Tag: Help and advice

Google Photos – how I use it

As promised, and apologies for the delay – Christmas and illness got in the way – here are some notes on how I’ve got Google Photos to work for me. It concentrates mainly on how I’ve configured Backup and sync to do what I want it to do. I think the editing of photos is relatively straightforward, as is creating albums and slideshows. I may get round to doing something on the latter, as I might with sending photos for printing – that’s quite a good topic. I’ve used Snapfish and Yophoto for printing photos and books, both of which I can recommend. I now use Blurb, but that’s because it works so well with Lightroom – it’s more expensive than the other two.

Some more links, if you’re interested …

25 tricks to master Google Photos – https://www.pcmag.com/feature/345998/25-tricks-to-master-google-photos

How to master Google Photos – https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/9/15762170/google-photos-how-to-master

32 tips and tricks for Google Photos – https://www.computerworld.com/article/3148245/desktop-apps/32-tips-and-tricks-for-google-photos.html

http://digital.cardiffu3a.org.uk/google-photos/

9 January 2018
Difficulties/problems of running Google’s Backup and Sync as a Service

I shared with the Tuesday group some of my difficulties/problems of running Google’s Backup and Sync as a Service which runs at Start-Up. It appears that this is not a problem, but a design feature – no doubt created by Microsoft. You can do this on the Mac, but apparently not on a Windows 10 machine.

The article below explains how you can get round this difficulty. For myself, I’m just going to have to remember to right-click the Backup and Sync Icon and run the application as Administrator every time I login. Sometimes, the simple solutions are the easiest!!!!

https://www.coretechnologies.com/products/AlwaysUp/Apps/RunBackupAndSyncWindowsService.html

19 October 2017
Which External USB drive would I recommend?

Which External USB drive would I recommend?

That was a question from the last meeting that I promised to answer. Well, I read a number of reviews and I was pleased to see that my favoured choice is still amongst the highest rated.

I would recommend any of the Western Digital My Passport drives. They are supplied with security software so that you can password them as well. I would also recommend buying a carrying-case for any that you intend to carry around. The one I use is from a company called Case4Life. Both can be obtained from Amazon – which is where I bought mine from – the disk itself is c.£55 for 1Tb, but you can get 2Tb, 3Tb and 4Tb versions.

http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/storage/1405456/best-external-hard-drive-the-best-portable-and-desktop-drives

16 October 2017
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Today some of us used WiFi Hotspots created by our Smart Phones to connect our laptops to the internet.

This called tethering. [Health warning, some of the links may not be working.]

How do you do it? Well if you’ve got an iPhone you go to Settings > Personal Hotspot and switch it on. On that screen you’ll see a Password – note it, because you’ll need to supply that on your laptop/desktop/iPad when you attempt to connect to the internet.

Next you go to your laptop/desktop/iPad Network Settings and look at the WiFi routers that are available to you. If all has worked correctly then you should see your iPhone in the list of possible network connections. Click on it, supply the password you got in the previous stage when requested, and you should be set to go.

If it doesn’t work, you may find this link (for iOS devices) of some help …

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT203302

For Android phones, the process is very similar and is described here …

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/mobile-phone/how-tether-google-android-phone-image-3279408/

For a general view of how to tether your laptop to your smart phone, you could look at this …

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/mobile-phone/how-use-phone-as-wi-fihotspot-internet-tethering-for-laptop-tablet-3441165/

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT203302

26 January 2017
Another Christmas lunchtime chat … re. shared Google accounts

Another Christmas lunchtime chat … this time with John and Philip.

We got to talking about missing address books, contacts and calendars … as you do at Christmas with perhaps labels to be printed and menu choices to be remembered.

I started off by saying that I’d decided to store my menu list in the Notes field in my calendar event – something so obvious, but something I’d never thought of doing before. This led to a mention of losing your paper-based address book – calamity.

I described my solution to the latter, and explained how I also enhanced the calendar experience to share both with my wife.

The trick is to setup a separate shared Google account for the two of you. I’ve previously suggested this is a good idea because you can use this address when you’re asked to supply an address by any retailer or utilities’ provider. Doing this means not only is the information shared between the two of you, but potential “junk mail” is all in one place.

So having your new Google account, you import all the contacts in your personal account into the new one. On your device you then disable (depending upon the device and email service) any contact list other than the new one. You do the same on your partner’s device(s). Any changes in Contacts on one device will change the same on the others. Bingo! You don’t need to worry about losing your paper-based Address Book again, and you should be relatively confident that your Contact list is up-to-date.

A different strategy for Shared Calendars. This is a really useful feature in Google Calendars. You can create multiple Calendars within an account, and share them with whoever you might want to.

Finally, all the above is predicated on the decision NOT to use the native calendar and contacts facilities supplied with your device. None of my far too many Apple devices use anything other than Google accounts. I may use the Apple application, but they only reference Google accounts.

16 December 2016