nokia 101 this phone had
no text messaging, a mono screen, basic ring tones and it only
worked in the UK.
Derek went on to explain his need for an Electronic Organiser
and how Psion had marketed various devices that he had purchased.
He also went on to explain that his pockets were always bulging
with these devices. What he really needed was just one device
that would do it all for him.
In 1996 Nokia introduced the Nokia 9000. This gave you a 24 MHz
386 cpu with 8 Mb of memory, it weighed in at 397 grams. This
did away with the need for two devices but gave you a bit of a
lean to one side.
Two years later along came the Nokia 9100. This device gave you
Internet, e-mail and messages. All this with a 486 cpu and a reduction
in weight to 249 grams.
In 2001 Nokia introduced the 9210, this again gave improved features
over the previous Communicator. It included a colour screen and
the ability to send and receive faxes.
The next version the Nokia 9500 came with 80 Mb of memory, Wi-fi,
Bluetooth and we then started to see integrated software. This
Nokia came with a Word processor, Spreadsheet and a presentation
viewer.
We now come to the latest version the Nokia E90 which Derek demonstrated
to us. This communicator comes with all the latest features you
expect to find on a phone and a PDA. The highlight of the evening
was the demonstration of the built in Bar Code reader. Derek could
read the codes put he does not what to do with it once it has
been read. If you have any ideas please let Derek know.
Tips & Hints & Info…
There are usually (but not always) multiple ways of achieving
the same results within Software. Some may be obvious; some are
a little more obscure.
When copying or cutting text to be pasted there are the usual
Ctl+C, Ctl+X & Ctl+V keys that can be used.
Plus of course the mouse – if a right-mouse-click context
menu is available.
Plus menu options from the menu-bar – if available.
Over and above these methods are ‘hangovers’ from
the early days of Windows – Ctl Insert (copy), Shift Delete
(cut) & Shift Insert (paste).
Open Notepad and try them out.
If you are using a non-proportional font in Word (i.e. one where
the spacing for each character is the same), then you might sometimes
want to select text in a block rather than the usual method.
This can be done using Ctl+Shift+F8, and then use the arrow keys
to highlight the selection.
This type of selection can be done when using any font, but it’s
unlikely that you would grab exactly what was required.
Word is great at formatting text, but sometimes it seems impossible
to remove the formatting that has been applied – especially
if you are not familiar with what the original author of the text
did, or because Word is just proving to be difficult.
If you want to remove the formatting from a block of text, the
simplest and often the quickest way is to select the block and
copy/paste it into notepad. None of the formatting instructions
will be copied.
This text in notepad should then be selected and copied back into
a clean Word document to be formatted as you want. Finally copy
this reformatted text back to the original document after deleting
the offending block.
UK
ISP’S Sign Up To Ad system
I think most of us like our privacy but that might be under threat
when you go online.
US firm Phorm has developed tools to track users' online surfing
habits.
BT, Virgin and Talk Talk have signed up to trial the technology.
Privacy International, said: "We were impressed with the
effort that had been put into minimising the collection of personal
information."
Phorm has said its tools anonymise the data it collects and that
users can opt out via their Internet Service Providers (ISPs)
at any stage.
BBC News reported that Phorm advances the whole sector of protecting
personal information by two to three steps.
"The problem is that may not be good enough for consumers."
"Behavioural advertising is a rather spooky concept for many
people."
Phorm works by placing a cookie on a user's machine that contains
a randomised identifying number. That cookie tracks websites visited
and draws conclusions about a user's behaviour in order to target
more relevant adverts.
The ISPs and companies who sign up to the scheme take a cut of
advertising revenue.
Phorm has said the data collected is 100% anonymous and no profile
of the user is ever created, so that no-one could "reverse
engineer" the information in order to establish identity.
The company's website also states that the IP address of a computer,
the unique identifying number of a machine online, is not stored,
nor are search engine queries.
But the firm does "collect" search terms used, as well
as keywords on web pages, which has concerned some web users.
On its website, Phorm's chief executive Kent Ertugrul, said Phorm
ignored form fields on websites, numbers with more than three
digits, e-mail addresses and secure web pages. The onus would
be on Internet Service Providers to ensure customers had enough
information about the scheme in order to have "informed consent".
He said unless ISPs were extremely clear they could run foul of
the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act .
"RIPA is pretty clear that the provision for notification
for consent, and informed consent, have to be extremely clear,"
he said.
A spokesman for BT said it was confident that Phorm met all applicable
regulations and laws.
Later this month, 10,000 BT customers will be invited to take
part in a trial of Phorm.
The BT spokesman said Phorm offered consumers two benefits.
"Customers will receive more relevant advertising and will
get warnings if any of the websites they visits are known to be
phishing sites."
He said research BT had carried out had shown that customers did
want more relevant advertising as a result of their surfing habits
being tracked online.
"We have gone to considerable lengths to ensure our customers
privacy is guaranteed," he added.
Privacy International remains opposed to services which required
users to opt out. If a firm says this "enhances the user
experience", if that is true and users want it, then make
it opt in.
Can you do better than last years overall winner.
The
topics for this years competition are listed bellow
Travel,
Landscape/seascape,
Still Life,
Nature,
Architetural.
Portrait.
Last
years overall winner
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