Minutes of the Meeting held 24 Apr 2001 1. Problem with Excel - Anne 2. "At Home with your PC" - RodB Rod writes: Since originally mentioning this offer which turned up minus a key part, that part has arrived at no charge as expected and I have had a chance to examine and organize the delivery. Quite smart, but expensive and probably irritating to handle as the volume increases. I will probably continue to receive updates for a while as my wife has shown an interest. I passed the material around the meeting for general examination. 3. Old [hot water] boiler [at the PCUG Centre]; Sixteen Bits [stuffing] - Allan M 4. 40 GB HD - ideal partitioning - Kevin Kevin writes: Opinions were varied as to the need, if any, to partition, a large HD. Given that modern discs use FAT 32 files, there is no technical necessity to partition. Nevertheless many users do. If one is into CD Burning, is is useful to have a small partition in which to accumulate the data that is about to be transferred to the CD. CD Burning programs do not like having to pull together data that maybe spread all around a big HD. 5. Favorites folder [IE] - Charlie Charlie writes: I had recently corrupted his favourites folder and tried to reconstitute it from a recent backup. Initially this didn't appear to work, but on closer examination it was shown that it did work. Part of the problem was that he moved the original (corrupted) folder to another location, just in case, and then reconstituted from the backup. The problem was that Internet Explorer seemed to still be accessing the moved, corrupted folder - however in hindsight that probably was not the case. The interesting point was that I then tried to delete the old corrupted folder from its new location and couldn't because it is a system folder and Windows won't allow such a deletion. He decided to boot into DOS and do the delete from there, however a listing of the directories does not show any Favourites (or Favorites) folder or Directory. Why does DOS not list any Favorites folder in the Windows directory when using Windows Explorer it is listed there as clear as day??? One suggestion was that under DOS, you need to specify a particular parameter to display folders with the Systems attribute. Owen writes: Using W95 or W98, you can check for hidden files by typing at the C: (or whatever) prompt in MSDOS: dir /a:H or dir /a:H /O:n for an alphabetical listing. 6. Mouse Problem - Elizabeth Alan writes: The one thing everyone agreed on was that it was *not* a mouse problem! Other symptoms, namely "weird colour patches" etc led to hypotheseis that video card may be improperly seated .... I (finally - Fri afternoon) visited Elizabeth as arranged at meeting. The mouse is clean, inside & out, and works fine. The machine worked fine while I was there, including some playing withn Word, and TIP connection. I pulled the cover off. The machine, a PIII 330, has a motherboard with integrated video, so bad seating of card is not applicable. All components seemed properly seated/connected, and the inside was (amazingly, compared to [his] machines!) clean and dust free. All outside connectors, before and hopefully after, seemed firm. Elizabeth has a Windows colour scheme [I was uncomfortable with] but she thinks is nice! Other than that it all seemed good stuff. We agreed that it was one of life's great mysteries Something sure to go wrong again after I left. 7. Speakers - Alan V Alan writes: I asked for opinions regarding speakers for computers: was it simply "the bigger the wattage the louder?" ... A number of people made useful remarks in a foreign language which included words like "sub-woofer"and "base" and "treble". One suggestion was "you can get quite big ones at the markets for under $15" . With my non-existant musical appreciation, that sounds a good way to go. It was also authoratively stated that my observed "my ancient sound cards seem to produce much louder noises/music from my speakers than new cards" was quite correct as old cards did not assume amplified speakers, whereas nowadays it is assumed speakers are amplified. 8. Ad-aware - Emil J Ad-aware is a free program that detects applications, cookies and registry entries that conduct market research into your computer usage and then report to base (called "spyware"). It allows the option to delete some or all of what it found. It warns that the deletion of some may render unworkable those 'free' programs that rely on advertising revenue. Emil found it useful. It is available at: http://www.lavasoft.de 9. Macro - RodS 10. Hotel Bookings at strandby prices - Kevin Kevin writes: I have come across a Web Site run by an organisation called Wotif.com, that coordinates discount accommodation at leading hotels in Australian capital cities (plus NZ & some other overseas locations). Excess rooms can be booked up to about 8 days in advance. It was surprising to see the number of hotels participating, the good selction of dates available and the discounts (many at half price or better). The URL is http://www.wotif.com.au 11. Go!Zilla - Leigh There was general agreement that Go!Zilla is bad news. It was strongly urged that Download Accelerator Plus is a better alternative. Available from TUCOWS and http://www.speedbit.com/ 13. Euro [symbol] - Jim Jim writes: As mentioned at the Weston C & C meeting this week, the following ties up an outstanding issue that was discussed by several attendees at last week's Belconnen C & C, namely where to find the Euro symbol in Windows and Word. When using Windows and Word, the Euro symbol can be inserted by ensuring the numbers lock is activated and then pressing and holding down the Alt key while typing 0128 on the numeric keypad. An alternative method is to click on the 'Insert' item on the menu bar then open 'Symbol' on the drop down menu and making the choice from there. Another alternative, at least with Windows Me and Word 2000 is Alt+ Ctr+e(or E). Note though that the euro symbol is not supported by all of the installed MS fonts so if you are using a less common one, it may not be there. Also, don't assume that all older printers will easily accommodate the euro symbol. A web site that explains much, e.g, the versions of Windows and Word that support the euro, as well as providing an enjoyable jaunt for those interested in fonts, through the various links and references listed in it, is: www.microsoft.com/windows/euro.asp ------------------------------------------------- Thank you to all contributors at the meeting and to these notes Emil -- ****************************************************** Coffee & Chat Page, inluding archives of past meetings http://www.pcug.org.au/pcug/candc/ ******************************************************
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