Toledo PC Users’ Group
A Forum for Personal-Computer Users — April, 2008
April Program: Health and the Computer
Monday, April 7, 2008 at 7:30 PM, UAW-Local-14 Hall, Jackman & Northover (between Laskey & Alexis Rd), Toledo, Ohio.
In
This Issue ...
TPCUG Data
From the Prez
Minutes
Treasurer’s Report
Membership Expirations
Computer-Investing-Group Meeting
TOLTBBS Information
TPCUG’s
Website:
http://www.toledopcug.net
Coming Meeting: Monday,
May 5, June 2, July 7, August 4, September 8, October 6, November 3, December 1.
The Toledo PC Users’ Group
P.O. Box 13085
Toledo, OH 43613
Officers
President: Floyd Miller
Vice-President: Rick Snyder
Treasurer: Steve Tryc
Secretary: Sándor Halász
Standing Committees
Computer Shows: Steve
Tryc
Librarian: Open
Membership: Roy Ballogg
Programs:
Lester Miller
Public Relations: Lavern & Eugene
Curtis
Complaint Dept.: Helen Waite
SIG Leaders
Internet SIG: Jim Bell ............ 419-877-1109
Statement of Intent: The Toledo PC Users’ Group is a not-for-profit corporation, formed to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas and information regarding the use and enjoyment of personal computers.
Affiliations: TPCUG is a member of APCUG (Association of Personal Computer User Groups), which provided the APCUG logo.
Meetings:
Meetings are generally held the first Monday of each month, at
UAW-Local-14-Hall, 5411 Jackman Rd., Toledo, OH. In the event of
emergency, members may be reached during meetings at a pay phone in
the hall, 419-473-9571.
Visitors are always welcome at monthly
meetings!
Executive-Board meetings are generally held
after the regular monthly meetings.
Membership: Dues are $25. per year. To obtain an application, call any officer or member.
Moving? Notify the Membership Chair to redirect your newsletters.
Copyright 2008: The Toledo PC Users’ Group, the publisher of this newsletter, is a not-for-profit organization. Although it asserts a copyright for the newsletter, permission is granted to reprint this publication in whole or in part for any noncommercial use, with credits acknowledged.
Newsletter Deadline is the 15th of each month. All members are encouraged to contribute articles and reviews for this newsletter. Submissions may be made by email to the editor.
Advertizing: Business cards (2”×3½”) will be run in three issues for $5. Commercial ads: $10 for ¼ page; $20 for ½ page; $30 for ¾ page; $40 for full page. Larger ads are run in two issues from a graphics format, JPEG or GIF or … Members may place free ads for the sale of computer-related personal items on a space-available basis. Contact editor for details.
Production Notes: This newsletter was compiled with Microsoft Word 6 for Windows, Open Office 1.1.5, Brief, and Notepad.
TPCUG Mailing List: If you have e-mail, keep in touch with club doings by subscribing to the TPCUG mailing list.
The President's Message
The GridCould Soon Make the Internet ObsoleteThe Internet could soon be made obsolete. The scientists who pioneered it have now built a lightning-fast replacement capable of downloading entire feature films within seconds. At speeds about 10,000 times faster than a typical broadband connection,
the gridwill be able to send the entire Rolling-Stones back catalogue from Britain to Japan in less than two seconds.The latest spin-off from Cern, the particle physics centre that created the web, the grid could also provide the kind of power needed to transmit holographic images; allow instant online gaming with hundreds of thousands of players; and offer high-definition video telephony for the price of a local call.
David Britton, professor of physics at Glasgow University and a leading figure in the grid project, believes grid technologies could
revolutionisesociety.With this kind of computing power, future generations will have the ability to collaborate and communicate in ways older people like me cannot even imagine, he said.The power of the grid will become apparent this summer after what scientists at Cern have termed their
red-buttonday—the switching-on of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the new particle accelerator built to probe the origin of the universe. The grid will be activated at the same time to capture the data it generates.Cern, based near Geneva, started the grid computing project seven years ago when researchers realised the LHC would generate annual data equivalent to 56m CDs—enough to make a stack 40 miles high.
