Another lively meeting that once again saw Google settings omitted due to lack of time. At the end of the meeting I declared my intention to start with that next time, and especially look at Google Photos, and for the “round the screen” to follow.
Matters arising from the previous meeting. I mentioned that I’d put an article about the Pensions Issue for Women on Flipboard; I highlighted Jim’s Comment on the Meeting Notes that referred to his video; Fred reported that TalKTalk seemed to have got their act together in Cregiau – now he needed to get his act together with Signal!!
I went briefly through the items I’d added to Flipboard highlighting articles on screen sharing in Zoom; deleting Fb posts; the free password manager now available with Dropbox; the differences between USB standards and cable-types [NB we agreed to hold a session on this at some stage]; on adware; deleting online accounts; and a tool you can employ to move photos from Apple iCloud to Google Photos.
Member Issues.
Marie-Christine was interested in the idea of deleting online accounts and “disappearing” from the Internet [This will be a good subject for a session at a later date].
David H reported that the transition of his wife’s bank account away from M&S Bank had gone well [It’s interesting that a couple of banks, notably HSBC, have offered incentives to entice ex-M&S customers to join them].
Don told us about his grandson tutoring him over FaceTime – something we’ve all got used to. He also advised us that an article had appeared in The Times on sharing Netflix access codes. They were clamping down on this and making sure that “families” were living in the same house!
We advised Barbara that she might consider using speedtest.net, or uswitch.com, to test the speed of her internet connection and if it wasn’t performing as per spec. then to follow that up. She is with VirginMedia and as this is cable, she should rigorously challenge them if they’re not delivering the speed they should be as per contract.
Stella raised the interesting issue of being advised on her TV that an insecure WiFi network was trying to access her TV. We re-assured her that there were many WiFi networks around every house and it was inevitable that you’d see more than just your network. As long as your network has a secure password then you don’t need to worry. In this case it was probably just a neighbour clicking on a network at random, or by mistake.
Phil was enjoying his new MacBook Air; he had installed (just because he could I suppose) Parallels Desktop to enable him to run Windows 10 on it, as well as Ubuntu (Linux). Why spoil a lovely Mac is my comment!
The problem Marilyn had been experiencing with her external Hard Disk was now resolved – she wasn’t really sure how! She was experiencing problems connecting to/using Signal. Hopefully that’s resolved itself too now.
Paul‘s partner liked the old Windows 7 games (no comment); he’d found a way of installing them on Windows 10 and had put a link on Signal to inform anyone else of the solution. He was also cross at TalkTalk trying to increase the cost of his fixed-price contract before it came to the final date.
Steve reminded us that it was easy to Mute yourself on Zoom and then unmute by using the spacebar; a practice it would be good for all of us to employ. He also had been getting some scams on Text messages – like the ones we reported on a few weeks ago. He also asked about RSS (Really Simple Syndication) and Reddit – what are they, and are they of interest/use. I was able to answer immediately how I used RSS feeds – and described in this post I’d written on how I use them to prepare for meetings and the Flipboard magazine – and I promised to get back about Reddit, which I did in a Signal post; the text of which I include below …
“A quite good explanation of Reddit is given here. You can perhaps think of Reddit as Bulletin Boards and Forums for everyone. Rather like the Forums and Topics on Thought grazing.”
Renee was experiencing some problems with Virgin Media
Owen was excited to tell us that Beacon Error Message 502 had now been fixed. I enquired when the new version of Beacon was likely to be ready. Sometime, never is probably the answer!
Christine‘s problem with her WiFi had returned, it’s sporadic. For her, Renee, and Barbara it’s important to press the problem with VM. They may offer free WiFi extenders. VM is the fastest network you can get. Don’t give up on it, just make them deliver the service they’re supposed to.