Category: Meeting

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Brief notes of meeting – 14th March

I presented using the post from last year as a guide, and referencing these two posts as well …

“Improving home network performance“, and 

“Home networks – some notes“

… I also pointed at the Network Forum where members might wish to raise home networking issues.

I showed a couple of videos from the first post, explaining the difference between Extenders and Powerline networking, and explained the difference between modems, routers and hubs; what the difference between 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz networks is, and when to use each of them, and when you might consider using a Mesh network.

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Notes of meeting – 22nd February

First of all my apologies to anyone who turned up at Sight Life on the 7th March. I was as surprised as anyone when I discovered that the shortest month in the year was going to have 5 Thursdays in it. We of course meet on the second and fourth Thursdays of the month, so a gap of three weeks between meetings!

I rapidly went through the new Topics I’d added to the various Forums, reminding those present that this was the place I’d be putting links to items of longer term (reference) interest and/or hints and tips, leaving Flipboard to be the place where news items of shorter term interest would be posted. I thanked Iain King for becoming a Flipboard contributor – the more the better.

We noted this article from Scientific American that highlights just how much electricity will be needed as we continue with our quest for artificial intelligence; a theme built on by Iain and Ian in their recent posts on the Signal group.

Finally, I mentioned that u3a have communities you might be interested in tracking; one of which is a Computing Forum, and I passed on the information that Iain King had shared with me re. Benedict Evans’ newsletters. Maybe more slanted towards the business sector, but also a useful adjunct to our Flipboard magazine.

First Iain King presented some slides and led a discussion on his visit to the Google Accessibility Design Centre (ADC). He stressed that Google didn’t just look at issues of accessibility in IT, but in all design areas including spoons!

2024-02-08-Google-ADC


I then re-visited the presentation I’d done last year on How does the Internet work? I’ve edited and updated the blog post and so it should be reasonably up-to-date. I highlighted however the following webpages and videos.

First the BBC Bitesize webpage “What is the internet?” It contains a brilliant video which uses pigeons and nests as analogues for the internet and its users. A must watch!!

I then showed this video which explains very well how the internet works, but towards the end betrays the fact that it’s really, really in favour of scheduling and prioritising of traffic and moving away from the long-held philosophy of the internet – net neutrality. The importance of net-neutrality – the fact that all users should be deemed to be equal, and all content providers the same – should not be taken lightly. If this principle falls then you will find investment in the internet for everyone will decline, and those that get the faster internet will have to pay for it. Please watch the Vimeo (a streaming service) video to see the other point of view.

I then showed this video from TED talks. [I mistakenly said that these talks were available from a Smart TV app – that used to be the case, but maybe not now.]

It’s a really enlightening story from an architect who got curious and wanted to discover the physical manifestation of the internet.

Finally I showed this video, one of a series that are worth watching, produced by one of the “fathers” of the internet. Someone who was in at the beginning …

Next time we’ll look at Home Networking.

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Notes of Meeting – 8th February

We started off the meeting with a welcome to Chris Morgan; we hope he enjoys the anarchy that is Digital Matters – we put on a good show of that yesterday. Was it because Mario had chosen to attend for his first meeting this session? Seriously though, it was good to see you. We had apologies from Jo, Jonathan, Renee, Iain and Nita but still we had 18 present, only 1 down on the Artificial Intelligence session two weeks before. We thanked again, Jonathan, Iain and Phil for their contributions. I gave a brief summary of how the meeting had gone and asked if anyone wished to amend or add to the blogpost which I would then de-personalise and post on the Cardiff u3a website.

Between the meetings Iain had sent me details of a newsletter from Benedict Evans that he monitors from time to time. I’ve now signed up to get a weekly email of what he’s been “up to” – it certainly looks an interesting website. Iain was at the Google ADC (accessibility design centre) in London, and has offered to put his thoughts on his visit on the site. We’ll look forward to hearing from him at the next meeting.

On Signal, Ian (Cortical Silence) posted an observation on Artificial Intelligence …

“Generative AI has increased fraud risk.

