Allen will be here this summer and could lead a meeting, but just about everyone else will be away. Regular
meetings will resume November, 2008.
Please send comments or suggestions to
rproctor@together.net (Bob Proctor at Lot# 105 here at the Cove)
*** Top ***
Notes: Meeting: 03/19/08
Club Web Site: http://bobshomebrew.net/CypressCoveAppleClub/
Meeting Notes
- Meeting attendees: Bill D., Johann, Jonathan, Ernie, Kay and Bob.
- We welcomed Ernie Zaremba. This was his first meeting.
- The winter season is ending. April 2 will be our last meeting of the season. With most members being away
for the summer, there will not be any meetings. However, if enough of the permanent members are around then there is
nothing stopping having some meetings.
- Discussion on having the Cove Web Page link to our Club Web Page. Bob will contact Cove management.
- Kay mentioned that his wireless card is not working and Apple Service will not fix older Macs like the one Kay has. Bill may have
a wireless USB card that could be tried.
- We need a better way to give demos. A couple suggestions were made for next Fall when meetings resume:
- Borrow a projector and screen from one of the other clubs. Bob will investigate.
- Have members bring computers and setup screen sharing. Bill will investigate.
- Our electric supply is quite unstable here at the Cove. Someone mentioned that the Power Company can install
a 'surge protector' at the power meter that will give very good protection. A direct hit from lightning
is a rare occurance but could happen. This sort of strike is so powerful that the 'surge protector' probably
would not work, but for most of the power surges and spikes we experience, the 'surge protector' is well worth the monthly
cost, which may be around $10.
- A tip from tidbits.com: There is a series of computer training books called Take Control that could be an
alternative to the training provided at the Lynda.com web site.
- We had a discussion on Virus Protection a few meetings back. We recommend Norton from Symantec or similar program.
Alternatively, there are free choices as well. Have you installed Anti-Virus software on your machnes?
- The main topic of the meeting was PathFinder from Cocoatech. Bob talked about PathFinder's features and compared
what PathFinder can do vs. Finder. There is potentially a significant productivity gain advantage in using PathFinder
instead of Finder,
depending on the kind of things you do. The $35 purchase price can save a ton of time. This is a highly
recommended application in the Mac community. It can be tried for free. Get it from
http://www.cocoatech.com/
- Jonathan mentioned another productivity enhancement application called Default Folder
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/13660
Default Folder X attaches a toolbar to your Open and Save dialogs in any OS X-native application.
The toolbar gives you fast access to various folders and commands. You just click on the buttons to go to your
favorite and recently used folders, manage the folders and files shown in the list, and make changes to your settings.
The cost is $35.
- Meeting adjourned at 8:40 PM.
Please send comments or suggestions to
rproctor@together.net (Bob Proctor at Lot# 105 here at the Cove)
*** Top ***
Notes: Meeting: 03/05/08
Meeting attendees: Allen, Wally, Bill D., Johann, Jonathan and Bob.
We encountered a meeting room conflict because the Terrace was being used as a dressing
room for a wedding. We moved the meeting to the Club House but had a different problem
as there was a card game going on at the other end of the room which got rather loud at times. Sorry about that!
- The meeting opened with a general discussion with topics including
Aperture and Final Cut Express training,
organizing photos with iPhoto,
getting Mail working by deleting offending file,
writing a Keynote presentation,
web site updates and a question on how to setup printer sharing on a network.
- Discussion of Photoshop vs. Photoshop Elements. Cost differences
of $600 vs. $100 and the amount of technical training needed in Photoshop
seems to make Photoshop appealing only to professionals or serious photographers with lots of time
and money. Bob had handouts with feature lists which showed features in Photoshop not in Elements.
- Discussion on backups with Time Machine and Super Duper. Both both are very useful. SuperDuper! can make
a bootable image which could be extremely useful in the event of a total disc failure. Just get a new
internal disc, do the restore from the backup and away you go. Time machine could be very useful for
restoring complete directories or individual files.
- Short discussion on cleaning up E-Mail.
- We want to thank Johathan Shopiro for his excellent presentation on Apple Script. Johathan described
what it is, why use it, how to use it, tools to use and resources available. He showed us where to store
scripts, how to invoke the scripts and how to make scripts stand-alone.
Tools are available on your Mac:
/Applications/AppleScript/AppleScript Utility.app
/Applications/AppleScript/Script editor.app
Johathan then went through an example script line by line. The script converts data with name, e-mail address,
phone number and so on, into Mac Address Book records.
