Seven people this month - a lucky number in many ways. Back with the group was both Steve Cerruti and Jerry Popky, both of whom had had some serious medical issues. Welcome back! Also a big thanks to Gerry for bringing some great scones!

  Office.net
To start things off, we took a look at theOffice.net suite which was to be the upcoming Disc of the Month (note the spelling of Disc: this is one massive program collection - over 50MB - so it is a CD-ROM DOM). The suite includes a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation manager, and drawing program. It can read and write Microsoft Office file formats as well as it's own, XML based native format. We focused on the word processing and spreadsheet programs and examined compatibility with MS Word and Excel (quite good). Office.net is the free version of the commercial StarOffice office suite distributed by Sun.

Web development resources 
This site contains tech manual reviews as well as a slew of web development links. Good site to bookmark if you do any sort of HTML editing. From the Client Services Department of the University of North Carolina.

Nevermet.exe
This is a helper application for the web publisher. It uses a question-and-answer format to help you create meta-tags for your web pages. The only catch is it seems to have disappeared from the web, so maybe it is now a PCUGR exclusive. Originally if was from Vincent Flanders, the creator of Web Pages That Suck.

Web Graphics Optimizer
Web Graphics Optimizer is a $39 shareware utility to assist at setting the JPEG compression level to help select the best image versus size. It presents a nice visual display of the original side-by-side with the changed image.

Coffee Cup StyleSheet Maker++
This is a little utility to assist in creating cascading style sheets (CSS) for web pages. A major benefit of style sheets is that they separate format from content and greatly simplify format maintenance. This was demonstrated by showing a CSS modified version of one of the Shareware SIG web pages and making changes to the styles with the aid of the program. $30 Shareware from Coffee Cup Software. 

Say The Time
Say The Time is a nice tray replacement for the Windows standard time/date display. The main feature is the application speaks the time at specified intervals (e.g., every 15 min - a male or female voice can be chosen). One can also use this clock program as an appointment or reminder alarm. An expanded tool tip when the tray time is pointed to includes not only the date but upcoming reminders and even moon phases. The tray display is also customizable for a more colorful look. Finally, a really nice feature is the built in synchronization capability with atomic clock time servers out on the web. $20 shareware from Provenio Software.

Popup Stopper
Popup Stopper is a well regarded program for suppressing popup windows and ads while surfing. Members of our SIG have been using this with good effect although we did find some examples that foiled the program. (Interestingly, the popup stopping function of Mozilla seemed to work well in these cases.) We examined the free version but there are a couple of commercial versions ($20 and$40) as well which do not have certain limitations - e.g., the free versions occasional need to use a Ctrl click to access links - and adds other features such as cookie cleaning. From Panicware.

Resume Scorecard
This is a MS Word doc with a set of "behavioral" interview questions. The purpose is so you can prepare ahead of time for these types of questions. The template is provided by ResumeScorecard which provides assistance in preparing resumes and cover letters. 

XP Upgrade Advisor
The Windows XP Upgrade Advisor provides information about potential problems your computer may experience if you upgrade to Windows XP. The Windows XP Upgrade Advisor checks the system peripherals and programs and generates a list of items that may not function correctly with Windows XP. Output can be as a text file or as a web (HTML) page. The results of checking the club computer were discussed. 

Thanks to everyone who joined our meeting and to Gerry for the great scones. Thanks, as always, to Bernie Stepan, too, for the meeting room, Internet connection and coffee supplies at RE/MAX Marina, Petaluma. Click on the RE/MAX balloon icon below for more information about the real estate services available from RE/MAX Marina in Petaluma!

RE/MAX Marina
775 Baywood Dr. #100
Petaluma, CA
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October 27, 2002
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