Your wrist might appreciate this new kind of a mouse. Art Gorski alerts us so we can view the large pictures and read about a vertical mouse here. If you're interested be sure to scroll half-way down the page to see the warning about the mini-disc that comes with it, but is meant only for a PC.
Learn About Facebook
If you or your kids are users of Facebook Jim Hamm found this link to a 4 page tutorial that he says might be helpful.
107 Best Websites on the Web
"If you've got some time to waste, ah, explore around a bit," announces Jim Hamm, "here's a link to what one blog refers to as the 107 best websites on the web." You'll find them posted in 20 categories with links to views and reviews. See if you agree.
What Happened to "Never"?
“Never” doesn’t work anymore on Safari, on Google. Not wanting to allow Cookies to establish their territories on my computer I have clicked on “Only from Sites I Visit” under Preferences > Security only when I want to post to my blogs, as is required by blogspot. Then, as soon as I’m done I’d go to Security, click Show Cookies and choose Remove All. Next, I’d promptly do Done and change Accept Cookies to “Never.” After that I could check back at any time and see that “Never” had done its job. No cookies were listed.
Now, within the past week or so, “Never” doesn’t live up to its name. A list of websites have found some unknown-to-me loophole and helped themselves to Cookies, showing up in that list. I do Remove All, and select “Never” again, and go to look at the weather, news, etc. When I check again later there’s a new crop of websites that have set up shop.
Does this have something to do with the Flash Cookies that Jim Hamm had discussed earlier? Scroll down and click on Cookies on the list of Labels on this newsblog. See the previously posted entries.
I went to the Adobe site to assure myself that the settings were still on.
Now it was time to see if people much smarter than me had experienced “Never” Cookies. To make sure only recent articles would come up I chose “Past Year” under AnyTime on the left side of the Google page after entering key words in Search.
The Apple Discussion group suggests going to Cookies.plist and deselecting AutoFill.
The Macworld forum has some complaints about Safari permitting cookies.
On Arstechnica someone mentioned a Cookies.plist in the Library.
Where is Library? Spotlight doesn’t list it. Go to Finder and click the little house icon in Places. There’s Library with a folder named Cookies. Brings up a list of Geek-talk.
So, I close here, uncertain as to the solution. Do you have ideas and experiences to share? I’m going to go and check my unwanted Cookies right now.
Congratulations to Officers Elected Last Week
The annual election for officers was held at last week's PMUG meeting. Congratulations and thanks for using your talents to make Prescott Mac User Group a vibrant, helpful, and friendly organization!
PRESIDENT ART GORSKI
Art steps up from the VP position to De Prez this year! Thanks, Art! He started with punch cards and FORTRAN programming in a freshman year college class in 1969. After getting his bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering he became interested in the microcomputers that were just coming out in the late 1970's. He took a continuing education class at the local university and learned how to program the 6502 microprocessor in hexadecimal machine language. Since this was the same processor used in the new Apple II computer, Art ended up purchasing one in January of 1979. It's serial number 660, and he still owns it.
Joining the local computer club, he decided to change careers and go into programming for a living and wrote programs in assembly language and FORTRAN for real-time flight simulators. He bought an original Macintosh 128 in early 1985, and eventually upgraded it to a Mac Plus. Later Macs included a PowerBook 100, PowerBook 2300, PowerMac 7200/90, and a G4 Cube (still owns it).
Art retired and moved to Prescott in 2007 and spends his time running a couple of websites and programming Mac applications using Real Studio. He has a very sophisticated gigabit home network with a network attached storage server. He was Vice President for PMUG last year.
VICE PRESIDENT HOWARD LA PITTUS
Howard was De Prez last year for PMUG and moves to VP so he can use his PR talents in this position. He is semi-retired, doing consulting work for companies that have federal government contracts. Howard attended the Art Center School in Los Angeles, majoring in commercial photography. After leaving school he was a free-lance photographer doing fashion photography and covering the entertainment industry. Yes, he was a paparazzi, covering such Hollywood events as the Golden Globe Awards, movie premiers and various entertainment social events.
Howard has over 40 years (yes, he is old) of diversified business management experience in the commercial film processing, photographic equipment, consumer catalog, and educational supply industries.
One of the most exciting and rewarding experiences came when he had the responsibility of managing the JPL account in Pasadena. This involved the acquisitions, delivery and installation of photographic processing equipment that was used to process the first pictures from the moon.
Howard, his wife Carol and dog Oliver moved to Prescott in 2005 from PA. His first computer experience was running an IBM Tab Card installation which including writing computer programs in RPG in the 60’s. (Yes, he is old!) Howard switched from a PC to a Mac in 2005. His hobbies include photography, meteorology and stamp collecting. And, “long walks on the beach, smoking his favorite cigar,” he adds.
