PC Update – 2020 Index – Melbourne PC User Group

Australian hospitals are under constant cyber attack. The consequences could be deadly

Paul Haskell-Dowland, Edith Cowan University Last week, the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) issued warnings to Australian health-care providers that it had observed an increase in cyber incidents targeting the sector. These attacks seem to be aimed at infiltrating networks… Continue Reading…

Book Review

Tim McQueen Breaking & Entering The extraordinary story of a hacker called ‘Alien’ Jeremy N Smith Scribe 2019, 292 Pages. Here’s a book on computing that can make one feel old. Smith outlines the career of ‘Alien’; a username selected… Continue Reading…

DOTW Winners November 2020

Roger Brown DOTW is a lighthearted look at some of the sillier events of the week. Don’t take it too seriously and do pop over to Chit Chat and vote each week. Thanks to those of our members who… Continue Reading…

East SIG Report November 2020

Neil Muller Host Paul Woolard opened East SIG’s November virtual meeting again via Zoom. The meeting then commenced with George Skarbek presenting Q&A. Q. As a consequence of the changeover from Office365 to G-Suite, I’m not receiving all the MelbPC… Continue Reading…

Editorial December 2020

Hugh Macdonald Hello and welcome to the December 2020 edition of PC Update, the final issue for this year. It was a year that started with high hopes for the club with some interesting events like the 3D Printing Introduction… Continue Reading…

From Hobart, to London, to Dhaka: using cameras and AI to build an automatic litter detection system

Arianna Olivelli, CSIRO and Uwe Rosebrock, CSIRO It’s estimated about two million tonnes of plastics enter the oceans from rivers each year. But our waterways aren’t just conveyor belts transporting land waste to the oceans: they also capture and retain… Continue Reading…

From The President December 2020

David Stonier-Gibson Reopening I was delighted earlier in the month to be able to put out an all-member email heralding the re-opening of our Moorabbin club rooms and workshop. Some rules and restrictions still apply, but we can now go… Continue Reading…

How To Install WordPress On Your Portable Web Server

Fleur Stephens Now that you’ve created your portable web server, you might like to install WordPress. An offline WordPress installation is great for practising WordPress, testing themes and plugins, and offsite website development. Follow the tutorial below to create a… Continue Reading…

Monthly Meeting December 2020

The December 2020 Monthly Meeting was held online on Wednesday 2nd December 2020, with over 75 members in attendance. This was the program for the evening: Guest Speakers: Cameron McKenzie and Angela Stubbs Topic: Empowering businesses to exchange waste as a… Continue Reading…

New Tools For The Maker Room

David Stonier-Gibson I purchased a comprehensive set of tools for the Moorabbin Maker Room this morning, just in time for members of the Microcontroller Workshop SIG to enjoy with their face to face meeting tomorrow. The collection includes Soldering irons… Continue Reading…

Yammer Highlights November 2020

Dennis Parsons Windows 10 Time for a rant! Why oh why do manufacturers sell Win10 devices that only come with a 32GB eMMC drive that’s soldered to the board & has no way of increasing storage? And why… Continue Reading…

Your Favourite Linux Apps

Hugh Macdonald Two issues ago I detailed my switch to using a Linux distribution on some of my computers and a good number of other members also shared their Linux stories, and the reason they use the various distributions that… Continue Reading…

Your Favourite Windows Apps

Hugh Macdonald I’ve been paying a lot of attention to Linux of late in the pages of PC Update, but of course the fact remains that the majority of members use Windows as their main operating system. And members love… Continue Reading…

3.2 billion images and 720,000 hours of video are shared online daily. Sorting real from fake is an increasing challenge.

T.J. Thomson, Queensland University of Technology; Daniel Angus, Queensland University of Technology, and Paula Dootson, Queensland University of Technology Twitter screenshots/Unsplash, Author provided Twitter over the weekend “tagged” as manipulated a video showing US Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden supposedly… Continue Reading…

DOTW Winners October 2020

East SIG Report October 2020

Neil Muller East SIG meeting host Paul Woolard opened the October virtual meeting with Frank Maher as the Zoom host. The meeting then commenced with George Skarbek presenting Q&A. I’ve recently had my Melbourne PC email successfully moved to Google G-Suite… Continue Reading…

