Tech Savvy Projects is now being offered in three groups - with 'Family History Projects' from 1.30 to 3 pm and 'Other Projects' from 3 to 4.30 pm sharing the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays 1.30 to 4.30 timeslot.  The third group, an E-Shed style group involving DIY and other projects requiring a touch of being a 'techy' or 'computer geek', will be held on the 4th Thursday between 1.00 and 2.30 pm preceding the Tech Savvy Talks discussion group.

At the first session we explored the types of projects members would like to pursue and participants were set the task of doing something to begin or further their project before the next class, even if this was something fairly small. 

It's the 4th Tuesday this afternoon and time for the 'Family History Projects' and 'Other Projects' groups to meet - bring along your ideas, think about the photos you would like to use, the documents you have, the programs you already use or would like to use and either have them on hand or ready to consult others about.   Bring along your laptops if you have them - other devices as well.  There will be a spare laptop or two for use if you only have a PC at home as it would be difficult to bring this in.  

Bev 

During today's session we talked about many resources and all went away with the task of completing some tasks related to our project over the coming fortnight. 

​The web is rich in possibilities relating to photobooks - an area of interest to a number of Tech Savvy Projects participants.  We heard that members of the Benalla Camera Club like to use the program Momento for photobooks.   There are many youtube videos related to using Momento - click here to explore them.

​Often scanners and printers have apps for photobooks, calendars etc associated with them  Check these out--they may be just what you need and synch well with your printer. 

​We were inspired to think aboutt how our family history journey might be celebrated using a blog - with Bev demonstrating a 'Lee Devitt Family History 'blog  she has just started to build.   Bev gave us a very brief demonstration  of the 'drag and drop' features and similarity to Word functions of Weebly - more to come later.  Take  a coffee break and check out this video... break it up into chunks if necessary.

We discussed our experiences with Ancestry.com and Bev spoke of using MyHeritage and Scotland's People to complement Ancestry.com.  

John spoke about an app which he uses on his phone - I asked him more about it...

"The family history app is called HEREDIS.  It is free and I have the version for iphone.  However, a quick peek at Google Play shows me that there is an android version that looks even better.  I might have to download the android version.

It accepts gedcom files exported from most family tree programs.  And as I have 2452 persons on my family tree, it does not appear to have an upper limit on persons.  However, if you have altered any of the usual gedcom field names, it will not import your changes.  For example, I changed one of the Mormon information field names to date of ticket of leave.  The change in the field name did not import although the information in the field did.  

You can also use the app to import and view other gedcom files.  Import them and then the program at startup will offer you a choice of family trees that you can view." 

A small group of people interested in more technical matters have expressed interest in working on projects similar to those which involve the ARDUINO mother board.  To demonstrate what having an Arduino based project might involve, we watched this video introduced last year to the Tech Savvy Talks group  by their convenor Les Rodgers.  After you've watched it you might like to check out the Arduino Project Hub which features many projects.  

More to come!