On the Road, Again

Enjoying beautiful fall weather and a full schedule of sightseeing De Prez Jim Hamm and wife Zee are on the road, again.  Jim sends us this report:  

"Hi, and hope all is well with you. Here's a brief update on our Elderhostel tour to the East Coast. We're now in Braintree, MA, right next to Boston, arriving late this afternoon—about 6:30 pm—from NYC.

"We spent the last two days touring around New York City, visiting ethnic areas and dining at a variety of restaurants. We stayed at the Hotel Edison, which is at 47th St and Broadway, right next to many Broadway theaters. We didn't make it to a play because by the time we got back to our room after dinner each day we were too tired to venture out. The hotel was conveniently located, but old and kinda 'seedy.' Okay, but nothing special. Everything in NYC is expensive! For example, two glasses of red wine with dinner was $22! Ouch. No free wifi either. The hotel wanted $25/day for wifi access. It was free at the Holiday Inn in Philadelphia, and free here at the Sheraton.

"We spent the first two days of our tour in Philadelphia, and had a nice time visiting around. The Elderhostel group we're with are all easy to get along with, and our tour guide (who owns the tour company) is great, and we've got a great bus driver, too. Both stay with us for the entire trip.

"Today we visited Newport, Rhode Island and had a nice seafood lunch in this quaint town. Newport is a neat town, and the homes along the waterfront—wow! Big, beautiful and impressive. Lots of money here. After lunch, and enroute to here we toured Newport Vineyard, and got to sample several of their wines. To me, all their wines taste 'weak,' and not something I'd want to buy. But since they are on a tourist route they can sell all their wines at full, high retail. No discounting of prices here.

"Tomorrow morning we go for a tour of Boston, which includes a visit to the Sam Adams beer brewery. Zee and our friend Jo Ann are visiting Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market, walking around and shopping, while my friend Jim (Jo Ann's husband) and I will go on the brewery tour.

"Our weather on the trip has been nice, but cooled down today. It will get colder as we head on up into Maine and Vermont...It's time to relax awhile, and the VP debate is going on as I type this. Maybe I'll listen for awhile."

As we're reading your letter a lot of your friends at PMUG are probably wishing they were there!

Thanks for keeping us posted. Can we expect some photos, too?

What's Happening with SIG?

For the next few months Dan and Erica Simpson are taking a little time off from hosting and presenting the topics of the monthly SIG (Special Interest Group).  As Dan announced to PMUG at our September meeting Apple's new sales focus now prevents Dan from making sales as a business agent. 

With our regular SIG on temporary hold De Prez, Jim Hamm is looking for ideas.  Here's where PMUG members can help. 
John Carter has been asked to do a SIG event, but he needs to know if there is any interest in hearing about the Unix commands in Terminal mode.  What, you ask?  Well, if you are curious about this mode of using the Mac, please let John know.  
He explains, "There are many useful commands that can be helpful to the average Mac user and there are some applications that are only available from the command line (terminal mode). Most of the Unix commands are really intended for programmers and administrators."
Contact John at mailto:john@jrcarter.com:?Subject= "PMUG: Using Unix commands." 

Mark Your Calendar

Time to plan for Christmas? Yes, and PMUG celebrates with good food and friendship. Mark your calendar for Saturday, December 13, for the PMUG Christmas Party. We'll gather at 11 a.m. for a pot-luck luncheon, and everyone brings a dish to share. PMUG will furnish ham, turkey breast, rolls, soft drinks, bottled water, wine, paper plates and utensils.

The party will be held at the Manzanita Village Common House, 258 Benjamin Dr., Prescott. To get to the clubhouse, from the corner of Bradshaw and East Gurley (Compass Bank is on the corner), go south on Bradshaw as it winds up the hill a half-mile or so. Turn right on Benjamin at the Manzanita Village sign and go past the carports to the Common House. You can go to the front door to unload your food, then return to the parking lot to park your car. Carport spaces are reserved, all others are open. There are stairs and an elevator to go down one floor where the party will be held. Here's a map to the Village: (Open in new window) Thanks to Art Gorski for recommending this place.

We will have some nice prizes to give away, so everyone please come. RSVP by December 1 to Bobbie mailto:pmugbobbie@cableone.net  Note: there won't be a PMUG General Meeting on December 20.

