1. C&C notes for beginners - JohnS
The (hopefully) final version of the notes is currently posted on my
pages at http://www.pcug.org.au/~jsaxon/PCstuff/cnc/cncnotes.htm
Unless there are violent objections by next weekend we'll go with this
version and I'll pass it to Owen to post on the official CnC site.
All the best.... JohnS

2.a. XP shutdown

At the previous Southside meeting I spoke about sudden increase in the
shutdown time (to around 2:30 minutes) and sought help in resolving
the problem. Subsequently I used Google to search for "XP slow
shutdown" and, from the enormous number of possible causes I made
several ineffective changes, and then two others which resulted in the
shutdown now taking only around 5 to 9 seconds.

The changes were: moving the pagefile (virtual memory) to D drive, and
disabling Event Log. 

Since the meeting I tried re-enabling Event Log and shut down I
returned to 2+ minutes. I have again disabled it and shutdown is back
to a few seconds.

What am I losing by not having events logged?

2.b. Windows recorder -- Derek
From WinXPnews ....

The trick to creating a longer tape is to join shorter tapes. Here's
how you do it: 

Click Start and point to All Programs and then point to Accessories.
Point to Entertainment and then click on Sound Recorder. 

Record a "blank tape". Click the Red "Record" button and let it run
until it stops in 60 seconds. You can see your electronic tape
progress as the slider bar moves from left to right. When the tape
runs out, the slider bar will stop moving. 

Click the Edit menu and then click the Copy command. Click the Edit
menu and click the Paste Insert command. Notice that the Length has
changed? You can see the Length in the right side of the dialog box.

Repeat step #2 again. Your tape should now be 240 seconds (4 minutes).
Using this method, the tape will double each time you repeat step #2.
I like to make a tape of 32 minutes. You can always cut off the pieces
you don't use later. 

Save the tape. Click File and then click the Save command. In the Save
As dialog box, type in a name for the tape. I usually call it
something like Blank32Minutes so that I know that it's a blank tape
and how long it is. 

Close the Sound Recorder and open it up again. Click File and then
click the Open command. Open the blank tape you saved. 
Press the Red "Record" button and record your message. When you're
done recording, click on the Square "Stop" button. Click on the Edit
menu and click the Delete after current position. You'll see a dialog
box informing you that everything after the current position will be
deleted. Click OK. 

Click the File menu and click the Save As command. Save the file with
a different name. This allows you to keep the current recording and
leave your blank tape unchanged. 

3. Modem speed - RodS

4. Blue screen of death - Graham
Blue Screens of Death.  I have recently been suffering a lot of Blue
Screens of Death. I am aware that they can be caused by hardware,
software or a battle between them.  As such the cause of the errors
can be hard to ascertain.

In this case there seemed to be no pattern with the errors, indeed
some occured when I was not sitting at the computer.
Called in to see the helpful staff at PC Connections in Weston, who
had built up the computer for some advice.

The staff offered to do a memory check using a $600 piece of software
which checks each memory address.  A memory failure seemed to be
unlikely as the boot check showed all OK but it was a start.
Great news, the software found a faulty memory stick (we used to call
them chips).  As the computer was still under warranty there was no
charge for the test or a replacement memory stick.

My advice is that had I built up the computer from bits bought at the
Feeding Frenzy at EPIC I would probably never got to the bottom of
this problem and certainly not as quickly.

The lesson is to encourage members to deal with reputable local
businesses.  Any savings made by buying out of town or at the Frenzy
can easily be lost if you have a problem.

Graham

5.a. Grunt needed for voice recognition software
5.b. Using Acrobat downloads from the web
5.c. 3 computers at $1200 each  -- Philip
From Philip: We are going to the markets with the community group to
buy 3 computers on Saturday - so this will be something more to report
anyway - and perhaps of more interest than my third question.

From Trevor. My advice: Post to the list and the newsgroup items 5.a,
5.b, and 5.c. after the weekend and I'll add them to this and post the
concatenation to Owen during the week.

6. Windows update patch - Jeff

7. Modem tests - CharlieK
Charlie provided an update on his pseudo ISDN connection attempting to
get a reasonable (ie better than 28k) connection.   Having installed
the ISDN Network Termination Unit and connected his modem to it, he
was only getting connections around 46k rather than the 52k connection
suggested by Telstra as the likely outcome.

Following a call to Telstra, they re visited and in conjunction with
techos from Townsville attempted to tweak the connection.

One of the principal methods used was to conduct MOLDS (Modem Online
Diagnostic system) tests.  These showed that using a Maestro modem it
paid to disable error connection (by adding "s202=128" to the
initialisation string.

This improved the service; however Charlie discovered that he could
get the best connection for his Maestro Jetstream modem by using the
Maestro Woomera drivers. 

Subsequently downloaded latest drivers from Maestro and final outcome
is a fairly steady 46k to 48k connection, which while not matching the
anticipated 52K connection is a vast improvement over the old 28k
connection.

8. Color cartridge - Canon - MikeD

9. Should I join TransACT or stay with Telstra - RobD

10. What's Gamma ref pictures - Rick

Regards, Trevor


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