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WNCC Meeting Minutes
April 8, 2002 Meeting
Held Monday 4/10 in the GC/WN branch library meeting room 9:30 AM start. The 35 members in attendance were called to order by President John Wychoff and the minutes of the the March meeting were accepted as published on the clubs web site.Three of the clubs SIG's will meet at their regular date day & time in April. The exception is the fundamentals group that will meet Tuesday 4/23 at 9:30AM. Lesson is "Care of your Computer" with Clem Thoennes, for a head start read the lesson material on the clubs web page/link.
News: The club is officially sponsored by the Georgetown Library which enables us to reserve the meeting room in advance and other benefits such as regular use of the their equipment. Also a computer users group in Georgetown has disbanded. Our club has extended an invitation to any and all of their members to join WNCC. A possible conflict for some of their members because they met in the PM.
Todays agenda, a general Q&A on any computer related subject. Club Member
Al Dunham made a presentation on computer virus protection and computer hacking ( reading
your hard drive) His remarks are summerized. Initial targets were commercial and
government systems. With the widespread use of personal PC's everyone is a potential
target for both problems caused by malicious people with nothing better to do.
Virus protection software is provided by Norton & McAfee. Purchase and installation
($29.95 is a good price-Sam's Club or order direct from either company) provides a years
protection. Annual update is $4.95, you are notified automatically about a renewal. Virus
planted in your machine, have to be online for it to happen. Spread from one PC to another
as E-mail attachments.
A. as
an executable file(exe)
B.
From someone you know
C.
Routine browsing of the internet.
D.
File sharing from the same disk
AOL offers no virus protection as a browser & ISP. Minumize AOL screen as a browser, use AOL as an ISP only. Use Internet Explorer or Netscape as a browser, those browsers works well with Norton Anti Virus protection. A floppy disk or home made CD can contain a virus. If you run it your PC the hard drive can pick up the virus. How to protect yourself, don't open E-mail attachments from an unknown source--delete it. Don't assume anti virus works well without your input--need the annual update. Failure to update can result in lost data and ultimately damage to your computer. Also, the Windows operating system offers security updates--95,98 & XP. Upper left hand corner Windows start menu--open updates.
Hacking is best prevented by downloading a firewall such as Zone Alarm. The
basic version (Zone Alarm.com)
is FREE. Check for home use when you download. Lots of different options read and follow
the instructions. Web site offered by a club member that offers tools for testing
viruses & firewalls: WWW.GRC.com
Next months regular meeting: Monday May 13th.
Submitted 4/21 Skip Burnside
This page was last updated on
08/22/02