Topics for Mondays at Salvation Army- July to Sept

 

WK	Date	Topic
27	30 Jun	File Management
28	7 Jul	Large File Transfers
29	14	Backups
30	21	Alternate Operating Systems
31	28	Note-taking Applications
32	4 Aug	Cyber Security
33	11	eBooks, Kindle, Libby-free Library access
34	18	Navigation and Map Applications
35	25	Bank Holiday- no meeting
36	1 Sep	Cables & Connectors, File Encryption
37	8	SD Card types and formats
38	15	Smartphone Cameras
39	22	Photo Management

Monday August the 4th- Cyber Security

Over the last few weeks, there has been quite a lot of news and TV related to Scam, Phishing and IT issues, especially large companies being hacked. So, we are going to hold a session on Cyber Security, and expain the various ways in which you can keep safe and protect yourself from these criminals who want to cause mayhem and steal your money. Please come and join us....

What;s this WHAT 3 WORDS all about?

 

Having said in a previous post about the most useful fre app, well, here is another!  ...and why it would have helped if it had been installed.....

 

The other day, I was called by one of my relatives who was stuck in the middle of nowhere having realised he had left his wallet at home

 

The problem was that it was out in the middle of the countryside which had no address. So, he phoned me and luckily I was not far away, so when I asked where he was, the reply was. "Just go up Smith Lane, until you see a white house on the left, just before that there are large fir trees on the left next to a farm gate pull in, I will see you there".

 

Of course I zoomed past missed the white house and then spend 20 mins going back and forth looking for a white house opposite fir trees.  

When I got there, "I asked why did you not WHAT 3 WORDS?" "I dont have it and didnt think I would need it"  "Well it is obvious you needed it now, or rather I needed you to have it as it would have linked to my sat nav app WAZE and taken me to you immediately, saving all this time".

 

WHAT 3 WORDS is an essential App to have on your phone, it is just like insurance, you may not need it, but if you do , it is a life saver, 

The AA, and Emergency services not use it as a locatorm as ir works to within 3 metres acuracy all over the world. It uses the GPS Satellite Network and is free.

 

This is an example of when W3W is useful. So please install it now because you don't know when you may need it in the future.

 

It is available on the Apple and Google Apps stores.

 

There is a Fact Sheet on W3W on my Tech web site 

www.tech-insights.uk

....Sheet number 23.

 

 

Monday IT Drop in session at the a Salvation Army. We are having an introductory session about creating a blog. Welcome to a new visitor.

word and AI

Our session on Monday last, was a follow up from a previous session. It was how to write a book, paper or article in WORD using content entirely from AI sources. Although there is a faction out there who think AI is cheating, and yes in education, but in the real world it is a business tool now and it is here to stay, so let's exploit all the advantages it has to offer. 

One of our members suggested a book on Victorian Christmas. So using Copilot, We asked it to "Create chapters for a book on Victorian Christmas", it then created a 12 chapter structure and  using the chapter heading, we asked for more detail which was then copied and pasted in to Word. 

In the Word doc itself, some personalised editing is done, some validating the facts are true! Then format the word doc using STYLES, auto contents page, page numbers etc. And there you have it. With 30 mins we had a small book set up but not fully completed. 

Interesting enough, we used the search and replace to remove annoying ### ** from the script by replacing with no character (ie blank), just one of the time saving features of this software. 

The advantage of the AI is that it uses the same sources as a search engine etc. But does the actual script for you, saving time retyping. 

This exercise was part of a Word Course which we did at Morley Digital a couple of months ago. 

Practice makes perfect and word has a lot more to offer in terms of creating professional documents. 

In 2025 Morley Digital will be running more Word courses both beginners and more advance, get in touch. These are free.....

Latest scams from Which

Which has produced an article about the latest scams. Please click on the link to view it.

https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/the-latest-scam-alerts-from-which-aBRLy2b02WkC

Skimming and Scanning- protecting your money and property

 

The advent of the digital age has created more opportunities for theives to take advantege of the general public in a couple of ways at least:

1: Skimming your Credit and debit Cards while their are in your pocket using a device that reads the contactless chip.

2: Scanning and copying your Contactless Car keys while they are either in your pocket or hung up in your house.

However, all is not lost, there are ways to prevent these types of thefts happening with just a little effort, although there is some cost.

A bit of theory:

The Faraday cage (named after Michael Faraday one of the pioneers of electricity) is effectively a screen which prevents radio waves from passing through it. So the way to stop both these types of thefts from happening is to use the Faraday Cage principal.

Cards: a few ways to prevent the skimming:

Car Keys: A couple of ways:

 

 

 

 

 

Effectivness of your Safe/Box:

To test your safe, place a mobile phone inside , then call it and see if it can recieve the signal. 

Obviously there is a cost for these prevention techniques, all the products shown can be purchesed from Amazon.