Digital

Category: Meeting

  • Notes of Zoom meeting – 9th June 2022

    So I did return!! As did eleven of you. So many thanks to Owen and Ted for holding the fort and particularly to Ted for two sessions, on Paint and using Ancestry. There was once a time when I arranged for the group to go to the Barclay Innovation Centre and Paul and I weren’t able to go. I felt much the same about missing Ted’s Talks (not this TED of course – although its really worth a browse if there’s nothing on TV you fancy watching).

    Margaret, Ann, Christine and Owen weren’t able to join us and I had to interrupt Owen’s lunch to get a verification code for Zoom – apologies again, Owen.

    I started by just reviewing the notes from the previous meeting highlighting just a few of them. I supported Jim‘s assertion that Windows Defender was sufficient for us for anti-virus control, but could see (once I looked up the details) the logic of Don installing Norton as part of his contract with BT as it was not an add-on that would have to be paid for at the end of a year. I noted that I’d need to follow-up the item on Software Discounts through the Third Age Trust – I think Owen said he’d make some enquiries. I supported the answer that Jim had given to Stella on where messages (and images) are stored in Signal (and WhatsApp) – they are stored on your phone. That’s why Renee had been unable to rebuild her message store on her computer a few months back. [I’d also had to look into this as my sister was getting alarmed at the amount of space photos were taking-up on her phone. Unfortunately there’s no bulk download facility available. You have to select individual media items, save them to your device, then download them to your computer. That’s encrypted security for you!]

    I then referred members to my Reply to Ted’s notes of the meeting on 12th May and said I’d return to that matter at the end of the meeting.

    I then went through the significant items (imho) that had seemed to have happened since the last meeting I facilitated. These are posted to Flipboard so I won’t go through them in detail.I did in particular draw your attention to the announcement at Apple’s WWDC event, that the next version of their Operating Systems with biometric Passkeys, could be a real game-changer as FIDO was a standard that was being followed by Google and Microsoft as well. Finally I highlighted some of the changes we could expect to see in the next release of iOS (v16) – you would be able to see the WiFi password of your connected network (useful when a trusted visitor asks to connect to your network); there would be improved methods of deleting duplicate photos; dictation would be improved (ie speech-to-text); the Home app would get improvements (ie more Smart Controls), [and incidentally Hive would better integrate with the Apple Home Kit]; you would be able to track medication in the Health app; you would be able to edit/recall iMessages (but not SMS Texts) up to 15mins after they had been sent; and finally you would be able to use your iPhone as a webcam.

    Jenny advised us that her work on Digital Exclusion continues. She had a tight deadline to draw together threads and themes linked to Poverty and Digital Exclusion and asked for any help we could offer her on case studies or examples. [After the meeting I stumbled upon Jenny’s article in The Pensioner magazine – a rattling good read! Well done Jenny.]

    David mentioned that he’d had an invite to join/use “passwordless” LastPass. I seemed to remember something about this, but suggested that he didn’t volunteer to be in the first wave of adopters. I said that it quite possibly might be connected to FIDO developments … but it isn’t. It’s connected to using LastPass Authenticator. Authenticator software is useful – I’ve used both Google’s and LastPass apps. It replaces the code sent to your phone as a way of verifying your identity. He then described a sad story of failing to learn to play bridge, and then when he had found a suitable online course (from u3a) he’d been unable to use it as the text on his iPad was so small. Various solutions for using your TV to see an iPad or Android tablet were proffered, and it was generally believed that it should be possible. [After the meeting he reported success having “googled” the issue.] I (with Paul’s help) will try and post a short article on the site in due course.

    Sianed raised the issue of biometrics maybe not being the overall solution to replacing passwords as sweat on the finger has proven to be a barrier to correct identification, and anaesthetic (or a condition such as Bell’s Palsy) might make facial recognition challenging. I mentioned that Apple was now saying that its facial recognition could cope with masks – so there must be more attention being applied to eyes, perhaps. I also felt that, as with all new technologies, this would be an addition (at least initially) not a replacement. She also raised a problem she and her husband were having with network printer access from a shared computer. We suggested that she needed to look at the printer setup – to see if it was setup as a shared printer.

    Paul had to earlier drop out of the call because he was getting a message saying that he was running out of resources for audio. After closing Chrome, all was well. Chrome is a particularly “hungry” app, and members are advised to use Brave, or Bing – both based on the same code-base (Chromium) as alternatives. He advised us that you code use the textno. 7726 to report spam text, and telno. 159 to report bank scams.

