Date
19th May 2026
Place
Bishop's Stortford Social Club
Apologies for Absence
Carolyn, Pat, Keith
Present
Ken, Chris, Tim, Bruce, Maureen, Jo, Alan, Graham, Robin, Paul, Chantale
Biscuits
McVitie's Plain Chocolate Digestive
Welcome
Ken
Ken welcomed all present, especially Bruce who has been absent recently. The meeting would take its usual format - anyone can contribute, if they wish.
Ken thanked Maureen for taking the minutes.
Personal Domain
chris
Chris would like to have a personal domain, mostly for email. Ken said that he needed to register a domain and find a cheap hosting provider. He could do both at, for example, Cloudnext, a company that has recently taken on many small parish council sites. Email and up to 5 websites costs £4.99/month plus a small annual fee for the domain.
Apple Exploit
Ken
Ken mentioned a particularly nasty exploit aimed at Apple users and featured in The Register. It is capable of gaining full access to your machine and targets bank accounts and crypto wallets. As is usually the case it relies on the user to click on things and accept warnings that they should not, so BE VIGILANT.
Screen Casting
Maureen
Maureen has been casting recently (new television) and was surprised how easy it is. Casting is showing what's on your phone/tablet/PC on, say, a television.
Password on M&S App
jo
Jo was finding the M&S app very frustrating. It kept prompting her to change the password but the new one failed to stick. Chris helped her to resolve it by choosing a new password.
Connecting Canon Camera to Phone
Bruce
A Canon camera used to connect to the Canon Connect app via WiFi but is no longer working. It was suggested he try to transfer files directly using a USB cable, but that requires the phone to support data transfer mode and in later versions of Android that seems to only be in the developer settings. The meeting was unable to help and could only suggest he ask Canon and AI (good luck with that!).
Gene Editing
Maureen
Maureen referred to a meeting she'd been to of the Sciences group, and reminded us of our interesting visit last year to the Genome Project. Genes are now being edited using a technique called Crispr and the results applied to huma diseases such as Cystic fibrosis. An interesting description is at Gene Editing | CRISPR Therapeutics.
Deleting Items - Android
jo
It seems very hard to delete things on screens with lists (text, email). The meeting advised her that swiping messages left or right will often delete them.
Scammed!
Alan
Alan has been scammed with payments taken above the amount he agreed to. The payments were to GiffGaff via Utilities Warehouse. Ken said that GiffGaff has a fairly good reputation.
Alan was surprised to learn that the payments, which are direct bank transfers, not a direct debit, cannot be cancelled and do not benefit from the direct debit guarantee. He will close the bank account involved.
Raspberry Pi
Paul
The meeting thanked Paul for showing them his Raspberry Pis at a previous meeting and asked whether he could bring in one that was powered up at a future meeting.
Passkeys
Joy
Despite us discussing passkeys recently Joy still finds them confusing, and she isn't alone in that. Ken played a short video and it was agreed to revisit pass keys in a future meeting.
Local AI
Alan
A bridge partner works for an AI development company in Stortford. It would be interesting to hear just what they're doing.
Chantale
Paul assisted Chantale by resolving an email problem.
Travel
Graham
Ryanair now demand that you check-in online and present your boarding pass electronically. He advises that you continue to print boarding passes just in case.
He was disappointed to discover that his phone contract did not cover use in Turkey. Paul said that some operators allow a 24-hour period of use in those circumstances so that you can make arrangements. An eSim would be a good solution but his basic phone does not support them.
Mobile/Watch Payments
Chantale
What do we think of using phones and watches to pay for goods? Several at the meeting use these routinely, but some are still apprehensive. It is very important to have adequate security on your phone, preferable biometrics such as face recognition or fingerprint unlocking.
Router Password
Robin
Robin has a new router and has had difficulty changing all of the device passwords in his home. A particular problem was his printer. Ken recently went through the same thing, and the difficult one for him was an EV charger. It's frightening how many devices we have these days.
Printers
Various
A discussion on printers led to Ken and Chris both recommending printers with an ink tank. These come with large tanks of ink that can be refilled, although the initial supply is supposed to last three years. Several vendors sell them including HP and Epson.