Vol. 31 number 8 Oct 2014 The newsletter of the Ottawa PC Users' Group Calendar OPCUG General Meeting National Museum of Science and Technology 1867 St. Laurent Blvd. Second (*first) Wednesday of each month, 7:30pm 2014: Sep 10, Oct 8, Nov 12, Dec 10 2015: Jan 14, Feb 11, Mar 11, Apr 8, May 13, Jun 10 Beginner SIG After the OPCUG General Meeting, at the Museum. Linux SIG After the OPCUG General Meeting, at the Museum. Beer BOF (Wing SIG East), after all the SIGs, at 10 p.m. Liam Maguire's, 1705 St. Laurent Blvd. at Innes Rd. Please note that unless otherwise noted, SIGs meet at 9:00 p.m. (immediately following the OPCUG General Meeting). ____________________________ Coming Up... Wednesday, October 8, 2014 Topic: Web Comics Speaker: Mark Shainblum Visit http://www.shainblum.com/comics/ for details. October meeting relocated! Due to the Canada Science and Technology Museum being closed temporarily due to mould, we have had to find a different location for the October meeting. We are trying to get space at the Aviation museum, but as of press time, we have not received confirmation. As soon as we have a confirmed location, the web site will be updated and a message sent out on the Announcements list. If you are not subscribed to the Announcements list, it is fast and easy. Send an email to listserve@@opcug.ca. Leave the subject line blank and in the body of the email put; subscribe announcements You should receive a confirmation email within 10 or 15 minutes. Wednesday, May 13, 2015 Topic: VoIP (Voice over IP) Speaker: Jeff Dubois (www.jeffdubois.ca) (OPCUG) and Fred Ennis Wednesday, June 10, 2015 Annual Pizza Night and Speaker (TBA) ____________________________ Need a Lift? Due to the mould problem at our normal meeting location, we have had to change temporarily to a new location. If this change has made it more difficult to get to meetings, perhaps someone can help out and give you a lift. The General Messages conference area on The PUB is available to match up those who need a ride with those who can provide one. Feel free to post a message indicating the area of town you are in and whether you are looking for, or can provide, a ride. Once you are matched up, you can take it to private email or telephone to work out the details. Don’t have an account on The PUB? No problem; just point your web browser at http://opcug.ca, click on The PUB in the left-hand frame, then select New User and follow the prompts. Once you have created an account and it has been upgraded to Member status, you can log on using the Log Web link in the left-hand frame, choose Conference Areas and click Create New to start a new message. Make sure the conference area selected for the new message is 1 – General Messages. Once you have created your message, click on the Post Message button and you are done. Check back periodically to see if anyone has replied. You can also use your personal email to post messages through the OPCUG listserver. Once subscribed, you can send emails to the General Messages address and they will get posted. All messages that get posted to the General Messages area will also get sent to your email address. For details on using the listserver, see http://opcug.ca/public/pubser.htm ____________________________ October Raffle For the October raffle, we have a Belkin wireless keyboard. This quiet keyboard with comfort palm rests features 17 multi-media hot keys. It has a 2.4GHz USB nano receiver and will work up to 32 feet away from any PC or Mac with a USB port. For details, see http://belkinbusiness.com/products/f5k007 Tickets are, as always, a good deal at $1 for one, a great deal at $2 for three or the unbelievable bargain of $5 for ten! ____________________________ September Prize Winner Gail Eagen was the happy winner of a Ubislate 7Ci tablet, our raffle prize at the September OPCUG meeting. ____________________________ Nominations for OPCUG Board for 2015 Once a year, the OPCUG holds elections for the 9-member Board of Directors. We are once again coming up to this annual event. We encourage all members to consider running for a board position or getting involved in some other manner in the operations of the OPCUG. If you want more information about what is involved, please talk to any current or past Board member. Names are listed near the bottom of this newsletter and on the web site. Nominations can be submitted to Bob Herres, Election Chair, in person at the October, November and December club meetings or by sending an email to nominations2015@@opcug.ca. Nominations must be received by midnight, December 31, 2014. Please get involved. Please help the OPCUG continue in its role of Users Helping Users! Bob Herres Election Chair 2015 ____________________________ OPCUG Photo Contest Our OPCUG's web site has been online since August 1997 and needed a little work to clean up the cruft that has accumulated over the years. Members of the BOD have been working on this process for the last few months. To highlight the upgrade, we thought it would be nice to