(1) AI can tailor content, correct typos and grammatical errors, thereby reducing ability to spot fakes

(2) AI automates the work so victims can be targeted faster and further

(3) AI can mimic humans’ voice, image and video to dupe family and friends

We should expect more convincing phishing attempts, more frequent attempts, and deep fake impersonations (even Taylor Swift has fallen foul).

The traditional markers of scams are beginning to disappear.
The more content we place online the greater the risk of it being scraped, analysed and abused.

It is time to batten down the hatches.“

All observations that should be noted carefully, but we must surely still look towards the positives, the advantages of enhanced searching, and the ability to replace repetitive tasks, for instance.

I then went on to explain that I wanted to distinguish two classes of content for our Forums on Thought grazing (here) and that which would be posted on the Flipboard magazine of the same name. I intend to put news items that have a limited interest life on Flipboard, and try to put items that might be classified as useful for later reference in the most appropriate Forum as a Topic for members to comment, or reply, on. I then quickly went through the news items on Flipboard, and showed the Forums and recent Topics I’d recently posted on this website. I hope that you find the distinction helpful and I do encourage more of you to become Contributors to Flipboard, and Participants on Forums.

I recommended that members experiment with Forums by posting something to the “chit chat area”, and I demonstrated how to do it.

I have recently updated what I called (for the old Computer Group) a Toolkit. It’s embedded below and I’ll attach it to a Beacon email for you to download and print.

Digital-Matters-Group-Toolkit-v.2

We then looked at Members’ issues.

Margaret described a strange experience she had been having with the BBC website, where she had chosen to read the News page in Welsh but that an auto-translation had then been generated which defeated her having made the choice in the first place. She was also getting a message that adblock was not working and the surmise was that Google Chrome was blocking a page if it was a different language than the default set. Sianed offered the solution of using two browsers, one for English, one for Welsh (which she did) to get round this issue.

Sheila alerted us to an issue concerning a passport application photo (taken in a booth) which appeared to show her with her mouth open – a consideration the Passport Office apparently doesn’t care for. She alerted them to the fact that she was an “elderly person” (joke!) finding the online application challenging and got her passport issued. Good outcome, and reminiscent of me being waved through border control at quick speed because I had a walking stick!!!!

Phil asked us if we’d heard of Elon Musk’s advocacy for implanting a chip in our brain to aid paraplegics and help to operate robot limbs. The future certainly looks interesting and one can see the real advantages of such work, but what about telepathy, and instant messaging from one implanted chip to another! Scary world ahead!!!

Chris asked if we knew any way of disposing of old technology (phones, laptops etc) safely and securely. I suggested that taking the hard disk out of a computer and smashing it was almost certainly secure; we remembered the offer from Curry’s to re-cycle old technology, but how would that handle the RAM on an old phone. After the meeting it was confirmed that a Factory Reset would wipe a phone completely and securely. This article from Which? gives useful advice and suggestions on how to handle old technology. For further suggestions, type “Disposing of old technology safely and securely” into your favourite search engine.

Paul was having difficulty with his browser and wanted to Uninstall it and then Reinstall it but it wasn’t available on the Apple Appstore. I suggested that he should first Export his Bookmarks to the Desktop, then drag his browser (Chrome) to the Trash, and then re-install it from the Google website. Many applications on MacOS are not in the appstore, unlike iOS which are “only” (for the moment at least) available from the Appstore.

Jim alerted us to a recent discovery he had made concerning his mobile broadband router (from Three). He’d always been unhappy with the performance of it in his living room, however moving it to his kitchen resulted in a dramatic improvement in throughput. This would appear to be both unsurprising – given the way the device would seek an aerial; and surprising – since you would think within a house there wouldn’t be that degree of variability.

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Notes of Meeting – 14th December

Apologies from Christine, Jo & Paul, Jeanne & Mick, Kate, Jen, Jonathan, David Hughes, Tony and Sianed.

We welcome Iain King to his first meeting.

Thanks to Phil for his presentation on his visit to Bletchley Park.

