GGCS: Linking Tech Users

GGCS Welcomes Linda Siegel, Technology4Life 2 Membership ——

3 Community Room, 6 Research with Lynda.com 300 Drake’s Landing Road in Greenbrae, next to Jason’s Restaurant 7:15 p.m., Mon., March 26, 2017

TECHNOLOGY TIPS FOR MANAGING FAMILY HEALTHCARE

Presenters: Linda Siegel & Babette Bloch 13 Special Interest Groups Technology can help you to be a partner, not just a patient, with 14 Calendar your medical team. 16 Member contact info In this presentation, Linda and Babette will share tools and re- sources to help you manage your own, or your loved ones’ healthcare.

They will cover tips (and pitfalls) of technology that can help you manage chronic and difficult healthcare challenges, such as:

 How can you communicate effectively with your medical team and with the other family/friends providing care and making deci- sions?  What are the key documents to prepare in advance?  Where can you find reliable information online to help?  How can you keep track of (and share) all the information without being overwhelmed?  How can you keep others informed and get help that is truly helpful?  And finally, dealing with healthcare is a life long process, so they will share some software applications to help take your mind off your health! Continued on page 15 GGCS: Linking Tech Users

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GGCS members volunteer to assist other members who have questions regarding software and hardware questions. Whether you are setting up an Internet connection, installing an operating system, or tackling a new project in Microsoft Office, someone in the group likely can help.

Your membership entitles you to an array of products and services, including:

 Access to the current month’s newsletter via email link.  Free classes and SIG meetings.  Discounted hardware and software.

Membership is $48 per year for a family membership. An introduc- tory six-month membership is $30. The full amount of membership is tax deductible under our 501(c)3 non-profit designation. Gift certificates are available.

If you have questions about your membership, e-mail Heinz Scheuenstuhl at [email protected]. All members and non- members are welcome to attend the General Meeting or to attend the many classes and special interest groups (SIGs) offered. Non- members will be asked for a $5 fee to attend the session, amount to be credited toward a membership registration made at that time. To join GGCS, use the form below or email [email protected]. To join or renew, send your check to: Golden Gate Computer Society P.O. Box 151696 San Rafael, CA 94915-1696

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February's General Meeting: Because not all bills are from companies Quicken Update from Eric Dunn, CEO with websites, Quick- en has added Billpay Eric's presentation (see Fig 1 for his agenda) com- Favorites. Billpay will menced with the information on Quicken's business, give you a choice of which has a total of about 300 people, distributed be- how to pay, but for tween the headquarters in Menlo Park, and offices in payments credit cards Tucson, AZ; and Bangalore, India. Intuit is owned by a are not favored. The private Equity Company, HIG Capital. Fig 2 illustrates top 50 billers will have Quicken's product line. When you purchase Quicken, pdf's, which will be you subscribe, like MS Office 365, for a one or two-year shared in the Quicken membership. Most of Quicken's efforts will be toward Cloud, and can be Quicken 2018, with more focus on the reliability of the downloaded. For Windows version, which sometimes crashes, unlike the Bank and credit card Mac version, which is very reliable. Quicken 2018 for download use Web Windows is already 40% more reliable than Quicken Connect. Capital One 2017. is a big problem in this Fig. 1 respect, but it works and is going to be improved in the next two months. All Quicken bank connections are shared with Intuit. Regarding investing, Quicken allows you to compare your account's performance with the Nasdaq, etc. and will allow you to compare a "buy-and-hold" portfolio on your account with a Financial Advisor, with indexes. See Fig. 4. A couple of small enhancements made to Planning. In Report- ing, there have been enhancements, including the ability to export to Excel. Communication with Quicken is now easier, via Quicken Screenshare and Quicken Cloud. Describing and fixing problems is now easier. Bugs are being cleaned out. A lot of effort has been put into Bills, Online Bills and As of now, the 2018 Mac Version 4 is much better, than earli- Billpay. which have been bundled with Premier, total er versions and getting closer to the Windows version. Mac $75/year for both, where, in the past it cost $120/year and Windows versions can synchronize. Keyboard shortcuts standalone. Reports and Budgets have been improved keep YRMH assist in getting to specific reports back in your in response to customer requests. The Online Bills fea- reports history. Category summary reports of transactions are ture is very good at going online to your websites to available in Mac. Mac now has the ability to get online bills. retrieve data from those who are billing you. See Fig 3. Investments now permits lot tracking, as in Windows. The reg- Fig. 2 ister tray "penalty box" in Windows via "C2R" will not be made available in Mac, mainly because new users do not require the holding bin. Mac 2007 is still regarded as a great product. Reports is one area in Mac that still needs some work. Some of the Mac's Investment features, such as the portfolio view, have been improved, however, some of the Win- dows features like Tax Planner and Life- time Planner have yet to be implemented. Quicken is now integrated across desktop, Continued on page 4

