MATTERS ARISING FROM THE MEETING ON 29th SEPTEMBER
We had a total attendance of 24 people, another record for these sessions. I hope everybody found their time well spent, although I apologise for the session over-running.
One of the inevitable diversions was concerned with the situation where a person has dial-up accounts with more than one ISP, and the rules about sending and receiving mail. Most ISPs will allow you to collect your mail from your mail box even if you're connected through another provider. However, what they will NOT allow you to do is to send your mail through their server if you're connected using a different provider. If you are in a position where you need to swap and change ISPs on a regular basis, you're better off either using a Hotmail address or paying for an independent mail service such as Newsguy.
Another query was about the use of the telephone line. You do NOT need a special phone line to access the Internet. However, while you are on line using your (single) phone line, you can neither make nor receive a call. If this is of importance to you, you should consider getting either a second line or convert your existing line into joint analogue (voice) and RDSI (aka ISDN) for Internet.
After tea, we tried some excercised using the World Wide Web, and most of these went well with the inevitable small problems. For example, the giant millipede was only shown in 16 colours and the Alicante Airport web site wouldn't scroll properly. However, it was when we tried to download a copy of the "Free Agent" software that we had real problems. I had picked this program because it was required by one of those present. Unfortunately, http://download.cnet.com , the site I usually use, doesn't carry it. I don't know why. The other major freeware site, http://www.tucows.com does carry both it and its commercial cousin. We landed by going to the author's own site, http://www.forteinc.com, from which we were given a list of FTP servers to choose from. Several wouldn't work. I have investigated this and found the cause to be with the servers themselves. We did nothing wrong! I will be taking this up with Forte, as such errors would be disconcerting to a novice.
If you're still thirsting for more, I hope to see you on October 13th.