Just thoughts …

Category: TG@u3a

Some of my posts on the Cardiff u3a Thought grazing site (from 2020) are duplicated here.

  • What I did on my holidays … 64-bit and photo-editing – 26th September 2019

    What I did on my holidays … 64-bit and photo-editing – 26th September 2019

    Welcome & Boot-up
    Introductions
    What do you want / expect from the Group?
    Please tick your attendance, pay £1.50 and agree that you want to join the “Thought grazing” website I run where the notes of the meeting are posted, and that you are interested in joining a WhatsApp Group.
    For those who’ve expressed an interest in “Thought grazing” and establishing a WhatsApp Group, I’ll send out an email following the meeting with UserIds and Initial Passwords for new members. [You can change your password if you want to – I’ll write a post that explains how you can do that.] The Password for Password Protected pages on the website is the same as everyone’s initial UserId Password, namely – Ca3rdyddU3A
    Does anyone have any difficulties in connecting to the Thought grazing website?
    Does anyone want to join the WhatsApp Group but is unsure how to do it?
    I think it best to gloss over the chaos that followed – we’ll get there; here’s how to add members to the Group so that I don’t forget … add member to Contacts on my phone, then I can see them in WhatsApp to add them as a member of the Group. Easy when you know how … duh!
    Incidentally Paul has written a post detailing how you can add WhatsApp to a Tablet.
    Do we all know the difference between Google and an Internet Browser?  – Don’t be shy. This is perhaps the most important thing to be sure about before we go any further. Two links to look at – Just google it … and the notes from the first meeting last year.
    What’s happening to Digital Projects? Well the first one has been announced, it’s a re-run of a Digital Photography course using Adobe Lightroom and it’s announced in the latest Newsletter on the new Cardiff U3A website.
    Which brings me to our webpage on the new website, the Photography Group has already added information to their page.

    • What do you think should be on it?
    • Should we have a number of pages?
    • Any ideas for an image to head the page?

    Helping others in Cardiff U3A with Computing/IT issues …

    • a WhatsApp Help & Advice Group? We agreed to do this and I’ll write to the Committee for them to consider.
    • [Update: The committee is going to consider this at their meeting in October. Further update: We decided to withdraw our offer until we felt more confident in using a Group for ourselves!]]
    • opening-up Thought grazing to non-Group members? We agreed not to do this

