NVMUG eNews 4/17/2004
Last updated 4/21/2004
NVMUG Members Exchange Information
There was no special presentation for this meeting, but there was a good exchange of information.
On Sunday I found a WiFi in East Burke. If you bring your iBook or PowerBook with Airport to Bailey's you will find a high speed wireless connection to the Internet where you can check your e-mail or search the web while you have your sandwich or pizza.
O'Reilly has started publishing a new Digital Photography series. Their first two hits are reviewed here and are now in our NVMUG library.
TIDBITS has updated three free upgrades of their Take Control series.
Take Control of Customizing Panther, version 1.2
Take Control of Users & Accounts in Panther, version 1.1
Take Control of Upgrading Panther (Japanese), version 1.2.1
I doubt if any NVMUG members have the this third one.
1. Macintosh Users Swap Tips, Information - Caledonian-record
3. Digital Photography: Expert Techniques
(See Reviews)
4. Adobe Photoshop CS One-on-One
(See Reviews)
1.Macintosh Users Swap Tips, Information
As reported in the Caledonian-Record Tuesday, April 20, 2004
NVMUG sharing information, Stephen Farber, Midge Lubot, Tom Cudahy, Warren Walker, and Ron Lay-Sleeper. This image was submitted to the Caledonian, but not published with the article. Will the flash refection be mended in the next update?
In St. Johnsbury Saturday, the Northern Vermont Macintosh Users Group met, with no formal agenda, to answer users questions and to discuss what members wanted to discuss.
Topics discussed included the iPod, the advantages of digital photography, the Macintosh in schools, some humor, and some pretty technical questions. A number of experts were available to answer questions, but it was just too lovely a spring day to lure the beginners inside.
Ron Lay-Sleeper asked what iPod a friend should buy? The cheapest is a refurbished iPod for about $200. The newer iPods have more memory to buffer the sound so that the disk does not spin so long saving battery time. But, the newer ones also have smaller batteries so there is not that much difference. The biggest question is the amount of storage you want. Do you really want to put your whole music library on your iPod? How many thousand tunes do want on it?
The other important question is what else will you store on it. A company that maintains computers in schools provides an iPod for their technicians because it is economical and the easiest, and fastest way to carry software.
If a playlist of 500 tunes is enough, the new iPod mini will do that and still give you 2GB of storage for $249.
Warren Walker is preparing a Keynote presentation on the advantages of digital photography. He showed a movie showing a lilly and zooming in to a close-up of the pixels that make up the image.
Walker said the Evening Primrose blossoms overnight once a year. The next morning it is gone. With a digital camera you know you are getting the image. By the time you know there is something wrong with a 35mm photo, you have to wait until next year to try again. When you hike up to a flower on a cliff just below the peak of Camel's Hump, you want to know you've got the picture you want rather than having to climb up there again.
Ron Lay-Sleeper added that you can, if necessary, repair a broken stamen with digital photography. Warren showed us flowers with some spots and some discoloration. Then he showed us the same flowers where these imperfections were gone. It is easy to increase the hue to add brilliance to the colors in a picture, but you have to be careful not to overdue it. You may not recognize why, but a scene that looks like a bright day with vivid colors just does not look right without shadows.
Tom Cudahy said that he convinced his school to buy just one 14 inch iBook to put on the rack with existing Dell laptops because the iBook with its free software has advantages for specific school needs.
The school technology specialist thought a Macintosh was a pretty computer, but not a real computer. Tom worked with him while the technology specialist set up the new iBook. They installed Microsoft office. It was easy and it worked the same once it was installed. They connected to the Internet and the specialist wanted to be sure the software was updated. They clicked on the second item down under the Apple menu, and were presented with the list of programs to update. They clicked update, and it was done with no further effort.
After several things like that including the ease of installing additional memory, they wanted to make the WiFi (Airport) connection. They turned the wireless on and Tom showed him the icon in the menu bar showing that the iBook was already receiving the signal. The clincher was when they put the iBook on the rack, plugged it in, and closed the lid. When the student opens the lid, the iBook is on and ready to go. The technology specialist said that's pretty cool.
I reported that at Miller's Run where there are Windows and Macintosh computers side-by-side, the students know how to use either one. While some students have some preferences, I have heard that they generally prefer the one that is available at the time.
2. More From The Meeting
Barry Hayes brought in some poster size pictures he created. I think he said he was taking them to a conference, and that he created the two space images using Photoshop and Bryce.
Discussion of installing OS X on older Macs included a recommendation to use OWC XpostFacto along with word that there have been several complaints about OWC support, and that they were not very nice to deal with if you have problems after the sale.
A woman discovered how to keep her husband from reading her e-mail. She just renamed it The Manual.
