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Sponsors: The University of Southern Queensland, Ingenuity Hosting (website hosting), Ipswich City Council,

the Queensland Government and Microsoft.

July, 2018

“Seniors helping seniors use computers and the internet”

SeniorNet Association Inc.

PO Box 559 Booval Qld 4304

Tel: (07) 3812 5034

www.seniornet.com.au

SeniorNet Association Inc.

During a recent trip away, I watched a

show on ABC called Pointless. The

format of the show is that a control

group has previously been asked a

series of multi-choice questions; three

teams of two are then asked the same

questions.

To win they must answer correctly,

and their answer muat have been giv-

en by the lowest number in the con-

trol group. If no one on the control

group has the same answer as the

contestant the answer was pointless

(point less) and the contestants can

collect a bonus. The team scoring the

least number of points wins. Hence

the name ‘Pointless’.

We occasionally receive feedback,

usually and unfortunately not from

the member concerned, that a mem-

ber has attended a workshop and has

gone home in a more confused state

because their expectations for that

workshop had not been met.

If you or someone you know has had

this experience, or if you are at a

workshop and feel as though you are

not learning what you had thought

you would learn, please talk to the

Presenter or his/her assistant (the

Runner) at the morning tea break and

we will try to accommodate your

needs.

Greg Elmore

Social Events

Lunches July - Café 63

Meet on Friday 20th at 12. The café is in

Winston Glades Shopping Centre and

lunch is from $9

August - Thai Yes Indeed

Meet on Friday 17th at 12. The restau-

rant is in Redbank Plaza (top entrance)

and lunch is $10.90

Trips with Just Friends Sunday July 29th - Old Petrie Town

$35 buy your own lunch; pickup 8.00 @

Redbank Plaza

Sunday August 26th - Tewantin

Visit Tewantin National Park, then lunch

at the Royal Mail Hotel, all inclusive for

$50. Pickup 8.00 @ Redbank Plaza

President’s

View

On Other Pages

(click to jump to topic)

Training Programme page 2

Tech Talk page 5

Editorial Page 6

Potty History page 7

Humour page 7

Further Information page 8

Alternatively if you wish to learn

a particular aspect of a work-

shop please contact the Present-

er before the training day and

ask if that particular topic will be

covered. If the trainer knows

what the member wants, then

that request can sometimes be

met, or you might be advised of

a different workshop that could

be more suitable for you.

Please do not go home feeling

that you have just spent two

hours on a pointless exercise.

http://www.seniornet.com.au

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NOTE: All Workshops are subject to change if Trainers are unavailable due to illness or other commitments. If possible

changes will be listed on the SeniorNet Web Site or you can contact John McVeigh–Training Coordinator – ph 07 3281 8548 –

email [email protected] to confirm workshops are as listed. It is not necessary to make bookings for Workshops.

Cost of Workshop $5.00

Please bring your USB drive with you as it is helpful in many lessons.

* For courses and workshops involving tablets (iPads and Androids) please make sure your device is charged, that you have

your cable with you and bring your USQ username and password with you (for Eduroam access)

SeniorNet Workshop Programme: July—August 2018 Boilerhouse Training Room, University of Southern Queensland, Ipswich

Workshop Times 9-11am (the training facilities are booked until noon which allows us to extend

our sessions until 11:30 if subject matter or participant interest requires it)

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Friday

2nd July @ 11.00 Management Com-mittee

4th July Android: Cloud Stor-age

Ken Curwen

9th July Trainers Meeting

10th July References in Word

Ken Curwen

17th July Collages in Power-Point

Barbara Bottenberg

18th July iPad: Photos in the Cloud

Joan McKenzie

20th July Social Lunch

Café 63

23rd July Introduction to Social Media

Joan McKenzie & Jenny Greaves

27th July Genealogy: Using Di-rectories in Family His-tory

Doreen Hayward

31st July Android: File Manag-ers

Ken Curwen

1st August Membership Morning

6th August Management Com-mittee

7th August Flyers in Publisher

Barbara Bottenberg

8th August Excel Formatting

Peter Wighton

13th August Photos: Finding Faces and Duplicates

Phil Buchanan

15th August iPad: Managing Files

Joan McKenzie

17th August Social Lunch

Thai Yes Indeed

20th August

21st August

22nd August

24th August :

