Notes of C&C of 21 September 1999 COFFEE AND CHAT NOTES 21 SEPTEMBER 1999 1. The chairman, opened the meeting at 10.00am. 43 people were present and a couple arrived later. 2. At the last meeting volunteers were sought to form a panel to take notes of the discussions at the meeting. Ted asked for the name of the person whose name was omitted from the notes of the meeting but apparently the person concerned as not present. However, Jenny L and Peter H volunteered to join the panel. 3. Two people attended Coffee and Chat for the first time. Jennifer was about to buy a computer with the help of a neighbour. Ted explained about the groups' willingness to provide a "link person" to answer questions before the fortnightly meetings and asked if Jennifer would like one. When she assented Chris offered to be the link. The other new member, Bob has been a member of the PCUG for about 2 years and is already using a computer. 4. Wolfe informed the group that its finances were very healthy. 5. Greg inquired what the group was going to do about its Christmas party. John suggested that the group not spend all the money it had saved on a social event which not all everyone would be able to attend, and this was generally agreed. He also suggested that the party be held after Christmas rather than before as people already attended a lot of parties then. 6. A general discussion was held about the timing of the party and it was decided to hold a combined function for the Melbourne Cup (not to be held on the day) and Christmas. Many alternative dates were suggested for the function and it was eventually unanimously decided to hold it at the end of November, perhaps on the 30th. 7. Wolfe suggested that the caterers who catered for the SIGs' last Melbourne Cup function be asked to provide the food etc. This was generally agreed although Jenny's reservation that while most of the food they provided was excellent the cakes were pretty ordinary was supported by most people. A Sub-Committee was formed to organise the Christmas party including: Esther, Greg, Joan, Jenny??, Keith and Wolfe?? 8. Leigh queried what the group would be spending its money on as it did not intend to use it all on social events, and suggested that funds be spent on hardware and software for the group. 9. The purchase of the Maestro modem was again raised and Chris mentioned that he had spoken to a technician employed by Maestro who could get the SIG a discount on one if it could not obtain a free one. John said that this probability had already been raised with Maestro who had not replied, but agreed that it would be preferable to purchase a Maestro rather than another make of modem. 10. Wolfe suggested that the SIG purchase an upgrade of the Windows version of Partition Magic and this was agreed by those present. 11. Greg asked whether in the case of a machine rated non-compliant, the owner only needed to wait until 1 January 2000 and then change the date on the machine. He was informed that this depended on how uncompliant the computer was. 12. Merv?? Stated that when computers were checked for compliance they were given one of 5 grades. Many machines were given a 2 rating but few were rated 1st class. The real time clock was the main problem. If the C-MOS would go beyond 2000 the computer would probably be okay. However, the C-MOS might have to be reset. 13. Allan suggested people set the correct date on their computers to 1 January 2000, turn off their machines and then turn them on the next day and check that the date given is 2 January 2000. 14. Merv noted that only financial houses, real estate agents and those using high-powered accounting programs would be really affected by the date problem. 15. Jeff mentioned that in Windows 98 SE there was a facility whereby the user could specify which date should be used. Jim stated people could not only use 4 digits for the year instead of 2 under Windows 98 but could also set the epoch spanning from well before 2000 to well after. John mentioned that this however did not apply to Windows 95 users. 16. Trevor has been having problems with the TCP/IP properties on his computer. His OS was Windows 98 SE, and worked okay but then he installed on-line banking with the National Bank and he has been unable to log onto the Internet ever since. Tony?? mentioned that when Trevor installed on-line banking he got a lot of unneeded protocols which he should remove. Chris, and others, agreed that the protocols in question could not be removed. Chris mentioned that Trevor would need to amend the "Dial-up-properties server type" and explicitly set it to PPP. After some further discussion John offered to discuss the matter over the phone with Trevor to resolve the problem. 17. Wolfe asked whether it would be possible for an engaged tone to sound when the system goes down as Telecom was reaping a bonanza from people who kept dialling in under the impression that it was their machines which were malfunctioning. Alan responded that this could not be done. People ring in and 'Chriten' answers and then goes to 'Supreme' to check peoples' names and passwords, and if Supreme does not answer 'Chriten' does not have the intelligence to know that there is a problem with 'Supreme' rather than with the users' names or passwords. 