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Issue 1, Spring 2011
| Welcome to our website. We intend to present
the finest science fiction and fantasy short stories and
serialized fiction we can find. In turn, you expect a
website that is visually pleasing and easy to navigate. We
will try to provide just that.
Issue 2, Summer 2011 You may have noticed changes to the website this issue. Bowing to popular demand, I have added "hotspots" to the main pages. Hopefully this will make it easier to navigate the site, and give it a more intuitive feel. We have also added illustrations at the beginning of each story that we hope reflect some aspect of that story. So far, the reaction from the authors has been favorable. We would like to hear what you think as well. Check out the Links page to find out more about or contact our authors and artists. Links to other websites we feel would be of interest will be added as we discover them. This being the second issue, you might reasonably expect to see the contents of the first issue archived under the appropriate category on the Archives page. I am still trying to figure out how to do this in a simple, straightforward (for me) way. Issue 3, Autumn 2011 October1, 2011 Seems like I' m going to have to explain why this issue is so late. Partly (mostly) my fault, I have to admit. Anyway, here goes. I had a medical procedure done last week just before FenCon, which was a lot of fun, by the way (FenCon, not the medical procedure). We had three out of the four authors in this issue present, and talked to three future authors and one future Guest Artist. Inspired by meeting everyone during that hectic weekend, I managed to load the author's stories on the Website so they could look at them, minus the illustrations, before the con was over. After recovering from FenCon, we worked on the pen-and-ink illustrations for the four stories in this issue. I finished getting those ready for publication Friday night, late. Saturday I worked on the Guest Artist page, getting the artwork ready and gathering the descriptive and biographical information to go along with it. Saturday night everything went on the website for a trial run. There are always a few glitches to work out at the end, so I didn't finish that until late. The last step was to move the previous issue to the archive section of the website and set up the writer and Guest Artist archive links. Time then for a brief moment savoring the Autumn issue before plunging into the next one, Issue 4, Winter 2011. While searching for your favorite authors and artists in the Archives, it is possible to get lost. When this happens, go up to the address line in your browser and backspace until only www.4starstories.com appears. Touch Enter to take you to the current issue Homepage. Issue 4, Winter 2011 December 24, 2011 Seems like I'm having to apologize again this issue. Both Mary and I have been sick the last week or so, delaying this issue more than we would like. To compensate, we have four really good stories and a really great artist to present this issue Putting this issue together was a little more routine, thankfully. I don't have the archives updated yet, but we do have all the stories and the Guest Art section up. Updating the archives and the Links page will be taken care of between now and New Years. Speaking of the New Year, we have some really great stories waiting in the wings for the Spring issue, so stay tuned. Lastly, we are looking forward to seeing everyone at ConDFW in February of next year. Issue 5, Spring 2012 March 24, 2012 Here we are in 2012 and at the one-year anniversary of 4StarStories.com. It's been a wild, exciting ride, meeting authors and artists and reading some really great stories. We're looking forward to even more great things this year, and we hope you will join us. It was great seeing everyone at ConDFW. Even though the weather was a challenge, we didn't mind because we needed the rain. On one panel at ConDFW, we had at least three 4StarStories authors. All together at ConDFW we had at least six 4StarStories authors and a couple of future contributors. While we were there, we distributed twenty-eight Author's Submission Guidelines to people at panels and others we met at the con. We are still committed to presenting the best in science fiction short stories and guest artists, and we are counting on you to help us do that. For those in the Dallas area, we will be attending FenCon in late September of this year. As always we look forward to hearing from you and seeing you in person. April 3, 2012 Some of our regular readers have commented that when accessing the 4StarStories.com Website, they encountered the previous issue, rather than the current issue they were expecting. The problem is that the browser loads previously accessed web pages stored in a cache, rather than going out on the Internet to download the current page. The solution to this problem is to refresh or reload the page. Although generally similar, the ways to refresh or reload the page vary from browser to browser. I have listed directions for some of the commonly used browsers below. Internet Explorer Try using the Refresh button, the F5 soft key, Control+F5, Ctrl+R, Control+Shift+R, or holding down the Control key while clicking the Refresh button. A more advanced user can press F12 to open the Development Tools, select the Cache menu at the top and then Always refresh from server to bypass the cache. In other words, Press F12 , then click Cache -> Always Refresh from Server. The always-refresh option is not a global option, and it will not hinder overall performance in Internet Explorer. Firefox By default there should be a reload/refresh button on the toolbar. On the default theme it looks like a circular arrow to the right of the address line. You can also press the F5 soft key or Ctrl+R to reload the page. Google Chrome Depending on how the web page was constructed, you can do one of two things: Right-click inside the web page and select Reload from the pop-up window. This works for many pages. In the upper right hand corner of the browser window, select the Wrench icon, then select Clear browsing data... from the drop-down menu. A pop-up window appears. Verify that Empty the cache is checked. If not, click on the empty box. Then select the Clear Browsing Data button at the bottom of the pop-up window. This works for all pages. Issue 6, Summer 2012 July 2, 2012 Here it is Summer again. See the "In My Opinion" page for our take on Summer. I'm retaining the Guest Artist from the last issue temporarily. Rocky is fine with that. I have some partial solar eclipse and Venus transit pictures that I took in May that I'm going to put on the Guest Artist page in a week or so. Someone suggested that we register 4StarStories with Duotrope. We did, and now we are getting a ton of submissions. The first thing we have to do when we get the Summer issue out is to sift through those submissions for stories to use in the next issue. For my part, I am explaining to potential submitters how to save their Word files as .RTF files. I asked the