Google Hangouts

I'm sure there are some who will like this idea, but I don't see any need for it. There are plenty of other free ways to do the things that you discuss. There are lots of free picture hosting sites that will let you host pictures on-line and then provide links to them. Or Dropbox has a mechanism that lets you right click on anything in your "public folder" and then get a public link to share the file. Similarly there are plenty of free phone call and video phone call applications, I don't see any reason to steer people to Hangouts.

I've resisted Hangouts and Google+ for a long time, and Google's other failed "social media" attempts before that. I am a Google user and do use Google voice. Had Gmail from the time when you needed an "invite" to join. Recently I finally tried Hangouts and it was the worst mistake that I've made on-line in a long time. Doing so makes a lot of fundamental changes to your Google setup that are hard or impossible to undo. I now have lots of crap on my Gmail page that I really don't want. I quickly found that I could no longer send SMS messages from my Google Voice account, I was directed to Hangouts to do that. By the time I found where I could send a SMS from Hangouts the information that I needed to send was no longer relevant. I urge all of my friends to avoid using Hangouts and Google+.

Full disclosure, I also do not use Facebook or Twitter. I always refuse to. If a company wants to give me a discount but requires me to sign up for it on Facebook, I use one of their competitors. I very much dislike the idea that I'm expected to give up my privacy to these social media companies. Access to Facebook is even blocked in my firewalls, that happened after I saw how many sites were sending my information to Facebook as I used the sites, even though they had no obvious Facebook tie-in and didn't even display a Facebook logo. I realize that some people like Facebook and Twitter and all the rest and spend a lot of their life connected to these sites. But out of respect for those who don't jump at every "social media" gimmick that shows up, I suggest that there is no reason to declare any such tool has any official relationship with POI factory. It simply isn't needed. The private contact feature of this site is enough for members to start a contact, after that they can use Oovoo, Skype (evil), Google Talk or any other way that they wish to carry on the conversation.

What Frovingslosh said.

I too feel that creating a community based on Hangouts is not really necessary. The beauty of a forum and the current format, is that we can attend/participate when we can and or are available and see all contributions from everyone.

It seems to me that something like Hangouts or Skype (my favorite with the grandkids) is good for closed conversations with controlled participation.

I don't see why this couldn't be considered though for smaller groups to communicate more specifically but I wouldn't like to see the "Forum" environment replaced.

....just my 2 cents ......

Well said.
If it becomes part of poi-facorty I will never use it.
I too shun all things Facebook, twitter, etc. & am currently in the process of firewall blocking a small companies employees from accessing facebook & twitter on company machines or wifi.
Google is a privacy mole, it wants everything.

Thumbs down.

What phranc said!!!!

I agree with the previoys posts.... We have a good thing going here and for me this would not be an addition that I would use.

... except of course for immediate family, select neighbors, or all those I meet by choice, face to face. I still can't understand why anyone would want their "Face in the Book?"

You won't catch me on it. Skype works just as well but I use it for business and then very sparingly, usually for IM.

I like the idea of some standard way to share "snapshots" of things for purposes of helping members solve problems or develop ideas. For example - I have always wanted to see the "error messages" of members who have had trouble with, say, Garmin Express. I have never researched free "sharing sites" but I'm sure there are several that might work. I use Dropbox as a way to share data with kids and grandkids (although I am sure I am not doing it in the most efficient way).

What concerns me is how we would be able to catalog what is shared such that it could be later retrieved. Even though a "link" can be posted in a thread and then be discussed by members in that thread, I have found it to be extremely difficult to find that "link" a few months later when a similar situation surfaces.

To further the discussion of sharing, let me tell you what i have been doing for a long time - and that is taking "snapshots" of my computer screen.

Why do I want to do this, you ask. Well there was one time when I bought some flatware for one of my daughters online. I had researched the specific pattern that she said she wanted and found what I considered to be a good deal so I purchased it.

