Co-ordinator John welcomed the 27 members to the Melbourne Cup Day
meeting.  Treasurer Wolf's financial report showed a healthy balance
today, but he suggested it would be somewhat reduced by tomorrow
(after the catering accounts were paid).

John cannot read his cached files offline on his Netscape browser, and
it was suggested that "cachet" or "unmozify" could assist there.
However, as he has used both Communicator and Navigator, and done some
upgrades, perhaps there could be some files missing  John should copy
his bookmarks, use 'remove/install programs' to uninstall the current
browser and install the latest Netscape from a magazine CD, or
consider Internet Explorer 5 which can also reproduce text and
graphics using the "save as" function.

One member was not able to reliably revisit web pages listed in the
history.  Mike praised the MS History facility in IE, but drew
attention to the way it seems to randomly delete cached files.  The
advantages of using "Cache Sentry" (Freeware) was raised as it deletes
on a FIFO (First in - First out) basis.  Just set the cache size to HD
capacity, then let Cache Sentry handle the caching.

John described how he tried to fix a newly acquired used 100 MHz
Pentium computer for a friend living in a remote area.  He found that
every five seconds, another program seemed to be taking over the
computer.  John tried many tricks unsuccessfully, and suspected that
it may have a virus, but as he had no virus checker out there,
considered a Format C: until realising that he had nowhere to back-up
the programs etc.  Then he noticed that the HD was a compressed drive,
and that the peripherals were non plug-and-play, with no driver
software.  John was not able to revive the computer so a possible
solution was offered by Chess, but as it was rather complicated, will
be published on this newsgroup, and in "16 Bits".

Roger gave a report on the "Windows 98 pocketbook", which comes with a
CD, and is published by APC magazine for $8.95.  It contains good
information for W95/98 owners re over-the-top or clean W98
installation, and suggests that W98 plus is probably not worth buying,
as the best of it is included on the CD.  Gloria and Wolf also agreed
to the value of this compact booklet, specially the "how do I ...."
index on the last page.

Roger also mentioned that the fortnightly Tuesday Flight Simulator SIG
would usually continue in the afternoons following C&C when the
training room was not in use.  However, to enable members of the
daytime workforce and students to participate, an evening Flight Sim
SIG would operate every second Wednesday from 1830 to 2030 in the C&C
off weeks.  He welcomed enquiries on 6258 1583.

Chess told how he had been using MacAffee Anti-Virus, but after
uninstalling it, found residual segments still in his registry; ie. it
does not fully uninstall.  John added that his Reg mon program found
that MacAffee was accessing his registry five times per second which
he thought was excessive, and that when he contacted MacAffee about
this, was told that it was normal.  After he deleted (?) MacAffee, he
installed Inoculan, and is quite happy with this.  Jim said that one
of the best was F-Prot which has a W95/98 version available on their
website, www.datafellows.com .  John agreed and said that there are
both free and commercial versions available.

Chess also advised that there is a security patch on the Microsoft
website for a rather serious bug in Internet Explorer.

Peter has received an e-mail attachment from an "Apple" user with a
".fit" extension (ie. a stuffit file), and needs a conversion file to
read it (eg. an unstuffit file).  It was suggested to look in Tucows
for an Apple decompression program which will then convert for a PC.

AOL's 100 free hours (within a month) internet trial was discussed
again, and it was considered not to be as destructive as was first
thought.  It installs and uses its own IE4 browser because Internet
Explorer and Netscape have difficulties with multiple proxies.
However, because credit card details are needed before the AOL trial
can be activated, it would be wise to unsubscribe a couple of weeks
before the end of the trial month.  As AOL uses V90 protocol, a 33.6k
modem will access them at 33.6 rather than 31.2 kbps.

The subject of connect speed with TIP was raised, and Allan said that
he has been monitoring access speeds for some time.  The patch is
working as some TIP subscribers are constantly making 33.6 connections
with their 33.6 modems, although most are only attaining 31.2 kbps.
Neville said that he usually gets 31.2, but has on three occasions
achieved a 33.6 connection with identical conditions, eg. phone line
(REN) load etc.  Wolf said that he has made a 33.6 connection at home
on his laptop, but when he brought it in to the PCUG Centre, could
only get 31.2.  This could indicate line or exchange dependence.

Allan reported that there had been an e-mail to the PCUG via a devious
route from Telstra to look at our interface because of our request for
additional lines.  The technicians came and decided that their cabling
should be brought directly into the Centre, and they would arrange
this on a Monday some time ago.  It was then found out that they would
need to do some design work first, and although there have been many
phone calls since, the re-cabling has not been done yet.

John enquired how he could gain access to our newsgroups, so the
setting up in his Netscape was explained, with a suggestion that he
might take the opportunity to install IE5.  However, when it was
learned that his ISP was Dynamite, the difficulty of accessing TIP
newsgroups quickly turned the subject to some of the 'interesting'
content of some newsgroups.

Gordon reported that he had upgraded Anne's computer, but it was not
working yet, although Jim's computer was in service after its upgrade.
He quoted some of the price movements for parts which showed that the
price of memory was increasing, and HDDs was decreasing.  He said that
Rufus was successfully using a voice program for his ICQ with a friend
in Spain.  It is called Qtalk, and can be downloaded from
www.minidata.co.nz/Qtalk or Gordon's Home page at
www.pcug.org.au/~gordonu/qtins07.exe .  There is a similar PowWow
voice program called Tribal Voice from www.powwow.com .

John asked if anyone had received a circular saying that use of ICQ
was going to be charged unless it was voted down.  Although this
possibility has been raised before, it became more likely since AOL
bought ICQ.  Further details on their website.

Gordon said that he listens to a Q & A computer program on 2UE via the
net using Real Audio.  It works very well.  He said that he had
attended a demonstration of Microsoft's 'Office 2000' which is due for
release in the first quarter of next year.  It will be available in
five versions which will be able to have automatic online updating
from MS website, and has excellent foreign language format and spell
checking.  Hopefully Microsoft will demonstrate this program at one of
our main meetings in March or April.

Mike said that good audio and video could be seen on the NASA shuttle
site.  Another member said that the staff at Houston were very
co-operative and had supplied him with requested views of earth taken
from the shuttle at the time.  Mike said that the shuttle would be
visible for the next few nights, and details of times, directions and
elevations were available via the shuttle web page.

There was some discussion on the possibility/probability that TIP
would have to introduce volume charging in the near future.  Allan
confirmed that this has been under consideration, but as the sums were
still being done and the whole subject being analysed, no firm details
are available.  However, the costs to TIP were increasing, and we were
being charged 12c /MB from Access 1, or 20c/MB from overseas,
although our peering links reduce some incoming data which would
otherwise be charged.  The most likely outcome would be for a TIP cost
of $x per year, or 300 hours, or x MB - whichever came first.  If, say
720 MB was the nominal volume, there would be some incentive to
configure for text only.

After some discussion on login problems, including TIP scripts and
manual logins, the meeting was closed so that preparations for the C&C
Melbourne Cup Luncheon could proceed.

Neville

Note: the name "John" appears frequently in the above report.  In most
cases, they were different Johns.

>---------------------------------------------------<
Neville Anderson                 nevander@pcug.org.au
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See Coffee and Chat at www.pcug.org.au/~rcook/c&c.htm
for searchable archives of past meetings ............
>---------------------------------------------------<

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