appleJAC Users Group

Updated Take Control books about Numbers and Pages

by Joe Kissell
, Publisher, Take Control Books
 
The pace of software updates from Apple never seems to slow down, and that keeps us busy too, since we often update our books to reflect the latest reality. Today I’m happy to announce updated books about two products in Apple’s iWork suite: Numbers and Pages—plus a special discount on our Keynote book.
 
First, Sharon Zardetto has thoroughly revised her book Take Control of Numbers, now entering its second edition. This extensive update covers Numbers 4 for Mac, with a large number of new features since the first edition of the book was published, including easy transposing of rows and columns, an updated formula editor, threaded comments, Touch Bar support, and much more. This edition also adds a new section on Numbers’ new sharing and collaboration features.

And, we’ve lowered the cover price of this 273-page book from $20 to $14.99.

Buy Take Control of Numbers for $10.49 with the 30% MUG discount (a coupon code will be applied automatically when you click Check Out)

Not to be outdone, Michael E. Cohen has also updated his book Take Control of Pages, Second Edition to version 2.1, which now covers Pages 6.3 on the Mac, Pages 3.3 for iOS, and the current version of the Pages for iCloud web app, all of which were released in September 2017.

The 283-page book now discusses linked text boxes, the expanded Shapes library, threaded comments, custom color fills in iOS, fixed layout EPUBs, and expanded file management capabilities, among other new or updated features.

Buy Take Control of Pages, Second Edition for $10.49 with the 30% MUG discount (a coupon code will be applied automatically when you click Check Out)
 
But wait, there’s more! Even though each of these lengthy books is individually a steal at $10.49, we have an even better offer for you: buy a bundle of both books for just $20 and save 33% off the cover price—that’s an even bigger bargain than your MUG discount!
 
Buy Take Control of Pages and Take Control of Numbers together for $20
 
There’s one other app in Apple’s iWork suite: Keynote. And we have a book on that one, too: Take Control of Keynote — in fact, I wrote it myself! Unfortunately, that book hasn’t been updated to cover newer features such as real-time collaboration and Keynote Live. But even though the book is somewhat out of date, it still contains loads of useful information, and most of it applies to the latest versions of Keynote for macOS, iOS, and iCloud. Since we couldn’t swing an update at this point, we’ve done the next-best thing, which is to lower the price from $15 to just $5! If you use Keynote, I think you’ll find this book quite useful, and I hope you’ll take advantage of this special deal.

Buy Take Control of Keynote for $5
 
Improve your productivity with Apple’s iWork apps and these great books today!

President's Place - April 2018

This meeting will be "Smart Home" with Joe Mertzlufft, George Kopp, and Tom Piper giving us in-depth review and demo of what makes up a Smart Home, the requirements, and how to control it from your personal devices. In case you can't make the meeting, be sure to view it live (or afterwards) on our Facebook page (facebook.com/appleJAC.org).

April 2018 Give-A-Ways:

• Tom Piper - $10 iTunes Card

 

Two updated Take Control books about digital photography for your MUG

by Joe Kissell

I’m delighted to announce two updated books about digital photography from our friend and digital photography expert Jeff Carlson. (And, you can buy both books together for a special low price.)
 
Now that it’s so easy to take and store digital photos, it can become overwhelming to stay on top of managing them all. In Take Control of Your Digital Photos, Jeff gives you a plan for tackling this problem, starting with preparing your camera ahead of time, then choosing the right app to manage your photos, judging and organizing your photos, and backing up your photos for safekeeping. This book is geared towards both Mac and Windows users, and discusses the merits of five popular photo management apps–Apple’s Photos, Lightroom Classic CC, Lightroom CC, Photoshop Elements, and Mylio–to help you choose the right one for your needs. (This book expands and updates an earlier title, Take Control of Your Digital Photos on a Mac.)

