ο£Ώ Apple fans since 1982

Apple Bytes 11/2008

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New Laptops

A new group of iBooks and MacBook Pros have been released. I have yet to see them up close and personal, so I don't have any thing to really complain or brag about. At least not at this moment.

One of the main complaints about the new iBook is the lack of FireWire. Many say that is a deal breaker. Jenny has decided to skip this revision. Certainly the new machining process for the basic enclosure is a big item. Being machined out of a block of aluminum offers a lot of good points as well and perhaps some not so good points. Time will tell. How sturdy is it? Will it bounce or just crumple. Can dents be fixed? Can it be glued back together or will it need to be welded? Wonder how much the replacement case will cost.

Apple apparently did not learn from the shiny glass screen on the iMac. They just said live with it. Ignore it and the complaints will go away.

It is noted that the MacBook Pros still offer the Matte screen. Many will vote with their feet.

The latest external monitor is obviously from the iMac 24. It is designed to work with the new laptops. As usual is it somewhat pricey.

That's it for now…

 

CJRTOOLS ebooks
User Group News
November, 2008

Welcome to our monthly newsletter for members of the CJRTOOLS ebooks User Group Program. Each month, I'll publish a short newsletter that will include information on our special offers and free online courses. The newsletter willalso include links to new articles and tutorials on our websites and, occasionally, requests for survey information so that we can improve our service to member groups. Your feedback on the newsletter and its content is welcomed – please send all comments to cjrebooks@mac.com.

Special Offers
CJRTOOLS ebooks is proud to be participating in the Apple User Group's monthly promotions until November 30, 2008. From now until that time, members of Apple user groups are entitled to 25% off any purchase made from our eSellerate or Kagi store. Just use the code mug2008 when you make your purchase to receive this special discount. Learn more about our ebooks on our website: http://www.cjrtools.com/ebooks
http://www.cjrtools.com/ebooks/order-mac-ebooks.html [website no longer exists ~mario]

Review Copy of iPhoto or iTunes ebook
If you would like to review either our iPhoto or iTunes course book, please contact your group's president and he/she can request a copy from us. All we ask in return is that you write a review of the ebook and provide us with a copy of detailed and constructive feedback that can help us improve our ebooks and better serve the needs of Mac user group members. Our iTunes ebook is based on iTunes 7 and it needs to be updated, so your feedback on that book, in particular, would be greatly appreciated. Each user group can request one review copy. You can learn more about our iPhoto and iTunes ebooks on our website: http://www.cjrtools.com/ebooks/iphoto-ebook.html http://www.cjrtools.com/ebooks/itunes-ebook.html [website no longer exists ~mario]

Online Courses
Our free monthly online courses have been very popular and successful. The October course on "Backing Up Data" had over 25 people participating. Thank you for the overwhelming support for our courses. Our course offering for November is a new course on "Using iTunes." Registration for this course will be limited to the first 20 people who request it. We will begin accepting registration for the course on October 23rd. If you are interested in the course, please email your name (first and last names, please), email address and Mac user group name to Claire Rottenberg at cjrebooks@mac.com. Registration will continue until the course is filled.

New Pages on Our Website
In October, we added several new tips and tutorials to our website. One of the new pages that might be of interest to you is: Creating Websites with iPhoto http://www.cjrtools.com/ebooks/mac-tutorials/iphoto-websites.html [website no longer exists ~mario]

Thank you for your continued support of CJRTOOLS ebooks.
CJRTOOLS ebooks Websites
http://www.cjrtools.com/ebooks
http://homepage.mac.com/cjrtools/ebooks
http://homepage.mac.com/cjrtools/automator-apps


SLMUG Minutes 10-9-08

Business.
Bob Shayler indicated that the club will move our club list to gmail from yahoo. He also stated that we need to reorganize and publish a set of by-laws for our club. (We are still listed as Apple Eaters) Bob will put together a set of by-laws … details to follow. Must be completed by year end. It was noted that the P.O. Box is no longer useful in its present location. M/S/C "that we change banks and open a new P.O. Box in Fremont." The new by-laws are to be approved at our November meeting.

Bob demo'd backup with Time Machine. It doesn't give a bootable back up. He has been using prosoft's Data Backup which took a long time to back up his hard drive. He bought another Seagate HD and formatted it with zeros … took 1 1⁄2 days to back up. He tried Carbon Copy Cloner … was 1 hour in and it hung! Bob bought a 1 TB firewire 800 laCie HD, formatted with zeros. He will use it for his backups instead of Time Machine. He showed what was backed up from his 250 GB HD (from his school) with Time Machine. Looks like a complete backup but is not bootable. So, suggested we purchase "Superduper" program ($27.95) which can do a bootable clone backup. It is a 5 star program. With "Disk Utility" click on Restore and drag the dmg to Source.

Complete the process. This is faster than "Data Backup" and produces a bootable clone.

Use "Migration Assistant" to move stuff from one machine to a new one of the same kind (Intel or Power PC). When using "Toast" set it for Mac only if you have problems copying PC and Mac.

Bob told about hellomynameis.com for social networking like twitter, etc.

Ed Matlock had his usual excellent DOM. Included this month are the following: airradar for laptops to discover what's out there; Cocktail for Leopard; DiskCatalogMaker 5.5.1; Drive Genius 2.1; earthdesk satellite pictures of earth; Firefox 3.0.3; flashplayer 10; FrontRowUpdate 2.1.6; GoogleDesktop; HP Print Drivers; iTunes 8; JavaForMac releases; laZZ Leopard assist; and much more. Thanks Ed.

Dayle Scott, sub notetaker

 

A bit of this and a byte of that…
By Bob Shayler

I am glad summer is over. I worked all summer and then had throat surgery. Now that it is September, SLMUG is again meeting and the fun will resume!

