Ted Mac started the meeting on time at 10:00am.
1. Life membership:
Jim Hume made a presentation of life membership of CnC to John Saxon. I have
to say that this was totally unexpected and a delightful surprise - most
gratefully received. Many thanks to all! 25/8
2. Linking:
Gloria spoke about her new member "linking" system and a brief set of
guidelines was circulated - a show of hands confirmed that everyone
approves. The system is already underway with Jeff as the first "linker".
Doesn't have far to go - his "linkee" is his next door neighbour :-) 25/8
3. Funds/Modem:
Wolf reported that the groups financial situation is "healthy". This led
into the proposal to try to obtain a "reference" good quality modem to show
what can be achieved with connect speeds from different homes/suburbs. The
Maestro Woomera modem has the advantage of real time line level and quality
readings, impedance optimising etc. So far two E-mails to Maestro have not
provoked a response. JohnS agreed to contact them by phone to try to
organise a demo to the group. Owen Cook noted that (depending on modem),
line quality and level readings could be gained using HyperTerminal - he has
since posted very clear instructions on how to do it to this NG - many
thanks Owen. But it should be noted that not all modems support those
commands. 25/8
4. CASE/DVD:
Emil stated that the CASE (Computing Assistance Support and Education) group
are holding a free public lecture "Upgrading your computer - how and why"
next Sat 28th Aug the University of Canberra at 2:30pm - Guest speakers are
Darrell Burkey (CASE President) and John Hilvert (Deputy Editor of
Australian PC User Mag and well known to PCUG). More info in various adverts
and at http://www.case.org.au 25/8
Emil also said he was considering a DVD drive - any recommendations or
suggestions. A general discussion followed, but the consensus was to E-mail
Chess! Who is a great advocate of DVD. It is known that Chess favours the
software decoding solution (if you have a powerful system), but Chris
championed the use of hardware decoders. 25/8
5. Netscape/MSIE:
Anne installed the latest NS (4.61?) from a magazine CD onto her W95 system.
"While she was in the install mood" she also added MSIE5, which "made a dogs
breakfast" of her system. She tried removing MSIE5 (with fairly predictable
results) and now she cannot get her system to use Eudora as her default mail
client (amongst other problems). The general consensus was that NS 4.61 is
the culprit and various suggestions were made. She has used Reg cleaner,
etc. JohnS will take a look at the situation. 25/8
6. Small Utilities/Download speed up software:
Jeff said that he has tried various small programs as recommended by Terry
Bibo in 16 Bits. He liked CacheSentry and half liked Notepad Plus but was
disappointed that he could not edit doc files. Terry noted that Notepad Plus
is a text editor and that MS Word doc files are about as far away from plain
text as you can get.
Jeff was thinking of paying $30 + for "Internet Boost 99" which sounds like
an MTU and other TCP/IP parameters optimiser. The recommendation was to keep
his money as there are several good Freeware programs such as "EasyMTU" and
"iSpeed" from http://www.hms.com/ispeed that could do the same job. 25/8
7. Speed monitoring/USB problems:
Charlie recommended "DUMeter" for graphical display of download (and upload)
speeds. Several others are using "DUNmonitor" from
http://www.southdown.co.uk/users/jgrieve which is very similar but has the
advantage of being freeware. Note: all these programs and W95/95 report
different download speeds in "real time" due to different sample time
averaging.
Also after some more memory and HDD installation, Charlie's W98 system can
no longer interface with his HP4100 USB scanner. Removal and reinstallation
on software did not help and W98 could only find an "Unknown device". The
scanner and cable were exonerated at Grace Brothers who had no problems with
it when it was connected to another computer. Some discussion about cabling
ensued, but no one could solve the apparent W98 problem. C's next course is
to try to borrow another USB device. I have a Logitech Video camera - but I
am on the S.Side of town - visa territory for some. 25/8
8. MSIE5 Autocomplete:
Al was not happy when he allowed MSIE5 to save a financial site password on
his system. How to delete it? Several people suggested deleting all .pwl
files and only re-establishing "wanted" password storage. However this
problem should now have been solved in another thread on this NG. 25/8
9. Disappearing C: drive saga:
Rod has "sort of" solved his problem of his CDROM disappearing when used as
a master to his old hard drive as slave on the second IDE channel - by
removing the old HDD! He is now thinking about using it for backup in a
removable mounting (see another thread in tip.help). But in the process -
various unwanted pieces of software are starting at Windows boot time and
others that used to start are not. He has nothing in his
\windows\start\startup directory, so it's likely the problems lie in the
registry - he has used "registry cleaner". This one seems to get worse as
the weeks go by, and there were lots of dark mutterings about "Format C:"
but no easier solutions. Once more this is probably a W98 config problem as
all drives are recognised by BIOS and DOS. 25/8
10. Windows 98 Second edition:
Peter asked what programs (other than applications and tray items) should be
shut down using CTRL-ALT-DEL when installing W98 SE "over" an existing W98
installation. Chris commented that the W98 setup program closes everything
down. This led to a general discussion about the merits of SE. Some people
had received free upgrade CDs from MS. Opinions varied from "must have" to
"not worth the time or possible trauma"! For what it's worth the writer's
opinion is - why bother IF you have kept up to date with the free MS W98
updates, UNLESS you have a need for two or more computers on a network to
share a modem and Internet connection (even then you can D/L the S/W free
from MS). 25/8
11. Targeted search engines/swap files/Spread sheets:
John mentioned that http://members.atlantic.net/~bdarl/searchlinkl.html has
a large list of links to all types of search engines, including many
specialised types. E.G. Search for Golf or Shakespear sites, etc!
John wanted to delete some large files on his NT system but was dissuaded
when it was established that they were virtual RAM and paging swap files.
J. was also interested to know if 256 is the upper limit for number of
columns in Excel97 - no one knew for sure, but my check of Excel97
specifications indicates that 256 is the max. 25/8
12. Flash 4.0:
Celia wanted to know what is "Flash 4.0"? Chris responded that it is a web
(graphics? standard?) and that Flash 4.0 probably referred to a browser
plug-in to view such marvels - sorry my cynicism is showing - not a good
trait in a note taker - I'll happily resign. 25/8
13. Mouse double click/Profusion page:
Elizabeth is still having problems with the W98 maintenance wizard telling
her it cannot "copy a file onto itself". The general opinion is that a) The
double click speed is set too fast, or b) the general "single click on
desktop" has been invoked - instructions were passed on how to avoid these
problems.
E. also has a problem of the profusion web site coming up automatically and
no address entry space in MSIE 4. The consensus was that Profusion is set as
the default home page, and that Full page mode had been selected. Click
again on the full page icon instructions were given.
E. asked why she has to power her Cannon printer up and down several times
before use. It turns out that she only turns it on to print. The
recommendation was to leave the printer on at all the time the system is
powered up so that W98 can initialise for it - this should not lead to it's
early demise and extra power use is minimal - a show of hands indicated most
do this. 25/8
14. TIP "branded" MSIE5:
Chris asked if we would be interested if he produced a "branded" MSIE5 CD
for TIP use. I.E. An almost single click TIP access and setup CD. The answer
 from those of us who try to write TIP setup instructions is a resounding
YES. Will await results with interest. 25/8
Ted closed the meeting ON TIME at 11:30pm...... JS

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