Lisa Du & Brad Donnini
Lisa and Brad offered a number of tips to show the power of, often untapped, applications to modern life:
The Cloud
The Cloud is simply a place to safely store your electronic data where it will not be lost, which can happen if the current device on which it is stolen (eg. laptop or iPad) is stolen. It provides one central location for all the information relevant to an organisation, such as a Rotary Club. It also enables two people to work on a document concurrently, on their own computers.
For example ‘OneDrive’ is a Microsoft application for this process that allows you to keep all your files and photos in the one location and access and share them from your phone, tablet and computer. The first 15GB of storage is provided free. This could be very useful if you are overseas, and you run out of space storing back-up versions of your photos on your iPad, for example.
Doodle.com
This is a scheduling tool that allows you to quickly find the best time for a number of people for a meeting, by listing alternative times and dates, and offering the participants to tick their preferences.
Storing the image on the screen of your phone or tablet
By clicking on the Home Button and On/Off buttons simultaneously you can record a picture of whatever was on your screen at the time. This picture is stored in the Photos app. This allows quick retrieval of things like tickets booked or bar codes for things such as boarding passes for flights.
Flightradar24.com
This website shows all commercial aircraft in the skies at any one time, and allows a particular flight to be interrogated by entering the flight number. It shows the plane’s position on the ground, it’s type, altitude, speed. latitude and longitude, departure time and estimated time of arrival, as distinct from scheduled time. It is very useful for monitoring the arrival time of family and friends who need to be picked up at the airport.
Siri
Siri is an intelligent personal assistant that helps you get things done just by asking. It allows you to use your voice to send messages, schedule meetings, place phone calls, type Emails and text messages and more. Siri isn't like traditional voice-recognition software that requires you to remember keywords and speak specific commands. Siri understands your natural speech, and it asks you questions if it needs more information to complete a task.
Siri is available on iPhone 4s or later; iPad (3rd generation or later); iPad mini and iPod touch (5th generation or later).
Hold down the Home button until you hear two quick beeps and see "What can I help you with?" on the screen. Just start speaking. Or, you can press and hold the Home button and release it when you've finished speaking.
If you do not have an Apple device you can use sound recognition software by enabling “OK Google’ on Google Chrome on your computer. To turn "Ok Google" on or off, Open Google Chrome, in the top right corner, click the Chrome menu and choose Settings. In the "Search" section, check Enable "Ok Google" to start a voice search. To turn Ok Google off, uncheck this box.
A brief discussion was held about the possibility for a professional development workshop for members, and other groups in the Carlton area.