March 14 - Members meeting
Because Easter clashes with our usual meeting time, we have brought the meeting forward a week to Friday March 14. Join us between 9.30 am and 11.30 am in the Gwen Logan Room (next door to our training room) for a chance to meet other members and learn more about the club.
The topic for discussion will be Effective Use of Google - more than a search engine!. Bookings will be open for Term 2 courses.
Term 2 courses - Mondays to Thursdays
During Term 2, commencing the week of April 29, courses will be run Monday to Thursday. If you've always favoured a Monday to do a course, now's your chance. However, the number of courses will not increase without more trainers, so check your course time carefully.
The term timetable will be available at the reception desk, or from your trainer from Tuesday March 11. It is also also on the website at Courses Term 2.
Jon Bayley; Jan Gathercole; Peter Grove; Judy Joyce; Hazel Labka; and John McGlinn will be your Term 2 trainers. Margaret & John will be away traveling in the UK between mid-April and early July, but will be back for Term 3.
Do a two hour course this Term
The following short courses (Wednesday afternoons between 1.00pm and 3.15pm) have vacancies:
- Windows Vista introduction - March 12
- CD burning - March 19
- Calendar making and easy photo collage - March 26
- Windows Vista introduction - April 2
These courses are $10 each (for members only).
PAF - Personal Ancestral File
At the beginning of this current term, Hazel Labka included training in PAF or Personal Ancestral File in her well-received Genealogy on the Computer course. PAF is a family tree software package with many capabilities for not only storing a great deal of information about your ancestors, but for also for preparing and printing charts and reports. And it is free to download from the site FamilySearch.org.
PAF is a very impressive software application, at least as good as many of the expensive programs.
After reviewing the Genealogy course, Hazel suggested that it would be useful to offer this course separately from Genealogy on Your Computer. It is beneficial for people just starting out on their family history research, particularly those who have not yet purchased a family history software application.
If enough members are interested, Hazel will run it straight after the 1.00pm Genealogy on Your Computer class, to cater for those students who are interested in both courses. Students will be provided with a CD of the downloaded program.
Creative Writing Presentation
Joan Craymer's presentation on Creative Writing at our February meeting drew a great response from participants. Many have asked for more information. You can download Joan's Creative Writing notes as an rtf document (compatible with word processing applications).
Maybe Joan has inspired you to commence an entry for ASCCA's ASCCA's Creative Writing competition which will close in late August. Last year, one of our members, Tom Ware was runner up in one of the categories. You can download Tom's winning entry as a word document.
New IT accessaries and furniture
An overhead projector screen has been purchased and fitted in the training room, thanks to John Lee and his son Graham. Other purchases include a new PA system with hand held microphones and two cupboards for our tea, coffee and mugs. Peter Grove has loaned us a bar fridge.
After rebuilding two old Pentium III computers for use by members in the reception area, the remainder of the hardware has been recycled.
The reception area has also been reorganised and paperwork cleared away.
So much for the paperless offices we were promised 20 years ago, with the widespread introduction of desktop PCs!
Fraud Fortnight 2008
Every year, Australia joins 30 other nations in alerting consumers of scams and how they can protect themselves against scams. You can check out information and resources on the ASCCA website.
We recommend you check out ScamWatch if you want to learn more about protecting yourself - at the front door, letter box or computer.
On a slightly different topic - email hoaxes - check out Hoax-Slayer. This is particularly good to check out when a friend "helpfully" passes on a warning about a virus. These are often simply spam. Hoax-Slayer will help you sort out what you really need to take notice of, and what to pass on, and which warnings you should simply treat as an irritating form of chain mail.Tips and Tricks
Undisclosed Recipients - why do we use that?
Have you ever been irritated to receive chain mail with 20, 40 or even hundreds of email addresses, mostly of strangers? Well so have I, and I'm never happy about it. This makes us all vulnerable to SPAM and should be avoided.
So what can you do?
You should always have a friend in your Email address list called "Undisclosed Recipients". This friend is useful so that you can send a group email to lots of email addresses without invading privacy, or making your addressees vulnerable to SPAM.
Take these steps:
- Set up a new Contact in your address book called "Undisclosed Recipients". Give it your own email address - it must have one and it is sensible to make it your own.
- Create your new email, and click the To: Button and choose "Undisclosed Recipients" - it should come up as soon as you type Und..
- Now click the Bcc Button, and select your group, or the first person to whom you want the email to go
- Click the Bcc button rather than the Cc button. Repeat the process until you are finished.
- Don't forget to type a descriptive subject line.
Cc stands for Carbon Copy. It ensures that every recipient knows who else you are sending the email to. Sometimes, this is what you want. On the other hand, by using the Bcc (Blind Carbon Copy), no one other than the person who receives the email sees to whom it is being sent.
Makes sense, doesn't it, and much less irritating. Make sure you get into the habit.
Of course if you are sending to a group of best friends, or people who need each other's email address, then there is no need to use Bcc.
Telephone Allowance increase for Centrelink income support recipients
A recent announcement by the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Jenny Macklin should give seniors an increased incentive to connect to the Internet.
Are you eligible? You can check a Centrelink information sheet about the increased Telephone Allowance at www.centrelink.gov.au/. Click on the hyperlink to go straight to the information sheet.
An increased rate of Telephone Allowance from $88 a year to $132 a year, will be available for around one million veterans, income support recipients of Age Pension age, Commonwealth Seniors Health Card holders and recipients of Carer Payment and Disability Support Pension who have a home internet connection.
Internet connection means Broadband, dial-up or satellite. It includes using a wireless internet connection, but the critical thing is that you or your partner needs to have an Internet subscription at home to qualify.
A web-based email address such as Hotmail or Yahoo would not count as a home internet connection.
Telephone Allowance recipients must give Centrelink or the Department of Veterans' Affairs details of their home internet service provider before 20 March in order to be paid the increase on time.
Taking the Club message to Chinese Seniors
Granville MultiCultural Community Centre has invited president John Moxon to be guest speaker at the 11th March meeting of a Mandarin speaking seniors group at the Granville Youth and Community Centre. Club members Martin and Rachel Young and Jenny Liang will also assist John with communicating with the seniors.
This is a great opportunity to further reach seniors in the Granville area. This is an area of lower computer usage by all age groups (ABS statistics), but particularly amongst seniors. Our membership statistics currently reflect this reality, so we need to make a particular effort south of the railway line, to increase access by seniors to our club.
