NEWS & VIEWS - Brisbane Seniors Online
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N EWS & VIEWS
Brisbane Seniors Online Newsletter
MAY
2021
In this Issue
Brisbane Seniors Online Hub Coordinators
Level 1, Gabba Tower Unless urgent, please contact
411 Vulture Street your hub coordinator via email
Editorial Woolloongabb Central
07 3393 2225
Coming Events bsolhq@bsol.asn.a
Kevin: 0466 369 995
centralhub@bsol.asn.au
From the President PO Box 600
Woolloongabba QLD 4102
North Central
Jane 0419 779 233
www.bsol.asn.a
BSOL Turns Twenty - Early Years /BrisbaneSeniorsOnline
northctrlhub@bsol.asn.au
North
Management Committee Report President
Carol: 0421 192 770
northhub@bsol.asn.au
Ron Hors
Digital Photography Group president@bsol.asn.au South
Linda: 0418 459 227
South Hub Workshop Secretary
Ethna Brow southhub@bsol.asn.au
sec@bsol.asn.au East
Music Listening Study Treasurer
Ben: 0419 571 517
easthub@bsol.asn.au
Mentor Support Group Jonathan Smit
tres@bsol.asn.au West
Check Your PayPal Account Publicity
Dick Bennet
Rod: 3376 5956
westhub@bsol.asn.au
Linux Group publicity@bsol.asn.au Inner North
Jim: 0431 050 373
Hub Liaison
Brainteaser Kevin Brow
hubliaison@bsol.asn.au
northinhub@bsol.asn.au
Inner West
Techno Tidbits++ O ce Manager Mark: 0401 433 724
Les Web westinnerhub@bsol.asn.au
Group bsolhq@bsol.asn.au
Peninsula
Bill: 0412 395 770
peninsulahub@bsol.asn.au
Redlands
Lorell: 0490 017 232
COVER Mavis: Eternal redlandshub@bsol.asn.au
Flame Anzac Square
Brisbane Seniors On Line (BSOL) is a voluntary, not–for–pro t organisation established to help the over-50s navigate the maze of computers and the internet. Our mission is to provide seniors of the greater Brisbane
area with computer literacy while promoting social and recreational activities. BSOL does not endorse the views expressed in this newsletter. No person should act on the basis of views contained in this newsletter
without rst obtaining speci c professional advice. BSOL does not guarantee, and accepts no legal liability whatsoever arising from or connected to, the accuracy, reliability, currency or completeness of any material or
views contained in this newsletter. The BSOL newsletter may carry paid advertising. This does not constitute an automatic endorsement by BSOL of the products being advertised.
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Editorial Coming Events
A bumper twenty three page edition of News & Views. For details of individual events check the
BSOL turns twenty in July. Following on from last month’s BSOL Events Calendar.
article, The Beginning, the second in the series is Early Years. Friday 7th Linux Support Group
If you have an article you’d liked published in News & Views, Monday 10th East Hub Clinic
email it to the Editor. Please do not send any submissions as
Tuesday 11th Digital Photography Group
Microsoft Word attachments, email will suffice.
Tuesday 18th Mentor Support Group
Note: articles may be edited, or not published, due to space
restrictions or policy. Tuesday 18th Management Committee
Coronavirus articles for the month: Wednesday 19th North Central Hub Clinic
Australian Vaccine Eligibility Checker Friday 28th Newsletter deadline
Blood clotting risk higher for COVID-19 than for vaccines
SARS-CoV-2 Spreads Primarily by Aerosols
BSOLutions is back.
India’s descent into Covid hell
Wednesday 15th September 10am-4pm
How Safe Are You From Covid When You Fly? Queensland Cricketers Club.
How Pfizer Makes Its Covid-19 Vaccine
Flu Has Disappeared Worldwide during the COVID Pandemic
Severe COVID in young people can be explained by obesity
SIMON
editor@bsol.asn.au
From the President
I’m pleased to welcome Amanda Keel, who has joined our
volunteer Office staff. Our Office staff perform an invaluable
role in answering phone queries, processing new member
applications, and providing miscellaneous help. We now have
Les, Marie, Kerrie, and Amanda staffing reception and the
phone from Tuesday to Friday; with Helen coming in
occasionally to manage server backups and PC updates.
In previous years we reissued Learners with a new membership
card every year they renewed. The reissued card identified their
membership validity date. We received feedback that after the
very first Mentor Learner meeting, the card was rarely produced;
so a few years ago we stopped reissuing cards. This saved both
admin time and postage costs.