27th August Discover the Keyboard

Phil Buchanan

29th August Android: Music

Ken Curwen

Seniors’ Week




Workshop Topics Described

Android: Cloud Storage Find out about the Cloud at this workshop. You can share files among your various devices, and / or back them up, using the Internet. You will need to have a Gmail (Google) account to take part in this workshop. Most Android us-ers probably already have a Google account, but if you do not yet have one, please set one up beforehand.

Android: File Managers Learn how to manage the files you have saved on your Android tablet. You need to bring your own tablet and cable with you. Please make sure your tablet is charged. Make sure you know any passwords you need for your device.

Android: Music This workshop will cover downloading free MP3 music to your Android phone/tablet using various methods to ob-tain music files. For example, you can convert your purchased CDs to MP3 files using a computer and then choose to preview the song by streaming it to your phone/tablet, or download it directly to your SD card. You need to bring your own Android tablet and cable with you. Please make sure your Android tablet is charged. Make sure you know any passwords you need for your device.

Collages in PowerPoint A collage is a great way to present a lot of images at once without bogging down a presentation. Using the picture tools available in PowerPoint, you can create a professional-looking collage quickly and easily. Save it as picture that you can use as a profile picture on your website, personalise your desktop wallpaper or have it printed as a poster or flyer.

Discover the Keyboard If you use a computer, you most likely use a keyboard. While you may think it is pretty straight-forward – you type

and stuff shows up on the screen – there are probably a few things about the keyboard you don’t know.

Excel Formatting Once you have an Excel sheet of data you may wish to fine-tune the way in which that data is displayed (for exam-ple dates or currency) and you may also wish to make the printout more colourful and attractive. Learn these tricks in this Workshop.

Flyers in Publisher Flyers can be useful to disseminate information, call attention to special offers or sales, alert people to fundraisers or other events, or just to make special announcements. Microsoft Publisher lets you create flyers for any of these purposes, using either its built-in templates or from scratch

Genealogy: Using Directories in Family History Directories can be used to trace movements of people, with their occupation and address, at a given time. Trade and professional directories are very useful as are Post Office directories. However if a per-son’s name and credentials do not appear in a particular Directory, it does not mean that they do not ex-ist, it just means that they did not submit their information – probably because a person had to pay a fee to be included.

Introduction to Social Media There are many ways to communicate using your computer/tablet/ smart phone, such as Facebook, Twitter, Skype, Messenger, Instagram and YouTube. In this workshop, we will demonstrate some of these methods, to give you an idea of how they are used and why you would use them.

iPad: Managing Files Firstly we will practice using the Files app to organise files. The Files app is only on newer iPads (iPads that can up-

date their software to the latest versions). Look for the blue folder icon on your screen. We will also investigate

what alternative File Manager will install on older iPads. In order to have some files to organise, download the Ado-

be Acrobat Reader app from the app store (it is free)

(Continued on page 4)




iPad: Photos in the cloud Photos can be placed in iCloud, and/or in the iCloud Photo Library. What difference does it makes which you use? What purpose does each serve? Come and find out more about photos and the cloud.

Photos: Finding Faces and Duplicates This workshop will look at how you can use software to find (and remove) duplicate photos in your collection and

how you can use facial recognition software to tag faces and make finding people easier.

References in Word Microsoft Word can keep track of footnotes and references (such as figure numbers) in your document; and can then cross-reference back to the original figure even if you relocate it relative to other figures. This workshop ex-plains how to use this capability.

