Digital

Category: Archive

  • A new dawn for the website?

    Hopefully, the changes made to the website will make it more accessible. The blog posts that members have indicated could be made public are now accessible from the Home page, without a need to login. Some of the menus have changed a bit to accommodate this change and I’ve had to do some other cosmetic changes that I challenge you to discover!!!

    For members who login, they will have access to everything that was there before. The menu tabs have not changed and the Forums and Topics area remains untouched. I’m keen to encourage more registered members to use this area of the website, as I’m keen to encourage them to use the various Signal groups that have been setup. Links to these groups for members who have downloaded Signal and created an account are available from the Digital Matters tab – once you’ve logged in.

    All will become clear, hopefully … in the course of time.

    Cheers. David.

  • Protected: Digital exclusion and printing

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  • Notes of Hybrid meeting – 24th November 2022

    No photo this time; and my apologies for the delay in publishing the notes. I thought I’d done them and only discovered I hadn’t when preparing for today’s meeting. Duh!

    Quite a few apologies Jim, Sianed, Jenny, David Hughes, Sally, Kate and Renee. Some new members too – Rob, Maline and Hok. Welcome. Linda and Peter have decided the group is not for them, but we’re delighted to see Steve and Christine again.

    I once again recommended members to take the occasional look at our Flipboard magazine , and to download Signal and take part in our chat between meetings.

    On Signal in the past fortnight we’ve had a Google Update issue (Ted); Jim’s phone running out of memory – as yet unresolved; Ian’s disappearing old AOL email messages – resolved by AOL with a cautionary warning (do it within 7 days or it’s lost forever); a plug fro the Brave browser (from me); and discussion on the Windows 11 Photos app (Jim, Jonathan and me).

    We had an update on Anne’s problems grappling with Windows 11 on her new laptop – a big change from the experience she was used to with Windows 7. Jonathan is providing assistance. Many thanks. I reported that I still hadn’t updated my iOS to v.16, or my MacOS to v.13 – I’m being very cautious this time and plan to go to v16.2 when it’s released in December and probably v.13.1 about the same time. I had experienced a strange issue with an app on my phone – the Coop shopping app that wasn’t allowing me to add new offers to my card, and yet I could do so through the web browser. I reported this to their help desk – I’m still awaiting a reply, but resolved the problem myself through an inspired guess. I disabled the VPN running on the phone, and it worked. [Message to self – you don’t need a VPN running all the time, really only when you’re away from your home network.]

    I briefly mentioned the post I’d written a few years ago about using printer labels for Christmas cards and the added benefit of using the same template on plain paper to record the cards we’d received. I recommended using Avery format labels – the numbering is used by most printer label producers and so you can use their templates on whatever paper you buy.

    Martin had a story to tell about his being “forced” into buying a new phone!! Being a mainly desktop user he’d decided to take the plunge and bought a Samsung. He’d found that SmartSwitch had helped a lot and prevented it being a nightmare and been able to use BlueTooth to do the transfer of information from the old phone to the new one. He’d found the SIM to be the wrong size but his telco had swapped the SIM for zero-cost. Currently he was finding that texts were not going out, but they were coming in. It was suggested that this might possibly be due to them being sent as MMS rather than SMS -we await the solution!

    Don reported that he’d installed BT’s 100Gb cloud service and it had created three folders that he’d not requested. That’s the way, isn’t it. Just ignore them if you don’t want them, but they may provide automatic syncing back to the desktop.

    Sue told us that she was getting fed-up with pop-up adverts, and wondered how she could get rid of them. I advised that this would be handled in the Privacy and Security session.

    John Silk was puzzled by the growing number of acronyms. We helped him with what Android was, and updated him in the state of play with other mobile operating systems. These mainly being iOS/iPadOS and Chromecast. Microsoft’s offering hav efallen by the wayside.

    Paul had moved from Win10 to Win11 and felt that performance on his machine had greatly improved; this may of course due to “clutter” having been removed in the upgrade.

    Jonathan also noted that Win11 on his rebuilt laptop seemed to be running better.

    Rob was puzzled by a problem with the display on his Toshiba Satellite Pro. It didn’t appear to be a BIOS problem. We advised that he consult “We will fix your PC” in Llanishen, and suggested that this was the standard advice we gave to new members for hardware problems. Generally these are beyond the scope of the group’s competence.

    Ian queried the payment for meetings on Zoom, and in person. I advised that I would be sending out an email in due course but no one appeared to object to the idea of Zoom attendees paying something towards the cost of the meeting to defray costs of the meeting venue. He asked about the destruction of hard disks. He was advised that it’s possible to get data shredder software that makes recover of information from a disk impossible, a bit less drastic than hitting them with a hammer, or dissolving them in acid!

    Stella told us about a “fun app” on the family history site – My Heritage that would change a photo to a historical figure.

