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Notes from Zoom meeting – 13th May 2021

A lovely shot of you all – thanks Jim!

I’m indebted to Jim for remembering each meeting to take these screenshots, this one is a particularly good one of the 15 of us meeting virtually yesterday. Christine, Marie-Christine, Jenny Sims and Phil had let me know they would not be attending.

I’m also indebted to you all for your kind words and welcoming back, and can I thank Owen and Phil for stepping in to take the last meeting.

I started the meeting by giving an account of the procedure I’d been subjected to at UHW. I won’t say more. The matter is now officially closed! Owen gave an update on Beacon, and told us the new system (Beacon 2) was now not going to happen, and he was working out how best our Cardiff U3A website could work with the existing old Beacon membership system. I then talked briefly about changes to the website to make the Search box (for Posts) more prominent; a subtle change to the placement of the Flipboard link to make it easier to find; and a brief introduction to the Guides that were available to read online. I also encouraged members to look at the Forums and Topics area of the website and to add their own Topic, or Comment upon an existing one. It’s a much better way of recording help required and advice given than Signal (or WhatsApp for that matter) can provide. Please consider using it.

I then went through the Latest News items I’d stumbled upon and uploaded to the Flipboard magazine. I’m not going to mention any of them in particular again – go and look at the articles on Flipboard, and perhaps browse through old ones – I’m sorry there is no Search facility for Private magazines. The only drawback to a really good magazine interface.

We then went “round the screen” …

Barbara had taken her errant drive into the Apple store, having not had a satisfactory outcome from her visit to JLP (where she’d bought the MacBook as I recall). Success this time and she now had an external connector that had cost a bit, but which now enable her MacBook to read/write to her external disk. She also had a problem with her iPad seeming to shutdown when there appeared to be sufficient power – another trip to the Apple store was suggested as no one seemed to have a possible solution.

David H retold his latest adventure … the re-discovery of a former life. His daughter had asked him to draw up plans for a barn refurbishment. He wondered whether he could find the CAD software he’d been used to using, was nearly scammed but had now found LibraCAD and he was working his way through the instructions/manual to find out how he could use it.

Renee had downloaded and installed Libby (ref. last meeting) and had accessed the Library for her first book.

Jonathan had no issues/problems – but his wife had! We then discussed the problem of an iPad either being too sensitive, or not accurate enough to record the correct key presses. Many of us seemed to have a similar problem. Some suggestions – clean the screen very thoroughly; the screen might be heat sensitive and this might be throwing the keypress off (we thought eventually this was unlikely to be the problem given the number of long figure-nailed folk using mobile devices); the co-ordinates might need to be recalibrated and Ann suggested that this could be done at the Apple store; we all thought it would be a good idea before any visit to accurately record where the problem on the keyboard was occurring. We hope Jules has success in finding out the problem, and for Jonathan reporting back on the solution!

Don had proceeded with his creation of new Gmail accounts for his wife. Hopefully this will resolve any issues with her old account being “pwned”, and the AppleID issue. [Phil (from the previous meeting) felt that a password change on the old Gmail account would probably be sufficient for the first problem, and he suggested that the appearance of the Gmail address in the AppleID might not have been a case of someone having the account, but might have been that the email address had been given by Don or his wife when purchasing an earlier Apple device.]

Steve had also downloaded Libby and was evaluating it. He’d prepared some text on photo books for the group, and I encouraged him to try and add the text as a Comment in this Topic.

Fred reported that he was getting “end of life” warnings on his HP “all-in-one” desktop machine. We re-assured him that this was quite normal and he should only worry when things stopped working, and then then Neil at We Will Fix Your PC might be able to work wonders. [He fixes mobile devices and Macs as well.]

Jim was working his way through old USB sticks, making sure he’d got the contents on his new laptop before discarding them. He was using a piece of software called AllDup to check whether the files already existed on the laptop.

Finally Ann told us about her experiences online shopping from Curry’s where they would bring the goods to your car, in the car park, outside the store; but more particularly she told us about an initial purchase to buy a cable to re-charge her phone (which was unsuccessful as she’d got the wrong USBs (remember my last talk on USB cables – the links to read are at the end of the Meeting Notes – but then told us about a Sandisk Dual Drive USB Type-C device which could store 16Gb and which was only a few pounds and which might prove useful in transferring photos from her phone to the computer as long as she installed the correct software. We look forward to hearing the results!

