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Messages - rsutter

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136
General Discussion / APCUG Workshops for January 2022
« on: January 10, 2022, 11:25:24 AM »
 Hello All.
What follows is a re-post of an announcement sent by Judy Taylour, Regional Director for SLO Bytes' parent organization, APCUG
Ralph Sutter

TWO WEDNESDAY WORKSHOPS IN JANUARY
9 am PT, 10 am MT, 11 am CT, 12 pm ET
 
January 12 – What's New in '22 Roundtable. We'll talk about what our groups have planned for this new year and if/how APCUG can help. How is your group handling the COVID problem? Share your ideas and learn something new to do with your group. I have received several emails about January meetings featuring what tech gifts members received; one group also asked members to share the way they used technology for their holiday decorations = Tech Deco. 

1/12 Roundtable – register at: https://forms.gle/6ETu8CD6BHuTsg8T6
You will see this confirmations after you register.
 

January 19 - Linux for Beginners -- I've installed Linux, now what do I do next?
John Kennedy gets this question a lot. His usual answer is, "The same things you'd do if you were running Windows." So, join John today to see how he customizes his Linux operating system just like he did (or you might have done) when he was using  Windows. He'll start with all the customization he does to the desktop to make it "work for him (and not his working for the desktop)." Then he'll talk about what software he might use for the different tasks for his daily computing workflow. There will be plenty of time for Linux beginners to submit questions about "how do you do this or that" and "what would you use to do this or that" in Linux. We'll look it up if John doesn't know how or what. And if John determines something is not on the beginner level, we will use it for the next Learning Linux team workshop to tackle. By the end of this workshop, you should feel as much at home with Linux as you might with Windows (or macOS).
 
1/19 Linux for beginners – register at: https://forms.gle/TvBhZ3TpbiSSmyFx7
 

137
General Discussion / Notes from the Photo Group Meeting of 01/09/2022
« on: January 10, 2022, 08:42:00 AM »
Photo Group Report by Alan Raul
Notes from the Meeting of 01/09/2022
TOPIC: Leisure Time; Share images relating to what we do for fun

Kaye Raul shared shots of people enjoying sunsets with dogs and loved ones at Shell Beach. She followed with shots of boating in Avila Beach and the lake at Waller Park.

John Waller showed a variety of images documenting what he does in his leisure. These includes shots of classic books, boats and more.

Alan Raul showed images from around Shell Beach coastline which documented "King Tides" shot over a period of three days in the mid-morning and late afternoon. A "King Tide" is a popular, non-scientific term people often use to describe exceptionally high tides. With the high tides come exceptionally low tides. These images were captured with a Sony A7II w/a 24 - 70mm F4.0 lens.

The Second Session dealt with Aurora HDR being used as a stand-alone program vs. a Lightroom plug-in. Alan gave a short Aurora HDR demo. John explained file naming when using Aurora HDR as a Lightroom plug-in.
The next meeting will take place on February 13th. The topic for the February 13th meeting is Street photography with or without people, shot within the last 30 days.
The meeting will take place via Zoom.

A Zoom invitation will be e-mailed to Photo Group members shortly before the meeting Here is the tentative meeting schedule for 2022
   March 13
   April 10
   May 15 (due to Mothers' Day on May 8th)
   June 12
   July 10
   August 14
   September 11
   October 09
   November 13
   December 11
See the Links page for tutorials and other resources
Alan Raul

138
General Discussion / Mailmerge Tutorial
« on: December 14, 2021, 11:16:39 AM »
Hello All,
I recently created a tutorial on how I used the Mailmerge feature of Word (Office 365) to personalize letters and address envelopes.
View it at https://youtu.be/T17SvLx5b40
Ralph Sutter

139
Hello All,
Here are my Notes for the SLO Bytes Photo Group meeting on December 12, 2021.

TOPIC: People; Share images with people

The First Session opened with Ralph Sutter showing portraits including one that used Fog and Masking to soften an image.

