appleJAC Users Group

Everything iPod with the iPod Buyers’ Guide

If you like iPod stuff, this is the download for you.  The 2007 iPod Buyers’ Guide, by iLounge.com. At 180 pages, this is the largest Buyers’ Guide ever, and jam-packed with everything you need to get the iPod and accessories you want for the holidays!

As always, The 2007 iPod Buyers’ Guide, by iLounge.com is a totally free download. They have designed two versions - one in a full-screen single-page format, and one in magazine-style two-page format. Please note: This issue is specially formatted to fill your screen horizontally rather than vertically, unlike past issues. As a result, if your monitor is smaller than 20” on the diagonal, they strongly recommend that you download the single-page version rather than the two-page version.

December Meeting Agenda Posted

Great Prizes at this months Meeting

The next appleJAC meeting is scheduled for December 5th at 7pm and will be held at Lewis and Clark Middle School in Jefferson City. Directions to the meeting are listed in the appleJAC links below. The focus of this meeting will be A vendor presentation on iRemember Scrapbooking Software.

iRemember is a page layout application designed specifically for scrapbooking. It includes tools to compose a page consisting of basic shapes and text. Each of the thirteen basic shapes can act as a container to hold photos, clip art, embellishments, solid colors or patterns. Shapes and text are layered to achieve complex page designs.

Plus is celebration of the holiday season, there will be two special prizes. 

The world’s smallest digital music player, the 1GB iPod shuffle lets you wear up to 240 songs on your sleeve. Or your lapel. Or your belt. Clip on iPod shuffle and wear it as a badge of musical devotion.

How do you improve on the mouse that has everything? Remove its tail. Mighty Mouse — the mouse that changed the way you scroll — has gone wireless. Now you can take that seamless, touch-sensitive, 360-degree scrolling design with you wherever you go.

Must be present and be a paid member to win.

Workout with your Nano: Nike + iPod Sport Kit

Transform your iPod nano into a personal workout coach with the Nike + iPod Sport Kit. This wireless sensor and receiver combination works exclusively with your Nike+ shoes and iPod nano to give you real-time feedback during workouts and let you track your performance on your Mac or PC.

Tune
Insert the wireless sensor inside the custom, built-in pocket beneath the insole of your Nike+ shoe, then plug the receiver into the Dock connector on your iPod nano.

Run
Now start your workout. As your run or walk, the sensor sends information to your iPod nano, tracking your time, distance, pace, and calories burned. If you choose, real-time, spoken feedback can even alert you to milestones throughout your workout.

Sync
Back at your computer, sync your iPod nano to transfer your workout data to iTunes and nikeplus.com. There, you can evaluate your performance history, set goals, and even challenge other runners to a virtual race.

What Is ATPM?

What Is ATPM?
About This Particular Macintosh (ATPM) is, among other things, a monthly Internet magazine or “e-zine.” ATPM was created to celebrate the personal computing experience. For us this means the most personal of all personal computers—the Apple Macintosh. About This Particular Macintosh is intended to be about your Macintosh, our Macintoshes, and the creative, personal ideas and experiences of everyone who uses a Mac.

Give it a look and see some great Macintosh information.

Getting too much Spam these days?

Here's a TIp from applewiz, Jason Piper:

Here is one I have been using for awhile that seems to really cut down on the amount of Spam I get over time.

Go into Mac Mail and right-click the main toolbar, then go to "Customize Toolbar...". On the 3rd row is a "Bounce to Sender" button.

Drag this button to your main toolbar and on any of your junkmail tell it to bounce. Chances are you might get an "undeliverable" message yourself, but I've noticed my amount go down.

BlackFriday.info

BlackFriday.info is the official site for all of the 2006 Black Friday ads as they are reported to us during this holiday shopping season.  Check these out to find out what they might be missing.

Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Day in America is a time to offer thanks, of family gatherings and holiday meals. A time of turkeys, stuffing, and pumpkin pie. A time for Indian corn, holiday parades and giant balloons.

Please spend time with your family if you can and keep in mind all of the things you are thankful for.

Apple Announces “Black Friday” Sale

Similar to last year, Apple has announced that it will launch its “Black Friday” sale next week and their annual holiday gift guide.

The one day event effects both the online retail store and brick and mortar stores in the United States.

Last year Apple offered $101 savings on iMacs, iBooks, as well as $30 discounts on iPod speakers.

It is not known what discounts Apple will introduce this year.

Free Game available for Download

Here is a link to the free version of the Wingnuts Game.

NewerTech eases battery recycling

Newer Technology (NewerTech) today announced a new initiative to aid customers who purchase NuPower laptop replacement batteries. The new disposal program offers participants a free return shipping label with every NuPower laptop replacement battery sold, enabling customers to ship their old battery back to NuPower for free. Additionally, the NuPower battery box is designed for reuse to send the old battery back without the need to furnish packaging materials. "By making it as simple as taking the NuPower battery out of the box, putting the expired battery from the laptop in, and affixing the prepaid return shipping label, NewerTech continues its leading position in providing a no-cost means for customers to ensure that old PowerBook and iBook batteries are properly disposed of and that recoverable materials are responsibly recycled."

