PC Update – 2019 Index
PC Update is the Melbourne PC User Group magazine/newsletter. The first issue of PC Update appeared in March 1984 under the title MELB-PC.
The name was changed to PC Update in September of the same year and has remained unchanged ever since. The magazine has won a number of International Awards.
PC Update has been published in various formats, firstly as a printed newsletter, then a printed magazine, then an e-magazine, and currently as a e-newsletter.
December 2019
Book Review: We Have Been Harmonized
Tim McQueen We have been harmonised – Life in China’s surveillance state Kai Stittmatter Old Street Publishing. 328 Pages. This is not the usual type of book reviewed in PC Update. However, in the light of recent publicity of China’s… Continue Reading…
December Monthly Meeting
The December Monthly Meeting will be held Wednesday December 4 at 7pm. Guest Speaker: Fiona Patten MP Fiona Patten is a state politician. She is the leader of the Reason Party and has a seat in the Victorian Legislative Council,… Continue Reading…
DOTW Winners November 2019
DOTW (whatever that stands for) is our weekly Yammer poll and light hearted review of the sillier events of the week. Thanks to those who vote and also to the odd member who might “feature” – all in fun of… Continue Reading…
Editorial December 2019
Hugh Macdonald Welcome to the final edition of PC Update for 2019. This edition comes off the back of a momentous month for the club. Firstly a new committee was elected, featuring quite a number of very familiar faces within… Continue Reading…
From The President December 2019
David Stonier-Gibson Well, my first monthly report for PC Update. Executive summary: I’m learning the ropes! I actually started on the job several weeks before the election, being as I was the sole nominee, by talking to a number of… Continue Reading…
How To Clean Your Dirty Laptop
David Kretchmar, Sun City Summerlin Computer Club After being used regularly for months or years, our laptops accumulate dust, grime, skin oils, sneezes, and who knows what else. Your laptop is most likely due for a cleaning, and I’m going… Continue Reading…
Interesting Internet Finds
Steve Costello, Boca Raton Computer Society While 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 Notices
Office Closure The office will be closed from Monday December 23 2019 and will reopen on Monday January 6 2020 at 9.30am. Security Warning – Windows 7 End of Life Cedric Wyndham In mid-January 2020 extended support for Windows 7… Continue Reading…
Northern Suburbs Linux SIG Report December 2019
Trevor Jacobs and David Hatton A jovial bunch and many animated pre-meeting conversations, so again we started a few minutes late lacking the timekeeping of our resident MC – continue the health improvement, Paul. Nick’s Linux News this month was… Continue Reading…
Smart Devices In The Home
Phil Sorrentino, The Computer Club, Florida There are a whole host of smart devices available for use in the home now. Some of the most basic and least expensive ones are smart bulbs, smart plugs and smart cameras. (Yes, I… Continue Reading…
Yammer Highlights December 2019
Chit Chat While having a cleanout of his shed Greg came across the instructions he’d been sent by Melb PC some time in the mid 90s when floppy drives and 28.8k modems ruled! As Windows 3.1 didn’t have dial-up capability… Continue Reading…
Yawning Gap In The Plan To Keep Older Australians Working
A key reason for deciding to retire has to do with getting tired at and through work, how that tiredness affects partners and families. www.shutterstock.com Andreas Cebulla, University of Adelaide In the past decade a 30-year trend to earlier retirement… Continue Reading…
Your New Commitee
Following the Annual General Meeting on Wednesday December 6, a new committee of members was elected. These are their stories. David Stonier-Gibson, President David Stonier-Gibson made his career choice when he was 11 years old – to be an electronics… Continue Reading…
November 2019
Discovering Family Histories and Mysteries
Jan Whitaker Ed: This article is based on a presentation that Jan Whitaker gave to the Monthly Meeting on October 2 2019. If you’d like to see the full presentation please go to https://tinyurl.com/y2v5q5c4 Why do genealogy? Discover awesome family… Continue Reading…
DOTW Winners October 2019
Roger Brown DOTW (whatever that stands for) is our weekly poll and light hearted review of the sillier events of the week. Thanks to those who vote and also to the odd member who might “feature” – all in fun… Continue Reading…
East SIG Report October 2019
Neil Muller The October meeting opened with George Skarbek conducting his usual Q&A segment. George commenced with an update to a recent presentation he gave on a cheap smartwatch he purchased to check his ECG and blood pressure readings (East… Continue Reading…
Editorial November 2019
Hugh Macdonald Welcome to the November 2019 edition of PC Update. This edition marks the end of an era as we have a President’s report from John Hall for the last time. I’d like to thank John for the great… Continue Reading…
From The President November 2019
