MEETING STARTS - 09:30 - AUG 11 th
Come Help and Be Helped!
For our usual starter activities, we'll solicit items of interest from the attendees. And, take some time for problem questions and soltuions (at least we hope so).
A specific topic - networking - will be reserved for its own discussion spot. We'd like to collect questions and comments about last month's wireless demo - and/or wired networking - to help us decide on future meeting topics.
Most of us have favorite helpers (applications, utilities, whatever). How about sharing YOUR favorite? As an example, are you interested in "tweaking" your system? Microsoft's techies do it with TweakUI. They've put out a version that works with Win95/98/Me. You can download it from the BBS, we'll take a look at it.
In another example of "favorites", Tom Johnson has been doing a massive project - just how massive, you'll find out. To clue you, he has spent much time in the last month+ in scanning old (and, in many cases, poor condition) photos and compiling them for family archives. He'll give us a glimpse of what he has been doing. It should inspire some of the rest of us!!!
See you on the 11th, and don't hesitate to bring a friend!!!
I'd again like to take this front-page spot to call your attention to two more articles later in this issue. They both relate to more experiments in backup applications - following on those published last month. During this month's discussion, I'd like some further feedback on the info covered there.
Again a reminder that the Steering Committee will continue to solicit and accept suggestions on the 20th anniversary celebration possibilities come next April. Your creativity, please ...
Look to see you all on the 11th!
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20TH ANNIVERSARY! - in the near future, namely - April 2002 - MLCUG will arrive at the 20th
anniversary of the founding meeting, which took place at the Main Line Computer Center (hence
the source of our name) in April of 1982. At the June Steering Committee meeting, we decided
that it would be appropriate to do something special to celebrate that event. ALL ideas,
thoughts and suggestions will be welcomed and most appreciated!
CABLE (or DSL) MODEMS - to try to get a feel for what sort of "broadband" services members are
using (and how they feel about them), we'd like to get a feel for who is using what. For
starters, please let us know at the next meeting (we'll have a "form") if you have either cable
or DSL (or any other such) and who the supplier is. In some cases the latter may be two names,
e.g. your ISP is joe.net, but the DSL service is contracted thru Covad.
If you can't be there, give me a buzz, or post a note on the BBS. We'll summarize things in
future meetings and NLs as we gather experiences from users. Thanks for your input.
LOADSTAR - recently, I decided to renew my Loadstar subscription, but to give the email version
a try. My first part of that subscription arrived recently and the email included the following
note:
"LOADSTAR 205 (D81 Version) The Premier Software Digest for the Commodore 64/128
Even though the cost of postage has gone up, we are holding the line at: 6 Months -- $43; 12
Months -- $84. And YES! Sheri and I will be keeping LOADSTAR alive and well through 2002 -- or
issue 222, whichever comes last! We are having a ball -- and I can't think of a better part-
time job. LOADSTAR is ALIVE!! Thanks, Dave & Sheri (Moorman)"
LUNCH - some of us regularly adjourn after the meeting for lunch at the Villanova diner. Why
not come join us - and continue the converse?
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In response to a question about problems uninstalling a Windows program, Inquirer columnist,
John Fried, had a good suggestion:
The questioner noted that he had tried to do an un-install via the Add/Remove Programs Control
Panel - but got a message saying that the uninstall log file could not be found; so no dice!
John suggested that the person RE-INSTALL the program. This would put everything in its correct
place AND re-create the install log file. Then, the un-install should work OK. Sounded real
good, one of those "why didn't I think of that myself?" things.
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RESTORING SINGLE WINDOWS FILES
On occasion, one gets missing ".dll" or similar Windows system files that were installed with
Windows, but got deleted or messed up by some errant application (or user action!).
But, if you have Windows 98 (and Win ME?), you have an easy route to restoration. The process
with Win95 is possible, but convoluted (Microsoft has a Knowledgebase article that steps you
thru it) - whereas Win98 makes it pretty easy. The feat is accomplished by a new system utility
called: SYSTEM FILE CHECKER.
To use it, you click START, then click RUN. In the dialog box, you type "sfc" without the
quotes, then click OK.
You will be presented with the startup screen for the System File Checker. On that screen,
you'll see an option to restore a single file. You click in the appropriate radio button, then
type the EXACT name of the file you want to have restored in the entry box, then click the
"Start" button in the SFC window (NOT the START button on the desktop). If you're lucky, the
file's restored!
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by Emil Volcheck
The price of hard drives has been falling about as fast as the price of memory. Both are lower
than they have been for years, if not the lowest ever.
In a recent CompUSA offering, they had a 20 GB, ATA 100 hard drive for just $50 (after rebate)!
