Change in Session Times

The monthly computer sessions are on the move again... due to my starting  a full time position as of Monday 21st Nov.

I'm suggesting moving the sessions to the First Sunday of Each Month,  10 - 1pm.  In the library, as per normal

The sessions will be split into 3

The first hour - at 10am - will be for absolute computer beginners.  We'll go right back to basics.

The second hour - at 11am - will be all things iphone and iPad related.  Bring your devices and we'll see what we can teach each other

The third hour will be for more advanced computer issues and tasks.

Hopefully everyone will find something that works for them


Angela
Mob:  0404 05 00 57 // Email: mail@angelabrown.com.au

Online newspaper resource

As discussed this morning on ABC 612 Brisbane, there is a little known wonderful resource available through the Brisbane City Council website.

Click on or 'copy & paste' this link 

http://elibcat.library.brisbane.qld.gov.au/uhtbin/cgisirsi/ABzVh0VCPo/ZZELIBCAT/0/1/1439/X/BLASTOFF


Scroll down to the Newspapers and Journals heading, and click on the Library Press Display link. You'll then be able to choose the country and the particular newspaper of your choice and be able to flick through/turn through the pages of the current newspaper edition, just as if you had it on the desk in front of you.

Be aware however: The site allows only a limited number of concurrent logins, and I've found that you will often NOT be able to login due to the site being busy.

Persevere though. It's well worth the effort!

Printing from GMail

 A group member mentioned they were having trouble printing from gmail and that text was being truncated from the printout

The answer is to not just choose to 'print the page' when you're  in Gmail.

Firstly, make sure that your GMail and Google Chrome software versions are up to date.

You then have two options.  In the top right hand corner of your GMail, if you select the drop down menu to the right of the 'Reply' button, you'll find a print option there.  THAT print option prints just the current conversation / email - not all the other associated messages. (See pic below)

If you want to print the entire conversation (all associated messages) choose the printer icon just above the Reply button.

Printing from within Google Chrome nowadays is really easy.  You automatically get a print preview page, a choice of where to print to and which pages to print.  And you can easily see how many pages are going to be produced.

Monday 3 October 2011

Another small group today - which allowed for one on one attention, and a free ranging flow of topics.

Things we covered today included:

- The START button.  How to use it, what you can do with it, how you can change what it does
- doPDF:  a nifty little PDF print program.  With this utility installed, you can always print any document or picture that you create / capture or download.  You 'print' to a PDF document, rather than paper, and can then send that PDF to anywhere you like - upload it, email it etc.
 - PrintScreen:  how to use it, what you can do with the captured image
- Desktop icons:  how to create them, delete them

Topics scheduled to be covered in the next monthly session ( Monday  7th November 10am - 1pm), currently include:

• GMail - the good, the bad and the ugly 
•  Halcyon Social calendar access
• Generating a list of the programs/utilities that everyone should have on their machines to ensure easy opening of the most common email attachments 
• Assisting everyone to download and install these 

See you Monday 7th November

Everyone welcome.

Angela Brown
Mob 0404 05 00 57

Computer Challenge - Monday 5th Sept

The group was presented with a  task sheet today to work through and everyone did extremely well!. 

The following is a link to the task sheet, if you're interested in working through it 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NeNFY0AYzexC3T4G2TLQR42IJOAL7wfn8C8UBkeWwKY/edit?hl=en_US

If clicking on the link doesn't work for you, copy and paste (or type)  the details into the address bar of any browser, hit ENTER, and you'll get to the document.

Skills we covered in working through the task sheet included:
- Using google search to find a specific image
- Downloading and saving an image from the internet
- FINDING the file we downloaded
- Editing images (adding text etc)
- Saving documents/images to shared Dropbox folder

- Creating a text document, saving the document

- Mouse skills (the snake game  :)  )

Change in Session Times

Computer sessions are being rescheduled.  In future, they'll be held on the  FIRST MONDAY of each month,  in the library at Halcyon Waters, 10am - 1pm.  (No longer fortnightly)

The next session will be Monday 3rd October.

We're looking to encourage beginner beginners again.  Residents who really need to get back to basics with using their laptops and internet enabled devices. Please pass the word around and encourage all residents to come along.   We'll split the sessions loosely into two - 10 to 11.30 for beginners and 11.30 to 1pm from more advanced users. We'll work through task sheets so that you have something to take away with you as a memory jogger.  Anyone with specific queries is also of course  welcome, and we'll do what we can to solve your issues.

