Corrections or additions?
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8, 2001 edition of U.S. 1 Newspaper. All rights reserved.
Revving Up Old Computers
It turns out that size matters quite a bit, much more
than speed. At least that is the case where computers are concerned.
Boosting your PC’s capacity can give you the fun of a whole new
machine
— for a fraction of the price. The PC Users Group will show you
how to make the transformation happen when it meets on Monday, August
13, at 7 p.m. at the Lawrence Public Library on Route 1 South. Call
908-281-3107.
Paul Kurivchack has been president of the PC Users Group, which
was founded 16 years ago, for six years. A graduate of the College
of New Jersey, Class of 1974, when the school was called Trenton
State,
Kurivchack majored in electronics technology. He spent his first two
years of college at Middlesex Community College, where he met his
first computer. The machine, roughly the size of a bread box, used
a paper tape. Programming was done via “very basic Fortran.”
Drawn to computing nearly 30 years ago, Kurivchack went into high
tech sales. His jobs included one where he sold large computer-based
control systems for refineries. The jobs, always involving high tech,
also involved lots of travel. With two children at home, Kurivchack
traded in flight time for a commuter ticket from his home in Raritan
to Manhattan, where he is a senior help desk specialist at MTV. He
unravels computer problems for employees at the MTV Network, Showtime,
Nickelodeon, and other Viacom divisions. This is how he summarizes
his work: “In the imperfect world of PCs, we just try to make
people happy.”
Two people his job makes very happy are his teen-age daughters, for
whom he has wrangled tickets to MTV in-studio concerts, including
one by N’SNYC, at which his younger daughter ended up sitting next
to one member of the group.
Asked how many PCs he has in his house, Kurivchack has to stop and
think. “Three up and running,” he says after taking a mental
inventory, “one laptop, and two in pieces.” Someone for whom
the thrill of computing is not dead, Kurivchack has tied the computers
together via a home network, and maintains a “hobby” business,
Krieffs Graphics, through which he builds the machines from scratch.
Only the third person to head up the Princeton PC Users Group,
Kurivchack
jokes that he is president “by default. No one wants the job.”
Kurivchack is just half kidding. Volunteerism among busy suburbanites
is dying, he says. Adding to the challenge in computer users’ clubs
is a big drop in the “cool” factor. “Computers are like
toasters now,” he says. “Five, six years ago, we had 130
members.
Now it’s 90.”
The average age of the group’s members “has got to be 60,”
says Kurivchack. He points out that the two groups most interested
in computers are children, who value them as game-playing vehicles,
and seniors, who use the machines to communicate with friends and
family. Working at wiring his 70-something mother, Kurivchack says
computers are perfect for retired people, allowing them to stay in
touch with far-flung family and friends and ameliorate any sense of
isolation that can come with a move out of the workforce.
The age group that lies between Nintendo and shuffleboard has less
reason to fire up the home PC, says Kurivchack. But that may be
changing.
Relatively new computer utilities, including putting together digital
photo albums, taking web cam shots of the baby, and downloading music
— and even full length movies — is stirring up interest. These
activities are space hogs, however, calling for lots of memory and
hard drive space, more than computers purchased as recently as 15
or 18 months ago can deliver. Kurivchack says the problem can be
remedied
fairly easily. Most — but not all — core PC elements can be
replaced with more powerful parts. Here are Kurivchack’s guidelines
for turning an older PC into a machine capable of handling early-21st
century computing demands:
Enhanced memory is number one. “Upgrading memory isthe number one improvement,” says Kurivchack. Memory, expressedas RAM, should be 128 megabytes if the computer is to run the latestprograms smoothly. Upgrading is easy. “The chip only fits oneway,” he says. “You just have to know where to look on themotherboard.”A big hard drive has room for thousands of MP3s. It isbarely necessary to go back to the last century to find a time whena 2 gig hard drive was considered huge. Now, says Kurivchack, manyprograms take up half a gig of space — or 25 percent of thecomputerreal estate available for all uses. Video files, picture files (allthose digital snapshots), and music files take up a great deal ofspace as well. Happily, Kurivchack reports that prices for hard driveshave dropped dramatically. Twenty gig can be had for about $89, hesays. Installation will double that amount, and he suggests