We were much depleted this week with only nine members attending. Owen was facilitating as David was away on a break.
In lieu of meeting notes from last time, we moved swiftly on to a round-screen chat.
Sianed reported that she now had a new iPad (9th generation) to replace her old one which was now no longer receiving updates and therefore not of much use for her online activities.
She had also updated per PC to Windows 11 but found it to be running more slowly, with a noticeably longer boot-time. Jim chipped in to say that his upgraded PC was actually running better under Windows 11 and recommended that Sianed implement any updates and see if that helped.
Paul related a prospective battle with TalkTalk over increased charges an we had a discussion of just how they arrived at both increases and the figures upon which they were actually based. A new branch of mathematics perhaps…
Jim is still pursuing the perfect image catalogue without any duplicates…
Ralph was interested in our discussion but felt unable to contribute at this time.
Don had downloaded Norton Anti Virus as it came packaged with his BT broadband offering. He had had some issues with browser extensions but felt he was now OK. He had also implemented a password manager.
Jim referred us to an article which said basically what has been raised before, that Windows Defender was adequate and that paid-for anti-virus should not be necessary on top of it… but as Don said, it was free to him at present.
We also discussed the efforts Don was undertaking in making grant applications for his church, which involved considerable downloading, loading into Word, editing and re-uploading. He was also waiting for a new iPhone and planned to use it for the Signal group.
Mario found his latest monthly meeting Zooming plagued by screen freeze and on investigation had discovered very poor connection speeds for downloads. We queried the age of his router and Paul suggested a battle with TalkTalk to see if upgrading was feasible for him.
John talked about his iPhone photography and also that he was experiencing startup issues with his Dell PC. He is considering Windows 11 as well and was referred to the Microsoft site for the PC Health Check software.
Fred has speed issues too and was interested in the discussions that had preceded him.
Owen demonstrated the current state of the web redevelopment project using WordPress.
We closed at around 3pm with Owen indicating that next time (28th April) Ted Richards would be leading on the use of ancestry software.
Not one, but two images from our last Zoom meeting which took place 4 weeks ago – can you believe it. This must be a record for the delay in preparing notes, but we have had a social meeting at the Castle in between, and I have had a few other things on which I know you’d excuse me for – if I was to list them!!!
So let’s go backwards, first, so-to-speak. It was great to see a few of you in the cafe at The Castle, and especially good to see Ralph, who I do hope manages to join us on Zoom from now on. The staff in the cafe were very obliging allowing us to move inside when rain threatened, and even helped us move a couple of tables so that we were all in the same place. So, a successful meeting, and one we’ll repeat … promise!
Now we’ll go forwards, next, so-to-speak. I won’t be around to facilitate the next meeting due on April 14th as we’re having a family holiday in the Forest of Dean that week, but I think that Owen has agreed to cover that one. However, looking further ahead it’s looking increasingly likely that we’re going to jet off to Australia in late April – just because we can (now Covid rules have been relaxed) and because our son over there has said come now because who knows what will happen later in the year. So although we were (and still are) planning to go in November for Christmas, we’re going to do a quick dash for a couple of weeks to see our family over there who we haven’t seen since May 2018 – that’s a long time. So although we haven’t booked our flights yet it looks increasingly likely that I won’t be able to facilitate a meeting possibly on April 28th, definitely May 12th and then May 26th (when we will have returned, but are committed to a trip to the North East for a family homecoming). So we/you need to discuss what we should do about meetings. After that, no plans that clash with Group dates until the end of July – and I hope to keep it that way.
Finally let’s go back, properly to March 3rd and our Zoom meeting on that date.
Owen reported that the work on the new WordPress site for Cardiff u3a was progressing, and I offered advice, or assistance, if required.
Don had bought a dual USB-A wall-charger for £20 (you can never have enough of them, but it’s the missing pesky cables that get me). He had found a solution to a problem he had with sharing with his iPad on YouTube – always the first port of call I find.
Margaret told us about the latest NHS scam; advised us that she’d come across some free WordPress webinars and tips; had discovered a voice-to-text facility/app called “otter”. She also told us that she found that you could turn on live captions in many applications from the device settings. Ted asked whether you could capture text from live-capture; he advised us that he’d found that when the volume was switched on the only capture recorded was from the device, not the stream.
