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INTERNET
Making the most of phones
WE are spending more and more time on our phones or perhaps it is more accurate to call them mobile computers - although sometimes they feel more like advertising billboards! The latest ones are as powerful as the desk top computers of a few years ago. Prices have risen dramatically yet many With NICK get limited use from them and to some they SPARKS are still just used as phones. So maybe we should make an effort to ensure we are getting our money’s worth from them. A collection of useful apps come with the new phone. Contacts, email, calender/diary, camera, gallery, news, weather, navigation (GPS) etc., but do we use them? And these are only the tip of the iceberg. In the App Store there are literally tens of thousands more. It takes a quick search within the store to find ones relating to all manner of subjects and countless hobbies, from knitting to bell ringing, gardening to amateur radio. Many are free, some you have to pay for. And arguably the most important feature on your device is the search facility which appears in many guises in many apps. Just the four ones outlined below highlight the extraordinary amount of information almost instantly accessible to us via that small device in our pocket. The Wikipedia app gives search access to an online open source encyclopaedia currently approximately equivalent to over 3,000 volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica and still growing. It has been estimated that the YouTube app gives you access to 149 billion videos ranging from full feature films to self-help and DIY videos, not to mention games, and shorts from up and coming film makers, with some four billion being added each month. Great if you need to be shown how to change a tap washer or repair a diesel fuel pump for example. The IMDb app gives access to the Internet Movie database, which aims to list details of every movie and TV show ever made. It currently has details from about eight million titles. Originally started by a movie enthusiast it is now accepted as the go-to reference on the subject worldwide. The Shazam app is capable of recognising Songs and Music via the device’s microphone supplying the name of the artist, title and other details from its database of 15 billion songs. The figures above are estimates drawn from various sources via Google searches. The amount of data available to us is truly staggering, so happy searching and just as a reminder, if you only add one app to your phone make it’s the St John First Aid manual, you may never use it but… This article is for guidance only and the opinion of the writer. I.T. for the Terrified it4ttcvh@gmail.com Submitted for IT for the Terrified by Nick Sparks. Although we have now ceased our one to one tuition, a number of us will continue with this column under the heading "IT for the Terrified" to keep the name alive for the time being.
PAGE 16 • MENDIP TIMES • APRIL 2022
CROSSWORD
The Mendip Mindbender
ACROSS 1 Remove the covering of a present (6) 5 Name of a palace given to 1st Duke of Marlborough for his success in battle (8) 9 Capital of India (3,5) 10 Light, porous form of solidified lava (6) 11 Rearranging what you have already done (12) 13 Latin word for water (4) 14 A portable, leather container for Rioja say (8) 17 Knock about and stir meat stew (8) 18 Tributary of the R.Parrett partly lending its name to a railway station at the Heart of the Wessex line (4) 20 Seaport and capital of Haiti (4-2-6) 23 23a & 22d Name of the Member of Parliament for Yeovil (6,) 24 Homeric, epic journeys (8) 25 Throw overboard (8) 26 Rude, lewd, or crude (6)
DOWN 2 Desideratum, indigence (4) 3 Informal name for a robin (9) 4 All residents of this village receive a free ticket to Glastonbury Festival (6) 5 Which football team (with added “e”) play at Fairfax Park? (11,4) 6 Train next open champion (8) 7 The organic component of soil (5) 8 Pyromaniac, fire raiser (10) 12 Use ambiguous or evasive language (10) 15 Heir apparent, next in line (9) 16 Solicits, pleads for, adjures (8) 19 A protein that promotes chemical change without being affected in the reaction (6) 21 Inside Calcutta City agreement was taken as read (5) 22 See 23 across (4) Clues in italics are cryptic
This month’s solution can be found on page 102
