Coffee and Chat Meeting on Tues Nov 16 1999
45 members were present.
1) Ted welcomed New Members. Elanor, Alan and John.
2) Also welcome to new treasurer. Wolf passed on the reins to Charlie
who reported a 'comfortable' balance. It was proposed by Wolf and
approved by the meeting that the latest version of the Money software
should
be
purchased. The chairman thanked Wolf for his efforts and the meeting
concurred.
Whiteboard Items
3) John
a) Woomera Modem. PCUG members cost is about $240. John was
enthusiastic about the performance and noted particularly the
value of the LCD screen which gave the current connect speed. He
made the point that there was a difference between the speed
reported by Windows and the Kryton figure. The Windows value is
an initial speed and does not indicate the final speed. The
equipment has a database which it updates as conditions change.
Reports on the various parameters are easily taken and in
particular it gives line level and quality values. The impedance
matching feature cycles through 6 loops before locking on the
best match. It is easy to install and has good software. The
equipment is held in the filing cabinet and is available for
loan by members. NB Clear the data base before using on a new
system.
b) New products from Maestro.
1) Portable phone modem.
2) Message modem Fax and voice mail. Responds to voice commands.
See Maestro site
c) The Microsoft video aimed at instruction for Seniors is now
available.
d) A discussion on some problems with logging on to ICQ. Owen
pointed out that the option to NOT disconnect after mail was
necessary. Alan M reported that there were some delays due to the
increasing need to invoke antispam requirements.
d) A discussion on Blank pages under IE5. The only reliable cure
seemed to be to go to the control panel and ask for removal.
This resulted not in removal but in upgrading which cured the
problem.
4) Charlie the new treasurer
a) MVP - Most Valuable Professionals. Charlie explained the
concept and noted that while Microsoft did not support this
group financially it did facilitate their access to resources
and contact with them was liable to be more productive than many
of the user groups. He had found them to be very approachable
and flameless. At one stage Microsoft intended to pull the pin
on the system but relented in the face of strong worldwide
pressure. The site is WWW.MVPS.ORG/LINKS.HTML
b) Startup Manager. A very useful utility which allows for
selective suspension of applications rather than the cruder
ON/OFF available via the Task Menu.
Site is WWW.ABTONS-SHED.COM
5) Kryn
Logitech Internet Keyboard. Good keyboard but the Internet
functions not operative. Discussion on reasons was not
conclusive. May be restricted to Logitech mouse.
6) Mike
Free Cell Pro. A superior version of the popular game with more
options with regard to number of free cells etc.
Site is http://members.aol.com/wgreview/fcpro.html
A version of FreeCell is available on TIP general.
7) Wolf
General discussion on the various options with phone companies.
Among the points made - a) Dialling the initial 'Optus' number
may not give you access to all the discounts that you will
receive if you are a subscriber. b) World Exchange has 15c/min
rates to the UK.) Care should be exercised with the AOL offer
of free Internet time. Mike's experience was positive but there
is some opinion that the current installation process has far
reaching effects on your system that may be harder to remove.
8) Rod
a) Continuing problems with using more than one hard disk. At
one stage a large file named C(cedilla)WINDOWS suddenly appeared
and occupied most of an eight Gig drive. Not resolved.
b) IE5 with OS Password setting did not seem to be remembered.
Advice was to access the Tools/Accounts area. Another situation
is when a network card is present, in this case it is possible
to access network preferences and disable the password
requirement.
c) Very slow rates of transfer with ZDNET. General discussion of
the factors affecting transmission speed which is compounded
with popular sites like ZDNET and SCOM. Mike suggested tests
with users copying the same file from TIP. The dimensionality of
the problem would need probably invalidate anything except a
very large multi-factorial trial.
9) John
Fonts. This months (Dec) PC User discs contain 2000 True Type Fonts
and in the face of such variety John sought advice on the better
designers if such had emerged. General consensus was suck it and
see.
10) General Q and A
a) (Colin) Inserting page numbers with only part of number
appearing. Need to modify margins and other parameters in the
Footer.
b) (Colin ?) Had a problem with inability to send URLs in eMail. He
could not
send full pages of interest to friends. It was pointed out that his
recently visited pages
with graphics were already stored in his "History" section of IE5.
He could see them
off line by clicking on the history button.. Any portion could be
examined/copied
at his leisure
and sent..
c) (Leigh) Microsoft SE slow at startup and shut down. Some laptops
have special disc,
eg Toshiba. General opinion is that unless you want the extra
facility provided by SE you should avoid it.
d) (Wolf) Reminder of need to book and pay $16 for a 'mirror
displayed' feast which will be
held at the end of next Coffee and Chat meeting, instead of
leaving to got to the Soccer
other clubs. The Christmas feast will be held in the club rooms
itself.
Notes by John A on 19/11/99
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