PC Update is the Melbourne PC User Group magazine/newsletter. The first issue of PC Update appeared in March 1984 under the title MELB-PC.
The name was changed to PC Update in September of the same year and has remained unchanged ever since. The magazine has won a number of International Awards.
PC Update has been published in various formats, firstly as a printed newsletter, then a printed magazine, then an e-magazine, and currently as a e-newsletter.
December 2020
Australian hospitals are under constant cyber attack. The consequences could be deadly
Paul Haskell-Dowland, Edith Cowan University Last week, the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) issued warnings to Australian health-care providers that […]
Book Review
Tim McQueen Breaking & Entering The extraordinary story of a hacker called ‘Alien’ Jeremy N Smith Scribe 2019, 292 Pages. […]
DOTW Winners November 2020
Roger Brown DOTW is a lighthearted look at some of the sillier events of the week. Don’t take it […]
East SIG Report November 2020
Neil Muller Host Paul Woolard opened East SIG’s November virtual meeting again via Zoom. The meeting then commenced with George […]
Editorial December 2020
Hugh Macdonald Hello and welcome to the December 2020 edition of PC Update, the final issue for this year. It […]
From Hobart, to London, to Dhaka: using cameras and AI to build an automatic litter detection system
Arianna Olivelli, CSIRO and Uwe Rosebrock, CSIRO It’s estimated about two million tonnes of plastics enter the oceans from rivers […]
From The President December 2020
David Stonier-Gibson Reopening I was delighted earlier in the month to be able to put out an all-member email heralding […]
How To Install WordPress On Your Portable Web Server
Fleur Stephens Now that you’ve created your portable web server, you might like to install WordPress. An offline WordPress installation […]
Monthly Meeting December 2020
The December 2020 Monthly Meeting was held online on Wednesday 2nd December 2020, with over 75 members in attendance. This […]
New Tools For The Maker Room
David Stonier-Gibson I purchased a comprehensive set of tools for the Moorabbin Maker Room this morning, just in time for […]
Yammer Highlights November 2020
Dennis Parsons Windows 10 Time for a rant! Why oh why do manufacturers sell Win10 devices that only come […]
Your Favourite Linux Apps
Hugh Macdonald Two issues ago I detailed my switch to using a Linux distribution on some of my computers and […]
Your Favourite Windows Apps
Hugh Macdonald I’ve been paying a lot of attention to Linux of late in the pages of PC Update, but […]
November 2020
3.2 billion images and 720,000 hours of video are shared online daily. Sorting real from fake is an increasing challenge.
T.J. Thomson, Queensland University of Technology; Daniel Angus, Queensland University of Technology, and Paula Dootson, Queensland University of Technology Twitter […]
DOTW Winners October 2020
Roger Brown DOTW is a lighthearted look at some of the sillier events of the week. Don’t take it too […]
East SIG Report October 2020
Neil Muller East SIG meeting host Paul Woolard opened the October virtual meeting with Frank Maher as the Zoom host. […]
Editorial November 2020
Firstly, welcome to another edition of PC Update, namely the November 2020 edition, and our penultimate for this ‘year’ we […]
Electronic Circuit Simulation
Dick Maybach, Brookdale Computer Users Group Circuit simulation will interest only a few, but skimming through this article should impress […]
From The President November 2020
David Stonier-Gibson Committee changes There have been a couple of changes in the committee. Kirsten Greed and Aavon Fernando have […]
How Australia can reap the benefits and dodge the dangers of the Internet of Things
Kayleen Manwaring, UNSW and Peter Leonard, UNSW The Internet of Things (IoT) is already all around us. Online devices have […]
Interesting Internet Finds
Steve Costello, SEFCUG In the course of going through the more than 300 RSS feeds, I often run across things […]
Member Wanted Notices
Roman Skarbek WANTED. An old laptop from around 2000-2008. Must have a serial port and Windows XP and be a […]
Monthly Meeting November 2020
The November 2020 Monthly Meeting was held online on Wednesday 4th November 2020, with over 100 members in attendance. This […]
Wifi 6 – What happened to b, g, n, ac
Phil Sorrentino, Sun City Centre Computer Club Ever since Wi-Fi appeared way back around 2005, the Wi-Fi version has been […]
Yammer Highlights October 2020
Dennis Parsons Phones We had a couple of interesting threads this month concerning phones and plans that ranged far […]
October 2020
Creating A Portable Web Server
Fleur Stephens Have you ever wanted to try your hand at developing a website in WordPress but you don’t have […]
DOTW Winners September 2020
Roger Brown DOTW is a lighthearted look at some of the sillier events of the week. Don’t take it […]
East SIG Report September 2020
Neil Muller East SIG convener Paul Woolard opened the September meeting for the second time via the internet conferencing software […]
Editorial October 2020
Hugh Macdonald Welcome to the October issue of PC Update! There’s a lot of focus on Microsoft Windows in the […]
From The President October 2020
David Stonier-Gibson There is very little new to report that hasn’t already been reported via all-member emails, namely: AGM deferred […]
Google News favours mainstream media. Even if it pays for Australian content, will local outlets fall further behind?
