NVMUG eNews 10/19/2002
Last updated 11/20/2002
Richard Smith Demonstrated AlphaSmart
Richard Smith demonstrated AlphaSmart with Co:Writer, and Bill Amos joined the discussion on AlphaSmart and AlphaWord. Hartley Jim Jackson talked about connection two Macs with Airport cards and now Airport Base Station, and the new calculator in Jaguar. iMovie: The Missing Manual
was given to new member, Ted Birmingham courtesy of O'Reilly publishing. The report of the meeting written for the Caledonian Record is included.
1. Richard Smith Demonstrates AlphaSmart (The Caledonian Article)
3. Connecting through Airport cards without an Airport Base Station
1. Richard Smith Demonstrates AlphaSmart (The Caledonian Article)
Richard Smith demonstrated AlphaSmart at the Northern Vermont Macintosh Users Group meeting Saturday. in the Old Mill Racquet Club in St. Johnsbury. AlphaSmart is portable writing tool which works with either a Macintosh or a PC computer and is used by writers and by schools.
Richard Smith showing AlphaSmart
Richard gave the example of an eighth grader who finds writing difficult. His writing consisted of only a few words at a time. There could be many reasons for the problem such as motor activities, spelling or grammar issues, or thought processes, any of which could be a block. John amazed his teachers by writing a whole paragraph using AlphaSmart. He demonstrated that he had a lot of good ideas, but writing by hand was not working. With AlphaSmart and a program called Co:Writer he wrote a paragraph at the level at which he could think instead of at the level at which he could scribe.
Richard bought 5 AlphaSmart machines with Co:Writer programs and has loaned them out to schools for use by 3,300 students mostly in special education, to try for a few weeks. The school can then decide whether it works in the particular situation before they decide whether to invest about $350 for the AlphaSmart and the Co:Writer program.
The AlphaSmart is a small special purpose portable computer that displays a few lines of text and runs for 400 to 600 hours on 3 AA batteries. It has storage built in for eight documents up to 12 pages long, about 40,000 words total. With Co:Writer loaded the documents are limited to 8 pages long.
Co:Writer predicts words based upon grammar, the characters you have entered so far, and the frequency that the word is used. That is, it looks at the part of the sentence you have written, and, beginning with the first character you key in, begins to predict the six most common words. As soon as it predicts the right word, you can select it and skip on to the next word. Co:Writer comes with the 6,000 most common words. You can download the 6,000 next most common words and special dictionaries to fit your needs.
The AlphaSmart links to a Macintosh or a PC computer through a USB cable that comes with it. You can download programs or text you are writing from the computer to the AlphaSmart, and you can upload text from the AlphaSmart for formatting, storage, and printing on the computer. The AlphaSmart also has a parallel port which can connect to a printer. Richard demonstrated the transfer of a few words into a Word document. He could also have transferred it into AppleWorks.
Bill Amos was at the meeting specially to meet another AlphaSmart user. Bill uses his AlphaSmart with another program, AlphaWord, as a writing tool. For Bill, this is an inexpensive portable word processor he can take into the field without worrying about running out of power. AlphaWord includes a spell checker and a thesaurus, and provides a word count. You all know Bill because of his articles in the Caledonian.
2. About The Meeting
The meeting almost didn't happen. Richard Lubot learned that the President of the Community National Bank scheduled a meeting of is own in the St. Johnsbury Community National Bank. He thought he had an alternative, but that fell through. On Friday before the meeting he called the Old Mill Racquet Club, and without hesitation they said Yes.
Richard called me, and we sent out an announcement of the change. Once there we sat comfortably on cushioned couches. Richard will investigate the possibility of continuing to meet there. There is also a possibility of meeting at in the office of Raphel Marketing in St. Johnsbury owned by Neil Raphel, a new member.
Back to the meeting. Richard Smith came in carrying a screen, a projector, a Macintosh Titanium Powerbook G4 computer, and three AlphaSmart computers which he let people use. With the projector we could see the transfer of information from the AlphaSmart to the Powerbook. And, when I tried to talk about the new calculator in Jaguar, he put it on the screen for all to see.
People enjoyed playing with the AlphaSmart computers, and Richard studied the catalog where the AlphaSmart was listed for $219 including a rechargeable battery which you really do not need because the batteries last so long.
Neil also has a FileMaker Pro database that he developed for special education teachers. The program they used to use only ran on a PC. They like Neil's new program better, and it runs on either a PC or a Macintosh.
