Seniors - Friday Group (Recent)

Friday Seniors SIG Report June 2010

Good Evening fellow SIG members,

We had a pretty good roll-up of nineteen members last Friday which no doubt reflected the interest in Peter Collard"s presentation on Daemon Tools...more of that later.

Housekeeping: Our next Friday Seniors SIG is on 9 July 2010 at 10:00am followed by the Comms SIG with John Lucke "et al" at 1:00pm. The next Tuesday Seniors SIG with Graham Grant is tomorrow Tuesday 15 June 2010 at 10:00am followed by Terry"s Genealogy at 1:00 pm. The next Main Meeting is Tuesday 22 June at 6:00pm and the next Digital Photography SIG with Peter Collard is on Friday 25 June 2010 at 10:00am.

Our next Committee meeting was on Saturday 12 June 2010...(and I asked you to let us know if you wished to raise anything)...prospective committee members please email our Secretary, John Symons.

Membership Drive... is still active and if you have any suggestions please let one of the Committee members know.

Now...back to Peter Collard's presentation...we went straight into it as I wanted to ensure that we got all the information without running out of time. As you will recall we had an interesting question from Olin at last month"s SIG and Peter offered to give us a run down on a possible fix for "Olin's problem": At the May SIG Olin told us about a problem with his National Geographic data base on seven CD's which he has had for some years; he has to keep inserting a different CD quite frequently in order to view his required selection of topic. Nat. Geo. Couldn"t help!

Peter's demonstration used a free program called "Daemon Tools" and he developed a scenario to simulate Olin"s problem.

Daemon Tools (styled DAEMON Tools by its creators) is a disk image emulator for Microsoft Windows that mounts images of DVD and CD media on virtual drives, and is known for supporting a variety of different disk image formats. (The program is also able to defeat most copy protection schemes such as SafeDisc and SecuROM.)

The details of Peter's presentation are as follows:

SPCUG Friday Seniors 2010-06-11 Virtual Drives

Virtual Drives refers to the simulation of physical disk drives in computer memory and software. As such the data on these drives vanishes on shutdown unless saved before. The drives to be considered here are CD/DVD.

Floppy Disk drives can be used with VFD and HD-Copy or RawWrite or see http://www.fdos.org/ripcord/rawrite/ to make the image files. There are some "warez" sites that offer images for download AT YOUR OWN RISK.

The "Ram Disk" can simulate a small hard disk. I have not found a good ram disk for XP, but a version of Opera designed to run from a USB drive keeps its data on one - so something must exist.

The common (and free) program to simulate a CD/DVD drive is Daemon Tools. It was developed to allow people to play CD based games without shuffling CDs - the side-effect was to allow people to "share" their games, hence copy protection was introduced. But it is legal for you to make a backup copy of your CD/DVD, so you can use this with Daemon Tools to run your CD software. This program cannot "write" to a CD as VFD does to a floppy disk - it is read only. As an example, I have a CD talking Thai dictionary. This can be installed to the hard disk, but only operates in text mode. The talking only functions if the CD is in the drive. To use this without keeping the CD on hand (and risking wear and tear) I mount an image into the virtual drive.

Any CD/DVD can be used in this way (if not copy protected - see later).

To use this method you need Daemon Tools to provide the simulated drive and a program to make the images. Most CD writing programs can make the images, my current choice is ImgBurn. The commonest image format is .ISO - International Standards Organisation 9660 format for CD images. This format can image "single session" disks. Multi-session disks can be imaged in the BIN/CUE format. Both of these can be mounted in Daemon Tools.

To start, download and install Daemon Tools and ImgBurn from FileHippo. When installing be sure to un-tick the installation of toolbars and home page changes. Now you need to make images of your disks. CD, VCD, DVD and double layer DVD can be imaged. Insert your disk (and cancel any auto-play that may happen) and start ImgBurn. Set the name and location to store your image, selecting the ISO format (Yoda will tell you if this is not appropriate, then select BIN/CUE. You can convert to ISO later if you really need to.). Save the image will take several minutes (depending on the size of the disc data and the read speed selected - I choose the slowest speed to minimise errors).

Now you have an image, right-click on it and Open With Daemon Tools. If you want this to be the default (recommended) select Chose Program ..., then select Daemon Tools and tick the Always box. Your disc will mount in the virtual drive (at the next available letter). Right-click on the DT icon in the system tray (circle with lightning bolt) to set the defaults (drive letter, restore on reboot, number of drives). As I only have one physical drive I see no need for more than one virtual drive, but DT free version allows four. The drive acts like a physical drive - mounting a new image "ejects" the old and "loads" the new. If it has auto-run defined it will run the disc as if the real disc was inserted in a real drive. You can run the Audio / Video / Software / Data CD or DVD as if it were a real one. Some disks are copy-protected, ImgBurn refuses to copy these. The DT website offers some help if you need to image these discs. It seems that this is verging on the illegal, but worth a try. CSS/CPPM is the most common that I have encountered for movie type DVDs.

Some other references that you may find useful :-
• .BIN / .CUE / .ISO Frequently asked questions.
• What are BIN, CUE, and ISO files?
• Copy Protection how to copy dvd with css/cppm protection?
• DVD Copy copied the disk to a lot of files, then I used Folder2ISO to combine them, but it didn't work - ImgBurn did!.
• DVD Decrypter file mirror & Mr Bass, needs Folder2ISO or ImgBurn also.
• DVD FAB

This is the site to obtain "Daemon Tools": http://www.daemon-tools.cc/eng/home

Peter put a lot of work into his presentation and I thank him for it. The vast number of questions asked reflected your interest. Thanks again Peter.

Then on to : Q & A

Thomas's problem ..."Hello Bill, After I download photographs from my memory card to the computer I noticed for a while now that the photos are stretched and pulled. I have a 21" Samsung Monitor. I tried to modify things on the appearance screen but to no avail."

There were quite a few comments on this but it seemed that most suggested he check the settings on his monitor (using the onscreen menu).

And Reg Chasney has/had an email problem:

"Bill... I collect my email on both the desktop at Cremorne and the laptop. The mail I collect on the laptop remains with the server and I can collect it later on the desktop. I would like mail previously downloaded at the desktop to be accessible on the laptop later, which it currently isn't. Can I do that and how?? I haven't found on "Help" a way of doing this, but I think there should be."

