CyberCoyote - October 30, 2008

NEWS, NOTES and NOTICES
HTCC Program & Events

You can always see what the club has scheduled by viewing our Program (schedule of meetings) and Calendar (classes, meetings, etc.) online.

If you want to get in on the Yahoo! Discussion Group for HTCC give your email address to George, or follow the signup process for the group at Yahoo!.

Notes from the meeting

We have Computer Kindergarten and Vista 101 classes scheduled for November. Kindergarten will start on 11/13 and run for 5 sessions -- skipping Thanksgiving. It will meet at 9:00 AM for 2 hours in the computer lab.

Vista 101 is for people who already have Vista and have at least basic skills with their computer. It will start on 11/11 and run on Tuesdays and Fridays, finishing on 11/25. The class will meet at 9:00 AM for 2 hours in the computer lab.

Related links
George intrigued us today with some interesting software and online destinations.
AVG Antivirus is one of the top programs in it's category. There are both free and "paid" versions. I prefer VIPRE (their caps, not mine) because it uses one efficient engine to protect against both viruses and spyware. Both AVG and VIPRE are top performers.
Virtual Earth: You're familiar with online maps, but Microsoft's Virtual Earth lets you see more of what a place is like with aerial imagery, bird's-eye views, and 3D city models. Google Earth has very similar functions.
IT Department News

The club's (dual-boot) laptop survived an update of Windows XP to SP3 and Windows Vista to SP1. The wrangler thought you'd like to know. :-)

TIPS, TOPICS and TWEAKS
Shop till you drop

Last year Mike Diamond and George Jester told us about internet-powered shopping. I'm using "powered" because the resources they pulled together are as much about brick-and-mortar shops as online ones. Much of their info was about product and vendor reviews, and coupons. If you're like me, you need to be reminded about resources like that, and I have updated the links from that session by adding Rather be Shopping, which is a wide-ranging and well-run site with coupons of all sorts.

Windows 7 in 2009

More about the replacement for Windows Vista: Andy Patrizio, at InternetNews.com and Mary Jo Foley have some early breaking news on a 2nd-half, 2009 release date for Windows 7. Todd Bishop has an early Windows 7 synopsis. [more that Gail found]

Pay no attention to Microsoft's official position -- "Development is scoped to three years from Windows Vista consumer general availability" -- which would put Windows 7 in early 2010. I'm betting it's here in time for Christmas next year.

SECURITY
Secunia Personal Software Inspector (PSI)

Keeping all your software up-to-date, and not just Windows, is an important part of staying secure online. Secunia's (free) PSI makes it easy by not only notifying you when a program is out of date, but by helping you get it updated. I've been happily using earlier versions of PSI for two years or so.

ODDS and ENDS
Field and Stream

What does a bear do in the woods? Scratches his back, naturally. ;-) [video (find the link in the 2nd paragraph)]

Operation Bootstrap

It's not something that I ever gave much thought to, but it's interesting to see how they get those big construction cranes up in the first place. [time-lapse video]

That's all, folks.

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