Programming Chair for Fencon if we can have a panel with 4StarStories writers and Guest Artists at FenCon. Haven't heard back from her yet, but the writers I talked to who are attending FenCon in September are very enthusiastic about the idea. If you are a writer or a Guest Artist published in 4StarStories and are going to be at Fencon, let me know. We need a list of people who want to participate. July 12, 2012 With the increased visibility of 4 Star Stories comes an increased number of submissions, and we are OK with that. At this point, however, submissions are about evenly divided between those who follow the suggested template and those who don't. Unfortunately we are reaching the point where I can't take the time to fix format problems in stories that don't follow the template. Of course, there is always the possibility that the "story of gold" comes in that we just have to publish because it is so good, but doesn't follow the template -- at all. Assuming that does happen at some point, don't be surprised (or insulted) if you get instruction to "rewrite the story following the template this time and resubmit". If you have any questions about converting to RTF format, for example, send me an email at the Webmaster address on the website. Issue 7, Autumn 2012 September 27, 2012 Well, here we are at the Autumn issue. Believe me, it seemed like a long time coming. Summer seemed to last forever. We've received a ton of story submissions. Two issues worth, in fact. We have some really good ones to offer you, this issue and next. Time to reiterate what I said last time. We need people to follow the Submission Guidelines. Something I haven't mentioned before, but needs saying is to provide an accurate word count and signal the end of your story with "The End", "Finis", or "[30]". We had a story submitted that was corrupted in transmission, and I didn't catch it until the author mentioned that the last 1000 words were missing from my copy. If I had noticed the discrepancy in the word count and the lack of "The End" at the end of the story, I would have been alerted to the problem a lot sooner. A word to the wise: don't try to put out an issue the weekend of a Science Fiction Convention. Believe me, it doesn't work. Just now getting over the effects. Had a great time seeing everyone, though. Looking forward to ConDFW in February, 2013. So, until the Winter issue, keep those submissions coming. I f you have submitted a story, but haven't heard back from us, be patient. Now that this issue is out, we'll be getting in touch with those we haven't contacted yet. Issue 8, Winter 2012 12-30-12 Well, for better or worse, here we are at the end of another year. Unfortunately, we have both been sick the last couple of weeks. It has slowed us down, but hasnÂ’t stopped us. We have 4 more fine stories for you in this issue, and something new – an Artist Retrospective – of one of our favorite artists, Chesley Bonestell, a true space art pioneer. The effect his work had on those of us who grew up in the 1950Â’s was enormous. Coming up in February will be our first short-short fiction issue, featuring 4 stories of around 1000 words. It is our salute to February, the shortest month. Thanks to the number of quality submissions we have had, our March, 2013 issue is already full, so the next openings we have are in the June, 2013 issue. As always, please be patient if you have submitted a story for consideration and havenÂ’t received a reply. We will reply to your submissions as soon as we are able. Issue 9, Spring 2013 5-17-13 Wow! Here we are almost halfway through the year. I have a lot of things to catch you up on. For those who were at ConDFW in February, it was great to see you. For those who missed it, FenCon is coming up this Fall.We did publish the Short Short Story issue, not in February and not with four, but with six stories. We were able to get some really great stories. Check it out. Click on the icon in the lower right-hand corner of the Home page to access the Short Short Story Issue. Since it was unscheduled, we will leave it up for more than just one issue. The SSS issue unexpectedly put us behind on the March issue, which is now the Spring issue and came out a couple of days ago. Again we have some really great stories. We are especially proud to feature David A. Cherry as our Guest Artist. The Summer issue is scheduled to come out the week of the Fourth of July. The Autumn issue is scheduled to come out in time for Halloween, and we are calling it our "Fire and Brimstone" issue. Issue 11, Autumn 2013 January 5, 2014 It’s been over six months since I’ve written anything in this space. During that time 4 Star Stories was never far from my mind, although I wasn’t able to work on it as much as I would have liked. As for the long awaited “fire and brimstone” Halloween issue, it is finally here. I won’t bore you with the details of why it took so long (which really aren’t that interesting). Suffice it to say that both Mary and I were (are) sick, and we are still involved in a major house-related crisis, hopefully to be resolved in the next week or so. In any case we have four stories and a Guest Artist revolving around a central netherworld theme for your enjoyment. For those of you in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, I hope you were able to attend FenCon in October of last year. We always have a great time and really enjoy meeting and talking to people. ConDFW is coming up in February of this year, and we hope to see you there. Here we are at the beginning of our fourth year publishing 4 Star Stories. It’s been an exciting, frustrating, marvelous three years. We have met really wonderful and talented people from all over the world. Whenever my enthusiasm lags, I get an e-mail from one of these people, and I have the will to get back in there and work even harder. We have more exciting, trailblazing stories to publish in 2014, and I will be making improvements to the website as well. We enjoy serving your literary science fiction/fantasy needs, and we particularly enjoy hearing from you. Happy New Year! Issue 12, Winter 2013 June 10, 2014 Wow, we're halfway through the year already. This year is really flying by. We enjoyed being at ConDFW at the end of February. It was great to see old friends and meet new ones. We had a great time talking with everybody and being on panels. We always get fired up during/after a convention, and this one was no exception. We keep promising ourselves we'll do better, but haven't been able to turn out issues as fast as we would like. We do intend to maintain the quality, and we have some really great stories this issue, as usual. Unusual this time is that all four authors live outside the United States. We have received fine-quality stories from around the world to share with our readers. We also have an Artist Retrospective for your enjoyment: Jack Coggins. If you are not familiar with his work, you are in for a real treat. I was tremendously impressed with his work when I was a kid growing up in the 1950's. I think you will agree with me that his work still speaks to us