NWA-PCUG Newsletter Article
October 2001 Meeting Recap
by Dale Oliver, President, November 2001
d_oliver@swbell.net
(click to email author)


October's Q&A session was another good learning experience for all in attendance. Thanks to all of you who attended and participated. What a great forum! For those of you who did not get to attend, we were on such a roll that we ended up forgoing the round table discussions and continued with the general Q&A. Several groups broke off into special topics of discussion. All in all, it was another excellent meeting.

One thread of discussion that invariably comes up during the Q&A sessions relates to backing up hard drive files. Bob Brake from the local Gateway Country store did a good job of discussing backups from a high level perspective at the August meeting. For a refresher, check out the follow- up article on our club Web site (http://pcgroup.nwark.com/pres--91.htm). Bob discussed some basic considerations and strategies relating to backups, but I still get numerous questions about the finer details of how to actually perform backups. Because of the repeated questions, I will poll the club officers at our next board meeting about having more detailed presentations on the how-to of hard drive backups.

Speaking of having hard drive files scattered about...Grant Wales brought up an interesting question, which he later e-mailed more details about. At previous club meetings we have talked about Internet Explorer's Temporary Internet Files directory. This is where HTML files, Java script files, images, cookies, and all sorts of things are copied from Internet sites and deposited onto your hard drive in order to speed up subsequent visits to Web sites. This is referred to as a "cache." We have also talked about how quickly this can load up your hard drive. How would you feel knowing that there are actually two copies of the Temporary Internet Files folder on your hard drive? If you want to see for yourself, browse the \Windows\Local Settings\ folder. This is a "mirror" of the \Windows\Temporary Internet Files\ folder contents. Little wonder that deleting temporary Internet files from your hard drive can free many megabytes of disk space. Paul Zurr pointed out that your first visit to a Web site after deleting your temporary Internet files will cause the site to load slower than you're used to, but subsequent visits will load much more quickly.

Remember that if you want to search for any subject that has been in our newsletters, simply go to our club's home page (http://pcgroup.nwark.com) and scroll to the bottom of the page. Type in the keyword or phrase you're looking for into the Google Search window, and it will show you a listing of all the articles that contain that word or phrase. It's GREAT!

On the subject of our club's leadership, David Hinds-truly one of our finest-has graciously agreed to be considered as our club's vice president for next year. If you've been in the club long enough, you will recall that David very capably served in the capacity of vice president, and then president of our club in the mid-90's. As you know, he is currently chairman of the New User's Roundtable discussion forum. The club will also be taking nominations from the floor during the November meeting, but just remember that you may only nominate someone who knows of your intentions in advance and agrees to be considered for the position. All other officers have graciously agreed to continue in their current capacity. Please, at the next meeting, give these fine people a pat on the back or a handshake and express your appreciation for a job well done. The club definitely would not continue without their ongoing efforts.

I hope you will make every effort to attend November's meeting. Remember that THE NOVEMBER MEETING WILL BE THE LAST MEETING OF THE YEAR. We will not be meeting in December. We will have a special festive holiday meeting with refreshments and possibly free drawings for great Christmas presents. To top that off, we will be discussing a very important topic in today's world...virus control. Be sure to bring a friend and attend this one! It will likely be the liveliest meeting of the year. See you there!

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