Connie Sutter followed, offering a series of portraits of a single subject. Connie shared two tips for portrait photography. Have the subject tilt the head slightly forward and downward.

Alan Raul showed images from around Shell Beach which included street maintenance and new house foundation construction.
He shot these with the iPhone 13 Pro Max showing the differences between the normal lens and the included 3X optical zoom lens.
He also showed pictures of people enjoying the beautiful Pismo Beach area at dusk shot with a Sony A7II with a 24 - 70mm F4.0 lens.
The pictures were all very low light, enhanced and cropped with Aurora HDR.
  Links to his pictures at http://www.365.acdsee.com/folders_public.php?profileid=1618852&folderid=2209029

John Waller offered wedding pictures of a family member, people on Guadalupe Beach, images from the recent Arroyo Grande Christmas Parade and shots of friendly dogs.

Stanford Brown followed with a dramatic picture of a backlighted figure on a lawn as well as portraits of children

Our next meeting will take place on January 9th beginning at 2:00 pm
The topic is Leisure Time; Share images relating to what we do for fun
The meeting will take place via Zoom.
Here is the tentative meeting schedule for 2022
   February 9
   March 9
   April 12
   May 10
   June 14
   July 12
   August 9
   September 13
   October 11
   November 8
   December 13
See the Links Page, https://www.slobytes.org/digital/links.html, for tutorials and other resources

Ralph Sutter

140
General Discussion / Re: email problems - anybody else got these?
« on: December 10, 2021, 09:16:36 AM »
Hi Dave,
I don't currently use Thunderbird.  If you decide to switch e-mail clients, you may be interested in another freeware alternative, Bluemail; https://bluemail.me/
I use it as a simple solution for accessing my Outlook Exchange account on Linux systems.
Since you can run multiple e-mail clients at the same time, try installing Bluemail without dumping Thunderbird and see if Bluemail has the same problems that you see in Thunderbird.

If you have backups of your Thunderbird profile, try importing them to your currently misbehaving installation.  I don't know what effect that might have on your password.
I found this link that explains how to export your current Thunderbird data to a new computer.
See https://www.systoolsgroup.com/how-to/move-thunderbird-local-folders-to-another-computer-solution/
Be aware that the author will try to steer you away from the first method that he outlines in favor of a paid solution.
Ralph Sutter

141
General Discussion / Free APCUG Workshops for December 2021
« on: November 28, 2021, 08:28:36 AM »
Hello All,
What follows is a ro-post of the December Workshops offered at no charge by SLO Bytes' parent group, APCUG
Ralph Sutter

DECEMBER
WEDNESDAY WORKSHOPS

December 1
Electronic Holiday Greeting Cards
Not Your Parent’s PowerPoint
 
December 8
Make Your Own 2022 Photo Calendar at Home
 
December 15
Learning Linux #11 - Software Installations and Removals
 
9 am PT, 10 am MT, 11 am CT, 12 pm ET
 
Have you experienced your own problems in the “supply chain dilemma” caused by the current crisis? At this time of year, not only are some things hard to find, but many of us don’t want to go “out there in all of that” and spend a lot of time searching for them. APCUG has come to your rescue with our first two December Wednesday Workshops. Rather than trying to “find” things like holiday cards or just the right calendar to give or use, you can create/design/make them yourself with a bit of help. Check out our lineup of DIY (Do It Yourself) projects.

December 1
Register here – https://forms.gle/iBC1obhWN1D3QqLG6
Electronic Holiday Greeting Cards
Bob Bowser, Director, The Senior Computer User Group of Greater Kansas City
Bob will show us several options for sending holiday greetings to our friends and family. He will take us on a visit to several websites varying from free electronic cards to membership-based electronic cards and options to purchase physical cards from home with ways to distribute them and/or get them sent to your home for you to mail.
Not Your Parent’s PowerPoint
Marcia Berkey, Class Instructor, Sarasota Technology Users Group
PowerPoint is more than just presentation software. This presentation will demonstrate many unusual uses for PowerPoint, from documenting your memories to creating greeting cards for the holidays. You will learn how to create a Photo Album for life events, not to be confused with Photo Books from other vendors. However, there is a cool trick that you can use in PowerPoint to make your Photo Books better. You will also learn how to narrate your slideshows, add music to them, and how to export your PowerPoint as an .mp4 video. You can share your creations through your favorite social media sites. Have fun with Marcia learning more about PowerPoint.