Axel Bruns, Queensland University of Technology Google’s role in delivering audiences to news outlets has been under scrutiny of late. […]
Member Linux Stories
Editor: In response to my questions of a) What is your favourite Linux distro? b) What is it about this […]
Member Tips and Tricks: Top Linux Utilities
John Nelson Editor’s note: John Nelson has provided this list of common applications and utilities that you can download and […]
NBN upgrades explained: how will they make internet speeds faster?
Thas Ampalavanapillai Nirmalathas, University of Melbourne The federal government has announced a A$3.5 billion upgrade to the National Broadband Network […]
Yammer Highlights September 2020
Dennis Parsons Our move to Google G Suite This is a new group created by Harry Lewis to aid with […]
Your Favourite Linux Distributions
Hugh Macdonald I’ve always been fascinated by Linux. When I was about fourteen or fifteen, in my quest to expand […]
September 2020
Book Reviews
Tim McQueen With the current COVID-19 lockdown and restricted municipal library services I don’t have much access to computer-oriented books […]
Coronavirus misinformation is a global issue, but which myth you fall for likely depends on where you live
Jason Weismueller, University of Western Australia; Jacob Shapiro, Princeton University; Jan Oledan, Princeton University, and Paul Harrigan, University of Western […]
Digging your own digital grave: how should you manage the data you leave behind?
Patrick Scolyer-Gray, Deakin University; Arash Shaghaghi, Deakin University, and Debi Ashenden, Deakin University Throughout our lifetimes we consume, collate, curate, […]
DOTW Winners August 2020
Roger Brown DOTW is a lighthearted look at some of the sillier events of the week. Don’t take it too […]
East SIG Report August 2020
Neil Muller After a 4 month hiatus caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, East SIG returned in August. Host Paul Woolard […]
Editorial September 2020
Hugh Macdonald Welcome to another edition of PC Update! This edition actually coincides with the anniversary of a fairly seminal […]
Five projects for Raspberry Pi at home
Ben Nuttall The Raspberry Pi computer can be used in all kinds of settings and for a variety of purposes. It obviously […]
From The President September 2020
David Stonier-Gibson To be honest, it is a little difficult to find much to report on during a stage 4 […]
Hybrid meetings after COVID?
David Stonier-Gibson If you have skills in video, sound engineering, electronics, streaming, maybe even Raspberry Pi, or related areas, this […]
Interesting Internet Finds
Steve Costello, Boca Raton Computer Society In the course of going through the more than 300 RSS feeds, I often […]
Monthly Meeting September 2020
Our monthly meeting will be held this Wednesday, September 2 from 7 pm onwards via Google Meet, which you can access from https://meet.google.com/krk-favm-oep Guest: Linda McIver Topic: […]
Northern Suburbs Linux SIG Report July 2020
David Hatton The main presentation outlined the procedure to backup up an Android tablet. The following notes are intended as […]
Yammer Highlights August 2020
Dennis Parsons Internet Connectivity Survey I’m re-running the Internet connectivity survey I conducted in early 2018 so please get involved […]
Your Favourite Browser Extensions
Hugh Macdonald For me, my web browser is easily my most frequently and most extensively used application across the various […]
August 2020
Australia’s cybersecurity strategy: cash for cyber-police and training but the cyber-devil is in the cyberdetail
Damien Manuel, Deakin University Australia’s long-awaited cybersecurity strategy, released yesterday, pledges to spend A$1.67 billion over the next ten years […]
Book Review
Tim McQueen Lurking – how a person became a user Joanne McNeil Farrer, Straus and Giroux 2020 298 Pages This […]
DOTW Highlights July 2020
Roger Brown DOTW is a lighthearted look at some of the sillier events of the week. Don’t take it too […]
Editorial August 2020
Hugh Macdonald Hello and welcome to the August 2020 edition of PC Update. Isolation and lockdown unfortunately continue for all […]
From The President August 2020
David Stonier-Gibson Let me start by apologising for not doing a report last month (how many noticed?). I have been […]
How to subscribe to SIG mailing lists and find out about their meetings
Hugh Macdonald Ever since Covid-19 became a concern to society, SIGs at Melbourne PC User Group have ceased meeting in […]