thatanyoneinterested in the upgrade might want to tackle the job at home.”Theinstructions are pretty self-explanatory,” he says.Consider other easy upgrades. Boosting memory and capacitywill make an enormous difference in performance. Other upgradesamateursmight consider are changing the computer’s video card and adding anew sound card. Anyone with a modem slower than 56.6 kilobytes mightwant to tackle that upgrade, too.Keep in mind that certain attempts to boost speed might notbe possible, or even very helpful. Computer ads are all aboutspeed.Users are sometimes shown wearing goggles while sitting in an armchairthat appears to be square in the middle of a wind tunnel. Butupgradingthe high-powered processor that creates that speed often does notwork. Often new processors are not compatible with existingmotherboards,says Kurivchack. And speed, he says, is not all that Intel and otherprocessor manufacturers would like you to think it is.”Speed is not as important as RAM,” Kurivchack says.”Yeah,with one gig it’s like a Ferrari rather than a Corvette, but anythingover 400 or 500 megahertz will work. More is immaterial unless you’reediting video. I have old, junk machines, five years old. My daughteruses them to Instant Message and surf the Internet. She doesn’t knowthey’re slow machines.”If a computer has 128 megabytes of RAM and a large hard drive —at least 20 gig and maybe even 30 or 40 — it will deliver topperformance even at relatively low speeds. One reason this is so,he says, is that there is a speed bump that has nothing to do withthe computer itself.”The phone connection is the bottleneck,” says Kurivchack.”Speed doesn’t help with downloads.” No matter how fast acomputer is, it will not handle speed-eating applications likestreamingvideo if it has to get to the Internet through a 56.6 K modem, whichis the fastest connection anyone without DSL, T1, cable, or satelliteInternet access can use. Frustrated in Raritan, Kurivchack is notamong the lucky few home users — he puts the percentage at 10to 20 percent — whose computers reside in a community where highspeed Internet access is available.Kurivchack estimates that a couple of hundred dollars worthof upgrades — or less — will turn an older computer into theequivalent of a new $1,000 machine. Computer owners have just onething to overcome. Lifting the case of a computer and staring intoits guts still terrifies many. Even most 20-somethings shrink fromthe act, fearing they will irrevocably ruin the thing. “There’sa fear factor out there,” says Kurivchack.Top Of PageRebounding From a LayoffOn Tuesday, August 14, at 9:30 a.m. ProjectReEmployment,a non-denominational service offered through the Jewish Family &Children’sService of Greater Mercer County, holds the first of the four sessionsin its program for unemployed individuals at its offices at 707AlexanderRoad. Call 609-987-8100.Rachel Weitzenkorn, the program’s coordinator, says the effectsof job loss can include isolation, depression, anger, and grief, alongwith financial distress and family upset. Project ReEmployment, whereparticipants are required to attend all four half-day sessions, isdesigned to get people through all of this while helping them setup a game plan for finding a good, new job.”Most people underestimate the effect of a lay-off,” saysWeitzenkorn, a 1999 graduate of Boston University who holds an MSWfrom Rutgers. I can attest to the truth of her statement. While Istill don’t fully understand why, I do know that even the arrivalof a welcome pink slip can precipitate a blue funk.The call came early on December 18, a Monday morning, just as I wassettling in for a day’s work in my home office. An employee of adot-comthat reported on business news in the high tech, mostly Internet,sector, I was just getting started on a quarterly summary of top techcompanies in New York City and Philadelphia. These companies hadbecomeincreasingly hard to find during the eight months I reported on them.Stock prices were being quoted in pennies, and every week broughtthe cancellation of three or four IPO offerings. The CEO of one ofthe top Internet sites catering to brides had told me months beforethat he was sure no consumer-oriented Internet company would go publicagain — not ever.Even before I picked up the phone, I suspected what the news wouldbe. The caller ID announced the Florida number of my company’sheadquarters,where the top executives and the IT guys worked. The rest of us —editors and reporters — worked from home offices and knew eachother mostly through Instant Messaging. The voice on the other endof the line confirmed my hunch. It was the online publication’s topeditor, my big boss. There had been some talk that I would start aNew Jersey beat, and for a nanosecond I thought maybe that was whathe was calling to discuss. But no, I really knew.The exact words my editor, a decent man and a good