December 8
Register Here - https://forms.gle/zzcjN43MQKkc5JW9A
Make Your Own 2022 Photo Calendar at Home
John Krout, Presenter & Newsletter Contributor, Potomac Area Technology And Computer society
We are all awash in digital photos, not only our own but those of our relatives and friends. So why not make a calendar to show off the best ones? All you need is PowerPoint or LibreOffice Impress and a color printer. Learn how you can download and customize the calendar table files (containing 12 calendar months and white space for photos) by adding your photos and calendar entries such as birthdays, anniversaries, and so forth. This presentation also includes information on how John prints and binds his calendar copies at home and ways you might work with commercial printing companies to do that. Note: As of April 2021, the 2022 calendar files are posted online for free downloading.

December 15
Register Here - https://forms.gle/YCkUVaocK52CtebK9
Learning Linux #11 - Software Installations and Removals
There have been numerous questions about software asked at previous Linux Workshops, where do you get the software, how do you install software, and how do you remove the software. At today’s workshop, we are going to focus on those very topics. There are several places you can get the software, and we’ll cover them (starting with the distro’s software center and going out to the Internet). And there are many ways to install the software, and we’ll cover them (starting with the distro’s package manager, the newest container packages, the command line, and even compiling them yourself). Finally, we’ll discuss reversing the process (uninstalling) based on the way you installed it. You can choose precisely how technical you want to get in this whole software process (including being safe).

142
General Discussion / Re: Updating to Windows 11 - My Experience
« on: November 23, 2021, 08:05:54 AM »
Update on 11/23/2021
Last night, I successfully backed up various files on my Linux Ubuntu server using Acroniss True Image 2021.
Today when I began using the computer, the cursor flashed and boxes opened and closed as I moved the cursor over the open desktop.  Though I highlighted various icons, clicking on them had no effect.  I restarted the computer several times but the odd behaviour continued.
After about one half hour, the system began operating normally and I was able to install the latest Windows Update, 2021-11 Cumulative Update for Windows 11 x-64 based Systems(KB5007262)
Ralph Sutter

144
General Discussion / Re: Updating to Windows 11 - My Experience
« on: November 16, 2021, 04:06:22 PM »
Hello All,
Yesterday, I migrated my operating system to a larger NVMe drive.
Everything has worked well under Windows 11 with the exception of Outlook 365.  The problem of a flashing screen when I attempted to launch Outlook returned.
I unpowered the computer, uninstalled and reinstalled Office 365, tried numerous Microsoft repair solutions and muttered Redmond backwards, all to no avail.
Mail and Bluemail, two alternative e-mail clients, worked properly.
After grasping for solutions for an hour, Outlook launched properly.  I wish that I could reveal what I did or didn't do to make this happen.  I can't
Ralph Sutter

145
General Discussion / Replacing the C Drive with a Larger Drive-Cloning
« on: November 16, 2021, 12:52:06 PM »
Hello All,
My goal was to replace my C drive with a larger drive.  What follows is the path that I followed

Background Information
The computer is a Dell 8930 desktop running Windows 11 Pro.
The operating system resides on a Samsung 512Gb NVMe M.2 solid state drive.  The 512Gb drive (C drive) contains only the Operating System though  the computer has 6 additional drives
I will replace the C drive with a Samsung 1Tb EVO Plus M.2 NVMe solid state drive (same manufacturer, twice as large)

In order to have access to the 1Tb drive, I installed it inside a RIITOP NVME  USB enclosure;
https://www.riitop.com/collections/msata-ssd-adapter/products/riitop-m-2-nvme-to-usb-c-enclosure-external-usb-3-1-to-pci-e-m-key-nvme-2280-ssd-adapter-reader
and plugged it into a USB-c port on the computer.

