Minutes of C&C Meeting, Tuesday 9 February 1999 Coordinator John welcomed 46 people.] 1. VISE 2. COMPUTER COURSE 3. ACCOUNTS OK 4. VIRUS WARNING 5. BOOT UP PROBLEM 6. NEW COMPUTER PROBLEM 7. CDROM NOT FOUND 8. DEFRAGMENTING HARD DRIVES 9. SPELLING CHECKER BLOCKS VIEW 10. NEXT PCUG MEETING 11. TAPE BACK UP 12. NORTON'S UTILITIES 1. VISE John said that VISE wanted two or three volunteers to help run the placement part of VISE for most states. It would be an interesting and worthwhile exercise. 2. Computer course job John said that there was a paid job available to teach over eight weeks a computer course at the Canberra College. It would involve only two hours per week and would be a good way for someone to rapidly learn more about computers. The pay was $30 per hour. 3.Bank balance Wollf said that the C&C had adequate funds. 4. Virus warning? Esther said that she had received some messages about a virus warning. John said that these were not uncommon and that the best thing was not to answer such messages. There were several URL's exposing such myths. One is at www.myths.com and that if one enters the word "hoax" into a search engine such as Altavista then these sites can be found easily. 5. Problem of extra logo at boot up Mike mentioned a problem of a logo which showed on boot up of his computer. It consisted of a logo for the company that sold the computer. Could he remove it? Chess said that the problem was with the manufacturer and had been burnt into the CMOS and would be difficult to remove. John said that PowerToys software could be used to control the screen display of logos. An autoexec.bat file might be all that was needed. 6. Flight Simulator Roger said that he had just spent 3 full days correcting a problem with a powerful new computer he had acquired. The problem was either a virus or Norton's Anti- virus program. The new computer had everything a computer Flight Simulator player could wish for. However the joystick wouldn't work. Also the computer failed. It was eventually fixed and he has now got frame rates of up to 100 per second. 7. CDROM not found. Ken said that he had upgraded his computer, but the CDROM drive wouldn't work. There might be a problem with socket connections when he installed the CDROM drive. Chess said to check very carefully for marking on sockets which indicate the way that they have to be connected. He also said that the Internet contained manufacturer information on every socket and cable and that he might use in a computer. Ken should get proper cables. 8.Defraggmenting hard drives Jeff said that it took a lot of time to do this. Norton's program was much faster. It was said that if the optimise option was selected with Windows 98 then this could take hours the first time. Some members defrag their hard drive once a week. Jeff also had problems with his telephone line in an older suburb. His modem was slower that he expected. Telstra when phoned came promptly and replaced the line and he had much better speeds from his modem as a result. A problem with the Message Bank service with Telstra. was raised and the dial tones. 9. Outlook express and the spelling checker . Elizabeth wanted to know how to prevent the spelling checker from blocking her view of the incorrect word detected. John said that you clicked on the box and simply dragged it away to a more convenient spot. Using the German language she also had a problem with the spelling checker. John said to turn off the spelling checker option and then reselect in the preference section the German language dictionary DIC file. This might be available at the Microsoft Page on the Internet. 10. PCUG monthly meeting Alan mentioned that the PCUG committee next meeting would be presented by Adobe and should be a good meeting with valuable door prizes. 11. Tape back up with 200 errors. Jim said that backing up his C drive gave 200 errors and these were mainly in the Java directory. Chess said that he had successfully backed up his C drive with the Registry and after a crash had been able to restore the C drive completely. It was mentioned that the tape backup included with Windows 98 was almost the same as the commercial $40 version from Hewlett Packard. John said that he had a removable drive and that he was able to cheaply backup his hard drive with the software called Ghost and store it away from harm. Chess said that the copy command won't copy the SYS files in the C drive. 12. Norton's Utilities Jim asked whether the software was any good. A show of hands indicated that most didn't like it but a keen minority said that with the latest patches it was a good program. Mike said that Nortons Utilities stopped his computer so he got his money back. Mike also said that the Iridium satellite could be seen in the sky and it was quite bright. The meeting ended at 11.37 am. EBM 14/2/99 ********************************************************** Coffee & Chat searchable archives are at: http://www.pcug.org.au/pcug/candc/c&c.htm
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