Meetings Sep-Oct 2022

Meetings summaries

Meeting 24: 26 October 2022

Another good attendance for Meeting 24.

Michael reported the photo competition page now is using a carousel for the photos rather than the previous Google Slide document which caused access problems.

Again, Michael spent some time talking of one of his favourite apps What3Words and some of the latest uses such the position of the end of the queue for the late Queen's Lying in State.

Next we turned to a new online platform called Notion. Michael spent the remainder of the meeting showing of the many features of Notion which allows anyone to create online information pages with many productive uses. Notion runs on phones, tablets and laptops and is free for individual use. Michael has put some use case examples for activities in our village accessed via a Notion Home Page. All pages can be made public so the information is shared. See the notes of this meeting on the ToC Notes page.

Meeting 23: 19 October 2022

Michael forgot his tripod and attempted to use his Flip4 phone standalone. Sadly, he failed to make it into the assembled group photo for Meeting 23.

Michael mentioned that a new WhatsApp group called Travel Photos had been created, and all residents are encouraged to submit photos of their travels for us all to share. Not just while travelling but on their return as well.

We talked about the photo competition and the fact few know about it. Also, there were some problems with viewing the slide show of the few photos submitted to date. The photo competition page is now redesigned using an image carousel that should function correctly. Steps will be taken to advertise the competition in the newsletter and a poster on the noticeboard.

The first main topic of discussion was Google Timeline which is a major option in Google Maps. You need to explicitly opt in which Michael did just over 10 years ago. Since then, Google has recorded every location he had visited each and every day.

Each red dot shows a place at which he has stopped in those 10 years. Zooming in to an actual date shows the approximate route and locations at the shop/house/outside place level. One of Michael's main uses is to keep his daily journal accurate when he forgets to update it for a day or two. Michael showed us his exact movements on some of the more important days both happy and sad in his last 10 years.

The meeting ended with Michael showing his Chromebook, a very simple and inexpensive laptop that runs ChromeOS which is essentially just the Chrome web browser. All our uses of a laptop, be it Windows or a Mac, involve heavy use of a browser to do useful work. For virtually all residents without a laptop here, Michael recommends a Chromebook as a viable solution at about one third the cost of other laptops. He will give more details in a future newsletter article.

Meeting 22: 12 October 2022

ToC meetings resumed with a good attendance for Meeting 22.

Again, we talked about WhatsApp and its uses. Michael mentioned the new Travel Photos group intended for all residents to upload their travel photos, whether on the road or on return. During the demo he showed how to access WhatsApp from any laptop using the WhatsApp Web page in a browser. The process is simple: 1. Open your favourite browser and go the link https://web.whatsapp.com and a web page with a QR code appears. 2. Open WhatsApp on your phone, and from the Chats home page select Linked Devices from the menu (usually at the top right). 3. Click on Link a Device and point the phone's camera at the QR code. 4. Your laptop will be linked to your WhatsApp account on your phone. [Note your laptop and phone must be connected to the same Wi-Fi network.]

Michael spent some time discussing the big announcements of the iPhone 14 from Apple and the new Pixel flagship phones from Google. At Google's launch event they also showed the first Pixel watch - the first Android product from the Google takeover of Fitbit. The Pixel watch works with any phone and incorporates all Fitbit features. Michael was excited by the new Pixel tablet and charging dock which will make its appearance in 2023.

For those residents who live on Boobegan Creek or take regular walks in the gardens along the creek, Michael showed a way to check the state of the tide. [Note many apps only show the tide at the Gold Coast Seaway which differs by more than an hour on our creek.] Check out this page on Willyweather. There is also a free Willyweather app for your phones which displays this tide information as well as all the other weather readings.

Meeting 21: 21 September 2022

Meeting 21 had a good turnout. Following last meeting's talk about using albums to organise photos, Michael created a short video showing our photos from the first 20 ToC meetings.

We continued to talk about the details of the photo competition we had raised the previous. Rather than submitting via our ToC WhatsApp group we thought a separate way of putting up photos was the way to go, possibly via a new WhatsApp group. Leonie and Tony had already put up their photos, and Michael eventually copied them into the special page with the photos in a slide show. Details appear in Michael's newsletter article for September.

Michael then started his discussion of crypto currencies with the aim of introducing the basics. He concentrated on the Ethereum platform where a major change called The Merge happened on 15 September while we were mourning the late Queen Elizabeth II.

It is worth reading the basics of Ethereum at ethereum.org. He showed us the straightforward description of cryptos, and the new possibilities brought into focus by Ethereum. He mentioned some of the important concepts like Decentralised Finance and Non-fungible Tokens.

He then showed us his own small-scale trading in cryptos and how anyone can go about buying and selling cryptos. Coinspot is the trading platform he uses. More details appear in his September newsletter article.

Meeting 20: 14 September 2022

Meeting 20 attracted 13, and we first talked about structuring our photos into albums on our laptops but also directly on our phones. Albums bring benefits like going directly to the photos about a certain topic, event or special day and setting the exact order. As well most Photo apps on our laptops allow albums to become slide shows and/or videos with music added automatically. The videos are saved in .MP4 format and can then be shared via text, email, WhatsApp and all other communication apps.

We then enjoyed Keith showing us some of his photos from his epic Brisbane to Broome trip and describing how he assembled his slideshow which was repeated at greater length in the Residents meeting in the afternoon.

During the meeting Michael asked if we could have more photos of Cypress Gardens for our ToC site which currently only shows one photo. It was agreed we would hold a photo competition for photos submitted by our residents. A suggested outline for the competition reads:

Submit your own best photo of any scene in the Cypress Gardens Retirement Village you think captures the essence of the village. Photos should not contain any recognisable people. They can be any external or internal view taken within the village in recent times. Only one photo per person.

There are many photos of Cypress Gardens on Google Maps already, probably put up by Tricare. They might suggest ideas for your own photos. Follow the QR code to see them.

Meeting 19: 7 September 2022

A very good turnout of 14 for Meeting 19. Lots of questions and answers. Michael showed off his new Samsung Flip4 phone, and this is the first group photo taken with it.

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