MODERN DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY
Tablets – Android;
Understand what the screen is telling you
Learn about other features you can use tablets for, for example:
e-reader; digital books from Kindly or Mackay Regional Libraries; online books and magazines.
Listen to music or watch videos, including TV and News
Games: getting and playing
Finding your way around.
Mobile Phones
Learn how to:
Understand what the screen is telling you.
Create, send and receive SMS (Text) messages.
Create and use contacts (your personal telephone directory)
Also learn about other features build into phones:
Calculator, Calendar Camera, Clock(Alarm) Music Player. FM Radio.
If you wish to join any of these Classes would you please contact Rob Lucas 0749575558 or robluckier@icloud.com
Cost $8 + Gold coin extra for use of the NBN
This class will commence on Wednesday 12th February
Follow up on talk on cyber security by Senior Constable Steve Smith on 24 Feb 2020.
I wish to thank Steve for his very interesting talk. Those of you who have attended one of my courses in technology will recognise much of what Steve had to say. What I say here I hope will further clarify the main issues he raised.
The main themes
The talk seemed to be divided up into themes of scams, online security and best ways of protecting yourself.
Scams
These can come at you in various ways from cold (meaning you did not initiate a query on whatever the caller is trying to convince you to buy or give them information) calls on your telephone, emails and social media. To me the main idea Steve was trying to give us was use common sense.
An analogy in the social media word would be not to post on Facebook the fact that you are going on holidays. You would not take out an ad in the Daily Mercury telling all the readers that your house will be empty for a while, so why do it online; where the readership is in the millions rather than hundreds?
Online Security
The Internet has become a very useful place to do a lot of our interactions with family members who may live far away and with businesses. Naturally businesses, in the interests of saving money actively encourage us to communicate with them online.
As you remember in the old days we used to write letters to family and friends who are far away; these days called snail mail. Now we can use emails; the modern equivalent of snail mail. Both are communications directly between people you know and care about. That is much more secure than broadcasting to the world via social media.
A very important aspect of online security is the username that appears online associated with each identity. With the prevalence of identity scams these days, common sense suggests we never use our real name as part of our online ID – sure when we set up an online ID (an email address for example) we have to tell the provider of that service our real name, but they do not normally broadcast that online. So instead of using John_Doe@gamil.com use dullJackaroo@gmail.com for example.
Passwords these days must be at least 8 characters long or the password checker will not accept it. Also there must be at least one lower case character, one UPPER case character, one number and preferably a symbol the one at the top of the keys on the number row on the computer keyboard (note the @ symbol is one you can’t use).
With the evolution in technology many sites want you to use passphrases; a group of unrelated words joined together, for example “theraininspain”.
Modern mobile phones and tablets use human biometrics to log you in; either fingerprint or face recognition.
Finally it is important NOT to use the same password across different identities or websites. Not all sites or providers apply the same level of security to their site, meaning it is easier for them to be hacked. If a hacker gets your details from a week site and you have the same on a strong site (the Commonwealth Bank for instance) then you are vulnerable.
A way to help us remember all the different passwords is to use a password manager. This is an app that keeps safe all the different passwords and applies them to the correct website by you only having to remember one password to access the app. In the Apple world they have a building one called keychain.
Rob Lucas
If you would like to join any of the abovementioned Groups or would like to speak to someone about it please send us a message on our contact page