    Mike had TV problems which had led eventually to getting a second new TV (one would be returned) whilst Budd Electrical and Beam Rite getting involved. They both seemed to suggest there was “no obvious problem”. However Paul gave some useful advice on certain channels appearing to pixelate more than others – my apologies, I didn’t jot down the reason/solution.

    Renee reported that her VirginMedia problem appeared to have been resolved and a refund given. She enquired as to whether anyone knew anyone who might repair the power socket on an Internet radio – we suggested Budds Electrical, or to go to where sh’e bough it (JLP) and see if they could repair. Alternatively, rechargeable batteries might be a workaround and acceptable solution.

    Stella enquired about how she could get the complete details of her computer (including serial number for instance) before she attempted an upgrade to Windows 11. Jim guided her to Windows 10 > Settings > System > About which hopefully would provide the information she needed. WE reminded her of the need to do a proper backup before attempting the upgrade.

    Finally Jenny advised us that she’d recently attended a meeting at Cardiff & Vale College where the facilities were very good. I said I’d follow that up, but indicated that cost was going to very likely drive our choice of venue for September when we restarted face-to-face meetings.

    The Future of the Group.

    I restated what I’d written in my reply to Ted’s notes of the meeting of 12th May. I corrected the impression I’d obviously left with Ted that I wanted to step down. If I’d said that, even inadvertently, I hadn’t meant to.

    I felt that taking Notes and maintaining the website was “a good thing” and I wanted to continue doing that, but also to be able to do more presentation-like stuff, like we used to do, whilst still retaining the intimate “round-the-screen” sharing stuff we’d developed during the pandemic.

    I felt that with Owen doing the calling notice, if members could take it in turn to “chair” the “round-the-screen” material, that would relieve me from doing that at the same time as taking notes. Similarly, if members would step forward and do short presentations, for instance on software they use – they don’t need to have slideshows, or Powerpoint; that would also help to refresh the group a little.

    I think it was generally felt that the taking of Notes did help, it provided a useful resource to go back to when issues re-occurred. I am pleased that Sianed “volunteered” to facilitate the “round-the-screen” part of the next meeting and am hopeful that others would follow subsequently.

  • Notes of Zoom Meeting – 26th May 2022

    Ted Richards facilitated this meeting in the continuing absence of “yours truly” from that role. A screenshot of the attendees (minus Sianed’s picture as her camera wasn’t working), is below and a copy of Ted’s presentation on his use of Paint is included as an embedded file below that. Just click on the arrows to move backwards and forwards through the presentation.

    Many thanks Ted, I’m sorry to have missed the meeting, but I’ll be with you all again on the 9th June, and then hopefully no more absences until the end of July when we’ll take a break.

  • Notes of Zoom Meeting – 12th May 2022

    Mario but no Fred
    Fred but no Mario!

    12 of us met although there were the odd appearance, re-appearance and disappearance of some members! Thanks to Jim for the screenshots.

    Owen took the lead in David’s absence, mentioned the news that Apple was no longer the world’s biggest company, led a remarkably short moment of silence for that fact and also mentioned the demise of the iPod Touch.

    David has a friend who had been locked out of Gmail. He was unsure whether this was a Google account problem or just spite. Renee mentioned that she had received prompts from Google to take extra security options.  David further lamented that his iPad was now too old to receive iOS updates (he’s locked on 12 when the current release is at 15) and that this was now beginning to case him issues with favourite apps that would no longer work.  Beyond commiserations, we were unable to offer much help.

    Jenny then kicked off a discussion about discounts available through u3a or the Third Age Trust. Owen indicated that there were some software discounts available but needed to look into the scheme again. Fred added his weight to the call for national-level negotiations. Jenny is also speaking at the Age Cymru conference, her topic is digital inclusion.

    Paul informed us that he had learned that the short phone number 159 can be used to report a banking scam (or attempt) [Thanks Rip Off Britain on the BBC]. He was unsure whether this was just a report or whether one then got through to one’s own bank to freeze cards etc.

    Stella had received a scam message on Signal which she had not opened but wanted to delete. We demonstrated how to do this and also slim down the number of messages. We were unsure as to whether the messages were stored on a local device or just on a remote server. Jim interpolated later that with WhatsApp, images and videos are held on the local device when delivered and the storage this takes needs to be managed to avoid filling up the phone’s capacity. We presume the same is true with Signal.

