Category: Tg Topic

Posted on

Virtual Private Networks (VPNs)

A piece of software that sits on your device and hides your IP address and user credentials from “snooping” network users. Of particular value when connecting to an unsecured public network (eg a cafe). Normally unnecessary on a home network when connecting to you router, but it obviously can provide additional security and hides your device completely from the internet.

Here is a link that explains how they work, and another one from the provider I use (NordVPN).

One additional use that they have is that because you can choose the geographical location of the VPN server you wish to connect through, you can logically (or virtually) place yourself in a different country, thus enabling you to appear to be in the UK – when abroad (so that you can watch UK TV); or alternatively appear to be in a different country from home (when assessing alternative cost options for say a holiday).

— Forum Responses —

Thanks for this, I am looking at NordVPN for location shifting.

If I sign up can I use it on 2 Android phones, W10 Computer, and Android Tablet, all on one subscription ?

Paul de Geus March 18, 2023 9:33 am

Posted on

Snipping and OCR Reader

From Ted Richards …

How I get web pages that don’t print into a format where they will:

Use the ‘snipping tool’ in Windows, select and paste it into Word or PowerPoint or something similar, and print.

On a similar vein, if I want to copy some text and the web page is set not to allow copying of text, I use the snipping tool, select and same as a jpeg, then use the OCR reader https://www.newocr.com/ to convert the picture into text and copy into the document I want it to be in.

Posted on

iCloud Photos, Photos on Apple Devices and iCloud Drive

The seed for this topic was sown by Ian at our meeting on October 13th 2022. I had to admit that although I had a reasonable idea of what happened with Google Photos, I was unsure what happened with Apple’s cloud offering.

I was reasonable quick in advising (and it’s reported in the notes of the meeting), that as expected …

“I can confirm that deleting a file on iCloud Drive from the Files app on an iPhone will delete it from icloud.com and your iCloud drive on MacOS as well – which is what you would expect should happen.”

However, the situation of Photos stored in the Apple Photos app (on iPhone or iPad) and iCloud Photos should also be noted – for completeness.

I’m not going to write anything; just provide three links to follow to clarify …

How to Delete Photos From iPhone but Not iCloud

How to Delete Photos From iCloud (While Keeping Them on Your iPhone)

and

How to recover a deleted photo or video on your iPhone or iPad

If you want to delete a Photo from both device and iCloud Photos. Just ensure Sync is left on and then you can delete the image from either the device or icloud.com

Having confirmed all this, and having more storage space on iCloud, and understanding that sharing Photo Albums is about to come to Apple Photos, and having checked that Sync’ing does seem to be working for iCloud Photos (from my Apple devices), I checked my Google Photos settings settings and switched-off Back up and Sync. I was doing far too many cloud backups!!! Always worth checking. If I want a Photo to be on Google Photos (for sharing for instance), I will now Upload, not rely on syncing.

Posted on

Well I never – Gmail Archive

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

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

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

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

But where is the archive?

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

Simples!

Posted on

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.

Posted on

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.

Posted on

How do I know that a Password manager is not just a phishing site?

Well … first you need to only download the software from the official links of the provider, eg LastPass, Dashlane or 1Password, or from the app store of your mobile device.

Then be assured that the passwords (if you use these downloads) are not stored on a central server anywhere. They are stored in encrypted form on your device. When you open a different device the password is transferred from one “vault” to another in encrypted form. The service provider just provides the encryption algorithm which it can’t have access to itself. So rest assured as long as you use the “official” downloads they’re very safe.