SECRETARY BOBBIE PASTOR
Continuing as Secretary Bobbie knows what she's doing . . . and she does it well.
After earning her Secretarial major in college Bobbie started at UniRoyal Rubber Company in Santa Ana, California where she did clerical work. From there she worked for Laura Scudders, then Kimberly Clark, retiring thirty-three years later. In 2003, Bobbie retired at 58 ½, sold her house in Placentia and headed to Prescott, AZ. Here she found the Mac User Group, and was “sentenced to being Secretary of PMUG” in 2006. She keeps the books, sends out notices, takes minutes, keeps attendance and has possession of the PMUG computer, projector and files for the club. Along with John Carter and Jim Hamm, she volunteers a Basic Mac SIG for PMUG members.
She loves gardening and has a high maintenance landscape. She is Vice-mum for the Diamond Chics Red Hat chapter. She uses a lot of computer techniques that she has learned from being a member of the club and hopes to get a newsletter and website up for the ladies. Home decorating and photography is of great interest, however, she doesn't seem to find the time for them.
Bobbie lives with her "special needs" fur child, Archie. He is not only blind, but he is socially challenged. He loves to help her in the yard, and one of these days she says she will actually find time to grow vegetables!
TREASURER DAVID PASSELL
Yes, David agreed to serve another term -- lucky for us! David’s degree is from USC in Telecommunications (TV and Radio production) W56 as broadcast engineer/DJ for KUTE in Glendale, CA, then Chief Engineer for FM station WNCN in NYC.
In 1961 he was telecommunications engineer at JPL (analyzing spacecraft data, writing reports, and writing FORTRAN programs). He did technical writing (IBM, Litton, Associated Writers, Conrac) retiring in 1996 from Ameritec, Duarte, CA.
Betty and David came to Prescott in 1996. His Mac history: Apple II - 1978, MAC portable - 1991, Mac TV - 1995. Currently he has a MINI, an iMAC, and a G3. In PMUG since 1997, he’s been President twice and continues as Treasurer.
Know How to do DVDs?
Here's a SOS from David Passell. Anyone want to write and describe the procedure? David is trying to produce a playable DVD from a disk image ... "a DVD in UDF format which I can give to someone with a commercial DVD player. I have done this numerous times before from disk images from DVDs I have made at church, and also have copied from tapes.
"I have a friend that wants copies of the Oprah Finale which I copied from a tape. I made a couple, but lately it seems that I draw a memory blank. I can't remember the procedure. I have burned a .dmg to disk and I get a disk with the .dmg on it which will not play on the machine. I turned the .dmg into a .cdr (CD/DVD master) and when I burn it, I get a disk with the .cdr on it which also will not play. There are just too many 'burn' choices."
iPhoto Help is Here
John Carter to the rescue! After an emailed question about cropping pictures in iPhoto John gives us the step-by-step info we need. The following is straight from him to us.
To crop a picture in iPhoto to send to a print service:
1. In iPhoto, right-click on the photo in the Photos, Event, or Album.
2. Select Edit in iPhoto.
3. Click on the crop tool.
4. Click on Constrain.
5. From the pull-down list of numbers, choose the size of the print you will be ordering. A rectangular box will appear on the photo.
6. Drag the corners or any side to resize the rectangle to include what you want in the photo. Notice that if you attempt to make the box very narrow that it will eventually switch from landscape mode to portrait mode.
7. You can reposition the rectangle by dragging from the inside of the crop box.
8. A Rule Of Thirds grid appears only while you are adjusting the size of the crop box.
9. When you have the desired area selected, click Done.
10. Select File > Export to save the file to a flash drive or thumb drive or on the internal hard drive. Be sure to select Current in the Kind option as this will ensure that you are exporting the edited image.
Now that you have the proper aspect ratio of the photo and supposedly of the desired size, you should also make sure that the dots per inch is set to at least 240dpi. This is done with Preview.
1. Double click on the exported photo from iPhoto to open it in Preview.
2. Select Tools > Adjust Size from the menu.
3. Deselect Resample image (see below). You must do this to before changing the Resolution.
4.
5. Notice that the ratio of width to height is not exactly 6:4, or 0.6667, but it’s close enough (0.6664) - we hope. Change the Resolution to 240 or 300 and select OK to save this setting. This is important! Do not skip this step!
6.
7. Select Tools > Adjust Size from the menu again.
8. Leave Resample image set and change the width or height to the desired final print size.
9. You now have a photo you can send to the printer and get back something to feel good about.
This is rather complex. Is there an application that will give the right aspect ratio, size, and resolution that isn’t so complicated? Yes. Photoshop Elements and Photoshop CS can crop and resize the photo to be exactly the right size, aspect ratio, and desired resolution.