Ted had now got fibre broadband from BT – initial results were looking favourable.
Steve was still evaluating password managers, but thought that he might plump for an open source offering – Bitwarden. It will be interesting to see his decision – as he has done quite a lot of investigation. He also told us that Immobilise (a database linked to an app to record household possessions, etc) was also used by Neighbourhood Watch and the Police.
Renee commented on WiFi extenders. She’d had good experience of using them. We then had a discussion of the merits of Proprietary WiFi Booster systems vs. Extenders vs Mesh vs Powerline. All have their place and merits.
John had been having iPhone problems. Hopefully he’d got some way to resolving some of the problems, especially with email, and receiving it on his new phone. We did advise he to go back to JLP for assistance in getting things set up the way he wanted them.
Christine told us about a Facebook scam that had nearly trapped her, but she’d exited quickly without any apparent harm.
Ann had been having problems with opening Gmail accounts. She’d also cause to speak to Sky customer service, they were unable to help as she was out of contract. She’d been suffering a poor signal on WiFi, had deployed a WiFi analyser and had then found she needed to configure the Router as she had found that using the 2.4Ghz bandwidth was better for greater distances, and the 5Ghz was better for shorter distance and gave greater throughput. [We probably could do a revision session on Routers; always a good topic and sensible to re-visit.]
Fred commented upon a NHS notification – that’s all my notes tell me, so apologies for lack of detail!
Paul told us about a saga he’d had recently with Virgin Money and an ISA account that they’d moved to another provider that he then couldn’t access. The problem seems to have something to do with Vodafone(???) [Renee had experienced the same] – the Ombudsman had taken a year to reply. [Don had also had a problem but had managed to get £50 compensation as a complainant.] The problem seems to be connected to some building societies not being in the “transfer scheme”.
David told us about his new internet bandwidth speeds obtained from Sky Superfast 35 – I smiled at the download/upload speeds of 23Mbps / 9Mbps and 30Mbps / 9Mbps but they are certainly better that the 11Mbps / 1Mbps he’d been experiencing before. He is now going to check the cost matches up to performance. He updated us on the question of EV charging points – a survey is going to be done 4th April. Christine suggested that he should make sure that FastCharge was being provided.
Did I say anything? No idea – it was probably not worth recording anyway. However Jim has posted an article on his EXIF data project which I encourage you to go and read.
When I first started taking digital photos, seventeen years ago, I kept a written record of the subject of each shot, the date and time it was taken, and the exposure details. When the photography group started, seven years ago, I began to take many more photos, and it became too much of a chore to keep records. I also realised that the technical info was stored with each image anyway, in the ‘Details’ section of the ‘Properties’, otherwise known as the EXIF data, (Exchangeable Image File). However that meant that I no longer had any information about the subjects. (I’m talking about Windows, but Apple computers must have something very similar. I can’t see an equivalent with Android though.)
As I have mentioned in the meetings, it occurred to me recently that I could actually add that info to the EXIF data. There are five headings I can add text to. From the top they are Tags, Title, Authors, Comments, and Subject. The upshot is that I have been able to throw away (so far) about 120 pages of my original records, covering about 4,000 images.
One other thing. My camera records information about some of the settings I have used which doesn’t appear in the EXIF data, possibly because it is specific to Panasonic Lumix cameras. Things like the mode (P, A, S, or M), HDR, and highlight and shadow settings. I now use the Comments heading to record that info.
Incidentally I store the images in folders just numbered consecutively. I don’t need to have folders labelled by subject, for instance, as I can create virtual folders on the fly using ‘search’.
I’m not as good as David at explaining things face to face, but I hope you can now see why I am so keen on the idea, and wanted to share it.
No photo of attendees this time as Jim presented his apologies as he was attending a re-scheduled and re-arranged Poetry and Prose group. I will need to find a “deputy” for those meetings he can’t attend, or alternatively Owen perhaps could prompt me to take a shot myself 🙂 I also had apologies from Ted and John who were not able to make the meeting.
