Jim Hamm has more to say about this review of iBooks2. "With the interactive features in iBooks 2, this will put a world of hurt on traditional textbooks. Here you are reading a textbook in iBooks 2 and there's audio and video available, places to take notes, a dictionary, et al. Since the iBooks upgrade is new, there's been bugs reported, so I won't upgrade for some time, if ever. I'm not much on reading textbooks anymore." And, predictably, Jim closes with a grin.
Happy New Year
The Board at PMUG want to wish all of you a Happy and Prosperous New Year. With the new year comes our membership renewal. We hope your experience with PMUG has been enjoyable and informative this past year. We strive to make the meetings interesting and bring useful information to our members.
Our secretary Bobbie Pastor reminds us that annual membership is still $20 for a single or a family membership. Go to the PMUG website and click on Join Now for an application or see Bobbie at the PMUG meeting to join. (Thanks to Bobbie for the lovely photo.)
How to Sync
Once you've upgraded to iOS 5 on your mobile device, here are instructions on how to sync over wifi. Jim Hamm says, "You'll want to watch the video, also. The mobile device has to be plugged into power in order to do the sync."
Go Places & See Things
We love Mac for helping us go places and see things! Jim Hamm broadens our horizons with an article on "10 Things You can Do for Fun & Learning on the Library of Congress Online" and a link to the Library of Congress. Some of the features are Ask a Librarian, a link to Copyright.gov and maps at Places in the News. Other links take you to Remembering 9/11, Peace Corps, Comic Art, September Film Series on the American West, and more and more!
Keyboard Shortcut
Here's a keyboard shortcut from Allen Laudenslager who writes, "After reading Art Gorski's post about boot commands, I thought some members might not be familiar with the most useful keyboard shortcut.
"Press the command key (the one with a little apple on it) and hold while you press the space key. This will open Spotlight in the top right corner of your screen. What good is Spotlight? You don't have to search for the application or file you want to open. For example to open mail, you don't have to take your hands off the keyboard and use the mouse to select mail from your tool bar, just open Spotlight, then type the word 'mail.'
"For your word processor, open Spotlight and type in the name of the file (for a new document type in the name of your word processor - Pages or Word). If you click on the name of the document, the word processor will automatically open for you.
"What is really neat is that as you type, Spotlight will create a list of files and apps that match what you have typed so far, including web pages from your browser history. Just use the arrow keys in the bottom right corner of your keyboard and arrow down to highlight the file, app, or webpage you want to open and then just press the enter key - you will open whatever you were looking for."
Allen closes with, "Once you get used to it, you'll never search through finder looking for a file again. Unless, of course like me, you forget what you called the file last month and have to look for dates to jog your memory."
And this just in from John Carter: "The tip that Allen gave about Command-Space to open Spotlight does not work on applications that have been newly installed or never opened since being installed. For all new or never-before opened applications, you have to launch the application from the Applications folder. I have been stunned by this short-coming more than once."
Important Argosy News
David Passell has been having some problems with his Mini. He's found a fix! David informs us, "Tony Baltera took in my Mini with the erratic superdrive yesterday and immediately ordered a new one from Apple under my Apple Care warranty that expires Dec. 25. He stated that they do not carry Apple products in stock since outlets like Best Buy can carry a wide selection.
"HOWEVER: AND THIS IS IMPORTANT TO MAC OWNERS IN THIS AREA. He is an Authorized Apple Repair Center and he is concentrating on this function. He can order Apple products for you though. I did not find this out from BB who told me to contact Apple and have out-of-date info on Argosy.
"A opinion from me: Contrary to the bragging you hear sometimes, avoidance of local (or any) sales taxes is probably the worst reason to buy from a website (and it is technically illegal if you don't declare the purchase). Remember 'the citizen cares for his/her community; the consumer only cares for his/her wallet.')."
Update, 12-21. David writes, "I got my Mini back with a new superdrive yesterday. It appears to work fine."
Creating Music CDs
A user had the following experience after inserting a blank CD in preparation to create a music CD:
Disk Utility started, but no disk icon appeared on desktop.
Well, that makes it rather difficult to copy files to the CD.
The disk icon won’t appear on the desktop, or in Places in Finder, if you have "Open Disk Utility" as the default action when inserting a blank DVD/CD.
In this case, it appears that the user had "Open Disk Utility" as the default when a blank DVD/CD is installed. That’s a mistake, in my opinion. If you want total control over what happens when you insert a blank DVD/CD, the default action is unchecked so that you get the following prompt when a blank DVD/CD is inserted:
Notice that the box for "Make this the default action" is not checked, and the above prompt shows up when I insert a blank DVD/CD.