today. That's it for Issue 12. We are planning another Short, Short Fiction issue to appear sometime near the end of the year. If you have a story less than 1000 words and you think it is 4 Star Stories-worthy, send it along for us to look at. Till next time... keep cool. Issue 13 October 4, 2014 You may have noticed that, in spite of my protestations to the contrary, we did drop the season from the issue title. We are contractually obligated to leave each issue up on the website for at least three months, so we would never be able to catch up with the seasons. The idea of dropping a season to catch up is not really appealing. The editorial will continue to be season-appropriate because a lot of what we do at 4 Star Stories is influenced by the seasons. We have four new stories and a bonus story this issue. If a run of two constitutes a trend, the bonus story is a story that we would not normally publish, but for whatever reason, we felt it deserved a place. We did not change Guest Artist this issue, so the Jack Coggins Art Retrospective is up for another issue. I was able to obtain a good copy of "By Space Ship to the Moon", and our Epson 710 Artisan scanner did a superb job of reproducing the colors of the paintings. If you haven't already done so, check out the Guest Artist page. You're in for a treat. It's old news now, but Windows XP® has gone the way of the dodo bird. We were particularly hard hit because we did most of the computer-related tasks for 4 Star Stories on an old Dell Inspiron® laptop running -- you guessed it -- Windows XP. We acquired another Dell computer after XP support ended, but it runs Windows 8.1, None of our old programs are compatible, so we use that one mostly for answering emails. We were really up the proverbial creek until I was able to upgrade a Lenovo® Netbook to run Windows 7. That solved part of our problem, but the small screen was a real pain. Finally, I heard that Hewlett Packard® was selling computers running Windows 7. We bought an HP® laptop, and that is now our main computer. Although that solved part of our problem, we still had XP programs we wanted to run. Fortunately, someone at work suggested Windows XP Mode in Windows 7, downloadable from Microsoft. Since we now have two Windows 7 computers, that definitely seemed the way to go. For step-by-step instructions, go to http://www.wikihow.com/Install-Windows-Xp-Mode-in-Windows-7 For those with more technical savvy, here's the link directly to the Microsoft Windows Virtual PC Download site. http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=3702 This story has a happy ending, sort of. We are now able to run our old XP programs on Windows 7, but Microsoft is already talking about ending support for Windows 7. Go figure. Issue 14 February 22, 2015 Here we are in the second month of a new year. We attended ConDFW last weekend and had a great time. We never tire of talking to people and promoting 4 Star Stories. We participated in a panel on E-publishing vs. conventional publishing. I was moderator, punishment, I suppose, for suggesting that panel. Recently I was able provide an archive for the Short Short Story issue we had a couple of years ago. Just a reminder of one of the perks of being a 4 Star Stories author: your story is archived, so you, or anyone else for that matter, can access it anytime. The last couple of issues I have not been able to give as much editorial attention to the stories as I would have liked. What we have as a result is more the author's flavor than the 4 Star Stories editorial flavor. We hope the content has not suffered as a result. A word of explanation about how we choose stories to go in an issue. We read a story essentially as a reader would read it, not paying a lot of attention to the writing itself when making the first cut. When we make our final selection, we go back over each story with a more critical eye. We make general suggestions, as well as more specific ones when necessary. A word about our health situation. I have been sick off and on since the middle of December. Mary has also been sick with recurring bronchitis, and most recently the flu. This issue is the result of sheer determination on our part to get it out. We have another issue on its heels, Issue 15, and we will start on it immediately. It should be out about mid-year. The next task will be looking for stories and a Guest Artist to go in Issue 16. We think that issue will be out in the fall. We think we have stories enough, but we really need more Guest Artist candidates. March 13, 2015 We are considering another Short, Short Story issue. There seemed to be some interest when we talked it up at ConDFW. Pretty much the stories we will consider are either Science Fiction or Fantasy between 500 and 1000 words (two to four pages). We just sent out the "Official Issue 14 Announcement" by email. Actually, Issue 14 has been out for awhile. Consider that a "shaking-out" period, so we can make sure everything is OK. We have a mailing list, mostly previous contributors and people who have requested to be notified, but we would be glad to include anyone else as well. If you want to be notified when a new issue is published, send us an email at webmaster@4starstories.com. If you have already requested to be notified and have not received an email, check your "Junk" folder. If you still haven't received notification, let us know, and we will investigate. Issue 15 July 23, 2015 Here we are at Issue 15. This one was a real struggle to get out, but it was worth it because we have five really good stories. We didn't have a Guest Artist lined up this time, so I am offering a "Spaceship Retrospective" in its place. I found some vintage pubic domain images, and I am pleased with the result. I hope you are too. I had problems with Microsoft FrontPage(R) while creating the new web pages. I eventually found out what was wrong (my fault, of course), but I wasted a lot of time figuring it out. This will probably be the last issue I do using FrontPage. It's just too labor intensive. I do fine tuning with Arachnophilia, an HTML editing program that is free and has been around for a long time. Once they got their problems with Java figured out, I had no problems loading it on all my machines. When you have a small change to make in the HTML code, it’s easier than using FrontPage. We picked out and purchased new website-design software, but I haven't switched over yet. I intend to make a few major changes to the website that I have been putting off just because we are locked into the present structure. Don’t worry. We will retain the same clunky, vintage look, but with more pages and probably updated features. We are considering several changes to 4 Star Stories. We are looking at including more stories per issue. For example, if we were to have seven stories per issue, we could increase our throughput from fifteen stories, where it is now, to twenty-one per year. Another thing we are considering is paying more for each story. Since we are actually publishing fewer stories per year, we can afford to pay more per story. Don't know for