52 The Lawns, Home of Hackney Silver Surfers.

Agewell in Hackney logo.

Agewell Computer Club, 8 March, 2.30 - 5 pm.

This is huge, so we are not going to attempt to cover all of it. However, here are some of the topics we are ready for …

• Downloading and installing a media or audio player on your own computer at home. We like iTunes for organising music files, and VLC as a general-purpose media player (it’s the default at the Agewell Computer Club).
• Understanding MP3 files (most digital music files are MP3 format).
• Where to find music to download.
• Legal and copyright issues.

Cartoon frog plays guitar.

Please bring your own questions to the workshop.

ACC members can reserve places on these workshops by sending an email to acc@lawns.org.uk (if you don’t trust your own email skills, please ask for help).

Note added 2 March: this workshop seems to be almost fully booked — perhaps one or two places available.

If you want to get started now, try the About.com Digital Music pages.

Other Agewell workshops.

There is more information about future workshops on our Agewell Computer Club workshops page.

See our main Agewell Computer Club page for more information about our Monday afternoon activities.

'Applying for a job' clip art.

Are you an unemployed older person trying to get back into work?

We have arranged another series of workshops – starting Wednesday 10 March – for older people (50+) who are either

• Currently unemployed, and actively looking (or at least hoping) for work or training opportunities.
• In employment, but worried about your prospects in the near future.

The tutor will be Crystal Butler from the Hackney Learning Trust. The venue will be 52 The Lawns. Here are the workshop dates, times and topics …

• Wednesday 10 March, 3 to 5 pm. Making your CV employer-friendly.
• Thursday 18 March, 10.30 am to 12.30 pm. Online applications.
• Tuesday 23 March, 3 to 5 pm. Online course and education information.

For more information, or to apply for a workshop place, please contact Sadia Hussain …

• Phone: 020 7254 2183 .
• Email: SadiaHussain@ageconcernhackney.org.uk .

Agewell in Hackney logo.

Agewell Computer Club, 1 March, 2.30 - 5 pm.

At this workshop we will look at some of the things you might want to do after you have taken your digital photographs. This will not be a workshop about how to use your camera, or about photographic techniques.

Here are some questions we anticipate …

• How to transfer digital photographs from a camera to a computer hard disk or to a flash drive.
• How to see what the photographs look like.
• How to manage and organise thousands of digital photographs.
• How to backup and preserve important photographs.
• How to convert photographs to a format and size suitable for email and web sites.

Cartoon frog points a camera at you.

Please bring your own questions to the workshop.

ACC members can reserve places on these workshops by sending an email to acc@lawns.org.uk (if you don’t trust your own email skills, please ask for help).

Note added 23 February: this workshop seems to be almost fully booked — perhaps one or two places available.

Other Agewell workshops.

There is more information about future workshops on our Agewell Computer Club workshops page.

See our main Agewell Computer Club page for more information about our Monday afternoon activities.

Agewell in Hackney logo.

Agewell Computer Club, 22 February, 2.30 - 5 pm.

At this workshop we will demonstrate a USB turntable that creates MP3 versions of vinyl tracks. Conventional turntables send a signal to speakers through an amplifier. This turntable sends the signal to computer software, which converts it to a computer music file.

MP3, by the way, is a very common way of encoding music and other sound files.

The USB turntable must (of course) be attached to a computer, so that the MP3 files can be saved on the hard disk. The default storage location is within an iTunes folder — if it exists (it’s not essential).

Cartoon frog with stack of old vinyl disks.

Please bring your own questions to the workshop. Bring some vinyl too — but the vinyl must be clean.

ACC members can reserve places on these workshops by asking Rick directly, or by sending an email to acc@lawns.org.uk (if you don’t trust your own email skills, please ask for help).

Other Agewell workshops.

There is more information about future workshops on our Agewell Computer Club workshops page.

Agewell in Hackney logo.

Agewell Computer Club, 15 February, 2.30 - 5 pm.

At this workshop we will try to …

• Make sure we all know what email actually is.
• Think about the importance of email in the world we live in now.
• Look at how Agewell Computer Club members use email to keep in close touch with all their family and friends, wherever they live.
• Show you how to read, send and reply to email messages.
• Show you how to save ‘attachments’ that have been sent to you.
• Show you how to send attachments to your own emails.
• Show you how to manage ‘address books’ and contact lists.

Cartoon frog with laptop displaying the '@' character.

Please bring your own questions to the workshop.

ACC members can reserve places on these workshops by asking Rick directly, or by sending an email to acc@lawns.org.uk (if you don’t trust your own email skills, please ask for help).

We will be demonstrating email with the seniors.org.uk email package that most new Hackney Silver Surfers learn with. People with email addresses at gmail.com, googlemail.com, or bold.org.uk will be OK. Others should definitely try to reserve a place, as we have to create a seniors.org.uk address for you in advance of the workshop.