John Hall Our new committee In my September President’s Report I asked for volunteers to nominate for the upcoming committee and I am very pleased to say that we have filled all of the “executive” positions and we also have… Continue Reading…
How to use the iHelp website
Leighton West The iHelp website can be found at http://www.melbpc.org.au/ihelp Intro & Search Many Members are unaware of the free facilities available to them from our iHelp pages at www.melbpc.org.au. Just click on the Top Menu item called iHelp. A… Continue Reading…
Melbourne Society of Model and Experimental Engineers Exhibition Report 2019
Words: Phil Lew, Photos: Phil Lew and George Skarbek The “Let’s Make It” theme invited many other like minded groups to exhibit their projects which showcased each groups knowledge, expertise and ingenuity in the various areas of technology and… Continue Reading…
Northern Suburbs Linux SIG Report October 2019
Trevor Jacobs Unusually, we started a few minutes late, missing our customary MC. Get well soon, Paul. Back to tradition, and we started with Nick Vespo and Linux News. First up was the not-so-secret Android10 beta (Ed: the final public… Continue Reading…
November Monthly Meeting
The November Monthly Meeting (including Annual General Meeting) will be held Wednesday November 5 at 7pm Guest Topic: Tim Talks Tech Our November speaker is Melbourne PC User Group member and frequent and popular meeting guest speaker, Tim McQueen. What… Continue Reading…
Science and Tech Projects Group Report
David Stonier-Gibson Hydroponics Project Update In Sci/Tech meeting on Sunday 20th October we decided to enter our hydroponics project in the upcoming Monash Mini Maker Faire on Sunday 1st December. This has somewhat taken focus off an all-singing all-dancing setup… Continue Reading…
Software Review: CloudReady
Hugh Macdonald Like me, you might have always wondered whether a Chromebook would be a useful computing device for everyday use. But also like me, you might have been reluctant to actually purchase a Chromebook, lest it wasn’t suitable, and… Continue Reading…
Software Review: Emergency+ smartphone application
Neil Muller Ed: This article was originally part of the East SIG Report but is being run as a standalone article due to the fact that this app could be important and useful to members over summer. Thanks to Malcolm… Continue Reading…
Video Production Group Report October 2019
John Hall The meeting opened with John Thomson’s “What’s New” section where he showed us the Sony FX9 Pro Video Camera and gave us some facts about its amazing capabilities. He also showed new Cameras from Canon – the EOSC500,… Continue Reading…
Yammer Highlights October 2019
Dennis Parsons Chit Chat One good thing about Yammer is members read a wide variety of news media from around the world and post links to interesting and very topical articles that many of us would not otherwise see. Bruce… Continue Reading…
October 2019
Apple’s iPhone 11 Pro wants to take your laptop’s job
Andrew Maxwell, University of Southern Queensland What a week it has been in the Apple core. In recent days the tech giant has released a litany of products, including new phones, watches, tablets, and more. The big-ticket items are clearly… Continue Reading…
Book Reviews
Weapons of Math Destruction – Cathy O’Neil Tim McQueen Melb PC purchased a copy of Weapons of Math Destruction after the recommendation by Michael Brand who spoke on The Data Science Revolution – A User’s Guide at the May monthly… Continue Reading…
Computer History Tours of Melbourne
Graham Farr You are invited to join one of the upcoming Computer History Tours of Melbourne, organised by the Faculty of IT at Monash University. The tours are on Sat 19 Oct, and Sun 3 Nov 2019 (though I’d encourage people to go for Sat 19… Continue Reading…
DOTW September 2019
Roger Brown Latest winners of the DOTW poll were: Townsville Mayor Jenny Hill who says homelessness charities providing food and laundry services to people are “enabling” them to “live a lifestyle” in public parks. DOTW alumnus Tony Abbott who this… Continue Reading…
East SIG Report September 2019
Neil Muller The September meeting opened with George Skarbek conducting his usual Q&A segment. Q: I received an email from Google Map Timelines in early September titled “Your August in Review”. The email stated “You received this email because… Continue Reading…
Editorial October 2019
Hugh Macdonald Welcome to the October 2019 edition of PC Update. Firstly thank you to everyone who has provided feedback on last month’s issue. On the whole it’s been very positive. You’ll notice some further changes to the PDF version… Continue Reading…
Essendon Daytime Group Report September 2019
John Guegan Our three meetings for this month are over and we look forward to October for our next three meetings for that month. Each meeting follows a similar format when we have a Q&A session which usually takes us… Continue Reading…
From The President October 2019
John Hall Volunteering for your Club By the time you read this it will be the end of September/early October and the time for nominations for committee members will be closing soon. I am very pleased to able to… Continue Reading…
