Larry Ruston started out the meeting by passing around a few of the power supplies tat he's had to replace in the last little while. Several of them have not been dying peacefully but instead, they have taken with them Mother Boards, hard drives, modems, sound cards and anything else they could blow up. It seems that many power supplies being used in clones are using inferior components that cause capacitors to swell and resistors to burn out with the result that a high voltage is put across the low voltage lines that power the components for your computer. 
Larry suggests that we all remove our power supplies and visually inspect them for swollen capacitors dark "burn" marks on resistors, diodes and printed circuit boards. If anything looks suspicious, REPLACE the Power Supply.

A much hardier power supply is made by Enermax, they have several different models which should suit your power requirements. Also, they are available locally, and changing your own power supply is not complicated. It requires the power to be off, usually four screws on the back of the machine to be removed along with the left side case. Then there will be several plugs the be disconnected (they should all be "idiot proof" as different voltage plugs are of different size and shape) remove the old supply noting the connections. Insert the new supply fasten the screws and re-connect the plugs. Power up. Then you can put back the case.

Thanks to Fern Cote who provided us a link last month to Belarc.com we both showed off what a typical print out using this valuable FREE program looks like.

Club member Mike Celotto brought in his machine and attracted a crowd as he fired it up and showed off his Illumination Modification. Huh? 
A picture's worth a thousand words, so here's one. 

Mike then showed off two different Roller Coaster simulation programs for us and even built up a simple one then tested it. These programs can download simulations of actual coasters from around the world and then test them.  Thanks Mike for a couple of fine demos. We'll be calling on your expertise again in the future. 

Bob Hedrick gave a talk on a Windows function which allows you to block Pop-up windows by creating a list of offending urls, and IP addresses and then routing them directly to your computer and bypassing the browser completely. It uses a file called "host" and I believe the IP address that it uses is 127.0.0.0 For more information on trying this contact Bob Hedrick. 

Bob Pajot

Larry also pointed us to several interesting websites and also metioned how numerous and varied the information can be found in E-Books on the Internet. Here are a couple of e-books and some other informative links below. 

The original problem may have resulted in Hard Drive errors which were reported in the Scandisk.log file, so please pay attention to items logged in this file. 

Instead of Disaster Recovery I suggest taking Steps Against Disaster. Use a second drive as a backup or a program like Norton Ghost backed up to another partition or better yet another drive would be a much better option. 

Also refering to disaster recovery, Larry spoke to us about Error Beep Codes sounded out by your computer when an error is encountered which may cause your machine not to start. 

Fern Cote, our newest member also provided a link to http://www.Belarc.com    where you can download a program called "preview.exe" which takes a snapshot of all the hardware and software on your system and reports it back to you using your browser. 
Note: It also keeps track of your Windows Product Key (buried deep within your registry and needed for re-installs and upgrades.) 
The file is not transmitted over the internet, but rather saved on your machine as an HTML file. While displaying the information, there are links to the location of the programs on your drives, and they can be followed by clicking on them. Fern also mentioned a file that will protect you against the W32opaserv.worm virus.  This appears to be one of the Microsoft updates. 

Thanks for the links Fern and welcome to the group. 
 

Bob Pajot

Larry started off the meeting by informing us of a website which will help diagnose problems that you might encounter whether it be hardware or software related. Check out www.billssite.com

Con Bach informed us of a problem that he was having with his Cogeco Cable hook-up in that the system had slowed to the point that it was like being on Dial-up. He called Cogeco and they did an on-line diagnosis for him and figured that he needed a new ethernet card. Not wanting to jump right in with another purchase, he called back a couple days later and got a different diagnosis. A third call gave him different information and miraculously his system was back up to speed with no effort on his part. What happened? We're not sure, but Cogeco probably discovered that the problem was at their end and fixed it on the sly. The lesson here is that you shouldn't go out and spend GOB's of money to fix something until you are definitely sure it's broken. 

Bob Hedrick gave a talk on Networking computers using a wireless system as he has done at his home. He is able to network from in his basement to the main level of his house and also to the Sunroom which is attached to the back of his house. This was also to be a live demo, but unfortunately the proper cables were not available at the meeting. 

We also did a test of networking two computers via the Infrared ports on two laptops. Although the two computers were able to "see" each other we were not able to transfer files between the two. We will test this out again at a future meeting. 