I replied via email: "Go into your email program and click on Tools/Accounts/and in most email programs click on/ properties/advanced/ and then check the box that offers: "Leave a copy on the server" and click on that; which means you will be able to collect your email on all of your computers.

Unfortunately the default setting on most email programs is not to have that option checked which means that as soon as one computer downloads the emails it is deleted from the server...which means you can't download it to your other computer/s.

You might have to vary the above instructions slightly depending on your email client (program)".

I was able to demo this a little later in the SIG....and of course there could be other factors causing this.

We also had a look at:
• reboot_system_restore.html
• best-free-digital-editor.html
• how-to-turn-on-super-administrator-account-in-windows-7
• "Sticky Notes"
• "Sound Recorder"
• Revo Uninstaller: http://www.revouninstaller.com/uninstaller_help_page.html

It was another very interesting meeting and I thank you all for your interaction.

Just before we finished I announced that I am standing down as the Friday Seniors SIG Leader... I have been doing it for eight years and I need a rest and you need some new input. So...come forward and volunteer one and all!! I confirmed my intentions at our Committee meeting last Saturday.

In a group such as ours I believe it is essential for as many of us as possible to volunteer for the various positions that we need. So please put your hand up and "have a go"!

See you.

Cheers,

Bill Parry

Friday Seniors SIG Report May 2010

Good Morning fellow SIG members,

I think we had about 18 members in attendance and among many things we discussed the following:

A spring metamorphosis - Google"s new look.... have a look and see what you think. A link is also on our SPCUG homepage.

Security Experts say Windows needs an alternative to Adobe... check it out here: .... and then have a look at "Foxit".... as quite a few members have.

New version I think! ...irfanview 4.27 ... irfanview_4_27

New Malware Attack Renders All Antivirus Useless ... this is food for thought!!

And in addition: Windows 7 "Compatibility Checker" Actually a Trojan...

Acronis Disk Director Suite 10 .... but it is not compatible with Windows 7 ... This site states it quite clearly.
It is a very good program though.

Infected XP PCs Won"t Be Patched, Says Microsoft....

Windows Sysinternals!! ... have a look and see what it does for you!

Most of the above items are from that very interesting and free, emailed newsletter "Infopackets":

Peter Shelden emailed two problems, this one includes the fix:
"You may recall that I was having a problem with a very slow computer in spite of using PC Matic and Registry Booster. A guru suggested looking at Task Manager and checking the Processes tab, which I did. The culprit was the Maxtor portable hard drive, which was monitoring the computer almost non-stop. I deleted all references to Maxtor in Add/Remove , and the computer immediately speeded up, and the problem has not returned."
and this one: " A person typing at speed hits an unknown button and the whole article disappears, even though it was saved regularly and its title still exists in the menu in Word. Is there any way to retrieve the lost article."

I have heard of this happening before and I checked out a few Google recommended sites including this one...
Paraphrasing some of the comments in it:
Open the affected file in Word and "select all" and then ensure that the text is selected black (or automatic)... not white!!
Secondly, and I demonstrated this: open the file and click on "undo typing". It worked!! This can occur when CTL A ("select all") is accidently pressed and further typing continues...all the text disappears!! Try it on a test piece of text.

Thomas had a problem with the program ERUNT ( Emergency Recovery Utility for NT) when after installation he could not configure it to manually back up the registry. The following two sites explains ERUNT and Thomas has now uninstalled it and reinstalled it and it is working fine: snapfiles.com/get/erunt.html and winxptutor.com/regback.htm The program is worth a look.

Olin has a problem with his National Geographic data base on seven CD"s which he has had for some years; he has to keep inserting a different CD quite frequently in order to view his required selection of topic. Nat. Geo. can't help!

Peter Collard mentioned a free program called "Daemon Tools" which he suggested might help. To detail how this app works Peter is going to demonstrate it at the next Friday Senior"s SIG on Friday 11 June. He will develop a scenario for the program from which we can all see how it does its job. Thanks Peter, I can think of some areas of my "data hoard" that this program might make easier for me! By the way Peter if I have not quite summarised the Daemon Tools situation correctly please let me know and we can correct it at next week"s Main meeting... or something!

Acronis stuck it"s head up again at both Seniors SIGs but I think that has beinherited in Graham"s report... will it ever stop?

Next Friday Seniors SIG: 11 June 2010 at 10:00am followed by the Comms SIG with John Lucke etc at 1:00pm.

The next Tuesday Seniors SIG with Graham Grant is Tuesday 15 June 2010 at 10:00am followed by Terry"s Genealogy at 1:00 pm. Next Main Meeting: next Tuesday 25 May at 6:00pm. Next Digital Photography SIG with Peter Collard is next Friday 28 May 2010 at 10:00am.

Next Committee meeting is Saturday 12 June 2010...let us know if you wish to raise something...prospective committee members please email Secretary, John Symons.

See you at the Main meeting next Tuesday. And remember if anyone would like to contribute with some interesting info please contact me.

Cheers,

Bill Parry

P.S. So you want to have a knee replacement? Some of your emails indicated that it is on your horizon! It"s not such a big deal but there is some pain and discomfit afterwards and in hospital one"s body is no longer a "sacred area" that you alone manage: catheters, cannulas and "other things" are clipped, inserted and stapled in all sorts of places and then "removed"...one does not look and feel one"s best!! And my recovery? I"m at the "surgery plus four weeks time frame" and it is still quite painful. However I"m told that it takes anything from "six weeks" to "one year" before one is "happy"!! I will reassess the situation at three months and let you know.

Friday Seniors SIG Report March 2010

Good Afternoon fellow SIG members,

I think we had about twenty members at our SIG on Friday and most of them seemed to enjoy a very enthusiastic meeting...lots of questions and plenty of interaction on the "answers".

Q & A...Thomas set the tone with an emailed "multi pronged" question which had our interest:

"1. I click on Internet explorer 8, the hour glass comes up then goes. So I can't open IE 8. I noted that when I checked the size of IE 8, it showed only 6MB when in fact it should be 16 odd MB.