boss, used werea blur. My impression was that he was having a much harder time withthe call than I was. His message, transparently rehearsed, almostcertainly with a lawyer, was clear enough: Stop typing this second.You have been laid off.In the flurry of E-mails and Instant Messages that followed, I learnedthat reporters and editors around the country were getting the samecall. Most, incredibly enough, were surprised, something I found hardto understand given that our jobs were to report on dot-coms,companiesvery much like ours. And for months the news had been unremittinglybad.Others were angry. They had been lied to! Misled! Well, yes, therehad been statements to the effect that more venture capital money— enough to carry us to profitability — was due to roll inany minute. Strange, I thought, that any of them, a pretty good bunchof news people overall, had believed those statements to be anythingmore than wishful thinking.Me, I was neither surprised nor angry, or even unhappy. Quite theopposite. In Christmas cards mailed just two days before the masslay-off, I had told friends I was quite sure I would be free to gettogether with them soon. I expected to be laid off before New Year’s.Getting a virtual pink slip a week before my older son was due homefor the holidays and my husband was scheduled to take vacation wasa bonus. On top of that, I was given far more severance pay than Iever would have expected, and I was in the early stages of talkingabout taking an excellent new job. (This one.)The dot-com job, which had tied me to a desk in my home office frombefore 8 a.m. until at least 6:30 p.m. had proved to be way tooisolatingfor my taste. There had been talk, early on, of renting a satelliteoffice in Manhattan where I could work off and on. There had beentalk of staffing up so that I, and my reporting partner, who livedin Brooklyn, could get out in the field to do face-to-face interviews.But dwindling capital made it necessary for us to stick close to ourdesks, turning out news stories based on telephone interviews as fastas we could to fill up the site.So, to review, I didn’t particularly like the job, knew a layoff hadto be coming, had a good shot at a better job, knew a good-sizedseverancecheck was on the way, and was looking forward to time off at theholidays.Elation would have been the proper reaction to that call from Florida.But here is the odd part. I was depressed.For me, a brisk walk through Manhattan — all around Central Parkand then down through Chelsea, the far west Village, Soho, and Tribeca— is a sure cure for a little depression. I headed there on theday after the Florida phone call. Instead of its usual magic, allManhattan held for me was streets full of purposeful people. Everyone of them heading for work, or so it seemed. I was the only personon earth who did not have a job!What nonsense, what rubbish, I kept telling myself. But the internallectures did not work. All through that day, and on the three daysthat followed, I was inexplicably down. The weekend brought relief.Come Saturday, I was part of a normal group of bookstore-browsingloafers, not the only person on the street with nowhere to go.Given my reaction to an absolutely welcome lay-off, imagine whatWeitzenkorn’sclients are going through. “Most of the individuals we see arebeing downsized from major companies,” she says. “They hadbeen working for their companies for 10, 15 years. They come to usasking, `What do I do now?’”Class size in Project ReEmployment ranges from five to 20.Participantstend to be corporate employees. “We had a vice president lasttime,” says Weitzenkorn, who has been running the programs forone year. Right now, a number of IT professionals are coming in.Classesoften feature guest speakers, including representatives from localcorporations, experts on budgeting, counselors from temporaryplacementfirms, and job search advisors from area colleges. Discussion isencouraged,and participants often pick up leads, search strategies, and tipson coping with family and financial concerns from one another. Someclasses become close, and form a sort of alumni group to keep thecommunication going after the sessions end.Weitzenkorn also is available after the formal program to providecounseling. Among her advice to job seekers — and theirfamilies:Knowit is normal to grieve. Most people, told they are no longer neededat their jobs, are going to go through a process that is very muchlike grieving the loss of a family member or close friend. “Thereis shock, anger, depression, guilt,” Weitzenkorn says. No seriousjob search can begin until these emotions are out of the way, shesays. It may take a month, or six months. There are people who arestill unable to come to grips with the loss after a year. If workingthrough the emotions surrounding a lay-off takes this long, however,counseling may be in order.Shed the shame, and