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October 2021

MVCUG Meeting Notes

October 9, 2021

On our fourth in-person gathering at the Cochise College Downtown Center, we were challenged by the absence of all “reelected” officers, save one — Vice President Barry Midgorden. (Yes, that’s me, the author of these notes.) So the seven assembled members were “treated” to an episode of The Bazz MacGeek Show. The main topic was “User Interface Basics”. But before we got to that, as usual we had some regular features to go through.

If you’re reading this anyplace other than the group website, please visit us there to see past meeting notes, helpful links, how to contact club officers, and a schedule of future meeting topics.

MVCUG News

The Regular Stuff

We started with a round of introductions. Thanks to Bonnie Burer, Eva Englund, Pete Feldman, Paul Lewis, Jean MacKeen, Richard Nielsen, and LuRue Troyer for showing up and putting up with my shenanigans. And a special shout out to Jean for volunteering to pick up the refreshments, coming early, and staying late to help setup and pack up. As Ted Lasso would say, “I appreciatcha!”

After introductions we went over the benefits of membership, cost of dues, and how to get those dues to Carolyn McLain, our treasurer. Finishing up this segment was a brief overview of what’s to come in the next three months’ meetings.

Timely Tech Topics

Since our September meeting a number of announcements and even releases have come about in the tech sector involving both Apple and Microsoft, so we spent some time in this segment going over the highlights.

California Streaming

Apple held their annual fall event to introduce the new iPhone models on September 14. We took some time going over all the announcements including an Apple TV+ fall preview, a new iPad (9th generation), all new iPad mini, Apple Watch Series 7, Apple Fitness+ updates, and the four models of iPhone 13 (mini, “regular”, Pro, and Pro Max). If you want to watch the entire event, it can be found on on Apple’s website, on YouTube, or in the AppleTV app on any compatible device (Apple’s hardware, obviously, but also some models of smart TVs, and the AppleTV app on Amazon Fire TV devices as well as others — check your device’s respective app store.) Of course, you can always just browse around Apple’s website and look at just the new products you are most interested in.

Windows 11

Microsoft did announce a release schedule for the next version of the Windows operating system. They say “late 2021” and continuing into 2022. Next month we will have the return of The Mike & Barry Show and our topic will be “Operating System Updates”. Join us then for more details about Windows 11, including how to find out if your current PC can run it. For a sneak peak, you can watch Microsoft’s video on YouTube.

Office 2021

Microsoft made another announcement on October 1 regarding the latest update to their office suite of productivity apps. Office 2021 was released on October 5. It’s available as part of the Microsoft 365 subscription (starting at $70 annually) and as a one-time purchase (starting at $150 for Home or Student licenses). Find out more at the Microsoft Office web page.

Computer Lexicon Terms of the Month

UI & UX

UI is the initialization for user interface. A UI is the description of any visible human-computer interface accessible by the user. Windows and macOS have GUIs (graphical user interfaces).

UX is the abbreviation for user experience. UX describes how a person feels about a company, product, or the UI of a product.

See more at ComputerHope.com.

Tips o’ the Month

Windows: Get started with Tips in Windows 10

Find surprising things you can do in Windows with the Tips app — it’s included in Windows 10. To find the app, choose Start > Tips on your device. If you don’t have it, it’s free at the Microsoft Store, where you can get even more free tips.

macOS: Customize column headings in Finder windows list view

If you like viewing Finder windows in list view but find the default column headings limiting, you can customize the column heading categories that are visible, where they appear in the column header, and change the sort criteria and order with some simple clicks. I’ve pulled this segment out of the meeting recording and you can watch this tip on my YouTube channel.

iOS: Change Display & Text Size settings for easier reading

Open the Settings app. Tap on Accessibility, then tap on Display & Text Size. There you’ll find controls for making text bold and/or larger, turning on Button Shapes (highlights text buttons so you can better see that they are buttons and not just text on the screen), turn on On/Off Labels, reduce transparency, and more. Follow along with this segment from the meeting recording and try some of these options out if the default settings for text on your iPhone isn’t quite as readable as you’d like.

Favorites

Barry’s Favorite

Privacy is an online service helping protect your credit and debit cards. With an account you can create “virtual” card numbers for your bank-issued credit and debit cards. More than that, they can be for single-vendor use with transaction, monthly, or annual limits. You can even create single-use card numbers. This allows you to spend online without ever giving out your real credit or debit card numbers. A personal account is free. Paid tiers provide some perks, like 1% cash back on qualifying purchases, creating more cards, and the ability to hide transaction information from merchants. A Privacy account also integrates with the 1Password password manager, if you happen to use that (which I do, so bonus for me).

User Interface Basics

The plan was to try and cover some basic user interface elements of both Windows and macOS from “top to bottom” starting with the top of the screen, then jumping to the bottom of the screen, and ending up with what’s in between. We didn’t quite make it to the in between, but had a fun and stimulating educational journey through menus, commands, keyboard shortcuts, using the mouse vs. the keyboard for issuing commands, and comparing/contrasting the macOS Dock and the Windows Taskbar. We’ll try to cover the middle of the screen and all about the Desktop of both OSes, changing the wallpaper image, managing icons, folders, and windows, organizing strategies, and how to find your stuff in future meetings’ tips of the month.

There are not really any links to share from this segment of the meeting specifically, but there are undoubtedly many online tutorials and information you may find doing some “googling” in your search engine of choice. At some point there will be a video of the meeting posted, so if you’re a member, watch your email inbox for the notification or check our website.

See You Next Month

That’s a wrap on this month’s show notes and links. Check out our Facebook page and watch our website for additional content. See you on Saturday, November 13 for The Mike & Barry Show: “Operating System Updates”.

Barry
Barry “Bazza” Midgorden
Vice President (macOS)
Mountain View Computer Users Group
Sierra Vista, Arizona

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