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The group usually meets on the fourth Tuesday of every month (except December), 7:30pm, at Berkley Normal Middle School in Hamilton (where?). Meetings are sometimes moved by a week due to public holidays. Suggestions for topics are always welcome, of course – contact us with your ideas!
The topic for the next WaiMac meeting: Mark Blackwell from TECHNIQ will present Apple's latest operating system Leopard (MacOS 10.5.)
Berkley Normal Middle School (Where's the school?), Staffroom (Where's the staffroom?)
7:30pm, Tuesday 27 November 2007
We endeavour to plan our meeting topics for a year at a time, starting soon after the AGM in April. Sometimes topics will change due to product announcements, industry events, or the unexpected unavailability of a speaker (or electricity!).
The intended topics for the 2007/08 year (we need a speaker for each topic below):
You can subscribe to the WaiMac meeting calendar using iCal. Start iCal, select Calendar > Subscribe... and enter this address: http://www.waimac.org.nz/WaiMac.ics – note the uppercase W and M. If you set it to refresh, any changes we make to the meeting calendar will automatically appear in iCal on your Mac (when your Mac is connected to the Internet).
The topic: See/touch the new Apple iPhone!.
No meeting topic.
The topic: A demo of iLife.
The topic was helpful/informative widgets and utilities you use most.
The topic was helpful/informative web sites you visit most. Each member talked about their favourite sites.
The speaker, Jonathan Owens from Sitech presented "Technology in the classroom" from interactive white boards to digital tablets.
The group had its annual general meeting and Michael Swarbrick demonstrated OpenOffice and GimpShop, two open-source applications that run just as well on the Mac as they do on Linux.
Mark Blackwell of local Apple reseller TECHNIQ demonstrated the latest version of Parallels Desktop, which includes some interesting new features to make Windows applications even easier to use on an Intel Mac.
Around a dozen of us got together to ask and answer questions on topics ranging from broadband (covered in quite some detail, with horror stories as well as good advice) to using keystrokes to control the Mac rather than that pesky rodent next to the keyboard.
Alistair showed us his eyeTV (not to be confused with Apple's upcoming home media product codenamed iTV and now released as Apple TV), which allows him to watch and record television on his Mac (and skip the ads, of course). Since the meeting will be after MacWorld SF, there might be more details of iTV to feed the discussion as well...
Allan showed us the fascinating Comic Life software (which now has its basic version provided on every new Mac) and also told us what he's found useful (and not so useful) about Apple's .Mac service.
Arian told his woeful tale of a hard disk wiped and then the happy ending of almost all files recovered using FileSalvage and Spotlight (part of Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger"). Michael then gave the group some useful pointers on where to get help with their Mac troubles.
Graeme Moffatt of WelMac told us about creating websites and showed us the basics of how it's done using iWeb, part of Apple's iLife '06 suite.
Vaughan shared his tips for Address Book, SpellCatcher, Pages, and more. A summary of his notes will appear in the September issue of WaiMacWire.
The iMovie hands-on had to be delayed again due to technical difficulties, so Janine covered I Can Animate (the topic originally scheduled for August), a simple application for creating stop-motion animated movies. (We hope to present the iMovie Hands-on later in the year.)
The June topic, iMovie hands-on, will be covered in July.
The group watched (and discussed) some training seminars recorded at MacWorld SF 2006, presented by our friends at Peachpit Press. Topics covered included Mac OS X Tiger, iLife, iPod tips, and videoblogging. The popcorn was appreciated by many, as were the door prizes of Peachpit books and caps.
The AGM covered the usual ground: President's and Treasurer's reports, election of officers and committee members, a door prize of a 256MB USB flashdrive, and a draw for paid-up members to win a share of $400 worth of vouchers to spend at the AppleCentre!
Rod also demonstrated Boot Camp, Apple's free software to allow recent Macs (those with Intel CPUs) to run Windows as well as Mac OS X. While it was a bit of a shock to see the Windows startup screen on a glossy white iMac, it was encouraging to think that many would-be switchers now have pretty much no excuse to hold out any longer.
Mark Blackwell (owner of AppleCentre Waikato) joined us to demonstrate the new Intel-powered MacBook Pro notebook.
This was Gabrielle Appleton's last WaiMac meeting before she and her family move to Wellington. Gabrielle has served as WaiMac Secretary since the club's inception – we wish her well and thank her for all the hard work organising the club meetings.
Rod showed off his new Intel-powered iMac, including Microsoft Office 2004 running via the Rosetta emulation layer, plus the new iLife '06 applications.
Arian spoke briefly about his recent trip with a new Canon EOS 350D digital SLR camera, iPod, and various accessories. He then showed a few of the edits and fixes that can be done with Photoshop Elements and let everyone see the "before" and "after" versions in print.
This weekend afternoon session covered a range of topics including:
and was followed by drinks and nibbles to celebrate the festive season.
Graeme Moffatt from Mac User Groups NZ demonstrated techniques for improving the efficiency of your email management, and also discussed the DVD as a storage medium for backups as well as for movies.