Editorial November 2020

Firstly, welcome to another edition of PC Update, namely the November 2020 edition, and our penultimate for this ‘year’ we call 2020. Secondly, apologies for the very long wait for this particular edition. Like with the last time PC Update… Continue Reading…

Electronic Circuit Simulation

Dick Maybach, Brookdale Computer Users Group Circuit simulation will interest only a few, but skimming through this article should impress you with the support a PC can provide for this specialized area. You likely have different interests, and it would… Continue Reading…

From The President November 2020

David Stonier-Gibson Committee changes There have been a couple of changes in the committee. Kirsten Greed and Aavon Fernando have resigned. The committee voted unanimously to appoint Peter Boin and Aidan Kelly to serve in the period until the deferred… Continue Reading…

How Australia can reap the benefits and dodge the dangers of the Internet of Things

Kayleen Manwaring, UNSW and Peter Leonard, UNSW The Internet of Things (IoT) is already all around us. Online devices have become essential in industries from manufacturing and healthcare to agriculture and environmental management, not to mention our own homes. Digital… Continue Reading…

Interesting Internet Finds

Steve Costello, SEFCUG In the course of going through the more than 300 RSS feeds, I often run across things that I think might be of interest to other user group members. The following are some items I found interesting… Continue Reading…

Member Wanted Notices

Roman Skarbek WANTED. An old laptop from around 2000-2008. Must have a serial port and Windows XP and be a 32-bit system. Should be in working condition. Please call me: 0400 767 594. Will pay. Make My Day. Thanks. Roman… Continue Reading…

Monthly Meeting November 2020

The November 2020 Monthly Meeting was held online on Wednesday 4th November 2020, with over 100 members in attendance. This was the program for the evening: Guest Speakers: Jerzy Zywicki and Miroslav Reitikh from Digital Home Systems Topic: The Z Wave Protocol… Continue Reading…

Wifi 6 – What happened to b, g, n, ac

Phil Sorrentino, Sun City Centre Computer Club Ever since Wi-Fi appeared way back around 2005, the Wi-Fi version has been described by a letter because of the letter reference used in the 802.11 Local Area Network standard. Initially, there were… Continue Reading…

Yammer Highlights October 2020

Dennis Parsons Phones We had a couple of interesting threads this month concerning phones and plans that ranged far and wide but proved very useful to both the users asking the questions and the other participants. As is our… Continue Reading…

Creating A Portable Web Server

Fleur Stephens Have you ever wanted to try your hand at developing a website in WordPress but you don’t have access to a web server? Would you like to play with multiple websites and WordPress themes without breaking your site?.… Continue Reading…

DOTW Winners September 2020

Roger Brown DOTW is a lighthearted look at some of the sillier events of the week. Don’t take it too seriously and do pop over to Chit Chat on Yammer and vote each week. Thanks to those of our… Continue Reading…

East SIG Report September 2020

Neil Muller East SIG convener Paul Woolard opened the September meeting for the second time via the internet conferencing software Zoom along with Frank Maher the Zoom host. Another large audience attended, with members as far away as Echuca and… Continue Reading…

Editorial October 2020

Hugh Macdonald Welcome to the October issue of PC Update! There’s a lot of focus on Microsoft Windows in the club, and therefore in this magazine. And rightly so.It is used by over 80 percent of desktop users in Australia.… Continue Reading…

From The President October 2020

David Stonier-Gibson There is very little new to report that hasn’t already been reported via all-member emails, namely: AGM deferred As Secretary John Swale has already advised, we have decided to defer the AGM until 3rd February because we could… Continue Reading…

Google News favours mainstream media. Even if it pays for Australian content, will local outlets fall further behind?

Axel Bruns, Queensland University of Technology Google’s role in delivering audiences to news outlets has been under scrutiny of late. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s initiative to redirect advertising revenue from Google and Facebook to news publishers has led… Continue Reading…

Member Linux Stories

Editor: In response to my questions of a) What is your favourite Linux distro? b) What is it about this particular distro that makes it your favourite? and c) What originally made you start using Linux and/or why would you… Continue Reading…

Member Tips and Tricks: Top Linux Utilities

John Nelson Editor’s note: John Nelson has provided this list of common applications and utilities that you can download and use in your Linux distribution of choice. Some distributions will come with many of these already pre-installed. For any that… Continue Reading…

NBN upgrades explained: how will they make internet speeds faster?

