Volume 23  October, 2004   Issue No. 10

 

 

EARLY ANNOUNCEMENT
Bluestar Super Computer Sale
December 3, 4, 5
Collinsville Gateway Convention Center

More info soon

 

ANNOUNCEMENT
This is the month for nominations. Know someone that you'd like to see in a position of POWER? Well, we only have officer positions, but it's a start. Maybe YOU'D like to handle one of the offices. Be at this month's meeting to volunteer/nominate Board Office positions. 

As always, anybody can be nominated for any Board Officer position. At the time of this writing TWO offices will be officially vacated,  Webmaster and Club Treasurer. Dennis McMurtrey has been nominated for Webmaster and Dianne White has been nominated for Treasurer.  Next month (Nov) elections will be held at the regular meeting per By-Law rules. 

So if you feel like you would like to be more involved in the club, feel free to volunteer for ANY office. You can enjoy all the perks an office offers and have more input to club activities.

The Next Meeting

Progressive Raffle

Jackpot is up to $200.00!!

32 cards left (If I figured right)

 

Regular Meeting


 

 

Wednesday, October 20

Caseyville Township Bldg. 
10001 Bunkum Rd.
Fairview Heights, IL

Directions:      Map:

 

Board 
Meeting

Wednesday, November 3

Ponderosa Steakhouse

5 Eastport Plaza Drive 
Collinsville, IL
(618)345-5006

Directions: 

Meal starts about 6:00. Meeting starts at 7:00

Everyone is welcome
   

 

The Presentation

This
Meeting

 

Computer Renaissance and nominations

 

Next
Meeting

 

Elections and undecided demo

 

 

Hello From The Pres...
Mike Taphorn

NOMINATIONS

 It’s time for Nominations:

 We elect our officers every November. In order to get ready for the elections, we will have our nominations this month. Most of our current board members are running for their offices again, but, Don Wold is going to retire as our trusty Treasurer. Please make sure you attend this meeting if you are interested in becoming an officer. You get free membership and you get to eat food and hang out with the President and the other board members on the first Wednesday of every month at our board meeting. Here is a list of the offices that we will accept nominations for and their current occupants:

 President                               - Mike Taphorn

   V.P.                                        - Jim Tomlinson

   Secretary                                - Carlos Mariles  

Membership Chairman      - J.C. Spelce

            Librarian                           - Charles Wallace

                     Treasurer                       - Don Wold (Retiring)

              Webmaster                        - Dennis McMurtrey

       Newsletter                        - Chuck White

 If you want to run for Treasurer or any other position, please let me know via e-mail or attend the next meeting to get your name in the hat.

 

DEMONSTRATION

 Toby at Computer Renaissance is going to be giving the demonstration this month. He is cooking up something good, but, I do not know what it is. I’ll try to let you know before the meeting, but, the odds are that you’ll enjoy it whatever it is.

 

HOLIDAY PARTY PRIZES

It’s almost time to get the Holiday Party organized. I came up with a nifty give away item that I think everyone will like. When I ask for your blessing to spend a little more than $500.00 for gifts for the party, say yes and you’ll be happy when you get your prizes at the Holiday Party. $500 should cover 100 prizes due to my expert bulk purchasing negotiations. If you think we should get more, we can authorize as much as you want and I’ll order more to make sure everyone at the party gets one. Otherwise, we’ll have to limit it to the first 100 members in good standing that show up at the party.

 

CABINET

 If anyone has a storage cabinet that we could have for club use, please let me know. We need to upgrade our cabinet in the basement of the hall. It has our stuff in it, but, the bottom is broken and the locks do not always work. We may need to buy one if we cannot get a donation. If you see any locking cabinets on sale, let me know…

See you at the meeting …

 Mike

 

The Computer Master
Jim Tomlinson, Vice President




See you at the meeting!
 Enjoy.....JT

 

 

The Treasurer's Report
Don Wold

TREASURER'S REPORT
Don Wold, Treasurer

Balance as of Sep 1, 2004: $5635.75

INCOME:
Sep Roll-Over Jackpot: $91.
7 New Mbrs: 105.
5 Renewals (l for 2 yrs) 90.
Sep CD Sales: 30.
Total Income: $316. $5951.75