Ted Birmingham uses his PC computers for everything except iMovie. He bought his Macintosh just for iMovie. He was not at all happy when Mac OS X 10.1 introduced problems with iMovie, but has head that they have been fixed in OS X 10.2 Jaguar. Ted is in the business of making movies, documentary style, such as safety films and marketing films. iMovie does some pretty good stuff. He is not happy that Mac's CD and DVD burner does not write sessions, it takes a full CD or DVD to write even a small amount. He did not think he should have to buy Toast to get this ability.
CD Session Burner 1.0.1 available through http://www.versiontracker.com is a $17 shareware program that according to the reviews does a good job of burning multiple sessions to a CD. The author or the shareware recommends that you burn no more than 17 sessions, though it will do more. Some of the reviewers seemed to think this was a feature in Mac OS X 10.2 using Disk Copy, but I can't find it there, the Help says you can burn only one session, and Pogue says the same thing in his book. You can download the shareware program and burn up to 25 sessions without paying. After that burning slows down to a crawl. The author says that DVD does not support multiple sessions.
Geof recommended http://www.macsurfer.com which he checks every day for information, and which lists all kinds of sites. Geof has it as his web start page.
I asked if anyone wanted iMovie: The Missing Manual. Ted said sure. He hasn't read it and probably should. He offered to do a review and/or a presentation on it at a meeting.
Neil said he has a router with a cable connection to the Internet in his attic. He does not have a hard wire connection from his attic to the computer on his second floor, and he was told by his electrician that this would be difficult to do. One option would be a $239 Airport Station in the attic and a $99 Airport card in the computer on the second floor. Other less expensive Airport equivalents would work, but might not be as easy to connect. Geof and Richard said they thought an Ethernet cable would be less expensive, and could be run through the walls or outside the house.
Neil Raphel's business prints 5.5" by 8.5" cards that he mails for advertising. He does business for supermarkets, buying names of people who move into an area, and mailing welcome offers to the new people. He said art galleries have asked him about mailings for new openings, but they want to use their own art work which makes it too expensive. He has eight black and white laser printers daisy chained to print up to 100,000 copies. He runs the mailings through FileMaker so the postal info is printed in bulk mailing sequence. He would like to talk to someone with expertise in black and white printing, and to someone with expertise in FileMaker. Geof and Richard recommended that he talk to Paul Haskel in Montpelier about FileMaker but did not know anyone who would know as much about printing as Neil.3. Connecting Through Airport Cards Without An Airport Base Station
I told about my misadventures connecting an iBook to an iMac using two Airport cards and no Airport Base Station. Mac OS X 10.2.1 Jaguar has a software base station. The new second edition of Mac OS X: The Missing Manual
covers Jaguar and explains the process, but I did not have it yet when I connected the two computers. I had AppleCare, and after much effort on my own, I called Apple. In less than half an hour, they had the two computers talking to each other. With a base station there is a setup program that makes the process simpler.
I found that, without a hardware base station, when I went on the Internet with my iBook, it disconnected the iBook from the iMac. Reestablishing the connection is not a big problem, but I forgot one step. Using the Go menu to Connect to Server. I called Apple.
The real problems started when I asked them why the printer was connected to the iMac was not printing from my iBook. It showed up in the Print Center, but reported that Printing was stopped. Two people tried to solve the problem at Apple. After working with me for hours, the expert finally asked me to connect the two computers through an Ethernet cable to see if the problem was confined to the Airport connection.
Oh, I forgot to tell you that the iMac is my wife's. and that Dona was not happy with my messing it up. Figuring I could straighten anything out, and who would know, I hooked up an Ethernet cable when she was gone, and tried to print. I got the same Printing Stopped message, but this time I was not able to delete the message, or the printer, and could no longer print from my computer even when connected directly to the printer. The Print Center kept telling me printing was stopped.
I called AppleCare again, and again two different people tried to help me. After what may have been all afternoon, and I was totally tired and confused, they gave up.
I have thrown out the Ethernet cable. I clean installed everything on Dona's computer, and she is the only one who knows the password so I can't mess it up. People asked if I was still eating at home.
We took the two Airport cards back to Small Dog and exchanged them for an Epson printer, a four port USB hub, and I still have some store credit left.
I rebuilt my iBook's system using Archive and Install. It worked great, saving my Internet connections and all, but I still had a Previous System taking up valuable disk space which I just now got rid of using Get Info to change authorities.
Conclusions: It is not difficult to connect two Macintoshes with Airport cards and Jaguar, but there may be problems getting them to print, and don't mess with your wife's computer unless she specifically asks you to.
