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Notes from Zoom meeting – 28th October 2021

The last shot of me in the loft!

Thanks Jim for the screenshot. One to treasure as I’ve now moved into new luxurious accommodation! The small front bedroom!

Apologies for the delay in posting these notes. I’ve been rather busy on multiple fronts. Hopefully things will begin to settle down now that holidays are out of the way, new Macs, new office setup, etc will become distant but pleasant memories.

We started the meeting reviewing the experience of the History Group’s Hybrid (face-to-face plus zoom) meeting. Generally felt that it worked reasonably well, and once the issue of microphones and cameras were resolved and the need for an external zoom admin added, the format could work well for presentation-style meetings. This raised the possibility of attempting similar meetings for this group, which we discussed and agreed to try after Christmas. The format to be trialled would be a monthly hybrid presentation meeting with a zoom meeting in between. Ann offered to help anyone after the first hybrid meeting try and join the zoom meeting afterwards. Paul offered some help as well, I believe.

Margaret had been experiencing frustration with TalkTalk (Tiscali) and as of the meeting her contract was not to her liking. This seems to be a perennial problem with broadband suppliers.

Owen had been struggling with Google’s changes to the way it enables publishing of Calendars to web pages, but thankfully this had now been resolved.

David had been caught in the gas/electricity supply problems and was now looking at Octopus as a possible supplier. He’d also been caught in the Tesco outage. Apparently that hack had cost the company £16m!! He’d also been engaged in trying to help an IT-scared person attempt to use new equipment. He also asked for advice on cataloging art material. Currently using Powerpoint, and after discussion we agreed that although a database would have been the most suitable platform, the number of records probably didn’t justify changing, or indeed using webpages – my suggestion (of course). Steve also mentioned using Imobilise as a possibility which was linked to insurance, but there might be a registration fee.

Paul quoted his TalkTalk experiences of late which meant that he would be moving to Fibre 150 for £28pm once OpenReach had installed a new socket and modem (£42). He also reported on a recent Gadget Shop programme that had reviewed Mesh systems ranging in cost from £100 to £350. The cheapest came out the best. TPLink was recommended.

Stella had been having problems with email with attachments, realising that she needed to change the message once she’d started it. Paul suggested right-clicking on the attachment to copy and paste it to a new message.

Sianed advised that booster jabs could now be sought by contacting CAVC on 02921841234.

John told us about his saga with using Trainline to book rail tickets and the scandalous £3.60 a minute phone charges he would have had to pay to get a refund on tickets. General advice from the group was to use a train-operating company rather than a ticketing company. So GWR, TfW or VirginRail are good alternatives.

Christine is trying to make their house eco-friendly had been switching things off. The surprising by-product had been that her Powernet devices seemed to work as they were supposed to. However she now felt that the problem with her and her husband playing bridge(?) in different rooms with other remote participants might be due to using the same email address. This she was going to investigate further.

Don told us that he had a TPLink system and that he was satisfied with it.He’d been trying out Alldup (advised by Jim) and had so far saved 28Gb of disk space. He was unsure of the interface and I suggested that he contact Jim offline for a chat. He also requested advice on a USB adaptor for different sized SD-cards. These would tend to be better than the micro-SD to SD-card convertors you usually get with the smaller format cards.

Jenny‘s mouse was broken! She’d had some discussions on Covid-Passports, and had been asked to give some advice to some journalists in Northern Ireland on the subject. We felt that it was up-to-them to investigate this as their local position was different to us in Wales.

All I have recorded for Ann is “booster letters” and “energy advice” – I’m afraid the “little grey cells” can’t translate that into a meaningful note!!

Jim reported that he’d learnt something about the way that Dropbox shared folders worked. The size of them was added to both the host and the users’ local storage allocation.

Steve added to the TalkTalk discussion. He was going to pay £27pm as opposed to Margaret’s £26pm. He was also looking at the possibility of getting a Chromebook as his PC was 8 years old and might be needing a rest!

I then went through the Flipboard articles I added highlighting Apple’s new machines, operating systems and the like; the controversy surrounding Facebook after the whistle-blower episode (still ongoing); and the proposal to block scam calls coming from overseas hiding behind UK mobile phone numbers.

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Notes from Zoom meeting – 14th October 2021

Thanks as ever to Jim for the screenshot and hoping the ones looking down are not actually asleep!

In David’s absence, we went straight to the round-table session.

Margaret had found a very useful site ‘Plotaroute.com’ which describes itself at an ‘Outdoor route Planner’. Margaret recommends it for journeys as well.

Mike sang TalkTalk’s praises after they spontaneously provided him with new routing equipment and an engineer to fit it on the day stated. Not only that, they reduced his monthly cost. Steve concurred about their quality of service but indicated that their prices need to be monitored and compared.

Stella and Sianed had no issues of which to speak but Steve came back in with a question about hybrid meetings. Owen explained that he had run a low-level meeting of the Writers 2 group with 4 attendees in the room and 2 on Zoom, which did seem to work well using a basic laptop, separate camera and separate microphone but that Wi-Fi quality appeared to be the critical factor.  The History Group was having a larger hybrid meeting on 27th in the City URC Sacristy so he would report back on 28th. The AGM was also being held there on 9th November.

