Notes of C&C Meeting 1 June 1999

Coordinator John welcomed 42 attendees, including Allan safely returned
from his Himalayan trip.  Mike D will act as Chairman for a couple of
sessions, starting next time.

Chess said that Charlie and Trevor are indexing the contents of CDs held by
the Group, so we will know exactly where to look for programs members need.
 Chess asked us to contribute any CDs we don't want, to add to the C&C
collection.  (Members who have been using CDs as bird-scarers on their
fruit trees, please consider lending them to the C&C collection just until
next summer.)

Wolf reported that the Group is in funds, and passed on thanks from the
Cancer Council of the ACT for the $91.00 donated from our last meeting.

Wolf asked members who are borrowing Group hardware or software to ensure
they log the loan into the C&C loan register.  You can also reserve
hardware/software through the register.  The register is available at C&C
meetings, and on Monday, Wednesday and Friday the register is available
through Petra or Owen.

The whiteboard is on Wolf's shopping list.  Chess has consulted David
Schwabe about the caddy for our hard disk.

HARDWARE

MAESTRO WOOMERA MODEM:  John noted that the new Maestro Woomera modem
($259.00) displays signal quality and line level, identifies the caller
even when your PC is off, and has a call status monitor plus a debug mode
for sorting out problems.  6/99

UK 1881 CENSUS:  Paul said that the UK Census of 1881 is available on 23
CDs packed in the form of booklets, for the very reasonable price of
$55.00.  The CDs may be ordered from The LDS Family Resource Centre, 756
Pennant Hills Road, Carlingford, NSW 2118.  Telephone (02) 9841 5447. 
Delivery time is 3 weeks.  6/99

EPSON PRINTING PROBLEM:  Paul said that his Epson 600 colour printer
successfully printed A4 photos on plain paper, but failed on glossy paper. 
Glossy paper requires a higher resolution to print, so this could be a
memory management problem.  Paul should try turning off the spool control
facility; check the Epson website; or check the settings and the ink
cartridge.  6/99

PRINTERS:  The latest issue of PC User discusses utilities for printers,
from printing large sizes to squeezing 16 pages onto an A4 sheet.  Chess
noted that the Epson takes A4 wide paper and prints continuously so you can
create a banner.  Mike said that the HP 695 claims banner capability, with
the paper going round the roller (unlike some printers which print banners
onto folded paper).  Gordon said that HP 710s have bigger cartridges,
saving on printing. The latest issue of Computer Choice compares the costs
per page of various printers; so does PC Authority.  6/99

STORING CARTRIDGE REFILLS:  Chess said that Computer Plus is selling for
$6, HP boxes for storing cartridges which are not in use.  The box system
is better than for example, storing cartridges with moistened cotton in
sealed glass jars.  6/99

CONTAINERS FOR SINGLE FLOPPIES:  These may be bought from Big W and from
Corporate Express, Botany St, Phillip.  6/99

VIDEO CAPTURE CARD:  Chess said that there are a lot of problems with video
capture cards not being compatible with other equipment.  He advised John
to wait to install a DVD.  6/99 

COPYING THE HARD DISK:  Jim F was advised not to use Ghost to copy his hard
disk for backup.  A better strategy would be to buy a 4 GB hard disk
costing $120.00.  Wolf suggested a portable $500.00 Orb 2.2 drive which
images the c drive and provides the same facility as a nest of removable
hard drives.  6/99

HARDWARE PRICES:  Prices for antique hardware are rising, while more modern
hardware can be bought cheaply at the markets.  If you have a 486, consider
buying new technology rather than spending good money on obsolescent
equipment.  Beware of Internet/computer package offers where the PC is
cheap, and the associated monthly charges for Net access are high.  Gordon
quoted the following recent prices from the NATEX Markets 29th May 1999:

Blue Sky computers PRIMER 15" Digital monitor 1600X1200 max  $270
New 72 Pin Simms EDO 8 Meg $37  16Meg $65 32 meg $130 Each.
Second hand 72 Pin Fast Page Ram  8 meg $20  16 meg $45
SDRAM 64 Meg 100Mhz $80
Leo 17" Monitor  1600 X 1200  $830
17" LG Monitor  $460
Leo 15" ComfortView CA  $245
Proline 7GIR 17" .26 Dot 1600 X1200  $400
AMD K6-2 400 SYSTEM $990 without Monitor and with 64 meg ram; 8.4 Gig HDD;
8 meg AGP Video; 32 bit PCI Sound Card; 40 Speed CD Rom; Mouse; keyboard;
ATX Case.
Celeron 400 System (No Monitor)  $890.  6/99

OPERATING SYSTEMS

BOOTING  UP FROM A FLOPPY:  Experts agreed that it is highly dangerous to
boot up the system from a floppy:  you risk corrupting the hard disk.  Use
the floppy only in an emergency.  Always go to MS DOS prompt from within
Windows.  6/99

INTERNET

INTERNET ACCESS NATIONWIDE:  John described the Networking the Nation
program, under which an ISP service called "Points of Presence" is provided
by the TPG-I company.  John was flabbergasted to discover that Points of
Presence comes in a box with three wires which can literally be plugged
into the satellite link (currently 8MB, soon to be 45MB), Telstra's ISDN
line and electric power.  The service, backed up from Sydney, is ideal for
rural and remote areas. Points of Presence costs less than the price of a
CISCO router and provides 20 lines.  TPG-I also offers a capital city ISP
service for $19.95 per month (unlimited access).  Wolf noted that if you
subscribe to TPG-I you can access their ISP service from anywhere in
Australia.  6/99

GENEALOGY WEBSITE:  Mike said that LDS IGI is now online at
http://www.familysearch.org, and is the busiest website in the world with
50 million hits a day.  The site has had to ration access, using your
cookie to identify you and schedule your time, so leave this particular
cookie on your system.  6/99

TIP RENEWAL LEAD TIME:  Mike praised TIP for being able to renew
subscriptions within 3 days.  Allan confirmed that three days is now the
maximum lead time, but warned that TIP membership (essential for access)
still takes two weeks.  6/99

CLASSIC FM:  Mike praised Classic FM, a London radio station on the Net,
which gives genuine hi-fi stereo and audio provided you are getting a
reasonable bit rate.  He noted that IE5 has an inbuilt system for playing
radio stations.  6/99

SORTING EMAIL MESSAGES:  Ken wondered why email messages from two
Australian newsgroups are sorted according to size with no threads, while
overseas newsgroups messages are arranged according to subject in ascending
date order.  It turns out that a tiny slip must have changed the
instructions for sorting messages in the two Australian groups; this can be
changed by renewing the sorting instructions.  6/99 

SOFTWARE

VIRUS CHECKING:  Previous advice to members to download the latest virus
checker shareware from the Net has been overtaken by an even better deal: 
Computer Associates Incoporated (CAI) is now giving away InoculatIT
Antivirus plus all its updates from http://www.cai.com.  Terry explained
that following CAI's purchase of VET, InoculatIT, the same product as VET
Antivirus, is being updated weekly.  When you register, CAI supplies you
with a customer number, then you get email notification of updates, Net
advice, plus diagnosis and cure for any new virus you send them, all free. 
InoculatIT takes only 2MB of space.  6/99

CLEANING THE REGISTRY:  Easycleaner v.1.5, a utility to clean the registry,
removes duplicate and unnecessary files, thus increasing space available on
the hard drive.  Back up your registry before using this excellent program,
available from http://www.saunalahti.fi/tonihele.  6/99

WINDOWS EXPLORER DISPLAY:  Mike lost the display of details in Windows
Explorer, which now shows a blank where the details should be.  Chess
suggested he replace the explorer.exe file.  Roger suggested he try the
system file cleaner.  6/99

SCREEN SAVER: To reinstall a screen saver with W95/W98, right click on
desktop, select properties and then the screen saver.  If the screen saver
is corrupted, reinstall it. Double click on the screen saver from a file or
disk and it should install correctly.  It needs to go into the file Screen
Savers (Scr), C:Windows\Name.Scr.  6/99

ENCYCLOPEDIA PRICES:  These are as low as $35.00 for Britannica (at the
markets) but beware of shortcomings, for example, poor search facilities
and lack of multi-media (even when multi-media is touted as a special
selling point!)  6/99


JL 2/6/99

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