In addition to seeing Apple Script, we saw an excellent demo on Keynote. If anyone has questions
on Keynote, see Jonathan as he is an expert user.
Jonathan showed us how to use the BBEdit editor to write scripts. Several club members use BBEdit which
is a robust full featured editor that's highly recommended in the Mac community.
- Bob gave a short demo on using lynda.com for training. The cost for using the web site is $25 a month
or $379 a year. You have access to training materials with the yearly subscription. As a subscriber you
have unlimited access to training videos which cover several hundred applications. Each topic
has hours of video which is broked down into short segments ranging from a couple minutes to 15 or 20 minutes each.
You can listen to and watch some free videos to get the idea how things work.
The web site is: www.lynda.com
- Meeting adjourned at 8:45 PM
Please send comments or suggestions to Bob Proctor at rproctor@together.net.
I'm usually around the Cove somewhere. Feel free to drop by... I'm at Lot #105.
*** Top ***
Notes: Meeting: 2/20/08
Meeting attendees: Allen, Wally, Bill D., Johann, Mitzi, Ed, Jonathan and Bob.
Meeting started promptly at 7PM. We met Bob's brother Ed who was visiting.
The meeting basically followed the agenda items.
- Allen suggested a great source of Mac information is their 'TidBits' web site. Check the club web site for the link.
- Bill D. led a discussion on security tools available for the Mac and the importance of using at least one.
While the Mac is quite safe from virus, malware, spyware, trojans, and so on, it can be a platform for
spreading such nasties to PC users. Also if running Windows on a VM, a nasty on Windows could propigate
into OS-X and cause trouble. Contact Bill for info on the best tool to use for how you use your Mac.
- Bob led a discussion on use of SuperDuper! which is now available for Leopard. It's a great tool to
make a bootable image of your hard disc. That sort of backup is a good idea and should be done on
a periodic schedule, like monthly.
- Bob presented a great encryption tool (True Crypt) that's useful for encrypting sensitive data such as passwords.
We talked about creating an encrypted file that can be mounted like any other file system and when mounted, behaves
exactly like any other file system. Just don't forget your password!
- Also discussed was how to switch iPhoto libraries and how to use True Crypt to store photos that certain people
should not be seeing. The trick is to hold the option key while starting iPhoto and keeping it pressed
until iPhoto starts. At that time, you will see a panel to choose the iPhoto to use.
Please send comments or suggestions to Bob Proctor at rproctor@together.net.
I'm usually around the Cove somewhere. Feel free to drop by... I'm at Lot #105.
*** Top ***
Notes: Meeting: 2/6/08
Meeting attendees: Allen, George, Bill M., Wally, Bill D., Johann, Kay, Mitzi, Mike, Jonathan and Bob.
The meeting was held at the Terrace at 7PM on 2/6/08 with 11 people attending.
The meetings will be held on 1st and 3rd Wednesdays 7PM at the Terrace and will
continue until April 2, 2008.
If you know of anyone who would like to attend, please tell them about the club
and the meeting dates.
There is a web page for the club:
http://bobshomebrew.net/CypressCoveAppleClub/
Check out the page and send any updates or corrections to me.
Meeting summary
- Everyone had a chance to introduce themselves to our new members and to mention
their level of experience with Mac, plus problems and issues they are having.
- Short discussion on Apple Script. Johathan described a simple script that reads
a comma delimited file from an old address book, parses the file and creates
entries for the Mac Address Book.
- Suggestions for the club web page and e-mails
- Wwe need a list of member names and E-Mails including
areas of expertise. This will make it easier to know who to contact in
specialized areas.
- Add a section describing the purpose of the club.
- A number of topics were briefly discussed and many of them could be topics for
future meetings.
- Virus protection software: Is it needed for Mac? Which one to use?
- Security measures: Some simple things to make Mac more secure
- Using older programs on a newer machine. Migrating forward to newer machines.
- Locking photos: Is there a way to lock photos in iPhoto (or other applications) so some
so some people (the kids?) won't have access and can't see certain pictures.
- Demo of iPhotos Features
- Turorials available from the Apple Web site.
- Showing various chips that camers use
- Loading pictures into iPhoto
- Creating events
- viewing events
- Creating Slide Shows
- Various slide show settings, including Ken Burns
- We didn't decide the topic of the next meeting, but there will be one! Jonathan will not be attending the
next meeting so we won't have him for digging into Apple Script.
- Meeting ended at 8:50 PM.
Hot off the press!!
