Tag: forums

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How to get help

by straitmacvp

SMUG meeting, June 21, 2022

Meeting notes by Kathleen Charters

The Tuesday, June 21, meeting was all about getting help. Getting help is one of the main reasons people join computer user groups: they have a computer, smartphone, or smartwatch, and want to do more with it. Or they tried doing something and ran into a dead end. Or they know how to do something but have this nagging feeling that there is a better way to do it.

Once upon a time, computers came with extensive printed documentation. Microsoft Office for Macintosh 4.2, released in 1994, came with an entire box of documentation that weighed more than some Macintosh computers. After years of use, many users still had shrink-wrapped copies of the thick, printed manuals. The users never read the manuals, never used the built-in documentation, and never learned much about the programs, either.

The Microsoft Office printed documentation used to weigh more than many of the computers that used the programs.
The Microsoft Office printed documentation used to weigh more than many of the computers that used the programs.

Today, users can get advice (good and bad) from blogs, YouTube, online help forums, consultants, and documentation built into the operating system and applications. There are a wealth of sources, but — how do you distinguish good help from bad?

We also talked about Apple’s keynote offered at WWDC22 (World Wide Developers Conference 2022). Apple introduced some new products and gave previews of forthcoming versions of macOS, iOS, iPadOS, and watchOS.

Q&A

Apple World Wide Developers Conference Keynote highlights: introduced M2 versions of MacBook laptops, no M2 MacMini; iOS updates for devices to increase collaboration between devices; multiple open windows on M1 iPads akin to what can do on the Mac; iPad is not a laptop but flexible; did not announce dates for releases – available later this year (reflects complex OS in time of disruption and evolutionary nature of collaboration); naming new OS for Mac “Ventura”; developer conference not aimed at consumers but 20M registered developers; Keynote aimed at mid-range techie or developer, anyone can learn something, visual presentations of how things will work; lecture on how to code this includes visuals; in-person 20,000 at last conference, virtual conference has 10,000,000+ per session, reflects democratizing process of technology

Photos end up in the cloud if set to synch; Photos App on Mac or iPhone has access; cache a limited number on the iPhone up to 5GB for free but can purchase more space; Mac has access to everything, helps to know when the photo was taken, meta tags help to find things; can type in a category and Photos will go find photos with that image; good guesses based on generic terms; can add metadata and will find like-type photos, face feature in Photos is powerful; can look by location if use iPhone with location services turned on; note – photos with regular camera may not know location

Wireless for charging? Expect some cables in the future since wired charging is more efficient then induction charging by 60%; radiant energy a problem; a microwave is a Faraday Cage to protect people from radiation; healthcare concerns with iPhone – super magnets and pacemaker not a good combination – may reprogram the pacemaker so do not carry phone in shirt pocket if have a pacemaker

iPhone 8 shows on Bluetooth when I have iPhone XS; when I lose connection with Bluetooth, and creates a new connection and uses a new name to distinguish

iPhone 13 camera quality vs iPhone 12 camera – Lawrence can tell the difference in quality; iPhone 13 super wide angle lens, FaceTime camera follows face as person moves; video makes a difference; new capability and camera improvements with each new generation

Plant identification, if you take a photo of a plant, is built into Photos

Business meeting

President – Sabrina

Welcome to the new participant

The library will be open for meetings after remodeling in 2 years

Consider alternative spaces

2 presentations best in-person: diagnostics, basic computer literacy

Quarterly in-person meetings at different churches

First Security Bank may be available on Saturdays

Treasurer – Annalee’s

After Zoom $63 expenditure Balance is $1,609.60

How to get Help with Apple devices

New York Times and Washington Post articles on how to help someone while both talking on the phone – this is difficult to do

Get help from younger relatives

Help is built into macOS and iOS, in the Menu bar, context sensitive, table of contents – may be on the machine or may be online (need Internet connection)

Describing what needs help with –

What kind of device do you have? To identify, go to Apple menu, select About this Mac for basic information, select System Report – will see what hardware is available, network, software, installed applications in alphabetical order with version and how obtained, can sort by kind (e.g., 32-bit, Apple silicon, Intel, universal, etc.)