Advice for Mentors; vigilance is required to ensure that your
Learner is financial. A planned upgrade of our Membership
System will issue a notice when a Learner is nearing their
membership renewal date, or is no longer financial.
Our membership cards have recently received a facelift, they
are more like a credit card, with your name in larger print. We do
like members to wear their card to the Office and at social
functions, the AGM and BSOLutions. It is also very easy to re-
issue a membership card if yours gets lost.
I was pleased to receive some feedback regarding the 20 year
Marg Dewilde
article in the April News & Views. Several members put a lot of
effort into our newsletter and it is rewarding to know that it is
actually being read.
The April edition was emailed to 588 members:
- 396 members opened the email (67.8%)
- 180 members clicked on the newsletter link (30.8%)
Apparently anything above 30% is pretty good for a mass-
mailout; I believe we still have 408 members depriving
themselves of a darn good newsletter.
Don’t forget BSolutions is on Wednesday 15th September at
the Qld Cricketers Club for active Mentors. Publicity Officer
Dick Bennett has secured a generous grant to help cover the
costs.
RON HORST
president@bsol.asn.au
Marilyn Hooper
BSOL Turns Twenty – Early Years From the beginning (2001), BSOL was fortunate to have an amazing lady called Hazel Imison (Member #23), an ex-university librarian, who was the office manager and looked after the membership database from her home at Mitchelton. She was a tireless worker, and for her it was almost a full-time job. Hazel continued with BSOL until late 2010, when she sold her house in Brisbane and moved to the Sunshine Coast. Hazel passed away in 2017. Elaine Johanson (Member #103) joined BSOL right at the beginning as a Mentor; she was eighty. In 2011, at the age of ninety, she was still Mentoring three learners who she saw in their own homes – she was still driving - and she took a weekly class of five learners in the local community centre. She was an active member of the BSOL Video Group, making and editing videos. Elaine had 35 learners from 2002 to 2012. Some will remember Elaine at our annual Christmas Party several years ago. In our November 2020 newsletter we congratulated Elaine, she had just turned 99. Lee Rogers (member #67) has also been a Mentor from the beginning. He designed the first
membership database and was our first elected Treasurer. Lee
still Mentors, and has had 59 Learners over the years. Lee
pointed out a few errors in last month’s article regarding the
makeup of the Committee elected at the first AGM.
• Lee was the Treasurer in the first year, not Claudine Sotiau
(#40). Claudine was initially the Administration Coordinator
and by 2003 was Secretary for a short while.
• Hazel Imison & Doug Inall were not elected as a member of
the Management Committee at the first AGM; but became
valued members during the first 12 months
• Nigel Wiggins (#58) was a member of the first Committee,
and served beyond the first 12 months. Nigel eventually
moved up the coast.
By 2003, with the help of these amazing volunteers and more,
BSOL had taken shape:
President Ben Munford (#16)
Vice President Mary Assenbruck (#32)
Treasurer Evan Newton (#319)
Secretary Hyacinth Sladen
Administration Hazel Imison (#23)
Publicity Fred Delbridge (#951)
Mentors & Hubs Ben Munford (#16)
Pat Noad: Pandanus Shadows
Training & Curriculum Doug Inall (#9)
Technical Coordinator Nigel Wiggins (#58)
News Editor Doug Inall (#9)
Website Editor Amit Dewan (#251)
North Hub Mary Assenbruck (#32)
East Hub Ben Munford (#16)
South Hub David Hughes (#86)
West Hub MeeLen Thong (#94)
Central Hub Yvonne McCabe (#219)
Inner North Hub Yvonne McCabe (#219)
RON HORST
president@bsol.asn.au
Linda Daniel: Gauguin Magnolia
Management Committee Report
Five members of the Management Committee met via Zoom on
Tuesday 20th April.
The Treasurer reported that the budget for the remainder of the
financial year is on track.
Twenty new members this month; one Admin, one Associate,
and 18 Learners. However 18 members have chosen not to
renew their membership thus overall numbers have only risen by
two to 637.
The Audio-visual upgrade to the Conference Room will not go
ahead due to high cost and lack of funding.
The new Peninsula Hub is now active with Bill Colen as the new
hub coordinator. The committee would like to thank Gary
Alcorn who put a great deal of work into the setting up of the
new hub including updating the MIS, including around 200
member transfers.
Mal Gamble and Sue Green have implemented the new
membership card printer and new cards are now being
produced.
Les reported that we have a new staff member, Amanda Keel, in
the office.
