This
Month’s Topic
Nokia E90
Future
Meetings
Below is a list of dates the for 2008, these dates have been confirmed.
February 13th
March 12th
April 9th
May 7th
June 4th
July 2nd
August 20th
September 17th
October 15th
November 12th
December 10th
Last
Month….
Melton
Computer Club
Minutes of Annual General Meeting 16th January 2008
Meeting started at 7.40pm.
Apologies
received from Derek Kerr and Ben Barretto
Minutes
of 24th January 2007 were approved as a true record of the meeting.
Matters
Arising
No Matters arising from the above minutes.
Chair’s
Report
Larry opened his report by expressing what he felt had been an
excellent year of meetings and presentations. He thanked all those
who had contributed to the meetings for their support and the
committee for their efforts to ensure we had an interesting and
varied programme. He was particularly interested in the new technology
that had been introduced over the last year and it was pleasing
to see some of it demonstrated at the meetings.
Secretary’s
Report
Our programme for 2007 hopefully had something for everyone. The
committee tried to ensure as much variety as possible. From Linux
in the early part of the year to the Vista experience towards
the end. A particular favourite of mine was Steve Orrell’s
Media centre demonstration. Peter Simpson’s evening on Genealogy
was another well attended evening including some guests. I would
also like to mention the evening on Store Layout Design with Barry
Gilchrist. My thanks go to all those who let us have the benefit
of their knowledge and experiences. We had our annual Photographic
competition in December and again produced a very high standard
of entry. Not as many entries this year as previous but still
enough for a good presentation. Hopefully next year we can see
a lot more entries. I am sure there are many good photos hiding
out there, so let us all admire them. Finally another excellent
Christmas Meal which was again, well attended. Our thanks go to
Ben for organising it all for us. The programme for 2008 is currently
being put together with about a third of the year planned so far.
New ideas are welcome as are members willing to share their knowledge
with the rest of us. Please contact the committee members with
your ideas and suggestions.
Treasurer’s
Report
The finance statement shows a small profit of £6.01 on the
previous year and assuming the membership remains stable, funds
are adequate. However, Derek did point out that we were not in
a position to cover any largish expenditure such as a new projector
bulb. There will be an increase in postage in the near future
which also has to be borne. The committee had discussed this matter
and considered it prudent to suggest a small increase in club
subscriptions which has remained stable for a number of years.
Members discussed this matter and the general feeling was that
an electronic version would save us a considerable expenditure
outlay per annum. Derek felt that whatever way the newsletter
was produced it had to be no more labour intensive than the present
version. Some ideas were suggested and not all members were agreed
that this was the best way forward. Members were requested to
consider the options and their viability. The committee also agreed
to look into the matter.
8. Elections
The
following members were elected:
Chair
– Larry Larsen
Proposed:
Derek Taylor
Seconded: Geoff Walsh
Secretary
– Dave Robb
Proposed:
Larry Larsen
Seconded: David Arkell
Cttee
Members –
Re-elected
unanimously
Peter Simpson
Mike Taylor
Alan Danbury
9. Newsletter & Club Website
The club website continues to be a medium for the Electronic Newsletter.
Articles are sparse and usually originate from the Newsletter.
Chris Fox-Mapletoft requested any ideas and articles be sent to
him for inclusion.
The
newsletter continues to be well received. The discussion regarding
its medium was covered fairly extensively in the Treasurer’s
Report. Members felt that it was informative and a handy referral
to previous presentations. Most of the work creating it is carried
out by a minority of people and they could do with some support
with more articles. So please come forward to help us out.
10.
Feedback from 2006 topics and I deas for future topics
2006
had been well received by members present and they felt that the
presentations went well.
Topics for 2007 included
Linux
Free Software Evening
Multi Media Centre
Vista Experience
Gadgets & Toys
Hardware Evening
Store Layout Design
Ideas
for 2008 include
Music
Graphics
Problem Solving
Printers & Paper Evaluation
Video Editing
Ultimate Boot CD
Tuning Your PC
The
Bowls Club is having a broadband connection put into the building.
This should help expand our presentational horizons.
11. Any Other Business
None.
12. Meeting closed at 8.40 pm.
Whilst
browsing the internet recently I came across an article about
the forth coming change to IP addressing. It appears that things
are being put in place now for the change, all the master address
books for the internet are being updated with IP v6 addresses.
The IP in IPv6 stands for Internet Protocol and this is one of
the fundamental technologies that helps keep the global network
running.