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Quicken continued from page 3 associated with an organization as long as there is an email account, then log-in will be as the organization, all part of laptop, mobile device, and the Cloud. See Fig 5. A new Connected Services; but authentication will be required. A mobile App is coming soon, and Budgeting will be coming valid Quicken entitlement/membership permits you to open in a month or two. There is no limit to the number of com- any offline data file at any time. puters that can be used with your Quicken subscription; however, every 90 days or so you will have to verify that Quicken is quite secure, and uses 256-bit AWS (Amazon you own the account. Any Quicken data file can be Web Services) to encrypt data. In the future, Quicken will opened with Quicken 2018, as long as you do not exceed sync all computers on the same account via the Quicken 20 connected accounts. Also, the subscription is tied to an Cloud; at this point, however, you can use Dropbox to back- email address. up and restore files. The Web version of Quicken via Cloud will be available later this year. It is also possible, for $75, to have a Quicken membership To learn more about Quicken, please attend the Quicken Fig. 3 SIG.

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Quicken Review continued from page 4

Fig. 4

Fig. 5

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ID YOU KNOW that the San Rafael of Completion can be posted to LinkedIn. (and county libraries) have pur- chased a pricy subscription to If you try it and like it, please tell as many as you lynda.com that is free for library can—also, for those who like to browse tech D stuff, the library has an e-book link to Safari cardholders? Renewal will depend on whether it is used enough to warrant the cost. (A per- eBooks. sonal subscription with downloadable exercis- es is about $37 monthly.)

You can enjoy learning anything at any time of the day. It’s a simple sign-in. After you log on, (or ask a reference librarian for help) go to Re- search/Learning/Lynda.com and use your library log-on to get into the site and set up an account.

Consider first watching the video “How to Use Lynda.com” (this subscription can be used on computer and iPad but not mobile). Certificates

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#1. Do a Bing search “How to use Windows 10 TIPS app.”

#2 Scroll down until you see the following three choices:

#3 Click any or all to learn about all the new features that have been added to Windows 10 and how to use them. The Windows Tip app icon looks like this:

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MAIL CAN BE SENT IN SEVERAL for- lazy dog. mats the most common being plain text and HTML. HTML stands for HyperText You can see that the HTML format is quite a bit larger E Markup Language. It’s the way web pages than the plain text form. It has to be, to include all that such as this one are encoded to handle things like additional formatting information. bold, italics and even color text red. HTML and Email Plain text is, well, it’s plain. There are reasons and times you might want to use both. Switching’s not hard, if you know where to look. Of course, where you One thing that’s important to know about HTML for- look depends on how you send your email. mat used in email, is that not all email programs know how to interpret it. Almost all do these days, but a few Plain Text and HTML stragglers do not.

In the beginning (so to speak) there was plain text. What does that mean? That means that if you send out Quite literally, plain text is text, and only text, along with a couple of simple representations for things like your email looking like this: end-of-line. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. Plain text has no formatting. Plain text typically is represented as looking very plain. It’s often displayed Some people may see this as your message, or worse, using what’s called a “mono-spaced” font - meaning instead: that each character takes up the same space on the line. Here’s an example: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. HTML started as the way to describe how web pages should look. It includes ways to specify formatting, Quite the mess, right? Extremely difficult to read, colors, positioning, and some amount of layout. As right? In particular, some mailing list services don’t email became more popular, people started wanting handle HTML properly or can be configured to reject it, to make their messages “look” as nice as they felt web pages looked. They wanted that formatting, the abil- which is probably why your mailing list moderator has ity to put in pictures, and the like. asked you not to use it.

