Basically, you put the first paragraph or so in here...
...and the rest of it here
Monday, October 24, 2005
Monday, October 10, 2005
President's Report
I ’ve discovered something even more annoying than a network that won’t connect. A wireless network that won’t connect! Penny has a new laptop that we want to talk to our network from upstairs, so she can print and access her files from her office. It came ready equipped with a wireless network card and so I bought a card for my Win XP machine. Both machines tried to talk to each other but neither would admit the other was there.
Categories: nzpca, president's, report, October, 2005
How was I to find out which was the offending machine? At least with a wireless network I didn’t have the concern that the fault could be cabling but which machine was faulty. Neither could see any kind of a network. Decided the best thing I could do was go and have a coffee at Starbucks who happen to have a wireless network for the trendies.
So I took the laptop for a coffee and found Café Net. I also found Telecom’s network and lots of other networks so the problem wasn’t with the laptop. I then dawdled over my coffee watching tv, listening to the radio and generally surfing around Wellington’s free facilities. Could have paid $10 but I am too mean – after all the
purpose of the exercise was to confirm the ability to pick up network signals – will leave the cracking of that network for another day!
So the problem is with my pc, running XP pro and the new wireless network card. Next step consult the font of all wisdom – the Net. The trouble with searching on the net is that you have to work out the correct search keywords. Wireless, not connect, disconnected, fails to connect, can’t see the network etc etc. Lots of fruitless searching, millions of hits, hunting through forums, vague references, circumstances that initially seem to be right but when checked out they were talking about something else! Sound familiar? Oh I have been there so many times! No good anyway.
Tried Microsoft’s site. Found the problem – trouble is I have to ring them and you know how long that can take also it costs if they decide to charge. And I know from experience that emails are not even responded to. Ok they might have a million stupid enquires a day but they could look out for mine!
So that’s where it sits. I will probably put the card into our old network machine running Win98 and it will probably work. Oh computers you are sent to frustrate and annoy – and you succeed!!
We now have a new laptop. The NZPCA has a new laptop – no it’s not the one Penny has that’s just coincidence – ‘Oh Yea’. Yes, we decided that we couldn’t continue orrowing Richard’s laptop for our presentations and the Hardware Sig were just too busy, (eating chocolate biscuits), to make one so we decided to buy one. Cost about $1,000 and is available for members to use – for a nominal charge of $10 per month
but on the basis that it’s returned for our meetings. So if you want to impress, just
borrow our machine and flash it about – so long as it’s not on the third Wed of the month!
Bought a new book this last week, ‘PC Annoyances’, - well it would be wouldn’t it!
Actually it’s very entertaining and is full of work-arounds and fixes. Suggest you add it to your Christmas present list – it’s by Steve Bass published by O’Reilly $39.95 (less NZPCA discount if you get it from Capital Books on Featherston St.
Do come along next Wed. Microsoft are going to give us a demo of the new Windows
operating system – was Longhorn but I can’t remember what it is now called. (Vista – Ed) There will be the usual collection of free caps and pens – you know it pays to belong to the NZPCA!
Rog
Categories: nzpca, president's, report, October, 2005
How was I to find out which was the offending machine? At least with a wireless network I didn’t have the concern that the fault could be cabling but which machine was faulty. Neither could see any kind of a network. Decided the best thing I could do was go and have a coffee at Starbucks who happen to have a wireless network for the trendies.
So I took the laptop for a coffee and found Café Net. I also found Telecom’s network and lots of other networks so the problem wasn’t with the laptop. I then dawdled over my coffee watching tv, listening to the radio and generally surfing around Wellington’s free facilities. Could have paid $10 but I am too mean – after all the
purpose of the exercise was to confirm the ability to pick up network signals – will leave the cracking of that network for another day!
So the problem is with my pc, running XP pro and the new wireless network card. Next step consult the font of all wisdom – the Net. The trouble with searching on the net is that you have to work out the correct search keywords. Wireless, not connect, disconnected, fails to connect, can’t see the network etc etc. Lots of fruitless searching, millions of hits, hunting through forums, vague references, circumstances that initially seem to be right but when checked out they were talking about something else! Sound familiar? Oh I have been there so many times! No good anyway.
Tried Microsoft’s site. Found the problem – trouble is I have to ring them and you know how long that can take also it costs if they decide to charge. And I know from experience that emails are not even responded to. Ok they might have a million stupid enquires a day but they could look out for mine!
So that’s where it sits. I will probably put the card into our old network machine running Win98 and it will probably work. Oh computers you are sent to frustrate and annoy – and you succeed!!
We now have a new laptop. The NZPCA has a new laptop – no it’s not the one Penny has that’s just coincidence – ‘Oh Yea’. Yes, we decided that we couldn’t continue orrowing Richard’s laptop for our presentations and the Hardware Sig were just too busy, (eating chocolate biscuits), to make one so we decided to buy one. Cost about $1,000 and is available for members to use – for a nominal charge of $10 per month
but on the basis that it’s returned for our meetings. So if you want to impress, just
borrow our machine and flash it about – so long as it’s not on the third Wed of the month!