Every computer connected to the internet has a unique IP address
which ensures that it can be found if it is requesting data or
sending it out.
Servers that host websites may have many IP addresses for the
different sites they hold.
For instance, the IPv4 address for a web site would look something
like this is 221.59.226.78. The address for an IPv6 could look
something like this abcd:ef01:2345:6789:ef01:2345:6789. Typing
the numbers into a browser address bar will get you to the same
place as typing the words. I think typing the numbers in for IPv6
will be more of a challenge.
Similarly, when you switch your home computer on and connect to
the internet it gets allocated an IP address so data you request,
such as a video stream, reaches the right machine.
IPv6 is the sixth version of the internet protocol. The current
version, IPv4, was defined long before the current boom in web
use which has meant that the pool of unique addresses is running
out. It is estimated that the pool of addresses is down to about
14% unallocated and this will run out by 2011. If something is
not done to resolve this possible problem we could find that everything
grinds to a halt.
How does IPv6 solve this problem?
It helps simply because it has a vastly larger pool of unique
addresses available. The main feature is that IPv6 is 128 bit
long and IPv4 is only 32 bits.
The upper limit of addresses possible with IPv4 is 4,294,967,296.
This seems a lot but, for a variety of reasons it is not. If you
consider everything that connects to the internet needs an address
then you can see why they are getting used up.
Just as phone numbers regularly need to expand to cope with growing
numbers of users so the net has to expand to cope with its growth.
IPv6 is the way that addresses get expanded.
How many addresses can IPv6 support?
The short answer is: lots. The long answer is: an unimaginably
huge amount.
It has been calculated that the IPv6 address space can handle
about 340 trillion, trillion, trillion addresses. That's enough
for every person on the planet to have millions of IP addresses
without any fear of that pool being exhausted.
What happens when IPv4 addresses run out?
The average user will not notice much difference. However, it
could put a brake on expansion of the web but already many technical
work-arounds are being used to overcome the shortage.
It could be possible to develop even more ad hoc fixes but IPv6
is preferable because it removes the need for these short-term
fixes and makes administration of large networks more straightforward.
Can I get an IPv6 address?
If you run your own website you can ask your hosting company about
them to see if you can get one for your site. Many net hosting
and domain firms are starting to offer them alongside IPv4 addresses.
If you own a PC running Vista or a Mac with OS/X installed then
you could already be using IPv6. Both operating systems can handle
IPv addresses and will use them if they are presented to them.
However, at the moment few sites have got an IPv6 address so that
ability of those operating systems may never have been called
upon.
What happened to IPv5?
Work was started on the protocol but it was going to be put to
very different uses to its forerunner. It was developed as a better
way to handle video, voice and distributed simulation over the
net and was known as the Internet Stream protocol.
Sadly, by the time it had proved its usefulness and won a formal
designation of IPv5 work was long advanced on what would become
IPv6 and a decision was taken to pursue that.
Microsoft
finishes Windows Vista SP1
Microsoft's Windows Product group has announced that Service Pack
1 for Vista is at the finished stage
Microsoft says it will begin to release the Service Pack in those
languages through Windows Update in mid-March. The reason for
the delay is that Microsoft wants to work with a few hardware
partners to sort out "an issue with a small set of device
drivers".
Initially SP1 will be delivered only to PCs without the affected
drivers installed - though you will be able to force an update
and reinstall any drivers that cause a problem. The pack will
be available as a single download from Microsoft's Download Center.
Service Pack 1 is a very important milestone because it addresses
many of the key issues that our customers have identified with
Windows Vista over the last year.
Microsoft say that SP1 makes great strides in "performance,
reliability and compatibility." Let's hope so, for (unpatched)
Vista does seem to struggle with the most unlikely tasks - file
copying for example. SP1-patched PC’s are said to be "faster
and more reliably" - up to 50 per cent faster in some "scenarios",
according to Microsoft's own tests. Recovery from sleep mode as
well as network file copying are specific issues dealt with by
the Service Pack.
Let's hope it's the same for all of us, too.
Fixed drivers to unlock SP1
So what will happen to those people with problematic drivers?
If a system that Windows Update determines has a driver known
to not update successfully it will not get SP1 automatically.
As updates for these drivers become available, they will be installed
automatically by Windows Update, which will unblock these systems
from getting Service Pack 1. The result is that more and more
systems will automatically get SP1, but only when Microsoft are
confident they will have a good experience."
78,000 devices and components are now supported for Vista by Windows
Update, up from about 34,000 in November 2006.
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