Thas Ampalavanapillai Nirmalathas, University of Melbourne The federal government has announced a A$3.5 billion upgrade to the National Broadband Network (NBN) that will grant two million households on-demand access to faster fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) internet by 2023. Reports from the ABC… Continue Reading…

Yammer Highlights September 2020

Dennis Parsons Our move to Google G Suite This is a new group created by Harry Lewis to aid with the transition from MS Office365 based email to Google based G Suite Gmail. It’s the place to ask all your… Continue Reading…

Your Favourite Linux Distributions

Hugh Macdonald I’ve always been fascinated by Linux. When I was about fourteen or fifteen, in my quest to expand my computing knowledge, I attempted to install it for the first time. I think back then it was Red Hat… Continue Reading…

Book Reviews

Tim McQueen With the current COVID-19 lockdown and restricted municipal library services I don’t have much access to computer-oriented books for review for PC Update. However, I’m still reading and happy to share some of what I’ve been reading recently.… Continue Reading…

Coronavirus misinformation is a global issue, but which myth you fall for likely depends on where you live

Jason Weismueller, University of Western Australia; Jacob Shapiro, Princeton University; Jan Oledan, Princeton University, and Paul Harrigan, University of Western Australia In February, major social media platforms attended a meeting hosted by the World Health Organisation to address coronavirus misinformation.… Continue Reading…

Digging your own digital grave: how should you manage the data you leave behind?

Patrick Scolyer-Gray, Deakin University; Arash Shaghaghi, Deakin University, and Debi Ashenden, Deakin University Throughout our lifetimes we consume, collate, curate, host and produce a staggering quantity of data – some by our own hand, some by others on our behalf,… Continue Reading…

DOTW Winners August 2020

East SIG Report August 2020

Neil Muller After a 4 month hiatus caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, East SIG returned in August. Host Paul Woolard opened the meeting via the internet conferencing software Zoom, to a larger audience than our normal face to face meetings.… Continue Reading…

Editorial September 2020

Hugh Macdonald Welcome to another edition of PC Update! This edition actually coincides with the anniversary of a fairly seminal moment in personal computing history – it’s now 25 years since Windows 95 was released. On August 24, 1995, it… Continue Reading…

Five projects for Raspberry Pi at home

Ben Nuttall The Raspberry Pi computer can be used in all kinds of settings and for a variety of purposes. It obviously has a place in education for helping students with learning programming and maker skills in the classroom and the hackspace,… Continue Reading…

From The President September 2020

David Stonier-Gibson To be honest, it is a little difficult to find much to report on during a stage 4 lock-down. Does the fact I visited the clubrooms a couple weeks ago to collect the mail (and possible cheques!) count?… Continue Reading…

Hybrid meetings after COVID?

David Stonier-Gibson If you have skills in video, sound engineering, electronics, streaming, maybe even Raspberry Pi, or related areas, this is very much for you. Nobody knows when this COVID thing will totally go away. I hope we can revert… Continue Reading…

Interesting Internet Finds

Steve Costello, Boca Raton Computer Society In the course of going through the more than 300 RSS feeds, I often run across things that I think might be of interest to other user group members. The following are some items… Continue Reading…

Monthly Meeting September 2020

Our monthly meeting will be held this Wednesday, September 2 from 7 pm onwards via Google Meet, which you can access from https://meet.google.com/krk-favm-oep Guest: Linda McIver Topic: Raising Heretics: Teaching effective Scepticism using Data Science Linda McIver Dr Linda McIver is the Founder and Executive Director of… Continue Reading…

Northern Suburbs Linux SIG Report July 2020

David Hatton The main presentation outlined the procedure to backup up an Android tablet. The following notes are intended as a guide to creating a full backup of an Android tablet on your desktop or laptop computer running Linux. The… Continue Reading…

Yammer Highlights August 2020

Dennis Parsons Internet Connectivity Survey I’m re-running the Internet connectivity survey I conducted in early 2018 so please get involved and let us know how you connect to the Internet at home. The turnout so far has been excellent and… Continue Reading…

Your Favourite Browser Extensions

Hugh Macdonald For me, my web browser is easily my most frequently and most extensively used application across the various computers I operate. For the last few years I’ve been using Mozilla Firefox as my primary web browser, as it… Continue Reading…

