December News

December  Blogging  News

This class is taught by a Member from the Computer User’s group of Redding  http://cugr.apcug.org

Mac / Apple Class Monday Schedule 1-3pm  : Dec  7th and Dec 14th

  Beyond Basics Thursday Class Schedule 1-3pm  : Nov 19^th, Dec 3^rd, Holiday Party for Students Dec 10^th no class,  Dec 17^th

Below are some notes on our progressive study of Windows 10 in the classroom. And additional problem solving for unrelated Windows 10 issues

EDGE  tips

 How to Setup a  Homepage with the  Edge Browser

Cherlynn Low, LAPTOP Staff Writer

laptopmag.com | Who has time to type in a URL or a set of URLs just to have their frequently visited websites open whenever they start their browser? No one. And even if some browsers display your favorite sites on the start page, nothing beats having your destinations ready for you when you start your browser. With Microsoft's new Edge browser for Windows 10, not only can you set your homepage so your favorite site is waiting for you when you launch the program, you can also specify as many other Web pages to open as you want. Here's how to set it up.

1. Open Edge.

2. Tap the three-dot menu button on the top right.

3. Select Settings.

4. Check the box for A Specific Page Or Pages under the Open With section. A drop down menu will appear. Enter the page or pages you want Edge to Open when you click on IE. You can either copy and paste that text into this area, or type it out. 

Using EDGE Pin a website “ To Start “

If you want to pin a web address to your start menu, just click the icon ( pin cushion labeled Pin To Start  ) . It pins your website to your Start tiles. Now you only need to click that tile to jump into that website. No need to open a  browser program.

Here’s a good website as a  resource to studying Windows 10 by tenforums.com

http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials

What is the meaning of Quick Access in Windows 10?

Windows 10 replaced Favorites from previous Windows with Quick access. The Quick access page is the shortest route to files you've been working on and folders you often use. These are your frequent folders and recent files.

In Windows 10, File Explorer opens to Quick access by default which shows your Frequent folders and Recent files.

o                           Frequent folders = Displays up to ten folders that you frequently opened on the system.

o                           Recent files = Displays up to twenty files that you most recently opened

To "Pin to Quick access" Locations

1. Select one or more folders, click/tap on the Home tab, and click/tap on the Pin to Quick access button in the ribbon.

 The Action Center

  The action center replaced some familiar , often used tools we grew to know changed and are now a part of the Action Center. That icon at the lower right base of your screen is the Action Center. The major change which effects us is the handling of AutoPlay. It is now a part of the Action Center. And you set it up using the Notifications setting. 

What happened to AutoPlay?

 

Example of AutoPlay working in Action Center

Another annoying change in the new OS is to how autoplay reacts. Now to activate autoplay you need to change the settings in Notifications.  This will change the length of time the notification stays open. 

 " Note: This example shows my SDHC(E:) card under the title AutoPlay. You need to click on the Action Center icon to see the AutoPlay in the active list.  

To Change How Long to Show Notifications using Ease of Access Center

1. Open the Control Panel (icons view), and click/tap on the Ease of Access Center icon.

2. Click/tap on the Use the computer without a display link in the Ease of Access Center

3. Under the Adjust time limits and flashing visuals section, select How long should Windows notification dialog boxes stay open? in the drop down menu to the duration time you want, and click/tap on OK. (see screenshot below)
NOTE: The default time is 5 seconds.

The PHOTO APP   Save and Share Your Photos
When you're done editing a photo, you can either update it or save a copy. At the most immediate level, Photos has a button that will start playing a slideshow of your collection. An odd thing about this feature, though, is that you can only start it from an individual photo view, rather than from a group of selected photo thumbnails.

For sharing further abroad, you can tap the Share button to open a panel populated by any apps that can accept photos, including Mail, Facebook, and Twitter (assuming you have those apps installed). Helpful for this kind of sharing is the app's multiple selection button, so you can select a bunch of photos to slap up on Facebook in one shot.