Dick Bennett provided details of a number of grants either in
progress or to be submitted including RACQ, Brisbane Airport,
Brenda Williams
Federal Volunteers, Moreton Bay Regional Council, and Kedron Wavell RSL Community Grant. Dr Amy MacMahon will visit BSOL Thursday May 6th, Cr Jodie Shipway will visit Monday May 10th, and the Stretton Gardens visit will take place Wednesday May 26th. It was agreed that BSOL would join OPSO. Don’t forget that the BSOLutions event will be held Wednesday September 15th at the Queensland Cricketers’ Club so mark it in your calendar. President Ron Horst is compiling information for a series of 20th Anniversary articles for News & Views. If you have anything of interest please email him. ETHNA BROWN sec@bsol.asn.au Marilyn Hooper
Digital Photography Group
April's meeting was a successful combination of reviewing our
submissions - the topic of the month was creativity - and an
excursion to Old Government House. It was the first time we’ve
attempted to do both on the same day. Examples of our photos
are scattered throughout this newsletter for your viewing
pleasure. May's meeting will be an opportunity for members to
display their photographic take on Old Government House, and
if they did not participate in the excursion, they can showcase
their abilities with macro photography.
Next month we will be given some guidance on portraiture by
Stan Bowles. If this aspect of photography interests you, please
feel free to join us at the Brisbane Square Library at the top of
the Queen Street Mall at 10am Tuesday 11th May. There is still
room under Covid restrictions to welcome new members, and I
am sure you won't be disappointed in what you will learn as an
amateur photographer and the social aspect of the meetings.
After our recent excursion, we enjoyed a delicious lunch at The
Pantry in the courtyard of Old Government House and
discussed a host of topics from TV programs to internet scams.
You never know what you will learn when you join the BSOL
Digital Photography Group.
ALISON MUIRHEAD
digital@bsol.asn.au
Helen GibbsSouth Hub Workshop South Hub held a Mentor Workshop and luncheon at the Yeronga Services Club Friday 16th of April. The three presentations were very well received and commenced with South Hub Mentor Quentin Brown, who presented a How To on making QR Codes, the difference between static and dynamic codes, and where to store them. Robert Lentile, a Queensland Police Service Volunteer in Policing provided an enthusiastic interactive talk on Safety in Your Field of Work. Everyone joined in as it became very thought- provoking. Valeria Macalupu BA(Indesign), a QUT PhD candidtate who is researching Supporting Effective Connections Between Elders Through Socially Interactive Robots, provided the group with an update on her project in which some of you have already participated. Valeria is conducting further research and will return to those participating with actual robots to test and would welcome others to engage in further questions in the next stage of her research. We will keep you posted. It was interesting to hear from South Hub Mentors Ashok Gupta and Shahla Khoran about their own PhD studies on this subject.
Kevin Brown, BSOL’s Hub Liaison Officer and Central Hub Coordinator, who joined BSOL 10 years ago as South Hub Coordinator, attended and was pleased to catch up with Michael Spooner. Michael was South Hub’s most active mentor when Kevin was South Hub Coordinator. Michael is now an Associate Member and still engaged with BSOL. We were very happy to have Michael join us and look forward to seeing him at other functions. LINDA DANIEL southhub@bsol.asn.au David Petchell
Music Listening Study
Jennifer Lee is a PhD student at the University of Queensland
in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences. She is
seeking music-lovers aged 60+ to participate in an online music
listening study.
The aims of the study are to better understand how lyrics in
music are processed, and whether these processes change as
we age. She is interested in whether music can help with the
recognition of lyrics and how it can affect word processing. This
could ultimately inform us on how music can be used as an
educational tool or used in rehabilitation for people who have
developed language impairments after a stroke.
The study will involve listening to excerpts of popular music and
doing a lyric completion task. Participants will also be asked to
rate their familiarity with the excerpts heard. The expected
duration of the experiment is about 60 minutes. Prior to
completing the online study, we will also have a brief telephone
interview to go through a cognitive screening assessment and
some demographic questions. Participants who complete the
study will go into a draw to win 1 of 4 $100 gift vouchers.
Please support one of our up and coming researchers. Email
Jennifer or register your interest online.
RON HORST
president@bsol.asn.au
Galina RasmussenMentor Support Group
Mentors met for their regular Zoom meeting Tuesday 20th
April and despite it being a small group a variety of topics were
covered and discussion was lengthy and at times, lively. Even
though it was my first meeting I gamely volunteered to take
notes so I apologise in advance if they are not as complete or
technical as past reports.
Aged Care Facility Update: If you have a student in an Aged
Care facility you will need to have received the 2021 flu shot
and be able to show the facility the paperwork upon entry. It
was also revealed that if current mentors who visit a person in a
facility will be eligible for the Covid vaccination sooner than
previously thought.
