Coffee and Chat List. Southside 5th December 2000.
The meeting was chaired by Peter Hodge who took charge of the very
well made gavel.
1. A very well packaged CD ROM was presented to the group by JimH.
After much discussion it was suggested that it would probably work
well as a frisbee or coaster. The amount of packaging and materials
within would cost the supplier quite a bit. Dire warnings were
suggested by some attendees who warned not to install it. Jim was
among those with that view.
2. GloriaR had returned from the Northern Territory where mosquitoes,
crocs and pythons abound. She seemed somewhat relieved to have
returned to this civilised city and friends.
3. TrevorF asked if anyone could supply a daisy wheel or suggest where
one may be purchased for a Canon MX350 daisy wheel typewriter. Yet to
be resolved. They are no longer made nor can I find a supplier in the
ACT. I guess I'll have to visit my mother-in-law without a daisy
wheel. Just as well she lives at a remote location.
4. JohnS reported as follows:
A. Had a rush of blood to the head and brought a small Panasonic
Digital Video camera with bundled Firewire card and editing software.
The camera is superb and the card works well. - but the ULead DV
Studio software has turned out to be a disaster so far. The built in
Editor in Windows ME is limited, but an improvement over the ULead
editor.
B. The Treasurer suggested that this Christmas the SIG makes a
contribution to the Salvation Army. The suggestion was
enthusiastically endorsed - some wanted to extend to other donations
to other deserving causes.
C. What constitutes a Download? The following was posted to the
tip.help news group:
"As a matter of interest... perhaps...
I have been using the Freeware "Tick" program since 21 Oct 2000
It is monitoring my connections to 5 different ISP accounts (TIP, &
TIP 10 minutes, count as two). It tells me the following (and much
much more {:-))
In 46 days I have made 66 calls to the accounts.
Calls average just over 25 mins long (I do most of my E-mail, news &
browsing off-line). I have downloaded a total of 97.4 MB (I don't do a
huge lot of browsing, and often download software under about 5 MB -
get larger ones from magazine CDs) But I have not done any live
voice/video chat, or listened to much on-line radio recently.... The
program is projecting a monthly download of 64.9 MB in the future.
Tick can be downloaded from
http://software.reallyeffective.co.uk/tick/index.shtml
D. Be careful of Win ME - it requires new drivers for some hardware.
The following was also posted to tip.help news group:
"Had a very similar problem with WinME and a new Netcom modem brought
at the markets 2 weeks ago. ME installed it automatically with the
default 56K driver - then I made the big mistake of updating with the
Netcom Win98 driver from the supplied CD. The modem then failed the
internal diagnostic.
All further attempts at uninstalling, removal of hardware etc.,
elimination of the Netcom INF files etc., just resulted in failures.
Eventually I had to go home and log onto the Netcom web site, and
found there was a new WinME driver. The next day - no problems after
the driver was updated. I will check web sites for ME drivers from now
on - I already found that I did not need the supplied driver for a new
Firewire card on my own ME system. But it would have been nice if
Netcom had at least made a sticker for their new Modem boxes."
E. Restoring W98 "old" registries. From the MS site: " W98 comes with
a utility called Registry Checker that backs up your registry each
time you boot your computer, and scans your registry at every restart.
If Registry Checker finds a problem with your registry it will
automatically replace it with your most recent backup copy. To restore
one of the 5 most recent backups, at the DOS command prompt (not from
within Windows). Type "scanreg/restore" (no quotes) highlight the one
you want to restore and press Enter". Much harder in WinME :-( but
that has the System Restore Utility).
5. a. Recovering files after having been deleted from the recycled
bin: BobS.
It was mentioned that special software might stand a chance of doing
that and it would be easier if the drive hadn't been written to by
installation of a program or saving a document from an application.
Best to run the program from a floppy, if possible.
b. By removing 2 x 8MB RAM and leaving 2 x 16MB RAM to operate my
Pentium 133 the problems of "Exception OE" messages crashes have
stopped. Presumably one or both 8MB RAMs are faulty. This can result
from static charge effects.
6. Copying data from audio CDs - GavinB asked for help with copying
audio CD's. I have been getting the diagnostic "Drive E: does not
support digital audio extraction."
It appears that I should copy the CD to the HD first even if only for
the reason that my old drive is too slow. OK, I'll try it.
7. Crossed out after some had written items with later numbers.
8. Symtray illegal operations - PeterH.
9. CA InnoculateIT - Greg. He hadn't been receiving updates.
10. UK aerial maps - MikeD.
11. Points of presence overseas - EmilJ asked whether anyone knew of
an ISP who has points of presence overseas (so that one can connect to
the Internet when overseas at the price of local calls). Ozemail was
mentioned as one such ISP. IBM and AT&T(?) were also mentioned as
having been discontinued.
12. What is the significance of Word 2000 appearing before Word 97
which is all I have, and then disappearing? - ElizabethW. Answer:
Sometimes Microsoft sends the greater or later version of one's
application first. Nothing to worry about.
13. I forget who raised it and it wasn't listed on the blackboard, but
an upgrade to DirectX was mentioned. Version 7.0a is better than using
anything "better".
14. Computer slow in starting - TrevorF. It was said that one didn't
need a config.sys nor autoexec.bat. I've deleted both and saved them
under .old instead of .sys and .bat. It does start a little faster.
I've since found (not because of the above) that I can't boot from
floppy. I can write to and read from one but when it comes to booting,
forget it. I have several startup floppies created during installs of
Win95, then Win98 then Win98SE which I'm currently running.
CMOS reports that the primary IDE drive C: is bootable and that the
floppy is a secondary boot device. Puzzling. I must have changed it as
an option in the operating system. Might have done it as a registry
change. I really am a tweaker and shouldn't because of poor short term
memory.
============
The next southside meeting will be on Tues 19 December.
Regards, Trevor
END
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"Hanging," Fred Allen once said, "is too good for a man
who makes puns. He should be drawn and quoted."
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