I contributed a rather interesting feature of Gmail which allowed you to create multiple addresses from your original address, and for adding an identifier to the end of the address that might be useful for filtering Junk mail when you have to provide an email address you don’t really want to have to. These links (on Flipboard as well) are How to create a Gmail alias and How to use Plus addressing in Gmail.

I also mused over whether I’d been wrong NOT to use the email service offered me by Apple as my primary email account and have Gmail as my second account, rather than my primary address; no right or wrong, just a thought. The same would of course be true if I’d been a PC/Windows user – perhaps I should have been more actively promoting Outlook/Hotmail as the primary email service. Who knows!! The one thing I’m sure of is NOT to use an ISP service such as Virgin, TalkTalk, BTInternet etc.

We closed the meeting by discussing what format meetings might, could and should take when Covid restrictions were lifted. It was felt that Zoom had worked well and that a regular cohort of members had experienced and got benefit from virtual meetings; it was a good tool for a digital group to use; that we ought to try and present any face-to-face meetings in the future in the same way as we had for the virtual (Zoom) meetings; that social (face-to-face) contact was equally as important and that members benefited from casual conversations outside the meetings and from being able to bring machines in with them; also the serendipity effect of the added things you can do in the city alongside a meeting – once you’re there; that we had a duty to consider those members who hadn’t felt they wanted to attend Zoom meetings; [I advised the group that I had sent an email to those members to try and find out if there was any reason why they hadn’t joined]; but above all we agreed that a return to the old room at URC was just not practical for large numbers, and that the quality of the WiFi just wouldn’t permit any pleasurable experience. We all agreed that possibly a hybrid-solution – one meeting Zoom, the next face-to-face, might be the answer.

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In Case of Emergency (ICE)

I promised to find and bring back to prominence a post I’d written a couple of years back. It was this one …

ICE – that’s In Case of Emergency

… Ann mentioned an app that the Emergency Services like you to have installed on their phones which is called what3words as it enables them to pinpoint quite accurately where you’re contacting them from. You might like to consider installing it on your phone as well as following the advice contained in the link at the bottom of the post I wrote …

How to add Emergency info to your Phone’s Lock Screen

The Virgin media link I showed at the meeting (and which is also on Flipboard) is here.

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Notes from Zoom meeting – 29th April 2021

Somebody’s missing

Thanks Owen and Phil for holding the fort for me. I understand that you had a great meeting and that Phil gave you a presentation on the subject on Online Reading and using the Library service, the PDF of his talk (with notes) is available here. Owen had to handle a number of “strange” Zoom problems. Beyond the call of duty – many thanks!

Jenny opened the meeting with a report of the NPC’s Response to a House of Lords Select Committee – the Covid-19 Committee- and she advised that they will be lobbying to make sure that they are not by-passed in consultation in preference to the usual suspects, ie AgeUK. The report is on the Cardiff U3A website at this link – https://data.cardiffu3a.org.uk/documents/groups/computer/HoLReportBeyondDigital.pdf – I’m sure Jenny would welcome comments on the Report.

Don needs to buy a new computer and hoped to view a Which? report at a neighbour’s house. He was also hoping that he could persuade his wife to get a new email address as it had been “pwned” and also that there was a problem with her AppleID – she needed to change it urgently!

Paul then had problems with his audio.

Renee had some success at date-stamping her photos for the iPhone – she had found an app Date Stamp Camera – which gave location, time and date on the photo. This might be of use to the Photography Group as well. The basic version is freel!

Marie-Christine had no progress yet with BT and her “deliberate feature” problem. Owen commented that he thought all keyboards should have a key “Just Do It!”

Stella advised that she was having problems with highlighting links so that she could highlight, copy and paste. Owen then shared his screen to demonstrate how that could be done.

David H was thinking of re-furbishing his flat and was waiting for the Conservative party to offer the funds.

Steve had prepared something on Photo Books for the website and was wanting to post it to Thought grazing. [I obviously had forgotten to give him rights – slapped wrist!] Owen thought he might have rights to post, and would look into to it. He also wondered about Chrome Books as a possible replacement for a Laptop – had Don thought about this as a possibility? Phil advised that they had been around for 8-9 years, operating system always up-to-date; data stored in the cloud. He thought at first they might be a good idea for us, but actually a laptop not much more expensive. Not a replacement for a tablet – a very different type of machine! Paul backed this up!