Seniors’ Week Event The opening event of Seniors’ Week this year will be the See Create Connect Expo on Tuesday 21st August at the

North Ipswich Reserve Corporate Centre. All the activities, groups, clubs and services available to seniors will be

on show (including SeniorNet of course).

More information on Seniors’ Week is expected to be publicised in the August newsletter.

Computer Courses

To see the list of courses currently offered by SeniorNet click here.

At present due to low demand for courses there are none planned for the next two months. Remember, if you

do not express an interest in a course you fancy it will probably not be scheduled.

The SeniorNet Kiosk

The internet kiosk offers FREE lessons to all seniors in our Humanities building facility. For details click here.

June General Meeting

After the June General Meeting we were able to partake in a demonstration of virtual reality imagery; the red ar-

rows point to members wearing the supplied headsets, and the green arrow to David, Barbara (Social Coordinator)

and Phil (from Ipswich Library) who ran the demonstration. I plan to run a workshop on this topic later in the year.

Ken Curwen

http://www.seniornet.com.au/Training/CourseTablePrint.pdf

http://www.seniornet.com.au/Training/Kiosk.html




Tech Talk

Adblockers

Information on the Internet is never really free. A website may be free to access but someone must pay to develop

the content, create the layout and host the site. On some sites this is paid for by a subscription but for most sites

the money comes from advertisements on the page(s).

This is the same model used by free to air television. It is free to view and the content is supported by advertising.

However, unlike television, there are no regulations around what sort of advertisements are displayed on websites.

It is not unusual to find distasteful ads on sites (including on sites intended for children); ads which dominate the

content on the page; and some ads which are deliberately designed to have you click on them and download un-

wanted software or malware.

The solution is to consider installing an adblocker into your web browser. An adblocker is a small add-on to the web

browser which recognises the ads on a web page and prevents them downloading and displaying. They are not

100% effective but will screen out most of the ads.

Three good adblocking programs are AdBlock, AdBlock Plus (despite the similar name it is a completely different

program) and uBlock Origin. If you are using Internet Explorer then you are limited to AdBlock Plus. All three do a

good job but my favourite now is uBlock Origin.

Firefox: Click this link and then click on ADD TO FIREFOX.

Google Chrome: Click on this link and then click on ADD TO CHROME.

Microsoft Edge: Go to the Microsoft Store and search for uBlock Origin or click here.

Internet Explorer: For AdBlock Plus, click here. Click on AGREE AND INSTALL FOR INTERNET EXPLORER.

Some websites may detect that you are using an adblocker and prevent you viewing the page. You have the choice

of disabling the adblocker for that page; paying any required subscription fee or seeing if the content is available

elsewhere (it usually is).

Using an adblocker is something of a double-edged sword. Without revenue, websites will not survive and we

won’t have free access to their content. Without an adblocker you are exposed to potential malware downloads

and advertising for undesirable products and websites. For me, an adblocker is an important part of my security

strategy so I have them installed on all browsers on all my computers.

… and about Internet Explorer

Microsoft have ceased any further development of Internet Explorer (apart from possible security updates). It is

now frozen in time and could disappear in some future update to Windows 10. Microsoft Edge is Microsoft’s official

browser but it is only for Windows 10. Windows 7 will go end of life in January 2020 so I expect Internet Explorer to

be around until then but after that…

The problem is, even if Internet Explorer persists, it is not being updated to cope with new developments in web

design. It is likely you will start to see it having trouble displaying some web pages correctly and this problem is like-

ly to become worse as time goes on. Developers of add-ons (such as AdBlockers in the previous article) are not go-

ing to spend time and resources developing for a program which is close to end of life.

If you are currently using Internet Explorer, it would be a good idea to become familiar with some of the other

browsers available. Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge (Windows 10 only), Opera, Vivaldi are all good

and all have features that will appeal to different individual needs. They are all free to download and tryout (Edge is

built into Windows 10). Having more than one browser on your computer is not a problem (they do not interfere

with each other). If you have a lot of Favorites in Internet Explorer, another browser will usually offer to import

them during the install process which will save you having to add them all again.