We started with a quick review of the last meeting. Renee had downloaded Trello, and was going to look at using it, as was Jenny – who hadn’t yet had time to download it. Thanks Steve for the presentation again. I’m looking for more offers but during the meeting Stella told us about MapQuest which certainly is worth a look. I believe I’ve got it on my phone, but I also have Strava, PlotaRoute and Walkmeter, for walking – none of which I use to much I’m afraid to say.
I mentioned that I’d seen an item on the Welsh News on the “disappearance of copper from Ceredigion” – a reference to the PSTN switch-off and move to digital. I also mentioned that I’d move the post under Jenny‘s authorship to the public Thought grazing site where I will try and keep news up-to-date as the project proceeds. I also referred to Jenny‘s article in the Magazine (Page 81 she tells us).
Then we had a reference to Sianed‘s article on Printing Digital Photographs – which I found very interesting and which left me wondering how and why they do it for free! Finally I welcomed Jim‘s amplification as a Comment under the Notes on what he’d described at the last meeting in reference to deleting items from trash on external hard disks. I asked everyone to look at my notes and correct them in a similar way. Thanks.
I then reviewed a more interesting set of News which I’d sent to the Flipboard Magazine. I encourage you all to take a look occasionally.
We then went round my screen – I’m just picking up those that contributed in this part of the meeting.
David Hughes told us about his travails in negotiating anew contract with Sky, which ended with an upgrade to his Broadband speed from early March without an increase in cost. S0mething others (including me) commented on with VirginMedia and TalkTalk as well. He then told us about an interesting issue/problem the residents of his apartment block were facing – how to get EV charging points in shared landlord-owned buildings. He referenced this website which provided some guidance, and he’d been in touch with someone from Pontyclun who had some knowledge of installing EV-points in similar situations. Someone mentioned that there might be a WiFi solution that linked back to your apartment. Definitely a case of “watch-this-space”. He then finished with a mention of his grand-daughter’s website that worked perfectly on his phone and web browser, but not his iPad. After a bit of scrabbling about, I advised that he need to tell her to investigate Responsive web design technologies – this is often a feature of themes in WordPress for instance.
Owen advised us that his wife was recovering well after the shock of a hospital admittance at the time of the previous meeting. He had progressed with his investigations of using WordPress for the Cardiff u3a website, was re-visiting his knowledge/use of PHP as a programming language and had come across a piece of software called LocalWP that allowed website developers to build a fully-blown WordPress website on a local machine without need for hosting. I offered when he wanted to trial a hosted site that I could provide a sub-domain on my hosted account for testing purposes. This environment might be of interest to Ted and Philip as well as me. I saw the possibility of archiving all my sites onto a machine for posterity!!!! [Or at least my family’s attention]
Paul had been “hit” by a scam suggesting he invest in Anti-virus software – that didn’t go too far!!! He then advised us that within the browser-version of Gmail, you could click on the three dots above a message and Report it as a Scam. This could be very useful to members. In similar vein (but later) Don told us he’d used the Print function under the “three dots” to print an email out, rather than get a screenshot with sidebars added.
Steve updated us on his “negotiations” with TalkTalk which had also led to the cancellation of his NowTV. He had also spent sometime looking at LastPass.
Stella was beaming!!! She’d purchased a replacement 2-in-1 machine from eBay but it had come without being cleaned-off and she found out she would need to re-set it back to Factory Settings. This she had done successfully and she thanked members of the group for giving here the confidence to attempt it herself. She then did the same thing to an older machine. It took longer but she was impressed at how easy it had been to do the task just by watching a YouTube video. Well done Stella.
Renee had a conundrum which hadn’t been resolved by Apple. The number of photos on her phone and laptop didn’t coincide. This was disturbing because sjhe wanted to move the photos off her phone and through the laptop to an external hard disk. I said I’d had a similar experience recently but couldn’t for the life of me remember what I’d done to resolve the problem – but I had. I said I’d try to get the little grey cells working a bit better and let her know if they came back with anything of any use!!!
Don told us he’d been reading a Customer Satisfaction report from Which? on Broadband suppliers. He noted that some of our members would not be that impressed by some of the suppliers (no names, no pack drill). He’d also come across a definition of phishing and had been amazed by the different flavours and terms used.