I then went through a variety of “interesting” items that I’d put up on Flipboard, highlighting the ones on Meta introducing a possible subscription model to avoid sanctions from the EU on data sharing; an article from Which? on printer ink; useful things you can do with a smart plug; and how to keep your iPhone safe from thieves.

Before we adjourned to The Gatekeeper for a Christmas drink, we had a quick run round the room for issues.

Anne still hadn’t found a solution to her McAfee in Spanish language problem.

Phil enquired how many members had a screen protector on their phones, and whether they had been installed in-store, or not. Quite a few members had and they reported that they worked well.

Sheila requested a reminder on how SIM Locks worked and were set up. I’ll add a Topic to the Hardware and Software Forum.

Jenny reported that she was shortly leaving Cardiff to return to London, but was having email problems that we talked through with her.

Iain enquired whether he (as a Windows 10) should upgrade to Windows 11, or not. I said that it was a very personal decision, that might be guided by how old his PC was. As Microsoft are still supporting that version of Windows it was not as pressing as earlier versions.

Yvonne had an iPhone 8 – I think she was enquiring whether it should now be replaced. Well … if you can afford it, yes; otherwise if it’s still doing all you require then, no. But gradually some apps will stop being supported and you’ll need to consider replacing it.

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Notes of Meeting – 9th and 23rd November

[I’ll add some notes from the 9th hopefully soon, Sianed has sent me these and I’ll format them at the same time.]

The group was asked to share their thoughts on the best (or worst) experience with computers they have used.

 So many  of the group said their experience of computers first arose as a necessity in the workplace. These was often computers that had huge servers needing a whole room to house them.

Most found these systems initially challenging, but have come to appreciate that living in the modern era demands knowledge and competency in their use.

Here is a summary of their comments:

Jenanne   –                          Likes her Apple and is very happy with it.

Jo   –                                        Liked the Hewlett- Packard Filofax   –  uses computers out of necessity

Paul  –                                    Used a Data Processor @work punch tape/card – print out

                                                Uses an Apple power bar – 40 “ hard drive

Ian                                         Liked the Apple Classic – original.

Kate                                     Did not have any positive or negative thoughts/experience 

Ralph                                   Really liked the Spectrum 48 as one could programme it

                                               S 128 – very good the software games in the form of floppy discs

Nita                               Used the  Unix  system at work – not a big fan, the computer took up a whole      .                                     room due to their massive servers

                                      Used a dell machine with a dot matrix printer

                                      Now uses a Apple and is happy with it.

Sheila                          introduced to computers @work in the Civil Service – ZX Spectrum (again an        .                                     enormous sized machine).

                                     Now is an Apple fan ++  uses i mac.

Lynnett                        At work  First used a Bletchley Park IBM type computer.

                                      Now uses computers as they are a necessity. 

Yvonne                     First used a BBC computer with  5” floppy disc  – ‘Find Spot’ games found them 

                                   useful with the family

Anne                       Just uses computers does not like them particularly –  “them and us”

Mike                       First used computers at work in the Civil Service. He wasnt their bigest fan as he 

                                did not fully understand them but were a necessity.  Thinks of them as are tools,

                                and  would be lost without his i-pad

Phill                   Likes the smart phones. Finds the  QR codes very useful -especially for parking 

                            (millenium Centre – but tickets for show and parking at the same time.)

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Notes of meetings – 12th and 26th October

Apologies (yet again) for not getting the Notes written up for the last couple of meetings. Fortunately there was not too much to record 🙂

Apologies for the 12th were received from David Hughes, Don, Jeanne & Micky, Sianed, Tony, Sheila, Jonathan and Mary. We welcomed Dave and Nita.

Apologies for the 26th were received from Jenny, Renee, Sianed, Jeff, Yvonne, Jonathan, Kate and Margaret.

I went through the procedure to update Member Records on the Cardiff u3a Membership Portal – I can’t change email addresses, or very few other personal details. I described the tools that the group uses – this website, the forums, the Signal group and Flipboard magazine. I also showed the Group page on the main Cardiff u3a website where calendar/meeting information is shown, and where occasionally you will find a blogpost from the group.

