Updated 14/05/2023: Corrected typos.
Email Storage Space
We had a brief discussion on email storage space. This varies, depending on your email provider. Gmail, for example, stores your emails, along with all your other data (photos, backups, etc) on your Google Drive which has a total of 15GB on the free account, so if you have filled this up with photos, you will have little room left for emails. (See details of how to get more storage under Cloud Storage heading below). For other email providers, you would have to search to find their storage limits.
Computer Club Topics – History
We have covered a lot of topics at the Club and, since October 2015, I have summarised these in a blog after each meeting. As you know, you can refer back to any of these blogs at:-
https://computerclub100.blogspot.com/
You can use the drop-down at the top to select a date, or the search box on the right-hand side to look for a topic.
I thought it might be useful to collate all the discussions on a single topic into one document, so I have produced a series of such documents. You can access them via my website:-
bit.ly/rogersdocs
Select the Computer Club tab to see the list of documents. Select any document to view or download it - these documents are stored on my Dropbox. You do not need a Dropbox account - just click on the document name to view it. The documents I have created so far are:-
- Password Managers – LastPass – Bitwarden
- Passkeys
- UK Emergency Alerts
- ChartGPT – Bing – Bard
- 2FA & Authenticator Apps
- Antivirus (including Virus Total)
- Product End of Support/Life
- Google Photos
- Ad Blockers
- Scams, Data Breaches & Have I Been Pwned
As we cover these topics further in the future, I will try to update the relevant document. I may also create additional documents on other topics, so just check in on my website from time to time.
Windows Usage Data
Windows 10 is still the predominant Windows operating system in the UK and worldwide. According to StatCounter, the figures for April 2023 in the UK show the market share is:-
- Windows 10 70.09%
- Windows 11 26.65%
- Windows 7 1.78%
See their website for details at:-
https://gs.statcounter.com/windows-version-market-share/desktop/united-kingdom#monthly-202204-202304
We had some discussion around our personal usage of Windows versus iPads, and as you might expect, there was a mixed picture. Windows tends to be favoured for 'productivity' - such things as word-processing, spreadsheets etc. Tablets, mainly iPads, and Apple and Android smartphones are all some people need for general use. However, according to Microsoft, there are 1.4 billion monthly active devices worldwide running Windows 10/11 - see their website at:-
https://news.microsoft.com/bythenumbers/en/windowsdevices
Windows 12
Talking about Windows led me to briefly mention Windows 12, the next major version, which is expected to be released next year, although there are few details about it at the moment. See this Tech Advisor article for a little more:-
https://www.techadvisor.com/article/745965/will-there-be-a-windows-12.html
There are rumours that Windows 12 may integrate AI features which could require new chip technology. This could mean that you will need new PC hardware to support it. This article by The Verge hints at possible new chips from Intel to support Windows 12:-
https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/1/23618276/microsoft-windows-12-intel-hints
Google Uses Passkeys
Passkeys is the paswordless technology developed by the FIDO Alliance which includes Apple, Microsoft and Google. We have discussed this a few times before – go to the Passkeys document in the Computer Club section of my web site to see previous discussions:-
bit.ly/rogersdocs
On the 3rd of May, Google began rolling out their Passkeys system for logging into Google sites and services. This Ghacks site explains how to set it up:-
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/05/03/how-to-set-up-a-passkey-for-your-google-account/
To view/change your Passkeys setting in your Google Account, you can also use this Google shortcut URL:-
g.co/passkeys
If you set this up on your phone, the phone stores your Passkey, which never leaves your device, so, unlike passwords, it cannot be stolen in data breaches. Once set up, you will only need to use the phones authentication system to sign in to Google, i.e. fingerprint, face ID or PIN.
If you subsequently sign in on, say, a Windows PC, it will initially allow you to sign into your Google account on the PC using the phone by viewing a QR Code. Once signed in on the PC, you have the option for the PC to store a Passkey, so that next time, you would not need the phone – just a fingerprint, face ID or PIN on the PC.
Ultimately, the ambition is that Passkeys will completely replace (and remove the need for) passwords. However, at the moment setting up Google Passkeys still leaves you with your existing username/password which you can continue to use.
As I have said before, the transition from passwords to passkeys is likely to take many years - and some sites may never make the switch.
