Watch the Olympics in London via a free app for your iPad, Jim Hamm tells us. And you can watch streaming video from any computer on numerous websites. Read about it here.Jim Hamm also found this article about various ways to watch the Olympics this year. This describes the Alert Me feature that will email you about a half-hour before every event that you select will start.
App Store Doesn't Require Password
This interesting tidbit about iOS 6 for iPads and iPhones comes to us from Jim Hamm. See the article here about downloading free apps without needing a password. He sends it via Zite, a free personalized magazine iPad app.
If and When You Upgrade to Mountain Lion
"If you do upgrade to Mountain Lion, here is an article summarizing the 10 most important features you can look forward to," Jim Hamm says. The article suggests we could see Mountain Lion on a Wednesday in July, so that narrows it down!
Lessons Learned? OK!
"This is sort of related to 'Learning about the Mac'" begins Allen Laudenslager. (Who? when? you ask. Yes, Allen, a PMUG's Previous Prez, and his wife are back. And here's the latest lesson learned.)
"After Jeff Ian's great presentation on printers, I rushed right over to Best Buy and picked up that $59.95 Brother all in one printer before the sale ended. In attempting to connect it to my home Wifi network I had the following problems.
"First, I was able to set it up with my home network from the printer panel front with no problems, second I was able to connect my Macbook to the printer with no problems. I kind of expected that cause the Mac is great! The problems started when I tried to connect my wife's Windows 7 laptop to the printer.
"The instructions 'presume' that you are connecting the printer for the first time and there was no reference that I could find in the set up guide to attaching the printer to a second computer. Like the dummy I am, I followed the instructions and the Windows laptop wouldn't print. No big surprise there, the big surprise was that my Macbook stopped printing too!
"Tried to contact Brother and it seems that they only support the product during regular business hours Monday through Friday. I guess most of their customers don't try to install their products on the weekends or evenings. I did try their email support but gave up after receiving a set of Windows setup instructions to fix the 'can't print from a OS X 10 Macbook' help request.
"Finally gave up after three hours Saturday and just waited till business hours Monday to call the Brother help desk.
"First thing was that the Windows instructions told me to use a static IP address, and I should have used the dynamic IP address setting. Once I reset that to the factory default my Macbook started printing again. The Windows 7 problem was a 'printer busy' error and turned out to be a really unusually issue.
"First a little background — we are staying in a friend's guest house till we find a permanent place following our return from Denver two weeks ago. Second, our hosts have another Wifi network for their computers. When I set up mine, I just connected to their DSL modem router and went back to work.
"My wife came back earlier than I did and had logged her laptop into our host's network and didn't change the log in to our network after I set it up here!
"Logged into the correct Wifi network with her laptop, and lo and behold, I could find the printer and get it to work correctly."
Here Allen explains with a smile, "Lesson learned. A little embarrassing to share with all the computer experts in PMUG, but I finally decided that I'd rather spread the word and put up with the pointing and laughing."
Serious Bug Discovered in Lion
John Carter wants our attention now! "I just discovered that LION has a serious bug that Apple isn’t recognizing as a bug yet. Files disappear from the hard drive. Do a search with the keywords “files disappearing on mac."
"It happened to me, and it’s happening to others. I’m still looking into it.
"There doesn’t seem to be any fix in the future. Maybe Mountain Lion won’t have the bug. It’s totally random while at the same time appears to be completely selective. All the files in every subfolder of one of my folders are missing: e.g., folder A contains folders B, C, and D. All files in B, C, and D are missing.
"Other folders that I know should be on the machine are now missing — stuff that I put there just two weeks ago.
"Using Time Machine only helps if you actually use it. In my case, the folders and files in question were deliberately excluded from Time Machine — to save space in my Time Machine backup. What a shame on me!"
John concludes for now with, "Now, I recently worked with a client who has Snow Leopard, and dozens of photos disappeared off his Mac. No Time Machine backup. Another client also claims to have missing files — and he is not using Lion. So when did this problem start, and how widespread is it?"
Want to see John's posts on this problem on the Apple Discussion site? Find it here. He is posted as jrc39 and his comments are as of 7-15. Keep up the good work, John, and let us know the resolution of the matter.
Want to see John's posts on this problem on the Apple Discussion site? Find it here. He is posted as jrc39 and his comments are as of 7-15. Keep up the good work, John, and let us know the resolution of the matter.
