Notes of C&C Meeting Tuesday August 25 1998 The coordinator John Saxon welcomed 36 members. The meeting started at 10.00 am. Alf Mc McMicken was remembered with a period of silence. Elizabeth's daughter Ingrid was welcomed as well as new members John, David, and Jim The subjects discussed were 1 Are new telephone numbers and dropouts associated? 2. Telephone line dropouts, and lightning strikes. 3. A new computer- a problem with it's failure to find a program. 4. The 'Vlad Goodtime' virus' 5. Treasurers report 6 The PCUG AGM meeting is next month 7 A new computer support group suggested for non-profit groups 8 The best browser for a Pentium 100 with W95 9. The Opera 3.1 browser. 10. Problems with Magazine cdroms 11. New member John's questions 12. New member David 's questions 13. Scanner choice and use 14 USA modems ------------------------------------ DROPOUTS Jim said that after adding new telephone numbers ( the required extra 6 ).he had dropouts after 5 minutes. This had occurred about 6 times in row when he had tried to logon to the Internet. The answers were that bad weather and recent problems with the service may be a fault. It was suggested that he should alter the time he had set for cut off from 5 minutes to one minute and see if it made any difference. It was not thought that the new telephone number that Jim had used would make any difference. LIGHTNING John described a problem he had with a lightning strike nearby. Since than he has been unable to access the internet. He thought that the telephone line was faulty. .Telstra couldn't come over the weekend . After some thought the problem turned out to be the modem which supported his house security system and not his computer or with the telephone line itself. NEW COMPUTER Gregg said that he had a new computer system with a Gigabyte GA5Ax motherboard which supports socket 7 CPU's and has a 100 mhz bus. . When running the computer he had an error stating that the program "bios.vxb" in the Windows system directory was absent. No answer was offered by the group to this problem. VIRUS Kryn said that he had loaded IE4 from Ozemail and then got a virus called 'vlad Goodtime'. He used a virus checker which was a limited version which didn't correct the problem. The answers given were to get a fully functioning virus checker with care to get the latest version with the most recent 'signatures' of the viruses to check for all current viruses. The MacAfee virus program was readily available. It was also suggested that he have a write-protected clean floppy disk on hand for such emergencies. It should be obtained from a known virus free computer. TREASURER AND SUPPORT GROUP FOR NON/PROFIT BODIES Emil announced a brief treasurers report in Wolf's absence. He also mentioned that the PCUG AGM was next month and encouraged members to participate. He also mentioned that he had been talking to Darryl. There was a suggestion to form a support group for computer technology and non-profit/ charitable organisations. Darryl has a part of his home page devoted to the idea. The system works well in Victoria apparently. There was general support for the idea. Darrell's e-mail address in relation to this project is deanb@bigpond.com Darrell is expecting to launch the project at a meeting (yet to be called) in mid-September. The venue has not yet firmed, but it is likely to be at Kingston or thereabouts. BROWSER CHOICE Kevin Asked for advice about which Internet browser should be used for his Pentium 100 computer, He was using IE3. Much discussion followed. It was suggested that this was to some extent a personal decision.. BANKS Owen mentioned that the Commonwealth bank had a banking service which said to turn your browser off. Also that the ANZ Internet banking service program was not very suitable and cost $10 per month. John said that St. George had a new, completely web based service originating from the takeover of the Adelaide bank. It needs a Java based browser according to John. Emil said that the September PC User magazine had a browser called Opera version 3.1 on the cdrom that came with the magazine The program was small in size and reasonably fully featured. He hadn't tried it out. MAGAZINE CDROMS Anne gave more details about her problems with the two cdrom set with a computer magazine. She was not satisfied with her dealings with the magazine. She had found out that the cdrom disks only worked well with a 32 speed cdrom. Jim said that cdrom disks may not work because the slower speed cdroms ( e.g.2speed) couldn't cope . John said that the cdrom disks were optimised for faster cdroms machines such a s 24 speed or higher speed devices. BIOS CHIPS John a new member asked about upgrading a Phoenix type bios chip . John S said that the internet site called 'Mr Bios' or the Phoenix internet sites were worth visiting to help with his problem. CHESS PROGRAM Jim J said that he has a 486 DX computer and wants to buy a new computer. He has a favourite DOS program that cost $200. The program was written in Northern Europe .The program solves chess problems but can take all night to solve any problem given it. It also comes up with a divide by zero error. Also that this old program won't run on newer computers. Answers given were, that it would take too long to fix the divide by zero error. Mike suggested that he try to get a newer version of the program, or get a completely new program which will run properly. Other suggestions were that probably the divide by zero error was due to insufficient buffers being set on his old computer. maybe he could increase the buffers. VIRUSES ..ALSO SCANNERS Esther mentioned viruses and that Peter E had helped in this regard with a new virus scanner.. She also asked about the available page scanners costing less than $200. Mike said that various good models were available at Harvey Norman and Dick Smith stores at this price. The OpticPro make was mentioned as good. Emil suggested getting a type that was inserted into the parallel printer cable as they were easier to install than Scuzzi type scanners but perhaps slower to scan. They could be used for scanning pictures, text sending Faxes and as a somewhat slow photocopier. Jim asked about how to scan negatives. Mike said that his $300 OpticPro963GT scanner had this facility built in. Another suggested that some existing scanners had an extra option to project images into the scanner for the same purpose but could cost up to $500. Dedicated 35mm positive and negative scanners could cost up to $1000. FAX MACHINE Anne asked if anyone had an old Fax machine they didn't want. DROPOUTS Kryn asked about call waiting causing dropouts.. He was referred to the telephone book for details. Call waiting can be switched off by pressing the keys #43# , wait for the facility tone and then hang up. To turn it on again press *43#. MODEM SOUND Mike said that his son's modem had no speaker sound wit internet connections but was ok with the hyperterminal program. A suggestion that a new software driver was required. USA MODEMS John indicated that he new how to convert a US type modem to read Australian telephone tones. It consisted of an unusual AT command.which began AT* EBM 26 August 1998 ********************************************************** Coffee & Chat Page, including archives of past meetings http://www.pcug.org.au/~rcook/c&c.htm These Archives are now searchable. ***********************************************************
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