 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group CPU (Club President's Update) Stan Johnstone stanj@melbpc.org.au |
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After a long time, becoming tired of battling with modern software and its heavy system demands, this month I finally made the step and upgraded to a Pentium! No, not the fastest, but one that stretched the budget quite enough. So many times I have helped members and been blown away by the comparative speed of their powerful new machines and then returned home to my old favourite that I decided the time had come.
My old machine started life as one of the very first 486s. Since then it had four motherboard upgrades, two power supplies, two 3.25-inch drives, two video cards, eight hard disks in various combinations, two CD-ROM drives, four memory upgrades, five keyboards, and three mice. Only the case and the 5.25-inch floppy drive were still original. A quick calculation suggests its running life had been about 30,000 hours. It's all a bit like the story repairing the axe, isn't it?
My nine-year-old monitor still continues to serve although it must wonder what has happened to everything at the other end of the cable!
Last month's PC Update reprint of an article by PowerQuest prompted me to convert the new hard disk to FAT32 instead of the previous FAT16. I pride myself on proper disk management by the use of smaller partitions for data, etc. However just converting my C: drive after copying the contents, I was able to recover 185 MB of useable disk space from this one drive alone.
Windows 98
Did I do all this in preparation for the release of Windows 98? Well not actually, but then, I waited about six months before taking the step to Windows 95 when it was released.
Our training machines will have Windows 98 installed on them as soon as we can get the new software.
Never one to let grass grow under his feet, Lynn Pollock has planned the first training session entitled "Windows 98 - The Mysteries Explained" on Sunday 5 July 1998 from 9 am until 4 pm for a cost of $90. That is one course I would certainly attend before trying it out by myself, and you can book for this course by ringing the office in the normal way. However, remember this hands-on course is limited to twelve places in the training room at the Melb PC offices at 27 Dorcas Street.
No doubt it will be one of the main topics at the Windows SIG on the following night - the first Monday in each month. Others may prefer to attend the Seminar Night on Friday 17 July 1998, from 6.30 pm to 9.30 pm at a cost of $20, where the subject will be "Upgrading to Windows 98". This will be held in the larger SIG room at 27 Dorcas St and it is sure to be booked out. It will be essential to make your booking with the office on (03) 9699 6222 as early as possible for both events.
Orientation day
Over the past two months I have done four presentations promoting the benefits of joining Melb PC. Without a laptop it is hard to do a Powerpoint presentation, and so I have made a set of overhead projector transparencies which I have started using at the orientation days each month.
The one slide that sparks the greatest interest is the one on the facing page, which is based on some of the results from our last survey conducted in 1996. During my time serving on the Melb PC Committee I have continually striven to increase the professional image of Melb PC. Perhaps this one slide does more than any other single image I can paint to illustrate that our members are not just a pack of computer enthusiasts (or geeks) as we often may be perceived.
However it does serve to illustrate that Melb PC is a group whose demographic profile is much higher in so many important categories than the community average. At the same time we are far from an elitist group, as is well demonstrated by the willingness of volunteers and members to help each other.
Due to an oversight, last month I unfortunately again set the date for the Saturday of a long weekend. Luckily July is clear, and the usual orientation day will be held on Saturday 11 July 1998 starting at 10 am and run until about noon.
Ring the office on (03) 9699 6222 to make a booking, purely so we can control the numbers. Naturally there is no charge for these days, and as usual you are always welcome to bring a friend along to see what goes on.
Internet crime
Melb PC was well represented at the recent seminar conducted by the Victoria Police on the subject of Internet crime. Many other Internet providers were also present as well as representatives from the government, industry, legal and statutory bodies.
I think everyone who was present came away with a greater appreciation of some of the problems we currently experience on the Internet, and an awareness of potential future problems. We were told of the importance of maintaining suitable records and logs, and the necessity to be able to collect and maintain the integrity of evidence for use in court cases.
It could be said that Internet users have the greatest opportunity in history to spread their thoughts and beliefs worldwide, particularly in the use of newsgroups. They also have the greatest opportunity to criticise the beliefs and thoughts of others. For the average persons without legal training there is the possibility they are unknowingly entering a legal minefield from which we cannot protect them.
How can you guarantee that another person will accept what you considered a light-hearted comment as a joke instead of a serious matter worthy of legal action? The simple answer is you cannot!
Quite often in newsgroups material is published that is factually wrong, or even deliberate misinformation. Then the fun begins as one side accepts the matter as truth, while others, who may be better informed, try to present the correct situation. Hence the increasing growth of urban myths, many of which develop out of these misleading threads. Some of these are laughable, but others are much more dangerous.
(On a lighter note, readers of melbpc.general are again regularly being entertained by Bob Muirhead's tale of "A Dark and Stormy Night", a continuing saga intended to bring a smile and brighten everyone's day.)
The situation with e-mail is somewhat different. If you are the unfortunate recipient of a chain letter or other illegal material, destroy it immediately. Get it off your computer, and never, never respond directly to the sender.
If you want to do something about this type of e-mail, send a message back to the webmaster at the domain where the material originated and make them aware of the matter. Most of the ISPs who treat these matters seriously maintain an address usually in the form abuse@<domainname>
Only if members of the Internet community continue to work together can these matters be controlled. I don't think they will ever be eliminated, but at least we can all try to control them.
Untimed Intranet access
Last month I mentioned the untimed Intranet access giving Melb PC Internet subscribers increased connect time over and above their daily 120-minute Internet limit and at no extra cost! There are now 26 lines available to fully utilise this valuable extension to our service.
Our logs record how on some days some subscribers accumulate six or more hours (the record is over ten) using this method of increased access. However it is disappointing that we rarely see more than half of the available lines used. As I mentioned last month, there are some restrictions using this access, which are too difficult to explain here. However all the details are there on our members' home page at http://hww.melbpc.org.au/motd/ - the address you should always set as your default home page for the latest Melb PC service information.
How do you access this wonderful Intranet? - just change the phone number in your dialler to 9690 5644 before dialling. Wise users create a second dialling icon so they can swap between each system with ease.
Our planned additional 56 kbps access lines are being brought forward rather than wait until the release of the V.90 standard in September. At the time of writing it has not been decided which approach we will use, either another separate phone number or a combination of them all. The technical side of all this is not all that difficult, but communicating improvements and changes to the users is a problem that always has to be addressed.
The real answer is simple - set your default home page to http://hww.melbpc.org.au/motd/
Until next month, this and other matters will be keeping us busy. Now, if I get a chance, I might even be able to run Flight Simulator 98 for the first time on my new machine!
Reprinted from the July 1998 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
