Hunterdon Computer Club

Now that that Christmas has passed it is time to catch up on things that didn’t get done, although it is a bit late for the hints from this meeting to help in your shopping.

Our club celebrated the season at our meeting on Saturday, December 17. We had 24 members and one guest, Vasil Hlinka, at our meeting.

As we have in the past, many members brought delicious baked items, candy, and chips to add to our usual bagels and coffee. We all enjoyed those tasty treats and thanks to everyone who brought something and set up and cleaned up afterwards.

Lon gave the group some highlights from the latest issue of PC World. Retrevo.com, http://shop.retrevo.com/ , recommended by PC World is a techie shopper’s gold mine. They sell computers, cell phones, HDTVs, camcorders, digital cameras, and numerous other products. They offer free shipping on everything. Looking for a user manual for consumer electronics? Retrevo offers manuals for over 1,000 brands. Although it may be too late for your Christmas shopping, it is still worth a look.

A member of the group said an article in AARP pointed out a new scam. Thieves copy the identifying information on gift cards for sale in stores, then will periodically call the store to see if the card was activated and what balance is still on the card. With this information, the thief can shop on line and use up the balance on the card without the knowledge of the purchaser or the person gifted with the card. If you purchase a gift card, try to do it from a customer service area where cards are not on view and before purchasing be sure to check to see that the PIN number on the back is not openly visible and has not been tampered with.

It was recommended to disable Microsoft’s automatic updates. Instead, choose custom updates to block updates that are not needed; for example, if you are not using Outlook, you do not need the updates.

Part of the general discussion centered on the different versions of the Kindle, the eReader, and the benefits of the different features. The basic Kindle comes in two versions, the keyboard version and the touch screen version. There is also a Kindle Fire which has many more features than the other Kindles but at a higher price. The Fire is more like a SmartPhone and its main use is not reading books. Before purchasing, determine the purpose you have in mind and how you plan to use it. The reason for the purchase makes all the difference in which item to buy. If it is only to read ebooks, the Kindle Touch is recommended.

It is also possible to purchase Amazon ebooks as gifts for users of the Kindle.  Here is the link, http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_200375750_content?nodeId=200375750#content .  In order to send the ebook gift you will need the receiver’s email address.

The next meeting will be on January 21.

At the club meeting on November 19, Lon Hosford told the group that the Hunterdon Medical Center approved our request for our meetings to be held there on the third Saturday of every month through 2012. In addition, a few Saturday afternoon meetings have also been approved. It is possible a webmaster meeting will be held on one of the special days. Twenty-eight members and one guest attended this meeting.

The December club meeting will be a holiday party to which members can bring food or snacks to share. Also bring canned goods which will be collected and brought to a local food bank.

The topic for the January meeting presentation will be DNA on the Internet and Databases to be presented by Paul Weeks.

In the discussion that followed it was mentioned that Adobe Systems has introduced a cloud service and new design tools to be used on touch screens and tablets. The new tools are primarily intended for artists, photographers and Web developers. All of the tools will be available either alone or in a bundle. For a monthly subscription, you will have access to always up-to-date versions of all of a group of products in the Adobe Creative Suite Master Collection, Touch Apps, and Adobe’s Digital Publishing Suite, in addition to other services. They will also offer stand-alone versions of their products.

Presentation: What Makes a Computer – Hardware and Software – a Virtual Machine – John Warsinski, Presenter

A “virtual machine” is a separate operating system installation which can be set up on your computer through various software programs. This virtual machine will co-exist on your computer with your current operating system. The virtual machine is completely isolated and functions separately from your main operating system. In fact more than one virtual machine can be set up on your computer each using different operating systems and different apps.

Oracle Software has an open source version of virtual machine software called VirtualBox. VirtualBox runs a variety of “guest operating systems” such as Win XP Home, Solaris, Mac OS, Linux, Windows 7, and Vista, but will not run Vista Home. For detailed information about VirtualBox and software downloads, go to https://www.virtualbox.org/ or http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/server-storage/virtualbox/downloads/index.html

You can download the software from either site to your computer and run it. Then press the “New” button to start building the machine. Use the VirtualBox wizard to guide you in specifying the size of the new virtual machine’s hard drive. When you have the virtual machine up and running, install the Extension Pack. In the installation you will need to name the new machine and chose which kind of OS you want to use. You will need to specify how much memory to use from the memory on your computer. It is best to use the default size specified by the installation wizard. When installing the operating system you must use an official MS installation disk.

After the virtual machine is completely installed, it can be used in the same way as any other hard drive with its own applications and data. It will run on the top of your other system. It is completely a software operation separated from your regular hard drive.

The virtual machine is portable by copying and moving it to a different computer. It will save all the information saved on that virtual machine. It does not matter if the OS on the other computer is different, it will work on the hard drive of that computer. You can also access the Internet on virtual machine. In virtual machine you can clone another virtual machine for use for different applications.

Vmware Player is another program that is similar to Virtual Machine to create a new virtual machine on your computer. For more information about this software, go to http://www.vmware.com/products/player/ Vm Player is free, but you need an official copy of the operating system you wish to use to install Vm Player. All programs are working in memory so you must use a computer with lots of memory available.

Thanks, John, for explaining this new way of expanding the use of a computer for separate purposes simply by installing a virtual machine.