Fred still “bouncing along” and visiting family in England; not much computing in terms of computing needs.

Paul (after re-booting his machine) had reduced his Google Storage, and seen that he could reduce the amount stored as attachments to Gmail reasonably easily. Most of them advertisements. Photos for instance were still in gmail even though you’d saved them to Google Photos. Jenny asked how she could see how much of her storage was being used. Paul said that you could click on an image and select “Manage Storage”; the other alternative was to look at the bottom of the Gmail window – Owen suggested that perhaps he could do a presentation for a future meeting.

Owen reported that quite a few members were not urgently requesting face-to-face meetings before the autumn. There was an “in memorium” page now on the Cardiff website.

Phil then commented on Stella‘s “copy and paste” problem; he was a strong advocate of the MacBook Air (supported by Renee); he also suggested that the AppleID problem might be down to the Gmail account provided to Apple at the time of buying an Apple product; also a simple change of Password might solve the Gmail “pwned” problem. He then led a presentation on On-line Reading, which is referred to at the top of this post. You need to download an app called Borrowbox – but this has been superseded by a different app which you can use for magazines as well called Libby. He then went on to describe buying books for the Kindle, and he told you that you could load some books for Apple devices as well, [DIH: you don’t need to buy a Kindle device to read Kindle devices – you can just load them into the Kindle app which you can download to your mobile device – and buy them from Amazon]. Audio books can be obtained by subscription using Audible; Apple books can be bought as single purchases, some “classic books” are free.

Owen reported that he was an Audible subscriber and it costed £7.99 a month which allowed access to one book a month, but you can for £6 get more. Renee advised that she thought the Library system seemed not to be working just yet. Jenny also reported that Grangetown Reading Club was able to lend books. Paul was quite excited by the prospect! Don advised that he’d been able to download old Parish maps through Llanishen Library, and Owen reported that the National Library had an online collection of Newspaper Articles.

Owen then indicated that the group would send “good wishes” to me!!

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Notes from Zoom meeting – 15th April 2021

Belated notes from our meeting, I’ve been unavoidably occupied elsewhere – thanks for all your kind wishes.

I started the meeting by reminding members that using the Forum/Topics was a good way of recording issues/problems that you might wish to look-up at a later date. That’s what we used to do when we had the Google+ Community available to us. I then said (incorrectly, and I’m grateful to Jim for the correction) that it was impossible to search on WhatsApp and Signal. It is, possible, but it’s not easy, and certainly you can’t pick-up a topic raised and discussed in a thread easily. I had added a few items as a result of queries raised at the previous meeting as Topics in the Photography and Computing and all things Digital Forums. I also noted that Marie-Christine had raised a Topic, which I’d been unable to answer – but during the course of the meeting that followed, Owen, and others, came up with a possible answer to her question. I also drew attention to a slight correction to my notes from the previous meeting that Paul had made on his TalkTalk Broadband contract.

I then referred to the latest articles I’d added to the Thought grazing Flipboard magazine.

We then went “round the screen” starting with …

Owen who noted that the Committee had discussed mixed-mode meetings but there was nothing much further to report, but our comments had formed part of that discussion. He also noted (worryingly) that URC now did not have a working lift, so use of it as a venue for future meetings must be under threat.. He noted that the Third Age Trust were offering online IT “tutorials” in conjunction with Barclays’ Digital Eagles. He gave a doubtful update on any future version of Beacon for our membership system [this was later updated by email to … “not in the near future, if ever and legal process was being followed with the contracted supplier”]. In the meantime Owen was putting his coding-skills in operation to look at ways of enhancing the interface between Beacon and the Cardiff U3A website.

David had recently done a switch from O2 to Sky on his mobile services. Not sure whether that included broadband as well?

John reported that he used Google Photo Books, and was pleased with the results, he thought that 144 photos cost in the order of £79 for a book (soft cover) and £99 (hardback).

Steve informed us he had been loking at Google Keep, Trello, and had starting using Flipboard. I agreed with him that Trello was a very good app to help with planning and organising things – my son relies on it a lot.

Paul was looking at his Google storage plan and advised us to go to Google Drive on the web (through a browser) to do the deletions. He also wondered how to delete Google Accounts AND delete content. That’s not so easy as it sounds as Google likes to hold on to information. On the other hand Google is very good at passing content on to others when your account has become dormant because of death. We suggested that the “simplest” solution to an unwanted account might be just to delete the content and change the password.

