NVMUG eNews 2/17/2007
Last updated 2/18/2007
Discussion Circle and Questions and Answers
Only three people were on time for this meeting, and it looked like it was not going to be much of a meeting, but more people arrived until there was a good turnout and it turned into another one of our lively discussions.
1. News from Our Favorite Publishers
It's Web Design and Development Month at O'Reilly publishing and they have put together a special resource page dedicated to web development essentials including books, PDF Short Cuts, articles, and author events:
http://www.oreilly.com/go/webdev
Check it out if you are at all interested in web design and development and don't forget you are a user group member who can receive 35% off any of these titles when you use discount code DSUG on http://www.oreilly.com. There's also free ground shipping in the US on orders over $29.95.
Happy FebWeb from O'Reilly
http://ug.oreilly.com/ ---- http://ug.oreilly.com/creativemedia
Peachpit publishing is reaching out to the user group community with more connections.
Peachpit Commons, http://www.peachpitcommons.com/
connects users with a large number of blogs, and is an attempt to involve the creative community Here you will find connections to blogs by some of your favorite authors;
Also, tune in to Peachpit Commons, http://www.peachpittv.com
and enjoy your favorite Peachpit authors as they demonstrate the latest tips, tricks, shortcuts, and instruction for many of their favorite technology topics.
Peachpit provides you as a user group member with a 30% discount off the list price of any of our books. At checkout, right before they put their credit card number in, they must enter the user group coupon code UE-23AA-PEUF (case-sensitive). This coupon code is an exclusive offer that may not be used in conjunction with any other coupon codes.
2. Writing, PDF, and Priter Drivers
Homer May likes NISUS Writer Express. Nisus has been deveoping word processing software for the Mac for over 20 years. It has had a very loyal following. The priceof NISUS Writer Express has been reduced to $45. It reads Word documents and creates pdf files. Homer says that pdf files created with Word sometimes contain errors that make them unreadable, but this is not a problem with NISUS Writer. You can buy a copy or get a freebee to test at http://www.nisus.com
(To open a Word document in Pages, drag the Word document onto the Pages icon in the dock. To export a Pages document as a Word file, use File > Export in Pages. However, creating a pdf file will make a more exact copy. Use File > Print > PDF to create a pdf file for any Macintosh document. Select Condensed PDF for a compressed version of the pdf file. A Pages PDF file can be large because images are included at their full resolution.ÊSelect Condensed PDF for a compressed version of the pdf file.ÊIt reduced the size of my 11 MB documents to less than 6 MB.)
Chip Troiano changed from a G3 to a G4 computer, changed hi operating system from OS 10.3 to OS 10.4, and changed from Photoshop Elements to Photoshop CS which was on the newer computer. On his Epson printer, he used to bring up Paper Selection and select Minimize Margins in Page Setup to center the picture on the page. Chip's operating system has been updated to 10.4.3 and he has updated to the Epson 10.4.2 driver, there is none for 10.4.3.
Geof Gonter said that the printer drivers recognize that the printer is there and also recognizes extensions from different applications. Chip could try it with Photoshop Elements to see if this is something that was in Elements but not in CS. Reinstalling Photoshop CS might correct the problem.Geof recommended that Chip download the Epson printer driver version 4.4 which might correct the problem.Ê Geof also recommended that Chip download the latest Mac OS 10.4.8 combined update to use with the latest EpsonÊ driver. Midge offered to download the combined updater for him on their faster Internet connection.
I believe it was Homer May who said to use Google and search for "Epson 237 driver download" and it will take you right to the download page.
Geof commented that when something doesn't print, kids often keep entering Print again and again to make it work. All this does is add multiple printing jobs into the que. He always has to check the printing que before restarting the printer.
(One way to center a print of a picture using Photoshop CS is to use File >Print with Preview to put the print where you want it on the page.)
Someone asked what causes a postscript error when he is trying to print a picture. Postscript is a type of font, an Adobe standard. It describes to the printer how the font should be printed. If printing TIFF gets an error, try using Preview to change it to JPEG and try again. (Of course there should not be a postscript error when you are not trying to print a font but it happens.)
3. Email and Web Sites
Homer described a problem with an account in Mail. The person gets an error message something like, "can not send or receive user SNTP ATH not working." The person is using a Valleynet account and Valleynet has been taken over by Sovernet. Geof said that there was an error in getting authorization. Geof suggested changing over to a Sovernet account
Homer said that getting people off of Hot Mail is a problem - change is difficult. One problem with Hot mail is that it is on a web page and not your computer.Ê Gmail is both on Google and on your computer, and Midge said you get 2 gigs of storage. You need an invitation to get on Gmail, and Midge offered to get an invitation for Homer if he wanted.