[There is now a U3A Facebook Group for help with hybrid meetings “u3a: Let’s Talk Tech”]

Jim had no issues but Don had a question about Zoom recordings and how could he pass on the files (MP4) to others. Zoom recordings can be saved either in the cloud (Zoom itself) and shared from there or, if recorded locally, a couple of options were suggested: WeTransfer as mentioned a few meetings ago or possibly uploading to a private You Tube channel. The size of file precludes it form being sent as an email attachment.

Don also mentioned that he had an Amazon Firestick and as a result of using it, his remote control now did more than he had thought…

As Ann, David and Fred had no issues to raise, there was a brief discussion on Windows 11. Owen recommended obtaining the Microsoft PC Health Check software (an ‘.msi’ file) via a Google search and running that first. He had done so on his own PC and laptop and neither of them could take Windows 11. He shared screen images from the report. He did incidentally realise that his PC is now 7 years old!

The group generally concurred that this was the appropriate first step and no-one was too keen to upgrade as yet.

Owen then gave a (rather rushed) presentation on building a small business network and the meeting closed thereafter.

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Well I never – Gmail Archive

I’ve been “playing around” with my email accounts. I’ve decided to use my Apple iCloud account more as it makes a lot of sense as I organise emails by moving messages from Inbox/Sent mail into Mailbox folders setup on my iCloud – shared between my Apple devices.

It’s not difficult to forward messages from my Gmail account, just go into Gmail on a desktop/laptop (you can’t do this from the Gmail app on your mobile device) select Settings (the Gear wheel) and then Select All Settings, and then Forwarding and POP/IMAP …

… you can then set up a rule such as the one above.

You have a number of options of what you can do with the copy in your Gmail Inbox – as you won’t now be reading it from that spot – and I’ve chosen to Archive the copy …

But where is the archive?

The answer is that you have to scroll down to More on the left-hand side of the screen and select All Mail – and that’s where all the mail you’ve ever received resides.

Simples!

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Notes from Zoom meeting – 30th September 2021

Thanks Jim for the screenshot; I’m glad it’s just your internet connection that’s unstable! We had apologies from Mike, Jenny, Jonathan and Margaret. I’d forgotten to send out the calling notice until David Hughes reminded me – my apologies if that caused problems for anyone wanting to join. I caused problems for myself by trying to run the session from my laptop as I wanted to be near the front door to receive a parcel, but that caused a different set of self-inflicted problems as I started up the wrong Zoom session – The History Group to be precise – and wondered why no one was joining the meeting. Duh! Still, it caused some merriment at my expense and the meeting continued in a very light-hearted manner.

As suggested at the last meeting, I started with a description of what Google Drive for Desktop replacing Back up and Sync means for users of Google Drive on Desktops or Laptops. It has very little impact upon the use of Google Photos on Mobile devices which still has a Backup and Sync option. The slides from the presentation are available here to download as a Powerpoint presentation to play offline – with active links; or to read/download as a clickable PDF file.

We then reviewed the notes from the last meeting. We noted that the issue of Margaret‘s Modem/external drives/computer being switched-off would need to be followed-up at the next meeting. We were pleased to see that Jonathan had been able to get away on holiday to Cornwall, despite his Covid-scare reported at the last meeting. We were even more pleased (and impressed) to hear that he’d solved his McAfee Popup situation – something I’d managed to add to the last meeting’s notes. Steve had looked at the link to change YouTube videos to MP3’s but hadn’t tried it yet. Ann had solved her Printer and SkyQ Modem issue with acknowledged assistance from Owen – she offered to write what she did up as a Comment to these notes.

I suggested I leave the review of news (Flipboard) to the end of the meeting.

Sianed had been troubled by a popup when accessing Gmail that she was being asked whether she wanted to grant access by Google to her accounts. I was of the opinion that this was normal Windows security (now) and that she could probably switch off the prompting from with in Windows (somewhere).

This “problem” enabled me to raise the issue that I felt I was not doing the best for the group in not being able to answer Windows “issues”, or attempt to “solve” Windows “problems”. During the meetings Owen and Paul were doing a sterling job of trying to provide answers, but I felt it would be useful if someone in the Group could take the “Windows brief”. After a brief discussion, I sort of persuaded Paul to take on that role. Many thanks.

Jim reported that he was continuing with his work in adding to the metadata stored with his digital photos. Some of it was recorded in the EXIF data of the photo, but some was not – being camera specific. He offered (and I accepted gladly) the offer for him to write-up what he’d discovered. I added that a similar situation occurred in the world of Adobe Lightroom in merging of EXIF data, and also shared a tip to always take one photo with your smartphone (which stored location data) alongside any photos taken with a digital camera – if you wanted to add location information to your picture in your photo editing software.

Ann described her solution to the printer problem mentioned above and offered to write it up. Many thanks.

Ted had also had a printer problem, to the extent he’d nearly bought a new printer! However, after a bit of research, he found that the problem – blocked printer heads – could be resolved by purchasing a kit costing less than £10 which he intended to apply. It was also suggested that putting the cartridge heads in a saucer of water can resolve the problem as well. I can’t verify whether this is a foolproof, or damage-less solution.

Christine was able to announce that she’d moved the VM Extender to another power outlet the previous day and they’d had perfect reception. Let’s just hope this continues and the problem of poor WiFi reception is behind them. She also had noticed that one of the Icons that had been visible from her Windows Start Icon – that for People (her Contacts) – had disappeared. A solution was proffered (forgive me if I’ve got this wrong): Right-click on the bar on the screen; choose the option to show People on the Taskbar.

