Date
21st July 2026
Place
Bishop's Stortford Social Club
Apologies for Absence
Paul (Honeymoon), Joy
Present
Present - Ken, Chris, Tim, Robin, Alan, Graham, Carolyn, Pat, Maureen, Jo, Chantale, Keith, Harold T (new member)
Biscuits
Tower Gate Dark Chocolate Butter Biscuits (Lidl)
Welcome
Ken
Ken reminded members of the rules: they are very few but try to stay on topic and allow others to contribute.
There will be no August meeting so we'll meet again on 15th September.
Introduction
Harold
The group welcomed Harold and invited him to say a little about himself. He had a long career working in IT in the telecomms industry.
W Austin
Ken
Ken thanked Robin for his recommendation of W Austin Electronics' eBay store. He has bought a very good second-hand projector from them for another charity he works with.
Windows 10
chris
Microsoft has made available another year of Windows 10 Extended Support.
Google Storage
Ken
Google has changed the way it calculates the amount of storage you're using. Previously backups from your Android phone have not counted against your allowance but that will change. In some cases that may mean people will need to delete unwanted files (especially video or pictures) or pay Google for more storage.
Unsolicited Calls
Carolyn
Carolyn wanted to know what to do about unsolicited calls on her iPhone. She was advised to just ignore them.
Apple iPhones offer Apple Call Screening, enabled in Settings. This will answer the phone on your behalf if the caller is unknown and ask the caller the reason they're calling. You can choose several ways for the calls to be handled. This will be described in a future meeting (Maureen or Tim).
Raspberry Pi
Ken
Ken showed the group that he was using a Raspberry Pi to project. We have already seen Paul's collection but this is an example in use, although running slowly as it has a heavy operating system on it.
New Desktop
Harold
Harold wanted buying advice on a new desktop machine. Robin advised him to consider what uses he wanted for the machine and spec. it accordingly.
Two independent retailers were suggested: A&I Computers and PC Specialist.
Old Devices
Harold and chantale
Harold has several old machines, some running Linux. Chantale has a Freeview device. Both were advised to offer them to the recycling charity ECCO.
M&S App
Pat
Pat overcame her difficulties with the M&S app and everything worked. But not for long.
Bluetooth
Pat
Pat wanted to know what Bluetooth was and whether she should turn it on on her phone. It was explained that it's a low-distance way of connecting devices. If she didn't have any Bluetooth devices she might as well turn it off.
Ring Doorbell
Maureen
Maureen's ring doorbell keeps losing wifi. People suggested ensuring the battery contacts were clean. Nobody had a clear answer. Maureen may consult an expert.
(Update - Maureen's been advised to disconnect all Wifi devices, add the doorbell to the network then re-add other devices).
Fingerprint Logon
Chantale
Chantale wants to set up fingerprint recognition. There seems to be a problem with the phone. The advice was to use a pin if necessary.
ITVx App
jo
Jo wanted to know if there's a way to stop the annoying popups on ITVx promoting their paid-for advert-free service. Unfortunately, it appears not.
Old Laptop
Maureen
How should I dispose of an old laptop? Do I really need to clear the entire disk? If so, how?
It was suggested that a format is enough for many people, even though it doesn't usually actually delete data but just the directory. What to do depends on what sensitive data is present. Full formatting can be done, and utilities that will overwrite the entire file structure do exist. One example - though no use to Maureen - is Apple's Disk Utility.
TV Programme Guide
jo
The programme guide on Jo's TV has been poor lately. She was advised that atmospheric conditions had made TV reception very difficult in recent days and the problem will probably resolve itself.
Casting - Encore
Maureen
Following her explanation and video about casting video Maureen was disappointed to find that you do not seem able to cast to a Sky Glass.
Auto Block
Graham
Graham tried to send an innocuous image using WhatsApp but it was blocked by the recipient's phone or by WhatsApp. This a feature called Autoblock which attempts to block dangerous images and spam. It can be turned off, although that did not solve the problem in this case.
AI for Shopping
Alan
A recent report claims that very many people plan to use agentic AI when doing their Christmas shopping. Alan asked the group members whether they planned to do so. Nobody did.
WhatsApp Security
Graham
WhatsApp group admins should enable 'Advanced Chat Privacy'. This helps to keep the chat contents within the chat.
Stolen phone
Keith
Keith's phone was stolen. He was able to trace its location but it's now at the bottom of a river!
He was pleased to find that it's possible to use WhatsApp on a PC.
AnyText
Robin
AnyText is software that will convert text to speech (MP3) and is useful for those with difficulty reading the screen.
Maureen pointed out that she'd presented a range of accessibility tools/tips at a previous meeting.
(Robin has now reported that AnyText seems no longer available on PC. He now uses Balabolka).
Trip to Cambridge
Ken
In view of the high cost and middling level of interest the proposed group visit to the Centre for Computing History will not go ahead.
Since the meeting Maureen has found a virtual visit of the centre on the national u3a website.
Zip Drive
Robin
Robin suggested that old devices should be kept rather than thrown away. He has files stored on Iomega Zip disks and cannot now access them as they need a parallel port, which modern machines lack. If he had an old XP machine he may be able to access them, although the group was sceptical.
Ken suggested contacting the Centre for Computing History at Cambridge.
Tim suggested that adding things to the Cloud eliminated the risks of losing files due to changing technology.