EXPENSES:
Grizzlies Ball Game Tckts: $325.
Bd Mtg Rm Reserv. Fees 40.
(for Sep and Oct)
Admin Exp - purchases at 100.
Jul and Aug Comput. Shows
Total Expenses: $465

Balance as of Oct 1, 2004: $5486.75

 

The Secretary's Report
 Carlos Mariles

September 17, 2004 minutes,

 

President Mike Taphorn opened the meeting at 7pm.  He, as usual welcomed the new members and the guests. Mike proceeded to announce that next month we were going to have the nominations for club officers and that in November we were going to have our elections.  He projected two openings and also announced possible candidates for both positions.  Mike also spoke about our normal December meeting/dinner which normally has been a success in the past.  The prez. continue to discuss the possibilities of buying T-shirts with the club’s logo in the future and to wear them during outings or during the computer shows.  The price of the shirts will be very minimal for the membership. Once all the information has been gathered the suggestion will be officially proposed to the membership.  The next topic that Mike spoke about was the about the information that he finds in different magazines.  He suggested several web sites to download for free programs to disinfect your computer or to back up your information, etc.  The information was made available to the membership.

The usually Q and A period followed and continued for approximately 30 minutes.  After the Q & A session there was a recess period of about ten minutes in order to proceed to the adjacent room in order to attend the monthly presentation on “Pocket PDAs and other similar devises.” The night’s presentation was given by our own Chuck Hill and was very explicit and unbiased comparison.  It was up to the membership to acquire all that knowledge and use it for their own need.  Thanks Chuck.

 

Our next meeting will be held at the same place at 7pm on Oct. 20, 04.

Till then,

Carlos

 

 

The Membership Chairman
JC Spelce

Number of Members in attendance last month:  
Total Membership Before last month's meeting  
      Number of Members renewing last meeting    
      Number Of Members  joined last meeting   
      Number of members dropped    
Current Total Membership   
     Number of Members in Good Standing  
     Number of Members on Probation  

 

The Web Master
Chuck Hill

Got an old PC that won't take a hard drive bigger than 2G/8G/32G ?

Motherboard manufacturer not in business or doesn't provide a a bios upgrade to help ?

Try this site - they've got patched BIOSs that might do the trick. They've also got link to other sites with patched BIOSs.

http://wims.rainbow-software.org/index.php?count=-1

 

FYI:

I noticed that since Friday that my download speed has dropped from approx 3Mb/s to around 0.3Mb/s.

A little investigation revealed the modem's config [which is set by charter] incorrectly showed a max downstream of 0.38Mb/s and a max upstream of 0.19Mb/s - it should say 3.2Mb/s downstream / 0.29Mb/s upstream since I'm signed up for the charter 3Meg internet plan [and have been for almost a year]. You can check this on you modem's internal web page http://149.112.50.65/cgibin/opconfig  

if you have the 'shark-fin' modem - other modem's web page addresses vary (check your manual)].

I called Charter and they remotely reset the modem and it instantly went back to the correct config and my download speed shot back up to normal. Charter had no explanation for this although they did confirm I was on the correct plan (3Meg) according to their records. I suspect it would have done the same if I had power-cycled it.

You might want to periodically check your modem's operational config to make sure you're getting what you pay for.

My suspicion is that at sometime late Thursday night/Friday morning, charter had a brief outage - which caused my modem to reboot. When a cable modem modem 'boots', it looks for it's boot config on your provider's [charter] DOSCIS server. If it can't find it, the modem will default the provider's "base" plan.


 

 

 


Librarian
Charles Wallace
Assistant Keith Hurst

The Librarians

 

 

 

The Editor
 Chuck White

We are slowly attaching a name to some of the photos we have on file. Feel free to stop by and check out the pics to see if you recognize them. And please check your badge for a photo. If no photo, see me to have one taken or check the unnamed photo list. 