Australia’s cybersecurity strategy: cash for cyber-police and training but the cyber-devil is in the cyberdetail

Damien Manuel, Deakin University Australia’s long-awaited cybersecurity strategy, released yesterday, pledges to spend A$1.67 billion over the next ten years to improve online protection for businesses, individuals and the country as a whole. The lion’s share of the cash will… Continue Reading…

Book Review

Tim McQueen Lurking – how a person became a user Joanne McNeil Farrer, Straus and Giroux 2020 298 Pages This may not be of interest to Melb PC members. McNeil traces the development of the Internet from the 1990s to… Continue Reading…

DOTW Highlights July 2020

Editorial August 2020

Hugh Macdonald Hello and welcome to the August 2020 edition of PC Update. Isolation and lockdown unfortunately continue for all of us in Melbourne, and so what better time is there than now to overhaul your PC. In recognition of… Continue Reading…

From The President August 2020

David Stonier-Gibson Let me start by apologising for not doing a report last month (how many noticed?). I have been very preoccupied designing, making and programming a specialised 7-channel temperature logger for my son’s startup business. That’s not to say… Continue Reading…

How to subscribe to SIG mailing lists and find out about their meetings

Hugh Macdonald Ever since Covid-19 became a concern to society, SIGs at Melbourne PC User Group have ceased meeting in person and many have transitioned to a meeting via video conferencing platforms such as Google Meet and Zoom. The opportunity… Continue Reading…

In a world first, Australia plans to force Facebook and Google to pay for news (but ABC and SBS miss out)

Rob Nicholls, UNSW The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has released its draft news media bargaining code, announced today by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg. The draft code allows commercial news businesses to bargain – individually or collectively – with Google and… Continue Reading…

Interesting Internet Finds

Monthly Meeting August 2020

The August 2020 Monthly Meeting was held online on Wednesday 5th August 2020, with over 100 members in attendance. This was the program for the evening: Guest Speakers: Doug Kimberley, Mike Allison, Nan Bosler Topic: Staying well, Staying home, Staying… Continue Reading…

Tuning Up Your Windows 10 Start Menu

Tom Burt, Vice-President, Sun City Summerlin Computer Club Windows 10 was originally released in July 2015. It’s latest major update is V2004 – this article is written using the Fall 2209 update. Originally, I had mixed feelings about Windows 10’s… Continue Reading…

Windows 10 – Reset, the ability to Reinstall the OS

Phil Sorrentino, Contributing Writer, The Computer Club I don’t think any other Windows OS version has included a feature that would allow you to easily reinstall the Windows Operating System, without having the installation media available. Here is a quote… Continue Reading…

Yammer Highlights July 2020

Dennis Parsons Windows 10 Most of us have been down the sorry road of deleting a file only to realise later that we shouldn’t have and being unable to retrieve it. All too often this leads to users frantically searching… Continue Reading…

2.5 billion dollars lost over a decade as Nigerian princes lose their sheen but scams are on the rise

Cassandra Cross, Queensland University of Technology Last year, Australians reported more than A$634 million lost to fraud, a significant jump from $489.7 million the year before. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has released its latest annual Targeting Scams… Continue Reading…

Book Review

Tim McQueen Radio Girl David Dufty Allen & Unwin 302 Pages There is a great deal of similarity between the early days of radio here in Australia and the beginnings of home computing. The Metropolitan Radio Club (Sydney) was one… Continue Reading…

DOTW Winners June 2020

Editorial July 2020

Hugh Macdonald Hello and welcome to the (more than a little bit overdue) July 2020 edition of PC Update. Like a fine Scotch whisky, I’ve left it in the barrel a bit longer this month. Hopefully richer flavours are the… Continue Reading…

How Australian supercomputers crunched the numbers to guide our bushfire and pandemic response

NCI Australia, Author provided Sean Smith, Australian National University and Mark Stickells, CSIRO As 2020 began, Australia was stunned by the worst bushfires on record. Six months later we are weathering the coronavirus pandemic sweeping the globe. This year, perhaps… Continue Reading…

Images of Melbourne PC User Group

George Skarbek Photo: ‘Social Interaction before lockdown’ by George Skarbek Photo: ‘Social interaction after lockdown’ by George Skarbek From left to right the Melb PC members in this photo taken by George Skarbek are: John Swale – Secretary for 13… Continue Reading…

