appleJAC Users Group

March 2008 appleJAC Digest

Greetings, Mac Users!

from Sue Snell, appleJAC MUG President

Mark and I just returned from a lovely two weeks in sunny Florida; just in time to wake up to the sleet/ice/freezing rain/snow of a week ago Thursday. What a vivid reminder of what Missouri in February can be. But, it’s almost March. Can Spring be far behind?

March is an event-filled month this year — St. Patrick’s Day (as always), Easter, daylight savings time, and the first day of Spring. But, before any of these wonderful events occur, we must first gather for our monthly appleJAC meeting. How clever that they happen in this order!

This month’s special presentation is a demonstration of the Airliner Interactive Slate, given by Sue Haugen, 6th grade math teacher, Team Endeavor (a team, I might add, very dear to my heart!). We’ll gather briefly in the 6th grade Commons, as usual, then mosey across the hall to Ms. Haugen’s room for the demo. You may recall that aJ purchased one of these peripherals for the school earlier this year. I think you will be impressed, if not amazed, by the classroom possibilities the Airliner offers, to both students and teachers.

Following the demonstration (and, of course, refreshments and door prizes) we will engage in an open forum Q & A session. Please be thinking in terms of ANY Mac questions for which you may need an answer. Remember, no question is silly or dumb. If you need an answer or an explanation, it’s almost a given that someone else does, too.

A primary purpose of the aJ group is “to provide a forum for Apple Macintosh computer users in Central Missouri to meet on an educational, research and social basis”. This most certainly includes finding answers to questions and responding to concerns of the membership!

Last month we had a great video presentation by George Kopp and his band of merry men regarding their trip to MacWorld. Then Mark, Tom, Steve, and George shared their “toys” and personal thoughts from the conference. As always, it was a most interesting commentary.

Of course other things have importance also - like door prizes! Last month’s winners were:

- Tom Vaughn --- Bobble head pen

- Murry Ferris --- Just Say No to Microsoft (book)

- George Kopp --- Digital Video (book)

- Rosalind Moulton --- Revolution in the Valley (book)

- Mark Snell --- InDesign (book)

- Charlie Bland --- $50 Certificate for Socket Internet Services

We have some neat prizes for this month, too. So plan on spending Tuesday, March 4, with us — Lewis and Clark Middle School, room 600, 7:00 p.m.

See you there!

March Meeting Agenda

February 2008 New Vendor Discount Offers

Serene Saver 2 HD: 33% Off

Serene Saver 2 HD is a unique cross between a video desktop (moving wallpaper) and a traditional screen saver. It brings a bit of serenity to your daily life. Actual nature scenes play as real movies on your desktop while you work.

This user group special offers single-user Serene Saver for $19.95 (US), regularly $29.95 (US), or $33.27 (US) for 5 computers, regularly $49.95 (US), or $66.57 (US) for a site license, regularly $99.95 (US).

Download to test, or purchase: http://www.serenesaver.biz

Promotion code: (see Special VEndor Offers, Members Only)

This worldwide offer is valid through April 15, 2008.

RAID Stor age Offer: 30% Off Retail

LH Computer Services offers SATABeast Xi extreme density, energy efficient data storage for Xserve and MAC Pro Systems. You can get up to 42 TB of RAID storage in only 4U of rack space. AutoMAID energy-saving technology greatly reduces power consumption and cooling costs. Full Enterprise Class performance, reliability, and management, plus dual function 4Gb Fibre Channel and iSCSI connectivity. These are ultra-high-end, high-capacity data storage units for businesses and professionals that need to store terabytes of data.

Apple user group members get 30% off MSRP of units priced from $25,000-$75,000 (US). Contact the company at 954-752-5805 to discuss your needs with a professional consultant. (see Special VEndor Offers, Members Only)

Improve your storage: http://www.LHComp.com

This worldwide offer is valid through May 30, 2008.