2. Beforehand when (in Outlook Express) I deleted an email it went straight to the Recycle Bin. Now it goes to the deleted file folder.

3. My icons in the task bar have gone, but those in the system tray (the icons next to the clock on the right side) are there. If I right click on the task bar, then on properties and then I put a tick in "show quick launch" the icons do come back but this makes the Notification area double lined. How can I reduce it to single line without losing the icons? "

Peter Collard explained the difference in file size as the "distribution" of the downloaded file does not focus on just the executable file but on other areas involved with the installation...registry for example. That IE would not open presents many possible causes such as file corruption during installation...a broken link between the desktop shortcut and the .exe file etc etc. We gave Thomas a couple of options: create another desktop shortcut or reinstall IE.

We also offered some options to fix the other two questions: Outlook Express ( it is normal for deleted emails to go directly to the "Deleted" folder) and in configuring the Task Bar in Win XP (unlock the task bar and drag the various toolbar edges to where you want them...this can take some time and patience to get it right!)

Oscar had a problem during booting when a window continued to appear with a textual line by line "rundown" on the boot sequence etc...we offered several possibilities but Oscar has emailed that "this message has gone since the last series of Windows Updates finished loading."

Acronis came up again in a couple of questions and I really don't think I can go there in any detail again!! It is a great program but a lot of us have had "niggardly" problems with it...use the Allan Matthews philosophy: keep at it! Email them with the problem...Allan has just emailed me that Acronis have now replied regarding his latest problem...he can't try the fix right now as he is on his way to New Zealand. Will let you know! John Matthews attempts to image a drive (I think it was with the new version) continued to end in the program freezing just as the image set-up completed. Might be a good idea to uninstall and reinstall and if it still freezes do the email to the Acronis people "thing". Graham Grant could not complete an image using the "Secure Zone"...but was ok imaging to non secure zone drives/folders. It is a bit of a puzzle.

We had many more interesting "Qs" and a few "As" which we tried to work out!

I eventually got around to discussing "Organising Favourites" (after having it on my running sheet for the last two months!)and showed how I have been "experimenting" with the assistance of that interesting program: "LinkStash" available from: LinkStash it does cost a little but there is a free trial period available. It can find and delete "Dead Links" and "Duplicated URLs" as well as integrate and organise your chosen browser"s favourites. It even has a selection of its" own Bookmarks that may be integrated with yours.

This is another website offering an "icon" or "thumbnail" presentation of your favourites; it is a bit "pretty and fancy" for me and I imagine it would claim a fair slice of RAM: tidyfavorites have a look at it; also try Googling: "organizing favourites" or something like that. Let me know if you get some better programs.

Regarding product keys, I didn"t get a chance to show you the free program: SIW ? ?System Information for Windows? at: http://www.gtopala.com/ I got this from Windows Secrets a couple of months ago?"Find your product keys (licences)". I will show it the next time we meet.

Peter Collard did have the time to show you a similar program: from NirSoft at http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/product_cd_key_viewer.html . "Belarc Advisor" does much the same as these two programs but I think SIW shows it more clearly and uncluttered.

Windows 7 Iterations?What you get for what you pay!!! Here is the Microsoft website that confirms what I discussed on Friday:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-AU/windows7/products/compare

I gave a brief run-down on what I recently did to update our computer with the real Windows 7 Ultimate: Go to?Computer Management/ check drives and determine required partition to format /copy or move those files or folders required after installation/ check Add- Remove Programs and record those required to be reinstalled later/ format required partition/insert installation disk and reboot/select ?Custom?/select required partition/ follow the installation instructions. I was not required to insert the Product Key during the install!! But was asked to do so did so later "within so many days"?this seems to be the norm now.

To change the dual boot manager from "Earlier version of Windows" to read: "Windows XP" I used BCDEdit, which is done from a Command Prompt. The following site explains the bcdedit options: title="http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc709667(WS.10).aspx CTRL + Click to follow link">http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc709667(WS.10).aspx The Boot Configuration Data (BCD) files provide a store that is used to describe boot applications and boot application settings. The objects and elements in the store effectively replace Boot.ini in previous versions of Windows. This site shows a video explaining the complete process:

http://edge.technet.com/Media/Dual-Boot-Between-Windows-XP-and-Windows-7/

Win 7 God Mode!!:
{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C} explained here: http://news.office-watch.com/t/n.aspx?articleid=1355&zoneid=12 I ran out of time but Graham did it really well on Tuesday. It locates all the OS settings in one place...very handy

Outlook Express....reversion of English Dictionary Spell checker to French...see this explanation and fix: http://www.webdevelopersnotes.com/how-do-i/change-spell-check-dictionary-french-english-outlook-express.php It happens when Office 2007 is installed...it doesn"t recognise Outlook Express!!

Housekeeping... Our next Friday Seniors SIG is on 9 April at 10:00 am followed by the Comms SIG with Bob and Peter at 1:00 pm; the next Tuesday Seniors SIG with Graham Grant is on 20 April at 10:00 am followed by Terry"s Genealogy SIG at 1:00 pm; next Main Meeting is Tuesday 23 March at 6:00 pm ; the next digital photography SIG is on Friday 23 April at 10:00 am (yes, April...SMSA do not have a room available on the fourth Friday of the month in March) and with Peter taking some well earned "R & R", Roger Foulds will guide us through. And of course for all meetings and SIGs we are now booked for 30 mins. prior to and 30 mins. after our nominated times which means, apart from setting up and packing up, we can do other "stuff": more Q & A...extend, or even complete our presentations etc.

Our next Committee meeting is scheduled for Saturday 10 April so if you have anything that you would like mentioned at the meeting please contact one of our Committee members...you know who they are! Our new SIG, "Smart Phones" commences this Friday 19 March at 6:00 pm at SMSA, so please come along and see what it"s all about. Finally, don't forget our Web Design SIG which is on next Saturday, 20 March at SMSA at 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm... while Robert Hume is away Peter Collard and Bob Backstrom are running us through a "basic" web design tutorial which is a "must" for anyone desiring to understand how these sites are created.