To crop a picture in Photoshop to send to a print service:
1. Open the file with Photoshop Elements or Photoshop CS.
2. Select the Crop tool.
3. In the menu bar, set the aspect ratio, width, height, and resolution.
4. click to enlarge:
5. Crop the image.
6. Save the image.
Keep Up With Your PMUG, the RSS Way!
If it's logical, easy, and fun --- then it's Mac! You want to keep up with the latest. When you click on RSS you will be notified in your list of email. Here's where you select RSS for the newsblog. Click to enlarge the screen shot.
Here's where you select RSS to get John Carter's posting to www.pmug.us
And this is how it comes up in my email list in Mail. Try it for yourself, and keep up with your PMUG.
Your Family Reunion!
Sooner or later you’ll probably volunteer to head up your family reunion, won’t you? What a way to make memories and enjoy conversations and great food. But, yes, it involves some work. Thankfully, you will use your Mac; that makes the job easier.
Let’s start with Address Book. A lot of preparation here, but it saves time later. You’ll be notifying the relatives, later reminding the relatives, corresponding with them, and then finally thanking them after it’s over.
Probably you’ve already got those names and addresses of the chosen relatives under a title such as Christmas Cards. Click under File to make a Family Reunion 2011 group. Now just drag address listings under Name to add them to this group.
If some of the relatives have email you might not want to notify them by mail. For this, just click to Edit individual cards and omit the mailing address. When you open Mail and New Message just type in the group name, Family Reunion 2011. The names of those people who do have email addresses will be the recipients.
For relatives without email you will mail the Reunion info. When you have Address Book open click on the Group name. At the menu at the top of the screen go to File > Print. Uncheck Attributes since they don’t apply. Click on Address Book and see the selections available. Click on Style and see the selections there. You can print on the envelopes or print out address labels. Under Paper Size you have lots of possibilities.
Under Style is where you choose the address label size. Click on Mailing Labels and note two places: Layout and Label. Specify to print in alphabetical order or postal code order. You can choose the font name and size. Lucida Grande - 12.0 comes up automatically.
Click on Layout. I’m using Avery Standard labels, 5160. You get a little preview look to verify that’s what you want.
Now for sharing some wonderful family photos, old and new. Call on Keynote!
Go to Applications > iWork 9 and look at Keynote. This is the handy way to make a slideshow for the Reunion. Up comes Theme Chooser. Nifty templates are ready for your pictures to be added. On the menu at the top of the screen go to Help > Video Tutorials. Brush up on the how-to directions and then play and have fun. It’s Mac and it’s easy.
Next to Numbers! Now to make lists, lists, and more lists. Go to iWork > Numbers and choose a format, perhaps Checklist, Budget, Expense, or Event Planner. Take a look at all the possibilities on the Event Planner template shown just above. Click on illustration to enlarge.
Obviously, you want to delegate, delegate and delegate. Location? Menu? Assigned photographer? Name tags? Written introductions? Music?
Map: Google > Prescott Valley AZ then click on maps.google.com. You can email the URL or go in closer to do a screen shot of the area on the map you want to print off and send to family.
Accommodations in Prescott: Google: hotels, Prescott AZ and up comes listings with links, descriptions, prices, reviews, directions, etc.
If you haven’t already done it, make a new folder on your desktop and put all of these items you’re working on into it.
Going to make up a booklet of family remembrances, names & dates, etc? Go to www.bluesquirrel.com for the Mac ClickBook program. Inexpensive & easy to do.
Plan ahead! You’ll appreciate your Mac computer all the more as you sail through the Family Reunion this year!
(If you attended today's PMUG meeting you received the printed copy of this handout. If you weren't there WE MISSED YOU. See you in July?)
Discussing Apple's Retail Success
More people now visit Apple's 326 stores in a single quarter than the 60 million who visit Walt Disney's four biggest theme parks last year. Why? The 2007 employee training manual outlines the steps, which handily spell out APPLE.
Approach customers with a personalized warm welcome
Probe politely to understand the customer’s needs
Present a solution for the customer to take home today
Listen for and resolve any issues or concerns
End with a fond farewell and an invitation to return.
For details here's an interesting article from TUAW and one from Forbes blogs.
Alternative Website Editors Are Available
"Although Apple's MobileMe web hosting apparently is going away permanently in a year, you can still use iWeb to create websites in other places," Art Gorski comments. "But any Apple widgets you are using will probably no longer work, and it looks like Apple may be dropping development and support for iWeb. So here's a good article on alternative website editors for Mac users."