Making Over the Training Room

You probably haven’t been to the club in a while(thanks for everything, COVID), so your recollection of the training room might be outdated. The room was originally configured as part of our club’s move into our Moorabbin premises, it was… Continue Reading…

Monthly Meeting July 2020

The July 2020 Monthly Meeting was held online on Wednesday 1st July 2020, with over 100 members in attendance. This was the program for the evening: John Hall: The Video Production SIG John will talk about how the lockdown has affected… Continue Reading…

My Migration to G Suite

Stewart Gruneklee Subsequent to the committee’s decision to move the club email away from Microsoft Office 365 to Google’s G Suite, I looked hard and long at how I was using email. Probably my methods are a mixture of old… Continue Reading…

We developed tools to study cancer in Tasmanian devils. They could help fight disease in humans

Andrew S. Flies, University of Tasmania; Amanda L. Patchett, University of Tasmania; Bruce Lyons, University of Tasmania, and Greg Woods, University of Tasmania Emerging infectious diseases, including COVID-19, usually come from non-human animals. However our understanding of most animals’ immune… Continue Reading…

Why I use Aussie Broadband

Roger Brown Your intrepid PC Update editor has asked me to explain why I, in common with a number of other Club members, have elected to use the relatively new retail service provider Aussie Broadband, absolutely not to be confused… Continue Reading…

Yammer Highlights June 2020

Dennis Parsons All Company There was a flurry of activity (panic?) around the announcement of the inadvertent mass deletion of e-mails from many of our e-mail accounts. A few of us got stuck in fairly promptly and manually recovered our… Continue Reading…

Book Review

Bill Chandler ‘Bruny’ Heather Rose, 2019, Allen and Unwin What a prescient novel! Infrastructure, regional planning, political shenanigans, foreign interference, and even the mention of a virus. Heather Rose has written a thriller with more credibility than I was comfortable… Continue Reading…

DOTW Winners May 2020

Editorial June 2020

Hugh Macdonald Welcome to another edition of PC Update, and already we find ourselves in the sixth month of 2020. This year has already brought so much in just six months: devastating bush fires, a once in a 100 years… Continue Reading…

From The President June 2020

David Stonier-Gibson I hope you are all holding up OK in “iso”. It strikes me that those of us who are retired are the lucky ones, or at least best placed to cope with the potential disruption to our lives.… Continue Reading…

Internet traffic is growing 25 percent each year. We created a fingernail-sized chip that can help the NBN keep up

This tiny micro-comb chip produces a precision rainbow of light that can support transmission of 40 terabits of data per second in standard optic fibres. Corcoran et al., N.Comms., 2020, CC BY-SA Bill Corcoran, Monash University Our internet connections have… Continue Reading…

Member Tips and Tricks

Graham Swanston Ed: Thanks to Graham once again for sending these tips and tricks in. If you have any info about software, websites, or hints about an operating system that you think members might benefit from, send it to editorpc@melbpc.org.au.… Continue Reading…

Monthly Meeting June 2020

Guest Speakers: John Hollow, Kelvin Cording, Paul Hattam, Craig Evans Topic: SIG Meetings in the time of Corona Now that we are getting so much better at meeting online, it is an ideal time to hear from some of our… Continue Reading…

Tech And Your Eyes

Debra Carlson, CVC Computer Club, CO Words like “ergometrics” and “accessibility” fly around when talking about tech devices but what does that mean practically – to the user? First, a definition: Ergometrics is an applied science concerned with designing and… Continue Reading…

The coronavirus pandemic is boosting the big tech transformation to warp speed

Zac Rogers, Flinders University The coronavirus pandemic has sped up changes that were already happening across society, from remote learning and work to e-health, supply chains and logistics, policing, welfare and beyond. Big tech companies have not hesitated to make… Continue Reading…

Virtual Machines

Dick Maybach, Brookdale Computer User Group, NJ A virtual machine (VM) is a program on your PC (called a host in virtual-machine speak) that creates a box that appears to be a PC to an operating system (called a guest… Continue Reading…

Yammer Highlights May 2020

Dennis Parsons NBN Questions and Comments NBN speeds higher than 100Mbps are finally here! 250Mbps and 1000Mbps plans are available for those of us lucky enough to have FTTP and for some HFC connections. If you’re using FTTN you’re totally… Continue Reading…

