- Members present: Norm Bailey, Larry Muter, Phil Halsey, Alvin Wright, Bob Skelly, Paul McCauley, Bob Chaplin, Paul Scarborough, Harold Rice, Chris Greaves, Garth Scarborough, Anne Panter
- Financial report:
Bank: $282.32 Mutual Fund: $1027.94 Cash: $61
Collection for this meeting: $11
- Steering Committee:
- voted to change meeting agenda: "Round table" in first half, demo in second
- Al Crisp has resigned.
- Norm Bailey volunteered to join.
- Meetings will be in the week preceding the KIUG meetings, at members' convenience (not Thursday)
- Motion to donate $100 to Bobcaygeon Lions' Club
Moved by Anne P., seconded by Paul M, passed
- 'Round the Table
(Note: Not exactly in chronological order... I have combined discussions of common topics... AP)
- Larry: sound files attached to emails are not working properly
- try using Outlook Express instead of Netscape
- some files just won't work (eg. if you don't have the program necessary to run them)
- Larry: How to get rid of pop-up windows
- They might be caused by spyware. Run AdAware and / or SpyBot to get rid of these
- There are programs available to get rid of pop-ups, but be careful... if you compeletely disallow pop-ups many web pages won't work at all.
- Larry: getting a lot of "Internet Explorer script errors"
- Paul M.: These are actually Javascript errors (Microsoft won't use the J-word). It might mean your java "plug-in" isn't up-to-date. Try loading the latest IE (Internet Explorer) service pack.
- Norm: Spam: Spambuster flags mail from Hotmail as spam. Also many members agreed they are receiving a lot of spam.
- Garth: Webmail also rejects Hotmail addresses, because they have a "faked SMTP address". You can disable this: uncheck that line in the Webmail "preferences".
- You can change Spambuster preferences... eg. allow specific email addresses, or change the "tolerance level" for spam. The default is 15. A higher number allows more mail through, a lower number restricts more.
- Al W.: also receiving a lot of spam. He checks his mail with Webmail to delete the "garbage" so it doesn't download onto his machine.
- Anne: There are also programs (eg. PopTray) which run on your computer and download only email headers, so you can delete the messages from the server. These are useful if you have several email addresses. (Not all ISPs have Webmail).
- Norm: had 800 emails on an inactive email address. He used www.web2mail.com to delete them. This is a web site that allows you to check your POP3 email from any computer.
- Anne: even if you have an ISP (POP3) account, it's handy to sign up for a "garbage" Hotmail or Yahoo account.
- You can use it to check your POP3 mail when you are away from your computer
- You can use it to clear the garbage from your POP3 account (download it from POP3, then "delete all")
- You can use it to avoid spam: When "registering" for forums, etc. use the "garbage" email, so all the spam thus generated will end up there, and not in your permanent account. Don't give the garbage email to anyone else, so that you know that any emails received there are spam.
- Chris: Spam isn't a problem.. partly because he's a Macintosh user, but also because of the spam filtering at his ISP (www.i-zoom.net (Cable Cable). Other i-zoom customer agreed.
- Norm: found "automatic disconnect" wasn't working properly. Sometimes when he clicked "stay on line" it would disconnect.
- Larry: tip: If a web page is hard to read because the text colour is similar to the background colour, select the text to make it more visible.
- Larry: tip: CNTL-N will open a separate window in Internet Explorer
- Paul S. : www.space.com has pictures of a planet with a Saturn-like ring of water.
Also, pictures from the Mars lander at www.nasa.com
- Chris: This is the 20th anniversary of the Macintosh computer.
- Chris bought a DVD burner, but isn't impressed with the software that was bundled with it
- Chris also bought a small, low-cost DVD player (made by Cyberhome, sold in Zellers) which works well. It plays many formats (VCDs, MPG3, Windows media)
- Chris: Garage Band is a powerful music-editing program. eg. choose an instrument and key, add notes, then add other instruments, etc.
- Norm: Can you transfer analog to digital
(eg. videotape to CD, DVD)
- Paul S. recommends LPRipper. It automatically puts each track into a separate file. However, this is based on the silence between tracks, so if each track blends into the next, the program can't separate them. Another program is Cool Edit
- Paul S.: You can capture from videotape with a USB capture card (about $40). There is more expensive hardware (about $200) which gives a better result. Software is bundled with either.
- Chris: archiving to DVD is a hot topic right now. Although storage media is constantly changing (eg. CD to DVD etc.) once you digitize a file it's easier to change storage.
- Garth: because media is changing, it's a good idea to not compress the files too much.. ie. keep "raw data" as much as possible.
- Chris: The federal tax on all blank media (CDs, DVDs, audio and videotapes,...).is being expanded to include media players: eg. an additonal $25 for the iPod. The monies are to be paid to musicians (SOCAN members)... based on their income.
- Demontration: Burning CD's
Paul M. showed how to burn CDs using Microsoft XP operating system, and "Nero Express" software.
- "Nero Express" is the most common CD-burning program, and is bundles with more than 50% of CD burners sold.
- Some CDs can't be copied. They verify a serial number which is only on the original. The files are copied, but the resulting CD can't be read.
- Windows XP operating system includes CD burning capability. You can copy CDs with just "copy" and "paste".
- Paul S.: To use this feature, you may have to change the burner's "properties" to allow copy / paste.
- Phil: burned a CD, then found it couldn't be read on another computer. Paul S. suggested he might not have waited until the reader had finished scanning the CD. However, sometimes a CD can be read by the burner drive but not another drive.
- Using "Nero Express"
- Specify if this is a data CD, audio, or mixed. Older CD players will only play audio files. If you choose "audio", Nero will "normalize" data files (ie. convert from MP3 to audio files)
- Image recorder This is one large file on the hard drive with all the files to be copied. Copying from this to the CD makes the process faster, and less error-prone.
- MultiSession allows you to burn some files, then finish the CD later. Close the session, but don't "finalize" (close off the disk). Once you finalize, you can't add more to the CD.
- If you have two CD drives, you can copy directly from one CD to another. However, do make an "image" file first.
- Older CD burners had "buffer underrun" errors, particularly if the computer processer is slow. On an older machine, don't run other applications while buning CDs.
- Writing speed CDs are labelled with the maximum writing speed. Paul S.: Slower writing produces a better-quality result (the laser spends more time burning each bit of data). On older computers use speed 1x or 2x. On his 52x burner, Paul burns CDs at 24x. For burning DVDs, the slower the better.
- With "Burn proof" technology on newer burners there are fewer problems
- There are different kinds of CDs: silver (most common), gold (Kodak), black (Play Station). Paul M. finds that cheap CDs seem to work fine.
- Be careful when labelling CDs with markers. Some permanent markers dissolve the plastic. "Sharpie" markers seem to be safe.
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