Show or Hide Common desktop icons

 

add common icons to the desktop

With Windows 10 to set common icons, aka My PC  or Computer, on the desktop click on the Action Center to quickly jump to settings. In the search bar type these words “show common desktop icons”. You will see this  menu panel . Put a check mark on the icons you wish to appear on your desktop by clicking in the box.

The End of December’s blog

November News

November  Blogging  News

This class is taught by a Member from the Computer User’s group of

Redding  http://cugr.apcug.org

Mac / Apple Class Monday Schedule 1-3pm  : Dec  7th and Dec 14th

  Beyond Basics Thursday Class Schedule 1-3pm  : Nov 19^th, Dec 3^rd, Holiday Party for Students Dec 10^th no class,  Dec 17^th

Below are some notes on our progressive study of Windows 10 in the classroom. And additional problem solving for unrelated Windows 10 issues

  ONE DRIVE querks

On a personal note, I have been using One Drive for photo sharing and for writing documents into the Cloud. I have discovered some revisions of my files that I cannot reverse.

First, if you MOVE your photos to One Drive, some programs you have for editing ( Photo Gallery ) cause the program to stop working. Maybe it’s just my system , but I doubt it.

Another problem, is with documents. Once you edit this file in the Cloud you can only use either the Cloud Word version or Word 2007. Since I don’ t have Word 2007 , I'm stuck editing it in the Cloud. The features I wish to work , like table indexing or table of contents are not able to work in the Cloud version. The choices in the Cloud version are limited. , 

Windows 10 Facebook Connection is no longer available

Q: Before upgrading to windows 10 I was able to connect facebook photos to my people contacts. I can’t anymore. What happened ?

A: Facebook has made an update to their Graph API that will impact Microsoft apps and services. Facebook’s Graph API is the tool that we use to connect your Microsoft account to Facebook. It brings contact information from your Facebook friends into Outlook.com and the Windows People app, keeps those contacts up-to-date, and provides options in apps and services like Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, and OneDrive.com to share to Facebook. We collectively refer to these features as Facebook Connect.

Due to these changes, Facebook Connect features will no longer be supported. This article explains how these changes will impact your connected apps and services.

Where Can I Find the best Free Apps?

Google play has a great number of Apps in a variety of  categories. Here’s a good resource for Apps in general from Digital Trends. These are for androids and mobile devices.  

http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/best-android-apps

    How Can I use Photo more effectively in windows10 Photo App

What you can do now is organize your photos into Albums. Albums are automatically created for images from certain sources, such as your camera roll, saved pictures you've edited, and screenshots. Like Google Photos, the Windows 10 Photos app also creates Albums for you; for example if you import a bunch of photos of a friend at the beach it may create one, but it won't include all images.
This link will help you start 
http://www.cnet.com/how-to/exploring-the-new-photos-app-in-windows-10/

Save and Share Your Photos
When you're done editing a photo, you can either update it or save a copy. At the most immediate level, Photos has a button that will start playing a slideshow of your collection. An odd thing about this feature, though, is that you can only start it from an individual photo view, rather than from a group of selected photo thumbnails.

For sharing further abroad, you can tap the Share button to open a panel populated by any apps that can accept photos, including Mail, Facebook, and Twitter (assuming you have those apps installed). Helpful for this kind of sharing is the app's multiple selection button, so you can select a bunch of photos to slap up on Facebook in one shot.

  September News Class will begin this coming Thursday Sept 17^th1pm – 3pm
 Also this month is a free event hosted by the Computer User’s Group of Redding

Nerds On Call

Includes Presentation and  Q & A period

           September 22^nd 2015 4:30pm – 6pm

At the REDDING PUBLIC LIBRARY off Cypress and to the right of City hall

We will meet in the Community Room , which is

Inside to the left of the main library

July  Classroom Activity

Safari Browser   

Before leaving for a summer break we tuned our attention to the iPad. Together with Barbara Benefields help (  our resident instructor on Apple products  ) we studied the browser called Safari in the iPad
What we wanted to learn was how to handle Favorites, Create Bookmarks, and control the number of websites left open by our browsing on the internet
To Make a BookMark
 First create the Folder before you make the bookmark .   