reach out. “People are so ashamedwhen they lose a job,” says Weitzenkorn. “It’s soembarrassing.”A natural reaction is to hide out, but that is precisely the worstthing to do when a good new job is the goal. “Almost everyonegets a job through networking,” she says. Try to swallow hard,realize that the stigma once attached to a lay-off is now gone, andtell absolutely everyone that you are looking for a good employmentopportunity.”We teach people how to say this,” says Weitzenkorn. Whilemany ex-execs choke on announcing to near-strangers that they needa job, saying something like, “`I’m interested in getting intoexport logistics, do you know anyone in the field I might be ableto talk to?’” can be much easier. Remember that people, almostuniversally, enjoy helping if they themselves do not feel pressured.Think of shifting gears. Hard as it is for many of thenewly-laid-off to accept, for a good number of people the event willbe remembered as a positive career milestone. Weitzenkorn has seena number of corporate employees, who, while missing their paychecks,are happy to be freed from jobs they didn’t like all that well. Manydecide a change is in order. Weitzenkorn says work at a non-profitlooks attractive to a good number of her clients, and that teachingis gaining in popularity among mathematicians and scientists.Make an interim plan. Some of Weitzenkorn’s clients needan income right away to keep up on their financial obligations. Tohelp out, Project ReEmployment brings in credit counselors to teachbudgeting. “When we ask new participants if they are interestedin a course on budgeting, they say no,” says Weitzenkorn. “Butthat is one of our most popular classes. People always stay aroundto ask questions.” Project ReEmployment also brings in reps fromstaffing agencies to discuss short term employment possibilities tohelp keep the mortgage money flowing while the search for a good,permanent job is in the works.Be patient with your unemployed spouse, parent, or child.Families need to listen, and go easy on advice to their unemployedrelative, says Weitzenkorn. Coping with an empty mailbox weeks aftersending out 200 resumes is a strain. Putting yourself on the lineat interviews where the other candidate gets the nod is demoralizing.At home, the lay-off victim needs support.Even in the best of circumstances — like mine — alay-offis a jolt, especially in a society where the first question we askone another invariably is: “So, what do you do for a living?”An aim of Project ReEmployment is to show the unemployed that they’refar from alone. At any given moment lots and lots of people arehuntingfor their next jobs, and that the experience, painful though it maybe, is often a stepping stone on the way to a better job — andmaybe a better life too. That’s the way it worked out for me.Top Of PageDon’t Overlook The Job FairsFor the newly unemployed, job fairs are a low-key wayto survey the employment scene. Get your hair cut, your resumesstashedin a clean folder, and off you go.For the employer, job fairs can be a surreptitious way to meetcandidateswho might be persuaded to change careers. A nursing service mightencounter a programmer with a penchant for helping people. A hotelmight influence a burned-out social worker to go into hospitalitysales.Pathfinder Consulting Group runs these fairs for profit, and theycall them “Mega Job Fairs.” The next event is Wednesday,August15, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Forsgate Country Club. Admission isfree and the minimum charge for employers is $200 for a six-foot table($150 for nonprofits), with booths costing $400. The one after thatis on Wednesday, September 5, at the Raritan Convention Center inEdison. Call 732-821-7048.Professional Service Alumni Association, a spin-off of an organizationsponsored by the New Jersey Department of Labor, has set up its ownschedule of Job Fairs, with the first set for Tuesday, September 11,7 to 10 p.m., at the East Brunswick Library. Job Fairs continue inDecember, March, and June. (In alternate months, the PSAA has itsregular meetings.) Admission is free, but the cost to sponsors is$100 per table, or $250 for three evenings, $300 for four evenings.Call 609-655-3804.”We are seeing a resurgence of the 1995-1997 period, when theeconomics of business saw the buyouts, furloughs, layoffs andclosings,necessary for business to maintain itself,” says MurrayMeiselesof PSAA. “These job fairs are for the sole purpose of bringingthe talent of a whole host of persons, of varying characteristics,to the employers of our country. It is our belief that the face toface relationship will accomplish the joining of talent and need.”Top Of PageCCPA Trade FairCalendar alert: for Thursday, August 30 — thePrincetonChamber has announced its speakers for the Business Trade Fair onThursday, August 30, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Doral