Christine had also been talking to their broadband supplier (VirginMedia) and had been advised to change their mobile contract (part of the package) to O2 – which were partners of VM to get a better deal – you can’t make up these stories can you! She had also pulled-out of a Lloyds Bank scam when it asked her for the “number on the back of the card” – no, that’s not right!!!!
Ann reported that she’d solved the camera on her Lenovo not working. She inadvertently must have toggled the F8 key on the machine which is a “privacy feature” to switch-off the camera. Glad that one’s been resolved.
Fred reported that he’d been puzzled by a GreenCard Travel email that would appear to be a scam. Something to look out for now that we were all perhaps looking to start driving abroad again.
We then had a discussion on the LastPass video which Sianed thought had been quite good. Several questions were asked and I attempted to answer them as best I could. Some of these I answered subsequently (mainly on subscription costs) on Signal. I refer everyone to their website which has a quite good set of FAQs.
Lastly we went round the screen again to find out if anyone had used, or discovered, useful speech-to-text applications. Owen reported that he’d discovered the wonders of CarPlay on their new car. Messages went from the iPhone to appear as text on the screen of what we used to call the SatNav – but it’s far more now. Paul told us he used the microphone in Text, WhatsApp and Signal (and Notes and Word, etc) to prepare messages, which were surprisingly accurate. I tried to do a demonstration, but failed – I must do some revision on how you can switch to share an iPhone screen over Zoom. That was not the case for Sianed. She found the speech-to-text failed miserable with a Welsh accent. Ann agreed. I suggested they try speaking in Welsh as there might well be a more accurate result. It will be interesting to see. Steve on the other hand was more interested in text-to-speech and he’d been looking at Speechify, but it was costly. I investigated other options and sent a message to Signal. Renee had tackled Siri – she’d meant to do that for some time and found it acceptable, and did arithmetic well!! She also advised Steve to have a look at text-to-speech on Safari – one for me to check out as well. That plus Reader View is making Safari my browser of choice at the moment. Finally, Don had been trying out talking to Google (using the Google Assistant) – we must have another go at this really useful tool again.
Most people now use digital photographs on our phones/tablets/laptops. But If you still like to have some printed (at a reasonable price) there are apps available which you can download onto your smart phone. – “FreePrints” (also a similar deal with the PhotoBox app and the Snapfish app)
They work by downloading the app and set up a free account with them – the app is free from the Google Play Store on an Android phone or the App Store on an iPhone.
You can choose up to 45 (or 50, depending on the app) standard-sized photos to print each month. The prints themselves are free you just pay for the postage. The FreePrints app postage is roughly between £1.49 and £3.99 depending on the number of prints ordered in a month. Exact postage costs will vary a bit from app to app.
There’s no subscription, so there is no need to order every month. The small downside is, that if your free photo allowance for one month is not used, you can’t carry it over to the next month. These apps are useful if you like to order a small number of prints regularly, rather than a load in one go.
If you’ve saved up a big batch of photos to get printed all at once, maybe stored on your computer or a service like Google Photos, it may be worth looking at deals on websites like Snapfish, Photobox or Boots Photos (there are others too). They’ll often have free photo deals for new customers, or give you free postage if you spend over a certain amount with them. They usually charge around 10p per print.
Both the apps and these websites are also handy for other photo products to put on your wall – poster-sized prints, canvases, mugs, T-shirts, calendars. Prices vary quite a bit between the different websites.
This article will record the progress of the planned switch-off of the analogue PSTN (public switched telephone network) by 2025, and its implications to all of our generation, as Openreach moves to implement a fully digital service. The issue was brought to the attention of the Cardiff u3a Computer Group by Jenny Sims, a group member, who has a number of roles including being Chair of the National Pensioners Convention (NPC) Digital Working party and an NPC Executive Member.
It’s an article that will change over the next few months and years, so please look back for updates and further information as we become aware of issues, problems and hopefully solutions.
What implications might this have for older people?
Digital services are not universally good across rural areas
There will need to be a solution to the issue of digital services requiring power – what happens if there’s a break in power supply, this has been highlighted recently after the storms brought down power lines in Scotland and NE England
Cell telephony doesn’t provide a 100% coverage as a backup to digital services
What implications might this have for people with certain disabilities?