Ant and Gabrielle demonstrated the techniques they used to create the soundtrack for Maeroa Intermediate's production of "Around the World in 80 Days". GarageBand was used to edit music but also to put together multi-layered sound effects and mixes. The group experimented with creating a ‘cityscape?soundtrack made up of sound effects mixed together.
Taking, working with, and printing digital photos was the topic for the meeting. We started with Ant reviewing what iPhoto has to offer in its latest incarnation (version 5.0.4), including simple photo manipulation, such as red eye correction, and its versatile slideshow function. There was a discussion about taking digital photos and when to use high resolution images (large files), e.g., for printing, especially if cropping/enlarging, and when smaller low resolution images are sufficient, e.g., for viewing on a computer screen. Alistair demonstrated a DVD all about digital photography, which he will make available for members to borrow. Michael finished up by discussing how to share printers between different computers on a network.
Brian's talk began with a definition of a database and then described two of the principal database architectures: Flat File and Relational. Database applications need a set of features in order to provide full functionality. Features to:
FileMaker Pro is an 'industrial strength' application that supports both architectures, can be single-user or networked. KidBase is a school management system running under FileMaker.
The talk continued as Brian developed a simple bird-watching database 'Twitchers'. This illustrated the value of preparation done using paper and pencil before touching a computer. As the application was constructed the features described above were demonstrated. Finally, FileMaker Pro ($600) and AppleWorks (Free with Panther), were compared.
See slides from Brian's presentation about databases (PDF).
Michael Swarbrick (WaiMac's Treasurer) showed us the basics (and some not-so-basics) of BASIC, a simple programming language, using a freely available version for Mac OS X called METAL. He showed us how he'd used it to solve a particularly tricky jigsaw puzzle. He also mentioned REALbasic as a commercial version that has a much more friendly programming environment and is kept up-to-date for compatibility with updates to Mac OS X.
We also had a brief look at Automator, the non-programmer's automation assistant built into Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4), seeing how it can be used to link a number of pre-defined actions (provided by the various applications available on the Mac) into workflows that automate repetitive or complicated tasks.
Arian summarised the main new features in Tiger, demonstrating Spotlight, Dashboard, and other bits and pieces.
Rod Petsef (WaiMac's Vice-President) demonstrated some basic techniques in Adobe Photoshop, particularly those you might use to digitally restore an old and damaged photograph. We also showed just how simple it is to upgrade a Mac to Tiger (if you have a DVD drive, otherwise you'll need to order CDs from Apple or use a spare eMac with a DVD drive, as we had to on the night) and then let members have a look at it. The meeting also served as the Annual General Meeting and we gave away an iPod shuffle and a copy of the digital photography guide "Get the Picture You Want", from our friends at AppleCentre Waikato and Peachpit Press respectively.
Apple's new iWork '05 suite includes a new version of Keynote (for presentations) and a brand new word processing/page layout application called Pages. Guest speaker Graeme Moffatt (of WelMac and the Australasion User Group Liaison to Apple) gave us a brief overview of both followed by an in-depth look at Pages and a number of interesting digressions as well!
A small but dedicated group learnt about the basics of how to protect your "digital life" and prevent disaster.
Electrical surges can reach your computer over power lines or even over telephone lines and cause havoc but surge arrestors can protect against these. Uninterruptible power supplies provide similar protection and also help protect against data loss in the event of a power cut.
Hard drives do not last forever so backing up your precious data is vital. We discussed what to backup, and how to do it. We also learnt about using disk repair utilities to fix other problems that can afflict your hard drive.
Finally, we had a look at Apple’s new Mac mini. This and the other bits and pieces were kindly loaned to us for the night by AppleCentre Waikato.
A dozen members watched a 45-minute seminar video, "Introduction to Digital Music", mostly demonstrating GarageBand. This was recorded at the Digital Solutions Expo in Wellington back in September. The presenter was Jordan from MagnumMac, who's also a guitarist in a band. Even Ant said he learnt a few things, despite having used GarageBand since its release a year ago.
After that, we had a bit of Q&A and some discussion of the new Apple goodies announced at MacWorld this month.
Around a dozen members met to learn about networking Firewire target disk mode (connect two Macs with a FireWire cable, then hold down the T key as you start one of them up – its hard disk will appear on the other Macs desktop), networking basics (hubs and cables, including the Ethernet crossover cable), Internet sharing (using one Mac with dialup to provide Internet access to several networked computers), broadband (choosing it, setting it up, sharing it, and securing it), wireless networking (with a demo that was a little hit-and-miss, unfortunately), and connecting with Windows PCs (demonstrated with an AirPort, but possible with a wired network too, of course).
A good discussion and Q&A session followed (as usual).
Despite a few glitches (e.g., an unexpected Internet outage), around 15 members has a closer look at iTunes, the new AirPort Express wireless networking device, iPod accessories, and an impromptu demonstration of FireWire target disk mode and OS X troubleshooting when the iBook's OS upgrade landed on a (presumably) dodgy part of its hard disk! More details in the next issue of WaiMacWire. We'd also planned to demonstrate some other software that's handy when using music on your Mac, but this will have to wait till the November meeting.
