Hello All,

SPRING VIRTUAL TECHNOLOGY CONFERENCE
Saturday, May 4, 2019
ET 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm -- CT 12 noon - 3:00 pm
MT 11:00 am - 2:00 pm -- PT 10:00 am - 1:00 pm


Attend APCUG’s Spring Virtual Technology Conference (VTC) from your own home, invite some of your members to join you, have a Technology Tailgate Party with your club members or view one or two of the presentations at your same-day meeting.

Attend using your computer, tablet or phone with the Zoom app.
Download the app for the device you will be using at:

https://zoom.us/download


More information at: https://www.apcug2.org

TRACK 1

10:00 AM PT

WordPress Introduction for Creating Websites
Mark Zinzow, Member, Rochester WordPress Users Meetup

Mark’s presentation will cover:

Contest Management Systems
Why choose WordPress, or not?
Hosting, DNS, and software expenses
WordPress jargon
How to create a WordPress site
WordPress plugins
WordPress help, tutorials, documentation, etc.
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
 

11:00 AM PT

Are Your Bits Flipped?
Joe Kissell, Author and Publisher, Take Control Books

Just as a single “flipped bit” in computer code can bring an otherwise reliable app crashing to a halt, a single misconception in your understanding of personal computing technology can cause all manner of problems—including lost data, wasted time, and frustration as you live and work in today’s increasingly digital world. In this presentation based on his book Are Your Bits Flipped?, author and publisher Joe Kissell untangles common confusions surrounding the high-tech products and services we all rely on every day. Find out why conventional wisdom is often wrong, why you might be worried about all the wrong things, and how improved knowledge of topics like privacy, web browsing, email, and encryption can make you smarter and more efficient.

12:00 PM PT

Windows 7 Sunset
Greg Skalka, President, Under the Computer Hood User Group

Windows 7 extended support and consumer security updates will end on January 20, 2020; no more updates or fixes, including security fixes. Greg will discuss options for those who are still fans of Windows 7.


TRACK 2

10:00 AM PT

Google Photos: 7 favorite features
Chris and Jim Guld, Geeks on Tour

Join Chris and Jim as they take us through their 7 favorite Google Photo features: Editing, All your photos in one place and searchable from any device, Shared Library – automatically save partner’s photos of you, Shared Albums, Make Movies, Google Lens for reding business cards, and how to Navigate to a Photo’s Location.


11:00 AM PT

Youth and Technology
Bill Crowe, 1st Vice President
Sarasota Technology Users Group

What will the world look like in 20 years? It seems that all the youth are so engrossed with their technology that they do not even know how to really socialize or communicate face to face. That is not all together true. They will most likely not have hunched backs and be couch potatoes at the age of 25 from hunching over their smart phones and playing computer games. That said what will happen to our culture.

We will learn about how our youth are using technology, how it can have both a positive and negative affect on them and what we as adults can do to encourage the positives and discourage the negatives. Bill has done substantial research on the subject and will be presenting his conclusions.

12:00 PM PT

What’s an App?
Jim Glass, President, Glendora’s Computer Club

What’s an App? Where do I get them? Are they secure? What can I do with them? Jim’s presentation will cover all of the above and more during our exploration of Apps AKA applications, programs …..

1:00 PM PT

ROUNDTABLE

Let’s talk about Websites. Do you use it as a recruiting tool? Or is it just for your members. Will a prospective member find information that will encourage them to attend a meeting and join? Bring you ideas to share....

Reposted by Ralph Sutter

Hello All,
I will be the Second Session presenter at SLO Bytes General Meeting on 04/07/19.
I'll be speaking on my experiences in setting up a mesh network with the Netgear Orbi router and two satellite system.
I have placed my notes on line at http://www.fullbean.com/computer/orbi/orbi.docx

I welcome anyone else who has set up a mesh network or plans to do do to join the conversation.
Ralph Sutter

SCALE Write-up
I had been looking forward to the 17th Southern California Linux Expo ever since I purchased a ticket in early December 2018.  I made reservations at a modest motel shortly to avoid the inevitable price surge as March 7-10 date approached. 

Sadly, my efforts in frugality failed miserably when my faithful 2002 Toyota Tacoma died three days before my projected departure.  Initially, I rented a car to make the trip but later bought a new Honda Ridgeline truck 12 hours before I headed for the Pasadena Convention Center.  That decision added substantially to the overall cost of the experience.

Alan Raul and I met in Ballroom A where the two day Ubicon track took place.

The first speaker on Thursday was Dr. Samuel Coleman, a Southern California teacher.  He explained how he created a 35 station computer lab with no budget using donated vintage 32 bit laptops, a Linux operating system and many hours of his time.

In the second session, Der Hans spoke on Software Management for Debian and Ubuntu using common software management tools and Snaps to simplify the process.

Next up Dave Chiluk presented the roadmap that a software developer should follow in order to have his or her project accepted for inclusion in the official Ubuntu repository.

Lyn Perrine, who volunteers to help write the users’ manual for Lubuntu, explained how she goes about that task, the software that she uses and the steps that she takes to make sure that she and other collaborators can work together without one over-writing the work of other volunteers.