    Ralph needs to renew his driving licence having reached a certain age and enquired whether it was feasible to do this using a smart phone or would a PC/laptop be better. A PC/laptop was recommended as being more amenable to typing but we did think it could be done on a phone.  In response to Ted’s enquiry on this, it was indicated that no actual medical checks were involved but that there was some self-reporting required.

    Ted started off a discussion on the future of the group in view of David H’s decision to step down as facilitator in a couple of months. We kicked around a few ideas, thinking that as no member had thrown their hat in the ring yet, it might be necessary to reformulate how the group operates to attract candidates. No decisions were made but the following ideas were raised:

    • Frequency of meetings: monthly or fortnightly or a fixed pattern (e.g. 1st and 3rd Thursdays of a month)
    • Content of meetings: round table with occasional longer talks (as now) or just main talks
    • Mix and match options: face-to-face or zoom or do each type alternately [hybrid was discussed]
    • More than one convenor, possibly one running Zoom meetings and another running F2F.
    • No notes to be produced – this was raised to indicate that note taking and loading onto the website clearly involves some effort and may be putting off candidates – members to take their own notes as they think fit.

    Some members expressed preferences but there was little consensus at present.

    Jim added to his points on WhatsApp that there has been a message re a upgrade within the next few days that will be advisable to take.

    Steve had had some issues with new equipment. He also raised the recent reports on FIDO, the sharing of account details including passwords between Apple, Google and Microsoft, ostensibly to save money and hassles. It should be reported that there was a tinge of cynicism about comments on this.

    Mario reported that he had borrowed the URC’s new laptop and obtained much better speeds on his home wifi than he did with his own equipment. He also indicated that URC systems were improving and still hoped for better soon.

    In closing the meeting, Owen reminded members that he was not available on 26th May for the next meeting and Ted has agreed to start the Zoom session instead.

  • Notes of a Zoom meeting – 28th April 2022

    Thirteen of us met this week with Owen facilitating again in David’s absence in the Antipodes.


    Ted provided an extremely interesting talk on the use of the various software he uses in ancestry research. He demonstrated the use of paid-for and free software, including Ancestry.com and Find My Past in the former category and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Free BMD, the General Register Office and the Welsh newspaper archives available from the National Library of Wales in the latter category.

    Using a grandfather of David Hughes who was known to have died in the First World War as an example, he took us through the search process, moving from one application to another to add in material until we had a clear picture of William Hughes, his parents, wife and children. Ted was also able to add in the cause of death and location of his burial as well as background as to his work before the war and possible service in a territorial unit, perhaps in the Boer War or other imperial conflict.

    It was a trouble-free demonstration and Ted has provided a slideshow to accompany his talk for Thoughtgrazing members …

    There were some contributions from members: Jim mentioned WikiTree to which you can add your own family tree to help others find connections – their ultimate aim is to connect all living people on a single tree – and Jonathan mentioned Family Echo which enables one to draw up a tree – but not to do the searching.


    We moved on to our usual round-table discussions. Several members had nil returns but here are the others:


    David H has battery-life problems with his mobile phone and Ann and Jim were able to offer him advice on both identifying and ameliorating the problem.

    Christine had been selling things on Gumtree and eBay and was surprised by the level of scam offers she received. We discussed the difficulty in establishing the bona fides of purchasers. Christine has firmly decided on local and cash-only arrangements. Renee recommended the use of NextDoor for this.

    Don had received a letter from a charity he supports informing him of a data breach and is monitoring his accounts. He had also received a few scam phone calls using what appears to be a Cardiff number 029 2240 4135 and felt the ‘22’ was unusual. Some Penarth numbers use this, apparently.

    Renee has finally had a problem fixed by Virgin Media. She has lost incoming calls due to a problem which appeared when Virgin Media switched her phone to a hub. Of course, she didn’t know she had a problem until her callers informed her of failed attempts and she thinks three months have passed until the problem has been resolved.

    Ann has found a workaround of her printer problems using a smart phone app but still has signal problems.

    Owen closed the meeting reminding members that in David’s absence, substitute facilitators were required. He was able to do the next meeting on 12th May but not on 26th so asked for volunteers to contact him. He also reminded the group that David had indicated that he wished to step down from the role entirely after the Summer break and that someone was needed to take over if the group is to continue. Owen indicated that he was not in a position to offer to do this.

  • Notes from Zoom meeting – 14th April 2022

    Members attending 14/4/2022

    We were much depleted this week with only nine members attending. Owen was facilitating as David was away on a break.