5G is Coming

Jeff Wilkinson 5G is the designation for the upcoming fifth-generation cellular network technology. This technology, which had the standards set at the end of 2017, promises to bring faster speeds than the current 4G technology in use by most cell… Continue Reading…

COVIDSafe tracking app reviewed: the government delivers on data security, but other issues remain

Mahmoud Elkhodr, CQUniversity Australia About 1.13 million people had downloaded the federal government’s COVIDSafe app by 6 am today, just 12 hours after its release last night, said Health Minister Greg Hunt. The government is hoping at least 40% of… Continue Reading…

DOTW Winners April 2020

Roger Brown DOTW (whatever that stands for) our weekly Yammer poll and light-hearted review of the sillier events of the week, continues – social isolation rules notwithstanding. Thanks to those who vote and also to the odd member who might… Continue Reading…

Editorial May 2020

Hugh Macdonald Welcome to the May 2020 edition of PC Update. Although it has been a month since I last wrote to you in this capacity, it feels more like seven years. Once again, this month features a mix of… Continue Reading…

First Look: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

Hugh Macdonald Ubuntu is arguably one of the most widely used Linux distributions, and arguably one of the most popular and easiest to use for consumers. On April 23 2020, they introduced their latest long term support (LTS) version, which… Continue Reading…

From The President May 2020

David Stonier-Gibson It’s all a little weird at the moment. We have been forced to do a complete pivot on our plans and aspirations for things like the Maker Room. I am trying to grasp the opportunities that the CV… Continue Reading…

How to boost your internet speed when everyone is working from home

James Jin Kang, Edith Cowan University and Paul Haskell-Dowland, Edith Cowan University With #StayAtHome and social distancing now becoming a way of life, an increasing number of people are relying on the internet for work, education, and entertainment. This has… Continue Reading…

LibreOffice: A Powerful, Free Office Suite

Tom Burt, Sun City Summerlin Computer Club About every 18 months I teach an introductory seminar on how to use LibreOffice. Attendance is usually good, but I still have been only reaching about 20 of our members at any one… Continue Reading…

Monthly Meeting May 2020

The main event for the May monthly meeting will be a panel discussion on the topic “Society after Corona”. We will be exploring how society may change permanently as a result of the pandemic. Will working from home become the… Continue Reading…

Understanding File Extensions

Jim Cerny, Sarasota Technology Users Group So someone sends you a file attached to their email – you try to open the file and you can’t, why is that? I mean they obviously could open the file on their computer,… Continue Reading…

Yammer Highlights April 2020

Dennis Parsons Coronavirus Discussion & Comments The COVID-19 situation of course continues to be a big topic of discussion and the release of the government’s COVIDSafe app was a particularly popular one. How does it work? Will it track me?… Continue Reading…

About iHelp

Leighton West We are the RACV of the Computer World A unique free service to members that is one of the best reasons for anyone joining, even if you never use us “It’s there if you need it”. Access to… Continue Reading…

Book Reviews

Tim McQueen Nuking the moon Vince Houghton Profile Books 296 pages This is probably not the usual type of book you’d expect to see referenced in PC Update. It’s subtitled: “and other intelligence schemes and military plots best left… Continue Reading…

Coronavirus: telcos are picking up where the NBN is failing

Mark A Gregory, RMIT University Telecommunication providers are taking positive steps to meet consumers’ demands in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, the National Broadband Network (NBN Co) is being urged to reduce its wholesale broadband… Continue Reading…

Desktop vs Laptop

Dan Douglas, President, Space Coast PCUG, Florida At a recent learning centre meeting, the topic of what was better to get, in my opinion, a desktop or a laptop? We agreed to include various other devices in the category of… Continue Reading…

DOTW Winners March 2020

East SIG Report

Neil Muller The March meeting opened with Dave Botherway conducting our usual Q&A segment Q: What was the problem experienced with the recent Windows 10 update issued last week? (Early March) A: I’m unaware what the problem was as… Continue Reading…

Editorial April 2020

Hugh Macdonald Hello and welcome to the April 2020 edition of PC Update. The whole world has changed since I last wrote an editorial in this magazine. Although there are enough mentions of coronavirus (COVID-19) in this issue, my aim… Continue Reading…

