If you have an older computer or a computer without an operating system on it you may be a candidate for Ubuntu Linux. Makeuseof.com has made this e-book available free to help you learn more about it and your geekly company at EPCUG (me) recommends it. Click below and have a look:
Multi Commander is for Windows what the old Norton Commander was for DOS machines.
If you are unfamiliar with “File Managers” this may not be big news for you. But managing the files on your hard disk or periferals of your computer normally require using Windows File Manager. The Multi Commander is possibly more ‘intuitive’ to use than the Windows program for handling files.
The Features (from it’s website) are as follows:
Stuff Happen: Backup and Restore Guide
In our last meeting john suggested we discuss again backing up and restoring, something we all mostly ignore,,, to our peril.
Today I see one of my favorite websites has made available a free PDF book/guide on just this subject so I suggest you download it and read it. Our peril need not be bad.
If you use Windows 7 and are not a fan of the mouse knowing these ‘Hotkeys’ becomes a valuable parts of your computing. 
A complete guide to Windows 7 keyboard shortcuts
This is an article from Windows Secrets, a mailling I have received for years since Fred Langa joined them. I recommend it and this article for all of us not yet tuned to Linux or Mac. 
-=Larry Cotton=-
Follow this link to get either a downloadable PDF book or link to the Scribd page for the book from MakeUseOf’s website.
The (Very) Unofficial Facebook Privacy Guide [DOWNLOAD]
I like the MakeUseOf website very much for good information and I am impressed they made this particular book available free. The topic is one we should all spend some time studying, privacy is a different thing in the Internet world. We can still have a lot of fun but we need to be aware of some differnet issues than we needed to be concerned with in the past.
Read and enjoy…
The Windows 7 Guide: From Newbies To Pros
Those of you at the meeting this week heard me tell you about an ‘E-Book’ I found from MakeUseOf.com‘s website for folks getting used to the new Windows 7. The book can be downloaded for use in a PDF reader but is also available at Scribd.com where you can read it all online.
Maybe some of the quirks you’ve been so annoyed with will become useful when reading why it is the way it is.
Maybe not. There is always Linux.
I’d like to recommend folks look at this article on MakeUseof.com
7 Top Firewall Programs To Consider For Your Computer’s Security
Windows built-in firewall is, in my opinion, lame compared to the free programs available to us and this article describes them well. If you don’t understand what a firewall is or why you need one or how to use yours, have a short read on this page.
Something to discuss at a coming meeting perhaps?
Keyboard shortcuts
I know this has come up at meetings. Often when we are using the computer it can be quicker and easier to accomplish something without a mouse. Keyboard shortcuts let us use ‘hotkeys’ to do navigation and the link above is a page from Mozilla showing the hotkeys available in Firefox for any operating system.
For example if you are reading a page and would like to search quickly Control-k will move the cursor focus to the search box in the upper right of Firefox. In addition, while in that focus hitting F4 or Alt-up-arrow or Alt-down-arrow will change the search engine selection.
Check out the link above and see how many of the hotkeys listed are new to you.
Hope to see you at the cafe Monday!
Hotkeys
There is news today that Adobe Flash (that plays .swf files from the web) and Adobe Acrobat (which reads PDF files) may make our computers vulnerable to attack. There is no fix at the time of this posting so we should all be aware of the problem and watch for an upgrade to Flash and Acrobat and when it is available, install it!
Perhaps this week we should look at options to this problem and what we can do about it. Adobe has been under attack by Apple refusing to let its iPad use Flash, perhaps this is a reasonable concern.
Hope to see you all at the cafe Monday.
-=Larry=-
I’m always looking for ways to have meetings, webinars, with everyone in a manner that would let us have folks at the cafe, at home or work, anywhere be able to join us and share. To make that work I require our method to include use of Linux and most of us require Windows, 7, XP, and a few of us need Mac support.
Yuuguu.com may make this work for us and this week, next Monday April 5, 2010, I suggest everyone visit this site, download and install their software and create an account. Then at 5:30 we all start it, find each other through our Internet Messenger accounts, chat or (if you have free long distance) use the Yuuguu telephone conference call.
If there are support questions that member can show us their screen and we can all commiserate together or maybe find a solution.
If you need more explanation have a look at this video or Google ‘Yuuguu video’ and see more.
How To Use Yuuguu For Simple, Free Screen Sharing
