Vol. 31 number 9 Nov 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). ____________________________ Meetings Relocated! Due to the temporary closure of the Canada Science and Technology Museum, the October, November, and December meetings of the OPCUG will be held in the Bush Theatre at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum (CASM), 11 Aviation Parkway. Parking in the evening is a flat $3.00. Park in the main lot and enter through the front entrance of the museum. There is no OC Transpo bus service to the Canada Aviation and Space Museum in the evening. If you rely on OC Transpo to get to meetings, please see the front page of the October newsletter (http://opcug.ca/public/Articles/1410.pdf) Our thanks go out to the staff at both the Canada Science and Technology Museum and the Canada Aviation and Space Museum for their assistance in finding us this location for our meetings. Coming Up... Wednesday, November 12th, 2014 Topic: Technology Services designed for Seniors Speaker: Brian Stagg, TechLifestyle (http://www.techlifestyle.ca/) Statistics Canada projects that over the next 20 years the population of seniors will more than double. At the same time seniors are adopting technology faster than any other generation due to factors such as increasing health challenges, reduced mobility and changes in lifestyle including: •Increasing need and ease of access to eservices as health and government organizations move more services online •Simplicity and desire to better manage finances through online banking •Keeping up with world news, travel and entertainment information •Desire to keep connected to family and friends as they move further away •Working conveniently from home, often part-time for extra income. However rapidly changing technology, increasing security concerns, and often a seniors’ lack of skills and confidence can make it very difficult for them to take advantage of these technology benefits. Brian Stagg is the founder of TechLifestyle, a new Ottawa-based company that offers a new level of technology support services and solutions specifically designed to address the unique needs and interests of those aged 55+. Brian will discuss the gap that exists within the current services marketplace and how his company addresses this gap. He is very interested in your input and will encourage discussion as well as hand out a survey to capture your feedback. ____________________________ November Raffle This month’s raffle will feature not one - but two copies - of MiniTool Partition Wizard Professional Edition! (Check out its review below - "The Wizard of Disk Partitioning"). If you need to make any changes to the structure of your hard drive, for example by adding a disk partition, then MiniTool’s Partition Wizard is the tool of choice. And, the Professional Edition can do it all – move and resize partitions, convert between format types, manage GPT volumes, support UEFI, check and repair file systems, and much more. For more details, see the review of this software "The Wizard of Disk Partitioning" in this issue of the newsletter, or visit the developer’s web site at: http://partitionwizard.com 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! ____________________________ October Prize Winners And our raffle prize of a Belkin wireless keyboard at the October general meeting was won by ... Mark Cayer. ____________________________ 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 botton 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 SEASONAL FASHION The days of plastic pocket protectors are long gone. And with Geek emerging as the new fly, why not set a fashion trend rather than follow one by ordering OPCUG Seasonal Fashion items this holiday season? Crystal Casey, local sketch artist, made it a point to pencil the October OPCUG meeting into her day planner. And it's no surprise either, given Crystal's obvious talent, that a presentation on Web Comics might be precisely the sort of topic that could provide useful information to augment her existing artistic talent. In expressing her gratitude, Crystal has provided the OPCUG with some artwork that we're free to use at our discretion. As a result, we are making available a special OPCUG Seasonal Fashion item just in time for the festive season. Made of 100% preshrunk, open-ended carded cotton, this long sleeve classic loose-fit provides all day comfort. Priced at $15, tax and shipping included, it's an affordable way of expressing your passion for technology and link to the Ottawa PC Users' Group. If you'd like to take advantage of this one-time special offer, we will be taking orders at the November 12th meeting of the OPCUG. Delivery will take place at the December 10th general meeting. All orders must be prepaid (cash or cheque) at the November meeting. ____________________________ Product Review The Wizard of Disk Partitioning Alan German Do you need to modify the partitions on your hard disk? Well, you could use the Disk Management tool available in Windows – if you can find it (Hint, look under Control Panel – System and Maintenance –Administrative Tools). However, (a) you will also have to figure out how to use it, and (b) hope that it has all the features that you need. An alternative is to use a third-party partition manager. One such program, that comes out of Vancouver, BC, is MiniTool Partition Wizard. The Home Edition is freeware, whilst its bigger brother, the Professional Edition, retails for US $39.00. For most home users, the free version may well be sufficient. The professional version adds features such as support for dynamic disks, merging partitions, and changing cluster size. The program sports a colourful graphical user interface which displays the structure of all the available disk drives. Click on a partition on any given drive and a set of prominent icons is displayed that can be used to access major operations such as resizing the partition or changing its label (see screenshot). My first test of the software was conservative. Having made a full disk image of my main hard drive, I resized the 8 GB data partition, making it