- The Leopard version of SuperDuper! is now available. It's V2.5
SuperDuper! is a program that can copy your entire hard disc for backup purposes. The new version
works with the Time Machine of Leopard.
- True Crypt is now available for the Mac.
This is a program that creates an encrypted volume for keeping
data secure. There can be an encrypted volume inside an encrypted volume for even better security.
Please send comments or suggestions to Bob Proctor at rproctor@together.net.
I'm usually around the Cove somewhere. Feel free to drop by... I'm at Lot #105.
*** Top ***
Agenda: 2/06/08
The Cove Apple Club will meet at 7PM - 8PM on Wednesday, Feb 6, 2008 at the Terrace.
Planned agenda:
- General Discussion and introduce new members. Each member will be asked to mention
any problems they are having. Once we know the problems, we will either give a quick
answer or try to setup a 'One On One' meeting to try to fix the problem.
- Skype review. (Skype is a version of Internet Telephone)
- General discussion on photo manipulation techniques.
- Demo of iPhoto
- Transfer of images from a digital camera into the computer
- Import into iPhoto
- Organizing images
- Slideshows
- E-Mailing Images
Please feel free to drop by and talk some Apple Talk! I'm at Lot #105.
I have recent issues of Macworld magazine and you can borrow them if you want.
Look at: http://bobshomebrew.net/CypressCoveAppleClub/
-Bob
*** Top ***
Notes: Meeting_05 1/16/08
Meeting attendees: Johann, Bill, Doreen, Larry, Gerd, Harry, Wally, Mitzi, Bill, Kay and Bob.
The meeting was held at the Terrace at 7PM on 1/16/08 with 11 people attending.
The meetings will be held on 1st and 3rd Wednesdays 7PM at the Terrace and will
continue until April 2, 2008.
The club is just getting going now and the meeting was not in the January
calendar. It will be in next month's calendar.
If you know of anyone who would like to attend, please tell them about the club
and the meeting dates.
There is a web page for the club:
http://bobshomebrew.net/CypressCoveAppleClub/
This is the page from last year and I'll update it sometime soon. It has some
useful information so you might want to bookmark the page. I'll send an E-Mail
when the page gets updated.
Meeting summary
- Discussion on the purpose of the club. The club is for new Mac users, PC
users who are considering moving to Mac, and experienced Mac users. Many
users do certain things with their Mac and are interested in expanding
what they can do. Meetings will have general discussions of issues of
interest, demos of some key programs and will be a place where members
can find help. We'll try to link up people who need help with people who
can help. We'll will work one on one for special issues outside the
meeting. If you need some help with an issue then mention it at a
meeting, send an E-Mail or come over to my RV which is at Lot #105
here at the Cove. Quick problems may be worked on at the meetings but
more complicated problem solving will be handled one on one outside the
meeting.
- We had introductions to get to know each other. As we went around the
table, we heard what everybody is doing with their computer and what they
are wanting to get out of the club.
- Bob led a discussion on Leopard installation and some of its new features.
- Discussion on the announcements made by Apple CEO Steve Jobs at the Macworld
Conference and Expo which is going on right now in California.
- MacBook Air, the thin, light laptop computer which is wireless only.
- Time Capsule for storing backups while using Time Machine
- Movie rentals in iTunes
- Apple TV upgrades for buying, downloading and playing movies
- New software for iPhone, iPod Touch and Apple TV.
- Overview of iLife programs: iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, iWeb and GarageBand. For
a more comprehensive presentation of what these programs do, go to Apple.com
and search for iLife. There are some nice videos which demo the programs.
- Mention of the iWork programs: Numbers, Pages and Keynote.
- Sources of information:
- Macworld magazine: You can borrow past issues from Bob
- Podcast: 'Macbreak Weekly' you can subscribe for free from
- The club is a source of information. Just ask for help.
- Discussion of concerns of the members of the club
- Skype (getting it working). We know that Joe from the PC Computer
Club uses Skype so he might be a resource. A challenge for this week
is to try to install Skype on your computer. We'll talk about this
at the next meeting.
- Using computer for new things.
- Learning the things that can be done with a computer.
- Hooking up a new printer. Would the person who was wanting help please
give me a call.
- virus protection: Is it necessary? Which one to use?
- Installing new programs: New programs are presented in many different
ways. How to correctly install the program and what can be deleted
after installation.
- signal strength of WiFi: We know signal strength and connection speed
decreases with distance from the tower. You can not tell the speed
by the number of bars of signal strength.