replace the old graphic from the museum that is used on our home page with a photograph or an image created by one of our members. At our September meeting, Chris Taylor made a presentation on Basic Digital Photo Editing so, now, you have the skills to create a stunning photograph of the museum. Please send your pictures and images to PhotoContest@@OPCUG.CA. Multiple entries are allowed, and please include a short caption with each picture. We will accept photo submissions of any resolution. Modest resolutions of up to 2,000 pixels in either dimension may provide better quality for the judging portion of the contest. However please keep in mind that the winning image will be displayed at a resolution of only a few hundred pixels in either axis, so you may want to check that your image will display well at a low resolution in case you are the winner. Contest entries will be posted at http://opcug.ca/public/history/PhotoContest.html and voted on in November. There will be a prize for the winner - in addition to bragging rights! Good luck to all. ____________________________ Article E-books at OPL by Alan German You know that you can read electronic versions of some computer magazines through your on-line account with the Ottawa Public Library (see OPL's Electronic Shelves - http://www.opcug.ca/public/Articles/1401.pdf - in the January, 2014 newsletter). Did you also know that the library has a whole raft of E-books available in the category of Computer Technology? Go to the library's web site at http://biblioottawalibrary.ca/en/ and click on the Online Resources' link part way down the home page. Now, navigate to eBooks and Audiobooks – Overdrive eBooks and Audiobooks – Computer Technology. Here you will find (at the time of writing) 208 titles to choose from – everything from “Virtual Unreality” to “OCP Oracle Database 11g”. ____________________________ Product Review Remote Control Software by Alan German On a recent trip to the UK, I assisted a friend to configure a few items on his home computer and the conversation came around to long-distance support, i.e. a Canada-UK “help line”. For some time I had been thinking about web-based support systems, mainly to avoid having to drive across Ottawa to work on some friend’s machine – or having them bring their computer over to me. Such a solution would certainly be useful for a European support operation! As always, a freeware or open-source package was the preferred option and, in this case, Team Viewer seemed to fit the bill. This program obtains very good reviews from a number of reputable sources and, since it is free for personal use, it looked to be a good candidate for this user helping other users. And, the package did indeed prove to be exceptionally simple to install and use. Within minutes I had the program running on both a laptop and a netbook operating on the same Wi-Fi connection. I was able to control the netbook from the laptop - just as if the laptop’s mouse and keyboard were actually connected to the netbook. While that is clearly the purpose of the software, it was still astounding to see the program work precisely as advertised! Figure 1 shows a screenshot of Team Viewer in action. The main image is the desktop of the laptop. An open window has Team Viewer running and displaying the netbook’s desktop. The laptop is controlling a Notepad++ window that has been opened on the netbook. Text typed on the laptop’s keyboard is displayed in the Notepad++ window on the netbook. However, the acid test was to connect remotely over the Internet to a second machine. A friend in Ottawa who occasionally needs a little help volunteered to be the guinea pig. Having installed Team Viewer on this second machine it was time to connect. The process is simple. Running Team Viewer on the remote machine produces a logon window that provides both a machine ID (Your ID) and a password. Obviously, the remote user needs to be able to communicate these parameters to the “master”. In Ottawa, the simplest solution is to use the telephone to provide a ready means to exchange these details, in addition to providing a vehicle for discussion of the problems on the remote machine - and their solutions! For an overseas connection, while a long distance telephone call would do the trick, some other, less-costly possibilities would be E-mail, text messaging, or perhaps a Skype connection (the latter is yet to be tried). Initially, both the master and the remote users see similar Team Viewer connection windows (Figure 2). The remote user’s task is to indicate the values of “Your ID” and “Password” from the left side of the window. From the master’s perspective, making the initial connection simply means entering the Partner ID, pressing the “Connect to partner” button, and entering the remote computer’s password (number) in the subsequent pop-up dialogue box. Once these steps have been completed the Team Viewer window displays the remote machine’s desktop (as shown in Figure 1). Note that “Your ID” on the remote computer remains