    In lieu of meeting notes from last time, we moved swiftly on to a round-screen chat.

    Sianed reported that she now had a new iPad (9th generation) to replace her old one which was now no longer receiving updates and therefore not of much use for her online activities.

    She had also updated per PC to Windows 11 but found it to be running more slowly, with a noticeably longer boot-time. Jim chipped in to say that his upgraded PC was actually running better under Windows 11 and recommended that Sianed implement any updates and see if that helped.

    Paul related a prospective battle with TalkTalk over increased charges an we had a discussion of just how they arrived at both increases and the figures upon which they were actually based. A new branch of mathematics perhaps…

    Jim is still pursuing the perfect image catalogue without any duplicates…

    Ralph was interested in our discussion but felt unable to contribute at this time.

    Don had downloaded Norton Anti Virus as it came packaged with his BT broadband offering. He had had some issues with browser extensions but felt he was now OK. He had also implemented a password manager.

    Jim referred us to an article which said basically what has been raised before, that Windows Defender was adequate and that paid-for anti-virus should not be necessary on top of it… but as Don said, it was free to him at present.

    We also discussed the efforts Don was undertaking in making grant applications for his church, which involved considerable downloading, loading into Word, editing and re-uploading.   He was also waiting for a new iPhone and planned to use it for the Signal group.

    Mario found his latest monthly meeting Zooming plagued by screen freeze and on investigation had discovered very poor connection speeds for downloads. We queried the age of his router and Paul suggested a battle with TalkTalk to see if upgrading was feasible for him.

    John talked about his iPhone photography and also that he was experiencing startup issues with his Dell PC. He is considering Windows 11 as well and was referred to the Microsoft site for the PC Health Check software.

    Fred has speed issues too and was interested in the discussions that had preceded him.

    Owen demonstrated the current state of the web redevelopment project using WordPress.

    We closed at around 3pm with Owen indicating that next time (28th April) Ted Richards would be leading on the use of ancestry software.

  • Notes from Zoom meeting – 3rd March 2022

    Not one, but two images from our last Zoom meeting which took place 4 weeks ago – can you believe it. This must be a record for the delay in preparing notes, but we have had a social meeting at the Castle in between, and I have had a few other things on which I know you’d excuse me for – if I was to list them!!!

    So let’s go backwards, first, so-to-speak. It was great to see a few of you in the cafe at The Castle, and especially good to see Ralph, who I do hope manages to join us on Zoom from now on. The staff in the cafe were very obliging allowing us to move inside when rain threatened, and even helped us move a couple of tables so that we were all in the same place. So, a successful meeting, and one we’ll repeat … promise!

    Now we’ll go forwards, next, so-to-speak. I won’t be around to facilitate the next meeting due on April 14th as we’re having a family holiday in the Forest of Dean that week, but I think that Owen has agreed to cover that one. However, looking further ahead it’s looking increasingly likely that we’re going to jet off to Australia in late April – just because we can (now Covid rules have been relaxed) and because our son over there has said come now because who knows what will happen later in the year. So although we were (and still are) planning to go in November for Christmas, we’re going to do a quick dash for a couple of weeks to see our family over there who we haven’t seen since May 2018 – that’s a long time. So although we haven’t booked our flights yet it looks increasingly likely that I won’t be able to facilitate a meeting possibly on April 28th, definitely May 12th and then May 26th (when we will have returned, but are committed to a trip to the North East for a family homecoming). So we/you need to discuss what we should do about meetings. After that, no plans that clash with Group dates until the end of July – and I hope to keep it that way.

    Finally let’s go back, properly to March 3rd and our Zoom meeting on that date.

    Owen reported that the work on the new WordPress site for Cardiff u3a was progressing, and I offered advice, or assistance, if required.

    Don had bought a dual USB-A wall-charger for £20 (you can never have enough of them, but it’s the missing pesky cables that get me). He had found a solution to a problem he had with sharing with his iPad on YouTube – always the first port of call I find.

    Margaret told us about the latest NHS scam; advised us that she’d come across some free WordPress webinars and tips; had discovered a voice-to-text facility/app called “otter”. She also told us that she found that you could turn on live captions in many applications from the device settings. Ted asked whether you could capture text from live-capture; he advised us that he’d found that when the volume was switched on the only capture recorded was from the device, not the stream.

    Ted had now got fibre broadband from BT – initial results were looking favourable.

    Steve was still evaluating password managers, but thought that he might plump for an open source offering – Bitwarden. It will be interesting to see his decision – as he has done quite a lot of investigation. He also told us that Immobilise (a database linked to an app to record household possessions, etc) was also used by Neighbourhood Watch and the Police.

