Meeting 3 April 2001



		Minutes of the Meeting held 10 Apr 2001



The following notes include attributed comments from the originators and my
digest otherwise:

1. ISPs and .pdf - JimH

Jim comments: Multi-page.pdf files had become unreadable past page one or
two from the hosted webpage since the ISP had been taken over and moved to
Sydney. Their so called technical advice had been unhelpful and suggested using
.doc or ADSL.

Lengthy research with  the assistance of PCUG members placed the fault with
that particular ISP .No problems were encountered in reading them through
TIP  when the files were placed on other ISP hosted webpages and linking to
those webpages  as a short term solution.


2. Transact - AllanM

TIP will not be going to Transact in the immediate future. No contact with
Transact so far had generated any confidence that they knew what they were
doing in relation to Internet connections. There is some doubt that
traditional modems would work across Transact. Only one member present
showed any serious interest in Transact services. Others are watching with
interest.


3. At home with Your PC; dwarfs4you.exe - RodB

I sent off for "At home with Your PC", because it offered a publishing
program (Value $129.95!) as part of the start up package costing $6.98 (no
obligation - cancel subsequent deliveries anytime). The rather smart initial
package arrived with the publishing program's CD case, but with a different
CD identical to one of the start up package CDs and a promise of a delivery
of CDs and projects every three weeks for $22.95 a time. A phone call
extracted a promise to dispatch the missing publishing program and the
additional information that the complete set of projects and CDs comprised
66 deliveries. I had intended to cancel on receipt of the first pack, but
the absence of the promised program will probably cause me to wait at least
a couple of weeks.

 Norton Antivirus picked up the arrival of a worm in my email. According to
Symantec's web site the worm comes in a number of guises. Mine came as an
attachment to email from "hahahaha" with a subject referring to Snow White
and the Seven Dwarves. The attachment was called dwarfs4you.exe. According
to the description of the worm you would be very wise not to execute it. I
am glad I didn't.


4. Laplink - Gloria

Laplink works very well and is very easy to use. A parallel to parallel
connection cable is required for local use. One of its features allows
control of another computer similar to PC Anywhere.


5. Minutes? - Grahame McC

Minutes prepared by me have not appeared on the TIP newgroup, because I
don't have access. Owen volunteered to put them there until this is
rectified.


6. Syquest 270 SCSI - Baillie MacK

Baillie offered a number of second hand SCSI components, but not a SCSI
adapter to support them.

 Baillie also asked what SPD support was. It is included in the new BIOS he
has flashed. In addition he needed to know what is the best boot sequence.
The consensus of the meeting seemed to be boot from C first. If you need to
boot from floppy then edit the BIOS for that occasion. This provides some
protection from imported boot viruses.


7. Text and pictures - Ted MacA

Ted explained how delighted he had been to find that pictures could be
incorporated into a Word97 document and then manipulated through the right
hand mouse button menu. He reflected that it doesn't matter how long you
have been using a tool there is always something new to learn.


8. Motherboards with RAID - Kevin

Kevin reports: I have been exploring the purchase of a new PC system, with
PII 866mhz CPU (Intel 815 Chipset)on a MSI 815E Pro M/B. Noticed in the makers
brochure that an advanced version of that M/B comes with a feature called RAID.
Is this useful ?  Comments at the meeting suggest this can be of some value if
you have two HDDs, as it copies data from one drive to the other and
provides one with a form of backup if one HDD crashes.

 In my efforts to get a good deal on the purchase I have leaned a lot about
Canberra dealers and how one cannot assume that all hardware being offered
is identical to same brand items that have been reported on is various
magazines. For example there are "lite" versions of M/Bs and other items of
hardware that miss some features. The fact you are going to be sold a system
with a Lite version is usually not stated.

 With a CD Burner it has taken a lot of probing to establish that most of
the lower cost burners are not "Burn Proof" (with suitable buffer underrun
protection). I had come to the conclusion that a suitable Burner with
underrun protection, using a feature called JustLink, seems to be the Ricoh
7125 (although the software that comes with it is Prassi Promo and may not
be as good as Adaptec's Easy CD Creator or Nero). Numerous dealer staff
seemed to not know much about Burn Proof or Underrun Protection. When
enquiring about a specific brand Geforce II M/X graphic cards (that I knew
had TV out), I was often offered another brand "that was just as good". It
was only after enquiry, it became apparent that "TV out" was missing.

 In all I have found most dealer staff helpful and willing to discuss
various matters, if approached on a weekday at an offpeak time. Saturday is
probably the worst time to make enquiries.

 The prices being offered don't seem to that much dearer than the markets
for a complete system, given the greater usefulness of the warranty and the
more time to see equipment demonstrated and see that the PC and all its bits
are working properly. One  Canberra dealer scored points by advising me to
come back after Easter, when PIII 1000mhz chips would be cheaper, and not
much dearer than the present 866mhz.


9. Disabling PDF in MSIE - Owen

Owen remarks are: The problem was that when "left" clicking on a .pdf link,
the Acrobat reader would fire up. To prevent this, if you just wanted to
save the file, is to "Right" click on the link and "Save Target As"
something or other.


10. Library/Voice - Jeff

Service to seniors at the Belconnen library may be improved if a similar
booking system to that used at Woden is implemented.

 The Commonwealth Bank now offers a voice recognition service for share
dealing. The meeting expressed some reservation in regard to entrusting its
entire worldly wealth to such a system.


11. Access to damaged Jazz files - Leigh
A relative of Leigh's had been quoted $1100 to recover two apparently
unreadable files from a Jazz disk. The meeting recommended reinstalling
driver software first and then finding an alternative drive.


12. Telstra local billing details - MikeD
An example of online local call billing details was discussed.






Rod Blackburn.




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