constant and this is stored on the master machine in the drop-down “Partner ID” menu. By contrast, the password changes each time a connection is attempted. Consequently, subsequent connections just require selecting the appropriate Partner ID and entering the current password for the remote machine. Note also that there is a “Please sign in” box on the right side of the connection window. This allows creation of, or signing in to, a Team Viewer account. Using such an account provides additional functionality such as managing multiple connections and making fast connections (no ID’s or passwords). However, using Team Viewer doesn’t require setting up an account. You simply download, install, and run the software. Team Viewer seems to allow the master user to control just about anything on the remote computer. Over the Internet, I was easily able to restore a number of desktop icons, navigating to the executable files, right-clicking, and selecting “Send to desktop”. Over a Wi-Fi connection, for my local machines, I could run a web browser, install and uninstall programs, empty the Recycle Bin, and activate Windows Update. I was also able to reboot the remote machine - with Team Viewer asking if I wished to wait and reconnect to the remote machine. I could also back up the data drive on the remote machine to a USB memory stick. Obviously, on a truly remote connection, such modifications to the hardware mean having the remote user physically insert the USB drive (if required). Team Viewer offers considerable functionality. On the master computer, a tool bar provides a menu with options for Close, Actions, View, Audio/Video, File transfer, and Extras. The Actions option includes the ability to command a reboot and even for disabling (keyboard and mouse) input from the remote user! The View menu provides for such items as changing the screen resolution, scaling the view, and selecting between multiple monitors. The Audio/Video tab includes options for communicating via on-line chat, voice-over-IP and video conferencing. File transfers between the master and remote machines can be accomplished either using a dual-window, FTP-like system or through a Dropbox-like “File box”. Finally, the extra functions include remote printing, taking screenshots, and recording a session. There are so many possibilities with this software that I haven’t been able to try them all. However, the bottom line is that, if you need to be able to control a second machine remotely, Team Viewer provides a simple yet powerful means of doing so. Bottom Line: Team Viewer (Free for individual use) Version 9 http://www.teamviewer.com ____________________________ OPCUG Free Software Guide – Part 51 Compiled by Alan German This guide features an annotated list of free computer programs. The software mentioned has not been reviewed (except where noted) nor have any tests necessarily been conducted. Consequently, no guarantees are provided that the individual programs will perform as described. Rather the list of available software is provided for the information of our members who may find one or more of the programs useful. Pixlr Need to edit a digital image? Now? Pull up the Pixlr Editor in your browser and you have a wide range of tools, controls, and image filters instantly available. Create a new image, edit an existing image, and save the result to your hard disk. Web Site: https://pixlr.com/editor/ Fast Duplicate File Finder Find duplicate files in a folder, on a computer or an entire network. The application will compare the contents of the files and will find duplicates even if they are using different file names. After a file scan is completed, you can automatically mark the oldest versions for deleting. Current Release: Version 4.1.0.1 Web Site: http://preview.tinyurl.com/deovrb Open Hardware Monitor This open-source utility supports most hardware monitoring chips found on today’s mainboards. The program will display temperatures, voltages, fan speeds, etc. for a variety of components. Current Release: Version 0.6.0 Beta Web Site: http://openhardwaremonitor.org/ NoScript This open-source extension for Firefox prevents executable content, such as JavaScript, Java, Flash, and Silverlight from running in the browser unless explicitly allowed by the user. The add-on is highly configurable with, for example, a whitelist for trusted web sites. Current Release: Version 2.6.8.28 Web Site: http://noscript.net/ Free-OCR With this on-line, optical character recognition (OCR) tool you can extract text from any image that you upload. Free-OCR takes either a JPG, GIF, TIFF BMP or a PDF file (only the first page). Images must not be larger than 2MB, no wider or higher than 5000 pixels, and there is a limit of 10 image uploads per hour. Web Site: http://www.free-ocr.com/ Moonbase Alpha NASA has once again landed on the lunar surface and has established a small outpost. Returning from a research expedition, you witness a meteorite impact that cripples the life support capability of the settlement. With