    Renee commented on WiFi extenders. She’d had good experience of using them. We then had a discussion of the merits of Proprietary WiFi Booster systems vs. Extenders vs Mesh vs Powerline. All have their place and merits.

    John had been having iPhone problems. Hopefully he’d got some way to resolving some of the problems, especially with email, and receiving it on his new phone. We did advise he to go back to JLP for assistance in getting things set up the way he wanted them.

    Christine told us about a Facebook scam that had nearly trapped her, but she’d exited quickly without any apparent harm.

    Ann had been having problems with opening Gmail accounts. She’d also cause to speak to Sky customer service, they were unable to help as she was out of contract. She’d been suffering a poor signal on WiFi, had deployed a WiFi analyser and had then found she needed to configure the Router as she had found that using the 2.4Ghz bandwidth was better for greater distances, and the 5Ghz was better for shorter distance and gave greater throughput. [We probably could do a revision session on Routers; always a good topic and sensible to re-visit.]

    Fred commented upon a NHS notification – that’s all my notes tell me, so apologies for lack of detail!

    Paul told us about a saga he’d had recently with Virgin Money and an ISA account that they’d moved to another provider that he then couldn’t access. The problem seems to have something to do with Vodafone(???) [Renee had experienced the same] – the Ombudsman had taken a year to reply. [Don had also had a problem but had managed to get £50 compensation as a complainant.] The problem seems to be connected to some building societies not being in the “transfer scheme”.

    David told us about his new internet bandwidth speeds obtained from Sky Superfast 35 – I smiled at the download/upload speeds of 23Mbps / 9Mbps and 30Mbps / 9Mbps but they are certainly better that the 11Mbps / 1Mbps he’d been experiencing before. He is now going to check the cost matches up to performance. He updated us on the question of EV charging points – a survey is going to be done 4th April. Christine suggested that he should make sure that FastCharge was being provided.

    Did I say anything? No idea – it was probably not worth recording anyway. However Jim has posted an article on his EXIF data project which I encourage you to go and read.

  • Notes from Zoom meeting – 17th February 2022

    No photo of attendees this time as Jim presented his apologies as he was attending a re-scheduled and re-arranged Poetry and Prose group. I will need to find a “deputy” for those meetings he can’t attend, or alternatively Owen perhaps could prompt me to take a shot myself 🙂 I also had apologies from Ted and John who were not able to make the meeting.

    We started with a quick review of the last meeting. Renee had downloaded Trello, and was going to look at using it, as was Jenny – who hadn’t yet had time to download it. Thanks Steve for the presentation again. I’m looking for more offers but during the meeting Stella told us about MapQuest which certainly is worth a look. I believe I’ve got it on my phone, but I also have Strava, PlotaRoute and Walkmeter, for walking – none of which I use to much I’m afraid to say.

    I mentioned that I’d seen an item on the Welsh News on the “disappearance of copper from Ceredigion” – a reference to the PSTN switch-off and move to digital. I also mentioned that I’d move the post under Jenny‘s authorship to the public Thought grazing site where I will try and keep news up-to-date as the project proceeds. I also referred to Jenny‘s article in the Magazine (Page 81 she tells us).

    Then we had a reference to Sianed‘s article on Printing Digital Photographs – which I found very interesting and which left me wondering how and why they do it for free! Finally I welcomed Jim‘s amplification as a Comment under the Notes on what he’d described at the last meeting in reference to deleting items from trash on external hard disks. I asked everyone to look at my notes and correct them in a similar way. Thanks.

    I then reviewed a more interesting set of News which I’d sent to the Flipboard Magazine. I encourage you all to take a look occasionally.

    We then went round my screen – I’m just picking up those that contributed in this part of the meeting.

    David Hughes told us about his travails in negotiating anew contract with Sky, which ended with an upgrade to his Broadband speed from early March without an increase in cost. S0mething others (including me) commented on with VirginMedia and TalkTalk as well. He then told us about an interesting issue/problem the residents of his apartment block were facing – how to get EV charging points in shared landlord-owned buildings. He referenced this website which provided some guidance, and he’d been in touch with someone from Pontyclun who had some knowledge of installing EV-points in similar situations. Someone mentioned that there might be a WiFi solution that linked back to your apartment. Definitely a case of “watch-this-space”. He then finished with a mention of his grand-daughter’s website that worked perfectly on his phone and web browser, but not his iPad. After a bit of scrabbling about, I advised that he need to tell her to investigate Responsive web design technologies – this is often a feature of themes in WordPress for instance.