Wondering About WriteBox
Now Jim Hamm finds something else to pass on: "If you use Dropbox frequently here is a simple web app called WriteBox that can sync directly with Dropbox. Details are provided in this article. Click here and start typing: https://write-box.appspot.com/ . Although it is a simple text editor, it does give you a count of lines, words and characters. Also, you can change the font size and type, but it does not accept images.
"Be sure there is nothing confidential in your Dropbox account before allowing this app access. One never knows what or who WriteBox is all about."
The Future of Apple's Dock Connector
Entertainment on the Cheap
John Carter finds this to pass along, "MakeUseOf keeps coming out with articles that talk about different ways to watch movies on your TV. The latest article is "Entertainment On the Cheap: The Mot Affordable Ways to Set Up a Home Theater," includes information on Raspberry Pi, Apple TV, and an old Netbook. Keep informed with handy tech tips like this by subscribing to the MakeUseOf newsletter."
Do You Miss Your Old Typewriter?
With a one word exclamation, "Hilarious!" Prez Art Gorski finds something that brings back old memories — that clicking of a typewriter. See for yourself here.
Photographs To Enjoy
Strange, beautiful, breathtaking, the “best of the visual web,” a site forwarded to us this afternoon from Jim Hamm. Tale a break from your serious contemplations on the computer just now and smile at the photos.
iTravel is Coming!
Watch for convenience and simplicity: iTravel is coming. Jim Hamm found this interesting article here. The writer gives a glimpse of the future with iTravel. He states that Apple has been granted a patent for a service that will use near-field communication (NFC) so you'll just wave your iDevice near the reader to check in or board the plane. It seems the function will be handled by Passbook, one of the new features of iOS 6 to be released this fall. Read the article for more details.
Latest iPhone Rumors
Here's something interesting from Jim Hamm, "There's lots of rumors about what the next iPhone might look like and contain. Here's one speculation from InfoWorld that makes some logical sense.
"The biggest change, if it should occur, that would negatively affect our household is the reduction in size of the 30-pin dock connector. We have too many radios and other 'stuff' that fits the exiting 30-pin opening. A slightly larger screen would be nice, but I don't want the iPhone to grow any larger than it presently is —well, maybe a tad would be okay. It's comfortable to hold now, but if it got too big then it could become unwieldy."
So, stay tuned for the next chapter . . .
Upgrading to Mountain Lion?
Getting ready for Mountain Lion, Jim Hamm shares some helpful advice, "If you plan to upgrade to Mountain Lion, the TidBITS newsletter is offering two books for a discounted price of $10 each until Mountain Lion is released. At that time the book price increases to $15 each. You can read more about the offer in the following link.
Jim follows up with "If you're planning to upgrade to Mountain Lion later this month, here is a Macworld article with preparatory steps to take before 'roaring' off to that new OS."
Malware Attacks PowerPC or Intel Mac with Rosetta
Ever on the alert to help Mac users, Prez Art Gorski sends this info: "Note that this malware cannot affect the latest version of Mac OS X. It is a PowerPC binary, which means it can only run on an old PowerPC Mac or an Intel Mac with Rosetta installed. Note also the Mac dialog box shown, which warns you not to trust this! That's why it's called social engineering, it depends on you clicking on it when you shouldn't." Here's the article.
Cell Phone Costs
Save money — sounds almost as good as FREE. Jim Hamm to the rescue. He's found a very important article with warnings we need to read and heed. See here. He explains, "If you use a cell phone, you may want to read this article about third-party vendors somehow adding subscriptions to your service. Subscriptions that you don't want and didn't subscribe to, and which increase your monthly cost. I don't understand how this can happen, but according to the article, it can. I notice that AT&T (and maybe other carriers) permit a subscriber to place a block on their service so this can't happen. We've not had a problem yet, that I'm aware of, but I plan to call AT&T and place a block on our service.
"The other thing to do is review your monthly bill carefully."
Mac Dictionary Will Speak to You
It started with reading a news article about the horrible flesh-eating disease. Wondering how much info the Mac Dictionary would give I looked up that long word "necrotizing fasciitis" and my curiosity just got started. Would Dictionary read it to me?
Yes, Mac will read aloud to you. You can use this feature in Dictionary, Pages, Word for Mac, even news you highlight from Google, other Internet sites, and . . . get this! You can listen to the PMUG newsblog being read aloud to you.
