appleJAC Users Group

President’s Corner

 

by Tom Piper, aJMUG President

September is behind us, Labor Day is gone, days are cooler, leaves are falling, and images of Thanksgiving and Christmas are beginning to appear. I am excited about our upcoming December celebration of appleJAC Macintosh User Group’s 25th anniversary . . . it seems like only yesterday when Tom Day and I arranged the first gathering of Mac users in mid-Missouri at Century Next Computers, 2120 Missouri Blvd (this location is now a Sprint telephone store, and Tom heads the photo department at Walmart). This was the beginning of appleJAC (Joint Aid & Comfort for users of our favorite computer), and the logo showed cider dripping from an apple. Those were primitive, but really exciting days of discovery, mutual aid, joyous laughter and the kindling of many years of great friendships. Ours is a special group who deserves a celebration.

Last month we conducted our special “Back to School” edition focused on the Wide World of iPhone and iPod touch. George assisted me in presenting the latest features of both, as well as a wide range of “apps” that are available for these portable wonders (over 75,000 at last count). As that night’s video will show, many shared their favorite app which which the rest of us appreciated. We also gave away the following items from a special shipment of Apple-logoed products thanks to the Apple User Group Advisory Board (of which I’m a member):

•     iPhone Apps (book)    Dan Walsh
•     iPhone: Fully Loaded (book)    Larry Garvin
•     iPhone Book    Betsy Zindle, Bill Webb
•     iPhone: The Missing Manual    Jan Watson, Tom Vaughn
•     Apple caps    Aileen Garvin, Bruce Heerboth, Mark Snell, Charlie Bland, Jim Cooper, Roz Moulton
•     Apple note holder    Alice Kopp, Ken Zindle, Jenice Taggart, Sue McCormick, George Kopp, Trish Colemam, Julie Smith
•     Apple bag        Joe Mertzlufft, Gale Fuller, Jane Szabados, Kelly Archer, Bonnie Culley, Sister Josetta Eveler, Bob McCormick, Donna Viessman, Robert Williams

    (being a “Back to School” special meeting, even our two guests received note holders)

Our next meeting is all about Snow Leopard, and all that it has to offer. George will present the latest features of this surprisingly robust upgrade. As time allows, we also intend to cover various file conversion programs, and how to move AppleWorks into iWork files.

The iWork ’09 MacClasses were successfully held be at Lewis and Clark Middle School on September 10, 17 and 24 featuring Pages, Numbers and Keynote (photo highlights are on our website). Two new iWork books were also given away, each a $40 value, to Bonnie Culley (iWork '09: The Missing Manual), and to Ann Mullholland (Apple Training Series: iWork '09). The six-hour video recording of these sessions will be available for pickup by class participants, and available for purchase ($15 per DVD) for those who could not attend. George has also planned another iPhoto ’09 class (particularly for those who missed the last one) for November 5, 2009, assuming that at least eight people signup by our next meeting.

Don’t forget to mark your calendar for the next appleJAC Macintosh Users Group meeting on Tuesday, October 6, 2009, at 7:00 pm. Bring family, friends and new members back  to Lewis and Clark Middle School to get the most out of your Mac and other Apple products.

 

October appleJAC Agenda

Work ’09: The Missing Manual

a review by Tom Piper and Bonnie Culley

Author: Josh Clark
Publisher: O'Reilly Media / Pogue Press
Released: April 2009
Pages: 896
Print: ISBN 10: 0-596-15758-4
Ebook: ISBN 10: 0-596-80341-9

As the Internet promo says, you'll quickly learn everything you need to know about Apple's incredible productivity programs, including the Pages word-processor, the Numbers spreadsheet, and the Keynote presentation program that Al Gore and Steve Jobs made famous. This book gives you crystal-clear and jargon-free explanations of iWork's capabilities, advantages, and limitations to help you produce stunning documents and cinema-quality digital presentations in no time.

Below is the sequence of educational steps as shown in the Table of Contents.

Pages '09
Chapter 1 Creating a Pages Document
Chapter 2 Editing Text in Pages
Chapter 3 Creating and Using Styles
Chapter 4 Typo-Busting Power Tools
Chapter 5 Document Format and Organization
Chapter 6 Beyond Text: Laying Out Pages
Chapter 7 Objects Up Close: Adding, Modifying, and More
Chapter 8 Building Tables and Charts
Chapter 9 Sharing Pages Documents
Chapter 10 Streamline Your Projects: Creating Templates

Keynote '09
Chapter 11 Planning and Giving Great Presentations
Chapter 12 Creating a Keynote Slideshows
Chapter 13 Laying Out Your Slides
Chapter 14 Animating Your Slides
Chapter 15 Sharing Your Slideshows
Chapter 16 Customizing Keynote Themes