Go to the website that you’d like to have as a bookmark 
Next select square with up arrow. A toolbar appears with lots of choices. You and scroll to the right  to see all the options, as well as clicking on the 3dots that appear to see even more choices. For now, scroll till you see Bookmark. Select Choose Location. Point to you new folder, than choose Save.  
 

BookMark Panel appears when you click the Book Icon in Safari

To Rename or correct the spelling of  BookMarks.
Choose edit to correct name of folder
, etc

To make full page hit the bookmark icon. It will then turn off the left hand edge and return you to full page of the website.

FAVORITES 

Favorites appear as an additioinal line above the website full page. If you want  your BookMarks   to appear here just add them to your Favorites.     
To remove bookmarks or other saved websites from your Favorites, simply click on the Favorites listed in the BookMarks. You will see this screen with the red dots. Click on the red dot to remove that reference in your  Favorites.

Control the Number of Open sessions on your browser.

There are several methods to this. The easiest is to click on the Double Squares in the upper right corner. It's a toggle switch, clicking once changes the screen to have each website appear seperately as small images.
Click the X in the ones you wish to close.
Or , Goto your Settings. Select Safari. From the list of choices scroll down to Clear History and Data. 

Add Website Home Screen

Lastly, if you want the website to appear on your Home Screen ( along with your Apps ) simply click on Add to Home Screen and click on Done. ( most important to use the Done, or Save option when they appear ) . This will automatically add itself to the last home screen on your device. To relocate it to a different Simply click and hold till all icons start wiggling, then drag it to the edge of the screen until it arrives in the spot you want. Let go, and click the Home button to exit moving App icons around.



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June’s Blogging  News

Summer Class Offering – Fun With Computers

Computer Classes at the

Anderson Senior  Center

2081 Frontier Trail, Anderson, CA  365 3254

http://www.breaktimehq.com/CT/FSC/FunWithComputers.html

Beginning Wednesday in June  at 10:30am till noon an exciting new class and approach to learning about computing will be offered by Cathy Calderone.

Students should have basic ability to ; Use a mouse, get on the Internet

Cathy Caderone

Program: This will by a fun oriented class learning about Free game programs, some cool and informative websites, On-line games , creating and  solving jigsaw puzzles.

You will be introduced to new ideas that will  stimulate your imagination and entertain you with new outlook on computing.

Class Format is Walk-In.  Hope to see you there

Find that Photo. Merge all your photos and videos with Google's New PHOTO APP

That was our challenge this week.  What tool can we use that would enable us to quickly find that photo we swore we could find anytime in the future

  It’s somewhere,  but what device ??   

A)    Your old smartphone , B) Your computer  C) Still on the memory card in the camera
D) A hard drive in your desk drawer  E) On some cloud service  F) None of the above

Personally I have both Apple and Google Cloud storage. However, Google’s own just announced  “ Photo app  “ for Android, iPhone and the Web can store all of your photos and videos free of charge. Google Photos is a better choice for all but serious photographers.  

Google’s Photo App for Android, iPhone and the WEB

Watch this You tube video for a better understanding of the new APP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNstUSEZv9Y

Here you have unlimited storage at a high-quality but scaled –down , hopefully not in too destructive a fashion. However, you can upload at full resolution, and that limit has been upgraded. The new Assistant can help you organize and move through your collection of photos and videos. Using adjusters like pinching will help the view slide into a compact view. Reverse pinching or expanding your pinch you will reset the view to Years verses Weeks. You can also search by text search. The Assistant automatically organizes your

files  by things like flowers, cars or foods.  For example, I typed in Flowers . The program searched all my files, in the Cloud , on my  device and returned all my photos and videos on the subject flowers.

  Create an animation Choose several photos then choose to create a gif.   Create a story, Select a series of  photos, pulling location information then add contextual information and  Google’s app created the transitions , adds some music to complete the movie. All the photo are searched though your phone  ( if that’s where you started ) , then any devices , Google Drive to find matches.

