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Feature Presentation for the June general meeting
Bill Marchant - Disable the Write-behind Cache
General Information
A word of thanks to guest speakers
Newsletter Information
Meeting Schedule for the year
The introduction topics will be Bill Marchant on an item of interest on Windows and Rob MacCara who
will look after the Q&A secession . On the road, been away from home,
then our feature presentation is for you, 'Checking your e-mail while
traveling' by Dave Potter. A word of thanks to all who have helped
in the 98/99 meetings and we at HAPCC look forward to seeing you in
the 99/00 season.
The HAPCC general meeting is on 4th Sunday of each month. The
next general meeting will be May 30th meeting time 7:00 - 9:00
pm. For this month we have official approval to use the
classroom facilities at CFB Halifax (Stad) for our regular
meetings. New Place! Building S-37 room B18.
Go in the main gates of Stad on Gottigen street and either stop
and ask the fellow in the gate house for directions or: Proceed
straight through the gates and down the little hill and keep going
straight till you come to a stop sign. Go past the stop sign and down
the little hill and turn right at the bottom of the hill. The long
building facing the soccer field is Numbered S-37 and the sign out
front says that it is the home of the Naval Engineering School.
You've reached the right place. Find a parking spot and go in the far
set of doors (South doors) - Go Straight in the building and down the
stairs to the next level and turn right. The classroom we'll be using
is B18 and it's right next to the stairwell. The new facilities
boasts a room with 25 computers as well as a projection system that
we can use. See you all there at the next meeting!
In this issue
Summer is probably here. The Thunder and lightning season (such as it is in nova Scotia) is
about to begin. Loss of data due to power failures caused by lightning is more likely during the
next few months than it was during the past few months.
Most people assume that a surge protector will prevent damage to their computer, and possibly it
will. (But refer to Rob MacCara's discussion of several meetings ago on this subject.) Surge
protectors can also become toast in the process of protecting, but although the hardware may
escape unscathed, if the power goes OFF, the data that you were inputting at the time may be
lost.
One way to help protect against data loss is to disable the 'write-behind' cache. 'The WHAT?'
You ask.
Windows 9x uses a caching system which can speed up operations whenever writing data to a
disk is required. When you save data, instead of immediately taking CPU cycles from your other
processes to do the disk access, the system writes the data to a cache in memory. Then it waits
for a pause in activity. When the pause occurs, (usually only a few milliseconds later), the disk
is accessed, and the data transferred to disk. By thus evening out the demand for CPU cycles,
the whole computer becomes more efficient and gives the impression of running faster. If,
however, during the wait for CPU time, the lightning bolt strikes, your data still in memory will
be lost.
During a lightning storm, the safest action is to shut down your computer and wait it out. But
this may not be practical in all cases. You can shut off the write-behind cache, and force your
computer to 'Do it now' when you save data to disk. Do the following:
You will have to re-start windows before the selection becomes effective.
With this option selected, you will sacrifice some efficiency, so you will probably want to
unselect the option when the lightning danger passes.
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.
Dates for the meetings starting in September are based on the
LAST Sunday in each month. Note that this is a change from
previously, when we met on the fourth Sunday.
September 26, October 31, November 28, January 9, January 30, February 27, March 26, April 30, May 28, June 25.
Note: There is no meeting in December. Remember also, we are now
using the LAST SUNDAY of the month, except for the exceptions as noted above.
Any changes to the scheduled dates will be announced where possible at the regular monthly meetings
and/or in this newsletter.
