Hotkey North Shore
Internet
There are many wonderful options available to you as you browse the
World Wide Web.
For example, as you now read, you are using only the text
feature of the Web. If you only have an old monochrome screen,
too bad - this text is yellow against a deep green background. But even
with that level of equipment you can chat to other Web users throughout
the world - just call up the Chat applet
on your computer, or download one (eg, from www.microsoft.com which is
free), and you can join in live, typed conversations with one or more persons.
There are forums available for every different interest under the sun -
if you can't find yours, you start one! Ask Vince
or Mary of Hotkey North Shore about this - they'll be happy to get you
started!
The two timber bars on this page will appear more or less realistic
depending on how good the Video Accelerator Card
is in your computer. A reasonable video accelerator will change washed-out,
grainy images on your screen into photographic quality pictures. A suitable
video accelerator will allow your computer to produce image models in 3D
- three dimensional images complete with shadows, highlights and so forth
that can be rotated at will to view from any angle. Naturally, the power
and quality of the video accelerator card will be reflected in its price,
and it is important ot buy a card suitable for your machine - for example,
don't buy a $500 card in an attempt to upgrade a $50 computer. Video accelerator
cards take the work of generating the graphics away form the computer's
CPU (Central Processing Unit) and performs the work using its own processor,
thereby speeding your computer up. Video accelerator cards cost from about
$150 up - I use a Matrox Milleniun 4 Mb card which cost - from memory -
$350. Again, ask Vince or Mary of Hotkey North Shore
for advice - they will also negotiate purchase of these and other computer
options on your behalf, which both provides you with expert advice and
also gets you as good a discount price as possible!
Right mouse button click here
Many websites have sound incorporated - if you have a Sound
Card in your computer you should be hearing music - if you have
a sound card but hear no music, check that your speakers are plugged in
and that your volume controls are not muted or set too low. Or check the
batteries in your hearing aid. With a sound card, you can download one
of the many free Net Telephone programs which allow you to talk to other
Net Phone users throughout the world - and it's all free! There are two
main ranges of sound card available - 16-bit and 32-bit. The `bit sizes'
refer to the bandwidth capacity of the processor (how many bits the CPU
can chew on at any one time) and software; for example, Windows 3.x was
limited to 16-bit, Win95 and its ilk all are 32-bit capable - providing
your CPU is! The difference to you is that a 16-bit card is limited to
one way at a time sound so you have to use that sound system like a walkie-talkie
radio - fine if you don't mind sprinkling lots of `over's and `out's into
your conversation. The 32-bit card allows telephone style conversation
- you can, in effect, both talk at the same time (a phenomenon often observed
in certain sorts of `conversationalists'; why bother with the technology
if you are not going to listen to the other party - in fact, why bother
with the `conversation' at all?) However, among the mysterious ways the
Internet gads about its wonders to perform - the way it transmits data
in either direction involves making packets of the digital data involved,
calculating a `check digit' that it tags on the end of each packet, pushing
each packet down the line to the other end and checking at that end that
the check digit is OK. If it is, honkey-dorey; if not, the receiving end
sends a `Hoy!' back up the line and gets the offending packet re-sent;
this is repeated until all of the packets (say, for a typically four-second
cache of sound) received check out OK, at which time the sound is generated
at the receiving end. Pardon the long explanation, but you will notice
distinct delays between your question and your friend's reply, and vice
versa, due to this process. Depending on how goo the phone lines are that
day, the voice-lags will be shorter or longer. But you will receive the
whole sound message - that's what the system is made to ensure. Sound cards
are pretty inexpensive these days - a basic SoundBlaster retails at under
$100. Again, ask Vince or Mary of Hotkey North Shore
for advice - they will also negotiate purchase of these and other computer
options on your behalf, which both provides you with expert advice and
also gets you as good a discount price as possible!
Another option becoming increasingly popular is video,
which is incorporated into many of the Net phone systems, enabling two
or more participants to see each other as they talk together on the Internet
or - as in many corporations today - on an internal intranet. My favourite
software for this is Microsoft's NetMeeting - again, a free download -
which is extremely simple and effective to use. There are two ways to access
video on your computer: the simplest and most direct is to buy a minicam
which simply sits on your monitor facing you and plugs into the keyboard
socket, with the keyboard piggy-backed onto it. It needs no internal cards
or special software other than NetMeeting or suchlike, and the cameras
are priced about $150 for B&W and about $275 for colour. (Please don't
hold me to those prices; with the current sad condition of our currency
vis-á-viz any other except perhaps Patagonian conch
shells, we must expect that prices will vary quite a bit over the next
few months.) The second option here - and the one I recommend - is the
installation of a video capture card
in your computer. This card - not to be confused with the video accelerator
card which has an entirely different function - allows you to plug your
video camera into it and to view - or record as files on your hard disc
- either live images or images from your video tape recorder. This setup
is equally simple to use in NetMeeting, but gives a far better quality
image. It is also a very effective means of using your video cam-corder
to generate high-quality still photographs and movies on your computer.
(For examples, visit http://www.mpx.com.au/~hugho/Flora1.htm
) The Buster PCI multimedia card that I use accepts input via co-axial
cable or S-video cable, and handles 32-bit colour, with up to 1600 x 1200
resolution, in PAL and NTSC. It also takes in over 180 TV channels which
you can watch in windows on you monitor as you are pretending to `work',
so it's not a bad item to get your boss to buy for you coming up to the
cricket season. Buster costs about $450, I think. Again,
ask Vince or Mary of Hotkey North Shore for advice - they will also negotiate
purchase of these and other computer options on your behalf, which both
provides you with expert advice and also gets you as good a discount price
as possible!
* * *
There are every day more and more options that can make your access to
the Internet more varied, richer, more exciting - the difficulty I find
is getting myself off the net to perform useful, paid work so that I can
continue to eat and stay housed - in fact, to stay alive. A condition I
frequently doubt about myself. A sad excuse for a life, I know, but there
you have it. I was born too early to have been a computer nerd in my youth,
so I'm catching up with it all now. This arrangement has the definite -
if only - advantage that at my age I don't have pimples, which are normally
considered essential for your typical computer nerd. And one day - one
day, one day - I'm going to discover - girls! There
is no need to ask Vince or Mary about this.
If you would like to investigate any of the options described above,
I suggest that you look into a few of the personal computing magazines
and the newer Internet magazines in your library, to get an idea of the
hardware available. (Mostly they don't tell you prices, guess why?) Please
do your basic research before you approach Vince and Mary of
Hotkey North Shore, who will help you with your selection, pricing and
purchase. Or, to place a firm order, use the email hotkey below to send
Hotkey North Shore your order along with your credit card authorization;
or, you can phone it in and get your advice at the same time.
The phone and fax and mobile numbers of Vince and Mary O'Connor of Hotkey
North Shore are -
BH: 02 9487
6513
Fax: 02 9487
6523
Mobile: 018 172 935
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Contact me -
Vincent O'Connor
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