I knew up front that the seller did not accept returns but could not see a problem arising. The pictures of the flatware were exactly the pattern I was after. However, what I received was a different pattern entirely - not even close. Well in communicating the mistake with the seller I was chided for not looking at the pictures to be sure of what I was buying. How could I refute this unless I had a snapshot of the screen(s) I had looked at. Once sold, the item is no longer for sale so the online listing could not be accessed (even though it was surely on some server somewhere).

Since then I take "snapshots" of online screens so that I have documentation of what I saw and what I did.

There are a number of "Print Screen" programs available but I happen to use one from a company called Faststone. (see http://www.faststone.org/index.htm). I also use their Image Viewer and Image Resizer.

The Faststone Capture for Windows version I use is an older version when it was freeware and one gets it from http://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?q=faststone+captur...

So as I browse the internet and decide to purchase something, I capture the window I am looking at (FS Capture will capture all of a "scrolling" window - that it, one with multiple screens). Now I have documentation of what I looked at.

Most of the time, I just capture the single screen I am looking at, however. That screen might be an error message I want to save to determine what went wrong. It might be the confirmation of an online payment. Lots of things.

I save these snapshots as "jpegs" which means they could be posted on a sharing site and reviewed by others. Let's say we were talking about map sizes: I could take a snapshot of the Explorer window of my nuvi and let others look at it. I think you get the picture.

Anyway, FS Capture is extremely helpful to me.

I do the same as jgermann but I also create PDF files if there are Links involved, the reason for that is that you can open pdf files and click on the link to go to the site/page. However for this to work, you need a PDF file creator software and I use adobe which is very expensive for the average user. If you can find a program that will "print to PDF file", that would work too.

Creating Snapshots are well worth the effort .. I also use a catalog system to find these files quick when needed. BTW, I even use snapshot for some of these messages here on POI-Factory if I find them to be important to me!

But I know, The question is how to share the files, one thing I do to share my information is:

Since I have Child with Downs Syndrome, I am very active in the Special Olympics and other origination and activities. I take a LOT of photos and other information that we want to share with others but using my Email (or the person that I am sharing them with) do not really work due to size limits.

I use Dropbox since it can be used by almost every kind of Device. I send the links to the people that I want to share them with, tell them that after x Days, they will be removed for Dropbox, I do this so that I still have space to use at a later date. The problem with dropbox is how much space you have to share.

I am sure there is a better way to do this and would love ideas for sharing but I don't want them to be locked down to just 1 app or have to install something to get my information (such as using google+ or Hangout, you are requiring the other person to create a login and share information.. Not good!

Just my ideas and thoughts..

On subject: I use Dropbox for a lot of stuff, but I take my photos of my screen with the Snipping Tool that came with my computer. It resides in the bottom tool bar and I just click on it and select whatever I want on the screen. It then saves it to .jpg wherever I tell it to.
I do hangouts with my Son but I do not do Hangouts +. I have stayed away from Google+ because it is too much like Facebook, too social.

Off subject: I have a granddaughter with Down Syndrome, She is 10 and doing great. How old is your child?
Mary

I use that snipping tool also that came with the computer.It works well and does the job.This free program also does well http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/

The Google Hangout video call is the main part that I feel could be of use.As a option available on the forum.Not to replace anything.

One thing other then that . I have it tied to Google phone so I can make phone calls.In the past you could use other parties to tied Google phone to.That all stopped so they could bring it all together. The phone part works quiet well on the several times I used it.USA calls are free plus you have a phone number that you can set up to ring to a tablet,other phone or etc. Comments by people buying phones with no service and using for wifi only since it has a return number for calls. So if not in a wifi area they can leave message.For more info https://support.google.com/voice/answer/3205713?hl=en

I am sure you are enjoying your Granddaughter very much.. One can learn from these Children/Adults.

My Daughter is 18 years old and is the best thing that came to our life. My wife and I help with other New families that are struggling as we belong to many different organizations and support groups. They do help when needed.

For us, at the moment, we are trying to get Guardianship for her but for one reason or another, it is a struggle doing so properly. We are Working on it and wont give up just because there are difficulties in the road. (My daughter taught me that, she also taught me to look at living each day differently now) What a joy Knowing her!

