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The HAPCC general meeting is on 4th Sunday of each month. The next general meeting will be Jan 31st.
Meeting time 7:00 - 9:00pm. The HAPCC has a meeting place at: Maritime Museum of the Atlantic 1675 Lower Water Street ,
Halifax, NS.
Parking available in the nearby Government parking lot or in the Museum parking lot. Access to the building is via
the Night Entrance Doors, located just to the right of the regular front doors. If door is locked, use the bell on
upper left side of the Night Entrance Doors.
The meeting room is on the second floor and has a theatre type of layout. Washrooms are located close by.
Elevator service is available. Coffee served.
Andrew Cornwall will be demonstrating TripMaker at the January meeting. Andrew and his wife, Nancy,used this
program last year to plan and carry out a 6 week,13,000 Km, RV trip. At the meeting Andrew is also prepared
to relate his experiences with recreational vehicle 'computing on the road'.
If you are planning a long trip by road then there are a lot of questions you must answer: what is the best
route, how long will it take, what is there to see along the way, where will you stay while travelling?
The answer to your trip planning nightmares might be solved by running a trip navigation program on your computer.
A program such as Rand McNally's "TripMaker" will lay out the optimum route given your destination,
desired stops along the way, and travelling preferences. Further, TripMaker provides information on things
to see and can suggest where to lodge. If you have a laptop computer and GPS (global positioning system) device,
TripMaker can tell you (almost) exactly where you are while en route.
Bill Marchant - Backup, Then and Now
A word of thanks to guest speakers and the their web suites
Newsletter Information
Meeting Schedule for the year
THEN:
The "then" of this essay is not very long ago. In the days of DOS, and even for some time after windows
became popular, backing up consisted of making floppy disk copies of our data using the DOS commands "Copy",
"Xcopy" or (shudder) "Backup". Anyone who tried to use the DOS Backup command will remember why
Copy and Xcopy were used.
We made copies of our data. There was no need to make copies of the operating system or the applications,
because both of these things could be easily reinstalled from the original floppies, and none of them were really
very large. A total restoration after a hard disk failure took at most an hour or two; with everything back in
place.
This presupposed of course, that a proper data backup had been made. I remember at least one occasion when I was
helping computer users in a former workplace. After a hard disk crash and replacement I restored DOS and the
applications to the new hard disk. "Now let me have your backup disks." I said. "Backup disks?"
she replied.OH DEAR!!!
SOME BACKUP THOUGHTS:
It needs to be remembered most forcibly that the principal value of a computer in a business setting is not the
cost of the machine, it is the cost of reproducing the lost data. If a secretary, for example spends four hours
a day entering data into a data base, the value of the data, at a bare minimum and aside from any other considerations
of its worth, is equal to the cost of the secretaries wages. This gets to be a sizeable amount of money in no time at
all. And then there is the value of being able to use the data to further the interests of the employer.
The required frequency of backup will depend on how much time an organization or an individual is prepared to spend
to recover lost information. This will vary from none, as with a bank's money machine; to it doesn't matter,as with a
home computer which is merely a toy. The result is that banks instantly make multi-copies of all transactions,and
many home computer users take no backup action at all.
NOW:
Computers, especially the operating systems and the applications have become much more complicated. If you want to be
able to completely recover from a hard disk failure, or similar catastrophe, then backing up from Win 9x is a large
problem. Not only do you have to save copies of your data,but you also need the Windows Registry, and you probably
will want the current status of many of your applications. Remember,if you have customized any of your applications
for things like date format, or whether Quattro Pro moves to the next cell on entry, and you reinstall from the original
disks, then you have to reset all your favourite features. Other add-ons which you may have downloaded from the net
will also have to be found and re-installed.
A problem I have, and many of you may too, is that I don't even remember most of my favourite features until I want
to use them again, and I find that very annoying. I may not even remember some add-ons, and wonder why my program
no longer works in the way it used to do.
The Operating system is huge. Tens, if not hundreds of mega-bytes of disk space are used up. The applications are
even more huge. The data generated by your applications is generally a small fraction of your hard disk space
although this is tending to change with more users getting involved with scanners and the pictorial file formats they
require.
The result of attempting to save all this from corruption is either expensive or slow. And in some cases it is both.
The answer to the total backup is usually something expensive, like a total tape backup system, or a second computer,
or a hard disk RAID system. Even with these,there is the problem of getting the backed up stuff back onto your
computer. How, for example, do you tell a tape to restore the system to a wiped out disk when the tape control
program is on the backed up copy on the tape? Another problem with tape, is the amount of time it takes to do a backup.
RAID and a second computer would be faster, but even more costly than tape.
HOWEVER, if you are content to backup only your data, and leave the rest of the system to chance, there is still a
simple way of doing it.
Some windows fans will be shocked to learn that using DOS batch files is an answer. You can write a batch file and
execute it from the START | RUN box, or you can put an icon on your desk top.
Lets assume that there are several places where you save the data you generate. C:\My files is the default place for
data generated by WordPerfect Suite 8. I have a second hard disk in my machine which contains a logical disk drive
G:, which I use for backups. This is handy for me, because if my main disk fails I can still get my data from my
second disk. But there is merit in backing up to another location even on the same disk. I will backup the
C:\Myfiles stuff to a folder called G:\Myfiles.