In a world first, Australia plans to force Facebook and Google to pay for news (but ABC and SBS miss out)
Rob Nicholls, UNSW The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has released its draft news media bargaining code, announced today by […]
Interesting Internet Finds
Steve Costello, Boca Raton Computer Society In the course of going through the more than 300 RSS feeds, I often […]
Monthly Meeting August 2020
The August 2020 Monthly Meeting was held online on Wednesday 5th August 2020, with over 100 members in attendance. This […]
Tuning Up Your Windows 10 Start Menu
Tom Burt, Vice-President, Sun City Summerlin Computer Club Windows 10 was originally released in July 2015. It’s latest major update […]
Windows 10 – Reset, the ability to Reinstall the OS
Phil Sorrentino, Contributing Writer, The Computer Club I don’t think any other Windows OS version has included a feature that […]
Yammer Highlights July 2020
Dennis Parsons Windows 10 Most of us have been down the sorry road of deleting a file only to realise […]
July 2020
2.5 billion dollars lost over a decade as Nigerian princes lose their sheen but scams are on the rise
Cassandra Cross, Queensland University of Technology Last year, Australians reported more than A$634 million lost to fraud, a significant jump […]
Book Review
Tim McQueen Radio Girl David Dufty Allen & Unwin 302 Pages There is a great deal of similarity between the […]
DOTW Winners June 2020
Roger Brown DOTW is a lighthearted look at some of the sillier events of the week. Don’t take it too […]
Editorial July 2020
Hugh Macdonald Hello and welcome to the (more than a little bit overdue) July 2020 edition of PC Update. Like […]
How Australian supercomputers crunched the numbers to guide our bushfire and pandemic response
NCI Australia, Author provided Sean Smith, Australian National University and Mark Stickells, CSIRO As 2020 began, Australia was stunned by […]
Images of Melbourne PC User Group
George Skarbek Photo: ‘Social Interaction before lockdown’ by George Skarbek Photo: ‘Social interaction after lockdown’ by George Skarbek From left […]
Making Over the Training Room
You probably haven’t been to the club in a while(thanks for everything, COVID), so your recollection of the training room […]
Monthly Meeting July 2020
The July 2020 Monthly Meeting was held online on Wednesday 1st July 2020, with over 100 members in attendance. This […]
My Migration to G Suite
Stewart Gruneklee Subsequent to the committee’s decision to move the club email away from Microsoft Office 365 to Google’s G […]
We developed tools to study cancer in Tasmanian devils. They could help fight disease in humans
Andrew S. Flies, University of Tasmania; Amanda L. Patchett, University of Tasmania; Bruce Lyons, University of Tasmania, and Greg Woods, […]
Why I use Aussie Broadband
Roger Brown Your intrepid PC Update editor has asked me to explain why I, in common with a number of […]
Yammer Highlights June 2020
Dennis Parsons All Company There was a flurry of activity (panic?) around the announcement of the inadvertent mass deletion of […]
June 2020
Book Review
Bill Chandler ‘Bruny’ Heather Rose, 2019, Allen and Unwin What a prescient novel! Infrastructure, regional planning, political shenanigans, foreign interference, […]
DOTW Winners May 2020
Roger Brown DOTW is a lighthearted look at some of the sillier events of the week. Don’t take it too […]
Editorial June 2020
Hugh Macdonald Welcome to another edition of PC Update, and already we find ourselves in the sixth month of 2020. […]
From The President June 2020
David Stonier-Gibson I hope you are all holding up OK in “iso”. It strikes me that those of us who […]
Internet traffic is growing 25 percent each year. We created a fingernail-sized chip that can help the NBN keep up
This tiny micro-comb chip produces a precision rainbow of light that can support transmission of 40 terabits of data per […]
Member Tips and Tricks
Graham Swanston Ed: Thanks to Graham once again for sending these tips and tricks in. If you have any info […]
Monthly Meeting June 2020
Guest Speakers: John Hollow, Kelvin Cording, Paul Hattam, Craig Evans Topic: SIG Meetings in the time of Corona Now that […]
Tech And Your Eyes
Debra Carlson, CVC Computer Club, CO Words like “ergometrics” and “accessibility” fly around when talking about tech devices but what […]
