When I first started taking digital photos, seventeen years ago, I kept a written record of the subject of each shot, the date and time it was taken, and the exposure details. When the photography group started, seven years ago, I began to take many more photos, and it became too much of a chore to keep records. I also realised that the technical info was stored with each image anyway, in the ‘Details’ section of the ‘Properties’, otherwise known as the EXIF data, (Exchangeable Image File). However that meant that I no longer had any information about the subjects. (I’m talking about Windows, but Apple computers must have something very similar. I can’t see an equivalent with Android though.)
As I have mentioned in the meetings, it occurred to me recently that I could actually add that info to the EXIF data. There are five headings I can add text to. From the top they are Tags, Title, Authors, Comments, and Subject. The upshot is that I have been able to throw away (so far) about 120 pages of my original records, covering about 4,000 images.
One other thing. My camera records information about some of the settings I have used which doesn’t appear in the EXIF data, possibly because it is specific to Panasonic Lumix cameras. Things like the mode (P, A, S, or M), HDR, and highlight and shadow settings. I now use the Comments heading to record that info.
Incidentally I store the images in folders just numbered consecutively. I don’t need to have folders labelled by subject, for instance, as I can create virtual folders on the fly using ‘search’.
I’m not as good as David at explaining things face to face, but I hope you can now see why I am so keen on the idea, and wanted to share it.
We received apologies from Ann, Margaret, Jenny ( who arrived later) and Don.
I asked if anyone would be willing to share their favourite app with the group bu way of a demonstration. Steve offered to do something with Trello – a work organisation application, and I asked Ted whether he’d be willing to do something on Ancestry. Steve also asked me whether I’d do something on LastPass – so I said that I’d do that as a return favour for his offer which we agreed he’d do at the next meeting.
I then did a demonstration of flickr and will write an article up on what I’ve found out in doing the preparation for it! This will be on my Just thoughts blog in due course!
Owen reported that he’d been working on ways to move the Cardiff u3a website over to WordPress, in conjunction with some other local groups which were doing the same, and away from the SiteBuilder software he’d been using to date. They all needed to find a way to get it to work with the Beacon membership system, but there was a problem that there was no api (application programming interface) for Beacon that would allow easy import/export of information between the two systems. As a first step a read-only access api would be valuable and would allow the two to be linked together. Owen was now learning how to use WordPress, and I offered to provide help if required.
Mike has discovered the the iPlayer app on his desktop which he is very happy with. Steve suggested he looks into the Sounds app as well. I queried whether people listened to Podcasts much – quite a few members did.
David Hughes recommended the Sounds app and podcasts and said he’d just recently been listening to one from a family member – Jon Ronson – I for one, will try and catch-up on this!. We then started a discussion on David’s IT-phobic friend who lived in the Marina and somehow was receiving more than one incoming call on two handsets – that’s different calls!. It appears his son had purchased broadband and OpenTReach had installed a landline and a router. His landline is now digital (see Jenny’s article) and it appears he can use two handsets off the broadband landline for incoming calls. Renee reported problems with interceptions, and conversations being repeated on her landline. VirginMedia engineers had replaced the the handset to a broadband connected router. Maybe (she suggested) David’s friend had a legacy connected analog line? Owen offered the information that you could buy two-line cordless phones, but they did have separate numbers. [In later conversations on Signal it was mooted whether it was possible to put n answer machine on one of the lines, or not.] I can see us returning to this one.
Sianed advised us of a scam asking a user by TEXT to update their PayPal account. Watch out for that one.
Paul reported that Amazon and Visa had come to an arrangement so that Visa Credit cards could be used with Amazon. Good news. He also recommended All 4 as another possibility for streamed TV. I mentioned BritBox as another source of good binging boxset TV.
Steve had started using LastPass and wondered whether I could do something on using it, and was also looking at Flickr. He reported that he wouldn’t have problems with Chrome updates as the renewal date was 1st March. [I think this note needs reviewing.]
Ted was off to Rwanda. I won’t say more, just read his wonderful blog post on this site, and go look at his website for more information. He had us all in stitches describing his challenges with getting Banana Beer and doubts as to whether his payment using PayPal had been a scam because of links to a sister company offering him handbags and selling chilli paste. The mind boggles, or at least mine did!
Jim was transferring information from photos that went back to the early 2000’s into a Comment field in the EXIF data held on the photos. He also reported the problems that American airlines were having with 5G and their altimeters s they approached airports. The switch-on had been delayed until problems were resolved. Apparently 5G in the US is on a higher frequency than in the UK and transmits more power. Whether the problem is in the airports, or the planes is uncertain.