Kindness is something that just comes naturally to her. It is hard to explain but we would not have her any other way.
She is a joy to us all.
My daughter knew early in her pregnancy that she was carrying a child with downs. She and her husband never had any thoughts but to look forward to her coming into this world. She was planed for as our daughter had a wonderful doctor that taught her so much about downs children before our grand daughter was born. We are all blessed to have her.

I did not know there would be any problem in parents getting Guardianship. Is there anything our daughter needs to do before she reaches the age to need guardianship?

Sorry everyone for hijacking this thread. Will get back on track....

I have always stayed away from Google+ but if you do offer this I may have to try it. I use Hangouts with out Google+ but I can only talk to one person at a time this way.

If you have a Dropbox and you know of someone that needs one, Give them a invite, that way you will receive 500MB of extra space.

And if you are looking for a Dropbox and don't know anyone, just give me a shout, and I will send you a invite since I could use the extra space myself!

Yes Dropbox is great. I have earned expra space by putting my PC, tablet and phone on it. It is a good way to share files.

And, Bob, thanks for the email.

One drive gives 15 GB free.Also have drop box but changed over a while back because of more storage. https://onedrive.live.com/about/en-us/plans/

There are lots of "cloud storage" options out there, most do indeed give more free space than Dropbox. Of course, you can use more than one and get even more space. Just another reason why we shouldn't favor Hangouts as an official way to share images.

The amount of space isn't the critical thing for me though. When I compared Dropbox and Google Drive I found that Dropbox simply made things easy and worked right. Drive (even though it was offered by Google, the creators of Android), was a lot more of a pain to use with Android. So I use Dropbox for the utility (things like automatically uploading my new pictures to my dropbox account) rather than fighting with an app that offers more free space.

The space issue isn't as big a deal to me (although I'll too offer "invites" if anyone wants to help me boost my space when they get a new account. Use the private message feature of the POI-factory and you'll get an invite quickly.) The issue is what you want to do with that space and if you trust putting certain data on other servers that basically you can't trust. I completely expect to see lawsuits from Google "sharing" info about Google Drive accounts with the MPAA and RIAA and then them suing Google users over saved content. I expect others to get hacked and personal information published on the web like the recent Apple celebrity scandal. And, of course, I expect the the NSA is snooping through everything. So I limit what I'm willing to store on these external sites.

Much better to pick up a very inexpensive flash drive and make backups of all your critical stuff to it than to trust the Internet. Sure, doing it that way requires you to actually plug in the storage device occasionally and make the backups, And the sad truth about backups is that if they take effort then they don't get done. But another sad truth is that storing information "on the cloud" unencrypted (or poorly encrypted) just isn't safe.

I agree with Frovingslosh about putting important stuff on the Cloud. I only put things I don't mind being shared with others and that can not be used as identity theft.

I have a usb hard drive hooked up to my computer and anything I want to back up is put there.

You have to be careful about what you want to put on the cloud. I would never put anything there other then pictures and files that anyone could use.That is up to each individual what they want to share there.Some people have other opinions about that.I was speaking about One Drive not Google Drive. Haven't use Google drive but have tried Drop Box,Cubby and One Drive.All are easy to use.None require any special skill to do what you want to . Just that One drive gives more storage.It offers 15 but I have 30 due to certain criteria I meet.

So go to 10minutemail.com and point dropbox at that account.... You get the extra 500 MB of storage for the referral and the other account at some point in time will likely go away.. Likely when they send a validation email after about a year..

We stopped using Skype and removed from our tablets after the "permissions" got out of hand, they wanted too much access to the tablets info, including device & app history, identity, contacts, location, SMS, Phone, Photos/Media/Files, Device ID & call information and calendars.

Since most of that stuff was already known to Google we are now using Hangouts.

if I have no interest in making conference calls?

I admit that I just skimmed their website quickly, but all that I noticed that Hangouts provides that I do not already have with my phone is the capability of speaking with multiple people at the same time. I use conference calling at work, but I've never seen any reason for it with personal calls, so I see no advantage in using Hangouts in my personal life.

- Tom -

I am in complete agreement and I never use facebook or twitter not to mention the security risk potential.

What Gastx said.