Blog posts

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Amazon Echo one year on.

Hi,
After being an enthusiastic Amazon Echo user for the past year, I have to admit that I’m simply not enjoying her company so much any more.
As an enthusiastic user, I took out an extra subscription with Amazon so that I could upload my music to their servers so that I could access my CD collection through the devices. Recently I’ve had an email from them to tell me that they are discontinuing that service. Hours of wasted effort.
It was kind of cool asking Alexa to play certain tracks and certain tunes however once you realised that your success rate was only about 40% my enthusiasm soon waned.
I took out the extra Amazon Prime Unlimited subscription for a while so that I could listen to just about any track ever recorded. Thing is; and you old folks might relate to this ….trying to think of something inspiring out of fresh air isn’t all that easy any more. It is far easier to see your albums displayed on a tablet screen, offering some suggestions as to what you might like to listen to.
However, the most infuriating problem that I experienced was what I’ll call “The Tuesday Phenomenon.” My wife babysits on Tuesdays. Theoretically that gives me free time with my music collection. Often, on a Tuesday I’d ask Alexa to play a certain album only to find that it had lost network connection. It would then take about 30-45 minutes to get back into the groove by which time I’d often need some calming music to tend to my fraying nerves.
Amazon Echo. Great for asking for spellings. Pretty good at sums. Turning lights on and off is really cool but the music player simply isn’t anything but frustrating.

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IT on trips, or holiday, and meeting notes – 7th June 2018

Here are my notes from the meeting; with a couple of additions from you …

Issues
News
Trips and IT – Hardware
  • Smartphone, Tablet or Laptop
  • Power sockets or adaptors
  • Cables (Ethernet and HDMI cable)
  • MiFi – portable WiFi using 3G/4G
            MiFi from Three
            Huawei MiFi at Amazon
Trips and IT – Software
Trips … on the go
  • Want to do some fun geocaching? – Munzee
  • Want to hire a bike? – NextBike, it’s not available everywhere – but it is in Cardiff!
  • Cheaper digital banking overseas? – Revolut
  • and then there’s apps for Expedia, trivago, TripAdvisor, Airbnb, kayak, Hotels.com, Booking.com, etc
  • eBooks? – try the Libra eBook Reader with the Cardiff Library service, or the Kindle app for your tablet – you don’t need a Kindle!
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Mapping, Google and geocaching and meeting notes – 10th May 2018

Ocado
Quick hints:

  • Getting short cuts for documents on your Desktop – Go into File Explorer, find the document you want to create a Shortcut for, single click on that document, right click, select Create Shortcut.
  • Format painter in Word. It’s the paintbrush in the home menu. Highlight the area of text that shows the format you want to copy. click on format painter. Highlight the area of text you want to copy the format to.
  • Bullets – highlight the text that you would like to add bullets for. Click on the bullets in the Home menu – about half way along in the top row.
  • Disabling touch pad – on a Lenovo machine press F6. Only works for that session.

News:

  • Windows 10 update
  • Google launches
  • Broadband speeds

Google maps

  • Getting coordinates – go into Google Maps. click on where you want to get the coords for. Rich click. Go down to What’s here? A box will appear at the bottom that includes the coordinates. These coords are often not in the format you want for your SatNav so have to be converted. A good website for doing coordinates conversion is: http://www.nearby.org.uk/coord.cgi
  • https://www.google.com/mymaps – this website appears to allow you to plan routes, whereas the https://www.google.co.uk/maps/ site does not
  • Saves to Google Drive – the route you plan seems to save to Google drive.
  • Saving as KML file – this seems to be the only format you can save a route in and not the ‘.gpx’ format that is often used. There is probably a way to convert KML file to a GPX file somewhere.

GPS
Geocaching

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Meeting notes – 26th April 2018

Here are some notes from this meeting facilitated by Paul …
We looked at three items today:
TPS > joining, Reporting  < Make a Complaint > and its effectiveness; some discussion on Nuisance communication, including Emails & PayPal Spoofs > report to Spoof@paypal.com
We looked at Google Maps,  Locations, How to get Directions, add intermediate destinations, cross the channel to France….
Owen, David, Don, Ted  and Jim collectively discussed my problem, and Jim came up with a solution to Bookmark the page & Route in Chrome.
Some discussion about downloading the routes to a Mobile from John Thorn (Alan Neave’s Brother in Law)
Ted (& Jim) introduced us to Street View History, that can go back 10 years for any location on GMaps by clicking the top Left dropdown box when in street view.
Ted will follow on with more interesting interfaces with Google Maps in two weeks.
We looked at Google Calendar and how it integrates across most platforms pretty easily.
Some discussion on Email services > Outlook , Mail, Windows Live Mail.

