My New BFF – Siri!

Posted on 09 Oct 2014 by Kapiti SeniorNet Inc.

By Dianne Cooper (Tutor)
If you use an iPad3, iPad mini, iPhone 4S or iPod Touch 5G, or any of their successors, you have Siri on board. Siri is a voice assistant feature. Apple Support/About Siri, will provide you with pages about what Siri can be used for, and how to do it. Here’s a brief review of one user’s experience…

Siri allows you to use your voice to command the device, rather than your fingers. Supposedly, Siri understands natural speech. S/he needed some familiarization with my Kiwi accent. I did this by dictating an email (which I never sent), correcting the text manually when s/he got it wrong. Over and over. If you want punctuation in your text, you have to say the word. eg comma. I find the more I use Siri, the fewer mistakes s/he makes.

The main way to access Siri is to simply press and hold the Home button. You’ll hear a couple of quick beeps, and see “What can I help you with?”. If you don’t say anything, you will be presented with a rolling screen of examples of things Siri can do for you. Continue reading →

Federation Newsletter July 2014

Posted on 31 Jul 2014 by Kapiti SeniorNet Inc.

This is the third edition of Gismoe in 2014.

Gizmoe will also be posted on www.seniornet.co.nz from 22nd July.

We have winners!

For the past several months our partner, Vodafone has been running a competition as part of the Scan and Save promotion – Scan your phone bill send it to Vodafone for them to help you save on your overall telecommunications bill. All those who participated automatically went in the draw to win a Samsung Galaxy Ace 3 Smartphone. The winner is Ian Packwood from Auckland. Ian will be presented with his prize later in the month at the Sylvia Park Vodafone store.

In addition Vodafone decided to make another draw, this time from SeniorNet members who recently became a customer of Vodafone. The winner of that draw was Alex Stewart from Dargaville. The Samsung Galaxy Ace 3 Smartphone is on its way to you Alex. Our thanks to Vodafone for being such a generous supporter of SeniorNet.

Continue reading →

To rule the world or not, that is the question

Posted on 07 Jul 2014 by Thor

And quite a question it is. It is a question that Google is now seriously asking itself. Their stated goal of reaching 5 billion people in the world out of the 7 billion people estimated to be the world’s population with their Android operating system may seem farfetched, but perhaps not.
So far Google has reached more than 1 billion users, and Android is the most popular mobile operating system in the World thanks to the many manufacturers using android as the operating system in their products.

Google software is what is called open source, which means that developers are free to develop the software further, using the original Google designed Android platform. This is the case for all open source type software as e.g. LibreOffice, an office suite of programmes, or Linux, a computer operating system, and for Google it has been successful with approx. 80% of the all smartphones made and sold running on an Android operating system.

Continue reading →

G’bye Windows ~ Hello Mac OS!

Posted on 23 Mar 2014 by boutiquelife

Concluding the truthful tale of a father (he, his and him) and son’s (I, me and mine) potential computing reconciliation after a dozen years’ difference of opinion including a decade-long back-story featuring epic arguments, heated disagreements, occasional truce, rare admissions, and 11th hour, last-minute cold-feet – where any and all personal detail shall remain permanently private. A mix of fact and indeed personal opinion (mine). An informal (hard-)case study – in (two) pieces.

Windows to Mac ☛ Read the 'G'bye Windows ~ Hello Mac OS!' post

“Herein a life-long Windows user changes his (computing) position.”
The title and intro may be described as overly optimistic by some esteemed readers. As a hybrid outcome is able to be seen as the prevailing situation, for now. Do appreciate the intention remains Apple clear and while the current update is mixed, the imagined, eventual and final, outcome is an Apple only computing future. And so shall we see . . .

And so it came to pass. But was it good?

In the beginning the word came from above, and it was good: Going Mac ~ Goodbye Windows? for those among you who would like to refresh themselves, or start afresh.

Finally, Apple refreshed their iMac ☛ offerings. His patience was sorely tested awaiting eventual availability (about one and a half years since the previous iMac hardware update) and then, at last (about another two months) for local delivery.

More about Apple ☛ iMac computers.

Yes, this concluding update is, long, overdue (about two years since the original story ~ Going Mac ~ Goodbye Windows?). And about one year since he accepted delivery of his brand new Apple iMac.Thank you for your patience. And so we begin . . to get happy 🙂

AND SO IT BEGAN . . Continue reading →

Want a wearable computer? Can’t live without one?

Posted on 19 Oct 2013 by Thor

Wearable technology – the next or almost here future technology is expected shortly to be pushed as the must-have device for staying in touch, and if you read the posting “the smart-watches are coming” you may already have decided that if it was good enough for Dick Tracy it is good enough for you too.