The Computer Club Newsletter

June 2003

By Ron Uncapher

At the last meeting of the Tellico Village Computer Users Club, the membership voted to change the format of the July and August meetings. The formal presentation portion of the meeting will be suspended for the summer months. Instead, the meeting will begin at 6:30 PM with a question and answer session. It will last as long as there are questions to be answered or 8:45 PM whichever comes first. The reason behind the change is that many members are out of town and may not want to miss some good presentations. Also, it is difficult to schedule speakers during this heavy travel period. Therefore, bring your questions to the meeting, or email them to one of the club officers.

The club voted for the 2003/4 slate of officers. The slate presented to the members consisted of all of the current officers. Nominations were solicited from the floor. There being none, a show of hands unanimously re-elected your current officers. While the current officers are happy to serve, they ask members to contribute some time to the club so that we can avail the membership of more features, such as SIGs, educational classes, a newsletter, and more. Please show your support and help out. The more help we get the more features we can support.

The following suggestion comes from Morry Smith. Morry put me on to a service called "Slingshot". Slingshot is a prepaid Internet access service that can be used anywhere in the country through either a local access number or a nationwide toll free number. When you dial into the service, it acts as your ISP. You can surf the web as you would with any other Internet Provider. Prices are $10 for 600 minutes of local access or 120 minutes on the nationwide number. For example, there are over 44 local numbers in Michigan alone.

Slingshot is of value primarily if you travel with a laptop and/or do not have access to a computer with a connection to the Internet while traveling. Most, if not all, public libraries offer free connection to the Internet as does ours here in the village.

To avail yourself of the service, purchase a CD that includes the operating software and 600 minutes for $10 or get a free trial offer by downloading the software from the Internet. Additional minutes are available at retailers or online. Currently the only retailer is Pilot Truck Stops, however, the company was recently sold to Global Communications Services, Inc. out of Phoenix, AZ. GCS plans to have retail outlets at over 4000 sites including CompUSA by the end of the month. I haven’t checked CompUSA, but the Pilot Truck Stop in Knoxville has access cards. That Pilot store does not have the CDs, which are backordered.

Get the complete dope by accessing the Slingshot Website at www.slingshot.com. The site has all the information you will need to get started.

Why would a Villager want a service such as this?

Many Villagers have switched to Charter Pipeline but keep their old ISP, such as AOL, so that they can access their email from their laptop while traveling. Slingshot would be your temporary ISP. Access your Charter email instead of maintaining your email address with AOL and avoid the cost of maintaining another ISP.

In case you did not know, you can access your Charter email from the web. Once logged on to the web, whether from a friends computer, or Slingshot, or AOL, just just aim your browser to www.charter.com, Customer Help Center, Check My Email. Select your account from either Charter or Chartertn, and then enter your ID and password. You can read and send email from your browser. Your mail remains in your account so that you can download at home, or you can delete the messages from your browser. I did just that from my brother’s computer in Ohio this past week. If you do not have a backup ISP, try Slingshot.

If any of you subscribe to SmartComputing you may have read this MS Internet Explorer tip. For those who want to minimize typing a URL, such as www.slingshot.com, simply type slingshot into the URL address window and press the CNTRL+ENTER keys. Internet Explorer adds http://www. at the beginning and .com at the end, then searches for the site. There are many key combinations that minimize typing and mouse clicking. In most applications, look under HELP and type KEYBOARD or SHORTCUTS in the Index Keyword box.

Please forgive my error last month. I erroneously gave the TVCUC Website address as www.tvcuc.com. Of course, it is www.tvcuc.org. Please check it out.

Finally, have you updated your anti virus software this week? If not, do it now! There is a new version of the pesky BUGBEAR virus going around called W32.Bugbear.B@mm. It sounds like it will be a worse menace than the KLEZWORM. To stay up to date with current viruses and their degree of threat go to http://www.symantec.com/ and click on Latest Threats.