The pop-up menu is exposed here to show what actions are possible.
When I select “Open Finder,” the DVD icon should appear in Finder as a folder under Places:
Now you can simply drag and drop files into that folder. When you have them all there, just click on the burn icon and in a few minutes you have your CD ready to use.
If the CD icon doesn’t automatically get removed after burning the CD, right click on it and select “Remove from Sidebar”:
So how do you unset the default action when you insert a blank DVD/CD? Go to System Preferences and open “CDs & DVDs”…
Change your preferences to “Ask what to do”.
Take back control over what you want to do when you insert a blank CD or DVD. Maybe you would prefer to set the default action to “Open Finder” so that you can then start copying files to it.
When you copy files into a blank DVD/CD this way, the files aren’t actually copied right away. The filenames you see there are just placeholders. The files actually get copied when you start the burn process.
However, if you are like me and you use Path Finder as your default browser, you get the following in Places:
And when you copy files into that folder, you actually do copy the files to the DVD/CD at that time. Notice that there is no burn icon there. So, in order to burn the DVD/CD, you should have the burn icon in the tool bar of the browser:
This simplifies having to search around for how to do a burn after copying files to a blank DVD/CD.
And by the way, don’t forget to rename the folder before you do the burn.
Getting to Know Your Mac
New to Mac? You'll want to read on for John Carter's intro to Mac. He begins, "It's really tough figuring out what to do with a new computer, especially when all the user guides and tutorials are on the Internet now.
"New Mac owners often ask, 'Which book do I buy?' The answer isn't simple. There is no one book that has everything in it that you will ever need to know that is also light enough to carry and user friendly for the newbie.
"Go to the used book store or the thrift store and get anything - even if it's written for an older version of your operating system and a completely different Mac machine. It's a start. The basics are almost always the same - how to use the mouse and how to navigate in any application.
"However, for applications such as iPhoto, iTunes, Mail, Pages, Keynote, and so on, you have to have the book that was written for your version of the operating system; the hardware type (desktop, laptop, iMac) in this case doesn't matter.
"If you are able to get on the Internet, you don't need a book. You just need patience to sit in front of your computer and find the tutorials you need.
" Let's make that easy for starters.
"The first place to go to get help with your new Apple device (any Apple device) is http://www.apple.com/support/
"Once there, you select the device type you want help for. Let's say it's for your new iMac. Then you would select the Mac icon.
"Let's say it's the Intel-based iMac. Select that. On the next page, there are really only two categories you need to view (as a Newbie). They are 'Getting Started' and "How To.'
"If this is your first computer, select anything that appeals to you under 'Getting started.' If you're switching from a Windows machine to a Mac, you probably should start with the link 'Switch 101' and then back to any of the others according to what appeals to you. On that same page, down at the bottom is a link to 'Cheat Sheet.' Please, go to that page and print it out, then fill in the blanks. On that page, you are given all the help you need to fill in the answers to the kinds of questions people will ask you about your computer."
John notes, "One of the questions not on that form is, 'How do you access your email?' If you access your email by going onto the Web with a browser, what is the name of the service that you connect to? Is it Gmail, Yahoo, PeoplePC, or what? You need to know this in order to configure that service to allow Mac Mail to download your email from that service to your computer. In addition, that service should have some support page that gives you instructions on how to configure Mac Mail. If you are using Yahoo mail, you have to purchase the annual upgrade in order to be able to download email to your computer.
"What is the advantage of using Mac Mail over accessing your email directly online? For one, any images that come as attachments in email are instantly viewable in Mac Mail. Same with most other small documents. With Mac Mail, you can get a preview of any size document without needing to save it to your computer first. There are several other benefits, and you really need to see a demo of Mail in order to appreciate all that it can do."
John concludes, "If there is anything else that you need to know, click here to send an email with your question to info@pmug.us and someone will try to assist you."
Improving your computer skills.
Are you are looking for a program of structured practices that will improve your computer skills? Maybe you just want to learn how to use Mail better. One thing to get you started in a program to improve your computer skills is to create a list of the applications you want to master as well as the uses you want to put those applications to, such as how to use Numbers to create and manage (blank), how to organize incoming email to quickly identify priority items, how to work with Pages and Mail to handle things like mail merge, or the easiest way to create presentations with Keynote that really make a difference.
This isn't as daunting as you might think. But as you might suspect, unless you have a program in place to practice by, learning how to use a Mac efficiently can take a very long time of hit and miss effort. The one thing you must be aware of, though, is that unless you apply yourself daily - just like going to the gym to get toned - the results will be sketchy at best.
The same kind of skill-building technique for learning how to type is needed for developing computer skills: a structured program plus daily practice.