Bought a new book this last week, ‘PC Annoyances’, - well it would be wouldn’t it!
Actually it’s very entertaining and is full of work-arounds and fixes. Suggest you add it to your Christmas present list – it’s by Steve Bass published by O’Reilly $39.95 (less NZPCA discount if you get it from Capital Books on Featherston St.
Do come along next Wed. Microsoft are going to give us a demo of the new Windows
operating system – was Longhorn but I can’t remember what it is now called. (Vista – Ed) There will be the usual collection of free caps and pens – you know it pays to belong to the NZPCA!
Rog
Monday, December 15, 2003
President's Report
I have long maintained that the NZPCA is not a bank, not that anyone else disagreed, but I have always been conscious that we have your money, (well some of your money), sitting in our bank account. We obviously need some money to keep the NZPCA going but I want to spend the rest. So I'm going Christmas shopping Yay!
No, the committee won't let me, (unless I take them along), and I have to pretend to be responsible. My husband and I - sorry the committee and I have been trying to work out what to spend it on to the benefit of the members. Some members would have us buy an astronomical telescope others a computer driven microscope and we have to work out what would suit most of the members.
About two meetings ago Win Brendgens gave a talk on scanning and as part of the evening he scanned a colour slide then printed it on the HP. It was very successful and got me thinking that many people have slides that could be copied and stored on a PC or written to CD. I know of several members, including me, who have many slides which they have not looked at for years and which are probably slowly deteriorating in a box or slide carrier. Even though I have not looked at them for years I know I would be upset if my slides were destroyed or deteriorated beyond saving. Viewing slides, and films, is a fiddly process especially if your slide projector has long disappeared and they would be much easier to see on a PC.
So, we want your opinion. Do we get a slide scanner for members to use or do we keep the money in the bank for some other project. I am not talking about a flat bed scanner that has facilities for slides rather a machine dedicated to copying slides and films. I have been investigating these scanners on the net and have been very impressed with the technology used in copying film.
We will have to choose between a very basic scanner which just scans the slide/ negative and relies on your skill with a graphics program to remove scratches and fungus marks or get one that will do this automatically. Personally I favour the latter but of course there is a price trade off. The cheaper machines are about US$200 while the machine I have in mind is about US$400. They all have USB interfaces. If you want to investigate yourself I am looking at a Minolta or a PrimeFilm PF3650. I enquired what it would cost to get my slides copied NZ$3.00 each.
Let me have your opinion please to rogerc@clear.net.nz. I know there are lots of other scanners out there but these seem the best choice within our price range. We will discuss it at our next meeting at St Giles'.
A long time ago I did a talk to the NZPCA called 'Gems of Public Domain' or something like that. I was demonstrating programs that I had found which were freely available and which were used regularly and with advantage on my machine. I recall I was very surprised at the number of members who wanted to know where they could get them or wanted a copy on a floppy. We are going to do it again at St Giles' next Wednesday, but this time we would like you to bring along your favourite little program, either on floppy or CD so we can share these gems. There is so much software out there that no one can try it all and I believe there are still gems which we all would find useful.
So, please, take a look at your machine and see what little programs you have. It may be something you have had for years, something that's an add-on to Word or Excel. A print macro or similar. Please share it with us - I know I have learned a lot from the little software packages and some have made my life easier or more manageable. Bring a floppy as well - you may just see something you like!
No Megabyte in January - time off for good behaviour - meetings and Megabyte start in February. Season's greetings to you all - may you get the silicon you deserve!
Rog
No, the committee won't let me, (unless I take them along), and I have to pretend to be responsible. My husband and I - sorry the committee and I have been trying to work out what to spend it on to the benefit of the members. Some members would have us buy an astronomical telescope others a computer driven microscope and we have to work out what would suit most of the members.
About two meetings ago Win Brendgens gave a talk on scanning and as part of the evening he scanned a colour slide then printed it on the HP. It was very successful and got me thinking that many people have slides that could be copied and stored on a PC or written to CD. I know of several members, including me, who have many slides which they have not looked at for years and which are probably slowly deteriorating in a box or slide carrier. Even though I have not looked at them for years I know I would be upset if my slides were destroyed or deteriorated beyond saving. Viewing slides, and films, is a fiddly process especially if your slide projector has long disappeared and they would be much easier to see on a PC.
So, we want your opinion. Do we get a slide scanner for members to use or do we keep the money in the bank for some other project. I am not talking about a flat bed scanner that has facilities for slides rather a machine dedicated to copying slides and films. I have been investigating these scanners on the net and have been very impressed with the technology used in copying film.
We will have to choose between a very basic scanner which just scans the slide/ negative and relies on your skill with a graphics program to remove scratches and fungus marks or get one that will do this automatically. Personally I favour the latter but of course there is a price trade off. The cheaper machines are about US$200 while the machine I have in mind is about US$400. They all have USB interfaces. If you want to investigate yourself I am looking at a Minolta or a PrimeFilm PF3650. I enquired what it would cost to get my slides copied NZ$3.00 each.