This meant that scientists at Cern—where Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the web in 1989—would no longer be able to use his creation for fear of causing a global collapse.
This is because the Internet has evolved by linking together a hotchpotch of cables and routing equipment, much of which was originally designed for telephone calls and therefore lacks the capacity for high-speed data transmission.
By contrast, the grid has been built with dedicated fibre-optic cables and modern routing centres, meaning there are no outdated components to slow the deluge of data. The 55,000 servers already installed are expected to rise to 200,000 within the next two years.
Professor Tony Doyle, technical director of the grid project, said:
We need so much processing power, there would even be an issue about getting enough electricity to run the computers if they were all at Cern. The only answer was a new network powerful enough to send the data instantly to research centres in other countries.That network, in effect a parallel Internet, is now built, using fibre-optic cables that run from Cern to 11 centres in the United States, Canada, the Far East, Europe and around the world.
One terminates at the Rutherford Appleton laboratory at Harwell in Oxfordshire.
From each centre, further connections radiate out to a host of other research institutions using existing high-speed academic networks.
It means Britain alone has 8,000 servers on the grid system – so that any student or academic will theoretically be able to hook up to the grid rather than the Internet from this autumn.
Ian Bird, project leader for Cern's high-speed computing project, said grid technology could make the Internet so fast that people would stop using desktop computers to store information and entrust it all to the Internet.
It will lead to what's known as cloud computing, where people keep all their information online and access it from anywhere, he said.Computers on the grid can also transmit data at lightning speed. This will allow researchers facing heavy processing tasks to call on the assistance of thousands of other computers around the world. The aim is to eliminate the dreaded
frozen screenexperienced by Internet users who ask their machine to handle too much information.The real goal of the grid is, however, to work with the LHC in tracking down nature's most elusive particle, the Higgs boson. Predicted in theory but never found, the Higgs is supposed to be what gives matter mass.
The LHC has been designed to hunt out this particle—but even at optimum performance it will generate only a few thousand of the particles a year. Analysing the mountain of data will be such a large task that it will keep even the grid's huge capacity busy for years to come.
Although the grid itself is unlikely to be directly available to domestic Internet users, many telecomm providers and businesses are already introducing its pioneering technologies. One of the most potent is so-called dynamic switching, which creates a dedicated channel for Internet users trying to download large volumes of data such as films. In theory this would give a standard desktop computer the ability to download a movie in five seconds rather than the current three hours or so.
Additionally, the grid is being made available to dozens of other academic researchers including astronomers and molecular biologists.
It has already been used to help design new drugs against malaria, the mosquito-borne disease that kills 1m people worldwide each year. Researchers used the grid to analyse 140m compounds—a task that would have taken a standard Internet-linked PC 420 years.
Projects like the grid will bring huge changes in business and society as well as science, Doyle said.
Holographic video conferencing is not that far away. Online gaming could evolve to include many thousands of people, and social networking could become the main way we communicate.
The history of the Internet shows you cannot predict its real impacts but we know they will be huge.
And to think that your old prez is still on dial-up!!! BUT methinks that DSL is in the near future, but on the other hand, I have more thrown in my path than I could read in 10 years and then have a build-up of material that would take 25 years to read, but on the other hand maybe I don't need to read and know about all that is available. After all my mental capacity is just so big; thus I'll have to put together other metal capacities (computers) to survive the knowledge explosion. And since I'm an old flatch, I need to concentrate my energies on keeping mind, body, and soul together which takes more time and energy to accomplish.
Enough rambling, we'll see you at the next PCUG meeting remembering
this: Visitors are welcome—Members are expected
.
Your Prez, Floyd L. Miller
Minutes
The March club meeting was called to order at 7:36 PM on 3-03-08 by President Floyd Miller at the UAW Hall. Six members (eventually) and one guest were in attendance.
