Past Meetings

• Sept 2003
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• previous

• Sites of the Month
  • Black Ice
  • Zone Alarm
  • AVG
  • Text Cleaner
  • Park 'n Fly
  • subscribe to Kawartha-online.

  Meetings are held on the 2nd Thurs of each month, 7:00 pm odd months: Bobcaygeon: Lions' Hall (Main St) even months: Fenelon Falls: Compu-Dynamix (Colborne St.) To receive minutes, sign up to "kawartha online" Click here and follow the directions

• Minutes
  The meeting was chaired by Garth Scarborough. 14 members present.
  
  
  1. Festival of Trees
     Nexicom has once again offered to sponsor a Christmas Tree in this fundraiser at Settlers' Village. The group voted to accept their offer - our part being to decorate the tree. Anne will reply to Anne Marie Halliday at Nexicom.
     
         We'll need volunteers, please, to help with the decorating on or around November 13th. Let us know at the next meeting.
     
     
  2. 'Round the Table
     
     • Anne has upgraded from Windows 95 to 98 on her P266 (256MB RAM), and finds it abominably slow. Paul suggested removing memory, as W98 seems to have problems handling more than 128MB. Garth suggested upgrading to the next version of W98.
       
       
     • Bill VanK has an Epson printer "free to a good home". Garth spoke first!
       
       
     • Mike brought a .dat file sent by his son, which he can't open. This was sent as an email attachment, but was combined with the email, so cannot be opened by graphics software. In general: if you receive a graphics file which your system can't recognize, try opening it with Irfanview. However, even that won't work if the graphics file itself is corrupted. When you send files, use only .jpg or .gif. They're smaller files, and everyone can read them.
       
       
     • Q: Larry asked how to restore the volume control icon to the task bar.
       
       A:     If the drivers are all correct, you should be able to do so from Control Panel / Multimedia / [x] Show volume control. If this doesn't work, check that you are using the correct driver for the sound card. You may have to remove & reinstall the driver (Control panel / System/ Device manager)
       
       
     • Firewalls
       Paul recommended Black Ice. Another is Zone Alarm Zonalarm.
           Paul also mentioned that AVG (an antivirus program) includes a good firewall in its registered version. AVG is available free, as a "lite" version, but the (full) registered version is cheap, and recommended
       
       
     • Email Text Cleaner
       Larry recommends Text Cleaner a free programme which deletes all the angle brackets (<<<) etc. from emails (eg. when something has been forwarded and forwarded and forwarded).
       
       
     • WinZip - "check out" feature
       
           When opening a .zip file with WinZip, you can use the "check out" feature to temporarily install and try a program. If you decide not to use it, the program deletes all the temporary files and registry entries on exit.
       
           Thanks to Paul MacC for this tip!
       
       
     • Blaster Virus and Microsoft
       
           Paul mentioned that some people got the Blaster virus directly from the Microsoft site, in the XP service pack upgrade.
       
           Discussion followed about the "Windows Update" feature:
       • one update (optional) installs a feature which will then automatically download and install all future critical updates.
       • there is a new update to address a (newly identified) RPC vulnerability
       • Windows 98 is still supported (until March 2004)
       • Internet Explorer 6 (identified as a critical update) is recommended for newer operating systems. Note, however, that it won't work on Windows 95
       • In general, it's a good idea to keep up to date with Windows updates. You can set your device manager to do these automatically (recommended only if you have a high-speed connection!)
       
       
       
     • Printer drivers
       
           Joe asked if his printer would work with Windows 2000. He had tried installing it, with no luck.
       
           Paul replied that most printers have drivers available for the newere operating systems, but you may need to go to the company web sites to download them. Be sure to select the correct operating system. (The reason Joe's didn't work was that the driver he was using was for an earlier O/S).
       
           Scanners, unfortunately, are a different story, since many of these manufacturers are out of business. Microsoft (or Macintosh or Linux) doesn't necessarily provide drivers for older scanners made by companies no longer in business.
       
       
     • "Watched" mail
       
           Ev asked about an email she received with a note "this email is being watched". What does this mean?
       
           This means the email has been flagged by the sender to ask for a "read receipt" (ie. acknowledgement that it has been read). It will be highlighted if you have checked in Tools / Options / Read [x] highlight watched messages
       
           The sender may have checked [x]Request read receipts *or* may have forwarded a message which had this flag on (the flag remains on the forwarded message).
       
           There is also an option [x]Never send a read receipt.
       
       
     • Park 'N Fly Coupons
       
           Mike noted that if you book flights online, you can still get the discount parking vouchers online (www.pnf.com)
       
       
     • Browser "stop" button
       
           Larry mentioned that the "stop" button on the tool bar can be used to stop flashing icons, music etc. on a web site.
       
       
  3. Internet Security
     
         After the coffee break, we watched a video "Caught in the web", illustrating the dangers of giving out personal information on the internet. It showed how, for example, separate pieces of information can be piecced together by someone with criminal intent.
     
         Thanks to Al Crisp for bringing us this video.