    Christine had been having difficulties getting decent sound from a film given her by a friend. Turning the sound up on both the TV and the video-player software had not helped at all. Installing a soundbar had however solved the problem.

    Anne was still coming to terms with issues arising from her move to Win11 and had experienced a strange request for subscription to what she thought was free Microsoft Photos software. We took this up outside the meeting.

    I then closed by informing users that I was looking at Photo Book printing software and Canvas printing to get the benefit of Black Friday pricing. I use Blurb for photobooks. Jonathan pointed me towards Cewe (used to be available at Jessops, and now from Boots – possibly). I’d also some experience of using YoPhoto and Snapfish. The latter do very competitively priced canvas prints (up to 70% off currently) which I’d taken advantage of. There’s always Google Photos as well. I said I’d do a review, but I didn’t have time to do it in the end.

  • Help! My Phone is Running Out of Memory

    Before you give me any advice, let me explain the problem and what I am doing about it. I bought my Galaxy four years ago, and it has 16 GB of internal memory. All was well for a couple of years, and then I decided I needed to get some extra memory, so I bought a micro SD card, also with 16 GB of memory. I started by putting the photos from the phone’s camera on it, and later the ones from WhatsApp. Again all was well for a while, but in the past six months or so I have been having trouble again. The My Files app tells me I am using 15.32 GB of the internal 16 GB.

    Every morning I check my phone’s apps for updates, and there is usually at least one. Some of the updates can be large, so some fail to install because of lack of memory. I suspect the apps must now be larger than they were a few years ago. I have tried moving some apps to the SD card, but only a few have allowed that. I have also looked into uninstalling the apps I don’t use, but again many don’t give me that option. I can sometimes uninstall updates, or disable the app, if that helps. I am now reduced to clearing caches. Incidentally I’ve noticed that Signal occasionally downloads a backup file, which is 116 MB. I assume I only need one backup file, so I’ve started deleting old ones.

    Having (I hope) read all that, do you have any suggestions?

  • Notes of Hybrid meeting – 10th November 2022

    A well-attended meeting with some first in-person attendees – welcome Lynette, Yvonne, Janet, Ossie and Peter, and welcome also to Kate, Sue and Mo who were experiencing Zoom attendance for the first time. Please excuse me if I’ve forgotten a welcome. Admin was never my strongest point.

    So, I started off with introductory remarks which were a pretty close repeat of those from the previous meeting, so I won’t repeat them – look here for them.

    I quickly looked at the Notes from the previous meeting and mentioned the issues raised by Ian, John Mitchell and Anne which I’d added as Topics – look here for them. I hope to put more of these replies/answers/responses to members issues in Forums from now on. It’s what I created that area to do.

    I also encouraged members to download Signal, create an account and then let me know their mobile telno. so that I could add them to our Computer Group on that platform.

    We then turned to News and Jonathan and Paul had added some very interesting articles to the Flipboard magazine which I urge you to take a look at. Anyone can add to the magazine, just click on this link to become a Contributor.

    Any problems with getting on Signal, or becoming a Flipboard contributor, please let me know.

    Two issues that were raised at the last meeting were the process of getting photos from your phone to your computer, and Google settings. The technology let me down whilst trying to demonstrate the former, so I’m written up both topics as blogposts which will appear as soon as possible.

    I indicated that Security and Privacy would be an issue I would cover in the next meeting.

    So we turned to members’ issues:

    Paul advised us that 192.com kept personal detail about us if we used the service (an online equivalent of Yellow Pages) which we might wish to be removed. [I’m not sure this will worry too many of us as you have to create an account and then pay a minimum of £15.99 for 6 searches.] Paul please correct my unerstanding, if I’ve got this wrong. He also told us that TalkTalk were raising their prices again and he now had to pay for UK calls, which he hadn’t had to before. He finally commented on the articles he’s added to Flipboard and suggested we might be interested in the ones on Privacy – storing cookies on phones (Android???); and the ability to track parcels (currently only in the US).

    Jonathan told us about the articles he’d added to Flipboard on Windows 10/11 security and cleaning-up a Windows 11 machine which had improved the performance of his laptop remarkably.

    Margaret told us that she’d been experiencing a strange failing with her Tiscali email service in that it appeared that it was not being consistently sent. It’s worth noting that Down Detector is a good place to start if you’re having problems with your Internet Services. I haven’t researched the problem in detail, but searching this site may be helpful. [Tiscali is now part of TalkTalk.]

    Yvonne reported that her laptop was running slowly – I didn’t write anything else down here, so can’t add anything. Sorry!

    Lynette told us that she’d been disturbed by her machine (Windows 10) not being able to be closed down because it was doing clean-ups. This may be related to an upgrade being done by Microsoft [these are done on Tuesdays] which had not been completed. I always advise not to set upgrades to be done automatically. I definitely am not saying, “don’t do upgrades”, but I am saying “do upgrades when you want them to be done”.

