Blog posts

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Creating a "magazine" – 25 Oct 2018

Boot-up
Meeting – 11th October. Ted Richards was the Convenor of the Group that day looked at Family History software – any questions or issues arising?
Changes to Thought grazing – https://thoughtgrazing.org
Logging in to Thought grazing – any problems or issues.
Password: Ca3rdyddU3A
Sextortion!!!!
Email scam threatens to show you watching pornography to your friends
An old scam with a new “flavour”

How safe are you online? 10 Questions to ask yourself
Another Facebook security breach
What to do if your Facebook account has been hacked
Google gets itself into trouble too by not telling users of a security hole and kills off Google+
The Brave browser – follow-up
also The best secure browser

News

Apple and Samsung fined for slowing-down older smartphones
Deleting your search history if you use Google
Fake review factories on Facebook
How to spot a fake five-star review on Amazon
Creating a magazine using Feedly, Pocket and Flipboard
Public article will follow – “Creating a Lightroom magazine”
Curating the web
Step 1 – create a Feedly account
Step 2 – select websites you want to get an RSS feed from [What is an RSS feed?] Step 3 – check periodically to see what has “popped-up” in your feed reader.
[NB You can also download an app for your phone or tablet for Feedly] Saving for another day, or for off-line reading (bookmarking+)
Step 1 – create a Pocket account
Step 2 – save to Pocket from your browser (perhaps using a browser extension), or from a feedly sharing icon
Step 3 – tag your articles, and read at your leisure, or when you want to
[NB You can also download an app for your phone or tablet for Pocket] Creating a magazine to share with others
Step 1 – create a Flipboard account
Step 2 – create a Magazine, and decide whether to make it Private or Public
Step 3 – add articles to your magazine from Pocket, or from your web browser
[NB You can also download an app for your phone or tablet for Flipboard]

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Starting to Trace your Family Tree (meeting notes from 10th Oct 2018)

Start by writing down what you already know of your family history.
Gather together any birth, death and marriage certificates your already have for the family.
Talk to other family members about their knowledge of the family.
Take copies of any certificates or family pictures they may have.
Then you are ready to start using online resources to help expand that knowledge.
 
Most important sources of information:

  • Births, death & marriages cartificates
  • Census information 1841 – 1911

 
Useful Websites

  • Ancestry.com – subscription site / free at library
  • Find My Past – subscription site / free at library
  • General Register Office – Free – needs registration
  • FreeBMD – Free
  • Family Search – registration
    • https://www.familysearch.org/

 
Accessing ‘Find My Past’ and ‘Ancestry’ in Cardiff Libraries

  • You will need your library number and a library PIN number.
  • Log into one of the computers in the library – note you may have to reserve a computer at busy times. At other times you will be able to walk in and start using one.
  • Double-Click on iBistro Library
  • Double-click on e-Reference
  • Double-click on either Ancestry or Find My Past

Recording your Family Tree
As you build up your family tree you will start to want to record all the information you have.  There are various ways of doing this:
The various websites (subscription and free) now enable you to record your family tree e.g. Ancestry.com.  You can sometimes choose to share that information with others but sometimes it is the default setting to share the information so take care.  Some sites automatically make information on living members confidential, others do not.
Many people purchase a bit of family history software to record their family tree.  I personally use Family Historian.
I also sketch out my family tree in Excel.

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Floppy Disks

Just a bit of trivia for you. When I started using computers at work, over twenty years ago, I would store my files on a 3 ½” floppy disk. These had a capacity of 1.44 megabytes, which means that these days I wouldn’t be able to store just one of my photos on one.

If I have managed to insert a photo from those days there, it is 600×480 pixels, and a mere 37 kilobytes.
(How did I type “½”? I didn’t, as I don’t have that key on my keyboard. I clicked on ‘Insert’ in the toolbar, and then on ‘Special character’.)
 

