Samsung's Vertical TV

The latest addition to Samsung’s TV range is the Sero, a 43-inch TV that was designed with the millennial generation in mind and therefore pivots between horizontal and vertical orientations. It’s a much smarter idea than the phrase “vertical TV” would lead you to believe.

Acknowledging that most mobile content is vertical, Samsung says the Sero is designed to encourage young people to project more of their smartphone stuff onto the TV by allowing it to go vertical. Throwing in 4.1-channel, 60W speakers along with an integrated navy stand and a minimalist rear design, Samsung seems to hope this TV will function as both a music streaming hub and a handsome piece of furniture.

When it’s not used as a conventional TV or a phone enlarger, the Sero can also serve as a huge digital photo frame or a music visualizer, and Samsung’s Bixby voice assistant will be on hand, too. Samsung intends to put the Sero on sale for around $1,600 in its home market of South Korea at the end of May.

 

The Sero occupies a weird middle ground between a concept and a real product. The company calls this new TV a concept and its efforts will surely include close monitoring of consumer feedback to the entire premise. Will millennials warm to the expanded flexibility, or will they feel subtly attacked for the Sero exposing the intensity of their (okay, our) smartphone addiction?

Credit: The Verge

Adding Narration To LibreOffice Impress Presentations

Tech News and Views

How to easily record and add sound to a LibreOffice Impress presentation

Download the free program BBFlashback Express at

flashbackrecorder.com/express/download/

Install and open the program.

Open your Impress presentation in Normal slide view. The presentation and Flashback Express should be side by side so you can advance slides as you narrate and record the information for the related slides.

Step through the slides while recording the narration. Click space bar to stop recording.

When the narration is complete. Click File, Export, and export the fbr file to a WMV file. The file will be saved under Documents, Flashback Movies.

Playback – Open documents, go to Flashback movies. Click on the movie you created. Immediately click Slideshow. The movie will run with narration.

Executive Board Minutes

Computer Technology Club, Inc. – Executive Board Minutes
April 12, 2019

Alan Marcus, President, called the meeting to order at 9:00AM. Members in attendance: Bob Leiner, Jim Trimboli, Don Forgette, Bob Kenlay, Ron Kenyon, Bill Balch, Linda Tingley and Alan Marcus.

Secretary’s report read by Bob Kenlay. No corrections or additions necessary.

Jim Trimboli read the Treasurer's Report. The current balance is $1424.39.

Future meeting topics:

Apr 17 - Spybot Anti-Beacon and Medical Alerts by Bob Kenlay
May 15 - One Drive and Windows Settings by Bob Kenlay

Bill Balch reported that he reprinted the club badges in order to correct the badge scanning problem from the last meeting.

Don Forgette suggested that we put a “monthly tip” in the newsletter concerning scams. Linda Tingley will put these “tips” in future newsletters.

Don Forgette previewed some of his “Cutting the Cord” presentation.

The meeting adjourned at 9:50AM.

Respectfully submitted,
Bob Kenlay, Secretary

How to text to a short code address

Tech News and Views

I rarely send text messages, so I was thrown for a loop when I tried to message Bob Evan's restaurant regarding a free pancake offer. A table top tent in the restaurant stated that to receive the free offer, all one had to do was to "Text farm to 21333". Well, I had only sent texts to phone numbers, so this was completely new to me, so I did some Internet research.

It seems that what Bob Evans was using in place of a phone number is called a "short code". To use one, type the number, in this case, 21333 in the To line of the message. In the body of the message, type "farm". Then click the send button. That's it. If you are successful, you will immediately get a reply from Bob Evans.