Let’s look at our example again, this time in HTML: Choosing HTML or Plain Text

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. Choosing Plain Text or HTML formatting for your email can, in most email programs, be done one of two ways: In this example I’ve:  You can set a default for all email.  Specified a specific type-face or font

 Specified a size for the font  You can change the format of the current message as you compose it.  Indicated that the word “brown” should be bold

 Indicated that the phrase “lazy dog” should be in Exactly how you do this (or if you can, in fact, change italics the default) will vary based on what mail program you’re using. How’d I do that? Here’s what the HTML encoding actually looks like: I’ll show how to do both in Outlook Express as an example. The quick Continued on page 9 brown fox jumps over the March 2018 Page 8 www.ggcs.org

Plain vs HTML continued from page 8 make sure that the format you want, Rich Text (HTML) or Plain Text is selected: To choose which format you want Outlook Express to use by default, click the Tools menu, select Op- The appearance of your message will probably tions, and click on the Send tab in the resulting change, and if switching from HTML to Plain Text, dialog: you may get a warning that you’re about to lose your formatting.

Which should you use? Under Mail Sending Format, select HTML or Plain Text as appropriate. Unless there’s a requirement, like perhaps your mailing list, it really depends. Warning: personal opinion ahead. To change the current format of a message that you are composing, click on the Format menu, and then I really tend to favor plain text email. The focus should be make sure that the format you want, Rich Text on the message, not how “pretty” it looks. Plain text email (HTML) or Plain Text is selected: is smaller, delivers and downloads quicker, and is also much less likely to be erroneously marked as spam. Under Mail Sending Format, select HTML or Plain Text as appropriate. Personally, I don’t really see a need for lots of cutesy images and stationary – to me they just detract from the mes- To change the current format of a message that you sage. In cases where people have images blocked (which is are composing, click on the Format menu, and then the default for many email programs) the message actually

March 2018 Page 9 www.ggcs.org looks worse, as the images are replaced by placehold- -conscious (some would say cheap) and for a long time ers. I felt having a smartphone was not worth the cost— mainly in the cost of the phone plan. When data plans On the other hand, some people do want their email were around $40 a month, and my home broadband to look much richer. You’ll often see a lot of business- internet service was about the same, it made me won- es using HTML email to make their message look der why I had to pay twice; once to have internet ac- more formal, more professional, and often more in cess at home, and again to have it away from home. line with their corporate image. The phones themselves are what I would consider —By Leo Notenboom. This is a minor update to an pricey as well. While none of the computers that I use article originally posted: June 2, 2006. Article 2675 - today (desktop or laptop) cost me more than $500, this price appears to be about the median for smartphones. 2006-06-02 14:22:07; Entire contents Copyright © 2013, Puget Sound Software, LLC and Leo A. While the capabilities of smartphones are impressive, Notenboom and may not be republished without prior the cultural phenomenon of the smartphone is not (at written permission. Puget Sound Software, P.O.Box least to me). I would like to be able to access the inter- 2841, Woodinville, Wash. 98072, USA. net from anywhere, and look with a bit of envy at those searching the web and seeing real-time traffic information while out and about. To scan a product bar code in a store and then search the web for additional information, alternatives and better pricing is powerful.

But I don’t feel a great need to have my emails with me wherever I go, however; I think being able to communicate via text messaging is good. HOUGH I HAVE BUILT many computers over the years, and used and For all the good that smartphones represent, I don’t experimented with lots of technology, like its dark side. Almost everyone has a smartphone, T for the longest time I resisted buying and many can’t seem to put them down. Opioid drugs the one tech item that now seems to be perva- are useful in pain treatment, but when abused, they sive in our society—a smartphone. can be addictive and destructive. I see the same things in smartphones—a great and useful tool that has the I’ve had mobile phones, but only “dumb” cell potential for great abuse. Now maybe great abuse on phones. I’ve had flip phones that could only an individual scale is uncommon, but I worry what place voice calls, and a slide phone that allowed these devices are doing to our society. talking and texting, but until recently I’d resisted getting a phone that accessed the internet. All too often I see families seated in a restaurant, with Now at last I am graduating to a smartphone. the family members devoting their full attention to their own smartphones rather than one another. My I’m not opposed to technology. I am an electrical wife suffers from motion sensitivity and so does the engineer by profession and work for a company driving whenever we travel together; this time lets me designing digital radio systems that may be used to connect cell phone towers to the phone network. I have used computers since before the original IBM PC-XT. I have owned and used all manner of computers, laptops, tablets, Chrome- books, music players, GPS receivers and digital cameras and video recorders. I pay for a mobile phone plan that covers three smartphones (my wife and daughter have iPhones, my son has a Google Nexus), but I’ve never graduated from my dumb phone. Until now.