    John Mitchell bemoaned the fact that he was being pestered with requests to switch to Edge as the default browser. This is of course a nuisance, and I thought that there was an option when the pop-up was shown to request that it not be shown again. [I could be wrong, here!]

    Stella was upset that she didn’t seem to be able to transfer recordings that she’s done off her TV on to her PC, as she’d been able to do previously. Paul reminded us that we’d touched on this before and that recordings from TVs are now tied to that TV, and are not transferrable. [I also mentioned with little confidence that she might try formatting her media as FAT-32.]

    Jenny enquired whether any member had experience, and could recommend, any sources for refurbished equipment. I expressed the view that I was very sceptical of the value of refurbished equipment unless it was backed-up by some guarantee/warranty , but others remarked that some public bodies regularly released surplus (or redundant) equipment to the public which might be usable. [I’m not convinced.] She also asked whether she should be concerned about a) the amount of memory that apps take up on a phone, and b) how “secure” they are. My reply was – very little, and that they were increasingly more secure because of biometric security and the transition towards FIDO.

    Don mentioned something about internet browsers, but again I haven’t written enough down to remind me what it was [Duh!!]

    Janet enquired about when items deleted, actually got deleted. Members responded that this was something that could be set in Preferences/Settings, but that you can go into the Trash Can/Bin and delete individual or groups of files at any time. She also enquired about whether she needed to buy internet security software. The group was supportive of my response that Windows Defender is almost certainly adequate for those in our situation.

    Renee reported that VirginMedia were really annoying her with the latest “upgrade” they had done to “improve” her broadband. I told her I (as I always do when upgrades are being offered) was waiting for a while before I upgraded [you need to switch the router/hub off and on] She also shared that she’d encountered a situation with photos disappearing from WhatsApp. I advised that this was a feature that was set by the person sending the photos, and applied to messages as well. Signal also had disappearing messages that you could implement.

    Anne bemoaned the fact that Windows 11, that she’d been forced to move to having upgraded her Windows 7 laptop, was not intuitive. I offered the opinion that this was a common issue especially as you get older. We want things to stay the same, and just get on with doing the stuff we know how to do. It is for this reason that I hope to do some sessions on the changes to what you can do on your phones, as I’m well out-of-date in my knowledge here!

  • Notes of Hybrid meeting – 27th October 2022

    Just 11 of us in-person, room for more?

    The meeting started with a welcome to new members – Anne, Kate and Mo (in-person) and Martin, John, Lynette, Yvonne and Linda (over Zoom, with 5 others). I asked the new members to introduce themselves and tell the group what they hoped to get from their membership of it.

    I sought to clarify the arrangements where people had been allocated to groups. I do not want this to be prescriptive. If you know you can’t attend a meeting in-person, just let me know that you’d like to come to the one before your scheduled Thursday, or the one after.

    It would seem to me that there is room for at least another 5 members in-person at Sight Life from this meeting, so I’ll be monitoring attendance and perhaps inviting people to move to “the attend all meetings in-person” category. Similarly, if people would like to change their preference for the meeting they would like to attend in-person, just let me know. Finally, if people would like to join the Zoom-only category, please let me know that as well.

    We had some difficulties with the audio for the Zoom attendees at this meeting. My apologies. I’ve ordered a table microphone to use at Sight Life and this (hopefully) will solve that problem. I had been using the microphone integral to the camera, and this was apparently not picking-up all that was being said in the room. Kate and Mo wondered whether they might have trouble in using Zoom. I suggested they wait behind at the end of the meeting and I’d talk them through setting-up Zoom and using it. There a couple of useful documents about using Zoom on the Cardiff u3a website, and I’ve added a guide to setting-up meetings on Zoom on this website.

    I then repeated a few things I’s said at the previous meeting about how the group is run. I referred to the fact that generally we don’t try and solve hardware/software problems on members computers, but we do recommend and refer members to “We will fix your PC” as an excellent resource and repair one-stop shop. I shared the “Toolkit” handout to a few members who’d not picked it up from their email. I explained and demonstrated how the Thought grazing website works and some of its features, its origins as part of my pre-retirement role at Cardiff University, and the public version – which is where Jenny (with my assistance) had recently posted an article about the switch-off of the analogue PSTN (public switched telephone network). I wondered whether Jenny might review the article to see whether it needed any additions to it?

    I also suggested (and strongly recommended) that members join the Signal group we’ve set up to assist in giving support/advice between meetings. You need to download an app to your smartphone, connect your phone number to the Signal account. You can then download an app for your tablet, or desktop/laptop and view messages from these devices as well.

    I went on to promote the Thought grazing Flipboard magazine – the place where I and a couple of other members add articles they have come across that they think might be of interest to the group. I also mentioned that anyone could be a contributor to the magazine. They would need to have a Flipboard account (which you don’t need to just read the magazine) and let me know; I can then add them to the list of contributors.

