The Southern Highlands Computer Users Group.

! !Assisting all members to explore and enjoy the benefits of Information Technology.!

!Monthly Newsletter

" Keyword" February 2015

Committee members for 2015 Secretary Maxine Gray Phone 4869-4958 Treasurer John Oprey Phone 4862-1584 Members Secretary Wendy Ryan Public Officer Ron Hampton Editor Keyword Martina Oprey Phone 4862-1584

Please note: We are not computer professionals and our expertise is limited. If your computer has a major problem, we suggest to take it to a recommended repair shop.

Unit 5 and 6 HarbisonCare, 2 Charlotte St, Burradoo, 2576, NSW. www.shcug.com.au

How to join SHCUG. Visit our education centre and drop in at one of our weekly activities to collect an application form. Payment can be made in cash or by cheque and handed to a tutor. Alternatively, send the application form and cheque, made out to SHCUG, to the following address: The treasurer,SHCUG,c/-HarbisonCare, 6/2 Charlotte St, Burradoo, NSW, 2576. !Renewing memberships. Renewal forms are sent out each year in early December to all current members by email, with all the relevant information needed to renew membership for the upcoming year. !Weekly activities held in Unit 5 and 6. Monday mornings, from 10 to 12 noon Members Helping Members. J&M Oprey 4862-1584 Monday afternoons, from 1 to 5 pm. Apple Group Richard Spear 4872-1960 Martina Oprey 4862-1584 First Tuesday of the month, Genealogy Maxine Gray 4869-4958 from 10 am to 12 noon. !Wednesday mornings. Tutoring by appointment. Maxine Gray 4869-4958 Upcoming events. !!In this issue. 1 Cover-page and committee members. 2 Joining and payment options, activities and contents. 3 From your committee. By Martina Oprey 4 Things you should know before buying a portable Power Bank charger By Martina Oprey. 5 Can I print from my iPad? By Martina Oprey. 6 Information for Members. By Victor Schweikert

Our education centre. The central point of all our activities for PC and Apple users.

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From your committee. !Our AGM was held on February 3, at 10am in Scott Hall, HarbisonCare. About 30 members were in attendance. Maxine chaired the meeting and Don Ross, CEO of HarbisonCare, chaired the election of the committee for 2015. Maxine Gray, Fay Cook, John and Martina Oprey were willing to stand again, together with Wendy Ryan and Ron Hampton, who both had been nominated. All were duly elected. Geoff Piggott and Victor Swchweikert, past Presidents of long standing, were honoured, during the AGM, with a certificate of “Life Membership”. Geoff did lead SHCUG for five years and Victor beat all records by staying at the helm for over 10 years. The AGM was brought to a close at around 11.30 and most of the members headed for our Education Centre, for a well-deserved cup of coffee, already waiting there. !We would like to say “welcome” to Garry Evans, who became a SHCUG member on February 9. He has a Macbook and we hope he will fully enjoy the benefits that SHCUG offers its members. !Your committee has taken up Victor Schweikert’s suggestion about “warning members of the dangers of the internet”, by asking him to write about this subject in our monthly newsletter “Keyword”. He has kindly agreed to this and you will find his first article on page 6, of this issue. !It is with deep regret that we have to announce the resignation of Fay Cook. Fay Cook has been our treasurer for well over five years, doing an outstanding job. She also was a helper/tutor for many years, besides many other small jobs she did that needed doing. Her presence will be sadly missed. !Your new committee had its first meeting on February 13, where Wendy and Ron were warmly welcomed into the circle. Positions and additional duties have been shared out. However the position of President remains vacant. Under our constitution we can function without this position being filled, as Maxine has taken on the role of Secretary and John Oprey has accepted the role of Treasurer, albeit “temporary”. Having said this, your present committee can serve the interest of SHCUG far better if more members would actively become involved in the management of your club. !So, should there be members who have a few spare hours that need filling, we would like to hear from you. There are empty chairs waiting to be taken by those who are willing to give something back to SHCUG. Your pay will be a genuine meant “thank you” and/or a smile of appreciation received from fellow members helped. If you value this kind of currency, do come and join us. !Your committee. !

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!! Things you should know before buying a portable Power Bank charger. !To keep up with the modern trend, we Seniors now also own portable devices, such as iPods, Tablets/iPads and Smartphones/iPhones. These devices, when used on the go, can run on batteries for many hours, depending on the device. Making the odd phone call during a journey takes a small amount of battery power from your phone but, when listening to music on an iPod touch, will drain the battery much quicker. So in order to enjoy the devices we have acquired, we need to make sure that the batteries of these are always fully charged before we take them along with us. But what happens if your phones battery is flat and you need to make a call being far away from a wall plug. This is where a portable Power Bank charger can help you out of a tight spot. !So what is a portable Power Bank charger, you might well ask. To keep it very simple, a portable Power Bank charger is a neat little gadget with one or more rechargeable batteries packed into its outer case. They come in many shapes and colours, are small and light in weight. The outside case can be made of Plastic, Aluminium or Stainless Steel. All have one or more USB ports to fit the cable of your device when in need of charging. Most importantly though is the range of capacities that they come in and that determines its use and cost. !When buying a portable Power Bank charger, you must consider the following: Capacity (electrical energy it can store) and Usage (for emergency charging or heavier use). The capacity, the main attribute associated to a Power Bank is measured in milli Ampere Hour or mAh for short. You can’t exactly calculate how many times a specific Power Bank can charge a device, but the rule of thumb is, the higher the mAh rating the more capacity. See the small chart below. ! 1500mAh battery will charge a mobile phone once. 5200mAh battery will charge a mobile phone twice or a tablet approximately by 50%. 10000mAh battery will charge a mobile phone four times or a tablet by at least 100%. !!When you are looking for a portable Power Bank it is very important that it can charge the battery of the device you have. A phone with a 1500mAh battery, will need a Power Bank with a battery capacity of 1500m Ah to fully charge it once. Tablets and iPads, having a higher capacity battery and therefore also need a Power Bank with higher capacity than a phone, to charge fully. Another thing to watch out for is the “charging rate” which depends on the Amps (“A”) rating of the Power bank. Smart phones, in general, need an output between 0.5A and 1A, Tablets need at least 1A to 2A to recharge their batteries at a reasonable speed. The specifications of a Power Bank are usually found on the packet, so do read it, making sure it fulfils your needs. !So, buying a portable Power bank is not so simple as it looks and you need to be aware of certain things before you pick a smart looking one that appeals to you at first glance. There are several good websites that I have read, giving excellent information on this subject, including some warnings, particular with cheap imported ones. These might not comply with the International Safety Standards used in Industry. Portable Power Bank chargers, that are poorly made can cause risks of exploding or catching fire, so do avoid them. !If you wish to know more about Power Banks, Google: What you need to know about Power banks, WATDASI and Don’t buy a power bank before you read this. These websites have been very helpful in helping me write the above article. Lots of excellent information was found in each, technical and otherwise. Martina Oprey