18. Allan recommended that people should make one attempt to get connected and if they cannot get on line or the line drops out almost immediately they should give up and try again later or the next day. There are 6 TIP administrators, but when the system last failed 4 were out of town and one was at work and so it took time to resolve the problem. When people use a volunteer service they must accept that there will be delays on occasion. 19. Wolfe stated that the volunteers provide a very high quality service but queried whether PCUG could get an outside professional to fix the problem of people being unable to determine when the system was down. Other members of the group felt that this would be unwise as someone who did not know the system well would only cause other problems and that the matter should be left to the people who run the system. 20. Allan mentioned that he used WordPad to edit a series of text files, because it was available on every Windows 95 and 98 computer, and it worked fine. However, he went away and left his son to use the computer and since he returned - when working with WordPad when he tried to save his work he kept getting messages including that he might loose some of his formatting, and after he clicked okay the computer went dead. It was suggested that Allan use the software install/uninstall function in the control panel to uninstall WordPad and then use the Windows CD to reinstall it as his present version of the program might have been corrupted. 21. Allan mentioned that the last version of 16 Bits to have been distributed had the cover of the previous month's issue but that the contents were okay. 22. Charlie asked whether ".wpd" was the extension for WordPad and was assured that it wasn't, it was the extension for a Word Perfect document. 23. Elizabeth mentioned that she was still having problems with the lack of an address line with Perfusion as the advice give at the last meeting hadn't worked. John said that he would visit her on Friday to sort the problem out. He also promised to fix the fact that the screen on Elizabeth's computer no longer goes blank when not in use. 24. Elizabeth was also having problems with her anti virus programs. She was running both VET and InoculateIt, which together were causing difficulties and was unsure how to update them. Greg advised her that she should never run two anti-virus programs at the same time. Merv advised her to throw out InoculateIt as VET was kept up to date more frequently. John promised he would also fix this on Friday and explain then how to update VET. 25. Mike brought in a copy of the 1881 British census issued on 25 CDs by LDs for $55 which covered the British Isles less Ireland plus all the British subjects residing in the ports where the navy were visiting at the time of the census. John asked how this genealogy tool worked and whether it had an index. Mike explained that it was very user friendly and that providing you knew the relevant county people lived in they were easy to trace. He also stated that it could be purchased by a telephone call to Sydney using a credit card. Peter confirmed that the kit had a name index so that people could be found even if you did not know where they lived. Ken mentioned that IGI had issued a CD for $15 which listed an additional 5 million names to those given on the main index. 26. Mike suggested that as the SIG had money in hand which it was not going to spend on parties, some of it should be spent on software perhaps including a copy of the 1881 census. There was a general discussion in which some people felt that the number of SIG members interested in genealogy was not great and the CDs could be obtained from genealogy groups in Canberra, while other people felt that the purchase would be a good one and that the kit might well be of interest even to those with only a minor interest in genealogy who would never consider buying themselves a copy. 27. Other issues were also discussed such as the problem of copyright as the discs could only be used on one machine at the one time. It was pointed out that the SIG already owned a copy of Partition Magic and members were trusted to delete the program off their machines once they had used it and returned the disc to the SIG, and that this could also be done with the genealogy kit. Alternatively Terry suggested that the program could be installed on one machine at the PCUG Centre and people could consult it there. However, it was pointed out that it could take a full day to consult the kit and so this would not be really practicable. 28. While most people seemed agreeable to the purchase, Mike suggested that the matter be left in abeyance until the next meeting so that he could hold discussions with interested parties. 