Minutes of Meeting - March 7, 2008

Minutes of the March 7, 2008 meeting of the Sioux Falls Seniors Computer Club:

President Norm Knox called the meeting to order in room 204. The minutes of the February meeting were approved, with a correction. One sentence needed to say: Vista needs a new version of MicrosoftWord, and does *not* accept a too old version of Office. Norm announced that our speaker had to cancel because of flu in his family. Matt Woolridge, Assistant Manager at Staples, will speak to the club instead in April. Under old business, Norm reported that Lisa Howard was using the club's laptop computer, but it would be available to the club again by Wednesday, March 12. The computer now has a donated carrying case with wheels and a handle. Norm read a message from Asella Crum about Family Tree Maker, the Genealogy Class for Computers, starting on March 13 at 9-11 a.m. for eight weeks. (The price is $45.)

The club members then moved to the computer classroom, where Bill Goebel conducted a question and answer session. Bill recommends against using Outlook Express to save e-mails for very long. E-mails that need to be saved should be copied and pasted into word processing files. Norm reported that the Web browser Netscape, once widely used, is now going off the market. Hazel Johnson is back after having "been through the mill" because of health problems. Hazel brought to the meeting a very interesting e-mail that she recently received that officially informed her that ATM card number such and such had been credited in her favor in the amount of $6.8 million. Unfortunately, Hazel is still waiting for the money. Norm reported the case of a neighbor who got a telephone call that led her to believe that she would receive a large sum of money, to be delivered in person. The neighbor then got a later call in which the caller said that the personal delivery had been delayed and asked the neighbor for her bank account number. Bill described software clean-up work that he recently did during a house call. A computer had a program that needed to be removed, but it would not go away. The uninstall operation for the program would not work, and the program's files located under "Program Files"could not be removed. Bill rebooted the computer in Safe Mode and tried to repeat these two methods of removal without any better success. The solution that worked was to use System Recovery to roll the computer back to a checkpoint taken at a time before the bad program was ever on the computer. This operation was performed in Safe Mode. Bill then did a disk cleanup and ran a registry cleaner that he carries with him on visits like this. His registry cleaner is PC OnPoint. (The troublesome program was a trial version of a different registry cleaner.) Bill recommends creating a system checkpoint before making any substantial change in a computer. For help and useful information about personal computers, visit http://www.komando.com/ or do a Google search for Kim Komando. Her site also provides downloads, including programs for security. When a Web site offers both a paid version and a free version of a useful program, finding the free version usually takes more looking at the site than finding the paid version.

The program msconfig controls what programs are allowed to run in background. Some programs listed by msconfig can be disabled but others should not be. A Google search on the name of a program listed by msconfig can often find out what a program does. Bill conducted a demonstration of using function key F8 during reboot to get to Safe Mode on the classroom's main computer.If a traditional mouse with a ball is sticky and unpredictable, it may work better after cleaning. However, if cleaning dust out of the inside of a mouse does not make it work better, it is probably time to get a replacement. The speed of a mouse when it reacts to double-clicking is determined by a setting that is reached through the Control Panel. Computers in the classroom are set for the slowest available speed of doubleclicking, but club members may prefer a faster speed on their own computers at home.

Helen Tieszen raised a question about how to have one's address book available when using webmail during travel. To do this, two steps are needed. First, the address book in Outlook Express must be exported to a text file, and second the text file must be imported into webmail. The procedure for importing depends on what kind of webmail is provided by one's Internet service provider.In Outlook Express, the procedure for exporting the address book is:Click on File, Export, Address Book, "Text File (Comma Separated Values)", and Export. Enter a filename for the address book in the box and click on Next. Under "Select the fields you wish to export"click on First Name and Last Name, and leave Name and E-mail Address checked. You may want to uncheck any checked squares below the E-mail Address for the sake of privacy. Then click on Finish and Close. The exported file will probably be in My Documents. Copy it or move it to the Desktop. If goes somewhere else, it may be necessary to search for it. Most Internet service providers have some kind of webmail software. However, not all webmail software can import address books. Midco and Yahoo both have webmail that can. For help with importing to Midco, contact Bill Goebel at goebel33@sio.midco.net. To import to Yahoo, direct your browser to http://www.yahoo.com/ and sign in. Then click on Mail, Contacts, Import/Export, and Browse. Find and click on the file you exported, and click on Open and Import Now. To review or edit your address book in Yahoo, click on Address Book in the upper right corner.Respectfully submitted by Garth Peterson, Secretary.