Buy Take Control of Your Digital Photos for $10.49 with the 30% MUG discount (a coupon code will be applied automatically when you click Check Out)
 
We’ve also released a new version of Jeff’s book Take Control of Lightroom CC. Last fall, Adobe released a new version of its Lightroom application, Lightroom CC, that is specifically designed for cloud interaction, and meant to appeal to users who want to do more than the basics with their photos, but want something more streamlined and simplified than Lightroom Classic CC or Photoshop. In Take Control of Lightroom CC, Jeff gives a thorough but accessible guide to the new Lightroom CC. He explains where it fits in the Lightroom ecosystem, then moves on to detail how to import, manage, and professionally edit your photos using Lightroom CC. For those who want to keep using Lightroom Classic CC, he also looks at how the two apps can work together.

Buy Take Control of Lightroom CC for $10.49 with the 30% MUG discount (a coupon code will be applied automatically when you click Check Out)

But, we’re also offering a special bundle of the two books together for $20, which is even less than what you’d pay with the MUG discount on the individual titles!

Buy Take Control of Your Digital Photos and Take Control of Lightroom CC for $20 (a coupon code will be applied automatically when you click Check Out)

Enjoy!

 

Parallels Toolbox for Mac & Windows: Fingertip Power Apps

a review by Tom Piper

There are a variety of powerful tools that are very useful on my MacBook Pro, but to reach them I need to go to my Dock, or Applications folder, or elsewhere. Parallels has provided me with easy access to over 30 such apps in one quick location.

Easy to use and economical, Parallels Toolbox for Mac & Windows is a whole drop-down menu of tools for a fraction of the cost of individual apps, packaged in one simple interface. For example, with Presentation Mode, I can immediately disable those distracting pop-ups or bouncing icons. Clean Drive keeps my computer’s storage optimized and free of unnecessary information, while Find Duplicates will free up extra space on my computer. With Download Video, I can grab videos from the internet to watch offline, or I can Take Screenshots or Record a Video with a single click to cut-and-paste the page I'm working on.

But, a picture is worth at least a thousand words (see menu drop-down Mac & Windows graphics and definitions below for Mac & Windows apps):

• Presentation Mode: Disable distractions for a better presentation experience. The Presentation Mode tool can automatically detect external displays and turn itself on.
• Hide Desktop: Hide all the files, folders, and other icons on your desktop when you’re doing a presentation, sharing or recording your screen, or taking screenshots.
• Do Not Sleep: Prevent your computer from going to sleep and your display from dimming. Ensure a task or presentation won’t be interrupted by disabling settings that would allow the computer to go to sleep.
• Do Not Disturb: Avoid distractions so you can focus on the task at hand. When activated, all notifications and the Dock app animations are disabled.
• Convert a Video: Optimize your home movie or television shows for iPad or iPhone.
• Take Video: Take an instant video using the computer’s camera (Mac only).
• Make GIF: Easily create and customize animated GIFs from videos. Adjust start and end points, add captions, choose frame rate and size, and save instantly on your desktop (Mac only).
• Take Screenshots: Easily screenshot a screen, active window, or area (Windows only).
• Screenshot Page: Take screenshots of any web pages, no matter how long, as a single image file. Option to add to Safari toolbar button (Mac only).
• Record Screen: Record a video of an area, window or your entire screen (Windows only).
• Clean Drive: Keeps your Mac clutter-free and running at max speed. Scans, detects, and lets you choose what to delete.
• Find Duplicates: Search any drive or folder to quickly find identical files (even with different names), and free up disc space (Mac only).
• Archive Your Files: Compress files with one click to use less storage space. Unarchive any archived files, RAR, zip, and more.
• Free Memory: Free up unused computer memory (Mac only).
• Download Audio: Download audio files from the Internet to your computer. Works with up to 30 tracks and detects multiple tracks automatically.
• Record Audio: Use your computer’s built-in microphone and record audio with a single click. You can record from an external microphone if it’s selected as the input source in System Preferences (Windows only).
• Mute Your Microphone: Prevent unauthorized or unwanted listening by other apps (Windows only).
• Block Camera: Use this tool for block the built-in camera, making it inaccessible to applications (Windows only).
• Take Photo: Take an instant photo using the computer’s camera.
• Lock Screen: Immediately lock your screen to prevent unauthorized access to your computer—no need to wait until the password-protected screen saver kicks in.
• Launch: Open any collection of apps, documents or other files simultaneously with just one click.
• Eject Volumes: Eject all volumes mounted on your Desktop, including local removable volumes like external hard drives and memory cards, network volumes and mounted disk images.
• Time Management: A set of handy, easy-to-use time management tools (Timer, Stopwatch, Alarm, and Date Countdown) to keep you productive and on task (Mac only).
• Switch Resolution: Quickly switch screen resolution. This tool is especially useful to those who find the macOS resolution settings a bit too limited (Windows only).
• Airplane Mode: Quickly and easily turn off wireless communication - Wi-Fi and Bluetooth (Mac only).
• Resize Images: Resize one—or multiple—images, and convert images between various formats (Mac only).

