IT Tips

BBC iPlayer on your computer, tablet or phone

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How to watch catch-up BBC TV

This post is prompted by people asking how they can watch the BBC 4 series Soon Gone on a laptop, tablet or phone.

Answer — you can watch it in a web browser, or you can install the BBC iPlayer app — but first you have to register your email address, so that you can log in to iPlayer with a password. It’s very easy …

BBC registration page

Watching iPlayer on the drop-in computers

  • You can login to your BBC account and watch iPlayer in a web browser on any computer connected to the Internet.
  • But please use headphones — don’t force your neighbour to listen 🙂

Recycled software

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Another way to avoid exploitation

Don’t pay for over-priced software that you don’t need!

This post is about how you can find a cheaper and more appropriate version of MS Office (which includes MS Word), if you really need it.

Recommended MS Office versions

  • MS Office Home and Student 2007 — possibly the best deal, but not common now. One license allows you to install on three devices.
  • MS Office 2010 Pro — widely used. For example, the current A5 flyers and A3 posters for the drop-in and podcast were edited with MS Word 2010 because that’s what I use to edit complex documents for commercial printing. MS Publisher 2010 is also very useful — and the last version of Publisher that can create documents in the CMYK format that commercial printers require.

More recent versions of MS Word are not superior, just more expensive.

How to buy a retail product key

This is how we got MS Office 2007 or 2010 on the drop-in laptops.

What you need to know about buying MS Office this way …

  • What you actually pay for is a licence key — a retail product that can be transferred and traded.
  • Always make sure that you are paying for a key, not a recurring subscription.
  • The software itself is a free download from the Microsoft server. Your retail licence key allows you to install and use the software legally — and you can move it to a new computer when you need to.
  • When you buy a retail licence key, the seller company provides full instructions on what to do with it.
  • By the way — if you have bought a Windows computer with MS Office pre-installed, you do not have a retail key. You cannot sell it or move it to a different computer.

Sellers

There are several UK sellers in this market. I’m not going to recommend any of them because you — as the buyer — must use your own judgement, not mine. I have been satisfied as a customer of Software Geeks (softwaregeeks.co.uk), but they have competitors and it might be foolish to ignore them.

Getting help

Although this procedure is quite straightforward, digital beginners can easily get lost. However, our drop-in volunteers can probably help you — provided you are already comfortable buying online with a credit or debit card.

If you are a Windows user, our volunteers might also point out that …

  • Open-source LibreOffice Writer (libreoffice.org/discover/writer) would probably meet all your word-processing requirements — and it’s free.
  • All versions of Windows since 1995 have included a simple word-processor named Wordpad — so if your needs are basic and you don’t need a spellchecker, you already have what you are looking for.

AcTo Dementia — Accessible Touchscreen Apps for Dementia

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Supports people to find and use dementia-friendly touchscreen apps

AcTo Dementia provides recommendations and guidance on accessible touchscreen apps for people living with dementia. This website is an ideal resource for anyone with a diagnosis of dementia, or anyone looking to support a person with a diagnosis, to find and use apps on a tablet computer for entertainment. We are a group of university researchers unaffiliated with any app developers and all of our recommendations have been through an evidence-based review process.

Visit AcTo Dementia