sure, but $20 US is sounding doable. If anyone is wondering why they haven't heard from us after sending in a story in the last month or so, be patient. Screening stories pretty much goes out the window when we are trying to get out an issue. Be assured that we will get to you as soon as we can. To update where we are with submissions, we probably have enough stories for Issue 16, which should be out near the end of the year. That means that if you haven't heard from us yet, your story will be considered for Issue 17, which will probably be out in the first half of next year. Issues 16 and 17 1-31-17 Here we are starting a new year again. More going on than I care to comment on. As part of the beginning-of-the-year festivities, I go through all the web pages and update the copyright year, protecting all of us. In addition, I updated the Submissions page. A little overdue, but necessary to bring it in line with what we are actually doing. The highlights: We are now paying $20 US dollars for a published story. Payment is on publication rather than acceptance, a concession to reality as I don't think we ever did pay on acceptance, although that was our intention when we started. We are now requesting that the story title be included in the Subject Line of the submission email. My life is made very much simpler when authors follow that guideline. We are close to publishing our second Short Short Story issue. I thought it would go quickly and smoothly, but here we are at the end of January and it still isn't out yet. We have some fine stories this issue -- all over the map, actually, including a poem -- a first for us. We hope you enjoy it. As part of the Short Short Story issue, I am including some of my pen and ink drawings. They are not illustrating stories, but rather are providing art for the Stories and the In My Opinion... pages. One of the ironies of the Short Short Story issues is the fact that because we have more stories we have to have more original artwork, making our artist have to work harder and taking more time. It's that time of year again -- time for ConDFW. Unfortunately, we will not be able to attend this year, as it is in Fort Worth. We have had problems with the choice of hotels the last couple of years. This year we are sitting ConDFW out altogether. We have been receiving many top-notch submissions the last few months. So many, in fact, that Issues 18 and 19 are filled. We just started choosing stories for Issue 20. If you have submitted a story in the last two or three months and have not heard back from us, be patient. We are processing the submissions as fast as we can. Now that we are out of the holiday season, we have more time to devote to "4 Star Stories". After publication of the Short Short Story issue, we intend to eliminate the backlog and reply to all submissions. Aside from a few minor issues, we are in generally good health, thanks for asking. We can only hope that will continue, and we will be publishing "4 Star Stories" for many years to come. Issue 18 9-10-17 Here we are looking at the end of 2017. Another exciting year for us. Issue 18 ready to go with Issue 19 coming up right behind it. We have been quite pleased with the quality of the submissions we have been receiving this year, and we hope you see that reflected in the quality of the issue. We have noticed some people are submitting more than one story, and that is fine. However, I don't always notice at first. that I have seen something from the same author before. We do get a lot of submissions, and if the name is not familiar, I may sound like I don't realize you have submitted before. We do treat each submission as a standalone, unless it is part of a series. Hopefully, it is a sign that you would like to have us publish your story, not that you are too lazy to send it somewhere else. We do try not to publish the same author twice in the same or consecutive issues. We aren't always able to stick to that policy, but we do try. We are publishing Issue 18 without original art at this time. As you might imagine, coming up with six or more pieces of original art for each issue is a formidable task. We will try to remedy the situation as soon as possible, so please be patient. A word about the Science Fiction Convention attendance situation. We have stopped attending cons for the present. We both have significant health problems, and I don'' feel as comfortable taking long trips as I used to, especially places I haven't been before. We miss seeing everybody, but we are having to sit conventions out for now. We have been including special features to enrich the writing experience, especially articles to expand the writer's technical background. If there is something you would like to see that we haven't been doing, let us know, and we will try to come up with something for you. Issue 19 2-15-18 Starting a new year with a new issue.
Hope it's better than the last one, year, that is, not
issue. So far, we've been disappointed. Hoping it is going
to get better soon. Issue 20 August 25, 2018 October 14, 2018 Issue 21 December 18, 2018 February 10, 2020 Issue 22 December 18, 2018
April 2020
Issue 23 February 10, 2021 I never really paid much attention to
browsers. I've used Firefox forever and never thought much
about it. Recently though, I have begun to notice the new
browsers on the block. We've gone through a lot of browsers:
Netscape, Internet Explorer by Microsoft and Opera, to
name just a few. Netscape I barely remember. Of course,
Internet Explorer was the Microsoft 800 pound gorilla in
the room with over 95 per cent of the browser market.
Opera is a personal favorite of mine. It confirms my
personal belief that Scandinavians have entirely too much
spare time on their hands (See Linux.). When I was using
it, I liked it because it was fast and made my websites
look good. Lately we got Google Chrome, which
seems to work on some websites when Firefox doesn't, and
lastly, we have Edge, the supposed
browser-to-end-all-browsers, like Windows 10 is the
operating system-to-end-all operating systems.
I vowed to boycott Edge for reasons that I no longer
remember. I have the same problem with some people: I
don't like them, but can't remember why. A blessing/curse
of old age, I suppose. Anyway, it all started when I was
trying to get my Epson inkjet printer to work. It doesn't
like it when you go out of town for three months. I went
to Google to find out how to fix it, of course, and was
getting instructions like "... go to the Status bar and
click on the Printers
pulldown menu." I suddenly realized that I had no idea how
to access the Status bar. I did vaguely remember some
headings at the top of the browser window like File,
Edit and Tools, but
couldn't find them at the top of my browser window and had
no idea how to access them. The illustration in Google
didn't resemble my browser window, which confused me even
more. Going to the settings window, usually helpful, was
not helpful in this case. Finally in desperation, I right
clicked on the home icon (in Firefox) and lo and behold,
there was a checklist for the Tool bar and Menu bar.
