Specifications

3
SEMCO MEETINGS
Sunday,
September 11, 2005
Board Meeting 12:00pm
General Meeting 1:30pm
SIG-IBM Meeting 1:45pm
Social Period 3:15pm
IBM Novice Group 3:45pm
SIG-IBM Intermediate 3:45pm
DEALS COLUMN
from the DealsGuy
Greater Orlando Computer UG
by Bob “The Cheapskate” Click
More On HD Warranties
In response to my comments about
misleading HD warranties, Ira Wilsker,
APCUG board member, sent me the
following: “The federal Magnunson-
Moss Warranty Improvement Act,
effective July 1, 1976, REQUIRES any
seller of an item that has a retail selling
price of $15 or more AND has a
warranty, to make a copy of that
warranty available on request PRIOR
to purchase! In the future, wherever
you buy items covered, ASK for the
warranty BEFORE you buy it. Under
the law the seller MUST let you see a
copy prior to any purchase. Look at the
FTC web site: <http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/
conline/pubs/buspubs/warranty.htm
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/
conline/pubs/buspubs/warranty.htm>”
Thanks Ira. I don’t know if my readers
in Canada have any protection like that
for consumers.
Interesting Show
My wife and I worked the Microsoft
Tech Ed show, and each attendee
received a nice carrying bag, but 1000
of them got a nice box of goodies that
included a compact USB four-port hub,
perhaps those who achieved a
certification, I never found out for sure.
There were 18,000 attendees, and the
exhibit floor had over 300 booths,
although most booths were not
elaborate. Food was in abundance
throughout the entire show for
attendees. I was told that each attendee
(or his/her employer) paid at least
$1,700 to attend. There were many
sessions using many different speakers,
and covering a diverse variety of topics,
during its six days. Steve Ballmer gave
the keynote speech. It was fun to work
this show.
I stopped at the booth for the new
MS spyware program that is
downloadable as a beta. I mentioned
that I was told it would stop working in
July and had not heard what would
happen after that. The lady said it
would continue to be free for home
users. I hope she knew what she was
talking about.
New Computer Project
I finally finished assembling the parts
to go with the Intel motherboard I won
at the FACUG event and got it up and
running. A real surprise for me was
when I accessed the Intel Web site for
information and found that motherboard
was already no longer supported.
However, there was a PDF containing a
manual for that motherboard, and it had
the answers I needed. A friend was a lot
of help over e-mail, since that was the
first time I had built one completely
from parts. There was a bit of frustration
when I tried to install the OS, but with
my friend’s suggestions, I eventually
found the problem, and it is now in
service and working well, so far. Due
to the price of the RDRAM that board
takes, I only used two memory slots,
and I’m glad my friend told me about
choosing the right RDRAM. I was