    Visits. We agreed visits to the Barclays ‘Maker Space’ which Mario will arrange for us, see details below …
    In addition, as part of our community commitment,  we have also opened a new office in Cardiff designed to help businesses grow and start up in Cardiff. Great for budding Entrepreneurs (which statistics show can be high in the over 50s)  and inventors. Part of the Eagle Lab office hosts  a “Maker Space” that houses laser cutting, vinyl printing, 3D printing, electronics equipment including soldering etc. It has a distinctly digital feel too with a really switched on Engineer running the lab. We can host groups there and would be happy to chat with your Digital Projects group and your Science groups coordinators, to discuss with them what is available there and whether they would like to bring members along to take a look at the facilities, or host a meeting there. Please feel free to ask them to contact me and I can discuss what they need, what we have, what we can do to support your members.
    … in the approach to Easter, and also a visit to the new BBC Centre after Easter.
    I’ll approach Cardiff Uni about the possibility of a visit maybe before Christmas, and Fred suggested a visit to Brains new brewery site as an alternative.
    [Update: Unfortunately I was unsuccessful in getting a useful visit to the Computer Centre of Cardiff University; I have another idea, but Fred has offered to contact Brains and their new brewery at Cardiff Gate for a visit before Christmas.]
    Finally, I posted an article about the forthcoming MacOS Upgrade to Catalina – which is a 64-bit operating system – and what it might mean for Mac desktop/laptop users. This has prompted me to consider this as a topic (not Mac specific) for later in this meeting. There are several links in that article that you may wish to follow, and which are not listed below, if you’re a Mac user.
    Other issues raised:
    Gill asked whether it was possible to print from an iPhone to a printer. Members were able to say … yes, if the printer supports AirPrint. I presume there’s an Android equivalent?
    Renee asked about opening compressed files in emails on an iPhone. We got some way to solving that one, but agreed to take it onboard as a conversation on the WhatsApp Group.
    If I’ve forgotten anything, please let me know.
    Gear Guide
    Has anyone bought, or obtained anything recently they’d like to tell us about? It doesn’t have to be a computer, laptop, tablet or phone – just something that’s digital, ie used a computer processor in some way?
    Apps Galore
    That slot in the meeting where members are encouraged to share their experience (and possibly excitement) at a new app they’ve started using for their smartphone, tablet, laptop or desktop machine.
    Renee mentioned that she’d found DuoLingua a very interesting application for helping her learn a language just recently – others had used it as well.
    What’s IT all about?
    The next upgrade to MacOS – Apple’s operating system for its desktops and laptops (not iPads and iPhones) is 64-bit. Any software that is not compliant, that is it’s not written to meet the specification of 64-bit, will not run on your machine once the operating system has been upgraded. What does this mean though? Do Windows users face a similar issue, now or in the future?
    I’m going to use this article as the basis for the explanation, using Windows as the operating system in question. But first, does everyone know what an Operating System is?
    It has to be said upfront that Microsoft has been extremely “kind” to its users, offering backward compatibility even back to MS-DOS (a 16-bit operating system) for a long time so that you can even now still run old DOS programs using a 16-bit emulator for Windows 10. However, Microsoft has also confused its users ever since Windows XP by providing two versions of its operating system, one for 32-bit and one for 64-bit. If you had a previous version of Windows – XP, 7, or 8 – which had the 32-bit operating system installed on your machine, you are more than likely to have got the 32-bit version of Windows 10 installed on it when you did the free upgrade. But you can upgrade to the 64-bit version if your hardware will allow it. And there’s the rub, not all hardware will allow 64-bit processing and that’s why the MacOS upgrade is both helpful and annoying.
    It’s helpful in that it sets a new benchmark for all software developers. They’ve known since December 2018 that this change was coming, and it’s not particularly challenging for Mac users as machines back to 2012 (including therefore my MacBook Pro) will be able to make the switch.
    But why the change? Well as the first article spells out the biggest advantage of using a 64-bit processor is that it can address a much larger amount of RAM (Random Access Memory) and so therefore machines with more than 4Gb of RAM will benefit from faster processing if the applications are written to the 64-bit code base. Also more programs will be able to held in RAM, enabling faster switching between applications. Graphics intensive applications with the dependance on a large amount of memory space will also work faster. So there are huge benefits.
    So should you as a Windows user upgrade to 64-bit Windows 10? That depends upon what you use your computer for. If you decide to stick with 32-bit be aware that Microsoft will one day dump 32-bit in the same way they “dumped” DOS, but the community of users is so massive that undoubtedly a 32-bit emulator will be written, by someone! But, you may choose to make the switch, if your hardware can take it, before you’re forced to jump; and in the meantime be aware that you’ll undoubtedly and progressively experience a slowing down of your software as more of them become 64-bit, and if you try and run a large number of them concurrently (at the same time) in different windows.
    Some more links for you to ponder …
    How to switch from 32-bit to 64-bit Windows 10
    FAQs from Microsoft on 32-bit and 64-bit computing
    32-bit app compatibility for Macs with current Mojave operating system
    Incidentally, my MacBook Pro is still running High Sierra, the operating system before the latest one – Mojave. I intend to upgrade it to Mojave and then leave it at that operating system so that I can run some 32-bit applications such as Office 2011 and Adobe Lightroom 6 (and earlier) for a while longer. It is a seven-year old machine … it’s doing very well with the upgrades it’s had to it’s hardware – solid state disk, RAM increased, replacement battery – it’s not ready for the scrapyard yet, and it’ll be more difficult to upgrade to Mojave soon, once Catalina has been released.
    My machine’s running slow!
    Quite co-incidentally I’ve been approached by a U3A Group Facilitator who’s having problems with the performance of their machine.
    This led me to do a search of Google for good articles that might be of help and value. We’ve looked at this before, of course for Windows, and I’m adding a couple of links below which might be of interest and assistance.
    I use MacPaw‘s CleanMyMac 3 on my MacBook Pro, and I will probably upgrade to CleanMyMac X for both desktop and laptop before I do any upgrades to Catalina. Here’s a blogpost on how you can improve performance on your Mac.
    Here’s an article that makes suggestions on how to clean-up both PCs and Macs.
    So … to the Windows PC. Here are a couple of links:
    Some quick ways of speeding-up Windows 7, 8 and 10 PCs.
    Tips to improve performance with a Windows 10 PC – from Microsoft
    Set of links from an earlier Thought grazing post on Windows 10 maintenance
    Easy-peasy photo-editing … believe me!
    You’ve taken a photo, or been sent it in an email, but you just feel that you could make it just a little bit better. Don’t despair, there’s an easy way of editing a digital photo in just a few steps if you have a Google Photos account, and if you don’t – here’s how to get one and how to get started with organising your photos.
    Some thoughts. Most smartphones take images of 12mp or perhaps a little more. You can print a decent 15 x 10 inch picture from an image of that size

    Google allows you to upload images without any compression up to 16mp – happy days!
    So on to a demonstration … some simple edits to enhance an image.

    For more guidance on Google Photos, the use of Backup and Sync and much more, you might like to visit (or re-visit) this Thought grazing page.
     
     

  • Identity Theft

    This will probably be one of the most challenging posts I’ve ever attempted to write because in all truth, I don’t think we really still know what actually happened to my daughter’s online identity, let alone wholly knowing how it happened, but I’m going to try and explain the sequence of events as an alert to you all, and a reminder to us too!

    Some background and a plausible explanation of why they got themselves into the situation they found themselves.

    They’d been self-employed for a short while now, working as a freelancer, and had just submitted their first tax returns in that capacity.

    They were working from home, with two young children with one under six months old, and both very demanding of their time.

    The family is living in another family member’s house whilst they “do up” their new house.

    They’re adept at multi-tasking (obviously too adept as it turns out) and is (as many of their age are able to do) capable of nestling their phone between chin and shoulder whilst doing other tasks!