I brought in a couple of shareware programs which we demoed. 
NoLimits Rollercoasterwas one program which is actually two stand alone pieces. One is a 3-D simulation of a Coaster ride which is very authentic, complete with changeable views realistic sounds and scenery. It also comes with an editor that allows you to create your own coasters and then test them. The editor is quite a complex program but looks very interesting to learn. You can download it for yourself and try it out for free. The full version is only $25 US and seems very reasonably priced for what it offers. Size is about 5.8 Meg 
NOTE: The shareware version allows you to build and test your coaster in the edit mode but the save feature is disabled until you register. Also the simulation mode requires a fairly quick system to work properly. Don't try to run it on say a Celeron 466. The edit mode works well on this system however. 

Tobi On The Run is a non violent kids game that comes with 8 levels in the shareware version and over 100 in the full version. It's a nice little program that becomes very addictive once you get past the first few levels. The full version is only about $14 US and you can download from here. Size is about 5 Meg 
 

Bob Pajot

Larry started off the meeting with a demo on a couple of utilities for converting and cleaning up music files downloaded from the Internet or even when recording CD's, or from records and tapes. (Remember Records?). 

CD Spin Doctor is part of Adaptec Easy Cd Creator Deluxe and is a program that gives you a lot of options for getting rid of HISS, and POPS that often accompany music derived from LP's or tapes. It also allows Volume Levelling if you are recording several songs so that they are of more equal volume when you burn your CD. There are also other options like Track Splitting, Morphing, and more. It's easy to use and has great Help if you do need it. There is even a pictorial for hooking up your Audio System to your computer. 

If you don't have the Deluxe version of Adaptec Easy Cd Creator then you may not have Spin Doctor. There are several other programs available to do similar work. Larry also introduced us to Audacity.

This is a piece of Freeware (contains no spyware) that does many of the things that Spin Doctor does and also has other features not included in Spin Doctor. This program has an excellent tutorial on Digital Audio that really gives you insight as to how music is digitally recorded and then how the Digital to Analog converter in your Sound Card works. 

Audacity is really a fine program that will probably do more than what you need in Audio, and it's FREE. Download version 1.0.0 

I made the club members aware of the So-Called JPEG virus, which is actually W32.Perrun  and is not really an infection caught from a JPEG but from an .EXE file as most viruses are. The unique thing about this one is that it might be able to receive updates from JPEG's that are viewed on websites in the future. You can read about the new threat here.

Keep those Anti Virus Programs updated regularly.

Bob Hedrick gave us a tutorial on image formats. He demonstrated how they are saved and illustrated scanner, monitor and printer resolutions and how they relate to one another. Several questions on e-mailing pictures were answered and a few problems solved as far as the best method for e-mailing pics.

We also tried to install a SCSI scanner on Larry's machine but found that there were no drivers on the CD for the  SCSI card which came with the Yard Sale Umax Scanner. I'll keep you updated as to whether the scanner works once drivers are located.

See you on September 19.

Bob Pajot

Although there are definitely compatibility problems with pre-existing Hardware and Software there are ways around the problem.

In a nutshell here are some of Shawn's recommendations for anyone interested in switching over to XP. Preferably install it on a new system with the following.
Pentium 3 or higher, or comparable AMD systems.
250 Meg of RAM minimum as it needs 128 Meg to run.
A good size hard Drive (30 Gig) as XP needs 1 Gig. (If you partition make C Drive cosiderably larger.)
16 Meg Video card
Stand alone cards for Sound and Modem are best.
(stay away from all-in-one motherboards)
Keep you old system and network it to the new system to use as a backup and this gives you the ability to run any software and hardware that is not compatible with XP. Shawn also offered to return in the future and to also help with any problem are members may encounter. You can contact him at.

Bob Pajot

DSSAGENT I later found out is one of the bits of spyware that Ad-Aware is on the lookout for and will remove. Here are a few links you can follow in order to check it out. 
http://www.cexx.org/dssagent.htm
http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/00/08/07/000807opfoster.xml
http://www.accs-net.com/smallfish/advw.htm
http://www.accs-net.com/smallfish/mattel.htm

Pat Robinet gave us a excellent demonstration on the Linux operating system. This alternative operating system appears to be a fine substitute for the Gates System aka Windows. 

It looks like a very stable operating system with many levels of security. It is very "Windows like" in appearance (I was expecting something more like DOS) It's a very inexpensive system to get up and running and comes with a lot of software included. If you'd like more information on this system get in touch with Pat. parobi@netcore.ca

Pat also has a great little piece of hardware which caught my eye. It's called a Mobile Media Hard Drive Tray or more simply, a hard drive in a drawer. It's basically a sliding drawer for a standard 3 1/2 in. hard drive that mounts in a 5 1/4 in. slot on your computer. It allows you to slide in a hard drive, take it out and slide in a different hard drive. This allows Pat to boot off his Linux Hard Drive or he can substitute another drive with Windows. Here's what it looks like. 

www.genica.com

Bob Pajot