Lion OS X and How to Make a Backup
Features of iTunes 10.3
Yesterday our busy PMUG guy Jim Hamm sent this article for our on-going education in new things: "Apple released iTunes 10.3 late on Monday, bringing several features introduced earlier on Monday to users. New features include automatic downloads that push newly purchased iTunes music, iBooks, or apps to all your Mac and iOS devices, the ability to (re)download previous iTunes purchases, and the ability to (finally) shop for iBooks books through iTunes on your Mac."
Happy About the iCloud?
"Here's one author's opinion of the new iCloud. He's not too happy about the features," states Jim Hamm.
Looking at iOS
If you're a PMUG member or friend with Mac computers there's always more to learn. Yes? Now, with exciting new Apple devices, iPad, iPod, iPhone there's a lot of new information just out from this week's WWDC (Worldwide Developers Conference). Jim Hamm passes on a tip on enabling automatic downloads on your mobile device (which needs to be on iOS 4.3.3).
Google Guitar
Maybe you've already seen the Google logo "guitar." Read this fascinating info: after playing some guitar notes you can save it, forward it, and play around. Clever!
Is There a Lion in Your Future?
"The good news today is that if you buy a Mac now, you will get a FREE upgrade to Mac OS X Lion when it comes out," announces Art Gorski. He continues, "The bad news is that Lion requires a Core 2 Duo processor or better. Many of us with older Macs will be unable to upgrade. Select About This Mac from the Apple menu to find out if you will be able to install Lion. Here is the Fail message from my MacBook:
(Click to enlarge.)
Update Flash Info
"There’s a problem with hackers using Flash to get Gmail passwords." Jim Hamm gets our attention. His suggested remedy is, "If you use Gmail, you should update Flash on your Mac. You can check the version of Flash you’re running here. It should be at MAC 10,3,181,22. You can download the latest version here. That’s my public service announcement for the day...(grin)...Jim"
Not using Gmail? Jim still recommends updating to the latest version of Flash, just to be sure.
Will iOS 5 Affect Mac Computer Sales?
Jim Hamm considers how iOS 5 will affect notebook sales. "Here’s a video with a summary of iOS 5. Lots of new features for mobile devices. The most important, in my opinion, is now the iPad, iPhone and iPod no longer need to have a computer to connect to. They can be free-standing devices. A nice step. On the flip side, possibly this might have a deleterious effect on notebook sales. On the other hand, though, I don’t think I’d just want to have only a mobile device and not have my Mac. I think each has its strong points. Time will tell how this all shakes out."
Here's a thought-provoking article from Jim that speculates about the future of Mac.
The Latest and the Greatest
"Well, the big announcements at WWDC (Worldwide Developers Conference) happened this morning," begins Art Gorski. Here's his take on the latest and greatest. First, here's a summary from Macworld.
"Mac OS X Lion will be out next month for $30 but is available only through the App Store. If you haven't updated to the latest version of Snow Leopard I have no idea how you can get it. There are many changes designed to make Mac OS X look and act much more like iOS: Full screen apps (we've already seen this with the new iPhoto), the Launchpad feature, and support for multi-touch gestures everywhere (if you have an Apple touchpad).
"iOS 5 will be out in the Fall with 200 new features. The most interesting thing is that Apple has decided that syncing data amongst all your devices is a royal pain, so all syncing, including iOS updates, apps, and all data will sync wirelessly over 3G or wireless. Most of this syncing happens automatically without you even noticing. For example, if you take a picture with your iPhone camera, the next time you fire up your iPad or Mac that photo will be on that device. Along with iCloud (below), it will be possible to own an iOS device standalone for the first time, without ever attaching it to a computer at all!
"Remember Apple's Digital Hub idea? Where your Mac was your digital hub for all of your data and media? That's now over. Apple has demoted the Mac to just another device, like the iOS devices. Your digital hub is now in the iCloud. Also available in the Fall, iCloud is a FREE service that replaces MobileMe (well, kinda, see below). It will provide a me.com email account and sync that, along with contacts and calendars. Documents in the Cloud is a new app to facilitate automatically syncing iWork documents (Pages, Numbers, and Keynote) amongst all your devices. iTunes in the Cloud lets you download any iTunes-purchased media to up to 10 different devices. A total of 5GB of space, shared between documents and email is available in addition to however much space is needed to sync your last 1000 photos and your iTunes-purchased media. An optional service called iTunes Match will be available for $25/year that will scan your complete iTunes library, including stuff you ripped yourself, try to figure out what it is, and then make very high quality versions available for download to your devices.
Art concludes, "Interestingly enough, Apple did not mention iCloud replacements for iDisk and web hosting. It's possible these are going away. However, Apple just extended all MobileMe subscriptions to June 6, 2012 to give you a year to figure out what to do."
Also, take a look at the Apple site here and the Apple HotNews site here for more descriptions of the latest and greatest!