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
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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
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