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Meeting Minutes

WNCC May Meeting Minutes

May 20, 2002

The meeting was called to order by John Wyckoff at 9:30 am. He asked if there were any changes to the April minutes. Since none were suggested, the minutes became final as is. He then reviewed the meeting schedules for the balance of this month and for June. The upcoming meeting are scheduled as follows:

All meeting schedules are maintained on our website http://wnccsc.tripod.com on the Meeting Information page.

At this months meeting, Bucky snider made a presentation and lead a discussion on maintaining your computer. Bucky started with a follow-up from the prior meeting. He presented a way to test virus software. The test works on both McAfee’s and Norton’s anti-virus software. Below are the directions for testing the anti-virus software:

Bucky showed various ways to access Windows Explorer, what the various views looked like and how to change the views. He also discussed the Recycle Bin.

He then went through the various programs available in Windows to maintain your computer. These programs are accessed from the start menu by: Start – Programs – Accessories – System Tools à

He showed how to organize, change the order of items, in the Program Menu and The Favorites Menu by clicking on the titles of the tables. He then demonstrated and discussed the maintenance programs:

Disk Clean-up – used to delete temporary, recycle bin, download files, etc. The option exists to select which categories you want to delete.

Back-up – It was suggested that your files be backed up prior to proceeding with the following maintenance programs. All data files should be backed up regularly anyway to protect against various hardware failures.

Scan Disk (Windows XP users see the note below) – Used to detect and keep the system from using bad sectors on the hard drive.

Shut down all running programs – It was suggested that all programs be shut down before proceeding with Defragmentation. On the keyboard, click CTRL-ALT_DEL simultaneously. This will bring up Windows Task Manager. Highlight the programs and click shut down. They will start again when you re-boot your computer. This must be done one program at a time. If this is not done, it could take De-Frag forever to complete its task. Change your screen saver to "none" and turn off your energy saver, if you are using it.

Disk Defragmenter – This program eliminates the spaces left on your disk from deleting files. It consolidates the remaining files. The result is that your computer will operate much more efficiently.

Regarding Surge Protection, Bucky suggests that the higher the price protector probably the better. However, he feels the only true way to protect your hardware is using an "Uninterruptible Power Source – UPS". This is a more expensive method, but probably the safest.

NOTE: On Windows XP, Scan Disk is found by selecting the drive to be scanned in Windows Explorer, going into properties, and selecting the TOOLS tab. Error Checking is Scan Disk. You can also get at Defragmentation and Backup the same way.

At next months meeting, Joe Mazzacappa will discuss FREEWARE!

Respectively submitted by;

John Wyckoff

This page was last updated on 08/22/02