Other Covid issues were discussed including the Qld
Government Check-In App which will become mandatory for all
Food and Entertainment Industries. This was generally
welcomed by the mentors as it means you will only need to
populate your information once. When you check in at a venue
using the app your details will automatically appear.
An issue regarding receiving emails through Hotmail was then
discussed, Bigpond and Outlook do not seem to be picking
these emails up. Some ways around this were discussed and
one suggestion was to go into Outlook and unblock Hotmail.
Another idea was to have all email accounts redirected through
Margaret Wa primary account. Dick Bennett brought up an issue he is having with his prepaid iPhone 12 which normally operates on 4G. The prepaid data is normally enough to last him all month, however; when he visits the City the phone goes onto the 5G network and uses up large amounts of data. Suggestions ranged from ensuring that the phone is set to only receive 4G; to checking the statistics to see what applications use the most data and adjusting these accordingly. A lengthy discussion around photography then took place. Opening problem was the need for a mentor to record the time and date of the photos he took at the bottom of each photo and he asked for ideas as to how he could do this. Several apps were suggested: ⁃ Time Stamp, a 3rd party app ⁃ Open Camera app, but it was decided that this was only available for Android phones which is not an option for the mentor asking the question. Second photography problem was a mentor wanted to be able to go back to the original image of a photo after he had modified it and renamed it. Quite a lot of suggestions were made and there was even a demonstration by one mentor on how he did it but this did not seem to answer the original question. Consensus did seem to be that you can keep the original photo as well as the edited one and that you could also have the jpeg name and add a tag for the new name. An app was suggested but I was not able to get the name - my apologies. A mentor also brought up an issue a learner was having with a back up machine which uses the Seagate Software. The PC itself is quite old and does not have a lot of memory so backups were done to the machine, however there did not seem to be a way of deleting old backups or doing incremental backups. The mentor was able to assist the learner in deleting old backups and had set this up at the last session. Hopefully all will be well when he meets with the leaner again. It was agreed by most of the mentors that having multiple backup strategies was the way to go. A physical machine as well as using the Cloud so that everything was not stored in the one location. It is also important to filter and control what you are backing up.
The meeting ended in a discussion about what runners are best to wear. Not really an IT problem but an important consideration if you are walking or running long distances. A recording of the meeting can be viewed online. Use the following Passcode: yB3=*L8% EMMA BENNETT msc@bsol.asn.au Alison Muirhead: Inside the Kaleidoscope
Check Your PayPal Account I always thought I’d never be scammed, too clever for them, always check to see if it’s going to cost money before I commit. Well, I have been caught out!!! The other day I received an email from Ebay advertising a new …. Sub club?... called Ebay Plus. It gave you free delivery and a 5% discount off everything. All I had to do was put an “x” in the box if I was an existing Ebay client and it would automatically send my details to Ebay Plus. I thought great! Free delivery! So I hit the box to put a tick in it. About an hour later I receive a notification from PayPal that $48.99 had been sent to Ebay Marketplace GmbH!!! Nowhere did it say it was going to cost me. Was this a one off? Was it monthly or annually? Who knew. I immediately sent them an email telling them they had taken my money without my authority, to close the subscription and refund me the money. Meanwhile I contacted PayPal and asked how a company could take my money without my authorisation because I have never agreed to their ‘easy one touch and never have to log in again’ agreement. I always login into PayPal with my password to pay, thinking this is through my authorisation to pay this amount of money to whom I want it to go to. On this occasion, I had not clicked any PayPal payment nor logged into PayPal! This is where it gets interesting!! If you go to your PayPal account and log in, click on the settings wheel in the top right hand corner and then hit payments, you will come across the Automatic Payments screen. Clicking the Manage Automatic Payments button you will find Show active and Show inactive If you click on the circle for active it will show you businesses that you have bought from that automatically put your payment into this active field without your knowledge, Ebay being one of them. I found Dan Murphies, Ebay, Bunnings, computer security firms such as AVG and Total All, all sorts where if you are not careful and don’t realise that a payment is going to come out, they can just come and take it out