It’s been reported to us that certain people with visual problems have been experiencing difficulties in the Salisbury pilot area with the withdrawal of the 1471 service, with call-back not working, and with needing to install a new phone number
A video showing the opportunities and issues for Telecare
Here’s a link to the Progress Openreach has reported by January 2022. Much of this is very technical, so some of the following information might be more readable.
Here’s a briefing from BT on the project; and an update on what’s happening in Wales forwarded to Jenny in her role sitting on the National Pensioners Convention. Which? have also published a briefing on the subject which I encourage you all to look at.
Jenny has also written the article below, which will hopefully appear in the latest Cardiff u3a magazine …
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Ring, ring: Ready for the big ‘phone switchover?
Only three years until 2025 when all telephone providers will do the big “switchover” moving landline customers from the country’s traditional telephone network to digital technologies and analogue services are finally shut down.
Though BT published a timescale back in 2019, many older people’s organisations have expressed concern that the public have not been given enough information about the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) moving to Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP), what it really means and how it could adversely affect older and vulnerable people.
Among them is the National Pensioners Convention (NPC), which represents 1.5 million members in Wales, England and Northern Ireland.
Among the big questions is what happens if there’s a break in power supplies and people need to access emergency services – because the new system will run off broadband – and handsets will have to be plugged into an electricity socket.
Providers say solutions will be found – which will include the provision of emergency battery-powered backups for phones and routers.
This scenario became a reality last November when Storm Arwen hit the UK, causing widespread power outages and left 9,000 homes without power for more than a week.
Jan Shortt, NPC General Secretary did interviews with Talk Radio and other stations, and heard from affected listeners.
She said: “They raised the issue of not being able to charge mobile phones and other devices and therefore not able to summon help. It is clear that the majority of the population had not heard of the digital switch.”
In January Ofcom held an online public meeting to give an update on the “switchover” rollout throughout the UK and provide an opportunity to ask questions.
Jeff Richards, an NPC Wales executive member and a retired Swansea BT engineer, attended. He said: “Unfortunately they did not answer any questions that I raised regarding vulnerable customers nor anything on power supply. I felt that my questions were merely swatted away.”
BT have agreed to meet the NPC to address their concerns – which include, who will pay for the battery packs (some around £160) – the customer or provider?
Virgin Media has already promised that vulnerable customers with “accessibility needs or don’t have a mobile phone” will be given an emergency backup line at no extra cost.
Unsurprisingly, customers in various areas have reported teething problems as the system is being rolled out. For example, people in the Salisbury pilot area with visual problems have experienced difficulties with the withdrawal of the 1471 service and the need to get new phone numbers.
Hopefully, in the three years left of the rollout, teething problems will have been sorted. But be prepared: only an estimated 1.5million out of 29million landlines have so far been converted – and one day those old phones will stop ringing!
Quick out of the blocks today – probably as I don’t have so much to write given the excellent contributions from Steve, Phil, Ted and Jenny. I had to do very little; I didn’t even have time to do anything on LastPass – but more about that later.
We started off by reviewing the Notes from the last meeting (finished only about an hour previously – many apologies). Fred noted that the Institute of Government have a series of podcasts which are free and worth listening too, and after the meeting Phil offered a list of a number of podcasts that he often listened to … Dan Snow’s History Hit; The Battersea Poltergeist (spooky); Mark Steele What the F #### is going on (bit sweary but hilarious); and Aaron Mahnke’s Cabinet of Curiosities.
We then launched into a demonstration of Trello, a piece of work organisation software based on Japanese Kanban principles. It seeks to help you manage small projects, and other aspects of your life. Steve guided us through its basic principles and offered to provide assistance if anyone wanted help in using it. We then went on to hear about Phil Edwards’ experience of using Google Sites to build a website with the useful additional piece of information that Google will provide a domain name (eg thoughtgrazing.org) for c.£10pa. This is not out of line with the pricing of other domain name registries. Phil showed and told us about the family history website he’d just finished called Rum and Gunpowder, I encourage you to go and give it a look, and Phil would like feedback on it as well. Then Ted who’d written a post for this site, talked about the Virtual Travels he was doing, I urge you to have a look at the inventive activities he and his wife have recently started. Finally Jenny gave us a short updarte on the article she’d written for the Cardiff u3a Magazine, which should appear in the digital version at least. I’ve added it to the post I wrote on the Analog to Digital switchover and will now transfer it across to the “public”Thought grazing site.