Other Agewell workshops.

There is more information about future workshops on our Agewell Computer Club workshops page.

Agewell in Hackney logo.

Agewell Computer Club, 8 February, 2.30 - 5 pm.

At this workshop, we will show you how to use Irfanview — the default image editor and viewer at the Agewell Computer Club (that means it is on all our computers, and easy to find if you are logged in as ‘agewell’).

About Irfanview …

• It’s free (for personal and educational use), highly-regarded, has been around for years, and has a large user base.
• It’s used for viewing digital images, and performing basic image editing tasks such as cropping, rotating and resizing — all of which it does very well.
• You can download it and install it on your own computer at home.
• There is a ‘portable’ version which you can put on your flash drive.
• It has a simple interface to scanners — you can scan directly into Irfanview.

Screenshot of a photograph displayed in Irfanview.

Things we would like to do.

• Help you understand digital image file formats.
• Show you how to use Irfanview on our computers at The Lawns.
• Show you how to download Irfanview from irfanview.com, and install it yourself.
• Help you install Irfanview on a flash drive (don’t forget to bring a flash drive if you want to do this).
• Show you how to scan new images from our scanners directly into Irfanview.
• Show you how to process photographs to make them suitable for email and World Wide Web sites such as Facebook and Internet dating sites.
• Demonstrate Picasa — a free Google program for organising and editing images, and a good choice for anyone who has a lot of digital photographs to manage.

Things we might not do.

• Discuss email attachments — that it is one of the topics of the 15 February workshop.
• Discuss how to transfer digital photographs from your camera to a computer or other storage media — that it is one of the topics of the 1 March workshop.

Agewell in Hackney logo.

About the Agewell Computer Club.

The Agewell Computer Club is for Hackney residents who are between 50 and 65 and have little or no experience of computers or the Internet, but want to find out more. We also welcome other mid-lifers who have had a little experience, but who have been too busy to do much with it.

There is much more information on our main Agewell Computer Club page.

Our current program.

There is more information on our Agewell Workshops page.

Every Monday afternoon.

The Agewell Computer Club meets at The Lawns every Monday afternoon (2.30 - 5  pm). Mid-lifers (people in the 50-65 age range) are welcome to come to any sessions they have time for. As always, the front section of The Lawns is available for general drop-in by agewellers who prefer to do their own thing.

Small photo of Suzanne and Scot holding baby Uma.

Suzanne has given us some photos of her new baby.

We have put two of them in the post ‘Suzanne and baby Uma’.

We haven’t seen researcher Suzanne Wessendorf at the Agewell Computer Club for a while. Here is the reason …

Photo of Suzanne and Scott holding baby Uma.

Photo of baby Uma.

ITV logo.

On Monday afternoon, 18 January, ITV are going to bring Martha Lane Fox, chairman of the Digital Inclusion Task Force, to the Agewell Computer Club session at The Lawns.

ITV want to interview her about her role in an appropriate effervescent setting — so the feature will be about ‘digital inclusion’, not us — but of course, they will all be interested to see how we manage to be so successful, despite our tiny budget.

The weather forecast for the next two weeks is dismal, but it’s always sunny inside The Lawns — so we hope for, and expect, a good turnout for the event.

Agewell Computer Club regulars (and others who are not so regular) will be able to reserve places. We will announce how that is going to work soon.

Documentary Filmmakers Group logo.

Make your own short documentary film.

When you look at old photos from a hundred years ago, do you want to know more? Why are they dressed like that? What were they doing before the picture was taken?

‘What’s Your Story’ is a way for older people to pass on their stories. Professional filmmakers will teach you how to use a video camera and make a short film about your story or someone else’s. The course will take place January to March 2010.

DFG (The Documentary Filmmakers Group), the leading training provider for professional documentary filmmakers in the UK, with support from the Transformation Fund is partnering with Age Concern Hackney to offer training on this special pilot project. Similar DFG courses cost £1000.

Sessions will run for four hours a week on a Monday morning in Dalston. Fifteen participants will be chosen to learn filmmaking skills and to produce a video art work.

To find out more about how to apply, come and meet us at:

• Made In Hackney,
  Screening of New Short Documentary Films.
• Saturday 28 November, 1 - 3.30 pm.
• Hackney Museum (Ground Floor),
  1 Reading Lane,
  E8 1GQ .
• Light refreshments will be served.

This is the first public screening of the best of DFG graduates’ short documentary films about Dalston people including:

• Anthony - Street Cleaner and Philosopher.
• The Grave Digger’s Story.
• And several films about Ridley Road market stall holders.

To find out more details about this event and book your place, please email amber@dfgdocs.com , or phone Amber on 020 7249 6600.

Snapboard animation clip art.

This event will start Tuesday afternoon, 2.30 pm, meeting at The Lawns.