Paul was having “fun” with a new dash-cam which used different cable connections – a rather common problem unfortunately with digital devices. We noted that the EU was trying to standardise on USB-C. We also noted that the lack of printed manuals with new devices was not as good for the planet as might be imagined because we had to print them quite often. It was therefore good for the supplier in terms of cost-reduction.

Steve reported that following the last meeting he’d been able to remove the McAffee pop-up reminder; we advised him that he could quite safely use the Windows Defender software rather than pay £4 extra to TalkTalk for McAffee.

Don (with new devices at home recently) would quite like a session on Connecting Devices to the Network. He recently used his phone to take snaps of meter readings as they had fallen foul of the companies going bust. He also described what appeared to be a rather strange scenario (at first hearing) where he was being asked whether he wanted to register a Direct Debit payment for PAYG for the London Exclusion Zone for his car. After some discussion we came to the conclusion it was a valid offer [Ann reported something similar after an experience of entering the Birmingham Zone – and suggested that going on the .gov.uk website might explain more.] It appeared that this would be a personal decision to make. Setup an account, or just remember to pay if you DID happen to enter a zone.

Renee asked for any information on alarm systems as her COD Security system had recently requested a large hike in costs. Paul suggested approaching O’Brien Systems (Swansea); other suggestions were Sonic Alarms and Cardiff Alarms. She asked whether it was OK to upgrade her MacOS and iOS systems now. I suggested waiting for iOS 15.1, but that point releases of MacOS were generally safe to upgrade, and Safari upgrades should always be done. Following the meeting I sent a message to the Signal Group about a new “feature” for MacOS which should possibly be installed when offered – Mac Device Support.

Stella requested advice and information about different disk formats. I explained the origins of NTFS, and why exFAT was better in many ways as it could be used for disks attached to either Macs or PCS. Paul mentioned that FAT32 was another format that was relevant in the Windows world, but there was a fundamental problem with what Stella was hoping to achieve. A disk formatted for use specifically when connected to a TV could not be read on a PC, and vice versa. This was a protection mechanism on the TV to prevent copyright infringement.

David Hughes told us he’d had great pleasure watching his niece play her harp from the college where she was playing but wondered whether there was anyway he could have watched it on the TV. We thought that either Google’s Chromecast, or Apple’s AirPlay might do the trick if his Smart TV supported either of these. Here’s a link for Android devices and here’s how to show an iOS screen on a TV. He also asked about the connection of a sound-bar to his new TV. I stated that for decent sound he would have to use a cable connection – usually HDMI – and not rely on a wireless solution. Others suggested that there might be a Setting to change the “environment” of what he was watching, ie Music, Drama, News, etc which might improve the quality of the sound. He also praised the route information provided by his Maps on his iPad which indicated the best way to get to M&S, now that his local store was closing.

Owen updated us on Beacon issues including the fact that Chrome currently doesn’t work, but Firefox does. He described how a hybrid (in person + zoom) meeting had gone, but that the sound quality on his laptop was probably not good enough – perhaps using external powered speakers (£20-£40) connected to the earphone jack would be necessary; I have some connected to both the TV in the kitchen (from Logitek) and to my iMac (from Creative). Much better sound quality than the internal speakers of both.

To end the meeting, which had now extended to nearly 2 hours – partly due to my trials and tribulations at the beginning – I went briefly through the items I had added to the Flipboard magazine. I highlighted the features that were in the new iOS 15 release (again, I caution on upgrading until 15.1 is released); an important security upgrade for older iPhones; changes in the way people will be able to switch Broadband suppliers; the changes proposed by the EU to standardise on one kind of phone/tablet/device charger (USB-C form); and the release of an app from the Met Office and Exeter University that might be able to predict (using AI) whether it’s going to rain in the next 90mins!

I’ve noted (apart from Don’s suggestion to look at connecting devices to a network) the following topics I may look at in the future – Virtual Private Networks; and ways of using Google Contacts and Google Calendar with native Microsoft/Apple applications.

I’ll also raise the signposting of this website on the Cardiff U3A site (thanks to Steve for alerting me to this) and send an email message to the Group also advising them of the way to access it – just in case they’d forgotten.

I asked members to consider reporting – using this page – any scams they’d encountered to the Which? Scam Alerts Service – which I encourage you all to subscribe to.

I’m grateful for Owen offering to host the next meeting whilst I take the last of our “autumn breaks” in sunny Aberystwyth – well hopefully it will be sunny.

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Notes from Zoom meeting – 16th September 2021

Renee and Phil sent apologies for this meeting. Sally has had a terrible few months and is now recovering from a broken arm, but hopes to rejoin us asap. Phil might not be as active for a while as he and his wife are trying to work out a new exercise regime following the death of their of much loved Alfie who I’m sure you’ll have heard joining our meetings. Anyway, currently, they’re swimming on a Thursday afternoon which will curtail his attendance for a while until they sort other things out. Jeff (moving to Sully) and Barbara (grandparent duties) have advised me they’re leaving the group. I’ve had interest expressed in joining the group from Fiona Dyer. Lynne Taylor hopes to join us in the near future.

Amongst items included in the “news” section which has links in Flipboard were the Apple event for iPhones, Watches and iPads held on September 14th; how to check the status of internet services using downdetector.co.uk; a few posts on the UK Governments thoughts about re-defining data protection and GDPR – which seem to me to be doomed to failure; the launch date of Windows 11 – just remember to disable automatic upgrades!!! Then there were stories about anti-trust lawsuits involving Apple, Facebook (and Whats App and Instagram) as usual; how to use Siri; how to change a YouTube video to MP3; and an article explaining BlueTooth.

