February 2025 News: Map-making, YouTube, Zoom meeting notes, and more ...

Published: Thu, 02/06/25

Updated: Tue, 02/11/25

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Newsletter: February 2025 - Issue 210 - Archives

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What's up with Jim and Chris - the Geeks?

Last month we announced that we will be moving away from S Florida and living on the Residential Cruise Ship called the Villa Vie Odyssey. The map above is where we'll be for the next 3 years, you can click it to go the interactive version. The map was created from the itinerary spreadsheet on the VillaVieResidences.com website. To learn how to make this map, read the article later in this newsletter. To see more about our experience, watch this episode of our YouTube show: Show290. Tech Tips Live from the Villa Vie Odyssey; Fulltime on a Cruise Ship?

Then Episode 292 was all about our decision.

Tutorials: We recorded a few more videos this past month, see our All Videos Page. We also did 2 episodes of our Button Show, and 2 episodes of Fun with Photos. See our Classes page for more.

Community: As always, we enjoyed our Members-only Zoom meetings. In this newsletter we've included the A.I. created meeting notes for one of our Backstage Pass meetings. We're working diligently on more "Top Tips" for members only. The new ones are listed at the bottom of this newsletter.

What's New?

Keep scrolling down and you'll see articles about making maps, using YouTube for family videos, getting A.I. to take your meeting notes, and a video on a quick camera shortcut for Android phones. Also lists of all our new tutorials.

Calendar of Upcoming Events

In Fort Lauderdale with our line-up of Podcasts.

Chris had her knee replacement surgery this month so has a great excuse to take it easy

Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!

Tune in to our YouTube channel every Sunday at 2pm Eastern for your weekly tech lessons. We alternate between our hour-long live show and our 10-15 minute pre-recorded "Fun with Photos." Sometimes, we'll have a special interview.

February 2025

Sundays at 2pm ET
Button Shows on the 2nd and 16th
Fun With Photos on the 9th and 23rd
16th - 3pm ET - Backstage Zoom (After Button Show) for Members Only Link on our Members Page

March 2025

Sundays at 2pm ET
Button Shows on the 2nd and 16th
Fun With Photos on the 9th and 23rd
March 2nd and 16th at 3pm ET - Backstage Zoom (After Button Show) for Members Only Link on our Members Page

Ask the Geeks Q&A Forum

Anyone can read the forum, only members can ask questions. This is a valuable benefit of
membership. Join Today! Here are some recent discussions:

How to post to the Q&A Forum

Visualize your Travels using Google My Maps

I’m a huge fan of Google’s My Maps. It’s free. It’s based on Google Maps, so it has all the information you could ever want, but then you get to personalize it with your own markers. Markers for places you’ve been, markers for places you want to go, and just markers for places you want to remember for whatever reason. Every marker can be customized. You can specify an icon and color for each marker, or group of markers. You can add your own text descriptions, including links. You can even add your own photos on a marker.

We created this map of our cruise ship's 3 year itinerary by importing data from a spreadsheet. Read the article to see how it is done.

YouTube is not just for YouTubers

Do you have home movies? Maybe they’re on old VCR tapes. If you use a service to digitize those, you may want to put them on YouTube so you can share them. I’m not talking about making them public for anyone to watch. You can make them private or ‘unlisted’ so only the people you want are able to see them. Let’s say you use the camera on your smartphone to take video of your daughter’s college graduation. I want you to know how easy it is to upload that video to YouTube so you can share it with the rest of the family who couldn’t be there.

YouTube is a completely free video sharing website. Anyone can watch videos on YouTube. If you want to share videos using YouTube you need a Google account. That’s it.

The A.I. Companion in Zoom will take meeting notes for you.

There is a setting in your Zoom account to turn on the “A.I. Companion” when a meeting starts. Then the A.I. listens to everything that transpires and writes up these notes. It’s pretty amazing. To learn how to do it, see the Zoom support video here.

The following notes are from our members-only zoom call on Feb 2, 2025. I thought it was quite an interesting meeting, lots of interaction and lots of information shared. If you are a premium member and you have never attended one of our “Backstage Pass” meetings, this will give you an idea of what you’re missing! For those who were there, this will remind you what was discussed. I particularly like that the A.I. companion notes always start with “Next Steps” – basically a ToDo list!

If you’ve never joined us, why not? If you’re shy, don’t worry, you’re allowed to keep your camera off and not say anything unless you want to. If you don’t know how to use zoom, you can schedule a private lesson where we’ll show you the basics. See Office Hours on the Member Login page.

Quick! Start your camera with this instant shortcut on Android phones.

Play the video to see how quick and easy it can be to start your camera.

Android Camera Shortcuts: Opening Camera Instantly with a Double Press #geeksontour

Links to Recent Content added to our Website

Tutorial Videos:

Top Tips (for members only)

YouTube Shows:

What Does This Button Do?

Jan 19 2025 Show293. HodgePodge of Tech Tips for Everyone
Jan 5 2025 Show292. We Did It! Villa Vie Odyssey
Dec 22 2024 Show291.Google Photos Updates and Q&A
Dec 15 2024 Show290. Tech Tips Live from the Villa Vie Odyssey; Fulltime on a Cruise Ship?
Dec 1 2024 Show 289. Hodgepodge of Tech Tips for Everyone

Fun with Photos

Jan 26, 2025: Photos34: Highlight Videos with Google Photos
Dec 29, 2024: Photos33. How To Organize Your Photos Like A Pro Using Favorites!

Classes (members only)

Jan 17, 2025 Deerfield Beach Hodgepodge
Jan 7, 2024 Workshop: Do more with Google Photos

Did you learn something?

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