Have you ever wondered how to use the video functions on your mobile phone or digital camera?

This will be a really good way to learn how — artist Larisa Blazic and Emma Jones from Hackney Co-operative Developments will lead the group around the most interesting places nearby — and help you make short (typically 1 to 2 minutes) videos of what you see.

After the walk, your videos can be added to Larisa’s unique project that records and documents the ways in which people see the world around them. Larisa has been working with local community groups to capture images of Dalston and share them through a new website that acts as a collaborative, living archive curated by local residents like yourself. Later this year the videos will be displayed on a huge screen in Gillett Square.

Back at The Lawns, we will show you how to transfer your videos to a computer, and then upload them to a website.

You don’t need to book for this event — just come to The Lawns on Tuesday a little before 2.30 pm — and please remember to bring your phone or camera.

Logo of Middlesex University.

A message from Moji Sanghir, Middlesex University …

Moji will visit the Agewell Computer Club Monday 10 August (2.30 pm) to tell us about his ideas, and arrange some workshops.

Photo of the wall of a half-demolished building, seen through a wire fence.

Do you want to be part of an art project that documents Dalston during this period of change?

Join artist Larisa Blazic and add your view to Mezzo Moderno, Mezzo Distrutto (Half Modern, Half Destroyed), a unique project that uses mobile and digital technologies to record and document the ways in which people view and interpret their built environment. Larisa has been working with local community groups to capture images of Dalston and share them through a new website that acts as a collaborative, living archive curated by local residents. Larisa invites you to take part in this project and, as she looks at the area, share your thoughts and ideas with some of the residents of Dalston. Bring your camera or mobile phone to capture your views and record of the area, then upload your work to the project’s website and see it evolve into a unique portrait of a diverse and characterful area.

Project Events on Wednesday 5th August.

Walk with us.

Larisa will be leading two walks around the area on Wednesday 5th August starting at 2.30 pm and 4.00 pm.

Meeting place for both walks is The Ochre Works Café, Gillett Square, N16 8JN (underneath the Vortex Jazz Club). Bring your camera or mobile phone.

N16 8JN Googlemap / N16 8JN Streetmap.

Talk with us.

Larisa and software programmer Startx will be presenting and explaining the project, the website and the software behind it at a special presentation at Studio 5,  Arcola Theatre, Arcola Road, E8 2DJ, at 6.00 pm.

For further information please contact Emma Jones, Arts & Events Development Manager for Gillett Squared (phone: 020 7993 3644, email: emmajones@hced.co.uk).

Digital camera clip art.

At the next Agewell Computer Club (Monday 15 June, 2 - 4.30 pm) we will have two workshops in one session.

a) How to upload files to a server.

Practical help in uploading files — for example, sending digital photographs, video clips, documents — from a computer, mobile phone or digital camera to the World Wide Web.

Why?

Because it is something we need to do often. It’s what we do when we attach a photo or a document to an email, if we want to upload photographs to photo-sharing sites like Flickr or TinyPic, or to Facebook, or one of the many Internet dating sites.

Uploading a file is a key World Wide Web skill — and it is really quite easy, yet many people believe it is something highly technical. In fact, we only need two items of information — the name of the file and where it is. If you know that, there is not much else to do. So at the workshop, we will try to crack this persistent problem.

Also, because it fits in precisely with the project we have started doing with Hackney Co-operative Developments. Participants in the project (‘Mezzo Moderno, Mezzo Distrutto’) will be uploading short video clips to a special website (code name: Dalston YouTube). We need to prove to them that the uploading is easy. People not involved in the project will also learn something very useful. The second workshop (see below) will be help and advice on using the video capabality of you mobile phone or digital camera.

What to bring to the workshop.

Mainly yourself.

If you would like help with uploading directly from your mobile phone or digital camera, please bring it — and all the cables that came with it in the box. If you need help uploading from a flash drive or CD, bring those too.

But you don’t have to bring your own files to join the workshop. We have plenty of practice files for you to work with.

Where will we upload to?

We have set up a temporary file upload area on this web site — a place where you can upload any file, and then see for yourself that it has been uploaded. If you have digital photographs of your own, we can get you started with TinyPic (it looks simple, it’s free and you don’t have to register to use it).

Clapboard animation clip art.

b) How to use the video functions of your mobile phone or digital camera.

Most digital cameras, and possibly most mobile phones too, can make short video clips. It’s not difficult to make a short video like this — but very few people know how to do it properly.

If you would like help on making an interesting video with the very simple controls on your camera or phone, this workshop is for you.

Larisa Blazic and Emma Jones (from Hackney Co-operative Developments in Gillett Square) will be here to help us get started.

We hope participants will be inspired to join in Larisa’s ‘Mezzo Moderno, Mezzo Distrutto’ project — recording this area as we see it.