1. A. For those who could not make it, and may have wondered who the
"magnificent old lady" was. She is a 1924 3 litre Bentley Sports car
in superb condition. Much admired by all. Thanks so much to Jeff &
Beryl for showing her off {:-))
B. When trying to trouble shoot a total lack of sound (including DVD &
Audio CDs) from a system, via the phone- I suggested an old trick to
use a pair of headphones on the front outputs of the drives. No sound
from either drive.... "Impossible" say I, "the headphones must be
faulty, very unlikely that both drives could be faulty, try the phones
with another device - portable radio or something". The word came back
- the phones work with a radio O.K.
I finally got my hands on the system and found that neither drive was
outputting to the front panel when playing an audio CD or DVD with
Windows media player. Was eventually able to establish that when
playing back using the 'digital' playback mode (the default for later
versions of media player) the front panel 'analogue' output are no
longer active. Something learnt every day.....
C. Demonstrated my 'Wiretek' brand flash card reader/writer which can
use 7 different types of "cards". Compact flash, IBM micro drive,
Smart media, secure digital, multi Media, & Sony memory Stick. Only
$55 at last weeks markets. A highly pocketable USB 1 device, which
under Widows ME or XP - installs immediately as 4 drives (it has 4
slots) without drivers. Much faster than downloading from a digital
camera and a very cheap method of carrying large files around.
Demonstrated using pictures taken at the meeting with a Canon
Powershot S10 camera and some nice free software called
EXIF which per the website..
"EXIF viewer is a simple image viewer application for photos taken
with digital cameras. It's capable of reading EXIF information
embedded in photos as well as little thumbnail. Because small
thumbnail is already present in most photos displaying it is really
fast. EXIF viewer can also provide detailed information about photos
(shutter speed, aperture, etc.) and conveniently list them for
comparison purposes.
EXIF viewer also displays image histogram. It also features
copying/moving and deleting of selected photos.
Single photograph can be displayed in separate window or in a full
screen mode." Available from
http://home.pacbell.net/michal_k/exif_v.html and it's a neat 469 Kb
download.
D. Passed around 2 flyers from INKBANK the people who sell printer
cartridge refill kits at the markets. They had 2 printers going at
Woden markets last weekend with 4 large ink bottles attached via
flexible tubing. They are gradually developing kits for printers (to
install yourself) and currently have kits for Canon S-200/S-300, Canon
S-520/S-750, and Epson 670 (fits most 400 & 600 series), at prices
between $135 and $195. The ink costs between $60 & $180 extra. But if
you buy replacement cartridges the savings can be spectacular. E.G.
Canon S-520 Bulk ink $180 - equivalent cost in cartridges $1674 (Their
figures).....
E. Got 16 takers so far for the Irish Club Melbourne cup lunch and
entertainments. If I get no more Email requests in the next couple of
days - will suggest that the club reserve a table for 20.
2.a. Lotus organizer
2.b. Nortons - Jeff
2a. Jeff took the opportunity to thank some CnC members for
recommending Organizer in the Lotus Office suite as provided on the
June PC User magazine PC. I find it great for keeping a diary for
activities and recurring events such as anniversaries for birthdays
etc. Also for being printable in the form of monthly calendars showing
the items in the diary. The other components of the Office suite for
word processing,spread sheets etc. are also good but I have not
installed them because I already have alternative programs.
2b. I drew attention to the review of security software in the
November edtion of PC World. Norton AntiVirus 2002 gets the top rating
from tests with 9,138 viruses and 42,426 infected files and was the
only program to roduce a perfects record for removing viruses without
damaging files. The evaluation was based on a joint study with the
Univestiy of Magdeburg, Germany. Norton AntiVirus 2003 is better
again, in particular for its new and unique Worm Blocking technology.
Also according to the Canberra Times of 21 Oct, Norton does well in a
market research by Inform. For security software market leaders were
Symantec (Norton) 76%, McAfee 13% and Computer Associates 7%, and for
the antivirus segment, Symantec 60%, McAfee 21% and Trend Micro 7%.
Jeff
3.a. HP examples
3.b. Scanning width or depth - MikeD
4. Trojans - CharlieK
5. Update XP - Owen
To update XP, go to the "Start" button and "Windows update" should be
showing, if not it is in the "All programs" area
7. PCI - USB card - Rick
Cheers, Trevor
-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*--*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*-.,,.-
Abstinence is a good thing if practiced in moderation.
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