January 2008 Issue

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Ken's Chat

I am sorry that I had to miss the December meeting. I had been suffering from a bad cold that seemed to affect my whole body and I am still not free of it to this day.

I had prepared the usual Christmas banquet, (2 packets of mince pies) and I am sure that it was a big disappointment for members to have missed out on such festive activities.

On a more serious note we all owe a big debt of gratitude to Bryan Coleman. Bryan telephoned me one day to tell me that there had been a huge rise in the rental charge for the computer room at Cantell. We did the arithmetic and calculated that we could only carry on for about six months without a big increase in subscriptions. We both agreed that we do not offer much these days and members are left mostly to chat and help each other at club meetings. A big increase in subscriptions was not acceptable for what we offer and we decided to put the matter to members with a possibility of winding up the club. The new person in charge of the bookings said that we had been undercharged for some time and in addition VAT should have been charged which it hadn't been.

Later, Bryan telephoned me to say that he had been in touch with Cantell and had re-negotiated the rental and in fact come up with a deal that may even be a bit better than the one that we have had for some time so the club can continue for the foreseeable future and with the same subscription rates and meeting fees. Well done Bryan and thanks.

I am a person that thrives on work, particularly where a challenge is involved. I have done very little for the past two months but I have been able to help my son Barry a little with his business. Barry is an author, publisher and watercolour artist. Barry asked me if I would produce an order form for the greetings cards that he publishes. A simple enough job that I had done before but it was some years ago and I had lost the file. The basis of the form I use is a spreadsheet. There are two columns for the card title and two boxes each side for the order quantity and a tick for when the order is being got together.

My first job is to list the heading and footing and then to type in two columns for the title of the card. All simple enough. I then delete spreadsheet lines leaving the two boxes against each line of card titles. A very quick job one would think. Wrong, at least in my case. My first problem was that the line above one row of boxes although shown on the screen, did not print. I deleted the line, saved the file re-booted my computer and switched off the printer. After starting the computer and printer again and bringing up the file, I put in the line that was now missing but again it did not print. If there is an explanation for this, I don't know it. I messed about for hours trying to find a solution but whatever I did, the line (although shown on the screen) would not print. Everything else was perfect. In exasperation I saved the file again, printed the form and pencilled in the missing line. It was no great deal as the form was to be photo copied any way. The next day my son called to collect the form and I told him about the problem. Barry does not know a great deal about computers so I demonstrated the problem again by printing another copy. Would you believe it, this time the line printed perfectly but some of the other lines had converted to dotted lines. How this could happen between the times of saving the file, switching off the computer and switching on the next day is a mystery to me. Any ideas? I replaced the dotted lines with normal lines and the program accepted this. I saved the file and printed again and all was well. That was yesterday. I am frightened to bring the file up again as heaven knows what I might find.

Members will be tired of me keep mentioning my collection of records and CD's. I don't listen to them a lot but over the past 50 years I have collected Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra tracks. I have had much enjoyment from this task and it has been with great satisfaction and no little sense of achievement that I managed to track down and acquire a title that I had been looking for - sometimes for years. It has been frustrating at times but that has been the challenge and the basis of my hobby - but no more! My young granddaughter has shown me how to locate and download any track of any artist that I am missing. Another hobby ruined.