On the Web : April 2005

If you enjoy reading 'On the Web', your ham radio club can publish this column on an exchange basis with SJRA. Contact Ted, , for the exchange details.		Our contributions to the South Jersey Radio Association club bulletin "Harmonics" includes lengthy Web addresses. As the URL's can be difficult or a nuisance to type into your Web browser, the postings here should make it easier to get to the Web sites SJRA members are interested in. Look for the posting at w2xq.com at the time "Harmonics" is scheduled for delivery in the south Jersey area. Questions, suggestions or contributions are always welcome.
		Solar X-rays  Geomagnetic Field  N 3 K L

The 2005 Field Day Rules
The SJRA Field Day Site entrance is on Lower Main Street, Marlton, opposite the Indian Springs Golf Course.
GPS (Global Positioning System) coordinates are N 39° 53.162', W 74° 53.486', or if no GPS, use this map.

April's column for Harmonics is abbreviated this month due to medical issues and managing pain medication. It was not conducive to practicing editorial skills. I'm better but priorities have been rearranged...

ARRL Field Day

The countdown clock on the Web edition of this page -- at w2xq.com -- is now under 70 days. A road map link and GPS coordinates for the field day site, if you use these wonderful toys, accompanies the live countdown.

Mozilla's Firefox

If you use Mozilla's Firefox browser and have not recently upgraded the browser, gather up the latest version from mozilla.org to install security updates against the newest viruses.

Extensions are small script programs that plug into the browser and extend its capabilities. Some extensions become features due to their popularity, and some contributors are very creative. After installing the browser, open the Extensions window (Tools/Extensions) and check for updates on any extensions previously installed.

You may like to check and see what other features are "out there" via the "Get New Extensions" link at the bottom of the Extensions window. I have settled on these extensions (plus a few for Web site development) for a well-dressed browser. Chatzilla is an Internet Relay Chat client; I've written about the IRC chat "channels" for amateur radio and SWL in previous columns. Sage is an RSS news feed aggregator. Feedview makes a news feed page easier to read; I can read the xml-formatted pages without stopping to add the feed into Sage. That's great for research when reading a news feed is a one-off activity. AutoCopy does just what it says; no more Ctrl-C when I pick up material from what I'm viewing in the browser window. QuickNote is a tag-along notepad for making notes on things read. Copies Plain Text copies text from Web pages without formatting, great for inserting material into e-mail or word processing documents -- no more removing the hard carriage returns. ForecastFox puts the local weather into the status at the bottom of the browser window; I don't have to waste disk space loading other programs that occupy screen space.

If you look up callsigns on QRZ.com, you can now do so without going to QRZ first. AE7Q has developed a QRZ callsign lookup plugin extension for Mozilla, Firefox and recent versions of Netscape; the link and discussion starts on the home page of qrz.com.

Are you still using Internet Explorer? Err... why?

Quickies

Once upon a time in a galaxy far far away there was a multiple all-in-one search engine. Actually it was pretty interesting and often turned up leads in unusual places, but this search engine and many others disappeared in the Google onslaught. Now "All 4 One MetaSearch" has returned. The URL is all4one.searchallinone.com and it may be worthwhile to keep in your search engine link collection when you can't find what you are looking.

If you came to amateur radio via shortwave listening, or you now listen to the British Broadcasting Corporation when HF operation is boring, you probably have heard the Beeb air or promote the radio play version of Douglas Adams' "The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy" at one time or another. Arthur Dent is yanked from this planet by his friend just before the Earth is blown up in clearing the way for a galatic freeway. Everything Arthur needs to know to survive his travels is in the book, and I have seen copies of the book at Barnes & Noble in Mount Laurel. A long-awaited movie opens on April 29, and it looks like a hoot at hitchhikersmovie.com. H2G2 has a huge fan base; drop the word "hitchiker" into a search engine and have fun.

I have a request for anyone with technical expertise on the Palm handheld devices. On a T3, a sync wiped out the calender data on the Mac and truncated it on the T3. A backup program on the T3 had all the data for the calendar, but whenever I now try to sync i get an error message on the Palm when it gets to working on the calendar:
Fatal Alert
DataMgr.c,Line:7399,DmWrite:DmWriteCheck failed
[RESET]
... and anything to be done after the calendar never gets processed. The Mac indicates a corrupted calendar record. I've tried a bunch of workarounds. If you can help, I would appreciate it.

Infinity Broadcasting, owners of KYW-1060, WCBS-880 and 10 other all-news stations around the USA now stream the audio of all stations on the Web. If you don't like sifting through the Web pages and popup windows, I have the direct audio links on our "Audio and Video Streams on the Net" page at trsc.com/audiovisual.html. It is a great way to pick up on local news, sports and weather as it happens in some of the larger cities.

Club Bulletin Exchange

Ted, W2TAG, is interested in doing a club bulletin exchange that would include "On The Web." If you have a friend in a ham radio club elsewhere in the USA, Canada or the world involved in a local radio club, please consider asking that person to read the this column on w2xq.com. Club bulletin exchange details with SJRA can be made by contacting directly. Thanks!

Do you want to ask a question or comment on something in these columns? I'm easy enough to find as mentioned in past months' columns. Don't forget that the current and past columns are posted at w2xq.com for your reading and review. The advantage? The Web links are live. You do not have to type in the URLs.

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Revised 15 April 2005

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