Minutes of C&C Meeting 19 May 1998 Co-ordinator Alf welcomed all 33 attendees, including newcomers Keith and Margarita, plus Esther, returning after an absence. Wolf said that the Group owned $1207.62 in funds. Less current commitments (including Midwinter Lunch subsidy and deposit) the amount remaining will soon be $348.22. Wolf said he had had the job of investigating the purchase of a dishwasher for PCUG; the model selected cost $600.00 and the PCUG Committee is happy to pay for it. However, he felt that C&C members would benefit more than other PCUG members from the purchase and therefore C&C should make a contribution. After some discussion of how much C&C members used the kitchen, compared to other SIG and PCUG members, the amount of $200.00 was proposed and seconded. Anne (W) suggested that the amount should be $150.00, as 25 per cent of the cost would be reasonable, but this was overruled. It was agreed to offer the PCUG Committee $200.00 to contribute to the cost of the dishwasher. Emil passed on Ken Meadows' best wishes from the UK. Ken can be contacted at kenmed@hotmail.com. Colin is looking for a cheap Pentium with a CD ROM for a student. 1. Refilling HP cartridges Jim suggested, and the Group agreed, that the manager of the Cartridge Factory should give a talk to the Group on refilling cartridges. HP printers now use an acid-based ink, which makes refilling cartridges with coloured ink difficult if not impossible (black ink is not a problem). Adequate refills for the models affected may become available soon. 2. Increasing the speed of downloading web pages Jeff asked whether the time to download web pages using Big Pond could be cut by increasing RAM from 16 to 32 megabytes. It was agreed that given the cost of RAM, it was good for the overall system to upgrade to 32 megs. However, doing so would not affect download time. There are several interactions between the customer's telephone line and the destination, (such as the local line, the ISP's modems) and bottlenecks could exist in any of these places. 3. Direct cable connection Wolf asked about transferring data from a PC to a laptop and back. This topic is explained in the W95 Manual under direct cable connection. 4. Norton Utilities; crash warnings Mike has had some bad luck with a copy of Norton Utilities Gold which when loaded brought up the deadly blue screen. With some luck, he managed to regain control through Save mode. He returned NU to the supplier and received a refund. Jeff and Lew also had alarming stories about NU. Anne (G) added that her computer had managed to crash without benefit of NU. Mike was advised that most likely, he had a problem in his system which has not yet erupted. W98 is able to warn the user that the hard drive is about to crash. The Group noted that EDOs are used in pairs; if you install one only, there will be a problem. 5. Low priced bubble jets Philip wishes to replace his 1991 Canon printer. The HP 660C at $210 uses the same cartridges as all other HPs; beware the HP 700 range which has a refill problem (see #1 above). John's article in the June issue of Sixteen Bits covers printer crashes. 6. Windows 98 The Group discussed benefits of using the PCUG free pre-release W98 disk, which runs out on 24 August 1998, but which will no doubt be updated by a patch from Microsoft, in the likely event that W98 is not on sale by then. 7. Colour reversal Anne (G's) screen is normally white with black print, but sometimes this reverses, without apparent harm. The video driver does not work properly. Anne can (in Windows) click MS DOS prompt, alt tab back to the other window and it may be fixed. JL 19/5/98 644 ********************************************************** Coffee & Chat Page, including archives of past meetings http://www.pcug.org.au/~rcook/c&c.htm These Archives are now searchable. ***********************************************************
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