    I concluded the introductory remarks by mentioning what I’d found to be the most common misconception for new members. What is an internet browser, and what is a search engine. I’ve written before about this – here, here and here. My most recent post however compares and reviews the various most common browsers and search engines available. I also stressed my preference (wherever possible) to use Open Source software, or to pay a subscription for software (rather than get free software with advertisements, and all the targeting and spam that involves).

    I then reviewed the news that caught my eye in the previous two weeks, with links and comments to articles on the Flipboard magazine. Jonathan had posted this article on Windows Security, for instance, whilst Paul had found a nifty desk tidy device that could also charge your phone. I rushed through a number of Apple related articles which have my comments attached to them. This one, on sharing an iCloud Photo Library will be one I certainly want to follow-up, and then there were a few articles on the new Apple devices just announced, and the new versions of MacOS (Ventura), iPadOS and iOS. I cautioned (as I always do) against rapid adoption of an operating system, and referred members to an issue with Malwarebytes (for the latest MacOS release), but celebrated the fact that Dropbox had finally (after a year) released a native application for MacOS M-series machines.

    There’s a lot of information in the above, so please get back to me if you want any clarification – preferably on Signal.

    I finished my spot by detailing how I’d spent some time trying to subscribe a friend to use an upgrade to Apple’s iCloud system, but had found out – after nearly three months of trying, and having had finally to admit defeat and use Apple’s Support service – that the problem was that payments wouldn’t work because the software on her phone and MacBook was too out-of-date. The security system just wouldn’t allow payments to be made successfully. A very good reason to keep your operating systems up-to-date … even if you don’t rush to upgrade them!!!

    Sianed then took over the facilitation of the meeting so that members could raise issues, and for existing members – how had they benefited from membership of the group. She stated that she’d benefited from learning from everybody else

    Don described the Computer Group as a life-jacket. He’d taken over responsibility from some computer activity with hsi church and this had forced him to learn. He mentioned the recent scam whereby someone had lost their house through identity theft. This was discovered when it was found a person was trying to sell that property online! Apparently the identity had been stolen through a replacement driving licence that the estate agency had accepted as valid ID. Apparently there is protection from the Land Registry for a £40 fee. He had downloaded and installed Norton Anti-virus for his new machine – mainly for the internet banking security window. It provided him with re-assurance, even though I suggested that Windows Defender was probably as good as anything, and free!

    Fred queried the strange URLs he’d recently seen – I explained these were URL-shortners. Often I use bit.ly.

    Jenny described her work as a campaigner for Digital Inclusion, and mentioned specifically that she’d just become involved in lobbying for the Social Tariff for broadband more widespread, not something people had to opt in for. I had shared a link after the meeting on Signal, and she would be working on an article soon. She admitted to real problems with too much disorganised email from Gmail. I offered to do a session on Google settings, but in the meantime this page on the website might be a start.

    Anne had a new laptop and it was running Windows 11. She was concerned that some of the software, especially that which she used for photography, might not run on the new machine. I responded (after the meeting) with this reply …

    I’ve done a bit of searching around. It would appear that Picasa can still be downloaded and at least works with Win 10, so it probably works with Win 11 as well. Can’t confirm that.

Here’s an article that explains the status of Picasa, with a download link in it, which looks OK.

You might instead consider using Google Photos 

… where your earlier photos may already be. Google Photos is an Online Editor - I’ve covered its use a couple of times in the Group and there are posts on the website.

Alternatively you could look at Microsoft’s Photos app

… or an open source alternative such as Gimp …

… hope this helps.

    She also asked whether she needed to take out a fresh licence for her Kaspersky Anti-virus software. Apart from the questionable source of the software (Russia), I suggested that this would not be the case, she needed to register her new machine. I also mentioned (as I had above) that Windows Defender was probably as good as any anti-virus software for our type of computer use.

    David Hughes described the frustration in not seemingly to be able to switch off his Facebook Portal machine. [No comment – perhaps its spying on him :-)]

    John Silk was interested in what I’d said about the iCloud Photo Library and reminisced on how it used to be the practice to just save photos on a USB-disk, or memory stick. How can you do that from your photos app on your phone now. I offered to write something about this workflow.

    John Mitchell had a most interesting problem. It appeared that a lot of files (photos) had vanished from the folders they used to be in. The group discussed several possible scenarios where this might have happened. After the meeting I sent this email to John …

    I’ve been puzzling over your missing files issue, and found this link

… which seems to suggest that you might have dropped into an issue that is not unique. I wouldn’t recommend trying to solve this one yourself, but I would recommend you taking your machine (esp. if it’s a laptop) to the guy we show hardware problems to; We will fix your PC

Neil is really good and I’m sure he’ll give you good advice. Mention the u3a Computer Group.

    … and that was about it. If I’ve forgotten anything, my apologies. Please add to the Comments below the post.

    Until the next time when I’ll revisit (again) privacy and security. Cheers.