- Speed Test for Internet: There are a number of ways to check internet
connection speed. I use 'speakeasy'
http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/
You can have a fast connection
with low signal strength and also have a slow connection speed with
a strong signal.
- Internet speed issues here at the Cove: With more people downloading
movies there will be a continuing issue of speed. There are new
towers but it may be necessary to get your own broadband connection.
I use DSL. Other people use DSL on BrightHouse.
- Purchasing a refurbrished Mac: Check what's available from the Apple
web site:
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore
Scroll down to near the bottom and look near the left side for a
section called 'Special Deals.'
- Photo manipulation issues including iPhoto and Photoshop: iPhoto is a
tool for organizing photos and minor updates. Photoshop is the state
of the art tool for editing individual photos or collections of
photos with the scripting language. Normally it takes an experienced
user to do anything with Photoshop. We may have a demo at a future
meeting of some simple things that can be done in Photoshop.
- We agreed on the topic for next meeting after menitoning a number of possible
topics.
- Photo manipulation: This is something most memebers either do or want
to do. There will be a demo importing photos from a digital camera
into iPhoto and manipulation of the photos in iPhoto.
- Meeting ended at 8:30 PM.
Please send comments or suggestions to Bob Proctor at rproctor@together.net.
I'm usually around the Cove somewhere. Feel free to drop by... I'm at Lot #105.
Bob Proctor
*** Top ***
Notes: Meeting_04 3/7/07
Meeting attendees: Bill, Mike, Ingrid, Bob
Meeting started a few minutes late as Bob was starting a video tape for the Cove Spring Show.
A discussion of differences between iMovie and Final Cut Express (FCE).
iMovie comes pre-installed, FCE is a $300 application. iMovie stores video clips in project files while FCE
stores video files on disc and then points to them. This keeps project file size quite small. FCE can have
a number of projects open at once.
The workflow for creating a DVD is slightly different between iMovie and FCE but both rely on
DVD authoring with iDVD and burning with Toast 8.
Bob has experience with both applications and could give a demo if anyone is interested.
Wireless speed was discussed and Bill showed an application called Myspeed from visualworks
to check download and upload speed.
*** Top ***
Agenda: Meeting_04 3/07/07
The Cove Apple Club will meet at 7PM - 8PM on Wednesday, March 7 at the Terrace.
I plan to tape the Dress Rehersal of the Cove Spring Show which starts at 7PM, so I'll start the video tape, then be at our meeting a couple minutes after 7.
Planned agenda:
- General Discussion
- Vista on Parallels on a Mac
- AppleScript (Please glance at the AppleScript HELP files)
- Automator (Please glance at the Automator HELP files)
- Final Cut Express vs. iMovie
- iDVD (for authoring and burning DVDs)
- Toast 8.0 for burning DVDs.
- Activity Monitor
Please feel free to drop by and talk some Apple Talk!
I have a couple recent issues of Macworld. They are available if anyone wants to borrow them for a couple days.
Look at: http://bobshomebrew.net/CypressCoveAppleClub/
-Bob
*** Top ***
Notes: Meeting_03 2/21/07
Meeting attendees Bob, Johann and Kay
Notes
- We discussed purchasing new Apple equipment at the Apple Store, and then
we got into the kind of support we can get at the Apple Store.
- Discussion on how to transfer data to a web page with ftp.
- Demo of an example Web Page designed with joomla. Bob has built
a sample web page
using joomla. When the page is working properly, it will be discussed
again at a future club meeting.
- Bob showed DVD video of clips from past performances by Maggi. He will be
showing this video at the Cove Spring Show. We discussed some of the '
programs used to rip DVDs and VHS tapes and then put the clips back
together for this DVD.
- A Discussion on automation started. We got into Apple Scripts and the automator.
We dicided that this would be a good topic for the next meeting.
Meeting adjourned at 9 PM
*** Top ***
Notes: Meeting_02 1/31/07
Meeting attendees Bob, Bill and Kay
Notes
- Bob reviewed some new programs found while at the Apple Store in a ProCare class session:
- We had a demo of iMovie showing basic functions and editing tools.
- Bill and Bob will be playing with Final Cut software for video editing and movie making in the next few weeks.
- The next meeting will be cancelled as a few of us are going bowling.
- The web page is now available and will have the schedule for future meetings. The page can be used
to add links to applications we discuss at the meetings.
*** Top ***
Agenda: Meeting_02 1/31/07
The next meeting of the Cove Apple Club will be Wednesday, 1/31/2007 at 7 PM in the Terrace.
