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Where we've been: In August we started out on the banks of the Mississippi
river in the Quad Cities by Moline, Illinois. We taught several seminars for the Quad Cities Computer Society. When we left there, we headed east, staying at 2 different Thousand Trails parks on our way to the Jersey Shore where we had a 3 week stay planned to recoup and visit friends. Here is a short (1 minute) video of our
month.
Where we're going:
For September we'll be winding our way back south to Florida. We'll stop to give a seminar in D.C. and Hilton Head. Then in October, we have a scuba trip planned to the Bahamas. Living the RV Dream Gathering: In October we are looking forward to a special rally. October 21-25, in Bradenton, FL. It is hosted by John and Kathy Huggins of the popular RVing podcast: Living the RV Dream. We will give a couple of seminars during the rally, plus we will have 2 days of hands-on smartphone and photo classes afterward. For more info email: ltrvdgathering@yahoo.com. By the way, our pictures, Blogs, Web Albums, maps, and videos are all examples of what we teach. You can learn how to plan, preserve, and share your travels (or your life.) It makes the experience that much more enjoyable to get creative on the computer and share pictures, maps, stories, and movies with friends and
family. Check out our Learning Library of Tutorial Videos. There are plenty of free videos in addition to our members only content to whet your appetite for learning. |
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Coming up in September/October |
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Mapping and Sharing your Travels with Google My Maps |
Heard from a fellow RVer: "We use Google Maps as a way to keep our family informed of our plans for the year. The places we have been are shown in the standard red tear drop marker. The places we are going to are shown as a star. Each location is
numbered so they will know what order we are visiting these locations.
They can click on the marker and get the dates we will be at the campsite and possibly some information about why we are there. They can click on the star and have the physical address, phone number and website of the locations where we are and where we plan to travel. " |
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Read the Article |
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The Future is Upon Us, Meet Alexa |
The Amazon Echo, aka Alexa, is different from Siri or Google Now or even Cortana. It’s a stand-alone device. It’s hands-free and always on, connected to the Internet through your home WiFi. The Echo connects to Amazon’s voice service on the Internet to answer questions, play music, read the news, weather, and sports—all instantly. All
you have to do is ask. It’s hard not to think of it as a “she.” It is about the size of a Pringles can and is designed to sit unobtrusively somewhere in a room and listen for it’s wake word, “Alexa.” With seven microphones, Alexa can hear you from across the room— |
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Read the Article |
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Taming your Facebook News Feed |
Some people say their Facebook has too much on it and others tell me theirs has too little. On the ‘too much’ side, do you wish there weren’t so many ads and other promotional posts in Facebook? And, on the ‘too little’ side, do you wish you could be sure of seeing everything posted by good friends?
What if I told you there was an easy way to accomplish both of those
results in one simple feature? It’s called “Close Friends” and I’ll tell you exactly how to use it |
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Read the Article |
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Listen to RV Radio Shows via Podcasts |
Think of podcasts like Blogs that you can listen to, rather than read. I listen to three personally, and you may know of many more. A podcast is a computer file, usually in the .mp3
format. What I’m talking about in this article is audio only, although podcasts can also include video. Audio podcasts are great to listen to as you’re driving down the road. You can listen to it from your computer, or you can download it to an MP3 player, or even to your smart phone. We use our smartphones and plug the audio into our radio (or use bluetooth) so we hear the sound from the radio speakers. |
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Read the Article |
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August episodes of What Does This Button Do? Smartphone Educational Show |
It’s an educational show about smartphones and tablets. We deliver it live over the web on Sunday afternoons. Every show is about 40 minutes and it is automatically recorded as a Youtube video – so if you miss it live, no problem. All the 'reruns' are listed on our Weekly Show Page. Here’s a listing of our episodes this past month. The Youtube links are free for anyone to watch. If you are a Geeks on Tour member, you can use the Links that include our Show Notes and Links to specific topics in the show. | Episode and Date | Topics | Show Video with Notes for Members | Free on Youtube | #50: 8/30/15 | Focus on Photos, Tip: multitasking while on phone call, App: Fish Predictor. |
| | | #49: 8/23/15 | Cleaning up Contacts2 Tip: Google Search, App: Shuttle | #49 w/Notes and Links | Youtube #49 | | #48: 8/16/15 | Cleaning up Contacts1 Tip: Google Now, App: NPR One | #48 w/Notes and Links | Youtube #48 |
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| That's all for now. We hope you learned something. Your next issue will be next month. Any questions, please visit our forum. If you like this newsletter, please forward it on to your friends! If you received this issue forwarded by a friend you can subscribe to get your own copy delivered to your in box - it's free. You can also visit the archives of past newsletters, Happy Computing!
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Sincerely,
Geeks on Tour
jimandchris@geeksontour.com
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