Margaret was upset at the fact that 3 were now going to charge her to use her phone whilst roaming after promising that this would not happen. An expected outcome of Brexit one suspects. She was also annoyed that TalkTalk were trying to increase her Broadband contract by £4pm (a 16% increase) – a common problem that can usually be reverted by saying you’re going to cancel your contract. She also wanted advice on whether to switch off her Sky Q Modem when away and whether any damage would happen to a hard disk when electricity was disconnected. The general consensus view was switch off all the competing equipment, but it would be safe to leave the modem on as it would automatically reconnect.

Paul had nothing much to add except to praise his All-in-One Sony PC . [I think he was getting at me and my love of Apple equipment and their relative longevity.]

Owen told us a story of the trials and tribulations about being a U3A Branch Chair, and how it occasionally leads to unexpected interventions – this time into holiday lettings. I’ll say no more.

Don (following on the theme) told us he’d passed David Cameron in Rock whilst on holiday. Thanks to his involvement in our group he’d now been delegated to be the “online expert” for his church [I guess I’ll have a few new queries relating to this moving forwards :-)]. He then told us the sad story of his wife’s bent iPhone that the Apple Store had suggested would be too expensive to upgrade (battery). He was now the proud owner of said bent phone and his wife had a new one! He then advised us about a deal he’d come across from a mobile provider: Talkmobile (Vodafone) – £4.95pm with unlimited texts, 3Gb data and roaming in the UK. He also related he got the same deal as would have been provided by uSwitch as that website wasn’t working.

Fred informed us that the Abergavenny Food Festival was taking place on the next weekend.

Jonathan had Covid in the house. Both he and Jools had been tested positive but they were both feeling fine. Annoying that the app pings you, but doesn’t tell you where the infection might have been caught. He also has a pesky popup problem which he’s subsequently resolved himself. Hurrah!!! I enclose his email to me telling me about it …

 I think I may have solved it. Over 24 hours now and I’ve not had a popup! After lots of trawling of forums and posts on the subject one of them suggested it might be an app which was unknowingly installed as part of an update of an entirely separate app. It appears in the app list as FA_RSS.exe. Sure enough it was in my apps and, having deleted it, no further McAfee popups. So far! Ive no idea what I downloaded it with.

I suspect it was McAfee itself!! Other advice from the group was to do a “deep scan” – might take a few hours; and also to look to see if an uninstall of McAfee might leave some bits behind – it would appear it does!!!

Steve was interested in the article on Flipboard about changing YouTube videos to MP3. I had to tell him I hadn’t read the article and he’d need to research it himself for further information. [I often just think … that might interest someone – without reading it. If I read everything, I just couldn’t function, neither could I remember anything!!!]

Jenny told us her paid employment had come to an end. It had been a steep learning curve in learning how to handle the website [perhaps I need to do another WordPress session???] but the main learning point was that you can’t work nine hours per day off a laptop. A separate monitor is required. I offered to make some suggestions and I posted these on the Signal group following the meeting.

Ann was having problems with a Lenovo PC and iPad not connecting to a HP Deskjet following (probably) a Sky Q Replacement. Printing using WiFi no longer seemed to work. I suggested she should look to see whether she could connect to the printer with an ethernet cable. Following the meeting Jonathan sent me this message …

I was thinking about the printer issue that was raised. I sometimes have problems getting my laptop to communicate with the printer – getting a message that the printer is offline when it isnt and things like that. I don’t know if this is too simple a solution but it usually works for me – not necessarily at the first try.

1. Turn off both router and printer at the plug. In fact remove the printer plug for a few minutes ( dunno why that should make any difference but it was a tip I read )

2. Turn on router first and allow time for it to connect.

3. Turn printer back on and give it a couple of minutes.

4. Try again to print.

In our case the communication problem never affects Jools ipad so it may be a completely different issue. For info, we are also on SkyQ and the new router we were sent does has two sockets on the back for connections, one of which could be used to hardwire to a printer. This is sometimes recommended as a way to reset printer network connections – too much of a faff in my case as they are too far apart.
Just a thought – dunno why it didnt pop into my head yesterday.

Christine continued to have problems with her VirginMedia extenders. She had tried moving them around without any success. I’m afraid I’m lost for ideas. It really should be now placed with VM to resolve satisfactorily with a house visit.

Sianed had cancelled her Office 365 subscription and was thankful for the advice to use LibraOffice. You’re welcome!

David noted the increase in Covid case for the young following festivals across the UK. He’d suffered an automatic upgrade issue during the meeting which explained his disappearance. A note worth remembering. Switch off automatic upgrades, but remember to do them all the same – but in your time, not the suppliers!!!! Finally he told us that his managed apartment group had decided to take out a contract for the provision of a Defibrillator at a cost of £1pd including training.

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Notes from Zoom meeting – 22nd July 2021

I received apologies from Mike, Barbara, Sianed and Phil. If I’ve forgotten anyone, please forgive me.

I took the following notes, but as you will have gathered – I didn’t write them up until very, very, very recently – the morning of the September 16th meeting to be precise.

I introduced a whole range of topics which I’d put on Flipboard. They included Preparing (or otherwise) for Windows 11; Right to Repair; Connecting phones to TVs; and changes to the NHS Covid app, amongst others.

