Kawartha Internet Users Group

Minutes of the Meeting March 13, 2003

Sites of the Month
1. www.torontocomputes.ca Toronto Computes and The Computer Paper
2. www.driverguide.com - find specific drivers
3. www.irfanview.de
4. www.nasa.gov/gallery: NASA "picture of the day"
5. www.snowking.ca : an ice castle on Great Slave Lake
6. www.hunley.org: an 1864 submarine
7. www.lavasoftusa.com AdAware - spyware remover
8. www.urban75.com/Mag/bubble.html...virtual bubble wrap.
Minutes
1. Members present:
  Norm Bailey, Adam Panter, Garth Scarborough, Bob Chaplin, Bill VanKuik, George Willis, Stella Dean Crisp, Al Crisp, Larry Muter, Al Wright, Wally Schneider, Paul MacCauley, Anne Panter, Michael Kay
2. Thanks once again to Michael Kay for bringing the laptop and projector from Millbrook, and to Nexicom for the use of this equipment.
3. Anne gave the financial report. Alvin Wright has replaced Theresa as a co-signator on the bank account.
4. Members voted to pay $100 to the Lions' Club for the use of the hall. We last gave them a cheque, $100, on August 8, 2002.
5. There was some discussion about switching the night of our meetings. The Lions' Club has had a request to reserve the hall on alternate Thursdays, and wondered if we might be able to change. Some members had conflicts with other days. Also, we have been offered the use of Compu-Dynamix training room on alternate months. Garth will discuss the situation further with Wally McKinnon of the Lions' Club, suggesting that we need the hall only on alternate months.
6. We discussed the purpose and format of the meetings. Bob Chaplin attends the Kawartha Computer Club in Peterborough, and produces their newsletter. He observed that their attendence declined when they had fewer demos. As so many people come to this meeting for computer help, he suggested we keep the "round the table" as the foundation for the meetings.
  Paul added that people are also interested in suggested web sites, so encouraged people to bring new web sites to the meetings.
  Bill suggested that we take advantage of the training facilities at Compu-Dynamix to do "hands-on" demonstrations.
7. After the coffee break, Garth asked if people would like to form a steering committee to meet before each meeting to plan the agenda. Garth, Anne, Bob, Alvin, Paul and Al & Stella Crisp volunteered.
8. Alvin mentioned that the meetings had not been widely advertised. Anne will advertise the next meeting in the Promoter and Lindsay This Week "Coming Events" section, and on Cable Cable.
9. A Basic Computer Skills Training Session is being offered at Compu-Dynamix starting March 20, 1:30 - 3:30 pm.
10. Question: George wants to post a photo of his house on the Yahoo site, but it doesn't accept the file.
  
  Answers: The file may be too large, or it may be the wrong format.
  - If you don't have a graphics programme, Irfanview is very good, and free. Download it from www.irfanview.de Download the plug-ins as well.
  - Using Irfanview, or your graphics programme, change the resolution to 100 dots per inch
  - Save the file as either a .gif or a .jpg
  - Check the file size in Windows Explorer. If it is larger than 100K go back into the graphics program and reduce either the picture size (Image/Resize) or the resolution ("Save Quality" under Save / Options).
11. The magazines Toronto Computes and The Computer Paper are not delivered north of Port Perry. Anne will look into the possibility of having them delivered here. Meanwhile, the articles are online at www.torontocomputes.ca
12. Adam: NASA has a "picture of the day" at www.nasa.gov/gallery
13. Anne: www.snowking.ca : an ice castle being built on Great Slave Lake. The builder actually lives on a houseboat on Great Slave Lake.
14. Walter is learning HTML and building a web site. Anne asked if people would be interested in having a tutorial on that at one of the meetings at Compu-Dynamix.
15. Garth showed a different methods of saving images.
  - Right-click on the image, and choose "save"
  - Right-click and choose "copy" then switch to graphics program and "save"
  - "view source" to find the image file name
  - use the Print Screen key to save the entire window to the clipboard
16. Question: Why do some pictures on web sites appear as an empty box?
  
  Answer: It might be that the server has timed out. You can reload just that image (rather than the entire page). Right-click on the image and choose "show picture".
  This is also a handy way to speed up loading of a large page. Click the "stop" button, then just load (with right-click) the images you want.
17. There was some discussion about how to make our group more inviting to seniors. Larry suggested we do a similar "round the table" at the Seniors Centre. Paul suggested we call it a "coffee club" rather than a meeting.We could also put up flyers at Seniors buildings in both Fenelon and Bobcaygeon, and at the libraries.
  Larry will talk to Jim at the Seniors Centre.
18. Norm asked if anyone else had had trouble getting online last Sunday night. He tried off and on between midnight and 6 am and couldn't get online.
  Apparently LindsayNet was down, and Sympatico had a phone recording saying there were problems in the Lindsay area.
19. Alvin recommended www.hunley.org. The Hunley is a submarine which dates from 1864.
20. Alvin mentioned that even after deleting all temporary files and cookies AdAware (available at www.lavasoftusa.com was able to find spyware on his machine. A reminder that AdAware data files must be updated regularly, just like virus data files, as new Spyware is arriving all the time. RefUpdate is a programme to update AdAware files.
21. Paul mentioned that while Norton AntiVirus is very effective, it requires a fairly powerful computer, and will slow down older machines.
  He has also seen instances where Norton has interrupted emails. The item appears in the Sent Items, but hasn't actually been sent.
22. If you have problems with Internet Explorer (in my case it wouldn't print anything), you can use the "repair" feature. Go to Control Panel / Add & Remove Programs. Choose Internet Explorer, then click the Add/Remove button. The next window has a "repair" option.
23. And thanks to Larry for this: www.urban75.com/Mag/bubble.html...virtual bubble wrap.

Next Meeting:
Thursday April 10,2003 7:00 pm
Compu-Dynamix
Colborne St., Fenelon Falls
All welcome

***NOTE*** any errors or omissions to minutes to be mentioned at the next meeting.

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