Apple may ask you to send them the system profile – type of machine, operating system, serial number

Support tells if covered by Apple+, can get topics for help.

macOS Help – Application-specific Help (e.g., Pages); Help in Terminal, e.g.,

man ls

provides a manual for the ls (list) command. For example,

ls -al

shows a listing of all files in a directory, including invisible files, along with file permissions, the owner of the file, and the date it was last touched

iBooks Help – Apple iBookstore is a source of free books, e.g., Apple Watch User’s Guide, works on any Apple device, and is searchable, as well as books for purchase

Strait Mac Website discussion board – search existing topics, add new topic, ask questions, share the information with everyone, others can add to the conversation; a collective knowledge base

Printed documentation – for example, Apple Watch documentation a thin sheet of paper; people not using the printed documentation; manuals not used by most people; Take Control Books a good resource with a large selection of topics, well-written; they keep the information current, a series of illustrated steps; multiple formats available; example: Find My and Air Tags; can use Find My and CarPlay to find car

Apple's Watch documentation barely scratches the surface of what an Apple Watch can do. Making it even more of a challenge, the "manual" is printed in tiny, sans serif type, that is more gray than black.
Apple’s Watch documentation barely scratches the surface of what an Apple Watch can do. Making it even more of a challenge, the “manual” is printed in tiny, sans serif type, that is more gray than black.

Quick Start Guides by Peachpit Press were good, then Pearson Publications bought this and did not update, more print-oriented than electronic, check publication dates

Questions/Comments

Discount code for Take Control books in the Discussion Forum

Use of AirTag to find a car? Cars are a Faraday cage, so do not get electrocuted. Air Tag has trouble getting through the metal, so not as accurate as CarPlay; the phone connected by Bluetooth can be used to establish location

Notification when using SMUG Discussion Board – set up when you get on the Board

M2 iMac not discussed; M2 Mac mini not discussed during World Wide Developers Conference; perceived increase in speed; trade-off processing power for ease of use

Apple is cautious about timelines

Dell is 8 months late in release

Google’s new phone is late in release

Searching for Help

Do not be overly specific and do be accurate (watch out for autocorrect unintended changes)

Terminology matters

Online help forums are not moderated and subject to trolls, may get bad advice, out-of-date advice, and check the dates information was posted

Apple Genius Bar is a good source – Apple Stores located at Alderwood Mall, University Village, Tacoma Mall, Southcenter Mall, Bellevue; Support things Apple currently sells; help is of good quality; do not talk down to people, explain what they are going to do before they do it

Consultant – may not have expertise, just claims to, may suggest things that are dangerous, do not give them a password – type in your own

The MacTrader owner is doing work; see the Website for contact information

Possible to get bad advice from books, forums, and consultants

Next month, potential topics

Basic photo editing

Clearing out downloads

System Services – basics

.PDFs in Books – how to sort and delete

Save to Files – how to find, organize

Clipboard

Apple TV – basics

Comments and Questions

Community Service classes in-person quarterly – computer literacy in September; maintenance of equipment; accessibility features; diagnostics

Next Door reformatted the post so it does not require a subject

E-mail common mistakes: no subject, forgetting to attach an attachment, use of cc: and bcc:

Discussion of StarLink and speed – download (faster) vs upload (slower) speed

Limited options on the Olympic Peninsula

The casino has a tower for 5G service

Wireless Broadband 5G in big cities may come here eventually

Next month

General Housekeeping: cleaning out downloads, files

Uncategorized

SMUG Discussion Board

by straitmacvp

March 15, 2022

Notes by Kathleen Charters

Our March program was an introduction to our new web-based discussion board. SMUG used to have a discussion board in the past, based on a technology called phpBB. For a variety of reasons, we can’t use the old forum site, and have moved to something that uses our WordPress site as both the website and the forum site, all in one space, using WP Discussion Board.

The discussion boards are limited to SMUG members and meeting attendees, and they must register (and be approved) to have access. This is not done out of a desire to stifle conversation but, rather, out of a desire to keep the forums from being filled with the kind of vile stuff you see in comments sections of newspapers and other web forums. We want civil discussions, focused on Macs, iPhones, iPads, Apple Watches, Apple TVs, computer security and privacy, and similar topics.

The meeting showed how to register to use the forums, how to post things, and general tips for getting the most out of what the software has to offer. If you are a current SMUG member or recent meeting attendee, feel free to register right now (see the SMUG Discussion Boards link in the right sidebar). Do note that your registration needs to be approved to gain entry, and you might have to wait a day or two.