Because of an issue with RAW photos in the Photography group, Jim had researched ways of changing RAW images into JPEGs, and discovered MS Photos (and RAW Image Extension) as an easy way of doing that. He’d also discovered that his installation of the Outlook mail client had a very long safe senders list and he was looking at ways of “pruning” it, as well as adding certain users to it (ie me!!!!)

Jenny updated us on the submission she’d been working on for the National Pensioners Convention to OFCOM on the switchover from copper to fibre, representing the need not to leave a vulnerable community excluded on the basis of cost, or availability. She had also been involved in a letter from the Gen Sec of NPC toOliver Dowden on the need for more skills training, and updated us that Jenny Philips (Digital Communities Wales) had recently given a talk to the Wesh NPC.

Christine informed us of a scam text message she’d received – I advised the meeting that typing a telephone number in a browser search box would ofter give a quick indication of whether the message (or call) was a genuine one, or not.

I then gave a presentation on types of USB cables, interfaces and standards. The relevant links to videos I showed are given below …

From Kingston Technologies (recommended), What’s the difference between USB 3.1 Gen 1, Gen 2 and USB 3.2?

Understanding USB Cable Types and Which One to Use

USB-A vs. USB-C: What Is the Difference?

Making Sense of USB-C and Thunderbolt Cables and Ports on Your MacBook

What Is Thunderbolt 4? Is It Different From Thunderbolt 3?

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WhatsApp, my position

I thought I ought to write a very brief post to outline my position on WhatsApp now that the deadline for accepting their Terms and Conditiond os Use (Ts & Cs) is fast approaching. You almost certainly, if you hadn’t accepted them earlier, will have begun to receive reminders to accept them or have your rights to use the app withdrawn. They are quite within their rights to enforce acceptance, you/we have no rights in this matter. It is a free app which we have free access to use under the Ts & Cs that Facebook choose to offer the app to us for use.

As explained in an earlier post, my immediate worries and concerns have been mitigated for the moment – and I most certainly will not want to conduct transactions with businesses through WhatsApp – so I will decline that option, and I will accept the new Ts & Cs next time I open the app. For how long my acceptance will be relevant will depend upon Facebook. Should they procede to withdraw their data centre from Ireland, to remove legislative scrutiny from the EU – which we currently, and fortuitously, gain benefit from as part of Facebook’s “European Region” – then I almost certainly will cancel my membership of all Facebook services, including Messenger and Instagram as well. I just can’t trust Facebook Inc. That’s for another day, and for the moment I will just try and ensure my Facebook app privacy settings are to my liking!!

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On-Line Reading.

From the presentation used on April 29th, 2019. Philip Edwards.

You can find a .pdf version of the presentation here.

Just a quick word of warning. I originally wrote this article on my old laptop. I wiped that machine without taking one last look to see whether there was anything of value stored on its drive. Lesson learned. That’s why I’m writing this out again.

You probably know this, but just in case you don’t, if you love reading, there is a wealth of reading material available on-line which can be read on a desk-top, lap-top, tablet or mobile phone. This is what you do.

Ebooks and Audiobooks from Cardiff Library.

This is not straightforward, but once you have the system up and running, everything works like a dream.

  1. You need a library membership card. Make a note of your membership number.
  2. You also need to ask the library to issue you with a PIN number.
  3. On your tablet or phone, download the Borrowbox app. This will be in the App Store for iPads and in the Google Play Store for Android devices.
  4. Open the app and login, providing your account number and PIN number. You’ll only have to do this once.
  5. You can then borrow eBooks and Audio Books for free. You can also reserve real books for collection. You can keep the borrowed eBook or Audio Book for up to three weeks. If you forget to return it, your tablet will do that automatically.

Magazines

This is a very similar procedure. You need the same account number and PIN number, but a different application.

It used to be that you needed the RB Digital app but it appears that things have changed. You now need an app called Libby (from April 30th.) RB Digital app goes offline on April 30th.

It is being replaced by a new app called Libby.

It is already available and very easy to use.

It also appears to be able to find ebooks as well as magazines:- a one-stop shop.

The home page is simply a joy:- far more inviting than either Borrowbox or RB Digital.What if you want to buy reading material?

Things you should know.

Kindle ebooks will play on Kindle devices, on any type of tablet or mobile phone.

