Coffee and Chat Meeting on Tues Feb 22nd 2000
55 members were present. This was considered to be a record by the Chairman.
Ted Macarthur in the Chair.
1) New members
John Russell linked with Charlie
John Secombe linked with Elizabeth
Adrian Cousins linked with Phillip
Nan Wright linked with Charlie and John
2) Phillip Membership Secretary:
Has taken over the duty from Gordon. A need to restyle the
attendance sheet due to the numbers. Requests for a copy will
be sent as an RTF (Rich Text Format) file which according to
Alan has the additional benefit that it cannot carry viruses unlike
Word documents which incorporate macros.
3) Charles Treasurer : Current balance is satisfactory
Purchases
a) a TV card which has been accepted with thanks by
the PCUG committee.
b) a 4 drawer filing cabinet which is to be kept in
the main room with loans only during C+C meetings. Keys to be
held by Treasurer, Chairman and Petra. Returns at other times
are possible. A reserves list is provided and the loans register
has one page per item so that keeping track of borrowings is
easier.
4) Jeff
a) Problem with duplicate e-mails. Probably due to e-mails
being
resent when link fails (Alan) but some aspects of problem not
fully explained by this. If it is only random and infrequent
just bear it.
b) Appeal for helpers. Courses being given at Belconnen using
4 machines on Tues from 2.00 to 4.00pm. Subjects are 1) Intro 2)
Use of e-mail 3) Search engines. Need helpers with this
operation. John reported that with Gloria he had a similar
operation at Woden library on Mon/Wed/Fri from 10.00 to noon for
6 to 12 people.
5) Ken
Introduced a lighter note with information of e-mails from
exciting sounding ladies in exotic locations who are in need of
champions to help them extract money from dubious sources. The
indirect source of these offers is likely to be a newsgroup that
Ken recently contacted with regard to his Text Box problem of
the last meeting. Other people receiving similar offers about how to
become rich real soon, are asked to forward the offending message together
with full
headers to
spam@pcug.org.au via TIP
6) Phillip
Problems with graphics output on an HP4 laser printer. Advice
was to contact the Sydney Support Group who specialise in HP
printers.
The problem with printing on both sides of the paper was
discussed and the reason for the W curves after printing was
explained by Merv. Also in general the paper already contains a
slight curve and the cutting to size tends to leave a slight
overlapping edge so that placement of the paper is better one
way than the other. Usually the paper cover tells you which is
the better side. Charles advised that if you want to print on
both sides you should hand feed for the second side.
7) John
a) Palm Visor a new hand computer from Handspring. It can do
everything and has plug in cards for such items as Memory,
Camera and GPS.
b) The Cannon Digital camera ( model Powershot S10). The extra
memory for this device demonstrated last meeting now enables 26 pictures
at the max
resolution of 1600x1200 and 318 pictures with max compression and minimum
resolution.
c) A carton of very miniature flowers crafted by Anne, which John
had been recording, was passed round for universal acclaim.
8) Ted
a) Notification of a very useful free leaflet called PC Projects
available at Dick Smith and other similar outlets.
b) Two lower end PIM's
1) ACME electronic Organizer. Made in China.Works well.
Available from Woolworths at $14.95. It is very good value. Very small.
Fits into a shirt pocket. Size is 11x7x1 cm. Stores about 30 sets of
messages (eg Name of 36 characters max, plus tel number, e-mail etc) The
headings can be shown in one of seven languages (Eng, Fra, Due ,Ita, Esp,
Tur, Ind) Multiple alarms, and a calculator together with a easy to use
conversion facility 7 units ( eg miles to Km, C to F, Feet to Miles). It
also has a password facility to store private details.
2) A very similar unit is made by Canon is available at
the Post office for $15.95 which failed on the date setting due to
inability to set the date to "00" for the year 2000.
Less logic in the design so will be returned. Similar size to ACME and
slightly more memory.
c) Wrist watch with 6k data store( 340 records) by Casio, called the
"Casio PC unite".It stores 8,100 characters and uses infra red to
communicate with a computer or another watch. The cost is $US99( plastic
version) and is to be released in May 2000. ie. Dick Tracy eat your heart
out. Other watches to be released soon include a GPS device ( bulky) and a
B/W camera which takes and stores 100 pictures. See
http://www.casio.com/
9) Bob
Bottom line missing of address for envelope. Possible reason is
wrong margin setting. Also general advice to set the units to
centimetres instead of the American usage of inches and use A4
as the standard size.
10) Mike is
a) Some examples of 3-D images from the space shuttle site
were shown and viewed via red and blue filters. The site is
http://www.nasa.com/
b) Mike has several hundred 3.5 in disks for give away but
would like to bulk erase the contents. Merv offered the use of an eraser.
11) Rod
Problem with long file names being corrupted either by DOS or in
the process of installing Windows 98. Discussed but no specific solutions.
12) Lee
Needs a manual for Lotus organiser. Phillip to assist.
13) Peter
Eudora problem with HTML tags appearing without translation.
Apparently Outlook Express defaults to HTML courtesy of BG and
you need to click on the menu the top left corner of the page to
set to text
only messages
General
a) Newsgroups. A useful site for those who are unable to access
newsgroups is
www.deja.com
which keeps archives of newsgroups (45.000 of them) so you can
access the information without having to log on to the newsgroup directly.
Useful for searching for the answer to a particular problem with anything
available on newsgroups. e.g. Found 1600 problems with the program Quicken.
These problems are searchable and found three pertinent items.
This site also has details of many devices and a search engine. Ted
has had good feedback using this option.
b) TPG (Total Peripherals Group) operate a free ISP service
between 12.00 midnight to 8.00 am.
c) Software - Ethics. The "Open the wrapping and its yours"
concept was discussed and generally decried. Even seasoned
practitioners like Merv who had taken trouble to check the deal
before purchase were caught by conditions not revealed until the
package was opened. General advice is to use the Internet to
enquire about particular software or equipment. There is plenty
of information which is independent.
d) Colin talked about selectively accessing *.eml files stored in a
database. How to identify. Search under Windows Explorer and Drag and Drop.
Next meeting Mar 7th 2000
Notes by John A.
******************************************************
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
*******************************************************
--
Ted Macarthur
ACT
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