I explained that I would not be able to lead the meeting on the 23rd November but was delighted that Phil (supported by Sianed) would lead the session. Phil will give a presentation on his recent trip to Bletchley Park and I have suggested that Sianed leads a discussion on “Computers I have known and loved (or hated); or both!”

I also announced that the session on the 26th would be on “Digital Music” and invited members to come prepared with contributions on apps, hardware and services they used and their experience of using them.

Member issues/news:

Phil told us all about Cyberclean – yellow gloop – that was really good to clean keyboards – this was a follow-up to the maintenance session held previously.

Anne had a cursor problem with the mouse freezing. Unfortunately we were not able to provide any definitive reason why this might be. Could be a driver problem; an interupted Windows update … who knows. Anyway the problem seems to have gone away.

Stella had a new phone and we discussed how you transfer the old SIM to the new phone to keep your old phone number and how to get a PAC to enable you to move from one provider to another.

Phil was very keen on an app called Zotto which enable you to make Notes.

Ralph raised the problematic issue of the analogue to digital phone changeover and Paul commented on how long it had taken for BT to resolve this issue for him.

Dave asked a question about secure email and I confirmed that I felt Proton was a very secure service (I think that was what the issue was!!). He also advised us that he’d be seeing us again in the spring upon his return from the US. In the Digital Music session he told us about his use of an app called Clipgrab to get pieces of music from the internet, but that he was now using VLC Media Player.

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Notes of meeting – 14th September 2023

The first meeting of the new year saw 15 of us meet at Sight Life for our second year. We had apologies from Anne, Ian, Jonathan, Christine and Margaret (and my apologies if I’ve forgotten anyone). We welcomed back Phil and it was great to see Fred back after his “health adventures”, and were pleased to welcome Jo and Paul to their first meeting. We wish Paul de Guess all the best as he waits on his heart procedure, hopefully as soon as possible so that he can get back to the group. We say farewell to Ted, John and Elaine but of course they can keep in touch with us on Signal, and of course this website and Flipboard.

Notices:

Meet the Groups is on October 10th at URC in Windsor Place. Our stand is in Meeting Room 1 upstairs – where I think we were last year, and thanks to Yvonne and Stella for helping out behind the table. I think we’ll be able to accept about 4 new members immediately and then it will be necessary to have a Waiting List.

The Christmas Dinner is on the 8th December, and we felt that we didn’t want our own table – we’ll just mix with others!

We should have a meeting on the 28th December, but I suggest we meet on the 21st a little earlier perhaps 1:00pm at the Gatekeeper across from Sight Life, for a bite to eat (maybe) and a social pre-Christmas drink.

Updates:

Sianed and I flew the flag for the group and the possibilities of Artificial Intelligence at the inaugural Cardiff u3a Debate … and we won. I think it was 27 to 14 in favour of our arguments.

I gave a talk to Porthcawl u3a at their annual study day, and based it on the session we had last year on The Apps I use. Here’s the presentation for you to look at – it’s easier to follow than the separate posts in the Forum. I do intend to keep them up-to-date however as I find new apps I like, and I urge you to do likewise. [Please contact me if you have any questions on how to use Forums and Topics.]

What’s going on?

I’d had loads of website problems over the past couple of weeks that had forced me to look at the security of the sites in greater depth, as well as implementing a different back-up strategy. Hopefully, with those in place, life will be a bit calmer for me from now on.

I asked if anyone had a suggestion for a topic for discussion at our meeting on 28th September and Stella suggested Maintenance, a great idea, so that’s what I’ll lead on for that meeting.

I also advised that I wouldn’t be available on the 23rd November for the Presentation session scheduled for that day. I asked how many members had attended the General Meeting in August when Owen Hardy from South Wales Police of the Cyber Crime Protection Unit talked on Security. It appeared that no one had, so I said I’d invite him. [Unfortunately neither he nor his colleague Steve Davies can make it on that day so I’ll be looking for other possible speakers.]

