A History of U.S. Currency

Dr. Mark Bendett

Given February 1st, 2024

 

 Mark brought an impressive number of sample from his collection:

 Even a $1000 Bill!  (Cropped here to keep the secret service away.  :-))

First!

My first presentation of 2024, the 315th to the Senior Surfers.

I can't promise, but will try to post all presentations here that I receive.  2023 was a challenging year.

Topics of the day:

• News & Comment - Freebies, Falcon9, Microsoft, Intel, EVs, Malwarebytes, OneDrive Close-out
• Mail Merge - Documents, Emails, & Labels
• Keeping Secrets - Incognito / Private Mode, Browser Extensions 

There's more to "Keeping Secrets" (a title that makes me giggle) that will be saved till next time.

Links:

• Which EV Charging Network is Cheapest? <link>
• Cost of electricity by State <link> (way lower than my experience!)
• Want OneDrive be Gone?  <link>
• 6 Apps to Watch Free TV <link>
• That 7" screen for your Car for Apple Carplay or Andrioid Auto <link>
• Best Privacy extension for Browsers <link>
  

In the Mail Merge demo, we had an hand-out (available <here>) and some sample files available here: <name list>, <base doc>, and <Labels>.  Note if you open these, they probably will report that they don't see the data source document ("xlist.xls"). Direct them to wherever you downloaded that file (which is the name list) and they should be happy.

21 Sep - UnBoxing

Sorry about the non-postings since March - I can blame it on my physical problems, but that's not really the cause.  I'm lazy.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  

So here's the largest post I've ever done.  It's got 3 embedded PowerPoint presentations, one video and one downloadable help file.

This was a special one.  The title refers to the Tech Club's buy of new lab computers, MinisForum Venus NPB7s.  This presentation included the 'unboxing' one of them and running it for the first time.  You get to see everything that happens with a new computer fresh out of the box.  There were a lot of moving parts in this presentation, 2 cameras, 3 different screen sharing devices, lots of hardware to show and tell.

And, of course, since this a usual presentation of "Bob's Bytes" - we've also got 'News and Comment' of things going on in the Tech World:

• Essential Office - a free word processor, spreadsheet, chart maker and more; the perfect middle of the road program between the behemoth Microsoft Office and lightweight Notepad and Wordpad
• The Wyze Pam Cam v2 security cam.  Since we've got one of these for a social prize and I've got one of my own, this was a demo of what one can do which such a camera
• USB Device Chargers - basic background of watts, volts, and amps.  Plus we also got a nice 2-pack of 20 watt charges with USB-C cables for the social.
• The new Apple iPhone switched to a USB-C power&data connector.  Why did they do that, what is it, and how is it different from all the other USB connectors.
• Windows 10 update suddenly is showing an "Windows Backup" program.  To cut to the chase, don't use it unless you already understand what it does.  If you have not already bought extra OneDrive storage, it'll break things!
• LastPass was hacked back last year.  In 2023, over $35M has been stolen from security-aware people from their crypto-currency accounts.  These two events appear to be related.

I've split up the charts into 3 parts, other wise there would be way too many slides.  Guest and Zoom attendees saw most of Part 1, but Part 2 and 3 were not directly shown - these are annotated screen shots of some of the steps that were shown.

Part 1 covers the N&C topics above and the physical unboxing of the NPB7:

In Part 2, we've got the system start up and customization:

In Part 3 we do user customization:

That is a lot pictures to view and a lot of stuff to take in.  If you want a text version, condensed to just 2 pages, download <this>

And the bonus!  We videoed the complete presentation and uploaded it to YouTube.  Click <here> to see the result.  

 

Note: this is an unedited, "Raw" video. The camera isn't always pointed in the right direction, the mic doesn't always pick up the voices clearly. This presentation had more moving parts than we have attempted before, so the fact you can see and hear anything is a plus. If someone in the club wants to clean this up a bit, you're welcome to try!