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Jan. 1, 2002; Vol. 3; Issue #1; Mail Address: PMB 44,
12819 SE 38th St., Bellevue, WA 98006-1326
Voice Mail: 206-232-5892; Classroom: Phantom Lake
Elementary School, Bellevue
For Detailed Information, Class Schedules: www.seniornetps.org
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SENIORNET CELEBRATES ANOTHER SUCCESSFUL YEAR: With the crowded monthly
membership meeting running out of chairs, forcing late arrivals to sit on
available desks, Pres. Helen Hesketh led
the annual year’s end party with refreshments at the Tuesday, Dec. 18th
session at the Phantom Lake Elementary
School Mobile. This also marks the 15th anniversary of the
founding of the all-volunteer SeniorNet Computer Learning Center in a small
site elsewhere in Bellevue. The founder is the beloved Jiggs Clark who started
with a few old computers he was able to scrounge up, plus the help of a handful
of volunteers and the offer of a small rent-free office. A far cry from the
current 13 state-of-the-art, high-speed computers for individual hands-on
learning, along with big 17-inch monitors, printers and Internet access, plus
the huge wall-size projection screen to more easily learn. Hal Mozer compiled a full history in
1998 at the annual Brown Bag party.
P-I RUNS IN-DEPTH ARTICLE ON SENIORNET: Announced at the meeting and
distributed was the recent article in the Seattle
Post-Intelligencer of Jon Hahn's widely-read
column that featured Public Relations
Coordinator and Online Newsletter Editor Phil Scheier as a tongue-in-cheek
crusader for eliminating the dash in e-mail. It gave a lot of his personal
history also gave a boost to SeniorNet and the Granpals program. “Way to go Phil,” says Helen. The article even
connected Phil with one of his friends who he had not heard from in over 16
years since the days when he wrote for the Seattle Jewish Transcript. Helen
added: “One never knows who a newspaper article will touch.” At the end of the meeting, a TV segment
that featured SeniorNet and the Granpals program, that was aired on "It's Your City", the
Bellevue city channel was warmly received. She told the meeting, “We owe Wendi Fisher, the host and producer, a deep thanks for making this
possible for all to see.” Helen
also announced the next membership meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, Jan. 15, at 10 am at the
Phantom Lake School in Portable 2.
HEAVY RAINSTORM SLOWS REGISTRATION:
Even with 35 enthusiastic SeniorNet volunteers on hand for the Dec. 13th
SeniorNet registration for the coming year’s computer classes, under the
direction of Roger Dalton, a very
heavy rainstorm coupled with high winds discouraged many seniors driving down
to the Factoria Mall sign-up site. Registrar
Louise Flora said that the disappointment of the weather-plagued
registrations, those unable to attend in person, are expected to sign up with mail-in
registration, included in the catalogues sent out earlier. And for those who
either planned to sign up for the first time, or misplaced the catalogues,
detailed information and help is available by calling the SeniorNet voice mail at 206-232-5892. Or, link up with the SeniorNet website at www.seniornetps.org which includes full
details and forms. Louise said several classes were filled, including Write,
Outlook Express and Photo, but with openings available in many other classes.
Unlike many other computer schools, SeniorNet boasts a powerful projector and a
wall-size screen to clearly illustrate in brilliant color each keystroke or
cursor click and what each operation does.
NEW YEAR’S
FIRST NO-HOST KAFFEE KLATCH: A great way to start off the New Year is SeniorNet’s first monthly
Kaffee Klatch of 2002 takes place Tuesday, Jan. 8, starting at 11 am at
the Crossroads Shopping Mall Food Circus. While we always meet on the first
Tuesday of the month, this Jan.1 is a holiday, of course, and after a night of
partying, nobody could even think of getting up the next morning. At the Dec. 4th
Kaffee Klatch, several new faces were seen and heartily welcomed.
