September Business Meeting

MVPCUG Meeting Minutes

MVPCUG General Meeting

Minutes, Meeting of Tuesday, September 3, 2002

The MVPCUG general meeting was held in at the Maennerchor. President Joe Madeira called the meeting to order at 6:06 p.m.

Business Meeting

A new Internet Service Provider is under contract with the club. USA Datanet is hosting our website and providing a dial-up account. Their monthly rate is $9.95. Members wishing to use USA Datanet will get a $5 credit on their first month when using the club's 869 referral code. USA Datanet customers have to sign up for their phone service also but do not have to use it.

Joe asked for a show of hands of club members that are using Windows XP. Quite a few people have upgraded. Joe believes that it is now fairly stable.

Minutes of Last Meeting - The June, 2002 minutes were approved.

Treasurer's Report - The 6/1/2002 - 8/31/2002 Treasurer's report shows total inflows of $576.20 and total outflows of $1088.55 for a net outflow of $512.35. The final August balance was $5,323.08. A motion was made, seconded and approved to receive the treasurer's report and put it on file with the minutes. We agreed at the last meeting to give the Maennerchor a donation of $25.00 for the generous use of their facility.

Presentation
Our presentation topic this evening was 'Ask the Guru'. Serving on the panel of experts were Lisa Britt, Mary Tollerton, Bill Gorrell, Joe Madeira (jr.) and Tim Clinehens. The following questions were discussed:

Number	Question	Answer
1	When printing a web page, the messages 'General Protection Fault" and then 'illegal function' are received. (Using a 4 port Belkin hub)	try uninstalling the hub and see of the problem goes away. get new drivers for the Belkin hub. unplug the scanner from the USB (it could be a power problem.
2	Using AOL 7.0, can't disconnect from internet sessions. Have to physically unplug phone line.	if the hourglass is appearing in the AOL browser window, drag it to the upper left-hand block, get a pointer, drag pointer to 'Help' and click three times. also suggest AOL Technical Support.
3	How can folders be password protected in Windows XP?	no great ideas here but it was pointed out that the 'My Documents' folder belongs solely to your account. Also, can try encrypting a file. This requires NTFS and probably will not work on a folder.
4	Is there any way to tune an HP882C printer to a digital camera?	If the colors look OK on the screen, calibrate the colors on the printer using the HP toolbox. Print a test pattern and check for missing / low cartridge colors. Get a new color cartridge
5	How do I change the drive assignments on my XP system to be the same as those on my old system?	Right click on My Computer --> manage --> disk manager and change any of the mappings you want to.
6	Have an Acer laptop with 1 USB port running Windows 98. Can't get my digital camera to connect to the USB	Per Bill, there are problems with some of the Acer USB configurations so add a separate USB. Tim suggested looking at the Acer frequently asked questions. Joe suggested reinstalling the driver. Check the USB port for functionality with other USB devices.
7	What are the tricks for refilling ink cartridges?	Look at instructions on the refill kit. It was noted that some manufacturers (HP is one) are putting chips in the cartridges so they can't be refilled.
8	Saved CDRW documents and graphics using Nero Burning. When trying to update one of the documents in XP, can't rewrite the document.	Yes, CD formats are not compatible. Will be able to read older formats but not rewrite. Need to copy the CD into memory and reburn in new format.
9	What is the best way to match screen colors to printed colors?	There are programs with your video card that can calibrate your monitor. Try calibrating your printer. Use high quality paper and tell printer about it
10	When trying to get a total of the used disk space on the C: drive, there is a difference when summing file sizes and looking at the totals.	If you are using a lot of small files, cluster size comes into play and will inflate the individual file size total. Note that 1kb is 1024 bytes, not 1000. Therefore 1mb is 1024 x 1000 bytes and 1gb is 1024 x 1000 x 1000 bytes.
11	When using Zone Alarm, can not get to www.weather.com from Internet Explorer. Can access it when Zone Alarm is disabled.	We don't really have an answer. Turn Zone Alarm off.
12	The page GlobalSearch.com is stuck in IE web browser.	You have spyware that is doing that. Disable it with Adware.
13	How do I get rid of the klez virus?	Go to Norton. Get and run fix_klez.
14	How do you write a CD?	There is software for that. EZCDCreator is good and easy to use.
15	Why would I get an error message in XP that I don't have enough RAM when trying to run Photo Delux 2?	Check the Microsoft website to see if that is on the incompatible software list You may be out of memory for environment variables. Check your DOS manual on how to increase environment variable memory size.

Door Prize Drawing Winners
#	Prize	Provided by	Winner
1	Links Keyboard and Mouse	club funds	Louis Barile
2	World Atlas Software	club funds	Joe Madeira (jr.)
3	Who Wants to be a Millionaire SW	club funds	Lisa Britt
4	World Book 2001 SW	club funds	John Hunter
5	Family Origins SW	club funds	Marsha Thayer
6	10 12x CDR's	club funds	Don Jennings
7	Indura case & assorted paper	club funds	George Bracken

Jerry Finkelstein reminded us that next month we return to the Whitesboro High School cafeteria for our meeting.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:07 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Marsha Thayer, secretary