FMCA is an association of Family RVers. It is because of FMCA that Geeks on Tour exists. You can read some of the history in this personal blog post: Geeks on Tour–Ten Years Teaching Technology to Travelers. So, it felt like old home week when we were able to attend the March rally in Perry, GA. When we get to Perry we go straight to our spot. Most people attending a large RV rally like this are a little lost, but we’ve done this rally, in this location, at least 4 times: 2018, 2016, 2014, 2011. It’s beautiful weather and we are quite happy to be here.

In case you’ve never been to an RV rally, let me explain. It’s like any industry convention, but there’s no need for hotel rooms, everyone brings their own! Hundreds, or even thousands of RVs find parking places at a state fairgrounds or similar venue. There are social events, food, entertainment, and seminars. We’re there to present seminars.

At this rally in Perry, we were scheduled to present 4 seminars:

1. Smartphone Photography: take a good shot and make it better
2. How to remember and share your travels with photos, maps, and a Blog
3. How to Organize your Photos using Google Photos
4. How do I make my own custom Google Map

In the past, we’ve always had a printed handout for each seminar. This year we decided to make the handout available on a web page instead. And, because we can, we include the slides and the videos on that same web page. So, if you attended the seminar and wanted to review the material later, that’s available. And, if you didn’t attend, you could still learn a lot by reviewing the materials.

Check it out

The page where you’ll find all the seminar materials for the seminars we presented for FMCA is: GeeksOnTour.com/FMCA.

What do you think?

Let us know in the comments below if you learned anything by visiting the page with the seminar materials.

Everyone can view any episode for free. Just click on the play button above.

Scroll down to see the show notes, these will be available for Members Only.

Members get access to the extensive show-notes Chris writes up after each show. Read them online and follow links directly to the parts you’re interested in. We recommend you print them out and keep them in a notebook. It’s a great way to learn.

Not a member? Join here. This episode covers:

• 0:00​ Begin
• 1:23​ First Tip: Apple Watch and heart monitoring
• 7:19​ Hello and Introduction
• 9:17​ Intro Ron Brown and www.Techforsenior.com
• 12:20​ Ron’s video about wearable tech
• 28:00​ Discussion of AliveCor and KardiaMobile
• 29:46​ Audience Q&A and discussion
• 49:09​ Review Questions

Show notes below – free to all for 2 weeks, then for members only

Download show notes .pdf (you’ll see a dropbox login, but you can just close it – no Dropbox account is needed)

1:23​ First Tip: Apple Watch and heart monitoring

What are the Apple watch features that track your health? The watch has sensors on the bottom of the watch where it touches your skin. In order to read any of the data from those sensors you need an app. So, for example, to take a reading of your blood oxygen level:

• Make sure your watch is touching the skin on your wrist
• Press the digital crown (button/wheel at top right of watch) to see all apps
• Choose the Blood Oxygen app and tap start

Another example is testing for Atrial Fibrillation by taking an EKG/ECG – bring up apps and choose ECG. when prompted touch you finger to the outside of the digital crown and hold it there, gently, for 30 seconds.

At any time you can take your pulse. Choose the Heart Rate app and it will show you your current heart rate. It is reading your heart rate all the time.

You can see all this data on your iPhone using the Health app. If the Health app doesn’t give you as much data as you want, you can download 3d party apps. For example, I wanted more data about my sleep so I downloaded an app called Auto Sleep both on the phone and on the watch. Where the Apple Health app just shows me hours asleep, the Auto Sleep app can show me my heart rate for every hour during the night, and much more.

7:19​ Hello and Introduction

9:17​ Intro Ron Brown and www.Techforsenior.com

12:20​ Ron’s video about wearable tech

These wearable devices are often used as activity trackers, but Ron is mostly interested in monitoring heart health. Ron refers to previous presentations he’s made:

• Saving your life with wearable technology ( Part One) 8 16 2020
• Saving your life with wearable technology – ( Part 2) 8/21/2020
• The misunderstood Fitbit Sense

Smart watches, and wearable technologies in general are BIG BUSINESS, and it’s doubled in the last 2 years. Apple captures about 50% of the market.