29. Peter had a problem with IE5 as he couldn't disable the context adviser and had to reinstall the password each time he opened the browser. John noted that the problem, and its resolution, had been fully covered in the Microsoft IE5 newsgroup. This newsgroup was not covered by TIP but was freely available to all through Microsoft.com. Chris offered to demonstrate how to fix the problem on one of the machines in the training room after the meeting. 30. Peter also queried whether anyone had "Zip Magic 2000" as he was having problems configuring it, but he seemed to be the only person to own a copy. 31. Jeff sought advice for a friend who is about to buy a new PC. 32. Jeff had "Sidekick 95" but had lost the diary. He tried to reinstall the program from the floppy using the control panel facility but the computer said it couldn't read the disc. John asked whether he had tried to look at the disc using Windows Explorer and was told that this didn't work either. Jim suggested that when people had a program on a floppy they should put a copy on their hard disc for future use. Jeff replied that he had copied the program onto his "D" drive but that when he tried to copy it from "D" to" C" the program wouldn't work. John queried whether Jeff had installed the program onto "C" and then copied it onto "D" and noted that if so probably some of the files had been put under windows and so didn't copy over. Both Trevor and Merv offered to lend copies of the program. 33. Colin had a problem in that a friend used his machine, which has Windows 98 and Office 97, and then saved her research onto a floppy only to find that the floppy was unreadable. There was nothing on his machine as it froze after the copy was made. He had tried to read the disc using both Windows 3.1, and 98 to no avail. Merv noted that people should never save direct to a floppy but should save to the hard disc first. John suggested several alternatives but concluded that Colin's friend may have removed the floppy from the machine before it had finished saving to disc for although the machine may have stated the work was saved, the light showing work in progress may not have gone out. Chris mentioned that if the work was saved properly, but on an incompatible program, Office 97 had a conversion file which he would try after the meeting. 34. Colin, who used Outlook Express, also was experiencing difficulties with some e-mails which included URLs in them. Although the URLs were in blue and so were active links some would not work. John noted that if Outlook Express was the default reader Colin shouldn't be having problems, and suggested that perhaps the person who had typed the URLs into the message had either mistyped them or left a space at the end which Colin's computer took to be part of the URL. Terry asked whether Colin had tried cutting and pasting the URLs and the latter replied that he had and that this had worked. David advised that people should make a further copy of any document, including e-mails, before playing around with it. 35. Wolfe asked how to bring up C-MOS, and Merv replied that there were about 18 different ways including "control/alt/S or E" depending on the computer. Chris checked whether Wolfe wished to get at the C-MOS for his Toshiba laptop and on being assured that this was the case suggested that he should use FN/Escape or use a separate program called "Toshiba Settings". 36. Wolfe was also having trouble with his Colorado Tape back-up system. After he made his last back-up he could not read the tapes. John had a new Seagate back-up CD rom which would overcome this problem, and which was much better than the facility in Windows 98, which he was willing to lend. 37. Merv told members that those who had registered their Pentium III with Intel could apply to the company to have sent to them from Singapore for free a CD and pamphlet some programs which seemed to make modems work faster and some very useful shareware. 38. Chris mentioned that a better IE5 kit will soon become available from http://www.tip.net.au/kits. 39. Chris also asked if anyone who received the Intel Technology Developer Kits Quarterly Bulletins covering the KATMAI extended instructions, SSE, could let him have the PDFs with architecture details. 40. Tony used InoculateIt and after he upgraded to Windows 98 SE the computer wouldn't shut down. John advised that this problem was not due to InoculateIT, but occurred when Windows 98 and a certain video card were used together. 41. Ted closed the meeting at 11.30am, after which members adjourned to the training room for some demonstrations on the machines there. Anne L 10/99 ****************************************************** Recent Coffee & Chat pages are available on the internet news group tip.coffee-chat. Archives of past meetings are available at the web site: http://www.pcug.org.au/pcug/candc/c&c.htm These Archives are searchable, and also include some minutes of the Internet SIG, run on alternate Mondays ******************************************************* End
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