Specifications

Orange County IBM PC Users’ Group
April 2004
4
What’s new…
Contax SL300R T*: Beginning of the End
of Shutter Lag?
Kyocera’s RTUNE technology
provides amazing performance in a
digital camera that fits easily in your shirt
pocket. Is this the beginning of the end
for shutter lag? Derrick Story examines
the Contax SL300R T* and shows you
how the bar has been raised for pocket
digicams. http://tinyurl.com/ywvr6
Instructions to Set Up a Virtual Private Network
What to do if you want to
securely access your network when
you’re out of the office? The
quickest and safest way is to set up a
VPN. Wei-Meng Lee shows you
how. http://tinyurl.com/3czam
Adobe Photoshop CS Book and Video CD
Teaches One-on-One
“Adobe Photoshop CS One-on-One”
clears the fog, taking you from
graphics newbie to Photoshop warrior.
This full-color book from Photoshop
master Deke McClelland includes a
CD with nearly two hours of
professionally produced video tutorials
that feature Deke and relate to the
book’s written instructions, giving you
an up-close and personal training
experience that simulates the
classroom environment. You’ll travel
step by step through real-world
projects that help you gain Photoshop
proficiency, and along the way, you’ll
get a good dose of graphics theory,
best practices, and tips for avoiding
Photoshop disasters. Publisher: O’Reilly ISBN: 0596006187 http://
www.oreilly.com/catalog/adobephoto/
The Contax SL300R T* with SanDisk
Ultra II high speed SD memory card.
If any members of your group have
PC hardware annoyances they’d like
to see solved, have them email me
([e-mail]) with “PC
Hardware Annoyances” in the subject.
Just have them note what hardware is
giving them grief (e.g. Dell Dimension
8100 with 1.3GHz P4; LaserJet 3150;
Verbatim Producer 44 DVD+/-RW;
etc.), and any relevant software that’s
involved (such as the OS, a driver,
OCR software, etc.).
As thanks for sharing, we’ll make
sure to get copies of “PC Hardware
Annoyances” sent to your group
shortly after publication.
Marsee Henon
O’Reilly User Group Coordinator
(See a hardware annoyance
example from Marsee below. —LG)
Hardware Windows
Setting Blocks DVD
Upgrade
THE ANNOYANCE: I want to
update the firmware for my Sony
DRX510UL DVD burner, and the site
said to disable the DMA setting in
Windows XP before doing so. But it
neglects to tell you how.
THE FIX: The Sony drive is
terrificit burns DVD+R and DVD-R
discs, and uses both DVD-RW and
DVD+RW rewritable media. But ask
Sony for support, and it responds with
a virtual raspberry—its online instruc-
tions are complex and often impossible
to understand. Luckily, fiddling with
DMA isn’t difficult. Here’s how to
turn it off:
Windows XP/2000. Open the
System control panel, choose the
Hardware tab, and click the Device
Manager button. Double-click “IDE
ATA/ATAPI controllers” and double-
click “Secondary IDE Channel” (your
DVD drive is most likely located on
the secondary channel; if not, choose
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Letters…
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