Meeting 20 Nov 2001



		Minutes of the Meeting held 20 November 2001


The following items were discussed:

1. Proposal for additional group - Gloria

Gloria wrote:

Proposal for Coffee and Chat (Southside) to run a small associated
group for those PCUG members who have a need to familiarise themselves
with Windows operating systems and the use of the Net.  These members,
as their confidence and knowledge increase, would then progress to
take an active part in our Tuesday meetings where the questions asked
are frequently technical

· Group name:  Coffee and Chat-3
· Coordinators:  C&C (Gloria R, Jim H and several other members who
have volunteered to help)
· Maximum number in the group to be 10.
· Format as in other Coffee and Chat meetings
· Meetings held fortnightly, same week as Southside, starting 15th
January, 2002
· Participants welcome to attend North/Southside meetings AND lunch at
12.00
· Place and Time: Small room, Irish Club, 1.30-3.30

Will be advertised in next 16 Bits (first two meetings will be by
'word of mouth).

2. (1) www.lifefx.com (voice e-mail)
    (2) 78rpm sound record from 1922
          - removal of turntable wobble noise
          - removal of pops and crackles
     Ted Mc

Re  (1)
Ted wrote:
The web site www.lifefx.com has details of a free program to use a
virtual face to speak your email and there is more information at the
above site.

Re (2) 
Ted wrote:
A print out of an image of a short sound clip was handed around. This
was part of a 1922 HMV 78 speed 12 inch record, The sound was much
degraded,
 
The question was how to remove the pops and crackles as well as the
rumble of the turntable.
 
The answer given was to use a more up to date program than 'Goldwave'.
Emil and JS offered to help and that shareware programs were available
to effect the cure. 

I wrote:
My favourite music editing program is "Cool Edit".

It comes in two different versions:
Cool Edit Pro is the industry standard. Pricey: 
http://www.zdnet.com/downloads/stories/info/0,10615,15697,00.html
Cool Edit 2000 is reasonably priced but more basic:
http://www.zdnet.com/downloads/stories/info/0,10615,29253,00.html
To use the latter to remove pops crackles and wobble noises, you may
need the "Cool Edit Audio Cleanup Plug-in":
http://www.zdnet.com/downloads/stories/info/0,10615,54700,00.html

There is also "Diamond Cut 32 Audio Restoration Tools". It was
mentioned in PC World magazine (Sep 2001). The promise is : 
"Remove unwanted noise, pops and hisses from your audio tracks with
this filtering program."
http://www.zdnet.com/downloads/stories/info/0,10615,80652,00.html
but I haven't tried it.

However, an easier way to remove pops and crackles is to use the CD
Spin Doctor included in Easy CD Creator (versions 3.5 and 4), the CD
buring program.

Generally, on turning old LPs into compact discs, WAV or MP3 files:
http://www.smh.com.au/icon/0012/16/news3.html

3. (1) BCC
    (2) Virus Scan upgrade
    Graham Mc
4. Melbourne Cup [raffle] payouts - Eric
5. Keyboard - Trevor
Trevor wrote:
....  my topic was about my quote key and double quotes
key echoing nothing until they were pressed a second time where each
instance would echo two to the applications. 

I tried the same in Notepad and Notespad. It behaved the same as in
Word97. Strange also was when I pressed the unshifted quote key
followed by the key with the shift held down I would get '". (single
and double).

The same thing just happened in my e-mail client: Agent.

It began happening after just after I had reformatted drive C: and
accidentally D: and reinstalled Win98SE. During this process I had the
following in config.sys:

device=keyboard.sys.

I first of all REMed it and then removed it altogether. I can't
explain why that happened. Incidentally, they apostrophe just worked
fine in Agent. Strange huh?


6. Best source of HP cartridge - Keith
7. Blond Joke - Ted T
8. (1) Carpet virus
    (2) IE6
    Jeff

Re IE6
Some users are experiencing some difficulties in particular websites
with the new Internet Explorer 6.0. This problem is most likely
associated with how this new browser stores cookies. 

It appears that Internet Explorer 6.0 browser has an extensive cookie
management system, which is different to that of previous versions of
Internet Explorer. E*TRADE Australia has some instructions on how to
overcome those difficulties. While those instructions are focused on
E*trade website, it is of general application:
www.etradeaustralia.com.au/products/noticeboard/ie.asp

9. Pagescan colour - Windows 95 not recognising - Anne
Anne Wrote:
I mentioned that I had given away my old "Pagescan colour" scanner
to a family who were finding it impossible to install it on
their computer as both Windows 95 and 98SE refused to recognise it
despite the drivers I had found for them on the web.  Rod,
who had also owned a "Pagescan colour", mentioned that he might
be visiting Captain Flat in the near future and offered to bring
copies of the drivers, the calibration page and relevant papers when
he did so and to try to solve the problem.

10. Freeweb space - John S
11. FTP - Rick

Rick wanted to know the difference between the ftp and the http
protocols. Both support the transfer of files over the Net.

The FTP Protocol Resource Center has all the answers re FTP:
http://war.jgaa.com/ftp/

Something similar in relation to the HTTP protocol is at:
http://www.utoronto.ca/webdocs/webinfo.html


also mentioned

Biblioz

Derek wrote:

The site I was referring to is www.Biblioz.com.au it appears to be
under the auspisces the the booksellers Dymocks.

It found 119 copies of the out of print book I was looking for.
Various sources, qualities and prices here and overseas. 

The trouble I was having on Monday when I tried to pay online for the
book I chose was, I believe, related to the National Bank's problems.
The NAB has upgraded its online banking and the upgrade was available
on Monday. I was unable to do anything on the NAB site on Monday.

Yesterday afternoon I tried Biblioz again and had no trouble paying
for the book online. It's a good site. (I was also able to upgrade my
NAB program!)

Popcorn - Terry
Terry mentioned Popcorn, a very neat floppy-size e-mail reader. Very
handy as an emergency e-mail program, the means for deleting incoming
messages at the ISP's server without downloading and a handy way of
accessing e-mail while travelling. It is free too.
The "Popcorn E-mail client" is at:
http://www.ultrafunk.com/products/popcorn/

Finally, here is an interesting piece of computer news that was not
mentioned at the meeting.

The first tentative steps towards a molecular computer. I guess it is
a defining, historical moment, like the first Wright brothers' flight
a hundred years ago, or more aptly, "bit like the first creatures
crawling out of the primordal slime {:-)"

Israeli scientists have built a molecular computer so tiny that a
trillion of them could fit in a test tube and perform a billion
operations per second with 99.8 percent accuracy. See:
http://in.news.yahoo.com/011121/107/199x5.html 
THE BBC site (UK) discusses the significance of the invention:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1668000/1668415.stm

Emil



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