That was too low to resist; so I popped for one. It was destined as an upgrade to a 1977 IBM
Aptiva PC that I inherited (actually swapped for). It has a 3 GB hard drive, generally more
than adequate - but a larger (real cheap!), partitioned drive would be nicer!
Since the old drive no longer had any useful stuff on it, I did not need to transfer files, OS
or anything - just swap drives and go!
And, it went! When I fired up the 20 GB drive, the BIOS said I had a nice, new 8.4 GB hard
drive (Windows, of course, said the same thing). This was a surprise, as the BIOS had been
upgraded on the computer and I expected it could handle big drives.
This turned out to be the second time in a 3-week period where I had the same experience. In
the first case, a 15 GB drive was installed and gave the same 8.4 GB available message. Oh yes,
and some weeks ago, Charles Curran had the same experience on a 1997 Powerspec and a new 13 GB
hard drive.
I have always been skeptical of utility software that lets older versions of a BIOS deal with
big drives, but I tried one anyway. In this case, the drive was a Maxtor and came with a
utility disk that they dub "MaxBlast".
A key element in that package is the ability to install a small utility called "EZ-Drive" which
fools the BIOS into being able to access the whole of the drive. It is extremely quick and easy
to install and, with just a couple of weeks experience, looks to be doing the job just fine.
However, there is a quirk associated with EZ-drive - you can NOT boot directly from a floppy!
If you do, EZ-drive (which is activated from the boot sector on the hard drive) does not come
into play and the HD appears to be wrecked!! Since you may need to boot from a floppy to
recover from problems, this could present some difficulty. But, EZ-Drive has a work-around
built-in.
You first let it boot the EZ, then a prompt will appear on the screen, at that moment, you press
the CONTROL key. You are then presented with a choice to boot either from a floppy, or continue
booting from your hard drive. If you choose the floppy option, you press the A key, then insert
your floppy and press the ANY key to boot. But, in order to do this work-around work, you MUST
have the boot order, in your BIOS setup, set to boot from a floppy first, then the hard drive
This works fine for the Windows Startup disk and for the PowerQuest Drive Image floppies that I
have tried so far.
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Following my item on partitions in the June issue (p.6), I had some further thoughts, based on a
suggestion by Layton Fireng. In June, the idea was:
I've got an IBM Aptiva, that I am refurbing and upgrading. It now has a 20 GB hard drive; so I
thought I'd experiment with the idea on it. It has been set up thusly:
I plan to test for any idiosyncrasies that might mess up the idea. But, it intrigues me (as it
did Layton). Comments, anyone?
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July's meeting had 14 attendees, including (re)new member Ted Korlishin who has rejoined after
several years away. It was a good thing he & they came, as we had a very rewarding, if somewhat
lengthy, session.
The discussions, announcements and some problem solving ran longer than usual - til about 11:40.
I did not want to cut it off.....
That was followed by John Murphy's excellent (and successful) demo of wireless networking (see
next but one item).
For the first part of the meeting, we had:
- a short discussion the 20th anniversary - all agreed a celebration would be appropriate. We
did not decide what that should be, but folks were urged to think it over and pass on
suggestions. More next time, but an event similar to the 15th, but with better facilities
arrangement was talked up.
- John D and Charlie C noted that the "Directory Opus" file management utility that got its
start on the Amiga has been ported to and majorly upgraded for the PC - suggested by the vendor
as a preferred replacement for file manager and windows explorer. We downloaded the 7+ MB
evaluation copy from the website (www.gpsoft.com.au) - took about a minute on the VU ethernet
- Peter W noted that he has got re-interested in flight simulators since they are now out
there for Linux. You need a high end video card for same and he noted that there was a special
deal at MicroCenter (a RIVA TNT with 32 MB of VRAM!).
- Peter W also mentioned that he had taken a look-see at Maurice Randall's website to get more
info on his purchase of the C= business from CMD. Pete said LOTS of new and improved products
were in the future....
- Ted K would like to be able to run his favorite Word Writer 128 on his PC, using the VICE
emulator. He asked for help in doing so and we'll see how that one goes.
- Emil V did a quicky demo of a very neat piece of freeware, an image enhancer, called:
"Digital Camera Enhancer". A very well designed, speedy utility for use with your digital
camera (or actually any other kind of image file that you'd like to look better). It installs
as a single executable file (no dlls, nothing in the Windows folder, just ONE file). A good
tool to have, see: www.mediachance.com and look for DCE.
- as a followup on the two articles in the newsletter on backing up, Emil gave the group a bit
more detail and we discussed the backup software situation. Attendees were asked to cudgel
their brains and check for experience with software that is capable of letting you recover from
a hard drive disaster, with a FULL system restore.