Numbers 09
Chapter 17 Creating a Numbers Spreadsheets
Chapter 18 Editing Tables in Numbers
Chapter 19 Organizing Tables in Numbers
Chapter 20 Using Formulas
Chapter 21 Advanced Data Crunching with Functions
Chapter 22 Charts: Giving Shape to Numbers
Chapter 23 Designing Your Spreadsheet Report
Chapter 24 Sharing Your Spreadsheets
Chapter 25 Creating Custom Numbers Templates

Appendix
Installing iWork '09
Keeping iWork Up to Date

Bonnie said that, “As an older user on the computer, learning is more difficult. I was extremely pleased with how easy it is to read and follow the instructions in The Missing Manual.  iWork has quite a lot of new functions that I had not used in the past. Working along as I read makes this so easy to learn — much better than a listening to a CD.”

“I plan to replace my InDesign with the page layout function in iWork as it seems to be easier to use. I create an 18-page quarterly, genealogy newsletter. With my copy of the Missing Manual, I will be able to find what I need with ease every time I hit one of those “memory blocks” that we old gals get. Thank you for making it so easy for us.”

Summary, we conclude that iWork ’09: The Missing Manual is an excellent resource to learn the many elements of the powerful iWork series. It is well worth the investment, and they even provide a substantial discount for our user group members (see below).

This book normally retails for $39.99 (add in the Ebook version for another $4.00), or as little as $24.95 from competing sources such as Amazon. To learn more about this book from O’Reilly, visit http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596157593#toc.

O'Reilly Publishing is offering new and better discounts for groups. User group members can get a discount of 35% off all books and PDFs from O'Reilly, No Starch, Paraglyph, PC Publishing, Pragmatic Bookshelf, SitePoint or Syngress books that are purchased directly from O'Reilly by phone or online. Add in free shipping for orders over $29.95 (US) and the offer gets even better. Order from the O'Reilly Store online or by phone at 1-800-998-9938 ( extra shipping costs outside U.S.).

See what the buzz is about: http://www.oreilly.com/store/, and use online code: DSUG. This worldwide offer is ongoing.

Verbatim Go Nano Notebook Optical Mouse

Your laptop trackpad is great for many uses, but sometimes you just want the precision and control of a good mouse. The Apple Mighty Mouse is terrific for desktop computers, but a little heavy and bulky for your computer bag. There are many alternatives to choose from in the world of wireless USB mice.

I’ve been using the latest Verbatim Go Nano notebook optical mouse which is a very nice mini-mouse size (smaller than Mighty, but not a micro-mouse). It uses a tiny 2.4 GHz USB receiver that conveniently plugs into an available port when in use, and a storage slot  in the bottom of the mouse when not in use (turns unit on when receiver is removed, and off when inserted). Even though I have large hands, I found it to still be quite comfortable with the rubberized surface and very responsive.

The Go Nano comes in seven colors, sits very firmly on the tabletop, but is fairly lightweight. It comes with a CD of drivers which are not needed on the Mac . . . all of the System Preferences for mice adjustment work just fine. The right and left buttons, as well as the clickable scroll wheel all work just as expected, and it takes very little space in my computer bag. It is powered by two AAA batteries (included) that still haven’t needed replacement yet. There is also an additional tiny button on the button to turn the unit back on if its gone to sleep after a period of inactivity.

This Verbatim Go Nano mouse is available at MSRP of $39.95, but can be found on Amazon and other competitors for as little as $22.95. For more information, and to see the other mice and other accessories, just go to www.verbatim.com. This mouse now goes with me wherever my MacBook Pro goes, so I think its a good investment.

Video showing the new features of Photoshop Elements 8 for the Mac

This new version continues to refine the great user interface and feature set of versions 6 and 7. Mac users will be happy to see this new version on the Mac (skipping version 7). While there is a lot to like in this consumer photo editing app, here are a few of my favorites:

• Mac users get the full Bridge CS4 app included with all the benefits of Adobe Camera RAW plus the ability to create panos and access to the new Photomerge Scene Cleaner and Photomerge Exposure
• On the Windows side instead of Bridge CS4 there is a new Organizer that works with both Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements.
• Photomerge Exposure is amazing!

But don’t just read about it, Terry White from Adobe recorded this video of some of the new features.

iWork Classes a Hit in Jefferson City

The fall class schedule has begun and appleJAC is not left out.  This evening, appleJAC President, Tom Piper, presented the first part of a 3 part series on iWork 09.  Tonight's presentation focused on Pages 09 describing the word processing functions of Pages and the use of Pages as a Page Layout Menu.

