30 minutes ago I bought a second Apple HomePod; a retailer with a local store is selling them at $170 less than RRP.
Sometime tomorrow they’ll send an email with an authority to pick it up from the local store under the Click & Collect process.
I bought the MacBook Pro from a different retailer two years ago using the same process.
I used to work for a big telco, while employed I had a 30% discount on all phone calls from my home phone service. Now, with the COVID19 caper making more people work from home, the National Broadband Network struggles to cope in some places. Mine is OK, according to microfiche plans they didn't want back when I retired, there is 136 metres of plain old telephone wire between the fibre-optic cable hub and my modem/router. So /I'm getting as close as one can expect to the maximum internet connection speeds I'm paying for.
The telco/carrier/ISP I used to work for is now just a content source for the NBN, with the extra pressure, they've been unable to provide tech & device support to the level I'm actually paying for, so they have applied two months of rebates for a total of $40 to my latest bill. In addition to that, I get 10% off the full amount for being an ex-employee.
Which means the bill this month is $86.
Five friggin' hours in a not-totally-comfortable office chair today in the Zoom meeting mentioned previously. My very well-padded but is feeling the hurt/numbness from those two sessions, with a one hour break for lunch.
Normally at the physical meetings I lead two 50-minute sessions between 9am & 10:50am. Today I did those plus 30 minutes before & after fine-tuning the show.
Then after lunch I took on another 50-minute session 'cos the regular presenter was away.
So I have a big dose of butt-hurt.
Forced by health authorities to avoid public meetings with more than 2 participants, AUSOM (Apple Users Society Of Melbourne) today conducted the first fully online monthly meeting via Zoom. History in the making! The group was formed in March of 1980. We purchased a single Pro licence and set up three Breakout rooms, which replicated the three most-commonly used physical rooms at our unavailable hired premises.
The meeting host then allocated all participants to a Breakout room as requested by each participant. When the interest group session finished 50 minutes later the participants either stayed in the breakout room to await the arrival of the next interest group co-ordinator who was a co-host or they left that breakout room & returned to the virtual front desk where whoever had been designated as the host could allocate them to a different Breakout room.
Playing with various settings as co-host it was discovered that while a co-host cannot move another participant to another Breakout room, they coiuld themselves move freely from one room to another. So in future we're going to look at making all participants co-hosts and let them decide which room (if any) they wanted to visit.
The general consensus was that as a trial run, it was mostly successful, just a few glitches/inconsistencies to be ironed out.
One really positive thing was the electronic presence of older members who for reasons of health, mobility or distance can no longer get to the actual meetings.
@matigo Their search criteria is far too loose. Today I searched for a DVI to USB-C adapter. It kept popping up results for VGA connections, even when I restricted the search to DVI.
Gave up & bought one from eBay, it arrives tomorrow.
Commemorative 6600 mAh Powerbank arrived today, it's intended to celebrate 40 years of the Apple Users Society Of Melbourne. The usb-c & Lightning adapters are securely mounted in the body f the thing when not in use.
Challenge: Decipher the meaning of the logo.
New clothes dryer installed & working, old one taken away, along with the packaging for the new one.
Old dryer is outside now, awaiting tomorrow's collection/recycling by the company delivering its replacement.