     

May

  Winding down the month, we finally used the Picture App on the START screen in Windows 8.1. Using a picture photo from the PICTURES folder you will need to engage the CHARMS from the right hand edge of the screen. Otherwise, working on a picture from   ONE DRIVE , it has it’s own set of tools that will appear on the bottom of the screen. Here’s some detail  answer to this question asked in class

Q: How can I eMail a photo from the Pictures folder using the Picture App Tile on the Start screen.

A :  There are two  methods for this. The first is assuming you’re not using the photo from your One Drive account, you select a   file from the  PICTUREs  LIBRARY      . Click on that photo

1. Choose Edit to Update or Correct it ( not necessary if you photo doesn’t need

adjustment )

2. Get the Charms  by sliding your mouse to the Right Edge of the screen. Now choose Share
3. You should bring up the MAIL app, and the picture will appear as an attachment. Now just fill in the eMail address and choose send ( the mail icon in the circle.

Method for choosing Picture files from One Drive.

Click on the picture to select it . This will also activate a tool bar on the bottom part of the screen.

1. Here again choose Share. It appears in the bottom tool bar
2. The Mail tile App will appear, just like the picture above.

Fill in the eMail address Choose to send using the circled Mail ico

Still encouraging self-learning, last week we shared some tips. This month we are studying Windows 8.1 and all it’s new features. This includes the Mail App and the People App.

Tips from Students on Windows 8.1

1. If you’ve missed the window to your Password sign-in, ( screen saver has a rainbow )  simply hit the space bar and that screen to sign in will return
2. Placing your cursor on any blank area in the Start  panel will bring up the Search screen.
3. To find your Program you can easily Right Click the Windows Logo in the lower left corner. It will bring up a list of options including the Control Panel, File Explorer and even the Shut Down option

We are learning how to use Windows 8.1. One Drive is a feature of this operating system. Here’s some more information on it 

One Drive- How to use it, and Why 

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/getting-started-onedrive-tutorial 

Saving to OneDrive automatically 

On most PCs, OneDrive is the recommended location that appears when you save Microsoft Office files (like Word docs and Excel worksheets), PDFs, and other documents. And, if your PC has a built-in camera, you can automatically save copies of the photos you take directly to OneDrive so you’ll always have a backup. To make sure your PC is set up to save automatically, check yourOneDrive settings. 

Swipe in from the right edge of the screen, tap Settings, and then tap Change PC settings.
(If you're using a mouse, point to the lower-right corner of the screen, move the mouse pointer up, click  Settings, and then click Change PC settings.) 

For documents, tap or click OneDrive, and then turn on Save documents to OneDrive by default. 

For photos, tap or click Camera roll, and then choose Upload photos at good quality, or for higher resolution copies, choose  Upload photos at best quality. 

If you Open and Save your document on line , it becomes the product of One Drive and changes your document or file into  the new format .docx. I  made this mistake, opening and saving it on-line. My purpose was to access the file from other computers. However,  the version of Windows products I have are for Office 2003, not Office 2007

I can download a version to View my file. But to further edit it, now that I have changed it in the Cloud, I would have to have  Office 7.

To get around the problem, I simply made a new copy of the document ( Copy and Paste ) saved it with Office 2003. Only viewed it on –line , without editing or saving it there.

April

I am still looking for Free Tutorials for my group of seniors who want to learn about computing. 

This is one worth book marking.

http://www.gcflearnfree.org/

This site you can find tutorials on almost every basic function for the novice users. It has eMail, including how to use Gmail, and a section labeled Email 101. There are several categories; Internet Basics  ( Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer ) , Windows Basics on Windows 7 and 8.

The technology basics has a section labeled Tech Savvy Tips and Tricks which you will find very useful. Plus, if you’re at all interested in Photos look at the section labeled Image Editing 101 and Digital Photography.

iPad Tips for Photo Streaming and Sharing

If you are one of those Users who keep fighting for storage on your device you can choose to Photo stream those files. When you do send them using   PhotoStream those photos will immediately be sent to your storage on your desktop or Mac. They will stay active for 30 days

If you want to send a bunch of photos to an email address, simply create a Shared Album in Photos. This is a wizard. So follow the steps , choosing the photos to share , typing in the email address,  until you come to the end of this process. It will take a few minutes to arrive at the eMail address, all based on how many photos you’re sending. But they will arrive to the person and open up in iCloud. That user doesn’t need to have an iCloud , it just uses this service.

