This is a change to our previously published programme and following the Committee meeting on 28th March we have moved the AGM to June 20th this year.
At our next meeting we'll take a look at the upcoming Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Long Term Support) release which will be released the week after our meeting, on April 26th, and will be supported for 5 years.
We'll take a look at new features since the last LTS in April 2016 and the last 17.10 development release last October, both for the desktop and under the hood.
Gareth
There was some discussion with Peter about USB 3 and Thunderbolt as he often had problems trying to use Time Machine with USB connections and messages complaining of ejected the drives when he had not touched it. Obviously the electrical connection is not good enough and he wondered if Thunderbolt would be better.
Michael began by a live demonstration his Smart Home CCTV system which enables him to record any visitors coming onto his property. These systems are of high quality these days so make it much easier for police to identify intruders.
For backup systems he likes to use Syncback Free V8.5.33.0 available from
https:/www.2brightsparks.com/freeware/index.html (There is a pro version too) for Windows in which you can specify the source and destination for your backup which may be a network share or external drive. You can either sync or just backup. You can schedule the processes. It has a comprehensive log. You can set al sorts of criteria like file size or dates when tailoring which files to sync and how often it syncs. It will tell you how many changes have been made to your system since the last sync. It is very easy to set up with a wizard. Although strictly not a backup program it can be used for this. It gives you an estimated completion time as it goes. It has a friendly GUI interface.
It also has the advantage of not having any embedded ads unlike a lot of free software as the hope you'll buy the Pro version. Lite version $20, for Pro version $55 and SE version $ 40. There are Linux and MacOS versions too. The differences between versions include encryption, FTP features, compression etc. See website.
Veeam Agent is another backup utility which has been spoken about before. The CrashPlan program has now become Pro only.
Gareth showed his NAS microsurfer and his outdoor camera for CCTV powered by POE ( Power over internet). from UniFi. His camera could be used in various positions so he might need to buy another one as well (£100).
see https://video.ubnt.com. It comes with various mounts. Ubiquiti software run WiFi networks worldwide. It will show a map of the location of your camera in your house. This is UniFi Video. The camera can record constantly or on motion detection with recording of a few seconds before the event. The camera output can be viewed on a mobile as well with the mobile app. Can set alerts and it will tell you if it goes off-line. Data can be sent to the cloud.
Annoyingly the software is Java but they use libraries which only work for x86. Camera password is given to the Controller this helps if you have several cameras. The camera can deliver streaming. You can set zones with different sensitivity levels so maybe the road would be a dead zone and not trigger the camera. There are several types of camera available some designed for outdoor use, but some others are very small and can be positioned under eaves etc. so are weather protected and they have WiFi rather than needing an ethernet connection, although you need to get power to them. They can include IR illumination. Not all are available in UK yet.
Peter spoke about Acronis True Image 2018 software which he uses although it is not a version. It will schedule backups and also make an ISO image of your complete drive to enable a complete recovery. There are also various other utilities included for defragging, compression and encryption etc. Backups can be made to local or network drives as before. There is a choice of full, or incremental or differential. The strength of a backup system is in the ability to restore which is always an issue; this program has a "Verify" which should give confidence in the validity of the backup. Once running it can be minimised and will carry on in the background. Peter had trouble accessing the help system and it appeared that the file associations were wrong. Paul managed to sort this out as the link was wrong.
Quite a varied evening with some interesting new developments on the CCTV front.
Peter
Future Programme
At the Committee meeting held recently we decided on the following list of future events, but as always, if someone else would like us to introduce some other topics we would delighted to accommodate them.
| ICENI Future programme 2018/2019 | ||
| 2018 | ||
| April 18th | Ubuntu 18.04 LTS | Gareth |
| May 16th | Windows 10 Update | Michael et al |
| June 20th | AGM plus | All |
| July 28th | DigiKam and other Photo database software. | All |
| August 15th | Summer Social Evening - Treble Tile, Compasses Holbrook or Sun Dedham otherwise TBA |
All |
| September 19th | Programming languages | All |
| October 17th | Robotics and Augmented Reality | All |
| November 21st | Slide/Video Evening | All |
| December 19th | Gadgets and Party Evening | All |
| 2019 | ||
| January 16th | Winter Social Evening - TBA | All |
| February 20th | NAS + RAID + storage solutions | All |
| March 20th | New Devices and hardware SSD | All |
| April 17th | Mac Evening | All |
| May 15th | AGM - Computer Surgery | All |
The Social evenings dates and venues are just suggestions at this stage.
Our meetings are held at the Bourne Vale Social Club, Halifax Road, Ipswich IP2 8RE , for a map and other details please see the website.
http://icenicomputerclub.org.uk
Membership fee currently £12, visitors free.
"ICENI does not have any Insurance cover for computers or other equipment so please be advised that you bring machines to the club at your own risk."
However many household insurance policies will include cover away from home often with no increase in premium. (Ed.)
Our website URL is
http://icenicomputerclub.org.uk
Email to: iceni@woolridge.org.uk
I am open to suggestions on what people would like to have included in the website. If anyone would like a copy of the CD of our old newsletters this could be arranged.