From The President April 2020

David Stonier-Gibson What a difference a day makes! I have started measuring time in Corona weeks and months. Things are happening so fast in this new, weird, wacky, and scary world we suddenly live in. Last week’s reality, its truth,… Continue Reading…

How To Use Yammer

Hugh Macdonald In this unfortunate time of COVID-19, all SIG meetings, as well as other activities of the club, have ceased in the best interest of members health. This may leave you wondering how you can explore your love of… Continue Reading…

Interesting Internet Finds

Review: Linux Mint 19.3

Cal Esneault, Former President and leader of many Open Source Workshops & SIGs, Cajun Clickers Computer Club Linux Mint is a distribution based on Ubuntu LTS versions. The latest series is the Mint 19.x family (based on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS).… Continue Reading…

Yammer Highlights March 2020

Coronavirus Discussion & Comments Looking for toilet paper? So are the rest of us! But you’ve come to the right place to talk about it and anything else COVID-19 related. John has been doing a very good job… Continue Reading…

April 2020 Monthly Meeting

The Monthly Meeting will be held Wednesday, April 1 at 7 pm via streaming. Guest Speakers: Dr Anton Hassell Topic: The arcane art of making science-based bells This month’s guest speaker is Dr Anton Hasell. Anton is a sculptor living… Continue Reading…

Club News March 2020

Hugh Macdonald Coder Dojo Our South East Melbourne Coder Dojo has been going now for three sessions and is establishing itself well with regular attendees coming back each time to learn more about basic concepts of programming through the beginner… Continue Reading…

Curious Kids: why do we have a QWERTY keyboard instead of putting the letters in alphabetical order?

Geoff Cumming, La Trobe University Many other key arrangements have been tried. Some are claimed to be easier to learn or faster to use than QWERTY. But none has proved good enough to beat QWERTY. Flickr/Jeff Eaton, CC BY-SA Curious… Continue Reading…

DOTW Winners February 2020

Roger Brown DOTW (whatever that stands for) our weekly Yammer poll and light hearted review of the sillier events of the week, has returned for 2020. Thanks to those who vote and also to the odd member who might “feature”… Continue Reading…

East SIG Report February 2020

Neil Muller The February meeting opened with George Skarbek conducting his usual Q&A segment. Q: I’ve lost the Google Play icon on my Android phone. Is there any way to get it back? A: I haven’t tried this but I’d… Continue Reading…

Editorial March 2020

Hugh Macdonald Hello and welcome to the March 2020 edition of PC Update. I hope you enjoy the mix of articles on computer related advice and developments in technology and science. February was a busy one in the life of… Continue Reading…

From The President March 2020

David Stonier-Gibson President’s special raffle At the monthly meeting this week, everyone who registers with their membership card and wears a name tag (your card or anything else) will receive a ticket to my Special Raffle. I’m not sure what… Continue Reading…

High-tech shortages loom as coronavirus shutdowns hit manufacturers

John L Hopkins, Swinburne University of Technology There are now more than 45,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus dubbed COVID-19 by the World Health Organization (at February 13 2020), and the disease has caused at least 1,115 deaths. The impact… Continue Reading…

I made bushfire maps from satellite data, and found a glaring gap in the preparedness of Australia

Wallace Boone Law, University of Adelaide On the night of January 9 2020, my wife and I secured our Kangaroo Island home and anxiously monitored the South Australian Country Fire Service (CFS) website for bushfire advice. After many horrific weeks… Continue Reading…

March 2020 Monthly Meeting

The Monthly Meeting will be held Wednesday March 4 at 7pm. Guest Speakers: Dr Ken Harvey and Mal Vickers Topic: Data Scraping and Snake Oil Why do we receive so much junk advertising from pharmacies for what appear to be… Continue Reading…

Member Tips and Tricks

Graham Swanston These procedures seem to work well on a 64 bit Windows 10 desktop. Do regular backups. Disaster or an accident is always a possibility. Backup onto external drives, which are stored away from the computer. Little time is… Continue Reading…

Northern Suburbs Linux SIG Report February 2020

David Hatton The evening started with Nick Vespo’s traditional wide ranging Linux News. Nick played a selection from the CES2020 keynote address by Ginni Rometty, president and CEO of IBM, which touched on the use of Deep Data with… Continue Reading…

Settings – What happened to Control Panel?