because of a previous purchase on line. So I suggest you go through this list, click on the companies that are surprising you and cancel the active setting. Depending on how much you buy depends on how many of these you will need to review. I am unsure if they are permanently de- activated; only time and future checking will tell, though I am loathe to buy anything off Ebay again (just received yet another email wanting that $48.99). The good ending to this story is that PayPal came to the fore, contacted the German company and despite their no reply, PayPal have recompensed me the money. Only once before I had a problem with a seller and they did the same that time too. It is one good thing about PayPal where they will look after their customers. LINDA DANIEL southhub@bsol.asn.au
Linux Group The Linux group cancelled the April meeting as most regular attendees were unavailable, so, no report this month. The next scheduled Zoom meeting is May 7th. GARY ALCORN lig@bsol.asn.au Marg Dewilde: I want to ride my bicycle
Brainteaser It’s been a long time since I challenged you with a probability puzzle, so here’s a nice easy one. Joe is in a pitch dark room selecting socks from his drawer. He has only six socks in his drawer, a mixture of black and white. If he chooses two socks, the chances that he draws out a white pair is 2/3. What are the chances that he draws out a black pair? Answers with reasons, not guesses, to me at address below. Last month I presented you with a sequence of 16 letters and asked you to decipher the hidden message. I even provided a clue by suggesting you count the letters and then group them. With 16 letters a good starting point would be to put them in four groups of four. Let’s try it. G T Y O R J O T E O U I A B G T Now, read each column from the top down. GREAT JOB. YOU GOT IT. The one and only member who did a great job and got it was Jonathan Smith. I didn’t realise it was that challenging. BRIAN KORNER Mairi McKay: Collecting Water msc@bsol.asn.au
Techno Tidbits++
Redefining what a map can be with AI Adobe co-founder and PDF co-inventor, has died
Microsoft Shuts Down its Cortana App on Mobile 'I get better sleep': the people who quit social media
533 million Facebook users' personal data leaked NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Succeeds in
How to check if your Facebook data was leaked Historic First Flight
Facebook Phone Numbers Are Now Searchable in Transfer Facebook Posts with Data Portability Tool
Have I Been Pwned Zoom launches Immersive View feature
500 million LinkedIn accounts scraped Time flies in Google Earth’s biggest update in years
Password Haystacks Daniel Kaminsky, Internet Security Savior, Dies at 42
I Don't Scan QR Codes, And Neither Should You How Mark Zuckerberg and Tim Cook Became Foes
Yahoo Answers shuts down May 4th Roku and Google are fighting
LG quits mobile phone business Lessons from Inside the Fraud Factory
Dark patterns: tricks websites use on you to say yes Data Popular Health & Fitness Apps Have On You
Microsoft Edge’s Kids Mode is ideal for family PCs Google’s new policies will weed out apps with shoddy
The Untold Story Of The SolarWinds Hack or spammy Play Store listings
‘The New Oil’ Website: a Resource for Privacy The Hitchhiker's Guide to Online Anonymity
Nobody is flying to join Google’s FLoC They Hacked McDonald’s Ice Cream Machines—and
Started a Cold War
Am I FLoCed?
2021 World Press Photo Contests
Use the DuckDuckGo Extension to Block FLoC,
Google’s New Tracking Method in Chrome Bird Photographer Of The Year 2021 FinalistsGroup
Once again public health directions have been AppleCare+: Everything you need to know about
updated, specifically the Restrictions on Businesses Apple’s extended warranty program
Direction, but indoor gatherings are still constrained. I A Day in the Life of Your Data
don’t foresee Group meetings happening in 2021.
Mac Open Web
Apple held its Spring Loaded event announcing the
new 24” iMac, updated iPad Pro, purple iPhone 12, Browsers eating RAM
AirTag, and updated tv 4K with new Siri Remote. GQ’s 48 best iPhone and iPad apps for everything
Updates to all Apple OSes have been released. How to hide pics in Apple Photos
watchOS 7.4 adds Watch ECG feature to Australia You can now run Windows 10 on Arm on M1 Macs
iOS and iPadOS 14.5: The MacStories Overview Translate Webpages in Safari
App Tracking Transparency Microsoft Remote Desktop updated with M1 chip
Unlock your iPhone with Apple Watch support and new features
New Apple TV 4K: comparison to its predecessor Introducing Menuwhere: The menu where you are
tvOS 14.5 color balancing feature works with older Apple’s record second quarter in charts
Apple TV models: how to use it VMware Fusion on Apple Silicon: Progress Update
Apple Podcasts Subscriptions Apple Updates AirPods Pro and AirPods 2 Firmware
Apple vs. Facebook: iOS 14.5 Started a Tech Fight SuperDuper v3.5: first version to fully support Big Sur
Chat with Apple Support on iPhone & iPad How to set up AirTag
Awesome hidden iOS 14 features for your iPhone SIMON
M1-based Mac mini Gets 10 Gigabit Ethernet apple@bsol.asn.auYou can also read