To learn more, go to https://www.parallels.com/products/toolbox/, where you can also purchase the Parallels Toolbox for Mac & Windows for $19.99/year (a free 7-day trial is also available here). Parallels Toolbox for Teams is also available for $79.95/year. This is a valuable collection of powerful and useful tools at a very most price.

 

Parallels Desktop 13 for Mac: Optimal Virtual Machine Power

a review by Tom Piper

I've been a diehard Apple user since 1979, but from time to time, its necessary for me to either run a Windows app (like a recent GPS upgrade), or slip back to the Snow Leopard Server version of macOS (to access AppleWorks). There is no better solution than Parallels!

I use Parallels Desktop 13 for Mac (Pro Edition, version 13.3.0) which meets and exceeds all of my needs for Windows and legacy macOS software. It very easy to setup where I can choose existing Windows, Linux, Ubuntu, or Boot Camp installation or download Windows 10 on my Mac within Parallels Desktop which gets me started immediately. I can make Windows invisible while still using its applications, or keep the familiar Windows background and controls on my Mac.

Its great to be able to add Windows applications to Touch Bar on my MacBook Pro for instant access and customization. All of my USB, Thunderbolt, and FireWire devices are also accessible in Windows. I can even pair my Bluetooth and printers to work with both Windows and macOS at the same time. Parallels Desktop for Mac will also optimize my VM settings and performance for productivity, games, design, or development. It is also possible to operate the most demanding applications with up to 128 GB vRAM and 32 vCPUs per virtual machine.

Special Feature: Parallels Toolbox for Mac and Windows, is included with over 30 one-touch tools which will clean my drive, secure private files, take screenshots, download a video, and much more with a single click (see my separate review).

The following is a list of additional features which I really like:

• Drag and drop files between Mac and Windows
• Copy and paste files or text between Mac and Windows 
• Launch Windows applications right from the Dock
• Single cloud storage space between Mac and Windows  
• Retina® Display support for Windows
• Run Windows in full screen
• Open files in Windows just by dragging & dropping them
• Open any site in Microsoft Explorer right from Safari browser
• Apply macOS Parental Control to Windows applications
• Windows alerts in Mac Notification Center
• Mac dictation inside Windows applications
• The number of Unread emails shown in the Dock
• “Reveal in Windows Explorer” in macOS files menu
• Drag and drop files in macOS guests
• Real-time virtual disk optimization
• Disk Space Wizard optimizes my disk space
• Windows applications in Launchpad
• Power Nap in Windows
• Use Force Touch to look up definitions
• New Virtual Machine Wizard
• Mission Control support
• The Presentation Wizard prevents most projector issues
• Drop files onto Outlook to create a new message
• Multi-language Keyboard Sync
• macOS Guest support
• Spaces functionality for Windows applications
• Mission Control exposes My Windows applications
• Work without risk with Snapshots
• Safeguard my VM with encryption
• 2 GB video memory support
• Finder Tabs work with Windows applications
• and many more...

To learn more, go to http://www.parallels.com where you can upgrade from v.10/11 for $49.99, purchase the Home version for $79.99, buy the Pro/Bus version for $99.99, or the Remote Application Server for $99.99/yr (free 14-day trial also available). It is so reassuring to have so much versatility and power in one computer when using this software!!!