Fred reported that his TalkTalk problems had been resolved to some degree.

Ann advised us that the sequence on connecting to a Zoom meeting seemed to have changed and you needed to click on “Always start with camera”. Later in the meeting she reported back that close captioning was a real boon.

Margaret was having BlueTooth problems with microphone and audio; but she had managed to fix the BT missing extension, had downloaded the correct version and all was well now. She noted that the Zoom settings for speakers was not for her headphones (?).

Paul (apparently, because I have no idea what this means) told us that Vodafone improved battery ????

Owen advised that on the iPad using Safari with Google Search, the screen was showing a “Not a Robot” prompt to comply with; an unusual request; followed-up with an IP request which the CAPTCHA was impossible to read. Suggested fix – use the Chrome app for Google Searches.

David has the word Ping next to his name … why??? He wanted to show Google Photos on TV – he was advised how to do that. He was also having Washer/Dryer problems (I then have a note – “share sound with engineer”; I do apologise, I’ll do better this year, promise).

Stella told us about how she had avoided a PayPal scam.

John has the note R to Rep, third-party problem aginst his name … what does this mean?

Christine was having problems with VirginMedia; also archive was not working; there’s also a note “Button for sound” ??

Jim reported back on his confusion with the screen resolution of his laptop. Paul was able to talk him through the issue which they tested with a screenshot.

Don reported that the email addresses still appeared i the wrong order (sotty again, I don’t remember what this means); he also told us he’d changed his iPhone settings to cut-off certain apps from playing to reduce battery drain. He was looking to replace EE as his mobile provider as they had changed the PAYG arrangements. Alternatives were Smartie (on 3) – an alternative to GiffGaff (O2), or Libara (on Vodafone). He was advised to switch off Mobile Data whenever it wasn’t needed.

Steven has the words YouTube and USB against his name ??? He told us that he was looking at reviewing his broadband supplier and had a price of £31 from TalkTalk (Fibre 50/55) for a basic TV package and free calls to the UK/World.

Renee had raised a query about losing messages from Signal during an upgrade (which she probably had interrupted), and promised to send me the email exchange she’d had with the help desk.

Fred asked about Digital printing (3D printing), and we advised hi that we’d had a visit to Eagle Labs a couple of years ago and it might be a good idea to go again when we are able.

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Notes from Zoom meeting – 8th July 2021

Owen led the meeting as David was on holiday. We did the usual round table followed by short presentations on Windows 11 and the Cardiff U3A website.

Fred: reported continuing problems with TalkTalk especially their email offering.

David H: David has bought a Samsung TV but struggles with multiple remotes. Jim mentioned an article in ‘Computer Active’ magazine describing an app to handle all TV activity.

Barbara: had an issue with her iPad failing to change screen orientation on rotation. There is apparently a ‘setting’ option to handle this but well hidden. She closed down the machine and restarted to solve her problem. [Jim chatted: To control the orientation of my tablet’s screen I use an app, Rotation-Orientation Manager, available in the Android Play Store. Jim]

Renee: was supposed to give a Zoom presentation but ended up in A&E! She has taught herself to use PhotoBooth to video herself and WeTransfer to send the file to others.

Don: is getting used to his new Dell PC. DH has encouraged him to use LibraOffice but every time he uses it he gets a popup about MS Office. He also wanted to reorder the email accounts that he uses to see a particular one first. No obvious solution was suggested except that he might remove all the accounts from his email client and re-add them in the order he wanted, but there was no guarantee this would actually work.

Sianed: asked for advice on the Brave browser as when trying to login to her online banking she receives a message which prevents her progressing. Others mentioned similar issues with other browsers.

Paul: has continuing battery drain problems on his phone. There appears to be an app or service ‘RCS’ which takes most of the charge. It was noted that the NHS Covid app also takes considerable battery usage as it is constantly scanning. [Renee chatted: iPhones don’t support RCS. They use iMessage instead.]

Jim: has been attempting to control his camera using his phone. He noted that when images are transferred to disc they no longer contain some of the desired information embedded in them.

Steven: Looking into removing duplicate files. Jim recommends ‘AllDup’.

Ann: mentioned that Zoom options seemed to have changed and her camera comes on automatically rather than asking her first. Owen said he would check if there had been any recent updates which might have altered this.

Christine: mentioned that emails don’t seem to archive properly. She has had a message from a spoofed email address but realised it in time and did not open any links. Celebrated receiving a date to have an extender from Virgin.

Owen then walked the group through the recent announcement by Microsoft of Windows 11 which seems to have a style revamp and the addition of a number of tools and features. Link is https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/windows-11 .

Owen then followed on with a demonstration of some of the features of Google Sites which is the software he uses for the Cardiff U3A website. He demonstrated layouts, images, formatting text, the inclusion of calendars etc. In response to a question, he indicated that one shortcoming was the inability to give editor permissions at page level and had therefore had to restrict editor to himself until Google changes matters.

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Notes from Zoom meeting – 24th June 2021

All looking very serious – and I wasn’t disinterested … honest!

In addition to the serious looking faces above, Barbara joined us for a short while until Geoff switched-off the ring main!! We had apologies from Jonathan, Sianed and Christine. We welcomed back Stella who had been suffering from the after effects of her Covid jabs.

We also agreed to experiment with a voice-to-text transliteration system to assist folk who were finding it difficult to follow the audio in Zoom meetings.