Angela Brown
Mob: 0404 05 00 57 
Email: mail@angelabrown.com.au

Firefox Add-Ons Clarification - Flashgot & iViewFox

For those of you who were at the session where we attempted to download add-ons for Firefox (internet browser) to allow automatic recording of audio and video from websites, you will remember we had mixed success.

Clarification follows (and we'll talk about it /through it on Monday 22August session 10am).

- Flashgot: Allows for general recording of audio and video from websites.  So, YouTube for example.  By pressing Ctrl F3 from within Firefox when you've opened the relevant website, you'll be prompted to choose the destination folder to save the file in.  Choose the folder and then OK, and the files will be downloaded to your harddrive or flashstick or external drive - wherever you chose to save it.  You can then replay the files when you're off line  - that is, when you're not connected to the internet.

Flashgot does not download video from ABC iView.

- iViewFox however, does allow you to download from abc.net.au/iview. As with Flasfhgot, you get to choose where to save the downloaded files.   Programs uploaded to iView are generally only available for viewing online for a limited period.  By downloading them, you can choose to watch them at your convenience, after the viewing period on the site has expired.

Note that if you install iViewFox, you will be precluded from actually viewing iView video online.  The machine will only allow you to download and view later.  If you do want to stream the video and watch in real time, then you can simply disable the add-on for a while, and re enable it later.  To disable an add-on, within Firefox choose Tools>Addons, navigate to iViewFox and choose to disable it.  You will need to restart Firefox for the disable to take effect.

iViewFox doesn't prevent Flashgot from working correctly, as described above, on other websites

As always, be mindful of copyright restrictions as they may apply to all online media that you choose to acces.

Monday 8th August

We had a very intimate little group today - only 3 of us.  But we had fun!

Due to popular demand, we concentrated on iPad uses and apps.

The following is a list of those we discussed

PrintCentral - allows remote printing to ANY printer that is connected to a network or wifi (I've installed this app and it works brilliantly :) )

iMovie - apparently allows editing of movies on your iPad...  I've installed it and it does work - but I think there's more to it than I've discovered so far

Readdle Docs - allows you to easily transfer docs from your computer to your iPad (via iTunes).  Supports Word, Excel, PDF etc

Spreadsheet - a fully functioning spreadsheet program.  Saves to excel format and opens excel spreadsheets and allows editing of them.

Bamboo Paper & MeritumPaint -  2 free little finger painting/sketching programs

Photogene - allows editing of photos on your ipad

vTuner for Panasonic - gives you wifi access to all sorts of weird and wonderful internet radio

iSwifter - an alternate browser for your iPad that lets you enjoy webpages that use "flash" .  Not the best browser in the world, but does get around an otherwise annoying restriction of your iPad. (check out the following site - firstly with your usual Safari browser and THEN with iswifter.. http://www.psy.uq.edu.au/activity/demonstation.html?did=14

Teamviewer - allows remote control and access between ipads/iphone and computers (both pc's and macs).  Install the software on your computer(s) [www.teamviewer.exe]  and then install the app on your ipad/iphone..  and follow the instructions.  Be sure to say you're a non-commercial user.  It's free

Happy computing everyone

Next meeting  10am to 1pm - Monday,  22 August 2011 - in the library.  Everyone welcome.

Angela Brown
Mob 0404 05 00 57

Gadgets & Gizmos - & Sundry Ponderings

I presented this month's forum talk in the Leisure Centre this morning.  The topic was Gadgets and Gizmos.  For anyone interested in accessing the slides I used, as a memory jogger or if there are questions arising from them, this link should take you to them at google presentations site. Gadgets & Gizmos presentation

A few queries came up this morning which I thought I'd address in this blog - so that everyone can benefit from the answers.

The first was - is there a way to send SMS / Text messages from your computer , rather than your mobile phone, as sometimes it's much easier to type on a computer keyboard than muck around with the tiny phone keyboards.   The answer is YES!  And it's cheaper than sending sms text messages from your phone.

There are a number of sites that offer this facility.  You simply need to sign up with the site, buy some credit (various payment options available) and off you go!  Some sites let you try a few free messages first , just to make sure you're happy with the service.

The one I use - but there are many out there to choose from - is www.readytosms.com.au.  Messages sent from this site via your computer, show up on the recipient's phone as coming from your normal mobile number.  However, if the recipient replies to the message, the response will go direct to your mobile phone, not your computer or email.  Which is generally fine

Skype also lets you send SMS text messages from your computer to mobile phones.  The messages show as having come from your normal mobile phone number.  If the recipient chooses to 'reply' the response will again go to your normal mobile phone, not Skype.  SMS on Skype cost around 11.8c each

We'll be looking at Skype a little more in upcoming fortnightly sessions, if everyone's interested.

