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Your
subscription is now due, the rates for this year are £15.00
for full membership and £5.00 for associate members. Derek
will be on hand at the meeting to collect your subscription. This
is the last newsletter you will receive if you have not renewed
your subscription.
Last Month….
Was
an open house evening where we attempted to solve or clear up
any computer problems that members may have had. In the past,
these evenings have proved to be very successful and the last
meeting was no exception.
Peter
Simpson had been plagued with the lack of a visual or audible
warning on his laptop when the battery was getting low. Peter
runs a version of Vista and had been unable to locate the alarm
area. Peter had brought the computer along so we were able to
have a look into his settings. In the Control Panel under Power
Settings we found that the low battery setting was set to hibernate.
This was reset to do nothing and the alarm was initiated at the
correct % level.
Keith
Allen came along with a number of problems that he had been experiencing
recently. His first issue was how to reorder his address book
in Microsoft Outlook. In the past he has been able to list his
contacts by either surname or first name. This appears not to
work in the latest version of Outlook that he is using. Nobody
around the table had experienced this issue. In the drop down
menus of Outlook we delved into Options and then Contact Options
and found Name Switching. We were unable to try this on the night
and Keith was going to have a look to see if it solved the issue.
Keith’s
second issue seemed to be a bit more of a problem. His Email inbox
appeared to be empty and he had lost some key emails. This one
is a bit of a mystery and one suggestion was that maybe the scroll
bar had been set at the bottom of the screen and hidden the emails
above. Unlikely, but worth a check. A situation like this could
also be down to the service provider – a difficult problem
to solve. I hope Keith has found those missing emails and lets
us all know the answer.
There
followed a general discussion about the value of cookies and whether
to keep or delete. The providers would have you believe that cookies
actually speed up website access and improve the users overall
experience. Much press has been made regarding the use of cookies
to evaluate a person’s internet activity and in theory targeting
the user with information that would be of interest to them –
sounds like an excuse to bombard you with even more spam. It also
sounds like an opportunity for Big Brother to get involved. Whatever
happened to privacy laws!!!!!!
Alan
offered us a website www.grc.com which we have visited in the
past. He explained that there is lot information available about
cookies, their uses and more importantly how to block and remove
them. Well worth a look. I regularly clear them out and have never
experienced any issues because they were not there.
Another
good evening which I hope members enjoyed and hopefully some of
those computer niggles have been cleared up.
Dave
Robb
25
Years Old
Over
the last couple of months we have had discussions about how we
should celebrate our 25th anniversary. At the last meeting it
was agreed we should arrange a meal at the Bowls club at a date
to be confirmed.
It
has been suggested that we should arrange the meal for a date
early in September. We will confirm the date as soon as possible
and publish the menu when we have confirmed what options are available
to us.
2009 photographic Competition
This year we will again be holding our photographic competition
in December. The topics for this years competition are listed
below.
Recreation
People
Landscape/Seascape
Street
Life
Melton
Buildings
Flora
& Fauna
Yahoo to shut down GeoCities
Yahoo
has announced that it is to close its GeoCities service later
this year.
The web-hosting site, which offers free to low-cost hosting accounts,
was bought by Yahoo back in 1998.
Despite a deluge of similar sites hitting the web since then,
and a significant drop in cost to host a website, GeoCities managed
to attract around 177 million visitors in 2008.
Although
the website is closing, Yahoo is asking users to migrate to its
other free service 'Yahoo! Web Hosting'. Yahoo insists that website
information will be safe until the summer but does mention that
it will update users on how to "save your site data"
before the impending switch-off.
Many PCs not patched against Conficker
Many
PCs are still not being updated to deal with the infamous Conficker
worm, according to security experts.
According to the data, more than 10 per cent of people have failed
to install the Microsoft M08-067 patch.
It is reccomended that computer users install this patch as soon
as possible.
The
patch been available since last October, there's also been so
many reports on the potential consequences of failing to patch.
This is pretty depressing news.
It is thought that 10 percent of all PCs around the world aren't
running the Microsoft patch, but it certainly tells a sorry story.
It appears that the percentage of computers not patched against
the exploit used by Conficker is holding steady.
Windows 7 gets RC and mid-summer release?
Although
nothing's ever official with Microsoft until we get the word from
Redmond, it does finally look like we know when Windows 7 will
be ready to save the world.
It
is rumoured that 5 May will be the RC date but that is still not
confirmed, Microsoft has admitted OEM partners like Dell already
have their copies, so all the pieces seem to be falling into place.
Microsoft will be hoping the Windows 7 release goes well and persuades
shoppers that the much-derided Windows Vista was nothing more
than a blip.
Future Topics
At
last weeks committee meeting we discussed what we have got planned
for future meetings. We have enough topics for the foreseeable
future but we really need your help with some suggestions beyond
that.
We
cannot promise to cover all topics but if we have some preparation
time then we will see what we can do. If you have an area of expertise
you could always put together a short presentation yourself .
BT takes over Wi-Fi hotspots in Starbucks
BT
and Starbucks are joining forces to offer the coffee shop's customers
free Wi-Fi in its outlets.
The
retail giant has offered free Wi-Fi access in its stores since
2003, but it was previously provided by T-Mobile. However, BT
confirmed that it has taken over the deal. It said it will begin
installing its service in stores this week, and plans to roll
out the service to all 650 UK stores by the end of the summer.
The
spokes person for BT Openzone said: "Starbucks is the perfect
place to work or catch up over email. Use of our Wi-Fi doubled
last year and coffee shops are increasingly popular as a third
place [after home and the office] to work or log on to the internet.
We're constantly looking to boost the choice of places to connect
- where people want it. The location of Starbucks stores in the
high street and travel hubs is helping to extend the reach of
Wi-Fi to customers."
Contact Details
If
you have changed your contact details recently then please let
us know as soon as possible
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