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Welcome PC Lovers !!
I must apologize to all my fellow Group Members for being a little later than usual with my monthly Newsletter this month, but I got a "new toy" after the holidays, and I've been having a lot of fun with it! I got a new scanner! If you've never had the opportunity to try one of these new color scanners that they are selling now, I would recommend you at least give it a try ! I've made all kinds of fun and interesting pictures with mine, and I've barely had it a month! You can "clone" pictures into other pictures (wanna send the "mother-in-law" to Mars?) to make all kinds of things appear to happen.
With the prices dropping and the quality improving, it's possible to get a good scanner with a lot of features in the software for around a hundred bucks!!!
I must also report that I also made a purchase of a video camero that i am less than pleased with. It's from a company called "logitech" and so far i have been unable to get the darn thing to work, and I have tried to get support from the company and have been ignored! If i ever do get it going, I'll let you know how it works,
but the way it has been going so far, I 'll probably be a while!!!!!
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Our last meeting
We missed a meeting due to the weather, so I've decided to write the newsletter after each meeting from now on, in the hopes of being able to give you all some feel as to what went on that you may have missed.
Doug (aka"Fearless Leader") had a bit of trouble with his cable hookup just before the meeting this month, so we couldn't go online as was planned. Instead the meeting concerned itself with how to get the most from our individual PCs. There were a number of questions asked, and answered, but the most important one for many members was the question of defragmentation and drive disc scanning.
Doug explained that the program for defragmantation was added to Win 95 and Win 98 and isn't really accurate as to when it should be done. In many cases, if you ask your PC to run de-frag, it will begin and then tell you you have a low percentage of fragmentation and it isn't necessary. This isn't true! The best I can tell you is that , if you haven't run a full scan of your drive, followed by a de-fragmentation, you probably need to do it sometime soon! There are a couple of places to find these tools, and it is important to note that you should do the scan first and the defragmentation after, so that any errors can be found first and corrected before the defragmantation process starts.
My personal PC was 9% fragmentated, and it still tried to tell me it wasn't necessary! I have one last thing to mention, this process will tie up the PC for a little while, and longer if it really needed to be done!!!
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What's new !
There have been a number of companies that are offering "cheap" internet access now, and many are looking for a commitment of 3 months to a year for the price break they offer. What this amounts to is a realization on their part that there is an "Exodus" going on right now from phoneline based access to cable based access, and it is only going to keep on going at this time. The high speed of ISP's like "Roadrunner" and the fact that the phoneline isn't tied up all the time you are online is a powerful argument for going with cable, and the possibility that it may cost you "by the minute" for telephone usage online in the near future(thanks to the FCC) doesn't help the phoneline ISPs any.
There have been a lot of "virus" scares lately, and I myself was party to a false rumor just this past month. Here is a URL that one of the members gave me for a website that can help you confirm or refute any "virus-related" questions you may have.
http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/index.html
I have also received a bunch of links lately for interesting sites on the internet (thanks folks, keep them coming) and I'll be adding the ones I liked best to the website within the next couple days! In the meantime, you might find this one useful with valentines day coming up soon!!!
https://www.angelfire.com/biz/WLAW/cupid.html?
One last note. We have added a couple new members to the group, but I have noticed that some members aren't making the meetings like the once did!! We need all of you folks there with your questions and ideas to keep the Group moving forward toward the future. It's only one day a month, and a Wednesday at that. Try to make the meetings, and bring your questions with you! You may be very pleasantly surprised at what you learn! If you have a friend who is a PC user, and might like to join, bring them along too ! The more the merrier!!! Thanks!!!!!
The Editor
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