Sometimes I just get to wondering, "what ever happened to (fill in a name here)?" Of course, one can Google a name but often that leads to millions of hits, even when one is using good search techniques. There is this web site that is SO cool; it has found everyone I have asked it to search for without a lot of irrelevant results! It's called pipl (www.pipl.com). The pipl home page has only one design purpose: people search. Fill in the boxes, as many as you wish: First Name, Last Name, City, State, Country. Of course, I tried my own name, on the theory I would recognize myself if pipl found me. I was first in the list that popped up. Pipl even was smart enough to know that "Bob" might be a nickname for "Robert" and returned that also. Pipl returns address, phone and other info so people can find you. It does not return sites that simply mention your name (unlike Google).

Pipl is a search site like Dogpile in that it displays results from other search sites like ZabaSearch and WhitePages. If you are really into it, you can even click the links to pay sites like People Finders and US Search.

It does have some quirks. It found me on MySpace but not on Facebook. On neither of those sites is my "name" my real name. Maybe it just shows how Facebook has better privacy controls.

I clicked the link to People Finders just to see what that pay site would show me for free. It shows "possible relatives" and included a couple of people I don't know but whose US mail we keep getting. I also got a laugh when it thought I might be related to my wife's ex. What would it show for you?

I also did some actual real work on my Mac running Leopard (of course). I installed Office 2008 and Adobe's Dreamweaver CS3. As for Office 2008, I have to keep up with my students. My old version of Dreamweaver MX is not compatible with Leopard and causes crashes with simple stuff like copy-pasting. So, I needed the new versions.

Office 2008 installed without a hitch and has functioned just fine so far. It does, by default, save its files in a new format (.docx) not immediately readable by Office 2004. But you can "Save as" to the old format (.doc). Office 2008 allows three installs for the student/ home version which is cool as we have three Macs.

Dreamweaver CS3 installed fine but when it did its auto-updating, one update hung until I restarted and then it completed. Adobe allows only one install with DW CS3. Also I had a scare when DW CS3 would not read my template file for my Critical Issues Forum web site. It apparently did not use my Site set-up from MX (kind of a basic function in my mind). All is now well since I have set my Site preferences manually in CS3. Thanks go to Jenny Mitchell for hauling my butt out of that issue!

More at the meeting!

 

Learning with iTunes
Claire J Rottenberg
CJRTOOLS ebooks

Although iTunes is an excellent application for organizing music and video files, it is really much more than that. iTunes, in combination with the iTunes store, can be a great tool for learning. Using podcasts, iTunes U and audiobooks, you can broaden your knowledge on a vast array of topics, including politics, business and the arts. In this article, I describe some of the options available for using iTunes to extend your learning.

Podcasts
There are thousands of podcasts available on all sorts of topics, such as world events, computer technology and modern literature. Many of the podcasts are available for free directly through the iTunes store. For example, if you are interested in following the US 2008 elections, go to the iTunes store for the US and, using the store's power search feature, search for elections. You will find dozens of podcasts, including those from most of the major television networks. Once you find a podcast you like, you can subscribe to it and have episodes automatically downloaded to iTunes. No matter where you live, you can access and subscribe to podcasts from any iTunes store. Just select the store you want from the bottom of the iTunes store window and search for podcasts.

You can also find podcasts on many special interest websites or from podcast directories, such as Podcast Alley. To add these podcasts to iTunes, look for a special "Subscribe to iTunes" link. If no iTunes link is available, copy the podcast's link and add it manually to iTunes.

Once podcasts are downloaded to iTunes, you can listen to audio podcasts or view video podcasts directly in iTunes. You can even view video podcasts in full-screen or on a video capable iPod. Audio podcasts can be listened to on any iPod, including an iPod Shuffle.

iTunes U
Another great way to enhance your knowledge at no cost is to use the iTunes store's iTunes U feature. Many top universities, including Stanford, Vanderbilt, Yale, and UCLA-Berkeley, have added free content to iTunes U. You can download complete courses or lectures on a variety of topics, such as music, art, business, and technology. For example, I listened to a complete course on "Politics and Music."

To access iTunes U content, go to the iTunes store and click the iTunes U button on the left side of the window. A list of universities will appear and you can browse through the available offerings from any of the universities.

Audiobooks
A third way to learn using iTunes is with audiobooks. Most audiobooks are not free from the iTunes store, but if you have an iTunes account, you can purchase audiobooks, such as popular novels or biographies. There are, however, other sources for acquiring audiobooks, including some free sources. For example, the Gutenberg Project has many classic novels, now in the public domain, available as audiobooks. You can download these audiobooks and then manually add them to iTunes.

Conclusion
As you can see, there are several ways you can use iTunes to advance your knowledge. Take a trip to the iTunes store today and find some podcasts, iTunes U courses or lectures or audiobooks and sit back and learn.

Copyright 2008 Claire J Rottenberg
All rights reserved

Claire J Rottenberg is the author of ebooks on Mac OS X 10.5, iPhoto '08, iTunes, and Mac OS X 10.4. More information on her books is available on the CJRTOOLS ebooks website (www.cjrtools.com/ebooks). Members of Apple user groups can receive a 25% discount on all purchases from CJRTOOLS ebooks through the Apple User Group Vendor Discount Program. This special discount offer is valid through November, 2008 and more information on the offer can be found on the Apple User Group Offers web page (homepage.mac.com/ugab/offers.html).

 

November 6th meeting features…
MacWorld 2009 will be here before we know it. Barely a month away. What do you think we will see that is new and really exciting? Will there be yet another release of fancy new iPods? Maybe even a new and improved Mac-Mini? Surely 'is nibs will have something to offer. Let's talk about it.

 

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