  • Notes of Hybrid meeting – 13th October 2022

    The meeting opened with a welcome to new members – Ian, Kate, Sue, Fred and Marion Poyner, and to Mike Payne making his first meeting (if my memory serves me well). We had David Hughes, Paul, Renee and Ralph join us on Zoom. John, Jonathan, Jim, Don, Stella and Fred were with us as well. Tony, Marilyn Barrack, Linda, Mike Chapple, Christine, Sianed, Margaret, Jeanette, Seifi and Sally presented their apologies.

    I started by explaining that we had been overwhelmed by the interest in the group shown at the “Meet the Groups” meeting the previous Tuesday where 20 members, or prospective u3a members, had expressed an interest in attending group meetings. I felt duty bound to admit 12 members as we had no Waiting List policy in place at that time – this has now been introduced and some of the prospective members of have now been placed on that list. With a membership approaching 40, I felt it was necessary to review how we operated. I thank Pat, Marilyn Guest, Owen Parry and Phil Edwards for stepping down as active members – they do however continue to have the ability to use this website, the Signal group and have access to the Flipboard magazine.

    I reiterated that we don’t attempt to resolve members’ hardware issues – other than perhaps problems with printers, or connectivity issues, eg routers. We do recommend using “We will fix your PC” – Neil has done a wonderful job in supporting and helping us by resolving problems for several years now. It might be worth mentioning Cardiff u3a and the Computer Group should you chose to use his services. I also repeated what I’d said to many at the “Meet the Groups” session … namely we are not a training group. We cannot train you how to use Word, Excel, or whatever. We DO however focus on internet issues, applications and anything that is not machine/device dependent. In that way all meetings are usually accessible to all users who have access to a web browser (Chrome, Firefox, Brave, Edge, Safari, Opera, etc.).

    We are fortunate in that we have established, quite quickly, a workable hybrid (ie Zoom) meeting format. This is in no small way down to the excellent technical support offered by Craig at Sight Life, and the overall welcome and excellent facilities they are offering us.

    I am proposing, and circulated a pro-forma to start the ball rolling, to allocate members to either a 2nd or 4th Thursday preference group, with them being able to attend via Zoom on the alternative Thursday. Hopefully, this will keep the in-person group a manageable size whilst we still struggle with Covid-related issues. Some members who are essential contributors to the group will be able to attend in-person all meetings, if they are able to.

    To that end, I gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Sianed who will facilitate the “issues round the table/screen” part of the meeting; Don who has taken on the meeting attendance/subs task; Jonathan who will help me by screening Windows/PC news and issues; Paul (via Zoom currently) who will do the same for Android matters; and Jim – our official photographer and my adviser, proof reader and frequent contributor to the website.

    We’ll just need to see how this plays out. Hopefully, in time I will be able to remove restrictions on in-person attendance, but please be supportive of the difficult situation we have put ourselves in, by virtue of meeting a need. Perhaps a second group is the answer, but that would mean finding another facilitator.

    Starting the meeting proper, I explained to new members how we usually operated, the way the Thought grazing website operates, the benefits of the Signal group and the existence of the Flipboard magazine that I encourage all members to browse occasionally, and contribute to if they so wish (after creating an account).

    I then launched into a description of the theft and fraudulent event that I’d mentioned at the previous meeting and had written up as a blogpost earlier that day. I won’t repeat what I’ve written, I’ll just repeat the warning and the recommended action you should take – don’t keep your credit/debit cards near to your phone, and seriously consider activating a SIM-lock to lock your SIM to your phone – so that it can’t be taken out and put in another phone on which a banking app can be downloaded and possibly a password obtained from your bank. The case in point here was Santander.

    The issue of reporting scams to ActionFraud was mentioned, and the action you might wish to take if you receive a phishing phonecall is described here. Otherwise, I recommend you subscribe to the free Which? email scam alert service, and to look at other advice on the Which? website, and the Citizens Advice website.

    Turning to members issues …

    Fred reported the latest fortunately unbelievable text scam he’d received. I think as group members we’re getting much, much better at identifying these – the parcel that couldn’t be delivered, the transaction that know we couldn’t have made, the offer that seems to be too good to be true, the offer to help with obtaining a refund/grant/subsidy/entitlement which wouldn’t come via a text message. Just stay alert everyone, and remember … if it’s really important, the organisation will contact you again and not usually by text!

    Paul reported issues with TalkTalk and their new website. Sue had a similar issue (see below). it is disappointing that he may need to change the settings on his talktalk.net email account to get it to re-direct (as it had done previously) to his gmail account where he aggregates all his emails.