It does help to introduce new ideas sequentially rather than all at once. Each new skill requires a few days of practice before adding a new concept.
I recommend two ways to learn using a Mac or an application. One is to get a book that shows all the steps in easy to follow, progressive lessons. The other is to get a set of videos that does the same thing. Quite often, for some very technical processes, a book is not the best choice because it might say something like, "Do A, B, and C to get the desired results." A video does a much better job of showing how that is done. But to master anything takes daily, repetitive practice.
Tutorials abound on the Internet in both text and video format, and don't forget the Forums where people pose questions and get answers. The problem with many video tutorials is that they focus on one aspect of an entire application and are less than 5 minutes, which helps only if that one process is what you are interested in learning about. Still, seeking out all the tutorials and following them through is by far the cheapest way to learn something, but you have to provide the structure and the practice discipline. In this way you are following in the footsteps of people who have been there and done that.
An interesting fact is that even if someone thinks they know the basics of using a mouse, I usually show them a thing or two about using a mouse that they never knew. For instance, a two button mouse (left and right buttons and maybe with a scroll wheel in the middle) has four functions that can be used in every application. Do you know what they are? What can the left button do? What can the right button do? These operations are at the very core of using a computer.
Let me tell you how I learned to work with computers. I bought six books all on the same subject and all by different authors. I studied them one at a time. I applied daily what I was learning just by tinkering with each new idea. Much of the same information was repeated in each book, and each book had something that the others didn't have. After the sixth book was put down, I realized I knew more, with practical experience, than most graduate students. In fact, I met the author of one of the books and discovered he didn't even know everything that was in his book because his students were mostly responsible for the contents.
The point is, learn everything that is offered, even if you don't think you'll use it. It helps to develop a sense of analyzing a situation and seeing how different tools may be used to complete the same task. You probably do this already with some task that you do around the house or at work. Learning a Mac application is really no different.
What I tell everyone is that every application has at least three ways of accomplishing the same thing. Your efficiency with any application is enhanced only after you learn all of them.
I'm not going to mislead you. Using a mentor like myself can be very rewarding, but can also take a very long time. One hour isn't going to get it done. Students spend 40 hours in a classroom environment, learn hundreds of skill building techniques, and within a month of leaving the classroom forget 90% of what they learned - because they don't use it.
John Carter
Starting Off 2010
We started off 2010 with 35 people at the January meeting today at the Prescott Library.
Thanks to Roger Lakner (in the picture here) and Art Gorski for their presentations. Lucky ticket holders won Avery products. We're all eager to try out the CDs of the Avery DesignPro software that everyone received.
Double click to enlarge the photos. Thanks to MaryBeth for the photos, including the new one in the sidebar.
Cyber Monday is Here
DIY, Serious or Fun
David Passell passes along this link to the Instructables. It's an eclectic collection of DIY (Do It Yourself) projects, ranging from Christmas gifts and decorations, (now's the time to get going on these!) to the tech-oriented stuff. He reminds us, "To get the full benefits you will have to establish a subscription, but it is FREE. Every week you will get a new email with a link to the latest madness."
Will Apple Give Big Discounts on Black Friday?
What's in store for the Friday after Thanksgiving? Jim Hamm finds this article from MacWorld suggesting a possible big discount. Here's a copy of last year's advance ad from Apple, just to tweak your interest. This could be just a rumor, but time will tell.
Track Pad Touches
For the adventuresome PMUG people Allen Laudenslager writes a short note about the Track Pad which (with the right app) can track up to 11 touches. Here's the original article. He notes he won't try it because it's not developed, but perhaps some of the "explorers" want to try it and see what its uses might be.
Get Acquainted with BIG Numbers
This stretches the brain, but that’s the fun of something new. Heard of a yottabyte?
NSA is planning to store yottabytes of surveillance data in Utah. Quoting from CrunchGear (Nov. 1, 2009)
"There are a thousand gigabytes in a terabyte, a thousand terabytes in a petabyte, a thousand petabytes in an exabyte, a thousand exabytes in a zettabyte, and a thousand zettabytes in a yottabyte. In other words, a yottabyte is 1,000,000,000,000,000GB. Are you paranoid yet?"
Writer Devin Coldewey talks about an interesting article in the current New York Review of books, detailing the history of the National Security Agency and what the future holds. Take a look; there are 103 comments posted.
Internet Addresses Set for Change
Keeping up with the latest about the Internet, this one is a biggie. David Passell forwards this article, describing the addition of non-Latin-script web addresses. It's called the biggest change in the way the Internet works since it was created 40 years ago. The first applications for IDNs (Internationalised DomainNames) will be accepted November 16, with the first up and running by "mid-2010." More details follow:
The board of Icann voted at its annual meeting in Seoul to allow domain names in Arabic, Chinese, and other scripts. More than half of the 1.6 billion people who use the Internet speak languages with non-Latin scripts. Plans for the IDNs were first approved in June 2008, with the testing of the system on-going for the last two years.