On behalf of the Officers and Activity Chairs of PMUG, we'd like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas, thank everyone for participating in our meetings this past year, and hope that Santa Claus puts a new Mac in your stocking Christmas morning...."De Prez"

Answers to Your Internet Questions

Our October 18 PMUG meeting will feature Bob Simpson. It promises to be an interesting and informative meeting, answering your Internet protocol questions. If a person clicks an URL for, say, Google News, on their computer, what actually happens? There's all kinds of acronyms and terms such as DNS, open DNS, dynamic IP address, static IP address, DHCP, MAC address, router, subnet mask, default gateway, et al. What does all this mean?

How does the signal get from a computer to the Internet, to the web, get an address, and return to the computer? And I want to know more about cookies. (Not the ones Ginger Carlson brings; those are good and good for you, I'm sure.) Plan now to attend the October meeting at the Prescott Public Library.

Laugh and Learn

Today's PMUG meeting was a time to laugh and learn at the same time, thanks to our speaker of the day, Jeffrey Ian. Not only did we learn about kinds and qualities of ink and paper, he detailed rip-offs by various companies making computer printers and the outrageous prices we've had to pay for ink. He likes Canon ink jet printers and Brother laser printers.

His company has been in Prescott for years, helping schools, real estate and other companies, as well as individuals get the best deals possible. Friendly staff will answer your questions, even examine your misbehaving printer if you bring it in. He cleans print heads free. To top it off we found out that Ian was one of 4 people who got together and started the original PMUG. He has stores both in Prescott and Prescott Valley, so stop in for paper, ink, get acquainted and save some money.

Check out their site: Think4Inc.com

More About Emmett

New PMUG Member Emmett Buell held a book-signing Saturday (8-23) at Barnes & Noble. CSPAN was there to shoot video which should air on Book TV in a few days. Watch for it on TV listings.

Emmett is a political science professional, and his book is Attack Politics: Negativity in Presidential Campaigns since 1960.

Dan Simpson had helped him last summer to email his book manuscript drafts with his portable Mac from Prescott Public Library, before he had officially become a PMUG Member or Prescott resident! Bob Hale fills us in on some details:

Of special interest to PMUG is how he effectively used his Mac remotely in writing and editing his manuscript, despite his traveling and arranging for his Prescott relocation from Ohio. (He's also an avid hiker and outdoorsman, which was a key reason for his move to Prescott upon his recent retirement from Dennison University. He joined PMUG last July at Dan and Erica's Summer BBQ at their home.)

Watch for Dan and Erica’s Spotlighter feature on Emmett to come a little later.

View Emmett's book at http://www.amazon.com/Attack-Politics-Negativity-Presidential-Government/dp/070061561X?&camp=212361&linkCode=wsw&tag=miracconsu-20&creative=380609

Thanks to Sue and Bob Hale for the photo.

Mac Helps Elaine Write & Speak

Since her first Mac in 1984 Elaine Hardt has appreciated her computer. Starting off with writing for her class of third graders, then writing for parents, her college students, and teachers the Mac has been a great help. That first ImageWriter printer is long gone, a HP LaserJet 4050N sits on the desk. Her Mac is now a G5 with a 23” Cinema Display. With eight published books and 949 published articles, stories, and poems Elaine encourages others to write, too. Her blog is http://encouragingU.blogspot.com She heads the Prescott Valley Writers’ Networking which has met weekly for five years, currently meeting in the Parlor of the Windsong Villas. It’s open to both men and women.

Don has picked up computer skills, using his G4 PowerBook. Dan Simpson recently added more memory to both busy computers. Mac does help the Hardts.

Emmett Will Speak at Bookstore

Next Saturday (August 23) at 11 a.m. PMUG member Emmett Buell will speak at the local Barnes & Noble Book Store. He will be discussing his recently published book, Attack Politics: Negativity in Presidential Campaigns Since 1960. Emmett didn't return from Washington, D.C. in time to attend yesterday's PMUG meeting. You'll be hearing more about Emmett in our newsletter, so stay tuned for further exciting developments.