That was a great start to the meeting and the individual contributions were somewhat limited due to time. Please excuse me for not mentioning your name if you didn’t contribute in this section.
Jenny reported that her freebie (except the cost of a lunch) monitor was not working and she might have to ask for help at the next meeting.
Steve had of course been working on Trello and we thank him again for his demonstration.
Jim continues to work on adding information to the EXIF data in his photographs; currently he’s been labelling works of art that he has photographs of – adding titles and locations. He also raised an issue of whether instructing the deletion of material from external hard drives had to be done separately from that of internal drives. I didn’t know the answer for Windows/Chromebook machines, but thought in the MacOS world, although the recycle bins, or trash, were separate they were all cleaned out as long as the disks were attached to the computer at the time the instruction to delete was raised.
David Hughes raised the interesting point (that we’ll add to the webpage that Jenny and I have setup on the “PSTN switchover”) that some Households in rural areas don’t have a mobile signal, so that in the case of a power cut they would have no means of raising the emergency services. This was the case in point just recently in NE Scotland after the storms that brought down the power lines. Apparently this was raised as an issue in a recent episode of RipOff Britain too.
Renee picked-up on a point I’d earlier raised about the NHS Portal. This was something new that Cardiff and Vale Trust is using to record their Correspondence with you as well as your Appointments. Here’s a link that tells you more about it. We had quite a few discussions relating to health at the meeting. There was general agreement that not all GP Surgeries were the same; not all practices used the MyHealth Online Portal – in fact one had stopped using it as it was deemed to be “unfair” during the pandemic to not have the same “vanilla”service for all patients. Duh!; that not all health boards were working the same way; that the eConsult service was generally “a good thing” and often allowed access to your GP (usually over the phone) in much less than the 48hrs promised; and that finally telephone and video consultations were definitely “a good thing” to have come out of the pandemic.
Margaret reported that her TalkTalk service had gone down and that after switching off all devices and having found that made no difference , the service came back the next day. It was frustrating. A lot of work is being done by OpenReach currently in North Cardiff and they really should communicate to their (and associated service users) customers when ourtages are likely to happen.
Stella told us about a really alarming episode involving Alexa which had suggested as a challenge that an 11yr old girl should short-circuit a plug inserted in a socket. Here’s a link that tells you more about this shocking episode.
Ted informed us that he’d recently come across an app that transcribed speech to text called Speechnotes. This is a very interesting idea and it raises the possibility that all group members should examine the apps they use and see whether there is an inbuilt speech-to-text facility that they might use. A challenge for next time then – all group members to investigate the possibility of using speech-to-text on their smartphones and report back for the next meeting. He also mentioned there was a facility built-into the Chrome browser to provide Live Captioning. This is how you do it …
Open Google Chrome Click on the dots on top right hand side then: Settings Advanced Accessibility Toggle on Live Caption (it will probably only work for windows you have open in that Google Chrome session)
Paul reported (with glea) that his road was now fully fibre. He also showed us a multi-connect SD-Card Reader that could plug into USB-C, USB-A and mini-USB sockets. He also told us he’d now got a much more sophisticated Dashcam which even had a parking mode, and which could transmit recordings using WiFi to the house. He offered to do a presentation, an offer that was gladly accepted.
Don noted that he had to re-format his SD-Cards for DashCam and wildlife cameras to avoid corruption. I reported that I always re-formatted cards on the external device as it was just as easy to do that as delete them in the computer.
Fred suggested that we meet in person, a couple of other members also expressed that wish. I explained my thoughts and feelings on the subject and told the group that I’d been in contact with Nonn (the Groups Liaison Officer) and had suggested that a suitable venue with WiFi was still required before we could start regularly to meet in person. However the Group felt it would be “a good idea” to have a social meet (perhaps in the Castle) sometime soon. I agreed to plan for this in the near future.
