Notes Coffee & Chat Tuesday 14 November North Side The meeting was chaired by John S. Twenty nine people attended at the club rooms. There were no new members and there was no treasurer report. The new way of providing these notes continues. i.e. The person who asks the question or provides information at a meeting is to provide the co-ordinator with the details hopefully within a few days. The following Friday has been suggested. The co-ordinator will simply cut and paste the notes, number the items in the approximate order of the meeting, do minor formatting and post them on the net. All reasonable care will be taken by the co-ordinator. The correctness of the content lies with the provider of the notes Any problems or queries re these notes should be directed to Ted M at ebm@pcug.org.au. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1. " Carnivore" Ted M. A newspaper article in the Australian of August 1 2000 describes how the FBI has installed 20 systems (software and a box) at Internet service providers in the USA. The purpose is to capture all messages running through a network according to Marcus Thomas, head of the cyber technology section of the FBI. The American Civil Liberties Union says that this violates the 4th amendment. This implies protection against the unwarranted reading of sender and recipient addresses of e-mails.. The system has been called 'Carnivore ' as it gets to the meat of suspicious messages. 2. Passwords by Ken M. Passwords in windows are somewhat complex. Ken has a program which lists all passwords. Internet passwords are stored separately from other passwords. Ken will write an article for the PCUG magazine about passwords. 3. Sweep results from Melbourne cup were given. Rod S has a problem. He got a blue windows fatal error using W98 and Internet Explorer.The last error was 10 days ago. Now however the directory of his out box has been deleted. John S said that the file is stored with a .dbx extension and can be searched for. Also there is no simple way of storing these files including options and filters. Later JohnS sent this message: re Backing up Outlook Express setting and files. At today's meeting, I volunteered to supply a URL to do the subject job (M$ should have provided an easy facility). It is http://chattanooga.net/~scochran/backup.htm It assumes a reasonable level of Windows knowledge. Good luck.... JohnS Alan M said that the lost file may have been saved as a xxx.chk file. Rod comments : Further to my query about disappearing Outlook Express messages: a. All the old messages in the Inbox and the Deleted Items folders disappeared but the folders were/are still present. b. There are no bits of files turned up by Scandisk. c. There was nothing in the Recycle bin. d. I can not find anywhere on the computer where the files may have been moved. e. I have no idea and no indicators of what happened. Rod 4. Lost windows explorer Leigh D. John S suggested the he should use Find which is the menu item reached by clicking on the "START" button. 5. There was a problem for Mike D with IE 5.5 url follower. John S suggested that if you go to the "Add remove" section you are given a choice to REPAIR any program. Some suggested that Mike may have a " cookie" problem. 6. Items from. Jeff. C A. An appeal was made for additional tutors to introduce Seniors to the Internet at the Belconnen Library. There is a great demand for the service being provided by PCUG on Tuesdays 2-3pm but we are having difficulties in maintaining it because of the need for 2 or 3 more tutors. It would be a great pity if it flopped in 2001 through lack of support from PCUG. Volunteers to contact Jeff Colwell jmcolw@pcug.org.au or tel 6247 7756. B. Problems with variations in connect speed dropping from 42,667 down to 9,600 as shown by a Maestro Woomera modem and frequent drop outs. Various suggestions for this perennial problem. (a) complain to Telstra - a technician listened to the line and reported no noise, hence problem must be with the ISP(pcug). But in fairness, she commented that intermittent problems are difficult - unless the line is showing a problem when tested they can do nothing. (b) Look at tip.help. A copy of Modem Problems (www.tip.net.au/tip/help/h56modem.htm) is available on Trevor's web page http://www.tip.net.au/~tfrew/. Since Tuesday however the problem has simply disappeared with connect speed consistently 42,667 - rain may have been the problem. ----------------------------------------------------------- 7. Transact and MP3 player Mike Dinn Mike suggested one go to the Transact web site to get new details of the service they are offering. Regarding MP3, he asked what will play MP3 files. John S said that Media player 7 from Microsoft would. However that Winamp will take over your computer in regard to sound files. See Computer User Magazine for December. 8. Cardpack John A said that he had been using " Active X" to control player cards and could shuffle them. This was useful in making your own card games. See www.multimedia.it/andy/cardpack. John A also asked for advice about which printer he should buy for B&W and some colour with not a lot of use of the printer being required. Answers given included the HP 950, Canon and Epson makes. After selecting the printer one should go to the cartridge factory at Phillip ACT and see if they can refill the ink cartridge as ink was the most expensive item in the long run. 9. ADSL John K said that he was now using ADSL from Telstra and was very pleased with the speed of downloads which were unlimited in amount. The cost was $1000 per annum and should be cheaper after the first year because the first year included the cost of the set top box. Also telephone calls were free which should be taken into account. The meeting ended at 10.25 am. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ end of notes Ted M 20/11/2000Return to the Index or the Coffee and Chat Page