Meeting 21 April 1998


 
Minutes of C&C Meeting 21 April 1998

Co-ordinator Alf welcomed all 35 attendees, including Maeva and Chess, as
well as new member Geoff.  

Gordon reported that Derrick Boyd is in Calvary Hospital.

Zipdisks are available to Group members at $21.  See Wolf.

1	Winter lunch

The menu and cost of the Winter Lunch (Yacht Club, 26 May) will be advised.
 Members of the C&C Group plus their spouses/partners are invited, and
payment should be made to Wolf, cash in advance.

2. 	Windows 98

Emil reminded the Group that PCUG members have Microsoft's permission to
copy the early release of W98 and Outlook 98, provided they are registered
users of previous editions.  Petra has the originals; bring your own disk
and copy the software on the PCUG Centre's recorder.

W98 is good, includes a registry checker, can be quickly installed, and if
installed over W95, very effectively compresses W95.  On the downside, the
650 MGB CD ROM holds 648 MGB so your hard disk will work overtime
transferring information.

Emil recalled the Group's 24 March 1998 discussion of the PCUG's current
Starter's Kit for connection to TIP, concerning enabling DNS at the icon,
not the protocol level.  He noted that W98 advises not to change default
settings at the protocol level.

3.	Outlook 98

Emil was not impressed with this software, recommending Agent instead,
which costs US$29.95 (US$25 through PCUG).  Outlook is free.

The design of Outlook 98 goes counter to Internet culture, for example, the
default format for sending mail is HTML, though some servers reject
HTML-formatted mail.  

4.	Free software

The April 1998 edition of Australian PC includes a double CD ROM containing
a wide range of software – perhaps all you ever wanted.

5.	Removing traces of a previous ISP

John said that in the US, a customer's ISP will write hard-to-remove
instructions into the customer's registry, so that it is almost impossible
for that customer to change ISP.  This marketing approach is coming to
Australia.  Keith said a recent article tells you how to completely remove
traces of a previous ISP.  He will post details of the article to the
Group.

6.	Eight megabyte dynamic RAM chip

Gordon reported that Brian has a DCA2 motherboard with a dynamic cache
which at 15 nanoseconds, is very fast.  Brian needs one 8 megabyte dynamic
RAM chip.  Perhaps someone with a broken motherboard can provide one?  

7.	Space needed to print paintings

If you print paintings from the Net (typically these may take 56 or so
megabytes) you can manage the space needed (i) in printer properties, check
the swap space; (ii) program the cache to store only a limited amount.  

8.	Saving text from the Internet

If the files you save from the Net, seem to be written in some strange
language, you may have inadvertently saved them in HTML rather than plain
text.  You can read the HTML file using your browser, or save as plain
text.  Word 7 reads HTML automatically.

9.	Contacting TIP Help when you can't get in

Catch-22:  TIP Help is inaccessible when you can't get online. 
Suggestions:  ask a friend to contact TIP Help for you; subscribe twice;
blame the weather; try again later.

10.	Use of funds

The Group now has $957.52 in funds.  Attendees canvasses how best to use
excess funds:  new Group-use hardware, software, Ghost software; a
converter for 5¼ inch drives.  

11.	Nicknames in e-mail

Jim has been helping a PCUG member whose Eudora software cannot read
addresses (typed in), defaulting instead to a PCUG member with the same
first name as the addressee.  Allan suggested the member could have the
nickname address book back to front, so that the computer takes the name to
be the address and vice versa.  To resolve this problem, every option needs
to be checked.

12.	Notebooks and laptops

PC Magazine February 1998 contains a useful comparison of notebooks.  The
removable hard drive from a laptop or notebook cannot be put into a
desktop: instead, connect the laptop to the desktop (one cable needed). 
NEC Versa is not recommended.

13.	C&C Minutes

The Group agreed the minutes as posted to the newsgroup should be edited
before inclusion in Sixteen Bits.  Emil offered to edit the highlights for
the month for this purpose.

JL 21/4/98 708

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