No More Feature Updates for Windows 10
The current major version of Windows 10, version 22H2 from September last year, is the last big feature update for the operating system. Windows 10 will continue to receive regular monthly security updates, usually on Patch Tuesday, the second Tuesday of the month, until its end of life on 14th October 2025.
Driver Assistance Technology
The UK Department of Transport has approved Ford’s ‘Blue Cruise’ hands-free driver assist technology for use on public roads. Currently, this is only available on the Ford 2023 Mustang Mach-E. It can only operate on certain mapped motorways and the driver must still keep their eyes on the road - the cars have eye-tracking technology to ensure this happens. I believe this is the first time a hands-free driving technology has been allowed in the UK.
The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) have defined 5 levels of driving automation plus Level 0 which is no automation at all. Level 5 is full automation requiring no human interaction – this level does not currently exist in a production vehicle. This Ford system is Level 2.
Brian asked if cars can connect to two mobile phones using Bluetooth. Certainly, a number of cars facilitate this, although you then have to manually choose which you want to use - by default, it will connect to the last one it used.
cloud.microsoft
Microsoft is planning to change the web addresses for many of its services. The object is to both simplify things and improve security.
The last portion of a web address (aka URL), such as “.com”, is known as a Top Level Domain (TLD). In the early days of the Internet, there were only a handful of TLDs including:-
- .com
- .org
- .net
- .int
- .edu
- .gov
- .mil
Later, country code TLDs were introduced, such as “.uk”, and, according to this Wikipedia page, there are now over 300 of them:-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top-level_domains
Microsoft have exclusive access to the “.microsoft” TLD, which means any URL with “.microsoft” at the end must be a legitimate Microsoft site. This increases security and makes sites easily recognisable as trustworthy.
Microsoft plan to make their cloud services available using the “.cloud.microsoft” ending. Here are a couple of examples of the expected change:-
- “outlook.com” will change to “outlook.cloud.microsoft”, and
- “onedrive.com” will change to “onedrive.cloud.microsoft”
Using the one TLD should mean that you do not need to re-authenticate (e.g. with your password, PIN or biometrics) when moving between different Microsoft services.
No date has been announced yet for this change, as far as I know. I am sure that the old-style addresses will get forwarded to the new ones. So, if you type "outlook.com" into the Address Bar, it will forward to "outlook.cloud.microsoft".
TLDs are maintained by IANA (the Internet Assigned Number Authority), alongside ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers). You can find a complete list of TLDs here:-
https://data.iana.org/TLD/tlds-alpha-by-domain.txt
Account Usernames
Brian has some problems using his Microsoft Account. If you create a Microsoft Account and create a new email address as the username, this will have an "@outlook.com" ending. Previously, this would have been a "@hotmail.com" or "@live.com" ending. You can, however, use any existing email address as the username to create and subsequently use a Microsoft Account. The same is true, for example, for an Apple Account. This will have a "@icloud.com" ending if you set it up when you created the Apple Account, but you can use any other existing email address as your Apple username.
In general, I think it is simpler to use an account username that relates to the service you are signing into, e.g. "@outlook.com" for Microsoft, "@icloud.com" for Apple, etc. Once set up, you cannot change the username. You can, of course, create a new account, but this would be completely separate and would not contain any of your historic data.
Cloud Storage
We touched on this topic back at the Club in January 2018, so I thought it was time to revisit it.
Online or Cloud storage is provided in different forms by many companies, allowing you to store your data online. This can be very convenient, giving you access to your data wherever you are. By giving permission for others to access some of your files, it is also a very efficient way to share data.
Many people are using an Apple, Android or Windows device and so will almost certainly have an iCloud, Google or Microsoft account. These free accounts come with some cloud storage:-
- 5GB on Apple’s iCloud – icloud.com
- 15GB on Google Drive – drive.google.com
- 5GB on Microsoft’s OneDrive – onedrive.com
In all cases, more storage is available by paying a monthly or annual subscription:-
- Microsoft bundle more storage with their Microsoft 365 plans – 100GB for £19.99/year with Microsoft 365 Basic, or 1TB for £59.99/year with Microsoft 365 Personal.
- Google offer 100GB for £15.99/year, up to 5TB for £199.99/year (again, with some additional features).