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Art Takes Good Pictures

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New PMUG member Art Gorski takes good pictures. He’s just published 143 photos from his iPhoto picture albums and 2 iMovie videos to his MobileMe gallery directly from those iLife applications. http://gallery.me.com/agorski He’s got good looking relatives shown on still photos (those are all your relatives, Art?) but do not miss the narrated movie of his trip to the Grand Canyon. Thanks, Art, for the e-mail informing us of your latest fun with Mac.

Connie is Smiling

Connie (Kramer) Johnson had a big smile this morning as she showed us her new book, "Mr. Bunny's Secret Party." This delightful children's book has splashy bold art by local artist Clareen Barrett, and was published by Prescott's EMI PrintWorks. Their graphic designer, Nealy, spoke at length with me this afternoon about the services they offer. They use Mac computers for prepress and technical communication with the printers, and offer commercial design services, digital color press, and book binding. I invited them to attend PMUG, and hope to see them. Their site is www.emiprintworks.com.

But back to Connie. She is excited about opportunities to promote this new book, along with her first book, Farm Kids. and we'll be seeing more of this busy gal soon. Find my earlier item about Connie in the June 2 newsletter, headed "Starting Off June." Connie attends my Writers' Networking group which meets weekly in Prescott Valley. You can contact her at clotheslinepress@earthlink.net.

Ginger Appreciates Her Mac

Our Cookie Break gal, Ginger Carlson appreciates her Mac. I've prodded her to tell how she uses Mac, and this is her report:

My Mac creds go back to sometime in the 80s (Jobs was barely out of his garage) when a friend let me use an extra Mac he had. I don't remember what it was called but the monitor had to be maybe 6 x 6 inches or so, (David probably still has one) and, to me, that was the most magical thing I'd ever got my hot little hands on! Way better than the typewriter I had at the time that let me see the the first two lines of type in a little window that I actually could make corrections on before committing it to paper. And for me, not being a typist, and having a very close relationship with Whiteout (remember Whiteout?) when I did have to type something that, too, was magical. But being able to scroll up and down on that first little Mac and see a WHOLE PAGE, well, it couldn't get any better than that!

Fast forward to 2008, and I still think my Mac is magical. It allows me to do what it took several people many days to do BC (before computers). In those days everything had to be designed by sitting down at a drawing board and actually drawing it out (that's what I did) whether it was an ad, a billboard, a booklet, a sign, whatever. There were copy writers, type setters, printers (for whom color percentages had to be specified), artists, paste up people, go-fers, etc. and then someone (me) had to coordinate it all. Today I can just sit down at my magical Mac (an iMac G5 with Leopard) and zip something out!

So what do I do now on the computer besides email and surfing the Web? Well, I do a volunteer newsletter for YRMC that goes out to over 900 people (and other hospitals). And with Dan's help and iWeb, about a third of those folks now get their newsletter on line, which saves the hospital a ton on paper, postage and printing. We publish a newsletter approximately every quarter and they range from 12 to 16 pages. I use Adobe's InDesign and now that Photoshop Elements has come out with a decent Mac version, I'll be buying and using that, too.

Doing the newsletter is interesting and fun to do, and allows me, in a small way, to keep my hand in the print business which I still find enormously satisfying.

PMUG meeting, 7-19, part 2

Thanks to Bobbie Pastor, PMUG secretary for the "rest of the story." Attending the meeting were 25 members, 6 guests, and a guest speaker, Ellen Tyler. Her topic was "Demystifying Resolution in Digital Photos," both a PowerPoint Presentation and Q & A. She shared a lot of information and will schedule to come back and further address this subject. New officers started this month: Jim Hamm, president, Roger Lakner, vice president; David Passell, treasurer; and Bobbie Pastor, secretary. We now have a supply of new brochures, thanks to Think4Ink. (Note on the calendar that PMUG will go back to the 10 a.m. time next month.)

Apple Store Opens on Saturday

The Grand Opening of the Apple store in Glendale Arrowhead Mall is this Saturday, July 26 from 10 a.m. until 9 p.m. Check out the info at http://www.apple.com/retail/arrowhead/. Thanks, Derek Collins, for bringing this to our attention. Derek mentions he'd like to go, but would need a ride. Contact him at mailto:derekpcollins@gmail.com. If you do make it down to the Grand Opening we'd love to hear about the store at our next PMUG meeting on August 16.