As we are in lockdown all of our meetings will be online until further notice. I hope you are all keeping safe and well and will be able to join us online. We shall still meet on the third Wednesday of the month at 7:30 p.m. You should receive an email invitation to join in.
We had an online Committee meeting on 25th March and so you will see we have a new programme set out. Since Peter had not really got his accounts software up and running and because no one else is interested in using accounting software this month's topic has changed to the latest release of Ubuntu which Gareth has agreed to present at short notice.
Peter
Gareth will take us through the changes introduced in the latest version of Ubuntu named Focal Fossa, A Fossa is a cat like mammal native to Madagascar. One can be seen at Africa Alive at Kessingland.
We tried out Nextcloud and Google hangups at the last meeting which was just after the lockdown announcement. This was hosted by Gareth who set up the session and sent out email invitations and acted as the moderator. This worked quite well on Nextcloud with six of us participating. Duncan, Michael, Sue,Steve and Peter joining Gareth.
I thought the interface was quite good and allows screen sharing if needed which would be good for presentations. Participants names are added under their images. It could track the speaker too.
The audio and video quality was quite acceptable although there was a reverberation echo on the sound. It was a little tricky setting permissions for camera and mic use in the browser (Firefox in my case).
After about half an hour of discussion we decided to try Google Hangouts instead. This also worked fairly well and had the facility to provide subtitles if needed, which worked somewhat faster than those seen on BBC TV but occasionally mistranslated. I found the quality not quite as good as Nextcloud and also had some difficulty getting my mic to work initially. There is a small icon in the top bar of the browser (Firefox) next to the security padlock which you must click on to access the preferences menu to allow mic access. It needs a paid for account to host several people. Unfortunately we ran into some serious sound problems especially with Michael's access but also affecting Sue. This was rather odd in that as he spoke his voice rose in pitch as the bass was progressively lost until he broke up completely. Counting 1 to 12 was difficult to hear after about 8. It seemed like a buffer problem to me.
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Quite an interesting introduction to multiple user video links.
We'll soon need to plan the next year's meetings at a Committee Meeting so if anyone would like to introduce a topic we would be delighted to accommodate them.
| ICENI Future programme 2019/2020 | ||||
| 2020 | ||||
| April 15th | Ubuntu 20 - 04 Beta Focal Fossa | All | ||
| May 20th | AGM + Cloud Computing | All | ||
| June 17th | Anti-Virus and Context Filters | All | ||
| July 15th | NAS Evening | All | ||
| August 19th | Summer Social Evening (if this is permitted | All | ||
| September 16th | Raspberry Pi and Home Automation | All | ||
| October 21st | Windows and Windows on ARM | All | ||
| November 18th | Slide and Video Evening | All | ||
| December 16th | Gadgets and Party Evening | All | ||
| 2021 | ||||
| January 20th | Winter Social Evening: Suggestions welcome. | All | ||
| February 17th | Family Tree software | All | ||
| March 17th | XML and Json | All | ||
| April 21st | A Retro Evening | All | ||
| May 19th | AGM - and extras | All |
MEETINGS WILL NOW BE HELD ONLINE BUT STILL ON THE THIRD WEDNESDAY UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. FURTHER DETAILS TO FOLLOW.
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 £15, 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 our old newsletters on CD this could be arranged.