The best thing by far is the Customize
option at the bottom of the pulldown menu that allows you
to put whatever tools you like on the Tool
bar. Turned out what I remembered was the Menu
bar, which you can toggle off
and on
from the pulldown menu accessible by right clicking
anywhere at the top of the browsing window. [After going
to Firefox (Mozilla) Support, I found out that "the status
bar is now called the add-ons bar, it can be turned on/off
via the View menu, but it has its own keyboard shortcut to
toggle it on/off as well ("Ctrl+/")". After going to
Firefox and trying both fixes, I was unable to access the
add-ons-bar. (Webmaster)] At that point I began to think that I
might not be the only one with this problem, and I started
doing a little checking. I already had Chrome installed,
thanks to my grandnephew, who
takes pity on his poor granduncle and installs such things
as he thinks I might need. The home icon was disappointing
in that there was no associated pulldown menu. On the
other hand, Chrome has an extensive suite of web developer
tools that you may want to look into. Edge seems to be a little thin in what
we would call "tools". Even Edge Support admits that it
lacks the more common web tools, although it intimates
that development may not yet be complete. Personally, I would stick with Firefox
or Chrome, depending on your physical and/or cultural age,
and leave Edge for the Microsofties. As for the printer, I downloaded the latest printer driver, replaced a couple of ink cartridges, and cleaned and aligned the heads. It turns out the easiest way to set up your printer is through your operating system, not your browser. One odd note concerning the Epson printer: the Epson Printer Finder app was unable to find my printer, even though it was obviously communicating with the computer. March 28, 2021 January 17, 2022 March 8, 2022 April 10, 2022 Suspension of Acceptance of Manuscripts for Publication At this time we.cannot guarantee prospective authors a spot in an upcoming issue within a reasonable length of time. In order to be fair to authors whose work has already been accepted for publication, as well as those wanting their work to appear in future issues, we are suspending acceptance of manuscripts for publication until further notice. Watch the Submissions and In My Opinion web pages for submission policy updates. Thank you for thinking of 4 Star Stories, and we look forward to again being able to accept submissions. Best regards, David Gray Co-Editor 4 Star Stories Mary Gearhart-Gray Co-Editor 4 Star Stories May 3, 2022 Word on the street is that we have stopped accepting manuscripts for publication. Word on the street is correct. About two days ago it dawned on me that we cannot put out a magazine and continue screening manuscripts as they come in. There are just too many of them. What we always did before was read your story and decide to reject it or not. If your story didn't get rejected immediately, you sometimes had to wait an inordinate length of time to learn if it had been accepted or not. The luckiest stories of all only received the coveted acceptance letter. The only exceptions were some stories I expressed interest in, but typically made no promises to publish. Some submittors were told to either submit to other venues or wait whatever time elapsed until their story came up in the to-be-published queue. The alternative to that system was to let manuscripts accumulate without reading them until some future time and evaluate them all at once. Prospective authors who wanted a quick turnaround on their stories should see the flaw in that argument immediately. Frankly, that was never a serious alternative. Everyone deserves a fair shot, and those unlucky enough to be considered when I was tired or in a really bad mood would not get a fair shot. The last straw came when I checked my alternate computer for accepted stories. If you have more than one computer and don't synchronize them, the stored emails on each may not be the same. People who wrote and couldn't understand why I couldn't find their email should be able to sympathize. I remembered stories that I had promised a slot. but could not find. Turns out they were on the other computer. Addition of those stories almost doubled the number I had promised to publish. I was looking at 30-40 stories, enough to fill almost two years of issues. The odd thing is that there are still stories I remember, but can't find. What to do? the only thing I could do: put my finger in the dike and stop accepting submissions. I got in touch with the Duotrope people, letting them know what I was going to do. A few hours deciding on the text of the announcement, and the next thing to do was update the website. That is now done. All to do now is sit back and wait for the reaction. OK, how are we going to do this? Issue 24 be will be published as soon as possible -- by the end of the week if possible. Issues 25 and 26 are filled, although the contents of each may change. After that, issues will be filled, as much as possible, in the order in which their stories were received. Issues are "published" a minimum of three months apart. After that, they are stored in the Story Archives, available for anyone to access them. I believe the cutoff date was either 4-30 or 5-1-22. Anyone submitting after that date should receive a return email stating that manuscripts are no longer being accepted. I am attempting to notify the rest of the authors (from the other computer) that their stories will be published. Anyone who submitted before the cutoff date, but has not received either a rejection or acceptance email, should write me at editors@4starstories.com or webmaster@4starstories.com to inquire about the status of their manuscript. I will attempt to reply in a timely manner. February 2, 2023 Not too long ago, I was in contact with Go Daddy, our website support company, on an issue and was informed that 4starstories.com had been flagged for "malicious software". I was unaware of that, although I had heard from them in the past about foreign software on the website. I checked out some of the programs online and found out that they were low threat. I would expect that our readers would notify me if they found malicious software on our website. Nevertheless I spent a considerable amount of money to have the website "cleaned". One result is that now the site loads faster. In addition, I loaded 4starstories.com on the web browsers that I have loaded on my computers. In general, that is a good thing for a webmaster to do on a regular basis because people who visit our website use more than one browser. You may not know this, but I am interested in browsers and have a lot of them loaded on my computer. I myself have six loaded on my website computer. As promised the website loaded and performed well on each. Recently, while I was cleaning out junk files and fixing the registry on my computers, I became aware of another web browser, the CCleaner browser. I loaded the CClean browser on one of my computers and can report that it seems to work fine. Remember to uncheck the "Make CClean my default browser." checkbox if you do not want to do that. It advertises privacy settings and other features that make it attractive to have. I loaded starstories.com on it and was quite pleased with the result. It also has some web developer tools that may prove quite useful. Overall, I think it is worth looking at. We are hard at work on Issue 26 and hope to have it ready to publish soon. As usual this issue is up to our high standards of excellence that you have come to expect. We also hope to have an update on the C. Dean Andersson Memorial Page in Issue 26. If you have any comments, contact me at webmaster@4starstories.com. March 2, 2023 I promised myself that I would revisit the CClean