FUTURE SONICS: Believe Your Ears™ at 20% Off

Upgrade your iPod, iPhone, MacBook or any digital media player with Atrio Series™ professional earphones. Your products will sound their best with Future Sonics' own miniature dynamic speakers and acoustical architecture. Their signature sound offers "BIGGER SOUND at lower volume™" without "extended" bass boost or any enhancements.

Regularly priced at $199.00 (US), pay just $159.20 (US) for online orders, a 20% discount, plus an audio satisfaction guarantee. Limit 5 per household.

Get more information or place your order: http://www.futuresonics.com/usergroups/

Coupon Codes: (see Special VEndor Offers, Members Only)

This worldwide offer is valid through July 31, 2008.

Azure Talon Exces: 30% Discount

Exces is a simple, easy-to-use and secure encryption utility that allows you to protect your precious files with the click of a button. Just pick a password, lock, and you're good to go. Exces uses the strong, uncracked, AES encryption standard. Exces sports an elegant user interface and is really easy to use. It is simply one of the most appealing file protection solutions available.

Apple user group price is €13.50 (est. $19.59 US), instead of retail price of €19.50 (est. $28.29 US).

Available at: http://excesapp.com/ (see Special VEndor Offers, Members Only)

This worldwide offer is valid through May 31, 2008.

Dejal: Discounts Up To 50%

Dejal produces easy-to-use utilities that enhance your website and improve your productivity. Dejal's Simon is an essential site-monitoring tool that checks servers for changes or failures and notifies you via email, sounds and other means. BlogAssist makes HTML markup easier. And Macfilink cloaks affiliate links on your website to protect your income. Caboodle stores and organizes information like recipes, directions and everything else you want to remember. And Narrator uses speech synthesis to read your stories and other on-screen text in multiple voices.

User group discounts up to 50% off retail from $9.95 to $195 (US), depending on item.

Product descriptions link: http://www.dejal.com/products

Discounts link (see Special VEndor Offers, Members Only)

http://www.dejal.com/store/

This worldwide offer is valid through May 31, 2008.

The MUG Store

Remember to remind your members that the MUG store is their very own place to shop for great deals on all the latest Apple gear. With special discounts, free shipping and knowledgeable consultants available on the phone, you can't go wrong!

In addition, the MUG store offers great deals on discontinued or older accessories and parts & pieces.

Remember that everything they buy means points for your group to spend any way you want!

Order: http://www.applemugstore.com

(see Special VEndor Offers, Members Only)

This U.S. only offer is valid through June 30, 2008.

SpaceNavigator: Cool 3D Controller

a review by Tom Piper

At our February user group meeting, I demonstrated an innovative USB hand controller for 3-dimensional programs . . . sometimes known as a 3D mouse. A number of people wanted to know more about this fun and very useful device.

3Dconnexion, a Logitech company, has made powerful 3D navigation accessible and affordable for architects, artists, students and anyone else who wants to enjoy the 3D experience. In the Mac world, this controller is ideal for Google Earth version 4 and Google SketchUp. SpaceNavigator™ also works with other popular and powerful 3D applications including Autodesk Maya, form-Z, Blender, Poser, Geophoto, Adobe Acrobat Reader, Fledermaus, QuickTime Player (QTVR), and Adobe PhotoShop CS2 and CS3.

Unlike a conventional mouse that confines movement to a flat plane; the SpaceNavigator™ 3D mouse allows effortless motion in all dimensions simultaneously— up, down, forward, backward and sideways. By varying the amount of pressure on the cap, users can easily accelerate or decelerate actions with precision. Unique pressure sensing technology makes the 3D mouse a virtual extension of a user’s body.

In my experience with SketchUp 6 and Google Earth, multi-dimensional control is very empowering. It is also initially a little intimidating because my motions were too heavy-handed. Once I learned to lighten my touch, relax my hold, and smooth my motions, I found the “flying” experience to be very exhilarating as I swooped over a variety of Google Earth spots, both those I’m familiar with, as well as canyons from mountains to New York City. It is occasionally so delightful and revealing that its hard to suppress a giggle or two.