Sadly, our well known and popular SPCUG Newsletter editor, Elaine Rush, has resigned from the Committee having completed the two years that she set herself as a target; I know that the Committee and our members join in thanking her for her service. Elaine has agreed to continue with producing the Newsletter which is most appreciated and I personally urge all SIG leaders to continue to provide her with your proposed SIG content well ahead of your actual SIG date. Thanks Elaine.

don't forget:

If you would like to present something that you think might be of interest to our group please email me and I will find the time for you!! Or if you don't want to present, then give me the details and I will do it and of course acknowledge you as the "creator". We all have such a variety of interests in IT so why not share them?

See you soon.

Cheers,

Bill Parry

Friday Seniors SIG Report January 2010

Good Evening fellow SIG members,

Last Friday we had a pretty good roll-up for an early January SIG ...twenty one members. We enjoyed a very interesting meeting with special thanks to Bob Young who gave us a really comprehensive presentation on the NBN (National Broadband Network). Bob delivered a very well structured presentation on the NBN which he is so qualified to do: as most of you know Bob was in a senior management position with Telstra before he retired and recently attended an industry conference at which he was brought right up to date with the situation.

He spoke on what the NBN is, it's history, the politics, the people, the technical options, the cost, it's uses and the present position. Bob kept our attention throughout and the questions asked by many of the group confirmed our interest. Thanks Bob.

After our coffee break we had our Q & A which included some questions emailed to me before the meeting. Although we were able to offer some potential solutions I was asked to include the questions in this report so that some of our group might be able to offer other solutions after a more detailed look at them. Here they are:

From Thomas:

"(1) I tried to uninstall Itunes that is connected to QuickTime, as I don't really need these programs. After removal I got the following error message on boot up: 'Windows cannot find C:\programfiles\itunes\ituneshelper.exe. Make sure you typed the name correctly, and then try again. To search for a file, click the start button and then click search.' I have deleted every instance of Itunes and QuickTime from the registry but still the error message returned on bootup. I then reinstalled these programs and now there is no error message. (Google always wants to sell programs such as RegCure or Registry Booster and that is not the answer)." We, the group, suggested that the apps be uninstalled using 'Revo Uninstaller' in it's most 'aggressive' mode

(2) I had to reinstall Microsoft Office PowerPoint viewer. Now when I want to use it I have to go to the "open with" program list and click on power point viewer to open the pps attachment. Even if I click "always use the selected program at this kind of file" has no effect.

(3) Frequently I get this message: An error occurred when opening the backup archive. Cannot continue the operation due to either the backup is corrupted, or it is used by another process; for example the backup has been mounted as a disc" I have Acronis 11 and a full backup of drive C on my external HDD but no backup had been mounted. What do you think is the problem? Where are you Allan?

From Oscar:

"I was asked for a list of one of my "shared accounts" from my address book. I found it was a bugger of a job to do. When you click on the list it is shown in a small window. Print screen does not catch it, in the end I printed out the whole address book with coma limited fields and proceeded to copy and paste the ones required. Do you know an easier way this can be done. I may have been able to do a print screen with video accelerator turned off but then I would had to then type the list". (This refers to Outlook Express).

If anyone can offer solutions to these questions please email me and I can advise Thomas and Oscar accordingly.

Quite a few of you requested that I include the "Animator vs. Animation" humorous 'stick' program embedded in an Excel spreadsheet that I showed unintentionally! I have decided not to include this as it is a 5MB file which may be too big for some of you. I will put it on our group's computer and you can copy it at your leisure (in a folder named: 'Jokes', on the D:\ drive) ; however if your email account can accommodate the file size just email me and I will forward it to you.

Those couple of 'prepared' items that I had and were meant to 'top-up' the SIG, were not needed, so they will carry over to next month, although Graham Grant mentioned that he has room for 'something' at his Tuesday Seniors SIG on 19 January, in which case I might be able to present one of them subject to Graham's requirements on the day.

Don't forget: Graham Grant's Tuesday Seniors SIG at 10:00am on 19 January followed by Terry's Genealogy SIG at 1:00pm; Peter Collard's Digital Photography SIG is on at 10:00am on Friday 22 January. [no main meeting this month....Australia day!!]

If you would like to present something that you think might be of interest to our group please email me and I will find the time for you!! Or if you don't want to present, then give me the details and I will do it and of course acknowledge you as the 'creator'. We all have such a variety of interests in IT so why not share them?

Enough! I'm tired! See you soon.

Cheers,

Bill Parry

ps. This report is in a different format so as to make it easier to upload to our website...I would appreciate your feedback...and don't forget to have a look at our website...make it one of your homepage tabs!

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Bob B - Wed Apr 15

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The **[a name="somewhere"][/a] is usually the target of a local jump -- [a href="#somewhere"]Go To Somewhere[/a] from somewhere else. It might be needed.

Maybe they just need the other half of the link be present, to be happy. However, it caused me a good search as the "Can't Validate" message gives no clue to what the problem is. Another good learning exercise!

Very strange that your Host Site puts stuff (especially [script] and [noscript]) outside of your [body] and [html] tags. That certainly doesn't help the Validator.

I notice that in the Seniors Tuesday page you have the [ul] unordered list inside the [p] paragraph. No, no, no. End the [/p] paragraph just above it, then start a new [p] paragraph afterwards. That will help the Validator. Anything to keep the Validator happy !

• Thanks again Bob. I had done this on other pages but missed that one. I'm surprised it got past the validator.

** Pretend the square brackets, above, are angle brackets.

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Looks interesting ... and fairly easy to use. In about one month, cell phone nirvana will be upon us with the arrival of the Palm Pre, next-gen iPhone, and possibly the BlackBerry Storm. I just pasted some text from an email. Thats useful. WW

Bob B - Sun May 2"4"

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Just trying some text in other fonts:

Helvetica - Bold, Italic. Helvetica looks good at this size. Italic "a" a different "a"...

Arial - Bold, Italic. Not too bad either.

Verdana - Bold, Italic. Slightly larger and quite readable -- Italics also readable.

Sans-serif - Bold, Italic. Quite readable if a little compressed.

Trebuchet - Bold, Italic. Also quite readable.

All with subtle differences, with Verdana probably the best (in my opinion).