You can also read Kindle content on a desktop or laptop by using the Kindle Reader application.

Is it possible to buy and read Kindle content without purchasing a device?

Things you should know.

As far as I know, Apple ebooks will only play on Apple devices.

Well, actually it might be possible but it doesn’t look easy.Another thing you should know.

Audio books are available for Kindle, P.C.s, laptops and non-Apple devices.

You have to buy a subscription for £7.99 per month but then have access to their whole library.

Another thing you should know. Apple audio books are available individually.

Just one more thing you should know. You usually have to pay for Kindle classic novels. Apple classic novels are free.

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Google Photos

Barbara asked a question about Google Photos, and I’ve re-visited the articles that I wrote a couple of years back, updated them to be relevant (I hope) – but I can’t be certain all the screen shots are the same as the present Google Photos on the web – and present them here for you to look at; if you’re interested.

First an article on “Getting to grips with Google Photos“, which basically tells you how to get your photos into Google Photos so that you can edit them online using the editor that’s available in Google Photos on the web. It might also be useful to bear in mind the article I wrote today on “How to delete photos from Google Photos“to get an understanding of how Google Photos actually works.

Then an article on “Simple Image Manipulation“, which introduces you to the online Google Photos Editor.

Finally an article on “Sharing an image (or album) from Google Photos“.

I hope these are of use and of interest.

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How do you delete photos from Google Photos?

Seems a pretty easy question to ask. Should be a relatively easy question to answer. Wrong! It’s a minefield of complication and you can quite easily find yourself deleting images from places you don’t want them to be deleted from. In this article I’m not going to even attempt to enter the minefield but after this easy one …

How do you delete photos from Google Photos on the web but not from the Camera Roll on your iOS (iPhone/iPad) device …

Google Photos will only delete photos from your Camera Roll if you grant it permission to do so.  If you delete from https://photos.google.com/ and then go to your phone app you will have an assistant card asking for permission to “Remove it from this device”  If you dismiss the card the photo will remain in the Camera Roll.

… I’m just going to refer you to these three articles …

First the generic article that covers all eventualities and takes into account the place of  Backup and Sync in the process for the Android world …

How to delete Photos from Google Photos but Not from Phone

… note the important piece of text in this article …

“While keeping a file on Google Photos and deleting it from a device is easy, it’s not simple to do so the other way round. When you delete a synced photo from the Google Photos app, it gets wiped from your phone and the cloud storage.”

… so take care and read what follows in that article.

For the iOS (iPhone/iPad) world …

How to Delete photos from iPhone but Not from Google Photos

… so heaven help you if you’ve got both Android and iOS devices; the process is not the same for both!

Lastly, and to fully understand what’s going on, it’s important to perhaps try to understand how Google Photos actually works. You can do this by reading this article …

What happens when you Delete photos from Google Photos.

… if that hasn’t made you feel suicidal, can I just wish you the best of luck. Perhaps buying a new phone, or taking out a Google One subscription is the only answer.

Could that be the reason why it’s so complicated to delete a Photo from Google Photos?

====

You might also find these articles from Google useful. Firstly an introduction to Backup and Sync and how it works with photos and videos (hint, it doesn’t actually do any sync’ing) …

Back up photos and videos

… then, a guide to help you work out what size of image/video you might want to backup and sync (or upload) to Google Photos on the web …

Choose the upload size of your photos and videos

… you perhaps need to refer to this post to see why this might be important.

 

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Changes to Google Storage

If you’ve got a Google account – you use Google Photos, Google Drive (and the Google Docs suite) or Gmail – you’ll probably have received an email telling you about the changes that Google are making to the way it calculates how much of the 15Gb of storage the company allocates to you has been used. They have also spelled out clearly when they will delete content that has been inactive for more than two years.

This post relies heavily (almost verbatim) on information already available on Google’s Help Pages – which should always be taken as the main source for information.

Currently each Google Account includes 15 GB of free storage quota, which is shared across Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Photos. You can add to your storage quota by purchasing a Google One membership (where available). To learn more about your quota, see what items count towards your storage.

