NVMUG eNews 2/21/2004

Last updated 2/26/2004

Geof Gonter Talks About Panther

Geof Gonter told us about things he learned using Panther since last Thanksgiving. For those who asked, he is happy with it. Read about it below.

We have added a number of new books to the library which are reviewed under Reviews on this web site. Geof Gonter was awarded four TidBits mini-ebooks under their new program described below.

In this NVMUG eNews

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1. NVMUG Hears About Panther Features

As reported in the Caledonian-Record Tuesday, February 24, 2004

Geof Gonter, right, shows a feature of the Macintosh Panther operating system to Richard Lubot at the NVMUG meeting.

Geof Gonter explained some of the over 150 new features in Mac OS X Panther to the Northern Vermont Macintosh User Group in St. Johnsbury Saturday

Gonter said that he has been playing with Panther since Thanksgiving, and in three months he has become quite comfortable with it. He has restarted his Macintosh three times since Thanksgiving, but he has run into some conflicts within individual applications.

The next major Microsoft operating system, Longhorn, is expected to look a lot like Mac OS X does today.

Gonter called Panther the biggest true update since the Macintosh change from the OS 6.8 to the OS 7 operating system in 1991.

You can view files three different ways: (1) by icon where you can choose icon and text sizes and window backgrounds, (2) by a list of file names, characteristics and dates, or (3) by column showing a hierarchy with the top level disks and files on the left, and burrowing down through levels of folders to the individual files on the right.

The new Panther is starts with a Sidebar on the left containing places such as icons of the hard drive, the user's area, the document file. and any folder you put there to use often. As you move to the right, some columns slide from view so you are always only one click away from the places in this Sidebar.

This Sidebar has eliminated most of the need for the former Favorites feature. But, the Favorites folder is still there hidden in the user's Library. When dragged out and added to the sidebar it adds a heart shaped alias of your Favorites folder ready for your use.

This Sidebar also appears in Panther Open and Save dialogs making it much more convenient to navigate to wherever you want to get or put your file.

One of the flashier, and very useful features of Panther is exposé. If you have a number of items on your desktop, and they are hiding the window or document you really want to see, click F9 and the windows will move and shrink as necessary as they spread out before you for use. Click F10 to see all the windows that are open in your current application, with all he rest moved in back and dimmed. Or, click F11 for a clear view of your desktop. The Dock is still there for applications and folders that you want to open with one click. The Toolbar is still there at the top of each window. The Dock, the Sidebar, and the Toolbar are among the many customizable features of Panther.

Panther is designed to work with more than one user. Each user can have her or his own workspace customized the way they want it. A teacher or a parent can have his or her important work in his or her own area safeguarded by their password, and the children can have their own work areas. As long as the parents keep the password confidential and saves their files when they log out, almost nothing the child does will damage their files unless it is some physical damage to the computer.

Using the capability of Unix, Mac OS X Panther does more to maintain and protect itself than any Macintosh system before it. There is much less reason to need maintenance programs like Norton or TechtTool in every day use. Some of these programs are scheduled to run between 3 and 5 am. Gonter described free or shareware programs you might want to run if your Mac is turned off or asleep when these maintenance routines are scheduled. He also recommended that you eject removable media such as hard drives before you disconnect them. I keep getting warnings that I forgot, and some day I may actually lose some data.

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2. NVMUG Meeting Continued

Geof has a beautiful Panther picture across his Powerbook display in case he forgets which operating system he is using.

As the default, Panther opens Acrobat files in Preview. Preview has been improved and is much faster.

In the Dock, active documents go on the right side of the dividing line, and applications on the left. Active applications have an arrow underneath them in the Dock.

Changing icons has not changed. You first highlight the icon you would like to copy and click Command-i to bring up the Inspector, then select and copy the icon in the Inspector window. The highlight the icon you want to change, click Command-i to get its Inspector window. Click on the icon in the Inspector and paste the new icon in it.

Geof likes to keep some aliases on his desktop, but says it is not recommended.

Unix runs three chron scripts, one daily, one weekly and one monthly. If your computer is turned off or asleep between 3 and 5 a.m., You may want to run these yourself. Geof and I have both paid for a shareware program, Cocktail, which works pretty good to run these scripts. Yasu and Onyx are freeware programs that do the same thing. Geof likes Yasu. I am sure you can find them on
http://versiontracker.com

Geof recommend that you repair permissions, use Utilities -> Disk Utility -> First Aid -> Repair Permissions, whenever you install something or do a major update. Some people recommend running it both before and after the change. Geof also said that Creation Dates are important because some stuff won't open if it thinks the file is too old. Geof said running maintenance is as important in Mac OS X as it was in OS 9. but, don't flush the cache if you have customized our icons and want to keep them.

Printer Utility in Panther is a little different. Most of the drivers that are out there come with Panther when you buy it. If you want newer drives you get them from your printer manufacturers web site.

Mac OS X Panther has Software Update under the Apple Menu. One advantage to using software update is that if you download several updates, they will all run together without having to restart in between. If you download the drivers and then install them, you have to restart after installing each one.

Immediately below Software Update is Mac OS X Software which has freeware, shareware, and commercial software for Mac OS X. Geof says it also has updates for software that runs on the Mac.