Michael introduced the basics of AppleScript, a way of automating repetitive or complex tasks in Mac OS X (even tasks requiring use of multiple applications), e.g., automating your Internet dialup and checking of mail (imagine having your Mac do this every day just before you got home). Michael’s notes on AppleScript (RTF)
Arian also summarised his trip to the Digital Solutions Expo, MovieFest, and the NZ Mac User Group Conference, all in Wellington during the previous weekend. More details will be in the next issue of WaiMacWire.
A number of members presented their favourite free (or cheap) bits of Mac software. All of these can be found by a searching for the name on MacUpdate, VersionTracker, or Download.com.
Arian covered four useful utilities from Unsanity: FruitMenu, to customise the Apple menu and contextual menus; WindowShade X, which lets you use different minimisation actions, including the old "window shade" behaviour from Mac OS 9; Menu Master, to change or remove menu shortcut keys in any menu with ease; Mighty Mouse, to customize or magnify your mouse pointer. These four are US$10 each.
Arian also demonstrated Synergy, an iTunes add-on that presents track details in a pop-up floating window each time a new track plays and gives you play/pause and skip buttons in the menu bar (5€); Maelstrom, an excellent game that’s free for Mac OS X; Bedlam 2, a US$15 game very much like the original computer game Space Invaders (but on steroids); and also mentioned LiteSwitch X, a graphical application-switcher for pre-Panther systems; Cyberduck, a free graphical FTP client; and Uli’s Moose, a clone of the old Moose from System 6 that blurts out witticisms at random. He forgot to mention NetNewsWire Lite, a free newsfeed (RSS) reader that lets you easily browse headlines from many websites at once.
Gabrielle demonstrated Snood, an extremely addictive game for kids and adults alike, and also mentioned Black Shades, a first-person shooter game that plays down the violence (partly due to a deliberate lack of colour).
Rod demonstrated GraphicConverter, a powerful image manipulator that comes with every Mac (under a "demo" licence), and VLC Player, a free media player that can handle many more media formats than QuickTime Player.
Hone showed off his favourite goodies: Sogudi, for quick searching in Safari; SAFT, to allow a full-screen view in Safari; ShapeShifter, to completely re-theme the look of Mac OS X; BurnX Free, a free CD writing application; and LaunchBar, a quick way to find files and launch them. Hone also intended to show off UnCoverIt, for creating CD covers, and Konfabulator, which lets you run little files called Widgets that can do pretty much whatever you want them to. Widgets can be alarm clocks or calculators, can tell you your AirPort signal strength, will fetch the latest stock quotes for your preferred symbols, or even display your local weather forecast.
Janine demonstrated some of the work her class had done using GIF Builder, a free animation generator, and ArtDabbler.
Patrick couldn’t make it to the meeting, but had intended to show off utilities VoodooPad Lite and Macnifier X plus games Flobopuyo (really!) and iTetris.
The very first WaiMac Weekend Workshop went really well – around 15 beginners took advantage of their chance to learn in small groups (two- or three-to-one) the basics of AppleWorks, Office, digital photos, file management & backups, Safari & the Web, and email. On top of that, they could ask for advice on anything else (well, anything Mac-related). An afternoon well spent!
You can download the handouts as PDFs: AppleWorks, Excel, file management and backups, iPhoto, Mac OS Mail, Using the Web, Word.
Ant showed us the basics with iDVD, including how easy it is to create attractive menus and incorporate photos or movie footage, plus music from iTunes (which could even be your own GarageBand creation). After Ant’s introduction, the group divided up amongst the three Macs and had a play with iDVD as well as answering other questions from members as they came up and chatting over refreshments (being careful not to bring any food or drink within range of the computers, of course).
Arian presented an introduction to how the Web works, how it came to be, how search engines work, how to protect yourself online, and how to avoid spam. Lots of good questions were asked and some good discussions ensued! Arian's slides: 5MB PDF; 422K PowerPoint;
Alan E. presented an outstanding step-by-step demo of how iMovie makes it easy to edit footage from your digital video camera to produce a movie that looks truly professional.
Alan Turner of AppleCentre Waikato presented the new version of iLife, focussing particularly on the new member of the suite, GarageBand, ably assisted by Anthony H. on keyboards! One lucky member won a free copy of iLife '04 and everyone else had the chance to buy it at a discounted price.
Arian facilitated a general question & answer session for Mac beginners, followed by discussion in smaller groups huddled over various Macs. To be followed up by a weekend workshop for beginners later in the year.
Bruce W. offered insights, advice, and a good helping of family anecdotes while discussing how to use your Mac and the wealth of resources on the web and elsewhere to fill out your family tree.
David of AppleCentre Waikato took us through all the new goodies that Panther had to offer (as well as showing off the USB-powered fibre-optic Christmas tree) and a swag of questions were answered by various people during the subsequent discussion.