The coronavirus pandemic is boosting the big tech transformation to warp speed
Zac Rogers, Flinders University The coronavirus pandemic has sped up changes that were already happening across society, from remote learning […]
Virtual Machines
Dick Maybach, Brookdale Computer User Group, NJ A virtual machine (VM) is a program on your PC (called a host […]
Yammer Highlights May 2020
Dennis Parsons NBN Questions and Comments NBN speeds higher than 100Mbps are finally here! 250Mbps and 1000Mbps plans are available […]
May 2020
5G is Coming
Jeff Wilkinson 5G is the designation for the upcoming fifth-generation cellular network technology. This technology, which had the standards set […]
COVIDSafe tracking app reviewed: the government delivers on data security, but other issues remain
Mahmoud Elkhodr, CQUniversity Australia About 1.13 million people had downloaded the federal government’s COVIDSafe app by 6 am today, just […]
DOTW Winners April 2020
Roger Brown DOTW (whatever that stands for) our weekly Yammer poll and light-hearted review of the sillier events of the […]
Editorial May 2020
Hugh Macdonald Welcome to the May 2020 edition of PC Update. Although it has been a month since I last […]
First Look: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
Hugh Macdonald Ubuntu is arguably one of the most widely used Linux distributions, and arguably one of the most popular […]
From The President May 2020
David Stonier-Gibson It’s all a little weird at the moment. We have been forced to do a complete pivot on […]
How to boost your internet speed when everyone is working from home
James Jin Kang, Edith Cowan University and Paul Haskell-Dowland, Edith Cowan University With #StayAtHome and social distancing now becoming a […]
LibreOffice: A Powerful, Free Office Suite
Tom Burt, Sun City Summerlin Computer Club About every 18 months I teach an introductory seminar on how to use […]
Monthly Meeting May 2020
The main event for the May monthly meeting will be a panel discussion on the topic “Society after Corona”. We […]
Understanding File Extensions
Jim Cerny, Sarasota Technology Users Group So someone sends you a file attached to their email – you try to […]
Yammer Highlights April 2020
Dennis Parsons Coronavirus Discussion & Comments The COVID-19 situation of course continues to be a big topic of discussion and […]
April 2020
About iHelp
Leighton West We are the RACV of the Computer World A unique free service to members that is one of […]
Book Reviews
Tim McQueen Nuking the moon Vince Houghton Profile Books 296 pages This is probably not the usual type of […]
Coronavirus: telcos are picking up where the NBN is failing
Mark A Gregory, RMIT University Telecommunication providers are taking positive steps to meet consumers’ demands in the wake of […]
Desktop vs Laptop
Dan Douglas, President, Space Coast PCUG, Florida At a recent learning centre meeting, the topic of what was better to […]
DOTW Winners March 2020
Roger Brown DOTW (whatever that stands for) our weekly Yammer poll and light-hearted review of the sillier events of the […]
East SIG Report
Neil Muller The March meeting opened with Dave Botherway conducting our usual Q&A segment Q: What was the problem […]
Editorial April 2020
Hugh Macdonald Hello and welcome to the April 2020 edition of PC Update. The whole world has changed since I […]
From The President April 2020
David Stonier-Gibson What a difference a day makes! I have started measuring time in Corona weeks and months. Things are […]
How To Use Yammer
Hugh Macdonald In this unfortunate time of COVID-19, all SIG meetings, as well as other activities of the club, have […]
Interesting Internet Finds
Steve Costello, SEFCUG In the course of going through the more than 300 RSS feeds, I often run across things […]
Review: Linux Mint 19.3
Cal Esneault, Former President and leader of many Open Source Workshops & SIGs, Cajun Clickers Computer Club Linux Mint is […]
Yammer Highlights March 2020
Coronavirus Discussion & Comments Looking for toilet paper? So are the rest of us! But you’ve come to the […]
March 2020
April 2020 Monthly Meeting
The Monthly Meeting will be held Wednesday, April 1 at 7 pm via streaming. Guest Speakers: Dr Anton Hassell Topic: […]
Club News March 2020
Hugh Macdonald Coder Dojo Our South East Melbourne Coder Dojo has been going now for three sessions and is establishing […]
Curious Kids: why do we have a QWERTY keyboard instead of putting the letters in alphabetical order?