The next IT group meeting is Monday 25th August 10am, in the library.  Everyone's welcome.  So come along.  Bring a friend if you like.  And bring your laptop if you have one.  It's all about hands on learning, wherever possible.

Angela Brown

June 20th, 2011 - the DropBox session

There were a few new faces joining our merry crew this week.  And as always, they are more than welcome.

This week we all signed up with Dropbox (www.dropbox.com).  We all learnt how to

• save files (pictures, documents, etc) to the dropbox folder that was created on our own machines, & then
• go to www.dropbox.com,
• LOGIN with our own email and (dropbox) password
• and see how our own dropbox folder is automatically and immediately reflected in our online dropbox folder
• our own folders are accessible by us from ANY computer or smartphone, or internet enabled device, from anywhere that we can get an internet connection

We also saw how we could use dropbox to create a public link to individual files.  For example, if there's a photo that we'd like other people to access, and we dont want to mess around with emailing it (which can be difficult, if the photo file is too big).  The process again was:

• save a copy of the file / photo into the dropbox>public folder on your own computer
• right click on the file that you've just saved
• left click the dropbox option
• left click the "copy the public link" option

That saves the link to your computer's 'clipboard'.  You can then 'paste' that link into the address bar of any internet browser (Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox) and access the file, or you can paste the link into the body of an email.  You can send the email to anyone, and they will be able to click on the link in the email, or maybe copy it into their own browser, to access the file.  They dont need to download the file to their own machine unless they choose to. (To 'paste' something from the clipboard, simply left click in the destination, and choose paste, or type Ctrl-V in the destination)

We also 'shared' a folder on the hwitgroup dropbox account.  That created a new folder on the participants' computers, under their dropbox folders, called HWaters SHared.  Any files uploaded or changed in that folder are automatically synced with participants' version of the folder.

The task sheet from yesterday's session has been uploaded to that folder, if you interested in going over it.  It will automatically be synced to all 'shared' users of that folder.

Suggestion:  You could set up a shared folder of your own, and share it with family members or friends, and use it as a way of giving access to photos or other documents.  It could be useful when you're away travelling.

Next session:  Monday 4th July 10am - 1pm in the library.  The sessions are free to attend.  Please bring your laptop and power cable, and maybe a mouse, if that makes things easier for you.

Angela Brown

Podcasting - A Recap

(Definition)  Podcasting is a convenient way of automatically downloading audio or video files to your computer. You can then play this audio or video on your computer or transfer the files to a portable MP3 or video player.

'Podcast' generally refers to audio. 'Video Podcast' (or 'Vodcast') refers to the distribution of video files in the same manner.

If you’d like to get a feel for what’s out there, try this site…  www.podcast.com – the Ultimate podcast collection. 

Choose from the selections on the home page, or use the menu on the right hand side of the home page to browse a collection of your choice.  Alternatively, type your topic or title choice in the search podcast.com box (top right hand corner of the home page), hit GO and see what turns up.  Click on the Play Now button for any podcast you’d like to listen to.

Let me know if this adds anything to the discussion…

A quick update for the Windows Media Player issue

Just so we have it somewhere to refer to, the method for adding music to Windows Media Player is as follows:

1. Make sure the Menu bar is showing (File, View etc).   Ctrl-M turns it on or off
2, Click on File > Manage Libraries > Music
3. Add the folder(s)on your computer where your music is stored

and ok your way out...

It could take a little while for all your music to show in the library - depends on how much you're adding

Once it's all in there, you're right to proceed with syncing or burning.

Angela

Monday 6th June 2011

Another interesting and stimulating session yesterday in the library.  A special welcome to the new attendees!  

Topics we tackled together included:-

- installation of iTunes

- how to transfer music onto a 'shuffle'..  thanks Terry..  enjoy!  For anyone else with a 'shuffle', you don't sync them, you 'autofill' them.   Easy, once you figure out how.

- how to transfer songs to a bluetooth walkman, which isn't compatible with iTunes.  Thanks to Julie, we'll all be having a look at Windows Media Player in a future session

- how to transfer ringtones from iTunes onto an iPhone.  We'll have a look at how to make your own ringtones from your music library - 20th June.