Prior to June 1, 2001

The following items count against your storage quota

  • Original quality photos and videos backed up to Google Photos
  • Gmail messages and attachments, including your Spam and Trash folders
  • Most files in Google Drive, including PDFs, images, and videos

If you go over your storage quota

  • You can no longer upload new files or images to Google Drive
  • You can’t back up Original quality photos and videos to Google Photos
  • Your ability to send and receive email in Gmail may be impacted
  • You can still sign into and access your Google Account

After June 1, 2001

The following additional items will count against your storage quota:

  • High quality and Express quality photos and videos backed up to Google Photos after June 1, 2021. Learn more about this change.
  • Files created or edited in collaborative content creation apps like Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings, Forms and Jamboard.
    • Only files created or edited after June 1, 2021 will count against your quota.
    • Files uploaded or last edited before June 1, 2021 will not count against your quota.

And this is how your usage impacts your data

If you do not use Gmail, Google Drive (including Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings, Forms or Jamboard) or Google Photos for 2 years, your content within the inactive product(s) may be deleted (after reasonable advance notice).

If you go over your storage quota

  • You can’t upload new files or images to Google Drive.
  • You can’t back up any photos and videos to Google Photos.
  • Your ability to send and receive email in Gmail can also be impacted.
  • You can’t create new files in collaborative content creation apps like Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings, Forms and Jamboard. And until you reduce your storage usage, neither you nor anyone else can edit or copy your affected files.
  • You can still sign into and access your Google Account.

When you have been over your storage quota for 2 years, your content in Gmail, Google Drive (including Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings, Forms and Jamboard files) and Google Photos may be deleted.

So it’s time to do a stock take of what Google Storage you’re using. You’ll see something like this if you’ve got an active Google account …

Seeing how you may be using your Google Storage, with June 1st approaching might seem pretty frightening to you, so you might need some help to know what you should do, and whether purchasing a Google One plan might be right for you …

What happens when you’re over quota

When you’re over quota, it means you’re using more storage space than you have available. If you’ve been over quota for 2 years or longer, and you have not freed up or purchased more space to get back under quota, all of your content may be removed from Gmail, Drive and Photos. But before that happens, we will:

  • Give you notice using email and notifications within the Google products. We will contact you at least three months before content is eligible for deletion.
  • Give you the opportunity to avoid deletion (by paying for additional storage or removing files)
  • Give you the opportunity to download your content from our services. Learn more about how to download your Google data.

How to go back under quota

We provide access to storage management tools that help you identify ways to free up storage space at https://one.google.com/storage. Another option to free up space is to download your files to your personal device and then delete them from your cloud storage.

However …

If you want more storage space for Gmail, Drive, and Photos, you can upgrade to a larger storage plan with Google One.  You can click on the link “Get more storage” from the page that you should have arrived at above, and you’ll be offered the opportunity of purchasing a Google One Storage Plan …

But what happens when you’re inactive?

When you have been inactive in Gmail, Google Drive (including Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings, Forms, Jamboard or Sites files) or Google Photos for 2 years, all of your content may be removed from that product. But before that happens, we will:

  • Give you notice using email and notifications within the Google products. We will contact you at least three months before content is eligible for deletion.
  • Give you the opportunity to avoid deletion (by becoming active in the product)
  • Give you the opportunity to download your content from our services. Learn more about how to download your Google data.

If you’re a Google One member with no outstanding payment or quota issues, you are considered active.

Important: As an example, if you’re inactive for 2 years in Photos, but still active in Drive and Gmail, only your Google Photos content will be deleted. Content in Gmail and Google Drive (including Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings, Forms and Jamboard files) will not be deleted if you are active in those products.

How to stay active in these products

The simplest way to keep your data active is to periodically visit Gmail, Google Photos, and Google Drive (and/or collaborative content creation apps like Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings, Forms, Jamboard and Sites) on the web or through a Google app. Make sure you’re signed in and connected to the internet.

Please note that you may have multiple accounts set up on your device. Activity is considered by account, not by device. Make sure you’re using the services for all accounts on which you wish to remain active.

The article from Google concludes with some FAQ which you might like to refer to, including one answer on how to preserve content from a loved one if they pass away and the use of their Inactive Account Manager.

In another article, I will attempt to answer the vexed question of how to delete photos from Google Photos in your storage plan, your computer and your device the way that you want them to be deleted, ie not deleting them all, just deleting them from the place you want them deleted!!!!

Lastly, here’s a link to how to delete files (and reduce the count against your quota) from Google Drive.

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Notes from Zoom meeting – 1st April 2021

Another full screen with 16+ of us spurring the lovely sunshine for a chat! I started the meeting off by talking about the changes to Google Photos that will occur on June 1st and the 15Gb of free storage you get with Google Drive. I’ve written about these separately, so won’t include that content with these notes.

