A shortened meeting due to your host not having prepared anything to present for which I apologise. It’s been a bit hectic in the Harrison household just recently!
Steve, Owen, Margaret, Christine and Sally presented apologies. We wish the latter a continued good recovery to her broken shoulder and hope to see her in the New Year. We had an attendance that shall we call was fluid as we had members who had to leave to attend to taxi duties and others who arrived towards the end again due to other considerations. Our mug shots (thanks Jim) reflects the comings and goings.
There wasn’t much to review from the previous meeting but we await the outcome of Margaret’s discussions with TalkTalk and Christine’s experiments with using different email addresses with interest.
For today it was very much a “no issues”, “nothing to report” sort of day. Quite a change from normal, so the notes are relatively brief and as I hadn’t added any news stories to Flipboard that part of the meeting was also brief!
David‘s contribution was focussed on the use of his lookout on the Esplanade to watch the painting of the pier and the fireworks. Time well spent!
Stella reported she’d had a scam message from WhatsApp – very similar to the one that Jim had reported to the group on Signal. These are very upsetting and annoying but easy to notice – perhaps changes introduced by Ofcom will limit them in the future. One hopes so. She also advised us that she’d learnt last week of a process to check more rigorously for fraudulent claims involving online activity. This was bound to happen one day as the banks have been paying out large amount of money in compensation. Perhaps it would be a good idea if we all checked the Terms and Conditions of service providers more closely instead of just check-boxing them through in the same way as we’ve had to accept cookies, etc. She also told us of a funny interlude when she’d been unable to set a password for an account she was setting up with a bank. Eventually a clerk had created the account with a very basic password. She’s been unable to change it, so needs to go back to the bank for them to change it – if they can!!!
John was puzzled by the Covid Password Passport application procedure and whether voice recognition was being employed as the process requires you to video yourself whilst saying a number. I suspected that it was more facial recognition that was being used. I couldn’t imagine where my voice was kept on file. Others mentioned the online banking where “My voice is my password”. John pondered on whether Big Brother was alive and kicking in Covidland. He also reported that he’d gone to John Lewis with the possible intention of purchasing a new MacBook Pro but had decided that the purchase of a new Fuji Camera would be much more worthwhile – can’t disagree!
Don had purchased a U-Green USB smartcard adaptor for his Micro-SD card for his in-car camera system. He has yet to try it out. It cost £15 and has ports for CF, MS and standard SD cards as well. He also told us about the trials and tribulations of trying to delete an email address from his contacts in Gmail. It is a bit more convoluted than with other systems as Contacts in Googleland are part of Gmail. Elsewhere they’re a standalone application. So you have to follow a different process than you would have to in Microsoft or Apple worlds.
Jim reminded us that two-factor authentication (2FA) was being rolled out to Google accounts. He and Don had yet to have their chat about the user interface of AllDup.
Ann wanted to congratulate Owen on the splendid presentation and use of technology for the u3a AGM on Tuesday. [I had to admit I’d forgotten it was taking place, such is the happenings currently in my life.] She had been stimulated by the excellent experience and the prodding from Owen at a previous meeting to try and document her solution to the connect a printer by WiFi to a Sky router problem. So far she’s failed unfortunately because thinking the best way of documenting it would be to repeat the process, she’s been unable to reconnect. All is not lost however because she has a cable connection to her router which is working satisfactorily. She has said she won’t give up however and will try again. I commended her on her devotion and service to the group … but please don’t lose sleep over it!
Renee asked me whether it was sensible to upgrade MacOS to Monterey now. I said that was the version that had been supplied to me on my new MacBook Pro and it seemed OK. Some small cosmetic changes to the appearance of Finder and Safari; some rather larger (and worthwhile) changes to the way MacOS and iOS would work together. [I’ll share a link to a document on Signal for Mac users that describes what’s going on, the shortfalls and the benefits of the routeway between the two technologies.]
Fred had problems connecting to the meeting; it would appear that it was a problem at his end as no one else had experienced any difficulties. In general discussion in response to Sianed’s experience (see below), he reported that he’d been surprised to find £4k had appeared in his bank statement this week, which he’d reported to NatWest. It’s still there!
Sianed reported the unpleasant and worrying mistake that HSBC had made with her bank account – a withdrawal to go to the Halifax. She was concerned that if she hadn’t checked her account roughly twice a week, she might not have come across it. She (like John who had also experienced a mistake by a bank) was offered £50 compensation. Notwithstanding this, I reiterated that online banking was generally very safe, and that using banking apps on mobile apps even more safe because of physical measures such as fingerprints or facial scans.
Jenny arrived just before the end of the meeting and gave us a very brief and pleasing summary of her discussions with Irish journalists on getting broadband to older people. She advised them to use OpenReach’s Postcode checker and to use that information in lobbying for accelerated rollout of service.
And that was that. Mike, Paul and Jonathan had nothing to report.