April 2005 Issue

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New Meeting Room

The new meeting room seems to be quite popular with members although these are few in number.

Thinking about the matter and of how we could get a few new members I thought "what do members get for their subscriptions". Well personally I have got and still do get an enormous amount from the club. In the first place members get the chance to meet and talk with others having the same interest. Although I have been computing for many years, during which I have learnt a great deal, there is still a lot that I don't know.

Because of my membership of the club I know that there is someone there to talk to if I need a little help. As an example, members will know that I am not very enthusiastic about the internet. It is not so much that I dislike it, more the fact that I am half frightened of it. A year ago I purchased a top of the range computer. The computer came with the internet installed but very little in the way of instructions. Anything I wanted to know I had to contact the supplier via the internet. Over a period my computer got slower and slower and I was also bombarded with advertisements.

Then messages started coming up about deleted files etc. when the computer had hardly been used, something that I never experience with my old Pentium 111. Some time ago Nigel gave a demonstration of several programs to help in eliminating the junk that appears daily. One such program was Ad-Aware that in a limited but quite workable version is free. The last time I checked there were about 20 junk emails which I deleted and then did not use the computer for a while. Starting the computer again after several weeks I discovered about 80 adverts on it. These were deleted but a couple that had been worrying me remained. Nigel suggested registering the program at a cost of under £20. After downloading the registered version of the program and installing it, the program reported 353 additional junk adverts. After deleting these the program will catch future ones before they get to me. The program is kept up to date as a registered copy.

Unfortunately one problem remains. Before I updated the program one advert had deleted a Windows file called bridge.dll and made several alterations to the registry. Searching the WEB again (after 'phoning Nigel) the answer was found in a page of the magazine "PC Answers" I guess I'll just have to get used to the internet.

Another Problem Settled

Members may recall that in June 2004 I purchased a new Canon 5000F scanner. The scanner was the "Best Buy" in the June edition of Digital Photo magazine. The scanner had a price tag of £179 but after two reductions in price I finally purchased one for £99. I have been extremely pleased with the scanner, that is until recently when it failed to work. I tried everything I could to get the scanner working, including reinstalling the software, without success. I called the Canon help line who suggested several things, most of which I had already tried but again without success.

In desperation, I returned the scanner to PC World from where I had purchased it. I was told that the scanner had been discontinued and that the remaining stock had been sold off for £30. An engineer tested the scanner and took nearly an hour to do it. I was told that they thought the scanner was all right but just needed updated drivers. I could not understand this as the scanner had worked perfectly well for nearly a year with the drivers supplied with it. Another quarter of an hour and I was informed that the scanner was indeed faulty. I was offered a new current model of the Canon scanner, which under the circumstances I thought was a very fair offer.

Full marks to PC World.