browser. Also known as the Avast Secure browser, the browser is part of the Chromium open-source project, as well as "Google Chrome", with which you may already be familiar. Its objective is to build a safer, faster and more stable browser to surf the web. It takes advantage of open-source code from other browsers to make the CClean layout familiar and intuitive. Downloading was not a problem. Remember to uncheck the "Make CClean my default browser." checkbox if you do not want that. You have the option to make CClean your default browser, but that is not necessary to enjoy its many security features. It is a good idea to check for the latest version immediately after download. If you desire, you can import bookmarks from other browsers, making the transition seamless. You can direct CClean to open a window every time you turn on your computer. Look under "On Startup" to enable that feature. When I first used CCheck, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that a lot of the security features were already turned on, not the case when transitioning to the Windows 10 operating system, unfortunately. Click on the "Privacy and Security" tab to customize your settings. You have the option of choosing your own default search engine. I prefer "Duck Duck Go" because of its search privacy features; other choices are available. One feature I had not seen before is the option to open a side panel on either the left or right side to show bookmarks or your "reading list". I didn't try the Print function, but it seems similar to my FireFox browser. I'm not familiar with the "Cast" feature, but it appears to let you stream video in your browser. I'm familiar with the Taskmanager function of Microsoft operating systems that enables you to terminate any process, but this browser has one as well. The various features are accessible from more than one location on the browser, handy, if like me, you have said to yourself "Where did I enable that feature?" The developer tools seem quite extensive. I would like to say I know how to use them all, but I don't. The History feature is useful for returning to previously visited sites. The Privacy Cleaner allows you to clear browsing histories, cookies, and cached files and images for the time range you desire. That's an overview of the CClean browser. Features I did not cover include appearance (I went with the default "Same as Windows"), but you have other choices, as well as a wide variety of serif and sanserif fonts and continuously variable font size for text. Whether you are a new user or an old hand like me, I think the CClean browser has a lot to offer. If you have any comments, contact me at webmaster@4starstories.com. June 3, 2023 I am always on the lookout for ways to make my job as co-editor and webmaster easier. While researching the CClean browser mentioned in a previous entry, I found out that these folks also created the Linux-based Google Chrome operating system. It is derived from the open-source ChromiumOS and uses the Google Chrome web browser as its principal user interface. Google announced the project in July, 2009, describing it as an operating system where applications and user data would reside in the cloud. ChromeOS is designed as a read-only operating system, with primary file storage happening in the cloud. ChromeOS devices boot quickly, don’t slow down over time, and update in the background, reducing device downtime. They block executables and use sandboxing technology to isolate processes to limit the scope of an attack, eliminating the need for antivirus software. Chrome OS software is made for Chromebooks, which were designed to be simple, lightweight, and get updates directly from Google. They are remarkably cheap and advertise blazing fast bootup time and reliance on the Web to store programs, apps and data. Frankly, I didn't think much about Chrome OS or Chromebooks at the time they came out, but in ten yers considerable improvements have been made, including the ability to access files from external drives, enough to pique my interest in them. The Alternative If you don't want to spring for a new computer, you can make the most of your existing hardware by considering ChromeOS Flex. Advantages are you can refresh your older devices with a modern OS and extend their lifespan to reduce e-waste, Of course, you can't turn just any old computer into a Chromebook. You may find that features on some computers don't work correctly, for example keys are mislabeled or don't function. :-o Fortunately, Google supplies an authorized list of compatible computers. The best way to approximate the Chromebook experience is to run ChromeOS Flex from a bootable USB drive on your computer. Installing it permanently on your computer from the bootable USB drive is an option. Note that you may need to disable Secure Boot to boot from USB on modern PCs. WARNING:If you are unable to re-enable Secure Boot, you may have to reset your computer.This requires destroying all the files on your computer. WARNING: Installing Chrome OS Flex permanently destroys your current operating system and all the files stored on your computer. Back up all your fles before installing Chrome OS Flex permanently. I created a bootable version of ChromeOS Flex on a USB flashdrive. Basically, you install the Chrome browser on your computer, download an app from Google and follow the instructions. I changed the BIOS Setup to boot from USB. (Usually you press F2 or ESC during bootup and select that option from a menu.) If you are familiar with the Chrome browser, you will find ChromeOS Flex intuitive and easy to use. I have two old computers I was considering as candidates for ChromeOS Flex, neither of which was on the authorized list. Instead I sprang for Norton Utilities Ultimate to clean up the junk files and fix the registry errors on both. Long story short, I decided against permanently installing ChromeOS Flex. Now I am considering purchasing an upscale Chromebook to take care of business email and manage text and graphics files in the secure and agile environment it provides. CClean browser, Google and Wikipedia web-based information was used in the preparation of this entry. June 9, 2023 I recently received the following message from my web hosting company (GoDaddy). If you received a similar message, you may find the following information useful. ACTION REQUIRED Update your settings to keep your email app access working. There are email accounts in your organization using Basic Authentication, which Microsoft will no longer support after 05/11/2023. You'll still be able to access your email through your browser, but not from an email app, such as Outlook or Apple Mail — don't worry, none of your emails will be lost. In this case my email app was Mozilla Thunderbird. I had used it for 4 Star Stories since we started in Spring of 2011. All of our reader and writer correspondence (and our replies) was there. Frankly, the thought of something happening to our emails was disturbing to say the least. The message continued: In order to continue using your email apps, you need to update your settings from POP/IMAP to Exchange for each device you use to check your email. First some defining of Geek-speak terms... POP -- Post Office Protocol An Internet standard for delivering email from a server to an email client on a personal computer. If your Microsoft 365 email account uses POP settings, things like your email, folders, calendars, contacts, and other items only exist on the client and device used to check email. POP email is downloaded from the Exchange Server onto your computer. Once email is downloaded to your computer, it's deleted from the server. To access the email after it's downloaded, you have to use the same computer. If you access your email from a different computer or device, it will look