    Sue had a similar problem. The old TalkTalk website from which she’d accessed (occasionally) her email had stopped working. She hadn’t received any emails since before July. The solution hopefully, would have been to “upgrade” to the new website, but unfortunately as she’d moved to Sky (??) it was unlikely that she’d be receiving any emails from her talktalk.net email address anymore. This highlights an issue we’ve discussed before. It is advisable to move to an email provider that’s not connected to your Internet Service Provider (ISP). I used Google (and Gmail) for many years and have never used VirginMedia – my current ISP – to provide an email service for me. I migrated all my old BT email messages away from that service to avoid paying an annual charge for retaining the account after I stopped using BTinternet. I now aggregate most of my emails on iCloud – Apple’s service, as it is EXTREMELY unlikely that I’ll ever move away from them, but I retain my Google email accounts … just-in-case. Ian and Sue both used aol and asked whether this was a viable service. It was confirmed that now aol was owned by Verizon, it’s future was probably very secure.

    John wondered whether the increase in “promotional” messages he was receiving was connected to his use of his Kindle advice. You can set your communications preferences from Amazon here.

    Kate raised an issue of connecting to iCloud to delete “stuff”. I described (and demonstrated) how to login to iCloud.com using your AppleID and password.

    Ian asked the question on whether stuff deleted on iCloud was also deleted automatically on a device. I had to admit I wasn’t sure. I’d written a blogpost on the situation with Google Drive (particularly for Google Photos), but had to check-up on the situation with Apple, which I reported back to him here. I told him that I needed to do further tests to satisfy my own curiosity. I can confirm that deleting a file on iCloud Drive from the Files app on an iPhone will delete it from icloud.com and your iCloud drive on MacOS as well – which is what you would expect should happen. He also asked (after the meeting) whether his daughter could change the account name/details on an O2 account, since she was now in a position to pay for it herself. The issue being she would want to keep the phone number. I had to admit that I didn’t know, and the O2 website was less than encouraging for what seemed to be a reasonable use case, so I recommended visiting the O2 shop in St David’s Centre (I believe). I also suggested looking at GiffGaff (operating over the O2 network and owned by the parent company of O2 – Telefónica UK) as a good pay-as-you-go (PAYG) alternative. She might be able to port the number to that network (or any other network) after obtaining a PAC or STAC code.

    Here ends nearly the most rapid Notes I’ve ever written up – have to impress the new members.

  • Notes of Hybrid meeting – 8th September 2022

    Our new home??
    Room layout at Sight Life

    Back (almost) to normality. Thanks Jim for the two shots that show how we set up the room for the meeting, with quite a lot of room unused, both towards the windows, and behind the people sat at the tables.

    We welcomed Tony Baines to his first meeting and noted the “virtual” presence of David Hughes, Renee, Jenny and latterly Fred. Paul would also have been with us on Zoom but for Dolly breaking her arm and being in A&E – we wished her well. Apologies were received from Mike Payne, Mike Chapple, Sally Semlow, Margaret Lewis, Ann, Christine and Don.

    I started the meeting by describing the trials and tribulations of trying to get URC to install 4G Mobile WiFi which would if it had been installed, meant that we might well have stayed in the Upper Room. However I pointed to the tea and coffee offered to us at Sight Life as an additional bonus to the good WiFi we would now be take advantage of. This will be our home until Christmas at least and we look to having a full room after the “Meet the Groups” event on October 11th. I asked if anyone would be willing to assist on the Computer Group desk and after the meeting John, Jonathan and Sianed volunteered. Thanks.

    I suggested that we did the “issues and updates” first because I had such a lot of “news” – all posted on Flipboard since our last meeting. I also noted that it was a bit Apple-centric (as usual, some might say) and wondered whether any member might like to offer a different and wider perspective. Jonathan volunteered to take a look at Microsoft/Windows news. I committed to helping setting up a workflow to help him. So … what were the “issues and updates”?

    Jonathan had a real issue with his laptop (having dropped it). He was using his wife’s for the moment and Neil is currently trying to source a replacement screen for him. He expects it to cost £180 which just about makes it an economic proposition for a four-year old laptop. In addition he’d been having difficulties (prior to the accident) with Lightroom and I had been trying to assist him with that. Otherwise his grandson was providing tuition device _ something I think we can all say “yep! That sounds about it.”

    Ralph had done quite a large hardware swap out and was now concentrating on getting more out of his new phone. I commented, and others agreed, that there were a lot of features on the iPhone I was not making use of, and didn’t know how to use. I suggested that we might have an in depth session on using iOS and Android mobiles as soon as possible. Ralph commented that we used to expect a standardised interface, but that it now allowed so much more personalisation. That’s great for those who are open to change, but perhaps that’s not so readily possible for those of us third agers! Sianed made a comment about Siri not recognising her voice. We offered the possibly light-hearted suggestion that she tried speaking in Welsh. We await the report back!