I started the meeting by explaining the changes to the website, and doing a quick demo. [I further made some more changes the following day – I note that some of the Help screens, now need new images. They’ll have to wait …] I also was pleased to report that I’d sorted Fred’s Signal installation out, and had finally managed to reply to Phil’s Signal message on using Thought grazing. I offered to help anyone having difficulties with either the website, or Signal, to get in touch.

I then highlighted a few items that I’d added to Flipboard – a lot of them connected to Privacy, which seems a very live issue currently. Apple, after it’s developer’s conference is certainly focussing on privacy, including traps of pixel trackers, it’s intentions to move away from passwords and the addition of FaceID and/or TouchID to Google’s Authenticator – increasing the security of this means of connecting to websites. The EU appears to be going after the way multi-nationals (Google, Microsoft, Apple, twitter and Facebook) export data – an issue I’ve been mentioning for a while – watch this space! The UK’s Competition & Market Authority are also going after Google because of its use of cookies to track users, and usage, in Chrome. Google says, don’t worry we’re going to stop using cookies, and we’re going to give the industry an open-source alternative – FLoC; but it doesn’t appear that anyone else wants to follow. The US Congress is also looking at introducing anti-trust legislation and this is causing the multi-nationals to be a little bit more than concerned and they are lobbying hard against it. Here’s Apple’s plea to Nancy Pelosi. Apple take Privacy very seriously and they have released this white paper which you might care to read.

Finally, it appears that there’s a non-tracking alternative to DuckDuckGo that’s about to appear – Brave Search. Initially it will be an alternative search engine within the Brave browser that you can choose as your default (and as an alternative to Google Search, Bing, or DuckDuckGo); but when it’s fully developed it will be the default search engine for Brave. Try it!!!

We then went round the screen as usual.

Mike was delighted with his new speakers which had improved his music listening (from the computer) as well as the quality of his Zoom calls.

Owen reported that he could not recommend the cookie-completion software he’d mentioned four weeks previously. In a test of at least 100 websites, he’d found that it had only worked with 7 sites and in some cases had stopped the websites working. Back to the drawing board! He also reported that the Committee was contemplating a reservation system for when we return to face-to-face meetings to cope with any constraints in numbers and/or social distancing in certain venues. I indicated that I was not too happy with such a proposal. It may not come to pass, however Owen has been charged (or volunteered) to see if the current systems can be tweaked to facilitate this. Zoom has now introduced ‘Live Transcript’, an automated subtitling system. It is by no means 100% perfect, but it should enable those who find it hard to follow in Zoom meetings an enhanced opportunity to hear and see what is spoken. Further information is to be found here. We then discussed how best we might extend the Group to those not participating via Zoom, and I agreed to try to see if any members wanted to join the Signal group.

David H mused on the death of John McAffee (as did Jim later); he reported that the barn was being converted as per his CAD drawings; that he had solved a Samsung phone problem with the radical solution of turning it off, and then switching it back on again; and enquired as to whether anyone had advice on purchasing a new TV. There was a lot of discussion; Steve commended 4K; Ann mentioned the Which? tool to assess size of TV vs size of room, viewing angle and distance from the screen; I asserted that most reviews appeared to favour LG’s OLED technology over Samsung’s QLED technology; we all agreed it was important to assess what we wanted, before we made a decision.

Paul was having problems with rapid battery drain on his Android phone; unfortunately no one had a concrete answer to the problem other than ditching unwanted, unused apps; enquiring whether an update had recently taken place, and again (radical thinking) – switch it off, and back on again!!! Here’s a link that might be useful too.

Don had bought a new Dell G3 system from JLP and it had arrived very quickly. It was so fast, it was like driving an Audi after the Vauxhall he’d had previously (no disrespect intended). He enquired about installing the security package from BT – I suggested to wait awhile before doing that – to try using Windows Defender first. He was going to investigate how to transfer his data from the old laptop. Neil (We will fix your PC) would do it for £30, or put the old hard disk in a caddy for £20. He also enquired about how to get his Gmail onto the new machine – I suggested using Windows native email client and offered to speak to him offline and provide some assistance [which I’ve done].

Phil drew attention to something he’d written about Podcasts which he and many of us use and like and commended CyberClean as a product to clean keyboards. Following the meeting he added another Topic to the Genealogy Forum on one of his ancestors which I recommend you read as a great multi-media experience.

Steve had brought his Sony HX90 camera to show Ann, and she was delighted that after visiting the Camera Centre, she’d plumped for a Sony HX99 for her carry around take pictures of birds camera. A great choice! That or the Panasonic TZ200 would have been my shortlist. He also commended BBC Sounds for Podcasts – good recommendation, thanks! He also enquired whether we thought showing a YouTube video on Zoom infringed copyright – we thought not.

Renee was wanting to look at Tasks in Google but couldn’t find it; we suggested it was included in one of the other members of the Google Office Suite – maybe Calendar. Hopefully this link will help – you access it from either Mail or Calendar.

Finally Ann just told her of her experience (very good) of visiting Camera Centre to purchase her camera which she expected to pickup after the meeting. She was buying a refurbished (but guaranteed unused) model at a discount. All the best – I suggested that she might like to consider joining the afternoon Photography group.

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Notes from Zoom meeting – 10th June 2021

All (seemingly) enjoying ourselves

Apologies (yet again), I seem to have a spurt in getting the notes out quickly, followed by a delay so that they become almost useless – except as a historic record – by getting them out “just in time”!!!