To write the batch file, go to the DOS window. You will find the DOS prompt showing that you are in the
"C:\Windows>" folder. (In DOS, these were called sub-directories, but folders is an easier
word to type.)
Type the command "CD COMMAND"(Leave out the quotation marks.) The prompt will now say"
C:\windows\command>". Use the command "DIR/p" to get a list of files. You will see that Xcopy and
xcopy32 are two of the programs. Edit is also there.
Type the command "EDITBACKUPMYFILES.BAT" (Leave out the quotes, and Yes, you can use long file names.)
In the DOS editor type the following line:XCOPY32 C:\Myfiles G:\Myfiles /M
The /M switch causes XCOPY32 to copy only those files with the Archive bit set. It then turns the Archivebit off.
Thus files that have not been changed since the last backup will not be copied. I used XCOPY32 rather than XCOPY
because it is more capable.
Save the file and exit the Editor. Exit also from the DOS window. Using the Windows Explorer you will find your new
.BAT file in C:Windows\Command. Make a shortcut for the file, and move it to your desktop.
You can execute the batch file by clicking the shortcut. If all goes well, a DOS window will open, the files being
copied will be listed, and when it is done the window will stay open for you to read what has happened. Close the
DOS window and examine G:\Myfiles with the explorer. The files you copied should all be there.
I made another .BAT file called BACKUPMAIL.BAT . The line in the file says: XCOPY32"C:\Program Files\Netscape
\Users\Default\Mail\*.*"G:\Mail /M
Note that in this case I used Quotation marks around "C:\Prog....\*.*". The reason for this is because
the folder Program Files has a space in its name. If the quotes are not there, an error will be reported and the
file will not run. Save this file as before, and make an icon as before. Run the file to test it.
You can repeat this procedure for any number of files in any number of locations. You could put all the lines in a
single batch file, but if you keep them separate you are free use the ones you want and leave the others alone.
You could also make a Batch file to run them all.
Make a batch file called RUNALL.BAT
Put the following lines in it: BACKUPMYFILES
BACKUPMAIL
Save the file,
make a shortcut for it and run to test it.
If you use these files as necessary before shutting down your computer.
You will have the assurance of a second copy of anything you have saved.
Didn't anyone ever tell you that Beta is Latin for "it doesn't work yet?"
Chairperson David Potter
Vice-Chair Bill Marchant
Treasurer Rob MacCara
Web Librarian Thayne MacLean
Newsletter Editor Diane Smith
Membership Promotion Pat Conen
and the following members who assist in planning our monthly
meetings: Norman DeForest, Henry Hill, Ken Gilmour,and Colin Stuart.
The HAPCC has two kinds of
meetings. Firstly the regular Sunday night meeting which most
members attend regularly, secondly the monthly (approximately)
planning meeting which organizes the business of the Club,
including what happens on the Sundays. The planning meeting is
held on Monday, a week after the regular meeting in which all
members of the Club are urged to attend. At the planning meeting,
we discuss feature speakers for regular meetings, finances,
membership, training, and other computer related subjects.
....Bill Marchant
A word of thanks to guest speakers and the their web suites.
Our guest speaker at the March meeting was
Mr. David Baxter, Product Specialist at MT&T for the
MpoweredPc service. His multi-media presentation showed us how
far the service has come, and in which direction it is heading.
MpoweredPc was being officially launched on April 7, 1998 and it
promises to be a serious contender in the high-speed
internet/software on demand arena. More info can be found here:
Mpowered
Once again, thank you to MT&T and David Baxter.
Our guest speaker in February, 1998 was Sgt. Bill
Cowper, Internet Communications Officer of the Halifax Regional
Municipality Police Department. He gave a history of how and when
the police department started using the Internet. They were the
first police department in Canada to be on the Internet. Sgt.
Cowper is continually receiving calls from all over the world
looking for assistance. The presentation showed how well the
department and the officers in the patrol cars are versed on
getting the criminals off the streets. If you would like to
check-out their web site the address is:
Halifax
Regional Police Service gives an
idea of what an "Internet Cybercop" is all about.
In this issue
Newsletter Articles.... We are almost
always in need of good articles. If anyone has something that
they feel would make a good article, an interesting story to
tell, or even a good meeting topic, please don't hesitate to pass
it on. Articles can be submitted in almost any format, ASCII
text, AMI Pro, MS Word, Windows Write, WordStar and of course
WordPerfect.
The news letter is mailed to all
paid up members and to anyone who has attended a meeting within
the past three months. Yearly membership dues are $15.00.
Club Mailing Address -
P.O. Box 29008, Halifax N.S., B3L 4T8.
In this issue
We decide the meeting dates for the upcoming year at the last planning meeting of the season. The dates for
these are listed below. As in previous years, the December meeting is moved to the early part of January due to
Christmas Eve being near the fourth Sunday of the month.
The planning meetings are normally held on the second Monday (8 days) after the general meeting. They are currently
held at a members home and the address is announced at the meeting prior to the planning meeting. Anyone is welcome
to assist in the planning of future meetings or events. Meeting dates for the 1998/99 season:
Jan-31 Feb-28 Mar-28 Apr-25 May-24 June-27
Any changes to the scheduled dates will be announced where possible at the regular monthly meetings and/or in this newsletter.
