Admin. Stuff: Mike opened the meeting of 40 members, including two new members, Peter and Sandy. Wolf gave a financial report which showed a satisfactory balance even after the purchase of a white-board for use by members of the PCUG. Wolf also mentioned that the C&C SIG had turned over in excess of $13,000 since 1997. The only income to C&C is the $2 donation by each member at each meeting (except for the first attendance, which is free). There was a discussion on the definition of a C&C member, and it was agreed that there should be some level of regularity of attendance, but membership would be kept on an informal basis even though it is recorded on an attendance sheet which circulates at each meeting. Your scribe was delighted to see that everyone was wearing a name badge although some of the fonts were small enough to challenge his optical acuity. General Stuff: Mike brought in a number of CDs to commence an indexed collection of the CDs given out on most current magazines, primarily for use by C&C members. Ken ( kenmead@pcug.org.au ) is starting a Genealogy Group, and noted the large number of living people in the Dead Persons Society. See Ken to get on his mailing list. Peter suggested that some live persons may be found through the Dead Persons Society, and quoted an example of how a lady did not know that she had two sisters until found through the DPS. Gloria reported on her recent VISE assignment to 12 families and one aboriginal school in the Dubbo/Hay area. Some of the locations did not have local phone call facilities or computer experience. She stayed for about two days at each location, and is preparing for a trip to Brewarrina to help three nuns. One of the problems was a failed modem, and the most common connect speeds were 28.8 and 31.2 kb/s. Another problem was that when the free hours expired, they were unable to decide what their time needs were for a subscription to an ISP scheme. Techno Stuff: Ola told of her endeavours to purchase a computer to satisfy her needs which included running a graphic program for her needle craft work. When discussing an appropriate video card and CD Writer, the salesman at a Belconnen computer shop (company named, but not published here) observed her femininity and said "that 'A' and 'B' would be the most appropriate, but 'C' and 'D' would do for you"! Naturally, that shop lost a sale. After discussing some possibilities, it was suggested that a SCSI card could be used as it was fast enough to copy from a HDD to a CD Writer. 6/99 Mike recently did a Format C: and wanted to use TweakUI but could not find it at the MS site. It actually exists on the W98 CD, but is not installed automatically. TweakUI has several good features including assistance in moving a file to another drive/location, ie. 'Favourites'. 6/99 Mike mentioned the new Worm 'Explore.zip' which seems to behave like a '.exe' file. It is probably a self-extracting zip file, but most of the anti-virus program updates can recognise it. It comes with a very friendly message encouraging the mail recipient to open the attachment, but can cause a great deal of damage in the computer. Moral: keep anti-virus definitions up-to-date! Also check out 'Innoculate It' at www.cai.com/personal where Computer Associates International provide the A/V program and updates free. 6/99 Mike's Format C: required a W95 install first to enable the W98 upgrade. It was suggested that a W3.x preliminary install would have been better because of time saved. Ken will be writing an article on this in '16 Bits'. It was noted that Windows 3 is now out of copyright. Jim suggested that Zip drive owners could go to the Iomega site and download 'Nortons Rescue', a free program which reads the registry and other essential windows files to assist with a re-installation. 6/99 Colin is unable to shut down his W98 properly and it was suggested that it could be caused through a problem with the CMOS or Power Management settings, or possibly incompatible software. 6/99 Mike tried out the"free AOL 100 hours/month", but had difficulty in its exorcism. This seems to be a common problem. 6/99 Wolf started up his laptop but forgot the password, so cancelled the operation. However he was able to log on for that occasion, but not the next time. Chess suggested some security options that may need resetting, but advised that this type of security should not be used unless necessary. 6/99 Terry spoke on PC restoration after a crash, details of which can be found in 'tip.coffee-chat' newsgroup by following the thread from 'Easy Cleaner'. 6/99 Chess advised that he had installed W98 and 'Innoculate' on the C&C removable hard disk. He gave a demo after the meeting. 6/99 Margot may only be able to use 75 hours of her TIP time, and Allan said that the suspension of TIP membership can be possible if going away for a period. When TIP membership is suspended, the residual time is converted into dollars, less a small admin. charge. On return, the balance is converted back into time. 6/99 Gloria advised that 'mail2web.com' will allow anyone to access their e-mail from another internet terminal, providing they know their ISP's POP address. 6/99 Allan advised that TIP will terminate a session after 12 hours. 6/99 A member (sorry - I could not read the name-badge from that distance) was changing from TIP to another ISP and wanted to know is unused TIP time could be converted and added to membership. The answer was No, but with the suggestion that surplus TIP time could be used for browsing, with the mailer (Outlook Express ?) turned off so that the new ISP could handle the e-mails. 6/99 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . My apology for the delay in posting these Notes - I am less efficient now that I don't use the spoon and string when in company. Also, as C&C notes are used in a techno-database, please feel free to publish in this newsgroup any errors that may be apparent. >-------------------------------------------------------< Neville Anderson nevander@pcug.org.au + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + See Coffee and Chat at www.pcug.org.au/pcug/candc/c&c.htm for searchable archives of past meetings ................ >-------------------------------------------------------<
Return to the Index or the Coffee and Chat Page