Notes of C&C Meeting 7 September 1999 1. Ted, who chaired the meeting, opened it at 10.00am with about 33 people in attendance. A few other people arrived later. 2. Two new members attended the meeting. Larry, who lives in O'Connor, has owned a computer for about a year but has only just started to use it. He is a raw beginner and is attending the meetings to pick up tips. Rod, who lives in McGregor, bought his first computer in 1985 and has been working in the computer industry for some years. As he is semi-retired, he now has the time to attend meetings. He uses his computer for such things as editing magazines rather than play. 3. Ted explained about the SIG's willingness to provide an experienced member to form a link between it and new members. The link person would be available to talk with the new member before meetings and answer any queries they may have. Both new members were offered a link person. 4. George reminded the group that on their first visit, new members were not expected to pay $2 for their coffee and that life members and the note-taker also did not have to pay. 5. Wolf, the Treasurer assured members that the SIG's financial situation was healthy. 6. Wolf also reminded those present that the PCUG was formed so that users could help users and urged that people should attempt to make a contribution in return for the help they received. He suggested that Coffee and Chat create a pool of people who could take it in turns to take the notes. Ted agreed and noted that people who undertook to do the job on a long-time basis tended to get worn out. Volunteers were sought to join a panel of note-takers. Offers to do so were received from John, Ted (when he was not chairing the meeting) and Anne and one other person. 7. Jeff suggested that a previous custom be revived, and people asking questions be requested to give a summary of their inquiry to the note-taker. This was agreed to be a good idea. 8. John queried whether the Coffee and Chat notes were needed. The group noted that a lot of people who do not belong to the SIG read the notes. Emil mentioned that the problem of confining the notes to the TIP newsgroups was that only those using TIP could gain ready access to the newsgroups and so if the notes were confined to them a lot of people would be unable to see them. However, if it were decided to put the notes on the Web page, their availability there would have to be well publicised. Terry queried whether it would be feasible to have a link from the Web page to the newsgroups. John pointed out that people have to have their machines set up to read the newsgroups, and that not all members knew how to do this. He also advised that there was no public access to the newsgroups because the work involved in making them available was very volunteer intensive and that were newsgroups to be publicly accessible they would provide a wide opening for spamming. Chris stated that data in the newsgroups was deleted after a certain period whereas the material on the Web was archived. Greg suggested that people could get details of the Coffee and Chat meetings through the "Digest", but Chris rejoined that the "Digest" included data on all PCUG's SIGs. The idea of asking for an edition of the "Digest" which was limited to one group was floated. 9. Greg mentioned that he had just returned from a VISE trip helping people in the bush with their computer problems. While many of those he saw had access to the web some, who used such word processing packages as "Works", were unable to read material produced using Word 97. He queried whether there were any inexpensive document readers and was informed that Microsoft provides free a small application "Word View" which would help. The URL is: http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/downloaddetails/wd97vwr32.htm. Chris also advised that Microsoft applications had a facility to read material produced by other word-processing packages. 10. Ron mentioned that some people in the outback, who were using very high powered accountancy packages for business purposes, had machines whose bios pliant as the clock was wrong. He asked if this could be fixed or whether it would be necessary to buy a new bios or motherboard, and mentioned that he had searched the Web and contacted motherboard manufacturers for their advice without success. He was reluctant to advise people to replace their bios or upgrade their motherboards as this was expensive and those concerned were frequently asset rich but short of ready money. Tony stated that there was no easy fix, while Merv mentioned that Computer Associates sold a Y2K tester and a kit that would fix any problem found. John noted that it would not be cost effective to purchase a new bios or a testing kit, as even if the kit found a problem it would not always be possible to fix it. Chris warned that AMI or Award should not be contacted directly as the motherboard manufacturers bought their bios from a third party and were unable to answer queries. He mentioned that the Mr Bios page on the Web gave details of new bios. However, the group agreed that those in the bush should not be advised to flash upgrade their bios' as this could be very tricky. Al queried why those concerned were not simply advised to change the date on their computers and was informed that this would not work for those who were running high powered accountancy packages as getting the right date in their Bios's was essential for their programs to run