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Online buying and selling; Fb still in the news and meeting notes – 12th April 2018

Issues
  1. You can recall a message in Gmail for a limited time after you’ve sent it – as long as you’re using the browser version or the Gmail app; will not work with email clients, such as Outlook, or Apple Mac Mail.
  2. Problems with Spam from BTinternet – investigated; could not find anything specifically that is a current problem.
  3. How do you clone Mac – if you want to rebuild your system; resolved and answer given to Renee
  4. Topics for the future
  • Cookies and internet history – managing them
  • Buying a new system; transferring your old system to a new one on a Windows PC. This has been covered for the Mac in response to Renee viz. cloning.
News
What do you use different forms of storage for?
  • Internal hard disk drive
  • External hard drive
  • Solid-state drive
  • USB Memory Sticks, and Memory Cards (SD Cards, Compact Flash)
… and then there’s …
  • Cloud storage
Topics
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Facebook issues and meeting notes – 22nd March 2018

Issues
  • apart from getting onto Forum (see later) and the Broadband readings
News
  • Facebook and Cambridge Analytica
  • How to make yourself safe(r) on Facebook
  • Another RSS Reader hits the dust – Digg dies
Broadband speed tests
Thought grazing and U3A Forum – demonstration
            https://thoughtgrazing.org/
Next meeting – 12th April
Meetings on 10th and 24th May – facilitator for these meetings
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ICE – that’s In Case of Emergency

 

In Case of Emergency Card

 

Recent discussion in U3A has been on what role a Group Convenor should have in case of emergency. It’s a difficult one, I haven’t fully resolved in my mind what responsibility I should have – I think it’s one that’s worth discussing. Should I, can I request that information be lodged with me? Should the group member provide it to a membership record on a database system that the Convenor can access? Or, should – and this is the purpose of this post – the individual take the responsibility upon themselves. This can be done by either carrying a card – this one is used by The Ramblers – there are many providers of this sort of card, eg ICEcard, or should we use the facilities on our Smartphones which allow access without unlocking the phone from the Home screen.

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How much do you know about computer fraud?


Recently in a U3A meeting we discussed Computer Fraud. We often do, or so it seems. If it’s not fraud, it’s security online, or scams and what’s done with our data … but more about that later!!!
This short post is just to alert people to a simple, short quiz (or test) that has been produced in conjunction with the UK Government to help people recognise fraudulent activity.
Go to this website, satisfy yourself it’s genuine and is a government backed initiative, and take the test and see how you do. According to the Daily Mail – so it must be true – only 9% of people taking the test were able to accurately recognise all the scams and false messages, that despite a claim that 80% felt that they were able to recognise a fraudulent message.
For further guidance try this link.

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Windows 10 Maintenance – 8th Mar 2018

The internet was not made equal!!
http://www.speedtest.net/results
Task Manager – Alt-Ctrl-Delete
Processes Performance App history Start-up apps
Virtual memory – type Performance in search box, select Adjust the Appearance and Performance of Windows
Visual effects Advanced > Virtual memory – Increase paging area
System – select Gear wheel > System
Power and sleep Battery Storage
Uninstall Apps – select Gear wheel > Apps
Apps & features
Viruses and Malware – type Defender in search box
Windows Defender Security Centre
Clear caches in browser(s)
Safari Chrome
Improving system performance
Microsoft’s advice
Computerworld – 8 quick tips 
Windows Central advice
Wintips advice
Make Windows start faster
Quick housekeeping guide
Checklist for a complete Windows cleanup
Windows Projects for a Weekend
Beginner’s Guide to Fixing Windows 10
Best way to clean Windows 10
Deleting old Update files
Slow boot times
Everything you could possibly want

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Thoughtgrazing, Forums, Buying an iPhone, online Fraud and Google Hangouts – 8th Feb 2018

Thoughtgrazing and Forums
https://thoughtgrazing.org/
https://thoughtgrazing.org/cardiff-u3a-computer-group/community/forums-and-topics/ – not active any more
Buying an iPhone (Marilyn), and a used one at that, contract free
The phone Jenny has is an iPhone SE, I have an iPhone 6s. Both of these (though not the latest models) are still obtainable from Apple, or from the Service Providers. So here are some links for you to chase-up. Unless you plan to hold a lot of photos/videos on your phone, I wouldn’t worry too much on having more than the minimum amount of memory (RAM).
You might consider buying a used model. This is a good article which explains the options. I can’t recommend, because I’ve never done it – https://www.macworld.co.uk/feature/iphone/how-to-buy-second-hand-iphone-3496606/.
However the Service Provider I use, and would seriously recommend using (GiffGaff owned by O2 and using the O2 network) do offer pre-owned phones and I would have no hesitation of thinking about buying from them – https://www.giffgaff.com/mobile-phones/pre-owned.
Can I also pleas stress that you should NOT consider buying a phone on a contract if you can at all possibly afford the up-front cost, as the long-term cost is SO much greater; the same goes for the instalment options. Your best option is a SIM-free purchase – I pay just £7.50 a month for my deal with GiffGaff, and I could quite possibly drop that down to just £5 per month.
So here’s the page for buying a phone from the Apple Store – https://www.apple.com/uk/iphone/ – you’ll see that both of our phones are still current models.
The iPhone SE – https://www.apple.com/uk/iphone-se/ – and The iPhone 6s – https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/buy-iphone/iphone6s
Please feel free to contact me again for further advice/guidance before you make a decision.
I think I may spend some time on this in the Computer Group on Thursday. Always a good topic.
GiffGaff and 3 (PAYG)
https://www.three.co.uk/Store/SIM/Pay_As_You_Go
https://www.giffgaff.com/
https://www.giffgaff.com/mobile-phones/pre-owned/apple
Fraud website from UK Gov
https://takefive-stopfraud.org.uk/
and course from FutureLearn
https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/cyber-security? 
Hangouts (and also Chrome Extensions)
https://hangouts.google.com/