U3A Computer Group Newsletter #2- June 2016
In This Issue:
1. General Notes
−Privacy versus Paranoia
2. General Tablet and Phone Notes
−Geo-fencing
−Differences in Android implementations
−Sharing - what it means and what it does
3. iPads and iPhones
−Moving, Deleting and Grouping Apps
−Sharing
−Bookmarking
−Memory Space and Efficiency
4. Android Tablets and Phones
−Moving, Deleting and Grouping Apps
−Sharing
−Bookmarking
−Memory Space and Efficiency
5. Microsoft Windows
−Windows 10 Privacy Settings
1. General Notes
Privacy versus Paranoia
The amount of personal information out there about each of us is tremendous and held electronically across many systems. As the saying goes, "information is power" and the reason why organisations like Google, Facebook, etc. are willing to pay a fortune to maintain vast systems keeping this information.This data has a commercial value in many different ways, from general analysing of trends to personal tailoring of adverts, etc. especially if the details can be linked to locations and where the user is currently.
Microsoft has been aggressively pushing its free update to its Windows 10 operating system. This may be because in the coming 2 or 3 years it will save money by no longer supporting the earlier versions. However Windows 10 has a number of settings spread throughout it that allow various aspects of a user's information to be gathered. (See details of what some of these are and how to switch permissions off in the Windows section of this newsletter).
Hopefully the organisations that hold any of your personal details, especially financial ones, are secure from unauthorised access but as recent events have shown this has not always been the case.
One of the current security risks is identity fraud, where someone gathers sufficient information about you to convince another organisation that they are you. This is usually to obtain money by taking out a loan, or a credit card in your name or withdrawing money from your bank account. It is therefore important that people are frugal with what information they make available.
In recent years there has been a great increase in the number of telephone calls trying to sell "investments" or gather information about you. Some are easily identifiable by their heavy foreign accents, mispronuciation of your name or by the withholding of their phone number.
Now it is the turn of emails to be used to do this. Termed "phishing", they try to get you to part with information, click on a link to a website or to activate some piece of malware on you system. Initially many were obvious by their bad spelling, awkward phrasing or from unknown sources and the email could simply be deleted. But now they are becoming more sophisticated, even using the correct English!
These emails are now becoming more believable by being personalised; addressing you by your first name and seeming to be sent from some company or someone you know. This can occur if that person's email system has been hacked and their contact details obtained. Never include any financial or personal information when automatically replying, it may not go to the person intended. If these details are requested, ask yourself why they require it and why they do not already have that information. If necessary, pass the information by a different means or certainly by writing a fresh email to a correctly entered email address and not automatically replying.
A latest twist has been for hackers to gain access to a business's systems and watch for when goods or services have been delivered. They then send an appropriate invoice to the recipient with all the correct details except requesting the payment to be made to a false bank account.
Should we all become paranoid and reclusive? Like any aspect of life, it is better to be worldly-wise (or is it now termed “Streetwise”) and take a more cautious, sensible approach.
2. Tablets and Phones
Geo-fencing
Geo-fencing is where a program / app defines an area or boundary and then uses your current location by GPS or radio frequency identification (RFID) to trigger an action when you cross in or out of this area.
The technology has practical uses in many different areas. For marketing purposes it could be that when someone with a particular mobile app on their smartphone/tablet crosses a defined boundary around a cafe, an email is sent to them with today’s menu special or a voucher to entice them in, especially if they have previously used that cafe.
All this may be useful to the smartphone/tablet user, but it relies on the user’s current position being continually known and the action taken may be to record or inform a third party, not the user. This way a picture is built of of the users habits This facility exists in many programs/apps without the user necessarily being aware of it and although it may provide benefits to the user, there is a trade off between this and privacy.
The ability to switch off location tracking totally, or to view which programs/apps use this and block them individually, differs between devices. Search through your smartphone/tablet’s Settings to find this, usually under sections labelled Location or Privacy.
Differences in Android implementations
Apple’s operating system (iOS) is designed for use on their own products (iPads and iPhones) and so it appears similar across these devices, using the same symbols, etc.
Google’s Android system however is adopted by many different manufacturers each having slight variations / implementations. One common difference is when offering options. Where one manufacturer uses the 3 vertical dots symbol (referred to as either the Options or Overflow symbol ) another uses the Menu symbol (3 horizontal lines).