- Apple provide 50GB for £0.79/month (£9.48/year), up to 2TB for £6.99/month (£83.88/year).
These Cloud storage services from the OS makers also provide other functions such as storing photos (e.g. from Apple Photos and Google Photos), backups, syncing files/folders (e.g. using the OneDrive app on a Windows PC).
There are also many independent storage providers such as Dropbox (dropbox.com). Dropbox offers 2GB for free with more available on subscription.
Amazon Prime subscribers get unlimited full-resolution photo storage plus 5GB of video storage.
There are also a number of sites for storing photos such as Flickr (flickr.com) and SumgMug (smugmug.com). (Smugmug, since 20th April 2018, owns Flickr)
In addition to providing storage, these Cloud platforms also allow you to share files or photos with other people by creating a link which you can paste into a message on WhatsApp, Email, etc.
We had a brief discussion about the OneDrive sync/backup function. With the OneDrive app running on a PC, the contents of the OneDrive folder on the PC (C:\users\username\onedrive) is synced with your OneDrive cloud storage. If you choose to sync your Documents folder, for example, this is achieved by changing its location from
C:\users\username\documents to
C:\users\username\onedrive\documents.
This can be confusing if you expect your Documents folder to be in the original location! Bear in mind that you need enough space in your OneDrive cloud to accommodate all the files that you add to the OneDrive folder on your PC.
The question arose of what happens to your online cloud storage after your death. We have previously discussed this at the Club in November 2021 under the heading "Bequeathing Your Data":-
https://computerclub100.blogspot.com/2021/11/
This in turn referred back to the Club on 22nd July 2020 when we talked about Google's inactive account features:-
https://computerclub100.blogspot.com/2020/07/
Podcasts
A podcast is an audio/video (most commonly, just audio) programme which is available as a digital download over the Internet. The name comes from a combination of “iPod” and “broadcast” and dates back to the start of podcasting around 2004 – some years before the iPhone. Now we have many Internet-connected devices which can access podcasts, including Apple and Android smartphones, smart-speakers and smart TVs.
There are smartphone apps that allow you to find and play podcasts. These are sometimes called podcast clients or podcatchers. By subscribing to a podcast on an app (aka following), the next episode will be automatically made available to you and (optionally) a notification will pop up to let you know. This allows you to see all your favourite podcasts in one place. Because you sign in to these podcast apps, you can begin listening to an episode on one device and then continue where you left off on another.
You can listen directly on the smartphone or use (Bluetooth) earbuds, or stream to another device by Bluetooth, Chromecast, etc.
If you are in the Apple eco-system you might use the Apple Podcasts app (formerly iTunes Podcast). This is accessible on Windows via the iTunes app, but not on Android.
Spotify is a cross-platform app, available on Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, Amazon Alexa and most smart TVs.
Pocket Casts is another widely available, free, cross-platform podcatcher.
Amazon Echo has skills available for many popular podcast platforms, including Spotify and Pocket Casts.
Smart TVs will usually have an app for Spotify and possibly other podcatchers.
Some podcatchers (e.g. Spotify) may have exclusive deals with a particular podcast so that it is only available on their platform.
YouTube can also be used. Select the Podcast tab.
Organisations may have apps where they publish their own podcasts, along with others. For example, the BBC Sounds app has podcasts, catch-up episodes and live broadcasts. In general, BBC podcasts, such as Tech Life, are also available across other podcatchers.
You can, of course, use multiple podcatchers, but each one will operate independently, with its own podcast subscriptions.
iPad USB Connector
Linda asked about connecting a USB Type-A device, such as a memory stick to an iPad. Adapters are available on Amazon to convert an Apple Lightning connector to a USB-A or USB-C. If you have a newer iPad with a Type-C connector, you can also get adapters to convert this to Type-A
Email Display Name
We had some discussion about email Display Names. This is the name you set on your email account which will appear as the "From" name on a recipient's email app. Log in online to your email service and you should be able to change this - search for how to do this for your email service.
For Gmail, for example, log into gmail.com and click on the Settings cog, See all settings, Accounts and Import and look for Send mail as. Click on edit info to change this if required.
Next Session
Wed 14th June 2023 at 2pm by Zoom
