Tag: LibreOffice

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Notes from Zoom meeting – 5th November 2020

So once again I’ve been a bit slow with the Notes. Apologies. I’ve been waiting for a couple of things which I’ve now received – thanks Paul, Jim and Fred and I’ve also needed to write a couple of short posts on URL shorteners and taking screenshots – now done. That being done, what else happened?

Margaret had received a book from her son who worked at the Met Office in Exeter and she read from it to illustrate just how much the computing power had increased there over the recent past.

Owen reminded us that the U3A AGM was coming up as a Zoom event.

John reported that he was still coming to terms with his new iPad Pro, and expressed some problems with sync’ing Apple email. I hope we sorted that out, but if not please raise th matter again.

Don was having problems with his Google settings, and I remarked that it would probably be a good subject to look at at a meeting. He also indicated he’d value some advice on a wildlife camera – I obliged with information after the meeting. It was felt that WiFi probably wasn’t the best way to transmit the images, and that if power to the camera was necessary that might restrict positioning.

Jim indicated he was still thinking about replacing his laptop. I gave some advice after the meeting, both to Jim and to the WhatsApp group.

Paul told us about his encounter with PayPal and Pre-approved or Automatic Payments. I attach his notes here …

I did not know these existed until I made a purchase from Google. My PayPal account automatically paid from one of my debit cards without any further selection from myself regarding my preferred funding source etc. So I investigated…

Not obvious  you have them,  or where they are 
Not easy to Find in PayPal Headings, as they are then called “Automatic Payments”
Log in to your Pay Pal account
Go to Settings (Gear Wheel type icon)
Go to Payments
Go to Manage Your Automatic Payments and then  Select
Click on  Show Active  &  Show Inactive as nothing may be displayed !
Select item from the list to change or deactivate.

… and you should have removed the Pre-approved or Automatic Payment.

Fred reported back on his conversations with Digital Communities Wales and his minute of discussions is attached below

“ Fred D reported back on the minuted action aimed at establishing the need for support/contact arrangements for isolated/disabled households, amongst others, as highlighted in media /TV reports & whether there could be a role for  group members individually  or collectively

Following  consultation with Jenny Sims the work of Digital Communities Wales was highlighted ;The organisation has received an £800K WAG grant to address Digital Exclusion & the Web-site gives a clear indication of wide ranging all Wales supported projects including involving those as above.

Following discussion it was decided to invite the SE Wales Programme Manger (Matthew Lloyd) to participate in the next (19/11) group Zoom meeting; It was also recognised that this activity could in, due course, be of interest to the main U3a branch & wider network”

In her absence, by email, Jenny reported My good news is that my digital working party’s recommendations have been approved and the National Pensioners Convention will launch a campaign on February 1st to help more older people get online and support those who cannot or do not wish to be online.

Subsequently Fred sent me this message from Cardiff County Council …

Further from my telephone conversation earlier I (Katie Rapell) wanted to clarify some of the initiatives and projects that we are currently running: 

Tablet Gifting Scheme – Due to be launched formally in the coming days. Will seek to provide the most vulnerable in our community access to a FREE data enabled tablet which they can keep. Eligibility applies, applications are subject to assessment. 

Digital Surgery (Digital Drop in sessions) – one to one digital advice available over the phone or via video call, current turn around response is 2-3 hours. This service is open to anyone and welcomes any digital query. This service used to be face – to -face in hubs, and also offered a repairs service but due to Covid -19 we have had to move online. Typical enquiries involve : 

  • How to download apps or access information online 
  • How to enrol in Adult Learning courses online or access council services 
  • Online benefit or tax applications 
  • Scam help service, to identify potential correspondence from fake or scam services and verification of email. 
  • Installation  of broadband advice and signposting 
  • referral for training or activities

Basic digital skills courses (BT Skills for Tomorrow) – In partnership with BT, We offer a one day basic digital skills course that is delivered through the Learn My Way platform. The course is tailored to personal need and is accredited. 

Progressive/ Industry aligned digital skills courses – In response to the growing digital sector, we have been collaborating with local industry to develop progressive digital courses that will complement the technology industry in Cardiff and globally. 

More information can be found here: https://www.adultlearningcardiff.co.uk/digital-support/

Thank you so much Fred and Jenny. We look forward to meeting with Matthew and Jenny on Thursday. The Council is due to launch it’s initiative this week through Facebook, twitter and press releases.

Phil gave a live demonstration of how an Amazon Echo Show device could work, and he was confident that it could pass his “granny” test – if he had one!!

Ann raised an issue she was experiencing with Libre Office and databases. This arose from a WhatsApp conversation where she and Maragret had been very helpful in providing some guidance to a friend of Paul, who was trying to set up a database for slides. I undertook to investigate the problem and was able to confirm that the Java Runtime Environment needed to be installed. I’d done that successfully on my MacOS system.

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Notes from Zoom meeting – 18th June 2020

I’ve learnt my lesson from last week and am writing up the notes immediately. First a set of topical points/issues, and then a report on “What we do with our computers”.

Paul reported that he’d been experiencing Gmail opening, closing and then re-opening when using a browser on Windows? Is this a Windows thing, a browser thing (Chrome), or what? Owen was also experiencing it (but Renee on a Mac using a browser wasn’t). Owen undertook to investigate. Paul also asked whether anyone knew whether there was any advantage in responding to the request to Archive when prompted from Photos, or Mail on Google. I promised to look into this.

Renée reported that her Zoom meeting (one including participants from Italy) had been a great success. She wondered whether being “upgraded” to be given more time, when she thought she was only going to get 40mins was a standard thing. Group members seemed to think that maybe this only happened on a first call, others seemed to think if there was less than 3 participants the “upgrade” was standard; others thought the “upgrade” to more than 40mins could happen at any time – perhaps this is a factor of what the demand at any time might be?