Macintosh system requirements include a Dual-Core or Core Duo processor based system with 512MB RAM or 1Ghz G4 or higher, 10 Megabytes free disk space for driver and plug-in installation, USB 1.1 or 2.0, and Mac OS X 10.4.6 or later. SpaceNavigator SE is priced at $99 (US) and comes with an unlimited use license appropriate for commercial purposes, as well as full phone, email and online support. More information about this unit and the whole 3Dconnexion family of 3D controllers is available at http://www.3dconnexion.com, as well as a nifty video demonstration of 3D navigation in action. A 25% discount will be available through our vendor discount offers.

With adequate focused practice and an inquisitive spirit, the SpaceNavigator can be a virtual extension of your imagination. Push, pull, twist or tilt the cap a fraction of inch to simultaneously pan, zoom and rotate 3D imagery. Increase pressure to go fast or decrease pressure to make intricate adjustments. At just over a pound, this black unit has a solid feel with a cool chrome base and gorgeous blue LED trim lights.

All in all, the longer I use it, the more functional it becomes for me. I’ve already told the company that I believe it also needs an additional feature that allows for desktop navigation and assignability of its two buttons, and its various motions (sort of a Keyboard Shortcuts for the 3D mouse). Compatibility with World of Warcraft and a few more prominent Mac games would also be a plus.

Expanding the functionality of its already delightful Configuration Wizard would be a great enhancement. It is already an interactive tool that uses animation and imagery to guide you through controller cap movement and configuring your preferences. The Configuration Wizard also provides demonstration applications so you can practice or start using the device right away.

3Dconnexion Products: 25 Percent discount on SpaceNavigator™ SE

Like a three-dimensional mouse, 3Dconnexion has made 3D navigation accessible and affordable for all Mac users who want to enjoy the 3D control experience, as well as increase their productivity. Their newest member, SpaceNavigator™ SE offers phone, web, and email technical support, all one would ever need to enjoy using this product. For a complete list of supported applications, visit http://www.3dconnexion.com/solutions/cad/all_sup_app.php.

Buy a SpaceNavigator™ SE with extensive support for only $74 (regular price $99).

Discount code: Email Tom for the code at macquest@mac.com.

Purchase product: www.3dconnexion.com/buy/onlinestore.php

This US & Canada offer is valid through June 30, 2008.

VMWare Fusion

VMware Fusion is an excellent product for running PC applications on your Mac. It provides easy installation, setup, and operation of virtual machines for over 60 different operating systems. It provides many features to manage the virtual machine environments that interact seamlessly to the Mac OS X Desktop, Dock, and hardware environment. These features made it easy to install and run Windows applications, get network connectivity, attach and configure external devices (thumb drives, backup hard disks, printers, etc.), and move files back and forth between the Windows and Mac environments. It also contains advanced features to manage both the virtual machine environment, the operating systems running within them, and the connectivity to the Mac host. I experienced no bugs or issues with any of the normal, everyday usage applications that the general user would employ. For most common uses, Fusion appears to be a very stable, reliable environment and I highly recommend it.

Click here to read the detailed review by The Macintosh Guild.

Drive Genius 2: An Indispensable All-in-One Toolbox

a review by Tom Piper

Confused about which utility would work best to optimize the performance of your hard drive, as well as manage its contents AND maintain its integrity? Want something that even Apple uses at their Genius Bar (part of the ProCare program offered by Apple)? Could you use a whole box of tools for under $100? Drive Genius could well be just the software utility pack for you . . . and version 2 has just been released.

Three years ago I wrote a review on the first version of Drive Genius and concluded with the statement: “This really is a terrific and effective product.” This latest version easily exceeds these qualities, and sets new standards of performance and dependability with a variety of new features.