- the differences between 

1. wireless broadband flashstick-style USB modems (which give internet connection to JUST the machine they're plugged into) and 
2. wireless broadband 'hot spots' (which aren't plugged into anything, and let up to 5 devices share an internet connection).  

- For both devices, you need to buy a 'data' plan from a provider (e.g Vodafone, Telstra, Optus). They can be pre-paid (like a mobile) or you can sign up for a contract.  There are many options available, so everyone should be able to find something suitable to their needs.

I look forward to seeing you all again on the Monday 20th June - 10am to 1pm.

Until then, please feel free to add your comments and suggestions below.

Angela Brown

Monday 23 May 2011

What a roll up today!   Thankyou everyone, and especially to the new attendees.

Unfortunately, the poor ol' single wi-fi connection in the library gave up under the strain of so many eager users.  So... for our next session - Monday 6th June - can anyone who has a mobile broadband connector (flashstick or  wifi hotspot) please bring it along.  That should take the strain off the library connection somewhat.

That aside, hopefully everyone benefited from having a look at the ABC technology web page - www.abc.net.au/technology/techexplained.  Please spread the word about the site, and encourage everyone to have a look around it. It's a great site for getting some no nonsense information on all sorts of current technology.

We also discussed podcasts and how to subscribe to them (it's FREE!!!  absolutely FREE!!  'subscribe', in this sense, means to simply request that updated podcasts be downloaded whenever you're online, logged in and want them).

And we very briefly, started to have a look at ABC iView  (www.abc.net.au/iview), where you can catch up on missed ABC TV programs, or watch them again, or just watch them when YOU want to, rather than when they're broadcast on TV.

I also suggested everyone have a look at the BBC UK websites, radio and TV, which have similar podcasts and iPlayer options for their radio and TV (although the TV viewing options are somewhat limited if your machine doesnt show a UK IP address).  Sites to have a look at
 - http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/podcasts/
 - http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/radio

NEXT IT Group Meeting - Monday 6th June, 10am, in the library.   For that session, it would be great if everyone could have iTunes installed on their laptops prior to coming along, and we'll go through how to get the most out of iTunes, and how to sync iThings (Nano, iPod, iTouch, iPhone, iPad)  with iTunes, how to move photos, music, etc..  You will all also need to have or know, your AppleID account login and password.  If you dont have an account, dont stress.  We can help you set one up if you like, in the session.

If you'd like to do some pre-reading before the next sessions?  http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1574

See on Monday 6th

Angela

Monday 11th April - Wrap Up

Wow!  What an all encompassing, broad ranging session we had today.  Congratulations to everyone who attended.  We're all continuing to learn new tricks and skills, and it's really lovely to see the group helping each other and sharing knowledge.

Our next session will be in 3 weeks time - Monday 2 May (Labour Holiday in Qld), at 10am in the library.

Following on from discussions today, I'll do some research into available internet / mobile / landline plans, packages and bundles, and hopefully be able to at least give you all an idea of what to look for when you're out there trying to find the best deal for your circumstances.

I'll also be looking at the best and most economical way of having your various devices communicate with each other and share the one internet connection/plan within the household.

Finally, if we have time, we might stick our toes in the delightfully warm waters of  iTunes - and see exactly what it has to offer and how it can value add to the iThing experience

See you there!

Angela

Thur 7 April 2011

Remember: Next Monday's session (11th April)  will be at 10am in the library.  Spread the word .  We may get some different homeowners turning up to the new time slot.

Let me know any ideas for topics to cover.  I'll have a go at setting up another page of challenges for attendees

Angela

Monday 28 - session wrap

Thankyou to everyone who attended yesterday.  What a great day!  We achieved so much

• We sorted John's laptop!  woohoo.   It's only taken us a few months.  But FINALLY we have menu options.  And?  all it took was the obscure trick of holding down the ALT key while in Internet Explorer.. the things you learn
• Dawn Wright's new baby laptop was saved was the rubbish bin, thanks to patience, and calm  :)  Well done Dawn!
• Everyone discovered how far it is to Birdsville from Halcyon Waters - just in case we were wondering
• and we all put pictures of the full moon on our desktops...  and most of us managed to change things back again
• and everyone managed to log onto this blog site - although not at the same time.  Special gold star to Noel for persevering and succeeding in end.

A reminder to everyone that the next session will be MONDAY 11th April 10am - 1pm in the library

See you there
Angela

The Beginning

Welcome to the Halycon Waters IT Group blogspot

This is the most recent project of the group, and attempts to create a central place where information can be posted, comments exchanged, ideas shared

Please enjoy!