as if some of your previously downloaded messages have been deleted. IMAP -- Internet Message Access Protocol An Internet standard for directly reading and manipulating email messages stored on remote servers. Microsoft 365 email account -- When you choose a web host for your website, you can elect to have one or more email addresses associated with your website. (We started out with five.) Those email addresses reside in this account, which in turn resides on an Exchange server. If your Microsoft 365 email account uses IMAP settings, things like your email and folders are synced with the server. When you use an Exchange account, your email messages are delivered to and saved in your mailbox on the Exchange server. If you are currently using Microsoft 365 as a POP or IMAP account but want to switch to Exchange, you’ll need to change the settings in your email client. We suggest using Outlook or another recommended client. Exchange ActiveSync; MAPI/HTTP are methods for accessing your Exchange email, usually from a laptop, phone, or tablet. When you access or read your email, you aren't actually downloading or storing email on your mobile device; instead you're reading it from the Exchange Server. It allows you to access your email even when you're not connected to the Internet. With IMAP, email in your Inbox, Deleted Items, Sent Items folders are synchronized between your device and the server. Note: I knew up front that our email account uses IMAP settings, so I did not need the POP information. IMPORTANT NOTE: Before switching to Exchange settings, back up all email data to either import or reference later. Refer to your client provider or email app for instructions. If you use a different client to update your Microsoft 365 account to Exchange, the following guidance can assist you in switching to Exchange settings. Once you’ve backed up or exported data as needed, add your email account to your client as Exchange. Some clients don't support adding the same account twice, so you might need to remove the existing POP or IMAP account before adding it as Exchange. Removing an email account could result in data loss, so we strongly suggest you back up your data if you decide to do so. After you’ve added your account to your client as Exchange, import any backed-up data if needed. Refer to your client provider for instructions. Note: Most email clients, Outlook, for instance, connect to the Exchange server automatically when you enter your email address, but if your client asks you to manually enter your Exchange server settings, use the following: • Email: Your Microsoft 365 email address • Password: Your Microsoft 365 email password • Server: outlook.office365.com (This is required.) • Domain: (This can be left empty.) • Username: Your Microsoft 365 email address • Password: Your Microsoft 365 email password Note: In fact I was unable to set up our email on Mozilla Thunderbird, so I ended up using Outlook instead. I had used Outlook at work, so it was familiar. Report any email questions or issues to webmaster@4starstories.com. Various GoDaddy and Microsoft Help articles were used in the preparation of this entry. July 7, 2023 When I renewed my Norton 360 anti-virus subscription a few days ago, I discovered a new feature: the Secure Norton browser. Overall, it closely resembles the CClean browser I reviewed earlier, but with a definite Norton slant. Norton Secure browser has a user interface similar to the Norton 360 dashboard. It is primarily oriented toward a secure web browsing experience. Access the Private Mode window to access privacy mode. In their words, use privacy mode to "browse privately and leave no tracks". Predictably it features Norton 360 product features that Norton users are probably familiar with, but may not be using. The browser features a Screen Sharing Mode, but I was unable to find out what it does. Other than the Norton 360 tie in, the Norton Secure browser is practically identical in layout and features to the Google Chrome and CCleaner browsers, not surprising because both use the Chromium browser project, which includes Chromium, the open-source project behind the Google Chrome browser. One thing I noticed quite accidently was the size of the Norton Secure browser installation: 857 Megs. Out of curiosity, I compared the installation size with some other popular browsers. The Firefox browser, my go to, default browser is only 219 Megs. Google Chrome, pretty much the most popular browser around, comes in at a whopping 927 Megs. Microsoft Edge is a real lightweight at 146 Megs. I attribute that to the fact that, as yet, it has fewer features than other mainstream browsers. If you already use Norton 360 for anti-virus protection, you get Norton Secure browser as a bonus feature. If secure web browsing is a top priority, I would definitely suggest you try its Private Mode. Norton probably hopes so as well. It is their interest, as well as your own, to reduce your online exposure. Go to Settings to personalize your browser experience. You are invited to "Make Norton Secure the default browser." If that is not what you want, don't click on that button. Happy web browsing! August 26, 2023 In an earlier entry I reviewed Google Chrome OS Flex on a bootable USB thumb drive. I spent a considerable amount of time with Flex on an older computer I was thinking about converting from Windows 10 to Chrome OS Flex, but I could not adequately test external memory storage. I needed a Google Chromebook to do that. Having other things on my mind, namely getting out issue 27 of 4 Star Stories, I set aside the thought of acquiring a Chromebook. I didn't completely forget about it though. First, I went to Walmart. They had one for $174. I passed on that one.(Later, I was glad I did.) Next, I decided that I wanted to look at what Amazon had to offer. Then Amazon Prime Day came along. I began to think that maybe this was the time to get myself a Chromebook. I finally went with the HP Chromebook 14. When you turn it on, the following screen appears.  The bar at the bottom is known as the “shelf” and contains various features and apps. The HP Chromebook has 12 Gb of RAM and 64Gb storage on a SSD. As it comes from the factory (in China) about 19Gb is used, with the remainder available for user storage. Later, after adding the Linux development environment, I had 30Gb used and 34 Gb available for user storage. If you decide to buy a Chromebook, pay a good deal of attention to how many ports it has. If you are used to a laptop with four USB ports, HDMI, and network ports, think again. My HP Chromebook has one USB port and two USB-C ports, one needed for external power. I plugged my Bluetooth mouse in the USB port, but I knew that wasn't going to cut it because I wanted to use an external USB drive. One thing I found unusual was the power cord could plug into either of the two USB-C ports. Not knowing better, I bought a USB-C hub from Walmart, thinking it would be compatible with my Chromebook. Unfortunately, it required a driver from the web to function. Bottom line was the downloadable driver was either for Windows or Apple OS. No Chromebook version. I installed it on my wife's Dell Windows computer instead. I did get a "dumb" USB hub with four slots to hold both the mouse and multiple thumb drives. That worked fine with no problems. The Belkin 4-slot hub is the way to go. It features one HDMI, two USB, and one USB-C port, replacing the one on the Chromebook used by the Belkin hub. You can use the new USB-C port to power the Chromebook. When you mount the external USB drive, it appears on the left side of the Files app, as shown in the following screen capture.  