Let me have your opinion please to rogerc@clear.net.nz. I know there are lots of other scanners out there but these seem the best choice within our price range. We will discuss it at our next meeting at St Giles'.
A long time ago I did a talk to the NZPCA called 'Gems of Public Domain' or something like that. I was demonstrating programs that I had found which were freely available and which were used regularly and with advantage on my machine. I recall I was very surprised at the number of members who wanted to know where they could get them or wanted a copy on a floppy. We are going to do it again at St Giles' next Wednesday, but this time we would like you to bring along your favourite little program, either on floppy or CD so we can share these gems. There is so much software out there that no one can try it all and I believe there are still gems which we all would find useful.
So, please, take a look at your machine and see what little programs you have. It may be something you have had for years, something that's an add-on to Word or Excel. A print macro or similar. Please share it with us - I know I have learned a lot from the little software packages and some have made my life easier or more manageable. Bring a floppy as well - you may just see something you like!
No Megabyte in January - time off for good behaviour - meetings and Megabyte start in February. Season's greetings to you all - may you get the silicon you deserve!
Rog
Monday, December 01, 2003
Combat Spam with Mailwasher
John Little explains how help is at hand 
Many e-mail users find they are plagued with spam problems. In case you're not sure, spam means unsolicited e-mail (often called 'junk mail') that arrives in your inbox persistently without having been requested. Spam is often just advertising material, promoting such things as re-financing your mortgage, travel deals, cheap printer cartridges, or even offering singles a date for Saturday evening! Spam can arrive regularly, even daily, and unfortunately some of it can be quite offensive. It may also contain viruses.
Welcome 'Mailwasher'.
Mailwasher is a freeware program, developed by a New Zealander, designed to remove spam, viruses and unwanted attachments from your e-mail before they get to your computer. It may be downloaded from website www.mailwasher.net It is by no means a huge download (approx.1.5 Mb) and works on most versions of Windows including 95, 98, Me and XP. Once you've installed it, the idea is to open Mailwasher before you open your regular e-mail programmer - Outlook Express, Netscape, etc - it doesn't matter which one you use.
What the Program Does.
Mailwasher connects to your e-mail server, but will only download the mail headings to you. This way you get to see a preview of exactly what is in your mailbox; you see the titles of your e-mails, the dates, and who they are from. Mailwasher then analyses each e-mail by a process of checking and filtering, and warns you if any is suspected as being junk mail or a virus. If you think a message really is for you, double-click on the e-mail and it will download the top part of the message (without images) so you will be able to preview what the message is about. You can then decide if you want to keep it, 'delete' it, or 'bounce' it - you make your choice by simply ticking a box on your screen.
What a Bounce Does.
Once you have identified an e-mail as spam you can choose to blacklist the address it came from. If you put a tick in the box marked 'bounce', Mailwasher will delete the unwanted e-mail from your mailbox and send a message back to the spammer making it appear as if the mail sent to you has bounced because your e-mail address is no longer valid. Thus, hopefully, your name will be removed and you will get no further junk mail from that source.
Deleting.
If you put a tick in the box marked 'delete', Mailwasher will simply delete the mail from your mailbox so that you don't have to download it. This is useful if someone has sent you, say, an e-mail with lots of attached photos you don't really want. It is also ideal for deleting e-mails that are shown to contain viruses, directly off the server so that you don't download them. Once processed - see below - anything marked for deletion is gone for good.
The "Process Mail" Button.
Once you have sorted through your mail and ticked the appropriate boxes, you can click on 'Process Mail' and Mailwasher will proceed to do the bouncing and deleting of the e-mails you don't want. Then when you use your e-mail programmer e.g.. Outlook Express, it will download only the remaining messages - those you actually want to read.
The Blacklist.
Mailwasher keeps a 'blacklist' of offenders for you. Any e-mail you tick for bouncing is recorded in the blacklist so that if any future e-mail arrives from the same address, the 'bounce' box will automatically be ticked. You can of course, manually remove the tick, and you can also manually edit the blacklist if something got on to it by mistake.
Mailwasher usefully tries to analyse the headers of e-mails, so if it thinks an e-mail might be a spam or other unwanted item, it will alert you with a little message in colour.
Note that you can also add into Mailwasher the e-mail addresses of your friends and relatives so that they will always be recognised.
Functionality.
While the freeware programmer is fully functional at all times, the developer does encourage donations. Those prepared to pay just a small sum will receive a registration code that will remove the advertising section from the programmer. His address in Christchurch comes with the programmer under the 'About Me' button.
Only the "Pro" version, which is not freeware, supports Hotmail accounts.
While Mailwasher is easy to install and use, its worth taking a look at the website address mentioned above. The Frequently Asked Questions section is particularly helpful.
The Future for Spam?
The Dominion Post of 2.12.03 reported briefly on Anti-spam moves in Australia, where clogging inboxes with unwanted junk e-mails will soon be a crime. Long awaited anti-spam laws have passed their first hurdle in the Australian federal parliament, though they are thought unlikely to have much of an impact on the bulk of unsolicited commercial e-mails which originate overseas. It will be interesting to see whether any similar moves are started in New Zealand.
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