Gateway Grizzlies game photos are still posted at:

http://gcc.htctech.net/grizzlies/grizzlies.htm

Can't forget this:

GO

 

Mitch's Corner
Mitch  Graves

 


      		
    

    

      
              

                

                  
This is from Tech Support Newsletter

                  Top Source for Tech Info.

                  

                  http://browsehappy.com/people/

                  

                  If you have a full fledged firewall and your XP is otherwise

                  fully patched, there is no real need to update to SP2, with one

                  exception. SP2 does fix some security issues with Internet

                  Explorer for which there are currently no separate patches

                  available.

                  

                  I handle this by simply using FireFox as my browser. Besides, at

                  least two new IE vulnerabilities have been discovered in SP2

                  patched systems. You can view the full depressing list of

                  unpatched IE vulnerabilities here:

                  http://secunia.com/product/11/#advisories

                  

                  Stop the Windows Update service from automatically 

                  downloading SP2 by using the following utility from Microsoft.

                  

                  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=8BCE6BBA-EA5D-4425-89C1-C1CB1CCD463C&displaylang=en

                  

                  The utility will prevent SP2 automatically downloading "for a 

                  period of 240 days from August 16. At the end of this period, 

                  Windows XP SP2 will be delivered to all Windows XP and Windows 

                  XP Service Pack 1 systems."

                  

                  On the same subject, check out the second link: a blog page where the 

                  writer suggests you disable ActiveX in Internet Explorer even if you've 

                  changed to a different browser. I like the idea from a security viewpoint but it 

                  means you won't have a browser available for web pages that require ActiveX to
                  work properly. 

                  
http://www.geekbooks.com/blog/archives/000169.html

                  

                  

                  OK, on to this month’s alerts. The first, from Microsoft is

                  serious and affects many MS products including Office so read

                  the item below very carefully.

                  

                  Buffer Overrun in JPEG Processing Allows Code Execution (833987)

                  Severity: Critical

                  Systems Affected: Dozens of MS products including Windows XP and

                  Office 2002/2003, Server 2003, IE and .NET.

                  Problem: “A buffer overrun vulnerability exists in the

                  processing of JPEG image formats that could allow remote code

                  execution on an affected system ... an attacker who successfully

                  exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of an

                  affected system."

                  NOTE: Because this vulnerability affects so many MS products,

                  patching it requires more than using the Windows update service.

                  For example, Office users will also need to visit the Office

                  Update site and users of MS graphics programs will need to

                  update separately again. Check out the second link below for

                  full details how to update all your MS products.

                  http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms04-028.mspx

                  http://www.microsoft.com/security/bulletins/200409_jpeg.mspx

                  

                  More Than 30 Flaws in Oracle Patched

                  Oracle has adopted the same monthly patch announcement cycle

                  as Microsoft and the first batch is a bumper with over 30

                  vulnerabilities fixed including buffer overflow issues, PL/SQL

                  injection, trigger abuse, character set conversion bugs, DOS and more.

                  Download the patches from here:

                  http://metalink.oracle.com/

                  

                  Vulnerability in WinZip V9 Fixed

                  The folks over at WinZip have issued a new version, V9 SR1,

                  that addresses a potentially serious buffer overflow problem.

                  The service release also includes a number of minor product

                  enhancements and fixes. All V9 users should upgrade. Full

                  details here:

                  http://www.winzip.com/wz90sr1.htm

                  

                  Serious Flaw in WinAmp

                  Security firm Secunia has confirmed a serious vulnerability, the so 

                  called

                  "Zero day exploit," in the popular WinAmp media player that can be 

                  triggered

                  simply by loading a specially crafted WinAmp skin. "An XML document

                  in the WinAmp skin zip file can reference an HTML document using the

                  ‘browser’ tag and get it to run in the ‘Local computer zone’. This can 

                  be

                  exploited to run an executable program embedded in the WinAmp skin file

                  using the ‘object’ tag and the ‘codebase’ attribute." Version 5.04 is 

                  known

                  to be vulnerable and other earlier versions may also carry the flaw.