Since both drives are Samsung NVME, I initially attempted to use Samsung Migration; https://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/download/tools/
 for cloning the smaller drive to the larger one.  That process failed repeatedly, reaching 99% before displaying that the process had failed for an unknown reason.
Next, I tried the Cloning Tool inside Acronis True Image 2021; https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1591424-REG/acronis_tih4b2ens_true_image_2021_box.html/
That worked.

Here is the procedure that I followed
Launch Acronis True Image
Click on Tools/Clone Disk
Choose Clone Mode – Manual
Select the source from the list.  (This is the drive that you wish to duplicate/clone)  I chose 464GB NVMe Samsung SSD 970

Next, select the target from the list,  (This is the new drive to which you will copy the contents of the source drive.)  I chose JMicron Tech 0204.  This is actually the name of the RIITOP USB enclosure, not the Samsung 1Tb EVO Plus drive inside.

Follow the prompts given by Acronis True Image.

When the process completes successfully, turn off the computer, remove the original C drive and replace it with the newly created C drive.  Restart the computer.

Note Correctly identifying the source and target disks is critical.  This won’t be an issue if your computer only has 1 drive.  Mine has 7. 
If you mis-identify the source and target drives, you will over-write files and disable your computer.

Proper identification is complicated by the fact that Acronis lists drives with different names than those shown in (Windows) File Explorer.
If you are unsure that you have the right source drive, using (Windows) File Explorer, right click on the C drive, left click on Properties and note the size of the drive. 

If your Operating System is located on another drive, note the file size of that drive. Do the same to confirm the size of the target drive.
When using Acronis, compare the size of the drives and choose the source and target drives whose size matches those that you saw in Windows File Explorer

Ralph Sutter

146
General Discussion / Re: Updating to Windows 11 - My Experience
« on: November 15, 2021, 06:21:42 PM »
Acronis Disk Director 12.5 does not support Windows 11
Read more at https://kb.acronis.com/content/69259
Ralph Sutter

147
General Discussion / Deleting a .tibx File
« on: November 15, 2021, 04:33:51 PM »
Hello All,
I use the Acronis backup program True Image 2021.  In a monumental blunder, I copied a 121Gb .tibx Acronis backup file from my 8Tb external USB drive to my C drive. 
The C drive is a 512Gb Samsung 970 NVMe device that supposedly only contains my Windows 11 operating system.  I have several other internal drives for storing data where I could have stored a backup copy of the .tibx file but didn't.

When I attempted to delete the .tibx file, I was denied access.  It made no difference if I attempted to delete as a user, an administrator or at System level.
I tried numerous work arounds including booting the machine into Ubuntu Linux 20.10 with the hope of using the Ubuntu file system to delete the .tibx file.
Nothing worked.

In Googling for solutions, I noticed that I could launch Acronis True Image in Windows 11, click on the Protection tab and turn off Active Protection
I then was able to open the C drive in (Windows) File Explorer and delete the troublesome file.  Please note that I had to ask for administrative privileges before the deletion took place

Ralph Sutter 

148
General Discussion / SLO Bytes Photo Group Notes for 11/14/2021
« on: November 15, 2021, 11:24:17 AM »
Hello All,
Here are my Notes for the SLO Bytes Photo Group Meeting of 11/15/2021

TOPIC: Each One Teach One; Share with others a program that you use or a technique that you practice
The SLO Bytes Photo Group added the First Session to our monthly meetings so that we could present our own historical images and those of others found on-line. 
For the past several months, no one has offered such content. 
For this reason, we decided to suspend the First Session indefinitely.  The December 2021 Photo Group will begin at 2:00 pm with members sharing original images taken since the November 2021 meeting.