HOW TO GET A DIRECT, PERSONAL ANSWER TO YOUR COMPUTER QUESTIONS: A downtown Bellevue church
is offering a monthly two-hour free session where an expert (From SeniorNet,
naturally) will try (and usually does) come up with the correct answer to your
problem. The free Q & A will be presented on the second Wednesday morning of the month, starting in January, through
June 2002, from 10 am to 12 noon. This knowledgeable volunteer is our own Ken Crandall, the SeniorNet Facility
Coordinator who is responsible for keeping our classroom computers, printers,
projector, etc in top working condition, along with the courses he teaches. The
course is offered by Ken’s church, Bellevue First Congregational. It has
opened the Bradford Center, 700 – 108th Ave. NE, just south
of the church located at the corner of NE 8th and 108th
Ave. The computer Q –A session is being presented in conjunction with the North Bellevue Community Center. Ken
adds: “ The program is free and open to all. If
questions cannot be answered immediately, I will attempt to research answers to
the questions and get back to the questions originator. Also, I will have a
laptop computer with me to demonstrate programs, providing I have that program
installed. If not, again, I will try to get back to the questioner.”
RESEARCH PROJECT OFFERS FREE MICROSOFT GIFTS: A computer lab survey
being conducted for Microsoft by Hebert Research in Bellevue is offering free
Microsoft products to those taking part, according to our own Joe Pontecorvo.
“The studies can be done almost any time of day up to 8 pm,” he said. ”No computer skills are
needed. You must type some very short replies to questions that come up
on the computer screen. In turn you receive free Microsoft software or
hardware. Call or email Joe Pontecorvo for details at 425-889-2598,
or via email at japonte@juno.com.”
GOOD TO HAVE SENIORNET FRIENDS: Those of us who used the high-speed cable modem
Internet access provided by AT&T, better known as @home recall vividly when the main operators, excite@home went bankrupt and suddenly ceased
operations Dec. 1. It was a Saturday. Newspapers carried the story. AT&T
issued assurances the service, which especially carried email, would be back
online shortly, with a new domain name (the name after the @). . Even though
there had been some advance warnings of such a possibility, it still came as a
shock to a number of SeniorNet members using the service. Then Sunday came
reports the service, which connects via TV cable modems, was getting back into
service, although some areas would be slower than others. This writer,
heretofore a very satisfied @home user, was stranded, isolated, and cut off
from the real world with the loss of his email. Awful feeling. But with all the reports of service resuming
under a different name, somehow this writer failed to latch on to the new name.
Until he contacted our Hal Mozer.
Sure, he knew the new domain name, which now was: @attbi.com. The original user name, in this case, b26flyer,
remained the same. The att in the
domain name was, of course, AT&T. The B
was for broadband, and the I was
for—right—Internet. A quick tryout proved it did indeed work. And sharp-eyed
Hal claimed the Sunday paper had that info. At this writing, however, the cable
modem service still wasn’t operating normally in some areas of Seattle. Moral
of the story: Make friends with your
knowledgeable SeniorNet associates.
BOB SWENSONS
RETURN FROM GREAT BRITAIN: Though not quite yet sporting an English accent, Treasurer Bob
Swenson and wife Betsy, recently returned from a visit to England where
they visited their daughter, son-in-law with the U.S. Air Force, and their
three children, and did some touring. Bob writes: “We toured London and
explored Oxford which no longer has pitched battles between the ‘town and
gown’. Even more important was our
visit with daughter Robin an Air Force wife whose husband, George,
is assigned to a Joint Analysis Command in the East Anglia area, an
hour’s train ride north of London. The JAC supplies NATO with data after it has
been evaluated and processed. .
“They live in the
village of Bramford, not far from George’s military base. There are a number of
Air Force bases in East Anglia and relations with local citizens has always
been cordial, dating from WWII when many Air Corps bomber squadrons based in
the area spearheaded the assault against the Nazi war machine in mainland
Europe. Our real motivation for the trip and we never quite had enough time,
was to see our delightful two-and-a-half-year-old granddaughters Jacki and
Samantha and their irrepressible four- year-old brother Jonathan.
Their parents were great hosts and left us with the little girls for three days
while they and Jonathan went off to Paris and France’s Disney Land.”
HOW TO CORRECT MICROSOFT SECURITY PROBLEM: Again, a welcome tip to
those using Microsoft software in case there is a security problem, is offered
by Facilities Coordinator Ken Crandall. This also includes the Internet address
to download whatever patches are available to block online threats to your
computer. Ken writes: “I have located a site that allows you to get
notification directly from Microsoft whenever they have a security problem with
their software. This allows you to quickly download the patches needed to
correct the security problem. Security problems are significant since
they can permit others to gain access to your computer whenever you get email
or connect to the Internet. The site is: www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS01-059.asp.”