Member Tips and Tricks
Each month we’ll publish tips and tricks from members that could help you use your computer more effectively. If you have any tips and tricks you think are particularly useful, please send them to editorpc@melbpc.org.au. This month’s submission comes from… Continue Reading…
Northern Suburbs Linux SIG Report September 2019
Paul Addis The Linux News for this month was about Android – which does use the Linux kernel, after all. The question addressed was “can you use an Android-based phone or tablet without accessing Google services?”. The video shown answered… Continue Reading…
October Monthly Meeting
The October Monthly Meeting will be held Wednesday October 2 at 7pm Guest Topic: Data Collection, Computing and Climate Modelling Our October guest speaker is Lynette Bettio, a Senior Climatologist at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. She will talk to… Continue Reading…
Software Literacy Begins With Learning To Code
Dick Maybach, Brookdale Computer Users Group, NJ If you’re reading this, you probably work with computers almost every day, and you probably also find yourself repeating some tasks many times, not because you enjoy them but because they have to… Continue Reading…
Time Machine: FreeBSD
Peter Kostouros Every month we delve into the PC Update archive to take a look at what computing was like in the past…this month, a review of FreeBSD from February 2000. Until recently my home workstation was host to several… Continue Reading…
Video Production Group Report September 2019
Frank started his talk by giving us some background on his background in the Video Industry. Frank's wife Jean trained in the art of Movie making and Editing in 1980. She created her own Company "Catlin's Video Events" offering Corporate… Continue Reading…
Yammer September 2019
Dennis Parsons Chit Chat We had an interesting and educational thread involving three of Melbourne’s great religions – AFL, Judaism & gambling! Judy heard it mentioned on the radio that orthodox Jews wouldn’t be able to attend the Grand Final… Continue Reading…
September 2019
Book Review: Humble Pi
Tim McQueen Programmers, mathematicians, engineers and statisticians should all enjoy Humble Pi (a comedy of maths errors). Matt Parker is Australian and currently Engagement in Mathematics Fellow at Queen Mary University in London. The pages are numbered from 313 to… Continue Reading…
East SIG Report August 2019
Neil Muller Paul Woolard opened the August meeting with sad news of the sudden passing of member Andre Rigoni. Illness to another member resulted in a call for a permanent volunteer to assist with the mid break tea/coffee preparations. Paul… Continue Reading…
Editorial September 2019
Hugh Macdonald Thank you, David Stonier-Gibson! I begin this month with a thank you to David, both for the stellar effort he has done over the past eighteen months in editing PC Update and for the help he is given… Continue Reading…
From The President August 2019
John Hall Supporting your local Interest Groups Our Interest Groups (otherwise known as “SIGs” – for “Special Interest Groups”) have long been the life-blood of our organisation. On Saturday the 7th of September we will be holding our annual… Continue Reading…
How Australia can make AI work for our economy, and for our people
Anthony Elliott, University of South Australia The idea of robots taking our jobs is not radically new. But artificial intelligence (AI) is now completely reorganising the global economy. Some estimates of productivity-driven economic growth conclude that AI will contribute approximately… Continue Reading…
Planning To Plan
David Stonier-Gibson The club’s Annual General Meeting will take place on 6th November. That is when we elect a new committee for the coming year. I have been nominated for President next year by John Hall (President), seconded by Stephen… Continue Reading…
Science and Tech Group Report August 2019
David Stonier-Gibson Hydroponics at Moorabbin Lettuces? Basil? Radishes? What should we grow in our hydroponics setup? Interestingly that is the question least occupying the minds of us young folk in the Science and Technology (Sci/Tech) SIG. OK, so at 73… Continue Reading…
September Monthly Meeting
The September Monthly Meeting will be held Wednesday September 4 at 7pm Guest Topic: Australian Computer Society ICT Educators Our guest speaker for September is Catherine Newington who leads the ICT Educators Program and is the community’s moderator. Catherine is… Continue Reading…
The Future of PC Update Publishing
Hugh Macdonald Over the years PC Update has been produced using many different software packages. These have included Corel Ventura, QuarkXPress, and Microsoft Word. For about the past six months, it has been produced using LibreOffice Writer. Neither LibreOffice or… Continue Reading…
Time Machine: Sharp Actius A150 Ultra Light Notebook
John Oswald Every month we delve into the PC Update archive to take a look at what computing was like in the past…this month, a laptop review from July 1999. I have always wanted a portable computer, or at least… Continue Reading…
