Notes of C&C Meeting 20 April 1999 Coordinator John welcomed 40 attendees, including newcomers Anne and Ross, both of whom had read about C&C in Sixteen Bits and who had questions about operating their computers. Wolf said that the Group is in funds and the savings account is being established. Allan announced that the Linux Learners' Group will meet at the PCUG Centre next Thursday 29 April at 10 am. HARDWARE REFILLS FOR PRINTER CARTRIDGES: John said that it was very important, before buying a new printer, to contact businesses such as The Cartridge Factory to make sure the make and model of the printer you intend to buy can be refilled. Some printers, such as the HP 800 series, are almost impossible to get refilled. Mike said that Tuggaranong Homeworld would push through the HP nozzles and refill the cartridge for $30.-; and that Viking Stationery sell HP black cartridges for less than $50.-. Mike does not recommend Pelican cartridges – he will bring one to the next meeting to demonstrate. Greg gets his refills from Melbourne. Anne G reminded us of Gordon's recommendation for Budget Reload (http://www.recyle.net.au) offering Canon and Epson cartridges, not HP. Keith complained that Canon's ink is not very permanent, and added that Canon's nozzles can be cleaned with water/steam. 4/99 Wolf said that a Cartridge Factory expert had suggested that if you are buying a new printer, buy an Epson; but if you do not print regularly, buy a Canon as these withstand being left unused. To unblock clogged printer heads, hold them down on hot water-soaked tissues. Who has any information about refilling/unblocking laser printers? 4/99 PRINTERS: Keith said that his HP 690 printer (bought for $490) broke down and the Agent's quote to fix it was $310. This model now sells for $250.-. 4/99 PRINTING/PUBLISHING BOOKS: John said that he had intended to copy from a master to publish his 101pp book, till he found Copyquik (with all its machines on a LAN) is able to produce each book as an original print from a MS Publisher file (his included several very small jpeg files). He was charged 7c per page for 10K pages, as opposed to 9c a page for copying. The result, with thermal binding, looks great. 4/99 COST OF PCS: Mike bought a second-hand 486 plus CD ROM and W95 for $200 from an Adelaide school. But this price is standard, it appears. 4/99 THREE BUTTON MOUSE: Mike warned that the switch on a three button mouse can inadvertently cause programs to fail. 4/99 OPERATING SYSTEMS REINSTALLATION TIME-WARP: Anne G, helped by Gordon, was unable over 10 days, to reinstall Windows 3.11. She and Gordon had done a Format C, and reinstalled DOS. After trying everything twice at least, W3.11 still refused to install at her house, though it would work at Gordon's. Following some unlikely-sounding specialist advice, they installed the trident display driver that had come with the machine and were then told to install Windows 3.1 disks (5¼ inch). By following the readme instructions given with the 3.1 disks they successfully installed the 3.11 program. How did this come about? Nobody knows. But don't throw your 5¼ inch disks away yet! Meantime Anne praised Gordon for his gentlemanly language and Job-like patience. 4/99 Chess warned Anne to keep all her documentation as nobody now knows how W3.1 works or should be repaired. 4/99 CHANGING DRIVES: Kryn reconfigured his machine with an 8GB drive and changed from W95 to W98. His former c drive is now his d drive and he is gradually changing his files across. However, his favourites file will not move from c to d. It turns out you have to copy the file then paste it into Windows favourites. Only after a successful copy do you delete the file in the old drive. 4/99 Kryn also wanted to move his addressbook from Outlook Express to his new browser, but could not find the file in his old drive. John advised to use "find" *.wab (wab means Windows addressbook) and then define where this file should reside. 4/99 INTERNET BISCUITS BASE: John thanked Peter for last meeting's notes, and raised the question of the worth of the C&C notes for future use. Chess is running an experiment in constructing a searchable base (named Biscuits after one of our Group's enduring interests) which will we hope require little effort to maintain. A disclaimer about the information's complete correctness and its currency is to be included. Peter noted that the follow-on threads posted to the newsgroup after the meeting should be included in the new base. This raised the question of how to access the newsgroup and archive, and Jenny reminded us that the URL of the archive is listed at the end of each newsgroup posting: alas, as members quickly pointed out, this is Catch 22 unless you know how to get into the newsgroup in the first place! 