Phil intimated that he would be unable to attend the next meeting as he was going to Bletchley Park – perhaps we might twist his arm to talk to us about his visit?

Lots of new ideas for the newly titled group. I’m tempted by the idea of getting an Apple Watch – that should take up quite a lot of learning time; we’ve invested in some smart technology and hope to be installing solar power and a battery with a gateway to the grid shortly – again some ideas for discussion; and all things “smart” and AI will undoubtedly get an airing.

I then ran through a number of articles I’d posted to the Flipboard magazine. I encourage you to go and look at them, and would be even more encouraging if anyone in addition to Jonathan and Paul would volunteer to be contributors. It’s very easy to add an online article that you found interesting that you think other might like to read.

Members News and Issues:

Jim told us that he’d been “experimenting” with the TfW app to purchase train tickets – he’s normally a bus person. All had gone reasonably well, apart from the fact that the trains didn’t turn up and he’d had to resort to the bus to get him home!

Sianed asked about iPhone batteries. She’ll have to remind me (us) what her actual query was, because I forgot to note it down!!!

Tony asked about battery replacement and performance of old phones. I had to disappoint him by saying that battery charging would improve, but there would be no performance improvement. Beyond a certain age, it was probable that a new machine would be preferable. He also told us about a new internet-only bank account he’d come across, and others in the group also chipped in with ones they’d signed-up for. [Again, I forgot to write these down, so please remind me and I’ll add them to this post.]

David H. told us about the hack of his 23-year Sky account which had needed replacement accounts and new phone numbers. A really unfortunate experience. All is well now, happily.

I showed Jo how to use my “new” discovery on the phone – Reminders. As my memory fails me more and more, this app could be a life-saver. Is that too dramatic?

Renee mentioned something about Libre Office and PDFs – again please help me – what did you say? She also recounted her experience of using the ChatGPT app in a multi-lingual context. As she switched languages it eventually “learnt” and caught up with her questioning – impressive!

Finally, Phil told us about his experience of using the McDonalds app, a bit like Jim’s use of the TfW app, some ups, and some downs. Life will get more and more linked to apps; that’s why digital does really matter.

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Notes of meeting – 27th July 2023

A short set of notes to mark the last meeting of the Computer Group before it rises like a phoenix from the ashes as “Digital matters” in September (14th September to be precise). It was great to see some returning faces – David Hughes, Jonathan Guest, Steven Jones and Rob Morris; extend the welcome I should have made to Elaine Millward – attending her second meeting; report that Fred Davies was on the mend and hoped to be with us in the autumn and to accept apologies from Sianed, Don, Margaret and Sue.

But we still managed to have an attendance of 17 which was magnificent and which means we ended the year on a high point in terms of numbers. It was accepted that we would start the year in September with a subscription of £2.50 a meeting but would reduce it through the year if we were building up a surplus. [I’d much prefer to reduce through the year than increase.] My guess is that we are quite close to breaking even this year, but I’ve not done the sums yet. We started last year at £1.50each with a room fee of £15 an hour – but this increased at Christmas to £20 an hour with reducing numbers.

I encouraged members to join the Signal group and I have 4 members to add – Elaine, Rob, Steven and Tony – I should have sent the invites before these notes are published. I must also check that I’ve added members who have joined us through the year to the Thought grazing community – I know I must add Elaine, but there maybe others who might have been overlooked. In which case they’ll have a lot of reading to do to catch up!!!

I also mentioned the Meet the Groups event which will take place on October 10th at URC at 2:00pm. Yvonne and Stella offered to help me with the stall to describe what we do to prospective members who might have to go on a waiting list as I’m limiting the group size to 25 max. I mentioned that I had to write a new description for the group which I’d circulate for comment before submitting our new description to the u3a website.

Finally in the introductory remarks I mentioned to members that I was taking part in the inaugural Debating Society meeting opposing the motion “The Use of Artificial Intelligence will be a bad thing for mankind”. This will take place at URC on 5th September at 2:00pm. I’m looking for a Seconder and hopefully can get support from someone in the group.