Geoff Cumming, La Trobe University Many other key arrangements have been tried. Some are claimed to be easier to learn […]
DOTW Winners February 2020
Roger Brown DOTW (whatever that stands for) our weekly Yammer poll and light hearted review of the sillier events of […]
East SIG Report February 2020
Neil Muller The February meeting opened with George Skarbek conducting his usual Q&A segment. Q: I’ve lost the Google Play […]
Editorial March 2020
Hugh Macdonald Hello and welcome to the March 2020 edition of PC Update. I hope you enjoy the mix of […]
From The President March 2020
David Stonier-Gibson President’s special raffle At the monthly meeting this week, everyone who registers with their membership card and wears […]
High-tech shortages loom as coronavirus shutdowns hit manufacturers
John L Hopkins, Swinburne University of Technology There are now more than 45,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus dubbed COVID-19 […]
I made bushfire maps from satellite data, and found a glaring gap in the preparedness of Australia
Wallace Boone Law, University of Adelaide On the night of January 9 2020, my wife and I secured our Kangaroo […]
March 2020 Monthly Meeting
The Monthly Meeting will be held Wednesday March 4 at 7pm. Guest Speakers: Dr Ken Harvey and Mal Vickers Topic: […]
Member Tips and Tricks
Graham Swanston These procedures seem to work well on a 64 bit Windows 10 desktop. Do regular backups. Disaster or […]
Northern Suburbs Linux SIG Report February 2020
David Hatton The evening started with Nick Vespo’s traditional wide ranging Linux News. Nick played a selection from the […]
Settings – What happened to Control Panel?
Phil Sorrentino, Contributing Writer, The Computer Club, Florida Way back in the days of Windows 7, the Control Panel was […]
Try one of these bootable PC rescue media
Dick Maybach, Member, Brookdale Computer User Group, NJ Modern personal computers are complex assemblies of hardware and software. A problem […]
Yammer Highlights February 2020
Dennis Parsons Computer Help The following is a fantastic example of what Melb PC is all about – members […]
February 2020
Book Review
Tim McQueen Technically Wrong – sexist apps, biased algorithms and other threats of toxic tech. Sara Wachter-Boettcher, Norton 2017 232 […]
Club News February 2020
Hugh Macdonald Training Room The revamp of the training room began in July 2019 when all members were invited to […]
Does social media make us more or less lonely? Depends on how you use it
Roger Patulny, University of Wollongong Humans are more connected to each other than ever, thanks to smartphones, the web and […]
East SIG Report December 2019
Neil Muller The final meeting for 2019 commenced with the now traditional Christmas BBQ, followed by a shortened meeting. Normal […]
East SIG Report November 2019
Neil Muller The November meeting opened with George Skarbek conducting his usual Q&A segment. Q: In the last week Windows […]
Editorial February 2020
Hugh Macdonald Hello all, Welcome to the first edition of PC Update for 2020. I hope you had a relaxing […]
February Monthly Meeting
The December Monthly Meeting will be held Wednesday February 5 at 7pm. Guest Speaker: Dr Alasdair McAndrew Our guest speaker […]
From The President February 2020
David Stonier-Gibson Is the club dying? On a Sunday a few weeks ago Steve Zuluaga, Hugh Macdonald and I were […]
Making Your Tech “Fit” – Cords, Voice, Sound, and other hazards
Debra Carlson, Technical Advisor, CVC Computer Club, CO Cords – Whether tripping or kicking (and disconnecting) them … or getting […]
Northern Suburbs Linux SIG Report January 2020
David Hatton The first meeting for the year was opened with the now traditional Linux News which featured a video […]
Not bot, not beast: scientists create first ever living, programmable organism
Simon Coghlan, University of Melbourne and Kobi Leins, University of Melbourne A remarkable combination of artificial intelligence (AI) and biology […]
Windows 10 Taskbar Options
Jim Sanders, Director / Webmaster, North Orange County Computer Club, CA The taskbar is a very important part of the […]
Yammer Highlights January 2020
Dennis Parsons Computer Help With the recent official demise of Windows 7 I decided to conduct another of my “quick […]