As their website says . . . Drive Genius has established itself as THE industry standard disk utility for the Mac platform. The new Drive Genius 2 is built upon the same award-winning foundation of the original Drive Genius. Improvements have been made to speed and overall performance in the new version. One of the most noticeable and eye catching changes is the all-new user interface. Drive Genius 2 makes hard maintenance tasks painless, fast and easy.

The icons above represent a new way of selecting the specific tool you need with a range (left to right) including Disk Information, Defrag, Benchtest, Repair, Integrity Check, and Scan . . . click on the green arrow to produce the array below which includes Initialize, Repartition, Duplicate, Shred and Sector Edit . . . the orange counter-clockwise arrow take you back to the top list.

A simple click the Information icon produces an immediate comprehensive report about my main boot drive that is both easy to read as well as detailed in its scope . . . obviously its very full, which makes it even more important to it be maintained in good working order. To answer questions or get assistance about any of the features, a 100-page User Guide is just a click away.

Here is a quick list of just a few of things Drive Genius 2 can do:

Powerful Management Tool

Partition – Add, delete, hide, expand or shrink OS X partitions so you can organize your drive more efficiently.

Shred – Stop prying eyes with DoD compliant (5220.22 - m) secure erase. Removes all traces of data from free space and deleted data on any drive or OS X volume.

Details – In-depth report of specifications and space utilization of all drives or OS X volumes.

Initialize – Easy, high level OS X formatting to prepare new hard drives for use on your computer.

Essential Maintenance Tools

Duplicate – Fast and easy volume or entire drive cloning.

Integrity Check – Find problems before they find you with these comprehensive hardware verification tests.

Repair – Quickly fix corruption and errors to get your damaged drive up and running fast.

Rebuild – Rebuild and replace OS X volume structures to regain access to files that have become lost or hidden.

Verify – Check OS X volume structures for possible corruption.

Fix Permissions – Corrects OS X boot volume permissions to improve application performance and compatibility.

S.M.A.R.T Status – Read and display S.M.A.R.T. diagnostic codes from your hard drive to avoid dangerous hardware failures.

Effective Optimization Tools

Defragment – Get the most speed and efficiency possible by optimizing your hard drive(s).

Benchtest – Make sure your hard drive performance is what it should be with comprehensive speed tests and graphical comparisons to other common configurations.

Surface Scan – Verify your hard drive's reliability with a complete suite of non-destructive read verification tests for any drive or OS X volume.

Sector Editor – Fine tune all aspects of your system with direct, advanced byte viewing and editing of all data on your drives, volumes and files (for expert users only).

System requirements include a DVD drive, Mac OS 10.4.9 or newer, user interface animations require Quartz Extreme support (G4 or newer), minimum 256mb RAM, and at least a 1.0GHz processor. You can even get a free test drive version of Drive Genius 2. A feature-by-feature comparison between Drive Genius, Micromat Techtool 4 and Alsoft Disk Warrior.

This is a highly-recommended collection of hard disk tools that retails for $99.00. Visit the Prosoft Engineering, Inc. website at http://prosofteng.com/products/drive_genius_features.php to learn more, or to purchase this software online. This software is an important component in a whole family of award-winning utilities including Data Rescue II, Data Backup 3, NetWare Client and numerous others. If you want a package that will be helpful, rewarding and satisfying, I believe this is the utility for you.

CoZip iPhone Cover

Since I purchased my iPhone, I have enjoyed going nude. Well, the iPhone that is.... without a cover or case. I have and continue to use a DLO Belt case that works just fine but when I pull the iPhone out, it is coverless. But now I have found a thin case to cover the back of the phone and more importantly, protect it.

This cover, from a company named CoZip, is available in a number of colors on Amazon. The real added benefit of it is that it allows me to protect the back of the phone and also holster it in the case I use on my belt.

Finally a thin, protective case with a rubberized feel that keeps me from thinking I am going to let the phone slip from my hand.

They make these for the iPod touch too...