I then presented the talk on Smart TVs which sparked some lively discussion, particularly from Ralph who would appear to be very knowledgeable on the subject and who contributed a lot to our understanding of colour and the need to really try and get to the point where we could appreciate that what you wanted to see in your home was the same as what you were being shown in the sale room.

Following that we had a discussion on developments in the ChatGPT/Bard and Artificial Intelligence space since we discussed it earlier in the year.

Have a great summer everyone. I hope to see you in September but if you don’t want to join the new Digital matters group, please let me know. You’ll always be able to access Thought grazing and I’ve no reason to take you off the Signal group.

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Notes of meeting – 13th July 2023

A busy meeting with far too much chat from me. So much so that we had to postpone the promised AI discussion to the next and final meeting of the year on the 27th July.

We started off with a discussion of the email (below) that I’d sent to members with my suggestions on how the group should work from next year when we start-up again on the 14th September.

As I’ve already shared with you, I’m planning to do a session with discussion and thoughts on Artificial Intelligence at our next meeting on 13th July and planning to do the TV/Digital session on 27th July.

Thanks for all the kind words about my cancellation of the meeting on the 22nd June. You’ll be happy to know that our slabs were laid successfully and are no longer the trip/fall hazard they had been.

I’m into planning mode for next year and there are a few things I’d welcome your feedback on. Please drop me a line as a reply to this email with your thoughts.

1) I think it’s time to give the group a refreshed title to reflect that we do very little on or about computers, and a lot on general and specific digital issues; that is the internet, apps, mobile computing, home devices, security, privacy, digital exclusion etc. etc. I’d like to change the name of the group to either “All things digital”, or “Digital matters”. Your thoughts, and your preference for a new title?

2) I’m sorry but I’ve decided that I can’t facilitate a Zoom meeting on the first Thursday of the month any more – it hasn’t met for the past couple of months in any case. If Paul would like to facilitate it and organise it, I’ll certainly attend when I can, but I’d like to split it away from the main group. Is there a demand for this meeting? Your thoughts Paul, and the thoughts of others who might wish to take part in such a group?

3) At the start of this year I expressed the desire I had to learn more about the devices I use every day. I mentioned that my knowledge of iPhone, iPad and Macs (and iOS, iPadOS and MacOS) had not really developed in at least 5 years and that I was sure there was more I could learn to make my life easier if I just applied myself. Being forced to research a few hints and tips, new apps, and better ways of working every month would really help me, and might be of interest to others. I’m therefore suggesting a lunchtime session (at 12:00 probably) to precede the discussion meeting on the 2nd Thursday of the month which I thought I’d call “Apple pie”. It would be an informal session (bring your own lunch for instance) – venue to be decided, but possibly the cafe area in URC – and contributions would be welcome from anyone. This idea would have to go to the Committee for approval as it might be thought to be exclusive, but there is a precedent in Phil Edwards iPad group, so I hope they will agree to it. I could make it open to all of u3a members as well. Your thoughts on this idea? How many of you might be interested in attending?

4) I’m proposing we move back to URC for our meetings next year. Whilst I personally will be very sorry to leave Sight Life, we have not been able to cover our costs since Christmas with a subscription of £2 a meeting. We need a minimum of 15 attendees each meeting to break even. The alternative is to pay £2.50 a meeting. What are your thoughts on this – the change of venue, or an increase in charges to stay at Sight Life?

5) Finally (and related in a perverse way to the above), I don’t want to have the same self-enduced chaos of having too large a group a group at the start of the year and all that shuffling around which nearly drove me mad (esp. when trying to do hybrid meetings as well, it has to be said). I’ve therefore put a max size on the group of 25 and re-introduced a waiting list. If you know definitely that you won’t be coming next year, it would be helpful to know now. You will always have access to the Thought grazing website and the Signal group, unless you ask to be removed from it. The former is open to all u3a members in any case.

Apologies for the length of this message. Congratulations if you’ve got to the bottom of it! I’d really appreciate your thoughts and input in helping to frame the direction of the group for next year.