efficiently. However, John noted that a good quick fix for those not using financial packages, for which the right date was essential, was to change the date in their bios in 2000 to the right day, and month with 1972 for the year. 11. Elizabeth mentioned that she was still having trouble with e-mail messages from her daughter. When she tried to open them she got a message that she needed to down load several items before she could read them but that when she tried to do so nothing happened. The Internet SIG thought that the problem was caused by the font used in the messages and advised her to contact her daughter in Israel and ask her to send her messages in plain text. Elizabeth had tried to ring her daughter three times without success. John and Merv agreed to advise her later on what she should do. 12. Elizabeth was also having trouble with "Profusion" software as it filled the whole page and did not leave any space for an address line where she could enter a new URL. She had obtained advice from the Internet SIG but it didn't work. John offered to go and visit her to fix the problem. 13. Finally Elizabeth mentioned that while she had plenty of room on her "D" drive her "C" drive was full and asked how she could move things from "C" to "D". John told her that she could not move applications from one drive to another and that she would have to re-install them on the other drive. John also advised that people should never use the default address when installing programs but should use the custom install to load programs on the most appropriate drive or partition. 14. Roger mentioned that Excel 97 was not Y2K compatible and advised the group to resolve the problem by going to Control panel/Date tab/short date section to change the way in which the date was written to dd/mm/yyyy. John agreed that there must be four digits for the year, and recommended that three letters be used for the month if trouble is to be avoided. It was questionable whether this fix would work but it would not cause any harm. Phillip advised that if members' version of Excel from Office 97 was not compatible and providing it was registered with Microsoft, the company would provide a free upgrade package on a new disk. Emil advised that Excel upgrades can also be obtained from most cover CDs but warned that SR1 upgrade must be installed before SR2A. 15. Wolf stated that Microsoft could be contacted on (02) 131482 to obtain the upgrade from Windows 98 to Windows 98 SE, and noted that while Microsoft provided a complete new version it could only be installed if there was a previous version on the computer. 16. John mentioned that if people had a previous version of "Works" Microsoft would upgrade it to version 4A. 17. Anne mentioned that since she had installed a new hard disk with Windows 98 she could not use her scanner as she had lost a DLL MFCOLEUI. She checked Logitech's web page and found nothing and then rang Logitech who advised that the company had sold it scanner business a couple of years ago to a business which has since closed down and so no new drivers would be produced for use with Windows 98. As she had been advised by Logitech that the DLL was a Windows file she tried to find it on her Windows 95 CD but this failed as her machine automatically tried to install this over Windows 98. John advised that it was unlikely to be a Windows file if it were not available through Windows 98 but she could try activating the "Find" function on her machine and searching on the Windows 95 CD. However, he advised that she should reinstall the original drivers for the scanner on her new "C" drive and that the Drag and File Gold application which she had used to move the old drivers from her "D" drive would not work for an application. Merv suggested that she uninstall the old drivers first before re-installing them again. John was not sure whether this was necessary. He offered to discuss the problem of the missing DLL later. Chris advised that the driver might be available on "Drivers.com". Rod mentioned that he had visited Logitek's web page recently and found updated drivers (version 16) on their support page and offered to brief Anne on it later. 18. Ken mentioned the problem he had been having with his mouse freezing. He had followed advice to delete "Find Fast" but this didn't work, however another group had told him to delete "find Fast" and "Outlook Express" and when he did so the problem resolved. John thought it unlikely that "Outlook Express" had caused the problem. Chris inquired whether Ken's hard disk had clunked just before the mouse unfroze and advised that if so it was a good sign that his hard disk was failing and that he would have to get another disk under warranty or buy one if necessary. John responded that it was unlikely that Ken's hard disk was failing as it was a new one. He advised that if the hard disk was working while the mouse was frozen that was a sign that it was accessing some program and suggested that "Task Info" be used to find out which programs were being used so as to detect which one was causing the problem. 