Owen commented that some Zoom meeting hosts had implemented Mute participants on entry when it was a talk (History Group). I discovered that I could Mute All at any time – if I wanted. We’re all learning about this new technology!

Stella was still investigating a dongle, or method for connecting her TV to headphones using BlueTooth. We talked around the issue, resolved that if the BT version was higher than the device version, it should work; but then decided that actually what Stella required was a device similar to the one that Paul/Jim had researched for Marilyn – Paul suggested this one back in October (the Search facility in WhatsApp actually works!!!). I wrote then “I did a bit of googling on the bus on the way home, and all I would (probably stating the obvious) say is that what you should be looking for is a device that attaches a Bluetooth TRANSMITTER (or one that handles both Transmitter and Receiver states) to the Headphone Jack” and I sent this link to Marilyn in addition to the one Paul had sent.” In the meeting Phil suggested that Stella also look at this page.

Phil told us about a website he’d created for a Music application. You can see it, and try it out from this link. He also told us about the book he’d just finished – Teething Troubles – and which was available in eBook and print (from Amazon). More information about it is to be found here. He also invited us to use the quiz he’d prepared for his family, which is available on his website here with the answers here. He also thought you might like to see this from twitter.

Ann told us about her need for an Office application as she had misplaced her licence key for MS Office. She’d looked at Google Docs and OpenOffice but because she thought the documents were always stored in the cloud (they aren’t) she’d taken out a subscription to Office 365. I suggested that she looked at LibreOffice –  a successor to OpenOffice, and one that works better with PDF and .docx files (imho); it has the following components – Writer (word processing), Calc (spreadsheets), Impress (presentations), Draw (vector graphics and flowcharts), Base (databases), and Math (formula editing) all of which (to the best of my knowledge) are compatible with Microsoft’s packages.

Don told us about the positive experience he’d had using software from Wesley Media to attend an ex-colleagues funeral. When working on a tablet he was able to pinch the image to feel more intimately connected to the ceremony; something he couldn’t do on his laptop. He also reported that he’d tried using Brave, but had been a bit disarmed by the security controls which also incidentally prevented the software just mentioned from running on anything other than Chrome. I reported that this was quite normal and that some pieces of software are written just to run on particular browsers. Although Brave uses the same engine as Chrome (called Chromium) developers write code for specific browsers and so I often found I needed to use Chrome after I’d also tried it first on Safari (for the Mac). I also reported that I’d read some good reviews on Firefox recently, and this one too, and this might be an alternative to Brave if the security controls were too restrictive.

Christine reminded me that she was still researching a TV replacement and looking at 4K. The advice remains the same, it has to be a large display to make 4K useful and worthwhile. Also the quality of the display is related directly to the price you pay. Whether a less-costly option, such as Cello, is worth looking into – I wouldn’t like to say [Amazon]. My criteria would be as little SMART as possible (use a secondary streaming device, eg NowTV or Roku, or Amazon Fire, or Google Chromecast); as many HDMI ports as possible; optical output for sound (if you want to connect to a soundbar, AV system or HiFi) and the correct display size for the room – not in that order!! She also enquired whether anyone had used Jitsi Meet for video-calls. I said I hadn’t but I thought sticking with something I knew, Zoom, would suit me for the time being. I did say I would look into it though, as I would look into Cello.

We then had a general discussion about what applications we used on our computers.

Jim used some photo-editing software (Paintshop Pro, and ImageGlass – which was looking promising). He was a Fb user and used Flickr a lot as well.

David H valued the computer for access to online newspapers and apart from the Office applications he also used it for shopping and banking. He was a born again LastPass user!

Christine used her computer for general organisation – meetings, searches etc as well as buying/selling on Gumtree/eBay, printing labels and genealogy.

Don also used his computer for genealogy and printing (including labels) as well as the office apps and banking.

Ann (aside from her iPhone/iPad) used the computer for backing-up photos and music, ripping CDs, and doing office apps (eg accountancy). She particularly enjoyed watching the video content from the Hay Festival on her laptop.

Phil has an involvement in his websites, and uses Fb and twitter – which he said was valuable in times of crisis – I’m sure he has a keen and acute Fake News detector employed!He does online banking. We talked about the risks of online banking because Ann wouldn’t do it. With the recent enhancements to the web browser access to banking, it was probable that there was little difference in safety between mobile apps and the web browser access method.

Stella enjoyed music and DVDs on her machine as well as buying and selling. She also liked to be able to read foreign (Italian) newspapers which kept her in touch with events there.

Marilyn used her machine for photo-editing and had an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription. She watched quite a lot of YouTube videos to further her knowledge of photography, and followed a Welsh duo-lingo course online.

Sianed used her computer for banking, duo-lingo French and some proof-reading of documents sent to he by her children.

Owen was rarely far away from his computer with the U3A website, Beacon administration, Zoom administration and Writers Group internet presence to manage … but he did find time for Fb and banking!

Renée had discovered Zoom to be a pleasurable experience with friends and bookclubs. She loved the fact that you could attend conferences and take part in webinars without having to travel to London! She was also enjoying being taught IT by her grandchildren – Giffy. Another online banking user.

Paul did most of the above but enjoyed using the internet for researching prospective purchases. He also told us about a Dutch news aggregation site – DutchNews.nl which looks rather interesting.

And me … websites, photography, banking everyday (takes seconds and I remember the credentials to login because I do it all the time), researching (RSS reader – Feedly), bookmarking research (Pocket), publishing (Flipboard), music (iTunes -> Apple Music), etc etc.