Go to Apple in the menu bar across the top of the screen. Click System preferences, under System click Speech. On the Text to Speech tab, select the Speak selected text when the key is pressed check box. Click Set Key, then press the combination of keys that you want to use to hear the text read aloud. Then click OK. I decided to use Command + S. Now the fun of trying it out, here and there.
Oh, here's more about that flesh-eating disease. Click on Dictionary, choose Wikipedia and type in "flesh-eating disease." Up it comes with medical explanations, photos, and links to further resources. There's even a list of notable people who have been afflicted with it.
How to Upgrade to Mountain Lion -- FREE
Well, it's the e-book that's FREE, but that's good! The e-book that John Carter tells about will be offered as raffle prizes at our July 14 general PMUG meeting. Here's the info: "Apple is poised to release OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion in July, and the people at Take Control want to help smooth your transition to Apple's next big cat. Because many of you will want to upgrade soon, Take Control is offering Joe Kissell's "Take Control of Upgrading to Mountain Lion" for sale now, with Matt Neuburg's "Take Control of Using Mountain Lion" available for pre-order as a single-page placeholder that you can use to get the full title once Mountain Lion ships."
John sends the link to the article about it here. The winner receives the e-book on an 8GB thumb drive.
Where's My Computer's Library?
John Carter was telling about a problem with Adobe. "After allowing Adobe to install updates, I discovered I could no longer view a PDF file in Safari. I found the following fix in the Apple Support Communities: Try removing the following files:
/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/AdobePDFViewer.plugin
/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/AdobePDFViewerNPAPI.plugin
OK, John, but how do you find the Library on Mac? So, here's the info we need.
Lion reserves will NOT display Library. Snow Leopard and below lets you see it.
Regardless of what version of OS you have, the one way that works for everyone is:
1. Open Terminal (type "terminal" in Spotlight to get it)2. At the command line, enter the following commands, one at a time. When the first command is entered, you will be asked for your login password, but not for the second command.
When you first open Terminal, the command line may look something like this:
jcarter@JC-Mac ~$
or this:
jcarter@JC-Mac ~ $
Regardless, the command line is identified by the dollar sign. You start typing after the dollar sign.Here are the two commands:
sudo rm -rf /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/AdobePDFViewer.pluginsudo rm -rf /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/AdobePDFViewerNPAPI.plugin
You can copy and paste these two lines directly into Terminal (one at a time) and get the same results. Every command has to be followed by pressing the Return key.
So, there we are, thanks to John. Another question answered!
How Long Will CDs Last?
You didn't expect CDs and DVDs to last forever . . . but how long will they still be good? John Carter grabs our attention with this information, "Here's an interesting article that attempts to explain the reasons why you might not want to rely on CDs and DVDs for an archive of your favorite images, videos, and documents. The life span of such a media is dependent on more than just how the CD/DVD is made - mold and rot are also factors." This MakeUseOf article was posted yesterday, and it tells how to check your disks for deterioration.
Introducing Our Officers for 2012-2013
PRESIDENT ART GORSKI
Art will continue to serve as President this year! We appreciate his leadership for PMUG.
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.
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.
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.
VICE-PRESIDENT DAVE ROTHGERY
Dave first encountered the computer era when he had to learn FORTRAN in 1969 at Cleveland State University. That is where his programing career started and quickly ended. After graduating from U of Illinois, he spent the next thirty-five years selling technology products to Fortune 100 companies. After starting with Xerox, he moved on to represent companies like, Vydec, Exxon Information Systems, NBI, Inc, Octel Communication Corp, Lucent Technologies, Innerwireless and Adomo. The products and systems he sold included items like Xerox copiers, word processing systems, local area networks, corporate voice mail systems, in-building wireless systems and unified messaging systems.
Dave first encountered the computer era when he had to learn FORTRAN in 1969 at Cleveland State University. That is where his programing career started and quickly ended. After graduating from U of Illinois, he spent the next thirty-five years selling technology products to Fortune 100 companies. After starting with Xerox, he moved on to represent companies like, Vydec, Exxon Information Systems, NBI, Inc, Octel Communication Corp, Lucent Technologies, Innerwireless and Adomo. The products and systems he sold included items like Xerox copiers, word processing systems, local area networks, corporate voice mail systems, in-building wireless systems and unified messaging systems.
In 2008 he retired and moved from the Chicago area to Prescott and spends time as a SCORE counselor helping entrepreneurs start a business or improve their business, attending OLLI classes and learning more about Macs.