Sianed advised us of our Consumer Rights under the 2015 Act, and that this over-rides the expiry of a Warranty if you can demonstrate it to be unreasonable for a device to be not working in an out of warranty period which was deemed to be reasonable. You might need to have expert opinion to press home your case to the retailer.
So … homework for next time.
Please (if you’re interested) watch this LastPass video and then we can have a discussion about issues, questions, etc at the next meeting.
Look at the applications you use on your smart devices (in particular) and see which of them a) have speech-to-text provided, and b) which ones you think you might find useful. [This is in addition to all the AI speech facilities such as Alexa, Siri and Google Assistant.]
We received apologies from Ann, Margaret, Jenny ( who arrived later) and Don.
I asked if anyone would be willing to share their favourite app with the group bu way of a demonstration. Steve offered to do something with Trello – a work organisation application, and I asked Ted whether he’d be willing to do something on Ancestry. Steve also asked me whether I’d do something on LastPass – so I said that I’d do that as a return favour for his offer which we agreed he’d do at the next meeting.
I then did a demonstration of flickr and will write an article up on what I’ve found out in doing the preparation for it! This will be on my Just thoughts blog in due course!
Owen reported that he’d been working on ways to move the Cardiff u3a website over to WordPress, in conjunction with some other local groups which were doing the same, and away from the SiteBuilder software he’d been using to date. They all needed to find a way to get it to work with the Beacon membership system, but there was a problem that there was no api (application programming interface) for Beacon that would allow easy import/export of information between the two systems. As a first step a read-only access api would be valuable and would allow the two to be linked together. Owen was now learning how to use WordPress, and I offered to provide help if required.
Mike has discovered the the iPlayer app on his desktop which he is very happy with. Steve suggested he looks into the Sounds app as well. I queried whether people listened to Podcasts much – quite a few members did.
David Hughes recommended the Sounds app and podcasts and said he’d just recently been listening to one from a family member – Jon Ronson – I for one, will try and catch-up on this!. We then started a discussion on David’s IT-phobic friend who lived in the Marina and somehow was receiving more than one incoming call on two handsets – that’s different calls!. It appears his son had purchased broadband and OpenTReach had installed a landline and a router. His landline is now digital (see Jenny’s article) and it appears he can use two handsets off the broadband landline for incoming calls. Renee reported problems with interceptions, and conversations being repeated on her landline. VirginMedia engineers had replaced the the handset to a broadband connected router. Maybe (she suggested) David’s friend had a legacy connected analog line? Owen offered the information that you could buy two-line cordless phones, but they did have separate numbers. [In later conversations on Signal it was mooted whether it was possible to put n answer machine on one of the lines, or not.] I can see us returning to this one.
Sianed advised us of a scam asking a user by TEXT to update their PayPal account. Watch out for that one.
Paul reported that Amazon and Visa had come to an arrangement so that Visa Credit cards could be used with Amazon. Good news. He also recommended All 4 as another possibility for streamed TV. I mentioned BritBox as another source of good binging boxset TV.
Steve had started using LastPass and wondered whether I could do something on using it, and was also looking at Flickr. He reported that he wouldn’t have problems with Chrome updates as the renewal date was 1st March. [I think this note needs reviewing.]
Ted was off to Rwanda. I won’t say more, just read his wonderful blog post on this site, and go look at his website for more information. He had us all in stitches describing his challenges with getting Banana Beer and doubts as to whether his payment using PayPal had been a scam because of links to a sister company offering him handbags and selling chilli paste. The mind boggles, or at least mine did!
Jim was transferring information from photos that went back to the early 2000’s into a Comment field in the EXIF data held on the photos. He also reported the problems that American airlines were having with 5G and their altimeters s they approached airports. The switch-on had been delayed until problems were resolved. Apparently 5G in the US is on a higher frequency than in the UK and transmits more power. Whether the problem is in the airports, or the planes is uncertain.
John reported that Flickr was working well. He’d uploaded lots of p[hotos of clouds and created a few albums of them too!
Christine was now a happy Real Bridge user. All her difficulties had been resolved [insert solution here as note not clear] She, like others, had been finding the process for getting a digital Covid Pass from the NHS website, more than challenging and was now printing off a paper version.