Many reasons held me back until now. I’m value March 2018 Page 10 www.ggcs.org

Smartphone cont’d from page 10 observe the drivers around us. Half of those drivers are holding their phones while driving, pre- At the same time, I found that phone plans have sumably talking, texting, or worse. Unlike laptop changed, with data included in our current T- computers, smartphones have had traffic deaths Mobile family plan for each of us, whether or not attributed to their use, and laws enacted to pre- we were using it. With extra charges for data over- vent their use in situations like driving, where ages replaced with data throttling when your distractions are dangerous. monthly limit was reached, my concerns over an increasing bill were eliminated. Part of my reluctance to getting a smartphone was my desire to not risk becoming “one of them”: As it turned out, I had been entitled to use over 2 those zombie-like people that can’t put their GB of mobile data all along (and had only been us- phones down. I never want to ignore those I am ing a few MB of data sending photos with my slide with in deference to these little electronic gizmos phone). I had the power to have a smartphone all or risk stepping in front of an oncoming car be- along; all I had to do was click my heels together in cause I’ve tuned out everything but that little de- the T-Mobile store (so to speak). vice in my hand.

Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk are smart guys, and they have both ex- pressed concerns about the potential threat to the human race that artificial intelligence could pose if its development continues. In the same way, I fear we are well on our way to trading away our hu- manity for these addictive little handheld screens.

So what made me change my I looked on Amazon for unlocked mind and submit to the dark side smartphones and found promising of smartphones? Is it similar to the argument candidates in the $120 to $170 price range, but that “it’s not guns that kill people, but people concerns about being able to use these on our plan that kill people”? I do hope I can ignore their si- had me look at the T-Mobile website. The best can- ren song and not use a smartphone in an antiso- didate seemed to be a Samsung Galaxy J3 Prime, cial manner. which could be bought outright for $150.

In the end, several factors conspired to put a Heading with my wife to the T-Mobile store (the smartphone in my hand (unlike my slide phone, it phone account is in her name), I felt like a vegan is too big for my pocket). Though my slide phone heading to In ‘N’ Out for a Double-Double, or a dia- served me well for many years, it has started to betic heading to the candy store. Like the recipient become unreliable. Though its built-in camera is of a mail-order bride, I was filled with both excited poor by current digital camera standards, I found anticipation and apprehension. it handy because it was often with me. I depend- ed on its ability to photograph store product tags Having a smartphone would allow me to do many for items I wanted to research, and send photos of things I had only dreamed of, like answering ques- what I’m doing to my kids. tions myself when out, rather than have to ask my wife to look things up on her phone. I could get apps and do fun things like check on traffic and control lights at home.

Having a smartphone might change me, however. I might become antisocial. I’d have to find a way to

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Smartphone cont’s from page 11 carry this larger object and avoid breaking it or losing it. Would I be satisfied with what I had or The Golden Gate Computer Society meets (General want more? Meeting) on the fourth Monday of every month at the Community Room at 300 Drake’s Landing Road At the T-Mobile store, I could have my contacts in Greenbrae, which is next to Jason’s Restaurant. and my few feeble photos transferred from my No GM is held in December. slide phone to my new smartphone. They took out the 16GB micro SD card from my old phone and Meeting agenda consists of announcements, club put it in my new phone, but I immediately began business, and an open question/answer session dur- plotting to get a much larger SD card for the smartphone. ing which attendees can make announcements or ask for help or opinions, followed by the main I looked at cases for my new phone at the T- presentation and the monthly raffle. Mobile store but they all seemed expensive. I bought a case with belt clip (my initial experiment Before meetings, raffle tickets are distributed to with carrying the phone) for a lot less. I didn’t members, memberships renewed, etc., and the Gen- take out the phone much until I having the case eral Meeting begins promptly at 7:15 p.m., ending since I was concerned about damaging it. This about 9:15 p.m. caution proved to be justified, as I’ve already dropped the smartphone in the parking lot once For best seating and to allow time for new members (but the case protected it). and visitors to register, please plan to arrive early. Non-member fee is $5 unless you join GGCS at the Now I’ve moved into the 21st century, joining the over 3 billion humans who use smartphones. The General Meeting. phones may be smart—let’s hope all the users remain so.