    Owen advised us that his wife was recovering well after the shock of a hospital admittance at the time of the previous meeting. He had progressed with his investigations of using WordPress for the Cardiff u3a website, was re-visiting his knowledge/use of PHP as a programming language and had come across a piece of software called LocalWP that allowed website developers to build a fully-blown WordPress website on a local machine without need for hosting. I offered when he wanted to trial a hosted site that I could provide a sub-domain on my hosted account for testing purposes. This environment might be of interest to Ted and Philip as well as me. I saw the possibility of archiving all my sites onto a machine for posterity!!!! [Or at least my family’s attention]

    Paul had been “hit” by a scam suggesting he invest in Anti-virus software – that didn’t go too far!!! He then advised us that within the browser-version of Gmail, you could click on the three dots above a message and Report it as a Scam. This could be very useful to members. In similar vein (but later) Don told us he’d used the Print function under the “three dots” to print an email out, rather than get a screenshot with sidebars added.

    Steve updated us on his “negotiations” with TalkTalk which had also led to the cancellation of his NowTV. He had also spent sometime looking at LastPass.

    Stella was beaming!!! She’d purchased a replacement 2-in-1 machine from eBay but it had come without being cleaned-off and she found out she would need to re-set it back to Factory Settings. This she had done successfully and she thanked members of the group for giving here the confidence to attempt it herself. She then did the same thing to an older machine. It took longer but she was impressed at how easy it had been to do the task just by watching a YouTube video. Well done Stella.

    Renee had a conundrum which hadn’t been resolved by Apple. The number of photos on her phone and laptop didn’t coincide. This was disturbing because sjhe wanted to move the photos off her phone and through the laptop to an external hard disk. I said I’d had a similar experience recently but couldn’t for the life of me remember what I’d done to resolve the problem – but I had. I said I’d try to get the little grey cells working a bit better and let her know if they came back with anything of any use!!!

    Don told us he’d been reading a Customer Satisfaction report from Which? on Broadband suppliers. He noted that some of our members would not be that impressed by some of the suppliers (no names, no pack drill). He’d also come across a definition of phishing and had been amazed by the different flavours and terms used.

    Christine had also been talking to their broadband supplier (VirginMedia) and had been advised to change their mobile contract (part of the package) to O2 – which were partners of VM to get a better deal – you can’t make up these stories can you! She had also pulled-out of a Lloyds Bank scam when it asked her for the “number on the back of the card” – no, that’s not right!!!!

    Ann reported that she’d solved the camera on her Lenovo not working. She inadvertently must have toggled the F8 key on the machine which is a “privacy feature” to switch-off the camera. Glad that one’s been resolved.

    Fred reported that he’d been puzzled by a GreenCard Travel email that would appear to be a scam. Something to look out for now that we were all perhaps looking to start driving abroad again.

    We then had a discussion on the LastPass video which Sianed thought had been quite good. Several questions were asked and I attempted to answer them as best I could. Some of these I answered subsequently (mainly on subscription costs) on Signal. I refer everyone to their website which has a quite good set of FAQs.

    Lastly we went round the screen again to find out if anyone had used, or discovered, useful speech-to-text applications. Owen reported that he’d discovered the wonders of CarPlay on their new car. Messages went from the iPhone to appear as text on the screen of what we used to call the SatNav – but it’s far more now. Paul told us he used the microphone in Text, WhatsApp and Signal (and Notes and Word, etc) to prepare messages, which were surprisingly accurate. I tried to do a demonstration, but failed – I must do some revision on how you can switch to share an iPhone screen over Zoom. That was not the case for Sianed. She found the speech-to-text failed miserable with a Welsh accent. Ann agreed. I suggested they try speaking in Welsh as there might well be a more accurate result. It will be interesting to see. Steve on the other hand was more interested in text-to-speech and he’d been looking at Speechify, but it was costly. I investigated other options and sent a message to Signal. Renee had tackled Siri – she’d meant to do that for some time and found it acceptable, and did arithmetic well!! She also advised Steve to have a look at text-to-speech on Safari – one for me to check out as well. That plus Reader View is making Safari my browser of choice at the moment. Finally, Don had been trying out talking to Google (using the Google Assistant) – we must have another go at this really useful tool again.