Q&A

  • OlyPen upgrade and email change – an Apple security change, HTML in a message requests an image from spammer site, tells the spammer to know you have a valid email address; if not in address book and send a graphic you will have to request it; could change the setting in the past but recommend keeping it as is; could also be bandwidth is limited and email shows text first then images as this takes more bandwidth
  • Laptop 12.3 upgrade; Siri will not tell about the weather, loss of location? Harder for Siri to know location from a desktop than for a cell phone since the phone uses the nearest cell tower; Wavecable has a switching center in Kent, and sometimes Siri uses this location for weather, other times gets Jamestown weather; less precise location from a laptop than from a cell phone because laptop location is determined by DNS
  • DNS = Domain Name System; identity of machine local to home, router that talks to WAVE uses different numbers; list of numbers and what they talk to; if type in number can get name of the Website, runs fast, WAVE ties to capture the DNS by cache address (temporary file, may take up to 7-10 days to update; can force an earlier update; at first this was simple (70 addresses) and now there are billions of addresses and several millions of DNS servers
  • Maintenance of the Internet; Vincent Cerf – Computer Scientist, 40 years ago, concept “sender pays all”; similar to the U.S. Postal System; when you pay your ISP, you pay for the Internet; spam hijacks other people’s machines so spammers get free service; Spam filters are important; some companies are trying to change this
  • Apple Program last Tuesday: Lawrence did a blog entry; most notable: new Apple Studio, a spiffy machine; watch to see how information is presented, credits tell how they did the presentation
  • E-mail – when selecting return, get a capital letter. Mac default is… if type 2 spaces, then assumes a period and the next letter is capitalized; Enter key has a different meaning than a Return key; if type a long line, it will wrap
  • Cookies – The US has no privacy laws when it comes to companies; Europe has privacy laws for the EU; global American companies use the same format for all countries, customized to protect privacy and for navigation; cookies = Code telling a company who you are; necessary cookies are needed to make the website work

Business Meeting

President Sabrina

Treasurer : 6 paid memberships for income of $144; expense of upgrading Website for Forum $305.77; Balance $1,077.72

Tip: Can rename self on Zoom and can remember this setting for future Zoom sessions; go to the upper right-hand corner of the image of a person to … and select rename

Strait Mac Website and Discussion Board

When register: generates requests to Lawrence to approve new users; gmail client Kiwi (free version); link to Website to see users on a list, pending if have a request but not yet admitted; limits issues with Internet trolls; allows removal of users not behaving according to the rules; Welcome to Discussion Board choices: user can submit, write, author (can make change and does not need approval); everyone has to be approved and is made an author; access is by Strait Mac VP (Admin) and Lawrence as personal account (for testing); Kathleen can edit; takes 8-10 hours of training to be an Admin; in event of emergency who has access?

Admin sees:

Boards (and can order manually), how the computer tracks each board

Topic categories – set to match discussion boards

Tags – add tags to Boards to allow the search function to find things

Must be signed in as a member to read the content (not made public), but anyone can search and see a few lines

Liability issues: libel in a public forum; allowed in a private discussion of candid opinions

Must be a registered user

Russia’s attacks on Websites are over 1,000 times more common since the Ukraine invasion; Russia is looking for ways to use US sites to attack the US government

What the user sees: SMUG Board

List of topics

When I type a response, it shows up as a topic, and there is a path of responses

Discussions can be complex

Voices are accounts doing the posts

In the News – can post a graphic, ask a question, post tidbits to shares

Buy Sell Trade Give-Away

Set up to get an email when there is a response: Select to Follow a Board

A good way to get to know one another and share interests

Select “Add new topic,” must add a title, must select a category, then select “Start Topic” to post

Is there a way to get a listing of the most recent 10 or 15 topics? Bread crumbs within a topic, but not set up for across topics

Can “See all topics” within a board; designed to grow

Post articles and rumors under the In The News topic

Recommend that members play/experiment with the discussion board; follow every board, not too big a volume or frequency; share collective knowledge, get answers sooner

Q&A

How are attacks detected? Security software

The software person, Matt, is responsive to questions about how to do things

No meeting in April unless someone else wants to host – can use the discussion board to ask questions, and others can answer

May meeting – may have a new machine to demonstrate: Mac Studio; New display 5K, fast; iPad Pro; iPhone SE; Apple TV

Created a post: enter text, then drag in graphics, select how to display, update, and view the new page on the Website

See Blog entry on the Apple Event

Future meetings

In-person: 1-2 times a year for things that cannot be demonstrated on Zoom; takes 2-3 months to book a NOLS space; explore the possibility of hybrid meetings – a bandwidth issue

Zoom for most meetings since most accessible

Class on computer literacy for seniors sponsored by Strait Mac User Group held at Trinity UMC

NOLS construction project pending – projected for 2022-2023

Q&A

  • Websites locally built are at risk of attack; a site set up with WordPress can use the Wordfence plug-in and configure it for security. For example, a brute force attack can be blocked automatically
  • Passwords – unique, long
  • Webmaster to check on security – e-mail Lawrence
  • GoDaddy provides what you pay for
  • PHP is a language – how code is put together determines security