This class series continues for the next two Thursday evenings starting at 7pm each evening at Lewis and Clark Middle School.  The next two classes focus on Numbers 09 and Keynote 09 along with the use of iWork applications together.

    

CopyPaste Pro: Time Machine for the Clipboard

a review by Tom Piper

Isn’t the Mac’s Clipboard great, and very useful? . . . but, only one thing at a time! Remember the ScrapBook from OS9 where you used to keep lots of text, photos, and sounds at your fingertips? Now we have all of this and more in one excellent program.

From Script Software we have a very useful utility called CopyPastePro. I’ve been using iClip for several years, but believe I’ve found a very capable challenger. Compatible with Mac OS 10.4, 10.5 and 10.6, CopyPaste was the original multiple clipboard utility for the Mac. Its latest incarnation has those same underlying abilities, but with this latest version unveiled in 2008 (CopyPaste Pro) is faster, has a horizontal browser (like the Apple application launcher) and 2 vertical palettes for the History and Archive clips. Also an editor called Bean is now part of the CopyPaste Pro ecology. Bean allows you to edit clipboards but is, in reality, a powerful word processor. It is simple, fast and easy to use.

Called the “Time Machine for the Clipboard, this utility is also known as No. 1 of the 3 Essential  Utilities for Mac OS X. It product is an award winning, easy to use, multiple clipboard editing/display utility. See and edit any clip in your history of copies or in the more permanent clip archives. Use the new Clip Browser (horizontal) or Clip Palette (vertical) to see all clipboards in an instant. Save all clipboards through restarts. Tools to act on clipboard data. Never lose a clip again. CopyPaste is a time saver/life saver for all Mac beginners thru advanced users, and includes a very impressive manual. As a bonus, this includes a great little word processor called Bean that has a surprising range of tools that are very useful for quick editing of clips and other stuff.

You can download CopyPaste Pro from www.scriptsoftware.com/store/index.php, and test a fully-functioning copy, but it just won’t save your clipboards. If you like it, you can immediately buy it for $30.00 (quantity discounts also available. It has good store support, an excellent Support Forum, and many other companion utilities that are interesting and productive. This could well be my next clipboard utility!

macProVideo.com: Effective Software Training

a review by Tom Piper

Trying to learn a new program, but tired of reading books? Want to see details in action, but training at your own pace, in your own time? Want quality at an economical price?

I recommend macProVideo.com with the excellent NonLinear Educating (N.E.D.) interface to participate in training videos. You can watch tutorials online through Safari (or FireFox or whatever), download high definition training videos to your Mac, and watch even watch tutorials on your iPhone or iPod touch . . . tremendous versatility with excellent instructors.

From iWork components (Pages, Numbers, Keynote) to Adobe Creative Suite (Illustrator, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Acrobat, inDesign) to iLife (GarageBand, iWeb, etc.) to sound to photo to operating system to so much more! They are continually updating their material to meet the contemporary needs of a wide range of computer users. From personal experience, I can assure you that their training style is well-paced (and modifiable), very understandable (with lots of tips and hints), and sensibly packaged (step-by-step, with humor, repeatability, knowledge and style).

A visit to their website at www.macprovideo.com is very instructive. You can test the first 10% of videos for FREE (try before you buy), subscribe for as little as $15 per month, or up to $250 per year for a Pro Subscription. There are 8,685 individual tutorial-videos currently available with a steady growth of new selections. Downloadable HD tutorials and online tutorial-videos are available from $9.50 (Core GarageBand) to $385.13 (Adobe Complete CS4 Bundle) for virtually every taste and need for Mac productivity.

macProVideo.com also excels at supporting their products and your education. You can go in to a Forum on any of their videos to clarify information and exchange ideas. Customer service and support is at the core of this business with a promise of a response to all requests with 24 hours. I have personally interviewed Martin Sitter, the sparkplug (founder and principal) for macProVideo.com, and find him inspiring, driven, and dedicated to quality and innovation. His list of talented trainers is very impressive. And, you have to use N.E.D. on your computer (or N.E.D.i on the iPhone & iPod touch) to see how easy, responsive and delightful it can be.

There is so much more I could say, but I recommend that you try it out for yourself to see how much fun and rewarding this service can be. To say the least, I have really enjoyed these products, the extraordinary service, and great value, which is why I endorse macProVideo.com for almost anyone who wants quality results.

Winners of Photo Contest Announced

At the September meeting, the winners of the summer Photo contest were announced:

1st Place - George Kopp

2nd Place - Mark Snell

3rd Place - Julie Smith

Thanks to all those that entered.

End of October 2009 Digest