precious minutes ticking away, you and your team must repair and replace equipment in order to restore oxygen production. Web Site: http://preview.tinyurl.com/39aeayt SpeedTest Not sure if you are receiving every Mbps that you pay your ISP for? Go to speedtest.net and run what the developer’s state is “the world’s most popular internet speed test”. If your speed is too low, call your ISP. They may be able to tweak your settings or, these days, they may have an updated package at a reasonable price. Web Site: http://www.speedtest.net/ ____________________________ OTTAWA PC NEWS Ottawa PC News is the newsletter of the Ottawa PC Users' Group (OPCUG), and is published monthly except in July and August. The opinions expressed in this newsletter may not necessarily represent the views of the club or its members. Member participation is encouraged! If you would like to contribute an article to Ottawa PC News, please submit it to the newsletter editor (contact info below). Deadline for submissions is three Saturdays before the General Meeting. Group meetings OPCUG normally meets on the second Wednesday in the month, except in July and August, at the National Museum of Science and Technology, 1867 St. Laurent Blvd, Ottawa. Meetings are 7:30-9:00 p.m. and Special Interest Groups go until 10 p.m. Fees: OPCUG annual membership: $25 per year. Mailing address: 3 Thatcher St., Nepean, Ontario, K2G 1S6 Web address: http://opcug.ca/ Bulletin Board - PUB II (BBS): http://opcug.ca/default.htm Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/opcug President and System Administrator: Chris Taylor, chris.taylor@@opcug.ca, 613 727-5453 Meeting Coordinator: (Mr.) Jocelyn Doire, Jocelyn.Doire@@opcug.ca Treasurer: Alan German, alan.german@@opcug.ca Secretary: Gail Eagen, gail.Eagen@@opcug.ca Membership Chairman: Mark Cayer, Mark.Cayer@@opcug.ca, 613 823-0354 Newsletter: Brigitte Lord, Brigittelord@@opcug.ca Email: (Mr.) Jocelyn Doire, Jocelyn.Doire@@opcug.ca Public Relations: Jeff Dubois, PR@@opcug.ca, 613-366-7936 Facilities: Bob Walker, 613 489-2084 Webmaster: Brigitte Lord, opcug-webmaster2@@opcug.ca Privacy Director: Wayne Houston, privacy2@@opcug.ca Special Events Coordinator: Bob Gowan, bob.gowan@@opcug.ca Beginners' SIG Coordinator: Chris Taylor, chris.taylor@@opcug.ca, 613 727-5453 Linux / Open-Source software SIG: (vacant) Note: We added an extra "@@" to the emails to reduce spam. Parking: Ample parking is available for a flat fee of 3$ after 5pm, paid in advance. Payment methods includes coins, VISA, and MasterCard, and the proof of payment must be left in the car and be visible in the front windshield. We will refund the parking fee for our speakers. For those who don't mind a couple of minutes easy stroll, there is free parking just before the museum along Gladwin Crescent. (c) OPCUG 2014. Reprints permission is granted* to non-profit organizations, provided credits is given to the author and The Ottawa PC News. OPCUG request a copy of the newsletter in which reprints appear. *Permission is granted only for articles written by OPCUG members, and not copyrighted by the author. ____________________________ Newsletter by email: To receive the newsletter by e-mail, send a message to listserve@@opcug.ca with the plain text "subscribe NewsletterTXT" or "subscribe NewsletterPDF" (without quotes) in the body of the message. No subject line is required. To cancel e-mailing, send a message to listserve@@opcug.ca with the plain text "unsubscribe NewsletterTXT" or "unsubscribe NewsletterPDF" (without quotes). To change your e-mail address, cancel using the old e-mail address and re-subscribe using your new e-mail address. Cancelling the Paper Newsletter: You can help the environment and save us some costs by sending an email to Mark.Cayer@@opcug.ca asking to cancel the delivery of the paper version of the newsletter (or ask him in person - Mark is usually at the back of the auditorium at General Meetings). Announcements Mailing List: To subscribe to the Announcements List send an email to listserve@@opcug.ca, leave the subject blank and in the body of the message put "subscribe announcements" (without the quotes). Within a couple of minutes you will receive a confirmation message from the list server. OPCUG clock/calendar/calculator and mug: Check out the clock/calendar/calculator and thermal coffee mug sporting our club logo at the back of the auditorium at General Meetings! OPCUG insulated mugs are $15 and OPCUG clocks are $20. Reuse, recycle: Bring your old computer books, software, hardware, and paraphernalia you want to GIVE AWAY to the general meetings, and leave them at the table near the auditorium's entrance. Please limit your magazines to publication dates of less than two years old. If you don't bring something, you may want to TAKE AWAY something of interest, so look in on this area. Please note: If you bring anything for the recycle table, you are responsible to check on your way out and if the items you brought are still there, you must take them home with you.