Geof says you can set your Mac to go and get updates when you want it to. With Microsoft it seems that every time you start it up it ask you to install another product when you really want to get your work done.

If you receive a Microsoft Word or Excel document that you cannot open, it may be because .doc or .xix is missing on the end. You might want to first duplicate the document so the original is safe, and try adding the ending to see if it will open.

Most programs that run on a Mac conform to Mac standards so that, for example Command-p means Print. Microsoft does not necessarily conform, instead they have maintained the same command keys on the Mac as they use in their Windows versions.

Safari 1.2 only works on Panther. It does not work 100% with media player, and may have some problems with some other sounds and images, but it opens just about every web site. (The problem probably is that some sites conform to popular programs that do not conform to industry standards.)

Geof really likes the way Safari handles bookmarks. Instead of dropping them at the end of the file where you have to move them later, Safari asks you where you want it t go whenever you add a bookmark. Geof is using his Favorites folder from Explorer to save both his Explorer and Safari bookmarks. (I solved the problem differently. I never open Explorer unless Safari does not work, which means I have not opened it for at least two months.)

Geof likes the Safari Popup controller. He likes the ease of using Google in Safari, though if he wants to search for images he has to go to the Google site. He said that Netscape is gone, replaced by Mozella. Midge says the UPS is not as good on Safari as on Explorer. Opera is the only browser that is 100% compliant with CSS standards, and is probably a lot more common in Europe than Explorer.

iChat uses mac.com or AOL portals for a chat program which also has audio and visual capabilities if the other end has it. Midge and Scot use it to talk or talk and se each other.

Geof has played with Garage Band. He has a cousin who might come over and give a demo after he gets higher end version X music programs.

Don't say who told you, but if you ever forget your password and are locked out of you computer, or if your keychain gets corrupted. Slip in a system disk and select the option to change your password.

When OS X puts things in special places or wants you to, it is best to leave them there. Geof likes a freeware program, Himmelbar 1.3 which he uses to launch applications and utilities. He keeps all his aliases in there. sleepless is a program that puts a little light bulb in the menu bar and schedules when the screen saver goes on and off.

If you want to know more about Mac OS X Panther, Geof recommends Mac OS X Panther Edition by David Pogue who came to Vermont for a Mac Jam a few years ago, and who everyone agrees is a great guy. You can buy the book through http://www.pogueman.com, http://www.pogueman.com or http://www.oreilly.com.

Geof Gonter is now working for Wild Branch Services out of Orleans, Vt. where he helps maintain school computers, both Mac and Windows as well as servers and other equipment. He says most of the people he works for stared using PCs but now use Powerbooks for their own work. He says a lot of CCD offices are all Macs though they teach PCs because that is what their students expect to need to know.

Geof says a lot of people just expect their computers to work. He has run into problems consisting of long power cords that are disconnected somewhere, and a computer that would play music through the internal speakers, but not the large external speakers. In this case the external speakers had not worked for several months, He had to trace the cord for quite a ways and under radiators before he found that they were not plugged in.

A new member, Leigh Hurley of Wheelock joined us. Leigh works for good idea! Creative Services and does web design and a lot of work in Photoshop. She was most interested in how web sites developed using Safari would look in other browsers. Their web page is
http://www.goodideacreative.com

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3. New TidBits Mini-Book Program

Here's the basic deal. TidBits will provide our user group with:

• A free copy of each book right when we publish. We encourage you to raffle it off at your next meeting, and if you want to give a copy to someone to review for the user group newsletter that's fine too. We don't go in for any copy prevention crud, so please use your judgment when giving people copies.

• A coupon code that you can tell people about at the meeting and publish in your newsletter. If you'd like, we can provide a PDF that you can print on business card stock for physical coupons you can hand out.

In return, we would appreciate it if you would:

• Announce each new book at the next meeting in conjunction with telling people about the user group discount and pointing them to our Web site at
  http://www.tidbits.com/takecontrol/

TidBits sent us the first for books:

• Take Control of Upgrading Panther
• Take Control of Customizing Panther
• Take Control of Sharing Files in Panther
• Take Control of Users and Groups in Panther.

Each of these books is a PDF file up to about 100 pages long and costing from $5.00 to $15,00 depending upon size and content. Each provides a pretty complete coverage of the topic.

I bought Take Control of Upgrading Panther because it was the first really good information out on the subject, and found it covered the subject well and was helpful in upgrading two machines from Jaguar using two of the methods described.

The first four books were awarded to Geof Gonter at the meeting. We have not decided how we will distribute the copy we receive of each new addition. Ideas are welcome.

To learn more about these books or order copies go to:
http://www.tidbits.com/takecontrol/
and order a copy of the book. It does not cost much.

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10. How to Get Books

O'Reilly now also handle books by No Starch Press, Paraglyph, and Syngress and give the same discount on these books. For more information or to order from O'Reilly go to http://www.oreilly.com

Peachpit also handles several publishers including New Riders. For more information or to order from Peachpit go to
http://www.peachpit.com

Wiley publishing provided several of the books in our library. For more information or to order from Wiley go to
http://wiley.com

If you want to borrow one of the books from our library, contact
Midge Lubot
to arrange to get the book or to pick it up a the next NVMUG meeting.

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