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HelpNet News No. 1, November 2000 As promised, this is the first issue of a planned monthly E-mail newsletter to HelpNet members. Each issue will provide an overview of current issues in HelpNet (or at least the ones that seem noteworthy to me). We can have further discussion of these questions, or any other questions related to computers and information technology, at our monthly HelpNet get-togethers. I plan to put an HTML version of this newsletter on the Web site, as soon as I have time. This is an experiment - please let me know if there are ways to improve the content and format of this newsletter. ********NEXT HELPNET MEETING******** WHEN: 5:30 - 7:00,
Thursday November 16 ******************************** IN THIS ISSUE:
******************************** SECURITY PART 1: PROTECTING YOUR COMPUTER Protecting our own
hardware and data against outside threats continues to be a widespread
concern. There was discussion on the Helpnet list about a genuine virus/worm
which had infected a member's computer, and about several virus hoaxes.
The virus is the "lifestages.txt" virus, which sends what appears
to be a text E-mail attachment which is actually a virus program. For
more about this, see Mary Kellogg's message to the list: The virus hoaxes people asked about were the "Let's Watch TV," "Cellsaver," "SandMan," and "Win a Holiday" hoaxes. I confirmed they were hoaxes by looking them up in the Symantec Antivirus Research Center's on-line Encyclopedia of viruses and hoaxes. I've tried to outline the basics of protecting yourself against viruses, and how to tell virus fact from virus fiction, in HelpNet's "Answer Pages." If anyone has suggestions about how to improve this section of the Web site, please let me know. SECURITY PART 2: CONFIDENTIALITY OF OUR PERSONAL INFORMATION Paul Schroeder kicked off a flurry of messages when he posted his concerns about Shaw's Supermarkets' new Reward Card program, which everyone with a Shaw's check-cashing card is being switched over to. If I understand it right, Shaw's will be able to track every purchase of Reward Card users, and combine this with personal information about them. The resulting database is of great value to vendors and advertisers. Not only is Shop and Save not starting this type of program, but they are going to great lengths to distance themselves from this approach to marketing. This whole area interests me for several reasons:
I hope we get a chance to talk about this next week. Paul set off another exchange of messages when he pointed out the Virtual Voter site, one of number of similar Web sites which sprang up in the closing months of the Presidential campaign. All of them tried to meet the concerns of voters who in their hearts wanted to be recorded in support of Nader, but who were worried that a vote for Nader might help elect Bush. One approach several sites took was "vote-swapping," where people from states where Gore and Bush were neck and neck were encouraged to pair their votes with people from states where one candidate had a commanding lead. I don't want to start a debate on this list about whether this approach was legal, ethical, proper, fattening, or otherwise a good or bad idea in this election. What interests me from the HelpNet perspective is the question of the different ways in which Internet communications may be changing our political participation. Anybody else thinking about this? A regular question is: “Someone has sent me a file as an E-mail attachment, but I can’t open it. What do I do?” Most often, the problem is caused by a file type that the user’s computer doesn’t know how to handle. There are a bewildering variety of file formats, for both PC’s and Macs. While some formats are standard across all systems, you can pretty much expect problems when going from PC to Mac or vice versa, and also between PCs if the format of the file is tied to a specific program. For instance, if this newsletter were a Microsoft Word 2000 document (say, “NEWSLETTER.DOC”), People would only be able to read it if they had MS Word 200, Word 97, or some way of converting the file into a format that their own word processing program could handle. (There are various file converters available, both free and pricey. If people are interested in them we could try to gather some more information about them.) Sometimes it is necessary to preserve a particular file type – for instance, if you have extensive formatting in a MS Word document that you need to save. But in most cases it is preferable to take a “least common denominator” approach, sending the information in a file format that is accessible to as many people as possible. Here’s a couple of suggestions: (1) For text documents, convert them to a “text-only” format. If you’re in a Windows program, choose “File --> Save As --> Text Only (*.txt)”. If you’re sending the document by E-mail, next cut and paste the text file contents into the body of the E-mail message, instead of sending it as an attachment. That’s how I’ve created this newsletter -- it’s not particularly pretty, but anyone with E-mail should be able to read it. (2) If you have formatting you need to keep that would be lost in a text-only file, see if there is a file format that more people can open. For instance, use RTF (Rich Text Format)instead of a Word Document (*.doc), or if you have Word 97 or 2000, try saving as Word 6.0. This way users of Word 6.0 and Word 95 will also be able to open the file. (3) Web page files (.htm, .html) can be opened by anyone with a Web browser, whether Mac or PC. So can files in the most common Web graphics formats: GIF (*.gif) and JPEG (*.jpg, *.jpeg). (4) Portable Document Format (*.pdf) files also work for Mac and Windows machines. They require the Adobe Acrobat Reader program to be installed on the user’s computer. It’s free and widely distributed , but not everyone has it. I’ve been working with the Forest Society of Maine, as they have moved over the past months from 2 independent computers to a 4-computer Windows peer network, sharing printers and a dial-up Internet connection. (A “peer network” is one in which there is no central server computer(s) – all the computers are equal. It is very basic form of small network.) I’ve been learning a lot, as we work through various software and hardware challenges and glitches, to get computers running Windows 95, 98 and 2000 to play nicely together (my first experience with Windows 2000). As the network gets set up, FSM staff are taking over more and more of the routine maintenance and troubleshooting. Right now we’re working on putting together a simple, inexpensive, and reliable backup system for both data and program files. (I’m having a little trouble combining all 3 of those things – simple, reliable, inexpensive but we’re getting there.) I’ll share whatever we come up with on the folkschool-list. I’m also working with Karen Saum’s project to provide computers to low-income families in the Bucksport area. They now have their own E-mail list, and we had a great meeting this week at Bucksport HS. Here one of the questions Karen and I have been puzzling over is how to provide tech support to families scattered through rural Hancock County. Some things are being done by phone and E-mail, but what happens when someone with more knowledge than the users have needs to put their hands on a machine to fix it? What is the best way to keep people up and running, and keep building their skills? Again, I hope we can share whatever we learn. That’s all for this first issue. Hope you find it worthwhile!
HelpNet is a project of Pine Tree Folk School, and is co-sponsored by Bairnet (the Bangor Area Information Resources Network) and by the Peace and Justice Center of Eastern Maine.
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