4/99 Allan also said he was trialling web-based access to newsgroups. Access will be limited to TIP users, so if you use an outside ISP Allan will provide you with a password. 4/99 Chess said that the Biscuits base required little effort. Jim F will sort the information after it is added to the end of the base after posting. Once Biscuits is added to the C&C Webpage it will be searchable by category and by word. Chess sees Biscuits as a living document, and invites us to send him any useful information for inclusion (including "threads"). We agreed with Anne G that the record of meeting should be called "Notes" instead of "Minutes". 4/99 SOFTWARE ABORTING THE INSTALLATION PROCESS: Newcomer Anne L had a problem installing Cheyenne bitware and aborted the process. Then when she wanted to start again, she could not find the program in "add/remove software". Chess advised that if you are half-way through an installation, don't stop, keep on going, and afterwards change the instructions. Don't use Clean Sweep either as it will halt your other applications. 4/99 PARTITION MAGIC: Is PM able to transfer the operating system and software from the old to the new drive? No, this is a function of Drive Copy. 4/99 MAKING USE OF ALL YOUR DRIVES: Elizabeth wondered why shouldn't she spread her files over her drives a bit more evenly? (Her c drive is getting full). Chess suggested she might just as well put all new applications on another drive as she installs them. John noted that a "custom install" is a good idea, to ensure you specify where new programs should go, rather than have them dumped by default into c drive. 4/99 PARTITIONING YOUR DRIVE: Why partition early? John said this was to 1) find things more quickly; 2) logically divide files into systems, applications, data. 4/99 VIRUS: Richard has contracted a virus after opening the attachment to an email. F Proct available free from MS will do the trick. NORTON ANTIVIRUS UPDATES: Anne L wants to download updates of Norton Antivirus. To do this, create a download directory, double click on the file that you want to download. If the file is executable you double click on it and it runs. See the instructions on John Saxon's homepage at http://www.pcug.org.au/~jsaxon 4/99 LOADING SOFTWARE THROUGH DESKTOP TO LAPTOP: Ross bought IBM Thinkpad and a CD of Windows 95. He cannot load these two software items through his desktop to the laptop. Twenty files have been overwritten on the laptop. He is using DOS. Chess advised against using DOS with W95/98 as DOS cannot copy long file names. Ross should use the CD ROM driver on the parallel port. Gloria said she succeeded in loading software through the desktop onto a laptop using a 3-year-old zip drive. C&C members can borrow the Group's zip drive for jobs like this. 4/99 MICROSOFT FAX: Wolf would love to have a reliable fax program, and found some options for installing one in Word. He followed the options but could not install MS Fax. Terry said there was a fax program in W98. Anne recommended Cheyenne bitware. There is a free program in Tucows. John recommended against MS Fax. 4/99 GHOST 3: Jim F asked whether Ghost 3 was successful in mirroring/copying disks. (Ghost is used to make back-ups). John said version 3 is OK, but later versions are complex, designed for networks. Should Jim use a clone or an image? John recommended he make a clone on a free partition and see if he can run Windows from there. Jim is not confident about the restore function in Ghost. Chess offered to post instructions for backing up the whole system using PC Restore, along the lines of his article published in the December 1998 edition of Sixteen Bits. 4/99 WHEELMOUSE: Colin recently acquired a new system including a DVD player and wants to put a tuner into his computer to see the TV image, as well as to send output to his large-screen TV. Chess had suggested a mouse with a wheel, but this does not work well in Word. John downloaded MouseImp which does the same as Wheelmouse without the wheels. Telemouse and Flywheel can also scroll sideways. 4/99 JL 20/4/99 ****************************************************** Coffee & Chat Page, including archives of past meetings http://www.pcug.org.au/pcug/candc/c&c.htm These Archives are now searchable, and also include some minutes of the Internet SIG, run on alternate Mondays ******************************************************
Return to the Index or the Coffee and Chat Page