Can I print from my iPad? !!During one of our Apple Group Sessions I was asked the question “Can I print from my iPad” to which I answered ”yes you can”, providing you have an AirPrint printer like we have at our club. So, eager to show off the iPad’s cleverness, I switched the WiFi of my iPad to the modem/router that is connected to our AirPrint printer. Next I tapped on my Notes App and typed a short sentence. I than tapped the share icon (see picture 2), showing the options given, including the print icon. It already had found our Air-Print printer by displaying its name in the “Printer Options” box on the screen of my iPad. All that remained to be done was to choose “copies needed”, in our case only 1, so I tapped “one copy” and finally tapped “Print”. Some seconds later the printer did spit out the asked for document. It could not have been easier and the member who was watching was quite impressed too. !This member now showed me her iPad and asked “could you also show me how to print out this page from this website”. Surely this could not be too hard, so had a look around to locate the “Share” icon previously used, but saw none and tapped on the 3 vertical circles (see picture 7) and under this icon I found several options for sharing but no print option. So by the looks of it, the only way to print this page was to email it back to your desktop/laptop and than print it out. !Later at home I did a Google search on “printing from my iPad” and learned a whole lot more. I also discovered when opening different Apps, the print icon can be totally different and therefore hard to find. Needless to say I found all this very confusing. Below are some of the print icons of different Apps that I found.

Picture 1: Printing icon is for IOS 4.2, IOS 5 and IOS 6. ! Picture 2: Print icon for IOS 7 and IOS 8 and found in the following Apps: Notes ! Picture 3: In Pages, tap on the spanner and share options are given, including print. ! Picture 4: Print icon for Gmail is found by tapping on the black triangle. !

Share Picture 5: Tap on the word “Share” in Maps and the print icon is found in the options given. !

Picture 6: Tap on the arrow and find print option for Mail. ! Picture 7: This icon is found on websites, tap on it and it shows options for sharing but not printing. !

Scanning through several websites, I learned that you can print from your iPad even though your printer does not support AirPrint and you have a Windows PC or an iMac/Macbook, a fact I did not know. For this you need to download third-party software options that are available to be installed on your windows PC or iMac/Macbook. These applications, in turn, make it possible to print from the iPad without the need to transfer the file to your computer first. !Mac users who are running OS X 10.6 or later on a Core 2 Duo (name of CPU) iMac/Macbook or faster, handyPrint (formerly called AirPrint Activator) makes it possible for any shared printer to be visible on an iPad running iOS 4.2 or later, as well. There are also a number of iPad Apps that can be downloaded onto your iPad making it possible to print directly from the iPad to many, although not all, non AirPrint wireless printers without the need for supporting Windows or Mac software. !Anyone who is curious to learn more about the above subject, Google “How to print from my iPad”. Martina Oprey.

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!!!The Southern Highlands Computer Users Group is proudly sponsored by

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INFORMATION FOR MEMBERS – Feb 2015 The Monday “Members Helping Members” sessions are enjoying good attendance with a mixture of long term and new members attending. The long term members come with specific needs whilst new members attend to learn about computers in general. Most members are interested in being able to send and receive emails and explore the internet.

Unfortunately, there are dangers with emailing and exploring the internet and these dangers can develop into real problems for the computer user if he or she is unaware of them. ‘Scammers’ are working to trick you into revealing information they can use to deprive you of your money. This article is intended to be the start of a monthly segment in ‘keyword’ to advise members of some of these dangers, how to recognise them and therefore avoid them.

‘Scammers’ use the internet to send out millions of emails to computer users worldwide in the hope of finding someone who will respond. The first question asked is “how did they get my email address”? The answer - Whenever you log into a website that interests you and then supply your email address to subscribe to a newsletter or a group, or a subscription list, there are people who harvest email addresses then sell them to spammers and unscrupulous people. A spammer can then send spam emails to everyone on this large list he bought and even if only 0.01% trust the information in the email and respond, the spammer gets a lot of response for his product. But mostly people who do respond and pay good money are cheated.

One suggestion has been to have two email addresses or accounts. (Most Internet Providers allow you to have multiple email accounts.) You then keep one address for friends and another for subscription lists. Trouble is you will have to look at this second address at some stage if you have subscribed for say a newsletter, so it comes back to being cautious with emails.

There will be follow on articles in ‘keyword’. In the meantime, if you have any doubts as to what you have received, come along to a Monday session and talk to a tutor.

Whatever you do, when you receive a suspect email, don’t click on any link in that email.

Victor