John Saxon ran this mornings show, bit different, everyone was given the opportunity to talk, and as a result we went way over time, but I guess that didn't matter. These notes are organised into topics rather that the sequence in which the meeting took place. The PCUG was seeking feedback on a proposal to cease disk sales. The general feeling was that these sales would not be missed, so long as there were a stock of disks at the centre for sale, so when you came in to get a file, and you had forgotten your disks, then you could buy a packet. Another comment was that it may be worthwhile for the Users Group to buy Zip disks in bulk, $22, for sale to members, compared to some street prices of $35 or so. On the subject of Zip drives, Emil explained that they were like another hard drive that plugged into your printer port, and as such, could be used as another hard drive. Darrell Burkey handed around a Zip disk, and various people told how great they were for transferring data from one machine to another, making backups, and archiving. Wolf is still planning on the purchase of a Zip drive, and we should know more next meeting. Jim Fogg advised that he could get 248 Megs onto a Zip disk using Stacker, but double space was close to useless, in fact he took Doublespace back to Harvey Norman and got his money back. Cec Watson, I think, was a new member with interests in the Internet and photography, he wanted to know about modems, so the "standard" advice, with some discussion, was given, buy a Maestro 33.6 Executive external modem. We look forward to seeing Cec again, I am sure he is going to have a few more questions. Nev Anderson can connect and work with Advanced Bank, but the C'bank had him confused. He runs Win3.11, and was under the impression that he needed a 32 bit system to connect to the C'bank. Considerable discussion, and thanks to Darrell again; You cannot run a 32 bit winsock on a 3.11 machine, even if it has the win32s program. The C'bank should have a 16 bit version of its programs, so look for Win 3.1 programs. Elizabeth Ward sent an e-mail but it bounced ,addressee unknown, and she wondered why. The most likely reasons were: The address no longer existed The address was incorrectly entered, an l instead of an I (ones an little l, the other is a capital I, but can you tell the difference ?) Using an address book was one way of minimising addressing mistakes. VIRUS ALERT...........His wife works at the Tax Office, and there she found a notice warning of the Pen Pals Virus. This was relayed to the C&C group........Pen Pal greetings carries a virus, it is self replicating, and gets messages out of your address book and sends it on to other users. Darrell thanked John for the information, and advised that the virus could only be activated if the attachment was executed. (Someone asked what does executed mean) It only works apparently with MS Mail and if one ever turns up on your mailer, simply press the Del(ete) key. Colin Pitson, visiting home from India for a while, said that to send a fax from India to Australia costs up to $10. With Internet access, could he send faxes via that medium ? Well sort of yes or no, Telstras service has apparently be suspended, so while it looks like a no-no, make sure you have a friend here who can relay them for you. His W95 also has started to play up, it freezes from time to time, and no longer does he get the meesage......It is safe to turn off your computer. Suggestion was to reinstall win95. The University of the Third Age, via Mike Dinn and John Goodspeed will give a Demo of the Internet for Seniors on Thursday, 29 May 1997 between 2 and 4pm. The demo will be at the National Science and Technology Centre. This will comprise; Illustrate the use of the Net, as orientated towards seniors. What you need to have and do to get on to the Net The demo is free, mainly intended for third age members, but other seniors are welcome. Interested ? Then contact Mike at mdinn@pcug.org.au Also on the subject of Seniors, Wolf provided an up date on the ACT Governments Seniors Net. It will now be set up at the Woden Library, as a first step, it will be owned by the government, and a group to be known as "Friends of the Internet Seniors" will look after the Internet Seniors. Some members of the PCUG may be interested in assisting in this regard. If so contact Wolf at wlieske@pcug.org.au There was a BBQ after the meeting...How did it go, great day for it anyway, and the next meeting will be 27 May 1997, but if you are into IRC, you can come to the VCC net Tuesday, see http://www.pcug.org.au/~ejoseph/ for details. Cheers for now Owen
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