  • Notes from Zoom meeting – 3rd February 2022

    Quick out of the blocks today – probably as I don’t have so much to write given the excellent contributions from Steve, Phil, Ted and Jenny. I had to do very little; I didn’t even have time to do anything on LastPass – but more about that later.

    We started off by reviewing the Notes from the last meeting (finished only about an hour previously – many apologies). Fred noted that the Institute of Government have a series of podcasts which are free and worth listening too, and after the meeting Phil offered a list of a number of podcasts that he often listened to … Dan Snow’s History Hit; The Battersea Poltergeist (spooky); Mark Steele What the F #### is going on (bit sweary but hilarious); and Aaron Mahnke’s Cabinet of Curiosities.

    We then launched into a demonstration of Trello, a piece of work organisation software based on Japanese Kanban principles. It seeks to help you manage small projects, and other aspects of your life. Steve guided us through its basic principles and offered to provide assistance if anyone wanted help in using it. We then went on to hear about Phil Edwards' experience of using Google Sites to build a website with the useful additional piece of information that Google will provide a domain name (eg digital.cardiffu3a.org.uk/) for c.£10pa. This is not out of line with the pricing of other domain name registries. Phil showed and told us about the family history website he’d just finished called Rum and Gunpowder, I encourage you to go and give it a look, and Phil would like feedback on it as well. Then Ted who’d written a post for this site, talked about the Virtual Travels he was doing, I urge you to have a look at the inventive activities he and his wife have recently started. Finally Jenny gave us a short updarte on the article she’d written for the Cardiff u3a Magazine, which should appear in the digital version at least. I’ve added it to the post I wrote on the Analog to Digital switchover and will now transfer it across to the “public”Thought grazing site.

    That was a great start to the meeting and the individual contributions were somewhat limited due to time. Please excuse me for not mentioning your name if you didn’t contribute in this section.

    Jenny reported that her freebie (except the cost of a lunch) monitor was not working and she might have to ask for help at the next meeting.

    Steve had of course been working on Trello and we thank him again for his demonstration.

    Jim continues to work on adding information to the EXIF data in his photographs; currently he’s been labelling works of art that he has photographs of – adding titles and locations. He also raised an issue of whether instructing the deletion of material from external hard drives had to be done separately from that of internal drives. I didn’t know the answer for Windows/Chromebook machines, but thought in the MacOS world, although the recycle bins, or trash, were separate they were all cleaned out as long as the disks were attached to the computer at the time the instruction to delete was raised.

    David Hughes raised the interesting point (that we’ll add to the webpage that Jenny and I have setup on the “PSTN switchover”) that some Households in rural areas don’t have a mobile signal, so that in the case of a power cut they would have no means of raising the emergency services. This was the case in point just recently in NE Scotland after the storms that brought down the power lines. Apparently this was raised as an issue in a recent episode of RipOff Britain too.

    Renee picked-up on a point I’d earlier raised about the NHS Portal. This was something new that Cardiff and Vale Trust is using to record their Correspondence with you as well as your Appointments. Here’s a link that tells you more about it. We had quite a few discussions relating to health at the meeting. There was general agreement that not all GP Surgeries were the same; not all practices used the MyHealth Online Portal – in fact one had stopped using it as it was deemed to be “unfair” during the pandemic to not have the same “vanilla”service for all patients. Duh!; that not all health boards were working the same way; that the eConsult service was generally “a good thing” and often allowed access to your GP (usually over the phone) in much less than the 48hrs promised; and that finally telephone and video consultations were definitely “a good thing” to have come out of the pandemic.

    Margaret reported that her TalkTalk service had gone down and that after switching off all devices and having found that made no difference , the service came back the next day. It was frustrating. A lot of work is being done by OpenReach currently in North Cardiff and they really should communicate to their (and associated service users) customers when ourtages are likely to happen.

    Stella told us about a really alarming episode involving Alexa which had suggested as a challenge that an 11yr old girl should short-circuit a plug inserted in a socket. Here’s a link that tells you more about this shocking episode.

    Ted informed us that he’d recently come across an app that transcribed speech to text called Speechnotes. This is a very interesting idea and it raises the possibility that all group members should examine the apps they use and see whether there is an inbuilt speech-to-text facility that they might use. A challenge for next time then – all group members to investigate the possibility of using speech-to-text on their smartphones and report back for the next meeting. He also mentioned there was a facility built-into the Chrome browser to provide Live Captioning. This is how you do it …

    Open Google Chrome
    Click on the dots on top right hand side
    then:
    Settings
    Advanced
    Accessibility
    Toggle on Live Caption
    (it will probably only work for windows you have open in that Google Chrome session)

    Paul reported (with glea) that his road was now fully fibre. He also showed us a multi-connect SD-Card Reader that could plug into USB-C, USB-A and mini-USB sockets. He also told us he’d now got a much more sophisticated Dashcam which even had a parking mode, and which could transmit recordings using WiFi to the house. He offered to do a presentation, an offer that was gladly accepted.