Anyway thanks to Jim for the photo above, one of the best and shows we manage to have a bit of fun! Apologies from Jonathan, Margaret, Barbara, Christine and Owen – who were unable to join us.

I’m pleased to be able to report that Fred and I finally managed to hook-up and have a chat about connecting to Signal, and I did manage to reply to Phil about his message on sending a post to this site. So, it’s not been a complete lack of activity. The other thing has been the stylistic changes to the website that I mentioned at the meeting. These have now moved on again, and I’ll talk about that this afternoon, coupled with a demo of accessing the website, as it’s apparent a couple of you have not managed to login.

So what did we discuss. I went through a number of links which I’ve put on Flipboard – I’ll highlight some of them. The cookie pop-up problem brought to our attention by Owen – which we’ll return to this afternoon as well.

The sharing of patient data by NHS England caused some discussion – it appears now that this does not effect us in Wales – they’ve put off the implementation date now to September 1st. This led on to a discussion on Patient Records in general and the workings of the Patient Information System in Wales – perhaps not working as well as it should with many disparate GP systems not working closely with any centralised system. Also noted that you are entitled to get a printout of your Patient Record, but the practice is also entitled to ask you for an administrative charge in providing it. Then we diverged into discussing Lateral Flow Tests, and I described how I’d been able to receive the test kits within 24hours from a website. It’s unlclear whether we (in Wales) are able to upload the results due to our NHS numbers not being in the same format as the English ones – and the same problem arises with the vaccination passports now being launched in England as an app. In wales there will be a website you can register your vaccination history, etc.

The welcome news that one of our favourite websites – Have I been pwned? – has gone open-source, and will now benefit from additional data from the FBI. A suggestion that there are a number of privacy settings we should check/change on Facebook was highlighted, and a suggestion that it was now time to ditch Google Chrome – because of privacy considerations. It’s been announced that Google Photos now has additional editing facilities on iOS devices, and I suggested that those with Android phones might have a look and report back, to advise us what iPhone users might hope to expect. We also discussed the major internet outage that had occurred, and why it had come about. Finally, I shared a few links (all on Flipboard) of what Apple announced at its Developers Conference – a lot on privacy, security and health features on phones, tablets and in the Safari browser.

So what did you have to say?

Ann asked about Two factor Authentication, and how it worked – especially with the banks. I explained that the addition of a metric such as FaceID or TouchID (both Apple trademarks) the banks were ensuring much better that the person using their apps were the actual customers. The organisation trusts the device provider to ensure that the person is who they are through their personal credentials – face or fingerprint. If working on a browser they will challenge you to provide a code they send to the registered device they have for you. This is obviously not as secure – remember my SIM swap scam episode of 2019. The other way that the organisation you’re connecting to can ensure it’s you they’re providing access to is by using an Authenticator app, that sends a code to your phone that you then type into the box in your browser. Hence two-factor – the code (or Identity features) on a device different from the browser.

Sianed advised us of the Census scam that had been going the rounds.

John told us about an interesting photography programme he’d been watching – the Great British Photography Challenge – now available on iPlayer.

Renee advised us that the NHS app discussed on the TV was not available in Wales.

Phil had a Victor Meldrew moment and lamented the lack of telephone numbers on websites that made it almost impossible to connect to a person to discuss an issue. Fred suggested keeping a list of CEOs to address complaints to. Someone else suggested using the Companies House website – a good idea!! Someone then recounted the recent case where a worldwide undercover operation had revealed criminals.

Jim wondered whether everyone was having as many Signal updates as he was, and on all devices – we are, and all is OK!!!

Don told us about his garden camera, and advised us about the Cardiff Citizen Surveys – and the update to the Local Development Plan.

David H was pleased to announce that his CAD system was now working and enquired about whether there were any recommendations about property contents only insurance. I’ve also noted that there was discussion on harvesting data from browser searches, and a comment “Zoom and the Arts” – but I have no idea what either of these referred to!!!

Paul had some issues with Google accounts (again I can’t remember what these were); and advised that he had tried out Reader View (as discussed at the previous meeting).

Mike was having problems with the volume on his equipment and I hope the advice we provided has helped in some way.

Steve said he’d setup ICE and enquired about the website What 3 Words to provide exact locations. We experimented!!!

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Notes from Zoom meeting – 27th May 2021

Some very laid-back and happy folk – and you weren’t asked to smile by Jim!

Apologies for the delay in writing the notes. I’d forgotten it was half-term this week with additional grandparent duties … no comment!!! Unfortunately Barbara and Jonathan were unable to be with us and sent their apologies.

Thanks for the screengrab Jim – I don’t think I’ve ever seen as many of us smiling as this shot – someone must have said something funny, and it wasn’t me because I’m laughing more than most, and even I don’t laugh that much at what I say. My guess it was Phil.

Anyway, I promised and failed to get another post out about Google and it’s changes to Drive storage. I did manage to get a link out to the Signal Group “just-in-time”, but only just, so I hope you managed to get Photos uploaded in “high quality” before the June 1st deadline. Any photos uploaded in this quality (ie not Original Quality) won’t count towards your 15Gb of free storage on Google Drive after that date. All photos, of any quality, will count moving forwards. To manage your Google Drive storage, I’m pointing you at this link – How to delete data and Free up Space in Google Drive. I hope it helps. Any problems let me (or Paul) know on Signal.

