President's Message

July, 2007 (v1.4)
Rob Limbaugh - President

Last month, I thought summer was around the corner. Now, we're moving into July. Is summer here yet? It's been hard to tell. One thing I've noticed is that all the 'Global Warming' news seemed to stop when the thermometers quit rising. Of course, that was around the same time we were told how much Al Gore spends on his utility bills in a house for two. Are these related? No matter… I still think mowing grass beats shoveling snow!

Please wait...
During the time I had my machine out on the floor waiting for the cards to arrive, I decided to go through and clean up some cabling. Since my last doing this, I've added another monitor, a new location to fix systems, and a Mac.

The first item to tackle was my video issue. My secondary display is connected to a Keyboard-Video-Mouse (KVM) switching device. This display had been plagued by a minor blurring of pixels caused by a video extension cable that didn't have adequate shielding. Replacing the cord fixed that problem.

My Mac G3 is connected via the KVM to my secondary monitor. I preferred to have something better than the built-in speaker for sound, so I spun an audio extension cord across my desk to the repair area speakers. It made no sense to leave the cord out like that. My Mac's audio output now feeds into one of the auxiliary inputs on my main workstation. One cord out of the way!

Finally, it was time to clean up my system repair area. The 'silly string' of KVM, network and audio cords to reach whatever machine was 'on deck' needed to go. Those cords, as well as the second set of speakers needed to go. A power bar and spare router were installed on the wall for easy-to-reach power and network connections.

Let there be pixels!
My replacement video cards arrived shortly after last month's newsletter went to press. A reboot was necessary for the old drivers to finish setting back up, and all was well. Naturally, I proceeded to install the newest software and video support applications. That was a mistake!

The new ATI software installs "Eazylook" and "Eazyshare". These apps are used to stream video and pausing 'live TV'. I removed everything and then installed just the raw video drivers. The Catalyst 8.6 install CD from a previous ATI capture card gave me the basic TV application without the overhead.

A friendly reminder…
Our July General Meeting will be held July 10th at the Danbury Hospital. Our new meeting format is as follows:

6:30pm - 7:00pm = Casual Networking
7:00pm - 7:15pm = What's News
7:15pm - 7:40pm = Ask DACS
7:40pm - 7:50pm = Announcements
7:50pm - 8:00pm = Break
8:00pm - 9:30pm = Featured Presentation

Making it easy...
Keep in mind that you can now join DACS or renew your membership on-line using PayPal.

Well, that's all for now. It's a nice day out and time to go make the most of it!

ROB LIMBAUGH
relimbaugh@dacs.org

 

 



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