First of all many, many thanks to the 13 (or more) members who replied to this message. From those replies I got a feeling of the way the group was thinking. We then discussed the points raised above.

From a vote, the majority of the group felt that the group should be renamed “Digital matters“. We confirmed there was not currently a need for the Zoom meeting on the first Thursday of the month – I had been in contact with Paul about that. Quite a few members felt that the idea of “Apple pie” was a good one – but the form it would take was not confirmed. There was quite a lot of discussion about the venue, but in the end there was a unanimous feeling that we should continue to meet at Sight Life, and coupled with that we would start with a meeting subscription of £2.50 and reduce it if numbers allowed in order to cover the cost of hire of the room at £20 per hour. Lastly we accepted that a Waiting List was an inevitable result of the over-subscription last year, and that if the numbers wanting to join were greater than 25, and the Committee didn’t like the idea of a waiting list, that the Committee should approach someone (other than me) to convene another group.

So there we are. Consequent upon the decisions we reached and after thought over the weekend, I decided that Apple pie wouldn’t work with meeting anywhere else but URC, and so I ‘m offering a “virtual” Apple pie Signal group, and added a Android alert group as well. These have now been setup and you are encourage to join using the links below …

Apple pie –

https://signal.group/#CjQKIIc4-QxKAiTPe_mR-zXT75dTymdhGSt4LC0vZqcJiO_7EhD80veTdB5689YNazCzUZIc

Android alert –

https://signal.group/#CjQKIP693Zm9STWTQhVyJqiQWxoH2edCDj3r-dUD2whDQaHlEhB9ZZAyEoR0AaTjD-4RrzeW

It had been 5 weeks since our last meeting and there was quite a bit of news to review. I had trouble finding the link to the Flipboard magazine – so subsequently I made it a main menu link …

… more about that later.

We touched upon Threads – the latest effort to wrest control of the social media world from Twitter, but noted that it didn’t contain news feeds, and that if you deleted your Threads account, it would also remove your Instagram account – an unintended consequence, or a planned tie-in for future monetisation? We also noted that it was not yet available in Europe, only in the US. It’s take-up therefore was quite exceptional.

I noted the cessation of support for Firefox updates/upgrades on older versions of MacOS. This was regrettable, but inevitable – you cannot make software run for ever on older hardware or software.

I mentioned the Apple Rapid Security Response release and recommended that all iPhone/iPad users should make sure that they have these releases enabled. They are not the same as Updates or Upgrades which I continue to recommend should not be installed immediately, but delayed for a couple of weeks – at least – to ensure that other people find the bugs that are always present in new software releases. I also highlighted the furore over Apple’s increase in costs for iCloud storage. I didn’t think it was unjustified and felt it was still excellent value for money – if you’re a Mac user.

We then had a chuckle over the Fox News item that advised you how to check whether the microphone on your device might be listening to you through certain apps. You might wish to check this!

I then noted that the demography of Facebook was aging which might be why Meta was trying to find new ways (eg Threads) to maintain their user base.

Then a note about enhancements to the Chrome browser for iOS users, and a shout-out for Video as an alternative to YouTube for hosting videos that you might want to share with family and friends but not the rest of the internet, and not without giving-up copyright.

Apple has joined Google, Facebook, Twitter and others in condemning the UK governments’ online security bill. They have stated that they will have to exit from the UK if it passes into law. I’m truly surprised that politicians and civil servants don’t draft this kind of legislation in partnership with the tech companies so that they don’t try and enact something that’s technically impossible to implement. I also highlighted an excellent interview that was on Channel 4 News with someone from Signal with an MP – worth a watch.

I revealed that the EU – a champion of privacy and data security legislation had now relaxed their objection to data transfer to the US – I await to see whether there is enough control in the US to encourage me to drop one of my objections to Meta and use of WhatsApp.

I reported on more steady progress towards the adoption of Passkeys through the latest news from the Fido Alliance.