Bob B - Sat Jun 27

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Note: The content above here is editable using CushyCMS only.

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Friday Seniors SIG Report December 2009

Good Evening fellow SIG Members,

Well we were back to 'normal' attendances yesterday... twenty three members. We enjoyed a pretty interesting meeting followed by one of the best value meals in town at the 'Starbar' (just down George Street opposite the cinema complex), to celebrate Christmas, the last Friday seniors SIG for 2009 and the Festive Season in general!! $6.95 for large steak, or roast chicken breast or a selection of other interesting western and Asian meals. See you there again next Tuesday after Graham's seniors SIG finishes at noon and before Terry's Genealogy SIG starts at 1:00pm.

Q & A... Among the 'stuff' we discussed were two questions from Peter Sheldon who sent me an email outlining them:

1. A file attached to an email could not be opened- the following message appeared:

"File does not have a program associated with it for performing this action. Create an association in the Folders Options panel". What is the Folders Option panel and how does it operate to solve this problem..

2. How do you make a backup copy of a program you have on your HDD ( and appearing on the desktop) onto a CD. I have mislaid the original discs.

With Question 1, you can do it using one of the two ways that I know: 'In Windows Explorer go to: Tools/Folder Options/File Types tab/ wait until files generate then select your file type and then click on 'Change' and select your preferred associated program from the list. The other way is to select and right click the specific file/from the 'context' menu, click on 'open with' and from the list displayed click on 'choose program'...select the required program and if you want it to be the program always associated with your file type, check the box marked 'Always use the selected program to open this kind of file' and then click o.k.

With Question 2, the team is not sure that you can do this as most programs have 'code' etc written to the registry which won't be copied if you just go to the '.exe' file located on your HDD. Some suggested variations on how to do this were a little complex, and the 'cure' might cause more problems than the 'illness'. I think the consensus was: buy the program again and look after the disks...or at least back them up at the immediate post-purchase stage! This website might help you: Thanks for the email Peter.

Among other questions resolved was one related to a previous SIG at which it was mentioned that the OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) versions of programs, including Operating Systems, were offered for sale when purchasing a new HDD. Most members including me had thought that one had to purchase(or have built)a new computer system where the builder was permitted to use OEM versions of the various programs installed on your system. (This is always cheaper than buying the 'off the shelf' versions). But we are reassured that during the past month at least one member was able to purchase an OEM version of the OS with the purchase of a new HDD. But as I understand it you must be aware that the warranty is carried by the computer builder, not the software developer. Thanks Malcolm.

Web-Based Tutorials ... my current interest in tutorials came about during my trip to the UK when my wife was doing a magazine puzzle and she and some friends could not arrive at the correct answer. I was doing something else at the time and was excluded from all discussion! But then in front of them all she asked me to "have a go". Without prolonging the story I was able to call on some long lost and seldom used algebra and I came up with the answer. I think it was a 'fluke' but I decided then I should get back into it. I haven't done it yet but I know which tutorial I will use!

But really, we I.T. interested people are often trying to find out how to this ...how to do that...and online tutorials are a good way to go...but you need plenty of time. There are stacks of them!...I googled 'free online tutorials'...for free online tutorials for specific subjects such as for Microsoft or Windows just add XP, Vista, Win 7 or whatever you specifically want. Among others that I found , I chose these to show you a selection:

Some Web-Based Tutorials

Top-Windows-Tutorials - Tutorials for Windows of all flavours!
Baycon Group>
Free Online Courses and Tutorials
Learnthat
Programming Tutorials
Free Skills
Free-Ed
Free Email Tutorials - Email tutorials
Photoshop Lightroom Help and Support
w3schools - Web-building tutorials
Visual Math Learning - Math(s) tutorials
Library Support Staff
Microsoft On-Line

...and this is a surprise site on which you might find the name of the @ symbol and learn what 'awake' means:Enchanted Learning have a look!

Some Web-Based Tutorials ... I chose to have a look at 'online social networking' as it is called these days because as a member of a seniors interest group I have a paranoia about putting myself out online like a lot of young people do, giving the details of their life!! I don't want to be faced with 'identity theft' or such and I thought my fellow seniors members may have similar feelings. But we should at least have look at it; the various offerings, how to sign up etc. Hence my leap into the very basics of social networking.

We probably all know the names of the popular sites e.g. MySpace, FaceBook, Twitter, YouTube and 'Blogs' in general. In this exercise I signed up for the first four finding out that a certain amount of personal details are required...don't worry though, you can always 'massage' your details!! I might add that when you register you are asked at the end of the procedure if you mind if the 'social networking site' goes through your email address book to see if any of them are also registered. I agreed to this and it is amazing just who among one's email associates are into this form of public flagellation!!

'Blogs' and YouTube Twitter, FaceBook, MySpace, e.g. sites popular the of names know all probably We span general. These are some websites that you can visit to find out more about each of them separately and all of them in general:

Some Social Networking Sites

What is Social Networking
What Is Social Networking? Links Page
Wikipedia - List of social networking websites - check this out to see just how many there are!
Top Ten Reviews
How Stuff Works
My Space
FaceBook Tutorials
eHow

I welcome anyone who can give us a 'full' demo of one of these 'social networks' to please step forward ...you have the floor! You can have as much time as you need.

Housekeeping ... The next Friday Seniors SIG is Friday 08 January 2010 at 10:00am followed by the Comms SIG with Terry & Bob etc at 1:00pm. At the Friday Seniors SIG in January Bob Young will give us a run-down on the National Broadband Network. He will speak about what the NBN is, what people think it will be used for, what it might cost, the technical options, the history of the matter, the politics surrounding it, how it is proposed to be implemented and the present position. As most of you know Bob was in a senior position with Telstra prior to his retirement and recently attended an industry conference in which he was brought right up to date with the situation. Should be very interesting. Thanks Bob.

The next Tuesday Seniors SIG with Graham Grant is next Tuesday 15 December 2009 at 10:00am followed by Terry's Genealogy at 1:00 pm. Be there!!

The next Main Meeting:Tuesday 22 December at 6:00pm. Please come along as the first Main meeting in 2010 is not until 23 February ...the fourth Tuesday in January is Australia day.