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Thoughtgrazing, Brave and DuckDuckGo – 27th Sept 2018

Boot-up

Email problems – two members do not like the new gmail interface. They advised the Group that even though they could revert back to the old interface, this would be removed shortly. It was suggested that they read their Gmail through a mail client on their device. This would be called Mail for iOS and MacOS (Apple) devices, and through Outlook on Windows devices. Just set up the Mail client to pull the mail down from Google. Instructions follow.
Use of Security Programs such as McAfee or Microsoft Defender. For users like us who are unlikely to play games, and know how to avoid scams, and are easily frightened off installing any strange software on our devices – it is certainly a good strategy to use Microsoft’s Defender progam which is part of Windows, rather than paying for anti-virus and security software. Always be mindful that downloading programs from the Internet has an inherent risk. Research the software before you download and install it just using a search term like “<software name> malware security”. Read the posts that come up and make your decision based on those reviews.
Online banking. One member was having problems reading online statements and balances linked to from an email. My advice was to go to the bank website, or use their app, rather than try and open a link in the email, or read text in the email. Distrust mails from banks anyway is good advice (Ted). They’ll always contact you again if it’s important.
Office applications (free). A member asked the question whether they should purchase the Office 365 suite – initially offered for free after buying a machine. Generally my advice is no – don’t purchase Office, unless you really have to. It’s just too bloated and is geared towards corporate use. The Google suite of apps is free, and the file formats are compatible with Microsoft as they use a common Open Source standard (Open XML). Another option would be to use Microsoft’s Office Online, which will work as long as you’re connected to the Internet, or alternatively to install LibreOffice on your device. Both of these also use the Open XML format to store the document, so one saved in one applications, should be readable in another..
Feed-back on using Evernote with Calendar. I posted a Comment under the Meeting Notes which gave a link to the following integration that Evernote has with the Outlook calendar – https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/208314168-How-to-integrate-Evernote-with-your-calendar
If you want to integrate Evernote with any other calendar you may have to use IFTTT – which I’ll come back to another day!!!
Meeting – 11th October. Ted Richards will be the Convenor of the Group that day and will be looking at Family History software.

News

Twenty years of Google.
Google proposes data protection legislation!!!!
How to check the health of your Windows 10 PC (and keep it in shape).
How safe are you online? 10 Questions to ask yourself.
All this and more in the Thought grazing magazine (on the Home Page)

How to use “Thought grazing …”

Browsers and Search Engines

There is still confusion over what an internet browser is. It’s the software that you can use to “surf the web”. There are a number of browsers around.
The first (in 1993) to gain widespread use was called Mosaic, which then was re-badged as Netscape Navigator when the developer broke away; it then morphed into Firefox, as it changed ownership from Netscape (the company), through AOL, to Mozilla. Essentially it is open source software financed through making Google it’s default search engine. [For a while it was financed by Yahoo when Yahoo had its own search engine.] You can download Firefox (safely) here.
Microsoft launched its Internet Explorer (in 1995) – it caught on to the internet rather late – and replaced it with Edge with the release of Windows 10.
The next entrant was Apple’s Safari in 2003 – up until then they’d been supporting Netscape – and they have stopped providing a Windows version now so that it’s only available on Apple devices.
The final and most successful browser (nearly 66% adoption) is Google’s Chrome browser. It was developed from an Open Source project called Chromium funded by Google to provide the code-base for Chrome. It continues as a separate browser on Linux, and forms the basis of a number of other browsers such as Opera and Brave, which is what we will discuss next.
In the post about Google and the difference between the Google app, on your smartphone, and the use of an internet browser such as Chrome (from Google), Firefox, Safari, Edge (or Internet Explorer, from Microsoft) I mentioned that I was using  Brave. As I suspected, Brave is financed in crypto-currency, with an opt-in model for advertising that the user wants to receive. A subject for another day?!?!?
So let’s download it and set it up …

I referred to alternative search engines in the article – eg DuckDuckGo and I am now using and testing that extensively. The combination Brave + DuckDuckGo is faster, does not track where I go – thus no annoying ads; there is an ad blocker built-in and pop-ups are prevented as well.
DuckDuckGo earns revenue by serving ads from the Yahoo–Bing search alliance network, and through affiliate relationships with Amazon and eBay.
Spread the word – if you like it, or learn a little more if you’re contemplating doing the same as me by looking at How to live without Google.
 