smaller and leaving 1 GB of unallocated space. A check, with FreeFileSync, showed that all of the files on the data partition were intact following the operation. My next task was – I thought – to merge the unallocated space back into the adjacent data partition. One interesting aspect of the merge process (available in the Professional Edition), is that the operation is only for NTFS partitions. For example, if one partition is formatted as FAT, it must first be converted to NTFS, and then merged with the second NTFS partition. I guess that this was sort of my problem. The unallocated space (a) wasn’t formatted at all, because (b) it wasn’t a partition. There are two solutions to this "problem". One is to simply resize the data partition and expand it to use the unallocated space (which could also be done with the Home Edition). The second option is to create a 1 GB NTFS partition and then merge this into the data partition. I chose the second option – mainly to see how the merge process worked. The only oddity was that the "contents" of the (empty) 1 GB partition were copied to a folder on the data drive. So, I ended up with my 8 GB data partition restored, but now with an empty folder that I just deleted in order to tidy things up. I suppose I could (should?) have read the help file that is included with the program before jumping in to modify my system – but, that’s no fun! But, seriously, there is a lot of reading in the help system, and this is accompanied by colourful and clear screenshots that show exactly how things work. You can also find some more limitations of the software here. For example, Linux users should note that the program will move ext2 or ext3 partitions, but does not support resizing partitions in these formats. MiniTool ran fine on machines using both Vista and Windows 7. The developers indicate that it also supports Windows 8. I had recently acquired an Asus Transformer Book T100 (a two-in-one hybrid computer) running Windows 8. MiniTool failed to load on this system with the error message: "Failed to load disk access driver". My T100 is equipped with a 64 GB eMMC solid-state hard drive. Since this is a fairly new type of SSD, I think the problem is that MiniTool doesn't have support for this specific hardware. The problem was confirmed by Jeff Dubois who couldn't get MiniTool to load on a 32 GB version of the T100. However, Jeff did confirm that MiniTool runs fine under Windows 8 on more conventional hardware. So, while MiniTool will indeed run under Windows 8, if you try to do this on a T100, you may be out of luck until the software is updated. However, for the rest of the people on the planet, MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition supports a huge range of disk/partition options including format conversion, support for GPT, MBR and UEFI, the ability to resize, move, split, or re-label disk partitions, copying of disks or partitions, recovery from partition table damage. All this and more – and all for free. What more could you ask for? Editor’s note: MiniTool is the raffle prize at the November meeting. Bottom Line MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition (Freeware) Version 8.1.1 MiniTool Solution Ltd. http://www.partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html ____________________________ Product Review CD Ripping by Alan German Many newer vehicle models have the capability of playing music files from a USB drive plugged into an accessory port. And, most of us have extensive collections of music CD’s that we used to play in our vehicle’s CD player. The problem with the latter process was always how to store multiple CD’s in the car so that we didn’t get bored with the same old selection. Today’s huge-capacity USB drives will solve that problem – if only we can transfer the files from our CD’s onto a USB disk. What we need is a CD ripper – a program to extract the individual music tracks from a CD, convert them to MP3 format, and store them on a disk. Enter FairStars CD Ripper – a simple, yet powerful piece of software to do precisely that. Install the program, put a music CD in the computer’s drive, and run the CD ripper. Press the "Query" button, press "OK" in the "Querying Freedb" dialogue box, and all of the information about the CD and the tracks it contains is displayed in the program window. FairStars uses the freeDB.org web site to obtain the relevant data. All of the CD’s that I have tried to date have had entries in this database so that the process of cataloguing the individual tracks is fully automatic. There is a built-in help system, but the program’s operation is pretty well self-explanatory. The output file type can be set through a drop-down menu, with the MP3, OGG, VQF, FLAC, APE, WMA, and WAV file types all being supported. Browse through the computer’s file system to select a folder for the output files. A variety of data fields (e.g. track number, track title, etc.) to be used in the output filenames can be selected through a drop-down menu. The resulting selection can be further edited to customize the final filename format. A "Preview" button displays a list of the filenames for the tracks on the CD as they will be named in the output folder. The program even has a set of playback controls to let you listen to any selected track from the CD before it is extracted. Once you are satisfied with the results, press the ‘Extract" button and the program goes in to action, creating the set of audio files in the specified coded format. Now it’s simply a matter of copying the newly-minted tracks to (a folder on) a USB drive. The beauty of this system is that you can now have dozens of "CD’s" available in your vehicle and, if any given track goes south, you still have the original CD from which you can make a replacement copy. And – best of all – you can’t scratch USB’s! Bottom Line: Fairstars CD Ripper (Freeware) FairStars Soft Version 1.80 http://www.fairstars.com/cdripper/ ____________________________ Product Review Composing HTML with KompoZer Alan German For many years I have used Homesite as my HTML editor of choice. Over time, the development