TIP: USE EASY COPY-PASTE METHOD TO MOVE TYPE: (CLIP THIS AND SAVE)
Use the Copy and Paste method to quickly and easily insert the above
address into your browser address, as follows: Highlight/select the address, then hold down the CTRL key, and tap the C key. This saves it to your Clipboard,
which is your computer memory bank. Then open up the browser; click the cursor
into the address space at the top. Again, hold down the CTRL key, and tap the V key.
The complete address, or whatever you
copied to memory, will be pasted/inserted in a flash, and accurately, and
avoids all that error-prone copying.
TIP: EMAIL VIRUS
WARNING A DANGEROUS HOAX: — An e-mail hoax that surfaced last spring is making the rounds
again, warning recipients to delete a dangerous virus, according to The
Seattle Times. Registrar Louise Flora, who thought SeniorNet members should
be alerted, spotted the story. The hoax email, according to The Times, is
actually telling people to delete a program that's part of the Microsoft
Windows operating system.
According to the report: The mail, which was originally written in
Portuguese, warns recipients to delete sulfnbk.exe, a Windows program that
restores long file names. Although sulfnbk.exe is a type of program that
is vulnerable to virus attacks, its existence does not mean there is a virus
present, according to computer-security companies and the Department of
Energy's computer-incident advisory group, The Times reported. More information
about the hoax, and links to instructions on restoring the sulfnbk.exe
program, are available at the Department of Energy's HoaxBusters Web site (www.hoaxbusters.ciac.org), where sulfnbk.exe
is listed on the hoax index.
WHAT? ME LEARN HOW TO ANALYZE STOCKS ONLINE? For those now involved in
the stock market, or planning to, or just curious how stock investing works,
there is a free, no obligation Better
Investing Online Investor’s School by the non-profit National Association of Investors Corporation (NAIC). (If not interested, just skip this
paragraph). NAIC, of course, is affiliated with many investment clubs in Puget
Sound and around the nation, all dedicated to learning how to study and analyze
stocks for possible purchase. The online school, all run by volunteers, now has
wrapped up its activities for the year, However, transcripts of the
discussions, lectures etc are still available online. Of course NAIC invites
all to join its national organization, whether as an individual, or as a club
member, and receive the informative monthly Better Investing Magazine.
Again, for the curious, insert the following URL/address in the address
space on your browser and hit Enter: www.better-investing.org/,
and start exploring. If you want to go directly to the class transcripts,
insert: http://www.better-investing.org/chats/transcriptlist.html.
address into your browser.
TWO LONG-TIME SENIORNET VETERANS MOVE: Two of our busiest veteran volunteers long
active in every phase of SeniorNet operations, have moved to their new home in
Vancouver, WA. Immediate Past Pres. Clif
Wuesthoff and Former Registrar
Marilyn Emerson, it was announced by Pres.
Helen Hesketh at the Dec. 18th Membership Meeting. She praised
their dedication and work in behalf of SeniorNet, with members applauding and
joining in best wishes for them. Clif, however, will continue for the time
being to handle the mail-out of the monthly Online Newsletter to our growing
list of readers. Our best wishes to two outstanding friends of SeniorNet.
CAUTION NOTE: While all computer-operating tips come from usually reliable sources,
readers are reminded they use them at their own risk. AGAIN, IN CASE you have friends who are online, and may be
interested in taking more classes to expand their skills, you can forward this
newsletter to them by clicking Forward when this message is displayed. Then
enter their address in the To box, and click Send. We welcome your news items
sent to the editor at b26flyer@attbi.com. If
you wish to receive this newsletter monthly, send a brief message with your
full name, phone and email address to the above email address. And if you wish
to unsubscribe, just send a message to same email address.
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Pres.>
Helen Hesketh; Past Pres.> Clif Wuesthoff; Vice Pres.>Bill Bumpas; Secy>Dave Lewis; Treas.>Bob
Swenson;
Registrar<Louise
Flora; Curriculum. Coordinator>
John Wise; Facilities Coordinator> Ken Crandall;
Member-at-Large>Delores
Davis; Volunteers Coordinator>
Delores Davis;
Public Relations &
Online Newsletter Editor> Phil Scheier; Publicity>Jo Hugh
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