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iPhone Battery Replacement

I was in conversation the other day with someone who was complaining about the short battery life of their iPhone. I remembered that I’d put an alert in my calendar for later this year to take my 6s, and Jenny’s SE down to the Apple Store to get a battery replacement under their “special offer” scheme.
This came about as a result of them changing the way the operating system (iOS) worked on older models – slowing them down – to retain battery life. This caused a bit of a stink at the time, and so Apple responded with a replacement programme that means a replacement battery would cost £25, as opposed to £79, through 2018.
Apple also issued an advisory note to tell users a little bit more about how batteries would cease to work at full performance in this note which also explained how you could manage performance – which is of course what they should have done before they implemented it in the background without telling anyone. This article tells you how you can monitor and manage your battery health.
So … if you have one of the affected models (iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, iPhone SE, iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus) you should consider taking advantage of the Battery Replacement Offer, but for a few people with a 6S, it could be a free replacement.
The Apple Store calls …

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New Mobile Phone


This photo comes under the heading of Digital, rather than Computing, for three reasons.
I am holding my first mobile phone, a Samsung Galaxy J3.  I haven’t felt the need for one until recently, and even now I use it more as a small tablet.
I had just ridden a bicycle for the first time since I came to Cardiff.  As you may be able to tell, it is one of the new nextbikes which have appeared in the city. I used their app on the phone to hire it at Pontcanna Fields, and then rode it to Llandaff via footpaths. The app read a QR code on the bike, and then provided a code number to unlock it.
I am using the phone to remotely control my camera, a Lumix TZ200.  I can do things like adjust the exposure, zoom in and out, and obviously click the shutter, while seeing what the camera sees on the phone’s screen.
I hope some of that is of interest.
 

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A new year starts … and finally we look at Evernote – 13th Sept 2018

Boot-Up
Welcome
Issues & follow-up
We had a demonstration of the Beacon member website from Alison Firth;
David Hughes described the latest scam he’d been alerted to as it appeared to come from him and was going to a friend in the same membership organisation. As this person was a hotmail users, I suggested it was more likely they had had their email account hacked, rather than his gmail account. Last year we looked at Have I been pwned which allows you to check whether an account you have might have been compromised.
Digital Projects – I explained the idea behind Digital Projects – I showed this list as possibilities or examples of projects …

  • Buying a new computer;
  • Building a website for a project, hobby or for the family;
  • Family history software;
  • Under the hood – breaking down a PC into its components;
  • Building a server;
  • Using Linux to bring life to an old laptop;
  • Adobe Lightroom Training;
  • Video-editing for beginners including on a tablet (iPad);
  • Audio – analogue and digital working together;
  • More with Google Photos – further steps to link cameras and computers, and working with tablets.

News
Apple event yesterday – new iPhones and a new Apple Watch. You might like to watch the keynote speeches on your computer.
New privacy and security features in Google Accounts – you might wish to review your privacy settings in the light of GDPR legislation.
BT hike costs of email offering – ways of avoiding the increased charges for an email service from BT. IT’s going up from £5 a month, to £7.50 if you don’t have a BT line/account.
Fact checking – a review of websites that are allegedly “fair” and which have no obvious political leaning and also ones that debunk “fake news”.
Split-ticketing – an article that explains how a group managed to save c.£950 on a return journey by using the split-ticketing website. [Sianed told us that some train managers are happy to do this as well !!!] Topics for today
What is a browser? Look at this article which I wrote this week “Just Google it…” – it essentially suggests you should use a browser, ie Safari, Firefox, Chrome, Edge, Opera or Brave rather than the Google app on your smartphone or tablet for a better internet experience.
Thought grazing – features and demonstration. I explained the difference between the Public-facing pages on the site and the Private area available for Cardiff U3A Computer Group members (and past members). I’ll write some notes on how to post a note on the site and how to comment on posts before the next meeting.
Evernote – Here’s a Guide/manual to using Evernote. I gave a demonstration of how I use Evernote. Colin (I think) asked whether it could be linked to a Calendar – I said I would check and I’d report back in a reply/comment to these notes.