This video focuses on heart health, and specifically electrical problems with the heart. Power comes into the heart in one main trunk line, then it encounters 2 “circuit breaker panels” and these are what often fail as people get older. If they fail in the closed position then you’re getting no electrical impulses to your heart and it stops. You might need a pacemaker to keep it going. If the circuit breaker panel fails in the open position then your heart is going too fast resulting in Atrial Fibrillation or Stroke. At age 60 or greater the odds are high that you’ll get a stroke or Atrial Fibrillation.

Smart watches need to be approved by the FDA as a Level 2 medical device for these measurements. Apple Watch 4 and above are approved for measuring Pulse and Atrial Fibrillation. Also approved is the Samsung Watch 3. Blood Pressure recording is only approved for the Samsung, and only in South Korea right now. The big news is that Blood Sugar measurements are expected to get approved for the Apple Watch later this year. This means that it can measure Blood Sugar thru the skin with no contact with the blood itself. Unlike current devices which puncture the skin. This will be a game-changer for Diabetics. Instead of spending $1,000/year on testing strips and other equipment, the watch will do the measurements with no further costs. This could save the industry 30 Billion dollars per year.

Ron focuses on the Apple Watch Series 6, the Samsung Galaxy watch 3, and the FitBit Sense by Google.

28:00​ Discussion of AliveCor and KardiaMobile

If you want to monitor your heart without a smart watch and phone, you can get the KardiaMobile by AliveCor to tell you if you have Atrial Fibrillation or other

29:46​ Audience Q&A and discussion

• Expect medical insurance to cover some costs of these monitoring devices, especially once they do blood sugar monitoring
• You need to wear the devices over night to get all the benefits
• You need an iPhone in order to read results from Apple Watch. The Samsung or Fitbit can be used with either iPhone or Android.
• Fall detection is good at identifying that you have actually fallen and it asks, “Are you OK?”
• Now that Google has purchased FitBit – we have high expectations for the FitBit going forward

49:09​ Review Questions

by Chris Guld, GeeksOnTour.com

Have you noticed the chapters in YouTube videos? They allow the viewer to know what topics are included in a given video and to jump straight to the parts they’re interested in.

As a creator of YouTube videos, it’s simple to create these chapters. All you have to do is edit the description of the video and include a list of time stamps along with words that describe what is found at that time stamp. There are only 2 rules:

1. The first timestamp must be 0:00, marking the beginning
2. The stamps must be the format hh:mm:ss

An example: if you go to the YouTube video for Episode 206 of What Does This Button Do, you’ll see a description under the video. When you click on “Show More” you will see the timestamps.

You’ll then see the list of chapters. Just click the link to go to the desired chapter.

• 0:00​ Getting set
• 2:40​ Apple watch as remote to iPhone camera
• 8:49​ Send Bitcoin from one phone’s wallet to another
• 13:53​ Make your own QR code
• 19:56​ Putting text on a photo with Google Photos
• 21:28​ Google Maps walking directions with augmented reality
• 25:28​ 3D printing
• 34:53​ Bitcoin, crypto-currency and Blockchain
• 55:00​ Review

Creating the chapters is very easy, but it’s still time consuming. For example, our February “Ask Chris anything about Google Photos” was an hour long and included lots of questions and answers. I ended up creating 23 chapters to represent each question.

The ability to create chapter links in YouTube video was rolled out in May of 2020, so not all YouTube videos will have them. Even newer videos may not have chapters because it is up to the owner of the video to create them.

Timeline links (aka chapters) are something that we’ve always provided for our members in the show notes of our “Button Show” videos. Now that it is so easy to do it right in YouTube, everyone benefits.

by Chris Guld, GeeksOnTour.com

On 2/21 we did our YouTube show #207 on Data Privacy with a guest, Phil May who is a data privacy professional. I’ve thought of little else ever since!

If you use a smartphone, or any online services, you are probably aware that some of your personal data is being collected. In the drawing above, our little orange man, let’s call him Joe, has connected with friends on Facebook. Facebook now owns the data: “who are the friends of Joe?.” Next, Joe watches a movie using his Amazon Prime Video account: Amazon now owns the data: “what movies does Joe watch?” When Joe buys something at Target using his credit card, Target now owns the data: “What is Joe’s credit card number?” When Joe uses Google Maps to navigate, Google now owns the data: “Where is Joe?” Joe’s doctor gives him a blood test and it shows lead poisoning, his Doctor now owns the data: “Is Joe healthy?” Joe visits a real estate site like Zillow and looks up the value of his home, Zillow is now the owner of the data: “Joe wants to sell his home.”

