Senior Techies SIG
Central Resource Library
9875 W 87th Street
Overland Park, KS 66212
Conference Room 02
Wednesday, August 13, 2025, 2:30 ~ 4:00 pm
The special topic will be Microsoft Copilot and Copilot+
(PDF)→
The Senior Techies are a small group of senior citizens who desire to share and discuss computer and other technology issues with each other to help expand their knowledge. SenCom members who seek to discuss computer and/or technology issues in a smaller group setting, regardless of current knowledge, are encouraged to attend. The Senior Techies SIG always meets on the 2nd Wednesday of the month.
Note: This will be a hybrid meeting. You can join in person or remotely using the Free Conference Call as referenced in the Revised Virtual Meeting Procedure shown below.
Joe Callison convenes the Senior Techies SIG
jcallison@kcsenior.net
Revised Virtual Meeting Procedure:
We miss seeing our members. If you have been having problems joining our virtual meetings using Free Conference Call, please contact a Board Member, and one of us will work with you before the meeting you are interested in joining. Board Members’ email addresses are under the “About Us” tab of SenCom’s website.
QUICK ACCESS TO A SENCOM MEETING
If you have the FreeConferenceCall (FCC) app, please start the app to join our meeting with audio and video. If you do not have the FCC app and do not want to install the FCC app, please click on this link below to enter the virtual meeting, and participate with audio only (your picture will not be available to anyone):
https://www.freeconferencecall.com/wall/sencomuser00/viewer
You will still need to tell Free Conference Call to use the audio either on your computer or through a separate phone call. If you are using the FCC app on a computer, smartphone, or tablet, turn on your video by clicking on the icon of a video camera so that we can see you. On a phone or tablet, you may need to tap your screen to see the icon.
Here are the complete instructions for our virtual meeting procedure:
We are using a service called Free Conference Call that allows all of us to be on at one time through video/audio conferencing or just audio conferencing. If you have a camera and speakers on your desktop computer or a laptop computer with a camera and speakers, you will find that using your PC or Mac computer along with the FCC app will probably give you the best experience. To use your computer to conference into the meeting, follow the instructions that I have assembled in this PDF:
Using your computer to access the Free Conference Call (PDF)→ (Revised)
Also available on our Free Conference Call page → (Revised)
When using the Chrome browser to access a video conference, you may see a message that your browser has blocked access to your camera or audio. Look at the icons at the top right area of your browser for an icon with a red X, like the following:
Click on the icon and then click on the button to allow access, and then click the Done button. If the red X does not disappear after a few seconds, you may need to refresh your browser by clicking on the icon near the top left of your browser that looks like the following:
The settings for the site will be saved in your Chrome browser Privacy and security settings so you will not need to do this the next time you access the site.
Although Chrome is the preferred browser, others have used Firefox without any problems.
For those who wish to use their Android devices (either tablet or phone), we are using an app called FreeConferenceCall that you can download from the Google Play Store (note that there are no spaces in the app name). Bob Bowser has assembled a set of instructions that you can print and follow to join the meeting:
Using your Android device to access the FreeConferenceCall (PDF)→
Apple iPad/iPhone users can find the same app (Free Conference Call) on the Apple App Store. Installing and using it should be very similar to the Android instructions above.
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SenCom is on Facebook. See the access instructions below to find our Facebook Group page (SenComKC). Check it out! Share your favorite SenCom moment or interaction.
To access the group page:
- Log in to your Facebook account.
- On your computer, click “Search Facebook” in the left-hand corner (to the left of the home icon, or on your mobile device, in the middle of the screen on top, then type SenComKC (not case sensitive).
- Search results should give you “Groups,” and under that, you will see SenComKC. To the right of your search results, you should see a “Join” button. Click the button to request to be a member of this Facebook group.
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* Volunteers Needed *
SOS! NEEDED NOW! — Volunteers to help our Board of Directors fill the board positions of Vice President and Hospitality Director. If interested, please email me or another Board Member. Our email addresses are on the “Board of Directors” page under the “About Us” menu. Remember, this is your organization; please help us keep it healthy and growing!!
LITTLE OR NO COMPUTER SKILLS REQUIRED.
Lou Risley, 913-298-0575 or sencomprez@gmail.com
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CDC information on the Coronavirus Outbreak →
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GEEK FREE
By Joe Callison
24 July, 2025
Artificial Intelligence Challenges – Knowledge, Intelligence, and Wisdom
Knowledge bases have been around far longer than any of us. Libraries have been repositories of information, facts, skills, and many other categories of data that make up knowledge. Librarians and card catalog systems were the search engines aiding our access to desired data for many years.
Computers have largely taken over the functions of both the repositories and the search engines, but have lacked the intelligence of librarians and researchers to filter data until the recent advances in artificial intelligence were applied to man-made search engines. However, the ability to mimic human reasoning and decision-making requires tremendous resources in computing power and human development of algorithms, models, and data sets for training, testing, and retraining artificial intelligence implementations in order for them to be useful.
While machines can be made to mimic human intelligence, they lack the understanding, insight, and discernment to make wise judgments and decisions based on knowledge and experience, or the influence of ethics. There are few universal truths or rules that humans could agree on to train machines to follow. Situational ethics will always present challenges and dilemmas for machine responses just as they do for humans. Take, for example, the case of self-driving cars. If a large truck is approaching in the opposite lane just as a pedestrian steps into the lane in front of the car, and there is no way of avoiding both, what is the proper action to be taken by the car? Life and death decisions by artificially intelligent machines will raise many ethical and legal issues to be resolved by humans.
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FOR~GO
(For Geeks Only)
By Joe Callison
9 December 2024
Windows 11+
If there are things about Windows 11 that bug you or you would just like to customize it beyond the built-in capabilities provided by Microsoft, take a look at https://windhawk.net. This collection of open-source customization mods may have just the features you wish Windows 11 had. A review of its capabilities can be found at Windhawk is one of the coolest Windows customization tools I’ve ever seen
If you would rather try a Linux distro that looks like Windows 11, take a look at three of the best possibilities at 3 free Linux distros that look and feel like Windows | PCWorld
Lastly, if you intend to upgrade to Windows 11 24H2 eventually but have been holding off because of all the reported problems, I have just completed the updates on two different brands of laptops, both about 3 years old, and had no issues. The updates did take much longer than expected, and I took the precaution of creating system image backups before performing them. Interestingly, I have not really noticed any changes that stand out as of yet, perhaps because they are not AI PCs.
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SenCom gratefully acknowledges the following organizations for their support:
Google Fiber
City of Shawnee:
Parks & Recreation Department
Johnson County Library:
Central Resource, Oak Park
SENCOM IS A NOT-FOR-PROFIT KANSAS CORPORATION
UNDER THE IRS 501(C)(3) RULES