    Don noted that he had to re-format his SD-Cards for DashCam and wildlife cameras to avoid corruption. I reported that I always re-formatted cards on the external device as it was just as easy to do that as delete them in the computer.

    Fred suggested that we meet in person, a couple of other members also expressed that wish. I explained my thoughts and feelings on the subject and told the group that I’d been in contact with Nonn (the Groups Liaison Officer) and had suggested that a suitable venue with WiFi was still required before we could start regularly to meet in person. However the Group felt it would be “a good idea” to have a social meet (perhaps in the Castle) sometime soon. I agreed to plan for this in the near future.

    Sianed advised us of our Consumer Rights under the 2015 Act, and that this over-rides the expiry of a Warranty if you can demonstrate it to be unreasonable for a device to be not working in an out of warranty period which was deemed to be reasonable. You might need to have expert opinion to press home your case to the retailer.

    So … homework for next time.

    • Please (if you’re interested) watch this LastPass video and then we can have a discussion about issues, questions, etc at the next meeting.
    • Look at the applications you use on your smart devices (in particular) and see which of them a) have speech-to-text provided, and b) which ones you think you might find useful. [This is in addition to all the AI speech facilities such as Alexa, Siri and Google Assistant.]

  • Notes from Zoom meeting – 20th January 2022

    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.

  • Notes from Zoom meeting – 6th January 2022

    We start a new year much in the same way as we ended the old one. I invited members to volunteer any digital gifts they’d received. Somewhat surprisingly there weren’t many. David Hughes had given his wife a smart watch so that they could monitor things like heart rates and blood pressure; Sianed had been promised an iPad and we discussed possible options – I was looking at doing the same with a present from my Jenny; Paul had bought some replacement Dect phones and wondered whether they would work when the PSTN switched to digital (more later); Jenny had got an Apple Watch and I “appointed” her as our specialist/expert moving forward; Steve had got a Chromebook and was looking to get the most out of it whilst concerned about what we’d discussed last time in respect of the possible problems with ongoing support of the operating system and finally Christine was looking at the possibility of a webcam as another possible solution to her ongoing bridge game issues. I had been given a Wacom Intuos tablet but hadn’t started using it.

    We turned to issues.

    Ann had other pressing issues as a lath and plaster ceiling had collapsed; Fred shared an amusing story dating from when he was working in London relating to a ceiling collapse as well.

    Christine was looking at possibly trying to return her Lenovo laptop and she was advised where she could find the AEU date.

    Don had started storing passwords in his Google Chrome browser. We expressed some reservations about doing that, our strong preference is for using a password manager, but for the Apple fraternity there might be a possibility of using Keychain.

    Sianed mentioned that she’d started using an ecologically friendly/green search engine – ecosia. I said I would be interested in looking at it.

    Ted had started a migration from his personal blogspot (Google) website to one based on using WordPress. I offered advice and assistance if required. I also told members that Phil had recently migrated this website – for the clog team his wife organised – to Google sites.

    David H reported that after guidance from a friend he’d been advised of a system that allowed multiple calls to come into the same landline. I was surprised and had never heard of such a possibility. It would be interesting to find out more about such a system.

    Renee had wanted to extract messages from her iPhone to make them a document. I promised to investigate a solution I’d used for my Jenny. This I found to be called iMazing.

    We then had a brief discussion on the withdrawal of the PSTN service by the telcos by 2025. Jenny and I were going to write something for the Magazine on it, and were also to provide Tony Baines with a briefing to take to Region. Paul told us about the problems a cousin (in the Salisbury area where the initial trials were being carried out) who was blind had experienced with 1471 not working any more; he’d had to change his number and there didn’t appear to a call-back facility which he’d relied upon before.

    Jenny then told us she’d received a note of briefings on good use of Zoom, and I offered to put a link to them on this website. You’ll see it here.

    The meeting finished with a demonstration of the 1921 Census to be found on Find my past. I suggested that all members might offer to demonstrate a website they found useful. At the next meeting I would show the photo sharing site Flickr and how it works..