Go Directly From Your Video Camera Into QuickTime

Here is the Apple Pro Tip of the Week......

There’s a very cool feature that sneaked into QuickTime Pro 7 that has kind of flown below the radar so far. It’s the ability to record directly from your digital video camera (or a microphone) right into a QuickTime fIle, without having to go through iMovie, Final Cut Pro, or a third-party application.

Just connect your digital video camera (or even your iSight camera), launch the QuickTime Pro Player, then from the File menu choose New Movie Recording. A QuickTime window will open showing you a preview of what your camera is seeing. Now just click the round red record button at the bottom of the QuickTime window and it starts recording. Click the stop button when you’re done and you’ve got an instant QuickTime movie. It works the same way for recording audio using your Mac’s built-in microphone (provided of course that your Mac actually does have a built-in mic), but instead of choosing New Movie Recording, you’ll choose New Audio Recording. Note: you have to upgrade from the standard QuickTime to QuickTime Pro to have access to this feature.

YouTube Videos on your iPod

By now, I'm sure you have seen a YouTube video or two.  SOme of them are really impressive.  WHat if you want to store those on your iPod.  Here is an article about an application called TubeSock that can help you make this happen.

The application, which is Mac-only, converts any YouTube video to the H.264 iPod format or the MP4 PSP format. It automatically determines the appropriate file format, bitrate, and naming convention for the selected target device.

Introduction to Automator AppleScript Actions Tutorial

Automator, in conjunction with AppleScript opens doors for you that will simply amaze you.

This tutorial shows you how to create an action for the Automator application using AppleScript as the implementation language. You are going to learn how to create an action by actually developing one. The tutorial assumes that you are familiar with AppleScript, but otherwise has no other prerequisites. It is helpful, however, if you have some experience with AppleScript Studio.

This comes to us from Apple's developer web site so the content is of an advanced nature.

Kodak has great Digital Photo Tutorials

Whether you want a little information about taking and shooting pictures, or a lot, it's all here! Look up a quick photo tip, follow the steps for e-mailing a picture, or explore black-and-white photography.

This web site provided by Kodak gives all kinds of information about taking digital photos, digital cameras, and printing digital photos. Of particular interest is the section on getting started with digital for those of you that are new to digital cameras.

Can’t Remember the Password?

If you can’t remember a password for a website (or anything else for that matter), all your passwords are saved in the Keychain Access utility (which probably isn’t news to you), but the cool thing is you can do a Spotlight search from right within Keychain to quickly find the password you’re looking for.

Start by looking inside your Applications folder for the Utilities folder, and inside of that double-click on Keychain Access. When it opens you’ll see a search field in the upper-right corner. Type the name of the site you’re looking for, and it will appear. Double-click on the result and an info dialog will appear, and to see your password, turn on the show Password checkbox.

Thanks to Apple for this great Pro Tip.

Where Did That Download Come From?

Here is an Pro tip from Apple......

If you download a file from the web, you can usually find out exactly where that downloaded file came from (including the exact web address) by pressing Command-I when you have the file selected. Once the info dialog appears, click on the right-facing arrow beside More Info to expand that panel and it will display a Where from header, and to the right of that it will show the exact web address from which the file was originally downloaded.

Adobe products may need to be re-activated after Archive and Install

Sometimes, when you are having system problems, an archive and install of the operating system is the best solution.  Unfortunately, this process often caused problems with some adobe products.

Adobe requires that you activate your copy of Adobe Creative Suite 2.0, Adobe Acrobat 7.0, Adobe GoLive CS2, Adobe Illustrator CS2, Adobe InDesign CS2, and Adobe Photoshop CS2 within 30 days of installation. This document can help you resolve problems that occur when you try to activate your Adobe application.

Once activated, the application continually verifies activation. Activation problems can manifest themselves in different ways.

--    If your Adobe application prompts you to activate again, proceed to the Reactivation section of this document.

--    If your Adobe applications are slow to start, fail to start, or return the error "The license configuration data for Adobe Creative Suite is long longer usable." proceed to the Beginning and intermediate troubleshooting section of this document.

--    If your Adobe application returns the error, "Current user account does not have the privileges to perform Product Activation," proceed to the Advanced troubleshooting section.

iPhoto unexpectedly quits when importing movies

Here is a great tip from Apple's support site....

When importing small movie files (such as .avi files) from a still camera or other device, iPhoto may unexpectedly quit.

Check the following locations for non-Apple plug-ins:

~/Library/QuickTime/ (that is, the QuickTime folder inside the Library folder in your home directory)
/Library/QuickTime/ (that is, the QuickTime folder inside the Library folder at the root level of your computer)
Remove the non-Apple plug-ins you find in those locations.
Log out and log back in and see if iPhoto now imports the movie files correctly. If so, contact the developer of the plug-in you removed for more information, or to see if an update to the plug-in is available.

What do the lights mean on my new iPod Shuffle?

iPod shuffle has two status lights, one on the top and one on the bottom, that let you know when you've pressed a button, the state of the battery, that iPod shuffle is enabled as a disk, or if there's something wrong.