This sometimes makes it difficult to give exact instructions on how to achieve a specific task. The user therefore needs to treat any instructions as guidelines and on occasions be willing to experiment until the correct way is identified.
Sharing - what it means and what it does
Unlike the PC systems where all the data is kept together and different programs can access it, each Android or iOS App retains its own data separately.
All smartphones/tablets have the concept of Sharing in some form or another. This is where details from one App can be shared with (or passed a copy to) another. This may be sharing (sending) a document to a printer or passing a copy of a photo from the camera App to the email App ready to send to someone.
The options available depend on which Apps can “talk” to each other. So when the sharing option is selected, the list of Apps that the details can be shared with will differ depending on the App running. (see sections below for how to share on the Android and iOS systems).
Memory Sizes
Note that when indicating the space used or available on smartphone/tablets, the space used by Apps is usually shown in megabytes (Mbytes), 1 million bytes, whereas the total space for the device will probably be displayed in gigabytes (Gbytes) i.e. 1,000 Mbytes.
3. iPads and iPhones
Moving, Deleting and Grouping Apps
The App icons are displayed on one or more screens and you can move from one screen to another by swiping left or right on a screen. At the bottom of the screen there is the Dock, a bar with room for six icons (less on iPhones). These remain visible whichever of these screens are visible.
You can rearrange where icons appear on a screen and even which screen they appear on by tapping and holding any icon until all icons begin to jiggle. Then tap and slide any icons to their required positions on the page. Other icons will rearrange themselves accordingly.
Icons can be moved on to the Dock, providing there is space, or off again in a similar manner.
If you slide an icon off the right or left edge of the screen, then it can be moved for positioning on to that next screen. However the changeover of screen can be a little awkward, so if you have room on the Dock, temporarily park the icon there, then swipe to the screen required and move the icon from the Dock to the required position.
Notice that when the icons are jiggling, each has a, “X” in the top left. Pressing this will delete the App from your device. Although Apps have been deleted, they still appear in the Purchased section when you visit the App Store but with a cloud symbol against them. From here, they can easily be re-instated free of charge even if they were originally paid for Apps.
Moving the icons around allows you to reorganise / group your Apps on different pages e.g. the most frequently used ones on the first main page and the least used ones on the last page. However there is a another way of grouping these.
If you move one jiggling icon over the top of another, it will form a group and assign it a name. This can be change by deleting the name (press the “X” in the right hand corner) and entering a new one. Note that there is a limited length of name that can be displayed but it can be changed at any time when the icons are jiggling.
Further icons can be moved on to these groups or the icons rearranged within a group. Icons can be moved out of a group on to a screen or into another group but when there is only one icon left in a group, the grouping is dissolved and that icon appears on the screen on its own.
Groups jiggle at the same time as the App icons and can be moved / arrange in the same way, including placing on the Dock.
Press the Home button to stop all icons jiggling.
To run an App in a Group, first tap the Group and then the App required. To exit the Group, just tap on the home screen outside the Group.
Sharing
When browsing the web or in an App, if there is a “Share” symbol (a Square with an upward arrow) in the top right of the screen then selecting this provides a number of options to pass information for processing to another App or facility.
The options available depend on which other Apps on the device can accept data from the current App. For a document, options could include passing it as an attachment to an email or to a printer, etc. For a website, it could be to print the web page, bookmark the page or pass the website address to someone via an email.
Take a look to see the options in different situations. You can always tap somewhere on the original App to cancel the options offered.
Bookmarking
When browsing the internet, you may find a web page that you would like to return to regularly e.g. The Cottingham U3A Computer Group page! There are two ways to achieve this, both use the “sharing” option as describe above i.e. by tapping the icon at the top right of the screen that has a square box with an upward arrow. Either:
Select Add Bookmark and accept or change the description by which you want to refer to the website, then tap Save.
Whenever you want to return to that website, tap the book icon at the left of the Safari address bar and again when the same icon appears below. Tap All if this appears below the Book icon.
Clicking on the book icon against an entry, takes you to the website required.
Alternatively bookmarks can be grouped together within folders such as Bookmarklets or Favourites. Click one of these to see the bookmarks within.