    What happened next!

    She had a phone call purporting to come from HMRC (we’re presuming this was just a fortuitous coincidence from the fraudster’s point of view – they had no way of knowing the employment status of the family member) – saying that they had a refund owing. As explained above she thought this was quite possibly the case as she had just completed a tax return – again an unhappy coincidence! She was told to click on a link in a text message to complete the process of getting the refund. She had their youngest child on her hip, was preparing a meal and was “distracted”. She filled-in the required information from the link!!!!

    Agh! No!

    Shortly afterwards (the same day) she presented her credit card at a supermarket and payment was refused. She realised something was wrong. She found she didn’t have access to her online banking. She contacted the bank by phone. The bank “supposedly” froze the account there and then but it was apparent that at least two transfers of money had been made to someone who was a Payee in her account – why? That’s the clever bit of the scam, I’ll explain later!

    More payments appeared to have been made … help!!!

    How could this be? The account was frozen … wasn’t it?

    Get the family involved!

    Having a son who’s an IT expert comes in useful, especially if he lives on the other side of the world! He worked through the night (day) in securing as many of her accounts as he could. Changing passwords, which were admittedly rather weak and used more than once (should have listened to Dad) – but he had no idea just how much data had been downloaded, or indeed just how much they had to start with as a result of perhaps a previous “pwned” event.

    Having another local son who’s also very practical and logical helps also. He suggested that she contact the payee and tell them about the payment and request it be refunded. What transpired next turns out to be the “clever” part of the scam, although on this occasion it wasn’t conducted very expertly because they attempted multiple payments to the same payee. The payee confirmed that they’d had this payment, wondered what it was and had been a bit puzzled as to why Mr X had contacted them and requested a refund to a bank account because “he’d made a mistake”.

    This was obviously NOT the same account as that from which the payment had originated and turned out to be the way the scammers were hoping to transfer funds from the hi-jacked bank account to one of their own! Fortunately, my son’s suggestion alerted the payee and the payee advised their bank NOT to transfer the money.

    Phew! How did this all happen when the bank account was supposed to be frozen?

    The key to this scam was getting control of my daughter’s mobile phone number. She didn’t realise it immediately, but soon became aware that it had been “stolen” through a scam called SIM swapping. This usually is done by a seemingly distressed person going into a mobile phone shop and pleading for a new SIM with a phone number “because their phone has been stolen” and “it’s absolutely imperative they have their number back immediately as there’s something very important happening right now”.  This is described here.

    Why do they want to do this? Because they can transfer calls made to the rightful owner of the phone to their own phone.

    Why do they want to do this? Because they can then request the bank account to be unfrozen, and also use their access to the phone number for any number of authorisation features.

    And what is more they can lock you out of your phone accounts.

    How did they do this in this case? Well GiffGaff is an online service provider and they have stated that they did everything they were supposed to do to authenticate the request for a SIM swap – but it is evident that there are serious weaknesses in their processes. They have stated they are looking at this for the future. Just Google “GiffGaff SIM swap Fraud” to see what is returned – it’s frightening!

    So what happened next, and was there a happy ending?

    Well, believe it or not, even with a personal visit to the bank and assurances that no more payments would be made, the bank did allow the account to be unfrozen and transfers out of her account were attempted. A second visit to the bank resulted in heartfelt apologies being made and offered over the way their fraud department had handled the problem and a complaint being raised by the branch against their own department on my daughter’s behalf – I don’t know the outcome of that!

    Well, there was a happy financial outcome. Thanks to the prompt action and thinking of my local son, the initial transfer was halted. It’s not conclusive whether my daughter could have received compensation (as detailed here) as she was the instigator of the problem through her own mistake (the HMRC phone call). All other attempted transfers were eventually trapped by the bank and refunded to her – so no financial loss.

    However …

    Much more significant than the potential financial loss was what it did to her confidence. She insisted on getting a new phone, because she wouldn’t accept any advice from any family member (especially me) that there wasn’t anything on her phone that wouldn’t continue to monitor her.

    She also lost all confidence in using any online systems – which up until then she’d been very reliant upon.

    She also lost a lot of confidence in herself as she realised just how gullible (but extremely unfortunate) she’d been … but the positive side of this, and the main reason for sharing this is that she’ll be much more careful in the future!

    Postscript.

    We don’t know whether the identity theft side of this will ever be resolved. We all know that a huge amount of information is held on us on the internet. We all know that some websites have had their security breached and identity information stolen. We don’t know what was held by others about my daughter. She had a public profile, they now have the potential to add even more information to their database about her if they had managed to download information from her email (and other) accounts before my son locked them down. We just don’t know.

    There was a mysterious book that arrived at her house with a cryptic message in it.

    There have been some scamming emails purporting to come from her since this event.

    She now uses a different email account.

    We just don’t know whether these are connected to the fraud event or are just strange random occurrences … and I suppose we never will know just how much additional information they may have downloaded – emails, photographs, documents, etc. etc. Very frightening.

    NatWest Guide to Fraud
    Some privacy tips for iPhone users.