—By Greg Skalka, President, Under the Computer Hood User Group, Calif., July 2017 Drive Light, , GGCS holds Special Interest Group (SIG) meetings [email protected] and classes. The SIGs are listed on page 13. See the calendar on page 14 for SIG meeting days.

Most SIG meetings and classes are held at the GGCS classroom. The GGCS classroom is in San Rafael at 1510 5th Avenue. See www.ggcs.org for a map of directions. Non-member fee is $5.

To find the GGCS classroom, go either to 1510 5th Avenue and walk through the black gate and down the alley to the left of the church, or to 505 Mission Avenue, and then walk down the outside steps and through the black gate.

Street parking is plentiful and a parking lot is at Mission and E avenues. Parking is two-hour me- tered east of E Street and free west of E Street. An- other large parking lot is two blocks east on Mis- sion that is free after 6 p.m.

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Come to Special Interest Groups (SIG) to learn

SEE CALENDAR on page 14 for SIG meeting pants’ own materials. Held at San Rafael Public dates. SIGs meet in the GGCS classroom, un- Library. Meets fourth Tuesday of the month 2 to less otherwise noted. See page 15 for direc- 4 p.m. tions to the GGCS classroom. NOW QUARTERLY: Quicken and Personal Finance SIG: Babette Bloch, 415-388-3864, [email protected]. The Quicken SIG is led by Babette Bloch and Russ Flaum. Meets second Tuesday of March, June, September, and No- vember 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

School Support SIG: John Foote, 415-457- 9645. This group tests, repairs, and reconfig- Digital Camera SIG: Barbara Hansen, 415- ures donated PCs to donate for school class- 332-1720, and Mike Hancock, 415-381-4772. room use Saturdays 10 a.m. This group is for intermediate photographers who wish to learn photographic techniques and advanced features in editing software such as Photoshop, Lightroom, Nik Software, etc. Meets third Wednesday of the month 1:30 to 3:30 p.m.

Internet and More SIG: Karen Stagg, 415- 897-6824.This revitalized SIG helps members Windows X SIG: Ernie Ganas, 415-881-7401, with more than just Internet concerns. Meets [email protected]; John King, 415-472- third Wednesday of the month 7 to 9 p.m. 7035, [email protected]. This two-hour group (part presentation/part Q&A) helps beginners and experts find their way using Windows. KeyNote for iPad Interest Group SIG: Ron Meets second Thursday of the month 1:30 to Matteri, 415-454-0714, [email protected]. 3:30 p.m. at the Microsoft store at The Village in This group helps participants create profes- Corte Madera unless otherwise specified and sional looking presentations of vacation or fam- except July and August. ily photos, hobbies or collections, or other kinds of visuals on an iPad or tablet, using the partici- Start Your Own SIG: E-mail your suggestions to [email protected].

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For an up-to-the-minute calendar, see http://www.ggcs.org/calendar

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From page 1 Babette Bloch is a long-time GGCS member

and SIG Leader. In her other life, she is a Pub- Linda Siegel is a co founder of Technology 4 lic Health Educator, with an MPH from U.C. Life. Technology4Life is a nonprofit project Berkeley. She designed and implemented of MarinLink, a 501(c)3 organization. Found- School Health Education programs. She also ed in 2014 by Nicole Engler and Linda taught Health Education at Dominican Universi- Siegel, Technology4Life's mission is help teach ty. Later she was a Planner/Evaluator and Pro- adults through practi- gram Developer for Marin Community Mental cal, hands-on classes Health Services. and seminars to ena- ble them to understand and utilize technology Since GGCS is a non-profit, all- to remain independent, volunteer organization, all our healthy and connected to their community. events, meetings SIGs, and classes are available only with In addition to classes, the considerable efforts of our Linda and Nicole offer one-on-one consulting and computer support. Linda earned her B.S. in relatively small band of volun- Computer Science at U.C. Berkeley and her teers. Without them, GGCS MBA from Cal’s Haas School of Business. She couldn’t exist. lives in Marin County with her husband, author Sheldon Siegel. The members thank our dedicated volunteers!

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Board, steering, and club committees

The GGCS Steering Committee generally meets on the Committee meets immediately after the Steer- first Wednesday of every month at the classroom (see ing Committee. All telephone numbers below www.ggcs.org for details). All are encouraged to attend are in the 415 area code, unless otherwise noted. and participate in discussions. The Presentations

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