Minutes of the Meeting held 19 February 2002
The notes of matters discussed at the meeting follow:
'1. (a) Internet Explorer deja vu.
On 11 February Microsoft posted a cumulative patch for Internet Explorer 5.01, 5.5
and 6 which when installed is directed to eliminating previously discussed security
vulnerabilities affecting these versions, plus eliminating six newly discovered
vulnerabilities. This is classed as a 'critical' update.
The URL for the patch is: www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/critical/q316059/default.asp
****Addendum*****
The URL for item 1(a) was missing a vital component. Apologies.
It should be; www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/downloads/critical/q316059/default.asp
(b) Inkjet ink costs.
A comparison was made and discussed between cartridges purchased at retail, and home
refilling.
(c) DVD.
Prints made from movie frames saved to disk via a computer DVD player were shown.
- Mobyj
2. XP Update (Charlie K)
Charlie reported on his ongoing trial of XP.
While generally happy with the operating system and its interface, he
was not happy that it now seemed to be running very slowly on his
Pentium 2, 333mhz machine with 128Mg of memory.
General consensus on XP Newsgroups seemed to be that you need at least
256 Meg or more to get good performance.
Charlie has opportunity to borrow some memory so will experiment, but
for the time being looks like reverting to Win 98 SE. Fortunately he
installed XP as a second operating system so can use the dual boot
option and doesn't need to do any re-installing.
3. (a) Once in a 1001 years.
(b) Ultimate internet hacker solution.
4. (a) FTP.
JohnS says "I had a problem uploading files via WS_FTP (latest version),
to my TIP web space. No problems to another member's space, or to web space
on a commercial server in the US. AllanM helped a lot by deleting an
un-needed file with incorrect permissions and access via WS_FTP was O.K. at
the PCUG Centre - but still no good from home. The connection would time out
on the LIST command. After a lot of research, the problem turned out to be
ZoneAlarm which was told to allow WS_FTP to transmit, and indeed allowed
that to everywhere apart from my own webspace!. Still don't know the
mechanism, but the workaround is to shut down Zone alarm during that
particular upload". AllanM has promised to repeat his advice about ZoneAlarm
advanced security settings.
(b) Printer problems
John's HP 830C printer has failed with a constantly flashing "out of
ink" alarm light - both cartridges are full and contacts, etc. have been
thoroughly cleaned. The heads seem to "jump" slightly away from the right
hand end of the slide at about 30 sec intervals. A cursory (no dismantling)
check revealed a mass of congealed ink (some lumps up to 0.5 cm cubes!) on
and around the foam rubber pad. Extracted some of this but still no joy.
Suspect ink may have got into an end of slide limit switch or something like
that. No positive suggestions received, but previous experience indicates
that it will be hard to dismantle.
(c) CandC member list
Members were reminded that Owen's CandC listing is still available on
the Web at http://www.pcug.org.au/pcug/candc/cgi-bin/cnc.cgi (but you do
need the password to access). The list now includes Email addresses in text
(not just links). A printout was passed around for updates.
(all from John S)
5. (a) A c.$US10 cardboard telephone (including call charges).
'Telephone cardboard' see further details at
www.digit-life.com/articles/taxofon/index.html
This site describes and shows pictures of a proposed 'phone-card phone'
whose price of around US$10 would include 60 minutes call time. It can be
used for OUTgoing calls only. The phone could use a new battery made of
manganese dioxide, printed and pasted on to cardboard, which has been
developed by Power Paper Ltd.?? in the UK. The battery is very cheap and
long lasting.
Also 'Telespree' has developed another disposable prototype mobile phone. It
does not need a display or keys. It uses voice recognition. It is predicted
that telecommunication companies will undergo severe changes. Payphones for
instance are rarely used in Japan and many operators in the USA. eg.
Bellsouth plans to disable all 143,000 phones by 2002.
(b) Amazon.com.
Amazon.com is even more easy to use to buy books etc but the shipping
charges and our low dollar value costs are still prohibitive. The books I
bought on Monday are unobtainable in Australia. My books arrive on 19th
March. Books costing over US $100 get a cheaper shipping rate.Try the service
out. But first sell your house.
(d) Vienna cafe society
In Vienna a new internet service is in use in coffee shops. It consists
of a wireless network of 20 transmiters/receivers. This allows access at 11
mbytes/second to the internet for business men/women in coffee shops with
laptop computers. This lets them communicate with their work computers
while enjoying their coffee and making business arrangements. It could be
described as a City Area Network or C.A.N. You pay for the service to the
coffee shop. Why can't we have such a service here?. Cheaper than Telstra ?
This looks to me like a very promising service Canberra/ PCUG could offer
it's business folk. But I could be wrong. (all from Ted M)
6. VB course on 3 March. (John A)
An introductory Visual Basic course will be held on Sunday March 3rd at the
PCUG Centre.
The usual arrangements - booking via Petra
7. CD-R blanks. (Emil)
Wayne drew my attention to CD blanks sold as a Special in Dick Smith
stores with the wording on the cover : "TDK CD-R AUDIO XA. This is a
CD for recording Music use. When used with a CD recorder that bears
the logo mark [compact DISK digital audio], you can produce your own
original CDs. Original CD recordings can be used in the same manner as
ordinary pre-recorded CDs. This product is based on standards in
Orange Book Part II."
I am puzzled by this for I confess I treated such a claim as an ad
talk. It has been my understanding that all cd-r blanks are sold
unformatted. The formatting is supplied by the cd burning software
when a particular format is selected by the user.
I did a web search on the subject but it was in a way inconclusive. I
could not find any reference that would distinguish those TDK cd
blanks from other quality cd blanks. Apparently all cd blanks are
manufactured on the standards of the Orange Book.
So, my question remains: Does anyone know whether those TDK blanks are
specialised cd blanks superior to other quality blanks in respect to
music recording?
(My current favourite CD blanks are LASER brand Premium Gold 80 min
rated 1x-24x. They sell for $17-$19 per pack of 20 at the computer
market.)
8. (a) View homepage problem.
(b) TransACT info.
(c) Weather Bureau site for storms
9. Clean-Sweep.
10. Setting up new computer and adding scanner.
11. BIOS reporting.
12. Request for W95 instruction disk.'
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