The next Digital Photography SIG with Peter collard is on Friday 22 January 2010 at 10:00am as the fourth Friday in December is Christmas day!

If I don't see you next Tuesday (Graham's Seniors SIG) or at the main meeting on 22 December, I'll take this opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas/Festive Season/ etc and a most rewarding New Year.

Regards and Cheers,

Bill Parry

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Friday Seniors SIG Report November 2009

Good Evening fellow SIG Members,

A few of our members couldn't be with us on Friday but no doubt they will catch up next month. Which reminds me that on Friday we agreed to have both Seniors SIG meetings in December : Graham's on Tuesday 15 December and mine on Friday 11 December, and we will do a Christmas/Festive Season lunch at each one! The venue will be the usual 'Starbar' just down George Street opposite the cinema complex.

Q & A... Lots of 'stuff' discussed on Friday! We talked generally about 'PaperPort' including copying and pasting images and text which it does pretty well even using my old Version 11; have a look at this site to see what's new in Version 12 as well some handy hints on most recent versions: PaperPort

The subject of registry cleaners came up; do you need one and if so which one? I have RegCure and Registry Mechanic and was able to demo them. I have had some sort of registry cleaner since the old Norton's Systemworks (ten years ago!) which I found very helpful. It is a personal thing... if you have had trouble-free computing for a number of years without the use of one (has anyone?) then you probably don't need one. I bought RegCure to fix a problem... and it didn't!... but it has been handy since. I bought Registry Mechanic sometime ago so I could present it at a SIG. Meanwhile 'back at the ranch' we did not get any sort of an answer from the group on what to get but I would suggest if you really want one, try Registry Mechanic as it does do other 'stuff'. Have a look at 'Windows Secrets' for what they think.

In answer to a question: "What is the 'Registry'?" I described it as a 'database' for the operating system and used 'regedit' to show it. These sites expand on that: support.microsoft.com and wikipedia.org

Registry cleaners are a bit like 'defragging' of HDDs; sometime ago when storage space was critical it was: Defrag! Defrag! Defrag! Then it became 'don't worry' you got lots of storage, no need to; now it seems that defragging is 'de rigueur'. Why? Google it and see! Hint: "Defragging your PC's hard drive will combine multiple application fragments, increasing your system's performance. By combining fragments, defragging provides a no-cost computer upgrade".

Just before the coffee break I started my 'burst' on 'Email clients' (email programs) which went like this:

Prior to Vista, Outlook Express came with any version of Internet Explorer and eventually, because I.E. became an integral part of the Windows operating system, you got O.E. as a freebie! The last version of Outlook Express was Ver.6 released in 200"4"! With Vista, 'Windows Mail' came with the operating system as a freebie. It is an upgraded, upmarket version of Outlook Express, but it only comes with Vista! Check this out on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Mail Google to find other sites that will also confirm this.

Consequently it is a good time to have a look around for what you might use with Windows7. This site lists quite a few possibilities and explains almost everything you wanted to know about them! I also explained the new rules of editing Wikipedia which this site confirms:

• These are the email clients that I had a look at:
  • Gmail... the full Monty!
  • The Bat
  • Thunderbird
  • IncrediMail
  • Windows Live Mail - just Google it...try and stop it!! They want you!! ...Oh God!!
  • MS Outlook - Comes included with some versions of MS Office otherwise it can be bought separately for about AUD$90. Probably the best corporate solution.

These days I am loath to change!!! I use Outlook Express and I don't really want to change...but it and it's successor, Windows Mail, will not run on Windows 7. So I have to change just as many of you might.

On Friday we went through these email programs which I had installed on my Notebook computer and I nominated what I thought their good and bad points were and many questions were fielded.

Most of us have a 'cloud' account, Gmail or Yahoo etc and these are right up there for consideration. But I personally also want to have an email client on my HDD not just on the 'Cloud', so I(we?) really need some other computer located email client.

I have a Gmail account and it is very good in so far as it has very efficient spam filters and is for me an easy way to have an email backup that runs virtually concurrent with my computer based email... providing 'leave a copy on the server' is checked!! The relevance of this is revealed below!!

'The Bat' is ok but you have to buy it and it is very austere. I checked this app. out on many websites before I included it in my choice to demo and I don't know what those people who said it was great were on!!

I would really like to use IncrediMail as it is such fun and imports all of your relevant 'stuff' smoothly. But you would have to get the paid version as with the free one you cannot control those stupid 'Emoticons' that attach themselves to the end of your outgoing emails. How could you send a serious email to your bank manager, stockbroker or to your family funeral director with those silly things on the page?!! You also have to buy a yearly subscription to their 'Junk' folder...a yearly subscription!!! Then it has it's own integral browser which attaches itself to your home page and it takes some serious work to get it off.

It also has it's account properties configured as a default to 'not leave a copy on the server' which means as soon as it downloads the emails from your server, they are deleted and are no longer available for your other email clients to access.

Of course this is also applicable to any email client and may not be a problem if you only have one computer using one email client. (make sure that you do look at your email account properties and configure them to 'leave a copy on the server') if only for a number of days...good insurance, particularly if you go on holidays with your laptop/notebook and you have shutdown your other computer/s at home or wherever!!

Most of our members have used, or use, Mozilla Thunderbird... it is from the same group that produces Firefox, which is also very popular. It imports all your old email stuff smoothly and is generally easy to use, however it is also a bit austere. I am running it in parallel to Outlook Express on my computers when using WinXP to get used to it, and I run it solely when I am using Windows 7.(dual boot Win XP & Windows 7) Of course Gmail still continues to be my insurance as a live backup.

Windows Live Mail comes from Microsoft!!!...It comes with all sorts of bells and whistles and it is very aggressive when installing and even when using it. I have installed it both in Win XP and Windows 7 just to see how it develops.

Ideally, I would like to keep good old Outlook Express or its updated, upmarket Vista cousin: Windows Mail, but alas I can't.

If any of our members have an email client that they think is the 'ant's pants' please let me know...if it is the one for me I don't mind paying for it!

• We also discussed briefly two of my favourite programs available at:
  • ClipCache Pro and here also
  • SyncBack
  Have a look at the above websites and maybe we can delve into the programs in detail a little later.