And for a couple of you Fred and Jenny I think, you were having problems with Signal. It has to be linked to a smartphone app (iOS or Android phone). Install the app from Apple’s AppStore, or Google PlayStore and then see if you can see me amongst the Contacts that will probably be added automatically to your account. If not, add me, telno. 077 8552 4683, and send me a message. I will then be able to add you to the Group.

Following-up from the last meeting – thanks to Steve for adding a post to the blog on Photo Albums. I followed up the future of meetings email I’d sent out to non-Zoom attendees and three responses indicated that they hoped to be able either by getting the time back, or with new equipment, to join us after the summer on Zoom if we were using it. However, a generally held opinion was that a split between in person and Zoom might be the way forward, and that we couldn’t really go back to the URC room we’d been using.

I quickly ran through the articles of note on Flipboard, highlighting the numerous posts from Google that arose out of their Google I/O virtual meeting. I mentioned the advances in Digital Music that Apple’s Lossless Audio stream (to be followed also by Spotify at some later date) would bring, but noted that not all equipment would be able to make use of it. I commented on my problems with getting Apple CarPlay to work, including formerly the regulkar drop-out in service as I passed Cardiff Prison!!! I also commented on the closing of the Apple vs Epic courtroom drama in the US which could prove detrimental (imho) to the integrity and safety of the iOS experience – but that’s perhaps just me. [Spotify have also recently grumbled as well.] Then some good news – a recent courtcase in the UK means that McAffee will not be able to impose a renewal subscription upon a user who might have inadvertently chosen to install software (usually for free) at the time of hardware purchase. Then a couple of articles on GDPR – what it is, and NFT (Non-Fungible Tokens) – the latter being something that Steve told us the Discussion Group had mentioned that very morning! Finally an alert about the sharing of NHS data (in an anonymised form – but not apparently if criminal enquiries were being requested) – which had not been at well communicated to the UK population with your rights to opt-out!

I also tried to put people’s mind to rest about the WhatsApp “scare” message about changing person’s privacy settings. I’d researched this, found my settings HAD NOT been changed, and that the “scare” went back a long way – you can read this article to see the substance behind the “change”. I encourage you to search Snopes whenever you want to find out whether something is “fake news”,or not!

Then we had an interesting discussion (arising out of the GDPR issue) on the problems of clicking on pop-up screens just to get rid of cookie permission requests. Owen came up with an interesting article that had references to a couple of apps, or strategies, to avoid these. He was going to look into this more. I had independently discovered SpeedReader or Reader Mode which seems to work on all the main browsers – Chrome, Brave, Firefox …

… Edge and Safari which strips out the unwanted content from webpages. Here’s a link to how to implement it on Brave – it’s similar for Chrome and Edge.

Your matters, around the screen …

Jenny seemed delighted to announce she now had a part-time job from June to September editing a website that was connected to healthcare – policy and strategy. Whilst ticking all the boxes in the person specification, she was not confident of meeting the website matters so might be in touch …

David H was enjoying his experiments with his free CAD program but had drawn some diagrams for the barn conversion … just in case!

Don requested an update on how to get images and videos from wildlife and vehicle cameras. Paul suggested that the software provided by Garmin would probably do the trick, and I suggested that taking the SD-Card out of the camera and uploading to Google Photos using an SD-Card/USB reader should work.

Owen (as previously mentioned) had come across software for controlling Cookie Popups and would report back on how he found it. Coincidentally, it looks as there may be legal challenges ahead as well!

Margaret told us about the Hay Festival online. She also reported a recent case of two people having all their digital devices taken away by police on the basis of their IP address (taken from their router – which had been hacked) pointing to them being “guilty parties”. A wake-up call to us all to change our Router Passwords!

Jim was still proceeding with his duplicate files purge. It was taking a lot longer thatn he’d anticipated, but the software (last meeting) was working well. He also reported on his experience of having hearing-aids fitted and the “magic” that seemed to be employed to detect what was required. Other reported similar experiences with NHS hearing tests and appliances.

Phil had changed his broadband from VirginMedia to BT [I hope he doesn’t regret that decision]. All went smoothly except that he had to spend sometime reprogramming smart bulbs and Alexa. He also reported that he had a new car – a Toyota Yaris Hybrid – Paul suggested that he investigated the MyT app for Toyota to see if he could do “smart” things with that as well!

Steve told us he’d now got both ICE and Libby set up and so far all was working well.

Fred reported that anyone who was interested in vintage cars should make a point of going to Broadway this weekend.

Ann updated us on her experience of using her USB Dual-drive gizmo. All was working well. She’d managed without doing almost anything to download (or upload??) stuff (technical term) from her laptop to her phone (or was that vice versa). It was a bit slow, but very handy for quick backups from her phone. She was interested in recommendations for a telephoto (zoom) camera for photographing birds for later identification at home. This prompted some discussion. I just summarised by saying that look for the quality in the lens as the foremost criteria, and the amount of optical (not digital) zoom that was available. Members noted that Panasonic, Canon and Sony did good cameras that might fit the bill, and more than one of us recommended going to the Cardiff Camera Centre in the arcades to try one out.

Renee had installed the Libby app and had was reading magazines using it. I must try it out!!!

As always, please advise if I’ve mis-reported!!!!

There was no further time for me to talk about Google Drive management (see link at top of Notes) and Facebook Privacy settings – I will do a post on this asap.