Ask DACS Moderated and reported by Jim Scheef. Q – I have version 6 of Adobe Photoshop Elements? It was released about 5 years ago and is intended for Windows XP. Can I install this version on Windows 7? A – The consensus was that it should work, but Richard suggested checking the Windows 7 Compatibility Center (tinyurl.com/yhs5gab) which does list Elements, but not this exact version. D – Could the software be installed and run using the “XP Mode” build into Windows 7? A – Short answer is “yes.” XP Mode is a virtual machine installable only on Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate. The Win7 Home Premium version will not work. Installation requires a couple of downloads. Running XP Mode, like any virtual machine, requires a machine, a processor, with hardware-assisted virtualization (HAV) and plenty of RAM (3G recommended minimum). Once installed, the result is the familiar XP desktop running in a window on your computer (the host machine). During the installation, a separate virtual hard drive is created for the virtual machine where XP and any software are installed. The XP Mode machine can access the host machine hard drive via the network just like any other computer provided disk sharing is set up. A member asked if the XP Mode machine can use software already installed on the host computer. No, any software run by the XP Mode machine must be installed (or reinstalled) directly on XP. The XP Mode can use the host machine’s DVD drive for software installation. Q – A follow up from the original question concerns upgrading Adobe Flash on Vista 64-bit. A – Firefox and Internet Explorer use Flash in different ways and require separate installations. It is easiest if you run each browser in turn and install Flash for each browser. The Adobe website should detect the browser in use and offer the correct install program. Q – A member is looking for a program to manage investments. He wants it to include tools for stocks, options, futures, forex (foreign currency exchange market – I had to look it up), etc. A – Rob suggested osalt.com, a website for open source alternative software. There I found personal and business accounting software, but nothing for investments beyond tracking personal portfolios. A Yahoo search for “free investing software” led to www.stock-market-investing.com/free_software.html which offers some tools. Clicking a link for “Trading Systems” produced some possible programs of the type described in the question. While some of the software may be free to install, they require subscribing to service for a monthly fee. The program that I mentioned based on the incessant ads on CNBC is Trade Station (tradestation.com) which is billed as “A Total Trading Solution for Active Traders”. It allows “rule-based trading” and is “free” with a brokerage account that meets “minimum criteria”. Richard mentioned a company called Chaikin Power Tools (chaikinpowertools.com) which offers, among other things, an iPhone app that “simplifies your Buy-Sell decision by distilling diverse and complex financial information into intuitive green/red displays”. A last suggestion was to search for “investor clubs” and look for forums where such people hang out. Until a few years ago, DACS had an active investing SIG. We would welcome anyone interesting in reforming the group. Q – Is there an index somewhere that lists all available software? A – Such an index could never be up to date, although your favorite search engine would be as close as I could imagine. One place among many to look for software is the download section of CNET (download.cnet.com). Another member mentioned Version Tracker, a shareware (not free) program that scans your computer for newer versions of software and drivers. Q – I have frequent and increasing problems with USB devices. They are often not recognized on one port and then work fine when plugged into another port. D – Everyone has USB experiences to share which I will try to summarize. First, not all USB (universal serial bus) ports are created equal. While USB is a standard, it is a very flexible one that allows for all sorts of devices, from the lowly mouse to storage devices of all manners (some not yet invented when USB was first introduced) to “intelligent” devices like printers and scanners. The root of the “not equal” problem stems from the way USB hubs can be attached to each other to branch one port into many. For example, most desktop computers, despite the name, live on the floor next to or beneath a desk making access to the ports inconvenient. So, most people buy a USB hub that can sit on the desk while connected to a port on the computer. Now there are four, six or even more ports handy to plug in a camera or a thumb drive. Now it’s convenient to plug in several devices. The problem is that in reality, all of those devices are sharing the single port on the computer and thus must share the bandwidth and interrupts of that one port. Compounding this problem is the fact that on most desktop machines, pairs of ports are connected to a single root hub.Thus two high-bandwidth devices, like a network adapter, scanner, color printer or a hard drive can cause problems if connected to two ports on the same root hub. Here is a screen grab from my laptop of Device Manager showing the USB hubs and controllers on this computer. Here in my office, this machine is connected to a docking station that adds four USB ports along with video, keyboard, etc., so the list of USB stuff is long. Some are “ghosts” – devices with installed drivers but the device is not connected. Even more unfortunate is that there does not appear to be any way to tie a device in the list to a physical port other than when you see something obvious like camera or scanner. The base drivers for such devices are listed elsewhere in Device Manager. The discussion at the meeting centered mostly on how USB most peripheral devices draw power from the USB port. This is a fantastic convenience in that it eliminates the need to plug in a special wall wart and run a wire to the device to provide power. Unfortunately this is another “not created equal” situation as not all ports provide the full power specified in the USB specification. Devices like portable hard drives often need more power than is available. The result can destroy the USB hub built into the computer system board. Just like the bandwidth problem above, a non-powered or passive accessory hub can make the problem worse. If you purchase a USB hub for your desk, make sure it comes with a wall wart to provide power to the devices you plug into the hub. An underpowered device can cause problems in ways not obviously related to power. One member even mentioned a special cable with two plugs on the computer end and one for the device so the device could draw power from two ports on the computer. Once again, try not to plug both plugs into the same root hub. For further reading, I direct you to the Wikipedia entry for USB at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Serial_Bus and the many links you find there for specific USB devices. Questions for the upcoming meeting can be emailed to askdacs@dacs.org. Disclaimer: Ask DACS questions come from members by email or from the audience attending the general meeting. Answers are suggestions offered by meeting attendees and represent a consensus of those responding. DACS offers no warrantee as to the correctness of the answers and anyone following these suggestions or answers does so at their own risk. In other words, we could be totally wrong!
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