Meeting 15 October 1996


 

	Anyway, some  administration to start the day off. 
A letter of apology from Peter Hodge, and while we no longer take
apologies, peter advise he has a lung infection from using tiling
grout, and has since found out that those grouting contains fungii and
all sorts of nasties. So beware and  use a face mask.
 
	Jim Hume has volunteered his place for Melbourne Cup lunch, again, and
there were enough interested to make it a goer. Watch this space.

	Christmas lunch is tentatively planned for 3 Dec 1996, in Woden, being
more or less the centre of gravity for the group. Possibly at the
Tradies, again, watch this space.

	Ted Macarthur raised the issue of Name Tags, there being "so many" it
might facilitate the socialisation if we could all wear them.
Why not have the PCUG card as a name tag type card? It seems that the
production of PCUG membership cards is a slow and painful process, and
maybe it might be worth looking at a more modern card, with bar codes
etc etc. (Several examples were shown)....Well in the meantime we may
try reverting to an old  practice of having a box to put the names in.
See what transpires.

TRAINING

	There was considerable discussion about training and I have attempted
to thread it all together here.

	Firstly, the new training room was considered to be top class, and it
was thought that it could be used, when free, for mutual self help.
When asked who in the C&C group would be interested in such an
arrangement, all 30 hands shot up....so there was a start. 

	Then it was pointed out that one of the goals of the PCUG was "To
disseminate information on all aspects of personal computers to
members of the group and the community". Could the facilities be used
to do this, for example, bring along a group of kids and show them
this and that about computers. 

	Another suggestion widened the scope, "perhaps as a group, we could
try bringing one of our computers to say a retirement village and let
some of our older folk make Christmas cards or just let them play
Solitaire. What other things could we as a group do to assist. 

	Mike Dinn is tied up with the University of the Third Age. If you want
to know what this is about, have a look at;

http://www.pcug.org.au/~mdinn/pros.htm

It has relevance to todays discussion.

	We were left with the questions, who can help, who do we help, what do
we help with, what resources do we need. So if you have any ideas,
post them here and see if there is any discussion on the matter.

GENERAL

What are netscape Cookies?
The answer seems to be;
When you visit a site, some of them will interrogate your machine, ie,
find out who you are and record the information, thus building a
database on you.
You can find out who has info on you by looking at your Cookies file.
And if you start getting junk mail, suspect the cookie.
It appears you can switch off "cookies". Some places don't allow
cookies on a privacy basis, and Java script on a virus basis. A
further revelation was that during a session on Netscape, Netscape
will send a packet every so often to Netscape General Headquarters
saying, "I am being used". Interesting stuff ?

	Emil Joseph gave a rundown on VCC, and since there is a new PowWow
out, some thought that might be tried. So I guess we will discuss this
again on the VCC next Tuesday. Also the problem of being tossed off
because of same Nicknames can be resolved by registering your Nick. So
I guess there will be a few registrations going into Dalnet now.

	Two interesting programs were;
dragvu13.zip  539K (Drag and View Gold 3.1)and 
dragfl20.zip  1323K (Drag and File)
The latter is the best, but the first is on the BBS, I hear.
Ever wanted to view an excel file, but don't have excel, then these
programs are for you. They can view dozens of formats, including
graphics. These are Win 3.x files, In Win 95, there is a cut down
version of the file which is not very useful (maybe you have to buy an
upgrade !)

	Want to know about Service Providers in Australia, then look at:

http://netscape.net.au/~hankin/isp06.htm 

(for the ACT). Quite an interesting analysis, and if you want to know
how Australia is connected to the rest of the world, then look at;

http://netscape.net.au/~hankin/ismap.htm

Also interesting reading, so thanks to Mike Dinn for that information.

	After previous discussions on handsets for talking through your
computer, a couple of demo handsets were brought along by Charlie
Rann. He will make you up one for $20 now, and one was sold on the
spot. 

	Ink prices came under review and Gordon Urquhart had a price list from
AUSDOC (at Mitchell??). They have some pretty good prices, so start at
Norman Harvey for a top price, and work your way down from there.

	Gordon also bought a new 486SX 25 mother board at the last Hyman
auction. $21.00. 

	And that was it for another fortnight, next meeting 29 Oct 1996. Some
of the group wandered off to the Belconnen Soccer Club for a lunch,
hope you enjoyed it folks.

Till next time.

Owen



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