John reported that Flickr was working well. He’d uploaded lots of p[hotos of clouds and created a few albums of them too!
Christine was now a happy Real Bridge user. All her difficulties had been resolved [insert solution here as note not clear] She, like others, had been finding the process for getting a digital Covid Pass from the NHS website, more than challenging and was now printing off a paper version.
Renee had solved the problem with her landline; she said she was receiving emails from Royal Mail re. tracking deliveries that she was uncertain about. We suggested that they be best ignored.
Ann had updated her Zoom software. She had looked at her Firewall settings and chose to view blocking and now video not showing in Zoom. It was suggested that she look at her firewall settings and review Allow/Deny options. Jim suggested looking at the choices with Zoom itself that might be causing the problem. Owen suggested looking at another app that uses the camera to see if the problem was replicated.
Jenny (having managed to make the meeting after an earlier appointment) wondered whether she should get a replacement battery for her laptop – depends on whether she thinks £100-£140 is a good investment and whether she can do the replacement herself – perhaps get a view from Neil (our helpful IT fixit man!) and also said tht her external monitor was not working as well as she’d hoped.
Thanks Jim for the screenshot; I’m glad it’s just your internet connection that’s unstable! We had apologies from Mike, Jenny, Jonathan and Margaret. I’d forgotten to send out the calling notice until David Hughes reminded me – my apologies if that caused problems for anyone wanting to join. I caused problems for myself by trying to run the session from my laptop as I wanted to be near the front door to receive a parcel, but that caused a different set of self-inflicted problems as I started up the wrong Zoom session – The History Group to be precise – and wondered why no one was joining the meeting. Duh! Still, it caused some merriment at my expense and the meeting continued in a very light-hearted manner.
As suggested at the last meeting, I started with a description of what Google Drive for Desktop replacing Back up and Sync means for users of Google Drive on Desktops or Laptops. It has very little impact upon the use of Google Photos on Mobile devices which still has a Backup and Sync option. The slides from the presentation are available here to download as a Powerpoint presentation to play offline – with active links; or to read/download as a clickable PDF file.
We then reviewed the notes from the last meeting. We noted that the issue of Margaret‘s Modem/external drives/computer being switched-off would need to be followed-up at the next meeting. We were pleased to see that Jonathan had been able to get away on holiday to Cornwall, despite his Covid-scare reported at the last meeting. We were even more pleased (and impressed) to hear that he’d solved his McAfee Popup situation – something I’d managed to add to the last meeting’s notes. Steve had looked at the link to change YouTube videos to MP3’s but hadn’t tried it yet. Ann had solved her Printer and SkyQ Modem issue with acknowledged assistance from Owen – she offered to write what she did up as a Comment to these notes.
I suggested I leave the review of news (Flipboard) to the end of the meeting.
Sianed had been troubled by a popup when accessing Gmail that she was being asked whether she wanted to grant access by Google to her accounts. I was of the opinion that this was normal Windows security (now) and that she could probably switch off the prompting from with in Windows (somewhere).
This “problem” enabled me to raise the issue that I felt I was not doing the best for the group in not being able to answer Windows “issues”, or attempt to “solve” Windows “problems”. During the meetings Owen and Paul were doing a sterling job of trying to provide answers, but I felt it would be useful if someone in the Group could take the “Windows brief”. After a brief discussion, I sort of persuaded Paul to take on that role. Many thanks.
Jim reported that he was continuing with his work in adding to the metadata stored with his digital photos. Some of it was recorded in the EXIF data of the photo, but some was not – being camera specific. He offered (and I accepted gladly) the offer for him to write-up what he’d discovered. I added that a similar situation occurred in the world of Adobe Lightroom in merging of EXIF data, and also shared a tip to always take one photo with your smartphone (which stored location data) alongside any photos taken with a digital camera – if you wanted to add location information to your picture in your photo editing software.
Ann described her solution to the printer problem mentioned above and offered to write it up. Many thanks.
Ted had also had a printer problem, to the extent he’d nearly bought a new printer! However, after a bit of research, he found that the problem – blocked printer heads – could be resolved by purchasing a kit costing less than £10 which he intended to apply. It was also suggested that putting the cartridge heads in a saucer of water can resolve the problem as well. I can’t verify whether this is a foolproof, or damage-less solution.
Christine was able to announce that she’d moved the VM Extender to another power outlet the previous day and they’d had perfect reception. Let’s just hope this continues and the problem of poor WiFi reception is behind them. She also had noticed that one of the Icons that had been visible from her Windows Start Icon – that for People (her Contacts) – had disappeared. A solution was proffered (forgive me if I’ve got this wrong): Right-click on the bar on the screen; choose the option to show People on the Taskbar.