Housekeeping... Our Tuesday Seniors SIG with Graham Grant is next Tuesday 17 November 2009 at 10:00am followed by Terry's Genealogy at 1:00 pm. Be There!

Our next Friday Seniors SIG is Friday 11 December 2009 at 10:00am followed by the Comms SIG with Terry & Bob etc at 1:00pm.

The next Main Meeting is Tuesday 2"4" November at 6:00pm and in December it is on Tuesday 22 December at 6:00pm, where your committee will host 'nibbles and drinks' for all!

Peter Collard's Digital Photography SIG is on Friday 27 November at 10:00am.

I'm getting a bit tired now so I'll see you later... on Tuesday at Grahams Seniors SIG.

Cheers,

Bill Parry

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October Meeting Report

Hello Everybody
As everybody will know I took over the running of the Friday's SIG while Bill was away and he will run the next Tuesday's Sig on the 20th. There was a good turn up with 22 members present.

The meeting open with a query on Register Cleaners and how good was CCleaner, a Google search had a list of a few. There was a comment that Microsoft thought they were a waste of time.

Thomas was having a problem connection to the Internet after having a new video card installed. It was suggested that he check if his Ethernet card had moved by removing it and then re-seating it.

There was a discussing on Norton Virus checker and what was the best virus checker. A lot of people do not like Norton (based on it's past performance, my current experience is that it is greatly improved) A number of people are quite happy with the free AVG. It was pointed out that Norton, now when it finds, say a cookie, does not inform you where it originated but it was thought that in earlier version it used to do that.

Olin had a problem with Acronis, he had a disk that would not work. He contacted Acronis and they asked him to download a newer version, he has down loaded the "image" but had not yet created the disk. It was a "project" for the break but I'm not sure what happened! I then said that I had done an Acronis backup to a portable hard drive. I then did a restore and I'm pleased to say that it worked. However it took almost 29 hours to complete. A normal backup from the "Secure Zone" on my 2nd system hard drive usually takes about 40 minutes.

Following on with backing up, Frank Bowman said he uses Paragon Backup, which has been on the magazine cover disk and he has had little problems.

There was a query on Memory Testers and a discussion followed. A check on Google showed a number are available for download.

Olin also asked about Skype and said he had downloaded a later version. He asked about his list of contacts and how to bring them into the new version. There also followed a general discussion on VOIP.

John Shortland asked about the startup sequence when running a hard drive on the IDE channel with a machine thatalso had hard drives on SATA slots. It was suggested that checking the BIOS on the motherboard for the startup sequence.

After our morning break Peter Collard gave a talk on Ubuntu, as usual it was a clear and well thought out talk and a hard copy is pasted below. Thank you Peter.

Cheers,

Graham Grant

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Friday Seniors SIG Report September 2009

Twenty four of us shared our IT info at our Friday's Seniors SIG last Friday and it turned out to be pretty interesting I think! We had a couple of "gremlins" interfere, but overall it was ok.

Vale: Colin Bolton... Housekeeping is not the heading under which I want to include the death of Colin; the following is what I sent out to the Seniors SIG's and the Committee as soon as I was aware of Colin's demise which I think gives us a brief idea how he interacted with our computer group:

"It is with great sadness that I inform you of the death of Colin Bolton; I have just spoken to his wife Wyn and she said he died last Monday.
As you all know Colin was a member of the SPCUG for many years and one who worked very hard for us. Before he had his throat cancer surgery he ran the Friday Seniors SIG for years and was not only a good presenter but he put a lot of work into researching computer related info for us. Even after the surgery and without a voicebox he still gave the occasional professional presentation."

I also mentioned the details of his funeral service, which a number of us attended after the Friday SIG. As we found out there, he was a man with many facets to his life, as probably we all are.

Housekeeping... Welcome back John Ewing and Olin Brychta after a spell away OS! And apologies from John Mathews and Oscar Lerve who could not be with us.

The next Friday Seniors SIG is Friday 9 October 2009 at 10:00am followed by the Comms SIG with Terry, Bob and Peter at 1:00pm. The next Tuesday Seniors SIG with Graham Grant is next Tuesday 15 September 2009 followed by Terry's Genealogy at 1: pm.

I will be in Melbourne for a week which includes Friday 9 October, our Friday Seniors SIG date. After discussing it with Graham Grant, he has agreed to take the Friday SIG with his content on that day, and I will take the Tuesday SIG with my content on 20 October. Both SIGs will be ON!!

Membership Drive... Nothing further is planned for the Computer Fair at the University of NSW Roundhouse for 2009. We will keep you informed for 2010. If you have any ideas regarding our membership drive please let us know and/or bring your friends along!

Q & A
Thomas Czimeth had a problem with "Stardock Fences". This a program that helps you organise your desktop. As I understand it Thomas was directed to upgrade from IE 6 to IE 7 as a requirement during the installation and when he did so he got error messages which he could not resolve. Apparently this was a problem with "Stardock" which has since been resolved. We had lots of suggestions but if Thomas uninstalls Stardock and then reinstalls it, it should be ok. Maybe install IE 8 as well!

Dirk de Bevere has many folders, sub folders etc in which each holds a PDF file; Dirk wants to print out all the PDF files but does not want to have to go through each folder individually.He would like to do them as a batch. Peter Collard has come to the rescue with this:

"To print all pdf files from a directory tree download & install "TCC" free from: www.jpsoft.com.
Run this and navigate to the root of the tree and type in global /i print *.pdf
This will open the default pdf reader and print to the default printer with the default settings EACH pdf file to the tips of the tree from its root. SO be sure all the defaults are set beforehand."

Have a look at the "jpsoft" website, it is interesting. Thanks Peter.

Peter also mentioned the WEA computer training courses; details at: http://www.weasydney.com.au

Mila had a problem with a second hand computer (as I understand it) not having the monitor screen centred... it was off to the left even when viewing the BIOS. After a lot of discussion we were of the opinion that the problem was deep down in the BIOS but in talking to my son in Melbourne (on a completely different matter) I mentioned it to him and he thinks it is just a matter of adjusting the CRT monitor screen using the screen menu. This adjustment is not always automatic on CRT monitors! I sent this off to Mila yesterday:

"Boot up and when into Windows just right click the desktop/click the "settings" tab and set the resolution that you want. Click your way our of that and then go into your "on-monitor" menu and adjust the horizontal (and vertical if necessary) parameters until you have it positioned where you want it. The menu for the monitor adjustment is on the monitor screen... there are buttons usually below it that you choose from, to bring it up. The older CRT monitors, like you have do not always do this automatically like the flat LCD monitors do."