and maintenance of this software has been transferred to several companies – Allaire, Macromedia, and Adobe – the latter now no longer offering support for the package. Since I am scheduled to give an "HTML 101" session at one of Ottawa’s library branches, I thought that I should try to find a replacement editor – preferably either free or open-source software – that participants may use to edit their web pages. I didn’t have to look very far before I came across KompoZer, an open-source package that offers all of the features that I desire in an HTML editor. First and foremost, it has to edit and save HTML files without adding a whole raft of spaghetti code – as several "designer" programs are prone to do. Secondly, it has to provide easy-to-use buttons for things like formatting text (e.g. bold, centered), and also support "complex" page elements such as anchor tags and tables. Obviously, one can create all these HTML codes in a simple text editor such as Notepad++, but it’s so much easier with a purpose-built editing package. KompoZer has all of these features, plus a file manager to display relevant files and folders, and a series of windows that allow the current web page to be viewed in a number of different ways. The normal view provides WYSIWYG capability where a page can be edited directly with the results being displayed as changes are made. A preview window shows the final result as it might appear in a web browser, while a source window shows the underlying HTML code. An interesting window is entitled HTML Tags. This adds little yellow boxes indicating specific elements on the page such as A (anchor), IMG (image), and TD (table cell). Now, this isn’t to say that KompoZer has no quirks. Far from it. One thing that I found very non-intuitive was how to establish a list of files in a given folder. Fortunately, the help files that come with the program are in fact very helpful. To establish a file list for a folder on the local hard disk, one has to use the "Site Manager". Navigate to Edit – Publishing Site Settings, give the "site" a name (e.g. DataDisk), and provide entries for both the Web Site Information and Publishing Server fields in the form "file:///D:/". The easiest way to do the latter step is to use the Select directory button for the Publishing Server entry and then cut and paste the browse-to entry into the Web Site Information field. The next problem is that, even after all of these contortions, DataDisk doesn’t show up in the Site Manager window – at least not until one exits from and restarts KompoZer! The other "feature" that I personally don’t like is that any new file is named with a .html extension. The problem here is a personal issue in that, when I first started creating web pages, I adopted a "filename.htm" format for all of my files. Homesite provides the option to set either html or htm as the file extension. Unfortunately, KompoZer does not. However, the above-noted "annoyances" are merely part of the learning curve for someone who is very familiar with a different HTML editor. For the most part, the wide range of useful features that KompoZer offers far outweighs any such downsides. So, if you have need of an HTML editor, I'm sure you will find this software to be a worthwhile addition to your toolbox. Bottom Line: KompoZer (Open-Source) Version 0.7.10 http://kompozer.net/ ____________________________ OPCUG Free Software Guide – Part 52 Compiled by Alan German and Jeff Dubois 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. GPU-Z A system utility from TechPowerUp that is designed to provide vital information about your video card and graphics processor. GPU-Z supports NVIDIA, ATI and Intel graphics devices. Current Release: Version 0.7.8 Web Site: http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/ IObit Uninstaller 3 A powerful yet lightweight tool to help you to completely remove unwanted programs and installation leftovers. It detects and categorizes all of the installed programs, and allows bulk uninstallation with just one click. Current Release: Version 3.3.8 Web Site: http://www.iobit.com/advanceduninstaller.html SharpEnviro This open source shell replacement system for XP, Vista, and Windows 7 lets you customize the desktop. Create multiple, freely-configurable toolbars or make use of the extensive multi-monitor support. Current Release: Version 0.8 RC2 Web Site: http://sharpe.sourceforge.net/ Pnotes Go green – and red, and yellow, and… Throw away those physical sticky notes and replace them with virtual ones on your desktop. Current Release: Version 9.3.0 Web Site: http://pnotes.sourceforge.net FreeConferenceCall.com Provide a name and an E-mail address to receive an instant account. Use any telephone to connect with multiple people around the world. Simply dial a local number and use the access code provided upon registration. Web Site: https://www.freeconferencecall.com AdwCleaner Use this free tool to scan your computer and remove Adware, Potentially Unwanted Programs such as toolbars and homepage hijackers. An anti-adware host will help to prevent advertising software installing on your machine. Current Release: Version 3.2.16 Web Site: http://preview.tinyurl.com/lrnyqxm Advanced Renamer Construct new file names by adding, removing, replacing text, or by changing case. Rename multiple files and folders in batch mode. Before performing any operations, you can verify that the output will be correct and, if you perform the rename and regret it, you can undo the complete batch. Current Release: Version 3.64 Web Site: http://www.advancedrenamer.com/ MyDefrag A free disk defragmenter that is fast, with low overhead, and many optimization strategies. Current Release: Version 4.3.1 Web Site: http://www.mydefrag.com/ World of Warplanes Did you enjoy playing World of Tanks (OPCUG Free Soft-ware Guide – Part 34)? Are you also interested in air battles with planes of the golden era of military aviation? If so, you may wish to take World of Warplanes for a spin! Web Site: http://worldofwarplanes.com/ ____________________________ 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.