I also touched upon the deletion of photos from Google Photos, on computers, the cloud and mobile devices, but again, I’ve written a separate post on that so won’t repeat anything here.

I rushed through the new content on the Flipboard magazine, highlighting the post on Reddit, which was a response to the question Steve asked at the last meeting (he also asked about RSS feeds but I responded to that one in the last notes); the iOS 14.4.2 (or 12.5.2 for older devices) that Owen had alerted us to; and articles on the latest update to Audacity and a review of the “best” photo-editing apps – I can recommend Snapseed for anyone using Google Photos in particular.

We then went round the screen (although not in the order of Jim’s screenshot above – many thanks again). I’ll only mention things that people raised …

Owen opened a discussion about the possibility of mixed media (in person, face-to-face PLUS Zoom) that the Committee was going to discuss in the near future. The following suggestions were put forward, and Owen would welcome any further ones as well. Don suggested Alternate Meetings rather than joint ones. Jim suggested that there might be challenges with getting the sound quality right.I said that I thought the management of the meeting might prove challenging, and in particular Screen Sharing might be difficult. Steve commented on the number coming into such meetings. Paul highlighted the issue of remote attendees being able to see in person attendees. Phil suggested the setup would have to be – two laptops, two screens, two cameras and a high quality WiFi!!! We all agreed this would be unlikely at the URC 🙁

Barbara would be grateful for any information on Google Photos and I promised to make available some links to articles I’d written in the past. [This prompted me to think that a lot of what we’d got on the old Google+ platform would still be relevant, and caused me to look after the meeting at this presumably underused resource.] After the meeting I resolved to do more actively with the Forums and Topics area of the website – so watch out, you’ve been warned – another place for you to look!!

Paul retold his recurring story of negotiations with TalkTalk suggesting he was thinking of moving to Sky Central. He managed to reduce his fee to £22 for Broadband, TV – no premium channels, free calls and overseas calls) from £27pm. Seems like a bargain!!!

David H had been alerted that his Google Photos account was at 85% storage capacity and he’d been asked to consider upgrading to Google One (Jim and I both have such accounts) which would give a total of 115Gb of storage. He’d started looking round for a method of transferring photos from the Google Photos Cloud to his desktop and had settled upon using the Mozilla Foundation’s free email client – Thunderbird to do that job. [Personally, I’m not sure why David couldn’t have just downloaded the photos, but perhaps I’ve forgotten to note something he said.]

Jim mentioned that he’d been experimenting with the Intel Graphics Command Centre (see below) …

… as a means to calibrate the displays on his devices so that the colours were comparable. I commented that I’d spent some time recently trying to do the same with a Samsung TV and after some time had completed the calibration, only to end up with a Profile that I couldn’t detect a difference from the supplied one!!!!

Jonathan mentioned he’d recently been working on Photos Books using a process he’d been introduced to by Jessops (now sadly going into administration for the third time). The system he’d used was from a company called Cewe – I will include the details he supplied to me in a Forum called Photo Albums, and add a few other possibilities there as well – please feel free to add any you have chosen with a brief review of what you like, or dislike about it.

Steven was interested at Paul’s TalkTalk pricing – he might be taking that further as it’s approaching his contract renewal time. I mentioned that anyone thinking of changing ISP should very seriously consider opening a Gmail, Yahoo mail or Outlook/Hotmail (Microsoft) account and use that as it would ease the pain of moving away from one ISP to another. You can setup forwarding from your ISP’s mailer to the chosen one before you move (or even if you don’t intend to move at this time), and inform everyone (I did so by putting a note in the Signature of my email) of your new email address.

Don was doing just this email accounts thing at this very moment, and I quickly showed how to add a Google account to an existing account from the Icon displayed on a Google Chrome (or Gmail, Drive, or Photos) page.

John also commented on Photo Albums, but I didn’t note down the one he was using. Perhaps you could add a Comment/Reply in the Photos Albums Topic? I have recorded he said it cost c.£30 for 28 photos, and you could get both hardback and softback editions.

Phil noted that in his research recently for a new computer he’d realised that cloud storage was cheaper than hard disk storage. [My comment: you need to get the right balance. Cloud storage is slow – it’s OK for archiving stuff. I’ll set out my thinking/strategy in a Topic at a later date.]