The attendance was 40 people.
Two people were there for the first time. I apologize for not
remembering your first name and initial surname. Two people offered to
be their helper.
Chaired by JohnS with occasional assistance from TedM.
I volunteered to be the note collator, or rather, someone sitting next
to me said that I had volunteered.
As an aside from Jeff: Many feel that their report may be inadequate
and that additional supplementary contributions would be welcome. This
is one way for users to help users.
Topics are listed below:
1. Acroread - RodS
2. Excel "Save workspace" settings - BobS
The suggestion to group a number of Excel workbooks together and save
them as a "workspace",came from the "Silicon Kid". The procedure is
also described in my copy of the QUE megamanual "Using Excel V 5".
It sounded great, but in practice when a workbook is opened this way
all the saved settings on the worksheets revert to those of a new
worksheet! For example the worksheet now opens at cell C1, and the
Zoom magnification resets to 100%.
This means much wasted time resetting each worksheet in the workbook.
However when the altered workbook is closed and reopened in the normal
way it retains all the settings made by the user.
No solution was offered to this problem, and any comments and advice
would be welcome.
3a. Wintune;
3b. Audio cassette tape to CD;
3c. New computer;
3d. SMS;
3e. $23 keyboard - MikeD. He showed it to the people at the meeting.
4. Windows logons and networking - JohnS
JohnS was recently helping a fellow member with networking two W98
systems together, and was bemused by the fact that occasionally the
network worked, and sometimes there appeared to be no network at all.
With hindsight it was obvious but rather frustrating at the time! Like
many other users - both machines booted to windows with password boxes
with a username and apparently blank passwords. When booting we
sometimes responded "O.K." to the password boxes - and sometimes just
cancelled (The magnificent Windows security allows this - in fact the
logon is not really for security but to identify the user). What this
did was to log us onto Windows in two different ways. Once as
"Username" and the other as a general user. The networking had been
set up for "username" but not for general users, thus the variable
results when logging onto Windows using variable methods.
Morals: 1. If you use a Windows password box - logon consistently.
2. Better to avoid Windows passwords altogether if only
one user. The most used method of removing them is to
search for all *.pwl files
and delete them. Then next time Windows starts it should ask for a new
password - if nothing is entered (Except "enter" in the password box)
you should not (in theory) be bothered again.
Someone asked for a good URL on Peer-to-Peer networking. For an
excellent step-by-step try,
http://www.duxcw.com/digest/Howto/network/net2pc/intro.htm
5a. Optical mice
5b. Canon digital Izus camera - PeterH
6. Program files \ Windows update - JeffC
Jeff reported concerning a recent use of "EasyCleaner version v.1.7f"
that is available from www.saunalahti.fi\tonihele . This program works
well with Windows Me as with earlier versions with the small amendment
of adding the word "help" in the box for the skip-list for the
Register-Clean program. He was particularly interested though with the
amount of disc space cleared on his PC by the Unnecessary Files
facility, more than 600Mb yesterday, and by the time of about 30
minutes taken to prepare the list for deletion. One particularly large
group of "Unnecessary" files identified was in the
C:\Program Files\Windows Update folder. It was explained that with
each update, Windows places files in this folder so that the update
can be removed if desired. Some suggested that so-called unnecessary
files should not be deleted because backups are removed - this is a
price to be paid for regaining disk space in this way. Jeff has had no
problems in this respect.
But it was generally agreed that the "Duplicate File" removal facility
should be avoided or at least used very cautiously, as is in fact
advised by "tonihele" with his instructions for EasyCleaner.
7. Agent - how to rid messages of multiple re: in subject headers -
KenM. AlanM said he would send an e-mail to Ken explaining how to do
this.
8. "Surfer" US interpolation software - NigelW
An article with the title "Email style: rebelling against Standard
English" is published in the December 2000 issue of Australian Style
[vol 8, no.2]. This describes itself as "a national bulletin
concerned with issues in Australian style and the use of English in
Australia". It is edited by the Dictionary Research Centre at
Macquarie University, and published by the Department of Finance and
Administration here in Canberra. Contact Australian Style, c/-
Ausinfo, GPO Box 1920, Canberra, ACT 2601, or email:
subscribe.stylewise@dofa.gov.au.
The journal is distributed in hard copy by snailmail several times a
year. It solicits its readers' views on matters of use, expression
and style in English, and is sent out free of charge. Strongly
recommended to anyone interested in the use and abuse of the
English language.
9. "RunIn" software, EkoJ - JohnA.
During the meeting, Nero5 Burning CD ROM software was mentioned by
someone. I note that one can purchase the software from the same
organisation who sells PaintShop Pro in Australia via the Net for $149
plus $11 delivery. html address is http://secure.comm-unique.com.au. I
have no financial interest in the company nor its software.
Regards, Trevor
¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤øø¤º°`°º¤¤º°`°º
"He who dies with the most toys, is, nonetheless, still dead."
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