Renee had solved the problem with her landline; she said she was receiving emails from Royal Mail re. tracking deliveries that she was uncertain about. We suggested that they be best ignored.
Ann had updated her Zoom software. She had looked at her Firewall settings and chose to view blocking and now video not showing in Zoom. It was suggested that she look at her firewall settings and review Allow/Deny options. Jim suggested looking at the choices with Zoom itself that might be causing the problem. Owen suggested looking at another app that uses the camera to see if the problem was replicated.
Jenny (having managed to make the meeting after an earlier appointment) wondered whether she should get a replacement battery for her laptop – depends on whether she thinks £100-£140 is a good investment and whether she can do the replacement herself – perhaps get a view from Neil (our helpful IT fixit man!) and also said tht her external monitor was not working as well as she’d hoped.
I’m a man who likes to set myself a challenge. About 40 years ago I set myself the challenge of walking around the entire coastline of England and Wales. It took me 20 years to complete but I did it. Then I set of walking up all the mountains and 15 years later I finished that list. At about the same time I set off trying to find a pint of Guinness in all 52 European Capital cities. Fortunately I completed that challenge in 2019, just before Covid hit.
Completing my European Capital City Challenge in Dublin in 2019
Ever since then people have been asking me what my next challenge is. I kept saying I hadn’t got one as yet but I was beginning to feel under pressure to think of one. And this is what I have come up with – the Armchair Travel Challenge.
Travelling at the present time is itself a bit of a challenge. Plus there are other factors to consider such as advancing age, cost and the environment. So I thought do I need to travel? Why not do it virtually. There’s a lot I can do from home to take in the atmosphere of a destination such as the food and drink and music. It would also have the advantage that I wouldn’t get robbed, lost or fall ill with and exotic disease.
There are around 197 countries in the world. If I were to spend about a month in each that should take me about 16 years. I like the random nature I approached the Guinness challenge where my next destination was picked out of a hat by the person pouring me the Guinness in the previous destination. In this challenge I would use a random number generator to pick the next country.
So far my list of things to do in each country includes:
Try to eat and drink something typical of that country, either in a restaurant or making it at home.
Read something of the history, culture, politics, news etc.
Read something by a local author (or a book set in that country).
Read a travel book or travel blog based in that country
Listen to some of their music.
Watch a film made in that country.
Make a clock in the shape of that country (that sounds weird I know but believe it or not I used to make clocks in the shapes of different countries)
Try to meet someone from that country (and maybe give them a clock!)
Sporting – follow the football or cricket team or some other sporting event.
Go on some ‘virtual trips’ within that country – using my vivid imagination.
Railways – I especially like train travel so a ‘virtual’ rail trip would be good.
Highest point – anther ‘virtual’ trip – to climb the highest mountain in that country.
Geocaching – solve a puzzle cache in that country. That’s another fairly specialist one, but geocaching is a hobby of mine and they can be found all around the world.
Stamps – purchase some stamps from that country
Charity – find a way of helping someone out in that country in some small way
I’m wondering what you, my U3A friends, would if you tried to travel to a country ‘virtually’?
Progress to date
We started in mid-November and have so far spent a month in Burkina Faso and a month in Libya. This month we are in Rwanda (the random number generator seems to like Africa!)
We met up with someone from Libya but are still trying to find someone in Cardiff from Burkina Faso and Rwanda. If anyone in U3A can help put us in touch with someone from either of those countries then please let us know.
Remember lessons learnt form the U3A Computer Group
So what’s this got to do with the U3A Computer Group? Well, last week I tried to order some Rwandan banana beer from a website, U&I Drinks. I forgot some of the basic advice we had spoken about at some of our previous meetings, manly is the website genuine? It looked genuine but the beer hasn’t arrived as yet. What I forgot to do was to search to see if there were reviews of that company online, positive or negative. Going back now and doing a search I can’t find any independent reviews. The thing which raised my suspicions was that as soon as I placed my order I received 3 emails back, an order confirmation, a PayPal confirmation and an e-mail from a USA tracking company implying my luxury handbag was on its way! I’ll keep you all updated as to whether I receive some banana beer, a luxury handbag or nothing.