                  A new version, V5.05, is available that fixes the problem. All WinAmp 

                  users

                  should upgrade immediately to the latest version as the exploit is 

                  currently in wide circulation.

                  http://secunia.com/advisories/12381/

                  http://www.winamp.com/player/ <= upgrade

                  

                  Problem in Adobe Acrobat Reader

                  Secunia is also carrying an advisory covering a flaw in the

                  Acrobat Reader versions 5 and 6. According to Secunia there is

                  "a boundary error within the "pdf.ocx" ActiveX component

                  supplied with Adobe Acrobat Reader. This can be exploited via a

                  malicious website using a specially crafted URL to potentially

                  execute arbitrary code. “Adobe claims that the problem is

                  resolved in Acrobat Reader V6.02 and users of earlier versions

                  are advised to upgrade.

                  http://secunia.com/advisories/12303/

                  http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html <=Upgrade

                  
 

                

              

              
 
              


              
Later,


              

              


              

              

              
 
        
 

    

  

        

      


      

         


      

         


      


        


          


            

            

              
Miscellaneous

               Things Of Interest And

              Importance To Someone 


            

              


              

            		

          


        


      


      


        


          


            

          
Man Held in England in Cisco Code Theft

          

          Sep 18, 10:51 PM (ET)

          

          By MATTHEW FORDAHL

          

          SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) - A 20-year-old man has been arrested in England in the theft of the proprietary software blueprints used by Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO)'s networking equipment, police and the company confirmed.

          

          The man, who was not identified and has not yet been formally charged, was arrested Sept. 3 in connection with the theft made public in May. He has since been released on bail, and the investigation is continuing, Alan Crockford, a Scotland Yard spokesman, said Friday.

          

          The man was arrested on suspicion of violating the Computer Misuse Act of 1990, Crockford said. Other details of the investigation and arrest were not immediately available.

          

          About 800 megabytes of the software blueprint, or source code, for Cisco's Internetwork Operating System appeared on a Russian Web site in May. It was quickly removed at Cisco's request. The company said the theft was not the result of a software or service vulnerability.

          

          Cisco confirmed at the time that the FBI was investigating the theft.

          

          "We have and are continuing to cooperate with law enforcement agencies on this matter, and we are encouraged that an arrest has been made," the company said in a statement Friday. "We view the arrest as what will likely be many steps in this matter, and we will take every measure to protect vigorously our intellectual property."

          

          The software breach is the second time this year a prominent technology company has faced an embarrassing disclosure of its source code. In February, some pieces of Microsoft Corp. (MSFT)'s tightly guarded blueprints for some versions of Windows were circulating on the Internet.

          

          ---

          
 

            


          


        


      


      
 


  


      


        


          


            

            

              
The Lighter

              Side 


              Of Computing


            

              

              


          


        


      


      


        


          


            

              
Bad Joke

              

              Jesus and Satan were having an ongoing argument about who was better on his computer. They had been going at it for days, and frankly God was tired of hearing all the bickering. Finally fed up, God said, "THAT'S IT! I have had enough. I am going to set up a test that will run for two hours, and from those results, I will judge who does the better job."

              

              So Satan and Jesus sat down at the keyboards and typed away. They moused. They faxed. They E-mailed. They E-mailed with attachments. They downloaded. They did spreadsheets. They wrote reports. They created labels and cards. They created charts and graphs. They did some genealogy reports. They did every job known to man. Jesus worked with heavenly efficiency and Satan was faster than hell.

              

              Then, ten minutes before their time was up, lightning suddenly flashed across the sky, thunder rolled, rain poured, and, of course, the power went off. Satan stared at his blank screen and screamed every curse word known in the underworld. Jesus just sighed.

              

              Finally the electricity came back on, and each of them restarted their computers. Satan started searching frantically, screaming "It's gone! It's all GONE! "I lost everything when the power went out!"

              

              Meanwhile, Jesus quietly started printing out all of his files from the past two hours of work. Satan observed this and became irate. "Wait!" he screamed, "That's not fair! He cheated! How come he has all his work and I don't have any?" God just shrugged and said, "Jesus saves."

              
From lukeford.net

              


              


              
    


              
 If

              you have something you want to share, just send it to me
              using the above mailbox 

              

              or catch me at a meeting.