How to Do Everything with Your iPhone

It's always tempting to either believe all the hype over a new product or to doubt that there is anything new to rave about. The iPhone is one of those technological advances that seems to have an incredible architecture and design, and functionality that is easy to master. It appeals to a wide audience that includes the somewhat hesitant, technology phobic individual as well as the technology savvy. The authors provide a good balance of what is myth and what is reality about the iPhone. The book provides extensive instructions that would allow the reader to satisfactorily setup the iPhone for use without personal technical support. I consider this a plus, since one often needs personal technical support at critical moments where circumstances do not allow access to technical support. Additionally, the authors include expert level ideas and instructions for the maximum use of the iPhone functionality and features that even the more experienced reader can learn from. I was introduced to the iPhone by an avid fan, and I have now test-driven the iPhone. I believe this book to be essential in both determining whether to buy the iPhone, or once purchased, to make the most out of the investment. It is hard to decide, without actually holding an iPhone and walking through some of the tutorials, whether the subject of the book or the actual iPhone is the more unbelievable wonder.

Click here to read the detailed review by The Macintosh Guild.

Need a great stand for your iMac.....Slim is in !!!

This stand is designed specifically for Apple slim keyboard's fans. Not only this beautiful stand provides an ergonomical view of your iMac or Apple Display, it helps organizing your desktop at the end of the day like never before. The perfect height of the stand provides a "home" for your keyboard, nothing will ever seem to be out of place on your desk any more.

The LowKey Stand is constructed of 0.1085" thick steel, powder-coated in aluminum color matching that of the iMac or Apple Display. This stand spreads out the entire length of the slim keyboard and 9” deep, creating a sturdy structure, which can support any size of Apple Display or iMac.

No more reaching behind your iMac or Apple Display, Macessity's 4-port front access USB 2.0 hub provides an easy hook up for your favorite toys or gadgets. This hub is self-powered, and elegantly integrated to the LowKey Stand, giving it a contemporary touch.

Features:

Slim keyboard's best accessory.
Sturdy yet elegant and contemporary design.
Support up to 35 pounds.
Perfect for any size of iMac, or Apple Display.
Include a "must have" front access 4-port USB2.0 hub.
Compact power adapter that won't take up more than 1 precious outlet.
Powder coated in aluminum color to match iMac and Apple Display.

Apple's Switch 101 Web Site

Here's a tip from appleJAC officer Curtis VanWye.

I heard recently about an addition to the Apple website called Switch 101, a series of tutorials for people switching from Windows. http://www.apple.com/support/switch101/

Whether you want to learn how to get around and access everything on your Mac; find out how to move your old PC files to the Mac OS environment; figure out how to connect your printer, iPod, digital camera, or other device; learn how to do those tasks you did on a PC on a Mac; learn how to use the software that came with your Mac; or even find out what to do when things don't go as planned; we have the answers.

Airliner to be Shown at March appleJAC Meeting

With the AirLiner slate you can interact wirelessly with your SMART Board interactive whiteboard or Sympodium interactive pen display from 52 feet (16 m) away. The battery-free tethered pen lets you control any software application, write notes and highlight information in digital ink

SMART’s AirLiner wireless slate enables you to teach from anywhere and allows students to interact with information from their seats. Multiple slate users can write at the same time as someone at the SMART Board interactive whiteboard.

Highlights

Teach where you want
Control software applications, write notes and highlight information wirelessly from 52 ft. (16 m) away.

Involve more students at once
Multiple slate users can write at the same time – and at the same time as someone at the SMART Board interactive whiteboard.

Capture your work
Save your notes, screen captures, images and other work to a single file that can be used on both Windows and Macintosh operating systems. Notes and graphics are saved as objects that can be manipulated and reorganized.

End of March Digest

That's the end of the March 2008 appleJAC MUG Digest . . . if you're not at member, please join us TODAY.

Tom Piper, appleJAC Secretary/Editor