Hope we are right!!

John Ewing wants to put the contents of his "My Documents" folder into another folder; John I did this as a trial when I got home on Friday and it works well: in Windows Explorer create a new folder on the drive you want it on. To do this select the drive/click on "File" on the top left side of the screen/from the drop-down menu select "New" and click on "Folder"/rename the folder accordingly. Open "My Documents" and select all of it's contents/ right click and from the menu click on "copy"/ move to the new folder, right click on it and click on "paste". Voila! It is all done.

Win7 I gave a run-down on our new computer showing our dual boot capability between WinXP and Win7. We had a brief look at file management, system configuration etc. in Win7 and Bob Backstrom extended that to showing us how his favourite program "Ztree", works in Win7... have a look at this site: http://www.ztree.com this is a brief clip from the site: ZTreeWin is a fast and flexible text-mode file/directory manager for all versions of Windows. It has been developed as the successor to the legendary DOS file-manager XTreeGold.

I wanted to show you a really good video but the Gods weren't with me and the link did not complete or something!... worked fine here before and after the SIG! Graham Grant has agreed for me to show it at his SIG next Tuesday. It shows in detail how to install Win7 to dual boot with either WinXP or Vista. Here's the site: http://edge.technet.com

As the result of seeing a presentation From Lynton Bradford at the ASCCA conference I tried to indicate just how informative reading your Notebook/Laptop manual is. The same applies to reading your Desktop Motherboard manual. I did not get a chance to do the demo I had prepared using an online copy of my Asus Notebook manual so that you could all see it, noting all the external slots, buttons, icons etc. However I did run through it using my actual notebook. Read the manual and find all those features that you hadn't a clue about! I did!

Peter did some "stuff" during the Comms SIG including finding this site about locating the manuals for older computers: The site with archived operating and service manuals for laptops is: here.
He also asked me to include these comments below:

We had a brief look at TCC dos replacement and set up our Brother printer. Then our main discussion was of free online storage, including Google Docs. A summary of online storage options is at: http://techmagazine.ws We continued with a discussion of the reliability, or otherwise, of Wikipedia and finished with a hands-on session of how to change BIOS settings and then fix things up after you screw it up."

I hope I got that right Peter?

Cheers,

Bill Parry

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Hello and Welcome to CushyCMS


Editing content with CushyCMS (Content Management System) is very easy. It is rather like composing an email in "Rich Text" mode where you can add text, lists, links and images without any knowledge of HTML coding. You can also copy large chunks of plain text like this - "Hello World" - and paste it into this dialogue box. It's all too easy!   JohnL 23/05/09

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Oops. Looks like I somehow deleted all the previous comments. Sorry about that! I had actually been working with a back-up copy on a flashdrive. I had been cleaning up lots of faulty code that gets generated over time so that I can get all my pages to validate to the xhtml standard . Seems I uploaded the wrong file. Such is life.

Just to recap, this page was/is being used to trial CushyCMS as a practical method of updating text, links and images to selected pages by certain "Editors". Previously, a number of members had submitted a variety of comments, links and pictures without too much effort so that is a good sign.

Please feel free to try this editor to upload your comments, favourite links and photos along with your initials to let others know about your experiences, good or bad. jl

Bob B - Mon Apr 13

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Not to worry, John.  Just tried validating this page (in Opera just right-click and select Validate -- very easy really), and got the following as the first of six errors:

Sorry, I accidently deleted the image while updating my "office" files. I'm a slow learner.

((( Normal Picture Transmission has now been restored -- Bob )))
 

You probably had an active link on the logobox, but then deleted part of it...

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Thanks for that Bob.
I missed that one as it was in the php inserts folder - now fixed. One problem when validating the live web pages is that the hosting server attaches a stat file outside the html page files, always giving two errors. You can see the stat file by viewing the page source. This does not happen when validating from my page files.

By the way, when testing again, I found the Programming page could not validate because of "ascii" errors. After a lot of trial & error I discovered it was the following code causing the problem. Once removed is was OK. As far as I can see, the code was redundant.
 




Cheers, jl

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Bob B - Wed Apr 15

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The **[a name="somewhere"][/a] is usually the target of a local jump -- [a href="#somewhere"]Go To Somewhere[/a] from somewhere else.  It might be needed.

Maybe they just need the other half of the link be present, to be happy. However, it caused me a good search as the "Can't Validate" message gives no clue to what the problem is. Another good learning exercise!

Very strange that your Host Site puts stuff (especially [script] and [noscript]) outside of your [body] and [html] tags.  That certainly doesn't help the Validator.

I notice that in the Seniors Tuesday page you have the [ul] unordered list inside the [p] paragraph.  No, no, no.  End the [/p] paragraph just above it, then start a new [p] paragraph afterwards.  That will help the Validator.  Anything to keep the Validator happy !

• Thanks again Bob. I had done this on other pages but missed that one. I'm surprised it got past the validator.

** Pretend the square brackets, above, are angle brackets.

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Looks interesting ... and fairly easy to use.  In about one month, cell phone nirvana will be upon us with the arrival of the Palm Pre, next-gen iPhone, and possibly the BlackBerry Storm. I just pasted some text from an email. Thats useful.    WW

Bob B - Sun May 24

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Just trying some text in other fonts:

Helvetica - Bold, Italic.  Helvetica looks good at this size. Italic "a" a different "a"...

Arial - Bold, Italic.  Not too bad either.

Verdana - Bold, Italic.  Slightly larger and quite readable -- Italics also readable.

Sans-serif - Bold, Italic.  Quite readable if a little compressed.

Trebuchet - Bold, Italic.  Also quite readable.

All with subtle differences, with Verdana probably the best (in my opinion).


Bob B - Sat Jun 27

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Note: The content above here is editable using CushyCMS only.

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