To delete a bookmark, tap and swipe left. It only deletes when you lift your finger off!
Note that the group named History displays all the websites you have visited, in reverse chronological order. Tap All (below the Book icon) to return to the list of bookmarks.
Or select Add to Home Screen and change the description to be much shorter (say 12 to 15 characters). Pressing Save will then place an icon on one of the home screens that looks like any App. Tapping this icon will immediately open the Safari browser and display the website indicated.
These icons can be arranged and grouped in a similar manner to any App icon.
Tip: When setting a name for the bookmark, starting it with a colon (say) will allow you to distinguish these bookmarks from normal Apps on the home screens.
Memory Space and Efficiency
The space available on iPads and iPhones are usually limited to 16Gbytes unless you have the more expensive versions with extra memory. Of this 16Gbyte memory approx 2 Gbytes can be used by the operating system, leaving the remainder to hold the Apps (software) and the data, and this can quickly fill up.
Lack of space can decrease the efficiency and speed of your device. To check current usage:
Select Settings General Storage & iCloud UsageManage Storage
This should tell you the total free storage remaining, hopefully greater than 1 Gbyte
After a few seconds it will also display below a list of all your Apps together with the size (including any data usage) in reverse sequence of size i.e. the largest user first.
To delete any App that you no longer require, tap it and select the Delete option.
To get back without deleting, tap Storage at the top left
Tap Storage & iCloud Usage at the top left to return to the main settings menu.
When running, an App will use part of the memory as workspace and afterwards this may not always be released for others Apps to use, clogging up and slowing the system. This also applies when accessing the web as your browser (Safari, Chrome, etc.) will cache data from recent websites visited to speed up access should you want to re-access that site.
If your system seems to be slowing down or the available space is getting low (see above):
Press and hold down the sleep button (on the outside edge on the opposite end to the Home button) until the “Slide to Power Off” is displayed
Then press and hold the Home button until the Home screen re-appears.
This clears / releases some of the cached space, hopefully making the system more efficient / faster.
4. Android Tablets and Phones
Moving, Deleting and Grouping Apps
The App Icons are displayed on one or more screens and you can move from one screen to another by swiping left or right.
The icons on a screen can be re-arranged and even be moved to appear on a different screen. To do this press and hold an icon, then slide the icon to its required positions on the screen or off the screen left or right on to other screens.
Icons can also be moved into the Favourite Tray, providing there is space, or out again in a similar manner.
To add Apps to a screen, tap the All Apps button (2 rows of 3 dots within a circle), tap and hold the required App until the Home screens appear in the back ground, then position and drop it on to the screen required.
To remove an App from a Home screen, tap and hold the required App until the word Remove appears, then slide and drop it on to the word Remove. This does not delete the App, just removes it from that screen.
To delete an App from the device, open the Settings app and select Applications or Apps (and then Applications Manager if necessary) until a list of all the Apps on the device are shown. Tap on the App that you no longer need, and then on the Uninstall option.
Note that some Apps that came pre-installed cannot be deleted!
Moving the icons around allows you to reorganise / group your Apps on different pages e.g. the most frequently used ones on the first / main page and the least used ones on the last page. However there is a another way of grouping these, using folders.
Tap and hold an icon, then slide over the top of another until a folder forms around them. To rename the folder, tap it, then tap the folder name and enter the new name.
To run an App in the folder, first tap the folder to display the content of Apps and then tap the App required. To exit the folder, just tap on the home screen outside the folder.
Sharing
When browsing the web or in an App, if the Overflow symbol (3 vertical dots) is present in the top right hand corner, then tapping this displays further options such as passing the details to facebook or to a printer.
Where there is a Share option, tapping this presents a list of available Apps that the data can be passed to. For a document this could include passing it as an attachment to an email, or for a website, it could be to pass the website address to someone via an email or to recommend it on Twitter.
Take a look to see the options in different situations. You can always tap somewhere on the original App to cancel the options offered.
Bookmarking
When browsing the internet, you may find a web page that you would like to return to regularly e.g. The Cottingham U3A Computer Group page! To achieve this tap the Star or Ribbon symbol in the address bar. If not there, check the Menu (3 horizontal bars) or the Options/Overflow symbol (3 vertical dots) located on the top right of the screen and press the star symbol or look for an option like Add Bookmark.