Try it. Just send a Shared Album to yourself. It’s quite amazing. The person can download those photos too. Which is just an incredible tool for sharing photos from your iPad or your  iPhone?

March

March Classroom Activity

Posted from a member Who Found A Local Vendor to Fix her Laptop , Patti Carlisle

Class On Windows explorer OS7

 I had a lot of problems with my computer so after shopping at Target I noticed a computer repair right next door. "NERDS ON CALL", told them what was going on and was assured that they could fix it and I wouldn't have to download all my programs or lose my pic's.The cost would be $229. 2 days later I had a working computer with Spybot, Microsoft Essentials and a guarantee for anything that may go wrong for 3 mo. I am happy with the way it is working and hopefully will not have to call them.

Posted from  a member  on iPad Free Video Software, Marlene Robinson

Storehouse app is for story telling. Pictures and videos can be arranged as well as a narrative. This can be used in e-mail and various other social media. This is a quick way to share pictures as well as the story behind them. The app is for iPad and iPhone. Look into google+ stories and auto awesome. Store telling for Android devices. For both story telling programs go to You Tube for how-to make stories.

A valuable resource for Seniors is this Post from member Fred Skills 

http://seniornet.org/blog/

 Click here for Tips and Tricks on Tablets. Plus suggestions for Widgets for your device.

 http://seniornet.org/blog/best-3-iphones-apps-for-this-week/widgetsios/

February

Weekly Update from SIG sessions and Classroom Activity

Month of March 2015

An Ipad Fix for unable to send or receive Mail from an account “

I was unable to send messages from my iPad after adding a new Mail account on my device. The message said “the recipient was rejected by the server because it does not allow relaying. “The fi x came from user wjosten, who I found through forums on the internet. The solution was to TURN ON the Server for that SMTP setting “He suggested to Go into Settings>Mail, Contacts>your account>Outgoing mail Server SMTP>Primary Server then turn Server ON and fi ll in both User Name + Password under Outgoing Mail Server.”  

ITunes Music Tip

If you’re  like to exercise to music ITunes has a genre that will satisfy  your quests to find music that fits your routine, It’s called Tabata. Type this in the search field and you will discover a list of music designed for your specific workout.  The categories are ; running, walking, gym weights, etc

Pictures from Blogging Class

  OUR Group was originally formed to support desktop computers. We have grown to include digital devices  and how best to use these products while enjoying friendship, camaraderie and mental stimulation.

We also have a weekly class in Anderson at the Frontier Senior Center where we have a 60” TV with connections to Windows7 and Windows 8.1 computers. As well as  an Apple TV connected to facilitate wirelessly  connections to iPad and iPhone screens in a very easy to view manor. The monthly meeting as well as the weekly Thursday  group consists of  members who arrive willing and ready to help solve problems or simply learn something new.

Weekly Classes held at Anderson SR Center

Friendship as well as high quality computer information makes this  a wonderful club, whether we’re at our General Meeting in Redding or at the weekly Thursday meeting in Anderson. CUGR ’s membership consists of PC  enthusiasts from m Shasta, Tehama, Trinity and Siskiyou counties

You can find our main website at : http://cugr.apcug.org 

We are also a proud member of the following organization. APCUG (Assn. of Computer Userstoday's digital lifestyle. Groups)  

  http://www.apcug2.org/

Our General Meetings are FREE and open to the public and we always have an interesting program featuring the latest in computer hardware and software.The meetings are the 4th Tuesday at 4pm at the Redding Public Library in the Community Room. You are welcome to join us

You can also  find us on Facebook as : ComputerUsersGroupOfRedding and as a Facebook Group
CUGRmembers