Forrestal.Joachim Schafer, president of Hannover Fairs USA, will speakat lunch, and Daniel Fleming, of Wong & Fleming, gives aworkshopat the pre-show coffee hour at 10 a.m. His topic: “The PacificRim Countries — How They Affect Your Business and the AmericanWay of Life.”U.S. 1 Newspaper will hold its Technology & Computing Showcase inconjunction with the chamber’s expo. It’s at the same location atthe same time and it is also free. Joseph Montemarano, directorfor industrial liaison for Princeton University, will speak at U.S.1’s Technology Forum at 4 p.m. His topic: “From the Ivory Tower:A Princeton Guide to Valuable Technology.”Also scheduled are tastings of wine and beer and specialty foods from3 to 5 p.m., and handwriting analyses by Renee Martin, of ForgeryForensics, from 2 to 3 and 4 to 5 p.m. For information about thechamber’strade fair call 609-520-1776, and for the U.S. 1 Technology Forum,call 609-452-7000.Top Of PageDonate PleaseThe Salvation Army is looking for help in sendingyoungstersin foster care to its Special Needs Reunion Camp, held at CampTecumsehin Pittstown. This camp reunites brothers and sisters separated bythe foster care system for a week of outdoor fun. The programencouragesfamily togetherness, character building, and social developmentactivities.A donation of $275 will send one child to camp for a week. Call908-851-8237.Top Of PageApply PleaseThe IRS is accepting grant applications from organizationprovidinglow-cost legal assistance to people involved in tax disputes. Matchinggrants worth up to $100,000 for the calendar year 2002 grant cycleare available. Grants also are available for programs that assisttaxpayers for whom English is a second language.Applications for the grants must be received by Friday, August 24.The application package is available on the IRS website (www.irs.gov)or by phone at 800-829-3676. To qualify for a grant, tax clinics mustbe run by accredited law, business, or accounting schools whosestudentsrepresent taxpayers in tax disputes with the IRS or in the courts,or by tax-exempt organization.Top Of PageCorporate AngelsThe American Red Cross of Central New Jersey is sendingDavid Novak, its marketing and communications director, to Gujarat,India, where an earthquake killed more than 2,000. This chaptercontributedthe third largest dollar amount raised in the United States to aidvictims in that desert area, and Novak will document the reliefefforts.The Howard Design Group is celebrating a 2001 APEX Awardof Excellence for the 1999-2000 Annual Report for the Eden Familyof Services, a non-profit that provides lifespan services for childrenand adults with autism, The report, “Celebrating 25 Years ofLifespanServices 1975-2000,” was created by Peter Gialloreto, a graphicdesigner from Howard Design Group at 20 Nassau Street and PamelaGeisel, a California-based freelance writer and former Eden staffmember.Princeton Softech has held a fundraiser for the JuvenileDiabetes Foundation. In addition to a barbecue, hosted by thecompany’sNorth American sales department, Princeton Softech’s executivesvolunteeredto get all wet for the charity. Employees and friends paid $5 forthe chance to throw balls toward a target that would send an executiveplunging into a dunk pool.Top Of PageJoin PleaseThe Borough Merchants for Princeton is inviting downtownbusinessesto join up. The non-profit organization is dedicated to promotingPrinceton as a shopping, dining, and business destination. Theall-volunteergroup’s annual promotions include an annual job fair and decorations,carriage rides, and entertainment for the winter holidays. Themembershipfee is $200. Checks in that amount can be sent to the organizationat Box 584, Princeton 08542.Keep Middlesex Moving, the county’s non-profittransportationmanagement association, is developing an online directory of areabusinesses that deliver. The organization finds that commuters refuseto leave their cars home, at least in part because they want themavailable during the workday for errands. The directory is toencourageoffice workers to car pool or take public transit, and have the drycleaning or prescription they would run to pick up at noon deliveredto their homes instead.Keep Middlesex Moving is inviting any business that delivers toconsumersto submit a listing for the directory. Possible categories includeflorists, auto repair shops, dry cleaners, and pharmacies. Anybusinessthat wants an application for a free listing is invited to call732-745-4318.The Regional Planning Partnership , with headquarters at870 Mapleton Road, provides tools and strategies to local government,citizens, and developers to encourage smart growth. The organizationis preparing its annual Resource Book and is offering sponsorshipads for amounts ranging from $100 to $1,500. Call 609-452-1717.Next StoryCorrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