Lacking the presence of the club secretary at the start of the business meeting, there was no reading of the minutes.
Treasurer Steve Tryc stated there was a balance of $904.14 in the club treasury. This was accepted by club vote, subject to audit.
S. Tryc had talked to the Club Membership Secretary, Roy Ballogg, who was back from Chicago. However, there was no resolution with regard to getting club membership expiration dates for the newsletter.
Program Chairman, Lester Miller, stated that the April meeting presentation would be on Health and the Computer and deal with record keeping, diagnostics, etc. The following meeting would be devoted to further discussions of shopping on line with materials and information he had found recently.
There was no old business.
Under new business it was mentioned that Goodwill locations are accepting computer hardware materials for recycling.
The meeting was adjourned at 8:02 PM.
President Miller and his son-in-law, Mike, then gave a presentation on shopping and selling on eBay.
Respectfully submitted by Rick Snyder, VP, filling in for the club secretary who arrived late.
Treasurer’s Report
Balance Ending 2/15/08
Balance Ending 3/15/08
Steve Tryc, treasurer
Expired & Expiring Memberships
January:
1690 Fowler
March:
1653 Curtis
April:
1477 Ballogg,
1596 Floyd Miller
May:
1683 Snyder
Computer Investing Group
Online Brokers and Research
April 5, Saturday, 2-4 pm; Heatherdowns Public Library, 3265 Glanzman, Toledo, OH. Free, all welcome, no reservation needed.
We will discuss how to select an online broker by looking at commissions, research and navigating the broker’s website and check out online stock research sites. Please share your brokerage experiences and favorite online research sources with all of us. The library has free Wi-Fi if you would like to bring your laptop.
For more information, contact Donna Bardis by e-mail or 419-517-3279.
NWBC Directors' Favorite Stocks
April 14, Monday, 7-8:30 pm, Sanger Branch Library, 3030 W. Central Avenue, Toledo, OH. Cost $15; register by April 7.
Do you check BetterInvesting magazine & web page for the Most Active list and the Top 100 Companies listing for stock ideas? No matter where one might look for stocks, logical thought and analysis are key to producing a profitable investment. We have another great source of ideas for stock studies: Directors’ Favorite Stocks! Come to hear several Directors share their SSGs and analyses.
For more information, contact Marilyn Adams by e-mail or 419-865-6061.
PUT ON YOUR CALENDAR NOW
BI-NWBC Roadshow 2008
May 3, Saturday, 9am-3:30pm, McMaster Center, Toledo Main Library, 325 N. Michigan, Toledo OH. Cost $40 (if three or more register in same envelope, $30 each). Register by April 26. Box lunch included.
The speakers are noted BI educators: Ann Cuneaz, Education Program Manager at BetterInvesting and teacher at many BI conferences, and Ken Kavula, North Central Regional coordinator and driving force behind the BI Regional Conferences held in Michigan for the last three years. Ann's topics are Estimating Earnings using the Preferred Procedure and Warnings and Red Flags not on the Stock Selection Guide. Ken's topics are How to do an Industry Study and Stock Research and Tips on Managing an Investment Club Efficiently.
Three big reasons to attend:
- National quality speakers;
- Close enough not to require an overnight stay; and
- Four topics costing only $40!
For more information, contact Carolyn Nies by e-mail or 419-472-8455.
Annual Meeting and Awards Dinner
June 11, Wednesday, 6-8pm, Highland Meadows Golf Club, 7455 Erie, Sylvania, OH. Cost $28 for the buffet dinner; cash bar. Register by June 4.
Our speaker will be Matthew Faltys, Vice President & Director of Portfolio Management at Fifth Third. You may recognize him from television or radio. His topic will be: Financial Markets—Update, Outlook and Challenges.
Be sure to use the special Annual Dinner registration form and send it to Carolyn Nies, 3622 Philmar Dr., Toledo, OH 43623.
For more information, contact Carolyn Nies by e-mail or 419-472-8455.