NVMUG eNews 04/19/2008
Last updated 04/22/2008
New Facilities Contribute
The wifi and projection facilities at the Northern Vermont Regional Hospital contributed greatly to the success of the meeting.
Hartley Jackson used the projector and for the drawings, and the projector and wifi to explore the Adobe Photoshop Express Beta. Barry Hayes projected Photoshop creations and Eugene Levine demonstrated Keynote presentations. Eugene and Barry setup a video iChat using the wifi.
Geof Gonter showed a new device to use your computer as a telephone. Warren Walker showed new prints. Regional libraries were discussed.
1. The Drawings
Members were asked to sign in with lines that were numbered for the door prize. We sold raffle tickets for
The Moment It Clicks
using tickets that looked like five dollar bills Good for on gallon of gas
with the raffle number on the back.
Connecting to the projector requires using an adaptor that comes with Macintosh laptops. Then simply turn on the wall switch and push the laptop button. the projector hangs down from the ceiling out of the way and ready to run.
Before the meeting I created a one cell table in Pages '08 and inserted the =RANDBETWEEN(min, max). function. I saved it to my desktop with 1 for the minimum and 15 as a temporary maximum. I turned on Universal Access in System Preferences to enlarge the number when it was displayed. That way all I had to do during the drawings was to insert the new maximum number and the random winning number was displayed. (I should also have turned off Universal Access when the drawing was done.)
Only seven people were here at about 10:30, but assumed everybody was here. We held the raffle and Ron Lay-Sleeper won the book,The Moment it Clicks,from Peachpit Press. I do not remember who won the door prize, a CD containing the ebook,
Take Control of iWeb - iLife '08,from TIDBITS.
The raffle earnings would have been larger if we had waited until later when there were 12 people at the meeting, but we did not know that more people were coming and we did know that one would have to leave. The raffle earnings will be donated to NVRH as a token of our appreciation for the use of the facilities.
An interested audience.
We have requested another great book for our meeting in April.
Adobe Photoshop Express Beta
The projector and wifi were used to explore the new free online Adobe Photoshop Express Beta. It includes 2 GB of free storage, online photo editing, email of photos, and a gallery for your photographs. Adobe has not said if or how they expect to make a profit from it.
You can see the demonstration yourself at
Adobe Photoshop Express - Made You Look
We connected online and the first thing we saw was a display of many images that moved around as we moved the cursor. Clicking on an image brought up three views of the photograph, one showing the original, and two showing changed views and the name of the editing tool involved along with Made You Look.
It was fun fun looking at the images, but when I looked for the place to click to demonstrate the program I could not find it.
(I found out why soon as I was beginning to write this. If you look at the Web page you will see Test Drive down on the lower right. However, if you magnified the image to enlarge the random display of the random number, and left it in that mode, Test Drive is no longer within the screen.)
Unable to click on the Test Drive, I registered to login to Adobe Photoshop Express.
I loaded some past NVMUG pictures. In the Test Drive you use Adobe's images. In the test drive you can edit your photos, create albums and share, you can view and share your photos in a gallery, and browse community photos and albums. The test drive shows three groups of edits. Basics, Tuning, and Effects. Basics includes Auto Correct, Exposure, Red Eye removal, touchup and saturation. Tuning includes White Balance, Highlight, Fill Light, Sharpen and Soft Focus. Effects includes Pop Color, Hue, Black and White, Tint, Sketch and distort.
In the demonstration after we had logged in we emailed a photo to Midge, and the photo she received appeared to be the original, not a smaller compressed version. We also found that you can print a photo by control clicking on one of your images.
I believe you will find it interesting to Test Drive the online version. As one member said, it looks a lot like iPhoto.
3. Projected Presentations and iChat
Professional Print Competition
Barry Hayes then used the projector to show some of his Photoshop creations for a professional photographers' print competition in New Hampshire.
His pictures included:
Waiting for God
a photograph of an old veteran at a veteran's home.- A picture of a very different
Little Red Riding Hood
that took him about 60 hours to create.
- A picture of one nun duplicated into a string of nuns placed in front of a St. Johnsbury church.
- And a beautifully enhanced scene of a lake and hills.
Barry projected compitition prints.
Keynote Capabilities
Gene Levine demonstrate a Keynote presentation of pictures from Alaska with music played through his MacBook Pro speakers. It isa terrific way to enhance a slide show of a trip.
Gene also showed a Beth Jacob Synagogue presentation timed to music with dissolves and graphics fades tastefully used. He said Keynote has much better presentation tools than Power Point and showed an example of a slide with a table and a 3d chart. He said Keynote is easier to use and faster to put together because it is integrated with iPhoto and iTunes.Keynote also works with some videos. Keynote can be translated into Powerpoint but the results may look sucky when PowerPoint does not have the same features.
Gene's Keynote presentation from Alaska.
iChat
As usual there were times where the meeting broke up into groups to do and discuss different things. During one of these times later in the meeting, Gene Levine and Barry Hayes set up a video iChat by shouting across the room to each other until they got this setup with Barry displayed on Gene's MacBook Pro.
4. Other Topics
Voice phone via computer
Geof Gonter held up a small device that plugs into a computer so that the computer can be used as a telephone. I was not able to take notes because I was registering to login to Adobe Photoshop Express and Geof was using the time to provide the information.
As I remember it the device cost about $40 and there was a very small monthly or annual cost to use it as a telephone. By using it, Geof had already saved money on long distance calls. Geof has kindly offered to send me some information when he has the time so that I can get it out to you.
Warren's Prints
Warren Walker showed new prints that he created using layers and blending modes in Photoshop. He showed crocuses and another print with the crocuses duplicated on another layer and flipped. He then used the lighten blending mode to show the lighter Dutchman's Breeches from both layers.
Warren showing some of his prints.
He also showed some snow scenes including a single plant in the snow, and an interesting snowdrift. He likes the simple compositions provided when snow replaces grass.
Save Regional Libraries
Jane Fuller reported that Vermont was considering deleting the two regional libraries, one in Montpelier and one in St. Johnsbury in their budget reductions. She asked members to express their support for these libraries that provide reference services and books for many small libraries and schools as well as individuals. Harold Turner said that you can find older computer manuals there if you canŐt fine them anywhere else.
Richard Lubot said that about 20 years ago all of the regional libraries except these two were eliminated to save cost, but that these were kept because of the support they received and the needs in this area. Any decision may have been made before you read this, but Jane Kitchel is the person to contact if you want to express yourself on this issue.
Made You Look.
Waiting for Goda photograph of an old veteran at a veteran's home.
Little Red Riding Hoodthat took him about 60 hours to create.