    Tony had (at the beginning of the meeting) given us a brief insight to his use of IT and then presented us with a problem of Word maximising on his screen (when he didn’t want it to). We all offered solutions, but in the end he found the solution himself!! He also re-enforced the suggestion to learn more about what he could do with his phone. Noted! He then described a problem he was having with the VPN installed as part of his MacAfee security suite. He asked whether it was needed. That led to a discussion on the use of VPNs, whether they were necessary or not. I expressed the view that even though I’d purchased a copy of the NordNet VPN, I was of the opinion it wasn’t really necessary for our type of use. It obviously was of value to have installed on your mobile device(s), but not really on your desktop. Even then, if you didn’t do more than web browsing and email when out’n’about, it probably wasn’t needed. It was however commented that one value of a VPN was to “spoof” your location by choosing a VPN server in a different country. You can then, for instance, view iPlayer and UK-TV when in Australia! We then had a discussion on how to uninstall MacAfee (or Norton, or Kasperski security suites) as they all seemed to leave “stuff” behind after the uninstall. I followed this up with some suggestions to members on what to do in emails. [We possibly need to cover this in a meeting as well.] Finally Tony raised an issue on the use of organising his Gmail. Members suggested a number of options, including labelling. I offered the suggestion that archiving everything and starting from scratch using Folders might be the best idea.

    John had a “flash new iPhone” that he was coming to grips with. He also expressed his views on Edge, he didn’t like it. We reminded him that there were plenty of alternatives, and for Tony’s benefit I mentioned that I’d done a review of browsers and search engines at the end of the last session.

    Stella had installed Windows 11 and all was well so far. She told us about Lebara (a Vodafone 4G service) currently available for 1p per month for a number of months and then £4.99 – sounds a good 3Gb SIM-only deal!

    Steve had also had an IT-refresh including a new iPhone 11, and noted that Chrome was quick. [Yes it can be, but it slows down if you don’t clear your cache out.] He’d invested in more iCloud storage (50Gb) – a good choice (imho). He’d got Bitwarden, and Nordstream as a VPN and wondered whether to use it (see comments above).

    Jim had a problem with his new 1Tb external SSD in that it was losing EXIF data from photos. He’d taken the advice to re-format his drive as NTFS and the problem had gone. Sorted!! He’d also had a curious problem of a laptop draining power when a USB disk had been left connected to it. The only reason for this I could suggest was that the disk was “polling” to see if the laptop was switched on.

    Renee had negotiated a new contract with VirginMedia and had saved some money (so had I just recently).

    Jenny reported that her iCloud storage had filled-up, but she had been able to increase it with the help of her daughter. She enquired how safe it was to use a mobile device in a cafe. I said completely as long as you didn’t do anything that you wouldn’t sensibly do, ie financial transactions, or anything involving sharing personal information. I also expressed the view that it was unlikely that any of us would be “targets” of anyone wanting to get our information. So generally speaking – relax!

    Sianed reminded us that the paper £20 and £50 notes were soon to be taken out of circulation, and the non-barcoded stamps would be not able to be used after January.

    I reviewed a couple of things that I had reported to the group on Signal over the summer and then went through the items that I’d put up on Flipboard. I encourage members to go and have a look at what’s been happening, particularly with the new Apple devices. I did however discuss the recent scam/fraud reported on Twitter involving Santander and a journalist. I promised to write a specific blog post on the issue, but in the short-term I suggested that members did not keep their credit/debit cards in the same wallet as their iPhone (and probably Android phone for that matter), and secondly that they investigate and implement locking their SIM to their phone. This would mean that a SIM taken out of your phone with your information on it, could not be used on another phone.

  • Notes of Zoom meeting – 21st July 2022

    I don’t have a photo of attendees this time as Jim was “elsewhere” in poetic, or creative writing, mode. I received apologies from him, Sally, Don, Christine, Sianed, Jenny and Paul. If I’ve forgotten anyone, my apologies!

    I started off by advertising that Margaret Richards was looking for volunteers to man Hubs (mainly in Libraries, I believe) to promote u3a in its 40th anniversary year. I also commented that Owen’s re-modelling of the Cardiff u3a website was now complete and he was hoping that groups would volunteer to keep their pages up-to-date. I said that as a group I was sure we would want to do that. Training would be provided.

    I then reported on the progress (or lack of it) on WiFi at URC. Obviously and as reported subsequently on Signal and through eMail, I was unable to make the progress I’d hoped for and that’s why the next meeting would be held in Sight Life. Hopefully we might be able to return to URC after Christmas.

    Not much news but I encouraged you to to look at the James Webb Space telescope images which are amazing.

    Going round the screen, the following was noted.

    John was busy taking and editing photos

    Stella had upgraded her broadband with Three in the past year to a 4G Router but had to return to the shop because devices were not recognising passwords. However with her iPhone and a QR code it recognised immediately. When she tried pressing the WPS button, connections were made. Hurrah! Owen reported that he’d had problems with his 4G Router app. A changed password for admin then forced him to change back to factory settings. Duh!

    Owen reported that he hadn’t made much progress with discounted software for u3a members. The charity that had provided the service before the lockdown was Charity Digital Exchange. There didn’t appear to be a national scheme for u3a members anymore.