Of course, we mentioned Drive Image that has been demoed in past meetings (and there are similar
competitive products); but are there ANY others. That folks know really work!!??
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by Peter Whinnery
A quick follow-up on two items mentioned at the July meeting:
1) FlightGear, the open source flight simulator, is a multi-platform project. The web site -
flightgear.org - has the program available as source code, and as "ready to run" binaries for
both Windows and Macintosh.
2) Digital Camera Enhancer, the photo editing software available from www.mediachance.com, runs
quite nicely under WINE. WINE is an implementation of the Windows API on top of X and Unix. It
allows one to run Windows applications on most popular Intel Unixes, including Linux.
This is my first sucessful attempt at getting WINE installed and working on my system - look
forward to more announcements of sucessful "porting" of Windows apps to Linux! (If only my
version of AutoCad would run!) See winehq.org/about.shtml for more info.
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As noted above, member John Murphy gave us a tantalizing demonstration of some of the facets of
wireless networking - latest technology.
There has been a form, or two, of wireless networking available for some years now - but it was
limited to about one (1) megabit/second data transfer rate. More than adequate for even
broadband internet access, BUT pretty slow for file management.
The more recent technology, as John showed us, has a current transfer rate of ten times the
older form - at eleven (11) megabits/second. This is the same rate range as normal 10BaseT
wire-based ethernet (at about 10 Mbps). The pioneer product introducer was Apple, with their
Airport wireless technology. However, many others are now in the game.
John got into it with an Apple Airport access device and he used that for the demo. It is a
flying saucer-like object, about 10-inches (25 cm) in diameter and about half that height (in a
sleek, gray, saucer-like color!). This particular device is a very good example because it has
its own built-in 56K modem; so it can connect to the internet either via dial-up (thru its own
modem) or via a cable or DSL modem (thru its ethernet, RJ-45, port).
The rest of the demo setup consisted of:
1. the club PC, running Windows 98 SE, which was connected, via a CAT5 cable, to:
2. a 10/100 ethernet switch - the switch, in turn, had a cable to the VU ethernet socket in the
wall of the meeting room and a cable to the ethernet port on the Airport module.
3. a Compaq PC laptop, running Windows 2000 Professional, with an Orinoco wireless PC card
4. an Apple Powerbook G3, running MacOS 9.0.4, with its own built-in wireless capability via an
Apple Airport card installed in a dedicated slot under the keyboard.
As you can see, we had quite a variety of hardware and software systems accessing the
wired/wireless network! So, whatever you have will likely work....
Once all this hardware was up and running, John commenced his demo with:
a. Passing around the Orinoco wireless card for everyone to see. He also passed around the
documentation for the AirPort; so folks could see how this access point was setup. He then told
us a bit about wireless networking and home networking in general.
b. Then he turned to the club PC; quickly configured it via the DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration
Protocol - the system YOUR ISP normally uses to give you a connection to the net) to get it's IP
address.
c. Next he fired up the Compaq laptop with the Orinoco wireless card now inserted and let it
grab an address, via DHCP, wirelessly.
d. Next he started a program called VNC (for Virtual Network Computing) on the laptop. VNC has
both server and viewer components that allow you to operate a computer running the server from
another computer running the viewer over a network (wired or WIRELESS).
e. He fired up his Apple Powerbook with it's AirPort card and started its VNC server software.
f. Then used the Compaq WINDOWS laptop to control the MacOS Powerbook over the wireless - that's
running a MAC with a PC, over the airwaves!
All of the above worked - with only a minor glitch or two (excellent behavior for a first-time
command performance!)!!
Given the time available, this was quite a tour de force. We're sure there are a lot of
questions in the attendee's minds; so we'll devote a block of time at the next meeting for Q & A
on wireless...
Our thanks, again, to John for another very informative demo that worked!
ANNOUNCEMENTS & COMMENTS
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QUICK TIP
WIN 98 TIP OF THE MONTH
That BIG Hard Drive!
Thoughts On Partitioning a hard drive
Now add a big F drive for backups (prior to burning them off on a CD or other archival spot).
C: drive 1+GB Windows 98SE
D: drive 6 GB Applications
E: drive 6 GB Data
F: drive 6 GB Backup the others
I'm thinking of keeping C small enough to be backed up to a single CD-R, with moderate
compression. I have been running some recently where the 40% setting in Drive Image is giving
48-50% actual compression. However, if you limit a drive to mainly the OS, compression is
likely to suffer - but I can experiment....
LAST MONTH'S PC/128/64 MEETING
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Meeting Items follow-up
WIRELESS NETWORKING: