Notes from Zoom meeting – 10th December 2021
Two shots from the meeting. Ted had to leave us to attend to an urgent matter.
Apologies: Fred, Margaret, Sally Semlow – who hoped to join us again in the new year, Mario and Jonathan.
I suggested that we might list the successful and perhaps least successful presents/purchases we’d received/made in 2021. I kicked off with the Apple HomePod I’d bought for Jenny last Christmas which has turned out be one of the best bits of kit I’ve ever bought as a gift. The least successful was the Apple iMac 21.5″ (2015) I’d bought for her and which was under specified – criminal mistake on my part! In-between were FitBits, and Tags (which you connect to keys etc); maybe AirTags will be more successful – I need to investigate them more fully.
I reported that Which? have done a survey and written an article on the replacing of the PSTN Landline by 2025. Here’s a link to the article. Renee had requested help with transferring PDF to Pages (or Word) format. You can do it online from Adobe for free, or there are other online tools to do it as well. Otherwise, using the Brave browser, you can Open the PDF file, Save it in Document format; then Open, Select and Copy text onto the application you are using. This can’t successfully handle tables, however they can be treated as graphical images.
Jenny reported that she’d been over-successful; in getting a monitor in that a colleague had managed to buy 20 surplus monitors for £20!!! I said this was quite normal with surplus public sector equipment as they couldn’t be disposed of in other ways at zero cost.
Owen reported that he’d successfully employed an old USB speaker he’d got from a UCISA conference for his laptop. He felt that the purchase of an electronic PhotoFrame had been a bit of a failure due to the need to keep updating it from a USB stick, or WiFi, or SIM card.
David H said something about Heath MOT, a watch for testing blood pressure – I’m sorry I can’t remember the context.
Paul reported a failure (he felt) in the lifetime support for a Google Chromebook. You need to check the lifetime support span for these devices – they may be surprisingly short. [NB Apple’s tend to be longer on average.]
Jim felt that a table mount he’d bought for his phone had not matched his expectations.
Sianed reported that the pulse oximeter (for blood oxygen levels, and pulse readings) they’d bought had been a good investment – I agree.
Stella told us about the failure she’d had in doing some recordings off-screen of some films which had resulted in the sub-titles taking up 3/4 of the screen. On the other hand, she felt her purchase of an iPhone 8 on eBay for £200 had been a great buy.
Steve had been delighted by the purchase of his iPhone but had been alarmed by the heat generated during some activities which had led him to take the case off on occasion.
Ann was delighted with her Lenovo IdeaPad (£320) and said the switch to using SSD for external hard drives was a great success. She had been less pleased with a Toshiba laptop which had problems with the BIOS battery; difficulties in servicing but fortunately she’d not lost the hard disk in the repair.
Renee reported that HER stand for her iPhone had been a success (unlike Jim’s).
Don had started down the road of the “smart home” and reported that his smart plugs were a great success. [Another topic for a later meeting maybe.] His DashCam was a bit of a problem however and the updating of software was not easy – I believe he’d sought external assistance and had it done.
Christine was still experiencing the mammoth failure of her Bridge software, the Lenovo, and the WiFi extenders – I don’t know what else to say!!! On the other hand she was pleased with the Smart TV they’d bought.
John reported that he’d taken the camera he’d bought from JLP back – it was faulty. He was going to look into this again in the New Year – I offered to help.
Happy Christmas everyone.
Welcome to the Computer Group – 12th September 2019
Welcome
Introductions
What do you want / expect from the Group?
Please tick your attendance, pay £1.50 and agree that you want to join the “Thought grazing” website I run where the notes of the meeting are posted, and that you are interested in joining a WhatsApp Group.
For those who’ve expressed an interest in “Thought grazing” and establishing a WhatsApp Group, I’ll send out an email following the meeting with UserIds and Initial Passwords for new members. [You can change your password if you want to – I’ll write a post that explains how you can do that.] The Password for Password Protected pages on the website is the same as everyone’s initial UserId Password, namely – Ca3rdyddU3A
Do we all know the difference between Google and an Internet Browser? – Don’t be shy. This is perhaps the most important thing to be sure about before we go any further. Two links to look at – Just google it … and the notes from the first meeting last year.
What’s happening to Digital Projects?
Helping others in Cardiff U3A with Computing/IT issues …
- a WhatsApp Help & Advice Group? We agreed to do this and I’ll write to the Committee for them to consider.