Finally, I pointed members to a series of recent articles from Which? Technology newsletters which are free and which I encourage members to consider signing-up for – support for LibreOffice rather than Office365; the pitfalls of purchasing anti-virus software; when to decide to switch broadband provider; arguments to persuade you that it wrong NOT to consider switching.

All of that took far longer than I’d intended it should, so we only had time to consider member issues.

Jenny had problems with the hinge on her laptop, we advised her to go to “We will Fix your PC” – they might be able to help; she also had problems with her printing after using supposedly compatible cartridges. They might be able to help her with that too.

Margaret mentioned an issue with twitter which has transpired since Elon Musk’s takeover. She formerly was able to view tweets that she’d been sent – even though she didn’t have a twitter account. This has now been disabled as the API to twitter has been withdrawn. She also told us about her saga with her anti-virus provider and the fact that she was no longer able to install the latest version on a device that she had previously had it running on. Advice to uninstall completely the previous version was suggested by Sianed. She was however now content to just use Windows Defender and probably not renew the package next year.

Anne was having yet more challenging times with VirginMedia. This time over the failure of her email system; which was due to a failure by them, not anything she had done, which was confirmed by the engineer who eventually came to see her. She also reported that by switching (due to takeover) from VirginMobile to O2, the Facebook Messenger app was causing charges for MMS messages, which she’d not incurred previously.

Ian told us about the “What3Words” service and app to pinpoint your location in case of emergency, including getting lost! He also reported a way of completely wiping a disk in a Mac computer before disposing it. Just press CMD-R whilst booting-up and that takes you to a menu which enables a number of possible options to reconfigure a disk. He also reported on problems that he’d had when trying to “rescue” his iPhone, only to find that he was required to provide 2FA to access the website to get through to the Apple store. It transpired that there is a way to get through directly to the Cardiff store from the Apple website.

Renee had bought a Smart TV and was still trying to discover its capabilities, and she asked whether anyone had tried Bard – some members had.

Finally Tony asked for the URL of Papercut, the company that produces “easy to follow” manuals for lots of things. Here it is – https://www.pclpublications.com/catalogue/

I hope you agree with me, it was quite an enjoyable meeting.

Following the meeting, I did a bit of re-organisation of the Forums on Thought grazing, introduced new menu items under the Forums menu tab to make Topics more easily findable. Please use Topics as a way of reporting interesting items to the Group – they’re much more useful there than on Signal. I will try to copy relevant posts into Topics but it would help if you could do this yourself.

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Notes of meeting – 8th June 2023

Apologies again – notes delayed by almost 5 weeks!

I started the meeting by checking up that we had members willing to staff the General Meeting – we did! I raised the issue of the VirginMedia Analog to Digital switchover and the potential problems we might have at home with our Hub in a cupboard! I also mentioned the recent huge data loss from my pension provider and the fact they were giving out an Experian tool to check that none of our accounts were compromised by the theft – worrying! I then went through the news items, some of which were on Flipboard and highlighted ones on ChatGPT – which we would discuss at our meeting on the 13th July; the important announcements from the Apple World Wide Developers Conference (including their Vision Pro virtual reality headset – which we would watch a video of at the end of the meeting; I also mentioned the progress that was being made with implementations of Passkeys and again expressed my support and excitement for this initiative that hopefully will see the beginning of the end for Passwords; I also mentioned a few frauds and scams that were making the rounds – and again recommended folk sign-up for the Which? Scam Newsletter.

My notes for member issues are surprisingly thin. Don was having a difficulty with a standoff between Norton and Google over passwords. Jim gave an update on Jonathan’s progress after his operation. I was able to assure a member (?) that you could get your complete health record from your GP – it will be on a CD and all your records back to birth should have been scanned. Anne had been having problems with her bank giving incorrect advice about security on her phone. I (DIH) had been tied to my computer copying files from my laptop to iCloud data storage having discovered that only two folders (Documents and Desktop) on iCloud Drive are kept in sync. This has led to a lot of re-organisation on how I do things; a lot of checking for duplicates; the bringing into service of a number of “old” external USB hard drives; and the reduction in used space on my iPad – which was most welcome!