Neil Raphel is teaching a course at LSC for juniors and seniors in sales and marketing. He asked if there was an easy way for kids who are not technically inclined to do a Web site that doesn't cost them anything. Someone suggested using iWeb, but it is on a Mac, not on a PC.
Gene Levine said that he could still use iWeb on his laptop to show the basic principles, not the software, of making a page. It is not something you would use for a business site, but it could illustrate the principles and possibilities. iWeb can put any iLife software on the Web site to show what it is like. Gene suggested doing it on iWeb and displaying it on your computer, you do not need to actually put it up on the Web.
Chip asked how he would go about getting someone to set up a web site to put his pictures on to sell them.
I believe it was Homer who said there is whole continuum for putting a business on a Web, with lots of ways to do it and a large range of costs. Someone said that there are places that sell commercial photography at a small cost to a lot of people, and others sell art photos at a much larger cost to a much smaller number of people.
Richard suggested using flickr, which is designed for individuals to share their pictures, notto sell pictures, as a way to direct people to his site.
Gene is concerned because a whole generation of photos are deteriorating rapidly. Prints and slides deteriorate, and there are digital files that no longer open.
This was followed by a philosophical discussion of the importance of preserving photos for history, and whether you should alter a photo making it less historically correct to improve it as art. (But, maybe it is important to remove the power line from the scene so future generations will not think we put up the power line because of its beauty.)
Homer has put a Photo Restoration sign in front of his house in Haverhill Corners and wondered how much of a market there was for this service.
Geof said he is more concerned about what records may be preserved too long. Kids put things on the Web thinking nothing of it, and those things might be taken seriously and hurt them later. He says he sometimes surprises kids with information about them that he easily obtained on the Internet.
Geof reported that Safari Debugger makes it possible to modify Safari so that it can refresh a page to look like Explorer and work on some Web sites that otherwise require Internet Explorer. He provided this additional information which will help if you need to emulate Internet Explorer to access a Web page:
Both Safari Debugger and FireFox User Agent Switcher make the browser files on the server think you are using MS's Internet Explorer 6.0 on a XP machine, most of the time. Enabling Debugger and installing User Agent Switcher are account specific. The features will be available upon restarting your application.
Geof will email safari Debugger to anyone needing it. It is only 17k in size.Safari Debugger has been rolled into the developer' latest Safari application, which is SafariSpeed 2.1 (http://www.scifience.net/safarispeed/index.html).
The application can be used 11 times before the registration and shareware fee ($11.00) is required. But, you could use it once to turn on the already present Safari debugger feature and then not use it again. Enabling Debugger adds the item "Debug" to the menu bar. That item includes a number of features including "User Agent".
A more free, more useful utility, that will turn on on Safari Debugger is TinkerTool http://tc.versiontracker.com/product/redir/lid/623163/TinkerTool.dmg.gz. It has a number of other very useful tools as well.
Safari Enhancer (donation-ware) at http://www.celestialfrontiers.com/softwarelist.php also will turn on the Debugger feature. Check out it's other features as well at http://www.celestialfrontiers.com/safari_enhancer.php
Geof's other suggestion was to use FireFox 2.0, which is a free browser. Search for FireFox on Google. Here is additional information he provided about using FireFox:
On all versions of FireFox, User Agent Switcher, must be installed as a free extension. Go to the URL and install the extension. User Agent will then be listed under "Tools" in the menubar.
I used Google, found TinkerTool on the address above as well as on VersionTacker and UpDateMac, and downloaded a copy.
4. Other Almost Quotes and News
Asked if there were any comments on VISTA, Geof said that 60% of all the bugs on XP also work on VISTA.
Gene Levine said he is no longer trying to set up a special Small Dog meeting because the people he knew at Small Dog who seemed interested are no longer there. Midge Lubot said that Scott Pelok would be interested in doing a remote program from Michigan and we might do it at Black Bear or Piccolos. The Freight House in Lyndonville has a room upstairs and WiFi.
Geof says he has an analogy for people who say Mac vs PC. Is a Chevrolet better than a BMW because it is cheaper and there are more of them?
Are Macs better for graphics and PCs better for business? If two companies manufactureÊtrailer hitches for trucks and one sells them for 2,000 trailers and the other for 700 trailers, which is better? They both can do exactly the same thing, move trailers, just using a different tool to do it.
Finally, use the links in Contacts to see the superb MacChamp and Macintosh User Group of Stowe web sites.