19. John briefed the meeting on Telstra's "Call Waiting" service and the problems which he had registering to use it. "Call Waiting" enabled people with only one phone line to take the call via their computer providing it was set up properly and had a voice facility. Telstra's registration web page is a disaster, and people have to go round the loup twice to get their application accepted and even then the service may be full and unable to accept any new members. John noted that while the service was free it had several advantages for Telstra. While members were using it they couldn't access other services and it was in the interests of Telstra to let people talk on the net providing they did so under its control. Greg noted that TCW, which was of great value to the bush, couldn't be used when Telstra's service was being utilised. Also as long as messages were being sent over the telephone lines, there was an economic advantage to be gained by Telstra who charge the senders of the call even if "Call Waiting" was free. 20. John briefed members on the situation concerning his attempts to obtain a free Maestro modem for the SIG. He had sent e-mails to Maestro on 15/7/99, and 5/8/99 and then rang them on 26/8/99 when he was told that all their e-mails had been lost. He then sent copies of all his previous e-mails again on 28/8/99 but as yet has had no response. He promised to send one more e-mail in which he would state that if he did not hear from them, the SIG would buy a modem from US Robotics. Greg warned that John should not put Maestro totally offside as the Farmwide tests, which have not yet been finalised, show that Maestro's machine is best for the bush. 21. John also noted that he had received his refund cheque from Microsoft for the purchase price for "Encarta". Charlie stated that when he registered "Encarta" he was offered an opportunity to join "Communique" for a reduced price and queried whether it was worth taking up. John replied that many members had been members of "Communique" and implied that membership wasn't worth it. 22. Wolf stated that his Omega zip drive was playing up and that after he had last used the back-up and tried to delete it he got the message "file system error 1026". He queried whether there was a difference between the guest installation files on the original zip drive software and those on the updates. Merv offered to lend him a disk of the updated software and a patch to resolve the problem, and Bob suggested that he meet with Wolf later to "play zips". 23. Margaret said her computer had crashed recently, and that she had got it running again satisfactorily using her 6-12 backup floppies by following the advice she got from books. However, she wanted to know whether the backup information would still be on the floppies or whether she would need to backup again. She was advised that the information would still be on the disks. However, Chris mentioned that although she didn't need to do a further backup she probably should for having re-installed her system some things may have changed. John agreed with this advice. 24. Jim mentioned that he would like to talk to people after the meeting about their experiences regarding refilling his own ink cartridges and other consumables for his Epson printer so as to cut costs. Wolf replied that he has an Epson but hadn't found anyone who could refill the cartridges. Jim also said that he would like to discuss the quality of paper to be bought and was advised that you get what you pay for. It was agreed that some people would resume the discussion after the meeting. 25. Tony has an HPJ90 which includes a scanner, a fax and an ink jet printer which has been causing problems for the past few months. He found that the solution was to use a tissue to clean the chrome bar. He also noted that the printer was very messy and tended to spray ink about. Merv suggested that Tony could buy a spray can for cleaning the machine but Tony replied that metho also works. Merv also advised Tony to go into the print module on his computer and reduce the intensity of the ink used to as low as possible as this would prevent the ink spraying. 26. John noted that his "Netscape Communicator 4.08" wasn't recording his history file any more and asked for advice. Tony was advised that Netscape was very indiscriminate when it cleaned up its cache and left very little behind and that this may be why his history file appeared empty. John also informed him that when Netscape was full it didn't delete the earliest files but chose files of a simular size to those which needed to be saved. 27. Colin was having problems with "Internet Explorer" as he did not appear to have the "Find, send by e-mail" facility????? He was advised to go to "Tools/options/programs and select the programs used for HTML editing, e-mail etc and select the option which he wished to use. 28. Moreover, his computer allowed his IE5 dial-up connection box to come up when he was word processing and automatically connect him to the Internet. Also it automatically disconnected him when he closed "Outlook Express". Colin was advised to change his options to "never dial a connection" and to set the tab to do a manual connection so as to ensure that the machine could not automatically connect and disconnect him. 29. Ted then reminded members to put their chairs back and take their mugs back to the kitchen and closed the meeting at about 11.30am.??? Ane L 7/9/99 ****************************************************** Recent Coffee & Chat pages are available on the internet news group tip.coffee-chat. Archives of past meetings are available at the web site: http://www.pcug.org.au/pcug/candc/c&c.htm These Archives are searchable, and also include some minutes of the Internet SIG, run on alternate Mondays ******************************************************* End
Return to the Index or the Coffee and Chat Page