Paul was having “fun” with a new dash-cam which used different cable connections – a rather common problem unfortunately with digital devices. We noted that the EU was trying to standardise on USB-C. We also noted that the lack of printed manuals with new devices was not as good for the planet as might be imagined because we had to print them quite often. It was therefore good for the supplier in terms of cost-reduction.
Steve reported that following the last meeting he’d been able to remove the McAffee pop-up reminder; we advised him that he could quite safely use the Windows Defender software rather than pay £4 extra to TalkTalk for McAffee.
Don (with new devices at home recently) would quite like a session on Connecting Devices to the Network. He recently used his phone to take snaps of meter readings as they had fallen foul of the companies going bust. He also described what appeared to be a rather strange scenario (at first hearing) where he was being asked whether he wanted to register a Direct Debit payment for PAYG for the London Exclusion Zone for his car. After some discussion we came to the conclusion it was a valid offer [Ann reported something similar after an experience of entering the Birmingham Zone – and suggested that going on the .gov.uk website might explain more.] It appeared that this would be a personal decision to make. Setup an account, or just remember to pay if you DID happen to enter a zone.
Renee asked for any information on alarm systems as her COD Security system had recently requested a large hike in costs. Paul suggested approaching O’Brien Systems (Swansea); other suggestions were Sonic Alarms and Cardiff Alarms. She asked whether it was OK to upgrade her MacOS and iOS systems now. I suggested waiting for iOS 15.1, but that point releases of MacOS were generally safe to upgrade, and Safari upgrades should always be done. Following the meeting I sent a message to the Signal Group about a new “feature” for MacOS which should possibly be installed when offered – Mac Device Support.
Stella requested advice and information about different disk formats. I explained the origins of NTFS, and why exFAT was better in many ways as it could be used for disks attached to either Macs or PCS. Paul mentioned that FAT32 was another format that was relevant in the Windows world, but there was a fundamental problem with what Stella was hoping to achieve. A disk formatted for use specifically when connected to a TV could not be read on a PC, and vice versa. This was a protection mechanism on the TV to prevent copyright infringement.
David Hughes told us he’d had great pleasure watching his niece play her harp from the college where she was playing but wondered whether there was anyway he could have watched it on the TV. We thought that either Google’s Chromecast, or Apple’s AirPlay might do the trick if his Smart TV supported either of these. Here’s a link for Android devices and here’s how to show an iOS screen on a TV. He also asked about the connection of a sound-bar to his new TV. I stated that for decent sound he would have to use a cable connection – usually HDMI – and not rely on a wireless solution. Others suggested that there might be a Setting to change the “environment” of what he was watching, ie Music, Drama, News, etc which might improve the quality of the sound. He also praised the route information provided by his Maps on his iPad which indicated the best way to get to M&S, now that his local store was closing.
Owen updated us on Beacon issues including the fact that Chrome currently doesn’t work, but Firefox does. He described how a hybrid (in person + zoom) meeting had gone, but that the sound quality on his laptop was probably not good enough – perhaps using external powered speakers (£20-£40) connected to the earphone jack would be necessary; I have some connected to both the TV in the kitchen (from Logitek) and to my iMac (from Creative). Much better sound quality than the internal speakers of both.
To end the meeting, which had now extended to nearly 2 hours – partly due to my trials and tribulations at the beginning – I went briefly through the items I had added to the Flipboard magazine. I highlighted the features that were in the new iOS 15 release (again, I caution on upgrading until 15.1 is released); an important security upgrade for older iPhones; changes in the way people will be able to switch Broadband suppliers; the changes proposed by the EU to standardise on one kind of phone/tablet/device charger (USB-C form); and the release of an app from the Met Office and Exeter University that might be able to predict (using AI) whether it’s going to rain in the next 90mins!
I’ve noted (apart from Don’s suggestion to look at connecting devices to a network) the following topics I may look at in the future – Virtual Private Networks; and ways of using Google Contacts and Google Calendar with native Microsoft/Apple applications.
I’ll also raise the signposting of this website on the Cardiff U3A site (thanks to Steve for alerting me to this) and send an email message to the Group also advising them of the way to access it – just in case they’d forgotten.
I asked members to consider reporting – using this page – any scams they’d encountered to the Which? Scam Alerts Service – which I encourage you all to subscribe to.
I’m grateful for Owen offering to host the next meeting whilst I take the last of our “autumn breaks” in sunny Aberystwyth – well hopefully it will be sunny.