Phil Buchanan

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin/cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm?hl=en

https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/p/ublock-origin/9nblggh444l4

https://adblockplus.org/




Dot Points

In Windows ‘file extension’ is a short word added after a full stop to a file name. It usually defines the program that

should be run to use it – for example, a ‘doc’ or ‘docx’ file extension is normally opened by Microsoft Word (though

many other programs can handle it as it is used so widely). When you check the contents of folders on your com-

puter using Windows Explorer you should see the extensions; if you don’t see them click on the View tab at

the top of the program and tick the box for ‘File name extensions’ on the right-hand side (note that it is not ticked

by default in a Windows installation).

It is worth knowing about file extensions as you can establish the risk of opening them if you receive them as an

attachment to an email. In this article I will list the normal types of image files; all of them are totally safe to open

and view the contained image.

• bmp (bitmap) is the oldest type; it contains a coloured dot-by-dot representation of the image – but uses a

lot of storage; for example, a bit of blue sky would be represented as ‘blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue’

where it could be described as ‘6 blues’

• gif (graphics interchange format) was developed by CompuServe, the first US internet service provider, to

provide more speedily-loading images in their web pages. Because CompuServe wanted to have moving

graphics the gif format also allows for multiple images within one file, which will show as a short video. The

format compresses the data by limiting the available colours severely, and uses an image compression

technique called LZW, which is lossless (that is, no detail of the image will be smudged over by the com-

pression process)

• png (portable network graphics) was developed by Microsoft and others in 1995, to replace gif, because the

LZW compression algorithm was patented and the patentee (Unisys) started to enforce its rights

(interestingly the patent ran out in 2004). Additionally it supports true colour (16 million colour values) and

it employs a non-patented lossless compression scheme

• jpg (strictly jpeg, Joint Picture Experts Group) was developed in the 1990s by a group of (mainly) academic

researchers to minimise the storage required for digital photographs. It supports true colour and uses lossy

compression which means that at high compression levels details such as individual eyelashes will turn to a

‘fog’. However, this greatly improves storage in a camera or phone; a 10 megapixel image would occupy 30

megabytes of storage but the jpg process can reduce the file size to 3 megabytes with no apparent loss of

detail, down to as small as 300 kilobytes with the sort of loss described above.

Note that you can change the default program that opens a file with a specific extension. Right click on such a file

in Windows Explorer and choose Open With in the resulting menu. Choose one of the options, or click on ‘Choose

another app’ to get the same list. ‘More apps’ will extend the list, hopefully to offer your preferred choice, but

‘Look for another app’ at the bottom of the list allows you to specify any program in your computer.

Ken Curwen

Editorial In the February 2018 newsletter I wrote a tip on Google searching and mentioned a browser called Vivaldi and stat-

ed it was designed to help with complex research. I subsequently presented a workshop ’Beyond Google’ in April

to explain the use of Vivaldi.

I made extensive use of Vivaldi in this month’s Potty History (see next page) - checking all the details of George III’s

fifteen children - which resulted in over a dozen browser tabs which would have been quite unmanageable using

any other browser. I plan to revisit the ‘Beyond Google’ topic, armed with this extra experience, later in the year,

for those who missed the original presentation.




Humour Noblesse Oblige

They don’t quite understand how the other 99% live!

Lord Curzon (Viceroy of India at the end of Queen Victoria’s reign) saw some napkin rings in a silversmith's window

and couldn't understand their purpose. His butler had to explain that some people can't afford to have their table

linen laundered after every meal. He replied "Can there be such poverty?"

The tenth Duke of Marlborough was paying a visit to his daughter in America in the early twentieth century. He

had, unusually, travelled without his valet and when he came down for breakfast on the first day it was with a look

of mild irritation on his face. "There's something wrong with my toothbrush," he is supposed to have said, "I can't

get it to foam". His daughter gently broke the news that toothpaste had to be added before the instrument would

function properly.