Some of this is good

None of this is bad on its face. We couldn’t live in today’s world without the convenience of credit cards, navigation software, and movies on demand. We wouldn’t know about traffic jams ahead if Google Maps didn’t aggregate our location data. But when all the data about you is out there and gets aggregated, it amounts to a loss of privacy. The bad part is that you have no control. If you want to use the apps, you must agree to their data policies – take it or leave it. And, like the frog in hot water, we get used to the idea of companies owning our data and sign up for more and more services. Some of these services are gathering data way beyond what is necessary and even selling it to advertisers for big profits.

Watch Silicon Valley

If you want to watch a funny show, and get a bit of an inside look at why companies sell personal data – check out the HBO series Silicon Valley, Season 6, Episode 1. In this episode, the CEO testifies before congress about his fervent desire to keep customers’ data private, then returns to his company to learn that his largest department has been selling user data all along. Our data is so valuable to advertisers that companies simply can’t resist. If you don’t have access to HBO, check out this clip on YouTube which shows Richard’s testimony before congress: “The way we win is by creating a new, democratic, decentralized Internet. One where the behavior of companies in gathering and selling our data will be impossible. One where it is the users, not the kings, who have sovereign control over their data.”

How can we own our personal data?

The first step to a solution is to recognize that we have a problem. As long as we ignore the fact that companies are taking our data and profiting, the water will just keep heating up. Once we become aware, we will be open to alternative products and platforms. In Episode 207 of our YouTube show about data privacy, our guest, Phil May, told us about the Brave browser that doesn’t track users, and the Signal messaging app that is secure.

Anything that we, the users, can do is just Band-Aids however. What we need is a new “democratic, decentralized Internet.” One that is not powered by advertising. It sounds like blockchain to me (see this article). A system where each user has their own block-ledger that stores our personal data. Then we own it and can authorize only particular companies to access it and only for particular purposes. As we go thru our digital days, imagine if all that data we generate is being scooped up by our own data vault instead of the companies. This vault would be our virtual identities. That vault would manage our identities and only give access as needed. All access is recorded in the blockchain.

Something like this is already in place in the government of Estonia. Check out this Ted talk What a digital government looks like. Estonia uses their own form of blockchain to allow your personal data to be recorded only once and the individual has complete control over that data. It is possible.

What actually IS Bitcoin, you ask? Well, that’s what we want to know as well. We’ve been studying, learning, and experimenting. We think that Bitcoin, or some cryptocurrency, is here to stay. We think that the technology behind cryptocurrency – the Blockchain – will change our world every bit as much as the Internet and smartphones have done.

So, yes, we have set up the accounts and the wallets that enable us to accept Bitcoin. It does not integrate into our shopping cart system, so if you would like to pay for a membership or other service in Bitcoin, you need to first contact us. If you just want to send us an anonymous donation, here’s the address of our Bitcoin wallet.

The Internet revolutionized communication and transmission of data. Can you even remember a time before email? But when you send email, you’re actually sending a copy – so that doesn’t work for money. To send money over the Internet today, you need an intermediary to vouch for the fact that the money is not being copied!

In 2009, an anonymous person we call Satoshi Nakamoto came up with a distributed computer ledger process called Blockchain. This ledger can only be added to, it cannot be changed, giving it trustworthiness. It is also distributed among several computer systems that cross-check each others code and calculations, giving it accuracy. A “Bitcoin” is not a tangible thing, it is code in the blockchain. Since every transaction is tracked in the ledger, the Bitcoin can only exist once, thus solving the “Double Spend” problem. This is all done without the need for any government or financial institution, just like email eliminated the need for the postal service for sending letters.

This Blockchain technology opens up the Internet to all sorts of new transactions of value. No matter how much the world has changed due to technology in the last 20 years, there is even more to come. To learn more, see Episode 206 of our “What Does This Button Do?” show. Also read The Future is Faster than you think. Also read Blockchain Revolution, and watch the author’s TED talk, “How the blockchain is changing money and business.”