Phil Sorrentino, Contributing Writer, The Computer Club, Florida Way back in the days of Windows 7, the Control Panel was the way we adjusted the operation of certain parts of the Operating System. Control Panel was easily found because it… Continue Reading…

Try one of these bootable PC rescue media

Dick Maybach, Member, Brookdale Computer User Group, NJ Modern personal computers are complex assemblies of hardware and software. A problem in a single component can disable the entire system, and sometimes the reason isn’t evident. Often, you can boot the… Continue Reading…

Yammer Highlights February 2020

Dennis Parsons Computer Help The following is a fantastic example of what Melb PC is all about – members helping each other solve problems, computer related or not, and demonstrates how useful Yammer is in facilitating this. Frank… Continue Reading…

Book Review

Tim McQueen Technically Wrong – sexist apps, biased algorithms and other threats of toxic tech. Sara Wachter-Boettcher, Norton 2017 232 pp There have been several analyses of the current state of computing technology reviewed in PC Update over the last… Continue Reading…

Club News February 2020

Hugh Macdonald Training Room The revamp of the training room began in July 2019 when all members were invited to a meeting to discuss the future use of the room. Based on discussions held at the meeting, it was decided… Continue Reading…

Does social media make us more or less lonely? Depends on how you use it

Roger Patulny, University of Wollongong Humans are more connected to each other than ever, thanks to smartphones, the web and social media. At the same time, loneliness is a huge and growing social problem. Why is this so? Research shows… Continue Reading…

East SIG Report December 2019

Neil Muller The final meeting for 2019 commenced with the now traditional Christmas BBQ, followed by a shortened meeting. Normal meetings will resume on the second Thursday in February 2020. Following the Christmas BBQ, the December meeting commenced with Q&A… Continue Reading…

East SIG Report November 2019

Neil Muller The November meeting opened with George Skarbek conducting his usual Q&A segment. Q: In the last week Windows File Explorer has refused to open when I click its icon. This action has occurred after I loaded Clover, a… Continue Reading…

Editorial February 2020

Hugh Macdonald Hello all, Welcome to the first edition of PC Update for 2020. I hope you had a relaxing holiday period and 2020 has got off to a good start for you. We’ve got another great edition of the… Continue Reading…

February Monthly Meeting

The December Monthly Meeting will be held Wednesday February 5 at 7pm. Guest Speaker: Dr Alasdair McAndrew Our guest speaker is Dr Alasdair McAndrew. His topic is “Modelling complexity with very simple rules”. This brief talk will demonstrate how to… Continue Reading…

From The President February 2020

David Stonier-Gibson Is the club dying? On a Sunday a few weeks ago Steve Zuluaga, Hugh Macdonald and I were at the club, and spent a few hours with one newly joined member and two sure-to-join candidates. They are all… Continue Reading…

Making Your Tech “Fit” – Cords, Voice, Sound, and other hazards

Debra Carlson, Technical Advisor, CVC Computer Club, CO Cords – Whether tripping or kicking (and disconnecting) them … or getting the contents of your desktop lost in the shuffle … cord / cable management is both a convenience and a… Continue Reading…

Northern Suburbs Linux SIG Report January 2020

David Hatton The first meeting for the year was opened with the now traditional Linux News which featured a video reviewing the rise of Open Source software in the computing landscape. The video featured comments by several “heavy hitters” of… Continue Reading…

Not bot, not beast: scientists create first ever living, programmable organism

Simon Coghlan, University of Melbourne and Kobi Leins, University of Melbourne A remarkable combination of artificial intelligence (AI) and biology has produced the world’s first “living robots”. This week, a research team of roboticists and scientists published their recipe for… Continue Reading…

Windows 10 Taskbar Options

Jim Sanders, Director / Webmaster, North Orange County Computer Club, CA The taskbar is a very important part of the Windows 10 operating system. Arguably, it’s primary purpose is to make computing life for you, the user, easier. Like a… Continue Reading…

Yammer Highlights January 2020

Dennis Parsons Computer Help With the recent official demise of Windows 7 I decided to conduct another of my “quick and dirty” Yammer polls to discover the state of play for members – had they already embraced the inevitable and… Continue Reading…