- opening-up Thought grazing to non-Group members? We agreed not to do this
Visits. We agreed visits to the Barclays ‘Maker Space’ which Mario will arrange for us, see details below …
In addition, as part of our community commitment, we have also opened a new office in Cardiff designed to help businesses grow and start up in Cardiff. Great for budding Entrepreneurs (which statistics show can be high in the over 50s) and inventors. Part of the Eagle Lab office hosts a “Maker Space” that houses laser cutting, vinyl printing, 3D printing, electronics equipment including soldering etc. It has a distinctly digital feel too with a really switched on Engineer running the lab. We can host groups there and would be happy to chat with your Digital Projects group and your Science groups coordinators, to discuss with them what is available there and whether they would like to bring members along to take a look at the facilities, or host a meeting there. Please feel free to ask them to contact me and I can discuss what they need, what we have, what we can do to support your members.
… in the approach to Easter, and also a visit to the new BBC Centre after Easter. I’ll approach Cardiff Uni about the possibility of a visit maybe before Christmas, and Fred suggested a visit to Brains new brewery site as an alternative.
Boot-up
There will be no News section this year – I’m moving it to Flipboard, unless there’s a really big news story when we’ll take it as part of Boot-up.
Only “really” big news (tongue-in-cheek) is of course the Apple Autumn event streamed across the world last Tuesday afternoon. Available on YouTube and from Special Apple Events (if you’ve got an Apple TV).
Update your Bus Pass – Transport for Wales have taken over the issuing of concessionary bus passes for all of Wales from the Local Authorities. Your current bus pass will not be valid after December 31st 2019.
Gear Guide
Members are encouraged to talk about a new piece of computing/digital technology, or software that they’ve purchased or recently started using.
Paul’s gear experience this summer …
Our Windows 7 Medion Laptop in Holland slowly died after over 10 years, it was originally running Vista.
I looked at what we (Dolly) actually used it for …
- Emails
- Google Photos
- Banking
- Bit of Surfing
- Some Games
I concluded that we could use a Chromebook for all this, apart from 2 Windows specific Games.
I purchased an ACER 15.6″ Chromebook for €260 (it runs Chrome Operating System (Nougat 7.11) and with the saving from not getting a Windows 10 Lap Top , I bought a Lenovo 10″ tablet (TBX104F) for €120 (16GB / 2GB, it runs Android Oreo 8.1).
The Chromebook set up was really easy, you follow the on-screen instructions, and connect to your WiFi. It did an Update when started for the first time, then, if you already have an active Google Account and were using a Chrome Browser, you enter your details and it loads up and mimics what you had before. It works with Google Drive (or Cloud ?) and is easy to use for all the Google apps in the Google suite.
The Android Tablet was also simple, again you follow the on screen instructions & once logged in to your Google Account, it asks if you’d like to Clone your nearby Android device; hence it loads all the Apps you have on your phone. Dolly loves the Tablet, and is sorry she resisted my efforts to get her one for years!!
We came back to the UK and have now bought a SIM-free HONOR 8A phone for £120 from CarPhone Warehouse, although they are easily available elsewhere.
HONOR is part of Hauwei , but any current phones will continue to be supported with Google products (thus there should be no problem with the current Import Restrictions placed upon Huawei. This device runs Android 9.0 and is a DUAL-SIM device so we can install a UK and a Dutch Sim and she can use a single phone. [She is waiting for me to go over and install the Dutch Sim.] Set up on the phone was again easy. I logged into her Google account, and it mimicked all the apps she already had. I resisted the offer to sign up to Hauwai app “for a better experience”. 🙂
The HONOR also has some nice features … take a photo, and answer a call by just touching the Finger Print Sensor, on the back.
Currently all is working well.
Marilyn approached me for advice on which Mac to buy. She had a Windows laptop which was slowly dying. I advised her the most important thing when buying new gear was to write down very clearly what it was that you wanted to do with the gear, and where you wanted to do it. The upshot of that debate with herself was that she got an iMac desktop instead with faster internal Solid State Hard disk, an external hard disk for her photographs, and a bigger (and better screen) to watch YouTube photography videos on … and a re-organised flat!!!!
Apps Galore
That slot in the meeting where members are encouraged to share their experience (and possibly excitement) at a new app they’ve started using for their smartphone, tablet, laptop or desktop machine.
What’s IT all about?
An opportunity to occasionally go into a little more detail about how something works – eg how the internet works, how does a website work, how does email work, etc etc
Thought grazing, Flipboard and WhatsApp
Demonstration of using Thought grazing – there is a Guide, but I know you’d all like a demonstration.
Using Flipboard – for the best experience, register, follow Thought grazing and install it on your smartphone or tablet. You can add content yourself as well.
Creating a WhatsApp Group … for the Group. If you’ve ticked-the box on the sheet I’ve circulated, I’ll send you an invite to join the Group. You’ll need a mobile phone number to participate (I believe), and have installed the App on your phone. You can then also use if from your laptop/desktop (if your phone is to hand). Currently, it’s not available on a tablet (I believe).
[Update: Paul has written a post detailing how you can add WhatsApp to a Tablet.]