    Fred commented that he had taken part in a number of hybrid (in-person/zoom) meetings with the Institute of Government. I commented that a large organisation would quite probably have facilitators and technical support to assist/service the meeting – a luxury we would not have. I was however trying to work out a way of providing a reasonable experience and if it failed we would revert to alternate Zoom and in-person meetings possibly..

    David reported that he now had increased fibre broadband speed. Whilst on holiday he’d noticed that access to his bridge tuition site was better, so perhaps there may be a solution to hand???

    Anne commented that when dealing with internet connection problems that you needed to take it easy (or was she saying that I needed to take it easy – notes unclear). Anyway she mentioned that if WPS doesn’t immediately work (ref. Stella’s problem) a re-boot of the router can almost certainly work.

    I seem to have run out of notes, so if I’ve forgotten someone, or something, again my apologies. I rather forgot (don’t say … “as usual”) to write these up immediately after the meeting.

  • Notes of Zoom meeting – 23rd June 2022

    First off can I thank Sianed for taking over the meeting for the “round the screen” session which enabled me to take notes and have the fun of “lifting my hand” to speak.

    There was not much to report back on from the previous meeting. I mentioned that I’d come to a determination that all media and messages in WhatsApp (and Signal) was held on the phone that was registered to WhatsApp (or Signal); the images on the desktop (and the iPad for Signal) were synced to the phone. This it was agreed could cause some phones to easily run out of memory.

    As far as News was concerned there were just a couple of items that I’d already added to the Flipboard magazine – one on moving chat histories from an Android phone to an iPhone, and another about new features that were to be added to Apple’s Homekit (for developers), which we might find some use of in our use of Smart devices in the future. [NB We need to give this area much more attention and look at the Smart home more.]

    I then thanked everyone who’d replied to the survey about a future venue for our face-to-face meetings. Not unexpectedly, nothing came out as a definite area of agreement for everyone, but some things did come through – no preference for room layout; a desire for a bit of social distancing (and good ventilation) from a couple of members; and no real need for catering. Taking these into consideration, it appeared to me that if we could return to URC that would be a good solution – probably using the Upper Room (rather than Meeting Room 1). I suggested that the meeting after next we should meet at URC and try the venue out – so that’s where we’ll meet on 21st July, our last meeting of the year. [Subsequently, I’ve re-visited URC, have been impressed that they have a new projector system for the Upper Room and I’m now working with them (Bob) to perhaps enhance the WiFi system which they badly want to improve themselves. Watch this space!

    We then had a very short break and Sianed took over!

    Paul returned to the issue he’d been having with Resources and Chrome; in discussion with Ted it became apparent that there was a need for a comprehensive article on where videos were stored in WhatsApp and I undertook to write such a post. [Following the meeting I did post a few links on Signal, which might be useful in the meantime.]

    David reported that his screen sharing from his iPad to the TV was now working well for his Bridge-playing Tutorials [a link to this is on Signal – thanks David].

    Ralph thanked Paul for the advice he’d given on driving licence renewal.

    Steve recommended investigating the use of iCloud – it’s not very expensive to get 50Gb of cloud storage – if you’re an Apple user.

    Christine reported that after a bit of a quiet period, the scams had started again and she’d had ones from Amazon and Paypal [I would recommend everyone consider subscribing to the Which Scam Alert Service] and perhaps one from Welsh Water, but there was some discussion over whether this was the Priority Registration Service – which is worth joining in case there’s a disruption in water supply, or indeed joining the similar registers for our utilities. [We’ve done this.]

    Fred had gone to the recent General meeting (Roald Dahl) and learnt a few things, and had also renewed his driving licence following Paul’s advice.

    Jim was still not sure about where WhatsApp/Signal stored images etc. and reserved the right to comment later, following my investigations.

    Renee reported that the online portal for registering a change in marital status was a nightmare. No further comment – we suspected that very few (if any) of us were likely to be needing to use that portal 🙂

    Ann had got into a pickle with downloading photos to her Google account that had then filled up her allotted storage and mail had stopped working. I sent a few links (on Signal) to help her work this one out but again promised to wrire n article on that as soon as possible.

    I had nothing to report – I’d been too busy in the garden!

    I then gave a brief review on the internet browser and search engine markets, the links I used are on Flipboard, but I will try and write an article about this too.

    Just like me, Sianed didn’t report on anything – something I too often forgot to do.

    That’s about it. A couple of articles for me to write which I’ll try and do as soon as I can.

    Our next meeting will be on July 7th which will be an outdoor social meeting at The Castle Coffee bar, where we met before. Pleas try and come along if you can.

    Finally, you’ll remember that I left the WhatsApp group and left Jim as the Admin. I asked him last week whether there had been any relevant activity on it. He reported that there had not. Therefore we agreed that he should close it, and that he’ll do shortly. Anyone not using Signal, I strongly encourage you to download the app and start using it. Let me know and I’ll add you to the Computer Group group on Signal.