Coffee and Chat 27 July 1999, 10am to 1130

Led by Ted.  Notes by Mike.  About 35 present

Mike said he would do the notes this time because he was embarrassed that a
relative newcomer had to do them last, even though the result was
excellent.  He suggested that if 26 "old hand" did them in turn, then once
a year would not be too onerous
 
NEWCOMERS
Celia, Rod, Alistair and Merv
Celia has had a computer less than a year, wants more control of it and is
nervous of viruses.  Advice was don't be frightened, jump in and shout for
help from the group when needed
Rod Blackburn is interested in Photoshop, and Alistair Murray in
photography.  Merv Commons is well known to many of us as one of Canberra's
most knowledgeable and most helpful PC experts.  He said that recent
changes to his retirement style meant that he might be able to attend more
regularly.  Merv recently demonstrated (at another group) assembling a PC
from scratch and setting it to work - all in a couple of hours.  There was
enthusiasm for him doing something similar at C&C.

FINANCES
Wolfe provided a report of all transactions for the year, and reported that
finances were in a good shape

INOCULATEIT AND VET
David said that the latest update was 12 July, but Vet might be later.
John S said Vet had picked up a virus which InoculateIt hadn't

DOWNLOAD ACCELERATOR
David thinks that this program does not accelerate, but seems to
Decelerate.  Chess said the whole thing could be a scam to simply feed real
time adverts.  John S says IE5 has a "resume" capability.

TIP
Allan M said there was a minor problem at the moment, giving the "forward
denied … sibling .." error message.  It was to do with the way proxying and
peering was implemented and could take a while to resolve. A fix is "shift
reload".  The first evening Internet SIG run by Gordon and Marion was due
that night.  It may be on the last Tuesday each month.

EasyCleaner
Wolf said his had got slower and slower for "delete duplicate".
Suggestions included - do in sessions.  Chess said run system file checker
first, and that it would be - in the words of Yes Minister - a "courageous
decision" to delete duplicate DLL's etc

SENIORS MICROSOFT TUITION TAPE
John S said he had finally received it - tape, notes, posters.  He thought
it was nice to have, although very Microsoft, and was in NTSC.  It was
designed for Seniors so the speakers talk slowly!.  John said it is
available for the C&C Group.  There was an agreement to reimburse John for
the costs.

MAESTRO WOOMERA MODEM
John said he had written to Maestro requesting a modem donation, pointing
out all the advantages to Maestro of such an arrangement.  He was yet to
receive a reply.

REMOTE EMAIL
Mail2web is very good, but there is another one called www.thatweb.com
which seems even better - at least it was quicker.  Gloria commented that
many users she has met via VISE do not know their mailhost name - needed
for mail2web - because their system has been setup for them.  There was
discussion re security because these web sites need your password.  Allan M
explained how passwords would get moved around the world.

TIP TIME
Ester said she had not appreciated that her TIP subscription finished 12
months after its start rather than PCUG membership anniversary, and was
there any way of  saving outstanding hours.  Allan summarised the TIP
practice - $120 buys one year TIP full access with up to 300 "hours" - any
additional hours to be bought at the same rate

C DRIVE DISAPPEARING
Rod described how, after fitting an additional hard drive, his C Drive
"disappears".  Only suggestion was a possible IDE cabling  problem.  Merv
has many cables.  Suggestion to try the "squash technique" - i.e. squeeze
the flat cable connector in a vice (carefully)  because they rely on
insulation displacement for connection

OFFICE TOOLBAR DISAPPEARANCE
It seems this can sometimes disappear with difficulty in getting it back.
The consensus advice was not to use this toolbar at all, but to simply drag
individual icons to the desktop for those (few) parts of Office which most
people use

FAX SOFTWARE
Chess said that the Fax software in W98 and W95 was not very satisfactory,
and people should use that software supplied with their modem

DIR PRINT and ICON VUE
Mike D passed round DirPrint 3.0 which claims to do "anything you could do
with the old DOS command dir > prn and more".  VuePrint7.4 includes
VueIcons which puts up a thumbnail of an image file as its Icon symbol

SETI@HOME
Mike ? commented on problems with it - "cannot find host server".  Greg
said that there were similar problems with other ISP's.  Gloria and others
said they were having no problems.  It seems it works for some but not
others.

COOKIES DIRECTORIES
Ken M wanted to know why he had two directories with cookies - "temp
internet" and "cookies".  No one had an answer.  Should he delete one or
the other? Consensus - don't know, but generally inadvisable.  Ken also
mentioned that there was a SMH report about chimpanzees now being on line

MONITOR PROBLEM
Paul T has a monitor problem of inconsistent loss of display.  Consensus
was probably not a monitor problem, but maybe a videocard connection
problem.  Try remove, clean, reinstall.  "Connections account for 95% of
electronic problems".  A show of hands indicated that 50% of those present
had never taken the cover off their computer.  John S said that his
computer never had its cover on.

GENEALOGY
Someone commented that there had been a report in Sydney that pcug had the
best Genealogy sites in Australia. Mike D said that Cora Num's at
www.tip.net.au/~dnum/ is one of the best in the world.  In a discussion on
Genealogy software, it was agreed that Brothers Keeper or Expert's $20 were
both good.  Whatever you use make sure it has GEDCOM write and read
capability.  Peter Hodge commented that Master Genealogist is very good at
ensuring data quality is verified - vital for serious genealogy.. 

GENEALOGY SIG ?
Mike D asked for a show of interest in a possible PCUG SIG on Genealogy.
Quite a number seemed interested, although it is recognised that there
would be overlap or conflict with HAGSOC and DPS.  Mike pointed out that
the big advantage would be the ability to demonstrate software on a big
screen, and Internet sources shown live.  The PCUG/C&C membership starts
with good knowledge of computers and software.  Mike D will follow up

EMAIL "LETTERHEAD"
Celia had received an offer from Monash offering email letterheads for $45.
Consensus was not worth it - would be an HTML file which most people don't
like.

VXD FILES
Greg asked how to relate VXD filenames to particular hardware.  Sorry - no
answer.

W98 2nd Ed UPDATE
In answer to Trevor, Chess and Merv said this was the full program

ELIZABETH WARD   
Per Chess Elizabeth has been recently hospitalised but is getting better
now

PARTITION MAGIC
Chess can't get it to change primary partition size.  Is this normal?  No
answer

TWO INBOXES
Chess - How do you set up two different Inboxes on TIP?  No answer

ORB DRIVE
Chess - doesn't work, don't buy, at least for time being

BIG DRIVES
Rod asked whether 8 Gig was a limit.  Seems it was but not with W95 or W98.
Ken M has TWO 13.5 Gig drives in his new machine with no problems

PAGEMAKER DEMO
Jim H suggested that the proposed Demo by Anne be at the end of a meeting

MONITOR
Anne says had problems with a monitor, but could be a problem with
videocard.  Discussion seemed to dislove into the meeeting end Hubub

Mike D 29 July

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