The Computer Group

Leader:  John Howlett - computer@ashbyu3a.co.uk - phone 01530 461774

Helpline: help.computer@ashbyu3a.co.uk

The Computer Group meets twice a month on the first Wednesday and third Monday of the month at 2pm.

We are not all computer geeks, but between us we know something about most types of computer whether it is Windows, Apple Mac, iPad or Android.

We also discuss how to look after the files, music or photos on your computer, how to make backups or how to copy them to DVD or all sorts of "interesting" problems. One thing we can't do is undertake hardware repairs, but we might know someone who can!

So if there is something you don't understand about your computer, from the simplest to the more esoteric, come along and we'll see if we can help.

OR

Email our Computer Helpline with any problems or questions. We can email you back, or better still, you can come along to the next meeting and someone may have worked out your problem and be able to talk you through it.

Send us details of your problem to help.computer@ashbyu3a.co.uk

20th October

We had five today, but with no computer problems to sort. So we discussed many things computer related.

Mike showed us three generations of computer storage devices, ranging from a 3.5-inch hard drive down to a modern solid-state chip. Despite the differences in size, they can all hold the same amount of information but the small chip stores it and reads it back many times faster than the older hard drives. Incidentally hard disk drives (HDDs) are so called because the earlier disks that you put in to the PC were called floppy disks and the new solid state drives (SSDs) don’t actually drive anything or anywhere!

We also talked about:

Browsers and how they are different from search engines. (browsers such as MS Edge or Chrome are used to access other websites such as www.ashbyu3a.co.uk, and search engines such as Bing or Google are how you search for those websites and any other info you are looking for);

The terminology used by professionals and how it differs from that familiar to most non-professionals ‘Rip’ and ‘burn’ as opposed to ‘copy from’ and copy to’, and so forth;

How computers have changed from specialist room-sized machines to things you can put in your pocket and make phone calls on;

and different ways of paying by computer or phone. The latter raised the question of what those who are not really tech-savvy will do when/if cash, cards or coins are no longer accepted.

We meet again on November 5th