Potty History

Victoria (1837-1901)

The Prelude

Unlike Elizabeth I, Mary and Anne who left no heirs, George III and his wife Charlotte had fifteen children of whom

thirteen grew to adulthood; so the succession should have been assured. Although only two of them died in infan-

cy, it turned out that nine either had no children or neglected to marry the women who bore their children.

When the Prince of Wales’s only child, Charlotte, died in childbirth in 1817 Parliament decided it had another dy-

nastic disaster pending and offered a magnificent bounty (about $6 million in today’s money) to the three unmar-

ried princes if they would find wives.

They all promptly married in 1818, the Duke of Cambridge on 1st June and the Dukes of Clarence (later King William

IV) and Kent both on 11th July. The race was on! It was won by the Duke of Cambridge, whose son George was

born on 26th March 1819 but, as he was the younger son, the Duke of Kent’s daughter Victoria, born on 24th May

1819, became 6th in line to the throne (William’s marriage proved childless and he became so estranged from his

wife Adelaide that he refused her access to his coronation).

The other successors having died prior William IV’s death, Victoria became the next Queen of the United Kingdom.

Her Reign

Victoria was not as she is usually portrayed, just a large lump of black satin with a crown on top. In her youth she

was both pretty and passionate. She had been brought up by her Mum, the Duchess of Kent (and of Saxe-Coburg-

Saalfeld) who thought that as Vicky was 18 and presumably malleable she (the Duchess) could be the Queen Mum,

assisted by her eminence grise Sir John Conroy; but Vicky rapidly disabused them of any such idea and showed

them the door. However, once Vicky started her family she reconciled with the Duchess, who became a doting

grandmother.

She did get an unrequited crush on Lord Melbourne, her first Prime Minister, but then met, proposed to and mar-

ried Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg und Gotha, who, despite introducing the Classic English Christmas which so

blights our shopping centres to this day, was the smartest ever member of the royals.

Vicky bore him nine children, many carrying the haemophilia gene which later caused the collapse of the Tsarist

(Romanoff) line. After 21 years of marriage Albert suddenly died of typhoid, though Vicky reckoned the fact that

he had to sort out Edward Prince of Wales’s indiscretions was the real cause and never forgave Edward.

She went in to deep mourning for Albert for the rest of her reign; the country viewed this with boredom and some-

times admiration but the business of creating “The Empire upon which the Sun Never Sets” had precedence in

most people’s minds (or at least in the minds of those people lucky enough not to live in grinding poverty).




But things have not changed...

Serenity

Disclaimer: While we have made every effort to give accurate information and tips in this Newsletter, we cannot

guarantee that their use will provide the desired results in all circumstances. In no event will the Editor or SeniorNet

be liable for direct, indirect, special, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the use of URLs and tips giv-

en in this newsletter. We recommend members verify details before acting on information or suggestions contained

herein. The Editor would appreciate being informed of any erroneous information so that it may be corrected.

Ken Curwen. Newsletter Editor.

Further Information

SeniorNet Committee

The listing of the 2017-2018 committee can be found here.

Computer Repairs

A listing of repairers who our members have found satisfactory can be found here.

Just before the funeral service, the undertaker came up

to the very elderly widow and asked,

'How old was your husband?' '98,' she replied ‘....Two years older than me' 'So you're 96,' the undertaker commented. She responded, 'Hardly worth going home, is it?’

Reporters interviewing a 104-year-old woman:

'And what do you think is the best thing about being 104?' the reporter asked... She simply replied, 'No peer pressure.'

I am not very muscular - the strongest thing about me is my password.

http://www.seniornet.com.au/Contact/SeniorNet%20Committee%202017.pdf

http://www.seniornet.com.au/FAQ/ComputerRepairers.html

Documents

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