Regis has included a short notice about the club in flyers. We're looking for more members so if you know somebody who is interested in the Apple Computer, please tell them about the club.
Meeting Topics:
- Introductions for any new members
- set the agenda (if necessary) for this meeting with ideas from members present
- Sugested from last meeting: I'll give a short demo on video editing
- iPhoto
- Capturing techinques from DVD and VCR
- Killer Applications for Apple: We can have some fun with this! I'd like to get everyone's ideas on the best programs to use for the normal things we do on the computer. For example:
- Chat and video conferencing
- Internet Phone
- Photo Viewing
- Photo Editing
- Browsing: We talked about Firefox last week.
- I'd like to discuss results of my 'Pro Care' class of last Friday at the Florida Mall. I'll talk about the
- User Accounts w/ vs. w/o Administrator rights
- Path Finder (value added application to improve OS-X Finder)
- QuickSilver (application for launching and communicating with applications)
- BBEDIT (text editor)
- AquaMacs Emacs (text editor)
- NeoOffice (Free, Open Source implementation of Microsoft's Office software)
- CyberDuck (Open Source ftp application)
- Cocoa vs. Carbon (base software for OS-X)
- XAMPP (Apache / MySQL / PHP)
- fink.sourceforge.net (Unix Utilities)
- Podcasts for Apple Users, plus other sources of information on Apple Computers.
- General discussion as time allows.
*** Top ***
Notes: Meeting_01 1/24/07
Meeting #1 Notes - 1/24/07 Wednesday at the Terrace, 7 PM
Meeting attendees: Bob, Bill, Kay, Mike and Johann
Bob and Mike brought their laptops.
Notes
- Introductions: We got to know each other with each member discussing background and how the Apple Computer is being used.
- Mike gave a quick demo of iChat with a wireless connection as he talked to his wife who was calling in from out of state.
- Bill gave a demo showing how to attach photos to E-Mails using the Apple MAIL tool.
- Discussion on various ways to purchase Apple Computers.
- Bob showed the 'Expose' desktop feature
- Kay discussed a good recent experience he had while taking an Apple Class at the Apple Store.
- Discussion on prchasing a new computer. While computers can always be purchased new, it's interesting that almost-new machines can be purchased on-line from the Apple Store.
Apple Store
For example:
Refurbished MacBook Pro, 17-inch, 2.16GHz Intel Core Duo
Original price: $2,799.00
Your price: $1,999.0
Save 29% off the original price
Refurbished iMac 20-inch 2.16GHz Intel Core 2 Duo SuperDrive
Original price: $1,499.00
Your price: $1,299.0
Save 13% off the original price
<.ol>
- Suggested topics for next meeting:
- Video Editing with iMovie
- Give demos of new software
- Slide Show on TV. Is there software for that?
- Next Meeting: Wednesday, Jan 31, 2007
- Meeting adjourned at 8:40 PM
*** Top ***
Agenda: Meeting_01 1/24/07
Apple Club Meeting Notice
- Time: 7:00 PM to 8:30 PM
- Dates: Wednesdays (except for the BAU 2nd Wed Computer Club Meetings)
- Place: The Terrace (next to the Cove Office)
- Starting: 1/24/07
- Ending: 4/18/07 (this is when I'll be heading back to Vermont)
I met with Regis and set the meeting time and dates. These could be changed if we
decide other times/dates are better. As of today there are 5 people interested in
the club: Johann, Bill, Mike, Kay and myself.
Regis will be posting meeting notices around the Cove so there may be more interest.
I'll bring my MacBook Pro. Others are invited to bring machines if there is something to show.
Purpose of the club:
- Have some fun with our Apple computers
- Increase skill level of all members (beginner, intermediate, advanced)
- Meet others with similar interests
- Help others solve problems
- Provide forum for finding help
- Briefly discuss recent Apple News stories
- Give quick summaries of new software and hardware
Not the purpose of the club:
- Solve detailed problems.
- telling long war stories of interesting issues or problems.
Some things I'd like to quickly go through include:
- Introductions including your Apple experience, machines you use, interesting projects underway, any problems or burning issues?
- Podcasts
- Steve Jobs Macworld 2007 Keynote adress speech
- Parallels
- Quicksilver (command launcher)
- Apple - Mac OS X - Automator
- Apple Scripts
- Are the meeting times and dates OK?
- Your ideas and suggestions
Please send any ideas or comments to me...
Bob
*** Top ***