Turns out that the symbol on the right that looks like an underlined up arrow is an eject command. If you are not careful, you can inadvertently eject the USB external drive. Believe me, I know. If you remove the USB external drive without ejecting it, you get a pop-up warning that doing that is a very bad idea. (It is.) Generally, you are OK if you don't create, change, or delete files before removing the external drive. Otherwise, the external drive may be corrupted. If you right click on the USB symbol, you get a drop-down menu with Eject and Format device, Rename, and Share with Linux commands. On the left side, you can click on the right arrow to list the folders on the external USB drive. This is similar to Windows File Explorer. At this point you have the option of using the graphical interface in the Files app, which is very intuitive and easy to use if you have Windows experience, or you can use Linux commands in the Terminal app if you enable the “ development environment” from Settings/Advanced/Linux development environment. The following screen capture shows Linux already enabled.  In the graphical app, you can copy, paste, move, and delete files as you would in Windows. In the Terminal app you can use familiar Linux commands to explore the file structure. To access the Terminal, click on the Terminal app from the list of apps accessible from the “circle” button on the left side of the app shelf at the bottom of the screen, as shown below.  The following screen appears.  Note that this is not the Terminal app. Click on “penguin” to open the Terminal app, as shown below.  USB shared files are available at /mnt/chromeos. In order for the external drive to appear, you must enable "Share with Linux" by right clicking on the folder in the File app when you mount it. Otherwise, the USB external drive is unavailable to Linux apps. The following screen shows the shared folders.  From the Terminal app you can execute any Linux command. Don't despair if you don't know Linux. Tutorials are available on YouTube. When you enable the “Linux development environment”, you load the Debian Linux distribution. This gives you access to bread-and-butter Linux apps like Gimp 2.X and Libreoffice, an open-source version of Windows Office. I added Inkscape as well, an open-source drawing program. I hang out a lot on YouTube. I really enjoy the channels about the early days of computing. The origin of "free computing", which is not really free. It just means that everybody is free to make improvements. It's known as "open source" now, a much more descriptive term. The story of GNU (GNU Not UNIX)... Look it up. It's really quite interesting, if you are into that sort of thing. And Linux. It's really true that Scandinavians have way too much spare time on their hands. It's astonishing how ubiquitous Linux is. They specifically mentioned Android as a Linux machine, as well as Chromebook. I hadn't thought of it that way, but it's true. Using Linux on the Chromebook seems so natural because it is a Linux machine. If you use Chrome as your browser, Google as your search engine, Gmail as your email client, and prefer to have your apps and files stored in the cloud, Chromebook may be your best computing platform choice. Add lightning-fast startup; fantastic battery life; and malware-resistant, cheap hardware, you have yourself a winner. I found it easy to go into Settings and change things. Unlike Windows, most security features are enabled by default. Click on the time on the shelf to access Settings, as shown in the following screen capture.  I did find a few annoying things. Duckduckgo is not available as a search engine option. I haven't given up, though. (You can access Duckduckgo in the Chrome browser by typing "duckduckgo.com" in the search line. It's possible to "select" text in apps, something that is expected when surfing the web, but not desirable in an operating system. Be careful not to let the battery run down. The Chromebook does not close down gracefully like Windows does. Occasionally, windows in the “Docs” application are larger than the screen. Basically, if you spend most of your time on the web, don't need programs that actually reside on your computer, and don't mind a computer that looks a lot like a cellphone (except that you can't make calls on it), then the Chromebook might be a good choice for you. As I have already pointed out, if you want more than what Chromebook apps offer, Linux apps are a viable solution. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the security features of the Chromebook. The following excerpt from Chromebook Help says it better than I can. Chromebook securityChromebooks use the principle of "defense in depth" to provide multiple layers of protection, so if any one layer is bypassed, others are still in effect. So while it's still important to take precautions to protect your data, Chromebooks let you breathe just a little bit easier. Your Chromebook has the following security features built-in: Automatic updatesThe most effective way to protect against malware is to ensure all software is up-to-date and has the latest security fixes. This can be difficult to manage on traditional operating systems with many software components from many vendors all with different update mechanisms and user interfaces. Chromebooks manage updates automatically so Chromebooks are always running the latest and most secure version. SandboxingOn a Chromebook, each web page and application runs in a restricted environment called a "sandbox." If the Chromebook is directed to an infected page, it can’t affect the other tabs or apps on the computer, or anything else on the machine. The threat is contained. Verified BootEven if malware manages to escape the sandbox, the Chromebook is still protected. Every time the Chromebook starts up, it does a self-check called "Verified Boot." If it detects that the system has been tampered with or corrupted in any way, typically it will repair itself without any effort, taking the Chromebook back to an operating system that’s as good as new. Data EncryptionWhen using web apps on a Chromebook, all important data is stored safely in the cloud. Certain kinds of files, like downloads, cookies, and browser cache files, may still be present on the computer. The Chromebook encrypts this data using tamper-resistant hardware, making it very difficult for anyone to access those files. Recovery ModeIf anything goes wrong with a Chromebook, you can simply push a button or use a quick keyboard combination to enter recovery mode and restore the operating system to a known good version.### Certain times of the year are especially busy for us, for example, March-April and November-December, so we are going to try to schedule around them. This may result in weirdness like the Winter issue coming out in January, but we would like to be able to say with assurance when a particular issue is coming out. We are going to try to stick with the season motif. That seems to have more than a casual significance to us. Again I have to apologize for the length of time people who submit stories have to wait to find out if their story has been accepted. We have a large pile of submissions to work through (yes, we print them out), and we will get back to you as soon as possible. I regret to say that we may not be able to give every story the personal attention it deserves. I have tried in the past to critique the stories that we reject, but as you might imagine it takes a lot of time and effort to do that for stories we are not going to publish. If we have had your story a month or more, and you have not heard from us, you can drop us an email. I know that is not considered professional, but I can try to give you an idea where your story is in the process.For technical comments and webmasterly things like exchanging links, click on Contact Webmaster to send me an email. We thank you for your support. |
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