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"Just google it …"

Something I’ve only just recently become aware of is that people don’t know the difference between Google and an internet browser. Now this is a spectacular success for Google (the company) and drives their revenues up a lot, but means that users are potentially missing out on a lot in terms of their internet experience so this short note attempts to address that balance, albeit in a very small way!

How did this come about? Well principally because Google introduced an app for the iPhone and other smartphones and tablets called (unsurprisingly) … Google. It presents in a nice easy to use interface a way of searching for information on the internet – that is how Google started after all, which is how they also managed to corner the term for searching the internet – “just google it”. [You don’t hear many people saying – “just bing it”, or “just yahoo! it” – in fact in the case of the latter they just gave up and decided to use the Google search engine and ditch their own one.] So … at a stroke, new users to digital devices thought that the way to connect to the internet was through their “Google” app.
No, no – there is another way that presents you with so many other possibilities and no, no – you don’t have to restrict yourself to using just Google as your search tool. [In an earlier post I described some experiments with using DuckDuckGo and other search engines and I will return to that subject at another time.] So … what might you use?
Well even using Google’s Chrome browser is better than using the Google app on your smartphone or tablet. It probably uses the same software  “under the hood” based on Google’s Open Source Chromium code base but it does offer the possibility of adding extensions, and allowing the use of alternative search engines.
But what else could you use? On my iOS (Apple mobile devices) I tend to use Apple’s Safari browser. On my desktop/laptop I tend to use Chrome, or Firefox (another Open Source project) from the Mozilla Foundation. Then there’s Microsoft’s Edge – supplied with Windows, or Opera (a lean,  clean browsing machine), or I could be really radical and use something like Brave (and I am) which doesn’t track my browsing history … but I’ll leave that for another day, and for another post.
For today, the message is simple … don’t use the Google app as your main internet browser, just use it if you want to for simple searches. Find a browser you like and use that … and maybe even choose which search engine to use, it doesn’t need to be Google – I’m using Chrome with DuckDuckGo as I write this. You won’t regret making a change to your internet browsing/searching experience – believe me!
 
 
 

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I've now had an introduction to the SBOD

Now I’ve been uber-charitable about Apple and their MacOS, but yesterday and today I was introduced to the Spinning Beachball of Death which froze me out of doing anything on my iMac whilst I trawled the internet (on another machine) trying to find out what could be wrong.
I’d not left the machine on, in sleep mode, and yet it just crawled through boot and sign-in until it basically gave up the ghost when it got to the Desktop. What could it be?
Obviously it was probably a hardware problem … wasn’t it? Well a bit of Cmd + R work, running disk utility showed everything was in fine fettle, many re-boots later things seemed to be improving, but not all was right. What could it be? Try logging-in to another account on the same machine I thought. Well I had one, but it wasn’t an Admin account, but it was worth a try. This seemed to be much better so I was now thinking about Corruption of the User Profile and the need to Restore from a Time Machine backup … maybe. But then, out of the blue, all seemed to be well again … until this morning, when the SBOD returned.
This time I knew it was likely to be something to do with my User Profile, so I setup a new Admin account once I managed to get to the screen that allowed me to do that. Logged out, and then logged into the new account and, as I hoped, the login screamed through. I set up the machine and right at the end I was told that my Paragon NTFS for Mac (which allows me to read Windows files) needed to be updated as it was not optimal for my version of MacOS (High Sierra, 10.13.6). The penny dropped! This software wasn’t installed on my MacBook Pro. This piece of software was interfering with Finder on the iMac in some way to slow everything down. Quickly into System Preferences then, disable the NTFS for Mac driver, and re-boot. All seems to be well. Some hard lessons learnt and a lot of time wasted.
The lessons learnt?

  1. Have a spare Admin account on your machine so that you can check your user profile
  2. Disable, or Uninstall any software that you’re not using because inevitably it will go out of sync with something else
  3. Make sure that you know how to start your machine in a number of different ways to check for faults – I had to print out a cheat sheet to do this
  4. Make sure you have an up-to-date backup … just in case; I did, so that was my last option, and I’d have been OK … I think!