The November Second Session opened with Ralph Sutter showing images of sunsets and palm trees shot at home and land/seascapes seen while hiking near Cayucos and Avila Beach.

Stanford Brown followed offering shots of the Salinas River, Paso Robles and surrounding areas.  His selection included dogs, alpacas, foxes and squirrels as seen on his walks through the countryside.

Alan Raul presented next.  He used the Linux photo display program, Eye of Mate, to show thumbnails and exposure data.  We saw sunsets, seascapes and cairns.  Alan added interest with the selective use of black and white inside color images. 

Kaye Raul demoed several recent Adobe releases; Creative Cloud, Premiere Rush and Photoshop Express.
She compared the sky replacement capabilities of Photoshop to that of Luminar AI, highlighting the strengths and shortcoming of each.  See Kaye’s links at https://www.slobytes.org/digital/documents/kaye-notes-1121.docx

John Waller used the Object Selection Tool, just added to Adobe Photoshop, to highlight multiple objects in the same image and transform them.  He used neural filters for manipulating depth of field and changing selective focus.

Our next meeting will take place on December 12th
The topic is Portraits; Share images of people
The meeting will take place via Zoom  A Zoom invitation will be e-mailed to Photo Group members shortly before the meeting.
See the Links page for tutorials and other resources at https://www.slobytes.org/digital/links.html

Ralph Sutter

149
General Discussion / APCUG NOVEMBER WEDNESDAY WORKSHOPS
« on: November 07, 2021, 07:19:38 AM »
Hello All,
Here is the schedule for the November 2021 APCUG Workshops

11/10 – Windows Q&A  9 am PT, 10 am MT, 11 am CT, 12 pm ET
Register Here https://forms.gle/isnPzhHungTrPMvXA
Registration closes at 11:30 ET on November 9.
 
11/17 – Linux Q&A 9 am PT, 10 am MT, 11 am CT, 12 pm ET
Register Here https://forms.gle/6BcuCqYLZNov5YvB8 
Registration closes at 11:30 ET on November 16.
 
Do you have burning questions you need answered about your computer? Are you having trouble finding those answers locally? Do you want to know whether others have the same questions or maybe someone else has the answer to your questions? How about the possibility that you have answers to someone else's questions they are trying to find? Or do you like to know what other people are asking and what answers are out there? If so, you want to join our APCUG November Wednesday Workshops where we will "Ask Away" in an Open Q&A and spend time letting people ask questions and have other people answer those questions.
 
We'll have two different Workshops. On November 10, we will focus on any and all questions about the Windows operating system. And then, on November 17, we will focus on any and all questions about the Linux operating system. We'll have a team available each week to start the ball rolling with answers, and we will open it up to anyone in the audience that might have the answer if they don't.
 
Please register for both if you are interested in both operating systems. And if you have a burning question you want to get to the top of the list, put that question on the Workshop registration form, and we'll address those questions first. Then, after all those questions have been answered or tabled for further research, we will open the floor for additional questions and answers.
Ralph Sutter


150
General Discussion / Re: Updating to Windows 11 - My Experience
« on: November 03, 2021, 06:23:51 PM »
I did encounter one glitch.  I cannot confirm that it was caused by the upgrade to Windows 11
I subscribe to Office 365.  Today, I couldn't connect one computer to my Outlook Exchange account.
A flashing box appeared on the screen when I attempted to launch Outlook.  A message appeared at the bottom of the screen that read "Need Password"
but I was given no opportunity to enter it.  Curiously, Bluemail worked fine on that computer.  Outlook worked fine on all computers but the one in question
I uninstalled Office 365 from the problem computer and then reinstalled it.  The problem continued through several restarts.  On the third restart, Outlook asked me to authenticate by responding on my phone.
Once that I did that and restarted the computer one more time, Outlook functioned normally.
Once again, I can't tie this bad behavior to the Windows 11 update.
Ralph Sutter

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