A question from Frank Schick about cleaning up scratch files remaining from an unsuccessful mail merge led to a discussion of using the Find command to search by date, thus identifying the latest files on one's hard disk, or seeking the file extension mrg, popular in mail merge routines.

Why does it take so long to boot up some computers? One member had been told that boot-up time was directly proportional to the number of icons on one's desktop. This, however, is only a minor indication, since most desktop icons are likely to be shortcuts (identified by the little arrow on them) and do not actually run any programs until you click them. Ralph showed how to check for programs that were automatically started by Windows. The more of them there are, the longer the boot up will take. Under Windows 98, choose Run from the Startup menu, enter MSCONFIG, and then hit the Startup tab to see what Windows is automatically loading during its boot-up process. You can uncheck those items you don't wish to load (although it is probably a good idea to know what you are doing!).

Members then discussed the frequency of Windows crashes, anecdotally comparing the tendencies of versions 95 versus 98. No one present was yet using Windows 2000, which, it should be noted, is actually a new version of Windows NT rather than of 98.

Other topics reviewed were utilities programs (Norton was more popular than McAfee), services that provide free email addresses, browser cache sizes, and search engines (Ralph demonstrated DogPile, which accesses multiple search engines on the user's behalf; WebCrawler and Ask Jeeves were also discussed).

The meeting ended with a drawing for the door prize, which went to Frank Schick. Participants were reminded that the July meeting will be one day late, on a Thursday, because of room availability. President Dave Eden will send an email reminder to everyone on the Davis chapter contact list.