Richard Gaskin and Nathan Haines closed out the Thursday sessions with a lively Questions and Answers session in which many of the attendees shared their Ubuntu experiences, challenges and solutions.

Friday opened with a historical overview of the Snappy Ecosystem, from patchwork early models to the current model in which the properly created Snap automatically installs the target program along with all of its required dependencies.

Ted Gould illustrated the Snappy process as it applies to Inkscape giving practical examples of how a developer should design a program so that it has full access to the processes that it requires but does not have access to areas beyond its needs.

In s similar vein, Jose Antonio Rey explained Identity Management, the steps taken to validate user credentials and the safeguards in place to enhance security.

The final session opened with Richard Gaskin inviting the audience to come up with suggestions for raising the adoption of the Ubuntu/Linux desktop OS from the current 3% market share to 6%.  We offered many suggestions, some practical, some whimsical.

In addition to attending these talks, Alan and I also talked with a variety of vendors in the Exhibit Hall, drank a lot of coffee and revisited some favorite restaurants. 

The two of us only scratched the surface in the workshops that we attended.  We followed the Ubicon track.  It focuses on Ubuntu and runs for 2 days.  The overall SCALE convention runs for four days and includes 14 additional tracks for a total of 219 presentations and 125 vendor booths.  I’ll be back next year.

Ralph Sutter

Hello All,
I recently purchased from New Egg a RIITOP NVME to USB C Gen2 10Gb Adapter Enclosure;
PCIe M.2 NVMe SSD to USB 3.1 Type C Converter Case in Black (Thunderbolt 3 Compatible)
My goal was to be able to add an external M.2 SSD to my Lenovo X1 Yoga laptop. 

I inserted a 512Gb Samsung 950 PRO M.2 V-NAND SSD in the enclosure and then transferred a 2.20Gb .mp4 file from the Lenovo desktop to this device.  The transfer took 5.0 seconds.

For comparison of this transfer rate with other media, see my post, http://slobytes.org/smf/index.php?topic=257.0

The device currently sells for $46.95 at https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA6V882E8294
The price is good through 3/14/19

One caveat.  The enclosure is held together by 4 very very small Phillips screws.  The drive comes with a screwdriver for removing the screws in order to insert the M.2 drive.  I found it extremely difficult to remove the screws.  Not wanting to strip the tiny Phillips heads, I used a minuscule amount of Liquid Wrench, I was able to remove 3 of them.  I doubt that Superman's big brother could remove the fourth screw.
 
Fortunately, I only needed to remove the two screws on the end of the enclosure with the USB-C connection in order to access the carrier.
I had no difficulty in re-inserting the screws. 

Ralph Sutter

Hello All,
As the Secretary our computer group, SLO Bytes, I maintain an archive of files relating to that organization.  I copy them to a 16Gb flash drive and give a copy to each member of our Board of Directors.

Over time, the archives have grown.  At some point, they will be too large to fit on 16Gb flash drives.  I decided to compress the content into a 9Gb .zip file.   

When I tried to copy that file to a flash drive, I got an error message indicating that the file was too large to fit on the drive.  It puzzled me why a 9Gb file wouldn't fit on a 16Gb flash drive.  I tried various flash drives with the same results.  In order to make sure that the supposedly empty drives didn't have hidden files that put me over the 16Gb limit, I reformatted them.  That didn't help.

It finally occurred to me that the problem might be due to the inherent limitations of the FAT32 file format.  Using the formatter built in to Windows 10 and other Windows versions, I reformatted in EXFAT and tried again to copy the large .zip file.

That solved the problem.  The large .zip file copied successfully to the 16Gb flash drive when formatted in EXFAT.  The EXFAT format has the advantage of being read writeable across multiple operating systems, a feature not found in some other formats.

Lesson learned

Ralph Sutter

Hi Alan,
Yes, you got the card and the source right.  I paid a little less because I had earned credits when I purchased a portrait lens among other items.
Ralph

Hi Dick,
Try this solution to import Google Chrome Bookmarks into IE 11
https://www.tekrevue.com/tip/import-bookmarks-ie11/
Ralph

Hello All,
I'm developing a presentation for the February 3, 2019 Second Session Presentation at SLO Bytes General Meeting.
My tentative presentation notes can be found at http://www.slobytes.org/presentations/sutter-0219/slideshows.docx
I will demonstrate how to create video slide shows with still and moving images.
So far, I've included the following programs

   Irfanview - freeware -
       Fullbean tutorial at https://youtu.be/1IT5lZHSV18

   Microsoft Windows 10 Photos - included in Windows 10
       Fullbean tutorial at http://www.slobytes.org/digital/tutorials/windows-10-photos.mp4

   Microsoft Windows PowerPoint - included in Microsoft Office Suites -
        Fullbean tutorial at http://www.fullbean.com/tutorials/powerpoint-slide-show.mp4

    Shotcut; https://www.shotcut.org/;  open source, cross platform video editor
    Fullbean tutorial at http://www.fullbean.com/tutorials/shotcut.mp4
    View the Developers tutorial at https://www.shotcut.org/tutorials/     

    Adobe Premiere Elements 19 - about $99

   Photodex ProShow Producer - about $249

I look forward to learning what programs SLO Bytes members use when they make slide shows.

Ralph Sutter