This article goes on to say that the move paves the way for the Internet's Domain Name System (DNS) to be changed so it can recognize and translate non-Latin characters.
Icann was set up by the US government and founded in 1998 to oversee the development of the net.
Macintosh Apple Pie (the real thing)
Look at this! When I say Apple, do you think "apple"? When I say, "Macintosh," do you think, "apple"?
Jim Hamm says he's going to see if Zee will make him this pie. He wrote, so I wrote back that he could try to make it himself and let us know. He responded with "I can't cook at all. That's why I whine and plead like a real man to get Zee to cook a pie like this."
Here from SmallDog.com is the one you'll want if you like apple pie.
The link above takes you to the archives of every newsletter since August 2008. Now here's the actual page link.
Actually, they call this "Grace's Vermont Apple Pie," by Grace Mayer
CRUST
- 2 cups flour
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons very cold butter
- Grated rind 1/2 lemon
- 2 eggs
- 2 tablespoons ice water
Place the flour, salt, and sugar in a mixing bowl. Cut the butter into small bits and add to flour mixture. Using your fingers, cut in the butter until it has the texture of coarse cornmeal. Add the lemon rind. Separate the eggs and set the whites aside. Beat the yolks with the water and add to the mixture, stirring quickly with a fork.
Gather the dough into a ball and place in the refrigerator while you prepare the filling.
FILLING
- 8-12 McIntosh Apples
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 1/2 cut brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon flour
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
Take one quarter of the dough and put it back in the refrigerator. The remaining piece will be the bottom crust. Roll out the crust between two pieces of wax paper. The crust should be as round as possible and should fit into the pie plate with the edges hanging over.
Carefully peel the wax paper off one side and lightly lay the paper back on. Flip the dough over and carefully peel the wax paper off this side. Place in the pie plate and carefully peel off the remaining paper. Fit the dough into the plate and cut off any extra from the edges.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Pare the apples and cut them into thick slices. One apple should yield only about 8-10 slices. Place the sliced apples into the crust. Dot the top with the butter. Sprinkle the brown sugar, flower and cinnamon over the top. Set aside.
Roll out the remaining dough between two new pieces of wax paper. Make this piece as square as possible. Peel the paper off the bottom crust. Use a fork to flatten the edges.
Brush the top of the pie with the leftover egg white and sprinkle lightly with some sugar. Place in the preheated oven for about 30 minutes. Watch the pie for the last five minutes. It may need a little more or less time. depending on your oven. When it is evenly browned, remove and cool before slicing.
(No, we won't publish everyone's recipe in our PMUG news blog. But, hey, this is Apple, and it is Macintosh!)
Consider "Net Neutrality"
Should the FCC and the government stay out of the Internet, or should ISPs be allowed to, say, charge for the amount of usage a person uses? Jim Hamm raises this question and goes on to say, "After reading this article I'm still a bit uncertain if I'm 'fer or agin' net neutrality. Do you think the FCC and government should stay out of the Internet, or should ISPs be allowed to, say, charge for the amount of usage a person uses? For example, YouTube has caused a significant increase in soaking up broadband, as does downloading movies, etc. This can cause internet slowdown in a neighborhood. Should people pay for this increased usage?"
"Another example: now many RV parks charge for WiFi (which is OK, somebody has to pay for this service), but now when one pays the fee you are limited to 60MB/day usage. Once you get to that level, you have to pay another fee for another 60MB. The parks say this restriction is needed because too many campers were soaking up available WiFi watching or downloading movies.
Jim concludes, "We'll see and hear more about this issue in future months, I'm sure." Here's the article.
Mac Commercials vs. Windows
De Prez Allen Laudenslager sends a note about two creative Mac commercials. Here's the video.
Soon to Be on Sale?
Rumors of new Apple products always catch our attention. John Carter sends us this biggie, "It has been rumored for the last month that there will be new iMacs for the Christmas buying season. Today, AppleInsider seems to have some information on these. 'A trio of online advertisements that appear to have been published prematurely by one of Apple's international online stores suggest it's only a matter of days before the Mac maker takes the wraps off of new families of ultra-thin iMacs, lighter & thinner plastic MacBooks, and more affordable Mac minis.'
John's advice? "So if you are planning on buying or upgrading wait — new Apple products are usually introduced on a Tuesday. I would guess they will be out by the second Tuesday of the month — October 13, but perhaps we will see something next week."