After working with PC’s for twenty-five years, he finally migrated to Apple’s Mac platform ten months ago and as the saying goes, “doesn’t want to look back.” He says the PMUG group has been an excellent forum to shorten the learning curve with Mac and to learn all the shortcuts that make using a Mac so enjoyable. His primary organization responsibility as Vice President of PMUG is to determine topics and find presenters of those topics for each monthly meeting. Please send him your ideas on topics you would like to learn more about.
SECRETARY BOBBIE PASTOR
Bobbie continues in the position of Secretary! Bobbie has been with the PMUG group since 2005. She remembers that it took three months to get her name on the books and a name tag. She has strived to welcome new members and have their name tags made by the next meeting. She has added many new tasks to the job.
Bobbie continues in the position of Secretary! Bobbie has been with the PMUG group since 2005. She remembers that it took three months to get her name on the books and a name tag. She has strived to welcome new members and have their name tags made by the next meeting. She has added many new tasks to the job.
Bobbie's skill development as secretary to PMUG has been basically "seat-of-the-pants". She did complete two years of junior college with a secretarial major and worked for Uniroyal Corp as a production secretary for three foremen. Her observation was that the ladies working on the production floor made more money, didn't have to buy clothes for work and NEVER took the work home to finish! So, Bobbie quit that job and got a job with Laura Scudders picking and packing potatoes chips. It was right down the street from where she lived and she wore old clothes that had to be hung in a special closet because of the smell of chips and peanut butter. But she was making twice as much money. This production experience qualified her to apply to Kimberly Clark in Fullerton, Ca where she worked for 33 years and retired with a pension!
Bobbie sold her home at the top of the market and had a huge garage sale on everything else. She moved to Prescott, AZ in 2004. She had gone through Prescott on the way to Sedona in 1991 and fell in love with the town square.
She was catapulted into the PMUG Secretarial position in 2005 (fourth meeting) because the current Secretary was moving out of state, and has developed the job so well, that no one would even think of volunteering to take that detailed-oriented, time-consuming job over, on a bet! Bobbie is Secretary for life!
Besides being Secretary and organizing the annual picnic, Bobbie has taken on the task of offering Beginning Mac SIGs. She has had some down time on that task this last year. She plans to resume this classes, however, later this year. Due to the Library charging for rooms, Bobbie will hold her SIGs in her home with a limit of 10 members. She has to catch up on the new operating system and install it on her computer as well as the club's computer.
Bobbie is Vice-mum for her Red Hats chapter. She is creating a free website just for the Diamond Chics. She loves to garden and has a very high maintenance landscape. She is interested in creating photos and takes John's Digital SIG every month. She shares her life with a "special needs" Jack/Rat terrier named Archie. Archie is totally blind and socially challenged, but in spite of his peccadilloes, he has volunteered to man the projector during our SIGs.
Bobbie sold her home at the top of the market and had a huge garage sale on everything else. She moved to Prescott, AZ in 2004. She had gone through Prescott on the way to Sedona in 1991 and fell in love with the town square.
She was catapulted into the PMUG Secretarial position in 2005 (fourth meeting) because the current Secretary was moving out of state, and has developed the job so well, that no one would even think of volunteering to take that detailed-oriented, time-consuming job over, on a bet! Bobbie is Secretary for life!
Besides being Secretary and organizing the annual picnic, Bobbie has taken on the task of offering Beginning Mac SIGs. She has had some down time on that task this last year. She plans to resume this classes, however, later this year. Due to the Library charging for rooms, Bobbie will hold her SIGs in her home with a limit of 10 members. She has to catch up on the new operating system and install it on her computer as well as the club's computer.
Bobbie is Vice-mum for her Red Hats chapter. She is creating a free website just for the Diamond Chics. She loves to garden and has a very high maintenance landscape. She is interested in creating photos and takes John's Digital SIG every month. She shares her life with a "special needs" Jack/Rat terrier named Archie. Archie is totally blind and socially challenged, but in spite of his peccadilloes, he has volunteered to man the projector during our SIGs.
TREASURER DAVID PASSELL
Another term as treasurer for David; three cheers! 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.
David is also a member of the PCS (Prescott Computer Society), Yavapai Amateur Radio Club (YARC), and does video recording for his church.
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.
David is also a member of the PCS (Prescott Computer Society), Yavapai Amateur Radio Club (YARC), and does video recording for his church.