Past Meetings

• Nov 2003
• Sept 2003
• Aug 2003
• July 2003
• June 2003
• May 2003
• Apr 2003
• Mar 2003
• Feb 2003
• Dec 2002
• Nov 2002
• Oct 2002
• Sep 2002
• Aug 2002
• Jul 2002
• Jun 2002
• May 2002
• Apr 2002
• Mar 2002
• Feb 2002
• Jan 2002
• Dec 2001
• Nov 2001
• Oct 2001
• Sep 2001
• Aug 2001
• July 2001
• June 2001
• May 2001
• April 2001
• March 2001
• Feb 2001
• Jan 2001
• Dec 2000
• Nov 2000
• Oct 2000
• Sep 2000
• Aug 2000
• Jul 2000
• Jun 2000
• May 2000
• previous

• Sites of the Month
  • DirectNIC
  • Internic
  • Pay Pal
  • www.download.com
  • www.tucows.com
  • Memturbo
  • Spybot"
  • Adaware
  • CleanSweep
  • RegClean
  • Macromedia "Flash" Player
  • www.techtv.com
  • Flight Explorer
  • slashdot.org
  • Solar Flares
  • subscribe to Kawartha-online.

  Meetings are held on the 2nd Thurs of each month, 7:00 pm odd months: Fenelon Falls: Compu-Dynamix (Colborne St.) even months: Bobcaygeon: Lions' Hall (Main 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. Financial report: Anne
  2. Festival of Trees
          Nexicom again sponsored a tree in Bobcaygeon's "Festival of Trees" at Settlers' Village. Garth, Al and Evelyn decorated it this week. The trees are auctioned and the proceeds donated to Five Counties Children's Fund.
           Do try to attend the Festival of Trees this weekend. (Garth particularly recommends the dancing Santa at the gate!)
  3. Christmas party
          The next regular meeting will be the Christmas party. It will be held in the Bobcaygeon Lions' Hall. It was agreed that starting in 2004 we will meet odd months at Compu-Dynamix, even months at the Bobcaygeon Lions' Club.
     • Garth will purchase a shrimp ring, veggies etc. and beverages, from the KIUG bank account.
     • People can bring other goodies & treats.
     • There will be a gift exchange cum draw. Everyone bring a small gift, and we'll draw names for these.
     • Chris volunteered to bring music and a CD player
     • Bring digital cameras
     • Anne will put up posters. Everyone else ... pass on the word!
  4. January meeting:
         will be held at Compu-Dynamix in Fenelon Falls. The topic will be CD/ DVD burning
     
     
  5. 'Round the Table
     
     • Paul S. has been shopping for a projector, as an alternative to a large-screen TV. His conclusions so far:
       • Sony: best picture, but not when there's motion
       • Epson: best price ($900 range), quietest, largest unit
       • Hitachi: most expensive ($2000 range), best quality picture
       • InFocus: has a 30-day trial (others may as well)
       • picture is clearer on a silver (spray-paint) background than on a white wall. However, a standard "silver screen" doesn't work well: the particles are too visible.
       • noise is a factor
       • DVD's look good; MPG's do not work as well
       • If you will be viewing DVDs, you want "progressive scan"
     • Domain hosting (Garth)
       • There are now more alternatives to Internic (Network Solutions).
       • DirectNIC offers domain registration at $15 / year
     • Using credit cards online
       • VISA currently has the best policy for protecting the customer (Paul M.)
       • a member was booking a flight, and was told he had "won a free trip". He booked it, but when he checked later with the airline found it hadn't been booked. Watch for similar scams.
       • Via Rail allows you to make reservations using a credit card, but you must be able to produce the credit card when you pick up your ticket.(Anne)
       • Opening an account with Pay Pal is a safe way to pay on the internet (Garth). However, there is an additional charge (about 3.5%) whether you are buying or selling, because PayPal is treated as a "merchant" by the credit card companies. (Paul M.)
       • Watch out for a current scam in which a fraudulent email or pop-up window asks for account & password information for TD/Canada Trust.
     • Email spam
       • some messages quarantined by Spambuster (Nexicom) are actually valid (Bill V.). For instance, many messages which use "Incredimail" are quarantined. You can, if you wish, change your settings to allow email from specified people. See the Nexicom web site.
       • One member reported that the majority of his email is blocked because of suspected viruses (ie. blocked, not quarantined). He receives the message "virus alert from Nexicom". His email program is Outlook (Office 98). After the meeting, he and Garth logged in via Webmail to see what was causing the problem. It appeared to be a problem with the server, not the user's computer.
     • Freeware
       • Wally reported that there are fewer and fewer freeware /shareware programmes available.
       • Good web sites for freeware / shareware are www.download.com and www.tucows.com. Nexicom is a tucows server.
       • Garth recommends Memturbo, a memory manager. If your computer is slowing down, it's probably because memory is becoming fragmented by poorly-behaved programmes (eg. java applets) which fail to release memory on exit. A memory manager can speed it up by recovering (de-fragmenting) the memory.
             MemTurbo also enables Windows 98 to use memory above the 256K ("native" W98 doesn't recognize memory above 256k)
     • Spyware
       • Larry: a "screensaver" task keeps appearing on the taskbar. Paul: it's probably spyware. Use Spybot" or Adaware to get rid of it. Also, check that it isn't in the startup menu.
       • Wally: preferred the earlier version of Spybot, which had controls which could be set by the user. The newer version does everything automatically. Paul: the new version of Spybot allows you to restore items you find you shouldn't have deleted.
       • Wally also recommends CleanSweep and RegClean
     • Macromedia "Flash" Player
       • This is a free programme (browser plug-in) which allows you to view animated files
       • it's about a 5-minute download on a dialup line
     • Computer maintenance
            Bruce: the defrag procedure stopped, with the message "collecting information about 16-bit modules". When he rebooted, it did it again. On the next reboot, the defrag finished properly.
       • Do a thorough scan, and automatically fix errors. Paul M.: If you find more than 3 bad sectors, you can have the hard drive replaced under warranty. Do so... Bad sectors can indicate a problem with the drive, which only worsens with time!
       • Paul S: Do the defrag in Safe Mode. Either hold the CTRL key when you boot, or wait and hit F8 during the boot, then choose "Safe Mode" from the menu.
     • www.techtv.com
           It is the web site of the TV programme "Screensavers". They even answer (live) phone-in questions. It's a good source of all kinds of technical news. (Paul S.)
     • slashdot.org
           Another good site, with a message board to answer technical questions. (Chris G.)
     • MPG4
           This is a new compression standard for audio files. It combines good sound quality and a smaller file size. It is being used for audio streaming. You can now become your own brodacaster.
     • Solar Flares
       NASA site with amazing photos of recent solar flares. (Garth)
     • Flight Explorer
           A web site used by traffic controllers. Click on the button at the upper right of the screen to see a map of all planes flying over north America. (ie. those with transponders, who have filed flight plans)
     • Capturing graphics
           Some web sites deliberately include code to prevent copying images with the mouse (right click / copy). Of course you can read the name of the image file in View / Source.